South Africa: SAA liquidation means financial hardship, DPE warns

The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) cautioned South African Airways (SAA) employees, labour unions and creditors that the liquidation of the airline will lead to financial hardship for employees and substantial undervaluation of assets.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the department said SAA stakeholders should realise that business rescue provides a better outcome than liquidation and should be supported for their collective interests.

The SAA Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) have scheduled a creditors meeting for 14 July after last months vote on the business rescue plan was postponed.

A vote in favour of the plan by 75% of the voting interests would be required to carry the vote. A vote against the plan would result in the protracted and costly liquidation of the airline, said the DPE.

As the shareholder on behalf of government, the department said it was of the view that business rescue is a viable alternative to liquidation.

This option supports job preservation and the ability to bring the airline back from the brink to a position where some employees, labour unions and creditors can continue to contribute to the South African economy and its integration into the global economy.

The department believes in the case of liquidation, a liquidator will be appointed to consolidate the company's assets in order to raise capital which will be distributed to the creditors when the airline is wound up.

During the drawn-out process, the DPE says, creditors would in all likelihood receive a negligible dividend after all secured and preferred creditors have been paid in the liquidation proceedings.

For employees, the liquidation of SAA means they would receive a maximum of R32 000 per staff member, regardless of years of service, to the extent that there are funds available.

They will only receive payment once the final liquidation and distribution account has been approved which can take up to 24 months, the department said.

Therefore it stands to reason that generally, business rescue dividends should result in a higher return for creditors than would result in a liquidation situation.

The DPE is convinced that the R2.2 billion budgeted for Voluntary Severance

Packages (VSPs) for SAA employees is the best available option at a time when government is faced with massive financial demands and fiscal constraints.

The VSPs, which can be offered to employees immediately after a creditors vote endorses the Business Rescue Plan, meet the requirements of Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Labour Relations Act, including one week calculated per year of completed service, one-month notice pay, accumulated leave paid out, a 13th Cheque and a top-up of severance packages.

The VSPs are supported by a social plan and a skills development programme for affected SAA employees.

The social plan is aimed at equipping individuals to re-enter the job market. Employees who take up the VSPs will be entitled to re-apply for positions in a new, restructured national airline which is anticipated to emerge from the business rescue proceedings, as it grows, reads the statement.

The department added that the transformation of SAA into a competitive airline will require sacrifices and a major restructuring, starting on a conservative basis and gradually and systematically building up over the next three years to re-employ as many of the displaced employees who have necessary skills and competence.

The DPE said it supports a restructuring process as it would achieve:

 an internationally competitive performance;

 a demographic profile of skilled, competent and committed employees; and

 for the employees that remain, the task will be to grow the airline and provide opportunities for their former colleagues to be re-employed.

It would require a level of commitment and cooperation from both SAA and the unions to overcome the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic where thousands of jobs are being lost on an unprecedented scale in South Africa and globally, the department said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Myriam Borzee/iStockBy SOO RIN KIM, OLIVIA RUBIN, ALI DUKAKIS and LAURA ROMERO, ABC News



(NEW YORK) -- In New York, the original epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, there are signs of life returning to normal as the caseload and fatality rates have been driven down to levels not seen since early spring.



By contrast, the virus is raging in several states in the South and West, propelling the United States to record numbers of daily cases and setting the nation on edge about as leaders there debate, and in some cases, move to stem the tide.



There is also everything in between -- states that have still seen relatively little virus transmission and are bracing for an outbreak.



So why have some states been successful in their fight while others have not?



ABC News analyzed the current status and reopening process of four states that emerged with different outcomes following their shutdowns -- Florida, Texas, Ohio and Connecticut.



Texas and Florida are both seeing worrisome coronavirus outbreaks across their states as many residents ignored or abandoned social distancing practices and masking. Both are seeing increases across the board in the rate of positivity (the percentage of coronavirus tests that come back positive), hospitalizations and deaths, and have each set new records for daily cases just this past weekend.



On Tuesday, Texas saw 6,533 hospitalizations across the state -- the most yet -- and Florida reported 9,585 new cases.



In Ohio, cases and hospitalizations have been increasing over the past couple weeks but at a slower rate than in Texas and Florida, and deaths have continued to drop. Its complicated to make a direct comparison among states because of the difference in the way cases are reported, but in Ohio, cases have increased by about 100% in the past couple of weeks, while in Texas, cases have increased by about 150%. In Florida, cases have increased by nearly 250% during the same period.



Connecticut, by contrast, seems to have a handle on its outbreak -- the state has seen a decline in all three categories for well over two months now, according to ABC News analysis of state-released data.



The situation these states find themselves in may be in part a reflection of their leaders decisions about shutting down and reopening throughout the pandemic as well as the degree of urgency the public saw in the health crisis early on, experts said. Leaders in Ohio and Connecticut have both placed a heavy emphasis on science and data to proceed with reopening cautiously, and appear to be benefitting from those decisions. Texas and Florida officials, in contrast, put economic concerns first and allowed lax social distancing and minimal face-covering requirements for the public during the crucial first few weeks of reopening, and are now suffering the consequences of an accelerated reopening, according to experts.



Texas



Texas was aggressive -- and early -- in reopening the states economy. Over the last several weeks, the state has emerged as a top hotspot for COVID-19, reaching record highs in daily positive rates and hospitalizations due to the deadly virus, as well as a rising number of fatalities over the last several weeks.



The state's Republican governor, Greg Abbott, was the recipient of both praise and criticism in appearing to prioritize the states economic comeback over stricter social distancing measures infectious disease experts urged were key to assure that reopening did not spark a wave of COVID-19 infections.



Abbott issued a stay-at-home order on April 2, and let it expire April 30. The governor was among the first to begin a phased reopening of any state May 1, and by the start of June nearly all businesses were permitted to be open by at least 50%. Within a few short weeks, massive swaths of businesses in the state were back open for business: tanning salons, gyms, parks, beaches, bodies of water, pools, barbershops and salons.



The governor has also continued to avoid mandating masks be worn in the state, calling such a move intrusive to individual freedoms, but has been increasingly -- and more fervently -- recommending face masks, a simple measure that many health officials say is life-saving.



The month of June has presented significant pitfalls and losses for the state -- with COVID-19 hospitalizations rising 36% since Memorial Day. Over the weekend, Houston stopped reporting hospitalization data. In a press conference last Monday, Abbott said, COVID-19 is now spreading at an unacceptable rate in the state of Texas, and it must be corralled.



Last Thursday, Abbott hit the pause button on the states reopening and ended the performance of elective surgeries in the states largest counties.



In recent weeks, as positive cases and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 began to surge significantly farther past Texas previous peaks, there has been a discernible change in tone and tenor of the governors remarks enforcing the importance of mask-wearing, admonishing younger people for not being more careful and, in general, warning residents of the Lone Star State to stay home.



While the governor laid out several tactics aimed at reducing the virus spread in Texas without leading to a shutdown of the newly reopened state economy, he said health and financial well-being don't have to be a choice.

We can have both," he said last week. "We can protect lives while also restoring livelihoods. Together, we will keep Texans safe and we will keep our state open for business."



On Friday, Abbott ordered Texas bars to close again and restaurants to reduce to 50% occupancy as the coronavirus outbreak in the state spreads. Additionally, the governor halted river-rafting trips and outdoor events of more than 100 people without local authorities approval. The previous limitation was for such gatherings of more than 500 people.



Bars were forced to close by midday Friday. The restaurant capacity slashing took effect Monday.



Then on Monday, Abbott said shuttering the state's economy again completely would only be used as a last resort.



In many of Texas' largest cities, local officials have directed their ire at Abbott.

"There have been a lot of inconsistent or conflicting messages that have happened," Dr. Umair Shah, the executive director of the Harris County Public Health Department in Texas, recently told ABC News.



Ohio



Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, was one of the first in the nation to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. He, alongside state health director Dr. Amy Acton, was the first to close schools and bars in the country, and shortly after, ordered a statewide stay-at-home order on March 22. By early April, DeWine declared the state had hit a home run in flattening the curve and preventing the state from becoming a major hotspot in the country.



While the state did have issues without outbreaks in nursing homes and prisons, in the two months since the state first began reopening on May 1, hospitalizations of the virus have declined and just saw their first increase last week, according to a release from the Ohio Department of Health. The daily number of new cases and hospitalizations are now increasing, according to an ABC News analysis, but fatalities in the state are also falling.



During an interview with ABC News last week, DeWine acknowledged the state is starting to see some spikes in the southwest were concerned about, but overall said the state is in pretty good shape.



Mike Abrams, the president and CEO of the Ohio Hospital Association, agreed. He said that while hospitalizations are increasing, the rate appears to be manageable, he said.



Hospitals are doing fine in terms of capacity, Abrams said. Ohio built out three temporary hospitals in convention centers and other spaces early on in the pandemic in case the system was to be overwhelmed, but never ended up using them -- and Abrams does predict they will need to in the future. A database created early on in coordination with the governor helped to track every hospitals capacity, supplies and PPE, Abrams added.



DeWine said he was grateful he made the decision to cancel large events and shut down the state early on.



It certainly was the right decision, DeWine stated. If it, you know, people question us at the time -- it looked a little premature or a lot premature-- I think two people at a time, but it was certainly in hindsight the right decision.



DeWines own behavior may have played a role as well. While he did not mandate masks in the state, DeWine has been unequivocal about their importance and wears his own mask to briefings, only taking them off when at the podium. He also took a coronavirus test at a press briefing, like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo did, a move he told ABC News was meant to encourage people to do the same.



Still, DeWines heavy emphasis on leading by science has not always been popular. His administration has faced backlash from citizens as they proceeded cautiously. Former state health director Dr. Amy Acton-- who gained national attention and praise for leading Ohios response to the outbreak-- stepped down in June after months of anti-shutdown protests, lawsuits and harassment to become DeWines chief health advisor.



"Well my message to people who were upset with Dr. Acton, or health director, is they should direct their ire to me, they should protest at my house, they should protest me, DeWine said, defending his former health director. And they have, but you know, they should leave her alone.



After announcing her resignation during a press conference, Acton said it was a deep honor to have served in Ohio.



I am here, I am more determined than ever to advance the health and well being of Ohioans, and to serve on behalf of the governor, Acton said.



Still, some worrisome trends in cases and hospitals have begun to emerge in parts of the state in recent weeks -- after weeks of gradual decline, daily new cases have doubled in the past couple weeks and hospitalizations are slowly climbing back up as well -- leaving questions about how the governor will be able to handle them the second time around.



Connecticut



One of the hardest-hit states early on in the pandemic, Connecticut, was reporting more than 2,000 new cases and 200 new deaths a day at its peak in the third week of April. There were about 2,000 COVID patients hospitalized at that time.



About a month and a half into its reopening, on Monday, the state reported just 59 new cases and four deaths. And only 99 COVID patients were currently hospitalized.



Health experts noted the obvious difference in size of Connecticut and Texas, but emphasized the significance of a robust collaboration of the state government, local officials and health systems across the state, coupled with diligent participation from the public. They also say Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, was very cautious about reopening, making sure all metrics were met before people went out again.



Importantly, by the time Lamonts stay-at-home order expired on May 20 to kick off Phase 1 of reopening, cases, deaths and hospitalization had been on a steady decline for nearly a month.



Bars -- which have been cited as problem areas in other states -- have yet to open. They are were finally expected to open next month as part of the third phase of reopening, though the governor on Monday said hes reconsidering opening up bars as cases in other states surge.



Lamonts executive order mandating social distancing and face covering statewide implemented in April, is also still in effect. Dr. Victor Morris, assistant chief medical officer at Bridgeport Hospital of the Yale New Haven Health System, said the publics close adherence to the order has also played a big role in slowing down the spread of the virus.



When I'm indoors at a store or a grocery store, Dunkin' Donuts, or wherever I might go, everybody has a mask, Morris said.



I think coming out of it now, a difference is that we lived it -- people in Connecticut saw how bad it was, Morris added.



At Bridgeport Hospital, which was one of the busiest hospitals near the New York City border, which at its peak had 226 COVID patients hospitalized, 66 of them in intensive care and 44 of them on ventilators, now has a total of 16 COVID patients, Morris said. Just five of them are in ICU and two are on ventilators.

Across Yale New Haven, COVID hospitalization has come down to 43 from 760 at its peak. Yale New Haven in total has discharged about 3,000 COVID patients so far, Yale New Havens chief medical officer Dr. Tom Balcezak said.



Balcezak said while he feels the state is at a very stable and comfortable level right now, hes absolutely worried about a second resurgence, saying the numbers across the country are pretty terrifying.



He said hes also worried about more people starting to go out and have larger gatherings in their private yards and homes in the summer, but added he believes the state has built a robust infrastructure and adequate guidelines that the public has been following well.



This is a disease for which there is no cure, Balcezak said. There is no medical, meaning vaccination, prevention, and once you get it, our only therapies ... are our supportive therapies. The number one weapon we have to fight this disease is our classic good old fashioned public health measures, and the public needs to know and pay attention to that.



Florida



Florida, on the other hand, has seen an explosion of coronavirus cases since reopening the economy, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has faced significant criticisms for his handling of the pandemic since the outbreak began.



As of Tuesday, Floridas health department has reported a total of 152,434 positive cases and 3,505 deaths.



DeSantis, reluctantly issued a statewide stay-at-home order on April 1 and opened back up on May 4, with a total of 36,897 coronavirus cases statewide and reporting less than 1,000 cases per day. Florida slowly began to reopen with restaurants and retailers allowed to operate with limited capacity. That same month, even though the state saw increases larger than 1,000 in a single day three times, DeSantis announced the state would enter full phase one of reopening.



But nearly two months later, the state has seen a record-setting pace of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations over the last few weeks. The explosion of cases amid the reopening has resulted in counties and cities rolling back on reopening plans and implementing stricter facial covering requirements.



After the state crushed its record for new coronavirus cases, reporting 9,585 new daily infections over the weekend, city officials announced the closure of several beaches and county-owned parks across the state for the Fourth of July weekend.



I can foresee a Fourth of July where you have throngs of people on the beach, very difficult to keep social distancing, people getting together, especially young people getting together, said Miami-Dade Mayor, Carlos Gimenez at a conference on Friday. We now see this virus is prevalent in this age group and we want to keep this down.



Miami-Dade, along with Broward and Palm Beach counties, is still in Phase 1 of the states reopening plan. The rest of the state has been in phase 2 since June 5.



Following the surge of cases last week, DeSantis imposed new restrictions, ordering bars in the state to stop serving alcohol.



But DeSantis said he has no plans to issue a statewide mask requirement at this time, despite the recent surge in coronavirus cases, leaving it up to local leaders to decide on mask mandates and penalties.



Miami-Dade and Broward counties issued facial covering requirements since early April, requiring people to wear masks when visiting essential businesses.



Most other counties began implementing mask requirements just last week, as the state had been reporting increases in coronavirus cases.



Floridas elected officials have also said residents aged 18-44 are responsible for the states recent spike in cases. That group is going out more and socializing at a greater rate, DeSantis said Sunday. According to DeSantis, the median age of positive COVID-19 cases in March was 65 years old but in the past few weeks, it had dropped to 35.



"What we've seen, particularly over the last week, is a real explosion in new cases amongst our younger demographics," DeSantis said in a news conference in Orlando earlier this week.



Dr. Todd Husty, Seminole Countys medical director, who has seen an explosion of cases in the county in central Florida, believes younger people not following CDC guidelines are to blame.



Since Memorial Day, we have seen the impact of other large social gatherings, people crowded shoulder to shoulder with no facial covering and no social distancing," said Husty. Sometimes younger people think theyre invincible but they have to face the reality that theyre not immune. I think state officials really have to think about continuing to reopen because what we are seeing is very alarming.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 20:37:12|Editor: huaxia

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VALLETTA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Maltese Magistrates' Court on Thursday jailed two migrants for four years each over a violent protest at a detention center last year.

The two, both Egyptian nationals, were found guilty of being the masterminds behind the Dec. 12 violent protest, during which parts of the Safi detention center had been set on fire.

The court heard how, what started off as a peaceful protest during which migrants were demanding freedom, got out of hand and turned into a riot.

The total damage caused during the incident amounted to about 90,000 euros (101,565 U.S. dollars).

The two migrants were part of a larger group who were arrested and charged with their participation in the riot. The other migrants were also jailed.

The duo were fined 8,700 euros each and ordered to be deported to Egypt after they served their sentence. (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars) Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 20:45:31|Editor: huaxia

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File photo taken on Aug. 12, 2018 shows Nursultan Nazarbayev attending the Fifth Caspian Summit in Aktau, Kazakhstan. (Xinhua/Abilov)

Nazarbayev, 79, tested positive for the coronavirus in mid-June.

NUR-SULTAN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has recovered from COVID-19, the press secretary of the first president Aidos Ukibay tweeted Thursday.

The latest test of the first president showed a negative result on Thursday, Ukibay said, adding that in compliance with doctors' recommendations, Nazarbayev will remain in self-quarantine, continue to work remotely and spend more time outdoors to get fresh air.

Nazarbayev, 79, tested positive for the coronavirus in mid-June.

As of Thursday, Kazakhstan has recorded 42,574 confirmed cases and 188 deaths. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 20:56:02|Editor: huaxia

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by James Gashumba

KIGALI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Rwandan techies are exploring the use of digital platforms to enhance tourism experience and marketing for the sector players in the country.

Patrick Karangwa, the chief executive officer of the Rwandan tech firm Kigali360, has developed virtual digital platform that allows a tourist to have a virtual tour and 360-degree street views of Rwanda by using a phone or computer.

"We use photos of existing tourist hotspots which allow one to see and interact with them by being able to see in front, rear and the backward side, which enables a tourist to decide their visits before making a booking," Karangwa said, adding that the platform can help tourists book a tour to the site where they have virtually visited.

The company also added a live guide tours function to communicate with the tourists so as to bridge the physical gap.

The 32-year-old came up with the idea of virtual digital tourism platform in 2019 and its first trial was in this March. Since then the trials have been done on a few hotels, real estates and tour guide companies.

The company plans to charge a small percentage of booking fees paid through the platform in the future and can also provide the service through the company's own Internet space to those who don't have their own spaces to host the platform.

Samuel Amani, another Rwandan techie, is developing a digital system seeking to make the tour more entertaining, bolster domestic tourism and attract online consumers.

He seeks to improve the experience of the Kigali sightseeing bus which was launched in March last year, through using the high quality 3D model depicting how the capital city looked like in the past.

The bus could be equipped with virtual reality (VR) glasses. While tourists are touring the city, virtual reality (VR) headsets equipped on the bus can display an immersive 3D replica of ancient Kigali.

According to Belise Kariza, Chief Tourism Officer at Rwanda Development Board (RDB), use of digital tourism platforms would supplement other mechanisms in enhancing marketing of tourism for sector players.

Exploring all IT solutions for the hospitality and tourism industry is "needed" and RDB wants to see more revolutionary ideas in ICT, Kariza said in comments during a virtual press conference last Friday.

The landlocked country has embarked on domestic tourism promotion, encouraging Rwandans to visit the country's main tourist attractions, RDB said last Friday. RDB will continue to intensify its marketing and promotion efforts to encourage domestic tourists to explore the different attractions around the country, it said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 20:56:12|Editor: huaxia

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XI'AN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- China-Europe freight trains to and from Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, made more than 1,600 trips in the first half of this year, almost double the figure for the same period last year, local authorities said Thursday.

Together they carried more than 1.3 million tonnes of goods from January to the end of June, 1.9 times the volume of the first half of last year, according to the Xi'an International Trade & Logistics Park.

Xi'an launched its first China-Europe freight train in 2013. Currently, the train service has 15 routes linking Xi'an with 44 cities in 14 countries, including Kazakhstan, Russia, Belgium and Germany. More than 5,000 types of goods, including automobiles, textile raw materials, household cleaners and personal care products, are transported by the freight trains.

In recent years, Xi'an has gradually become a freight-transfer hub for many domestic cities. According to Sun Yimin, director of the administrative committee of Xi'an International Trade & Logistics Park, cargoes from 29 provincial-level regions, including Hubei, Anhui and Fujian, have come to Xi'an and been distributed overseas.

Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, the trains are running smoothly, helping countries and regions along the Belt and Road to cope with the outbreak, stabilize trade and resume production.

From January to May, more than 5,500 tonnes of anti-epidemic materials were transported via China-Europe freight trains from Xi'an to Central Asian and European countries, according to the China Railway Xi'an Group Co., Ltd. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 20:58:36|Editor: huaxia

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HANGZHOU, July 2 (Xinhua) -- BEST Inc., a leading supply chain service provider headquartered in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, announced on Thursday that it has launched logistics services in Malaysia, Cambodia, and Singapore.

The company plans to build 400 express delivery stations and 12 transshipment centers in three years in the three countries.

BEST Inc. has established logistics network in five Southeast Asian countries so far, which also include Thailand and Vietnam, and expects to enter the markets in Indonesia and the Philippines in the near future.

The transshipment centers in Kuala Lumpur and Phnom Penh will be equipped with the latest automation devices to ensure highly efficient sorting, weighing, and scanning procedures, according to the company.

BEST Inc. expects to have an increasing number of local consumers in Southeast Asian countries to experience the same convenience of fast delivery services as in China, said Zhou Shaoning, chairman and CEO of BEST Inc.

According to recent research results released by the Development & Research Center of the State Post Bureau, Southeast Asian countries have become the most popular investment destinations of Chinese logistics companies. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 21:05:43|Editor: huaxia

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BANGKOK, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Thursday told the Thai media that he felt grateful after receiving good wishes and congratulatory messages from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang as the two countries celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

Prayut said that he had conveyed his message across to leaders in China that Thailand vows to work with China in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Thai prime minister told the media that he had personally thanked his Chinese counterpart, conveying his gratitude to the Chinese people of their continuous support and donations of medical supplies and equipment in helping Thailand.

China had donated 1.3 million surgical face masks, 70,000 N95 face masks, 150,000 COVID-19 test kits and 70,000 personal protective equipment suits to Thailand to support the country's fight against the virus.

Prayut said Thailand and China have always stood together through thick and thin, and the two countries' relationship will only grow stronger, noting that the saying that "China and Thailand are one family" vividly depicts this special relationship.

He said the Thai government is ready to work closely with the Chinese government to push bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership to a new level. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 21:07:24|Editor: huaxia

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Workers lay tracks on a bridge as they put final touches on the Altay-Fuyun section of the Afuzhun (Altay-Fuyun-Zhundong) Railway in Fuyun County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 2, 2020 The Afuzhun Railway, which spans 420 kilometers, has been completed in northwest China's Xinjiang. It is connected with another railway in the north, and together they will form part of a circular railway network in the northern part of Xinjiang. The Afuzhun Railway is expected to begin operations on August 30. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

URUMQI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A new railway has been completed in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Workers laid tracks on a bridge in the county of Fuyun on Thursday, as they put final touches on the Altay-Fuyun section of the Afuzhun (Altay-Fuyun-Zhundong) railway.

The railway spans 420 kilometers. It is connected with another railway in the north, and together they will form part of a circular railway network in the northern part of Xinjiang.

The Afuzhun Railway shortens the rail distance between Altay and the regional capital Urumqi to 640 km from 760 km, and slashes traveling time by two hours, according to Qiao Jianmin, with the China Railway First Group Co., Ltd. The railway will help boost transportation and local tourism, Qiao said.

The Afuzhun Railway is expected to begin operations on August 30. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 21:11:38|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, July 2 (Xinhua) -- More than 50 fighters have been killed in the insurgency-plagued Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, officials said Thursday.

In the latest fighting that occurred in restive Wardoj district of the northern Badakhshan province Thursday morning, four Taliban fighters were killed and two others wounded, district governor Mohammad Imran told Xinhua.

According to Imran, only one pro-government militia was killed in the fighting.

Similarly, a bomb blast targeted a car in the eastern Nangarhar's provincial capital Jalalabad city wounding a district official and his son on Thursday, while two blasts on Wednesday night left two dead including a civilian and a police and injured eight others, police confirmed.

A total of 18 militants were killed and 12 others injured in Shah Walikot district of the southern Kandahar province over the past 24 hours, according to an army statement released Thursday.

The government forces, according to army statement, have killed 15 insurgents in the eastern Ghazni province since Wednesday.

Moreover, a statement of Interior Ministry reported killing 17 militants in the eastern Paktia, southern Helmand and western Farah province over the past 24 hours.

Taliban militants have yet to make comments on the claims by the officials.

Fighting usually gets momentum in spring and summer commonly known as the fighting season in Afghanistan.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 21:26:23|Editor: huaxia

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Palestinian supporters of Hamas take part in a rally against the Israeli annexation plan in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on July 3, 2020. The two Palestinian rival groups, Fatah movement and Islamic Hamas movement, announced on Thursday to unify their positions against Israeli annexation plan. (Photo by Khaled Omar/Xinhua)

RAMALLAH, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The two Palestinian rival groups, Fatah movement and Islamic Hamas movement, announced on Thursday to unify their positions against Israeli annexation plan.

Jibril al-Rajoub, member of Fatah movement's Central Committee, and Saleh A'rouri, deputy chief of Hamas politburo, made this announcement in a joint online press conference held in both Ramallah and Lebanon's Beirut.

"We agreed upon working jointly to develop the mechanisms of unifying our positions towards confronting the Israeli annexation plan," said al-Rajoub.

He said that these mechanisms include "a confirmation that we are one people who live in one homeland and have one cause, one sovereign state, and one right of self-determination."

"We decided to agree on the mechanisms of holding the general Palestinian elections, respecting its results and turning our backs to the past," he said, referring to 13 years of internal Palestinian division that started in 2007.

The internal Palestinian division between Hamas and Fatah began in 2007 when Hamas forcibly took over the Gaza Strip from Fatah.

The senior Fatah official called for turning the page of the past and opening a new page of internal Palestinian relationships, saying that the unity serves "the national interests of our people."

Meanwhile, senior Hamas leader A'rouri, said that there is "a golden opportunity to start a new stage and back the strategy of the Palestinian people in such crucial situation to confront Israel's plan of annexation."

"The Israeli annexation annuls the political solution of the vision of the two states and therefore, there will be no possibility to establish a constant Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," said A'rouri.

He said that Hamas supports all political and legal measures that the Palestinian leadership is carrying out to confront the Israeli annexation plan.

He added that the Palestinians will confront the Israeli annexation plan by all means of struggle and resistance "because it is a legitimate right to resist the occupation."

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it could begin the annexation process from July 1. Plans are to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank as well as the strategic Jordan Valley.

It is still unclear whether the Israeli government intends to follow through with plans to apply Israeli law over contentious territories in the West Bank and to what extent. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 21:29:26|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) launched a new attack on Syrian forces in the desert region in eastern Syria on Thursday, the latest in a string of attacks waged in the Syrian desert, a war monitor reported.

Russian warplanes launched intense airstrikes on the IS militants to foil their attack, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said that 570 Syrian troops and allied forces as well as 212 IS militants have been killed in similar battles since March.

After losing key areas across the country, the IS now has a presence in the Syrian desert region in the remote eastern countryside of Homs province and Deir al-Zour province. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 21:50:27|Editor: huaxia

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GABORONE, July 2 (Xinhua) -- President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana on Thursday began a 14-day self-isolation after an official working closely with him tested positive for COVID-19, the country's office of the president said in a statement.

"The Office of the President regrets to inform that due to the discovery of a positive COVID-19 test result last night on one of the officials closely serving His Excellency, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, the COVID-19 precautionary protocols have been activated resulting in the immediate self-quarantine," said Andrew Sesinyi, the government communications' permanent secretary in a statement.

This is the fourth time Masisi is quarantining since the registration of the first confirmed case of the deadly pandemic in the southern African country on March 30, 2020.

Some of Masisi's inner circle of officials have also entered into self-isolation, as a precautionary measure to curb the spread and transmission of the disease caused by the highly virulent coronavirus.

The diamond-rich nation with an approximate population of 2.2 million people has recorded 227 confirmed cases and one death. At least 181 confirmed cases have been transferred out since they are of foreign nationals who were either visiting Botswana or on transit.

Meanwhile, members of the public have been urged to continue to take precautions to protect themselves against the virus including washing of hands with water and soap, social distancing and using hand sanitizer where possible. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 21:58:45|Editor: huaxia

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by Yu Qianliang and Dames Alexander Sinaga

WEST BANDUNG, Indonesia, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The development of the China-built Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway (HSR) project is continuing to advance amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia following changes in safety and health procedures at the construction sites.

At all the HSR's project sites, everybody, particularly workers, must go through temperature checks regularly before entering the site. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are also being conducted on-site for the virus.

Hilal Riselianto, a construction safety officer at the Tunnel No. 10 located in Padalarang, a sub-district in the West Bandung district, has not returned to his home in West Java's city of Sukabumi since the COVID-19 outbreak in Indonesia in early March.

At least 200 workers on the Tunnel No. 10 project have been staying in dormitories after work to protect themselves from being infected by the virus.

"Workers who are not feeling well will immediately be taken for a health check," Riselianto told Xinhua in Padalarang.

"As for newly recruited workers, they are required to go through rapid tests and to self-quarantine for 14 days before starting to work," he added.

Riselianto, who conducts a toolbox talk, an informal meeting focusing on safety topics every morning, never forgets to remind all workers of social distancing measures.

"Workers must keep a distance of at least one meter apart," he said, adding that they must also wash their hands with sanitizers before and after their shift.

He added that every day each worker on the Tunnel No. 10 project is provided with two masks and other materials to ensure their health and safety at work.

The Tunnel No. 10 project is a single 1,230-meter long tunnel with double lanes undertaken by the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC).

Riselianto said construction has been making good progress despite the tighter health and safety protocols.

"The construction process is going smoothly despite COVID-19. The work schedule has not been disrupted, while workers are being kept healthy," he said.

Latest data released by the Indonesian government showed the total cases of confirmed COVID-19 in the world's fourth most populous country increased to nearly 60,000. The coronavirus has claimed some 3,000 lives across the country.

Specifically, the number of COVID-19 cases in West Java reached 3,218 with the death toll increasing to 176. Meanwhile, the number of cases in the capital city of Jakarta reached 11,424 with the death toll reaching 632.

Last Friday, West Java announced that the province decided not to extend its large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), also known as a partial lockdown policy, after seeing the virus' basic reproduction rate (R0) remain under 1 over the past six weeks.

The province's governor Ridwan Kamil said authorities have been focusing more on conducting tests in areas prone to COVID-19 outbreaks.

Meanwhile, the Jakarta administration is still implementing "transitional" PSBB that serves as an early chapter of Jakarta's new normal, in which the province's governor Anies Baswedan said would only be applied to strategic sectors with manageable risks. The policy is expected to end on Thursday.

Under the new health and safety measures implemented at the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project, the High-Speed Railway Contractor Consortium (HSRCC) has completed several projects during the first half of 2020.

They include the 735-meter-long Tunnel No. 3 bored through on April 26, as well as the 422-meter Tunnel No. 5 with its drilling completed on March 12.

"The construction projects have been advanced in a safe and orderly manner, reflecting the high standards and good image of the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway construction," HSRCC's project director Xiao Songxin told Xinhua.

The Jakarta-Bandung HSR has a total length of 142.3 km, comprising 13 tunnels, and trains will run at a designed speed of 350 km per hour. It is the first of its kind in Indonesia as well as in Southeast Asia.

The traveling time from Jakarta to Bandung will be reduced from more than three hours to just half an hour, which will great help spur economic activities along the line between the two cities. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:13:09|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming said Wednesday that the newly enacted national security law for Hong Kong will target a very few criminals but protect the vast majority of Hong Kong people.

He made the comments when meeting with Simon McDonald, permanent under-secretary to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, according to a statement from the Chinese embassy.

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) fulfills the aspirations of local residents for a safer, better and more prosperous Hong Kong, and answers their call for better security safeguards so that they can enjoy and exercise their statutory rights and freedoms, Liu said.

The recent remarks by the UK side on the national security law for HKSAR are irresponsible and unwarranted, Liu said.

They represent a gross interference in China's internal affairs and run counter to the important principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and non-interference in each other's internal affairs endorsed by the UN Charter and the Joint Communique of the UK and China on exchange of ambassadors, he said, adding that the Chinese side expresses its grave concern and strong opposition.

The ambassador said that the national security law for HKSAR, which is timely, necessary and reasonable, is the fundamental solution that will end the chaos and restore order in Hong Kong.

It demonstrates the inherent requirements of "one country, two systems" and will ensure the steady and sustained implementation of this important policy, he said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:14:10|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Thursday recorded 2,184 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 53,708.

The ministry also confirmed 110 more deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 2,160 in the country.

It also said that 1,645 people recovered during the day, bringing the total recoveries from the disease to 27,912.

The new cases were recorded after 11,762 testing kits were used across the country during the past 24 hours, and a total of 567,685 tests have been carried out since the outbreak of the disease, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry said in a separate statement that it has opened 30 centers to increase the capacity of testing coronavirus in Risafa area, the eastern bank of the Tigris River which bisects Baghdad. The eastern side of the Iraq capital frequently recorded the highest numbers of infections.

"These centers are part of efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic, and we urge the citizens to conduct the tests and to follow the health instructions," the statement quoted the Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi as saying.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Iraq has been taking measures to contain the pandemic.

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 install an advanced CT scanner in Baghdad.

Since March 7, China has also sent three batches of medical aid to Iraq. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:14:51|Editor: huaxia

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LJUBLJANA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The 68th Ljubljana Festival kicked off here on Wednesday evening with a rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Piano Concerto No. 3.

Under the baton of Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit, the opening concert featured Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic Srebotnjak and the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.

The concert was warmly received by the audience despite the coronavirus restrictions. Only 500 spectators were allowed to enter the venue in the capital city's Congress Square. The members of the audience were required to sanitize their hands at the entrance, and the seats were spaced apart.

Darko Brlek, the festival's director, told local media that the coronavirus situation had affected the stage appearance of large multinational ensembles, and that each event must be approved by the National Institute of Public Health.

Slovenia reported 21 new coronavirus infections over the past day, according to latest official figures Thursday. This is the highest daily figure since April 16, when there were 36 new cases. The total number of confirmed infections now stands at 1,633, and the death toll remains at 111.

The Ljubljana Festival, one of Slovenia's top cultural events, attracts an average 60,000 people each year. The 68th edition will last until Aug. 30. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:20:27|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Britain said Thursday that China firmly opposes Britain's offer to provide more privileges for Hong Kong residents holding British National Overseas (BNO) passports, and reserves the right to take corresponding measures.

The embassy's spokesperson said that with regard to the BNO passport, in memoranda exchanged between the two sides, the British side declared it would not confer the right of abode to Chinese citizens in Hong Kong holding BNO passports.

"If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms governing international relations," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also urged the British side to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respect China's position and concerns, and refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any form. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:20:27|Editor: huaxia

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DOHA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Qatar's health ministry on Thursday announced 894 new infections of COVID-19, increasing the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 97,897.

"Some 2,632 people recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 86,597, while three others died, raising the fatalities to 118," the official Qatar News Agency reported, quoting a statement by the ministry.

A total of 366,095 persons in Qatar have undergone lab tests for COVID-19 so far, it added.

China and Qatar have offered mutual help during the fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

On Feb. 21, five Qatar Airways cargo freighters flew to China carrying approximately 300 tonnes of medical supplies donated by the airline. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:27:25|Editor: huaxia

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BANGKOK, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's southern province of Pattani said it hopes the Chinese market will pick up its native grown Puangmanee durian to assist the province's economy which had been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pattani launched its Puangmanee durian season on Thursday, with promotions designed to lure the lucrative Chinese market for this unique variety of the pungent fruit.

Presiding over the opening of the durian festival called "Great durian, Puangmanee of Yarang district, the jewel of Pattani river basin," Pattani Governor Kraisorn Visitwong pledged to do his utmost to help reboot the local economy.

The governor said told the media that farmers in the southern provinces are working towards meeting the ASEAN Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) standards in order to boost the market for native durian, rambutan, mangosteen, southern langsat and pomelo.

Kraisorn said a huge number of Chinese people prefer to eat durians that are small in size, with smooth and creamy flesh, and with a smell that is not as pungent as larger durian varieties.

"Before the COVID-19 air travel restrictions were imposed, we have had lots of positive feedbacks from Chinese tourists who said they like Puangmanee durian," said Kraisorn.

He said he hopes that the native fruits in the Thai South will help boost both local farming and tourism incomes.

Puangmanee durian is a small-sized variety weighing 1.3 to 1.8 kg when ripe. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:31:29|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf Thursday reiterated the country's support for the Palestinian cause, Tasnim news agency reported.

The passage of "time has proven that the Zionists (Israel) understand only the language of resistance, and that compromise and surrender to them will get nowhere," Qalibaf said in a telephone conversation with Ismail Haniyeh, politburo chief of Hamas movement.

He reiterated Iran's support for the Palestinian people, noting that resistance will thwart the "plots" such as the so-called "Deal of the Century" and Israel's plans to annex parts of the West Bank.

For his part, Haniyeh praised Iran for its unwavering support for the Palestinian resistance, saying that people of Palestine and the Hamas movement will continue resistance until the eviction of Israel from the occupied territories. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:40:29|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- China will encourage veterans to obtain professional qualifications as seafarers to promote their employment, according to the Ministry of Transport (MOT).

The Maritime Safety Administration of China, subordinate of the MOT and the Ministry of Veteran Affairs will jointly take preferential measures for veterans' maritime education and vocational skills training, said an agreement signed by the two departments.

Meanwhile, the ministries will encourage shipping enterprises to give priority to the recruitment of veterans who have sailor's qualifications, and support them in joining maritime management agencies, the agreement said.

Cooperation between the two ministries will be strengthened to reinforce the training of high-quality seafarers, and promote the employment of veterans, said Cao Desheng, director of the administration. Enditem
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Cloudy early with peeks of sunshine expected late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 93F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low 71F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:49:59|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

- - - -

BEIJING -- China has requested its medical institutions to cut the turnaround time for COVID-19 nucleic acid test results to a maximum of 24 hours, according to an official circular released on Thursday.

Efforts should be made to ensure that fever clinic patients get their test results within six hours, said the circular, adding that four hours are preferred.

- - - -

DOHA -- Qatar's Health Ministry on Thursday announced 894 new infections of COVID-19, increasing the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 97,897.

"Some 2,632 people recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 86,597, while three others died, raising the fatalities to 118," the official Qatar News Agency reported, quoting a statement by the ministry.

- - - -

BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Thursday recorded 2,184 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 53,708.

The ministry also confirmed 110 more deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 2,160 in the country.

It also said that 1,645 people recovered during the day, bringing the total recoveries from the disease to 27,912.

- - - -

JUBA -- The Chinese Embassy in South Sudan and the charity organization Concern South Sudan under the patronage of H.E. Mary Ayen Mayardit, First Lady of South Sudan, co-hosted on Wednesday a handover ceremony for Chinese-aided anti-COVID-19 medical supplies to South Sudan.

Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan Hua Ning said that faced with the challenge of COVID-19, China and South Sudan are joining hands to fight against it and to overcome the difficulties together.

- - - -

TEHRAN -- The total fatalities from the novel coronavirus in Iran hit 11,106 on Thursday after the registration of 148 deaths overnight, Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said during her daily update on Thursday.

Over the past 24 hours, 2,652 new infection cases were registered, taking the total confirmed novel coronavirus cases in the country to 232,863 on Thursday, the official IRNA news agency reported, quoting Lari.

- - - -

TOKYO -- The Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday confirmed 107 new COVID-19 infections in the capital, marking the highest daily increase in two months and the first time the figure has topped 100 since May 2.

The latest figure also marked the seventh straight day that COVID-19 cases have topped 50 and the highest number since the state of emergency was officially lifted on May 25. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 22:53:02|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of people with dementia or thought to suffer from the disease who went missing rose to a record high of 7,479 in 2019, the National Police Agency (NPA) said Thursday, highlighting the nation's struggle to care for the patients as numbers increase in twine with Japan's rapidly aging population.

According to the agency, the figure rose by 552 from a year earlier, but leapt by around 80 percent when compared to figures in 2012, as Japan continues to grapple with the myriad problems associated with rapidly aging population, including those related to dementia sufferers.

By the end of the reporting year, 245 people reported missing were not found, while 16,775 people were found who were either reported missing in 2018 or earlier, the agency said.

Around 72 percent of those suffering from dementia who had gone missing were found the same day, the police said, whereas 99.4 percent of those who had presumably wandered off were found within a week.

The figures showed, however, that four dementia suffered were only located more than two years after first being reported as going missing.

According to the NPA, the number of sufferers dying from accidents or other reasons while missing in the reporting period totaled 460 people.

In June last year, the government approved a new plan to try and focus on the country's rising cases of dementia sufferers involving both preventative measures and methods to delay the onset of the disease, involving making provisions for those affected to live comfortably in society.

The move came following the government abandoning a plan to try and numerically reduce the number of people with dementia, owing to concerns the initiative could lead to patients and families unnecessarily blaming themselves for not preventing the disease.

The government had said it was planning to reduce the number of people with dementia by 10 percent over the next decade in a bid to help counter the rising social security costs involved with caring for sufferers.

Japan is becoming increasingly burdened with ballooning social welfare costs due to its rapidly aging and shrinking society, with the government estimating that the number of dementia sufferers will increase to between 7 to 8 million people, or 6 to 7 percent of the total population, by 2030.

More conservative estimates by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecast the number of sufferers to reach 3.8 percent of the country's population by 2037.

The shift in the proposal to address dementia now sees "prevention" as was mentioned in the previous plan, changed to "delaying the onset of dementia and slowing development of symptoms once patients develop them."

"It is important that an entire society tackles the issue with close cooperation between family members, municipalities and businesses," Ryota Takeda, head of the National Public Safety Commission, told a press briefing on the matter Thursday.

"I will instruct police to ensure their efforts to search for and protect dementia patients are appropriate," Takeda said.

The government has set about establishing more places where senior citizens can gather together and jointly take part in activities such as working out, dining together and enjoying hobbies, as studies have suggested that social interaction and exercise can help prevention of the disease.

While the government has provided funding to local municipalities to facilitate such gatherings, they have failed to garner enough interest from the senior citizen community itself, however.

Medical experts have also said that overly focusing on medical care alone may not be the best solution as reliable pharmaceutical means to comprehensively treat the disease have yet to found.

They advocate for a combined approach of increased scientific research and therapeutic solutions to help tackle the disease. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:17:09|Editor: huaxia

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MACAO, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The secretaries of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government's administration and security departments Thursday both expressed their firm support to the passage of the law on safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong SAR.

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was passed earlier Tuesday at the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

The Secretary for Administration and Justice Cheong Weng Chon said the passage of this law is an important measure to safeguard China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and ensure the steady and sustained development of the cause of the "one country, two systems".

Macao SAR government will continue to improve the legal system of safeguarding national security in Macao SAR, and to promote Macao's law on safeguarding national security which was passed in 2009, Cheong added.

The Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak said Macao's security authorities fully recognize this law's significance to Hong Kong's stability and its mechanism of safeguarding national security.

They firmly support Hong Kong police in ending violence and restoring public order according to law, Wong added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:18:21|Editor: huaxia

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A ship carrying the slogan of "celebrating the passage of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)" sails at the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, south China, July 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Shen)

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee Thursday strongly condemned and resolutely opposed the passage of the so-called "Hong Kong Autonomy Act" by the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. move gravely interferes in China's internal affairs, and grossly tramples on international law and basic norms governing international relations, the foreign affairs committee said in a statement.

National security is a basic precondition for the existence and development of a nation and it concerns the nation's core interests, the statement stressed.

"No country in the world would ever turn a blind eye to acts and activities severely undermining its national security," said the statement.

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has won firm support from all Chinese people including Hong Kong compatriots, read the statement.

The U.S. move is not about democracy or freedom of Hong Kong residents, but about containing China's development, said the statement, underlining that the plot of the anti-China forces in the United States will never succeed.

The implementation of the law will definitely help Hong Kong end chaos and start afresh, the statement noted. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:22:26|Editor: huaxia

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MACAO, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The total merchandise export from Macao amounted to 687 million patacas (about 86 million U.S. dollars) in May, down 24.2 percent year-on-year, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistic department said on Thursday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the value of re-exports went down 27.9 percent to 566 million patacas (about 71 million dollars), with that of diamond and jewellery falling 76.5 percent.

The value of domestic exports dropped 0.6 percent to 121 million patacas (about 15 million dollars), the DSEC report added.

From January to May, the total value of merchandise export plunged 17.3 percent year-on-year to 4.54 billion patacas (about 569.28 million dollars), of which the value of re-exports dropped 19.5 percent to 3.98 billion patacas (about 499.06 million dollars), but that of domestic exports grew 1.6 percent to 569 million patacas (about 71 million dollars).

Analyzed by destination, merchandise export to Hong Kong SAR fell 19.5 percent year-on-year to 2.99 billion patacas (about 374.92 million dollars) from January to May 2020. Meanwhile, the exports to Chinese mainland rose 21.5 percent to 808 million patacas (about 101 million dollars).

In the first five months of 2020, the exports of textiles and garments jumped 69.9 percent year-on-year to 660 million patacas (about 83 million dollars), while the exports of non-textiles went down 24.0 percent to 3.88 billion patacas (about 486.52 million dollars). Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:36:22|Editor: huaxia

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Two men wearing face masks ride a motorbike in Dakar, Senegal, on July 1, 2020. Four months after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 2 in Senegal, the country's confirmed cases surpassed the 7,000 mark on Thursday. (Photo by Eddy Peters/Xinhua)

DAKAR, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Four months after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 2 in Senegal, the country's confirmed cases surpassed the 7,000 mark on Thursday.

Senegalese health authorities reported on Thursday 129 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the number of cases to 7,054 in the country.

During the daily briefing on the pandemic, the health ministry's director of prevention Dr. Mamadou Ndiaye said that out of 1,160 tests carried out, 129 turned out to be positive, including 96 follow-up contact cases and 33 community transmission cases.

A total of 54 patients tested negative after receiving treatments, bringing the total number of people discharged from treatment centers and hospitals to 4,599 in Senegal.

The number of patients in intensive care units increased from 35 to 36, and the number of deaths due to COVID-19 also increased, with five new deaths. The death toll stood at 121.

Summarizing the four months of fighting against this pandemic, the director of the National Center for Emergency Operations (COUS) Dr. Abdoulaye Bousso said the pandemic is progressing in Senegal after analyzing all the indicators, with numbers of confirmed cases and deaths rising sharply in June.

Regarding the treatment of COVID-19 patients, the official said the convincing results of the use of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were confirmed.

Professor Moussa Seydi, head of the infectious diseases department at Fann hospital, said this combination will be continued in Senegal.

"Currently, the analysis of our data collected from 838 patients. The results that we have obtained on the use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin have confirmed the efficiency of this combination," he said.

According to him, the median hospital stay is 10 days among patients who were under hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, and 12 for those who weren't.

"It is a well tolerated treatment, the side effects rate is between 2 and 3 percent. All the patients who took this treatment at an early stage of the disease did not have any complications and no one died," Seydi said.

For his part, the director of emergency medical service of Senegal Mamadou Beye said some of the COVID-19 patients will be confined at home instead of in isolation centers.

He also announced that all passengers who wish to enter Senegal through air transports will have to present their COVID-19 test certificate before entering.

The resumption of international flights to Senegal is scheduled for July 15 under a protocol approved by the Ministry of Health and Social Action, the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Chinese Embassy in Senegal will hand over on Friday a third batch of medical supplies donated by the Chinese government to Senegalese Ministry of Health and Social Action.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:36:32|Editor: huaxia

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BUDAPEST, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Hungary will not allow citizens from non-European Union (EU) countries, except for Serbia, to enter the country in wake of an EU recommendation, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Thursday.

Orban spoke in a video message posted on his Facebook page, after the Council of the European Union (EU) adopted a recommendation to lift entry restrictions for residents of some third countries starting Wednesday.

The council recommended the lifting of travel restrictions for residents of Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, and Uruguay.

The council also recommended that residents of China be allowed to travel to the EU, subject to confirmation of reciprocity. While highly anticipated, the council's recommendations are not legally binding, since border control is still its member states' competency.

The prime minister also said that his government decided to restore the use of the mandatory corridor for transiting traffic across Hungary.

"Travelers passing through the country, just as during the peak period of the coronavirus epidemic, cannot leave the designated route and border controls will remain strict," he said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:47:03|Editor: huaxia

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HELSINKI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Finnish Social Democratic Party (SDP) of Prime Minister Sanna Marin remains by far the most popular party, showed the latest poll by national broadcaster Yle Thursday.

The backing of the SDP declined 1.3 percentage points from the last poll to 21.9 percent, however.

Inside the government coalition, the lead of the SDP over its main coalition partners remains wide. The Center Party has risen from 10.7 percent to 11.4 percent, while the Green League declined from 11.9 percent to 10.9 percent.

The leading opposition party, the Finns Party, maintained 18.1 percent followed by the Conservative National Coalition with a slight increase to 17.9 percent.

Commenting on the poll, Markku Jokisipila, Director of the Center for Parliamentary Studies at Turku University, said on Yle that after the COVID-19 impact, the cabinet must be able to overhaul the government program, and both the Greens and the Center have a need to raise their profile in the wake of the poll results.

The poll, carried out for Yle by Taloustutkimus, a Finnish market research company throughout June, covers 2,450 respondents. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:48:45|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The 9th ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum will be held on July 6 via video-link, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced Thursday.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will co-chair the meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Zhao Lijian told a regular press briefing.

Zhao said foreign ministers of Arab League (AL) member states will attend the meeting, along with AL Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.

Noting that China attaches high importance to advancing the China-Arab strategic partnership, Zhao said the two sides are "good partners of mutual benefit and good brothers sharing weal and woe."

"Confronted with the COVID-19 outbreak, we have been fighting side by side with solidarity and mutual assistance," he said.

"Our relations have been deepened and elevated in this process. As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc around the globe, convening this meeting will send out a message of China and Arab states consolidating consensus on solidarity and cooperation, upholding multilateralism, supporting each other on issues bearing on core interests and major concerns, and joining hands to build a China-Arab community with a shared future in the new era," the spokesperson said.

"China stands ready to work together with other participants to make this ministerial a complete success," Zhao added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 23:58:06|Editor: huaxia

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BEIRUT, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Chief Stefano Del Col urged on Thursday Lebanon and Israel to "avoid activities that could be deemed provocative by the other side."

Otherwise, the two sides have the potential to escalate with uncontrollable consequences, said a statement by the UNIFIL.

Del Col underlined UNIFIL's confidence-building and conflict mitigation efforts and asked that the parties "to de-conflict and enhance stability along the Blue Line."

Del Col's remarks came during the second special Tripartite meeting since the COVID-19 outbreak with senior officers from the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Israel Defense Forces.

The discussions focused on the situation along the Blue Line, air and ground violations and other issues within the scope of UNIFIL's mandate under UN Security Council resolution 1701. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:08:23|Editor: huaxia

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ACCRA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Executive Board of Directors of the World Bank has approved 315 million U.S. dollars International Development Association financing for two projects in Ghana, a release has said.

The financing includes 200 million U.S. dollars for a jobs and skills project and 115 million U.S. dollars for a digital transformation project for Ghana's public sector.

The Jobs and Skills project aims to train young people in employable skills and entrepreneurship. It will also assist apprentices with self-employment activities or help them secure employment opportunities and strengthen linkages to trade associations.

It will also provide training, grants, and entrepreneurship activities to micro and small enterprises, as well as help and establish a functioning Ghana labor market information system.

The labor market information system is a public database that will capture information on employers and workers and maintain regular data and information on the job landscape in the country.

The digital transformation project will improve the efficiency and coverage of government service delivery.

"The two projects are aligned with the priorities of the government's coordinated program of economic and social development and are even more relevant and timely in the current COVID-19 context," Pierre Laporte, World Bank Country Director for Ghana said.

He added that restoring jobs and livelihoods for micro, small and medium enterprises "is critical for promoting the economic recovery of the country and is at the heart of Ghana's COVID-19 response." Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:08:23|Editor: huaxia

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ISLAMABAD, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan said on Thursday that 113,154 nationals had been repatriated who were stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Pakistan started repatriation of its nationals in March in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in different parts of the world.

"We thank all the governments of these countries for their cooperation in facilitating the repatriation of our nationals," spokesperson of the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs Aisha Farooqui said.

Giving details about the recent repatriation at her weekly briefing in Islamabad, Farooqui said 257 Pakistanis were repatriated from Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore and Brunei.

Farooqui said the foreign ministry and Pakistani missions continue to facilitate and assist fellow compatriots all across the world in order to bring them back to Pakistan safely and in a dignified manner.

The foreign ministry said earlier that a special cell, namely the Crisis Management Unit, is working at the foreign ministry round the clock with a dedicated team to monitor the phased repatriation of Pakistanis across the globe. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:25:13|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- While a few Peking University students braved the drizzling rain to attend a graduation ceremony on campus on Thursday, most of the class of 2020 watched the festivities online.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, many university graduates have spent their final days of school away from campus, embracing the remote-graduation season with live-streamed celebrations.

Because of the change in the epidemic, many students who planned to return to school were not able to come back," said Hao Ping, President of Peking University. "At this moment, you are attending the graduation ceremony with your parents and family through online videos, but our hearts are closely connected. This graduation ceremony will be remembered by all of us for the rest of our lives."

Starting from June 11, Beijing tightened control as a series of new COVID-19 cases emerged, linked to a wholesale market. From June 11 to July 1, the capital reported 329 confirmed locally transmitted cases. University students had to cancel plans to return for in-person graduation festivities.

Peking University's graduation ceremony on Thursday saw about 2,700 teachers, staff and students participating in the on-campus celebrations. Spread over nine venues on the vast campus, participants sat in chairs that had been spaced out to maintain the necessary social distance. More than 12,200 students are scheduled to graduate this year, the university said.

In the commencement speech, Hao said that since the outbreak of the epidemic, the university had sent 454 medical workers to Hubei Province, which was previously worst-hit by the epidemic, and set up several scientific research teams to provide support in the fight against the virus.

More than 3,500 teachers had been engaged in more than 6,400 online courses for students during the past few months, he said.

Zhong Nanshan, who graduated from the university in 1960, delivered a virtual speech and gave much-needed words of encouragement to the graduates. "Study is a life-time endeavor, and I have not given up studying at my age," said the renowned respiratory expert, now in his 80s.

"Be strict with yourself. I hope you will all be driven by ambition, enthusiasm, and passion, and I wish you great success, he told the graduates.

Peking University said it will arrange a degree-awarding ceremony for the class of 2020 during the graduation season next year. This year's graduates can also choose any year to return for a degree-awarding ceremony.

"I am truly touched by the special ceremony this year," said Li Zhengyu, a postgraduate student of demographic studies. "The epidemic has made me feel that the good days never come easy. Young people like me need to go where the country needs us the most."

On Tuesday, Beijing's Renmin University of China held its graduation ceremony. The university said it set up 4,105 courses online to keep schooling going for students during the epidemic. School staff helped graduates with submitting dissertations and carrying out job interviews online.

This year, 8.74 million students in China are expected to graduate from colleges and universities. A survey conducted by China Youth Daily found that 88.6 percent of new Chinese college graduates celebrated their graduation in digital form amid the COVID-19 epidemic, making graduation videos, watching graduation ceremonies, and buying academicals online.

Some schools have asked the parents of graduates who took part in the cloud graduation ceremony at home to turn the tassels on their caps, signifying that they've graduated. Alumni have rolled out creative and engaging plans to help students celebrate the milestone.

At the School of European Studies of Beijing International Studies University, alumni of the Russian language department organized a two-hour online concert in WeChat groups for the class of 2020.

They printed inspiring words on canvas bags and mailed them to the school as gifts for fresh graduates, said concert organizer Li Zhijie, who graduated from the Russian language department in 2006. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:25:24|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday launched a level IV emergency response for flood control as the country entered the main flood season, said the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has dispatched work teams to the provinces of Hunan, Hubei, and Anhui to guide relief work, the ministry said.

The ministry added that the work of flood control, emergency rescue, and disaster relief is at a crucial stage at the moment.

Local authorities were urged to step up the monitoring of weather, remain alert for possible disasters caused by rainstorms, and guarantee the safety of the public, according to the ministry.

The Three Gorges Dam on Thursday saw the arrival of the Yangtze River's first flood of the year, with a flow rate of 50,000 cubic meters of water per second.

The water level in Taihu, the country's second-largest freshwater lake, has risen above the warning level, while water levels in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Dongting Lake, and Poyang Lake are higher than usual. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:43:18|Editor: huaxia

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SHANGHAI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of China's internet giant Alibaba, on Thursday announced the building of its third data center in Indonesia, and the formation of a cloud ecosystem alliance in the Philippines.

Selina Yuan, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International, said Alibaba Cloud has become the largest cloud service provider in regional markets, including Malaysia and Indonesia.

The business expansion in Indonesia came after Alibaba Cloud built its first data center in 2018 in the country, with the second center constructed last year.

Alibaba Cloud currently has over 20 local partners from various industries in the Philippines, and plans to help 5,000 local businesses in their digital migration, and train 50,000 local professionals within the next three years.

The company ranked first in the Asia Pacific region with a market share of 28.2 percent in 2019, up 2.2 percentage points from the previous year, according to global research and advisory firm Gartner. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:43:38|Editor: huaxia

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TIRANA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Three Albanian nationals were arrested for transporting 20 illegal migrants via a border crossing in exchange for money, Albanian State Police said in a press release on Thursday.

According to the press release, the police operation was organized by the Local Police Directorate in Korca, southeastern Albania in cooperation with Border Police and Special Operational Police Forces.

All three arrested Albanians were residents in the capital city of Tirana and were aged 27-29, police said.

Between them, they were transporting 20 illegal migrants in exchange for 500 euros (563 U.S. dollars) per person as payment.

The detention of the illegal migrants was organized while they were traveling from the village of Ecmenik in the Devoll area, southeastern Albania.

The case will be followed by the Prosecutor's Office and the three arrested will face charges for the criminal offenses of "assistance in illegal border crossing, committed in collaboration" and "disobedience to the police officer order," the press release said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:43:59|Editor: huaxia

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ROME, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The borders of the European Union opened to visitors from beyond Europe Wednesday. Operators from Italy's beleaguered tourism industry are hoping the date proves to be the start of the sector's much-needed recovery.

Italy's tourism industry is normally among the country's most reliable economic drivers. But the national coronavirus lockdown put into place in early March meant tourism disappeared.

Wednesday's milestone was the latest in a series of loosening of travel restrictions. On May 18, bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen as long as they respected social distancing rules, and on June 3 Italians were first allowed to move between regions and visitors from most European countries could come to Italy without restrictions.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Tourism noted that more than 100,000 Italian families used their tourism bonus of up to 500 euros (563 U.S. dollars). But analysts say the tourism sector needs international tourists to survive.

The new rules allow visitors from parts of the world where the coronavirus outbreak is considered to be under control to come to Europe. Among countries whose nationals can visit are Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea and China, subject to confirmation of reciprocity. Not on the list -- at least not at first -- are travelers from Russia and the United States.

"I hope we'll look back and recognize this point as the beginning of a new phase," Mara Manente, director of the International Center for Studies on the Economics of Tourism at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, told Xinhua.

Manente said that last year Venice, where she lives, got 88 percent of its visitors from outside Italy. Other regions that depend heavily on international tourism include Lazio, the region that includes Rome; the southern island region of Sicily; and Tuscany, the region that includes Florence.

"Right now the tourism industry is trying to survive on mostly domestic tourists, which excludes 55 percent to 70 percent of arrivals normally represented by international travelers," Manente said. "We won't get it back all at once, but this can be the start of the recovery."

Gianfranco Lorenzo, the head of the research department for the Center for Touristic Studies, a not-for-profit organization that monitors the sector, agreed.

"The full recovery of the Italian tourism sector is going to take a great deal of time and work and it has to start somewhere," he said. "This is an important step."

Potential arrivals are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the reopening.

"Unless there is some dramatic news, I will come back to Italy this year," Tony Abraham, a self-described "Italy fan" who works as a radio station administrator in Toronto, told Xinhua. "But I want to see how the first couple of weeks go after tourists come back. If it all goes fine, I'll book my ticket for some time in the fall."

Kimberly Addonizio-MacQueen, a Vermont-based writer working on a book about Italian cuisine, took some of the same factors into consideration but came to a different conclusion.

"I was looking forward to my first trip to Italy later this year and was still thinking about going after the outbreak got under control in Italy, to take advantage of the tourist-free version of the country," Addonizio-MacQueen said in an interview.

"But I want to stay for a few weeks to do research and now I don't even know if the restrictions would let me make the trip," she said. "My husband and I decided it makes more sense to postpone until 2021 when I hope all the problems will be resolved." Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 00:56:18|Editor: huaxia

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OTTAWA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- An armed man was arrested near the official residence of Canadian Governor General Julie Payette in Ottawa Thursday morning, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The man, who was able to get access to the grounds of the residence at 6:40 a.m. Thursday, was arrested shortly after "without any incident."

"He is currently in custody and is being interviewed," said the RCMP on Twitter.

Police confirmed the governor general was not at her residence. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 01:03:54|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday reminded the Security Council of the multi-faceted implications of COVID-19 on international peace and security.

"The COVID-19 pandemic continues to profoundly affect peace and security across the globe," he told the Security Council. "The risks are diverse."

The consequences can be seen even in a number of countries traditionally seen as stable. But the impacts are particularly apparent in countries already experiencing conflict or emerging from it -- and may soon engulf others, he said.

Tensions are rising as a result of the severe socio-economic fallout of the crisis. Trust in public institutions is being eroded further in places where people perceive that authorities have not addressed the pandemic effectively or have not been transparent about its impact, said Guterres.

As pre-existing grievances and vulnerabilities become more accentuated and entrenched, the potential for instability and violence only grows, he warned.

The pandemic is exacerbating gender inequalities, as women make up the vast majority of the sectors most affected. There has been an alarming spike in gender-based and domestic violence, and it is increasingly difficult for victims to report abuse, seek shelter and access justice, he said.

In some countries, fragile peace processes could be derailed by the crisis, especially if the international community is distracted. In other places, conflict actors, including terrorist and violent extremist groups, see the uncertainty created by the pandemic as a tactical advantage, he said.

Many countries have had to consider how to move ahead with elections slated for 2020 while trying to manage the health crisis. In the Central African Republic, there are tensions due to attempts to use the pandemic as a pretext to postpone the holding of elections planned for the end of the year, he noted.

Decisions on postponing or indeed proceeding with elections raise complex legal, political and public health challenges. Difficult as they are, such decisions are best made on the basis of broad consultations with all stakeholders, to avoid fueling political tensions or undermining legitimacy, said Guterres.

COVID-19 has also made diplomacy more challenging. Mediation can be a very personal endeavor, an almost-tactile reading of a person or a room. With movement restrictions limiting such contacts, and with online discussions often the only alternative, it can be harder to establish the trust and nurture the willingness to compromise that are at the heart of preventive diplomacy, he said.

The pandemic also highlights the risks of bioterrorist attacks, and has already shown some of the ways in which preparedness might fall short if a disease were to be deliberately manipulated to be more virulent, or intentionally released in multiple places at once, he said. "So, as we consider how to improve our response to future disease threats, we should also devote serious attention to preventing the deliberate use of diseases as weapons."

He called for the universality and strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention, which lacks an oversight institution and contains no verification provisions.

"Given the speed at which pathogens spread in an interconnected world, we must ensure that all countries have resilient and appropriate capacities to respond quickly and robustly to any potential global and deliberate biological event," he said.

Guterres also expressed his concern that the pandemic is triggering or exacerbating human rights challenges.

There has been the excessive use of force to police lockdowns, curfews and other confinement measures. There are growing manifestations of authoritarianism, including limits on the media, civic space and freedom of expression. Populists, nationalists and others who were already seeking to roll back human rights are finding in the pandemic a pretext for repressive measures unrelated to the disease, he said.

The Security Council was holding a high-level debate on the implications of COVID-19 on international peace and security. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 01:07:06|Editor: huaxia

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ACCRA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has confirmed the passing away of the Forestry Commission boss Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, after getting COVID-19.

Akufo-Addo expressed shock and sadness on social media about the death of Owusu-Afriyie.

Sir John died on Wednesday at the Intensive Care Unit of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

"We shall never forget you, Sir John," the president wrote, expressing his condolence to the bereaved family.

Owusu-Afriyie was a also leading member of the ruling party, and he had served as General Secretary from 2010 to 2014.

Meanwhile, local media reported on Thursday that the deputy minister for trade Carlos Ahenkora, and the president's campaign manager for the 2020 general election Peter Mac Manu were both in intensive care after testing positive for the pandemic. Enditem
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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 01:22:27|Editor: huaxia

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NAIROBI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Once declared a dying business due to onslaught from increased use of smartphones in Kenya, cyber cafes are warming up to a brighter future occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The internet points in the East African nation have been resilient in the past years after several government departments took their services online.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, however, added to this change of fortunes as private firms and government departments that had not fully embraced online services go for them to enforce social distancing.

Cybercafe operators in the East African nation are, thus, currently busy lot as they record a surge in the number of people seeking their services.

For George Kariuki, a cybercafe operator in Kitengela, a suburb on the south of Nairobi, Tuesday was one of his busiest days ever in years as he attended to the highest number of people.

It was the D-day for filing tax returns in Kenya, thus, many people seeking to beat the deadline flocked cybercafes.

Initially, some of the people would flock Kenya Revenue Authority offices for assistance but with measures put in place to curb COVID-19 spread, throngs were not allowed at the government agency offices.

"We worked until late into the night to enable people to file their returns and beat the deadline. I was charging 100 shillings (about 1 U.S. dollar) to do the job for those who did not know what to do," he said.

And things are looking brighter for the internet as more government departments take their services online to not only ease access but curb the spread of the new coronavirus virus disease.

On Wednesday, the Kenyan judiciary introduced mandatory filing of court cases to curb congestion at its registries in the capital Nairobi.

Chief Justice David Maraga said citizens and legal officers would no longer be allowed to file cases manually anymore by walking to the courts as he launched the e-filing system.

"Citizens henceforth will not be able to file cases manually in Nairobi at the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and the High Court since services have gone digital. This system will further allow litigants to assess costs, pay and serve court papers to defendants," he said, adding the service would be spread countrywide.

The move, as one of the precautionary measures against COVID-19 spread, would see hundreds flock the internet points in the East African nation to file the cases, which gives cybercafes a boom.

This is because the electronic process involves scanning documents, doing photocopies and even taking photos, services that cybercafe operators charge separately.

"Things are looking up for our businesses. These additional services, especially by government agencies, means increased demand for our businesses and more income. I am happy," said Joseph Mutie, a cybercafe operator on the east of Nairobi.

Besides the filing of cases and tax returns, other government services accessed at the internet points include registration of students by schools, application of driving licenses, birth certificates, passports and electricity connection.

"The beauty of government services is that they don't involve normal internet browsing alone as they come with the printing of documents or taking photos, which makes us earn more," he said, adding that on a good day he makes up to 3,000 shillings (about 30 U.S. dollars).

But it's not only government departments that are increasingly digitizing their services to curb COVID-19 spread, but even private entities like hospitals are also doing so, as they embrace telemedicine.

Bernard Mwaso of Edell IT Solution, a software development start-up in Nairobi, noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has fanned the digital boom as people seek to curb the spread of the virus and thus businesses like cybercafes will emerge as some of the biggest beneficiaries.

"The COVID-19 pandemic era will be remembered globally as a great catalyst for a boom in digital services especially in developing countries like Kenya. For cybercafes, things have gone full circle; no one could predict their fortunes would change this better," he said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 01:47:04|Editor: huaxia

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DUBLIN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of passengers carried by Irish budget airline Ryanair in June showed a sign of improvement despite a sharp drop year-on-year, according to the figures released by the airline on Thursday.

In June, Ryanair carried a total of 400,000 passengers, down 97 percent compared with the 14.2 million passengers it handled in the same month of last year, said the largest budget airline in Europe in a statement.

The sharp decrease in Ryanair's June passenger numbers showed the huge impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline, but the falling rate in the month had obviously slowed down when compared with the previous months.

In May, Ryanair reported a free fall of 99.5 percent in its passenger numbers on top of a 99.6-percent plunge in April when the airline was hit hardest by the pandemic.

Industry watchers believe that a dramatic improvement in Ryanair's passenger numbers could be expected as the airline resumed 40 percent of its flight service on Wednesday.

However, Ryanair's top management cautioned that it could take two to three years for the airline's passenger numbers to return to normal levels.

Earlier in the day, Ryanair said in a statement that it had reached a four-year agreement with a trade union which represents the interests of the pilots employed by Ryanair in Britain.

Under the agreement, the British pilots of Ryanair have agreed to a 20-percent pay cut proposed by the airline in order to avoid redundancy.

Ryanair has planned to lay off 3,000 employees to deal with the crisis.

Earlier last month, the airline announced that over 250 people working at its three bases in Britain, Spain and Poland have been laid off.

Headquartered in Ireland, Ryanair employs an estimated 19,000 people working in nearly 80 bases across Europe and in parts of North Africa. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 02:01:24|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday appointed Abubacarr Marie Tambadou of Gambia as the new registrar of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), which deals with cases left over by the UN criminal tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia.

Until recently, Tambadou was serving as Gambia's attorney-general and minister of justice. He brings over 14 years of experience in the area of international criminal justice, including through his role as special assistant to the prosecutor of the IRMCT and trial attorney and later appeals counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, said Stephane Dujarric, Guterres' spokesman.

Separately, the secretary-general appointed Irena Vojackova-Sollorano of Germany as his new deputy special representative for Iraq, said the spokesman.

Vojackova-Sollorano brings to this position more than three decades of global expertise in migration and refugee issues, coordinating UN development and humanitarian responses, including as UN resident coordinator in Turkey and in Serbia, said Dujarric. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 03:00:16|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday asked the Security Council to push for positive responses to the UN secretary-general's appeal for a global cease-fire amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As it has adopted a resolution endorsing the appeal, the Security Council should work to accelerate its realization, said Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations.

The international community should seize the opportunity to encourage the parties to conflicts to respond to the appeal, immediately cease hostilities, jointly fight the pandemic, save lives and seek peaceful settlements through political and diplomatic means, he told a high-level debate on the implications of COVID-19 on international peace and security.

Zhang also asked the Security Council to step up humanitarian assistance and make every effort to ensure the safety and security of peacekeepers.

The Security Council should urge relevant countries to immediately lift unilateral sanctions that might affect a country's capacity to respond to COVID-19, he said. The Security Council should also explore ways to eliminate unilateral coercive measures so as to lessen people's sufferings in affected countries. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 03:02:08|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday that 174 illegal immigrants, including women and children, were rescued by the Libyan coast guard off the country's western coast.

Among the rescued migrants who have been taken to detention are 16 women and 19 children, according to an IOM tweet.

"We reiterate that the arbitrary detention system in Libya must be dismantled," IOM noted.

More than 5,400 illegal immigrants have been rescued and returned to Libya so far this year, while the number is more than 9,200 in 2019, according to IOM.

Libya has been plagued by insecurity and chaos ever since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, making it a preferred point of departure for thousands of illegal immigrants who want to cross the Mediterranean Sea toward Europe.

Before the Libyan authorities closed all the country's borders as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, IOM had been running the Voluntary Humanitarian Return program that arranges the return of illegal immigrants stranded in Libya to their countries of origin. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 05:10:12|Editor: huaxia

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A medical worker takes a sample from a man for COVID-19 test in the central Israeli city of Lod on July 2, 2020. The number of active coronavirus cases in Israel has reached 9,176, the highest since April 21, the health ministry said Thursday. The ministry also reported 790 new cases, bringing the total number in the country to 27,047. (Photo by Gil Cohen Magen/Xinhua)

JERUSALEM, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of active coronavirus cases in Israel has reached 9,176, the highest since April 21, the health ministry said Thursday.

The ministry also reported 790 new cases, bringing the total number in the country to 27,047.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the virus increased from 322 to 324, while the number of recoveries rose to 17,547 after 95 new ones were added.

The number of patients in serious condition increased from 57 to 65, out of 265 patients currently hospitalized.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli government decided to limit gatherings in event halls, bars, nightclubs and places of worship to a maximum of 50 people, while the other indoor gatherings were limited to 20.

"The infection data is clear, leaving us no choice. We must return to restrictions in order to flatten the curve," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli police has started a large-scale operation across the country, mainly in crowded places, to enforce COVID-19 restrictions.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 05:16:57|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Ghislaine Maxwell, an accused procurer for dead convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday at her home in northeastern U.S. state of New Hampshire.

The onetime girlfriend and alleged accomplice of Epstein was charged by New York federal prosecutors with six counts in connection with an ongoing federal investigation into Epstein's accomplices, according to a CNN report, citing court documents and a person familiar with the matter.

The charges include enticement and conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, transportation and conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and two counts of perjury, said the report.

From the 1990s, Maxwell had assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18, with some girl victims as young as 14 years old, according to the indictment.

Epstein, 66, was accused in July 2019 of sexually exploitation, prostitution and abuse of dozens of underage girls in the early 2000s. The disgraced financier was found dead by suicide in his jail cell in New York on Aug. 10 last year while awaiting trial. His clientele allegedly involved dozens of billionaires.

Maxwell's 156-acre property in Bradford, New Hampshire, was purchased for 1 million U.S. dollars last December by a "legal entity", local media reported. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 05:27:05|Editor: huaxia

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DUBLIN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Irish tourism sector has suffered a loss of one billion euros (about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars) since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, said a senior official here on Thursday.

Paul Kelly, CEO of Failte Ireland or Ireland's National Tourism Development Authority, told a special committee of the country's parliament that the tourism sector was hit first, hit hardest and will take the longest to recover from the COVID-19 crisis, local media RTE reported.

In a report submitted to the committee, he said the tourism sector has had a few months of no revenue and the pandemic has cost the sector one billion euros since late March when Ireland imposed a nationwide lockdown.

According to him, the 14-day self-quarantine requirement has virtually closed Ireland to all overseas visitors and that a way must be found to reopen for overseas tourism as soon as public health allows.

In another development, Stephen Donnelly, newly-appointed Irish minister for health, told RTE in a TV program that public health officials are concerned about the the risk posed by international travel to the country's efforts in containing the virus.

Donnelly said confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland from international travel jumped to 17 percent of the total in the last few weeks from just 2 percent for the last few months.

The Irish government has announced that starting from July 9, it will reopen the country to overseas tourists from low-risk nations without a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

A list of these low-risk countries is expected to be announced in the next few days and it will be reviewed on a fortnightly basis.

Statistics announced by the Irish Department of Health on Thursday night showed that there are now a total of 25,489 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland and 1,738 people in the country have died from the disease. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 05:30:18|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The total fatalities from COVID-19 in Iran, the hardest-hit country in the Middle East, surged to 11,106 on Thursday after 148 more deaths were reported overnight. Meanwhile, more foreign tourists arrived in Egypt after the country resumed international flights following a three-month suspension.

Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, reported 2,652 new cases of coronavirus infection, taking the total confirmed cases to 232,863 in Iran.

So far, 194,098 patients in Iran have recovered from the virus and 3,097 remain in critical condition.

Turkey on Thursday reported 1,186 new COVID-19 cases, raising the country's tally of confirmed cases to 202,284.

In the past 24 hours, Turkey recorded 17 more deaths from the infectious respiratory disease, taking the death toll to 5,167, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted.

The tally of recoveries in Turkey rose to 176,965 after 1,543 more patients recovered, the minister said.

Egypt received two flights carrying 313 tourists from Switzerland and Belarus on Thursday, the second day of Egypt's international flights resumption after more than three months of suspension over COVID-19 concerns.

Hurghada airport received a flight carrying 141 Swiss tourists while Sharm el-Sheikh airport received 172 Belarusian tourists, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement.

Egypt reported 1,485 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total cases to 71,299, while the death toll from the virus increased to 3,120 after 86 more patients died.

Saudi Arabian Health Ministry announced 3,383 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, increasing the total cases in the kingdom to 197,608.

It also reported 4,909 new recoveries, bringing the total recoveries to 137,668, while the death toll rose to 1,752 with 54 new fatalities.

The kingdom approved on Thursday additional measures to reduce the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Economy and Planning Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said the initiative of covering the salaries of the Saudis working in the private sector has been extended.

Under the plan, 70 percent of the salaries of the Saudis working in organizations severely affected by COVID-19, and 50 percent of the salaries of those working in organizations less affected will be paid.

Saudi General Authority of Zakat and Tax also introduced several initiatives, including postponing the tax payments.

The resurgence of COVID-19 continued in Iraq, as Iraqi Health Ministry reported 2,184 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total infections nationwide to 53,708.

It also confirmed 110 more deaths and 1,645 new recoveries, raising the death toll to 2,160 and the tally of recoveries to 27,912.

The ministry said it has opened 30 centers to increase the capacity of coronavirus testing in Risafa area, the eastern bank of the Tigris River which bisects Iraq's capital Baghdad.

Qatar's Health Ministry announced 894 new COVID-19 infections, increasing the total confirmed cases to 97,897. The death toll rose to 118 after three new fatalities were added.

Omani Ministry of Health reported 1,361 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections to 42,555. The death toll rose to 188, after three more fatalities were reported.

In Israel, the number of active coronavirus cases reached 9,176, the highest since April 21, the state's Ministry of Health said.

The ministry also reported 790 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 27,047, and two more deaths, raising the death toll to 324.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli government decided to limit gatherings in event halls, bars, nightclubs and places of worship to a maximum of 50 people, while the other indoor gatherings were limited to 20.

The United Arab Emirates announced 400 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 49,469.

Palestine on Thursday reported 322 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number in the Palestinian territories to 3,417.

Morocco confirmed 333 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total cases in the North African country to 12,969. The death toll from the virus reached 229 as one new fatality was recorded.

Syrian Health Ministry recorded 19 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections to 312, which includes nine deaths and 113 recoveries.

Kuwait, which started the second phase of restoring normal life from Tuesday, reported 919 new COVID-19 cases and one more death, raising the tally of infections to 47,859 and the death toll to 359.

In Yemen, the health ministry said the total number of COVID-19 cases in Yemen's government-controlled provinces increased to 1,221 after 65 new cases were confirmed.

Lebanon's number of COVID-19 infections increased on Thursday by eight to 1,796, while the death toll rose by one to 35. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 05:49:01|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. unemployment rate in June dropped for the second straight month amid reopening efforts, indicating an improvement in the hard-hit labor market, but with the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases, analysts said the road to recovery might not be a smooth one.

U.S. employers added 4.8 million jobs in June, pushing the nation's unemployment rate down to 11.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Thursday.

The unemployment rate previously soared to a record 14.7 percent in April, as COVID-19 ravaged the economy. It declined slightly to 13.3 percent, as businesses gradually reopened across the country.

"Nonfarm payrolls rose by more than expected in June while the unemployment rate fell considerably," Jay H. Bryson, acting chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities, wrote in an analysis, while noting that the labor market "still has a long way to go" to recoup the 22 million jobs lost in March and April.

Also on Thursday, the Labor Department reported that 1.4 million Americans filed a first-time claim for unemployment insurance last week, the 13th weekly decline in a row but still a historic high.

That drop was offset by an increase in pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) claims, which rose almost 840,000, according to Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, a major accounting firm.

"This is no time to pop champagne corks," Swonk wrote in a blog. "That is still nearly double the drop in jobs we experienced during the Great Recession."

Noting that the BLS survey was conducted during the week of June 12, she said "the hole is still deep while prospects for continued gains in July have faded with a resurgence in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations."

Several U.S. states, mostly in the South and West, have recently seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases as businesses continue to resume operations, casting a shadow over the current path to reopening.

Public health experts believe that states' hasty efforts to reopen their economies, weeks of nationwide protests over the death of unarmed black man George Floyd, as well as some Americans' unwillingness to practice social distancing, or wear a mask, have all contributed to the recent surge in cases.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported an increase of 54,357 cases across the country, which set a new single-day record. Florida on Thursday reported 10,109 new cases, marking a new single-day record for the state.

"With the number of COVID-19 cases accelerating and some states delaying re-opening or imposing new restrictions, we are concerned that a significant number of individuals may become furloughed again," Bryson wrote.

More than 10 states, including Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Texas, have rolled back or paused reopening plans. Texas, for example, announced last week that it would close bars and reduce restaurant occupancy.

The BLS report also showed that the labor force participation rate increased by 0.7 percentage point in June to 61.5 percent, but was 1.9 percentage points below its February level.

Noting that the official data counted an extra 2.0 million people who were "not at work for other reasons" as employed, and that 4.6 million people had left the labor force since February, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) senior fellow and Harvard professor Jason Furman, and Harvard Kennedy School research associate Wilson Powell, wrote in an analysis that the "realistic unemployment rate" was 13.0 percent in June.

"As some states slow or partially reverse their reopening plans as virus cases rise, the ability to continue these gains becomes more uncertain," they said.

Swonk said this summer will be a struggle for recovery in employment, calling on the U.S. Congress to provide extensions to unemployment insurance and roll out additional aid.

"This is not the time for a victory lap," she said. "We need to prepare for what we know is in the pipeline, which is not pretty." Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 05:56:16|Editor: huaxia

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FRANKFURT, July 2 (Xinhua) -- German parliament (Bundestag) on Thursday passed a resolution saying that the European Central Bank (ECB) has met the requirements from a top German court concerning the bank's massive bond-buying program.

Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ruled in early May that the ECB's public sector purchase program (PSPP) launched in 2015 is partially unconstitutional.

The court has asked the federal government and the Bundestag to make sure that a proportionality check was done for the PSPP, otherwise the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, may have to withdraw from the program.

The joint motion accepted on Thursday was proposed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and coalition partners -- the Social Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party and the Greens.

"The requirements contained in the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court to carry out a proportionality test in connection with the PSPP are met," said a statement about the joint motion on the parliament's website.

The ECB had examined the suitability, necessity and adequacy of the monetary policy measures in relation to its decisions on the PSPP, and the economic-political effects of the program were identified and weighted, it added.

ECB President Christine Lagarde and other officials from the central bank have previously repeatedly stressed that the ECB is under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which already ruled in 2018 that the program is in line with the ECB mandate. However, Lagarde also noted she is confident that a solution could be found.

Yves Mersch, member of the Executive Board of the ECB, said during a webinar on Thursday that Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann recently requested that the ECB authorize the disclosure of a number of documents to the federal government and the parliament.

"We authorized the disclosure of these documents on the condition that their non-public elements are treated confidentially," Mersch said.

Mersch also noted that the ECB's Governing Council constantly evaluates the potential side effects of its monetary policy measures, including the PSPP. "This evaluation is part of the proportionality assessment underpinning the ECB's policy choices and is publicly available," he said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-03 06:02:00|Editor: huaxia

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JERUSALEM, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a government-owned corporation, announced on Thursday the signing of a historic agreement with a company from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on collaboration in anti-coronavirus research and development.

The deal was signed with Group 42 based in the UAE's capital Abu Dhabi, despite no diplomatic relations between the Jewish state and the Arab country.

"Coronavirus crosses continents, peoples and religions, and we see the utmost importance for cooperation that will bring breakthrough solutions," IAI said in a statement.

"We are proud to join Group 42 of the UAE, hoping it will lead to other future joint activities between the two countries," it added.

Group 42 is an artificial intelligence and cloud computing company that deploys AI-centric industry solutions across a range of industries such as government and smart cities, oil and gas, aviation, healthcare, financial services, hospitality and tourism.

Established in 1953, IAI is considered a global leader in the supply of technologies and systems in the domains of land, air, sea, outer space and cyber. Enditem
The U.S. Air Force has identified the F-16CM Fighting Falcon pilot killed in a crash at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina on Tuesday night.

1st Lt. David Schmitz, of 77th Fighter Squadron, died while conducting a training sortie here in South Carolina, Col. Larry Sullivan, commander of the 20th Fighter Wing, said in a Facebook video.

Read Next: General, Colonel Rebuked After Marine Corps Finds Investigation Flaws

The accident occurred around 11:30 p.m. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

In the video, Sullivan said that Schmitz received his pilots license at 17 years old, enlisted in the Air Force soon after and served as a loadmaster on the C-17 Globemaster III.

Schmitz supported some of our nations most sensitive missions, the commander said.

Schmitz pursued his dream of becoming a pilot, attended Officer Training School and graduated at the top of his class during pilot training, Sullivan said.

Our condolences go out to the Schmitz family, the gamblers and to all of team Shaw, he said, referring to the nickname of the 77th.

The latest accident marks the fourth crash of a U.S. Air Force fighter jet since May.

1st Lt. Kenneth Kage Allen died when his F-15C Eagle crashed off the coast of Great Britain during a routine training mission June 15. Allen was part of the 493rd Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, at RAF Lakenheath, England.

An F-35A Lightning II, assigned to the 58th Fighter Squadron of the 33rd Fighter Wing, crashed on May 19 upon landing at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The pilot successfully ejected and was evaluated at the base hospital.

Days earlier, an F-22 Raptor crashed during a routine training flight near Eglin. The pilot was able to eject and was also evaluated.

Separate investigations have been launched into each incident, officials have said.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related: Eglin Orders Brief Suspension of Flight Ops Following F-35, F-22 Crashes
MONROVIA, Representative J. Nagbe Sloh of Sinoe County District two has died at the John F. Kennedy memorial hospital late Tuesday June 30, 2020, family members told New Republic.

The cause of his death is not known, but the former lawmaker was sick in recent times from several complications.

The late Rep. Sloh

Prior to his death, he was reported to have been suffering from pressure and abdominal pain.

Hon. Sloh, was a former journalist with vast experience in the field. He served as chairman on Communication. He last served as head of the Liberia News Agency.

He was critical of the ruling party, which he later joined last year. Prior to joining the party, he was a member of the former ruling party, Unity Party.

NEWS REPORTER

Alphonso Toweh

Alphonso been in the profession for over twenty years. He has worked for many international media outlets including: West Africa Magazine, Africa Week Magazine, African Observer and did occasional reporting for CNN, BBC World Service, Sunday Times, NPR, Radio Deutchewells, Radio Netherlands. He is the current correspondent for Reuters. Mr. Toweh holds first MA with honors in International Relations and a candidate for second master in International Peace studies and Conflict Resolution.
Birnin Kebbi  The Village Head of Tungar Mallam in Suru Local Government Area of Kebbi State, Alhaji Ibrahim Sarkin-Yaki, said he lived on water only for four days while in captivity in the den of kidnappers.

Narrating his ordeal, Sarkin Yaki said about a fortnight ago, the daredevils came knocking.

He said: "The kidnappers were eight in number and each one of them was carrying a AK47 rifle, while I could see many other rifles inside a sack by their side," he recalled.

"The kidnappers stormed my house at about 1.00 a.m. on Sunday."

Sarkin- Yaki added that they woke him up and asked for money and that after they realised there was no money for them, they decided to beat his wife.

When all pleas went into deaf ears, he told them to exercise some patience till the following morning for him to look for some money to settle their demand.

"I told them to wait so that I can scout for the money; they said no.

"Instead, they decided to take me away into Gworon Dutse bush, which is located close to the highway linking Dakingari and Bunza towns.

"We trekked for about five hours inside the bush," he recounted.

Sarkin-Yaki added that while on the way to their den, they subjected him to all forms of humiliation despite his old age.

"I spent four days in their den without food.

"They only give me water to drink.

"I had to force myself to live on the water in order to survive.

"Prior to taking me away, they discovered that I do not have a cell phone.

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"They, therefore, kept a SIM card behind my house and covered it with a piece of cloth and some leaves. "

While in captivity, he said his relations stumbled over the empty SIM card that was deliberately abandoned in his house.

After inserting it, the kidnappers who were monitoring the SIM Card immediately placed a call to them for negotiation to begin, he stated.

"It was through that SIM card that the kidnappers communicated with my family.

"They demanded for a N4 million ransom but my family members told them they could only raise only N2 million in a few days."

The Village Head said he regained his freedom with an agreement that he would complete the rest of the amount but did not say whether the kidnappers gave him an ultimatum within which the money must be paid.

When contacted, the chairman, Suru Local Government Area, Alhaji Umar Maigandi, declined to comment on the matter.

On his part, the spokesman of Kebbi State Police Command, DSP Nafi'u Abubakar, said that the Police were doing everything possible to bring the perpetrators to book.
Ararsa Merdassa, Oromia Police Commission Commissioner General told local news media late this afternoon that the number of people who are killed in connection with continued protests against the assassination of prominent Oromo artist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa has climbed to 81. One of the killed is Haacaaluu's uncle, who the commissioner did not mention by name. Of the 81 who were killed so far 78 are civilians, and three are members of Oromia police force. Seven of those killed are in the capital Addis Abeba, the Commissioner General said without giving further details.

According to the Commissioner General Haacaaluu's uncle was killed in Ambo today in what he said was a bomb thrown at his house. However, two eye witnesses who spoke to Addis Standard said that he was killed by security forces as he confronted them from removing the body of Haacaaluu out of the family's house. The body was later on taken to an army barrack on the outskirts of the city of Ambo. The regional state said the artist will "receive a hero's funeral tomorrow." But the youth in the city continued protesting that the artist should be laid to rest in Addis Abeba, where he lived with his widow and three children.

There were sustained gunshots throughout the city today, the two eye witnesses told our reporter Mahlet Fasil and added there were "several deaths" as federal and regional security forces "fired live bullets" at angry crowds. "I have seen two dead people laying on the ground near the main police station where protests were happening today," one of the eye witnesses told Addis Standard by phone. "Both bodies were laying there for several hours as shootings were coming from everywhere." Members of the federal police were deployed in the city since yesterday after the government airlifted the body of Haacaaluu by a helicopter from Addis Abeba.

Haacaaluu's family have not spoken to the media directly as of yet. But an interview with VOA Amharic containing his father's interview is expected to be aired tonight.

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Protests have also continued elsewhere in the region, according to the Commissioner General. Many cities in Arsi, including cities in west Arsi, as well as Jimma and Adama, among others, were places where sustained protests continued. Unconfirmed reports indicate that several properties belonging to the government and private citizens were destroyed in Arsi Assela and in Jimma. The Commissioner General was not forthcoming to describe the details and Internet connectivity remained shutdown; phone networks outside of Addis are also sporadic.

Meanwhile in Addis Abeba, heavily armed members of the city's police have, this afternoon, detained Eskendir Nega, founder & leader of the opposition party Balderas for Genuine Democracy, according to Henok Aklilu, lawyer and head of the party's legal department. Henok said they didn't know the reason behind the detention of Eskendir, nor the place where he is currently held at.

#Ethiopia: @AddisPolice detained Eskinder Nega, founder & leader of the opposition party Balderas for Genuine Democracy today from his office, lawyer Henok Aklilu told AS's @MahletFasil. He added that the police didn't say why Eskinder was detained, nor where he was detained at. pic.twitter.com/n6dcjvpGOU - Addis Standard (@addisstandard) July 1, 2020

There were gunshot sounds in various parts of the city throughout this afternoon, our reporter confirmed. In the area commonly known as Kazanchis, several group of youths were seen with knives, rocks and sticks chanting "we will defend the city." Armed police and members of the federal army are stationed in various parts of the city, which remained eerily quiet. AS
French President Emmanuel Macron and leaders from the G5 Sahel group of countries have met in Mauritania to discuss the ongoing fight against jihadists. Macron's first trip outside of Europe since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic is a sign of solidarity with the region, according to the Elysee Palace.

"Efforts continue, progress is significant, but still insufficient," said Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani.

"This Nouakchott summit gives us the opportunity to exchange views on the evolution of the security situation in the region. In light of, not only the resurgence of violence in Libya and its negative impact on the entire sub-region, but also of the dangerous expansion of terrorists to new regions," the Mauritanian leader added, referring to the attack in Kafolo, Cote d'Ivoire last June.

Ghazouani said that debt for the poorest countries must be cancelled, especially since government's budgets had taken a hit with the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. This would help solve the root socio-economic problems that have contributed to the insurgency, according to the Mauritanian president.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission, and Louise Mushikiwabo, head of the Francophonie group, also took part in the Nouakchott meeting, as well as Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Moving forward

Discussions focused on strategy, some six months after the last meeting in Pau, south-western France. Talks on 13 January had not been particularly positive given several months of difficulties on the ground.

In Pau, priorities had been defined in terms of the enemy, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, (ISIS-GS), and targeting a particular region, the border area of Mali, Niger and Burkina.

Six months later, although the gains made are fragile, the state of things is seen completely differently, with a view that victory is possible in the Sahel.

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Strengthened by an additional 500 troops, Operation Barkhane, has increased its operations and changed its way of working.

New strategy

To try and dislodge the jihadists, the French military operation will use less convoys containing heavy and slow vehicles, often the target of homemade improvised explosive devices. Instead, it aims to put more of a long-term, permanent presence in place on the ground.

The 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment have been designated on the ground, with complete autonomy, out in the wild, for several weeks in coordination with regional armies, as had previously been decided in January.

After several months, the results are evident, according to the French military, several hundred jihadists have been neutralised, including the killing of Abdelmalek Droudel, the head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in a targeted attack on 3 June.

Paris wants to see consolidation of military gains through the action of national armies, through redeployment of forces to unstable areas and targeted development projects.

Macron said he is "convinced that victory in the Sahel is possible", but forces from G5 Sahel countries must show "exemplary" action on the ground, amid accusations of human rights abuses during some military operations.

"We're getting back on track, thanks to the efforts that have been made over the past six months," Macron added.
Rwanda's exportation through Alibaba platforms increased by 124% in 2019 according to information from Alibaba.

The Chinese e-commerce giant opened its doors to Rwanda products in 2018 when the electronic world Trade platform (eWTP) deal was signed between the two parties.

The eWTP aims at opening markets for small businesses in Africa to take part in cross-border electronic trade.

Thanks to the deal, Alibaba has availed Rwandan products to Chinese consumers online, in addition to promoting the country's tourism packages in the Asian nation.

Coffee has arguably been the most outstanding products from Rwanda in China, though chili is also coming up in that line.

There are several brands of Rwandan coffee available for sale on Alibaba's Tmall Global platform.

According to People's Daily, a newspaper in China, since Rwanda joined the eWTP at the end of 2018, the importation from Rwanda (mainly coffee and chili) through Alibaba platforms increased by 124% in 2019; and the numbers of consumers purchasing Rwandan tourism products on Fliggy (Alibaba's tourism site) has more than doubled.

Since last year, Alibaba has been organising online events aimed at promoting Rwandan coffee to Chinese consumers.

One of such events took place in May this year, and in it about 1.5 tonnes of roasted Rwandan coffee beans were sold within a minute.

A promotional event for chili took place late last month. In the event, Rwanda's ambassador to China James Kimonyo attended a livestream session promoting various products made from Rwandan chili sauce.

Rebranded by Freshippo (Alibaba's new retail grocery chain), Rwanda's chili products have been steadily gaining popularity on the Chinese market since the beginning of the year, and according to information from Alibaba, more than 60 tons of the chili have been imported since the beginning of the 2019.

With hundreds of millions of consumers, Alibaba is the world's largest online commerce company and home to leading cross-border marketplaces where Chinese consumers look to find the highest quality products from around the world.
analysis

Nigeria imposed a lockdown when it had few cases, then eased it as they accelerated. More importantly, it did not use the time it bought wisely.

This March, as the coronavirus pandemic continued its spread around the world, 74 countries imposed some form of lockdown. One of them was Nigeria. Even though Africa's most populous country had just 97 confirmed cases and 1 recorded death at the time, the government on 29 March announced sweeping restrictions in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, Lagos state and Ogun state.

On 13 April, President Muhammadu Buhari extended the measures for another two weeks. "This is not a joke. It is a matter of life and death," he warned. "Mosques in Mecca and Medina have been closed. The Pope celebrated Mass on an empty St Peter's Square. The famous Notre Dame cathedral in Paris held Easter Mass with less than ten people. India, Italy and France are in complete lockdown. Other countries are in the process of following suit."

These sweeping references to other countries - where the contexts and extent of COVID-19's spread were very different - was noteworthy. It gave the impression that Nigeria's decision to impose a lockdown was not so much responding to the science as part of a specially crafted strategy than jumping on the bandwagon.

The government's subsequent actions only seemed to confirm this sense. The number of new daily COVID-19 cases rose steadily from the dozens in mid-April to about two hundred in early May. Yet on 2 May, President Buhari held another national address in which he announced the easing of lockdown measures. This change of policy was not linked to any particular milestones in Nigeria's efforts to contain the virus. Rather, it seemed to be a response to the heavy economic and social costs of imposing it in the first place.

Since then, the virus' spread has continued to accelerate. On 2 May, Nigeria had 2,388 confirmed cases. By the latest count, it has recorded 25,694 cases with nearly 800 new cases recorded in one day on 27 June. The government has not reversed its decision to reopen the country.

Lost time

The sense that Nigeria's COVID-19 response has been motivated by a bandwagon effect can also be seen in what the government has not done. Lockdowns can have various functions. While the goal in most Western countries has been to "flatten the curve" to avoid overwhelming health services, Nigeria's lockdown could have been part of a strategy to buy time in other ways.

If this had been the case and the lockdown was part of a well-considered context-specific strategy, the government would have accompanied its imposition with a dramatic ramping up of other measures. It would have simultaneously mobilised much-needed resources to ramp up testing, develop sophisticated contact tracing systems and build new isolation facilities. It would have accelerated the training of health workers and equipped hospitals. It would have worked out the necessary measures to reopen the country in a more safely sustainable manner and ensured widespread support for citizens to abide by the restrictions without going hungry.

The government has said it used the lockdown period to take such measures, including preparing isolation centres, training workers and equipping hospitals. However, the success of these efforts remains questionable. On 15 June, Nigerian resident doctors declared a national strike partly due to what they said was inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline healthcare workers.

The government also fell far short in terms of testing. According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Nigeria has so far conducted 134,257 tests for a population of approximately 200 million. That's just 640 tests per 1 million population, a long way behind the likes of South Africa (26,426), Ghana (9,286), Senegal (4,687) or Kenya (3,114) according to Our World in Data. One could argue that one reason Nigeria has done fewer tests is that it has fewer cases to begin with, but Nigeria has also conducted the fewest tests for every positive case among these five countries. That suggests that Nigeria has stricter testing criteria and/or less testing capacity compared to many of its African counterparts.

Finally, while the government did roll out some programmes to help the most vulnerable during the lockdown, the consensus is that they were underwhelming at best. Many citizens felt abandoned in these hardest of times and several groups felt unable to adhere to the restrictions.

Just getting started

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As of 30 June, Nigeria has recorded 25,694 confirmed cases and 590 deaths. The pandemic is still just beginning, but the steps the government must take are the same as before.

Rather than looking across to other countries with completely different contexts and simply jumping on the bandwagon, Nigeria must learn strategically from its neighbours' successes and failures. It must identify gaps in its systems, work out a long-term multi-faceted strategy fit for the Nigerian context and implement it.

Without the technological infrastructure of some countries in East Asia, Nigeria's lockdown would never have been able to fully contain COVID-19. With just a few dozen cases at the time unlike some western countries, Nigeria's lockdown was not geared at "flattening the curve". But it did buy Nigeria some time even if it came with a huge social and economic cost.

Unfortunately, that time was not used to its full potential. Now the government must make up for much lost time. The challenge is still only just beginning.

Babasola Sodipo has a Masters of Public Health Degree from Harvard University.
Nairobi  President Uhuru Kenyatta has commended the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) for its efforts in improving service delivery in Nairobi and its catchment.

The President expressed satisfaction with the progress made by NMS in implementing the directives he gave to the new agency at its launch on 18th March this year.

"I issued several directives to NMS to achieve within the 100 days, which period ended on Saturday, 28th, June this year," he said after a tour of the city on Tuesday.

The directives, he said, were aimed at enhancing service provision in the areas of waste collection and disposal, water and sanitation, housing and urban development, transport and public works.

"I am satisfied that the directives for the first 100 days have been implemented in earnest," the President said.

President Kenyatta spoke at Harambee House in Nairobi when he received the 100-days performance report by the NMS.

At the ceremony also attended by Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja, the President challenged NMS to work towards making Nairobi a model city.

"I challenge NMS to demonstrate that Nairobi can be the model of our Post Covid-19 National Recovery Strategy," President Kenyatta told NMS top leadership led by Director General Mohammed Badi.

Major General Badi assured the Head of State of his agency's determination to transform Nairobi into a smart city by fully implementing its broad mandate.

DG Badi said NMS had created new jobs by employing the youth and street families in its projects through the government's "Kazi Mtaani" initiative.

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"On re-carpeting of CBD roads, NMS has completed 30 percent of all the roads and is using Kazi Mtaani initiative.

"To this end, NMS has engaged our youth in drainage clearing, waste management and rehabilitation of roads," DG Badi said, adding that street families provide the bulk of the labour force for the ongoing construction of Grogan Road.

Shortly after receiving the NMS report, the President toured some of the agency's projects in Nairobi's informal settlements.

The President visited community water boreholes and water purification facilities at Kiboro Primary School (Mathare), Chief's Camp (Mathare North) and at Kibra DCC's office.

Communities neighbouring the boreholes receive treated water for their domestic use at no cost.

The Head of State also toured ongoing urban renewal and affordable housing projects in Ngara and Pangani neighbourhoods.

The housing projects are being implemented by the state department of housing, NMS and Nairobi City County.
Nairobi  Driving along the Mombasa-Malindi highway, you will not miss it. You will notice from a far new buildings emerging in the midst of the neat rows of Sisal.

Should you have a minute to spare to visit the project, you will be amazed by both the scale and delightful arrangement of this residential district coming up at Vipingo.

Welcome to Vipingo Development, the new coastal frontier.

A mixed-use development by Centum Investment Plc, the 10,254 acre Vipingo Development (www.vipingodevelopment.com) is by far the largest mixed-use development in the region.

Located just 35Km from Mombasa City CBD, this development is set to transform into one of the most sought-after destination.

This exquisite address is conveniently located 1Km from Vipingo Ridge airstrip, 35Kms from Moi International airport, 35Kms from the Standard Gauge Railway (Mombasa Terminus) and enjoys excellent road connectivity via the Mombasa- Malindi Highway and the Mariakani-Kaloleni-Mavueni bypass.

The development which seeks to provide the lowest cost and most competitive location from which to do business in the region is anchored by an Investment Park set on 1,151 acres with 250 acres set aside for Phase 1.

The serviced plots are suitable for warehousing, logistics, light and medium processing industries, EPZ and commercial developments.

To provide potable and reliable water supply, the development has put up a 3 million litres/day sea water desalination plant that is currently under construction.

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The development is meticulously zoned with the residential zone playing host to 3 residential projects namely Awali Estate, 1255-Pam Ridge and KingsWood Park. Awali Estate is an exclusive gated community comprising of 152 bungalows and maisonettes.

Amenities include children play areas and playgrounds, a swimming pool, a jogging track and expansive green parks. The estate which is currently under construction is scheduled for handover in September 2020.

An affordable housing project namely 1255-Palm Ridge comprises 1, 2 and 3-bedroom apartments.

The apartments are set in a gated community with children play areas and playgrounds, expansive green parks and a swimming pool.

The first phase of the apartments is sold out and is set for handover at the end of December 2020 with the second phase scheduled for handover in April 2020.

For investors looking to build their dream homes, look no further. KingsWood Park offers serviced plots from 1/8th acre with four unique typologies that landowners can build from.

This mega project will truly transform the Kilifi County and the Kenyan Coast at large.
A day after lawmakers had a public spat with a minister, the National Assembly has 'ordered' a stop to the recruitment of 774,000 Nigerians under the Public Works Programme until the modalities for the exercise have been explained to the lawmakers.

It also mandated its Committees on Labour and Employment to immediately invite the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, and any other relevant officials of the ministry to brief the joint committee on the modalities for the implementation of the engagement of 774,000 persons for public works - in line with its constitutional oversight function.

The lawmakers disclosed their stance through a joint statement by the spokespersons of the Senate and House of Representatives, Ajibola Basiru and Benjamin Kalu.

This comes a day after an altercation between members of the joint committee and the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, over recruitments under the programme.

But the lawmakers said their directive was because the National Assembly was concerned about "the proper and effective implementation of the engagement of 774,000 public workers and wishes to restate its commitment to its success."

"The National Assembly reminds members of the public that the legislature was part of the conception of the programme, approved it and appropriated funds for its implementation as part of the COVID-19 response strategy.

"... In view of the foregoing, the implementation of the programme shall be on hold pending proper briefing of the National Assembly by the Minister of Labour and Productivity.

"The National Assembly will ensure transparency of the process just as done with the National Social Register by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and social Development," part of the statement read. The statement, however, did not state a time and date for the minister to appear before the committee.

The lawmakers, by Nigerian law, do not have the power to order a stop to the implementation of an already signed budget or law. Only the Nigerian president can give such order. However, President Muhammadu Buhari has given no indication he wants the programme halted.

The federal government, on Tuesday, announced committees nationwide to commence the implementation of the programme.

Before the government's Tuesday announcement, Mr Keyamo was, on Tuesday, involved in a heated argument with members of a joint committee of the national assembly - an act which a senator, Ifeanyi Ubah, described as a display of rascality.

Mr Keyamo had also directed all the committees set up nationwide made up of CAN, NSCIA, NURTW, market women, CSOS, youth organisations, traditional rulers, etc to proceed with their work unhindered, adding that the joint committee has no power to suspend or decide how the programme should be run as that will be "challenging the powers of the president."

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PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported the clash between Mr Keyamo and the lawmakers at a meeting he had with the Joint Committee of the National Assembly on Employment and Labour. The meeting was aimed at discussing the progress of the planned employment of 774,000 Nigerians by the federal government.

The National Assembly had in the 2020 budget appropriated N52 billion for the Special Public Works Programme aimed at employing 774,000 citizens, a thousand from each of the 774 local government areas in the country.

My Keyamo had accused the lawmakers of wanting to sabotage the recruitment process despite receiving 15 per cent jobs slots.

In their statement on Wednesday, the lawmakers did not deny that allegation of taking 15 per cent of the jobs for their cronies.
Multimillion infrastructure projects that include Gishuro IDP Model Village, a Rwf 4 billion Gatunda Hospital and the 3,500 seater Nyagatare stadium will be launched during celebrations to mark the 26th anniversary of Liberation Day on July 4 in Nyagatare District, Eastern Province.

The event will take place in Tabagwe Sector, Kaborogota Cell, where the IDP village is located.

The village is home to 64 vulnerable families and has affiliated infrastructure around that includes an Early Childhood Development centre (ECD Centre), health post, handcraft centre and a cowshed for 64 cows that will be provided to the new residents.

The 64 families in the village will also have poultry with 2,000 chickens, 73-hectare land for crop farming, and 20 hectares for growing cattle forage.

In Tabagwe, there will also be the launch of the newly constructed Tabagwe Health Centre, and 30.8Km Nyagatare-Tabagwe-Karama chipseal road, which links Nyagatare city, Tabagwe and Karama Sector.

Other projects to be inaugurated are; GS Tabagwe, a primary and secondary school in Tabagwe Cell that was upgraded, with newly constructed dormitories and refectories for students and teachers.

According to the Ministry of Local Government's announcement on June 25, there are projects that will be launched in each district around the country during Kwibohora Week.

Nyagatare District has the highest number (10) of projects expected to be launched on July 4, including those in Tabagwe.
Just when the region thought the worst of the flooding was over, the weatherman is warning of another bout; only this time, some areas will be spared but dealt another devastating blow: extra-ordinarily dry spells.

The erratic weather pattern threatens cropping seasons due to crop-water-stress and the earlier-than-normal end of the March to May rainfall season.

Meteorologists warn that parts of Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia, should expect above normal rainfall, and a return of floods between June and September.

The rainfall forecast tells of an elevated risk of flooding to the Nile River Basin and the Lake Victoria Basin and surrounding low-lying areas of the region.

In unimodal (single peak rainfall-dependent) areas of Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Sudan, as well as western Kenya and northeastern Uganda, rainfall forecasts predict above-average June to September seasonal rainfall with an associated risk of floods in river basins.

"The overall impact of the devastating floods is yet to be fully assessed due to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, but the floods caused significant crop damage and destroyed various infrastructure in affected areas," said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net).

In Kenya, says Fews Net, 40 per cent of paddies in southwestern Kenya were reportedly damaged by Lake Victoria overflows in surrounding low-lying regions.

In Somalia, some 50,000 hectares of riverine and agropastoral farmland was inundated, representing approximately 17 per cent of total land cultivated during the April to June Gu season.

KEY INFORMANTS

Fews Net is concerned about crop production prospects in eastern and southeastern Kenya, southern and northwestern Somalia, southwestern Ethiopia, parts of Uganda, and southeastern South Sudan due to the mixed effects of heavy rainfall and floods, the early end of the long rain season, and the destructive invasion by desert locusts.

The network said satellite-derived crop simulation models and key-informants have confirmed that already several areas like western Ethiopia, western Darfur, eastern and southern Sudan, northwestern South Sudan, that are currently experiencing rainfall deficits are consequently exhibiting drier-than-normal vegetation conditions.

Currently, several pastoralist and marginal agricultural livelihood zones that are dependent on the March to May rains in western Uganda, western Rwanda, southern South Sudan, southern Somalia, and Somali region of Ethiopia, are experiencing rainfall deficits of 10-100 mm. In these areas, cumulative rainfall has dropped by up to 55 per cent of normal rains. So are southern Sudan, parts of western Ethiopia, and northwestern South Sudan.

Rainfall deficits are also expected to emerge in coastal Kenya and Tanzania in the upcoming season. The expected dry spell could inspire the formation of a third-generation of desert locust swarms, groups, and bands which remain a threat to the region.

LOCUST SWARMS

Crop losses from desert locusts have been reported in southeastern South Sudan and Belg-cropping areas of southwestern Ethiopia. And there is renewed concern for additional crop losses in agropastoral areas of Somalia during the June to September dry season in bimodal areas of the Horn.

As far as anticipated harvests are concerned, it is a mixed bag of fortune as satellite imaging indicates broadly average to slightly above-average crop yield prospects for early-planted crops (planted in February or early March) outside of flood-affected riverine or low-lying areas.

"However, there is increasing concern that late-planted crops (planted in April) will be subject to significantly reduced yields or even crop failure in marginal cropping areas in eastern and southeastern lowlands of Kenya due to prolonged crop water stress in May and early June. Most riverine cropping areas still remain water-logged," says Fews Net.

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In Uganda, most early-planted maize crops in the south are in the late maturity to harvesting stages, and recent field reports indicate green-maize harvesting is ongoing in this region, according to the report.

In the rest of the country, however, there is increasing concern for reduced yields of maize, which is mostly in the reproductive to maturity stages, due to poor May rainfall.

There, the establishment of average June to September seasonal rainfall in the eastern and northern regions are anticipated to maintain a risk of flooding, especially around the Lake Victoria and Nile River basins and flood-prone areas in the Mt Elgon region.
Ambassador of Belarus A.Aleksandrov meets the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade of Cuba

On June 30, 2020 the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Republic of Cuba, Aleksandr Aleksandrov, met with the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment of the Republic of Cuba, Ana Teresita Gonzalez Fraga.

During the meeting, the parties discussed the implementation of the Joint Action Plan of the governments of Belarus and Cuba on the development of trade and economic cooperation as well as the issue of Cubas upcoming observer status at the Eurasian Economic Union.

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Police in Marigat, Baringo County arrested a middle-aged man who allegedly defiled his niece at a mission hospital where she had been admitted.

Mary Monari, the Marigat Catholic Mission Health Centre Hospital in-charge, said the class eight pupil had been admitted on June 13 with acute malaria and burns.

Sister Monari said the girls 38-year-old uncle claimed the 16-year-old was epileptic and that he was required to monitor her within the ward, a request that was granted.

On the night of June 15, the suspect allegedly switched off the lights and defiled her.

A doctor who examined the girl in the morning raised alarm after observing discharge from the minors private parts, Monari said.

The minor was discharged over the weekend and handed over to a childs welfare unit on Monday. She had been living with her uncle for more than five years after the death of her parents.

Confirming the incident, Area police commander Benjollife Munuve said the suspect will be charged in a Kabarnet court today, July 2, 2020.
A former manager at Kenya Revenue Authority who is facing tax-evasion charges alongside his wife is said to have built his reported Sh597 million networth using bribes he received at the Mombasa port.

Joseph Chege Gikonyo and his wife Lucy Kangai have since 2016 been in and out of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Court at Milimani over how they acquired Sh597 million between 2010 and 2015.

They have since denied charges of evading Sh38.6 million in taxes and were granted Sh5 million bail each, with an alternative of Sh10 million bond each.

Investigations by Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) revealed that Mr Gikonyo became an overnight millionaire from bribes paid by clearing and forwarding firms at the Mombasa port in return for releasing cargo or lowering their tax liabilities.

Gikonyos day job involved valuations and document processing for goods imported through the port. His net pay was Sh119,617. He started off at KRA in 1998 as a junior tax collector earning a basic salary of Sh24,369.

To build their case, EACC sleuths traced 20 clearing and forwarding agents who admitted that that bribing the KRA bureaucrat to release their cargo was a normal occurrence.

The agents admitted to paying Mr Gikonyo Sh258.4 million to have their goods released, the Daily Nation reports.

EACC investigations indicated that Mr Gikonyo received Sh43.9 million through mobile money transfer and Sh214.4 million in cash.

Investigations revealed that at some point, Gikonyo and his wife were making huge cash deposits into their account in tranches of Sh200,000 almost daily. They could not explain the source of such deposits, which made us believe the amounts were proceeds of crime, said James Kariuki, EACCs forensic investigator.

Gikonyo and his wife allegedly made cash deposits of Sh399 million in their bank accounts between 2010 and 2016.

Through their company, Giche Investments, the suspects acquired properties in Nairobi, Kilifi and Mombasa Counties using what detectives believe are proceeds of graft.

Gikonyo owns two plots in Nyali, Mombasa County, valued at Sh125 million, two parcels of land in Shanzu valued at Sh26 million and a posh farmhouse in Kilifi town valued at over Sh27 million and a Sh9 million house in Vescon estate.

In Nairobi, Gikonyos listed property includes 13 plots in Sosian estate valued at Sh75 million, several flats in Umoja estate valued at Sh33.5 million, a house at Greenspan estate valued at Sh12 million.

Other property includes a Sh40 million house in Mombasa town, land in Kwale valued at Sh2.5 million and another plot in Mtwapa valued at Sh2 million.

Gikonyo also bought stocks in Equity Bank, Safaricom and KenGen and took insurance policies with Madison Insurance and the Kenya Reinsurance Corporation for his family totalling Sh3.7 million.

The graft suspect had told investigators that he amassed his massive wealth from his businesses  transportation, dairy and fish farming as well as selling spare parts, building materials and horticulture products.

However, when asked for evidence of the other businesses, Gikonyo could not produce any material or books of accounts to prove that he was involved in those businesses.

Gikonyo and his wife were on Tuesday directed to deposit their travel documents in court and warned against leaving the jurisdiction of the court without permission.

The tax-evasion case will be mentioned on July 13, 2020 for pre-trial directions.
Photo: McDonald's Corporation(NEW YORK) -- If your holiday weekend involves hitting the road and maybe swinging by the Golden Arches along the way, you might have to stick to the drive-thru.

According to The Wall Street Journal, upticks in COVID-19 cases nationwide have led McDonald's to suspend by three weeks its plans to re-open more eateries for dine-in patrons, which were scheduled to begin over the July 4 weekend.

In May, the fast-food giant began reopening its dining areas to patrons; around 2,200 of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants continue to do so, according to the paper.

Those McDonald's locations that already have fully reopened after months of drive-thru-only rules will continue to offer full service, although that depends on each state's rules, which may have changed.

For example, officials in California, New York and New Jersey have reversed plans to re-open bars and restaurants to try to tamp down the growing number of coronavirus cases in various counties. New York has scrapped altogether a July 6 date for establishments to offer indoor dining.

In a a company letter that was obtained by WSJ by Joe Erlinger, McDonalds U.S. president, and Mark Salebra, head of the National Franchisee Leadership Alliance owners association, the executives cautioned, "Our resiliency will be tested again. Covid-19 cases are on the rise."

They stressed that employees should remain vigilant with food handling, social distancing and other safety measures McDonald's put in place because of the coronavirus. "This surge shows nobody is exempt from this virus -- even places that previously had very few cases," the letter says.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
The bitcoin craze is quickly sweeping the country and millions of Kenyans are rushing to secure themselves a quick deal and make a fast buck while at it.

But while bitcoin itself is a little hectic and may take need more processes to go about, a Kenyan version of the virtual money has been launched and its already blowing up the market.

PESSA COIN, a Kenyan version of bitcoin, has already been launched by popular forex trading company 51 Capital and its making its way into the pockets of millions of Kenyans.

The virtual launch has seen many rush to secure themselves a coin and make a quick trade as more and more Kenyans cash in on the craze.

One PESSA COIN will be costing Ksh.53 and can be sold for as much as Ksh. 75 or even more.

Martha Kariuki, a bitcoin fanatic, is one of the first Kenyans to hold onto the coins and she explained her excitement to us saying,

This is wild. I have been into the bitcoin business for a while now and I never imagined I would ever have to trade with our own local coins. Bitcoin is hectic and it takes quite a number of steps before you make some profit but with PESSA COIN Im so excited, the rates are great and the profits are amazing, 

PESSA COIN is the brainchild of Joe Kariuki, a seasoned forex trader and online entrepreneur who now has roped in hundreds of youths into a profitable business that does not require much sweat, stress or hassle.

PESSA Coins are already out there. People are rushing to cash in. People are buying them wildly. Its incredible. We want to offer Kenyans alternative ways of earning a living and weve seen lives transformed by the magic of virtual money, Joe Kariuki says.

Martin Kinyua, 24, also swears by the name of PESSA COIN and particularly loves the design.

Its great. It looks fantastic. I love the name as well. And the fact that it also works with MPESA is just too good. Its a new world for me he says.

Well, what are you waiting for? Grab yourself some pessa coins and lets roll!
Here are todays top stories.

Sweeping national security law imposed as Hong Kong marks handover anniversary Hong Kong woke up to a new reality on Wednesday, after Chinas central government imposed a sweeping national security law late the night before that critics say has stripped the city of its autonomy and precious civil and social freedoms, and cements Beijings authoritarian rule over the territory.

Judge temporarily blocks publication of tell-all book by President Trumps niece A New York judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the publication of an unflattering tell-all book written by President Trumps niece that Simon & Schuster is set to publish in July.

He was an athlete in the best shape of his life. Then Covid-19 nearly killed him Its been a little over two months since those touch-and-go days and Ahmad Ayyad still recovering. But he has a message  for those who refuse to wear a mask during this pandemic, for those dismissive of public health guidance, for those in the prime of their health and feel invincible against coronavirus.

Trump defends honoring racists in monument debate As American institutions remove symbols or names tied to racist ideology, they have found a consistent opponent in President Donald Trump.

Wrongly arrested Black man said he knew he was going to be falsely accused as police approached him As Valdosta police approached Antonio Smith, he was terrified and thought he was going to get pinned for something I didnt do, he told CNN.

Harvey Weinstein victims were awarded $19 million in compensation fund The New York Attorney Generals office announced Tuesday a nearly $19 million settlement for women who experienced sexual abuse and harassment by imprisoned former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Carl Reiner, longtime comedy legend, dies at 98 Carl Reiner, the writer, actor, director and producer whose many decades worth of credits  including The Dick Van Dyke Show and The 2000 Year Old Man  showcased a ready wit and a generous spirit, has died.

Francis Bacon painting sells for $84M at first-of-its-kind virtual auction Written by Oscar Holland, CNN A Francis Bacon triptych sold for over $84 million during a virtual auction at Sothebys, on what was an encouraging  and highly unusual  evening for the coronavirus-hit art market.

Tokyo Disney parks reopen after 4-month closure due to coronavirus (CNN)  All of Disneys Asia parks have now officially reopened, with Tokyo Disney Resort welcoming visitors to its two theme parks from July 1. Both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea have been closed since late February due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A man graduated with a degree in ninja studies. Yes, its legit A 45-year-old Japanese man has become the worlds first person ever to graduate with a masters degree in ninja studies.

Lionel Messi: Barcelona forward scores 700th goal in draw with Atletico Madrid Lionel Messi scored the 700th goal of his career with a Panenka penalty in Barcelonas La Liga draw with Atletico Madrid on Tuesday. The Spanish giants all-time top scorer hit the landmark goal for club and country by gently chipping the ball into the net as Jan Oblak dived the wrong way.

Coronavirus updates: US buys up global supply of remdesivir  BBC News The Australian state of Victoria has recorded another 73 infections as an outbreak grips Melbourne. After two weeks of daily double-digit increases, the state is re-imposing a lockdown in 36 suburbs from midnight tonight (14:00 GMT Wednesday). It will affect about 300,000 residents in the city of five million, and last for four weeks.

How to take afternoon tea like a Brit  BBC Reel When faced with cake, tea and a fine selection of pastries, its the question everyone wants to know  how do I make the ensuing binge look graceful? British etiquette expert William Hanson guides through the dos and donts.

Airbus to cut 15,000 jobs amid coronavirus fallout Aerospace giant Airbus says it plans to cut 15,000 jobs as it deals with the effects of the coronavirus crisis. It will cut 1,700 jobs in the UK, along with thousands more in Germany, Spain and elsewhere. The move is subject to talks with unions which have opposed compulsory redundancies.

This UV-powered smart mask blocks nearly 100% of pathogens, pollutants Made by Detroit-based Redcliffe Medical, Leaf is a transparent mask with N99+ HEPA-carbon filtration.

Amazon Prime Video launches watch parties with up to 100 participants All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers.If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. Amazon Prime Video is upping its game in the socially distanced streaming wars.

Carl Reiner, beloved comedy legend, is dead at 98 The legendary producer, writer, director, and actor Carl Reiner is dead at 98. Reiner died of natural causes on Monday night at his Beverly Hills home, reported. (TMZ first broke the news on Tuesday.) His passing marks the end of a wildly successful career that included timeless collaborations with Mel Brooks and indelible contributions across the board to TV and film.
The US government has pledged Ksh5.3 billion ($50 million) to boost Kenyas Health sector and economic recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The funds will be disbursed through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to meet the immediate and longer-term challenges that the virus is posing.

The American people have always been generous to those in need around the world, and today Kenya is facing the compound challenges of Covid-19, flooding and locusts, US Ambassador to Kenya Kyle McCarter said, adding that they are focusing on ensuring resources get to the counties and local communities.

About Ksh1.5 billion ($15 million) of the funds will be used to strengthen health and water systems and ensure effective communication and community engagement to ensure Kenyans are healthy.

Ksh610 million will ensure children are educated through distance learning, young people gain jobs in emerging areas, and citizen-responsive governance helps mitigate possible conflict, violence, and civil unrest.

A further Ksh2.5 billion will be used to ensure small businesses stay afloat.

The funds will directly benefit Kenyans. We partner with the Kenyan government, NGOs, civil society and local organizations and institutions to support the Kenyan people. The U.S. requires our partners to adhere to rigorous reporting requirements and standards, USAID Mission Director Mark Meassick said.

Also Read: U.S Pledges Ksh705 Million to Kenyas COVID-19 War
"The primary risks for future spillover of zoonotic diseases are deforestation of tropical environments and large-scale industrial farming of animals, specifically pigs and chickens at high density," says Emory disease ecologist Thomas Gillespie. (Getty Images)

On July 6 in 1885, Louis Pasteur successfully administered the first vaccine against rabies, one of the most feared diseases of that time. The bite of an infected animal transmits the rabies virus to humans, leading to an agonizing death without the vaccine.



World Zoonoses Day, held July 6 every year, marks this major breakthrough in the fight against zoonoses  diseases caused by germs that spread between animals and people. And yet, 135 years later, despite tremendous advances in science and medicine, the world is struggling to respond to the novel coronavirus  the latest devastating pathogen to spill over from animals.



We are at a crisis point, says Thomas Gillespie, associate professor in Emory Universitys Department of Environmental Sciences and Rollins School of Public Health. We have to act now. We cannot forsake this moment. If we dont radically change our attitudes toward the natural world, things are going to get much, much worse. Pandemics will become increasingly common. What we are experiencing now will seem mild by comparison.



Gillespie served as an expert reviewer for a report by the United Nations Environmental Program and partners, Preventing future zoonotic disease outbreaks: Protecting the environment, animals and people in a post-COVID-19 world, to be released July 6.



The primary risks for future spillover of zoonotic diseases are deforestation of tropical environments and large-scale industrial farming of animals, specifically pigs and chickens at high density, Gillespie says.



A disease ecologist, Gillespie studies how germs jump between wildlife, domesticated animals and people. Through this One Health approach, he aims to protect humans, ecosystems and biodiversity.

While vaccine development is important, pathogens can leap from animals to humans much faster than scientists can develop vaccines and treatments. We also need complementary approaches that focus on the environment, Gillespie notes. Its far cheaper to invest in the prevention of infectious disease outbreaks than to deal with the consequences of a pandemic.



Gillespie is contributing his One Health expertise to an upcoming United Nations forum on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.



The silos have broken down, Gillespie says. There is growing awareness that we dont need a separate forum on climate change and another one for pandemics. Discussions about the environment and health should be integrated and not considered separately so that we can gain momentum. We really need to be sprinting right now. Climate change and the increase in pandemics are both signals that we have reached a tipping point.



Genetic sequencing links the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 to horseshoe bats in China. The first detected outbreak sprang from a live animal market in Wuhan. Gillespie points out, however, that the coronavirus may have been circulating in remote, rural areas before it was detected in Wuhan, a city of 10 million where population density fueled rapid transmission.



He notes that no one has studied the ecological impacts of Chinas Three Gorges Dam project. The worlds largest hydroelectric power station, it was built on the Yangtze River on what was previously a mix of secondary forest and agricultural land.



Live animal markets are definitely dangerous places when it comes to spillover events, Gillespie says, but shutting all of them down wont solve the bigger issue. The markets are just a small piece of a much bigger problem.



Deforestation to make way for palm oil plantations, which changed the roosting habits of bats, was linked to a major Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia. Evidence suggests that similar deforestation in West Africa for palm oil production may have played a role in outbreaks of Lassa fever and Ebola.

A meta-analysis by Gillespie and colleagues quantified how fragmentation of forests by agriculture facilitates the spread of pathogens from wildlife. Optimal rates of spillover occur once 40 percent of the forest cover disappears. That opens a window where youre going to see more germs jumping species, Gillespie says. And tropical environments are at primary risk for pathogen spillover due to simple mathematics  there is a much richer diversity of species living in the tropics than in other environments.



In the developed world, and rapidly developing parts of the world, people are eating more animal protein and fried food than is recommended for human health. To meet the demand, corporations are clearing natural habitats for cattle ranches, for soybean fields to feed the cattle, and oil palm plantations for cooking oil.



Many species are endangered by these actions. Habitat loss, poaching and disease are the primary threats to the remaining great apes, Gillespie says. COVOID-19 poses a particularly dire situation for apes in danger of extinction, he adds, including bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. Due to genetic similarities, they are highly susceptible to human respiratory diseases. Gillespie serves as an adviser on great apes to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and has worked to develop IUCN guidelines during the pandemic to limit human contact with the animals while also protecting them from poachers. Gillespie and colleagues created the Non-human Primate COVID-19 Information Hub to serve as a real-time resource on the issue.



Current policies fail to factor in the costs of wholesale extraction of resources and the destruction of natural habitats, Gillespie warns. Nature will persist, he adds, even as biodiversity diminishes.



Nature will push forward, evolution will happen, without regard to human suffering, Gillespie says. Meanwhile, were ignoring how dependent we are on nature and how fragile we are in the grand scheme of things.



Gillespie starts off his undergraduate Conservation Biology class with a quiz. Among the questions: How many people are there on the planet? Has the world reached its human carrying capacity?



The last item on the quiz asks students to list 10 species that occur in Atlanta. None of the students ever writes Homo Sapiens, Gillespie says. Many people dont think of themselves as part of nature anymore. They have this artificial sense that were apart from it.



The pandemic is shifting perspectives. Were all feeling the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gillespie says. Thats created a sense of urgency that we havent seen with past discussions on climate change and land-use change. People are recognizing the linkages between our financial and agricultural systems, the environment and our health. Its critical right now to make the message as understandable as possible to as many people as possible.



Follow Thomas Gillespie on Twitter: @BiodiversHealth.
A new expert panel of Japan's government has met for the first time to assess the effectiveness of anti-coronavirus measures.

The four-member panel held its first meeting on Wednesday. Among the members are Kyoto University Professor Yamanaka Shinya and Professor Emeritus at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies Kurokawa Kiyoshi.

Economic Revitalization Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi, who's in charge of the country's coronavirus response, asked for the experts' cooperation.

He said he hopes to use all knowledge and technology available to improve anti-virus measures in preparation for a possible second wave of infections.

Starting this month, the government plans to use the supercomputer Fugaku and artificial intelligence to simulate how the virus could be transmitted through droplets.

The experts are expected to use such data to analyze the effectiveness of anti-virus measures.
-- The Lake City/Columbia County Chamber of Commerce has announced that the

annual 4th Of July Fireworks Celebration in Lake City is ON! But there will be some changes this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak.



The fireworks will be at the Florida Gateway Fairgrounds in Lake City as usual. Parking will from 6pm to 9pm, and the fireworks will begin around 9:15pm...rain or shine. The Chamber would like to thank the event sponsors: Nutrien and WastePro, and the community partners: the City of Lake City and Columbia County.
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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case of fraud and criminal conspiracy against Gunupati Venkata Krishna Reddy, the chairman of the GVK Group of Companies and his son G V Sanjay Reddy, Managing Director of Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL). The case has been registered against these two among others in connection with alleged irregularities amounting Rs 705 crore in running of the airport, news agency PTI reported citing unidentified CBI officials as saying on Wednesday.

Besides father and son, others who have been booked include MIAL, GVK Airport Holdings Ltd, nine other private companies and unidentified officials of AAI. Airport Authority of India (AAI) had formed a Joint venture with GVK Airports Holdings Limited, promoted by GVK group under public private partnership firm MIAL, for upgradation and maintenance of Mumbai Airport.

MIAL said it would have cooperated had CBI sought any explanation or documents. "MIAL is surprised to note the registration of case by CBI against MIAL and others. MIAL would have provided every assistance had the agency sought explanation or any document even if a preliminary enquiry had been initiated. MIAL is a transparent and responsible corporate entity which is committed to co-operate with the agency in its investigation to arrive at the truth," a company spokesperson said.

5 key things to know

AAI and MIAL signed an agreement on April 4, 2006 for Mumbai airport's modernisation, upkeep, operation and maintenance. It is alleged that promoters of GVK group in MIAL, in connivance with their executives and unidentified officials of AAI, allegedly siphoned off funds using different ways, officials also told the news agency.

The funds to the tune of Rs 310 crore were allegedly siphoned off showing bogus work contracts to nine firms in FY18, they added.

The promoters of GVK group allegedly misused reserve funds of MIAL amounting to Rs 395 crore to finance their group companies, the CBI alleged.

Even the expenditure figures of MIAL were claimed to have been inflated by the group by showing payments to employees at their headquarters and group companies who were not involved in the running of MIAL causing a revenue loss to AAI.

The promoters allegedly under reported revenue earnings of MIAL.

Meanwhile, the GVK Group recently said that it has raised over Rs 7,600 crore from investors which will be used to pare its debt and buy a 23.5 per cent stake in MIAL. GVK Airport Holdings (GVKAHL) the parent company of MIAL operates the Mumbai airport. The company has won the bid to develop Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) through Navi Mumbai International Airport (Private) (NMIAL) which is the subsidiary of MIAL.

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Around 100 interns demonstrated inside the Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC) in Tripura demanding immediate payment of their two months'' pending stipends on the National Doctors' Day. They withdrew the movement after Medical Superintendent Dr Debashish Roy assured them that their pending stipends will be paid within a week.

"We do the majority of work in the states main hospital. We work more than 14 hours a day. And we were not paid stipends for two months," one of the protestors said. "The agitation was withdrawn after we persuaded them that the payments would be made soon. This is only a procedural matter," Roy said.

Officials concerned were asked to process the bills and the money will be transferred to their bank accounts by next week, he said. During the internship period of one year, which is a part of the course curriculum, each intern gets Rs 18,000 a month.

The National Doctor's Day is observed on the birth and death anniversary of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, who was a physician, a freedom fighter and a former chief minister of West Bengal.
Alexandra BartonJewel will co-host a online benefit concert this Sunday to help the Indigenous community in the western part of the U.S., which has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

Among the artists participating in the event, called Voices of Siihasin -- that's the word for "assurance" in the Navajo language -- are Sia, Rachel Platten, Jason Mraz, Mike Posner, KT Tunstall, the band AWOLNATION, and Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers.

Specifically, the benefit will raise money for the World Central Kitchen charity, which will then provide thousands of meals to the children who live in the traditional Navajo homeland -- that includes large areas of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. The Navajo have been one of the tribes hardest hit by the pandemic.

The benefit starts at 5 p.m. ET on Sunday and will be livestreamed on Jewel's official Facebook page.

By Andrea Dresdale

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra cleared dues of her bungalow allotted in Lutyens' Delhi hours after she received a notice to vacate it. Yesterday, an order was issued by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry asking Priyanka to vacate her official bungalow by August 1 failing which "it will attract damage charges/penal rent as per rules". Priyanka was issued a notice that her dues as on June 30, 2020, stands Rs 3,46,677 and had to clear it before vacating the accommodation.

Priyanka was allotted the bungalow when she was Special Protection Group (SPG) protectee. Gandhi has been staying in Bangalow number 35, Lodhi Estate since February 21, 1997, as an SPG protectee.

However, last year in November, Centre had replaced SPG cover of Priyanka, along with her mother Sonia Gandhi, and brother Rahul Gandhi with Z-plus security by the CRPF.

Therefore, there is no provision under Z plus for allotment or retention of government accommodation. However, exceptions can be made only by the Cabinet Committee of Accommodation (CCA) based on security perception assessment by the home ministry on their recommendation.

The CCA in its meeting held on December 7, 2000, had reviewed the guidelines on the allotment of government accommodation on security ground and decided that in future, no private person, other than those who are SPG protectees, will be given such facility on security ground. Such allotment was to be done at the market rate -- 50 times of normal rent.

Later, in July 2003, it was decided by CCA to charge a special rate of licence fee -- 20 times the normal rent from such allottees.

Also read: PM Modi quits Chinese social media platform Weibo after ban on 59 apps

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TikTok has denied any plans to explore legal avenues against ban imposed by the Government of India. The response came after media reports claimed that the video sharing platform is considering legal options to challenge government's ban in courts.

"There have been statements in the press concerning the possibility that TikTok might pursue legal action regarding the directive by the Government of India. We have no plans to pursue such action," a spokesperson from the company said. "We are committed to working with the government to address its concerns. We comply with the laws and regulations of the Government of India. Ensuring the data sovereignty, security and privacy of our users has always been and will continue to be a top priority for us."

ALSO READ: No legal framework to ban TikTok! Crackdown on Chinese apps easier said than done

Meanwhile, Likee, another platform banned by the Centre, said that it respects the government's decision and has temporarily taken the app down. "The Government of India issued an interim order on June 29, 2020 to block 59 mobile apps, including Likee. We respect the Indian government's order and have temporarily taken off Likee from Google Play and App Store, and have suspended service in India until there is further clarity provided on this matter. To obey the government instruction, our R&D team worked around the clock to ensure the service shutdown," a company spokesperson said. "Likee is under the Singapore-based BIGO Technology and we hold utmost priority to the compliance of all local laws as well as the privacy and data security of all our users. We will be working closely with the Indian government under the local legal framework."

Indian government had banned 59 Chinese app, including ByteDance's TikTok and Helo, along with other popular titles like UC Browser, CamScanner and WeChat citing threat to country's sovereignty and security. Presently, these apps are planning to formally represent their concerns before Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). While some representations have been made, certain media reports quoted people familiar with the matter that a writ petition was the last resort for number of these apps if the ban is not lifted even after the representations.

ALSO READ: How much money does TikTok make in India?

According to reports, MeitY is raising two concerns - firstly the need for sharing user data with Chinese government, how many times such requests were raised, and how many times were they complied with; and secondly lack of physical presence in India. China's laws require companies originating in the country to share user data, collected from across the world if requested by Chinese government or intelligence agencies.

The reports quoted a third lawyer, who represents multiple apps in the banned list, as saying that since the companies do not have any knowledge of what grounds the government has banned them on, they are considering sharing data flow diagrams, which explains who the benefactors for data they collect are. They may even submit to audits by companies empanelled by CERT-In.

ALSO READ: '$100 billion? May be not!': How TikTok ban will impact ByteDance's valuation
IndiGo said on Thursday it will give a 25 percent discount on the airfare to doctors and nurses till the end of 2020 as they are at the forefront of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.

"The nurses and doctors will be required to provide valid hospital IDs at the time of check-in as a proof of their identity," the airline said in a press release.

"The discount will be offered while booking through IndiGo's website, valid for sale and travel from July 01, 2020 till December 31, 2020," it added.

Passenger loads continue to be low in domestic flights, the operations of which resumed on May 25 after a gap of two months.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Twitter on Thursday that 71,471 passengers travelled on 785 flights on July 1. This means, on an average, there were 91 passengers in a plane on Wednesday. Since the commonly used A320 aircraft has around 180 seats in it, this means that the passenger load was just around 50 per cent on July 1.

IndiGo has termed the aforementioned scheme as a "Tough Cookie" campaign.

"As part of the initiative, IndiGo will track the Tough Cookie journey to make it special every step of the way, starting from a complementary cookie tin at check-in, welcome announcement at the boarding gate, special Tough Cookie sticker on the PPE and in-flight announcement giving them a warm welcome on-board," it said.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in India.

Also Read: Coronavirus in Mumbai: BMC to buy 27 lakh Favipiravir tablets for Rs 80 per tablet from Glenmark

Also Read: Reliance Jio urged to expand data connectivity at 10,000-bed coronavirus care centre
Highlights Facebook CEO in a meeting with his employees said that the boycotting advertisers will return soon enough.

Zuckerberg said the advertisers boycott is more of a reputational and partner issue.

He also said Facebook wont change its approach because of a threat to a small percent of its revenue.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a recent employee-only town hall meeting, has said that he won't change the policies of the company just because of a threat to a small percent of the company's revenue. This was in response to more than 500 advertisers boycotting Facebook as part of the "Stop hate for Profit" movement.

"We're not gonna change our policies or approach anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue, or to any percent of our revenue," Zuckerberg said. "My guess is that all these advertisers will be back soon enough," Zuckerberg added.

As per a report of The Information that cited the transcript of the meeting, Zuckerberg said the advertiser's boycott is more of a reputational and partner issue as most of Facebook's revenue comes from small businesses vs large brands.

A report by CNN stated that most of the 100 biggest ad spenders on the platform have not joined the boycott. As per the report, the ongoing boycott may have not had that great an impact on Facebook's bottom line.

A Facebook spokesperson told CNN that Facebook makes policy changes based on principles, not revenue pressures. We recently reported that the social media giant also announced that it will prioritise original content to be posted on the platform. It will also check the transparency of the editorial staff to ensure credibility and authenticity of the content on the platform.

At the helm of the advertiser's boycott are the US civil rights groups including the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, and Color of Change who started the "Stop Hate for Profit" movement. This movement gathered steam after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The groups outlined 10 demands for Facebook including allowing people who experience severe harassment to speak with a Facebook employee and giving refunds to brands whose ads show up next to offensive content that is later removed, a report by Reuters stated.

Earlier this week, Facebook said that it will flag all newsworthy posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump. Zuckerberg was in the spotlight for not taking action on a post by the US President that read "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." This was directed at the protests that had gotten violent in the US.
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Probe launched into threats against Russian Civic Chambers member

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

09:52 02/07/2020

MOSCOW, June 25 (RAPSI) - A criminal case has been opened over threats against a Sevastopol member of Russias Civic Chamber Natalia Kiryukhina, according to the federal ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova.

Moskalkova said that Kiryukhina received even death threats. Investigation is underway, she added.

Earlier, the Civic Chambers Secretary Lydia Mikheyeva said that Kiryukhina received threat from an unknown telephone number related to her vote oversee work.
Communist Party of India

Central Office

Ajoy Bhavan

15, Com. Indrajit Gupta Marg

New Delhi- 110002

Tel: 011 23235546

July 2, 2020

Press Release

CPI Condemns BJP Governments Decision to Handover the Indian Railways to Private Sectors

Communist Party of India (CPI) General Secretary D RAJA issued the following statement today (on July 2, 2020) decrying the Modi governments move to privatize Railways in toto:

The BJP led Modi government is determined to hand over all the national assets and resources to the private corporates. No sector of the economy and industry is spared. Coal mine, banks, defence, oil, insurance, electricity, telecom, space and atomic energy all are being privatized by the Modi regime. The latest target of privatisation is the Indian Railways. The BJP government has already decided to corporatise the production units under the Railways and to close down the printing presses of the Railways. The government has further appointed an Empowered Group of Secretaries for handing over passenger trains and railway stations to private sector. Accordingly on July 1, 2020 the ministry of railways have announced the following decisions.

 Operation of 109 trains through private participation.

 Private sector investment of Rs. 30,000 crores is expected in this project.

 109 origin destination fares have been formed with 12 clusters across the Indian Railways network.

 The concession period for the project will be 35 yrs.

 Only the driver and the guard will be railway employees and all other employees will be from private operators.

Any private entity investing Rs. 30,000 crores will expect a huge profit from its investment resulting in huge increase in the railway ticket fare. Train which is the common mans transport will go beyond his reach. Railways is not a commercial organisation. Railways are for serving the people of the country. The BJP government does not have any concern about the common people of this country. Already three lakh posts in Railways are lying vacant. These decision of operating 109 Trains through private agency will take away the dream of the Indian youth including of those who belong to the socially and economically downtrodden sections to get a Railway Job.

CPI condemns the anti-people decision of the BJP government and urges upon the government to withdraw its decision. CPI calls upon the railway employees, their trade unions and the people of the country to reject and fight against this retrograde decision taken by the Modi Government.

S/d

(Roykutty)

Office Secretary
Ft Lauderdale PDBy IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News



(FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.) -- Officers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are being investigated for their actions during a May 31 protest after body camera footage surfaced that appears to show them laughing and celebrating after shooting rubber bullets at protesters.



The footage, first obtained and reported on by the Miami Herald, showed members of a SWAT team shooting tear gas and then firing non-lethal projectiles into a group of protesters who threw bottles, a tear gas canister and other objects at the officers.



After dispersing the crowd, two of the officers are seen in the video laughing after shooting the protesters with rubber bullets and apparently referring to them using several curse words. During the conversation between the two officers, one of them apparently mistakenly believes their body camera is on standby mode and not recording.



The Fort Lauderdale police released the video after the Herald article was posted online.



Protesters in the May 31 demonstration following George Floyd's death have argued that Fort Lauderdale police escalated tensions and used unnecessary force. LaToya Ratlieff told reporters last month she was walking away from the protest when she was shot in the eye by a rubber bullet, a wound requiring 20 stitches. Floyd died in police custody in Minnesota on May 25.



"My situation isn't unique," Ratlieff told ABC affiliate WPLG on June 7.



Fort Lauderdale City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said in a statement that while he understood the intensity of the situation in the video, "as the officers were clearly under attack," he still was "troubled" by what he saw. Lagerbloom said he called on Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione to investigate the incident.



"The exchange recorded by the body cameras paints an unflattering yet truthful depiction of the chaos they were operating in. The language the officers used and sentiment expressed is not consistent with what the public expects from our police force," Lagerbloom said in a statement.



Maglione said his office is investigating over 8,000 minutes of body camera footage, including the video in question. He defended the officers actions in a statement released Wednesday.



"The entire video clearly demonstrates our officers were under attack by a group of people who chose to use violence instead of peace to antagonize the situation," he said. "Although the language is extreme and offensive to some, our officers were dealing with the chaos of a developing situation."



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
I never could get the hang of birdwatching, which is all about seeing and identifying avians and making copious notes about the sightings in something called a life list. I did once manage to recognize a resplendent quetzal in Costa Rica, but since this may be the gaudiest and most distinctive bird in the world, that was nothing to brag about.





I am fairly adept, however, at a hobby that has some similaritiesghost watching. I mean watching for and identifying members of the ghost fleet, my term for the enduring fiberglass sailboats that were made decades ago by builders that are no longer in business.





Just the other day, I spotted and identified an Alberg 35, a specimen built almost 60 years ago. This was a rather rare sighting because it was a yawl-rigged Alberg 35. Most of them were sloops. The yawl I encountered, with the stout aluminum masts and spruce roller-furling main boom, teak cockpit coamings and Dorade ventilators that were standard features, was very much in original form, all in all an exceptionally fine representation of a proud ghost fleet member.





No one knows how big the ghost fleet is, but it could easily number in the hundreds of thousands, as more than 1,000 different models were produced by at least 75 builders in the two or three decades following that eureka moment in the late 1950s when it dawned that mass production of sailboats was practical.





The ghost fleet is huge, and growing, because fiberglass boats, with a modicum of care, can last pretty much forever.





The existence of the ghost fleet has long been the bane of the contemporary alive-and-kicking sailboat building industryso many used boats on the market that can be bought for a fraction of the cost of new models. A boatbuilder I knew joked that someone had to discover a fiberglass-eating worm that, like the teredos that shorten the lives of wooden vessels, could feed on plastic boats.





I take a more sanguine view. Many people who buy ghost fleet boats arent potential customers for new boats because they cant afford them. Old used boats bring new people into sailing and give them the opportunity to learn to love it and, one day, become new-boat buyers.





There is only one reason to buy an old boat, and that is price. I read that in The Boats Ive Loved, a book by yacht designer Chuck Paine that features the authors pithy commentary along with a display of some of the handsome traditional sailboats that sprang from his drafting table and computer.





Paine endorses old sailboats as good values. If originally well built of single-skin (as opposed to cored) fiberglass, the hull at least can be sanded down and repainted and will be something like 90% as strong as the day it was born.





Many owners of ghost-fleet boats dont bother with such cosmetic hull improvements. Molded of solid fiberglass with thick gelcoat, these hulls look their age with dull and crazed topsides, but can perform like they did when they exuded that intoxicating new-boat, chemical-stew aroma.





Still, these ghost-fleeters are generally projects. Like human body parts, essential elements fail with age. Paine writes, Electrical systems are usually the first thing to go. If you had any sense, youd rip it all out and use kerosene lamps.





Ghost fleet boats can be pretty basicmany still get by with ancient Atomic 4 gasoline engines for auxiliary powerbut are usually not so primitive as to be without electric running and cabin lights.





In spite of their ever-present maintenance needs, these old boats have something going for them beyond their low sticker prices. Many of them are sweet sailers.





This is especially true of the oldest members of the ghost fleet, boats built before designers understood that any shape, no matter how contrary to traditional sailboat design, was possible with fiberglass. Early fiberglass boats were derivations of wood boat designs, with softly curving, slack bilges, long overhangs, rudders and keels joined in a single mass and hefty displacement. Unlike the flat-hulled, hard-bilged, fin-keeled, separated-rudder boats popular today (which I happen to admire), first-generation fiberglass boats are forgiving and seakindly.





No, alacrity is not one of their assets. But, face it, with the exception of foilers, high-performance multihulls and the most exotic racing monohulls, sailboats are just plain slow by any real-world standard. Ghost-fleet boats are well suited to enjoying sailing at its natural, sedate pace.





As a young aspiring sailboat owner, I witnessed the burst of boatbuilding energy that paved the way for the ghost fleet with a nerdy obsession to learn everything there was to know about the suddenly bountiful array of the plastic boats popping out of molds daily. Thanks to that, I can still win the occasional wager with doubting friends by identifying the make and model of a production sailboat built, say, during the Lyndon Johnson administration.





Unlike birders, I dont have a life list of my sightings, but I have a mental record of the highlights. These include an even dozen different models of the boats Pearson Yachts built in its first 10 years in business starting in 1958, including a particularly rare bird, a 38-foot Invicta, designed by Bill Tripp, the first fiberglass boat to win a Bermuda race trophy, and that legendary pioneer, the Alberg 28, designed by the same Carl Alberg who drew the lines for the aforementioned 35-footer.





My bragging rights also include, to mention just a few stand-outs, seeing on the water and identifying a Columbia Sabre, an odd and unattractive attempt circa 1963 to make a cruising boat out of a 5.5-Meter one-design racer; a Westerly Centaur 26-footer with twin keels; and a Bermuda 30 built in China by Cheoy Lee with no known designer, perhaps derived from a discarded mold or one made from another builders 30-footer.





My virtual life list of boats also includes the Buccaneer 27, but then, of course, almost everyone remembers seeing one of these products of the powerboat builder Bayliner. Often cited as one of the ugliest sailboats ever made, the Buccaneer was introduced in 1975 and is notable for its extreme high-freeboard hull with a humped sheerline topped by an outsized cabinhouse and stacked rows of large rectangular portholes in the hull and cabin. It can also be recognized by its fat buttocks supporting an enormous outboard rudder.





Granted, the Buccaneer isnt pretty, but, come on, lets give it a little respect. After all, its a certified member of that great sailing resource, the ghost fleet.








"We maintain Peru's rating at A3, with a stable outlook, which is still valid. We made the decision not to change the rating, despite the strong impact of the virus on the economy and fiscal accounts ," Moody's Investors Service Vice-President Jaime Reusche told Andina news agency.

"The fact that there are such strong economic authorities gives investors quite a bit of reassurance, and that is also what has weighed on our decision not to touch the rating as it gives Peru the benefit of the doubt that it can recover, and very likely we are going to see an important macro-fiscal policy response to support the reactivation," he added.

Reusche pointed out that although there are latent risks that put pressure on Peru's rating Moody's decided to maintain it, even despite the fact that other countries in the region are seeing downward adjustments to their ratings.

"The fact that the rating is maintained in the case of Peru is remarkable, mostly due to the fiscal soundness of the country and the good macroeconomic management that already has a long history," he expressed.





"Economic institutions are extremely strong and world-class, but political institutions are extremely weak due to the fact that we see a weak Judiciary, a high incidence of corruption and informality, as well as low education levels," he added.





As is known, Moody's Investors Service in its annual review maintained Peru's credit rating at A3 for its long-term debt in local and foreign currency, with a stable outlook.





(END) CNA/MVB

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Moody's Investors Service on Thursday said that the soundness of Peruvian economic institutions was a determining factor in maintaining Peru's A3 credit rating this year, with a stable outlook, which has not changed since 2014.Publicado: 2/7/2020
Canciller @GMeza_Cuadra participo en ceremonia de entrega de donaciones del gobierno suizo, consistente en equipos de proteccion personal y material medico que seran de utilidad para la labor que se viene realizando en el marco de la emergencia nacional por el brote del COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/6NiLdSft1L
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. The government approved the agreement on commercial cooperation between Armenia and Kazakhstan in the fields of supply of oil products to Armenia.

Minister of territorial administration and infrastructures Suren Papikyan said the necessity of signing the agreement is connected with the interest to cooperation in the delivery of oil products.

At todays Cabinet meeting Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan added that this is an important agreement which has been debated and negotiated for nearly one and a half year.

After the signing and ratification of the agreement an opportunity will be provided to import the Kazakh fuel to Armenia at better terms which supposes that there will be an opportunity for certain competitiveness in our fuel market. It will supposedly affect Armenias business market, the deputy PM said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in his turn stated: Yes, its very important, no matter how much we say that after 2018 the monopolistic phenomena especially in the market of oil products have mitigated, but it doesnt mean that they have been eliminated, and here we have a lot to do with protecting the rights of our consumers and boosting also the competitiveness. We should not allow any artificial monopoly in Armenia because it firstly affects the protection of consumer rights.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, 2 JULY, ARMENPRESS: Hundreds of elephants have died mysteriously in Botswana in a matter of weeks and conservationists are urging the government to investigate the catastrophic situation. Armenpress reports citing Independent.

At least 350 elephants have died since the beginning of May in the Okavango Delta. An aerial survey found 70 per cent of the gentle giants had died near watering holes.

The cause of death had not yet been determined and the Botswana government has claimed that the possibilities the deaths were caused by poaching, poisoning by humans and anthrax have been ruled out. The tusks on the carcasses were found intact, suggesting ivory poaching was not the cause of death. Anthrax is a naturally-occurring poison found in the soil in parts of Botswana and has been known to occasionally affect wildlife, but authorities say it isnt the culprit.

Botswana is home to a third of elephants living in Africa. Locals reported seeing the elephants walking around in circles before dying, many falling onto their faces, which could indicate something is attacking their neurological systems.
STEPANAKERT, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan signed a decree according to which Zoya Lazaryan has been relieved from the post of adviser to the President - permanent representative of the President in the National Assembly, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

According to another Presidential decree Ararat Danielyan was appointed adviser to the President-permanent representative of the President in the National Assembly.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Masis Mayilian sent thank-you letters to a group of U.S. Congressmen, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of MFA Artsakh.

The Foreign Minister noted with gratitude that in continuation of the meetings held in Washington in October 2019 and the assurances, the members of Congress exert consistent efforts to ensure a continued humanitarian assistance by the United States to the post-war rehabilitation of the Republic of Artsakh.



Throughout the past decades, the assistance helped address various urgent humanitarian needs, and consequences of the devastating aggression by Azerbaijan. In particular, the American support of the HALO Trusts effective and efficient activities in war-affected areas allowed the international humanitarian mine-clearance organization to neutralize tens of thousands of landmines and other deadly remnants of the aggression, Masis Mayilian noted.



The Foreign Minister expressed hope that the ongoing and enhanced humanitarian assistance from the United States to the Republic of Artsakh would help both countries to continue enforcing regional stability and security, as well as to provide basic humanitarian needs to the citizens of the Republic of Artsakh.



Masis Mayilian also congratulated the members of Congress on the USA Independence Day, noting that throughout its independent history, the United States has been at the forefront of defending the values of freedom and democracy, which inspired many nations across the globe, including the Republic of Artsakh, to rise and struggle for their inalienable rights and liberties.
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on successful holding of the referendum.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister, the congratulatory message runs as follows,

Honorable Vladimir Vladimirovich,

I congratulate you on the successful referendum on confirming the changes in the Constitution of the Russian federation.

This definitely has a central importance for the future strengthening of the Russian statehood. I am confident that the changes in the mother-law, approved by the overwhelming majority of the Russian public, create favorable conditions for the future progress and social-economic development of the country.

I wish you and the fraternal people of Russia peace, welfare and prosperity.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Political consultations were held between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Romania via video conference on July 2. The consultations were chaired by Avet Adonts, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and by Dan Neculaescu, the State Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Romania.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the MFA Armenia, during the consultations, the sides discussed a wiide range of issues related to the Armenian-Romanian relations including the promotion of political dialogue, economic, cultural and parliamentary contacts.

The sides also touched upon the issues of mutual interest on regional and international agenda, as well as the cooperation within the international organizations.

Avet Adonts presented the latest developments on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process highlighting the importance of full support of the EU and its member states to the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.
Major warning as 500,000 retirement funds emptied. Source: Getty

Almost half a million superannuation funds have been raided  and completely emptied  under the governments early release of superannuation scheme, new analysis reveals.

Around 480,000 Australians have eroded their entire superannuation balance, with around 395,000 of those under 35, Industry Super Australia (ISA) estimates.

And thats before the second round of early super release opened on 1 July, with the analysis only updated to 14 June, according to ISA.

Those early contributions are like yeast; without them youre left with a much flatter nest egg, ISA chief executive Bernie Dean said.

To have hundreds of thousands wiping their savings out midway through their life is a tragedy waiting to happen and it will affect everyone.

On average, around 15 per cent of Australian workers accessed their superannuation early, with the majority from Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.

The second round of early release scheme opened on Wednesday, but ISA has urged Australians to only access their nest egg if theyre in dire straits.

Every Australian deserves a good life in retirement, not just scraping by on the pension, Dean said.

The association also reminded Aussies how much they stand to lose by delving into their superannuation early.

A 25-year-old taking out $10,000 now could have $49,000 less in retirement, a 35-year-old could lose up to $34,000 and a 45-year-old up to $23,000, ISA said in a statement.

ISA slammed backbench MPs for attempting to dump the increase of the super guarantee from 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent by 2025, with a scheduled increase to 10 per cent set to take place from 1 July 2021.

If those MPs get their way, more workers would be more reliant on the aged pension  a bill everyone pays through higher taxes, ISA stated.

The Prime Minister and Treasurer must stick by their promise to increase the super rate because its critical to helping these people rebuild savings theyve wiped out, and avoid tax hikes on working people to prop up more people drawing a full pension, Dean said.

Story continues

It echoes calls from Australian Council of Trade Unions assistant secretary Scott Connolly earlier this week, who said the backbenchers needed to be put in their place by the government.

Workers need to be given reassurance that their retirement savings will go up as currently legislated and people will not be forced to raid their retirements to pay for housing, said Connolly.

Opponents like the Grattan Institute argue Australians could be $30,000 worse off if that planned increase went ahead, warning the policy would hurt Aussies during their working years.

The thinktank argued in a 2019 report that increases in super payments would cost wage growth, and for low-and-middle income earners, the increase in superannuation would be significantly offset by smaller pension payments.

The reality is that most Australians can already look forward to a better living standard in retirement than they had while working  even if they interrupt their careers to care for children. Workers with interrupted employment histories lose super in retirement, but get larger part-pensions, the report stated.

The poorest Australians get a clear pay rise when they retire: the age pension is worth more than their after-tax income while working.

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Moving on with the restructuring moves, banking giant Citigroup C will expand its commercial banking business in the Nordics, covering Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The move comes on the heels of the rising needs of clients amid the coronavirus pandemic and opportunities foreseen in the fast-growing digital world.

Further, the commercial banking business is likely to augment the banks current Banking, Capital Markets & Advisory business which has operations in the Nordics since the 1970s.



Per Citigroups plans, Marieve Gauthier has been appointed as Nordic Head of Commercial Banking with immediate effect and is expected to take the business to new highs based on the belief of his experience in the financial world. Marieve joined Citigroup in 2011 and was most recently serving as the director and senior banker in the U.S. CCB business and acting as a leader in the Non-profit Industry Group in the Mid-Corporates Segment.



Notably, commercial banking in the Nordics provides services to the middle-market segment of traditional industries, along with the digital sector. Therefore, being the most famous global bank in the Nordics and having operations in more than 100 countries, the expansion of commercial banking business will enhance Citigroups global network and international competencies.

Moreover, these factors would differentiate the bank from its peers and aid in being competitive even for the fast-growing digital and FinTech companies, which are scaling their businesses globally.



Raymond Gatcliffe, EMEA head of CCB commented, We believe that this is the right time to expand our offering in the Nordic market, and allow our clients access to Citis truly global network. We are firmly committed to servicing this market, and I have no doubt that Marieves experience both within Citi as well as the industry more generally, makes her the perfect candidate to lead this business going forward.



Our Take



Citi continues to execute growth strategies, such as bolstering position in the booming digital industry and expanding its global market presence, thereby aiming to diversify revenue sources. Also, prudent expense management and inorganic expansion strategies keep us encouraged.



However, pending litigation issues might flare up legal expenses.



The company has gained 30.3% in the past three months compared with 10.8% growth recorded by the industry. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), at present.

Story continues







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AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. AB has witnessed upward earnings estimate revisions for 2020 over the past 60 days. Moreover, this Zacks #2 Ranked (Buy) stock has lost 10% over the past six months. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc.s GCAP current-year earnings estimate moved north in 60 days time. Further, the companys shares have surged 52.4% over the past six months. At present, it holds a Zacks Rank of 2.



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Yangon and Tokyo, Jul 1, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - Myanmar Citizens Bank (MCB Bank), a listed company on the Yangon Stock Exchange in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Myanmar), and JCB International Co. Ltd. (JCBI), the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd., announced that MCB Bank will start to issue MPU-JCB Co-Branded Debit Cards as of June 2020.











The MCB MPU-JCB Co-Branded Card combines the MPU brand and JCB brand with the MCB brand, a strong and trusted banking brand in Myanmar. Cardmembers can use MPU's nation-wide merchant network in Myanmar and JCB's international merchant network with over 34 million locations globally.



The new MCB International Debit Card offers 2 different card types, Platinum debit card and Classic debit card. All the cardmembers can enjoy JCB privileges such as discounts at over 150 merchants in Yangon and also at an extensive merchant network around the world. JCB also provides lounge services in the city centers of several famous travel destinations such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seoul, Taipei and Paris.



In addition to the above, the Platinum cardmembers can enjoy exclusive JCB Platinum services such as JCB Platinum airport lounge service for free at 61 lounges worldwide.



Takeshi Fujii, Chief Representative of JCB International (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (Yangon Branch) commented, "Myanmar is one of the most important countries for our global business expansion with the number of JCB cards in Myanmar now reaching 2 million. We would like to contribute significantly to the vision of a cashless society in Myanmar through this new tie-up venture with MCB".



Mr Godfrey Swain, CEO of MCB Bank commented, "I am delighted to announce the launch of Myanmar Citizens Bank MPU JCB Co-branded Debit card to support the needs of our customers with convenience of cashless transactions domestically in Mynanmar and internationally. The card can be used for all face-to-face and ecommerce payments as well as for ATM transactions. Our customers will enjoy the extensive range of merchant discounts and benefits that come with the card, please visit Myanmar Citizen Bank website for more product information. The launch of this card is another step forward in realizing the transformational vision of MCB Bank, a project that commenced in 2019 and is designed to transform the Bank by the year 2023.



About MCB



Established in 1992, Myanmar Citizens Bank is one of the first private commercial banks in the country, the first bank to be listed on the Yangon Stock Exchange and enjoys one of the fastest growth rates in Myanmar within the banking sector. MCB, a Bank with a traditional focus on Commercial and SME segments, is now rapidly expanding its Corporate and Retail banking arms distributing innovative and competitive products and services through a network of nearly 50 branches covering 26 cities in Myanmar. In 2019 MCB signed a wide-ranging, long term consultancy and partnership agreement with the International Financial Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank, embarking on a three-year transformation journey to modernize and build its banking operations, product and service offerings as a best in class model, meeting and exceeding international banking standards, efficiency levels and customer service. For more information, please visit: https://www.mcb.com.mm



About JCB



JCB is a global payment brand and a leading credit card issuer and acquirer in Japan. JCB launched its card business in Japan in 1961 and began expanding worldwide in 1981. Its acceptance network includes about 34 million merchants as well as cash advance locations around the world. JCB cards are now issued in 24 countries and territories, with more than 140 million cardmembers. As a comprehensive payment solution provider, JCB commits to providing responsive and high-quality service and products to all customers worldwide. For more information, please visit: www.global.jcb/en/



JCB (Head Office in Japan)

Contact: Kumiko Kida, Ayaka Nakajima

Email: jcb-pr@jcb.co.jp

Phone: +81 3 5778 8353



Copyright 2020 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.acnnewswire.com
Woolworths has copped a record-breaking million-dollar fine for illegal email marketing. (Photo by PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)

Woolworths has been handed a $1 million fine from the telecommunications watchdog for repeatedly harassing unsubscribed customers with spam emails.

The penalty is the largest ever issued from the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The authority found the supermarket had inadequate processes and systems to deal with customers who didn't want to be spammed.

"The scale and prolonged nature of the non-compliance is inexcusable," said ACMA chairperson Nerida O'Loughlin.

"Woolworths failed to act even after the ACMA had warned it of potential compliance issues after receiving consumer complaints."

O'Loughlin said that Woolworths is a "large and sophisticated organisation", so should have been able to meet customer requests.

Australians have the right to unsubscribe from marketing emails that they do not want to receive. In this case, consumers claimed that they had tried to unsubscribe on multiple occasions or for highly personal reasons, but their requests were not actioned by Woolworths because of its systems, processes, and practices."

The unwanted emails related were sent specifically to members of the supermarket's Woolworths Rewards loyalty program, run by its WooliesX department.

"We respect the right of our Rewards members to choose how and when we communicate with them and apologise for failing to act on all unsubscribe requests as required under the law," said WooliesX managing director Amanda Bardwell.

"Many of the breaches were the result of technical and systems issues, which we fixed in 2019."

Bardwell blamed later breaches on multiple members of the same family signed up on the same email address.

"While we were acting on unsubscribe requests from individual Rewards members, we did not assume it meant other members sharing that email address had to be opted-out as well. The ACMA has made clear it expects all communications to an email address to stop in such scenarios," she said.

"We accept this position and have unsubscribed all members who share an email address where at least one of those members has told us they want to unsubscribe."

Story continues

In a court-enforceable three-year commitment, Woolworths agreed to appoint an independent consultant to review its email marketing systems each year. The supermarket would also provide training for its staff and report all non-compliant cases.

O'Loughlin said Woolworths' record fine should be a warning to all businesses.

"The ACMAs actions should serve as a reminder to others not to disregard customers wishes when it comes to unsubscribing from marketing material."

In the last 12 months Australian businesses have paid more than $1.7 million in fines for breaching spam and telemarketing regulations. ACMA has also accepted six court-enforceable remediation commitments and handed out seven formal warnings.

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Hollywood star Geoffrey Rush won a record multimillion-dollar payout Thursday after an appeal by a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper against a defamation ruling was thrown out by an Australian court. The Oscar-winner will receive US$2 million for lost earnings and compensation after a court rejected an appeal seeking reduced costs and a retrial of the case. The decision -- against News Corp's Australian subsidiary Nationwide News -- is the latest twist in the ongoing legal battle between Rush and the Daily Telegraph, which accused him of inappropriate sexual behaviour toward female cast members. In a front-page article published in 2017, the Daily Telegraph wrote that the Sydney Theatre Company received a complaint that Rush had inappropriately touched a female co-star during a staging of "King Lear". A Sydney judge had described the content as a "recklessly irresponsible piece of sensationalist journalism". Local media said the sum awarded to Rush was the largest ever paid to an individual in Australia, which has notoriously strict defamation laws. Rush won the Best Actor Academy Award in 1997 for his role in "Shine" and is one of the few stars to have also won a Golden Globe, an Emmy and a Tony Award. Hollywood star Geoffrey Rush will receive US$2 million after a court ruled a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper had defamed the actor
Bolivia's interim President Jeanine Anez on Thursday accused former leader Evo Morales and his supporters of fomenting violence to try to force a return to power. Socialist Morales, who currently lives in exile in Argentina, fired back, accusing the government of training its military to suppress social movements. Conservative Anez assumed the presidency in November after Morales fled the country following three weeks of protests over his controversial re-election to an unconstitutional fourth term. But she is under pressure to ratify a bill to set a new date for elections postponed over the coronavirus pandemic, which Congress passed despite her party abstaining. "Evo and his coca growers are trying to return to power," said Anez, adding that Morales's Movement for Socialism party (MAS) is putting forward "the path of division and violence between Bolivians like they did during 14 years" of his rule. The right-wing government has accused MAS of being behind the vandalism of telecommunications masts in rural areas by locals who believe a conspiracy theory that coronavirus can be spread through 5G. Morales responded with a tweet claiming that two weeks ago a military document was circulating "with instructions to practice shooting and anti-terrorist preparation." The former trade union leader described it as a "return to the US National Security Doctrine that views social movements as the 'enemy'." Last week, both chambers of Congress approved a new date of September 6 for elections originally due to take place in May. But on Tuesday, Anez proposed "postponing probably for a month or two months," citing an expected peak in coronavirus infections that is yet to be reached as reason to do so. On Wednesday, Senate President Eva Copa, a member of MAS, urged Anez to "comply with the only mandate entrusted to" her by ratifying the election date. When she came to power, Anez herself said her only role was to guide the South American country to new elections. In the latest polls, Anez was sitting third behind former president Carlos Mesa and MAS candidate Luis Arce. Bolivian interim President Jeanine Anez waves, while wearing a face mask, after attending a Corpus Christi procession at the Plaza de Armas in front of the government palace in La Paz, on June 11, 2020, amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic
Moving house is a palaver at the best of times, but in the Canadian province of Quebec it is even more testing as the majority of leases end on the same day. Hundreds of thousands of people in the French-speaking region move on July 1, and in Montreal alone 80,000 to 100,000 households change their address around this time of year, according to official city figures. The tradition reportedly dates from the 18th century, when landlords were forbidden from evicting tenant farmers until all snow had cleared. This year moving season has been further complicated by the coronavirus epidemic sweeping Canada. "I was worried," said Sheila Dassin, a 46-year-old fashion designer, directing masked workers from a distance as they strained under the weight of her furniture. "People are going to touch your things. With the crisis outside, we are afraid of people, that strangers will bring it inside our house." Quebec has reported more than half of Canada's approximately 104,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly two-thirds of its 8,600 deaths. The lease-date quirk -- most end on June 30 -- coincides with Canada Day, a national holiday on July 1, which gives Quebec residents some spare time to complete their moves. But given the fraught situation this year, more people than usual feared they would be made homeless by a housing shortage compounded by the ongoing health crisis. "The number of calls for help exploded," said Veronique Laflamme, spokeswoman for housing rights group FRAPRU. She said 171 households had found themselves without a lease this year in Montreal, compared with 98 in 2019. To help stop the spread of COVID-19, authorities recommended that people not ask friends and neighbors for help with their move, but instead use a moving company, because they are able to take health precautions. "It's an additional expense, which piles on for households already struggling to make ends meet," Laflamme said. - Stress and anxiousness - Moving furniture makes it "completely impossible to keep a distance of two meters" (six feet), said Pierre-Olivier Cyr, whose company, The Moving Clan, has implemented a number of new safety measures. Among them is a rule allowing only one customer in the home at a time to minimize contact with the moving team. Since March the company, which owns around 60 trucks, has been disinfecting its fleet every night and has purchased around 10,000 reusable masks. Implementing new safety measures cost the firm an estimated CAN$100,000 (US$73,600), which it so far has not passed on to customers. "People have lost their jobs, the means are not there," Cyr said, adding that he doesn't rule out an increase "if the pandemic were to stretch on." Maxime Villemure, CEO of Spaceful, a Montreal moving start-up, said that "customers are still quite stressed. They ask us questions about the hygiene measures we're taking. We sense anxiousness." Employees must keep a two-meter distance and wear gloves and a mask, even on the first day of July, with temperatures pushing 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Dassin said her movers "were careful, they put on masks, they were very professional." "I won't be afraid to touch my things tonight," she said. Movers carry Sheila Dassin's belongings into her new abode on July 1 in the Montreal suburb of Laval In Montreal alone 80,000 to 100,000 households change their address around July 1 To help staunch the spread of coronavirus, authorities recommended that people moving this year not ask friends and neighbors for help
The newly discovered exoplanet TOI 849 b offers the unique opportunity to peer inside the interior of a planet and learn about its composition. It orbits around a star about 730 light years away, which is very similar to our sun. The exposed core is the same size as Neptune in our solar system. The researchers assume that it is a gas giant that was either stripped of its gaseous atmosphere or that failed to fully form one in its early life due to special circumstances. The study by the team led by Dr David Armstrong from the University of Warwick's Department of Physics is published today in the journal Nature. PD Dr. Christoph Mordasini from the University of Bern Physics Institute led the theoretical interpretation of the discovery.

A year that is a mere 18 hours TOI 849 b is an extremely unusual planet in the so-called "Neptune Desert" - a term used by astronomers for a region close to stars where we rarely see planets of Neptune's mass or larger.

The lead author of the study, Dr. David Armstrong from the University of Warwick, says: "The planet is strangely close to its star, considering its mass. In other words, we don't see planets with this mass at these short orbital periods." TOI 849 b orbits so close to its host star that a year is a mere 18 hours and its surface temperature is around 1,500 C.

Christoph Mordasini explains: "We have determined the planet's mass and radius. TOI-849b is about 40 times heavier than the earth, but its radius is just 3.4 earth radii." So the planet has a high density and therefore has to primarily consist of iron, rock and water, but only very little hydrogen and helium. "Such a small amount of hydrogen and helium is really astonishing for such a massive planet. We would expect a planet this massive to have accreted large quantities of hydrogen and helium when it formed."

David Armstrong adds: "The fact that we don't see those gases lets us know TOI 849 b is an exposed planetary core." This is the first time that an intact exposed core of a gas giant has been discovered around a star.

Bern's expertise in demand worldwide

The University of Bern has been continuously developing the "Bern Model of Planet Formation and Evolution" since 2003. Christoph Mordasini says: "In our model, we combine insights into the manifold processes involved in the formation and evolution of planets." Thanks to the world-renowned Bern model, discoveries such as those of the exoplanet TOI 849 b can be interpreted theoretically.

Based on the Bern model, two theories can be formulated which explain why TOI 849 b is not a typical gas giant but an exposed planetary core. "The first is that the exoplanet was once similar to Jupiter but lost nearly all of its outer gas through a variety of processes," Christoph Mordasini says. These could include tidal disruption, where the planet is ripped apart from orbiting too close to its star, or even a collision with another planet. Large-scale photoevaporation of the atmosphere could also play a role, but can't account for all the gas that has been lost.

Alternatively, TOI 849 b could be a "failed" gas giant. "Once the core of the gas giant formed then something very unusual could have happened and it never formed a massive atmosphere as normally. This could have occurred if there was a gap in the disk of dust and gas that the planet formed from due to gravitational interaction with the planet, or if the disk ran out of material right at the very moment when gas accretion normally follows," Mordasini adds.

David Armstrong says: "Our discovery proves that planets like this exist and we can track them down. We have the opportunity to look at the core of a planet in a way that we can't do in our own solar system."

How TOI 849 b was discovered and analyzed

TOI 849 b was found in a survey of stars by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), using the transit method: the satellite measures the brightness of a star. A dip in brightness indicates that a planet has passed in front of them.

TOI 849 b was then analyzed using the HARPS instrument built under Swiss leadership, at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile. This utilizes the Doppler effect to measure the mass of exoplanets by measuring their 'wobble' - small movements towards and away from us that register as tiny shifts in the star's spectrum of light.

"Bern Model of Planet Formation and Evolution"

Statements can be made about how a planet was formed and how it has evolved using the "Bern Model of Planet Formation and Evolution". The Bern model has been continuously developed at the University of Bern since 2003. Insights into the manifold processes involved in the formation and evolution of planets are integrated into the model. These are, for example, submodels of accretion (growth of a planet's core) or of how planets interact gravitationally and influence each other, and of processes in the protoplanetary disks in which planets are formed. The model is also used to create so-called population syntheses, which show which planets develop how frequently under certain conditions in a protoplanetary disk. The world-renowned Bern model is also used for the theoretical interpretation of discoveries such as that of the TOI 849 b exoplanet.

Information about the publication:

'A remnant planetary core in the hot-Neptune desert', David Armstrong et al.,01.07.2020, Nature

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2421-7

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2421-7



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During the lockdown, Sonia Garcia gave birth to her fourth child in an impoverished part of Seville known as Spain's poorest neighbourhood which has been devastated by the virus. "What I want is to get out of here," says the 35-year-old as she walks past her apartment block, the street littered with rubbish, broken glass and the desiccated corpse of a dead rat. Earlier this year, Garcia had been working at a local takeaway stand in Tres Mil Viviendas in southern Seville, but lost her job when the lockdown began in mid-March. Her husband, a scrap dealer, is also out of work, meaning they have no money coming in at all and have been forced to survive on a 300-euro charity handout and donations of food and clothes, as well as help from her 85-year-old father. During the last financial crisis, which began in 2008, Garcia lost her job in a restaurant and since then has only managed to hold down various temporary jobs as a waitress in a hotel or a carer for the elderly. Now she's hoping to train to in thanatopraxy -- preparing the dead for burial -- as part of a job placement scheme run by an association called Entre Amigos (Between Friends) that generates more than 100 contracts every year. At the height of the lockdown, they were absolutely desperate. "We even thought about going to down to a supermarket, filling a trolley with food and doing a runner," Garcia admits. "It was a situation in which you've got absolutely nothing: when your child asks you for yoghurt and you say: I've nothing." - Vertical slums - Known as the Poligono Sur, the area is home to some 40,000 people and is officially the poorest area in Spain, with residents earning an average of 5,112 euros ($5,740) per year, according to 2017 figures. The area suffers from 50 percent unemployment and is blighted with epidemic levels of both HIV/AIDS and illiteracy. Many of its high-rises are filthy and run down and have been officially referred to as "vertical slums". Here, shops are almost non-existent and those who do work in other areas of Seville, often off the books, tend to find employment in hotels, as cleaners or as street hawkers. "We serve as cheap labour," says Rafael Garca, a 58-year-old office worker. The most urgent challenge posed by the lockdown was "ensuring people had food," explains Jaime Breton, the Poligono Sur commissioner who liaises between the local authorities and private groups helping out in the neighbourhood. Backed by private funding, Breton's work expanded massively in scope, and went from feeding 700 children in school canteens to providing food aid to more than 15,000 people. - Online schooling 'pipedream' - Although the virus only had a limited health impact, the closure of schools was very damaging in an area where at least 60 percent of youngsters flunk school and one in four pupils drop out, Breton says. Betsaida Alexandre, an immigrant from Venezuela who lives in the best street in the area, says that of the 199 students at her children's school, 176 of them have no computer or laptop for their homework. Online learning is "a pipedream," admits Breton. For many children school was an escape, particularly in homes "where the parents fight or take drugs", explained Alexandre, saying it was the only way a child could have "some normality for three or four hours". Since 2017, Alexandre, 45, has been living in an apartment with her husband, her children, her mother, her mother-in-law and her disabled brother -- eight of them in total. After working as a cleaner despite holding a degree in electronic engineering, she found a job in October as a temporary lecturer at the computer science department at the Sevilla University. Her husband, who is a mechanical engineer, also works there in a laboratory. But they live in the midst of people suffering from "extreme poverty" and people who are "very isolated". - Marijuana 'all the rage' - On top of everything else, growing marijuana is "all the rage" in the neighbourhood, says her 51-year-old neighbour, who did not give his name but admits he's spent "half his life in prison" for drug offences. And this translates into other problems such as frequent power cuts stemming from the intensive use of electricity by so-called narcopisos -- or "drug flats" -- which illegally tap power from the grid. Pepe Serrano, an Entre Amigos social worker who has worked in the neighbourhood for 13 years puts the authorities' inaction down to "the widespread view from outside that everyone here is the same and that they're all complicit in what goes on". But the reality is that "many working families live here" who are "the real victims of the problems of coexistence in this neighbourhood". The Entre Amigos (Between Friends) charity helps the poor of the Seville neighbourhood Poligono Sur The area known as Poligono Sur is home to 40,000 people and is officially the poorest area in Spain Venezuelan Betsaida Alexandre, 45, is one of a family of eight living in one apartment
A sweeping new security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing undermines the semi-autonomous city's independent judiciary and stifles freedoms, the city's influential Bar Association has warned. In a scathing critique, the group detailed how the new law dismantles the legal firewall that has existed between Hong Kong's independent judiciary and China's Communist Party-controlled courts since the 1997 handover. The legislation outlawing acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces was passed on Tuesday in Beijing, bypassing Hong Kong's legislature, its wording kept secret until it was enacted later that day. The unprecedented move has sent a wave of fear through the city, sparked international criticism and rattled the legal community in a business hub that has built its reputation on the independence and reliability of its courts. In a five-page analysis, the Bar Association said the new national security offences were "widely drawn" and "are capable of being applied in a manner that is arbitrary, and that disproportionately interferes with fundamental rights, including the freedom of conscience, expression and assembly". "In addition to the total absence of meaningful consultation, lawyers, judges, police and Hong Kong residents were given no opportunity to familiarise themselves with the contents of the new law, including the serious criminal offences it creates, before it came into force," the analysis added. Under a deal ahead of the handover from Britain, authoritarian China guaranteed Hong Kong civil liberties as well as judicial and legislative autonomy until 2047 in a formula known as "One Country, Two Systems". Critics -- including Britain -- say the new law demolishes that deal, especially as China says it will have jurisdiction over some cases and has empowered its security agents to operate openly inside Hong Kong for the first time. It has also claimed global jurisdiction, saying the law covers national security offences committed overseas -- even by foreigners. - Rendition, not extradition - The Bar Association said the law makes clear "suspects can be removed to face trial in Mainland China" and points out that the process does not have the usual checks and balances of extradition hearings. Instead, it looks more like rendition -- when a person is simply taken to another jurisdiction. It noted the law allowed mainland security agents working in Hong Kong to be "above the reach of local law" and said empowering the city's chief executive to appoint judges to oversee national security cases undermined judicial independence. Local police have been granted wider surveillance powers to monitor suspects, including wiretapping, without a judge's approval, the association added. It also expressed concern that some national security trials could be heard behind closed doors, without juries, and that Beijing -- not Hong Kong's courts -- has final say interpreting the new law. The analysis parsed Beijing's description of the four new crimes and how they might outlaw certain views and acts. The definition of secession, for example, can be committed without violence. "This gives rise to concern whether this might operate to prohibit mere speech or any peaceful advocacy," the association said. On Wednesday the first arrests were made under the new law -- most for people carrying flags or leaflets supportive of Hong Kong independence, or chanting slogans. Terrorist acts were "vaguely defined" and could include people who unknowingly provided material or financial support to someone who later went on to commit an act that is declared terrorist in nature. Colluding with foreign forces was also "vaguely defined", the association said, covering "accepting a subsidy or support from a foreign organization with a view to carrying out hostile actions against the (Hong Kong government). "This gives rise to concern whether certain existing activities of academics, NGOs and media organizations which were lawful or not unlawful in the past might now be outlawed by these provisions," the association said. The bar association is one of Hong Kong's most respected and influential legal associations, representing and regulating the city's barristers. Hong Kong's Bar Association has issued a scathing five-page legal analysis in which it highlighted more than a dozen areas where the new security law causes concerns Key points of China's newly imposed national security law for Hong Kong
Hong Kong police made the first arrests under Beijing's new national security law on Wednesday as the city greeted the anniversary of its handover to China with protesters fleeing water cannon. The commemorations came a day after China imposed a sweeping security law on the city, a historic move decried by many Western governments as an unprecedented assault on the finance hub's liberties and autonomy. Certain political views and symbols became illegal overnight, including showing support for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet independence. By Wednesday afternoon police said two people had been arrested under the new law, a man and a woman both carrying Hong Kong independence signs. "Advocacy for independence of Hong Kong is against the law," security minister John Lee told reporters. A few thousand protesters defied a ban on rallies to gather in the shopping district of Causeway Bay on Wednesday, blocking some roads. Riot police responded with water cannon and pepper spray, making at least 70 arrests. "What this authoritarian regime wants to do is to terrorise the people and stop them from coming out," Chris To, a 49-year-old protester, told AFP. - Broken promise? - Opprobrium over the law poured in from critics and western governments -- led by the United States -- over fears the law will usher in a new era of mainland-style political repression. Under a deal ahead of the 1997 handover from Britain, authoritarian China guaranteed Hong Kong civil liberties as well as judicial and legislative autonomy until 2047 in a deal known as "One Country, Two Systems". "(China) promised 50 years of freedom to the Hong Kong people, and gave them only 23," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said as he promised unspecified countermeasures. But Beijing said foreign countries should keep quiet about the law, while Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam hailed the legislation as the "most important development" since the city's return to Beijing's rule. After huge and often violent pro-democracy protests last year, authorities have shown zero tolerance for even peaceful rallies in recent months. Gatherings of more than 50 people are currently banned under anti-coronavirus laws even though local transmissions have ended. - Floats and helicopters - The July 1 anniversary has long been a polarising day in the city. Beijing loyalists celebrate Hong Kong's return to the Chinese motherland after a century and a half of what they consider humiliating colonial rule by Britain. During a morning anniversary ceremony, helicopters flew across Victoria Harbour carrying a large Chinese flag and a smaller Hong Kong pennant, while a barge appeared with a banner reading "Welcome the Enacting of the National Security Law" in giant Chinese characters. Small groups of Beijing supporters waved Chinese flags in several local neighbourhoods, untroubled by police. Democracy advocates have used the occasion to hold large rallies as popular anger towards Beijing swells -- although this year's event was banned for the first time in 17 years. During huge pro-democracy demonstrations last year, the city's legislature was besieged and trashed by protesters. - Chinese jurisdiction and life sentences - The "One Country, Two Systems" formula helped cement the Hong Kong's status as a world-class business hub, bolstered by an independent judiciary and political freedoms unseen on the mainland. But critics have long accused Beijing of chipping away at that status and describe the new security law as the most brazen move yet. It was passed in just six weeks, skipping Hong Kong's fractious legislature, and the precise wording was kept secret until it came into effect late Tuesday. It outlaws subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces to undermine national security, with sentences of up to life in prison. It also topples the legal firewall that has existed between the city's judiciary and the mainland's party-controlled courts. China will have jurisdiction over "serious" cases and its security agencies will also be able to operate publicly in the city for the first time. Another provision also claims universal jurisdiction for national security crimes committed beyond Hong Kong or China. More than two dozen countries -- including Britain, France, Germany and Japan -- urged Beijing to reconsider the law, saying it undermines the city's freedoms. Canada, meanwhile, warned citizens in Hong Kong that they faced an increased risk of arbitrary detention or even extradition to China. In Taiwan, authorities there opened a new office to deal with Hong Kongers seeking refuge. Beijing says the law will restore stability after a year of pro-democracy protests and will not end Hong Kong's freedoms. But critics have little faith in those assurances given how similar national security laws are routinely used on the mainland to crush dissent. A woman reacts after being hit by pepper spray as police tried to stop protests in Hong Kong Outline of main points that could be covered in the new national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong on Tuesday. A barge with banners marking the passing of the national security law floats in Victoria Harbour on the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong?s handover from Britain to China Riot police used pepper spray and made arrests as protesters defied a ban to gather in the popular Causeway Bay shopping district
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned against the "hasty" relaxation of anti-coronavirus measures, state media reported Friday, indicating the country will keep its borders closed for the forseeable future. The nuclear-armed North closed its borders in late January as the virus spread in neighbouring China and imposed tough restrictions that put thousands of its people into isolation. Pyongyang insists it has not had a single case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus that has swept the world infecting more than 10.8 million people and killing over 500,000. Analysts say the North is unlikely to have avoided the contagion and that its ramshackle health system could struggle to cope with a major outbreak. But Kim told a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party on Thursday that its efforts had been a "shining success", the official KCNA news agency reported. "We have thoroughly prevented the inroad of the malignant virus," it cited him as saying, "despite the worldwide health crisis". Kim cautioned against any "self-complacence or relaxation", calling for stricter anti-epidemic efforts while "re-infection and re-expansion of the malignant contagious disease persists in neighbouring countries". South Korea is currently recording around 40 to 60 cases a day, while China saw a surge of infections in Beijing last month. At the meeting Kim "repeatedly warned that hasty relief of anti-epidemic measures will result in unimaginable and irretrievable crisis", KCNA added. The comments indicate North Korea will maintain its self-imposed blockade, which has also hit trade with China, its key backer and aid provider. Several embassies in Pyongyang have temporarily closed as they have been unable to bring in supplies, money and staff. Under the current rules, any arrivals must spend 30 days in strict quarantine and diplomats and analysts believe the border could remain closed for the rest of the year. "It has no choice but to keep its border closed with China, it is something inevitable for the North," said Hong Min, director of the North Korean division at the Korea Institute for National Unification. "Its border closure with China may harm its economy, but the Pyongyang leadership seems to have determined preventing a coronavirus outbreak is more important in keeping control of the country." More than 40 percent of North Korea's 25 million people are considered food insecure. A United Nations expert warned last month that the problem was worsening as a result of the country's attempts to ward off an outbreak. North Korean children wearing face masks against COVID-19 attend class on June 3, 2020 in Pyongyang, where Kim Jong-Un has praised the country's response to the virus
The Duchess of Sussex has claimed she was left "unprotected" by the royal family from "false and damaging" media articles when she was pregnant, according to leaked documents published on Thursday. The claims were made in submissions as part of her high-profile case against the Mail on Sunday, website Mail Online and its owner Associated Newspapers. The duchess, former American actress Meghan Markle, is claiming breach of privacy, data protection rights and copyright over the publication of extracts of correspondence to her estranged father, Thomas, after her wedding to Prince Harry. In the papers, she submitted she had become "the subject of a large number of false and damaging articles by the UK tabloid media, specifically by the defendant, which caused tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health". The "institution" of the monarchy failed to protect her from the accusations and she was "prohibited from defending herself", they added. The documents also refer to an article published in People, a US magazine, where five unnamed friends claim they were "rightly concerned for her welfare" following the reports. The papers, widely cited in the British media on Thursday, add that Markle was not involved with the interview. They also claim that her May 2018 wedding to Harry, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, helped generate 1 billion $1.3 billion, 1.1 billion euros) in tourism revenue. The couple quit frontline royal duties earlier this year and have waged an increasingly bitter war with the media, particularly the tabloid press. Harry has likened what he said was a "ruthless campaign" against his wife to the treatment of his mother, Diana, princess of Wales. She was killed in a high-speed car crash in Paris in August 1997, while being pursued by paparazzi photographers. The couple now live with their young son, Archie, in California and have set up a non-profit organisation focusing on the promotion of mental health, education and well-being. A judge in the case has already struck out parts of the duchess' claims, including that Associated Newspapers acted "dishonestly and in bad faith" and "deliberately dug up or stirred conflict" between her and her father. The news group denies wrongdoing, and maintains publication was in the public interest and on freedom of expression grounds. Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, with Prince Harry, claims the British Royal family did little to help protect her from the UK tabloid press in documents published as she presses her case in court
5 quality stocks investors are buying right now. Source: Getty

Everyday Australians have used the Covid-19 pandemic to try their hand at the stock market, with trading platform Nabtrade recording a whopping 500 per cent uptake in new applicants in March.

And the upswing in activity continued: We saw another 300 per cent increase in April...And we saw that continue through May, Gemma Dale, director of SMSF and Investment Behaviour at Nabtrade told a webinar hosted by ETF Securities.

Nationally, retail trading increased to $3.3 billion during the pandemic - up from $1.6 billion pre-Covid-19.

The increase in activity attracted attention from Australias corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which warned Aussies against trying to time the market.

ASIC analysis of markets during the COVID-19 period has revealed a substantial increase in retail activity across the securities market, as well as greater exposure to risk, the regulator stated.

[It is] likely to lead to heavy losses  losses that could not happen at a worse time for many families.

But some punters werent swinging bats and hoping theyd hit something - in fact, they were focused on quality stocks, rather than speculative purchases, Dale said.

Heres what they were buying:

Blue chips

Retail investors were purchasing blue chip stocks that they were already familiar with, Dale said.

We saw people buying stuff they wanted to own for a long time before, but thought they were too expensive, she said.

For example, CSL was a big hit among retail investors, she noted.

Banks

While banks were having a little bit of a tough time, retail investors still took the plunge.

Most of them saw that times are going to be tough for banks, Dale said.

When you give everyone a loan repayment holiday for six months and when you have high levels of unemployment, and so on, it's going to be tough, but these are still high-quality businesses. They're going to be around after all of this is ending.

Story continues

Travel stocks

While Qantas may have hit dire straits as the pandemic forced travel to come to an abrupt halt, investors flocked to purchase travel stocks, Dale said.

She suggested the surge was due to expectations that Australia would still need a national carrier, and people would once again travel when borders reopen.

Buy now, pay later

Retail investors were also aggressively buying Afterpay, Zip and Splitit.

The buy now, pay later space has been really, really active, Dale said.

These have been really big anyway - Afterpay is very much loved among our base, its been in the top 10 for a few years now, and most of our investors have done really well out of that, she said.

ETFs

Dale said ETFs were also a popular, quick entry point for many investors.

What we saw in these really, really volatile days, was a lot of our investors wanted to get a piece of the action, she said.

They move extremely quickly. If they didn't feel they had time to do the research, or they didn't want to take a position on what was going to move, they just wanted to be in it We saw a lot of active investing using ETFs to get access to particular positions that they might otherwise have found quite difficult, or just from a timing perspective.

Are you a millennial or Gen Z-er interested in joining a community where you can learn how to take control of your money? Join us at The Broke Millennials Club on Facebook!
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday said fiscal reform was "inevitable" if Spain was to deal with the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, pointing to tax hikes, notably for larger companies. Sanchez also pledged 9.0 billion euros ($10.1 billion) for Spain's regions to reinforce the public health system, which was stretched to the maximum by the epidemic which claimed more than 28,300 lives. His remarks came as European nations were locked in talks over a 750-billion-euro rescue fund, that would predominantly benefit southern nations like Spain and Italy, two of the worst-hit countries in Europe. "We will have to reduce public debt, we will also have to lower the public deficit and for that, we will have to increase the state's revenue capacity," the prime minister told LaSexta news channel. Sanchez said Spain's low tax income made it "inevitable that we will have to carry out fiscal reform" given that government revenues are so much lower than the European average -- "seven percentage points lower than GDP". "We want to have a robust welfare state and we're going to do that with fiscal justice," which will mean "raising taxes on big companies and not on small- and medium-sized companies," he said, without giving further details. "Big companies have effective tax rates that are under 10 percent while smaller and medium-sized companies pay a lot more," he said. He also said he would seek to "accelerate" the imposition of environmental taxes. Regarding income tax, Sanchez said his election campaign laid out the possibility "that the higher tax brackets could be expanded". Asked about an eventual hike in VAT, which has been sought by the Bank of Spain, Sanchez limited himself to saying "the most important thing is fiscal justice". The unprecedented recovery fund being discussed by European nations has drawn fierce opposition from Europe's "frugal four" -- The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Austria -- who have promised to fight deep into the summer to rein in the spending. A key issue that needs resolving is whether to impose conditions on the beneficiary countries, such as budgetary reforms. The Spanish government has insisted it will use the funds in a "responsible" way. Sanchez also said he was hoping to meet with his Swedish and Dutch counterparts, Stefan Lofven and Mark Rutte, before a key summit in mid-July. "We are aware that we have to carry out a whole series of reforms, many of which are already under way," Spain's top diplomat Arancha Gonzalez Laya said last week. Tax rises are "inevitable", and will predominantly hit big companies, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said
Students have been organising COVID parties, a disturbing game where people who have been confirmed to have the coronavirus attend, and whoever gets infected with the virus first wins.

Officials have confirmed students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, have been playing the twisted game where hosts would intentionally invite people who have coronavirus.

They put money in a pot and they try to get COVID, Tuscaloosa City Councillor Sonya McKinstry told ABC News.

Whoever gets COVID first gets the pot. It makes no sense.

Students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama has been hosting 'COVID' parties making it a game to see who gets infected first. Source: Getty Images/FILE PIC

During a City Council livestream on Tuesday (local time), Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Randy Smith confirmed authorities had heard rumours of the reckless behaviour throughout the county at several locations.

We thought that was kind of a rumour at first. We did some additional research, he said.

Not only did the doctors offices help confirm it but the state confirmed they had also had the same information.

At least some of the students were from out of state, Mr Smith said, indicating they were in college. But officials did not disclose what schools the students attended. Three colleges are located in Tuscaloosa, according to the Associated Press.

More than 38,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed statewide, and at least 947 people have died of the illness.

The coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but it can be more serious and even fatal for older adults and those with other health problems.

Speaking to WVTM, Ms McKinstry slammed the students COVID parties and branded them as careless.

It makes me mad as hell, were constantly trying to do everything thing we can to slow the spread while theyre just having a damn party trying to spread it, she said.

Tuscaloosa joined the list of Alabama cities requiring face masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Story continues

Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Randy Smith told members that an investigation showed some students in the area had attended parties over the past few weeks despite knowing they had tested positive for the virus. Source: Facebook

Birmingham and surrounding Jefferson County, Montgomery and Selma already have mask ordinances because of the pandemic, which health officials say is worsening in Alabama as hospitalisations increase and the percentage of positive virus test results rises.

Gov. Kay Ivey has declined to enact a statewide mask law, saying it couldnt be enforced, but she extended other, less-restrictive rules that have been in place.

With Associated Press

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.
Senate Republicans are facing a financial disadvantage ahead of the 2020 election. In January, the Senate Republican Campaign Committee reported a balance of $341,959 in its main fund and $144,839 in its housekeeping account  more than $3 million less than what Senate Democrats reported in their financial filings. Between the committee and their housekeeping account, Senate Democrats have over $3.7 million in the bank.

Helming, who is in her second term and represents all or parts of six counties in the central New York and Finger Lakes regions, won't have to look far for crucial races in the Republicans' bid to pick up Senate seats.

There is an open seat in the 50th Senate District, which includes parts of Cayuga and Onondaga counties. The seat was held by Bob Antonacci for one year. Antonacci, a Republican, resigned from the Senate at the end of 2019 after being elected to the state Supreme Court.

There was a special election planned for the 50th district, but it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Democratic candidate John Mannion and Republican nominee Angi Renna are the general election candidates in that district.
UPDATE: The Cayuga County Health Department released an updated map on Thursday after discovering an error. There were cases counted in Moravia that actually live in Sempronius. There are also people in quarantine who were counted in the wrong town. The story and the photo have been updated to reflect the change.

There have been confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city of Auburn and nearly every town, according to new data released by the Cayuga County Health Department on Wednesday.

The new map and table, which reveal there have been five new cases since the department's last daily report on Monday, show that all but two towns  Ledyard and Summerhill  have confirmed COVID-19 cases.

When the health department last released town-level data in early June, there were six towns with zero cases. Four of those towns  Mentz, Montezuma, Moravia and Sempronius  now have at least one positive case. Sempronius has two confirmed cases.

Auburn has the most confirmed cases (30) of any Cayuga County municipality. The city accounts for nearly one-quarter of all cases (123) in the county.
LOS ANGELESThe dwindling landscape of adult book and video shops in the United States shrunk by one this week, with the closing of Ace Adult Video in Bay City, Michigan, according to a report by the M-Live news site. The shop had done business in the city of 33,000, about two hours north of Detroit, for nearly five decades.

But Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmers March 16 health order in response to the coronavirus pandemic closed businesses across the state, including adult establishments. According to the M-Live report, it remains unclear whether the shutdown caused the permanent closure of Ace Adult Video.

The site reported that Diane Dunn of Owosso, Michigan, is listed as he businesss treasure, while Texas resident David Schoch is named as president of the company that owned the now-shuttered adult bookstore.

When an M-Live reporter contacted Dunn, she would say only that all businesses close eventually. The reporters calls to Schoch reached a disconnected number, and he did not respond to messages conveyed online.

Bay Citys Downtown Development Director Suzanne Maxwell told the site that while the adult bookstore may not have been a good fit with the downtown business district, its always sad to see a business close, as it does affect the livelihoods of its owner and employees. Perhaps there is a better place other than downtown Bay City for this type of business.

She said that Ace Adult Video complied with city ordinances, and was rarely the subject of complaints from residents or other business owners. Other Bay City officials told the site that they could not recall any complaints at all about the adult business.

Its under the radar, city commissioner Jesse Dockett told M-Live. I think its been here so long that people just kind of got used to it. It was quiet and they kind of kept to themselves.

The final shuttering of the Bay City adult shop is just one of numerous recent closings of adult establishments across the country. Earlier this year, the Oregon Theater  the last remaining adult cinema in Portland, Oregon  closed its doors after 95 years in business, the last five decades screening only porn.

A decade ago, in St. Paul, Minnesota, that city saw its only adult bookstore shut its doors for the last time. The owner of the Denmark adult book and video shop blamed a faltering economy, the internet, and ridiculous local zonig laws for the shutdown,

Photo By Andrew Jameson / Wikimedia Commons
LOS ANGELES  Longtime adult film performer Ron Jeremy remains behind bars this week at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles this week, because he has been unable to post his required bail of $6.6 million  even though his lawyer says he made a great argument for reducing or waiving that amount.

As AVN reported, Jeremy pleaded not guilty last Friday to multiple counts of rape and sexual assault stemming from alleged incidents in 2014, 2017, and last year. In Fridays arraignment at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, Jeremys Encino-based attorney Stuart Goldfarb filed a motion to lower the adult industry veterans bail amount.

But Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza denied the motion after prosecutors said that they had received 25 new complaints against Jeremy, including 13 that allegedly took place in Southern California.

In comments to AVN, however, Goldfarb said that the allegations may have come largely from Jeremys appearances at adult industry conventions and trade shows, where close physical interaction with female fans is par for the course. None of the older allegations say that Jeremy used force against his alleged victims, and until the cases brought against him last week, no criminal charges had ever been filed against Jeremy, Goldfarb said.

Why are they now coming forward in 2020 with these older claims? Goldfarb said.

In a report Wednesday published by The Toronto Sun, Tampa, Florida, real estate agent Charity Hawke also alleged that Jeremy sexually assaulted her at a West Hollywood hotel.

Hawke told The Sun she had been friends with Jeremy for 24 years, but says that the Jeremy she encountered in May was not the same man. Hes not my friend. Ron is a man who is deteriorating second by second.

Goldfarb told AVN that he was not aware of the new allegation, but that none of the accusations he knows about led police or prosecutors to bring charges.

Jeremys bail amount was set based on California law, which calls for $100,000 bail for each serious felony, Goldfarb explained, plus $1 million for each felony which could carry a potential life sentence. Because Jeremy is charged with six serious felonies, with each possibly resulting in a life sentence, bail was set at $6.6 million.

But judges, Goldfarb said, are legally permitted to deviate from predetermined bail amounts. Espinoza said at Fridays hearing that he could not deviate from the bail amount in Jeremys case.

Goldfarb said that though defendants in the criminal justice system are given a presumption of innocence, for bail purposes, they are effectively presumed guilty.

The judge doesnt have all the evidence, Goldfarb said. He can deviate but he has to give his reasons for deviating on the record.

Jeremys lack of previous criminal charges, and his declining health status at age 67 show that he is not a danger to the public, Goldfarb said. But Espinoza apparently disagreed.

Los Angeles police on Tuesday posted a public notice seeking additional victims of alleged sexual assaults by Jeremy, a move that Goldfarb said was common practice in sex crimes cases.

Jeremy is next set to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on August 31 on the ninth floor of Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center  the site of numerous high profile criminal cases, including the murder trials of O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector, and Night Stalker serial killer Richard Ramirez.
LOS ANGELESJustFor.fans models have agreed to donate a percentage of their June incomecurrently $7,600towards the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as part of JustFor.fans Charitable Giving Program.

The fan-based social sites 1-1/2 year-old program, a first in the industry, allows models to directly support non-profits that reflect their community on the JFF platform. JFF also supports the Free Speech Coalition, HIV League, Pineapple Support, Point of Pride, Sex Workers Outreach Project-USA, Trans Lifeline and Woodhull Freedom Foundation.

JFFs models have played a critical role in the companys Charitable Giving Program, which aims to give back to the community and to charities across the country, the company said.

Black Lives Matter, period. We are more than one organization/appendage/experience, said JFF influencer Roman Blck. Black Queer Lives, Black Trans Lives, Black Womens Lives, Black Young Lives deserve a voice and victory.

Jessa Jordan agreed: One of the many things I love about JFF is the commitment to causes that aid development for various communities via the charitable giving feature. 20 percent of my JFF earnings go to a charitable giving split between BLM, the Trans Lifeline and the Sex Workers Outreach Project (USA). I chose these three groups because, until recently, they were causes that are the least promoted, yet the most in need of funding for the work organizers do on the ground, she said. While being outspoken about human rights is important, its more important to me to financially back groups seeking to improve the communities I want to thrive.

Other models also chimed in:

Rosie Galaxy: "As far as why I give half my earnings to BLM, I do it because it's the right thing to do. I could go on, but that's basically it.

Her Ellaness: "I'm hoping shedding light on BLM will also shed light on the systemic racism against other minorities ... more specifically Native People."

Pissgagboar: We all need to focus our resources and voices to protect black lives and especially black trans lives. COVID has only exacerbated and further disproportionately affected our black and brown communities; they are being crushed, and its devastating."

Since its launch in 2018, JFF has grown into a compassionate community that brings together studios, agents, photographers and affiliates in order to generate more revenue for its patrons, with charitable activities that support JFF users. Giving to charity, the company says, is a part of the DNA of its corporate philosophy.

To learn more, visit JustFor.fans and follow on Twitter at @JustForFansSite.
LOS ANGELESXNXX is celebrating its 20-year anniversary by announcing a jump into the social media sphere.

The tube site is launching its new social media platform on Instagram, where followers can expect to see their favorite adult stars showcased.

In addition, fans of XNXX are encouraged to explore the XNXX Gold section of the site to find more upscale adult content.

Follow @0ficcialxnxx on Instagram.
Hes wrong about that. Authorities do have the right, not to mention the responsibility, to require that Americans refrain from actions that endanger the lives of others. Some people may enjoy driving while drunk, and feel it is their God-given right to do so, but because so many drunk drivers have caused injury and death to others it is not permitted.

But more importantly, he is wrong about refusing to bow down to others. Thats a crude way to put it, but being an American is not an excuse. It is the reason he should observe the laws and help others. Thats just part of the deal of living in a modern civil society.

If the U.S. ever needed a reminder of the importance of the social contract that binds us to one other, it is now, as a new virus is raging through the land and civil discourse is so raw and ugly that there is open defiance of even the most simple protective measures. How hard is it to wear a face covering while ordering tacos, especially if it might save the life of a neighbor?
BBC (Excerpt Coronavirus: US buys nearly all of Gilead's Covid-19 drug remdesivir)

The US is buying nearly all the next three months' projected production of Covid-19 treatment remdesivir from US manufacturer Gilead.

The US health department announced on Tuesday it had agreed to buy 500,000 doses for use in American hospitals.

Tests suggest remdesivir cuts recovery times, though it is not yet clear if it improves survival rates.

Gilead did sign a licensing deal in May for production outside the US but it is still in its early stages.

"President Trump has struck an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorised therapeutic for Covid-19," Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.

A course of treatment in the US will cost $2,340 (1,900).

Nine companies can make the drug under licence outside the US for distribution in 127 mostly poorer countries, and the cost is lower. But the project is still in its early stages.

Additional quantities are being manufactured for use in clinical trials.

But critics say the US move to buy up so much stock from Gilead itself undermines international co-operation on Covid, given that other countries have taken part in trials of remdesivir, originally an anti-viral against Ebola.

"The trial that gave the result that allowed remdesivir to sell their drug wasn't just done in the US. There were patients participating through other European countries, in the UK as well, and internationally, Mexico and other places," Oxford University's Prof Peter Horby told BBC Radio 4.

He said the move also had implications for any possible future vaccine, with the need for "a much stronger framework if we are going to develop these things and they're going to be used for national emergencies".

Senior Sussex University lecturer, Ohid Yaqub, said: "It so clearly signals an unwillingness to co-operate with other countries and the chilling effect this has on international agreements about intellectual property rights."

Some in the US have criticised the purchase price, as taxpayer money had helped fund remdesivir's development.
HMD Globa announces it is acquiring assets of Valona Labs and launching a brand-new Centre of Excellence in Tampere, Finland. The new Centre of Excellence in Tampere will specialise in software, security and services, propelling HMD Globals transition from a purely hardware business, to a combined hardware and services company, diversifying its intellectual property and differentiating its unique go-to-market offering.

In March this year, HMD Global entered a new service category with the launch of its global data roaming service, HMD Connect, which enables people around the world to benefit from a hassle-free data SIM. Over the coming months, the centre in Tampere will concentrate on developing this service further and begin work on other services such as remote device locking, enterprise mobility management, mobile device software security, secure network communication and black box testing. There are also ambitions to expand the scope of the centre to include imaging and audio technologies in the future. The centre will create an immediate need to hire new technical talent in the region and will be led by the former award-winning Head of Unit for Valona Labs, Ari Heikkinen.

Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer, HMD Global, said, As a company that believes every phone should be built upon the foundations of security, reliability and dependability, we are proud to announce the acquisition of assets of Valona Labs  a renowned and trusted mobile software business. Nokia phones are known around the world for purposeful innovation and our pure, secure and up-to-date Android promise ensures people receive a smartphone experience that continues to get better over time. This is one of the reasons we maintain our position as leaders in fast OS updates. According to research from Counterpoint, we are, in fact, the fastest brand, covering 94% of our portfolio. By bringing in assets from Valona Labs, we will be in a stronger position than ever to deliver on this promise and further build the trust of our fans, which is one of our core values as a business. We pride ourselves on our Finnish roots and our premium Nordic design, which is why were delighted to be bringing this new Centre of Excellence to Tampere. Through the acquisition of these assets, we will lay the foundations of a R&D hub that will transform our business and the products we offer to our fans.

Newly appointed Senior Director of Security and Enterprise Solutions at HMD Global, Ari Heikkinen said, We have been working closely with HMD Global for quite some time and Im excited to announce our collaboration today as we continue to strengthen our partnership. With this new Centre of Excellence, we are striking whilst the iron is hot. Cybersecurity incidents have been on the rise during this global pandemic, meaning theres no better time to increase our efforts on mobile security. Tampere is renowned as a destination for technological development, particularly in relation to mobile innovation. We look forward to leveraging the regions expertise and will be exploring various collaboration opportunities with different companies in the area, as well as with Tampere Universitys technology department. As we continue to expand, there will be an immediate need for fresh talent to join our ranks and Im personally excited for the many opportunities this will bring for Finland in the future.
Camping has been almost at 100% of capacity daily since campgrounds opened on May 1, and it was up over 60% in March and over 50% in April overall, Doyle said.

We dont have final numbers for May, but all indications are that they are extremely high as well," Doyle said.

Many public officials say there are more folks at boat launches, on the water and in the hills.

"Nationally, we're seeing an increase" in camping, day-use, hiking and fishing on forest lands, Haworth said.

Yet when looking at hard numbers, visitation to Yellowstone National Park is down about 15% compared to last year via Montana entrances, and bookings at some Big Sky Resort properties are down 20% to 30%.

Nationally, total travel spending is predicted to drop 45% by the end of this year, according to a forecast prepared for the U.S. Travel Association by Tourism Economics. Domestic travel spending is forecast to drop 40% (from $972 billion in 2019 to $583 billion in 2020), "while international inbound spending is expected to freefall a whopping 75% ($155 billion to $39 billion), the group said.
The chamber has posted resources on its website on hygiene and sanitization protocols and have hosted a number of webinars for businesses, especially in the first phase of reopening in the state. More information and assistance will be available as cases grow, O'Hair said.

Healthy economies are based on a healthy population, he said.

"Government grants, low-interest loans, business bail-out dollars cannot compare to healthy economic activity," O'Hair said. "Businesses will not be able to survive in Montana without healthy economic activity in the state."

One business that has made changes to prevent COVID-19 spread is The Vig Alehouse & Casino in Billings' Heights. The bar's employees practice intense sanitation protocols and are required to wear masks, according to general manager Aric Weber.

"There's an agreement you have when you open your doors to guests who come in," Weber said. "They decide to come to you for hospitality, food and whatever else. The unsaid agreement is that it's going to be a clean, safe environment where you can enjoy yourself and be comfortable. Otherwise, why aren't you just staying home?"

The Vig kept its operations closed amid the business shutdown in March and April, taking the time to deep-clean the building and catch up on maintenance repairs.
Quick and Isaak conferred in whispers for a short time before Isaak asked the judge, Whats the proper procedure that I can go around this so I can talk to you? He pushed Reich to override his attorney and tell him that I want to talk to you.

I cant tell him how to represent you, Reich said. No, I cannot.

Isaak was arrested April 4, 2019, three days after the four were found shot and stabbed at the RJR office in Mandan. A motive has not been established by police. Isaak lived in a Washburn mobile home park managed by RJR but its unclear if that is tied to the killings.

Isaak wanted to bring up issues that he and his legal team plan to address at a future hearing, Quick said after the hearing.

During the hearing, Quick withdrew some of the motions but asked Reich to consider a change of venue, arguing that extensive and prejudicial media coverage would make it impossible for Isaak to get a fair trial. Moving the trial to another county at the time of jury selection would cause significant delays, which would be compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, Quick said. Some counties in the state can also offer three times more potential jurors.
Both of their seasons had been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Since the Houston Rodeo was canceled in March, they did not get a chance to compete until June.

Isaac was in the middle of his set in Houston and they stopped the rodeo right in the middle of it and sent everyone home, Diaz said. After that, we didn't have a single rodeo to go to.

While the cancellations were a challenging time, one plus side for the couple is that they got to spend more time with their 1-year-old daughter, Whitlee.

During a regular season, the couple would have to work around each others schedules when taking care of Whitlee. Diaz said that Whitlee travels well and enjoys going to the rodeos.

She absolutely loves the horses, Diaz said. It's so nice because there's people our age that have kids that are her age, too, that she can play and hang out with whenever were at rodeos.

Now that rodeos are starting again, competitors are eager to get back into the arena and start racking up winnings before finals.

While there would normally be around 140 barrel racers at a rodeo in North Dakota, there are 238 competing at the 2020 Mandan Rodeo.
COAI, the apex industry association representing leading Telecom, Internet, Technology and Digital Services companies, concluded its Annual General Body Meeting for the Financial Year 2019-20, with the announcement of its leadership for the term 2020-21.

Mr. Ajai Puri, Chief Operating Officer (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel Limited, will now hold the position of Chairman while Mr. Pramod Kumar Mittal, President, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, will be the Vice Chairman of the Association.

Mr. Ajai Puri has been with Bharti Airtel since 2004, and has held several senior leadership positions including Director  Market Operations and Director and CEO  DTH. Prior to joining Bharti Airtel, Mr. Puri served as the Business Head  Foods at Cargill Foods India. He began his career with VST India Ltd, an associate company of British American Tobacco (UK).

Mr. Pramod Kumar Mittal comes with a rich experience of 42 years in telecommunications. Before joining Indias largest telecom operator, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. as President, Mr. Mittal served in the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, for over 37 years. Since the year 2000, he served as Deputy Director General (DDG) and then as Senior DDG, working in the telecommunication policy formulation and implementation, licensing and regulatory wings of the DoT. During his tenure, he was responsible for the liberalization of Basic services, opening of National Long-Distance Services and International Long-Distance Services, introduction and implementation of Unified Access Service Licence and the Unified Licence regime.

Mr. Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI, extended his heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Ravinder Takkar and Mr. Ajai Puri for their steady and bold leadership during one of the most challenging years for the industry. The year 2019-20 has been one of the most eventful and challenging for the Indian telecom sector. The Financial stress exaggerated by AGR ruling of the Honourable Supreme Court, and severe challenges caused by the pandemic, financially and operationally caused by the repeated hurricanes on the West and East Coasts.

However, COAI is optimistic about the future of the industry, especially in the aftermath of the critical role played by the sector during the pandemic. It looks forward to a period of fresh opportunities, new advancements in technology and positive economic and social developments as the country strives to achieve a US $ 5 Trillion economy.

Mr. Ajai Puri, Chief Operating Officer, India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel Limited and Chairman, COAI, commented, It is a privilege for me to take on this role and I would like to thank all the members of COAI for considering me worthy of this responsibility. The digital communications industry has once again risen to serve India and has kept the nation connected during this unprecedented phase. On behalf of the industry, I would like to reiterate our commitment to support the governments efforts as we emerge from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are thankful to the DoT, Central and State Governments as well as the Telecom Regulator for supporting and encouraging the industry to achieve the role envisioned for it.

Mr. Pramod Kumar Mittal, President, Reliance Jio Infocomm and Vice Chairman, COAI, said, Its a pleasure to take the responsibility as Vice Chairman of COAI and continue to work with the industry to bring about the next level of reforms in order to uplift and strengthen the sector while initiating measures for the benefit of end consumers.

Mr. Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI, said We would like to thank our leadership for their guidance and support during this challenging time and further express confidence in their ability to steer the Association and the sector towards long term health and stability. We are pleased to share that the digital communications industry, with the support of the government has emerged as the economic and social backbone of the Nation, keeping the citizens connected and enabling the economy to function during the crisis period of COVID-19 and cyclones. As the industry continues to play its critical role, the future has a lot in store for us with the ecosystem gearing up for 5G. We are committed to play an even greater role in achieving the Digital India vision of the Honble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi.

The AGM was followed by an engaging online panel discussion on Digital Networks  The Health and Wealth of the Nation presented by COAI and IMC Studio. The session witnessed the participation of the eminent speakers Shri Anshu Prakash, Secretary (T), Chairman, DCC; Dr. R.S. Sharma, Chairman, TRAI; Mr. Ravinder Takkar, MD & CEO, Vodafone Idea Ltd; Mr Ajay Puri, Chief Operating Officer, India & South Asia, Bharti Airtel Ltd; Mr. Sanjay Mashruwala, MD, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd; Dr. Anand Agarwal, Group CEO, STL and Mr Rajan S Mathews, DG, COAI.
Danfoss: SAP Ariba Testimony

Danfoss, a multinational company known for its thermostatic radiator valves, cooling, and power solutions, recently came to a realization: with 19 different ERP systems their employee support solutions were scattered.

To return the purchasing power to the people, Danfoss utilized 3 SAP products: SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, and SAP S/4HANA. Learn how SAP helped Danfoss increase process automation by 45% and more in this video.
Upsolver provides software that eliminates the high engineering overhead of operating cloud data lakes, raised $13 million in Series A financing. Vertex Ventures US led the round with participation from new investor Wing Venture Capital (Wing) and existing investor Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP).

Data Lake projects are known for being lengthy, code intensive and complex. There is no self-service for data consumers and data engineers, get bogged down with endless ETL work with Hadoop or Spark. Upsolver reduces high-maintenance ETL issues as it uses familiar SQL interface, allowing analysts and engineers to join semi-structured streams and historical big data into actionable analytics and machine learning.

Upsolver is built to run natively and securely on an AWS account by decoupling storage on S3, compute on EC2 and metadata management in Glue Data catalog.

The investment signals a growing need for Upsolvers cloud-native solution. Upsolver has tripled overall company ARR and seen increased demand during the pandemic, having low churn, and significant expansions amongst customers.

Modern enterprises use cloud data lakes to analyze large volumes of structured and unstructured data by breaking the traditional database into three pieces: storage, compute, and metadata. This separation dramatically reduces both cost and dependency on one database vendor but it introduces a new engineering complexity  each piece must get configured, optimized, and synchronized with the rest. This time-consuming and cost-prohibitive process could historically only be completed by big data engineers who code and operate open-source software like Apache Spark or Hadoop.

Ori Rafael, Upsolvers CEO and co-founder

Big data engineers are a unicorn hire, said Ori Rafael, Upsolvers CEO and co-founder. They should spend their time solving an organizations hardest data problems instead of performing repetitive tasks like job orchestration, ETLs, and IT management. Upsolver helps automate repetitive tasks with a powerful tool that can be used by existing data practitioners. Our customers see an average of 95% reduction in the data lake management effort.

In Sik Rhee, General Partner and co-founder at Vertex Ventures US

In Sik Rhee, General Partner and co-founder at Vertex Ventures US, who founded Opsware (acquired by HP for $1.6 billion) and made early-stage investments in both Cloudera and Couchbase, will join Upsolvers board of directors and so will Gadi Porat, Partner at JVP. Additional investors include Wing, which made an early-stage investment in Snowflake, Jeff Rothschild, founder of Veritas and First Senior Technology Executive at Facebook, and Sohaib Abbasi, former CEO and Chairman of Informatica.

We see Upsolver creating a cloud-native standard for data lake computing, said Rhee. Upsolver succeeded in abstracting away the engineering complexity of data pipeline management so that enterprise customers can quickly solve their modern data challenges in real-time and at any scale, without having to build another silo of expertise within the organization.

Upsolver founders Ori Rafael and Yoni Eini first met in Israeli intelligence, where Rafael was Head of Data Integration Platforms, and Eini was CTO of a large data science group. They came up with the idea for Upsolver while struggling with a data lake they built for advertising optimization. Being their users from the start has led to their products success.

Upsolvers status as an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) Advanced Technology Partner also fueled its momentum. Through the APN program, Upsolvers platform gets deployed and bought via the AWS marketplace. The Upsolver platform natively plugs into services like AWS Athena and Redshift, making it easy to set up a data lake on AWS.

Upsolver has raised a total of $17 million to date, with a global team working across Israel, California, and New York. Its customers include Asurion, Cox Automotive, IronSource and Sisense. Upsolver will use the funds to expand its R&D and Sales teams and enhance its multi-cloud capabilities.
Manstein, Erich von (1955), Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General, Novato, CA: Presidio Press (paperback published in 1994, 573 p.)

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1 [MY KNOWLEDGE ABOUT MANSTEIN] I knew Manstein was most famous (1) for his conquest of Sevastapol, (2) for his (aggressive but failed) rescue of Sixth Army in Stalingrad, and (3) for his multiple battles around Kharkov. But I had no idea how his career progressed, and how he ended up.

2 [EARLY HISTORY] Erich v. Manstein was born in 1887, and wounded in 1914. In WWI, he was in Belgium, Poland, and France. In 1936, he had risen to major-general. In 1938, he commanded a division, and then as chief-of-staff of an army he took part in the occupation of Sudetenland.

3 [POLAND] In the Battle of Poland, he was chief-of-staff of Colonel-General v. Rundstedt's Southern Army Group. He acknowledged that Hitler did not interfere at all during the campaign.

4 [THE ORIGINATOR OF THE ATTACK ON FRANCE VIA ARDENNES] In late 1939, he went to the west as Rundstedt's Southern Army Group become Army Group A. He was instrumental in pushing the proposal for the attack on Western allies via Ardennes. OKHs original plan was a 1940-version of Schlieffen Plan, with Army Group B pushing into Low Countries and Army Group A playing a secondary role. Given the (almost total) lack of elements of surprise of this plan, Manstein (supported by Rundstedt) submitted numerous memos and engaged in many conversations to drive home the point that Army Group A, with its armor driving through Ardennes, be the primary knife. He was even able to directly present to Hitler his views. Irritated, OKH (German High Command) pushed him out by promotion to command an infantry corps, 38 Army Corps, which played no role in the initial attacks on France.

5 [WON THE DEBATE BUT WAS GIVEN NO CREDIT] In the great strategy debate, Hitler eventually supported Manstein's ideasafter Manstein had already left HQ Army Group A. Neither Hitler nor OKH gave Manstein any credit for proposing such a daring but brilliant idea. (p. 127) On 10 May 1940 Manstein learned of the start of the campaign on the radio. The reader will appreciate that I was not feeling exactly grateful to the body which banished me into the German hinterland at the very moment when the plan for which I had struggled so long and so doggedly was coming to fruition in the west.

6 [IN FRANCE, NOT MUCH FIGHTING, BUT PREPARING TO INVADE BRIATAIN] Manstein's 38 Corps was placed under command of Army Group A, and he happily served under Rundstedt again. As a second echelon unit, his corps advanced from the Somme to the Loire. (p. 147) The wheel had turned. The road from Compiegne 1918 to Compiegne 1940 had been a long one. Where would it take us from here? . . . 38 Corps trained as a first echelon unit for landing in Britain. . . What is very shocking to me is Manstein's disclosure that Hitler had no long-term strategic plan beyond the victory over France, which came too quickly. The (air) Battle of Britain was fought by default, without much strategizing.

7 [COMMANDER OF A PANZER CORPS IN ARMY GROUP NORTH] In March 1941 Manstein was made commander of 56 Panzer Corps. As a spearhead of Army Group North, M led an armored dash from East Prussia to Lake Ilmen.

8 [COMMANDER OF ELEVENTH ARMY, CONQUERING THE CRIMEA, AND BEING PROMOTED TO FIELD-MARSHAL] In September 41 as Colonel-General Manstein was promoted to command Eleventh Army, which conquered the Crimea and smashed the Russian counterlandings at Kerch. After the fall of Sevastopol in July 42 he was promoted Field-Marshal.

9 [MINOR FIGHTING IN ARMY GROUPS NORTH AND CENTER] In Aug 1942, Eleventh Army was transferred to attack Leningrad. It fought the battle of Lake Ladoga and smashed a Russian army. Then instead of charging toward Leningrad, Eleventh Army was transferred to the relatively quiet front of Army Group Centre. (In Oct 1942, his 20-yr-old son, a lieutenant, was killed in the Leningrad front.)

10 [COMMANDER OF THE NEW DON ARMY GROUP] In late November 1942 when Sixth Army had already been stuck in Stalingrad, Manstein (celebrating his 55th birthday) received orders to set up the new Don Army Group for the explicit mandate to rescue Paulus. Don Army Group would be positioned between Army Group A (Caucasus, commanded by Hitler himself!) and B (Don-Volga), whose shaky front needed to be stabilized.

11 [HITLER'S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES (p. 273)] My appointment as commander of Don Army Group brought me for the first time under Hitler's direct orders as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht/OKW) and the Army (Heer/OKH). . . (p. 274) Hitler undoubtedly had a certain eye for operational openings, as had been shown by the way he opted for Army Group A's plan in the west. Indeed, this is often to be found in military amateursotherwise, history would not have recorded so many dukes and princes as successful commanders. In addition, Hitler possessed an astounding retentive memory and an imagination that made him quick to grasp all technical matters and problems of armaments. He was amazingly familiar with the very latest enemy weapons and could reel off whole columns of figures on both our own and the enemy's war production . . . (p. 275) What he lacked, broadly speaking, was simply military ability based on experiencesomething for which his intuition was no substitute.

12 [HITLER IS TOO RIGID (p. 279)] Obstinate defence of every foot of ground became the be all and end all of Hitler's leadership. After the Wehrmacht had won such extraordinary successes in the first years of war by dint of operational mobility, Hitler's reaction when the first crisis occurred in front of Moscow was to adopt Stalin's precept of hanging on doggedly to every single position. It was a policy that had brought the Soviet leaders so close to the abyss in 1941 that they finally relinquished it when the Germans launched their 1942 offensive.

13 [STATIC VERSUS MOBILE OPERATIONS] (p. 279) Yet because Soviet counter-offensive in the winter of 1941 had been frustrated by the resistance of our troops, Hitler was convinced that his ban on voluntary withdrawal had saved the Germans from a Napoleonic defeat. . . But only in mobile operations could the superiority of the German staffs and fighting troops shine.

14 [HITLER DOES NOT REALLY CARE ABOUT THE SOLDIERS (p. 281)] Despite the pains Hitler took to stress his own former status as a front-line soldier, I still never had the feeling that his heart belonged to the fighting troops. Losses were merely figures which reduced fighting power.

15 [HITLER IS NO NAPOLEON (p. 282)] Hitler did possess a number of the qualities indispensable to a supreme commander: a strong will, nerves that would stand up to the most serious crises, an undeniably keen brain and a certain talent in the operational field combined with an ability to recognize possibilities of a technical nature. If he could compensate for his lack of training and experience in the military sphereparticularly as regards strategy and grand strategyby utilizing the skills of his chief-of-staff, quite an efficient military leadership might have emerged. But this was precisely what Hitler would not accept. . . (p. 283) He wanted to be another Napoleon, who had only tolerated men under him who would obediently carry out his will. Unfortunately he had neither Napoleon's military training nor his military genius.

16 [OKH VERSUS OKW (p. 283)] Eventually only the Eastern front remained as an OKH (Herr) responsibility, and all other theaters OKW (Wehrmacht) responsibility. . . It was inevitable that OKW and the General Staff of the army (OKH) should clash. Hitler probably created clashes deliberately so that he alone at all times would have the decisive say.

17 [THE SPECIAL FORTE OF GERMANY MILITARY LEADERSHIP (p. 284)] It has always been the special forte of German military leadership that it relies on commanders at all levels to show initiative and willingness to accept responsibility.

18 [MANSTEIN IS PAULUS'S SUPERIOR (p. 294)] I knew Manstein would endeavor to relieve the Stalingrad siege. But had no idea Sixth Army was under his command within Don Army Group.

19 [SETTING UP DON ARMY GROUP HQ (p. 294)] OKH order for Manstein to set up HQ Don Army Group reached him 21 Nov 1942. He took a train, thought about his tasks, and consulted with OKH and Army Group B commander v. Kluge (on his train stop to go to Rostov). . . (p. 311) Manstein formally took over command responsibility 27 Nov 1942.

20 [STALINGRAD (p. 336)] As Manstein's forcesprimarily Hoth's Fourth Panzer Armypunched through, getting very close to Stalingrad, Manstein ordered Paulus to break out. However, Paulus refused, citing (1) lack of fuel and (2) Hitler's direct order to hold. . . (p. 337) Hitler in fact did agree to let Sixth Army to attack southwest, but he still insisted that Stalingrad be held. . . Manstein deliberately gave Paulus an order contradicting Hitler's, hoping Paulus would be less stressed when choosing to disobey Hitler's order in order to save his troops. . . On 31 Jan 1943, Paulus (4 corps, 20 divisions, over 200,000 men) surrendered. . . On 5 Feb, Manstein went to see Hitler, who accepted all responsibility for the tragedy of Stalingrad and blamed Goring a little for over-reporting Luftwaffe's capabilities.

21 [KURSK (p. 420)] 12 Feb 43 Don Army Group was renamed Southern Army Group, which absorbed the former Army Group B. . . (p. 448) Manstein was commander of Southern Army Group, who launched Operation Citadel (Kursk) in July 1943in collaboration with Central Army Group (v. Kluge). In mid-July when the Kursk battle was at its climax and Manstein's Southern forces were making stronger progress, Hitler called both him and Kluge in to call off the campaign. The Allies had landed in Sicily (!).

22 [ARGUING WITH HITLER] Manstein had some balls. Not only did he repeatedly argue with Hitler face-to-face on operational matters (essentially granting him the freedom to withdraw from untenable positions), he also suggested that Hitler relinquish his direct interference and leadership over the military matters, especially on the eastern front. Instead, a unified command be set up and an overall commander be appointed for the eastern front. Manstein never said in the book he was it. But Hitler knew this, and responded by saying: I have a hard time commanding my field-marshals. Do you think Goring (Reichsmarshal) will listen to you?

23 [LAST BATTLES AS COMMANDER ARMY GROUP SOUTH (p. 544)] On 30 March 1944, when Manstein's tired forces were pushed back on the Polish frontier (his HQ in Lwow), Manstein was dismissed. Hitler maintained courtesies, and ordered Col-Gen Model (from Northern Army Group) to take over Southern Army Group, which would be renamed North Ukrainian Army Group. (On the same day v. Kleist of Central Army Group was dismissed too, to be replaced by Gen. Schorner.) Manstein was never employed again.
Kesselring, Albert (1953/1997), The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, London: Greenhill Books/Pennsylvania: Stockpole Books (319 p.)

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1 [BACKCOVER] These memoirs rank among the great military autobiographies, written during Kesselring's imprisonment after WWII. FM Albert Kesselring (1885-1960) was one of GER's most capable military strategists. Originally a Bavarian army officer, he transferred to the Luftwaffe in 1935 and became Goring's deputy, commanding air fleets during the invasion of FRA and the Battle of BRI. In 1941 he was appointed CIC South, sharing the direction of the North African campaign with Rommel. As CIC in ITA in 1943-44 his brilliant defense of the peninsula became legendary. In 1945, after the Ardennes offensive failed, Kesselring replaced von Rundstedt as CIC West.

2 [FOREWORD by Kenneth Macksey, who authored a biography of K] Arguably, K was one of, if not the greatest, German military leader of WWII... He was, along with one lessor BRI contemporary, the only officer to hold very high command without a break throughout the war... K neither sought nor received the public adulation lavished on such propaganda marvels as Guderian and Rommel. Yet his charisma was strong and his achievements outstanding... These memoirs were written secretly, from memory (he kept no diary) while in a grim prison, under the threat of execution for war crimes (which had been committed by default rather than premeditation).

Like others among the cream of the GER High Command, he performed a perilous balancing trick, attempting faithfully to serve his country, in the knowledge that it was embarked upon a suicide course, while subtly retaining the ear of men who deeply mistrusted him... A bold airman who had learned to fly at as late as age as 48, who flew many operational missions to see things for himself and who was shot down five times.

3 [FROM ARMY TO LUFTWAFFE (p. 25)] In 1933, K (a new colonel) was discharged from the army and transferred to the Air Ministry (the future Luftwaffe) as Administrative Director.

4 [NO NAZI PARTY INTERFERENCE (p. 27)] No attempt was made by any of the leading politicians to bring us into the National Socialist fold. To them we were soldiers, and that was enough. Having taken the oath of allegiance, we were trusted implicitly.

5 [KESSELRING'S EARLY CONTRIBUTIONS (p. 31)] From the first day Hermann Goering had a clear conception of the end he had in view: to create an air force that would be decisive in EUR... (p. 33) K's inspection of factories at Heinkel, Arado, Junkers, Dornier, Argus, Daimler, Focke-Wulf, Siebel, BMW, Bosch, and IG Works.

6 [FROM CHIEF OF STAFF TO POLAND (p. 35)] In 1936 K became Chief of General Staff of the Luftwaffe. (p. 37) In 1938, Chief of Air Fleet 1, Berlin, and led air attacks on POL ... and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross [Wikipedia reported that he was shot down by the POL air force, but the book didn't mention it].

7 [BATTLE OF FRANCE (p. 51)] In Jan 40, Chief of Air Fleet 2, West... The hand-in-glove coordination of the Army Group B and Air Fleet 2 was classical.

8 [BATTLE OF BRITAIN (p. 63)] For the Battle of BRI, I personally carried out the reconnaissance... (p. 68) The air battle for ENG suffered from the muddle-headedness of Sea-lion. It was clear to every discerning person, including Hitler, that ENG could not be brought to her knees by the Luftwaffe alone... (p. 69) ENG writers exaggerated the strength of GER forces. Churchill speaks of 1,700 aircraft... we only had 700-900.

9 [BRITISH SHOOT DOWN GERMAN AIR AMBULANCES (p. 70)] RAF shot down our air ambulances over the Channel, marked with the Red Cross and protected by international law [Churchill in a footnote expressed: We did not recognize this means of rescuing enemy pilots who had been shot down in action, in order that they might come and bomb our civilian population again... All GER air ambulances were shot down on definite orders approved by the War Cabinet.]

10 [COMMENTING ON CHURCHILL'S VIEWS (p. 72)] According to Churchill's Finest Hour, GER invasion was prevented by the GER failure to gain command of the air. I agree with C's view... (p. 80) As the Allies did later, we had overestimated the effects obtainable by bombing... At Nuremberg I was questioned about the Coventry raid. I explained that Coventry was marked on the target maps with an exact location of all its armament factories as the English Little Essen... I may remind the reader that the GER govt wished to have air warfare banned by international law... I can also say unequivocallyconfirmed by ENG war historiansthat the first raids on open cities were flown by the RAF.

11 [ONLY A FEW DAYS OF LEAVE (p. 81)] A few days' leave at the turn of 1940-41 was the only one I had during the whole war.

12 [NIGHT FIGHTERS (p. 82)] K wasfather of the night fighters.

13 [DON'T BLAME THE LUFTWAFFE FOR THE SEA-LION (p. 83)] It is historically undemonstrable that Sea-lion had to be abandoned because the Luftwaffe was not up to its task... The fact was that because of the lack of a plan for Sea-lion the Luftwaffe was thrown in as a stop-gap to bridge the interval until the curtain rose on the next actRUS.

14 [FROM BARBAROSSA TO MOSCOW (p. 85)] In Barbarossa, K was to lead an Air Fleet to support Army Group Center (Bock), and they had worked together in POL... (p. 89) I instructed my air force and flak generals to consider the wishes of the army as my orders, without prejudice to their subordination to me, unless serious air interests made compliance seem impracticable or detrimental.

15 [BECOMING COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF SOUTH (p. 103)] In Feb 1941, formation of GER Africa Korps... In Sept 1941 appointed CIC South... Arrived in Rome in Nov 1941 to become Rommel's boss (p. 104) Half-measures would get us nowhere. So, ignoring H's instructions, I waived my claims to an overall command, but insisted in return on an even closer and more confidential cooperation on the ITA side than had originally been contemplated.

16 [BRITAIN RULES THE WAVES AND SKIES (p. 105)] Across the Mediterranean, every day showed more plainly the naval and air supremacy of the BRI in these waters... Malta had assumed decisive importance as a strategic key-point, and my primary objective was to safeguard our supply lines by smoking out the hornets nest... My secondary task, at Marshall Cavallero's request, was to iron out the recurrent basic differences between the GER and ITA commanders in the field.

17 [ITALIAN OFFICERS EAT WELL (p. 108)] While GER field-kitchens were besieged by the ITA soldiers, I was entertained in an ITA officers' mess tent that the regulation fare there was much better than the food served in my own staff mess.

18 [ITALIAN NAVY AND AIR FORCE ARE WIMPS (p. 114)] As a fine-weather fleet, ITA navy's doubtful seaworthiness called for increased air protection, and that, with the limited strength of the Axis air forces in the Med, imposed ridiculous demands of the Luftwaffe... If the ITA fleet came within extreme range of the RN and a few shots were actually exchanged, it had to break off the engagement at dusk because of its inability to fire in the dark, and run for the nearest portTaranto or Messina.

p. 114 I only hope I have done my best to paint the situation objectively. I have no desire to offer offensive criticism. I value too deeply the comradeship shown me by the ITA, and I had too many opportunities to watch their devoted work... ITA fighters could be used only for purely protective purposes only... The danger zones over the Med were flown by GER fighters, including Ju 88's and Me 110's of the night-fighter formations... (p. 116) From a tactical standpoint, the use of airmen to protect convoys was unproductive for the most part, involving waste of precious flying hours.

19 [ITALY'S BLUNDER: MALTA (p. 123)] ITA's missing her chance to occupy Malta at the start of hostilities will go down to history as a fundamental blunder... (p. 125) With the decision to push forward as far as the Nile (insisted by Rommel), Operation Malta (insisted by K) was shelved.

20 [WAS KESSELRING TO BE BLAIMED FOR EL ALAMEIN? (p. 132)] As the postwar literature has laid the blame for El Alamein on my shoulders, I declare unequivocally that as CIC South and Chief of Air Command I was not Rommel's superior. R was subordinate to Marshal Bastico and he in turn to the Comando Supremo. At the same time R felt himself responsible to OKW... [p. 141: I had to make the best of a bad job] I do not seek to dispute my share of the responsibility as advisor, in so far as R was at all accessible to advice. Hindenburg once said that he was occasionally held responsible for victories, but always for defeats. These words apply to me in this and many other cases.

21 [BIG FALLOUT WITH ROMMEL (p. 135)] After the failure at El Alamein, on 3 Nov 1942 K and R met in Africa. Hitler sent a cable that he did not agree with the cowardly evasion and the line in the sand must be drawn. R stopped withdrawals in order to fight and die in obedience to orders. I told him there could be no question of any such folly, that H's orders must be ignored as it would result in the extinction of AFR KORPS. I also told him I would accept the responsibility for not carrying out the order... H agreed in a few hrs, but precious time was wasted... (p. 136) A very strenuous period was made intolerable by R's attitude and exorbitant demands... (p. 152) In March 43 R left Tunis on a well-earned leave. I was glad to recommend him for the Knight's Cross with Diamonds, but my efforts to obtain the highest ITA decoration were unsuccessful.

22 [OVERALL MISTAKES IN AFRICA/MEDITERRANEAN (p. 156)] Tunisia was the climax of a misconceived strategy. The main error lay in a total misunderstanding of the importance of the AFR and MED theaters. The second mistake was the insufficient protection of our sea transport. The third handicap was the difficulties of waging coalition war. The fourth was our attitude to FRA, whose AFR colonies H incomprehensibly regarded as taboo.

23 [MISSOULINI'S ARREST AND ITS AFTERMATH (p. 169)] On 25 July 1943, when the news of Mussolini's arrest reached me, I at once asked for an audience with the King... The next day His Majesty assured me that there would be no change as to the prosecution of the war. He had to dismiss Mussolini because the Fascist Grand Council had insisted and M had lost the goodwill of public opinion... (p. 171) [K accepted the King's words and official assurance, but H regarded him as an Italophile going native, starting to distrust K]... (p. 172) The sinister behavior of the ITA was thus responsible for H's moving Army Group B into northern ITA... (p. 173) After the fall of Mussolini CIC South become subordinate only to the King... I continued to carry out my business with the ITA with friendly impartiality.

24 [ITALY'S SURRENDER (p. 176)] (The day of the surrender: 8 Sept 1943) In the AM my HQ was bombed by allies. We found a map in one of the bombers shot down on which my HQ was exactly marked. Evidently the King and Badoglio had permitted the attack... In the PM Jodl rang up to ask if the radio announcement of ITA's surrender was correct... (p. 177) When the situation was clarified it was too late for me to act: the royal family and the govt had fled.

25 [ARGUING WITH HITLER (p. 207)] In July 1944, H demanded that withdrawals stop. K went to argue: After Stalingrad and Tunis can you afford to lose two more armies? I beg to doubt it... H reluctantly agreed.

26 [NO ROLE IN THE JULY 1944 CONSPIRACY TO KILL HITLER (p. 209)] Up to the news on 20 July 1944, I knew nothing of the conspiracy.

27 [SUMMARY OF THE ITALY CAMPAIGN (p. 222)] The battle for ITA was not only justified but also even imperative ... In the end the front collapsed with heavy losses... But the ITA theater pinned down Allied forces which, if they had been engaged in decisive fronts, might have powerfully influenced events in the east or the west adversely for GER... As it was till nearly the end of the war the south of GER was spared the sufferings of war in every aspect, the effect of our resistance in ITA was immeasurable.

28 [THE PARTISAN WAR (p. 233)] If during or after a war insurgents are officially recognized as patriots and heroes even by the govts of countries which have signed the Hague Convention, this means an utter contempt for treaties and the sabotage of every conception of right.

29 [BECOMING COMMANDER-IN-CHEF WEST (p. 237)] 8 March 1945, I was summoned to H, who appointed me CIC West. I was to relieve Runstedt. H said the fall of Remagen had finally necessitated a change of command in the west. We discussed GER dispositions: Central Army Group (Schoerner) in Czechoslovakia and SilesiaNinth Army (Busse) stood firm on its left. Army Group South (Rendulic) to its right. Army Group Vistula (Heinrici) on the left of the Ninth Army. South-East Army Group (Loehr) in Yugoslavia.

30 [BATTLE OF REMAGEN (p. 239)] In the West, our 55 under-strength divisions were opposed by 85 full-strength Allied divisions... (p. 242) Remagen required an increasing flow of reinforcements and by itself almost swallowed up the replacements and supplies fed to CIC West, magnetically attracting everything right and left. This made regrouping, resting, and refurbishing of the other Army Groups more difficult, if not impracticable... (p. 243) The holding of the Rhine line hinged on Remagen... (p. 249) Remagen became the grave of Army Group B.

31 [AIRMEN FIGHT TO THE LAST DAY (p. 243)] Our airmen were doing their best. But they could not score even a moral victory. They had lost heart; enemy attacks on airfields and the unfavorable weather demoralized them... Symptoms of disintegration were perceptible behind the front, which gave cause for uneasiness... Yet my orders were categorical: Hang on!

32 [STRATEGIC DILEMMA (p. 249)] The best generals cannot make bricks without straw... At the suggestion of Army Group commanders I considered retiring the whole Rhine front. But I finally decided against it, as it would have been certain to degenerate into a rout.

33 [HQ IN A TRAIN (p. 254)] On 28 March 1945 I arrived at my new command posta train in a railway tunnel east of Fulda.

34 [THE END OF ARMY GROUP B (p. 256)] 17 April 1945 the Ruhr Fortress was wiped out. Model, commander of Army Group B, killed himself... (p. 266) This sealed the fate of central GER.

35 [HOW GERMAN GENERALS LEAD (p. 259)] As CIC West I went to see Hitler 4 times in 6 weeks... My predecessor, Runstedt, rightly regarded himself as the heir to the tradition of the Supreme Command in WWI. He issued his orders from HQ, almost never visiting the front and rarely using the telephone. This system had undeniable advantages: the CIC was undisturbed and not exposed to the worrying impressions of the front. He was the remote High Priest... (p. 260) Convinced that the place of a commander is where a unit has had a reverse and a dangerous situation has arisen, I had chosen my battle HQ close to the front and often moved them... There were 3 Army Groups in CIC West's command. Their commanders had every right to insist on independence in their own sectors. I also had the firm intention to respect it, though in practice abnormal occurrences often made me interfere. I did not like doing this.

The Army Group commanders were WWI soldiers, distinguished General Staff officers, and leaders with exceptional experience. Divisional commanders varied... Under normal conditions some of them would have had to be changed... The cadre of generals when the GER army was limited to 100,000 men had been too small... A further difficulty was that Army Groups and even junior commands were in direct communication with the OKW and OKH. This might have satisfied the curiosity and the nerves of the High Command, but it thoroughly upset the routine of the superior staffs on the spot.

36 [COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF SOUTH] (p. 265) The last time I saw H was 12 April 1945... (p. 267) In early April I became CIC South again, taking over ITA, YUG, and southern part of RUS front. In the north, Doenitz assumed similar responsibilities... But by then the enemy closed in on GER simultaneously from east and west... (p. 280) The BRI and US forces in southern GER were astonishingly passive. GER dispositions: (1) CIC South-West (Army Group C, ITA), (2) CIC South-East (Balkans, Loehr), (3) Army Group South (AUT, Rendulic), (4) Army Group Center (CZE, Schoerner). The only large formation behind the front and still intact was the newly created 12th Army (Wenck).

37 [WHY WE FOUGHT TILL THE END (p. 281)] It was no longer a question of fighting to obtain a generous peace. The absolute duty not to let our GER brothers-in-arms fall into the hands of the RUS was all that mattered now. For this reason, and this alone, we just had to fight it out to the bitter end.

38 [DOENITZ TAKES OVER (p. 283)] After H's death Doenitz took over. He immediately charted the course to obtain peace as speedily as possible... The Alpine massif was the rallying point for Army Groups South-West, South-East, C, and South.

39 [GUERILLA WAR? FORGET IT (p. 285)] With the south cut off from the north, my responsibilities, previously military only, were enlarged by political assignments. Some die-hard party and local officials demanded that fighting be continued. K talked them out of it. The obliteration of any idea of a guerilla war was achieved... An administration composed of men who were neither politicians nor suspects as National Socialists were now needed for the transition period until the occupying powers took over. They had to organize local voluntary defense squads against pillage during the period of anarchy and their replacement later by a local police force sanctioned by the occupying forces.

40 [SURRENDER (p. 290)] After the capitulation of CIC South-West on 3 May, I sent a message to Eisenhower offering the surrender... Ike replied that he would not enter into negotiations that did not involve all GER forces everywhere. I therefore asked OKW to take the further steps required, which was immediately done. The unconditional surrender became effective for Army Group G (under K's personal command) on 6 May. I had already announced the expected surrender on 2-3 May in order to avoid further fighting and useless bloodshed. I thanked the troops and appealed to them to maintain by their behavior the reputation of the GER armed forces. I explained that our unexceptionable military behavior was the only thing which could preserve the respect of the Allied soldiers, and that it would be of inestimable value to subsequent negotiations at a higher level.

(p. 290) On 6 May my HQ staff was the only group in the Alps which had not yet surrendered... I surrendered to General Max Taylor [later chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], commanding the 101st Airborne Division. K was allowed to keep his weapons, medals, and Marshal's baton.

41 [FLIRTATION WITH THE IDEA OF SURRENER? (p. 291)] In autumn 1944, unknown to the OKWthough I later reported my action to HitlerI had entered into discussions with American intermediaries in Switzerland... (p. 292) Flirtation with the idea of surrender softens morale and impairs the will to fight,

42 [THE NUREMBERG TRIALS ARE UNFAIR (p. 292)] The whole question brings us back to the old problem of the political soldierfor whom, I repeat, the GER armed forces had no place, the product of Gen Seeckt's training being the soldier whose constitutional loyalty was divorced from Party agitation. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg nevertheless sentenced these soldiers to death, and demanded instead an attitude capable of exerting a decisive influence on major foreign political questions, of removing criminal elements in critical domestic situations, or of overthrowing governments with criminal tendencies.

43 [MY TRIAL (p. 298)] My trial in 1947 at Venice... The court had one general and four BRI colonels. The bill of indictment had two charges of killing of hundreds of partisans and civilians... Von Mackensen, Malzer (both my surordinates), and I were sentenced to death... On 4 July 1948 the death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment... My assigned prison job was gumming paper bags. My performance, for a 65-yr-old Field Marshal, was quite respectable. My colleagues were mostly war criminals.

44 [GERMAN SOLDIER BEHAVIOR AT SURRENDER (p. 314)] Our performance in the war was an achievement, as Liddell Hart confirms... I was especially proud of the generally model behavior of the GER soldier in 1945 when he surrendered. I consider his behavior a triumph of discipline, training, and harmony of command and troops.
For all their everything-ness, there are still some areas where even the great and powerful Amazon isn't all that. Sure, you can find just about any physical item being sold in the depths of Amazon product pages somewhere, but when it comes to software and apps, well, that's an area where the eCommerce giant mostly steers READ THE REST


Live auctioneers are literally fast talkers but the skill is much more nuanced than just speed speaking. You want to build excitement and keep the bidders engaged without putting them into such a trance that they stop raising their paddles. What does it really take to be a master auctioneer? Writer Katy Vine attended an eight day America's Auction Academy training held at the Addison Radisson hotel near Dallas. From Texas Monthly:



"You have to sound melodic, but you don't have to do a lot. If you roll it out right, it sounds like you're doing a lot of work, but you're not, really," he said. He stressed that the chant needed to fit the situation. "If you're doing a charity auction and you go too fast, you'll lose your crowd. In real estate, you'll scare them to death." []





That morning, like we did every day, we warmed up with tongue twisters and number drills, our forearms outstretched like a droning choir of capitalists. "You need to have hands out, asking for money," Jones said on the first day. "That's your number one job. No lazy arms. Put your hands out." We needed to appear natural, moving one hand out in the direction of a possible bidder. Where is the bidder? What's your current bid? What's the bid you want after that and the one after that? Where are your hands? How's your rhythm? Are you projecting from the diaphragm? Is your chant melodic? Quit swaying from side to side! And smile!
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The Branson Board of Aldermen on Thursday (now postponed to July 28) will consider an ordinance that would require face coverings in public spaces. The aldermen might approve it, disapprove it, or approve an amended version. Would you be in favor of some form of mandatory face covering ordinance in the city of Branson?

You voted:
The two newest tenants at the Northland Central light-industrial hub are preparing to move in during the coming weeks, filling the last remaining gaps in the enormous former manufacturing complex.

Retech Systems, a Northern California company that makes specialized furnaces to melt titanium and titanium alloy, and Rodriguez Construction Group, a minority-owned construction management and general contracting firm, will occupy the remaining spaces on the first, third and fourth floors at 683 Northland Ave.

Retech  which is relocating almost everything, including its corporate headquarters, from Ukiah, Calif.  makes vacuum and cold-hearth melting furnaces used mostly in the aerospace, defense and medical industries to melt, refine and cast metals. The company will take up 48,934 square feet on the first and fourth floors at Northland for its research, development and manufacturing, including an open-span area with a 200-ton crane on the ground floor and an office area upstairs. The company plans to start with about three dozen workers, growing to 80.

Improvements to the space have already been completed, and Retech will take possession July 1 under a 10-year lease, said Arthur Hall Jr., Northland project manager at the Buffalo Urban Development Corp.
Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 8:00PM

Doc Corner is celebrating Pride Month where every week we focus on documentaries with queer themes. For the final edition (albeit on the 1st of July, sshhh), we are putting a brief spotlight on a few films that I have watched recently that should hopefully their way to audiences over the coming months through queer film festivals (virtual or otherwise) and streaming.

by Glenn Dunks

Just by pure virtue of his being a central figure in New York Citys modern art scene of the 1980s, Keith Harings name comes up often in the films about the era. There are probably a dozen movies about him either as the central figure, or one of a whole scene that is easy to rhapsodize nostalgic about.

Perhaps after Ben Anthonys Keith Haring: Street Art Boy, which is screening as a part of Sheffield Doc/Fest and streaming soon, there wont be a need for that...

Treating his meteoric rise to prominence and fame with the same simplicity (deceptively so) and vibrant electricity of his famed graffiti artwork, the film begins with his early life and build through his days using chalk in Manhattan subways and then to hanging out with Madonna and Grace Jones and his controversial art for the people pop-up shops.

The legacy of Harings conservative religious upbringing lingersmost prominently thanks to his now proud parents being on hand for rather darling testimonials (and fashion shows)as does the eventual understanding that he would die of AIDS, spending the final years of his life churning out art to illuminate and educate. And yet, Anthony is wise to celebrate Haring rather than strictly eulogize him, taking viewers on a global art tour that steeps viewers deep into his world where he never wasted a moment. It was a world where a community brick wall or community center was a more accessible canvas than the museum walls that hang his work today, and a world that comes complete with a thrilling soundtrack and an all-too-contemporary relevance.

If Keith Haring and the queer art scene of the 1980s has been seen time and time again, then the same cannot be said for the subject matter of Tristan Aitchisons Sidney & Friends. Intersex individuals are rarely given a spotlight, even in LGBTIQ+ cinema. Accurate or not, this Wikipedia page shows a discouraging dearth of works the navigate. And if queer cinema is so often about representation and identity, thats a damning shame. I could genuinely only think of one off the top of my head, the science fiction drama Predestination that, just as an aside if you will oblige, fans of Succession would be wise to check out for Sarah Snooks incredible performance.

Sidney & Friends is immediately quite arresting, using black and white photography with appropriately amplified grey tones to visually dive into the world of a small group of friends in Kenya who are intersex or who identify as transgender. The confusion that some audiences may find in what distinguishes one from another actually serves the narrative here, as Sidney and his friends navigate the difficult worlds of gender and sexuality removed almost entirely from the modern conveniences of medical and physical knowledge.They experience similar tribulations that many will find familiar such as attaining an ID and employment. They are labelled as cursed and abominations, but as Aitchison sweetly swerves through their lives in vignettes, their stories cry out for our attention. Intercut with compelling photography, this is a quiet but tender documentary that opens up the world of its subjects in a way that avoids both sensationalism and miserabilism while alive with the realities of living in their bodies.

Lastly, welcome levity and a smart fusion of history and biography is what guides Jen Rainin and co-director Rivkah Beth Medows Ahead of the Curve. Unknown to me, but no doubt at least a little bit familiar to many female viewers who identify as LGBT or Q, the story of Curve magazine is forged with that of its founder, Franco Stevens, and her fight to carve a place in society for lesbian-oriented content.

While it lacks the formal ingenuity of 2018s incredible Ms. doc Yours in Sisterhood, I nevertheless enjoyed the way it tackled the changing landscape around representation and in particular the shifting face of queer media. Catherine Deneuve lawsuits, the hunt for the first celebrity cover, and the archive rummaging make for an entertaining documentary, but it is that youthful zest for queer rebellion (and an adult desire to recreate it) that carries Ahead of the Curve most of all.

Release: Keith Haring: Street Art Boy will air on BBC2 on July 4 and PBS in America some time soon hopefully. Sidney & Friends is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.in America. Ahead of the Curve had its World Premiere last week at 2020 Frameline44 Pride Showcase and will likely do more of the queer festival circuit.
Evans Bank processed about 1,700 PPP loans, for a combined $200 million. About 1,000 of those loans went to businesses that weren't even Evans customers, said Kenneth Pawlak, Evans' chief commercial banking officer.

"We wanted to be there for the business community, first and foremost, and provide an opportunity for people to get PPP loans that were maybe having trouble elsewhere," Pawlak said. "We're happy to say nobody was turned away." Many of those transactions have turned into new customer relationships for Evans.

Pawlak said the federal money arrived at a crucial time. "Without it, there's many businesses that simply couldn't make it through these times. Nobody's prepared to be told, 'Hey, you have to shut your doors.' " Those funds, combined with the adjustments businesses made, allowed them to survive, he said.

M&T Bank in the Buffalo Niagara region secured and disbursed over $977 million in PPP funding for 5,279 small businesses employing nearly 104,000 people. Across all of M&T, the bank secured and disbursed over $7 billion in PPP loans. M&T reported that 82% of its loans were for less than $250,000.
From 2006 to 2008, Ms. Hill produced the hourlong WNED radio show, "Uncrowned Queens: Voices of African American Women," in which she interviewed local community builders. The show received an Associated Press award for Best News Series and in 2009 received a Gracie Award for Mid-Length Documentary from the Alliance for Women in Media.

Ms. Hill began work in 2008 at the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts, where she taught theater arts, theater history and creative writing. She also directed and produced one or two stage productions each year. She retired in 2014.

Her one-woman play "Yalla Bitch!" was the only play by a Buffalo writer selected for performance during the first International Women Playwrights Conference at the University at Buffalo in 1988. Ms. Hill told The News the next year that the play is "a celebration of myself, my individuality, my universality" with other women.

She starred as Lorna Dahomey in the 1987 movie "My Dark Lady," written for her by Fred A. Keller and directed by his son, Frederick King Keller.

On Sept. 4, 2009, Ms. Hill's 7-year-old grandson Asa died the day after suffering serious injuries in a car crash on the Niagara Thruway. Soon after, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Like elements of commercial media, the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association (WNYPBA) that runs WNED-TV and WBFO-FM has been hit with budget cuts due to anticipated financial losses as a result of the coronavirus.

The anticipated cuts for the fiscal year that started Wednesday have led to the dismissal of five employees who work for what has been rebranded as Buffalo Toronto Public Media because it serves Western New York and Southern Ontario.

The names most likely to ring a bell are WBFO program host and digital editor Omar Fetouh and reporter Chris Caya.

Fetouh, a Buffalo native with a distinctive voice, had been with WBFO in a variety of roles for what the station said was 18 years. Caya had been there 15 years. In addition, Fred Cohen, an account executive in Buffalo, was let go.

Two members of the underwriting staff based in Toronto, Paul Koidis and Melanie Morgan, also were let go.
The Buffalo woman charged with driving an SUV through a line of police officers on June 1 was shot twice by police who fired at the vehicle after it ran over a state trooper and struck two other law enforcement officers, according to federal prosecutors.

Authorities had not previously said who shot Deyanna Davis.

"She was not struck with any bullets until she drove through the police line," Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth T. Molisani wrote in a memo filed Tuesday in federal court.

Last month, a spokeswoman for the Erie County District Attorney's Office said Davis, 31, was shot once in the abdomen and once across her back.

Davis' family, her attorney and police have previously raised the possibility she may have been shot prior to the incident.

Samuel Davis, Deyanna Davis' defense attorney, said Wednesday authorities are attempting to vilify her. He said she had to drive through tear gas to escape a chaotic scene.

The new details were revealed in court papers and first reported by WGRZ-TV.
On the first day of July, three men were shot in three different locations in the City of Buffalo.

One victim, identified by police as a 28-year-old man, was found shot to death inside a car parked in a lot of an apartment building on Delaware Avenue in the Elmwood Bidwell neighborhood.

Two other men were wounded by gunfire. In both of those cases, the men showed up at hospitals in civilian vehicles.

Police are investigating a possible connection between the homicide and one of the other non-fatal shootings, a police source said.

The bloody Wednesday came after a spike in gun violence in June during which 41 people were shot, seven fatally, according to Buffalo police.

"We've had three shootings already," said Buffalo Police Deputy Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.

"We're increasing our patrols," he added. "We're setting up details in hot spot areas. We're asking the community for their assistance."

The first shooting was reported Wednesday after a man arrived at Kenmore Mercy Hospital with a gunshot wound. He was driven there in a civilian vehicle, police said.
Angel Swann, who owns Wild Birds Unlimited of Amherst, is familiar with the crested oropendola. Swann is a native of Trinidad, and has firsthand knowledge of the intelligent bird.

Whats interesting is blackbirds in general are known to be the smartest of birds in the bird species. They have a great ability to learn, Swann said. Being a blackbird, they can vary in the different noises they make.

"It likes to be at the edge of a rainforest and feeds predominantly on insects. In the tropics, it feeds on fruit, and drinks nectar as well.

Close to the size of a blue jay, the crested oropendola belongs to the Icteridae family, a family of new-world blackbirds that includes orioles and grackles, Swann said. Crested refers to the top of the bird's head.

Her keepers described Bluebird as very smart, crafty and harmless  often hiding in the canopy in the rainforest exhibit out of view from her keepers, Bullock said.

Shanna Hall Dempsey, the zoos avian collection manager, who reported the escape on Buffalo-Niagara Birdings Facebook page, said Bluebird has a blue band on her right leg and had an orange band on her left. The banding, Swann explained, is not part of the bird's natural coloring, but rather a tracking mechanism.
He shared new data that showed a trend among local residents who tested for Covid-19 last week: The percentage of positive tests in each age group increased as the age groups got younger. Overall, however, the percentage of positive cases out of all tests done remains below 2%.

"We are seeing a higher percentage of individuals in the younger age groups testing positive than seniors," he said. "I think a lot of this has to do with the individuals in those age groups not taking the precautions that others are  not wearing masks when they're out in public."

He added, "We are concerned that this is how it's being spread in the South and the Southwest; our younger people that are going to events, going out to parties, going out to bars, catching it. Maybe they don't get really sick, but they pass it onto someone else and it can be fatal. So once again, we like watching the statistics."

Other states, such as California, have ordered bars closed and curtailed other service-sector businesses.

Poloncarz and Health Commissioner Gale Burstein pointed out that two bars hosting parties and live music were visited Tuesday night and were later cited by health inspectors for violations. They include The Stage country and rock bar on Main Street in Clarence and the Armor Inn Tap Room on Abbott Road in Hamburg.
Paris, TX (75460)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 87F. SW winds shifting to NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 62F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Cash told The News that he expects the districts graduation rate to top 70% this year, and possibly reach 75%. The district rate in 2019 was 64.7%, about the same as the year before. If the state Education Department does verify a sizable increase in the graduation rate this year, its hard to know how much stock to put in it. Grading was different this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Third-quarter grades were essentially frozen on March 13  work or tests done after that could improve a students grade but not bring it down. The third quarter counted for 50% of final grades, and marks for the fourth quarter were not given. Did leniency in grading result in more diplomas given? We may not know until 2021 rates are tallied.

Theres no disputing the fact that Cash has kept the district moving in a positive direction since arriving from Memphis in 2015. Cash, whose contract is due to expire in August 2021, says the pandemic has caused him to consider postponing his retirement and asking the board to keep him on.

Buffalo is my last stop, Cash told The News. I want to make sure I leave it in better condition than I found it.

From our perspective, Cash is welcome to extend his stay for as long as he likes.

  

Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing.
Posted 7/2/20

This week we travel back to the United States just in time to celebrate Americas birthday. But before we do, we have more adventures in store in Sweden.To start off our week, we completed a 
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau laments the actions of individuals and certain groups that are taking advantage of the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). The 2020 health crisis should be a moment of solidarity for the country.

Despite the rising number of suspected fraud claims, the federal government is extending the program. But there will be consequences for CERB fraudsters.

CERB extension

CERB extension became necessary when the government saw that far too many people are still struggling due to the pandemic. On June 16, 2020, affected Canadians received the news. Trudeau announced an eight-week extension of the taxable benefit.

From 16 weeks, the financial relief will be up to a total of 24 weeks. Likewise, the payment of $8,000 will increase to a total of $12,000, or an additional $4,000 of CERB. The extension should help ease the transition when returning to work.

Eligibility

Eligibility requirements will not deviate from the original CERB. If youre a previous recipient who is about to max out the benefit and youre still in the same circumstances, you can apply to receive the additional $4,000. Youre not eligible if you have employment or self-employment income of more than $1,000 per month.

According to Bill Morneau, Canadas minister of finance, the CERB extension will allow a breathing spell for Canadians experiencing financial hardships. However, the government expect claimants to seek job opportunities actively. The national employment service or Job Bank can help you search for jobs.

Spark to invest

The economic impact of COVID-19 should motivate, or at least spark interest for, CERB claimants to invest. Its no longer a matter of saving for a rainy day but having enough in crisis situations. Government-sponsored programs like CERB are quick fixes and temporary. It would be best if you had something more lasting or permanent.

Dividend investing has risks, but you can mitigate them by choosing the stocks that align with your risk appetite and financial goals. TELUS (TSX:T)(NYSE:TU) is a top draw today. The nature of the business alone will tell you that youre investing in a pandemic-proof and recession-resistant asset.

Story continues

Communications services and the internet are no longer luxuries but essentials in the modern world. This $28.68 billion company provides a range of telecommunications products and services.

The TELUS network also boasts of the fastest speed in the world. Furthermore, the recent launching of its 5G network promises to create a quarter of a million new jobs and contribute about $40 billion to Canadas economy by 2026.

Youll be in the company of hedge funds that are placing their smart money on the second-largest telecom company in the country. As of March 2020, 13 hedge fund investors have holdings in TELUS. Theres less worry about market volatility or turbulence. At less than $25 per share and a 4.99% dividend, you can own a winning stock.

Punishment for scammers

The Canadian government has disbursed a total of $43.5 billion in CERB payments through June 4, 2020. Prime Minister Trudeau is content to obtain approval for the programs extension. But CERB scammers, beware. If you deliberately attempt to cheat the program, there will be consequences when caught.

The post $4,000 CERB Extra Given by CRA: Will You Get it? appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Christopher Liew 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
VANCOUVER, BC, June 30, 2020 /CNW/ - Lida Resources Inc. (CSE:LIDA.CN - News) ("Lida" or the "Company") is a Canadian exploration company that is pleased to announce that it has entered into two agreements to acquire 400 hectares which encompass the Quiruvilca mine. While several million has been spent on this property, the total acquisition cost to the Company was USD $200,000 with no further obligations.

Lida Resources Inc. Acquires 100% Ownership of the Quiruvilca Mine, Peru (CNW Group/Lida Resources Inc)

"Our goal is to completely change the mining methodology. The 2.5km gold/copper sulfide zone requires infill drilling to prove out tonnage. Our objective is to change from a vein type silver mine profile to a high tonnage gold/copper mine profile", stated Len De Melt, CEO.

The Quiruvilca Mine (the "Property"), Quiruvilca District, Santiago de Chuco Province, La Libertad, Peru is located 6 miles south-east of the Company's San Vincente Property.

The mine is located at an elevation of 3,800 meters in the Andes Mountains of Northern Peru, approximately 80 miles inland from the coastal city of Trujillo, Peru in the district of Agallpampa, Province of Otuzco. The Property is located in the occidental part of the Tertiary Volcanic Belt of the Western Cordillera and is underlain by rocks of the Calipuy Formation, a precious and base metals metallotects formation found in Peru. The Calipuy Formation is the product of post tectonic volcanism in the Cordillera region.

Quiruvilca Mine

Quiruvilca is one of Peru's oldest mines with mineralization first reported in the area in 1789. Mining at a corporate level started in 1907 and more or less until 1930 or so. The Quiruvilca Mine has been in continuous operation since about 1940 until 2018 and was initially, focused on the silver bearing veins on the property. In 1967, the mill started to treat complex ores producing silver, lead and zinc concentrate. In 1995, Pan American acquired an 80% interest in the Quiruvilca Mine and increased their interest to 99.7% by 1996.

The workings are extensive, spread out over a wide area, in many veins. Currently, grades run at about 150 g/t silver, 4% zinc, 1.5% lead and 0.5% copper. Stoping has taken place in, reportedly, 60 places. Considering the 1,725 tons/per/day that the mine can process, that is a lot of small stopes! The underground working places are accessed by several adits/ramps and one shaft. Ore is moved to surface, primarily, by one long conveyor belt system but also supplemented by rail movement from ore passes plus skip-hoisted ore.

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The Quiruvilca deposits are in layered volcanic rocks of the Miocene Calipuy Formation which includes andesite and minor basalt flows. The Calipuy formations have an estimated thickness in excess of 2,000m. Intrusive rocks include andesite stocks and dykes. The ore zones have four distinct zones. Ores in the central part of the district are mesothermal and are dominated by enargite. The mesothermal deposits grade outward to the epithermal deposits. Lewis (1956) described the various zones in some detail. The inner zone is called the Enargite Zone and, in the past, encompassed the major part of the Quiruvilca Mine. Little mining is done in that zone today. Minerals associated with the enargite in this zone are pyrite tennantite, wurtzite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, orpiment, galena and rare hutcinsonite. The second zone outwards is the Transition Zone which is up to 1,400m wide. Its dominant ore mineral is sphalerite with pyrite and tennatite-tetrahedrite. Other sulphides include chalcopyrite, galena, marcasite, arsenopyrite, covellite and wurtzite. Gangue minerals are mostly massive quartz and occasional rhodochrosite and calcite. The third zone outward is the epithermal Lead-Zinc Zone characterized by sphalerite and galena accompanied by pyrite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite-tennantite, marcasite, arsenopyrite and gratonite. Gangue minerals in the lead zinc zone are quartz, dolomite, rhodochrosite and calcite. The outermost zone is the Stibnite zone. In addition to stibnite, the other minerals there are arsenopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and arsenic.

Leonard De Melt, CEO of Lida stated,

"This transaction is an important consolidation of land in an important part of Peru. The San Vicente mine was in production of gold and silver concentrate until 2011. The Quiruvilca Mine is only 6 miles away from the Company's San Vincente Property and we feel that mineralized zones connect the two properties. I feel that the large near massive sulphide copper rich zone near the bottom of the Quiruvilca mine has excellent potential and I believe this structure had a 2.5km potential that had only a few drill holes into it. I believe this combined project would potentially make an excellent exploration/resource build project that could return to mining with some key investment and management. Our goal is the completely change the mining methodology. The 2.5km gold/copper sulfides zone requires infill drilling to prove out tonnage. Our objective is to change from a vein type silver mine profile to a high tonnage gold/copper mine profile."

About Lida Resources Inc.

Lida acquires properties by staking initial mineral claims, negotiating for permits from government authorities, acquiring mineral claims or permits from existing holders, entering into option agreements to acquire interests in mineral claims or purchasing companies with mineral claims or permits. On these properties, the Company explores for minerals on its own or in joint ventures with others. Exploration for metals usually includes surface sampling, airborne and/or ground geophysical surveys and drilling. The Company is not limited to any particular metal or region, but the corporate focus is on precious and base metals in South America, specifically Peru, as at the date hereof.

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION DISCLAIMER

Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forward looking information, including but not limited to, expansion of operations. Forward looking 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. Forward looking 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 forward looking information. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward looking 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 forward-looking 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 forward looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Any forward-looking 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 forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.

Cision

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SOURCE Lida Resources Inc

Cision

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VANCOUVER, BC, June 24, 2020 /CNW/ - mCloud Technologies Corp. (TSXV:MCLD.V - News) (OTCQB:MCLDF - News) ("mCloud" or the "Company"), a leading provider of asset management solutions combining IoT, cloud computing, artificial intelligence ("AI") and analytics, today announced it had signed a mutual reseller and a global service agreement with nybl, an innovative technology company delivering AI solutions to industries that include process industries such as oil and gas.

mCloud Technologies Corp. Logo (CNW Group/mCloud Technologies Corp.)

Included in this agreement is cooperation with nybl to deliver a joint solution that will connect and optimize an initial 2,000 oil wells in North America and Kuwait. Cooperation on this solution is now underway.

mCloud and nybl have partnered to deliver complete asset optimization solutions to oil and gas operators worldwide, initially targeting over one million oil and gas wells employing artificial lift technology such as Electric Submersible Pumps, or ESPs, and plunger lifts in Western Canada, the United States, and the Middle East. nybl's lift.ai and mCloud's AssetCare platform will together provide oil and gas well operators with an integrated capability that uses AI to eliminate unplanned outages and continuously monitor the lift equipment at every connected well.

Through the arrangement, mCloud will have the exclusive licensing rights to nybl's lift.ai technology in North America, where these capabilities will become part of the Company's AssetCare solution suite for Connected Industry. In addition, nybl will package and sell AssetCare to its customers, primarily in the Middle East, as a complement to its current offerings.

"By combining forces, mCloud and nybl will be able to assist oil and gas customers all around the world," said Noor Alnahas, CEO of nybl. "Our joint solution will enable operators to see benefits in excess of US$200,000 per connected well annually."

"We could not be more excited about teaming with nybl to further enhance the AI capabilities we bring to new and existing AssetCare customers," said Costantino Lanza, mCloud's Chief Growth and Revenue Officer. "Our companies complement each other on all fronts, and our teams are already engaging with additional customers to bring our joint capabilities to specifically targeted oil wells all across North America, with connections to commence in the second half of 2020."

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About mCloud Technologies Corp.

mCloud is creating a more efficient future with the use of AI and analytics, curbing energy waste, maximizing energy production, and getting the most out of critical energy infrastructure. Through mCloud's AI-powered AssetCare platform, mCloud offers complete asset management solutions in five distinct segments: commercial buildings, renewable energy, healthcare, heavy industry, and connected workers. IoT sensors bring data from connected assets into the cloud, where AI and analytics are applied to maximize their performance.

Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada with offices in twelve locations worldwide, the mCloud family includes an ecosystem of operating subsidiaries that deliver high-performance IoT, AI, 3D, and mobile capabilities to customers, all integrated into AssetCare. With over 100 blue-chip customers and more than 48,000 assets connected in thousands of locations worldwide, mCloud is changing the way energy assets are managed.

mCloud's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MCLD and on the OTCQB under the symbol MCLDF. mCloud's convertible debentures trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MCLD.DB. For more information, visit www.mcloudcorp.com.

About nybl

nybl is a technology development house driving digital transformation using machine learning to deliver real-time failure prediction, prescription, prevention, and optimization solutions that increase efficiency and reduce cost in any industry.

nybl solutions are current being used to solve problems ranging from predicting demand in supply chain to predicting equipment failure in the oil and gas industry as well as assessing the probability of physical security threats.

nybl's solutions are enabled by an end-to-end Artificial Intelligence platform that eliminates the need for historical training data by using data-behavior models and knowledge-driven machine learning to transform data into intelligence.

For more information, visit www.nybl.ai.

SOURCE mCloud Technologies Corp.

Cision

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 17, 2020) - The Very Good Food Company Inc. (CSE: VERY) ("VGF" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the successful completion of its initial public offering (the "Offering"), including the full exercise of the over-allotment option by the agent for the Offering, Canaccord Genuity Corp. ("Canaccord"), resulting in the issuance of 16,100,000 common shares of the Company ("Common Shares") at a price of $0.25 per Common Share for gross proceeds of $4,025,000.

The Common Shares were listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") on June 16, 2020 and will commence trading on the CSE at market open on June 18, 2020, under the symbol "VERY".

CEO Mitchell Scott stated: "This IPO is a critical milestone for VGF. It provides us with the capital to realize our vision of becoming a global leader in food technology, creating a healthier alternative to existing options and offering a premium customer experience. We have seen significant growth in our eCommerce and in-store sales, including a rapid increase in subscriptions to our monthly recurring delivery service. We intend to scale our operations aggressively and continuously reinvest in creating the highest quality, most innovative plant-based products for our customers."

Use of Proceeds

The Company anticipates using the net proceeds from the Offering to accelerate its expansion plans, and to continue developing innovative new products to increase market share. Key priorities include funding the build-out of its Vancouver facility, increasing production capabilities, as well as investing in research & development.

Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

VGF is also pleased to welcome Brian Greenleaf as the Company's new Chief Operating Officer. Most recently, he played a key role in creating the world's largest medical marijuana company (Canopy Growth Corp) as Director of Operations. Mr. Greenleaf holds a degree in Engineering physics and additionally has experience in IT, Marketing, Business Development, Financial Management and Operations. Brian will be a critical asset in scaling operations as the Company builds a globally recognized brand, serving customers and businesses internationally.

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In connection with his appointment, Mr. Greenleaf has been granted 240,000 incentive stock options exercisable at a price of $0.25 until June 17, 2025.

IPO Details

The Common Shares were issued pursuant to a final prospectus dated May 14, 2020, filed with the securities regulatory authorities in each of the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (the "Prospectus"). A copy of the Prospectus is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Canaccord received a commission of $322,000 (representing 8% of the gross proceeds realized from the Offering) of which $241,500 was paid in cash and $80,500 through the issuance of 322,000 Common Shares at a deemed price of $0.25 per Common Share. Canaccord was also granted 1,288,000 warrants exercisable to purchase Common Shares at a price of $0.25 per Common Share until June 17, 2021 (the "Agent's Warrants").

The Company today also announced that it has engaged Canaccord to provide certain financial advisory services and as compensation thereunder has granted to Canaccord an aggregate of 500,000 warrants exercisable at a price of $0.25 at any time after the volume weighted average price of the Common Shares is equal to or exceeds $0.62 until December 17, 2021 (the "Advisory Warrants").

Upon commencement of trading, it is anticipated that VGF will have 69,598,725 issued and outstanding Common Shares (28,008,343 of which are subject to escrow restrictions), 4,613,500 Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to the exercise of outstanding incentive options, 1,288,000 Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to the exercise of the Agents' Warrants and 500,000 Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to the Advisory Warrants.

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release. The Common Shares have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws. Accordingly, the Common Shares may not be offered or sold within the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to exemptions from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of VGF in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About The Very Good Food Company

The Very Good Food Company Inc. is an emerging plant-based food technology company that designs, develops, produces, distributes and sells a variety of plant-based meat and other food alternatives. Our mission is to employ plant-based food technology to create products that are delicious while maintaining a wholesome nutritional profile. To date, we have developed a core product line under The Very Good Butchers brand.

For further information, please contact:



Mitchell Scott

Chief Executive Officer and Director

Phone: +1 855-472-9841

Email: invest@verygoodbutchers.com

Forward-Looking Information

Certain information contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information under applicable securities laws including, but not limited to, statements related to the anticipated time of trading of the Common Shares on the CSE, the anticipated use of net proceeds raised under the Offering, the Company's vision of becoming a global leader in food technology, the attributes of the Company's products as healthier alternatives to existing options and the Company's plans to scale operations, establish a market leadership position and build a globally recognized brand. This information is based on management's reasonable assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it and are made as of the date of this news release. However, the Company does not undertake to update any such forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities laws in Canada.

Actual results and the timing of events or developments may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information as a result of various risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, without limitation, those described in the "Risk Factors" section of the Prospectus such as negative cash flow and future financing requirements to sustain operations, dilution, limited history of operations and revenues and no history of earnings or dividends, competition, economic changes and the impact of and risks associated with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A copy of the Prospectus can be accessed under VGF's profile on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval ("SEDAR") at www.sedar.com. We caution that the list of risk factors and uncertainties is not exhaustive and other factors could also adversely affect our results. Readers are urged to consider the risks, uncertainties and assumptions carefully in evaluating the forward-looking information and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such information.

Not for dissemination in the United States or for distribution to U.S. newswire services

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/58080
As the world watched new protests in Hong Kong streets, against a national security law introduced by Beijing, the United Kingdom and Taiwan both offered assistance to Hong Kongers that wish to leave.

The new law punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.

On Thursday(July 2), Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia is also considering support.

"We do find these events very concerning and we've been very clear about our statements that in concert with many other nations. This is not a position Australia has commented on in isolation. We've done so with many other like minded countries about these events."

Morrison says they will offer "safe haven visas" to those who want to exit the former British colony and said they were putting the final touches on the proposal.

Authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong have repeatedly said the legislation is aimed at a few "troublemakers" and will not affect rights and freedoms.

Critics fear it will crush freedoms and the city's independent legal system.

The law has also sparked outcry from the United States and the European Union, who have warned of serious consequences over the law.

Britain said it would stand by its word and offer all those in Hong Kong with British National Overseas status a special immigration route where they can stay for five years to live and work in Britain.

The BNO passports were created when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China 23 years ago.

It follows British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab's comments on Wednesday accusing China of breaking its promises to the people of Hong Kong.

Britain and Canada also updated their travel advisories for Hong Kong yesterday, saying there was an increased risk of detention.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke in parliament Wednesday.

"The enactment and imposition of this national security law constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. It violates Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy."

Hong Kong police arrested more than 300 people on Wednesday -- the first day the law was in effect -- as protesters turned out in the thousands calling for freedom.

Police say nine of the arrests were for violations of the new law.
Governing parties across Canada are enjoying a surge in support as they confront the COVID-19 pandemic. Justin Trudeau's Liberals are no exception.

But for a party heading up a minority government to be in such a position is rare. The Liberals' polling bump is the biggest for a minority government in over 60 years.

The Liberals were in a state of post-election stagnation in late February and early March, averaging about 33 per cent in the polls. That's exactly where they were on election night nearly nine months ago.

Since then, however, the Liberals have seen their support increase significantly. It has risen to between 39 and 42 per cent support among decided voters, according to a monthly average of national polls.

That's a big increase of between six and nine percentage points compared to the last election. To understand how remarkable that is, you have to go back through decades of Canadian political history.

Since modern political public opinion polling began in Canada in the 1940s, 10 elections have ended with minority governments. Most of the time, the first nine months of a newly elected (or re-elected) minority government do not see wide swings in public opinion.

The increase in support for the Liberals  which seems to have settled around 7.5 points  eight to nine months after an election is the largest for a minority government since John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives surged by 11.5 points in 1957-58.

That's the only case of a minority government experiencing a larger increase in support than the one lifting up the Liberals now.

CBC

Minority governments since the end of the Second World War have had a mixed record of political success  three were re-elected with majorities, three had to settle for subsequent minority mandates and three were defeated. But Diefenbaker's first minority ended with the biggest majority win in Canadian history.

From minority to majority governments

Diefenbaker rode a wave of popularity into election day in 1957 that continued into the first months of his new minority government.

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The PCs kept up a frenetic pace in the early days, following through on popular election promises. After three months in office, support for the PCs ballooned from 38.5 per cent to 47 per cent, according to Gallup. Between six and eight months after the 1957 election, the PCs were polling at 50 per cent among decided voters.

Diefenbaker's support was boosted by the lacklustre performance of the newly-minted Liberal leader, Lester Pearson, who clumsily suggested the PCs willingly hand power back to his party. With the wind in his sails, Diefenbaker dissolved Parliament and called a new election. It delivered him 54 per cent of the popular vote and the highest share of seats in the House of Commons ever won by a party.

Canadian Press

After being reduced to a minority government in the 1972 federal election, Pierre Trudeau had to govern with the support of the New Democrats. He introduced new social welfare policies that helped boost Liberal support.

The gains weren't enormous  four points after eight months  but it was enough to put the Liberals back into majority territory. After being defeated on a budget vote in 1974 when the NDP withdrew its support, Trudeau increased his party's share of the vote by five points over 1972 and returned to Parliament with a majority government.

Stephen Harper, re-elected with a minority government in 2008, did see a short-lived boost in support in the early months of his second term when the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois tried to form a coalition to boot him from office. But before long, Harper's Conservatives were down in the polls again, slipping as much as 7.5 points seven months after the 2008 election.

Harper's minority government hung on, however, and it wasn't until 2011 that the opposition finally defeated the Conservatives in the House and forced an election. The result was a Conservative majority government.

Pearson, Harper re-elected with minorities

The Pearson minorities and Harper's first term in 2006-08 featured few big swings in the polls. After ousting Diefenbaker in 1963, Pearson's Liberals retained their support over the next few months and, when Pearson decided to call an election, the result in 1965 was scarcely different from the outcome in 1963.

The polls wobbled back and forth during the first months of Pearson's second term. It wasn't until Pearson stepped aside and was replaced by Pierre Trudeau that the Liberals were able to break the logjam in 1968.

Harper's first term had a similarly stable polling trend line and his minority government lasted for nearly three years. By 2008, when Harper called an election, the Conservatives had done a good job of undermining Liberal leader Stephane Dion  but it only got them another minority government.

Going from minority to defeat

There are a few minority government horror stories, of course.

After five years in office, Diefenbaker's PCs were unpopular and had been reduced to a minority government in 1962. The once-active Tories were now looking incompetent. The cabinet was in revolt and support for the PCs had dropped four to five points. Diefenbaker's weakened minority government lost a vote of confidence in the House and the election in 1963.

Chuck Stoody / Canadian Press

Joe Clark, who won a shaky minority government in 1979 despite finishing significantly behind the Liberals in the popular vote, could not fulfil his election promises once in office. Support for Clark's PCs plummeted by nine points after only eight months. In 1980, they were defeated and back on the opposition benches.

Paul Martin, once seen as the head of a Liberal juggernaut, was significantly damaged by the sponsorship scandal and held on with only a minority government in 2004. The Liberals managed to retain a lead in the polls going into the 2005 election campaign but it could not be sustained. By January 2006, the Liberals were out and Harper was in.

When to pull the plug

Timing matters with minority governments. Had Martin become prime minister earlier and called an election in late 2003, he might have secured a majority government that would have been in a better position to survive the sponsorship scandal.

Had Diefenbaker not cashed in on his popularity very quickly in 1958, he might not have won his historic majority government. Had Clark handled his minority in the House better, he might have staved off defeat in 1980 long enough for Pierre Trudeau to make his planned retirement from politics.

Not surprisingly, minority governments that decide their own fates have tended to fare better than those forced to call elections due to defeats in the House. The record is not perfect, however  which shows why campaigns still matter.

There's also no guarantee that the trend in the polls after less than a year in a minority Parliament will continue indefinitely. The records of the past nine minority governments show that on only four occasions did the trend line after nine months (positive or negative) stay the same straight through to election day.

When an election is called well after a minority government's first eight or nine months in office are over, the polling trends can be more unpredictable. Opinions shift over time, so troubled governments tend to get quickly defeated by opportunistic oppositions  and popular ones tend not to hesitate to renew their mandates.

That brings us to today.

The surge in support for Trudeau's Liberals is historically abnormal. The unprecedented pandemic is one reason for that  but if COVID-19 prevents an election call despite the government's strong support, that also would make for an abnormal situation.
Possible funnel clouds for Edmonton, thunderstorms for Manitoba

Canada Day looks to be another day of severe thunderstorm risks in the eastern Prairies. Alberta will head back to seasonal temperatures, but there's also a slight risk of funnel clouds in the central part of the province. Manitoba continues its hot streak and the eastern side of the province may get to see some of nature's fireworks. Check out more details below.

Visit our Complete Guide to Summer 2020 for an in-depth look at the Summer Forecast, tips to plan for it and much more

WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS

Lots of heat and risks of thundershowers for eastern Manitoba on Wednesday

Heavy rain just west of Edmonton toward Grand Prairie, with a possible funnel cloud nearing Edmonton on Wednesday

Showers ease Thursday morning for central and northern Alberta

Keep on top of ALERTS in your area

WARMTH RETURNS TO ALBERTA, SEVERE RISK CONTINUES IN SASKATCHEWAN AND MANITOBA

After several days of underwhelming temperatures, Alberta finally gets some love for Canada Day, the beginnings of a gradual recovery that begins with daytime highs finally reaching the 20-degree mark for many places.

Heavy rain is en route to Edmonton with the chance of funnel clouds. Regina also gets some rain that will taper off on Wednesday.

PR ICONS

Manitoba, on the other hand, not so much with the moderate temperatures. They're set to stay very firmly in the 30s, and feeling close to 40 for the coming days with the humidity.

Manitoba and northwestern Ontario are also once again the focus of severe weather risk Wednesday.

Prairie Risk Wednesday

On Thursday, higher amounts of energy build in southern Manitoba and it's going to be a scorcher. There is the chance of showers for central and southern Saskatchewan throughout the day. Thursday continues to be hot for Manitoba and cools as we head east.

PR- Thurs temps

Check back for updates as the forecast evolves.

WATCH BELOW: CANADA DAY SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS? WE WEIGH THE FORECAST
Former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni has added her voice to those calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, saying it would close the door on peace with the Palestinians and threaten the idea of Israel as a Jewish democratic state.

"The idea of partial annexation that would keep the Palestinians in enclaves within the West Bank surrounded by Israeli territories [is] not sustainable," she said in a Skype interview with CBC.

"I prefer to keep the road for peace open and not to take steps that would take us all to  the point of no return."

Livni was chief negotiator for Israel in peace talks with the Palestinians brokered by the United States in 2013/14 and has held eight cabinet portfolios in addition to serving as opposition leader.

Netanyahu has been pledging to annex, or in his words, extend Israeli sovereignty, over the Jordan Valley and Jewish settlements in the West Bank for several months, emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump's peace plan.

Unveiled in January, it would see 30 per cent of the West Bank brought under permanent Israeli control while giving the Palestinians limited autonomy on land left over.

WATCH | Tzipi Livni says she believes annexation of Palestinian territory is wrong for the future of Israel:

The Palestinians have rejected the plan and critics say it would end any prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Netanyahu says the plan simply recognizes reality on the ground.

"Applying Israeli law to areas of Judea and Samaria [the Biblical names used by the Israeli government for the West Bank] that will remain part of Israel in any future peace deal will not set back the cause of peace," he said in a virtual speech to the American Christians United for Israel a few days ago.

"It will advance peace."

WATCH | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says annexation will advance peace:

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Livni argues that it will harm Israel's long-term security by advancing the likelihood of a "one-state" scenario.

"We believe there's a need to keep a Jewish majority," said Livni. She said without a possibility to express their voting rights in a state of their own, more Palestinians are talking about one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and demanding equal voting rights.

"This would not be an Israeli Jewish democratic state. This will be a binational state with an ongoing conflict without giving an answer to the national aspirations of [either side.]"

There are an estimated 430,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, according to the Israeli rights group Peace Now, and 2.7 million Palestinians who live under a combination of some Palestinian civil rule and Israeli military control.

Support from Washington

The settlements are illegal under international law, having been built on land captured and occupied in 1967. Israel doesn't accept that, saying the territory is disputed.

Supporters of Netanyahu's plans argue time is of the essence in moving ahead given the unprecedented support being offered by the Trump administration.

Trump has recognized both Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981 and Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Palestinians hope East Jerusalem, officially annexed by Israel in 1980 and now home to more than 200,000 Jewish settlers, according to Peace Now, will be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

"What Israel can afford doing now with American support is not something that can be delayed indefinitely," said Prof. Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, in a recent publication.

Mohammed Salem/Reuters

"Israel should seize this moment to apply its law to the Jordan Valley and to the environs of Jerusalem in order to guarantee Israeli security for generations."

Netanyahu set July 1 as the target date for bringing annexation plans forward. But on Wednesday, a Netanyahu confidant confirmed the plan would not start on July 1, and said officials were still working out details with their American counterparts. The confidant said he expected the annexation would occur later this month.

International opposition increasing

Meanwhile, international opposition to Netanyahu's plan has been growing.

On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote an article for the front page of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

"As a lifelong friend, admirer and supporter of Israel, I am fearful that these proposals will fail in their objective of securing Israel's borders and will be contrary to Israel's own long-term interests," Johnson wrote.

If annexation did go ahead, he said, "the U.K. will not recognize any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties."

CBC

Last week, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said "annexation would constitute the most serious violation of international law" and called on Israel to abandon its plans.

More than 1,000 European legislators, including 240 from the United Kingdom, also published an open letter appealing to their governments to act to stop Israel from proceeding.

Hugh Lovatt, a Middle East expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the European Union was trying to come up with some form of action.

"Not just in terms of preserving the two-state solution, but also in terms of defending the international legal order," he said.

Jordan has warned of consequences

Jordan, just one of two countries to have peace treaties with Israel in the Middle East along with Egypt, has warned of dire consequences if the West Bank annexation takes place.

And Arab states from the Gulf have said the recent warming in their relations with Israel could be jeopardized.

Amichai Cohen, a lawyer with the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, said the only opinion that really counts with Netanyahu is the one in the White House.

Given the lack of a definitive signal from the U.S., Cohen believes Netanyahu might move ahead carefully.

Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

"I don't think it will be the entire 30 per cent of the West Bank that the Trump plan is talking about," he said. "More probably it'll be something more symbolic, like specific Jewish settlements near Jerusalem. Something like that."

A May opinion poll for the Democracy Institute found that 52 per cent of Jewish Israelis supported Netanyahu's annexation plans.

'Part of my responsibility'

Livni said she decided to be more vocal on the subject despite her retirement from politics because she worries there is a perception abroad that all Israelis support annexation.

"I felt that part of my responsibility is to say no. There is around half of the Israeli society that are against it."

Amir Cohen/Reuters

She said she would like to see the Palestinians engage in negotiations and acknowledges that successive rounds of peace talks, including her own, have failed.

But it does not shake her of her conviction that annexation would be an historical mistake.

"I believe that taking the right steps in order to keep the road open, and it's still open, is the right thing to do for now even if peace is not just around the corner," she said.

"And it's not, unfortunately."
LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - Gabon's government said on Wednesday that European tourists and business travellers would not be granted visas after the European Union excluded it from a "safe list" of countries from which the bloc is allowing non-essential travel.

The European Union re-opened on Wednesday to leisure or business travel from 14 countries beyond its borders based on their success in containing the coronavirus. The list was approved by a majority of member states on Tuesday.

In response to its exclusion, Gabon's foreign ministry instructed diplomatic missions to deny tourist visas to citizens of EU member states when Gabon's air borders re-opened on Wednesday.

A letter from the ministry said the policy had been adopted "in application of the principle of reciprocity". Some visas will be granted for missions authorised by the government, it said.

Four African countries - Algeria, Morocco, Rwanda and Tunisia - are included on the EU's list. Gabon has recorded 5,394 cases of COVID-19, including 42 deaths, one of the higher rates in Central Africa.

The EU's list excludes the United States, Russia, Brazil and Turkey, countries whose containment of the virus is considered worse than the EU average.

(Reporting by Gerauds Wilfried Obangome; Writing by Aaron Ross, Editing by William Maclean)
Progress Singapore Party secretary-general Tan Cheng Bock (second from left) with Yio Chu Kang SMC candidates Kayla Low (left) and People's Action Party's Yip Hon Weng (second from right) as well as market stallholders during a walkabout at Ang Mo Kio 628 Market. (PHOTO: Wan Ting Koh/Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE  The Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) scheme may have its merits, but the ruling Peoples Action Party (PAP) is using it as a ploy to entice voters not to vote for opposition candidates at this General Election, said Progress Singapore Party (PSP) secretary-general Tan Cheng Bock on Thursday (2 July).

Dr Tan was speaking to reporters during a walkabout at Ang Mo Kio 628 Market at Yio Chu Kang single-member constituency (SMC), and he said that the biggest element missing on being an NCMP is that he has no constituency grounds to represent.

While (the government) has tried to improve the NCMP scheme, I look at it this time around as a ploy to entice voters not to vote for opposition, he said.

It is very important that (a Member of Parliament) has a base. If youve got no base, its very difficult to function as an MP. You cannot be a virtual MP, you must be a proper one.

He added that it would be difficult to represent the ground if you did have a constituency because as an MP, you can feel the ground...the issues that you brought up you can speak with strength.

Constitutional amendments in 2016 increased the number of NCMPs to a maximum of 12, and gave them equal voting rights as full MPs. PAP candidates have said during the GE campaigning period that there is no need to vote because they want opposition party members in Parliament, as the enhanced NCMP guarantees their presence and voice in Parliament.

When asked by reporters if he would take up an NCMP spot if offered, Dr Tan  a former PAP MP  said he would not.

I have been to Parliament, and I enjoy Parliament being a proper elected MP. But if the (PSP candidates) feel that they want to have a feel of what parliament is like, I don't want to stop them, he said. I want people to get into the House to really experience what it is like in the House.

In the same vein, Dr Tan reiterated his objection to the Nominated MP (NMP) scheme.

I oppose the NMP scheme very, very strongly. And I stated my case in Parliament, and objected to it, and I voted against it. That has been my stance. But NCMP, I am not against it, but I personally feel that's my own thing, he added.

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Dr Tan attended the Yio Chu Kang walkabout in support of PSP candidate Kayla Low, who is running against PAPs Yip Hon Weng.

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Tan refutes Shanmugams comment

He also commented on Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugams comment on Wednesday that PSP was half-hearted about contesting Nee Soon group representation constituency (GRC).

Shanmugam, the incumbent of Nee Soon GRC, said during a virtual press conference on Wednesday that PSP was offering to trade Nee Soon for some other constituency with the Reform Party (RP) a week ago.

Shanmugam repeated the same points in his Facebook post on Thursday morning, stating that PSP had not made any denials when RPs chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam said publicly that PSP offered to trade Nee Soon.

In his post, the minister called for one of PSPs candidates for Nee Soon GRC, Brad Bowyer, to be honest, accusing Bowyer of knowing that PSP offered Nee Soon to RP.

Rebutting Shanmugams allegations at the walkabout, Dr Tan said, When we decided to come to Nee Soon, it was non-negotiable.

Of course theres always a lot of rumours.... That's politics, you must understand. I'm not going to quarrel with him about this. To me, it's trivial. The important thing is we are putting up a team to contest in Nee Soon because we believe we can win in Nee Soon.

Dr Tan later proceeded to Bishan North Shopping Mall, where he had a walkabout with his partys candidate for Marymount SMC, Dr Ang Yong Guan.

Progress Singapore Party's Tan Cheng Bock (centre) on a walkabout with Marymount SMC's candidate Dr Ang Yong Guan (right) at Bishan North Shopping Mall on Thursday. (PHOTO: Yahoo News Singapore/Wan Ting Koh)

Follow Yahoo News Singapores GE2020 coverage here.

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GE2020 stories:

No need to vote opposition as NCMP scheme ensures their voice in Parliament: Indranee Rajah

COMMENT: The NCMP scheme is good for who exactly?

GE2020: Vivian Balakrishnan slams Chee Soon Juan over false statement of 10m population plan

GE2020: Heng Swee Keat's move reflects PAP's view WP has strong East Coast team  Pritam Singh
The heat's on Corporate America to reveal racial diversity data FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators protest against racial inequality in Boston

By Ross Kerber and Simon Jessop

BOSTON/LONDON (Reuters) - American companies are coming under increasing pressure from investors to publicly disclose information about diversity among employees in the wake of nationwide protests against racial discrimination.

Many executives have pledged to champion equality in response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the United States and beyond.

The goal of global investors increasingly focused on social and governance issues is to gain a common metric on racial diversity to compare companies and hold them to account on their pledges, building on a drive to improve gender equality.

The good news, they say, is that U.S. firms with more than 100 employees already gather such data for the federal government annually via a form known as the EEO-1, along with gender information.

However, the data is confidential and companies are not required to publicly release it, with some arguing it does not accurately capture the structure of their businesses.

Only 32 companies in the Russell 1000 make the information public, according to researcher Just Capital, either via the form itself or through detailed summaries.

"The EEO-1 is not the holy grail, but it's an excellent starting point," said John Streur, chief executive of Calvert Research and Management, an investment firm pressing executives to publicly disclose the data.

Once companies began releasing information, it would create competition to improve diversity, he added.

This was echoed by Mirza Baig, Global Head of Governance at London-based Aviva Investors, part of insurer Aviva.

"We think it's inevitable that those data points will be disclosed and we think companies should get ahead of it."

UNDERREPRESENTED

Companies that file the EEO-1 form, to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), record the number of workers they have of each race and gender across 10 job categories, including senior officials, sales workers and technicians. The latest filings are for 2018, as the 2019 deadline was deferred to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The data reveals some very unequal pictures.

For instance, of 290 executives and top leaders at Uber Technologies Inc, one of the companies to publicly release the information, seven were Black and nine were Hispanic or Latino in the payroll period covering the last two weeks of 2018.

Both figures represented only around a 3% share of top positions, well below the two groups' proportion of the U.S. population, of about 13% and 19% respectively.

At Bank of America Corp, in another example, Black people held 5% of 4,197 top-level roles as of last year, and Hispanic or Latino people held another 4%.

The figures are broadly in line with aggregated EEOC data https://www.eeoc.gov/statistics/employment/jobpatterns/eeo1/2018/national/table showing that of the roughly 900,000 people holding those top jobs across the country, about 3% were Black and 4% were Hispanic in 2018.

Companies that disclose the data, like Uber and Bank of America, show a more serious effort to improve minority representation, said Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, a University of Massachusetts professor who studies workplace diversity.

"Transparency is a prerequisite for both goal-setting and accountability," he added.

An Uber spokeswoman said the company "is committed to investing in long-term strategies to create a sustainable pipeline of talent from historically underrepresented communities."

Bank of America says on its website it is "focused on attracting, retaining and developing diverse talent."

'WALK THE WALK'

There has been a marked shift in attitudes since the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Companies have collectively pledged hundreds of millions of dollars and to remake their own workforce profiles.

However firms voicing support for racial equality should back up their talk by releasing their EEO-1 data, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer says in letters being sent to 67 companies in the S&P 100.

"We're asking companies that condemned racism to walk the walk," Stringer, who oversees some $206 billion in retirement assets, told Reuters.

Activist investors say efforts to make diversity data public are gathering momentum, partly since this can be easier than reforms like adding social metrics to CEO pay programs or naming new board members.

For instance, at cybersecurity company Fortinet Inc's annual meeting on June 19 - the "Juneteenth" U.S. holiday marking the end of slavery in 1865 - 70% of shares voted backed a resolution to report on its workforce diversity.

Kristin Hull, CEO of resolution sponsor Nia Impact Capital, said the vote tally - a record high among similar resolutions at U.S. companies according to the Sustainable Investments Institute - reflected the current discussion about race in corporate America.

A Fortinet spokesman said it planned to release its EEO-1 data.

MATCHING THE WORKFORCE

However to date, most companies have shied away from public disclosure of EEO-1 data. Executives say privately they worry about legal liability, bad publicity and attracting rivals' recruiters if they employ many minorities.

Some argue the form's categories such as "craft workers" or "labourers" aren't relevant to their businesses.

Even some of the activists do not give out their data. "We have not historically published the EEO-1 forms, but we are reviewing that approach," said Robyn Tice, spokeswoman for Calvert parent Eaton Vance Corp.

Some companies do disclose data, but on their own terms.

Just Capital counted 204 companies that disclosed some information on the gender and ethnicity of their employees as of August 2019, often in non-standard ways.

In a report on its website, for example, Starbucks Inc states that 17.5% of its executives ranked at senior vice president or higher are "People of Color."

A Starbucks spokeswoman said it was reviewing whether to release its EEO-1 data publicly.

Others disclose little data currently, like Snapchat parent Snap Inc.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a CNBC interview on June 11 that, while it was working on providing more details, it was worried that disclosures "have actually normalized the current composition of the tech workforce," which has few minorities.

A Snap spokeswoman said the company planned to disclose a breakdown of its employees by race and gender as the EEO-1 form outlined, but would likely use different job categories that better matched its workforce. It also plans to show additional data such as hiring rates, she added.

For an interactive version of the graphic, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2Nq8D62.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Calvert's Streur mentioned Home Depot Inc as an example of a company that could expect more pressure to release its full EEO-1 data.

Nearly every year since 2005, shareholder activists have put a resolution on the idea to a vote at the retailer's annual meeting - an uncommonly long run.

The company has opposed the resolutions. In its notice for this year's meeting, held on May 21, it noted it began releasing certain diversity data annually in 2018.

In 2018, 48% of shares cast backed a resolution calling for the EEO-1-level disclosure. A similar resolution got 36% support at this year's meeting, held four days before Floyd's death.

A Home Depot spokeswoman said it was "committed to diversity and equal opportunity". She cited a company diversity report, which states minorities made up 44% of its workforce in 2018.

American Century's Sustainable Equity Fund was one backer of the resolution this year, according to Guillaume Mascotto, vice president for the fund manager.

He said the national conversation about race would make more shareholders likely to back calls for disclosure in the future.

"More and more investors, especially those that have a long-term horizon are going to want to see how companies are approaching this."

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston and Simon Jessop in London; Editing by Pravin Char)
The spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mumbai

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's federal police have filed a criminal complaint against the chairman of conglomerate GVK Group and others for alleged fraud in the development of Mumbai's international airport that resulted in the government losing more than $92 million.

GVK Group, which has interests in energy, resources, airports and hospitality, led a consortium that formed a joint venture - Mumbai International Airport Ltd - with the Airport Authority of India (AAI) in 2006 to modernise and operate the airport under a revenue-sharing agreement.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) late on Wednesday released a complaint alleging that GVK's chairman, Gunupati Venkata Krishna Reddy, "connived" with his son and some AAI officials to siphon off funds meant for the development of the airport, one of country's busiest.

GVK, AAI and Mumbai International Airport Ltd did not respond to requests for comment. Shares in the group's flagship company, GVK Power & Infrastructure <GVKP.NS>, were down 4.5% at 0810 GMT on Thursday.

According to the CBI, Mumbai International Airport generated fake work contracts during 2017-18 and transferred funds to several companies for real-estate developments that were not executed.

Their modus operandi also included misusing the airport's surplus reserves, inflating its expenditure, and underreporting its revenue, the police alleged.

In October, GVK signed binding agreements to raise more than $1 billion in its airports holding company from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Indian government-backed National Investment & Infrastructure Fund.

It is also developing another airport near Mumbai.

(Reporting by Abhirup Roy; Editing by Aditya Kalra, Robert Birsel)
The federal government is purchasing a temporary replacement for the MV Madeleine, a ferry that runs between Cap-aux-Meules, Que. and Souris, P.E.I., Transport Canada announced Thursday.

After 39 years on the waters, the MV Madeleine is at the "end of its service life," the government said in a release.

This prompted Transport Canada to issue an advance contract award notice, announcing its intention to purchase the MV Villa de Teror as a temporary replacement for the vessel, in order to ensure the safety of passengers.

The notice gives other interested ferry suppliers up to 15 days to submit an offer to Transport Canada.

The Villa de Teror is currently owned by Naviera de Melenara SL, a company that manufactures ships out of Spain.

"The ferry service is essential to the citizens of the Magdalen Islands as it connects their communities to the mainland, and it supports regional economies through the transportation of goods and tourism," Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in a statement.

Should the purchase go through, the ferry would be in service from June 2021 until 2026, and would be renamed the MV Madeleine II.

"This is excellent news for the Magdalen Islands and for the community  to be able to count on a reliable boat quickly," said Emmanuel Aucoin, director general of CTMA, which runs the ferry service,.

Last year, the federal government signed a contract with Quebec's Davie shipyard to build a permanent replacement for the MV Madeleine.

That ship, which is slated to go into service in 2026, will be named after the late political commentator and longtime federal cabinet minister Jean Lapierre, who was from the islands. Lapierre and several family members died in a plane crash in 2016.

Once the new ship is ready, the federal government will sell the MV Madeleine II.

Frederik Boisvert, Davie shipyard's vice-president of public affairs, said the company is pleased with the decision to name the ship MV Jean Lapierre, but upset at the decision to purchase a foreign ship in the interim.

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While Davie shipyard would not be able to create a new vessel in time for 2021, Boisvert said the government should have made more of an effort to extend the life of the MV Madeleine before resorting to this purchase.

"There's a historic habit of [the government] waiting until the last minute and having to go abroad to acquire new ships," said Boisvert.

"Especially during COVID-19, when the economy is already struggling, you would think you'd like to hire workers, especially in the ship-building industry where wages are good."

Despite the pandemic, Quebecers wanting to go to the Magdalen Islands this year have been allowed to take the ferry from Souris, P.E.I. since June 26 while adhering to certain restrictions while they are on PEI.
All 87 Alberta MLAs should declare that they reject the notion of separating from Canada, the NDP says.

Opposition house leader Heather Sweet said the government's Fair Deal panel report and comments from United Conservative Party MLAs are prompting her to push for an emergency debate in the legislature on loyalty to Canada.

She'll ask for MLAs to debate a motion on Monday to reject the idea of Alberta separation.

"What we would like to hear from the premier, and his cabinet, as well as his members, is that there is a commitment from this government to stop playing games with the idea of Alberta separating from Canada," Sweet said on Wednesday.

The Fair Deal panel, struck by the provincial government to study ways Alberta could assert itself within Confederation, recommended the government study an independent provincial police force and consider withdrawing from the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), among other proposals.

Premier Jason Kenney has said the government will study those options. He has also pledged to hold referendums on Alberta's participation in CPP and withdrawal from equalization. Alberta could not do either of these things unilaterally.

Panel member and Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes issued a dissenting opinion after the report's release last month. He said if Alberta failed to get fairer treatment soon from the federal government, Albertans should have an opportunity to vote on independence from Canada.

Also last month, Red Deer-South MLA Jason Stephan told the legislature Alberta should "liberate" itself from the "mess" of equalization.

"In the real world a partnership agreement providing structural welfare payments to hostile, parasitic partners would never survive," Stephan said on June 8. "That is equalization."

Proposals are scaring Albertans, NDP charges

In a Wednesday statement, Kenney's press secretary, Christine Myatt, said the premier has spoken frequently about his patriotism and desire to improve Alberta's plight within Canada.

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Kenney told reporters last month that empty threats about separation are unhelpful to improving Alberta's economy.

"I completely understand and sympathize with the profound frustration that so many Albertans have with the way Canada has worked  particularly in recent years," Kenney said on June 19. "I understand the frustration that has driven a not insignificant number of Albertans to talk about separation. But I fundamentally believe that that's the wrong path for Alberta."

Although he disagrees with some of them, backbenchers in his government are free to speak their minds, he said at the time.

Manuel Carrillos/CBC

Sweet said Kenney is sending mixed messages by entertaining the Fair Deal panel's recommendations and leaving some UCP MLAs' separatist statements unchallenged.

"When you start talking about getting rid of the CPP and creating your own police force, all of these different things, we know that that makes Albertans nervous, and it makes people nervous to come to Alberta," Sweet said.

She went to a physically distanced pancake breakfast at a legion on Canada Day and the first thing people asked her about was the future of CPP, she said.

Earlier this week, members of the Freedom Conservative Party and Wexit Alberta also voted to merge into a new Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta.

Kenney knows there is separatist sentiment out there, and he may be attempting to appeal to those folks while trying to keep hold of more mainstream, federalist supporters, Sweet said.

Myatt pointed to the United Conservative Party's founding principles, which include, "Loyalty to a united Canada, and a commitment for Alberta to be a Leader in the Canadian federation that constructively defends the best interests of the province and its constitutional sovereignty."

The NDP would need unanimous support from all MLAs in the chamber to debate their motion.
FILE PHOTO: A general view of the drilling platform at Johan Sverdrup field near Stord

By Nerijus Adomaitis and Terje Solsvik

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway is planning a major expansion of oil exploration in the Arctic, despite commitments to tackling global warming and opposition from environmental groups.

Minister of petroleum and energy Tina Bru said on Wednesday the expansion was needed to protect jobs and generate wealth.

The government will auction up to 136 new oil exploration blocks in a major licensing round, with 125 of those in the Arctic Barents Sea, a relatively unspoiled corner of the planet.

"We need new discoveries to uphold employment and value creation," Bru said in a statement.

Norway is western Europe's biggest oil producer and has built the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, worth over $1 trillion (799 billion), on the back of its oil wealth.

It has signed up to the Paris agreement to tackle global warming and, although not a member of the European Union, has pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in line with the bloc. However, this does not cover emissions produced by fossil fuels extracted from its territory and then used by others.

"This clearly shows the Norwegian government's actions are not based on what is scientifically required to address the climate crisis," Greenpeace's head in Norway, Frode Pleym, told Reuters.

"Norway has failed to take the climate crisis seriously."

The licensing round, Norway's 25th, had been delayed by a long-running debate over how far north the oil industry should be allowed to drill, culminating in a compromise that left significant room for more Arctic licences.

The new round could open eight regions of the Barents Sea unavailable for exploration, each with a range of blocks, and one region of the Norwegian Sea.

In recent years, some of the biggest international oil firms, such as Shell <RDSa.L>, ExxonMobil <XOM.N> and Total <TOTF.PA>, have stopped exploring for oil off Norway as most finds have either been dry or too small for them.

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"This is a special invitation to supermajors to return back to the NCS (Norwegian Continental Shelf)," said Per Magnus Nysveen, head of analysis at Oslo-based consultancy Rystad Energy.

"The exploration potential of the Barents Sea is still huge, despite a negative trend for the most recent exploration wells."

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Gwladys Fouche and Mark Potter)
Nova Scotia's premier says his government is looking to improve tracking and monitoring of people entering the province who are required to self-isolate, but they will not prevent entry to American vehicles.

"We have never closed our border at any point," Stephen McNeil told reporters following a cabinet meeting Thursday.

With the Atlantic bubble now in effect, people living in the four Atlantic provinces are able to freely move among them without having to self-isolate for 14 days. That requirement remains in place for travellers entering from anywhere else.

The land border between Canada and the U.S. remains closed to non-essential travel, however, exemptions are in place.

Although immediate family of Canadian citizens or permanent residents may now be allowed to cross, people entering Canada must self-isolate for 14 days or risk penalties. Those foreign nationals must also be free of COVID-19 or any related symptoms of the disease.

McNeil has said he's hoping Nova Scotia can open more freely to the rest of Canada later this month. Despite higher COVID-19 case numbers in places such as Quebec and Ontario, the premier told reporters those numbers are headed in the right direction.

Numbers are headed in a very different direction in many parts of the United States however, where many officials didn't impose the kind of public health measures used in Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada to flatten the curve. America is now seeing about 50,000 new cases a day.

Ferry cancelled due to risk concerns

McNeil said travel from the U.S. remains a concern and his government would work with public health officials to look at how they can better monitor and enforce the 14-day self-isolation requirement, as well as track people who enter Nova Scotia.

Concern about COVID-19 rates in the U.S. was at the heart of the government's decision last week to cancel this year's season for the ferry that sails between Yarmouth and Bar Harbor, Maine.

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But even with those concerns, McNeil said cars with American plates attempting to enter Nova Scotia will be allowed to enter.

"We will not be turning people away," he said. "We will be following to make sure they follow the public health protocols of self-isolation and that may require a change of our protocols in terms of how we follow up with them."

Expecting people to follow the rules

McNeil said many Americans who travel here own property and can self-isolate before being able to spend the rest of their time moving around freely. Public Health officials have been clear at this point about what needs to be done to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 introduction and spread, he said.

"We know there are certain steps you need to follow when it comes to this disease. We expect people to follow it," McNel said.

A government spokesperson said in a statement that "the four Atlantic provinces are working together to quickly have a tracking process in place." Although staff will remain at the border to maintain information pickets, Nova Scotia is working within existing resources to staff entry points, according to the statement.

Tory Leader Tim Houston said what's happening with the disease in America is concerning and he understands why people might be anxious when they see cars with U.S. licence plates, but he said the best response is having robust management of the border.

Houston said a good step would be for travellers to be required to provide their name, where they're going and how they can be contacted.

"That in and of itself will trigger some better behaviour, but we can still follow up if we know where they're at."

MORE TOP STORIES
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The John Roberts show continued today at the Supreme Court. The chief justice cast the deciding vote to overturn a decision by the Montana Supreme Court that barred a state scholarship program from funding education at religious schools. In effect, the decision says that if a state has a program that provides scholarship funding for schools, it has to make those scholarships available to religious institutions  even when the state constitution has a provision barring aid to religion.

The conservative ruling followed others in previous years by Roberts. Like those that came before, it took yet another brick out of the wall separating church and state. In the foreseeable future, there may be no wall left at all.

The context for todays decision, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, goes all the way back to the 19th century and the earliest days of the public school movement. From the start, public schools in the U.S. were labeled as non-denominational or non-sectarian. As Catholic immigrants began to arrive in large numbers, some of them pointed out that the public schools were effectively Protestant, often featuring Bible readings from the King James version of the Bible and recitation of the Protestant version of the Lords Prayer. Catholics sought state funding for their own schools, or, barring that, the elimination of what they saw as distinctively Protestant practices.

The response of Americas Protestant majority was essentially to tell Catholics, No way. In the run-up to the 1876 election, the Republican Party introduced a federal constitutional amendment that would have gone so far as to bar states from providing any funding to sectarian institutions, which meant Catholic ones. There was lots of anti-Catholic rhetoric in the public discussions of the proposed amendment, including on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

The amendment did not pass. (Nor was it expected to  it was proposed as a wedge issue to help the Republicans in the national election.) Nonetheless, many states adopted state constitutional amendments modeled on the failed federal one. As new states were admitted to the union, many of them also incorporated versions of the no-aid amendment in their constitutions.

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Montana has such a provision that bars state aid to any school controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination. The Montana Legislature passed a law that gave tax credits for donations to organizations that award scholarships to students in private schools. The Montana Supreme Court interpreted the no-aid provision of the Montana Constitution to bar the law because it gave aid to religious schools  and struck down the program in its entirety.

Robertss opinion for the court reversed the Montana Supreme Court decision. But because the U.S. Supreme Court can only interpret the federal Constitution, not state constitutions, Roberts couldnt just say that the Montana court misread the Montana Constitution.

Instead, Roberts held that the Montana decision violated the free-exercise rights of people in Montana who want to donate to scholarship programs or attend religious schools using scholarship money. His logic was that the no-aid provision as applied by the Montana court amounted to discrimination against religious schools simply because they were religious.

In reaching this conclusion, Roberts applied one of his own precedents, a 2017 decision called Trinity Lutheran v. Comer. In that case, Roberts established the principle that while a state is allowed to prohibit funding of religious activities, like the study of theology, it cant prohibit funding to people or institutions just because they happen to be religious.

The distinction between a religious activity and a religious person or institution is pretty tenuous, as Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed out at the time in a concurrence. But Roberts insisted on maintaining the distinction because he did not want to overturn a 2004 decision by his old boss, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist. In the 2004 case, Locke v. Davey, Rehnquist took the position that the state of Washington could apply its no-aid provision to deny funding to a student who wanted to use his state scholarship to fund a degree in devotional theology.

Roberts doesnt like to overturn precedent. He likes to use his doctrinal scalpel to cut away at the precedent until its so minimal that you almost cant see it. Thats what Roberts has done to the Locke principle. He hasnt overturned it; hes cut it down to nothing. In practice, however, todays decision essentially does reverse Rehnquists ruling in Locke v. Davey.

In separate dissents, liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor each made versions of the argument that Montana wasnt discriminating against religious schools, because the Montana Supreme Court struck down the entire private school scholarship tax credit, not only the part that would have gone to religious schools.

This argument is, I think, a bit too clever for its own good. Seen this way, the Montana ruling looks uncomfortably like a segregated Southern town shutting down its public swimming pool rather than allowing it to become integrated. Technically, closing the pool leaves no discrimination in place, since no one, Black or White, can swim. Practically, however, shutting down the pool looks like racial discrimination. It would be a different matter if the state Legislature had never created the scholarship program in the first place.

The upshot is that John Roberts is continuing the courts gradual erosion of the separation between church and state. Government funding of religion is becoming not merely permissible but even obligatory under some circumstances.

I started my career as a law professor focusing on the church-state aspect of the First Amendment. Fifteen years ago, I would have considered the courts decision a disaster. Now it seems to me that the Republic faces far greater problems. Roberts is to the right of Rehnquist on the separation of church and state. But as we have seen in the last week, Roberts is well to Rehnquists left on some other issues, including upholding basic abortion rights and checking the Donald Trump administrations unlawfulness. Ill take it.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and host of the podcast Deep Background. He is a professor of law at Harvard University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. His books include The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Photo credit: Courtesy of Ralph & Russo

From Harper's BAZAAR

Next Monday will see the launch of the very first digital couture fashion week, taking the place of a schedule of physical shows which typically sees the fashion elite decamp to Paris. Instead, a number of the prestigious brands which sit in the couture category will host digital offerings to press, clients and fans. And, in response to this unique new model, British fashion house Ralph & Russo has entered brand new territory for the world of couture by creating an avatar to present its new collection.

"I have always been fascinated by the digital space, and specifically by artificial intelligence as a medium," creative director Tamara Ralph tells us. "While AI as a dimension is something I have always been interested in exploring, really its the recent developments in the world, and subsequent limitations, that made me feel now is the right time to do so."

Photo credit: Courtesy of Ralph & Russo

Following months of enforced lockdown across the world and with social distancing still in place, hosting a physical fashion show to a crowd this month is simply not plausible. Ralph & Russo has seen this as an opportunity to explore an entirely new world.

"During times of change like this, I feel it's so important to not only evolve but to also be innovative. I was so excited by the prospect of not only doing something new for our brand, but for couture as a category  something that would really push the limits. And while avatars in and of themselves might not be new, I dont feel its something that has been fully realised within couture, given its inherent nature of old world craftsmanship, techniques and level of detail."

When it came to creating the brand's avatar, Ralph says that she had very a clear idea of who she wanted the woman to be and what she was to represent.

"The process of choosing and building our avatar, named Hauli  which is a traditional Swahili name, synonymous with strength and power  was quite layered and complex, but incredibly exciting. It all began with sourcing inspiration, as you would for a collection, to inform what she would look like and how she would be brought to life. I wanted to create a beautiful Black woman, who was inspired by and an embodiment of the spirit of inspirational women changing lives in all four corners of the world.

Story continues

"She represents the brand and all of the values that we stand for. She is the ultimate modern woman; fusing both old and new, elegance and strength, and stands with the brand as a positive force for change. Once these details were ascertained, we then worked closely with an agency to develop a base plate for Hauli, which then slowly progressed into the final avatar."

Photo credit: Courtesy of Ralph & Russo

Ralph explains that turning Hauli into a formed avatar wearing the collection was a long and complex process; the intricacy of the couture pieces was painstakingly replicated on screen and each flower or jewel was individually placed on her form. "In short, it takes a village," she says, "but was well worth the effort."

This forced opportunity to explore the digital may have come about as a result of the recent crisis but, of course, the lack of a physical show is not the only limitation that fashion houses have found as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. With ateliers forced to shut and staff made to stay home, actually designing and creating the physical collections became a challenge. At Ralph & Russo, this meant finding a whole new way of working.

"Like all brands, we of course faced challenges during this pandemic, which meant having to approach our design process in a different way," Ralph explains. "For instance, procuring fabrics and materials from our partners in France and Italy became difficult with shipping restrictions, especially with those countries being among the hardest hit. So, we instead utilised as much as we could from our in-house library of fabrics and materials. We're fortunate to have a large room full of rolls upon rolls of beautiful fabrics to choose from however, so this did not limit us at all in terms of creativity.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Ralph & Russo

"Another challenge is not being able to work with my design and atelier teams in person, as we spend most days in the lead up to couture together, going over designs, making tweaks, fitting on a model, and so on. I was worried to see how this would all take shape in this new era of working remotely. However, again we just had to be agile and flexible, and become accustomed to working just as closely, but in a different way. Meetings became video calls, where we would share illustrations with one another digitally, and we also got into the routine of mailing our swatches to one another wherever possible. Overall, I think we shifted our way of working quite well and quite quickly  we had to."

This shift has led to many temporary changes within the way we work  and indeed in the way fashion collections are presented, but, as with much that has pivoted as a result of the pandemic, some of these changes might be here to stay. Ralph thinks this is particularly the case for the modernisation of the fashion show.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Ralph & Russo

"I think the merging of the two worlds [of the traditional and the digital] has become necessary, and the pandemic has accelerated this. The current climate has cemented the importance of digital as a channel, and how critical it is for a brand to regularly be activating digitally with unique content to keep their audience engaged. This was, of course, always crucial for us, but its true value has really come into view in these past few months. Ive also really enjoyed and embraced this as a learning experience; the opportunities within this space are truly limitless and allow for so much creativity.

"Making digital a priority will absolutely be our new norm, and I do think this will extend across the entire industry, even beyond couture and into other product categories. I still believe, however, that there is incredible value and a place for engaging with your audience, clients and friends of the brand in real life as well, so I think the future will be about trying to strike that ideal balance of both worlds and doing so as responsibly as possible."



See the full unveiling of Ralph & Russo's autumn/winter 2020 couture collection at 4pm on Monday 6 July on the brand's channels and on the couture fashion week digital space.

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The actor, 57, is suing the tabloid's publisher News Group Newspapers and executive editor Dan Wootton over a 2018 article which referred to Depp as a "wife beater".

The alleged "three-day ordeal" in Australia - when Depp is said to have been taking MDMA and drinking heavily - is one of 14 separate allegations of domestic violence, between early 2013 and May 2016, that NGN relies on in its pleaded defence to Depp's claim.

He strongly denies the allegations.

The publisher of the article looked to defend itself from a defamation claim by proving that Depp did, in fact, beat his ex-wife Amber Heard, causing her to suffer significant injury.

But Mr Justice Nicol said his decision was conditional on Mr Depp agreeing not to seek sanctions against his ex-wife Amber Heard for allegedly breaching another court order, made during separate libel proceedings in the U.S., by providing The Sun's legal team with evidence.

His case was thrown into peril on Monday, however, when judge Mr Justice Nicol ruled that he should have disclosed a series of text messages showing him apparently trying to obtain drugs while in Australia with Heard in March 2015.

The judge said: "The Australian drug texts were adverse to the claimant's pleaded case and/or were supportive of the defendants' pleaded case".

The judge ruled that Depp had breached the disclosure order, but granted him "relief from sanctions", meaning the case can proceed. "Despite the breach which I have found and despite Mr Wolanski's submissions, I am not persuaded that the trial of the claim would be unfair".

Depp, the 57-year-old star of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, has been Oscar and Bafta-nominated and won a Golden Globe in 2008 for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The actor had also asked for "all communications" between Heard and a contact saved in her phone as "Rocketman", who Depp claims is SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, and between her and actor James Franco.

The judge's legal ruling said:"Ms Heard has provided assistance to the defendants and has done so despite whatever may have been said by the claimant's United States lawyers". Examining whether Depp had sufficiently turned over demanded records to News Group's attorneys, the judge gave Depp a few days to disclose additional audio recordings, as well as court papers from the divorce proceedings between Depp and Heard, while stopping short of making Depp produce other items or sanctioning him for not complying with discovery demands sooner.

The libel trial is due to start next Tuesday and is expected to last three weeks. This is a reference to separate libel proceedings Depp is bringing against Heard in the USA, from which News Group Newspapers obtained a copy of the "drug texts".

The pair met on the set of 2011 comedy The Rum Diary and married in Los Angeles in February 2015.

Heard accused Depp of physically abusing her, outlining horrific details in a Virginia court filing in response to his $50 million defamation lawsuit against her past year.

The couple settled their divorce out of court in 2017, with Heard donating her seven million U.S. dollars (5.5 million) settlement to charity.
Some have called these "concentration camps". China had never recognized the "unequal treaties" allowing Britain's rule of Hong Kong island, the Kowloon peninsula and later its lease of the rural New Territories.

Schools, social groups, media outlets, websites and others unspecified will be monitored and their national security awareness will be raised, according to the text, while China's central government will have authority over the activities of foreign non-governmental organisations and media outlets in Hong Kong.

China has said it will impose visa restrictions on Americans it sees as interfering over Hong Kong.

Britain said it was extending Hong Kong residents a broader path to citizenship in response to China's sweeping new security law for the former United Kingdom territory.

Raab announced plans to extend British National Overseas passports for up to 3 million Hong Kongers to five years from the current six-month limit.

Under China's highly controversial security laws, it has been made a criminal offence for anyone to criticise the Chinese government, with potential jail sentences of 10 years to life for those who violate the law.

"Hong Kong is a free and diversified society", she said on Tuesday as the law was signed. "The law also threatens the freedoms and rights protected by the joint declaration", Boris Johnson told parliament.

Raab described the new legislation as a 'flagrant assault on freedom of speech and freedom of protest'. "We will live up to our promises". "Similarly, after one whole year of social and political unrest, we should be confident that Hong Kong will emerge stronger after stability is restored", she concluded.

A teenage girl waving an independence flag was among hundreds of people arrested during protests against the laws in Hong Kong this week. One 23-year-old man was reportedly arrested for riding his motorcycle into three officers with a "Liberate Hong Kong" attached to his bike.

The measure passed by unanimous consent, reflecting concern in Washington over China's enactment of a security law seen as ending the autonomy that allowed the former British colony to thrive as an worldwide financial center. There were 349,881 holders of the passports as of February.

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested almost 200 people as protesters took to the streets in defiance of sweeping security legislation introduced by China that they say is aimed at snuffing out dissent.

The measure also gives mainland security agencies the right to operate in Hong Kong and bring people to the mainland for trial. "For trust in China's ability to do that, today has been a big step backwards".

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain's offer also extended to dependents of those with BNO status but refused to be drawn about how many would apply.

"We think that's important and very consistent with who we are as a people and very consistent practically with the views that we have expressed".

An official statement from Downing Street said that further details of the new visa scheme would be 'disclosed in due course'.

Asked whether he was disturbed by the crackdowns on protesters in Hong Kong and whether Australia would offer safe haven for residents of the city, Mr Morrison said: "the answer to both questions is yes and yes".

But critics say the new law - passed by Beijing's rubber-stamp legislature this week without its text being released to the public - tests the limits of the "one country, two systems" principle that formally entered global law in 1984.
Facebook takes more than half of the 5.5bn United Kingdom online display advertising market.

"The CMA is very much passing the baton to the United Kingdom government with a range of politically controversial proposals, including the potential break-up of Google and Facebook, adding to the Government's already ambitious digital agenda", Mr Ahlborn said.

The authority said it was concerned that the two companies have developed "such unassailable market positions" that rivals can't compete on equal terms, resulting in higher prices for hotels, flights, electronics, insurance and other goods and services that are heavily advertised online.

But it said their massive reach is a source of power and that "each has unmatchable access to user data".

Alarmingly, the CMA suggests Google and Facebook use their dominance to influence the behaviour of consumers.

The United Kingdom government must introduce new measures to check the dominance of tech giants Google and Facebook in digital advertising and help make space for other players, Britain's competition watchdog said on Wednesday.

The CMA warned that such dominance was also having an impact on newspapers and other publishers' revenues, leaving them reliant on Google and Facebook for nearly 40% of all visits to their sites.

"Our clear recommendation to government is that a new pro-competitive regulatory regime be established to address the concerns we have identified and regulate a sector which is central to all our lives", Dr Coscelli added.

The CMA is proposing to establish a Digital Markets Unit that, in part, would "enforce a code of conduct to ensure that platforms with a position of market power, like Google and Facebook, do not engage in exploitative or exclusionary practices, or practices likely to reduce trust and transparency, and to impose fines if necessary".

The report recommends that firms be faced with operational or ownership separation if necessary, naming Google's publisher ad server function as an area where such a break-up should take place.

The CMA, in partnership with the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office and telecom regulator Ofcom, also announced the formation of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum, which will regulate online services and how they use consumer data.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said it would "carefully consider" the CMA recommendations.

Google supports "regulation that benefits people, businesses and society", said the company's vice president for U.K. & Ireland, Ronan Harris.

It states: 'Both use default settings to nudge people into using their services and giving up their data - for example Google paid around 1.2 billion in 2019 to be the default search provider on mobile devices and browsers in the United Kingdom, while Facebook requires people to accept personalised advertising as a condition for using their service.

Facebook noted it faced "significant competition" from Google, Apple, Snap, Twitter, Amazon, and newer players like TikTok, and looked forward to "engaging with United Kingdom government bodies on rules that protect consumers".

"We face significant competition from the likes of Google, Apple, Snap, Twitter and Amazon, as well as new entrants like TikTok, which keeps us on our toes".

The CMA is "passing the baton to the United Kingdom government with a range of politically controversial proposals", according to Christian Ahlborn, global head of competition at law firm Linklaters.

The organisation has set out a series of recommendations it believes that ministers should adopt, which could form a template for a new worldwide approach to rolling back the power of the U.S. tech giants.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  Palace officials are nearly done reviewing the controversial anti-terrorism bill with only a week before it lapses into law.

The Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs submitted a recommendation to Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, who will then send it to the President, Malacanang said Thursday.

Ibig sabihin po, meron na pong memorandum na recommending a course of action to the President. Subject to final approval lang po 'yan siguro ni Executive Secretary at dadalhin na po sa lamesa ni Presidente, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in an online media briefing.

[Translation: This means theres already a memorandum recommending a course of action to the President. I think that is subject to the final review of the Executive Secretary and will be sent to the Presidents table.]

He refused to disclose the recommendation.

President Rodrigo Duterte has until July 9 to sign or veto the measure before it automatically becomes a law.

National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. told CNN Philippines The Source that the President has not expressed objections to the provisions of the bill, which has gained local and international criticism. United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet urged Duterte to to refrain from signing the law and instead come up with a measure with safeguards against possible abuse.

The bill will repeal the Human Security Act of 2007, giving more surveillance powers to government forces. Among its contentious provisions is allowing suspected terrorists to be arrested without warrant and detained without charges for up to 24 days.

Lawmakers who authored and sponsored the measure said it is at par with the laws of other countries and it would not be used against law-abiding citizens.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2) The Philippine Army on Thursday admitted there were lapses in the process of securing the crime scene of the Jolo, Sulu shooting incident which left four of its soldiers dead.

Speaking to CNN Philippines, Army Spokesperson Colonel Ramon Zagala revealed that the brother of one of the slain officers who is a soldier himself responded to the scene and tried to secure some of the victims belongings shortly after the incident.

The brother is part of the Armys takedown team, which was also on a mission to hunt and locate a commander of the Abu Sayyaf Group in the vicinity, Zagala noted. The team headed to the area after receiving a call about the incident, he added.

Kinuha yung phone niya, kinuha yung bag niya, at yung naglagay siya ng unan (sa ulo) (He got his phone, bag, and he placed a makeshift pillow on his head), Zagala said in an interview with Balitaan.

We admit that we have committed some lapses, and that the commanding general (Gilbert Gapay) has already ordered to look further into this, he added.

Authorities have repeatedly stressed that any case evidence should remain in the crime scene pending probe.

However, the Army said the brothers move was only a natural instinct or impulse on his part as he tried to check if his family member was doing okay.

I think its really a lapse on our part, but we cannot blame the brother. At that time, wala pang pulis (there was no police yet). At that time, hindi pa kilala ang salarin (they didnt know who the suspects were), Zagala said.

He just wanted to attend to his brother. I think anyone na may namatayan (who had a loved one killed) would probably do the same attend to their loved ones, the spokesperson stressed.

Questions on the case investigation started to surface after a video footage of the shooting aftermath which showed people hovering around the crime scene made rounds online. Zagala revealed that the individuals in the viral clip were the soldiers of the takedown team whom he said had transitioned to a rescue and recovery team after the incident.

The four slain Army officersall from the 9th Intelligence Service Unit of the 11th Infantry Division were gunned down Monday by Jolo cops, who had first claimed self defense. The Philippine National Police later ruled out the "misencounter" angle, saying that based on their analysis of reports on the ground, the soldiers did not fire a single shot at the police.

The chief of Jolo Police has been relieved from his post following the incident, with PNP citing command responsibility. The nine cops tagged in the shooting have been disarmed and placed under restrictive custody.

They are also facing a third party probe by the National Bureau of Investigation, which has been tasked to submit an initial report on the matter by next week.

RELATED: Mournful Duterte wants meeting with cops tagged in fatal shooting of troops  Roque

Meanwhile, officials from both the AFP and PNP have called for calm saying the two agencies continue to work well together in the country's security and pandemic response.

Zagala said that while the Army is peacefully mourning the loss of its officers the incident will not hamper the Armys relations and missions with the police.

READ: Families of slain troops demand justice as Duterte calls for calm in Jolo shooting aftermath
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  A technical working group has looked into the possibility of reopening the country to foreign nationals but decided against it amid the continued threat of COVID-19, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Thursday.

Ang desisyon po ay 'wag munang papasukin ang mga dayuhan bagamat bumuo ng technical working group para tingan kung talagang merong urgency na papasukin lalong lalo na po yung mga dayuhan sa Build, Build, Build, Roque said in an online Palace briefing.

[Translation: The decision is to not allow the entry of foreigners yet although a technical working group was created to find out if theres urgency to welcome foreigners, especially those involved in Build, Build, Build projects.]

This means foreign nationals are still prohibited from entering the country, except for diplomats and foreign spouses of Filipinos.

Roque said last week that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the policy-making body in the governments COVID-19 response, was considering the possibility of allowing the entry of some foreigners who want to work here or stay as permanent residents  upon the request of some foreign embassies.

Several Southeast Asian leaders also supported the reopening of the region to business travelers during the 36th ASEAN Summit, Roque earlier said.

No commercial international flights have been allowed since mid-March, when President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire Luzon under enhanced community quarantine.

However, chartered flights have been arranged to bring home overseas Filipino workers displaced from their jobs abroad.

Much of the country is now under more relaxed quarantine measures as authorities opt for localized lockdowns in areas with surge in infections.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  Lawmakers of the Makabayan bloc on Thursday sought a probe on alleged irregularities in StaySafe.ph, the official contact tracing app assisting the government's COVID-19 response.

The congressmen filed House Resolution 1009, which seeks to conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, to the issues of irregularities, effectiveness, and data privacy of the app endorsed by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The resolution cited the previous remarks of former Department of Information and Communications Technology undersecretary Eliseo Rio, who claimed that he was "eased out" after pointing out limitations in the feature of the contact tracing app.

Rio earlier said the app, developed for free by software solutions company MultiSys, fails as a contact tracing system.

In a lengthy Facebook post, Rio earlier pointed out that while StaySafe.ph supposedly monitors health with a location tracker, "it has no contact tracing capability as described" and simply "generates a database of cell phone numbers with their location, useful for surveillance purposes of people who reported themselves with symptoms, but of little value to people who report themselves as healthy."

The app also supposedly works on phones that use at least 3G and only in areas with mobile internet connectivity, he added.

The resolution also cited National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines member Israel Brizuela who described the app as "borderline spyware" due to permissions to use each phone's camera, contacts, location, microphone, and read text messages and external storage.

"These issues surrounding StaySafe touches many grounds for thorough investigation by government bodies. From the process of selection, effectivity, and data privacy, the interests of the Filipino people are put to great risks," the Makabayan bloc said.

They added: "As all government funds, resources, and efforts, not to mention crippling borrowings, are being put into COVID-19 responses, the House of Representatives should be pro-actively on guard against issues of corruption, abuse, and breaches to the rights and welfare of our people."

Members of the Makabayan bloc are Bayan Muna Reps. Carlos Zarate, Ferdinand Gaite, and Eufemia Cullamat; ACT-Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro, Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan Partylist Rep. Sarah Elago.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 3)  Two lawmakers are calling on the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to look into the blocktime agreement between ABS-CBN and AMCARA Broadcasting Network.

This decision expressed by Representatives Michael Defensor and Jesus Crispin Remulla was based on a report from the National Telecommunications Commision (NTC) presented during the joint hearing of the House Committees on Legal Franchises and Good Government and Public Accountability Thursday.

NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba said that the radio frequency monitoring of the report to locate the signal of Channel 43 shows that a strong signal is emanating from the direction of ABS-CBN's tower along Mother Ignacia Street, Quezon City.

Defensor believes that the signal being used by Channel 43 is owned by ABS-CBN.

Ngayon po sinabi ng NTC, walang eqipment si AMCARA. At nong chineck ng kanilang technical staff, ang signal nanggagaling sa ABS-CBN tower sa compound, he said.

[Translation: Now the NTC says, AMCARA has no equipment. And when NTCs technical staff checked it, the signal is coming from the ABS-CBN tower in their compound.]

ABS-CBN President and CEO Carlo Katigbak said in one of the Congressional hearings that they maintain a blocktime agreement with AMCARA that's why the latter can air their TV Plus channels.

Padala po natin ang NBI. Tawagan natin ang NBI, tulungan tayo mag imbestiga tungkol sa veracity ng report ng NTC, said Remulla.

[Translation: Let us send the NBI. Let us call the NBI to help us investigate the veracity of the NTC report.]

AMCARA Broadcasting Network is where ABS-CBN airs digital TV. ABS-CBNs TV Plus offerings include CineMO!, Yey!, TeleRadyo, and pay-per-view channel KBO.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  As the country gears up to ensure its food security amid the pandemic, Agriculture Secretary William Dar assured that import clearances are only granted to products not available in the local market.

"Klaro po iyon na 'yung importation ay kung wala dito sa ating bansa at kailangan iyon lang po ang binibigyan ng import clearance," he said in the Laging Handa virtual briefing on Thursday.

[Translation: It's clear that importation is only for products that are not available in our country and the import clearance is strictly for such purposes.]

Dar cited mechanically de-boned chicken as an example, which is not available in commercial scale locally, hence the country needs to import it for food processors' use.

The agriculture chief's statement is in line with the department's priority of boosting the productivity levels of domestic food producers especially during the pandemic crisis, which he said will increase their income as well.

The DA said it intends to accomplish it through its new umbrella program called Plant, Plant, Plant.

The program "seeks to increase national agri-fishery output through intensified use of quality seeds, appropriate inputs, modern technologies to increase levels of productivity across all commodities," which will then ensure food security amid the pandemic.

66-B stimulus package incorporated in DA proposed 2021 budget

Plant, Plant, Plant is among the three major areas the DA hopes to implement using the 66 billion stimulus package it previously requested.

During the briefing, Dar explained the package has been integrated into the agency's proposed budget for 2021, which is worth around 240 billion.

He said the DA also hopes to use the 66 billion in investing in infrastructure for food markets and logistics. These include reefer vans, cold storages and trading centers in "strategic areas in every province."

These will help speed up the movement of food and trading of projects and products of farmers and fisherfolk in rural areas, explained Dar.

The third level of the proposed stimulus package is the Cash-for-Work program.

"Iyon po ang gusto natin mangyari, kasi ang dami pong mga walang trabaho ngayon at gusto natin na Cash-for-Work ay kagaya po ng rainwater harvesting, mga desilting of irrigation systems and even rehabilitation of existing systems," he said.

[Translation: We want the Cash-for-Work program to happen because a lot of people are unemployed right now, so they can perform jobs like rainwater harvesting, desilting of irrigation systems and even the rehabilitation of existing systems.]
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  Early clinical trial results have shown that the antiviral drug Remdesivir appeared to have had positive effects on COVID-19 patients, but the data are not conclusive yet, the Department of Health said Thursday.

Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a media forum that the drug, which was one of the drugs being tested in the Solidarity trial led by the World Health Organization, was able to shorten length of stay of COVID-19 patients in critical care units.

Sinasabi nila na na-le-lessen ang time na naka-admit sa critical care ang isang pasiyente, Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a media forum.

[Translation: They were saying that it was able to lessen the duration of a patients critical care unit admission.]

Sa ngayon may mga positive na nakikita tayo para sa gamot na ito but still we cannot deduce or conclude na it is final na good talaga ang effect and we can use it, the official added.

[Translation: Right now, we see the positive effects of this drug but we cannot deduce or conclude that the effect is really good, and we can use it.]

DOH earlier said that more than 300 patients in over 20 hospitals are currently participating in the Solidarity.

Remdesivir is the only drug that has an emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration to treat coronavirus, and it is patented by Gilead Sciences, according to a report by CNN.

United States had secured 100 percent of drug-maker Gilead Sciences' projected production for July, and 90 percent of its production for August and September -- plus more for clinical trials, CNN International reported Wednesday, citing US' Department of Health and Human Services.

Vergeire, meanwhile, said they are still assessing whether they will procure Remdesivir.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 3)  Leaders of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday to veto the controversial Anti-Terrorism Bill.

In a resolution adopted by the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, the Bangsamoro leaders urged Duterte to review and address the issue of vagueness of the measure.

Bangsamoro Chief Minister Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim emphasized that the Anti-Terrorism Bill has a very vague definition of terrorism, surveillance of suspects, interception and recording of communications, and detention without a judicial cause of arrest.

It is our fear that among the hardest hit once the Anti-Terrorism Bill passes into law would be the Bangsamoro. Once again, incidents of violations of human rights will be on the rise and the Bangsamoro people, easily labeled as terrorists would again be subject to discrimination and abuse, said Ebrahim.

Members of Bangsamoro Parliament Amir Mawallil and Pangalian Balindong also expressed their reservations on the content of the Anti-Terrorism Bill.

We are prone to abuses and evidently, we have cases of illegal detention and unlawful arrest, stated Mawallil.

We know the nasty feeling when the government avoids dealing with us then, and so we can only sympathize with those who remain in the fringes and fighting for what they think is right. And dont get me wrong, there is no reason for us not to hear them and even commiserate with them, Balindong said.

The controversial measure was passed on third and final reading by the Senate last February and by the House of Representatives last June.

READ: Anti-terrorism bill passed by Congress, now awaits Duterte signature

The Anti-Terrorism Bill, which is expected to be signed by Duterte, will repeal the Human Security Act of 2007 and gives more surveillance powers to government forces.

Section 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Bill expanded the definition of terrorism in the previous law to include acts intended to cause "death or serious bodily injury to any person," "extensive damage and destruction" to a government facility, private property or critical infrastructure and when the purpose of those acts is to "intimidate the general public," "create an atmosphere or message of fear," or "seriously destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, economic and social structures of the country."

Those found guilty will face life sentences without any chance of parole, as stated in the controversial legislation.

The new bill also criminalizes the "threat, planning, training, facilitating of" and "proposal" and "inciting" to terrorist activities by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, banners and emblems.

The proposed measure also subjects suspects to surveillance, warrantless arrest, and detention for up to 24 days. The bill also boosts the Anti-Terrorism Council, the implementing body of the law, which are composed of presidential appointees.

Critics of the measure say it relaxes safeguards on human rights and is prone to abuse.

Duterte has until July 9 to approve or veto the controversial Anti-Terrorism Bill. If not acted by the President, the bill will lapse into a law on that date since the 1987 Constitution provides a 30-day period of action after its approval in the Congress.
(CNN) - Eight thousand people in the UK have been vaccinated so far as part of the Oxford University vaccine trial, Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford, and one of the scientist leading its vaccine initiative, told UKs Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday.

We now have 8,000 people vaccinated in the phase three trial in the UK, she said.

We have currently vaccinated a few hundred people in Brazil but within weeks that should be up to 4,000. And in South Africa, we are aiming for 2,000 people. And those are both areas of high transmission at the moment, Gilbert added.

Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, who is also working on the development of COVID-19 vaccine, was asked whether the UK should prepare for a winter without a vaccine.

This whole epidemic has relied too heavily on assumptions that have turned out not to be true, so my strong advice is, be prepared for the worst.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Scientist leading Oxford vaccine effort says 8,000 people in UK vaccinated in phase three of the trial"
(CNN)  A White hotel employee called the police on a guest, a Black woman and her children, who were using the hotel's swimming pool over the weekend.

Missy Williams-Wright, her son, 11, and daughter, 7, were staying at the Hampton Inn in Williamston, North Carolina, when a hotel employee called the police to report a trespassing, Williamston Police said in a statement on Monday.

Williams-Wright tells CNN she was in town from Raleigh on business, and that she believes she was racially discriminated against because of the color of her skin.

"Hilton has zero tolerance for racism or discrimination of any kind," a company spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday. "Through our extensive Diversity & Inclusion training program, we have made diversity and unconscious bias training mandatory for Team Members at all properties and corporate offices globally."

The Hampton Inn employee in question is no longer with the hotel, but CNN has been unable to confirm whether she was terminated or resigned.

"Up until today, our normal process has been to involve law enforcement when we were unable to confirm if an individual is a guest of the hotel, Vimal Kolappa, CEO, Washington Hospitality, LLC and Owner, Hampton Inn by Hilton Williamston said in a statement to CNN Wednesday.

"We now understand this process may have unnecessarily escalated this situation. We are truly sorry for the impact that this experience had on our guest and her family. We are making every effort to contact the guest directly, so that we can continue to listen to her experience, offer our apologies, and make this situation right."

Kolappa said the hotel will revisit their practices and only call law enforcement in the event of illegal activity or a threat to employees or guests.

"We will ensure that our employees are trained to be able to clearly identify and de-escalate these situations," he said in a statement.

The incident between Williams-Wright, the Hampton Inn and Williamston police is one of the latest examples of calling the police on Black people, amplified by an atmosphere of racial tension following George Floyd's killing -- an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis in May.

'What did I do wrong?'

Hampton Inn staff told two responding officers that during hourly inspections of the hotel they had spotted two unattended children swimming in the pool, and that Williams-Wright was seen in her car in the hotel parking lot, according to the police statement.

Williams-Wright said she was charging her phone and speaking with her mother but had sight of her children in the pool.

Hotel staff told police they asked Williams-Wright to leave the premises while they called the authorities, the police statement read.

When officers arrived and approached Williams-Wright, they asked whether she was a hotel guest and could provide her name and room number. According to the police report, she refused, and instead showed them a key card providing access to the hotel and her room.

Officers continued to insist on seeing some form of identification, but Williams-Wright refused.

Fearing the unfolding situation, she told CNN she started recording live on Facebook. "With everything going on right now, it (the video) was for my protection," she said.

Right at the beginning of an almost 10-minute long video, the police officers and the White hotel employee, who has not been identified, can be heard asking Williams-Wright for "proof" that she had a room at the Hampton Inn.

"OK this is my proof," she said showing her room key. "Why do I have to tell you what room I'm in? What did I do wrong?"

Williams-Wright said that the hotel employee had not asked anyone else previously at the pool for proof that they were guests.

"So, because I am the only Black person here in this pool, they (want to) question me," Williams-Wright says. "But there were two Caucasian people sitting right over there and she said nothing to them."

In the video, no one else can be seen in the pool area besides Williams-Wright, her children, the hotel employee and two officers.

Officers attempted to verify her identity through the registration linked to her car's license plates.

"Once I proved I had a room, that was for you to walk away," Williams-Wright says. "You are degrading me like this in front of my kids. They trying to enjoy themselves in the pool."

Ultimately, officers were able to match the car's registration with Williams-Wright and verify that she was a guest at the hotel and no further action was taken.

The Williamston Police Department said in a statement, "there has been an outcry of public concern over this call for service and how it was handled."

The department said they "take the complaint process very seriously" and is conducting an internal investigation around their response to the call.

'We can move forward'

Williams-Wright said she spoke with the general manager of the Hampton Inn but said she was disappointed and felt that her concerns regarding discrimination were not properly addressed.

The Williamston Hampton Inn is a franchised property, independently owned and operated, according to a Hilton spokesperson. Hilton Worldwide is the parent company to the Hampton Inn brand.

"This is not the Hilton hospitality that our guests expect when they visit one of our properties, and we will be addressing this with ownership immediately," the spokesperson said.

On Monday, Hilton issued the following statement on Twitter:

Williams-Wright and her children stayed at the Hampton Inn through the weekend as she originally planned because she said she didn't want her kids to leave the hotel with the memory of police officers and hotel staff insinuating that they had done anything wrong.

"I was uncomfortable," Williams-Wright said. "But I wanted to show my kids that even though we experienced this, we can move forward."

As an activist who works closely with police in her community, Williams-Wright said she was disappointed in the behavior of the officers who answered the former hotel employee's call. She said she'd like for police officers to undergo more diversity and sensitivity training.

This story was first published on CNN.com "Hotel employee calls police on Black family using the pool as guests"
(CNN) - A global study has found clear evidence that a new form of the coronavirus has spread from Europe to the US. The new mutation makes the virus more infectious but does not seem to make people any sicker, an international team of researchers reported Thursday.

The mutation affects the spike protein  the structure the virus uses to get into the cells it infects. Now the researchers are checking to see if this affects whether the virus can be controlled by a vaccine. Current vaccines being tested mostly target the spike protein.

The study, published in the journal Cell, confirms earlier work suggesting the mutation had made the new variant of virus more common. The researchers call the new mutation G614, and they show that it has almost completely replaced the first version to spread in Europe and the US, one called D614.

Our global tracking data show that the G614 variant in Spike has spread faster than D614, theoretical biologist Bette Korber of Los Alamos National Laboratory and colleagues wrote in their report. We interpret this to mean that the virus is likely to be more infectious, they add. Interestingly, we did not find evidence of G614 impact on disease severity.

This could be good news, said Lawrence Young, a professor of medical oncology at the UKs University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study. The current work suggests that while the G614 variant may be more infectious, it is not more pathogenic. There is a hope that as SARS-CoV-2 infection spreads, the virus might become less pathogenic, he said in a statement.

The team tested samples taken from patients across Europe and the US and sequenced the genomes. They compared these genome sequences to whats been shared publicly. Comparing these sequences helped them draw a map of the spread of the two forms.

Through March 1, 2020 the G614 variant was rare outside of Europe, but the end of March it had increased in frequency worldwide, they wrote.

Even when the D614 form had caused widespread epidemics, in places such as Wales and Nottingham in England, as well as in Washington state, G614 took over once it appeared, they found.

The increase in G614 frequency often continues well after stay-at-home orders are in place and past the subsequent two-week incubation period, they added.

The new version seems to multiply faster in the upper respiratory tract  the nose, sinuses and throat  which would explain why it passes around more easily, the researchers said. But tests on 1,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients showed those infected with the new version did not fare any worse than those who caught the original strain.

Other mutations often go along with the G614 mutation, but its not clear what effect they have. The earliest sequence we detected that carried all 4 mutations was sampled in Italy on Feb. 20, they wrote. Within days, this haplotype was sampled in many countries in Europe.

The G614 mutation can be neutralized by convalescent serum  the blood product taken from people who have recovered from a coronavirus infection, the researchers said.

But it will be important to determine whether the D614 and G614 forms of SARS-CoV-2 are differentially sensitive to neutralization by vaccine-elicited antibodies or by antibodies produced in response to infection with either form of the virus, they added.

More work is needed, of course, to solidify the findings and to see what the changes mean for the epidemic and for patients, the researchers said.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "New form of coronavirus spreads faster, but doesn't make people sicker, new study says"
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said the maximum operating capacity allowed for businesses may be adjusted ahead of the imposition of the less stricter modified general community quarantine on areas like Metro Manila, the country's main economic hub.

"Even without moving to MGCQ ay meron naman tayong pwedeng gawing paraan na para mapaaga lang yung pag-increase ng operating capacity na allowed," Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said during the Laging Handa virtual briefing on Thursday.

[Translation: We can do something to increase the allowed operating capacity (for businesses) ahead of moving to MGCQ.]

"For example, yung 30 percent ay titignan ho natin kung pwedeng ma-increase na ito to 40 or 50 percent," he said.

[Translation : For example, we can look into increasing the 30 percent (allowed operating capacity) to 40 or 50 percent.]

Lopez said this may be one of the options in case existing community quarantine levels will be in effect for a longer period of time. For instance, the general community quarantine (GCQ) status of Metro Manila has just been extended, he noted.

The DTI chief further explained that 95 percent of the country's business sectors had already been reopened even under GCQ, including dine-in restaurants and barbershops and salons albeit under limited operational capacity.

"If you remember last month, nag-umpisa nang mag-operate itong mga sector na 'to considering po that let's say for barbershops / salons, they account for about 400,000 workers; yung restaurants, 1.7 million workers," explained Lopez. Given this, it's important they are allowed to open earlier, which is why the government gave them the go signal to operate under GCQ, he added.

[Translation: If you remember last month, these sectors started operating again, considering barbershops (and) salons account for 400,000 workers while restaurants (account for) 1.7 million.]

With this, the Inter-Agency Task Force is also looking into the request of barbershops and salons to allow them to offer services other than haircuts provided the customer turnover is just as fast, added Lopez.

Aside from the capital region, Benguet, Cavite, Rizal, Lapu-Lapu City, Leyte, Ormoc and Southern Leyte have been placed under GCQ along with Talisay City, Minglanilla, and Consolacion of Cebu province until July 15.

The rest of the country has been placed under MGCQ until mid-July.
(CNN)  Hundreds of companies have promised to halt advertising on Facebook and its sibling platform Instagram as part of month-long boycott officially set to begin on Wednesday, according to the civil rights groups behind the protest.

But even as a steady drumbeat of household names like The North Face, Pfizer and Levi Strauss have joined the pressure campaign over the social network's handling of hate speech and misinformation, the vast majority of Facebook's biggest advertisers  the ones with presumably the most leverage -- have stayed quiet.

A CNN Business analysis of Facebook's top advertisers, based on data from market research firm Pathmatics, reveals that most of the 100 biggest ad spenders on the platform have not joined the boycott. The list of companies that have yet to pause advertising on Facebook includes Walmart, American Express and Home Depot.

Of the 25 largest spenders on Facebook ads last year, only three companies  Microsoft, Starbucks and Pfizer  have publicly confirmed their plans to pause marketing on Facebook. Those top 25 businesses, according to the data, accounted for an estimated $2 billion of Facebook advertising spend, or nearly 3% of Facebook's 2019 revenues.

The data suggest the ongoing boycott may have a limited impact on Facebook's bottom line, at least as it stands right now. Even if all 100 of Facebook's biggest advertisers joined in, they would account for just 6% of the company's annual ad revenue.

Last Friday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees: "My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough," according to tech website The Information.

Facebook spokesperson Tom Channick confirmed the accuracy of the remarks to CNN Business. "We take these matters very seriously and respect the feedback from our partners. We're making real progress keeping hate speech off our platform, and we don't benefit from this kind of content. But as we've said, we make policy changes based on principles, not revenue pressures," Channick added.

The majority of the top spenders haven't made any statements on the matter. Most of the top 25 brands did not respond to requests for comment from CNN Business, including Walmart, Uber, Netflix, Domino's and American Express. AT&T, which owns WarnerMedia, CNN's parent company, also has not made a public comment regarding their advertising plans on Facebook.

Some brands provided non-committal responses. Home Depot, Facebook's single largest advertiser in 2019 according to Pathmatics with $178.5 million spent on the platform, declined to say if it has made any changes. But, Home Depot said in a statement, it is evaluating the steps Zuckerberg said the platform would take during a livestream last week.

"Given the measures they just announced on Friday, we're watching this very closely," said Sara Gorman, a Home Depot spokesperson.

Procter & Gamble, the consumer goods giant and Facebook's seventh-largest advertiser with an estimated $92.3 million spent last year, declined to comment on its plans for any specific advertising channel, but reiterated that it has launched a "comprehensive review" of its advertising partners.

"Where we determine our standards are not met, we will take action, up to and including stopping spending, just like we've done before," said Marc Pritchard, the company's chief brand officer, in remarks last week. Pritchard added that P&G does not advertise on thousands of sites because they do not meet the company's standards.

A Wells Fargo spokesperson said the company is "evaluating" its usage of Facebook and will make a decision "that is best aligned with the needs of our customers."

"We condemn bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism and we are pleased to see Facebook take the needed additional steps to stop the usage of hate speech on their platform," the spokesperson said.

Uber, which did not respond to CNN Business's questions about whether it's joining the boycott, announced a new advertising campaign on Wednesday running on TV, social media and its app. The campaign is called "No mask. No Ride" and features its drivers and food delivery workers.

Facebook generated nearly $70 billion in advertising revenue last year, according to its financial statements, most of which comes from small and medium-sized businesses.

Zuckerberg has agreed to join a meeting with the civil rights groups that organized the boycott to discuss their proposals for change, Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesperson, confirmed to CNN Business on Wednesday.

"They asked about having Mark at the meeting, and we've since confirmed that Mark is able to join," Stone said in a statement. "We're waiting to hear back and look forward to the opportunity to continue the dialogue."

For now, at least, that dialogue will go on without the involvement of many of the companies Facebook and Zuckerberg might be the most scared to lose.

Editor's note: This story's original headline -- "These are the big brands that haven't pulled ads from Facebook yet" -- has been revised to better reflect that, as the article notes, many of the biggest advertisers on Facebook have not pulled ads, and the effectiveness of the boycott is limited as a result. Additionally, an earlier version of this article misstated when Mark Zuckerberg made his remarks about advertisers returning to the platform.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Hundreds of brands are pulling ads from Facebook. Its largest advertisers aren't among them."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  The chief of Jolo Police was relieved from his post over the fatal shooting of four Army troops by policemen, the Philippine National Police confirmed on Thursday.

PNP spokesperson Bernard Banac said Lieutenant Colonel Walter Annayo was relieved as part of command responsibility for the actions of his nine men.

Those killed in the shooting incident in Jolo, Sulu on Monday were Maj. Marvin Indammog, Cpt. Irwin Managuelod, Sgt. Jaime Velasco, and Cpl. Abdal Asula  all from the Armys 9th Intelligence Service Unit of the 11th Infantry Division.

Initial reports from the Sulu Provincial Police Office said the cops involved claimed self-defense, after the soldiers supposedly lifted and pointed their firearms first at the police. But Army Chief Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay said it was a rubout and his men were "murdered" by the police personnel.

PNP later ruled out the "misencounter" angle in the shooting incident. Banac said that based on their analysis of reports on the ground, the soldiers did not fire a single shot at the police. He added that the local police may have failed to preserve the crime scene.

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to speed up its investigation. He also sought a meeting with the nine cops tagged in the incident, said his spokesman, Harry Roque.

Duterte doesnt want the issue to escalate further, joining calls from top military and police leaders for calm among the PNP and Armys ranks, according to Defense Chief Delfin Lorenzana.

The PNP-Internal Affairs Service is also conducting its own probe with the National Police Commission.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  President Rodrigo Duterte will call for a special session of Congress to pass another law that will grant him special powers for coronavirus response, Malacanang said Thursday.

Earlier, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the measure can be tackled after the regular session resumes on July 27 in time for Dutertes fourth State of the Nation Address.

The plan has changed, Roque said, citing a statement from Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez that a special session is needed.

Kaya po binalita ko na magpapatawag ng special session ngayon pong mukhang plantsado na yung magiging laman ng Bayanihan 2 legislation, Roque said.

[Translation: Thats why I announced the calling of a special session, it seems that the contents of the Bayanihan 2 legislation seems ready.]

Roque said theres no schedule for the special session yet. The bill being proposed by the economic cluster provides for a 140 billion stimulus package, which will be used in recovering from the economic impact of the coronavirus disease, which has infected more than 38,000 people nationwide.

The proposed Bayanihan 2 law is patterned after the original Bayanihan to Heal As One Act which granted the President special authority to adjust fund allocations under the 2019 and 2020 budgets for coronavirus response. The measure also provided for extra benefits to health care workers especially those who got infected with the disease, and fast-tracked the purchase and importation of medical equipment.

READ: SC junks petition vs. constitutionality of Bayanihan Act

This law expired on June 24. The Senate earlier passed on second reading its version of the Bayanihan to Recover As One Act, but it adjourned without approving the measure after Malacanang did not certify it as urgent.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  One of soldiers fatally shot by policemen in Jolo, Sulu suffered eight gunshot wounds, according to initial results of an autopsy conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation.

Two of the slain Army officers sustained at least three gunshot wounds each, NBI Spokesperson Ferdinand Lavin said Thursday.

The fourth victim, Cpl. Abdul Asula, did not undergo autopsy as the Army earlier said he was laid to rest immediately in line with Muslim tradition.

Lavin said they completed the autopsy after the arrival honors at Villamor Airbase in Pasay City on Tuesday.

The preliminary findings will be submitted to the NBIs regional office in Western Mindanao, he said.

Four Army officers, all from the 9th Intelligence Service Unit of the 11th Infantry Division, were killed in a police operation in Jolo, Sulu on Monday. The cops earlier claimed self-defense.

The Philippine National Police has ruled out the "misencounter" angle and is now calling it a shooting incident, involving nine policemen.

Police Brigadier General Bernard Banac, PNP spokesperson, said Wednesday that based on their analysis of reports on the ground, the soldiers did not fire a single shot at the police.

The chief of Jolo Police has been relieved from his post following the incident, with PNP citing command responsibility. The nine cops tagged in the shooting have been disarmed and placed under restrictive custody.

They are also facing a third party probe by the National Bureau of Investigation, which has been tasked to submit an initial report on the matter by next week.

Meanwhile, officials from both the AFP and PNP have called for calm saying the two agencies continue to work well together in the country's security and pandemic response.

RELATED: Army admits lapses were found in crime scene of Sulu shooting

CNN Philippines' Anjo Alimario and Eimor Santos contributed to this report.
(CNN)  Forty days after the Chinese government said it would pass a national security law for Hong Kong, that legislation is now in force, with potentially massive ramifications for the city's political freedoms.

It was drafted almost entirely in secret, via closed-door meetings in Beijing that even Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, was not a part of. Even hours after its reported passage by China's National People's Congress Tuesday, all but a tiny handful of Hong Kongers still had no idea what the law contained.

Promulgated in Hong Kong late Tuesday night, bypassing the local legislature, the law criminalizes "acts of secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign or external forces to endanger national security."

While officials had earlier suggested penalties under the law would be softer than they are in China, the maximum sentence given for each of those four main crimes -- secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces -- is life imprisonment.

Right to a trial by jury can be suspended in certain circumstances, cases can be heard in secret, and foreign residents in Hong Kong can be expelled if suspected of violating the law, regardless of conviction. The national security law trumps any existing Hong Kong laws, should there be a conflict.

The law also extends Beijing's direct control over the city, establishing a new committee for national security that will include a Beijing-appointed adviser, and an "Office for Safeguarding National Security," directly under the Beijing government, which has broad powers to prosecute Hong Kongers deemed to have committed particularly egregious offenses.

Hong Kong and Beijing officials have argued the law is necessary and overdue, and promised it will only affect a tiny minority of Hong Kongers, while returning "stability and prosperity" to the city.

"The national security law is a crucial step to ending chaos and violence that has occurred over the past few months," Lam, the city's chief executive, said Wednesday. "It's a law that has been introduced to keep Hong Kong safe. The legislation is lawful, constitutional and reasonable."

Chilling effect

Before it was even in force, the law had begun to have a chilling effect, with multiple political parties disbanding, shops removing anti-government paraphenalia, and people deleting social media accounts and old posts.

That will likely accelerate, as the offenses under the law are broad and far-reaching, with no certainty of just what actions will be deemed illegal until prosecutions are brought.

For instance, the offense of inciting, assisting or abetting secession could cover most statements related to Hong Kong independence. At recent rallies, protesters could regularly be heard chanting this was "the only way out," and waving flags promoting separatism. The minimum punishment for such crimes is five-years in prison.

In a meeting Tuesday of senior police commanders, they were told that anyone seen waving a pro-independence flag or chanting in support of independence must be arrested, a police source told CNN. In addition, the source said anybody searched and found to have independence flags in their possession will be arrested.

Subversion and terrorism are also defined particularly widely, with the latter including "dangerous activities which seriously jeopardize public health, safety or security" for the purpose of "intimidating the public in order to pursue political agenda."

If applied broadly, this could reclassify anti-government protests like the city saw last year -- which often turned violent, with clashes between protesters and police, and vandalism of public property -- as terrorism, exactly how the protests were often described in Chinese state media.

In particular, the law criminalizes the "sabotage of means of transport (and) transport facilities," or the "serious interruption or sabotage of electronic control systems" relating to transport, which could be interpreted to include vandalizing subway stations or blocking roads and buses.

The maximum punishment for serious terrorist offenses is life in prison, with a minimum sentence of 10 years. Those found guilty of related, less serious offenses can face a minimum of five years in prison.

Foreigners threatened

While the greatest impact of the law will be on Hong Kongers, it also includes multiple provisions that could affect how foreign entities, in particular media and NGOs, operate in the city.

The law states that anyone who "directly or indirectly receives instructions, control, funding or other kinds of support from a foreign country or an institution, organization or individual" could be guilty of an offense if they are pursuing certain actions deemed hostile to national security.

Those include lobbying for sanctions against Hong Kong or Chinese officials -- such as those recently imposed by Washington over this very legislation -- "undermining" elections in Hong Kong, "seriously disrupting the formulation and implementation of laws or policies" in the city, or "provoking by unlawful means hatred among Hong Kong residents towards the Central People's Government."

In China, people have been prosecuted for leaking "state secrets" to overseas media, governments and organizations, something the new Hong Kong law also criminalizes, potentially making it far harder for foreign journalists and NGOs to operate in the city.

One of the duties of the Office for Safeguarding National Security, which reports directly to Beijing, will also be the "management of (the) organs of foreign countries and international organizations in (Hong Kong), as well as non-governmental organisations and news agencies of foreign countries."

At present, Hong Kong has a generous visa policy for journalists, who are classed as regular foreign workers and not subject to the more strict regulation seen in China. It is also easy for NGOs to operate in Hong Kong, with human rights organizations, labor groups, and press freedom groups that struggle to operate in China using the city as a base.

Non-permanent residents in Hong Kong can be expelled from the city, regardless of whether they are convicted, if suspected of contravening the law.

Judicial changes

One of the biggest controversies leading up to the passage of the law was the creation of a new panel of judges dedicated to national security cases, who will be appointed by the Chief Executive directly.

Legal analysts have warned that this could undermine judicial independence, as it enables the government to pick judges that are potentially sympathetic to particular issues.

"A person shall not be designated as a judge to adjudicate a case concerning offense endangering national security if he or she has made any statement or behaved in any manner endangering national security," the law states.

It adds that jury trials can be suspended when deemed necessary, with cases instead heard by a panel of judges.

Beyond this, certain cases can also be handed directly over to the Chinese authorities for prosecution, with the Office for Safeguarding National Security taking the lead, applying Chinese law and legal standards.

The office "shall initiate investigation into the case, the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall designate a prosecuting body to prosecute it, and the Supreme People's Court shall designate a court to adjudicate it," the law states.

When exercising this power, members of the Office "shall not be subject to the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region," and police in the city are obliged to assist in their duties and prevent anyone obstructing them.

It is unclear whether such cases will be transferred to the mainland, or if they will be processed in Hong Kong by Chinese prosecutors. The suggestion of extradition to China is what kicked off last year's massive anti-government protests.

China has a notoriously high conviction rate, especially in national security cases, and is regularly criticized for politicized prosecutions in which defendants are denied access to lawyers.

What comes next?

For weeks now, Hong Kong officials and the central government in Beijing have been reassuring members of the public that the law will be applied selectively, and only affect a tiny number of people.

Following its passage Tuesday, a Hong Kong government spokesman reiterated that the law "targets an extremely small minority of offenders while the life and property as well as various legitimate basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by the overwhelming majority of citizens will be protected."

"There is nothing for Hong Kong citizens to worry about in exercising these legitimate rights," he added.

Whether this is true remains to be seen, and may not be known for months, until the first prosecutions under the law are brought. But the chilling effect already seen this week suggests the repercussions of the law will ripple out well beyond individual cases.

Hong Kong has long been known as a "city of protest," with a vibrant opposition movement, unshackled media and dynamic public discourse. The national security law would appear to take aim at all of this, and could reshape the city forever.

This story was first published on CNN.com Why China's national security law could change Hong Kong forever
(CNN)  The United Kingdom said Wednesday it would offer a path to citizenship for eligible Hong Kong residents and condemned China's new security law as a threat to the city's freedom.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in an on-camera interview that after "carefully" assessing the contents of the new national security law, it constitutes "a clear violation of the autonomy of Hong Kong, and a direct threat to the freedoms of its people."

He said it was therefore "a clear and serious violation" of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which laid the groundwork for the city's handover from British to China in 1997 and stated that Hong Kong's existing system of government would remain in place for 50 years.

China's central government on Tuesday night imposed a sweeping national security law that critics say has stripped the city of its autonomy and precious civil and social freedoms, and cements Beijing's authoritarian rule over the territory.

Hundreds turned out on Wednesday -- the 23rd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from British rule to China -- to protest the legislation in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay,

They were met with a heavy security presence and at least 300 people were arrested.

Hong Kong Police announced in a tweet that nine of those arrested, five men and four women, were held on suspicion of violating the national security law.

The remaining arrests were linked to "unlawful assembly, a disorder in public places, furious driving, and possession of an offensive weapon."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that his government will honor its promise to British National Overseas (BNO) passport holders, who could otherwise face imprisonment for acts such as protesting or campaigning under the new law.

The law dramatically broadens the powers of local and mainland authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish dissenters. In vague language, it criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers. People convicted of such crimes can face sentences of up to life in prison.

Several political and activist groups in the city formally disbanded on Monday in advance of the law being introduced. Shopkeepers tore down posters that supported anti-government protests, and many citizens hastily deleted social media posts and accounts.

Speaking during Prime Minister's Questions in parliament, Johnson said: "The enactment and imposition of this national security law constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British joint declaration.

"It violates Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and is in direct conflict with Hong Kong basic law.

"The law also threatens the freedoms and rights protected by the joint declaration.

"We made clear that if China continued down this path we would introduce a new route for those with British National Overseas status to enter the UK, granting them limited leave to remain with the ability to live and work in the UK and thereafter to apply for British citizenship -- and that is precisely what we will do now."

The UK's Foreign Office said in a news release that "this new bespoke immigration route" would mean eligible Hong Kong residents could move to the UK without the current six month limit, and would have five years limited leave to remain, with the ability to live and work in the UK.

It said the new route will be implemented in the coming months, with the exact date and further details to be announced in due course. "In the meantime, we will ensure British National (Overseas) citizens who wish to come to the UK will be able to do so, subject to standard immigration checks," it added.

Announcing preliminary details to the House of Commons on Wednesday, Raab said that BNO passport holders and their dependents in Hong Kong who wish to come to Britain will be given five years' limited leave to remain, with the right to work or study.

After these five years, they will be able to apply for settled status, and after a further 12 months with settled status they will be able to apply for citizenship, the Foreign Secretary said.

Raab said the new national security law was "a grave and deeply disturbing step."

He said it was "depressing but necessary" to report that it was "a clear and serious breach of the joint declaration," calling the arrival of the legislation "a sad day for the people of Hong Kong."

As of February 24, 2020, there were 349,881 holders of BNO passports and the UK government estimates there are around 2.9 million BNOs currently in Hong Kong.

The European Union has reiterated its "grave concerns" about Beijing's national security law for Hong Kong, saying it is "essential that the existing rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents are fully protected."

A European Council statement on Wednesday said: "The European Union is concerned that the law risks seriously undermining the high degree of autonomy of Hong Kong, and having a detrimental effect on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.

"The European Union is assessing the implications of such a law and will continue to raise its concerns in its dialogue with China," it added.

This story was first published on CNN.com UK will honor passport promise to eligible Hong Kong residents
(CNN) - Ghislaine Maxwell, the onetime girlfriend and alleged accomplice of accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday morning and charged by federal prosecutors in New York for her alleged role in recruiting, grooming and sexually abusing underage girls as young as 14 as part of a years-long criminal enterprise.

Maxwell, 58, whose whereabouts were being tracked by federal agents, was taken into custody in New Hampshire without incident and charged with six criminal counts. The charges include enticement and conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, transportation and conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.

Between 1994 and 1997, according to the indictment, "Maxwell assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18."

Maxwell and deceased multimillionaire Epstein are accused of luring the girls to an array of residences, including his Upper East Side mansion, his Palm Beach estate, and his sprawling Santa Fe ranch, as well as London, England, where she has a home.

Maxwell was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, nearly a year after federal authorities in New York arrested Epstein as he returned to the United States on a private jet from Paris.

During a teleconference appearance in New Hampshire federal court, Maxwell waived her right to a detention hearing. The judge ordered her remanded to the custody of the US Marshals Service and said she will be transferred to New York for a detention hearing there.

An attorney for Maxwell, Lawrence Vogelman, declined to comment Thursday. Maxwell has previously denied wrongdoing, and in a deposition has called at least one of her accusers "a liar." She faces as many as 35 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charges.

Though Maxwell's whereabouts had been unclearand the source of much speculation since Epstein's arrest last summerFBI New York Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney said during a news conference Thursday that authorities have "been discreetly keeping tabs" on her, adding that they pounced when they learned recently that she "slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire." The indictment was filed under seal on June 29.

In court documents asking a judge to order that Maxwell be detained pending trial, prosecutors said she had been "hiding out" in various locations around New England for the past year, changing her phone number and email address, and ordering packages under a different name to avoid detection. Prosecutors identified 15 different bank accounts associated with Maxwell that at times held as much as $20 million.

'Prequel' to Epstein case

A British socialite who is the daughter of deceased newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell has been a central focus of federal prosecutors' ongoing investigation of alleged co-conspirators of Epstein in the wake of his jailhouse death by suicide while awaiting trial in August 2019.

Prosecutors had charged him with having run a trafficking enterprise in which he paid hundreds of dollars in cash to girls as young as 14 to have sex with him at his Upper East Side home and his estate in Palm Beach, worked with employees and associates to lure the girls to his residences and paid some of his victims to recruit other girls for him to abuse.

Since Epstein's death, public pressure has mounted to hold those who assisted him -- perhaps including Maxwell and a coterie of young women who allegedly worked under her -- accountable not only for his actions, but also for their own roles. She and other women have been named in multiple lawsuits by women who said they were abused by Epstein.

During Thursday's news conference, Audrey Strauss, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, described the case against Maxwell as "the prequel to the earlier case that we brought against Jeffrey Epstein."

Strauss said the investigation into additional co-conspirators "remains ongoing."

According to Thursday's indictment, Maxwell was the principal recruiter for victims of Epstein's sex trafficking ring. The indictment describes Maxwell's relationship with three victims, identified only as Minor Victim-1, Minor Victim-2 and Minor Victim-3.

Maxwell, along with Epstein, is accused by prosecutors of luring the young girls into their circle, inquiring about their schools and families, taking them to the movies or shopping. After developing a rapport with them, Maxwell would allegedly steer the relationship into sexual territory, talking to them about sexual topics or undressing in front of them, followed by encouraging them to give Epstein massages, during which the girls were fully or partially nude, the indictment says.

Those massages, some of which Maxwell participated in, sometimes turned sexual, according to the indictment, which says Maxwell was "present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims." In the indictments of both Maxwell and Epstein, federal prosecutors described the abuse Epstein allegedly perpetrated during those encounters, which included touching a girl's genitals, using a sex toy on them or directing a girl to touch him while he masturbated.

The indictment alleges that Maxwell participated in "multiple group sexual encounters" with Minor Victim-1 in New York and Florida between 1994 and 1997, gave Minor Victim-2 an unsolicited massage in New Mexico in 1996 while the girl was topless and encouraged Minor Victim-3 to give massages to Epstein in London between 1994 and 1995, "knowing that Epstein intended to sexually abuse [her] during those massages."

Prosecutors may face a legal hurdle

The perjury charges in the indictment stem from a 2016 deposition of Maxwell conducted as part of civil litigation. As Strauss put it Thursday, "Maxwell lied because the truth, as alleged, was almost unspeakable."

During that testimony, Maxwell denied having given anyone a massage, specifically denied having given Minor Victim-2 a massage and said, "I wasn't aware that [Epstein] was having sexual activities with anyone when I was with him other than myself.

Asked whether Epstein had a "scheme to recruit underage girls for sexual massages," she replied: "I don't know what you're talking about."

In charging Maxwell, however, federal prosecutors in New York may face a legal hurdle. In 2007, Epstein signed a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida that appeared to immunize his accomplices. The document says that "the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to" four alleged accomplices. Maxwell isn't listed among them, but her lawyers may argue that she is covered by the phrase "but not limited to."

That deal allowed Epstein to plead guilty in 2008 to two state prostitution charges and serve just 13 months in a Florida state prison.

When Epstein himself was indicted, New York federal prosecutors said they believed the Florida agreement didn't restrict their office from prosecuting him, but his lawyers argued otherwise. Prosecutors hold the same belief in charging Maxwell and pursuing other potential accomplices as part of their ongoing investigation.

The developments Thursday brought relief for those who say they were victims of Epstein and Maxwell, but not a sense of closure. Attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represents six Epstein victims who have remained anonymous, said Maxwell's arrest "is hopefully just the beginning."

"We're hopeful that there will continue to be additional arrests with respect to other co-conspirators," he said.

Brad Edwards, an attorney who represents 55 alleged Epstein victims, said his clients were "relieved and happy that this day has finally come."

Still, many victims have spoken over the years about their disappointment with prosecutors' ability to properly punish Epstein and his alleged accomplices, citing his lenient 2007 plea deal and his capacity to escape trial by committing suicide. On Thursday, Strauss said her office is "sensitive" to the need to protect Maxwell and that prosecutors would have "a dialogue" with the Bureau of Prisons if she is detained pending trial.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associate, has been charged with enticement of minors"
Building relationships was also at the core of Columbus recent progress on embracing diversity. Centro Hispano, Columbus Area Chamber, City of Columbus, many individual businesses, Columbus Area United Way, and interested community leaders were all intentional about building relationships to bridge cultural differences to build One Columbus. While we cant declare victory, because this work never ends, nonetheless those conversations have clearly resulted in productive relationships that didnt exist before.

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I say all that to make two points: No. 1  we have local evidence that this approach works; and No. 2  to invite you into that statewide conversation.

If youre interested in creating a greater sense of belonging in your place, if the future of Greater Nebraska matters to you, or if you seek out opportunities for learning and personal growth, then you might find this a really engaging opportunity! You will work alongside community leaders from across Nebraska. You will have fascinating, eye-opening conversations. You will help build our communities to do people attraction in the 21st century. And you will find inspiration.
Part Black, part Panamanian, Huggins had even less instruction at Mechanicsburg on the history and contributions of Latinos in American society. He questioned why Mechanicsburg can have entire classes on European history and Shakespeare and yet not offer courses on African, Hispanic or Asian history.

When he was a junior at Mechanicsburg, Huggins had to reach out to building administrators to have something done to celebrate Black History Month. Even then, his request was delegated to the school diversity club.

Choices

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When we talk about Blacks in history, its done as a series of white choices, said Nathaniel Babitts, a Black youth who will be a senior this year at Mechanicsburg. To him, history at the high school was taught from the perspective of whites choosing to end slavery with the Civil War and whites choosing to grant Blacks equality because of the civil rights movement.

The way the instruction came across, Blacks had no say in their own destiny and thus no role to play, when thats not the case, Babitts said. Instead, much of the focus was on how whites contributed to the development of the nation. The weight of this disparity could be felt on how much time was spent on the different topics of the lesson plan.
Separately, New York City took the lead last month when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city would form its own commission to examine its history of racial discrimination.

The citys new Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission will give New Yorkers a platform to discuss their experiences with racism, examine possible discrimination in public policy and recommend changes such as removing symbols of racism from public spaces, de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, said in announcing its formation.

McCray, an author and activist, is Black; the mayor is white.

Its the latest in a trend of progressive prosecutors eschewing traditionally cozy relationships with police departments and pressing instead for criminal justice reforms to better hold police accountable for wrongdoing.

Rollins, Bostons first woman and Black district attorney, said the entire system  not just police  needs to change to ensure people of color are not victimized. Our efforts at reform cannot only focus on police. Your district attorneys, states attorneys, and top prosecutors are failing you too, she tweeted Wednesday.
The administration plans to reexamine the order as July 10 gets closer, Wolfs office said.

Still, Hughes and 19 other Senate Democrats on Wednesday wrote to Wolf to ask that he extend the moratorium until at least Aug. 31.

More time is needed to ensure that money reaches renters or landlords before the moratorium expires, they wrote.

Any delay in receiving payments from the program could potentially lead to mortgage companies and landlords beginning the foreclosure or eviction process while an application for assistance is pending with a county or PHFA, they wrote.

In the meantime, the Wolf administration has been fighting legal action by landlords who say the governor overstepped his authority.

Sen. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, said the possibility that eviction complaints filed in courts will take more time than usual to be heard because of a post-shutdown backlog on dockets is little comfort.

Some jurisdictions may not have a backlog, and an eviction complaint stays on a persons record and makes it much more difficult for them to find housing, Street said.
In the emergency care world, we dont turn people away, regardless of their ability to pay. So who absorbs those costs? You guessed it  us as taxpayers.

The Amendment 2 ballot initiative is an investment in our states future. It enjoys broad support from hundreds of organizations across the state, including local and county ambulance districts such as my own, as well as our industrys three statewide groups: the Ambulance District Association of Missouri; the Missouri Ambulance Association; and the Missouri Emergency Medical Services Association.

We paramedics and emergency medical technicians know all too well how the epidemic of rural hospital closures in Missouri and nationwide is making us sicker.

Missouris rural hospital closure rate is among the highest rates in the country. Nationwide, at least 130 rural hospitals (where the rate of uninsured patients is higher) have closed in the past decade (most in the 14 states that havent expanded Medicaid), with hundreds more remaining in financial peril.

The shutdown of hospitals in places like Boonville, Farmington, Poplar Bluff, Mount Vernon, and Sweet Springs dont just mean longer, risker drives. It often means the loss of a towns biggest employer, an economic, social and cultural death knell from which many towns never recover.
The Battle of Pilot Knob Historic Site is hosting a special patriotic presentation on Saturday that is free and open to the public. It will start at 6:30 p.m. and conclude in time for the evenings fireworks display.

Local writer and historian Rick Mansfield will present a one-man production from the perspective of people from history and what they experienced on a milestone Fourth of July, according to Bryan Bethel, manager of the historic site.

The presentation features five characters, all in historical costume. Mansfield never leaves the stage during the performance, but narrates the interlude between historical periods and dons the appropriate attire. The character changes are modest and family-friendly, accomplished with different shirts, waistcoats, hats, and accessories.

The first Fourth of July is 1776 and seen through the eyes of Charles Tomson, the secretary of the Second Continental Congress. The character of Tomson gives his account of witnessing the final vote to adopt the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

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The second is in 1826 when a protestant clergyman is at the bedside of John Adams in Quincy, Mass. Adams is 90 and will not live out the day. Little does he know, his dear friend and on again/off again political rival Thomas Jefferson wont either.
Vanuatu turns the Corner LETS USE THIS AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR THE FUTURE
Minister Ngwele (centre front) with the investigation team and his First PA (far right)
Yes. I will do my part to conserve household energy usage, even if I'm uncomfortable in my home.

No. It is too hot to conserve household energy usage.

I already conserve, even before ERCOT requested it.

Maybe, depending on the reason ERCOT provides and whether or not I am home during that time.

Vote

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Kerala: Fishers welcome new system of sale at harbours

by K. A. Martin

July 02,2020 | Source: The Hindu

The Chellanam fishing harbour was witness to a historic change in sales this week with the catch being weighed before being sold to wholesale merchants. The price was fixed after the catch was weighed. It is a big break from the past that will help the poor fishers realise better prices and possibly escape a system that did not give them the real value for their efforts.



It was a practice up till COVID-19 to sell by making an overall assessment of the catch in a fishing boat as it landed at the harbour. However, fishermens unions are now insisting that the landings be assessed according to their weight before a price is fixed. This will end the practice of exploiting the fishermen, said T. Peter of National Fish Workers Forum on Wednesday. T.V. Majeendran of Matysa Thozhilali Federation welcomed the development and said it was a great development and a break from the past. It was the end of a cycle of exploitation, he said.



The sale of fish from a landing boat in Chellanam early this week was the culmination of efforts by various agencies to end the system of fixing a price for the catch without assessing the quantity. Charles George of Matsya Thozhilali Aikya Vedhi said the State government had tried to end the practice of fish sales without proper assessment and to free wholesale transactions from the hands of brokers and middlemen. Mr. Majeendran said that the demand for fixing a fair price for the catch had been raised decades ago. However, the call had found resonance now with the traditional fishers now.



Mr. Peter said that the example in Chellanam should be replicated in all the fishing harbours across Kerala so that the traditional fishers would escape the cycle of exploitation. He said that the federation supported the new system of sales with the weight of fish being the prime consideration.
Tamil Nadu: Fishermen stage protest

July 02,2020 | Source: The Hindu

Hundreds of fishermen berthed their boats on the shore near the beachfront on Friday as a mark of protest against the delay in disbursing financial assistance to fishermen during the ban period. Fishermen from the coastal hamlets of Puducherry started arriving near the beach in front of the Chief Secretariat around 10 a.m. and berthed their vessels for more than an hour.



The protesters holding placards and black flags shouted slogans against the Lieutenant Governor for the inordinate delay in disbursing the ban period financial assistance and savings money for the beneficiaries. Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Minister K. Lakshminarayanan, Government Whip R. K. R Anantharaman and Congress legislator T. Djeaoumorthy visited the beach and expressed solidarity to the protesters. The fishermen left the beachfront after police made several appeals. The protest was staged a day after Secretary (Fisheries) Purva Garg issued a release stating that the Lt. Governor has given the nod for the scheme to disburse the assistance.



Minister for Health Malladi Krishna Rao, who also holds the Fisheries portfolio, told reporters that the government was yet to get any official communication from the Lt. Governors office about clearance given to the scheme. We despatched the file regarding disbursement of financial assistance to fishermen in the second week of April. The Lt. Governor laid several conditions to alter an ongoing scheme which the Cabinet could not accept, he said. Though the ban period was from April, the fishermen stopped venturing into sea after the Centre announced the nationwide lockdown from March 25. They resumed the fishing activity only during the first week of this month. They were without work for more than two months. Only elected representatives are answerable to the fishermen and not the Lt. Governor, he said.
Pakistan: MOMA to prepare National Plan of Action for Marine capture fisheries

July 02,2020 | Source: Associated Press of Pakistan

Ministry of Maritime Affairs (MoMA) is preparing a National Plan of Action for marine fisheries sector. Federal Minister Ali Haider Zaidi said in a statement that the programme would address all the issues related to the compliance of IOTC obligations, e.g data collection (both on port and on board), installation of VMS on board, logbooks on-board and implementation of all the conservation management measures. Hopefully, in the coming years Pakistan will reach to the maximum level of compliance, he said.



He said that Ministry of Maritime Affairs was working to achieve the target of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG) to get the sustainable fisheries in the country. In this regard, the minister thanked the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who has provided the opportunity to transform Pakistans fishing gears from gill netters to long liners.



The minister said that Maritime Affairs was committed to uplifting the fisheries sector with better cooperation and coordination of all stakeholders in the country and providing a platform for guidance to provincial governments to meet international standards of the fisheries sector.
Denton, TX (76205)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms during the morning. Cloudy skies this afternoon. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 87F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph, becoming N and increasing to 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 62F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
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Denton bar owners join statewide lawsuit to reopen

David J. Phillip/AP A sign on the door of the West Alabama Icehouse in Houston reads Closed by the Governor on Monday.

Jared Woodfill

Two Denton bar owners are part of a class-action lawsuit filed Monday by numerous Texas bar owners challenging the governors order that closed their businesses again to help quell Texas growing spike of COVID-19 cases.

For Adam Duran, owner of Fry Street Tavern and Shots & Crafts, news that his bars were required to shut down Friday caught him by surprise. With further setbacks and financial losses from the pandemic, he said he was left with few options, aside from legal recourse, to shore up his business.

We just do not feel like we have a whole lot options than to go into the legal route, Duran said. If epidemiologists think that the virus is on the uptick, then I support their decision, but the issue I have is that this is not addressed to all businesses.

On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that all bars would have to close statewide at noon, while restaurants are limited to 50% of capacity starting this week. In addition, the order also closed river rafting and tubing companies, while outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people are banned without prior approval.

Jared Woodfill, of Houston-based Woodfill Law Firm LLC, said the lawsuit aims to prevent constitutional overreach and protect small-business owners. Woodfill, who has represented several groups in cases related to the pandemic, such as lawsuits against Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgos stay-at-home order and face mask requirement, said more than 100 bar owners have joined the lawsuit.

Woodfill said bar owners from around the state have reached out in recent days, inquiring about whether their business can be represented in the lawsuit.

If you look at the state constitution, only the Legislature can pass laws; it doesnt say the governor can do it, and it doesnt say that the courts can do it, only the Legislature, Woodfill said. Secondly, we think its a violation of the equal protection clause, and in that, Gov. Abbott is picking and choosing winners and losers.

Compared with other since-reopened-businesses such as cosmetology services, barbershops, tattoo or piercing studios, Woodfill said state government officials are sentencing bar owners to bankruptcy, while chastising them for transmitting COVID-19.

These bar owners are being put out of business, and they cannot support their families, and their employees cannot support their families, he said. Some of them have spent their entire life savings building these establishments. Some have everything they earned invested in these bars, and theyre losing it all, because [Abbott] thinks theyre culprits  theyre not.

In addition to Abbott, the lawsuit also names Bentley Nettles, executive director of the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission. Under Abbotts executive order No. GA-28, if a person visits a bar or similar establishment the bar owner is subject to having their license suspended by the [Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission], or fined.

While an order is anticipated for the case to proceed in the coming days, Woodfill said he expects the case to be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. The venue for the case will be Travis County, because of where the defendants offices are located.

Duran said he wants to be a part of the solution rather than the problem. With installing new air conditioning units and working to mitigate possible coronavirus infection, he said hes been doing everything he can.

Theres broad issues that are contributing to this, and if we need to roll back, lets roll back together as a team and not single us out, Duran said of closing bars. We all have rent, we have mortgages, and employees we are trying to take care of.

Jennifer Gibbs, owner of Dustys Bar & Grill, Game Changers and Cletuss, is also listed in the class-action lawsuit but was not available for comment by Wednesday evening.
DIARIO DE CUBA Journalist Jorge Enrique Rodriguez Detained and Awaiting Trial Relatives of the reporter say that they have not been able to see him, and do not know what he is accused of.

DIARIO DE CUBA journalist Jorge Enrique Rodriguez Camejo has been detained since Sunday and is awaiting trial, to be held on Tuesday, July 7, on a charge that his relatives are still unaware of, his brother Leonel Rodriguez told DIARIO DE CUBA.

"Hes going to be held until July 7, when theyre going to hold his trial," said Rodriguez, who has not been able to communicate with the reporter to verify the details of his arrest.

"There are several versions. According to one it was 'disregard for authority'. In another he was supporting the protests following the death of the young Hansel Ernesto Hernandez at the hands of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR). And another says that he was filming a video," he added.

"When I went yesterday to pick up some things to take to him, where he is being held, a neighbor told me that they had taken him from his house, so I don't know which version to believe, because I haven't seen him yet."

Leonel says that he was able to confirm that Jorge Enrique Rodriguez Camejo "was transferred to the criminal processing center known as the Vivac" in Havana.

The DIARIO DE CUBA journalist was subjected to an interrogation last April during which State Security agents accused him of "spreading false news" and told him that there were proceedings underway against him for this reason.

The Cuban regime's political police have gone after independent journalists during the pandemic, violating the government's own isolation measures.

Four other DIARIO DE CUBA journalists have received summons and threats since March: Yoe Suarez, Waldo Fernandez Cuenca, Manuel Alejandro Leon and Boris Gonzalez Arenas.

Several independent reporters have also been fined up to 3,000 pesos under Decree Law 370, including Camila Acosta and Julio Antonio Aleaga, with Cubanet, and Monica Baro, with El Estornudo.

All have been threatened with retaliation for doing their jobs. Rodriguez Camejo's arrest came while all across the island a major police operation is trying to foil protests against police violence and racism, announced by activists and members of independent civil society outraged by the death of the young black man at the hands of the police.
In the last month, Ive added a new word to my vocabulary  kayfabe. What does it mean? Its the theatrical master plan that people involved in pro wrestling engage in when deciding whether Boris the Black or The White Snake will win or lose a match.
Vietnams GDP would expand by 3 percent this year with a recovery in the second half as Covid-19 appears to have been contained in the country, Fitch Solutions forecasts.

The market research company, a unit of credit ratings Fitch Group, said in a recent release this is a revision from its previous forecast of 2.8 percent growth.

The recovery is expected to be driven by a resumption of activities in manufacturing, retail, hospitality and transport as social distancing campaigns have been eased since April.

The industry and construction sector, which includes manufacturing, is set to benefit from the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which will come into effect in August, and the relocating of companies from China.

However, the extent of recovery in manufacturing will be capped by weak external demand in a global recession, while the barring of tourists from entering the country will continue to hamper a recovery in tourism related services like retail and hospitality, according to Fitch Solutions.

The services sector, which accounts for 42 percent of GDP, is also expected to recover in the second half thanks to an increase in domestic tourism.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries will not likely bring in major contributions to growth in the second half due to the absence of major supply increases in prior growing seasons, it added.

Vietnams GDP growth fell to a decade-low of 1.8 percent in the first half due to coronavirus impacts. A total 7.8 million workers had lost their jobs or had their working hours reduced, with the number of businesses temporarily suspending operations rising 38 percent year-on-year to 29,200 in the period.

Experts have warned that the plummeting figures might not have hit the bottom as challenges remain in recovering the economy in the second half as exporters struggle to find markets and international tourists remain banned from entering the country.

World Bank had earlier forecast Vietnams GDP growth could fall to 1.5 percent this year, against 7.02 percent in 2019.
A farmer prepares to transport lychees on a motorbike in Luc Ngan District, Bac Giang Province in June 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Vietnamese lychees, exported to Japan for the first time last month, are now being sold by Singapores largest retail chain, FairPrice.

FairPrice, which accounts for a 70 percent market share, is selling lychees sourced from the northern Bac Giang Province for SGD5 ($3.6) per kilogram, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in that country.

Fifty tons have been shipped so far, half of the volume contracted for export this year. Some outlets ran out of stock within two weeks, the trade office said.

Vietnam has been working to export the fruit to Singapore since 2018, but in the last two years lychees were only sold in outdoor markets without proper preservation, causing them to rot quickly and discouraging importers.

In future supply could be a challenge. Singapore buys the same lychees that are grown for exporting to Japan, and there would not be enough for it and when the latter increases its demand.

Vietnamese producers also need to improve packaging and preservation since there are many rotten fruits when shipments arrive in Singapore, the trade office said, adding this could be a challenge in future.

Vietnam last month exported fresh lychees to Japan after five years of negotiations and preparations to meet quality standards. An estimated 200 tons will be shipped there this year.

Bac Giang, a lychee growing hub, is set to harvest 700 tons of lychees this year, and also eyes exports to the U.S. and Australia.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung speaks at the 26th ASEAN-China Senior Officials' Consultation, held online on July 1, 2020. Photo courtesy of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

China has committed to resuming negotiations with ASEAN on the Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (COC), interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

China and ASEAN affirmed their commitment at a meeting Wednesday to fully implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and soon resuming negotiations on a binding, effective COC.

However, China has not disclosed a specific time for the resumption of COC discussions, ongoing since 2002 to develop legally binding rules in what Vietnam calls the East Sea, Vietnams Foreign Affairs Ministry said.

At the last meeting on the COC held in October 2019 in Vietnam's Da Lat, the two sides had agreed to prepare for the second reading of the COC draft.

China and ASEAN agreed on Wednesday to promote dialogue, cooperation and trust building to ensure a peaceful, secure and stable environment in the region.

The commitment was made at the 26th ASEAN-China Senior Officials' Consultation, held online as part of a series of ASEAN Senior Official Meetings to prepare for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting in the second half of 2020.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung, representing the country in the role of ASEAN Chair for 2020 at the event, said the bloc would continue working closely with China to build a binding COC in accordance with international laws, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Dung said ASEAN has adopted a comprehensive approach to security issues amid complicated regional developments.

Dialogue, cooperation, trust building and mutual acceptance of standards play a key role in addressing all security challenges, he said.

ASEAN and China should step up partnership in capacity building to actively tackle non-conventional security challenges, he said, adding they also need to promote mutual trust and respect, adhere to international laws, practice self-restraint and peacefully settle disputes and differences.

ASEAN countries affirmed China as one of the blocs leading and largest trading partners, who plays an important role in maintaining peace, stability and cooperation in the region.

Chen Xiaodong, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, praised the active response by ASEAN to the Covid-19 pademic. He said despite Covid-19, two-way trade between ASEAN and China still grew steadily at 4.2 percent in the first months of the year.

China will continue to promote cooperation with ASEAN in sharing information, experience, production and dissemination of vaccines and medicine for Covid-19, Chen said, adding the country also proposed upgrading ties to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations in 2021.

Beijing has been ramping up its aggressive behavior in the South China Sea since the start of this year while other countries have been focused on combating the Covid-19 outbreak, raising international concerns.

It announced the establishment of the so-called "governed" administrative districts over Vietnams Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) Islands. It has sunk Vietnamese fishing vessels, unilaterally ordered a ban on fishing, claimed that harvesting vegetables on Paracel Islands can strengthen its illegal claims; sent diplomatic notes to the United Nations; made the infamous Four Sha claim, which has a broader range than the notorious nine-dash line.
Nearly 3,000 foreign experts, business managers and high-skilled workers have been granted special entry permission to work in HCMC since travel restrictions were applied.

Eighty-two people who are spouses and children of the experts have also been allowed entry, Nguyen Van Lam, deputy director of the municipal Department of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs, said at a conference Tuesday.

Many businesses in HCMC have said that their operations have been negatively affected with foreign investors, technical experts and skilled workers unable to enter the country. They have complained in particular that foreigners are needed to operate some imported machines assembled by them.

Lam said city authorities have been reviewing and approving the proposals from local businesses on allowing of foreign experts and employees to enter.

The list of foreigners who are allowed to enter will be updated on the departments website on a weekly basis, Lam added. These people can receive their visas at the Vietnamese embassies in their home countries.

They will be required to stay at quarantine centers for 14 days upon arrival, Lam said, adding that they can also opt to spend their quarantine period at local hotels for a fee.

A report from the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs showed that over 93,000 foreign workers are licensed to work in Vietnam but nearly 22,000 of those have been unable to return to Vietnam since the end of March due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Many localities and diplomatic agencies proposed the government to allow at least 7,258 foreign experts, mainly from Japan, South Korea and Japan to enter the country to work for transportation and electricity projects and for key positions in FDI companies.

Vietnam closed its borders and suspended all international flights on March 25, and has stopped issuing visas for foreign nationals since March 18.

At a government meeting in Hanoi last week, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Vietnam was not yet ready to open up to international tourists given the lack of improvement in the global situation and the second wave of infections suffered by several countries in the region, including China and South Korea.

However, the government asked authorities to enable experts, investors, business managers, and highly skilled workers to enter Vietnam to resume work following mandatory quarantine.

With Vietnams borders remaining closed, foreign visitor numbers in the first half dropped 55.8 percent year-on-year to 3.74 million.

Vietnam has gone 76 days without community transmission of the novel coronavirus. It has recorded 355 infections without any deaths. With 336 having recovered, the country now has 19 active cases left.
A medic works on samples taken for the new coronavirus tests at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, April 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

The Health Ministry has confirmed a man who came to work in Vietnam from Indonesia in March as negative for the new coronavirus, after performing more tests Wednesday night.

All 145 people who had come into close contact with him also tested negative for Covid-19.

The results were confirmed Thursday morning after Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute, Vietnam's leading epidemiology facility, conducted a Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and an Elisa test on the mans samples.

The man, 31, is an Indonesian resident who came to Vietnam on March 11.

After landing at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, he was transported straight to the citys neighboring province of Binh Duong for working.

During the past time, he has been staying at Au Lac Hotel in My Phuoc Ward, Ben Cat Town of Binh Duong to go to work as an engineer at factory No.4 of Kyungbang Vietnam in Bau Bang Industrial Park in Ben Cat.

On June 30 he and an Indonesian colleague went to the Family Medical Practice clinic in HCMCs Thao Dien Ward in District 2, home to an expat community in the city, to test for the novel coronavirus before leaving for Indonesia.

His samples were sent to FV Hospital and the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases for testing, and both results came back positive. He was then taken to the Binh Duong General Hospital Tuesday evening.

According to the Health Ministry, he is now in stable condition, so as all people who had close contact with him, who are 132 personnel at his company, seven staff at the hotel, two staff at a restaurant and four medic workers at the clinic in District 2.

In Vietnam, any case suspected to be infected with Covid-19 needs to be confirmed by another round of testing using RT-PCR and Elisa tests. There are only a few dozen institutions in the country qualified for performing such procedures.

With the Indonesian confirmed as negative, Vietnam has gone 77 days without recording community transmission of the disease.

The nations tally now stays at 335. Of them, 19 are active cases after 326 have recovered.

The latest recovery, announced on Wednesday afternoon, is a 24-year-old returnee from Kuwait. He was confirmed as a Covid-19 patient on June 17 and has been treated at the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases since.

The Covid-19 pandemic has so far spread to 213 countries and territories, claiming almost 518,000 lives.
A local villager drives a boat where the future site of the Luang Prabang dam will be on the Mekong River, outskirt of Luang Prabang province, Laos, February 5, 2020. Photo by Reuters/Panu Wongcha-um.

Neighboring countries have called on Laos to consider the cross-border environmental impacts of a hydropower plant it plans to build on the Mekong River.

Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand expressed concern after the Mekong River Commission (MRC) completed a six-month consultation process for the Luang Prabang Dam project on Tuesday. The MRC is an inter-governmental organization that works directly with the governments of Indochina countries to manage shared water resources.

Construction of the 1,400-megawatt Luang Prabang was set to begin this year.

The three countries said in a proposal put forward at a meeting of the Mekong River Commission Joint Committee that Laos should take measures to reduce the potential harm from the project.

The committee comprises senior officials at no less than Head of Department level from the four countries.

Cambodia wanted Laos to do further cross-border environmental impact assessments and provide more documents on silt management strategies.

Thailand said the country has to identify measures to minimize cross-border impacts on the economy, society, livelihoods, and environment.

Vietnam urged Laos and the other MRC members to make a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of not just Luang Prabang but all other dams on the Mekongs mainstream.

Chanthanet Boualapa, who led the Lao delegation to the committee meeting, said his government is committed to addressing major concerns, willing to share more information and organize visits to the project for joint oversight to make sure it would not have major negative impacts and could benefit all related parties.

Laos had made changes to its dam safety guidelines in line with international standards, and all new projects, including the Luang Prabang, would have to follow them, he said.

In July last year Laos notified the MRC Secretariat of its intention to hold a Prior Consultation on the project. The notification contained a detailed description of the dam for the secretariat to review and inform the other member countries about its scope and other requirements.

The MRCs Joint Committee Working Group on the Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA) met on October 8 and picked that date as the official starting date of the six-month consultation process. It was scheduled to end on April 7 this year, but was adjourned following the Covid-19 outbreak.

Luang Prabang is Laos' fifth hydropower project to come up before the MRC. The state-owned Luang Prabang Power Company Limited and PetroVietnam Power Corporation, a subsidiary of Vietnamese oil and gas company PetroVietnam, are the project developers.

The dam will be built in Houygno village in Luang Prabang Province.

Laos inaugurated the 1,285-MW Xayaburi Dam in October and the 260-MW Don Sahong Dam in January despite objections by environmental groups.

It also plans to build the Pak Lay and Sanakham dams.

Hydropower development is central to Laos plans to export around 20,000 MW of electricity to its neighbors by 2030.

The Mekong flows 4,880 km from its origins in Tibet through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam before reaching the sea.

China has built 19 hydropower plants on the river.

Experts have repeatedly blamed them for causing record low water levels and serious water shortages in downstream countries since 2019.

An MRC report said water levels during the early flood season in June and July last year were among the lowest on record. In Thailand's Chiang Rai Province it went down to 2.1 meters against the average of 3.02 meters over the past 57 years.

From the upper reaches of the rivers lower basin in Thailands Chiang Saen down to Thailands Nong Khai and Cambodias Neak Luong, the water fell even lower than the record levels seen in 1992.
Medical staff take samples from workers at an industrial park in HCMC for Covid-19 testing, April 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

Vietnam has spent hundreds of millions of dollars curbing Covid-19 and supporting those suffering from economic impacts posed by the pandemic.

Tasks for preventing and fighting the pandemic has cost the country VND4.1 trillion ($176.84 million), Finance Minister Dinh Tien Dung said at an online government meeting Thursday.

Vietnam sprung into action against the pandemic very early, as soon as reports of the outbreak came from China last December.

Almost a month before the World Health Organization came up with the name "Covid-19" for the respiratory disease on February 11, Vietnam began checking the body temperature of all arrivals from China.

It moved fast to expand its restrictions, isolating everyone coming from infected areas in centralized facilities, and quarantining anyone showing the Covid-19 symptoms in hospitals, where they were tested for the virus.

Mass testings were also conducted at industrial parks, wholesale markets and neighborhoods with infections.

14-day quarantine and Covid-19 tests have been offered for free. Foreigners have to pay for treatment while Vietnamese citizens do not.

The country is also developing a vaccine that is expected to complete next October.

Dung said the country has given VND11.3 trillion ($487.36 million) to 11 million businesses and self-employed citizens affected by the pandemic.

The government in April approved a VND62 trillion ($2.67 billion) support package to help those whose livelihoods and businesses were affected by the pandemic. Disbursement of the package has not been all smooth. Many people, especially street vendors and migrant workers who lack legistation, found it hard to benefit from the support. In certain provinces, officials have mishandled the package, asking poor families to give up their aid.

Vietnam has recorded 355 cases of Covid-19 so far, with only 15 active patients left. The country has reported no deaths and there has been no community tranmission of the disease for two and a half months.

While its disease prevention has been a success story, the nation's budget collection in the first six months followed a bumpy road, remaining at VND668 trillion, and meeting only 44.2 percent of the target. This sum dropped 11 percent against the same period last year and is the lowest since 2013.

Vietnams GDP growth fell to a decade-low of 1.8 percent in the first half due to coronavirus impacts. A total 7.8 million workers had lost their jobs or had their working hours reduced, with the number of businesses temporarily suspending operations rising 38 percent year-on-year to 29,200 in the period.
Approximate location of China's military exercises near Vietnam's Paracel Islands in the East Sea on Google Maps.

Vietnam has sent a diplomatic note to protest China illegally performing military exercises near Paracel Islands, urging non-repetition of the incident.

"China performing military exercises at Paracel Islands has violated Vietnams sovereignty, complicating negotiations for a Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (COC) between China and ASEAN, as well as affecting peace," spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang of Vietnams Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press meet Thursday.

Vietnam has been in contact with and sent a diplomatic note to China, requesting it to not repeat such actions in future, said Hang.

The Maritime Safety Administration of China's Hainan Province on Monday announced plans to hold military exercises near Vietnam's Paracel Islands from Wednesday to Sunday.

It said on its website no vessel is to enter the area in the South China Sea, which Vietnam calls the East Sea, while drills are underway.

In August last year, China also illegally performed live fire drills near Vietnam's Paracel Islands.

The incident comes amid international concern over China's recent actions in the South China Sea. The country has been ramping up its aggressive behavior in the waters since the start of this year as other countries focus on combating the Covid-19 pandemic.

It has created the so-called "Xisha" and "Nansha" districts on Vietnams Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands, sunk Vietnamese fishing vessels off the former, unilaterally issued a fishing ban and sent a ship to harass a Malaysian oil and gas exploration vessel.

Vietnam has on multiple occasions condemned Chinas illegal actions in the East Sea, claiming full legal basis and historical evidence to affirm its sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel Islands in accordance with international law. All activities conducted by any party near either island without prior consent from Vietnam hold no value, it has stressed.
A Vietnamese man carries wood on his boat in Vinh Long Province in the Mekong Delta, April 2018. Photo by Shutterstock/Pavel Sapozhnikov.

The World Bank has approved $422 million to boost academic capacity at Vietnams three national universities and improve Mekong Delta climate resilience.

Vietnam National University-Hanoi, its Ho Chi Minh City sister and the University of Da Nang will receive $295 million to improve their teaching and research capacity.

The credit package will allow the universities to update their infrastructure from "overcrowded and obsolete" to "modern, integrated, green and digital ready," the World Bank stated Tuesday.

It will also aid in equipment enhancement and knowledge transfer.

The funding aims to help the universities become "regionally competitive institutions with advanced teaching and research capabilities," the statement read.

Vinh Long Town in the eponymous province will receive the remaining $127 million to improve urban development, flood control and wastewater collection and treatment systems as well as key transport links.

The town, which is seen by the organization as "a secondary city strategically located along the economic corridor that connects Ho Chi Minh City to Mekong Delta," will use the credit to reduce flooding risk to 60 percent of its population and build three strategic roads to serve as critical links in the city's transport network.

Ousmane Dione, World Bank country director in Vietnam, said: "These two projects will help accelerate real progress in areas critical to sustainable growth for Vietnam: skilled workers and more efficient and greener infrastructure."

Funding for both projects comes from International Development Association.

This is not the first investment World Bank has made in Vietnam regarding climate change and urban development.

Last month, it approved an $84.4 million loan for Vietnam to promote a climate resilient landscape, including green transportation and energy systems that will fund the government's ongoing five-year (2016-2020) climate change response program.

Vietnam is one of six economies most affected by climate change between 1999 and 2018, according to Global Climate Risk Index published last year by German environmental think tank Germanwatch.
AB338: Defensive driving courses for 16- and 17-year-olds

Starting Wednesday, 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to complete an approved hands-on defensive driving course in lieu of having to complete 50 hours of supervised driving experience to obtain a drivers license. The Department of Motor Vehicles is responsible for designating approved defensive driving courses.

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AB534: New state plan for victims of crime

This new law, sponsored by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, requires the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a state plan for services for victims of crime to better ensure that agencies that provide compensation and services to victims of crime coordinate their efforts and use the same data. It also requires the department to develop a survey to study the effectiveness of different methods of compensating victims of crime.

In the new state plan, the department is required to establish eligibility requirements to receive compensation from the state Fund for Compensation of Victims of Crime and provide administrative hearings to address appeals. Previously, the Fund for the Compensation of Victims of Crime was handled by the Department of Administration and the State Board of Examiners.
In his recent decisions, Roberts has taken a very different approach, putting the institutional integrity of the Supreme Court over personal ideology, according to his biographer, Joan Biskupic. Richard J. Lazarus, a Harvard law professor, told The Washington Post that the chiefs opinion in the abortion case was a shot across the bow at presidential candidates who campaign with lists of nominees based on the assumption that, if confirmed, they will, of course, necessarily vote based on the preferences of the majority who supported that candidate.

Roberts has not always lived up to those principles, and his deep antipathy to racial preferences has, at times, strongly served Republican partisan interests. In 2013, he provided a critical fifth vote in the disastrous Shelby County ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and has led to a wholesale GOP assault on the political power of minority voters, who tend to support Democrats. Three years earlier, he joined another five-vote majority in the Citizens United case that opened the floodgates for wealthy individuals to buy political influence through unlimited campaign contributions.
Groom dies two days after wedding, 80 guests infected

A groom died two days after his wedding in eastern India after becoming infected with coronavirus, with 80 people linked to the ceremony testing positive for Covid-19, CNN reports. A total of 400 guests were tested after the wedding, which took place two weeks ago in Paliganj, in the state of Bihar, said Kishore Chaudhary, the chief medical officer in Patna.

Those who tested positive have been taken to a local treatment center, Chaudhary told CNN on Thursday. The groom was sick before the wedding on June 15, according to Surendra Kumar, district official in Paliganj, and his condition was worsening.

The family took him to a local doctor where he was given medicine, but the doctor did not flag his symptoms to the district authorities and he was not tested for coronavirus, said Kumar. "The family did not tell anyone about his poor health," he said.
Beijing stands ready to work with Bangkok in bolstering cooperation in epidemic containment and deepen high-quality Belt and Road cooperation to promote economic recovery and sustainable development in both nations, Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday.

Li's remarks came as he exchanged messages with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations.

Li noted that China and Thailand, as close friendly neighbors, have seen steady development in bilateral relations and fruitful outcomes in cooperation in various areas, which has brought about concrete benefits to the two peoples.

The bilateral relations have also served as an exemplar for relations between China and ASEAN countries, he added.

The two sides have extended help to each other during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, which has further elevated the bilateral friendship, he said.

Prayut said in his message that the two sides have always stood together and established strong friendship during the course of bilateral friendship and cooperation.

As bilateral relations move into the next decade, it is important for the two countries to continue to uphold the spirit of friendship and unity and jointly respond to challenges in the face of uncertainties from the COVID-19 pandemic and the international landscape, he said.

The Thai government is willing to closely coordinate with the Chinese government and bring the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level, he added.
Ukraine canceled the $1.75 billion new 12-year eurobonds placement deal with the option of repurchasing $750 million eurobonds maturing in 2021-2022, the Finance Ministry told Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

The Finance Ministry has not yet commented on other details, the relevant information will be released later after agreement with lawyers.

The deal was launched on July 1. Initially, the benchmark yield was 7.875%, then it was reduced to 7.625%, and finally to 7.3-7.4%. The total "new" demand (that is, excluding those presented for redemption as part of a tender held in parallel with the new placement for two old issues) amounted to $7.5 billion.

However, on the evening of July 1, there was information that Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Yakiv Smolii submitted his resignation to the President of Ukraine and explained it by systematic political pressure that had been exerted on the central bank for a long time. "Let it be a warning for attempts to undermine institutional independence of the central bank," the governor of the central bank said.
by Sumon Corraya

On 1 July 2016, Islamic militants killed 22 people, including nine Italians, at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe. Seven terrorists have been sentenced to death. Bangladeshs counterterrorism police have conducted 395 raids, arresting 1,065 jihadis and killing 25. Radical groups are using social media to recruit young people and university students.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  Four years to the day after the terrorist attack against the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka, Bangladeshi authorities do not fear any new attack by Islamic extremists.

According to Monirul Islam, Chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC), some militants have tried to exploit the coronavirus crisis to reorganise themselves, but security forces have thwarted their plans.

On 1 July 2016, members of a radical terror group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, killed 22 people, including nine Italians.

On 27 November, a special court in the capital sentenced seven defendants to death. The appeal process is still ongoing.

In the past four years, the Bangladeshi government has carried out a campaign against radical Islamist groups. Its goal is to restore trust among foreign investors.

Following the attack, many of them left the country for fear of further terrorist actions; this has seriously damaged the thriving local garment industry.

So far, the anti-terrorist force has conducted 395 raids and arrested 1,065 militants, killing 25.

As a result, extremists, some operating from abroad, have moved their activities online, trying to recruit potential militants via social media like Telegram, Hop Fastpass and TamTam Messenger.

Their appeal includes denigrating democratic systems, highlighting the weakness of Bangladeshi authorities and accusing Europe and the United States of persecuting Muslims.

Radical Islamic preachers have found fertile ground in madrassas and elsewhere. Law enforcement have recently uncovered a network of university students belonging to jihadi groups.

Five students attending the Bangladesh Agricultural University have been arrested. Another eight, including some engineering students, were arrested before leaving for Saudi Arabia.

For Imtiaz Ahmed, professor of international relations at Dhaka University, the pandemic crisis shows once again that militants have their own mindset and nothing will distract them from their objectives.
There is no reason to talk about undermining the independence of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and the trust of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko believes.

"We continue to work with international partners, with investors. There is a corresponding reaction from the IMF, it is restrained. We also believe that we must ensure the independence of the NBU as a whole. No one in the country questions the independence of the National Bank," he said at a briefing.

Marchenko expressed hope that the National Bank will continue to cooperate with the Ministry of Finance in the implementation of its monetary policy, regardless of who occupies the post of NBU governor.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), this is the largest batch of live pigs imported from Thailand after the MARDs approval for their import.

Imported pigs will be tested within five days before being sold to the market while gilts and breeding pigs will be quarantined for 14 days and vaccinated for farming.

Nearly 5,800 gilts and more than 3,800 live pigs for slaughter have been imported through the Lao Bao Border Gate since early this year.

Besides the import of live pigs, enterprises have imported over 90,000 tonnes of pork since early this year to ensure the stable supply of pork on the domestic market.

The relevant ministries and sectors have strived to implement measures to pull down the domestic prices of live hog through re-herding and importing frozen pork and live pigs.
The book, entitled Ho Chi Minh - Politische Biografie (Political Biography), is an improved version of his previous book Ho Chi Minh  A Chronicle which was released in 2009.

It features various images of the late President when he was a young man and then leader of the Vietnamese people.

The 86-year-old Kapfenberger said that an official launch ceremony of the book is slated for Vietnams National Day on September 2.

For his part, Ambassador Vu spoke highly of the German journalists efforts in helping German friends understand more about Vietnam through his works, thereby bolstering the Vietnam-Germany relations.

The new book holds a significant meaning as it marks the 130th birthday of President Ho Chi Minh on May 19 and the 45th founding anniversary of the diplomatic ties, he added.
The chairman of Iran's National Safe Society Association (NSSA) warned about inadequate safety measures in public buildings which led to the death of nineteen people in an explosion in a medical clinic in Tehran on Wednesday.

The explosion at the clinic was caused by a gas leak and faulty electrical wiring in the basement of the building where oxygen tanks were stored. The blast killed nineteen people and wounded fourteen others despite the efforts of firefighters to save the people in the building. Authorities say most of the casualties were among the medical staff.

Mentioning the collapse of the 17-story Plasco Shopping Arcade in a blaze in 2017 that killed fifteen firefighters and five others, NSSA's Javad Nofarasti said the authorities did not take a lesson from the disastrous incident and failed to take serious action to check public buildings for safety which led to the recent disaster at Sina At'har Clinic on Wednesday. The clinic is situated in the affluent but densely populated Tajrish district of Tehran and could have killed many more if firefighters had not managed to extinguish the fire and stop it from spreading to adjacent buildings.

The police on Wednesday announced that several people, including the manager of the building, had been arrested in connection with the incident.

Nofarasti added that the problem is not lack of regulations, but rather ignoring them. According to him the owners of the building had received several warnings about the safety of the building from the municipality but not taken any steps to make the building safe. In the case of the Plasco building warnings had been issued and ignored too.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Wednesday issued a message of condolence and called on the authorities to fully investigate the accident and prevent similar accidents from happening in the future.

Similar orders have been issues before but enforcement of building code and safety regulations remain weak in Iran.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 2

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 53 times, Trend reports on July 2 referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 2

Trend:

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has made an Instagram post on the occasion of 2 July  the Day of the Police of Azerbaijan.

In a post on her official Instagram account Mehriban Aliyeva says: I sincerely congratulate all policemen on their professional holiday! In these difficult days, we have all witnessed the decisive steps you have taken for the health of our citizens, your high civic responsibility and professionalism! I wish each of you and your relatives the best of health and happiness.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 2

By Jani Babayeva  Trend:

The Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation has presented video footage dedicated to national Police Day in Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

Day of Azerbaijani Police is a professional holiday of the country's law enforcement officers, which is celebrated annually on July 2.

In the video footage, Azerbaijani gymnasts congratulated those who protect the law and order in the country on their professional holiday. The athletes expressed deep appreciation to the policemen for their work, which is often associated with a risk to life, emphasizing the importance and necessity of their mission for the society.

The gymnasts thanked the policemen of the country for not being indifferent towards people, and for determination and courage, which they demonstrate every day.

The video footage has been presented on the official pages of the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation in the social networks.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jun. 2

Trend:

Azercell launched new 4G MiFi campaign.

Digital solutions provider and the leading mobile operator of the country Azercell Telecom LLC has launched the next campaign to please internet users. Within the new campaign, customers will get a 4G MIFI device, free prepaid number on Data tariff and 3 months of 10 GB internet for just 119 AZN.

It should be recalled that, providing internet access to 10 users at the same time, 4G MiFi allows them to benefit from high-speed internet and a stable signal.

The campaign is available only for the subscribers who are physical entities. It should be noted that, the number of devices is limited.

Hurry up to take advantage of the special offer from Azercell!

For more information about the campaign, please head to:

https://www.azercell.com/en/personal/devices/4Gmificihazi/

For more information, please contact [email protected]

The leader of the mobile communication industry, the largest taxpayer and the biggest investor of the non-oil sector of Azerbaijan Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. Currently, 5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Mobile operator controls 49% of market share; while its geographical coverage constitutes 99.2% (excluding the occupied territories); and population coverage 99.8%. Azercell was the pioneering mobile operator to introduce a number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, mobile internet services, 24/7 call center service (*1111), 7/7 Front Office service, Azercell Express offices, M2M services, 4G technology, mobile and online customer care services and customer services through social media, mobile e-signature service ASAN Imza etc. Azercell tested 5G pilot network for the first time in the country in the frame of Bakutel 2019 exhibition. Rapidly increasing 4G network of Azercell covers nearly 60 regions of the country, including Baku and Absheron peninsula. According to the results of mobile network quality and wireless coverage mapping surveys by international systems, Azercells 4G network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan. Azercell is the only company in Azerbaijan and CIS region which has been awarded Gold Certificate of International Investors in People Standard.
Pakistan is one of handful of countries that does not recognize Armenia due to its occupation of our lands and does not establish diplomatic relations with Armenia - President Aliyev
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 2

By Eldar Janashvili - Trend:

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) held a foreign exchange auction with the participation of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), during which Azerbaijani banks acquired $53.1 million, Trend reports on July 2 citing CBA.

According to CBA, demand from the banks at the auction increased by 4.5 percent or by $2.8 million compared to the previous auction.

Considering the number of days remaining before the next scheduled auction, as well as with the aim of ensuring uninterrupted currency trading by the banks, the demand of banks at the auction will be fully provided during weekends.

The first foreign exchange auction in a long time was held with the participation of SOFAZ on March 10, 2020, during which Azerbaijani banks acquired $323.2 million.

The CBA began to hold foreign exchange auctions through unilateral sale of foreign currency in competitive conditions since mid-January 2017.

In March 2020, it was decided to hold extraordinary foreign exchange auctions in connection with the increased demand of the population for foreign currency amid the failed OPEC+ deal, which entailed a sharp decline in oil prices.

(1 USD = 1.7 AZN on July 2)

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @eldarjanashvili
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 2

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:

As many as 2,652 people have been infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past 24 hours in Iran, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Trend reports citing the ministry.

According to Sadat Lari, 148 people have died from the coronavirus over the past day.

So far, more than 1.71 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 232,800 people have been infected 11,106 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 194,000 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 of Iran only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19.
The effects of the coronavirus pandemic are still being noted in the Spanish labor market, despite the deescalation of confinement measures. In a normal year, unemployment would fall and the number of people signing up with the Social Security system would rise in the month of June, ahead of the tourism high season. This year, however, unemployment has risen, albeit by just 5,107 people, bringing the total number of jobseekers to 3.86 million, the highest figure registered since May 2016, according to figures released today by the Spanish government.

The Social Security system, meanwhile, has picked up an average of 68,208 workers, bringing the total number of contributors to 18.6 million. This is the second consecutive rise in this indicator, which is traditionally used to measure employment from month to month.

The total number of jobseekers in Spain has risen to 3.86 million, the highest figure registered since May 2016

The rise in unemployment for June is the first increase seen since 2008, just months before the fall of Lehman Brothers and the year of the financial crisis. The increase in contributors to the Social Security system for the month is also the smallest since 2015.

In spite of these indicators, the figures for June also show that the Spanish labor market is stabilizing. The 5,107 new jobseekers represent a slowdown in job losses, in particular compared to March and April, when the coronavirus crisis was at its peak and Spaniards were locked down under the state of alarm implemented by the government. During the first two months of the pandemic, registered unemployment rose by more than 302,000 and 283,000 people, respectively. By May the increase had fallen to 26,573, and this downward trend has continued into June.

The Labor Ministry attributed the rise in unemployment in June to the end of the fruit-picking season, which saw 25,000 farm workers out of a job, and the incorporation of 30,000 people into the labor market who were inactive. Unemployment fell notably in June in sectors such as services and construction, and to a lesser extent in industry.

Unemployment figures do not include the thousands of workers who have been furloughed due to the coronavirus crisis, and are receiving part of their salary on a government work suspension scheme known in Spain as an ERTE. According to the ministry, during the peak of the crisis more than 3.7 million people were benefiting from the ERTE scheme, which the government recently extended to the end of September. Of these, 1.6 million have already returned to their jobs, 1.2 million of these in the month of June.

English version by Simon Hunter.
A few months ago it was ColaCao, the chocolate drink brand, that ditched its decades-old song about the negrito  a patronizing term for a black man  and replaced it with another jingle devoid of racist overtones. Now, it should be time for Conguitos, a popular Spanish chocolate candy, to follow suit and get rid of its adorable mascot as the Black Lives Matter movement gains momentum in the wake of the George Floyd killing in Minnesota. Thats what a petition on the Change.org platform is saying about Lacasa, the company that produces the candy. With almost 5,000 signatures, the initiative has caused a stir on social media, where the disproportionately large red lips of the Conguito caricatures have been remarked upon, as well as the fact that it has taken the death of George Floyd to make us aware in Spain that racism can begin with a bag of sweets.

The mascot was thought up by an ad agency in 1961  more than 50 years ago. It is dated, like the 1985 Frigo ice cream ad with lyrics including the term negrito, and which is no longer shown on Spanish TV. Or like the caramel custard sold in the 1950s under the brand name Mandarin inside a yellow box, which would be considered highly suspect in this day and age.

On the back of the Black Lives Matter movement, international brands have been taking a closer look at some of their products and rebranding them. Nestle is renaming the popular Colombian candy Beso de Negra (Kiss of the Black Woman), and Pepsi has announced that its Aunt Jemima products are to get a makeover.

Lacasa and the Belgian Congo

The white chocolate version of Conguitos. LACASA

Conguitos is made by Lacasa, which sells other brands of chocolate candy, such as Lacasitos or Mentolin. The company was created in 1852 in Jaca, Huesca, by Antonio Lacasa, the great-grandfather of the current owners. With four factories spread throughout Spain, as well as affiliates in Portugal and France, its annual turnover is around 150 million. To be fair, the name Conguitos is not of their choosing. It came with the Zaragoza company they bought out in 1987.

The name and the imagery were inspired by the Belgian Congo, which had gained independence the previous year. Although the company insists that the image simply represents one conguito sweet on top of another, videos on the companys YouTube channel quite clearly depict the small cartoon figures involved in tribal activity. Indeed, in an interview with El Periodico de Aragon, Juan Tudela Ferez, the man behind the famous mascot, explained that now, I would not have done it like that. It was an era when it was common to give those kinds of products a touch of the exotic. It was when the Belgian Congo got its independence, and a song about the country became popular.

Far from considering modifying the imagery, company officials insist on the adorable nature of the mascot, adding that: Since Lacasa Group acquired the product, it has got rid of its original connotations, giving it positive values that are linked to the product and not to any particular race. To back their argument, they point out that white Conguitos have a white mascot on the packet. But this argument is making little headway with the people behind the Change.org petition, who are demanding a public apology from Lacasa to the black community and suggesting that some corporate profits should be donated to organizations fighting racism.

We sincerely believe that the mascot is respectful to everyone without exception, and that it is accepted and appreciated as such Lacasa company statement

The brand has a long, 59-year history and we have all grown up with the slogan Somos los Conguitos [We are the Conguitos], says a statement from Lacasa. But what we think as manufacturers is of no importance; it is what the consumer thinks that matters, which is why we frequently and systematically gather consumer opinion. And for now, we are seeing that for the vast majority, the values associated with Conguitos are also associated with fun times and positive energy. If we thought that the product or its representation was derisive, we would be the first to change it. However, we sincerely believe that the mascot is respectful to everyone without exception, and that it is accepted and appreciated as such.

Lacasa believes that most Spaniards  usually white  have a certain fondness for the Conguitos mascot, an opinion that shared by the regional chief of Industry, Trade and Development of Aragon, Arturo Aliaga, and by the far-right political party Vox. But what about the countrys minorities?

The voice of non-whites

If Conguitos is no longer to be called Conguitos, does this mean that brown sugar is under suspicion? Or that Valencian blanquet (white) sausage is a symbol of Aryan purity? Lets use common sense. It is the association of a race with values generally based on unfounded cliches with no biological basis that is politically incorrect. The concepts of hyper-sexualization, cannibalism and animalization have long been exploited by the coffee and chocolate industry with regard to people of color, not only during colonial times, but also in contemporary advertising.

The problem with the adorable Conguitos figure is that it is only adorable for people who are not black. There was a They called me Conguito in school too Facebook group once and it wasnt exactly funny, notes the writer and activist Lucia Asue Mbomio.

Mbomio does not understand how Lacasa can deny the human aspect of the mascot as in certain ads, it speaks a language thats meant to sound African and still has a spear shape in its hand. Even the name itself has negative connotations  It means small Congo, besides the fact that the Belgian Congo was the site of one of the greatest genocides in recent history, with forced labor and the mutilation of human beings, she says.

A global wave of protests in the wake of the George Floyd killing has put pressure on brands like Conguitos and ColaCao.

The Conguitos caricature that exaggerates the features of black people is known to have shocked people outside of Spain too. For example, on Twitter in 2017, a young Welshman wrote: There is a strange racist chocolate in Spain called Little Congolese.

According to Mbomio: We have normalized things that have rarely been discussed since complaints have been labeled the result of thin skins. That is how advertising has become just another pillar supporting an image of black people associated with underdevelopment, poverty or savagery. And that view doesnt allow us to advance.

The Afro-feminist communications expert Desiree Bela-Lobedde agrees. Lacasa needs to recognize that the origin of Conguitos identity is racist, she says. As for the use of culture in advertising, she feels that if it becomes a source of insult to an entire community, it is offensive. In fact, she finds the idea of donating part of the companys profits to the fight against racism entirely rational. Its a way of raising awareness and making amends, she says. There are companies that focus their corporate social responsibility on environmental issues. But when it comes to racism, nobody does anything, because nobody considers themselves to be racist.

Forward-looking societies and the private companies that are part of them must take measures to make amends to the groups that have historically been damaged, says Maitane Arnoso, the president of the Guipuzcoa branch of the non-profit group SOS Racismo. What was thought a few years ago to be requetebien [super]  is fortunately now considered requetemal [terrible]. As in other contexts, it is necessary to implement restorative measures. She adds that this would involve apologizing for the damage caused and owning up to the profits made from the use of racist images. When it comes to these issues, what is important is not just how to address the past, but how to move toward the future. To move from the politics of gestures to the politics of action and anti-racist commitment.

Rebranding

Can a product be racist simply because it exists? As an article in the journal Puro Marketing says: The time has come to ask ourselves how cultural racism is unconsciously linked to our DNA. Stereotypes are intrinsic to many products, and we often cannot detect them because we see them all the time, and even consider them part of our childhood. Then suddenly, #BlackLivesMatter takes off and we see everything from a different angle.

The journalist Patricia Moreno and the designer Africa Pitarch are behind the project Somos unas Exageradas, which advises brands, agencies and the media on diversity, inclusiveness, feminism and racism. Its time to bring all those conversations that were on the back burner to the fore. The time is right, they say. Although there are many racially aware voices that are doing great things educationally, we white people treat this issue as if it had little to do with us, when, in fact, it is a structural and endemic issue.

This is not the first time that Lacasa has been criticized for its Conguitos imagery, and it seems that they have run out of wiggle room. We are no longer discussing whether it is racist or not; it is racist, period, say Moreno and Pitarch. We are talking about cultural appropriation, because it is not a Congolese product that has a positive impact on the community, but a large company, in the hands of a white family, that stigmatizes and treats Congolese people as pets.

The South African human rights activist and cleric, Desmond Tutu, believed that remaining neutral in the face of injustice puts you on the side of the oppressor. According to this line of thought, the worst thing a brand can do is nothing. Silence is also a position and it implies a lack of sensitivity to social criticism, say Moreno and Pitarch. The right thing to do would be to admit the wrong and then launch a 360 campaign for analysis and change.

When it comes to rebranding the product, they suggest relying on people from the community of African descent, which exists in Spain and has a real presence. What are now known as Conguitos should be renamed, accordingly. They have no excuse for not revamping, beyond what is comfortable, say Moreno and Pitarch.

Scrapping the racism

As for Aunt Jemima, Spaniards do not generally eat pancakes for breakfast, but Americans and Mexicans have grown up with a black womans face stamped on their breakfast syrups and flours. In 1890, Nancy Green, the daughter of a Kentucky slave family, was hired to be the face of the brand. As the years went by, Aunt Jemima went from being portrayed as a colonial mammy to an elegant woman with pearl earrings, but no matter. Pepsi bought the firm in 2001 and has recently got rid of Aunt Jemima altogether  a decision that has been applauded by American society.

Aunt Jemima products. FLICKR

Mars, which owns Uncle Bens rice products, has taken note and recently came out with a statement. We recognize that now is the right time to evolve the Uncle Bens brand, including its visual brand identity. Consequently, they are ridding themselves of the Uncle Tom black farmer image that has helped to sell it since the 1940s.

The Black Lives Matter movement is powering forward and companies are clearly bending to the pressure. Outside the food sector, Colgate-Palmolive has ditched Darlie toothpaste  originally known as Darkie.

Of course, no one is to blame for what their grandfather or father did, but we do have a responsibility when it comes to making any necessary changes. The world is moving fast and, according to the laws of evolution, only those brands that adapt to the new ecosystem  environmental, sexual and, of course, racial  will survive.

English version by Heather Galloway.
The Saudi British Bank (SABB) has appointed Bashar Al-Qunaibit as Chief Human Resources Officer effective July 1.

Al-Qunaibits experience in the banking sector extends for more than 20 years, during which time he has held numerous leadership positions. Prior to joining SABB in 2015 as general manager of branches, he worked as a Business Development Director in Sama's Sadad Payment System. With his rich experience, Bashaar has successfully led SABBs critical Branch Transformation Strategy, as well as making important contributions to the current integration between SABB and AlAwwal Bank.

David Dew, Managing Director, SABB commented: The merger of SABB and Alawwal Bank is an opportunity to create the best bank and the best place to work in the Kingdom. This calls for us to focus on our culture and talent like never before. Bashaar will play a pivotal role in our people strategy and we are excited to see his talent being applied to managing the banks greatest asset  our people. I wish Bashaar every success in his new role.

SABB has a longstanding commitment to developing talent and creating equal opportunities for all within the bank. The bank continually invests in the best training and development of its staff and enabling all of them to achieve their full potential. - TradeArabia News Service
I have traveled around Africa, I have seen people die in the street, I have been in Colombia with the Zika [virus] and in Congo with Ebola, but I have never felt panic going outside like I do now, says David Martin, a 48-year-old researcher. Martin, who is from Granada but lives in Madrid, has still not stepped outside even though Spain lifted the state of alarm on June 21. I have recurring nightmares about diseases. I dont go outside unless I am taking out the trash, he adds. Psychologists refer to this as the fear of leaving a place after a long period of reclusion, and it can affect women and men of all ages.

It is not a pathology or a disease but it could lead to one, says psychologist Laura Croas, who is an expert in emotional engineering. It is the consequence of an exceptional situation which in this case has been confinement, she continues. For people who found a place of comfort and safety in their homes during the coronavirus lockdown, going outside and doing everyday activities like visiting friends, taking public transport or walking in busy places can be mission impossible. It generates fear in those who are doing something for the first time, Croas explains. To alleviate the feeling of being overwhelmed, she recommends taking small steps: going for a walk around the block, avoiding peak hours when there are more people on the street and meeting up with small groups.

Confinement changed me. Just thinking about stepping out onto the street scares me Cristina, 40

Sometimes this fear can go further. According to a recent study by the Spanish medical insurance company Sanitas, 8% of Spaniards believe they will need psychological help to recover from the scars caused by the coronavirus lockdown, which was introduced in mid-March. The study, which interviewed a thousand people, showed that the state of alarm took a larger emotional toll on women, people under the age of 35, and those who have needed psychological help in the past.

Sweaty hands, anxiety and dizziness. This is what Cristina feels every time she has tried to go outside. She has still not managed it. Confinement changed me. Just thinking about stepping out onto the street scares me, she explains. According to Cristina, who preferred not to give her surname, the feelings of panic have even led to nightmares, and the 40-year-old has been seeing a psychologist remotely for three weeks to try to find a solution. Now, with meditation and breathing exercises, I am getting better, but I think I will be confined for more time.

Victoria Cadarso, an expert psychologist in trauma, says that in cases such as Cristinas, its important to seek help. It is the same with any other traumatic experience. Once the source is understood, it can be managed. Last Wednesday, Cadarso gave a workshop on fear management to more than 2,300 people across the world. Its common behavior. There is not a clear profile of the people it affects, it depends on each persons experience and level of resilience.

Until theres a vaccine, Im not going out

Croas warns that young people and adolescents have replaced face-to-face social gatherings with video games and video calls as a result of this fear. Angeles (fictitious name) has still not seen her friends or his family. Until theres a vaccine, I dont think Im going to go out. Perhaps later on I will start going out in open spaces, but I dont see myself having dinner at a restaurant or going into a shop, she says. The 27-year-old has not sought psychological help, but she is considering it. I have had to go out three times to go to the doctor and all three times I got very nervous. I was very keen to get back home, she explains. When we were given permission to go out for walks, I tried to leave, but seeing so many people I felt overwhelmed. It was also very hard for me to breathe with the face mask on, so I decided I couldnt go out again, she adds.

The fear affects people of all ages. Pilar Orgaz, a 67-year-old retiree, does not want to leave her apartment in Villaverde. In three months, she has only left once to go to the hairdresser. But she believes its because she hasnt wanted to. I miss going out and seeing my friends, but I have more worries than a desire to go outside, she says. Orgaz doesnt even go out to go for a walk, instead using a treadmill at home. Her husband has tried to convince her to spend some days in their apartment by the beach, but she has refused. What happens if they shut down the country again? Too many people get together too much, theyre not being careful anymore. There are definitely going to be outbreaks [of the coronavirus], she says.

There are other people, like Daniel Vega, who have reconnected with their homes. The 36-year-old freelancer, who works in the audiovisual sector, has not left his Madrid apartment once since March 11, three days before the Spanish government declared a state of alarm in a bid to control the spread of the coronavirus. I have rediscovered my home. Before I had two jobs and I didnt enjoy it. I didnt have time to stop and read a book or play a video game. I have also discovered the joy of cooking and eating with calm, he says. His partner walks their dog and they buy their groceries online. I have made the decision not to leave out of respect for my friends who are health workers. I am not afraid, but rather responsible. Many people are irresponsible and there will be [coronavirus] outbreaks. I will not have a problem going out when things begin to calm down, he adds.

According to one survey, 8% of Spaniards believe they will need psychological help to recover from the scars caused by the coronavirus lockdown

Maria Zaragoza, a writer, says she has always liked to stay at home so the lockdown was not difficult for her. I used to travel a lot and I always missed home. The shutdown due to the confinement measures has helped me a lot to work on a novel. I think people who like being at home have had an easier time. I have only gone out to take out the trash and go to the supermarket, says the 37-year-old from Castilla-La Mancha. For now, she has decided to remain in her home in Castilleja de Guzman in Seville and not to see friends or revive her social life. I miss seeing my family. Before I traveled once a month to Campo de Criptana [in Ciudad Real] to see them. But I dont feel like getting on a train with a face mask and without there being distance with other passengers, she says.

David Martin has had the same problem. I bought two tickets to visit my parents in Granada but in the end I had to cancel them because I didnt think I was capable of going. I was scared of infecting them, he explains. I stopped watching the news to see if my mindset changed, but to no effect. The other day I saw that there were another 200 cases and that made me feel worse again. Martin is waiting for something he cant define to happen before he can return to his normal life. I hope that then I can go out without any problem.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
KYODO NEWS - Jul 2, 2020 - 19:37 | All, World, Japan

A Japanese man, who had been sentenced to prison in China in 2018 on spying and other charges, was released and arrived in Japan on Thursday, the government said.

Among Japanese citizens detained in China on espionage and other similar charges since 2015, the 59-year-old has become the first to return to his home nation after completing a full sentence.

The Japanese government has denied he engaged in spying. Details of the alleged espionage have not been disclosed.

According to a Japanese government source, the man was released from prison in Dalian, Liaoning Province, on Wednesday. He left Dalian for Narita, east of Tokyo, by air on Thursday afternoon. He is believed to have tested negative for the novel coronavirus.

The man from Kanagawa Prefecture was detained by Chinese authorities in May 2015 when he visited Dandong in Liaoning Province, close to the border with North Korea.

In September that year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the country had arrested the former defector from North Korea on suspicion of espionage and that it had notified the Japanese side of his detention.

The People's Intermediate Court in Dandong eventually sentenced the man to five years in prison on spying and other charges in July 2018, while ordering him to leave China after serving his time.

Sources close to him said the man moved with his family to North Korea from Japan in the 1960s under 1959-1984 repatriation programs. Later, he defected from North Korea with some of his family members.

He returned to Japan in 2001 after going through China, Southeast Asia and South Korea, the sources added.

Since a counterespionage law and a new national security law came into force in 2014, the Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping has been intensifying its watch over foreigners.

So far, at least nine Japanese have been indicted for alleged involvement in spying. Seven have faced prison sentences, with two appealing to a superior court. Meanwhile, five people have returned to Japan without being tried.

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KYODO NEWS - Jul 2, 2020 - 21:38 | All, Coronavirus, Japan

Japan plans to set up new coronavirus testing centers at three major airports in Tokyo and Osaka, as well as in central parts of the cities, as the country prepares to relax its travel restrictions, health minister Katsunobu Kato said Thursday.

The facilities mainly targeting people entering Japan from abroad are to be built at the airports, Tokyo's Haneda, Narita near the capital and Kansai in Osaka Prefecture, as early as this summer, according to government officials.

The construction of the facilities is aimed at increasing the amount of polymerase chain reaction, or PCR tests, to over 4,000 per day, with health authorities also hoping to reduce virus testing times to a few hours by using new methods.

Airport quarantine stations currently conduct about 1,000 daily PCR tests, with results confirmed in around one or two days.

"(The centers) will probably be operated by private medical institutions and testing firms," Kato told reporters after an inspection at Narita airport. "We, as the health ministry, will fully support them."

The facility at the airport is expected to be under construction for two months and open in September.

According to the officials, the envisioned testing centers in central parts of the two major cities will target travelers leaving for foreign countries, while the facilities near the airport are intended for both arrivals and departures.

The government is also considering issuing certificates for those who test negative, the officials said.

Since February, Japan has been strengthening travel restrictions for inbound visitors, as part of its border control measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease.

On Monday, another 18 countries including Algeria, Cuba and Iraq were added to Japan's entry ban list, raising the total number of countries and regions subject to the measure to 129.

Only 1,700 foreign travelers are estimated to have arrived in Japan in May, the fewest for any month on record and a 99.9 percent drop from a year earlier, according to government data.

However, Japan is currently in talks with several countries to mutually ease travel restrictions for businesspeople on condition they submit negative test results and an itinerary on where they plan to go during their stay.

Those countries include Australia and Thailand. Japan may also begin talks with Taiwan and Brunei as early as this month, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.

Travel from Japan to Vietnam partially resumed late last month with charter flights carrying mainly businesspeople.

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KYODO NEWS - Jul 2, 2020 - 16:27 | Feature, All, Japan

A total of 17,479 people with dementia or suspected dementia were reported missing in Japan in 2019, the most since data began being collected in 2012, police said Thursday.

The National Police Agency data showed the figure was up 552 from 2018 and about 80 percent higher than in 2012, demonstrating the issue of dementia is becoming increasingly serious as Japan's population ages rapidly.

Of those reported missing, 245 were not found by the end of the year while 16,775, including people reported missing in 2018 or earlier, were located, according to the police data.

It showed 71.7 percent of dementia sufferers who wandered off were found on the same day their disappearance was reported to police, while 99.4 percent were located within a week. Four people were found more than two years after they were reported missing.

In the meantime, 460 missing dementia sufferers died in accidents or due to other reasons, according to the data.

With around 7 million senior citizens, or one in every five people aged 65 or older, expected to suffer from dementia in 2025, police across Japan have built a network with local governments and private companies to share information to deal with the problem of missing people.

Some municipalities assign mobile global positioning system tracking devices to dementia patients, allowing police to find them quickly if they go unaccounted for.

"It is important that an entire society tackles the issue with close cooperation between family members, municipalities and businesses," Ryota Takeda, head of the National Public Safety Commission, told a press conference Thursday.

"I will instruct police to ensure their efforts to search for and protect (dementia patients) are appropriate," he said.

In June last year, the government implemented a new program on dementia that focuses on prevention and helping patients with the illness live more comfortably.

The overall number of people who went missing last year, including those not suffering from dementia, reached 86,933, down 1,029 from 2018. Those in their 20s were the leading age group at 17,852. Of the total, 64.1 percent were male and 35.9 percent female.

Among missing people in their 70s and aged 80 or older, dementia was the largest cause of their disappearance, accounting for 64.9 percent and 77.0 percent, respectively.

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New Delhi:

Chennai's tallest tower with a height of 161 metre is going be developed by the Mumbai-based developer House of Hiranandani. The same will also be South India's tallest tower.

The building will consist of 245 apartments and is going to come up at the developer's 120-acre township on Chennai's IT expressway.

Named as 'Anchorage' the tower will leave behind Bengaluru's Mantri Pinnacle and Hyderabad's Lodha Towers in term of height.

Founder & MD, house of Hiranandani, Surendra Hiranandani said, This particular building will be a total project value of about Rs 375 crores, and it will be funded internally. We are a zero debt company, and we are confident that we will be able to build it well."

Leaving Anchorage aside, the developer also plans to add 2.5 million of residential footprint in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru by 2018. They are also planning to commence commercial projects on the southern turfs.

"We have a very good commercial property segment in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), a significant presence there. And we want to take this presence to Pune, Bangalore and Chennai," added Hiranandani.

House of Hiranandani is planning to complete Anchorage in a time period of around 60-months.
New Delhi:

Union minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju on Monday took potshot at filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, saying people use Prime Minister Narendra Modis name to get into news.

A new fashion has developed in India. A student or a film person can put a question or speak against PM without any logic to get into news, Rijiju tweeted.

Kashyap, in a series of tweets, had said that why should only Indian filmmakers be targeted for casting Pakistani actors when the PM also made a trip to Lahore last year.

@narendramodi Sir you havent yet said sorry for your trip to meet the Pakistani PM. It was dec 25th. Same time KJo was shooting ADHM? Why? @narendramodi why is it that we have to face it while you can be silent? the director had written to show support for Karan Johars upcoming movie Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

Kashyap was trolled on Twitter and also received criticism from some members of the film industry over his comments.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil has landed in soup over casting Pakistani actor Fawad Khan. In the aftermath of Uri attack last month, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) issued an ultimatum to Pakistani artistes to leave India.

Subsequently, Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association passed a motion to ban the artistes from the neighbouring country.

Recently, Cinema Owners Exhibitors Association of India also decided to not screen the films with Pakistani actors in four statesMaharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Goa.

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New Delhi:

1. 161-metre high Chennai's tallest tower to be developed by Hiranandani



Chennai's tallest tower with a height of 161 metre is going be developed by the Mumbai-based developer House of Hiranandani. The same will also be South India's tallest tower.

The building will consist of 245 apartments and is going to come up at the developer's 120-acre township on Chennai's IT expressway.

Also Read: 161-metre high Chennai's tallest tower to be developed by Hiranandani

2. US electric car maker Tesla plans to collaborate with Panasonic Corp on solar energy

US electric car maker Tesla Motors plans to collaborate with Japanese electronics company Panasonic Corp on solar energy.

Tesla's said on its corporate blog on Monday that the companies have signed a non-binding letter of intent to begin collaborating on Panasonic's production of photovoltaic cellsand modules at a facility under construction by San Mateo, California-based solar-panel company SolarCity Corp. in Buffalo, New York.

Also Read: US electric car maker Tesla plans to collaborate with Panasonic Corp on solar energy



3. Senxex falls to 3-month low amid weakness across global stock markets

The BSE Sensex ended with a loss of 144 points at 27,530. The BSE Sensex opened at 27,776 touched an intra-day high of 27,803 and low of 27,488. The NSE Nifty closed with a loss of 63 points at 8,520.

Indian shares closed at near three-month lows after a sell-off in Chinese shares raised concerns around global growth.Senxex falls to 3-month low amid weakness across global stock markets



Also Read: Senxex falls to 3-month low amid weakness across global stock markets
Khazir:

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters captured various villages on Monday as they advanced to capture jihadist-held areas east of Mosul. The Iraqi fighters are trying to retake Mosul from the dreaded Islamic State group.

"The operation in Khazir includes up to 4,000 peshmergain three fronts to clear nearby IS-occupied villages," the general command of the peshmerga said in a statement.

It said the operation was coordinated with Iraqi federal forces moving from the south and had received extensive airsupport from the US-led coalition battling IS in Iraq and Syria.

Peshmerga commanders said the push was the third phase of an effort that started months ago to retake villages in the Nineveh plain that were captured by IS in 2014 and used to be inhabited by members of the Christian and Kakai minorities.

They said several villages were promptly recaptured and peshmerga forces were now stationed on the edges of Qaraqosh and Bartalla, two Christian towns seized by IS in August 2014.

An AFP correspondent embedded with the fighters said coalition air strikes on IS targets ahead of advancing peshmerga vehicles sent large clouds of smoke and dust billowing into the sky.

Qaraqosh was the largest Christian town in Iraq before IS overran it and forced its entire population to flee, mostly into the neighbouring Kurdistan Regional Government region.

Footage of the operation aired on Kurdish channel Rudaw showed peshmerga fighters shooting and stopping a suicide carbomb coming towards them. According to two Kurdish MPs, at least eight peshmerga fighters were killed in today's operation, but it was not immediately clear exactly in what circumstances.

The latest offensive by the peshmerga is part of abroader operation to retake Mosul announced by Iraqi PrimeMinister Haider al-Abadi early today. The much-anticipated announcement comes more than twoyears after IS seized Iraq's second city.

Mosul is the extremist group's last major stronghold in Iraq and its recapture would shatter IS's claim that it isstill running a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria. Abadi stressed in his televised address that only armyand police forces would enter Mosul itself when advancingforces eventually reach the city's boundaries.

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Bhubaneswar:

A major fire broke out at IMSSUM hospital, a leading private healthcare institute Bhubaneshwar, on Monday. More than 20 persons were killed in the fire, reports said.

According to sources, the fire broke out at around 7:30 PM in the dialysis ward in the second floor of the hospital. More than 30 patients were present in the ward when the fire engulfed it, police sources said.

"We engaged adequate fire tenders and rescue teams. Cause of the fire mishap is being investigated," DGP (fire services) Binoy Behera said.

According to hospital sources, an electric short circuit in the ward was the cause of the fire.



"Soon after the fire mishap, we shifted all patients to safer places. We also broke open some windows to prevent suffocation of patients. Our own staffers were engaged to rescue the patients," said hospital's deputy superintendent Basant Pati.

#WATCH: Fire broke out in ICU ward of Institute of Medical Sciences & Sum Hospital, Bhubaneswar.5 fire tenders at the spot. Fire fighting on pic.twitter.com/3iCMVSsQQz  ANI (@ANI_news) October 17, 2016

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Jammu:

Violating the ceasefire, Pakistani troops fired from small arms and shelled mortar bombs on forward posts along the LoC in Rajouri district on Tuesday, drawing retaliation from Indian troops.



There was ceasefire violation by Pakistani troops along the LoC in Naushera sector of Rajouri district, a Defence Spokesman said.



Pakistani troops fired 82 mm mortar bombs, used small and automatic weapons in the firing on forward Indian posts in Laam Battalion area in Naushera from 2030 hours to 0130 hours, the spokesman said.



Indian troops guarding the LoC retaliated, he said, adding no one was injured in the ceasefire violation.



Few rounds were also fired in Naushera sector late last night.

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The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) said that G6 currencies portfolio recorded year-on-year volume growth of 265.56% in June, and has now recorded year-to-date volume growth of 456.69% compared to the same period last year.



The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) said that G6 currencies portfolio recorded year-on-year (Y-O-Y) volume growth of 265.56% in June, and has now recorded year-to-date (Y-T-D) volume growth of 456.69% compared to the same period last year.



DGCX added that it continues to see strong investor appetite for its currencies portfolio against a backdrop of ongoing foreign exchange (FX) volatility.



British Pound and Yen Futures Contracts were the most notable performers, registering Y-O-Y Average Daily Volume (ADV) growth of 307.58% and 1010.45% respectively.



The strong performance of the DGCXs suite of currency products comes ahead of the launch of three FX Rolling Futures Contracts, which will provide investors with additional opportunities to efficiently hedge their risk exposure, particularly during this period of heightened volatility.



The three FX Rolling Futures contracts  Euro (EUR), Pound Sterling (GBP) and Australian Dollar (AUD) against the US Dollar (USD)  will go live on Monday 6 July, 2020.



Les Male, CEO of DGCX, said: The FX market across the region has been gathering pace in recent years, but its really come to the fore over the last few months in terms of investor appetite and maturity. This is particularly true in the UAE, which serves as a regional hub for retail and institutional traders and has solid regulatory infrastructure in place.



Right now, the biggest factor influencing currency flows is of course the Pandemic and the uncertainty its caused globally, but were also seeing a number of other geopolitical events having a significant impact on currencies ranging from Brexit trade negotiations to concerns that the US and China trade talks may fall through again.



Following the DGCXs launch of three FX Rolling Futures Contracts next week, the DGCX plans to expand its portfolio of Indian Rupee (INR) Futures Contracts with the introduction of a Weekly INR Futures Contract against the US dollar (USD) later this month. The new contract will provide market participants with short-term hedging and arbitrage opportunities and will track the worlds largest pool of offshore liquidity for exchange-traded INR-USD currency products that the DGCX offers.



The DGCX continues to play a pioneering role in the development of MENAs financial markets. Dubais strategic geographic location between the Far East and Europe allows us to serve as a unique hub for global Forex flows. With the launch of these new products, we hope to further enhance the UAE and wider regions rapidly growing influence and importance in the global FX market, Male added.



Total volumes on the DGCX in June totalled 948,377, valued at $23.96 billion. The DGCX last month also recorded Average Open Interest (AOI) of 145,493 contracts.  TradeArabia News Service
Benaulim:

India on Monday appreciated Brazils support for its actions to combat terrorism and said the two countries agreed that the world must come together to fight the menace without distinction or discrimination.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also thanked Brazilian President Michel Temer for understanding Indias aspiration for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

My country deeply appreciates Brazils support for Indias actions in combating terrorism, Modi said after a bilateral meeting with Temer, who is in Goa for the 8th BRICS Summit which concluded on Sunday.

We agreed that the world must come together to fight this menace without distinction or discrimination, the Prime Minister said.

He said India will continue to work with Brazil as an important partner in early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).

Both bilaterally and multilaterally, the partnership between India and Brazil is filled with possibilities that we are keen to harvest, he said.

Modi said the two countries made progress in opening new areas of cooperation in drug regulation, agricultural research and cyber security during Temers visit.

I am happy to note that India and Brazil are close to finalising the text of a bilateral investment agreement. President Temer and I have reviewed the full range of bilateral cooperation, he said.

He said that the bilateral relations between India and Brazil have grown for the better and there has been increased interaction at all levels.

This visit (by Temer) takes place as both countries mark a decade of our strategic partnership, the Prime Minister said.

Modi and the Brazilian leader also witnessed exchange of four cross-sectoral MoUs between the two countries.

The first MoU is on genetic resources, agriculture, animal husbandry, natural resources and fisheries while the second one is on pharma products regulation. The third MoU is on cattle genomics and assisted reproductive technologies and the fourth is on investment cooperation and facilitation treaty.

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Peshawar:

At least two Pakistani soldiers were killed and one sustained injuries in firing from Afghan soil targeting an outpost in the restive tribal region.

The incident occurred on Sunday when firing hit soldiers in Angor Adda area of South Waziristan, one of seven tribal region along Afghan border. Security sources said the firing from Birmal area in Paktika province of Afghanistan targeted a Pakistani outpost.

"Two security personnel were killed and another injured," sources said. They were part of 56-Punjab Regiment stationed in the area to fight militants. No group claimed responsibility of the attack. Militants fled across the border to Afghanistan afteroperations by Pakistani security forces. Sources said that Pakistan soldiers returned fire, hitting the area from where the firing had come though thelosses on the other side were not known so far.

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Mandi (Himachal):

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday likened the armys anti-terror surgical strikes to Israels exploits and said the Indian forces have shown they are no less than anybody.



Our armys valour is being discussed across the country these days. We used to hear earlier that Israel has done this. The nation has seen that Indian army is no less than anybody, he said.



Israel is known for its targeted military strikes against enemy countries and militant outfits.



Modi was speaking at a rally in Himachal Pradesh where he inaugurated three hydro-power projects.

Modi's Parivartan Rally in Mandi: As it happened

The issue of surgical strikes has snowballed into a political row with the opposition accusing the BJP and its government of milking it for political benefits. The charge has been rejected by BJP which has insisted that it is taking the issue to the masses to boost the armys morale and highlight the strong political will of the Prime Minister.



Underscoring his commitment to the welfare of armed forces, Modi on Tuesday said his government had fulfilled its promise of One-Rank, One-Pension for ex-servicemen, an issue which he said had been hanging fire for over 40 years.



Previous governments, he said, duped the people by making tall claims and some of them even allocated Rs 200 crore-500 crore in this regard but never did an analysis of cost burden and how it could be executed.I did it and was puzzled to find that the economic burden kept rising.



It worked to be more than Rs 10,000 crore, he said, adding that it was difficult for any government to make such a big allocation in one go.Modi said he spoke to armed forces and offered to release the money in four installments to which they agreed.



Over Rs 5,500 crore in first installment has been given. The rest will be to. A promise hanging fire for the last 40 years has been fulfilled, he said.



At the Parivartan Rally, Modi also targeted Virbhadra Singh, the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh where elections are due late next year, saying BJP chief ministers dedicated themselves to causes like drinking water and roads while the Congress leader was concerned about his own welfare.



Do I need to explain what the current chief minister is known for? he said and then added, When BJP gave chief ministers, somebody dedicated himself to water, somebody to roads but when others came they dedicated so many things for their personal welfare, he said.



BJP has accused Singh of being involved in corruption but the Congress leader has rejected the charges and claimed that he was a victim of political vendetta.

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Syria:

Air strikes killed at least 12 civilians in Syria's Aleppo on Monday, a monitor said, bringing to 45 the number killed in 24 hours of bombardment on the battleground city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five children were among the dead in the rebel-held district of Marjeh in east Aleppo. Dozens more people were wounded or still trapped underrubble. Of the 45 civilians killed, the highest number of deadwere in Qaterji, where Russian raids claimed 17 livesovernight, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

According to reports, White Helmets rescuers were still working till Monday morning to pull about 20 people out of the rubble in Qaterji. One civil defence volunteer said they had been unable tocomplete rescue missions overnight in fear of further airstrikes by warplanes circling above. Both Russian and Syrian warplanes are carrying out airstrikes over Aleppo in support of a major offensive by regimeforces to capture rebel-held parts of the northern city.

The Observatory - which relies on a network of sourcesinside Syria for its information -- says it determines whatplanes carried out raids according to their type, location,flight patterns and the munitions involved.

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on Lodha Panel recommendation matter after the BCCI sought more time to implement Lodha reforms. During the hearing, Amicus Curiae Gopal Subramaniam asked the apex court to appoint an administrator or ask the Lodha Committee to do so. He sought initiation of civil and criminal contempt charges against BCCI officials for disobedience of SC's order.

Earlier on Monday, BCCI President Anurag Thakur said in Supreme Court that he had not asked ICC CEO Shashank Manohar to state that the appointment of Justice R M Lodha committee would tantamount to government interference in the functioning of BCCI.

I am filing this affidavit pursuant to the order dated October 7, passed by this court on whether I had asked the CEO of the ICC to state that the appointment of Justice Lodha Committee was tantamount to government interference in the working of the BCCI.



At the outset, it is denied that any such request was put forth by me to the CEO of the ICC, Thakur said in his affidavit.

The apex court had on October 7 directed Thakur to explain by filing a personal affidavit, the allegation whether he had asked the CEO of the ICC to state that the appointment of Justice Lodha Committee was tantamount to government interference in the working of the BCCI.

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New Delhi:

To engage citizens with the center on an important issue of Uniform Civil Code, a software engineer has developed a website as a platform to give Muslim voices a chance. The website www.replyucc.com, developed by Syed Khalid Saifullah went live on Sunday.

This comes at a time when the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has called for a massive boycott of the questionnaire on Uniform Civil Code put forward by Law Commission of India.

The thought came about during discussions among professionals. With all due respect to the AIMPLB and its call for boycotting the questionnaire, we thought it best that those who wish should be able to respond. It is clear that Muslims do not want the introduction of the UCC, Khalid told a leading daily.

The developers realised the fact that by not replying to the Law Commissions questionnaire the community is loosing a good opportunity to put forward what they think of the issue.

Once the user fills it and completes the selection, a soft copy of the same is generated after which an email is sent to the Law Commission of India with the personal details of the respondent.

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New Delhi:

An Indian-origin man in Singapore was handed out a severe punishment by being sentenced to six weeks in prison for not performing his national service obligations.

Jay Kamal Shah, 22 was handed out the punishment on Monday, a statutory requirement for all male Singaporeans to serve in the defence service for two-years, The Straits Times reported on Tuesday.

He completed his studies in India and returned to Singapore in April last year and enlisted for national service about a month later.

Shah could have been fined up to 10,000 Singapore dollar (USD 7,206) and/or jailed for up to three years, was jailed for six weeks. His lawyer Rajan Supramaniam said in litigation that Shah chose to wait until he had completed his examinations before returning to Singapore to surrender himself so that he would not be considered a "drop-out".

Requesting the court to impose a fine, counsel said Shah had done well in national service, and may be considering a career in the army. He also said Shah did not have the benefits and privileges of possessing a Singapore citizenship, having spent his entire life in India.

Earlier, he was also given a one-week concurrent jail term for failing to enlist for national service in March last year. His Singaporean mother had tried to apply for his national ervice deferment but that was rejected.



She had also e-mailed the authorities that she wished to renounce her son's Singapore citizenship.

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New Delhi:

Indias indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant was reportedly commissioned into service in August, completing Indias nuclear triad, media reports said on Tuesday.



The media reports daily quoted defence sources as saying that INS Arihant was formally commissioned by Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba in August.



Sources added that in a bid to maintain secrecy, it is not being referred to as INS Arihant.



After being inducted, the submarine completes India's nuclear triad, giving it the capability to respond to nuclear strikes from sea, land and air-based systems.



INS Arihant gives second-strike capability to India, which has a clearly declared policy of "no first-use" of nuclear weapons.



INS Arihant is India's first indigenous nuclear submarine, and the lead ship of Arihant class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines launched in 2009.



The submarine's design is based on the Russian Akula-1 class submarines and its 83 MW pressurised water reactor has been built with significant Russian assistance.



Nuclear submarines have the capability to stay out at sea longer, and don't need to surface for a long duration.



Conventional diesel-electric submarines have to come up to the surface at regular intervals for charging their batteries.

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Islamabad:

The IMF has warned Pakistan that Chinas growing investments in the country, including the USD 46 billion economic corridor, have the potential to lift the cash-strapped economys potential output, but the repayment obligations that come with it will be serious.



During the investment phase, as the early harvest projects proceed, Pakistan will experience a surge in FDI and other external funding inflows, says the IMF in a short evaluation of the impact of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CEPC) related investments on Pakistan.



However, the import requirements of these projects will likely offset a significant share of these inflows, such that the current account deficit would widen within manageable levels during these years, the international lender was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.



The report estimates that CPEC related imports could reach 11 per cent of total projected imports by 2020, equal to just over USD 5.7 billion, while inflows under the corridor will touch 2.2 per cent of projected GDP in that year.



Gross external financing needs of the country will jump almost 60 per cent by then, from a projected USD 11 billion for the current fiscal year, to USD 17.5 billion in 2020.



Pakistan will see USD 27.8 billion in early harvest projects under CPEC in the next few years, with the remaining USD 16 billion coming over a longer timeline stretching out to 2030.



Pakistan will need to manage increasing CPEC-related outflows, warns the IMF, once the Chinese investors begin repatriating profits, adding that the amounts involved could add up to a significant level given the magnitude of the FDI.



Outflows will also come in the form of repayment obligations on the loans taken from Chinese banks for these projects, which are expected to rise after 2021. Both of these, repayments and profit repatriation, could reach about 0.4 per cent of GDP per year over the longer run.



The IMF acknowledges that CPEC related growth could cover these payments over the longer term, but warns that this is not guaranteed.



Reaping the full potential benefits of CPEC will require forceful pro-growth and export-supporting reforms the report says, citing improved business climate, governance and security as necessary preconditions to enable CPEC investments to generate the resources required to cover their own associated outflows. In addition, allowing greater downward exchange rate flexibility will also be necessary.



The 3,000-km-long CEPC, which is part of Chinas Silk Road project, officially called Belt and Road is aimed at connecting the two countries with rail, road, pipelines and optical cable fiber network.



It connects Chinas Xinjiang province with Pakistan Gwadar port, providing access to China to the Arabian Sea.



The project, when it is completed, would enable China to pump its oil supplies from the Middle East through pipelines to Xinjiang cutting considerable distance for Chinese ships to travel to China.



India has already protested to China over the project as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.



The matter of rising CPEC related outflows was discussed between the Fund staff and the government during the discussions prior to the review, the report said.



The Pakistan government told the IMF that additional Chinese investment over the longer term, building on CPEC as a platform, could also help cover the projected CPEC related outflows, according to the report.



For the IMF, CPEC outflows are one of the medium to long term risks facing Pakistans economy. It calls for sound project evaluation and prioritisation mechanisms based on effective cost-benefit analysis and realistic forecasts of macroeconomic and financing conditions to help mitigate the risk.



It points out a need to ensure transparency and accountability in project management and monitoring, pointing specifically at the power purchase agreements being signed with Chinese IPPs, calling on the government to ensure that the cost of power purchase remains favourable for the distribution companies and consumers.

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Aden:

A 72-hour ceasefire in Yemen will go into effect starting Thursday, the United Nations has announced. A cessation of hostilities that first went into effect in April "will re-enter into force at 23:59 (local time) on 19 October 2016, for an initial period of 72 hours, subject to renewal," the UN's special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement on Monday.

The announcement comes after Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi agreed to the ceasefire in a statement earlieron Monday, a day after international calls for a truce. Ahmed on Sunday said he had been in contact with the Huthi militia's lead negotiator and Hadi's government.

Also Read: (Missiles fired at US warships in Red Sea, none hit: US official)

The United States, Britain and the UN peace envoy to Yemen on Sunday urged the warring parties in the country's civil warto declare a ceasefire. Saudi Arabia's impoverished neighbour has been rocked by a deadly war since pro-Iran rebels overran the capital Sanaa inSeptember 2014.

However, the conflict escalated after an Arab coalition, led by Riyadh, launched a bombing campaign against the ShiiteHuthi rebels and their allies in March 2015.

The conflict in Yemen has killed almost 6,900 people, wounded more than 35,000 and displaced at least three millionsince March last year, according to the United Nations.

On Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry met in London with the UN envoy and his opposite numbers from Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the Yemen conflict.

"This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table," US Secretary of StateJohn Kerry told reporters after the talks.

Previous attempts to enforce a ceasefire in the country have so far failed with the war intensifying after a round ofpeace talks in Kuwait ended in August without achieving a breakthrough.

The Saudi-led coalition has stepped up its air raids following the breakdown of talks and cross-border attacks fromYemen have also intensified.

The previous ceasefire, announced in conjunction with the start of the Kuwait talks, was hardly observed on ground, with both sides trading blame for violating the truce. Earlier this month, the UN envoy had said that a 72-hour ceasefire was expected soon adding that he was hoping to drafta new peace plan for Yemen.

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Rockwell Automation, a leading company dedicated to industrial automation and IT has announced that Canninah Mapena will now be heading its activity in Sub-Saharan Africa from June 1.

Operating from the companys offices in Randburg, Mapena will lead the business in the region and continue the implementation of Rockwell Automations global and pan-EMEA sales strategies and initiatives, with a focus on bringing the Connected Enterprise to Rockwell Automation customers across the Sub-Saharan region.

With extensive experience leading regional departments of other large American and European multinational industrial automation and software companies, she is well-placed to offer business development, improved customer relationship management, and strategic planning to drive Rockwell Automations growth in the region. In her new role, Mapena and her team will continue to increase customer intimacy and collaboration, driving sales through increased customer satisfaction.

On her new appointment, Mapena says: "I am delighted with this new opportunity at Rockwell Automation and look forward

to bringing my expertise and experience to the Sub-Saharan African region and to contribute further to Rockwell Automations growth, delivering the best quality solutions to our customers.

Mapena will be reporting to Sebastien Grau, Regional Sales Director for the Middle East, Turkey & Sub-Saharan Africa.

We welcome Canninah to the team and look forward to her contribution in reinforcing and expanding Rockwell Automations presence across the region. In her role, she will strengthen our team, focusing on customer satisfaction and developing our network of partners who we strongly rely on as part of our growth strategy, says Grau.

Mapenas background lies in both business and engineering, providing the perfect fit for this role. She holds a bachelors degree in Business Administration from the University of Johannesburg, as well as an Electrical and Electronics Engineering degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. She will be taking over from Henry Craukamp, who has provided highly valued business contributions to Rockwell Automation for the past 12 years through various roles.-- Tradearabia News Service
Hyderabad:

Claiming that Uniform Civil Code issue is another trump-card of the BJP, the Communist Party of India Tuesday alleged that the lead party of NDA government may try to keep it alive till the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with an aim to reap political dividends.

CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy sees the current debate on the code as a diversionary tactic adopted by the BJP-led NDA government.

He expressed the view that the code is a diverse and complex issue and not an urgent issue at the moment as there are so many other problems.

Reddy, however, said there is a necessity to take a relook at the triple talaq issue. Some reform should come (in Muslim Personal Law) but it is necessary to convince the minority community (on the need for it), he told PTI.

This (debate on the code and triple talaq, among others) is being brought as a diversionary tactic. There is necessity to discuss the whole in the Muslim community itself about such demand for reforms, he said.

Its not something urgent to divide the nation on that issue and I dont think the government is serious in bringing the code. The debate before the Uttar Pradesh elections (due early next year) is aimed to get political dividends, Reddy alleged.

Asked if he expected the code issue to die down after Uttar Pradesh elections, he said, They may continue till 2019 also. This (the code) is another trump card like Ayodhya, so called nationalism, patriotism to cover up pro-corporate, anti-labour, anti-people policies of Government of India. They may keep it as an important point of debate.

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New Delhi:

The BSE Sensex ended with a loss of 144 points at 27,530. The BSE Sensex opened at 27,776 touched an intra-day high of 27,803 and low of 27,488. The NSE Nifty closed with a loss of 63 points at 8,520.

The NSE Nifty opened at 8,613 hitting a high of 8,615 and low of 8,506. The Sensex hit a 14-week low, while the Nifty hit its lowest level in more than 10 weeks.

Indian shares closed at near three-month lows after a sell-off in Chinese shares raised concerns around global growth.

ICICI Bank, NTPC, Coal India, Tata Steel and SBI were among the gainers on the BSE, whereas M&M, Hero MotoCorp, HDFC Bank and Asian Paints were seen losing sheen on the index.

Buying activity was seen in banking and consumer durables sectors, while auto, telecom, capital goods, IT, industrial and pharma showcased weakness on BSE.

European stock markets were trading lower as investors remained cautious ahead of earnings, key data and a European Central Bank meeting later this week.
Goa:

In a veiled but obvious reference to Pakistan, influential regional bloc BIMSTEC on Monday called for strong measures against nations which encourage, support and finance terror groups, provide sanctuaries to them and falsely extol their virtues, seen as an endorsement of Indias effort to corner Islamabad on terrorism.

There should not be any glorification of terrorists as martyrs, the grouping of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal said, indirectly referring to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif calling slain Hizbul terrorist Burhan a martyr.

The bloc said fight against terrorism should not only confine to disrupting and eliminating terror groups and their networks but states supporting them must also be punished.

An Outcome Document detailing deliberations among the BIMSTEC leaders at their retreat here last night, said they condemned the recent barbaric terror attacks in the region in strongest terms, seen as a reference to Pathankot and Uri strikes.

We strongly believe that our fight against terrorism should not only seek to disrupt and eliminate terrorists, terror organisations and networks, but should also identify, hold accountable and take strong measures against states which encourage, support and finance terrorism, provide sanctuary to terrorists and terror groups, and falsely extol their virtues, the grouping said in the document issued on Monday.

It said the leaders stressed on urgent measures to counter terrorism.

There should be no glorification of terrorists as martyrs. We recognise the need for urgent measures to counter and prevent the spread of terrorism, violent extremism and radicalisation. We express our determination to take concrete measures to step up cooperation and coordination among our law enforcement, intelligence and security organisations, it said.

India has been scaling up efforts to isolate Pakistan in the wake of the Uri attack. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing BRICS and BIMSTEC summits on Sunday, called Pakistan a mother ship of global terrorism and said the menace has become its favourite child.

The strong position of BIMSTEC in dealing with terror assumes significance as it comes after consensus eluded on reference to cross-border terror in BRICS declaration.

Recognising that terrorism continues to remain the single most significant threat to peace and stability in our region, we reiterate our strong commitment to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stress that there can be no justification for acts of terror on any grounds whatsoever, BIMSTEC said.

It said the leaders expressed commitment to expedite the signing of the BIMSTEC Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, and to early ratification of the BIMSTEC Convention on Cooperation in Combating International Terrorism, Transnational Organized Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking.

The bloc also deliberated on a range of issues like ways to improve connectivity, enhance trade, promote energy cooperation and tourism.

The group said the leaders agreed to explore the possibility of having a BIMSTEC Motor Vehicle Agreement to improve connectivity. The decision comes in the backdrop of Pakistan stalling a similar pact among the SAARC countries last year.

To boost energy cooperation, the group also decided to expedite the signing of the BIMSTEC MoU on Grid Interconnection.

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New Delhi:

Benefits of psychometrics largely remain unrealised in India as almost half the companies acknowledge not using it and as many as one in three has never explored it, but things are changing forthe better, according to a study.

Psychometric assessment is the science of applied psychology, which is intended to identify specific personalitytrait that could highlight suitability for specific roles. Psychometrics is primarily used for recruitment andselection in India. Application for talent assessment and development was around 50 per cent for most management levels, but at entry level, it stood at a mere 7 per cent.

"Psychometrics, as a science, is yet to be fully exploredand leveraged in India. In an increasingly competitive world,only traditional methods such as interviews or aptitude testsmay not be enough," said Shatrunjay Krishna, Director -Rewards, Talent and Communication, Willis Towers Watson, whichconducted the study.

It further noted that despite succession planning being a key stated challenge for companies in India, the applicationof psychometrics in addressing this is low, with only 28 percent using it at senior management and 13 per cent for middlemanagement.

As per the findings by the global advisory, broking andsolutions company, only 9 per cent of companies are unwillingto explore the new tool, indicating keenness among the vastmajority (81 per cent) to leverage advanced psychometrics.

"Investment in training and developing a cadre of psychometric practitioners would lead to organisationsunderstanding its impact on the talent cycle, which in turnwill lead to a wider acceptance and right selection ofinstruments," Krishna said.

Interestingly, more Indian domestic organisations use psychometrics compared with MNCs.

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Scientists are trying to make Coronavirus medicine. Oxford University is at the forefront of making it. Oxford University is almost going to be successful in making the Corona vaccine. A leading scientist associated with this discovery said on Wednesday that the team of scientists have received positive results so far in their trials regarding the resistant reaction. But the scientist also refused to give a specific time frame for the preparation of the corona vaccine.

Sarah Gilbert, a professor of vaccinology at the university, reported that 8000 volunteers were enrolled for Phase-III of its trial in the drug AZD1222, which was licensed to AstraZeneca. Gilbert said that we are very happy that we are seeing a good response. This will protect patients against corona.

In addition, Oxford researcher Sarah Gilbert said that the third phase of human trials has begun after finding the corona drug. Under which the testing of corona vaccine has started. It is being seen how the vaccine works in people over 18 years of age and how well this vaccine works to protect people infected with corona from becoming unwell. The race is on to develop the coronavirus vaccine.

This is also important because, during the winter season of the Northern Hemisphere, there is a possibility of a spurt in corona cases by the end of this year. Kate Bingham, chair of the UK Government Vaccine Taskforce, has said that she expects the Corona vaccine to be successful in early 2021, except for the Oxford program. Oxford scientist Sarah Gilbert said she expected her Oxford vaccine to be made first, but it would not be more specific because the time to develop the vaccine would depend on the results of human trials.

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While the mainstream media outlets were flooded with the news of recent tensions in the ruling Nepal Communist Party, many Nepali households were busy planting and worshipping tulasi, also known as holy basil, at their yards this Wednesday morning. They were preparing for the beginning of the four-month festivalChaturmas.

Beginning the day of Harishayini Ekadashi in June/July, Hindus in Nepal and India mark a special period dedicated to Lord Vishnu and his embodiments for the next four months until the day of Haribodhini Ekadashi in October/November, and it is known as the Chaturmas (literally, four months).

This long festival sounds strange for the majority of the new generation in Nepal though it still holds significance in the lives of their predecessors. So what is it anyway?

The four holy months

Nawa Raj Ghimire, who teaches Puranas at Valmeeki Vidyapeeth, explains the Chaturmas is the holy period of four months from the day of Harishayini Ekadashi until Haribodhini Ekadashi every year. It is believed that Lord Vishnu sleeps and goes into a deep meditation, also acknowledged as Yog Nidra, according to him.

During the Chaturmas, no auspicious functions like wedding are performed as it is the time when gods and goddesses are not meant to be disturbed by their devotees. This is the time for penance, performing austerities, fasting and tenacities. Those who take the Chaturmas brata abstain from consuming specific food items marked impure, have only a single meal in every day and fast on every Ekadashi each fortnight. They also worship tulasi through these months.

Hari Om Bidari, a priest, describes, To please lord Vishnu and attain his blessings, various Puranas like Shrimad Bhagawat Mahapuran, Haribansa Purana, and Shiva Purana are recited during this period. Vishnu mantras and hymns are chanted.

Bidari informs that many major festivals of Hindus like Guru Purnima, Haritalika Teej, Nag Panchami, Krishna Janmashtami, Raksha Bandhan, Ganesh Chaturthi, Dashain, Tihar, and Chhath Puja are celebrated during these four months of the Chaturmas.

Two great Ekadashis

The period is sandwiched between two great Ekadashis which Nepali society calls Thuli Ekadashis, or Maha Ekadashis according to priests.

The first day of the Chaturmas is called Harishayani Ekadashi; it is considered one of the most significant Ekadashis of the total 24 Ekadashis in a year in the lunar calendar.

Harishayani Ekadashi, also known as Devsayani Ekadashi, is celebrated on the eleventh day of the Shukla Paksha (waxing phase of the moon or the bright fortnight) in the month of Ashadh, the third month of the year as per the lunar calendar.

Ghimire says, Harishayani is the combination of two words Hari, the other name of Lord Vishnu (the preserver) and Shayani which means sleep. On this day, the lord, being exhausted of destroying demons and evils, goes to sleep in Ksheersagar (cosmic ocean of milk) on the Shesh Nag (cosmic serpent) for four months.

He wakes up on Haribodhini Ekadashi in the month of Kartik, Ghimire adds, Lord Vishnu right after two months of Harishayani Ekadashi changes his sleeping position and this day is observed as Haripariwartini Ekadashi.

On the day of Harishayini Ekadashi, Hindu devotees wake up early in the morning, take a holy bath and worship Lord Vishnu, fasting for the entire day. They take vows, chant mantras, recite hymns and listen to religious stories.

Likewise, the devotees abstain from consuming grains, cereals, beans and certain vegetables and spices like garlic, tomato and onion. Also, they perform a ritual by planting and worshipping tulasi plants, sown on Nirjala Ekadashi, exactly one month before the Harishayini Ekadashi day, in front of or near their houses.

On Harishayini Ekadashi, devotees visit and worship Vishnu shrines. The major Vishnu shrines in the valley are Ichangu Narayan, Changu Narayan, Bishankhu Narayan, Shesh Narayan, and Narayansthan in Budanilakantha.

It is believed that those who observe fasting (brata) this day get rid of all their sins and the Lord grants them with happiness, wisdom, sound health, peace and prosperity.

Each of the 24 Ekadashis has its own story on why the Ekadashi day is considered holy. Whereas all these 24 days are considered important, the two at the beginning and the end of the Chaturmas are additionally valued, according to priests. They observe that the devotees who fail to maintain fasting rules on other Ekadashis also fast on these two days.

Significance of tulasi

Tulasi, also known as holy basil, plants are a part of every Hindu household in Nepal. Whereas the families worship them every day, the worship turns more special during the four months of the Chaturmas.

Ghimire explains, Tulasi is valued both religiously and scientifically as Harishayani Ekadashi marks the commencement of both the rainy season and the Chaturmas. This time is the appropriate time to plant, grow as well as worship tulasi. The significance of tulasi as a medicinal herb is already proven.

In every puja of Lord Vishnu, it is mandatory to offer the leaves of tulasi. This is why tulasi is planted on Harishayani Ekadashi and worshipped all these four months or the sleeping time of lord Vishnu until he wakes up on Haribodhini Ekadasi.
Kathmandu, July 2

The government has begun sending back its citizens who had come home from their work abroad before the lockdown imposed to control the coronavirus outbreak began in late March.

Kumar Raj Dahal, the director-general of the Department of Foreign Employment, says the system of issuing re-entry labour permits has begun. It will apply to the people who are returning to their old employers; new migrant workers still cannot fly, according to him.

Concerned offices in Kathmandu will begin issuing permits from Thursday itself whereas those outside the valley will resume it Sunday, informs the department. Needful distance and other safety measures will be implemented while distributing the permits.

Though the permits can be acquired now, regular flights are still suspended till July 22. Dahal, however, says the workers in emergency situations can get approval to fly on repatriation flights.

Earlier, on June 21, the Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre had allowed the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security to issue re-entry permits.
Cybersecurity

NSA to release advisory on VPN security amid telework boom

The National Security Agency will release a public advisory this week on virtual private network security practices as organizations continue to adapt to a boom in telework since the coronavirus pandemic began.

According to a senior intelligence official who spoke to reporters on background, the advisory will come in two parts: a summary for executives that provides "timely and easily understandable" guidelines for hardening security for VPNs to conduct secure telework and a more detailed technical document that provides signatures for network administrators to track vulnerabilities in their VPN infrastructure.

"Over the last 5-10 years, network owners, companies, and agencies had made a lot of progress in hardening network security, and then when COVID hit we all essentially left that environment and moved to a telework environment that in some cases existed before but was used one off, not at the scale, scope and constancy it's used now," the official said.

The advisory is the latest effort by the agency to better communicate with federal and private sector stakeholders.

A previous NSA advisory issued in May on an existing vulnerability in Exim Mail Transfer Agent software resulted in a measurable uptick in patch rates for the flaw and led to valuable follow-up analysis on Russian cyber capabilities from private threat intelligence firms.

VPNs have become a focus point for cybersecurity concerns at agencies since the pandemic began, with many feds using the device to log into their work systems remotely. However, those devices can also be vulnerable to attack or compromise, particularly when employees log on from insecure home networks.

In May, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released its own guidelines advising organizations to keep their VPN patching up to date, implement multifactor authentication, boost log reviews, attack detection, incident response and recovery and prepare their employees for a surge in phishing attacks. The Government Accountability Office is also investigating how federal agencies have implemented telework technologies, with officials indicating that VPN security will be among their top concerns.

The need for secure connections is even greater at agencies like NSA that regularly handle classified information. The agency is "certainly seeing both criminals and nation states targeting that telework infrastructure" since the pandemic began, but whether and how much that activity has increased across different threat groups can be difficult to quantify.

Another program, called Commercial Solutions for Classified Programs, configures commercially available software to allow employees to conduct classified work in a remote environment on their laptops and phones up to the Secret level. The program predates the virus and was typically used for "late night calls" that touch on classified information, but NSA and the Defense Information Systems Agency have worked to scale it up to thousands of employees and devices across Department of Defense components in the past few months.

Like other organizations, sending its workforce home during the crisis has also taught NSA leadership that many of its employees can do their jobs remotely without sacrificing effectiveness or security. The agency has conducted a number of telework use cases led by the cybersecurity directorate, and the experience has opened eyes about the benefits of offering more flexibility to employees beyond the pandemic.

"I think all of us have learnedthat when missions can be done remotely, [even unclassified], you can really achieve a better work life balance for our folks," the official said.
Oversight

'Sharpiegate' probe elicits rebuke from Commerce IG

The Inspector General at the Department of Commerce is publicly complaining that the agency is using concerns about redactions as cover for blocking the complete release of a critical report.

The report covers a well-known 2019 episode dubbed "Sharpiegate" in the media that drew ridicule and demands for investigations about the scientific integrity of Commerce Department component agencies.

Specially, the OIG investigated a move by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to rebuke in an unsigned statement a tweet from the NOAA National Weather Service's Birmingham, Ala., office that contradicted public and demonstrably false statements by President Donald Trump that NOAA had predicted that Hurricane Dorian would make landfall in Alabama. In a memorable Oval Office appearance, Trump displayed a NOAA image mounted on a poster with a line drawn in black ink extending the projected path of the storm to include Alabama's Gulf Coast.

The OIG report was issued with redactions on June 26. In concluded that "The Department required NOAA to issue a Statement that did not further NOAAs or NWSs interests."

Commerce IG Peggy Gustafson, in a July 1 memo to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, urged agency officials to bring the episode to a close by making final decisions about any redactions and documenting the reasons for those redactions.

"To the extent any material is potentially privileged, it should be specifically claimed by the Department and its stakeholders, not OIGa party that does not own the privileges," Gustafson wrote. "OIG cannot be expected to blindly divine the positon of the Department and interagency stakeholders without specific privilege claims to specific portions."

Essentially, Gustafson is challenging Ross and his staff to either release the report in unredacted form or "provide formal privilege markingsthat are precise and unambiguous and include the privilege being claimed."

Gustafson also said that the relations between OIG and Commerce worsened as the report neared completion.

"This tone shift appears to be directly linked to the content of our report and the findings of responsibility of the high-level individuals involved. I am concerned that the substance of our report and findings has resulted in this retaliatory posturing," she wrote.

For Gustafson, principles of IG independence  considered by many to be under threat during the Trump administration  are at stake.

"To allow the Departments all-encompassing and opaque assertion of privilege to stand is to effectively grant the Department a pocket veto over the completion and issuance of final OIG work, which is clearly contrary to the IG Act, OIG independence, and good government," Gustafson wrote. "It also violates Department policy to cooperate fully with OIG."
Cybersecurity

CISA's hit parade of malware aimed at federal agencies

Remote Access Tool exploitation, fileless Trojan malware and cryptocurrency mining software accounted for 90 percent of the observed threat activity against civilian federal systems and networks in May, according to insights pulled from the Department of Homeland Security's Intrusion Detection System.

The system -- also referred to as EINSTEIN -- is run out of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and is designed to record and analyze network traffic flowing to and from federal agencies in order to identify and mitigate cybersecurity threats.

According to a June 30 CISA post looking at trend data for the month of May, nearly all the network intrusion signatures picked up by the system fall into one of three groups.

The first is actually a legitimate software program  NetSupport's Manager Remote Access Tool  used to give system administrators remote access to employee devices. However, it can also be used in phishing schemes to trick users into downloading the tool, giving malicious actors unauthorized access to their machines. In May, Microsoft's Security Intelligence wing warned the public about a massive phishing campaign that utilized emails leveraging interest in the COVID-19 pandemic and spoofing organizations like the Johns Hopkins Center to entice users to click on links that would install the NetSupport RAT on their computers. Other companies like Palo Alto and Zscaler have identified similar campaigns.

The second most popular attacks use a fileless Trojan named Kovter that initially started out as ransomware but has since also evolved to carry out a number of different attacks, including click-fraud schemes that steal information and beam them back to command and control servers. According to 2017 research from TrendMicro, clicking on attachments from Macro-based malicious spam  usually in the form of Microsoft Office files  is among the most common ways users are infected by this malware.

Finally, malware called XMRig that uses an infected device's computing power to mine Monero cryptocurrency was also highlighted as a common attack.

According to a CISA official, the data pulled from EINSTEIN does include instances where federal devices or systems were infected.

"Malware detection signatures vary in what they are looking for and range from detecting outbound activity, meaning malware contained on an agency device is being detected beaconing back to the threat actor, to other signatures that detect traffic before it makes its way to the targeted device," a spokesperson for the agency told FCW through email. "When we become aware of an agency affected by malware, regardless of the type, we notify that agency and provide mitigation support."

Cryptocurrency malware "is prevalent in all networks, whether public or private" the spokesperson said, and CISA works with network defenders on a regular basis to better understand and manage the risk.
Saudi Arabia's housing and construction sector surged by 8.03 per cent last year following its major projects in line with the Vision 2030 and it witnessed further positive growth in the first three months.

The kingdom's building sector will see faster recovery with the utilisation of drones under the new normal set-up, which continues to require safety measures including social distancing, according to an industry expert.

Contact-less drone technology to help firms kick-start operations by providing effective alternative to guarantee continuity of operations, while ensuring health and public safety, remarked Rabih Bou Rashid, the CEO of Falcon Eye Drones (FEDS)  the Middle Easts leading provider of Drone Technology, Data Technology, and Digital Transformation.

He said that drones are an imperative tool to ensure continuity of building operations in Saudi Arabia, whose construction sector has been thriving for the past years.

The pandemic has presented a considerable challenge to the construction sector in Saudi, which used to require a significant number of labourers. As the Kingdom contains the spread of the disease as a paramount concern, drones can help afford an effective alternative to guarantee the sectors continuity of operations, while ensuring health and public safety, stated Rashid.

In a recent report released by the Kingdoms Ministry of Housing, the sector has surged by 8.03 per cent in 2019 following its major projects in line with the Vision 2030. It has also contributed to the kingdoms GDP boost to 12.6 per cent.

In addition, the report stressed that the first quarter of the year 2020 witnessed positive growth in the construction and housing sector.

The momentum, stated Bou Rashid, can be kick-started with the use of drones.

"In the GCC, more players in the construction industry are utilising drones in getting their projects done while safeguarding the wellbeing of their workers - noting that they regulate activities at a more economical, more precise and speedier pace than the conventional construction process," he added.

Bou Rashid pointed out that drones could help trim down expenses by up to 11.8 per cent in terms of monitoring the development of a construction project.

"This is because drone technology allows them to detect slip-ups on a regular basis," he said.

The ability of drones to steadily monitor a construction status through recurring flights and high-resolution, accurate aerial view maps, he said, can help managers effortlessly mark potential challenges before they become exorbitant problems, and even save employees five hours a week on needless meetings.

"Drones can help avert costly errors as they help developers identify slip-ups prior to and during the construction, which  if left unchecked  can put a dampen on a projects budget later on, he said, noting that this can also decrease manual rework by 25 per cent.
Acquisition

GSA taps MetTel for its own EIS contract

The General Services Administration awarded two task orders potentially worth over $230 million under its next-generation, $50 billion telecommunications contract for its operations.

The orders, which went to MetTel under GSA's Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract, cover network and voice for the agency. The orders were awarded June 23 by GSA's Federal Acquisition Services Office of Integrated Technology Services, according to contract data gathered from the agency's Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS).

GSA manages the governmentwide EIS contract so its adoption of the new vehicle for its own use is a signal that it doesn't intend to lag behind the rest of government.

A GSA spokeswoman declined to comment on the awards because of a 30-day period in which protests can be filed.

Industry sources said the task orders are a significant part of GSA's move to the EIS contract and off of legacy vehicles. GSA currently contracts with AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon as incumbent carriers for many telecommunications services. The FPDS data shows GSA received four offers for both orders. The data doesn't identify the bidders, however.

GSA's Nationwide Data Task Order, which has a $169,096,932 ceiling over the next 12 years, covers all the agency's data services, managed security and managed network services, including Trusted Internet Compliance (TIC) Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Services (MTIPS).

The agency's Nationwide Voice Task Order, which has a $64,105,669 ceiling over the next dozen years, covers the agency's voice services, such as VoIP, hard-line telephone service and toll free services.

Time is running out for agencies to adopt the new telecommunications contract. At the start of fiscal year 2021, GSA will freeze new orders on its old Networx, WITS 3, and Regional local service contracts, forcing agencies who have lagged behind in issuing their EIS task orders.
FCW Insider: July 2

The Defense Department's number three job would be eliminated thanks to a late-add amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.

Organizations that spent the past decade hardening their corporate networks must now contend with their workforce signing in from insecure, unmanaged personal devices at home.

The Inspector General at the Department of Commerce is publicly complaining that the agency is using concerns about redactions as cover for blocking the complete release of a critical report surrounding the president's 2019 misstatements about the path of Hurricane Dorian.

The National Association of Immigration Judges is suing the Department of Justice over restrictions that cover public speaking about immigration issues.

Plaintiffs ask for compensation and punishment, federal monitor to reform union.

Quick Hits

***A bill from Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) would require agencies to conduct cost-benefit analyses before being allowed to relocate if it is passed into law. The bill has support from federal sector advocacy groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, Project on Government Oversight, and the American Federation of Government Employees.

The Conducting Oversight to Secure Transparency of Relocating Act would require agencies to conduct and make public their findings according to "best practices" that would include analyzing data such as costs of rent and personnel, and the impacts of potential loss of knowledgeable veteran staffers and "short- and long-term impacts on the ability of the agency to carry out its mission." Agency Inspectors General would be able to review the reports before they're made public.

The bill comes after several agencies such as the Agriculture Department relocated the Economic Research Institute and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to Kansas City and the Bureau of Land Management relocated its headquarters to Grand Junction, Colo.
Dublin, July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Hand Wash Market By Distribution Channels, By End User, By Region, Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2020 - 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.





The Global Hand wash Market size is expected to reach $11.9 billion by 2026, rising at a market growth of 7.1% CAGR during the forecast period. Hand wash is a liquid soap that is less foamy because it doesn't need to cover a lot of surface area and is used very often all day. Hand washing, also called hand hygiene, is a method of cleaning hands to avoid microorganisms, dirt, or all other harmful objects to discourage disease spreading. Liquid hand wash is an antibacterial liquid that contains an active substance used to inhibit, destroy, or render the active bacteria on hands harmless.



Due to ease of use and the ability of liquid soaps to retain natural moisture in the hands, liquid hand washings are usually favored over soaps. Liquid hand wash is a multi-million-dollar industry, with continuous market opportunities due to advances in technology and research and development that have resulted in new offerings in the form of organic hand wash and sensitive skin hand wash, among others. The latest coronavirus pandemic has seen an increase in the use of personal hygiene products, stimulating the growth of the industry.



Hand-washing has become as imperative as breathing given the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted people to use the hand wash liquids as a minimal step to prevent the disease from spreading. As of May 30, 2020, as many as 5 million cases of coronavirus were confirmed worldwide, the reported death toll of which stood at around 2 lakhs.



With Russia, Iran, and other developing countries disclosing a spike in the number of new cases and the emerging second wave of COVID-19 in China, cost-effective ways to curb spread infection, such as social distancing and basic hand hygiene, are becoming increasingly prevalent. The uncertainty about releasing a vaccine over the time period has instilled fear in consumers and encouraged them to use hand washings. The World Health Organization (WHO), with the FDA and the CDC, suggests regular hand washing to prevent infection.



The market research report covers the analysis of key stake holders of the market. Key companies profiled in the report include Johnson & Johnson, Unilever PLC, The Procter and Gamble Company, S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc. (The Caldrea Company), Beiersdorf AG, Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC, 3M Company, Henkel AG & Company, KGaA, Alticor Inc. (Amway Corporation), and Lion Corporation.



Scope of the Study



Market Segmentation:



By Distribution Channels

Story continues

Hypermarkets

Retailers

Online and

Other Channels

By End User

Commercial Sector and

Residential Sector

By Geography



North America

US

Canada

Mexico

Rest of North America

Europe

Germany

UK

France

Russia

Spain

Italy

Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China

Japan

India

South Korea

Singapore

Malaysia

Rest of Asia Pacific

LAMEA

Brazil

Argentina

UAE

Saudi Arabia

South Africa

Nigeria

Rest of LAMEA

Companies Profiled

Johnson & Johnson

Unilever PLC

The Procter and Gamble Company

S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc. (The Caldrea Company)

Beiersdorf AG

Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC

3M Company

Henkel AG & Company, KGaA

Alticor Inc. (Amway Corporation)

Lion Corporation

Unique Offerings from the Publisher

Exhaustive coverage

Highest number of market tables and figures

Subscription based model available

Guaranteed best price

Assured post sales research support with 10% customization free



Key Topics Covered:



Chapter 1. Market Scope & Methodology

1.1 Market Definition

1.2 Objectives

1.3 Market Scope

1.4 Segmentation

1.4.1 Global Hand Wash Market, by Distribution Channels

1.4.2 Global Hand Wash Market, by End User

1.4.3 Global Hand Wash Market, by Geography

1.5 Methodology for the research



Chapter 2. Market Overview

2.1 Introduction

2.1.1 Overview

2.1.2 Market Composition and Scenario

2.2 Key Factors Impacting the Market

2.2.1 Market Drivers

2.2.2 Market Restraints



Chapter 3. Global Hand Wash Market by Distribution Channels

3.1 Global Hypermarkets Market by Region

3.2 Global Retailers Market by Region

3.3 Global Online Market by Region

3.4 Global Other Channels Market by Region



Chapter 4. Global Hand Wash Market by End User

4.1 Global Commercial Sector Market by Region

4.2 Global Residential Sector Market by Region



Chapter 5. Global Hand Wash Market by Region

5.1 North America Hand Wash Market

5.2 Europe Hand Wash Market

5.3 Asia Pacific Hand Wash Market

5.4 LAMEA Hand Wash Market



Chapter 6. Company Profiles

6.1 Johnson and Johnson

6.1.1 Company Overview

6.1.2 Financial Analysis

6.1.3 Segmental &Regional Analysis

6.1.4 Research & Development Expenses

6.2 Unilever PLC

6.3 The Procter and Gamble Company

6.4 S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc. (The Caldrea Company)

6.5 Beiersdorf AG

6.6 Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC

6.7 3M Company

6.8 Henkel AG & Company, KGaA

6.9 Alticor Inc. (Amway Corporation)

6.10 Lion Corporation



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qvj71u

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com

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press@researchandmarkets.com

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******

First patient treated in "miR-AGE" trial at University Hospital Center in Nice (CHU Nice)

50 study sites and 1,034 high-risk patients to participate in the European and

Latin American placebo-controlled trial

ABX464 works via unique triple action: antiviral, anti-inflammatory and tissue repair

Easy, once daily oral administration allows inclusion of hospitalized as well as non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Results from this study expected by year-end

******

PARIS, FRANCE / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Abivax SA (Euronext Paris: FR0012333284 - ABVX), a late stage clinical biotechnology company harnessing the immune system to develop novel treatments for inflammatory diseases, viral diseases and cancer, announces today that the first patient has been treated in its Phase 2b/3 study of ABX464 in COVID-19 patients at the University Hospital Center in Nice, France (CHU Nice).

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled miR-AGE study investigates the effect of early treatment (at point of diagnosis) in 1,034 COVID-19 elderly or high-risk patients. The main goal of the trial is to measure the potential of ABX464 to limit viral replication as well as the severe inflammation that leads to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Abivax has already received clearance for the study from the regulatory authorities in France and Germany as well as in the UK, Italy and Brazil and expects authorization to follow in Spain and additional Latin American countries with high infection rates, including Mexico, Chile and Peru in due course.

Prof. Hartmut Ehrlich, M.D., CEO of Abivax, said: "We are pleased that the first patient in our miR-AGE trial has been treated and that recruitment and treatment at further sites in Europe and Latin America can now proceed swiftly. After the approval of the regulators in Brazil, additional regulatory approvals in Latin American countries, where the epidemic has still not reached its peak, are expected to follow soon. We expect first top-line results from miR-AGE by the end of the year. Enrollment in our other clinical trials is now back on track with more than half (122/232) of the patients randomized in the ulcerative colitis Phase 2b trial and with recruitment in the Phase 2a trial in rheumatoid arthritis and the US Phase 1/2 trial in hepatocellular carcinoma progressing as well. With non-dilutive funding provided by Bpifrance and Societe Generale, Abivax's projects are fully financed until early 2021 and discussions for further, preferably non-dilutive financial options are ongoing."

Story continues

"The treatment of the first patient in the miR-AGE trial is an important milestone for Abivax," added Philippe Pouletty, M.D., Chairman of the Board of Abivax and CEO of Truffle Capital. "While further study centers in Europe are being initiated, we also continue to expand the trial in additional Latin American countries. The already available regulatory and national ethics committee clearance in Brazil make a recruitment start in July realistic, as we are only missing the local ethics approvals. Furthermore, the ongoing preparation of filing in Mexico, Chile and Peru are very important, as the pandemic is still very active in these countries. While we are confident that ABX464 may have a positive impact by reducing the severity of COVID-19 sequelae, we remain prudent on expectations for the miR-AGE trial given the complexities surrounding treatment of COVID-19 disease. Progressing ABX464 development in chronic inflammatory diseases remains Abivax's corporate priority."

Eric Cua, M.D., Infectiologist at the University Hospital Center (CHU) of Nice, said: "As the principal investigator at the CHU in Nice, I am glad that the first patient has been treated and I am very much looking forward to evaluating whether early treatment with ABX464 will have a positive effect in COVID-19 patients. ABX464's unique triple mode of action could potentially limit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 virus, prevent and treat the cytokine storm or hyper-inflammation - and the ensuing acute respiratory failure syndrome - as well as limit long-term lung injury through tissue repair. Due to ABX464's easy, once-daily oral administration, we can include hospitalized as well as non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients in this trial. We hope that the findings in this placebo controlled and randomized trial bring us one step closer to a potent treatment for this disease in order to protect especially high-risk patients and avoid tense situations in hospitals and intensive care units in the future."

ABX464 has already demonstrated impressive efficacy in a Phase 2a trial in another severe inflammatory disease, ulcerative colitis (UC). In this trial, specifically, potent anti-inflammatory effects and tissue healing were observed. The results in UC patients together with the unique molecular mechanism of action of ABX464 support the rationale to use the drug candidate to treat the cytokine storm and hyper-inflammation syndrome observed in COVID-19 patients. Hyper-inflammation in the lung is the primary cause of the respiratory distress and potential death in COVID-19 patients.

ABX464's molecular action has been shown to upregulate a micro-RNA, miR-124, which is a "physiological brake" on inflammation. It works by down-regulating the multiple chemo- and cytokines involved in the COVID-19 cytokine storm, including TNF alpha, IL-1 beta, G-CSF, IL-6, MCP-1 and IL-17. In addition, unlike other potent anti-inflammatory agents that specifically target single cytokines, ABX464 has not been associated with increased vulnerability to opportunistic infections or a damping down of the immune system.

Furthermore, in previous clinical testing ABX464 has been shown to have antiviral effects against HIV and it is the first therapeutic candidate ever in development that reduced HIV reservoirs in patients. More recently, ABX464 demonstrated a marked antiviral effect, inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) replication in reconstituted human respiratory epithelium model.

Financing for this Phase 2b/3 trial, as well as manufacturing scale-up, additional clinical and other development costs is provided by the French investment bank Bpifrance, with 36 million EUR in non-dilutive funding. In addition, Abivax recently received 5 million EUR in non-dilutive financing from Societe Generale in the form of a loan guaranteed by the French state. Abivax's operations and ongoing clinical study programs are fully financed until early 2021.

******

About Abivax

Abivax, a clinical stage biotechnology company, is mobilizing the body's natural immune machinery to treat patients with autoimmune diseases, viral infections, and cancer. Abivax is listed on Euronext compartment B (ISIN: FR0012333284 - Mnemo: ABVX). Based in Paris and Montpellier, Abivax has two drug candidates in clinical development, ABX464 to treat severe inflammatory diseases, and ABX196 to treat hepatocellular carcinoma.

More information on the company is available at www.abivax.com . Follow us on Twitter @ABIVAX_.

Contacts

Abivax

Communications

Regina Jehle

regina.jehle@abivax.com

+33 6 24 50 69 63 Investors

LifeSci Advisors

Chris Maggos

chris@lifesciadvisors.com

+41 79 367 6254 Press Relations & Investors Europe

MC Services AG

Anne Hennecke

anne.hennecke@mc-services.eu

+49 211 529 252 22 Public Relations France

Actifin

Ghislaine Gasparetto

ggasparetto@actifin.fr

+33 6 21 10 49 24 Public Relations France

DGM Conseil

Thomas Roborel de Climens

thomasdeclimens@dgm-conseil.fr

+33 6 14 50 15 84 Public Relations USA

Rooney Partners LLC

Marion Janic

mjanic@rooneyco.com

+1 212 223 4017

DISCLAIMER

This press release contains forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates (including patient recruitment) with respect to certain of the Company's programs. Although the Company believes that its forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates are based on assumptions and assessments of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that have been deemed reasonable, such forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates. A description of these risks, contingencies and uncertainties can be found in the documents filed by the Company with the French Autorite des Marches Financiers pursuant to its legal obligations including its registration document (Document de Reference). Furthermore, these forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates are only as of the date of this press release. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Abivax disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, forecasts or estimates to reflect any subsequent changes that the Company becomes aware of, except as required by law.

This press release is for information purposes only, and the information contained herein does not constitute either an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe securities of the Company in any jurisdiction, in particular in France. Similarly, it does not give and should not be treated as giving investment advice. It has no connection with the investment objectives, financial situation or specific needs of any recipient. It should not be regarded by recipients as a substitute for exercise of their own judgement. All opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. The distribution of this document may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. Persons into whose possession this document comes are required to inform themselves about and to observe any such restrictions.

SOURCE: ABIVAX via EQS Newswire





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/596063/Abivax-Treats-First-Patient-in-Phase-2b3-ABX464-COVID-19-Clinical-Trial




Acentrus Specialty, a national network of health systems and hospitals committed to providing specialty pharmacy care for their patients, has surpassed the milestone of signing over 100 hospital clients with the addition of Southern Illinois Healthcare, Froedtert Health, and the University of Maryland Medical Center as the networks latest clients. Acentrus Specialty represents the largest integrated care network for health system specialty pharmacy in the United States.

"Health systems and hospitals committed to caring for their patients medication needs post-discharge often face challenges in providing this care because of limited distribution drug agreements that restrict access," said George Zula, Acentrus Specialty vice president. "When patient care remains within a health system rather than outsourced to a third-party pharmacy, the quality and continuity of care is greatly enhanced. The Acentrus network is dedicated to helping our client health systems and hospitals gain access to the life-saving medications their patients need."

Participation in Acentrus is open to hospital organizations of all sizes, types, and affiliations. Acentrus clients, which range from academic medical centers to small health systems, share one goal: to provide their patients with high-quality care in a setting where clinical and pharmacy services are integrated.

When an organization joins the network, benefits include access to difficult-to-obtain specialty medications, data management, collaboration with health system peers dedicated to sharing best practices, and a portfolio of other services to help hospital-based specialty pharmacies meet the needs of their patients, including backup and contract pharmacy, and expertise in licensing and accreditation. There is no cost for health systems to join Acentrus.

"Acentrus works to advance the belief that exceptional patient care can happen only when health systems and hospitals are able to support their patients with an integrated care approach that includes specialty pharmacy," said Pedram Pahlavan, Acentrus senior director of specialty pharmacy. "Acentrus gives health systems and hospitals the tools they need to operate specialty pharmacies that provide local, personal, integrated, and cost-effective patient care."

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Specialty pharmaceuticals are high cost, complicated to administer, and often require special shipping and handling. These medications, which treat complex and chronic diseases such as cancer, hemophilia, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis, frequently have significant risk of side effects and require careful patient monitoring. Specialty medications represent the fastest growth sector in pharmacy, with 1-2% of all claims accounting for 50-60% of all expenses.

About Acentrus Specialty

Acentrus Specialty is the integrated care network and health system solution for specialty pharmacy, addressing the largest and fastest growing area of health care expenditures by empowering members to deliver exceptional, cost-effective, locally-integrated care. This is accomplished through a portfolio of services and specialty pharmacy products, as well as member sharing of clinical and operational best practices. The network of health systems encompasses mostly of academic medical centers and integrated delivery networks, serving more than 4.6 million inpatient admissions annually, treated by nearly 200,000 physicians. Follow Acentrus on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/acentrus-specialty or on the web at www.acentrusrx.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005078/en/

Contacts

Steve Campanini

469-299-7250

info@acentrusrx.com
AJC, Lithuanian Jewish Community Urge Seimas Not to Honor Lithuanian Wartime Activist

AJC, Lithuanian Jewish Community Urge Seimas Not to Honor Lithuanian Wartime Activist

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, July 2, 2020

NEW YORK, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Lithuanian Jewish Community are jointly calling on the Speaker of the Seimas, Lithuania's legislature, to stop a resolution honoring a member of the antisemitic Lithuanian Activist Front.

"We are deeply troubled to learn that the Seimas will entertain a resolution which would dedicate 2021 the Year of Juozas Luksa-Daumantas, an active member of the World War II-era Lithuanian Activist Front," wrote Rabbi Andrew Baker, AJC Director of International Jewish Affairs, and Faina Kukliansky, Chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community, in their letter to Seimas Speaker Viktoras Pranckietis.

Founded in Berlin, the Lithuanian Activist Front was an early ally of the Nazis in the occupation of Lithuania. Many of its members were directly involved in the persecution and murder of Lithuanian Jews. Its vision of an independent Lithuania was of an ethnically "pure" homeland with no place for Jewish citizens.

"We implore you to take no action which might give honor to any leader or prominent member of the Lithuanian Activist Front," wrote Baker and Kukliansky. "Instead you should defer such matters to the International Commission for Evaluating the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes appointed by the Lithuanian president for a clear and critical understanding of this tragic period in the country's history."

It may not be possible to provide irrefutable evidence that proves Luksa-Daumantas was guilty of war crimes in the persecution of Jews eighty years ago. But that is not relevant to the Seimas resolution, wrote Baker and Kukliansky.

"There is today a worldwide reckoning with history and growing recognition in all Western democracies that even past leaders of great accomplishment must forfeit any honor if they were also racists, bigots, or anti-Semites. Surely Lithuania should do no less," stated the letter to the Seimas Speaker.

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Baker and Kukliansky, who also serve as co-chairpersons of the Lithuanian Goodwill Foundation, expressed appreciation for "the warm cooperative relationship" they have had with Speaker Pranckietis. "We know we share a common commitment to maintain the legacy and history of Jewish life in Lithuania and to build an inclusive and tolerant future. It is in this spirit that we write to you."

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is an AJC international partner.

Cision

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ajc-lithuanian-jewish-community-urge-seimas-not-to-honor-lithuanian-wartime-activist-301087845.html

SOURCE American Jewish Committee
Dr. Schumacher Awarded Prestigious Academic Prize in the Netherlands for Research in Cancer Immunotherapy

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Allogene Therapeutics, Inc. (ALLO), a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of allogeneic CAR T (AlloCAR T) therapies for cancer, announced that Ton Schumacher, Ph.D., Principal Investigator at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and chair of Allogenes Scientific Advisory Board, has been awarded the Stevin Prize. Considered one of the highest distinctions in science for researchers working in the Netherlands, a maximum of two Stevin Prizes are awarded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) each year to a researcher or team whose work has a major social impact.



We are thrilled that Ton, an internationally renowned immunologist and researcher, has been recognized for his outstanding pioneering and inspiring contributions to cancer immunotherapy with the prestigious Stevin Prize, said David Chang, M.D., Ph.D., President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Allogene. Ton has played a crucial role in understanding how the immune system responds to tumors and translated his scientific discoveries into potential treatments for cancer. We are proud to have him lead our Scientific Advisory Board, where he provides strategic and scientific advice to Allogene as we continue to innovate in allogeneic cell therapy and advance the clinical development of our investigational AlloCAR T therapies.

Dr. Schumacher was awarded this years Stevin Prize for his work in cancer immunotherapy research demonstrating that in many cancer patients a T cell response is formed against the neoantigens that are generated as a consequence of DNA damage. Following this discovery, he collaborated with clinical researchers to translate these insights into novel immunotherapeutic treatments and established several companies to ensure that these treatments would be developed. As a Stevin laureate, Dr. Schumacher will receive 2.5 million euros for novel research, which he intends to use to build an algorithm to predict which cancer antigens individual T cells can recognize.

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In addition to his role at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, Dr. Schumacher is Professor of Immunotechnology at Leiden University Medical Center and a member of Oncode Institute, the virtual Dutch cancer research institute. He is the founder of four biotechnology companies focused on immuno-oncology, including most recently, the co-founding of Neogene Therapeutics which provides unique access to tumor-specific, TIL-derived TCRs for engineered T cell therapy in solid cancers. In addition to the Stevin Prize, Dr. Schumacher is a recipient of, among others, the Amsterdam Inventor Award, Queen Wilhelmina Cancer Research Award, San Salvatore Award, Meyenburg Cancer Research Award, and William B. Coley Award.

About Allogene Therapeutics

Allogene Therapeutics, with headquarters in South San Francisco, is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T cell (AlloCAR T) therapies for cancer. Led by a management team with significant experience in cell therapy, Allogene is developing a pipeline of off-the-shelf CAR T cell therapy candidates with the goal of delivering readily available cell therapy on-demand, more reliably, and at greater scale to more patients. For more information, please visit www.allogene.com , and follow @AllogeneTx on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The press release may, in some cases, use terms such as "predicts," "believes," "potential," "proposed," "continue," "estimates," "anticipates," "expects," "plans," "intends," "may," "could," "might," "will," "should" or other words that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding intentions, beliefs, projections, outlook, analyses or current expectations concerning, among other things: the ability to innovate in allogeneic cell therapy and advance the clinical development of investigational AlloCAR T therapies, and the potential benefits of AlloCAR T therapy. Various factors may cause differences between Allogenes expectations and actual results as discussed in greater detail in Allogenes filings with the SEC, including without limitation in its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2020. Any forward-looking statements that are made in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. Allogene assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date of this press release.

AlloCAR T is a trademark of Allogene Therapeutics, Inc.
- According to AIRM, "IVF with INVOcell is a simple, cost-effective, and highly rewarding methodology to increase access to care for assisted reproduction"

- Industry forecasts suggest that only 1% to 2% of the estimated 150 million infertile couples worldwide are currently being treated

- INVO's mission is to increase access to care and expand infertility treatment across the globe with a goal of improving patient affordability and industry capacity

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. and SARASOTA, Fla., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- INVO Bioscience, Inc. (OTCQB: INVO), ("the Company", "INVO") a medical device company focused on creating alternative treatments for patients diagnosed with infertility and developers of INVOcell, the world's only in vivo Intravaginal Culture System, was the focus of a spotlight report by Birmingham, Alabama-based America Institute of Reproductive Medicine (AIRM) highlighting the success achieved in their practice utilizing INVOcell.

INVO Bioscience, Inc. is a medical device company focused on creating alternative treatments for patients diagnosed with infertility and developers of INVOcell, the world's only in vivo Intravaginal Culture System (IVC) used for the natural in vivo incubation of eggs and sperm during fertilization and early embryo development. (PRNewsfoto/INVO Bioscience, Inc.)

"The AIRM clinic became an early adopter and advocate for the use of INVOcell shortly after we received FDA-clearance. We appreciate their willingness to share their story of that successful implementation of INVOcell within their clinic practice, which highlights important aspects of our INVOcell technology solution," stated Steve Shum, CEO of INVO Bioscience.

See full Clinic Spotlight report for additional details at https://www.invobioscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AIRM-INVOcell-Insights-Approved-Final-Version-070120-FINAL-1.pdf.

A summary of the report follows:

America Institute of Reproductive Medicine (AIRM) is a small boutique practice established in Birmingham, Alabama in the fall of 2017 by Dr. Cecil Long. In February 2018, Dr. Karen Hammond joined the practice as the IVF Program Director. Embryologist Lisa Ray joined AIRM a few months later.

AIRM performed a total of six cycles of IVF in 2017. After the addition of INVOcell, the number of cycles grew to more than 350 cycles in 2019; with the practice now having performed nearly 600 INVOcell cases to date. Despite our 3-person essential team and small practice footprint, we estimate AIRM could perform in excess of 600 INVOcell cycles per year, far exceeding what could be performed using traditional IVF with the same clinic resources. As a result, we now predominately utilize INVOcell as the primary treatment option for our "Affordable IVF Program", which enables us to achieve our primary goal of providing a high-quality patient outcome at an affordable price.

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Treatment affordability is a major issue and a prohibiting factor for many patients. Unfortunately, the financial burdens of in vitro fertilization (IVF), generally upwards of $10,000 - $15,000 in the United States, restrict access to care for a significant number of patients who would benefit from the treatment.

INVOcell has enabled our program to offer industry leading metrics, including affordability and cost per outcome. INVOcell dramatically streamlines the laboratory workload by eliminating the need for laboratory culture and its inherent costs and risks -- no fertilization checks, no daily observation of the embryos, no concerns with taking the embryos in/out of the incubator; essentially eliminating the risk of laboratory error. This simplicity enables the program to perform significantly more cycles with the use of INVOcell. The reduced patient interaction, clinic workload, and more appropriate staffing requirements also highlight the advantages of INVOcell in the midst of the COVID pandemic as there are fewer touch points with this streamlined process.

In summary, IVF with INVOcell is a simple, cost-effective, and highly rewarding methodology to increase access to care for assisted reproduction. The entire process is less time intensive than conventional IVF without compromising successful pregnancy outcomes.

Karen R. Hammond, DNP, CRNP

IVF Program Director

Cecil A. Long, MD

Practice Director

Lisa J. Ray, MS, ELD

Embryology Director

About INVO Bioscience

We are a medical device company focused on creating simplified, lower cost treatments for patients diagnosed with infertility. Our solution, the INVO Procedure, is a disruptive new technology. The INVO Procedure is a revolutionary in vivo method of vaginal incubation that offers patients a more natural and intimate experience. Our lead product, the INVOcell, is a patented medical device used in infertility treatment and is considered an Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). The INVOcell is the first Intravaginal Culture (IVC) system in the world used for the natural in vivo incubation of eggs and sperm during fertilization and early embryo development, as an alternative to traditional In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). Our mission is to increase access to care and expand fertility treatment across the globe with a goal to lower the cost of care and increase availability of care. For more information, please visit http://invobioscience.com/

Safe Harbor Statement

This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The Company invokes the protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategies, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, as well as statements that include words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include those set forth in our filings at www.sec.gov. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Cision

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SOURCE INVO Bioscience, Inc.
American Water Works Company AWK announced that its unit Missouri American Water has filed a request with the Missouri Public Service Commission (MoPSC) to review its water and sewer rates. The rate revision request includes $920 million in water system improvements and $30 million in sewer system enhancement from January 2018 to May 2022.



Aging water and wastewater infrastructure of the United States requires regular investment for upgrades and maintenance. American Water is quite active in making regular investments in its service territories and maintaining the water mains. American Water has plans to invest $8.8-$9.4 billion in the 2020-2024 time period and $20-$22 billion in the next decade. These investments will allow it to maintain and expand its existing water infrastructure and provide reliable water services to the expanding customer base.



In addition to American Water, Essential Utilities WTRG is also making regular investments in water and wastewater systems. Its long-term plan is to invest $2.8 billion in the 2020-2022 time period to rehabilitate, and strengthen the existing water and natural gas pipeline systems.



Importance of Rate Revisions



Amid this unprecedented economic crisis caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak, with millions of Americans in financial distress, the timing of rate filing might be questioned. However, despite the COVID-19 crisis, American Water continued with capital projects and ensured 24x7 services to customers. Rate hike in a way will ensure the funds required for maintenance and upgrade of infrastructure, which increases resilience of American Waters water and sewer services.



So, the regulated utilities, apart from making investment in infrastructure, also need to recoup the investments from customers through rate hikes at regular intervals. American Water has been benefiting from rate increase since the beginning of 2019. The new water rates (effective Jan 1, 2020) will increase American Waters total revenues by $55 million. It still has rate cases worth $233 million pending in various jurisdictions, awaiting final order. American Waters systematic investment plan is assisting it in the expansion of the rate base, which in turn will have a positive impact on earnings over the long term.



Courtesy of implementation of new rates, earnings of another water utility, American States Water Company AWR, improved year over year in first-quarter 2020.



Price Performance



Shares of American Water have outperformed the industry in the past 12 months.

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Zacks Rank and Key Pick



Currently, the company has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked water utility is Middlesex Water Company MSEX, presently holding a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Middlesex Water Company delivered average positive earnings surprise of 2.19% in the last four quarters. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2020 earnings has moved up 2.5% in the past 90 days.



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
New York, New York AmTrust Title Insurance Company, a subsidiary of AmTrust Financial Services, Inc., today announced a multi-year partnership with ProDeal, the leading deal management platform in the real estate finance industry.





Digital Transformation Partnership Announced



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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ProDeal's technology has been used to transact over $40 billion in deals across 700 organizations in over 1,500 real estate financing online workspaces in 2019. Its award-winning software makes it easier for teams to distribute and access deal-related documents securely while tracking deal closure tasks. The ability to quickly search and access previous deal files with a click or touch of your mobile phone is a valuable time-saving tool for the service provider and clients, allowing visibility and ease of use in any transaction.

"Our clients need information in real-time and we are pleased to work with ProDeal to offer a platform that consolidates documents, increases the speed of communications, and allows our 300 agents to securely access, upload, and view deal documents from anywhere anytime," said Jason Gordon, President of AmTrust Title Insurance Company. "We pride ourselves on our focus, the customer, and this partnership is an essential step in our ongoing mission to deliver a frictionless remote customer experience that is unparalleled in the industry."

COVID-19 has forced businesses to move their workflows remotely. AmTrust Title has transitioned its entire staff to work from home with the help of ProDeal's bold and innovative technology platform. With this strategic partnership, AmTrust Title will improve deal communication, visibility, accountability, and security.

"We are committed to supporting AmTrust's digital transformation and innovation goals in the coming years," said Patrick Janson, President & COO of ProDeal. "By leveraging our software platform, AmTrust is going to be able to continue to deliver exceptional customer service during the sudden shift in our working environment caused by the pandemic."

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About ProDeal

Want to experience the value of ProDeal for 90 days free? Check out their exclusive offer and software here: https://bit.ly/3dh0NGA

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in New York City and Dallas, Texas, provides the only deal closing software built specifically for real estate. The easy-to-adopt platform streamlines due diligence tracking and deal closing by combining communications, document management, and workflow into a lightning-fast digital product. With an iPhone app, robust API platform, and easy integration capability into CRM's like Salesforce and Hubspot, ProDeal has seen over 700 organizations that have used ProDeal to transact over $40 billion in deals.

About AmTrust Title Insurance Company

AmTrust Title is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AmTrust Financial Services, Inc., an insurance holding company headquartered in New York, which offers specialty property and casualty insurance products, including workers' compensation, business owner's policy (BOP), general liability and extended service and warranty coverage. AmTrust Title is headquartered and domiciled in New York, New York, and is licensed in 40 states and several jurisdictions internationally. AmTrust Title utilizes advanced technology, supported by the financial strength of AmTrust Financial, to support real estate clients of all sizes. For more information about AmTrust Title, visit www.amtrusttitlegroup.com.

About AmTrust Financial Services, Inc.

AmTrust Financial Services, Inc., a multinational insurance holding company headquartered in New York, offers specialty property and casualty insurance products, including workers' compensation, business owner's policy (BOP), general liability, and extended service and warranty coverage. For more information about AmTrust, visit www.amtrustfinancial.com.

Media Contacts

ProDeal:

Vinay Jain

917.647.0513

media@prodeal360.com

AmTrust Title Insurance Company:

Anuska S. Amparo

646-386-2655

anuska.amparo@amtrustgroup.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/59025
Injaz Bahrain, a leading non-profit organisation focusing on youth economic empowerment, announced that its annual Young Entrepreneurs Competition will be held online for the first time in its history.

Held on July 6 and 7 via the popular video conferencing platform Zoom, the competition will host 21 student companies from 13 high schools and eight universities across the kingdom competing to obtain the coveted Company of the year, Product of the year and Best Social Impact titles, as they present their projects virtually to the competitions judging panel.

Taking place across two days on Zoom, the Young Entrepreneurs Competition will consist of an Assessment Day on July 6, where students in the High School and University tracks will commence with panel interviews with the judges. The final day of the competition on July 7 will feature the award ceremony where the winning teams will be announced. Special awards this year will comprise of two signature awards - Excellence in Technology Award from Amazon Web Services (AWS) Bahrain, and Excellence in Marketing Award from the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB).

The high schools participating include: AbdulRahman Kanoo International School, Al Iman Private Schools  Boys, Al Noor International School, Al Taawon Secondary School for Boys, Al Tadhamon Secondary Girls School, Al-Hidaya Al-Khalifia Secondary Boys Schools, Hamad Town Secondary Boys School, Ibn Khuldoon National School, Jidhafs Secondary Girls School, Jidhafs Secondary Technical Boys School, Khawla Secondary Girls School, Naseem International School, Sitra Secondary Girls School. While the participating universities include: British University of Bahrain, Kingdom University, Royal University for Women and University of Bahrain.

Judges for this year will feature Mr. Adnan Al Mahmood from GPIC, Nadera Abuali from Citi Bahrain, Yasser Al Qashar from BANAGAS, Khalid Al Sada from STC Bahrain, Stefano Pettinato from the UNDP, Eman Janahi from Tamkeen, Nidal Al Basha from AWS Bahrain, and Hisham Abu Al Fateh from NBB. Injaz Bahrains Young Entrepreneurs Competition sponsors are Tamkeen Bahrain, Banagas, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and National Bank of Bahrain (NBB).

Hana Sarwani, Executive Director at Injaz Bahrain, stated: We are thrilled to be hosting our annual YEC competition online for the very first time. This transition has proved our teams work readiness and potential to adapt to change quickly. YEC wont be our first digital experience, as our team has tirelessly worked to launch our programs online and host other events online during the past few months. I can safely say that the experience of going digital hasnt pulled us back from benefiting students while at home but has been very successful. Our teams are geared up for YEC and were beyond excited to crown 2020s young entrepreneurs of the year.

The Award Ceremony will be made available for public viewing on Injaz Bahrains YouTube channel @INJAZBahrain on July 7 at 4pm. - TradeArabia News Service
APAA Responds to New U.S. Government Data Showing Record Surge of Canadian Primary Aluminum Imports

APAA Responds to New U.S. Government Data Showing Record Surge of Canadian Primary Aluminum Imports

PR Newswire

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2020

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the American Primary Aluminum Association (APAA) is responding to new U.S. government data from the U.S. Census Bureau that shows new record levels of unalloyed primary aluminum surging into the United States from Canada. In May, 184,789 metric tons of HTS 7601.10 came in from Canada, a record high since Canada was granted an exemption to the Section 232 program.

American Primary Aluminum Association Logo (PRNewsfoto/American Primary Aluminum...)

"At 184,789 metrics tons, this is the highest level of Canadian aluminum imports since the Section 232 program went into place and more than 30% higher than historical average volumes," said Mark Duffy, Chief Executive Officer of the APAA. "The numbers do not lie and tell the true story of the Canadian surge. The unprecedented surge in imports has resulted in hundreds of workers being laid off, a smelter closure, and is threatening the viability of the remaining US industry. Canadian claims that they are not causing harm to US workers and America's primary aluminum industry are simply false."

In Spring of 2019, the Canadian government lobbied for an exemption from the Section 232 aluminum tariffs as part of the negotiations around the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Since tariffs were lifted, Canadian imports of unalloyed primary aluminum have surged by over 80% in the last year alone. Today's data out of the U.S. Census Bureau suggests that trend is continuing to rise.

With today's import data from the U.S. government, the APAA is urging the Trump administration to reinstate a 10 percent tariff on Canadian imports of aluminum. The surge in Canadian imports is destroying the U.S. primary aluminum industry and putting thousands of jobs on the line.

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About the American Primary Aluminum Association (APAA): The American Primary Aluminum Association will advocate to advance the interests of America's primary aluminum industry and its workers through the Aluminum Now campaign. APAA is registered and incorporated in Washington, DC and operates as a non-profit trade association. For more, please visit: www.aluminumnow.org

Cision

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SOURCE American Primary Aluminum Association
Visitors are seen at a Foxconn booth at the World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin

By Aditya Kalra and Sankalp Phartiyal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's additional scrutiny of imports from China has disrupted operations at plants owned by Apple supplier Foxconn <2317.TW> in southern India, three sources told Reuters, and other foreign firms are also facing delays as tensions between the two countries build.

Customs officers at Indian ports have held back shipments from China and sought additional clearances after deadly clashes at the disputed Himalayan border last month. The checks have been imposed without any formal order.

While several companies such as Apple <AAPL.O> and Dell <DELL.N> have been battling to free stuck shipments, hundreds of employees at Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn's two plants in the south had no major work to do this week as shipments were delayed, sources said.

More than 150 Foxconn shipments - containing smartphone and electronic parts - were stuck at the port of Chennai, though some are being cleared slowly now, the first source said. The total number of parts in the shipments was not clear.

Foxconn's two plants in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh state mainly assemble Apple <AAPL.O> and Xiaomi <1810.HK> smartphones in the country and employ thousands of workers, many of whom stay in company-provided accommodation.

"Foxconn was in a very bad state ... lots of workers stayed at the dormitory because there was no work," said the first source.

Foxconn, Apple and Xiaomi did not respond to Reuters queries.

The finance ministry also did not respond. Two officials at the ministry, which oversees the customs department, said the inspection measures were temporary and will ease soon.

"We cannot keep checking 100% of shipments forever ... Shipments of non-Chinese companies being impacted will be cleared on priority," said one official.

While the exact impact of the disruptions is not immediately clear, the delays come when companies in India had already been battling disrupted supply chains due to coronavirus shutdowns in recent months. Business activity has only just begun to pick up.

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Prominent U.S.-India lobby groups and local industry bodies have urged the Indian government to intervene.

While some delayed Dell shipments have been cleared since last week, the company had roughly 130 shipments stuck this week at Indian ports, the second source said. This included around six shipping containers with parts for servers and desktop computers, the person added.

Dell did not respond to a request for comment.

Separately, MG Motor, owned by China's SAIC <600104.SS>, also has some shipments stuck at a port in southern India, a source close to the company told Reuters. MG started selling cars in India last year and has committed $650 million in investments.

"The whole (auto) industry will be impacted if components are stuck," the source said.

MG Motor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China's Commerce Ministry said on Thursday that it hoped India would correct its discriminatory actions against Chinese companies immediately, after India banned some Chinese mobile apps amid the border crisis.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Sankalp Phartiyal; Additional reporting by Aftab Ahmed and Aditi Shah; Editing by Euan Rocha and Kim Coghill)
THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. NEWS AGENCIES

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Asante Gold Corporation (CSE:ASE/ FRANKFURT:1A9/U.S.OTC:ASGOF) (Asante or the "Company") has received the results of 3D magnetic modeling completed over our Kubi mining lease, Ashanti Gold Belt, Ghana.

The results show that the Kubi Main Zone gold resource is intimately associated with, and interfingers, the western sheared contact of a magnetic high feature that plunges to more than 2km in depth. Link to 3D model video: http://www.asantegold.com/assets/Video/KubiMag3DSEMS.mp4

In Ghana, Africas largest gold producer, many big mines are located along north east trending regional shear systems that exceed 250km in length. Studies indicate that the hydrothermal gold mineralizing system that generated the Ashanti Gold belt deposits was gigantic and extended to a least 10km to 15km in depth (Schmidt Mumm et al 1996). The Ashanti shear zone hosts the largest single gold resource in Ghana, the 66 Moz Obuasi mine. This major shear zone cuts Kubi 15km south west of Obuasi. At Obuasi a typical ore shoot contains 3Moz at head grades of 10 to 15g/t gold and plunges to more than 2km in depth. Fine refractory gold occurs in arsenopyrite disseminated with pyrrhotite and pyrite, with free milling coarse gold in late quartz veins.

At Kubi the gold is free milling and occurs within a 1km long by 1m to 15m thick shear bounded garnet zone. Gold is associated with up to 30% garnet and 15% sulfide mineralization including pyrite, pyrrhotite and arsenopyrite, and also occurs as coarse gold in late quartz veins. In the 66,312 metres of diamond core drilling from 226 drill holes used for the Kubi Main Zone mineral resource estimate1, there were 83 drill core assays greater than 10.0 g/t and ranging to 98.1 g/t, highlighting the high-grade potential of the mineralizing fluids.

Douglas MacQuarrie, CEO states For the first time in 30 years of exploration at Kubi by BHP, Ashanti Goldfields, Nevsun Resources and PMI Gold (now Galiano Gold), magnetic modeling has shown that the structure that hosts the Kubi deposit extends more than 2km below the Kubi pit and could represent a feeder zone to the mineralization. This interpretation suggests that Kubi may be much larger than previously thought, with an exploration potential of 2Moz to a depth of 2km. Further 3D modeling to incorporate additional geophysical and geological information is underway to refine the interpretation.

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"Douglas R. MacQuarrie"

President and CEO

Scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Douglas R. MacQuarrie, P.Geo. (B.C.) Geology & Geophysics, the President and CEO of the Company, who is a "qualified person" under NI 43-101. 3D modeling was completed by Geosci Data Analysis Ltd. of Vancouver on high resolution 100m line spacing helicopter aero-magnetics flown by New Resolution Geophysics in 2010 over the Kubi  Dunkwa area, Ashanti Region, Ghana. 1The Kubi Main Zone has a current NI 43-101 resource estimate, completed by SEMS Exploration Services Ltd. of Accra, Ghana: Measured Resources 0.66 million tonnes @ 5.30g/t for 112,000 ounces; Indicated Resources 0.66 million tonnes @ 5.65g/t for 121,000 ounces; and Inferred Resources 0.67 million tonnes @ 5.31g/t for 115,000 ounces, which is filed on SEDAR. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

About Asante Gold Corporation

Asante is continuing to source funding to expand and develop its Kubi Gold project to production, and is exploring the Keyhole, Fahiakoba and Betenase concessions/options for new discoveries, all adjoining or along strike of major gold mines near the centre of Ghanas Golden Triangle.

This news release contains statements of forward-looking information (or "FLI") including those in respect of future exploration, joint venture, development, permitting and mining at Kubi and the other properties in which the Company has an interest, financings and timing for closing of the various previously disclosed option and purchase agreements. FLI involves risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to vary from the FLI. The risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: the risk of failure to obtain sufficient financing; the inherent risks involved in the exploration and development of mineral properties; the uncertainties involved in interpreting drill results and other exploration data; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities; the geology, grade and continuity of mineralization; the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Companys expectations; accidents, equipment breakdowns, labour disputes, pandemics or other unanticipated difficulties with or interruptions in production and operations; the availability and costs of suitable toll milling facilities; fluctuating prices of metals and other commodities; currency fluctuations; the possibility of project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; regulatory restrictions, including environmental regulatory restrictions and liability and the lack of any assurance that the Company will receive all of the necessary governmental title and approvals to proceed with the transfers and development of its projects. The material factors and assumptions on which the FLI is based include the extensive Kubi drilling database and current mineral resource estimate, the previously successful permitting, mining, trucking and milling operations at Kubi, the local availability of skilled labour, plant and machinery, and the positive results from previous metallurgical tests on the Kubi Main Zone mineralization. The Company undertakes no obligation to update FLI except as required by applicable law. Such information represents management's best judgment based on information currently available. Readers are advised not to place undue reliance on FLI.

For further information please contact:

Douglas MacQuarrie, President and CEO, tel: +1 604-558-1134; E-mail: douglas@asantegold.com

Valentina Gvozdeva, Business Development, E-mail: valentina@asantegold.com

Florian Riedl-Riedenstein, Director; European Investor Relations, E-mail: frram@aon.net

Doreen Kent, Shareholder Communications, tel: +1 604-948-9450; E-mail: d.kent@eastlink.ca

Additional information is available on our web site at: www.asantegold.com

LEI Number: 529900F9PV1G9S5YD446. Neither IIROC nor any stock exchange or other securities regulatory authority accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SHARES ISSUED: 66,545,757
By Gina Lee

Investing.com  Asian stocks were up on Thursday with modest gains after U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) reported positive results from one of its COVID-19 vaccine candidates on Wednesday.

Hong Kongs Hang Seng jumped 1.53% by 10:46 PM ET (3:46 AM GMT) on its first day of trading under the national security laws passed by the National Peoples Congress Standing Committee on Tuesday.

Chinas Shanghai Composite gained 0.80% and the Shenzhen Component was up 0.89%.

Japans Nikkei 225 rose 0.44% and South Koreas KOSPI gained 0.88%

Down Under, the ASX 200 was up 1.03%.

Pfizers early stage human trial for BNT162b1, one of four mRNA candidates currently under development by the company, saw the production of neutralizing antibodies in all the patients who were inoculated after 28 days.

But some investors urged calm and caution over the positive results from yet another vaccine candidate.

We are cautious... we have received positive news about potential vaccines in the past, but all are yet to see widespread production and distribution, Joseph Capurso, head of international economics at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (OTC:CMWAY), said in a note.

Meanwhile, there are more than 10.6 million COVID-19 cases globally as of July 2, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The ever-rising number of cases prompted World Health Organization officials to warn that countries with increasing numbers of cases might need to reinstate lockdowns as well as other restrictions to curb the virus spread.

Some countries who have had success in suppressing transmission who are opening up now may have a setback, may have to implement interventions again, may have to implement these so-called lockdowns again. We hope not. We hope that we wont have to go into widespread lockdown again. So its not too late to act fast, Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHOs emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said during a press conference on Wednesday.

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California re-imposed some lockdown measures, such as banning indoor restaurant dining and bar closures, on Wednesday to curb the spike of cases in the state.

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Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, have begun trials of a new spit test for COVID-19 infections developed by the university's Innovative Genomics Institute.

Since the disease was first identified on U.S. shores, the Berkeley research institute led by the trailblazing CRISPR researcher Jennifer Doudna has worked tirelessly to bring innovative methods to diagnose and process viral samples and develop potential treatments for the disease to production.

The new saliva-based samples that the university is trialing would obviate the need for trained medical staff wearing personal protective equipment to conduct tests to determine whether an individual is infected.

If the study proves that the new testing method can work as well as nasal swabs, then the Berkeley campus will be able to increase testing of students, faculty and staff ahead of the beginning of the school's fall semester in late August, according to a statement from the University.

Jennifer Doudna, wearing mask, outside kiosk

Jennifer Doudna talks with Alex Ehrenberg, a graduate student in integrative biology who is helping organize the FAST trial of saliva tests for COVID-19. (UC Berkeley photo by Irene Yi)

At Berkeley, we hope to bring at least some of our undergraduate students back to campus safely in the fall, and one way to do that is to provide them with asymptomatic regular testing, so that we can be monitoring their health and insuring that they are not transmitting the virus, said Jennifer Doudna, who spearheaded the pop-up diagnostics lab and the saliva testing, in a statement.

Doudna thinks the tests could be conducted in as little as five or six minutes. The study is already open to faculty, staff and students who can sign up to participate in the Free Asymptomatic Saliva Testing study on the institute's website.

As opposed to swab testing, saliva testing is a lot simpler and allows people to literally spit into a tube, Doudna said. We think it will take about five or six minutes as they pass through our testing center here, so we hope to make this very painless, easy and simple for people to come by and get tested.

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Graduate students, faculty and staff who are authorized to work on campus can sign up to participate in the Free Asymptomatic Saliva Testing (FAST) study on the IGI website.

The tests rely on polymerase chain reactions which have already received Emergency Use Authorization for at-home testing from the Food and Drug Administration.

Using the CRISPR-Cas proteins, whose application for genetic engineering was pioneered by Doudna and her fellow researchers, the IGI is working on a less expensive, point-of-care home test that could give people results in minutes without the need for a laboratory analysis.

The Innovative Genomics Institute was founded by Doudna in 2014 and by Berkeley and the University of California San Francisco to advance CRISPR-based genome editing.

Earlier in June, the institute brought a new robotic handling system to accelerate testing capacity for the disease to 1,000 tests per day, according to a statement from the University.

When the pandemic hit, we asked ourselves, What do we as scientists do to address the COVID-19 health emergency? Doudna said, in a statement. That effort has focused on testing. We set up a clinical laboratory, we are now getting asymptomatic saliva testing going for the UC Berkeley campus. We hope that if it works well here, we can help disseminate this strategy elsewhere.
SAO PAULO, July 1 (Reuters) - Brazilian real estate firm JHSF Participacoes SA on Wednesday signed a deal to buy a 34,500-square-meter (371,354-square-foot) property in the city of Sao Paulo for around 157 million reais ($29.54 million) to strengthen its land bank.

In a securities filing, JHSF said the payment will be made in 2023. The company's plan is to build a new high-end residential project in the area with sales estimated at 1.5 billion reais ($282.20 million). ($1 = 5.3153 reais) (Reporting by Gabriela Mello; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
EMERYVILLE, Calif., June 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Berkeley Research Group (BRG) is ranked as a "Band 1" global firm for Economic Analysts in Chambers Litigation Support 2020, a comprehensive guide to the leading professional services providers in key markets worldwide for lawyers, general counsel and companies tackling complex disputes.

In its first year of ranking in the guide, BRG is one of three firms featured in the top band for Economic Analysts. Overall, Chambers ranked five BRG practices across the US, UK and Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions and globally, as well as three BRG experts.

"We are delighted to be recognized among the very top professional services providers worldwide," said BRG Chairman and Principal Executive Officer David Teece. "BRG is a leader in the areas that can impact business most significantly. We have an evidence-based, theory-informed and insight-driven approach that underpins all we do. Our experts are superb, and we are recognized for our independence and deep contextual understanding of complex, unstructured problems."

Clients note that BRG's strengths in economic analysis include experts who are "creative, flexible and know how to arrive at a credible independent report," while "quality and diversity of services provided by BRG is very high." The Economic Analysts category relates to several of BRG's core practices, covering areas including International Arbitration, Valuation, Damages, Antitrust and Intellectual Property, and its experts based across offices in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and APAC.

Political Risk

BRG, and in particular Global Investigations and Latin America leader Frank L. Holder, received special recognition for expertise in Political Risk, with Chambers noting a client's praise: "Their team is exceptional. BRG's capacity to develop information about all sorts of data points and how they approach analyzing the local market in question is top notch." Commentators said Holder is "a huge value add" and that no one else "has the knowledge of Latin America that he does, particularly in Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador."

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Business Intelligence & Investigations - APAC

In the APAC region, BRG ranked in Band 2 for Business Intelligence & Investigations. BRG is praised for its investigative capabilities and ability to "go beyond litigation and find answers that solved the client's problems." As a recent entry to the Asian market, BRG was noted as being "in growth mode here in Asia" and already having a good presence.

Forensic Accountants - UK

UK-wide, BRG ranked in Band 3 for Forensic Accountants. Commentators appreciate BRG's "seamless experience, from the term sheet onwards," and flexibility in adapting to each organization's needs. Managing Director Ben Johnson was ranked in Band 2, with a source saying "he's brilliant and the best I've come acrossvery experienced and very diligent."

Business Intelligence & Investigations - US

In the US, BRG ranked in Band 3 for Business Intelligence & Investigations and is noted as having one of the largest nationwide presences of any private investigatory agency. Commentators highlighted BRG's "great geographic coverage" and ability to deliver.

Additional ranked individuals include Managing Director Brian Stapleton, who is ranked in Band 4 for UK-wide Business Intelligence & Investigations. He was highlighted for his deep experience in forensic investigations, corporate disputes and multijurisdictional asset tracing. Commentators said that "he is one of the leading figures in the market" and ties up "business intelligence with forensic accounting as a synergy of disciplines."

About BRG

Berkeley Research Group, LLC (BRG) is a global consulting firm that helps leading organizations advance in three key areas: disputes and investigations, corporate finance, and performance improvement and advisory. Headquartered in California with offices around the world, we are an integrated group of experts, industry leaders, academics, data scientists, and professionals working beyond borders and disciplines. We harness our collective expertise to deliver the inspired insights and practical strategies our clients need to stay ahead of what's next. Visit thinkbrg.com to learn more.

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Mesquite, NV, July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MESQUITE, NV / July 2, 2020 / Cannabis Sativa, Inc. (CBDS) reported record first quarter revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2020.



CBDS achieved first quarter revenue of $493,140, an increase of 392% over the first quarter revenue of $100,282 in 2019. The increase was attributed to rapid growth in our telemedicine subsidiary, PrestoDoctor, which provides telehealth services to clients seeking medical marijuana evaluations in states where medical marijuana has been legalized. We currently operate in California, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, and we are looking at additional growth through expansion into Illinois, Ohio, Virgina, and Massachusetts later this year. We also see opportunities for growth internationally in Australia, Canada and Germany.



The global pandemic has significantly improved the acceptance of telemedicine platforms. Our focus on providing a clean and efficient interface for our clients to interact remotely with their doctors is paying dividends in our customer satisfaction ratings and growing customer base. David Tobias, our CEO, noted that "We are excited to be helping growing numbers of patients while we build a lasting and highly sustainable telemedicine platform focused on underserved markets". A

Additional operating results are included in the Companys Form 10-Q for three months ended March 31, 2020, as filed with the Securitiers and Exchange Commission.

About PrestoDoctor:

PrestoDoctor launched in California in the summer of 2015, and has since expanded into Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Missouri and Pennsylvania. PrestoDoctor has facilitated over a hundred thousand appointments and maintains the highest customer satisfaction rating for any telemedicine service online. PrestoDoctor has over 4,000 5-star reviews, and is the first medical marijuana company to be accepted into the American Telemedicine Association. PrestoDoctor is HIPAA and HITECH compliant. PrestoDoctor plans to continue to expand its services in 2020.

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About GK Manufacturing & Packaging:

GK Manufacturing is a Southern California based contract manufacturing, co-packing and white label company, producing a wide range of highest quality, lab-tested CBD products including edibles, tinctures, drinks and topicals. GK specializes in short batch runs, formulation, mixology, graphics/labeling and fulfillment. In house brands include the well-established Ganja Juice brand (ganja-juice.com) and Murray & Roccos CBD infused pet line.

About Cannabis Sativa, Inc.:

Cannabis Sativa, Inc. (CBDS) is engaged in telehealth, contract manufacturing CBD infused products, and the licensing of cannabis related intellectual property, marketing and branding for cannabis based products and services, operation of cannabis related technology services, and ancillary business activities. CBDS holds a U.S. patent on the Ecuadorian Sativa strain of Cannabis, a U.S. Patent for a marijuana lozenge; a Cannabis-based pharmaceutical composition for the treatment of hypertensive disorders by submucosal delivery and trade secret formulas and processes, and operates subsidiaries including: PrestoDoctor (https://prestodoctor.com), GK Manufacturing & Packaging (http://gkmanufacturinginc.com), Wild Earth Naturals (https://wildearthnaturals.com), and iBudtender (https://ibudtender.com). The Company licenses a stylized hi brand in various categories, and White Rabbit brand, and is the official licensee for Virgin Mary Jane Brand (https://virginmaryjanebrand.com).

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements in this release reflect the good faith judgment of management, forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those discussed in these forward-looking statements. Readers are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by us in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risk factors that attempt to advise interested parties of the risks that may affect our business, financial condition, results of operation and cash flows. If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may vary materially from those expected or projected. Underlying assumptions include without limitation, the ongoing enactment of legislation favorable to the production of and the commercialization of cannabis products and the Companys success in capitalizing on that legislation. Readers are urged not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this release.

Contact Information:

(702) 762-3123

http://www.cannabissativa.com
Cloud Computing + IDC Dual-Core Are Driving Steady Growth for CDS

Beijing, China--(Newsfile Corp. - July 1, 2020) - It is with great pleasure that we share with you some fantastic news about Capital Online Data Service Co., Ltd (CDS Global Cloud). CDS is now officially a publicly-traded company on the China Growth Enterprise Market. CDS's official stock code number is 300846 and we began trading today, 1st July 2020. We are so very proud and honored to be a publicly traded stock that we could not wait to share the great news with you.





Figure 1: Capital Online Data Service Co., Ltd. (CDS GLOBAL CLOUD) Announces A-Share Listing



To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7254/59011_capitalonline1enhanced.jpeg

CDS Is the leading ISP and IDC operator in China with over 18 years of experience in dedicated hosting and infrastructure management solutions, CDS has always focused on Global Interconnected Cloud and Infrastructure Services. As one of the fastest-growing global IaaS providers with data centers all over the world, we offer a local presence with a global reach. We strive to continue delivering added value to your business with stable, safe and efficient services.

CDS was established in 2005. It is characterized by neutral trustworthiness, flexible customization, and global services. It provides customers with cloud and network integration products including IDC, public cloud, private cloud, hybrid-cloud, and Google cloud services. Services, business covers many industries such as games, e-commerce, streaming, education, big data and so on. About 40% of the top 100 domestic Internet companies are using CDS's signature products and services.

In 2010, the company began a comprehensive transformation of cloud computing, which is also one of the earlier cloud computing companies in China. After the transformation, CDS adopted the "IDC + cloud computing" dual-core driving model. Compared with other cloud computing vendors, CDS's dual-core drive model has leading advantages in cloud network resource integration, operator relations, customer hybrid architecture deployment needs, and enterprise anti-risk capabilities. In the actual development process, CDS adheres to the path of industrial development.

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From 2017 to 2019, CDS's compound growth rates of operating income and net profit were 23.89% and 28.15%, respectively, in 2019. The company's net profit margin is 9.30%. In 2014, Capital Online took the lead in overseas operations, and the Dallas Cloud Data Center in the United States was completed; in 2015, Japan, Singapore, Germany, and Los Angeles cloud data centers were completed; in 2016, Hong Kong, New York and other nodes were completed; in 2017, a global ring network was formed service.

As of now, Capital Online has deployed nearly 20 nodes and more than 60 data centers in the United States (Dallas, Los Angeles, New York), Europe (Frankfurt, Amsterdam) and Asia Pacific (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuxi, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, India, etc.) Each node can complete multi-point deployment of global services in 5 minutes. At the same time, CDS and Dell, Intel, VMware, Red Hat and other global partners have created a "global procurement, global delivery, and rapid deployment" overseas delivery system, which can realize customized IT deployment in major regions of the world and help overseas enterprises.

Jenny Chen

888-826-3476

sales@cdsglobalcloud.com

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Capital Online Data Service Co., Ltd. (CDS GLOBAL CLOUD) Announces A-Share Listing

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GE said that it has completed the sale of its Lighting business to Savant Systems, creating GE Lighting, a Savant company. Financial details were not disclosed.



Bill Lacey, president and CEO of GE Lighting, a Savant company, said: For more than a century weve been bringing the future to light as part of GE and today we couldnt be more excited to continue our journey as part of Savant. Savant is committed to continued investment and innovation in the lamp and fixture space and their deep knowledge and expertise in home automation will help our business accelerate delivery of bold smart home innovation at retail.



The headquarters for GE Lighting, a Savant company, will remain at historic NELA Park in East Cleveland in the US state of Ohio and Bill Lacey will continue in his current capacity. Under a long-term licensing agreement, GE Lighting, a Savant company will continue using the GE brand on its products moving forward.



Robert Madonna, Chairman of Savant and GE Lighting, a Savant company, said, We are committed to ensuring that Lightings long history of industry leadership continues, while bringing exceptional value and reliability to retail partners and consumers. This acquisition has moved our company significantly toward our goal of becoming the number one intelligent lighting and smart home company worldwide.



The Savant brand remains steadfastly committed to the professional installation channel for the home, and it will continue to invest heavily in the development of the most advanced products, solutions and services for this market.  TradeArabia News Service
Celebrating July 4th - An Immigrant's Perspective

Celebrating July 4th - An Immigrant's Perspective

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, July 2, 2020

Celebrate America and all Americans this Independence Day, says Nasser J. Kazeminy, Chairman of the Ellis Island Honors Society and prominent Palm Beach businessman

NEW YORK, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ellis Island Honors Society (EIHS), the 35-year old non-profit and sponsor of the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, has released an op-ed by chairman Nasser J. Kazeminy on the subject of Independence Day and its relation to immigrants. As a philanthropist and immigrant, he is a unique position to speak on this matter.

The Fourth of July is one of our great nation's favorite national holidays, even though it has become more of a day of recreation, rather than one of commemoration. Independence Day celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, unifying the colonies and freeing the colonists from the rule of King George III. While ending tyrannical foreign rule was obviously important, I believe uniting the colonies was the more significant outcome. Declaring themselves as thirteen independent, sovereign states, these early leaders collectively took the first steps towards the establishment of the United States, and a national identity was born.

Even before 1776, immigrants were arriving on American shores. The New World was already seen as a land welcoming to foreigners and where, for those with an entrepreneurial spirit, fortunes could be made. I myself immigrated from the United Kingdom in 1969, arriving in Minnesota with little in my pockets but a head full of ambition and a heart full of gratitude. Today, I am chairman of the Ellis Island Honors Society (EIHS), the sponsor of the Ellis Island Medals of Honor which are presented annually on Ellis Island. The medal recognizes the contributions immigrants and their descendants have made to our nation. Many of our honorees are not only extremely successful, but are also proud, naturalized Americans. By taking full advantage of the opportunities America offered, they have found success in this country, while also helping America become even more competitive in the global marketplace.

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One of the hashtags EIHS uses in social media is #ImmigrantsWorkforAmerica, and I believe this with all my heart. You only have to look at the world of business to see the incredible effect immigrants are having on the American economy. Industry leaders like MasterCard's CEO Ajay Banga, the Coca-Cola Company's former chairman and CEO, Muhtar Kent, and former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, have all led their companies to great success. When they received their Ellis Island Medal of Honor, each one of them praised America for its diversity and expressed their appreciation for being welcomed into a nation that celebrated immigrants.

That is what I see as the true meaning of Independence Day, unity. Whether you were born in the United States or immigrated here and gained citizenship, you are an American with the same rights and responsibilities as all Americans. In that regard, nothing has changed in the last 250 years. In 1776, our forefathers demanded the right to self-rule in the name of freedom and the pursuit of happiness; they knew they needed a strong, unified nation to make that vision a reality.

Today both sides of the political spectrum have strong opinions about the country's immigration policies. Still, immigrants continue to arrive in this country daily, with over 750,000 becoming citizens each year. We must dissuade our countrymen from thinking that patriotism is only felt by those born within American borders. Our forefathers knew that individually they were at the mercy of their oppressors, but as a body politic, they were invincible. We must embrace that important lesson today. This Independence Day, don't just celebrate America, celebrate all Americans.

~ Nasser J. Kazeminy

About EIHS

The Ellis Island Honors Society (EIHS) was founded in 1984 at the behest of President Ronald Reagan with the goal of commemorating the significant role immigration and the immigrant spirit have played in the founding and growth of the United States. The Ellis Island Medals of Honor was inaugurated in 1986 as an extension of this mission. The Ellis Island Medal of Honor is presented annually to a select group of individuals whose accomplishments in their field and inspired service to our nation are worthy of commendation.

Since the Medal was founded in 1986, EIHS has honored distinguished and diverse Americans including: seven presidents of the United States; Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf; Gen. Colin Powell; Gen. Frank Grass; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dempsey; Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Secretaries of State Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Notable Americans include Nobel Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, Bob Hope, Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, Rosa Parks, former Apple CEO John Sculley, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Sen. John McCain, and American icon Lee Iacocca. EIHS has also honored several international leaders, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, Nobel Prize Laurate Malala Yousafzai and HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. All have distinguished themselves through their significant personal, professional, philanthropic and humanitarian contributions to this country. The Ellis Island Medals of Honor ranks among the nation's most renowned awards. The US Senate and House of Representatives have officially recognized the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, and each year the recipients are listed in the Congressional Record.

To see the full list of recipients, please visit: www.EIHonors.org

Media Relations

Otto Coca

212.755.1492

242909@email4pr.com

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Celebrating the Life of Anthony J. Terlato

Celebrating the Life of Anthony J. Terlato

PR Newswire

LAKE BLUFF, Ill., July 1, 2020

LAKE BLUFF, Ill., July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from Terlato Wines:

Anthony J. Terlato 1934-2020

It is with tremendous sorrow and sadness that we inform you of the passing of Anthony J. Terlato. Born May 11, 1934, in Brooklyn, Anthony (Tony) was an Italian American wine executive and chairman of Terlato Wines, a Lake Bluff, Illinois-based wine importer, producer, and marketer of fine wines. His career spanned more than 60 years in fine wine as a retailer, distributor, importer, vintner, winery, and vineyard owner.

Many knew Tony as "The Father of Pinot Grigio" for his early role in bringing the now-ubiquitous varietal to the American market in the late 1970s when it was practically unknown anywhere other than in Europe. Tony's enthusiastic promotion made it the first Italian wine sold outside of Italian restaurants. Tony has also been credited as a key figure in the shift in American wine tastes from mass-produced, sweet, fortified jug wines to the likes of classified-growth Bordeaux, top Italian estates, and the best wineries in California that are enjoyed by many today.

For his leading role in introducing fine Italian wines to America, Terlato was conferred the decoration of Cavaliere Ufficiale, Motu Proprio in 1984 by the President of the Italian Republic, Sandro Pertini  the first American in the wine industry to receive this decoration.

For his contributions to the advancement of fine wine, Anthony Terlato has been recognized by industry peers. In January 2003, Wine Enthusiast Magazine named Terlato "Man of the Year" and credited him with "changing the way Americans drink" by bringing quality Italian wines to the U.S. and in 2004, Terlato received the Distinguished Service Award from Wine Spectator joining an exclusive list of recipients:

But those closest to him knew Tony not only as a respected business leader but as a gifted athlete and fierce competitor, a professional and personal motivator, a passionate enthusiast of wine and food and above all, a tremendously proud husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

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While his accomplishments are too numerous to list, his sole purpose in life was to provide a name and a legacy for his family that they could be proud of and he did so in spades. He also created a world-class organization for his family to manage and pass on for future generations.

At 86 years of age, Tony was still in the office every day, inspiring his team of colleagues -- whom he thought of as his extended family -- with new project concepts and innovative ideas. He was well known for pushing his team to the limits to inspire greatness and achieve their fullest potential and was fond of saying, "No excuses!" Over the years, he built many successful brands and provided guidance and assistance to so many in the industry.

This past weekend, Tony and his beloved wife of 65 years, Jo enjoyed a beautiful family get together at their home in Lake Geneva, accompanied by four generations of family. The days and evenings were filled with the love and joy that only family can bring.

Tony passed peacefully in his sleep Sunday night.

As a family, we know how truly fortunate we were to have him in our lives as long as we did. We only wish it could have been much longer.

A celebration of life ceremony will be announced in the coming weeks.

The family welcomes donations to one of Anthony's preferred organizations, to support the vital activities of The Eisenhower Health Foundation in Rancho Mirage, CA, which brings compassionate and quality health care services to all they serve.

Condolences and memories can be shared with the Terlato family by visiting www.anthonyterlato.com

Terlato Wines. (PRNewsFoto/Terlato Wines)

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Available on new homes by Century Communities and Century Complete

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Century Communities, Inc. (NYSE: CCS), a top 10 national homebuilder, announced it's running a Fourth of July Sales Event, available at communities nationwide through the builder's two brands: Century Communities and Century Complete. In celebration of Independence Day, the event is designed to help individuals achieve the American Dream of homeownership through limited-time savings at local communities, ranging from closing cost assistance to flexible cash credits and more. In select locations, homebuyers can also tailor the homebuying process to their preferred timeframeenjoying the option of either a quick move-in home or a to-be-built home that can be personalized from the ground up. Century Communities and Century Complete are proud that this event will further the company's mission of building a home for every dream.

Century Communities announces Fourth of July Sales Event

FOURTH OF JULY SALES EVENT OVERVIEW

Runs nationwide from July 1 through July 10

Valid on new homes by Century Communities and Century Complete

Exciting, limited-time local offers

Visit a community Sales Center to learn more!

Explore communities at www.CenturyCommunities.com or www.CenturyCompleteHomes.com.

"We're very excited to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday with homebuyers by offering incredible savings on exceptional new homes," said Liesel Cooper, President of the Western and Mountain Regions. "Now more than ever, we believe that homeownership can provide buyers across the country with stability, peace of mind, and a higher quality of life."

About Century Communities

Century Communities, Inc. (NYSE: CCS) is a top 10 national homebuilder. Offering new homes under the Century Communities and Century Complete brands, Century is engaged in all aspects of homebuildingincluding the acquisition, entitlement and development of land, along with the construction, innovative marketing and sale of quality homes designed to appeal to a wide range of homebuyers. The Colorado-based company operates in 17 states across the U.S., and offers title, insurance and lending services in select markets through its Parkway Title, IHL Insurance Agency, and Inspire Home Loan subsidiaries. To learn more about Century Communities, please visit www.centurycommunities.com.

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SANTIAGO, July 2 (Reuters) - Chiles state-run Codelco, the worlds top copper producer, warned on Thursday any move to ramp up restrictions on its mines amid the coronavirus outbreak would be "catastrophic" for the country, the companys chief executive said in an interview in a local daily newspaper.

CEO Octavio Araneda said the miner, which turns over all its profits to government coffers, had acted quickly and proactively to contain the virus, despite increasing criticism from unions and politicians in recent weeks.

"Once the pandemic is past, every peso we generate will help to lift our country tomorrow," Araneda said in the interview.

The mining giant said in April and May it had held output and shipments of copper steady despite the growing crisis. But the exploding pandemic in the South American nation has boosted the companys infection tally and led to calls for further restrictions.

Union groups say at least 2,300 of Codelcos workers have been infected. Araneda downplayed the figures, saying they were on par with the rest of the industry.

"Lets look at this in context: We have almost 70,000 staff, between our own workers and contractors, thats why the numbers are high," he said.

Araneda touted safety measures the company has taken, including longer shift rotations at its flagship El Teniente mine and temporarily shutting down its Chuquicamata smelter and refinery. He said the company was working with as much as a 50% reduction in staff.

The move to shut down the Chuquicamata smelter would cost the miner $7 million a month, Araneda said, and force it to ship copper concentrate instead of cathode.

That would boost total costs in the division by about 5%, he said in the interview.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The emerging narrative of Chinas rise in the Middle East as a counter to American power and influence rests on the skewed portrayal of a few very large investments, mainly involving state entities, and a few large contracts to build infrastructuremostly centered in the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. In a public-relations success most Middle Eastern leaders would envy, Beijing has claimed the mantle of a great power in the region without a commitment to wider economic development or security.

The GCC, meanwhile, has been looking eastward, seeing in China a promising export destination for hydrocarbons, and a middle-class consumer base for a full cycle of energy-based products, from plastics to refined liquids. (This is also true of India.)

This is a bilateral interdependence, driven as much from the GCC as it is from Chinaa diversification strategy and a bid for market-share. Proclamations of great strategic alliances are, as yet, unfounded.

When it comes to foreign direct investment, aid, capital expenditure and job creation, China is often characterized as the angel investor of choice in the Middle East. It is often erroneously labeled as the regions most important source of FDI. Certainly, China is a major source of FDI in a few places, especially in the GCC. When Chinese investment does arrive, it usually targets the energy sector and large government contracts. Investment surges and then declines; in fact, globally, China's 2019 outgoing investment was the weakest since 2011.

Chinas agenda in the Middle East is about China, not about sharing a development ideology, institution-building or improving access to capital. Private investment that flows from the U.S., Britain and Europe to the Middle East is consistent over time and a stronger force for job-creation and regional economic development. This is ironic, given the popular perception of Western private investors as seekers of narrow self-interest.

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When compared with American and European efforts, China spends less and creates fewer jobs in most of the Middle East, North Africa and West Asia. Indeed, the GCC states have higher capital expenditure and create more employment across the Middle East and North Africa than Chinaand thats not counting counting remittance flows, aid, financial intervention such as central-bank deposits, and in-kind oil and gas transfers.

China is more active as a regional investor and contractor where private capital doesnt want to goplaces like Iran, Syria and, to a degree, Turkey. One notable exception is the United Arab Emirates, where Chinese investment and contracts have surged since 2015. This skews the data and inflates Chinas reputation as a regional investor and source of capital.

The view that China is the largest investor in the Arab region overlooks the fact that Beijing has invested inconsistently over time, and picks and chooses its engagement in the broader region, from Morocco to Pakistan. The assertion also fails to mention that the GCC is a major source of FDI in that same geography, and also in the Horn of Africa.

For example, Oman has a $3.55 billion outstanding loan from Chinese banks, and the industrial park at Duqm port has received some investment (but not the $10 billion pledged) by Chinese-owned Wanfang. But the other GCC states invest more and create more jobs in the sultanate. The same is true in Egypt, where China has been an inconsistent investor and job creator. Between 2014 and 2020, the GCC states created more jobs with more capital expenditure. Combined American and European private capital expenditure and job creation in Egypt outweigh Chinas impact in the same period.

For all the hype around Beijings supposed advantage of state capitalism, through which all its FDI activity in the region counts towards a national political goal, China has not yet proven to be a good investor or a desirable development partner for the Middle Eastand certainly not a great power.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Karen E. Young is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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SHANGHAI, July 2 (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has fired Zhao Yan, the head of its fast-growing livestreaming division, on grounds of nepotism and accepting gifts, according to an internal memo announcing his termination, seen by Reuters.

The undated document, produced by Alibaba's human resources department and published on June 29 on the company's internal intranet for staff, says Zhao was fired after he used his position to help third-party livestreamers score favourable positioning on Taobao Live, Alibaba's main platform for live-streamed e-commerce.

The document also says Zhao helped his girlfriend secure a high-paying job with a livestreaming company, and accepted gifts from business partners. The document did not link the gifts to the favourable positioning, say how the allegations were discovered or investigated, or when Zhao was fired.

An Alibaba spokesman declined to comment.

Zhao did not respond to messages sent to his personal account on Chinese social media site Weibo, and Reuters did not have his telephone contact details. Reuters was not able to determine whether Zhao had legal representation.

Livestreaming is one of Alibaba's fastest-growing business sectors, with the company's most recent earnings report showing a doubling between fiscal 2018 and 2019 in gross merchandise volume (GMV), which the company uses to track transaction volume, on Taobao Live.

Monday's dismissal comes months after the company demoted Jiang Fan, a vice president thought to be in line for the chief executive job, in a case that sparked online debate about Alibaba's broader influence in big tech.

Jiang was demoted in April after an internal investigation into allegations of improper behaviour, according to a person familiar with the situation, following speculation on Weibo about his relationship with a prominent social media influencer. Jiang did not respond to requests for comment on his demotion at the time and Alibaba has declined to make him available for interview. He was not reachable for comment via social media messaging on Thursday.

An internal memo to all staff seen by Reuters at the time said Jiang's demotion triggered "a serious public opinion crisis which created a major impact on the company's reputation".

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz and the Shanghai newsroom. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
(Bloomberg) -- Colin Huang stepped down as chief executive officer of Pinduoduo Inc. after building the five-year-old startup into a force in Chinas e-commerce industry and, in the process, becoming one of the countrys richest people.

Hes turning the role over to Lei Chen, another founder at the Shanghai-based company, effective immediately, PDD said in a letter to employees posted on its website. Huang, 40, will remain chairman.

I hope that through the management changes, we can gradually hand over more managerial duties and responsibilities to our younger colleagues, give space and opportunities for the team to grow, and drive Pinduoduo to become a more mature company with continuous entrepreneurial spirit, Huang wrote in the letter.

While tech founders often eventually cede management duties to lieutenants, Huang is handing over the reins just a few years after PDDs start. Huang and his co-founders began the group-shopping app in 2015 at a time when Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. seemed to have a lock on the e-commerce business in China.

But PDD provided an innovative service with discounted goods and customized offerings, and went public in 2018. The companys shares have soared more than four-fold since then and its market cap is about $102 billion. Huangs net worth is $44.3 billion, the third-highest in China, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Analysts at Jefferies and Citigroup Inc. said the move was unexpected and a surprise. PDDs shares were little changed in U.S. trading.

Huang, previously an engineer at Google, said in the letter that he had transferred around 371 million ordinary shares currently under his name to the Pinduoduo Partnership, and that he wanted some of the stock to be used for research and social responsibility. That transfer is equal to about 7.7% of total shares, he said. In addition, Huang said he had officially set up a charity foundation and that together with the founding team, had donated to it around 114 million Pinduoduo shares, or about 2.4% of total shares.

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In a separate Q&A circulated to media, Huang said he would step back from day-to-day management to work on the companys long-term strategy and corporate structure, and devote more time to fundamental research that could drive the future of PDD.

A data scientist by training, Chen has served as chief technology officer since 2016. He said he will focus on growing the companys newer business units, citing its shipping information system as an example. This division of labor will help us steer the company in its next phase of growth and development, Chen said.

(Adds more detail throughout)

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By Pei Li and Josh Horwitz

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - For Chinese cloud services companies, the coronavirus outbreak has become a rainmaker, bringing in new business far and wide as firms shift work online and authorities develop apps and systems to help contain outbreaks and manage social restrictions.

For Tencent Holdings Ltd in particular, it has also become the perfect time to flex new muscles as it seeks to catch up with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, its arch-rival and the dominant player in the country's cloud market by far.

Tencent began to display a new level of aggressiveness after positioning its cloud business as a major area of growth in September 2018, and that has only amped up amid the pandemic, employees say.

"The competition with Alibaba is so fierce right now, the sales teams are fighting them for every deal," said a source in Tencent's cloud division who was not authorised to speak on the matter and declined to be identified.

This year alone, Tencent has hired more than 3,000 employees for its cloud division. And as China went into lockdown and demand for corporate video bandwidth surged in February, it added 100,000 cloud servers in eight days to support a two-month old product, Tencent Conference - a feat the company says is unprecedented in Chinese cloud computing history.

It has expanded use of cloud servers designed in-house, pledged to speed up construction of a digital industry centre in Wuhan to handle cloud and smart city projects in central China and joined a central government initiative to support pandemic-hit small businesses with free cloud services.

The social media and gaming behemoth also announced in May it will invest 500 billion yuan ($70 billion) over five years in technology infrastructure including cloud computing - just weeks after Alibaba said it would invest 200 billion yuan in its cloud infrastructure over three years.

Poshu Yeung, vice president of Tencent's international business group, notes huge interest in shifting further into the cloud from businesses and for online education.

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"We actually see more demands, requests coming in," he told Reuters in an interview in April. "It's a good wakening call for a lot of businesses."

During the first quarter, China's cloud infrastructure services market grew an impressive 67% from a year earlier to $3.9 billion, data from research firm Canalys shows.

Alibaba commanded 44.5% of the market while Tencent, which started its cloud business in 2013, four years after Alibaba, had just 14%. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] also had 14%.

"Although Tencent came to the space later than Alibaba, I believe the company is willing to endure a relatively long period of investment cycle for this business, hoping to catch up or one day becoming the No. 1 player in this field," said Alex Liu, tech analyst at China Renaissance.

Tencent's cloud division accounted for more than 4.5% of its annual revenue last year while Alibaba's cloud computing division accounted for 8% of its overall revenue.

SEEKING B2B SAVVY

Tencent employees have told Reuters the company is working hard to become more adept in business-to-business sales where products are often designed from the ground up for one client, as well as in government relations. Those are areas where Alibaba excels while Tencent's strength lies more with consumer-centric products and design.

"Tencent has great genes in business-to-consumer, but in business-to-business, we either didn't have product managers or we just hired folks with a business-to-consumer background so it took a bit of time to convert their thinking," said a second Tencent source in the company's cloud business.

Tencent declined to comment on staff observations about its cloud business to Reuters.

One area where Tencent has gained ground in recent years is government contracts - a relatively small part of the market in revenue terms but one that brings prestige and helps attract private-sector clients.

Underscoring its determination to win tenders, Tencent in 2017 offered to complete a Fujian province government information platform project for 0.01 yuan.

From 2016 to 2017, Alibaba scored 28 cloud-related contracts for government entities, state-owned enterprises, and academic institutions, while Tencent landed just seven, government procurement records show.

But in 2018, they secured 28 each before Alibaba took the lead again last year with 49 compared to Tencent's 46.

(Reporting by Pei Li and Josh Horwitz; Editing by Brenda Goh and Edwina Gibbs)
Hensoldt South Africa, a pioneer of technology and innovation in defence and security electronics, has signed an agreement to acquire the Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Defence & Security business units of Tellumat.



The agreement was signed by Rynier van der Watt, Managing Director of Hensoldt South Africa and Andrew Connold, CEO of Tellumat, during a virtual ceremony recently hosted by Hensoldt at its offices in Pretoria. The transaction will be effective as soon as all regulatory approvals have been obtained.



With this transaction we are combining the activities of two leading defence electronics providers and strengthening our position as a leading defence, security and electronics brand in South Africa, Van der Watt said.



The complementary product portfolios of Hensoldt South Africa and Tellumat create a complete sensor solutions offering, that is in line with that of the Hensoldt Group. Van der Watt added that, We will create new products and services that will build upon the significant expertise that is being acquired.



Hensoldt South Africa and Tellumat have business areas that complement each other, including sensors and communications, particularly for unmanned aerial vehicles and other airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) applications.



The acquired activities represent a workforce of more than 100 people across offices in Cape Town and Pretoria, with demonstrated expertise in a range of capabilities complementing Hensoldt South Africas offering.



Tellumats defence and security portfolio covers identification friend or foe (IFF) systems, tactical communications (including radio and video links), and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems, including a full suite of data links and avionics. Its Air Traffic Management portfolio includes the supply, installation and maintenance of radar, navigational, voice communication and runway lighting systems for military and civilian airports.



While this new relationship advances the legacy of Tellumats well-proven and innovative products, services and solutions, it also further expands the sales reach of the acquired business units through the global footprint of the Hensoldt Group, Connold said.



Celia Pelaz, Hensoldt Group Executive responsible for South Africa said: This acquisition is a further step in the Hensoldt Groups commitment to continue to invest in South Africa and to grow Hensoldt South Africa as one of its home countries. We are leveraging the power of the Hensoldt brand to expand its global footprint and open new market opportunities for the South African business.  TradeArabia News Service
MONTREAL , July 2, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - Cogeco Communications Inc. (CCA.TO) is proud to announce it has received the Caring Company Certification from Imagine Canada. Imagine Canada's Caring Company recognizes outstanding leadership in community investment and social responsibility in Canada.

"We are honoured to receive this certification, which recognizes our philanthropic work and social commitment," said Philippe Jette, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cogeco Communications Inc. "We have always strived to support our communities and are proud to join a network of leaders who are setting the standard for corporate philanthropy in Canada . Social engagement is an integral part of our corporate values and we seek to have a positive impact on our communities and the environment"

"Caring Companies play a crucial role in helping communities flourish and thrive, and, in time of crisis, recover and build resilience," said Bruce MacDonald , President and CEO of Imagine Canada. "We commend Cogeco for their approach to community investment and congratulate them for being a recognized leader in corporate social responsibility in Canada ."

First launched in 1988, the Imagine Canada Caring Company trustmark is Canada's premier public expression of excellence in community investment and social responsibility. A company recognized as a Caring Company contributes at least 1% of pre-tax profit in support of the communities where their employees and customers live and work. The total community investment for each Caring Company is the aggregate domestic cost to the company in three areas: cash and in-kind contributions, volunteerism during work hours, and management costs associated with corporate community programs.

Through its social outreach last year, Cogeco supported over 700 community non-profit organizations with over $13 million in cash, in-kind donations and sponsorships, including air time for fundraising needs

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AT COGECO COMMUNICATIONS

The Company's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy and Code of Ethics are the foundation of its social responsibility framework. Its fifth CSR report was published in January 2020 . To learn more about Cogeco Communications Inc.'s objectives, initiatives and performance in the areas of corporate social responsibility, please visit the website at http://corpo.cogeco.com/cca/en/company-overview/corporate-social-responsibility/overview/.

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ABOUT COGECO COMMUNICATIONS INC.

Cogeco Communications Inc. is a communications corporation. It is the 8th largest cable operator in North America , operating in Canada under the Cogeco Connexion name in Quebec and Ontario , and along the East Coast of the United States under the Atlantic Broadband brand (in 11 states from Maine to Florida ). The Corporation provides residential and business customers with Internet, video and telephony services through its two-way broadband fibre networks. Cogeco Communications Inc.'s subordinate voting shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (CCA.TO).

ABOUT IMAGINE CANADA

Imagine Canada is a national, bilingual charitable organization whose cause is Canada's charities. Through our advocacy efforts, research and social enterprises, we help strengthen charities, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs so they can better fulfill their missions. Corporate community investments are an integral part of our vision for a vibrant and strong charitable sector. Imagine Canada's Caring Company Certification encourages companies to adopt a leadership role as investors of 1% of pre-tax profit into stronger communities.

SOURCE Cogeco Communications Inc.

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Columbia Property Trust, Inc. (NYSE: CXP) and WeWork Companies, Inc. today released the following joint statement:

Columbia Property Trust and WeWork today announced that they have mutually agreed to terminate WeWorks lease at Columbias 149 Madison Avenue. This decision is part of WeWorks plan to seek profitable growth and optimize the companys real estate portfolio, while allowing Columbia to assume full control of 149 Madison Avenue, including all improvements that WeWork has completed at the property to date, and market the boutique buildings 115,000 square feet of modern, high-end office space for lease. WeWork and Columbia Property Trust look forward to continuing their productive relationship at 80 M Street in Washington, D.C., and 650 California Street in San Francisco and providing a wide range of companies with first-class, flexible space solutions.

About Columbia Property Trust

Columbia Property Trust (NYSE: CXP) creates value through owning, operating and developing Class-A office buildings in New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Boston. The Columbia team is deeply experienced in transactions, asset management and repositioning, leasing, development, and property management. It employs these competencies to grow value across its high-quality, well-leased portfolio of 15 properties that contain approximately seven million rentable square feet, as well as four properties under development, and also has approximately eight million square feet under management for private investors and third parties. Columbia has investment-grade ratings from both Moodys and S&P Global Ratings. For more information, please visit https://www.columbia.reit.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005587/en/

Contacts

Investor Relations Contact:

Matt Stover

T 404 465 2227

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Media Contact:

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Consumers place greater trust in websites "that display fraudulent reviews alongside nonfraudulent reviews," according to a recent study. (Bloomberg)

Perhaps it was inevitable that in this strange era of "alternative facts" and fake claims of "fake news," someone would make the case for why bogus online reviews are a good thing.

Still, that anyone would make such an argument is jarring, especially when it comes from scholars writing in an academic journal.

The study is titled, "A Tangled Web: Should Online Review Portals Display Fraudulent Reviews?" It was published recently in the journal Information Systems Research.

The key finding, says Beibei Li, an associate professor of information technology and management at Carnegie Mellon University, is that consumers place greater trust in websites "that display fraudulent reviews alongside nonfraudulent reviews."

Which is to say, the presence of fake reviews enhances the value of honest reviews.

To which I and perhaps many others respond, "Huh?"

"At first, we also thought it was crazy that people would want to see the dark side of the internet," Li, one of the study's authors, told me.

"But consumers told us they want to see everything," she said. "They want to make their own decisions."

Li's study estimates that as many as 30% of online reviews are bogus, intended either to inflate the standing of a company or product, or to damage the reputation of a competitor.

A separate study last year concluded that about 40% of online reviews are suspect, with the percentage rising for reviews of clothing, home furnishings and electronics.

Some of the big dogs in the review field  Google, Amazon, Yelp, Airbnb  told me they strive to spot fake reviews and to maintain the integrity of their respective review systems.

Typically that means deleting a phony review as soon as the company becomes aware of it.

Li said her research shows that consumers don't want to be deprived of any reviews, real or fake.

"When they see the fake review alongside a real one, it makes them trust the platform more," she said.

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I see how that works in theory. It's nice to think that everyone is thoughtful and diligent enough to sift through all available information and come up with a well-informed decision.

In reality, however, most people, myself included, don't have the bandwidth for such extensive thought processes when shopping for a hair product or cellphone charger.

We quickly scan what's out there and, if there are no major red flags, we feel validated in our initial thinking and close the deal.

I contacted a number of experts on online reviews. Some thought Li's research is on the right track.

"Their prescriptive advice is to allow all of the information rather than simply censoring fake reviews," said Duncan Simester, a marketing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I like their advice and think their results make good intuitive sense."

Brett Hollenbeck, an assistant professor of marketing at UCLA, agreed that highlighting fake reviews makes sense. If a site simply deletes them, he noted, "then consumers are left in the dark about which companies are buying them."

"Seeing the fake reviews tagged on a company's page can act as a warning and also serves the purpose of letting customers know that the platform is active in finding fake reviews as they are posted," Hollenbeck said.

Others were wary of allowing bogus reviews to remain accessible, even with warning signs.

"Fake reviews can certainly mislead people, though in most cases they are overwhelmed by the prevalence of real, true reviews," said Jonah Berger, an associate marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Sites should definitely be trying to prevent such content from being posted," he said, adding that if phony reviews are going to remain online, they should be blurred "so that the content is unobservable."

Harikesh Nair, a marketing professor at Stanford University, said it's not clear that flagging a review as fake but leaving it online serves as a deterrent to companies trying to game the system.

Some businesses may just keep at it in hopes that some bogus reviews will slip through.

"If there are too many, consumers may infer that most reviews on the platform are paid-for and lose trust," Nair said.

Li said her research shows that, along with greater transparency, a benefit of leaving fake reviews online with appropriate warnings is that this serves to "publicly shame" the offending company.

What, like the Scarlet Letter?

"Well," Li replied, "right now there's no cost to writing a fake review. It's zero. Public shaming creates a cost to companies."

I'm not so sure. If about 40% of online reviews are already bogus, it doesn't seem like any company that would stoop this low is particularly concerned about getting caught or about facing any sort of public reckoning.

Rather, there appears to be a sense that since lots of others are doing it, what's the harm in trying?

"Review sites are in a tough situation when it comes to fake reviews," said Cayce Myers, an associate professor of public relations at Virginia Tech.

"On the one hand, review sites need to have credibility that their reviews are real so customers can rely on them," he said. "On the other hand, review sites cannot be seen as an arbitrary editor of reviews."

Ultimately, Myers suggested, it's up to individual consumers to navigate these eel-infested waters and do their best to make good decisions.

As an avid online shopper, my feeling is that blurred posts and public shaming wouldn't particularly help my decision-making process.

I'd rather trust reputable brands such as Google and Amazon to aggressively police their reviews using AI, algorithms or even actual human beings, and to swiftly remove any posts that don't pass muster.

Moreover, I'd like to see easy-to-understand summaries atop all review listings that indicate the prevailing consumer sentiment  positive or negative  and the number of phony-baloney reviews that got axed.

Include a link to a page naming the worst offenders, and suspend listings by any company that gets caught trying to pull a fast one on shoppers.

"We are now at the point where there are simply too many reviews for a user to read," said Theodoros Lappas, an assistant business professor at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Fix that problem and we'll have really accomplished something.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coronavirus Epidemic has negatively impacted the supply chains for numerous industry sectors worldwide the past few months. Many commodity products saw reduced trade during March and April, a result of reduced demand, closures of manufacturing facilities to protect workers, constraint in the handling capacity of goods at many ports, and widespread financial distress. However, one sector that has remained fairly strong during the initial period of the epidemic is the forest products industry.

Demand for toilet paper, face masks, disinfecting wipes, corrugated paper for cardboard boxes, and wood products for home renovations are just a few forest products that have been in unusually high demand in many countries during this spring.

A closer look at the March 2020 trade data, the first "Coronavirus month", reveals that global trade of lumber, logs, wood chips and pulp increased in March as compared to the previous month.

The following snapshot illustrates a few interesting examples from the WRQ of positive developments in the forest industry sector from February to March this year:

Softwood Logs - China increased imports by 14% m-o-m, with most of the added logs originating from New Zealand, Germany and Russia. Log imports to South Korea rose 19%, while Australia and Canada shipped about 70% more logs in March than in the previous month.

Softwood Lumber - Lumber shipments from New Zealand and Canada were up 32% and 25% m-o-m, respectively. Lumber importation was up in most of the major markets in March, including China (+59% m-o-m), the US (+27%), the United Kingdom (+13%), and Japan (+10%).

Wood Pulp - Three of the four largest pulp-exporting countries, Brazil, the US and Chile, increased their shipments between 12% and 26% in March (m-o-m). The five top importing countries all purchased more pulp in March than in February, with China and South Korea increasing their volumes the most (40% and 29% respectively).

Hardwood Chips - China, Portugal, and South Korea imported more chips for their pulp industry in March than in the previous month. Most of the major chip-exporting countries, including Australia, Thailand, South Africa, and Brazil shipped more chips in March than in February.

In the coming months, numerous countries around the world are planning to ease lockdown policies and loosen the rules that are restricting house constructions, international commerce and consumer shopping. These changes may further benefit many companies in the forest industry sector. However, expect a rough road ahead.

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(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Coronavirus is exploding in big southern states such as Texas, Florida, and Arizona. This entirely preventable disaster will have devastating consequences for these states economies.

The outbreaks that slammed the Northeast and much of the Midwest in the spring are now mostly under control. But in much of the South and the West, the virus is now on the rampage. Hopes that the summer sun would suppress the disease have been dashed -- in fact, by driving people inside to mingle in air-conditioned spaces, the heat may be facilitating the spread.

This was a human blunder. Leaders such as Texas governor Greg Abbott and Florida governor Ron DeSantis started reopening their states economies in early May, long before the threat of the virus had passed. And many voters scoffed at the threat of the virus; some even loudly disdained the practice of mask-wearing.

Fortunately, death rates are not yet as high as they were during the epidemics Northeastern wave -- possibly because society is doing a better job of isolating the old and vulnerable, possibly because treatments like dexamethasone are saving the lives of the critically ill. But even those who survive the virus often suffer severe long-term health problems.

In any case, the economies of states like Florida and Texas are going to take a big hit. Research shows that fear of coronavirus, rather than lockdown policies, is responsible for the vast majority of the economic impact of an outbreak. This will be true of the new wave as well. Already, restaurant reservations -- an early bellwether of virus avoidance behavior -- are falling in the new epicenters:

The obvious losses will accrue to local service businesses -- restaurants, bars, brick-and-mortar stores. But the hit to tourism could be even more damaging. The industry is Floridas largest, accounting for an estimated 11% of the states gross domestic product. . Although less famous for beaches and amusement parks, Texas took in $164 billion from tourism in 2018 (more in dollar terms than Floridas $112 billion). Arizona and Southern California also depend a lot on the sector. All these places will suffer, as their names become more associated with uncontrolled disease than with sunshine and fun.

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Health care is another vulnerable Sun Belt industry. Hospitals and medical offices are some of the most obvious places to catch coronavirus, so people suffering non-life-threatening problems or needing routine care will tend to stay away. The sector generates about $150 billion a year in Texas and $132 billion in Florida, and has recently been the single biggest driver of job growth in Arizona.

These tentpole industries are important because they bring in outside dollars. Reduced tourism echoes through a states economy, as fewer tourist dollars mean less spending by locals. Less health care spending hurts cities, as fewer people drive in from surrounding towns to see the doctor. Reductions in tax revenue hurt education, infrastructure, transportation, and everything else state and local governments spend money on.

Its important to reiterate that these economic losses will not stem from lockdown policies. Even if Florida chooses to keep Disney World open, people will be scared to go there. Allowing routine medical procedures wont make hospitals any less terrifying.

Instead, the losses are the direct result of a failure to control the virus itself. Texas, Florida, Arizona and California have lagged badly in terms of hiring contact tracers, so they cant use test-and-trace approaches to contain the pandemic. They also have avoided strict mask requirements in public places, despite masks being proven to reduce spread. And they opened restaurants, bars, and other high-risk crowded indoor spaces too soon. Thus, when the economic hit comes, they will largely have themselves to blame.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Noah Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

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Cybereason discovered the cyber crime group Roaming Mantis is luring consumers of postal service and transportation mobile apps into downloading fraudulent apps that look like they are from the US Postal Service, Royal Mail, Japan Post and Deutsche Post.

BOSTON, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Cybereason, a leader in endpoint protection, today published new research from its Nocturnus Research team, titled, FakeSpy Masquerades as Postal Service Apps Around the World, an investigation into a new global Android mobile malware campaign targeting users of mobile postal service and transportation apps such as the U.S. Postal Service, Japan Post, Royal Mail (United Kingdom), Le Poste (France) and Deutsche Post (Germany), amongst others. The campaign is being carried out by the Chinese cyber crime group often referred to as Roaming Mantis.

Roaming Mantis has upgraded FakeSpy malware, which dates back to 2017, to carry out his new campaign. FakeSpy is an information stealer that exfiltrates and sends SMS messages, steals financial and application data, reads account information and contact lists. The malware uses smishing, or SMS phishing, to infiltrate target devices, which is a technique that relies on social engineering. The attackers send fake text messages to lure the victims to click on a malicious link and the link directs them to a malicious web page.

Once installed on an Android device, the application requests permissions so that it may control SMS messages and steal sensitive data on the device, as well as proliferate to other devices in the target device's contact list. The threat actors use postal services themes in their SMS messages. For example, the user will get a pretext such as "missed delivery" or "your package can be collected at" and with a download link for a fake postal service or delivery service app.

"The ultimate motive of Roaming Mantis is financial as they are an organized cybercrime group operating from China for at least 3 years. It is difficult to estimate how many people are behind it, but it is a well oiled operation that keeps expanding. We refer to this type of global campaign as 'spray and pray' where the threat actors aren't focused on any particular individual but they try their luck, casting a rather wide net waiting for large volumes of people to take the bait," said Assaf Dahan, Senior Director, Head of Threat Research, Cybereason.

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Earlier this year, Nocturnus discovered EventBot, new Android mobile malware targeting users of more than 200 financial apps, Paypal Business, Barclays, UniCredit, HSBC, CapitalOne, Santander, TransferWise, Coinbase and many more.

About Cybereason

Cybereason, creators of the leading Cyber Defense Platform, gives the advantage back to the defender through a completely new approach to cybersecurity. Cybereason offers endpoint prevention, detection and response and active monitoring. The solution delivers multi-layered endpoint prevention by leveraging signature and signatureless techniques to prevent known and unknown threats in conjunction with behavioral and deception techniques to prevent ransomware and fileless attacks. Cybereason is a privately held, international company, headquartered in Boston, MA with customers in more than 30 countries.

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Data privacy startup Ethyca had been busy in the lead up to July 1the day the California Consumer Privacy Act became enforceable.



From April to June, the New York-based company recorded a 150% month-over-month increase in demand, an indication that many businesses were scrambling to prepare for when the CCPA would be enforced, its co-founder and CEO Cillian Kieran said.



Even though the law has been in effect since the beginning of the year, the state's attorney general, Xavier Becerra, can now take direct action against companies that violate the regulations.



Several startups had hoped California would delay the law's enforcement date. But after Becerra decided against it, companies were forced to ensure they would have enough cash runway for privacy solutions to survive the next few months, Kieran said.



"It is certainly not a lack of care for privacy, but an issue of prioritization," he explained. "When businesses are struggling commercially during a pandemic, it is very difficult to address privacy issues that are not exactly revenue generating."



Ethyca develops a privacy cloud that can be integrated with applications such as Shopify, Zendesk and Stripe to automate data mapping, track individual consumer requests and build reports according to privacy regulations.



The CCPA applies to businesses that generate annual revenue of more than $25 million, and companies that collect data of 50,000 or more consumers, households or devices. It also applies to businesses that get at least 50% of revenue from selling consumer information.



Nearly 75% of companies in the state of California will reportedly be affected by the law.



The CCPA intends to grant California consumers control over their personal information, such as the right to know, delete and opt out of the sale of personal information that businesses collect. When a consumer files an inquiry with a company wanting to know what personal information is being shared, businesses generally have 45 days to respond.



If companies are unable to respond, the attorney general may prosecute them for general violations. California will give them 30 days to resolve violations. If companies don't, they could face penalties of $2,500 per unintentional violation and $7,500 for an intentional one.



For startups to correctly respond to consumer requests, they first need to understand what consumer information they collect, determine who has access to it and why, Kieran said.



Then, they need to establish methods that allow consumers to submit requests, train employees on how to retrieve information, and deploy appropriate security procedures to mitigate risk of penalties.



Smaller companies typically tend to settle for manual operations if they can get away with it, said Dimitri Sirota, co-founder and CEO of privacy compliance platform BigID.



But the New York-based company also saw a push from some of its bigger customers in January, well before the enforcement date.



"They cannot afford [to be non-compliant] from a reputational and liability standpoint, and they are also bigger targets for the regulators," he said.



Other VC-backed startups such as Securiti.ai and OneTrust are also helping companies comply with the CCPA with tools to maintain an inventory of consumer information, and applying machine learning to classify required information, detect data breaches and generate consumer reports.



Consumer privacy laws have cropped up around the world with the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe and various data protection laws in China. With the advent of these measures, companies have increasingly been encouraged to use third-party data security tools to ensure they meet the requirements.



After the GDPR went into effect, incumbent data loss prevention solutions did not provide the level of data mapping needed to comply with parts of the law, said Brendan Burke, an emerging tech analyst at PitchBook.



Given the uncertainty around these policies, growth-stage companies have the potential to tailor new products to meet these compliance needs and work collaboratively with regulators to clarify enforcement mechanisms," he said.



As a growing number of US states such as Nevada and Maine adopt some form of data privacy laws, startups seeking to raise fresh capital are likely to face additional scrutiny from investors.



"When conducting due diligence for startups, investors and their counsel are now requiring that startups represent and warrant that they have adopted a clear set of policies, procedures, and indeed, a mission and architecture, to handle both the privacy and protection of personal data," said Louis Lehot, a corporate lawyer and founder of Bay Area-based L2 Counsel.



In 2018, the National Venture Capital Association amended its standard stock purchase agreement forms to require companies raising venture capital at the earliest stage to ensure they comply with privacy laws.



Featured image via Unsplash
MILAN, July 2 (Reuters) - The Netherlands expects tough negotiations before a deal can be reached on the European Union's proposed Recovery Fund but believes a deal can be reached, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"There are differences, the negotiation will be tough, it will take a little time but a compromise is possible," he said, according to extracts from an interview due to be published in full on Friday, ahead of an EU summit on July 17-18.

He said it was more logical for the fund to be made up of loans rather than direct grants, a major sticking point with others, including French President Emmanuel Macron who say the fund should include 500 billion euros of grants to countries hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis.

"We want it to be just loans," Rutte said.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie, editing by Sabina Suzzi)
Cisco has announced key Webex enhancements to help customers stay remotely connected and reimagine work.

The enhancements offer industry-leading security and compliance capabilities, intelligent and actionable insights to deliver consistent user experiences, and an integration with Box. Additionally, the integration of Epic for healthcare will give patients choices for engaging with providers key to their wellness.

As a long-time market leader, Webex continues to support the changing needs of our customers. In April, Webex supported half a billion meeting participants who generated 25 billion meeting minutes  more than triple the average volume.

Keeping employees, heads of state, healthcare providers and many more securely connected and productive is at the heart of what we do. Even before the pandemic, Cisco was one of the worlds largest collaboration providers, supporting nearly half the worlds video conferencing. Now were supporting 3X the normal volumes, said Reem Asaad, Vice President, Cisco Middle East and Africa. We are proud we could be there for our customers when they needed us most, and we will continue to be there moving forward as we navigate through these times.

New Highlights:

* More capacity: Webex has become a lifeline for hospitals, federal governments, higher education, and businesses big and small. To stay ahead of demand and continue to deliver the quality our users expect, weve invested in incredible amounts of global capacity; in fact, we are now running the Webex platform at 3X the previous capacity.

* More security: The global increase in remote work has made security and privacy more critical than ever. Building upon the security capabilities designed into the Webex platform, Cisco has now extended data loss prevention (DLP) retention, Legal Hold and eDiscovery to Webex Meetings. This gives an unprecedented level of security and protection for all meeting content  recordings, transcriptions, action items and highlights. This is yet another industry-first security offering for Webex Meetings. It is also expanding the end-to-end encryption options to include AES 256 Bit encryption with GCM mode, providing increased protection for meeting data and resistance against tampering.

* New means to manage an enlarged remote workforce and a return to office: According to Ciscos new CIO survey, CIO Perspectives 2020, more than two-thirds of CIOs say IT complexity is a top challenge as they continue navigating through these challenging times. Top-of-mind questions include: How can we best support remote workers? and How do we make sure we create a safer meeting environment in the office? To help IT teams with such questions, Cisco Webex Control Hub provides intelligent and actionable insights, enabling IT to manage all collaboration workloads through a single pane of glass whether workers are at home or in the office. Covid-19 era use-cases for Control Hub include:

- Instantly deploy Webex Assistant, our voice assistant technology, to conference room devices. Control Hub makes this a simple task even if you have tens of thousands of devices. This will minimize the number of times people touch the screen or touchpad in shared spaces.

- Tap into deep insights about meeting room usage to influence not only cleaning schedules but also how a company plans the future office layout. Easily identify the most used roomsuse this data to inform cleaning schedules or rethink how to configure meeting spaces to better meet needs.

- Drill down into real-time meetings data to better troubleshoot experiences and also understand changing workstyle patterns throughout the transition back to the office.

- Analyze usage trends to highlight which services and devices an organization needs to invest in.

- Easily troubleshoot and support remote workers, so teams remain productive.

Also, today Cisco is adding to Control Hub a cloud-connected UC feature that simplifies IT workflows for hybrid deployments and expanded Webex Calling analytics.

Additionally, to help move work forward from wherever you are, Cisco has now integrated Webex Teams and Box, the leading cloud content management platform that is used by 68% of the Fortune 500 and nearly 100,000 businesses globally. Of course, Webex Teams already has a highly secure, easy-to-use file sharing capability built right in. But now customers can choose to use Box as well as any of the other platforms we integrate with.

* Making telehealth easier for patients and providers: Telehealth has quickly become mainstream, enabling physicians to provide care to patients while practicing physical distancing. Our new integration with Epic electronic health record software enables providers to use Webex Teams to conduct a video visit with a patient, review medical history and update clinical documentation. Patients dont need to download anythingthey simply login to the highly secure session over a web browser and get the care they need. More than 250 million patients have a current electronic record in Epic. Other Cisco Partners are also building and deploying telehealth applications and solutions, helping clinicians to deliver care to patients around the world.

Jim Lundy, Founder, CEO & Lead Analyst, Aragon Research, said: Remote work has proven to be a critical enabler of business and economic continuity, ultimately proving that work really is something that we do, and not somewhere that we go. In this next phase, companies have the opportunity to completely rethink how they operatefrom real estate holdings to recruitment strategiesand collaboration technologies that provide high quality and highly secure video at scale will be key as they reimagine the way they work.

Mike Hinks, Director IT infrastructure, Vivint Solar, said: "Bringing all of our collaboration tools together in the cloud with Cisco Webex has delivered an unparalleled experience. The ability to have our entire company switch to work-from-home overnight while allowing our IT team to seamlessly support our global operations is enhancing our business continuity strategy and the dynamics of our interactions. Webex is playing an integral role in keeping work flowing during these unprecedented times."

Abhijit Mazumder, Chief Information Officer, Tata Consultancy Services, said: "Once the pandemic hit, our first concern was for the safety of our employees, and then we focused on enabling them to be the most productive from home. In a very short time, we had 95% of our associates working in secure borderless workspaces collaborating effectively leveraging various cloud-based tools like Cisco Webex."

Alex Bennett, Group SVP GTM, Intelligent Workplace, NTT, said: "Webex Control Hub is enabling our customers with greater insight across their collaboration and communications portfolio, including deep security, analytics and compliance capabilities. As organizations are navigating their strategies for the new norm, visibility into application performance, whether in the office or from home, within a single pane of glass is very powerful. With the accelerated transition to cloud we can leverage Webex to support clients to improve employee experience and support tangible business benefits.

Aaron Levie, CEO, Box, said: In this new era of remote work, businesses around the globe are urgently looking for better tools to help employees seamlessly collaborate internally and with customers and partners from anywhere and on any device. We are excited to expand our partnership with Cisco with a new Box and Webex integration that enables secure remote work for our joint customers.  TradeArabia News Service
JACKSON, Miss., July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- EastGroup Properties (NYSE:EGP) announced today that it will hold its Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call and Webcast on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 11:00 A.M. Eastern Time. On the call, Marshall Loeb, CEO, and Brent Wood, CFO, will review the second quarter results and discuss EastGroup's current operations.

EastGroup Properties, Inc. logo. (PRNewsFoto/EAST GROUP PROPERTIES, INC.) (PRNewsFoto/) (PRNewsFoto/)

EastGroup plans to release financial results for the quarter after the market closes on July 28, 2020. The earnings release and supplemental information package will be posted on the Company's website, www.eastgroup.net, at that time.

A live broadcast of the conference call is available by dialing 1-866-831-8713 (conference ID EastGroup) or by webcast through a link on the Company's website at www.eastgroup.net. If you are unable to listen to the live conference call, a telephone and webcast replay will be available on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. The telephone replay will be available until Wednesday, August 5, 2020, and can be accessed by dialing 1-888-277-5136. The replay of the webcast can be accessed through a link on the Company's website at www.eastgroup.net and will be available until Wednesday, August 5, 2020.

EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE: EGP), an S&P MidCap 400 company, is a self-administered equity real estate investment trust focused on the development, acquisition and operation of industrial properties in major Sunbelt markets throughout the United States with an emphasis in the states of Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and North Carolina. The Company's goal is to maximize shareholder value by being a leading provider in its markets of functional, flexible and quality business distribution space for location sensitive customers (primarily in the 15,000 to 70,000 square foot range). The Company's strategy for growth is based on ownership of premier distribution facilities generally clustered near major transportation features in supply-constrained submarkets. EastGroup's portfolio, including development projects and value-add acquisitions in lease-up and under construction, currently includes approximately 46 million square feet.

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EastGroup Properties, Inc. press releases are available at www.eastgroup.net .

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Q1 2020 PAVmed Inc Earnings Call New York Jul 15, 2020 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of PAVmed Inc earnings conference call or presentation Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 8:30:00pm GMT TEXT version of Transcript ================================================================================ Corporate Participants ================================================================================ * Dennis M. McGrath PAVmed Inc. - President, CFO & Corporate Secretary * Lishan Aklog PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO * Mike Havrilla PAVmed Inc. - Director of IR ================================================================================ Conference Call Participants ================================================================================ * Anthony V. Vendetti Maxim Group LLC, Research Division - Executive MD of Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst * Christopher Somers The Somers Team - Owner * Masood Ahmed - Private Investor ================================================================================ Presentation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings. Welcome to the PAVmed Inc. Business Update Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mike Havrilla. You may begin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Havrilla, PAVmed Inc. - Director of IR [2] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Mike Havrilla, PAVmed's Director of Investor Relations. Thanks for participating in today's business update call. Joining me today on the call are Dr. Lishan Aklog, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Dennis McGrath, President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to caution comments made during this conference call by management will contain forward-looking statements regarding the operations and future results of PAVmed. I encourage you to review the company's filings with the SEC, which identify specific factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Factors that may affect the company's results include, but are not limited to, uncertainties inherent in research and development, including the cost and time required to advance products to regulatory submission; whether and when products are cleared by regulatory authorities; market acceptance of products once cleared and commercialized; the company's ability to raise additional capital and the competitive environment. PAVmed has not yet received clearance from the FDA or other regulatory bodies to market many of its products. PAVmed has been monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our business. PAVmed expects the significance of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the extent of its effect on financial and operational results, to be dictated by, among other things, the success of efforts to contain it and the impact of actions taken in response. New risks and uncertainties may arise from time to time are difficult to predict. All of these factors are difficult or impossible to predict accurately, and many of them are beyond the company's control. For a further list and description of these other important risks and uncertainties that may affect future operations, see Part I, Item IA entitled Risk Factors in PAVmed's most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and any subsequent updates filed in quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Except as required by law, PAVmed disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect changes in expectations or in events, conditions or circumstances on which those expectations may be based or that may affect the likelihood that actual results will differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. With that said, I'd like to turn the call over to Lishan Aklog. Dr. Aklog? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [3] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this quarterly call to update you on our business and discuss our recent financial results. Although it's only been 6 weeks, we've been very active since our last update with many exciting accomplishments and upcoming milestones to report on. As with our last update, let me first start with a few words about the ongoing challenges we're all facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. I'll start by hoping -- saying we hope and pray that all of you are holding up as best as you can and keeping yourselves and your loved ones safe. Thankfully, all members of the PAVmed family are healthy, safe and able to continue their important work. Our corporate structure and culture continue to serve us well as we confront these challenges so far with minimal short-term and really no anticipated long-term disruptions to our strategic plan. Before providing you with updates on our product portfolio, let's first discuss how each area of our business has or has not been affected by the pandemic and how we are continuing to respond to those that are affected. On the financial and administrative side, as Dennis will explain in more detail shortly, we recently completed a convertible note financing with the same investor as our previous convertible note financing. We also received proceeds of approximately $300,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program, the PPP, in the form of a forgivable loan. Our balance sheet is strong and will support our full strategic plan for the foreseeable future as we advance through upcoming milestones. We remain confident in our ability to continue to finance these operations until we begin to generate meaningful revenue through commercial sales or nondilutive financing through M&A activities. We continue to be laser-focused on cash management. We remain at or under our Board-approved budget, and our full time headcount remains lean at 15. On the product development and manufacturing side, all of our product development and manufacturing partners, fortunately, they number over a dozen, have remained fully operational as essential services, and we've experienced no meaningful disruptions in their activities on our behalf. Our supply chain has also remained intact with 1 exception. There's a pressure sensor on the CarpX circuit board that's on back-order as a result of spike in demand due to the dramatic COVID-19-related ramp-up in ventilator production. This will -- this delay will -- this will delay the release of the first commercial lot of CarpX devices in the first U.S. clinical cases, but we only -- but by only a few weeks. On the regulatory front, the pandemic has not impacted any of our regulatory activities, including ongoing work by our regulatory consultants and engagements with the FDA. In fact, as most of you know, the FDA rapidly turned around our CarpX 510(k) application, clearing CarpX in less than 6 weeks after submission. 2 areas where we have successfully managed COVID-19-related disruptions are commercial and clinical research activities. On the commercial side, as you all know the health care system has faced a massive strain on resources as a result of the pandemic, which overwhelmed hospitals in hotspot areas. Nonemergency care, including surgical and diagnostic procedures, came to a standstill. Although we can't predict whether or not future outbreaks will lead to renewed disruptions, the engine is definitely starting up again. Nonemergency procedures are coming back online in most parts of the country, and elective procedures are being performed again in many parts of the country. Although there is a lot of pent-up demand for these services, the pace of the reboot will depend on how new safety measures impact procedural efficiency and when patients believe it's safe to return to medical facilities. I will discuss EsoGuard's commercial activities in more later -- in more detail later, but I'm proud to say that our commercial team has done an amazing -- absolutely amazing job adapting to the constraints of the pandemic. We continue to recruit independent sales reps, train them and have them participate with us in virtual sales calls, opening accounts and shipping product. We expect procedural volume to start picking up in the couple -- in the coming weeks and months as elective clinical activity ramps up. One of our closest gastroenterology advisers in fact today told me that he has a full schedule of endoscopies, which is a good sign. On the clinical research side, nearly all non-COVID-related clinical research, both academic and corporate sponsored, came to a grinding halt nationwide, in fact, worldwide 2 months ago, which has impacted multiple PAVmed and Lucid clinical trials, which I will summarize later. Work did continue uninterrupted on IRB approvals as well as negotiating and executing clinical trial agreements. This engine is also starting to rev up again, with centers starting to recruit and enroll patients in our trials over the past week. So I'll start with some recent accomplishments before diving deeper into the individual lead products, try to limit those to the ones that have occurred since our last update. As we mentioned in April, we were thrilled to receive 510(k) marketing clearance from the U.S. FDA for our CarpX minimally-invasive carpal tunnel device. This month, we successfully recruited a CarpX national sales manager who started this week. We enrolled the first 3 patients, including 1 today, in our international multicenter IVD clinical trial comparing EsoGuard and EsoCheck to endoscopy at 60 sites in the U.S. and Europe. We submitted our final EsoGuard payment dossier to the largest Medicare contractor, Palmetto GBA, and its molecular diagnostics program, MolDx, an important step in securing payment for EsoGuard. We successfully completed an acute animal study of our EsoCure esophageal ablation device, which I'll describe in detail later. Both PAVmed and Lucid received firm dates for the stage 1 audit of their quality system by our EU-notified body, which is a critical step required for us to pursue European Union CE Mark clearance for our products. Our subsidiary, Solys Diagnostics, completed initial bench-top testing of our NDIR laser-based noninvasive blood glucose diagnostic device, demonstrating a linear response across a wide range of glucose concentrations. Finally, our extensive intellectual property portfolio, as always, continues to expand and advance and now includes over 130 issued and pending patents, either assigned or licensed to PAVmed and its subsidiaries. So what are some of the key upcoming activities and milestones? Over the coming months, here are a few highlights. We will commercially launch Carpx and recruit a world-class medical advisory board of hand surgeons. We will continue to accelerate our EsoGuard commercial activities through an expanding network of independent sales representatives. As medical facilities open up, we'll transfer -- we'll transition, excuse me, from virtual sales and professional education to in-person engagements and, ultimately, procedures. We will submit the EsoGuard coverage dossier, which is a sister to the payment dossier, to Palmetto GBA and other Medicare contractors and hopefully secure payment and coverage decisions for EsoGuard's CPT code as soon as possible. As elective procedures restart, we will accelerate enrollment in our ESOGUARD-BE-1 and 2 trials. We'll also launch 4 additional clinical trials involving EsoCheck and PortIO, which are -- which have been currently on hold because of COVID-19. We will continue with what are now very active M&A and partnership discussions involving NextFlo, EsoGuard, EsoCheck and DisappEAR, which we hope to consummate in the coming months. Finally, we hope to achieve the critical accuracy milestone in human and animal testing of Solys' blood glucose diagnostic device, which will allow us to proceed down and initiate a commercial development path. I'd like to provide now some more specific updates across our 4 divisions, which are GI Health, Minimally Invasive Interventions, Infusion Therapy and Emerging Innovations. So starting with GI Health. Our GI Health division is building a family of complementary products, EsoGuard, EsoCheck and EsoCure, which are designed to diagnose and treat conditions of the esophagus. These include the spectrum of conditions, including Barrett's Esophagus, which arise from gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD, G-E-R-D, also known as chronic heartburn or reflux, and can lead to highly lethal esophageal cancer. The other area we are targeting with these products is eosinophilic esophagitis, a very common but underappreciated allergy-mediated condition that's similar and related to inflammatory bowel disease, which currently requires multiple invasive endoscopies during the course of treatment. Last week marked the 2-year anniversary of the founding of our subsidiary, Lucid Diagnostics, which licensed the EsoGuard and EsoCheck technologies from our partners at Case Western Reserve University. I really can't say how proud I am of what our team and our partners have been able to accomplish in really a short period of time. EsoGuard and EsoCheck are now commercially available diagnostic tools. We added EsoCure, a groundbreaking complementary technology from our Emerging Innovations division and this is making rapid progress, and we hope to commercialize this in 2021. In addition, we're pursuing active research programs and partnership discussions for other products in this space, including other biomarker tests and ask you to stay tuned on that front. Just to -- for those of you who are new to PAVmed and Lucid, EsoGuard and EsoCheck are groundbreaking products. They're designed to facilitate early detection of Barrett's Esophagus, precancerous changes that are called dysplasia and then highly esophageal -- highly lethal esophageal cancer and to do so using a noninvasive office-based test. Although screening is recommended in over 10 million high-risk GERD patients, to detect and treat Barrett's before it progresses to cancer, fewer than 10% actually undergo screening using invasive upper endoscopy. The tragic consequence of this is that the vast majority of patients diagnosed with esophageal cancer are just not aware that they have underlying Barrett's and that the progression of cancer could have been prevented through careful monitoring and treatment if the Barrett's have been diagnosed earlier. Over 80% of these patients will ultimately die of their esophageal cancer within 5 years. The potential life-saving impact of EsoGuard and EsoCheck has been acknowledged by the National Cancer Institute, which highlighted them as 1 of the year's significant advances in cancer prevention in its 2020 report to Congress and the FDA, which granted these products Breakthrough Device Designation earlier this year. EsoCheck was also a 2020 Edison award winner, recognized as among the best new medical device products of the year. Just a brief overview again, for those of you who are just learning about us on how these devices work. EsoCheck is an FDA-cleared Cell Collection Device, which can perform targeted and protected sampling of cells from the lining of the lower esophagus as part of a 5-minute noninvasive office-based procedure. It serves as an alternative to invasive under -- upper endoscopy, which is performed under anesthesia in a hospital or a dedicated endoscopy center. EsoGuard is a highly-accurate DNA test which detects epigenetic changes, which occur in patients along the Barrett's to esophageal cancer spectrum. EsoGuard is performed on samples collected with EsoCheck and is commercially available in the U.S. as a Laboratory Developed Test, or an LDT. Our commissioned market assessments have estimated the addressable domestic market opportunity for these products to be several billion dollars based on very modest penetration of U.S. GERD patients already recommended for BE screen. We are commercializing EsoGuard using a hybrid model with internal sales management, marketing and professional education, working closely with independent sales reps. The commercial team has grown rapidly since EsoGuard formally launched 5 months ago. Our chief commercial officer, director of marketing and communications and our eastern and western sales managers are partnered with a rapidly growing network of highly experienced independent sales reps covering most of the country. These are all senior professionals averaging at least a dozen years in the field, most with leading companies and with long-standing relationships with gastroenterologists in their territory. We are now currently up to 30 independent sales reps under contract and are adding new ones every week. Over the last 2 weeks, the number of virtual sales calls with their physicians has increased dramatically as COVID-19 restrictions relax and in anticipation of restarting elective procedures. They have made contact with several hundred accounts, and the response broadly from the gastroenterology community has been extremely positive. We are now back to accepting new account applications this week, and our logistics provider has been shipping product to new sites as well. Next week will mark our first virtual training for 1 of our sites in the Midwest. We feel strongly that in the short term, this will be a successful way to get accounts up and running, and we'll continue until we get on -- until we're allowed to do on-site support as regulations lift. We're also recruiting clinical support specialists in anticipation of this reopening. We continue our aggressive marketing campaign in professional journals and social media, targeting physicians and patients to strengthen EsoGuard and EsoCheck, brand recognition, generate awareness of the underlying conditions and support the sales process. In addition, we will start to begin highlighting the clear advantages of our products over the alternatives in the coming months. Engagement with these activities has been excellent and growing, and the feedback has been very positive. We also continue to make solid progress on the reimbursement front. EsoGuard received a CPT code last year and successfully advanced through the CMS process, allowing us to proceed with payment and coverage discussions following the so-called gap-fill designation. We have successfully engaged with Palmetto GBA, the largest Medicare contractor, and its molecular diagnostics group, MolDx. These efforts follow 2 parallel paths, payment and coverage. We have submitted the final payment dossier supporting our fee request, and we'll submit the final coverage dossier in the coming weeks. We're optimistic that we will receive favorable decisions on both payment and coverage. 2 days ago, we reached an exciting milestone in the development of our EsoCure Esophageal Ablation Device. EsoCure is a disposable, single-use thermal balloon ablation catheter that's designed to advance through the working channel of a standard endoscope and uses our patented Caldus Technology to ablate esophageal tissue. Once cleared and commercialized, EsoCure would allow clinicians to treat dysplastic Barrett's or dysplasia before it can progress to cancer and to do so without the need for complex and expensive capital equipment. The current leader in this large and high-margin market is the Medtronic Barrett's radiofrequency device, which requires an expensive piece of capital equipment and disposable ablation tools -- multiple disposable ablation tools, most of which are too large to pass through the endoscope's working channel. We first completed bench-testing of this working prototype, which consistently achieved ablation temperatures over 90 degrees centigrade within 10 seconds, significantly higher and more rapidly than the Medtronic radiofrequency device. This week, we successfully completed initial animal testing of the prototype. The results were stunning as the device performed exactly as designed. Although final pathologic analysis is pending, the device consistently performed clear circumferential ablation without charring over very short time intervals compared to what is required with existing expensive radiofrequency and with cryo platforms. We expect to complete development in FDA 510(k) submission of EsoCure by early 2021 and hope to have it commercialized later that year. On the EsoGuard and EsoCheck clinical trial fronts, activities are starting to gear up following COVID-related slowdowns. Our 2 international multicenter clinical trials, ESOGUARD-BE-1 and 2, are designed to support a future PMA submission for FDA registration of EsoGuard and EsoCheck as in vitro diagnostic or IVDs and includes over 60 sites in the U.S. and Europe. The screening study, BE-1, has enrolled 3 patients, including 1 today, with 3 additional patients scheduled this month. We anticipate the reopening of sites in accordance with the CDC, state and professional society guidance to be staggered over the next several weeks based on a few factors, including the type of practice of private versus larger academic institutions and the acceptance of research patients back on campus. The team is currently building a new enrollment forecast, which will drive the overall time line. We've also executed on multiple contingencies, which have played a key role in allowing us to keep our original time line intact. We anticipate that nearly all of our sites will be enrolled -- will be enrolling in the coming months. The larger institutions, as expected, will take more time to reconfigure their infrastructure in order to gear up for research. 2 additional EsoCheck clinical trials are on hold, but should also begin enrolling soon. The first study at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle looking -- is looking at the role of EsoCheck and biomarkers designed to detect progression from nondysplastic to dysplastic Barrett's, but this work could greatly facilitate the surveillance of Barrett's patients so they can be treated prior to the development of cancer. And we -- as we previously announced, we secured the exclusive option to license these biomarkers if they prove effective in the clinical trial. The University of Pennsylvania study, a different study, will look at the role of EsoCheck in monitoring treatment in patients with eosinophilic esophagitis. Finally, we have 2 active partnership discussions involving GI Health products. We have strong interest from an established diagnostic company outside the U.S. to perform and market EsoGuard in that region, and we'll be revisiting that once COVID-related travel restrictions ease up. We also have been offered the opportunity to license, highly accurate eosinophilic esophagitis biomarkers from a major academic medical center for commercialization as an LDT, and we look forward to consummating that in the near future. So moving on to our Minimally Invasive Intervention division, which encompasses CarpX. Last month, less than 6 weeks after submission, we were very excited to announce that we've received FDA 510(k) marketing clearance for our CarpX single-use, disposable, minimally invasive device designed to treat carpal tunnel syndrome. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a widely prevalent condition that exacts a very large clinical and economic burden on society. A balloon catheter is inserted under the scarred ligament, tensioning it while pushing the nerve and tendons away. When activated, bipolar radiofrequency electrodes precisely cut the ligament from the inside out in a matter of seconds. So now CarpX -- CarpX is now the first and only 510(k) cleared minimally invasive device to utilize common catheter balloon and wire techniques to facilitate carpal tunnel release. We believe CarpX will revolutionize the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome by dramatically reducing recovery times compared to traditional open surgery, an estimated $1 billion U.S. market opportunity based on an estimated 600,000 patients currently undergoing invasive carpal tunnel surgery and many more who suffer in silence. As we previously announced, CarpX performed very well in the human clinical safety study we performed in New Zealand and submitted to the FDA. All the patients who completed follow-up met the study's prespecified safety and effectiveness end point. Additional prespecified outcome assessments were similar to or better-than-expected results from a traditional open surgery. Importantly, procedural times fell after a short learning curve, indicating that the CarpX procedure can be performed in the same or less time as traditional open surgery. We have recruited a CarpX national sales manager, [Dan Dargis], who we're excited is starting this week. Dan has decades of commercial experience in the orthopedic space and strong ties to both hand surgeons and a vast network of independent sales reps calling on these surgeons. Dan is helping us recruit a world-class advisory board of hand surgeons who will perform the initial U.S. cases, lead our professional education activities and advise us on iterative procedure and product development, and he's also beginning his outreach to his network of independent sales reps. Our commercial launch, as I mentioned, has been delayed a few weeks because of the pressure sensor that's on back order, but we look forward to that launch in the coming weeks and months. Next, some brief highlights from our Infusion Therapy division, which includes NextFlo and PortIO. NextFlo is a platform technology to deliver highly accurate infusions. We are pursuing a broad range of applications in patient infusions, disposable infusion pumps for home use, prepackaged outpatient drug infusion, military and trauma applications and intravenous nutrition. The application, which is furthest along, is the NextFlo IV or intravenous infusion set, which delivers highly accurate, gravity-driven infusions independent of the height of the IV bag. We believe it will eliminate the need for complex and expensive electronic infusion pumps for most, not all, but most of the estimated 1 million infusions delivered each day in the United States. We're making really excellent progress with the NextFlo IV infusion sets designed to control development and testing, and we're targeting FDA 510(k) submission before the end of the year. NextFlo also remains the active of very -- the subject of very active M&A discussions with key strategics in this space, particularly in the disposable infusion pump space for home use as well as prepackaged drug infusion applications. On to PortIO. PortIO is our implantable intraosseous vascular access device, which allows direct access to the bone marrow to deliver medications, fluids and other substances, addressing an estimated $750 million market opportunity based on patients with poor veins and those with renal failure, kidney failure, whose veins must be carefully preserved for current or future dialysis. We are now seeking -- we are seeking, sorry, an initial short-term implant duration indication through the FDA's de novo pathway. Earlier this year, we participated in a successful presubmission meeting with the FDA focused on the clinical protocol for a single-center clinical safety study. We have planned to perform this study in New Zealand, like we did with CarpX, but because of travel restrictions, we're moving it to the U.S., and we'll be submitting an IDE or an investigational device extension application to the FDA soon. We still do plan to perform a long-term study in Colombia, South America to replicate the remarkable animal study results, which we documented, showing 6-month patency of the PortIO device completely free of any maintenance or flushes. We have locked down 3 sites in Colombia and have 3 principal investigators and hope to begin training and enrolling once things open up. And once again, sort of time forces me to just touch on the exciting projects we're working on in our Emerging Innovations division, but a few highlights. As I mentioned, Solys Diagnostics research and development planned for our noninvasive NDIR laser-based blood glucose monitoring technology is progressing very well. The working prototype has been completed and has been tested in a bench-top model, these fairly recent results show a very nice linear response curve across a wide range of glucose concentrations. We expect to be -- to complete human and animal testing in the coming weeks. And if that goes well, and we achieve our target accuracy thresholds, we'll be able to proceed on a commercial development plan. Our DisappEAR resorbable pediatric ear tubes that are made from aqueous silk technology and seek to revolutionize the care of the estimated 1 million children who undergo bilateral ear tube placement each year is also progressing. But the limiting factor that has stalled our activities over the recent past has been securing a commercial partner who has the capacity on a scalable basis to process silk into molded ear tubes. We've made good progress on that and expect to secure such a partnership shortly. Our Emerging Innovations team is also working on several other exciting earlier-stage products, including products in the ECMO cardiopulmonary support space and ventilator space. The ECMO cannula project has had some important breakthroughs in the last week, and we're very excited about that. And the ventilator R&D project with that was launched this week. So I'll stop there and pass the mic on to Dennis for a review of our financial results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dennis M. McGrath, PAVmed Inc. - President, CFO & Corporate Secretary [4] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks, Lishan, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll be brief. As our preliminary results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020, we reported a press release that was published earlier this afternoon, our quarterly report on Form 10-Q will be available at the sec.gov and on our website early next week. The complexities involved with accounting for the noncash charges related to our first quarter convertible debt financing, coupled with lawyers, auditors, consultants and staff working remotely, made the extension unavoidable. You'll recall that even as late as the end of April, we were completing the S-3 registration for that financing, which also was the gateway to the additional $4 million convertible debt financing on April 30. So with regard to the preliminary financial results, research and development expenses for the first quarter of 2020 were $2.6 million, up from $1.5 million for the same period in 2019 and $300,000 higher sequentially. The year-over-year increase reflects incremental hiring, chief medical officer, chief operating officer for Lucid Diagnostics and a regulatory professional for PAVmed as well as approximately $1 million in clinical trial costs principally related to EsoGuard as the setup costs and first patient enrollment costs for the 2 IVD clinical trials began (inaudible). General and administrative expenses were $2.6 million for the first quarter of 2020 compared with $1.7 million for the same period in 2019 and were higher by about $300,000 sequentially. The sequential increases reflect the financing transaction costs in the first quarter related to completing the November 2019 convertible debt financing. And the year-over-year increase reflects about $300,000 increase in compensation-related costs, purely related to sales staffing levels and other sales-related costs, and approximately $0.5 million in consulting services related to patents, regulatory compliance, legal processes for a contract review and public company expenses. There's also an increase of about $100,000 in general business expenses. PAVmed recorded a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $14.5 million or a loss of $0.33 per common share. However, as I'll detail for you in a minute, $10 million of this loss is driven by noncash charges related to our financing and, furthermore, is fueled by our stock pricing -- our stock price climbing significantly. Our press release provides substantially more detail related to the noncash charges occurring in the current and prior periods. Also, the press release provides a table entitled non-GAAP measures, which highlights these amounts along with interest expense and other noncash charges, mainly depreciation, stock-based compensation, financing-related costs to enable you -- to give you a better understanding of the company's financial performance. You will notice from that table that after adjusting the GAAP loss by approximately $10 million for these type of noncash or financing-related charges, the company reported non-GAAP adjusted loss for the 3 months ended March 31 of $4.5 million or $0.10 per common share. Particularly, I want to point out that the largest noncash charge, an approximate $8 million expense in this group of non-GAAP expenses, is the change in the fair value of the convertible debt. God bless accountants, right? Although this, in part, reflects the increase in funding for the period, it is principally influenced by the stock price more than doubling between the time we entered into this transaction in November 2018 and the end of the first quarter. Essentially, a good thing for shareholders, that is a sizable increase in our stock price and cause increased charges to the P&L, only while the convertible debt is still outstanding. PAVmed had cash of $8.7 million as of March 31. However, subsequent to the quarter end and just a couple weeks ago, the company received additional net proceeds of approximately $3.7 million from the sale of convertible notes at a conversion price of $5 per share. So on a pro forma basis, had the financing closed at the end of March, cash would have been over $12 million. So with that, operator, we can now open up the call to any questions. ================================================================================ Questions and Answers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Operator Instructions) Our first question is from Anthony Vendetti from Maxim Group. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony V. Vendetti, Maxim Group LLC, Research Division - Executive MD of Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst [2] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for the overview, that was very helpful, and for all the detail. Lishan, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about the backlog pressure sensor for CarpX. You said you think it's a few weeks that is backlog. Can you give us a little more color about... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [3] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. I think from -- I was just being direct about that, but I think from a practical point of view, it's not going to change a whole lot because the -- no, the elective procedures are still ramping up slowly. So the delay was a few weeks, 2 to 3 weeks. We expect the component, the printed circuit board, which has the pressure sensor on it, to be around in a couple of weeks and then a couple of weeks after that before the commercial lot could be released. So, really, in terms of when we would have expected the -- carpal tunnel surgeries are elective procedures and are -- will come online over the coming months, it doesn't really delay our commercial launch from a practical point of view. But just thought I'd point that out, that, that is 1 aspect of our supply chain that we've had to monitor closely. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony V. Vendetti, Maxim Group LLC, Research Division - Executive MD of Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst [4] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. Yes. No. That's helpful. Like you said, elective procedures have been largely postponed or delayed. So I guess as you said, you just hired a new sales manager for CarpX, what's the thought process in terms of a commercialization strategy as we start to reopen as a country? Is this more like a July, August time frame, slow ramp-up with KOLs? And then is it more of a September or so full commercial launch? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [5] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. I mean, I probably won't be able to give you sort of specific dates, but I think that's sort of a reasonable summary. CarpX, unlike EsoGuard and EsoCheck, is an interventional procedure, right? So you have to be careful in the early launch and make sure that you identify the appropriate early adopters to take through the procedural steps and, to be frank, to do iterative enhancements of the procedure itself. So that's really Dan's first task, is to get that group of KOLs and experienced folks who are committed to being early adopters of this technology and to start doing cases. And I do think sort of a mid-summer time point for that is appropriate. The ramp from that is going to be affected by a variety of factors. One is, how does this -- how does the ramp-up -- the opening of elective places actually proceed? We're fairly optimistic because outpatient facilities, which is where the vast majority of carpal tunnel surgeries are performed, are less burdened in terms of their ability to reopen, but it'll depend really on that as well as sort of a steady, focused but safe sort of outreach to increasing concentric circles of physicians. And again, it's very important to do that in a very careful way to make sure that the procedure is being performed carefully and that people are being appropriately trained. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony V. Vendetti, Maxim Group LLC, Research Division - Executive MD of Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst [6] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. Makes sense. And then just in terms of commercialization of EsoCheck, EsoGuard, what's been the COVID-19 impact on that? And then how do you expect that to continue to roll out this year? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [7] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. Sorry. So the COVID impact has been pretty straightforward, which is that no one's getting -- for the last 2 months, there have been essentially no elective or nonemergent procedures being performed in the GI offices, whether they're endoscopies or other office-based procedures. But what's amazing is, is that -- I sort of was bragging about this and like to brag about it again, is that the team has -- was not, in any way -- they were able to overcome that challenge. And despite that, I've had literally contacts with hundreds of accounts and numerous virtual sales calls. These physicians, I think as I mentioned last time, are not necessarily on the front lines of COVID, so they have time and they're getting used to using telemedicine. And so these virtual calls have been -- have gone remarkably well, and the volume has increased almost exponentially. So as the case -- as the elective procedures start, and as I said, 1 of our partners in Ohio did a full day of endoscopies today, so that, to me, was a very good sign that things are starting to open up, then that activity of opening accounts and getting shipped -- getting products shipped will actually start to translate, I think, very soon into actual cases being performed and tests being ordered and sent. So again, there's still some uncertainty, but there's some pretty good signs in the last week or 2 that this activity will start to ramp up, hopefully, fairly quickly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony V. Vendetti, Maxim Group LLC, Research Division - Executive MD of Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst [8] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then, Dennis, if we could put aside the noncash charges that you we talked about. Sort of the burn rate that you see right now, what's your best guess as to what you expect that to be on a per quarter basis for the remainder of this year? And then what do you expect your capital requirements to be as you move into -- as you move through this year and into next year? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dennis M. McGrath, PAVmed Inc. - President, CFO & Corporate Secretary [9] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you dissect the first quarter, there's some clues there in terms of how that projects going forward, $4.4 million non-GAAP, which you can make because it'd be a proxy for what the cash burn for the quarter is. And I gave you the data point that about $1 million, $1.1 million were clinical trials related to that. About $1 million of it's EsoGuard-related. So the baseline burn is just around $1 million. The clinical trials will add to that. That really now is dependent upon when we can get to that. The plan for the year was about $1.7 million or so per month. We have $12 million pro forma at March 31, so you can kind of lay that in. There is availability in multiple forms of financing for us, and that will be dictated by not only the ability to finance at the parent level, but the possibility of financing inside the subsidiary level and also the nondilutive financing opportunities that we're pursuing, particularly with NextFlo. So the ability to finance that, we believe, is readily available. Which choices we make of those opportunities will be dependent upon the timing of when they come about and when we get back to kind of full-scale clinical trial work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [10] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our next question is from Chris Somers from The Somers Team. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christopher Somers, The Somers Team - Owner [11] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan and Dennis, hope you guys are well. Congrats on all the recent accomplishments and milestones. And it seems like there's an exciting year or 2 ahead here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [12] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think we would agree with you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christopher Somers, The Somers Team - Owner [13] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I actually saw this happening maybe at a trial or a study at UPenn, so you guys might be in Philadelphia a little bit more. Yes, but my question kind of relates to, I guess, the third question that the Maxim analyst just had as far as the planning for funding these trials. Because it seems like there's a lot maybe additional funding that Lucid might require for the Eso product. I mean, it seems like -- I know you probably can't comment too much, but with that much activity, with that much funding potentially, can you comment at all about the potential spin-off of Lucid? I mean, it certainly seems like the most kind of common or the best strategic, I mean, you guys would know better, opportunity to fund that company separately, investors can be in that separately and would be a great way to raise cash for that company separately as well and unlock value -- tremendous value for the company. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [14] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before Dennis answers, Chris, I just want -- let me clarify 1 thing as it relates to these clinical trials. So as you said, there are numerous clinical trials, but the bulk of the expense is really in the 2 IVD trials that are looking to support a PMA submission. Many of the other trials are actually part of partnerships with academic medical centers where we're providing only nominal financial support, and we're able to leverage the value of EsoCheck. And we're providing EsoCheck as a device, and many of those actually have their own entrepreneurial academic funding as well. So just to be clear, that is really -- the bulk of the capital requirements are really on the EsoGuard IVD trials. Dennis, did you have a follow up? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dennis M. McGrath, PAVmed Inc. - President, CFO & Corporate Secretary [15] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. So yes, Chris, obviously, there's been a lot of speculations. I get a lot of questions about Lucid and the EsoGuard being the key jewel inside that subsidiary and the approaches to finance that inside that subsidiary, whether it's a spinout, it's a private investment in there, gets financed at the parent level or there are other ways to finance that, that may not require issuing securities to do it. No decision has been made. We are talking to a variety of financial types that fit all of those profiles. And once we have a little bit more visibility on some of those choices, then the Board is going to make a decision. So I think we're in agreement that there's a lot of excitement about that technology, and there are some proxies of other companies that have done similar things with products that are not competitive with EsoGuard but serve kind of the same mindset, and those prospects are very encouraging. And that certainly helps in our flexibility of trying to make this right choice for our shareholders. So no decisions at this point. We'll keep you apprised as those decisions are made, and we believe they're all favorable outcomes. So we're just trying to figure out what's the best approach out of all those treasures. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christopher Somers, The Somers Team - Owner [16] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Awesome. And again, congrats on the accomplishments, and so much to look forward to in the future. You guys are -- it's pretty remarkable. So kudos. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [17] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks, Chris. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [18] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Operator Instructions) Our next question is from Dan (inaudible), who is a private investor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unidentified Participant [19] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for your hard work. And I feel guilty riding your coattails. You guys are amazing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [20] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't feel guilty. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unidentified Participant [21] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm a long-term investor. I don't know if I heard this right. I was listening to the conference call. Did you guys mention the glucose monitor, the laser? Did you say you had a prototype device you're going to test this summer? Did I hear that right? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [22] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. Let me fill in some of those details. I did touch on it, but again, just tried to keep it a bit brief. So this is -- so the device that -- the technology we licensed from our partners at Airware, the Dr. Jacob Wong's company, we've licensed that within a field of use to create inpatient hospital-based glucose, continuous glucose monitoring without the need for doing blood tests, without finger sticks or without blood draws, just by clamp on the skin that's similar to 1 of these oxygen -- oximetry devices, the ones that clip on your finger. So where we are with that is we've been working on this R&D project, taking the laser technology that he developed and putting it into a working prototype basically in a box of -- that have the lasers configured consistent with the invention. That's been completed, and we also have a prototype clip, tissue clamp that basically will be applied to the web of the hand. So that device has been tested on the bench-top using these little tubes, these little cuvettes of glucose at varying concentrations. And the key is, if you do the concentrations across the range that you would be looking at in the patient, do you get a linear response? So when the glucose is higher, you get more of a signal. If glucose is higher than that, you get more of a signal. And it follows a nice linear response. And we have been able to document that just over the last week or 2. The next step is -- and we're hoping to get this done this week, but it's been delayed a couple of weeks, but not too long, is to actually take that box, that working prototype, and test it on human volunteers who basically start off fasting and then take some orange juice and see how their blood sugar goes up. And also in a rat model, a diabetic rat model, animal model, where we can get much higher glucose levels and confirm that the noninvasive testing works. They are very precise standards for accuracy that all glucose monitoring devices are held to. It's about plus or minus 15%. So we're pretty optimistic that we'll get to that. And once we cross that threshold, then that -- the gun goes off, and we can actually start a formal commercial development process where we manufacture a device that can be used in a hospital, typically in an ICU setting, and continuously monitor glucose. So that's where things are with that. And as I said, we're very excited about it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unidentified Participant [23] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wow. That's huge. Don't you think? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [24] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's a big opportunity. Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unidentified Participant [25] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I mean, it's huge because I know so many people that hate to get their finger pricked. My daughter hates needles. I mean -- and then you could do this for at-home use? Is that what you're looking for long term? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [26] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So that would be the next step. So just to be clear, the original -- the initial license is only for the hospital, but that's a big market. So in the ICU, particularly in cardiac ICUs, 100% of the patients there are on an insulin drip. So they're getting their blood sugar checked literally hour -- hourly or every other hour. So there's a huge opportunity in that. But obviously, the goal, the next step in this would be to take this technology for use in an inpatient setting and then license it, continue to expand the license so that we can replace home finger stick devices, the sort of deck of card size boxes that wouldn't require finger stick but could measure your glucose just by clamping onto the skin. So that's the next step. But we're not there yet, just to be clear. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unidentified Participant [27] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How much is that worth? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [28] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll leave that up to you. It's a big market. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unidentified Participant [29] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Huge. I don't think people realize. It's huge. But I'm sorry. I'm excited. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [30] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I appreciate it. Thank you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [31] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And our next question is from [Masood Ahmed], who's a private investor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Masood Ahmed, - Private Investor [32] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm just going to be very brief. So I just want to ask you, how much has been charged per device of CarpX? Have you guys decided? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [33] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have not set a price, but what we can tell you is based on our understanding of the reimbursement as well as the cost of goods, that we are confident that we'll be able to commercialize at volume. So not necessarily in the early stages when volume production is low, but at higher volumes, we'll be able to achieve an 80%, 85% gross margin. So that is plenty of margin for us to build a very robust business on that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Masood Ahmed, - Private Investor [34] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Got it. Okay. All right, guys. Thank you so much, and thank you for the great work. I'm really excited for everything that you guys have done. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [35] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I will now turn the call over to management for closing remarks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lishan Aklog, PAVmed Inc. - Chairman & CEO [36] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So thank you very much, everybody, for your attention and for joining us this afternoon and for those great questions. And we always appreciate the enthusiasm and the go-get-them feeling that we get from our investors every day. So it's really -- it really inspires us. So we look forward to keeping you abreast of our progress via ongoing press releases and periodic conference calls such as this one. As a reminder, the best way to keep up with our news is -- and updates and events is to sign up for e-mail alerts on our Investor Relations website, ir.pavmed.com, and we encourage you to follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. We've been very, very active on all of those platforms lately, and it's a great way to keep up with what's going on. Always feel free to contact Mike directly with any questions at JMH@PAVmed.com. Have a great day. Thank you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dennis M. McGrath, PAVmed Inc. - President, CFO & Corporate Secretary [37] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you all. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [38] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
EU banks to take on Visa, Mastercard with new payments system FILE PHOTO: A customer pays with a credit card at a store in Paris

By Huw Jones and Maya Nikolaeva

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - Sixteen banks from Germany, France and three other euro zone countries on Thursday said a "truly European" payments system was expected to be up and running in 2022 to fully digitalise a region where half of all retail payments are still in cash.

European Union policymakers and central bankers have long sought a "home grown" rival to take on Mastercard <MA.N> and Visa <V.N> from the United States, and more recently tech giants like Alipay and Google <GOOGL.O>. But this has not happened even though real-time payments have been possible in the euro zone since 2017.

The European Central Bank on Thursday welcomed the banks' decision to launch the unified European payment system by 2022, after advocating for years an industry-driven solution to compete with the likes of Mastercard and Visa.

"It is aimed at strengthening Europe, at making it more independent and robust," said Thierry Laborde, deputy chief operating officer of French bank BNP Paribas <BNPP.PA>, which is part of the project.

"We will do it collectively, by pooling our resources. As for distribution systems, prices will differ from one bank to another, but the infrastructure will be pan-European."

The ECB had said last year that dependence on non-European players for two-thirds of non-cash payments created a risk that the payments market would not be fit to support the EU single market and euro.

The so-called European Payments Initiative aims to become a new standard means of payment, offering a card for consumers and retailers across Europe, the statement from the 16 banks said.

It will cover all types of transactions including in-store, online, cash withdrawal and 'peer-to-peer' in addition to existing international payment scheme solutions.

Banks that have already signed up include BBVA <BBVA.MC>, BNP Paribas <BNPP.PA>, Commerzbank <CBKG.DE>, Deutsche Bank <DBKGn.DE>, Santander <SAN.MC>, ING <INGA.AS>, UniCredit <CRDI.MI> and Societe Generale <SOGN.PA>.

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In coming weeks the project will set up an interim company in Brussels, with other payment service providers invited to join, the banks said.

The payments system is expected to become operational during 2022.

"EPIs objective is to offer a digital payment solution that can be used anywhere in Europe and to supersede the fragmented landscape that currently still exists," the banks' statement said.

"The Covid-19 crisis has underlined the need for a unified European digital payment solution."

During lockdowns, the use of cash has tumbled as shoppers move online or use "contactless" forms of payments.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Alex Richardson. Editing by Jane Merriman)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Thursday it was suing Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands because the three countries had not fully integrated EU rules on anti-money laundering into their national laws.

The 27-nation bloc's executive cited a lack of action on EU law related to fundamental aspects of the anti-money laundering framework "such as betting and gambling legislation (Austria), mechanisms under which the Financial Intelligence Units exchange documents and information (Belgium), and the information to be provided on the beneficial ownership of corporate and other legal entities (Netherlands)".

In a statement, the Commission said it had filed its suit at the European Court of Justice, which has ultimate jurisdiction in member states, asking it to approve financial sanctions against the three countries.

The Dutch finance ministry said all legislation required by the European Commission had been accepted by the country's Senate on June 23 and would be applied soon.

There was no immediate comment from other governments.

(Reporting by Marine Strauss and Bart Meijer; Editing by Mark Heinrich and David Evans)
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic hit especially hard in the most affluent cities of Europe, including Paris, London, Madrid and Milan. The virus seemed to be a great leveler that did not distinguish between the rich and the poor.

The continents latest string of outbreaks appears very different. Most flare-ups are now occurring in some of Europes most deprived neighborhoods, often those inhabited by minorities or immigrants who work in low-paid jobs that are crucial to buttressing the economy.

This pattern raises the question of whether governments are doing enough to ensure all citizens understand the basic precautions to take to protect themselves, and have the means to do so. It also underlines the failings of several European states to ensure that even the poorest parts of society have access to decent housing and benefit from job safety. The situation could risk fanning social and racial tensions if immigrant communities get blamed for being carriers of the virus.

Five different outbreaks across Europe tell a very similar story. In Germany, the authorities locked down the municipality of Guetersloh, in North-Rhine Westphalia, after hundreds of workers in one of Europes biggest meat-processing plants tested positive for the virus. The group was largely made up of poorly paid Eastern European immigrants, who lived together in accommodation for the plants workers. Germanys meat industry has been able to circumvent strict rules on working conditions by using subcontractors, something new legislation is meant to change.

In the U.K., as the country emerges from lockdown, Leicester, a city in the East Midlands, had non-essential shops and some schools shut for two more weeks. Leicester ranks in the bottom 10% in terms of income deprivation in England. According to the Leicester City Council, 37% of the population is Asian and an estimated 40% of people living there were born outside of the U.K. As in the U.S., the epidemic has brought into relief racial inequalities in the U.K., with Public Health England finding the risk of dying from Covid-19 is higher in poorer areas and higher in Black, Asian and other minority groups.

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In Italy, the epidemic has had its biggest impact in Lombardy, one of the wealthiest regions in the countrys industrial north. But over the past week, the town of Mondragone, not far from Naples in the south, has seen a spike in cases in a high-rise compound hosting a group of Bulgarian immigrants, who work in seasonal agricultural jobs. The government has not enforced a lockdown in town, but has sent in the army to put the housing complex under strict surveillance. Mondragone ranks in the top 10% of Italian towns with the largest share of immigrants, and in the bottom 10% of those with the highest per capita declared income.

Such clusters of virus cases have also appeared in Greece and Portugal, countries which had a remarkable success in containing the epidemic. In Greece, a local smart lockdown was applied to the northern town of Echinos, which is home to many from the countrys Muslim minority, while in Portugal 19 neighborhoods in the Lisbon region were affected. These areas are home to groups of very poor immigrants, especially from Africa.

These localized outbreaks have several plausible explanations. Some immigrants may have carried the virus from countries where it has not yet been contained. Poorer communities may have worse access to health care, and a poorer understanding of the severity of the virus and how to protect against it. And some people are probably avoiding testing or seeking treatment because of the fear of going into quarantine and losing their jobs. In Mondragone in Italy, a handful of individuals who had tested positive ran away for just that reason.

Europes governments are paying a steep price for years of neglect of these communities, which often provide a very cheap source of labor. Thats allowed a whole host of inequalities to build up in terms of education, job opportunities and access to housing and healthcare that have always been a threat to prosperity and social cohesion. The novel coronavirus is bringing such inequalities to the surface again, this time driving home how the vulnerabilities of these groups can be a threat to public health too.

There is also a risk that these outbreaks cause deep divisions within the population as a whole. In Mondragone, tensions arose when some people accused the immigrants of failing to respect the rules and spreading the virus. In attempt to take political advantage of the situation, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the hard-right League party, went to the area this week for a rally but he had to cut it short when he was interrupted by a rival left-wing crowd.

Governments must strike a difficult balance. They need to keep citizens informed about where the virus is circulating the most, but they must do so without undermining the privacy of individuals or demonizing entire groups, especially of more vulnerable citizens. And they must work quickly to provide health care and support where its needed to keep isolated outbreaks from snowballing into something bigger.

This crisis is providing a much-needed reminder of the many failings in economic and social integration across Europe. It will be very hard to address these problems at a time of profound and widespread insecurity.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Ferdinando Giugliano writes columns and editorials on European economics for Bloomberg View. He is also an economics columnist for La Repubblica and was a member of the editorial board of the Financial Times.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
The European UPS industry has a highly competitive landscape where one of the key challenges for a UPS manufacturer is to differentiate itself from its competitors. It is important for a manufacturer to keep up with new technologies and industry trends and come up with UPS solutions that cater to the growing needs of businesses.

New York, July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "European Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) Market, Forecast to 2025" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05917936/?utm_source=GNW





The power demand has been on a constant rise in the recent past and is a major area of concern for all end-user applications, especially those which have critical loads, such as data centres.Energy saving is one of the key challenges for the end users of UPS systems.



In the data center segment, in particular, the main focus is on improving the power usage effectiveness (PUE), while being flexible enough to cope with constantly evolving needs in the face of rising energy bills, environmental constraints, and the increase in power density. The other challenge is the need to address the scalability and flexibility issues among the end users.



It has become essential for manufacturers to come up with UPS products that will allow end users to scale as and when they grow their business. Given the high demand for modular UPS systems and intense competition, it is quite important for UPS manufacturers to innovate in this space and come up with advanced modular concepts that allow further flexibility and modularity. Right sizing backup power has for long been an unmet need for end users. Businesses face the challenge of anticipating their growth over time, which eventually leads them to face issues with backup power requirement. There is a trend where end users tend to deploy an UPS system configured for a larger power range to accommodate future growth. There are two key challenges associated with this issue. The first one is they end up paying for the additional power they will not use initially. The second issue arises when they do not grow their business as anticipated. Modular UPS systems address these challenges effectively with their inherent flexibility and scalability, that is, modules can be added or made redundant according to requirement. The modular rack mounting configuration offers customers the advantage of swapping a faulty module with a new one without interruption to the working process of the whole UPS. The European UPS market was worth $2,200.0 million in 2019. The market is in its maturity stage. The market is expected to grow at a slow pace for the next two years. Growth rates are expected to further accelerate after 2022. The modular UPS segment is expected to grow nearly twice as fast as the traditional UPS systems segment. The UK and Germany are the two biggest countries for UPS revenues in Europe; together, they accounted for 38.0% of the total market in 2019. These are also expected to be the two fastest growing countries in Europe.

Author: Gautham Gnanajothi

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05917936/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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PITTSBURGH, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- F.N.B. Corporation (NYSE: FNB), parent company of First National Bank, today announced its $250 million commitment intended to promote economic investments in underserved communities within its market footprint through its support of affordable housing and small business initiatives, workforce and cultural preservation opportunities, financial education programs, community organization partnerships and infrastructure investments.

"FNB reaffirms its commitment to the regions we serve, including predominantly African American and low-to-moderate income communities throughout our footprint," said Vincent J. Delie, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of F.N.B. Corporation and First National Bank. "We are committed to providing impactful resources to ensure that these vibrant and culturally important communities overcome historic, social and racial inequities."

This pledge builds on FNB's important mandate to support vulnerable and traditionally underserved communities and furthers its mission of improving the quality of life in its markets. The pledge also specifically acknowledges and seeks to address the unique challenges faced by our African American community. Throughout its footprint, the Company has strategically invested millions of dollars in local initiatives and relief funds that stimulate job growth, create affordable housing opportunities and champion overall social and economic development.

Visit FNB's website to learn more about its legacy of community engagement and commitment to diversity and inclusion.

About F.N.B. Corporation

F.N.B. Corporation (NYSE: FNB), headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a diversified financial services company operating in seven states and the District of Columbia. FNB's market coverage spans several major metropolitan areas including: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; and Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham and the Piedmont Triad (Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point) in North Carolina. The Company has total assets of more than $35 billion and approximately 350 banking offices throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

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FNB provides a full range of commercial banking, consumer banking and wealth management solutions through its subsidiary network which is led by its largest affiliate, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, founded in 1864. Commercial banking solutions include corporate banking, small business banking, investment real estate financing, government banking, business credit, capital markets and lease financing. The consumer banking segment provides a full line of consumer banking products and services, including deposit products, mortgage lending, consumer lending and a complete suite of mobile and online banking services. FNB's wealth management services include asset management, private banking and insurance.

The common stock of F.N.B. Corporation trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "FNB" and is included in Standard & Poor's MidCap 400 Index with the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) Regional Banks Sub-Industry Index. Customers, shareholders and investors can learn more about this regional financial institution by visiting the F.N.B. Corporation website at www.fnbcorporation.com.

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SOURCE F.N.B. Corporation
By Daniel Wiessner

A Black Facebook Inc worker on Thursday filed a complaint claiming the social media giant's stated commitment to diversity and civil rights, including its support for the Black Lives Matter movement, masks widespread discrimination against Black workers.

Oscar Veneszee, a Washington D.C.-based operations program manager, said in a charge filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Facebook has shown a pattern of discrimination in hiring, performance evaluations, promotions and pay, and that Black workers fill just 1.5% of its technical positions.

To read the full story on Westlaw Practitioner Insights, click here: https://bit.ly/2VGl0j2
Security concerns lead Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan Mobile to choose Finnish company. Taiwan will invest 605 million euros to encourage the industrial development of the 5G system. US government: Huawei is a "threat to national security".

Taipei (AsiaNews / Agencies)  As of yesterday, Taiwan has its first 5G network. Chunghwa Telecom, the first telephone operator on the island, has launched the ultra-fast internet that allows you to download a two-hour movie in just three minutes. The system is based on Nokia technology. The Finnish company was chosen over Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant that the United States accuses of spying for the government.

Nokia has also secured a 401-million-euro contract to supply Taiwan Mobile, the second largest local telecommunications company, which will activate its 5G services today. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has announced that the government will invest  605 million over the next four years to support the industrial development of 5G networks.

Together with the United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore and to a lesser extent New Zealand, Taipei has effectively excluded Huawei from its ultra-fast internet system. The charges laid by the Trump administration have resulted in many countries to renege on the Chinese 5G system, considered the most advanced in the world.

Yesterday, the US government formally designated Huawei (and ZTE, another major Chinese technology company) as a "threat to national security". Huawei cannot sell its products in the U.S., and cannot do business with U.S. companies. In addition, Washington has introduced sanctions for foreign companies that sell technology - especially microchips - to the Chinese company.
Akram Miknas, media guru and entrepreneur, has released his third book titled We Can Be Better, Never Be Silenced.

The title is a play on words with emphasis on better silenced, but suggesting that we had better never be silenced. This is a compilation of 100 articles written between 2017-2019 and published mainly in Bahraini and foreign newspapers.

Miknas said in a statement: "I am a businessman and an economist and for more than 50 years I have developed many successful projects around the world. However, I consider myself also a man of thought and culture; as such, I have tried, through this collection of articles, to continue to provide a different point of view on political, traditional, economic, cultural and philosophical issues, and offered what I believe is a better way to address them.

In several of these articles, Miknas has focused on the necessity of co-existence and mutual acceptance, quoting Martin Luther Kings famous words: We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Miknas has presented his perspective on geopolitical developments in Bahrain, the Arabian Gulf, and the world. He has written with sorrow and hope about his home country, Lebanon, as well as Palestine. He has expressed his views on issues of faith, extremism, development, and several other concerns. When the occasion arose, he examined and expounded on topical issues that occurred during the time when he was writing these articles, in a perspective unique to him.

Miknas first book, Im Not Done, published by Garnet Publishing, UK, narrates his biography with particular emphasis on his career in the advertising industry. - TradeArabia News Service
(Reuters) - St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank president James Bullard has warned that a growing number of bankruptcies due to the coronavirus outbreak could lead to a financial crisis, the Financial Times reported.

"Without more granular risk management on the part of the health policy, we could get a wave of substantial bankruptcies and (that) could feed into a financial crisis," Bullard said in an interview with the newspaper on Wednesday. (https://on.ft.com/31AlcUF)

He warned of "twists and turns" in the health crisis and said "it's probably prudent to keep our lending facilities in place for now, even though it's true that liquidity has improved dramatically in financial markets."

New U.S. COVID-19 cases rose by nearly 50,000 on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, marking the biggest one-day spike since the start of the pandemic. The surge in cases across the country, including the populous states of California, Florida and Texas, threaten the budding recovery.

Bullard said that it is possible that the country could "take a turn for the worse at some point in the future", but added that it was not his base case, according to the report.

The Fed moved aggressively in March to support the U.S. economy by cutting rates to near zero, buying up trillions of dollars in bonds and launching a slate of emergency lending tools to keep credit flowing to households and businesses.

The last of those programs was launched on Monday, which the Fed can use to buy newly minted corporate bonds.

"With all these programmes, the idea is to make sure the markets don't freeze up entirely, because that's what gets you into a financial crisis, when traders won't trade the asset at any price," Bullard added.

(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Rashmi Aich)
SAN FRANCISCO, July 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke in May with Turkey's central bank chief, records released by the U.S. central bank on Thursday showed, as fallout from the coronavirus pandemic was putting enormous pressure on the Middle Eastern country's economy, and its currency.

Powell's calendar is silent on the contents of the half-hour May 1 phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Murat Uysay. But it took place as the Turkish lira was falling rapidly, ultimately hitting an all-time low on May 7.

That month Ankara was urgently seeking access to funds from other central banks to head off a potential currency spiral, with analysts saying tens of billions of dollars might be needed.

The Turkish central bank had been buying record amounts of government bonds in an effort to backstop the country's financial response to the pandemic, putting downward pressure on Turkey's lira.

The Fed has swap lines with more than a dozen other central banks to help them with currency pressures, but not with Turkey.

Ultimately Ankara secured some aid from Qatar, tripling an existing currency-swap agreement to $15 billion in late May. The deal provided much-needed foreign funding to reinforce Turkey's depleted reserves and help steady the currency.

Still, analysts have raised concerns over Turkey's depleted currency reserves and only partial success in gaining access to foreign funding. (Reporting by Ann Saphir and Lindsay Dunsmuir, with reporting by Jonathan Spicer, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
By Lisa Shumaker

July 2 (Reuters) - Florida shattered records on Thursday when it reported over 10,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase in the state since the pandemic started, according to a Reuters tally.

Outbreaks in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona have helped the United States break records and send cases rising at rates not seen since April.

In June, Florida infections rose by 168% or over 95,000 new cases. The percent of tests coming back positive has skyrocketed to 15% from 4% at the end of May.

Florida, with 21 million residents, has reported more new daily coronavirus cases than any European country had at the height of their outbreaks.

To contain the outbreak, Florida has closed bars and some beaches but the governor has resisted requiring masks statewide in public or reimposing a lockdown.

Only one other state has reported more than 10,000 new cases in a single day. New York recorded 12,847 new infections on April 10, three weeks after the state implemented a strict lockdown that closed most businesses. While the state has relaxed many measures, it requires masks in public and mandates anyone arriving from 16 other U.S. states with high infections self-quarantine for two weeks.

Once the epicenter of the U.S. epidemic, New York saw cases rise by about 6% in June - the lowest rate in the entire country.

(Open https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR and https://tmsnrt.rs/3dM9TLE in an external browser for Reuters interactives) (Writing by Lisa Shumaker)
VANCOUVER, BC , July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - Fosterville South Exploration ("Fosterville South") or (the "Company") (FSX.V) (OTCQX: FSXLF) (Germany: 4TU) is pleased to announce that the Company has accelerated drilling at its Golden Mountain project, located in Victoria, Australia .

Fosterville South Exploration (CNW Group/Fosterville South Exploration Ltd.)

Highlights:

Diamond (core) drilling has commenced and is designed to test main target area.

A second diamond drill rig, purchased by Fosterville South, has been added to the program.

Shallow scout drilling with a percussion rig returned multiple wide intersections including high grade gold near surface and now two diamond drill rigs are operating.

As described in the Fosterville South's News Release dated June 23, 2020 , a series of shallow scout holes resulted in multiple wide intervals of high grade gold and also included the discovery of a new North zone on the project. Multiple holes from this initial phase of percussion drilling ended in significant mineralization.

The Company commenced drilling the main target area with a diamond drill rig owned by a contractor. Drilling with the contractor-owned rig continues. The Company has now added a second drill rig to Golden Mountain , which was purchased by Fosterville South. This drill rig is a Dynatech DICD120GR machine, is track mounted, has low engine hours and is capable of drilling 1000 metre holes. For reference, holes in the current drill program have target depths up to 300 metres.

This second diamond drill rig has been added to the program based on the excellent results to date and a desire to increase the pace of drilling.

Fosterville South Chief Operating Officer, Rex Motton, states, "The core drilling component of this program, now accelerating, is targeting a section with potential for high gold grades. As assays are received, we will report on results and also model the data along with the recently reported near surface discovery to guide further drilling."

About Fosterville South Exploration Ltd.

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Fosterville South has two large, 100% owned, high-grade epizonal gold projects called the Lauriston and Golden Mountain Projects, a large group of tenement applications called the Providence Project and a large group of recently consolidated tenement applications called the Walhalla Belt Project, all in the state of Victoria, Australia . The Fosterville South land packaged, assembled over a multi-year period, notably includes a 600 sq. km property immediately to the south of and within the same geological framework that hosts Kirkland Lake Gold's Fosterville tenements. Additionally, Fosterville South recently acquired three gold-focused projects called the Moormbool, Timor and Avoca Projects, which are also located in the state of Victoria, Australia .

Six of Fosterville South's properties (Lauriston, Providence, Golden Mountain , Timor, Avoca and Walhalla Belt) have had historical gold production from hard rock sources despite limited modern exploration and drilling.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed, verified and approved by Rex Motton, P. Geo., COO and Director of Fosterville South, a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101.

On behalf of the Company

Rex Motton

Chief Operating Officer and Director

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. Fosterville South cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by many material factors, many of which are beyond their respective control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to Fosterville South's limited operating history, its proposed exploration and development activities on is Lauriston and Golden Mountain Properties and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, Fosterville South does not undertake to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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SOURCE Fosterville South Exploration Ltd.

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HONG KONG, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- FountainCap Research & Investment (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. ("FountainCap") has again won the award for Asset Management Company of the Year -- China Offshore Equity Highly Commended from The Asset magazine's Triple A Sustainable Investing Awards. FountainCap has won the award for three consecutive years with their consistent investment performance through having a fundamental research-driven approach and a long-term investment philosophy.

Award Picture

The Asset is one of the most influential financial magazines in Asia, and this is the 11th year that it has given out the awards. The unprecedented circumstances arising from the pandemic this year drove ESG and sustainable investing to become a major focus for investors. The Asset emphasizes contributions to ESG from participating institutions and individuals this year and renamed the "Asset Servicing, Fund Management and Investor Awards" to "Sustainable Investing Award". The Awards are meticulously reviewed by a panel of professional investors and analysts based on a series of qualitative and quantitative factors such as investment returns, assets under management, investment strategies and market insights.

Founded in 2014, FountainCap is an equity long-only investment manager with an All China investment strategy that identifies and invests in listed companies which will substantially benefit from China's transformation and on-going growth. Since inception, FountainCap has delivered consistent results for investors from around the world through its in-depth fundamental research and long-term investment philosophy. Its investor base includes globally recognized sovereign wealth funds, pensions, endowments, corporates, and family offices.

China equity markets remain highly inefficient and continue to be a stock pickers' market. While the country is undergoing several fundamental structural changes that are accelerating the growth of its private sector, FountainCap believes the complexity of such changes can only be understood through conducting thorough fundamental research. The firm uses a bottom-up approach in selecting quality companies that have the potential to generate "multi-bagger" returns for investors over the long term. The COVID-19 pandemic, while disruptive, has created many investment opportunities from new secular trends that are emerging in China: ranging from the acceleration in the development of the digital economy to the restructuring of the global value chain. Having navigated through multiple crises since inception, FountainCap has the experience needed to maintain focus and continue to exhibit its core strength in conducting thorough fundamental research and picking winning stocks.

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About FountainCap Research & Investment (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd.

Led by veteran China investor, Frank Ding, the investment team are sector/industry specialists with a combined China investment experience of over 60 years and across seven global market cycles. All associates within the company hail from top universities in the US, UK, and China and they have working experiences in renowned global financial institutions. The company's objective is to generate consistent long-term investment results and provide the best services to its clients. The company currently has over US$1 billion in asset under management.

http://www.fountaincapri.com

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SOURCE FountainCap Research & Investment (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd.
TOPTEX Group brand Kariban, which manufactures the Kariban, ProAct, K-Up and Kimood brands, selects Centric PLM for digital transformation and faster time to market.

TOULOUSE, France, June 30, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Kariban, has selected Centric Software's Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury, consumer goods and home decor companies to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Created over 20 years ago, Kariban offers a diversified range of clothing through its own brands for clients to personalize, as well as a range of teamwear, headwear and luggage for a professional clientele of promotional item resellers, professional uniform suppliers, screen printers, embroiderers and advertising agencies. The Kariban brand, whose product offer started with a single rugby shirt, today manages nearly 20,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) and 1,400 styles. Kariban's design and management teams operate from Toulouse, France. Manufacturing is outsourced to Asia, mainly taking place in Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and Turkey.

In an extremely competitive promotional market, streamlining and modernizing the product design and development process became imperative. Kariban's development phase was particularly time-consuming and slowed down by erratic sample management. Between demand and production, it could take four to six months. Kariban's distribution activity involved handling a large volume of inventory and referrals, which was extremely complex and slow with the Product Data Management (PDM) tool they had in place. The PDM system was disconnected from other information systems, requiring reentry of the same data set in different tools with the risk of making cascading errors. The brand set out to find a PLM solution that would allow it to synchronize all stages of the product and collection lifecycle.

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"The fashion world is moving fast," explains Laurent Marceau, Managing Director at TOPTEX Group / Kariban. "Faced with increased competition, it is essential to continue to modernize our work tools to gain performance. We must always be one step ahead."

Kariban Executives conducted a large market study and tested three PLM solutions. According to Nizam Deepooa, Technical and Quality Director at TOPTEX Group / Kariban, Centric Lifestyle PLM was selected for its capabilities and references in the distribution and fast fashion sector.

"Centric offers very flexible configuration," says Olivier Labourel, Director of Information Systems at TOPTEX Group / Kariban. "The solution covers the entire value chain from source to final product and will allow us to link our ERP tool and PIM system. This global and open solution perfectly meets our needs."

"Centric PLM will encourage exchanges between employees and suppliers around design, product development, supply and production, in particular thanks to Centric's mobile applications, which are very useful on our many trips," adds Marceau. "Finally, the system strengthens our employer brand with the most competent employees, by offering them an intuitive and innovative working interface in which they can easily find their brands and work comfortably."

"We are delighted that Kariban has chosen to partner with Centric," says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. "This leading promotional clothing brand was looking for a robust solution capable of following the changes and rhythm of the fashion market in order to manage all aspects of its supply, design and manufacturing chain on a large scale with extreme precision. With Centric PLM, Kariban is on track to achieve its ambitions and prepare for future growth, while offering its clients quality products at an ever-faster pace."

Learn more about Centric Lifestyle PLM

Request a Demo

Kariban (http://www.toptex.fr)

For over 20 years, the Kariban brand has stood out for its modern vision of advertising textiles. Through clean lines, meticulously selected materials, fitted cuts and French elegance, the brand has made ready-to-wear classics into essential corporate promotional clothing. Kariban is constantly renewing and modernizing its historic collections, and regularly presents new ranges. It offers a Premium range consisting of top quality products: Supima cotton t-shirts and polo shirts, light trench coats, jeans, and a range of ecological clothing. Kariban wishes to go further by emphasizing the concepts of eco-responsibility in its production by integrating more and more references in organic cotton certified by Ecocert Greenlife.

Must-haves for the most specific image clothing; materials in the manufacturing process that provide softness, comfort and optimal printability; everything is considered to offer a large choice of colors and sizes and meet the needs of professionals.

Kariban is a brand distributed by the TopTex group, created in 1994 by Laurent Marti. Leader in France and in the Benelux and in the European Top3, the TopTex Group distributes more than 40 brands in 2019, the most important of the advertising market: Fruit of the Loom, Gildan, B&C, Russell Europe, etc. as well as its own brands, essential references on the European market: Kariban (image clothing), ProAct (sportswear teamwear), K-Up (headwear), Kimood (luggage).

SOURCE Centric Software
General Motors Company GM recently announced that its subsidiary GM Defense (GMD) has secured a firm-fixed-price contract worth $222.9 million combined to manufacture the firms infantry squad vehicle (ISV) offering and facilitate initial deliveries of the platform to the U.S. Army.

The initial term pays $214.3 million to acquire the companys ISV platform, along with installation kits, hardware and logistics services. GMD has also secured a separate $8.6-million award for the initial delivery of ISVs and advanced vehicle support facilities.

GMD has confirmed that the contract is for the first batch of 649 such vehicles, while the total authorized target for the next decade is for 2,065 vehicles. Distribution of the first 649 will occur over the next five years, and 1,070 over the next eight years. Notably, under the first contract, GMD will conduct work through Jun 24, 2028, and the second through Jun 24, 2021.

ISVs are an integral aspect of the U.S. Army's requirements for the rapid transportation needs of a small contingent of troops. GMD describes its ISVs as devices capable of assisting accelerated ground movement, as well as being compact and flexible enough to move a squad of nine across a battlefield. All ISV models of GMD will be fitted with an occupant and cargo superstructure powered by a 186-horsepower, 2.8L Duramax turbo-diesel engine built on the mid-size truck Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, using 90% of industrial off-shelf components.

Meanwhile, General Motors is also focusing on electric and autonomous vehicle development to adapt to the changing dynamics and customer preferences. The top U.S. carmaker aims to spend more than $20 billion through 2025 to launch the gen-next EVs powered by new low-cost batteries. This is likely to bolster the firms long-term prospects. The production timings of key launches like the GMC Hummer EV, Cadillac Lyriq crossover EV and Cruise Origin AV are on track and will likely boost the firms long-term prospects.

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Zacks Rank and Other Stocks to Consider

General Motors currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Shares of the company have appreciated 32.3%, year to date, compared with the industrys rise of 29.3%.

Other top-ranked stocks are Niu Technologies NIU, Tesla TSLA and AngloGold Ashanti Limited AU, each carrying a Zack Rank of 2, at present. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

Shares of Niu have surged 91.4% year to date, as against the industrys decline of 12.2%.

Shares of Tesla have soared 167.6%, year to date, compared with industrys rise of 44.5%.

Shares of AngloGold have appreciated 32.3%, year to date, compared with industrys rise of 29.3%.

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Click to get this free report General Motors Company (GM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis Report AngloGold Ashanti Limited (AU) : Free Stock Analysis Report NIU TECHADR (NIU) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The head of Germany's financial watchdog on Thursday called the accounting scandal at Wirecard "a massive criminal act", while Deutsche Bank said it was considering support for the collapsed payments company's banking unit.

The comments from BaFin president Felix Hufeld are his most outspoken yet about Wirecard, which last week filed for insolvency owing creditors almost $4 billion after disclosing a 1.9 billion euro ($2.1 billion) hole in its accounts that auditor EY said was the result of a sophisticated global fraud.

"It is plain vanilla, old-fashioned criminal behaviour," Hufeld said in an online panel discussion.

BaFin, which oversaw Wirecard's banking subsidiary, has defended its role after taking much of the flak so far for the scandal.

Germany's largest bank said it was working with BaFin and Wirecard's insolvency administrator on the possible support for Wirecard Bank.

"We are in principle prepared to provide this support in the context of a continuation of business operations, if such assistance should become necessary," Deutsche Bank said.

Wirecard's insolvency manager Michael Jaffe said that Wirecard Bank continued to operate, but six German subsidiaries of Wirecard had also applied for insolvency proceedings.

"Wirecard Bank AG is not insolvent. Payouts to merchants and customers of Wirecard Bank are being executed without restrictions", Jaffe said in a statement.

A source familiar with Wirecard said the equity value of the bank was around 160 million euros, and selling the asset to Deutsche Bank would help avert a bank run.

Meanwhile, some of Wirecard's customers and partners are breaking ties.

Discount supermarket chain Aldi Sued, a major customer, said on Thursday that Wirecard was no longer processing its credit card payments as of July 1.

(Reporting by Hans Seidenstuecker, Tom Sims and Arno Schuetze; additional reporting by Matthias Inverardi in Duesseldorf; editing by Mark Potter and Susan Fenton)
Germany Merkel German Chancellor Angela Merkel takes questions of a lawmaker of the far right party 'Alternative fuer Deutschland' (Alternative for Germany) during a meeting of the German federal parliament, Bundestag, at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

BERLIN (AP)  German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday underlined her country's aim of completing a new German-Russian gas pipeline that faces tough U.S. resistance.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will, if completed, transport natural gas about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) under the Baltic Sea. Along with eastern European countries that also oppose the project, the United States argues that the conduit will increase Europes dependence on Russia for energy.

U.S. lawmakers passed legislation in December providing for sanctions against individuals and companies involved with the vessels laying the pipeline. Further U.S. action is under consideration.

The kind of extraterritorial sanctions being imposed by the United States of America do not correspond to our understanding of the law, and so neither do the deliberations ongoing at the moment, Merkel said in a question-and-answer session in the German parliament.

One has to concede that the construction process is complicated by this, but we think all the same that it is right to complete this project and we are acting in this spirit, she added.
The Covid-19 global pandemic has underlined the vital role travel and tourism play in the world economy, a distinguished panel from all corners of the globe have concluded.

The Future of Travel & Tourism: Financial Strategies for the Recovery was the second virtual conference organised by the International Tourism & Investment Conference (ITIC), and the first organised in partnership with WTM London, which used the event to re-emphasise its plan to welcome the world at its flagship three-day show in November at ExCel London.

ITICs ambitious five-hour video conference programme attracted 1,250 viewers from 103 countries who watched representatives from the world of government, industry, finance, hotels, airlines, tourism boards and global associations live on YouTube or Facebook.

WTM London Senior Exhibition Director Simon Press joined the events introductory session, saying the global event is more valid than ever and pledged that its November 2-4 event would be about getting back to business.

WTM will continue to pay a pivotal role, he said.

Dr Taleb Rifai, Chairman ITIC and former Secretary-General UNWTO, told The Future of Travel & Tourism: Financial Strategies for the Recoverys opening session: Opportunity comes from all crisis and today is an opportunity to consider what the new world looks like. Investment is very important and we have not realised how important. Psychologically the effect of investment is important and you can not underestimate its impact and sign of confidence.

Gloria Guevara, President and CEO of WTTC, said she hopes Covid-19 will lead to governments working together and learning from each other.

She said: Something like 9/11 took years to recover because each country worked in silos, with their own restriction  now 18 years later, protocols remain different. At some airports, do I take my shoes off or not?

Protocols for travel need to be the same, all hotels have to be the same."

Whats important is a coordinated approach between the private sector and governments.

Guevara said 80 countries have already agreed to the Safe Stamp introduced by the WTTC so travellers will know and understand safety procedures.

She also said there was no better time to invest, because recovery will definitely happen and when it recovers, it will grow fast, she said.

Nicolas Mayer, PWC Industry Leader Hospitality and Tourism EMEA and Managing Partner Global Centre of Excellence Tourism & Hospitality, said the pandemic was worse than any previous crisis as it had hit both the value chain and demand.

Demand will come back very strongly, there is no reduction in the desire for travel and no evidence of a drop, he told the summit. Finance needs to help companies ramp up to survive the valley of death when they reopen. The valley of death is the time they must survive when theres a need to see cash out and the wait for cash to come in. In the hotel business this can be up to 150 days.

Destination delegates included Majd Mohammad Shweikeh, Minister Tourism and Antiquities, Jordan, who told the conference: Initially all the tourism sector was in panic. But now we are having meetings to ensure survival and we will focus on niche tourism."

We have green zones in the south, unaffected by the virus," and also agreed with moderator Datar that somewhere like Petra, which is normally crowded, will have to change the way it operates.

But we will enhance the infrastructure and revise and reshape the journey for the customer. That means a focus on health: hygiene, social distancing and masks.

Emirates Airlines Vice President-Industry Change Rob Broere, who is also Chairman, IATA  Travel Standards Board, said: Our programme is in place for the health and safety of staff and passengers in co-operation with the WTTC."

We disinfect the aircraft every journey but we still provide gloves, masks and wipes to travellers. We have screens at check-in desks, waiting passengers can use only one in every three seats and hand baggage must be small to allow speedy boarding.

Like many delegates, Broere expressed his strong opposition to quarantine. It makes no sense. It will kill the business, he said.

Consider a flight between Dubai and New Zealand. If there is no infection there is no point in imposing 14-day quarantine.

Gerald Lawless, WTTC Ambassador, Director ITIC & Advisory Board Member Dubai Expo 2020, took up the case for sustainable travel and tourism to be part of the solution.

We have to convince the environmentalist that our industry does so much good for developing countries and we must understand the threats of climate change, said Lawless.

Aviation gets a bad press but creates less than 3 per cent of the pollution.

Hotel groups did so well to get rid of single use plastics and Covid has brought them back.

Margaux Constantin, Partner at McKinsey Company, which has looked at travellers intentions and travel searches online, warned it may take until 2026 for a recovery.

She said travellers will spend money as soon as they are able this year, because they have the money, but as the recession bites in, 2021 bookings will fall off and may not bounce back for five years.

Former UNWTO Secretary-General Dr Rifai concluded: Things will get worse before they get better, but governments recognise travel and tourism is very important."

Countries have been left on their own to make bilateral agreements towards a new world order."

Domestic tourism keeps the sector open preserving jobs and I believe that by travelling within their country, they will love it more. I believe a country should be enjoyed by its people first.

Ibrahim Ayoub, Group CEO & MD of ITIC and organiser of this virtual summit added: The primary goal of this conference was to bring together tourism ministers, health expert, tourism leaders and operators and investors in an open dialogue, under one roof to discuss and consider financial solutions and preparedness to reopen the tourism industry for a better future.

He thanked everyone for their participation and stated: We are continuing this conversation for sustainable investment in the travel and tourism industry post Covid-19 during the WTM week in November."

Other findings included:

 No-one supported quarantines. Most supported improved testing.

 Countries that have isolated themselves since the pandemic broke now need to co-operate.

 Support differed over the idea of bubbles or corridors between nations.

 Travel protocol and hygiene standards need to be the same worldwide.

 Sustainability can be part of the post-pandemic sector. - TradeArabia News Service
Ikano Centres teams up with GoGet to provide Personal Shopper Services to Malaysians across Klang Valley and Johor Bahru.

GoGet launches Shop with GoGet allowing the public to create a gig job for part timers to buy directly from their favourite retailers, bringing more sales to physical stores, and supporting local businesses.

Gig workers on GoGet can earn part time by shopping for an order and delivering it to the customer's doorstep or the designated pick-up points at IPC, MyTOWN or Toppen.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Since the recent Movement Control Order (MCO), GoGet, a community platform for part time help connecting Malaysians to gig workers called "GoGetters" on demand, has seen a surge in new gig workers application and verification. The platform connects these gig workers to businesses to help sustain business operations with a variety of services including next hour deliveries. GoGet sits in a unique position that can help struggling businesses cut costs with gig workers, and now with Shop with GoGet, the platform can further help boost sales and revenue for the retailers who list on the platform. Shop with GoGet, is a feature on the GoGet platform which allows retailers to list their storefront digitally on GoGet's app at no costs and no commission. Users of the app can now book a personal shopper to purchase their favourite products from nearly 400 retail stores whilst keeping safe in this 'new norm'.

Ikano Centres teams up with GoGet to provide Personal Shopper Services to Malaysians across Klang Valley and Johor Bahru

To bring Shop with GoGet to life, GoGet is collaborating with Ikano Centres, part of IKEA Southeast Asia, to make its entire portfolio of shopping centres in Malaysia available through the GoGet app. Customers can select from over 300 stores from IPC and MyTOWN in Kuala Lumpur and Toppen in Johor Bahru, including ordering the iconic meatballs and curry puffs from IKEA Restaurants. Shop with GoGet is an intuitive service where users can either select 'Drive Thru' or 'Deliver' options, with the former allowing customers to pick-up their shopping goods from GoGetters at designated pick-up locations within the three centres. The service spans across a number of categories including food and beverage, groceries, fashion, pharmacies, electronics, and many more. As part of the introductory offer with Ikano Centres, personal shopper fees are waived for drive thru orders under RM 100. From now until 22 July 2020, users who book Personal Shoppers on GoGet to shop at any Ikano Centres also stand a chance to win RM100 GoGet credits.

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"When we asked our businesses what they really needed during this crisis, many said they need help to get more sales and orders. Ultimately, the businesses on our platform are the driving force behind job creations. This is why we felt that Shop with GoGet will help all parties; our businesses will be able to secure more sales at no extra cost, our users are able to support local businesses with the convenience of a personal shopper and our GoGetters are able to earn a flexible income," said Francesca Chia, CEO and co-founder.

"While our visitors' needs will remain the same, with the restrictions these past few months, we know their behaviours and shopping patterns will change. It is important that we anticipate these changes and have the agility to respond and adapt our offerings accordingly, to create the safest and best experiences at our meeting places. We see Shop with GoGet as complementary to the current offerings that we have at our physical centres. It will create additional revenue streams and cash flow for our tenants, by making their stores available to 250,000 users currently on GoGet," said Arnoud Bakker, Head of Leasing, Ikano Centres.

Shop with GoGet URL: https://app.goget.my/stores.

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200702/2847434-1

SOURCE IKEA Southeast Asia
The resolution of the multibillion-dollar 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal, in which Goldman Sachs GS is engulfed, seems around the corner despite the bank being involved in a tussle with the U.S. government on the issue of the potential guilty plea, Bloomberg has reported. Notably, the guilty plea would be the first time in the history of Goldman.



U.S. investment bank Goldman has pleaded for aversion of such a penalty for its involvement in the Malaysian sovereign fund to the Justice Departments hierarchy. Attorney General William Barr is supervising the case.



Following the guilty plea by a high-ranked Goldman banker in 2018, who also notified about the secretive corporate culture of the bank, which bypassed the compliance staff, prosecutors were encouraged to create pressure on Goldman for pleading guilty. However, since then, Goldman has refrained from such details and pushed the case to the top law enforcement officers in United States.



Karen Seymour is leading Goldmans defense since two years as the general counsel to resolve the years-long U.S. criminal investigation over 1MDB.



Background



Goldman has been scrutinized for playing a role in raising funds through bond offerings for 1MDB, the fund entangled in corruption and money-laundering probes in roughly six countries. Per the DoJ, misappropriation of funds, worth $4.5 billion, from 1MDB by top officials of the fund and their colleagues from 2009 through 2014, included funds raised through Goldman as well.



Therefore, regulators of around 14 countries, including the United States, Malaysia, Singapore and others, have probed Goldman for its role as an underwriter and doings during the transactions.



Further, in November 2018, criminal charges were levied against two former bankers  Tim Leissner and Roger Ng of Goldman by U.S. prosecutors, as well as on Low  a Malaysian financier who effectively had the control of the state-owned investment 1MDB. Low has been accused for routing the money out of 1MBD, and paying bribes and purchasing real estate, art, and jewelry. Nevertheless, the bond proceeds were meant for strategic investments for the state.



Per DoJ, roughly $600 million was earned by the bank, including three bond offerings in 2012 and 2013, which raised $6.5 billion. In addition, huge bonuses were earned by Leissner, Ng and others. Nevertheless, Goldman claimed Leissner and Ng were working to hide criminal activities from management.



In 2018, Leissner accepted the act of conspiracy for laundering money and plotting the violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He made profits from the scheme and had contracted to pay up to $43.7 million. Nonetheless, the other employee has not come with a plea and is facing a case in Brooklyns federal court.



Remarkably, criminal charges against Goldman and 17 executives have been filed by prosecutors in Malaysia, who are demanding a multibillion-dollar penalty seeking fines of more than $2.7 billion, which is believed to be allegedly misappropriated from the proceeds, and the return of $600 million of fees taken by Goldman.



Malaysian politics was adversely impacted by the scandal and lifetime bans were imposed on Goldman bankers, including Andrea Vella and Tim Leissner, by the financial industry.



Notably, the case which involved the banks three units had been on hold due to restrictions imposed by Malaysia since March to contain the coronavirus pandemic. This February, the case got transferred to the High Court, advancing with the proceedings of the criminal charges first announced in December 2018.



Further Proceedings



The case would be victorious for Goldman on escaping the guilty plea; else Seymour would try to be defensive based on detailed data available in the statement of facts demarcating the banks conduct in Malaysia.



Jake Siewert, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, not commenting on the status of the negotiations said, We are trying to resolve this matter as expeditiously as possible. A spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office in Brooklyn, New York, John Marzulli, who is handling the case, refrained from commenting on the issue.



Per the source, Goldman awaits decision from Justice Department leaders whether or not they come to an agreement with their prosecutors in Brooklyn to include a guilty plea by a subsidiary in Asia. Therefore, post-guilty plea decision, the case is likely to be resolved including a penalty as high as $2 billion.



Markedly, Goldman is also under negotiations for a settlement with Malaysian authorities, who recently said the offer of as much as $3 billion would be rejected.



Bottom Line



Although Goldman has resolved quite a few litigation issues, it still faces probes and queries from a number of federal agencies, and a few foreign governments for the banks businesses conducted during the pre-crisis period. As a result, the companys legal expenses are expected to remain elevated, which might partially impede its bottom-line growth in the near term.



Shares of the company have lost 14.1% in the past six months compared with the 16.5% decline registered by the industry.

Story continues





Goldman currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



Stocks to Consider



AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. AB has witnessed upward earnings estimate revisions for 2020 over the past 60 days. Moreover, this Zacks #2 Ranked (Buy) stock has lost 10% over the past six months. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc.s GCAP current-year earnings estimate moved north in 60 days time. Further, the companys shares have surged 52.4% over the past six months. At present, it holds a Zacks Rank of 2.



T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. TROW has witnessed upward earnings estimate revision for the ongoing year in the past 60 days. This Zacks #2 Ranked stock has gained 1.4% in six months time.



Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation



Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity.



A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 8 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time.



See 8 breakthrough stocks now>>



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Greenberg Traurig, LLP has represented a joint venture between Round Hill Capital and a Middle-Eastern sovereign wealth fund in the acquisition of 14 residential assets (with 821 apartments), located in Apeldoorn, Amersfoort, Deventer and Arnhem in the Netherlands.

AMSTERDAM, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Greenberg Traurig, LLP has represented a joint venture between Round Hill Capital and a Middle-Eastern sovereign wealth fund in the acquisition of 14 residential assets (with 821 apartments), located in Apeldoorn, Amersfoort, Deventer and Arnhem in the Netherlands.

A multidisciplinary team of more than one dozen Greenberg Traurig real estate, corporate, tax and finance professionals were involved in the complex, multinational closing in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The Greenberg Traurig team was led by Jan Kees Brandse and Marijn Bodelier. They were supported by Shareholders Thedoor Melchers, Eric Rosedale, Sabine Schoute, Reinier van de Steenoven, Thomas Timmermans and Paul Westhoff, together with Associates Richelle Baptiste, Jacomijn Christ, Jan Herfkens, Maquina Lame, Johan Nijmeijer, Rutger Sterk, Radboud de Wit, and Local Partner Linda Thonen.

According to Eric Rosedale, the firm's Head of International Real Estate Practice Development, "This transaction is one of a number of important real estate transactions that our team has concluded in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis across Europe. This successful closing demonstrated both the grit of our professions working under unique circumstances and a longer term positive market view of many of our real estate clients, including in the Netherlands."

About Greenberg Traurig's Real Estate Practice: The Greenberg Traurig Real Estate Practice is a cornerstone of the firm and recognized leader in the industry. The firm's real estate attorneys deliver diversified and comprehensive counsel for property acquisition and investment, development, management and leasing, financing, restructuring, and disposition of all asset classes of real estate. The team draws upon the knowledge and experience of more than 400 real estate lawyers from around the world, serving clients from key markets in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. The group's clientele includes a broad range of property developers, lenders, investment managers, private equity funds, REITs, and private owners. The firm's real estate team advises clients on a variety of matters across a broad spectrum of commercial, recreational, and residential real estate, including structured equity and debt and the hybrids.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has approximately 2.200 attorneys in 41 locations in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, diversity, and innovation, and is consistently among the largest firms in the U.S. on the Law360 400 and among the Top 20 on the Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.

SOURCE Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Mexico City, July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Company Obtains Court Approval of All Requests at "First Day" Hearing

Aeromexico Continuing to Serve Customers and Operate with Focus on Health and Safety of Employees and Customers

Mexico City, July 1, 2020 -- Grupo Aeromexico S.A.B. de C.V (Aeromexico or the Company) (BMV:AEROMEX) today announced that is has received Court approval of all "First Day" motions that were presented at the First Day hearing that was held on July 1, 2020 following the Companys voluntary Chapter 11 filing on June 30. The Court orders will help support Aeromexicos ongoing operations throughout the restructuring process.

We are pleased with the Courts prompt consideration and approval of these motions, which will help ensure business continuity throughout this process, said Andres Conesa, Chief Executive Officer of Aeromexico. Grupo Aeromexico remains focused on doing everything we can to protect the future of the company and continuing to create memorable and safe flying experiences for all of our customers. This represents a significant milestone and first step forward in a restructuring process that we believe help us achieve those objectives. We look forward to continuing to safely expand flight service in the coming months, in line with local regulations and customer demand.

Among the motions that were approved by the Court are requests to allow Aeromexico to continue to pay employee wages and benefits in the ordinary course of business; honor already purchased tickets and vouchers and maintain the Companys Premier Points program without any changes or impact to customer point balances; maintain existing agreements with travel agencies, corporations and partner airlines; and pay suppliers in the ordinary course of business for goods and services provided on or after the June 30, 2020 Chapter 11 filing date.

As previously announced, Aeromexico remains in talks to obtain debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing for the Company as part of the restructuring process. Aeromexico is confident that it will finalize formal commitments for DIP financing that, along with the Companys available cash and subject to Court approval, would provide sufficient liquidity for Aeromexico to meet its obligations going forward.

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Additional information

Additional information about the Chapter 11 case is available by visiting Aeromexicos dedicated website, https://vuela.aeromexico.com/reorganization. Access to Court filing and other documents related to this process, including copies of the First Day Motions and Court Orders, can be found at https://dm.epiq11.com/Aeromexico, or by calling Aeromexicos restructuring information line at:

855-917-3578 (Toll free in the U.S.)

+ 1 503-520-4473 (International callers)

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP and Cervantes Sainz are acting as Aeromexicos legal counsel, Rothschild & Co. is acting as financial advisor, and AlixPartners, LLP is serving as restructuring advisor to the Company.

About Grupo Aeromexico

Grupo Aeromexico, S.A.B. de C.V. is a holding company whose subsidiaries are engaged in commercial aviation in Mexico and the promotion of passenger loyalty programs. Aeromexico, Mexicos global airline has its main hub at Terminal 2 at the Mexico City International Airport. Its destinations network features the United States, Canada, Central America, South America, Asia and Europe. The Group's operating fleet of 119 aircraft is comprised of Boeing 787 and 737 jet airliners and Embraer 170 and 190 models. Aeromexico is a founding member of the SkyTeam airline alliance, which celebrated its 20th anniversary, and serves in 170 countries by the 19 SkyTeam airline partners. Aeromexico created and implemented a Health and Sanitization Management System (HSMS) to protect its customers and employees at all steps of its operations.

Media Contacts

United States

Sard Verbinnen & Co

Steven Goldberg/Jared Levy/Danya Al-Qattan

AM-SVC@sardverb.com

Mexico

Aeromexicos Corporate Communication

amcomunicacioncorporativa@aeromexico.com

Investor Contacts

Investor Relations

aminvestorrelations@aeromexico.com

Aeromexico

amcomunicacioncorporativa@aeromexico.com


Cars travel on Yanan Road, a main commercial area in Hangzhou, after the city imposed new measures to prevent and control the new coronavirus

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hangzhou, China's answer to Silicon valley, imposed new restrictions on property transactions on Thursday, after cheap credit and a relaxation of residency permits fed a demand surge.

In the first such curbs by a major city in China since the coronavirus outbreak began, Hangzhou's government said people deemed as "high-end talent", who have long enjoyed fewer restrictions, could not resell their homes for five years.

Hangzhou, home to tech giant Alibaba, has encouraged a wave of migration in recent years with measures to attract talent. People who qualify as high-end talent have a greater chance of securing a home under a lottery system designed to cool the city's once-heated property market.

Home transaction volumes in Hangzhou, a city of 10 million people, rose by 49% in June from a year earlier, data from researcher CRIC showed. That compared with the 24% drop in Beijing and an 11% gain in Shanghai.

Yan Yuejin, director of the Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institution, estimated that more than 25% of home sales in Hangzhou stem from its talent scheme.

The new regulations also raised the bar for families without a home, who also have had priority under the lottery system.

"The new measures, which are relatively intense, and a reversal of the broad loosening stance across the country, showed regulators are still very resolved to clamp down on speculation," Yan said.

(Reporting by Lusha Zhang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. ("Hannon Armstrong") (NYSE: HASI), a leading investor in climate change solutions, today announced a newly-formed partnership with a subsidiary of ENGIE S.A., the largest independent power producer (IPP) and energy efficiency services provider in the world, that will own a 2.3 gigawatt (GW) portfolio of wind and utility-scale solar assets.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701006004/en/

Photo Credit: ENGIE

The partnership combines Hannon Armstrongs extensive experience in providing long-term investment for climate solutions with the best-in-class development and operations experience of ENGIE, a global energy and services leader dedicated to accelerating the deployment of clean, affordable, innovative and resilient energy solutions.

On commissioning, the 2.3 GW portfolio will be comprised of 1.8 GW of onshore wind and 0.5 GW of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects (13 projects in total) located in five states. Hannon Armstrong will participate in the cash flows from the operations of this diversified portfolio of renewable energy projects, while ENGIE will retain a controlling share in the portfolio and continue to manage the assets.

"We have a common mission to accelerate the rapid adoption of climate change solutions, and we are pleased to partner with ENGIE once again with this new investment that adds significant scale and diversity to our portfolio," said Hannon Armstrong Chairman and CEO Jeffrey W. Eckel. "Continuing to build a programmatic investment platform allows both firms to make the investment process more aerodynamic and cost-effective for ENGIEs ultimate customers," added Eckel.

"The U.S. is a key growth market for our renewables business, where we are accelerating fast, from 0 MW in 2018 to 2 GW that should be commissioned in 2020. We have a strong pipeline of opportunities and a solid development and operational platform to grow from. We are delighted to have partnered with Hannon Armstrong, a company solely dedicated to investments in climate change solutions," said Gwenaelle Avice-Huet, Executive Vice-President responsible for ENGIE Renewables business line and CEO of ENGIE North America.

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Highlights

The portfolio includes nine onshore wind and four utility-scale solar projects located in five states, representing 2.3 GW of gross generating capacity in aggregate. Under the agreement, Hannon Armstrong will take immediate ownership of 49% of 663 megawatts (MW) from four operating onshore wind projects. The remaining 1.6 GW of projects (five onshore wind and four utility-scale solar PV projects) currently under construction will be transferred into the partnership upon commissioning.

Assets are located in geographically diversified wind and solar resource regions and wholesale power markets, including Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), PJM Interconnection (PJM), and Southwest Power Pool (SPP).

With a weighted average contract life of 13 years, the portfolio's cash flows are contracted with highly creditworthy off-takers who enjoy a weighted average credit rating of A+, including Amazon, Allianz, Ingersoll Rand, Microsoft,T Mobile, Target, Walmart, and Xcel Energy.

Once fully funded, this portfolio is expected to significantly increase and diversify Hannon Armstrong's balance sheet portfolio and support continued growth in recurring Net Investment Income.

With a CarbonCount score of 2.01 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) reduced annually per $1,000 invested, Hannon Armstrong's equity investment will avoid an estimated 1.1 million metric tons of CO2e in the first year of operations, equivalent to the CO2e emissions from 125,000 U.S. homes' annual energy use.

About Hannon Armstrong

Hannon Armstrong (NYSE: HASI) is the first U.S. public company solely dedicated to investments in climate change solutions, providing capital to leading companies in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other sustainable infrastructure markets. With more than $6 billion in managed assets as of March 31, 2020, Hannon Armstrong's core purpose is to make climate-positive investments with superior risk-adjusted returns. For more information, please visit www.hannonarmstrong.com. Follow Hannon Armstrong on LinkedIn and Twitter @HannonArmstrong.

About ENGIE North America

ENGIE North America Inc. offers a range of capabilities in the United States and Canada to help customers decarbonize, decentralize and digitalize their operations. These include comprehensive services to help customers run their facilities more efficiently and optimize energy and other resource use and expense; clean power generation; energy storage; and retail energy supply that includes renewable, demand response, and on-bill financing options. Nearly 100% of the company's power generation portfolio is low carbon or renewable. Globally, ENGIE S.A. relies on their key businesses (gas, renewable energy, services) to offer competitive solutions to customers. With 170,000 employees, customers, partners and stakeholders, we are a community of Imaginative Builders, committed every day to more harmonious progress. For more information on ENGIE North America, please visit our LinkedIn page or Twitter feed, www.engie-na.com and www.engie.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Some of the information in this press release contains forward-looking statements and 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. When used in this press release, words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "plan," "continue," "intend," "should," "may," "target," or similar expressions, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Investors are cautioned against placing undue reliance on such statements. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements include those discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for our fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, which was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), as well as in other reports that we file with the SEC.

Forward-looking statements are based on beliefs, assumptions and expectations as of the date of this press release. We disclaim any obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements reflecting new estimates, events or circumstances after the date of this press release.

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Contacts



Hannon Armstrong

Gil Jenkins

media@hannonarmstrong.com

443-321-5753

Chad Reed

investors@hannonarmstrong.com

410-571-6189

ENGIE North America

Sandrine Deparis

sandrine.deparis@engie.com

202-855-3705
WHITEHORSE, Yukon, July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Victoria Gold Corp. (TSX-VGCX) (Victoria or the Company) is pleased to provide an update regarding commercial production and COVID-19 protocols as production continues at the Eagle Gold Mine (Eagle), Yukon, Canada.



Commercial Production

The Company hereby declares commercial production at the Eagle Gold Mine on July 1, 2020. All facilities required at this stage of the mine life are complete. Mining, crushing, processing and maintenance operations are performing at a high level. The Companys first reporting period under commercial production will be the 3rd quarter ended September 30, 2020.

Site activities continue to progress well and all facilities and operations are now at or approaching design capacity. This consistent production combined with materially positive operating cash flow has allowed Victoria management to declare commercial production as of July 1, 2020, said John McConnell, President & CEO. Achievement of commercial production is a meaningful and memorable accomplishment that the entire team is proud to be part of. Special thanks goes to so many contributors, including the local communities and the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun who have helped us make Eagle a reality.

COVID-19 Protocols

The Company continues to follow strict COVID-19 protocols at the Eagle Mine site as well as across the Companys work locations. Yukon is currently in Phase 2 of lifting COVID-19 restrictions. Personnel from Yukon and British Columbia are no longer required to self-isolate prior to coming to site, however, all workers from outside the Canadian territories and BC will self-isolate in Whitehorse for 14 days prior to traveling to site. The Eagle Mine site continues to operate on a 4 week in / 4 week out schedule rather than the normal pre-COVID-19 2 week in / 2 week out schedule.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul D. Gray, P.Geo, as the Qualified Person.

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About the Dublin Gulch Property

Victoria Gold's 100%-owned Dublin Gulch gold property (the Property) is situated in central Yukon Territory, Canada, approximately 375 kilometers north of the capital city of Whitehorse, and approximately 85 kilometers from the town of Mayo. The Property is accessible by road year round, and is located within Yukon Energy's electrical grid.

The Property covers an area of approximately 555 square kilometers, and is the site of the Company's Eagle and Olive Gold Deposits. The Eagle Gold Mine is Yukon's newest operating gold mine. The Eagle and Olive deposits include Proven and Probable Reserves of 3.3 million ounces of gold from 155 million tonnes of ore with a grade of 0.65 grams of gold per tonne, as outlined in a National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report for the Eagle Gold Mine dated December 3, 2019. The Mineral Resource under National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101) for the Eagle and Olive deposits has been estimated to host 227 million tonnes averaging 0.67 grams of gold per tonne, containing 4.7 million ounces of gold in the "Measured and Indicated" category, inclusive of Proven and Probable Reserves, and a further 28 million tonnes averaging 0.65 grams of gold per tonne, containing 0.6 million ounces of gold in the "Inferred" category.

Cautionary Language and Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this discussion, other than statements of historical facts, that address future exploration drilling, exploration activities, anticipated metal production, internal rate of return, estimated ore grades, commencement of production estimates and projected exploration and capital expenditures (including costs and other estimates upon which such projections are based) and events or developments that the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include metal prices, exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

For Further Information Contact:

John McConnell

President & CEO

Victoria Gold Corp.

Tel: 416-866-8800
Harris Williams, a global investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services, announces that it advised H.I.G. Capitals investment affiliate, H.I.G. Advantage (H.I.G.), on its acquisition of Supply Source Enterprises, Inc. (SSE) from Genuine Parts Company (GPC). SSE is a leading manufacturer of branded and private label personal protective equipment and janitorial, safety, hygiene and sanitation products. The transaction was led by Bob Baltimore and Graham Gillam of the Harris Williams Specialty Distribution Group.

"H.I.G.s acquisition of SSE highlights continued strong investor interest in safety and cleaning supply companies as the global economy augments sanitation practices," said Bob Baltimore, a managing director at Harris Williams. "We look forward to seeing what the company accomplishes in partnership with H.I.G., as they navigate a world with new expectations around cleanliness."

"This transaction adds to our firms successful track record of deals in the foodservice and janitorial sanitation distribution sector," added Graham Gillam, a director at Harris Williams. "It was a pleasure to work with H.I.G., and we look forward to seeing how, in partnership with the SSE team, they take the company to the next level as a standalone business."

Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, SSE offers an extensive product portfolio and differentiated value-added services. Through its Safety Zone and Impact Products divisions, SSE serves a diversified customer base, including janitorial and sanitation supply distributors, safety products resellers, foodservice and food processing distributors and retailers.

H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with $37 billion of equity capital under management. Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused / value-added approach. Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 300 companies worldwide. The firm's current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion.

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Harris Williams, an investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services, advocates for sellers and buyers of companies worldwide through critical milestones and provides thoughtful advice during the lives of their businesses. By collaborating as one firm across Industry Groups and geographies, the firm helps its clients achieve outcomes that support their objectives and strategically create value. Harris Williams is committed to execution excellence and to building enduring, valued relationships that are based on mutual trust. Harris Williams is a subsidiary of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC).

Harris Williams Specialty Distribution Group has experience across a variety of sectors, including automotive and heavy-duty aftermarket; building products; consumer; electrical and communications; foodservice; healthcare; industrial; and technology. For more information on the firms Specialty Distribution Group, visit the Specialty Distribution Groups section of the Harris Williams website.

Harris Williams LLC is a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Harris Williams & Co. Ltd is a private limited company incorporated under English law with its registered office at 8th Floor, 20 Farringdon Street, London EC4A 4AB, UK, registered with the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales (registration number 07078852). Harris Williams & Co. Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Harris Williams & Co. Corporate Finance Advisors GmbH is registered in the commercial register of the local court of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, under HRB 107540. The registered address is Bockenheimer Landstrasse 33-35, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany (email address: hwgermany@harriswilliams.com). Geschaftsfuhrer/Directors: Jeffery H. Perkins, Paul Poggi. (VAT No. DE321666994). Harris Williams is a trade name under which Harris Williams LLC, Harris Williams & Co. Ltd and Harris Williams & Co. Corporate Finance Advisors GmbH conduct business.

For media inquiries, please contact Katie Langemeier, marketing manager, at +1 (804) 648-0072.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005877/en/

Contacts

Katie Langemeier, marketing manager, +1 (804) 648-0072
Thursday, July 2, 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. protest will take place in Santa Clarita

Advocates have staged several socially-distant protests against Big Real Estate Lobby and corporate landlords who fueled Californias housing affordability crisis by putting profits over people

A coalition of tenants' rights advocates that include Housing Is A Human Right (HHR), the housing advocacy division of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) have staged several socially-distant protests calling out corporate landlord and other bad actors for fueling Californias ongoing housing affordability and homeless crises. The housing rights advocates will stage another protest to take on billionaire landlord Mike Schall, CEO of Essex Property Trust, a real estate investment trust (REIT) based in San Mateo.

Essex Property Trust is the tenth-largest apartment owner in the U.S.  with more than 60,000 units and a worth of $25 billion. The vast majority of those apartments are located in the Bay Area and Southern California.

According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), crushing rent increases has caused homelessness to increase by almost 13 percent (66,433 individuals between 2019 and 2020) in Los Angeles County alone. The ongoing crisis is fueled by Big Real Estate Lobby and billionaire landlords like Schall and Essex Property Trust, who prioritize profits over people by implementing astronomical rent increases.

The SOCIALLY-DISTANT PROTEST will start at 5:00 p.m. and run until 6:00 p.m. in Santa Clarita.

WHAT: HOUSING RIGHTS PROTEST: housing rights and health care advocates stage socially-distant protest calling out billionaire landlord Mike Schall for fueling Californias ongoing housing affordability and homeless crises. WHEN: Thursday, July 2, 2020 - 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. WHERE: Santa Clarita, CA B-ROLL: 10-foot puppet of Mike Schall, 5-foot eviction sign, 30+ advocates will hold a socially-distant protest, in which they will stand six feet apart and wear facemasks, in observance of COVID-19 protocols

MEDIA CONTACTS:

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Ruthie Thomas, Communications Director, Rental Affordability Act (RAA) ruth.thomas@ahf.org (310) 663-4159 cell

Trinidad Ruiz, Campaign Organizer, Housing Is A Human Right (HHR) trinidad.ruiz@ahf.org (310) 916-7636 cell

"Mike Schall and Essex Property Trust have fought tooth and nail against efforts to protect Californian renters who struggle to make ends meet every month," said Rene Christian Moya, Housing Is A Human Right and Rental Affordability Act Campaign Director. "Essex Property Trust were among the top contributors to oppose rent control in 2018. This year, they are once again shelling out millions to target Proposition 21, a November ballot measure that would allow for the expansion of rent control and limit rent increases for millions of renters across California."

AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the parent non-profit of Housing Is A Human Right and Healthy Housing Foundation, has long addressed public health emergencies -- from the AIDS epidemic to the Ebola crisis to Californias homeless crisis. AHF will do everything it can to help the vulnerable during this difficult time.

# # #

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005549/en/

Contacts

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Ruthie Thomas, Communications Director, Rental Affordability Act (RAA) ruth.thomas@ahf.org (310) 663-4159 cell

Trinidad Ruiz, Campaign Organizer, Housing Is A Human Right (HHR) trinidad.ruiz@ahf.org (310) 916-7636 cell
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) urged governments in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) to implement alternatives to quarantine on arrival that would allow economies to re-start while avoiding the importation of Covid-19 cases.

Government-imposed quarantine measures in 36 countries across Africa and the Middle East (AME) account for 40 per cent of all quarantine measures globally. With over 80 per cent of travellers unwilling to travel when quarantine is required, the impact of these measures is that countries remain in lockdown even if their borders are open.

It is critical that MEA governments implement alternatives to quarantine measures. MEA has the highest number of countries in the world with government-imposed quarantine measures on arriving passengers. The region is effectively in complete lockdown with the travel and tourism sector shuttered. This is detrimental in a region where 8.6 million people depend on aviation for their livelihoods," said Muhammad Albakri, IATAs Regional Vice President for Africa and the Middle East.

IATA proposes a layering of measures to protect public health while re-starting aviation, focused in two areas:

 Reducing the risk of imported cases via travellers

- Discouraging symptomatic passengers from traveling with airlines offering flexibility to passengers who need to adjust their schedule.

- Public health risk mitigation measures such as health screening by governments in the form of health declarations.

- Covid-19 testing for travellers from countries perceived to be higher-risk when accurate and fast testing is available at scale.

 Mitigating risk in cases where an infected person does travel

- Reducing the risk of transmission during the air travel journey with the implementation of the Take-Off guidelines published by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

- Contact tracing to efficiently isolate any traveller who may become symptomatic and infectious after arrival.

- Reducing risk of transmission at destination through overall government measures to fight the virus.

Implementing a layered approach should give governments the confidence to open borders without quarantine, and passengers the confidence to fly. Air connectivity is critical to economic and sustainable development in and across MEA, said Albakri. - TradeArabia News Service
Program will target small businesses, non-profits and small landlords that did not receive federal COVID-19 assistance

HSBC Bank USA, N.A. ("HSBC USA"), part of HSBC Group, one of the worlds largest banking and financial services companies, today announced it will provide $10 million to support the New York Forward Loan Fund (NYFLF), part of Governor Andrew M. Cuomos initiative to reinvigorate New Yorks smallest businesses, landlords and critical non-profits. The NYFLF will provide affordable and flexible capital to participating Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) so they can make rapid recovery loans in communities hard hit by the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.

"HSBC Bank takes its role in supporting communities throughout New York State seriously," said Morris L. Churchill, Jr., HSBC USAs Head of Community Development & Sales Administration. "While small businesses are the engine of our economy, they unfortunately have suffered disproportionately throughout the pandemic. We are proud to participate in Governor Cuomos initiative to aid the states small businesses and non-profits that make up the very fabric of our communities. Supporting these groups during this unprecedented crisis was an easy decision to make."

The NYFLF will initially provide $100 million in working capital loans that target the states smallest businesses and non-profits with 20 or fewer full-time equivalent (FTE) employees (90% of all small businesses), and small landlords with portfolios of 5  50 units who have seen a loss of rental income. For landlords, priority will be given to those with buildings in low and moderate income (LMI) communities or who manage affordable units. NYFLF will have a further goal of making 60% of its loans to minority- and/or women-owned businesses or minority- and/or women-led non-profits.

The NYFLF is a partnership led by the State of New York and five CDFIs with support from Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the Community Reinvestment Fund, USA, and Calvert Impact Capital. The participating CDFIs include ACCION East, Community Preservation Corporation, National Development Council, Pursuit and TruFund. The collaboration has an explicit focus on historically under-resourced communities, including organizations in LMI areas and those led by women and people of color.

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Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is serving as the administrator for the NYFLF. "Were grateful to HSBC for its support for small businesses and neighborhood nonprofits, and for its 25 years of partnership with LISC," said Maurice A. Jones, LISC President and CEO. "These local organizations are the backbone of their communities. Their recovery will stabilize commercial corridors, fuel jobs, develop and preserve quality, affordable housing and catalyze economic opportunity and prosperity that is broadly shared throughout urban and rural areas."

This investment follows HSBC USAs announcement last month of $2 million to help combat food insecurity and ease increased demand on food banks across the country. Additionally, through grants to small businesses, employee-led volunteer programs, Feeding America, the American Red Cross and the Center for an Urban Future, HSBC USA has provided more than $4 million in additional aid to help battle the pandemic in the United States.

HSBC Bank USA, N.A. serves customers through retail banking and wealth management, commercial banking, private banking, and global banking and markets segments. It operates bank branches in: California; Connecticut; Washington, D.C.; Florida; Maryland; New Jersey; New York; Pennsylvania; Virginia; and Washington. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. is the principal subsidiary of HSBC USA Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC North America Holdings Inc. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. is a Member of FDIC. Investment and brokerage services are provided through HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., (Member NYSE/FINRA/SIPC) and insurance products are provided through HSBC Insurance Agency (USA) Inc.

HSBC Holdings plc, the parent company of the HSBC Group, is headquartered in London. HSBC serves customers worldwide from offices in 64 countries and territories in our geographical regions: Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Middle East and North Africa. With assets of US$2,918bn at 31 March 2020, HSBC is one of the worlds largest banking and financial services organizations.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005315/en/

Contacts

Matt Klein +1 212 525 4644 matt.klein@us.hsbc.com

Kathleen Bentley +1 212 525 0423 kathleen.bentley@us.hsbc.com
SAN DIEGO, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ImageWare Systems, Inc. (OTCQB: IWSY), a leader biometric identification and authentication, is pleased to announce the appointment of Christopher (Chris) D. Dickson, as Vice President of Sales, effective June 30, 2020.

Dickson joins ImageWare with over 25 years of sales and business development experience in Security, Blockchain, Cloud and Enterprise software. His career includes eighteen years with Computer Associates, where he held key sales leadership positions in various parts of the world including Australia, New York, California and Switzerland.

Before coming to the Company, Dickson worked within technology for nearly two decades in sales. Most recently, he was responsible for sales at The Bitfury Group (a Forbes 50 blockchain company) and was pivotal in launching one of the first Enterprise based Blockchain SaaS solutions into the market, delivering quarter over quarter growth, ending the first 12 months, with a 600% increase in sales. While at Panaya (an Enterprise SaaS company), he delivered quarter over quarter double-digit (50%) growth, with significant new client focus. While at Verizon Enterprise, he led the partner and system integrator businesses for EMEA, growing sales by 350% within eighteen months through country-specific go to market strategies, partner specialization, enhanced operating discipline, and deliberate expansion of cross-sell and up-sell.

Kristin A. Taylor , President and CEO of ImageWare, said, "Chris brings a welcomed sense of urgency and focus to our Company and a network of key relationships in the tech sector. He applies his deep technical background to his role which gives us a vital sales edge as he guides us to achieve our revenue goals. His passion for building teams, collaborating closely with engineering, and product management are Chris's strong suites."

Dickson said, "With an organized focus, and new go-to-market strategies, I am certain we have the technology and team to help customers solve their identity management challenges leveraging ImageWare's deep experience with biometrics. Multi-factor authentication that leverages Cloud-based biometric matching is fast becoming the new standard for ensuring and protecting access to data for both consumers, enterprises, and governments alike."

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Originally from Wellington, New Zealand, Mr. Dickson studied Computer Studies at the Central Institute of Technology, now Victoria University. He is a trained programmer and began his career performing object-oriented coding.

About ImageWare Systems, Inc.

In 1987, ImageWare was founded to innovate imaging. After a bold start evolving silver halide photography into digital images, ImageWare built the first statewide digital booking platform for the United States law enforcement in 1998. Since then, ImageWare has evolved into the largest holder of multimodal biometrics, managing millions of identities daily. With vast experience in the government sector, ImageWare is democratizing biometrics by offering defense-grade identity and authentication solutions to the masses. By identifying the person, not a device, ImageWare is giving populations around the globe access to their important data. www.iwsinc.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "if," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to ImageWare Systems, Inc. are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. ImageWare may from time to time update publicly announced projections, but it is not obligated to do so. Any projections of future results of operations should not be construed in any manner as a guarantee that such results will in fact occur. These projections are subject to change and could differ materially from final reported results. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, see "Risk Factors" in ImageWare's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019 and its other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the dates on which they are made.

Media Contact:

Jessica Belair

Veritas Lux

(310) 717-0877

jessica@veritaslux.com

Investor Relations:

Harvey Bibicoff, CEO,

Bibicoff + MacInnis, Inc.

(818) 379-8500

harvey@bibimac.com

Cision

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SOURCE ImageWare Systems, Inc.
FILE PHOTO: India's PM Modi speaks to the media inside the parliament premises on the first day of the winter session in New Delhi

By Pei Li and Sanjeev Miglani

HONG KONG/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has deleted his account on Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, an Indian government source and the company said, as tensions between the two countries continue to simmer over a border skirmish.

Since posting on Sina Weibo the first time in 2015 during a visit to China, Modi has been an infrequent user of the Chinese social media platform. He had more than 200,000 followers and 100 posts before the account was shut.

Sina Weibo announced the closure of the account late on Wednesday and the removal comes a few days after India banned dozens of Chinese apps, including Sina Weibo and ByteDance's TikTok, following the border clash between the two nations.

An Indian government source told Reuters on Thursday that it took time to get Modi's account taken down.

"For VIP accounts, Weibo has a more complex procedure to quit which is why the official process was initiated. For reasons best known to the Chinese, there was great delay in granting this basic permission," the source said.

India lost 20 soldiers in the clash last month at the disputed Himalayan border in what it said was a premeditated attack by Chinese troops. Beijing rejected the allegations and blamed frontline Indian troops for crossing into its side of undemarcated border.

Modi was among a handful of foreign leaders with a Weibo account.

Notably, he revealed the birth dates of both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang by wishing them "Happy Birthday" on Weibo. The birth dates of senior leaders in China are usually not revealed publicly.

Chinese leaders are rarely active on social media. Foreign social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China.

The Indian source said all of Modi's posts on Weibo had been deleted except for two showing pictures of him with Xi. "On Weibo, it is difficult to remove posts with the photo of their president," the source said.

(Reporting by Pei Li, additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani in New Delhi; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
By Kate Lamb

July 2 (Reuters) - Indonesia is working to produce its own COVID-19 vaccine next year, amid growing anxiety that developing countries could have difficulty getting access to a future jab, the head of Indonesias national COVID-19 research team said Thursday.

The production capability and capacity of biotech companies in the world is, we know, limited, and global supply chains also have challenges, Ali Ghufron Mukti, head of the innovation team at Indonesias research and technology ministry, told a streamed press conference alongside the countrys foreign minister.

Therefore, it is necessary for Indonesia to develop its own COVID-19 vaccine. And it will be by Indonesia, from Indonesia, to Indonesia, he said.

"We are using our theory and we are optimistic that in the year 2021 and early 2021, this will be finished in the laboratory," he said, adding state-owned firm Bio Farma could conduct trials in the second half of next year.

Indonesias Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has in recent months spoken about the need for developing countries to have access to any future vaccine, amid concern that rich countries would try to corner a limited supply.

Such concerns increased this week, when the United States announced it had bought up most of the global supply of Gilead Sciences Inc.'s drug remdesivir, shown to speed up recovery times from COVID-19.

The pandemic has sparked a race to find a vaccine, with more than 100 in development and around a dozen already being tested in humans.

On Thursday, Mukti also outlined efforts underway between local and foreign pharmaecutical companies to mass produce a vaccine in Indonesia. A COVID-19 Vaccine Development Team has been tasked with guaranteeing the availability of a vaccine nationally within the next 12 months.

Honesti Basyir, the director of Bio Farma, told Reuters in late June it was working with Chinese firm Sinovac on a vaccine which would enter the third phase of clinical trials in humans this month. If the trial is successful, it could start production in the first quarter of next year with a minimum 100 million doses.

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With a population of more than 265 million, Indonesia estimates it would need more than 352 million shots of a two-dose vaccine.

On Thursday Indonesia recorded 1,624 new coronavirus cases, the highest daily rise so far, taking the total numbers of cases to 59,394.

In addition to Bio Farma and Sinovac, Mukti said private Indonesian pharmaceutical firm Kalbe Farma and the South Korean biotech company Genexine were cooperating to produce a vaccine. (Additional reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa Editing by Peter Graff)
Earlier this week, the Invesco European Growth Fund (Trades, Portfolio) disclosed its portfolio updates for its second quarter of fiscal 2020, which ended on April 30.





Invesco is a global financial services company with headquarters in Atlanta and offices in 25 countries around the world. The Invesco European Growth Fund (Trades, Portfolio) seeks long-term exposure to high-quality growth opportunities in both developed and emerging European markets.

As of the quarter's end, the equity portfolio consisted of positions in 59 stocks valued at $878 million. It established 11 new positions, sold out of eight stocks and added to or reduced several other holdings for a turnover rate of 12%.

The fund's top equity positions were London-based marketing group DCC PLC (LSE:DCC) at 5.24% of the equity portfolio, Sberbank of Russia PJSC (MIC:SBERP) with 5.2% and Deutsche Boerse AG with 3.36%. In terms of sector weighting, the fund was most heavily invested in financial services and industrials.

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Based on its investing criteria, the fund's biggest buys for the quarter were in Nestle SA (XSWX:NESN) and Roche Holding AG (XSWX:ROG), while its biggest sells were in Vinci SA (XPAR:DG) and Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC (LSE:RB.).

Nestle

The fund established a new position of 179,030 shares in Nestle after selling out of its previous investment in the company in the third quarter of 2014. The trade impacted the equity portfolio by 2.15%. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of 102.61 Swiss francs ($108.52).

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Switzerland-based Nestle is the world's largest food and beverage company in terms of revenue. Products include several shelf-stable foods and drink powders, as well as coffee, dairy, sweets and pet food. The company owns iconic brands such as Kit-Kat, Gerber, Stouffer's and Purina.

On July 2, shares of Nestle traded around 105.26 francs for a market cap of 303.15 billion francs and a price-earnings ratio of 24.48. According to the Peter Lynch chart, shares are trading above their intrinsic value but near their median historical valuation.

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GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 6 out of 10, a profitability rating of 7 out of 10, a valuation rating of 1 out of 10 and a business predictability rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars.

The cash-debt ratio of 0.28 is below the industry median of 0.41, but the Altman Z-Score of 4.46 indicates that the company is not in danger of bankruptcy. The operating margin of 17.26% is higher than 89.72% of competitors and the return on invested capital exceeds the weighted average cost of capital, indicating profitability.

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Roche Holding

The fund also invested in 33,032 new shares of Roche Holding after selling out of its previous position in the company during the first quarter of 2018. The trade had a 1.31% impact on the equity portfolio. Shares traded for an average price of 321.47 francs during the quarter.

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Roche is a pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland. Founded in 1896, the company researches, develops and manufactures pharmaceutical and diagnostic products mainly in the following fields: cardiovascular, autoimmune, infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, oncology, dermatology, metabolic disorders and transplantation.

On July 2, shares of Roche traded around 332.80 francs for a market cap of 284.38 billion francs and a price-earnings ratio of 21.32. The Peter Lynch chart indicates that the stock trades above both its intrinsic value and its historical median valuation.

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GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 7 out of 10, a profitability rating of 8 out of 10, a valuation rating of 3 out of 10 and a business predictability rating of 1 out of 5 stars.

Roche's interest coverage ratio of 23.09 and Altman Z-Score of 5.83 are higher than 60.59% of competitors. The operating margin of 28.55% is beating 92.75% of competitors, and the company has managed to steadily grow its revenue and net income over the past several years.

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Vinci

The fund sold out of its 250,967-share position in Vinci, which had a -2.28% impact on the equity portfolio. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of 83.10 euros ($93.38).

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Vinci is a French concessions and construction company with headquarters in Paris. The international company primarily designs, finances, builds and operates public infrastructure and facilities with a focus on sustainability, community and mobility.

On July 2, shares of Vinci traded around 81.80 euros for a market cap of 45.35 billion euros and a price-earnings ratio of 14.04. The Peter Lynch chart shows that the company is trading below its intrinsic value, but in line with its median historical valuation.

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GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 4 out of 10, a profitability rating of 7 out of 10, a valuation rating of 3 out of 10 and a business predictability rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

The cash-debt ratio of 0.27 is lower than 69.42% of competitors, and the Altman Z-Score of 1.16 indicates that the company could be in danger of bankruptcy if it cannot secure additional funding. The operating margin of 11.09% is above the industry median of 5.71%, and the ROIC is higher than the WACC, indicating overall profitability.

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Reckitt Benckiser Group

The fund also sold all 218,249 of its shares in Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC, impacting the equity portfolio by -1.48%. Shares traded for an average price of 61.53 British pounds ($76.69) during the quarter.

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Formed in 1999 by the merger of Reckitt & Colman PLC and Benckiser NV, Reckitt Benckiser Group is a British multinational consumer goods company. It primarily produces health, hygiene and home products, and its popular brand names include Lysol, Mucinex and Scholl.

On July 2, shares of Reckitt Benckiser traded around 74.06 pounds for a market cap of 52.66 billion pounds. The company has seen sharp declines in its net income in recent years, despite improving revenue.

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GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 4 out of 10, a profitability rating of 8 out of 10, a valuation rating of 2 out of 10 and a business predictability rating of 2 out of 5 stars.

The cash-debt ratio of 0.13 is lower than 74.48% of competitors, while the Altman Z-Score of 2.39 indicates that the company is in the grey area, with bankruptcy being unlikely but not improbable. The operating margin of 25.58% seems high, but the net margin of -28.67% indicates that the company may not be so profitable after taking debt and taxes into consideration.

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Disclosure: Author owns no shares in any of the stocks mentioned. The mention of stocks in this article does not at any point constitute an investment recommendation. Portfolio updates reflect only common stock positions as per the regulatory filings for the quarter in question and may not include changes made after the quarter ended.

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Digital innovation and strong investment strategy drive continued success

HONG KONG, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Jebsen Motors has taken top honours in the 2019 Porsche China's Dealer of the Year for the fifth consecutive year, marking a half-decade of continuous success in the Greater China market.

Porsche Centre Hangzhou Westlake took top honours for the second consecutive year, awarded the prestigious Dealer of the Year title

Porsche Centre Hangzhou Westlake took top honours for the second consecutive year, awarded the prestigious 'Dealer of the Year' title, with Porsche Centres Shenzhen Longgang and Futian and Porsche Centre Guangzhou Tianhe also featured amongst the top-ten at No. 7 and No. 10 respectively.

Porsche Centre Hangzhou Westlake Operated by Jebsen Motors

Jebsen Motors dealerships, Porsche Centres Shenzhen Longgang and Futian, Porsche Centre Guangzhou Tianhe and Porsche Centre Hong Kong also placed in the top three spots respectively for South Region China, Dealer of the Year.



Porsche Centre Hangzhou Westlake Operated by Jebsen Motors

Jebsen Motors was recognised for its stellar sales performance throughout 2019, its outstanding management, marketing achievements and strong investment strategy across the Greater China marketplace.



"To lead the Dealer of the Year award consistently over the last five years speaks volumes to the dedication and commitment of each and every one of our colleagues," said Joachim Eberlein, Managing Director of Jebsen Motors. "We are very proud of our outstanding track-record in these prestigious awards, reflecting the long-standing commitment we have to the Porsche brand and our undiminished passion to deliver outstanding levels of service to our customers."



Porsche enjoyed strong overall sales in 2019 with 86,752 vehicles sold in Greater China over the course of the year. Jebsen Motors delivered a total of 10,088 cars, representing some 12% of total Greater China sales and serviced more than 100,000 customers in its network of workshops.



Pursuing an integrated online-to-offline (O2O) digital strategy, utilising artificial intelligence (AI) for optimised data-mining, market trend and user-habit analysis, along with successful online marketing and enhancements to customer communications has proved highly successful, with the company handling more than 125,000 online enquiries in 2019 and some 20% of sales initiated through online channels.



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To provide service to our customers that exceeds their expectations, continuous development and training of our workforce is essential. A Jebsen Motors specific talent development program has enabled the company to become one of the most professional organisations in the industry. The 1,000-strong Jebsen Motors workforce includes 44 Gold and Silver certified Porsche technicians (as of May 2020). Most of our sales consultants/ advisors are certified by Porsche China.

Continued strong investment in infrastructure development will see the opening of Jebsen's eleventh Porsche Centre in Greater China, which is located in Nanjing, Jiangsu.

"Despite the challenging conditions faced by the entire automotive industry in 2020, Jebsen Motors has great confidence and remains unconditionally committed to our long-term strategy in infrastructure investment in the Greater China market," explained Mr. Eberlein. "We remain focused on nurturing and promoting the rich talent pool across our company workforce and are continually working to deliver exceptional and unique experiences, together with the highest levels of service, to our valued customers."

Jebsen Motors has built a reputation for delivering a premium customer experience based on a total service approach. Its relationship with Porsche dates back to 1955, when it first introduced the brand to Hong Kong and subsequently brought it to Mainland China in 2001. Today, Jebsen is one of the largest Porsche dealers in the world, with ten Porsche Centres in major cities across Greater China. It continues to grow its presence as part of a commitment to delivering a superior experience to more customers.

About Jebsen Group

Founded in 1895, Jebsen Group is a focused marketing, investment, and distribution organisation. With a long, unique established presence and deep understanding of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the Jebsen Group is committed to supporting our partners' needs in building market demand, generating and supporting sales, and serving as an important link to customers throughout the region. Under the unified master brand of Jebsen, the Group has six Business Lines including Beverage, Consumer, Industrial, Motors, Logistics and Jebsen Capital. Jebsen offers some 200 of the world's leading products extensive local market access with a high degree of specialisation. Outside the region, the Jebsen Group enjoys close ties with sister companies in Australia, South East Asia, Denmark and Germany. For more information, visit www.jebsen.com, or follow us on Sina Weibo (weibo.com/jebsengroup), WeChat (id:jebsen1895) and LinkedIn (id:jebsen group).

Media Contacts:

Jebsen Group

Mandy Duan, mandyduan@jebsen.com, (86) 10 8519 8649

FleishmanHillard

Kitty Lee, kitty.lee@fleishman.com, (852) 2586 7861

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200702/2847304-1-a

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200702/2847304-1-b

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200702/2847304-1-c





SOURCE Jebsen Group
ST. LOUIS, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Jones Financial Companies, L.L.L.P. announced today that it has submitted an application to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Utah Department of Financial Institutions to establish the Edward Jones Bank, a Utah-chartered industrial bank.

Edward Jones. (PRNewsFoto/Edward Jones) (PRNewsfoto/Edward Jones)

The bank would be insured by the FDIC and subject to federal- and state-regulatory oversight. If approved, the bank would help Edward Jones better serve clients' needs for saving, spending and borrowing.

"Since our founding 98 years ago, Edward Jones has been focused on helping individuals achieve their serious, long-term financial goals while understanding their needs and implementing tailored solutions," said Ken Cella, Edward Jones principal responsible for the Client Strategies Group. "An affiliated bank would enable us to broaden our offerings for retail investors, while also supporting our approach to helping Edward Jones branch teams ensure our 7 million clients feel understood, informed, secure and in control. Given market conditions, we believe the need for enhancements to our financial services is more important than ever to our clients as they look to reach their financial goals."

The bank application process is expected to take an extended period of time. If the application is approved, Ray Dardano would serve as the bank's president and Edward Jones believes the bank's operations could begin in late-2021, at which time clients could see the firm offer enhanced options for saving, spending and borrowing, including certain securities-based loans.

"We're hearing from our clients that they are looking for a centralized source for saving, spending and borrowing," said Matt Burkemper, Edward Jones principal responsible for Banking. "With an affiliated bank, we would have the opportunity to enhance and expand our offerings, better enabling Edward Jones financial advisors to help clients meet their comprehensive financial goals."

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About Edward Jones

Edward D. Jones & Co., L.P., a Fortune 500 company headquartered in St. Louis, provides financial services in the U.S. and, through its affiliate, in Canada. Every aspect of the firm's business, from the investments offered to the location of branch offices, caters to individual investors. The firm's 19,000-plus financial advisors serve more than 7 million clients with a total of $1.2 trillion in client assets under care. Visit www.edwardjones.com or the recruiting website at www.careers.edwardjones.com . Member SIPC.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. You can identify forward-looking statements by words that predict or indicate future events, such as "believe," "expect," "intend," "will" or "should." All forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, whether the industrial bank application will be approved, what benefits an industrial bank charter might yield and the Risk Factors discussed in The Jones Financial Companies L.L.L.P.'s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 27, 2020. These forward-looking statements were based on information, plans, and estimates at the date of this press release, and The Jones Financial Companies L.L.L.P. does not undertake to update forward-looking statements to reflect changes in underlying assumptions or new information.

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-jones-financial-companies-lllp-submits-application-for-industrial-bank-charter-301086871.html

SOURCE Edward Jones
By Ali Kucukgocmen and Yesim Dikmen

ISTANBUL, July 1 (Reuters) - A Turkish court will open the trial on Friday of 20 Saudi officials indicted over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a step his fiancee hopes will shed more light on the death and reveal where his body was hidden.

The indictment by Istanbul prosecutors accuses the former deputy head of Saudi Arabia's general intelligence, Ahmed al-Asiri, and former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani of instigating "premeditated murder with monstrous intent", the prosecutor's office said in March.

It says 18 other defendants carried out the killing by suffocating Khashoggi, who had grown increasingly critical of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. All 20 defendants are expected to be tried in absentia.

The October 2018 attack at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul prompted widespread revulsion, damaged relations between Ankara and Riyadh, and tarnished the prince's international image. Some Western governments, as well as the CIA, have said they believed he ordered the killing - an accusation Saudi officials denied.

Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate seeking documents for his impending wedding. Turkish officials said his body was dismembered and removed from the building. His remains have not been found.

"I hope this criminal case in Turkey brings to light the whereabouts of Jamal's body (and) the evidence against the killers," his fiancee Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting for him outside the consulate on the day of his killing, told Reuters.

It was not clear whether Saudi Arabia would cooperate with Friday's hearing. The Saudi government media office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In December a Saudi court sentenced five people to death and three to jail for Khashoggi's killing after a largely secretive trial. Khashoggi's family later said they forgave his murderers, paving the way for their formal reprieve.

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Cengiz said neither the trial nor the pardon followed due process. "No one can take the 'trial' that took place in Saudi Arabia legitimately; it was done in secret and the individuals sentenced are unnamed," Cengiz said.

Turkey has accused Saudi officials of obstructing investigations, while Riyadh repeatedly said the Istanbul prosecutor has not complied with requests to share information.

Prince Mohammed has denied ordering the killing but said he bore ultimate responsibility as the kingdoms de facto leader. Saudi Arabia initially denied any involvement in or knowledge of Khashoggis death but later changed its position multiple times. (Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Heinrich)
JOOR will exclusively power Arab Fashion Week, Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO and the TOKYO FASHION AWARD

NEW YORK, July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, JOOR, the worlds industry-standard digital wholesale platform for fashion, announced that its partnering with the Arab Fashion Council and Japan Fashion Week Organization to power the upcoming fashion industry events this summer and fall: TOKYO FASHION AWARD, Arab Fashion Week Season 12 and Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO. All three will leverage JOOR Passport to centralize the trade show and fashion week experience by creating a one-stop-shop for users: one place to upload data, one website to visit, one app to download, and one comprehensive experience. These events are in addition to JOORs current partners London Fashion Week , Premium Group and Liberty Fairs , creating the largest curated fashion marketplace and marking JOOR as the leading global provider for digital events.



JOOR continues to help global brands reimagine their trade show and fashion week models and were so excited to add Arab Fashion Week and the Tokyo Fashion Events to the growing list of partners that we will exclusively power, said Kristin Savilia, CEO of JOOR. With JOOR Passport, an inclusive and collaborative trade show platform, brands can upload their seasonal lookbooks to unique profile pages and showcase their styles in virtual showrooms and buyers can easily shop global assortments without having to travel. We are enabling the show to go on for brands and retailers, during the current travel restrictions and beyond.

TOKYO FASHION AWARD and Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO will select emerging fashion brands from Tokyo and support their international expansion. The brands will leverage JOORs platform to showcase their collections via virtual showrooms and connect with buyers in markets in and outside of Japan. With the support of ITOCHU, JOOR is experiencing rapid growth in Japan with Yoshida Kaban (Porter), Sacai, Nepenthes and Yohji Yamamoto recently joining the platform.

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It was quite important that we find a way at Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO to support our brands in this time when buyers from not only Japan but also overseas are having difficulties to travel to attend the show, said Kaoru Imajo, Director, Japan Fashion Week Organization. The partnership that JOOR is providing will allow our brands to recover their business relationships and even have new business with new retailers found on the JOOR platform.

The Arab Fashion Council and JOOR will work to position the Arab world on the international map of fashion by digitizing the wholesale selling process and providing virtual showrooms to the brands of the 22 countries of the Arab League. Brands will showcase their latest styles in virtual showrooms and these will be shoppable by global retailers.

In times of constrained travel, it is very fortunate that we are able to continue promoting our brands in the Middle East thanks to an advanced technology such as JOOR, said Mohammed Aqra, Chief Strategy Officer, Arab Fashion Council. We are confident that this shift will enable the Arab designers to increase their global network with buyers which is inline with our vision to export Arab creativity worldwide.

With the Arab Fashion Weeks transformation into virtual, our focus shifted mainly to connect the Arab designers with buyers from around the world in an omni-channel solution which ensures higher ROAs (Return on Assets) than any existing traditional platform. Today we can promise our designers to benefit from intelligent data analytics that no physical event has access to, which only smart virtual showrooms such as JOOR can make possible, said Jacob Abrian, Founder & CEO, Arab Fashion Council.

TOKYO FASHION AWARD will occur from on July 25-August 10. Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO will run from October 12-18, and Arab Fashion Week will be October 21-23.

About JOOR

JOOR is the worlds industry-standard wholesale platform for fashion, that transacts over $1.5Bn in GMV every month. More than 8,600 brands and over 200,000 curated fashion retailers across 144 countries connect on the platform every day. With a commitment to fueling the advancement and growth of both brands and retailers, JOOR provides an ecosystem that combines dynamic virtual showrooms with collaborative tools including JOOR Passport, which centralizes the trade show experience across multiple fashion events. JOOR users have greater flexibility, visibility, performance and insights into their business. JOOR is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Paris, London, Milan, Madrid, Melbourne and Tokyo. For more information visit: JOOR.com.

About TOKYO FASHION AWARD

This is a new type of fashion prize that will select 6 fashion brands from Tokyo that have potential to grow in the international market and support their overseas expansion. We aim to bring fashion designers from Tokyo into the world by supporting their business continuously.

About Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO

Out of the worlds fashion weeks, those held in Paris, Milan, London, New York and Tokyo are regarded as having the most potential for disseminating information due to their history and the amount of buzz surrounding them. These five fashion weeks are the most known fashion weeks in the world and have much influence of the fashion world. The fashion week held in Tokyo is the "Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO". It is hosted by the Japan Fashion Week Organization (JFW Organization) and held twice a year in March and October.

Japan's latest creations are showcased to the world at Shibuya Hikarie and Omotesando Hills as well as other locations in Tokyo.

About Arab Fashion Council

The Arab Fashion Council is the world's largest non-profit fashion council and an INGO for the Arab world, representing the 22 members of the Arab League. Its vision is to build a creative economy in the region with the main goal to promote Arab fashion designers internationally, disseminate fashion culture in the region, and position the Arab world on the international map of fashion. It includes Arab companies and talent within the fashion industry, in particular fashion designers, models, photographers, hair stylists, make-up artists, and art directors. It regulates the schools of fashion registered under the laws of Arab countries. Finally, the Arab Fashion Council is the trademark holder of Ready Couture which is expected to exceed a revenue of 368B$ by 2021.

The Arab Fashion Week, founded in 2015 by Jacob Abrian, the Founder and CEO of the Arab Fashion Council, is a biannual fashion event endorsed by the Arab Fashion Council.

Arab Fashion Week (AFW) is hosted in Dubai twice a year and is among the worlds five most important fashion weeks alongside New York, London, Milan and Paris.

The AFW is the only official fashion platform in the Arab Region and the only platform that pioneered the Ready Couture segment which has attracted renowned international designers from across America, China, Europe and Russia to establish their business in Dubai.

Contact Information: Gretchen Miller, Joor@nectarpr.com
Mahibul Hoque, TwoCircles.net

Delhi: Being a social media influencer on Twitter with more than twenty thousand followers, spoken word poet Hussain Haidry had to ultimately quit the micro-blogging site following extensive trolling and attacks.

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Haidry believes this was because he calls spade a spade on his social media posts.

Among the odd twenty thousand followers of Haidry included a circle of highly influential people capable of making any hashtag a trend. It is well established that what trends on Twitter has the potential to become a narrative. Losing out on such opportunities, especially for an activist, is nothing less than missing out on building an opinion among the masses.

Besides being a spoken word poet, Haidry is a Bollywood lyricist, scriptwriter, and a Muslim activist who has been vocal about injustice, manufactured hate and has also raised his voice against other social issues.

In February, he had tweeted Use these two words. Words are important. Hindu Terrorists,  whose screenshot was shared by many right-wing handles and had prompted a trend #BoycottTakht, a Bollywood film produced by influential producer Karan Johar. In no time the hashtag started trending on Twitter.

Simultaneously, a right-wing news portal OpIndia ran a concentrated media campaign and the IT cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Cell left no stone unturned to attack his profession by calling him as Hinduphobic for his tweet and advocating his boycott. This strategic method worked very well for them, Haidry said.

Haidrys posts bring out a new perspective and represent Muslim narrative at large. The creation of a narrative by a Muslim activist with the potential of spreading like wildfire even if only a few influencers retweet or like a post is what the right-wing cannot let happen.

Not only Haidry but many Muslim social media influencers have either deactivated their accounts or have become less vocal about issues since February. Haidry claims that not more than 30 to 40 Muslim opinion-makers are on Twitter who can create a counter-narrative.

Importance of Muslim Narrative

Since Italian Marxist and intellectual Antonio Gramsci introduced the idea of cultural and political hegemony, and subaltern discourse while dissecting Karl Marxs analysis of capitalism, the creation of narrative and dissemination of the same became an innate part of the critical social studies. He challenged the very idea of social domination (sustaining state power through enforcing institutional forces) and articulated how permeation of ruling elite classs principles as a social norm is used to maintain the power status quo.

In contemporary Indian political context, controlling the attempts of creation of ideas at nascent has become an object of principal for the ruling regime and its online machinery. In theoretical and Gramscis perspective, this tactic, employed by the right-wing Hindutva nationalists, is nothing less than destroying the efforts to create a counter-hegemony by the Indian Muslims.

Recently  just like the attack on Haidry, a massive social media attack targeting the academic career of Iqra Khilji, a law student and activist, was launched on Twitter. Since then, Khilji has gone off the microblogging site. The hate campaign against Khilji was designed to prove her as an Islamist and Hinduphobic and complain to her university about her social media posts.

Khilji, who is also a protest poet, said that her education in law made it vividly clear the crumbling civil liberties and injustice that happen in society.

I tried to initiate an academically-oriented discourse on the state of human rights of marginalized communities in India, but it was inevitably interspersed with justified outrage, although reactionary. This was inevitable given the absence of rational arguments from conservative circles, whose responses, on an average, are deflection or whataboutery at best, and pure abuse at the worst, Khilji told TwoCircles.net.

Following the arrests of activists across the country, which Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) termed as arbitrary, many say there is a prevailing sense of fear, especially among young rights advocates.

Moreover, in such a scenario the attempt to create safe space for the Muslim cause and engage in dialogue has become more difficult since Modis second term, says Khilji.

Similarly, a young Muslim woman freelance writer who went by the handle @pepper_smoker deactivated her Twitter account. Expressing her fear, while noting the attempts to suppress vocal Muslim voices, she said, a simple statement about the assertion of identity can get you termed as an extremist by the mob of right-wing accounts which leads to troll attacks and attempts of doxxing.

Efforts to counter-hegemony

Being at the receiving end of abuses and threats on social media has become a routine affair for influential activists.

However, these abuses and threats are part of a larger scheme of operations initiated by the right-wing political forces.

Going back to Haidris post, it is not without context. If one goes by the definition of terrorism used by USAs Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) it reads, Domestic terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.

Lynchings of Muslims and Dalits by the cow vigilante groups and Delhi anti-Muslim pogrom stem from the larger goal of Hindu Rashtra or Hindu Nation. The FBI definition puts things in perspective about what Haydri had written on social media.

However, reason is a snub for the right-wing forces and labelling individuals is what they employ to suit their narrative. When presenting a counter-argument Muslim opinion makers often become Hinduphobic or Islamists or anti-national which reinforces suspicion and suspension of Muslims in global as well as in local milieu.

Modus Operandi of attacks

Haidry, in his Facebook post, tries to dissect the pattern of these attacks on influential Muslim people on the virtual sphere.

Speaking to TwoCircles.net Haidry said that online attacks fall into two categories. These two are political and digital. In the political attack, they target people with real-world work and credibility and can create public opinion. These people who are well connected both virtually and in real-world cannot be arrested for their opinion. Hence they are discredited to create public acceptance of offensives against them.

In his observation, he mentions, The other kind of attack is digital which is directed towards people who are influential on social media but with much-limited reach and real-world credibility. Though they generate original ideas, their opinion is mostly shaped by the influential people. This group can be intimidated, bullied by the IT cell itself.

People with wider real work influence and credibility is often targeted by renowned right-wing personalities (with verified Twitter accounts) along with big hate news-peddlers such as Swarajya Mag, or OpIndia which give legitimacy to question the counter-narrative initiated by a Muslim influencer. This right-wing strategy is accompanied by hatred.

Once the online attack is initiated by popular right-wing handles, and the bots and IT cell starts to amplify the attack, it reaches organic people who already subscribe to the hatred against the counter-hegemony narrative. Thus the hatred transmits from the virtual sphere to the real public sphere and this hate explodes in the already volatile society.

The pattern of attacks

Harvard University in February hosted an event with the title Being Muslim in Contemporary India. The panel included Arfa Khanam Sherwani, a journalist at The Wire, Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer, Raqib Hameed Naik, a Kashmiri journalist, and Hussain Haidry.

One Legal Rights Observatory group which goes by the handle @LegalLro claimed that the payment for the event was withheld by the Union Ministry of Tourism following their complaint. The so-called legal rights group, in its tweets, termed the event as Indiaphobic/Hinduphobic.

However, Naik who is also a board member at TwoCircles.net categorically denied the labelling and said the event was targeted because of the all Muslim panel.

The event was just about Indian and Kashmiri Muslims and the challenges they are facing post-2014, he said.

Even minorities expressing themselves freely has become so threatening to right-wing forces that they use an easy pass of Hinduphobia to discredit them and bring them more danger from both the state and non-state entities that support Hindutva, Raqib said.

But this labelling is more than accusations. Using words like Hinduphobic or Indiaphobic is part of discrediting opinion makers. Such usage of manufactured phobia presents the counter-narrative diametrically opposite to the accepted social status quo  which is regarded as a stable order.

This manufactured phobia is used against any person who is critical of the majoritarian Hindutva project of ruling BJP and its parent ideologue  the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Similarly, usage of terms like anti-national delegitimizes the person who is contesting the ruling party or the hegemonic ideology. The Prime Minister or the BJPs top brass are torchbearers of using such adjectives. This discrediting pattern is corroborated by many social media influencers. People this reporter spoke to shared that they face systematic and organised attacks on social media.

Doxxing is a part of the attack on social media apart from daily abuses and threats. The right-wing trolls reveal the professional affiliations of those influencers whom they consider as a threat to their ideology. The trolls attach the influencers academic institutions or the organisations they work at.

Mohammad Asif, an activist , said that it has become a basic instinct to not reveal his place of work.

The moment my professional affiliation is known, the attack snowballs at my office, he said.

The attackers divulge personal information such as the residential address of the influencer.

Once this is done, the attackers then file police complaints and also prompt others to file similar reports.

Afreen Fatima, student activist and councillor at Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union, who has more than 50 thousand followers on Twitter said that since the lockdown and witch hunt of Muslim activists she has limited her online activism. When trolls start attacking us, we do not get the support from the civil society groups at large, she said.
What Legacy Travel Companies Could Learn From Oracle Hospitalitys Weeklong Tech Push

Until a recent turnaround, Oracle Hospitality was plagued by sluggish responsiveness to hotel and vendor requests for new services and smoother integrations. But the company has shown increasing responsiveness, as illustrated last week by its first so-called innovation week. What it did during that week may be worth emulating by other organizations in the travel sector.

Some backstory, first: When hoteliers want to add new technology to their operations, they often have to plug the services into their property management system, the core tech that stores data on guest and room inventory. Oracles property management systems, such as Opera, are the worlds most-used ones, running at about 40,000 properties. Yet Oracle Hospitality has long used legacy software code, processes, and commercial models. It set itself up for potshots from hotel and tech vendors.

To address this, Oracle Hospitality ran the innovation week. It made most of its staff available for five days around the clock, either dedicated full-time or on call, to help vendors and hotels.

Several vendors were able to start and finish their integrations during the week, said Laura Calin, vice president of strategy and solutions management.

Unlike a hackathon, the innovation week wasnt about prizes or creating concepts that may or may not ever see the light of day. Instead, the integration work plugged in real services and got them into use at hotels right away. A week is much faster than the months-long wait some industry voices complained about a few years ago.

About 450 attendees at more than 200 organizations in 48 countries took part, with vendors such as Milan-based Human Touch, Amsterdam-based Travel Data Collective, and Santa Clara, California-based startup Nor1 praising the events efficiency and helpfulness.

Before the event, Andreas Loeseth, chief operating officer of Norwegian travel startup Facil, had low expectations. Loeseth said he began two years ago trying to integrate with Opera and found it too frustrating despite meetings with Oracle Hospitality. But the innovation week surprised him.

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It was really great, Loeseth said. His team more or less completed and debugged its integration with the cloud-based version of Opera during the week. Facils service aims to make it easier for hotels to add self-service check-in and check-out using a mobile app or kiosk.

Everything became a lot more clear after the discussions we had, Loeseth said.

Oracle Hospitality sped up a few points in the process. Ordinarily, it requires integrations to get an okay from the units professional services team. But that team isnt always as technically knowledgable as the companys engineers. The innovation week fast-tracked these approvals.

The companys tech leaders also had ask the expert office hours. People with the highest level of expertise gave on-the-spot answers.

Inspiration for the Travel Sector?

Across the travel sector, the pandemic has devastated revenues. Layoffs and pullbacks in investments might stall innovation.

Yet the chaotic times have also shaken up some processes. That may open doors to fresh opportunities and mind-sets. A desperate urge to help get the travel sector back on its feet has given some companies a singular purpose.

When you allow people to work for a good cause they can believe in, the enthusiasm and energy that gets put behind it creates magic, Calin said.

The everyday reality at many large organizations is that siloed teams tend to undermine projects, with bureaucracies second-guessing or slowing new efforts. Yet slimmed-down staff could sow a spirit of innovation with managerial leadership.

Remote workers who use tools like Zoom and Slack can speed up knowledge sharing. But it wont happen spontaneously. Managers have to create conditions for focused work in phased schedules to happen.

oracle hospitality iInnovation Week Zoom Call source oracle hospitality

Some participants in Oracle Hospitalitys Innovation Week in June 2020 communicated via a Zoom call. Source: Oracle Hospitality.

Oracles Lessons Learned

Given the positive response, Oracle Hospitality plans to introduce other changes.

Weve decided were going to have a mini-session every month, which will include an ask the expert webinar, Calin said. Well do a second round of a full innovation week later, most likely in November when we release tools for our new integration platform. Well ask our partners for on-the-spot feedback to the new self-service tools, speeding their deployment.

During the innovation week, Oracle Hospitality gave virtual forums for tech vendors who offer low-touch or contactless solutions to hoteliers to show off their tools, including Alice, Hapi, InnSpire, Intelity, Nonius, and Zaplox. The company plans more such sessions, too.

For more context on hotel tech, Skift Research subscribers can read the report The Hotel Property Management Systems Landscape 2020.

Subscribe to Skift newsletters for essential news about the business of travel.
Liquiditi Solutions and Unit Ventures successfully co-hosted the inaugural Liquiditi Solutions Forum that spotlighted doctors, business leaders, and health experts that are leading the response to COVID-19. The virtual conference brought together 25 speakers from four continents, including Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and attendees from all over the globe.

Liquiditi Solutions offers a critical support network to governments and corporate enterprises by streamlining the process of acquiring life-saving medical supplies and equipment while delivering on the companys mission of protecting humanity from the catastrophic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The company partnered with Unit Ventures to co-create a one-of-a-kind virtual conference dedicated to highlighting COVID-19 actions, insights, and predictions from industry leaders in the fields of medicine, research, supply chain, trade finance, technology, sustainability, and mental health. Unit Ventures has developed mission-driven technology solutions and networks dedicated to solving inequity in the world while serving 180 cities globally.

The virtual forum included many distinguished speakers, from academic and medical minds from Harvard University and Columbia University Medical Center, to global supply chain operators and cross-border technology developers.

In her closing statement on the medical panel, Dr. Dara Kass, ER doctor from New York City, said shes hopeful that antigen testing is going to be available soon and be economically available because she thinks it is "likely our best bet for getting out into a routine economy."

On the PPE supply chain and logistics panel, experts weighed their thoughts on the strain, solutions and new processes developed that are attributable to surging demand of personal protective equipment. On the topic, Oz Sultan, Chief Information Officer of PAC Global, said "One thing were trying to do with blockchain is to start integrating the traceable, transparent technology starting at the factory and going through the supply chain, including into some of the secondary ecosystems because there is going to be utility in some of the larger hospitals selling to smaller hospitals and creating new supply chain systems."

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With regards to re-opening strategies for businesses that closed its doors during the pandemic, Dr. Karim Bendhaou, the Head of Africa Affairs for Merck Corporation, weighed in and said "The African continent is reflecting a wide range of approaches in terms of re-opening, from a very conservative approach in South Africa compared to a more open approach in northern countries. The problem is that if the lockdown is central power decision, then the re-opening should be local because it should be adapted to the real situation."

Closing the virtual event, social entrepreneurs shared their views on new opportunities for purpose-driven businesses that stem from COVID, followed by health and wellness experts discussing habits and practices for managing stress and staying productive.

When asked about the event, Jake Strom, Founding Member of TOMS and Managing Director of Satori Ventures, said, "The Liquiditi Solutions Forum fostered critically important conversations about the opportunities and challenges of todays global economy. It was an honor to host the Social Impact Panel alongside such talented and passionate purpose-driven entrepreneurs."

The virtual event was hosted by Simon Bogdanowicz, CBDO of Liquiditi Solutions; Michael Healy, Founder of Unit; and Alice Hlidkova, CEO and Founder of Through the Changing Glass.

"We are honored to have been able to bring together such an amazing group of accomplished individuals to share a lot of valuable information for our first virtual event focused on COVID-19 response and relief," said Evan Klassen, Chief Visionary Officer and Co-Founder of Liquiditi.

More information on the Liquiditi Solutions Forum, including a recording of the event, is available at https://liquiditisolutions.com/events.

About Liquiditi Solutions

To help combat COVID-19, Liquiditi Solutions (liquiditisolutions.com) was founded to offer critical support to governments and private enterprises by streamlining the process of acquiring life-saving medical supplies and equipment. We have developed integrated testing, tracking, and health passport solutions so that governments and businesses can re-open their economies in a safe and controlled way.

Liquiditi is headquartered in South Korea, and has a global presence with offices in China, Singapore, Germany, United States and Dubai. To show our long-term dedication in building the local ecosystems for the developing world, Liquiditi commits 10% of the income we generate into local development initiatives and charitable causes through our foundation.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005590/en/

Contacts

For press inquiries, please contact:

Simon Bogdanowicz, Chief Business Development Officer at Liquiditi

simon@liquiditiglobal.com
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation-led public-private partnership benefits black bear, waterfowl and freshwater fish in six states

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) today announced more than $2.6 million in grants to restore, enhance and protect the sensitive forest, wetland and aquatic habitats in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. This is the third slate of grants awarded through this program, and the grants will generate $2.3 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of $4.9 million.

The eight grants were awarded through the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley Restoration Fund (LMAV Fund), a partnership between NFWF and the U.S. Department of Agricultures Natural Resources Conservation Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with private funding from International Papers Forestland Stewards Partnership and the Walton Family Foundation.

These projects will help restore forests and improve hydrology within the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, the nations largest floodplain, said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO of NFWF. Todays grants will support healthy populations of species like the Louisiana black bear, as well as numerous forest birds and freshwater fish, while at the same time improving water quality and reducing the impacts of flooding on local communities.

Consisting of more than 24 million acres of forested wetlands with fertile alluvial soils, the Mississippi Alluvial Valley is rich with biological diversity. In addition, the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley provides an important migratory stopover and wintering habitat for more than 40 percent of North America's waterfowl.

It is also home to more than 100 fish species and 107 breeding land birds. However, widespread loss of forests, combined with flood control and drainage efforts, has led to critical habitat loss for wildlife, damaged water quality, and reduced floodwater retention. The LMAV Fund is an effort to restore these habitats for the benefit of wildlife and the working lands that people depend on.

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NRCS is excited to contribute to this public-private partnership effort at protection, enhancement and restoration of working bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands, while providing compatible habitat for species, such as the iconic black bear, said NRCS Chief Matthew Lohr.

NFWF has been a longstanding partner of the Service, and this cooperative venture to protect habitat in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley is a win-win for the areas wildlife, local communities and their economies, said Service Director Aurelia Skipwith. From Louisiana black bears to loggerhead shrikes to wood ducks, our collaboration is helping ensure populations of recovered species remain strong and at-risk species get the protections they need. Together we are protecting the areas unique biodiversity for generations to come.

The projects supported by the eight grants will protect bottomland hardwood habitat under conservation easements, as well as restore the forest habitat and hydrology, and improve aquatic habitat connectivity. These projects will also provide water quality and quantity benefits, as well as sequester carbon. Finally, they will also support the monitoring and protection of local species such as black bear, waterfowl and forest dwelling birds, such as the Swainsons warbler, prothonotary warbler and swallow-tailed kite.

For more than 120 years, forest stewardship has been at the core of how we have operated our company, said Sophie Beckham, International Papers chief sustainability officer. These eight projects will enhance and restore the forests that provide so many benefits for the planet and communities  water quality, wildlife health and carbon sequestration, not to mention the economic impact for local landowners. International Paper is delighted to support this important work.

Launched in 2017, the LMAV Fund is a competitive grant program that supports restoration, enhancement and management of bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands, and promotes aquatic connectivity on private and public lands. The funds work benefits local communities by improving forest health, enhancing wildlife habitat and increasing water quality, and supporting 35 jobs associated with these projects within the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.

Planting more than 2 million trees and restoring more than 10,000 acres of frequently flooded lands is a win for nature and local communities, said Paul Wolfe, program officer at the Walton Family Foundation. This is an example of working with nature. This is also a great example of business, government and philanthropy all coming together and finding solutions that help improve water quality, while reducing the damage to communities caused by flooding.

A complete list of the 2020 grants made through the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley Restoration Fund is available here.

###

About the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Chartered by Congress in 1984, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) protects and restores the nations fish, wildlife, plants and habitats. Working with federal, corporate and individual partners, NFWF has funded more than 5,000 organizations and generated a total conservation impact of $6.1 billion. Learn more at www.nfwf.org.

About the Natural Resources Conservation Service

Since 1935, the Natural Resources Conservation Service has helped Americas private landowners and managers conserve their soil, water, and other natural resources. NRCS provides technical assistance based on sound science and offers financial assistance for many conservation activities.

About the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is to work with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals, and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit fws.gov.

About International Paper

International Paper (IP) is a leading global producer of renewable fiber-based packaging, pulp and paper products with manufacturing operations in North America, Latin America, Europe, North Africa and Russia. We produce corrugated packaging products that protect and promote goods and enable world-wide commerce; pulp for diapers, tissue, and other personal hygiene products that promote health and wellness; and papers that facilitate education and communication. We are headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., employ more than 50,000 colleagues and serve more than 25,000 customers in 150 countries. Net sales for 2019 were $22 billion. For more information about International Paper, our products and global citizenship efforts, please visit internationalpaper.com. See how were building a better future for people, the planet and our company at internationalpaper.com/Vision-2030.

About Walton Family Foundation

The Walton Family Foundation is, at its core, a family-led foundation. Three generations of the descendants of our founders, Sam and Helen Walton, and their spouses, work together to lead the foundation and create access to opportunity for people and communities. We work in three areas: improving K-12 education, protecting rivers and oceans and the communities they support, and investing in our home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta.

Attachment

Rob Blumenthal

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

(202) 857-0166

rob.blumenthal@nfwf.org


LUXURY MAGAZINE, the quarterly publication available exclusively to Luxury Card members, unveiled its Summer 2020 issue today. The theme of the issue is Private Spaces in Out There Places: Yachts, Jets, and Villas. From superyacht-like big rigs and car-branded vessels to business jets and supersonic aviation, your mode of transport can be as exciting as the destination. In response to recent global events, the editorial team pivoted to research and deliver a roundup of gear and activities that can be enjoyed from the comfort of home. The travel section is both aspirational and inspirational, highlighting the most exclusive escapes available to book as things open up. Offering trends and features across all categories of luxury lifestylefrom travel, adventure, and fashion to home design, real estate, and technologyeach issue also features a well-known or up-and-coming artists work on the cover, making every edition a unique collectors item for Cardmembers.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005208/en/

Luxury Magazine unveils its Summer 2020 issue (Photo: Business Wire)

"As the world continues maintaining social distancing, we focused our summer lineup on small, intimate, controllable environments and the gear that will help make the most of where you are and where you want to be," says Editor in Chief Deborah Frank, "whether its sailing a yacht in uncharted waters, camping in a remote region, or simply barbecuing in your backyard."

Highlights from the Summer issue include:

Featured Cover Artist: Edward Hopper

American realist painter Edward Hopper lived in New York City but summered in South Truro on Cape Cod. The cover art, Rooms by the Sea, captures his view looking out the back door of his summer studio. At first glance, the painting is light and simplistic, but look a little closer and you may sense the melancholy characteristic of so much of his work. A man of few words, Hopper had great depth, evoking solitude bordering on despair with his lonely tableaus. Both in his deserted settings and isolated figures, his finely calculated renderings reflect his vision of modern American life. After his death in 1967, Hoppers collection was bequeathed to the Whitney Museum of American Art where you can still see his pieces today.

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Expedition Boating

Semi-custom yachts and car-branded vessels from Lexus, Pininfarina, and Aston Martin invite exploration beyond the Mediterranean and Caribbean. These go-anywhere, do-anything crafts make new sights and seas an exciting possibility.

Tented Retreats

The Summer issue showcases six tented retreats that are as luxurious as they are isolated, often hundreds of miles from the closest city. Under the radar and under the canvas, these accommodations offer exclusive access to natural wonders with exceptional amenities.

About LUXURY MAGAZINE

LUXURY MAGAZINE is published by Luxury Card. The readership comprises Luxury Card membersaffluent men and women across the United States, all with an interest in quality, value, and service. Produced each quarter by a dedicated team, the publication features world-class editorial and offers a range of luxury categories in every issue, each with a seasonal theme and focus, to expand upon Cardmembers wide array of passions. A unique feature of our signature publication is that each issue showcases an artists work as the cover art, making it a limited-edition collectors item. Access LUXURY MAGAZINE anytime, anywhere, on any device at luxurymagazine.com.

About Luxury Card

Luxury Card is a global leader in the premium credit card market with a mission to shape the industry through innovation, value, and service. We believe the Mastercard Gold Card, Mastercard Black Card, and Mastercard Titanium Card can pay for themselves with unparalleled rewards, 24/7 Concierge, and first-class benefits.

With a card weight of 22 grams and 52 patents issued globally, our stainless steel and carbon credit cards outweigh the competition.1

Luxury Card members receive the best airfare and cash back redemption rates,2 with points that can be redeemed in any increment and never expire. Points for airfare are redeemed at 2% with no blackout dates, airline limitations, or seat restrictions.3 For example, 50,000 points with Luxury Card will get you a $1,000 airline ticket and only a $750 airline ticket with the nearest competitor.2 Cardmembers redeem for cash back at a leading rate of up to 2%2 or for various experiences, travel, dining, and gift cards.

Luxury Card Concierge caters to Cardmembers every need. Available 24/7 by live chat on our industry-first Luxury Card App, phone, and email, dedicated Concierge agents assist with travel itineraries, dining reservations, research, and gift sourcing. We deliver first-class service anywhere, anytime.

Luxury Cards in-house travel program provides an average total value of $5004 per stay in benefits and services at over 3,000 properties worldwide. Mastercard Gold Card and Mastercard Black Card members receive complimentary membership and unlimited guest access to more than 1,200 airport lounges around the globe with Priority Pass Select.3

Luxury Card is accepted at over 8 million domestic retailers in 210 countries with no foreign transaction fees.5 We are committed to providing top value, benefits, and service to make your life simpler and your experiences richer.

1 Credit card weights from 10/10/2019 uscreditcardguide.com article, "The Heaviest Credit Cards List." 2 Information as of June 2020. The earn rates at which points can be accumulated vary among credit card competitors and can impact the relative dollar value of the redemption. 3 Certain terms, conditions and exclusions apply to benefits. Please see the Reward Rules and Mastercard Guide to Benefits you'll receive upon approval for details. 4 Average value based on 2019 bookings for a stay of three nights. Benefits may include daily breakfast for two, room upgrade when available, welcome amenities, resort and dining credits, late check-out and early check-in when available and complimentary Wi-Fi. Actual value will vary based on property, room rate, upgrade availability, length of stay and use of benefits. 5 Annual Fee is $995, $495 or $195. 0% introductory APR on balance transfers made within 45 days of account opening is applicable for the first fifteen billing cycles that immediately follow each balance transfer. This introductory APR offer does not apply to purchases and cash advances. For new and outstanding balance transfers after the introductory period and all purchases, the variable APR is 14.99%. The variable APR for cash advances is 25.24%. The APRs on your account will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate and are subject to change. The minimum monthly interest charge will be $0.50. Balance transfer fee: 3% (min. $5). Cash advance fee: 5% (min. $10). Foreign transaction fee: 0%. See Terms and Conditions for updated and more information about the terms of this offer, including the "About the Variable APRs on Your Account" section for the current Prime Rate information.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005208/en/

Contacts

Marina Kissam

marina@luxurycard.com
Reno, Nevada, July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Magellan Gold Corporation ( OTCQB: MAGE ) (Magellan or the Company), is pleased to announce that it has entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire Clearwater Gold Mining Corporation (Clearwater) which owns certain unpatented mining claims in Idaho County, Idaho that include the historic Center Star Gold Mine near Elk City, Idaho. The Center Star Mine hosts high grade gold mineralization that was discovered in the early 1900s. There was periodic historic production and development work done under different ownership through the 1980s. With the high-grade gold mineralization present, Magellan will be evaluating the historic mine data to assess the potential to develop a gold resource at Center Star. The project area is located 45 miles from Grangeville, Idaho and near the town of Elk City, Idaho.



In consideration for 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of Clearwater, Magellan has agreed to pay its sole shareholder 1,000,000 shares of Magellan common stock and $150,000. The 1,000,000 shares will be issued (i) 250,000 shares at closing (ii) 250,000 shares at the time the Center Mine receives its permit to reopen the main portal of the mine, (iii) 250,000 shares at the point the main portal has been reopened and (iv) 250,000 shares two years from the closing concurrent with the pay-off of the secured promissory note. The cash consideration of $25,000 will be paid within 30 days of closing and the balance of $125,000 to be evidenced by a secured promissory note due in two years. The Note will be secured by the Clearwater shares and assets.

The Center Star Mine acquisition is the first in the companys new focus to acquire and develop early to mid-stage exploration targets or near-term production plays in North America, stated John Power, President & Director of Magellan Gold. Center Star fits our focus perfectly with a former operating history and known gold occurrences that we believe may lead to resource development and potential near-term production of the property.

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Gold mineralization at Center Star Mine is hosted in multiple parallel quartz veins in a banded gneiss. Like many of the historic mines in the Elk City area the gold is present in steeply dipping quartz veins. The gold at the Center Star Mine occurs in high grade veins that trend north-easterly and dip steeply to the south east. These veins are present in a 75 to 100 wide sheer zone hosting quartz veins and breccia. It is believed the gold bearing veins vary from inches to 20 feet in width and contain gold from .35 ounce per ton gold to multi ounce per ton gold based on historic mine data. The property was historically developed by various owners and has had some production history of gold and silver production. The Center Star Mine has not had any exploration or development work conducted in the last 35 years and has the potential for significant ore reserves.

About Magellan Gold Corporation

Magellan Gold Corporation ( OTCQB: MAGE ) is focused on the exploration and development of precious metals in North America. Magellan controls two projects: The Center Star Gold Mine in Idaho and the Silver District Property in Arizona.

To learn more about Magellan Gold Corporation, visit www.magellangoldcorp.com.

Cautionary Statement

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission permits mining companies, in their filings with the SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can legally extract or produce. Under SEC Industry Guide 7 standards, a final or bankable feasibility study is required to report reserves. Currently we have not delineated reserves on any of our properties. We cannot be certain that any deposits at our properties will ever be confirmed or converted into SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant reserves. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of any resource estimates will ever be confirmed or converted into reserves or that they can be economically or legally extracted.

Forward Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on good faith assumptions that Magellan Gold Corporation believes are reasonable but which are subject to a wide range of uncertainties and business risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed, projected or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated are discussed in Magellan Gold Corporations periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contacts:

Magellan Gold Corporation

John Power, Director

707-291-6198

contact@magellangoldcorp.com
LONDON (Reuters) - Beijing unveiled national security legislation tailor-made for Hong Kong on Tuesday, setting the stage for the most radical changes to the former British colony's way of life since it returned to Chinese rule 23 years ago.

The law promises to punish the crimes of secession and subversion with up to life in prison and raises concerns of a more authoritarian era for China's most freewheeling city.

Below are some analysts' reactions to the details:

RAHUL SEN, PARTNER WEALTH MANAGEMENT AT HEADHUNTING AND CONSULTING FIRM BOYDEN (LONDON)

"It will be a wait-and-watch approach. No existing firm will look at pulling out or reducing their operations. Instead, they will quietly look at increasing their operations in Singapore, Switzerland and London. I have had enquiries from clients who are looking to expand their Asia or Greater China desks in Singapore as well in Switzerland and London ...

"There will not be an immediate reaction, but slowly, over time -- if this plays out that Hong Kong will indeed see dilution of its sovereignty over its tax, financial system, law and currency -- then we will most definitely see reduced activity in financial services."

GARY NG, ECONOMIST, NATIXIS (HONG KONG)

"The Pandora's box has now been opened in Hong Kong for escalated geopolitical risks. Any tougher sanction from the U.S. in the financial aspects is going to bring higher market volatility to Hong Kong than (to) other Asian markets."

HASNAIN MALIK, HEAD OF EQUITY RESEARCH, TELLIMER (DUBAI)

"With the release of the full detail of the law, it should be clear to those in any doubt that this is not the Hong Kong they grew up in. But this tighter security environment has been on the way for many years now."

"The difference is that U.S. and China relations are far worse and this could be used as a pretext to impede the role of Hong Kong as a finance hub."

RORY GREEN, ECONOMIST, TS LOMBARD (LONDON)

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"We have known for more than a month that this was coming. This was accelerated by protests last year and was the key trigger for Beijing to bring in more control over Hong Kong. In terms of the economic impact, trade might get affected as a fair degree of shipments passing through Hong Kongs ports are technological shipments. It is unlikely that it will disrupt the trade deal for now."

"On the question of financial hub, it is tricky. On the positive side, it will attract all those Chinese companies delisting from the US and looking to list nearer home."

"On the flip side, the great attraction of HK was that it is a play on China without the political risks. Now that appears to be ending. It remains to be seen whether the investment community will look to shift its roots elsewhere based on the latest developments."

IRIS PANG, CHIEF ECONOMIST GREATER CHINA, ING (HONG KONG)

"This is actually not as harsh as I expected, because the law, it has grandfathering over previous actions and it will not have an impact on past actions, which I think is the biggest act the Chinese government could do. I think this is also good for Hong Kong because otherwise there could be further protests if they did not grandfather previous actions."

"Apart from this, I would say it is just as expected, including the sentencing periods etc. I believe that this law will not have a big impact on the Hong Kong economy."

"The law is just standard, I don't believe that many international companies will move away from Hong Kong."

ILAN SOLOT, FX STRATEGIST, BROWN BROTHERS HARRIMAN (LONDON)

"This doesn't improve Hong Kong's status as a financial center, to say the least, coming back from the protests and the virus over the last year. If anything this is a downward slope for Hong Kong's importance as a global financial hub."

"Secondly, this drives another wedge between China and the U.S. that will fuel further separation between them. This just reinforces the view that these countries are moving apart from a geopolitical, economical and a technological perspective."

GABRIEL WILDAU, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, TENEO (NEW YORK)

"On a first read, the law looks to be fairly crippling for political activism in the city. The crimes of "collusion with foreign countries or powers" and "subversion of state power" seemed to be defined quite broadly, which could allow prosecutors to criminalize all kinds of relatively benign, nonviolent activities."

"The actual impact will depend partly on enforcement and which types of activity the authorities actually decide to prosecute, but the vagueness of the law itself will have a chilling effect, even if the government does not aggressively prosecute from the start. Activists will be aware that the threat of prosecution hangs over them."

"On the other hand, in terms of Hong Kong's role as a business and financial center, the law seems designed to minimize any impact. In terms of implementation, the Hong Kong and mainland governments are likely to avoid prosecutions and other enforcement actions that would scare foreign businesses away."

(Reporting by Karin Strohecker, Saikat Chatterjee and Tom Arnold in London; Noah Sin and Sumeet Chatterjee in Hong Kong, editing by Sujata Rao and Kevin Liffey)
MAXIMUS, Inc. MMS has joined hands with Virginia Ready Initiative (VA Ready), a newly formed nonprofit organization, with a view to address coronavirus-related job loss across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Notably, VA Ready focuses on skill-development programs for jobless Virginians to get them ready for in-demand jobs in potential sectors.

Through FastForward, a state-led short-term workforce credential program offered through the Virginia Community College Systems (VCCS) 23 community colleges, VA Ready trains Virginians for jobs that are in demand across the Commonwealth. It gives scholars a $1,000 Credential Achievement Award and interview opportunities with its business partners.

MAXIMUS Extends Support, Input and Participation

MAXIMUS is now one of VA Readys Business Partners and the companys support to the public charity includes financial aid for Credential Achievement Awards and awareness efforts, inputs on offerings and curricula of VCCS through to Talent Task Force, participation in the VA Ready Job Exchange, and provision of job interview opportunities to VA Ready Scholars.

No matter the role, we are driven by our mission to help government serve people through health and human services benefit programs here in Virginia, as well as across the country and around the world, said Bruce Caswell, MAXIMUS president and CEO.

MAXIMUSs shares have gained 25.6% over the past there months, significantly outperforming the 10.9% rally of the industry it belongs to.

Zacks Rank and Stocks to Consider

MAXIMUS currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A few better-ranked stocks in the broader Zacks Business Services sector are Elastic N.V. ESTC, SailPoint Technologies Holdings, Inc. SAIL and DocuSign, Inc. DOCU. All the stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

Long-term earnings (three to five years) growth rates for Elastic, SailPoint Technologies and DocuSign are estimated at 26%, 15% and 31.2% respectively.



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MEXICO CITY, July 2 (Reuters) - Mexican restaurant operator Alsea said in a statement on Thursday that it has agreed with banks to suspend its commitments with them for one year beginning June 29, and that interest and commission costs would increase during the period.

The company, which operates franchises of the coffee chain Starbucks and chain eateries such as Chili's and P.F. Chang's, also said it has agreed to maintain a minimal level of capital expenditures that will allow it to proceed with strategic projects and the operation of its restaurants. (Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Anthony Esposito)
GRAFTON, Wis., July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Microbrush, a leading US-based global manufacturer and supplier of flocked applicators, has launched a nasopharyngeal test swab to meet the growing demand for COVID-19 testing requirements.

Sterilized and individually packaged in a medical-grade pouch, the Microbrush Test Swabs are ready-for-use intended for clinical nasopharyngeal sample collection. Manufactured in Grafton, Wis., Microbrush Test Swabs are a natural product line extension, following a 30-year track record of US-manufactured applicators for the healthcare industry. Flocked with soft nylon fibers, the Microbrush Test Swab provides an improved patient experience over 3D-printed swabs.

"Microbrush has rich manufacturing expertise in this category with over 10 billion flocked applicators produced since 1991," said Dave Sproat, CEO of Young Innovations, Inc. "With healthcare providers in great need of COVID-19 test supplies, we're incredibly proud to do our part in supporting this critical need by bringing a significant increase in production capacity to the market right away."

"We were uniquely positioned to develop and manufacture this product quickly due to our strict adherence to quality as an FDA-registered facility; our deep-rooted experience in flocked applicator technology; and very strong, supportive partners," added John Frymark, Vice President of Product Development at Young Innovations. "Developed in collaboration with several leading institutions and corporations. This product launch was a true team effort and a great testament of leading businesses operating with a high sense of urgency around an immediate healthcare need."

The Microbrush Test Swab is FDA-listed and ready for immediate purchase. For more information on how to order Microbrush Test Swabs, please contact: Dave Newman dnewman@younginnovations.com

Microbrush is a subsidiary of Young Innovations, Inc., a portfolio company of The Jordan Company.

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About Young Innovations, Inc.

Young Innovations (www.younginnovations.com) is a leading global provider of supplies and equipment used by dentists, hygienists, dental assistants and consumers. Our portfolio of brands includes products that hold leadership positions in the preventive, restorative, orthodontic and endodontic segments. With its mission of Creating Smiles, Creating Possibilities, Young focuses on delivering innovative, high-quality products and solutions to clinicians and their patients. We continue to enhance our portfolio of brands and products through organic growth and acquisitions.

About The Jordan Company

The Jordan Company (www.thejordancompany.com), founded in 1982, is a middle-market private equity firm that manages funds with original capital commitments in excess of $11 billion. TJC has a 38-year track record of investing in and contributing to the growth of many businesses across a wide range of industries including Industrials, Transportation & Logistics, Healthcare & Consumer and Technology, Telecom & Utility. The senior investment team has been investing together for over 20 years and is supported by the Operations Management Group, which was established in 1988 to initiate and support operational improvements in portfolio companies. Headquartered in New York City, TJC also has an office in Chicago.

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ISELIN, N.J., July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Middlesex Water Company (MSEX), a provider of water, wastewater and related services, announced today it has been selected as one of the Top Workplaces in New Jersey by NJ.com. The list of top New Jersey workplaces is based solely on employee feedback gathered through a third-party survey administered by employee engagement technology partner Energage, LLC. The anonymous survey uniquely measures 15 drivers of engaged cultures, which are critical to the success of any organizationincluding alignment, execution and connection.

In times of great change, it is more important than ever to maintain a connection among employees, said Eric Rubino, Energage CEO. When you give your employees a voice, you come together to navigate challenges and shape your path forward based on real-time insights into what works best for your organization. The Top Workplaces program can be that positive outcome your company can rally around in the coming months to celebrate leadership and the importance of maintaining an employee-focused culture, even during challenging times. Energage uses employee surveys, neuroscience and expert insights to evaluate and determine those companies that are succeeding in engaging employees in building a stronger workplace culture. Middlesex, in the midsized category, is one of 40 large, midsized and small companies earning the 2020 Top Workplaces designation.



Were delighted to be recognized as one of the top places to work in New Jersey and have our employees to thank for that honor, said Middlesex Water Chairman, President and CEO Dennis W. Doll. We offer competitive compensation and benefit plans, professional development opportunities and numerous employee events that demonstrate how much we appreciate their contributions, as well as how we value each and every employee as individuals. A strong company culture should never be taken for granted and neither should the individuals who make it so, added Doll. Were a family -- united by our values -- in delivering a life-sustaining service and making a meaningful difference in the quality of life in the communities we serve, added Doll.

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About Middlesex Water Company

Organized in 1897 and headquartered in Iselin, NJ, Middlesex Water provides regulated and unregulated water and wastewater utility services primarily in New Jersey and Delaware through various subsidiary companies. For more information, visit middlesexwater.com. Follow us on Twitter @MiddlesexWater, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About Energage

Energage offers a fully unified SaaS platform, plus support and professional services, to help organizations recruit and retain the right talent. As a B-Corporation founding member, Energage has committed itself to the purpose of making the world a better place to work together. Based on 14 years of culture research, the engine behind 51 Top Workplaces programs across the country, and data gathered from over 20 million employees at 60,000 organizations, Energage has isolated the 15 drivers of engaged cultures that are critical to the success of any business, and developed the tools and expertise to help organizations measure, shape and showcase their unique culture to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. For more information, please visit energage.com. Follow us on Twitter @teamenergage and Facebook and LinkedIn @energage.

Media Contact:

Bernadette Sohler, Vice President  Corporate Affairs

(732) 638-7549

bsohler@middlesexwater.com
Equity Financing Led by EW Healthcare Partners and Debt Financing Provided by Hayfin Capital Management



EW Healthcare Partners Managing Director and Co-Founder Martin Sutter and Former Medtronic Chairman and CEO William Hawkins to Join MiMedx Board of Directors

MARIETTA, Ga., July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MiMedx Group, Inc. (OTC PINK: MDXG) (MiMedx or the Company), an industry leader in advanced wound care and an emerging therapeutic biologics company, today announced the closing of concurrent $150 million private equity and debt financings, consisting of an equity financing pursuant to a Securities Purchase Agreement with an entity controlled by EW Healthcare Partners and certain funds managed by Hayfin Capital Management LLP (Hayfin), and a debt financing pursuant to a Loan Agreement with Hayfin. As part of the transaction, EW Healthcare Partners has designated Martin P. Sutter and William A. Hawkins III to serve on the Companys board as preferred directors.

Timothy R. Wright, MiMedx Chief Executive Officer, commented, Obtaining this critical financing is a clear turning point for the Company. The additional resources provide us with the ability to strengthen areas critical to stabilizing the business, prioritize investments that enhance our Research & Development, Manufacturing, and Commercial organizations, and pursue the attractive growth opportunities afforded by the Company's amniotic tissue products and know-how. Moreover, the affirmation of the strength of our new leadership team and future prospects from one of the nations top healthcare-specific investors is a meaningful endorsement of the Companys progress and efforts to return to the patient-centered mission of innovation that helps people heal.

M. Kathleen Behrens, Ph.D., Chair of the MiMedx Board of Directors, added, This transaction marks the culmination of an extensive review of potential financing alternatives by the Board, in consultation with the Companys advisors, which included a leading investment bank with in-depth, industry-specific expertise. A new leadership team, new board members, and now the opportunity to welcome these accomplished and well-regarded leaders to our Board of Directors, each demonstrate great progress toward transforming and positioning the Company for the future.

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Martin P. Sutter, Co-Founder and a Managing Director of EW Healthcare Partners, said: EW Healthcare Partners is delighted to become a significant shareholder in MiMedx. We are very impressed with the entire senior management team and Board of Directors, and the tremendous work they are doing to transform the Company. We are aligned with the Companys vision and look forward to assisting the team in regaining its leadership position in the attractive and growing advanced wound care space.

William A. Hawkins III, Senior Advisor to EW Healthcare Partners, added, The new management team and board members have made great progress in transforming the enterprise and positioning the Company for continued success. MiMedx has long been a leader in bringing forth innovative solutions for the advanced wound care market, and I look forward to partnering with Tim Wright and the entire management team to support the Companys growth and strategic priorities to improve patient care.

Equity Investment

Under the Securities Purchase Agreement, the Company is issuing shares of a newly created Series B Convertible Preferred Stock for an aggregate purchase price of $100,000,000 (the Equity Investment), with $90,000,000 being made by an entity controlled by EW Healthcare Partners and $10,000,000 being made by Hayfin. The Series B Convertible Preferred Stock, together with any accrued and unpaid dividends thereon, may be converted into Company common stock at any time at a conversion price of $3.85 per share of Company common stock. The Series B Convertible Preferred Stock carries a cumulative annual dividend of 4% for the first 12 months following the closing and 6% thereafter.

Debt Financing

Under the Loan Agreement, Hayfin is providing MiMedx with a five-year term loan facility (the Term Loan Facility) in the aggregate principal amount of $50 million, the full amount of which is being borrowed and funded, and a one-year, delayed draw term loan facility in the aggregate principal amount of $25 million, which is not currently being drawn or funded. The Facilities bear interest at a rate equal to LIBOR (subject to a floor of 1.5%) plus a margin of 6.75%. The margin will be eligible to decrease to 6.5% or 6.0% after December 31, 2020, based on future total net leverage levels.

The Loan Agreement does not include any equity or equity-linked component.

Use of Proceeds

The aggregate proceeds of the Equity Investment and the Term Loan Facility have been or will be used (i) to repay the outstanding principal, interest, and prepayment premium resulting from the early termination of the Companys Term Loan Agreement with Blue Torch Finance LLC, (ii) for working capital and general corporate purposes, and (iii) to pay transaction fees, costs and expenses incurred in connection with the Equity Investment, the Term Loan Facility and the related transactions.

Background of the Transactions

As will be more fully described within Item 7 of the Companys 2019 Annual Report on Form 10-K, during the last two years the Company has experienced a decline in sales and significant non-business expenses, and expects to continue to incur such expenses over the near term and mid-term. In addition, as previously disclosed, the Company required additional capital to implement its strategic plan, including for enhancements to its manufacturing plant to meet current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) requirements, for clinical trials to support Investigational New Drug (IND) and Biologics License Applications (BLAs), to mitigate other risks, and to address ongoing spend for legal matters (including under contractual indemnification requirements for former officers).

The Company held discussions with more than 20 potential financing sources, and after thoroughly evaluating multiple proposals received and carefully considering various financing alternatives, the Board unanimously approved the Equity Investment and the Term Loan Facility.

Additional Information

Further details regarding the Securities Purchase Agreement, the Loan Agreement and the termination of the Blue Torch Term Loan Agreement will be contained in MiMedxs Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 or a Current Report on Form 8-K that the Company will be filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC). This filing will be available on the SECs website at www.sec.gov and in the Investors section of the Companys corporate website at www.mimedx.com .

J.P. Morgan is acting as sole placement agent and Sidley Austin LLP is serving as legal counsel to the Company.

About EW Healthcare Partners

With close to $4 billion raised since inception, EW Healthcare Partners is one of the largest and oldest private healthcare investment firms and seeks to make growth equity investments in fast growing commercial-stage healthcare companies in the pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, and technology-enabled services sectors in the United States and in Europe. Since its founding in 1985, EW Healthcare Partners has maintained its singular commitment to the healthcare industry and has been a long-term investor in over 150 healthcare companies, ranging across sectors, stages and geographies. The team is comprised of over 20 senior investment professionals with offices in Palo Alto, Houston, New York, and London. For more information, visit www.ewhealthcare.com .

About William A. Hawkins, III

Mr. Hawkins is the retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic, Inc. and has had a long and distinguished career in the medical devices industry. Mr. Hawkins is a Senior Advisor to EW Healthcare Partners and currently serves on several public, private and non-profit boards. He is a director of Biogen, Inc. (BIIB); Avanos Medical, Inc. (AVNS); Virtue Labs; Baebies, Inc.; AskBio; Immucor, Inc. Cereius, Inc.; and Cirtec Medical. He is also Chairman of the Board of Bioventus, LLC and 4Tech, a cardiology startup in Ireland. Mr. Hawkins is the former Chairman and Co-Founder of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium and a past-president of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is an AIMBE Fellow. Mr. Hawkins was elected to the Duke University Board of Trustees in 2011 and currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Board. Mr. Hawkins is also Chair of the Board of the Duke University Health System. He is a member of the NC Biotech board and serves on the Board of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation Society. Mr. Hawkins has a dual B.S.E.E. degree in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.

About Martin P. Sutter

Martin P. Sutter is the Co-Founder and a Managing Director of EW Healthcare Partners, previously known as Essex Woodlands Health Ventures. Mr. Sutter has been directly involved with more than 30 EW Healthcare Partners portfolio company investments and has served on numerous past Boards of Directors of public and private companies, including ATS Medical, which was acquired by Medtronic, Inc., BioForm Medical, which was acquired by Merz GmbH & Co KGaA, LifeCell, which was acquired by Kinetic Concepts, Inc., St. Francis Medical, which was acquired by Kyphon, Inc./Medtronic, Inc., Confluent Surgical, which was acquired by Tyco International/Covidien and Rinat Neurosciences, which was acquired by Pfizer, Inc. Mr. Sutter currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Abiomed, Inc. (ABMD), Bioventus LLC, and Prolacta Bioscience. Mr. Sutter is a former Trustee of The Culinary Institute of America. Mr. Sutter holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston.

About Hayfin Capital Management LLC

Hayfin Capital Management (Hayfin) is a leading European alternative asset management firm with approximately 15 billion of assets under management. Since it was founded in 2009, Hayfin has invested c.20 billion of capital across more than 340 portfolio companies. Hayfin focuses on delivering best-in-class risk-adjusted returns for its investors across five strategies: Direct Lending, Special Opportunities, High-Yield Credit, Structured Products and Private Equity Funds. Hayfin has a diverse international team of over 135 experienced industry professionals with offices globally, including headquarters in London and offices in Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, New York, Paris, and Tel Aviv. Hayfin is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Further information can be found at www.hayfin.com .

About MiMedx

MiMedx is an industry leader in advanced wound care and an emerging therapeutic biologics company developing and distributing human placental tissue allografts with patent-protected processes for multiple sectors of healthcare. The Company processes the human placental tissue utilizing its proprietary PURION process methodology, among other processes, to produce allografts by employing aseptic processing techniques in addition to terminal sterilization. MiMedx has supplied over 1.9 million allografts to date. For additional information, please visit www.mimedx.com .

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements relating to events or results that may occur in the future are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding anticipated future expenses and use of proceeds from the Equity Investment and the Term Loan Facility. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by words such as expect, will, intend, seek, target, future, plan, continue, potential, possible, could, would, may, anticipate, to be and similar expressions. These statements are based on numerous assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could significantly affect the Companys operations and may cause the Companys actual actions, results, financial condition, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future actions, results, financial condition, performance or achievements expressed or implied by any such forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause such a difference include, without limitation, those discussed under the heading Risk Factors in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018 and the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019.

Unless required by law, the Company does not intend, and undertakes no obligation, to update or publicly release any revision to any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of the receipt of new information, the occurrence of subsequent events, a change in circumstances or otherwise. Each forward-looking statement contained in this release is specifically qualified in its entirety by the aforementioned factors. Readers are advised to carefully read this release in conjunction with the important disclaimers set forth above prior to reaching any conclusions or making any investment decisions and not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this release.

Contact:

Hilary Dixon

Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

770.651.9066

investorrelations@mimedx.com
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Predictions are notoriously slippery, especially where U.S. elections are concerned. But theres at least a strong possibility that after four years of a beautiful partnership Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could soon be facing life without Donald Trump.

While many of the U.S.s other allies might find that a cause for relief, for Bibi the reaction is likely to be more complicated. Trump has lavished priceless gifts on Bibi -- the Golan Heights, a U.S. embassy relocation to Jerusalem and a permission to wage covert war against Iran. Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal at Netanyahus urging and adopted Netanyahus design for a Palestinian mini-state in the West Bank. He even named the plan after himself.

In the last three Israeli electoral campaigns, Trump worked hard to keep Bibi in office. Now it is Trump who is running for re-election. The president fully expects Bibi to reciprocate.

But loyalty and gratitude are not among Bibis virtues. Recent polls show Trump losing by a large margin. The often more reliable Vegas odds make him a three-to-two underdog. Israeli diplomats in Washington report talking with increasingly demoralized Republicans and excited Democrats.

Yes, the odds were against Trump in 2016, too. But this time they are based less on his personality than on his failed performance in office. Trump has botched the corona crisis. His economic boom has melted down into the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression and a dramatic drop in GDP. He has responded to mass protests with bellicose law-and-order threats that have alienated even normally apolitical senior military officers. There is a hysterical tone his recent political ads; he no longer looks like a winner.

A Biden victory would end the Bibi-Trump honeymoon, but it would not necessarily be a disaster for Netanyahu. Biden is a lifetime Zionist with a long senatorial record of support for Israel. During the nasty spat between Bibi and Obama over the Iran nuclear pact, the vice president managed to avoid a breach with Netanyahu, whom he has called a great, great friend. In that tense period, Bibi placed an emotional condolence call to Biden after the death of his son, Beau. Together they recalled their many moments during a 20-year friendship.

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Biden is not only a friend, he is a centrist in a party whose progressive wing is not supportive of Israel. As president, he would not threaten military aid, as Democrat Bernie Sanders recently has. It is unlikely that he would reverse Trumps recognition of Israels Golan annexation or return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv. There would be disagreement over how to deal with Iran and with the Palestinian issue, but it probably wouldnt be disagreeable.

No matter how weak Trump looks going into November, Bibi will not publicly break up with him before the election. Trump would see it as a betrayal and certainly seek to take revenge. Even in defeat, he would still have large number of supporters and Twitter follows. Most of them like Bibi. The last thing he wants is to be labelled a traitor or an ingrate by his offended ex-partner. If there is to be a separation, Netanyahu wants to keep it amicable.

This will require some finesse. In the past, Trump has made televised campaign ads for Netanyahu, hosted him at high-profile Oval office meetings on the eve of elections and timed announcements of U.S. support to coincide with Bibis political needs.

Bibi will not happily reciprocate. He will likely invoke the principle of strict neutrality in foreign elections, a principle every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir has violated. He will use the Covid-19 crisis as an excuse for not paying a visit to the White House, and for discouraging a presidential trip to Jerusalem. In his communications with Republican evangelical Zionist leaders and American Jews, Bibi will decline to echo Trumps charge, when it comes to Israel, Biden is the second coming of Obama.

If Biden wins, Bibi will have three main goals: 1) to win substantial new economic support from Washington during what looks to be a serious Israeli recession; 2) the adoption by the new administration of his view that Iran is the implacable enemy of both Israel and the US; and 3) preservation of the Trump Peace Plan.

He could get the first; there is still a lot of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. He likely wont get the second; appeasing Iran is a pillar of even moderate Democratic foreign policy. As for the third, it will require some rebranding. Trumps Deal of the Century would likely be renamed a realistic two-state solution or something close. This is not far-fetched. Even the Palestinian leadership, which on Monday announced its willingness to reopen talks with Israel after six years, seems to be coming to that conclusion. Add a few new wrinkles and a new administration could call it The Biden Plan. It might even work.

Netanyahu still wants Trump to win. That is like having himself in the White House. Breaking up is hard to do. But, in the words of a song Trump has often played at his rallies, You cant always get what you want. But, if you play your cards right, you can get what you need.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
NetZoom recently expanded its Visio Stencils library with a variety of manufacturers' hardware devices including Adamai Technologies, Cumulus Networks, Fidelis Security, Palo Alto Networks, and more

CHICAGO, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NetZoom, Inc., the maker of largest NetZoom Visio Stencils Device Library for documenting and diagramming network and data center assets, recently released new Visio Stencils for the following product lines:

Manufacturer / Device Model

Akamai Technologies AKA Series APRESIA Systems APRESIALight Bull Bull Cumulus Networks Cumulus Express EMC VxRail Fidelis Security Systems Security Appliance FS.COM PoE Equipments Ortonics Clarity Palo Alto Networks PA-3200 Series Proofpoint P Series Quantum StorageSystems









"NetZoom Stencils is a product that I have seen grow over the years from just giving me stencils for my layouts to a very robust product that helps with the network," says William K., a network engineer and regular user of NetZoom Stencils. "This is a product that any network administrator or system administrator should have in there to-do software list."

NetZoom Visio Stencils is the world's largest library of device stencils used by over 250,000 professionals worldwide. The Device Library includes device stencils for racks, servers, network, telecom, audio, video, security, and infrastructure devices.

NetZoom subscribers can request new device shapes and stencils for free and download diagrams and stencils from www.VisioStencils.com. The Device Library is updated weekly with customer shape requests.

Availability

NetZoom Visio Stencils is immediately available on a subscription basis and allows customers to request the development of new shapes at no additional cost. For more information visit VisioStencils.com

About NetZoom

Founded in 1995, NetZoom, Inc. is an Illinois corporation with headquarters in the Chicago area. The company's NetZoom software enables data center professionals around the world to effectively model, manage, monitor, and maximize IT and Facility infrastructure.

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For more information, please visit NetZoom.com.

Press Contact

Marketing Manager

2300 Cabot Drive, Suite 535

Lisle, IL 60532 USA

Phone: 630.281.6464

Email: 242889@email4pr.com

NetZoom is a trademark of NetZoom, Inc. All others are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

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SOURCE NetZoom, Inc.
While serious negotiations on the next possible coronavirus stimulus package wont begin until Congress returns to Washington on July 20, some analysts think the strong June jobs report may make it easier for Republican lawmakers and the White House to limit its size and scope.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin signaled that the White House recognizes that the recovery is not complete, saying our work is not done at Trumps news conference. But White House adviser Stephen Moore told The Washington Post Thursday that the strong report makes it less likely that the administration will back a $2 trillion to $3 trillion stimulus package along the lines proposed by Democrats. Moore also said resistance to extending a big boost to unemployment benefits has also probably grown stronger.

Still, some kind of package is likely to move forward. Bloomberg has a rundown on what the package could include:

* More aid for business: Lawmakers are debating another extension for the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides forgivable loans to small businesses, or potentially reprogramming its unused funds  as much as $130 billion  for other kinds of assistance. Mnuchin has said that he would like to aid more clearly targeted at businesses that need help. And the administration continues to push for tax breaks to promote hiring and consumption.

* Unemployment benefits: Democrats want to extend the $600 per week boost to unemployment benefits, but Republicans say they want it to end as scheduled at the end of this month, charging that it motivates workers to stay unemployed. A compromise could be worked out, providing some kind of enhanced benefits at a lower level.

* Checks for households: Democrats have proposed another round of $1,200 per adult stimulus checks, and President Trump said this week that he would like to see an even larger amount. But Republican lawmakers are skeptical, and depending on the economic data, they could sink any effort to provide more direct aid to households.

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* Employer liability: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to protect employers from lawsuits related to the coronavirus. Any bill that passes the Senate will have liability protections in it, McConnell said earlier this week. This is liability protections for everyone  everybody who interacted with this pandemic. Unless youre grossly negligent or intentionally engaged in misconduct, were going to see to it that you dont get sued on top of everything else youve had to deal with in trying to get through this. The White House has also said it wants to see formal limits on liability, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has said she would oppose any effort to provide broad immunity for employers.

* State and local aid: Democrats say that state and local governments need about $1 trillion in aid, likely far more than Republicans would consider. While the White House and GOP lawmakers say they are willing to consider some aid, any eventual compromise would likely well short of what governors and local leaders say they need.

Writing at the Washington Post Thursday, Catherine Rampell highlighted the potential importance of such aid. State and local governments are already cutting back on spending, creating more downward pressure on employment and economic growth. Unless federal aid comes through soon, expect huge new public-sector layoffs and service cuts in the months ahead, followed by knock-on job losses in the private sector, Rampell said.

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VANCOUVER, BC , July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - Orla Mining Ltd. (OLA.TO) ("Orla" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Sean Spraggett has been appointed as General Manager, Panama , effective July 1, 2020 .

"We are excited to have Sean join the Orla team. His extensive experience in-country and across broader Latin America will serve the Company well as we advance our Cerro Quema project in Panama ", stated Jason Simpson , President and Chief Executive Officer of Orla.

Mr. Spraggett has over 25 years of experience in the mining industry and was previously the Country Manager for Stracon mining contractors and supported the development of the Cobre Panama mine. He also led the development and operations of the Constancia mine in Peru for Norsemont Mining prior to its acquisition by Hudbay Minerals. Mr. Spraggett brings mine design, construction, and operations expertise to Orla. He has managed projects and studies at Yanacocha, Cerro Corona , Rio Blanco , Marcobre, La Granja , Cerro Verde , and Toquepala, among others. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Geological Engineering from the University of New Brunswick .

Orla remains focused on advancing its Cerro Quema project this year. Key work programs include updating the Pre-Feasibility Study on the Cerro Quema Oxide Project, continuing exploration on both oxide and sulphide target areas with 4,000 metres of drilling planned in 2020, and completing a maiden mineral resource estimate on the Caballito copper-gold sulphide discovery. The Government of Panama has begun the process of reopening the economy, and Phase 2 of a 6-Phase plan commenced on June 1 . Cerro Quema is permitted to gradually ramp up operations after presenting its COVID-19 return-to-work protocols to the Ministries of Health, Commerce, and Work on June 8 . The Company continues to pay its workforce and support local communities. The Company is awaiting approval from the Government of Panama for the previously submitted environmental permit and mining concession renewal applications.

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About Orla Mining Ltd.

Orla is developing the Camino Rojo Oxide Gold Project, an advanced gold and silver open-pit and heap leach project, located in Zacatecas State, Central Mexico . The project is 100% owned by Orla and covers over 160,000 hectares. The technical report entitled "Feasibility Study, NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Camino Rojo Gold Project  Municipality of Mazapil, Zacatecas, Mexico " dated June 25, 2019 is available on SEDAR under the Company's profile as well as on Orla's website at www.orlamining.com. Orla also owns 100% of the Cerro Quema Project located in Panama which includes a near-term gold production scenario and various exploration targets. The Cerro Quema Project is a proposed open pit mine and gold heap leach operation. Please refer to the "Cerro Quema Project - Pre-feasibility Study on the La Pava and Quemita Oxide Gold Deposits" dated August 15, 2014 , which is available on SEDAR.

Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian and United States securities legislation, including, without limitation, statements with respect to the timing of meeting certain conditions with respect to the receipt of required permits and licenses, the timing of commencement of construction and exploration activities, the results of exploration and planned exploration programs, the potential for discovery of additional mineral resources and the Company's objectives and strategies. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts which address events, results, outcomes or developments that the Company expects to occur. 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. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements are discussed in this news release, including without limitation, the Company's activities will be in accordance with the Company's public statements and stated goals; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; that all required approvals will be obtained and that there will be no significant disruptions affecting the Company or its properties. 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. Forward-looking statements involve significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to: risks related to uncertainties inherent in the preparation of feasibility studies, drill results and the estimation of mineral reserves and mineral resources; and risks associated with executing the Company's objectives and strategies, including costs and expenses. Except as required by the securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

SOURCE Orla Mining Ltd.

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If you are looking for the best ideas for your portfolio you may want to consider some of Ensemble Capital's top stock picks. Ensemble Capital, an investment management firm, is bearish on Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) stock. In its Q4 2019 investor letter  you can download a copy here  the firm discussed its investment thesis on Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) stock. Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) is a computer software company based in California. The stock is up 1.4% since the Ensemble Capital's pitch in January 2020, which suggests the investment firm was wrong in its decision. On a year-to-date basis, Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) stock has risen by 6.1%.

On January 22, 2020, Ensemble Capital had released its Q4 2019 Investor Letter. Ensemble Capital said that Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) doesn't meet the investment firm's portfolio inclusion criteria and as a result exited the stock.

For the quarter ended December 31st, 2019, Ensemble Fund recorded a return of 9.87%, compared to 9.07% of the S&P 500 Index. This brings its 2019 full-year return to 39.55%, compared to 31.49% of the S&P 500 Index.

Lets take a look at comments made by Ensemble Capital about Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) in the letter.

"We sold out of Oracle after losing conviction that the company can achieve the transition to their software-as-a-service business model with the speed and earnings power that we had expected. The transition had been taking longer than we initially forecasted and the company has stopped reporting on certain key measures that we believed were important indicators for us to track the progress. After much debate, we decided that the company no longer fully meets our requirements for inclusion in our portfolio due to the businesses future simply not being forecastable enough for us to have confidence in valuing the stock."

Oracle ORCL

Our calculations showed that Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) isn't ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

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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.

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:

[daily-newsletter][/daily-newsletter]

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
PAL Airlines Reaffirms Commitment to Atlantic Canadian and Quebec Markets

PAL Airlines Reaffirms Commitment to Atlantic Canadian and Quebec Markets

Canada NewsWire

ST. JOHN'S, NL, July 2, 2020

ST. JOHN'S, NL, July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - PAL Airlines is reaffirming the company's commitment of continued service to destinations in Atlantic Canada and Quebec.

"PAL Airlines knows firsthand the uncertainty COVID-19 has created in Canadian commercial aviation," said Calvin Ash, President of PAL Airlines. "Given recent events, we believe it is important to restate our commitment to serving our network in Atlantic Canada and Quebec and to assure our passengers that they can continue to book future travel with confidence in our airline."

PAL Airlines maintains an extensive presence throughout Atlantic Canada and Quebec with scheduled passenger and cargo services to a variety of destinations primarily operating De Havilland Dash 8 series aircraft.

At this pivotal time for the aviation industry, PAL Airlines is proudly delivering essential air services throughout the region and responsibly increasing capacity to meet market demand. The airline will continue to monitor events in the market and progressively enhance scheduled services to meet community requirements.

"Throughout our history, PAL Airlines' strength has been our ability to offer a range of services that meet the diverse needs of our customers and businesses we serve," said Jake Trainor, CEO of the PAL Group of Companies. "By following those principles through COVID-19, we have been able to keep flying safely at a time when our communities have needed us most."

About PAL Airlines:

A proud member of the Exchange Income Corporation family of airlines, PAL Airlines is based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador and serves over 20 destinations throughout Atlantic Canada and Quebec. PAL Airlines has over 40 years experience in the aviation industry with a reputation has built on safety, reliability, and exceptional customer service. PAL Airlines was recently awarded our seventh Airline Reliability Award from De Havilland Canada for the Dash 8-100/200/300 Aircraft Program.

SOURCE PAL Airlines
It's no secret that Palmer Luckey's Anduril Industries has been developing a "virtual wall" to heighten national security -- he's been at it for the better part of three years. That work (for better or worse) has finally paid off. According to a new report from the Washington Post, the Trump administration awarded Anduril a lucrative five-year contract to erect hundreds of AI-powered surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border by 2022.

These towers give agents in the field a significant leg up against the criminal networks that facilitate illegal cross-border activity, said Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott in a statement released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Anduril's hardware almost looks like it belongs in orbit, rather than sitting amid desert scrub. On the ground, two wide solar panels collect energy to keep the surveillance tower running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And at the top of a lengthy mast sit a cluster of cameras, sensors and antennae designed to spot animals, vehicles and people as they traverse potentially rugged landscapes. Of course, that hardware is only part of the solution -- Anduril's Lattice AI collects the data from those myriad sensors, identifies the objects in motion, and feeds relevant information to its customers in government and law enforcement.

It's worth noting, however, that Anduril's AI has limits. Despite a bevy of sophisticated sensors, these towers can't be used for fine-grained personal data collection.

We know at a distance whether its a person, its a cow, its a vehicle, its an aircraft, its a ship, said Matthew Steckman, Anduril's Chief Revenue Officer, to the Post. We dont know anything below that level, but for border security, especially in rural locations, thats enough to make a decision.

While industry observers were surprised to see Palmer Luckey shift gears from consumer virtual reality to defense technology, what might have been more surprising was the speed at which the former Oculus chief found success in his new venture. He started Anduril Industries in 2017, mere months after being forced out of Facebook due to backlash from a $10,000 donation he made to a pro-Trump political group. Just over a year later, Anduril was on the ground on a ranch in Texas, testing a cluster of four Lattice-powered surveillance towers. During that ten-week people, Wired reported that the AI had helped customs agents apprehend 55 people who had crossed the border illegally. It wasn't long before U.S. Customs and Border Protection procured an additional 56 towers.

Now, just three years since launch, Anduril landed a government deal estimated the Post pegs at hundreds of millions of dollars. The startup didn't just get cash to grow from the federal government, either. The Trump administration's announcement comes on the heels of another major milestone for the startup: It just closed a $200 million Series C funding round, based largely on its promise of becoming a full-blown defense contractor. With today's announcement, Luckey and Anduril have made good on that promise.

Despite early successes in the field, though, it doesn't appear that the Trump administration's embrace of "virtual wall" technology has diminished its zeal for traditional, physical barriers. The president's border wall has grown by about 50 miles since the end of February, while much of the country grapples with upticks in COVID-19 infections and questions over re-opening.
- Social spirit of Italy comes alive in new Peroni Nastro Azzurro advertising campaign

- July 2020 sees launch of multi-channel advertising around unifying 'Walk With Us' message

- Campaign will be supported with a back to trade plan for on-trade partners including complimentary kegs, and a range of services to support in outlet social distancing

- Letter 'From Italy to The World' to kick-start the new campaign, starting with the UK

- UK's Number 1 Super Premium Beer brand taps into timeless Italian ritual to inspire nation

LONDON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Peroni Nastro Azzurro, the UK's Number 1 Super Premium beer brand[i], today launches a new global advertising campaign, 'Walk With Us' to reflect the heart of Italian culture as doors to UK pubs, bars and restaurants begin to open up again on a wider scale. The message focuses on the time-honored Italian tradition of La Passeggiata  an early evening ritual which Italians routinely take  to walk, connect and socialise.

A salute to Peroni Nastro Azzurro's Italian roots, the 'Walk With Us' campaign will go live across TV, radio, video on demand (VOD), OOH, print and social media, and is spearheaded by a letter, 'From Italy to the World' to highlight the feelings people will have experienced in recent months. People who may now have a renewed sense of appreciation for the things that they may have taken for granted  even something as simple as a walk. In addition, over one million premium recyclable cups and 250,000 four-pint carriers are now available to help operators with a flexible offering when restrictions are eased from the 4th July.

Synonymous with great taste, quality and style, Peroni Nastro Azzurro is the number one brand that consumers want to be seen drinking[ii]. As pubs, bars and restaurants start to reopen, brands that deliver on value, and will be sought out by consumers, will be more important than ever. Industry forecasts indicate that the GB On-Trade will be operating significantly below pre-lockdown volume[iii] so ensuring that the range available makes the most of footfall profit opportunity is key. By incorporating Peroni Nastro Azzurro, and maintaining a balanced range with options from Standard to Super Premium, operators can maximise sales and the revenue opportunity.

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Tim Clay, Managing Director, Asahi UK reflects on the campaign and says, "These are strange times and circumstances that we couldn't have imagined having to navigate through. The situation faced in the retail and hospitality sector is completely unprecedented, and, as a supplier to businesses of all sizes, we are on overdrive to find ways to support our valued customers  as well as the communities in which we operate. It will be a tricky road to recovery for many, so we continue to work with and listen to our customers to see how best we can help support them. We hope that the 'Walk With Us' campaign resonates with both consumers and operators, as we all try to reconnect with the places and pastimes we enjoy the most."

Notes to Editors

Passeggiata /pasdt/

(especially in Italy or Italian-speaking areas) a leisurely walk or stroll, especially one taken in the evening for the purpose of socializing.

Further campaign detail: 'Walk With Us' follows the story of Peroni Nastro Azzurro's 'Vita Con Stile' campaign, which launched across UK and Ireland in July last year. The campaign was based on consumer insight validating how 'style' has moved on beyond how people look and is now a reflection of internal confidence - how it is expressed and the way people choose to live their lives through it. 'Walk With Us' takes that philosophy and explores it through the lens of society and communities drastically changed by Coronavirus whilst focusing on Italian rituals and showcasing it through the concept: 'It's not where we go, it's how we get there'.

About Peroni Nastro Azzurro

Brewed in Italy to the original recipe since 1963, Peroni Nastro Azzurro exemplifies the traditions of Italian craftsmanship, passion and flair. Born in Rome, 1963, Birra Peroni brewed what was to become their greatest and most famous export: Peroni Nastro Azzurro. Created to reflect the emergence of Italian luxury in fashion and design, it was designed with the sharp, sophisticated beer drinker in mind. Peroni Nastro Azzurro is gently brewed to give an intensely crisp, refreshing taste with that unmistakable touch of true Italian style.

About Asahi UK

Asahi UK is a subsidiary of Asahi International Ltd and is responsible for sales, marketing and customer operations across the UK and Ireland. Asahi UK aims to enrich consumer experiences through innovation, high-quality service and an exceptional portfolio of premium beer, ale and cider brands including, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Asahi Super Dry, Meantime, Fuller's London Pride and Cornish Orchards. The Woking based business is focused on developing quality, super premium brands and delivering commercial value in the marketplace, through a strong belief in collaboration, customer excellence and people development. For further information, visit www.asahibeer.co.uk.

About Asahi International

Asahi International Limited is a subsidiary of Asahi Group Holdings Ltd, a global beverage and food company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan. Employing over 1,300 people, the UK headquartered business is the custodian for leading super premium beer, ale, craft lager and cider brands including; Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Asahi Super Dry, Grolsch, Meantime, Fuller's London Pride, Pilsner Urquell, Kozel and Cornish Orchards. Asahi International Limited leads commercial operations across United Kingdom, France, USA, Canada, China, Taiwan and South-Korea. With total sales revenues of over 1bn, Asahi International's global distribution network reaches Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. For further information, visit www.asahiinternational.com, www.linkedin.com/company/asahi-international.

[i] CGA Pub Report 2019

[ii] Millward Brown, July 2019

[iii] CGA OPM Forecasts  4 Weekly Total Beer Volume (HL) & Share vs Expected Volume
SUNNYVALE, Calif. and TORONTO, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PFU America, Inc., a Fujitsu company, announced the establishment of PFU Canada Inc. to have a company dedicated to serving the Canadian market for document imaging. In order to better meet the needs of the Canadian marketplace, Fujitsu Canada, Inc.'s document imaging scanner business in Canada will be transferred to PCI on July 1, 2020.

Mr. Masanori Shibusawa has been appointed the first President & CEO of the company. "Starting PCI on Canada Day is a great way to pay tribute to Canadians. It is an honor to lead the company as we cultivate and grow our business in Canada."

PCI will concentrate on sales, distribution and maintenance of scanners plus diversify its offerings by venturing into the keyboard market. PFU is a leading document scanner company with a portfolio of document scanners for personal, desktop, workgroup and high-volume production environment. PCI's business address is 155 University Ave., Suite 1600, Toronto, ON M5H 3B7 and PCI's phone number is 1-800-263-8716.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 132,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.0 trillion yen (US $36 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com .

About PFU Limited

PFU Limited, a Fujitsu company, is a US$1.4 billion global enterprise that is an edge solution partner in the ICT industry, and a world leader in document scanning products and services providing comprehensive IT solutions. The company is headquartered in Yokohama, Japan, with sales offices across the globe. For more information, please see https://www.pfu.fujitsu.com/en/ .

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SOURCE PFU America, Inc.
TAMPA, Fla. , July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - Primo Water Corporation (PRMW) (PRMW) (the "Company" or "Primo"), a leading provider of water direct to consumers and water filtration services in North America and Europe as well as a leading provider of water dispensers, purified bottled water, and self-service refill drinking water in the U.S. and Canada , today announced that the Company will release its second quarter ended June 27, 2020 financial results before the markets open on Thursday, August 6 , 2020.

Primo Water Corporation Logo (CNW Group/Primo Water Corporation)

Primo will host a conference call, to be simultaneously webcast, on Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time . A question and answer session will follow management's presentation. To participate, please call the following numbers:

Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call

North America : (888) 231-8191

International: (647) 427-7450

Conference ID: 7191008

This is a live, listen-only dial-in telephone line.

Webcast for Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call

A live audio webcast will be available through the Company's website at www.primowatercorp.com. The webcast will be recorded and archived for playback on the investor relations section of the website for two weeks following the event.

ABOUT PRIMO WATER CORPORATION

Primo Water Corporation is a leading pure-play water solutions provider in North America , Europe and Israel and generates approximately $2.1 billion in annual revenue. Primo operates largely under a recurring razor/razorblade revenue model. The razor in Primo's revenue model is its industry leading line-up of sleek and innovative water dispensers, which are sold through major retailers and online at various price points or leased to customers. The dispensers help increase household penetration which drives recurring purchases of Primo's razorblade offering. Primo's razorblade offering is comprised of Water Direct, Water Exchange, and Water Refill. Through its market leading Water Direct business, Primo delivers sustainable hydration solutions across its 21-country footprint direct to the customer's door, whether at home or to commercial businesses. Through its market leading Water Exchange and Water Refill businesses, Primo offers pre-filled and reusable containers at over 13,000 locations and water refill units at approximately 22,000 locations, respectively. Primo also offers water filtration units across its 21-country footprint representing a top five position.

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Primo's water solutions expand consumer access to purified, spring and mineral water to promote a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle while simultaneously reducing plastic waste and pollution. Primo is committed to its water stewardship standards and is proud to partner with the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) in North America as well as with Watercoolers Europe (WE), which ensure strict adherence to safety, quality, sanitation and regulatory standards for the benefit of consumer protection.

Primo is headquartered in Tampa, Florida (USA). For more information, visit www.primowatercorp.com.

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SOURCE Primo Water Corporation

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There are distinct advantages real estate investments deliver that other investments just can't offer.

These include rental income, which acts like dividend income, along with substantial tax advantages and expense write-offs, which can feel like bonuses.

"Owning a rental property isn't just about collecting rent or making money long-term off a property sale," says Sara Lavdas, CFO at The Maryland and Delaware Group of Long and Foster Real Estate in Salisbury, Maryland.

Real estate investors who purchase a property to rent out to tenants as an income-producing business can depreciate the cost of maintaining or improving a particular property, which offers compelling tax incentives. Here are a few common rental depreciation questions:

-- What is rental property depreciation?

-- What are some depreciation tax advantages?

-- How to report depreciation?

-- How is it calculated?

[Read: Retirement Investing for Retirees Amid the Downturn]

What Is Rental Property Depreciation?

The Internal Revenue Service defines depreciation as a yearly income tax deduction, allowing the investor to recover the cost of certain properties during their use. This serves as an allowance for the deterioration a property experiences that results in business expenses.

Straight-line depreciation is the most common form of depreciation, in which the value of the rental property is evenly reduced each year over the useful life of the asset.

"In the tax world, it's assumed that rental properties degrade over time and rental property owners are allowed to take a tax deduction for a certain amount of the property's value. That's called depreciation," Lavdas says.

The process of rental property depreciation involves writing off or subtracting rental property expenses on your annual tax returns. Property depreciation can help the property owner reclaim the costs of the income-producing rental property by way of tax deductions on your income.

Your property can be depreciated if it meets certain requirements as determined by the IRS: You own the property, you use the property in your business or income-producing activity, the property has a determinable useful life and the property is expected to last more than a year.

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Depending on the property type, depreciation deductions are spread over 27.5 years for residential properties and up to 39 years for commercial properties, but it can vary. This is important for calculating depreciation. As stated by IRS rules, the method of depreciation most taxpayers use is the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS). Under the IRS direction, the MACRS table lists asset classes with different depreciation periods, which helps determine the depreciation amount of a property.

One of the requirements of depreciation is having a determinable useful life or definite lifespan, meaning the rental property wears down normally over time.

"Depreciation is an income tax deduction that allows a property owner to recover the cost of acquiring and making a property operational in order to collect income," says Evi Kokalari-Angelakis, founder and CEO of Golden Key Realty in New York City.

Certain factors are disqualified from depreciation. Kokalari-Angelakis mentions that land value is not included since it does not depreciate.

The cost of land will generally remain consistent since it doesn't become worn down or out-of-date. Also, if you are a tenant who pays rent, the property in which you reside cannot be depreciated; only the owner of the residence can depreciate their property.

The course of depreciation of a rental property starts when it's first being used as a means to collect rental income, and the depreciation process comes to an end when the rental service ends or when the property owner has collected for the property's value and expenses.

[READ:Sign up for stock news with our Invested newsletter.]

Some may confuse depreciation with the reduction of value of an asset; however, depreciation does not characterize the loss of value of a property. Rather, it has to do with taking account for property costs.

What Are Depreciation Tax Advantages?

Rental property depreciation can bring tax benefits to an investor and their real estate business.

A huge incentive for real estate investing is lowering your tax liability to save money on your taxes each year. To qualify for tax advantages, you would have already needed to have spent money on the rental property.

"Any tax deduction can flow through all income tax deductions where losses generated from real estate would offset expenses from the business, bringing down tax liabilities from any type of income," says Julio Gonzalez, founder and CEO of Engineered Tax Services in West Palm Beach, Florida.

There are two different types of real estate investors: active and passive participants. This distinction is important because the IRS is looking at these characteristics to see if participants measure up to requirements to meet certain losses.

Taxpayers qualify as active real estate professionals if they participate in more than 750 hours of service during the tax year in the real estate business.

Passive participants -- generally referring to investors involved in passive activity through rental businesses, such as rent collection -- only offset passive losses restricted to passive income, where qualifying activity hours are lower.

Components that can be reported as "depreciable" assets are ones that add value to your rental properties and anything associated with managing it.

Home improvements that add value to the property or your laptop that's used to track data on your rental business are all acceptable, experts say.

The cost of renovations becomes part of the basis for depreciation along with some of the closing costs, Kokalari-Angelakis says.

These deductibles are required to have a shelf life of one year at a minimum and steadily lose their value over time.

[SEE: 7 Real Estate Companies to Watch With the Urban Exodus.]

How to Calculate Depreciation

The amount of depreciation is determined by several components, including the estimated value of the land as well as the building or residential property's value.

Typically, rental property depreciates at a rate of about 3.6% for 27.5 years for residential properties, according to the IRS.

Determining the property value may not seem complex, but estimating the land value can be challenging, experts say.

Since land is not depreciable, investors are required to separate the property value from the value of the land.

"People glaze over this and that's a mistake because it can cause problems with legality," Lavdas says. "Say you bought a property for $1 million. It's reasonable to estimate the value is about 10% in land, but since that's not always the case, you need to get a third-party document (such as a tax appraisal) to back up that figure."

Kokalari-Angelakis says you must determine the total cost value of the property, including the buying and closing costs and any home improvements, when calculating depreciation. Moreover, the value of the land needs to be determined and deducted.

"Don't start depreciation until the property is ready to be rented out," Kokalari-Angelakis emphasizes.

After the fundamental components are determined, finding the depreciation amount is a simple calculation.

Depreciation equals buying costs plus closing costs and adding home improvements before subtracting the land value and then dividing it by the depreciable lifespan.

The property value divided by the number of years of depreciable lifespan results in the tax expense amount that can be written off on an annual basis.

For example, a real estate investor who purchases a residential property valued at $150,000 determines the depreciation amount by dividing $150,000 by 27.5, which comes to nearly $5,455, the deductible amount from annual taxes.

Depreciation has to be filed within a year, otherwise you will miss the opportunity for tax benefits. You either "use it or lose it."

In recent years, Lavdas says tax laws have allowed owners to take significant additional deductions by looking more closely at different parts of the property that depreciate.

"You do that by having a cost segregation analysis done by a professional. It costs money, but it can pay off if you're strategic about it," she says.

An important part of the process can include a cost segregation study. In this analysis, a consultant reviews the rental property to determine if certain parts of it can be classified as personal property to separate it from the real property.

Then, the personal assets will be listed in shorter depreciation periods for increased depreciation benefits apart from the real property and can accelerate the depreciation advantage.

"Realtor Brandon Brittingham, who owns our firm, did a cost segregation analysis on a $7 million property. (The analysis was $6,000) but it resulted in $1 million in depreciation deductions for the current year," Lavdas says.

How to Report Depreciation to the IRS

To depreciate a property, the owner has to report rental income, expenses and losses to the IRS.

There are different IRS forms to fill out to list your total income, expenses and depreciation for each rental property.

If you have more than one rental property, you must enter the depreciation you are claiming for each property, as required by the IRS.

Reporting all these details can feel overwhelming for new real estate investors, as there are certain qualifications under investment rules that need to be determined. Some investors don't know how to apply all the rules, making real estate investing more complicated, Gonzalez says.

If you're a new real estate investor, getting a good accountant or certified public accountant (CPA) firm can help you navigate the maze of rules.





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With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the work builds a communications strategy that other areas can replicate

Brooklyn, NY and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The virus that causes COVID-19  SARS-CoV-2  passes through the body and ends up in sewage. Therefore, cities across the nation already have facilities that could help officials track the spread of the disease locally: sewage treatment plants. Monitoring the concentration of the virus in wastewater has the potential to be more comprehensive than individual testing, and can signal when a hotspot is developing.

However, deploying sewage surveillance programs for SARS-CoV-2 is complex in practice, requiring not only wastewater sampling and analysis, but also data interpretation and communication of results to public health officials who can act on it.

Researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Stanford University and the University of Notre Dame are collaborating to create a startup blueprint for municipalities that plan to implement SARS-CoV-2 sewage surveillance. It would address dual challenges: implementation of best practices for sample collection, analysis, and interpretation, and speedy and appropriate translation and communication of results to public health decision makers.

The goal of the project, which is supported by a $250,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is to transfer lessons learned to other cities and regions to aid in the deployment of impactful wastewater surveillance programs for COVID-19 and other pathogens that arise as future health threats.

The project extends translational work being conducted in partnership with the Wisconsin State Lab of Hygieneand the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP) by, respectively, Sandra McLellan, professor in the School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, and Andrea Silverman, assistant professor of civil and urban engineering at NYU Tandon. A central goal of the collaboration is making data from their research usable to health authorities and policymakers.

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McLellan is involved in implementing a surveillance program that generates SARS-CoV-2 data for the state of Wisconsin, including weekly data at 42 wastewater treatment plants in the most populated counties. Silverman is working with the NYC DEP to implement a wastewater monitoring program in NYC that can quantify genetic markers for SARS-CoV-2 and potentially other human pathogens. The program will standardize methods and develop quality controls at the NYC DEPs laboratory at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility in Brooklyn, to routinely evaluate samples from NYCs 14 wastewater treatment plants.

The pandemic response is constantly evolving, and data and knowledge for decision-making is lacking, said McLellan, the lead investigator on the grant. This project will bridge the gap between rapidly evolving research in wastewater surveillance and the public health entities that can use this information to better respond to this threat.

The proposal will focus on two key objectives:

To support the ongoing initiative led by Silverman in partnership with the NYC DEP, to develop and implement NYCs SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring program.

To convene a national panel of experts from academia, wastewater utilities, and health departments who would devise a process for translating the data for public health use and develop communication networks needed to convey the data between city and state agencies.

These methods may make it possible to proactively scan for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens, even before cases appear, said Silverman. By implementing these monitoring techniques, the NYC DEP and other wastewater utilities can complement other forms of testing traditionally used for disease surveillancenot just for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Besides McLellan and Silvermans efforts, other co-investigators on the grant bring experience from wastewater surveillance projects around the country.

Kyle Bibby, an associate professor in Notre Dames College of Engineering, is currently working on SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring methods with support from the National Science Foundations RAPID Response grant.

Alexandria Boehm, a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering, is leading a large donor-funded project to test 50 wastewater treatment plants around the United States and develop a model that incorporates health and epidemiology data.

McLellan said using data from Wisconsin, New York and other projects across the nation would make it possible to develop a national monitoring network, and that the findings from the expert panel and surveillance methods development will also be offered as open source to public health officials and practitioners.

About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the countrys foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit engineering.nyu.edu.

About the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Recognized as one of the nations 131 top research universities, UW-Milwaukee provides a world-class education to 26,000 students from 91 countries on a budget of $689 million. Its 15 schools and colleges include Wisconsins only schools of architecture, freshwater sciences and public health, and it is a leading educator of nurses and teachers. UW-Milwaukee partners with leading companies to conduct joint research, offer student internships and serve as an economic engine for southeastern Wisconsin. The Princeton Review named UW-Milwaukee a 2020 Best Midwestern university based on overall academic excellence and student reviews.

Attachment

Karl Greenberg

New York University Tandon School of Engineering

646-519-1996

karl.greenberg@nyu.edu


30 June 2020

Metal Tiger plc

("Metal Tiger" or the "Company")

Results of Annual General Meeting

Share Consolidation

Metal Tiger, the London Stock Exchange AIM listed investor in natural resources opportunities, is pleased to announce that at the Annual General Meeting ("AGM") held earlier today, all resolutions placed before the meeting were approved.

Share Consolidation

Following the approval of Resolution 4 at the AGM, the Company is proceeding with the 1 for 10 Share Consolidation with a record date of 5:00pm today. The 1,522,076,607 Existing Ordinary Shares of 0.01 pence each in issue in the capital of the Company, together with the 3 additional Ordinary Shares to be issued on 30 June 2020 to ensure the Company's issued ordinary share capital is divisible by 10, will be consolidated into 152,207,661 New Ordinary Shares of 0.1 pence each. Such New Ordinary Shares will have the same rights and be subject to the same restrictions (save as to par value) as the Existing Ordinary Shares.

Admission and Total Voting Rights

It is expected that the New Ordinary Shares will be admitted to trading on AIM and will be credited to CREST accounts at 8:00am on 1 July 2020 ("Admission") and that definitive share certificates (where applicable) will be despatched no later than 15 July 2020.

For the purposes of the Financial Conduct Authoritys Disclosure and Transparency Rules ("DTRs"), the issued ordinary share capital of Metal Tiger following Admission will consist of 152,207,661 Ordinary Shares with voting rights attached (one vote per Ordinary Share). There are no Ordinary Shares held in treasury. This total voting rights figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculation by which they will determine whether they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, Metal Tiger under the DTRs.

The New Ordinary Shares will have an ISIN of GB00BNQC0691 and SEDOL BMQC069. The Companys ticker will remain the same.

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The defined terms used in this announcement bear the same meaning as in the Notice of Annual General Meeting, dated 29 May 2020, unless otherwise defined herein.

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of the market abuse regulation (EU No. 596/2014) ("MAR").

For further information on the Company, visit www.metaltigerplc.com:

Michael McNeilly (Chief Executive Officer) Tel: +44 (0)20 7099 0738 Mark Potter (Chief Investment Officer) Richard Tulloch James Dance Jack Botros Strand Hanson Limited (Nominated Adviser) Tel +44 (0)20 7409 3494 Paul Shackleton Steve Douglas Arden Partners plc (Broker) Tel: +44 (0)20 7614 5900 Gordon Poole James Crothers Hugo Liddy Camarco (Financial PR) Tel: +44 (0)20 3757 4980

Notes to Editors:

Metal Tiger plc is admitted to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange AIM Market ("AIM") with the trading code MTR and invests in high potential mineral projects with a base, precious and strategic metals focus.

The Company's target is to deliver a high return for shareholders by investing in significantly undervalued and/or high potential opportunities in the mineral exploration and development sector. Metal Tiger has two investment divisions: Equity Investments and Project Investments.

Equity Investments invests in undervalued natural resource companies. The majority of its investments are listed on AIM, the TSX and the ASX, which includes its interest in Sandfire Resources Limited (ASX: SFR). The Company also considers selective opportunities to invest in private natural resource companies, typically where there is an identifiable path to IPO. Through the trading of equities and warrants, Metal Tiger seeks to generate cash for investment for the Project Investments division.

Project Investments is focused on the development of its key project interests in Botswana, where Metal Tiger has a growing interest in the large and highly prospective Kalahari copper/silver belt through its interest in Kalahari Metals Limited.

The Company actively assesses new investment opportunities on an on-going basis and has access to a diverse pipeline of new opportunities in the natural resources and mining sectors. For pipeline opportunities deemed sufficiently attractive, Metal Tiger may invest in the project or entity by buying publicly listed shares, by financing privately and/or by entering into a joint venture.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005427/en/

Contacts

Metal Tiger plc
By Pedro Fonseca and Rodrigo Viga Gaier

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 2 (Reuters) - In Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, residents could once again run along the beaches and drink a chilled coconut water at the kiosks that line the sand, as Brazil's second city tried to return to some normality despite a heavy coronavirus death toll.

Cariocas, as Rio's inhabitants are known, went to bars, restaurants and gyms that are now allowed to operate again in the latest stage of reopening that had some experts worried about a new wave of infections. The beaches remained closed for sunbathing, but opened for individual exercise.

"It is a relief and provides hope that things can get better," said Flavio Vicente, 38, as he worked out on Copacabana Beach.

Brazil has the world's second largest outbreak behind the United States, with the country's death toll passing 60,000 on Wednesday.

In Rio alone, 6,618 people have died of COVID-19 in the past four months. Only 14 countries in the world have a death toll higher than the city. Public hospitals are at 70% capacity.

At a restaurant in Copacabana, Fernando Melo said he was relieved to be back at work.

"They were difficult days at home, without doing anything, without money," he said. "We are returning slowly with the hope of better days in this new normal."

City Hall has laid out various public health criteria to try and ensure a safe return to business, such as limiting capacity and requiring people book spots in advance, but medical experts still fear the move may have come too soon.

"The opening was hasty. We are seeing a drop in deaths, but it doesn't mean that at the first sign of a fall it is safe open," said Americo Cunha, a professor at Rio's state university UERJ who has monitored the outbreak.

"I can categorically say that the contagion is already rising because of this opening," he added.

Rio, he explained, still has an elevated number of daily deaths showing the virus remained highly active.

From Sunday until Wednesday, Rio registered 252 deaths due to COVID-19 according to the Ministry of Health. (Reporting by Pedro Fonseca and Rodrigo Viga Gaier, writing by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by David Gregorio)
Russian nuclear power is one continent closer to taking over the world. This week the Rwandan parliament approved a plan for the Russian state-owned nuclear conglomerate Rosatom to build a brand new nuclear research facility, along with a nuclear reactor, in the Central African nations capital city of Kigali. This hard-won development comes as the latest step in a decades-long aggressive lobbying effort on the part of the Russian government and more specifically Rosatom to woo African nations into making deals with Russia, ostensibly for profit as well as influence on the African continent.

German media company DW News reported earlier this week about the Kigali nuclear center, The Center of Nuclear Science and Technologies, planned for completion by 2024, will include nuclear research labs as well as a small research reactor with up to 10 MW capacity. And the Rwandan plant is just the beginning. Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia have signed similar deals with Rosatom, while countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Sudan and DRC have less expansive cooperation agreements.

Russias assertive move into Africa intensified considerably on the heels of the introduction of Western Sanctions in 2014. After Canada, the European Union, and the United States all imposed sanctions on Russia in response to what they saw to be the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine, Moscow has had to look from friends and trading partners in other corners of the globe.

As Afripolitika geopolitics analyst Ovigwe Eguegu told DW News, "For Putin to remain relevant in Russia, he really has to ensure that Russia has a big influence [...] That's why he is looking at African markets so he has more parties to partner with when it comes to international issues." While Africa is often overlooked as a political power, altogether the African nations represent the single-biggest voting bloc in the entire United Nations.

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Related: Saudi Arabia Eyes Total Dominance In Oil And Gas



Although Russias efforts to win over African nations have been redoubled since the early 2000s, the Soviet Union has a history of alliances with the continent, but after the fall of the USSR, many, if not most, of those relationships fell to the wayside. While the Soviet Union had a close relationship to various African states during the Cold War, reports DW, Russia's trade balance with Africa is one-tenth of that of China, meaning it needs to look for other means to get a foothold on the continent.

Both China and Russia have been busily expanding their nuclear energy sectors as nuclear falls out of fashion and out of favor in the west. Indeed, the United States, the worlds biggest nuclear energy producer, accounting for a whopping third of global nuclear energy production, is poised to be overtaken. China is on track to take Frances spot as the worlds number two nuclear generator by 2022 and then go on to dethrone the U.S. just four years after that. Meanwhile, in the United States, there are legitimate concerns as to whether the domestic nuclear energy sector will even survive the COVID-19 economic downturn.

While Russian nuclears push into Africa is big news for global geopolitics, however, it has been entirely overshadowed by some sinister news in the world of Russian nuclear this week. A massive uptick in radiation levels in Europe and especially in Scandinavia have European leaders sounding the alarms this week. While many have pointed the finger at Russia and a possible nuclear reactor leak, Russia has unilaterally denied these claims. Now, some experts are even questioning whether the radiation is actually the result of a Russian weapons test.

Either way, its certainly worrying news coming from the country with the world's biggest nuclear company by foreign orders and rapidly expanding influence. While many have not yet taken notice of Rosatoms push into Africa, it will certainly have a lasting impact felt around the globe.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

Read this article on OilPrice.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 2, 2020) - SALAZAR RESOURCES LIMITED (TSXV: SRL) (FSE: CCG) ("Salazar" or the "Company") the well-funded high-grade copper and gold Ecuadorian project generator with a proven track record of discovery, is pleased to provide the following update on three of its 100% owned properties, Los Osos, Ruminahui & Macara:

Highlights

 New 2020 work programme includes drilling mineralised porphyries and breccias at Los Osos, ground geophysics at Macara, and sampling at Ruminahui

 Geologists are back in the field at the 100%-owned projects Ruminahui, Los Osos and Macara after the partial lifting of COVID-related restrictions

 Appointment of Dr. Leonardo Elizalde as Manager, Project Development strengthens the management team in Ecuador

Fredy Salazar, CEO of Salazar Resources said, "We are pleased to be back in the field to deliver a full programme of work at three very exciting wholly-owned properties . Of course, we are working very carefully, with stringent health & safety protocols and where we can progress safely, we do, with the full support of the local community.

The team has been keen to get back into the field, and it feels good to be mobilizing for drilling at Los Osos. It is also exciting to see geologists at Ruminahui for the first time in many years thanks to our excellent community-relations work. By solving a seemingly intractable problem Salazar Resources has yet again demonstrated its uncommon ability to work with local communities and access high priority mineral areas. We look forward to reporting mapping and sampling results from that project in the coming months. And at Macara we are finishing a topographic survey ahead of a ground gravity survey that will help us in the hunt for buried large high-grade VMS bodies.

Finally, I welcome Leonardo Elizalde to the team as Manager, Project Development. Leonardo is a senior statesman in the Ecuadorian mineral sector who brings a distinguished 50-year record of achievement as an academic, minerals ambassador and project manager to Salazar Resources. In 1999 he started consulting for Ecuacorriente and since then he played an increasingly key role in bringing its US$1.4 billion Mirador mine into production, which was successfully completed last year. Leonardo's recent experience of the largest mine development in Ecuador's history will be a great asset as we advance our portfolio of exciting projects."

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Work Programs:

At Los Osos preparations for drilling are underway, finalizing geochemical data and logistics. The plan is to drill up to 3,000m starting in August to test the depth-extent of gold-copper mineralization that is visible at the surface in porphyries and hydrothermal breccias. Environmental and Water Permits to enable drilling to take place have been issued.

The Macara licence area in the South of Ecuador hosts the potential for buried volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits with gold caps at surface. Ahead of drilling to target gold resources and VMS accumulations a ground gravity geophysical survey is planned, with preparation underway. A drone survey to provide a high-resolution digital elevation model (accurate topography) is in the final stages of completion. Gravity surveys are a recognized tool for pin-pointing VMS deposits that are not exposed at surface. The gravity survey will use Peruvian geophysical contractors, and will take place once the cross-border quarantine logistics are resolved. Salazar Resources is aiming to drill Macara targets in Q1 2021 or earlier if possible.

Fieldwork at Ruminahui recently started with stream sediment sampling, mapping and rock chip sampling. It is the first time that geologists have carried out systematic technical work at Ruminahui since 2007 given the complexity of community relations initially encountered by the Company in the area. After lengthy community engagement and dialogue, the Company has now signed an access agreement allowing field work to progress. The sampling and mapping work will help to delineate targets that are planned to be drilled in 2021.

Management Team

Dr. Leonardo Elizalde Calle has been appointed as Manager, Project Development. Dr Elizalde adds significant management experience to the team at a time when Salazar Resources is working at multiple sites within Ecuador and entering the drill phase on its wholly-owned properties. In addition, Salazar anticipates expanding its property portfolio in-country when the mining cadastre processes the licences that were applied for in 2018, and these permits will fall within his remit. He will work closely with Fredy E. Salazar (President and CEO) and Francisco Soria (Manager, Exploration).

His role is to maintain oversight of all of the 100% Salazar projects, at grass-roots and subsequent more advanced stages. Dr Elizalde is tasked with laying down sound operating foundations and principles now to help the projects run smoothly in the future. He will focus on engagement with communities, local authorities and government. Dr Elizalde has twenty years of direct experience working on Ecuador's largest mineral development to date and his relationship-building experience will be invaluable as the various projects advance up the development curve.

After a BSc in engineering geology and an MSc in geochemistry, Dr Elizalde earned his doctorate in geomathematics from Kentucky University, USA, in 1977. Subsequently he held a number of high profile academic and governmental positions in the natural resources sector until 1991. In 1992 he entered the private sector and he worked as country-manager and general manager for several mining companies including Echo Bay Mines, Corriente Resources (Ecuacorriente S.A), COMINCO, Gencor, Billiton, and BHP-Billiton. From 2006 to 2018, Dr Elizalde was Vice-President of Corporate Affairs of Ecuacorriente S.A during which time the US$1.4 billion Mirador copper was developed. Production at Mirador, targeted at 95,000 tonnes per annum of copper, started in 2019. Dr Elizalde was the Director of the Chamber of Mines from 2001 to 2008. He is widely published on the subject of geomathematics and the economic mineral potential of Ecuador, among other subjects. He has represented the Ecuadorian resources sector at international conferences on the subject of general economic potential as well as the topic of geomathematics.

Restarting fieldwork

Salazar Resources is working closely with regulators in Ecuador and has established detailed health & safety protocols to enable field work on its 100%-owned licences to restart. The non-renewable resources sector has been designated as strategic and vital to the economy by the government. As such, field work is actively encouraged, while keeping the safeguarding of local communities, employees, and contractors as a priority. Key aspects include strict hygiene, physical distancing and appropriate quarantining.

About Salazar

Salazar Resources (TSXV: SRL) (FSE: CCG) is a mineral resource company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral deposits in Ecuador and Colombia. The company has a proven Ecuadorian discovery team led by ex-head of Newmont Ecuador, Fredy Salazar; a team of 40 people including 15 geologists; 3 drill rigs and an unrivalled Ecuadorian 'grass roots' network. The Salazar team has been involved with many discoveries in Ecuador, including Curipamba (Adventus Mining and Salazar Resources), Fruta Del Norte (Lundin Gold), the Mozo deposit, Cangrejos (Lumina Gold) Rio Blanco (Junefield Mineral Resources and Hunnan Gold), and Gaby (ENAMI).

Salazar Resources aspires to be Ecuador's leading project generator with the right partners at the right time making the company self-funding. Salazar Resources has an agreement with Adventus on the Curipamba VMS discovery, whereby Adventus can earn 75% of the project by funding exploration and development expenditures of US$25 million before October 2022. A Feasibility Study is expected to be completed in the first half of 2022, after which Adventus is required to fund 100% of the development and construction expenditures to commercial production.

In addition, Salazar Resources has a funded exploration alliance with Adventus on 2 other projects, Pijili and Santiago, within a defined Area of Interest. The exploration alliance is 80%-owned by Adventus and 20%-owned by Salazar, with Adventus fully funding project activities to a construction decision.

Salazar Resources is advancing its 100% owned Ruminahui, Macara, and Los Osos projects with the aim of making Ecuador's next significant copper-gold discovery.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF THE SALAZAR RESOURCES LIMITED

Fredy Salazar

Salazar Resources (Chief Executive Officer)

fsalazar@salazarresources.com

Tel: +593 (0) 99 733 6152

Merlin Marr-Johnson

Salazar Resources (Executive Vice President)

merlin@salazarresources.com

Tel: +44 7803 712 280

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 news release.

This press release contains "forward -looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, identified by words or phrases such as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "is expected", "scheduled", "estimates", "pending", "intends", "plans", "forecasts", "targets", or "hopes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "will", "should" "might", "will be taken", or "occur" and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking information herein includes, but is not limited to, statements that address activities, events or developments that Salazar expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Although Salazar has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Salazar undertakes to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/58925
As the world comes to terms with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have learned that keeping a small distance and regularly washing their hands are important tools in limiting the transmission of the virus. However, when the humble smartphone is considered to be one of the dirtiest things someone can own, hand care may only go so far. In a bid to give its customers an phone-cleaning option that doesnt involve an antibacterial wipe, Samsung has begun selling a wireless UV charger that promises to kill up to 99 percent of bacteria within 10 minutes.

The ITFIT UV Sterilizer is a very unremarkable white box that Samsung says is spacious enough to fit a Galaxy S20 Ultra. However, its not limited to just Samsung smartphones, or wireless gadgets like Galaxy Buds and the Galaxy Watch  if it fits inside then it can likely be disinfected (but may not be charged). Place the item(s) in the box, connect it to a USB-C power source and press the switch. The embedded 10-watt Qi charger will deliver power while it does its thing.

While its not an official Samsung design, the company sells the UV Sterilizer via a partnership with ITFIT, a Samsung sub-brand that seems to be applied to rebadged accessories. In the FCC listing for the device, the documentation includes a Designed for Samsung seal. Other ITFIT products made for Samsung include headphones and selfie sticks.

Wireless UV chargers arent new, but theyve seen a huge rise in popularity following the coronavirus outbreak. Samsung doesnt explicitly state that its UV Sterilizer successfully eradicates SARS-CoV-2, but a recent research study suggests that UVC lamps are capable of killing more than 99.9 percent of airborne coronaviruses.

The ITFIT UV Sterilizer is currently only being sold in Thailand for 1,590 baht (around $51), although it is also listed (but not available) in Hong Kong. Theres no word on whether it will go on sale in the US, but big-name accessory brands like Mophie and InvisibleShield (both owned by Zagg) are already on the case.
NEW YORK, July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP (Scott+Scott), a national securities and consumer rights litigation firm, is investigating whether certain directors and officers of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Regeneron or the Company) (REGN) breached their fiduciary duties to Regeneron and its shareholders. If you are a Regeneron shareholder, you are encouraged to contact attorney Joe Pettigrew toll-free at (844) 818-6982 or jpettigrew@scott-scott.com .



Scott+Scott is investigating whether Regenerons board of directors or senior management failed to manage Regeneron in an acceptable manner, in breach of their fiduciary duties to Regeneron, and whether Regeneron has suffered damages as a result.

In January 2017, Regeneron received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Massachusetts regarding violations of federal anti-kickbacks statutes concerning use of patient-assistance funds to encourage doctors to prescribe certain of Regenerons drugs over less-expensive competitors.

In September 2019, Regeneron received a civil investigative demand from the U.S. Department of Justice pursuant to the federal False Claims Act investigating separate violations of federal anti-kickback statutes.

On June 24, 2020, federal prosecutors in Massachusetts filed suit against Regeneron, claiming violations of federal anti-kickback statutes.

What You Can Do

If you are a Regeneron shareholder, you may have legal claims against Regenerons directors and officers. If you wish to discuss this investigation, or have questions about this notice or your legal rights, please contact attorney Joe Pettigrew toll-free at (844) 818-6982 or jpettigrew@scott-scott.com .

About Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP

Scott+Scott has significant experience in prosecuting major securities, antitrust, and consumer rights actions throughout the United States. The firm represents pension funds, foundations, individuals, and other entities worldwide with offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Connecticut, California, Ohio, and Virginia.

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Attorney Advertising

CONTACT:

Joe Pettigrew

Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP

230 Park Avenue, 17th Floor, NY, New York 10169

(844) 818-6982

jpettigrew@scott-scott.com




ESCRAVOS GAS-TO-LIQUIDS (GTL)

JOHANNESBURG, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sasol (NYSE: SSL) and Chevron have signed an agreement that will result in Sasol selling its indirect beneficial interest in the Escravos GTL (EGTL) plant in Nigeria to Chevron. The transaction will release Sasol from associated company guarantees and other obligations. Sasol will continue to support Chevron in the performance of the EGTL plant through ongoing catalyst supply, technology and technical support.

The transaction has an agreed economic effective date of 1 September 2019.

EXPLOSIVES JOINT VENTURE

In October 2019 Sasol announced its intention to form a new explosives partnership with Enaex S.A. Sasol has concluded the transaction to sell a 51% share in the business to Enaex, and on 1 July 2020, Enaex Africa in association with Sasol, will officially start operating in South Africa and on the African Continent.

These transactions form part of Sasol's accelerated divestment programme to streamline our portfolio by focusing on core assets, which will enable Sasol's repositioning over the following 24 months.

OTHER DIVESTMENTS

Divestment processes are well underway with respect to Sasol's equity interests in the Republic of Mozambique Pipeline Investment Company (Pty) Ltd (ROMPCO) pipeline and the Central Termica de Ressano Garcia (CTRG) gas-fired power plant in Mozambique, and partnering discussions in relation to the Base Chemicals assets in the USA are far advanced. Further updates on these and other disposals will be provided as and when appropriate.

FURTHER CAUTIONARY ANNOUNCEMENT

Sasol refers to the cautionary announcements released on the Stock Exchange News Service on 17 March 2020 and 31 March 2020, outlining a comprehensive response strategy designed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and a lower oil price. The strategy includes a cash conservation programme, an accelerated and expanded asset disposal programme, as well as a potential rights issue of up to US$2 billion which remains subject to the progress of other initiatives.

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Sasol shareholders are advised that implementation of the response strategy is underway, the outcome of which may have a material effect on the price of the Company's securities. Accordingly, shareholders are advised to continue exercising caution when dealing in the Company's securities until full announcements on the asset disposal programme and the potential rights issue are made.

Disclaimer - Forward-looking statements

Sasol may, in this document, make certain statements that are not historical facts and relate to analyses and other information which are based on forecasts of future results and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. These statements may also relate to our future prospects, expectations, developments and business strategies. Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on Sasol's business, results of operations, financial condition and liquidity and statements regarding the effectiveness of any actions taken by Sasol to address or limit any impact of COVID-19 on its business; statements regarding exchange rate fluctuations, changing crude oil prices , volume growth, increases in market share, total shareholder return, executing our growth projects (including LCCP), oil and gas reserves, cost reductions, our climate change strategy and business performance outlook. Words such as "believe", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "seek", "will", "plan", "could", "may", "endeavour", "target", "forecast" and "project" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and there are risks that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. If one or more of these risks materialise, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. You should understand that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors and others are discussed more fully in our most recent annual report on Form 20-F filed on 28 October 2019 and in other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The list of factors discussed therein is not exhaustive; when relying on forward-looking statements to make investment decisions, you should carefully consider both these factors and other uncertainties and events. Forward-looking statements apply only as of the date on which they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information, please contact:

Sasol Investor Relations,

Feroza Syed, Chief Investor Relations Officer

Direct telephone: +27 (0) 82 557 7740

investor.relations@sasol.com

Cision

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sol-sasol-limited---progress-with-asset-sales-and-further-cautionary-announcement-301086985.html

SOURCE Sasol Limited
Donation will provide more than 450 educational scholarships to military families

Today, Southeastern Grocers, Inc. (SEG), parent company and home of BI-LO, Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket and Winn-Dixie grocery stores, announces the donation of more than $2.3 million to Folds of Honor to aid in the nonprofits mission to provide educational scholarships to spouses and children of Americas fallen and disabled service members. The historic donation of more than $2,324,000 is made possible through contributions from the grocers charitable foundation and valued partners, as well as generous in-store and virtual customer donations that will continue through the Fourth of July.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005092/en/

Southeastern Grocers proudly stands with Folds of Honor supporting more than 800 educational scholarships since 2018. (Photo: Business Wire)

The six-week program began May 20 with a $100,000 pledge from the SEG Gives Foundation and a $50,000 donation from the Coca-Cola Company in support of the grocers ongoing commitment to Folds of Honor. BI-LO, Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket and Winn-Dixie customers were invited to round up their total grocery bill to the nearest dollar in honor of United States military heroes and their loved ones throughout the six-week campaign. Additionally, the SEG Gives Foundation matched contactless donations made to Folds of Honor during the nonprofits three-day virtual concert series the week of Memorial Day and through the nonprofits online employer matching program, up to $100,000.

Anthony Hucker, President and CEO of Southeastern Grocers, said, "We are so proud of our amazing associates, customers and partners who continue to go above and beyond to provide unwavering support to families in need throughout the communities we serve. It is because of their kindness and generosity that this has been a record-breaking donation campaign that will provide more than 450 educational scholarships to families of Americas fallen or disabled military servicemen and servicewomen. We are grateful to all the heroes who serve our country and honored to partner with Folds of Honor to give back to these heroic families."

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Lt. Col. Dan Rooney, CEO and Founder of Folds of Honor, said, "We are in awe of the support that Southeastern Grocers and its customers have shown for our military families. We understand these are uncertain times and cannot thank the most patriotic grocery store in America and its generous community enough for this life-changing support and continued partnership."

Since 2018, Southeastern Grocers has donated more than $4.1 million to Folds of Honor, which has provided more than 800 educational scholarships to the children and spouses impacted by a loved ones sacrifice for the United States military. Since 2007, Folds of Honor has awarded approximately 24,500 educational scholarships to spouses and children of Americas fallen and disabled service members. Last year alone, Folds of Honor awarded 4,500 educational scholarships to individuals of diverse backgrounds and ethnicities throughout the United States, including more than 1,400 scholarships within the seven states Southeastern Grocers serves.

The community donation program will continue in stores and online through the Fourth of July. Customers who wish to help support the family members of fallen and disabled veterans through educational scholarship opportunities are encouraged to visit their neighborhood BI-LO, Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket or Winn-Dixie store and round up at the register. Those who prefer to make an online donation at FoldsofHonor.org can simply select "Southeastern Grocers" in the "Employer Matching" section to have the donation matched.

Southeastern Grocers continues to have elevated safety standards and asks customers to maintain a two-cart-length distance throughout the store and at checkout by utilizing floor markers set to encourage social distancing.

About Southeastern Grocers

Southeastern Grocers, Inc. (SEG), parent company and home of BI-LO, Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket and Winn-Dixie grocery stores, is one of the largest conventional supermarket companies in the U.S. SEG grocery stores, liquor stores and in-store pharmacies serve communities throughout the seven southeastern states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. BI-LO, Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket and Winn-Dixie are well-known and well-respected regional brands with deep heritages, strong neighborhood ties, proud histories of giving back, talented and caring associates and strong commitments to providing the best possible quality and value to customers. For more information, visit www.bi-lo.com, www.frescoymas.com, www.harveyssupermarkets.com and www.winndixie.com.

About SEG Gives Foundation

SEG Gives Foundation is the charitable arm of Southeastern Grocers, parent company of BI-LO, Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket and Winn-Dixie stores. SEG Gives Foundation aligns our giving with the causes that are important to the communities we serve, including the fight against hunger and relief to those affected by extreme weather and natural disasters.

About Folds of Honor

Folds of Honor is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization, rated a four-star charity by Charity Navigator and platinum on GuideStar, that provides educational scholarships to the families of military men and women who have fallen or been disabled while on active duty in the United States armed forces. Our educational scholarships support private educational tuition and tutoring for children in grades K-12, as well as higher education tuition assistance for spouses and dependents. Founded in 2007 by Lt. Col. Dan Rooney, a PGA Professional and F-16 fighter pilot in the Air Force Reserves who served three tours of duty in Iraq, the Folds of Honor is proud to have awarded nearly 24,500 scholarships in all 50 states and some US territories, including approximately 4,500 in 2019 alone. For more information or to donate in support of a Folds of Honor scholarship, please visit foldsofhonor.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005092/en/

Contacts

Kaley Shaffer

Sr. Manager, Consumer Communications and Community Affairs

Cell: (904) 612-9441

media@segrocers.com
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / StageZero Life Sciences (SZLS.TO) (''StageZero Life Sciences'' or the ''Company'') today announced a corporate update on its business.

The Company was pleased to announce earlier this week the closing of the previous announced financing of $4.6 million. The Company will be immediately initiating activities based on the stated Use of Proceeds from the final Prospectus dated June 22, 2020. Specifically hiring staff, and purchasing equipment, test reagents, and consumable materials (for COVID-19 Tests and Aristotle).

In addition, the Company is pleased to share that Beckman Coulter received the EUA from the FDA for its SARS-CoV-2 IgG Antibody Test. StageZero has been using Beckman's test and pleased with the formalization of the EUA status.

"We are pleased to welcome new shareholders including Canadian based institutional funds, and with their support focus on expanding our COVID-19 testing, and the commercialization of Artistotle" stated James Howard-Tripp, Chairman and CEO.

About StageZero Life Sciences Ltd.

StageZero Life Sciences is dedicated to the early detection of multiple disease states through whole blood. The Company operates a CAP accredited and CLIA certified high complexity reference laboratory based in Richmond, Virginia. A specialist in PCR testing for the early identification of cancer through blood, the Company is uniquely positioned to provide both COVID PCR testing (nasal swab) and blood test analysis (antibody testing). The Company's full service, telehealth platform includes access to physicians and phlebotomist who can prescribe and draw samples for individuals and groups. As the Company provides COVID-19 testing during this pandemic, the Company continues making progress with its mission to eradicate late stage cancers through early detection. The Company's next generation test, Aristotle, is a multi-cancer panel for simultaneously screening for 10 cancers from a single sample of blood with high sensitivity and specificity for each cancer. www.stagezerolifesciences.com

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Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements identified by words such as "expects", "will" and similar expressions, which reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events. The forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual events to differ materially from those projected herein. Investors should consult the Company's ongoing quarterly filings and annual reports for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to these forward-looking statements. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Company Contacts

James R. Howard-Tripp

Chairman & CEO

jht@stagezerols.com

Tel: 1-855-420-7140 Ext. 1

Rebecca Greco

Investor Relations

rgreco@stagezerols.com

Tel: 1-855-420-7140 Ext. 1838

SOURCE: StageZero Life Sciences Ltd





View source version on accesswire.com:

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(Corrects day of week in first paragraph)

By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department warned top American companies including Walmart Inc, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc over risks faced from maintaining supply chains associated with human rights abuses in China's western Xinjiang province, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Thursday.

"It is critical that U.S. companies and individuals be aware of the large-scale human rights abuses perpetrated by the PRC government in Xinjiang," Keith Krach, Undersecretary of State for economic growth, energy and the environment wrote on July 1.

"Businesses should evaluate their exposure to the risks that result from partnering with, investing in, and otherwise providing support to companies that operate in or are linked to Xinjiang," he said in the letter which was sent to trade groups.

The United States is seeking to ratchet up pressure on China at a time of heightened tensions over that country's treatment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang and Beijing's new national security law for Hong Kong.

It also follows a Wednesday advisory by the U.S. government that said companies doing business in Xinjiang or with entities using Xinjiang labor could be exposed to "reputational, economic, and legal risks".

In a call with reporters, Krach said the complex nature of supply chains was making companies vulnerable to potential risks and urged them to be more vigilant. "It's incumbent on the board of directors for each company to conduct a detailed analysis of their supply chains to reveal who their company is buying from and who it is selling to," he said.

He did not give specific number on how many U.S. companies might have been entangled in such supply chains.

The United Nations estimates that more than a million Muslims have been detained in camps there. China has denied mistreatment and says the camps provide vocational training and help fight extremism. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by David Gregorio)
By Peter Nurse

Investing.com - European stock markets are set to edge higher at the open Thursday, helped by positive results from a potential Covid-19 vaccine although sentiment remains cautious as coronavirus cases mount ahead of the release of key U.S. employment data.

At 2:05 AM ET (0605 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.7% higher. France's CAC 40 futures were up 1%, while the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. rose 0.9%.

News emerged late Wednesday that a potential Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech was found to be well tolerated in early-stage human trials and saw the production of neutralizing antibodies in all the patients who were inoculated after 28 days.

This has boosted risk sentiment given the ever-rising number of cases prompted World Health Organization officials to warn that some countries might need to reinstate lockdowns to curb the virus spread.

The number of reported cases in the U.S., the worlds economic engine, rose to over 50,000 Wednesday, a new record for one day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

At least five states -- Arizona, California, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas -- had record-high totals of new case reports.

With this in mind, attention will turn to the release of U.S. employment figures later in the day to see if the world's largest economy can sustain its fragile recovery.

Economists are forecasting that the U.S. economy added 3 million jobs in June after a shock 2.5 million gain a month earlier. But the two months of gains would still pale in comparison to the approximately 22 million jobs that were lost in March and April.

Turning back to Europe, May unemployment data for the euro zone is due out at 05:00 AM ET (0900 GMT), and is expected to show a rise in the unemployment rate to 7.7% from 7.3% in April.

In corporate news, Novartis (SIX:NOVN) could be in the spotlight after the Swiss drugmaker agreed to pay $678 million to settle a lawsuit. The U.S. government had accused the company of illegally providing doctors with cash payments and other perks to induce them to prescribe its cardiovascular and diabetes drugs.

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Oil prices edged higher Thursday after Energy Information Administration data late Wednesday showed U.S. crude inventories fell 7.2 million barrels from a record high last week, far more than expected.

This backed up the American Petroleum Institute data from the previous day, which suggests a bump up in demand for crude.

However, gains have been limited given worries the jump in new Covid-19 cases, resulting in California becoming the latest U.S. state to re-impose lockdown measures, will have on future demand.

At 2:10 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.1% higher at $39.86 a barrel. The international benchmark Brent contract rose 0.4% to $42.19.

Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.2% to $1,776.35/oz, while EUR/USD traded at 1.1270, up 0.2% on the day.

Related Articles

Asian stocks near 4-month highs on vaccine hopes, eyes on U.S. payrolls

Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 1.66%

Exclusive: Banks in Singapore in talks to bolster lending practices for troubled commodity sector
New funds bring total capital raised to more than $7 billion since the start of 2019

Summit Partners, a global alternative investment firm, today announced the first and final closings of two funds with combined capital commitments of $2.2 billion. Summit Partners Europe Growth Equity Fund III closed at its hard cap with 1.1 billion in total commitments and will target equity investments between 20 and 70 million in Europe-based companies. Summit Partners Venture Capital Fund V also closed at its hard cap with $1.0 billion in commitments and will target equity investments of $10 to $60 million in growth stage companies based primarily in North America. Both funds were significantly oversubscribed.

"For more than 35 years, Summit Partners has served as the partner of choice for category-leading growth companies. With our latest Europe and Venture Capital funds, we will continue to leverage our deep sector knowledge, our extensive global network, and our platform of value enhancement resources to support the needs of our portfolio companies and their leadership teams," said Peter Chung, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the firm. "In the midst of tremendous disruption around the world in recent months, we are deeply grateful for the ongoing trust of our limited partners and their steadfast support of the Summit Partners growth equity strategy."

With more than 100 investment professionals across offices in Boston, Menlo Park and London, Summit Partners makes both minority and majority investments primarily in profitable, growing companies across select industry sectors, including technology, healthcare, financial technology and services, consumer products and business services. Summit Partners offers capital, experience and dedicated resources to help the firms portfolio companies accelerate growth and build businesses of enduring value. Since the firms inception in 1984, Summit Partners has raised more than $31 billion.

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In addition, Summit Partners today announced that Melanie Whelan has joined the firm as a Managing Director focused on investment opportunities in high-growth consumer and technology-enabled services. Prior to Summit Partners, Ms. Whelan served as CEO of SoulCycle. Under her leadership, the company grew from eight New York City-based studios to nearly 100 studios in 18 markets across three countries and launched a vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform and an audience-expanding media engine. Most recently, Ms. Whelan served as a member of Summit Partners Executive-in-Residence program. She holds a BA in engineering and economics from Brown University and is a member of the Aspen Institutes 2018 class of Henry Crown Fellows.

"During her time as an Executive-in-Residence, Melanie has demonstrated a unique combination of distinguished brand- and company-building experience, deep subject matter knowledge and strong leadership capability. As a senior member of the investment team, she will further enhance our ability to support what we view to be category-leading companies and entrepreneurs across the consumer, business services and technology-enabled services landscape," said Mr. Chung.

About Summit Partners

Founded in 1984, Summit Partners is a global alternative investment firm that is currently managing more than $21 billion in capital dedicated to growth equity, fixed income and public equity opportunities. Summit invests across growth sectors and has invested in more than 500 companies in technology, healthcare and other growth industries. These companies have completed more than 140 public equity offerings, and more than 200 have been acquired through strategic mergers and sales. Summit maintains offices in North America and Europe and invests in companies around the world. For more information, please see www.summitpartners.com or follow on LinkedIn.

In the United States of America, Summit Partners operates as an SEC-registered investment advisor. In the United Kingdom, this document is issued by Summit Partners LLP, a firm authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Summit Partners LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC388179 and its registered office is at 11-12 Hanover Square, London, W1S 1JJ, UK. This document is intended solely to provide information regarding Summit Partners potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005202/en/

Contacts

Meg Devine

mdevine@summitpartners.com

+1 617.824 1047
NEW YORK and TEL AVIV, Israel, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Paygilant, the mobile payments fraud-prevention and authentication solution provider, announced today that Brazilian Surf Bank Brazil, has chosen Paygilant to secure its digital bank. Paygilant will secure the Surf Bank digital payment account from mobile fraud and ensure a frictionless experience for its customers.

Surf Bank is a mobile-based digital bank and a microfinance Institution, which enables its customers to pay bills, transfer money, recharge a pre-paid card, purchase cellular packages, offer micro loans and more. Surf Bank searched for a robust mobile fraud prevention solution, that did not adversely impact the customer payment experience.

"Paygilant was a perfect fit for our needs, as its solution demonstrated superb fraud prevention capabilities," said Yon Moreira, CEO of Surf Bank. "We were very worried about account takeover activities that are prevalent in our region, and Paygilant not only provided us with a solid fraud solution  but also eliminated the countless SMS verifications we were sending to our customers."

"Paygilant's solution is designed for challenger banks, to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent transactions, throughout the entire user-journey. It enables challenger banks to gain customers' trust and accelerate growth, while avoiding money loss. We are honored to be working with a forward-thinking organization like Surf Bank," stated Ziv Cohen, Paygilant's CEO.

Yossi Shelly, Israel's ambassador to Brazil added, "It is great to see Israeli high-tech and Brazilian Fintech uniting forces in constructing a secure payment experience. Israel's commitment to securing the cashless world has reached Latin America."

About Surf Bank

Surf Bank was launched with the aim of freeing Brazilian bank customers from the bureaucracy of traditional banking. Surf Bank's digital payment account streamlines the way clients carry out their financial activities. Using the Surf Bank's app customers can carry-out financial transactions and top-up their Correios Celular account using a single smartphone.

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About Paygilant

Paygilant is a revolutionary digital payments anti-fraud company, designed to eliminate the trade-off between strong fraud prevention, frictionless authentication, and user privacy. Paygilant enables financial and eCommerce organizations to boost their revenue, by enhancing the user experience and stopping fraud before the transaction occurs. It is easy-to-integrated patented technology utilizes six proprietary intelligence sets, which work in harmony to deliver value from day-one.

Paygilant simply triggers a real-time "risky" alert when fraud is detected and as "safe" one when the legit customer is identified.

Contacts

Yossi Geller

VP Marketing, Paygilant

yossig@paygilant.com

Cision

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/surf-bank-selects-paygilant-to-prevent-fraud-enhance-customer-experience-and-reduce-friction-301087516.html

SOURCE Paygilant
NORTH BRUNSWICK, NJ / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / TGI SOLAR POWER GROUP INC. (OTC PINK:TSPG) "TGI", a diversified technology company, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire interest in Lucent Energy Management. Lucent provides renewable energy services and energy efficiency installations for commercial and residential energy consumers. As a direct installer, they offer system engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of renewable energy systems. Currently Lucent has offices in New Jersey, which covers the Northeast, and in South Carolina, which covers Southeastern states. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter.

Mr. Steven Schwartz, CEO and Chairman of Lucent, will oversee solar and other green developments of TGI; he comes with years of experience and brings with him a staff of 50+ developers, salespeople, engineers and solar installers. TGI plans to bring in additional sales staff and trainees from a pool of interns. An expansion plan also calls for strategic expansion into Western states of the USA; the target markets being California and Texas to start with.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucent, said, "We are thrilled to expand our partnership with TGI management team. Lucent's management wants to successfully reposition the company and strengthen its financial performance. Now, under the guidance of TGI, with their deep experience in the energy industry and capital allocation, we are excited to participate in the next phase of Lucent's growth. I am confident that the TGI team is the best partner for Lucent for the long-term."

TGI management is pleased with its decision to make Mr. Schwartz the head of the Solar Energy and Storage Division. His leadership will enhance TGI's green sustainable energy developments.

For more information, please see www.otcMarkets.com under ticker symbol "TSPG", and visit our Facebook page www.facebook.com/TGISolarPower/

Story continues

About Lucent Energy Management: Lucent Energy Management offers engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of renewable energy systems. Lucent's services include: free site evaluations, renewable energy analysis, solar PV system design, LED lighting design, power factor correction services, project management, installation, operations, maintenance, and monitoring support.

https://www.lucent-energy.com

About TGI Solar: TGI SOLAR POWER GROUP INC. is a diversified holding company. TGI's strategy is to acquire innovative and patented technologies, components, processes, designs and methods with commercial value that will give competitive market advantage and generate shareholder value.

Safe Harbor Statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1965: Those statements contained herein which are not historical are forward-looking statements, and as such, are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual operating results to materially differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Such statements include, but are not limited to, certain delays that are beyond the company's control, with respect to market acceptance of new technologies, or product delays in the testing and evaluation of products, and other risks, as detailed in the company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission

For further info:

HenryV@TGIPOWER.COM

SOURCE: TGi Solar Power Group, Inc.





View source version on accesswire.com:

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Independent Challenger Dan Whitfield Says Arkansans Deserve a Choice on Election Day

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Incumbent U.S. Junior Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) successfully eliminated a Democratic opponent in this year's race. But the campaign by Independent challenger Dan Whitfield has been building momentum and has made significant progress towards earning a spot on the ballot to challenge Cotton on Nov. 3. On Monday, the Eighth Court Circuit assigned a case number for the appeal in the ongoing battle for ballot access in the Arkansas Senate Race.

On June 24, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker denied a preliminary injunction. The ruling allows Independent Candidate Dan Whitfield to move forward with the appeal process and secure a spot on the November ballot. The ruling stated, "The Court concludes that the plaintiffs have sufficiently demonstrated their standing to pursue declaratory and injunctive relief."

The issue of candidacy and ballot access in Arkansas has unfolded dramatically, if not quietly, over the course of several months. In late 2019 a memo written by Tom Cotton campaign manager Brian Colas and addressed to "Senator Cotton's Top supporters" detailed a plan to hold onto "damaging material" they had gathered on the democratic candidate and "release the information after it was too late for anyone else to enter the race."

The Democratic challenger Josh Mahony dropped out of the race two hours after having filed, leaving Cotton without a major party opponent in what is shaping up to be one of the most important elections in American history.

Mr. Whitfield, who reports a significant following for his grassroots campaign, holds that the coronavirus outbreak had impacted the ability of candidates to gain ballot access. Whitfield was able to collect 6,514 signatures, of which 5,954 were valid, while losing 60% of the collection period due to Governor Hutchinson's orders of the state declaring a state emergency. These orders of the state enacted social distancing policies and banned gatherings of 10 or more people. Several significant "petition parties" had been planned to achieve the signature goals, which had to be canceled due to the Governor's orders. Still, the Whitfield achievement of 6,514 signatures obtained during a very short collections window is impressive, especially in that over 98% of all signatures were obtained through unpaid volunteers, and not from paid collectors.

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Regarding the appeal, Mr. Whitfield has stated "This is actually the best possible outcome for the people of Arkansas and our campaign. If Judge Baker had granted the preliminary injunction, the Secretary of State would have appealed. With this ruling, we get the opportunity to present our case to the 8th Circuit and win our ballot access without interference from Secretary Thurston or the Attorney General. They tried to claim that orders from the state did not directly affect our efforts, but the fact is COVID-19 and the governor's instructions did impact our ability to get signatures. Judge Baker's ruling states as much."

At the hearing conducted on May 27, 2020, the Secretary of State was represented by several individuals from the Attorney General's office who argued the state's COVID-19 response did not represent a challenge in gathering the required signatures despite the Governor's stay at home orders, even suggesting that if the campaign was serious it could have spent upwards of $80,000 for paid canvassers to collect signatures. Local paid canvassing companies were closed due to COVID-19.

Whitfield goes on to say, "It's obvious that the people have had enough, we will win our appeal, and the people of Arkansas will have a choice."

Judge Baker's ruling states, "the Court determines that the pandemic and the State's response to it hindered Mr. Whitfield(s) efforts to collect successfully all qualifying signatures"

Secretary Thurston has been the subject of several complaints and lawsuits involving ballot access, many of which were referenced in the ruling. The lawsuits involved candidates outside the Republican party, which has led to questions of attempted ballot and voter suppression. Judge Baker's ruling also noted "enjoining Secretary Thurston from continued application of the requirements plaintiffs argue are unconstitutional is likely to redress the injuries."

By preventing Secretary Thurston from interfering any further in this case, it all but assures Dan Whitfield ballot access to run against Junior Senator Cotton in November. The people of Arkansas will have a choice.

Case Documentation: https://danwhitcongress.us/ballot-access

Related Images

dan-whitfield-headshot.jpg

Dan Whitfield Headshot

Independent U.S. Senate Candidate Dan Whitfield is challenging Republican incumbent Tom Cotton

Cision

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tom-cotton-opponent-moves-closer-to-ballot-access-301087770.html

SOURCE Dan Whitfield for U.S. Senate
Shares of Transocean LTD (NYSE: RIG) traded slightly higher on Wednesday, but the stock has been among the worst performers in the market so far in 2020.

Unfortunately for Transocean investors, even with the stock down 72% year to date, at least one option trader made a big bet that theres more downside ahead in the coming weeks as oil prices remain depressed.

The Transocean Trades

On Wednesday morning, Benzinga Pro subscribers received two option alerts related to unusually large Transocean option trades:

At 11:21 a.m. ET, a trader bought 10,000 Transocean put options with a $3 strike price expiring on Aug. 21. The contracts were purchased at the ask price at $1.301 and represented a $1.3 million bearish bet.

Less than a minute later, a trader bought 361 Transocean put options with a $3.50 strike price expiring on Nov. 20. The contracts were purchased near the ask price at $1.95 and represented a $70,395 bearish bet.

Why It's Important

Even traders who stick exclusively to stocks often monitor option market activity closely for unusually large trades. Given the relative complexity of the options market, large options traders are typically considered to be more sophisticated than the average stock trader. Many of these large options traders are wealthy individuals or institutions who may have unique information or theses related to the underlying stock.

Unfortunately, stock traders often use the options market to hedge against their larger stock positions, and theres no surefire way to determine if an options trade is a standalone position or a hedge. In this case, given the relatively large size of the largest Transocean option trade, theres certainly a possibility it could be a hedge on a large position in Transocean stock.

Offshore Drillers Under Pressure

Transocean is one of the leading offshore oil drillers in the world, but the oil market has been hammered by a combination of crashing demand due to travel restrictions and shelter-in-place orders and a pricing war earlier this year between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

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Bank of America analyst Mike Sabella recently said he believes at least 35% of the worlds ultra-deep-water drillships will be cold stacked by mid-2021, which could help improve the pricing environment for drillers like Transocean. However, Sabella said navigating the current downturn will be difficult from a financial perspective.

He's projecting Transocean will finish 2021 with about $450 million in liquidity, and the company will generate negative $50 million in 2022 free cash flow. At the same time, Transocean has more than $8 billion in debt and $600 million in 2022 debt maturities.

RIG is likely to face headwinds as pricing for floating rigs is likely to fall in '21, while leverage and FCF are a focus through '22, Sabella said.

Bank of America has an Underperform rating and $1 price target for Transocean.

In June, Clarksons Platou downgraded Transocean from Buy to Neutral and set a $2.40 price target.

The bull case for oil stocks has taken another hit in recent weeks as the number of U.S. COVID-19 cases has spiked in several key states, including California, Texas, Florida and Arizona. A large second wave of infections could derail the potential oil demand recovery timeline and create even more margin pressures for offshore drillers like Transocean.

RIG Chart by TradingView new TradingView.widget( { "width": 680, "height": 423, "symbol": "NYSE:RIG", "interval": "D", "timezone": "Etc/UTC", "theme": "light", "style": "1", "locale": "en", "toolbar_bg": "#f1f3f6", "enable_publishing": false, "allow_symbol_change": true, "container_id": "tradingview_eefef" } ); Benzingas Take

The $1.3-million put purchase has a break-even price of $1.70, suggesting at least 8.6% downside over the next seven-plus weeks.

The put buyer may also be anticipating worse-than-expected earnings and/or guidance from Transocean when it reports second-quarter numbers in late July. Analysts are expecting an EPS loss of 27 cents on revenue of $776.9 million, up 2.5% from a year ago.

Do you agree with this take? Email feedback@benzinga.com with your thoughts.

Related Links:

Morgan Stanley Option Traders Bet Millions On 25% Long-Term Downside

How To Read And Trade An Option Alert

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was never told about intelligence reports alleging Russia paid Taliban militants to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan because many intelligence officials did not think Moscow paid such bounties.

"Many of the intelligence people didn't think it was something that even happened," Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

"This was something that never got presented to me ... because it didn't rise to that level," Trump said. (Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Sandra Maler)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday said it was looking to recover another $96 million in assets in real estate and artwork allegedly linked to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) international money-laundering conspiracy.

The assets include luxury real estate in Paris and paintings by Claude Monet and Andy Warhol linked to the embezzlement of the 1MDB fund by Malaysian officials, the Justice Department said in a statement.

The agency has so far recovered or assisted Malaysia in recovering nearly $1.1 billion in assets related to the alleged scheme.

The Malaysian government set up the 1MDB fund in 2009. U.S. officials have estimated that $4.5 billion was siphoned out of Malaysia by high-level fund officials and associates between 2009 and 2014, in a scandal that has also embroiled Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N>.

In October, the U.S. Justice Department announced its largest ever anti-kleptocracy deal, in which fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, agreed to turn over $700 million in assets. The deal did not include an admission of guilt or wrongdoing, and Low has consistently denied wrongdoing.

(Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Chris Reese, Tom Brown and Jonathan Oatis)
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury said on Thursday it has agreed on terms for government loans with five U.S. carriers, including American Airlines Group Inc.

The Treasury said it had signed letters of intent with American, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, SkyWest Airlines, and Spirit Airlines under a $25 billion emergency loan program created by Congress in March.

American said on Thursday it expects to close on a $4.75 billion Treasury loan in the third quarter on top of $5.8 billion in payroll assistance it was previously awarded.

American Chief Executive Doug Parker and President Robert Isom warned employees on Thursday that it may face significant overstaffing as it tries to win voluntary departures.

"We currently anticipate having 20 to 30%  or more than 20,000  more team members on payroll than we need to operate our schedule this fall," they wrote in an employee memo. "To be clear, this doesnt mean 20,000 of our team members will be furloughed in October, it simply means we still have work to do to right-size our team for the airline we will operate."

Treasury separately awarded airlines $25 billion in payroll assistance bailouts with most of the aid in the form of grants that does not need to be repaid.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that "conversations with other airlines continue, and we look forward to finalizing agreements as soon as possible." Airlines have until Sept. 30 to decide whether to take the loan.

Like the payroll assistance funds, the loans come with a ban on stock buybacks and paying dividends and set limits on executive compensation.

Hawaiian Airlines, which was awarded $292 million in payroll assistance, had sought an additional $364 million Treasury loan.

Spirit was awarded $335 million in payroll assistance and said it was eligible for $741 million in Treasury loans. SkyWest received $438 million in payroll assistance.

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Airlines have warned that a recent spike in U.S. coronavirus cases could dampen travel demand that is still off around 75% from last year but has rebounded significantly over April lows.

Airlines can furlough or eliminate jobs starting Oct. 1.

Last week, six U.S. aviation unions told lawmakers another $32 billion in payroll aid is needed to keep hundreds of thousands of workers employed through March 31.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
The United Auto Workers President, Rory Gamble, met with U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Matthew Schneider, on Tuesday to discuss reform of the union, which may extend to oversight of future labor contracts.

What Happened

Schneider is heading the investigation into corruption at the auto workers union and urged the UAW last month to do more to reform itself.

Gamble was appointed union president last November after Gary Jones, the predecessor to Gamble, was ousted following a corruption investigation. Jones has since pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million of union funds, reported Reuters.

Gamble and Schneider issued a joint statement saying, the parties addressed the concept of an independent monitor who could provide further assurance to the membership of concrete changes to the union so as to reduce the possibility of a reoccurrence of corruption.

The union and the Department of Justice said they are considering third party oversight on any future agreement and that a number of reform options are available for further negotiations in the coming weeks.

Why It Matters

Gamble began his term with a promise of reforming the UAW. Union membership fell by 8% in 2018, and increased by less than 1% in 2019, noted Reuters.

Schneider had said last month that a federal takeover of the union remains an option. In a prior instance, the United States government has overseen another union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, due to its connection with an organized crime between 1989 until 2015.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into illegal payoffs made to UAW officials by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (NYSE: FCAU).

As a result of the ongoing investigation, General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) is suing Fiat Chrysler, accusing its Italian-American rival of securing labor agreements by bribing UAW officials, which worked to the detriment of GM.

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Image: UAW

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 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE: UBER) is reportedly interested in acquiring rival Postmates for $2.4 billion. The company's former Chief Business Officer Emil Michael was a guest on Fox Business to talk about the deal and the general state of the food delivery business.

Michael On Uber Acquiring Postmates: Postmates is ranked fourth in the food delivery market, and an acquisition would make sense  but only at the right price, Michael said.

At a price of $2.4 billion, it is unclear how Uber benefits, as a combined entity would improve its market position in just one major city, he said: Los Angeles.

There are likely better ways for Uber to spend $2.4 billion, as this price tag "feels a little expensive."

Governments Need To Offer Help: Uber Eats has offered forms of financial relief to restaurants in New York City, but the government needs to take action as well, Michael said. Governments need to offer restaurants financial relief through lower taxes, reduced red tape and other factors that lead to higher costs of ownership, he said.

That will result in more benefits to restaurants than forcing private companies to cap their fees in certain areas, the former Uber exec said.

Traits And Trends: The restaurant and food delivery space will continue to see momentum even after the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end, Michael said. People have developed new habits around how they get their food, he said.

On the other hand, Uber's ride-hailing side of the business could benefit for opposite reasons, in his view

People who relied mostly on crowded public transportation options could turn to Uber and rivals for a safer transportation method, as contact is limited with just one person  the driver.

UBER Price Action: Uber shares lost 2.22% in Wednesday's session, ending at $30.43.

Related Links:

DoorDash Close To Securing Funding At B Pre-Money Valuation: WSJ

GrubHub Ditches Uber For Europe's Just Eat: What The Street Thinks

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Photo courtesy of Uber.

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 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
By Alexander Cornwell

DUBAI (Reuters) - Careem, a unit of Uber Technologies, expects ride-hailing demand to recover to pre-pandemic levels "sometime" in 2021, encouraged by a better-than-expected pickup as countries started to ease coronavirus-related curbs.

"It's been a tough couple of months," Careem Chief Executive Mudassir Sheikha told Reuters on Sunday.

"It's really anyone's guess. We have planned for a recovery (in ride-hailing) sometime next year but ... the recovery has begun and the recovery has been faster already than our initial projections."

The company, which primarily operates in the Middle East, has seen its overall business, which also includes delivery services such as take-away food, recover at an almost double-digit rate week-on-week over the past two months as countries eased restrictions, he said.

"I'm actually quite bullish on the rest of the year and the next few years as a result of some of the restrictions that were put on our movement and the growth it led to in the adoption of digital platforms."

Dubai-headquarterd Careem will fast-track plans to add more features to its 'Super App' that has expanded to also include some payment services.

It announced on Sunday it had signed a multi-year agreement with Visa that will see Visa push payment services become available through the app.

Careem, which was bought by Uber last year for $3.1 billion, shed nearly a third of its workforce as a result of the pandemic, laying off 536 staff.

"We did a lot of things in our business in the last three months that now position us well for any future disruptions were they to come," Sheikha said.

(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Painless & simple day-care procedure makes Bees-Haus technique suitable for global reach

Treating male urethral stricture with the patients own buccal mucosal cells, encapsulated in a polymer scaffold as carrier, has been granted a patent in Japan. A longer duration of relief to patients who had recurrence of the disease after earlier conventional treatments, has been reported by this method called "Bees-Haus" (Buccal epithelium Expanded and Encapsulated in ScaffoldHybrid Approach to Urethral Stricture; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/iju.13852).

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701006026/en/

Biomaterial research facility of JBM in Tokyo, where improvised scaffolds for regenerative medicine applications like Bees-haus, implants and medical devices are developed. (Photo: Business Wire)

Male urethra, a tubular passage to let the urine out from urinary bladder, when affected with narrowing or stricture of the lumen, causes difficulty in voiding urine, urinary retention, and pain during micturition. Treatments include dilatation with balloon or urethrotomy under endoscopy at early stages and surgical urethroplasty under general anesthesia using patients autologous oral/buccal tissue graft in severe disease or long segment stricture. After surgery, for a while, patients pass urine through catheter drainage and complications such as stricture recurrence, urinary tract infection, impotence, sexual dysfunction, and incontinence, have been reported (Gallegos & Santucci F1000Res. 2016;5-2913 & Barbagli et al. European Urology Supplements 2016;15-1).

Bees-Haus method of cell therapy could be performed in two-steps, both as day care procedure. A small bit of patients oral tissue is taken, cells cultured in lab, and transplanted through endoscopy. Very simple and convenient for urologist and relatively painless to patients with shorter hospital stay reducing healthcare cost and burden, because of lesser complications, making Bees-Haus easy to adopt. A larger multicentric study is under proposal by JBM Inc, to validate its efficacy to make this a routine procedure to benefit many patients with better quality of life.

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Urethral stricture disease occurs mainly in men and its incidence climbs sharply after 55 years in western population. An estimated 0.6% in susceptible populations are affected in which 4% of male patients require interventional procedure. Annually 200 million USD is spent in USA for urethral stricture treatment, which doesnt include cost of medication. The Americas hold the largest share in the global urethral stricture market, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. JBM has applied for patents worldwide including USA, EU, United Kingdom and are looking for country-wise partners for technology licensing out. JBM also established a biomaterial laboratory to develop novel scaffolds for various applications in regenerative medicine, implants, and medical devices in Tokyo.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701006026/en/

Contacts

Queries to:

GN Corporation Ltd.

Samuel JK Abraham

info@gncorporation.com
Following an official extension of the suspension of cruise operations from U.S. ports, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NYSE: NCLH) and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE: RCL) have halted nearly all cruises through September against expectations of an August resumption, according to BofA Securities.

The Cruise Lines Analyst

BofAs Andrew Didora updated the estimates to reflect a phased-in recovery beginning in October. The analyst also rolled forward the price targets for cruise lines to 2022 estimates.

Didora maintained a Neutral rating on Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings with a price target lifted from $12.50 to $19.

Didora reiterated an Underperform rating on Royal Caribbean Cruises and raised the price target from $23 to $40.

The Cruise Lines Thesis

Capacity for cruise lines is likely to remain at just 20% of fourth-quarter 2019 levels and may recover to only 75% in 2021, Didora said in a Wednesday note. (See his track record here.)

The analyst lowered 2020 earnings estimates:

From a loss of $7.12 per share to a loss of $7.39 per share for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.

From a loss of $14.18 per share to a loss of $15.29 per share for Royal Caribbean Cruises.

With the cruise industry not generating any revenue for six months this year, 2021 could be a transition year as capacity and revenues likely ramp back up slowly throughout the year, the analyst said.

NCLH, RCL Price Action

Shares of both Norwegian Cruise Line were up 0.19% at $16.45 at the time of publication, while Royal Caribbean shares were higher by 1.01% at $50.82.

Related Links:

Cruise Stocks Fall After Halting Trips From US Ports

Carnival Is Staying Afloat Through 2020, BofA Says After Cruise Line's Preliminary Q2 Report

Latest Ratings for NCLH

Jun 2020 Barclays Downgrades Overweight Equal-Weight Jun 2020 Redburn Downgrades Buy Neutral Jun 2020 Morgan Stanley Reinstates Underweight

View More Analyst Ratings for NCLH

View the Latest Analyst Ratings

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 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A "vast expansion" in U.S. multinational business activity in China since 2000 may threaten American industrial competitiveness and long-term tech leadership, a new report by a congressional U.S.-China advisory commission found on Wednesday.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that rapid moves by U.S. companies away from manufacturing in China and into higher-value activities such as research and development could be "unwittingly enabling China to achieve its industrial policy objectives."

The commission said its analysis of nearly two decades of U.S. economic and trade data showed a 15-fold increase in U.S. commercial assets in China. U.S. companies now employ 1.7 million people in China, an increase of nearly 600% since 2000, when U.S. firms employed just 252,000 people there.

It said U.S. companies had leveraged Chinas cheap labor force, large economies of scale, low transportation costs, and concentration of global supply chains, with much of the activity focused on meeting demand from Chinas growing consumer class.

U.S. manufacturing in China was mainly focused on production of computers, electronic products and, increasingly, chemicals, but there was also increased investment in research and development, often at the insistence of China.

"These industries ... may indirectly erode the United States domestic industrial competitiveness and technological leadership relative to China," it said, urging Congress to take steps to preserve U.S. innovative capacity and leadership.

The report comes amid rising tensions between the United States and China, the world's two largest economies, despite the signing of a Phase 1 U.S.-China trade agreement in January.

The Trump administration has restricted visas and ended exports of defense equipment in response to a new national security law cracking down on Hong Kong's independence, and on Wednesday warned U.S. companies about the risks they face from maintaining supply chains associated with human rights abuses in China's western Xinjiang province.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
By Marianna Parraga

(Reuters) - Venezuela's oil exports slumped in June to their lowest level since 1943 after half a dozen tankers, looking to avoid the threat of U.S. sanctions, sailed away from the nation's waters without loading, according to vessel tracking data.

The fall in oil exports has starved the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro of its main source of revenue, contributing to an economic collapse in the OPEC nation and leaving authorities short of cash for essential imports such as food and medicine.

Maduro has held onto power despite the sanctions, frustrating the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Washington and most Western democracies accuse Maduro of rigging a 2018 re-election vote.

Trump's team has increased pressure in recent months, expanding its list of sanctioned entities to include Mexican companies, oil tankers, international shipping firms and individuals that have played a role in Venezuela's oil exports.

Tighter sanctions have scared away many remaining customers of state-run oil firm PDVSA, and some shipping firms that had carried their cargoes.

PDVSA and its joint ventures shipped a total of 17 cargoes in June, carrying about 379,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and refined products, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and the company's loading schedules. The low volume, unseen since 1943, was almost 18% below May exports, according to the same data.

(For a graphic on exports by month, go here: https://tmsnrt.rs/2BgyyuM)

The country's total crude output is slightly above those levels, according to daily PDVSA data seen by Reuters. PDVSA has had to cut output to match exports because most of the country's oil storage is full.

That would put output at a little more than 10 percent of the nearly 3.5 million bpd the country pumped in the late 1990s. Back then, Venezuela was one of the powerhouses in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Now, Caracas is among the group's minnows, even though it sits on some of the largest crude reserves in the world.

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Sanctions have also left more than a dozen loaded tankers in limbo around the world as suppliers struggle to find final buyers for the cargoes. Several of those vessels are off the waters of Malaysia and Singapore.

Exports to Europe ticked up in June to 130,000 bpd, boosted by larger deliveries to Spain's Repsol and Italy's Eni, the PDVSA documents showed. Those shipments are permitted under exemptions for debt payments and swaps.

Shipments to Venezuela's political ally Cuba also increased to 82,300 bpd from 67,000 bpd in May.

Heavy crude inventories at Venezuela's Jose port, the country's main oil terminal and storage site for exportable crude, closed the month at 14.5 million barrels versus a peak of 14.9 million barrels in mid-June, according to the PDVSA data.

Venezuela's fuel imports also declined last month, to 66,000 bpd from 77,100 bpd the previous month as most arrivals of Iranian gasoline discharged in May.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Mexico City, additional reporting by Mircely Guanipa in Maracay, Venezuela; Editing by Simon Webb and David Gregorio)
OTTAWA, ON , July 2, 2020 /CNW/ -- Versature, a Canadian provider of cloud communications solutions for business and organizations, today announced its partnership with Telarus, a leading distributor of business cloud infrastructure and contact center services. The partnership will enable Telarus' substantial network of agents to offer Versature's reliable and ever-evolving business phone solutions to businesses and organizations across Canada .

Telarus joins other innovative telecom and IT consultants who are offering Versature's robust and reliable business communications solutions to their clients across Canada through Versature's National Partner Program.

"We are delighted to add Telarus to our growing network of partners," said Versature COO and President, Jonathon Moody . "Our partners have played a significant role in the acceleration of our growth trajectory and we are thrilled to partner with an organization that is equally committed to helping Canadian organizations overcome common business continuity and remote workforce challenges through cloud-based communications solutions."

"We are thrilled with the growth we have seen in the Canadian market - especially in the UCaaS space," said Shane Speakman , VP of Biz Dev for Telarus Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) division. "With the explosion of work from home, our partners are looking for solutions to take to their customers and Versature is a perfect fit."

Versature offers enterprise-class cloud communications systems that integrate seamlessly with popular business applications such as Microsoft Teams and Salesforce as well as audio and video conferencing. Expanding portfolios through Versature's Channel Partner Program enables MSPs, telecommunications providers, and IT consultants to provide their clients with the most reliable and innovative cloud communication services available.

Versature's business phone solutions are engineered to help organizations drive performance through powerful communications tools, analytics functionality, unlimited international calling, free Poly phone rentals, mobile and browser-based calling, and 24/7 Canadian-based technical support. Versature's services are optimized to support organizations and businesses of all sizes and industries.

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About Versature

Versature is the leader in Canadian UCaaS business phone and communication solutions. Trusted by clients and partners across the country, Versature is an award-winning company that is raising the bar with the highest quality phone systems, superior Communications as a Service and operational system integrations, multiple geo-redundant Canadian data centres, and Canadian-based technical support. Founded in 2003, Versature has a rapidly growing subscriber base and strong partner network from coast to coast. Versature is part of net2phone , a global provider of unified communications services. For more information, visit versature.com.

About Telarus

Built for You, Telarus is the largest privately-held technology services distributor (master agent) in the United States . Our dynamic agent-partner community sources data, voice, cloud, and managed services through our robust portfolio of 250 leading service providers. We are best known for our home-grown software pricing tools and mobile apps that are unique in the industry. To help our partners grow their businesses even more, we've assembled the best support organization in the business, which includes SD-WAN, Cloud, mobility, contact center, and ILEC specialty practices whose primary goal is to help our partners identify and design the right technology solutions for their customers. To learn more about the Telarus opportunity, please visit www.telarus.com, or follow us on Twitter @Telarus.

SOURCE Versature

Cision

View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2020/02/c4374.html
Public Live-Streaming of Major Milestone Celebration Set for July 28, 2020

Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) ("Virgin Galactic" or "the Company"), a vertically integrated aerospace company, today announced that SpaceShipTwos cabin interior design reveal will take place on July 28, 2020. The virtual event will be streamed live on YouTube. In celebration of this milestone, the Company will also be announcing plans to bring immersive experiences of Virgin Galactics spaceflight and cabin interior to aspiring astronauts around the world.

The unveiling of the spaceship cabin design marks the latest milestone towards Virgin Galactics operational readiness and will accentuate the Companys focus on using inspired and bold design to transform the entire customer journey. While the cabin interior has been created to integrate seamlessly with every step of that journey, it is also the design centerpiece, providing safety without distraction, quietly absorbing periods of sensory intensity and offering each astronaut a level of intimacy required for personal discovery and transformation.

The live-streamed unveiling will feature a virtual walkthrough of the cabin, curated by the multi-disciplinary team which has striven to ensure that every detail of its design works to provide an unparalleled and safe consumer experience.

As a part of Virgin Galactics mission to democratize space, and in response to current restrictions on travel and live gatherings, the Company has developed and will be releasing new, cutting edge digital platforms. These will provide users with an opportunity for detailed and immersive exploration of the cabin interior and other elements of the Virgin Galactic spaceflight experience from the comfort and security of their homes. Further details will be announced in the lead-up to the July 28 unveiling event.

George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic, said: "One of the defining hallmarks of the Virgin brand has been experience-enhancing, pioneering design. Virgin Galactic has striven to remain faithful to that tradition by developing elegant, experience-focused vehicles for the space launch system, and choosing landmark architecture for our operational headquarters at Spaceport America, New Mexico. We now look forward to revealing our spaceship cabin design, which is progressive, beautiful and functional. We are particularly delighted that, under current restrictions, we have been able to create an experience that we will be able to share with the millions of people around the world who dream of travelling to space."

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Throughout the history of human spaceflight, the primary objectives of cabin design have been functionality and safety. The Virgin Galactic spaceship cabin has taken these design prerequisites and overlaid them with touches and features specifically created to elevate the experience of space for a new generation of private astronauts.

To set a reminder to watch the reveal of cabin interior design live, please follow the link:

YOUTUBE LIVE LINK

You can download all press materials including images and broll from the Virgin Galactic Press FTP.

About Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic is a vertically-integrated aerospace company, pioneering human spaceflight for private individuals and researchers, as well as a manufacturer of advanced air and space vehicles. Using its proprietary and reusable technologies and supported by a distinctive, Virgin-branded customer experience, it is developing a spaceflight system designed to offer customers a unique, multi-day, transformative experience. This culminates in a spaceflight that includes views of Earth from space and several minutes of weightlessness that will launch from Spaceport America, New Mexico. Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company believe that one of the most exciting and significant opportunities of our time lies in the commercial exploration of space and the development of technology that will change the way we travel across the globe in the future. Together we are opening access to space to change the world for good.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws with respect to Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (the "Company"), including statements regarding the Companys spaceflight systems, markets and expected performance. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by words such as "believe," "project," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this presentation, including but not limited to the factors, risks and uncertainties regarding the Companys business described in the documents filed by the Company from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause the Companys actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and, except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005222/en/

Contacts

For media inquiries please contact:

VirginGalacticPress@virgingalactic.com

UK, Middle East, Asia, Africa  Ollie Bailey-Pratt, FTI Consulting

US, Canada, South America, Australia  Antonia Gray, FTI Consulting

VirginGalacticFin@fticonsulting.com / VirginGalacticcorp@fticonsulting.com



For Investor Relations inquiries please contact:

VirginGalactic-SVC@SARDVERB.com
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It seems quaint to note in the summer of 2020 that Americas global war on terror will soon enter the last year of its second decade. Yet its not something that the junior senator from Kentucky, who has long opposed it, is prone to forget  and though Rand Pauls attempts to end it are misguided, he is not wrong about Congresss dereliction of duty.

On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed  with only one dissenting vote  the authorization for the use of military force against those who had attacked the U.S. three days before. Since its passage, the U.S. has conducted drone strikes and commando raids throughout most of the Islamic world, and in Afghanistan, the U.S. has waged the longest war in its history. All of this has had the consent of Congress because of the resolution passed just after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Paul tried and failed yesterday to revoke that authorization. His amendment to the bill authorizing spending for the 2021 defense budget would also have required the Pentagon to devise an orderly withdrawal strategy from Afghanistan and award all military who fought in that war a bonus of $2,500.

Given that both major parties now appear to support ending the Afghanistan war, it would be reasonable to expect that resolution to have made its way into the Defense Department spending bill. But it failed by a vote of 60 to 33 in a procedural motion.

For now, that is a good thing. Even President Donald Trumps ill-considered gambit in Afghanistan does not go as far as Pauls plan: In theory, Trumps withdrawal strategy could be paused or reversed based on the Talibans compliance with a secret annex signed earlier this year.

Nonetheless, there is a kernel of a good idea in Pauls proposal. The 2001 authorization should not be scrapped altogether  it should be amended. As things now stand, Congress has little buy-in when it comes to what the U.S. does overseas in the war on terror. In this sense it has abdicated the oversight and war-making authorities granted to it in the Constitution. A better approach would be for the legislative branch to update the authorization and set it to expire unless renewed by a future Congress.

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Paul and his supporters are correct when they point out that today al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, is far weaker than it was nearly 20 years ago. At the same time, other terrorist threats have gotten stronger. The real threat to the U.S. and its allies has always been weak and corrupt governments in the Islamic world that enable terror organizations to take over large swaths of territory. That threat does not disappear just because America stops fighting.

Congress cannot just sit on the sidelines simply because the war against jihadist terror is long. A new generation of lawmakers should have a chance to vote for or against this war.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Marion, North Carolina--(Newsfile Corp. - July 2, 2020) - Greene Concepts Inc. (OTC PINK: INKW) is thrilled to celebrate the recent grand opening of the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians' Pit Stop gas station and convenience store located in Mountain Center, CA. As noted in the previous March 25, 2020 company press release, Greene Concepts recently signed a purchase order agreement with the Santa Rosa Pit Stop and currently selling its' BE WATERTM brand at that location.





To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6717/59028_556fad4a04f5a862_002full.jpg

The Santa Rosa Pit Stop manager Ray Suarez states, "We are very proud of our recent grand opening of the Santa Rosa Pit Stop that occurred Wednesday, June 3. We are also planning a larger celebration for later in the year. The June 3 grand opening ceremony was live streamed to maintain safe social distancing guidelines (see the YouTube live stream channel below to see a recorded video of the event). We are elated about this newest addition for our community and pleased to showcase and sell BE WATERTM as a premium beverage through our location. As mentioned in the previous press release, Greene Concepts through its BE WATERTM line captures our native spirit and strength morally, ethically and operationally."





To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://media.zenfs.com/en-us/newsfile_64/dbdcd4abc333cd18f0f985391e768025

Santa Rosa Pit Stop Grand Opening



Cannot view this video? Visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09AtxYqX9Q0

Harold Wingert, CEO of Sunflower Consulting Group highlights, "There are wonderful growth and expansion opportunities for both the Santa Rosa Pit Stop and Greene Concepts. The Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians' Pit Stop meets an important local need by providing resources to commuters and financial assets for the local residents. Through this collaboration, we continue to stay on target for the continued sale of up to two million cases of BE WATERTM at $7.00 per case through the end of the year toward a valuation of $14 million. The progressive sale of BE WATERTM at the Santa Rosa Pit Stop benefits both companies long-term."

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Lenny Greene, CEO of Greene Concepts conveys, "We are honored to partner with the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians' Pit Stop and I plan to join them in a face-to-face celebration down-the-line once the current national health crisis improves. Their success is Greene Concepts' success and we are very appreciative to sell our BE WATERTM brand at this choice location. The Santa Rose Pit Stop has set aside a dedicated cooler inside their store exclusively for our BE WATERTM products. This beverage cooler contains a 1920 X 1080 plasma television screen mounted above it to showcase our company's logos and videos on a continual advertising loop to maximize awareness and to set it apart from other brands. As we grow as a company, we plan to do everything possible to help expand the awareness and overall sales of the Santa Rosa Pit Stop while continuing to honor them as our first retailer."





BE WATER in Beverage Cooler



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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Local Newspaper Desert Sun Write-up:

Santa Rosa Pit Stop Grand Opening Write-Up by the Desert Sun

About the Santa Rosa Pit Stop:

The Santa Rosa Pit Stop, LLC gas station and convenience store is owned and operated by the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians. It is located right off of the Palms to Pines scenic highway and near the Pacific Crest Trail. The grand opening occurred on Wednesday June 3, 2020.

Address:

65145 Highway 74

Mountain Center, California 92561

(951) 659-1221

https://www.facebook.com/Santa-Rosa-P%C3%ADt-Stop-107838174275949/

About Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians:

The Santa Rosa Indian Reservation is in Riverside County, between Palm Springs and Anza, and occupies 11,021 acres of land. The Reservation is composed of four non-contiguous parcels; the largest being in the area of Sew'ia, or New Santa Rosa (Vandeventer Flat) where residents of the Reservation reside. The three remaining parcels, which include Toro Peak where the Tribe operates a telecommunications relay station, are located east of the main parcel. Elevation ranges from 4,200' elevation at Sew'ia (Cahuilla name for "New" Santa Rosa) to 8,700' elevation at Toro Peak. Currently, there are 139 recognized Tribal Members (18 and over). Approximately 70 individuals live on the Reservation. The General Council (which consists of adult members 18 years of age and older) elects a Tribal Council for two-year terms. The Tribal Council consists of a Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer and three Council members. The people of Sew'ia are one of eight Cahuilla Bands which include Cahuilla, Ramona, Los Coyotes, Torres-Martinez, Augustine, Cabazon, Agua Caliente, and Morongo. The Santa Rosa Reservation was established on February 2, 1907, under authority of the Act of 1891 as amended. The Act of April 17, 1937 authorized the Secretary of Interior to purchase 640 acres to be held in trust for the Tribe. All reservation land is tribally owned and un-allotted, though some of the land is under assignment and has been passed from generation to generation.

https://santarosacahuilla-nsn.gov/

About Sunflower Consulting Group:

Sunflower Consulting Group (SCG), founded by Harold Wingert, specializes in all aspects of convenience store operations: consulting, store design, operational set up and ramp up, controls, inventory, and vendor contracts. Since 1985, when Mr. Wingert bought his first store, he has been engaged in the industry in some fashion, including operations, consulting, construction, and design. Over the last 34 years he has owned and operated 8 stores, successfully sold them, and has been consulting for the past decade. SCG has the team in place to provide the level of support you desire, from concept design, through opening the store, and establishing policy and procedures. SCG will work with vendors to achieve optimal sales and manage vendor contracts to take advantage of rebates or other incentives, which will result in more profits for ownership. SCG will assist ownership in hiring and training employees, continuing education, benefits package for management, and will assist in developing an employee manual. Sunflower Consulting Group looks forward to working with you to bring your concept to reality.

https://sunflowerconsultinggroup.com/

About Greene Concepts, Inc., Mammoth Ventures, Inc. and Water Club, Inc.:

Greene Concepts, Inc. (http://www.greeneconcepts.com) is a publicly traded company. Through its recently acquired wholly owned subsidiary, Mammoth Ventures Inc., the Company has entered the specialty beverage and bottling business and is an emerging leader in the global scientifically formulated beverage industry. Through its subsidiary Water Club, Inc. we intend to pursue subscription-based delivery of water and scientifically formulated beverages directly to the consumers home and market the convenience of this service thru social media affiliate marketing partners.

Safe Harbor: This Press Release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. A more extensive listing of risks and factors that may affect the company's business prospects and cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the reports and other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission and OTC Markets, Inc. OTC Disclosure and News Service. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

CONTACT:

Greene Concepts, Inc.



Investor Relations

info@inkway.com

Lenny Greene

lenny@greeneconcepts.com

559-434-1000

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/59028
This week, a first-of-its-kind, large-scale, coordinated "coral swap" of critically endangered staghorn coral took place in Key Largo, Florida.

With Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF) at the epicenter, five major South Florida restoration groups exchanged nearly 100 genetically unique colonies of staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) - an important reef-building species.

This exchange will help collaborating organizations better protect, study, and restore populations of this critical animal.

Some of these staghorn genotypes had been lost from the CRF nursery during Hurricane Irma, but will now once again contribute to their reef restoration efforts in the Keys.

KEY LARGO, FL / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / On June 24th, 2020, scientists from Mote Marine Lab, Nova Southeastern University, University of Miami, and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) met at Coral Restoration Foundation headquarters to exchange a total of 95 genotypes of critically endangered staghorn coral.

This is the first time that a coordinated coral swap of this kind has occurred, with the same genotypes being exchanged at the same time, to be housed in multiple locations. Supported by a grant from NOAA's Restoration Center, the exchange provides security for the future of this species, and expands opportunities for research into coral genetics, disease and climate change resilience, and reproduction.

Diego Lirman, associate professor at the University of Miami, explains, "This genotype exchange is clear evidence of the commitment by NOAA and Florida restoration partners to protect and restore Florida's Coral Reef. This unprecedented genotype exchange will create vital genetic repositories, enhance the genetic diversity of restoration efforts, and provide unique research opportunities to aid the recovery of our threatened coral reef ecosystem."

Many of the genotypes involved in the swap are now extinct in the wild. The fact that these are the only living representatives of some of these genets highlights the importance of an exchange of this kind to promote redundancy across restoration systems.

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During the swap, CRF gave 27 different staghorn genotypes to each of the four collaborating organizations. In return, and between the other four partners, 66 new genotypes of staghorn were introduced to the CRF Tavernier Coral Tree Nursery - the largest in the world.

Alison Moulding, a coral biologist with NOAA Fisheries says, "Having redundancy of corals with the same genetic identity in multiple nurseries is important for preserving genetic diversity. By bringing pieces of the same colony into nurseries located throughout the Florida Reef Tract, we can better insure against loss from sporadic events like storms."

STRENGTH IN DIVERSITY

Genetic diversity is critical for ecosystem resilience; genetic diversity is the key to an ecosystem's capacity to survive episodes of stress including disease outbreaks, warming water, cold upwellings, pollution and more. As hardy, diverse corals reproduce sexually, their progeny are likely to be increasingly well-adapted to handle changes in the environment.

Since 2017, CRF has been returning at least 50 genotypes of staghorn and 50 genotypes of elkhorn to every reef site that we are working to restore. The CRF Science Department tracks the survivorship of these different genotypes on the reef and collects data which informs our methods.

"LAZARUS" CORALS

All of the genotypes that were exchanged came from wild colonies, with a couple of these genotypes originating from colonies native to the Dry Tortugas. But a small subset of these corals has special significance for Coral Restoration Foundation.

These have been nicknamed by some of the CRF team as "Lazarus" corals; they are genotypes that used to be homed in the CRF nursery, but were lost during stress events, like Hurricane Irma. Thankfully, before the storm, CRF shared some of these colonies with Mote Marine Laboratory, and now, through this swap, they are returning to the organization's ocean-based nursery.

Jessica Levy, Restoration Program Manager at Coral Restoration Foundation explains, "The return of these coral genotypes underscores the importance of these kinds of exchanges - by working together we can ensure that important, diverse genetic material is protected, with multiple colonies held in multiple places to safeguard against any potential disasters. We are incredibly pleased to be collaborating with these partners. We are all working towards the same goal of saving and restoring our coral reefs, and by working together, we have more chance of succeeding."

A BOOST FOR CORAL DIVERSITY IN THE KEYS

The corals coming into CRF facilities have been installed on new Coral Trees added to the genetic bank. This brings the total number of genotypes in the CRF gene bank to 481 - more than is housed in any other ocean-based coral ark in the world.

Once these colonies are large enough, a selection of them will be propagated and their clones moved into the production area, for eventual release to the reefs of the Florida Keys. The genotypes chosen to be returned to the reefs will be those that contribute the greatest genetic diversity to our outplanting stock.

The researchers involved in the swap all adhered to strict social distancing recommendations as outlined by the CDC. All activities were conducted under permits and guidance from Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

CONTACT:

Alice Grainger, Communications Director

Coral Restoration Foundation

alice@coralrestoration.org

305 453 7030

SOURCE: Coral Restoration Foundation





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/596123/The-Worlds-First-Large-Scale-Coral-Swap-Sees-Lost-Coral-Genotypes-Returned-to-Ocean-Based-Nurseries-in-the-Florida-Keys




For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  July 2, 2020  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Delta Air Lines DAL, American Airlines AAL, United Airlines UAL, Azul AZUL and Hawaiian Holdings HA.

Here are highlights from Wednesdays Analyst Blog:

How Will Airlines Regain Lost Ground in 2H20?

It is a well-documented fact that stocks in the airline space could not set the stage on fire in 2019. Headwinds like lackluster cargo business due to weak freight demand and trade tensions between the United States and China besides loss of revenues following flight cancellations stemming from the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX jets prevented the stocks from flying high last year.

These drawbacks continued to weigh on airlines as they entered 2020. Despite the downsides, passenger revenues remained strong owing to impressive demand for air travel.

Advent of Coronavirus Cripples Air-Travel Demand

All the buoyancy in passenger revenues on the back of bullish demand, however, was negated by the dreaded coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on Mar 11. Even though almost all corners of the investing space have been affected by this unprecedented crisis, airlines are among the worst-hit. The fact that the Zacks Airline industry has plunged 23% since the beginning of March against the S&P 500 Indexs 3.2% gain bears testimony to the aviation industrys severe body blow.

As coronavirus claimed multiple lives apart from infecting scores across the globe, several countries were under lockdown amid wide-spread travel restrictions particularly since March, thereby causing air-travel demand to fade out fast. As passenger revenues account for bulk of the airline stocks top line, negligible air-travel demand spelt doom for the carriers in the March quarter. With the key component of their total revenue bases being significantly drained, heavyweights like Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and United Airlines incurred massive losses in the first quarter of 2020.

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Despite the recent moderate improvement in air-travel demand, the second-quarter performance of airlines is likely to have been again dented by below-par passenger revenues. Consequently, the currently Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) Delta expects June-quarter revenues to plunge 90% on a year-over-year basis.

You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Whats in Store for 2H20?

Reopening of businesses in countries around the globe and easing of travel bans bode well for the airline stocks, which are witnessing a surge in new bookings. Evidently, Latin American carrier Azul expects to have 240 peak daily departures in July, reflecting an increase of 42.9% from the daily departures in June. Moreover, the carrier aims to resume services to six domestic destinations in the same month, thereby bringing the total number of cities served to 66.

Moreover, owing to the resurgence in demand, American Airlines is booking flights to full capacity from today. Meanwhile, Delta expects to expand capacity by about 1,000 flights in both July and August. Based on this uptrend, many aviation stocks issued upbeat updates pertaining to cash-burn rates. Moreover, the number of people screened by the Transportation Security Administration displaying an upward trend of late hints at the rebound in air travel.

Another factor working in favor of the airlines in this challenging scenario is their focus on operating cargo-only flights. With air-travel demand at one point of time hitting rock bottom, many carriers including the likes of Delta and Hawaiian Holdings had decided on operating cargo-only flights. In fact, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects cargo revenues to climb 8.2% year over year to $110.8 billion in the ongoing year. Moreover, cargo revenues are expected to account for 26% of the top line in 2020 compared with a mere 12% in 2019. Low fuel costs are also benefiting airlines.

Despite the above-mentioned tailwinds, the airline industry has its share of hiccups, which we witness while going into the latter half of the year. Notably, the federal aid to airlines under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act will sustain jobs only through Sep 30, 2020. However, with passenger demand unlikely to attain the pre-coronavirus levels any time soon, airlines may be forced to trim their workforce in the face of soft revenues. Many carriers in fact, hinted at job-cuts post Sep 30.

Moreover, the recent spike in coronavirus cases in some parts of the United States following resumption of economic activities heightened fears of a second wave of the infection. This is extremely damaging to airlines. In the event of people again preferring to stay home instead of traveling will no way sustain the recent uptick in passenger revenues.

Sad but true, the aviation industry is already estimated to suffer heavy losses to the tune of $84.3 billion in the current year due to the coronavirus-induced crisis, per IATA. Passenger revenues are predicted to tank more than 150% from last-year levels to $241 billion. In the event of a relapse dwindling air-traffic demand, the carriers outlook may deteriorate further.

Come what may, we expect investors interested in this not-so-long-ago high-flying space to stay tuned for further highlights on how things pan out for airlines in the second half of 2020.

Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation

Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity.

A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 8 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time.

See 8 breakthrough stocks now>>

Media Contact

Zacks Investment Research

800-767-3771 ext. 9339

support@zacks.com

https://www.zacks.com

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report



United Airlines Holdings Inc (UAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report



American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. (HA) : Free Stock Analysis Report



AZUL SA (AZUL) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  July 2, 2020  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Facebook FB, Thermo Fisher Scientific TMO, McDonalds MCD, NIKE NKE and QUALCOMM QCOM.

Here are highlights from Wednesdays Analyst Blog:

Top Stock Reports for Facebook, Thermo Fisher and McDonald's

The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including Facebook, Thermo Fisher Scientific and McDonalds. These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.

You can see all of todays research reports here >>>

Facebook shares have held their own, despite the ongoing drumbeat of ad boycott announcements, with the stock up +19.1% over the past year vs. the +4.9% gain for the S&P 500 index. The Zacks analyst believes that Facebook is benefiting from growth in Instagram Stories and Feed, and an expanding user base in Asia Pacific. In effect, the company has emerged as a must-have platform for advertisers, along with Alphabet, that is hard to ignore.

The company helped people connect during the coronavirus pandemic. Notably, voice and video calling more than doubled on Messenger and WhatsApp. The launch of Messenger Rooms for video call, which can accommodate 50 people, and WhatsApp video support for up to eight users are noteworthy in this regard.

However, Facebook expects ad-sales to be hurt by weakness in travel and automotive industries. Further, a number of companies have announced plans to freeze ad spending on Facebook due to its failure to eradicate hate speech and misinformation. This is expected to hurt top-line growth, at least in the near term. Higher operating expenses are also expected to dent the operating margin in 2020.

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Shares of Thermo Fisher have gained +10% over the past six months against the Zacks Medical Instruments industrys rise of +4.1%. The Zacks analyst is encouraged by the strong year-over-year revenue growth at Life Sciences Solutions and Laboratory Products and Services segments.

The companys end- market underlying growth performance was strong before the outbreak in China. Meanwhile, the company is optimistic about the progress related to its COVID-19 diagnostic test. In the first quarter, the company reported rapid uptake of these diagnostic kits.

However, the coronavirus outbreak has massively disrupted the global supply chain. Two of the end markets registered loss in the first quarter, largely due to customer shutdowns in China.

McDonalds shares have gained +14.4% over the past three months against the Zacks Restaurants industrys rise of +23.8%. The Zacks analyst believes that the company is benefitting from increase in drive-thru sales.

Also, its increased focus on delivery and accelerated deployment of EOTF restaurants in the United States is commendable. Additionally, the company is making every effort to drive growth in international markets as well. Notably, earning estimates for 2020 have increased over the past 60 days, depicting analysts optimism regarding the stock growth potential.

However, coronavirus related woes remain a concern. This along with costs associated with brand positioning in all the key markets and ongoing investments in initiatives might weigh on margins, at least in the near term. Also, decline in comps pose a threat for the company.

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include NIKE and QUALCOMM.

Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation

Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity.

A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 8 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time.

See 8 breakthrough stocks now>>

Media Contact

Zacks Investment Research

800-767-3771 ext. 9339

support@zacks.com

https://www.zacks.com

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



NIKE, Inc. (NKE) : Free Stock Analysis Report



McDonalds Corporation (MCD) : Free Stock Analysis Report



QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (TMO) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Facebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
NEW YORK and SAN DIEGO, July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ZNTL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing small molecule therapeutics targeting fundamental biological pathways of cancers, today announced the appointment of Kimberly Blackwell, M.D. to its Board of Directors. Dr. Blackwell is a renowned breast cancer researcher who has made significant contributions to the biopharmaceutical industry for more than two decades.



We are delighted to welcome Kim, a biopharma veteran with extensive experience in oncology research, to our Board of Directors, said Dr. Anthony Sun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals. Throughout her career, she has led numerous clinical programs, mainly in breast cancer, that have resulted in successful regulatory approvals. This impressive background will be vital in helping us bring potentially life changing treatments to patients with a range of cancers.

Dr. Blackwell is currently the Chief Medical Officer of Tempus, a technology company advancing precision medicine through the practical application of artificial intelligence in healthcare. Prior to Tempus, she was Vice President of Early Phase Oncology and Immuno-oncology at Eli Lilly, where she led the clinical development teams in advancing early stage therapeutics. Throughout her 24 year tenure at Duke Cancer Institute, Dr. Blackwell directed the Womens Cancer Program, Strategic Collaborations, and the Precision Medicine Initiative. In addition, she has served as the principal or co-principal investigator on over 50 cancer clinical trials. Dr. Blackwells innovative work in developing non-chemotherapy based approaches for the treatment of breast cancer led to her inclusion on TIME magazines 2013 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. She received her undergraduate degree in bioethics from Duke University and holds an M.D. from Mayo Clinic School of Medicine.

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As a previous member of the Scientific Advisory Board, I am honored by the opportunity to expand my role at Zentalis, said Dr. Kimberly Blackwell. I look forward to continuing to assist the Zentalis team and its distinguished Board of Directors in building and evolving its potentially best-in-class oncology pipeline, with the goal of making a meaningful difference in patients lives.

About Zentalis Pharmaceuticals

Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing small molecule therapeutics targeting fundamental biological pathways of cancers. The Company is developing a broad pipeline of potentially best-in-class oncology candidates, including ZN-c5, an oral selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) for ER+/HER2- breast cancer, ZN-c3, a WEE1 inhibitor, ZN-d5, a BCL-2 inhibitor and ZN-e4, an EGFR inhibitor. Zentalis has operations in both New York and San Diego.

For more information, please visit www.zentalis.com . Follow Zentalis on social media: @ZentalisP and LinkedIn .

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements regarding our expectations surrounding the development, commercialization, potential, safety, efficacy, and regulatory and clinical progress of our product candidates. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following: the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has adversely impacted and may continue to adversely impact our business, including our preclinical studies and clinical trials; our limited operating history, which may make it difficult to evaluate our current business and predict our future success and viability; we have and expect to continue to incur significant losses; our need for additional funding, which may not be available; our substantial dependence on the success of our lead product candidate; failure to identify additional product candidates and develop or commercialize marketable products; the early stage of our development efforts; potential unforeseen events during clinical trials could cause delays or other adverse consequences; risks relating to the regulatory approval process or ongoing regulatory obligations; failure to obtain U.S. or international marketing approval; our product candidates may cause serious adverse side effects; inability to maintain our collaborations, or the failure of these collaborations; our reliance on third parties; effects of significant competition; the possibility of system failures or security breaches; risks relating to intellectual property; our ability to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel; and significant costs as a result of operating as a public company. These and other important factors discussed under the caption Risk Factors in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended March 31, 2020 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other filings with the SEC could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Any such forward-looking statements represent managements estimates as of the date of this press release. While we may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause our views to change.

Investor Contact:

Thomas Hoffmann

Solebury Trout

1.646.378.2931

thoffmann@soleburytrout.com

Media Contact:

Julia Deutsch

Solebury Trout

1.646.378.2967
That still keeps the Inheritance Fund barely over $1 million, County Clerk Fred Mytty said. And we have those other two reserves at $442,000 in the Interest Fund and the Capital Improvement Safety Fund, $157,000.

Missel said he planned on talking with Huppert and members of the Finance Committee to talk about funding for $5 million in flood repairs for this season.

I think this is the right plan, and thank God weve got the inheritance dollars to draw upon at this point in time, considering everything thats taking place, he said.

The board also discussed a letter from Randy Ruppert concerning the placement of trees around a new Costco poultry farm owned by Case and Joscelyn Camenzind.

In the letter, Ruppert stated that the Camenzinds failed to plant its required 150 trees east of the farm, which is just west of Nickerson.

I went to the site three days before they put chickens in it, and [Case Camenzind] was very proud of his 150 trees he planted on the west side and made a wagon to water them with, Board member Lon Strand said. And so Im not sure if there was some miscommunication in regard to east or west, but they planted 150 trees on the west side.
Portions of curbs in the city were removed and replaced with ADA-accessible ramps that have textured surfaces. A major walkway that leads to the swimming pool and Dodge County Fairgrounds was made ADA accessible.

In addition, the city is using some grant funds to make its website ADA compliant. For instance, it will have an audio feature for someone who is visually impaired.

Well be rolling out a completely new website pretty soon, said Elizabeth Valla, Scribners economic development director.

The new, community-driven website will have a monthly calendar, which will provide information about town events.

We want outsiders to see that Scribner is more than a map dot and we want our community to be proud of where they come from, Valla said. We have plenty to do around town, we just need to get the word out.

Valla noted that a towns website provides a good first impression.

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We have a lot of millennials in our community and so were using that to our advantage by listening to what we need to do to make small towns cool again while also taking care of those who helped build it to what it is today, Valla said.
Colorado Springs, CO (80903)

Today

Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. Cooler. High 68F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low 51F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
If everything goes to plan, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo will eventually be hearing the pitter-patter of little hippo feet.
The new organizational chart for Space Force is out and includes some cool acronyms.

Space Training and Readiness Command at Peterson Air Force Base is STARCOM.

Now the Space Force is built around space wings. But as the new service breaks from the Air Force past, those wings will be called deltas.

This is the most significant restructuring of space units undertaken by the United States since the establishment of Air Force Space Command in 1982, Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said in a statement. Innovation and efficiency are driving our mission as we position the Space Force to respond with agility to protect our nations space capabilities and the American way of life.

Below the deltas are squadrons, the one unit designation thats still familiar.

The new structure eliminates a lot of middle management, lopping out whole layers once overseen by colonels and brigadier generals.

This is an historic opportunity to launch the Space Force on the right trajectory to deliver the capabilities needed to ensure freedom of movement and deter aggression in, from and to space, Space Force boss Gen. Jay Raymond said in a statement.

How we organize the Space Force will have a lasting impact on our ability to respond with speed and agility to emerging threats in support of the national defense strategy and space strategy.

Two of the biggest pieces of the new organizational structure will be Space Operations Command and Space Systems Command.

Space Operations Command comes with one of those clever acronyms: SPOC.

The renaming of space units means the new service is getting closer to some other important changes. Right now those in the Space Force are airmen, the title they have carried over from the Air Force.

Thats likely to change, but there have been few hints of what the new moniker will be.

The new service will also likely get new uniforms, ditching the Air Forces blue gear for a color of its own. That, too, hasnt been revealed.

Another key change for the Space Force is the adoption of a new service anthem.

While there have been sarcastic suggestions, including David Bowies Space Oddity and Elton Johns Rocket Man, no serious contenders for the new song have emerged.

Finally, the Space Force is looking to rename the bases it calls home.

The move, which could be delayed by a provision in the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which calls for a study of the matter, would see Peterson and Schriever Air Force Bases and possibly Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station redesignated with Space Force added to their names.

The organizational changes are expected to happen quickly, with units changing names this summer.

But, in a town that has hosted the militarys top space units for decades, it could take a few years before the public gets used to the new Space Force vocabulary.

Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx
Upon arriving at the top of Pikes Peak, visitors might not expect to see a bustling construction site in the middle of the breathtaking views they came for.

Sometimes they pass by workers clad in hard hats and neon vests, like the sites project manager Rob Clough, and ask, What are you guys doing up here?

The answer is impossible to miss. A crew of 100 from GE Johnson spend each day working on the $60 million structure that will soon be the new Pikes Peak Summit Complex.

Guests can feel how hard it is to breathe up here, Clough said on a recent morning atop the 14,115-foot mountain. Theyre so impressed seeing the amount of work going on.

Halfway into 2020, he said work is about 50% done on the new visitors center, which, at 38,000 square feet, will be more than twice the size of the current Summit House, built in 1963. The complex is expected to open by spring of 2021, a date that is months behind the previous plan of this fall.

Since beginning in 2018, construction has hit delays mostly because of occasional bursts of cold and blustery weather such as 65 mph winds, lightning, snow and hail, Clough said.

Last week was rough with these afternoon lightning storms, he said. By 1 o clock every day, it killed our ability to continue working.

When that happens, workers are back by 5:30 a.m. the next day to be shuttled up Americas Mountain and keep working.

I tell them every day to be proud of this, Clough said. Its once in a lifetime.

The coronavirus outbreak hasnt affected progress, Clough said, as construction was deemed an essential activity.

Much of 2019 was spent on getting the facilitys primary structure up.

Now, Clough said the goal within the next few months is to complete the exterior of the building, including installing glass windows that will provide unobstructed views of Mount Rosa and beyond. The glass being used has been tested to withstand 240 mph winds.

This year, were very energized and focused on closing up the building, he said. And then well be able to get more into the final touches.

The top floor of the Summit House will house the kitchen, dining areas, retail center and open-air decks. The building will also feature interactive displays and exhibits pertaining to the history of Pikes Peak.

If all goes according to plan, the building will be LEED certified as well as up to standards of the Living Building Challenge, described on its website as the most rigorous green building standard ever.

A concrete walkway system, following ADA regulations, will connect guests to the Summit House as well as north, east and west overlooks. It will also connect to the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, which is currently closed and under repair.

Throughout the complex, crews have used rustic-looking steel and concrete that matches the color of Pikes Peaks rocks and boulders.

Its important to maintain the natural beauty, Clough said. We want it to look almost the same as when we started.

A short walk away from the power tools and heavy machinery, visitors were taking photos in front of the popular Pikes Peak Summit sign and carrying bags of doughnuts out of the existing Summit House, which is about 12,000 square feet.

The building was built in the '60s and it has served its purpose over that time, said Jack Glavan, manager of Pikes Peak Americas Mountain, an enterprise of Colorado Springs. It has exceeded its life.

The new complex will be an upgrade in more ways than one, said Glavan. It will offer more space and activities for visitors. And it will offer, most importantly, spectacular views.

You dont want to out-mountain the mountain, he said. Pikes Peak is iconic. The building is just going to enhance it.
The Mason City softball team had a night for the ages on Wednesday.

The Mohawks not only swept a doubleheader against Des Moines North, they did so in historic fashion. In game one, the Mohawks beat the Polar Bears by a 24-0 score, and then followed that up with a 14-0 victory in game two.

In the first game, all hope was lost for the Polar Bears in the first inning. The Mohawks jumped all over North's pitcher, scoring 22 runs in the initial frame. After scoring solo runs in the second and third, the game came to a merciful end.

The Mohawks did their damage on seven hits, seven walks, and seven hit batters.

In game two, the Mohawks offense again came out swinging, scoring four runs in the first inning, six in the second, and four more in the third.

Sami Miller and Brianna Notermann both finished with a team-high three RBI in game one. In the nightcap, Notermann and sophomores Lainna Duncan and Sam Norcross all finished with two RBI.

The wins improved Mason City's overall record to 6-7 on the season. The Mohawks sit in fourth place in the CIML with a conference record of 6-4.

Softball
When Dorothy Turners son, Mark, drops by to visit now, he must sit outside the window.

Typically he will bring a Wendys Frosty for his mother and one for himself, and theyll chat on the phone while remaining on either side of the glass that must keep them separated.

It works out very well for us, said Dorothy, 100, who is a resident at the Brookdale Danville Piedmont assisted living facility.

These pseudo in-person visits will have to do the trick for now, as family members still have a little while to wait until they can have more traditional visits with their loved ones in area nursing homes and assisted living communities.

While the rest of Virginia seemingly eases the restrictions on capacity limits and public gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic, these facilities remain under strict guidelines to help prevent the virus from spreading among a highly vulnerable population.

As other industries prepare to welcome more guests under the Phase 3 guidelines that went into effect last week, nursing homes and assisted living facilities must abide by a separate set of reopening guidelines than the rest of society.
About two-thirds of Virginias 63,203 cases reported by the Virginia Department of Health on Wednesday were in people 40 and younger, although the serious burden of the disease is still being felt in the elderly. Three-quarters of the 1,786 deaths have been in Virginians who were 70 and older.

Our age range is still one month to 99, ODell said, but the recent case counts, which include about 100 linked to travel to Myrtle Beach and the return of younger workers to their jobs, has pushed down the median age.

While most of the areas cases were once in the 50-and-older set, more cases now are falling in younger age groups. As of Wednesday, 20 cases have been in children under 10, 115 in older kids and teens, 182 in people in their 20s and 147 in their 30s. On the other end of the age spectrum, 68 were in their 70s and 81 were 80 or older. They account for all but two of the regions 25 deaths; those were in people in their 50s and 60s.

Most of those hospitalized locally have been 50 and older. But four of the patients are in their 20s.

The Western Piedmont Health District, which includes Franklin County, has had one young child hospitalized. Population Health Manger Nancy Bell said cases are now occurring in younger people there, too.
We need his support in Congress to help continue the fight against the two pronged crisis of COVID-19 and systematic racism.

GERALD N. DAVIS

Chatham

Turning the country around

Instead of trying to erase the history of the Civil War, people should remember that it came about because Congress couldnt agree on anything concerning slavery. This led to southern states seceding from the union which led to the bloodiest war in history. It is estimated that 620,000 died, many of them in prison camps, under terrible conditions. The South was left in shambles and the reconstruction period lasted for years.

Unless huge changes are made soon, the Civil War will look like a picnic compared to where our country is headed.

Today, no one in Washington can agree on anything and many of our state governments arent any better. Tearing down monuments, burning buildings, blaming each other while doing nothing, criticizing all the police for the actions of a few, all these things are not helping anyone. The news media isnt any better. They seem to enjoy pouring gasoline on all the fires instead of trying to help the situations.
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Gary, a D.C.-based Democratic operative, decides to get involved in a small town Wisconsin mayoral race, to make it a symbol of how Democrats can win back the heartland. The first scene finds the stuffy D.C. guy in a blue collar bar where hes uncomfortable. Things go wrong when left meets right.

A scene like that might work with deft writing and Philip Seymour Hoffman at the bar. Not this time.

And it gets worse, fast. The low point is when the campaign computers discover one neighborhood is overwhelmingly female. They pour in pro-choice advertising until they learn those women are  nuns.

Who thought that would be funny? People on every side of that discussion will cringe. The repartee between Gary and his Republican counterpart Faith includes bizarre miscalculated sexual innuendos that belong in a different movie  Hangover, perhaps, or Bridesmaids.

Just when I thought it couldnt get worse, the final act arrives. The writers decide to go for a Sixth Sense shocker of an ending. Ill give them credit: I didnt see this train wreck coming.

The conclusion effectively undercuts the entire story weve just watched. See the movie to see how. No, dont.
"We have seen a wide variety of plans, and we are concerned about some of the plans that have come through," Neimann said. "Events with groups larger than 50 people should be canceled."

The press conference was prompted by a cluster of COVID-19 infections in Augusta stemming from a wedding, according to Lewis and Clark Public Health Communicable Disease Division Administrator Eric Merchant.

"All along I've said I hope we get to the point where (not following guidelines) becomes uncool," Merchant said.

The state added another 50 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday morning, bringing the total number of Montanans sickened by the virus to more than a thousand.

There are 336 active cases in 37 counties around Montana and 14 people are currently hospitalized, according to data reported by the state.

Lewis and Clark County reported two new cases Wednesday morning.

Despite the state reaching its highest rate of infection since the pandemic began, Merchant said he does not feel as though the county needs to take a step backward in its phased reopening, largely because health officers have learned that social distancing and face masks are effective in reducing the spread of the deadly virus.
The First Years Initiative has served 651 clients with home visiting since 2018. The service is voluntary and connects case workers and health professionals with pregnant women and new parents with at-home services that can lead to better pregnancy and child health outcomes.

In this year's report, among the deaths of children known to CPS, 10 of the children who died were under the age of 1. Four were between the ages of 1-5. One child was between 6-10 and the other two were between 11-18 years old. Thirteen were male and four were female.

To begin to address drowning deaths, the state health department is partnering with Fish, Wildlife & Parks on a "Kids Don't Float" campaign.

Some drowning deaths were outdoors, and there was also an indoor death in a bathtub where a child was left unattended.

Through the partnership, the health department is sponsoring 336 loaner life jackets to be placed at parks around the state near water.
As the Montana Stockgrowers Association leadership came out of our June board of directors meeting, I was reminded of how critical it is to have a state organization working on the behalf of Montanas cattle ranchers.

These past few months have been unprecedented and have affected our industry in ways we could not have predicted. As producers continue to do the important work of keeping our family ranches profitable and food on the table of American consumers, Montana producers can rest assured MSGA is advocating for the cattle industry in Helena and on the national level.

Id like to highlight some of the issues MSGA is working on, on behalf of the Montana cattle industry. Some of which you might already know about, and some you might not be aware of:

Cattle market disruption: MSGA is evaluating proposed national legislation on the 50/14 Proposal and is also requesting member input by contacting the MSGA office. MSGA has policy supporting transparency in the market, and this topic will surely be a major issue of discussion at MSGAs MidYear Meeting in August and the Annual Convention & Trade Show in November.
DECATUR  Museums and galleries are now open to the public and the Decatur Area Arts Council has been preparing with an exhibit looking back at memories of Decatur.

The exhibit, titled Decatur: Memories of Our Hometown, will run until July 24 in the Anne Lloyd Gallery at the Madden Arts Center, according to Jami Fawley, gallery coordinator for Decatur Area Arts Council.

We arent going back to the founding days, she said. We just went through a nostalgic walk down memory lane.

The memorabilia reaches back more than 60 years. Pieces include clothing, ashtrays, matchbooks, Hi-Flier kites and printing plates, letterman jackets and other school items, 3D scale models, and Commodore Stephen Decatur items. According to Fawley, the show is a collaborative effort with items donated by community members, including Dels Popcorn Shop on Merchant, artists, personal collections, and museums such as Coca-Cola, Staley and Hieronymus Mueller.

We wanted to keep it with the age of things that people would actually recall, Fawley said.

Although the exhibit will feature artifacts, the gallery is designed to show artwork. Fawley invited local artists to contribute their Decatur art.

I wanted to make sure that they kind of told the story of Decatur, Fawley said. We used the artifacts and souvenirs to fill in the details of the stories.

The gallery has been open for a couple of weeks, but with different hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Visitors are required to wear masks and respect social distancing. The exhibit is free.

We do appreciate donations though, Fawley said. Like a lot of small businesses, were not bringing in a lot of money. Even a dollar a person would be helpful to the arts council.

In the past, the gallery would have had their International Art Show in July. This time of year, the Madden Arts Center would be filled with art from around the world. A reception highlighting the exhibit would have food, music and discussions, but we didnt want to compromise the show, Fawley said.

Visitors are not allowed to touch any of the displays. So we dont have to worry about that (spreading germs), Fawley said. But, trust me, theres some things in there they will want to touch, because there are some really cool things in this show.

The Memories of our Hometown exhibit took about a month to come together. Fawley credits the community for creating a successful display. Everybody has been so supportive of us, she said.

The exhibit will be located in the Anne Lloyd Gallery, although Fawley expects future displays will grow to other areas of the Madden Arts Center. There is a lot we could do this show every year and never repeat anything, she said.

July art exhibits

ANNE LLOYD GALLERY. The Decatur Area Arts Council will feature the exhibit titled Decatur: Memories of our Hometown until July 24.

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BLUE CONNECTION. The Millikin University's student-run art gallery will be closed until further notice.

CENTRAL ILLINOIS TITLE COMPANY. Annette Russos mixed media artwork will be featured at the business throughout July, August and September.

DECATUR AIRPORT GALLERY. Marilyn Shulls acrylic pours will be on display again at the Airport Gallery throughout July and August.

FLOURISHES GALLERY AND STUDIOS. No exhibits are planned for the downtown Shelbyville gallery; however, artwork by other artists has been displayed in the downstairs window. The artwork of owner Carol Kessler will be on display when the gallery opens. Check out the gallerys website for exhibits and further information. For an appointment, call (217) 827-5690.

GALLERY 510. The downtown gallery will feature the works of two artists, Juan Cervantes and Robert Lumpp. The gallery will not offer a First Friday Gallery Walk this month. Gallery hours are temporarily limited to Tuesday through Friday noon to 4 p.m. and closed on Saturday.

GIERTZ GALLERY. Parkland College Gallery has canceled exhibits for the remainder of the school year. For more information, visit www.artgallery.parkland.edu.

HISTORY ROOM. While the Decatur Public Library history room is closed, digital collections can be seen at www.decaturlibrary.org/local-history-digital-display.

KRANNERT ART MUSEUM. The University of Illinois art museum will be closed to the public.

PERKINSON ART GALLERY. The gallery located in the Kirkland Fine Arts Center will be closed to the public until further notice.

ROCK SPRINGS NATURE CENTER. Rock Springs Nature Center's north wing art gallery will display the watercolor paintings of Sue Watts.

Wildlife photography by Robert Reed will be featured in the south gallery of the nature center. Both exhibits will be on display in July and August.

TARBLE ARTS CENTER. The Eastern Illinois University gallery will be closed until further notice. However, online galleries can be viewed of the 2020 Undergraduate All Student Show and the 2020 Graduate Art Exhibition. For further information, call (217) 581-2787 or email tarble@eiu.edu.

UNIVERSITY GALLERIES. The Illinois State University art gallery will be closed until July 31.

UPSTAIRS GALLERY. Jessica Disbrows watercolors will be featured at the Decatur Public Librarys second floor gallery through July and August.

WILDFLOUR ARTISAN BAKERY AND CAFE. Dan Modzelewskis colored pencil artwork will be the featured artist through July and August.

29 celebrities with Decatur ties

Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR

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MATTOON  In-person and online classes and programs will take place at Lake Land College with its program designed to help the college reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.

The "blend of formats" was part of Lake Land's announcement of its reopening plan, which also includes a requirement of wearing face masks at all college facilities.

To prepare for the fall semester, Lake Land's main campus and its extension centers will reopen to current and prospective students on Aug. 10, a news release about the plan said.

There will be access to services and the chance to meet with faculty and staff while following social distancing requirements, the release said. It also said some computer labs will be open for students to access required course materials.

Lake Land's class schedule will soon be updated to reflect the new and differing learning formats, according to the release. It said new students can begin the process online at lakelandcollege.edu/enroll.

Also, all students, college employees and visitors will be required to complete an online self-assessment each day before visiting the college. The release said the self-assessment can be found on the college's COVID-19 website, lakelandcollege.edu/covid-19faq.

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Before returning to work, all college employees will go through online training on safety precautions and procedures that "will be followed throughout the college community," the release said.

It said college staff are preparing to accommodate social distancing and other safety precautions. Current online services will still be available, the release said.

In the release, Lake Land President Josh Bullock said the college is following requirements from the Illinois Community College Board, the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the state of Illinois.

The reopening plan was developed based on those requirements and input from college officials to "meet the educational needs of our students and protect the health and safety" of the college community, Bullock said.

10 ways Illinois schools could look different this fall
DECATUR  When people look back at the coronavirus in Macon County, Fair Havens Senior Living will likely be at the forefront of any discussion.

For nearly three months, it was ground zero.

Of the 22 county residents who have died of complications related to the virus, 20 were Fair Havens residents. Of the 232 county residents who have tested positive, 59 were Fair Havens residents. Facility officials note 31 staff members also tested positive, but some of those may not live in Macon County and would not be included in the countys total.

What often goes overlooked, according to those associated with the facility at 1790 S. Fairview Ave. in Decatur, are the 39 residents who tested positive and survived.

This distinction has earned them a special nickname. They are affectionately known among the staff as the COVID Warriors.

Irene Crotser, 97, said she didnt know she had the coronavirus until she tested positive. She suffered from headaches and was short of breath.

But I didnt feel real sick, she said. I dont think I had it too bad.

The staff began talking to her about the disease. Thats when she realized she had been diagnosed.

I was surprised, she said. I thought it would be worse than it was.

Crotser is grateful she didnt suffer through the illness like other residents did.

Some of them have had it pretty bad, she said.

Terry Lidy, 77, found out he tested positive for coronavirus while in the hospital three weeks ago for a heart condition.

Ive had heart and kidney problems for the last eight years, he said, so the threat of coronavirus was just another ailment, along with a diagnosed case of skin cancer while in the hospital, to add to the list.

Im trying to be a tough old bird, he said. Im hanging in there.

Lidy credits the Fair Havens staff for helping him through all of the health problems he has faced, and the quarantine that came with the coronavirus finding.

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A lot of these people here did a good job getting it controlled and helping me out, he said. Its a big battle.

But it wasnt just those residents who tested positive feeling isolated. In an effort to keep the residents safe, visitors were not allowed in the facility beginning in early March.

To keep the residents upbeat, the facility provides activities, such as spiritual packets, adult coloring pages, and arranges for correspondence with family through Skype and FaceTime.

Were doing everything we can to keep them connected with the outside world, Jennifer Griswold, activities director for Fair Havens, said. It can be rough.

Griswold said one of the first activities undertaken by residents who were quarantined because of the coronavirus is a trip to the outdoor courtyard for a healthy dose of sunshine.

And smell some of that good Decatur air, Lidy said.

While the number of new coronavirus cases in Macon County have started to slow down, Fair Havens isnt easing up on the prevention efforts.

Fair Havens continues to be vigilant, following the guidance from the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), as well as the state and local health department's best practices and protocols to protect everyone's health, said Courtney Malengo, Fair Havens public relations representative.

Pat Eubanks, who was released from quarantine on May 23, is taking the whole coronavirus situation in stride.

At age 92, Eubanks said she has lived through her fair share of quarantines  measles, mumps, scarlet fever, chicken pox and polio.

Eubanks remembers the concern her family had when it came to polio.

If you had a child and it had a leg ache, you were so frightened, Eubanks said, recalling the concern her family had when it came to polio.

Except for polio, Eubanks said she had them all. So the coronavirus was not a concern, she said.

It didnt scare me, she said. I had other things come up in my lifetime.

Eubanks said she did not remember suffering through the symptoms associated with the coronavirus. In fact, I dont think I really knew I had it until I was over with it, she said.

Through all of her childhood health scares, Eubanks said the spread of the diseases slowed down because they stayed away from others. Quarantines were part of their lives.

It was the thing to do, she said. I cant understand people arguing about it. It is the only thing to do.

How we're doing: Decatur-area residents share pandemic stories

Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR

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Forty horses are crowded around Lenora Calzavara, their breath hot and their tails swishing.

These arent riding horses, waiting for someone to take them out for a trot. These are rodeo horses, bred for their ability to buck riders off in less than eight seconds.

A horse named Mafia Witch is the queen bee in the bunch, with her witchy-white mane blowing in the wind. She was the 2016 world champion bareback horse.

Theres her son, a blonde called Capone; another bareback bronc, the copper-colored mare named Angel Heart, and Shaken Not Stirred, a light brown saddle bronc who bucks his riders out of the saddle.

Summer is usually the busiest time of year for the horses, who travel from rodeo to rodeo, throwing off riders and entertaining crowds.

But for months, the horses havent done much besides graze on Calzavaras pasture in Harvard, Illinois.

They are all bored to death because this is the first time ever that we wont have a rodeo, said Calzavara, owner of Big Hat Rodeo.

None of the 10 rodeos Calzavera had scheduled for this summer will go on, joining other Illinois rodeos called off because of the coronavirus pandemic. The events, often part of county fairs or groups annual fundraising, can draw thousands of spectators. Without them, the grandstands are dark and the financial gut-punch reaches far into communities.

Without the rodeo, there are no entry fees or concession sales, the latter of which usually benefit a local group willing to take on hot dog duty. There is no prize money for competitors who come from around the country to try their luck on the back of a bull. And there is no work for the people who work a rodeo.

This year marks the first Fourth of July weekend that rodeo clown Dusty Myers wont be at a rodeo in 25 years.

July is known as cowboy Christmas, because you can go to a rodeo every day in July and sometimes you can hit multiple rodeos (in a day), he said. Thats where it affects us the most, because cowboy Christmas is not cowboy Christmas anymore.

Typically, the 38-year-old packs up his trailer and leaves his Mississippi home for between 115 and 130 performances a year.

He pops out of barrels, rides a bull he brings from Mississippi and performs other slapstick comedy. Hes there to distract the audience while the rodeo crew switches from one event to the next.

If Myers had fulfilled his contracts, 2020 would have been his most profitable year yet, with about $116,000 in income, he said. Instead, hes performed at just two rodeos since March.

Myers started bull riding when he was 13. His dad rode bulls, horses and was a rodeo clown, too. It has always been a part of his life.

I never thought rodeo would ever quit, he said.

In a typical year -- which this isnt -- 5 million people attend about 400 rodeos approved by The International Professional Rodeo Association, said Dale Yerigan, general manager of the Oklahoma City-based association. Half of those events have been called off, and Yerigan expects the cancelations to keep mounting.

Last year, the association approved 28 rodeos in Illinois, including Big Hat Rodeos shows. Only six rodeos are scheduled to go ahead as planned this year.

Most of the rodeos have said they truly intend to come back next year, Yerigan said. But I worry that some of them may not survive it either, with a year of not being able to raise any funds.

Big Hat Rodeo has lost $100,000 in income this year, Calzavara said. Shes lucky -- she has other income coming in, and can keep the company afloat, at least through this year.

But the costs to maintain her operation are mounting. She moved into a new farm earlier this year and needs to put in a new $75,000 fence. Also, the horses eat more when theyre not working.

Last year, Calzavaras hay and grain bills added up to $58,000. Grain prices have increased because of the pandemic, and the horses are eating roughly 300 pounds of grain and 1,200 pounds of hay a day, she said. They graze on the grass in the pasture, too.

Theyll eat down to the dirt, goofballs, said Calzavara, as she walked through her pasture on a recent morning.

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She does not plan to sell her horses, though she is pausing her breeding program this year. Its no time to add more mouths to feed.

This is not the way 2020 was supposed to go for Big Hat Rodeo.

The 10 rodeos it had planned were a centennial celebration, marking the 100 years that Calzavaras family has been in the business.

Calzavaras paternal grandparents immigrated to the Chicago area from Italy, and when her uncle started attending grade school in the U.S., he couldnt speak, read or write in English. The teacher sent dime-store Western books home with him, to help him learn the language.

He fell in love with the West, as did his father and they started a rodeo.

The Italian cowboy who grew up in a suburb of Chicago is kind of weird, but thats my family, Calzavara said.

Her basement is filled with black-and-white photos of past rodeo performances. Theres a 30-something Calzavara, thick, dark hair waving behind as she swings her bell-bottomed leg high above her horse, mid-stunt. Another photo shows her father, Rudy Calzavara, holding the rein of his horse with one hand and stiff-arming a bucking bronco with the other.

Her mother, Gene Calzavara, grew up in a rodeo family too. Theres a photo of Gene squeezed between her nine rodeo-loving siblings and posed atop a Clydesdale.

Maintaining a century-old legacy is a lot of pressure in a normal year, Calzavara said. This year, the weight is heavier.

(Its) not only keeping it together, but trying to make it still grow, she said. If it doesnt grow, its going to die.

Two hours from Chicago, the Ogle County Fairgrounds was supposed to host Big Hat Rodeo on July 31.

(Its) a big draw, said Carol Magnuson, secretary of Ogle County Fair Board, as she stood among the flowering clover in the grandstand field. Its a big thing out here.

But the fair was canceled this year, and with it, the rodeo. No fair queens will be crowned, no rib-eye burgers served. The 20,000 people that usually make their way through the entry gates of the small county fair will instead stay home.

More than 70 Illinois county fairs have canceled or postponed this year, knowing that it would be nearly impossible to maintain social distancing standards in line for a Ferris wheel, in crowded bleachers or in a livestock barn.

That will be a loss to the states economy, and the towns that host county fairs.

Roughly $170 million in spending was tied to 104 Illinois county fairs during the summer of 2014, the most recent numbers available, according to a University of Illinois Extension study. About $91 million of that was spent inside the fair, on food, entry fees and more. The rest was spent on hotels, food outside the fair, transportation, and lodging, among other things.

The study also found that without county fairs, Illinois would see a loss of about 1,000 local jobs a year.

Fair attendees often go on rides, see livestock and stroll the midway. But its the grandstand shows -- the rodeos, demolition derbies and tractor pulls -- that can be the biggest draw for fairs, the study found.

People will travel for a good grandstand show, said Jon Brodzik Jr., general manager of the Lake County Fairgrounds, which charges a $10 entry fee.

Big Hat Rodeo was set for two Saturday performances at Lake County Fair, which was scheduled to take place July 29-Aug. 2. Typically, both shows easily fill the 5,000-person bleachers, Brodzik said.

People come from around Chicago and down from Wisconsin to watch. About 120 cowboys and cowgirls from around the country compete.

Calzavara said she has worried about the fairs, along with the people she works with to put on rodeo. She wonders if theyll have to find something else to do for a living, and what will happen if events cant come back next year.

We get so much news on how huge it (the pandemic) is worldwide and country-wide, that we forget how big a difference it is for one business, one family, one person, one company, or a fair, she said. I could never have even had a nightmare like this.

10 ways Illinois schools could look different this fall

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As we mark the nations independence with our Fourth of July celebrations, were tempted to look back on our history and imagine what those who built the country might think of us today.

Maybe its best that we dont. As weve seen while statues tumble, buildings names change and outrage rules the day, we cant come to a consensus on how we feel about our history. We seem to have even lost our ability to see anything outside our own experience.

Regardless of our specific feelings about specific periods of our history, we can recognize that work, dedication and sacrifice have all played a key role throughout the United States 244 years.

That may be the place where were incapable of measuring up.

We havent done very well recently. In fact, we can probably say we have been weighed and measured and we have been found wanting.

Were battling an invisible foe, a microscopic enemy thats found a foothold and is making our lives miserable. We have almost six months worth of evidence showing us what appears to have worked and what measures have been mediocre ideas. Yet because too many of us think we know better than whatever advice is being disseminated, the United States stands on the precipice of what would be a second shutdown.

The ridiculous comments last week from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul almost perfectly sum up our present COVID-19 status. We shouldn't presume, he said, that a group of experts somehow knows what's best for everyone." His suggestion on battling the coronavirus? Optimism.

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On top of that, our countrys centuries-long racial divide has again increased from permanent smoldering to loud and sometimes violent fiery protests.

At least maybe our evenings will be quieter as our neighbors reduce their fireworks shows in the aftermath of the Fourth.

If youre under the age of 70, youre living through the biggest challenges the United States has faced in your lifetime. When we compare ourselves and our lives to sacrifices made by our ancestors, were fallen well short of where wed like to think we are.

Maybe we could use an inspirational speech, if we could avoid our tendency to automatically dismiss everything said by someone who says one thing with which we disagree.

Thats a pessimistic if realistic evaluation of the state of our union in July 2020.

But as John Belushi said when rousing his friends in the film Animal House, it wasnt over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

We know how good we can be. We know how to build a better world. The moment were willing to give up something so the person next to us can suffer a little less is the moment we are all at our most human. If we look deep inside ourselves, we know none of us have to do it all. We just need to do our part. Were capable of that. And if we do our best and do our parts, we should be willing to live with the outcome, because we had no other options.

If we attempt to adhere to the values we assign our past citizens, we can build the society we think we are destined to have.

As we mark our independence from what our forefathers viewed as tyranny, wouldnt it be nice to throw off our own tyranny?

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Fourteen people were arrested as part of a methamphetamine trafficking ring and 11 are from Catawba County. Those arrested face federal drug conspiracy and other related charges, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

From 2018 through April 2019, the 14 defendants were involved in a drug conspiracy that trafficked and distributed methamphetamine in Catawba, Lincoln, Caldwell and Alexander counties and elsewhere in Western North Carolina, according to the press release.

The defendants from Catawba County are Ruth Marie Duggar, 36, of Claremont; Kimberly Deann Bumgarner, 55, of Claremont; Cynthia Roxanne Shook, 34, of Catawba; Lowell Thomas Messer, 32, of Sherrills Ford; Samantha Jean Taylor,26, of Newton; Jason Keith Reichard, 38, of Newton; Aaron Douglas Goodson, 29, of Maiden; Priscilla Chapman Lambert, 33, of Hickory; James Kristoffer Cantley, 38, a Catawba County resident who is incarcerated in Georgia; Brian Duane Martz,,40, a Catawba County resident who is incarcerated in Georgia; and Michael James Notheisen, 34, a Catawba County resident who is incarcerated in the North Carolina Department of Corrections.
Nowadays, there are just four women of color in the Senate, all of them Democrats. Two  Californias Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian descent, and Duckworth of Illinois, who is Thai American  are in contention for the vice presidential slot.

And in the nations governors mansions, another traditional launchpad for vice presidential picks, women of color are even more scarce. While two Republican women of color have been elected to governorships in the past, there is just one nonwhite woman serving as governor today: Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, a Latina who is also on Bidens list. There has never been a Black woman governor.

Compared to past decades, the talent pool of women of color in politics has undeniably grown, and many advocates for their representation were heartened by the rising generations elected to Congress and state legislatures in 2018, as a flood of new female candidates ran for office.

Political experts point to a second phenomenon afoot at this moment: a redefinition of what qualifies a candidate to be considered in the first place.

The notion of prerequisite experience was fundamentally changed four years ago when Donald Trump, a businessman and reality TV star with no background in government, won the White House.
June 21, 1947 - June 29, 2020 Dr. William Cecil Thompson III, 73, of Hickory, passed away Monday, June 29, 2020 at Carolina Caring, Hospice. Born June 21, 1947 in Beckley, W. Va., he was the son of the late William "Buster" Thompson and Mary Ann Waulk Thompson. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his brother, Michael Thompson. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Will earned his MD degree from the West Virginia University School of Medicine, completed his residency in family practice at the University of Florida's St. Vincent's Medical Center, and began seeing patients at Hickory Family Practice Associates, where he served from 1981 to 2007. He became the Medical Director for Catawba Regional Hospice, now Carolina Caring, until his retirement in 2016. Board certified in family medicine, hospice and palliative medicine, Dr. T., also holds a certificate in geriatric medicine and was an active staff member at Frye Regional Medical Center and Catawba Valley Medical Center. His professional memberships include the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, American Academy of Family Physicians, NC Academy of Family Physicians, and NC Medical Society. Will raised the profile of hospice care during his tenure and promoted its benefits to both the Catawba Valley community and industry professionals in general. He served as attending physician for over 5,000 hospice patients while at Catawba Regional Hospice. While Dr. T. exhibited the quiet demeanor and bedside manner of a country doctor, his earned expertise and practical knowledge were always palpable, as he demonstrated through a firm grasp of disease progression, symptom control, and pain management. He also promoted quality of life and touted the dignity of the patient over the illness. He has served as a tireless advocate of end-of-life care and a much-loved practitioner of the hospice philosophy. Alongside Will's service in medicine, he was an avid fly fisherman who spent many of his days in the streams of North Carolina and Montana. He was a gifted carpenter, licensed contractor and true artist. His woodworking creations have been shared with Habitat for Humanity, Safe Harbor, Corinth Church and throughout many homes of close friends and family. As an active member of Corinth Reformed Church, he served as a spiritual leader, Sunday school teacher, attended bible studies and small groups where he shared his faith and strengthened his love for God. The heart of Will Thompson was his wife, children and grandchildren. His hope was that they all know God's amazing love and His promise of eternal life. A life well lived and always referred to as Tom, Will, Dad, Dr. T., Doc and G-Will. He will be missed, loved and remembered by his family and so many others. He is survived by his wife of 42 years, Cori Jordan Thompson of the home; children, Tom Thompson of Huntington Beach, Calif., Katie Thompson Elder and husband, Josh, of Hickory, Kelley Thompson of Asheville, Paul Thompson and wife, Austyn, of Gastonia; grandchildren, Kelli and Cody Thompson, Allie, Evan, and Emmy Elder, Rayne Thompson; sisters, Lainey Garcia and husband, Rob, of Austin, Texas, Debbie Welch and husband, Randy, of Denver, Colo., Mary Beth Menchaca and husband, Robert, of Houston, Texas; and father-in-law, Ray Jordan of Hickory. A private service to celebrate Dr. Thompson's life will be held at 4 p.m., Thursday, July 2, at Corinth Reformed Church with the Rev. Dr. Bob Thompson officiating and may be live streamed at www.corinthtoday.org/live. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in his honor to Carolina Caring, Hospice, 3975 Robinson Rd., Newton, NC 28658. www.bass-smithfuneralhome.com
" " Pilot Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan hold a map of the Pacific that shows the planned route of what became their final flight. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Ever since the twin-engine Lockheed Electra flown by trailblazing aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan vanished on July 2, 1937, the question of what happened on the Pacific Ocean flight has been one of history's most compelling mysteries.

Now, around the 80th anniversary of Earhart's legendary disappearance as the duo flew from New Guinea to Howland Island, two separate high-profile probes each say they've found new evidence. But there's a catch. The investigators have two different explanations  and both can't be right.

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An Island Fate?

In late June, an expedition sponsored by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) and the National Geographic Society traveled to Nikumaroro, formerly known as Gardner Island. This uninhabited coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean lies about 360 nautical miles (667 kilometers) from Howland, Earhart and Noonan's intended destination.

" " This 2001 satellite image shows the Pacific atoll Nikumaroro, the most southerly and westerly of the Rawaki Islands, Kiribati. TIGHAR investigators believe it is where Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan crashed in 1937, and recently took trained dogs to help search for evidence on their latest expedition there. GEOEYE/Getty Images

The TIGHAR researchers think that Earhart and Noonan veered off course and were forced to land on Nikumaroro, where they possibly survived for a while as castaways but eventually perished.

Rising tides and surf eventually swept their airplane off the reef edge into the ocean off Nikumaroro's western side, where pieces of the wreckage may remain in deep water.

According to TIGHAR's website, a British official who visited the reef in 1940 reported finding a partial human skeleton  which subsequently was lost  and remnants of a campfire there, but never notified U.S. authorities. In recent years TIGHAR has mounted numerous expeditions to Nikumaroro and recovered artifacts that investigators see as evidence of Earhart's presence on the island. The latter items include a piece of aluminum that they say may have been a patch visible on the Electra in a June 1937 photo, and glass shards from what possibly may have been a jar of freckle ointment used by the fair-skinned aviator.

The latest TIGHAR-National Geographic expedition brought along four forensic dogs specially trained to detect human remains. After four days of searching, the team wasn't able to find any bones. But in one spot on the island, the dogs, all border collies, detected the lingering scent of chemicals left behind by human decomposition, according to TIGHAR executive director Richard Gillespie.

" " A jar discovered on Nikumaroro Island in 2006, left, is pictured next to a 1930s container for Dr. C. H Berrys Freckle Ointment. Explorers think the pot of anti-freckle cream, found in five pieces and reassembled, belonged to long-lost female aviator Amelia Earhart and came from her makeup collection. TIGHAR/Barcroft Media/Getty Images

"The bones either were taken away, or have been chewed by rats, but there are no more bones there to find. The dogs did confirm that we've got the right spot," says Gillespie.

According to a National Geographic article on the expedition, the researchers also filled five Ziploc bags with soil from the spot, which will be sent to a lab in Germany in the long-shot hope that the soil might hold DNA samples that could be linked to Earhart.

"We are quite sure the plane was washed off the reef by rising tides and surf, and broke up in the surf," says Gillespie. "So that all that's left are pieces that are on the reef slope, probably now embedded in the reef, maybe completely covered by coral. Hard to find, but they should be there."

Gillespie says future TIGHAR expeditions will search for those pieces.

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Taken to Japan?

Meanwhile, a separate investigation has unearthed a vintage naval intelligence photograph from the National Archives, which depicts figures that other probers believe could be Earhart and Noonan on a dock in Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands. In the photo, a Japanese ship can be seen towing a barge, with a large object on it that could be Earhart's and Noonan's plane. Les Kinney, the Earhart researcher who originally found the photo, told NBC News that he believes the photo is evidence that the aviators were captured by the Japanese.

" " Amelia Earhart posing in 1928 in Newfoundland, Canada. Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Shawn Henry, a former FBI executive director also participated in the probe, which was the basis of a History Channel documentary, "Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence," that aired Sunday, July 9, 2017. Henry told NBC News: "When you pull out, and when you see the analysis that's been done, I think it leaves no doubt to the viewers that that's Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan."

The idea that Earhart and Noonan fell into Japanese hands dates back at least to the 1960s. According to a recent Japan Times article, numerous locals on Saipan, an island that was part of the Japanese empire's line of defenses, claimed to have seen the two fliers. And the daughter of a former police chief on the island says she once overheard him saying that Earhart had been shot by the Japanese military.

UPDATE: A Japanese military history blogger claims to have uncovered a copy of the photograph in question, published in a book in 1935, two years before Earhart and Noonan crashed. The History Channel tells NPR that it is investigating the claim.

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Theoretical Problems

The Earhart-was-captured scenario obviously conflicts with the version of events favored by TIGHAR, in which Earhart became a castaway and perished on a remote island. Dorothy S. Cochrane, curator for general aviation at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., casts doubt upon both theories. In an email, she says that the expeditions to Nikumaroro have yet to turn up hard evidence of Earhart's or Noonan's presence there.

"The US Coast Guard overflew the island with[in] days of Earhart's disappearance and did not see anything to prompt a land search on the island," she says.

Cochrane is similarly skeptical that the newly surfaced photograph is proof of Earhart's and Noonan's capture. "The two people in question cannot be readily identified, since their faces are not clearly visible," she says. To make things more difficult, the figure that the probers claim is Earhart is sitting with her back to the camera. "Is it a man or woman, Caucasian or Asian? I find the photo inconclusive at best."

Additionally, Cochrane notes that "both the US and Japanese governments have steadfastly denied that Earhart and Noonan were captured and died at the hands of the Japanese prior to or in World War II." The accounts of island residents, she says, "have been pro and con."

Cochrane favors another explanation, one seemingly supported by radio operators' logs, that Earhart and Noonan made it to within 100 miles (161 kilometers) of their intended destination of Howland Island, before crashing in the ocean. But she says that until investigators turn up something that's "a definitive piece of that aircraft," such as an engine with a serial number or other markings, the mystery will remain very difficult to resolve.

"But that won't stop the theories, because it is an enduring mystery," she says. "And Amelia Earhart is worth remembering."

" " Amelia Earhart, pictured here circa 1935, captivated popular culture in the West well before her 1937 disappearance. FPG/Getty Images

Now That's Interesting Before her fateful flight, Earhart's Lockheed Electra was used in a 1936 Hollywood comedy, "Love on the Run." Here's a YouTube clip of a scene from the film.
Many stores and restaurants have transformed the way they do business in light of COVID-19 to protect their customers and their employees. Likewise, some dairies have implemented new strategies to keep their workers safe.

Kurt Wulf, with Riverview LLP, shared some adjustments theyve made on their operations since the pandemic began during a Charleston|Orwig webinar series titled Food, farms, and the future. Riverview LLP has dairy and beef farms in five states  Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Obviously with COVID, we had to make some changes, but the show must go on, he said. We milk cows every day, we breed cows every day, and we feed cows every day.

Wulf, who is part of the human resources team at Riverview LLP, said that taking care of their employees has always been part of their culture. Worker safety is one of our top priorities, he emphasized. We focus on the things we can control, and we can control cost of production and our safety numbers.

With 1,300 employees company-wide, strategies were quickly put into place to slow the spread of COVID-19. This included social distancing, a pause on in-person meetings and trainings, more hand sanitizer stations, wet wipes for cleaning surfaces, and temperature checks to start each workday. Wulf said they are proud to report that they have had zero cases of COVID-19 among their employees to date.

Interestingly, these precautions have done more than protect against the current health issue. Wulf said that a few years ago, they started tracking who was getting sick and when at their southwest sites simply to anticipate times when they needed more people ready to cover for sick days. They discovered that in the spring and fall, there tended to be a bump in co-workers who werent able to come in because of illness.

This spring, that normal spike in seasonal illness did not take place. Wulf said they attribute that to the precautions they had put into place initially to prevent COVID-19.

Looking forward, they will continue some of their social distancing, remain vigilant about handwashing, and maintain an emphasis on general cleanliness. While they intend to resume in-person meetings and trainings, Wulf said they will be more mindful in preventing the spread of disease from person to person from now on.

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2020

June 25, 2020
Class III milk, not Class I, could be the price leader in June milk checks.

Junes Class III price (driven by cheese price gains) is expected to jump over $7 per hundredweight (cwt.), exceeding $19 per cwt., stated Cary Hunter, interim market administrator for the California federal marketing order.

The Class I price (announced the first two weeks of May) will not reflect the price spike that will be captured in the June class and component prices (Class II, III, IV), continued Hunter. Class I, therefore, will likely end up as the lowest class price for the month.

Further impacts

Producer price differentials (PPD) are expected to be greatly affected by the spike in Class III prices. June PPDs are expected to run negative in many regions. Dairy economists expect some areas could run as much as negative $4.

I think we can guarantee that were going to have a pretty large negative PPD in essentially every milk marketing order this coming month, said Wisconsins Mark Stephenson. The reason for that is the classic reason we get negative ppds anywhere, and that is the timing issue, he said during the June 24 DairyLivestream program.

Anytime we have milk prices rapidly rising, we can get to a place where were paying out more in Class III components than we are collecting in a weighted average across all classes of milk, the experienced dairy economist explained. That gives us a negative PPD.

Should rebound

Although negative PPDs are expected in June, DairyLivestream panelist Chris Wolf encouraged producers to recognize that the PPDs can be expected to turn around the next month.

The big thing is youre going to see some negative numbers on this milk check. The federal order part means that the following month its going to go the other direction, Wolf said.

Stephenson echoed those comments. This is going to be a negative one so be prepared for it and dont get mad at it, he advised.

How did we get here?

During the June 24 DairyLivestream program, Cornell economist Andy Novakovic explained further. Keep in mind that we dont use the Class III or the higher up to set the Class I price anymore. When you have a big spread between Class IV and Class III, you can get all fascinated about Class III prices, but thats not whats driving the Class I price . . . its the average of the two, he explained. The numbers that were driving the Class I value from month to month were a little bit less exciting than what we were looking at on the Class III side.

An ongoing series of events

DairyLivestream will air twice each month. The next broadcast will be on Wednesday, July 9 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 broadcasts.

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2020

June 29, 2020
The information below has been supplied by dairy marketers and other industry organizations. It has not been edited, verified or endorsed by Hoards Dairyman.





Springfield, Ill.  Midwest Dairy is rewarding four students with $1,000 scholarships

this fall to an accredited college or university of their choice. Recipients were chosen based on their involvement in the dairy industry, leadership, career plans

,

and academic standing.

Jazmin Wingert of Kent, Illinois, is a student at the University of WisconsinPlatteville where she studies agriculture business with a minor in political science. In high school as well as college, she was involved in several clubs and organizations including her schools dairy club. Upon graduation, she plans to work in the marketing portion of the dairy industry while continuing to share her dairy story as she believes the biggest challenge facing farmers is the marketing of their products.

Brock Irwin of Belvidere, Illinois, is a student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls studying dairy science with a minor in agribusiness. Irwin has been involved in the dairy club and was a member of the dairy judging team. Last fall, he worked as the media intern for World Dairy Expo. Prior to that, he was the farm and marketing intern at Rolling Lawns Farm and worked as herd manager intern at Golden Oaks Farm. Irwin plans to work as a consultant with dairy farmers to help implement and improve genetic programs to emphasize health traits and milk component production.

Kali Michael of Centralia, Illinois, is a student studying agricultural education at the University of Illinois. She serves as president of the IlliniDairy Club and is member of numerous clubs on campus. Michael spent her childhood around cows and has become more involved over the years. After graduation, she plans to become an educator to promote the dairy industry.

Hannah Weiman of Quincy, Illinois, is a student at the University of Wisconsin - Platteville where she is majoring in dairy science. Weiman is involved in several organizations and has served on many leadership teams. She served as the 2016-2017 Western Illinois Dairy Princess and on campus, she is a part of the Pioneer Dairy Club and participates in dairy judging. Weiman plans to return to the family farm in hopes of passing it on to future generations.

Students attending an accredited college or university can apply for the Illinois division scholarship beginning in January. In order to be eligible, you or your parent/guardian must own or work on a dairy farm located in Illinois. For more information, please visit MidwestDairy.com.
Amritsar (Punjab) [India], June 30 (ANI): Days after India announced its decision to reduce the staff strength in Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi by 50 per cent, 143 Pakistan embassy officials reached Attari-Wagah Border on Tuesday to return to their own country. "As per our information, 143 people have reached Wagah Border to go to Pakistan. They are Pakistani citizens, who used to work at Pakistani Embassy in New Delhi," Arun Pal Singh, Protocol Officer, told ANI. On June 23, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned Charge d' Affaires of Pakistan Syed Haider Shah and informed that India had repeatedly expressed concern about the activities of officials of Pakistan High Commission. The decision to reduce the strength of high commission officials, which is to be implemented in seven days, was conveyed to Shah. The MEA, in a statement, said Pakistan high commission officials "have been engaged in acts of espionage and maintained dealings with terrorist organisations". Earlier this month, two of the Pakistan High Commission officials were caught spying and were sent back. (ANI)
A top astronaut has warned an asteroid could hit Earth. (Getty)

An astronaut has warned that there are 1 million asteroids that could hit Earth.

Pablo Nespoli, who works for the European Space Agency (ESA), said it was time to act to prevent one of the objects smashing into our planet.

He made the ominous warning during Asteroid Day on Tuesday.

Italian flight engineer Nespoli tweeted: Between small and big, there are more than 1 million asteroids out there that could hit the Earth.

Right now, we are mostly ignoring the probability of a massive one suddenly appearing. Its time to act: #AsteroidDay.

He also posted a short clip of one of the Earth-bound asteroids, filmed during mission 53 in 2017.

Read more: Asteroid more than a mile wide to fly past Earth

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An asteroid flew past Earth in June, according to Nasas Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

The rock, which is known as 163348 (2002 NN4), passed 3.2 million miles by Earth  which is close in cosmic terms.

Asteroid Day, held on 30 June, the anniversary of the 1908 Tunguska impact in Russia, was co-founded in 2014 by astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Dr Brian May.

The event aims to educate people about the good and bad of asteroids.

Read more: Earth just had a near-miss with a 'city killer' asteroid

There are apparently 1 million asteroids that could hit Earth. (Getty)

Organiser the Asteroid Foundation, a Luxembourg nonprofit organisation, said on its website: Asteroid Day is a dynamic awareness and educational program to inspire the world about asteroids  their role in the formation of our solar system, how we can use their resources, how asteroids can pave the way for future exploration and finally how we can protect our planet from asteroid impacts.

Events and education programmes to mark the day are independently organised around the world with the support of the UN, space agencies, schools and universities.

Read more: Strange new theory of what caused 'world's biggest impact' over Siberia 100 years ago

One of Asteroid Days main aims is to get governments to accelerate the funding of asteroid discovery programmes.

The 100X Asteroid Declaration petition to support this has been signed by leaders in science, technology and business, and more than 125 astronauts.
Islamabad, Jun 30 (PTI) An anti-corruption court in Pakistan on Tuesday issued a bailable arrest warrant against former president Asif Ali Zardari for failing to appear before it in a 2008 luxury vehicles case.

Former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Yousuf Raza Gilani are also accused in the case.

Representing Zardari, advocate Farooq Naek told the court that his client was of advanced age and appearance in the court could expose him to the novel coronavirus. Naek pleaded for his exemption but the court refused.

The court also rejected the plea that Zardari, 64, would appear once the COVID-19 situation improved.

Issuing the bailable arrest warrant of Zardari, Accountability Court judge Asghar Ali adjourned the hearing till August 17.

Former prime minister Sharif who is in London on medical parole was also absent for the hearing. His arrest warrant was issued in an earlier hearing.

The court has ordered that the process to declare him as a proclaimed offender should be initiated.

Former premier Gilani was also absent but was exempted by the court from personal appearance as he is suffering from the coronavirus.

According to the charges, Zardari and Sharif received luxury vehicles from the Toshakhana (state treasure house) by paying 15 per cent of the price of the cars.

Gilani was the then prime minister and had allegedly relaxed rules on sale of items from Toshakhana to facilitate the transactions.

Gifts from foreign leaders and governments are deposited in the Toshakhana. PTI SH IND AKJ IND
Kolkata, Jul 1 (PTI) Export of Indian goods to Bangladesh through the Petrapole border in West Bengal was disrupted on Wednesday due to agitation by a section of exporters of the neighbouring country, an official of Federation of Indian Exporter Organisations (FIEO) said.

India has allowed export of goods from Petrapole, the largest land border port with Bangladesh on June 7 but has not allowed import of goods from Bangladesh.

'Bangladesh has stopped import since this morning on ground that their exports are not accepted by India even though have taken our export cargo. There is a stalemate at the border', FIEO chairman (east) Sushil Patwari said The Bangladeshi exporters are annoyed as India has not allowed import of goods from Bangladesh through Petrapole, an official of Benapole Clearing and Forwarding (C&F) Agents Staff association said.

'The Bangladeshi exporters are annoyed with the stand of India at Petrapole. Despite imports by Bangladesh have been allowed since June 7, India has not yet permitted Bangladeshi goods to enter India in the wake of coronavirus. They are agitating and stopped imports at the border,' Benapole C&F Agents Staff Association secretary Sajidur Rehman told PTI over phone.

'Those who import from India also do exports. They said export cargo is lying at the Benapole border causing huge losses. Some 500-700 trucks with several export cargo like jute, chemicals, saree and thread among others are waiting to offload cargo in India,' he said. PTI BSM RG RG
China has said it will take countermeasures against the UK should it grant residency to Hongkongers fleeing a harsh new national security law, promising that the UK would bear all consequences.

On Thursday, senior Chinese officials said the UK had no right to give residency to Hongkongers in response to Beijing forcing a sweeping anti-sedition law on the territory.

China strongly condemns this and reserves the right to take further measures. The British side will bear all the consequences, the foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

Zhaos comments came after the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said he would honour a promise to offer nearly 3 million residents of the former British colony, those with British national overseas status (BNO), the right to settle in the UK.

Earlier on Thursday, Chinas ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, also said any move to grant residency to BNO holders would be a violation of agreements between the two countries.

It was clear that all Chinese compatriots residing in Hong Kong are Chinese nationals, whether or not they are holders of the British dependent territories citizens passport or the British national (overseas) passport, he said.

If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law.

We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures, he said in a statement posted on the embassys website on Thursday. The UK has no sovereignty, jurisdiction or right of supervision over Hong Kong.

Since the Hong Kong law went into effect late on Tuesday, at least 10 people have been arrested on national security related charges, including a 15-year old girl who waved a Hong Kong independence flag. On Wednesday, a total of almost 400 people were detained on other charges such as unlawful assembly, as thousands protested against the law.

Story continues

Human rights advocates and residents, fearing the security legislation will be used to arrest protesters and pro-democracy activists, have called on countries to allow Hongkongers to seek refuge in their countries.

On Thursday, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, said his country was working on a scheme to provide a safe haven to Hong Kong residents after Chinas very concerning decision. Morrison said Australia was prepared to step up and provide support, although his cabinet was yet to finalise the details, including whether the scheme would include a pathway to permanent settlement.

The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has admitted there is little Britain can do to coercively force China if it tries to block Hongkongers from coming to the UK.

He told ITVs Peston programme on Wednesday: Ultimately if they follow through on something like that there would be little that we could do to coercively force them.

Raab continued: There is an issue around freedom and human rights in Hong Kong, and there is an issue around China keeping its word on an international obligation it made to the United Kingdom back in 1984.

I wouldnt want to be naive about this; I think we need to be realistic. But I do think that China as a rising, leading member of the international community is sensitive to the reputational risk in all of this, but clearly not sufficiently that it hasnt proceeded anyway ... There is diplomatic leverage, there are other ways that we can persuade China not to fully implement either the national security law or some of the reprisals you talk about.

But ultimately we need to be honest that we wouldnt be able to force China to allow BNOs to come to the UK.

Raab said he was working with other countries in the region to discuss a lifeboat operation. He said: We think the majority will probably hunker down in Hong Kong, and others would leave to other countries in the region.

The UK government believes the new security legislation passed by Beijing breaches the Sino-British joint declaration, which aimed to smooth the transition when the territory was handed back to China in 1997.

Johnson has said he will honour a promise to change immigration rules to allow holders of BNO passports, as well as those eligible for the passport, to reside in the UK and ultimately apply for citizenship.

As of February, there were nearly 350,000 BNO passport holders, while the government estimated there were around 2.9 million BNOs living in Hong Kong.

China has argued that a memorandum attached to the Sino-British joint declaration does not grant right of abode to those eligible for BNO status, but legal experts say the UK is not barred from extending their rights.

Related: Hong Kong protests over new security law  in pictures

Downing Street said those with BNO status would be eligible to travel to the UK immediately before the details of the scheme were finalised in the coming weeks and that they would not face salary thresholds.

The security law in Hong Kong, enacted late after an opaque legislative process that took less than six weeks, criminalises a broad swathe of behaviours deemed as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

Critics say the law gives authorities sweeping new powers to crack down on dissent and a new level of Chinese control over the semi-autonomous territory.

Liu was summoned to the Foreign Office on Wednesday, where the permanent secretary, Sir Simon McDonald, told him the imposition of the new legislation on Hong Kong breached the Sino-British joint declaration.

Following his visit, Liu tweeted: After turbulent months in the latter half of last year, the national security law will bring the orderstability to Hong Kong and get its economy back on track.

China views its actions as one of the last steps towards decolonisation, but an early test of its willingness to preserve the countrys freedoms will come in the autumn elections for the legislature.
New Delhi, Jul 1 (PTI) India and Pakistan on Wednesday exchanged lists of civilian prisoners and fishermen in their respective custodies as per the provisions of a 2008 agreement.

India handed over lists of 265 Pakistani civilian prisoners and 97 fishermen in its custody to Pakistan, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

Similarly, Pakistan has shared lists of 54 civilian prisoners and 270 fishermen in its custody, who are Indians or believed-to-be Indians, the MEA said.

The Indian government has called for early release and repatriation of civilian prisoners, missing Indian defence personnel and fishermen, along with their boats, from Pakistan's custody, it said.

In this context, Pakistan was asked to expedite the release and repatriation of seven Indian civilian prisoners and 106 Indian fishermen to India whose nationality has been confirmed and conveyed to Pakistan, the MEA said.

Pakistan has also been asked to provide immediate consular access to Indian fishermen and 18 believed-to-be Indian civilian prisoners who are in Pakistan's custody, it said.

The government has also sought from Pakistan that it expedite the grant of visas to the members of the medical experts' team and facilitate their visit to that country to assess the mental condition of believed-to-be Indian prisoners of unsound mind, lodged in different Pakistani jails, the MEA said.

The Indian government has also sought from Pakistan that it organise an early visit of the Joint Judicial Committee to that country and to organise an early visit of the four-member team to Karachi in connection with release and repatriation of Indian fishing boats.

India remains committed to addressing, on priority, all humanitarian matters, including those pertaining to prisoners and fishermen in each other's country, the MEA said.

India has also urged Pakistan to expedite necessary action at its end to confirm the nationality status of 88 Pakistani prisoners, including fishermen, whose repatriation is pending for want of nationality confirmation by Pakistan, it said.

India and Pakistan exchanged the list of prisoners in keeping with the provisions of the 2008 Agreement under which such lists are exchanged every year on January 1 and July 1. PTI ASK RDM RDM
New Delhi [India], July 1 (ANI): India and Pakistan on Wednesday exchanged lists of civilian prisoners and fishermen in their custody in keeping with the provisions of the 2008 Agreement under which such lists are shared every year on January 1 and July 1. The lists were exchanged simultaneously through diplomatic channels in New Delhi and Islamabad. India handed over lists of 265 Pakistan civilian prisoners and 97 fishermen in its custody to Pakistan. Pakistan shared lists of 54 civilian prisoners and 270 fishermen in its custody, who are Indians or believed-to-be Indians, External Affairs Ministry said in a release. The government called for early release and repatriation of civilian prisoners, missing Indian defence personnel and fishermen, along with their boats, from Pakistan's custody. In this context, Pakistan was asked to expedite the release and repatriation of seven Indian civilian prisoners and 106 Indian fishermen to India whose nationality has been confirmed and conveyed to Pakistan. In addition, Pakistan has been asked to provide immediate consular access to Indian fishermen and 18 believed-to-be Indian civilian prisoners who are in Pakistan's custody. The Indian Government has also called upon Pakistan to expedite the grant of visas to the members of the medical experts' team and facilitate their visit to Pakistan to assess the mental condition of believed-to-be Indian prisoners of unsound mind, lodged in different jails of Pakistan and to organise an early visit of the Joint Judicial Committee to Pakistan. The government also called upon Pakistan to organise an early visit of four-member team to Karachi in connection with release and repatriation of Indian fishing boats. The release said India remains committed to addressing, on priority, all humanitarian matters, including those pertaining to prisoners and fishermen in each other's country. In this context, India has also urged Pakistan to expedite necessary action at its end to confirm the nationality status of 88 Pakistan prisoners, including fishermen, whose repatriation is pending for want of nationality confirmation by Pakistan. (ANI)
(Eds:Adding External Affairs Minister Jaishankar's tweet) Tuticorin, Jul 1 (PTI) The Indian Navy on Wednesday repatriated over 600 Indians from Iran as part of the Centre's 'Samudra Setu' mission to evacuate stranded Indian citizens from abroad.

Indian Navy Ship Jalashwa repatriated 687 Indian nationals, most of them fishermen, from Iran and arrived at the VOC Port here today.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said of the 687 persons who arrived here today, 651 were fishermen from Tamil Nadu, while 36 others hailed from Kerala.

'Appreciate the support of Iranian Govt in facilitating the repatriation....under Operation #Samudrasetu,' he said in a tweet.

The ship had left Bandar Abbas in Iran on June 25.

On arrival, the evacuees were screened by the Port Health officials and their luggage was sanitised as per COVID-19 protocol.

Self-declaration forms were obtained from the passengers and after completion of Immigration and Customs formalities, they were taken to their respective districts by buses.

The Indian Navy has deployed its ships 'Jalashwa' and 'Airawat' to carry stranded Indians from different parts of the world like Maldives and Sri Lanka and has so far repatriated about 4,000 such persons, the Navy said. PTI COR SA APR RAVINDRANATH APR RAVINDRANATH
By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's president and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump will hold their first meeting on July 8 in Washington, officials said on Wednesday, sparking complaints from Democratic lawmakers, who saw it as a political stunt with elections looming.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has not left his country since taking office in December 2018, and paying his first foreign visit to Trump is politically risky because the Republican U.S. president is widely disliked in Mexico.

For Lopez Obrador to visit less than four months before Trump attempts to secure re-election has sparked comment from Mexican critics that it could help the American president shore up support among millions of Hispanic voters.

Lopez Obrador has described the visit as a matter of economic necessity and said it has nothing to do with the November election. He has vowed to stay neutral in the contest.

On Wednesday, Lopez Obrador reiterated that he would be there to bolster Mexico's economic ties with the United States and celebrate the start of a new regional trade deal on July 1. Trilateral matters that include Canada are on the agenda on the morning of July 9, his government said.

Trump said he would talk about trade, health and security with Lopez Obrador, as they met to mark the beginning of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is replacing the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

However, a letter sent on Wednesday to the White House by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus urged Trump to call off the meeting, describing it as an effort to distract from the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Seen by Reuters, the letter signed by more than a dozen Democrats in Congress called the meeting a "blatant attempt to politicize the important U.S.-Mexico relationship along partisan lines."

A Democratic congressional aide said Mexico's government would get a similar letter soon.

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Mexico has urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take part in the meeting. So far, Canada had not responded to the invitation to participate, Lopez Obrador said.

Many Mexicans have held Trump in low regard since he described Mexican migrants as rapists and drug runners in his 2015-16 election campaign and vowed to make Mexico pay for his planned border wall.

He has also made repeated threats against Mexico's economy to pressure its government to stem illegal immigration.

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Anthony Esposito in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Jonathan Oatis and Gerry Doyle)
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Most Mexicans support their president's planned visit to his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump next week, though they continue to regard the American leader in a distinctly negative light, an opinion poll showed on Thursday.

The June 26-27 phone survey of 410 respondents across the country by newspaper El Financiero showed 59% agreed with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's plan to visit Trump in Washington on July 8-9. Some 35% took the opposite view.

Lopez Obrador pitched the visit to mark the start of a new trade deal, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and has described it as a matter of economic necessity.

The survey showed 70% of Mexicans saw Trump in a negative light. Still, that was a marked improvement from January, when 86% of Mexicans felt that way, it showed.

Trump has been held in low regard south of the U.S. border since he described Mexican migrants as rapists and drug runners during his 2015-16 presidential election campaign and vowed to make Mexico pay for his planned border wall.

Lopez Obrador has tried to avoid conflict with Trump, and stresses that the two have a friendly relationship. The poll showed that the image of the United States in Mexico has improved sharply since Lopez Obrador took power 19 months ago.

In February 2019, 29% of Mexicans saw the United States in a positive light. By last month, the figure had jumped to 63%.

Critics of both men have expressed concern that Lopez Obrador's visit could help Trump shore up support among Hispanic voters as the Republican U.S. president gears up November's election.

After their meeting was announced on Wednesday, a letter sent to Trump by over a dozen U.S. Democrats in Congress called the encounter a "blatant attempt to politicize the important U.S.-Mexico relationship along partisan lines."

(Reporting by Dave Graham; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Washington, Jun 30 (PTI) A group of Pakistani dissidents have expressed dismay over Prime Minister Imran Khan calling slain al-Qaeda chief and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden a 'martyr,' saying this could be out of a 'sinister reason' of putting the West, especially the US on notice.

Under the banner of South Asians Against Terrorism & For Human Rights (SAATH) Forum, the group that includes Pakistan's former envoy to the US Hussain Haqqani, condemned Khan for making such a statement in Parliament.

What makes this doubly disgusting is that Imran Khan made this claim on the floor of Pakistans National Assembly. For, another Prime Minister of Pakistan, Yusaf Raza Gillani, had in selfsame, National Assembly on May 9, 2011, denounced bin Laden as a terrorist and had welcomed his elimination, it said in a statement.

Speaking in Parliament during the budget session on June 25, Khan called bin Laden a 'shaheed' (martyr) and said that Islamabad faced 'embarrassment' by taking part in America's war on terror.

'For Pakistanis across the globe, it was an embarrassing moment when the Americans came and killed Osama bin Laden at Abottabad...martyred him. The whole world started abusing us after that. Our ally came inside our country and killed someone without informing us. And, 70,000 Pakistanis died because of the US' war on terror,' Khan had said.

Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals in Pakistan's garrison city of Abbottabad in May, 2011.

Criticising Khan's statement, SAATH said, It should be noted that in addition to the havoc wreaked on 9/11, and later upon the wider world, bin Laden was directly responsible for the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans during the years he was plotting his terrible schemes whilst remaining hidden in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to former president General Pervez Musharraf probably known to certain people in Pakistans Intelligence Services.' 'Many people explain this classification of bin Laden as a martyr to Khans known proclivity to be appreciative of extremist, Jihadist thought, therefore coming to be known by the nickname Taliban Khan some years ago, a nickname which has stuck, it added.

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'However, there could be a deeper, even more sinister reason: that of putting the West, especially the US on notice, now that the endgame in Afghanistan is in sight, and the state of the Pakistan economy is in shambles,' the SAATH members said.

The group termed it as a 'ploy' to inveigle more money out of Pakistans traditional donors.

Prominent SAATH members include former ambassadors Haqqani and Kamran Shafi, parliamentarians Bushra Gohar and Afrasiab Khattak and columnists Mohammed Taqi, Marvi Sirmed, Gul Bukhari and Taha Siddiqui.

Khan's remarks also drew criticism from Opposition parties in Pakistan. PTI LKJ PMS PMS
New Delhi [India], July 1 (ANI): The parents of several NEET candidates, in the Middle East countries, approached the Supreme Court of India on Wednesday seeking directions to postpone the NEET examinations in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The petition, filed in the apex court, sought directions to either set up National eligibility cum entrance test (NEET) examination centers abroad as well or postpone the exams. Earlier, a similar petition was also filed in the Kerala High Court. However, the Kerala High Court had dismissed the plea seeking directions to the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) to allot centers for NEET exams overseas or postpone the exam until the COVID pandemic passes. The high court's decision had come on a petition filed by Abdul Azees, general secretary, Kerala Muslim Culture Centre, Qatar. The NTA and the Medical Council of India (MCI) had told the high court that arranging examination centers for NEET exams abroad is not practical. (ANI)
The Duchess of Sussex in March 2019 - AFP

The Duchess of Sussex was left undefended by the institution while pregnant and a member of the Royal family, her legal team has said, as they claim her wedding brought 1billion in tourism to the UK.

The Duchess, who is suing the Mail on Sunday over the publication of parts of a letter she wrote to her father, has said she was prohibited from defending herself against false stories while at the palace, with her friends left frustrated and silenced.

Lawyers for the Duchess, who have submitted new paperwork to support her privacy claim against the newspaper, have laid out her version of events surrounding an interview given by five of her close friends to People magazine in 2019 in an attempt to defend her.

In doing so, they spell out her frustrations with the palaces approach to the media, as well as correcting what they claim are inaccuracies in reporting about the Sussexes lives.

The extraordinary submissions confirm the conflict between the Palace and the Duchesss approach to the press on record for the first time, stating the institutions policy of no comment to media stories was deployed without any discussion with or approval by the Claimant.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's wedding brought in A1bn to UK, they have claimed - PA

In one section, about the level of wealth and privilege the couple enjoyed in Britain, the Duchesss team say their public funding was relatively nominal with costs for the May 2018 wedding met by the Prince of Wales and security paid only for the protection of crowds.

This contribution of public funds towards crowd security was far outweighed by the tourism revenue of over one billion pounds sterling that was generated from the Royal wedding of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex which went directly into the public purse, they say.

They did not quote a source for the 1bn figure.

The documents also detail the precise plans for bringing the Duchesss father to the UK for the wedding, including measuring for suits, paying for flights and asking the Duchess American business manager - retained from her life as an actress - to arrange for him to stay in Los Angeles ahead of his flight and host him for dinner.

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Future court submissions will share even more personal detail, papers promise, saying: "The intention of the Letter was to make him [Mr Markle] stop his actions; it was not an attempt at reconciliation.

This will be amplified in the Claimants witness statement."

The court case, in which the Mail on Sunday is accused of breaching the Duchesss privacy, copyright and data protection, sees her deny that she authorised her friends to speak to People magazine or reveal the existence of the letter she wrote to Thomas Markle.

Associated Newspapers wholly denies the allegations, particularly a claim that the letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning.

Thomas and Meghan Markle in happier times - Enterprise News

Claiming the Duchess had endured hundreds of thousands of inaccurate articles about her, her legal team claim she was left with tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health.

At the time of the article in 2019, papers state, there was a shared frustration among her friends at Kensington Palaces no comment response to media articles, which they say left everyone feeling silenced.

As a result, they say, five friends - named in confidential paperwork and referred to only as A, B, C, D and E - gave details of the Duchesss life, feelings and letter to her father to the American celebrity magazine without her knowledge.

The Mail on Sunday subsequently printed parts of the letter, given to them by Thomas Markle.

The Duchess said she did not know about the People article until the Duke told her - having heard from the palace press team - on the day of publication, and only found out which friends participated some considerable time later.

On the question of why the five friends spoke, papers state the Duchess had been distressed by media reports, leaving her friends rightly concerned for her welfare, specifically as she was pregnant, unprotected by the Institution, and prohibited from defending herself".

Her close friends, including those that had visited her in the UK, and others who did not, were equally concerned for her mental health and wanted to help, it states.

The Duchess was left distressed while pregnant with Archie, it is claimed - Reuters

However, it was mandated by the KP Communications Team that all friends and family of the Claimant should say no comment when approached by any media outlet, despite misinformation being provided to UK tabloids about the Claimant.

This shared frustration amongst the Claimants friends left everyone feeling silenced, as it appeared that other so-called sources were able to disseminate false statements about the Claimant, while the people who knew her best were told that they needed to remain silent.

The Claimant believes that it is probably because of this reason, as well as concerns about the press intrusion by the UK tabloids, that a few friends chose to participate and they did so anonymously.

In further criticism of the Royal Familys approach to communications, they state that following the article: The stance of no comment was taken by the KP Communications Team without any discussion with or approval by the Claimant, as is standard practice for Royal communications.

Had the Claimant been asked or been given the opportunity to participate, she would have asked the KP Communications Team to say on the record that she had not been involved with the People magazine article, as she had not been.

Two friends had been aware of the letter, the Duchess admits, specifying that it had been sent to her father via her trusted business manager rather than from the UK.

The Duchess filed a claim against the Mail on Sunday in October.

She lost the first strike-out hearing, in which Mr Justice Warby ruled she would not be allowed to argue in court that the newspaper acted dishonestly, stirred up issues with her father, and had an agenda against her.

Associated Newspapers has previously said it would be defending the claim vigorously, categorically denying the letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning.

No date has been set for the full trial yet.
Kolkata, Jul 1 (PTI) Shipments to Bangladesh from the Petrapole border were halted for several hours on Wednesday following protests by exporters in the neighbouring country, which demanded that India allow import of their goods. However, some trucks entered Bangladesh through the Benapole border in the evening following a meeting with stakeholders from both sides, an official said.

'Bangladesh had stopped imports this morning on grounds that exports from that country were not accepted in India. But, the stalemate seems to have ended after the meeting, as 50 trucks from the Indian side crossed the border,' Federation of Indian Export Organisations Chairman (East) Sushil Patwari told PTI.

Bangladeshi exporters claimed that trucks from India made their way through the border in the evening as the majority of protesters had left by then.

'We will not allow any truck to cross the Benapole border from Petrapole from Thursday. This will continue until India resumes import of our goods,' Benapole C&F Agents Staff Association Secretary Sajidur Rehman said.

'Bangladesh has been importing Indian goods since June 7,' he added.

Meanwhile, West Bengal-based exporters have sought Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's intervention into the matter.

'Indian manufacturers, including MSMEs, are running short of essential supplies and raw materials as imports are not allowed. Since Bangladesh has allowed entry of Indian goods, it is required to import their cargo to keep the trade balance moving.

'Currently, more than 500 trucks from Bangladesh are waiting at the Benapole border to enter India,' Patwari said in a letter to Banerjee.

PTI BSM RBT SRY
Patna (Bihar) [India], July 1 (ANI): Bihar Minister Sanjay Jha on Wednesday defended the Centre's decision to extend providing free grains to the poor, needy people under the PM Gariban Kalyan Anna Yojana until the end of Diwali, Chhath puja. He further said that if the Prime Minister's decision to provide for the poor is deemed as politics then so be it and added that the decision has touched the people of Bihar. "Our people have not seen a bigger crisis than Corona in their lives, if standing with the poor during this crisis is called politics then let it be so. The Prime Minister has stood up for the poor by giving free grains till Chatth puja," Jha told ANI. "Chhath is a festival of faith, it is the worship of the Sun which is done by the people of Bihar. It is an even bigger thing that the Prime Minister chose to write in Maithili and Bhojpuri to convey the message, it is a matter of pride for us," he added. The Water Resources Department Minister further said that his ministry has made all provisions to ensure that flooding does not occur in the region in the monsoon season. "We have taken all measures, although there is no control on monsoons we have done the majority of the work despite facing difficulties during the lockdown in the procurement of materials. There were some problems in Gandak barrage but it has been resolved now," he said. Earlier last month, Jha had said that the Bihar government will approach the Ministry of External Affairs and apprise them of Nepal stopping flood-prevention works by them. Following this, labourers and a team of Bihar Water Resources Department went to Nepal to carry out repair work of Gandak dam after the two countries agreed for the same. (ANI)
A judge in Brazil on Tuesday dismissed a court ruling requiring President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a face mask in public during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Judge Daniele Maranhao Costa said the order was unnecessary since face masks are already mandatory in the capital Brasilia.

The attorney general's office, which represents the government in legal matters, made precisely that argument in its appeal filed on Friday.

Maranhao Costa, however, did not say whether the far-right president should or should not wear a mask, simply that the specific order concerning the president was redundant.

In his appeal, Bolsonaro simply asked to be treated as any other resident of the country's federal capital, where mask use has been mandatory since April.

Breaking the rule can result in a fine of 2,000 reales -- nearly $400 -- and so far, the president has not been fined for failing to wear a mask.

Bolsonaro has regularly broken the social distancing measures in place in the capital, giving handshakes and hugs at rallies, hosting barbecues, hitting the shooting range and going out for hot dogs, generally without a mask.

The president, who has famously compared the virus to a "little flu," has railed against the measures state and local authorities are taking to fight it, arguing that business closures and stay-at-home measures are needlessly wrecking the economy.

However, since the first ruling on June 22, Bolsonaro has worn a mask at all public appearances.

Brazil has the second-highest COVID-19 death toll in the world after the United States, with nearly 60,000 deaths and 1.4 million confirmed cases.
United Nations, Jul 1 (PTI) After nearly three months of differences and negotiations, the UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously adopted the first COVID-19-related resolution, demanding a general and immediate cessation of hostilities around the world.

The France and Tunisia drafted resolution 'demands a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations on its agenda and supports the efforts undertaken by the Secretary-General and his Special Representatives and Special Envoys in that respect.' It calls upon all parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days, in order to enable the safe, unhindered and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance, provisions of related services by impartial humanitarian actors, in accordance with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, and medical evacuations.

The Council has been strongly criticised for its inaction and lack of leadership in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and its failure to adopt even a single resolution on the global health and humanitarian crisis caused by the outbreak that has wrecked havoc across the world since early 2020.

The resolution came after months of negotiations as divisions among Councils two permanent veto-wielding members - the US and China - hindered attempts to adopt a resolution. A key sticking point between the US and China over the resolution was reference related to the World Health Organisation. Washington has strongly criticised the WHO for its handing of the pandemic, with President Donald Trump halting funding to the health body.

The resolution affirms that this general and immediate cessation of hostilities and humanitarian pause do not apply to military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Daesh), Al Qaeda and Al Nusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al Qaeda or ISIL, and other terrorist groups, which have been designated by the Security Council. German Ambassador to the UN Christoph Heusgen, President of the Council for the month of July, welcomed the adoption of the resolution, saying Germany begins its Presidency with a signal for hope.

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'The Security Council has today endorsed the Secretary Generals call for a global ceasefire in the face of COVID-19 with a resolution. This is a sign for hope for all people currently living in conflict zones around the world. It is now the obligation of the Council  and all parties to armed conflicts  to implement this resolution in our work this month and beyond, he said.

'The negotiations were not easy, but this resolution shows that differences can indeed be overcome  especially in the face of this pandemic. The will to come to common solutions for global crises through teamwork and multilateralism must be the prevailing goal of this Council. Even in difficult times  especially in difficult times  the Security Council must act.' The Secretary Generals appeal for a global ceasefire has been endorsed by nearly 180 countries, more than 20 armed groups, as well as religious leaders and millions of members of civil society.

The resolution requests the Secretary-General to help ensure that all relevant parts of the United Nations system, including UN Country Teams, in accordance with their respective mandates, accelerate their response to the COVID-19 pandemic with a particular emphasis on countries in need, including those in situations of armed conflict or affected by humanitarian crises.

Acknowledging the critical role that women are playing in COVID-19 response efforts, as well as the disproportionate negative impact of the pandemic notably the socio-economic impact on women and girls, children and refugees, the resolution calls for concrete actions to minimise this impact and ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and youth in the development and implementation of an adequate and sustainable response to the pandemic. PTI YAS ZH
New Delhi, July 2, 2020: VG Learning Destination, in partnership with Grant Thornton India LLP & Becker Professional Education is launching a course in US Certified Public Accounting (US CPA). The qualification is one of the highest and most valued accounting qualification in the United States of America (USA). The worlds largest accounting body, American Institute of Chartered Accountant (AICPA) administers the US-CPA examination.

The course comes with huge opportunities, both at the national and the international level. The programme is well-respected in India. Professionals with US CPA qualification are hired by firms such as the big four (Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PWC), other audit firms (BDO, Grant Thornton), US CPA firms (Citrin Cooperman, Eisner Amper), US-based multinational corporations (MNCs) (PepsiCo, Genpact, Accenture) and Indian MNCs, who have presence in the US (Tata Motors) .

Talking about the CPA course, Mr. Vinod Gupta, Founder  VG Learning, said, US CPAs are one of the most sought after experts in the field of Finance and Accounting. A certification in US CPA Programme opens a wide array of opportunities in Assurance Services, Forensic Accounting, International Accounting, Internal and External Auditing, Tax and Financial Planning, Consulting Services, and Forensic Accounting. With worldwide recognition, a US CPA professional can attract the best opportunity in any big MNC with an average salary that is 30-40% more than any other accounting and finance professionals. The scope for US CPA is increasing with a heavy influx of foreign companies coming to India and Indian companies going abroad. This has opened up avenues especially for those with knowledge of foreign accounting principles and standards. About US CPA examinations US CPA is an eight to 12-month course with only four papers introducing the applicants to US GAAP and IFRS (FAR), US GAAS (AUD), US Taxation (REG) and business concepts. These exams are objective in nature with 50% testing in the form of multiple-choice questions and remaining 50% in the form of task-based simulations (TBS) or case studies. The duration of each CPA exam section is four hours.

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Earlier the US CPA examinations would be conducted in the US and Dubai only. However, due to present COVID-19 disruption, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) has decided to administer the exam in India at eight prometric test centers (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi and Trivandrum) between June and September.

A student is eligible to take the test in India if he/she has a citizenship or is a long-term resident of either India/Bhutan/Bangladesh/Myanmar/Maldives/Nepal/Sri Lanka/USA.

Elaborating about becoming a US CPA, Mr. Gupta said, Passing the CPA exam doesnt make anyone a CPA professional. A person needs to meet Board of Accountancy Licence requirements in one of the 55 US jurisdictions to qualify as a licenced US CPA. Apart from this, if a candidate takes the exam outside US like India and Dubai, he/she has to get the licence within three years else the exam credits lapse. About VGLD and its role in US CPA journey VG Learning Destination is a renowned name in CA and ACCA classes across India. It completed 30 years in 2020. The academy is a brainchild of CA Vinod Gupta, who is an expert in all tax-related matters and an honorary member of the ACCA.

VGLD with Grant Thornton India LLP as official partner, Becker Professional Education as content partner and 88tution as technology partner, has a mission and a vision to reach the masses and provide high quality education to the upcoming generation.

VGLD offers 360-degree support to students in achieving their US CPA goal. This includes, reviewing the state requirement to assisting in foreign academic evaluation, submitting application for exam, preparing for exams and finally, getting a CPA licence.

While preparing for the examinations, aspirants will have 260 hours of live online training by industry experts from Grant Thornton India LLP along with 24*7 access to online programme material. We will also provide self-paced learning content, which will include multiple choice questions, task-based simulations, mock tests, flashcards and study planner powered by Becker Professional Education.

The US CPA classes will be conducted live online on weekends i.e., Saturday and Sunday. The total fee of the programme will be INR 1,25,000 + GST excluding exam fee and licence fee for becoming CPA member.

VGLD endeavours to help students and professionals in their career progression. PWR PWR
"I didn't set out to do this," Bretz said. "I just went out to clap my hands for health care workers to say thanks in some little way."

Bretz said the group finds new ways to pass the time, including bringing a fire pit for roasting marshmallows. The neighbors plan to have a fish fry in the cul-de-sac for the Fourth of July.

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While most of the residents were familiar with each other before these gatherings, Bretz said, they weren't particularly close. Now, he said, the group feels like a family.

"It's just the kind of thing that neighbors who know each other do," he said.

A member of the Rotary Club and a part-time writer and professor, Bretz said he's kept pretty busy during the pandemic.

"People tell me I flunk at retirement," he said.

Bretz was reading a copy of Reader's Digest when he found the previous year's "Nicest Places in America" list. He decided to nominate his circle, he said, then promptly forgot all about it. Later, he was surprised to receive a call from the publication asking to include his cul-de-sac in this year's list.

While Bretz said he's happy to see his neighborhood featured, he doesn't think what he did is too far out of the norm.
Gov. Pete Ricketts said Thursday he is keeping an eye on the rapid spread of the coronavirus in a number of states and "certainly will keep all options open" if he sees a need for Nebraska to respond with renewed state action.

"We continue to monitor conditions," the governor said in response to a question during an afternoon news conference.

But Ricketts made it clear that he is depending on Nebraskans to make wise individual decisions that will help the state continue to hold the lid on the virus' spread.

"We're in very good shape," he said, noting that conditions are stable and he will be "ecstatic if that continues."

The state reported 142 new cases Thursday, nine more than were confirmed on Wednesday, for a total of 19,452.

Nebraska's death toll from COVID-19 rose to 282, and one of the new deaths was a Douglas County man in his 50s, the county's health department reported.

Nebraskans need to continue to make decisions to wear a mask when going to a store, maintain 6 feet of distancing from other individuals and avoid large crowds, he said.

Testing and contact tracing will continue to be "the front-line defense," he said.
This Court has not taken a public policy position on the Citys powers to open and shut businesses to fight the pandemic, require social distancing, masks, or various hygiene, capacity, or cleaning protocols. The City maintains its full power to issue a new ordinance addressing COVID-19, Fredrickson, who was appointed by then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2016 and then was elected in 2019, wrote.

Today a right-wing, activist judge in Racine had the audacity to proclaim that an ordinance which was lawfully enacted by the Racine Common Council is not valid. The irony is not lost on me that this happened on the same day Dane County proactively put in place additional restrictions on bars and restaurants in order to better protect their residents before the holiday weekend. This irresponsible decision jeopardizes the citys ability to protect the health and well-being of our residents in the midst of a life-threatening pandemic. This decision also appears to be at odds with the powers and duties enumerated to the Common Council and public health director by state statute and the Constitution, Mason said. Twenty-five city residents have died from this virus, I hope no one else will die because of Judge Fredricksons judicial activism.
State Sen. David Craig, R-Big Bend, also tweeted: It is very fitting we honor a local hero & one of Wisconsins favorite sons who died fighting to end the tyranny of slavery & provide freedom for all citizens of this great Nation.

Steil said he picked that post office because it is the one that would have served Heg when he lived in Muskego as a young man.

Hegs history

He would have been considered a progressive by the standards of the mid-19th century. He served for a time on both the Norway Town Board and Racine County Board.

Heg was a member of the Free Soil Party, a single-issue effort opposed to the expansion of slavery that later became part of the Republican Party.

Heg also led the Wisconsins Wide Awakes, a fraternal militia that fought slave catchers who came up from the south in search of those who escaped slavery in the states that would later become the Confederacy.

He also became a Wisconsin State Prison commissioner and later led a state prison in Waupun, and used those roles to push an agenda that emphasized workforce training over punishment of criminals in the Wisconsin justice system.
To have this kind of ruling thats going to just add more confusion to whats already going to be a confusing year in terms of voting rules, its just really unfortunate that they didnt do this 12 months ago, said UW-Madison political science professor David Canon.

Appellate ruling

On Monday, an appellate court ruled that Wisconsin can restrict early voting days, hours and locations, and restored a requirement that people need to live in a district for 28 days, not 10, before they can vote. The court also ruled that emailing and faxing absentee ballots is unconstitutional, but that expired student IDs are acceptable at the polls.

The judge who authored the opinion said the restrictions dont burden people in the state, where voters have more ways to register, longer poll hours on Election Day and more absentee voting options than in other states.

Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl and others say the restrictions could have at least some role in reducing voter turnout in Madison, one of the states Democratic strongholds.
Wisconsin officials are calling on residents to stay home and take extra precautions ahead of the holiday weekend as the state experiences a surge of COVID-19 cases driven in part by young people.

Cases among people in their 20s have surged from 11% of total cases in early April to 23% of total cases currently as bars, restaurants and businesses across most of the state have opened their doors. Total positive COVID-19 cases reported in Wisconsin have increased to 29,199, and deaths stand at 793. About 20% of all COVID-19 cases in the state have tested positive within the last two weeks.

This message is especially important for younger people to hear, Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. We know this is a time people like to celebrate with friends, but COVID-19 is still spreading in our state, and we need everyone to take the necessary precautions.

Evers and DHS Secretary Andrea Palm are urging Wisconsinites, especially young people, to stay home, practice physical distancing and wear cloth face coverings when possible.
Patla, who notified the department June 15 of his decision to resign and take a new position, said he was not allowed to speak during the closed session meeting Tuesday. He presented in advance the options he felt would provide a more stable, long-term, cost-effective, and reasonable solution that would ensure no lapse in service and secure the future of the K9 program.

With my offer to purchase Rex for $6,000, the village can purchase a new dog and training for $9,000, Patla said. This is just $5,500 more than the cost to try and retrain Rex. A very small number with a significantly higher chance of success for the future of the K9 program.

Worried about Rex

Patla, who has 17 years of training with police dogs, said Rex has emotions and will certainly be affected by the sudden separation and removal from his home, which could change his demeanor.

Rex will never be the same dog if you proceed with the forced removal, Patla wrote. There is a chance he can shut down and not perform due to how strong our bond is. Again, Rex will have no idea why Im not around and it will cause a significant amount of stress.

Patla added that, if the retraining does not work, the village is out $3,500 and the $6,000 he is offering to purchase Rex.
- Sharon Cuneta shared her complaints about President Rodrigo Duterte, his daughter Inday Sara Duterte, and the die-hard supporters of the President

- Cuneta said that Duterte and his daughter have tried to humiliate and lambast her husband, Senator Francis Kiko Pangilinan, in the past

- According to Sharon, Duterte told her brother, Chet Cuneta, to run as mayor for Pasay but they later found out that Duterte supposedly supported the bid of Chets rival

- She also complained about the supporters of the President who dragged her children into a word war, criticizing even their physical appearances

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Photo from Sharon Cuneta's Instagram account

Source: Instagram

Sharon Cuneta took to social media to share her complaints about President Rodrigo Duterte, his daughter Inday Sara Duterte, and the die-hard supporters of the President.

According to Cuneta, Duterte and his daughter have tried to humiliate and lambast her husband, Senator Francis Kiko Pangilinan, in the past.

She recalled how Duterte said in his speech before that she has already separated from Pangilinan, which turned out to be false information.

The Megastar also revealed that Duterte told her brother, Chet Cuneta, to run as mayor for Pasay. They later found out that Duterte supposedly supported the bid of Chets rival.

Cuneta also complained about the supporters of the President who dragged her children into a word war, criticizing even their physical appearances.

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The intense and emotional post has already been deleted by Cuneta but Fashion Pulis has uploaded a screenshot of the said post.

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Sharon Cuneta is one of the most famous and successful showbiz personalities in the country, known by many as The Megastar. She is married to Senator Kiko Pangilinan, the father of social media star Frankie Pangilinan. Sharon also has a daughter named KC Concepcion with her former husband, Gabby Concepcion.

The Megastar has repeatedly made headlines in recent days and weeks due to her social media posts. She defended her daughter Frankie Pangilinan after her physical appearance was bashed by a Duterte supporter.

She also called out a Duterte supporter who threatened to commit a heinous crime against Frankie for voicing out her complaints about the Duterte administration.

Furthermore, Sharon Cuneta shocked a lot of people when she expressed her desire for Vice President Leni Robredo to become the President of the Philippines once Dutertes term ends. She explained that having Robredo as the President might help make Filipinos more decent.

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Source: Kami.com.ph
- Recently, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque went viral on social media due to his trip in Subic

- He confirmed that he visited the famous resort Ocean Adventure and took a dip with the dolphins

- Roque said that there were no quarantine protocols violated during his trip because it was on his way to his farm in Bataan

- He also apologized to those who were offended by his viral photos on social media

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Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque recently went to Ocean Adventure in Subic and his photos went viral on social media.

KAMI learned that the Palace spokesperson had a dip with dolphins and took a photo with them.

Photo from the Philippine Star

Source: Facebook

In a Facebook post by the Philippine Star, Roque visited the popular resort in Subic as it gradually opens during the general community quarantine.

The photos were originally posted on the Facebook page of the Ocean Adventure. However, it is now deleted.

As reported by GMA News Online (authored by Joahna Lei Casilao), Roque explained that there were no quarantine protocols violated during his visit to the resort.

He said that he passed by the resort while on his way to his farm in Bataan. The spokesperson also said that he is an authorized person to travel because of his agricultural business. He added that he visited his property in Bataan now that it is on its first day under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).

Hindi po ako bumibisita doon, taga doon po akoIm trying to wrap up yung mga negosyo ko noong wala pa ako sa gobyerno na hindi ko naman magawa noong sarado pa ang Bataan, he said.

Wala pong nalabag pero kung meron pong mga na-offend paumanhin po, he added.

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Harry Roque is a lawyer and former law professor at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as his spokesperson.

Recently, Roques Panalo na Tayo remark drew flak from netizens and even celebrities like Luis Manzano. He claimed victory because the country was not able to reach the prediction of UP that there will be 40,000 COVID-19 cases in the Philippines by the end of June.

He also went viral lately for his epic performance during his guesting at Wowowin with Willie Revillame.

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- Kim Chiu opened up on social media about the recent crisis that hit the Kapamilya network

- The NTC ordered the network to stop airing programs through the Sky Cable Corporation and the digital TV transmissions in Metro Manila through Channel 43

- The actress admitted that she feels scared and traumatized to comment on the new issue since she got heavily bashed and humiliated when she spoke her mind during the first round of shutdown

- However, she expressed the heartbreak she feels for the families and employees affected by the crisis

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Photo from Kim Chiu's Instagram account

Source: Instagram

Kim Chiu shared her thoughts on social media about the recent crisis that hit the Kapamilya network.

ABS-CBN received another cease and desist order from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

The NTC ordered the network to stop airing programs through the Sky Cable Corporation and the digital TV transmissions in Metro Manila through Channel 43.

According to Kim, she feels scared and traumatized to comment on the new issue since she got heavily bashed and humiliated when she spoke her mind during the first round of shutdown.

However, she expressed the heartbreak she feels for the families and employees affected by the crisis.

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Minsan mapapaisip ka nalang talaga. Gusto mo magsalita pero di mo magawa, May takot, kaba, trauma.. Nakakalungkot na pinagdadaan ng lahat ng kapamilya ito.

"Ayaw ko man isipin pero parang personalan na wala akong tinutukoy, eto lamang ay nasa isip ko lang. grabe lang. Grabe, Kim posted on Instagram.

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Kim Chiu is a famous actress, endorser, and performer in the Philippines. She broke through in showbiz by joining the reality program, "Pinoy Big Brother."

The Kapamilya star was recently bashed online for making confusing statements about the ABS-CBN crisis but she was able to bounce back by focusing her efforts on helping families in need.

Her celebrity boyfriend, Xian Lim, has already expressed his support for Kim amid the controversy.

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- Anne Curtis celebrated a special milestone  her baby Dahlia Amelie Heussaff has turned 4 months old

- The celebrity mom finally revealed to the public her daughters beautiful face to celebrate the milestone

- Dahlia seems to be a happy and healthy baby who has inherited her parents good looks, based on the viral picture

- Many netizens posted in the comments section to praise baby Dahlias good looks

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Anne Curtis took to social media to celebrate a special milestone  her baby Dahlia Amelie Heussaff has turned 4 months old.

KAMI learned that to celebrate the milestone, Anne finally revealed to the public her daughters beautiful face.

Based on the photo, Dahlia seems to be a happy and healthy baby who has inherited her parents good looks.

Netizens posted in the comments section to praise baby Dahlias good looks, with some of them saying that she looks more like Erwan Heussaff, her daddy.

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Anne also penned a special message for Dahlia on her special milestone:

4 months of getting to smell, kiss and cuddle this happy little girl. I love you and your fuzz hair to the moon and back my Dahling Dahlia Amelie, Anne posted on Instagram.

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Anne Curtis is one of the most famous celebrities in the Philippines. She is an actress and a pioneer host of the ABS-CBN noontime program Its Showtime.

The superstar is married to social media celebrity, Erwan Heussaff. They tied the knot on November 12, 2017. She gave birth to their child, Dahlia Amelie Heussaff, on March 2, 2020.

Since giving birth to Dahlia, Anne has mostly stayed away from the limelight to focus on bonding with her child and taking care of her family, as evidenced by her viral social media posts.

However, focusing on her family has not kept Anne Curtis from commenting on important issues such as the controversial anti-terror bill and the shutting down of the Kapamilya network.

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- Aside from shutting down ABS-CBN, NTC has also ordered the network to stop airing Kapamilya shows via Channel 43

- ABS-CBN TV Plus and Sky Direct direct-to-home transmission would likewise stop operations

- Because of the grim situation of the network, the management has already stopped ABS-CBN's Current Affairs division, as well as "Umagang Kay Ganda"

- In the event that the franchise hearing will not be resolved, employees can start applying for other jobs at other networks after July 30

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The worse has come. ABS-CBN already told its employees that after July 30, they could start looking for other work or move to another network.

On July 1, an emergency meeting via Zoom was made with the staff of various ABS-CBN programs.

Due to the fact that NTC already ordered the network to stop operations including TV Plus and SkyDirect via Channe 43, the company could only do so much for its employees.

From 50%, the company will be giving 25% of their salary as "cash assistance" until July 30.

Sobra nang naiipit! Sad announcement from ABS-CBN tells employees they can transfer to other networks

Source: Facebook

Afterwhich, they can already start looking for a job elsewhere or move to other networks.

Here's a tweet from ABS-CBN Current Affairs producer and writer Nick Villavecer:

"While they were grilling our bosses at the hearing today, we were told at past noon that there will be an emergency meeting. You will hear a lot of bad news today, my boss warned. And bad news it is: ABS-CBN's Current Affairs division will temporarily STOP production."

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ABS-CBN has officially signed off after 65 years of service in May. It created a lot of heartbreak not just for its employees but also for its millions of viewers in the country.

The video inside the ABS-CBN newsroom before the network shutdown has gone viral online. It showed staff crying when the screen turned black.

ABS-CBN is the largest broadcast network in the Philippines. The last time that it ceased operations was during Martial Law.

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Killeen, TX (76540)

Today

Some clouds and possibly an isolated thunderstorm this afternoon. High 94F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 67F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
1. Yes. Its important for students to stay focused throughout the year. Its a plus.

2. Yes. It would fill the learning gaps caused by COVID and would help cut youth crime.

3. No. Students and teachers deserve a summer break. Year-round school wont work.

4. No. It wouldnt work with the militarys summer PCS schedule. Its a bad idea.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing how the school calendar would work.

Vote

View Results
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The L.A. City Council on Wednesday voted to cut $150 million out of the Los Angeles Police Department's $1.8 billion operating budget, with plans to reinvest the funds in marginalized communities.

The move comes in response to recent historic protests that saw hundreds of thousands of Angelenos take to the streets, demanding justice for Black people killed at the hands of police following the death of George Floyd. Four former Minneapolis police officers -- all fired -- have been charged in Floyd's killing.

A coalition of community groups led by Black Lives Matter-LA has been organizing sustained protests and civic engagement, including:

Calling and writing city council members

Showing up to demonstrate outside elected officials' offices and homes

Developing their own alternative spending plan called The People's Budget.

That budget proposal calls for investing in public safety alternatives, housing and social services instead of armed law enforcement.

"We see this as a step forward that was really made possible by the work of the people in the streets," said Black Lives Matter-LA co-founder Melina Abdullah. "We absolutely celebrate the power of the people. But this is not defunding the police."

Abdullah added the cuts were "mostly symbolism" and "an attempt to quell protest -- which it won't."

Councilmember Curren Price presented the final plan at a Budget and Finance Committee hearing on Monday. It amends Mayor Garcetti's fiscal year 2020-21 budget, which took effect today and increased the LAPD's budget by roughly $120 million.

From these cuts, $90 million will be redirected to programs serving marginalized communities like targeted local hiring; $10 million would go to a summer program promoting youth employment and workforce development.

The remaining $50 million will go to reducing city worker furloughs and mid-year budget adjustments.

"The soul of our city has been reignited during these turbulent times," Price said in a statement following the 12-2 vote. (Councilmembers Joe Buscaino and John Lee opposed, and Jose Huizar has been suspended from the council.)

"We seized the opportunity to deliver a more promising future for the people of Los Angeles," Price said.

The cuts come the day after the council passed a slate of measures aimed at expanding the LAPD's accountability or finding alternatives to policing. Yesterday, the council voted to require independent oversight of an investigation into use of force by LAPD officers against protesters in the recent demonstrations. They also voted to go ahead with creating a plan to send unarmed crisis response professionals, like mental health workers, to non-violent 911 calls instead of armed police officers.

In a statement, Council President Nury Martinez called the LAPD spending reductions "the first step toward something much bigger." She added, "This city council is looking at public safety through a very different and more accurate lens."

Last month, LAPD Chief Michel Moore expressed concern about the cuts, but said he would "look at every single dollar spent," to understand how it supported the department's mission.

City council members also introduced a measure on Tuesday to find ways to remove LAPD from traffic enforcement, including exploring automated alternatives like red light cameras and tapping city Department of Transportation personnel to enforce speeding laws.

Abdullah said measures like this were more substantive and "an example of courage and a fundamental reimagining of public safety."

WHAT LAPD CUTS ARE IN STORE?



The process started with a June 3 motion from Martinez and Council Members Herb Wesson, Monica Rodriguez and Price, asking city analysts to come up with $100-$150 million in LAPD budget reductions. That report was presented later in the month.

The City Administrative Officer and Chief Legislative Analyst recommended trimming twelve areas of the LAPD's budget -- with over $80 million in sworn officer overtime as the largest cut by far.

At Monday's budget meeting, Price added an additional $16.26 million in cuts to overtime, bringing the total to nearly $97 million.

A table included in the CAO and CLA's report shows the growth of the LAPD since 2000 and overtime spending ballooning in recent years. The 2020-21 column does not include the new changes approved by the council.

Historical data on the LAPD's budget since 2000. (Los Angeles Chief Legislative Analyst and City Administrative Officer)

No layoffs appear to be in store for the LAPD, but the report also proposed chopping new hiring in half -- 251 new officers instead of 503 to save nearly $26 million -- eliminating a dozen new positions and letting 94 sworn officer jobs go unfilled. It also included smaller reductions in spending on technology, ammunition, field equipment and replacement vehicles.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents sworn police officers, decried the council's vote and suggested major costs would be shifted to future years' budgets -- for example, if officers "bank" overtime and cash in the following year.

"Today the city council's action cut hundreds of police officers from neighborhoods, which will only make emergency response times longer, cripple our ability to implement on-going police training and push the city's debt for unpaid overtime past $200 million. They passed a budget by putting everything on the city credit card that will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars more over the next few years."

The CAO and CLA report also noted that scaling back the LAPD's hiring "may negatively impact response times," and "[m]ay increase sworn overtime expenses if operational mandates remain constant."

The cuts are estimated to take the LAPD from 10,009 officers today to about 9,757 by this time next year, the fewest in over a decade.
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By Emily Guerin and David Wagner

Now that many businesses in L.A. can reopen after months of pandemic shutdown, employers say they're having difficulties getting their workers to come back.

Some say unemployment benefits, which have been more generous than usual, may be a factor.

But most workers don't have a choice to stay on unemployment: If they are called back to work and they refuse, they risk losing their jobs -- and their benefits.

Many workers in L.A. say the real reason they're hesitant to go back has more to do with their health than their finances.

MAKING MORE ON UNEMPLOYMENT

When Congress passed the CARES Act in March, it gave workers who lost their jobs an extra $600 per week on top of their usual state unemployment benefits.

Because of this, nearly 70% of workers made more money on unemployment than they did working, according to University of Chicago researchers.

In California, the median worker received 141% of their salary in unemployment benefits, according to the study's co-author Peter Ganong. Lower wage workers, in particular, made far more on unemployment than they made while working.

Many business owners we talked to suspected this was why their employees were turning down work.

"That extra $600 bonus they may be getting is probably sounding better than going back to work," said Adriana Cortes, whose family owns two restaurants in South L.A.: Delicious Southern Cuisine and Delicious at the Dunbar.

But that's not how unemployment actually works.

REFUSING WORK COULD MEAN LOSING BENEFITS

If workers refuse to go back to work, California's unemployment system can cut them off -- unless they meet certain criteria laid out during the pandemic, such as being over the age of 65 or having certain health conditions that make them more susceptible to COVID-19.

Moreover, a recent paper from the Brookings Institution found there's no indication people are rejecting calls to return to work because they're making too much on unemployment.

But some workers are deciding not to go back to their jobs. Why?

NOT WILLING TO BE SACRIFICED

For Katie Thompson, it was the mounting anxiety over contracting a potentially fatal illness.

She no longer had a safe means of transportation to her retail job at a Madewell store in Pasadena. And she was worried about the possibility of getting infected on the job. Ultimately, she quit.

"It just didn't feel worth it," Thompson said.

A Madewell spokesperson sent us a link to the company's website detailing its new in-store safety measures, including social distancing, required mask-wearing and increased sanitization.

Thompson doesn't blame her employer for allowing shoppers back in the store. But she does think L.A. County moved too quickly in allowing retailers to reopen.

"If you sell things and they say, 'Go ahead, you can open,' I get it. I understand why they felt like they needed to open," Thompson said. "But I just wasn't willing to be sacrificed at that altar."

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Thompson understood that quitting meant she would lose her unemployment benefits. But because she'd been making more on unemployment than while she was on the job, she was able to save enough to feel comfortable not working for a while. And she knows she's lucky: her husband is still working, which provides some financial security.

"It could be a mistake in that I have to leave L.A. in six to nine months if I can't find a new job," Thompson said.

But seeing coronavirus cases rise so dramatically, she feels like she made the right call.

BACK ON THE JOB BUT NOT BY CHOICE

Others say they have no choice but to keep working.

In March, Jennifer Payton got laid off from her job doing catering for Panera Bread. Then she got called back in May. She came in, even though she would've preferred to stay safe at home.

"Sure you have a choice to return to work," Payton said. "But your choice is to risk getting a deadly virus or risk getting evicted and not being able to feed yourself. And that's really not much of a choice."

Payton said Panera Bread has decent guidelines for workplace safety. But she said in the stores where she works, including a location in Santa Ana, people don't always follow them.

The company has not received a formal complaint from the Santa Ana store, but "we will be investigating this internally and ensuring all of our associates feel safe and supported in the workplace," a Panera Bread spokeswoman wrote in an email. "Any instance of our safety protocols not being met is taken very seriously and addressed immediately."

The company's safety precautions include "regular wellness checks, mandatory mask-wearing and social distancing," the spokeswoman added.

Payton is now only working a day or two each week, earning much less than when she was fully unemployed.

"I don't want to make just barely enough to cover my bills while putting my health and possibly my life on the line," she said. "That's just kind of ludicrous to ask a person."

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

A sign at a Little Tokyo market reminds costumers to wear face masks. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

Workers should make sure their employer is actually allowed to be open, and that they're complying with government safety guidelines. If they're not, employees can refuse to work.

But under California's unemployment system, generalized concerns over workplace safety aren't enough to stay home and continue collecting unemployment benefits.

"As a condition of eligibility for unemployment, you have to be available and willing to work," said UC Berkeley law professor Catherine Fisk.

But she said workers can wield significant power over their working conditions by banding together.

"The law has been clear for 60 years at least that if a group of workers decide together that it is unsafe to work, then they are free to refuse to work until the employer rectifies the situation," Fisk said.

'NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR PERSONAL FEELING OF SAFETY'

For business owners who say they've done everything to make their workplace safe, employees' reluctance to return can be frustrating.

Heather Jeffcoat owns three physical therapy practices in L.A. County. She treats people with chronic pain, so she stayed open throughout the stay-at-home orders. She did let her receptionists work from home for a few weeks. But in mid-May, she decided she needed them back.

Jeffcoat said they were hesitant to return, and when she asked why, they wouldn't give specifics.

"There was just this vague sense of like, 'I don't feel safe, I haven't even left the house, my family hasn't left the house, I'm not even going to the grocery store,'" Jeffcoat said. "It's all stuff that has nothing to do with the workplace."

Understanding that no workplace is 100% safe, Jeffcoat said she modified her reception area for social distancing, gave everyone masks and installed plexiglass shields.

"I have been compliant with CDC, state and city guidelines," she wrote in an all-staff email on June 3. "I have provided you with the proper PPE to keep you safe and our patients safe. I was fortunate to obtain enough sanitizing products to keep our clinic safe for all."

Jeffcoat declined to put us in touch with her receptionists. But she said despite her reassurances, they were still unwilling to return to work.

"At some point the fact that they have a personal fear of COVID is no longer the employer's problem, because I've made my workplace as safe as I can given the situation," she said.

"We are not responsible for your personal feeling of safety," Jeffcoat said. "We are just responsible for making the workplace safe."

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Coronavirus is wreaking havoc on schools, stores, businesses and events. With in-person concerts, talks, comedy shows, food festivals and other gatherings cancelled, we have turned our events column into a "nonevents" column. It will remain this way as long as social distancing and stay-at-home orders are in effect.

During this difficult time, please consider contributing to your local arts organizations or to individual artists and performers.

With fireworks shows cancelled, beaches shut down and bars closed, you might think the holiday weekend's sizzle has fizzled. Not entirely. You can still find plenty of things to do. Join a watch party with Hannibal Burress. Attend a comedy show in Animal Crossing. Listen to Danny Glover and Ben Guillory talk about theater and social justice. Catch new films by Werner Herzog and Hirokazu Kore-eda. Celebrate the 4th of July virtually with Grand Park and the Music Center.

Hannibal Buress, seen here performing onstage during Adult Swim Festival 2018 at ROW DTLA, holds a watch party for his new special on Friday. (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Adult Swim)

Friday, July 3; 6 - 7:30 p.m.



Hannibal Buress Miami Nights Livestream

The comedian holds a watch party on Friday night for his new special, with material based on his 2017 arrest for disorderly intoxication.

COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO

Friday, July 3



Family Romance, LLC

Streaming service Mubi hosts a premiere of Werner Herzog's latest feature, which blends a fictional story with documentary-style visuals. Herzog, who shot the film himself, follows the founder of a real company in Tokyo that rents out stand-ins for family members, friends or cliques. Expect an exploration of loneliness and superficial relationships. Herzog introduces the premiere and does a post-screening Q&A. The film will be available for 24 hours on July 3.

COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO

Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche star in Hirokazu Kore-eda's film, 'The Truth.' (Courtesy of IFC Films)

Friday, July 3



The Truth

Filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda's (Shoplifters, After Life) first French-language film stars Catherine Deneuve as an adored French actress who has just published her memoir. The book causes her adult daughter, played by Juliette Binoche, to return to Paris with her husband (Ethan Hawke) and daughter in tow, igniting old family tensions. IFC Films opens the film on demand and digitally on Friday.

COST: Varies; MORE INFO

(distelAPPArath/Pixabay)

Friday, July 3 - Saturday, July 4; 8:20 p.m.



Tailgate Fest Presents: Drive-In At The Park

Castaic Lake Park

Castaic Lake Dr., Castaic

Calamigos Ranch

327 Latigo Canyon Rd., Malibu

In Castaic, catch a double feature of Toy Story 4 and Independence Day from your car, following physical distancing and health protocols (masks required outside your cars). In Malibu, they're screening Independence Day, preceded by a pre-paid BBQ (although you can buy hot dogs and drinks all night).

COST: $30 - $50 for movies per car; $35 per person for Malibu BBQ; MORE INFO

Friday, July 3; 7 - 8:30 p.m.



Comedy Crossing

You don't have to play Animal Crossing to attend this stand-up show inside the video game, hosted by comedian Jenny Yang. On the day of the show, RSVP to the Zoom link. If you like what you see, tip the performers via Venmo @jennyyangtv. Part of the proceeds will also benefit organizations supporting the movement for Black lives. The show takes place the first and third Fridays of the month.

COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO

Saturday, July 4; 7 - 10 p.m.



4th of July Block Party: Home Edition

Grand Park and The Music Center's annual Independence Day festivities are being broadcast and streamed this year. Rapper D Smoke headlines a diverse lineup that also includes performances by San Cha, Amindi and Ginger Root. Check out standup comedy from Filipino AF and a cooking demo from Jocelyn Ramirez of Todo Verde. The first part of the event will be televised live on ABC7 and LA36 from 7 to 8 p.m. The fun continues on Grand Park and The Music Center's digital platforms -- Facebook Live (@GrandParkLosAngeles and @MusicCenterLA) -- as well as their respective websites.

COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Last year's fireworks as seen over Los Alamitos Army Airfield during the 4th of July Fireworks Extravaganza. (Senior Airman Crystal Housman/Flickr Creative Commons)

Saturday, July 4; 9 p.m. (doors at 7:15 p.m.)



4th of July Fireworks Spectacular

Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos

11206 Lexington Dr., Los Alamitos

Live fireworks shows are scarce this weekend, but the cities of Los Alamitos and Seal Beach are holding a drive-up show at the base. Enter at either the Lexington Gate (Lexington and Katella) or Orangewood Gate (Orangewood and Los Alamitos Blvd.). Be patient as a high volume of vehicles are expected and a check-in procedure will be in place (I.D. check, temperature check, and health screenings for all individuals inside each vehicle). No pedestrians and bicycles will be allowed. Guests are asked to stay in their cars or remain in the front of the cars during the show. Face coverings are required.

COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Saturday, July 4 - Sunday, July 5



Shrek / Independence Day

City National Grove of Anaheim

2200 East Katella Ave., Anaheim

Movies Under the Moon presents two drive-in offerings this weekend. The early show at 7:20 p.m. features the family-friendly Shrek. It's followed by Independence Day at 10:30 p.m. Separate ticketing for the films. Each person in the vehicle needs a ticket. A parking fee is also required plus a service fee.

COST: Admission starts at $50; MORE INFO

Men ride bikes in front of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on May 9, 2020. (APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images)

Saturday, July 4; 2 - 3 p.m.



94th Annual AmericaFest Celebration

The Rose Bowl's annual Independence Day festivities move online this year. The event includes a live flyover of Pasadena and its historic landmarks; music includes songs by Andy Grammer and two solos by cellist Cecilia Tsan, who will perform from the 100-inch telescope dome on top of Mt. Wilson. Also, Mount Wilson Observatory's art & science active prism installation Sunstar will move throughout the day to shine color from the sun over Pasadena. Tune in to the Rose Bowl Stadium's Facebook and YouTube pages.

COST: FREE; MORE INFO

(Marcella Laskoski/Unsplash)

Saturday, July 4; 6 p.m.



Feels Like Summer: An Immersive Audio-Visual Experience

Let this livestreaming event from L.A.'s own DJ Illanoise provide your July 4th soundtrack. There's a free digital happy hour from 6 to 7 p.m. followed by a VIP stream from 7 to 9 p.m. Tune in for giveaways all night long.

COST: FREE - $10; MORE INFO

Co-founders Danny Glover and Ben Guillory of The Robey Theatre Company discuss theater and social justice issues during an online conversation. (The Robey Theatre Company)

Saturday, July 4; 6 - 8 p.m.



Let's Talk

Millena Gay hosts an online chat with the Robey Theatre Company's co-founders, Danny Glover and Ben Guillory. Glover talks about The Robey's history with director and actor Guillory. The theater was named for actor and activist Paul Robeson and founded with a mission to "dramatically depict the lives and stories of the Black Diaspora." In addition to theater talk, expect a discussion about the impact of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter Movement -- and how the theater community should respond. A Q&A follows the discussion. RSVP to Office@RobeyTheatreCompany.org for the Zoom link.

COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO

Patrons gather outside Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown, California on November 15, 2019. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

Saturday, July 4 - Sunday, July 5



Silverlake Flea

2007 Reservoir St., Echo Park (Saturday)

53688 Pioneertown Rd, Pioneertown (special Sunday pop-up)

The flea market has re-opened in the lot behind Taix, running weekly on Saturdays. This Sunday, however the market is road tripping for a special Pioneertown pop-up (next to Pappy + Harriet's) on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

COST: FREE admission; MORE INFO

The Tesla Cybertruck display is on view at the Petersen Automotive Museum through Sunday. (Tesla)

Through Sunday, July 5



Tesla Cybertruck Display

Petersen Automotive Museum

6060 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire

The Petersen, which recently reopened to the public, extends its Cybertruck display through the holiday weekend. This is the truck's first stationary public display since its unveiling at a private event in L.A. last year. The museum is currently open Wednesdays through Sundays. Advanced reservations required.

COST: $11 - $16 admission; MORE INFO

Sunday, July 5 - Friday, July 17



Jazz In The Pines

Idyllwild Arts popular music series returns online this year, featuring a mix of newer artists and seasoned players. The lineup includes the Evan Christopher Duo, John Daversa, The Rose Colella & Rick Shaw Duo and The Marshall Hawkins Trio featuring Paul Carman & Barnaby Finch.

COST: FREE; MORE INFO



The exterior of Canter's Deli on December 10, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Amazon Prime Video)

Sunday, July 5; 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.



Jewish L.A.: From Brooklyn Ave. to Fairfax Ave.

Shmuel Gonzales, the Barrio Boychik, holds this tour in support of local Fairfax businesses affected by recent vandalism and looting (and 2020 in general). Learn about the history of the neighborhood as well as its rapidly changing demographics. Gonzales explains the migration of Jewish families from Boyle Heights to Fairfax, starting in the 1930s. The tour begins in front of Canter's Deli. Attendees are asked to wear a mask and keep a physical distance of six feet from other groups/attendees.

COST: $25; MORE INFO

Sunday, July 5; 7 - 8 p.m. BST, EDT, PDT (three different sets)



All Day I Stream

DJ Lee Burridge plays three different sets to coordinate with sunsets around the world, connecting music fans and dancers.

COST: FREE; MORE INFO

The re-opened Pie Hole offers an assortment of treats, including pie holes and the Firecracker Cherry Pie. (The Pie Hole)





Dine & Drink Deals

Who doesn't miss going out to eat or stopping by a bar for a drink? Here are a few options from restaurants and bars as we work our way back toward normal.
The furniture and equipment inside the shuttered Lancaster office of the defunct Income Store began to be sold at an online auction this week, while the companys founder fights civil and criminal fraud charges.

The auction, which began Tuesday and ends at 7 p.m. on Monday, July 13, is being run by Lancaster auctioneering firm H.K. Keller.

As ordered by the Securities & Exchange Commission, in an attempt to raise money for the victims of the alleged fraud, the auction is selling more than 400 lots of items, including MacBook laptops, laptop keyboards, computer monitors, servers, security cameras, printer/scanners, chairs, desks, tables and bookshelves.

The array also has its share of surprises  wooden barrels, wooden eagles, framed prints, an abstract sculpture, two new electric razors, six rolls of wallpaper, a cordless drill, a rowing machine, new boys clothing, a mattress, box spring and bedding, and an artificial tree with paper money for leaves.

To view the items for sale, visit https://bit.ly/3isvTin.

Meanwhile, the SEC and the U.S. Attorneys office continue to press their legal cases against Income Store founder Kenneth Courtright, who ran the business from his home in Minooka, Illinois.

The Income Store bought or built websites for investors, in exchange for upfront payments of $50,000 to $500,000, promising to market and maintain the websites while the investors raked in lucrative returns.

The investors could choose between the larger of 50% of their websites revenue or a guaranteed minimum annual return of 13% to 20% to start, depending on the size of the upfront fee.

It was a powerful pitch. In about three years, The Income Store raised $87.6 million from more than 500 investors worldwide, said the SEC. But the website revenue fell way short of covering those guaranteed returns.

In that same time period, website revenue was just $9.0 million while the Income Store paid investors $31.1 million, the regulators said. The source of those returns actually was money paid by new or repeat investors  a classic Ponzi scheme, the SEC said.

The SEC froze The Income Stores assets on Dec. 30, causing the 1001 Millersville Road office to close the next day. The SEC is seeking a court order to make Courtright return any profits and pay unspecified fines for violating federal securities law.

The office here, which at one time had about 80 employees, had run the websites, not sell them. Its staff had dwindled to about 15 by the time it closed, employees told LNP | LancasterOnline in January.

In February, Courtright was indicted on seven counts of wire fraud. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. A trial date has not been set.

In March, the receiver hired by the SEC to raise money for the victims updated the estimate of the alleged frauds victims to more than 700 and the sum lost to at least $104 million.

The receiver valued the Income Store's physical assets at less than $2 million.

What to read next
The impact of COVID-19 on the Lancaster County workforce continues to get weaker, but its still strong enough to be disruptive, data released Thursday indicate.

Some 784 county residents filed initial claims for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Lancaster County Workforce Development Board, down 5.9% from the prior week.

New Pennsylvania order requires masks when leaving home, with some exceptions Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine has signed a new order that goes further 

Thats the fewest initial claims since the pandemic began in mid-March, but still about four times the number during pre-pandemic weeks.

The weekly number of new claims peaked at 15,716 in early April, elevating the countys unemployment rate for April to 15.3%, the worst since the Great Depression.

The hardest hit sectors include hotels and restaurants, manufacturing, retail and construction, according to the board and the Center for Regional Analysis of the Economic Development Company of Lancaster County.

Including last weeks wave of newly jobless countians, nearly 59,000 have lost their jobs and sought unemployment benefits during the pandemic.

However, as Gov. Tom Wolf has progressively loosened restrictions on business operations in the county, upgrading its status from red to yellow to green, the number of county residents remaining on unemployment has slowly ebbed too.

The number of continuing claims for unemployment benefits has fallen by half in the past seven weeks.

The state and nation also are seeing fewer initial claims for unemployment benefits, officials announced Thursday.

Across Pennsylvania, the number of initial claims last week was down 8.6% to 51,000. Nationwide, the number of initial claims fell 3.7% last week to 1.43 million.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys 1812 Overture brings to mind images of gigantic orchestras, big crowds and literal cannons.

When Allegro Orchestra performs a modified version of the overture this week, it will be played by less than two dozen musicians without a physical audience present, but with no less heart and vigor, says conductor and artistic director Brian Norcross.

Resident composer Ralph Lehman wrote an arrangement for a 21-piece orchestra, Norcross says over the phone. It required him to get creative. For example, theres a section that requires three if not four French horn players, and well have two, so one of the parts became a bassoon part. The end result is that the arrangement looks terrific.

1812 yes, but also very 2020.

The usual 45-member Allegro Orchestra will be pared down for a socially distant patriotic concert to be recorded and released on Friday. This will be the orchestras first performance since a January edition of the Music in the Round series.

Video of the performance will be emailed to subscribers of the orchestras mailing list and will be made available to stream at 7 p.m. Friday.

Musicians will be at a minimum of six feet apart, temperature checks will be administered and sound shields  essentially clear plastic music stands  will be provided for woodwind and brass players.

Pity the flute player, as extra protections are required.

Well, the flute player is blowing air across the instrument, and then it just blows out into the world, Norcross says. So were taking extra precautions there.

Salutation selections

Allegros planned repertoire for the recital includes selections both obvious and inventive.

For instance, the show features musical appearances at the beginning, middle and end by the man known as The March King  John Philip Sousa.

I think particularly for patriotic concerts, theres a sense that marches are something that people would enjoy, Norcross explains. Its something that you can tap your toes and clap along to.

Then, theres John Williams 1993 Theme from Jurassic Park. While the film lacked in allegiance-pledging from any Brachiosauruses, Norcross chose the song in part due to Williams place as the most recognized American composer.

Its got wonderful melodies and a great fanfare section, Norcross says. Its not necessarily a flag-waving piece, but thats OK, we needed some pieces that give us some time just to say, Isnt it nice just listening to this great music?"

Since March, Norcross has lent the same idiosyncratic approach to curating Allegros weekly virtual concert offerings, comprising the orchestras deep vault of video recordings. Each Saturday, full-length concerts are released on Allegros Facebook page.

The first one I watched, I cried through the whole thing because I was missing the people, the community, the excitement, the energy  it was such a profound loss, Norcross says. For a lot of us musicians, this has been an incredibly difficult time because our livelihoods went away, and its a joyful livelihood.

The orchestra is cautiously approaching the rest of the year with the hopes that a version of Music in the Round can proceed in the late fall at The Ware Center, though discussions and guidelines are still being configured.

Allegro is also working on two additional recorded-live concerts this summer. The first, titled Going Solo, will feature soloists Jill Hoffman, Anne Nye, Stephanie Sullivan and Doug Albert and be released on Saturday, Aug. 1. The second, Alleluia, will feature compositions by Franz Schubert and George Frideric Handel and be released on Saturday, Aug. 29.

Though socially distant, Norcross is eagerly anticipating not being as musically distant to his orchestra as COVID-19 has demanded over the last several months

Ive been wondering what its going to feel like, the joy of being able to make music together, Norcross says. I just want to make sure that I can still see my music and make sure the tears havent obliterated what I can see. The fact that we can share this with the community and share it free for them? Oh my gosh. Thats really what Allegros all about.

HOW TO WATCH To watch Allegro Orchestras Patriotic Concert, email ceo.allegro@gmail.com to be added to the virtual concert mailing list.
UPDATE: A 34-year-old Paradise Township man is charged with kidnapping Linda Stoltzfoos, an 18-year-old Amish woman who has been missing since June 21, according to the Lancaster County District Attorney's office. Click here to read more.

The search for Linda Stoltzfoos, an 18-year-old Amish woman, continues eleven days after she never returned home from church.

Stoltzfoos was last seen on a farm on Stumptown Road in Bird-in-Hand on June 21, according to East Lampeter Township police.

She was last seen wearing a tan dress, white apron and a white cape, police said.

Volunteer searches continued through Wednesday, with members from the Amish communities searching Mill Creek.

The FBI became involved last week in the search.

Nothing has been ruled out, but there is no evidence of foul play, East Lampeter Township police public information officer Matthew Hess said.

Posters and billboards on Route 30 have been posted in York County as well.

If Stoltzfoos left of her own accord, he said police want her to know she is not in trouble and to contact police.

Stoltzfoos is white, approximately 510 and weighs 125 lbs.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact police.
Franklin & Marshall College plans to reopen in the fall under a blended approach, offering a mixture of online and in-person instruction, college President Barbara Altmann announced Wednesday evening.

Right now, under current guidelines and recommendations, an on-campus experience is possible for us, but only if we are willing to recalibrate expectations, make modifications, and abide by new regulations, Altmann wrote in a letter to the campus community.

The colleges announcement comes as schools across Lancaster County debate if and how theyll reopen as the threat of a coronavirus resurgence looms.

We cannot ensure the prevention of COVID-19 cases on our campus, but we can all try to mitigate the risk of transmission through careful planning and shared responsibility, Altmann said.

The plan, posted to F&Ms website, states that courses, which start Aug. 26, will include significant online teaching with equally significant face-to-face instruction.

The typical two-semester schedule will be divided into four seven-week units, plus an optional January term. The college has also extended winter break to avoid the height of flu season.

Students and employees on campus will be provided two washable cloth masks, which will be required to wear according to federal health guidelines, the plan states. Disposable masks will also be available around campus.

Everyone on campus will also be required to complete a daily self-screening.

Dining protocols include social distancing, grab and go meals, food service apps, the plan states.

As far as housing goes, the college plans to survey students about their plans to return to campus.

The reopening plan, Altmann said, provides enough flexibility for students and faculty who may not feel safe or comfortable returning, and in the case of another shutdown.

Should the campus need to close, she said, F&M will be ready with a safe and orderly process for a return to remote instruction.
Editor's note: This article was originally published Saturday, June 27. A man who appeared to carry a rifle into Lancaster Central Market sometime Saturday was within his rights, Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace said after photos of the man circulated on social media. The mayor was critical of the man, who has not been identified and was not wearing a mask. He appeared to purchase food with the firearm slung across his chest. "Clearly, this person is disrespecting our community and our values," Sorace wrote in a Facebook post. "The gun is beyond unnecessary. And not wearing a mask in an enclosed building where social distancing is not possible is just plain inconsiderate."

Efforts to reach Lancaster city police or management at Central Market on Saturday were not successful.

Some who commented on Sorace's post were outraged by the man's actions.

"We are all living in enough fear with all this. Sad move on his part," one person wrote.

"As a responsible gun owner with a concealed carry permit, it was pretty clear that the person who did this was trying to stir up the populace and create a situation where one didnt need to exist," another person wrote. "It was completely disrespectful and deliberately disruptive, especially in this climate."

Others didn't take issue with the man.

"Those are his rights," one person wrote. "Get over it and stop fearing everything."

Sorace noted that he was within his legal rights. State law allows citizens to openly carry firearms in publicly owned places.

The only exception is a city designated as first class, which is classified as having more than 1 million residents. The only Pennsylvania city to meet that criteria is Philadelphia.

Sorace also noted in her post that state law preempts any local ordinance that would place any bans on carrying firearms.

"Plain speak: There isn't a damn thing that I or members of City Council can do about this legislatively," she wrote in her post.

Sorace encouraged those angered by the man's actions to contact state Rep. Michael Sturla and state Sen. Scott Martin and advocate for legislation that would allow municipalities to ban firearms from city-owned properties.

"Last I checked, you couldn't bring a gun like this into the Capitol where they work. Or for that matter the Lancaster County Government Building at 150 N. Queen.), Sorace wrote. "Our Lancaster Central Market standholders and patrons deserve the same protections.

Read more:
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling thats expected to pave the way for public funding of religious institutions may have little to no impact on Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, the nations highest court ruled in favor of parents in Montana seeking to use a state-funded tax credit program to send their children to religious schools, an action previously banned by the states constitution.

But because no such program exists in Pennsylvania, the courts decision likely wont have the same effect here.

Next to no impact on Pa.

The Pennsylvania constitution, like Montanas, bars public funds for religious education, but the state does not have a tax credit program that directly sends taxpayer money to private schools like Montana does.

It does, however, give tax credits to businesses that donate to religious education organizations or fund scholarships for students attending religious schools through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit programs.

While the state doesnt directly fund religious schools, critics say these programs indirectly support religious institutions at the expense of public schools.

A spokesperson with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, which coordinates the programs, said since its private, not public, money going to these schools, the Supreme Court decision may not "have an impact at all."

A complicated situation

The courts decision ultimately came down to a battle between the U.S. Constitutions establishment clause, which created the separation of church and state, and the free exercise clause, which formed freedom of religion, Franklin & Marshall College assistant professor of government Elspeth Wilson said.

Wilson called the decision a "smackdown" on Montana, because it goes against the states own constitution and further validates the idea of "legislating from the bench."

States, she said, are now in a "complicated situation" as it pertains to well-established rules at the state level.

Polarizing decision

The ruling invoked passionate responses from public school and school choice advocates in Pennsylvania.

Randall Wenger, a Lancaster County native and chief counsel for the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center, said the decision is "a welcome reminder" that the government cannot discriminate against religious groups.

"Religious schools provide a great education to countless children," Wenger said in an email. "This decision helps to ensure that families continue to have multiple quality options for their childrens education."

Wenger echoed statements from the Trump administration and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who have staunchly advocated for expanded school choice nationwide.

Public school advocates in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, cried foul over the ruling.

"We are disappointed that todays U.S. Supreme Court ruling obligates taxpayers to fund private religious schools that can and do discriminate against students based on disability, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, socioecomic status, and other biases," Maura McInerney, Education Law Centers legal director, said in a statement.
THE ISSUE

A man carried a rifle into Lancaster Central Market on Saturday, provoking a furor on social media. He reportedly refused to wear a mask while shopping in the market. And the photos that circulated on social media clearly indicate he was not wearing one. As LNP | LancasterOnlines Heather Stauffer reports, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine signed a new order Wednesday that requires that masks be worn whenever anyone leaves home. Masks are mandatory even if outdoors, if a social distance of at least 6 feet cannot be maintained among people from different households. As Stauffer noted, exceptions are made for children under 2 years and for those who cannot wear a mask due to a medical condition, including those with respiratory issues that impede breathing, mental health condition, or disability.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney might want to have a word with the Central Market Rambo who didnt wear a mask Saturday and instead wielded a rifle.

On Sunday, Cheneys daughter, Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, tweeted a photo of her father wearing a mask, with the hashtag #RealMenWearMasks.

This message was reinforced by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said this in a floor speech Monday: We must have no stigma  none  about wearing masks when we leave our homes and come near other people.

Wearing a mask, McConnell reminded everyone, is not about protecting ourselves. It is about protecting everyone we encounter.

The gun-wielding guy at Central Market, it seems, wasnt all that concerned about protecting others.

Even before Wednesdays state order expanded the circumstances in which masks are required, masks were required to enter Pennsylvania businesses. And the markets policy is that customers must wear masks. But its a rule that has proven difficult to enforce.

What the markets operators cannot do is to turn anyone away for openly carrying a gun.

Which brings us to the other issue we had with the guy who caused a social media furor.

Why, we wonder, would anyone bring a rifle to Central Market, a place where parents shop with their children for doughnuts and smoothies and fresh vegetables?

It may be legal, but its not smart.

Nearly everything sold at market is already dead  theres nothing to hunt for except good deals.

This struck us as pure intimidation  a small-minded gesture by someone who wanted to make himself a big deal.

And, as Lancaster city Mayor Danene Sorace pointed out in a Facebook post, there was nothing she or city police could do about it.

Like me, you are wondering whats up with this person that he needs to bring this type of weapon to buy a bagel, she wrote. Additionally, he was refusing to wear a mask. Clearly, this person is disrespecting our community and our values. Value for the greater good over individual rights.

Have we gotten so lost in the narrative of individual rights, that we have lost the moral imperative to consider others? The gun is beyond unnecessary. And not wearing a mask in an enclosed building where social distancing is not possible is just plain inconsiderate.

But heres the rub, she noted: He was fully within his legal right. Pennsylvania law allows for the carrying of unconcealed guns in publicly owned places, such as Central Market. (Central Market is owned by the City of Lancaster and operated by the Central Market Trust.) Further, state law pre-empts any local ordinance that would curtail the right to carry a gun like this.

She urged city residents to contact their state lawmakers  Republican Sen. Scott Martin and Democratic Rep. Mike Sturla  to urge them to co-sponsor legislation that would allow municipalities like Lancaster to ban guns from city-owned properties like Central Market.

She noted sharply: Last I checked you couldn't bring a gun like this into the Capitol where they work.

She is right, of course  though according to 2018 reporting by The Caucus, an LNP Media Group watchdog publication, at least a dozen to two dozen members of the House of Representatives carry handguns in the halls of the Capitol building and even on the chamber floor.

Rules apparently are for the little people.

We understand the need for uniformity of gun laws. But weve come to believe that cities ought to be able to regulate how guns are carried in their often-crowded public spaces.

Unfortunately, state lawmakers preach local control about other issues, but never, it seems, in the face of pressure from guns-rights organizations.

They should consider what the board members of the Central Market Trust said in a statement Wednesday. The gist: People need to feel safe at market. And the presence of a rifle-wielding man did not make people feel safe.

As LNP | LancasterOnlines Dan Nephin reports, Central Market now is going to add additional security staff to preserve, as the board members' statement put it, markets family-friendly atmosphere.

They added that market staff will respond to any situation that concerns marketgoers, and that may involve calling the police.

Like Sorace, the Central Market Trust board encouraged everyone to share your views on state firearm policies with your state representatives.

Wed urge this, too.

Still, this is not merely a legislative problem. This is a human problem.

We remain perplexed why this particular guy felt compelled  why anyone would feel compelled  to take a rifle to Central Market. The people who shop at market arent adversaries. COVID-19 is, though. So if he was really concerned about protection, he should have worn a mask, not wielded a gun.
This article appears in the July 3, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Putins Discussion of the Second World War Can Prevent World War III!

[Print version of this article]

kremlin.ru Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.

The following statement was issued on June 24 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute.

Vladimir Putins detailed and very straightforward article on the background to the Second World War, which he substantiates with important historical documents, and his speech to the June 24 military parade in Red Square to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over fascism, are urgent must-reads for every politician and politically aware person around the world. At the same time, one should definitely watch the entire military parade, but keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of the Russian population had already read Putins article as they followed the parade on television.

What comes across is an approach to understanding why May 9 is the most important holiday in Russia, and that the same almost superhuman determination that enabled the Soviet population to survive the barbaric attack by the Wehrmacht and to achieve victory over Nazi Germany despite the loss of 27 million people, still exists in Russia today. But Putin also extends an olive branch to the West by calling on all countries to publish the still secret historical documents from before and during the Second World War, and to use them together with the testimonies of contemporary witnesses to launch a truth-seeking debate among historians. Reflecting on why World War II came about should cause political forces in the world today to draw the necessary lessons and rudely awaken the world to the escalating war danger so as to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Given the gigantic destructive power of the two world wars of the 20th century and the almost certainty that mankind would not survive a third world war, this time thermonuclear, it is useful to realize the point at which these world wars could no longer have been prevented. Putin answers this question very clearly regarding World War II by saying that it was the Munich Betrayal as the Russians truthfully call itcalled the Munich Pact in the Westthat triggered the war.

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Bundesarchiv

Putins article also responds to various historical misrepresentations, such as the European Parliaments declaration of September 19, 2019, which gave equal blame to the Nazis and the Soviet Union for the Second World War, or numerous accounts that mention all the participants in the anti-Hitler coalition with the exception of the Soviet Union, or the claim that it was primarily the United States and Britain that defeated the Nazi war machine. There is no longer any public awareness in the West of the fact that the Soviet Union, in reaction to the blitzkrieg attack carried out with never before seen destructive power by the Nazis on June 22, 1941, carried out an unprecedented evacuation of people and production facilities to the east. Within a year and a half, the Soviet Union had surpassed the military production of Germany and its allies.

As quoted in the 1945 report by the International Reparations Commission headed by the Russian diplomat, Ivan Maisky, the number of soldiers deployed by Germany on the Soviet front was at least ten times greater than on all other allied fronts, four fifths of the German tanks were deployed there, and about two thirds of the German aircraft; in total the Soviet Union accounted for about 75% of all military operations. Roosevelts Fireside Chat presentation to the American people on April 28, 1942 is quoted: These Russian forces have destroyed and are destroying more armed power of our enemiestroops, planes, tanks and gunsthan all the other United Nations put together.

Moreover, Churchill wrote in a letter to Stalin on September 27, 1944, that it is the Russian army that tore the guts out of the German military machine. Putin expresses gratitude for the efforts of all the countries and peoples who fought on different fronts and the eventual support of the Allies for the Red Army through the provision of ammunition, food and equipment, that accounted for seven percent of the total military production of the Soviet Union. It follows that one of the most important corrections to be made in the accounts of the Second World War is to emphasize, contrary to what is done today, the outstanding role of the Soviet Union in the victory over fascism.

Putin makes a clear distinction throughout between the German population and the National Socialists, who skillfully exploited the intention of the Western allies to rob Germany under the conditionalities of the Versailles Treaty and drove Germany into a new war. He notes that the Western states, especially political forces in the United Kingdom and the United States, directly or indirectly made this possible; certain financial and industrial circles invested very actively in German factories that were producing military products, and there were many supporters of extreme right-wing nationalist movements among the aristocracy of western nations and political establishments.

One could add to that, that Hitler was extremely socially acceptable in these same circles: The New York Times fully supported Hitler until 1938, and Time magazine declared him Man of the Year that same year. What Putin states only summarily here, has been documented in great detail by Lyndon LaRouche and authors associated with himfrom the support for Hitler coming from Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush to that of Montagu Norman, head of the Bank of England, as well as the American eugenics movements open support for the Nazis racial teachings. Prescott S. Bushs banking partner Fritz Thyssen, in his 1941 book I Paid Hitler, openly admitted that he was Hitlers most generous supporter. Putin also mentions the deliberate setting of arbitrary borders under the Treaty of Versailles (one could add SykesPicot and Trianon), which were intended to be time bombs for geopolitical manipulation.

Putin hits a particularly sensitive point when he addresses the fact that politicians in the West do not like to be reminded of the Munich Pact, in which under the guise of an appeasement policy, the booty was divvied up. Czechoslovakia was betrayed by its allies France and Great Britain, and war between Germany and the Soviet Union was in principle pre-programmed. It was absolutely clear to the British and French geopoliticians that Germany and the Soviet Union would inevitably clash and bleed each other white, Putin writes.

Documents are also cited that show how the British and Polish sides tried to prevent the formation of an anti-Hitler coalition, and that the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact, which in fact made the Soviet Union the last country to sign any such treaty with Germany, took place against the backdrop of the real threat of war against the Soviet Union on two fronts, as Japan was already involved in fierce fighting on the Khalkhin Gol.

That France and Britain clung firmly to their plan to have Germany and the Soviet Union destroy each other, became even clearer when, after Hitlers invasion, neither country came to Polands aid at all, moving militarily a few kilometers into German territory, to give the appearance of warlike activity, a farce called the phony war (Sitzkrieg in Germany and drole de guerre in France). Putin quotes General Jodl during the Nuremberg Trials saying that Germany did not lose the war as early as 1939, only because the 110 or so French and British divisions, which were up against 23 German divisions in the West, remained completely idle during the war with Poland.

It will not please those in the West who have been writing a revisionist history of the Second World War, and its prelude, for some time now, but Putin has outlined in this article the essential process of these maneuvers that created the greatest catastrophe in history to date. He is now calling on all states, each of which is to blame in varying degrees because of their geopolitical interests, to cooperate in this historical reappraisal. Each believed they could outsmart the others, as Putin writes. But in the end, it was the short-sightedness of refusing to create a system of collective security, that sealed the road to the great war.

Putins call to create a comprehensive archive of the history of World War II, and the pre-war period, in which all film and photographic material, all documents already published and documents yet to be released, would be available to historians, must be realized without delay.

I have been deeply convinced for a long time that the German population, for example, will never gain internal freedom and their sovereignty until they understand that Hitler and the Nazis were not a purely German phenomenon, but a project that was supported for geopolitical reasons by British and American circles. For this reason, I had The Hitler Book published back in January 1984, which goes into some of the background that led to the Nazis, one among the many tendencies of the Conservative Revolution which was supported by the international oligarchy.

Such a public international debate is also urgent because thinking people can quickly recognize the parallels to politics today. The plan at that time, which was to let Germany and the Soviet Union bleed each other white, is now a plan to encircle Russia and China, and to bring about regime changes against the governments of both nations, and in the United States it is the ongoing Maidan against President Trump, who waged his 2016 presidential campaign with the pledge to establish a good relationship with Russia, and who was building, at the beginning of his Presidency, a good relationship with China.

President Putin ends his article with a reference to the summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which he has proposed, and which the other four heads of state have already agreed to. This summit, he says, should frankly discuss, among other things, issues of preserving peace and in particular, of overcoming the economic crisis which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. How severe the impact of the pandemic will be, he points out, depends decisively on the ability of these countries to work together, as real partners, in an open and coordinated manner, and to revive those high humanist ideals and values for which their fathers and grandfathers fought shoulder to shoulder.

Such a summit must be supported by all peace-loving nations and people, because only the combination of the United States, Russia and China can implement the needed reorganization of the hopelessly bankrupt financial system through a new Bretton Woods credit system, and hopefully, the desolate state of the world will convince France and Great Britain that they have to give up their colonial and imperial traditions.

Vladimir Putins initiative to use the 75th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War to launch an international discussion about the historical truth of the causes of World War II is a brilliant flank, which may possibly prevent the world from sleepwalking once again into a new world war.
This article appears in the July 3, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this article]

Daisuke Kotegawa A Personal Recollection of Economic Assistance in Africa

Schiller Institute Daisuke Kotegawa

Mr. Kotegawa is a Research Director at the Canon Institute, and former Executive Director for Japan at the International Monetary Fund. He gave this presentation to the Schiller Institute International Conference, on June 27, 2020, Will Humanity Prosper, or Perish? The Future Demands a Four-Power Summit Now, on Panel 1: Instead of Geopolitics: The Principles of Statecraft. This is an edited transcript of that speech.

In the mid-1980s, when I worked as a staff member of the World Bank, I had an opportunity to complain about the slow development of African countries despite a large amount of aid to Africa, to a British and a French staff, both of whom had devoted their lives to economic development in Africa. Their answer was amazing:

Mr. Kotegawa. It is wrong to expect fast economic growth in Africa which can be compared to those in Asia and Japan. Because Africa is trying to achieve what humanity has done in 2,000 years within 100 years.

Japans Attempt to Create a Japan in Africa

When I returned to Japan in 1987, I became the budget examiner in the Ministry of Finance, in charge of the budget for foreign economic assistance. We reviewed Japans basic policies regarding economic assistance to Africa, and we started to try to create a country that would become a model for development in Africa, that is, a Japan in Africa. I was convinced that it was very important to create a Japan in Africa, because at my days at the World Bank, I realized that Asian countries found Japan as their model and hope, having come to believe that Asian countries could reach the level of Western countries if they work diligently like the Japanese.

The first step was to select the target country. The target country had to have a moderate economic scale, but small enough not to have internal contention such as tribal conflict. We chose Ghana, Cameroon, and Malawi. As for Ghana, the young and clean leader Jerry Rawlings was also a major factor. We poured all three kinds of economic aid into these three countries: concessional loans with a focus on the construction of economic infrastructure, grants focused on construction of social infrastructure in the medical and educational sector, and technical assistance with the aim of technology transfer through dispatching experts and inviting trainees.

A backlash from the former colonial powers was expected, and Japan, which had historically little relationship with African countries, lacked the know-how to build aid projects there. So, we made an arrangement with Crown Agents, a British aid agency, for consulting on our projects in Africa. As a result, about one-third of Ghanas total annual income in the early 1990s came from Japan. Ghana, in particular, achieved great economic growth, and if we had continued to do so, a Japan in Africa could have been realized in the 1990s.

However, having watched the success of such Japanese aid, the British and French began to be vigilant. Ms. Edith Cresson, who became French prime minister in 1991, made remarks such as, Japanese are yellow ants, and The Japanese are enemies and are plotting to conquer the world without obeying the rules, and repeated such remarks as Japanese economic assistance is Jurassic.

Against such criticism, Japan was forced to review its aid policy and had to reduce aid to Africa before Ghana became a Japan in Africa. Since then, proposals for UN Millennium 2000 targets, including the debt relief, which mainly targeted Japans yen loans, have been drafted mainly by the U.K., and Japans presence in the world of economic assistance has gradually been lost.. I think that there is a fundamental difference between the Western concept of economic assistance and that of Japan. The underlying idea of Western aid is that of charity. This leads to the emphasis on humanitarian aid, and the idea of the possible economic independence of the recipient country is rare.

The basic idea of Japans aid, however, is the recipient countrys economic growth and independence. This is the idea that flows from the roots of modern Japan since the Meiji Restoration, which marks the intents of Japan to catch up with and overtake the West, having witnessed the plight of Asian colonies under imperialism.

On the issue of economic assistance policy, I had to fight with the Western countries, with wannabe scholars, critics, and mass media at home, as well as those abroad, along with my friends in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who shared the same sense of mission. Mr. Ishikawa, who wrote several books at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was my greatest collaborator.

Japans Aid Increases Employment by Building Infrastructure

One day, a Japanese journalist came to me and started to criticize Japans aid policy. His argument was not original; it echoed the well-known Western criticism of Japan. For example, he said that Japan had built hospitals in developing countries, but only some wealthy people in those countries can use such hospitals, not the general public, which is impoverished; that Japan was building telephone networks in developing countries where most people do not have telephones; and that Japan has built international airports in capital cities in order to advertise its aid, but that these airports do not benefit at all the general public in the developing countries who have no chance of going abroad. He gave the Philippines as an example, claiming that it is wrong that Japan has built a hospital for the rich in Manila. Sweden built apartments for the poor in the slums of Manila.

I asked him, By the way, what would you be most worried about if you were asked by your company tomorrow to go to Manila next week? He replied, Whether I can call up Tokyo smoothly, whether the airport there is fine, and whether there is a proper hospital. So, I told him, What you said is exactly what foreign companies which make investment in the Philippines are concerned about. If there are no problems on such matters, overseas companies will build factories in the Philippines in search of cheap labor and hire people with low wages with minimal education. In this way, employment increases, and the gap between the rich and the poor decreases.

I have visited the Smokey Mountain in Manila, which is the core of a slum where Sweden built apartments. The place is a garbage dump, and residents sleep on benches on this pile of garbage and they protect themselves from rain by roofs made by tablecloths. It stinks very badly. People living there dig out what can be used from the pile of garbage and sell it in the city. The apartments built by Sweden became a slum in less than six months, because its residents dont have regular employment, no income. It is not possible to maintain the apartments, no matter how splendid the dwelling.

Japans aid helps companies increase employment by building economic infrastructure such as railways, ports, airports, roads, power plants, and telecommunication networks with yen loans, creating preconditions for overseas companies to enter the country, and help provide facilities for basic education as a social infrastructure. Gradually, technology will be transferred from the foreign companies to the local companies, and industries will grow in the developing country.

Just as we were providing economic assistance to various Asian countries with this way of thinking, the value of the yen doubled as a result of the Plaza Accord, and the relocation of factories to Asia began by Japanese companies that were no longer able to stand up to labor costs in Japan. The relocation began in Malaysia, where politics were stable and the power generation capacity built by yen loans was firm, and proceeded to Thailand, Indonesia, and China, and the so-called geese-type economic growth started in Asia. This steady economic development continued until the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s.

Trilateral Cooperation: Japan, China, the U.S.

I advocated joining the Belt and Road Initiative as proposed by China, to my Japanese colleagues, especially when China proposed the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and also with the United States, because I thought cooperation among these three countries would be the best mix to build up economic infrastructure in the developing countries. In my view, the Chinese have a shortfall in their capacity to build up the new projects, which is actually a major part of the advantage for Japanese bankers as well as American bankers.

So, the United States and Japan can draw up a kind of blueprint for economic development, and China should be in charge of financing and also actual construction of those projects. And after the completion of those projects, Japan would like to take the lead in the maintenance and rehabilitation of those completed projects, if they are needed, because this is the kind of area in which Japanese companies are quite good.

I believe this is the best way of collaborating, for these three countries for the future of this globe.

Thank you.
This transcript appears in the July 3, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this transcript]

Boris Meshchanov Russias Relations with the African Continent

Schiller Institute Boris Meshchanov

Mr. Meshchanov is a Counselor at the the Russian Federation Mission to the United Nations. This is the edited transcript of his presentation to the Schiller Institute International Conference on June 27, 2020, Will Humanity Prosper, or Perish? The Future Demands a Four-Power Summit Now, on Panel 1: Instead of Geopolitics: The Principles of Statecraft.

Dear Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche, dear colleagues and friends from so many countries, the problems posed in todays discussion are of high importance. We welcome the highlighting of acute questions of international relations through the prism of development, building physical infrastructure, and cooperation between major powers in the interests of the poorest and most vulnerable, in accordance with the United Nations Agenda 2030. We fully share the crucial significance of industrialization, eradication of poverty, reforming of international credit-generating institutions, and ensuring food security. Those questions are in the spotlight for the whole global community. We emphasize that the right to development persists as a basic human right. Development defeats inequality, contributes to peace, and is an indispensable condition for building just, peaceful, and inclusive societies.

I would like to start my presentation citing the report by the UN Secretary General as saying, As we are facing multidimensional and multifaceted impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, global solidarity with Africa is an imperative. Ending the pandemic in Africa is essential for ending it across the world.

In the context of this challenging crisis we all seek to re-assess the model for development with the needs of the most vulnerable at its cornerstone. I would like to address this issue with respect to how our country deploys in our relations with the African continent.

It is justified that today more than ever before, our eyes are directed to the regrettable fortunes of populations in remote corners of the world where governments are grappling with a triple crisis of health and finance, trying to avoid widening social disparity and future economic distress. Aware of its historical responsibility for the formation of the modern system of international relations and its further improvement, the Russian Federation considers international development assistance as an effective mechanism to solve global and regional problems, and to respond to new challenges and threats.

Our priorities have been the eradication of poverty and promotion of sustainable socio-economic development of partner states; influencing global processes in order to form a stable and just world order based on universally recognized rules of international law and partnership relations among states; as well as responding to natural and man-made disasters and other emergencies.

In doing so, as it can easily be seen in the ideals of Russian philosophers and artists and classical Russian literature, assisting our friends abroad has always been based on the respect of the others dignity. It has been reflected in our national policies and priorities; technical and humanitarian assistance has always been delivered at the request of the recipient side. We have proceeded from the assumption that any approach in the spirit of colonial rule, like the General Act of the Berlin Conference of 1884, bringing about the principle of effective occupation prejudices the freedom of the Africans themselves; attempting to come to agreement behind ones back and acting solely from the standpoint of mercenary calculation, will most likely not be accepted by the peoples themselves.

On the contrary, we value equitable partnership in the international arena, upholding the principles of truth and justice, respect for the civilizational identity of each people, the path of development chosen by each people.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin recently emphasized, the development of relations with the countries of the African continent and their regional organizations is one of the priorities of Russian foreign policy. Links between us are based on the friendly relations between the Russian Federation and African states and the traditions of the joint struggle for decolonization and achieving the independence of African states, as well as on the rich experience of multifaceted and mutually beneficial cooperation that meets the interests of our peoples.

Dear colleagues and friends, one of the main lessons learned from this pandemic is an urgent need for international solidarity and cooperation, without exclusions and exemptions. In line with this objective, we have committed to giving Russian-African interaction a truly systemic and integrated character. African states are confidently gaining political and economic weight, affirming themselves as one of the important pillars of the multipolar world, and are taking an increasingly active part in working out decisions of the international community on key issues of the regional and global agenda. We need to respect their right to benefit equally from globalization, whatever shape it will take after the impact of the pandemic.

In our strong opinion, the world needs Africa not just like a pantry of valuable minerals or a bread basket, but as a strong and sovereign region, developing an equal dialogue with its partners in accordance with the norms of the national legislation, based on the multilateral nature of the world order. Today, when proposals are made to reform the global governance system, we consistently uphold the need to include the role of Africa in those structures that are engaged in global governance.

Our fundamental outlook is not only to ensure the wide global participation of African states, but also to resolve conflict situations on the principle of African solutions to African problems. Together, we are able to counteract political dictatorship and currency blackmail in the course of international trade and economic cooperation, in order to put pressure on objectionable countries and unfair competition. Introduction of unilateral coercive measures not based on international law, also known as unilateral sanctions, is an example of such a practice. Joint efforts are needed to promote trade, investment, and sustainable development in order to make the global economic system more socially oriented, to oppose any manifestations of a unilateral approach, protectionism and discrimination, and to support world trade based on the rules of the World Trade Organization.

Under this paradigm the first Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum took place in October 2019 in Sochi with 92 agreements, contracts, and memoranda of understanding worth $12 billion signed, addressing trade, investments and banking, industry and construction, transport and logistics, energy and high-tech, and other economic matters.

We paid special attention to identifying promising areas of the economic, trade and investment partnership of the Russian Federation, as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, with the African Union as well as with the leading regional organizations of Africathe Arab Maghreb Union, the Sahel Five, the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for East and Southern Africa, the East African Community, Economic Community of West African Countries, Economic Community of Central African States, and others.

In our movement towards Africa we need to be creative and promote new mechanisms for partnership, encourage active participation of business in exhibition, fair and congress events, and develop the practice of exchanging business missions.

Moving towards Africa in this new old world would be impossible without learning each other better, taking into consideration the many local customs and traditions, as well as Africas rich cultural and linguistic variety. In Sochi-2019 we committed to developing cooperation in the field of education, implementing vocational training and academic exchange programs to promote social stability by protecting people, especially youth, women, and persons with disabilities, and expanding their capabilities by increasing the availability of education, technical and vocational training. Participants in the Russia-Africa summit confirmed that obtaining quality education and developing skills by young men and women can become a driving force for structural economic transformation and industrialization in African countries, as well as the basis for strengthening the industrial potential necessary to diversify the economy.

It so happens that our country has already contributed to the development of the African continent in particular in industry, infrastructure, and energy securityareas promoted by the Schiller Institute as the fundamentals of the so-called physical economyso I will focus on them briefly.

So far, Russia has been involved in the creation of the Russian Industrial Zone in Egypt. Among the key competencies of Russia for Africa, one cannot overestimate the role of rail infrastructure for the development of Nigeria, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola. Under current conditions, it is important that the use of technologies such as medical trains in Africa will help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and fight epidemics.

In energy, we count on the future construction of the first nuclear power plant in Egypt and the Russian Center for Nuclear Science and Technology in Rwanda, facilitating the development of integrated solutions in the field of nuclear energy in agriculture, health, education, science, and industry. Those two are not the only countries in Africa that intend to develop nuclear energy. Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Sudan, and Zambia are also on this growing list. Most African countries suffer from severe electricity shortages. Accordingly, in the near future they should double their generating capacity to meet current needs. The current pandemic-caused crisis, has aggravated this challenge.

In saying this we should not forget about stepping up efforts to combat climate change in Africa, transfer relevant technologies, build the capacity of African states. Meanwhile, general greening of the economy, in our approach, needs to be based on responsibility, consistency and realism. Key to that is technological progress. Serious efforts are being deployed to improve energy efficiency in industry, agriculture, housing, and transport. In our country we have launched national project Environment to create incentives for Russian business to implement best green technologies to ensure the environmentally friendly low-emission development. And we will proceed to provide assistance to developing countries, including African countries, to help them meet their own climate goals without prejudice to the objectives of ensuring inclusive and sustainable economic growth, industrialization of their economies, and leaving no one behind.

The pandemic is spreading across the world, threatening to undo the efforts applied so far to build a more resilient architecture. It is high time for humanity, responsibility, and the spirit of partnership to be demonstrated. A truly systemic issue with reference to todays discussion is food security, which holds a special place among Russias priorities in its efforts to achieve sustainable development globally. First of all, we believe that it has to be addressed at the level of supplying the world with enough high-quality food to stabilize international markets and make it more accessible and affordable for a maximum number of people. At the same time, the zero-hunger goal must be addressed as a matter of urgency for those countries that are food insecure.

To that end, over the last twenty years, Russia has been steadily and consistently increasing its own production and export of foodgrain, cereals, pulses, meats, poultry, oils, milk, and dairy products, etc. Russia has become one of the worlds largest exporters of food. During the pandemic, food supplies were transferred to the Union of Comoros and Madagascar.

Apart from tackling the problem of food security, Russia donated hundreds of KAMAZ trucks, together with the necessary parts, equipment, and technical support for key World Food Program (WFP) operations in Africa, starting in 2020, with $10 million being reserved exclusively for Africa. It is the first time that Russia assigned a geographic priority for its voluntary contribution to WFP.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, East Africa is experiencing its largest invasion of desert locusts in decades, and our country is making a $10 million contribution to support Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda.

In connection with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia received requests from a total of 29 African countries, as well as from the African Union, asking for assistance in combating the impacts of COVID-19. To date, units of laboratory supplies and personal protective equipment have been provided to the Democratic Republic of Congo; multi-purpose medical modules, tents, and accessories to Djibouti; and test systems to South Africa and Guinea.

At the same time, we believe that helping a sick person with a virus is paramount, but that only solves part of the problem. A fundamental factor is the availability of an effective system of prevention and education in the countries affected by the epidemic. As an example, I refer to the example of the Republic of Guinea, where Russia has deployed two mobile hospitals, and where mobile laboratories based on KAMAZ vehicles were transferred and medications delivered. With the participation of Russian experts there, more than 800 specialists have passed specialized training since 2015. Russia is making a significant contribution to the scientific research on the Ebola virus. With the support of one of the flagships of Russian business, the united RUSAL company, the Russian-Guinean Research Center for Epidemiology and Prevention of Infectious Diseases was established in the Guinean city of Kindia.

Last but not least, long and intensive discussions are ongoing concerning the unbearable debt burden of African states. Russia actively contributes to alleviating it under the debt-for-development program intergovernmental agreements. Those between Russia and Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania are being implemented. For instance, as part of these arrangements, the Government of Mozambique, in cooperation with the WFP, has launched a multi-disciplinary national school food and nutrition program. It provides for the conversion of a part of the countys debt to Russia, amounting to $40 million, during 2017-2021 into activities that address malnutrition among children and fosters primary education in Mozambique.

With that I thank you, and look forward to your questions.
This article appears in the July 3, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this article]

PANEL 1

Instead of Geopolitics: The Principles of Statecraft Opening Remarks by Lyndon LaRouche and Dennis Speed

Schiller Institute

The conference opened with a video clip from the speech, Creativity as Such, delivered by the late economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche to a Schiller Institute conference in Germany in July, 2011.

Lyndon LaRouche: This is truly the most important of all strategic questions we have to face today: the fact that the human species is absolutely unique in its capabilities. Theres no other known species in the universe, ever known to have existed, or could existeven though we have not fully explored, of course, the Crab Nebula or similar parts of the great galaxy which were involved in, called the Milky Way. There may be many species with cognitive powers out there. Because the Solar System of which we are immediately a product, although always under the control of the galactic processesand we know a good deal, today, about those kinds of things: Our organization in the United States has spent a good deal of effort on concentrating, inclusively, on just this question: How old is life? How long has life existed in this galaxy, or within some place in it? What is the nature of mankind, whos been on this planet only for a few million years? There was no human being on this planet, to the best of our knowledge, until a few million years ago.

And yet, were talking about billions of years of this galaxy, during which all living processes known to us have come into existence. And all life is creative, but theres a sad part: that over 95% of all known living species have been rendered extinct, as failures, in their time. The question, therefore: Why, in these times, when we have entered a period in which there will be more great kills of living processes, at this phase of the movement of the Solar System through the galaxy, why should we be so presumptuous as to imagine that human life is not about to disappear as the dinosaurs did in the last great kill?

What is there about human beings that says theyre not just another animal species, ready to get to the chop in the course of their time?

The answer is a very little-known question. Most people dont have an inkling of what the answer is! As a matter of fact, our societies are run on the basis of people who have no inkling what the human species is! All they can come up with is an explanation of some kind of an animal, with animal characteristics of pleasure and pain, and things like that, that might control the behavior of this animal.

So why should we expect that we have a right to claim that the human species is going to survive the approaching point of a great kill in the course of the movements of the Solar System up and below and around the galaxy we inhabit? How do we know that this 62-million-year cycle is not going to take the human species away, as its taken so many away before? And then, before that, and then before that?

And here you have all these people talking about politics; theyre talking about issues of politics; theyre talking about practical opinion, and public opinion, and differentiations in customs, and all those kinds of things! And here we are: Were approaching the time of the great kill, where everything about us may suddenly disappear; so what are we worried about? If were going to disappear, why do we worry? Why do we fight it? [laughter]

What is there in us, that is not in other living species known to us? That might, somehow, miraculously, pronounce a destiny for our human species which we grant to no other living species? The name for that specific quality, which we know in the human species, which does not exist in any other known living species: Theres a quality of creativity, which is absolutely unique to mankind. And if youre not creative, and if you dont understand creativity, you havent got a ticket to survival yet! Because creativity wont save you, unless you use it. [end video]

Schiller Institute Dennis Speed

Dennis Speed: Before we go to our keynote speaker, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, let me say a few things about the Schiller Institute and what weve been doing with this process of conferences, which began back in April of this year. On April 25th and 26th, we held the first of now, three conferences. These conferences were devoted to the idea of the creation of a Four-Power summitRussia, China, India, and the United States. There are various processes that have been able to move in that direction already, and we are in such a process today. In fact, among many of the things well be talking about today is a new proposal that has been put forward by President Vladimir Putin of Russia to that effect.

Let me also say that for people in the United States, in particular, the crisis that has been on peoples minds as exhibited in the social and political crises in the streets of America, is merely one predicate of a broader international process. And thats why were starting today with this first panel, to give that broader overview, and to allow you and others to become part of an international operation to reverse those circumstances.

Let me say one other thing concerning the words you just heard from Lyndon LaRouche, from 2011. LaRouches conception concerning the idea of thinking about strategy from the standpoint of a galactic process, and then lookingand only thenat the various political episodes occurring on Earth, was a way of trying to actually look at what he often also referred to as intelligence. He was the founder in 1974, of Executive Intelligence Review.That publication, which is still published to this day, specializes in trying to make his method of intelligence and investigation available generally in American and all international analysis.

This was very successful, in particular, in the drive for certain policy changes that occurred in the United States; most notably, that of March 23, 1983, with the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the product of a process of negotiation that LaRouche carried out as a back-channel negotiator with the then Soviet Union, and with the knowledge of the National Security Council and then President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. That policy, and the creation of that policy, and that dialogue with the then Soviet Union, is, in one sense, while not a model for now, it is the same sort of process that must needs be allowed to continue and happen between President Donald Trump, President Vladimir Putin, President Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others. The idea of the Four-Power summit is not exclusionary. It doesnt say that other powers are not to be involved. In fact, recent proposals have amplified or expanded the number of nations that might, in fact, be involved.

What is important to understand is that, as LaRouche once said in another document published in 1980, addressed to Brezhnev who was then the head of the then Soviet Union, and he said it in its very title, An Open Dialogue with Leonid Brezhnev: The Content of Policy Is the Method by Which It Is Made, the content of policy is the method by which it is made.

So, in LaRouches excerpt presented here, is the idea of culture and the idea that the quality and nature of culture are strategic matters. In the case of the United States, and in the case of the present-day United States, these matters of a cultural paradigm-shift are actually often far more important than the particular political issues that people talk about.

For example, looking at todays United States, the issue is our having gone away from being a productive culture, in fact the most productive economy in the worlds history, between the period of the 1933 resurgence of America that occurred under Franklin Roosevelt, through 1945, and then the subsequent period of 1945 through 1971 with the Bretton Woods system. Its been the need to return to that, and to return to those ideas that had come into currency under Franklin Roosevelts Presidencythat is the template for what we are saying should be the character of discussion between President Trump, President Putin, President Xi, and Prime Minister Modi.

I want to make one thing clear to everyone as we are about to transition to the keynote. In thinking about what we are all involved in todaynamely, that given the global pandemic condition created by the coronavirus, clearly, there is a need for all of us to change our axioms. International cooperation among sovereign, independent nation-states is necessary, for the purpose of creating a worldwide alternative to whats otherwise going to be, perhaps, the destruction of civilizationnot because absolutely everybody would die of the coronavirus or something like that. But the cascading effects and the interconnected effects of this global pandemic condition that we dont really medically understand, plus the ongoing problem of the financial virus that has plagued humanity particularly since the time of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, this combination has created a circumstance in which only with all nations working together, can we possibly achieve an actual reconciliation of this process.

We will now hear from Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She is the founder of the Schiller Institutethat was back in 1984. She is the wife of the late economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, who passed away in February 2019. She played a crucial, decisive role in a set of conversations and dialogues with the government of China during the period of 1993 to 1996, launching the process that became what we now know as the New Silk Road.
This article appears in the July 3, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this article]

Ramasimong Phillip Tsokolibane You Must Help Make the Decision:

It Will Either Be Africas Time to Die,

Or To Lead Humanity into a Bright Future

Mr. Tsokolibane is the Leader of LaRouche South Africa. He presented this greeting to the Schiller Institute International Conference, on June 27, 2020, Will Humanity Prosper, or Perish? The Future Demands a Four-Power Summit Now, on Panel 1: Instead of Geopolitics: The Principles of Statecraft.

From the Republic of South Africa, I offer my greeting to those of you gathered virtually around the globe for this important conference. My name is Ramasimong Phillip Tsokolibane, and it is my great honor to lead the LaRouche movement in South Africa.

The matters upon which you are deliberating will determine whether or not mankind survives our turbulent times. Around the globe, people are in the streets, rising up to protest the intolerable injustice of the dying neocolonial order that has enslaved all of us. It is a deadly monetarist order that values pieces of speculative financial paper above human life.

The collapse of this global British financial empire is certain. What will replace it, is not. What must be brought into being is a new world economic order based on the unleashing of the greatest power in the universe, the power of human creativity, to build on this planet a world of hope, peace and prosperity, where we will be truly, finally, free.

We shall extend our dominion beyond Earth into the vast expanse of the universe beyond. This was the mighty dream of the great Lyndon LaRouche, who taught us that the final conjunctural crisis of the old, evil British Empire was coming, and that we must, as revolutionaries, be prepared to seize this moment to shepherd the great change for the good.

As we deliberate today, we must remember the teachings of Mr. LaRouche. It is now truly his time, a time in which troubles can be turned into opportunity. To do otherwise, would be to allow those evil people who lorded over us, as the masters of the old Empire, to continue their rule in an even more brutish and deadly form, a global fascist order, whose policy intention it is, to kill more than three-quarters of all people on earththat is, if they dont stumble into a general thermonuclear war that kills all of us.

As the COVID-19 virus slashes its deadly path across my continentwhich will leave tens of millions dead in its wake, if not morewe see the results of the Brutish Empire policy of enforced underdevelopment. Combined with equally deadly famine, and attempts to stir up wars here and around the globe, we can count more millions murdered through the Empires policy.

It does not have to be this way!

LaRouches policies and programs for development and jobs point the way to the future. For Africa, its Go with LaRouche, or die with the old neo-colonial empire.

Africa wants to live, and we have, with some help, the means to survive and prosper. My countrythe only full-set economy on the continentcan help produce both the machinery and the machine tools required for the industrialization of Africa. We can help train the hundreds of millions of new productive workers that will be needed.

We have one of the most advanced nuclear energy industries on the globe, which is under constant attack from London. It is our future, and the future of billions of Africans to come, that this conference is discussing.

Best wishes for the success of your deliberations!
This article appears in the July 3, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this article]

Dr. Ding Yifan The Epidemic Demonstrates That Humanity is a Community of Common Destiny

Schiller Institute Dr. Ding Yifan

Dr. Ding is Deputy Director, Research Institute of World Development, China Development Research Center, China. He gave this presentation to the Schiller Institute International Conference, on June 27, 2020, Will Humanity Prosper, or Perish? The Future Demands a Four-Power Summit Now, on Panel 1: Instead of Geopolitics: The Principles of Statecraft. This is an edited transcript of that speech.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caught the whole world by surprise. Not only has the economy been paralyzed, and human life threatened, but peoples living habits have also changed. Moreover, in many countries, people have not been able to effectively curb the spread of the virus because they have no experience. Although many institutions are trying to produce vaccines, I am afraid that the vaccine would be short-lived, because the virus evolves so quickly.

In the face of the epidemic, we humans are very vulnerable. If we are not united and do not work together to overcome the epidemic, the time for the virus to spread will prolong, and the longer we will suffer.

So here Id like to highlight four points.

First, when Chinas epidemic broke out, many countries helped China, providing China with various materials to prevent and combat the virus, including masks. Countries such as Japan chose phrases from ancient Chinese classics and wrote those on boxes for transporting materials to show the close relationship between East Asian countries. When the epidemic situation in China was brought under control and the situation intensified in Japan and South Korea, China sent a large amount of materials to Japan and South Korea to help the people there fight the epidemic.

Second, many such touching stories can also be told about cooperation between Chinese and American companies in combating the virus. When the epidemic situation in the United States worsened, many Chinese companies provided the United States with a large amount of materials, including masks, protective clothing, protective glasses, ventilators, and even reagents for nucleic acid detection. So that cooperation showed that our human society is really a community of common destiny.

My third point is that unfortunately, the political chaos and the political split in the United States has intentionally made China a scapegoat. Radical congressmen and senators have tried to compete with the hawks in the Trump administration to show their toughness toward China. This attitude cannot help Americans combat the epidemic, but only exacerbates the mistrust between China and the United States, even making most cooperation impossible between the Chinese and American governments during and after the epidemic.

Fourth is the fact that the world economy has not completely recovered from the last financial crisis begun in 2007. And then a new crisis happened. The pandemic may make this crisis deeper and more difficult to deal with, because we are faced with a dilemma: restoring the economy and preventing the virus from spreading. The largest economies in the world need to expand cooperation and jointly take measures to combat the virus and to boost economic growth. We have to use stimulus packages not only to alleviate the problems of the population in trouble, but also use such stimulus packages to invest in infrastructure. Not only in traditional infrastructure such as highways, bridges, and communications, but also in the development of new infrastructure, such as the means of mass prevention of epidemics and mass treatment during a pandemic, also including remote means for mass temperature checks of people.

Only by rebuilding trust among the big powers can we unite together to successfully fight the coronavirus. Then we can bring humanity back to a harmonious development path again. So, I think we have to unite our forces, our strengths, in the middle of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. And then we could try to find a way of common development after the pandemic. Thank you.
Pompeo Tells UN Security Council To Extend Arms Embargo on Iran Indefinitely

July 1, 2020 (EIRNS)Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the UN Security Council June 30 to tell its members that under no circumstances should the UN arms embargo on Iran be lifted; otherwise, Iran will be buying weapons with which it can threaten Europe. This chamber has a choice, he declared. Stand for international peace and security, as the United Nations founders intended, or let the arms embargo on the Islamic Republic of Iran expire, betraying the UNs mission and its finest ideals, which we have all pledged to uphold.

If you fail to act, Iran will be free to purchase Russian-made fighter jets that can strike up to a 3,000 km radius, putting cities like Riyadh, New Delhi, Rome, and Warsaw in Iranian crosshairs. He didnt explain why Iran would want to bomb any of these cities.

The occasion for the session was to review the implementation of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Irans nuclear program and UN Security Council resolution 2213, the resolution that made the JCPOA part of international law. The stage was set, however, by the UN Secretary Generals report on the implementation of the JCPOA and UNSC 2231 which confirmed that Iranian-made weapons were used in the attacks on Saudi Aramco oil facilities in September 2019. Iran is already violating the arms embargo, even before its expiration date, Pompeo crowed. Imagine if Iranian activity were sanctioned, authorized by this group, if the restrictions were lifted.

Pompeo did not get the support he was perhaps expecting, however. Chinas UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said the five-year arms embargoitself a compromise between the Obama Administration and Moscow and Beijingshould end as scheduled under the 2015 resolution, reported AFP.

Having quit the JCPOA, the U.S. is no longer a participant and has no right to trigger snapback at the Security Council, Zhang said. The three European signatories on the JCPOA have expressed support for extending the arms embargo but oppose snapback of UN sanctions, arguing that Irans nuclear program is the bigger issue. Unilateral attempts to trigger UN sanctions snapback are incompatible with our current efforts to preserve the JCPOA, said the British envoy, Jonathan Allen.

Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia warned against the Security Council legitimizing the U.S. policy of maximum pressure on Iran. Weve been watching with grave concern the policy of maximum pressure on Iran, which is better characterized as a maximum suffocation policy, he said. Iran is being deliberately squeezed from all directions. The task is to achieve regime change or create a situation where Iran literally wouldnt be able to breathe. This is like putting a knee on ones neck.

Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif delivered a nine-page statement to the Council, the theme of which was that it is the U.S. that has violated international law with its withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018. For the first time, we are witnessing that a permanent member of the UNSC has violated a resolution drafted by the UN and threatens others to violate it, he said. It is a matter of regret to say that a meeting has not so far been held to study the case in the UNSC, he further said.

All of these statements were preceded by a briefing to the Council by Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Undersecretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. The JCPOA is a significant achievement of multilateral diplomacy and dialogue. It remains crucial to the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture and to regional and international security, she said, reported Xinhua. It is, therefore, regrettable that the future of this agreement is in doubt after the withdrawal of the United States from it and the reversal of some of Irans commitments, she said.
21 Savage launches free online financial program for youth

Rapper 21 Savage will be launching a free online financial literacy education program for youth sheltered at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Grammy winner announced his new Bank Account At Home nationwide initiative on Wednesday. His efforts will include a partnership with Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to provide free WiFi and tablets for undeserved students in the city.

I feel like its important more than ever to give our next generation the tools to succeed in life, the rapper in a statement.

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21 Savage said he wants to empower youth to manage their money. His program will work with mobile banking service provider Chime and EverFi, an education technology platform. The rapper launched his Bank Account program in 2018 to teach financial literacy to teenage students across the United States.
Brotherhood Crusade Promotes Energy and Water Conservation Through LADWP Partnership

Brotherhood Crusade was recently awarded a LADWP Community Outreach grant to promote energy and water conservation outreach and awareness.

Charisse Bremond Weaver, Brotherhood Crusade President & CEO said, We are so grateful to LADWP for their continued support over the past several years. Awarding us this grant enables us to continue the journey we started to instill water and energy conservation awareness in our program students and nurture them to go into our communities to advocate this important environmental platform. The confidence this program has built up in our students is palpable. They are wiser and better equipped to make the choices to ensure a greener plant and we could not be more proud of them.

To support the grant, Brotherhood Crusade established Youth and Environmental Ambassadors that will work to inform their peers and residents about public health issues and topics relating to both water and energy during the various virtual and projected in person engagements they attend. The students will also share conservation tips that could result in lower utility bills.

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As we continue to live our new normal together during this COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical that we stay mindful of the energy crisis in the United States. According to a 2018 report by the NAACP and the environmental advocacy nonprofit Clean Air Task Force, utility bills are the primary reason why people resort to payday loans, and play an outside role in the perpetuation of poverty.

Brotherhood Crusade through its LADWP Youth Ambassadors Program wants to see and be that change in our community! This summer is the chance for residents of Los Angeles to help with energy conservation and save on your energy bill.

Here are some tips to help you save on your energy bill:

 On hot days, avoid using the over; cook on the stove, use a microwave over, or grill outside

 Set your thermostat as high as comfortable possible in the summer. The smaller the difference between the indoor and outdoor temperatures, the lower your overall cooling bill will be.

 Turn off ceiling fans when you leave the room. Remember that fans cool people, not rooms, by creating a wind chill effect.

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 Turn down the temperature of your water heater to the warm setting (120F). Youll not only save energy, youll avoid scalding your hands.

Dont let money blow out of your home! Small changes have big results.

If you need any additional information about the Brotherhood Crusade LADWP Youth Ambassador Program or want to receive materials and information about water conservation and energy efficiency, please contact [email protected] and/or call 323-846-1649.
CDU Report Highlights Needs for Underserved Communities During COVID-19 Pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic begins a resurgence across the nation, efforts continue to be made to address the disparities in underserved communities in South Los Angeles. According to a report issued by the Los Angeles County COVID-19 testing site at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) in Willowbrook, high-risk groups in under-resourced settings will engage in testing for COVID-19 when systemic barriers are removed, outreach is more targeted and testing access is made easier for them.

Since African-Americans have been dying at a far greater than the average rate due to COVID-19, even though their infection rate is about average, testing becomes critical, stated Dr. David M. Carlisle, president and CEO, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. We need to have ready access to COVID-19 testing to identify those who are infected as early as possible to get them the care they need to help reduce mortality.

We also conducted culturally appropriate outreach and ran public service announcements advertising the site.

The report was conducted on site with 27,133 COVID-19 tests, between April 8 and June 14, 2020. To date, the site has performed over

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32,000 tests and has averaged over 700 tests per day in June. Other information includes:

African American (15%) and Latinx (71%) community members comprised 86% of those tested

Among those who tested positive, over 32% did not have a primary care doctor, 3% were in need of housing resources, and 2% were referred for immediate mental health support. All were given referrals for additional assistance

Despite a significant public awareness campaign and daily news coverage, some community members still held misperceptions and fears about testing, including the belief that they would have to pay for testing, they would be ineligible for testing if they didnt have insurance and, among those who are undocumented, that they would be deported

For instance, even though we are an appointment-based, drive-through testing site, we allowed same-day appointments and walk-ups, stated Dr. Carlisle. A substantial number of our individuals tested have been same-days and walk-ups.

This report reveals how the partnerships between the county and other community-based organizations and institutions, such as CDU can help bridge the gap between the county and the community, stated Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. This report helps to not just diagnosis this issue by identifying cultural barriers, but also addresses various methods to how information is being communicated and the platforms that could be utilized to disseminate it.

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One issue Dr. Carlisle pointed out as a big concern in the report was the lack of access to primary care. He stated that one of the benefits besides coming out and being tested is getting information on access to healthcare.

Over 30 percent of the people who tested positive at our site had no medical home, stated Dr. Carlisle. This means they had no regular access to one physician or medical facility who knew this person and their medical history and thus, could provide needed follow-up care.

We were fortunate to be able to refer these individuals to the Martin Luther King Outpatient Center. But we need more access to health services and more medical providers in under-resourced communities.

He added, We also found a lack of access to other basic social service needs, in addition to lack of access to medical care, including housing resources and mental health services.

This report highlights the intensive work that remains to be done to expand access to testing in a way that acknowledges and begins to address the structural barriers that have led to disproportionate rates of infection and mortality from COVID-19 in our communities of color, notably an alarming positivity rate in the Latinx community, said Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. The Department is committed to testing equity and is implementing a multi-faceted outreach strategy in concert with trusted community partners to close the disparity gap and combat the spread of COVID disease.

When asked if the community should get tested, even if they dont have any symptoms, Dr. Carlisle stated its still vital to know otherwise.

People without symptoms should get tested because of our current awareness of both asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 as well as people who are pre-symptomatic, both of whom can transmit infections, stated Dr. Carlisle. The only way for them to be aware of their risk, the risk to others, and therefore their need to self-quarantine is by getting a test when they dont have symptoms.

This is especially important for individuals with recent known or suspected exposure to someone with COVID-19. This includes those who may have been in high risk settings, including crowds during demonstrations or rallies among people who were not wearing masks.

Testing in those without symptoms is also important for those who work in or have been in high-risk settings for dissemination of the infection, such as meat processing plants, jails and prisons, or in settings which there are populations at risk for severe disease, such as long-term care facilities, including nursing homes and residential treatment facilities.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department is extremely grateful for the partnership with Charles R. Drew University and the MLK Outpatient Center, said Chief Daryl Osby, Los Angeles County Fire Department. The testing site report from CDU demonstrates that opening a site in South Los Angeles was critical to the mission of insuring access to COVID-19 testing for the some of the most vulnerable and underserved members of our community. 

We know long after this virus is gone, the damage will remain, stated Ridley-Thomas. I want to make clear; we are here for you. We will connect you to the right resources and information you need. But we ask that you reach out in the way that you can.

We will get through this together, and emerge stronger together.

While the CDU site does take walk-ups and same-day appointments, to make a testing appointment at the CDU site, or any county testing site, register at this website: https://covid19.lacounty.gov/testing/.

For more information, visit http://www.cdrewu.edu/, and follow CDU on Facebook, Twitter (@cdrewu), and Instagram (@charlesrdrewu).
FILM REVIEW  John Lewis: Good Trouble

I feel lucky and blessed that Im serving in the Congress But there is a force that is trying to take us back to another time and another dark period, warns congressman John Lewis. And hed know.

Since age 17, this brave crusader has been at the forefront of the civil rights movement. Now at age 80, hes an elder statesmen. Following his path lets audiences retrace the steps of an activism that has led to social change, even in the midst of great oppression. For that alone, former trial lawyer turned documentarian Dawn Porters (Trapped, Gideons Army) homage to one of our greatest heroes is a blessing and an inspiring lesson in American history.

On the surface, this bio/doc uses pretty standard techniques. Lewis is interviewed and his recollections are as evocative as they are noble. Clips and photos of him as a 17-year-old around the time he met Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957 brim with strength and vitality. Recalling his historic 1964 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, when he was beaten by police, will send shivers down viewers backs and leave them in awe over his bravery: I thought I was going to die on the bridge.

Porter holds the camera steady. There is little style (contrary to more elaborate docs like Errol Morriss The Thin Blue Line). Minimal creative moves. Very straight forward filmmaking where what is shown and heard is far more important than flair. Viewers learn the details of what happened before and after that iconic moment on the bridge in Selma, Alabama and how Lewis never lost hope. They discover the intricate planning that went into his activism, from what to wear, how to present himself to how to withstand police violence.

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Lewiss thoughts on racism today, through the prism of his experiences, are completely illuminating and poignant. He points out the dangers of voter suppression involving Blacks, Latinos and young people and expresses his concerns: My greatest fear is that one day we wake up and Democracy is gone. This is coming from a man whose deep convictions and protests got him arrested 40 times and five times while he was in Congress.

Porter peppers the footage with politicians and civic leaders who eagerly attest to Lewiss accomplishments. Diane Nash, one of the former heads of the student branch of the civil rights movement, SNCC. Hillary Clinton. AOC. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Credit to Porter for also bringing up some of Lewiss questionable strategies for winning his first congressional seat in Atlantas fifth district. Recent bios about iconic black figures like Toni Morrison failed to bring up any controversies in their lives or careers. In this more honest doc, the audience learns how Lewis beat Julian Bond out of his Congressional seat by bringing up his rivals personal foibles. That shows that behind the affable smile and nurturing qualities, Lewis can play hardball during a campaign.

Tamar-kalis musical score certainly adds a dramatic effect. Jessica Congdons editing keeps the pacing pretty fresh and cuts what easily could have been a miniseries from hundreds of hours of archival footage down to 96 minutes.

In this age of fierce debates over national healthcare, gun rights, police reform, gerrymandering and the future of basic civil rights, its easy to lose direction and momentum. But in moments of doubt, it is the work of civic leaders like Lewis that puts everything into perspective. Lewis: When you lose the sense of fear, you are free!

This had to be done. Someone had to chronicle a political life that began as an inquisitive, unafraid teenager who saw no boundaries and crescendoed into one of the countrys most hailed elders.

Lewis is as much a hero as he is a shaman. If activists and concerned citizens listen to his life story and sage advice they may find new ways to navigate through these turbulent times when hope and strategy is more vital than ever before.

John Lewis: Good Trouble is as instructive as it is inspiring.

Visit NNPA News Wire Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com and BlackPressUSA.com.
Rebuttal to: Inglewoods Choice to Quickly Close Elementary School Harms Children and Hurts Our Community

The state of Inglewood Unified School District (IUSD) has improved significantly since I was elected in 2017. IUSD is on track to start transitioning out of receivership, we achieved a positive budget certification this year for the first time since going into receivership in 2012, our facilities have improved significantly and we are always planning for our future needs, and lastly our entire IUSD leadership team came together to provide a safe quality educational experience during COVID-19. You can see for yourself a vast improvement of our schools from where they were just a few years ago.

Recently the IUSD County Administrator and Board members had to make a very difficult decision regarding the closure of Warren Lane Elementary School. We did not want to close this school, and truthfully no Board ever chooses or sets out to close a school, however, unfortunately, we were left with few choices when IUSD received notice that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the State Budget was projecting massive cuts to the state education budget. Thus IUSD, along with other school districts within the State of California, faced a budget shortfall. This rapid change of events forced IUSD to act quickly to stabilize our budget and maintain the Districts financial stability. Furthermore, the Governor this month announced a 10% drastic cut for the 2020-2021 academic school year with a request for all school districts to plan accordingly. Although we managed our budget properly, this projected State shortfall due to COVID-19 caused IUSD to face a $13 million loss with an even higher deficit of $16 million the following school year 2021-2022. Because of this, decisions had to be made quickly!

Warren Lane is a close community school that has dedicated parents that value their school in their neighborhood. IUSD recognizes this, and we have been making investments in Warren Lane for years. We have raised money for resources from sponsors to help invest in our schools, and we have launched an enrollment campaign and dedicated resources for marketing to highlight our District programs. However, Warren Lane enrollment has gone down 40% over the last five years. The low enrollment has been a financial challenge for IUSD to maintain the school. The status of Warren Lanes closure is being discussed, but If IUSD can keep it open for the upcoming 2020-21 school year, we will need to inform, encourage and convince parents in the neighborhood to enroll their kids in Warren Lane. IUSD and myself will be working hand-in-hand with parents with a goal to increase enrollment, resources, and marketing for the school.

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I have two children that attend a school in the District, and I know how impactful difficult decisions are on parents. I want nothing but the best for all of our children. I will continue to fight to make Inglewood Unified School District and Warren Lane successful.

I am deeply invested in the success of IUSD and Warren Lane, our schools, and, most importantly, our Students! Once I was elected to the Board, I was able to hit the ground running and worked hard to turn the District around. I am happy to share that since succeeding in Margaret Richards-Bowers seat, the hard work of the current Board has successfully utilized all the Measure GG $90 million Bond money to remodel our schools and worked with Los Angeles International World Airport to obtain additional sound and insulation funds towards remodeling our schools as well. In addition, our Board worked with our Assembly member, Autumn Burke, to successfully pass AB 1840 that has brought millions of dollars in additional funding to IUSD to assist in stabilizing our District. Lastly, for the first time since going into receivership in 2012, and due to the current Boards diligent efforts, we announced earlier this year the positive certification of the School Districts budget.

One of the reasons I ran for the Board is because I am committed to our kids, my kids, and IUSD. My work as a Board member of IUSD is driven by my goal of elevating this District to become one of the highest performing Districts in the State of California. So for Margaret Richards-Bowers, who has not been on the Board for several years to now point fingers, criticize and call for a recall of Board members that have successfully achieved a positive budget certification, right-sized the District, improved facilities, and created a unified IUSD leadership team, is irresponsible, petty and impedes the progress and success of IUSD, the Board and the advancement and achievement of our students.

I believe that all of us working together as a team, the Board, Administrators, and our Students, is how we move forward as a District.

Dr. Dionne Faulk serves as a Board Member for the Inglewood Unified School District.

Faulks work experience currently includes Community Engagement/Public Affairs for the State of California Environmental Protection Agency DTSC. She earned a Bachelors Degree in Economics with a Minor in Political Science from California State University at Dominguez Hills and a Juris Doctorate from the University of West Los Angeles School of Law. Faulk is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
Thursday, July 2, 2020

The states and XY Planning have failed in their bid to stop Regulation Best Interest. The Second Circuit found that the SEC had discretionary authority to enact a regulation short of a uniform fiduciary standard. It also found that the states lacked standing to sue because their theory that their tax revenue would decline was "speculative."

With Reg BI going into effect, states must decide whether to simply pass their own statutes and rules. As it stands, Nevada remains the nation's only state to have a state fiduciary statute. Other states, notably New Jersey and Massachusetts have pursued administrative rule making approaches. The next fight will likely be about the scope of state authority to regulate securities sales practices.

Industry lawyers will likely do all they can to forestall the promulgation of state regulation or, if that fails, seek to have it struck down as somehow preempted by federal law. Some academic work has begun to explore this issue. Columbia Law's Yerv Melkonyan has a forthcoming Note exploring the topic (it was also featured on Andrew Jennings's podcast here). In a symposium piece, I took a close look at one preemption argument industry representatives made in comment letters sent to state regulators here. If states do move forward on their own, I expect courts will ultimately have to sort out the scope of state power.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2020/07/states-lose-reg-bi-lawsuit.html
Thursday, July 2, 2020

Southwest Airlines recently filed a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit that was based upon a claim of breach of contract for failure to refund fares for flights cancelled due to the pandemic. The plaintiff had purchased two nonrefundable round trip tickets from Baltimore-Washington International airport to Havana, Cuba. The plaintiffs flight was cancelled as a result of Cubas closing of its borders on March 20, 2020 to non-Cuban citizens. Southwest offered to provide a future travel credit to plaintiff for his nonrefundable fare instead of a refund. The plaintiff argued that Southwests Contract of Carriage required Southwest to provide refunds, not credits, in this situation. Southwests motion states that it had the option under its Contract of Carriage permits it to offer credits or refunds and cited the following language which applied to nonrefundable tickets purchased for a flight that is subsequently cancelled:

the Carrier will either transport the passenger at no additional charge on another of Carriers flights, refund the fare for the unused transportation in accordance with the form of payment utilized for the Ticket, or provide a credit for such amount toward the purchase of future travel.

Southwest argued that the above language gave it the choice of one of three options with respect to nonrefundable tickets because it contained the disjunctive or.

Im not sure that the language is as unambiguous as Southwest claims; it could, after all, have expressly written that the Carrier may, at its option, either transport

Southwests motion references a different section of its contract which applies to refundable tickets, claiming that because it has two different sections for refundable and non-refundable tickets, that it means it does not have the same discretion for refundable tickets. It does not, however, quote that section so I decided to take a look at it myself with the caveat that I pulled this contract off Southwests website and dont know if this is the actual contract that bound the plaintiff. But after taking a look, Im even less convinced than I was before about the claim that the language is unambiguous. The section for refundable tickets 4(c)(1) states that the fare will:

either be refunded if canceled and refunded instead of exchanging or changing the Ticket or applied as travel credit toward the purchase of future travel for the originally ticketed Passenger in accordance with the form of payment utilized for the Ticket.

The provision also contains the disjunctive or, so I am not sure what Southwest means by contrasting the two provisions. In other words, the language for the refundable and non-refundable tickets are substantively similar (either transport, refund or provide credit) except that the non-refundable tickets are subject to the remedy contained in the language only in the event of a delay or involuntary cancellation.

Furthermore, Section 9(a) states that if a flight is cancelled,

the Carrier will, at the request of a Passenger with a confirmed Ticket on such flight, take one of the following actions.(ii) Refund the unused portion of the Passengers fare in accordance with Section 4(c).

Southwest claims that the reference to Section 4(c) means that it has the discretion to elect a fare credit instead of issuing a refund. But I think that the language at the request of a Passenger means that it is at the Passengers option, not the Carriers.

The plaintiffs also argued that Southwest failed to comply with the U.S. Dept. of Transportation notice to provide travelers with refunds. Southwest argues that the notice and the relevant statute did not create a private right of action and so failed to state a breach of contract claim.

Regardless of how I feel about Southwests interpretation of the contract, I will be dismayed if the lawsuit proceeds given that Southwest subsequently refunded the $345.35 fee. IMHO, it seems like a waste of resources to let this case proceed and I hope the motion to dismiss is granted. How is the economy ever going to right itself if flailing airlines are sued for failing to refund fees that they have already refunded? Who actually benefits from that? (Answer: The kind of lawyer that gives lawyers a bad reputation). Talk about the social costs of enforcing a contract!

Also, Im not sure why the lawsuit wouldnt be considered moot. Compare this motion filed by Volaris, a Mexican airline, which seeks to dismiss a similar class action over its cancellation of flights. Volaris claims that because it has been offering its passengers the option of a refund, the claims are moot.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2020/07/airlines-and-lawsuits-over-refunds.html
In light of the police violence against African Americans in the United States, Alan Desmond considers the fascinating question of would African Americans be granted refugee status in Ireland?

His bottom line:

"Even if African-Americans stand a chance of qualifying as refugees in Ireland, would they want to seek refuge here? Ireland's treatment of asylum seekers has been the subject of long-standing and widespread criticism. Asylum applicants in Ireland are currently housed across 38 direct provision centres and 34 emergency accommodation centres and receive a Daily Expenses Allowance which equates to a weekly payment of 29.80 for children and 38.80 for adults."
Thursday, July 2, 2020

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court released a second opinion of interest to the nonprofit world. In Espinoza, the Court looked at the constitutionality of excluding private religious schools from a scholarship program.

Broadly speaking, the scholarship program worked like this: the state created a tax credit for donations to student scholarship organizations. A to qualify as a student scholarship organization, an organization must be exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Code, must allocate 90% of its annual revenue to scholarships, and those scholarships couldnt be limited to a single school. Student scholarship organizations also have to comply with certain reporting and audit requirements. The scholarships are meant to help pay for grade schoolthey can only be given to students who are at least 5, but not older than 18.

Scholarship money must be paid directly to the school; its the schools job to inform parents that their child received a scholarship.

So far, so good, right? This is a scholarship program administered by private nonprofit entities, so theres no state action to invoke the Constitution. But its the next step that implicates constitutional questions: the state provided a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to Montanans who donated to student scholarship organizations, for a credit of up to $150. (Note that, to get the tax credit, the donor cant designate the parent or private school that will receive scholarship assistance.)

And that intersected with Montanas Blaine Amendment. The Montana constitution prohibits any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination. Believing that a tax credit represented indirect aid to schools that received scholarship money, the Montana Department of Revenue promulgated a rule that religious schools were not qualified education providers, eligible to receive these scholarship funds. The Montana Supreme Court ultimately agreed that the scholarship program violated the state constitution and invalidated the whole scholarship program.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed on Free Exercise grounds. Essentially, it held that the no-aid provision of the Montana state constitution barred the school from participating in a public benefit solely because of its religious character. That, it said, put this case squarely within the ambit of Trinity Lutheran.

The Montana Department of Revenue argued that Espinoza didnt fit because in Trinity Lutheran the benefitplayground equipmentwas nonsectarian, while in Espinoza public money could indirectly pay for not only secular, but also religious, instruction, in violation of Supreme Court precedent that allowed the state to not provide scholarship to divinity students. The Court said the two cases werent comparable for two reasons. First, it was okay to deny funding based on what a student was going to do with the education (i.e., become a minister). Second, that denial derived from a historic and substantial state interest, while Montana had no similar historical opposition to paying money to religious schools. (Note that Ive written about my skepticism that historical interests tests have any determinative value; theyre easy to use opportunistically to bolster a judges priors.)

Ultimately, Im unsurprised by the Courts decision for one big reason: theres no direct payment by the government to a religious school. Though the two may be virtually indistinguishable economically, courts tend to treat tax credits and deductions differently than they treat direct payments (notwithstanding the indirect language in Montanas Blaine Amendment). And here, theres an extra step of remove: the state provided a tax credit to donors who donated to a third-party scholarship fund. That third party then paid scholarship money to secular and religious private schools.

Economically, the state of Montana probably funded most (if not all) of the scholarship funds. (Its hard to say for sure: Big Sky Scholarships was the only student scholarship organization formed under the regime and if it has filed a Form 990, its 990 isnt on GuideStar.) For every donor who donated $150 or less, the state bore 100% of the cost. To the extent that a donor donated more than $150, the state paid for the first $150. (How do I figure that? With a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, if I were a Montana resident and I donated $150 to the fund, I would reduce my state tax liability by $150; as a result, my donation wouldnt cost me anythingthe state would provide all of the funding.)

But formally, the state hasnt provided any money to religious schools. And whether that should matter or not, it generally doesnt.

Of course, that's not the analysis the Supreme Court went through; essentially, it reiterated its position that religious organizations have to have equal access to public benefits as non-religious organizations.

Samuel D. Brunson

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2020/07/espinoza-and-scholarship-tax-credits.html
Scientists say a relative of modern wombats, about the size of a black bear, lived in central Australia around 25 million years ago.

Fossils of the creatures head and other bones were discovered in 1973, under Lake Pinpa, a dry, salt lake in South Australia state. The fossils were housed in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and went unstudied for years.

Robin Beck, a professor at the University of Salford in Britain, led the research, which appeared in the publication Scientific Reports.

It may have looked a bit wombat-like, but with a smaller head, Beck said. He said the animals also had longer tails and strong legs.

The researchers named the plant-eating mammal Mukupirna nambensis. The name means big bones in the local Aboriginal language. The shape of the creatures hands and forelimbs suggest it was a skillful and powerful digger, scientists say.

Mukupirna is one of the earliest-known large-bodied Australian marsupials, the report said. Its discovery helps explain the development of a marsupial group called vombatiforms. The group includes wombats as well as koalas.

Marsupials are mammals that give birth to less developed young that are carried and fed in a pouch on the mothers body. They were the common mammals found across Australia following the end of dinosaurs. Other mammals, like cats, dogs, elephants, apes, horses, developed more commonly on the other continents.

Mukupirna was not a direct ancestor of wombats but a close relative. At about 150 kilograms, it was about five times the size of modern wombats.

Beck said in a news release Mukupirna probably lived in an open forest environment without grasses, and developed teeth that would have allowed it to feed on sedges, roots, and tubers that it could have dug up with its powerful front legs.

It is a very unusual animal, he added. In fact, researchers have identified Mukupirna as its own animal family.

Mike Archer is a professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He helped write the report on the Mukupirna. He was also among the scientists that discovered the bones almost 50 years ago. He said the find was extremely lucky.

Normally, Lake Pinpa is covered with sands from nearby hills. "But because of rare environmental conditions before the team arrived, he said, the fossil-rich surface was on full show.

Archer described the unexpected sight as breathtaking.

Im Caty Weaver.

Reuters reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted the story for Learning English.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

mammal -n. a type of animal that feeds milk to its young and that usually has hair or fur covering most of its skin

forelimb -n. an arm, fin, wing, or leg that is located toward the front of the body

pouch -n. a pocket of skin on the stomachs of some female animals (such as kangaroos and koalas) that is used to carry young

allow -v. to permit; to let

sedge -n. a plant like grass that grows in wet ground or near water

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The United States, Japan and France are urging their businesses to depend less on China to make smartphones, drugs and many other products.

But few companies appear to want to leave Chinas skilled workforce and suppliers of unprocessed materials to move to other countries.

Too much dependence on China leaves global companies open to costly problems during major world crises. The spread of the new coronavirus is one example. Also, the U.S. and China have been locked in a trade war for several years. Both countries have raised taxes on the goods they exchange.

Drug makers are one group that is trying to reduce dependence on Chinese suppliers. The industry is establishing sources of unprocessed materials in the U.S. and Europe. But the medical device, consumer electronics and other industries are continuing to depend on China.

Harley Seyedin is the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in South China. He told the Associated Press: I dont know of a single company right now that is moving ahead with any plans to move.

Chinas rise as the worlds low-cost factory has helped to lower costs for consumers and increased many companies profits. But it has fueled political tension over lost American and European manufacturing jobs. Governments and industry experts worry dependence on China can be a threat to supply chains and national security.

Chinese factories put together most of the worlds smartphones and consumer electronics. They produce a growing share of medical equipment, industrial robots and other high technology goods. The country also is a leading supplier of vitamin C and ingredients for antibiotics and other medicines.

The ruling Communist Party has spent 20 years building ports, train stations, communication networks and other systems.

China still offers an unparalleled supply chain for any industry, said Jit Lim of Alvarez & Marsal, a business advising service.

Philip Richardson manufactures sound equipment in Panyu, near Hong Kong. He said he has considered Vietnam and other countries. But he said while worker pay there might be 40 percent lower, the savings will be used up by the cost of losing his network of Chinese suppliers.

We gave it consideration for about a minute, and it doesnt make sense, said Richardson, who has worked in China for 22 years.



Countries seek new supply chains

In Japan, the government considers China a direct competitor. So Japan is offering $2 billion to companies that move production to the country in a virus aid program announced in April. It has also offered $220 million to Japanese companies in China if they move to other countries.

The U.S.-China trade dispute has created concern about Chinas leading position as a supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs. These are the substances used to make drugs and vitamins. Some American experts warn China might withhold APIs.

In May, the U.S. government gave a contract worth up to $812 million over 10 years to the Phlow Corp. The Virginia-based company is working to protect against drug shortages by producing necessary ingredients.

Drugmaker Sanofi is also creating an API supplier to reduce dependence on China. Sanofi said the company will be the second biggest global producer, with yearly sales of over $1 billion by 2022.

India and Indonesia also have announced plans to increase their own production of unprocessed drug ingredients. But Sakshi Sikka of the market research company Fitch Solutions said those changes are politically driven and will increase costs. Chinas position as a top supplier, he said, is unlikely to change soon.

Companies also increasingly are trying to sell to Chinas 1.3 billion consumers at a time when spending growth in Western countries is low. Makers of cars and higher-value goods are spending billions of dollars to expand Chinese production. For example, German carmaker Volkswagen said in May it would spend $2.2 billion to buy control of Chinese electric vehicle and vehicle parts producers.

Instead of manufacturing for export from China, some companies are planning to sell within the country. Now a lot of people are producing local for local, said Jit Lim.

Im Pete Musto.

Joe McDonald reported on this story for the Associated Press. Pete Musto adapted it for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

global adj. involving the entire world

source n. someone or something that provides what is wanted or needed

consumer n. a person who buys goods and services

supply chain n. the series of processes involved in the production and distribution of a given good or service

ingredient n. one of the things that are used to make a food or product

unparalleled  adj. not found elsewhere

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A new study shows the American honeybee population is slowly recovering after suffering major losses the year before.

Beekeepers in the United States lost only 22.2 percent of their honeybee colonies during the past winter, from October 1, 2019 to March 31 of this year. That is lower than the average winter loss of 28.6 percent.

Those numbers come from a group called the Bee Informed Partnership. It organized a recent survey of thousands of U.S. beekeepers.

The survey found that last winter was the second smallest winter loss in 14 years of studies. The loss last winter was less than the winter of 2018-2019, when a record 37.7 percent of colonies died off, researchers found.

After that winter, the losses continued through the summer of 2019, when beekeepers reported a loss rate of 32 percent. Yet that rate was higher than the average of 21.6 percent for summer losses.

Nathalie Steinhauer is with the Bee Informed Partnership. She told The Associated Press that although the summer losses were higher, the winter deaths are really the test of colony health. Steinhauer believes the findings are good news for the insects. It turned out to be a very good year, she said.

Historically, honeybee populations usually have good years following bad ones, Steinhauer added.

The survey involved a total of 3,377 beekeepers nationwide. Some operate businesses for profit, while others just keep bees at home as a hobby.

Jerry Bromenshenk is a bee expert from the University of Montana. He was not part of the survey. He told the AP he hopes a lower winter loss will bring better results in 2020. Bromenshenk said that he thinks that can happen if the weather cooperates and beekeepers exercise good colony management.

U.S. beekeepers might also move more of their colonies to weather-resistant areas during the winter to improve the chances of survival, said Keith Delaplane, who studies insects. He is with the University of Georgia.

New U.S. Department of Agriculture research suggests putting bees in cold storage to help them get through the winter.

Scientists have long watched the population of animal pollinators  which are critical to the worlds food supply - shrink.

Honeybees are among the easiest pollinators to follow. But experts say they are threatened by diseases, mites, chemical products, and loss of food.

Steinhauer said she and other scientists are seeing the current loss rates as part of the new normal.

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

honeybee  n. a kind of bee that lives with others in a hive and makes honey

hobby  n. an activity someone does for pleasure when they are not working

management  n. the control and organization of something

pollinate  v. to take pollen from one plant or part of a plant to another so new plant seeds can be produced

mite  n. a very small animal similar to a spider
This was not a happy marriage, she said.

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Wightman chose not to reduce bail. Jourdan remains in the Dawson County Jail.

On June 17, Jourdan, her husband, Joshua, and their two children were moving to Scottsbluff to continue her medical residency.

While driving on I-80 near Cozad, Jourdan and her husband began arguing. Joshua pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road, gave her a look, and raised his arm like he was going to strike her, Kathleen Jourdan told law enforcement, according to an affidavit.

She then allegedly grabbed a handgun from the center console of the vehicle and shot Joshua twice in the chest, according to an affidavit.

During later interviews, Jourdan allowed Nebraska State Patrol investigators to look through her cellphone and told them they might find a, concerning conversation with one of her friends. According to the affidavit, Jourdan and her friend had discussed how to get away with the perfect murder.

Jourdan later revoked her consent for law enforcement to search her cellphone.
SAN DIEGO  Whether it was destiny or karma was of no relevance to Jon Rahm. He won the U.S. Open on Sunday at Torrey Pines, the perfect time and the perfect place to become a major champion.
The Good Samaritan Emergency Shelter in Santa Maria has been placed under mandatory quaranti
CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters.
Aliyya Swaby contributed to this report.

"More than 300 children in Texas day cares have caught COVID-19, and the numbers are rising" was first published at texastribune.org/2020/07/01/texas-day-care-coronavirus-cases-rising/ by The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is proud to celebrate 10 years of exceptional journalism for an exceptional state.
Anti-racism protests have called for action and change in our police departments and other systems that have historically oppressed people of color  including the financial system.

In addition to joining those protests, donating to organizations that fight for racial justice or shopping at Black-owned businesses, you can put your investment dollars to work for the cause.

What comes after protests is money, and money is what will make change sustainable, says Tiffany Aliche, a financial educator and founder of The Budgetnista.

Here are six ways to support racial justice with your investment portfolio.

1. Invest in Black-owned companies and funds that support racial justice

Kenneth Chavis, a certified financial planner at Mercer Advisors in Scottsdale, Arizona, says investing in stock of Black-owned companies can have two major advantages for investors: diversification and the potential for strong performance.
The frame that Im in is not an easy one when you are unapologetic in terms of being an equity advocate and a champion for all students, she said. For me, personally, when I saw the video of George Floyd, it resonated with me because at times  and I dont think Im the only leader or educator who feels this way  but at times a system might feel like you have a knee on your neck and you cant breathe.

Despite that, she wants to take on the challenge.

I would say sign me up, she said. I really want to work with this community, I really want to work with this board.

Throughout her Q and A Wednesday night, she leaned on programs and projects shes been part of in Oak Park to explain her qualifications. She mentioned using Madisons Behavior Education Plan as a model there as the district moves away from its more punitive code of conduct to something more restorative, stressing the importance of teaching and modeling good behavior.
Sire's Tuesday arrest came after a gathering at Elver Park called attention to the death of a 21-year-old Black man in Monona last Saturday. The man was found dead in a lagoon south of Lake Monona following a chase with Monona Police. All of the officers involved in the chase have been placed on leave and the state Department of Justice is investigating it as an officer-involved death.

The Elver Park event dispersed after gunshots were heard in the area, away from the gathering, and police stopped the vehicle Sire was driving for speeding, according to a woman at Wednesday's protest, and took him into custody.

I was there. The thing is, Marquon was not speeding, said the woman, who said she was a passenger in the car. They were watching us. We were over at Elver supporting the family of a young man that just lost his life. And as soon as we left, next thing you know there were police cars flashing their lights on us. We stopped and put our hands down. I looked up again and theres eight more police cars coming up to surround us.

Sire has spoken at public events in the past week, after the June 23 firebombing, and protesters on Wednesday wondered why there was a delay in police apprehending him.
The final vote on the plan moves to the Common Council on July 21.

Equity in Development

Annette Miller of EQT By Design, a consultant for the city, presented findings from focus groups, polling and an open house about the development plans.

"There's a real divergence between what the general population feels about natural open spaces, and what diverse communities of color actually experience," Miller said. "They will say that they appreciate and value what Madison has to offer when it comes to the open outdoor space, but they don't feel welcomed. They will recount and tell you stories of which they have personally experienced negative impact at parks and in open spaces, at the beach, or on the bike path.

"Those voices of color very clearly said that they need housing, they need employment, and transportation is really important."

Miller continued to say that though this divergence of opinion made it feel as though there was a tension running through, her firm found that the plan has really embeded voices and perspectives from people of color in the process. Not only through centering pieces of inequity, but also trying to address other needs that other people have.
The question is why Wisconsin has not passed such critical pieces of legislation when so many other states (even those with Republican-controlled legislatures) have. Our community continues to struggle because we are not fully accepted, regardless of what flying a Pride flag above the state Capitol might suggest. When Gov. Evers took that historic action in 2019, 10,000 Wisconsinites signed a petition asking him to remove the flag. If our community continues to be seen as a threat or is politicized, this type of opposition will continue to drive lawmakers to vote against legislation to support equal rights.

To increase equality, we must increase understanding. The LGBTQ+ community cannot shoulder this responsibility alone. Similar to the fight against systemic racism, we need allies to consistently show up and speak out. It starts at the dinner table, the conference room, the book clubs  even if theyre virtual. When there is an opportunity to educate and advocate, please take it. This means having difficult (and at times uncomfortable) conversations. It might even mean educating yourself about the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community  especially the transgender community  so you are equipped to have constructive conversations. It means not humoring an inappropriate joke about someones sexual orientation or gender identity. It means explaining why gender-neutral pronouns matter. It means encouraging religious family members and friends to push their clergy to take a public stance for equality and against hate. In simple terms, help us be seen year-round, not just the month of June. If I am fortunate enough to be elected to the state Assembly, I promise to do the same within the state Capitol.
If youve ever been to a polling station, you might have noticed that the average age of a poll worker is about 76.5 years old (citation needed). This also happens to be the approximate age of the people most vulnerable to die from COVID-19.

This has left a severe shortage of poll workers nationwide, including in Wisconsin.

In April, Wisconsin used the National Guard to assist as poll workers, but we cannot count on that happening again for August and November.

Being a poll worker is a paid position, and your regular employer is required by state law to give you time off to work the polls.

What if everyone is voting by mail?

We still need poll workers to process the absentee ballot requests. And there will always be people who are voting in person, for example, because they missed the online registration deadline and they need to register to vote.

If you are 18 or older and eligible to vote, you can serve as a poll worker anywhere in the county in which you reside. So if you live in a rural area of Brown County, for example, you can help in the city of Green Bay, where many poll workers are needed. High school students aged 16 and 17 can work at the polling place which serves their neighborhood.
Though there may be an urge to do so, you do not need to defend these figures. The contrary; to protect Black lives means understanding American history in its fullness and dreaming up the country we actually wish to build. It is easy to deride statues of the racist Confederacy, but especially in a place like Madison, it is more meaningful, to topple symbols of white liberal hypocrisy. Liberal white people must avoid the trap of being Martin Luther Kings White moderate. Taking down these statues is an expression of belief that white people can and must do better, can and should be part of the project of liberation.

Given the history and symbolism embedded in these statues, it is grotesque that their removal has evoked more ire from white liberals than the actual murder of Black people; including murders that are close to home. Madison resident Tony Robinson was killed on Willy Street by white police officer Matt Kenny. Kenny remains on the Madison police force to this day, but rarely have those expressing dismay over the statues expressed the same level of concern over this police murder. Why should a protest that damages property be seen as more violent than police murdering Black people? Who defines what constitutes "violence"? These statues are on their surface progressive, but digging deeper means being more honest about the legacy of violence they protect.
In 2017, Black adults in Wisconsin were imprisoned at nearly 12 times the rate of white adults  the second-highest racial disparity in the country. This means about one in every 14 adult Black men in Wisconsin is in prison. Right now as I write, thousands of Black Wisconsinites are languishing in prison where they are exposed to a deadly outbreak that disproportionately infects and kills Black Americans.

Many of them are languishing in prison because of a minor mistake. Last year, during our statewide tour against the practice of crimeless revocations, we heard story after story of Wisconsinites who were thrown back in prison because of a technical violation.

One man was sent back to prison for moving from one apartment in a duplex to the other without prior approval from his parole officer. A mother who had been on probation successfully for nine years was reimprisoned based on unfounded allegations. A college student who was on supervision was investigated and jailed, and while he was not sentenced to prison, he had to drop out of school, and lost his job and housing.
Meet Dr. Carol Kelley, one of two finalists for the position of Madison Metropolitan School District, in a live engagement session with students and staff.

The live session featuring Dr. Carol Kelley began at 7:15 p.m. Thursday. The live session featuring Dr. Carlton Jenkins ran on Wednesday at 7:15 p.m.

The live sessions are a part of a "Virtual Day in the District", an online opportunity to get to know each candidate, ask questions and provide feedback that will aid in the board's final decision.

The Board of Education announced two final candidates who will participate in the next step of the interview process to become the districts next Superintendent in late June.

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The Madison School District is among 114 Wisconsin districts expected to see less K-12 state aid next school year, but those estimates could change as the state adjusts for COVID-19-related shortfalls.

The Department of Public Instruction on Wednesday announced that state general school aids  which represents the largest form of state support for public schools  are expected to increase statewide by $163.5 million, or 3.5%, from the previous year. The fund is expected to total $4.9 billion in the 2020-21 school year.

Of Wisconsins 421 school districts, 302 are poised to receive an increase in funds this coming school year. Another 114 districts are estimated to see a drop in funds, and five districts will see no change in funding.

However, Dan Bush, director of school financial services for DPI, said the estimates are based on the most recent 2019-20 budget data and are subject to change. Final funding amounts will be certified in mid-October.

On balance, its unlikely that this estimate reflects the impact of COVID-19 much, Bush said. I would anticipate some differences when we get to the fall and we get the final year-end numbers.
The report prompted the states largest business organizations  including Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the Wisconsin Restaurant Association and Wisconsin Grocers Association  to send letters to Evers office saying releasing such information would have severe impacts on businesses already struggling through the pandemic.

Susan Quam, the restaurant associations executive vice president, said she understands the administrations need to respond to a public records request but cautioned that releasing such information would mislead the public.

Our concern is primarily that, unfortunately, youre not going to know the full story of every single individual who became ill and where they contracted it, Quam said. Its just going to put businesses further at risk.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development reported the state unemployment rate dipped slightly in May, but was still 12%. While retail and service industries experienced some of the biggest gains since April, those industries also took some of the hardest hits as stores and restaurants were forced to close as the pandemic spread.
We just dont know how much, he said.

But its hard to measure the protests precise impact for a number of reasons, Shah and others said. Earlier business reopenings and more willingness to shrug off social distancing guidelines started the trend in the Houston area, Shah said.

Another factor: Many people dont get tested unless they feel symptoms. Many protesters were young adults, who generally are less likely to get severe illness, and therefore may not have gotten tested, experts said.

And some who do get tested may still not answer all the questions they are asked by outbreak investigators.

I know of three people who told us Yes, I was at a protest. That doesnt mean there was not another 25 or more who did attend a protest and just did not share that with us, said Dr. Mysheika Roberts, the public health commissioner for the city of Columbus, Ohio.

That city has seen increased cases in the last month, but health officials say they cant attribute it to any particular reason other than people socializing and returning to normal activities without wearing masks or taking other precautions. So far, protests dont seem to be a real factor.
Standing tall The "Forward" statue is shown on Nov. 13, 1963, with the Wisconsin State Capitol in the background.

People were more upset and outraged about these statues being torn down than they were about black bodies being torn down, Gomez said. I think we really have to assess what our priorities are and what we value because the statue represents a lot of things, but its a material object  it can be replaced. Black lives cannot be replaced.

Still, objects can be powerful, according to Christian Overland, director and CEO of the Wisconsin Historical Society. He said statues can spark meaningful conversations that may make them worthy of preservation.

Objects are history and objects have stories, Overland said. Taking care of objects like statues and restoring them allows people to have a dialogue about what has happened in history and what it means for us today.

Who decides?

The Wisconsin Historical Society is currently working with the Department of Administration to restore the Forward and Heg statues, Overland said, but the State Capitol Executive Residence Board is responsible for making the final decision on whether they will return to Capitol Square.

Some community leaders, however, say Madisons Black residents must have a say in the matter.
While I am a retired attorney, Constitutional law was never my strong point (I was a Bankruptcy Trustee). However, I do know a thing or two about history and how the courts are judged by it. When it comes to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Chief Justices name is front and center. That can be a tricky thing. Chief Justice John Marshall famously established the concept of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. They named schools after him. Chief Justice Roger Taney penned the Dred Scott decision. Hes been branded a racist and Maryland took down his statue from the statehouse three years ago  long before any of the protests were seeing today. The Warren Court (named for Chief Justice Earl Warren) is lauded by history for its ground-breaking Civil Rights decisions which include Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

When history evaluates the current Supreme Court, it will evaluate the Roberts Court.

I am not a SCOTUS-watcher, but I opined last month that Roberts must have history on his mind given his recent votes. I think hes trying to even the score on his record. He will no doubt be judged harshly for gutting the Voting Rights Act, bringing unregulated money into politics and protecting gerrymandering. However, he will be lauded for protecting LGBTQ rights and immigrants who came to our country as children.
Fish and Game learned through their investigation that Reeder and Porter not only killed gross over-limits of elk and deer but also sold some of the elk and deer meat and antlers in order to purchase a new rifle. Members of the group also unlawfully killed pheasants, magpies and wild turkeys baited onto the property.

While serving search warrants on the Reeder Ranch for the wildlife violations, Franklin County Sheriffs Office arrested Reeder and Porter for felony possession of a controlled substance, which was located in the residence during the search. Officers also found Reeder in possession of an unlawfully taken bear he poached in California.

All six men reached plea agreements with the Franklin County Prosecutors office. As part of the agreements, Jay Reeder and Brandon Porter each pleaded guilty to four felonies and received lifetime revocations of their hunting privileges. Both men received suspended two-year prison sentences held at the discretion of the court to impose if the men were found in violation of the conditions of their 20-year felony supervised probation. The men each spent 30 days in jail.
More than 1,500 of Virginia's 29,000 prison inmates have been infected with COVID-19, but officials say roughly nine out of 10 had no symptoms and almost all are now believed virus free.

The Virginia Department of Corrections had tested 22,538 inmates for the virus as of Tuesday as part of a large-scale "point prevalence" testing program. The results show that while it has infected about 5% of the prison population, the coronavirus has thus far not led to widespread serious illness as had been feared.

As of Wednesday, 11 inmates had died and six remain hospitalized for COVID-19, but only 74 were known to still have the virus and most of them have no symptoms. Sixty-eight prison employees currently have the virus. No staff deaths have been reported.

Seventy-four cases may be a lot, said Trey Fuller, assistant director of health services for the department, "but if the community had the same level of testing it would show that we are really stopping and slowing the spread quite a bit."

Test results do not lead to treatment - there is none - but allows for a housing strategy to curb the spread, said Fuller. "I would say there has been much less widespread transmission [here] than in other correctional systems because of our strategy," he said.
In this June 22, 2020, file photo, a bartender pours a beer for a customer at Shade Bar NYC in New York. Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks.

In the words of one study, it comes down to the danger of "heavy breathing in close proximity."

Crowded indoor spaces filled with people yelling, leaning close to hear one another and touching the same sticky surfaces are "the opposite of social distancing," said Dr. David Hamer of the Boston University School of Medicine.

"Can you do social distancing at a bar? Can you wear a mask while drinking?" Hamer said. "Bars are the perfect place to break all those rules."

The rapid spread of a bar outbreak can swamp public health workers. In East Lansing, Michigan, an outbreak tied to a large brewpub near Michigan State University has spread to nearly 140 people in 12 counties, causing authorities to recruit nursing students and retirees to help with contact tracing.

"In 12 days, we went from two identified cases to 128, and, honestly, I don't have today's numbers yet," Ingham County health officer Linda Vail said Wednesday before cases shot up again. She described her outlook as "shocked and overwhelmed."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer responded by closing indoor seating in bars in parts of the state. Taverns will not have to close completely. They can sell to-go cocktails and keep outdoor patios open.

In this June 28, 2020, file photo, people gather at tables outside Bar Louie on the Northside of Pittsburgh. Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom took similar action, ordering bars and indoor restaurant dining to close again for the next three weeks in most of the state. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio delayed the city's resumption of indoor dining.

Two other factors at play in bars make them potential virus flashpoints. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, so people forget precautions, said Natalie Dean, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Florida.

Plus, the attractive, healthy person buying you a drink could be a silent carrier, shedding contagious virus with each breath.

"Young people have less severe illness, so they may be infected and able to infect others inadvertently," Dean said, noting outbreaks in Japan and South Korea associated with restaurants, bars and karaoke parties.

In recent weeks, college towns across America have seen clusters of cases that have been traced back to bars. Bars and restaurants near the University of Iowa and Iowa State University closed only weeks after the governor allowed them to reopen.

In this Thursday, June 18, 2020, file photo, patrons fill the Crow Bar in Sioux Falls, S.D. Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks. (Erin Bormett/The Argus Leader via AP, File)

As of last week, 90% of cases in the county that is home to Kansas State University involved people ages 18 to 24. Health officials said most of them spent time in a bar and restaurant district known as "Aggieville."

Citing a similar spike, the Kansas county that includes the city of Lawrence and the University of Kansas also ordered bars and nightclubs to close beginning Friday for the next two weeks.

"Congregation at a bar, inside, is bad news," Dr. Anthony Fauci told a Senate panel Tuesday. "We really have got to stop that."

Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles and some Pennsylvania counties are closing bars to slow the spread of the virus. Florida and Colorado have told bars they cannot serve alcohol on site.

Most bar owners and employees feel that they have been unfairly singled out, particularly because restaurants are still open and serving alcohol. In Texas, bar owners said that on Friday after they were forced to close their doors, they noticed restaurants were still packed.

In this June 29, 2020, file photo, two men drink beers at the Mike Hess brewery and tasting room in San Diego. Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

"You can go into a restaurant and they have bars, and you can have as many drinks as you want," said Nikki Forsberg, owner of the Old Ironhorse Saloon in Blanco, Texas. "It doesn't seem fair. Restaurants get this pass and the bars don't."

The bar's manager, Tami Cooley, said although she did not wear a mask at work, she felt the tavern was taking every precaution to safely stay open. No one was allowed to drink or order at the bar, and tables were limited to six people. They closed for a few days after finding out one of the bartenders had been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.

"We were cautious at our bar. We social-distanced, sanitized the tables, chairs, bathrooms, doorknobs," she said. "We did everything right."

In the Michigan bar outbreak investigation, "huge concern" now centers on the parents and grandparents exposed to the virus by their offspring who partied at the brewpub, Vail said. She worries about "a climb in secondary cases if the people we asked to self-quarantine didn't do that ... Where is this secondary transmission going to land?"

In this June 8, 2020, file photo, Rodney Ott, owner of The Loft, makes mixed drinks from behind the bar for patrons as he reopens fully for the first time amid the coronavirus outbreak in downtown Flint, Mich. Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks. (Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP, File)

In this Sunday, June 28, 2020 file photo, people gather at a bar in Pittsburgh. In July 2020, authorities are closing drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks. In the words of one study, it comes down to the danger of "heavy breathing in close proximity." (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

In this June 29, 2020, file photo, a man waits for a bus near a bar closed due to the coronavirus pandemic in Los Angeles. Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infectionsa move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Saskia Popescu, an infectious diseases expert in Phoenix, said it's difficult to disinfect surfaces at a bar enough to make a difference. Even sitting at a table with friends at a bar involves loud talking and laughing that could spread virus. It's not worth it, she concludes.

"You can make a cocktail at home," Popescu said.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Patrons eat lunch at Slater's 50/50 Wednesday, July 1, 2020, in Santa Clarita, Calif. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered a three-week closure of bars, indoor dining and indoor operations of several other types of businesses in various counties, including Los Angeles, as the state deals with increasing coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Four U.S. statesArizona, California, Florida and Texasreported a combined 25,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases Thursday as the infection curve rose in 40 of the 50 states heading into the July Fourth holiday weekend.

With the number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases nationwide climbing past 50,000, an alarming 36 states saw an increase in the percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus.

"What we've seen is a very disturbing week," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious-disease expert, said in a livestream with the American Medical Association.

In a major retreat that illustrated how dire things have become in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the wearing of masks across most of the state after refusing until recently to let even local governments impose such rules.

The surge has been blamed in part on Americans not covering their faces or following other social distancing rules as states lifted their lockdowns over the past few weeks. Fauci warned that if people don't start complying, "we're going to be in some serious difficulty."

The U.S. recorded 51,200 new confirmed cases Wednesday, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. That represents a doubling of the daily total over the past month and is higher even than what the country witnessed during the most lethal phase of the crisis in April and May, when the New York metropolitan area was easily the worst hot spot in the U.S.

A social distancing sign is displayed as the lead bottom of the Great Bath is cleaned at the Roman Baths in Bath, England, Thursday July 2, 2020, making final preparations ahead of reopening to members of the public on Monday as further coronavirus lockdown restrictions are lifted in England. (Ben Birchall/PA via AP)

All but 10 states are showing an upswing in newly reported cases over the past 14 days, reclosed or otherwise clamped back down on bars, restaurants and movie theaters over the past week or so.

Nebraska and South Dakota were the only states outside the Northeast with a downward trend in cases.

While some of the increases may be explained by expanded testing, other indicators are grim, too, including hospitalizations and positive test rates. Over the past two weeks, the percentage of positive tests has doubled in Georgia, Kansas, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina and Ohio. In Nevada, it has tripled. In Idaho, it is five times higher.

In Texas, where new cases in the past two weeks have swelled from about 2,400 a day to almost 8,000 on Wednesday, the positive rate ballooned from 8% to 14.5%. In Arizona, it has gone from 5.7% to 10.3%.

Health workers arrive in a lift to conduct a free medical checkup at residential building in Mumbai, India, Thursday, July 2, 2020. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a live address Tuesday that the country's coronavirus death rate is under control, but that the country is at a "critical juncture." But since the lockdown was lifted, the caseload has shot up, making India the world's fourth-worst affected country. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Abbott, who in May began one of the most aggressive reopening schedules of any governor, ordered the wearing of masks in all counties with at least 20 COVID-19 cases.

Abbott said in a video posted on Twitter that the state's lower infection rate and case counts after his stay-home order in April might have led some to think the "coast was clear."

But the number of people hospitalized in Texas because of COVID-19 has quadrupled since late May, after businesses began reopening.

"We are now at a point where the virus is spreading so fast, there is little margin for error," Abbott said. "I know that wearing a face covering is not the convenient thing to do, but I also know that wearing a face covering will help us to keep Texas open for business. And it will help Texans earn the paycheck they need."

Doctors and hospital staff stand inside a blood plasma bank that was inaugurated Thursday in New Delhi, India, Thursday, July 2, 2020. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a live address Tuesday that the country's coronavirus death rate is under control, but that the country is at a "critical juncture." But since the lockdown was lifted, the caseload has shot up, making India the world's fourth-worst affected country. (AP Photo/Shonal Ganguly)

The surge comes as Americans head into a Fourth of July holiday that health officials warn could add fuel to the outbreak by drawing big crowds. Many municipalities have canceled fireworks displays. Beaches up and down California and Florida have been closed.

Florida reported more than 10,000 new confirmed cases for the first time Thursday. That is six times higher than the daily count of less than a month ago. The state also reported 67 deaths for the second time in a week and 325 new hospitalizations, one of the biggest 24-hour jumps in Florida yet. Georgia likewise saw its biggest single-day increase yet, nearly 3,500 cases.

"I'm discouraged because we didn't act fast enough to shut things down, and we could have done a much better job getting a handle on the virus," said Megan Archer, a 39-year-old woman from West Palm Beach, Florida, who lost her job with a county parks department during the outbreak.

People wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus pass by a newly weds kissing as they posing for wedding photos at the Olympic Forest Park in Beijing, Thursday, July 2, 2020. China reported three new cases of coronavirus, including just one case of local transmission in the capital Beijing, appearing to put the country where the virus was first detected late last year on course to eradicating it domestically, at least temporarily. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Meanwhile, the government reported that U.S. unemployment fell to 11.1% in June as the economy added a solid 4.8 million jobs. But that figure may be outdated: The data was collected during the second week of June, before many states began to backtrack on restarting their economies.

Several Northeastern states have seen new infections slow down significantly, including New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey, which allowed its Atlantic City casinos to reopen Thursday, though with no smoking, drinking or eating.

Pennsylvania, an outlier among Northeastern states, reported its highest one-day total of new cases since May, with more than 830, more than one-quarter of them in Pittsburgh's Allegheny County, which will impose a one-week shutdown of bars and restaurants and all gatherings of more than 25 people starting Friday.

People wearing masks to curb the spread of the new coronavirus wait for businesses to open in downtown Lima, Peru, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Other states, like Colorado, a major summer destination where increases in infections have been less dramatic, are keeping a close eye on their neighbors.

"I've been watching that map. ... We're well aware of what's going on around us and we're very anxious," said Dr. Michelle Barron, medical director of infection prevention and control at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital. "The next couple of weeks are critical."

President Donald Trump on Wednesday seemed confident the virus would soon subside, telling Fox Business: "I think that, at some point, that's going to sort of just disappear, I hope."

The U.S. has reported at least 2.7 million cases and more than 128,000 dead, the highest toll in the world. Globally there have been 10.7 million confirmed cases and over 517,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins' count. The true toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part because of limited testing and mild cases that have been missed.

Health workers walks back after conducting a free medical checkup at residential building in Mumbai, India, Thursday, July 2, 2020. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a live address Tuesday that the country's coronavirus death rate is under control, but that the country is at a "critical juncture." But since the lockdown was lifted, the caseload has shot up, making India the world's fourth-worst affected country. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

A dine-in customer looks at a menu next to a dining booth taped off for social distancing at Mariscos Linda restaurant, Wednesday, July 1, 2020, in Los Angeles. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered a three-week closure of bars and indoor operations of restaurants certain other businesses in Los Angeles and 18 other counties. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Salon owner Sian Rose Maclaren sticks a sign in the front window showing the seated waiting area will not be in use, whilst trying out the masks and face shields they intend to wear, as they prepare to reopen at a franchise branch of the Headmasters group of hairdressing salons, in Surbiton, south west London, Thursday, July 2, 2020. Millions of people in Britain will be able to go to the pub, visit a movie theater, get a haircut or attend a religious service starting July 4, in a major loosening of coronavirus lockdown restrictions. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

A waitress wearing a mask and face shield to curb the spread of the new coronavirus brings order for a patron at the "Sanborns of the Azulejos" restaurant in Mexico City, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Alina Ghirean, 36 years old, wears face mask to prevent the coronavirus pulls her trolley after receiving a pack of foods from charity foundation Caritas, to last the next two weeks, in Estella, around 38 kms (23, 61 miles) from Pamplona, northern Spain, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. Spain is beginning to suffer an economic crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic.(AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

South Korean army soldiers spray disinfectant to help reduce the spread of the new coronavirus in a class at Cheondong elementary school in Daejeon, South Korea, Thursday, July 2, 2020. South Korea reported dozens of new cases as the virus continues to spread beyond the capital area and reach cities like Gwangju, which has shut schools and tightened social restrictions after dozens were found infected this week. (Kim Jun-beom/Yonhap via AP)

A girl throws water to a friend as they play under in the rain in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo / Ramon Espinosa)

People wearing a protective face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walk in Tokyo Thursday, July 2, 2020. Japan lifted a seven-week pandemic state emergency in late May, and social and business activity have since largely resumed. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

The Christ the Redeemer statue is lit up with a message that reads in Portuguese; "More than 500 thousand lives world" in reference to the people who have died from COVID-19 worldwide, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A face mask covers the mouth and nose of one of the iconic lion statues in front of the New York Public Library Main Branch on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, in New York, amid the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Other countries are also reporting an upswing in cases.

"We have now entered a new and treacherous phase in the life cycle of this pandemic," South African President Cyril Ramaphosa warned in a broadcast to the nation, which recorded more than 8,100 new infections, a one-day record, and has the biggest caseload on the continent.

India, the world's second-most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people, has reported nearly 100,000 new cases in the past four days alone.

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 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
(HealthDay)New York City's COVID-19 death rate was more than double that of some countries, and the city's oldest people had the highest risk of death, researchers report.

They used a computer model to analyze over 191,000 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases along with more than 20,000 confirmed and probable COVID-19 deaths in New York City from March 1 to May 16.

During that time, the city's death rate was 1.45%meaning between 1% and 2% of New Yorkers infected with COVID-19 died.

That's more than twice the rate already reported elsewhere. For example, COVID-19 death rates in both China and France, where most estimates have come from, were about 0.7%, according to the researchers.

So far, the U.S. death rate is unclear, researchers from Columbia University and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said.

They found that New York City's COVID-19 death rate was highest among those 75 and older (13.83%) and those between 65 and 74 (4.67%).

"These dire estimates highlight the severity of COVID-19 in elderly populations and the importance of infection prevention in congregate settings," wrote the authors led by Wan Yang, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, in New York City.

"Thus, early detection and adherence to infection control guidance in long-term care and adult care facilities should be a priority for COVID-19 response as the pandemic continues to unfold," they said in a Columbia news release.

Infection death rates were 0.011% among those under 25 and 0.12% in 25- to 44-year-olds.

But the researchers warned that the risk to young people should not be taken lightly. Some children have developed post-infection Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome.

Yang and her colleagues noted that public and private health systems in New York City are stronger than many other places in the United States, so COVID-19 death rates may be even higher in other parts of the country and other nations.

"It is thus crucial that officials account for and closely monitor the infection rate and population health outcomes and enact prompt public health responses accordingly as the pandemic unfolds," the authors wrote.

"As the pandemic continues to unfold and populations in many places worldwide largely remain susceptible, understanding the severity, in particular, the IFR [infection fatality rate], is crucial for gauging the full impact of COVID-19 in the coming months or years," they concluded.

The study was published July 1 on the preprint server medRxiv.org, ahead of peer review.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19

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New research from The University of Texas at Dallas suggests food deserts might be more prevalent in the U.S. than the numbers reported in government estimates.

In a feasibility study published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, scholars found that the methods used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify areas with low access to healthy food are often outdated and narrow in scope.

Their findings indicate that crowdsourced information gathered from mobile apps such as Yelp could help provide more accurate real-time representation of food deserts in impoverished communities.

"Using data from the city of Dallas, we compared our results with the 2015 USDA database and discovered the agency needs an up-to-date source of information on grocery stores," said Dr. Dohyeong Kim, associate professor of public policy and political economy and of geospatial information sciences in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at UT Dallas. "The number of food deserts may be a lot larger than what the USDA says it is."

The USDA considers three metrics when identifying "food deserts," areas where residents lack access to fresh and healthy food: income, car ownership and distance to the nearest supermarket. In an effort to improve accuracy of food desert locations, the UT Dallas researchers looked at two additional variables not included by the USDA: access to public transit and shopper-provided food pricing gathered from Yelp, an online source of business reviews by the public.

"If a community has few public transportation options nearby, that may contribute to the existence of a food desert," Kim said. "Plus, low-income households still face limited access to healthy food if prices are too high."

The researchers analyzed data from Dallas' 296 census tracts, which are neighborhood-sized geographical areas used by government agencies to collect population data. Nine census tracts were identified as food deserts based on the USDA's 2015 data only. Using 2018 Yelp data alone, the researchers identified 50 census tractsmostly in south Dallasas food deserts. Thirty-three census tracts were overlapped by both data sources.

Due to the time difference between the two data sources, Kim cautioned that their findings could not confirm which datasetUSDA vs. Yelpmatches the situation on the ground more accurately, and he stressed that Yelp should not be considered as a replacement for government data. The results do show, however, that crowdsourced, georeferenced data could be a good supplement to improve accuracy of official government data and help guide health policies.

"Yelp data is still incomplete in coverage and limited for wide application, although it has the potential to be improved in the future," Kim said. "This study sheds light on the need for on-the-ground, place-specific observation in the study of food deserts, and future studies should include multiple cities to gauge the quality of Yelp data across the country."

Kim added that use of such crowdsourced information also could give guidance to other public-health mapping, such as for noise or pollution.

Explore further Study: Urban sprawl creates food deserts

More information: Thomas McKey et al, Crowdsourced Mapping for Healthy Food Accessibility in Dallas, Texas: A Feasibility Study, Frontiers in Public Health (2020). Thomas McKey et al, Crowdsourced Mapping for Healthy Food Accessibility in Dallas, Texas: A Feasibility Study,(2020). DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00071
Cilia on lab-grown ciliated cells, stained green for visualisation. Credit: CSIRO

Scientists have found that human airway cells grown in a laboratory can reliably be used to study respiratory viruses such as COVID-19, which could help to minimize animal testing and fast-track drugs for human clinical trials.

Researchers at Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, found that lab-grown cells from the upper layer of the airway to the lungsthe human bronchial epitheliumreliably mimic a live person's airway's response to viruses.

CSIRO Research Scientist Dr. Elizabeth Pharo is the lead author on the findings, published in the journal Viruses.

"Clinical trials for new therapeutics can take significant time and money to establish, only for researchers to frequently discover that the treatment doesn't work in people," Dr. Pharo said.

"We found that our lab-grown airway cells mimic the human airway response to viruses and can be used to quickly test whether antiviral treatments might work against a virus in a real person. This way, we can 'fast fail' antivirals before they get to the clinical trial stage, helping streamline the more promising ones through to human testing."

Dr. Pharo said the airway model could potentially be used to screen up to 100 antiviral compounds within three months, and CSIRO is exploring ways to further accelerate screening including the use of robotic technology.

The model could also be used to help study the characteristics of a virus and how it affects airway cells, helping reduce the need for animal testing. However, it cannot be used to study the more complex immune responses required to evaluate vaccine candidates.

The study was conducted at CSIRO's high-containment facility, the Australian Center for Disease Preparedness (ACDP) in Geelong, and involved growing donated human airway epithelial cells on porous membranes exposed to air.

Researchers cultured the cells as they developed into the cell types found in human airways. These included goblet and club cells that secrete mucus to absorb inhaled foreign matter, and ciliated cells with hair-like structures that beat in coordinated waves to move particles and microbes away from the lungs.

"For many respiratory diseases such as COVID-19, the airways act as the 'first responders' to inhaled pathogens," Dr. Pharo said.

"When we infected our airway epithelial cultures with the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus, the cells had the same innate immune response as in a live person's airway, with the production of cytokines and chemokines."

Dr. Pharo said scientists at ACDP are now using this model to characterize how the virus that causes COVID-19 infects and damages healthy donor airway cells, compared to cells from donors with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or diabetes.

"It's hoped this work will help improve our understanding of how COVID-19 may affect people with pre-existing lung conditions," she said.

More information: Elizabeth A. Pharo et al. HostPathogen Responses to Pandemic Influenza H1N1pdm09 in a Human Respiratory Airway Model, Viruses (2020). Elizabeth A. Pharo et al. HostPathogen Responses to Pandemic Influenza H1N1pdm09 in a Human Respiratory Airway Model,(2020). DOI: 10.3390/v12060679
A PET scan reveals how treatment with LMB-100 in combination with an immunotherapy agent caused a patients mesothelioma tumor to shrink. Credit: Raffit Hassan

A drug that is designed to boost the immune system against mesothelioma, when combined with immunotherapy, was found to be beneficial in a small study involving ten patients. The results, which appeared July 1, 2020, in Science Translational Medicine, suggest that the drug LMB-100 could prolong the life of some patients with advanced disease.

Mesothelioma is a rare and hard to treat form of cancer and affects the cells that make up a thin membrane around organs, such as the lungs and heart. To treat this cancer, some drugs have been created that bind to a protein on the surface of these cells, called mesothelin. The hope is to train a patient's immune system to identify the protein and thus to attack the cancerous cells.

Raffit Hassan, M.D., Chief of the Thoracic and GI Malignancies Branch, and his colleagues decided to study one of these mesothelin-targeting drugs, called LMB-100, which was developed by Ira Pastan, M.D., Co-Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. His team conducted a phase I trial to explore the safety of the drug, and ten of these patients subsequently received an immune checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab or nivolumab, which helps boost the immune system's ability to attack cancer cells.

"In some of the patients, receiving pembrolizumab after LMB-100 resulted in greater efficacy than what would be expected from pembrolizumab alone," says Hassan.

"Four out of the 10 patients responded to the treatment including one complete response and three partial responses."

Based on these positive results in humans, Qun Jiang, Ph.D., a staff scientist in Hassan's lab, conducted further studies in mice who were implanted, or grafted, with human mesotheliomas. These experiments yielded similar results whereby tumor shrinkage was greater in mice who received both LMB-100 and pembrolizumab compared to mice who received just one of therapies.

Hassan cautions that since this involved a small number of patients, it is possible that the patients may have simply been responding to the immunotherapy agent pembrolizumab rather than the combination of drugs.

To explore this combination of therapies in greater detail, he is now conducting a larger study. "Clinical outcomes from this study will help determine whether LMB-100 plus an immune checkpoint blockade is a valid treatment strategy for mesothelin-positive solid tumors," he says.

Explore further Study shows long-term survival benefit for certain patients with advanced lung cancer

More information: Qun Jiang et al. Enhanced efficacy of mesothelin-targeted immunotoxin LMB-100 and antiPD-1 antibody in patients with mesothelioma and mouse tumor models, Science Translational Medicine (2020). Journal information: Science Translational Medicine Qun Jiang et al. Enhanced efficacy of mesothelin-targeted immunotoxin LMB-100 and antiPD-1 antibody in patients with mesothelioma and mouse tumor models,(2020). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaz7252
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As the population ages, the prevalence of chronic disease increases. As a result, more drugs are prescribed. Around 25% of the population aged 65+ are affected by so-called "polypharmacy," i.e., they regularly take at least five drugs. This results in an increased risk for drug interactions and adverse drug events. The international, EU-funded PRIMA-e-DS project led by Andreas Sonnichsen, head of MedUni Vienna's Department of General Practice and Family Medicine at the Center for Public Health, developed and tested an electronic tool on 4,000 patients that serves as a decision support to prevent inappropriate and dangerous polypharmacy. The main finding of the study, which has now been published in the British Medical Journal: Inappropriate drugs can easily be avoided without any detriment to patients.

PRIMA-eDS stands for Polypharmacy: Reduction of Inappropriate Medication and Adverse drug events in older populations by electronic Decision Support. Research teams from five countries, namely Finland, the U.K., Germany, Italy and Austria, participated in the EU-funded study together with MedUni Vienna's Center for Public Health and the Paracelsus Private Medical University in Salzburg (PMU).

Electronic decision support for general practitioners

"Previous studies have shown that between 5 and 10% of all emergency hospital admissions of elderly patients are attributable to medication," says Sonnichsen. "The standard, regular and meticulous review of medication by a consultant or GP is virtually impossible, because they neither have the time nor the comprehensive pharmacological knowledge. We therefore set ourselves the goal of developing a simple electronic decision support tool for GPs that would identify instances of dangerous polypharmacy and suggest that these drugs be discontinued or replaced."

This idea has now been put into practice over the last seven years in the context of the PRIMA-eDS project. The tool feeds from several pharmacological databases and combines them with individual patient data (diagnoses, kidney function, etc.). "The advantage of the computer is that, within a matter of seconds, it can display all known interactions, dosing errors and individual intolerances, even where a number of drugs are being administered simultaneously. The important thing is that the tool is fed a complete set of data."

For the clinical study that has now been published in the British Medical Journal, the electronic program developed under Sonnichsen's direction was tested in a randomized controlled trial including around 4,000 patients over a two-year period.

Sonnichsen says, "We demonstrated that the tool reduces the number of prescribed drugs by an average of approximately 0.5 drugs per patient. There is also a trend towards a reduction in hospital admissions. However, this result is only significant if the participating doctors followed the study protocol exactly." Further analyses will evaluate whether cost savings can be achieved through use of the tool.

Explore further Risk of over-medication increases with age

More information: Anja Rieckert et al. Use of an electronic decision support tool to reduce polypharmacy in elderly people with chronic diseases: cluster randomized controlled trial, BMJ (2020). Journal information: British Medical Journal (BMJ) Anja Rieckert et al. Use of an electronic decision support tool to reduce polypharmacy in elderly people with chronic diseases: cluster randomized controlled trial,(2020). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.m1822
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Florida reported more than 10,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases for the first time Thursday, an unwanted milestone eclipsed hours before Vice President Mike Pence and Gov. Ron DeSantis meet in Tampa to discuss the state's response to the disease.

The 10,109 new cases are 500 more than the old mark set last week and six times higher than where the daily record stood less than a month ago and just one indication the virus is spreading.

The state also reported 67 virus-related deaths Thursday, as the seven-day average for daily fatalities is now back over 40, a 30% increase from two weeks ago. The state's death rate had declined from 60 per day in May to 30 two weeks ago before it began creeping up. The Health Department also tallied 325 new coronavirus hospitalizations Thursday, one of the biggest 24-hour jumps since the pandemic began.

Since March 1, the state has seen more than 169,000 confirmed cases and 3,718 deaths. Before June 11, the state's worst day for reported cases had been 1,601, set in mid-May. That number has been eclipsed every day for the last three weeks.

The spikes caused DeSantis to reclose bars to sit-down service, several counties to close their beaches for the Fourth of July weekend and numerous municipalities to order the wearing of masks in public spaces, a mandate that some opponents are challenging in court. For the first time, a state legislator is known to have tested positive.

The outbreak also forced Pence and DeSantis to curtail their visit, which was supposed to be part of the vice president's now-canceled "Faith In America" campaign tour. DeSantis is a strong ally of President Donald Trump. Now he and Pence will visit a medical training center at the University of South Florida.

Earlier Thursday, Florida Democrats criticized the coronavirus response from the White House and DeSantis as needlessly endangering lives by opening up too soon and not mandating safety measures such as masks.

"They have put politics ahead of public health," said U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala, who was Health and Human Services secretary under President Bill Clinton. "Why are we in this situation? Because we didn't do the right thing at the beginning. We needed at the beginning to hit this virus with a hammer."

Meanwhile, Palm Beach County is being sued over its new ordinance requiring masks be worn in crowded public spaces. The opponents say the ordinance violates their rights to free speech, privacy and personal autonomy and endangers their health by lowering their oxygen levels. They also question whether the pandemic exists.

The county commission passed the ordinance unanimously last week over the objection of opponents whose often angry claims were broadcast nationally.

"Pandemics, like the purported COVID-19 pandemic, are nothing new or novel," the opponents' attorneys wrote. Neither the state nor the county has ever mandated the wearing of masks to stop the spread of disease, they wrote, "and there is no new evidence that is possible."

The county doesn't comment on pending lawsuits, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other medical experts have recommended that masks be worn as they lessen the chance the wearer will spread the virus. They also strongly dispute that masks cause harm. About 130,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and almost 3 million have contracted it since February.

DeSantis has repeatedly encouraged Floridians to wear masks but has refused to issue a statewide order. He says that action is best left to local leaders as some small, rural counties have few cases and no need for a mandate.

Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, a Florida International University epidemiologist, said she is glad some officials are mandating masks and hopes Floridians are cautious over the Fourth of July weekend.

"We are going to be in a very difficult situation for at least a month," she said. "The behavior of people this (weekend) will be very critical. People really have to avoid congregating in groups and be sure to wear masks."

State Rep. Shevrin Jones, a Broward County Democrat, tested positive Wednesday, becoming the first-known Florida legislator to catch the virus. He had gone to the emergency room with fever, chills and trouble breathing.

"I felt awful," Jones said Thursday. Jones, 36, said he should be fine since he's young and healthy, but fears for his parents and others. He encouraged DeSantis to slow his push to reopen the economy.

"We need to relook at how we are opening," he said. "The next phase shouldn't happen right now."

Because of the virus, many holiday plans are being scuttled. Megan Archer, a 39-year-old West Palm Beach resident who lost her job with a county parks department during the outbreak, said her family is not planning any outings, even though they are sick of being inside.

"It's hard for us to do the right thing, but we know we have to protect our family," she said.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Parents battling their children's fussy eating have been given fresh hope thanks to an online resource proven to relieve the problem.

With around half of toddlers and young children turning their noses up at certain foodsoften healthy fruit and vegetablesmany families face stressful mealtimes. And parents' reactions, often using unhealthy foods as a 'reward' or limiting access to them, can be counter-productive and lead to bad habits that last into adulthood.

But a new study has shown that the Child Feeding Guide, a free online resource developed by experts at Aston University and Loughborough University, not only helped mums who took part to change their approach to feeding but also reduced their own self-reported anxiety by nearly 20% in just four weeks.

In the UK, less than one in five children eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Studies show that unhealthy eating habits can persist into later life and are associated with a higher risk of health conditions such as diabetes.

From the age of about 18 months, between a third and half of children go through a period known as 'neophobia' - a fear of new thingsin relation to food. This is thought to be an evolutionary development that stopped children from eating potentially poisonous food.

In the study, published in the Nutrition Bulletin journal, 25 mothers with children aged six months to four years used the Child Feeding Guide website over four weeks. Mothers provided information about their feeding practices and anxiety levels at baseline, and again four weeks later. They also answered questions on how they found using the digital resource.

Significant decreases were seen in mothers' own anxiety and in the use of 'pressure to eat' - trying to force children to eat foods they didn't wantand 'restriction of food' - hiding away unhealthy foods. Mothers reported that the guide was easy to use, that they valued its credibility and reassurances and that its content helped them to better understand their child's eating behavior.

Amanda Alsop, 40, a charity worker from Wolverhampton and mum of two girls aged six and three, said using the Child Feeding Guide had helped her identify 'pitfalls' in how she addressed her first child's fussy eating, which she'd carried on using with her younger daughter.

"She didn't like certain textures or things mixed together on the plate," said Amanda. "I bought lots of toddler-friendly cookbooks but a lot of the recipes ended up on the floor!"

The Child Feeding Guide, she said, had helped her to stop "using food as a reward or bribe, or as a punishment", instead using stickers as rewards. "It also encouraged me not to have sweet treats in the house that the children could access," she added. "We do have sweet things but it's in moderation and it's not linked with their behavior."

Both her daughters, Amanda said, were now willing to try a range of new foods. "I think a really important thing is that I'm more relaxed about it now. Before, I was so worried about whether I was doing the right thing I was getting stressed out and probably making things worse. It's changed my attitude."

Professor Claire Farrow, from Aston University, said:

"Many parents report that they worry about their child's health suffering from fussy eating, or that their children won't eat healthily in the future. What we're doing with the Child Feeding Guide is reassuring parents that this is very common and children do tend to grow out of fussy eating, but also that they can influence their child's eating by using an evidence-based approach."

Dr. Emma Haycraft, a Reader in Psychology at Loughborough University, said the Child Feeding Guide was unique in explaining the reasons behind behaviors to parents.

"Making parents and caregivers aware of why their child might be refusing food or prefer eating pasta to carrots, and what they can do to help overcome this, is a key part of the Child Feeding Guide which users tell us they really value," she said.

More than 80,000 people have sought support from the Guide which Loughborough University's Dr. Gemma Witcomb, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, described as "amazing".

She added: "It's fantastic to see how many families and professionals our support resource has been able to reach."

Explore further Stress over fussy eating prompts parents to pressure or reward at mealtime

More information: E. Haycraft et al, The Child Feeding Guide: A digital health intervention for reducing controlling child feeding practices and maternal anxiety over time, Nutrition Bulletin (2020). E. Haycraft et al, The Child Feeding Guide: A digital health intervention for reducing controlling child feeding practices and maternal anxiety over time,(2020). DOI: 10.1111/nbu.12445
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers from Western Sydney University's Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI) have used international research linkages to produce a new report on government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic as it spread around the globe.

The State Responses to COVID-19: a global snapshot at 1 June 2020 report was edited by HADRI Director, Associate Professor Nichole Georgeou, and HADRI Adjunct, Dr. Charles Hawksley of University of Wollongong. It features a compilation of analyses and case studies from 70 regional experts.

Associate Professor Georgeou said the report provides valuable insights into the health, social, political and economic responses to the pandemic, as well as the impacts on vulnerable groups across 43 states and territories at 1 June 2020.

"The report contrasts the decisions of individual states and builds a collective understanding of how governments chose to address and prepare for the crisis. From testing and isolation, through to economic stimulus and education, there are many lessons to be learnt," said Associate Professor Georgeou.

"Some of the broader trends relate to the idea of community resilience and the role people played in supporting and protecting each other. We also note early adaptors generally fared better, with some states more proficient in locking down, mobilising healthcare, and utilising technology. Many vulnerable people world-wide have been left exposed."

According to Dr. Hawksley, Australia benefitted from having the time to observe other states in various stages of management and crisis: "Initial modelling predicted that a "do nothing" approach would result in around 150,000 dead, and no government was prepared to accept that cost. The Federal government followed science, listened to experts and issued accurate statistics daily."

Dr. Gordon Nanau from the University of the South Pacific noted that neighbouring Pacific Island countries were still recovering from the 2019 measles outbreak when COVID-19 arrived.

"Experiences with measles testing, nation-wide vaccinations and contact tracing became valuable skills during the COVID-19 response. In both instances, decisive and determined leadership by national frontline agencies became critical in containment efforts," said Dr. Nanau.

"Political leadership aided by social cohesion and social capital through Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian social systemsthe wantok system, Fa'a Samoa, Faka Tonga, and other networks across Oceaniamitigated potential livelihood disasters during the pandemic."

Professor James Arvanitakis, Western Sydney University's Institute for Culture and Society, and Dr. Jason McConnell, University of Wyoming, suggest the United States of America's response to the pandemic was more complex than the headlines suggested, with politics often overwhelming policy.

"Since a brief moment of bipartisanship, everything about the virus has become partisan in the US. In such a large and diverse nation, what is evident is that any response required a localised approach to garner buy-in from the people," said Professor Arvanitakis.

"For a complex set of reasons including, pre-existing health and socio-economic conditions make the coronavirus particularly deadly for African Americans. Likewise, the pandemic is exacerbating existing vulnerabilities in First Nations communities."

Other Western Sydney University or HADRI researchers to contribute to the collection include Dr. Sarah Di Nardi (case study on Italy and Issues paper on NGOs in Italy), Dr. Garry Stevens and HDR Candidate Spyros Schismenos (Greece, and US Health workers), HDR Candidate Nidhi Walli and Master of Research Candidate Amborika Baruah (NE India), Dr. David Walton (Japan), Associate Professor Zulfan Tadjoeddin (Indonesia), Dr. Melissa Philipps (Migrant Workers in Australia), Dr. Karen Soldatic (Sri Lanka), Dr. Hong Jae Park (South Korea), Professor Anis Chowdury (Vietnam, India's Kerala state), Professor Mary Hawkins and Dr. Helena Onnudottir (Iceland), and Dr. Izabela Pereira Watts (Brazil).

Western Sydney University's Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI) was established with a globally unique approach to pursue research that highlights the complexity of international responses to conflicts and disasters, and the intersections between the multidimensional health, socio-economic and political aspects of complex emergencies.

More information: State Responses to COVID-19: A Global Snapshot at 1 June 2020 State Responses to COVID-19: A Global Snapshot at 1 June 2020 doi.org/10.26183/5ed5a2079cabd
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A growing body of research suggests heart attacks, angina and other heart events increase during winter and summer.

Now, a new study could explain why.

Researchers reviewed an international registry of 1,113 people, the majority from Japan, with acute coronary syndrome. Heart attack is a type of acute coronary syndrome, which occurs when the blood supply to the heart muscle is suddenly decreased or blocked.

Using images of the fatty deposits in participants' coronary arteries, researchers put people into groups: plaque rupture, plaque erosion and calcified plaque. Each plaque scenario can block blood flow and lead to a heart attack or other cardiac event. But a rupture is more immediate and occurs when the calcified plaque breaks off. Erosion can happen over time.

"We looked at those three underlying mechanisms to see whether they were different among the different seasons. As expected, we found a significant difference," said Dr. Ik-Kyung Jang, lead author of the study published July 2 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Jang is an interventional cardiologist and director of the Cardiology Laboratory of Integrated Physiology and Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Even after adjusting for age, sex and other coronary risk factors, Jang and his colleagues found that plaque rupture was highest in the winter and lowest in the summer. In people with plaque rupture, the prevalence of high blood pressure also was higher in the winter. People with plaque erosion or calcified plaque, however, did not tend to have high blood pressure.

One possible explanation for the uptick in wintertime ruptures, Jang said, is that cold temperatures can lead to constriction or narrowing of the blood vessels, and high blood pressure can be a trigger for plaque rupture. Another potential culprit? "Infection, particularly influenza, can result in systemic inflammation, and since plaque rupture is also associated with inflammation, that may also contribute to the higher incidence of acute coronary syndromes in the winter," he said.

Plaque erosion, on the other hand, was higher in the summer. According to Jang, in hot weather, people are more likely to be dehydrated, which concentrates the blood. This can stress the endothelium, a thin layer of cells that line the blood vessels, causing the erosion.

The increase in winter cardiac events holds true even in milder climates, said Dr. Robert Kloner, chief science officer and scientific director of Cardiovascular Research Institute at Huntington Medical Research Institutes in Pasadena, California. He was not involved with the new study.

In a prior study, however, Kloner and his colleagues analyzed deaths from coronary heart disease in Los Angeles County between 1985 and 1996. They reported that the death rates were highest in December and January and lowest in the summer and early fall.

"This is true not only in climates that are known to be cold like the northeast of the U.S., but also in climates that are milder," Kloner said. "People get used to a climate and then when it's even mildly colder, that might be enough to increase cardiac events."

While more research is needed, Kloner said that lifestyle factors also may explain the increase in plaque rupture during the winter. For example, people tend to eat more fattening, salty foods and overindulge on alcohol during the winter holidays, increasing their risk of heart troubles.

In addition, smoke from fireplaces contributes to greater indoor air pollution, which can contribute to cardiovascular events.

Shoveling snow can increase the heart's workload, too. "There have been studies showing associations between snow shoveling and blizzards and an increase in cardiac events," Kloner said.

Jang suggested doctors educate high-risk patientsolder people and those with risk factors such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension and high cholesterolabout the risk of cold weather and how they can protect themselves.

"If people take steps to stay warm in the winter and be hydrated in the summer," Jang said, "we may expect to see less acute coronary syndrome throughout a year."

Explore further Cold heart facts: why you need to watch out in winter

American Heart Association News covers heart and brain health. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved.
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Use marijuana while pregnant, and your child is more likely to suffer sleep problems as much as a decade later, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study of nearly 12,000 youth.

Published in Sleep Health: The Journal of The National Sleep Foundation, the paper is the latest to link prenatal cannabis use to developmental problems in children and the first to suggest it may impact sleep cycles long-term.

It comes at a time whenwhile the number of pregnant women drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes has declined in the United StatesIt has risen to 7% of all pregnant women as legalization spreads and more dispensaries recommend it for morning sickness.

"As a society, it took us a while to understand that smoking and drinking alcohol are not advisable during pregnancy, but it is now seen as common sense," said senior author John Hewitt, director of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at CU Boulder. "Studies like this suggest that it is prudent to extend that common sense advice to cannabis, even if use is now legal."

A landmark study

For the study, Hewitt and lead author Evan Winiger analyzed baseline data from the landmark Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, which is following 11,875 youth from age 9 or 10 into early adulthood.

As part of an exhaustive questionnaire upon intake, participants' mothers were asked if they had ever used marijuana while pregnant and how frequently. (The study did not assess whether they used edibles or smoked pot). The mothers were also asked to fill out a survey regarding their child's sleep patterns, assessing 26 different items ranging from how easily they fell asleep and how long they slept to whether they snored or woke up frequently in the night and how sleepy they were during the day.

About 700 moms reported using marijuana while pregnant. Of those, 184 used it daily and 262 used twice or more daily.

After controlling for a host of other factors, including the mother's education, parent marital status and family income and race, a clear pattern emerged.

"Mothers who said they had used cannabis while pregnant were significantly more likely to report their children having clinical sleep problems," said Winiger, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.

Those who used marijuana frequently were more likely to report somnolence symptoms (symptoms of excess sleepiness) in their children, such as trouble waking in the morning and being excessively tired during the day.

The authors note that, while their sample size is large, the study has some limitations.

"We are asking mothers to remember if they smoked marijuana 10 years ago and to admit to a behavior that is frowned upon," said Winiger, suggesting actual rates of prenatal use may have been higher.

While the study doesn't prove that using cannabis while pregnant causes sleep problems, it builds on a small but growing body of evidence pointing to a link.

For instance, one small study found that children who had been exposed to marijuana in-utero woke up more in the night and had lower sleep quality at age 3. Another found that prenatal cannabis use impacted sleep in infancy.

And, in other previous work, Hewitt, Winiger and colleagues found that teenagers who frequently smoked marijuana were more likely to develop insomnia in adulthood.

The fetal brain on THC

Researchers aren't sure exactly how cannabis exposure during vulnerable developmental times might shape future sleep. But studies in animals suggest that THC and other so-called cannabinoids, the active ingredients in pot, attach to CB1 receptors in the developing brain, influencing regions that regulate sleep. The ABCD study, which is taking frequent brain scans of participants as they age, should provide more answers, they said.

Meantime, mothers-to-be should be wary of dispensaries billing weed as an antidote for morning sickness. According to CU research, about 70% of Colorado dispensaries recommend it for that use. But mounting evidence points to potential harms, including low birth weight and later cognitive problems. With marijuana on the market today including far higher THC levels than it did a decade ago, it's impacts on the fetal brain are likely more profound than they once were.

"This study is one more example of why pregnant women are advised to avoid substance use, including cannabis," said Hewitt. "For their children, it could have long-term consequences."

Explore further Teen marijuana use boosts risk of adult insomnia

More information: Evan A. Winiger et al, Prenatal cannabis exposure and sleep outcomes in children 910 years of age in the adolescent brain cognitive development SM study, Sleep Health (2020). Evan A. Winiger et al, Prenatal cannabis exposure and sleep outcomes in children 910 years of age in the adolescent brain cognitive development SM study,(2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2020.05.006
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

On June 30, 21,416 COVID-19 tests were performed in the state of Connecticut. Only 152 came back positive. This represented a remarkable turnaround for a state that regularly saw more than 1,000 new cases a day in April. We asked Prof. Edward Kaplan, an operations and modeling expert who has extensively studied the spread of the disease in the state, what Connecticut has gotten rightand what risks still remain.

What has Connecticut done right in the fight against COVID-19, and what can other states learn from that?

Connecticut acted quickly to add COVID-19-specific hospital capacity early in the outbreak before stay-at-home restrictions were implemented. For example, the Yale-New Haven Hospital relocated cancer patients from the top floors of the Smilow Cancer Hospital to create a dedicated negative-pressure COVID-19 ICU well in advance of the wave of cases. Those beds filled, but COVID-19 patients were not blocked from receiving critical care, enabling the hospital to avoid the excess mortality that was seen in places like Italy (and New York City) on account of insufficient ICU capacity. Unfortunately, even with such preparations, Connecticut failed to protect its most vulnerable citizens from infection, and the number of deaths per capita rom COVID-19 in Connecticut remains the third highest in the nation at 1.2 per thousand residents. Nonetheless, things could have been much, much worse.

The timeliness of the social distancing and stay-at-home orders was also criticalthese were in place early enough to slow what was in early March a rapidly accelerating epidemic.

Finally, the state has been very patient in re-opening, waiting for available metrics such as new hospitalizations and deaths to decline to sufficiently safe levels before allowing businesses to re-open. Indeed, while Connecticut was among the first states to shut down, it was also among the last to re-open. Community transmission is still occurring in Connecticut, but at very low levels compared to just a few months ago.

What risks are we still facing in Connecticut?

The risk now is simple: as of May, CDC's seroprevalence survey suggested that less than 5% of Connecticut residents were infected during the outbreak this spring. Another such seroprevalence study is underway, but it will likely show that more than 90% of the population remains susceptible to infection. This means that as restrictions are lifted, there will inevitably be a re-mixing of susceptible and unknowingly infectious individuals in the population, which will re-ignite transmission if residents fail to (or only loosely) adhere to social distancing and infection control protocols, including wearing masks whenever out in public. People are tired of feeling locked up and want to return to enjoying life, going out to restaurants, bars, clubs, concerts, etc., while of course businesses want to re-open and workers need to return to earning income.

Most young people do not experience severe symptoms if infected, which can lead to lax behavior that in turn leads to unknowing, asymptomatic transmission in chains that eventually reach someone vulnerablean elderly person or someone with underlying health conditions. Asymptomatic transmission chains must be interrupted, while vulnerable populations must be better protected. The key tool for achieving this is aggressive and repeat, targeted testing of the population, with the goal of isolating those found infected. Nursing home staff should be at the very top of the list of those repeatedly screened. Unfortunately, the state has not been able to achieve the required level of testing and isolation to control a rebound in infections. The best epidemiological modeling projections for Connecticut suggest that such an uptick in infections will occur towards the end of the summer.

If rates continue to rise in other states, how can Connecticut keep the virus under control?

Connecticut, along with New York and New Jersey, is mandating two-week quarantines for travelers coming from high-risk states, but how effectively such quarantines can be enforced is questionable. Indeed, with many residential colleges planning to return students to campuses across the state, it is almost certain that infections will continue to be imported in the fall. What the state can do now is prepare a testing and isolation strategy to quickly identify and contain outbreaks as they happen while continuing to promote social distancing and infection control. Education is also key: people need to understand clearly that the precautions taken are for the protection of others, not only themselves. With no treatments or vaccines yet available, minimizing the time from infection to isolation remains the key. Smart use of targeted testing to identify and isolate those infectious from susceptibles remains the best way to manage such outbreaks. Unfortunately we are not there yet.

One additional area where Connecticut can lead the wayit has been demonstrated recently that it is possible to track the concentration of coronavirus RNA in sewage sludge. A team from Yale has been sampling sludge daily from New Haven's wastewater treatment plant, and over time the results revealed the complete trace of the epidemic, with the virus RNA concentrations rising and falling exactly as one would expect in an outbreak. This system can be deployed at wastewater treatment plants across the state, enabling an earlier signal of transmission that would be observable from hospitalizations or COVID-19 cases alone. In the absence of repeat testing in the population, such wastewater epidemiology could prove especially valuable in signaling the start of a new outbreak.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak
Credit: Department of Health and Human Services, Victoria

I recently wrote about Victoria's surge in COVID-19 cases. On that day, Victoria recorded 11 new infections, after a few days of new cases in the high teens and low twenties.

I wondered then whether the situation could be brought quickly under control. Unfortunately, it has since got much worse.

On Wednesday, the state recorded 73 new cases, after 64 new cases on Tuesday and 75 the day before that. These numbers are approaching levels seen at the peak of Victoria's initial outbreak in late March.

In response, the state government has reintroduced lockdown measures in hotspot postcodes.

Victoria is right on the precipice. Either the government's measures will wrest back control, or unbridled community transmission could mean infection rates get totally out of hand.

The main issue here is public compliance. We can't forget this is a public health emergency, the likes of which we haven't seen in Australia for a century. We simply can't have people refusing to take tests.

There's no definition of second wave

Victoria has actually had four "waves" of infection, although the subsequent waves were quite small and could probably be better described as wavelets.

There's no formal definition of what constitutes a second wave, but a reasonable one might be "the return of an outbreak where the numbers of new daily cases reach a peak as high or higher than the original one."

By that definition, Victoria has not yet had a second wave of COVID-19. The peak of the pandemic so far was 111 new cases, recorded on March 28.

However, the current resurgence is still a major concern, and at this stage we are unsure whether the daily tallies will go up or down from here.

Sadly, it's still possible the new outbreak gets worse and the Victorian government loses control of the situation.

How could this have happened?

There have been several holes in Victoria's approach so far.

As we know, all people entering Australia from overseas must go into a 14-day quarantine. But 14 days may not be long enough. A recent (not yet peer-reviewed) study looked at COVID-19's incubation period based on 1,211 Chinese patients. It found that "based on the estimated incubation distribution in this study, about 10% of patients with COVID-19 would not develop symptoms until 14 days after infection."

In other words, the 14-day quarantine does not guarantee all people are free of COVID-19 when they leave quarantine. It's important to remember, though, that this data is preliminary and must be treated with caution.

Another possible threat involves locally acquired casesclose contacts of known cases. Although these people must self-quarantine, in Victoria they are not required to be tested unless they develop symptoms.

One study which reviewed cases from several countries concluded "more than 50% of positive individuals were asymptomatic at the time of testing." It's possible people connected to a known outbreak, but without symptoms, could pass the virus on after their self-isolation period. It would make sense to make testing mandatory for all close contacts of confirmed cases.

Of increasing concern is the proportion of Victoria's cases that are still under investigation, meaning many of these might be community-acquired. The percentage of cases under investigation was 46% on June 28, and 58% on July 1.

In cases of community transmission, the individual does not know how or where they got infected. This makes contact-tracing and quarantining much more difficult. Increasing levels of community-acquired cases mean it's possible public health authorities could completely lose control of the outbreak.

Further, the state government believes a large number of cases may have been caused by lapses in infection control measures in the hotel quarantine system.

Premier Daniel Andrews said on June 30: "As a result of genomic testing, the Chief Health Officer has today advised the government that a number of our cases through late May and early June can be linked to an infection control breach in the hotel quarantine program."

Genomic testing is a way to track cases using a special technique based on the virus's genetic profile, rather than through human contact tracing.

What is being done?

The state government has ordered residents of ten Melbourne postcodes to stay at home until at least July 29. Residents are only allowed out to buy food or essential items, to work or study, to provide care or seek medical attention, or for exercise.

To fix the problem of cases in hotels potentially incubating for longer than 14 days, the Victorian government has introduced testing on day 11 of quarantine. Those who refuse to be tested have to stay in quarantine for an extra ten days after day 14. This regime means returned travelers will hopefully pose little risk of spreading infection.

The government has also organized a testing blitz with the help of the Australian Defense Force across the ten hotspot postcodes over ten days, aiming to test 10,000 residents a day. Andrews has pleaded with residents not to refuse testing.

Testing can now be done using saliva, which involves spitting into a plastic container. This test, developed by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, is much more comfortable than the current nasal and throat swabs. But it is less sensitive, and is likely to miss 13% of positive cases, according to the Doherty Institute's own research.

The government has also announced an investigation into how the virus escaped hotel quarantine. International flights have been diverted away from Melbourne for the next fortnight to reduce the load on hotel quarantines.

What else can be done?

These measures could very well be effective in containing the surge.

But in my opinion, testing in the hotspots should be made compulsory. This is a public health emergency, and authorities have the power to insist people be tested.

As mentioned, Andrews has already said anyone arriving from overseas who refused a test would be forced to stay in quarantine in hotels for ten extra days on top of the existing compulsory two weeks.

It's possible similar consequences could apply to any test-refuser in a hotspot, but we don't know exactly what the punishment would be if someone refused.

As acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said: "Testing can be mandatoryall of the state and territory chief health officers have powers under their public health acts that can make testing and other mechanisms mandatorybut it's a last resort."

Nearly 1,000 people refused testing in Broadmeadows and Keilor Downs alone.

Finally, nasal and throat swabs should continue to be used, rather than the saliva tests that could easily produce false negatives. We can't have a situation where infected people go about their daily lives, wrongly believing they are negative. This might breed community transmission cases, the most difficult cases for authorities to track.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A surge of coronavirus cases among young people is leading to a generational blame game as California and other states grapple with a second wave of the virus.

Reports of outbreaks across the country tied to fraternity houses and college-town bars have helped fuel a perception that people in their teens and 20swho are far less likely to die from COVID-19 but can still suffer debilitating bouts of the virus or pass it along to others who are more vulnerablehave thrown caution to the wind because they don't feel threatened by it.

A long list of other factors may also be at play in the increase, however.

"I see plenty of irresponsibility going on across the age spectrum as we have opened up," said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of the University of California San Francisco's Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. "I don't think it's helpful to demonize one group or another."

An analysis released last week found 44% of new coronavirus cases in California were among people 34 or younger, compared to 29% a month ago. Meanwhile, the analysis of California Department of Public Health data, conducted by infectious disease epidemiologist George Lemp, found the share of cases from people over 50 was dropping.

At a press conference Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state is seeing an alarming increase in coronavirus cases among people under 35, which he called "that age cohort that believes in many cases that they are invincible, and they are somehow immune from the impacts of COVID-19."

But the increase tracks with what Bibbins-Domingo said she expected as more businesses reopened.

During that process, she noted that government and public health officials told people at higher risk from coronavirusparticularly those who are olderthat they should still stay at home to avoid infection. Younger people at lower risk, meanwhile, were given the OK to go out again, making it more likely they would catch the virus.

Now, after seeing a massive increase in new coronavirus cases last week, states and counties are rethinking their reopening plans.

"The age doesn't concern me as much as the big rise in cases," Bibbins-Domingo said.

Another possible explanation for the rise among young people: It's a lot easier to get a COVID-19 test these days, which has meant people with milder or even asymptomatic cases, who skew younger, are finding out they have the virus, Bibbins-Domingo said.

And the jobs young people do could be playing a role as well. Nationwide, only about one-third of workers are in the 16 to 34 age group, but those in essential, public-facing jobsas well as industries that have started reopening more broadly in recent weekstend to be younger.

In retail, where officials have been easing lockdown restrictions, about 56% of workers at clothing stores are 34 and younger, as are 70% of workers at shoe stores and 60% of those at electronics stores.

Nearly two-thirds of restaurant workers are 34 or younger, as are nearly half of grocery store employees, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Workers in food service "are so exposed," said Sameer Shah, the 36-year-old co-owner of Voyager Coffee, who noted the business model of a coffee shop relies on serving perhaps hundreds of customers each dayall of whom could pose a risk in the coronavirus age. Nearly every worker at Voyager's three cafes is under 35.

To lessen risk, Voyager workers serve customers at doorway counters, and don't let people inside their cafes. Shah said it seems like irresponsible behavior from customers is becoming more common as the pandemic has dragged onbut he didn't chalk it up to any particular age group.

"People are just not quite as on guard as they were before," Shah said.

Still, there is some evidence that young people are more likely to take risks during the pandemic: While most people across all age groups report they are consistently wearing masks, avoiding groups and staying at least six feet away from others, people from 18 to 24 were much less likely than older adults to say they were doing so, a May CDC survey found.

Then again, millennials from 25 to 34 tend to be more cautiousthey trailed only people 65 and older in their likelihood to report they were avoiding groups and wearing masks. (People from 45 to 54, the age range 52-year-old Newsom falls into, reported the second-lowest levels of compliance with those guidelines.)

Cinque Curry, a 25-year-old construction worker from Oakland, admitted he didn't take coronavirus very seriously at firsthe went on a cruise in February, and traveled to Las Vegas in March, just as casinos started shutting down.

But then, Curry said, "I started to really think about my grandmother," who was terrified of the virus. Seven of his family members across the country fell ill with COVID-19. All have since recovered.

Now, Curry said, he wears a mask, doesn't venture out much and takes other precautions. On Saturday, he was enjoying some takeout tacos on a bench in Jack London Square with plenty of distance from other groups; unlike some peers, Curry isn't jumping at the chance to start dining in restaurants or drinking in bars again.

"I feel like I've taken it as seriously as I can," he said.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

2020 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
"We absolutely do not need another research project to prove that racism is real or put Black folks' or POC trauma on the line for y'all to learn about racism," Cox said. "The evidence is clear as day and has been stated in various ways from BIPOC folks in the Missoula community for decades."

The virtual committee meeting lasted for about two hours, with the majority of the time spent on public comment as council members listened.

"I am glad we are having this conversation," Mirtha Becerra, committee chair, told the Missoulian following the meeting. "It was long overdue. Clearly, this is Step One, and there's much work to be done to ensure we are as inclusive as we can be. I look forward to collaboratively refining our path toward systemic change."

Many members of the public, in addition to comments submitted to the City Council via email, said they did not support the proposal for the research project. The proposal came through Six Pony Hitch from a team of BIPOC community members who include Wilena Old Person, Jamar Galbreath, Laurelle C. Warner, Alex Kim, Kuau Ahina, Brad Hall and also from Six Pony Hitch owner Spider McKnight, who is not BIPOC.
The faculty really want to have a safe environment for faculty, students and staff on campus, he said. We are working with the administration to work out an enforceable plan.

Palmer said other universities around the country have pulled off mask enforcement, and that he hopes UM can find a way to do so as well.

I think the best thing we could do at this point would be to look at what other universities around the country are doing, he said. There are some 100 universities across the country that are establishing a mandate, and I'm sure there is some enforcement that goes with that.

Megan Stark, head of the Faculty Union, said this issue was important for faculty.

The university is still in a feedback period about fall reopening, and it is not my understanding that a decision about masks has been made, she said in a statement to the Missoulian. The union is currently gathering information and feedback from our members. As always, the union will carry the voices and concerns of faculty to the administration.
Stewart had requested $30,000 for suffering sexual harassment and for the prison's failure to quickly investigate his claim. The Human Rights Commission ultimately decided he was entitled to $3,000, which accounts for the approximate six months between his informal grievance filed Dec. 4, 2017, and staff addressing his complaint in accordance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

The hearing officer also ordered the Montana Department of Corrections, and Montana State Prison consult with the Human Rights Bureau, which is within the Department of Labor and Industry, to ensure its policies and procedures are sufficient to identify, investigate and resolve inmate complaints of discrimination. Barton, the prison spokeswoman, was unsure whether the stipulation had been completed by Thursday and said she would have to check with legal staff. A spokeswoman for the Department of Labor and Industry said the Department of Corrections had been in contact with the Human Rights Bureau, starting in January, and met in February regarding its harassment policies and procedures. Additional information would be available next week, spokeswoman Lauren Lewis said.
The rich reddish-orange glow of Thomas Elpels dugout canoe attracted plenty of attention from Montana to St. Louis.

Named Belladonna Beaver, Elpel assisted Churchill Clark, great-great-great grandson of William Clark, in carving the Douglas fir into a river worthy vessel. Its brilliant finish and unmistakable design made it the perfect boat for the adventure of a lifetime. Last year Elpel and a handful of fellow paddlers launched on the Missouri River to retrace the voyage of Lewis and Clark  a journey chronicled in the new book Five Months on the Missouri River: Paddling a Dugout Canoe.

Its surprisingly uncommon  the Appalachian Trial is a similar length and thousands walk it every year  but only a few hundred paddlers have gone the length of the Missouri, Elpel said from his office in Pony. It was a great, an amazing trip, and just a thrill to explore that country and history.

The author and teacher of wilderness skills blogged about his adventure, which he coined the "Missouri River Corps of Resdiscovery," staring each with a quote from the Lewis and Clark journals. The ties to history were unmistakable as the voyage went from the undeveloped Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana to the heavily modified river downstream.

The theme of the book is the comparisons between Lewis and Clark then and now and what we encountered, Elpel said. The Missouri has been altered a lot and not much of the river still resembles what Lewis and Clark encountered.

Still, its in a somewhat natural state here in Montana. If I could maybe change one thing on that trip, is we spent two months paddling across Montana and I wouldve really enjoyed a third month just to explore the wonders of our state.

The journey came with its share of challenges, including heavy rain, high runoff with flooding and the struggles of paddling across reservoirs where wind and waves could quickly squelch a days paddle. The canoe swamped twice, including once from a passing barge, but overall the discomfort became a normal and temporary fact of life.

Elpel counts the people he met along the river as one of the highlights of the trip. And although his expertise includes foraging for edible plants and fish, the crew found the generosity of those they encountered minimized their need to scour the river for food.

We really just met some incredible people that were totally unexpected, he said. River angels  the people that help out paddlers along the way  we were really wined and dined down the river. We were expecting to be eating dried goods and they were treating us to steak dinners. So yeah, some really wonderful people.

Belladonna Beaver garnered admirers as the paddlers made their way down the river. Elpel joked that he found himself answering the same questions: how long it took to make, how much it weighs and whether hed carved it out himself.

It was pretty much press the play button every day, he joked.

While the blog provided a creative outlet, Elpel saw the potential for a book, as well. He kept copious notes and photos. When the voyage ended in November and he returned home, he wrote through the winter and published in the spring through his HOPS Press.

The book is available through www.hopspress.com. It may also be found at Montana independent book stores, Elpel said.

Reporter Tom Kuglin can be reached at 447-4076 @IR_TomKuglin

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County health officials reminded the public in Mondays media briefing that anyone who has been tested for COVID-19 should self-isolate until they receive their results, which could take two to four days.

Anyone who wants to be tested should call the health department at 828-764-9150 to make an appointment.

The state is looking to help low-income families who have struggled to make ends meet after it received $26 million from the federal community services block grant, according to a release from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Funds can be used, among other things, to help families who are facing eviction because of unpaid rent and utility expenses, the release said.

With the economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governors moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs is the only thing keeping many families in safe and stable housing, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of NCDHHS, in the press release. This flexible funding will allow our Community Action Agencies to continue to meet a wide array of needs in our communities, including helping families remain in their homes when the moratorium is lifted.
The statute even specifically prohibits monuments from being relocated to museums unless they already were located at a museum.

Another exception to the statute states that the monument can be removed if it is deemed a threat to public safety because of a dangerous or unsafe condition determined by a building inspector or similar official.

Gov. Roy Cooper ordered in June that Confederate monuments at the states capitol be removed after protesters pulled down two soldiers on a 75-foot Confederate monument, The Raleigh News & Observer reported.

Coopers order to remove the statues cited a concern for public safety.

I am concerned about the dangerous efforts to pull down and carry off large, heavy statues and the strong potential for violent clashes at the site, the News & Observer quoted Cooper.

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The News Herald asked City Attorney Louis Vinay if he felt that interpretation of the statute is something the city has considered since the events that transpired Saturday.

Vinay said that, his advice to council, if asked, would be that he finds it doubtful that section of the statute could be used to get around requirements that monuments and memorials remain in place.
Bert Mooney Airport received a much-needed lift on Wednesday.

A grant of over $1 million from the CARES Act and Airport Improvement Program was earmarked for the Butte airport, one of five Montana airports cleared to receive a total of over $5.5 million in federal funding as COVID-19 continues to hamper the airline industry.

Jim Kambich, Bert Mooney's assistant manager, said that the airport has seen a precipitous drop in revenue since the coronavirus outbreak, with April being particularly damaging with a 90% decline.

Things have slowly picked up, Kambich said, with Skywest reviving its second daily flight to Salt Lake City on Wednesday after putting it on hold in early May.

Still, the grant money will serve as a life preserver as Bert Mooney, along with airports across the country, continues to recover financially. Kambich said the primary goal will be keeping their workers employed and maintaining its two flights a day.

"We're going to utilize this money wisely," Kambich said, "Keep our employee levels where they are and continue to move forward prudently. We want to keep the airport operational and just make sure we're doing everything that we're expected to do and use our time wisely."
Community spread is when we cant connect the dots for three or more cases, she said.

The recent jump in cases both statewide and locally has spurred new concerns among local health officials. Given the rapid increase of cases and some residents calling for masks to be mandatory, the Butte Silver Bow Health Board is exploring ways to increase the usage of masks or face coverings in public.

Sullivan said her department will be meeting next week to develop health-based metrics to inform the community of Butte-Silver Bows current COVID-19 status and whether to mandate masks and face coverings in public.

We dont want to make decisions in a vacuum. Part of our thinking was: what will it take to keep things open? One measure is to wear a mask, is there value to that? If its a mandatory face mask order, and the trade off is to keep the economy open and continue reopening, then that would be a metric, she said.

However, Sullivan said the situation is not yet to the point where the health department would require masks and face coverings.
Webb has served as deputy utilities director of Fort Collins, Colo., since 2014. Before that she served as the regulatory and government affairs manager. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology and chemistry from William Penn College and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of ColoradoDenver. She was born and raised in Ottumwa.

Her husband, Howard, is an art teacher, she said and added that the couples 11-year-old daughter, Matilda, cant wait to start school in Muscatine and make new friends. Webb said several of her family members still lived in the area and she was looking forward to living closer to them.

Muscatine has several assets that caught her eye, Webb said. She believes there are many good things going on and plenty of room for growth. She believes she will be able to bring much to the table to help the community move into the future.

There are two things I think stood out in the interview, she said. The first was my experience with strategic planning  and not just planning, also doing. The second thing is the system thinking process  just developing good processes that lend transparency to an organization and to local government.
Pate sent the forms ahead of the June 2 primary as part of election officials effort to encourage Iowans to vote by absentee ballot rather than in person to help reduce the possibility of spreading COVID-19.

Jochum called the primary a test run (that) proved quite successful, with one of the highest turnouts in Iowa primary election history. The 531,131 ballots cast broke the 1994 primary election record of 449,490 votes.

Sending the absentee ballot requests to voters gives them a choice to vote by mail or go to a polling station to cast their vote in person, Jochum said.

I dont think we should put people in a position to choose between their health and exercising their right to cast a vote, she said.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny, agreed the primary was successful, but said Jochums amendment was a false choice because the secretary of state is not the only source of absentee ballot requests.

Pretty much every campaign that I know is sending one out, (and) many county auditors are sending out absentee ballot requests and several have announced to do that before the general election, he said.
Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka is one of South Africas most respected business leaders and is best known for building a world-class investment management company.

Wierzycka co-founded Sygnia in 2006 and under her leadership, the company showed rapid growth thanks to its innovative investment strategy.

Sygnias robust investment strategy is paying off and is one of the few JSE-listed companies which currently trade at higher levels than before the COVID-19 crisis hit.

Wierzycka is also outspoken about the scourge of corruption in the public and private sector in South Africa.

In this interview, Wierzycka discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way Sygnia operates and how the lockdown has influenced her life.

She also provides details about Sygnias 16% shareholding in Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI), which has the lifelong rights for all patents and inventions from Oxford University, which include a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

The conversation then delves into how Sygnias funds outperform many other big brand asset managers and who the big winners and losers are amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The interview ends on how she became the new host of The Apprentice South Africa and what people can expect from her in this show.

The full interview is embedded below. You can see all Whats Next with Aki Anastasiou interviews here.
The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has warned South African Airways (SAA) labour unions and creditors against voting for the liquidation of the company, stating that the impact of such a decision would be devastating.

The DPE would like to caution SAA employees, labour unions, and creditors that liquidation  the process of winding down the airline and disposing of its assets, will lead to financial hardship for employees and substantial undervaluation of assets, the department said in a statement.

All SAA stakeholders who are in a position to either support or reject a business rescue plan for SAA should realise that business rescue provides a better outcome than liquidation and should be supported for their collective interests.

According to the department, SAAs business rescue practitioners (BRPs) have scheduled a creditors meeting for Tuesday 14 July to vote on the business rescue plan for the company.

A vote in favour of the plan by 75% of the voting interests would be required to carry the vote  otherwise the airline will be liquidated.

The government urged voters to support the business rescue plan, arguing that liquidation would be devastating for all parties involved.

As the shareholder on behalf of the government, we are of the view that business rescue is a viable alternative to liquidation  one which supports job preservation and the ability to bring the airline back from the brink to a position where some employees, labour unions, and creditors can continue to contribute to the South African economy and its integration into the global economy, the department said.

The DPE added that during a drawn-out liquidation process, creditors would likely receive a negligible dividend after all secured and preferred parties had been paid out.

Employees would get a maximum of R32,000

In the event of SAAs liquidation, the department said that employees would receive a maximum of R32,000 each, regardless of their years of service at the company.

This payout would be distributed to the extent that there are funds available, which means that the amount may be significantly less than R32,000.

Employees would also only receive payment after the final liquidation and distribution account has been approved, which can take up to two years, the department said.

Therefore it stands to reason that generally, business rescue dividends should result in a higher return for creditors than would result in a liquidation situation, the department said.

The DPE is convinced that the R2.2-billion budgeted for Voluntary Severance Packages (VSPs) for SAA employees is the best available option at a time when the government is faced with massive financial demands and fiscal constraints.

If the business rescue plan is approved on 14 July, these VSPs can immediately be offered to employees.

These packages would provide employees with one week of pay per year of completed service, one-month notice pay, accumulated leave pay, a 13th cheque, and a top-up of severance packages.

The transformation of SAA into a competitive airline will, unfortunately, require sacrifices and a major restructuring, starting on a conservative basis and gradually and systematically building up over the next three years to re-employ as many of the displaced employees who have the necessary skills and competence.

Now read: Post Office delays due to level 3 lockdown
MTN this week successfully launched its superfast 5G next generation mobile network across major cities in South Africa, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth.

During a YouTube livestream media launch, speed tests were performed at various locations in Johannesburg showing download speeds in excess of 600Mbps, with latencies averaging 15ms demonstrated.

Tests performed by media reported download speeds peaking in excess of 700Mbps and upload speeds peaking at 100Mbps

Huawei Massive MIMO deployed in Johannesburg

Leveraging on multiple bands, MTN deployed 5G in 2.1GHz using Dynamic Spectrum Sharing, 3.5GHz and 28GHz bands. 3.5 GHz, known as C-band, is the global mainstream spectrum for 5G deployment, and Massive MIMO is the mainstream product form.

MTNs 5G deployment in Johannesburg uses industry-leading Huawei Massive MIMO. This technology guarantees the user experience for services that require high bandwidths such as 4K video, multi-angle video, and AR/VR services, and provide broadband services for families and SMEs.

To enable wider 5G coverage, MTN uses dynamic spectrum sharing between 4G and 5G in the 2.1 GHz band. The 2.1 GHz spectrum can provide wider coverage due to its lower frequency spectrum characteristics.

Huaweis DSS (dynamic spectrum sharing) technology enables operators to quickly provide 5G services by upgrading existing 4G base stations to 5G without changing antennas and radio units.

First in Africa

MTN is the first in Africa to deploy the DSS technology on a 5G live network, which can dynamically adjust the spectrum in milliseconds based on 4G and 5G service requirements, maximising spectrum utilisation, says Huawei CEO Spawn Fan.

The millimeter-wave band has abundant spectrum resources and can provide a huge capacity to provide services for hotspots and home broadband. MTN uses 100 MHz millimeter wave spectrum resources to provide broadband resources for Enterprises and SMEs, which can enjoy high speed internet services and enter the digital age without requiring a fiber connection.

This is expected to greatly support people working remotely during this era of social distancing caused by the Covid 19 pandemic and will boost South Africas transition to a digital economy. We congratulate MTN on the successful upgrade of its network that enabled their transition to the 5G era, says Fan.

Giovanni Chiarelli, CTIO of MTN South Africa, said, The 5G technology is also expected to contribute significantly to the countrys economy and will play a role in the realisation of South Africas digital transformation goals. An excellent 5G network will enable us to provide more exciting services and to offer the ultimate service experience to MTN customers.
Napa County reported 11 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total since March to 344 cases, including four deaths.

The number of people hospitalized increased by one to seven cases. The county also reported at least one new case in a congregate living facility such as a skilled nursing facility or long-term care home.

There are currently two facilities with recent cases.

Statewide, California reports 239,161 cases and 6,171 deaths.

Tests have been given to 20,986 people, with 20,581 tests coming back negative. Results are pending on 61 people.

Like much of California, Napa County is seeing a continued surge in new COVID-19 cases.

The number of cases has been rising in June as more facets of the economy open up and people begin to ease up on following shelter-at-home orders, county officials said.

The state is leading a campaign to have people wear facial coverings when around others and to restrict Fourth of July celebrations to their own households as much as possible.

Additional Napa County coronavirus demographics can be found online at countyofnapa.org/coronavirus.
The number of unemployed has tripled since COVID-19 struck, but there was an uptick in May. So whats next for the California economy?

The 2020-21 state budget agreement, announced last week by Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders, assumes that Californias economy will perform a bit better than previously assumed  enough better to add another billion dollars to the revenue side of the ledger.

We dont know whether thats a realistic adjustment or simply a number that was conjured up because the politicians needed another billion bucks on paper. In fact, no one really knows where the economy is headed as the worst recession in living memory continues.

While California is reopening its economy after Newsom ordered mass shutdowns to combat spread of the deadly coronavirus, we really dont know how many shuttered businesses can and will reopen. Nor do we know how many of the millions of laid-off workers will regain their jobs.

+2 Dan Walters: CalPERS gambles on risky investment move Facing a vicious circle of conflicting demands and priorities, the California Public Employees Retirement System is turning to debt - a risky scheme to borrow billions of dollars in hopes of juicing its investment returns, columnist Dan Walters says.

Finally, we dont know whether the reopening is sustainable, or whether Newsom will clamp back down in response to increases in infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths.

He hinted this week that he may do that.

What we do know is that despite a small uptick in jobs in May, unemployment has tripled during the COVID-19 shutdown with nearly 3 million officially unemployed workers and a jobless rate of 15.9%, well over the highest rate seen during the Great Depression.

However, the official data dont account for workers who have dropped out of the labor force or are working shorter hours, and the new data show an 841,000-person drop in the labor force from May 2019. So the real jobless rate is certainly higher.

Every corner of California has been affected, including the Bay Area, where unemployment had dipped to very low single digits prior to the shutdown. Oddly, some of the lowest numbers today are recorded in lightly populated rural counties whose economies are divorced from the economic mainstream, such as 10.7% in Trinity County.

+2 Dan Walters: Its time to curb police violence California clearly has problem with police violence and it will be up to the Democrats who control the state's politics to fix it, columnist Dan Walters says.

The 20% unemployment rate in Los Angeles County  nearly double the rates in Bay Area counties  stands out, and not in a good way. It has a quarter of the states population, and even when the economy was humming, it had the states highest poverty rate, as calculated by the Public Policy Institute of California, due to a plethora of low-skill, low-pay jobs and sky-high housing costs.

The economic gulf between the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Bay Area, already wide before COVID-19 struck, is now even wider, and LA will continue to be a drag on the state even when and if the overall economy emerges from recession.

Californias job growth engine has come to a screeching halt like an automatic car transmission that suddenly gets thrown into reverse, Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West, told the Los Angeles Times.

Christopher Thornberg, a partner in Beacon economics and director of the University of California, Riverside, Center for Forecasting has a sunnier view.

+2 Dan Walters: Budget No. 4 wont be the last Gov.Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders have agreed on a new state budget but it's not the last word and taxes may be on the agenda to fill its holes, columnist Dan Walters says.

The folks out there calling for a long, protracted U-shaped recovery, believe the damage from the closures has been so profound that the economy wont be able to grow even after mandates are lifted, Thornberg said. Its true the May data represent only a small uptick, but there was a bounce in employment while the economy was still closed.

Thornberg added that until job numbers from June and July, reflecting the states economic reopening, are known the pace back to normality will not be truly understood.

However, we also dont know whether Newsom will crank the economy back down, or whether well see another wave of infections and deaths in the fall, as many authorities fear.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Whitmans astonishing and terrifying book carefully documents  through never before published material and verbatim transcripts  how the Nazis, as early as 1920, were inspired by the U.S.s Jim Crow laws. The Nazis were so inspired by these American laws reflecting our racial madness that they based the Nuremberg Laws upon them  laws which resulted in systematic dehumanization and eventual annihilation of 6 million Jews. The Nazis model for Systemic Racism, was none other than state and federal laws of the United States, a nation founded upon racial inequality and segregation, which built hundreds of monuments to the defenders of that pernicious system.

I read Hitlers American Model while traveling through Maryland, a border state that once had statutory penalties of up to 10 years in prison, if a white person married a black person. That was Maryland, not Mississippi.

Legal documents uncovered by Professor Whitman of debates among Nazi lawyers drafting early versions of the Nuremberg Laws, reveal that even the most radical Nazis thought that Americas anti-miscegenation laws went too far. Let that sink in for a moment: the Nazis, believed that Maryland went too far in its race madness, by criminalizing interracial marriage. Until, of course, the Nazis went much farther.
Karabakh emergency situations service: Remains of another 3 servicemen removed from Varanda (Fizuli) region

Ukraine heralds free trade zone with Turkey

Armenia President receives OSCE/ODIHR Director and OSCE PA Secretary General

Child dies from car accident in Armenia's Gegharkunik Province

Armenia Izmirlian Medical Center head is charged

Karabakh President congratulates Armenia's Pashinyan on victory in snap parliamentary elections

Russia MOD congratulates Armenian counterpart on snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia Investigative Committee charges citizen and head of campaign headquarters for violating ballot secrecy

Iran's President-elect says he has always protected human rights

Georgia PM congratulates Armenia's Pashinyan on winning snap parliamentary elections

PACE and OSCE PA election observers say they are content with elections in Armenia, in spite of violations

India kicks off nationwide free COVID-19 vaccination campaign

Azerbaijan, Pakistan agree to conduct military exercises

Armenia 1st President's spokesperson on snap parliamentary elections

Armenia MP: Azerbaijan is celebrating Nikol Pashinyan's victory, ruling party is holding fireworks display

Charles Michel congratulates Pashinyan on winning snap elections

OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission in Armenia says it heard allegations of administrative resources use

OSCE Secretary General thanks Russia for its work in Minsk Group on Karabakh settlement

Lavrov calls to wait for formation of new Armenia government

Armenia's Pashinyan garners 197,000 less votes compared with elections in 2018

OSCE/ODIHR: Power outages did not considerably affect Armenia snap elections

Garo Paylan congratulates Armenia's Nikol Pashinyan

'Armenia' bloc issues statement on results of snap parliamentary elections

Opposition party leader: 'Armenia' bloc doesn't accept results of vote and will apply to Constitutional Court

Digest: Armenia snap elections is over, Pashinyans bloc leads with almost 54%

OSCE Secretary General: We work within Minsk Group framework to achieve long-term solution to Karabakh conflict

Bayramov: Azerbaijan complains about non-fulfillment of points of trilateral statements on Karabakh

Azerbaijan FM believes that Armenia authorities will draw right conclusion

Pompeo: US should not negotiate with Iran's newly elected President

Azerbaijan blackmails, threatens Armenia under guise of cooperation proposal

Member of Armenia delegation to PACE: Azerbaijan delegation head said 50% of minefield maps given are fake

Armenia freedom fighter is detained, declares hunger strike

9 children killed in accident during storm in US

Swedish parliament passes vote of no confidence in PM's country

Kremlin is following Armenia post-election situation

Artsakh emergency service: Armenian, Azerbaijani sides exchanged bodies from time to time

Azerbaijan Prosecutor General's Office accuses Armenia of deliberate deforestation in Lachin

13 Armenian captives trial starts in Azerbaijan

What will happen if Armenia opposition forces do not accept their parliamentary seats?

Armenia Central Electoral Commission approves preliminary results of snap parliamentary elections

US won't issue threats or ultimatums to China in connection with investigation of pandemic causes

CIS, CSTO observers find no considerable irregularities in Armenia snap parliamentary election voting

Armenia acting PM visits Yerevan military pantheon

Heiko Maas considers new EU sanctions against Belarus inevitable

26 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia acting premier: Civil Contract Party will have constitutional majority in new parliament

Reduction of US military assets in Saudi Arabia will not affect its defenses

Armenia new National Assembly to have 107 MPs

Borrell says mistrust is at core of political crisis in Lebanon

Counting of ballots over in Armenia snap parliamentary elections

Counting of ballots coming to an end in Armenia snap parliamentary elections

Armenia Central Electoral Commission counts 86.4% of ballots

Armenia Central Electoral Commission counts 80% of ballots

Armenia Central Electoral Commission counts two thirds of ballots

Armenia Central Electoral Commission counts 40% of ballots

Acting PM thanks people of Armenia

Armenia parliament vice-chair on Erdogan's "platform of six" proposal: We will answer later

33.49% of ballots counted: Pashinyans bloc leads

Almost 27% of ballots counted by Armenia Central Electoral Commission (PHOTO)

"Armenia" bloc: Snap parliamentary election results being published do not inspire confidence

19,95% of ballots counted by Armenia Central Electoral Commission (PHOTO)

Artsakh President comes out of Armenia ruling party headquarters

2.54% of ballots counted by Armenia Central Electoral Commission (PHOTO)

Armenia Central Electoral Commission announces most preliminary results of snap parliamentary elections

Armenia's Citizen's Decision Party member not allowed to enter precinct, apprehended a little while ago

"I Have Honor" bloc: Armenia National Security Service searches mayor's apartment, 2 MP candidates abducted

Results of electronic voting: Civil Contract Party: 163, "Armenia" bloc: 135, Armenian National Congress: 43

Electric Networks of Armenia: Power outages during vote counts were systematic

Citizen who disseminated anti-propaganda leaflets against "Armenia" bloc shows up at police station

Mediaport: Power is out in Armenia's Gyumri, Vanadzor, Artik, Aparan, Dilijan and Armavir city

Armenian News-NEWS.am providing live coverage at polling station #9/48 in Yerevan district (VIDEO)

Armenian News-NEWS.am providing live coverage at polling station #9/49 in Yerevan district (VIDEO)

Tense situation at polling station #9/21 in Armenia, red beret police officers called to location

Armenian News-NEWS.am providing live coverage at polling station #14/13 in Etchmiadzin (VIDEO)

Power goes out before vote count at polling station #25/58 in Armenia's Odzun

Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov returns to US

Armenia Police receive 87 alarms via hotline as of 8:30 pm

Armenia snap parliamentary elections voter turnout 49.4%, 51.55% voter turnout in Yerevan

Armenia Ombudsman's statement on taking photos of ballots speculated

Armenia Civil Contract Party member obstructing work of opposition party proxy at polling station

Armenia advocate: National Security Service decided to conduct search in office and apartment of Masis mayor

Armenian News-NEWS.am providing live coverage at polling station #2/46 in Yerevan district (VIDEO)

Netanyahu and his family to leave PM residence no later than July 10

Armenian News-NEWS.am providing live coverage at polling station #31/02 in Gyumri

Armenian News-NEWS.am providing live coverage at polling station #8/04 in Yerevan district (VIDEO)

Gabrielyanov: Russian institutions' exit poll results of Armenia snap parliamentary elections announced

Armenian News-NEWS.am providing live coverage at polling station #17/03 in Armenia's Ashtarak (VIDEO)

Catholicos of All Armenians sends congratulatory message to Iran's President-elect

Armenia snap parliamentary elections are over

hetq.am: Ballot box at polling station in Armenia's Gavar not sealed

"I Have Honor" bloc's member: My father exited Special Investigation Service, will vote in Armenia elections

Police detect case of electoral fraud in Armenian town

China has 1 billion COVID-19 vaccinations

Artak Tovmasyan visits military pantheon, goes to cast vote in Armenia snap parliamentary elections

Armenia Ombudsman talks to democrats bloc's candidate for PM Arman Babajanyan after gunshot fired at car

Armenian attorney: "I Have Honor" bloc's supporters released

big brother: Red beret police officers brutally beat members of "Armenia" bloc's headquarters

Armenia Police: Drunk man fires gunshots into air from apartment in Yerevan

Armenia Police find data on 2,287 deceased persons, remove them from voters' lists

Armenia "I Have Honor" bloc: Ballots for numbers 1-8 were missing in package for mobile voting at hospital
During todays session, the Armenian government made changes in the conditions of the state support program for leasing agro-food equipment in Armenia.

Presenting the issue, Minister of Economy Tigran Khachatryan stated the following: This leasing program can help provide funding for modular and mobile slaughterhouses. The Ministry of Economy is conducting monitoring to know the extent to which the existing slaughterhouses are available and has mapped the locations of slaughterhouses in the country so that the distance from each settlement is logical and reasonable. We have chosen 30 km distance as a standard.

The minister added that there are currently 23 operating slaughterhouses, and another 36 will start operating soon. The minister also said there will be regional communities that wont be quite close to the slaughterhouses and listed the 14 locations where construction of slaughterhouses is preferable, including three in Syunik Province, one in Gegharkunik Province, two in Ararat, Lori and Aragatsotn Provinces each and four in Shirak Provinces.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan added the following: There is an epidemic in Armenia, and based on forecasts, there will be challenges during the epidemic. We have to put an end to selling and buying meat slaughtered on asphalts as soon as possible.
During todays session, the Government of Armenia approved the proposal to conclude an agreement on trade and economic cooperation between the Governments of Armenia and Kazakhstan in the field of supply of petroleum products to Armenia.

Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Suren Papikyan said the need to conclude this agreement is due to the interest in cooperation between Armenia and Kazakhstan for delivery of petroleum products.

By this agreement, import of petrol products from Kazakhstan to Armenia will be exempt from customs duty. The competent authorities of the parties draw up the balance for manufacturing, import and export of goods for internal consumption in the territory of Armenia, and they approve the list of goods delivered from Kazakhstan to Armenia through the conclusion of an interdepartmental protocol, the minister said.

Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan added that this will provide Armenia with the opportunity to import Kazakh fuel with better conditions. This will create an opportunity for some competition in Armenias fuel market, meaning it will have an impact on the petrol market in Armenia, Avinyan added.

Chairman of the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition Gegham Gevorgyan noted that this will diversify the market and identify new players.
The iconic Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Colaba was among the targets of terrorists during the 26/1 terror attack.

Mumbai: A day after the threat call to Mumbais iconic Taj hotel, the Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh has asked police to tighten the security in the state. Deshmukh, along with the Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) Subodh Jaiswal and Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh, reviewed the security measures on Wednesday.

Deshmukh said, Following an attack on Karachi stock exchange, a threat call was made to Taj Hotel on Monday night. I had detailed discussions with both DGP Maharashtra and Mumbai Police chief on beefing up security arrangements in the state.

On Tuesday, security was tightened around The Taj Mahal Palace and Taj Lands End hotels in Mumbai after an anonymous caller, who claimed to be a member of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, threatened to carry out 26/11-like attacks, police said.

There were separate threat calls to the hotels from a Pakistani number late Monday night, they said. The iconic Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Colaba which overlooks the Gateway of India was among the targets of Pakistani terrorists during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
Richmond has removed Confederate General Thomas Jackson's statue, Wric reported.

US Virginia state city's Mayor Levar Stoney instructed to remove all the Confederate monuments from the streets.

The US has started demolishing monuments amid the protests as they have been targeted by protesters as symbols of racism and slavery.

Mass protests and riots have been held in many US states after the death of African-American George Floyd. Three police officers handcuffed Floyd, threw him to the ground and apprehended him, and one of them pressed his knee on the man's neck. All four police officers involved in the detention have been fired and charged.
The Union of Armenians of Russia (UAR) has issued a statement stating the following:

Providing Navalny, a well-known Armenophobic person, with airtime on Armenian Public Television was a well-planned anti-Armenian action that was aimed at questioning the role of Armenians in creating in Russia, as well as the allied ties between Russia and Armenia.

The Union of Armenians of Russia has always actively participated in the processes linked to the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation starting from the period of discussions, and the prevailing majority of the Armenians of Russia, knowing that the amendments are aimed at strengthening the Russian Federation and improving the socio-economic situation and the lives of citizens of Russia, including the nearly 3,000,000 ethnic Armenians, participated in the all-Russian vote. In our opinion, the Armenian authorities have to give their evaluation of the appearance of the Armenophobic Navalny on public television through taxpayers money, Navalny, who recently became famous with his indecent and offensive remarks against a veteran of WWII. If the Armenian authorities dont give an evaluation, guided by this logic, Armenian Public Television may start providing airtime for the Armenophobic rhetoric of Aliyev. The Union of Armenians of Russia is certain that those who ordered and perpetrated the provocations and caused a storm in the Armenian community of Russia wont succeed in radicalizing in the publics conscience the anti-Russian rhetoric and, much less, change the vector of development of the friendly and allied relations between Russia and Armenia.
President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian today had a meeting with the leaders of several companies involved in agriculture, food production, reprocessing and the service sector.

Sarkissian stated that the situation is rather complicated and attached importance to joint efforts, recording of problems and the search for more optimal solutions in a situation when it is necessary to regulate business and the problems with jobs in the conditions of the global economic downturn, adding that alongside the hardships caused by the coronavirus, there will also be many economic hardships, including in the food safety sector.

Armenia has to think very deeply and very seriously about food safety. One of the paths is perhaps reassessing what the country has and finding new markets. Its great that Armenia has a certain place in, say, the Russian market, but one market isnt enough to maintain the balance. In Armenias case, the best path will be to turn Armenia into a center for international trade of agricultural products and food. Armenia needs to export products with the highest quality because we wont be able to compete with quantity. There is no doubt that Armenia has great potential for the production of agricultural products. There is a tremendous market in neighboring countries, stretching from Iran to all Gulf countries.

My conclusion is that its going to be hard and the government has to assume its role. I propose the following: If you want to use the presidential institution, use it as your representative or ambassador. I believe Armenia has a market towards the Gulf countries, and it so happens that the leaders of those countries are my longtime friends. Use the presidential institution for your benefit and the benefit of the state. I will be glad, if we collaborate in some way and make positive changes together.

The businessmen touched upon the impact of the coronavirus situation on their respective businesses and talked about the prospects for growth. Upon the proposal of the President, they also presented the current issues and risks, touched upon effective management of land plots and expansion of markets for export, as well as tax privileges, maintenance of jobs and several other issues.
Turkish President Erdogans states reason for wanting to censor social media is likely a lie, former Pentagon official Michael Rubin wrote on the Washington Examiner.

Erdogan said social networks should be controlled after his daughter announced the birth of her fourth child and some people on social media reportedly directed insults at her and the presidents son-in-law.

However, Rubin believes that the real reason is different. He recalled a video posted on YouTube on June 28 where Erdogan met with 15 high school students to whom he delivered advice. After the video was posted, dislikes outnumbered likes by 10-to-1.

"He rallied the internet trolls to support him, but when Erdogan had the YouTube video removed, there we approximately 300,000 dislikes to around only 100,000 likes. It was then that he threatened to disconnect Turkey from social media outlets not controlled by the Turkish government," Rubin noted.

Surveys show that about 60 percent of Turkish millennials are against Erdogan, despite its long-standing influence on education in schools and universities, as well as on the media.

"The Turkish president is frustrated, and he is willing to do what all dictators who cannot win policy arguments do: repress rather than convince," Rubin said. "Neither Western journalists nor diplomats should play into Erdogans grievance trap. His dictatorial tendencies have nothing to do with family honor and everything to do with ego and ideology."
Gandhi was asked to vacate her official bungalow by August 1.

A fuming Congress on Wednesday alleged that the Modi government was "blinded by hate and vendetta" against its leadership, and said it will not be cowed down by such moves after it asked Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to vacate the bungalow allotted to her in Lutyens' Delhi within a month, saying she is not entitled to the facility following withdrawal of her SPG protection.

According to an order issued by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, Gandhi was asked to vacate her official bungalow by August 1 failing which "it will attract damage charges/penal rent as per rules".

The government had in November last year replaced the Special Protection Group (SPG) cover of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, with Z-plus security by the CRPF.

"Consequent upon withdrawal of SPG protection and grant of Z+ security cover by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which does not have provision for allotment/retention of government accommodation on security grounds to you (Gandhi), the allotment of Type 6B House No. 35, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi is hereby cancelled w.e.f 01/07/2020.

One month concessional period on the same rent up to August 1 is allowed as per rules," the Directorate of Estates said in its order.

An official said that the Congress general secretary, who is in-charge for Uttar Pradesh,had been allotted the bungalow on February 21, 1997 as she was an SPG protectee.

The Z-plus security does not entail such a facility and she has to vacate 35 Lodhi Estate bungalow, the official said.

"Persons with Z+ security cover are not entitled for the government accommodation. Such exceptions can be made only by the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation based on security assessment by the Ministry of Home Affairs on their recommendation," the official said.

The official also said that the CCA in its meeting held on December 7, 2000 had reviewed the guidelines on allotment of government accommodation on security ground and decided that in fu ture, no private person, other than those who are SPG protectees, will be given such facility on security ground.

"Such allotment were to be done at the market rate -- 50 times of normal rent. Later, in July 2003, it was decided to charge special rate of licence fee like 20 times of the normal rent from such allottees," official added.

CONGRESS FUMES

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the party does not fear from such notices and will continue to highlight the "wrong-doings of a failed Modi government".

"PM Narendra Modi and his Government are blinded by rage, hatred and revenge against the Congress leadership. Unnerved by political activism of Priyanka ji in UP, Modi Government has stooped even further by issuing house vacation notice. Such frustrated attempts will not deter us," he tweeted.

He said Priyanka Gandhi has also been highlighting the failures of the UP government.

"Priyanka Gandhi is Indira Gandhi's grand-daughter and neither she nor the Congress leadership will be cowed down by such notices," Surjewala said

The Congress had reacted sharply to the withdrawal of SPG cover to the Gandhi family and had even raised the issue in Parliament.

Senior party leader and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Wednesday that the the Union Government should withdraw the cancellation order in the interest of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's security and safety.

All India Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev said that the government, consciously, had issued the notice.

"I have to say that there was a time when the rumours were going around that Priyanka will be a Rajya Sabha MP and was one of the reasons she wanted to stay in her bungalow. But she proved all those speculations wrong, said Dev.

"Let us not forget that she did not take a bungalow with any sense of entitlement, she took it because of security reasons. I believe that she has never taken undue advantage of any situation, " Dev added.

Congress leader Rajiv Shukla said, "House was allotted to them because of security reasons, they had received massive threats."

"After Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi incident, you can see they were facing severe threats. As a result, the house was allotted to them, " Shukla added.

Another Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said in a tweet, "BJP party's priority list. Before evicting the Chinese intruders who have not only occupied strategic heights in Ladakh but also, killed our soldiers dastardly, evicting Priyanka Gandhi from her bungalow is more important."
NATO began implementing a defense plan for Poland and the Baltic states after Turkey dropped its objections, Reuters reported.

A plan for Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, the details of which are classified, was prepared at their request.

It was approved at the NATO summit in London in December. But Turkey did not allow NATO to implement this plan, setting the condition for recognizing Kurdish forces in northern Syria as terrorists. "The Turks have dropped their objections," an official of the French Armed Forces Ministry said on Wednesday.

A NATO diplomat said plans have now been finalized.

The defense plan of Poland and the Baltic countries, known as the Eagle Defender, is not directly related to the strategy of Turkey in Syria.

"Putting in place the political decision, which was reached in London, is a success for all NATO," Lithuanian Defence Minister Raimundas Karoblis told reporters.
Turkey demands an apology from France after the incident of Turkish and French ships on the Mediterranean, after which Paris requested NATOs inquest.

The relations of NATO members have worsened as a result of the Libyan conflict in which Turkey supports the internationally recognized government and blames Paris for supporting General Khalifa Haftar.

France refutes the support and blames Turkey for its aggressive behavior.

France has to apologize to Turkey. France is supporting the wrong side in Libya, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

Earlier, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas had called for constructive dialogue to settle the differences between Turkey and France, after which he declared that he doesnt rule out imposition of sanctions on Turkey.
Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan has issued the following statement on setting up a COVID-19 inquiry committee:

Pursuant to part 1 of Article 20 of the Constitutional Law of Armenia Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, upon the request of at least one quarter of the total number of deputies, by virtue of law, an inquiry committee of the National Assembly has been set up to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Armenia, and to study the effectiveness of the measures of the government of Armenia and the Commandants Office toward the fight against this virus, mitigation or elimination of the consequences of the epidemic, as well as the effectiveness and legality of the restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms during the current state of emergency in Armenia.

Pursuant to part 6 of Article 20 of the Constitutional Law of Armenia Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, the draft decision of the National Assembly prescribing the number of members of the inquiry committee will be considered during the first regular session of the National Assembly in September 2020.

Armenia parliament opposition forces to set up COVID-19 inquiry committee
The tax burden for the majority of citizens wont be intolerable in case of changes in the system of property taxation. This is what Head of the Department of Revenue Policies and Administration Methodology at the Ministry of Finance of Armenia Ori Alaverdyan told reporters today. According to him, the government hasnt set a goal to create an extra tax burden for citizens. We took into consideration the incomes of the population and tried to choose an amount of tax that citizens can pay, Alaverdyan said.

Alaverdyan recalled that the new property tax will be introduced in the course of six years. He also assured that if the government hadnt introduced the amendments to the Tax Code for the year 2021, the property tax would have been much higher than envisaged by this reform since the new system for calculation of the cadastral value would enter into force and the tax rates would stay the same.

When asked why the reform was presented to the parliament in June, Alaverdyan stated that the government had actively considered the changes in January-February, but due to the coronavirus, which became a reason for overload of work for the government, the process of forwarding the bill to the National Assembly was prolonged.

Alongside this, Alaverdyan stated that the property tax reforms were envisaged by the government program and the Tax Code of 2018.
Leader of Prosperous Armenia Party Gagik Tsarukyan has posted the following on his Facebook page:

Dear compatriots, recently, there is artificial escalation of anti-Russian moods in Armenia through the active efforts of anti-Armenian and anti-state forces in the country. The ultimate goal of those forces is to destroy the friendly ties between our two nations.

As an example, it is necessary to state that the Armenian society is being told that it is necessary to review Armenias military agreement with Russia which will lead to the withdrawal of the Russian 102nd Military Base from Armenia. I believe we Armenians are well aware of the fact that this is not only the dream of Turkey and Azerbaijan, which are constantly threatening us with war and annihilation, but is also preparing ground for disturbing the already fragile peace in the whole region.

I would like to unequivocally state that I, as the leader of Prosperous Armenia Party, the largest opposition political party in Armenia, as a political figure and as a citizen, will do everything possible to prevent the provocations aimed at creating anti-Russian moods in our country. I am certain that we Armenians need to deepen and strengthen our relations with the Russian Federation further for the development of Armenia and the strengthening of the security and independence of our country, based on mutual respect and the centuries-old fraternal ties in the bilateral format and within the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and other political, economic and military formats that will be mutually beneficial for our two nations.

May God protect us all!

Sincerely, leader of Prosperous Armenia Party Gagik Tsarukyan
The armies clashed on the banks of a river

ugle calls late in the night! Call to arms! The troops rushed to gather their weapons. On one side assembled Tibetan crack troops commanded by a Chinese officer.

On the other side were soldiers drawn mainly from the Bihar region. The armies clashed on the banks of a river.

The reader may be reminded of the fateful night of 15th June 2020, when soldiers of the 16th Bihar regiment took on PLA troops that had intruded into the Indian territory in the Galwan river valley.

The use of firearms is prohibited by treaty, so the fighters engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat involving primitive weapons that resulted in the death of twenty Indian soldiers and unspecified numbers of Chinese soldiers.

However, the conflict described in the opening lines of this text does not allude to this recent skirmish on the LAC. The river in question where the armies clashed is not the Galwan of Ladakh but the mighty Gandak in Champaran district of modern-day Bihar.

Though both events occurred in the month of June, the legend belongs to an entirely different era to the twilight of the Golden Age of ancient India. These incidents followed the death of Harsha, the ruler of one of the largest empires of ancient India.

D. Devahuti pursued his doctoral thesis on this subject matter under the supervision of the famous historian A.L. Basham at the University of London. He subsequently expanded his work to write a popular book titled, Harsha: a political study.

The first formal contacts between the empires belonging to the Indian and Chinese civilizations took place during the reign of Emperor Harsha, about 1400 years ago. Harsha was crowned as king in the year 606 AD. For the next four decades, he expanded his empire to span the entire north Indian belt up to the Narmada.

It was during his reign that the renowned Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang made an arduous trip to India and spent 13 years studying Buddhism under the patronage of Harsha. This interaction generated interest and led Harsha to send goodwill missions to the Chinese emperor Tai-Tsung of Tang.

Some of these missions carried gifts of exotic Indian produce as well as cuttings from the sacred Bodhi tree. The Chinese emperor reciprocated by sending his delegations to India. Great ceremonies were organized and the streets were richly decorated to honour the dignitaries.

The grandeur of welcome accorded to select foreign dignitaries by the ancient empires was no less than those witnessed in contemporary times!

Among the adventures of the Chinese delegates who visited India, the most notable is that of a county magistrate named Wang Hsuan-tse. When Wang Hsuan-tse arrived in India as the chief envoy of the third and last Chinese mission, he unexpectedly found the country in great disarray. Harsha had died. Local chieftains had appropriated territories they could lay their hands on.

Arjuna, who had been a minister in Harshas court, had usurped the region of Tira-bhukti (Tirhut) in Magadha. Champaran, located on the banks of Gandak, was the major city in this region. Wang Hsuan-tse declined to pay tribute to Arjuna. Singed by the refusal of the Chinese delegation to pay obeisance to him, Arjuna ordered the capture of the entire mission.

But Wang Hsuan-tse managed to flee to western Tibet in the dead of the night, even as thirty members of his party were abducted. At that time, Tibet and Nepal were in close alliance with China, sealed by marriages between the royalties of the three kingdoms. With the assistance of the 1200 Tibetan crack troops and 7000 Nepalese cavalry, the Chinese envoy fought and routed the army of the Indian chieftain on the banks of the Gandak. The annals state that the battle raged for three days and 3000 of Arjunas men were slain and several thousand drowned in the river. Arjuna and his family were among the 12000 taken as prisoners. Wang Hsuan-tse returned to China with his prisoner Arjuna, and surprisingly, the latter received a considerate treatment during the trip.

What has this obscure ancient legend to do with the modern Indo-Chinese conflict? On face value, nothing much. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since that deadly encounter on the banks of the Gandak.

India, once a fragmented land of warring kings and republics has now evolved to become a robust democracy, whereas, China has grown from a feudal country to a totalitarian communist nation and an economic giant. Deep nationalist sentiments prevail among the people of either society.

The India and China of today have little to identify themselves, respectively, with the empire of Harsha or the Tang dynasty of the times of yore. Indo-Chinese disputes of today are always seen from the prism of the 1962 annexation of Aksai Chin.

But on certain fronts, human beings have scarcely evolved in the past millennia. Both, individual as well as collective desires to dominate the other are just the same today, as they were in ancient times.

However, the greater battles are not fought on the ground but are fought on metaphysical planes. The impact of fierce philosophical and religious churnings in Magadha far outlasted the outcomes of fierce battles fought on its plains. The routing of the army of the Indian chieftain on the banks of the Gandak did not hinder the spread of Buddhas message of universal compassion to China and the rest of the world.

Buddhas message carries as much relevance today as it did in the ancient world, while the legend of the battle fought in Champaran is scarcely known to anyone. Just so, beyond the veil of the border conflict of today, greater battles are being fought on the metaphysical plane.

The Dalai Lama maintains that China may be militarily strong but the battle of the minds is a different game, and if there is any battle to be won, it is this one.

Democratic uprisings in China have happened in the past and Hong Kong is the epicentre of the recent one. Its a call to our society: can we mend our strained social fabric and usher a reign of democracy and harmony? A reign whose bugle also gets sounded in Beijing and Hong Kong!

Manu Jaiswal lives in Chennai. He is an associate professor of Physics at IIT Madras. He is intrigued by science and philosophy, the two inexhaustible creative outpourings of the human spirit.
In a televised message, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is compelled to declare more restrictions due to the sharp rise in the number of coronavirus cases, RIA Novosti reports.

In the beginning of this week, we had about 450 patients a day, but now there are about 1,000. The number of patients in critical condition is also growing. We have to set restrictions again, the Prime Minister declared.

Netanyahu reported that the cabinet of ministers has decided to limit the number of participants in massive events in order to fight against the spread of the coronavirus. There can only be up to 50 people in bars, clubs and ceremony halls and up to 20 people at a gathering in a house, Netanyahu clarified.
Current quarantine arrangement flawed, says expert

Dr Leung Chi-chiu says authorities should review the current quarantine arrangement as virus cases are rising in places like the US. File photo: RTHK

A medical expert has warned a local coronavirus infection reported at a Tai Wai housing estate has revealed a loophole in the quarantine measures being implemented for arrivals in the city, and urged authorities to put in place stricter measures for visitors from the United States.



A 46-year-old woman who had not travelled outside Hong Kong recently came down with Covid-19 on Tuesday. She is believed to have contracted the virus from family members who had returned from the US and were undergoing home quarantine.



Dr Leung Chi-chiu, from the Hong Kong Medical Association, said he believes that the incident reflects a loophole in home quarantine arrangements, as in many overseas regions, especially the United States, the epidemic situation has rebounded.



People arriving from these places are now quarantined at home and it increases the risk of transmission of the virus to relatives, he said.



Currently only people who are arriving from places classified as high-risk areas, like India and Pakistan, are placed at designated quarantine centres. Others are allowed to return home and undergo 14-day quarantine there.



He urged the government to change this to reduce the risk of community outbreaks, saying any "spill leakage" could lead to the society paying a heavy price.



The authorities should require family members of the quarantined persons to quickly inform authorities if they have Covid-19 symptoms, he said, so cases can be treated as soon as possible.



Leung said when home quarantine arrangements were introduced several months ago, some people temporarily moved out or stayed at hotels so avoid contact with quarantined family members.
New Taiwan office gets more than 180 HK inquiries

Taiwan-Hong Kong Services and Exchanges Office in Taipei says they have received enquiries from 180 people looking to leave Hong Kong. Photo: Reuters

The government in Taiwan says an office set up on Wednesday to help Hongkongers fleeing the SAR following the imposition of a national security law has already received more than 180 inquiries as Taipei issued a travel alert to those travelling to the city.



Officials said they are warning Taiwanese people to avoid unnecessary transits through or visits to Hong Kong, but said they will continue to operate the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the SAR.



At the opening of the office, the head of Taiwans mainland affairs council, Chen Ming-tong, said the facility shows his governments determination to aid Hongkongers, and support freedom and democracy in the city.



On Thursday, the deputy head of the council, Chiu Chui-cheng said Taiwans representative office in the SAR would continue to operate  but advised Taiwanese people to avoid unnecessary transits through or visits to Hong Kong, Macau or the mainland.



Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Chiu described the new national security law for Hong Kong as the most outrageous in history.



The law, which took effect on Wednesday, will target crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.



Beijing and SAR officials say the new law will target only a small number of people who endanger the national security and will not affect majority of the people. (Reuters)
Mystery surrounds elephant deaths in Botswana

Mystery surrounds elephant deaths in Botswana

Hundreds of elephants have died mysteriously in Botswana's famed Okavango Delta, the wildlife department said on Thursday, ruling out poaching as the tusks were found intact.



The landlocked southern African country has the world's largest elephant population, estimated to be around 130,000.



"We have had a report of 356 dead elephants in the area north of the Okavango Delta and we have confirmed 275 so far," said Cyril Taolo, the acting director of the department of Wildlife and National Parks.



He said the cause of the deaths was yet to be established with anthrax having been ruled out.



"We do not suspect poaching since (the) animals were found with tusks," he said.



Samples have been collected and sent to specialised laboratories in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Canada for testing.



Similar deaths were first reported in May when authorities found 12 carcasses in just a week in two villages in the northwest of the country.



"It seems they were dying very suddenly in some cases," conservation biologist, said Keith Lindsay, adding that the deaths were strange.



"The carcases were animals that had fallen down while walking... right on their sternum which is very unusual," said Lindsay.



"Up to now there doesn't seem to be any clear sign of the reason for it. When something like this happens it is alarming."



The latest discoveries were flagged by a wildlife conservation charity, Elephants Without Borders (EWB), whose confidential report referring to the 356 dead elephants, was leaked to the media on Wednesday.



EWB suspects the elephants have been dying in the area for about three months.



According to the report dated June 19, 2020, "70 percent of elephant carcasses were considered recent, having died about a month ago, and 30 percent of the carcasses appeared fresh, ranging from one day to two weeks old".



"There was good evidence to show elephants of all ages and sex appear to be dying," said the report penned by EWB director Mike Chase.



Several live elephants appeared to have been weak, lethargic and emaciated, with some showing signs of disorientation, difficulty in walking or limping, EWB said.



"One elephant was observed walking in circles, unable to change direction although being encouraged by other herd members," said the report.



Conservationist Neil Fritt said the strange phenomenon is "tragic" but appears to be "more like a natural occurrence as opposed to direct human cause,".



Botswana has an overpopulation of elephants which President Mokgweetsi Masisi has flagged as the source for much of the human-animal conflict in the country.



In February the southern African country held its first major auction for trophy elephant hunting quotas since controversially scrapping a hunting ban last year. But the hunting season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AFP)
Dudziak is a seasoned IP business leader and deal-maker, having practiced in all dimensions of the patent industry, including IP strategy, licensing and sales transactions, litigation, and asset development and management. Dudziak will lead Sisvels US efforts in driving pro-innovation partnerships, programs, and transactions that ensure its existing and future partners are fairly and appropriately compensated for their inventions.

Prior to joining Sisvel, Dudziak was a partner at one of the worlds leading IP law firms and, most recently, the senior director of licensing & strategy at Via Licensing Corporation, a subsidiary of US audio pioneer Dolby Laboratories, where he led and successfully concluded several key IP deals with many of the worlds leading technology companies.

Nick has an exceptional track record and demonstrated ability to get things done and draw parties together, said Mattia Fogliacco, President, Sisvel Group. We see Nick as a very good fit with our current vision, strategic plan and intention to expand upon our services offered worldwide and especially in the United States market. Nicks leadership and experience will prove to be a key asset for Sisvel as we continue innovating the way we create solutions to complex licensing environments, seeking to secure friction-less transactions, while remaining committed to support the creation of a level playing field.

Dudziak holds a JD from the John Marshall Law School, a BS degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois, and is a registered Patent Attorney.

About Sisvel

Sisvel is a world leader in fostering innovation and managing IP. The group identifies, evaluates and maximizes the value of IP assets for its partners around the world, providing firms with a revenue stream which can be reinvested in innovation for the generation of future revenues. Sisvel has more than 35 years experience in the management of successful patent portfolios, including those relating to audio compression standards (MP3 and MPEG audio), as well as broadcasting and digital terrestrial television standards maintained by the Digital Video Broadcasting Project. Sisvel operates patent pools and joint licensing programs in the fields of mobile communication, wireless local area networking 802.11, video coding, digital video broadcasting, recommendation engines and broadband access to data networks.

For additional information, please visit: www.sisvel.com
807-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock Is the World's Quickest and Most Powerful Muscle Car

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

2020 Challenger SRT Super Stock with 807-horsepower is the newest Dodge drag-racing machine

The 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock is powered by the same supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI high-output V-8 that powers the SRT Hellcat Redeye, but features a revised powertrain calibration that increases power output to 807 horsepower

Challenger SRT Super Stock is the world's quickest and most powerful muscle car:

Widebody comes standard on the Challenger SRT Super Stock, making room for the bigger wheels and standard drag radials and adding 3.5 inches of overall width to the vehicle

Challenger SRT Super Stock is equipped with standard lightweight 18-inch-by-11-inch wheels in Low Gloss Granite finish, riding on sticky 315/40R18 Nitto NT05R drag radials at all four corners

Challenger SRT Super Stock features lightweight all-aluminum Brembo four-piston brake calipers and 14.2-inch vented rotors

Performance-tuned asymmetrical limited-slip differential has a 3.09 final drive

Track mode within the SRT Drive Modes on the SRT Super Stock activates a revised shock tuning for the drag radials

Dealer orders are scheduled to open for the 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock this summer with production starting at Brampton (Ont.) Assembly Plant this fall. Deliveries to Dodge//SRT dealerships are scheduled to begin later this year

Dodge//SRT is flexing its muscle and doubling down on its commitment to drag racing, introducing the new 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock, the world's quickest and most powerful muscle car.

"I swore that we'd never build another Demon and we won't," said Tim Kuniskis, Global Head of Alfa Romeo and Head of Passenger Cars  Dodge, SRT, Chrysler and FIAT, FCA  North America. "But I also said that every Challenger Hellcat and Redeye comes with an unspoken commitment to uphold the brand and the new Challenger SRT Super Stock is engineered to do just that."

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The drag-racing, quarter-mile-crushing spirit of the limited-production 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon lives on through the 2020 Challenger SRT Super Stock, which is powered by the same supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI high-output V-8 engine that also currently powers the Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye, paired with the TorqueFlite 8HP90 eight-speed automatic transmission.



Featuring a revised powertrain calibration that increases the shift point from 6,300 rpm to 6,400 rpm, the Challenger SRT Super Stock delivers a power output of 807 horsepower on pump gas, a 10-horsepower boost over the standard SRT Hellcat Redeye, and 707 lb.-ft. of torque.



In addition to the new powertrain calibration, the Challenger SRT Super Stock is built on a standard Widebody and features a new suspension, standard Brembo brakes, and a wheel and drag radial combination designed to give customers better hook off the line.



Standard SRT Super Stock features include:

Lightweight 18-inch-by-11-inch wheels in Low Gloss Granite finish, riding on sticky 315/40R18 Nitto NT05R drag radials at all four corners

Lightweight all-aluminum Brembo four-piston brake calipers and 14.2-inch vented rotors

Performance-tuned asymmetrical limited-slip differential with a 3.09 final drive ratio

"Ask anyone who has ever driven a street car on low-profile performance tires and then back to back on drag radials with increased sidewall, and they will tell you the difference is game-changing," Kuniskis added. "The SRT Super Stock package allows the Challenger Redeye to launch harder and pick-up three car lengths in the quarter-mile."

The results:

0-60 mph acceleration of 3.25 seconds

Quarter-mile elapsed time of 10.5 seconds at 131 mph

168 mph top speed (tire-limited)

The Challenger SRT Super Stock is not limited in production and will continue as the ultimate Dodge drag-racing model in the 2021 model year.



Dealer orders for the 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock are scheduled to open this summer with production starting at Brampton (Ont.) Assembly Plant this fall. They are scheduled to start arriving in Dodge//SRT dealerships later this year.



SRT Super Stock goes stealth

The Challenger SRT Super Stock gets its name from the "Super Stock" class of vehicle in drag racing. It's defined by vehicles that may look like ordinary passenger vehicles, but they are highly modified race cars.



The same can be said for the Challenger SRT Super Stock. While it may look like an ordinary Challenger with no special "Super Stock" badging, it packs the most powerful punch of the Challenger lineup, falling back on the Dodge motto, "if you know, you know." The giveaway to identifying the SRT Super Stock: the 18-inch-by-11-inch wheels with a Low Gloss Granite finish, riding on massive, sticky 315/40R18 Nitto NT05R drag radials at all four corners.

Drag-focused drive modes

The Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock gives the driver the ability to set up maximum drag strip performance and precision to cover the quarter mile as quickly as possible. To do this, it combines the best of both mechanical and electronic tuning to deliver maximum launch grip while still maintaining precision directional control.



The Challenger SRT Super Stock's uniquely tuned Bilstein high-performance Adaptive Damping Suspension (ADS) helps to shift as much weight as possible to the rear tires at launch for maximum traction.



The drive mode settings on the Challenger SRT Super Stock include Auto (Street) mode, which sets the Bilstein ADS for comfortable ride with compliant handling, Sport mode, Track mode and Custom mode, which lets the driver select between Auto, Sport and Track mode configurations for the transmission, paddle shifters, traction, suspension and steering.



When Track mode is activated on the Challenger SRT Super Stock, the front Bilstein shocks are set for firm compression and soft rebound damping, while the rear Bilstein shocks are set for firm compression and firm rebound damping. That configuration is maintained as long as the car runs at wide open throttle. When the driver backs off the gas pedal, the system switches to soft compression and firm rebound, front and rear, for improved handling.



During Track mode, the traction control system is disabled to enable the rear wheels to spin for a burnout, but the electronic stability control system remains engaged to help the driver with straight-line performance.



Track mode options:

TorqueFlite eight-speed transmission runs a calibration optimized for acceleration

Electronic stability control is optimized for straight-line acceleration

Suspension calibration changes to full firm in rear and firm compression and soft rebound in front

Paddle shifters are turned on

Steering is set to Drag mode for high-speed stability

Cabin cooling diverted to SRT Power Chiller

Torque converter lockup point is raised in Drag mode

Auto (Street) mode options:

Engine output level is set based on which key (red or black) is in the Challenger

Transmission, suspension and steering default to Auto (Street) mode

Customers can set suspension and steering preference

Electronic stability control defaults to full on

Paddle shifters can be turned on or off per customer preference

Eco mode is available only in Auto mode

Custom mode options:

Nearly every combination of options available in Auto (Street) or Track mode can be configured in the Custom mode. For example, a driver could select the elements of Track mode related to engine and transmission performance, but could select Sport mode for the suspension and steering

Drag technology standard on all Challenger SRT Super Stock models

The Challenger SRT Super Stock is loaded with standard drag-specific components and technologies to deliver quick launches when the Christmas tree goes green. Features include:

Launch Assist  Launched on the Challenger SRT Demon as a factory-production car first, Launch Assist helps resolve one of the biggest challenges to clean launches and driveline integrity  wheel hop, which happens when tires quickly slip and regain traction at launch, rapidly storing up and releasing energy in the driveline. These high torque spikes can quickly and severely damage driveline components and, up until now, the only solution was to back out of the throttle. Wheel speed sensors watch for signs that the tires are slipping/sticking. If hop is detected, the engine control module momentarily reduces torque to maximize traction almost instantly  without the driver having to lift the throttle. Launch Assist reduces loads in the driveline from wheel hop by up to 20 percent



Launch Control  Holds the engine at optimal launch rpm and waits for the driver to release the brake. Launch Control then uses engine torque management to optimize wheel slip for maximum acceleration



Line Lock  Engages the front brakes to hold the Challenger stationary, but leaves the rear wheels free for a burnout to heat up and clean the rear tires. The system will also let the driver perform a controlled rolling burnout and can engage for up to 200 rear wheel revolutions



Torque Reserve  Becomes active once the engine speed passes 950 rpm. The system closes the bypass valve, "prefilling" the intake with boost, manages fuel flow to cylinders and manages spark timing to balance engine rpm and torque



Race Cooldown  Also an industry first, minimizes any heat soak effects, allowing the engine to stay in optimum operating temperature. When the engine shuts down, the Race Cooldown feature keeps the engine's cooling fan and low-temperature circuit coolant pump running to lower the supercharger/charge air cooler temperature. The driver can track the supercharger coolant temperature on the SRT Performance Pages in the 8.4-inch Uconnect touchscreen and know in real time when the supercharger is at the optimum temperature for another run. Race Cooldown was first featured on the Challenger SRT Demon in 2018 and became standard on Challenger SRT Hellcat models in 2019



SRT Performance Pages  Bring critical vehicle performance data to the driver's fingertips, including a real-time dyno graph, g-force heat map and much more



SRT Power Chiller  This innovative, award-winning feature comes standard on both the Challenger SRT Super Stock and SRT Hellcat Redeye, diverts the air-conditioning refrigerant from the interior cabin to a chiller unit mounted by the low-temperature circuit coolant pump. Charged air coolant, after being cooled by ambient air passing through a low-temperature radiator at the front of the vehicle, flows through the chiller unit, where it is further cooled. The chilled coolant then flows to the heat exchangers in the supercharger. By lowering the intake air temperature further, the results equal an improvement in performance

Thirteen different distinct Dodge//SRT colors available across Challenger lineup

Dodge Challenger customers have a wide array of exterior colors and stripes from which they can choose to customize their muscle car. Thirteen different exterior colors and a wide variety of interior trim selections include:

F8 Green

Frostbite

Go Mango

Granite

Hellraisin

IndiGo Blue

Octane Red

Pitch Black

Sinamon Stick

Smoke Show

TorRed

Triple Nickel

White Knuckle

Available Interior Colors:

Black

Black/Caramel (not available on SRT Super Stock)

Black/Ruby Red (not available on SRT Super Stock)

Demonic Red

Sepia

Dodge//SRT

For more than 100 years, the Dodge brand has carried on the spirit of brothers John and Horace Dodge. Their influence continues today as Dodge proudly offers a complete lineup of performance vehicles that stand out in their own segments. For 2020, Dodge literally expands its high-performance Charger model lineup, adding a Widebody exterior to America's only four-door muscle car. The 2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat maintains its reign as the most powerful and fastest mass-produced sedan in the world.



The 2020 Dodge lineup also features the 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye, 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, the Challenger R/T Scat Pack Widebody and the 2020 Challenger R/T Scat Pack 1320. The 2020 Dodge Durango SRT, the fastest, most powerful and most capable American three-row SUV, completes the brand's performance lineup. These visceral performance models join a 2020 brand lineup that includes the Durango, Grand Caravan, Journey, Charger and Challenger.

In June 2020, Dodge was named the "#1 Brand in Initial Quality," making it the first domestic brand ever to rank No. 1 in the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS). Dodge is part of the portfolio of brands offered by global automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. For more information regarding FCA (NYSE: FCAU/ MTA: FCA), please visit www.fcagroup.com.

Follow Dodge, SRT and FCA news and video on:

Company blog: http://blog.fcanorthamerica.com

Media website: http://media.fcanorthamerica.com

Dodge brand: www.dodge.com

Dodge Garage: www.dodgegarage.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/dodge or https://www.facebook.com/FiatChrysler.NorthAmerica/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/dodgeofficial or www.instagram.com/FiatChrysler_NA

Twitter: www.twitter.com/dodge or www.twitter.com/FiatChrysler_NA

YouTube: www.youtube.com/dodge or www.youtube.com/fcanorthamerica

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2020-challenger-srt-super-stock-is-the-newest-dodge-drag-racing-machine-301087710.html

SOURCE FCA
Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden listens during a campaign event on 30 June: (2020 Getty Images)

More than a hundred officials who worked for former Republican president George W Bush are going to endorse presumptive Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

A group of former staffers to Mr Bush have set up a political action committee, named 43 Alumni for Biden, in reference to him being the 43rd US president.

The super PAC will launch on Wednesday, and will publish testimonial videos, that aim to convince other Republicans to vote for Mr Biden, instead of president Donald Trump, according to Reuters.

Their efforts are similar to The Lincoln Project, an organisation co-founded by George Conway, the husband of counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway.

The group is comprised of prominent former and current Republicans, who are campaigning to stop Mr Trump winning reelection, and has regularly released videos over the past couple of months, attacking his leadership.

Jennifer Millikin, who is one of the organisers of 43 Alumni, as well as a former staffer on Mr Bushs 2004 reelection campaign, said that although many members disagree with Mr Bidens policies, they believe they must oppose the president.

We know what is normal and what is abnormal, and what we are seeing is highly abnormal. The president is a danger, Ms Millikin said.

Reuters also spoke to two other former officials who are members of the group, Karen Kirksey and Kristopher Purcell, who worked as a communication official and on the former presidents 2000 election campaign respectively.

This November, we are choosing country over party, Mr Purcell said. We believe that a Biden administration will adhere to the rule of law...and restore dignity and integrity to the White House, he added.

We really have had overwhelming support for our efforts, Ms Kirksey told the agency.

The campaign group is not ready to release the names of all its donors, but will have to submit them to the Federal Election Commission by October.

Mr Bush has been vocal in the last couple of months, and called the death of unarmed black man George Floyd a shocking failure and released a video calling for unity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Story continues

However, Freddy Ford, who is Mr Bushs spokesman, told Reuters that he has retired and and wont be wading into this election.

Erin Perrine, director of press communications for the Trump campaign told the Independent: This is the swamp  yet again  trying to take down the duly elected President of the United States.

President Trump is the leader of a united Republican Party where he has earned 94% of Republican votes during the primaries  something any former president of any party could only dream of.

Read more

Biden says he wont hold campaign rallies during pandemic
MEXICO CITY  Gunmen burst into an unregistered drug rehabilitation center in central Mexico and opened fire Wednesday, killing 24 people and wounding seven, authorities said.

Police in the north-central state of Guanajuato said the attack occurred in the city of Irapuato. Three of the seven wounded were reported in serious condition.

Apparently the attackers shot everyone at the rehab center. State police said nobody was abducted. Photos purporting to show the scene suggest those at the center were lying down when they were sprayed with bullets.

Guanajuato is the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco cartel and a local gang, and the state has become the most violent in Mexico.

No motive was given in the attack, but Gov. Diego Sinhue Rodriguez Vallejo said drug gangs appeared to have been involved.

I deeply regret and condemn the events in Irapuato this afternoon, the governor wrote. The violence generated by organized crime not only takes the lives of the young, but it takes the peace from families in Guanajuato.

Image: MEXICO-CRIME-DRUGS-ATTACK (MARIO ARMAS / AFP via Getty Images)

Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at such facilities in the past. It was one of the deadliest attacks on a rehab center since 19 people were killed in 2010 in Chihuahua city in northern Mexico. More than a dozen attacks on such facilities have occurred since then.

Mexico has long had problems with rehab centers because most are privately run, underfunded and often commit abuses against recovering addicts. The government spends relatively little money on rehabilitation, often making the unregistered centers the only option available for poor families.

In addition, addicts and dealers who face attacks from rivals on the streets sometimes take refuge at the rehab clinics, making the clinics themselves targets for attack. Still other gangs have been accused of forcibly recruiting recovering addicts at the centers as dealers, and killing them if they refused.
Some app developers themselves also voluntarily took down apps from Play Store and App Store to adhere to local laws.

The TikTok app, which was dropped like a hot potato, has gone offline and stopped working completely for users in India (Photo | Pixabay - Kon Karampelas)

New Delhi: The 59 Chinese apps banned by the government have been taken down from Google Play Store and Apple App Store in India, blocking their access to mobile phone users in the country.

The government had on Monday banned 59 Chinese applications saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity, and security of the country. A day later popular short video app TikTok was taken down from Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The other 58 Chinese apps have now been removed.

Google said that it has temporarily blocked access to the banned apps on its India Play Store.

"While we continue to review the interim orders from the Government of India, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India," a Google spokesperson said.

However, the spokesperson did not disclose details of the apps that Google had blocked.

Similar action has been taken by the Apple App Store, sources said.

Chinese apps removed from Play Store and App Store include UC Browser, SHAREit, WeChat, CamScanner, and Mi Community.

TikTok app has gone offline and stopped working completely for users in India.

According to sources, developers of many of the 59 banned apps had taken down their apps from Google Play Store voluntarily.

Meanwhile, in a statement, one of the banned apps Bigo Live said it has temporarily taken off the app from Google Play and App Store in India.

"The Government of India issued an interim order on June 29, 2020, to block 59 mobile apps, including Bigo Live. We respect the Indian government's order and will temporarily take off Bigo Live from Google Play and App Store in India until there is further clarity provided on this matter," it said.

According to the statement, Bigo Live is under Singapore-based Bigo Technology. "We hold utmost priority to the compliance of all local laws as well as the privacy and security of all our users. We will be working closely with the Indian government under the local legal framework."

Soon after the ban, TikTok stopped showing up in search results on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Some users searching for TikTok on Google Play ended up seeing some clone apps.

The Apple App Store showed 'helper apps' like VideoSplit for TikTok, but not the TikTok app itself.
Small apartments and homes offer plenty of charm, but they tend to be lacking when it comes to kitchen space. Luckily, there are tons of small kitchen ideas that maximize storage and efficiency. By thinking creatively about how to make the most of your tiny kitchen floor plan and utilizing whatever countertop and wall real estate you have, you can make even the tiniest of kitchens a space you enjoy cookingand hanging outin. Ahead, weve gathered 51 small kitchen design tips to help you maximize your space, be it a petite galley kitchen or just a single wall in an open-plan apartment. Whether youre renovating and starting from scratch or just looking to refresh your existing space, read on to get your small kitchen in tip-top shape.

1. Add a prep area

Adjustable Kitchen Cart

$93.00, Wayfair

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Eclipse Bar Cart

$399.00, West Elm

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You may not have space to expand or add a full island, so think about bringing in a slim rolling kitchen cart or bar cart to hold your mise en place or serve as extra counter space. Even a narrow console can work as a spot to set tools and ingredients on while you cook.

2. Remove upper cabinets

Handmade Rustic Live Edge Floating Shelves

$58.00, Etsy

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Open shelves are extremely functional and make it so much easier to access dishes and glasses, says New Yorkbased interior designer Jenny Wolf, adding that you should think about your kitchen architecturally, as it doesnt always make sense to have upper cabinetsespecially if the ceilings are 10 feet high.

3. Get custom hardware

I try to use hardware as statement pieces. Its the jewelry you put on to complete the look, says architectural designer Karen Williams, who serves as the creative director for St. Charles New York.

4. Or opt for invisible hardware

When you lean up against the counter, you dont want to feel a handle poking into your side. You also want a clean surface where you really see the materiality of the surface. Weve worked a lot with Dada and have been generally seeing less hardware and more integrated pulls or touch-to-open cabinetry. It makes working much more efficient, said designer Stephanie Goto.

Story continues

5. Get super-organized inside your cabinets

Expandable Lid & Pan Organizer

$40.00, Food52

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Shelf Risers - Set of 2

$54.00, Open Spaces

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For any small room (a kitchen or otherwise), getting organized is essential. When space comes at a premium, you cant afford to waste any of iteven the hidden space inside your cabinets. Stock up on risers, lid organizers for your various pots and pans, spice-sorting systems, and anything else that will streamline and maximize your kitchen storage.

6. Streamline dish duty

If your small kitchen doesnt have room for a dishwasher, making sure that the kitchen sink is both an efficient and tidy space is key. Consider adding in a compact dish rack, like this one from Simple Human, that drains directly into the sink and will never rust.

simplehuman Compact Steel Frame Dish Rack

$51.00, Amazon

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7. Splurge on fun glassware

Striped Rim Glasses

$175.00, Coming Soon

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Wave Pitcher

$215.00, Coming Soon

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There might not be room for much decorso let your dishes do the talking. Unlike hefty serving pieces, colorful drinkware adds visual interest without bulk. Display arty stemware on an open shelf, or let a pitcher pull double duty as a countertop vase.

8. Add a kitchen island

3-Tier Solid Top Prep Table Kitchen Island Cart

$220.00, Amazon

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French Kitchen Island

$1300.00, Crate & Barrel

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Even if your kitchen is on the narrow side, you can still bring in a slim kitchen island for prep space and conversation. Consider a rolling island, which can be pushed out of the way once dinner is ready. Dont think if you have a tiny kitchen that you cant have an island. You can; you just need to put it on wheels so that when youre working and you need an island, its there, and when the guests arrive, you can push it over to the side or move it into the dining room or living room and let it be the bar, says interior designer Ellen Cheever. Alternatively, choose an island with slim legs that you could pull a few stools up to and let it double as bar or breakfast seating.

9. Use light colors to visually expand your small kitchen

Cookware Set

$495.00, Caraway

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The reBoard

$35.00, Material

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The lighter the kitchen, the larger it can feel, says Wolf. Sometimes, if there is a good view out a window, I like to focus on bringing the outdoors in and using nature to dictate the palette. Keeping an especially light palette on countertops, backsplashes, walls, and millwork also helps a small kitchen feel more open. If youre not in the market for a full renovation, consider the cooking tools that you always have out: Cutting boards, pots and pans, and linens can all lift a space if you opt for pieces in light shades.

10. Double down on white

Dinnerware Set by Studio Ro-Smit

$100.00, Goodee

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Tabletop Set

$459.00, Made In

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The lightest palette of all, of course, is all white. White paint will help spread and reflect light around, which also makes a space seem bigger, says interior decorator and blogger Emily Henderson. If you have exposed shelving, create a wall of white by displaying white dish sets.

11. Maximize floor space with a dining nook

Ansel Drum Dining Table

$699.00, Urban Outfitters

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Hackney Marble Table

$482.00, CB2

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The shape of the room can have just as big of an impact as the square footage. Its important to pay attention to the structure of your kitchen, says Henderson. If you have a small dining nook, then go for a round table that opens up floor space and seats more people than a square one would.

12. Pair utilitarian appliances with refined cabinetry

Anza Concrete Espresso Machine

$1280.00, Anza

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People who frequently cook want to maintain something visually appealing. For one clienta New York City lawyer who has eaten at virtually every major restaurant in downtown Manhattanit wasnt about being a show kitchen, but a foodies kitchen. Its very utilitarianhe wanted a heavy-duty Wolf stoveyet we took care in the selection of the finishes. The white cabinets are glass, and the gray cabinets are lacquerthey really play with materiality. This way, its not too precious or too utilitarian, said designer Goto. For those not in the market for a whole new range, consider a striking espresso machine, like this Brutalism-inspired one by Anza, instead.

13. Think vertically

Magnetic Wooden Knife Holder

$115.00, Etsy

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Just cant get rid of that timeworn cookbook or prized flea market find? Installing pot racks, knife mounts, and open shelving above your stove will free up tons of space, says Henderson.

14. Build a storage bench

If youre building out a dining nook, add seating with storage compartments to hide away bulk purchases, unwieldy serving pieces, or kitchen linens.

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15. Get rid of all clutter

Emile Henry French Ceramic Kitchen Storage Bowl

$150.00, Food52

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Countertops are prime real estate for clutter, which instantly makes a place feel smaller, Henderson says. Make a point of getting rid of all your unused plastic containers and mismatched dinnerware every couple of months. Tidy up your produce storage while youre at it: A handy covered fruit bowl will separate onions and garlic from odor-absorbing fruit and keep their papery skins from cluttering the countertop. And if youve got the installation skills, a hanging fruit basket for those extra bits and bobs will add visual interest, too.

16. Add a pegboard

Kitchen Pegboard

$175.00, Etsy

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Pegboards give you space where you didnt think you had anywhich is a huge boon in a small kitchen. Youll find plenty of prefabricated pegboards online, like this handmade option from Etsy. Use it to hang everything from measuring cups to colanders. Or go the Julia Child route and put it to work showing off (and organizing) burnished copper cookware.

17. Opt for small appliances

Cuisinart Convection Toaster Oven

$200.00, Amazon

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Dont think small means cheap apartment, entry-level, dormitory stuff anymore. High-quality small appliances are now available. The other thing is combination appliances; you can have a microwave-convection-browning appliance, says Cheever. We wholeheartedly agree. If youre toying with putting in a new oven but rarely cook for a crowd, consider a convection oven instead. It is tiny enough to fit on a countertop and works as both an oven and toaster. And if youve been curious about the crisping capabilities of the trendy air fryer, youll love the circulation of the convection oven.

18. Use baskets for storage

Goodee x Baba Tree Market Basket

$100.00, Goodee

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Medium Blocks Basket

$160.00, Minna

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Add baskets! If youre running out of space in your cabinets and pantry, baskets and bins can make all the difference. Find baskets that fit the vibe of your kitchen and they can double as decor and additional storage. Consider a basket for your clean kitchen linens that can be tucked out of the way on the lower shelf of a kitchen island, for example.

19. Add extra seating to your small kitchen

Nadia Black Cane Bar Stools

$383.00, CB2

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Put that extra counter area to use! Pulling up a few barstools will help take advantage of what can be an extra dining spot for casual dinners or for having your morning coffee.

20. Add a good kitchen rug and other warm accents

Neutral Medallions Rug

$225.00, 54kibo

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Leela Terracotta Rug by Justina Blakeney x Loloi

$389.00, Jungalow

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Incorporating warm accents like a good rug can make a small kitchen feel more like a cohesive space, especially if you have a one-wall kitchen that isnt its own separate room. Natural colors, like those in this jute rug above, will be especially forgiving for the odd coffee spill.

21. Use concealed storage

Maybe its our modern approach, but we design with concealed storage for the most part. With open shelving theres a concern about dust, and theres just less of a desire to showcase the interior of cabinetry, says Goto. Its not just dinnerware you can concealyou can basically stash away anything. If youre designing a small kitchen from scratchor completely overhauling onethe possibilities for concealed storage are endless. Williams has stashed appliances behind a set of custom French doors, tucked a pullout banquette into an island, devised pullout marble pantries, and concealed outlets. I love designing in a creative and unique way to incorporate the fundamental necessities of the kitchen, she says.

22. Invest in kitchen supplies you dont mind showing off

Fellow Stagg Kettle

$150.00, Amazon

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The Dutchess

$155.00, Great Jones

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If your kitchen is in the same space as, say, your dining and living room, set out well-designed pots, pans, kettles, and dinnerware right on the stove or counter (or even on that weird shelf created by the tops of your cabinets) when not in use.

23. Use the wall space above the counter for additional storage and decor

Brass and Copper Pot Rail

$115.00, Etsy

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Skys the limit, or at least your ceiling is, when it comes to how much storage you can add onto a wall. You can create an incredibly efficient storage system with shelves for glassware, hooks for mugs, pegs for pans, and a rod for frequently used utensils without taking up much space at all. Or use this space to add a little greenery to your kitchen without giving up any precious counter space.

24. Use pattern in unexpected places, like your floor

Photo: Zeke Ruelas

Wolf says the flooran often overlooked area of a kitchenis the perfect place for a high-impact design element: A patterned floor will give the illusion of a greater expanse to the space. Wolf likes mixing it up with either chevron or herringbone wood-floor patterns or even using hand-painted cement tile for a more bohemian feel.

25. Or use pattern on your walls

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Patterns, of course, aren't just limited to your floor. You can also jazz up your kitchen walls with patterned tile, wallpaper, or wall decals.

26. Double down on color with vivid appliances

Cuisinart Stand Mixer

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If you dont want to commit to a colorful wall, opt for a colorful appliance instead. Something thats always out, like a stand mixer, toaster, kettle, or coffee machine, will add just the right bit of color to an otherwise white space.

27. Knock down walls

If youre able to, knocking down a wall is one of most transformative things you can do to your kitchen. It takes what was once a cramped kitchen and makes it part of an open space.

28. Or open up part of the walls

Photo: Richard Powers

Its often difficult to open up a galley kitchen completely, particularly in old buildings, due to the placement of pipes, but you can still add light and air by removing even a small section of the wall. A portal or open corner can help connect the kitchen to the rest of the living space.

29. Hang your mugs

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Another one of our favorite small kitchen ideas is this simple one: Hang your mugs. This solution does double duty: It frees up space in your cabinets, and the (right) mugs can become a decorative accent. You can install a rack under your cabinet or set a mug tree on your counter. You can also mount any kind of rack right to wall for an even bigger statement.

30. Think outside the box when it comes to cabinet surfaces.

Believe it or not, the cabinetry is one of the last items to go in a kitchen. Of the many choices to pick from, try using metal or mirrored finishes to glamorize the kitchen, says Williams.

31. Install a pot rack

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If those bulky pots and pans are taking up valuable storage space, try hanging them from a rack to create a culinary centerpieceand free up room in your cabinets for other essentials.

32. Find a tiny sink, and get one with a cover so it doubles as a prep area

Dont overlook the sink. The biggest innovation in sinks today is they all come with covers; when you need a big sink, its there for cleanup, and when you need a tiny sink, its there as well," says Cheever.

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33. Or go for a deep sink to conceal dishes

Because the sink is a dirty space, our clients also generally prefer deeper sinks so pots and dirty dishes can be concealed, says Cheever.

34. Consider moving the freezer out of the kitchen altogether

When things just wont fit, determine if theres an appliance you can put elsewhere. If theres no room, what can you move into another space? With tower refrigeration today, what I oftentimes do is keep the refrigerator in the kitchen and put the freezer next to a stacked washer and dryer in another part of the house," says Cheever.

35. Consider a mirrored backsplash

Mirrors are especially useful when there is no, or minimal, natural light in a kitchen, says Wolf. They can help to open the space up and bounce light around. The designer has been known to use antique mirror tiles instead of traditional tile for a backsplash.

36. Put up artwork

Walter Hood Fitch Nidularium Spectabile Antique Botanical Lithograph Print

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Just like every room in your house, your kitchen deserves artwork. Adding art that fits your space and style is a simple but effective way to amp up your kitchen design.

37. Choose hard-wearing surfaces

Surfaces and durability are things we bring up a lot. We absolutely love natural materials, but if there is heavy use, we lean toward fabricated materials like Caesarstone that allow a higher level of durability. Theyve really improved the color palette thats available to designers, so when you get a high level of durability plus that palette, it becomes the right choice.

38. Add some greenery

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Plants can liven up any space, including your kitchen. (Check out our favorite air-purifying plants, indoor trees, and pet-friendly plants to see what greenery might strike your fancy.) Consider adding them to open shelving, drawing the eye upward and creating interest in even the smallest of kitchen spaces. Potted herbs, like basil or oregano, are an easy addition that will also liven up your favorite dishes.

39. Hang a mirror above the stove

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According to Wolf, you can create the same effect with a mirror. Its better to look at than a plain wall, she says.

40. Make the most of marble

Photo by Gieves Anderson

Marble is a stunning addition in any kitchen. This newly renovated kitchen in Manhattan features Calacatta marble countertops and backsplashand were here for it.

I like to incorporate is a full slab of marble running behind the range and through to the back of the cabinet, says Williams. The single slab, as opposed to marble tiles, provides drama but can also be hard to implement. For countertops, Williams relishes using slabs with semiprecious stones to create a wow factor. This is a great area to personalize your kitchen with a fun color or pattern.

41. Get colorful with an accent wall

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Barragan-Cito

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An accent wall (or two!) can completely transform the look of your kitchen, regardless of its size, and doesnt require any power tools. And if you havent noticed already, we love a colorful kitchen.

42. Install pendant lights or striking light fixtures

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Install lights to brighten up the entire kitchen. You can never have enough lighting in a kitchen, and I always down-light with decorative fixtures over the island and prep station, says Wolf. Good lighting, plenty of it, is incredibly important while cooking.

43. Make your kitchen island really stand out

Modern Domestic Kitchen Interior Bulgac

The island is the centerpiece, so why not make it look special? Try coating the base in a bold color that complements the other cabinetry.

44. Add drawers to the inside of your cabinets

Cabinet drawers are easy to install, and they make your assortment of lids, pans, and Tupperware so much easier to access. This solution is also a lot less costly than getting custom cabinetry.

45. Hide your fridge within the cabinetry

Photo: Courtesy of St. Charles of New York

This is one of the more expensive small kitchen ideas, but its a game changer. Concealing your fridge within your cabinetry streamlines the entire look of the space and gives it a seamless surface.

46. Make use of every nook and cranny

Woman hand open a kitchen storage cabinet in modern interior Lazy_Bear

Find a use for everything, even the space next to your stove (it makes a fantastic place to store spices, oils, soup stocks, et cetera). One of Cheevers favorite small kitchen design solutions is adding in very, very narrow nine-inch-deep pantries, which can take the place of a filler between a refrigerator and a wall.

47. Realize that anything can become a pantry

Barbican Trolley

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An old locker found at an estate sale, then repainted, or a spare rolling bar cart? Yep, thats your new pantry. Double points for adding a magnetic knife strip to the side and/or magnetic spice jars for even more storage that doesnt take up counter space.

48. Install a floating table

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If your L-shaped kitchen faces a blank wall, why not make use of it? Install a floating shelf or table for extra counter or dining space. Dealing with a narrow space? Install a table that can fold down to be flush with the wall when not in use.

49. Keep your materials cohesive

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Even a small space can look sleek and put together. Go for panel-ready appliances and match them to the cabinetry and countertops for a minimalist kitchen.

50. Add light to shelving and cabinetry

For an instant upgrade, Henderson recommends flooding the space with as much lightnatural and artificialas you can. There is nothing worse than cooking in a dimly lit area. If possible, add library lights or LED light strips near cabinets and shelves to brighten everything up.

51. Consider using chalkboard paint

Chalkboard paint is practical, transformative, and fun. You can use it to completely change the look of your kitchen and let it take up an entire wall or just a small section. Use it to write grocery lists and dinner menus or to just draw on while your meal is in the oven.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
With the first half of 2020 now behind it, Charlotte is on pace to have another unusually murderous year.

The city has recorded 54 homicides so far this year, compared to 52 this time last year, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department spokesman Rob Tufano said Wednesday.

In 2019, the city recorded 108 homicides  the highest number since the early 1990s.

A spate of killings along Beatties Ford Road have added to this years homicide toll.

Four people were killed in a barrage of gunfire after a street party on Beatties Ford Road turned violent on June 22.

On Tuesday, a 14-year-old boy became the latest victim. Police said Terreon Izavier Geter was shot and killed after a fight broke out at an arcade on the 3100 block of Beatties Ford Road.

More than 80 percent of the this years homicide victims died from gunfire. Five were stabbed to death.

Of the 54 homicide victims, 40 were Black, six were Hispanic or Latino, six were white and two were Asian, according to an Observer analysis of CMPD records.

Half of the 54 victims were 28 years old or younger. All but seven of the victims were men.

Just under half of the killings are still under investigation and have not resulted in an arrest. While the circumstances of half the homicides are unknown, nine began with arguments, 10 were linked to domestic violence, and 10 were related to drugs, gangs or robberies.

Tearing us apart

The deaths have left families confused, hurt and searching for answers.

Demario or Mario Tillman, 29, died on May 23 following a shooting. Loved ones said Tillman had a quiet but strong presence and, above all, loved his family and his three sons.

A former Marine, Tillman had worked at Roof Above  formerly called the Mens Shelter of Charlotte  first at the front desk, then as a supervisor and then most recently as a housing retention specialist.

The homeless shelter could sometimes be unpredictable, but Tillman led with a steady hand and kept everyone calm and on schedule, Chief Engagement Officer Randall Hitt said.

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Tillman would joke that managing the mens shelter was nothing compared to raising three boys  Peyton, Amar and Levi.

Tillmans aunt, Marla Dunovant, said that his children and his family were his top priority. He believed in living an active lifestyle, coaching sports teams for his children and filling their home with bicycles and trophies. He loved to make his sons laugh, often flexing his muscles in jest and wearing Christmas-themed pajamas during the holidays, she said.

The day before his death, Tillman had thrown a birthday party for his twins, who were turning eight. Normally, they would have gone to the beach, Dunovant said. But because of the coronavirus pandemic, the family stayed home for an evening of grilling and playing outdoors.

Demario Tillman loved to coach sports for his three sons  Levi, Amar and Peyton, family members said.

One of the children ran through the house yelling best birthday ever! Dunovant recalled.

Tillman was going to turn 30 in August and was planning to have a party then, Dunovant said. That surprised her since Tillman was a private and quiet person.

On the day of the shooting, Tillman had just been at his cousins housewarming party, Dunovant said. He had left to pick up his sons from a birthday party, she said.

Dunovant said the family knows little for certain about what happened before Tillman was shot.

Just 15 minutes before Dunovant heard that Tillman had been shot, he had been on the phone with his grandmother, she said.

The following day, 27-year-old Darryanna Hearn turned herself in and was charged with murder, police said.

We dont know what happened  This is really tearing us apart, Dunovant said in an interview in May. People can speculate all day but its in the hands of God and in the hands of the homicide detectives.

Nobodys saying stop

The increase in homicides is part of a broader uptick in violence across the city.

For the first half of 2020, there were 3,521 reported violent crimes in the city, according to CMPD data. Thats up about 2 percent over last year, and 21 percent over 2018.

Shootings are also on the rise. For the first half of the year, there were about 225 gunshot cases. Thats up 27 percent over the same period last year  and 50 percent over the average for the five-year period from 2015 through 2019, according to CMPD spokesman Blake Page.

Community activist Robert Dawkins said the killings of the past 18 months highlight the need for a new approach aimed at preventing violence.

Weve got to take proactive steps, said Dawkins, who serves as political director of the social justice group Action NC. This is getting ready to be the new normal if we dont interrupt it.

Rev. James Barnett, founder of the Stop the Killing Crusade, said the trends trouble him. He called for the Black community, the faith community and public officials to speak out against the violence with a unified voice.

If we dont do something, this year is going to be worse than last year, he said. Crime is running rampant in this community now. And nobodys saying stop.

So far this year, about three quarters of the citys homicide victims were Black. Barnett said that while many in the Black community are outraged when police kill African Americans, they tend to be less so when Black people kill each other.

Its like Black lives dont matter unless theyre killed by the police, said Barnett, who is Black.

For many of Charlottes killers, gun charges are nothing new. From 2014 through 2018, Mecklenburg prosecutors dismissed nearly seven of every 10 weapons charges, a higher rate than any other urban county in North Carolina, a Charlotte Observer investigation found.

The newspaper found that many whose charges are dismissed go on to be charged with more serious crimes, including murder.

In January, Mecklenburg County District Attorney laid out plans for a crackdown against violent crime, vowing to take more murders and gun crimes to trial.

Staff Writer Gavin Off contributed.
The Keenfolks, a leading Digital Gap Management agency, launches international study to advise businesses on how to connect better with their consumers and adapt to today's crisis

BARCELONA, Spain, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The journey towards the digital world is accelerating in today's challenging environment and the consumer is evolving at a speed never seen before. For companies, the challenge of keeping up with this evolution has increased significantly and a digital gap has opened up.

Bridge The Digital Gap reputational study in collaboration with 59 though-leaders (PRNewsfoto/The Keenfolks)

To help companies embrace these changes and deliver value to both consumers and themselves, Digital Transformation Agency The Keenfolks, with Johannes Ceh as advisor, has launched a landmark study entitled "Bridge the Digital Gap", in which 59 world-leading experts have provided insights which can transform the uncertainty of the current crisis into manifold valuable opportunities.

The study has the participation of some renowned experts such as Michael Brenner, Doyle Buehler, Isabel de Clercq, Tony Flath, Ryan Foland, Dion Hinchcliffe, Timothy Hughes, Sam Hurley, Sherin Ibrahim, Ian Moyse, Robert Rose, Celine Schillinger or David Vivancos among others. Their insights cover five areas: Digital Transformation, Customer Experience, Social Media, Big Data & AI and MarTech.

Bridge The Digital Gap Study is based on the idea that, to fully seize the digital opportunity, companies need a fundamental reset. In today's disjointed and demanding time world, where we find ourselves in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, it is necessary, in the words of best-selling author Robert Rose, to "stop posting for a moment, sit back and architect the right strategy for your business. Then lean in heavily and execute it brilliantly." Without this "pause", there is the risk that we will eventually encounter a gap that, in situations like this, could become unbridgeable.

Reinvention, birth, change or, simply, transformation are now more necessary than ever. Without doubt, the process of stopping and building an appropriate strategy must have digital at its core. "As digital is infusing everything in our business, it has become key to focus on purpose, to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it as we engage in digital transformation," says Dion Hinchcliffe, a renowned author on transformation.

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In the same way, Doyle Buehler, Global Digital Brand Architect and Digital Transformation Specialist, recognizes the importance, not only of the development and adoption of other important technologies such as Big Data or AI, but also of their deep understanding into the business strategy: "Keep in mind that Big Data and AI are 'tools' - we need to be able to understand how to use them within the main strategy that we are developing".

Ian Moyse, EMEA Sales Director at Cloud telephony specialist Natterbox, continues: "Marketing's purpose is to create engagement, relationships and brand reputation and awareness; through these to create leads and opportunities for the business. Does marketing technology alone make this happen? No. But it can be a powerful enabler to make the heavy lifting easier and faster."

Placing the client at the centre of the commercial strategy is a key factor, and all decisions must be aimed at ensuring the best possible experience. In this vein, Johannes Ceh concludes "We are in an overall transformation from functional products to human-related products. And this transformation will not disappear; it will go even deeper."

You can find a full study "Bridge the Digital Gap" by following this link.

About the Keenfolks

The Keenfolks is a leading global specialist in Digital Gap Management, founded in 2018 and currently managed by Xavi Cortadellas and Miguel Machado, CO-CEOs and partners of the company. Their mission is to become a world reference in the digital transformation of multinationals and global brands and continue their successful career in which they have led projects for world-leading brands across various sectors.

The company's headquarters are located in Barcelona, and since January they have maintained premises in Mexico City. Soon, they will open new offices in New York. The Keenfolks currently operates in more than 50 countries, offering services to several multinationals that have trusted the agency over several years, thanks to the incomparable value it offers. Learn more at www.thekeenfolks.com.

Contact person

Alexandra Bugakova

alexa.bugakova@thekeenfolks.com

+34 605 351 325

Cision

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SOURCE The Keenfolks
Eight Shreveport, Louisiana, police officers have been indicted after using "unnecessary excessive force" during a January 24 incident, Caddo Parish District Attorney James E. Stewart, Sr. announced Wednesday. After attempting to stop a vehicle for seat belt violations, the officers tased and beat two men who made "an apparent attempt to surrender without resistance," Stewart said in a statement.

Aaron Jaudon, D'Andre Jackson, Mark Ordoyne, William Isenhour, Christopher McConnell, Brandon Walker, Treveion Brooks, and David Francis have all been charged with one count of malfeasance in office, Stewart said.

The incident began when officers tried to stop Chico Bell and Damon Robinson for the seat belt violations, Stewart said. When Bell kept driving, multiple officers began pursuing him. Video allegedly showed Bell throwing "several unknown objects" from the window of his car during the chase.

Dashcam footage showed that once the car stopped, "Bell and Robinson raised their hands, and then stuck both hands up out of the windows of the truck, in an apparent attempt to surrender without resistance," Stewart said. Despite that, officers allegedly pulled Bell out of the truck through the window, and began "striking, kicking, and tasing him to the torso and other areas of his body," the statement added.

Bell suffered injuries including a broken orbital plate, according to medical records cited in the statement.

These photos provided by the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office show, top row from left, police officers Aaron Jaudon, D'Andre Jackson, Mark Ordoyne and William Isenhour. Bottom row from left, Christopher McConnell, Brandon Walker, Treveion Brooks and David Francis. / Credit: Caddo Sheriff's Office via AP

An officer punched Robinson multiple times through an open window while other officers held his hands, Stewart said. He was then allegedly taken to the ground, "where once officer apparently struck him in the face with a flashlight," even though his hands were behind his back. His nose was broken in several places, the statement said.

A deputy from Caddo said Robinson was compliant and offered no resistance throughout the encounter, Stewart said, adding that body and dash camera video supported that assessment.

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Officers said they recovered very small amounts of cocaine and ecstasy, as well as a stolen gun, that was allegedly thrown from the vehicle. Bell was arrested for flight from an officer, possession of Schedule I controlled dangerous substances, possession of Schedule II controlled dangerous substances, obstruction of justice, cyberstalking, and a fugitive matter. Robinson was arrested for fleeing an officer.

But the district attorney's office said that all charges arising from the January 24 incident had been dismissed, citing "unnecessary excessive force being used by SPD officers to make the arrest."

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Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States have been the target of more than 2,000 bias incidents since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic -- with nearly half of them occurring in California, a new report says.

The figures were released Wednesday by the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, a coalition of organizations in the greater Los Angeles area that advocates for the rights of the AAPI community.

In March the organization launched Stop AAPI Hate, a program to track coronavirus-related harassment against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. As of July 1, there were over 2,000 incidents reported across 45 states, with 42% of incidents coming from California.

Video: Asian American workers post emotional anti-racist messages

At a Wednesday press conference, council Executive Director Manjusha Kulkarni was joined by California Assemblymembers Al Muratsuchi and David Chiu in asking California Gov. Gavin Newsom to include members of Asian communities in the state's upcoming COVID-19 task force "to help ensure the state takes real action," Kulkarni said, as well as to educate schools and businesses about the impacts of xenophobia and racism.

(MORE: I dont scare easily, but COVID-19 virus of hate has me terrified: Reporters Notebook)

They also called on the governor to allocate around $1.4 million for specific policies and research programs to help curb discrimination as part of the COVID -19 general fund, and also to strengthen existing anti-discrimination laws and mental health services for those who are affected.

Kulkarni, who said the state's recently-passed $202 billion budget included no funding for initiatives to fight anti-Asian discrimination, said the organization nonetheless feels the governor is open to their concerns and that members are "really hopeful this will be among many important issues that rise to the surface."

PHOTO: Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council held a press conference. (Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council)

In response, Newsom's press secretary, Jesse Melgar, told ABC News that "we value our relationship with the API Caucus and other stakeholders, and look forward to ongoing dialogue about how we collectively work toward the vision of a California for All."

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"Racism and xenophobia have no place in California -- not during a public health emergency when it is essential we come together to support all of our communities -- not ever," Melgar said.

(MORE: Asian Americans face coronavirus 'double whammy': Skyrocketing unemployment and discrimination)

Recently, several videos of a woman harassing local Asian Americans in Torrance, California, went viral on social media. She was seen going on a racist rant at a park on two separate occasions, and in a third similar incident at a mall in 2019. A Torrance police department investigation resulted in no arrests.

Around the same time a typed note was found posted on the door of a Japanese cookware shop in Torrance threatening the owner with violence. We are going to bomb your store if you dont listen and we know where you live. Go back to Japan, you monkey, the note read.

Members of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council say these are just a few of the more than 800 incidents that have been reported in California over the past three months.

Assemblymember Muratsuchi has lived in Torrance, a city whose population is over 34% Asian, for over 20 years, and says he acknowledges Newsoms past support of Asian Americans. But he calls the recent attacks "ugly and disgusting" and says he hopes they can get the resources necessary to deal more effectively with the spike in anti-Asian activity.

(MORE: Trump refers to 'kung flu,' West Point ramp and 'sleepy Joe Biden' as he returns to campaign at Tulsa rally)

At the press conference, officials also directed blame toward President Donald Trump, whose continued use of terms like "Chinese virus" and "kung flu" was said to encourage racist rhetoric against Asian Americans.

"This pandemic of racism is being perpetrated by the commander in chief of the U.S.," said David Chiu, chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, who also addressed struggling businesses in LA's Chinatown. "This is akin to the tactics he used in his 2016 campaign when he attacked our Latino community using similar dog whistles."

Kulkarni said that although systemic racism hasnt impacted Asian Americans as heavily as the Black and Latinx communities, they have also been the victims of racism.

This period of reckoning "gives us an opportunity to stand with our African American sisters and brothers and fight what they're going through," she said.

Advocates demand action after coronavirus spurs 2,000 reports of anti-Asian bias originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Leslie Nielsen in the 1980 film Airplane!. (Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Airplane! premiered 40 years ago on July 2, 1980. We know what you're thinking: Surely you cant be serious. We are serious, and you know the rest...

The famous parody film was the first directorial effort from Kentucky Fried Theater members David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker. On the surface, the film revolves around ex-Air Force pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) boarding a flight with the intention of winning back flight attendant Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty) who he believes is the love of his life. Unfortunately, the passengers and the pilots aboard the plane all fall gravely ill requiring Striker to take charge. But this setup is really only there to tie a series of surreal, unforgettable jokes together. The films wacky sense of humor would go on to inspire countless imitators, but none of them could match the ingenuity and cleverness of the ZAZ trio.

Take the quiz below to test your knowledge of one of the best spoof comedies ever made. Good luck, we're all counting on you!

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
The Baptist Health Coronavirus Care Clinic in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 23.

Taylor Hill/Getty

A city-council member in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, told ABC News on Wednesday that students in the college town had been throwing "COVID parties."

People infected with the coronavirus are invited to the parties, and attendees take bets on who will get sick first.

As of Thursday, the state had confirmed more than 38,000 coronavirus cases and 947 deaths. Authorities have warned that intensive-care-unit beds might run out.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Related video: Here's what happens after you call 911 for the coronavirus

College students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, have been throwing parties in which they invite people infected with the coronavirus and gamble on who comes down with the illness first, city officials say.

Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry told ABC News about the practice on Wednesday. The city's fire chief, Randy Smith, first reported the parties at a meeting on Tuesday, according to WBMA.

Smith said the fire service had received reports of students throwing parties and inviting "known positives" but initially thought it was a rumor.

"Not only did the doctor's offices help confirm it, but the state confirmed they had the same information," Smith said, according to WBMA.

McKinstry went into more detail about the parties Wednesday, telling ABC News that not only were these parties with the infected taking place, but attendees were also gambling on who would get sick next.

"They put money in a pot and they try to get COVID. Whoever gets COVID first gets the pot," she said.

"It makes no sense."

Officials did not say which college the students attend. The largest school based in Tuscaloosa is the University of Alabama.

In March, the University of Alabama canceled in-person classes and spring commencement to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It plans to reopen the campus for some in-person classes in the fall, however, according to the school's website.

McKinstry said authorities were trying to break up any parties they heard of -- a challenging task.

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"It's nonsense," she said. "But I think when you're dealing with the mind frame of people who are intentionally doing stuff like that and they're spreading it intentionally, how can you truly fight something that people are constantly trying to promote?"

Alabama residents are under an order to quarantine for 14 days if they test positive for the coronavirus. Breaking that quarantine can incur a fine up to $500.

As of Thursday, the state had confirmed more than 38,000 cases, including 2,049 in Tuscaloosa County. More than 2,800 people have been hospitalized with infections and 947 have died, according to state figures.

Health authorities have warned that intensive-care-unit beds might run out in the state. Dr. Don Williamson, a doctor with Alabama's Hospital Association, told WBMA last week that 82% of ICU beds in the state were full.

Read the original article on Insider
Amanda Holden pictured at the Virgin TV British Academy Television Awards in 2018. (Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Amanda Holden was tearful after reuniting with some of her famous friends for the first time since lockdown began back in March.

The radio host posted a picture of herself alongside actor pals Tamzin Outhwaite, Angela Griffin and Lisa Faulkner as the foursome went for a "socially distanced walk" on Thursday.

She captioned the snap: "Omg. I literally cried when I saw these #girls in the flesh for the first time since #lockdown -a socially distanced walk this morning.

Read more: Amanda Holden hints Britain's Got Talent blunders might be on purpose

SOOO WONDERFUL to be with them..."

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The 49-year-old has continued to work on her Heart Breakfast radio show during lockdown and was seen judging in the pre-recorded Britain's Got Talent auditions that aired back in spring.

However, the live finals of the programme were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic so the competition hasn't got past the initial audition stages.

Holden has teased that the show could be "leading the way for the future" because of "how people will watch the show live", but remained coy when it came to giving any further details.

Simon Cowell, Alesha Dixon, David Walliams and Amanda Holden at Manchester editions for Britain's Got Talent. (KGC-246/STAR MAX/IPx)

Im not giving it away because I dont want all the other shows to nick the idea! she said while hosting the radio show.

Holden has also kept busy during the UK's lockdown by recording a song for charity.

Back in May, Holden released a cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow with all proceeds from the track going to NHS Charities Together.

"I feel like I owe them so much. I feel like we all owe them a debt now, and of course, for the future, to come," she said at the time.
NEW ORLEANS -- A labor union representing the nations immigration judges filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Trump administration, arguing that the government is stifling the judges rights to speak publicly on key issues, including the threat of COVID-19 to their lives and to public health.

The judges lawsuit is the latest signal of deep distrust between the professionals who work in the nations immigration courts and President Donald Trumps administration. The lawsuit comes as the government moves to reopen immigration courts it had previously closed because of the pandemic.

Ashley Tabbador, a Los Angeles-based immigration judge who is president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said the government has released little information on how it makes decisions on opening and closing courts because of coronavirus concerns.

If youre not going to share information and youre not going to tell us what standards are being used, and youre essentially stifling any ability to hold the government accountable, (that) creates frustration and anxiety, she said. So people dont trust, they dont have trust that the agency is doing the right thing.

In this Sept. 21, 2018, file photo, Ashley Tabaddor, a federal immigration judge in Los Angeles who serves as the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, listens as she is introduced to speak at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on the pressures on judges and the federal immigration court system. Immigration judges say they are being muzzled by the Trump administration and the union that represents them is suing the U.S. Department of Justice. The lawsuit filed Wednesday, July 1, 2020, is the latest confrontation between the judges and the Justice Department, which oversees U.S. immigration courts.

She said the government is reluctant to discuss national standards for reopening courtrooms.

They keep basically stonewalling us and punting, saying, well, this is something each court and each supervisory judge will have to decide, she said.

She said bad decisions about reopening courts could lead to infections and deaths. So this can literally be a life-and-death situation for our community members if we dont do the right thing to ensure that the health of everyone is placed paramount and that we follow the right protocols.

An administration spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.

About 460 immigration judges work in 67 courts and two adjudication centers throughout the United States and its territories, ranging from border cities such as El Paso to inland cities like Atlanta.

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Working without juries, the judges decide which immigrants should stay in the United States and which should be deported. Their current caseload is at a record high: more than 1.1 million deportation cases.

More than half of all immigrants in the courts come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

In this April 5, 2019 file photo, President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable on immigration and border security at the U.S. Border Patrol Calexico Station in Calexico, Calif.

In some cases, immigration court hearings are a matter of life and death as some people face reprisals back home from governments, violent ex-spouses or organized crime. This year, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting 138 cases since 2013 of people being killed in El Salvador after they were deported from the U.S.

The COVID-19 pandemic extended the life-and-death stakes to anyone who visits the courts, including professionals who work there. Judges, defense lawyers and prosecutors who work in the immigration courts joined together on March 15 to issue a statement demanding that the Trump administration temporarily close down all immigration court hearings for safety.

The administration eventually closed non-detained courts where immigrants can come and go freely, but it left courts running in detention centers.

The government is now reopening some of the non-detained courts that it shut down. For instance, the New Orleans court opened in a limited capacity on Monday, even as COVID-19 cases in Louisiana surged to more than 60,000. The government is also suspending rules allowing electronic filing of documents, the lawsuit said.

These changes have already had, and will continue to have, profound implications for public health, but few immigration judges have felt free to speak out, the judges wrote in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

The suit notes that the few immigration judges who serve as officers in the National Association of Immigration Judges can still speak publicly as union representatives.

But hundreds more remain silenced, the lawsuit said.

In this July 8, 2019 file photo, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detain a man during an operation in Escondido, Calif.

New policies announced in 2017 and again this January reduced judges rights and say they cannot talk in their personal capacities about immigration law or policy or related topics, the lawsuit said. On other topics, immigration judges may speak publicly only with government approval, the judges say. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York is cooperating with the judges in the lawsuit.

The federal agency that runs the courts is called the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR. It's an arm of the Department of Justice and ultimately answers to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee.

In response to inquiries about COVID-19 in the courts, the agency did not make any officials available for an interview.

"EOIR takes the safety, health, and well-being of its employees very seriously," the agency said in a statement, adding that officials follow guidance from various federal entities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The statement said the agency is taking safety precautions such as using telephonic hearings whenever possible. The statement also said that a blanket suspension of all hearings could help keep immigrants stuck in detention because they couldn't ask a judge for release.

"EOIR is committed to ensuring that every detained alien receives his or her day in court, the government said.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has questioned how the federal government can ensure social distancing is being followed amid the reopenings of the nations immigration courts.

We fear that you are rushing to reopen the courts without a rigorous process or sufficient communication with stakeholders, she wrote in a June 23 letter to the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

Detainees sit and wait for their turn at the medical clinic at the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, La., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019.

Immigrant sick from coronavirus forced to do telephone court hearing before being sent to hospital, lawyer says

Louisiana emerged this year as the largest hot spot for coronavirus in the South. It is also one of the major centers for immigration detention in the U.S.

Even as hundreds of cases of the new virus appeared in the state's immigration detention centers, immigration courts never stopped in the small towns of Jena and Oakdale, which oversee the cases of more than 5,000 people locked up in immigration detention centers across Louisiana.

After many states enforced quarantine restrictions in March because of the pandemic, judges here still ordered immigrants deported and dozens of deportation flights took off from Alexandria, Louisiana, to other countries.

One case involved a 26-year-old man from Guatemala detained at Richwood Correctional Center, a sprawling 1,129 bed facility in northeast Louisiana. He tested positive for the virus on April 12, said his attorney Veronica Semino.

Semino said he had developed a debilitating cough and had been isolated with one other man in a large dormitory in the facility, which is run by LaSalle Corrections. Meanwhile she had made two attempts to push back a hearing scheduled only four days after he had been tested, to no avail.

People take part in a protest near a U.S. Immigration building on May 13, 2020, in New York City. Protesters were demanding an end to the continued detention and deportation of non-U.S. Citizens. Conditions within detention centers guarantee exposure to COVID-19 and detainees who have tested positive for COVID-19 are still being deported.

The man could barely speak throughout the hearing, which was conducted by telephone, according to Semino.

He had no lung capacity. During the hearing, they activated the EMS transport and literally within 15 minutes he was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, said Semino.

She later learned that her clients vitals were being monitored throughout the hearing.

Here is this person who was obviously gravely, ill, had to be taken to the ICU, and all went forward as normal, she said.

He was hospitalized for close to two weeks and was returned to Richwood Correctional Center, according to Semino. As of Wednesday, ICE has confirmed 65 cases at the facility.

Despite cases of COVID-19 growing to more than 1,200 across Louisiana by March 23, it wasnt until that week that attorneys received a notice to bring their own gloves, protective eyewear and N-95 masks to meet with clients or attend court proceedings in person, said Phillip Hunter, a Baton Rouge-based immigration attorney who has clients at the LaSalle ICE Processing Center in Jena. That same week, he began seeing detainees escorted into the five courtrooms in the LaSalle courtrooms wearing masks to cover their noses and mouths.

Hunter said that as the outbreak has developed in Louisiana, lawyers are now allowed to file motions by telephone rather than appear in court and some judges have begun letting people with serious health issues out on bond in some cases.

But its not like theyve stopped detaining people, he added.

Homero Lopez, an immigration attorney who represents clients at the Oakdale Immigration Court, said that in the early days of the outbreak in Louisiana it wasnt always clear if attorneys would be allowed to file documents online or participate in hearings via telephone.

It wasnt like they were notifying us about this, he said.

Eventually, some judges started granting motions to continue cases based on COVID-19, he said.

If we said we couldnt go to court because of lack of childcare or a health condition, they would grant motions to continue, said Lopez.

Prosecutors, immigration defense lawyers fear getting COVID-19

During the pandemic, the government has sometimes announced court openings and closures on Twitter. But uncertainty remains for many court officials.

Im really scared. Im like holding on for dear life to whats going to happen in a few weeks," immigration prosecutor Fanny Behar-Ostrow said in late May. "I am really - like, very afraid if they start reopening our offices and make us physically have to go in. Im hopeful that theyre going to continue to let us telework. I really dont think that this pandemic is over, by any means.

Behar-Ostrow is head of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 511, a labor union representing attorneys who work for ICE, a role that usually means arguing in favor of deportation.

She said she fears for her colleagues because the often-cramped immigration courts are not set up for social distancing of any kind. She said she'd like to see the suspension of all hearings  detained and non-detained  and doesn't understand why the Trump administration seeks to keep the immigration courts going.

My guess is that its political. But its a guess. Id rather not get into this because like I said, Ive seen a lot of administrations. Ive seen the pendulum swing both ways and a lot of times things are done because of political reasons, she said.

The court where she works, in downtown Miami, is now open for detained hearings only.

Memphis immigration attorney Lily Axelrod, who acts as a liaison to the local immigration court, said the administration's willingness to keep the courts going shows an underlying political goal: keep deportation numbers high, even if that means jeopardizing public safety.

So I think weve all seen that this administration does not care about human rights of immigrants or the safety of immigrants, or following the law necessarily with respect to immigrants. But I had no idea the level of contempt or apathy they had toward their own employees," she said.

Trump administration worried about having to release immigrants

In a separate case, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and other groups filed a federal lawsuit on March 30 in Washington, D.C., on behalf of a small group of immigration detainees worried about contracting COVID-19. They asked the court to close both detained and non-detained immigration courts, other than bond hearings.

On April 13, the government responded, saying the lawsuit would "force the release of tens of thousands of aliens despite the laws enacted by Congress."

EOIR director James McHenry argued that if the government stopped detained hearings, the government might have to do a mass release of immigrants to avoid constitutional issues related to indefinite imprisonment. And that, he said, could harm the public, because some immigrants have criminal records or pose national security concerns.

On April 24, lawyers for detainees said some judges were still insisting on dangerous in-person hearings, and that some remote hearings didn't work well, including because some judges failed to call the detainees' attorneys.

On April 28, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols rejected the lawyers' request for a temporary restraining order, concluding the government was already doing enough to respond to the pandemic.

The plaintiffs later withdrew their lawsuit.

ICE spokesman Brian Cox said that to protect against COVID-19, the agency is arresting and detaining far fewer people than usual.

As of June 27, a total of 22,805 people were held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in the United States, according to an ICE web site.

Thats down from about 38,500 as of March 1, a decrease of 41%. Many of the existing detainees were picked up by the Border Patrol, not through non-border enforcement by ICE, Cox said.

In this file photo taken on May 16, 2019, Jose, 27, with his son Jose Daniel, 6, is searched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent Frank Pino in El Paso.

Of those currently detained, 51% had a criminal conviction, another 14% had pending criminal charges, and 35% were held on alleged immigration violations only.

Presidential administration pays judges, pays prosecutors, makes rules

Tabbador, the head of the immigration judges' union, said the pandemic exposed another longstanding problem in the immigration courts: lack of independence.

Unlike the federal judges who hear civil and criminal cases, the immigration judges don't belong to a separate, independent branch of the government. Instead, they're employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Trump administration, the same branch of government that pays immigration prosecutors.

The administration is working to decertify the judges union, a step that would make it much more difficult for them to speak out and oppose the government.

The Trump administration also helps make the court rules, issuing decisions in recent years that have made it much harder for immigrants to win their cases. One of the biggest came in 2018, when then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned an earlier decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals and ruled against a woman from El Salvador who said her ex-husband had repeatedly abused her physically, emotionally and sexually both during and after their marriage.

This decision, known as Matter of A-B, made it much harder for immigrants to win asylum claims based on domestic violence or gang violence.

Immigration courts represent uncertainty for immigrants

Even before COVID-19, going before an immigration judge was a frightening experience for many immigrants.

In this May 4, 2020, file photo, Guatemalans deported from the United States, wave from a bus after arriving at La Aurora airport in Guatemala City.

Yoselin Alejandra Madriz-Chacon, a 27-year-old now living in Little Rock, Arkansas, appeared briefly in Memphis Immigration Court in February. She told the judge she'd recently gone through a bad breakup and hadn't been able to hire an attorney. The judge gave her a delay of a few weeks.

She was born in Costa Rica and was brought to the U.S. at age six on a tourist visa that later expired. She said she's been unable to adjust her status.

You never know when people are gonna say you have to go back home, she said. I havent been there since I was six years old, and its terrifying at times, especially when youre going through a hard time with your personal life and you still have this on top to deal with.

In June, she said her court case had now been continued until February 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The delay has given her time to earn more money as a painter on building projects, and she hopes to use the income to hire a lawyer and return to Memphis to resolve her case.

Yoselin Alejandra Madriz-Chacon poses for a portrait after leaving Memphis Immigration Court on February 20, 2020. She said she's originally from Costa Rica, was brought to this country at age six on a tourist visa that later expired and has been unable to adjust her status. She now faces deportation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Memphis court was temporarily closed in March. In June 2020, she said her next immigration court date has been delayed until 2021. She said the delay has given her a chance to earn additional money to hire a lawyer.

In New Orleans, immigration court reopened Monday in a limited capacity. The courtroom is limited to judges, attorneys, their clients and interpreters. Witnesses have been asked to turn in testimony through an affidavit or report telephonically. People presenting COVID-19 symptoms and those who have tested positive are restricted from appearing at the court.

The restrictions could make it more challenging for immigration attorneys to properly represent their clients, according to Emily Trostle, an immigration attorney based in New Orleans.

I am not comfortable with that, she said.

Maria Clark reports from New Orleans for The American South. Daniel Connolly writes for The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Trump immigration courts open despite COVID-19 risks
South Africa: Public called to support the elderly

As confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 continue to increase in South Africa, Social Development Deputy Minister, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, has appealed to the public, particularly caregivers in residential care facilities, to keep older people safe and protected from contracting the virus.

More than ever before, we need to do more and play our part and focus on keeping our older persons protected from COVID-19, as they are particularly vulnerable due to their advanced age, weak immune systems and other underlying health conditions.

"Our collective responsibility is to give them love and care to enjoy their golden days to the fullest, Bogopane-Zulu said.

The Deputy Minister made the appeal on Tuesday during her assessment visit at Lodewyk Spies Old Age Home in Eersterus, east of Pretoria, to ensure compliance with level 3 regulations.

Lodewyk Spies Old Age Home is registered as a 24-hour residential care facility, in terms of the Older Persons Act (Act No. 13 of 2006).

The facility is funded to the tune of R4 million by the Provincial Department of Social Development in the current financial year.

The Deputy Ministers visit formed part of the departments drive to ensure that all 418 residential care facilities for older persons countrywide comply with measures to prevent and contain the spread of Coronavirus.

To date, no positive case of COVID-19 has been reported at the facility, which currently caters for 96 older persons.

During her visit, the Deputy Minister also handed over personal protective equipment, including hand soap, soup and tea to keep older persons warm during the cold winter months.

The home's manager, Abraham Damon, said since the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Africa, all caregivers, including cleaners, professional nurses and nursing assistants, were trained on prevention and control measures, and undergo daily screening to protect older persons at the facility.

We are doing everything possible to protect our older persons against this dreaded virus. We dont want to leave anything to chance. Our staff has been tested by the Department of Health and we are following strict health and hygiene protocols, Damon said.

Recognising the emotional toll brought about on older persons by the restrictions on visits, Damon said the centre has recently started allowing family visits under very strict conditions that comply with social distancing measures and hygiene guidelines.

The family visits are strictly monitored at all times.

Bogopane-Zulu said while it is important for older persons to keep in contact with their families for emotional support and wellbeing, their health and safety must remain a priority.

Some residential care facilities for older persons in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape have reported infections and deaths since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa.

Currently, people aged 60 and above account for 57% of all the nationally reported COVID-19 related deaths.

The Department of Health and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) are currently conducting surveillance of COVID-19 cases at residential facilities for older persons throughout the country.

As part ongoing measures to ensure that all the departments facilities comply with prevention and control measures, the Deputy Minister will on Friday visits the Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa Centre of Excellence in Soshanguve.

The facility serves as a child and youth care centre for children in need of care and also provides services to children with disabilities.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The law grants internal security agency Shin Bet permission to track cell phones for a three-week period on a case-by-case basis.

Jerusalem: Israel's parliament approved a law Wednesday granting the country's internal security agency limited authority to use phone surveillance to track coronavirus cases as the country struggles to contain a second outbreak.

The Israeli government had authorized the Shin Bet to use the technology in March during the peak of the country's coronavirus outbreak, despite public outcry over privacy concerns. But the country's Supreme Court ordered the surveillance halted until the security agency's permission was granted by law.

The Knesset, Israel's parliament, voted 51-38 in favour of granting the Shin Bet power to use phone surveillance to retrace the steps of people infected with COVID-19 and identify others who came in contact with them in the previous two weeks. Those determined to have been in close proximity with an infected person will be ordered to self-quarantine for two weeks from the date of contact.

The law grants the Shin Bet permission to track cell phones for a three-week period on a case-by-case basis and only in instances in which other epidemiological tracking methods are insufficient in determining contact between a patient and other potentially infected persons.

But the law does grant the prime minister authority to give the Shin Bet additional powers if circumstances require. A ministerial team will evaluate the need of the surveillance, while taking into consideration the impact on individuals' right to privacy.

Israel has seen a spike in confirmed coronavirus cases in recent weeks since the government began easing restrictions on movement in May. New daily cases of the novel coronavirus have exceeded 600 in the past week, with the total number of confirmed cases exceeding 26,000. At least 321 Israelis have died of the disease since the beginning of the pandemic in March, according to the Israeli Health Ministry.

Earlier this month, the head of the Shin Bet reportedly told Israeli Cabinet ministers that he opposed the continued use of his agency's technology to track coronavirus cases.
Today is shaping up negative for Walker Greenbank PLC (LON:WGB) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a substantial negative revision to this year's forecasts. Both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) forecasts went under the knife, suggesting analysts have soured majorly on the business.

Following the latest downgrade, the current consensus, from the twin analysts covering Walker Greenbank, is for revenues of UK78m in 2021, which would reflect a sizeable 30% reduction in Walker Greenbank's sales over the past 12 months. After this downgrade, the company is anticipated to report a loss of UK0.10 in 2021, a sharp decline from a profit over the last year. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of UK113m and earnings per share (EPS) of UK0.065 in 2021. There looks to have been a major change in sentiment regarding Walker Greenbank's prospects, with a pretty serious reduction to revenues and the analysts now forecasting a loss instead of a profit.

Check out our latest analysis for Walker Greenbank

AIM:WGB Earnings and Revenue Growth July 2nd 2020

There was no major change to the consensus price target of UK0.82, signalling that the business is performing roughly in line with expectations, despite lower earnings per share forecasts. Fixating on a single price target can be unwise though, since the consensus target is effectively the average of analyst price targets. As a result, some investors like to look at the range of estimates to see if there are any diverging opinions on the company's valuation. There are some variant perceptions on Walker Greenbank, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at UK1.10 and the most bearish at UK0.50 per share. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that the analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the business.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Walker Greenbank's past performance and to peers in the same industry. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast revenue decline of 30%, a significant reduction from annual growth of 7.4% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 4.8% annually for the foreseeable future. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - Walker Greenbank is expected to lag the wider industry.

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The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that analysts are expecting Walker Greenbank to become unprofitable this year. Unfortunately analysts also downgraded their revenue estimates, and industry data suggests that Walker Greenbank's revenues are expected to grow slower than the wider market. The lack of change in the price target is puzzling in light of the downgrade but, with a serious decline expected this year, we wouldn't be surprised if investors were a bit wary of Walker Greenbank.

Uncomfortably, our automated valuation tool also suggests that Walker Greenbank stock could be overvalued following the downgrade. Shareholders could be left disappointed if these estimates play out. Learn why, and examine the assumptions that underpin our valuation by visiting our free platform here to learn more about our valuation approach.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are downgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
SHANGHAI and PHILADELPHIA, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Antengene Corporation today announced its appointment of Zhinuan Yu, Ph.D., as Corporate Vice President (CVP) of Biometrics and Regulatory Enabling Functions. Zhinuan will be responsible for providing statistical leadership and strategic regulatory input on company pipeline projects and will report directly to Dr. Jay Mei, Chairman and CEO of Antengene.

Dr. Zhinuan Yu

Dr. Zhinuan Yu has been working in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years. Prior to joining Antengene, she was Senior Director of Biostatistics at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Before that, Zhinuan had served in Celgene Corporation for nearly 16 years, leading statistical support for multiple high priority programs including Thalidomide, Lenalidomide, Pomalidomide, and bb2121 (CAR-T) for multiple myeloma and other therapeutic areas, and played a key role in successful NDA/ sNDA / BLA submissions with global health authorities including the US FDA, EMA, Swissmedic, Health Canada, PMDA, CFDA, and other regulatory agencies.

Zhinuan provided statistical expertise and co-authored multiple publications in prestigious journals including the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and Lancet, and at various professional conferences. Her outstanding contributions and leadership earned her the highest individual recognition bestowed by Celgene, the John W. Jackson Leadership Award. Prior to Celgene, Zhinuan had worked at Organon (now Merck) and the University of Miami.

"I'm delighted to have Zhinuan join Antengene at this exciting time. Zhinuan will play a key role in building Biometrics and Regulatory Enabling Functions with her solid technical knowledge of advanced statistical methodologies as well as successful experience in NDA/sNDA submissions," said Dr. Jay Mei, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Antengene. "We have initiated NDA of ATG-010 (selinexor) for the patients with relapsed refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) and the patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with several Asia Pacific markets that meet the regulatory requirement. I am confident that Zhinuan, a seasoned industry leader with a proven track record in the past 20 years in NDA with global regulatory agencies, will strengthen our ability to deliver meaningful results now and in the future."

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"I am impressed by the fast growth of the promising pipeline and talented team at Antengene within such a short time," said Zhinuan. "Having had an amazing journey of drug development at Celgene/BMS, I look forward to joining Jay and the Antengene team to continue to do well by doing good, and to bring much needed innovative medicines to patients in China, Asia Pacific regions, and around the globe."

Zhinuan earned her B.A. in English and M.A. in World Economy from Fudan University in China, and Ph.D. in Psychometrics / Statistics from Tulane University in the USA.

About Antengene

Antengene is a biopharmaceutical company with integrated drug discovery, clinical development, manufacturing and commercialization anchored in Asia Pacific region with global layout, aiming to provide the most advanced and first-in-class anti-cancer drugs and other treatments for patients in China, the rest of Asia and around the world. In April 2017, Celgene (now officially acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb and a world's top ten pharmaceutical company after the merger), a global leading innovative biopharmaceutical company became a founding partner and obtained an equity position as an investor in Antengene. Over the past 3 years, Antengene has obtained 7 IND approvals with 6 first-in-class drugs in more than 10 ongoing cross-regional clinical trials in Asia Pacific regions, and has built a product pipeline of 12 clinical and pre-clinical stage programs. The vision of Antengene, "Treating Patients Beyond Borders," is to meet the unmet medical needs of patients in Asia Pacific regions and around the world through research & development and commercialization of first-in-class drugs.

ATG-010 (selinexor) is the first oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export (SINE) compound with novel mechanisms in the world. In July 2019, the U.S. FDA approved selinexor in combination with low-dose dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed refractory multiple myeloma. Currently, the registration clinical trials of ATG-010 in relapsed refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) are ongoing in China. The compound is also in late clinical development for various other hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. In addition, preclinical studies have shown that inhibitors of nuclear protein export XPO1 can effectively treat KRAS mutant tumor, and related clinical studies are currently being conducted.

ATG-008 is a second-generation dual mTORC1/2 inhibitor and is in multi-regional clinical trials for treatment of advanced liver cancer, lung cancer, and several other tumors.

ATG-016 is a second-generation oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export protein, and is currently being studied in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) as well as in several clinical trials of solid tumors, including colorectal cancer (CRC), gastric carcinoma (GC), triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and prostate cancer (PrC) .

ATG-019 is the first-in-class PAK4/NAMPT dual-target inhibitors, and is currently being studied in a number of clinical trials including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma. In addition, preclinical studies have demonstrated that ATG-019 in combination with anti-PD-1 antibodies can effectively improve the anti-tumor activity and is effective in tumors that became resistant to anti-PD-1 therapy. Related clinical trial is about to initiate.

ATG-527 is an innovative product under development for antiviral and treatment of autoimmune diseases, and has been in clinical trial of healthy volunteers and been studied against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and other related diseases.

ATG-017 is a potent and selective small molecule extracellular signalregulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) inhibitor, in clinical development for the treatment of various solid tumors, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) and multiple myeloma. In addition, the drug discovery team of Antengene focuses on the early preclinical development of multiple innovative target drugs in the fields of small molecule, monoclonal and bi-specific antibodies. For more information, please visit www.antengene.com.

Forward-looking Statement

The forward-looking statements made in this article relate only to the events or information as of the date on which the statements are made in this article. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. You should read this article completely and with the understanding that our actual future results or performance may be materially different from what we expect. In this article, statements of, or references to, our intentions or those of any of our Directors or our Company are made as of the date of this article. Any of these intentions may alter in light of future development.

Cision

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SOURCE Antengene Corporation
NEW YORK, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- This report is 80% complete and can be delivered within three working days post order confirmation and will include the latest impact analysis of Covid-19 in 2020 and forecast.







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Australia Facility Management Market By Service (Property, Cleaning, Security, Support, Catering, Others), By Type (Hard, Soft & Others), By End User (Commercial, Industrial, Residential), By Source (Outsource v/s Inhouse), By Company, By Region, Forecast & Opportunities, 2025



Australia facility management market is expected to grow at a steady rate during the forecast period.The Australia facility management market is driven by the growing need to improve the organizational processes and efficiencies while reducing the overall cost and dependency on human resources.



Additionally, the increasing need to create a safer work environment along with adhering to the environmental and regulatory compliances is further expected to propel the market growth through 2025.Furthermore, supportive government policies & schemes facilitating infrastructural development and building automation are further expected to fuel the market growth.



Besides, increased adoption of technologies such as IoT, AI, augmented reality, cloud based solutions, among others coupled with increasing investments by the major players operating in the market is further expected to create lucrative opportunities for the market growth.However, dearth of skilled professionals and expertise can hamper the market growth over the next few years.



Also, lack of managerial awareness and inadequate process frameworks can further restrict market growth during the forecast period.



The Australia facility management market is segmented based on service, type, end user, source, company, and region.Based on type, the market can be categorized into hard, soft and others.



The soft type is expected to dominate the market through 2025 since it includes services such as cleaning, water disposal, security, among others.The hard type is also expected to witness growth on account of the ongoing infrastructural developments in the country.



Based on end user, the market can be grouped into commercial, industrial and residential.The commercial segment is expected to dominate the market on account of increasing working population which requires office spaces.



This growth in office spaces has increased the demand for integrated facility management thereby driving the segmental growth during the forecast period.



The major players operating in the facility management market are Spotless Group Holdings Limited, Ferrovial Services Australia Pty Ltd, Programmed Maintenance Services Limited, Serco Group Pty Limited, Fresh Start Australia, ISS Australia, Broadspectrum, BGIS, JLL Inc., GJK and others. Major companies are developing advanced technologies and launching new services in order to stay competitive in the market. Other competitive strategies include mergers & acquisitions and new service developments.



Years considered for this report:



Historical Years: 2015-2018

Base Year: 2019

Estimated Year: 2020

Forecast Period: 20212025



Objective of the Study:



 To analyze and estimate the market size of Australia facility management market from 2015 to 2018.

 To estimate and forecast the market size of Australia facility management market from 2019 to 2025 and growth rate until 2025.

 To classify and forecast Australia facility management market based on service, type, end user, source, company, and regional distribution.

 To identify dominant region or segment in the Australia facility management market.

 To identify drivers and challenges for Australia facility management market.

 To examine competitive developments such as expansions, new product launches, mergers & acquisitions, etc., in Australia facility management market.

 To identify and analyze the profile of leading players operating in Australia facility management market.

 To identify key sustainable strategies adopted by market players in Australia facility management market.

The analyst performed both primary as well as exhaustive secondary research for this study.Initially, the analyst sourced a list of service providers across the globe.



Subsequently, the analyst conducted primary research surveys with the identified companies.While interviewing, the respondents were also enquired about their competitors.



Through this technique, the analyst could include the service providers which could not be identified due to the limitations of secondary research. The analyst examined the service providers, distribution channels and presence of all major players across the globe.

The analyst calculated the market size of Australia facility management market using a bottom-up approach, wherein data for various end-user segments was recorded and forecast for the future years. The analyst sourced these values from the industry experts and company representatives and externally validated through analyzing historical data of these product types and applications for getting an appropriate, overall market size.



Various secondary sources such as company websites, news articles, press releases, company annual reports, investor presentations and financial reports were also studied by the analyst.



Key Target Audience:



 Facility management service provider companies

 Market research and consulting firms

 Government bodies such as regulating authorities and policy makers

 Organizations, forums and alliances related to facility management

The study is useful in providing answers to several critical questions that are important for the industry stakeholders such as service providers, suppliers and partners, end users, etc., besides allowing them in strategizing investments and capitalizing on market opportunities.



Report Scope:



In this report, Australia facility management market has been segmented into following categories, in addition to the industry trends which have also been detailed below:

 Australia Facility management Market, By Service:

o Property

o Cleaning

o Security

o Support

o Catering

o Others

 Australia Facility management Market, By Type:

o Hard

o Soft

o Others

 Australia Facility management Market, By End User:

o Commercial

o Industrial

o Residential

 Australia Facility management Market, By Source:

o Outsource

o Insource

 Australia Facility management Market, By Region:

o New South Wales

o Queensland

o Northern Territory

o Tasmania

o Victoria

o Western Australia

o South Australia



Competitive Landscape



Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in Australia facility management market.



Available Customizations:



With the given market data, we offers customizations according to a company's specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report:



Company Information



 Detailed analysis and profiling of additional market players (up to five).





Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05917062/?utm_source=PRN



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ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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Cision

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SOURCE Reportlinker
Warning: This article contains profane language.

Fort Lauderdale police officers laughed and celebrated after shooting protesters with rubber bullets at a May 31 George Floyd rally in Fort Lauderdale, newly released body camera footage shows.

Beat it, little f***er, Detective Zachary Baro, leader of a Fort Lauderdale SWAT team unit, can be heard saying after officers shot less lethal projectiles at a protester. The protester was walking away after tossing a tear gas canister back at the line of police.

A few minutes later, another officer, Jamie Chatman, came up to Baro behind the police line and asked if his body camera was off. Baro replied  incorrectly  that his camera was in stand-by mode and not recording. The two officers then began laughing and joking about the people they had shot with rubber bullets.

Did you see me f**k up those motherf****rs? one of the officers said.

I got the one f***er, the other replied amid laughter.

George Kirkham, a former police officer and professor emeritus at Florida State University, condemned the behavior captured on the footage.

This is serious misconduct. This is people with badges acting like thugs, Kirkham said. Its like a cancer. If you let it go, it will spread.

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Fort Lauderdale police said the department would have to review the footage.

After publication online, Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione said in a statement to the Herald: Your story shows less than 3 minutes of an 8 minute and 43 second long video. The entire video clearly demonstrates our officers were under attack by a group of people who chose to use violence instead of peace to antagonize the situation. Although the language is extreme, and offensive to some, our officers were dealing with the chaos of a developing situation.

Maglione did not respond to questions about whether Baro and Chatman had been placed under internal investigation or removed from duty.

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The officers conduct was revealed in hours of footage provided by the Fort Lauderdale Police Department in response to a Miami Herald public records request. The footage bolsters protesters accounts that police aggression sparked the first documented confrontation between police and protesters.

LaToya Ratlieff was being led away from tear gas by another marcher at an anti-police brutality protest in Fort Lauderdale May 31. Moments after this photo was taken a police officer shot her in the face with a foam rubber bullet, fracturing her right eye socket.

Marchers hurled plastic water bottles after Officer Steven Pohorence rushed into a crowd of protesters and pushed a kneeling woman in the head. Police responded with a round of tear gas. Still, body camera footage shows that even after that, protesters quickly moved to reestablish peace.

Please I am begging you, were peaceful, one man can be heard yelling.

Do you see this? another man asked to the line of riot police pointing to the protesters taking a knee in the street. We are going to stop this. We are going to be the generation that brings peace.

After a few tense minutes, video shows police started to throw tear gas at the group again. Within 15 minutes of Pohorence shoving the woman, Baro had emptied his six-chamber rubber bullet launcher and had to reload, he can be heard saying in his body camera video. (Pohorence was charged with misdemeanor battery on Tuesday.)

If you need it, give me a target, Baro yelled to other officers from behind the line of police.

The comment stuck out to Robert Drago, a retired lieutenant colonel at the Broward Sheriffs Office, who reviewed the footage.

If youre not seeing a threat, why are you asking for a threat? Drago said. That would almost lead you to believe that they were indiscriminately firing.

Baro said in his incident report that he was firing rubber bullets at protesters throwing tear gas canisters and other objects.

In an effort to stop officers and innocent people from being hurt, I targeted these violent subjects with my 40mm less lethal launcher, Baro wrote. I deployed less lethal rounds targeting lower abdomen and the large muscle groups of the legs in an effort to deter their violent actions.

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In the report, Baro does not record his comments to other officers. He does say that he was struck in his left thigh by a rock about the size of my fist and that he saw protesters throwing rocks, fireworks, smoke bombs, and water bottles containing an unknown yellowish liquid.

F*** Im getting rocked and bottled, bro, Baro says on camera.

Chatman said he was struck by a half-stick of dynamite, according to his incident report. Video shows an explosive blowing up at officers feet. His report does not indicate that he was injured.

Kirkham said internal affairs should investigate the conduct of Baro and other officers in the video, particularly given his position as a SWAT team leader.

I understand what its like to have that adrenaline. Ive been in a riot situation, Kirkham said. But that does not excuse that kind of verbiage and behavior. It suggests that the police think they can do whatever they want and get away with it.

At a Black Lives Matter protest in Fort Lauderdale on May 31, Ofc. Steven Pohorence turns to look at a kneeling young woman just moments before shoving her in the head.

Other policing experts agreed.

Its unprofessional. They shouldnt be laughing and joking about shooting and potentially hurting people, said Philip Sweeting, former deputy chief of police in Boca Raton. It reinforces the publics distrust of the police. It shouldnt be tolerated.

Drago also criticized the behavior of Chatman, the officer who asked Baro if his body camera was off.

It shows intent and then he makes inappropriate, unprofessional statements, said Drago. Its not a carnival. This isnt hit-three-times-and-get-a-stuffed-animal. It doesnt seem like these officers had public safety in mind at all.

Christina Currie, an attorney and chair of the Fort Lauderdale Citizens Police Review Board, said Chatman asking if the body camera was off posed a grave concern.

It was pretty obvious the officers were comfortable about talking about turning the camera off, Currie said. It didnt feel like the officer wearing the camera felt shocked about hearing that question. There need to be clearly articulated consequences for violations.

Fort Lauderdale police policy on body cameras states that: Once the [camera] is activated to record an interaction, it shall remain on until the event has ended.

City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said in a statement that he was troubled by the footage uncovered by the Herald.

While I am a huge supporter of the hard work of our police force, I would not want the actions of a few to taint the publics perception of the dedication and professionalism of the Department as a whole, Lagerbloom said. I can understand the intensity of the moment captured on body camera footage as the officers were clearly under attack. ... The language the officers used, and sentiment expressed is not consistent with what the public expects from our police force.

He said he had asked the chief to look into the matter.

Hands up, Dont Shoot!

As the clash intensified and police tossed gas, small groups of protesters retaliated: first with plastic bottles, then by tossing tear gas canisters back at police, and finally with fireworks and rocks. Officers said in their reports that those agitators then used peaceful protesters as human shields.

Outside the parking garage at Southeast First Avenue and Second Street, officers shot dozens of rubber bullets and tossed tear gas at kneeling protesters, including LaToya Ratlieff, a non-profit grant writer, who testified before a congressional subcommittee on Monday. Detective Eliezer Ramos shot Ratlieff in the face with a rubber bullet while she was peacefully demonstrating. She suffered a fractured eye socket.

While Ramos said in his official report that he was aiming for someone behind Ratlieff who had been throwing tear gas canisters, footage taken from various angles shows a cloud of tear gas so thick its impossible to make out anything happening behind Ratlieff. (Footage from Ramos body camera started after he shot Ratlieff. )

After Ratlieff was shot, protesters returned to the intersection chanting Hands up! Dont Shoot!

Police maintain it was the protesters who started the violence by jumping on an unmarked police vehicle stationed at the mouth of a public parking garage around 6:50 p.m. Officer Stylianee Hayes, who was driving the black 2019 Toyota Camry, felt her life was in imminent danger, according to her official incident report. She said she was so worried for her safety that she did not turn on her body camera.

She came over the radio screaming for help. She was being surrounded, Maglione, the chief, told the Herald a few days after the incident.

Interaction between police and protesters at SE 1st Ave and SE 2nd Street at 6:50:06 p.m., May 31. Within the next minute, an officer in the black Toyota radioed for emergency backup saying her life was in danger.

A nearby officer on a motorcycle who was present at the moment Hayes called for help did not make an emergency call of his own. None of the hours of body camera footage released by police, nor the more than 100 photos and videos taken by photographers on the scene and reviewed by the Herald, show anyone touching Hayes vehicle. Nor was Hayes 6:51 p.m. call for backup the emergency distress call of a terrified officer described by Maglione and dozens of officers in sworn incident reports.

Send me a few more units please, theyre starting to surround my car, Hayes said, according to a BSO recording of her dispatch. A few moments later she repeated the request: Theyre jumping on my car. Send me units.

Dozens of nearby officers responded. Footage suggests a few arrived on the scene in time to see Pohorence get pelted with water bottles, but not in time to see what set the protesters off. Police thought they were responding to a violent mob, according to their reports.

Within minutes of arriving, police began donning gas masks and deploying launchers loaded with rubber bullets.

The footage did not show a force that was well-prepared.

In his report, Baro did not mention the fact that his gas mask was leaking early on during the clash, likely impairing his vision. He can be heard sniffing and repeatedly cursing in the footage, as another officer helps him adjust the mask. Your whole mask is f***ed up, dude, the second officer says. Its getting on your head backwards.

The SWAT team is supposed to be the best of the best, said Drago, the retired BSO lieutenant colonel. It doesnt appear Fort Lauderdale had the best of the best out there that day.

Baro wasnt the only one having trouble.

This sh** aint doing sh**. Its in my eyes, said another officer fumbling with his gas mask on video. Another officer burned her fingers as she tried to move a smoking canister with her hand.

Thats hot as f***, she said. I almost burned my fingers. You didnt tell me it was hot.
Beethoven's Opus 132 conveys how disease can change our perception of the world. (Micah Fluellen / Los Angeles Times)

How to Listen: Beethoven String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132

When we finally see the return of concerts, shared experiences by full audiences, everyone together, the moment will be less for fireworks than for thanksgiving. Let us begin, then, with Beethoven as the spiritual guide to healing and its meaning.

In 1825, two years before he died, the ailing composer suffered from a dreadful bowel inflammation. Throughout spring and summer, he endured the ghastly Brunonian system of medicine that wound up killing more people than the Napoleonic wars. Once recovered, he wrote a string quartet in which he represented the psychology of pain and illness in all its transcendent transparency. His Opus 132, also known as String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, neither has nor intends intrinsic healing power. Beethoven, instead, conveys the changes of perception wrought by disease.

The heart of the quartet might be translated from the German title Beethoven gave the central movement, Song of Thanksgiving, in the Lydian Mode, Offered to the Divinity by a Convalescent. In a classic 1978 study of Beethovens string quartets, musicologist Joseph Kerman wrote of the movements rarified atmosphere, whispered by a convalescent who has just, and barely, passed a supreme crisis. He still seems to be under oxygen. A visionary composers spiritually uncompromising yet physically compromised vision is of new strength, not attained and perhaps never.

Could Opus 132 be a COVID-19 quartet written nearly two centuries before our pandemic? The answer is yes and no. It all depends on how you listen and what you listen for.

The first striking impression Opus 132 makes may be of inexplicable extremes. Churchly quiet emanates from all four slow-moving string players, suddenly broken by an agitated first violin. A short, yearning (hopeful, consoling, despairing  take your pick) motif follows, interrupted by more eruptions followed by more yearning. A lovely melody emerges, with a vamping accompaniment that, depending on how its played and the tempo, is either a glimpse at normality or a distortion of it.

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Either way, the patient is not improving. Contrasts continue; themes develop and dissipate as they might in a state of delirium. The second movement finds the patient perhaps stepping out too soon into the world, but not yet of it. A dreamlike contrasting middle section suggests the illusionary sound of bagpipes heard in the distant countryside.

The extraordinary middle movement of thanksgiving captures the state sufferers most crave: those unmistakable early stirrings of recovery. For Beethoven, lack of strength was a mystical void, a suspension between reality and unreality. The opening hymn tune of divine thanks is thus introduced as placid, bland, devoid of drama, drained of emotion. Being in the Lydian mode, it has no conventional harmonic tension.

The mode, which can be approximated by playing only the white notes on the piano, happens to be a scale developed by the ancient Greeks as a remedy for fatigue of body and soul. With its gloriously pure, equal intervals, it later found pious favor in the Medieval church music, becoming a way station in the development of the Western harmony.

The Lydian here is an anachronism evoking a lost, numinous realm. The hymn is twice interrupted by grandiose, bounding sections of uplift in the A-minor. These stirrings come out of nowhere and dont last. They may be the new vigor or a dying bodys final exuberance.

Meanwhile the placid hymn undergoes a gradual process of erasure. On its first appearance, each phrase of the hymn is introduced with musical decorations that serve as the aural equivalent of illustrated manuscripts. The decorations become livelier after each uplift, eventually overwhelming the hymn in unexpectedly ecstatic climax.

Kerman sees this as Beethoven out-of-body, back-in-body, further out-of-body, resiliently back-in-body, ambiguously way out-of-body. The quartet ends with a march, a recitative and thrillingly passionate aria-like finale. Play it one way and life is affirmed.

Play it with an extra dose of angst, and it becomes Beethoven marching out of the hospital and then freaking out when he gets the bill. Or at least that was my sophomoric way of mimicking Kerman after hearing him espouse his theories on the meaning of Opus 132 in a seminar on the Beethoven quartets he taught at UC Berkeley while writing his landmark study. I attended that seminar with a chip on my shoulder over his narrative that turned a profound musical creation into commonplace story about crisis management, no matter how astutely Kerman backed this up with harmonic and formal analysis.

It was an era of music hailed as the epitome of abstraction  and psychedelics. Out-of-body meant just that, and all the experimental new music said so, be it music of incomprehensible complexity, mysterious electronic sounds or the burgeoning new Minimalism of Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. The beauty of Beethovens late string quartets, for young musical revolutionaries, was in their technical razzle-dazzle. All else was cheap thrills.

Kermans Beethoven string quartet class turned out to be a last-minute substitution for a seminar on Webern. A composer of jewel-like miniatures of dazzlingly pure abstraction, Webern had been a key inspiration for the post-World War II avant-garde in Europe and America. That is what we had signed up for, not Beethoven romanticized.

If we revered Beethoven, it was as an unapologetic revolutionary, a beacon for musical reinvention in his late string quartets, his greatest music and among the most consequential music ever written. The only way to hear Opus 132 was as a cornucopia of possibilities. Let the Lydian mode proclaim not the past but the future. Everything must be transformed was our rallying cry.

Yet rereading Kerman as tens of thousands of Americans die from COVID-19 and millions more deal with disease in all its implications, Beethovens guide to healing has unmistakable resonance and relevance. Indeed, with amazing prescience, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider commissioned five composers to write short movements in response to Opus 132. Called Healing Modes, the project has been recorded and, prior to the spring coronavirus cancellations, had been scheduled to be performed in April in Santa Barbara.

Composers from a variety of backgrounds and cultures respond not to Beethoven's music but to ways of applying Beethovens healing to their own causes. Carolyn Shaw solemnly shadows Syrian refugees. Du Yun hauntingly evokes the Alice in Wonderland syndrome under which one perceives body parts out of proportion.

In fact, Beethovenian healing goes far further. Less than a year after an American soldier in 1945 occupied Vienna accidentally shot and killed Webern as he smoked a cigar on his apartment balcony, the composer's mentor, Arnold Schoenberg, had a near-death experience. He collapsed and lost consciousness from a heart seizure in his house in Brentwood. A doctor gave Schoenberg a life-saving injection of Dilaudid directly in the chest.

Recovering, Schoenberg wrote his String Trio in response to his essential quest for peace and repose after intense pain and suffering. Like Opus 132, Schoenbergs trio is in five parts, and it is an example of excessive, often violent, contrast. Like Beethovens, it is a work of extraordinary technical complexity.

Schoenberg, however, described it as a humorous road map to his own experiences of disease and recovery. The delirium is for real, not simply for music's sake. Fractured snippets of waltz are 20th century versions of otherworldly Beethoven. Sharp, loud pizzicato chords are injections from Schoenbergs hulking nurse, Gene. When disorientated music at the beginning returns at the end less fraught, it is in no way a return to normality but a new way of hearing. Health regained is the end of what Susan Sontag calls diseases psychic voyage.

Modern disease metaphors are all cheap shots, Sontag also warns us in Illness as Metaphor. In Beethoven and Schoenberg, there is no sentimentality. Their psychic voyage is apprehension of the most intense experience a person can have. Healing is when every sensation has new meaning, and every note matters.

Check back for new installments of "How to Listen" every Wednesday at latimes.com/arts.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that the Chinese government has asked some U.S. media outlets present in the country to submit information about their China operations.

Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian named the Associated Press, National Public Radio, CBS and United Press International news agency as companies asked to submit the requested information in writing within seven days.

The AP has requested more information about the Chinese government's requirements and "will review them carefully," a spokeswoman for the outlet said.

The editor in chief of China's Global Times newspaper said on Twitter earlier on Wednesday that Beijing will announce reciprocal curbs on U.S. media outlets in the country.

The United States said in June it would start treating another four major Chinese media outlets as foreign embassies, following similar moves on other outlets earlier in the year.

The United States and China have been engaged in a series of retaliatory actions involving journalists in recent months, amid increasing tensions over the coronavirus pandemic and other issues.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing and Arriana McLymore in Raleigh, North Carolina; writing by Se Young Lee; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Lisa Shumaker)
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigns Tuesday in Wilmington, Del. (Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)

Joe Biden reported raising $10 million more than President Trump last month amid new polls showing the former vice president holding a solid lead in the race for the White House.

The increasingly strong footing of Trump's presumed Democratic challenger comes at a time when most Americans disapprove of the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality, polls show.

Biden and the Democratic National Committee reported raising $141 million in June, surpassing the $131 million in donations to Trump's reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.

For April, May and June combined, Biden also eclipsed Trump, collecting $282 million with the DNC as the president and the RNC took in $266 million.

"It's clear that voters are looking for steady leadership, experience, empathy, compassion, and character  and they'll find all of these qualities in Vice President Joe Biden," Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon told supporters in an email.

Biden's campaign did not disclose how much cash it had on hand, so it's unclear whether it has overcome its previously strong disadvantage on that score. Trump and the RNC reported $295 million in the bank at the end of June.

"No one is excited about Joe Biden, which is why he has to rely so heavily on surrogates like Barack Obama and radical Hollywood elites," Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said. "In stark contrast, President Trump is tapping into support from real Americans all across the country who have reaped the benefits of his America First agenda."

Supporters of President Trump cheer at a campaign rally June 20 in Tulsa, Okla. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Trump far outspent Biden on television advertising in presidential battleground states from May 11 to June 28, according to a report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Wesleyan Media Project. Trump spots ran about 50,000 times, and Biden ads aired around 3,100 times.

Biden benefited from ads by outside groups, but nowhere near as much as Trump did. Pro-Biden groups ran ads about 23,000 times, while spots by pro-Trump groups ran almost three times as often, according to Wesleyan.

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For both sides, the main battlegrounds were Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Despite Trump's advertising onslaught, polls continue to show his campaign facing deep trouble. Just 41% of voters approve of Trump's job performance, and 56% disapprove, according to an aggregate of polls by the website FiveThirtyEight. More than 68% of voters believe America is on the wrong track, according to RealClearPolitics.

A Monmouth University national poll released Thursday found that voters favor Biden over Trump, 53% to 41%.

In a sign that Trump's portrayal of Biden as senile has not succeeded, the survey found 52% of voters believe the former vice president has the mental and physical stamina to carry out the job of president, but just 45% say the same thing about Trump. Biden, 77, is three years older than Trump.
When San Francisco's first confirmed cases of the coronavirus emerged in early March, it seemed unclear how to fight the pandemic  if wearing a mask provided any protection, if going for a walk outside was safe or if pieces of mail could transmit the virus.

So Diana Lau, director of the Asian Health Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, decided that one of the best ways to help would be to arm communities with the most up-to-date information available. Particularly for the city's Chinese population, many of whom are low-income essential workers who had to keep going out even during the shelter-in-place order, she said education would be key to prevention and to curbing the growing anxiety around the pandemic.

"When you know, you're less fearful," she told NBC Asian America. "What we try to do is bring a deeper level of knowledge than what they would normally get to hear."

IMAGE: Diane Lau (Courtesy Diana Lau)

Lau, a registered nurse born and raised in Hong Kong, created a fully bilingual health education program aimed at informing San Francisco's Chinese community about COVID-19  an initiative she estimates is the first of its kind coming from a major U.S. hospital. Through virtual town halls and segments on the local Chinese-language TV station KTSF, Lau gathered Chinese-speaking experts from UCSF and the University of Hong Kong to discuss the latest findings on the coronavirus. Making the segments bilingual  instead of just including subtitles on screen  means they're accessible to multiple generations of families living under one roof, Lau said.

Topics included how to minimize risk of infection, mask-wearing, how testing works, available treatments, who has immunity and what to expect as the city reopens. An upcoming town hall will address antibodies.

Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician and associate dean for regional campuses at UCSF who has appeared in many of the town halls and TV segments, said experts also addressed issues of specific interest to the Chinese community, such as the role of traditional Chinese medicine in treating COVID-19 and why Hong Kong has been successful in fighting the virus. The education program is also a way to combat the recent surge in anti-Asian racism, he said.

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"An interesting response is to just bombard the Asian community with science and facts so they can feel empowered to, when they can, speak up or raise a question because they know how you get it  and it's not because you're Chinese and have a higher chance of getting COVID or because you're Asian American," Chin-Hong said.

Even though the initiative has a far reach  Lau said the virtual town halls have an estimated more than 1,000 views, while the TV segments have a viewership of more than 100,000 each night  its direct impact on coronavirus infections and deaths remains unclear.

While the COVID-19 death rate among Asian Americans in San Francisco has some researchers worried  since nearly half of the city's 50 deaths as of June 27 were Asian American, in a city where they make up about one-third of the population  the small sample size makes it difficult to draw conclusions. At the same time, the city's Chinatown seems to have been spared a major outbreak. As of June 27, there had only been 14 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the neighborhood of more than 14,000, according to DataSF, and "less than 10" deaths. (A spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Public Health said it does not track deaths by neighborhood.)

Still, community organizers said bilingual health education is a critical tool. Joyce Lam, political director for Chinese Progressive Association, a community-based organization that works with low-income and working-class Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, said she and her family saw some of the KTSF segments and found them helpful. Because the Chinese community relies heavily on traditional media  TV, radio and newspaper  she said the spots had a wide reach, especially once the Bay Area's shelter-in-place order began and people were staying at home, watching more television and no longer getting information through word of mouth at work or social events.

The segments also helped to counteract some of the misinformation that has been circulating on social media and the Chinese messaging platform WeChat, she said.

"Especially for us working as a community-based organization, as we're navigating the crisis, for us to have a solid source that we can say, 'Hey, I know you've been seeing a bunch of other things on WeChat, but maybe you shouldn't listen to that. Here's a doctor,' has also been very helpful,'" Lam said, noting that including a robust social media component could extend the health education program's reach even more.

For Lau, the nature of COVID-19 makes prevention even more important. Unlike other diseases, there's no vaccine, not enough tests and no good treatment  so prevention is the only effective way to deal with it, she said. Knowledge is the first step.

"The control of this pandemic is really with every one of us," she said.

Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Three weeks ago, French philosopher Michel Onfray announced the creation of Front Populaire, a political magazine whose objective, in the words of its founder, is to bring together anti-EU sovereignists from the left, the right, the centre, nowhere and everywhere. This simple mission statement is more controversial than it may appear. In France, sovereignism is a word that has acquired a slew of negative connotations. Since it refers to an aspiration to preserve and defend the independence of nation-states, the term should not frighten anyone but the most ardent cosmopolitans. And yet, its proponents often find themselves portrayed as demagogues, as populists, as pseudo-charismatic leaders who channel the infernal passions of the unintellectual populace.

Onfray is no exception. Since Front Populaires inception, major French newspapers such as Le Monde have accused the philosopher of flirting with the alt-right, galvanizing identitarianism, and flattering reactionaries darkest instincts. Journalist Jean-Luc Mano went as far as to call Onfray a rouge-brun, a derogatory term traditionally used to describe the dreadful combination of fascist and Communist ideals. Interestingly, Manos remarks were written before the publication of Front Populaires first issue, which means that without deigning to read a single article, Le Mondes journalists knew a priori that an anti-EU publication could not be anything but the calamitous enterprise of myopic chauvinists.

Yet Onfray is far from an obdurate arch-conservative. In more than a hundred books, the philosopher has successively satirized the Catholic Church, praised the virtue of hedonism, defended Pierre-Joseph Proudhons anarchist politics, and even written an enthusiastic treatise on libertine sexuality. An avid admirer of Albert Camus, Onfray is a self-described left-winger and libertarian socialist. He does not, lets say, fit the profile of an alt-right cult-leader.

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In fact, far from posing a threat to Frances political order, Front Populaire represents the culmination of a strange alliance that started with the birth of the fifth French Republic. In the aftermath of World War II, Charles de Gaulle united conservative and Communist members of the Resistance to form a government that would uphold national sovereignty, limit foreign interference, and celebrate French culture after four years of German occupation. A similar coalition resurrected itself in 1992 with the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, the treaty many view as having marked the beginning of European federalism. Then, a surreal partnership between convinced socialists such as Jean-Pierre Chevenement and conservative leaders such as Philippe Seguin emerged. Despite their colossal ideological differences, the two men shared the stage to fight against what they perceived to be the end of France as a nation-state.

But the most important date in the history of this peculiar alliance is May 29, 2005. On that day, and against all odds, the French people voted against the ratification of the Treaty of Rome, which extended the powers that Maastricht had already delegated to transnational European institutions. For the first time, the cause of national sovereignty had united a majority of voters, ranging from disillusioned Communists to committed nationalists. Naturally, the French government did not respect the popular vote; two years later, a repackaged version of the Treaty of Rome was signed by the French president without any form of public consultation. This betrayal of democratic norms has ever since fuelled the determination of anti-EU parties; but never have sovereignist political forces been able to unite beyond occasional referenda.

The reason for this is a simple one: Apart from their rejection of the EU, French conservatives have had very little in common with socialists, Communists, and even reactionaries. At least, until now. Onfray claims that the common enemy that is the EU is sufficient to launch a real political movement. American observers may find this development familiar. When future president Ronald Reagan and Republican fusionists built an anti-Soviet coalition in the 1960s, they brought together a panoply of libertarians and traditionalists who did not share much philosophically. What did unite them, however, was a threat so immense as to dwarf their differences. Naturally, Onfray by no means implies that the EU is somehow analogous to the U.S.S.R. But he does argue that the circumstances may be similar enough for a new kind of fusionism to arise.

The present response to the coronavirus provides an excellent case-study for Onfrays analysis. Ostensibly, a global epidemic seems like the ideal time for international partnerships and organizations to exercise power and influence. But this is simply not what has happened. Since the WHO has no enforcement mechanism, its advisory guidelines have been virtually ignored. Meanwhile, EU member-states that rely on imports for basic necessities and elementary medical supplies have found themselves powerless after the German government, which controls a large proportion of the regions medical equipment, announced that production would first meet the needs of the German public before starting to support others.

The consequence: That France joined the ranks of the helpless. As Norimitsu Onishi and Constant Meheut have observed in the New York Times, international outsourcing has left [France] scrambling for masks, tests and even pain pills. Thus, the paradox: Precisely when France needed the EU to enforce transnational solidarity and defend free trade, the institution fell silent and European governance appeared analogous to an orchestra whose performances are immaculate in rehearsal, but horrendous on opening night.

For Onfray, national sovereignty is not a political project so much as it is a prerequisite for all politics. France has not suffered during COVID-19 because of the choices that were made by its government. France has suffered from COVID-19 because its government simply could not make any real choices, because its authority has been gradually usurped. This dire state of affairs, Onfray believes, augurs the founding of his long-awaited anti-EU coalition. As he puts it in Front Populaires inaugural issue, sovereignists need not agree on political solutions so long as they agree that we should be the ones to decide what these solutions ought to be.

Onfray applies this simple formula to every aspect of policy-making. Economically, he argues, France needs to relocate its production of necessities, medical supplies, and technology. Internationally, France should distance itself from NATO and regain the independence it enjoyed under the iron hand of de Gaulle. Politically, France ought to liberate itself from the anti-democratic grip of the EU and make a more extensive use of referenda. For the French philosopher, these three principles are enough, and he may not be the only one to think as much. Given that Front Populaire has raised an unprecedented one million euros from small donor contributions in less than two weeks, Onfrays burgeoning movement has evidently proven attractive to many who think that anti-EU fusionism represents the future of French politics.

The impact of Onfrays initiative could extend well beyond Frances borders. All across Europe, anti-EU parties have historically struggled to come to power despite the popularity of their ideas. The cause of this failure is twofold.

First, while anti-EU political forces have not yet showcased an ability to build alliances bridging ideological divides, Europhiles have always managed to form coalitions when needed  be it before or after elections. In Germany, for example, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has been allied with the liberal Social Democrats (SPD) for several years, and this asymmetry has prevented isolated anti-EU parties from even attempting to get a parliamentary majority.

Second, a lot of anti-EU parties are led by controversial figures. In France, for instance, a 2018 poll showed that while a third of French voters agree with Marine Le Pens ideas, only 15 percent stand ready to cast a ballot for her or her party. Like other nationalist parties, Le Pens Front National suffers from its more than problematic history. Le Pens father, who created the party, helped one of the perpetrators of a terrorist attack against Charles de Gaulle run away in 1963. He was also repeatedly condemned by Parisian courts for inciting racial hatred and calling the Holocaust an insignificant detail in the history of World War II. With this kind of troubled past, traditional anti-EU parties lack the necessary legitimacy and respect to convince large portions of the electorate.

In theory, Onfrays initiative addresses both these issues. Not only does it bring sovereignists together, but it also distances concerns for national independence from the toxic image of extremists. Unlike Le Pen and others, Onfray and his allies  who range from former socialist minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement to economist Idriss Aberkane  benefit from their intellectual repute and untroubled past. If more coalitions of this kind emerge, anti-EU fusionism might well reshape European politics  possibly forever.

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Chinese warships and coastguard vessels are in the waters around the Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. For some analysts, Beijing wants to demonstrate its strength by showing they can land and seize islands in the area. Two US aircraft carriers are currently in the Philippine Sea. Australia is boosting its military budget to meet Chinas challenge.

Beijing (AsiaNews)  China began military exercises yesterday around the Paracel islands, South China Sea. The wargames are expected to last until Sunday. Satellite imagery shows that Navy ships and coastguard vessels are involved.

China claims almost 90 per cent of the South China Sea. To this end, it has occupied and militarised a number of coral atolls and reefs, sparking protests from Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and Indonesia.

On 27 June, ASEAN[i] leaders distanced themselves from China, reiterating the importance of freedom of navigation and overflight in the region.

In a clear reference to Chinese actions, they expressed concern about the land reclamations, recent developments, activities and serious incidents" in the disputed waters.

In its reply, Beijing said it was willing to resume negotiations to define a code of conduct in the South China Sea, but did not indicate any specific date.

However, it is using wargames and military drills to show off its strength to others to assert its sovereignty over the area.

For some analysts, the military drills around the Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, include amphibious landing to show Chinas capabilities to seize and control islands in the area.

According to some press reports, the Chinese Navy is planning a second exercise in August near the Pratas Islands, which are controlled by Taiwan. To boost the defence of these atolls, currently manned by Taiwanese coastguard units, Taiwans Ministry of National Defence sent a detachment of marines.

In a show of support for Taiwan and ASEAN countries involved in territorial disputes with China, the United States has deployed two aircraft carriers with respective combat groups in the Philippine Sea.

The US Navy regularly carries out missions to assert freedom of navigation in the China seas and the Taiwan Strait.

Australia is equally concerned by Chinas geopolitical activism in the Indo-Pacific region. In light of the situation, the Australian government announced that it would spend US$ 186 billion on its military in the next decade, a 40 per cent increase over the previous period. This includes the purchase of long-range anti-ship missile systems from the United States.

[i] Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The United States will mark July 4  our Independence Day  against a backdrop of crisis. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its assault on our nation and our world, we have embarked on a national reckoning on racial equity following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and all of the Black people who have died unjustly in our country.

We believe that reckoning could benefit from the nuanced principles laid out in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence. The document, which makes the original case for the founding of our republic, holds that all Americans are equal and entitled to the rights of liberty.

We believe the United States has not always lived up to this creed  in both intention and action  to fully embrace the notions of universal equality and liberty the Declaration so eloquently embodies. The time has come to finally address these failures.

As our country moves forward toward our November general election, we further believe the Declaration provides guidance to our national conversation and that "certain facts that [can be] submitted to a candid world" about the leadership of President Donald Trump. Using the language penned by the signers to outline their desires to separate from King George III, we offer some interpretations through the annotations outlined below.

In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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.  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

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Signing of the Declaration of Independence

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

A woman cries as she joins protesters at Union Square in Manhattan on Saturday, May 30, 2020. Several thousand people rallied and marched through lower Manhattan to protest the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis earlier in the week.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

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For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

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He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

GEORGIA

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

NORTH CAROLINA

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

SOUTH CAROLINA

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

MASSACHUSETTS

John Hancock

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

MARYLAND

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

VIRGINIA

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

PENNSYLVANIA

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

DELAWARE

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

NEW YORK

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

NEW JERSEY

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Matthew Thornton

RHODE ISLAND

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

CONNECTICUT

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: In wake of Black lives matter, U.S. should live up to founding promise
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaros latest education minister reportedly offered his resignation Tuesday just days after his appointment, creating a new headache for the embattled leader as he struggles to start a new chapter at the ministry and shore up flagging support.

Economist Carlos Alberto Decotelli, facing a slew of allegations that he embellished his academic credentials, tendered his resignation in the afternoon, Brazilian media said, including a report in the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo citing Decotelli himself. The press offices of Brazils presidency and education ministry didnt respond to The Associated Press requests to comment on whether Bolsonaro accepted.

But late Monday, Bolsonaro said in a Facebook posting: Due to curricular inadequacies the professor (Decotelli) is facing all kinds of delegitimization."

The president announced on social media Thursday that Decotelli would take over the education ministry, and Bolsonaro highlighted degrees the professor had from universities in Brazil and abroad. Soon enough, three of those institutions began disavowing the achievements of Decotelli, who was yet to be sworn in.

In the most recent case, the Getulio Vargas Foundation said Tuesday the would-be minister was neither a researcher nor a professor at the Brazilian university as had been reflected in Decotelli's resume shared by the government. Rather, he had acted as a collaborating professor in post-graduate courses, the school said in a statement.

The professor acted only in courses of continued education, in programs for executive development and not as a professor in any of the FGV's schools, the statement said.

Decotelli also had included on his resume a doctorate from the University of Rosario in Argentina, but the rector of that institution said on Twitter last week that he hadnt finished his studies.

The nominee also claimed a post-doctoral degree from the University of Wuppertal in Germany. Local television network Globo cited a statement from the university saying Decotelli obtained no such degree.

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Decotelli's claimed credentials and abrupt resignation create discomfort for Bolsonaro as he seeks to ease tensions with other government branches and reverse rising disapproval numbers prompted by the spiraling COVID-19 pandemic.

The president took office in 2019 with promises to appoint ministers with technical expertise rather than dole out positions to curry political favor. Opponents have railed on the education ministry for shortcomings in that regard, with the first minister fired after four months and the second minister frequently criticized for focusing more on waging culture wars than coordinating educational policy.

Decotelli had been slated to become Bolsonaro's first Black minister, replacing Abraham Weintraub, who is one of the targets of an investigation into a network of people that allegedly spreads defamatory and threatening social media posts about Supreme Court justices. Weintraub in a Cabinet meeting on April 22 called the members of the top court bums and said he supported jailing them, according to video of the meeting released last month.

The Supreme Court voted June 17 to keep Weintraub under investigation and days later he resigned his Cabinet post and traveled to the U.S., where the Brazilian government intends for him to assume a position at the World Bank.

Bolsonaro last week met with potential candidates to helm the education ministry, which commands one of the largest ministerial budgets.
Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, said a Brexit agreement was still possible, despite serious divergences with the UK. (Daina Le Lardic/Getty Images)

There are still serious divergences between the UK and the EU over Brexit, the EUs chief negotiator said on Thursday.

Michel Barnier warned that the EU expected to be better understood and respected by the UK if a Brexit agreement was to be struck between the two sides.

The statement from the blocs negotiator follows the latest round of trade talks with his UK counterpart, David Frost.

Both sides had been hoping to break the deadlock that has stymied discussions so far.

Our goal was to get negotiations successfully and quickly on a trajectory to reach an agreement. However, after four days of discussions, serious divergences remain, Barnier said.

This week also marked the beginning of five weeks of intensified talks with the bloc.

Little progress had been made in the previous five rounds of trade negotiations.

READ MORE: Brexit deal and coronavirus recovery dominate Germany's EU presidency

Prime minister Boris Johnson and his EU counterpart Ursula von der Leyen held a high-level meeting in June, aimed at establishing common ground to break the deadlock.

Barnier said on Thursday that, following that meeting, the EU sought to inject new dynamics in the talks.

The EU side had listened carefully to UK prime minister Boris Johnson's statements in recent weeks, in particular, his request to reach a political agreement quickly, and his red lines, he said.

The EU engaged constructively, as we had already done during the fourth round of negotiations in June.

But Barnier warned that the EU will continue to insist on parallel progress during the talks, and said it needed equivalent engagement from the United Kingdom.

Frost said on Twitter ahead of the talks that he hoped to make genuine and rapid progress towards an agreement.

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However, he cautioned that UK sovereignty over its laws, courts, and fishing waters was not up for discussion.

Both sides have only until the end of December 2020 to agree a trade deal, a timetable experts say is almost unheard of.

Tuesday marked the deadline for the agreement of any extension to the negotiating timetable, meaning that, unless a deal is agreed, the UK will crash out of the transition period without a trade accord.
Some 60 countries have recognised the opposition leader as Venezuela's official president - Reuters

Britain has recognised Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's president, the English High Court has ruled, in a case over whether Mr Guaido or Nicolas Maduro should control $1 billion of its gold stored in London.

The case was brought by the Banco Central de Venezuela to release $1 billion of gold reserves to help fund the cash-strapped country's response to the coronavirus outbreak.

The Bank of England said it was unable to act on instructions because it was "caught in the middle" of competing claims for the presidency after disputed elections in 2018.

A BCV board appointed by the government of Nicolas Maduro wants the gold released while a rival ad hoc board appointed by Mr Guaido asked for the release to be denied.

Commercial Court judge Nigel Teare, sitting at the High Court of England and Wales, was asked to rule on who was authorised to make the demand - Mr Guaido or Mr Maduro.

In his judgement, he said: "Her Majesty's Government does recognise Mr Guaido in the capacity of constitutional interim president of Venezuela and, it must follow, does not recognise Mr Maduro as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela."

Mr Teare added that it was impossible to recognise both men as president.

Mr Guaido has refused to accept the results of the 2018 elections, calling them flawed, and insists that he is interim president pending a fresh vote.

Some 60 countries have since recognised him as Venezuela's true leader, including the United States, which has imposed sanctions on Maduro and his inner circle.

Mr Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez after his death in 2013. He has ruled with an iron first but presided over the economic collapse of the oil-rich country.

Andrew Fulton, representing the Guaido board of the BCV, said the British Government has decided to recognise Juan Guaido as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela and has denounced the 'illegitimate, kleptocratic Maduro regime'.

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Sarosh Zaiwalla, representing the Maduro-appointed BCV, said his clients would apply for an appeal.

They considered the judgement "entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground," MR Zaiwalla said.

"Mr Maduro's government is in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions, and only it can ensure the distribution of the humanitarian relief and medical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic," he said.

He added: "This outcome will now delay matters further, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people, whose lives are at risk."
BEIJING, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Second Security and Privacy Summit, hosted by BSI, was held successfully on June 30 with AR livestream technology in China, breaking the limits of geography and establishing connections between China and U.K. 20 speakers from government, academics and enterprises were invited, covering the areas of 5G, AI, big data centers, the industrial Internet, intelligent health and breaking geographical restrictions. The Summit utilized innovative AR technology to live stream the sharing of how to achieve the transition from "Security" to "Trust" for organizations in the post-epidemic era.

To start, Mr. Pietro Foschi, BSI Group Assurance Director, and Mr. Harold Pradal, BSI Commercial Director, remotely delivered opening speeches from the United Kingdom on behalf of the BSI Group to the Summit. As a member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), BSI was the world's first national certified body in the world, and it leveraged standards to empower organizations to achieve organization resilience. Nine of the ten most widely used standards in the world, such as ISO 9001, and ISO 45001, were originated from the British BS standards, in which BSI was engaged.

Under the Internet era , Privacy and Security has also become an important topic for all organizations and individuals to pay attention to. That's why BSI concentrated on leading the development of this field in recent years. BSI's purpose is to "inspire trust and build a more resilient world ", representing our organization's mission to use standard practices and applications to help more enterprises, achieve organizational resilience, and jointly build a resilient world.

Mr. Zhang Ming, BSI Greater China Managing Director, followed to deliver the welcoming speech. With the successful BSI first Privacy and Security Summit in Beijing in November 2019, which successfully attracted more than 300 enterprises to participant in, we started to plan the Summit in the post-epidemic era, consistent with the characteristics of the fast growing internet. We expect to work with leading enterprises in various industries to focus on the Privacy and Security in 2020 and beyond. In the past two years, BSI China has provided certification services for leading enterprises in many industries, including ISO 27001, ISO/IEC 27701 and so on. In the future, we will continue to look forward to the partnership with more industry organizations and enterprises to create a Trustworthy world together.

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Martin Zhang, BSI Greater China, Managing Director

Mr. Tom Simpson, Managing Director of China Britain Business Council, and Ms. Michelle Chen, Representative of ISACA, also delivered speeches at the event.

Privacy Protection and Information Security

The Summit invited a number of internal and external privacy experts to share their fantastic presentation online. Mr. Willibert Fabritius, VP of BSI group and global product leader of ISO/IEC 27701, presented a keynote speech on Privacy in the new normal ISO/IEC 27701. In an increasingly complicated world, he presented, organizations faced an increasing responsibility to protect their reputation, ensure information security, ensure sustainable development and improve quality, ensure business continuity, prepare for change and contingencies, and protect privacy.

ISO/IEC 27701 provides an internationally recognized framework applicable to the establishment of privacy management systems and provides a set of requirements and guidelines for organizations, privacy protection under the new normal, requiring organizations to pay more attention to privacy than ever before.

BSI Chinese ICT Head, Dr. Wan Xin also delivered a speech that the physical and spatial isolation brought by the epidemic has enhanced the Internet-based network connection between people in the post-epidemic era. How to achieve security and credibility has been particularly important. When software defines everything, software engineering security is the foundation of all security, while ISO/IEC 27034 focuses on application system security, a way to build software development security organizational capabilities, and how to apply it to the project level.

Meanwhile, expert representatives from the corporate side also shared their best business practice. Huawei senior privacy expert Xiao Zhaoluan, a senior privacy expert at terminal cloud services, delivered a keynote speech on HMS eco-globalization privacy security governance; and Mr. Gao Ruixin, Head of ZTE's data protection compliance department, brought in "data protection compliance 2. Legal compliance to trust co-construction ", introduced the operation experience of enterprise data protection; Hangzhou e-sign CTO Mr. Liu HaiPing shared the security technology architecture of sign treasure to the application of AI technology, implementation ISO/IEC 27001,ISO/IEC 27701 and so on to help electronic sign can bring data security, ensure user trust.

Block Chain and Data Governance

Mr. Zhang Shaohua , Shanghai Computer Software Technology Development Center, Director delivered speech on Block Chain to Build Digital Trust  "new infrastructure of Digital Economy Era". He mentioned on combining blockchain technology features and digital trust features, the essence of the Internet is sharing, interaction, virtual, service, and "Internet" or digital economy behind the essence is "data flow ", data in the enterprise, people, equipment between the three generated free flow. "Trust" is still the basis for mobility. Blockchain has become an important tool to build digital trust at present. It can make trusted connections to multiple subjects, record the flow of data between parties, enhance trust in digital society, and has played an important role in finance, supply chain and other fields.

Mr. Bill Roscoe, Oxford University Professor, former Oxford University blockchain research center Director, also delivered speech about Penetrating Supervision and the Blockchain Standard Family. He presented that the unique technical advantages of the blockchain could help to eliminate disputes through a system-experienced sequence of states and complete logs. Standards, regulation, and the benefits they bring to society are essential to help promote public, scientific, and engineering awareness.

Mr. Bill Roscoe, Oxford University Professor, former Oxford University blockchain research center Director, also delivered a speech about Penetrating Supervision and the Blockchain Standard Family.

Mr. Wang GuangSheng, DAMA China Chairman, then shared on Digital Transformation and Data Governance and Data Standards, briefing introducing the background of digitization, the difficulties and pain points of digital transformation, management and DAMA data management knowledge system and data standards.

As a medical and health industry enterprise with big data, Anjin Biological Asia Pacific CIO Mr. Gu Wei brought a speech on "Zen: Data Protection and Governance in the Medical and Health Industry". Ms. Hu Yi , ShangShang Sign security expert shared how data governance built the foundation of trust in the age of smart signing, describing how to integrate these claims organically in an organization. The ISO 38505-1 standard provides a data governance tool based on the dynamics of the organization, and a digital enterprise with data governance is the organization that users, partners and regulators trust.

Mr. Cai Junlei, the representative of the ISACA, presented best practice of Controlling Risk to Help Transformation and Building Trust, the ISACA is helping Chinese enterprises to transform digitally, providing enterprises with a guide to the digital transformation of Chinese enterprises from the perspective of risk.

Dr. Li Yun, CEO of Guangdong Weichen Information Technology, delivered speech on Trusting Technology for Next Generation Computing Platform of Automotive Electronics and Ma Chen, Head of security operation of Zhongtongji Network, shared content about the construction of data security system in decryption.

BSI China's chief data governance expert Ms. Pan Rong summarized the presentation of each speaker's with the data-related standard family content

First cloud AR certification & strategy signing ceremony

BSI Mr. Zhang Ming, BSI Greater China Managing Director, and Mr. Ji Lifang, Head of BSI RS, awarded certification to 11 companies on the cloud in Shanghai and Shenzhen, including ISO/IEC 27701, ISO 38505, ISO 13485 and MDR CE certification. The company list is as below:

ISO/IEC 27701: Aspiegel Limited, Huawei Services (Hong Kong) Co., Limited, Huawei Software Co., Limited, Huawei Shop, ZTE Co., Ltd., Shanghai Yitu Technology Co., Ltd., Pingan Puhui Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Timevale Information Technology Co., Ltd. Miniso Ltd.;

ISO 38505: Hangzhou BestSign Network Technology Co.,Ltd

ISO 13485 and MDR CE certification: Shenzhen LEPU Intelligent Medical Equipment Co., Ltd.

BSI Certification - BSI Group

About BSI

Our purpose is to inspire trust for a more resilient world. Our solutions and services improve performance and support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. At BSI, our mission is to share knowledge, innovation and best practice to help people and organizations make excellence a habit. This is underpinned by our role as the national standards body and through our prestigious Royal Charter.

For more than a century we have been challenging mediocrity and complacency to help embed excellence into the way people and products work. That means showing businesses how to improve performance, reduce risk and achieve sustainable growth. As a global leader in helping organizations improve, our clients range from high profile brands to small, local companies in 193 countries worldwide.

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By Paresh Dave

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - California regulators sued Cisco Systems Inc on Tuesday, accusing it of discriminating against an Indian-American employee and allowing him to be harassed by two managers because he was from a lower Indian caste than them.

U.S. employment law does not specifically bar caste-based discrimination, but California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing contends in the lawsuit that the Hindu faith's lingering caste system is based on protected classes such as religion.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, does not name the alleged victim. It states he has been a principal engineer at Cisco's San Jose headquarters since October 2015 and that he was born at the bottom of caste hierarchy as a Dalit, once called "untouchables."

Like other large Silicon Valley employers, Cisco's workforce includes thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were born Brahmins or other high castes.

Former Cisco engineering managers Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella also are defendants in the lawsuit, which accuses them of harassment for internally enforcing the caste hierarchy.

Cisco spokeswoman Robyn Blum said the network gear maker followed its process to investigate employee concerns in this case and would "vigorously defend itself" against the lawsuit.

"Cisco is committed to an inclusive workplace for all," she said. "We were fully in compliance with all laws as well as our own policies."

Iyer and Kompella did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately known if the two have retained attorneys.

The civil rights group Equality Labs in a 2018 report cited in the lawsuit found that 67% of Dalits surveyed felt treated unfairly at their U.S. workplaces.

At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states.

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Cisco reassigned and isolated the employee, rejected a raise and opportunities that would have led to one and denied two promotions, according to the lawsuit.

Hindus traditionally grouped people into four major castes based on ancestry, and Dalits in India still struggle with access to education and jobs 65 years after India banned caste-based discrimination.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave Editing by Leslie Adler)
Deputies bring Joseph James DeAngelo into the courtroom in Sacramento on June 29. (Associated Press )

The Golden State Killer is the perfect example of why the death penalty is justified  and why life in prison is preferable.

Especially in California, where a death penalty sentence is practically meaningless.

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr.  also dubbed the Visalia Ransacker, East Area Rapist or Original Night Stalker, depending on the community he terrorized  was among the worst of the worst.

He is the real-life version of Hannibal Lecter, Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert told reporters, referring to the fictitious psychopathic killer in the movie Silence of the Lambs.

Schubert spoke Monday after DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 murders and 13 charges of kidnapping for purposes of robbery during 13 years of horror up and down California.

DeAngelo also admitted to 161 uncharged crimes of rape, attempted murder, robbery, burglary and kidnapping involving 61 victims. There were 42 uncharged rapes. These crimes werent prosecuted because the statutes of limitations had long ago expired.

He was a cruel, intelligent, sadistic serial killer, Schubert said. He is a sociopath. He is a master manipulator.

During the 1970s and 1980s, DeAngelo would break into couples homes at night while they were asleep, force the woman to tie up her husband or boyfriend with shoestrings, then bind the woman. Hed place saucers and cups on the mans back as an alarm system and warn that if he heard them rattle, everyone in the house would be killed.

Hed drag the woman into another room and rape her repeatedly, sometimes witnessed by her children. He threatened to cut the ears off one little girl if she screamed. Meanwhile, he ransacked the house and helped himself to refrigerator snacks.

In the end, DeAngelo would kill the couple anyway by shooting or bludgeoning them  with a pipe wrench or a sprinkler head or a fireplace log.

Whats so frustrating, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer told me, referring to the prosecutors and defendants agreed-upon sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole, is that if anyone is the poster child for the death penalty, its DeAngelo.

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Opponents of capital punishment argue that its administered unfairly and sometimes against people who may be innocent. They also point out that people of color, the poor and those with mental illness are disproportionately executed.

But none of that applies to DeAngelo. Theres no question of his guilt, not just because he confessed, but because DNA linked him to the crimes unequivocally. Moreover, hes white, middle class and college educated  a former policeman fired for shoplifting. DeAngelo had plenty of opportunity.

His life was spared not out of mercy, but because of practicalities.

Prosecutors from six counties decided unanimously not to seek the death penalty for several sound reasons.

Most importantly, they traded an unlikely future execution for DeAngelos agreement to admit committing not only the charged murders and kidnappings, but all the rapes and other crimes that legally couldnt be prosecuted.

That was important for the rape survivors and victims families. Theyll have an opportunity to speak directly to DeAngelo when he is formally sentenced on Aug. 17.

I was going back and forth all day, Spitzer says of Mondays court proceedings in a Cal State Sacramento ballroom, where prosecutors read aloud the horrific details of each crime. Did I make the right decision?

The only reason I agreed was I spoke to all the family members of the four Orange County murder victims and they agreed this was the best thing.

If prosecutors had not agreed to life imprisonment, Spitzer says, DeAngelo never would have admitted to the crimes. The admissions were significant.

That raises another point often argued by supporters of capital punishment: The possibility of the death penalty is needed as leverage to persuade killers not only to plead guilty, but to confess to other unsolved murders they committed and disclose where bodies were left.

Theres another reason for not seeking the death penalty for DeAngelo. At 74 and appearing frail  although some prosecutors believe hes faking frailty  its very doubtful he would have lived long enough to be executed.

It would have taken 10 years to go to trial and the trial would have lasted two years, Spitzer says. Then thered be 20 to 25 years of appeals. ...

Most of the surviving adult victims would probably not be with us anymore. And we were losing witnesses. They were dying.

All those years of legal proceedings would have cost taxpayers many wasted millions and court systems' precious energy and time.

Better to quickly send DeAngelo into the general prison population, where most inmates have cellmates and must work for pennies.

Death row in California can be a relative resort with single cells, personal TVs, generous access to the exercise yard and free legal services.

Of course, California doesnt really have a death penalty. Gov. Gavin Newsom  breaking his campaign promise to enforce capital punishment  declared a moratorium on it shortly after taking office.

Thats despite California voters twice in recent years rejecting efforts to repeal the death penalty. They even voted to expedite it.

The state has executed only 13 murderers since 1978, the last in 2006. Meanwhile, there are 725 killers on death row. Their principal cause of death is old age.

Newsom should summon the courage to ask voters to officially repeal the death penalty and save taxpayers future billions for the special treatment of condemned murderers.

Thankfully, DeAngelos prosecutors made the wise decision to save many millions of tax dollars and years of time  and obtained 187 confessions.

Regardless of the life or death sentence, the depraved DeAngelo will die behind bars.
Photograph: Terray Sylvester/Reuters

I cant breathe. With those words, George Floyd, Manuel Ellis and Elijah McClain each seemed to narrate their own deaths. Their autopsies told a different story. Floyd died of cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual, the report said. An argument could be made that drugs in his system were what killed Ellis, officials said. McClains cause of death was undetermined.

Among the many layers of institutional inequality excavated by a nationwide reckoning with racism in the US is a broken system of how and by whom deaths are investigated. In most states, officials who oversee autopsies are not required to have a medical degree. The departments responsible for investigating suspicious deaths often lack funding and oversight, and work closely with  if not under the supervision of  law enforcement. As a result, many deaths at the hands of police are never reported as such, or are minimized by diagnoses that blame the victims heart disease or mental illness rather than an officers boot or bullet.

Related: Families of Sean Monterrosa and Erik Salgado unite to demand justice after police killings

Last month, a group of physicians and psychiatrists signed a letter condemning the system wherein autopsy reports are manipulated to bury police violence.

Black people are suffocating under the weight of anti-Black hatred. They cannot breathe, their message, published in Scientific American, reads. And even as they gasp for air, structural gaslighting operates to deny the truths of the causes of their suffocation.

Inconsistencies and conflicts of interest

In the US, death investigations arent necessarily overseen by qualified professionals.

The process  a crucial element in the US criminal justice system  is regulated by a patchwork of often confounding, quirky rules and norms. While death inquiries in some communities are directed by medical examiners with medical degrees and board certification, most are overseen by coroners, who dont necessarily have specialized training.

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Only four states  Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota and Ohio  require their coroners to be physicians, and only 16 states have laws specifying training requirements for the function.

In some communities the job is an elected position. In many it is directly tied to the sheriffs department. In the state of Georgia, the mayor of any town with 5,000 or fewer residents is officially authorized to also serve as the coroner  and vice versa. Many county coroners in the state are funeral home directors and the position often allows morticians a first crack at selling funeral services to families. Pastors, handymen and plumbers have also been elected to the position.

In Colorado, where coroners are elected in all but one county, the only requirement to run for the office is a high school diploma and US citizenship. Once elected, coroners are expected to take a 40-hour course and obtain a basic-training certification within one year of taking office.

In cases of unnatural deaths, many local governments require autopsies to be performed by trained forensic pathologists. But ultimately its often the coroner  and not the pathologist  who decides whether to sign off on the final death reports.

That has been a consistent issue in most California counties, where the chief coroner and sheriff are one and the same. In 2017, two medical examiners employed by San Joaquin county in California resigned, alleging that the sheriff-coroner Steve Moore pressured them to change their autopsy results for deaths in police custody.

Efforts to fully disentangle death investigators from police in California have failed. A bill to simply keep law enforcement out of pathologists exam rooms when they were investigating deaths in police custody failed, and another to require large California counties to establish an independent medical examiners office was vetoed in 2018.

Theres just real egregious conflicts of interest in investigating officer-related deaths, across the country, said Justin Feldman, an epidemiologist at New York University who studies police violence. That is one reason officer-related deaths are underreported, he said.

In a 2017 study, Feldman and his colleagues found that the Guardians Counted project  which scoured local news reports to count victims of police shootings  was much better at reporting the total number of police-related deaths than the federal database that tallied up what was reported on death certificates. We found that on the certificates, deaths were being reported typically as homicides  but not as police-related homicides, Feldman said.

In cases where victims are choked, beaten or Tasered by law enforcement, investigators have even more leeway in how they might characterize the cause of death. Often, these deaths are described a result of excited delirium  a controversial diagnosis that is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association or the World Health Organization. People with excited delirium are said to gain superhuman strength and become aggressive under the influence of drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. When they interact with law enforcement, they are said to struggle and collapse, essentially killing themselves.

Even if its describing a real phenomenon, the term is often overused in certain types of cases to downplay the responsibility of police, Feldman said. When theres any ambiguity, a medical examiner or coroner concert can just round it up to: no one is responsible, or its delirium, or maybe its a combination of factors. Even when these cases are categorized as homicides, they are rarely listed as law-enforcement-related. In that way, the George Floyd autopsy is an anomaly, he said.

Misleading medical jargon

The Hennepin county medical examiners autopsy of George Floyd listed the cause of death as cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.

Cardiopulmonary arrest just means death, said Dr Roger Mitchell, the chief medical examiner of Washington DC. It means his heart stopped beating  thats a very technical way of saying it  due to neck compression.

The odd, passive phrasing, implying that the death complicated actions taken by law enforcement, though technically accurate, is completely damaging, said Dr Jennifer Tsai, an emergency medicine physician at Yale who co-authored the letter condemning the autopsy system.

Moreover, Floyds autopsy listed several underlying health conditions, including heart disease and hypertension, and included a toxicology report that found levels of cannabinoids, amphetamines, and fentanyl/metabolites in his system  even though none of those factors appear to have caused his death.

A child runs past a mural at the George Floyd memorial outside Cup Foods in Minneapolis. Photograph: Leila Navidi/AP

Although the county autopsy ultimately squared with what a private investigation commissioned by Floyds family found  that his death was a homicide  the examiners report was extrapolated from in the charging document for the former officer Derek Chauvin to assert that underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.

Related: 'He was inspired by everything': friends and family pay tribute to Elijah McClain

Even if the practice of including medical information that isnt directly relevant is common practice, Tsai said, theres character assassination in this process in describing the medical facts. Medical reports often bolster narratives that the Black and Brown victims of police violence are large and threatening, and somehow also fragile, in such poor health that the slightest touch could kill them, she added.

The death investigations that followed three high-profile police killings in 2014 illustrate her point. The autopsy of Alex Nieto, whom San Francisco officers shot at more than 40 times, reported traces of cannabinoids in the young mans system and came attached to years-old medical records revealing Nietos history of mental health struggles. That year, a toxicology report that accompanied the autopsy of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot by St Louis police, noted that Brown had marijuana in his body when he was killed. And although the medical examiner who performed the autopsy of Eric Garner, who died after a New York officer held him in a chokehold, testified that the officers use of force killed Garner, the officers lawyers fixated on Garners asthma, enlarged heart, hypertension and obesity. Eventually, the examiner agreed that even a bear hug could have killed the 43-year-old man.

This is a pattern we see over and over again, Tsai said.

Mitchell and three other board-certified medical examiners told the Guardian that while the Hennepin county report on Floyd was technically accurate, they wouldnt have written it up the same way. We need to be clear what were emphasizing in the diagnosis, and that emphasis should be intentional, Mitchell said. From what the world has seen, we know that George Floyds intoxication, or George Floyds heart condition, played absolutely no part in his death.
Today, C Media is expanding into AI & Automation tools to help other advertisers drastically scale and reduce redundancies.

CEO of C Media, Arham Muhammad was dissecting electronics at the age of 7, learned cybersecurity at 13, and started his own 9-figure international digital advertising company at only 20.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- C Media; the leading digital and advertising powerhouse it is today rose from Arham Muhammad's boyhood passion for electronics to founding an international digital advertising dynamo. As of today C Media continually reaches 9-figures in revenue. The company is now planning and developing ground-breaking new and disruptive artificial intelligence and automation tools.

Arham Muhammad

The growth of C Media can be primarily contributed to the fact the its CEO Arham Muhammad has been captivated by electronics, cyber-security, cyber forensics, reverse engineering and AI from the early days of his growth.

Arham Muhammad says, "I remember disassembling electronics. Discovering the inner working of a particular device was a great pastime." "Then, between 12 and 15, I became increasingly interested in cybersecurity, cyber forensics, and reverse engineering."

They tested weaknesses in websites of some of the largest companies, such as Microsoft, Sony, and EA, to name a few.

C Media was created when Arham was only 20, and focused on digital advertising and reach, which were on the rise in 2012. C Media's revenue generating model was based on working with celebrities and public figures to help them grow and diversify their reach. With a science background from his unfinished schooling, Arham had no sales experience or knowledge of the industry at the time. This luckily did not let this discourage him. Arham started off C Media by sending out cold emails and making cold calls to find clients for his new business. "I learned that you don't have to be skilled at everything, just willing to put in hard work," said Arham. "You need real courage to surmount challenges, and when you have nothing to lose, courage is all you really have."

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This resilience brought C Media enough financial success, as the business began netting $20k - $30k daily. When revenue came in over $100k a day, C Media and Arham Muhammad could have slowed down, but knowing that C Media as a business had more potential, they kept going. Continued scaling and growth ensured C Media turned into an international digital advertising dynamo with a 9-figure revenue, and some of the biggest A-list celebrities and public figures as clients.

"I never thought I would be a multi-millionaire by the age of 24, which I'm still proud of today," noted Arham.

By 2016, he had built up not only C Media but many other ventures too. While they were not all successful, C Media continued to grow, learning from them and even enjoying the failures, " though that might sound cliche," commented Arham.

Currently, C Media has branched out into automating the direct-response advertising aspect of his businesses, as well as the planning and development of new automation tools and artificial intelligence, which Arham Muhammad believes is the next ground-breaking development in the digital industry. These new automation and AI tools will be released in the near future to other budding advertisers and marketing gurus. "Advertisers are faced daily with redundant activities that can greatly be reduced with AI and automation so that they can focus more on what matters. Getting those sales in and reaching their target market," said Arham.

"I was just a nobody from Pakistan, completely broke at one point in my life and stuck in a cycle of despair and destitution, but as the saying goes, the harder you work the luckier you get," finished Arham. Coming from 20- to 22-hour working days to 9-figure monthly revenue, his work ethic has been the driving force to C Media's success.

To learn more about C Media and upcoming disruptive AI and automation tools for your advertising business, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/arham-muhammad/

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Congress is cracking down on Chinese espionage taking place throughout the U.S. scientific community by requiring researchers to disclose foreign funding sources in federal grant applications.

The U.S. House Armed Services Committee has passed two of Representative Michael Waltzs (R-Florida) amendments to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act to protect federally-funded research from Chinese espionage.

The United States faces the greatest adversary we have ever known in China, Waltz said in a written statement. For years, the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our colleges and universities, using them to steal sensitive scientific research and information. America can no longer be a safe harbor for blatant espionage and intellectual property theftand Im glad this is a bipartisan concern across the Armed Services Committee.

Waltzs amendments also enhance enforcement authorities for federal agencies and require the U.S. Secretary of Defense to develop and maintain a list of foreign talent recruitment programs posing a threat to national security. This development comes at a time when Congress is already moving quickly to massively uptick the U.S. military presence in the Pacific. The ranking member of HASC, Representative Mac Thornberry, is spearheading a specific legislative proposal to add as much as $6 billion to the 2021 defense budget to increase the U.S. military footprint in the region.

Chinas cyber espionage, for example, has been well known and documented for years; a 2010 Defense Science Board report specifically cites instances of Chinese theft of U.S. military weapons specifications. Much of this concern comes at a time when Pentagon weapons developers are working quickly to address emerging Chinese military threats in certain technical areas, such as hypersonics, anti-satellite weapons, AI and quantum mechanics.

Chinas foreign talent recruitment program, commonly referred to as the Thousand Talents Program, incentivizes Chinese nationals to gain access to American research and transmit it back to the Chinese government, Waltzs statement added.

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Kris Osborn is the new Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the ArmyAcquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters

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The Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 99th anniversary on Wednesday by saying its success in containing Covid-19 proved its superiority and that of the country's socialist system.

People's Daily, the party's official mouthpiece, said in an editorial: "This great struggle has fully demonstrated the clear political excellence of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and our socialist system.

"Under the resolute leadership of the party central with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, China has fought a sound people's war ... the Chinese people united together to fight the pandemic, made heavy sacrifices, and achieved great strategic results."

The disease, which first emerged in Wuhan in December, has now infected over 10 million people and killed more than 500,000 worldwide.

Separately, Xi, the general secretary of the Communist Party, wrote to volunteers at Shanghai Fudan University urging them to help fulfil the party's mission.

He was referring to the "two centenary goals" " turning China into a "comprehensively well-off society" by the end of this year and a "powerful socialist country" by 2050.

Xi also presided over a study session with Politburo members on Tuesday emphasising the importance of the party's organisational work and learning from history.

Founded on July 1, 1921, the Chinese Communist Party now has 91.9 million members " making it one of the biggest political parties in the world.

Xi Jinping urged members to stay true to the party's mission. Photo: Xinhua alt=Xi Jinping urged members to stay true to the party's mission. Photo: Xinhua

"The CCP is probably the only political party in the world now that still combines Marxist doctrine and Leninist-style organisation," said Zheng Yongnian, professor of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. "That's the key to explaining its power to get things done."

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Zheng also said that Xi's emphasis on delivering the centenary goals was because "the legitimacy of the CCP rule lies in these missions".

He continued "It is what the party has promised the Chinese people, and it is the party's responsibility to deliver. That is very different from the West where parties can take turns to rule."

Xi's call on party members to stay true to the party's principles came at a time when China and the US have clashed over a wide range of issues from security to trade and Hong Kong.

Tian Feilong, an associate professor at Beihang University's Law School in Beijing, said Communist Party leaders were convinced that the continued spread of Covid-19 in the US and Washington's strained relationship with its allies meant that now was "perhaps the weakest moment of US global influence".

"This gives Beijing the confidence to live with the pain [caused by threatened US sanctions on officials], focus on its own priorities and it will prevail in the end," Tian said.

A Beijing-based political analyst who requested anonymity agreed that pressure from the US would only stiffen Chinese leaders' resolve.

"Some people who have liberal views may complain about the loss of [personal] freedom, but the success in containing Covid-19 has boosted the Communist Party's confidence and garnered greater people's support for the party," he said.

"Beijing has made great efforts to study the collapse of the Soviet Union and the key lesson is that besides foreign interference, the union fell apart because the Soviet Communist Party had abandoned its own beliefs.

"So Xi's call on Chinese Communist Party members to stand firm on their beliefs, strengthen the party's organisation and learn from history should be understood in that light."

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
SEOUL, South Korea, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cloud4C, the world's leading cloud Managed Services announced launch of its operations in South Korea. Cloud4C delivers a broad array of services including cloud migration to hyperscalers, hybrid cloud, cloud managed services, IT modernization services, disaster recovery services and managed security services among others. The company serves 60 of the Fortune 500 Global Multinationals and has presence in 25 countries and 50 locations.

Cloud4C, Worlds leading Cloud Managed Services Provider, launched its South Korean Operations

Businesses in South Korea who are looking to embark on digital transformation or IT modernization journey will benefit immensely from Cloud4C service portfolio. Cloud4C is cloud managed services provider with key strategic partnerships with SAP, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, while it brings its own public cloud platform. It has helped SAP launch its SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud across 25 countries and serves world renowned global brands.

Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder and CEO, Cloud4C said, "We are delighted to launch our operations in South Korea which is world's 12th largest economy with a unique geographic position and pursues business-friendly policies with tremendous potential for growth. We plan to enable businesses in South Korea through our wide spectrum of services to help them address their critical business needs through differentiated offerings such as banking community cloud, SAP community cloud, cloud migration services to hyperscale cloud providers and cloud managed services." He further added, "We bring to South Korea our experience of working with 4,000 enterprises from across the world to help CIOs embark on their digital transformation and help them achieve their technology and business goals. We plan to partner with South Korean CIOs to help them play a larger role in evolving their IT strategies and establish digital Leadership."

Cloud4C plans to set up Cloud4C Academy in South Korea in partnership with the Government and leading IT Universities to train and nurture local talents with adequate industry exposure. "We aim to train the youth in South Korea and prepare them for a bright future in cloud computing to help them gain employment and eventually assume leadership roles in the industry," said Sridhar Pinnapureddy.

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The company has recently appointed Peter Seo, Country Head and Vice President, he will be based out of Seoul and provide leadership and growth direction to the organization.

Peter Seo said, "Leveraging the existing alliances as Premium Supplier of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, we aim to be the number one SAP partner in the region. As an Azure Expert MSP, Advanced Consulting partner of AWS, Managed services partner of GCP and OCI, we have the groundwork to build a collaborative ecosystem to deliver stellar business outcomes for organization in South Korea, China and Japan looking to modernize their IT environment."

About Cloud4C

Cloud4C is the World's leading Cloud Managed Services Provider serving 4,000 customers in 25 Countries and 50 locations including 60 of the Fortune 500 Global Multinationals. The company provides cloud (public, private, hybrid) and community cloud services (Banking Community Cloud, SAP Community Cloud), cloud migration on hyperscalers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, end to end cloud managed services, disaster recovery services, managed security services.

The company plans to expand its geographical footprint to 80 countries and 160 locations worldwide in the next 36 to 48 months.

www.cloud4c.com

Media Contact:

B.S.Rao

Vice President and Global Head (PR and Communications)

bsrao@cloud4c.com

Cloud4C Logo (PRNewsfoto/Cloud4C)

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Protesters carry a "Black Lives Matter" banner as they march through downtown Seattle in November. (Matt Mills McKnight / European Pressphoto Agency)

This sudden deluge of "woke-ness" flooding the country is disorienting.

Unarmed Black men have been beaten and killed by police for decades. There were protests, unrest and Black people grieving  mostly alone and generally ignored.

Now suddenly there are huge multiracial crowds standing with us, protesting the death of an ordinary Black man dragged into martyrdom by the weight of a policemans knee on his neck.

Its as if the world has suddenly snapped into focus for people whod been blinded by privilege to Black peoples daily realities.

The death of George Floyd has generated outrage in places that never seemed to care before, energizing a social justice movement in ways that feel revolutionary.

Ive seen Black Lives Matters signs in places where I rarely see Black people: Theres a giant banner hanging from the Glendale animal hospital where I take my dogs, handmade posters taped to the windows of an upscale cupcake shop in Granada Hills and a placard lodged in the front lawn of the grandest house in my suburban neighborhood.

The speed and degree of this evolution both delight and puzzle me. Im heartened but still heartsick, encouraged but unconvinced.

Im glad that books about antiracism have zoomed to the top of bestseller lists, but I wonder how many will actually be read.

Im glad that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has taken a knee, but thats hardly recompense for the years his company spent discriminating against Black clients and employees.

Im glad that Walmart is unlocking its displays of Black hair products; does that mean they no longer presume that all of us are thieves?

I would love to believe that we are at an inflection point in our nations journey toward equality. But goodwill gestures are not enough to excise the demons of Americas long racist history.

Im the daughter of Black parents who grew up in the South, under oppressive, humiliating and sometimes deadly Jim Crow rules. Ive lived through too many of what felt like turning points in the last half-century  from We shall overcome through No Justice, No Peace  to feel fully optimistic.

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Now that the exhilaration of protesting has faded, we are already seeing signs of resistance to efforts to remake the culture of policing.

Officers are resigning, refusing to respond to calls or staging sickouts in cities including Atlanta, Buffalo, N.Y., and Minneapolis, as police unions try to undermine demands for basic accountability.

Federal police reform has been stalled by the failure of Republicans and Democrats in Congress to agree on basic elements of what needs fixing.

And our country is in the grip of a malevolent president, whose looming political campaign will try to demonize progressives and protesters as Americas enemies.

Im grateful for new comrades and the passion they bring to this movement, which does have the potential to change our countrys trajectory. But marching in the streets is only the beginning.

To arm ourselves for change, we have to acknowledge the enduring reach of Americas original sin. Our nation has been steeped in racism and white privilege for the last 400 years. Thats a durable affliction, as disturbing and destructive as any pandemic.

I hear the angst in white voices today, wondering, How do we help? and What exactly can we do?

Heres an idea: You can arm yourselves and your children to sustain the energy a revolution requires.

Educate yourself in the ways that institutions  from elected officials to banks and labor unions  have been complicit in propping up pillars of structural racism.

Disabuse your kids of the whitewashed versions of American history theyre apt to learn in school. Only 8% of high school seniors can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War, according to a 2018 survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Our school systems need revolutionizing too.

The Civil War may have ended slavery but it didnt address the underlying assumption that allowed the buying and selling of people like property: that Black people were less than fully human.

Thats been a hard mindset to dislodge. Discrimination in housing, education and employment was sanctioned and supported for a century after the Civil War ended, and not only in the South.

Black children in Boston in 1974 couldnt go to integrated schools without the National Guard to protect them from angry white mobs. Trade unions in the Midwest in the 1960s barred Blacks from joining, locking them out of lucrative jobs.

And here in California, Ronald Reagan was elected governor in 1966 on a platform that promised to protect the right to discriminate against Negroes in the sale and rental of property. It took a wave of urban riots to convince federal officials to adopt a national Fair Housing Act in 1968.

The oppressive culture of policing we see today is an outgrowth of who weve been and the values weve practiced as a nation.

Deaths like George Floyds happen when one group feels entitled to make the rules, set the boundaries and monitor the actions of people below them in the racial hierarchy.

That hierarchy has to be dismantled. And that will require more than scrubbing Aunt Jemima from a box of pancake mix.

@SandyBanksLA
Despite an order requiring masks, some Californians wear them and some don't. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Do we care about stopping this disease or dont we?

Its been more than six weeks since the city of L.A. issued an emergency order requiring Angelenos to wear masks when they leave their homes. The county issued a similar mandate, and two weeks ago Gov. Gavin Newsom followed up with a statewide requirement.

Yet many Angelenos still stubbornly refuse to take this simple, lifesaving step. Meanwhile COVID-19 cases are surging to new heights.

Public officials have been begging and pleading for compliance. Isnt it time they moved to Plan B and enforced the rules?

We've all seen how many people aren't complying. Last week, I walked down Larchmont Boulevard in Hancock Park counting. Most people were wearing masks. But in 10 minutes, I saw 18 people on two city blocks who were not, and all of them were walking within six feet of other people. That doesnt count the people who were sitting at outdoor tables eating or drinking without masks.

All over town, Ive seen police officers  also not wearing masks  standing by, watching and doing nothing about people violating the emergency order all around them.

Does anyone doubt that the failure to take the mask and social distancing rules seriously is a critical factor in why the United States has been less successful than many other countries in fighting the virus?

At a news briefing on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Garcetti said that he wasnt urging the LAPD to enforce the mask order because I dont want to turn L.A. into a police state.

But we enforce laws against jaywalking, public intoxication and walking dogs off the leash, among other things. We give out thousands of tickets every year. So why would enforcing this particular rule suddenly make us a police state?

LAPD Chief Michel Moore told my colleague Robin Abcarian in May that if we take a strong, more enforcement-oriented position, we jeopardize the publics trust.

But I would argue that if you issue an order and then make it clear that you dont care if it is obeyed, that too is a betrayal of the publics trust.

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On Wednesday, the L.A. County Sheriffs West Hollywood Station announced that it would begin issuing $300 citations to people who violate the mandatory mask rules. On Thursday, Santa Monica authorized ticketing as well. Those are experiments worth trying, though municipalities should be careful not to set the fines too high.

I get the concerns. No one wants to turn a tragic public health crisis into a giant law enforcement confrontation.

And by all means, lets be reasonable. The authorities can urge scofflaws to don masks first before issuing tickets. Let enforcement officers try handing out masks to those who dont have them.

But having no consequences at all sends the wrong message. Surely on weekends and holidays, the city of L.A. and the county should have at least a small, symbolic presence in parks, on hiking trails and at other known gathering points. An official could warn people, You know, if I come back here in 10 minutes and youre still not masked, youll get a ticket. The offer of a mask combined with the threat of a ticket would likely have an immediate effect on compliance. That doesnt seem like totalitarianism to me, not in the middle of a pandemic.

To their credit, both the city and the state have taken actions against bars and restaurants that have reopened but failed to follow the rules. In a few cases, businesses have had their heat or power turned off or their licenses revoked.

But the rules covering individuals are important too.

Mask-wearing is not an issue of personal freedom or government overreach. It is an issue of public health. We are required to wear masks not to protect ourselves, but to protect others. Thats why the order deserves enforcing.

And if we're concerned about unnecessary altercations between the police and the public, perhaps we dont want armed, uniformed officers enforcing public health laws. Well, fine  maybe its time to do what the City Council and others have discussed and set up a demilitarized band of specialists to do this kind of work. It shouldnt require a SWAT team.

The government has been sending mixed messages on masks for months even though the science is clear: We need to wear them.

But one way to send a mixed message is to pass a law and then allow people to disobey it.

@Nick_Goldberg




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At a time when U.S.-North Korea diplomacy and inter-Korean relations are in dire states, it may be absurd to even pontificate about the possibility of another summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Neither Washington nor Pyongyang has demonstrated in public that more summitry is a feasible option over the short term. Even Deputy Secretary of State and North Korea envoy Stephen Biegun threw cold water on the idea, telling the German Marshall Fund this week that "its hard to envision circumstances where we could do an in-person international summit. Add the coronavirus pandemic to the mix and the entire concept looks far-fetched, if not outright farcical.

And yet because Trump is such an unpredictable politician with a flair for the dramatic, nobody can sit in their home-offices and prognosticate about what he may or may not do with a high degree of confidence. The personal relationship between Trump and Kim looked to be on thin-ice after the diplomatic fallout from Hanoi, when both men flew back to their capitals without even a manufactured joint statement in their pockets. But four months later, Trump and Kim met again in a spontaneous, slapdash get-together by the Demilitarized Zone. Who knows what Trump is thinking on a daily basis?

Its not as if Trump wouldnt like to continue talking with the North. Over the last 12 months, the administration has expressed its interest in preserving channels of communication with Pyongyang. National Security Adviser Robert OBrien said so himself during a June 30 webinar at the Center for the National Interest, where he insisted "the door to dialogue and progress remains open. This is the kind of remark senior national security officials use as a placeholder when things arent going particularly well. But it at least sends a small signal to Pyongyang that the White House remains ready and willing to return to the table if, in fact, Kim wants to get back to business.

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The one individual who unquestionably hopes diplomacy thaws out from its deep freeze is South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has banked his political and personal legacy on reconciliation with the North and has very little to show for his valiant efforts outside of a joint inter-Korean deescalation agreement Pyongyang was threatening to discard up until last week. Moon has always been driven by a sense of urgency on the inter-Korean peace file. He spent part of his July 1 videoconference with European Council President Charles Michel pleading for a return to the exciting summitry of the past. "I believe theres a need for North Korea and the United States to try dialogue one more time before the U.S. presidential election, Moon observed. The Blue House reportedly reiterated this messaging to the Trump administration shortly thereafter, an indication Moons remarks werent for posterity.

Regrettably, for Moon, he is in a weak position to make another Trump-Kim summit happen. As determined as he is to make history on the Korean Peninsula and put an end to the 70-year-old Korean War for good, he is only one man with limited power. Hemmed in by a U.S. and U.N. Security Council sanctions regime that obstructs even the most mundane inter-Korean projects, the Moon government is at best a supporting actor to the main event. If another Trump-Kim summit is even within the realm of possibility, the ultimate decision will be determined by Trump and Kimnot Moon.

Would Kim be open to a 4th meeting with his pen-pal in the White House?

If KCNA commentary and statements from Kim regime underlings are anything to go by, the answer is a no. Its difficult to describe in words how detrimental Hanoi was to the overall tenor of U.S.-North Korea nuclear diplomacy. Bieguns one-day session with the North Korean delegation in Stockholm ten months ago, which Pyongyang was apparently determined to make a failure before the two teams landed in Sweden, didnt help matters. A month after that meeting broke down, North Korean negotiator Kim Kye Gwan all but declared direct, top-down diplomacy with Washington under the present circumstances a no-win situation for the North. The only person who gained from such diplomacy, Kim said, was Trump himself. As we have got nothing in return, we will no longer gift the U.S. president with something he can brag about. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon went a step further with those remarks on June 11, when he dragged Trumps name through the mud (without naming him, of course) and explained that never again would the North "provide the US chief executive with another package to be used for achievements without receiving any returns.

To the Kim regime, the last 2 years have been filled with nothing but empty promises and hot air. What would be the point of another televised sit-down, where Trump could once again use the spectacle to project himself as world-class statesman and dealmaker?

In his heart of hearts, Trump likely wouldnt have a problem with more flashy summitry. A high-stakes head-to-head matchup would produce at least a weeks worth of media coverage and help distract the country (at least for a short while) from the 87% rise in covid-19 cases, controversy over Trumps behavior during phone calls with world leaders, #BountyGate and every other scandal burning through the administration. Trump knows how to manipulate the media and create diversions. What better diversion from the bad poll numbers against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden than a Nixon to China moment during an election year?

Naturally, there are major downsides for Trump as well. If a hypothetical meeting with Kim was the same, old optical illusion that so many have gotten used to, the president could open himself up to a whole new slate of attack ads on his competence and record.

Right now, all of the above is just an entertaining exercise in speculation. Back on planet earth, the chance of a Kim-Trump summit being scheduled before the U.S. presidential election is about as slim as yours truly landing a columnist position with the Washington Post. For both Trump and Kim, the pros of another made for TV blockbuster arent worth the list of cons including criticism from hardliners back home if both come back without any concessions.

Trump and Kim, however, have rolled the dice with each other before. We shouldnt presume they aren't willing to do so again if the environment changes.

Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist at the Washington Examiner and a contributor to the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

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01 July 2020, Berlin: Gordan Grlic Radman (l), Foreign Minister of Croatia, symbolically hands over the baton to Heiko Maas, Foreign Minister, in front of the Brandenburg Gate as Germany takes over the EU Council Presidency from Croatia. Photo: Christoph Soeder/dpa picture alliance via Getty Images

Germanys six-month presidency of the European Council (EC) kicked off this week, with two gargantuan tasks dominating its to-do list. It must get the 27-state bloc to agree on a coronavirus financial recovery fund and then manage the tense final sprint towards a Brexit trade agreement with the UK.

Such big expectations are being put on this presidency from the other member states, from the Commission, but also from the outside Europe, that we almost need to worry about managing expectations, German foreign minister Heiko Maas told journalists from the Foreign Press Association in Berlin on Wednesday evening.

Maas described the Brexit negotiations as very, very tough, and going very, very slowly.

That is also because we are not sure where the British actually want to go, whether they want an agreement or not, he said.

READ MORE: Merkel and Macron cement support for 750bn EU recovery fund

At the moment, the British are talking about topics that are of particular importance to them, such as fishing... but the questions that are important to us have not been substantially discussed, Maas said.

We assume that there will be a tough negotiation phase in September and October.

The agreement would need to be concluded by the end of October or in the first half of November, as it has to be to be ratified by EU nations.

Coronavirus and Brexit bookend Berlins presidency. Maas said expectations are pressing on Germany to first get EU-27 consensus on the coronavirus recovery fund and the EUs seven-year budget at the start of its six months in the driving seat. By the end of the six months, the bloc and the UK need to have signed off on their future trade agreement.

Bracing for a no-deal Brexit

Chancellor Angela Merkel said in the Bundestag on Wednesday that she will push for a good solution on the Brexit agreement by Autumn, during Germanys EC presidency, however she said that the EU needs to prepare itself for the eventuality that the Brexit talks on the trade deal will fail, and an agreement will not come about.

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Face-to-face negotiations in Brussels began again this week, when the UK's chief negotiator, David Frost met with EU negotiator Michel Barnier in person for the first time since March, when cross-border travel was shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Merkels words on Wednesday echo what her government wrote to other EU states in mid-June. The document, seen by Reuters, advised them to prepare for a potential no-deal Brexit  and make it clear [to the UK] that there will be no agreement at any price.

Michael Clau, Berlins ambassador to the EU told Politico Playbook on Wednesday that the 27 EU states wont accept anything that would bring unfair competition into our house.

Well know in a few weeks time whether we can make progress at the negotiating table  or whether ideology will triumph over pragmatism, Clau said.
Small-to-medium businesses are struggling with cashflow problems as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo: You X Ventures/Unsplash

Small business revenues have plummeted by 28% during the COVID-19 lockdown period, research shows.

Analysis of data by accounting platform Xero (XRO.AX) found a significant downturn in revenues and jobs during the lockdown period, with small-to-medium businesses (SMEs) taking in 28% less in May and 26% less in April, compared with the previous year.

It also found invoices are taking longer to be paid, with the average time for small businesses to be paid increasing sharply by 7.8 days since February  from 30.7 days to 38.5 days.

With late payments already a point of concern for SMEs, longer payment times are likely to compound the cashflow stress, Xero said.

The new findings underpin Xeros Roadmap to Recovery manifesto, which calls for extra government support to help SMEs rebuild.

Xeros small business insights (SBI) payroll data also found small business employment fell by 6% between March and May, even before the governments coronavirus job retention scheme begins to reduce its support over the coming months.

Small businesses in the hospitality sector saw the largest number of job losses  11% in April and a further 3% in May. This was followed by the rental, hiring and real estate sector which saw job losses of 3% in April and 7% in May.

Graphic: Xero

Although the impact of COVID-19 has been felt across the country, the data shows small businesses in the east midlands suffered from the most job losses, with a 4% fall in April and 9% fall in May.

READ MORE: Google announces support scheme for small British businesses

Comparatively, small businesses in the south of England saw a 6% fall in job losses in April, and a 0.1% fall in May.

The hospitality sector and the arts and recreation industries were hit the hardest, with the former experiencing a 57% revenue fall in April, and a slight improvement to 54% in May, while the latter was hit with a 41% fall for both months.

Meanwhile, the construction and manufacturing industries both saw smaller declines in May. Construction saw a 45% fall in April, with an improvement to 31% fall in May, while manufacturing saw a 28% fall in April, compared with 18% fall in May.

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Xeros recommendations for how the government can support SMEs include calls for 30-day payment terms as standard, digital tools tax relief, improved regional internet access and an offset of technology expenses against tax.

Graphic: Xero

The launch of the manifesto is the first step of a campaign to support small business recovery. It calls for the government to meet the levelling up agenda as part of its election promise.

The pandemic has had a devastating impact on business. As our customer data shows, jobs are being lost and the creation of new ones will depend on how quickly the economy can be rebooted, said Gary Turner, UK managing director of Xero.

As a digital service provider to more than half a million small businesses in the UK, we have a unique perspective on the areas where the government needs to create a more supportive environment over the coming months if the economy is to regain the lost ground.

With the right support, small businesses will be able to provide much-needed job opportunities and a vital economic boost for the UK.
The Airbus factory at Filton in Bristol. Citing the coronavirus pandemic, the company said this week that it was planning to cut 1,700 jobs in the UK. (Ben Birchall/PA via Getty)

The UKs aerospace industry could be facing a very bleak future unless the sector receives urgent government support, Unite the Union warned on Thursday.

The sector could see job losses on a vast scale without an aid package similar to that introduced by the French and German governments, it said.

Unless we see comprehensive action to support UK aerospace now, then this world-class industry could well be lost on the Johnson government's watch. There is not a moment more to be lost, said Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner.

Research conducted for the union found that around 102,000 people are directly employed in the sector, generating over 9bn ($11bn) for the UK economy every year.

Thousands more are indirectly employed in the sector, according to an Acuity Analysis study.

READ MORE: Airbus to slash 1,700 jobs from UK workforce

The French government earlier this month unveiled a 15bn support package for the countrys aerospace sector. Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said that the plan was aimed at saving around 300,000 direct and indirect jobs in the sector.

The united warning comes after Airbus (AIR.PA) on Tuesday said that some 1,700 jobs would be lost in the UK as part of its plans to cut 15,000 roles from its global workforce, citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the aviation industry.

Airbus employs 13,500 people in the UK, primarily at its Broughton and Filton sites. The French plane maker said the job cuts were necessary to safeguard the companys future.

Unite also called for a continuation of the governments wage-subsidy scheme and the introduction of a government-supported shorter working-week scheme, similar to Germanys state-funded Kurzarbeit programme.

Aerospace workers in France and Germany are being embraced by their government, said Turner, warning that government inertia would result in thousands of jobs lost and more of our businesses moving overseas.

The industry and the workforce speak with one voice on the need for urgent action to ensure that UK aerospace survives, rebuilds and recovers, he said.

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Without this, the jobs lost in recent weeks will snowball into an avalanche of further redundancies and the global prestige of this industry, built up by generations of workers, will be destroyed.

READ MORE: Ryanair pilots agree 20% pay cut amid job loss warnings

The aviation industry is confronting an unprecedented crisis in coronavirus, as airlines and manufacturers face a collapse in demand from travellers.

Airbus said in Tuesdays (30 June) statement that commercial aircraft activity had dropped by 40% so far this year and is not expected to recover until 2023.

A June report from think tank the New Economic Forum warned that as many as 70,000 UK jobs linked to the aviation industry were at immediate risk due to the pandemic.

The report compared the expected collapse in aviation employment to the rapid decline of the UK coal industry in the early 1980s, which left lasting economic scars on many communities.

Unite said on Tuesday (30 June) that it was extremely concerned that headline job loss figures would not take into account the smaller firms that play a role in the aerospace supply chain, noting that they were also starting to make large-scale redundancies.
The State Council has completed the documentation process. The sentence, scheduled for this morning, postponed by two weeks. Rumors of "pressure" on the Ankara government. But Erdogan wants to hold the official ceremony on July 15th, on the fourth anniversary of the failed coup.

Istanbul (AsiaNews / agencies) - This morning after a lightning hearing lasting only 17 minutes, a Turkish court has decided to postpone the controversial decision on the transformation of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The sentence is expected within the next two weeks. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I also intervened recently on the matter, warning of teh risk of conflict between Christians and Muslims in case of conversion to Islamic worship, while the idea of a sharing of the building proposed by the Armenian patriarch has fallen on deaf ears.

After completing the acquisition of the documents, the State Council - the highest in terms of administration - said that the verdict will be issued "within 15 days". Some sources report that the "postponement" is due to last minute the international "pressures" on the Ankara government. Therefore, the fate of the historic building in Istanbul remains dormant, for centuries a cathedral, then transformed into a mosque after the capture of Constantinople in 1453, finally converted into a museum by the first President Kemal Ataturk, father of modern Turkey.

The tension around the building had escalated following the decision, supported by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made nationalism and Islam his weapons to maintain power, to recite an Islamic prayer inside. In the days that followed, a survey was published stating that 73% of Turks would favor transformation into a mosque.

According to Turkish media, the government could keep Hagia Sophia open to tourists, while converting it into a place of worship as is the case for the Blue Mosque, which stands directly opposite the former basilica. Sources in Hurriyet say that the day scheduled for the official ceremony should be July 15, coinciding with the fourth anniversary of the failed coup.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 520,000 people worldwide.

Over 10.8 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations' outbreaks.

Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 2.7 million diagnosed cases and at least 128,684 deaths.

Latest:

11-year-old boy dies from COVID-19 in Florida California governor encourages fireworks cancelations Herman Cain, who attended Trump Tulsa rally, hospitalized for COVID-19 CDC increases forecasted death toll

Here's how the news is developing today. All times Eastern. Please refresh this page for updates

9:11 p.m.: 66 UW frat members test positive for COVID-19

At least 66 University of Washington fraternity members have tested positive for COVID-19: 62 house residents and four who don't live in a frat house.

The school's student-led fraternity board, Interfraternity Council, said that at least 105 residents in 15 campus fraternities self-reported they were positive, but the school is still investigating these cases and any possible unreported cases.

"While we were pleased to see most of the houses had previously taken measures to reduce resident capacity by up to 50% this summer in response to COVID-19, those measures are not sufficient without vigilant, daily preventive measures, such as wearing face coverings, physical distancing and hand hygiene," said Dr. Geoffrey Gottlieb, chair of the UW Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases.

UW Medicine has set up a testing facility on campus within walking distance of the Greek houses. The students who have tested positive or have experienced coronavirus-like symptoms are isolating in their rooms, and none have been hospitalized or experienced severe symptoms, according to the school's website.

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There are currently about 1,000 students living in 25 fraternity houses at the north of the UW campus. The residents of the houses are being asked to quarantine or self-isolate amid the outbreak.

7:40 p.m.: Miami-Dade County to issue curfew, roll back reopening of entertainment venues

Florida's Miami-Dade County will have a nightly curfew and roll back the reopening of entertainment venues to "tamp down this spike of COVID-19," Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez announced Thursday.

The curfew will be in effect daily from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. starting Friday until further notice. It will exempt essential workers, including first responders, hospital workers, food delivery services and media.

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Movie theaters, arcades, nontribal casinos, concert houses, bowling alleys and other establishments will close starting Friday. Since June 8, entertainment venues have been able to apply to reopen in the county.

The mayor said he will sign the orders Thursday night.

6:30 p.m.: CDC forecasts 140K to 160K deaths by July 25

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have updated their forecast for deaths from COVID-19.

Forecasts indicate that between 140,000 and 160,000 total deaths nationally are expected by July 25. Previous forecasts had suggested between 124,000 and 140,000 deaths by July 4.

Currently, more than 128,000 people have died from the virus in the U.S.

Forecasts also suggest that the number of new deaths will increase in 11 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. For all other states, that number is expected to stay the same as in previous weeks, or slightly decrease.

4:50 p.m.: Texas introduces new face mask requirement

As coronavirus cases climb in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday issued an executive order requiring face masks in counties with 20 or more diagnosed cases.

"We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one anotherand that means wearing a face covering in public spaces," he said in a statement.

MORE: A closer look at how 4 states are battling coronavirus with very different outcomes

Texas hit a record 8,076 new cases on Wednesday.

Of those being tested in Houston, 20% are now positive, officials said Thursday.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is asking churches to return to virtual services and for offices to revert to no more than 25% occupancy.

4:20 p.m.: California governor encourages fireworks cancelations

As California coronavirus cases continue to rise, Gov. Gavin Newsom is encouraging the 19 counties with new mandatory closures to consider canceling Fourth of July fireworks.

PHOTO: Beach goers cross the Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, Calif., June 27, 2020. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

On Wednesday, the governor said 19 counties, representing 70% of the state's population, were required to close bars and indoor operations at businesses including restaurants and wineries.

"In counties not on the list, municipal fireworks displays may still happen, but to watch them, residents must find ways to watch them from their cars and apart from others," Dr. Sonia Angell, California's Department of Public health director and state public health officer, said Thursday.

California has reported new 4,056 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, Newsom said Thursday.

PHOTO: An employee wears a face covering while taking orders from motorists in the drive-through lane at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Los Angeles, on July 1, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

In the last two weeks, hospitalizations have jumped by 56%, he said.

3:50 p.m.: 2 test positive after attending massive party

Two people who went to a massive party in Upstate New York have now tested positive for COVID-19, county officials said.

Hundreds were at the June 20 party in Onondaga County, which includes Syracuse, even though gatherings were not supposed to exceed 25 people, the Onondaga County Health Department said.

"Health Department investigators are in the process of identifying all close contacts of the individuals and notifying them," the health department said. "Those who attended the party may have been exposed and should monitor themselves for symptoms of COVID-19 until Saturday, July 4."

MORE: How air purifiers and cleaners may help keep you safer indoors from COVID-19

Meanwhile, in Rockland County, New York, an ill party host spread the virus to at least eight others.

County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Schnabel said Wednesday that some people contacted by health investigators were denying being at the party and refusing to speak to the investigators.

MORE: How air purifiers and cleaners may help keep you safer indoors from COVID-19

"Many do not answer their cellphones and do not call back," she said. "'Sometimes parents answer for their adult children and promise that they have been home consistently -- when they have not been."

Schnabel said she was "forced by these circumstances to send subpoenas to the individuals who are required to cooperate with us."

County spokesman John Lyon told ABC News on Thursday that all eight people who were issued subpoenas have responded and are now complying with contact tracing.

3:25 p.m.: 11-year-old boy dies from COVID-19 in Florida

An 11-year-old boy has died from COVID-19 in Miami-Dade County, Florida, becoming the state's youngest known death, state data showed, according to Miami ABC affiliate WPLG.

The number of diagnosed coronavirus cases in the state jumped by 9,558 in one day, according to the state's Department of Health.

PHOTO:People queue in their cars to get COVID-19 tests administered by the Florida Army National Guard, the City of Miami Beach and the Florida Department of Health, at Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, July 1, 2020. (Cristobal Herrera/EPA via Shutterstock)

Of those tested in Florida, 14.5% are now positive -- which is down 0.5% from Wednesday.

MORE: Requiring face masks nationwide could save US economy from 5% hit, study predicts

The state now has a total of 169,102 cases.

Miami-Dade County, which includes the city of Miami, set a record daily increase with 2,306 cases. Of those tested in the county, 19.5% are now positive, according to the state's data

PHOTO: A woman wears a face shield as she wades in the ocean off South Beach in Miami Beach, Fla., on June 10, 2020. (Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

2:29 p.m.: Herman Cain, who attended Trump Tulsa rally, hospitalized for COVID-19

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is in an Atlanta-area hospital being treated for the coronavirus, a spokesperson said in a statement.

MORE: 60% of all COVID-19 cases reported in last month: WHO

Cain, a Black Voices for Trump co-chair, attended President Donald Trump's June 20 rally in Tulsa.

Cain posted a photo of a group at the rally without masks or social distancing.

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Cain is awake, alert and not on a respirator, the statement said, adding, "There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus."

Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told ABC News that Cain did not "meet with" the president.

"Contact tracing was conducted after the Tulsa rally but we do not comment regarding the medical information of individuals," Murtaugh said.

2:08 p.m.: Spike in last few days 'well beyond the worst spikes that we've seen,' Fauci says

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told BBC News Thursday that the U.S. didn't lock down as thoroughly as other countries did.

PHOTO: An outdoor seating area sits empty on July 1, 2020, in El Paso, Texas. (Cengiz Yar/Getty Images)

"We're seeing very disturbing spikes in different individual states," Fauci said.

MORE: People who stayed home before lockdown helped slow spread of COVID-19: Researchers

"What we've seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that we've seen," he went on. "We've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States."

PHOTO: Hamilton Health Care medical staff listen while Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia speaks during a 'Wear A Mask' tour stop in Dalton, Ga., July 2, 2020. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

While some countries in Europe "closed down to the tune of about 97% lockdown," Fauci said, only about 50% of U.S. states implemented strict lockdowns.

"Now all you have to do is take a look at the news at night and you see people congregating at bars without masks, congregating in different types of groups that are well beyond the recommended number of people," he said. "What happens when you do that and you don't wear a mask? You get the kind of outbreaks we're seeing."

MORE: COVID-19 antibodies may fade in as little as 2 months, study says

Fauci stressed that young people play an important role in stopping the spread.

Speaking directly to younger Americans, he said, "If you are infected, it is likely you will infect someone else who will infect someone else, who then might infect a vulnerable person. Then you get into very serious consequences."

12:50 p.m.: Casinos reopen in Atlantic City

Casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, reopened on Thursday after a 108-day closure.

PHOTO:A worker at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City N.J., June 3, 2020, installs a sign indicating that slot machines will routinely be sanitized once the casino reopens to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. (Wayne Parry/AP)

The casinos must maintain a 25% capacity, The Associated Press reported.

Gamblers are required to wear face masks and cannot smoke or drink, the AP said.

PHOTO: Steven Ford, a worker at Harrah's casino sprays slot machines with disinfectant in Atlantic City, N.J., July 1, 2020, as the casino prepared to reopen. (Wayne Parry/AP)

11:37 a.m.: Nashville closes bars, cancels Fourth of July fireworks

Nashville is closing its bars for at least two weeks and is canceling the Fourth of July fireworks as coronavirus cases sharply rise, Mayor John Cooper said Thursday.

PHOTO: People wear masks as they cross Broadway, June 30, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. (Mark Humphrey/AP)

Davidson County, which includes Nashville, is reporting a record daily high of 608 new cases, Cooper said.

The mayor said phase 3 of reopening has not been effective and the city is reverting to its phase 2 plans, with some modifications. Entertainment venues will be closed and restaurants must reduce capacity to 50% from 75%.

10:30 a.m.: NYC opening 22 streets for outdoor dining

New York City is doubling down on outdoor dining. Starting this weekend, 22 streets covering 2.6 miles will be dedicated to restaurants, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.

PHOTO: Plastic partitions separate patrons at Jake's Dilemma the first day of the phase two reopening of the city during the current coronavirus outbreak in New York City, June 22, 2020, in New York. (Kathy Willens/AP)

PHOTO: A waitress takes the temperature of customers at Dudley's as restaurants are permitted to offer al fresco dining as part of phase 2 reopening during the coronavirus pandemic in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, June 27, 2020. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

New York City won't allow indoor dining because of concerning data from states across the U.S., de Blasio said.

"It became deafening how bad the situation was in many many states and how much it was related back to bars and restaurants," he said.

PHOTO: People eat outside of LENA Winebar as restaurants are permitted to offer al fresco dining as part of phase 2 reopening during the COVID-19 outbreak in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, June 27, 2020. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

Of those tested in New York City, just 2% of residents are now testing positive for the coronavirus, de Blasio said Thursday.

The mayor is also addressing the plan for returning to school in the fall.

He said face coverings will be required and schools will implement social distancing, handwashing stations and deep cleaning.

9:30 a.m.: West Hollywood will charge you $300 for not wearing a mask

As the coronavirus infection rate increases in California, those not wearing masks in West Hollywood will be charged $300 -- a $250 fine and $50 fee -- for the first-offense, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

PHOTO: People march down Santa Monica Boulevard to demonstrate against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, in West Hollywood, Calif., June 14, 2020. (Christian Monterrosa/EPA via Shutterstock)

"Our last option was to conduct enforcement by issuing an Administrative Citation, but the risk to Community health is too great," the department said Wednesday night.

In Los Angeles County, 1 in 140 people are estimated to be infected, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday.

Garcetti said the infection rate could be as high as 1 in 70 in the upcoming weeks.

7:29 a.m.: FDA chief details response plan amid rising cases

The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the agency is working to get more personal protective equipment and testing supplies to areas of the country where coronavirus infections are on the rise.

"We are seeing rising cases, particularly in the south and the west," Dr. Stephen Hahn told ABC News in an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America."

Hahn, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said one advantage the country has now that it didn't earlier in the year is the newly-authorized experimental therapeutics, such as the antiviral medication remdesivir. There's also convalescent plasma therapy, a century-old technique used for treating epidemics in which the blood plasma of patients who have recovered from a disease is transfused to those who are still infected.

PHOTO: FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn appears on 'Good Morning America,' July 2, 2020. (ABC News)

Some 28,000 people infected with COVID-19 in the United States have been treated with convalescent plasma, according to Hahn, who urged those who have recovered from the virus to donate their plasma.

"We will eventually get beyond this pandemic," he said. "We have a lot of therapeutics, we have vaccines in the pipeline."

The FDA has granted authorization for four separate vaccine candidates to proceed with clinical trials. Two of those potential vaccines are expected to begin the late state of trials later this month, according to Hahn.

"We are on target to reach a vaccine by year's end or early next year," he added, "so I'm cautiously optimistic."

PHOTO: A plasma donor has a blood sample taken before giving convalescent plasma for COVID-19 treatment at a newly-opened plasma donor center in Twickenham, southwest London, on June 11, 2020. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

Hahn advised people to continue washing hands frequently as well as practicing social distancing and, when that's not possible, to wear a face mask.

"These are common sense things as we head into the Fourth of July weekend that we can do to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus," he said.

6:51 a.m.: University of Oklahoma's football team reports cluster of cases

At least 14 student-athletes and two staff members of the University of Oklahoma's football team have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials said.

Seven of the school's 111 football players tested Tuesday were positive for the virus, while the other seven players had tested positive earlier. Two players have since recovered, according to a statement from the University of Oklahoma Athletics Department.

PHOTO: A general view of Oklahoma Sooners helmets on the field prior to the game against the Kansas State Wildcats on Oct. 21, 2017 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium in Manhattan, Kan. (Peter G. Aiken/Getty Images, FILE)

The University of Oklahoma football team has returned to campus and its student-athletes began voluntary workouts Wednesday.

6:02 a.m.: Oregon sees highest single-day jump in cases

Oregon health officials announced Wednesday the highest single-day jump in coronavirus cases that the state has seen since the start of the pandemic.

The Oregon Health Authority said 281 new cases of COVID-19 were identified on Tuesday. About 75 percent of recent cases were patients under the age of 50.

PHOTO: Healthcare workers wheel a gurney into Salem Hospital's emergency room in Salem, Oregon, on April 9, 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Andrew Selsky/AP)

Cases among children under the age of 10 are growing rapidly. At the end of May, there were 58 diagnosed cases of children under 10, while at the end of June, there were 319 confirmed cases, The Oregonian reported.

Since hospitalization is less common among younger patients infected with the virus, statewide hospital capacity is "sufficient for now," the Oregon Health Authority said in a statement Wednesday.

What to know about coronavirus:

How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained

What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map

5:29 a.m.: US testing supply chain is under strain, FEMA memo says

The coronavirus testing supply chain in the United States is under strain with demand for tests outpacing supply, according to an internal daily memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

PHOTO: A nurse performs a COVID-19 antibody test outside the Salt Lake County Health Department in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 25, 2020. (Rick Bowmer/AP)

Meanwhile, intensive care units in Utah are at 65% capacity and hospitals around the state could reach capacity within two weeks. Utah reported 3,754 new cases of COVID-19 last week, a 13.8% increase from the previous week. Planning is underway to increase ICU capacity and to prepare for patient transfers during a surge, according to the memo obtained by ABC News.

In Hawaii, a bus driver who tested positive for COVID-19 in Honolulu on June 28 continued working for five days while feeling sick. Health officials there are working to trace anyone who came in contact with the driver during that time, the memo said.

4:36 a.m.: 4-month-old baby hospitalized for coronavirus in Alabama, officials say

A 4-month-old baby who is infected with the novel coronavirus has been hospitalized in Huntsville, Alabama, according to local ABC affiliate WAAY.

Huntsville Hospital for Women & Children CEO David Spillers told WAAY the infant is their youngest COVID-19 patient.

"I think that probably the news today is we now have five children that are COVID positive that are in the hospital, so if you think this doesn't affect young people it actually affects young people," Spillers said during a press conference Wednesday. "Some of those children are only months old. So it's the first time we've seen that during the pandemic."

Spillers said he's concerned about how the children contracted the virus. One of the young patients is a 4-year-old who has been receiving cancer treatment and is now positive for COVID-19.

"I feel very confident the outcomes will be good for those children," he said. "We haven't seen that before, and I think it's just a direct result of more COVID in the community and people engaging around children and infecting them."

For those who are against wearing face masks, Spillers had this message: "I challenge people who resist wearing face coverings to think about this the next time you resist wearing face coverings. Anybody can have COVID. Anyone can give COVID to anyone else because in many cases you could be asymptomatic. If the thought of you accidentally giving COVID to someone, particularly a child with cancer, is not enough reason to put on a face cover, then I don't know what is."

A growing number of Alabama cities are making face masks mandatory, but Huntsville isn't one of them. Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle told WAAY he thinks that mandate will come at some point in the future.

3:32 a.m.: US reports record-high number of new cases in a day

More than 50,000 new cases of COVID-19 were identified in the United States on Wednesday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It's the first time the United States has reached or crossed the 50,000 threshold of new diagnosed cases in a single day.

Wednesday's caseload shattered the country's previous record set on June 26, when more than 45,000 new cases were identified.

PHOTO: People wearing face masks carry their pints of beer past tables for outdoor dining in Los Angeles, California, on July 1, 2020. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

The national total currently stands at 2,686,582 diagnosed cases with at least 128,062 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up to over 30,000 and then crossing 40,000 last week.

Nearly half of all 50 states have seen a rise in infections in recent weeks, with some -- including Arizona, California and Florida -- reporting daily records.

ABC News' Stephanie Ebbs, Anne Flaherty, Matt Fuhrman, Will Gretsky, Rachel Katz, Doug Lantz, Josh Margolin, Leo Mayorga, Beatrice Peterson, Will Steakin, Ben Stein, Gina Sunseri and Scott Withers contributed to this report.

66 University of Washington frat members test positive for COVID-19 originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
A long-married couple from Texas were both diagnosed with COVID-19 last month, and as they grew sicker they were hospitalized separately. However, thanks to a thoughtful nurse, Betty and Curtis Tarpley were able to be together and hold each others' hands in their final moments. The couple, who died less than an hour apart, had been married for 53 years, their son Tim Tarpley told CBS News.

Tarpley told CBS News about his parents' love story. "They ran in the same circle in school in Illinois but didn't date, but they ran into each other years later in California. Then they went back to Illinois and got married," he said.

Betty and Curtis Tarpley had two children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Their son said they went on adventures together and that his parents liked to travel. His mom even ran a travel club for other seniors.

"They've been to Austria, Ireland, Africa, it's just ridiculous the places they've gone," he said.

Betty and Curtis Tarpley had two children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. They died of COVID-19 less than an hour apart. / Credit: Tim Tarpley

Tarpley said he's not sure how either of his parents got coronavirus, which has been surging across the state. His 79-year-old father had stayed inside the house this whole year and his 80-year-old mother always wore a mask when she went out. But when she started feeling ill and became incoherent, Tarpley decided it was time to take his mom to the hospital.

After being admitted to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth on June 9, Betty tested positive for coronavirus. Just three days later, Tarpley's father felt sick and he took him to the same hospital. He said he was a bit wary about bringing his dad to the hospital during a pandemic.

"I explained to him, this is not going to be somebody waiting on you hand and foot," Tarpley said. "These people are stressed out, and their only goal is to keep you alive. So you may be in your room for hours with no one checking on you."

Due to coronavirus restrictions, he couldn't even go inside with his dad. "It's just one of the saddest thing in the world when you drop your parents off at the curb and they wheel themselves through the door and that's it," he said.

Story continues

Family members weren't allowed in to visit Betty and Curtis for a while  and they couldn't see one other, either.

After more than a week in the hospital, Tarpley said his mom knew the end was near. "She said, 'This is it. I'm ready to go and I know where I'm going, everything's OK.' She was at peace with it," he said. The hospital staff allowed family members to see Betty, wearing full protective equipment.

"When we were able to come in there and see her, she didn't remember seeing us at all. She was out of it," Tarpley said. "But then they allowed my dad to visit her also. He came in his wheelchair, and he had to bring his whole crew, his whole staff, with him."

Tim Tarpley said it was an ICU nurse named Blake who thought to bring his parents together before they died. The couple had been married for 53 years. / Credit: Tim Tarpley

Tarpley said while his mom remembered her husband's presence, she didn't remember other family members visiting. "The hospital kind of just thought that was the worst story ever," he said. So they allowed the family to visit a second time.

The hospital staff was going to allow the family to also see Curtis that day, but "he was slowly slipping, and couldn't make the trip down the hall," Tarpley said. "We were never able to see him."

Tarpley said it was a nurse in the ICU who thought to move Betty out of her own room and into Curtis' before they died. "His name is Blake, and that's all we know. He was the one that arranged all of this," he said.

On June 18, the two lay in separate beds next to each other, holding hands. "She passed at 11:05 a.m. and he passed at 11:53 a.m.," Tarpley said. "It was just kind of a good ending."

"It just makes you cry a little bit, but it's so nice that they both went at the same time," their son said. "There's not one mourning over the other one. ... They were both ready to go."

Tarpley said he hopes his family's story reminds others to be thankful for their loved ones. "We all have parents," he said. "We always think there's going to be tomorrow and everything will be OK, but that's just not the case. We really don't know."

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The Cuban government opened the islands northern and southern cays to tourism Wednesday amid strong measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the country to shut down travel in late March.

Cuba, which according to official figures has had 2,348 cases of COVID-19 and has had 86 deaths, is seeking to attract international tourists to the islands many cays.

Tourists will undergo a rapid PCR test upon arrival to identify possible infections and will not be able to visit the big island itself. Cuban nationals are prohibited from having contact with foreigners and from staying in hotels equipped for international tourism, the official press reported.

As el Nuevo Herald had previously reported, Cuba will take advantage of its medical personnel to sell health tourism packages and trips to recover from COVID-19.

Cuban-Americans will not be able to travel to visit their relatives until the island is fully open to tourism. The government has not announced dates for a full opening.

Tourism Minister Juan Carlos Garcia said that foreigners will be able to rent cars and excursions in the Largo, Coco, Guillermo, Cruz, and Santa Maria cays.

Workers in the areas open to international tourism must comply with strict epidemiological surveillance measures, including quarantine, before returning to their homes. In hotels, tourists will be subject to temperature checks, and rooms will be constantly cleaned to avoid spreading the virus, Garcia said.

The coronavirus pandemic dealt a severe blow to the already impoverished Cuban economy. According to official data, between January and April this year there was a 49 percent drop in tourism revenue compared to the same period in 2019, with 945,376 fewer visitors.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook: @MarioJPenton.
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Key Point: Germany's slow-moving battleship would not fare well against her swift Japanese counterparts.

Can we imagine a scenario in which two titans of World War II, the German battleship Bismarck and the Japanese battleship Yamato , would come into conflict? Difficult, but not impossible. Had the Battle of the Marne gone the other way, Germany might have forced France from the World War I in the early fall of 1914, just as it did in the spring of 1940. Germany and the United Kingdom might plausibly have come to an accommodation on naval armaments that would have left the Reich with a free hand on the Continent in exchange for the security of the British Empire.

Prior to World War One, Germany held extensive territories in the Pacific. A German Empire emerging victorious from the Great War might well have sought to extend those territories, especially in China. Just as Japan chafed against the existence of the British and American empires in Asia, it could well have come into conflict with Berlin.

The Players

Apart from the Iowas and HMS Vanguard , the Bismarcks and the Yamatos were the two largest classes of battleships ever built. Bismarck and her sister Tirpitz displaced about fifty thousand tons, with a speed of roughly thirty knots and an armament of eight fifteen-inch guns in four twin turrets. The Bismarcks carried about nineteen thousand tons of armor, albeit in an archaic configuration by World War II standards. The Yamatos, on the other hand, displaced about seventy-two thousand tons, armed with nine 18.1 guns in three triple turrets and capable of twenty-seven knots. Yamato and her sister carried about twenty-two thousand tons of armor in modern (all or nothing) configuration.

We will assume for our purposes that Germany would construct ships akin to the Bismarck and Tirpitz, and then deploy them to the Far East (in a shorter Great War, Germany might well have retained the naval base at Tsingtao ). The long-legged German battleships, designed for raiding, would take to Pacific service well. We also assume that they represent the early stages of German fast battleship design, meaning that the more powerful ships will remain in the Atlantic.

Story continues

The Stage

As the clouds of war gather, Bismarck, Tirpitz, and a collection of smaller vessels (two heavy cruisers, six destroyers) abandon Tsingtao for the German naval base at Truk. With Kido Butai (the Japanese carrier force) engaged elsewhere, the Imperial Japanese Navy assigns HIJMS Yamato and HIJMS Musashi (with a similarly constituted support group) the task of catching and destroying the German ships.

The German squadron has a three-knot speed advantage, which it uses to try to pull away from the Japanese and avoid the engagement. However, the Japanese have a clear geographic advantage; the existence of relatively close bases means that they can station squadrons of older, smaller ships along potential channels of exit. Rather than fight with a collection of older battleships led by HIJMS Nagato , Admiral Lutjens decides to try his luck with the cream of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Lutjens wants to engage before dark, when he knows that the Japanese will have a significant tactical advantage, despite German radar.

The Germans open fire first, when it becomes apparent that they cannot escape the fight. Lutjens decides to attack before Japanese cruisers and destroyers can close into torpedo range; German intelligence is well-apprised of the capabilities of the Type 93 torpedo, designed to destroy and disable capital ships at a distance. Bismarck opens fire on Yamato and Tirpitz on Musashi, with Bismarck scoring an early hit on the Japanese flagship.

Before long, the Japanese begin to reply with their 18.1 guns. Both the Germans and the Japanese have excellent fire control, but the contest is unequal. The fifteen-inch guns of Bismarck and Tirpitz fire at a greater rate than the Japanese guns, but even when they hit, they do relatively little damage to the vitals of the Japanese ships (although they extensively scar the upper works). By contrast, the 18.1 hits begin to do serious damage immediately, plunging into the German ships at great range. Large and with effective subdivisions, neither German ship suffers lethal damage. However, before long both Bismarck and Tirpitz begin to lose speed, cutting off any chance of escape.

The battle between the smaller ships also begins to go the Japanese way. After a flurry of shellfire on both sides, the Japanese ships open up at range with their twenty-four-inch Long Lance torpedoes. Three German ships suffer hits, with a cruiser and a destroyer shearing out of line. Japanese gunfire slows the rest of the line, allowing several of the IJNs support squadron to detach themselves and concentrate on the German battleships.

Increasingly accurate Japanese fire devastates the upper works of the German ships. With their speed advantage gone, the Germans find themselves in a slugging match with far larger, more heavily armored opponents. The Japanese advantages soon tell, and fire from both German ships becomes sporadic and inaccurate. The destroyers Yukikaze and Isokaze brave the secondary armament of the two German behemoths to close within torpedo distance, hitting both targets.

At this point, the situation becomes academic. The German ships lose the capacity to meaningfully engage the Japanese, and are subjected to withering fire from the battleships. Yamato and Musashi (both of which have suffered significant damage to their upper works and secondary armaments) close to point blank range. The remaining Japanese cruisers and destroyers, having disposed of their German counterparts, open up with their own guns and fire their remaining torpedoes. Still, both German battleships remain shockingly resistant to the damage inflicted by the IJN.

Two hours into the engagement, an explosion rocks Tirpitz; the crippled battleship soon capsizes and sinks. The Japanese concentrate their fire on Bismarck, which has slowed to a stop and ceased firing. An eagle eyed Japanese sailor onboard Yamato sees a German officer strike the ships colors , and miraculously, the order goes out across the fleet to cease firing. A boarding party from Yukikaze embarks upon the crippled German ship, followed by damage control parties from the rest of the Japanese squadron.

With the assistance of the surrendered German crew, the Japanese manage to get the fires and flooding under control. Yamato takes Bismarck under tow until tugs arrive. Although officially taken into IJN service, Bismarck never returns to combat status; the expense and difficulty of refit prove too much for the Japanese. Most of her crew survives the war, however.

Wrap

Although large and capable of absorbing enormous battle damage, Bismarck and Tirpitz simply did not compare favorably with any other navys fast battleships. Yamato and Musashi, the largest and most powerfully built ships in history (although perhaps at some disadvantage relative to the American Iowas ) utterly outclassed the German ships, and would have defeated them easily.

More importantly, the imperial ambitions of Kaiserine Germany are worth remembering. Both US and Japanese policy in the Pacific in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (particularly the U.S. seizure of the Philippines) kept German regional ambitions firmly in mind. Japan entered the Great War against the Central Powers as a coalition partner; if the coalition had broken up, Tokyo might still have found reason to quarrel with Berlin.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book . He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money , Information Dissemination and the Diplomat .

Can we imagine a scenario in which two titans of World War II, the German battleship Bismarck and the Japanese battleship Yamato , would come into conflict? Difficult, but not impossible. Had the Battle of the Marne gone the other way, Germany might have forced France from the World War I in the early fall of 1914, just as it did in the spring of 1940. Germany and the United Kingdom might plausibly have come to an accommodation on naval armaments that would have left the Reich with a free hand on the Continent in exchange for the security of the British Empire.

Prior to World War One, Germany held extensive territories in the Pacific. A German Empire emerging victorious from the Great War might well have sought to extend those territories, especially in China. Just as Japan chafed against the existence of the British and American empires in Asia, it could well have come into conflict with Berlin.

The Players

Apart from the Iowas and HMS Vanguard , the Bismarcks and the Yamatos were the two largest classes of battleships ever built. Bismarck and her sister Tirpitz displaced about fifty thousand tons, with a speed of roughly thirty knots and an armament of eight fifteen-inch guns in four twin turrets. The Bismarcks carried about nineteen thousand tons of armor, albeit in an archaic configuration by World War II standards. The Yamatos, on the other hand, displaced about seventy-two thousand tons, armed with nine 18.1 guns in three triple turrets and capable of twenty-seven knots. Yamato and her sister carried about twenty-two thousand tons of armor in modern (all or nothing) configuration.

We will assume for our purposes that Germany would construct ships akin to the Bismarck and Tirpitz, and then deploy them to the Far East (in a shorter Great War, Germany might well have retained the naval base at Tsingtao ). The long-legged German battleships, designed for raiding, would take to Pacific service well. We also assume that they represent the early stages of German fast battleship design, meaning that the more powerful ships will remain in the Atlantic.

The Stage

As the clouds of war gather, Bismarck, Tirpitz, and a collection of smaller vessels (two heavy cruisers, six destroyers) abandon Tsingtao for the German naval base at Truk. With Kido Butai (the Japanese carrier force) engaged elsewhere, the Imperial Japanese Navy assigns HIJMS Yamato and HIJMS Musashi (with a similarly constituted support group) the task of catching and destroying the German ships.

The German squadron has a three-knot speed advantage, which it uses to try to pull away from the Japanese and avoid the engagement. However, the Japanese have a clear geographic advantage; the existence of relatively close bases means that they can station squadrons of older, smaller ships along potential channels of exit. Rather than fight with a collection of older battleships led by HIJMS Nagato , Admiral Lutjens decides to try his luck with the cream of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Lutjens wants to engage before dark, when he knows that the Japanese will have a significant tactical advantage, despite German radar.

The Germans open fire first, when it becomes apparent that they cannot escape the fight. Lutjens decides to attack before Japanese cruisers and destroyers can close into torpedo range; German intelligence is well-apprised of the capabilities of the Type 93 torpedo, designed to destroy and disable capital ships at a distance. Bismarck opens fire on Yamato and Tirpitz on Musashi, with Bismarck scoring an early hit on the Japanese flagship.

Before long, the Japanese begin to reply with their 18.1 guns. Both the Germans and the Japanese have excellent fire control, but the contest is unequal. The fifteen-inch guns of Bismarck and Tirpitz fire at a greater rate than the Japanese guns, but even when they hit, they do relatively little damage to the vitals of the Japanese ships (although they extensively scar the upper works). By contrast, the 18.1 hits begin to do serious damage immediately, plunging into the German ships at great range. Large and with effective subdivisions, neither German ship suffers lethal damage. However, before long both Bismarck and Tirpitz begin to lose speed, cutting off any chance of escape.

The battle between the smaller ships also begins to go the Japanese way. After a flurry of shellfire on both sides, the Japanese ships open up at range with their twenty-four-inch Long Lance torpedoes. Three German ships suffer hits, with a cruiser and a destroyer shearing out of line. Japanese gunfire slows the rest of the line, allowing several of the IJNs support squadron to detach themselves and concentrate on the German battleships.

Increasingly accurate Japanese fire devastates the upper works of the German ships. With their speed advantage gone, the Germans find themselves in a slugging match with far larger, more heavily armored opponents. The Japanese advantages soon tell, and fire from both German ships becomes sporadic and inaccurate. The destroyers Yukikaze and Isokaze brave the secondary armament of the two German behemoths to close within torpedo distance, hitting both targets.

At this point, the situation becomes academic. The German ships lose the capacity to meaningfully engage the Japanese, and are subjected to withering fire from the battleships. Yamato and Musashi (both of which have suffered significant damage to their upper works and secondary armaments) close to point blank range. The remaining Japanese cruisers and destroyers, having disposed of their German counterparts, open up with their own guns and fire their remaining torpedoes. Still, both German battleships remain shockingly resistant to the damage inflicted by the IJN.

Two hours into the engagement, an explosion rocks Tirpitz; the crippled battleship soon capsizes and sinks. The Japanese concentrate their fire on Bismarck, which has slowed to a stop and ceased firing. An eagle eyed Japanese sailor onboard Yamato sees a German officer strike the ships colors , and miraculously, the order goes out across the fleet to cease firing. A boarding party from Yukikaze embarks upon the crippled German ship, followed by damage control parties from the rest of the Japanese squadron.

With the assistance of the surrendered German crew, the Japanese manage to get the fires and flooding under control. Yamato takes Bismarck under tow until tugs arrive. Although officially taken into IJN service, Bismarck never returns to combat status; the expense and difficulty of refit prove too much for the Japanese. Most of her crew survives the war, however.

Wrap

Although large and capable of absorbing enormous battle damage, Bismarck and Tirpitz simply did not compare favorably with any other navys fast battleships. Yamato and Musashi, the largest and most powerfully built ships in history (although perhaps at some disadvantage relative to the American Iowas ) utterly outclassed the German ships, and would have defeated them easily.

More importantly, the imperial ambitions of Kaiserine Germany are worth remembering. Both US and Japanese policy in the Pacific in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (particularly the U.S. seizure of the Philippines) kept German regional ambitions firmly in mind. Japan entered the Great War against the Central Powers as a coalition partner; if the coalition had broken up, Tokyo might still have found reason to quarrel with Berlin.

Dr. Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, teaches at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of the Battleship Book and can be found at @drfarls. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government

This first appeared in August 2016.

Image : Imperial Japanese Navy's battleship, Yamato running full-power trials in Sukumo Bay, 1941. Public domain.

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ProPublica has been documenting what it calls the descent of the IRS over the last decade as the agency struggles with budget cuts and hostility from lawmakers. In a report Thursday, the independent news organization says that the latest data from the IRS point to historic lows for U.S. tax enforcement.

Reviewing the IRSs annual release of enforcement statistics, ProPublica highlights some interesting data points:

In 2019, the IRS reported the lowest audit rate in generations.

Revenues from audits fell to $11 billion in 2019  down 61% from the $28 billion collected in 2010.

Expiring debt  payments owed to the IRS but not yet collected  totaled $6.7 billion in 2019, up from $564 million in 2010.

Enforcement staff has been cut by 36% since 2010.

Audit rates for the wealthy have fallen to 2.4%, down from 12.5% in 2011.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has opposed budget cuts at the IRS, said the data reaffirms the need to beef up the tax agencys enforcement capabilities. Its a national scandal that the wealthy are stealing tens of billions from American taxpayers, he told ProPublica. Paying taxes has become increasingly voluntary for those at the top.  The IRS needs to tackle this challenge head on, and one of my top priorities if Democrats take control of the Senate will be to rebuild the IRS.

For more details, see the ProPublica analysis here.

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Thomas Wells/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP

The mayor of Tupelo, Mississippi, cant find just one thing to blame for a resurgent coronavirus ravaging his state these days.

But hes clear that it starts at the top.

To Jason Shelton, the approach taken by President Donald Trump, and the politicizing of the pandemic, is where the problem began. Then it trickled down to the presidents followers, like the states GOP governor, who Shelton described as having emulated Trumps behavior and words toward COVID-19 during the public health crisis.

What has been created is a mindset of a large segment of the population that COVID is not real, that it isnt serious, said Shelton, a Democrat. Theres the far-out conspiracy theorists that think this whole things an effort to hurt President Trump. I mean, just really outlandish conspiracy theories floating around, which is hampering the ability of all levels of government to respond to COVID-19.

And now his home state of Mississippi, like others across the country is facing the potential consequences.

Shelton is among those in the state who have continued to show concern over the statewide handling of the pandemic, which has seen Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves mix in severe warnings about the coronavirus with loosened statewide rules in recent weeks that came before the states recent spike in cases.

Those issues culminated Wednesday in Reeves announcing he was pausing the states reopening and emphasizing this is not a hoax, as the state considers next steps. The state needs more cooperation, not more mandates, Reeves said.

Additional orders are useless if people will not follow what we have in place now, Reeves told reporters during a press briefing. And you and I both know that is the reality on the ground.

With the coronavirus ripping through the South, local officials in Mississippi have been anxiously watching the states COVID-19 numbers and bemoaning the social and political climate they find themselves in over three months into the public health crisis overhauling life in the southern GOP stronghold.

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The state saw a major spike last week, with the Mississippi Health Department reporting more than 1,000 new cases in a single day, though counts in the days since have been lower but still caused worry among those in the state.

The grim picture caused state officials to sound dire alarm bells, with Reeves posting on social media last Friday that Mississippi is still at risk of overwhelming our hospital system if trends continue. The states also seen patients hospitalized with confirmed infections rising in recent days to new highs, according to health department data.

The risk of overwhelming the hospitals is very real and acute for us, said Dr. Alan Jones, assistant vice chancellor for clinical affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who described the situation in the state as extremely concerning.

The positive cases the state has seen over the last week suggests that within the next week to 10 days, Jones said, the state is going to see a spike in hospitalizations.

I dont feel confident that our state hospital system is prepared to deal with a significant increase in the number of cases that were trying to deal with now, with all the other types of problems were trying to deal with that are non-COVID, Jones told The Daily Beast.

The governor originally issued an executive order that took effect on June 1 opening all businesses in the state, though with some capacity limitations and restrictions on group gatherings, according to the order.

Mississippi Governor Creating Mass Confusion and Panic Amid Pandemic

Last Thursday he took to Facebook Live to express concern over the state setting a one day record with 1,092 new cases, decrying young people throwing parties and flagrantly ignoring the rules, as he pleaded with people in the state to wear a mask. The numbers, he noted, were not because of increased testing.

Theyre not because the rules are too loose, Reeves said. Its because people arent following the looser rules that we now have in effect.

A day after the record new daily case high, Reeves noted on Facebook that while the numbers had gotten better they are not back under control. The state reported 550 new cases when it released data on Friday, but by the following week the daily number was up to 653. An executive order signed by the governor last Friday extended the states safe return COVID measures until July 6.

Mississippi was also among a new set of eight states from which people coming to New York will have to quarantine for 14 days, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday, with a statement from his office citing significant community spread, in those areas.

At the same time, Dr. J. Clay Hays, president of the Mississippi State Medical Association, described himself as guarded when it comes to the states coronavirus situation. But he didnt paint as gloomy a picture as Jones, saying Mississippi is not as challenged as other states like Louisiana.

Were not in dire straits, but I think that we have a lot of concern, Hays said.

Back in late March during the early days of the pandemic, Reeves resisted a statewide stay-at-home order as politics became intertwined in the states response to the virus. At one point, he told the public if you feel that a statewide lockdown should be occurring, then you should put yourself on individual lockdown.

Soon after that, an executive order from the governor sparked confusion and concern because some local leaders believed that Reeves was hampering their abilities to direct more aggressive public health measures to contain the coronavirus. Reeves later said the order was meant to be a floor statewide for local authorities to follow.

The approach from the governor caused Shelton to slam the governor at the time for creating mass confusion and panic across the state. While the governor did eventually sign a statewide shelter in place order on April 1, its reopening this month has become spoiled by the kind of rise in cases that is also plaguing other states like Florida.

Tupelo currently has a mandatory mask order in businesses and retail stores, Shelton said. A similar move has also been made in the city of Jackson, according to the citys website, with face coverings now largely required in public due to the surge in cases.

And in Moss Point, the city hall had opened its doors to the public in mid-May. Mayor Mario King has now shut that down over rising coronavirus concerns, saying that hes seen entire families in his community come down with the virus.

I think that people have a lack of fear surrounding COVID-19 at this point, said King, who considers himself an independent, later describing there being no sense of urgency that is created surrounding COVID in the state of Mississippi.

While some Mississippi mayors have continued to question the governors approach to the virus in recent days, the mayor of Hernando, Tom Ferguson, was more warm to his fellow Republican. People in his city have been supportive of the states reopening trajectory, he said earlier this week before Reeves paused the states reopening.

Youre only going to keep people at home so long, and they were ready to get out and do something, Ferguson said.

For others in Mississippi, anxiety over the path the virus has taken the state on is clear. Given its smaller size, the high number of people impacted by the virus in Philadelphia, Mississippi and the county its included in continue to worry Mayor James Andrew Young.

Looking toward the Fourth of July weekend, the Democrat is expecting another spike in the coming weeks simply because a lot of people are still not taking it (as) serious as they should be.

As a nation, I dont think we have taken this thing as serious as we should, Young said. And I think our numbers are really way out of a line for (the) educated society that we are.

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YANGON, Myanmar  A landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar killed 50 people Thursday, the central government said, although a local lawmaker and rescue workers said many more had died.

The Ministry of Information cited the local fire service when giving the death toll at the site of the landslide in Hpakant in Kachin state. The area is around 600 miles north of Myanmars biggest city, Yangon, and is the center of the worlds biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry.

However, a lawmaker from Hpakant, Khin Maung Myint, said local rescue services told him 99 bodies had been recovered and 54 injured people were sent to three hospitals.

Meanwhile rescue workers said at least 113 people have been killed in a landslide at a jade mining site in northern Myanmar. At least another five people have been injured in Thursday's accident, said Khin Maung Win, chairman of Thingaha rescue group working at the site now.

Image: Rescuers carry a recovered body of a victim of a landslide from a jade mining area in Hpakant, Kachine state, northern Myanmar (Myanmar Fire Service Department / AP)

The website of 7Day News Journal reported earlier that 200 people were unaccounted for.

Other details of the accident were not immediately available.

Accidents at such mining sites causing multiple casualties are not rare.

The victims are normally freelance miners who settle near giant mounds of discarded earth that has been mined in bulk by heavy machinery.

The freelance miners who scavenge for bits of jade usually work and live at the base of the mounds of earth, which become particularly unstable during the rainy season.
Citywide

Storage units have been in demand since the pandemic began. | Photo: Courtesy of Affordable Self Storage

Deanna Surma had just finished moving from San Francisco to Oakland when the pandemic shut down the Bay Area.

"I needed more space," said Surma, a tech worker who traded her San Francisco studio for a bigger apartment in a full-service Oakland building.

But when COVID-19 struck, the new building's amenities  a pool, Jacuzzi, and barbecue area  became off-limits to tenants.

"A lot of the reason I was paying more was no longer relevant," Surma said. So she decided to move again: back to San Francisco, where she's living with her sister and helping to care for her sister's twin toddlers until the pandemic subsides.

Surma had briefly put her belongings in storage for the first move. Now, they're back in storage again as she waits out the next one.

It's a familiar tale to Albert Turner, who handles marketing and customer relations for Treasure Island's Affordable Self Storage. He says he hasn't seen customer demand like this since the 2008 recession.

"Right now, I'm up," he said. "I was up 10 years ago, too."

Affordable Self Storage's Treasure Island office.

In the Great Recession, Affordable Self Storage  which has four facilities in the Bay Area  did well with business owners who were suddenly forced to close up shop, and needed somewhere to stash equipment, fixtures, and furnishings.

The business owners have returned, Turner said, and they've been joined by new groups: tech company employees reconfiguring their lives, and students temporarily displaced from campus housing.

At one massive, multi-story warehouse, a representative said that nearly all of the smaller storage units have been rented out in recent months.

Affordable Self Storage's Ruben Carabeo says that for every customer moving out of a storage unit right now, two are moving in. Some are students from UCSF, who had to quickly move their belongings into storage when the dorms shut down, he said.

Students from the Academy of Art University and the (temporarily) shuttered San Francisco Art Institute have also been major customers, said employees at two other storage unit companies in the city. (They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of their employer.)

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With the virus still a major concern, all the storage companies we spoke to say they've instituted new safety policies. Some have installed Plexiglass in customer service areas, and all are metering customers into storeroom areas to promote social distancing in the corridors.

Storage units at Public Storage in SoMa. | Photo: Public Storage/Yelp

Given the typically tight-knit relationship between storage and moving, Hoodline reached out to a dozen moving companies in San Francisco to see if their demand was also accelerating. None would offer comment.

For her two relocations, Surma used Clutter and MakeSpace, both of which offer combined moving and storage services for people in transition. MakeSpace was so busy, she said, that she had to reserve a slot several weeks in advance. A MakeSpace representative confirmed the company has seen demand jump in recent months.

Affordable Self Storage's Turner says that storage is a "good indicator" of the general health of the economy  and not in a good way.

"During turmoil, we do good business," he said.
LONDON  People in Algeria, Rwanda, Uruguay, China and Canada are now free to travel to parts of Europe on vacation. Travelers from the United States aren't.

At first glance, it seems like the European Union has chosen a motley crew of 15 countries whose residents are now officially allowed nonessential travel into its member nations, which has been restricted since the middle of March.

In fact, the Europeans say, the exclusive club was devised using strict epidemiological criteria.

That's why the U.S.  which has the most coronavirus cases and deaths in the world  was nowhere near making the cut, according to three E.U. diplomats involved in the negotiations, who spoke anonymously because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about them.

"What do you think?" one of them deadpanned when asked whether Washington had been close to meeting the threshold.

"The U.S. was never going to make it," another said. "Just look at their coronavirus situation."

So it's no surprise that the list includes countries lauded around the world for successfully tackling COVID-19, including New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Thailand and Japan.

In Canada, where more than 8,600 coronavirus deaths have been recorded, newly reported cases are decreasing and are broadly the same as the European average, so it, too, made the list.

The club also features countries less renowned for their pandemic responses: Tunisia, Uruguay, Serbia, Montenegro, Morocco, Rwanda, Algeria and Georgia, which borders Russia and Turkey. But all of them satisfied the E.U.'s criteria.

China, where the outbreak is believed to have started, says it has had fewer than 400 cases in the past two weeks. It is the last country on the list, on the condition that it allows entry to E.U. citizens in return.

Image: A child in Yongzhou, China (AFP - Getty Images file)

A stark omission  from a political and economic perspective, at least  is the U.S.

Effectively blackballing the U.S. will deny European cities the chance to cash in on hordes of lucrative American tourists, and it risks a verbal clash between European governments and President Donald Trump.

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During almost a month of talks, there was little, if any, suggestion that the U.S. might be included, the three E.U. diplomats said.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

If that is disappointing for American vacationers, it may be crushing for the European tourist sector.

"In 2019, for instance, we saw around 18 million U.S. visitors coming into Europe, and they spent roughly 70 billion euros," or about $78 billion, said Tom Jenkins, CEO of the European Tourism Association, a trade body based in London.

While Americans don't tend to flock to Europe's Mediterranean coastline in great numbers, Jenkins said, they do dominate tourism for cities like Paris and Milan  all of which will feel more pain following Tuesday's decision.

The Europeans said those considerations never entered into their discussions.

Image: A barber in Toronto (Carlos Osorio / Reuters)

"If we started talking about making exceptions for countries that provide a lot of tourism, even if they have a lot of coronavirus cases, that would not be the right approach," an E.U. diplomat said.

Asked about reports last week that the U.S. would likely be excluded from the final list, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a briefing that the U.S. had been working with its "friends in Europe and the E.U. proper to determine how it is we can best safely reopen international travel."

While he said it was "very important" for the American and European economies to reconnect, he didn't want to reopen in a way "that jeopardizes the United States," and "we don't want to cause problems for anywhere else."

None of the European negotiators brought to the table specific countries they wanted to include. Rather, they outlined the criteria first before seeing which countries fit them, the diplomats said.

The first bar countries had to pass was having the same rate of new coronavirus cases or lower as the European average, which stands at roughly 15 per 100,000 people over the past 14 days.

By contrast, the U.S. had around 145 cases per 100,000 people during that time, according to E.U. data  overshooting the threshold almost 10 times.

Image: Ocean City, Maryland (Kevin Lamarque / Reuters file)

As many as 54 countries passed the initial hurdle, according to a draft list seen by NBC News during the negotiations last week.

That was whittled down after the Europeans looked at whether each country's infection rate was increasing or decreasing and how reliable its government was on other issues, such as accurate reporting, testing, surveillance and social distancing.

For example, the central Asian country of Tajikistan says that its coronavirus infection rate is decreasing and that it's below the European average. So it made the initial list of 54 countries, along with India, Turkey, Cuba, Venezuela and dozens of others.

But according to the list, Tajikistan and many other countries have relatively poor IHR scores, relating to the International Health Regulations set out by the World Health Organization, which looks at a host of other factors related to a country's health care system.

When all of those criteria were aligned, the final list of 15 was left standing, finally agreed to by E.U. ambassadors late Friday and confirmed and unveiled Tuesday.

An E.U. spokesperson declined to comment on why the extra criteria of reciprocity had been applied to China. But two E.U. diplomats involved in the negotiations said the extra layer was included because of continued skepticism among some European countries about the hard-to-verify accuracy of China's coronavirus data.

The final list means any non-E.U. citizen living in a country that isn't on the list won't be allowed in until the situation where they live changes. Exceptions include health care workers, diplomats, military personnel and people with family matters that they can prove are urgent.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

But that's not the end of it.

Already, cracks in European unity are beginning to show, with Italy, one of the countries worst hit by the coronavirus, saying within hours of the announcement that it would opt out of the nonbinding list. Only members of the 26-member Schengen Area  which allows passport-free travel within Europe  will be allowed in, it said.

"The global situation remains very complex," Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said. "We must prevent the sacrifices made by Italians in recent months being in vain."
The country has been ruled by the military for decades. A victory for Aung San Suu Kyi and her League for Democracy is expected, but not the triumph of 2015. The Lady has lost the approval of ethnic minorities and is criticized by the international community for the army's violence against the Rohingya.

Yangon (AsiaNews / Agencies) - General and state elections will be held in Myanmar on November 8th, the Electoral Commission announced it yesterday in a message broadcast by public television. The vote is considered by many to be a test for the country's full democratic transition after decades of military rul.

Voting will take place in all states of the country, including conflict zones. 330 seats in the lower house and 168 in the upper house of the national parliament are up for grabs. 25% are reserved for the military, which are still the dominant power. Another 644 seats (plus 29 for ethnic minorities) will be at stake for state assemblies.

Analysts predict another victory for the National League for Democracy of Aung San Suu Kyi, but not the landslide victory of 2015, when in the first multi-party elections after over 50 years of military dictatorship took place.

The struggling economy is affecting the drop in consensus. Suu Kyi enjoys strong support among the population of Bamar origin, which is the majority in the country, but is harshly criticized by ethnic minorities, who accuse her of having done little to stop military violence.

The State Councilor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is also criticized by the international community for her management of the crisis in Rakhine, the scene of clashes between the army and local armed militias. The operations of the Armed Forces, considered by the UN to be an act of genocide, caused nearly one million Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.
The arrest on corruption charges of Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar points up the need to reform how City Council members can wield undue power over real estate development. (Los Angeles Times)

In the days after Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar was arrested on a slew of corruption charges for allegedly heading a vast pay-to-play scheme, his City Hall colleagues expressed the outrage one would expect.

They said they were devastated, appalled and angry at how Huizar allegedly used his position to rake in $1.5 million in cash and other benefits from real estate developers looking to build in L.A. Since the arrest, the City Council has voted to suspend Huizar, and Controller Ron Galperin announced he would halt Huizars paycheck.

What now? It would be a grievous mistake for city leaders to think theyve solved the corruption problem by kicking Huizar off the council and cutting off his paycheck. The behavior laid out in the federal indictment may be sordid and unscrupulous, but it stems directly from the citys land-use and development process, which gives council members enormous power over real estate decisions  and without checks over how they wield that authority.

Just look at some of the details in the indictment. Huizar was given carte blanche by his fellow council members to overrule the Planning Commission and loosen affordable-housing requirements in a swanky new high-rise in the Arts District. Prosecutors say Huizar made the changes after the developer offered to contribute $50,000 to support his wifes council campaign.

As chairman of the councils powerful Planning and Land Use Management Committee, Huizar was able to exert significant control over development throughout the city. His staff compiled lists of pending projects so he could hit up the developers for campaign contributions. As one unnamed former city official was recorded telling a Chinese developer in 2018, if Huizar does not put a project on the committees agenda, it will not see the light of day for a long time.

When an official holds that kind of concentrated power  over decisions that can cost developers and companies millions of dollars  it just invites corruption.

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Even before the Huizar investigation, there were plenty of concerns about soft corruption. The unwritten understanding is that City Council districts are like fiefdoms, over which council members have sole discretion to make real estate development decisions, including whether a project gets an exemption from zoning and land-use rules, or whether it should be granted a tax break.

By the way, it should be noted that Huizar didnt do just the bidding of deep-pocketed developers. To appease the owner of a shopping center and a few NIMBYs, he threw up hurdle after hurdle to block a project in Boyle Heights to house the homeless, even though the project had widespread community support. Huizar eventually relented but the needless delays cost the nonprofit developer more than two years and millions of dollars and postponed the construction of much-needed homeless housing.

And thats the larger problem: The unchecked power over land-use decisions taints the entire land-use system in Los Angeles. As long as the rules are mere suggestions and every approval is negotiable, council members can speed approvals or stall projects, with little accountability.

In the wake of the corruption scandal, Councilman David Ryu, who has been the most outspoken advocate for campaign finance and development reform, has proposed barring council members from overriding Planning Commission decisions. He also wants to create an inspector-general-like position to oversee land-use, development and construction decisions in the city. Councilman Paul Krekorian said he wants the city to consider banning developers from operating in the city if they get caught bribing a city official.

Those are interesting ideas worth exploring. But they only scratch the surface.

Los Angeles needs to fundamentally alter how developments are approved. The city needs clear, modern and objective rules for development that spell out what can be built where. The rules should represent the needs of the city for housing and jobs, as well as the neighborhoods desires for amenities and livability. Those rules should guide project approvals. The city cannot continue to tolerate case-by-case development based on the whims of a councilman, a political contribution or a NIMBY opponent.

For decades, elected officials in L.A. have been unwilling to reform the development system. Perhaps it will take a corruption scandal of historic proportions to force them to bring sanity and clarity to development.
Beachgoers take to the water on a warm summer day at the San Clemente Pier on June 30. (Los Angeles Times)

We now know that a resurgence of coronavirus infections and sickness in Los Angeles and other California counties began around Memorial Day, as people emerged from three difficult and scary months stuck inside to take advantage of simple pleasures!

Who could blame anyone for having believed that the worst of the pandemic was over, at least until a possible second wave in fall? The extreme measures in California had paid off. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 were waning; so were hospitalizations and deaths. We had a stockpile of empty hospital beds and unused ventilators. And Gov. Gavin Newsom and county health officials were lifting pandemic restrictions on businesses at a rapid pace.

Face masks were still required in many public places, as was keeping a safe distance from other humans. But was that truly necessary  or just an annoying overabundance of caution?

With the benefit of hindsight, its clear now that, yes, those measures were still necessary in early June. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 wasn't on the run, just waiting for us to let our collective guards down  which we did, in the haste to get back to work, or something like normal. In just a few weeks, California  and many other states  saw the effects of that complacence when the steadily downward-trending metrics started rising in an ascent too steep to be written off merely as a result of more testing.

And now, here we are, on the verge of another holiday weekend  one that is typically celebrated with park picnics, family beach outings, neighborhood cookouts and firework displays. And if Californians living in the 19 counties, including Los Angeles, that are nearing the danger zone don't heed the lesson of the past month, there is a real possibility that the current swell will turn into a tidal wave. Much depends on whether individual behaviors change. If not, we may all suffer the consequences.

And, to be clear, the consequence for careless revelry over the Fourth of July weekend may well be months of misery and death. At the moment, the U.S. is reporting about 40,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day, which is a nearly 100% increase from just a month ago. At a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that ignoring precautions could result in 100,000 new cases a day.

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Whats more, the demographics of infections have shifted. In the first months of the pandemic, COVID-19 seemed to be primarily a disease of the old and sick. Now, more of the cases are being reported in people under 40. In some places in Texas, which is experiencing one of the nation's worst outbreaks, the median age of people testing positive for coronavirus is under 30. Twenty-somethings may be less likely to die than an 80-year-old with a chronic illness, but they could spread pathogens to others. Also, the virus hasnt been around long enough to have any clear picture of its long-term health effects on survivors.

Bars, indoor dining areas and other indoor businesses have been ordered shut down in the 19 counties, including Los Angeles, that have been on the governor's watch list. State beach parking lots will close, and state agency enforcement teams will crack down with new gusto on businesses that don't comply. What authorities won't find easy to police, however, are celebrations behind closed doors, and that's a problem. Family gatherings have been cited as a worrisome source of COVID-19 transmission all over the state.

Many communities have also canceled fireworks displays. Its a reasonable measure, but one that may only drive people to less regulated, and illegal, neighborhood fireworks shows. This year "safe and sane" fireworks takes on a new, sobering reality.

Its understandable that people want to celebrate the nation's founding as if it were just any other year. But its not. It's a year of terrible illness and suffering, and the independence we need is freedom from disease, ignorance and selfishness. That's something worth waiting to celebrate.




HOUSTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ENGIE announces the signing of an agreement to sell 49% equity interest in a 2.3 GW US renewables portfolio to Hannon Armstrong (NYSE:HASI), a leading investor in climate change solutions. ENGIE will retain a controlling share in the portfolio and continue to manage the assets. On commissioning, this 2.3 gigawatts (GW) portfolio that comprises 1.8 GW of onshore wind and 0.5GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, will represent a major milestone in achieving ENGIE's goal of commissioning 9 GW additional renewable capacity by 2021.

engieservices.us (PRNewsfoto/ENGIE Services U.S.)

"The U.S. is a key growth market for our renewables business, where we have a strong pipeline of opportunities and a solid development and operational platform to grow from. We are delighted to have partnered with Hannon Armstrong, a company solely dedicated to investments in climate change solutions," said Gwenaelle Avice-Huet, Executive Vice-President responsible for ENGIE Renewables business line and CEO of ENGIE North America.

"We have a shared mission to accelerate to the rapid adoption of climate change solutions, and we are pleased to partner with ENGIE once again to that end. This investment adds significant scale and diversity to our portfolio," said Hannon Armstrong Chairman and CEO Jeffrey W. Eckel.

Under the agreement, Hannon Armstrong will take immediate ownership of 49% of 663 megawatts (MW) of commissioned wind projects. The remaining 1.6 GW of projects, currently under construction, will be transferred into the partnership upon commissioning. In line with its majority ownership, ENGIE will continue to consolidate the projects in its accounts.

In April 2020, ENGIE secured US$1.6 billion tax equity commitments, bringing the total tax equity commitments for the portfolio to almost US$2 billion. The size of the portfolio and the magnitude of its tax equity financing  the largest ever in the US  demonstrates ENGIE's successful development in this market. Tax equity financing is the traditional structure used in the United States to support the development of renewable projects.

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The portfolio comprises 13 projects (9 onshore wind projects and 4 solar), located in key markets in the United States, including the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), PJM Interconnection (PJM), the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and PJM Interconnection (PJM).

About ENGIE North America

ENGIE North America Inc. offers a range of capabilities in the United States and Canada to help customers decarbonize, decentralize and digitalize their operations. These include comprehensive services to help customers run their facilities more efficiently and optimize energy and other resource use and expense; clean power generation; energy storage; and retail energy supply that includes renewable, demand response, and on-bill financing options. Nearly 100% of the company's power generation portfolio is low carbon or renewable. Globally, ENGIE S.A. relies on their key businesses (gas, renewable energy, services) to offer competitive solutions to customers. With 170,000 employees, customers, partners and stakeholders, we are a community of Imaginative Builders, committed every day to more harmonious progress.

For more information on ENGIE North America, please visit our LinkedIn page or Twitter feed, www.engie-na.com and www.engie.com.

About Hannon Armstrong

Hannon Armstrong (NYSE: HASI) is the first U.S. public company solely dedicated to investments in climate change solutions, providing capital to leading companies in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other sustainable infrastructure markets. With more than $6 billion in managed assets as of March 31, 2020, Hannon Armstrong's core purpose is to make climate-positive investments with superior risk-adjusted returns. For more information, please visit www.hannonarmstrong.com . Follow Hannon Armstrong on LinkedIn and Twitter @HannonArmstrong .

ENGIE North America Media Contact:

Sandrine Deparis, sandrine.deparis@engie.com , (202) 855 3705

Hannon Armstrong Media and Investor Relations Contacts:

Gil Jenkins, media@hannonarmstrong.com , (443) 321 5753

Chad Reed, Investors@hannonarmstrong.com , (410) 571 6189

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SOURCE ENGIE North America
Audrey Strauss, acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks to the media at a press conference to announce the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell - Getty

Audrey Strauss, the prosecutor who decided to arrest Ghislaine Maxwell, acted with lightning speed just days after her predecessor was unceremoniously fired by Donald Trump.

Geoffrey Berman, the outgoing US attorney for the Southern District of New York, had presided over a long inquiry which had seen him make a series of high profile public statements about the Duke of York, including that the duke was offering "zero co-operation".

On June 20, Mr Trump ejected Mr Berman and Ms Strauss, 72, his deputy, took over his cases.

Her decision to move quickly in the Jeffrey Epstein case drew plaudits from women who have accused the late financier, and questions over why the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell had not happened sooner.

Maria Farmer, who made the first criminal complaint against Epstein in 1996, wrote on Twitter: "Strauss is doing what Berman wouldn't, his job!" When asked about the timing of the arrest, Ms Strauss said: "That was when we were able and prepared to move to arrest her."

Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested at a home in New Hampshire on July 2 on charges of sex trafficking - Reuters

Ms Strauss took charge because Mr Trump's nominee to replace Mr Berman has to be confirmed by Congress.

The nominee is Jay Clayton, chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission, but he faces opposition from Democrats.

According to colleagues Ms Strauss has always been keen to stay out of the spotlight, but has a deep knowledge and experience of her department. She first served as an assistant US attorney in New York's Southern District from 1976 to 1983, prosecuting more than 20 cases, before moving into private practice.

She returned as Mr Berman's deputy and has bee involved in the financial case brought against Michael Cohen, Mr Trump's former personal lawyer, and an investigation into the business dealings of his current personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Mr Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing.

Geoffrey Berman was forced to resign last month by Attorney General Bill Barr and President Donald Trump - AP

A former colleague of Ms Strauss said: "I would expect that she was very much involved in all of the important cases in the office." Another said she would "doggedly pursue" investigations and was "uniformly viewed as doing the right things for the right reasons."

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One former colleague called her a "titan" with a "fantastic reputation". Paul Shechtman, a former federal prosecutor in New York who has worked with her, told the Washington Post: "She grew up in that office. The traditions of that office are embedded in her."

Ms Strauss, a mother of four, is originally from Philadelphia, the daughter of Russian immigrants, and her brother worked for Nasa.

She is a Democrat who has donated to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.

When he left his cases with her Mr Berman said he could do so "in no better hands than Audreys."

He said: "She is the smartest, most principled, and effective lawyer with whom I have ever had the privilege of working."
As unanswered questions loom over missing Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen, her family members spoke out about holding on to hope that the system that "failed her" can improve to help others.

"Since she was little, she wanted to join the Army to have better opportunities for herself and for my parents, to be someone in life, to be someone important," Lupe Guillen, her sister, told ABC News on Wednesday, fighting back tears. "That's why she wanted to join, to protect and serve. But yet they failed her."

Vanessa Guillen, 20, was last seen in a parking lot on the Fort Hood base on April 22, according to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. Since her disappearance, her rank was upgraded to specialist from private first class.

Investigators found unidentified human remains on June 30 about 20 miles away from the base that are being analyzed. Natalie Khawam, an attorney for the Guillen family, believes them to be Vanessa's, but the Army has not independently confirmed that.

PHOTO: The main gate at the U.S. Army post at Fort Hood, Texas is pictured in this undated photograph, Nov. 5, 2009. (Handout/Reuters, FILE)

A suspect investigators say they've connected to Vanessa Guillen's disappearance died by suicide on Wednesday morning after being confronted by Killeen, Texas, police officers and federal marshals. That suspect was identified on Thursday as Aaron David Robinson, 20.

Robinson's death by suicide, Khawam added, is "leaving us still with no information," a big reason why Vanessa Guillen's family is calling for a Congressional investigation.

MORE: Suspect connected to missing Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen dies by suicide

A previously unidentified female suspect, described by authorities as "the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier," also has been taken into custody. She's since been identified as 22-year-old Cecily Aguilar of Killeen.

Khawam told ABC News that CID officials told her Aguilar had made a confession, but there hadn't been an arrest warrant issued for Robinson, "which is really disturbing."

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Aguilar, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office, has been charged with with one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

Robinson, according to the criminal complaint, told Aguilar "he killed a female soldier by striking her in the head with a hammer" April 22 at Fort Hood, and Aguilar helped him dispose of the victim's body.

PHOTO: Army Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, 20, has been missing from her unit since April 22, 2020, according to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. (Fort Hood CID )

The Guillen family and Khawam said at a press conference on Wednesday that Robinson was Vanessa Guillen's superior, and accused him of sexually harassing her.

But at a news conference at Fort Hood on Thursday, Damon Phelps, the Army's lead investigator in the case, described Robinson as a coworker who was not in her chain of command. Phelps disputed the family's claim that Guillen had been harassed by Robinson.

"There is no credible information that Specialist Robinson sexually harassed Specialist Guillen," Phelps said.

Lupe and Mayra Guillen said their sister's fear of reporting a sex-related crime in the military isn't uncommon.

"She was afraid to report it. She reported it to her friends. She reported it to her family. She even reported to other soldiers on base, but she didn't want to do a formal report because she was afraid of retaliation and being blackballed, and she, like most victims, just tried to deal with it herself," Lupe Guillen told ABC News on Wednesday.

Lupe Guillen said she started the "Find Vanessa Guillen" Instagram account after her sister was reported missing. With over 100,000 followers, the hashtag #findvanessaguillen became an outlet for others.

Hundreds of military members have reacted to the account, airing their own grievances in the comment section or in private messages. Like Vanessa Guillen, many said they were afraid to speak up.

MORE: Foul play suspected in disappearance of missing Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen

The Pentagon's latest report on sex-related crimes in the military showed a 3% increase in the number of sexual assaults reported in the 2019 fiscal year -- 6,236 compared with 6,053 a year earlier.

The report said the military received 1,021 formal sexual harassment complaints, a 10% increase from 2018.

ABC News reported in May that the number of sexual assaults at the three military service academies spiked by 32% over the last year, with 149 reports of sexual assault involving a cadet or midshipman as a victim and/or subject during the 2018-2019 academic year.

In the wake of Vanessa Guillen's disappearance and claims by her family, the Army launched an investigation into a program at Fort Hood that's intended to support sexual harassment or sexual assault victims.

The Army has sent a seven-member inspection team to the base at the request of the base's senior leadership for a week-long investigation into how the program operates, assessing whether the command climate is supportive of soldiers who step forward.

PHOTO: Army Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, 20, has been missing from her unit since April 22, 2020, according to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. (U.S. Army)

Data from the 2018 RAND study that looked at sexual prevalence in the military found that in fiscal year 2014 Fort Hood had the highest number of reported sexual assaults and rapes of any U.S. military facility worldwide.

The 885 reported sexual assaults from October 2014 through September 2015 made the sprawling base the 10th riskiest Army facility for female soldiers that year and the eighth riskiest for male soldiers.

Fort Hood also has been rocked by a number of scandals, including a prostitution ring discovered in 2014.

At this time, the Guillen family and Khawam said they want justice not just for Vanessa but for all members of the military.

The family wants to host a large protest outside military bases, including Fort Hood, pass a bill called "I am Vanessa Guillen" to help protect both men and women from sexual harassment, and urge people not to enlist in the military until justice is served.

MORE: Unidentified remains found in search for missing soldier Vanessa Guillen

"Knowing that this could happen to anyone, knowing that there's more victims out there, would you let your child, your son or daughter, sign a contract with the Army knowing that their life is at risk?" said Lupe Guillen, tears streaming down her cheeks. "My sister deserves to be protected. Your child deserves to be protected. Don't let them recruit you until we get justice -- until Vanessa gets justice."

Family of missing Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen speaks out, urges no one enlist until 'we get justice' originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Patrick McMullan/Getty

Ghislaine Maxwell was being discreetly tracked by federal law enforcement as they collected the evidence needed to finally bring charges against her, it has been revealed.

Maxwell, the 58-year-old former girlfriend of late accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested on Thursday and charged with multiple crimes in relation to the investigation into Epsteins alleged abuse of minors.

Her whereabouts has been the subject of intense speculation since Epsteins apparent suicide last year. Media reports have alleged that she was living in Paris, London and Israel.

But the FBI said they had been monitoring her movements as their investigation proceeded, before finally swooping in her latest location in New Hampshire.

We have been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwells whereabouts as we worked this investigation, said William Sweeney, assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York Field Office, at a press conference on Thursday.

More recently, we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims lived with the trauma inflicted on them years ago.

He added: We moved when we were ready and Ms Maxwell was arrested without incident.

Maxwells indictment was signed by acting SDNY US attorney Audrey Strauss, who was elevated to the position just two weeks ago amid a contentious public feud between US Attorney General William Barr and Ms Strauss boss, Geoffrey Berman.

Speaking at the same press conference as Mr Sweeney, she said the investigation into Epsteins alleged abuse was still ongoing, and anyone who had information to come forward.

She added that investigators would like to hear from Prince Andrew, who has been linked to Maxwell and the claims of abuse. One of Epsteins victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has alleged that she was forced to have sex with Epstein and Prince Andrew, a claim that both Maxwell and the Duke of York have denied.

"We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement," Ms Strauss said.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday and charged with helping to procure young victims for the disgraced financier's child sex trafficking operation that began more than 25 years ago.

Maxwell made a brief appearance via video-link in a New Hampshire federal court, hours after her arrest in the small town of Bradford where she had recently purchased a large tract of property. A federal judge directed that she be transported for a detention hearing in Manhattan where the charges were announced.

A federal grand jury in New York indicted Maxwell on perjury and conspiracy charges that accuse her of helping Epstein recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims between 1994 and 1997. Both allegedly knew the victims were under age 18 and as young as 14.

Maxwell and Epstein enticed and lured the victims to Epsteins homes scattered across the United States and abroad, which Maxwell knew and intended would result in their grooming for and subjection to sexual abuse, the indictment charged.

Jeffrey Epstein was connected to many celebrities, scientists and politicians. A who's who of his network, explained. Inner circle: Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend

Moreover, in an effort to conceal her crimes, Maxwell repeatedly lied about her conduct, including when she gave sworn testimony in 2016, the indictment charged.

Court documents describe elaborate schemes in which Maxwell and Epstein allegedly accompanied victims on shopping trips and movie outings, all designed to put the girls at ease in preparation for more intimate encounters.

"Having developed a rapport with a victim, Maxwell would try to normalize sexual abuse ... by among other things discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed and being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein," prosecutors alleged.

Epstein, while awaiting trial on the trafficking charges last year, died by suicide in a federal detention center in New York.

Following Epstein's death, federal authorities vowed to continue the investigation and have sought, but so far failed, to obtain the cooperation of Britain's Prince Andrew, a friend of Epstein.

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More: The death of Jeffrey Epstein: Fact, fiction, confusion and a warden reassigned

Facing allegations that Epstein once forced a 17-year-old girl to have sex with the prince, Andrew announced in November that he was stepping away from his public duties as a royal. The prince and Buckingham Palace cast the allegations as "false and without any foundation."

With Epstein gone, however, much speculation has swirled around Maxwell, a British socialite also described in civil court records as a co-conspirator accused of recruiting girls to perform sex acts on Epstein.

Maxwell is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a publishing tycoon and former member of the British Parliament who died in 1991 after falling overboard his luxury yacht, Lady Ghislaine, named after the youngest of his nine children.

The six-count indictment filed Thursday outlines an alleged partnership between Epstein and Maxwell in which the pair went to great lengths to procure young victims.

Over the years, Maxwell allegedly facilitated the victims' travel to Epstein's homes in New York, Florida, New Mexico and London for the expressed purpose of engaging in sex acts with the financier.

Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, said Maxwell repeatedly lied about her conduct and Epstein's actions in 2016, during a deposition in a related case.

"Maxwell lied because the truth, as alleged, was almost unspeakable," Strauss said at a briefing in New York. "Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, then delivered them into the trap that she and Epstein had set for them. She pretended to be a woman they could trust ... Today, after many years, Ghislaine Maxwell finally stands charged for her role in these crimes."

New York FBI chief William Sweeney, Jr. said investigators had been monitoring Maxwell's movements, at some point determining that she had "slithered away" to a "gorgeous" home in New Hampshire, where she was arrested Thursday without incident.

The announcement of the case against Maxwell was the first public action taken by Strauss since she was appointed to replace Geoffrey Berman, following his abrupt ouster last month by Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump.

Authorities continue to investigate Jeffrey Epstein, though he killed himself in a detention center.

Berman's office, the most high-profile district within the sprawling Justice Department, has been engaged in various investigations that have shadowed the Trump administration, including an ongoing inquiry into the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

"We were working hard on this investigation this past year," Strauss said. "Its not easy to put together a case that goes back that far. Theres nothing other than we did the investigation, and we were ready at this time to proceed."

Of the pursuit of Prince Andrew's cooperation, Strauss said: "We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us. We would like to have the benefit of his statement."

In court filings asking that Maxwell remain in custody awaiting trial, prosecutors argued that the evidence against her and the prospect of a long prison sentence, if convicted, offered "strong incentive" to flee to another country.

"That risk is only amplified by the defendant's extensive international ties, her citizenship in two foreign countries, her wealth, and her lack of meaningful ties to the United States," prosecutors wrote. "In short, Maxwell has three passports, large sums of money, extensive international connections, and absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence."

Maxwell is a citizen of France, the United Kingdom and the United States, and has passports in all three countries.

Prosecutors cited travel records showing Maxwell has been on at least 15 international flights to the United Kingdom, Japan, Qatar and other locations in the past three years.

They also said Maxwell has had more than 15 bank accounts since 2016, with balances as high as $20 million. She earned $15 million from selling a property in New York.

"The defendant's international connections and significant financial means would present clear risk of flight under normal circumstances, but in this case, the risk of flight is exacerbated by the transient nature of the defendant's current lifestyle," prosecutors said, adding that Maxwell has been in hiding since Epstein was indicted last year and made efforts to avoid getting found, including changing her phone number and ordering packages in another name.

Prosecutors said Maxwell's most recent hiding place was a 156-acre property bought in cash in December 2019 in Bradford, New Hampshire.

Jessica Roth, professor at Cardozo School of Law and former federal prosecutor in the Manhattan office, said the charges "reflect the other shoe dropping" in the case against Epstein.

"The indictment against Epstein made clear that he did not act alone and was assisted significantly by others in his sex trafficking crimes," Roth said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein associate, arrested in sex trafficking case
Federal authorities on Thursday reportedly arrested a male suspect they say was the ringleader of an effort to destroy a statue of Andrew Jackson near the White House.

Jason Carter, whom authorities said is connected to the loose knit anarchist group Antifa, was arrested Thursday morning at his home and charged with destruction of federal property, Fox News first reported. Carter allegedly led the June 22 effort to topple the statue in Washington D.C.s Lafayette Square near the White House, which protesters said they attacked because Jackson owned slaves and because of his treatment of Native Americans.

They were very organized, an unidentified federal law enforcement official told Fox News. Carter was on top of the statue and directing people.

They had acid, chisels, straps and a human chain preventing police from getting to the statue, the official said.

The Justice Department on Saturday announced that four other men face felony destruction of federal property charges for their roles in attacking the statue. According to the department, the four were caught in video footage attempting to pull the statue to the ground.

President Trump on Friday signed an executive order to protect American monuments, memorials, and statues in the wake of recent attacks on several monuments of historical figures in cities around the country.

Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country, Trump wrote in a tweet announcing the order.

At least a dozen other monuments to historical figures have also been targeted, including several Christopher Columbus statues. Statues of Columbus were attacked in recent weeks in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Minnesota as protests continue against racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.

More from National Review
by Paul Wang

At least 370 people arrested in Hong Kong yesterday; several of them are victims of the new law. The US House of Representatives unanimously votes for a law that provides for sanctions on people, companies and banks that undermine Hong Kong's freedom. The criticism of the EU, Australia, Great Britain, Japan. Concerns about the "universal" sovereignty expressed by law.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - On the first day of its application, Beijings national security law for Hong Kong registered one "success": more than 370 people were arrested at demonstrations on July 1st; dozens of these were for violations of the security law: pro-independence banners and chants; sticks considered a "terrorist" weapon; journalists who "hinder" the work of the police.

But Beijing has also reaped a cascade of criticism and condemnation of a law considered in violation of the UN Charter for Human Rights (which Beijing has also signed).

In the United States, the House of Representatives has passed a law that provides for sanctions against individuals and organizations - such as banks or companies - with ties to Chinese government representatives who undermine Hong Kong's freedoms. The law was passed unanimously by Republicans and Democrats. House president Democrat Nancy Pelosi said, "The law is a brutal, radical crackdown on the people of Hong Kong, which aims to destroy the freedoms that were promised."

According to most observers, the new law destroys the "One country, two systems" principle, which would have guaranteed Hong Kong's liberal lifestyle for at least 50 years, until 2047.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new law is "a clear and serious rupture" of the joint declaration signed in 1985 between Britain and China on the future of Hong Kong.

Britain is planning to offer British citizenship to 3 million Hong Kong residents. Australia is also considering offering refuge to Hong Kong residents.

The Japanese Foreign Minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, stressed that the "unpleasant" law undermines the "One country, two systems" principle.

The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, "deplored" the law and said that it has "negative effects on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law".

For Canada, the new law "increases the risk of arbitrary detention on the basis of security issues and possible extraditions to popular China."

In Hong Kong, in addition to criticisms of the weakening of the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, China's claim to want to condemn violations of the law that also occur outside the borders of Hong Kong and China is denounced.

Article 38 of the law states that citizens, permanent and non-permanent residents of Hong Kong are liable to prosecution for acts of "secession, subversion, terrorism, collaboration with foreign forces" that take place outside the territory and China. And it is possible to prosecute if such acts also take place on a ship or on a plane registered in Hong Kong.

In short, every person on the planet is liable under the law.

Chen Ming-tong, Taiwanese minister for Chinese affairs, commented: " I wonder if this is some fiat of a celestial empire by which all of humanity is bound. This is no longer just something that should concern Hong Kong or, indeed, Taiwan. The world must come wide awake to this law, a law we really should be confronting in all seriousness."

So far Beijing has only gained the support of all its political and economic allies. In recent days, at a session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, held in Geneva, which discussed the security law, China was roundly defended by 53 nations, led by Cuba

"We believe - said the Cuban representative presenting the motion of the 53 countries - every country has the right to safeguard its national security through legislation, and commend relevant steps taken for this purpose". And he declared that "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries is an essential principle inscribed in the United Nations Charter".

Something similar had been expressed yesterday by Zhang Xiaoming at the press conference presenting the law: "Why are you fighting us? ... The time when the Chinese people had to please others has passed".
As DeVon Noe rode in the truck on the way to the Black Lives Matter protest, he felt queasy. He thought about the 37 Facebook messages he saw when he woke up.

Most were discouraging, even threatening. One told him if he showed, hed get beat up. Others were positive  You got this, I love you, they said.

Noe is a gay, Black man living in Vidor, Texas, a place once described by Texas Monthly as the states most hate-filled town.

Vidor, an east Texas town of about 10,000, where many residents work in the refining complexes in nearby Beaumont, is mostly known by outsiders for its history as a haven for the Ku Klux Klan. When a federal judge ordered a housing project desegregated in 1993, the Klan rallied and demanded the entire town be white.

It was known for being a sundown town, when the few Black people who lived there knew they werent safe if they were out after dark. Most Black residents in Beaumont were afraid to even stop in Vidor to get gas or change a tire.

DeVon Noe, 24, spoke June 6 at the Black Lives Matter protest in Vidor, Texas. Vidor is more than 97 percent white. Noe is known by his friends for being a talented makeup artist. He's the only man in Vidor who sometimes walks through the Walmart in heels and makeup, but he wants others to feel comfortable doing the same.

But Vidor has been Noes home for nearly all his 24 years, and he knows theres more to it.

When Noe was deciding whether to go to the June 6 protest, he thought about his first day of elementary school in Vidor.

In This Together: In sickness, health and fighting racism: Attending a peaceful BLM protest with my husband

Youre a n----- and no one wants you here, someone said to him at recess that day, a group of students forming around him.

That was the day he met his friend Josh, who pulled him away from the group. Josh helped him write a speech for the protest.

He thought about when he was in junior high and three students cornered him in the bathroom during gym class, shoved him into a stall and spit on him while yelling racial slurs. He thought about how he started wearing makeup in high school to cover the bruises so his family wouldnt worry.

As his friend Caleb pulled the truck up to the park, Noe saw at least a hundred people already gathered. Most were white, but there were Black people attending, too. Most were young, but there was also a group of middle-aged white women wearing T-shirts with sayings such as I cant breathe.

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Noe saw the faces of his friends, his chosen family. As he stepped onto the stage, he felt like he wasnt alone.

In a Saturday, June 6, 2020 photo, protesters observe an eight minute and forty-six second moment of silence in honor of George Floyd in Gould Park in Vidor, Texas. Several hundred people came out to the park on Saturday afternoon for a protest and peace march in honor of George Floyd who died while being detained by Minneapolis police. (Fran Ruchalski/The Beaumont Enterprise via AP)

When he looked out into the crowd, he saw Caleb standing dead center. He and Noe were wearing the same teal shorts theyd bought at Walmart earlier in the day. Noe bought the shorts because they matched his dyed hair; Caleb bought them in case they were attacked, so Noe could still find him if everyone had to hit the ground.

Some friends skipped the protest, but Noe still remembered how they had shown him love through the years.

When he thinks about his friend Lindsay, he thinks about how she took a punch to the face for him to break up a fight when they were in high school.

When he thinks about his friend Brandi, he thinks about how they used to make chicken alfredo in their underwear together and how they have matching tattoos of Ohana  Hawaiian for family  because they decided they were more than just friends.

In This Together: A stubborn stain, a selfless act, a wrenching discovery

He thinks about his old teachers: Mrs. Nelson, who never allowed Confederate flags in the classroom when students tried to bring them in; Mrs. Berry, who was one of the first people Noe told he was gay; Mrs. Griffin, whom he once called in the middle of the night when he had thoughts of killing himself.

While Noe was lost in thought, 23-year-old Maddy Malone, who helped organize the protest, spoke to the crowd about how her generation is going to be the one to break the cycle of racism. Then, she handed the microphone to Noe.

His stomach churned. He could barely remember how to speak at all, let alone the speech hed prepared. I guess Im going to wing it, he thought.

Some of you might know me as Vidors resident gay, Black guy, Noe said. Yeah, thats me.

Noe told the crowd how hes had bottles thrown at his head and cars jumping the curb to try and hit him while he walks through town. But that doesnt mean the town is doomed to be like this forever.

In a Saturday, June 6, 2020 photo, organizers Yalakesen Baaheth, left, Madison Malone and Rev. Michael Cooper of the local NAACP speak to those assembled in Gould Park in Vidor, Texas. Several hundred people came out to the park on Saturday afternoon for a protest and peace march in honor of George Floyd who died while being detained by Minneapolis police.

I know Vidor is a very damn good place, he said.

As Noe stepped down from the stage, he felt hopeful. Maybe this protest would change the towns reputation just a little. He doesnt like how the media usually portrays Vidor.

When people Google the town, they just get the ugly history. They dont see the people who help Noe pay for groceries when hes struggling, or the people who offer him rides so he doesnt have to face the danger of walking in town alone. They dont learn about his friends and family, who have saved his life.

In This Together: We got you: A deputy worried about walking with protesters. Two women escorted him.

Vidor is still filled with hatred and ignorance, but its also filled with love.

Noe believes in what he calls The Vidor curse  if you move to town, youre there to stay. You can try to leave, but youll always come back.

As much as its a curse, Noe thinks its also a comfort, a constant. He doesnt want to leave. Vidor is where his friends and family are, so its where his heart is.

I love this town. Ill probably die in this town, he said. And if not, Ill be back somehow.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: He'd felt hate, but love led him to speak at Black Lives Matter rally
JERSEY CITY, N.J., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Revenued, a financial technology company founded in 2018, announced today the acquisition of Sky Bridge Business Funding, a small business financing company founded in 2017, to further establish the company's vision of helping small businesses have access to the tools and solutions needed for growth.

Revenued

Sol Lax, CEO of Revenued, says "Revenued has established itself as a leading provider of financial technology, most recently providing the application platform to process over $1.45 Billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans through Cross River Bank. Now, with the acquisition of Sky Bridge Business Funding, Revenued will also be able to provide a direct financial solution for businesses in need."

"The Revenued logo has a plant-like symbol which represents growth" Lax continues, "The acquisition of Sky Bridge Business Funding is a natural next move for Revenued as we grow closer to our vision of helping small businesses succeed. We look forward to continuing to provide useful tools and information for businesses at Revenued, all while offering financing solutions as well. "

"We're excited for this opportunity and intend this to be one step in the right direction as we plan to launch a business credit card under the Revenued brand later this year," SVP of Sales Jake Lerner says, "The Sky Bridge Business Funding service team already has a 5-star approval rating and we commit to maintaining that reputation under our new brand name."

Please visit revenued.com to explore what resources are available to business owners, including an online application platform for the SBA Paycheck Protection Program powered by Cross River bank.

About Revenued

Revenued was founded by a team of pioneers from the alternative small business financing industry that have provided more than 18,000 businesses with over $684 million in financing. The Revenued Card utilizes alternative credit scoring to provide businesses across the U.S. access to capital that are otherwise not offered due to subprime credit.

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Cision

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Day trip, road trip, field trip  as the pandemic slogs along, any kind of trip will do.

As a salute to the Fourth of July weekend, WWD dipped into its archives to resurface some snapshots of surf and sun on Fire Island in the Seventies  specifically, the summer of 1976. Thats when former WWD staffer Andre Leon Talley photographed fellow fashion-minded New Yorkers kicking back one weekend on the 31-mile island.

In an interview earlier this week,Talley recalled that he started visiting friends on Fire Island while working for WWD, but those jaunts were work-free reprieves. But as a few of these photographs reveal, Talley had somewhat of a working weekend in August 1976, attending the second annual Pines Conservation Society fashion show. While the inaugural one was televised, the follow-up was not and only two of the 25 featured designers  Donna Karan and John Anthony  made a cameo at the Botel pool. Stay-at-homes included island regulars Stephen Burrows, who spent the afternoon cutting his friends hair, and Calvin Klein, who visited neighbors in search of saffron oil needed for a dinner for two.

Fire Island was fun. It stood for fun with a capital F and freedom with a capital F. People were free, Talley said. I had never seen anything like it because I came from the South. It was an eye-opening moment of liberation to see a community where people can just be themselves. I mean gay men in particular. There was a gay womens section on the island, but this was mainly gay men.

Reminiscing about those carefree weekends, Talley described a liberating, accepting and happy environment where all were welcome. While drugs and explicit sex were the norm for some, that was not his game. I was an observer of the scene. As you can see from the photographs, they are innocent pictures. I was never taking pictures of people having sex in the bushes or things like that. For me, it was a very innocent time and a very wonderful time, he said. It was just a great place to be  wonderful sun, open air, beautiful weather was almost guaranteed and dancing. The focus was on the socializing and dancing at the Botel.

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While winging it on a seaplane was the preferred mode of transportation, driving or taking the Long Island Railroad to catch the Sayville ferry did the trick, too. Many in the fashion crowd welcomed the islands simplicity after a hectic work week. The weekends often started with wonderful food at a hosts summer house, followed by a stroll on the beach, a swim in the pool or a dunk in the ocean, and then it was off to tea dance at the Botel. Talley said, It was very exciting. Suddenly, youre going to something at five oclock in the afternoon and dancing. Ahhh, it was amazing. The disco music was amazing.People were dancing in and dancing in their swimsuits then.

Burrows and Klein were the fashion stars of the island, but other stylish weekenders included Marina Schiano, Elon and Diane von Furstenberg, Giorgio di Sant Angelo, Manolo Blahnik, Perry Ellis, Bethann Hardison, DD Dominick, Victor Hugo, Peter Lester, Joe McDonald, Angelo Colon, Maxime de la Falaise, Halston model Karen Bjornson and Ronald Kolodzie. Poolside or surfside, bare feet and sunglasses were a given, and many lounged around in bikinis, shorts, cutoffs and sarongs. People just loved it. I remember the conversations would be, Are you coming to the island this weekend? Talley said.

There was also an undeniable sexual overtone in how the bodies were on display, the attention to the body and the Greek ideal of a man. It was very explicit the way they were having sex in the afternoon in the bushes, in the brambles and off from the beach. There was group sex. Once Manolo Blahnik and I walked in on a group sex thing by mistake. We were giggling. We had never seen anything like it, Talley said. We were not welcome, because Manolo and I were dressed up over-the-top.

Walking up and down the beach, Talley said he and Blahnik would see people wearing bikini thongs and suntanning. Manolo would be wearing Saint Laurent. Id be wearing something like a version of a Geoffrey Beene black-and-white wool and cashmere French blanket as a one-shouldered sarong with a Japanese parasol and a big straw hat. So we would sort of be the anti-Fire Island citizens but weekend guests, Talley said. But we were all welcome. It was a very warm place. It was not a place of hostility.

Although Talley never felt that drugs were being pushed on him, they were all around him on the island, he said. Over time though, the drug use  primarily marijuana and cocaine  became so explicit and evident that people had lost control, he said. And this was way before AIDS.

One night while watching The Boys in the Band at someones beach house, someone spiked the punch with more than alcohol. That was a signal to me that it was a place that could be dangerous, if you allowed yourself to fall into the traps. I never wanted to fall into the traps, Talley said. His point-of-no-return arrived one summer morning in the late Seventies, when he and Schiano had to step over passed-out bodies on the boardwalk. With that, the pair vowed to never come back.

All in all, Talley considered that time on Fire Island as a moment of freedom and liberation. The picture of Bethann [Hardison] surrounded by all these boys represented the best of Fire Island. Shes wearing these extravagant pants. It was all great. Thats how I got to know all of these people, he said.

Hardisons leopard-printed drawstring pants were designed by Burrows, who can be seen in a similar pair in other photos. After taking a look at Talleys photos, Burrows described the pants earlier this week as joggers without the elastic at the ankle. More than anything, the easy breezy mood of that period stays with him. He said, It was such a free social time that was unlike anything that had happened before. There were no cars. That made it a fantasy island that everyone enjoyed and loved. The DJs played all the new music and we all heard it first.

Having visited the island from 1965 until 1984, Burrows said, It was a great time in New York. It was very diverse. That was what was so unusual about it  all the different nationalities that were involved there. That made it great and like no place else. All the artists gravitated there every weekend, and dressed up and went to parties and danced at The Sandpiper, the Botel and the Monster in Cherry Grove.

Fire Island was also where Burrows was discovered by Joel Schumacher, during the future filmmakers Conde Nast days. The designer said, Joel worked for Vogue with Carrie Donovan. He came up to me on Fire Island and said, You have great style. We would like to shoot you for Vogue. Joel also introduced me to Geraldine Stutz at [Henri] Bendels. He suggested I go see her, when [my store] O Boutique was closing.

When the AIDS epidemic took hold in the Eighties and all my friends were dying, we just lost interest in going. It wasnt the same. Everyone separated. It was just the end of a time, said Burrows, adding that others started drifting away to other states, like California.

But hanging out at home or poolside has always been one of the draws of the large barrier island off the south shore of Long Island. As noted, Talleys aforementioned coverage of the 1976 Pines Conservation Society fashion show referred to Burrows and Klein as stay-at-homes. Burrows explained his backyard barber shop this week: I used to cut my own hair. I just started cutting peoples hair. I didnt like the way they looked, so I just changed it. People liked what I did. I wasnt really a hairdresser.

Talley said stay-at-homes was a commonly used term with Fire Islanders at that time. Regarding the terms current coronavirus-driven popularity, he said, It is a coincidence. Apt for now; apt for then. In many ways, some people just wanted to get out to The Pines and shut down from hectic career schedules. It was a calm and serene environment. I hope it still has that today.

Hardison agreed, describing how the weekend revelers retreated back to the city by Monday morning and The Pines returned to the simplest place. She and her son were among the families that whiled away the work weeks there at her interior designer friend Angelo Donghias house. Kids would run on the beach, and pull their wagons and bike on the boardwalk. You never had to have any fear that they would have any problems with anybody. You never had to feel that something could go wrong and they would be unsafe, Hardison said. You would just be so calm.

Asked what people might re-create from that time today, Hardison said, Forget that. There aint no re-creating. They couldnt re-create it even if they could imagine it. And most people are too distracted to remember anything that happened before. Its straight up.

She continued, Even when I look at the photographs of the men and the boys, it was a typical look. Its so interesting how beautiful they all were, really. Theres no re-creation of this. It was truly a moment in time.

Talley presented another view: What could be wonderful today is the sense of community, wholesome and positive community. I think it still exists on Fire Island today, although Ive never been there since the last time I left. A place where gay people had their own community, and it was a very, very positive environment. The Castro District in San Francisco is a prime example of this type of community  stores, restaurants, social life all built around this community. And it wasnt isolation. Straight people were always welcomed. Notice the amount of straight women in the photographs.

Launch Gallery: Andre Leon Talley: Fire Island in the Seventies

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Undertaking a first aid course is highly recommended for both parents-to-be and new parents. But, the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown has left access to these courses limited.

Knowing what to do when a child chokes is a particularly useful skill. No matter how careful you are, children aged one to five often put small objects in their mouths and so knowing how to help your child - and when to call an ambulance - is key.

Michelle Murray, paediatric first aid trainer at Daisy First Aid talks about the difference between gagging and choking in babies and how to know what to do if these occur.

Speaking to Lauren Pope on Yahoo UKs The Baby Bump with Lauren Pope, Murray talked new parents - including 35 weeks pregnant Pope - through what theyll need to do if this scenario occurs.

Read more: Why dance classes could help parents bond with children

Murray explains: There are a couple of things about choking and the first is to recognise the difference between gagging and choking.

Babies have a very sensitive gag reflex and its built in to protect them from objects going in.

If a baby is gagging, they will flush red, their eyes will water and they can make noise. The main difference with choking is that they may initially flash red but then go blueish and theyll be silent.

When introducing foods to your baby, Murray explains that its ok to let them gag a bit, because its their way of learning.

Choking, on the other hand, is different.

Choking in a blocked airway, so its very different to gagging, which is touching an area on their tongue which is sensitive.

These tips are great for new parents. (Getty Images)

Read more: Experts explain coronavirus hospital rules

In this situation, Murray recommends looking to see where the item lodged in the throat is because you may be able to reach it with your hands.

If you ever feel like you need to dig (to get it) then dont.

If you are able to, place the baby face down on your arm and lean them down slightly. Hold onto their face, but not pulling their chin up or pulling it down. You would then apply force on the babys back.

Story continues

Murray admits that some parents are worried that you should just tap the babys back, but it needs to be hard.

What youre looking for is a big outburst of breath.

Add some gravity, tilt them a bit but not all the way down and firmly hit them with the heel of your hand in between the shoulder blades because you want them to cough.

Do that up to five times. The worst thing you can do to the back is make it go a bit red, but if you dont get the object out the situation could be a lot worse.

The NHS has more advice for helping a choking baby.
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, leave the stage together at the conclusion of their joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, July 16, 2018.

Associated Press/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested intelligence on a suspected Russian bounty plot was "Fake News," prompting sharp criticism from a former US ambassador to Russia.

"He always sides with Putin; never with his own intelligence officers or soldiers," Michael McFaul, the top US diplomat in Moscow from 2012 to 2014, said in a tweet.

Though the White House on Wednesday confirmed Trump has been "fully briefed" on the matter and is continuing to brief members of Congress, the president has essentially claimed the intelligence doesn't exist.

American intelligence officials reportedly intercepted electronic data that showed large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia's military intelligence agency (the GRU) to a Taliban-linked account, which reinforced intelligence gleaned from interrogations that suggested Russia was paying Afghan militants to target US troops.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, on Wednesday excoriated President Donald Trump for suggesting intelligence on a suspected Russian bounty plot involving the targeting of US soldiers was "Fake News."

McFaul, the top US diplomat in Moscow from 2012 to 2014, said Trump "always sides with" Russian President Vladimir Putin over the US intelligence community and US troops.

"The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party," Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday. "The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited @nytimes has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!"

Responding to Trump, McFaul in a tweet said, "Trump said the exact same thing about the overwhelming U.S. intelligence that documented Putin's interference in our 2016 presidential election. He always sides with Putin; never with his own intelligence officers or soldiers."

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Last Friday, the New York Times reported that US intelligence officials determined months ago that Russia paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill US troops in Afghanistan, adding that there's been no known response from the Trump administration despite the fact the president was briefed. That report has since been corroborated and expanded upon by other reports from major publications.

The intelligence was reportedly included in Trump's daily written briefing in late February. A separate report from the Associated Press on Monday said US officials knew about the suspected plot in the early months of 2019, far earlier than previously reported, adding that Trump was briefed on it in March 2019.

American intelligence officials reportedly intercepted electronic data that showed large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia's military intelligence agency (the GRU) to a Taliban-linked account, which reinforced intelligence gleaned from interrogations that suggested Russia was paying Afghan militants to target US troops.

The Trump administration has downplayed the reports on the suspected Russian plot, painting them as unsubstantiated and stating that the president was never briefed on the matter.

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Trump has offered an array of responses to reports on the intelligence, ranging from claiming he was unaware of the intel to contesting its credibility and describing it as a "hoax." Though his administration has been briefing members of Congress on the intelligence and the White House briefed Trump on the intel this week, the president claims it doesn't actually exist. White House national security adviser Robert C. O'Brien on Wednesday said Trump had been "fully briefed" on the reports regarding the Russian bounty plot.

Congressional lawmakers who've been briefed on the intelligence have rejected Trump's efforts to dismiss its significance.

"The president called this a hoax publicly," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said. "Nothing in the briefing that we have just received led me to believe it is a hoax."

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

The Russian government and the Taliban have both denied such an operation ever existed, and Trump has essentially echoed their talking points by characterizing the intelligence as bogus.

Trump has a history of behaving in a deferential manner toward Putin. In perhaps the most infamous example, Trump during a 2018 summit in Helsinki, Finland, appeared to side with Putin over the US intelligence community on the subject of Russia's interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The incident prompted bipartisan uproar and criticism back in the US.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Not surprisingly for the hottest holiday of the year, scorching temperatures will be the main weather story for many people over the Fourth of July weekend.

Some of the hottest temperatures, compared with average, will be in the north-central U.S., where readings could soar into the 90s in cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis.

High levels of humidity will add to the heat misery throughout much of the southern and central U.S. through the weekend.

Another hot spot will be the Desert Southwest, where Phoenix could be 110 degrees or hotter, according to weather.com, which said most other areas of the country will see highs close to the average for this time of year.

This means highs in the 80s and 90s for much of the nation, except for portions of New England and along the immediate West Coast, where temperatures should top out in the 70s.

A view of fireworks over Times Square on July 01, 2020 in New York City. This is the third of six July 4th firework displays in locations around the city that are kept secret in an attempt to minimize crowds gathering in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Outdoor plans for folks in one part of the country may be threatened: The main area of storminess on the Fourth will be in the South, thanks to a stalled area of low pressure forecast to linger over the region through the weekend.

The most widespread showers and thunderstorms are predicted to ignite across the area from the Mississippi Delta region to the southern Atlantic coast in the days leading up to the holiday and through the weekend, according to AccuWeather.

Fourth of July from home?: A guide to fireworks specials and holiday-themed movies and shows

The storms could bring flash flooding because of localized heavy rain totals, the National Weather Service said.

AccuWeather meteorologist Mary Gilbert said that "while a majority of the individual storms across the Southeast through the weekend will not be heavy in nature, even repeated rounds of moderate rainfall can lead to some flooding issues across the region."

On the Fourth, the Southern states with the greatest chances for rain and thunderstorms include Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, according to the Weather Channel.

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Most of the western U.S. will be dry, AccuWeather said, except for spotty late-day thunderstorms that may be limited to the mountains from late this week to this weekend.

The greatest threats from these highly rural thunderstorms will be for isolated flash flooding and lightning strikes that could ignite wildfires, according to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.

As for dust from the Sahara, while the highest concentration of the dust has dissipated, another round affecting the western and central Gulf Coast states Thursday should persist through the end of the week, according to the weather service.

"The primary impacts of the Saharan dust are hazy skies during the day, locally reduced visibility, degraded air quality and the potential for vividly colorful sunrises and sunsets," the weather service said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fourth of July weather forecast: High heat for many, storms for South
A Papuan student, his face painted with the colors of the separatist Morning Star flag, holds a poster during a rally near the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2019. A group of West Papuan students in Indonesia's capital staged the protest against racism and called for independence for their region. (Tatan Syuflana / Associated Press)

Buchtar Tabuni steeled himself for the prospect of 17 years in prison, unaware that his future would be tied to protests over the fate of another dark-skinned man more than 8,000 miles away in the U.S. city of Minneapolis.

An Indonesian court had found Tabuni guilty of treason for masterminding demonstrations last year over the mistreatment of the countrys Papuans, an independence-seeking indigenous minority whose members have long been shunned and attacked.

Tabuni, who denied the charges, reasoned his time in prison would draw attention to Indonesias often brutal subjugation of his people. But in an unexpected turn, the veteran activist and six other convicted Papuans were sentenced to jail terms that lasted only months.

The fate of the Balikpapan 7  as Tabuni and the other men were known because of the city where they were tried  was altered by calls for justice and equality after George Floyd's killing in America reverberated across Indonesia, triggering a groundswell of support for Papuans in a country that often avoids confronting national traumas.

The government was afraid, the 40-year-old Tabuni said through a lawyer from his jail cell recently. Black Lives Matter has triggered support for oppressed Papuans.

Indonesian police arrest Papuan pro-independence leader Buchtar Tabuni at a rally in the provincial capital of Jayapura in 2008. (Jefri Pattirajawne / Associated Press)

In the past month, social media have been awash with the #Papuanlivesmatter hashtag, which has attracted backing from actors, artists and many of Indonesias progressive youth. University student groups have organized online seminars with Papuans and human rights activists, sparking conversations that would have never happened in the past. And non-Papuans have taken to the streets calling for change, including in a city better known for its Islamic schools. (Papuans are largely Christian, a religious minority in the predominantly Muslim country.)

Many Indonesians wouldnt be reflecting on the injustice toward Papuans if it wasnt for George Floyd," said Fajar Nugroho, 22, president of the University of Indonesias Student Executive Board, which organized webinars promoting Papuan Lives Matter.

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People saw the similarities with racial discrimination here and became curious, said Nugroho, who is Javanese, Indonesias dominant ethnic group. They wanted to know more about why it was happening. This complex history needs to be told.





A forced national identity

Hailing from a resource-rich territory called West Papua on the island of New Guinea, the 2-million-strong Papuan population has long argued that its members do not belong to Indonesia, an archipelago that's home to 270 million people. As ethnic Melanesians, they share a closer kinship with people of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

Their story is one of centuries of colonization, from the Dutch to the Javanese rulers in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital separated by 2,000 miles of sea. West Papuans thought they were poised to become independent in 1961  they even designed their own flag, the Morning Star banner  but the Dutch had other plans.

Under pressure by Washington to appease Indonesia to help blunt the spread of communism, the Netherlands signed the 1962 New York agreement, which gave Jakarta temporary control of West Papua until a referendum could determine the territorys future.

That vote, known as the 1969 Act of Free Choice, lies at the core of the Papuan conflict. The Indonesian military handpicked 1,026 local elders to represent West Papua at the ballot, ordering some at gunpoint to vote in Jakartas favor. Indonesian control was voted in unanimously.

Papuan students with their bodies and faces painted with the colors of the banned separatist Morning Star flag shout slogans during a rally in Medan, Indonesia, in 2019. (Binsar Bakkara / Associated Press)

That brought a new era of exploitation of West Papuas natural resources that experts say continues unabated today, enriching Indonesias military and civilian elite.

The rainforests central to Papuan identity, culture and livelihood are being cleared for palm oil plantations, Indonesias ubiquitous cash crop. Migrants and settlers from around the country have filled the region, and Papuans are now a minority in West Papua, a landmass roughly the size of California.

Few good jobs and threadbare health and education systems have contributed to the highest poverty rates, lowest literacy rates and highest mortality rates for children and expectant mothers in Indonesia.

West Papuans are being marginalized on their own land, said Veronica Koman, an Indonesian human rights lawyer self-exiled in Australia because she faces charges at home of inciting unrest for amplifying on social media instances of abuse against Papuans.

The natural resources arent being used to pay for schools or hospitals, she said. The government keeps building infrastructure and roads, but who is it for? West Papuans dont have cars. Its for companies to continue exploiting the environment.

No development epitomizes the economic interests at stake more vividly than the 47-year-old Grasberg mine, a sprawling craggy pit high on a glacier-capped mountain range that contains some of the worlds largest deposits of gold and copper.

The mine, which is jointly owned by the Indonesian government and the Phoenix-based company Freeport-McMoRan, has been racked over the years by labor strife, environmental degradation and corruption. The company says in its sustainability report that it provides jobs, training and some healthcare to local Papuans.

The mines presence has contributed to the militarization of West Papua, which is also home to an armed faction of the independence movement thats waged a low-level insurgency against the Indonesian state since 1970.

Shootings in the region abound, including one in March in which a miner from New Zealand was gunned down outside Freeports offices.

In 2018, separatists killed more than two dozen construction workers building a major highway considered a signature infrastructure project in Jakartas bid to pacify West Papua.

A Papuan activist with her face painted with the colors of the separatist Morning Star flag joins others at a rally near the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2019. (Dita Alangkara / Associated Press)

A ticking bomb

Many Papuan activists disavow the violence carried out by the insurgents, who are largely confined to West Papuas remote highlands. They say Papuan calls for self-determination are overwhelmingly peaceful. Yet Indonesian state security forces continue to arrest activists and inflict bloodshed with impunity on the ethnic group, according to human rights activists.

Experts say well over 100,000 Papuans have been killed since the 1960s to quell the rebellion.

Amnesty International documented 69 unlawful killings of Papuans by security forces between January 2010 and February 2018.

In April, the bodies of two Papuans  19-year-old Eden Armando Babari and 21-year-old Ronny Wandik  were discovered with bullet wounds along the banks of a river near the Freeport mine complex. Activists say they were killed by police in connection with the death of the New Zealand miner.

Last summer, dozens of Papuan protesters died in some of the countrys worst unrest in years  tensions the Balikpapan 7 were blamed for fanning.

A building burns during protests in Wamena, Indonesia, on Sept. 23, 2019. (Vina Rumbewas / AFP/Getty Images)

Demonstrators set fire to government buildings and security forces fired live rounds into crowds. The protests were sparked by vigilantes and police in the eastern Javanese city of Surabaya who stormed a university dormitory filled with West Papuan students accused of desecrating an Indonesian flag. Mobs outside shouted racial slurs, calling the students monkeys, dogs and pigs.

The violence renewed calls for independence, prompting the Indonesian government to block internet access in West Papua and restrict access to journalists.

The crisis damaged the goodwill that Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo had generated in the region while campaigning for reelection  and the crackdown exposed the presidents inability to rein in Indonesias military, which has a vested interest in providing security in West Papua.

West Papua is like a ticking bomb, said Made Supriatma, an Indonesia expert and a visiting fellow at the ISEASYusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, who criticized Jokowis infrastructure drive for alienating Papuans because it was largely seen as benefiting outsiders. "Papuans are starting to see infrastructure as systemically racist.





I was still colonized

Years of colonization have contributed to Indonesian views of Papuans, particularly the poor and uneducated, as primitive and subhuman.

Stores and restaurants often deny Papuans service. Landlords often wont rent to them. Hospitals and clinics will refuse care to Papuans under the assumption theyre infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, which is rampant in West Papua due to a sex trade that targets migrant workers.

Middle-class Papuans arent immune to the discrimination either.

Ligia Giay, a postdoctoral candidate at Murdoch University in Australia, said its difficult to escape the inherent prejudices many Indonesians harbor against Papuans.

My skin is lighter, so Im spared the worst, said Giay, 31, who grew up in the Papuan city of Jayapura. Still, I get backhanded compliments like, Youre proof Papuans arent all stupid and rude.

Giay isnt sure Black people in America are exposed to the same level of overt racism that confronts Papuans daily, having never lived in the U.S., but she sees similar experiences in the way both have long grown to distrust police.

Theres a history of trauma, she said. The distrust makes everything the state does suspect to us. You dont ever think they have your interests in mind.

Tabuni, the jailed activist, didnt fully grasp the extent of the racism until he left West Papua to attend college. He was surprised by the way some Indonesians would pinch their noses and say he smelled bad when he rode public transportation.

Id be called monkey, pig, primitive, all sorts of things, Tabuni said. I didnt fight back because, in my mind, I was still colonized.

Papuan independence activists, from left, Isay Wenda, Charles Kossay, Suryanta Ginting, Arina Elopere, Ambrosius Mulait and Anes Tabuni, show their solidarity before the start of their trial in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Dec. 19, 2019. The activists were charged with treason after a rally against racism and advocating independence for their restive region. (Tatan Syuflana / Associated Press)

His awakening came in 2001 with the assassination by Indonesian special forces of Theys Eluay, a charismatic independence leader who favored peaceful advocacy over armed insurgency.

Ever since, Tabuni has devoted himself to promoting Papuan self-determination by peaceful means. Hes been arrested and beaten by police three times. He still aches from blows he once took to the head and back from rifle butts.

I will continue to fight racism, said Tabuni, who is set to be released Aug. 4. I extend my sympathies for the passing of George Floyd. We know exactly how it feels. But we also ask Americans for their solidarity; to help us stand on our own two feet as an independent West Papua.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at a New York function in 2005: Getty

Jeffrey Epsteins associate Ghislaine Maxwell has been charged by the FBI on multiple charges of sex exploitation and abuse of minor girls.

The British socialite and heiress was a confidante to the disgraced financier. She later faced accusations of her own involvement in his sex crimes.

Maxwell, who reportedly has kept a low-profile since 2016 to avoid private investigators, was arrested in New Hampshire on Epstein-related charges and is expected to appear in federal court later today, News 4 New York first reported.

At one point Maxwell, the daughter of media baron Robert Maxwell, was Epsteins girlfriend and then became a close friend to the man. But she also allegedly helped Epstein groom and procure young girls to the wealthy elite.

Her arrest comes just a few days before the anniversary of Epsteins arrest last year on sex-trafficking charges, which alleged he exploited and transferred underage girls between New York and Florida. Epstein, 66, later killed himself in federal prison, according to the medical examiner.

Despite Epsteins death, prosecutors continued to investigate his sex crimes, leaving open the possibility for associates involved to be charged with crimes.

Maxwell, 58, has been accused in multiple civil suits by Epsteins victims of helping procure the young girls with the financier. One of the victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, made the accusation in a 2015 defamation suit.

Giuffre claimed in her since-settled suit that she was forced to have sex with Epstein and his close friend Prince Andrew. Both Maxwell and Prince Andrew have denied the allegations.

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), which is prosecuting the case, has scheduled a press conference at noon ET in lower Manhattan to discuss Maxwells arrest.

More follows
Jeffrey Epsteins reputed longtime madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been arrested by federal authorities and is in the custody of federal authorities. She was detained at 8:30 Thursday morning in a residence in the small town of Bradford, New Hampshire.

The British socialite allegedly helped procure girls for the financier, who died in August 2019 in a jail cell after being arrested himself a month earlier on federal charges of sex trafficking.

Maxwell has been charged with four counts of sex trafficking a minor and two counts of perjury, according to the federal indictment.

The charges involve three girls who were under the age of 18 when Maxwell allegedly recruited them to engage in sexual acts with Epstein from the years of 1994 through 1997. According to the charges, Maxwell groomed the three girls for Epstein and, in one case, took part in the sexual activity. The girls were allegedly abused at multiple locations, including Epsteins New York mansion, his estate in Palm Beach, his ranch in New Mexico and Maxwells personal residence in London.

Maxwells presence as an adult woman helped put the victims at ease as Maxwell and Epstein intended, said Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney, in announcing the charges against Maxwell at a Thursday news conference.

Speaking about the perjury charges brought against Maxwell, based on statements Maxwell made in 2016 in a civil suit brought by one of Epstein and Maxwells alleged victims, Strauss said, Maxwell lied because the truth, as alleged, was almost unspeakable.

Federal prosecutors asked that Maxwell be held without bail, saying she poses an extreme risk of flight.

Maxwell has three passports, large sums of money, extensive international connections, and absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence, prosecutors wrote in a filing Thursday.

Maxwell made an appearance by video before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Johnstone in New Hampshire Thursday afternoon and is being transferred by the U.S. Marshals Service to New York, where she will face a hearing on the governments request to deny her bail.

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Before the call started, a woman with her British accent could be heard sobbing on the line saying, I dont understand, I dont understand.

The Herald asked Maxwells attorney, Larry Vogelman, whether the voice had been Maxwells and he said that he had not heard the voice and that his client had no comment on the charges and the governments request for her to be held without bail.

The Maxwell indictment comes nearly a year after the new charges were filed against Epstein for alleged crimes between 2002 and 2006.

This case against Ghislaine Maxwell is the prequel to the earlier case we brought against Jeffrey Epstein, Strauss said.

Epsteins charges were driven in part by the Miami Heralds Perversion of Justice series, which detailed Epsteins lenient sentence for sex charges a decade earlier. Alexander Acosta was U.S. attorney for Southern Florida at the time of the initial sentence, personally approving a non-prosecution agreement that ensured Epstein was spared the prospect of federal prison. Epstein served a short stint in the Palm Beach County jail.

Epstein was found hanging in his cell in New York City the day after thousands of court documents were released detailing Maxwells role in allegedly luring hundreds of women and underage girls to his various homes  and providing new information on the powerful men who befriended Epstein and are suspected in some cases to have had sex with the women and girls.

The Epstein case is also the focus of an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justices Office of Professional Responsibility, which is looking into whether there was any corruption on the part of federal prosecutors who failed to bring charges against Epstein in 2007-2008 when they had the case.

Jeffrey Epstein

Maxwell is the daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell, who himself died under mysterious circumstances in 1991.

Maxwells whereabouts have been a subject of much interest since the new charges were filed against Epstein. Her lawyer claimed last year that Maxwells email server had been hacked.

At times she appeared to play a cat-and-mouse game with the public, such as when she was photographed at a Los Angeles area In-N-Out Burger sitting at a table while holding a spy book  a photo published in the New York Post last August.

Rumors have linked both Maxwell and Epstein to intelligence agencies.

Federal authorities were monitoring Maxwells movements throughout the course of the investigation, said William Sweeney, the assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations New York office.

We had been discretely keeping tabs on Maxwells whereabouts as we worked this investigation and more recently we learned that she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago, Sweeney said.

Lawyers representing alleged victims of Epstein and Maxwell said that their clients were relieved to see the charges.

Today is a long time coming for many victims, said Bradley Edwards, an attorney who represents more than 20 alleged victims. I have talked with many of my clients this morning who are relieved that justice is being served. They are so thankful for the dedicated work of the New York prosecutors.

Spencer Kuvin, an attorney representing a number of other alleged victims, said his clients hope the charges against Maxwell are the first of many against other Epstein associates alleged to have taken part in the sexual abuse of underage women.

With the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, this welcomed news will hopefully be the first of many co-conspirators to face the consequences of this horrific crimes, Kuvin said in a statement.

One of Epsteins alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, stated in a defamation suit against Maxwell that Maxwell had recruited her in 2000 to be a personal masseuse for Epstein. Maxwell had seen Giuffre around the time of Giuffres 17th birthday reading at President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, where Giuffre had been working at the time as a spa assistant, Giuffre said.

Virginia Giuffre socializes with Prince Andrew with Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was just arrested for her alleged role in Epsteins crimes, in the background.

Giuffre said in court documents that she had been directed by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with a number of prominent men, including Prince Andrew, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell and Hyatt Hotels magnate Tom Pritzker, among others. The men have denied her accusations. The suit was settled in 2017. Dershowitz and Giuffre, meantime, have sued each other for defamation.

Epsteins many prominent friends over the years have included President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Giuffre said she was not directed to have sex with either of those men and had no knowledge of them having sex with any of the other girls allegedly recruited by Epstein and Maxwell.

Giuffre said it was exhilarating to hear that charges had been brought against Maxwell.

It has been a very hard road waiting for justice, which makes this feeling of achievement even greater, she said. Today has been exhilarating knowing that this perpetrator is now getting a taste of what its like to have your freedom taken away. The arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell should be a clear message to all perpetrators of sexual trafficking and sexual abuse who believe they are above the law, times have changed and we no longer will be silenced.

Strauss said Thursday that the investigation into Epsteins alleged co-conspirators is ongoing and encouraged anyone who believes they were victimized or has information about abuse to come forward.

She didnt rule out trying to seek cooperation from Maxwell, despite the perjury charges.

David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, said that Maxwell could be looking at 10 to 20 years in federal prison, adding the fact that federal prosecutors are seeking her cooperation suggests there could be high-profile targets on their radar.

They will use all of this to pressure her into cooperating against other known and unknown conspirators, said Weinstein who is now in private practice. Those co-conspirators would have to be high-profile individuals to warrant accepting her cooperation.

The fact that the case is being handled by the offices public corruption unit, which typically handles investigations into misdeeds by public officials, has raised questions among some legal observers about the scope of the current federal investigation.

If I was Alexander Acosta today, I would be having a very lousy weekend, said Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director.

This case is not over. Ive supervised these kinds of cases in big cities and Ive never seen public corruption prosecutors involved and if they are still in it, there is a reason for it.

Acosta, who resigned last year shortly after Epsteins arrest, would be someone that public corruption prosecutors would be looking at, he said.

Because of the lenient posture that Acosta took with Epstein, it begs the question as to why he chose to go lightly on Epstein, and that question, and at what level and for whom he was doing this for  is likely the subject matter of investigation.
The Iranian Foreign Minister intervenes in the "virtual" Security Council meeting. A response to the US attacks and pressure for "indefinite" duration of sale ban. Tehran's head of diplomacy lists "numerous acts of US aggression". And hopes for a strong Middle East, capable of ensuring "territorial stability".

Tehran (AsiaNews) - The nuclear agreement, with the world powers still tied to it, depends on the end - according to the program - of the UN embargo on the sale of arms to Iran, which the United States intends to continue.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif delivered the ultimatum on June 30 during a "virtual" meeting of the United Nations Security Council, focused on the application of Resolution 2231. Tehrans head of diplomacy condemned the "evil" unilateral US policy, which ends up undermining global peace and security.

Zarif maintained the timetable defining the lifting of arms restrictions on Iran, contained in the resolution, is an inseparable part of the compromise reached with great difficulty in the context of the negotiations that led to the nuclear deal. He underlines that it "explicitly urges full application" according to the defined timeline. "Any attempt" to "amend or change" this calendar means "to undermine Resolution 2231 in its entirety".

US President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),wanted by his predecessor Barack Obama. The JCPOA deal was signed in 2015, but the United States pulled out in May 2018 despite the opposition of the international community. US President Donald Trump followed the withdrawal by imposing the toughest sanctions in history against Iran. The decision has negatively impacted the Iranian economy as noted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In response, Tehran has threatened to resume uranium enrichment for civilian purposes.

The words of the head of diplomacy in Tehran are a response to the request made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is pressing for an extension of the embargo on the sale of weapons to Iran by the UN Security Council. In the draft circulated among the 15 member countries, the ban would have an "indefinite" duration against what is considered "the greatest threat" to the Middle East. Immediate replies from China and Russia that have already spoken out against such a decision.

In his speech, Zarif recalled that "for the first time in the history of the United Nations a permanent member" of the Security Council "punishes countries and private citizens for" not violating "its own resolution. He traces the 13 years of negotiations that have brought to the signature of the JCPOA, noting that it is "inseparable" from Resolution 2231. Despite the "unilateral" withdrawal of the United States, "for a whole year we continued the full application" of the pact, as evidenced by "the 15 consecutive reports" of the inspectors of the international atomic energy agency (AIEA).

The nuclear program, Zarif continues, "remains subject to the 'most robust' inspection regime in history" so much so that from 2016 to 2019 "over 92% of the total global inspections have been carried out in Iran". Nonetheless, the United States has continued to conduct a hostile policy towards Iran and its neighbors, with military actions, arms supplies and material support as is the case in Yemen, the scene of "crimes against humanity".

Zarif rejects the US "regime" charges of "interference in the region" because it is "obvious that we want to collaborate with our neighbors to create a strong region" that is capable of ensuring "territorial stability". Finally, the head of diplomacy in Tehran hopes that the international community and the Security Council itself will soon hold "the United States government accountable for the consequences of its wrongful acts," which include acts of economic terrorism" that deprive the Iranian people of food and medicine.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at a New York function in 2005: Getty

Ghislaine Maxwells arrest by the FBI on sex abuse charges was a longtime coming for prosecutors and others following the case, and yet news that Jeffrey Epsteins longtime, elusive confidant was in custody came as a shock to many.

For starters, nobody seemed to have any idea where she even was before Thursday morning, when senior law enforcement officers confirmed Maxwell was arrested in Bedford, New Hampshire around 8:30am.

The heiress  a former British socialite-turned-recluse  had seemingly disappeared into thin air last year, after Epstein was arrested and later killed himself in federal custody while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell was charged in a six-count indictment that alleged she was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims as young as 14-years-old, as part of Epsteins sex trafficking ring that dated back to 1994.

Though she has long faced accusations of serving as a liaison between Epstein and the young woman he allegedly abused, Maxwell avoided all charges over the years  until now  and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

But sex crimes prosecutors told The Independent in August of last year that it was only a matter of time until Epsteins alleged chief co-conspirator would face her day of justice  and their accusers would finally get the chance to hold someone accountable for the abuses they said they faced at the hands of the disgraced billionaire and his right-hand woman.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Photograph: Patrick McMullan/Getty Images

The arrest of the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell in the US on Thursday morning is the biggest development in the investigation of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and some in his circles since the wealthy financier killed himself last year in a New York jail cell.

The arrest by the FBI at 8.30am local time in the New England state of New Hampshire ended Maxwells freedom. Her apparent ease of movement and lack of police questioning or apprehension in the last two years has raised the eyebrows of many observers of the Epstein saga, who wondered why someone so close to him and the subject herself of serious allegations had remained at liberty for so long.

But her arrest also leaves key unanswered questions:

1 Where has Maxwell been hiding from the spotlight for the past year?

Maxwell was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, a small town in the middle of the state. Before that there had been intense speculation that she had been living near Boston, in California or even abroad, but no confirmed public sightings.

2 What was Maxwells alleged role in Epsteins abuse?

Maxwell has denied any wrongdoing in Epsteins mass abuse of his young, female victims. But the 17-page, six-count indictment filed by the FBI charges her with numerous counts of trafficking young women and alleges Maxwell was present for and participated in the abuse.

3 What does it mean for Prince Andrew?

The Duke of York has vociferously and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing linked to Epstein, with whom he spent a lot of time. But he was reportedly a close friend of Maxwells and her arrest on such serious charges is sure to at least raise further questions about the sort of company the prince was keeping.

4 Will more information come out on what Epstein did?

Epsteins death was widely seen by his victims as denying them their day in court and the chance to have his crimes fully examined. The extent and seriousness of the charges against Maxwell would appear  if they come to a trial  to offer them a second chance. Epstein had previously agreed a plea deal in a Florida underage sexual abuse case and then was under extensive investigation in New York when he was arrested and then died.

5 Could more arrests come?

Epstein and Maxwell were known for the glittering social life they led among a global jet set of power players from the worlds of politics, arts and entertainment, and science. There has been much speculation about what Epstein knew and Maxwell might know about the activities of their well-connected and high-profile friends. Certainly, the seriousness of the charges means that Maxwell, if convicted, is looking at a lot of federal prison time.
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Key Point: The Green Berets have a more practical skillset than long-distance deadliness, too.

A two-man Green Beret sniper team emerged victorious at the elite U.S. Army Special Operations Command International Sniper Competition at the end of March 2018 distinguishing themselves as among the most lethal sharpshooters in the special operations community.

Master Sgt. David and Sgt. 1st Class Cuong from the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), whose full names were withheld by officials given the sensitive nature of their assignment, bested dozens of snipers in the 22 events spread over five days of grueling precision fire challenges  even after a rocky start.

We started off poorly on the first day due to some sleep deprivation, Master Sgt. David said in an Army release. We really started clicking and things began to fall into place after we regrouped and got some rest between events.

More than 40 sniper and special operations forces teams from across the U.S. armed forces  including the Army Sniper School, Marine Corps Scout Sniper School, and Naval Special Warfare Command  and foreign militaries from France to Singapore turned out at Fort Bragg, North Carolina for the illustrious shoot-off hosted by the 1st Special Warfare Training Group (Airborne).

It is the level of competitors, the cadre, and the competition that make this event so unique, Master Sgt. David added. At this level, all of these guys are the best of the best.

Now, we love to read stories of superhuman snipers taking out a dozen ISIS commanders with one bullet from two miles away, but the USASOC sniper competition is less about jaw-dropping sharpshooter feats and more about teamwork, communication, and focus under pressure  skills that actually matter when youre downrange. Heres a vignette from this years competition from Fayetteville Observer military editor Drew Brooks:

At Range 67, snipers raced against the clock as they moved from one firing point to the next, engaging a series of 12-inch by 16-inch targets that were up to 600 meters away.

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At Range 62B, their communications skills were further tested. Twenty targets were mixed amid a range that includes numerous obstacles, buildings and mock vehicles. Each was marked by a symbol and a color denoting the type of weapon that should be used  pistol, carbine or sniper rifle.

Working together, the competitors had to look at a card shown to them by an instructor, find that symbol and shoot the target with the appropriate weapon.

Its essentially Wheres Waldo, said a Special Forces Sniper Course instructor overseeing the event. Its designed to suck them in, get them distracted or moving faster than [they] needed to be.

I may be a sloppy civilian, but Id much rather have a sniper team thats flexible and versatile (and can ruck hard between positions, the focus of Range 42s required 90-pound kettlebell according to the Fayetteville Observer) than a one-shot, one-trick pony.

Jared Keller is a senior editor at Task & Purpose and contributing editor at Pacific Standard. Follow Jared Keller on Twitter @JaredBKeller.

This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter.

Image: A Green Beret soldier fires a rifle during a stress shoot competition on Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Oct. 15, 2015. He is assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group. The competition tests the Special Forces soldier's ability to navigate terrain and obstacles while engaging targets accurately despite an elevated heart rate and rapid breathing. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. William Waller

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After a sale forced by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, Grindr, the gay dating app, has new owners. (Tyler O'Neill / Dreamstime)

The international ownership saga of America's most popular gay dating app, Grindr, came to a close last month when a group of American investors took control of the West Hollywood company.

China-based Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. bought Grindr in 2016 and had hopes of taking the company public in a large stock offering until the U.S. government intervened. Citing fears that the Chinese government could use personal data stored on the app to blackmail U.S. citizens, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States announced that it was forcing Kunlun to sell the company to American owners in March 2019.

A year later, Kunlun reached a deal. A low-profile investment group, San Vicente Acquisitions, bought the company for $608 million.

Then in mid-June, Grindr's employees got to meet some of their new bosses for the first time. Two of the investors in San Vicente, Jeff Bonforte and Rick Marini, announced in a company meeting that they would be Grindr's chief executive and chief operating officer, respectively.

Bonforte and Marini find themselves in the enviable position of taking over a company with solid profits, an active and dedicated user base in the tens of millions, and a leading position in the gay dating market. But they also face challenges.

Grindr has been criticized for its data privacy practices in the past, and as recently as January was banned from Twitter for its handling of user privacy. Users had also criticized the company's racial search filter for years, saying it fostered a culture of racism within the Grindr dating scene (the company announced on June 1 that it was removing the filter in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests).

Grindr's ownership had come under fire as well. Scott Chen, its chief executive under Kunlun, sparked a controversy in 2018 when he said he supported same-sex marriage, but personally believed that marriage is "a holy union between a man and a woman." For many users, that underlined some of the contradictions of having straight men run a gay dating app.

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Bonforte and Marini are managing partners at Catapult Capital, a San Francisco private equity firm, and have long careers in technology behind them. Bonforte has founded and run five start-ups, and spent five years as an executive at Yahoo running the internet company's mail and social products. Marini has three start-ups under his belt and extensive experience as an investor.

Both men also identify as straight.

They spoke with the The Times in June, right before taking control of Grindr.

The Times: To be clear, no one on the new ownership team  including the two of you  identifies as LGBTQ, is that right?

Marini: There are 15 members of the senior team that are part of the gay community, and we will continue to work with them as part of our team. And we absolutely have the intention of recruiting more gay members of the community to every level of Grindr, from the lower levels to senior team to the board. I think it's important for the business to be able to hear from real users of the site, so that is a priority for us.

Why do you think you're the right people for the job of running a gay dating company?

Marini: Uh, Jeff, do you want me to take that?

Bonforte: You take it. Ill critique it.

[Both laugh.]

Marini: If you look at my background and Jeffs background, we've been running tech companies for 20 years. I have run social sites, I have run subscription-based online sites. And Jeff has run a technology company as a social site and subscription-based companies. So a lot of what is core to the Grindr platform and product from a business standpoint is what we have done.

Jeff and I are both very supportive of the gay community. Both of us have been in San Francisco for roughly 20 years  we both marched in Pride parades, we've both raised money for GLAAD. This is something that weve both been supportive of for many years. So even though we may not be gay, we do support the community. We will hire people from the gay community around us. And I do believe that we have the right backgrounds to be able to run this type of business.

Bonforte: It's worth saying as well that no matter who had these jobs, they were going to have blind spots. The diversity of the LGBTQ community is so significant than one voice is not enough anyway. So it would be hubris to think, I'm gay, and therefore I'm the perfect person to run any business. I've run businesses where I was not the primary user, and the process by which you do right for the user base, for the business and for the community is the same. You have to listen. You have to be curious. You have to be open. You have to be transparent.

Why did you want to buy Grindr?

Bonforte: It's a rare opportunity to be able to buy a beloved brand that has had such a huge impact and is in such good shape. From the business side, it was also a rare opportunity to be able to invest in and buy a dominant player in this category that has incredibly loyal and happy users, and that has been there for over a decade.

I think it's an honor to be an investor in Grindr as well, because it's played such a role in the LGBT community over the last decade. It's important that the business be healthy and successful, and that the product is safe and works. We take that responsibility seriously.

And the more we learned about Grindr, the more excited we got. I just got off two phone calls this morning, and I was, like, really jazzed. It's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be really hard.

Beijing Kunlun Tech paid $93 million for a majority stake in Grindr in 2016 and an additional $150 million in 2018 to take full ownership of the company. Its reported that your investment group paid over $600 million. Why is the company worth that much today?

Marini: This is a company that's doing well over $100 million of revenue [annually]. It is highly profitable and growing quickly. When Kunlun came in roughly three years ago to acquire the company, it was not nearly as large as it is today. I would say that the valuation paid accurately reflects that growth.

Grindr has come under fire for data privacy issues in recent years, mostly related to sharing user data with third-party advertisers. How do you plan to address those problems?

Bonforte: Thats the No. 1 thing on our list.

When I was at Yahoo and working on a product with 350 million users, we encountered data issues, global privacy issues  and encountered them more quickly than Grindr did, since its a much smaller business.

One of the advantages we have is bringing in that experience. Last time I worked at Yahoo, I had 3,700 people reporting into me, running multiple billions of dollars of the business. And it was global, and I had been through the hacking scandal [an incident that came to light in 2017 in which all of Yahoo's 3 billion accounts were hacked]. When you go through something like that, you learn so much that you can't learn in a textbook.

Are there any specific changes on privacy that you plan on moving on Day One?

Bonforte: No, we wouldn't talk about that even under the best of circumstances. And there is no binary state of a product being perfectly safe or perfectly unsafe. Can we make the product safer? Yes. Can we make data more secure? Yeah. It's just evolving.

I will say some things about Grindr are quite good already from a privacy perspective. There is a lot of protection in the product just from how it's architected, and I'm not even sure they were architecting for those reasons. When you ran a gay dating service 10 years ago, users  and this is still true around the world  ... are physically endangered by participating in the product, so privacy and safety and security was built in simply in the level of anonymity and how data is stored and not stored.

Can users expect to see any immediate changes?

Bonforte: Users are probably not going to see anything right out of the gate, because we're spending a fair amount of time listening.

Grindr got rid of its ethnic filter at the beginning of June and put out a statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Do you have any further plans to address this political moment?

Bonforte: The company has tens of millions of users with tens of millions of voices. And so part of what we will do is to continue to build platforms that helps that voice get amplified. The company will do its best to keep maintaining itself as a positive force to champion the values that I think have been there from Day One and that we embrace as well, but in the end, it's our ability to magnify the voices of our users that will be the biggest impact.

I think the downside is in the process of more voices being heard, there can be a cacophony and there's noise. I think we'll have to focus on how can we really sort of amplify and unify at the same time. It's a challenge.
Rescue efforts were underway in the southern Asian state of Myanmar following a deadly landslide at a jade mine in the northern state of Kachin late last week.

Officials confirmed on Thursday afternoon that at least 162 people were killed in the landslide, which occurred early Thursday, local time, in the gem-rich area of Hpakant, and dozens of others were sent to a hospital with injuries, according to the Myanmar Fire Services Department's Facebook page. By Friday morning, local time, the death toll had risen to 166 people. This made the disaster the country's worst known mining accident.

As of Monday afternoon, local time, it is reported that 174 people have been killed and another 20 are still missing due to the mine collapse. The local government has decided to cease rescue operations due to increasing risk caused by complicated geological conditions and continuous rainfall, reported Global Times.

In this photo released from Myanmar Fire Service Department, rescuers carry a recovered body of a victim in a landslide from a jade mining area in Hpakant, Kachin state, northern Myanmar Thursday, July 2, 2020. Myanmar government says a landslide at a jade mine has killed dozens of people. (Myanmar Fire Service Department via AP)

Recent heavy rains that occurred in Myanmar are believed to have been a trigger for the landslide that, according to the country's fire service, left jade miners "smothered by a wave of mud."

The persistent heavy rainfall, combined with the terrain, has presented major difficulties in rescue operations.

According to Reuters, a pile of mine waste collapsed into a nearby lake, which caused mud and water to flow towards the mine workers.

A witness reported that the pile of waste looked precarious, on the verge of collapse, and heard people yelling "run, run!" when he went to take a picture.

A local official with the information ministry, Tar Lin Maung, told Reuters by phone last week that he expected the death toll to rise.

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The Red Cross of Myanmar sent volunteers to help with the continued search and rescue efforts.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

In the mountains of Myanmar, even away from the Bay of Bengal, heavy rain triggering landslides is a common occurrence. Heavy downpours, in a short time, loosen the land and make it less sturdy. In hilly terrain, this can result in landslides.

Just last year, a fatal landslide occurred in the same region and left 50 mine workers dead.

Some of the same rain and moisture that likely contributed to Thursday's landslide has been to blame for the flooding taking place across southern China in recent weeks.

The wet weather looks to persist across the region in the coming days.

Rounds of heavy rain and downpours are likely to impact northern Myanmar through at least the early week, said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Adam Douty.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
LOUISVILLE, Ky.  Last week, Rob Ball urgently needed some rope.

A vegetable farmer in eastern Jefferson County, Ball had 300 tomato plants that needed stringing and an old friend had offered to help while in town that particular Friday.

So Ball paid a visit to his local Home Depot, where he hoped to buy several hundred feet of the stores quarter-inch twisted nylon rope.

To his dismay, a Home Depot salesman informed Ball of a new store policy: Customers can no longer buy rope by the foot.

"My next question, of course, was, Well, why not?'" Ball said. "He replied by saying, Because some people have been making nooses out of them.'"

A noose was found hanging in the Home Depot on Miller Road by two sisters shopping for a birthday present for their mom.

'Don't tell my wine snob friends': Why Americans are buying more boxed wine during COVID-19

July 4th celebrations: Fireworks sales are booming nationwide due to COVID-19

As protests over racial injustice have continued to rage across the country, Home Depot opted last month to remove spools of rope from the aisles of its nearly 2,000 U.S. stores.

The move was indeed prompted by past incidents in which customers and employees found nooses tied on the stores rope spools, a Home Depot spokeswoman confirmed.

Among those past incidents was the discovery of a noose at a Pittsburgh area store in 2016 and another at a store in Delaware last year. Most recently, two nooses were discovered at a store in Charlotte, North Carolina, last month.

Weve had instances around the country where people have used rope to create hate symbols, said Home Depot spokeswoman Margaret Smith. Were not going to tolerate it. So out of an abundance of caution we temporarily removed spooled rope from our aisles.

For many, the noose is more than just a loop knot. Many associate nooses with lynchings and other violence against African Americans.

Between 1877 and 1934, the lynching of at least 186 African Americans took place in Kentucky, according to data compiled by The University of Washington.

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Just last month, the discovery of a noose in the Talladega Superspeedway garage assigned to NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, who is Black, prompted a federal investigation into the possibility of a hate crime.

The FBI concluded it was not a hate crime. The noose had been there as a garage door pull since last year, long before Wallace arrived.

At the local Home Depot, however, store manager Joe Autry said the company was trying to avoid such incidents with the new policy, which is still being hashed out.

We dont want to provide anybody any opportunity to potentially be hateful with it, either in-joke or, obviously, in a serious nature, said Autry, adding that customers can still buy prepackaged rope either in a bag or on a spool.

Ball, who is white, said that wasnt the case for him. He wasnt allowed to purchase a whole spool when he asked to do so and said he felt accused of being a racist.

I feel its a little ridiculous  ludicrous  that that would be a policy put in place to solve a racial issue, Ball said. I dont think stopping the sale of cut rope or/and spools of rope is going to solve that.

Its been an already tough year for the 28-year-old Ball. After a stint as a sustainable agriculture volunteer for the Peace Corps in Senegal, Ball said he decided to try his hand this year at vegetable growing on the family farm.

But lockdowns caused by the pandemic have resulted in restaurants canceling their orders for Balls greens, he said. To stay afloat, he has increasingly turned to direct-to-consumer sales and to farmers markets.

I was just trying to tie tomatoes up, Ball said earlier this week after completing another round of deliveries to his customers.

But he thinks back to what the farmers he worked with in Senegal might do in his shoes.

They would probably just make their own if it came down to that, said Ball, noting how some Senegalese farmers braid rope from the bark of local trees. They probably wouldnt call the paper and make such a fuss out of it.

Reach reporter Alfred Miller at amiller@gannett.com or 502-582-7142. Follow him on Twitter @AlfredFMiller. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Home Depot bans some rope sales after nooses left behind in stores
HONG KONG  Police in Hong Kong made more than 300 arrests at pro-democracy protests Wednesday, including the first made under a new national security law, less than 24 hours after it was passed by mainland China.

Amid dramatic scenes, thousands of protesters took to the streets on the 23rd anniversary of the territory's handover from the U.K. to China.

At least 10 people were arrested under the new law, police said, which came into force late Tuesday evening. The move is seen as the most significant change since Hong Kong left British rule in 1997 and by critics as a direct threat to the "one country, two systems" policy that carved out democratic freedoms for Hong Kong.

Hong Kong police said they had arrested around 370 people in total for taking part in "illegal assemblies" and other violations, with police using pepper-ball guns and a water cannon to disperse demonstrators. Police also said one officer had been injured by protesters and that others had set fire to a barricade and obstructed traffic.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the law was a "clear and serious" breach of the U.K.-China joint declaration that governed Hong Kong's handover. Adding that he would honor a promise made earlier this month to provide passports and a path to citizenship to as many as 3 million Hong Kong residents.

"We made clear ... that if China continued down this path, we would introduce a new route for those with British National Overseas Status to enter the UK ... and that is precisely what we will do now," he told the House of Commons.

British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab later added that eligible Hong Kong citizens could be granted five years' permission to live in the U.K. before applying for permanent status.

Taiwan has voiced similar support. China has yet to respond.

Image: A reporter falls down after being sprayed with pepper spray by police during a protest in Causeway Bay during the annual handover march in Hong Kong (Vincent Yu / AP)

The anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China has become an annual occasion for protesters to rally against what they see as Beijing's increasing encroachment on the city's freedoms.

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Formal authorization for the protest was refused for the first time this year over coronavirus concerns. But this did not deter a largely peaceful crowd of demonstrators, many wearing masks.

China announced in May that it would side-step Hong Kong's own legislature and pass the security law direct from Beijing, triggering widespread condemnation.

The legislation outlaws crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with up to life in prison.

Thousands of protesters chanted "resist till the end" and "Hong Kong independence," in scenes resembling the pro-democracy protests that swept through the city last year, making global headlines.

"Its a closed-door law, there was no public consultation," Sophie, a 23-year-old protester told NBC News, declining to give her surname due to security concerns.

"People here do not expect the result to change, but we are here just to show our attitude ... to tell the government that its not fair and it's not authorized in our hearts."

Prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong announced on Tuesday that he was quitting "Demosisto," a group he formed, amid fears he could be arrested under the new law. Taking to the streets on Wednesday, Wong called for international solidarity with Hong Kong and urged citizens to "never surrender."

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Wary looking police showcased a new warning technique, waving a purple flag with writing on that warned protesters they would face arrest under the new security law if they continued to chant anti-China slogans.

"You are displaying flags or banners/chanting slogans/or conducting yourselves with an intent such as secession or subversion, which may constitute offences under the ... national security law," the message read.

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Critics fear the legislation will crush wide-ranging freedoms in Hong Kong denied to people in mainland China that are seen as key to its success as a global financial hub.

But authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong have been at pains to stress that the legislation is aimed at a few "troublemakers" and will not affect rights and freedoms.

Speaking at a flag-raising ceremony to mark the handover anniversary, the city's leader, Carrie Lam, said the law was the most important development since the city's return to Chinese rule.

"It is also an inevitable and prompt decision to restore stability," Lam said at the harbor-front venue where 23 years ago the last colonial governor, Chris Patten  a staunch critic of the new security law  tearfully handed back Hong Kong to Chinese rule.

In Beijing, Zhang Xiaoming, executive deputy director of Beijing's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, told reporters on Wednesday that suspects arrested by a new Beijing-run security office in Hong Kong could be tried on the mainland.

"The law is a birthday gift to (Hong Kong) and will show its precious value in the future," Zhang said, noting that the law would not be applied retroactively.

He also dismissed foreign meddling in China's internal affairs after the security law sparked widespread global condemnation on Tuesday from countries including Germany, Japan, Britain and the United States.

"Gone are the days when Chinese people looked at other people's faces and depend on other peoples pleasures," said Zhang.

The United States has heavily criticized the law and said it will withdraw some of Hong Kong's preferential trade treatment, stating that the territory can no longer be regarded as sufficiently autonomous from the mainland.

It will also limit visas to some Chinese officials, place restrictions on a handful of Chinese media outlets in the U.S. and bar defense exports to Hong Kong.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, called the law "draconian" on Wednesday and said he feared for the safety of Americans in Hong Kong. China retaliated imposing similar restrictions on visas and U.S. media outlets and said it would not be intimidated.

Ed Flanagan and Justin Solomon reported from Hong Kong. Adela Suliman reported from London.
Hong Kong's small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have emerged as a new battleground for the city's banking sector, which has been revitalised by the launch of virtual lenders that do not have any bricks-and-mortar branches.

One of these new banks, Ping An OneConnect Bank, and HSBC, Hong Kong's largest bank, last week started easing the process through which SMEs can open accounts.

Ping An OneConnect, which is backed by Ping An Insurance, mainland China's largest insurer, allowed SME owners to open corporate bank accounts within a day through its mobile app. It also promised to approve loans worth up to HK$2 million (US$258,050) within five business days. If it misses this deadline, it will pay the company HK$1,000 as cash compensation.

"We aim to serve the hundreds of thousands of SMEs and micro companies in Hong Kong that have long been ignored by the big banks. By adopting advanced technology, we can offer these small trading companies trade financing and other types of loans in a speedy manner," Ryan Fung Yuk-lung, Ping An OneConnect's chief executive, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

Ryan Fung Yuk-lung, the chief executive of Ping An OneConnect Bank. Photo: Jonathan Wong alt=Ryan Fung Yuk-lung, the chief executive of Ping An OneConnect Bank. Photo: Jonathan Wong

The move by Ping An OneConnect to simplify account opening and shorten loan approval processes for SMEs suggests the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the city's de facto central bank, has succeeded in bringing new competition to Hong Kong's banking sector and revitalising it by issuing eight virtual banking licences last year. Seven of these virtual lenders have either carried out soft launches, or are fully operational.

HSBC, which has been in Hong Kong for 155 years and did not opt for a virtual banking licence, and decided to upgrade its digital banking services to compete, last week started allowing small businesses to open accounts without any face-to-face meetings at a branch, or the submission of actual documents and signatures. It will take two to five days to activate such accounts.

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"The introduction of virtual banks has added competition, and will pressure traditional banks into introducing more digital services for individuals and companies," said Gordon Tsui Luen-on, chairman of the Hong Kong Securities Association.

The HKMA has introduced a number of measures recently to support the city's 340,000 SMEs during Hong Kong's worst financial crisis on record, including ordering all banks to provide a six-month repayment holiday starting in May.

Hong Kong's economy has been buffeted by several events over the past two years, including the US-China trade war, the city's anti-government protests and the coronavirus pandemic. Its gross domestic product shrank 8.9 per cent year on year in the first quarter, becoming the city's worst slump since records began in 1974.

"These virtual banks will help SMEs, as they can save them time and money," said Peter Shiu Ka-fai, a lawmaker representing the wholesale and retail sector. "If they can speed up the account opening and loan approval process, and make it more secure, that would be even better," he added.

Ping An OneConnect has partnered with Tradelink Electronic Commerce, a government-backed e-commerce services provider, for credit assessments. Tradelink has a lot of data for many of Hong Kong's SMEs. By accessing its database, Ping An OneConnect can assess if a SME has better sales than its peers. It can also get all information about a company quickly via electronic records. This saves it paperwork and cuts down costs by 80 per cent, as compared with traditional applications, Fung said.

HSBC said its remote account opening service gives SMEs and start-ups quick and easy access to its banking services. The move showed the bank's commitment to SMEs, Daniel Chan, HSBC's head of business banking in its Hong Kong commercial banking unit, said.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
The House Armed Services Committee voted on Wednesday to set additional conditions to be met before President Trump can withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

There are currently about 8,600 American soldiers in Afghanistan, down from 12,000 in March following the signing of an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban. Trump has pushed for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan entirely, although violence continues to wrack the central Asian country.

The House committee approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act by Representative Jason Crow (D., Col.), requiring the Trump administration to certify that reduction of troops below certain levels would not impair U.S. counterterrorism operations. If the administration could not demonstrate that troop reductions below 8,000 and subsequently 4,000 would help American interests, the amendment would block funding for the reductions.

The amendment lays out, in a very responsible level of specificity, what is going to be required if we are going to in fact make decisions about troop levels based on conditions on the ground and based on whats required for our own security, not based on political timelines, said Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.).

Trump has reportedly considered withdrawing soldiers from Afghanistan by the November general elections. Pentagon officials have pushed back on the plan, saying a withdrawal would doom the peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban.

We are acting as a police force, not the fighting force that we are, in Afghanistan, Trump wrote on Twitter in late May. After 19 years, it is time for them to police their own Country. Bring our soldiers back home but closely watch what is going on and strike with a thunder like never before, if necessary!

Terrorist attacks continue to plague Afghanistan, and it is often unclear who is responsible for the attacks.

More from National Review
When it comes to parenting, you have to become pretty unflappable when it comes to knocks, bruises and blood.

For the former The Only Way Is Essex star, Lauren Pope, this might prove a bit challenging, given her fear of the latter.

One thing I am quite worried about when I have a baby, please god dont let anything happen but, Im terrible with blood. If I see blood, I go woozy, I go faint, the 37-year-old admitted on Yahoo UKs The Baby Bump with Lauren Pope.

She was joined by Michelle Murray, first aid trainer at Daisy First Aid, who explained the realities of dealing with blood for people who have a fear of it.

The former TOWIE star opened up to the first aid trainer. (Getty Images)

Read more: Lauren Pope admits partner has four-page birth plan

The fear of blood is a common one - often referred to as hemophobia. While most people are a little uncomfortable with the sight of loads of blood, for others it makes them feel faint or even actually faint.

Pope, who is 35 weeks pregnant, revealed that she doesnt want her child to pick up her fear or anxiety around it.

With blood, the main thing you want to be doing is stemming the flow of the blood, Murray advises.

You want to be pressing it or getting them to press on it. That immediately takes it out of your sight.

Its about having a moment of clarity, and I always come back to that. Think calmly and confidently.

Murray talked about the importance of staying calm in anxiety-fuelled situations extensively, revealing that babies, toddlers and even adults feed off of our anxieties and can make the whole situation feel more stressful.

Thats why you mightve noticed a crying baby crying even more when youre feeling stressed within yourself.

Read more: Lauren Pope shares favourite one-pot recipe

Speaking about getting over hemophobia, Murray said the best thing you can do is take a moment and stay calm.

There are some practical bits of advice to consider when stemming blood, too.

You do need to inspect it (the wound), Murray explains, which she demonstrates on a mannequin.

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You want to cover the wound and you want to put some pressure on because thats what stops bleeding. Having already had a quick look to make sure theres nothing embedded, then youve got to put pressure on, therefore youve not got blood everywhere.

Sit the person down, incase they fall down, and just take deep breathes.

With deep breathes and calming the situation you wouldnt get the leg wobbles but you may well still feel adrenaline, which can present itself as excitement or nerves.

When youre a parent I think that some of the things youre worried about now do go out the window, Murray tells Pope, because something else kicks in, that instinct to look after your child.
Ikanik Farms to export its agronomically-certified Colombian cannabis seeds for cultivating hemp and pharmaceutical cannabis under an Amparo.

CORONA, Calif., June 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Ikanik Farms, Inc. (the "Company" or "Ikanik") is pleased to announce it has purchased all issued and outstanding shares of Delta 9 Corporation Mexico S.A. de C.V ("D9C"), based in Coyoacan, Mexico. D9C's legal representative is permitted to import and register cannabis seeds for cultivation through the legalized Amparo process. The Company intends to contract-produce for national and international pharmaceutical cannabis and hemp-derived CBD clients.

"I am very excited to welcome D9C and its team of scientific, legal, and regulatory specialists who have been exemplary leaders, shepherding the cannabis legalization process, and providing Ikanik the opportunity to be a 1 of 1 in Mexico", said Brian Baca, CEO of Ikanik Farms, Inc.

D9C is the exclusive Amparo representative to import, cultivate, and produce products derived from cannabis and hemp for national and international markets.

Borja Sanz de Madrid, President of Ikanik International, Inc. further emphasized, "We are proud to participate in this historic moment for Mexico. It will be our honor bringing pharmaceutical cannabis Hecho en Mexico para el mundo"

Upon D9C's legal representative completing the seed importation and registration process, cultivation and facility construction will commence, providing employment opportunities and social support in the communities it serves.

This acquisition marks a significant milestone for the Company, as it continues to grow its multi-national operating presence and prepares to complete a public listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

Transaction Highlights

First-Mover Advantage: D9C will provide Ikanik unparalleled speed and access to the Mexican and international marketplace. It will be the first to import certified and licensed seeds for genetic registration from Ikanik's Colombian GACP and GMP-PHARMA certified "Casa Flores" location, paving the way for cultivation activities and building a state-of-the-art complex for cannabis production.

Diversified Product Portfolio for Domestic Sales: Ikanik Farms, will sell products under its family of brands, providing a broader target audience for pharmaceutical retail partners across Mexico.

Stable Supply for International Supply Agreements: D9C provides Ikanik the ability to continue effectively scale and fill its growing international supply agreements for pharmaceutical grade Cannabis and Hemp derived CBD, pending receipt of permits.

Acquisition Summary

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Under the Agreement between Ikanik and D9C (the "Agreement"), the shareholders of D9C agreed to transfer to Ikanik all outstanding shares of D9C (the "D9C Shares") in exchange for consideration of up to 10,000,000 common shares of Ikanik (the "Ikanik Shares"). The Ikanik Shares are to be transferred in the amounts and subject to the completion of the conditions set out below:

within 10 business days following the receipt of certain regulatory, assignment, corporate and tax documentation each as deemed satisfactory by Ikanik, 5,000,000 Ikanik Shares shall be delivered ratably to the former shareholders of D9C;

within 10 business days following the receipt of certain corporate documents, import registrations and certifications and receipt of seeds as deemed satisfactory by Ikanik, 3,000,000 Ikanik Shares shall be delivered ratably to the former shareholders of D9C; and

within 10 business days following the delivery to Ikanik of a copy of validly issued seed and genetic registration certificates and a cultivation permit satisfactory by Ikanik, 2,000,000 Ikanik Shares shall be delivered ratably to the former shareholders of D9C.

If the satisfaction of each of the conditions above does not occur within 18 months from the effective date of the Agreement:

each of the former shareholders of D9C will transfer the Ikanik Shares back to Ikanik.

About D9C

D9C is a cannabis license development company.

About Ikanik Farms

Ikanik Farms is creating a dynamic portfolio of cannabis brands, inspired by its passion for health and wellness, and action sports. Through the development of its LATAM operations, the Company aims to support global pharmaceutical demand for a variety of cannabis products. The Company's leadership brings decades of expertise in R&D, cultivation, retail, branding, and corporate finance with the ambition to build the most iconic "seed-to-sale", "MNO" Multi-National Operator. Ikanik Farms' operations are currently located in Colombia and California.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws and United States securities laws (together, "forward-looking information). All information, other than statements of historical facts, included in this news release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future is forward-looking information. When used in this news release, words such as "will", "could", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "potential", "believe", "should", and similar expressions, are forward-looking information, including, but not limited to, D9C's legal representative completing the seed importation and registration process, cultivation and the beginning of facility construction, the ability of Ikanik to complete a public listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange, statements under the heading "Transaction Highlights" and the ability of D9C to satisfy the conditions set out under the heading "Acquisition Summary".

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information, there can be other factors that cause results, performance or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including, but not limited to: D9C not being able to complete the importation and registration process, the beginning of facility construction being delayed, Ikanik not being able to complete its public listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange, the Company's expectations with respect to the acquisition of D9C (as set out under the heading "Transaction Highlights" not materializing, and D9C not being able to satisfy the conditions set out under the heading "Acquisition Summary".

There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances, or results will materialize. As a result of these risks and uncertainties, the results or events predicted in the forward-looking information may differ materially from actual results or events.

Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information in this news release is made as of the date of this release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise such information, except as required by applicable law, and the Company does not assume any liability for disclosure relating to any other company mentioned herein.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Ikanik Farms Inc.

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SOURCE Ikanik Farms Inc.
DUBLIN, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Europe E-Invoicing Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Regional Analysis By Type; End-User" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Research and Markets Logo

The e-Invoicing market in Europe was valued at US$ 1,241.7 million in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 4,217.6 million by 2027; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.1% from 2020 to 2027.



In Europe, the adoption of electronic and digital processes/solutions is quite high among businesses, and the e-Invoicing practices in this region are being driven by governments in various countries. The wide market fragmentation and high cross-border trade between European countries is driving the demand for efficient Invoicing solutions. Countries are also increasingly working to formulate a common e-Invoicing standard to boost the digital agenda of the European Union.



Presently, the EU directives 2014/24/EU and 2014/55/EU are encouraging the adoption of e-Invoicing in various European countries. Key industry associations, public administrations, tax authorities, and regulatory bodies in the countries are also complementing the growth of e-Invoicing market by supporting the development of various standards and interoperability between various document formats.



The cloud segment led the e-Invoicing market, based on deployment model, in forecast period from 2020 to 2027. Various service providers are now offering cloud-based e-Invoicing solutions, and customers are increasingly adopting these solutions. These firms develop, maintain, and manage the solutions for their customers, while the customers pay the prescribed fees for their services.



The overall Europe e-Invoicing market size has been derived using both primary and secondary sources. To begin the research process, exhaustive secondary research has been conducted using internal and external sources to obtain qualitative and quantitative information related to the market. The process also serves the purpose of obtaining overview and forecast for the e-Invoicing market with respects to all the segments pertaining to the region.



Also, multiple primary interviews have been conducted with industry participants and commentators to validate the data, as well as to gain more analytical insights into the topic. The participants who typically take part this process include industry expert such as VPs, business development managers, market intelligence managers, and national sales managers along with external consultants such as valuation experts, research analysts, and key opinion leaders specializing in The European E-Invoicing market. Basware Corporation, Cegedim SA, Coupa Software Inc, IBM Corporation, and SAP SE are among the major players in the market in this region.



Reasons to Buy:

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Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in The European E-Invoicing market.

Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies.

The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in The European E-Invoicing market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long-term strategies.

Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets.

Scrutinize in-depth Europe market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it.

Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution



Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction



2. Key Takeaways



3. Research Methodology



4. E-Invoicing Market Landscape

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 PEST Analysis

4.2.1 Europe

4.3 Ecosystem Analysis

4.4 Expert Opinion



5. E-Invoicing -Market Dynamics

5.1 Market Drivers

5.1.1 Investment in Digital Technologies

5.1.2 Adoption of E-Voicing to Prevent Fraud

5.1.3 Government Initiatives to Boost E-Invoicing Adoption

5.2 Market Restraints

5.2.1 Lack of IT Resources

5.3 Market Opportunities

5.3.1 Adoption of Cloud Based Solutions

5.4 Future Trends

5.4.1 Implementation of Advanced Technologies like Blockchain

5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints



6. E-Invoicing Market - Europe Analysis

6.1 E-Invoicing Market Europe Overview

6.2 E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



7. E-Invoicing Market Analysis - By Deployment Model

7.1 Overview

7.2 E-Invoicing Market, By Deployment Model (2019 and 2027)

7.3 On-Premise

7.3.1 Overview

7.3.2 On-Premise: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

7.4 Cloud

7.4.1 Overview

7.4.2 Cloud: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



8. E-Invoicing Market Analysis - By End-User

8.1 Overview

8.2 E-Invoicing Market Breakdown, by End-User, 2019 & 20

8.3 B2B

8.3.1 Overview

8.3.2 B2B Market Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

8.4 B2C

8.4.1 Overview

8.4.2 B2C Market Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

8.5 Others

8.5.1 Overview

8.5.2 Others Market Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Mn)



9. Europe E-Invoicing Market - Country Analysis

9.2 Europe: E-Invoicing Market

9.2.1 Europe: E-Invoicing Market, by Key Country

9.2.1.1 Germany: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.2 France: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.3 Italy: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.4 UK: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.5 Russia: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.6 Rest of Europe: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



10. E-Invoicing Market- COVID-19 Impact Analysis

10.1 Overview

10.2 Europe



11. Industry Landscape

11.1 Market Initiative

11.2 New Product Development

11.3 Merger and Acquisition



12. Company Profiles

12.1 Basware Corporation

12.1.1 Key Facts

12.1.2 Business Description

12.1.3 Products and Services

12.1.4 Financial Overview

12.1.5 SWOT Analysis

12.1.6 Key Developments

12.2 Cegedim SA

12.3 Comarch SA

12.4 Coupa Software Inc.

12.5 IBM Corporation

12.6 SAP SE

12.7 The Sage Group plc

12.8 Tradeshift



13. Appendix

13.1 About the Publisher

13.2 Word Index



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qscb2m

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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SOURCE Research and Markets
Click here to read the full article.

Here's What You Need to Remember: By the end of the war, USS Intrepid suffered a total of four kamikaze attacks as well as a torpedo strike yet she survived.

"Intrepid" means "fearless, undaunted, adventurous," and all those words could certainly describe the World War II aircraft carrier that is now a floating museum on New York City's West Side. Commissioned in August 1943 the USS Intrepid (CV-11) was the fourth ship to bear the name, but perhaps the one to earn it most.

The keel for the Essex-class USS Intrepid was laid down just six days before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and upon completion, she immediately headed to the Pacific where she was greeted by a baptism of fire when she took part in the invasion of the Marshall Islands in January 1944. Heavily damaged during the fighting, the ship returned to Pearl Harbor for repairs and then as quickly headed back into action. In October 1944 "The Fighting I" took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history. Planes that sortied from the carrier helped sink the Japanese battleship Musashi.

It was soon after that engagement that USS Intrepid suffered her first kamikaze hit, while in November she would be hit two more times by the suicide pilots. In March 1945 a bomb exploded just off the ship's bow, but despite all this, she remained in action and helped sink the Japanese battleship Yamato just weeks later. By the end of the war, USS Intrepid suffered a total of four kamikaze attacks as well as a torpedo strike yet she survived.

The Intrepid sustained a total of 270 casualties during the Second World War, and November 25, 1944 was the single most deadly day in the ship's history when two kamikaze aircraft struck the ship and killed 69 crew members. As a result of these repeated attempts to sink her, she became known as "The Ghost Ship" by the Japanese, as she continually returned to action. Truly the ship and her crew were "intrepid" in every respect.

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After the war USS Intrepid was called back into service and was extensively modernized by the U.S. Navy in 1954. This included the removal of heavy guns, as well as the centerline elevator, while a new heavy-duty starboard side elevator was installed along with a new flight deck to handle modern combat jets. She became the principalship for multiple space mission recoveries including the recovery of the Mercury 7 and the Gemini 3 space capsules.

The USS Intrepid took part in three tours in Vietnam before being finally decommissioned in 1974. She served as an exhibit ship at the U.S Navy and Marine Corp bicentennial celebrations in Philadelphia in 1975-1976, before becoming a floating museum in New York City in 1982. While she hosted many special events and even served as an FBI operations center after the 9/11 attacks, the greatest foe was simply the elements and after years of neglect, she required badly needed repairs.

Fortunately, after a nearly two-year restoration effort from December 2006 to October 2008, which cost nearly $60million, the USS Intrepid was restored, renovated and ready to preserve the history of those who served aboard her.

On Veterans Day, November 11, 2008, she was officially rededicated by President George W. Bush, and today the ship is the centerpiece of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. The museum proudly displays more than 30 aircraft and chronicles the story of the ship that just wouldn't be sunk.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia

Click here to read the full article.
Ghislaine Maxwell in 1991. (Dominique Mollard / Associated Press)

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and onetime confidant and girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested in New Hampshire, the FBI said Thursday.

Maxwell had been sought by authorities in connection with allegations that she had helped procure young girls for sexual exploitation by Epstein, the financier who killed himself in a New York jail last year.

Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent travel companion on trips around the world, was taken into custody about 8:30 a.m., said FBI spokesman Marty Feely.

Epstein killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations have not, until now, resulted in criminal charges. The details of the charges against Maxwell weren't immediately revealed.

Messages were sent Thursday to several of Maxwells attorneys seeking comment. She has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some of the claims against her absolute rubbish."

Among the most sensational accusations was a claim by one Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew at Maxwell's London townhouse. Giuffre bolstered her allegations with a picture of herself, the prince and Maxwell, which Giuffre said was taken at the time.

Andrew denied her story.

Maxwell was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the highest-ranking employee of Epsteins alleged sex trafficking enterprise. She oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal the activity from law enforcement, the lawsuit alleged.




Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell pictured together in New York before his death - Getty

Prosecutors in New York said they would like Prince Andrew to speak to them following the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell on sex trafficking charges.

Ms Maxwell, a British socialite and former girlfriend of the disgraced late financier, was arrested by the FBI in a small town in New Hampshire on Thursday and indicted on charges including eliciting underage girls to travel for sex and of lying to investigators about it later.

Audrey Strauss, acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said she "would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us. We would like to have the benefit of his statement," adding their doors remain open.

She claims Ms Maxwell, 58, played a "critical role" in his sexual abuse of minor girls. Ms Maxwell has previously denied any involvement or knowledge of Epstein's alleged sexual misconduct.

Virginia Roberts photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2001.

The arrest could have significant implications for the Duke of York, who is reported to have been introduced to Epstein in 1999 by his friend Ms Maxwell.

The Duke and Ghislaine

She is central to allegations made by Virginia Andrews Giuffre, who has claimed she was forced to sleep with Prince Andrew when she was 17.

Ms Giuffre has claimed she was introduced to the Duke in Ms Maxwell's London home in March 2001, with a now-famous photograph of the Duke with his arm around the younger woman said to have been taken upstairs.

The Duke is last known to have met Ms Maxwell at Buckingham Palace in the summer of 2019, two weeks after US prosecutors announced they wanted to reopen their investigation into Epstein.

The Duke said in his Newsnight interview that it was the last time he was in touch with Ms Maxwell, with whom he has been friends for decades, inviting her to a "straightforward shooting weekend" at Sandringham and to Princess Beatrice's 18th birthday party at Windsor Castle.

In June, the Duke's lawyers said he had offered to speak to investigators on at least three occasions this year, accusing them of "seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered".

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Jeffrey Epstein's alleged victims arrive at federal court in New York in 2019, including Annie Farmer, right, and Virginia Giuffre - Bloomberg

In November, sources familiar with the case told the Telegraph Ms Maxwell would never implicate the Duke if she was to be interviewed by the FBI over the Epstein scandal.

Ms Maxwell will instead corroborate the Duke of Yorks adamant denial of ever having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old sex slave trafficked by his friend Jeffrey Epstein, it was claimed.

Fresh charges

Prosecutors allege that Ms Maxwell recruited, groomed, and abused victims known to be minors as young as 14 and played a part in trafficking them across America, London and Paris.

William Sweeney, assistant director of the FBI in New York City, described Ms Maxwell as one of the villains in this case.

Her whereabouts had not been known since the arrest of Epstein last summer. Some reports suggested she has been hiding in Israel, or France, or even being protected by the FBI.

We have been keeping tabs on Miss Maxwells whereabouts, and recently she slithered away to a beautiful property in New Hampshire, Mr Sweeney said.

According to an unsealed indictment at the Southern District Court of New York, she is facing six charges, including enticement and conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, transportation and conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and two counts of perjury.

Federal prosecutors said in court papers she had "enticed and caused minor victims to travel to Epstein's residence in different states" and that Maxwell would assist in their "grooming for and subjection to sexual abuse."

Prosecutors charged that Ms Maxwell was well aware of Epstein's preference for minor girls, and that he intended to sexually abuse them.

The charges date back to 1994 and involve three unnamed victims, the youngest of whom was 14 when she allegedly met the British socialite, who is the daughter of late British media magnate Robert Maxwell.

One of the girls, referred to as "Victim 3" in the indictment to protect her identity, was allegedly underage when she was groomed and abused in London between the years 1994-1995. The indictment alleges that Ms Maxwell "encouraged Victim 3 to give massages to Epstein."

Ms Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give the late financier massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.

'Waited for this day'

Jennifer Araoz, a woman who says Epstein raped her in his New York mansion in 2002 when she was 15, said she feared the financier's ring of conspirators for years.

"Now that the ring has been taken down, I know that I can't be hurt anymore," she said in a statement. "Day after day, I have waited for the news that Maxwell would be arrested and held accountable for her actions. Her arrest is a step in that direction, and it truly means that the justice system didn't forget about us."

Lisa Bloom, who represents one of Ms Maxwell's accusers, told the Telegraph on Thursday she was relieved to hear of her "long overdue arrest" for her "ruthless" actions.

"Ghislaine Maxwell's brutal, ruthless and manipulative behaviour caused my client tremendous pain," Ms Bloom said.

"We applaud her long overdue arrest today. All others accused of enabling Jeffrey Epstein's predations should be brought to justice as well."

Epstein is reported to have killed himself in his prison cell in New York last August while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Ghislaine Maxwell, suspected of involvement in sex trafficking with friend Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested by FBI agents on Thursday morning.

Maxwell has attempted to stay out of the media spotlight since the 2019 suicide of Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting charges of trafficking dozens of underage girls. Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire and is expected to appear in federal court later on Thursday, the New York NBC affiliate reported.

The daughter of British media mogul Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine is accused by Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre of grooming young girls for Epsteins alleged trafficking operation. Giuffre stated in a civil lawsuit that Maxwell forced her to have sex with Epstein as well as the U.K.s Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth II.

Maxwell filed a claim on Epsteins estate in mid-March, without disclosing her location. That estate is estimated to be worth $636.1 million.

Epstein made a clear and unambiguous promise to Maxwell that he would indemnify Maxwell and advance any expense incurred by reason of her prior employment relationship with him and his affiliated businesses, the lawsuit claims. Maxwell has incurred and will continue to incur significant legal fees, personal security costs, and other costs in connection with legal suits, proceedings, and investigations relating to Epstein, his affiliated businesses, and his alleged victims.

One day before Epsteins suicide, a federal court released the transcript of a 2016 deposition in which Epstein repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked if Maxwell had aided his trafficking efforts.

More from National Review
WASHINGTON  Democratic challenger Joe Biden outraised President Donald Trump by $10 million in June, marking the second straight month the former vice president posted a greater campaign fundraising haul than the Republican incumbent.

Biden and the Democratic National Committee's fundraising arm jointly raised more than $141 million in June, his campaign said Wednesday, its most in a single month. The money includes boosts from President Barack Obama, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris, each whom hosted virtual fundraisers for Biden in June.

Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $131 million in June, also a "record-setting" figure for the president, the Trump campaign said, eclipsing any one-month total from Trump's 2016 campaign.

More: Trump calls proposed Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower 'a symbol of hate'

It leaves the Trump campaign with a war chest of $295 million on hand to spend for the final four months of the campaign, according to the campaign  likely a significant advantage over Biden. The Biden campaign did not say how much available cash it has. The campaign posted $82.4 million on hand after May.

Biden's average online donation was $34, according to the campaign, which said 68% of all donors were "brand new to our campaign." In all, Biden and the DNC raised $282.1 million in the second quarter, which spans from April through June. Biden's biggest haul came from a virtual fundraiser hosted by Obama that brought in $11 million.

More: Obama raises $7.6 million for Biden, warns Democrats against being 'complacent or smug'

In an email to supporters announcing the numbers, Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon called the haul "a true testament that the people are standing behind Joe Biden."

"Its clear that voters are looking for steady leadership, experience, empathy, compassion, and character  and theyll find all of these qualities in Vice President Joe Biden," she said.

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President Donald Trump's supporters remain committed, though former Vice President Joe Biden leads in a new poll.

More: 'We need real plans': Joe Biden blasts Trump, offers alternatives to coronavirus response

The Trump campaign said it raised $4.3 million a day, led by $14 million on Trump's birthday, and $266 million overall in the second quarter, about $16 million less than Biden and his allies.

The campaign, which did not provide an average donation amount, said fundraising efforts were fueled by a "robust digital, mail and online donors base," with the president only holding two fundraising events. The campaign boasted having a "vast cash-on-hand advantage."

The Trump campaigns monumental June fundraising haul proves that people are voting with their wallets and that enthusiasm behind President Trumps re-election is only growing, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said. No one is excited about Joe Biden, which is why he has to rely so heavily on surrogates like Barack Obama and radical Hollywood elites."

In May, the Biden campaign and DNC raised $80.8 million, while the Trump and RNC jointly raised $74 million.

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joe Biden outraises Donald Trump in fundraising for second straight month
TEANECK, NJ  Police policy pertaining to body cameras, hiring practices and staff diversity within the Teaneck Police Department were discussed during a Thursday community forum.

The "joint venture" between law enforcement and members of the community, according to a release from the town, was organized to "create important dialogue between residents and law enforcement.

Police Chief Glenn OReilly, Bergen County Sheriff Anthony Cureton and Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella all spoke during the forum.

Restoration Community Church Reverend Dan Meys urged people on the call to walk in other peoples shoes. That means law enforcement must try to walk in the shoes of people who have been discriminated against, and vise versa, he said.

Township Manager Dean Kazinci said the police department is unequivocally in favor of body cameras, and are working to secure funding for more, which would take an amendment to the capital budget. The cost of those cameras, according to O'Reilly, would be around $300,000.

When asked by resident Laura Johnson when the township could secure funding, Kazinci said the Township Council would discuss the budget at a July 14 meeting.

This funding would be acquired through a bond, according to Kazinci, meaning the police department's budget would not be increased to fund the purchase of additional body cameras.

To a question regarding the Teaneck Police Department's policy on chokeholds, O'Reilly said that in most cases they are banned, but can be used when the use of deadly force is needed.

Ramona Guthrie cited Eric Garner and George Floyd as examples of subjective determinations of when the use of deadly force is necessary, and asked if there is anything that "precludes" the department from banning them outright.

O'Reilly said there wasn't anything that precludes the department from doing so, but also didn't commit to banning them fully. Rather, he said it was an issue that could be continually revisited.

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The Teaneck Police Department's use of force policy was updated after New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued a directive related to use of force on June 5.

The meeting follows a June protest in Teaneck against the death of Floyd and Breonna Taylor, in which members of the Teaneck community, and the family of Phillip Pannell, spoke out about policing in the community.

Pannell, a Black 16-year-old, was shot by white officer Gary Spath in 1990, which lead to Teaneck's 1990 riots.

Pannell's death loomed over the forum  much like it did at the protests  as a reminder of the chasm between what Teaneck's Black residents believe the Black experience to be in Teaneck, and what township officials have painted it as.

Kirk Mitchell is a Teaneck resident who said he was in middle school when Pannell was shot and killed in 1990. He remembered Gary Spath, the officer who shot Pannell, was not from Teaneck.

Mitchell asked what the place of residence breakdown was among Teaneck officers.

According to Kazinci, the township has a requirement that officers be Teaneck residents in order to be hired onto the police force, but a majority of officers have moved out of Teaneck, which is allowed under department policy.

Currently, about 25 percent of the Teaneck police force are Teaneck residents.

Among the 92 officers currently on the force, 20 are Black, 19 are Latinx and one officer is a Pacific Islander. Eight new hires will come from the next academy class, O'Reilly said, and roughly 75 percent will be from minority groups.

Loretta Weinberg said she was elected to the township council one month after the Pannell shooting. Through that experience she learned that a "diverse community like ours needs constant nurturing," she said.

"Hopefully we don't slip back, and we know the nurturing needs to continue."



Teaneck is also considering an expansion of the Teaneck Community Policing Bureau. At one time it was staffed with seven officers, but is currently only staffed with two officers.

A community review board has also lapsed in staffing, and hasn't met since 2010, according to Kazinci.

Musella said he addressed county police chiefs this morning, and articulated that more community outreach and dialogue were needed. He said OReilly was the first chief in the county to host a community forum.

We have to forge these relationships, he said, adding that he was proud of the police response to COVID-19 and the George Floyd tragedy.

Floyd died in Minneapolis with a white police officers knee on his neck in May.

Mayor James Dunleavy said the meeting was timely and important, stating that he was proud of both the police force and the community, but understood that, given what is happening nationally, this conversation was needed.

Councilwoman Gervonn Rice said she believed the community and police were in a good place, but believed these conversations could lead to an even stronger one.

A wide swath of Teaneck officials spoke out in the days after the death of Floyd in Minneapolis, but the community voiced a wide gap between the statements made and the reality of Black life in the township.

With multiple commitments made by Kazinci and other officials to continue hosting discussions like the one today, perhaps Teaneck is beginning to work on closing that gap.

This article originally appeared on the Teaneck Patch
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: I am an artist who leans politically center-left. I am also a Jew who endured anti-Semitic taunts in school in 1950s Arizona.

I understand the need to bring down statues, demonstrate and demand respect. But when U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney is essentially forced to step down from his position as chief judge of the Central District of California because he described Kiry Gray, the first Black woman appointed the district's executive and clerk of court, as "street-smart," things are going too far.

"Street-smart" is a term that well predates me; my father would use it to describe anyone who knew how to get things done in this hardscrabble world. It is not derogatory.

Maybe there's more to this than what's been reported, but this level of political correctness is just going to backfire and give fodder to racists and bigots.

Benita Wallraff, Sunland

..

To the editor: Shortly after World War II, my mother and I became briefly homeless in a big northeastern city. It was then that I became aware of street smarts. We survived and moved on in our lives, but that quality has never left me.

I am an elderly white man, and I value my street smarts. For Carney to resign his position as chief district judge because he praised a Black woman as being street-smart is absurd.

I wish all our public servants were street-smart. Maybe we'd have a better handle on what was going on in the world.

Andy Robinson, Los Angeles
People gather at Mission Beach, many of them not wearing masks despite a statewide order, on June 26 in San Diego. (Jarrod Valliere / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

To the editor: I spent 45 years as a healthcare professional. I received my master's degree in public health from UCLA in 1977, and I have held senior positions at the UCLA Medical Center and USC's medical school. I have been providing management consulting services to healthcare organizations across the United States. ("Newsom warns of more coronavirus restrictions, enforcement ahead of July 4 holiday weekend," June 30)

It is truly unfathomable to me how the United States, which contains 4.25% of the world's population, has experienced 25% of the confirmed COVID-19 cases globally and has had more than 127,000 people die. Who could ever have imagined that the European Union would ban travelers from the United States?

This is clearly the result of our federal government's failure to adequately respond to this situation in spite of having access to the best and brightest scientists, the most extensive and costly medical research facilities and infrastructure in the world, and the most and best trained medical professionals.

We cannot go back in time. Therefore, my hope is that this experience will serve as a tragic lesson going forward so that our children and grandchildren will never have to experience a similar disaster in the future.

Richard E. Sinaiko, Pacific Palisades

..

To the editor: You often show photos of beaches with articles about the spread of COVID-19. However, is there evidence from contact tracing that beaches are where many people become infected?

From what I've read and heard, prolonged indoor exposure is riskier than exposure outdoors. Also, I have found it easy to stay more than six feet apart from people at the beach, where the wind is often blowing.

Are your photographers just looking for a good picture, or are beaches really major sites for spreading infection? I would be unhappy if beaches were closed without good evidence.

Jennifer Mawhorter, Claremont

..

To the editor: Why does the COVID-19 resurgence in California surprise anyone?

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Photos recently published in The Times showed dozens of high school graduates standing shoulder to shoulder with their unmasked mouths shouting with joy. Obviously, this graduation is not the only reason the virus is unchecked in Los Angeles County, but it is indicative of the problem.

A friend of mine who lives in Romania told me that if a person there is caught not wearing a mask, they are fined the equivalent of more than $600. Even the prime minister was fined for not wearing a mask.

The result? Romania, with a population twice that of Los Angeles County, has roughly one-quarter the confirmed cases and half the fatalities.

Brian Lipson, Beverly Hills

..

To the editor: The excellent editorial on the decision by restaurant chain Hugo's Tacos to close because its employees were enduring physical and verbal abuse from customers who refused to wear a mask shows how blatantly President Trump's behaviors affect our society.

Instead of being a role model for safe and healthful practices during this pandemic, he is stoking rebellion against them.

We cannot allow such a corrupt president to corrupt our human spirit and cherished values. Every time I learn of another travesty against every fiber of decency, morality, fairness and dignity, a part of me deep inside cries in pain.

My determination, resilience and optimism carry me through because I have faith that our new government will begin the restoration process for this country next January.

Theresa Destito, Pasadena
LAVAL, QC and CAMBRIDGE, England, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Liminal BioSciences Inc. (NASDAQ: LMNL) (TSX: LMNL) ("Liminal BioSciences" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced that Prometic Plasma Resources, a subsidiary of Liminal BioSciences Inc., has joined the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance to contribute to the acceleration of the development of a potential new therapy for COVID-19.

"We are proud to be joining plasma companies Takeda, CSL Behring, ADMA Biologics, Biopharma Plasma, Biotest, BPL, GC Pharma, LFB, Octapharma, Sanquin, and other contributors and supporters of the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance in a unique partnership of the world's leading plasma-derived therapeutic companies to collaborate and coordinate efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic," stated Kenneth Galbraith, Chief Executive Officer of Liminal BioSciences. "The CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance aims to put public and patient health first by working together and is combining all efforts to collect convalescent plasma to develop a potential plasma-derived COVID-19 therapy. We hope that our expertise in developing plasma-based therapeutics and our plasma collection centers in the U.S and Canada will go some way to contributing to this important cause."

Individuals interested in donating plasma can visit https://plasma.prometic.com to find the nearest Prometic Plasma Resources plasma collection center to their location.

About Liminal BioSciences Inc.

Liminal BioSciences is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel treatments for patients suffering from diseases related to fibrosis, including respiratory, liver and kidney diseases that have high unmet medical need. Liminal BioSciences has a deep understanding of certain biological targets and pathways that have been implicated in the fibrotic process, including fatty acid receptors such as FFAR1, or GPR40, G-protein-coupled receptor 84, or GPR84, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, or PPARs. In preclinical studies, we observed that targeting these receptors promoted normal tissue regeneration and scar resolution, including preventing the progression of and reversing established fibrosis. We also have encouraging clinical data that we believe supports the translatability of our preclinical data observations to the clinic. We have leveraged this understanding, as well as our experience with generating small molecules, to build a pipeline of differentiated product candidates. Our lead small molecule product candidate, fezagepras (PBI-4050), is expected to enter an additional Phase 1 clinical trial in 2H-2020 to evaluate multiple ascending doses of fezagepras in healthy volunteers, at daily dose exposures higher than those previously evaluated in our completed Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials.

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Liminal BioSciences has also leveraged its experience in bioseparation technologies through its subsidiary Prometic Bioproduction Inc. to isolate and purify biopharmaceuticals from human plasma. Our lead plasma-derived product candidate is Ryplazim (plasminogen), for which the Company expects to resubmit a BLA in Q3-2020 with the FDA seeking approval to treat patients with congenital plasminogen deficiency.

Prometic Plasma Resources operates two plasma collection centers in North America managed by a team of qualified professionals with decades of experience in the field of plasma collection. Our Canadian center located in Winnipeg, Manitoba is licensed by the FDA and Health Canada, and is certified by the European Union and the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA). Our American center located in Amherst, New York is licensed by the State of New York and its' BLA submission is currently under review by the FDA.

Liminal BioSciences has active business operations in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

About The Alliance

The CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance is an unprecedented partnership of world-leading plasma companies formed to meet the unprecedented challenge of COVID-19 who are working together to develop a non-branded plasma-derived medicine, called a hyperimmune globulin (H-Ig). This could be one of the earliest potential treatment options for people at risk for serious complications from COVID-19. To meet its goals, the Alliance urgently need donations of plasma from individuals who have recovered from COVID-19. People who have fully recovered from COVID-19, or know someone who has, can use the Alliance's "plasmabot" to find and be connected to a nearby plasma collection center. Visit www.CoVIg-19PlasmaAlliance.org or www.thefightisinus.org to learn more

Forward Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements about Liminal BioSciences' objectives, strategies and businesses that involve risks and uncertainties. Forwardlooking information includes statements concerning, among other things, statements with respect to the timing and our potential contribution to the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance, our ability to contribute to the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance, our ability to collect and supply convalescent plasma, the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance's ability to develop, manufacture and successfully commercialize any product candidates for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, the timing of any planned BLA resubmission, development of R&D programs, the timing of initiation of clinical trials, the exploration of alternatives for the future commercialization of Ryplazim, if approved, including through a third-party marketing collaboration, and the potential commercial launch of Ryplazim, if approved.

These statements are "forward-looking" because they are based on our current expectations about the markets we operate in and on various estimates and assumptions. Actual events or results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements if known or unknown risks affect our business, or if our estimates or assumptions turn out to be inaccurate. At this stage, the product candidates of the Company have not been authorized for sale in any country. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described or projected herein include, but are not limited to, Liminal BioSciences' ability to develop, manufacture, and successfully commercialize product candidates if ever, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on its business operations, clinical development, regulatory activities and financial and other corporate impacts, the availability of funds and resources to pursue R&D projects, the successful and timely completion of clinical trials, the ability of Liminal BioSciences to take advantage of business opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry, uncertainties associated generally with research and development, clinical trials and related regulatory reviews and approvals and general changes in economic conditions. You will find a more detailed assessment of these risks, uncertainties and other risks that could cause actual events or results to materially differ from our current expectations in the Company's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian Securities Commissions filings and reports filings and reports, including in the Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2019 and future filings and reports by the Company, from time to time. As a result, we cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize. Such risks may be amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and its potential impact on Liminal BioSciences' business and the global economy. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and estimates, which speak only as of the date hereof. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statement contained in this Press Release even if new information becomes available, as a result of future events or for any other reason, unless required by applicable securities laws and regulations.

Cision

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/liminal-biosciences-joins-covig-plasma-alliance-to-contribute-to-development-of-potential-new-covid-19-therapy-301087687.html

SOURCE Liminal BioSciences Inc.
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Here's What You Need To Remember: The advanced M-16 almost looked like a toyand that likely created a myth that toymaker Mattel had played a role in developing the Armalite firearm.

Introduced just prior to America's involvement in the Vietnam War, the M-16 was quite different from any weapon in use at the time. It revolutionized firearm design with its use of composite materials and intermediate caliber ammunitionbut its appearance was one not immediately loved by everyone who carried one.

The aerospace-grade aluminum receiver and composite stock and grip reduced weight, but up until that point American military rifles were still a mix of steel, and wood that had been true since the days of the American Revolution. The advanced M-16 almost looked like a toyand that likely created a myth that toymaker Mattel had played a role in developing the Armalite firearm.

The myth is not true, but there is a bit more to the story.

Mattel didnt develop the weapon but Colt, the M-16s maker, reportedly did turn to Mattel to make some of the early plastic handgrips. Some of those did show up in Vietnam and that led to some confusion when soldiers were issued the new gun. However, this part of the story is far from cut and drydozens of veterans claim to have seen the logo on their grips, but collectors have countered that not one example has ever come up for sale in recent years. No one has come forward with an example in their collection and no museum has an M-16 with a Mattel-made grip.

So did Mattel make the grip? Opinions differ and until one shows up the matter may likely never be fully resolved.

What is a fact is that Mattel did introduce its M-16 Marauder in 1966the same year the actual firearm went to Vietnam. It wasn't a real gun at all but was the first toy of the M-16.

Unlike other toy guns of the post-World War II era, the Marauder didn't need batteries or caps to provide a realistic sound of a weapon being fired. More importantly this toy version was close in size to the actual M-16, and while it did feature a ridiculously large magazine mag wellto hold the noise-making device that simulated the sound of gunfireit was fairly accurate looking at a distance.

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Visually it was so accurate that at least a couple of the toy guns were even used in the 1968 film The Green Berets. The M-16 Marauder appears in two different scenes. In each it is carried by Col. Kirby (John Wayne)first during the nighttime battle sequence and later it is the gun that Kirby smashes against a tree so that it couldn't be captured by the Vietcong.

As many kids who own one can likely attest, the Marauders were rather fragile and could be all too easily broken in backyard battles so it makes sense that the movie would use thisespecially as the aerospace-grade aluminum receivers couldn't be so easily broken by striking them against a tree!

Because of the presence of the Marauder in that film, and the fact that it did reasonably recreate the M-16, there has been a persistent rumor that Mattel produced the weapon. So perhaps those who believe they saw a Mattel-made grip on their M-16 in Vietnam may have watched The Green Berets one too many times.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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Key Point: The M110 could fire a massive eight-inch artillery shell nearly 20 miles away. Even though its retired with the United StatesIran still uses it.

M110

The M110 is a bit of a zombieneither tank nor artillery piece, but something of both. The M110 is based on the smaller M115 howitzer, a towed artillery piece that in its ultimate configuration was designed in 1939, but owed its development to a post-World War I heavy howitzer.

Both the M115 and the M110 were designed to fire a massive 203 millimeter, or eight-inch, artillery shell a distance of up to 25,000 metersor more than 15 milesusing standard shells. It could also fire a whopping 30,000 metersnearly 19 mileswith special rocket-assisted shells.

Standard high-explosive shells weighed more than 200 pounds and were hydraulically or manually loaded. The M110 was used for counter-battery fire, infantry support, bunker-busting, and anti-armor. They were a beast to loada neat video shows the M110 being fired by a British artillery unit and shows how highly demanding reloading the big guns was. The M110 was the biggest artillery piece ever used by the United States.

Though the M110 rides into battle on an integrated hullessentially a purpose-built tank hullthe entire operating crew does not fit inside, but has to accompany the M110 in another vehicle. The huge 13-man crew includes two loaders, two gunners, an M110 driver, and other crew members.

Tankless

Though the tank hull appears outwardly similar to any other tank hulls, it is unarmored, and therefore unfit for near-frontline service in a tank destroyer role. Also unlike a tank, the M110 is loaded from the outside, rather than from inside the hull.

Both the M115 and M110 were able to fire the United States W33 nuclear artillery round, a shell that was capable of an explosion equivalent to 40 kilotons of TNT, though of course, Iran does not posses a nuclear-capable artillery shell.

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The M110 was introduced into American service during the Vietnam war. It was upgraded in 1977 and given a double muzzle brake and a longer barrel, which increased its range. The M110 saw service as late as operation Desert Storm and the preceding Desert Shield in the early 1990s. They were retired from Army and Marine service shortly afterward and transferred to the Reserves or National Guard units by 1994.

Modest Fleet, Dubious Quality

Iran is thought to maintain a modestly sized fleet of 30 or so M110s, which saw service during the long and bloody 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. These platforms probably have a considerable amount of wear and tear, given the likely age of Irans M110 platform. Still, theyre bigger than the Americas current big guns.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This article first appeared earlier this year and is reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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Key Point: Not unlike many an expensive military project, the Maginot Line was not all it was advertised to be.

According to the standard telling of the tale, the Maginot Line, the most expensive military project ever undertaken at the timethe F-35 of its daywas a mighty, nigh-unassailable fortification, whose only flaw was that it did not extend along the whole French frontier, instead relying on the Ardennes forest to protect the north where the Franco-German border met Belgium. In that version, it was only the German surprise attack through the Ardennes, in country thought impassable for mechanised forces, that rendered the fortress impotent, as German troops simply bypassed it. The Maginot Line itself, it is claimed, would have resisted any attack.

The problem with that telling is that it is largely false. The Maginot Line is probably the most overrated defensive system in history. German troops did attack the Line, initially in the form of holding attacks designed to tie down French forces while the main attack passed through the Ardennes. What they found did not impress them. F.W. von Mellenthin, the chief of staff of 97th Infantry-Division, which breached the line near Saarbrucken, would write:

The Maginot Line was widely believed to be impregnable, and for all I know there may still be those who think that the fortifications could have resisted any attack. It may be of interest to point out that the Maginot defences were breached in a few hours by a normal infantry attack, and without any tank support whatsoever. The German infantry advanced under the cover of heavy air and artillery bombardment in which lavish use was made of smoke shell. They soon found that many of the French strongpoints were not proof against shells or bombs, and moreover, a large number of positions had not been sited for all-around defence and were easy to attack from the blind side with grenades and flamethrowers. The Maginot Line lacked depth, and taken as a whole the position was far inferior to many defence systems developed later in the war. In modern war it is in any case unsound to rely on static defence, but as far as the Maginot Line was concerned the fortifications had only a moderate local value.

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It turns out that not unlike many an expensive military project, the Maginot Line was not all it was advertised to be. On paper, it sounded impressive: forty-five grands ouvrages or great forts, designed with withstand 135mm heavy guns, along with ninety-seven petits ouvrages or small forts, 382 casemates, seventy-eight shelters, seventeen observatories and five thousand blockhouses, all designed to be proof against 75mm medium artillery. These were defended by a series of turrets, some retractable, some not. Of the retractable turrets, seventeen mounted 135mm heavy guns; thirty-four more had 75mm medium guns; twenty-one had 81mm mortars; twenty-one others were mixed weapon turrets, featuring twin machine guns paired to either a 47mm rapid-fire naval gun or a 25mm anti-tank gun; seven had a machine gun and a 50mm mortar, and sixty-one had only a single machine gun.

Supplementing the retractable turrets mounted on the forts themselves were a much more extensive array of non-retractable cloches or bells, of which seventy-two had a 25mm anti-tank gun and twin machine guns, seventy-four had twin machineguns only, and 1,118 had a single machine gun, sometimes paired with a 50mm mortar. There were also seventy-five grenade cloches, actually a small hole in a concrete dome from which one could throw a grenade, and twenty periscope cloches for observers. Altogether, it had 93x 25mm anti tank guns and 1,520 machine guns to augment its artillery. The fortifications were arranged in three layers: the border post outline, consisting of camouflaged blockhouses on the border, designed to delay the enemy and give the alarm; an outpost and support line of anti-tank blockhouses 5 km back, designed to further delay the enemy, whole ouvrages were readied for combat; and the mainline of resistance 10 km from the border, where the ouvrages themselves were arrayed. It all seems very formidable, until one peers too closely at the details.

First, the three lines were not genuinely mutually supporting defensive belts, such as the Germans would attack at Kursk. The two outpost lines were sacrificial: they were designed merely to delay the enemy advance long enough to give the garrisons of the ouvrages time to man their positions. While the artillery in the fortress turrets could theoretically support the outpost lines, this would require the outposts to hold out long enough for the guns to be readied, and lacking sufficient observer posts or trained forward observers in the outposts, this would be limited to pre-registered or blind fire. In the nineteenth century, this might have held up attacking troops, as skirmish lines struggled to overcome each blockhouse before moving on. The Germans had evolved past this in the last war, learning to bypass strongpoints, and focus on breaking through the enemy position. The outpost lines would do little to slow their advance.

The second problem was the length of front they had to cover: some 225 kilometres, giving an average machinegun density of 6.75 per kilometre, 1x 25mm anti-tank gun per 2.4 kilometres, and one medium or heavy artillery piece per 5.5 kilometres. They were not evenly distributed, and the manner of their distribution would reveal other vulnerabilities, which we shall look at below, but for the purpose of comparison, consider that a German infantry platoon was allocated a 200m wide attack sector. That would give German attackers, with four MG.34s to a standard infantry platoon, some twenty machine guns per kilometre, or three times that of the fortifications. Adding in French infantry defenders, with three machine guns per platoon only gives the French a rough equality, at 21.75 vs 20, and a deceptive equality at that, as the Chatellerault M24/29 LMG fired a mere 450 rounds per minute from a 25 round box, as opposed to the MG.34s 900rpm from 250 round belts. Taking data from German and American training simulations, that gives the Germans a 76 percent superiority in effective machine-gun firepower, and assumes the platoon attacks unsupported. A German infantry division, expected to attack a 5 km front, possessed 642 machine guns, some 128 per km. A French division had 480, with ninety-six per km, making the Maginot Lines contribution of roughly seven seem insignificant, and increasing the German firepower superiority to 3.5 to 1.

As for artillery, a single German infantry division brought more firepower to the table than the entire Maginot Line. Against the 21x 135mm heavy and 34x 75mm medium guns of the fortifications, a German infantry division fielded 40x 105mm medium guns, and 14x 150mm heavy guns, along with 20x 75mm infantry guns. These would all be concentrated on a mere 5 kilometres, not strung out along 225, and even with a French division opposite, they would only add 36x 75mm, 12x 105mm, and 12x 155mm, still leaving the Germans with a firepower edge from their larger guns. The superior calibre of German guns pose an additional problem, however. The French devised the fortress to withstand their own WWI armament, the famous 75, not that of the Germans; especially not the Germans of 1940. When it came down to the test of actual combat, turrets, casemates, and blockhouses designed to withstand French 75mm crumpled under German 105. Even the petits ouvrages could be brought down on the defenders heads, as the Germans would demonstrate, leading to the quick surrender of several more. Only the grands ouvrages could withstand the fire of a typical German attack, and with only forty-five of these, one per 5 km, the Germans found them easy to ignore.

In any case, the ouvrages were not everywhere. From the Ardennes into Monmedy, and from Hagenau to Switzerland, there were no ouvrages, with their retractable turrets and artillery. In these areas, there were only casemates, blockhouses and cloches, relatively primitive fortifications with little more than machineguns and light mortars, which did not even give the Germans pause. In fact, the Ardennes, through which the Germans supposedly bypassed the Maginot Line was technically part of the Line, just one of these weak sectors of it lacking ouvrages. In the sector in front of the fortress of Verdun, no ouvrages were built either. Let it not be thought that the mainline of ouvrages between Monmedy and Hagenau was capable of much better though. The attack at Saarbrucken that Mellinthin described above took place in the very centre of the heaviest portion of the French defensive belt. Even here, where the line was strongest, it was no more than of moderate (defensive) value, broken through in a few hours by German infantry.

The design of the blockhouses and casemates reveal more 19th Century thinking. The overwhelming majority covered only a single direction. A handful also covered the opposite side, but were still blind in two directions. These presented little hindrance. Once blinded by smoke, German infantry could advance upon them in relative safety, and quickly destroy them with grenades, flamethrowers, and satchel charges, from the cover of the blindsides. Little thought was given to mutually supporting positions that could cover each other by fire. The grenade cloches were a joke, presenting more of an inviting target for enemy grenadiers than any real cover for the thrower.

The petit ouvrages had three or four blockhouses each, in a rough hemisphere to the front, still vulnerably to being bypassed and attacked in the flank, while the grands ouvrages had six to eight, in a more elaborate and mutually supporting, but still limited layout. Only these would last prove able to hold out.

The Maginot Line was enormously over budget, with estimates of its total cost ranging from 5 to 7 billion francs, (2019 USD 6.45 to 9.05 billion). It had only been allocated 3 billion. (2019 USD $3.88 billion), and was behind schedule too, taking nearly 11 years to finish, and even them it was not complete, Plans to build ouvrages on the portion of the line before Verdun, or the two end sections, were abandoned, as were ideas to more thoroughly equip the blockhouses and casemates with weapons. Most were left with only the small arms there defenders carried. Of five major attacks the Germans launched against it, four broke through, and none of these were part of the German main effort. The claim, widely made, that the Maginot Line was successful in that it forced the Germans to bypass it is unsubstantiated by the actual results when it was assaulted, as well as technically incorrect, since the area of the Ardennes the Germans broke through was technically part of the Line too.

It is often said that an army fights the last war. In the case of the Maginot Line, they seemed to have reverted to the one before that. No doubt it would have given the German Confederation armies of 1870 some trouble. By the standards of the German Army if 1917, it was antiquated, though it had not yet been built. Its design ignored the tactics and heavy artillery of the very army it was made to hinder. The designers seem to have expected nineteenth-century skirmish lines, not individually manoeuvring squads using smokescreens, and imagined that the attackers would stop to demolish each blockhouse rather than simply sweep around them, as the Germans had done before.

Not only did it free up French forces to fight elsewhere. Two entire Army groups, the 2nd and 3rd, were deployed behind it. 52 percent of Frances combat divisions on the continent. All that money, which could have been spent enhancing the combat capability of the army itself, was instead sunk in static defences, to resist an army which, since 1864, had demonstrated itself the foremost experts on breaking fortifications. France could not have done more to play to Germanys strengths.

In the end, the Maginot Line was not merely a well-intended idea, overcome by clever German strategy. It was a complete waste of Frances money, that could have been spent on much-needed modernisation, such as adequate radios, heavier medium artillery, or enough transport vehicles to give French troops strategic mobility. The most expensive military project of its day, yet it offered a moderate local [defensive] value, and was far inferior to many defence systems developed later in the war. Cheaper and more quickly constructed defensive systems, it may be added. The Maginot Line stands as a sobering warning about taking the snake oil salesman claims of todays defence conglomerates at face value. If history is anything to judge by, they may not just be exaggerating. They may be giving the lie direct.

Rune Scott has had a passion for military history since he was 5. At 18 he discovered Trevor Dupuy, and acquired a consuming interest in operations analysis and statistical modelling. After years of merely accumulating knowledge and commenting on articles, he decided to venture into professional writing in defence and foreign policy analysis. When not writing and researching, he can be found wargaming, practising several martial arts, and raising children in the southwest desert that inspired Dune. This article first appeared in 2019 and is reprinted here due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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In the first week of June, comments, likes and shares of PizzaGate also spiked to more than 800,000 on Facebook and nearly 600,000 on Instagram, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool for analyzing social interactions. That compares with 512,000 interactions on Facebook and 93,000 on Instagram during the first week of December 2016. From the start of 2017 through January this year, the average number of weekly PizzaGate mentions, likes and shares on Facebook and Instagram was under 20,000, according to the Times analysis.
A view of a sign for a All Bar One in London. Photo: Mike Egerton/PA via Getty

Here are the top business, market, and economic stories you should be watching today in the UK, Europe, and abroad:

All Bar One owner swings to loss

Pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers (MAB.L) has fallen to 121m ($151m) half-year loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, down from a 75m profit in the same period last year.

The company, which owns brands like All Bar One, Toby Carvery, and Nicholsons pubs, said revenue fell to 1bn in the 28 weeks to the 11 April. That compared with revenue of 1.2bn in the same period last year.

Mitchells & Butlers said a review of its property portfolio has also led it to writedown the value of its assets by 524m.

The business was performing very well before the enforced closure in response to Covid-19, chief executive Phil Urban said.

Urban said the business had a clear plan for re-opening.

We are well placed to continue to bring people and communities together and to keep Mitchells & Butlers at the forefront of the eating and drinking-out market, he said in a statement.

Mitchells & Butlers has secured 100m of additional unsecured financing to support reopening. The business has net debts of 2.2bn.

Meggitt warning

Engineering giant Meggitt (MGGT.L) has warned investors to expect a sharp fall in revenue as a result of the grounding of airplanes around the world.

Meggitt said second quarter revenue was set to be 30% below expectations and half-year income would be 15% lower than forecasts.

The company reassured investors on its liquidity position and was pursuing an aggressive cost cutting programme that will see it reduce outflows by up to 450m this year.

Shares rose 6.6%.

Primark counts cost of shutdown

Primark-owner Associated British Foods (ABF.L) has said its retail brand lost 650m in sales per month during the shutdown.

In a trading update on Thursday, ABF said Primark also spent 800m on rent and payments to supplies between March and May when trading across the estate was either non-existent or minimal.

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Sales for the last three months were down 75% as a result of the lockdown, falling to 582m.

Primark has now been able to reopen all but eight of its 375 stores and trading has been reassuring and encouraging. ABF said Primark is expected to make a full-year operating profit of 300m to 350m, which would be around a third of the prior periods figure.

Shares in ABF rose 7.5%.

European stock markets opened higher on Thursday, ahead of closely-watched EU and US unemployment data later today.

The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) opened up 0.7% in London, the DAX (^GDAXI) rose 1% in Frankfurt, and the CAC 40 (^FCHI) climbed 06%.

Analysts said investor attention was focused on unemployment data due later this morning from both the EU and US.

Todays economic docket is all about the unemployment numbers, said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

The EU unemployment rate is due to be published at 10am UK time. Economists expect the jobless rate to rise from 7.3% to 7.7%.

US labour market statistics, including non-farm payroll numbers and the unemployment rate, follow at 1.30pm BST.

The US unemployment rate is expected to fall to 12.3% and non-farm numbers are forecast to show 3m new jobs created in June, although estimates vary widely Hewson said.
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Here's What You Need To Remember: "One shot of the 203mm weapon can fully destroy a building used as a stronghold."

Earlier this month the press office of Rostec announced that the first deliveries of the upgraded 2S7M 'Malka' 203mm self-propelled artillery gun have been made to the Russian Army. This is the latest upgrade of the 2S7 'Pion," which was developed in the 1980s. It was designed to strike vital enemy targets and facilities in the tactical depth behind the front line.

"Uraltransmash has delivered the first 2S7M Malka upgraded self-propelled artillery gun to the Defense Ministry of Russia," the company said in a statement as reported by Tass, Russian state media. "The upgraded weapon has received new running gear and electronics, which have significantly enhanced its performance characteristics."

The weapon platform has been described as among the most powerful self-propelled guns in the world  where "one shot of the 203mm weapon can fully destroy a building used as a stronghold." The 2S7 was designed with no turret, while the gun is located at the back of the tracked undercarriage. The rounds of munitions for the platform include breach-loading projectiles with variable charges.

Rostec, the Russian state-owned holding conglomerate that is headquartered in Moscow, announced on April 7 the completion of work on the first upgraded self-propelled artillery gun. The weapon platform's gearbox, distribution mechanisms and power supply units were upgraded, along with the intercom equipment and radio system.

Engineers also replaced imported components with domestically produced parts. Uraltransmash, which is part of Uralvagonzavod Group within the state hi-tech corporation Rostec, had already prepared production facilities for the serial upgrade of Malka self-propelled artillery guns.

After the upgrade process, the Malka underwent a full cycle of trials that included both running and firing tests, which checked the characteristics for its mobility, the chassis, powerplant and transmission durability. The field tests also focused on the reliability of the platform's loading and fire control mechanisms and the strength of the 2A44 gun.

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"This is one of the world's most powerful self-propelled guns designated to strike vital enemy targets and facilities in the tactical depth of defense behind the front line," said Uraltransmash CEO Dmitry Semizorov. "Now the delivery of upgraded guns has begun for the Defense Ministry. Uraltransmash faces a serious task of implementing the serial upgrade of this weapon under the 2020-2022 defense procurement plan."

While described as one of the most powerful self-propelled artillery guns in the world it hasn't been widely tested in actual combat. The Pion was never used by the Soviet military in an armed conflict, and the platform was mostly supplied to units of the Soviet Red Army in East Germany. All Pion and Malka guns were redeployed back in Russia after the Conventional Forces Europe (CFE) Treaty was signed.

The only known use of the 2S7 self propelled artillery gun was in the war in South Ossetia when Georgian military units used a batter of six of the weapons. All were hidden when the Georgian forces retreated, and one of those was captured by Russian troops and taken as "war booty," while the others were destroyed. There have also been reports of the 2S7 being used by the Ukrainian Army, but those this has not been confirmed.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia

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LONDON -- Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, felt "unprotected by the institution" of Britain's royal family while in the press spotlight during her pregnancy, court documents released as part of a lawsuit against a British media company have revealed.

Filed by Meghan's lawyers last month and obtained by NBC News late Wednesday, the legal papers say Meghan was "prohibited from defending herself" from media intrusion by the monarchy.

The documents form part of her legal action against publisher, Associated Newspapers, over articles that appeared in the Mail on Sunday tabloid and MailOnline. Published in February 2019, they featured parts of a "private and confidential" letter from the duchess to her estranged father Thomas Markle.

Meghan is suing the publisher and seeking damages for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of Britain's Data Protection Act. If successful, she has said that any money she wins will be donated to an anti-bullying charity.

The court documents also reveal details about her struggling relationship with her father in the lead up to her marriage to Prince Harry in May 2018 at Windsor Castle.

Speculation about Thomas Markle's attendance dominated the build-up to the ceremony and the 75-year-old was expected to walk his daughter down the aisle. But he suffered health problems ahead of the ceremony and the pair publicly fell out before the big day.

Markle was also found to have staged paparazzi photos of himself in the run-up to the event and he has since criticized the couple in television interviews.

Image: An arrangement of UK daily newspapers photographed as an illustration in London (Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP - Getty Images file)

At the case's first hearing in April, Meghan's lawyer David Sherborne said the newspaper had cherry-picking portions of the "deeply personal handwritten" letter to publish, in order to manipulate readers. He claimed that this as part of a wider "intrusive" campaign of stories against her.

The latest court documents state that Meghan disabled her personal social media accounts after she was engaged to Harry and Kensington Palace took over managing much of their public communications.

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It was the palace that issued a statement announcing the Duchess's father wouldn't attend her wedding to Harry, they say.

The media coverage of Meghan Markle by British tabloids, specifically those owned by Associated Newspapers, has "caused tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health," they add.

Image: Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex wave from the Ascot Landau Carriage during their carriage procession on the Long Walk as they head back towards Windsor Castle (Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP via Getty Images)

The scrutiny of the Sussexes in the media came while Markle was pregnant with their son Archie and the documents say she was "unprotected by the Institution" of the royal family and "prohibited from defending herself."

Associated Newspapers declined to comment to NBC News.

The Sussexes went on to stun the public in January when they announced that they would "step back" from the royal family, divide their time between the United Kingdom and North America, and start paying their own bills.

The couple have since ended their official royal duties, attending their final event held in March.
Meghan can switch quickly into Spanish, it's emerged. (Getty Images)

Meghan Markle switched effortlessly into perfect Spanish while volunteering with ex-gang members at a bakery in Los Angeles, the charitys founder has revealed.

Prince Harry and Meghan spent time last week with Homeboy Industries, which runs several cafes throughout LA, and provides support to former prisoners and gang members.

Meghan, 38, knew charity founder Father Greg Boyle having been on one of his cooking courses with her mother when she was a teenager.

He told People magazine: She spoke Spanish perfectly with one young woman.

She just went right into Spanish, which was a revelation - and it was very good.

Meghan is understood to have learnt Spanish while an intern with the US Embassy in Argentina.

Harry and Meghan tried their hands at croissants. (Duke and Duchess of Sussex)

Read more: Meghan Markle was 'unprotected by the Institution' after media attacks, court papers say

She previously revealed she had a scary moment there, when she was in a motorcade which was hit by protesters placards.

At the time, she thought she would have a career in politics.

Boyle added to the magazine: She didnt want to have a long-table discussion or presentation or even a tour.

They knew we pivoted our organisation to help address food insecurity in the county and that was intriguing to her, so she said, 'We want to come and put an apron on,' and thats what they did. It was quite wonderful.

Harry and Meghan volunteered with Homeboy Industries in LA. (Duke and Duchess of Sussex)

Read more: Meghan Markle wins diversity award with 'groundbreaking' Vogue cover

He also said Meghan was better at the baked goods than Harry.

A source said Meghan remembered the tamale recipe she learnt with Father Boyle two decades ago, and he joked that they spoke about it, and she might make them for the prince.

Harry and Meghan have been having meetings with community leaders in the run-up to launching Archewell, their non-profit, which has been delayed until next year.

Meghan has also been keeping in touch with Michael Johnson, who is a representative of the family of Althea Bernstein, a mixed race woman who says she was attacked by four white men who set her on fire.

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The duchess helped pack meal boxes. (Duke and Duchess of Sussex)

Read more: 100 things the Royal Family has done in 100 days of lockdown

Johnson told Channel3000 Meghan called Bernstein and spoke to her about self-care, and allowing herself to heal.

He shared on Facebook on Wednesday: I am blown away by Meghan Markle!! She called me again today while my wife and kids were in the car and said, Hey Michael this is Meghan I am just checking in.

We talked for about 10 min about a lot of things including Althea and her well being. We also talked about some plans she support but I cant share yet.. so stay tuned.

I love how poised and down to earth she is, her passion, her commitment to children and how she is following up with genuine love and support.
Forensic service personnel prepare to enter an unregistered drug rehabilitation center in Irapuato - Mario Armas/AP

Heavily armed commandos arrived at the unregistered drug rehab center in the small city of Irapuato, Mexico at around 6pm on the first day of July. They forced their way in and opened fire, shooting indiscriminately at the young people inside, many of them drug addicts trying to start over. They killed 24 people and left a further seven alive but injured.

The incident  one of the deadliest in Mexicos ongoing crime wars since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took power in late 2018 - highlights the ongoing rivalries of the countrys powerful criminal armies in what is one of the most violent states in the country.

The violence generated by organized crime doesnt just take the lives of our youths, it robs peace from families in Guanajuato, said the state governor Diego Sinhue Rodriguez Vallejo via his Twitter account.

But peace has long been absent in Guanajuato. Located in the middle of Mexico, it is a vital trafficking corridor for criminal organisations moving drugs towards the US-Mexico border. In recent years, the industrial corridor has also proved a battleground for cartels battling over lucrative local markets.

The consumption of the synthetic drug methamphetamine  a cash cow for Mexicos cartels  is rife in Guanajuato. As a result, the city of Irapuato alone, home to some 600,000, is home to dozens of unregistered drug clinics, known in Mexico as anexos that offer addicts the chance to kick 'cristal'. Some of these establishments genuinely help patients get off drugs, but others are little more than informal prisons, where the human rights of patients are ignored.

Territorial battles over street corner drug sales points are now extending to users, the owner of a different drug rehab clinic told The Telegraph on condition of anonymity. Gangs are demanding that consumers buy cristal, as meth is called there, from them and them alone: buying from rival gangs will be punished by acts such as the latest shooting.

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Members of the Mexican National Guard patrol the surroundings of a rehabilitation centre where an armed group killed at least 24 people, in Irapuato - Str/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Shutterstock

In June, a further ten men were killed in Irapuato at a different shooting at a drug clinic in the city.

A taco seller used to sell here in the street and a gang approached him and told him he could only sell for them and couldnt sell drugs for the other gang they killed him eventually, said the source.

Guanajuato is being contested by the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and the New Generation Jalisco Cartel  arguably Mexicos most aggressive and fast-growing criminal organization. As well as lucrative drug markets in the state, the theft of petrol for sale on the blackmarket from gas pipelines that the cartels perforate and siphon is also a huge business.

In the last year, the authorities have cracked down on the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel (CSRL) and its leader, Jose Antonio Yepez Ortiz, also known as 'El Marro' (the Sledgehammer), arresting a number of its members. Local press reports also suggest that both the mother and father of the alleged crime boss were arrested, although subsequently released, by the authorities.

El Marro was protected by the government, but now no, said the source at the drug clinic in Guanajuato.

El Marro doesnt have enough sales points here in Irapuato, but he used to control the city. He lost it. This is a way of sowing fear amongst people here  people are going to start taking their family members out of these clinics now.
Miami-Dade police officers watch as demonstrators walk past during a protest against police brutality and the recent death of George Floyd on June 02, 2020.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The Miami-Dade Police Department relieved an officer of his duties after a video posted on Twitter showed him hitting a woman at Miami International Airport.

The officer has not been named publicly by police but was identified by the Miami Herald as Antonio Clemente Rodriguez.

The incident occurred on Wednesday night at an airport terminal, after a ticketing agent called police on a woman who was complaining about a flight.

When police arrived, the situation escalated, and the officer hit the woman after she got close to his face.

The police department says it's launched an investigation into the incident.

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The Miami-Dade Police Department relieved an officer of his duties after he was recorded hitting a woman in the face during a dispute at Miami International Airport.

Video of the incident was shared on Twitter Wednesday night by filmmaker Billy Corbin. The recording shows a woman in an airport terminal speaking with the Miami-Dade officer, who has not been publicly named by police but was identified by the Miami Herald as Antonio Clemente Rodriguez.

The woman, who is Black, was heard on the video arguing with the officer and telling him, "You acting like you white when you really Black...what you want to do?" (According to the Herald, Clemente Rodriguez is a Black man of Puerto Rican heritage.)

As the argument escalated, the woman, who was not wearing a mask, put her face up to the officer's, and he then hit her in the face. After hitting the woman, the officer can be heard saying "She headbutted me."

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Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez said on Twitter that he has launched an investigation into the incident.

"I am shocked and angered by a body cam video that I just saw involving one of our officers," he said, adding: "Actions such as these undermine the hard work that we have invested in our community and causes my heart to break for our community and for the vast majority of our officers who dedicate their lives to serving our County. This will not stand, and I assure our community that any officer acting in this vain will be held to account."

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Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez called the video "appalling."

"It's excessive use of force and unnecessary," he said on Twitter. "That's NOT what our @MiamiDadePD are trained to do."

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According to the Miami Herald, an airport ticket agent had called the police as the woman complained loudly about a flight. The incident escalated when the officer confronted the woman and she started yelling at him.

Steadman Stahl, president of the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association, told The Herald that the officer had hit the woman with an "open-hand slap."

The woman was put in handcuffs following the incident, but it remains unclear if she faces any charges.

Expanded Coverage Module: black-lives-matter-module

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As Raleighs protests began, local journalists reported crowds of marchers being met by police in riot gear and volleys of tear gas, flash bangs and non-lethal, but painful sponge rounds and rubber bullets.

Armored trucks rolled through the streets. Helicopters circled overhead. The escalating violence led to scores of broken windows, fires and looting  the same scene playing out nationwide as people marched against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

At the Public Safety Center on South Salisbury Street, protesters at the back entrance to the jail found Wake County sheriffs deputies from a newly formed civil unrest unit armed with riot gear and tear gas. The deputies used a mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle for cover as a Sheriffs Office spokesman said some protesters threw rocks and bricks. The protesters were pushed back to the street.

Sheriff Gerald Baker agreed some people might think MRAPs and other military vehicles only add to a volatile situation, but they also have some rarely used advantages: protecting deputies, for example, while they rescue a victim during an active shooting call or try to get closer to someone who is armed and barricaded inside a home.

Were not here to (intimidate or rile up anyone), but were certainly going to use it if its going to keep our officers safe and help us get this job done in a safe manner, serving and protecting this county and the citizens here, Baker said.

Studies over the last 50 years have shown that a militarized show of force by police can escalate tensions, according to research cited by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on criminal justice.

That can include responding to a protest in ballistic helmets and body armor, armed with sponge or flash-bang grenade launchers and assault rifles, said Edward Maguire, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University, who was quoted by The Marshall Project. Its not that police dont need to be prepared for a more serious incident, he said, but that shouldnt be their first move.

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Seeing police respond as a wartime occupying force is not foreign to communities of color, Princeton University political scientist Jonathan Mummolo said in his 2018 report on the effects of militarization on crime, police safety and public perception.

The federal 1033 program, which began in 1990 as part of the War on Drugs, has supplied law enforcement with at least $7.4 billion in surplus Department of Defense military gear and non-tactical gear, such as first aid kits, clothing and computers, over the last 30 years.

The Raleigh Police Department doesnt use the 1033 program  a growing trend among larger agencies. Instead, it buys its more military-style equipment from commercial retailers. The Wake County Sheriffs Office has the MRAP and two rifle sights obtained through 1033.

While there isnt enough data available on police use of military tactics and gear to make definitive conclusions, Mummolo said, his analysis of rare SWAT team data from Maryland showed the 1033 program has done little to reduce crime or improve officer safety.

Instead, he reports, it has damaged police agencies reputations and made it harder for them to work with the communities they serve.

Fewer agencies, many weapons

North Carolina has received over $26 million in tactical military gear through the 1033 program since 2010, federal data showed.

Over 297 law enforcement agencies statewide participate in the program, which is managed by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Thats only about 4% of the roughly 8,200 active participants reported nationwide. An ACLU report in 2014, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, found 17,000 active agencies in the program at that time.

Many started taking advantage of the program after the 9/11 terror attacks, and the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan added more, large military vehicles to the mix. In 2015, President Barack Obama rolled back parts of the program, but his order was reversed in 2017 by President Donald Trump.

Many Triangle area agencies have since returned their federal surplus equipment. Clyde Roper, spokesman for North Carolinas Law Enforcement Support Services office, which manages the states 1033 program, said 78 weapons from eight agencies are being returned to the federal government, including from Orange and Wayne counties. COVID-19 has delayed the transfer, he said.

North Carolina agencies now have about $13.6 million in tactical gear and $3.7 million in non-tactical equipment, he said.

Roughly 92% of 1033 gear is non-tactical, the DLA reports. Another 5% includes pistols and high-caliber rifles, and less than 1% is boats, vehicles and aircraft stripped of their weapons and communications equipment. Only about a third of the equipment is in new condition.

There may be fewer agencies taking advantage of the program, but they still have a lot of military equipment, said Kenneth Lowande, an assistant professor of political science and public policy at the University of Michigan.

What the data doesnt show is how much of that equipment is being used and how, he said.

Ive talked to police departments who say, we have 12 of these (M16s) but we just use them for honor guard or we just use them for target practice. Theyre never actually deployed, Lowande said. Its really difficult to understand that from the data.

A protester faces off against police in riot gear outside the State Capitol during the second day of protests in Raleigh Sunday night May 31, 2020.

1033 vs. commercial dealers

Law enforcement agencies in North Carolina apply for 1033 equipment through the state program coordinator.

A local governing body must approve purchases, and the agency pays for shipping, storage and maintenance. Officers have to be trained annually in how to use the equipment, and the agency must use it within a year. Tactical equipment is returned to the Department of Defense when its no longer needed.

Police departments in both Raleigh and Durham dropped out of the 1033 program years ago and returned the equipment they did have. The Durham County Sheriffs Office, the Cary Police Department and Smithfield Police Department also left the 1033 program.

In addition to its 1033 equipment, Wake County Sheriffs Office records show the agency also spent over $1 million since January 2018 on commercial gear  73% was for training technology that simulates real-life scenarios.

The training equipment, body armor, and body and in-car cameras that his department has been adding are more important that anything they could get through the federal program, Baker said. This year, the Sheriffs Office bought over $38,500 worth of tear gas, pepper spray, gas masks and reusable flex cuffs for the civil unrest unit, which has been in the works since 2018, he said.

Sometimes they need specialized tools  and teams  to do a very tough job, Baker said.

Most of us are here to keep people safe, protect and to keep things peaceful, Baker said. There are going to be times when things are going to happen that we must react to, and it may not be pretty, but sometimes its necessary, because if we dont respond to it, then the (response) will be, well, (law enforcement was) sitting right here and they didnt do anything.

The Raleigh Police Department did not provide a list of equipment requested for this story, however, Durham Police Department data shows that agency has spent roughly $328,000 on weapons, body armor, pepper spray and other gear since January 2018.

Larger agencies, such as Raleigh police, Durham police and the Guilford County Sheriffs Office, are finding it easier to buy rifles on the commercial market, said Guilford Capt. Randy Shepherd. Guilford County also has 10 M16s and an MRAP vehicle from the 1033 program.

Although it can cost more, agencies often use grants or funding from the U.S. Department of Justices Asset Forfeiture Program, which is money seized during criminal investigations, to buy new equipment.

Honestly, the 1033 program is good for agencies that dont have the funding to get equipment or things like the MRAP that arent really commercially available, Shepherd said, but it comes with a lot of inventory requirements and other hoops youve got to jump through in order to maintain good standing in the program.





How vehicles get used

The Wake Forest Police Department and the Orange County Sheriffs Office also got MRAP vehicles through the 1033 program in 2017. Wake Forest also is listed as having an armored truck, but the department no longer has that vehicle, spokesman Bill Crabtree said.

That was the same year the Chapel Hill Police Department got an armored truck  a 1981 Dodge Peacekeeper  which it uses to train the Special Emergency Response Team and for demonstrations during the Community Police Academy, spokesman Ran Northam said.

Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said his agency has used its MRAP in responding to floods and hurricanes. In 2018, they took it to Carrboro to help police there in a standoff with a barricaded man.

Orange County also got an armored personnel carrier in 2003 and used it for several years before finding out its not bullet resistant, Chief Deputy Jamison Sykes said. MRAPs, which cost near $700,000, are designed to withstand bullets and explosions.

Blackwood had planned to get a mobile command center with asset forfeiture money this year, but after calls to defund police, he offered instead to hire a clinical social worker and help train county employees, as well as law enforcement agencies statewide, in handling situations involving people with a serious mental health crisis.

The Sheriffs Office also had 20 M16 rifles that former Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass got about 15 years ago, because he was concerned the county was never going to give us anything, Blackwood said. They rarely came out of the closet, he said, and are being returned.

The Durham County Sheriffs Office did not have immediate access to its records, citing ongoing problems from a March cyberattack, but spokeswoman AnnMarie Breen confirmed 32 M16s were returned to the 1033 program several years ago.

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Data, culture and reform

If the federal government ended the 1033 program, it could help demilitarize the culture of many law enforcement agencies without increasing crime or the number of officer assaults and deaths, Lowande said.

Better data and tracking of equipment and incidents also would help with police reform, Lowande and Casey Delehanty, assistant professor of global studies at Gardner-Webb University, said.

What he has found in the data he was able to get, Delehanty said, is that ending the 1033 program also could reduce excessive use-of-force incidents. His 2017 report compared the number of police-involved deaths in four states with how much 1033 gear was on hand.

The research also looked by county at median household income, total population, Black population, violent crime and civilian drug use to avoid biased estimates, he said, as well as the number of dogs killed by the law enforcement agencies in each county studied.

We found a pretty significant relationship between the amount of equipment that an agency receives and the amount of civilians (and dogs) who die at the hands of police, he said. The departments that received the most equipment had more than double the killings of civilians than the departments that received the least.

A University of South Carolina researcher found a similar correlation in 2018 using data from all 50 states, Delehanty said.

The 1033 program is just one factor of police militarization, Lowande said, citing the use of no-knock warrants, agency culture and the number of military veterans working as police officers. The increasing use of SWAT teams for basic police work also is a factor, he said.

Lowande and Delehanty pointed to Mummolos work analyzing SWAT team  Special Weapons and Tactics  deployments in Maryland between 2010 and 2014. Mummolo also looked at violent crime and assaults on officers in 9,000 agencies with SWAT units.

The results showed SWAT teams were deployed 90% of the time to serve search warrants, instead of addressing violent emergency situations for which they were created, and most of those deployments were in communities of color.

That kind of aggressive, militarized police action can lead to situations like the killing of Breonna Taylor, when Louisville Metro Police entered her house based on bad information, Delehanty said. The real question is why police were there in the first place, he said.

Whats encouraging, Delehanty said, is that the protests are focusing on systemic policing issues instead of bad apples.

Im skeptical that small reforms are going to deliver change in the way that we want it here, Delehanty said. We need dramatic changes in oversight of police especially, and their accountability to local communities is also very, very lacking.

Baker said he learned a similar truth over the last 30 years: Every officer and agency has to accept responsibility and accountability.

Were not going to lie about it. Were not going to make it appear that it didnt happen, Baker said. Were going to take responsibility for it, and I think if we make sure theres that type of leadership in every agency across this country, thats when youre going to begin to see the change that everyones looking for.

Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown was contacted for this story, but was not available for an interview, her spokeswoman said.

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Here's What You Need To Remember: If the T-14 Armata was indeed taken out by insurgents  whether they simply "got lucky" or not  might not bode well for the advanced tank, especially given its costs.

Last month multiple media reports suggested that the Russian military's new T-14 Armata tank had been "battle-tested" in Syria. Russia Beyond cited Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov, who had reportedly said in a mid-April TV interview on Rossiya-1, "Yes, that's correct. They (Armata tanks) were in Syria. The testing in combat conditions in Syria took all finer aspects into account."

Those "finer aspects" may have included the crews' survivability if other media accounts are to be believed that an Armata tank was destroyed during the operations.

According to the Russian media outlet  (Reporter), the Russian-made tanks took part in fighting with Syrian-rebels, described as "terrorists," in the providence of Latakia, where "allegedly three T-14s were hit from TOW-2B anti-tank system, and one Armata was completely destroyed."

There has been no actual footage or photos of the allegedly destroyed T-14 tanks, and as other media outlets have noted, "The jihadists and their allied militants release footage of their forces destroying tanks, especially on the battlefield If the Armata was indeed destroyed, there would have been photos and videos of its destruction, especially because of its unique look and operation capabilities."

What could be telling about the alleged destruction is that some military analysts didn't think the tank could even be adequately tested in Syria. Dimtry Litovkin, editor-in-chief of Independent Military Review told Russia Beyond, "There's nothing for the Armata to do in Syria. The machine was tailored for battles with the most modern US and European tanks: the Abrams and the Leopard. But in Syria, who or what will it fight? Militants on pickup trucks or machine-gunners in foxholes?"

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If the T-14 Armata was indeed taken out by insurgents  whether they simply "got lucky" or not  might not bode well for the advanced tank, especially given its costs, which are believed to have delayed delivery. Even as testing of the next-generation main battle tank (MBT) continues, the mass deliveries to the Russian Army will only begin next year.

"The high cost is also because the T-14 is going through a series of additional tests and upgrades ordered by the Ministry of Defense so that serial production can start next year under the signed contract," Manturov added.

The T-14 has been seen as an entirely new design for Russia, and it was first demonstrated during the May 2015 Victory Parade in Moscow. Unlike other Russian designs that had primarily followed an evolutionary path that was largely built upon preceding tank models, the T-14 began with a more simplistic design that could be traced back to the T-34. While much larger than traditional Russian tank designs, its three-man crew all sit in the hull as the turret is controlled remotely to increase crew survivability. As a result the T-90 has no gunner and instead uses an autoloader.

The tank is also fitted with the Afganit active protection system that is meant to detect incoming rockets and missiles, which can be shot down before hitting the tank. However, the reports from Syria may suggest that if an enemy can get close enough this tank is as vulnerable as any.

In addition to the alleged loss of a T-14 tank in Syria, three "additional" Armata tanks  along with three more T-15s, the armored troop carrier version of the Armata  were "destroyed" in a simulation conducted by the Invictus attack helicopters in a recent exercise-styled presentation.

The timing of the release of that new video along with the news that the actual tanks potentially came under fire just means the T-14 isn't have a good week! The fact the Moscow has postponed this week's planned 75th anniversary Victory Parade due to coronavirus  where the tanks likely would have been seen  hasn't helped matters.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared eariler this year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia

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Jonathan Irons, a wrongfully convicted man whose case was overturned in March with the help of WNBA player Maya Moore, was released from jail Wednesday.

Video of Irons, 40, walking out of the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri was posted on Moores Instagram page with the message FREEDOM.

Im free, Irons said. Im blessed.

A lawyer for Irons, Jay Lenox, told NBC affiliate KSDK that prosecutors declined to retry the two-decade-old burglary and assault case.

Irons was 16 when he was tried as an adult and convicted of breaking into a home in OFallon, a city outside St. Louis, and twice shooting a homeowner. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

On March 9, Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green ruled that prosecutors suppressed fingerprint evidence that would have strengthened Irons' defense and presented no physical proof linking him to the crime.

The testimony of an eyewitness was dotted with inconsistencies, the judge said.

Moore, a five-time all-star with the Minnesota Lynx who took a sabbatical to advocate for Irons, first met him in 2007 during a visit to the Jefferson City Correctional Center.

On Wednesday night, Moore tweeted a photo of her and Irons together with the hashtag #winwithjustice.
The Trump administration may push to include targeted funding to help schools re-open in the next federal coronavirus relief package, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said at a White House press conference Thursday.

Hours after he spoke, Democratic lawmakers and teachers unions slammed the White Houses reported plans to ask Congress to earmark money in that bill for scholarships that will allow families to send their children to private schools.

Although the first relief packagethe Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES Actincluded funding for K-12 schools, education groups have said public schools need additional funds to deal with the logistics of re-opening their buildings while implementing continued precautions, offering varying estimates of how much aid is necessary.

While some Republicans have been skeptical of more spending, Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., recently said it would take from $50 billion to $75 billion for K-12 schools, as well as colleges and universities, to reopen safely, lending his support to additional aid. And Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said he will entertain discussions of further stimulus in after a two-week recess, said this week that his priorities are kids, jobs, and health care.

Mnuchin made his comments at a press conference on the economy after a White House reporter asked him if a full recovery is possible without returning children to school in-person.

Were working with schools and universities, Mnuchin said. I think in most cases, schools will be able to open safely. Some schools will need to spend money. One of the things we will look at in [the next relief bill] is if we need to give money to schools to properly equip their areas. ... We want to make sure that kids are safe and that if there is money schools need to spend to safely have people in classrooms, social distance, spread things out, change hoursthese are all the things we are looking at.

Private School Push

While some education groups expressed hope at the mention of more school funding, another story about the White House wish list for the next relief package sparked some harsh reactions from opponents of President Donald Trumps education agenda.

Trump plans ask for a one-time, emergency appropriation to fund state scholarship grants that would allow students to attend private schools, McClatchy reported Thursday.

The White House is seeking to have 10 percent of the amount that Congress approves for state and local educational agencies set aside for the grants, the report said. Trump will also seek approval of $5 billion in federal tax credits for businesses and individuals who donate to the scholarship programs.

The $5 billion plan is one championed by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that would provide federal tax credits to donors in states that opt into the Education Freedom Scholarship proposal. DeVos has made the proposal one of the centerpieces of her tenure, although it has had very little traction on Capitol Hill, and it has been criticized by some school choice supporters that typically align with the Trump administration.

I have never heard a single, compelling persuasive reason as to why somebody is against Education Freedom Scholarships, opportunity scholarships, school choice, charter schools, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, told McClatchy. And the reason is this: Were trying to give these kids just another opportunity and provide their parents with another option.

DeVos has sought to advance her school choice initiatives and support for private schools throughout the pandemic. She set aside some already allocated relief funds to create microgrants that would allow help famillies pay for education services or enrollment. She also made a c ontroversial push for school districts to make coronavirus relief available to all local private school students.

Trump has also talked up school choice on the 2020 campaign trail. And this week, he praised a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for greater public support for students to attend private, religious schools .

Senate Education Committee ranking member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., responded to the McClatchy report by accusing Trump and DeVos of using this pandemic as an excuse to push an ideological privatization agenda that would divert much-needed funds away from our public schools that serve approximately 90 percent of students across the country.

Right now, our public education system is facing unprecedented challengespublic schools are scrambling to implement safety protocols with limited funds, millions of education jobs are on the line due to looming budget shortfalls, and families across the country are struggling with a chaotic, uncertain reality, Murray said in a statement.

Photo: Austin Independent School District bus driver Antonio Fajardo Espinoza wipes down buses with antibacterial cleaner in March. The district installed WiFi on all school buses to act as hotspots for students without home internet access during coronavirus-related school closures. Around the country, state and district leaders are planning for when and how to reopen schools. --Julia Robinson for Education Week

Follow us on Twitter @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .
Since the pandemic arrived in mid-March, Maryland has reported more than 67,500 coronavirus cases and more than 3,000 deaths. Its overall infection rate remains higher than in many of the states now seeing surges, but cases, deaths and hospitalizations have been on a mostly downward trajectory since Marylands peak in late April, after Gov. Larry Hogan issued a stay-at-home order.
Already localized in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish, among others, MIT Technology Review is launching in Brazil to meet growing global demand for authoritative, influential, and trustworthy journalism on the impact of new technologies.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MIT Technology Review is now, for the first time, available to the Brazilian market. In partnership with TEC Institute, a leading digital consultancy, the magazine is now available online in Portuguese, featuring a blend of translated content and original material.

MIT Technology Review International

"We're delighted to welcome TEC Institute and its team of talented journalists as our new Portuguese-language partners joining our existing international line-up and bringing MIT Technology Review to a new audience," said Nico Crepaldi, head of licensing at MIT Technology Review.

As part of a multi-year expansion drive, the Brazilian edition of MIT Technology Review joins existing international editions in Arabic, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Urdu.

"MIT Technology Review is proud to extend its geographic reach, bringing its mission of trusted, authoritative, fact-based journalism to the important Brazilian market," said Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, publisher and CEO at MIT Technology Review.

A second phase of this launch will include a print edition as well as the adaptation of the publication for the Portugal market.

"I have no doubt that MIT Technology Review will make history in Brazilthe arrival of the brand will facilitate access to more in-depth technology news and guide our companies towards innovation and the construction of a new society," said Andre Miceli, board member at TEC Institute.

For more information please contact Ted Hu at ted.hu@technologyreview.com

For media inquiries: press@technologyreview.com

About MIT Technology Review

Founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899, MIT Technology Review is a world-renowned independent media company whose insight, analysis, reviews, interviews, and live events explain the commercial, social, and political impact of new technologies. MIT Technology Review derives its authority from the world's foremost technology institution and from its editors' deep technical knowledge, capacity to see technologies in their broadest context, and unequaled access to leading innovators and researchers. MIT Technology Review's mission is to make technology a greater force for good by bringing about better-informed, more conscious technology decisions through authoritative, influential, and trustworthy journalism. Subscribe . Follow: Twitter , Facebook , LinkedIn , Instagram .

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About TEC Institute

The Institute for Technology, Entrepreneurship and Culture (TEC) is a global collaboration, learning and innovation platform, whose goal is to provide cutting-edge digital content and insights. The Institute addresses topics such as technology, entrepreneurship, communication and business in an accessible way, preparing companies and society for the challenges and opportunities of the digital age. Everything is developed by researchers and specialists from different parts of the world, who work on local initiatives providing organizations with quality content and develop special projects and researches.

Cision

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SOURCE MIT Technology Review International
Independent Pet Supply Retailer Will Match Food Donations to Local Pet Food Bank

SILVERDALE, Wash., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mud Bay's new Silverdale, Washington, location (11467 Pacific Crest Place NW Suite C125) will open on Sunday, July 5th at 9:00 a.m., but instead of hosting opening day festivities, Mud Bay will be matching food donations made at their new store for Kitsap Humane Society's Pet Food Pantry. The donation drive will last through Friday, July 31st, and Mud Bay is committed to matching all pet food donations pound-for-pound.

Mud Bay Silverdale, WA Grand Opening. Mud Bay is the Pacific Northwests largest retailer focused on healthy, natural nutrition for dogs and cats. With 56 locations in Western Washington and Oregon, Mud Bay is an employee-owned company focused on helping dogs and cats thrive through customized nutritional recommendations. For more information about Mud Bay, please visit our website.

Since COVID-19 began to affect Washington, Kitsap Humane Society has seen a 20-percent increase in people visiting its pet food pantry. The animal welfare organization hopes that people from the surrounding communities will take this opportunity to contribute to the pet food bank by buying or bringing food to Silverdale's Mud Bayand possibly help their neighbors in the process.

"One of our biggest priorities is to help pets stay in their homes and to keep families together. With this extra food, we can support more pets and their owners during this time of hardship and ensure pet owners in our community don't have to consider rehoming their pet due to an inability to afford pet food," said Kitsap Humane Society Events and Outreach Manager Amanda Graham.

In addition to the donation drive, Mud Bay will be giving away 4 great prizes valued at over $200 to celebrate the Silverdale store grand opening. Visit Mud Bay's Facebook page for contest details. Winners will be announced on July 18th and August 1st.

Visitors to the new Silverdale, Washington, store can browse inside or order online for curbside pickup prior to their visit. In-person visitors can take advantage of the full-size pet scale, free treat of the week samples, and a solution-based philosophy that helps customers find the right products for their individual dog or cat.

About Mud Bay

Founded in 1988 in Olympia, Washington, Mud Bay is the Pacific Northwest's largest retailer focused on healthy, natural nutrition for dogs and cats. With 56 locations in Western Washington and Oregon, Mud Bay is an employee-owned company focused on helping dogs and cats thrive through customized nutritional recommendations. For more information about Mud Bay, please visit our website.

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Healthy Food, Treats, Toys and Pet Supplies for Dogs and Cats.

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SOURCE Mud Bay
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Key Point: No one was more responsible for Germany's defeat than Adolf Hitler.

In our last installment, we discussed the ways how Germany might have defeated the Soviet Union. In this article, we will discuss why Adolf Hitler was Germanys greatest obstacle to winning World War II and how the war might have been won without if German generals could have prevented him from interfering in military operations. Hitler, a German dictator, has been considered a political genius by some and a mad man bent on world conquest by others, but the truth is that he was neither. Rather, he was a virulent anti-Semite who believed his lifes mission was to reunite Germany and lead an international crusade against Soviet Communism. He was also responsible for committing a series of strategic blunders and military miscalculations, some small and some great, that ended up ensuring Germanys defeat. But what if German military leaders had been given the freedom to prosecute the war more wisely, resulting in a stalemate or even something resembling a Nazi German victory? Here are some things that Germany could have done differently to win the war:

Overthrow Adolf Hitler Before or Immediately After he violated the Munich Pact

Overthrowing Hitler or assassinating him was probably the single most important thing Germany could have done to win World War II, assuming it had ended up fighting it at all without him. Hitler made a series of critical strategic errors beginning with his decision to violate the Munich Pact in March 1939 and continuing with his decision to spare the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in May 1940. By the time he decided to halt the German advance on Moscow in August 1941 and declare war on America in December 1941, he had all but guaranteed ultimate German military defeat.

There were over forty known coup or assassination attempts against Hitler, many with wide support by top German military leaders, including eleven German Field Marshals at various times. But the first and perhaps the most promising was planned to occur in September 1938 in response to fear by the German General Staff that Hitlers demand for the German Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia would result in a war with Britain and France, which Germany was woefully unprepared to fight and would have surely lost. The Germans had only about one-third as many divisions as they were able to mobilize in September 1939 and the Czech army had the same number of troops as the Germans did and six more army divisions! Needless to say, they would have had to use the bulk of the German Army to successfully invade leaving Germanys western borders largely undefended against a potential French invasion and occupation of Germanys Rhineland industrial region. Thus, the German generals led by Gen. Ludwig Beck felt it would be necessary to remove Hitler from power in order to avoid a near certain German military defeat.

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These senior military anti-Hitler conspirators, also known as the Oster Conspiracy, after the name of the German general who initiated it, planned to arrest or assassinate Hitler the moment he gave the invasion order, overthrow his Nazi regime, and restore Kaiser Wilhelm II as Emperor of Germany. Germanys chief of the general staff at the time, Col. Gen. Franz Halder, reportedly carried a loaded pistol at all times in his meeting for Germany in case the time was right to arrest or kill Hitler. However, implementation of the plan depended on the British issuing a declaration guaranteeing Czechoslovakia from German military aggression and threatening to declare war if the Germans invaded. A strongly worded letter from Chamberlain to Hitler that Britain would declare war on Germany if they invaded Czechoslovakia may have been all it took to trigger the overthrow of Hitler and save the world from the devastation of World War II. The coup plotters sent an agent to tell former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain of their plan to overthrow Hitler. They wanted him to issue such a declaration to justify Hitlers ouster. Unfortunately, the British Cabinet rejected their proposal. This plan to overthrow Hitler lost much of its senior German military support after France and Britain signed the Munich Pact, which gave into most but not all of his demands without war. It goes without saying that a postNazi German government would never have forcibly expelled the Jews, let alone mass murdered them in the Holocaust as Hitler did.

The coup plotters continued to plot to overthrow Hitler after the signing of the Munich Pact, but senior military support from the coup was much reduced following Hitlers quick string of victories which the Germans were able to achieve from 19381941. British prime minister Neville Chamberlain remained a strong supporter of German efforts to overthrow Hitler until his untimely death in November 1940, but his successor, Winston Churchill, refused repeated requests to help Germans resistance leaders trying to assassinate him. One of the few ways that a Hitler assassination would have worked is if his enemies used nerve gas. Sontact between his skin and a single drop of nerve gas could have killed him within twenty minutes, but it appears that German resistance leaders never seriously contemplated using this method of assassination.

Allow the German General Staff to Make All Important Military Decisions

Hitlers insistence on making all of the major military decisions, instead of allowing his generals to run the war resulted in a series of avoidable mistakes that assured Germanys ultimate defeat. Not only did he halt the advance of Army Group Center and prevent it from taking Moscow in summer 1941, but he issued no-retreat orders that led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of German troops as the tide of war began to shift against them. Entire German armies were surrounded and captured as the tide of war began to shift against them. Some historians have argued this no-retreat order prevented the German military withdrawal in the face of the Soviet offensive in the winter of 1941 from turning into a rout, which may be true, however, that was an exception. Also, he ordered militarily dubious offensives at Stalingrad in August 1942 and at Kursk in July 1943 and later the Ardennes at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and in Hungary in March 1945, which resulted in heavy German losses without which Germany could have likely defended against successive Soviet offensives at least a couple years longer.

Employ Nerve Gas to Repel the Allied Invasion of Normandy and Subsequent Red Army Invasion of Germany

Hitler spent over $2 billion (as much as the United States spent on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb) developing and producing a large arsenal of Tabun and Sarin nerve gas, which were much more deadly than the Allies stocks of mustard gas. The stockpile weighed about twelve thousand tons. Still, Hitler declined repeated requests from his military commanders to employ it against enemy troops on the battlefieldeven when Germany was in the process of being totally overrun by the Western Allies and Soviet Red Army from January to May 1945 and he was preparing to commit suicide. The Germans could have employed their vast stocks of nerve gas to potentially repel the Allied amphibious invasion of Normandy on D-Day. The Germans could have delivered Sarin nerve gas via mortars, of which Germany had considerably more of than did the Allies, along with other types of artillery rounds since delivery by air in the face of Allied air superiority would likely have proven much more challenging. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, had no such scruples and reportedly planned on using mustard gas against German troops on the beaches if they had ended up invading Britain. Nerve gas might have also been used successfully to repel Soviet troops advancing on eastern Germany from Berlin, given favorable wind conditions. Interestingly, all German mortars and multiple rocket launchers above ten centimeters in diameter during the war were designated by the Germans as Nebelwerfers, which translates to smoke or fog throwers, and were initially assigned to the German Army Chemical Corps, being primarily designed to deliver poison gas and smoke rounds.

Another related major mistake was Hitlers decision to control the Panzer divisions in Normandy instead of giving full control to Rommel to repel the Allied landing forces on D-day while he slept through D-day and missed the opportunity to do so believing the Allied ruse that the invasion of Normandy was merely a diversion from the main planned allied landings.

Dont Enact Anti-Semitic Laws that Caused Top Nuclear Scientists to Emigrate from Europe to the United States

When Hitler was appointed as Reichskanzler in 1933, his virulent anti-Semitism, which he developed following the German surrender at the end of World War I, caused all the top Jewish German and Hungarian scientists, including most notably Albert Einstein, who had been working at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, to emigrate to the United States and United Kingdom. Their assistance proved critical in aiding the U.S.-led Manhattan Project in helping the Allies develop the atomic bomb by July 1945. However, had Hitler and the Nazis never enacted discriminatory laws against Jews, Einstein and other European scientists might have helped Germany develop the atomic bomb first, which Germany then could have employed to help break the deadlock on the Eastern Front and produce a more favorable peace settlement with the Soviet Union. That, in turn, would have catapulted Germany to military superpower status along with the United States and Soviet Union.

This concludes the list of the top twenty things Nazi Germany could have done differently to win World War II. However, even if they had technically won the war, their victory would have likely have been limited in scope unless they had succeeded in capturing Moscow and pushing the Red Army back to the Archangel-Volga-Astrakhan Line. Even then, Stalin would have eventually counterattacked and pushed the Germans back, making Germanys victory temporary and prolonging the war considerably longer than it was waged in actual history. The most likely final outcome of a German victory in the war would have been a German-dominated Europe in which German troops had completely withdrawn from Northern, Southern and Western Europe (except for Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine). German troops would be present in Eastern Europe to defend against the prospect of renewed Soviet aggression while Poland would be a Polish-led German protectorate. The Soviet Union would have likely been restored to its 1938 borders with Nazi Germany fighting a half-century long Cold War against them. Germany might have succeeded in regaining its African colonies and may have succeeded in adding a few new ones had it pursued other options. Had the Jews been forcibly deported to Palestine as part of a peace agreement with Britain as Hitler had requested in his May 1941 peace offer, the Jewish Holocaust would have largely been averted. Ultimately, a victorious Nazi Germany likely would have been a contented, but contained, regional power, not bent on world domination as Allied war propaganda, war hysteria and popular mythology suggested at the time and since. Hopefully, Hitler would have been assassinated and the Nazis overthrown by the German resistance shortly thereafter, returning Germany to democratic control. Then the new German government could have granted full independence to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, and returned all Polish majority territories to Poland. Then, it could have invited them to join a new Central and Eastern European mutual defense alliance against the Soviet Union.

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and H.Q. staff officer with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as a Vice President of the Association of the United States Armys Utah Chapter and as Utah Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He can be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com. This article first appeared in 2019 and is reprinted here due to reader interest.

This is the last in a series of five articles providing critical analysis as to how Germany Might Have Won World War Two.

Image: Bundesarchiv / Wikimedia Commons

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ESSEX COUNTY, NJ  Are you voting in New Jerseys primary election this year? Pay attention to your ballot and youll likely catch one of the oldest tricks in the Garden States political playbook, advocates say: The Line.

This year, due to the coronavirus, New Jersey will hold its primary election on July 7 via mail-in ballots. READ MORE: NJ's Primary Delayed Due To Coronavirus

Many residents have been worrying about the reliability of mail-in ballots during the COVID-19 crisis. But theres a much deeper problem that needs to be put in the spotlight, some advocates allege  the ballot itself.

The primary ballots that millions of New Jersey residents use look nothing like the primary ballots used in every other state in the country, Rutgers University professor Julia Sass Rubin says.

Rubin said that New Jerseys primary ballots violate the rules of good ballot design and confuse and mislead voters.

Heres how it works:

Primary ballots used by the majority of New Jersey voters are organized around a slate of candidates endorsed by either the Democratic or the Republican Party. These slates of candidates are known as the county line or the party line.

Instead of organizing primary ballots around the office being sought and clearly indicating which candidates are running for each position, most counties in New Jersey organize the primary ballots around a slate of party-endorsed candidates. As a result, voters often have a hard time determining which candidates are running for each office, giving a huge advantage to those who land on the county line.

How big is the benefit? No state legislative incumbent on the line had lost a primary election in New Jersey between 2009 and 2018, according to a recent analysis by the Communications Workers of America.

Watch videos that explain more about The Line below.

In New Jersey, primary election ballots have been a source of confusion and have been transformed into a political weapon, said Brett Pugach, an election law attorney with Bromberg Law LLC.

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According to Pugach, New Jerseys ballots are so unique, theyve inspired their own lexicon, including terms such as bracketing, preferential ballot draw, Ballot Siberia and phantom candidates.

The irony is, none of its necessary, Pugach said.

This is gerrymandering of the ballot, a manipulative tactic used to pre-determine election outcomes and diminish the voice and will of voters, said Jesse Burns, executive director of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey.

We cannot stand by while the corrupting influence of power subverts our democracy, Burns said. We demand better for New Jersey voters.

In a report released last week titled Toeing the Line, nonprofit advocacy group New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) urged lawmakers to change the states primary ballots to resemble those in other states.

This way, voters  not political insiders  will be the ones who decide the winners on election day, the group said.

For New Jerseys elected officials to truly represent their communities, it is essential that primary ballots be impartial, NJPP President Brandon McKoy said. As this report shows, this is unfortunately not the case.

Read the full report here.

Some candidates running for office this year have also blasted New Jerseys primary ballots, including John Flora, a teacher who is running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 10th District.

In New Jersey, it's almost impossible to win an election without being on the party line, said Flora, who is vying for the Democratic Party nomination.

"Big party machines that are supposed to represent party voters in the county use every trick to make sure they retain power," Flora said. "That is dangerous for democracy and a Petrie dish which promotes corruption."

THE LINE: HOW IT LOOKS

As an example, the NJPP used a ballot from the 2018 New Jersey Democratic primary ballot in Camden County (click image to enlarge).

The nine county line candidates are in column 2, the NJPP explained. The remaining 15 candidates are scattered across the other eight, mostly empty, columns. There is no obvious logic as to why each of the non-endorsed candidates is in a particular column. Column 1 includes a single candidate for the U.S. Senate. Columns 3 through 8 include eleven candidates for Camden County Freeholder. Column 9 includes two candidates for the US House of Representatives and a candidate for the Camden City Council.



The NJPP continued:



This ballot design  particularly listing candidates for the same office in different columns that may not even be adjacent, and candidates for different offices in the same column  makes it much more challenging for voters to determine which candidates are running for each office. Such a ballot design results in voters not realizing that some positions are contested or disqualifying their vote by mistakenly voting for too many candidates for a given position.[4] It also encourages voters to pick the candidates on the county line  an easy to find and visually consistent option. The county line is further advantaged by the placement of better-known candidates, such as those running for president, U.S. senator, or governor, at the top of the line and the inclusion of candidates for most or all of the offices on the ballot.

Watch a Zoom conference spearheaded by the NJPP on the issue below.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Recently, Essex County-based SOMA Action and Eugene Mazo, a professor at Rutgers Law School, also held a virtual conference about The Law and Politics of Ballot Access In New Jersey, which also featured an explanation about The Line.

Watch it below.

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This article originally appeared on the Montclair Patch
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Key point: The rise of fascism and the war were tied to larger historical currents, but the Nazi Party owed a lot to Hitler himself.

Legend has it that on September 28, 1918, a wounded Private Adolf Hitler lay in the sights of Henry Tandey, a British soldier who would receive the Victoria Cross for his daring actions in engagement in Marcoing, France.

Tandey supposedly took pity on the limping German soldier, who nodded in gratitude and made his escape.

While historians believe this incident was fabricated by Hitler himself, the apocryphal legend nonetheless poses a provocative question: how differently might world history have turned out with just one more pull of the trigger amidst the senseless slaughter of World War I?

In other wordswas World War II bound to happen due to larger economic and political forces? Or was it uniquely a product of a monstrous yet charismatic leader bending the streams of history in his wake?

Would the Nazis have risen to power without Hitler?

The Nazi partys earlier incarnation was the German Workers Party (DAP), founded by a locksmith named Anton Drexler. In fact, Hitler was originally assigned by German Army intelligence after World War I to infiltrate DAP, but ended up a convert and became party leader in 1921.

Therefore, a working-class far-right party was likely in the cards for Germany even without Hitler, carried by the same currents of economic distress and revanchist anger that the supposedly undefeated Imperial Germany had been stabbed-in-the-back by surrendering in World War I.

But on the other hand, theres decent evidence that the Nazis rise to power came from unusual circumstances tied to Hitler himself. Thats because even with Hitler, the Nazis received only 37 percent of the vote in the 1932 election.

Most Germans (53 percent) reelected general and statesman Paul von Hindenburg, who was supported by German center-right- and center-left parties, into the presidency. Despite personally disliking Hitler, the 84-year-old Hindenburg struggled to form a coalition and was eventually convinced to appoint Hitler chancellor. Following a staged attack on the Reichstag, Hitler then persuaded Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag, allowing Hitler to rule by decree.

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Thus, the Nazi accession to power grew not out of irresistible popular support, but peculiar political factors that might have played out differently without Hitler in the picture.

Without Nazis running the show, would Germany have begun its military campaigns in Europe?

Probably not on the short term.

Undoubtedly, there was a sentiment that Germany had been ill-treated by the treaty of Versailles (though Germany paid only one-eighth of the reparations owed before the rest were waived in 1932), and many of the old elite welcomed Hitlers focus on rebuilding German military power.

The military especially believed Germany deserved to regain her status as a great power and advocated a more militarized and authoritarian society. Technocrats in the Germany Army secretly fostered the development of tanks, ships and warplanes restricted under the treaty of Versailles in the 1920s (ironically, with Soviet assistance)years before Hitlers rise to power.

However, the Wehrmachts senior leadership believed Hitlers wars were impetuous and some even plotted coups against Hitler. It was not so much that they opposed foreign conquest principle, but rather believed Germany needed six to ten more years to build up its forces.

Germany, therefore, was likely to reemerge as a military power, but not necessarily at the breakneck pace the Nazis pushed it to.

A Germany without Nazis in charge might still have turned to militaristic nationalism. Contentious border territoriesthe Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, and the geographically awkward Polish corridorwould have remained potential flashpoints.

But political winds might also have steered the Republic on some less destructive path.

World War IIstarted by Stalin?

France and the UKs response to Hitler was muddled by their preoccupation with the threat posed by Stalins Soviet Union. Even during the Munich crisis of 1938, Paris and London turned down an offered alliance from Moscowfearing the Soviets more than the Nazis.

Indeed, some historians dubiously allege that the Soviet Union was bound to invade Germany instead.

Stalin undeniably was down for opportunistic invasions. He collaborated with Hitler in the occupation of Poland in 1939, went on to invade Finland that winter, and then seized the Baltic states and the Romanian province of Bessarabia.

But Stalin preferred to pick on vulnerable countries without backing from strong allies. Theres good reason to question whether the pre-World War II Red Army could have posed the same threat as the Nazi German war machine. In the 1939 Winter War, over a half-million Soviet troops backed up by thousands of tanks and warplanes struggled to defeat smaller, lightly-armed Finnish troops, suffering over 300,000 casualties. Given this underwhelming performance, its hard to believe that Stalin would perceive the Red Army as ready for a showdown with western Europe.

Still, Hitlers aggression interrupted strategic competition between Western Europe and Moscow. In Hitlers absence, its possible an earlier Cold War would have taken its place.

What about China and Japan?

For over one-sixth the planet, World War II began not in September 1939, but rather in July 1937, when Imperial Japan embarked on a second, larger-scale invasion of China following an earlier campaign in 1933.

The spirit of militaristic nationalism then prevalent in Tokyo had risen in reaction to European colonialism, not fascism. Therefore, Japans invasion of China would likely have still occurred. This might still have led to the imposition of a U.S. embargo on petroleum that led Tokyo to plan the Pearl Harbor attack.

But historically, the trigger for the U.S. embargo was Japans invasion of French Indochinaan incursion unlikely to have occurred had France not just been defeated by Germany.

Indeed, Japans strategic calculus in 194041 would have been very different without a war in Europe. The Pearl Harbor raid was meant to buy time for Japans capture of British and Dutch territories in Asiaparticularly the oil fields in the Netherland East Indies.

Had Tokyo balked at taking on the full might of the UK as well as the United States, it might have instead entrenched itself more deeply in China and developed the economic strength of its planned multinational empire, the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. This might have prolonged Japans occupation of Korea and parts of China, and fostered closer Japanese ties with nationalists in Thailand and India.

A Different World

At the start of World War II, there were six great powers with multinational spheres of influence: the United Kingdom and France with their vast colonial empires in Africa and Asia; Germany, dominant in Central Europe; Japan and its growing Asian/Pacific empire; the Soviet Union, with influence on Europe and Central Asia; and the United States, then withdrawing from colonial adventures in Latin America and the Philippines.

World War II destroyed Germany and Japan as great powers. The UK and France were left a shadow of their former selves. The USSR and the United States both emerged as formidable military powers with footholds in Europe and Asia.

From this titanic reshuffling of global order eventually arose the United Nations, the state of Israel, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the conversion of European colonial empires into independent nation-states, and the sundering North and South Korea.

Without the Second World War, numerous world-changing technologies from chemotherapy and rocketry to the nuclear bomb would have developed at different times and places. Movements affected by social changes wrought by the conflict, such as the Civil Rights movement or Indian independence, would have taken different turns.

Without Hitler implementing his genocidal theories, its possible the massacre of millions of Jews and other minorities in the Holocaust would have been averted, even if anti-Semitism itself would still have persisted. Perhaps the Weimar Republic might have avoided Nazi Germanys descent into militarism and authoritarianism.

But the world would still have been bound to experience massive conflicts, arriving at different places and times but resolving familiar tensions between capitalism and communism, colonialism and national independence, and nationalism and internationalism.

How those conflicts might have played out differently we can only guessbut its safe to say that the alternate history version of We Didnt Start the Fire still would not have lacked for lyrical content.

Sebastien Roblin holds a masters degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.

This article first appeared last year.

Image: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germany, ca. June 1940, from Eva Braun's photo albums, seized by the U.S. government. U.S. National Archives.

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Key Point: This might be the DPRKs most advanced tankthough it's based on tech from the 1960s.

Self-reliance

North Korea attempts to be as self-reliant as possible, and tries to provide itself with its own home-grown weapon designs. This desire to independently produce weapons probably stems from North Koreas self-perception as a former client state of both China and the Soviet Union, and the DPRK's subsequent abandonment by both countries.

Fire

Both China and the Soviet Union supplied North Korea with tanks after the Korean War, making the DPRKs tank corps quite large. The quality and condition of North Korean tanks is probably highly variable, with North Korea operating decidedly aged World War II T-34 tanks, vintage Soviet T-55s, older T-62s, and a mixture of Chinese Type 62 and Type 59 tanks as well.

Tanks play an important role in North Korean strategy. In the event of another war on the Korean peninsula, DPRK tank formations would likely attempt to break southwards through the DMZ. A breakout attempt along the worlds most fortified border would come at great cost, and tankers would probably suffer huge losses, especially against South Korean and American armor. The Chonma-ho is an attempt to narrow the United States and South Koreas armor edge.

Chonma-ho

It is estimated that the majority of the Chonma-hos components are domestically manufactured, possibly upwards of 90 percent. The Chonma-ho shares several similarities with the Soviet-designed T-62, which the Chonma-ho is a copy of. The main gun is a 115 millimeter smoothbore, and like the T-62 predecessor, secondary armaments are a 14.5 millimeter heavy machine-gun and a 7.62 medium machine gun.

Several variants of the Chonma-ho exist, with later models incorporating improved features, particularly armor upgrades. The original Chonma-ho had simple and vulnerable steel armor. This issue was initially addressed by incorporating spaced armor to the turret design by additional steel plating that leaves a gap between the extra armor and turret.

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The Chonma-ho may be the first DPRK tank that uses explosive-reactive armor paneling to defeat tandem warheads, seen in American TOW and Javelin missilesthough the paneling does not cover the tank fully, and offers many gaps in protection.

Other upgrades to newer Chonma-hos appear to be a bigger 125 millimeter main gun, and newer explosive-reactive armor. The Chonma-ho hull has also been incorporated into a self-propelled howitzer, of DPRK domestic design.

Move Out

Thanks to the Chonma-hos more advanced features, the tank would probably be used by more skilled tanker crews, the so-called elites, to spearhead any breakthrough into South Korea. The Chonma-hos more advanced features are why its been a successful North Korean export to Iran, which has a particular affinity for North Korean technology.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This article first appeared earlier this year and is reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

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Key Point: The XF-92 was the worlds first jet aircraft to feature the radical delta-wing design.

Today we almost expect aircraft, especially those designed for extreme high speeds, to have the delta-wing design. It all began with the Convair XF-92A, a revolutionary looking aircraft that was unlike anything that had flown just a few years earlier.

However, being first meant there were some issues. Simply put, it was not a beloved airplane to the pilots who had the chance to take it up.

Nobody wanted to fly the XF-92, National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor to NASA) test pilot A. Scott Crossfield was quoted to say about his experience with the aircraft. There was no lineup of pilots for that airplane. It was a miserable flying beast.

Yet between 1948 and 1953 flown it wasmore than 300 times.

The then-radical delta-wing configuration, which resembles a large triangle, was pioneered by German-born Dr. Alexander Lippisch, who conceived more than 50 radical designs including the rocket-powered Me-163B-1 Komet, which was flown by Nazi Germanys Luftwaffe during World War II. His work with delta-wing aircraft actually began before the war however with simple gilders.

After the war, Lippisch was among the German scientists and engineers that were recruited as part of Operation Paperclip, the secret program of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency that brought those individuals to the United States to work on government programs. According to an FBI analysis of his past, it was concluded that Lippisch hadnt been an ardent Nazi supporter, and he proved rather happy to be able to continue to work on aircraft designs, just for the Americans.

That included the XF-92, the worlds first jet aircraft to feature the radical delta-wing design that resembled a paper airplane. It was so named because it resembled the Greek letter delta. It also offered a number of advantages including reduced drag, while the large surface area increased lift. In addition, the wing was built to be very thin but was still quite strong.

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The aircraft was delivered to Muroc Air Force Base, California on April 1, 1958 and its first flight was far from impressive, and consisted of little more than an inadvertent hop during its high-speed taxi testwhile its first true flight was made on September 18 of that year, which demonstrated the airworthiness of the radical design and its Phase I testing continued through August 1949.

While the sole XF-92 built was officially designated a prototype, it was actually used as a research aircraft, and during its Phase II flights the Air Force pilots flew the jet to see if it could meet the contract specifications. Among the pilots who flew the aircraft was Major Charles Chuck Yeager, who made the maiden Phase II flight on October 13, 1949. It only took two months for the final testing to be completed. The aircraft had proved that a delta-wing aircraft was practical even if the XF-92 had numerous shortcomings including severe pitch problems.

The XF-92 continued to be used in testing until its nose gear collapsed on landing in October 1953 while being piloted by Crossfield, who was fortunately unharmed. However, the XF-92 never flew again, and the aircraft was donated to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee before being transferred to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where it is currently on display.

The legacy of the program can be seen in the numerous aircraft that followed, which included the F-102 and F-106 interceptor, and even today with the F-22.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared earlier this year and is reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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NEW YORK CITY  Mandatory masks. Class sizes slashed to uphold social distancing. Staggered schedules to prevent crowded schools. Deep cleanings. Hand washing stations and hand sanitizer stations.

Those are the broad strokes of a plan to bring students back into classrooms this fall after months away to prevent the coronavirus' spread, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.

And schools will reopen, de Blasio said.

"Schools will be opening in September," he said.



Or maybe not, at least according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office. It released a statement after de Blasio's announcement that all-but undercut his authority.

Going back to school is a call for the state to make, not a local government like New York City to make, said Cuomo's spokesperson Dani Lever in the statement.

"Of course the state consults with local stakeholders and when it comes to opening schools in New York City we will consult with parents, teachers, health officials and local elected officials  but the Governor has said any determination is premature at this point and we will need to see how the virus develops," Lever wrote.



Bickering between de Blasio and Cuomo is nothing new, but it presented a potential wet blanket for teachers, parents and students who coped with an unprecedented school year after the new coronavirus pandemic kept them all home from March onward.

It appears parents are ready to have their kids return to school after months cooped up contending with remote learning.

De Blasio said about 450,000 parents responded to a Department of Education survey on returning to schools. Of those, 75 percent want their kids to go back to school in September, he said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday outlined steps to send students back to the city's schools. (NYC Mayor's Office)

But returning to school requires public health measures to ensure it's safe, de Blasio said.

Each school will have a maximum number of students allowed in at a time for social distancing, de Blasio said. That means some schools likely will have staggered schedules, he said.

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Inside schools, face coverings will be required and provided to students who don't have them, he said. There will be hand washing stations, hand sanitizer and regular "deep cleaning," he said.

Carranza said the city's education department will send their plans to the state this summer.

De Blasio promised that parents and students will receive announcements well in advance.

Cuomo's office said everyone should expect a "new normal" when schools return, but left the question as to when up in the air.

"The Governor hopes schools will reopen but will not endanger the health of students or teachers, and will make the determination once we have more current information," Lever wrote. "We value the opinion of local politicians and the state's 700 local school districts as to what should be done, but the public should not be confused on this important decision that has practical consequences for many."

This article originally appeared on the New York City Patch
Demonstrators at a rally on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on April 30, demanding the reopening of businesses. (AFP via Getty Images)

The scenes appear daily on social media, taking on the familiarity of ritual. A red-faced customer dresses down a barista, or breathes contemptuously in a waitress face, or tries to muscle past a green-aproned clerk into the cereal aisle. Theyve been asked to wear a mask and they dont like it. I have my rights, they say.

Claiming rights is a national pastime. Rights are as revered as Revere himself, the stuff of tricorn-hat cosplay and solemn citations to the Constitution.

But there is no federal, state or local law or constitutional provision that gives Americans a right to an unmasked taco order. Americans have no constitutional right to get a haircut, or to have a beer at the bar, or to dine in at Applebees.

Many Americans seem impervious to this truth. We imagine ourselves cloaked in rights, even when we have very few compared with many other modern democracies.

Im proud to be an American, the song goes, where at least I know Im free. But the United States has the worlds highest per-capita prison population. It is the only state in the Western hemisphere that executes its citizens. One hundred fifty countries provide a right to a free education in their national constitution. Not ours.

One-quarter of the worlds constitutions provide a right against disability discrimination. Ours doesnt. Germans have a constitutional right to feed pigeons in a public square or to ride horses in the forest. We dont. Many of the worlds constitutions permit citizens to claim rights against private companies. Good luck with that here. Europeans have a right to be forgotten on the Internet. We wish.

Americans are obsessed about rights, and yet our Constitution and our courts are rather sparing in granting them.

These phenomena turn out to be related. The American rights fetish runs deeper than it does wide. We might not have that many rights, but when it comes to the ones we do have, we step on the gas. We dont just claim a right to bear arms  we carry assault rifles into the statehouse. We dont just have a right against racial discrimination but a right to dismantle college affirmative action programs designed to combat racial inequality.

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We are especially dogged when it comes to free speech, stretching it to cover not just speaking from atop a sidewalk soapbox but also, for example, marketing drugs to physicians or filming rape porn.

This kind of absolutism comes at a cost. When rights are perceived as absolute, judges can get nervous about declaring them. The Supreme Court laid those anxieties bare when it denied the right to an education in 1974, worrying openly that such a right might portend a right to food or shelter. The court in 1987 rejected a right to avoid execution based on proof of racially biased prosecution and sentencing practices, reasoning that recognizing such a right throws into serious question the principles that underlie the entire criminal justice system.

Americans speak a robust language of rights but lack the language of constraint, of moderation, of incrementalism that, common in other countries, would allow courts  and the rest of us  to be less anxious about declaring the kinds of rights that justice actually demands.

Dont blame the framers of the Constitution, who well understood that rights had inherent limits. Rather, this absolutist posture toward rights reflects the bitter struggle against Jim Crow in the 1950s and 1960s, which defined in the popular culture what it meant to have constitutional rights. Those most vividly claiming rights at midcentury had had their rights flagrantly denied, their forebears enslaved and violated, with the force of the law. Battling white supremacy  then and now  doesnt call for a balancing of rights against racist laws created by the state.

But its been too easy to jump from this brutal history to the conclusion that rights are, in their very nature, an exemption from the law  a get-out-of-jail-free card not so unlike the fake laminated cards many antimaskers have been brandishing. That was the conceit of the white rights movement pushed by the Citizens Councils in the 1950s and 1960s. It finds expression today in the rhetoric of all lives matter and in the failure of many to see any distinction between antimasking and antiracism protests. Wheres my exemption? I have my rights.

This feels like madness in the middle of a worsening pandemic, but allow me to propose a truce.

Telling someone they have a right to watch porn but no right to breathe free air wont get us far. It feels arbitrary, and it is. Instead of continuing the ceaseless tit-for-tat of I have rights!/ No, you dont! we should instead begin to develop a language of moderation when it comes to rights.

We can concede that an arbitrary masking law, one that, say, required masks only on weekdays or only for men, would violate our rights. But people also have a right to go food shopping without the risk that an unmasked person transmits a deadly disease.

How this conflict is resolved isnt for me to decide, or for you. We have democratic institutions  legislatures and governors and mayors  precisely to reconcile our rights, through law.

But first, we need to see each other as rights bearers and as equal citizens who disagree with one another but who must figure out a way to live together.

Jamal Greene is a professor at Columbia Law School and the author of the forthcoming book, "How Rights Went Wrong."




Ever since the coronavirus pandemic began devastating their lives and community, theyve been falling behind on rent payments. They try to pull together what they can, saying that can mean choosing between food and rent when trying to send their landlord checks for about $400 a month. Martinez stays up at night wondering if his family eventually will be forced out of their home, where the front door is decorated with a sticker of the U.S. Constitution.
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Working on Black Unison for WWD has been a cathartic process, allowing me to connect with my community on a level I never imagined possible. Its been an honor to host all the amazingly talented Black professionals, whose unique experiences and voices are testaments to the power of perseverance, community and support, within and without the fashion and beauty industries.

My final panel with makeup artists Ashunta Sheriff-Kendricks, Sir John Barnett and Tasha Reiko Brown continues to address the issues of racism and discrimination these creatives have experienced in their careers, but the biggest takeaway is in the solutions they have provided for moving forward, which are centered around education, mental health and self-love and empowerment.

Nigerian musician Seun Kuti believes, The answer to being Black is to become African. Sheriff-Kendricks agrees. To identify with Africa means we identify with a rich cultural history that predates slavery. Black Americans were born here. So, when we are Black, we are all of this country, everything that has happened to us from the 1400s and on, but if we are African, we are antiquity and we are beyond a time that we even understand, she explains.

African history has been erased from most textbooks: stories of immense wealth, royalty, spirituality and generations of powerful kings and queens have been suppressed to sustain a narrative of white supremacy. Braids, beads, jewels and makeup all have African origins, but colonialism across the globe has whitewashed our culture and community. Sheriff-Kendricks, who also has a degree in anthropology, says: You have to have knowledge of self. That is part of the problem, because when you dont know your history, you dont know where youre going.

She grew up reading texts such as The Destruction of Black Civilization and They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America and has passed on her knowledge to her children, hoping to restore the truth and create a future of true freedom.

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Social media has also played a critical role in liberating voices that for too long have been silenced. Barnett believes social media has brought us into the future. I think its so powerful the fact you dont have to be a supermodel. You dont have to be in the fashion industry. If anything, the fashion industry is the last industry that is going to be inclusive. Fashion is supremely racist. And anyone who doubts that, either doesnt work in fashion, or is just willfully ignorant.

It seems as if the fashion and beauty industries allow for no inherent value in the perspectives or experiences of people of color, and only recently have luxury beauty brands begun to pay attention to the power of the Black dollar. As Reiko Brown says, Black women spend two to three times more than their white counterparts and are grossly underserved. She struggled for many years to find the makeup tools she needed for her clients with darker skin tones. It was a scavenger hunt to put together my kit, Reiko Brown continues. If youre going to make the majority of your gross off of Black women, Black culture, then you need to serve Black women and culture.

The 2019 Nielsen Report revealed that the annual spending power of the Black community was $1.3 trillion, but even with numbers at this scale, it wasnt until 2017 that a Black woman spearheaded the movement to ensure that Blacks, who account for 90 percent of the overall spend on ethnic hair and beauty products, have a secure place in the luxury beauty market. That woman is Rihanna, founder and chief executive officer of Fenty Beauty, which launched with more than 40 shades, one of the most inclusive color palettes the industry has ever seen, is now valued at $3 billion, according to Forbes, and is part of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the worlds biggest luxury conglomerate. Although this is such a progressive feat for Black beauty, luxury companies arent necessarily recognizing the Black consumer because it is the right thing to do, but only after realizing the power and value of their spending power and how a partnership with a world famous Black woman with a vast fan base can drive sales and increase profit.

Inclusion based on profit and not humanity is not equality at all.

Barnett is also in a position of power at a major luxury beauty brand. He is a brand ambassador for LOreal Paris, a position that has put him at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement internally within the company. Barnett spoke to more than 200 employees and board members on a Zoom call to begin to unpack issues around race. Conversations of this nature at a corporate level tap into pockets of trauma for both Blacks and whites, because it forces them to address the effects of structural racism. Blacks attempting to educate their white peers on their experiences are tiptoeing around white fragility and for those whites who dont identify as racist, theres an awakening of how their privilege perpetuates systems of aversive racism.

To ensure lasting systemic change, we must all work toward a common goal. As Barnett says, We lose nothing by allowing equity and justice to happen for other people. Whiteness will still be there. Youll still be able to operate and allow Blacks to fully let their lights shine.

Reiko-Brown, an advocate for mental health, believes that, as an artist, you must not dim your light and creativity. Youre protecting your heart, which is the gift that you have to give to the world. You owe it to whoever or whatever gave you that gift to do it in your most authentic, true self, she says.

Hosting this series of panel discussions has made it painfully clear to me that theres so much more work to be done in dealing with racism in the fashion and beauty industries. Every person of color has a story to tell about how racism has affected them. I used to fear that these stories may never be heard; that they might not matter.

As a product of the Deep South, the topic of racism is not new to me. I was born into it and its insidious residue became a permanent stain on my life. I became desensitized to the microaggressions and discrimination often inflicted upon me by my white peers. For years I tried to disassociate myself from my Blackness, as a necessity of survival so that I could exist in white orbits and not be perceived as threatening or problematic. Whilst studying in London for both my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, I was employed at British Vogue, which was then under the editorship of Alexandra Shulman. I was a speckle of Black pepper, in a sea of white salt. There were moments where I felt incredibly alone, without anyone to relate to, getting further away from my identity and authentic self. After four years of being the first person to arrive to work and often the last to leave and giving the job my everything, a full-time position finally became available in the fashion department. Having put in the work, I was confident I would get the position, but was informed I was overqualified and that my aesthetic was already so developed that an assistant position would impede my artistic progression. My seat at the table was removed and I was replaced by a white female.

My fears have since subsided because I now know that I am not alone. I stand with a community of like-minded Black creatives who have agency and self determination and are fighting for freedom and equality not only for us, but for the legions of young Black creatives who will one day come and take their seats at the table were creating for them.

There is still trauma, deeply ingrained in our cultures. The emotions are still very raw, sometimes visceral, because there is so much unhealed trauma from more than 452 years of baggage that has been handed down from generation to generation.

The trauma surrounding racism can only be healed if we deal with the issues as a human race, without judgment and with an open heart so that a pride in Blackness is not equated with being anti-establishment. This process will allow generational wounds to begin to heal and allow the Black community to let their lights shine, tell their stories and take their seat at the table.

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In a country plagued by the opioid crisis, the race is on to find novel solutions for managing pain. One in five Americans experience some sort of chronic pain.

Opioids are powerful painkillers prescribed by a doctor. Because they are highly addictive, prescription opioids have led to a nationwide epidemic killing 128 people each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To avoid the potential dangers of opioids prescribed for pain management, many doctors are turning to new medication called "neuromodulators," some of which are also used to treat depression. These medications, which include gabapentin, pregabalin and duloxetine, affect the way the nervous system perceives pain rather than targeting pain directly.

Though effective for some, they're not the right treatment for everyone.

"What happens with not just medications but with almost all of our treatments for pain [is that] about 30 to 40% of people improve with any one treatment," said Dr. Ajay D. Wasan, a professor and vice chair at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

PHOTO: A person with back pain. (STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)

While a growing number of scientists are studying alternatives to opioids, finding a single pill that alleviates all pain is unlikely. Instead, researchers and doctors believe that medicine is on the cusp of a revolution in the way providers treat pain. They predict that pain management will shift toward customizing treatment for each individual patient rather than prescribing one type of drug as a cure-all.

Wasan said he is optimistic about the future, with several new pain treatments in the pipeline which could broaden options for the one in five Americans experiencing chronic pain.

His hope is that with additional research and therapy combinations, "maybe 50 to 60% of patients may respond to a particular treatment."

"As a prescriber you want an array of options," said Dr. Rebecca Baker, director of a major federal government research effort called HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) which focuses on alternative ways to help patients cope with pain.

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"There are lots of different pain conditions and they each need to be treated differently," Baker said. "Right now, we don't have a lot of options."

HEAL, which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, has identified several drugs with the potential to treat opioid addiction or to serve as opioid alternatives, as well as multiple non-drug therapies to help people manage pain.

"The goal of the NIH HEAL initiative is to provide scientific solutions to the national crisis of opioid misuse, overdose and addiction," Baker said.

Since its founding in 2018, HEAL contributes $500 million dollars annually to over 400 research projects.

Baker says the NIH has invested in a wide range of promising pain treatments. Specifically, scientists are studying a type of medicine called antibody therapy that binds to, and therefore blocks, the body's pain signals.

There are other medications designed to target each part of the nervous system, from its genetic material to the electrical signals that travel throughout the body and to the brain, registering pain as a sensation.

Meanwhile, some companies are taking a different approach, attempting to develop medical-grade versions of one of the oldest painkillers in history -- cannabis.

PHOTO: A doctor holds medical marijuana in one hand and pills in the other. (STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)

The hope is that cannabinoids will be effective but not addictive for patients dealing with chronic pain, according to Greg Gorgas, CEO of Artelo Biosciences, a research-stage cannabis company. But cannabinoids and other pharmaceutical options have yet to be proven in clinical trials, and they may only be one part of the solution.

Baker also says there is promising research into new medical devices that treat pain, including an ultrasound that stimulates the body's nervous system to disrupt pain transmission. But according to Baker, pain research extends far beyond drugs and medical devices.

Scientists are also studying mindful meditation, behavioral therapy, physical exercise and group rehabilitation for managing pain.

"We need better understanding of the biologic and genetic basis of these differences and embedding of these in our research and development plans," Gorgas said.

Someday soon, Baker said, "pain [will be] treated like other health conditions . . . so that means looking at the whole person and having a number of options to offer to individuals with pain and then working with them to find the treatment approach that works best for them."

Stephanie E. Farber, M.D. is a plastic surgeon from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

The pain management revolution amid coronavirus and the opioid crisis originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Maftoul, a Palestinian cousin to couscous, with chicken and vegetables; the recipe is from "Falastin" by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

The deep red of ground sumac brings to mind the ripest strawberry, though the spices flavor veers lemony and tart  like a floral vinegar distilled into powder.

Its brightness defines sumaqqiyeh, a Palestinian stew with origins in Gaza City, where its often served at Eid al-Fitr celebrations. Beef or lamb simmers with chickpeas and chard. In addition to sumac, a core Gazan trinity of garlic, green chile and dill blazes through the pot; theyre added near the end of cooking so their flavors jump. Red tahini, a local specialty that gains its color by roasting the sesame seeds before grinding them, traditionally enriches the dish.

Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi uses oxtails for the lush version of sumaqqiyeh in his new cookbook Falastin. The oxtails cook for four hours, until their meat all but flops off the bones. Cumin, cinnamon and baharat (a spice blend warmed by peppercorns, cloves, cardamom, allspice and nutmeg) infuse the tomato-laced broth. His recipe advises adding the greens at the finish line, heating them only until wilted, and suggests generous garnishes of sumac, chopped dill and sliced chiles.

I had in my head that you should deliver something beautiful to people, Tamimi said recently by phone. You spend all this time slow-cooking meat and it turns out beigey-brown, not a pretty dish. The herbs, for him, are vital cosmetology. Its delicious, though, and it felt important to include it in the book.

Aesthetics matter to Tamimi. Hes the executive chef and a partner behind the Ottolenghi brand in London; hes worked with Yotam Ottolenghi since the two opened the first Ottolenghi deli in 2002. Their bowls of pomegranate-jeweled salads and tiered towers of meringues and mini-cakes begat four delis and two full-service restaurants, Nopi and Rovi.

Sami Tamimi, the London-based Palestinian chef who wrote the cookbook "Falastin" with Tara Wigley. (Jenny Zarins)

The brands success also sired a string of cookbooks, beginning with vegetable-focused Plenty published in 2010. They helped ingratiate a light-touch use of ingredients common to many cuisines across the Middle East  tahini, fava beans, sprinkles and swoops of crushed pistachios and yogurt as savory garnishes  into the broader British and American repertoires. The zaatar and labneh croissants featured at Proof Bakery in Atwater Village? The lamb neck shawarma at Bavel in the Arts District? The Ottolenghi influence laid the tracks for their arrival in our food culture.

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Ottolenghi and Tamimi wrote two books together: The Ottolenghi Cookbook and Jerusalem, the 2012 bestseller centered on the city where both chefs were born; Tamimi grew up in a Muslim family in East Jerusalem and Ottolenghi, who is Jewish, was raised in West Jerusalem.

Their book includes an often-quoted line of hope about the dish that has most come to symbolize Middle Eastern food for the world: It takes a giant leap of faith, but we are happy to take it  what have we got to lose?  to imagine that hummus will eventually bring Jerusalemites together, if nothing else will.

In Falastin, published this month in the United States and written with longtime Ottolenghi collaborator Tara Wigley, Tamimi steps forward to more forthrightly proclaim his Palestinian heritage. The book is an embrace of  and reckoning with  his homelands complexities.

Hed tried sumaqqiyeh several times in his travels over the years, for example  most recently at his sisters house in Jerusalem. Gaza City sits on the coast less than 50 miles southwest of her home, but Tamimi couldnt visit the dishs place of origin. Falastin lays out the reasons. Israel seized the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War with Egypt in 1967; the Israeli government officially withdrew its presence from Gaza in 2005, but in escalated cross-border violence with Hamas, the Palestinian militant Islamist political organization, Israel and Egypt restricted movement at the Gazan borders with blockades. Neither people nor goods can enter or exit freely. The Gaza Strip is one of the worlds most densely populated places, states an essay in the book. About 25 miles long and 6 miles at its widest, with a population of nearly 2 million, its often described as the worlds largest open-air prison.' 

The discussion focuses on fishing zone restrictions and an ineffective sewage system; both have contributed to the derailing of Gazas once-thriving seafood industry.

Other discourses throughout the book address questions of land ownership, checkpoint realities, and the destruction of ancient West Bank olive groves to make way for Israeli settlements. Tamimi and Wigley also spotlight food champions like Vivien Sansour, a small-farm advocate and founder of the Palestinian Seed Library dedicated to heirloom vegetable preservation.

Sumaqqiyeh, a Gazan beef stew from the cookbook "Falastin" by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley. (Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

Writing these stories  indeed writing a Palestinian cookbook  feels like a big responsibility, they say in the intro. All the food and hospitality that a recipe book celebrates must be served, in the case of Palestine, against a very sobering backdrop.

The book is gorgeous, full of sumptuous-looking dishes photographed in the style that brings the Ottolenghi brand enduring success: a basket of chickpeas flecked with tiny Aleppo chile flakes, bowls of mint-strewn figs, pasta suspended in yogurt and scattered with breadcrumbs. There are images of robust markets and mountainside villages and boys joyfully jumping off a wall into the sea.

But some messes cant be disguised by food styling or ignored in favor of prettier views, and Falastin holds some space for hard realities.

***

Tamimis foray into his culinary heritage follows other notable Palestinian cookbooks published over the last decade  each of them proclamations of identity and, in their individual voices, records of a dispersed, threatened culture.

In 2012 The Gaza Kitchen opened wide the micro-regional cuisine from the now-impoverished region; for millennia the Strip was a port along the spice routes. Laila El-Haddad, who wrote the book with Maggie Schmitt, called it a documentary cookbook. Recipes for cardamom-scented shrimp, stingray soup and avocado salad (a vestige of 1980s-era Israeli settlements in Gaza) share pages with profiles of community-minded cooks and farmers and frank treatises on the political landscape. Among them is On Olive Oil, about the destruction of olive groves, which turned olive oil from a staple with centuries of history into a luxury that El-Haddad said only the wealthy can afford to cook with.

In her two books, Palestine on a Plate and Baladi, London-based chef Joudie Kalla writes about dishes reflecting Bilad al-Sham, or Greater Syria, now more commonly called the Levant, and also the Palestinian diaspora impelled after Israel was established as a nation in 1948. She has never set foot on historic Palestinian ground. Neither have her parents. Her grandparents, on both sides of her family, fled Palestine to Syria as refugees in 1948; Kalla grew up between Qatar and Britain.

For three years she ran a successful London restaurant called Baity Kitchen, opened in 2010. When she wanted to record the menus she was cooking  stuffed vegetables, spiced lamb and rice, breads of many shapes, dishes recounted by her mother and many aunts  she gathered them on an app but struggled to find a publisher willing to print a book that included the word Palestine in the title.

The feedback was: We feel uncomfortable talking about Palestine without talking about Israel, Kalla said by phone. Why do Palestinians have to be eternally tied with Israelis now? Im not anti-Semitic. I do have a problem with soldiers killing one another. But Palestinians are being deleted. Thats the main thing. Food is how we remember who we are.

Reem Kassis, author of The Palestinian Table, lives in Philadelphia and was raised in East Jerusalem: Her father, a Christian, came from a northern mountain village; her mother, a Muslim, grew up in a rural town known for its orchards. Her book, released in 2017, is a memory palace of family recipes that spans the region.

Kassis focuses the book on food and kin; in an opinion piece she wrote in February for the Washington Post, she gave voice to the objections raised by many Palestinians over the notion of Israeli cuisine. By and large, the dishes that make up the Israeli national food repertoire (hummus, falafel, msabaha, baba ghanoush, knafeh) were learned from the Palestinian population, she wrote. In many restaurants and cookbooks, Israelis have no problem including such items as Yemeni schug, Iraqi sabich or Tunisian salad. But the absence of the word Palestinian from their menus and books is a glaring omission. As many Israeli academics and food writers themselves have pointed out, the word Palestinian is still considered by many Israelis as a threat to their existence.

Its the forceful conflation of local traditions with which Kassis and the other authors particularly struggle. Fusion is actually not new to the Middle East/Arab world, Kassis told me recently. As the cradle of civilization, centuries of migration, occupation and trade have meant that Palestinian cuisine was regularly evolving and being influenced by just as much as it influenced others since the dawn of history. We see the mark of history not only through a regions architecture, music and literature but through its cuisine. When we see that history being refuted or threatened, thats when the attachment to it and desire to preserve it increases.

***

The United States has only a handful of restaurants that identify themselves distinctly as Palestinian: Reems California and Beit Rima in San Francisco, Qanoon in Manhattan and Tanoreen in Brooklyn are among the most widely known. In Southern California, Palestinian immigrants Mike Hawari and Nesrine Omari opened Kareems in Anaheim in 1996; around them blossomed other businesses that would eventually be known as the Little Arabia district. Their kitchen rolls out Levantine comfort foods: hummus, fattoush, falafel or grilled chicken wraps, grape leaves and breakfast staples like fatteh, chickpeas with fried khubz (pita) in yogurt sauce.

Nearby, Asem Abusir runs Knafeh Cafe, serving the version of knafeh  a pastry of crisp, broken strands of kataifi dough layered with salty, molten cheese  thats a signature of his hometown, Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

Most of us will need to turn to the home stove to taste the profoundest contributions of Palestinian gastronomy. As an ardent student of the Middle Easts cuisines, I wanted to eat Palestinian dishes as Palestinian cooks intended them.

Salata Arabieh, a chopped salad from "Falastin" by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Which dishes from the last decade's worth of Palestinian cookbooks hew most closely to the national identity? Tamimi said he fields the question often, usually through the lens of Israel and appropriation. As a writer who absorbs food culture largely through restaurants, I also was curious about specificity from the broader Levantine perspective. In Falastin, for example, I recognize from the menus of Lebanese restaurants balila (garlicky, lemony stewed chickpeas), koussa bil laban (summer squash filled with spiced rice and ground meat and served in yogurt sauce) and the ubiquitous chopped Arabic salad starring tomatoes and cucumbers. The book mentions mansaf, a lamb stew flavored with jameed (discs of dried goat or sheep yogurt) or kishk (a variation that can include bulgur); its known as a specialty of Hebron, a city in the southern West Bank, and also as the national dish of Jordan.

When I asked, Tamimi had suggestions for recipes he deemed wholly intrinsic to the Palestinian lexicon. Other Palestinian authors echoed them in conversations and in their books. It struck me in preparing them that each of them are feasts unto themselves  foods for a group, their generosity inherent and deliberate.

Sumaqqiyeh was the first dish Tamimi mentioned. The dense richness of the deboned oxtail meat paid off for its hours of simmering; the finishing overlay of herbs and the maximum brightness of flavors reconfirmed why his and Ottolenghis style of cooking have left so many devotees spellbound. A delicious, true-minded and less time-consuming version in El-Haddad and Schmitts The Gaza Kitchen  and another wonderful take in Zaytoun, a Palestinian cookbook by author and human rights activist Yasmin Khan  added toasted sesame oil to simulate the flavor of red tahini, which is all but impossible to find outside Gaza.

Sumacs lemony sharpness also balances the warmer spices in musakhan  roast chicken and onions originally doused with olive oil and piled on flatbread baked over pebbles that lined a taboon (clay oven). At olive harvest time in autumn, the dish was consumed to taste and assess the years first oil pressings. I used sheets of crisp Arabic bread purchased at Kozanians Ranch Market in Glendale, a favorite Los Angeles-area source for Middle Eastern ingredients. Eating the dish by hand  composing bites of bread, chicken and onion swiped through pools of oil and bowls of Greek yogurt  as Tamimi instructs, is a tactile pleasure.

Maqlubeh means upside down in Arabic; the name refers to a celebration dish of rice, lamb and vegetables tiered in a pot and then flipped over dramatically onto a platter, where it (hopefully) holds together as a showpiece savory cake. Tamami puts forth an extravagant maqlubeh, a gilded affair with fava beans, butternut squash and lamb neck meat, stained with turmeric, scented with dried limes and garnished with pine nuts and almonds.

Kozanians didnt stock maftoul, a Palestinian cousin to couscous, but Cookbook in Echo Park and Highland Park does, and it can easily be ordered online from Canaan, a company that works with Palestinian farms and also sells olive oil from the region. Maftoul is a combination of bulgur and whole wheat flour sprinkled with water and hand-rolled into pearls and dried. When cooked, each sphere is beautifully distinct and freeform.

Maftoul with chicken and vegetables, made from a recipe in "Falastin" by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley. (Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

I made Tamimis maftoul: Carrots and butternut squash thrummed extra sweet against the pearls earthiness; the dish was fragrant with cumin, coriander and cinnamon and crowned with roasted chicken. My Palestinian friend Khaled studied the results thoughtfully.

My family would have gone even harder on the spices, he said. Then he beamed. But yeah. This tastes  right.

Dessert that night was Tamimis recipe for the knafeh from Nablus; he combines mozzarella, ricotta and feta for an approximation of the traditional Palestinian cheese. After baking, the pastry soaks in syrup perfumed with orange blossom water; crushed pistachios reinforce the crunch. Khaled and I had been to Knafeh Cafe shortly before the shutdown; we talked again about the differences between crisp knafeh like this one and a soft, stretchy-gooey variant popular in Lebanon. He texted his parents in Dubai about the variations. Eventually we scraped our plates in happy silence.

***

Approximating a local cheese for knafeh Nabulsayeh; scenting maqlubeh with dried limes, which are most closely associated with Iranian cuisine ; using cheffy cuts of meat like oxtails and lamb neck for classic feast dishes: In Falastin Tamimi asserts a Palestinian identity that is both national and individual. Recipes can be recorded as evidence of a people  as stories, as archives for posterity, as testimony  but total authenticity is a fable when any cuisine travels beyond its origins. How he chooses to assert tradition and innovation is his right.

Across continents and cuisines, current discussions around foods role in society center not only around who is offered a seat at the table but also on how people can claim complete agency over tables altogether. Each of the recent cookbooks written by a Palestinian living in diaspora affirms Palestines history and facilitates the evolution of its cooking in the wider world.

For Tamimi, a chef with a global brand who is enmeshed in the daily operations of running restaurants, tinkering is a given. I love the tradition. I also want to see to the future, he said plainly of Palestinian cooking. I dont cook like the old days. I cook in a modern way. His Gazan shrimp stew is dolloped with cilantro pesto. The fiery Levantine condiment called shatta dresses baby gem lettuces.

Cultural fluidity also feels innate in Kallas recipes. In Baladi she traces a stew of pasta and lentils flavored with tamarind and pomegranate called harak osbao (the phrase translates as hes burnt his finger in Arabic) to Syria but notes its similarity to a Gazan dish called rummaniyeh (the word means pomegranate-y). A dish in Palestine on the Plate of cod with saffron, lemon and orange united one of her mothers recipes with a request from a customer at her London restaurant.

Theyre not history books, in that sense, Kalla said. We want people to see who we are today.

El-Haddad, author of The Gaza Kitchen, lives in Maryland; she was born in Kuwait to parents who grew up in different corners of Gaza. She used her desire to record disappearing Gazan culture to find her voice.

For years, I thought, 'Who am I to be an authority on Palestinian food?'  she said. I felt nervous about owning my narrative. But no, its all of these different kinds of unique stories and backgrounds that create the mosaic of Palestinian identity.

For her the evolution of Palestinian cuisine is part of the process of its reclamation. I may not have grown up cooking these foods at their source, but this is still my cuisine. I know now not to let anyone interpret for me what it means to be Palestinian. I may not have ever visited Palestine but Im Palestinian.

Kassis is working on her second book, about modern Arabic cooking, and found examining the past  how recipes evolved in Palestine and the surrounding regions  crucial to giving shape to the notion of a people and its food. Thats where cookbooks come into play. They document or give a snapshot of the current culinary landscape and in so doing preserve it for future generations.

Knafeh Nabulseyeh, a Palestinian pastry from the cookbook "Falastin" by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley. (Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

But documentation alone, she found, doesnt do justice to a cuisine or place it in the most illuminating framing. So I went down a path that traced the evolution of these foods from the start of their recording. This way, we can acknowledge the contribution of other cultures to our cuisine, of the impact of new lifestyles on how we cook, while still celebrating and preserving the history and traditions that gave rise to those dishes.

Thats what is collectively striking about these cookbooks and their authors: They assert, each in their own way, identities large enough to be inclusive but also intimate enough to give us a real sense of who they are. Chronicles of oppressions and dreams for better lives dont exist separate from the recipes.

In their lists of ingredients and sets of instructions they invite us into the soil of their ancestors. We eat garlic, chile, dill and tahini in a meat stew and place a pin on the map: Gaza. One writer tells us to be sure to sprinkle parsley over Palestinian maftoul before serving, while another simply encourages us to ladle brothy portions into bowls and dig in. Either way, the pearls of wheat and bulgur pass our lips like consonants and roll over our tongues like vowels. The word they form is home.
Police found the luxury car completely stripped, with just the chopped up body frame and windscreen left straddling the road and pavement on an industrial estate. (SWNS)

A stolen Mercedes-Benz car worth more than 20,000 was found stripped of almost all its parts by car cannibals in a Birmingham industrial estate.

Police were stunned to find just the shell of the white motor after it had been reported stolen in February this year.

Officers were called to Aston Hall Road in Birmingham on Tuesday where they found the car - minus most of its parts and the roof caved in.

All that remained was the chopped up body frame and windscreen left straddling the road and pavement on an industrial estate.

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The Central Midlands Police Group (CMPG) tweeted a picture of the wrecked vehicle, which showed it had been stripped of its wheels, engine, seats, bonnet and interior.

The tweet from CMPG read: Stolen vehicle from February located in @brumpolice area, and looking a little less....wholesome.

However - can you guess what it is? Or, was? (No) prize for the first correct guess.

Read more: The UKs car theft hotspots revealed

Many of the people responding thought they knew the answer, with Rob Horrobin replying: Merc A Class?

The stolen Mercedes-Benz, which went missing in February, was estimated to be worth more than 20,000. (Getty Images)

One account, Diamond Phoenix, thought they found a clue: Footplate on passenger door says M Benz.

"The smallest model is the only one that fits.

Read more: Police pull over speeding Porsche driver who did 144 mph in 50 mph zone

Finally, Simon Andrews added: They were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!!

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo News UK
TAMPA, Fla., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Primo Water Corporation (NYSE: PRMW) (TSX: PRMW) (the "Company" or "Primo"), a leading provider of water direct to consumers and water filtration services in North America and Europe as well as a leading provider of water dispensers, purified bottled water, and self-service refill drinking water in the U.S. and Canada, today announced that the Company will release its second quarter ended June 27, 2020 financial results before the markets open on Thursday, August 6, 2020.

Primo Water Corporation Logo (CNW Group/Primo Water Corporation)

Primo will host a conference call, to be simultaneously webcast, on Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. A question and answer session will follow management's presentation. To participate, please call the following numbers:

Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call

North America: (888) 231-8191

International: (647) 427-7450

Conference ID: 7191008

This is a live, listen-only dial-in telephone line.

Webcast for Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call

A live audio webcast will be available through the Company's website at www.primowatercorp.com. The webcast will be recorded and archived for playback on the investor relations section of the website for two weeks following the event.

ABOUT PRIMO WATER CORPORATION

Primo Water Corporation is a leading pure-play water solutions provider in North America, Europe and Israel and generates approximately $2.1 billion in annual revenue. Primo operates largely under a recurring razor/razorblade revenue model. The razor in Primo's revenue model is its industry leading line-up of sleek and innovative water dispensers, which are sold through major retailers and online at various price points or leased to customers. The dispensers help increase household penetration which drives recurring purchases of Primo's razorblade offering. Primo's razorblade offering is comprised of Water Direct, Water Exchange, and Water Refill. Through its market leading Water Direct business, Primo delivers sustainable hydration solutions across its 21-country footprint direct to the customer's door, whether at home or to commercial businesses. Through its market leading Water Exchange and Water Refill businesses, Primo offers pre-filled and reusable containers at over 13,000 locations and water refill units at approximately 22,000 locations, respectively. Primo also offers water filtration units across its 21-country footprint representing a top five position.

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Primo's water solutions expand consumer access to purified, spring and mineral water to promote a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle while simultaneously reducing plastic waste and pollution. Primo is committed to its water stewardship standards and is proud to partner with the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) in North America as well as with Watercoolers Europe (WE), which ensure strict adherence to safety, quality, sanitation and regulatory standards for the benefit of consumer protection.

Primo is headquartered in Tampa, Florida (USA). For more information, visit www.primowatercorp.com.

Cision

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SOURCE Primo Water Corporation
MOSCOW  The coronavirus pandemic and Russias stagnating economy are among the challenges facing President Vladimir Putin after a controversial national referendum that paved the way for him to stay in power until 2036, experts have warned.

Putin thanked Russian voters for their support and trust Thursday after election officials confirmed almost 78 percent of the voters backed the constitutional amendments, one of which will see presidential term limits reset, allowing Putin to run for the job again in 2024 and in 2030 if he so chooses.

The result of the vote shows that the vast majority of citizens believe that we can work better. And the so-called expanded government  from municipalities to the president  is obliged to do everything it can to justify the high confidence placed in it by the people, he said in an address on the state-run TV channel Rossiya 1.

Pointing to a high voter turnout of almost 68 percent, Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov had earlier declared the result a triumph.

The Russian leader nonetheless faces a number of challenges, some of which are pretty fundamental, Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told NBC News.

The most immediate is the coronavirus pandemic. Russia has recorded almost 655,000 cases, according to the countrys crisis response center. Only the United States and Brazil have reported more. More than 9,500 people have died from the respiratory illness in Russia.

Perhaps his biggest challenge is the economy, which has been stagnating for almost a decade and led to a slow but steady decline in the majority of the populations standards of living, Trenin said.

It has also been hit hard by plummeting oil prices as people stopped traveling and factories stopped production during the pandemic, lowering the value of the ruble on world markets and affecting prices at home.

In an op-ed published on the website of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Grigory Yudin, a sociologist at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, argued that the true purpose of the referendum  and in particular, publishing the turnout number  served a specific goal for Putin, giving him an instrument of moral pressure to push back on the elite and the bureaucracy.

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Russias political class, he argues, is dissatisfied with the president after two disappointing years that have seen public discontent grow, putting the system on uncertain footing.

Putin was afraid they would begin to doubt his ability to manage the system, Yudin wrote, adding that this is also a tool of pressure on a very skeptical middle class, that Putin is gradually losing, as well as any potential opponents from within the system.

Image: Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally to mark the 5th anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov's murder and to protest against proposed amendments to the country's constitution, in Moscow, Russia (Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters)

The referendum results are meant to demonstrate he still commands the support of a vast majority of the public, Yudin added. If this perception prevails, then this is a good result for Putin.

Wednesdays vote was the final phase in the effort to amend the constitution. The amendments earlier this year already passed votes in both houses of parliament, all 85 regional legislatures, and received the approval of the Russian Supreme court. The vote was a means for the Kremlin to claim a public mandate to make sweeping changes.

The reform package also moved the power to appoint the prime minister from the Kremlin to the lower house of parliament and defined marriage constitutionally as a union between a man and a woman, among other things. But the most important provision simply zeroed presidential term limits while defining them as limited to two terms back to back, rather than for all time.

The Russian opposition and independent observers have cried foul, claiming the results are obviously rigged. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who urged citizens to boycott the referendum and not take part in legitimizing the outcome, called the results a fake and huge lie.

While he had cleared the way to run again for president, the specter of political transition still looms large.

Putin himself hardly believes he can simply rest on his laurels from now until 2036, as some critics suggest, Trenin said. He needs to offer Russians a path forward that will energize them. And all of this will be very hard.
A candidate who has expressed enthusiasm for QAnon knocked off a Trump-endorsed Republican incumbent in Colorados House primary Tuesday night, becoming the latest in a string of victorious GOP candidates who have embraced the conspiracy theory.

Bar owner and gun rights activist Lauren Boebert, 33, defeated five-time incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton in Colorados Third Congressional District, which encompasses the mostly rural western half of the state. Boebert ran to Tiptons right, saying he wasnt supportive enough of President Trump.

Lauren Boebert, who owns Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo., upset five-time incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton in Colorados Republican primary on Tuesday. (Emily Kask/AFP via Getty Images)

Boebert is the owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo., a restaurant where the waitstaff carry holstered handguns. She has been outspoken in her opposition to social distancing lockdowns put in place to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Our freedom and our Constitutional rights are on the ballot this November and Republicans just sent a loud and clear message that they want me there to fight for them, she said in a statement issued from her campaign.

In May, Boebert appeared on a right-wing online show and was asked what she thought of the Q movement.

I am familiar with that, she replied, smiling. Everything Ive heard of Q  I hope that this is real. Because it only means America is getting stronger and better and people are returning to conservative values.

However, Boebert said Wednesday that while she is glad the Justice Department is investigating deep state activities that undermine the President, she denied being a believer in the conspiracy theory. I dont follow QAnon, she told Yahoo News in a statement.

QAnon is a convoluted conspiracy theory that, to some extent, means different things to different people. The gist is that Trump is working behind the scenes to expose and disrupt a vast conspiracy involving nefarious deep state bureaucrats and global elites who may engage in a pedophilia ring.

The narrative is fed by cryptic posts on internet message boards from an anonymous person or persons named Q, who followers believe to be a high-ranking intelligence official, or possibly even Trump himself. Popular YouTube and social media pages promulgate and analyze Qs vague and largely inscrutable messages, turning the obsession into something of a game for many followers.

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Last year, Yahoo News reported that an FBI document had identified QAnon adherents as conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists who presented potential terrorist threats.

The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts, the document states.

An attendee holds a letter Q at a Trump campaign rally in Ohio in August 2018. (Maddie McGarvey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

According to Open Secrets, Boebert won despite raising just $133,000, compared with $1.1 million for Tipton. She ends the primary race with just $13,000 cash on hand, versus over $600,000 for Tipton.

Boebert may be the favorite in Novembers general election because of the districts conservative leanings. She will face Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush, a former county commissioner and state representative who lost to Tipton in 2018. Bush lost by 8 percent, or roughly 27,000 votes.

Trump, who has repeatedly retweeted QAnon content, congratulated Boebert on Twitter after her win. His son Eric posted a QAnon graphic to Instagram in June before deleting it.

Although the president has never explicitly said he supports QAnon, he has embraced other conspiracy theories. Trump was a leading proponent of birtherism, the false claim that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya. And during the 2016 campaign he repeatedly floated the baseless notion that the father of a GOP primary rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, was somehow involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

When asked about the presence of QAnon supporters at a Trump rally in 2018, then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sidestepped the question.

The president condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against another individual, and certainly doesnt support groups that would promote that type of behavior, Sanders said at a White House briefing. Weve been clear about that a number of times since the beginning of the administration.

The National Republican Congressional Committee expressed no concerns about Boeberts QAnon sympathies when asked Tuesday night.

Well get back to you when Cheri Bustos and the DCCC disavow dangerous conspiracy theorists like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff who have pushed without evidence their wild-eyed claims that the President of the United States of America is actually a secret Russian double agent under control of the Kremlin, NRCC spokesperson Bob Salera told HuffPost.

Boeberts QAnon support pales in comparison to that of some other Republicans who have found success so far in 2020. Marjorie Taylor Greene earned the most votes in Junes primary in Georgias 14th District but will still face neurosurgeon John Cowan, a pro-Trump Republican, in an Aug. 11 primary runoff.

Q is a patriot. ... He is someone that very much loves his country, and hes on the same page as us, and he is very pro-Trump, Greene said in a 2017 video posted to YouTube, adding, Now theres a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.

Marjorie Taylor Greene earned the most votes in Junes primary in Georgias 14th District. (Marjorie Taylor Greene for Congress)

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported in August 2019 that Greene posted a series of tweets defending QAnon, including one encouraging her followers to message her with questions so she can walk you through the whole thing. Those tweets are now deleted, but Greene appeared in another video where she called Q a patriot and worth listening to. In 2018, she also tweeted #GreatAwakening  a pro-QAnon hashtag  at Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Greene was eventually disavowed by Republican leaders after Politico surfaced Facebook videos in which she expressed racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views. In the videos, she suggested that Muslims dont belong in government, said Black people are held as slaves to the Democratic Party and called Jewish Democratic donor George Soros a Nazi.

These comments are appalling, and Leader McCarthy has no tolerance for them, said Drew Florio, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.

If Greene were to win the runoff, she may have a solid chance at heading to Congress, as the 14th is a heavily Republican district that spans the western edge of the state. Trump won 75 percent of the vote in the district in 2016.

In May, former Republican county chairwoman Jo Rae Perkins won the U.S. Senate primary in Oregon, earning a chance to unseat Democratic incumbent Jeff Merkley, who is a heavy favorite in the race. Perkins made multiple references to QAnon on Election Day.

Where we go one, we go all, she said in a tweet published prior to the results coming in, quoting a popular slogan from the conspiracy theory. I stand with President Trump, I stand with Q and the team. Thank you Anons, and thank you patriots. Together, we can save our republic.

During a victory speech live-streamed to social media, Perkins concluded by saying, As we Q people like to say, Where we go one, we go all.

The next day, she deleted both of the election night videos containing QAnon references but said she regretted it.

Am I bummed I took it down? Perkins told Oregon Public Broadcasting. Yeah, I am really bummed. But I also hired a consultant whose job it is to protect me.

According to tracking from the liberal watchdog group Media Matters, at least 59 former or current Republican candidates appear to have voiced support for the conspiracy theory so far this cycle. The Greene and Perkins campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
RDIF and ChemRar have produced the first 100,000 courses of Avifavir

In June, Avifavir was delivered across Russia's 35 regions

More than 50 countries have expressed interest in importing Avifavir

MOSCOW, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia's sovereign wealth fund, and ChemRar Group produced the first 100,000 courses of the Russian coronavirus drug Avifavir in June, significantly exceeding initially planned production levels of 60,000 courses.

Russian Direct Investment Fund (PRNewsfoto/Russian Direct Investment Fund)

In June, the drug was delivered across Russia's 35 regions and to the Republic of Belarus. Agreement has also been reached for deliveries of Avifavir to the Republic of Kazakhstan in the near future. In total, more than 100,000 courses will be produced in July.

The joint venture established by RDIF and ChemRar Group provided an additional opportunity to increase production capacity threefold, up to 300,000 courses per month, which will satisfy domestic demand for Avifavir in the Russian Federation and enable the start of supplies to the international market.

On May 29, 2020, Avifavir received a registration certificate from Russia's Ministry of Health and became the first Favipiravir-based drug in the world approved for the treatment of COVID-19. On June 3, 2020, the Ministry of Health included Avifavir in the latest seventh edition of the guidelines for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of new coronavirus infection COVID-19. Avifavir has proven effective in clinical trials, disrupting the reproduction mechanisms of coronavirus.

RDIF and ChemRar have seen significant demand for the drug from abroad. In particular, negotiations are underway on the supply of Avifavir to a number of Latin American countries. In addition, CIS countries, the Middle East and other global regions have expressed interest in acquiring Avifavir.

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said:

"Avifavir is one of the world's most effective coronavirus drugs and produces better results than its peers, including the US drug Remdesivir made by Gilead Sciences. Given the US authorities' decision to purchase almost 100% of the manufactured Remdesivir in the coming months and the shortage of effective drugs on the global market, Russia is ready to help other countries in the fight against coronavirus and begin exports of Avifavir. The Russian drug is several times cheaper and its tablet form makes it easy to take allowing therapy at the early stages of coronavirus infection. More than 50 countries have already expressed an interest in the drug. RDIF and ChemRar intend to expand Avifavir's production and widen its supply geographically over the coming months."

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Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is Russia's sovereign wealth fund established in 2011 to make equity co-investments, primarily in Russia, alongside reputable international financial and strategic investors. RDIF acts as a catalyst for direct investment in the Russian economy. RDIF's management company is based in Moscow. Currently, RDIF has experience of the successful joint implementation of more than 80 projects with foreign partners totaling more than RUB1.9 tn and covering 95% of the regions of the Russian Federation. RDIF portfolio companies employ more than 800,000 people and generate revenues which equate to more than 6% of Russia's GDP. RDIF has established joint strategic partnerships with leading international co-investors from more than 18 countries that total more than $40 bn. Further information can be found at www.rdif.ru

ChemRar Group unites R&D service and investment companies in the field of innovative pharmaceuticals for the development and commercialization of innovative medicines, diagnostics, preventive care and new treatments of life-threatening diseases in Russia and abroad. Further information can be found at http://en.chemrar.ru/

Logo: https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/4123701e72776e435a160a966669b13b

Logo: https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/fc7b6213da8b9f2f58b852388b1205bc
In response to bipartisan efforts to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and James Lankford have proposed eliminating a different federal holiday "in exchange."

The choice?

Columbus Day.

We support celebrating emancipation with a federal holiday but believe we should eliminate a current holiday in exchange. We chose Columbus Day as a holiday that is lightly celebrated, and least disruptive to Americans schedules, Johnson, of Wisconsin, said in a statement Wednesday.

Johnson and Lankford of Oklahoma will be seeking to amend a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Johnson said adding to the number of federal holidays would give federal workers an additional day of paid leave and increase the government's costs. He called his amendment a "counter-proposal that does not put us further in debt.

Exclusive USA TODAY poll: Biden widens his lead, but Trump keeps the edge on enthusiasm

People march during a Juneteenth event Friday, June 19, 2020, in Milwaukee. Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state and ensure all enslaved people be freed, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. (AP Photo/Morry Gash) ORG XMIT: WIMG115

Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, commemorates the end of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation had outlawed slavery more than two years earlier, but enforcement largely was a function of where Union troops had advanced. On June 19, 1865, federal orders finally reached  and were proclaimed  in Texas.

Efforts to make it a federal holiday have intensified amid the protests against racial inequality in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

Columbus Day honors Christopher Columbus and has been recognized as a federal holiday since 1934. Originally, it fell on Oct. 12, but President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 moved it to the second Monday in October.

For many Italian-American groups and communities, its a day set aside to celebrate their heritage. But it has been a source of growing controversy in recent years because of the killing and enslavement of indigenous people in the Americas by European explorers and settlers.

USA TODAY poll: The greatest country in the world? On the 4th of July, a moment of reckoning for the USA

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Last year, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers by executive order designated Indigenous Peoples Day to run on the same day as the federal holiday. Earlier this year, Chicago Public Schools stopped recognizing Columbus Day entirely, instead giving students off the same day and calling it Indigenous Peoples Day, drawing objections from Italian American groups.

A spokesman for Johnson said the senator was not denigrating Christopher Columbus or making a value judgment about his legacy, only seeking to avoid increasing the number of federal holidays for cost reasons.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Juneteenth would replace Columbus Day as federal holiday, bill says
Workers stood at the entrance armed with a clicker to count patrons and keep capacity at 50% and a temperature gun to check for fevers. People were turned away both for high temperatures and once the bar reached its limit. Not all customers were wearing masks, but employees were and people posted at the door even wore gloves. Bartenders stopped serving drinks every 30 minutes or so and wiped down bar surfaces to disinfect them.
Police detain a protester after spraying pepper spray during a protest in Causeway Bay before the annual handover march in Hong Kong, - AP

They had been warned that merely chanting a slogan could risk prosecution under Hong Kongs brutal new security law.

But still the protesters came, first in their hundreds, then in thousands. One Hong Kong, One Nation! they shouted in unison outside the high end malls of the citys Causeway Bay, waving now-outlawed Hong Kong independence flags.

As riot police gathered, they raised their hands with their palms held high  a common symbol of year long pro-democracy protests that Beijing now intends to crush.

One group tore down a banner announcing the new law and stomped it into the ground. Police officers in riot gear and armed with rubber bullets were stationed on the corners of the citys major streets, with instructions to immediately disperse any demonstrators, who had been forbidden from attending the usual pro-democracy march on the anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China.

The force moved swiftly to break-up gatherings, targeting protesters and journalists with a water cannon firing bursts of liquid laced with a stinging pepper solution.

Shortly before 2pm, a man wearing a Free Hong Kong shirt became the first person to be arrested under the sweeping law enacted late on Tuesday.

A man found in possession of a Hong Kong independence flag became the first person to be arrested under Beijing's new national security law - HK Police/Twitter

A search had also yielded an independence flag, the police said in a statement, confirming that certain political views and symbols had become illegal overnight.

By early evening, eight more people had been arrested on suspicion of breaking the new law, which threatens life sentences for a range of ill-defined crimes including terrorism, subversion, secession and collusion with foreign forces.

Three of the detained were women who had been caught with leaflets showing independence messages.

Anyone who organises, plans, commits or participants in committing secession or undermining national unification shall be guilty of an offence, clarified the Hong Kong Police.

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As the unrest escalated, protesters built barricades out of poles and traffic cones and dug up paving stones to block traffic on major roads.

A total of 370 protesters were arrested, while the police said seven officers were injured, including one who was stabbed and three injured after being hit by a man on a motorbike.

Early on Wednesday, Zhang Xiaoming, executive deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, Chinas top executive body, said suspects arrested under the law would be tried in the mainland.

The threat of being extradited and disappeared into Chinas opaque justice system is chilling to Hong Kongs protesters, but many remained undeterred, and vowed to carry on their fight for basic freedoms.

I guess at this point, when Hong Kong people are crushed by hopelessness and helplessness, coming out to the streets is the simplest thing to do to stand and walk by each other in support, keeping our stance against oppressive rulers and their minions, said Ms Tsang, 23, a protesting law student.

I feel it even more prominently that we need to show the world how we feel on this symbolic day, that we shouldnt stay at home out of fear, she said.

Anti-national security law protesters march at the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain in Hong Kong - Tyrone Hu

Beijings swift and secretive enactment of the law, which critics say heralds a new authoritarian era for the Chinese-ruled city, came into force on the 23rd anniversary of Britains handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

Mr Zhang described it as a birthday gift, while Carrie Lam, the citys chief executive, defended it as constitutional, lawful, sensible and reasonable.

The law allows Beijing to establish a new security office in Hong Kong, with its own law enforcement personnel, and to take over prosecution in very serious cases.

The new law might be fairly described as an ideological and legal takeover. Whilst professing to respect the human rights and civil liberties preserved in the [Hong Kong] Basic Law, the sweeping and ill-defined provisions install a new legal landscape and a political and judicial structure loyal to Beijing, said Schona Jolly QC, Chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England & Wales.

The British government reiterated its strong objections to the law on Wednesday, with Boris Johnson, the prime minister, calling the enactment and imposition of this national security law constitute a clear and serious breach of the handover agreement that guaranteed the citys way of life until 2047.

The UK has now pledged to move forward with a promise to open the path to citizenship for up to three million Hong Kong residents eligible for a British National Overseas (BNO) passport.

British concerns have been echoed around the globe, with the European Union, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and the US among allies who have condemned Beijings move.

Back on the streets of Hong Kong, protesters admitted they were considering leaving their homeland in the wake of the new law.

Eric, a 30-year-old designer, said: I still need to come out today and do as much as possible. I feel we are truly ruled by China now. I have prepared to leave Hong Kong but I still want to stay here.

"Here is where I have family and friends, and I still dont have the courage to leave.
John Lewis in the documentary "John Lewis: Good Trouble." (Ben Arnon / Magnolia Pictures)

It is intensely comforting to hear Rep. John Lewis say, We will redeem the soul of America  we shall overcome. It's the note on which director Dawn Porter leaves us at the end of her affectionate documentary portrait of the Georgia congressman, John Lewis: Good Trouble. Lewis is indeed the good kind of trouble, and he's a good time too, as evidenced by the friendly greetings he has for anyone who stops to thank him for his work, in airports and on the campaign trail, and in the viral video of the 80-year-old congressman and hero of the civil rights movement dancing to Happy by Pharrell Williams.

Lewis' youthful mugshot is an indelible image (and the poster for the film), alongside memorable photographs of him with his buttoned-up tan overcoat, backpack slung over his shoulders, making the march from Selma to Montgomery with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965. But unlike King, Malcolm X and other assassinated civil rights figures, Lewis isn't frozen in time as a symbol. He's a living, legislating link to our recent history, and a reminder that the battles fought for desegregation and voting rights weren't all that long ago. He's also a living reminder that the fight for the landmark legislation that is the Voting Rights Act is a constant one, and one of the most important fights of this era.

Porter's film follows Lewis throughout the midterm elections of 2018 as he stumps for Stacey Abrams, Beto O'Rourke and Colin Allred. It proves to be a stirring backdrop for the discussion of voting rights, especially in Abrams' election, where Brian Kemp ended up winning the Georgia gubernatorial race amid allegations of voter suppression. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down key protections in the Voting Rights Act, allowing states to enact what some would call Jim Crow-era voting restrictions.

For Lewis, the fight for voting rights has marked his life, his career and his history. As he says, A vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool in a democratic society. In archival footage, conservative activist Paul Weyrich declares, I don't want everybody to vote, which is disturbingly close to rhetoric from current right-wing politicians. It's an issue that remains critical in this election year, when voting rights have already been infringed upon in primaries during an unprecedented pandemic.

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Good Trouble is a lovely tribute to Lewis, with so many moments from his story remaining urgent and relevant, especially his carefully planned, executed and sustained civil rights organizing and activism. As frosh Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib express, Lewis and others provided a blueprint for how to do this work, and in Lewis' case especially, how to sustain it.

Porter favors heartwarming moments like the Happy viral dance, friendly interactions and loving testimonials from Lewis' friends and colleagues, but there are moments where one wishes her film had more bite. It's an interesting choice to show Lewis watching archival footage of his past, but it never really achieves anything particularly profound. However, Lewis is such a towering figure in American history, and American politics, that any salute to him is a worthy one. We all have so much to thank him for.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
The mayor of Richmond, Va., ordered the removal of a statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson on Wednesday, and city authorities said additional confederate monuments will be removed in the near future.

Richmond mayor Levar Stoneys initiative comes amid massive nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd, an African-American man killed during arrest by Minneapolis police officers. Protesters have toppled various statues of historical figures including Christopher Columbus, however monuments to the Confederacy have come under particular scrutiny because of the history of slavery in southern states that chose to secede from the Union.

The Berlin Wall fell, but also the system fell with it, Stoney, a Democrat, told a crowd assembled to watch city workers remove the Jackson statue. Now for us, as elected leaders, alongside our community, its our job to rip out the systemic racism that is found in everything we do  from government, to health care, to the criminal justice system.

Stoney used emergency powers to order the statues removal after the City Council delayed a vote on removing four Confederate monuments in Richmond.

Lamont Bagby, a Democrat representing Richmond in the Virginia General Assembly, applauded Stoneys decision.

The tearing down of statues by activists puts their health and safety at great risk, and I support his decision to mitigate those risks, Bagby, who is chairman of the states General Black Caucus, said in a statement. Virginia Republican Party chairman Jack Wilson countered that Richmond is no longer run by the rule of law  it has devolved into anarchy, and accused city authorities of caving to the mob.

In addition to monuments, momentum from the George Floyd demonstrations has caused a reckoning over Confederate symbols, including its flag. The Mississippi state government has approved the removal of the emblem of the Confederacy from its state flag, while NASCAR has banned spectators from waving the Confederate flag at races.

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The debate is playing out in the federal government as well, with a push to rename military bases, including Fort Bragg, that are named after Confederate figures. Senators Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) have introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would create a commission to weigh renaming those bases.

More from National Review
Caroline Aherne's Royle Family co-stars Sue Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson have paid tribute to her on the fourth anniversary of her tragic death.

The actor and comedian died on 2 July 2016 at the age of 52 following a two-year battle with lung cancer.

Appearing on Loose Women via video call on Thursday, Johnston showed the camera a painting of Aherne she'd received from Tomlinson after their co-star's passing.

Read more: Ricky Tomlinson records Ken Dodd tune

"It's at the bottom of the stairs when I come down every morning and it's the first thing I see," she said while Tomlinson added: "I love her."

Actress and comedian Caroline Aherne at the South Bank Awards, at the Savoy Hotel in London. The awards recognise achievements in all fields of the arts ranging from opera and dance to cinema and TV drama. (Photo by Fiona Hanson - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

The Jim Royle actor went on to share a story from their time spent filming the series as he remembered his friend and colleague.

He said: "She was wonderful wasn't she? But she was cheeky. She was really, really cheeky! She phoned me once one Friday night and said: 'Come up to Manchester in the morning you've got to do a voiceover, a bit of dubbing.

"I went in and her and Craig [Cash] are sitting in the seats watching the screen and they said: 'We want you to do this little retake. They're carrying you up the stairs and all you've got on is your vest and your Y-fronts.

The cast of the BBC comedy series 'The Royle Family' arrive for the premiere of the film "Maybe Baby", at the Odeon cinema Leicester Square, London. * (L-R) Craig Cash, Ricky Tomlinson, Caroline Aherne, Sue Johnston and Ralph Little. (Photo by Peter Jordan - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

"They said: Well, when we were watching the rushes one of your testicles was hanging out'," he went on.

Tomlinson added Aherne told him he was "costing the BBC a fortune". "She said 'what have you got to say about that?' and I said 'was it the big one or the small one?'."

Read more: Ricky Tomlinson unimpressed by modern comedians

Aherne created, wrote and starred in the BBC series alongside collaborator Craig Cash. Their pair also provided the voiceover for Gogglebox, although Cash took over the role permanently in April 2016.

She was also well known for her sharp-tongued character Mrs Merton and had roles in The Fast Show.
Drew Angerer/Getty

We have reached the point where not only do Donald Trumps scandals, crimes and abuses anger and disturb us, but they begin to boggle our minds. There is almost too much to take in. Few instances of our president disgracing his office illustrate this so well as the newly exposed scandal concerning the bounties Russian military intelligence put on the heads of American and allied troops in Afghanistan.

These bounties are not an isolated incident, but are linked to multiple ongoing patterns of wrongdoing, corruption, incompetence and unfitness that extend throughout the entire Trump presidency and even into his campaign for the office.

The facts behind this case are still emerging, but we know a few key details from reliable accounts in multiple trusted news organizations. The White House learned of the Russian military intelligence program to offer cash bounties to the Taliban for kills of Americans or our allies early in 2019. Then National Security Adviser John Bolton personally briefed the president last year on the intelligence detailing the Russian program. This year, reports on the program appeared in the Presidents Daily Brief on at least two occasions. Yet information about the Russian bounty program was not shared with Congress, as the law mandates.

When the story finally broke, the White House initially claimed it was fake news. When the facts became too widely known to be denied, the president first briefed not Congress but only Congressional Republicans at the White House, contrary to all existing norms in such matters. The White House has argued this week that the president was not briefed on these matters. When that was disproven, it argued that he did not recall the briefing (on Tuesday afternoon, the White House said that Trump had just been briefed on the information that had been in his daily written intelligence briefing in February). Leakers were decried in an effort to distract from the core story. But at no point have the core facts of the matter been denied.

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Trump Officials Didnt Want to Tell Him About the Russian Bounties

Since Boltons briefing, Trump has remained in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Not only is there no evidence that the U.S. protested the program or did anything to stop it, but Trump sought to reward the Russians with attendance at the G7 Summit that was to be held in the U.S. and by advocating for them to join that group. He also invited the Taliban to Camp David, although the invitation was later rescinded.

So we are left, based on news reports and White House responses to grapple with several competing potential scandals. There is either the potential that such a program existed and the president was not briefed about it, or the scandal that the president was briefed but ignored or forgot about it. There is also the scandal that the administration knew of this Russian-Taliban collaboration and did not share the information with the Gang of Eight or the intelligence committees in Congress. We should not forget in this welter of scandals the scandal that should be associated with them lying to the American public when the story broke, of their continuing to lie, of their continuing to target leakers and whistleblowers who show more patriotism than the president.

But of course, none of these scandals exist in a void. If we were to suffer the presidents ignorance of the facts, it would not be the first time. Nor would it be a first for officials in the administration not to want to share information with the president that he did not like. We have often seen the president ignore intelligence with which he was presented. Likewise, an enduring theme of this presidency is the president rewarding Russia despite regular evidence being presented that they are an active enemy of the U.S., attacking us via every means available to them.

Does this White House lie? This president? Constantly? Do they try to sidestep their obligations to Congress and by extension to the American people? The answer to all of these is yes. Just this past week it was revealed they are seeking to find ways to avoid needing Congressional approval for overseas arms sales.

Would this be the first scandal pertaining to Bolton? The first instance in which the presidents corrupted intelligence community leadership placed political loyalty ahead of their sworn duty to the nation? The first lies from Ratcliffe or Meadows or McEnany? The answer to all of these is no.

Nor of course would this be the first instance in which this fatally flawed president of the United States was revealed to be unfit for his office, cavalier about American lives, contemptuous of the truth, and of Congress, and of his oath of office. This would not be the first time that fair-minded Americans would conclude that this president had betrayed the country, that he in fact was a traitor.

As such, shocking as this weeks revelations have been, as much as we have yet to learn about this case, its greatest impact comes when we see it as a prism showing the manifold defects of this president, his presidency, this Administration, its defenders and supporters on Capitol Hill and those overseas.

This is a man helped into office by our enemies, who chose to serve those enemies rather than his country. Selling us out, putting us at risk and sacrificing American lives is what he does.

The tragic loss of the lives of our soldiers is part of a legacy of blood and failed leadership that extends from the cages full of children at the border to the unnecessary deaths in Puerto Rico, from the butchered corpse of Jamal Khashoggi to the tens of thousands who need not have died in this pandemic to these soldiers and marines who deaths were paid for by the presidents closest ally in the world.

The most shocking part of this complex, many-layered, major scandal is that no aspect of it is new, none stands apart from that which came before or that which is likely yet to come, nothing about it is shocking at all.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Vladimir Putin shows his ID to an election official before casting his ballot at a polling station in Moscow - Alexei Druzhinin/AFP

The Kremlin has overwhelmingly won Wednesdays vote on constitutional changes that would let Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, stay in power for 16 more years.

Russias Central Election Commission on Thursday morning unveiled a full preliminary count of the vote, showing a staggering 78 per cent backing the constitutional amendments. The turnout was reported at 65 percent.

The overwhelming support for essentially allowing Mr Putin, 67, to rule for life stands in sharp contrast with recent opinion polls.

Approval ratings for Mr Putin, who has ruled Russia for 20 years, have been declining for years before hitting an all-time low of 59 percent in April, according to the Levada Centre pollster, compared to nearly 80 percent in 2018 when he won re-election.

Polling on constitutional amendments indicated the Russian people would be less enthusiastic about handing him a mandate to rule until he is 83 than the crushing victory suggests.

Mr Putin on Thursday thanked Russians in a televised address for "people's trust" and spoke about the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, saying that a new Russia still needs "domestic stability and time to strengthen our country and its institutions."

The vote, which included over 200 amendments including vague pledges to improve health care, was not bound by Russian election laws.

Independent observers claim the Kremlin has been given a free hand in vote-rigging as a result.

A protester with "No" written over his face mask sits down during a rally against constitutional amendments in Moscow - Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Golos, one of Russias most respected election monitors groups, in a scathing statement on Thursday condemned the nationwide voting as something that will go down in history of our country as an example of encroaching on the sovereignty of people.

Rules that were deliberately designed by the amendments authors and organisers of the vote made it impossible to convey peoples free will, Golos said.

The results of the popular vote have been rigged, and they do not match the results announced by the Russian Election Commission.

Story continues

Ella Pamfilova, the commissions chief, said on Thursday that she was not aware of any violations that could have significantly altered the outcome of the vote.

Kremlin watchers expected that coercion to vote and vote-rigging would help authorities to deliver a comfortable win for Mr Putin but the reported 78 per cent vote for the amendments still came as a shock for many opposition supporters.

The exact purpose of demonstrating such a staggering approval for Presidents Putins rule for life was to intimidate people and to show to those who voted against that they are a miserable minority, political analyst Ekaterina Schulmann said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Thursday morning.
Rylan Clark-Neal during the Celebrity Big Brother final 2018 at Elstree Studios on September 10, 2018 in Borehamwood, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

Rylan Clark-Neal believes he won't ever be content with his looks despite the lengths he's gone to in order to change his appearance over the years.

The presenter has been open about the methods he's used to alter his looks, including dying his naturally red hair black and having dental veneers.

I definitely feel more confident, but I dont think Ill ever be content," The 31-year-old told The Mirror. "Thats just who I am. Ive realised that maybe Ill never be content and thats all right.

Read more: Davina McCall and Rylan Clark-Neal pay tribute to Jade Goody

Clark-Neal went on to add that people don't "need to be vilified" for changing things they are unhappy with, although he admitted to going too far when it came to lip fillers.

Rylan Clark attends the Royal World Premiere of 'Skyfall' at Royal Albert Hall on October 23, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage)

He shared: Sometimes Ive gone too far with procedures  when I was on The X Factor I had my lips overfilled  but that is a learning curve.

"I wouldnt say go and have a face full of filler, but as long as youre doing it safely, theres nothing wrong with wanting to change things.

The former X Factor contestant currently hosts You Are What You Wear which sees participants undergo a makeover with help from a team of stylists.

It's one of the many hosting gigs he's picked up over the past few years as he's also the face of the Ready Steady Cook and Supermarket Sweep revivals.

Rylan Clark (centre) and his boyfriend Dan Neal (left) walk together as they accompany children from the Carers Trust and a community hub in a deprived area of east London on a charity day trip to Disneyland Paris. (Photo by Chris Radburn/PA Images via Getty Images)

Most recently, he's been hosting Big Brother's best ever episodes specials alongside the programme's original presenter Davina McCall.

Read more: Rylan doesnt mind reading negative comments about himself

Shortly after his appearance on The X Factor, Clark-Neal went on the win Celebrity Big Brother 11 and subsequently hosted Big Brother's Bit on the Side.

He wed Dan Neal in 2015, who had been a participant in the 14th civilian series of the show.
San Francisco police chief William Scott looks on during a press conference at San Francisco police headquarters: (2020 Getty Images)

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) will stop releasing mugshots of people who have been arrested in an attempt to stop racial bias.

San Francisco chief of police William Scott released a statement on Wednesday that said the citys force will only release booking photos in necessary circumstances.

He said they will only be provided when their release is necessary to warn the public of imminent danger or to enlist the publics assistance in locating individuals, including at-risk persons.

A booking photo is taken of someone after they have been arrested, and is often published online and used in articles by news organisations.

Mr Scott said that the photos are often released to the public, despite the fact that not everybody arrested for a crime is subsequently convicted of it.

Jack Glaser, a public policy professor at the University of California Berkeley, told NBC that data shows that African Americans are more likely to have their cases dismissed after they have been arrested.

That may be just part and parcel of the same issue that police will stop and search blacks at a lower threshold of suspicion in the first place and so, their arrests are more likely to be unsubstantiated, Mr Glaser said.

The chief echoed Mr Glasers comments in his statement, and said that the citys department has decided to ban mugshots to try and stop stereotyping and racial bias.

This policy emerges from compelling research suggesting that the widespread publication of police booking photos in the news and on social media creates an illusory correlation for viewers that fosters racial bias and vastly overstates the propensity of black and brown men to engage in criminal behaviour, Mr Scott wrote in his statement.

The policy has been announced amid a renewed discussion around racial bias and police brutality against African Americans, following the death of George Floyd.

Protests have taken place in every state in the US following the death of Mr Floyd, who died after his neck was knelt on by Derek Chauvin, who at the time was a Minneapolis police officer, and has now been charged with second degree murder and manslaughter.

Story continues

Protesters have called for police reform across the country to tackle bias and institutionalised racism.

By implementing this groundbreaking new policy today, SFPD is taking a stand that walks the walk on implicit bias while affirming a core principle of procedural justice  that those booked on suspicion of a crime are nonetheless presumed innocent of it, Mr Scott said.

Police commissioner John Hamasaki first raised the policy idea in February, and he said on Wednesday that it is a key step in the departments attempts to tackle racial bias.

Theres a lot of good reasons why mugshots shouldnt be posted, Mr Hamasaki told the San Francisco Chronicle. I dont see any good reasons, outside of the exceptions that are in there, to post them.

He added: It might seem like a small step but it really is, I think, a key part of reframing the narrative on how we view black and brown individuals in this country  removing that method of criminalising them.

Read more

Minnesota jail only let white staff guard officer who knelt on Floyd
If Marvel Studios ever runs out of superhero stories, they may want to contact The Scavengers.

Gina Bopp, a woman from Queens, New York, lost her engagement ring in the ocean while spending a day at Rockaway Beach with friends on Monday.

Bopp was certain theyd shed never see her ring again after searching for eight hours and contacted Merrill Kazanjian of Metal Detecting NYC to help locate the lost item.

I went on Amazon and bought a fake one, because I thought theres no way Im going to get another one, Bopp said of the lost ring to CBS 2 New York.

Kazanjian knew exactly who to call, a group of treasure hunting enthusiasts who were happy to help out. Enter, The Scavengers.

A group of treasure hunting enthusiasts located a lost engagement ring at Rockaway Beach. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

I was at work but these are the type of moments you want to help out, Scavengers member Louis DeFeo said.

Kazanjian has been keenly interested in metal detecting since 2012 and hosts a YouTube channel titled MetalDetectingNYC. Along with being a key member of the Scavengers, he is scheduled to speak at an October 2020 metal detecting conference called Gone Diggin Beach Blast.

After 40 minutes of conducting an extensive search, Scavengers member Tracy Behling located the ring entrenched a foot and a half deep into the beach.

That is by far the coolest thing I ever found, Behling said.

It goes to show that not all hope is lost and you can bet that Bopp will certainly have a cool story or two to tell.

I feel like I have some good angels and you guys now are them, too, on Earth, Bopp said.
Gilead Sciences, based in Foster City, Calif., has repurposed its Ebola drug remdesivir for COVID-19 treatment. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

The American pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences is coming under scrutiny for agreements that activists say will restrict global access to remdesivir, an experimental antiviral drug that has shown promise in treating COVID-19.

The Foster City, Calif.-based company has signed confidential licensing deals with nine pharmaceutical manufacturers  including seven in India  that would prevent the generic version of the drug from being distributed in dozens of countries, including the U.S., that account for nearly half the worlds population.

Activists and civil society organizations say the licenses allow Gilead to control the global supply of its patented drug even as the World Health Organization warns the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a new and dangerous phase.

Although the terms of the licenses have not been publicly disclosed, Gilead has said they allow for a cheaper, generic form of remdesivir to be distributed in 127 countries, including nearly all of the worlds poorest nations.

But the agreements exclude countries with some of the worst coronavirus outbreaks  including the U.S., Brazil, Russia, Britain and Peru  leading to allegations that Gilead aims to sell only its much costlier, name-brand version of the drug in middle-income and wealthy nations that are desperate for the treatment.

These bilateral licenses  are highly restrictive in their application, said Brook Baker, a professor of law at Northeastern University. Gilead excluded these countries because they have commercial potential and because Gilead wants to reserve the right to prevent competition and charge higher prices.

Gilead did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

The company has faced criticism for pricing remdesivir at $390 a vial for governments  or $2,340 per patient for a standard, five-day course  and $520 for U.S. insurance companies, or $3,120 per patient.

The company says the prices are fair when compared with the cost of a longer hospital stay. But critics contend that because Gilead received about $70 million in federal funds to develop the drug, the prices are unfairly high.

Story continues

Gilead Sciences chief executive Daniel O'Day speaks at a meeting with President Trump at the White House in March. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

One of the Indian companies that has negotiated a license with Gilead, Hetero Labs, has said it will price its generic version at about $71 per vial  still out of reach for many patients in the developing world. A study conducted by Andrew Hill, a drug pricing specialist at the University of Liverpool, estimated that remdesevir could be made for just a few dollars per treatment course.

Remdesivir, originally designed to treat Ebola, has been the subject of intense interest since the National Institutes of Health reported in April that the drug shortened the average recovery time of a COVID-19 patient by four days in a clinical trial. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug for emergency use.

With a COVID-19 vaccine believed to be months away  at best  medical experts have identified remdesivir as one of the few effective treatments for a pandemic that has claimed more than half a million lives. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the results of the clinical trial a really quite important milestone.

This week the U.S. government announced it had bought up almost all 500,000 treatment courses that Gilead expects to produce through September. That leaves Gilead's licenses with nine generic drug makers  including companies in Egypt and Pakistan  the best hope for patients in the rest of the world to access the drug.

India has the worlds largest generic-drug industry and manufactures some 80% of the drugs sold in the developing world. The country gained a reputation as the pharmacy of the poor by driving down the cost of anti-HIV treatment during the AIDS pandemic, thanks to heavy competition among domestic drug makers.

Experts said that by granting licenses to a limited number of companies that are authorized to sell only in certain markets, Gilead would retain control over the global price and marketing of the drug.

The licenses are an attempt to contain the competition by creating an oligopoly, said K.M. Gopakumar, legal advisor for the Third World Network, a think tank that focuses on the pharmaceutical industry. Gilead not only retains the profitable markets like developed countries, but also eliminates the potential introduction of low-cost drugs into the American market.

As the pandemic continues to rage in poor countries in Asia and Africa, there is growing concern about ensuring an equitable supply of treatment. In March, 150 civil society organizations, including the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, wrote to Gilead expressing concern over the companys attempts to restrict access to remdesivir.

If remdesivir is found to be effective and is approved, Gilead should not be allowed to enforce its patents nor claim any other types of exclusivities over remdesivir, the group wrote. No company should profiteer off this pandemic.

Activists also point to another aspect of the licenses: Gilead doesnt receive royalties, but only until another drug or a vaccine is approved to treat or prevent COVID-19. Once that occurs, although the size of the payments hasnt been disclosed, it is clear that such royalties will add to the price of remdesivir, said Baker, the law professor.

Arguing that private companies have too much control over drug access, a 2016 panel convened by the United Nations secretary-general recommended expanding public funding of research and clinical trials and eliminating monopoly rights over drugs. Health experts say a global treaty is needed, similar to the tobacco control framework adopted at the World Health Organization in 2003 that created universal standards stating the dangers of tobacco and rules governing its production, sale and taxation.

But activists say the U.S., backed by major pharmaceutical companies, has stymied such a treaty for the research and production of drugs and vaccines.

Though there are many COVID drugs and vaccines under development, there is no guarantee that there would be equitable access, Gopakumar said. The best way forward to create a legally binding global treaty.

Krishnan is a special correspondent.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Bracy said he believes Trump sold out soldiers to Russian President Vladimir Putin and that Trump knew about the bounties on soldiers for six months. Bracy is calling this situation Bountygate and thinks it should go down in history alongside Watergate. Watergate is used to describe the fall of U.S. President Richard Nixon who resigned following a cover-up of a break-in and wiretapping at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.s Watergate complex.
SEOUL, South Korea, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SK hynix Inc. (or 'the Company,' www.skhynix.com) announced that it has started the full-scale mass-production of high-speed DRAM, 'HBM2E', only ten months after the Company announced the development of the new product in August last year.

Figure 1. SK hynix Starts Mass-Production of High-Speed DRAM, HBM2E

SK hynix's HBM2E supports over 460GB (Gigabyte) per second with 1,024 I/Os (Inputs/Outputs) based on the 3.6Gbps (gigabits-per-second) speed performance per pin. It is the fastest DRAM solution in the industry, being able to transmit 124 FHD (full-HD) movies (3.7GB each) per second. The density is 16GB by vertically stacking eight 16Gb chips through TSV (Through Silicon Via) technology, and it is more than doubled from the previous generation (HBM2).

HBM2E boasts high-speed, high-capacity, and low-power characteristics; it is an optimal memory solution for the next-generation AI (Artificial Intelligence) systems including Deep Learning Accelerator and High-Performance Computing, which all require high-level computing performance. Furthermore, it is expected to be applied to the Exascale supercomputer  a high-performance computing system which can perform calculations a quintillion times per second  that will lead the research of next-generation basic and applied science, such as climate changes, bio-medics, and space exploration.

"SK hynix has been in the forefront of technology innovation that contributes to human civilization with achievements including the world's first development of HBM products," said Jonghoon Oh, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at SK hynix. "With the full-scale mass-production of HBM2E, we will continue to strengthen our presence in the premium memory market and lead the fourth industrial revolution."

Annotation

HBM (High Bandwidth Memory)

- High performance, high bandwidth memory products that adopt TSV technology to dramatically accelerate data processing speed over traditional DRAMs.

TSV (Through Silicon Via)

- An interconnecting technology that connects the upper and lower chips through thousands of fine holes on DRAM chip.

- Delivers data, commands, and currents through column-shaped paths that penetrate the entire silicon wafer thickness after stacking multiple DRAM chips on the buffer chip.

- Up to 30% decrease in size and up to 50% decrease in power consumption over existing packaging methods.

Standards for data process speed conversion

- 1GB = 8Gb

- 3.6Gbps per pin with 1024 data I/Os (Inputs/Outputs) = 3686.4Gbps

- 3686.4Gbps / 8 = 460.8GB/s (Gb -> GB conversion)

About SK hynix Inc.

Story continues

SK hynix Inc., headquartered in Korea, is the world's top tier semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access Memory chips ("DRAM"), flash memory chips ("NAND flash") and CMOS Image Sensors ("CIS") for a wide range of distinguished customers globally. The Company's shares are traded on the Korea Exchange, and the Global Depository shares are listed on the Luxemburg Stock Exchange. Further information about SK hynix is available at www.skhynix.com , news.skhynix.com.

Figure 2. SK hynix employees posing for the commemorative photo celebrating the mass-production of HBM2E

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sk-hynix-starts-mass-production-of-high-speed-dram-hbm2e-301087356.html

SOURCE SK hynix Inc.
Click here to read the full article.

Here's What You Need to Remember: To put it bluntly, there is no reason to develop a flying aircraft carrier because there simply is no need for a flying aircraft carrier. Long-range bombers can reach any point on the globe already, and a flying aircraft carrier would be a flying target.

Whether it is because of the Helicarrier from the "Marvel Universe" seen in such films as The Avengers, or the retro art deco-inspired mobile airstrip from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, sci-fi fans just can't seem to get enough of such flying aircraft carriers.

In theory, it probably seems like a perfect solution, a carrier that can fly over land and water and become a floating base in the sky. It is unlikely however that such a weapon platform would, or even could be constructed. Forgetting the fact that the scale of such a craft would likely bankrupt a small nation, it would require a construction facility to be purpose-built just to handle the project, and much of technology to keep it afloat remains well beyond reality.

However, the concept of a carrier in the sky has been something military thinkers have considered but in far less high tech ways than movie magic allows.

The U.S. Navy was actually the first to pioneer the concept of a flying carrier, and it began construction of two rigid airships, the USS Macon and the USS Akron, in the late 1920s. Neither of these airships had a runway, but instead, each carried five lightweight Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters that could be launched and recovered through a hook system that lowered them into the airstream.

The airships had some advantages  these were twice as fast as surface ships of the era, could fly over land and could see much further over the horizon than any surface ship. But each also had some serious disadvantages, the biggest being that bad weather made the airships difficult to control and essentially grounded them. Tragically both airships suffered notable accidents  in April 1933, USS Akron crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New Jersey killing 73 out of 76 personnel on board; while two years later USS Macon suffered a less serious crash, which killed two of its 83 crew and passengers.

Story continues

The United States Air Force considered a flying carrier concept during the Cold War, but it was far less ambitious and involved a Republic F-84 "parasite" fighter that could be launched from the belly of a B-36 Peacemaker nuclear bomber for reconnaissance operations. This was followed by a slightly more ambitious plan that would transform the interior of a Boeing 747-200 into a hanger in the sky for a dozen or so small jet fighters that could be launched and recovered. This one never went further than the planning stage. While the Flight Dynamics Laboratory claimed it was possible how possible or practical remains the issue.

All of these concepts were seriously flawed and were really attempts to find a solution for a problem that didn't exist. To put it bluntly, there is no reason to develop a flying aircraft carrier because there simply is no need for a flying aircraft carrier. Long-range bombers can reach any point on the globe already, and a flying aircraft carrier would be a flying target.

Aircraft carriers on the water are protected by destroyers and submarines, and unless similar craft could be built to fly alongside this "mother ship" it couldn't be properly protected. Even with such screening aircraft, it isn't too hard to see how a missile or just a "kamikaze" could all too easily take out such a craft.

This doesn't mean the entire concept is flawed, however.

A more realistic solution might be one conceived by defense contractor Dynetics, with support from DARPA. It involved launching an X-61A Gremlin Air Vehicle  an unmanned drone  from a C-130 that could be used in a variety of missions including reconnaissance but it isn't too hard to see how it could be utilized in a combat role as well.

The ability to launch and recover a drone at least offers the very practical ability to send a drone to regions not otherwise readily accessible. But for now, the flying aircraft carrier is best left in comic books and the movies.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Whether it is because of the Helicarrier from the "Marvel Universe" seen in such films as The Avengers, or the retro art deco-inspired mobile airstrip from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, sci-fi fans just can't seem to get enough of such flying aircraft carriers.

In theory, it probably seems like a perfect solution, a carrier that can fly over land and water and become a floating base in the sky. It is unlikely however that such a weapon platform would, or even could be constructed. Forgetting the fact that the scale of such a craft would likely bankrupt a small nation, it would require a construction facility to be purpose-built just to handle the project, and much of technology to keep it afloat remains well beyond reality.

However, the concept of a carrier in the sky has been something military thinkers have considered but in far less high tech ways than movie magic allows.

The U.S. Navy was actually the first to pioneer the concept of a flying carrier, and it began construction of two rigid airships, the USS Macon and the USS Akron, in the late 1920s. Neither of these airships had a runway, but instead, each carried five lightweight Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters that could be launched and recovered through a hook system that lowered them into the airstream.

The airships had some advantages  these were twice as fast as surface ships of the era, could fly over land and could see much further over the horizon than any surface ship. But each also had some serious disadvantages, the biggest being that bad weather made the airships difficult to control and essentially grounded them. Tragically both airships suffered notable accidents  in April 1933, USS Akron crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New Jersey killing 73 out of 76 personnel on board; while two years later USS Macon suffered a less serious crash, which killed two of its 83 crew and passengers.

The United States Air Force considered a flying carrier concept during the Cold War, but it was far less ambitious and involved a Republic F-84 "parasite" fighter that could be launched from the belly of a B-36 Peacemaker nuclear bomber for reconnaissance operations. This was followed by a slightly more ambitious plan that would transform the interior of a Boeing 747-200 into a hanger in the sky for a dozen or so small jet fighters that could be launched and recovered. This one never went further than the planning stage. While the Flight Dynamics Laboratory claimed it was possible how possible or practical remains the issue.

All of these concepts were seriously flawed and were really attempts to find a solution for a problem that didn't exist. To put it bluntly, there is no reason to develop a flying aircraft carrier because there simply is no need for a flying aircraft carrier. Long-range bombers can reach any point on the globe already, and a flying aircraft carrier would be a flying target.

Aircraft carriers on the water are protected by destroyers and submarines, and unless similar craft could be built to fly alongside this "mother ship" it couldn't be properly protected. Even with such screening aircraft, it isn't too hard to see how a missile or just a "kamikaze" could all too easily take out such a craft.

This doesn't mean the entire concept is flawed, however.

A more realistic solution might be one conceived by defense contractor Dynetics, with support from DARPA. It involved launching an X-61A Gremlin Air Vehicle  an unmanned drone  from a C-130 that could be used in a variety of missions including reconnaissance but it isn't too hard to see how it could be utilized in a combat role as well.

The ability to launch and recover a drone at least offers the very practical ability to send a drone to regions not otherwise readily accessible. But for now, the flying aircraft carrier is best left in comic books and the movies.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Click here to read the full article.
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Key Point: These rags had worked before and were used in World War II. But, they were also a remnant of pre-industrial society.

Near the end of World War II, American service members encountered something that was rather difficult for them to understand. While American troops, and virtually all troops for that matter, used boots that laced up with long socks underneath, their Soviet allies wore something a bit different. Soviet soldiers stuffed their feet into long, laceless leather boots. But not with socks. Instead, they used scraps of stinky rags.

Though we take them for granted, socks were considered a luxury item reserved for the rich. This was especially true prior to the industrial revolution because, at the time, socks were more time-intensive to manufacture. Rather than diverting resources to and manpower to socks, troops were issued simple cloth scraps. The logic of foot wrappings over socks is simple: if a lowly scrap of cloth worked in the pastnot only sufficed but contributed winning warsthen why change?

Footwraps, or Portyanki as they are known in Russian, were essentially large rectangular pieces of cloth that were carefully wrapped around each foot. The wrappings served in much the same role as socks, to wick moisture away from the foot, prevent blistering and chafing, and to keep dirt and rocks out of the boot.

Still, they were not as simple as pulling a sock over a foot. They had to be carefully and tightly bound around the foot and the ankle, similarly to how a bandage or ankle brace would be wrapped around an injury. Perfecting the technique required practice. If you didnt get it down pat, then youd not only be punished for being slow, youd pay in the form of blisters and intense discomfort.

Portyanki have been used for centuries. Every Russian army since the days of Peter the Great marched into battle on rags rather than knits. There were even summer and winter issuescotton for warm times, flannel for when it was cold. Sometimes haltingly, Russian military modernization nonetheless progressedand probably about time too.

Story continues

Moving into Modernity, One Step at a Time

In 2013, the Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu finalized the switchover from Portyanki to socks during a television briefing, ending the old-fashioned practice once and for all. He was quoted as saying the Russian military should have forgotten the word Portyanki and long since moved toward more modern foot textiles.

In 2013, or at least by the end of this year, we will forget foot bindings, he instructed. Im asking you, please, if there is need we will provide additional funds. But we need to finally, fully reject this concept in our armed forces. Better late than never.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture.

This first appeared in 2020 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

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Click here to read the full article.
ATLANTA, GA  The Fourth of July holiday usually kicks family vacation travel into high gear, but trips away from home will look very different this summer as the coronavirus pandemic makes many Georgians cautious. Instead of flying or taking a cruise, Americans will take 700 million road trips, accounting for 97 percent of all vacation-related travel, the American Automobile Association estimates.

Although congestion is anticipated to be lower than usual this summer, travelers are still urged to plan ahead.

While the amount people drive is still low for this time of year, we know millions will be taking road trips in the months ahead," INRIX transportation analyst Bob Pishue said in a statement. "The good news is, the congestion they will encounter is nowhere near what we typically see in a summer.

Gov. Brian Kemp embarked on a statewide tour this week urging  but not mandating  that Georgians wear masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Georgia's health department reported Wednesday almost 3,000 new cases of COVID-19  another one-day record in the coronavirus pandemic.

Heres the information you need to know for summer travel in Georgia.

The Atlanta metro is ranked among the nations middle-third places for traffic congestion, meaning drivers have a less than 50 percent to run into normal traffic congestion while traveling. Statewide, Georgia traffic congestion is also ranked in the middle third.

While air travel has plummeted, there are still some folks who take to the skies. The Transportation Security Administration said airport checkpoints have been modified to help contain the spread of COVID-19 and comply with Centers for Disease Control guidelines.

Throughout the month of June, TSA saw an increase in the number of individuals coming through airport checkpoints and is monitoring the growth closely for staffing and security purposes.

Passengers will see TSA officers changing gloves after each pat-down and using a fresh swab when checking for explosive material," said Scott T. Johnson, the agency's federal security director for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport.

Story continues

Passengers should be wearing facial protection and practicing social distancing in the checkpoint line, said Andrea R. Mishoe, TSAs federal security director for Baltimore/Washington International Airport.

Other tips for flying:

Hold on to your boarding pass. Instead of handing it to a TSA officer, travelers should place their boarding pass (paper or electronic) on the boarding pass reader themselves. After scanning, travelers should hold their boarding pass toward the TSA officer so it can be inspected.

Separate food for X-ray screening. Put carry-on food items into a bin so it's less likely a TSA officer will need to open the carry-on bag and remove the food for inspection. Pack the food in a clear plastic bag and place that bag into the bin.

Pack one liquid hand sanitizer container, up to 12 ounces per passenger, in a carry-on bag. Remove the hand sanitizer from your carry-on bag and place it in a bin for screening. Other liquids, gels and aerosols in a carry-on bag are limited to a maximum of 3.4 ounces per item and must fit into a one clear quart-size bag.

AAA estimates air travel will drop by 74 percent this summer compared with last year, and travel by cruise ship and bus is projected to decrease by 86 percent. Meanwhile, road trips are likely to climb by 3.6 percent.

AAA travel experts have begun to see positive trends in travel, noting that hotel and rental car bookings have been gradually increasing since April, AAA Mid-Atlantic Manager of Public and Government Affairs Ragina C. Ali said in a statement. Air travel has been slower to rebound. The share of travelers making plans 48 hours to 7 days before departure  a sign that people are arranging last-minute trips  is significantly higher than normal.

The good news is while the summer of road trips is in full swing, gas prices are expected to remain near an average of $2.25, down 15 percent from last year.

According to AAA, vacationgoers are trending away from large urban metros, opting instead to visit less-congested regions such as Denver, which rose in popularity from No. 10 last year to No. 1 this year.

The top 10 most popular vacation destinations for summer 2020 are:

Denver Las Vegas Los Angeles Seattle Phoenix Portland, OR Myrtle Beach, SC Orlando San Diego Nashville

A survey conducted by Morning Consult for the American Hotel & Lodging Association found that 44 percent of Americans are planning overnight vacation or leisure travel in 2020, with high interest in road trips, family events, and long weekends over the summer months. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said they are likely to stay in a hotel in 2020.

Among Americans planning to travel in 2020, 59 percent expect to take their first overnight trip by the end of the summer. Summer road trips will take center stage, with 72 percent planning an overnight vacation via car over the next five months. Of these, 75 percent expect to drive two or more hours.

On their next overnight trip, 43 percent plan to stay with family and friends, and 39 percent plan to stay in a hotel; just 9 percent plan to stay at a short-term rental such as Airbnb or VRBO, and 5 percent in a camper or RV. Nearly eight in ten (78 percent) are planning a trip of four days or less suggesting long-weekend trips will be first vacation travel to return.

This article originally appeared on the Atlanta Patch
Lynn Steger Strong, author of the novel, "Want." (Nina Subin)

If you buy books through links on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.

A few years ago, one of my beloved professors invited me back to my alma mater to give an informal talk to English majors about working in book publishing. Their wide-eyed (mostly female) faces are forever emblazoned in my memory. I tried to impress upon them that unless they have a plan for financial assistance  parents, roommates, odd jobs  it is virtually impossible to pay rent on an entry-level publishing salary.

They stared back at me. But, one brave soul ventured, are there other publishing jobs outside of New York? Sure, I reassured her. The other heads at the table nodded in unison.

Lynn Steger Strong is a writer and a teacher who lives in New York. Her incredibly smart column for the Guardian lays bare, through her own experience, how precarious life can be even for people with certain privileges, especially during a recession and a raging pandemic. My personal favorite is headlined, A Dirty Secret: You Can Only Be a Writer if You Can Afford It. Strong and I spoke recently by phone; as writers and mothers without childcare, we reached an immediate understanding. Im hanging laundry on my fire escape because were having issues in our building and avoiding the laundromat because of COVID, she said with a sad, exasperated laugh.

The occasion for our talk wasnt nonfiction, but rather her new novel, Want, a story about motherhood, disappointment, financial disaster, regret and loneliness that book Twitter has been raving about for months. Elizabeth is a teacher in New York with two young daughters. When the novel begins, she and her husband are about to declare bankruptcy. Elizabeth is looking for a way to disappear as she reconnects with Sasha, a friend from childhood  a pursuit that turns out to be more grounded in guilt than envy. The narrative is as much about "anxiety as it is about precarity," as Strong said.

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Elizabeth talks about the lack of a safety net with poetic candor. Whats it like, she wonders about a wealthy young woman she encounters, to have pain in your teeth and then go get them fixed instead of waiting it out until youre pretty sure the nerve has died since you dont feel it any longer? Her own two root canals were followed by a ten-thousand-dollar manmade tooth. The hospital debt from her C-section is $30,000, and then there are the children. We were ordering too much takeout because we were both working and trying not to pay for childcare. As Elizabeth puts it, My body almost single-handedly bankrupted us.

Elizabeths story unfurls in a series of short scenes, almost like beats in a play. This book is very strange, Strong said. I wrote the draft really fast, in a period of eight weeks when my kids were in school. I have since found sentences that were verbatim in the novel as much as a year and half earlier in my emails. I believe that writing is work, but that part feels a little like magic. To readers it might feel like prophecy  or the surfacing of something invisible. Want, like our current crisis, exposes a system on the verge of collapse.

Elizabeths narrative brims with the kinds of observational details weve come to expect from autofiction, which blurs the line between narrator and author. But despite its roots in Strongs experience, Want is a traditional novel in the sense that Elizabeth is a fully developed character with her own distinctive journey.

Im wary of arguments, Strong said. If I made the same social arguments, even to my close friends, everyone nods their heads. But what do these things feel like? What does it feel like not to have a safety net? How do you feel it in your bones? I feel fiction in my bones.

Elizabeths parents are no help to her in any sense of the word. Her father tells her that giving her money would be like throwing it away. Her mother threatens to call child services: Theyve suggested Im not equipped to be a mother. When she realizes she has no other option, she finally calls them to ask for money. At what point, says my mother, is it time to cut your losses? At what point is it time to give up on this whole dream thing?

"What dream?!" I wanted to scream at the page. The dream of working hard at a job you love, paying your bills, taking care of your family and knowing that a health crisis or student loan wont sink you into poverty?

What dream? Elizabeth responds.

(Henry Holt and Co.)

This is not the kind of novel Strong originally saw herself writing. When my first book was published, she said, I was trying to write a book as novels are supposed to be  they are supposed to be about wealthy white people. And then when the book came out, I was embarrassed and ashamed. So I began to read more widely. I wanted to write a novel that hadnt been written before.

For all of Elizabeths struggles, neither she nor the reader ever forgets her privilege. The other teachers at Elizabeths school are Black. They dont know that we pay extra rent to live in a neighborhood we cant afford so that our kids can go to a school thats said to be better than the one my co-homeroom teachers kid will go to. Her students are referred to as underserved. They are Black. Though Elizabeth frequently skips out on the job in the middle of a school day, shes sure she wont get fired. Im a thirty-four-year-old J.Crew-cardigan-clad white woman with an Ivy-League Ph.D. The CEO that runs the school reports back to the principal that she likes the feel of me.

Strong is conscious of the buffer that whiteness affords, especially in 2020. Your skin tone and your education can function as money to some extent when the world is burning, she said. A good amount of the people that I know have an escape hatch. Theyre scared and sad and empathetic, but they have an escape hatch.

There is a homicide alluded to in the novel that did actually occur in 2011. I asked Strong why she included it in Elizabeths story. She tells the story to someone else, which is this strange thing we do when we carry around violences that belong to someone else.

As Strong spoke, I thought of all the videos of racial violence on social media over the last few weeks: George Floyd pinned to the ground; the screaming faces of protesters being beaten or tear-gassed; Ahmaud Arbery fighting for his life; the audible pain in the voice of the woman filming the killing of Rayshard Brooks. I carry these violences, but they dont belong to me. Elizabeth has to deal with this episode of extreme violence, and it certainly affects her, Strong said. But as a white privileged woman ... how quickly her life just goes on.

This past month has seen violence in the streets and, on pages like this one, the proliferation of lists aimed at educating readers through nonfiction. Books like Between the World and Me and How to Be an Antiracist are flying off the shelves, and rightly so. But fiction can also play a role, whether it forces a reader to confront the struggles of others or to think more deeply about what blinds us.

Whats it like to feel theres no safety net? You might consult Edith Wharton. Whats it like to feel trauma? You might read Virginia Woolf. Whats it like to feel racial violence? It might not belong to you. Read Toni Morrison. In the beginning of Want, Elizabeth says, there was a time I thought giving books to other people  showing them their richness, their quiet, secret, temporary safety  could be a useful way to spend ones life. Want may be about the realistic limits of that kind of solace or the kind of life it can afford you. But its also powerful proof that novels, and novelists, can still speak undeniable truths.

Ferri's most recent book is Silent Cities: New York."
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III led the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. (Timothy D. Easley / Associated Press)

The Supreme Court came to the aid of President Trump on Thursday by agreeing to hear his claim that the redacted parts of the Mueller report should not be seen or reviewed by the House Democrats who led the president's impeachment.

The court's decision, in a one-line order, means the public will not see  prior to this year's presidential election  all of the findings of the official investigation of Russian meddling into the 2016 election and the administration's possible obstruction of justice.

The justices voted to block the release of this information and said they would hear arguments in Department of Justice vs. House Judiciary Committee this fall over whether it would violate the principle of grand jury secrecy to give the material to the House.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the court's "decision denying Congress access to the Mueller grand jury material is a serious setback to the interests of transparency and accountability. The extreme lengths the Trump administration has gone to [to] hide this material tells you all you need to know about their consciousness of guilt.

The decision is the latest sign of the conservative justices' lean toward the president and the executive branch over Congress. Four of the justices on the right worked as White House or Justice Department lawyers in earlier Republican administrations, and they regularly vote in favor of executive authority.

On Monday, the court by a 5-4 vote struck down Congress' plan for a semi-independent director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ruling the president has the power to fire the director at will. While the five conservatives said the Constitution calls for strong executive authority, the four liberal justices said it is Congress, not the president, who is empowered to structure the government.

The legal dispute over the Mueller report turns on whether the executive branch or the House has control over information and evidence gathered by a grand jury.

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When President Nixon faced impeachment in the House, the Watergate grand jury investigation was shared with the House Judiciary Committee. Similarly when President Clinton faced impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair, the more than 400-page report compiled from the grand jury was sent to the House and immediately released to the public.

But Trump's Justice Department took a different view. Its lawyers insisted on redacting some parts of the report issued by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, and they went to court to fight House Democrats who sought to examine this material.

A federal judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled against the Justice Department in March on the grounds that the federal rules say grand jury material may be used in a "judicial proceeding," and that an impeachment qualified as a judicial proceeding. The appeals court also said the grand jury is under the control of the district judge, not the Justice Department.

But Trump's lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court in early May and asked to have that ruling put on hold. They argued for preserving the secrecy of the grand jury. They also said that, since the impeachment ended with Trump's acquittal in the Senate, the House had no further need for the information.

In response, the House Democrats said the appeals court's ruling "accords with the decisions of every judge who has ever considered the issue" of whether Congress may obtain grand jury findings that could figure in an impeachment. "It is also consistent with the position DOJ had maintained for nearly half a century before this case," they said.

Still pending before the high court is Trump's bid to block demands from House Democrats and a New York grand jury that seek his tax returns and financial records. Trump lost in three lower courts, and the justices are expected to rule, probably next week, on his appeal.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to consider blocking Congress' access to secret grand jury materials from the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The action was a victory for the Trump administration, which is fighting to keep a House committee controlled by Democrats from obtaining material it says could lead to another impeachment inquiry.

The immediate significance is that any decision almost surely will come after the presidential election, a blow to House Democrats in pursuing a potential obstruction of justice charge against President Donald Trump in a possible second impeachment inquiry. The case likely will be heard by the high court in the fall or winter and decided in 2021.

Unfortunately, President Trump and Attorney General (William) Barr are continuing to try to run out the clock on any and all accountability," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. "While I am confident their legal arguments will fail, it is now all the more important for the American people to hold the president accountable at the ballot box in November.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led the House impeachment effort, said: "The extreme lengths the Trump administration has gone to hide this material tells you all you need to know about their consciousness of guilt.

House Democrats and the Justice Department have been locked in a legal battle over grand jury testimony gathered during former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. In March, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the House Judiciary Committee is entitled to the evidence.

The committee contended that the grand jury material is "central" to its inquiry into possible obstruction of justice by Trump and could reveal new evidence of impeachable offenses. If so, the panel said it will consider recommending new articles of impeachment.

In December, the House approved two articles of impeachment against the president. One accused Trump of abusing his power by withholding military aid in order to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into a political rival. The second accused him of obstructing Congress by stonewalling its subpoenas for documents and testimony. In February, Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

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But in January, House general counsel Douglas Letter told the appeals court that new impeachment articles were a possibility, pending a review of the grand jury evidence.

That is on the table; there is no doubt, Letter told the court.

The Justice Department argued that House Democrats are not entitled to grand jury evidence because they have not said which specific testimony they need or how it would help their investigation. Solicitor General Noel Francisco wrote that the House has no "urgent need of the requested materials for a hypothetical second impeachment."

Not true, said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, who urged the court to hear and decide the case before the election.

"Todays decision threatens to hand President Trump a victory by default, allowing him to run out the clock on this Congress and hampering its ability to exercise its longstanding power to investigate and hold the executive branch of our government accountable to the law," Wydra said.

Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., gives her opening statement as the House Judiciary Committee meets to markup Articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump.

At issue before the high court is a more basic legal question: Is a Senate impeachment trial a judicial proceeding? The lower court ruled that it is, saying the Framers of the Constitution understood impeachment to involve the exercise of judicial power.

A separate but related House subpoena seeks testimony from former White House counsel Donald McGahn, a key witness on possible obstruction by Trump. The Trump administration has blocked McGahn from testifying, saying Congress can't force high-ranking presidential aides to testify.

In February, a three-judge appeals court panel ruled that McGahn does not have to testify, saying the judiciary can't be an "ombudsman" who resolves disputes between the executive and legislative branches of government. The full appeals court reheard the case in April but has yet to rule.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court will decide if Democrats get Russia grand jury material
VIRGINIA  About half of readers believe schools will be prepared to reopen for the new academic year amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to an informal Patch survey.

The survey, conducted from mid-day Tuesday to mid-day Thursday, received 1,154 responses. It is not meant to be a scientific survey but rather an informal way to gauge public opinion.

We conducted the survey as school districts either announced or are preparing reopening plans for the 2020-2021 academic year. A hybrid plan with virtual and in-person learning appears to the path forward for Northern Virginia school districts such as Fairfax County Public Schools, Arlington County Public Schools and Loudoun County Public Schools. In these three school districts, families could opt out of hybrid instruction and receive full-time virtual learning.

If in-person learning is part of the reopening plan, schools will look vastly different from past school years. Because of CDC and state guidelines such as physical distancing, school districts may have to plan for measures such as rotating days for in-person classes, spacing in classrooms and buses.

In our survey, 51.2 percent of respondents believe schools can safely reopen in the fall while 35.5 percent said "no" and 13.3 percent said "not sure."

Preferences for different reopening scenarios are mixed. The highest share  42.4 percent  believe there should be 100-percent in-person learning. Meanwhile, 28 percent believe schools should run on 100-percent virtual education, and 26.3 percent support the hybrid model of in-person and virtual learning. The remaining 13.3 percent were undecided.

Despite different preferences for reopening, 93.3 percent of readers believe families should be able to opt out of in-person learning based on medical needs.

While a majority of readers supported the face mask requirement in our Virginia reopening survey, respondents were more divided on the place of face masks in school settings. In all, 39.6 percent do not believe it is realistic to have children wear face masks in a school setting. By comparison, 26.5 percent want to see all children wear face masks and 29.6 percent believe it is realistic for only older children. The remaining 4.2 percent said "not sure."



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Lastly, we wanted to measure the impact of a virtual school year on child care needs. In all, 49.1 percent said child care would not be a concern, 43.6 percent said it would be a concern, and 7.3 percent were undecided.

We received over 450 additional comments on families' sentiments. A common thread was a concern about virtual learning's impact on learning and well-being, particularly among young students. And multiple readers in Fairfax County had criticism for the school district's virtual learning in the last school year.



One reader wrote," Children, especially elementary age and special education, need the environment and stimulation of in-person school. I believe that more harm is being done by keeping them out of school than them potentially getting COVID-19."

Some readers don't want a one-size-fits-all approach for different age groups. As one parent said, "The key are options. Our 7 year old should be in school 4-5 days a week. Our 17 year old can do fine with a blend. The younger ones do not learn much on the virtual side and the loss of socialization is devastating to their growth."

One parent who has a special needs student said, "I do not think the online learning is nearly as effective for her. Yet I am greatly worried about safety. I wish Fairfax would give one-on-one learning to the special needs kids in class and limit their exposure to others because they are at high risk."

On the opposing side, there's concern about the spread of the virus impacting students' families and teachers. Some believe the decision should be reevaluated later in the school year, or when a coronavirus vaccine is available.

"Perhaps beginning the first semester 100% online and reassessing prior to the second semester will be the best solution since in January 2021 there might be a vaccine available that will protect teachers, staff, students, and their families from unnecessarily contracting this virus," said one reader.

Another said, "I am very concerned because young children really don't understand the concept of social distancing."



Bus drivers expressed their own worries about transporting children during the pandemic.

"I dont believe [there] is a safe way to transport children on a school bus during this pandemic," one wrote. "This is coming from 38 years of experience transporting children to and from school."



Another person said, "I am school bus driver in a large Virginia district. I feel it will be nearly impossible for us to safely drive our students and to ensure required social distancing. Having so few students per run will cause an unrealistic exposure to drivers while having to do multiple runs to maintain limited numbers of students."

This article originally appeared on the McLean Patch
Sweden Stockholme coronavirus

STINA STJERNKVIST/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

Sweden has launched an inquiry into its no-lockdown policy after thousands of coronavirus deaths in the country.

Sweden now has the fifth-highest per capita death rate in the world with a larger death toll than all of its neighbours' combined.

Sweden's daily new cases rose to over 1,000 in the last week, up from fewer than 500 in May.

Sweden's prime minister said the country must now change its approach.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Related video: Sweden used a controversial way to fight coronavirus

Sweden's prime minister has ordered an inquiry into the country's decision not to impose a coronavirus lockdown after the country suffered thousands more deaths than its closest neighbours.

"We have thousands of dead," Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven said at a press conference on Wednesday, while admitting that the country's handling had exposed Sweden's "shortcomings," The Times of London reported.

"Now the question is how Sweden should change, not if."

Unlike most other European countries, including its closest neighbours, Sweden did not implement strict, wholesale lockdown measures in response to the pandemic. Instead, the country has largely allowed businesses and hospitality to remain open and students to attend school.

In May, Sweden's state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell,A justified this response by saying that countries that imposed strict lockdowns would likely suffer large second waves later in the year, whereas Sweden's would be smaller.

"In the autumn there will be a second wave," Tegnell told the Financial Times. "Sweden will have a high level of immunity and the number of cases will probably be quite low."

Anders Tegnell.

ANDERS WIKLUND/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

However, the strategy appears to have failed, with recent data suggesting the virus has spread faster in Sweden since Tegnell's remarks two months ago, while failing to stimulate sufficient antibodies in the community to prevent a second wave.

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A study published in May suggested that a small number of people in Stockholm, 7.3%, had developed coronavirus antibodies, casting doubt over whether Sweden could achieve herd immunity in the near future.

Sweden's capital Stockholm has also failed to avert the same sort of economic downturn seen in other parts of Europe.

The country has in the last week recorded daily new cases of well over 1,000, up from fewer than 500 in mid-May.

5,370 people in Sweden had died after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus as of Thursday morning, putting it among the worst-affected countries in the world in terms of deaths per capita. Meanwhile, its Scandinavian neighbours have recorded much fewer deaths. Denmark has the second-highest death toll in the region with just 606 fatalities as of this morning.

As well as opting against a strict lockdown, Sweden has taken a more relaxed approach to testing than most other countries, focusing mainly on healthcare workers and people who are hospitalized and not the wider population.

The inquiry announced by Lofven will first consider why approximately half of Sweden's deaths have taken place in its care homes, The Times of London reported.

"We did not manage to protect the most vulnerable, the elderly, despite our best intentions," the prime minister said.

The Swedish government has previously said it is not aiming only for herd immunity, in which 60% of a population catches the virus, but that it could slow the spread of the virus enough to ensure that the capacity of its health service is not breached.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Consumer fireworks remain banned in much of Maryland, including in Baltimore City and Howard, Montgomery and Prince Georges counties, as well as in the town of Bel Air and in Ocean City. Baltimore County requires a permit for a private display of fireworks, according to the county website.
Telehealth use surged from 8% of Americans in December to 29% in May as primary care and mental health physicians and specialists turned to remote care out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a UnitedHealth Group report.

Telehealth evangelists long have touted using high-speed internet connections and a range of devices to link providers and patients for remote care. But regulatory hurdles and medicine's conservative culture limited virtual checkups to largely minor conditions such as sinus infections or unique circumstances such as connecting neurologists to rural hospitals that lack specialized care.

The pandemic lockdowns closed doctors' offices and delayed nonemergency care for millions of Americans. Some clinics scrambled to acquire technology platforms to deliver remote care. Others employed rarely used video programs to reach patients in their homes.

Remote visits among Medicare patients surged through the end of March, prompting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Seema Verma to say she "can't imagine going back."

Dr. Tiffany Link listens to a patient during a telehealth session in her spare bedroom in her home in Fort Collins, Colo., on May 20.

After emergency legislation eased Medicare payment restrictions and allowed doctors to practice across state lines, some predicted a significant portion of Americans will choose to get care remotely as stay-at-home orders lift.

There will be a wave of ongoing adoption and increased acceptance, even as the pandemic begins to wind down, said Dr. Wyatt Decker, CEO of OptumHealth. I think the shift is permanent.

'Your own doctor is on board for the first time'

For years, telehealth has been considered the future of medicine  it just never became the present. Then, as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down doctors' offices and clinics across the country, telemedicine suddenly became the only way patients could see their doctors and vice versa. Visits skyrocketed.

In Massachusetts, for instance, Blue Cross Blue Shield paid for about 200 televisits a day before the pandemic and up to nearly 40,000 a day in recent months.

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Its just been a really extraordinary moment in the history of health care in the United States, said Andrew Dreyfus, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Theres a consensus that this is a silver lining to the pandemic.

A Commonwealth Fund report shows telehealth visits peaked in mid-April, then began to decline as restrictions loosened and people returned to in-office visits. Nearly 14% of medical visits were virtual in mid-April, but that dropped to less than 8% by mid-June, the report said.

Doctors in nearly every specialty Zoomed into patients homes to look at sore feet, consult about problems and offer advice on coping with new stresses and long-standing concerns.

More: What will health care look like after COVID-19?

Medical bias: From pain pills to COVID-19, racial discrimination in health care festers

More: As suicide, addiction death projections soar amid COVID-19, treatment centers struggle to stay alive too

Dr. Joe Kvedar, a professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School and president of the American Telemedicine Association, said doctors who were "curious at best" about telehealth now plan a post-pandemic hybrid of in-person and virtual care.

"The big change that we are witnessing now is that your own doctor is on board for the first time, Kvedar said. Thats a big deal.

At Mass General Brigham, about 60,000 appointments each week are virtual visits, compared with an average 400 each week in February.

Ups and downs

Medical groups and patient surveys suggest, for the most part, virtual visits were successful. In a survey of more than 30,000 Americans, 42% of patients who used telehealth found it very effective and 55% said it was safer than conventional medicine, according to the consumer insight group Piplsay.

Of course, there are challenges. Patients have to awkwardly hold up phones to body parts. Doctors have to figure out how to end calls without the usual paper-shuffling cues theyre used to making.

Its clearly important for patients to develop relationships with their doctors, Dreyfus said, quoting years of research. The laying of hands, so to speak, has been a critical part of medicine since its inception, Dreyfus said.

If todays clinician has to be covered from head to toe  with mask, face shield and gown  to protect against COVID-19, it may not feel that personal, Dreyfus said. It may be that a clinician in a traditional white coat might seem more personal and up close, even if the doctor is available only via video.

For some visits, such as pediatrics, most of the process can be done via a video call. A nurse or technician could come to the patients house, if necessary, to deliver a shot or draw blood. Can we use this moment to unlock greater creativity in how we organize care and how we deliver care? Dreyfus asked.

I think over time, well learn how best to manage the telemedicine visits, but I think theyre here to stay, Dreyfus said.

In some ways, telemedicine has the potential to improve doctor-patient relationships, said cardiology fellow Dr. Lauren Eberly at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine.

Recently, when a patient couldn't remember which medication she'd stopped taking, Eberly asked her to walk over to her medicine cabinet, open it and turn the camera around. Together, the two went through the womans medications, figured out that the one shed stopped taking was really important and quickly ordered a new prescription.

Eberly said video visits allow her to look into patients homes, getting insights into their medical challenges. Family members who wouldnt have come to an office visit can weigh in on their loved ones condition.

And they can all see into her life, too. It really builds a really nice rapport and different level of bonding, Eberly said.

'I dont think the mental health field will ever be the same'

Dr. Ken Duckworth, medical director for behavioral health at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, said mental health care is better online now than in person for the majority of patients.

In addition to avoiding the risk of infection, telehealth visits with a therapist are easier to schedule and less stressful, without the need to find child care, leave work or rush to an appointment.

"The no-show rate is virtually zero, which is not true in office-based practice," he said. "This is an extremely efficient, novel thing for a lot of people."

Some people appreciate the intimacy of a call in which both the client's and the caregiver's homes are visible. Duckworth said Blue Cross therapists have made breakthroughs with clients during the pandemic, because of this increased intimacy.

Research supports the idea that video therapy visits are just as effective as in-person ones, he said. Patients with opioid use disorder have done well with telehealth, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts report.

"Mental health is uniquely suited to a tele-transaction," Duckworth said. "Were not supposed to touch patients. There's not an exam component. Facial expressions  interpreting emotion might be harder with a mask."

The exceptions are patients anxious about technology. Someone with schizophrenia who has paranoid delusions about technology is probably better off getting telephone or in-person counseling, Duckworth said.

Research will have to show exactly where and when telehealth is best used or avoided, he said.

But there's no going back. "I dont think the mental health field will ever be the same again," he said. "I think its very positive to have this option."

Unequal access

Eberly and her Penn colleague Dr. Srinath Adusumalli completed a study showing that not everyone benefits equally from telemedicine. Women, older people, people whose first language isnt English and those with the lowest incomes are least likely to show up to their scheduled telemedicine visits, the study found.

About 3,000 patients were scheduled to visit their Penn cardiology clinic from March 16 to April 17. Of those, slightly more than half didnt show up. In looking at patients who were least likely to make it, the researchers found they were older, female, less likely to speak English and more likely to live in a household earning less than $50,000 a year.

Adusumalli said hes a big fan of telemedicine, but we have to continually evaluate that its reaching everyone we intend for it to reach.

Theres definitely a lot of advantages, so we really want that to be something for all patients, Eberly said.

Their team set up a chatbot in English and Spanish that can walk patients through the process of setting up and launching an appointment. For patients without access to appropriate technology, they envision establishing neighborhood kiosks staffed by people who can help make the visits work and maybe upload medical data from the persons phone.

Some companies provide only telemedicine, which means patients get access to a doctor but probably not one theyve had a relationship with over years. On eClinicalWorks, whose telehealth practice burgeoned from 50,000 minutes a month to 2 million minutes a day during the pandemic, patients can see their own doctor.

Vulnerable kids 'we worry about'

Quinn Howell, 6, of Russell, Ky., enjoys a walk along the Ohio River. Howell converted to telehealth therapy after the COVID-19 pandemic limited access to in-person therapy.

Quinn Howell, 6, knew the difference between work and play.

The eastern Kentucky boy would follow strict instructions in class and twice-a-week, three-hour therapy sessions for autism. At home, hed relax with family, make scrambled eggs or enjoy his favorite television shows.

That is, until March, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted his work-home routine and challenged hard-fought gains. Instead of in-person sessions pivotal to Quinns development, he began remote therapy via an iPad.

For his mom, a teacher busy with her own work duties, it seemed like an impossible task.

I cant even get him to sit down long enough to eat a full meal, said Alex Howell, Quinns mother. How am I going to sit him down to do therapy sessions?

In late March, Quinns clinic in Ashland, Kentucky, switched to remote occupational and speech therapy services. Rather than two three-hour sessions at the clinic each week, Quinn completes 45-minute sessions each day, and twice a week, he does two sessions.

Though he initially struggled to stay focused at home, he's made strides with the shorter sessions and rewards for completing tasks. With the help of a new speech device, he uses full sentences when communicating with his therapy team. Instead of repeating Oreos," he says, I want Oreos.

Howell worried her son, who has been in therapy since he was a toddler, would lose gains. Not only does he need to do remote therapy, he also had to complete school from home.

I have been shocked how much progress he has made in this transition, Howell said.

Other patients at Pathway, a community mental health care center serving rural Appalachia communities in eastern Kentucky, might face other obstacles, said Tiffany Diehl, Pathways' autism and developmental disabilities program coordinator.

Pathways installed telehealth technologies at 16 outpatient offices and residential units in the region through a $930,000 UnitedHealth Foundation grant. About 70% of clinic patients are eligible for Medicaid, the federal-state government health program for low-income residents. Many live in communities with a monopoly internet provider or rely on government-issued cellphones that limit data use.

Some can go to health departments or libraries to access internet connections, but that can be an expensive proposition for a family facing job loss or other financial obstacles.

"We have some kids on our caseload we worry about," Diehl said.

Avoiding 'telehealth cliff' requires legislative action

Such rapid change wouldn't have happened if not for public health emergency measures to ease long-standing barriers. Congress temporarily eased the "originating site" rule that limited Medicare payments to rural areas, or areas with a designated physician shortage.

Governors signed executive orders requiring private health insurers waive co-payments and pay telehealth at the same rates as in-person visits. States overwhelmingly have allowed doctors and other licensed clinicians to provide care across state lines, even if they're not licensed in the patient's home state.

Finally, the federal government eased restrictions on the types of technology programs doctors can use. In addition to Zoom, doctors use Facetime and Google Hangouts  accessible programs to quickly care to patients.

Kvedar expects the federal government will tighten requirements on technology platforms to ensure they safeguard patients' medical information, as required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA.

He said other temporary measures must become permanent to sustain telehealth's momentum. In testimony before a congressional committee last month, he warned of a "telehealth cliff" and disruptions to convenient care unless Congress takes action to make permanent measures that have allowed telehealth to thrive.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Telehealth soars as COVID-19 shutdown limits doctor visits
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Key Point: During the Cold War, France had Germany zeroed in with tactical nuclear missilesin case of a Soviet invasion.

Strategic Dyad

Today, France has the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, behind the United States and Russia. Unlike the American or Russian nuclear triad, which is made up of air- land- and sea-based nuclear weapons, France maintains a nuclear dyad of air- and sea-based nuclear missiles. But, until the mid-1990s, France had a land-based nuclear component as well.

Ever independent, France left the NATO alliance in 1966 and pursued an independent nuclear strategy. Even after rejoining NATO in 2009, France refused to commit its nuclear arsenal to Alliance collective defense, despite sharing global strategic objectives, like countering a newly-assertive Russia.

Frances land-based nuclear deterrent began in 1971, when nuclear missile silos were built in Vaucluse in Frances south east. These silos were intended to secure France from a Soviet invasion coming from East Germany, through West Germany, and up to the French border. At the time, French strategic thinking believed that a Soviet invasion force would not likely be stopped by conventional weapons. These silo-based missiles had sufficient range to hit targets in Russiaand probably just enough range to hit Moscow.

Pluton

In tandem with Frances silo-based missiles, road-mobile launchers were also builtthe French Pluton tactical missile systemthat could be moved in case of a crisis and were not as vulnerable to an attack fixed silos.

The Pluton system was essentially a single-stage solid fuel rocket that was mated to a French AMX 30 main battle tank chassis. The tank attributes made the Pluton system very mobile, even over austere battlefield conditions.

Though highly mobile, the Pluton system had only a limited range, only 120 kilometers, or about 75 miles. This limited the Plutons list of possible targets to ones within France itself, or West Germany. In order to increase their nuclear range, France developed the follow-on Hades missile system in the mid-1980s.

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Hades

In contrast to the Pluton system, the Hades was not mated to a tank chassis, but rather on a purpose-built transporter-erector vehicle, which had greater range and was faster on-road. The Hades maximum range was 480 kilometers, or about 300 miles. If positioned in Frances east, the Hades would have been able to hit targets in East Germany, which France was quite open about. There, a Soviet invasive force would have met stiff nuclear resistance.

The Hades system entered French service in 1992, at which point it was nearly impossible to maintain due to the post-Cold War political situation. With the Soviet military threat no longer an issue, both the Pluton and Hades had outlived their purposeand aiming nukes at East Germany couldnt be justified anymore.

Postscript

The Hades had been kept in storage since 1991. In 1996 the French government announced that it would dismantle both the Hades and Pluton tactical missile systems, as well as their Vaucluse-based missile silos. In 1997, the Frances strategic nuclear triad reverted to a strategic nuclear dyad.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This article first appeared earlier this year and is reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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Iran has called for the arrest of President Donald Trump.

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The Trump administration is under pressure amid reports that the White House failed to take action after being briefed on intelligence showing that Russia paid Taliban-linked militants secret bounties to kill American troops.

The White House pushed back on the reports, saying the president was never briefed on the intelligence because there was dissent within the intelligence community about its credibility.

The White House's claim that this information was not conveyed to Trump because there wasn't a consensus on its credibility is "horses---," Steve Hall, the CIA's former chief of Russia operations, told Insider.

If the White House claim is true, it would be a catastrophic failure on the part of the intelligence community and amount to "dereliction of duty," a former CIA analyst told Insider.

The other possibility, Hall said, is "whether the topic of Russia has become so radioactive in this administration, dating back to the 2016 election, that it can't even be raised with Trump because he just goes bonkers or shuts down."

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The Trump administration is under scrutiny after an explosive New York Times report said President Donald Trump took no action after being briefed on US intelligence showing Russia offered and secretly paid Taliban-linked militants bounties to kill US troops.

The White House denies Trump knew anything about it, saying he was not briefed on the intelligence because officials disagreed on its veracity.

Steve Hall, the former chief of Russia operations at the CIA, told Insider the White House's claim is "horses---" because threat intelligence is treated very differently from other types of sensitive intelligence.

"Ever since 9/11, any time you get any type of counterterrorism or threat reporting that speaks to whether Americans are going to get killed, that sort of information travels extremely quickly and doesn't have to be vetted," Hall said. "And that's all right because the outcome could be horrific. You could have Americans killed."

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If the underlying intelligence is questionable, or if there's a debate on its credibility, "you convey that as well, but the one thing you don't do  and you're taught this as an intelligence officer from the very beginning  is just write it off," Hall said. "It would be intelligence malpractice for anybody in the IC to look at something like this that could result in Americans dying and say, 'We haven't validated the source, so we can't talk about it or brief the president about it.' That's just ludicrous."

Hall was one of three CIA veterans who spoke with Insider, all of whom said they were shocked that the president was either not briefed on intelligence about a threat to deployed US troops or failed to act after learning of it.

'The type of information that would be flagged as really important'

The Times, citing anonymous officials, reported Trump was briefed on the matter and the National Security Council discussed the information during an interagency meeting in late March.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that senior White House officials were aware of the Russian bounties as early as March 2019.

According to the AP, then-national security adviser John Bolton briefed the president on the matter, and multiple media outlets reported the intelligence was included in at least one President's Daily Brief, a daily presentation of important intelligence on threats and opportunities.

But Trump contradicted the reports, saying over the weekend that intelligence officials told him after The Times article was published that they did not brief him on the information because they did not deem it to be credible enough to be brought to his attention.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also said Monday that there were "dissenting opinions" within the intelligence community, meaning that the intelligence "would not be elevated" to the president "until it was verified."

However, Rodney Faraon, a former CIA analyst who provided intelligence briefings to President Bill Clinton, told Insider: "The fact there is dissent within the intelligence community about the veracity of reporting means that the subject matter was important enough to be raised to the level of discussion between different agencies."

Faraon added: "This is intelligence that deals with the safety and security of American troops. This is the type of information that would be flagged as really important, particularly if it came through intelligence channels."

Katrina Mulligan, who worked on the NSC during the Obama administration, said on Twitter there is "often no consensus on intel" and that "as any NSC staffer can tell you, Presidents and their teams are often forced to make decisions in the absence of perfect information. That's the job!"

David Priess, a former CIA officer who briefed Clinton and President George W. Bush on intelligence, expressed skepticism about Trump's claims that he and other top officials were not briefed, writing on Twitter that if the intelligence was not considered serious enough to merit Trump's attention, then "shame on the system."

Insider also reported that NATO officials were aware of and briefed on the intelligence, raising further questions about why US officials would deem the information important enough to brief allies but not the president, as he's claimed.

US Central Command told Insider on Monday that there have been no changes to the US force posture or security status in the Middle East in response to the intelligence, nor has there been an uptick in Taliban-linked attacks on US forces in the past six months.

The Pentagon said Monday night that it "has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports" but stressed that it would "always take the safety and security of our forces in Afghanistan  and around the world  most seriously and therefore continuously adopt measures to prevent harm from potential threats."

CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia.

REUTERS/Larry Downing

'Any normal president would be briefed'

While these developments raise questions about the credibility of the intelligence, former analysts said the president still would have been informed in any normal scenario.

John Sipher, the former deputy chief of Russia operations at the CIA, told Insider the intelligence would have been widely known to those around Trump and that "it is hard to believe that he wouldn't be briefed."

"This information would be known to the ambassador and senior State Department officials in Afghanistan," he added. "The military command there would have the intelligence, as of course would the intelligence officials. This information would immediately go to all senior national security officials and the NSC. It was also sent to our allies in Afghanistan."

"So, in this case, if the president didn't know, it wasn't because it was so sensitive or it wasn't fully vetted, it was because none of those hundreds of people thought there was value in sharing it with him," Sipher said.

"Not presenting information to the president of the United States that had direct indications of a threat to US military forces overseas, not bringing that forward, would be a dereliction of duty," Faraon told Insider.

"Anything like this that has to do with a foreign power, particularly one with whom we are technically not at war with, threatening the lives of American soldiers overseas, that is at the top of the list," he said.

That said, national security veterans pointed to Bolton's book and multiple media reports saying the president often does not pay attention during briefings, does not read the President's Daily Brief, and frequently loses interest in the discussion unless he sees or hears his name.

"Any normal president would be briefed," Sipher said. "Any normal president would want to know the latest intelligence. Trump has never shown any interest in governing."

He added, "It is possible that very little of consequence is passed to the president until they believe he is ready to hear it, and they have had time to prepare him. Of course, in many ways this is worse than having been briefed on the information and done nothing."

Hall largely agreed.

"If you run through all the possible explanations for this, there is no reasonable scenario in which this isn't horrific," he said.

If Trump was briefed, and he's misleading the public or doesn't remember being briefed, Hall said, "then that's pretty horrific too because it means the president has difficulty paying attention to threats against American soldiers."

If Trump was not briefed, as he's claimed, "then you have an incredibly bad system in place if that kind of critical information isn't making it to the president," Hall said.

"And then finally, coming down to the narrowest point of all this is whether the topic of Russia has become so radioactive in this administration, dating back to the 2016 election, that it can't even be raised with Trump because he just goes bonkers or shuts down," he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Donald Trump on the campaign trail was a big man when it came to China. Beijing, he promised, would quickly be brought to heel under a Trump administration. Trump failed to accomplish his China goals, but he is not alone in that: Barack Obama failed in much the same way, as did George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, among others.

The last president to get what he wanted out of China policy was Richard Nixon, who understood that China was a threat and an annoyance to the Soviet Union and wanted to make it a bigger threat and a bigger annoyance, which he did.

One of the problems with U.S. China policy is that Washington does not seem to understand what kind of power it actually has when it comes to China.

There are, broadly speaking, three kinds of power in international relations.

The first is pure power, or hostile power. That is how international relations were largely conducted for much of human history: Henry II rules the Vexin because he has an army there, and the French cant beat it. The flat assertion of pure power is a primitive and backward way of doing business except in extreme circumstances  but, more to the point, it is an option available to the United States on only a very limited basis. Under a variety of different administrations representing both parties and several different ideological orientations, the U.S. government has found that it can effectively execute only narrow and short-term military programs, because the American people consistently are unwilling to pay any price and bear any burden and turn against formerly popular wars once the bills start coming due and the body bags start coming home. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, the United States has repeatedly failed to meet its objective through military action except when those objectives are narrowly tailored military outcomes, as with George H. W. Bushs masterly performance in Desert Storm. But after a few months, Americans start talking about nation-building at home and demand that the money we are spending on military campaigns in faraway lands be redirected toward filling potholes in Peoria.

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We failed to achieve our goals in Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington knows this, and Beijing knows this. Our mighty military deterrent deters military action against us (the occasional Russian bounty on American heads notwithstanding) but does not do very much more.

The second kind of power is patron power, based on cultivating and exploiting patron-client relationships. Patron power works by offering foreign states and other overseas interests some benefit  cash aid, military guarantees, political support  and then using the threat of taking away that benefit to extort cooperation out of the client state. Here, too, the longstanding inclinations of the American people restrict the U.S. governments real range of action. Americans are very hostile to foreign aid as such (it is a vanishingly small part of federal outlays but a political obsession among populists Right and Left) and are wary of those entangling alliances George Washington warned about. The U.S. government managed to exert real influence on Pakistan as a client state for much of the Cold War and got some benefit out of it, but that is more the exception than the rule. Efforts (mostly well-meaning) to make Israel into a client state have been politely declined by the Israelis, who value their relationship with the United States but do not wish to be dominated by it. In Central and South America, U.S. efforts to exert patron power have not amounted to very much, except in the case of Costa Rica and a few other bright spots.

U.S. policy toward China has gone wrong because Washington behaves as though our relationship with China were a patron-client relationship, in which the United States graciously grants Chinese firms access to U.S. markets in exchange for certain vaguely defined (and often conflicting) reforms: that China become more democratic, less aggressive, less mercantilist, etc. But countries do not trade  people do, and firms do. U.S. consumers do not buy certain Chinese goods because they believe they are doing Beijing a favor, and U.S. firms do not source goods or services from Chinese providers because they believe that they are participating in some sort of foreign-policy project. They make these choices voluntarily, for their own reasons. Trying to use tariffs or other trade restrictions to bludgeon Beijing into toeing Washingtons line fails because the U.S.China trade relationship is not, however much the populists may insist otherwise, a gift to Beijing. Using trade policy to keep Apple or Google from effectively pursuing their corporate interests will not stop Beijing from pursuing its political interests. For decades, the U.S. government maintained a very effective blockade of Cuba, at very little cost or inconvenience to American consumers and American firms, and still failed to achieve the political outcomes Washington sought. China is much closer to being a peer than Cuba is, and what did not work on Fidel Castro is not going to work on Xi Jinping.

We do not have patron power in our relationship with China, but we do have (if we would use it) the third kind of power: peer power. This is the mortar of real-world diplomacy. Countries have things they want and things they are willing to trade, and they negotiate. This is precisely the sort of thing that the Trump administration is, in theory, supposed to be good at: the art of the deal. But the United States is, intellectually and morally, in retreat, and the diplomatic failures of the Trump administration are more a symptom of that than a cause. In reality, the contest does not stop simply because the United States is sitting on the sidelines.

Our policy toward Beijing fails because our intellectual framework for understanding U.S.China relations is missing two pieces: Washington lacks a useful understanding of what Beijing wants, and Washington lacks a useful understanding of what Washington wants.

Because of Chinas relative poverty (it has a lower GDP per capita than does Mexico) and because Chinas regime stakes its legitimacy on its ability to deliver steady economic growth, Beijing still is obliged to keep a watchful eye on the balance sheet. But it has long since moved past the nickel-and-dime stage of its foreign relations. Of course China wants income and wealth. But China also wants status, with the Chinese people and their leaders seeking a place in the world that reflects the actual strength and importance of the country as they estimate it. (The blustery exaggeration of Chinas leaders should not seduce us into the error of believing their hype or of believing that they believe it, either. Chairman Xi et al. probably have a pretty realistic understanding of their vulnerabilities.) Beijings ham-fisted efforts at using the coronavirus epidemic as part of a public-relations campaign, for example, reflects Chinas status anxiety, not its economic ambitions per se. China, so poor and so backward for so long, desires to be seen not merely as a normal self-sufficient modern country (which it is not) but as a great power.

Washington has opportunities in that, but it rarely makes good use of them. There are things that Beijing wants  and things that Beijing dreads  that are subject to American influence. For example, Japan and India would like to become permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Beijing opposes this, and Washington supports it  in a lukewarm and desultory way. Beijing is much more opposed to Japans U.N. ascent than it is to Indias and has in the past offered to back Indias bid if India will decouple its bid from Japans. The United States could lean harder into Japans cause or stand back from it. Whats more, Japans ambitions in the United Nations and around the world are complicated by the fact that it is a U.S. military protectorate, a situation that suits Beijings interests nicely. China does not want to see a rearmed Japan with robust conventional military forces and a nuclear arsenal, along with an amended constitution empowering Japan to conduct its military and defense affairs in a more normal way. Whether that happens or does not happen is more Washingtons decision than Tokyos  an American drawdown from Japan would change things in Chinas neighborhood practically overnight. That is a lot of leverage for Washington.

And what does Washington want? Nobody really seems to know. Sometimes, the answer is fewer Chinese imports, which is plainly at odds with the revealed preferences of the American people. What Washington most often seems to want is a foreign enemy to blame for the economic conditions of declining former industrial centers in the heartland, and China does nicely in that role. Washington should want a thriving, stable, and engaged China for the same reason what it should want a thriving, stable, and engaged Mexico  because that suits American interests better than does a poor, unstable, and unpredictable country that we are not, despite our apparent wishes, in a position to ignore. The United States could, through bilateral efforts and robust engagement with international institutions, pursue a policy of using the considerable power it actually enjoys in its relationship with China to bargain not for vague commitments to liberalization or openness but for concrete deliverables, for birds in the hand. But that would require a set of national principles and commitments that can survive an election.

Continuity in foreign affairs requires some continuity and consensus in domestic affairs, which cannot be had when everything is up for radical renegotiation every two years or every four years. The pursuit of consensus, political buy-in, and bipartisanship is not a question of being nice, of being Mr. Milquetoast Moderate  it is a question of creating a political situation in which the American government can actually be put to the use of the American people at home and abroad. I have been listening to American presidential candidates promise to get tough on China since I was a child, to no end. And in 2020, its more of the same.

The alternating current of populist demagoguery is not the kind of power we can use to do the work that needs to be done. The effect of 325 million spoons banging on 325 million high chairs may be a terrific racket, but dont try to tell me it is the marching music of the national interest.

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Activists denounce Chinese President Xi Jinping during a protest in Jammu, India, on July 1, 2020, after the Indian government banned dozens of Chinese-made apps. (Channi Anand / Associated Press)

About a year ago, Sangita Gaikwads teenage daughter Mona introduced her to TikTok. Like many first-time users of the quirky video-sharing app, Gaikwad, a homemaker in a farming village in western India, was baffled.

What would she want with an infinite stream of 15-second clips showing strangers dancing, lip-syncing and reenacting memes on their phones?

But when Mona insisted, Gaikwad, a wise-cracking 35-year-old who once dreamed of becoming a TV actress, started uploading her own short videos. One day she posted a lighthearted clip of herself as she was heading to the market to buy mutton.

The video was viewed 100,000 times.

Gaikwad didn't understand it, but she was on her way to becoming another unlikely star in the huge, highly addicting and often mystifying universe of TikTok, the Chinese-made app whose popularity has skyrocketed worldwide.

Nowhere is this truer than in India, TikToks biggest international market, where its 200 million users include many villagers, lower-caste Indians and others from marginalized backgrounds for whom the app was a source of joy, self-respect, income  and even a measure of fame.

Now these Indians social media habits have become enmeshed in a geopolitical clash between the worlds two most populous countries.

India this week banned TikTok and 58 other apps developed by Chinese companies, labeling them threats to national security, in apparent retaliation for the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in a melee with Chinese troops on the countries disputed Himalayan border two weeks ago.

The announcement dealt a blow to China, whose tech industry is a source of national pride and a key competitor in an emergent Cold War with the U.S. But it also illustrated how ubiquitous and influential Chinese apps and other digital products have become around the world, transforming lives even as rival governments worry about their potential for harm.

The success of Chinas slick, low-cost smartphones and software has prompted warnings from the U.S. and others who believe they are illegally mining user data and could be used to spy for the Chinese Communist Party. China and the companies have denied the allegations.

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Indian officials had previously voiced concerns about Chinese apps for security and other reasons  regulators briefly banned TikTok downloads last year over concerns that users were being exposed to pornography and sexual predators  but that didn't dent their popularity.

With its 635 million internet connections and a fast-growing, $3.7-billion digital advertising market, India represents one of the most important countries for Chinas tech upstarts. In 2019, India was the only major developing economy where Chinese apps had a greater market share than American competitors, according to an analysis by MacroPolo, a think tank based at the Paulson Institute in Chicago.

Rush Doshi, director of the Brookings China Strategy Initiative in Washington, has described India as a tech swing state that is critical to Chinas digital ambitions. With the app ban, Doshi tweeted, that strategy is seriously imperiled.

Although 90% of TikToks revenues come from China, its parent company, ByteDance, had hired 2,000 employees in India and had planned to invest $1 billion in the market over the next three years. In April, TikTok said it had donated about $40 million to PM Cares, a fund established by Prime Minister Narendra Modis office to fight COVID-19.

The company quickly moved to demonstrate compliance with the ban, pulling TikTok from app stores in India and saying it was committed to working with the government to demonstrate our dedication to user security and our commitment to the country overall.

Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Beijing was strongly concerned by the ban and urged India to uphold the legitimate rights of international investors.

Indias TikTok nation has felt the sting.

I am so dejected, Gaikwad said by phone from Ambad, a village of cotton and millet farms 200 miles east of Mumbai.

By Monday, the day the ban was announced, her account had amassed nearly half a million followers. That night, she barely slept. She was mourning the loss of not just a favorite timepass  Indian parlance for a frivolous activity  but of a new way of seeing herself.

Gaikwad became known as the mutton lady after that early video and soon began posting several times daily  mostly snapshots of rural life, laced with zany comedy. Often, she is squatting over a stove on her tiled floor, stirring mutton cubes or kneading dough in her dark patterned nightgown. Or she's lip-syncing old Bollywood love songs, using her bewildered husband, Ankush, as a prop.

In one clip, shes sitting atop a brick wall like an Indian Lucille Ball, mock-shrieking: Im stuck! How do I get down? That got 1.4 million views.

Celebrity isnt something Gaikwad expected, growing up poor in Maharashtra state and raising four children with Ankush, who earns $120 a month as a local government employee. When she goes to the market now, she said, people stop her for selfies. Strangers ask to shoot videos with her. Some even come to her house.

I never got into TikTok for money, she said. But I got respect, legitimacy and confidence. We are poor people. We have never received any attention in life. All we have gotten is disdain and scorn. TikTok turned it around.

Akash Jadhav, a 21-year-old farmers son who drives a rickshaw in the rural town of Beed, is a voice for social justice on TikTok, where he posts about sexual harassment, acid attacks, alcoholism and domestic violence to more than 284,000 followers.

Now he is regularly invited to inaugurate offices and shops across the area, his travel expenses paid. His parents, who have struggled financially due to a years-long drought in the farming region, boast of him to relatives. Born into one of the lowest rungs of India's ancient caste hierarchy, he described with pride the friendships he'd formed with a doctor, a lawyer and a police officer, men he considered far above his social station in heavily stratified India.

TikTok opened up a new world for me, he said.

Jadhav said he hoped India would introduce alternatives to the app. Instagram and Facebook, he added, were dominated by a completely different section of society.

Nikhil Pahwa, founder of MediaNama, a website that covers the Indian digital industry, said that TikToks intuitive, full-screen design and emphasis on music made it a hit with rural Indians who found American apps too text-heavy or clunky.

TikTok specialized in being a platform that is accessible irrespective of socioeconomic class, Pahwa said. Thats why its become a hub of creative activity from places that we didnt expect.

Deepak Ghubade, a sugarcane farmer in western India, amassed 75,000 TikTok followers before deleting his account. (Deepak Ghubade)

In January, about 2,000 people met on a farm outside Beed for a convention of local TikTok users. The gathering was the brainchild of Deepak Ghubade, a 33-year-old sugarcane farmer who had posted the invitation to his 75,000 followers.

When he joined the site, mostly to upload clips of himself dancing to Hindi film songs, people from his village mocked him, Ghubade said. But encouraged by his wife, he continued to post.

Farmers and laborers use TikTok to overcome loneliness and poverty, he said. It provides us with some respite, he said. It is a platform where we belong and can express ourselves freely.

After the deaths of the Indian soldiers  the bloodiest incident on the border since a 1962 war  Ghubade learned for the first time that TikTok was a Chinese app. He deleted his account, but created a new one after some followers asked.

In one of his last posts, Ghubade, waving a white scarf, is dancing along a highway lip-syncing to a plaintive old Bollywood lyric: Your cheating will kill me someday. At the bottom of the screen he'd typed, in English: Miss you TikTok; Hate You China.

Even among ardent TikTok users, there has been little pushback to the ban, widely seen as a necessary response by Modis Hindu nationalist party to Chinese aggression. India has also reportedly delayed customs clearance for some Chinese imports, signaling that the trade dispute could widen.

Given that soldiers have been killed and sentiments are running high, banning Chinese apps is going to be a popular move, Pahwa said. What we see are people looking for alternatives. If the situation doesnt get resolved over the next month, creators will have to find other platforms to migrate to.

This week, Gaikwad donned a black sari and gold earrings for the camera, touching her heart as she recorded her last TikTok post.

Thank you for all the love and support, she said. I met many new people because of this. It became a family of sorts where we could express ourselves and share our feelings.

But like a true star, she refused to fade from the limelight.

Ive now started a YouTube channel, she said, signing off. And stamped across the bottom of the screen was sangitagaikwad17: her new Instagram handle.

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Special correspondent Parth M.N. reported from Mumbai and Times staff writer Bengali from Singapore.
ISELIN, N.J., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SD Capital Funding, a New Jersey based mortgage company, has begun its transformation into a digital mortgage lender with a name change and rebrand to LemonBrew Lending.

LemonBrew Logo (PRNewsfoto/LemonBrew)

For over a decade, SD Capital Funding has seen explosive, organic growth to become one of the nation's largest mortgage brokers. Earlier this year, SD Capital Funding earned the Quicken Loans Mortgage Services (QLMS) Top Partner Award for 2019. With over 7,000 partners in its network, QLMS is honored to award SD Capital Funding as its #1 partner.

"SD Capital Funding has built their business the right way, with a scalable process, genuine culture and an intense focus on serving their clients. It's no surprise their business continues to grow at a rapid pace," said Austin Niemiec, Executive Vice President of QLMS. "We are honored to work in the trenches with them every single day. They are incredible human beings, and are pacing to have a significantly bigger year in 2020."

"We are excited to bring SD Capital Funding's core belief of exceptional client service along with low rates and fees to LemonBrew Lending's digital offering as we grow into a national brand," says Jason Doshi, President of LemonBrew Lending. "It's important to keep in mind the rebranding is much deeper than a cool name and new logo, it's a true alignment of our vision and goal to use technology to empower home buyers and bring transparency to the friction-filled process."

The roadmap includes deep integrations with LemonBrew Technologies' existing real estate and title verticals creating the most seamless home buying experience out there saving the home buyer time and money.

LemonBrew users can enter the platform as early as the discovery phase when they are just thinking about buying a home and use LemonBrew's matching platform to match with a local, expert real estate agent. Or, if they've already found their dream home and just need financing, LemonBrew can offer the mortgage that's just right!

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Regardless of where the buyer is in their home buying journey, the LemonBrew platform will guide each client through the process without having to complete multiple applications, reach out to multiple companies or vendors and continuously provide redundant information.

"We are excited to have LemonBrew Lending join the LemonBrew ecosystem and bring to life our full-service real estate platform that streamlines the real estate process from start to finish," says Reno Heine, CEO of LemonBrew Technologies.

Headquartered in New Jersey with several offices throughout the country, LemonBrew Lending is aggressively expanding its loan origination contact center in Charlotte, NC.

Currently operating in 19 states and the District of Columbia, LemonBrew Lending plans to expand to all 50 states by the end of the year. Sticking to its roots in New Jersey, SD Capital Funding will remain the trade name to serve clients locally in the New Jersey market.

About LemonBrew Technologies

Built by experienced entrepreneurs and operators in the real estate and mortgage industry, LemonBrew is at the intersection of technology and purpose, filling the gap in the real estate market by providing an end-to-end digital solution allowing home buyers and sellers to connect with real estate agents, find the right mortgage, and close smoothly. Positioned to be an industry leader with innovative technology, LemonBrew was named a 2020 HousingWire Tech100 Real Estate Winner.

For more information about LemonBrew, email press@lemonbrew.com , visit lemonbrew.com , and follow us on Facebook , LinkedIn , and Instagram .

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Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh held a press conference call with reporters on Tuesday where he said the president is eager to return to the campaign trail and to keep campaigning and keep connecting with Americans.

The phone call came just as CNN reported that the Trump campaign had canceled plans to hold a rally in Alabama next weekend due to concerns about rising numbers of coronavirus infections. When asked about the CNN report later Tuesday afternoon, Murtaugh said, We dont comment about rally planning.

Murtaugh said on the call that Trump is planning to hold more of his signature rallies, and touted the presidents performance by contrasting it with his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Trump at a recent campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla. (Go Nakamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

That is where he is, is most effective and is without question more effective than Joe Biden, Murtaugh said of campaign rallies. Its no secret that Joe Biden, the Democrats and many in the national media would love to keep President Trump off the campaign trail, but he is determined to keep meeting Americans in person and speaking to them directly.

Recent polls show Trump trailing Biden by double digits both nationally and in some key states. In response, Trump has tweeted that polls showing him behind Biden are a joke and that his private polling shows him doing well.

Questions about future campaigning arose after Trump held a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20. It was the presidents first rally since early March and the largest indoor event in the country since the coronavirus lockdowns began.

The rally was marked by disappointing attendance that has fueled internal tensions on the presidents campaign team. A number of staffers who were involved in setting up the event and a pair of Secret Service agents also tested positive for the virus.

On the call, Murtaugh was asked if he had any specifics on where or when Trump might try to hold another event, but he declined to provide details.

As far as time, and place and actual locations of rallies, thats something that we are always looking at and always planning and always considering, he said, adding, We have never had a practice of announcing a rally until it is confirmed and ready to go, so we have never commented on our deliberations.

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Joe Biden at a campaign event on Tuesday in Wilmington, Del. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Murtaughs call was mainly focused on a speech and press conference Biden held in Delaware on Tuesday afternoon. He highlighted a list of questions that the Trump campaign had wanted to hear Biden answer at the event.

Murtaugh also criticized Biden for not having had a press availability in over three months and criticized the former vice presidents record, particularly on past disease outbreaks and China. Murtaugh argued that this undermined Bidens critiques of Trumps coronavirus response.

He has done nothing but lob partisan grenades from his basement in Delaware while facing very little scrutiny for his own record, Murtaugh said of Biden.

_____

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Here's What You Need To Remember: Why the nickname White Swan you ask? Because the entire plane is coated in a brilliantly white reflective coating. Its protection for the crew. The Tu-160 can carry a nuclear payload, which, obviously, creates a massively bright fireball. The thermal energy of nuclear explosions is enormous, and by reflecting some of that thermal energy (light), the crew is at least in theory somewhat more protected than otherwise.

Fastest bomber ever built. The largest bomber ever built. Heaviest bomber ever built. All of these monikers refer to the Tupelov Tu-160 White Swan (NATO reporting name Blackjack), a legacy Soviet airframe that has of late gotten a new lease on life.

Swan Diving Towards the Enemy

The Tu-160 is outwardly somewhat similar to the American Rockwell B-1 Lancer which spurred its development. Both have variable-sweep wings, both are supersonic. However, that is where the similarities end.

The B-1 Lancer is somewhat smaller, and is a bomber in the classic sense. The Tu-160, on the other hand, is used more as a stand-off weapons platform, in which missiles are launched from the bomb bay doors while the White Swan would speed off at Mach 2+ to safety. It is the only Soviet-designed bomber that does not carry any defensive weapons, although its prodigious 88,000 pounds of payload capacity can carry a dizzying array of conventional and/or nuclear weapons.

Why the nickname White Swan you ask? Because the entire plane is coated in a brilliantly white reflective coating. Its protection for the crew. The Tu-160 can carry a nuclear payload, which, obviously, creates a massively bright fireball. The thermal energy of nuclear explosions is enormous, and by reflecting some of that thermal energy (light), the crew is at least in theory somewhat more protected than otherwise.

Variable sweep wings are no longer in vogue, but offer some advantages. (Check out this F-14 Tomcat for a prime example of variably-swept wings!) During low-speed flight, like landing or takeoff, a straight wing offers more lift. At higher speeds, especially in the supersonic range, a straight wing causes unnecessary drag, and a steeply swept wing would be more efficient. Hence the variable-sweep capability of the Tu-160, with unfolds its wings at lower speeds, and folds them when flying supersonic.

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A New Lease on Life

Although there is no serious design flaw inherent to the Tu-160 design, one of the serious drawbacks is the fact that it is not stealthy.

But stealth is hard. And expensive. Russias only stealth aircraft, the Su-57 has had myriad teething problems and is unlikely to enter full serial production any time soon due to many issues  the low cost of oil, upon which the wobbly Russian defense budget depends, and engine issues that may be difficult to rectify any time soon.

What to do when a new design isnt working out as hope? Fall back on whats tried and true, with an update. Russia is currently working to modernize its existing fleet of Tu-160s with improved engines and avionics.

The Jamestown Foundation, a research and analysis think tank elaborated on the upgrade: The production of a modernized Tu-160 strategic bomber will require close cooperation among several different plants and the organization of a whole production chainsomething that has been a weak point in Russia.

It may be some time before we see any new bombers flying around in Russia, stealthy or otherwise.

Caleb Larson is a Defense Writer with The National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture. This article appeared last month.

Image: Wikipedia.

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Truist, the sixth-largest commercial bank in the United States, apologized for and denounced its predecessor banks roles in slavery in a letter sent Thursday to employees.

In 1872, two Confederate veterans and sons of wealthy slave-owning planters, Alpheus Branch and Thomas Jefferson Hadley IV, founded the banking house Branch and Hadley in the town of Wilson. The institution would eventually become known as BB&T, and after a 2019 merger with SunTrust, renamed to Truist.

I deeply regret and denounce the role that our heritage companies played more than 100 years ago to perpetuate the atrocity of slavery and the repression of enslaved peoples and their descendants, CEO Kelly King said in an interview.

I find that personally it makes me very sad, it makes me very mad. I will do everything I can to make it better, he said.

King pledged more support for African American communities and said the bank will accelerate diversity efforts internally.

Kelly King, CEO of Truist, apologized Thursday for the banks historical ties to slavery and the Confederacy.

Truist joins Charlottes Wachovia, later bought by Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan, in the ranks of major U.S. banks that have apologized for their role in slavery.

Both apologized in 2005 after municipalities across the U.S began to prod banks with which they did business to acknowledge their profits from slavery. Before the abolition of slavery, many banks routinely accepted slaves as collateral for loans.

It kind of jolted me

The Truist letter, authored by King, did not specify the acts or practices it renounced, nor did it say which institutions did the things for which it was apologizing.

King said in an interview that a full inquiry of the banks past was unlikely.

Truist established an internal working group to discuss the banks history, according to the letter, and its consulting with its board and outside groups on the issue.

The predecessor banks actions over 100 years ago had a role in creating systemic disadvantages that the descendants of slaves have endured for generations, Kings letter said. This includes our early institutions, which had close ties to industries of that era that profited from slavery.

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Thursdays apology comes after months of ongoing discussion at the bank about how best to acknowledge and atone for its role.

The talks were spurred, in part, by the police killings of George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky.

It has really kind of jolted me to be honest, King said. The sad stories that Im hearing about how life is today for most African-Americans because of the color of their skin is just unacceptable to me.





In the coming months, the bank will announce significantly enhanced support for community development financial institutions, which lend to diverse communities, as well as more funding to nonprofits and initiatives that focused on African-American communities.

The bank will also invest more in historically Black colleges and universities.

Truist, the new name chosen for the bank formed as a result of the merger of BB&T of Winston-Salem and SunTrust of Atlanta, moved its headquarters to Charlotte last year. The new bank kept the BB&T charter. It employs 58,000 workers, mostly in the South.

Slavery ties

While the bank that would become BB&T was started after the emancipation of slaves, Alpheus Branchs father, Samuel Branch, owned 58 slaves prior to the Civil War, according to slave records in the 1860 census. Hadleys father owned 37. None of the names of the slaves were recorded in the census.

Both Branch and Hadley fought for the Confederacy as young men. Branch served in the Scotland Neck Cavalry, and Hadley in Company A of the 55th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry.

When hostilities ended in 1865 and the South was forced to accept defeat, the farmers-turned-soldiers returned home and found their property destroyed, livestock gone, tools and equipment either ruined or lost, and their money worthless, according to a 1963 BB&T company history, Branch: A Tradition with a Future, by Vidette Bass.

The world that they had left their homes to defend existed no longer, the book continued.

The book criticized the corruption of the postwar government imposed on Southern states, a racist trope promoted by historians sympathetic to Southern landowners.

Reconstruction, a period of progress and enfranchisement for emancipated slaves, was described in the book as indeed a time of extravagance, bribery, corruption, oppression and lawlessness. 

A 2012 update to the company history is available online, with many of the passages unchanged.

It was in this setting that Branch and Hadley created their bank in 1872 to provide credit to the broken Southern economy. Eventually, Branch bought out Hadleys stake in the bank, and the bank was renamed Branch Banking and Trust.

The bank started a rapid period of growth in the latter half of the 20th century, buying up dozens of small banks mostly in the South.

Broader changes

The apology is part of a broader set of cultural changes at Truist.

When BB&T was a growing regional bank, it could do business in line with the political interests of its conservative executives without much outside scrutiny. Now, as Truist, the bank is trying to leave some of its baggage in the past.

In the early 2000s, led by then-CEO John Allison, BB&T financed a series of academic institutes at universities across the country that focused on the study of capitalism and the libertarian philosophy of objectivism.

As a condition for the banks financing of the institutes, some schools were required to teach the works of Ayn Rand, the controversial libertarian philosopher.

The arrangements raised ire among academic freedom advocates, who were concerned that a donor could have direct influence on curriculum.

While all bank branches and buildings will eventually shift to the Truist brand, a bank spokesman told the Observer in March that the BB&T name will remain on the capitalism institutes.
Herman Cain to be nominated for Fed seat by Donald Trump: AP

Herman Cain, a Republican politician and 2011 primary candidate for the party's presidential nominee, has been hospitalised after testing positive for Covid-19.

Mr Cain, a conservative columnist and former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, is currently being treated in an Atlanta-area hospital.

A spokesman for the 74-year-old released a statement on Twitter on Thursday saying: "On Monday June 29, Herman Cain was informed that he had tested positive for Covid-19. By Wednesday, July 1, Mr Cain had developed symptoms serious enough that he requires hospitalizations."

Mr Cain is not on a respirator and is "awake and alert" according to the statement.

He is an ally of President Donald Trump  he serves as co-chair of Black Voices for Trump  and attended the president's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 20 June. At least two of the president's staffers at that event tested positive for the coronavirus in the days following the rally.

Video from the rally shows Mr Cain with other supporters sitting in the crowd while not wearing a mask.

"There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr Cain contracted the coronavirus, but we do know he is a fighter who has beaten Stage 4 cancer," the statement said.

Dan Calabrese, the editor of HermanCain.com, addressed speculation that Mr Cain contracted the virus while attending the rally in a blog post on Thursday.

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"We honestly have no idea where he contracted it. I realise people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of travelling the past week, including to Arizona where cases are spiking. I don't think there's any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected," Mr Calabrese wrote. "We'll never know."

Mr Cain is a contributor to the conservative news outlet Newsmax and hosts two political discussion shows, The Herman Cain Show and Herman Cain's America.

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Trump's ally hospitalised for coronavirus after attending Tulsa rally
Attendees listen during a demonstration by the group Housing Our Neighbors outside City Hall.

(Karl Merton Ferron)
Joe Biden is surging in the polls and in his bank account.

The former vice president, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, announced a massive fundraising haul for June, raising $141 million, and $282.1 million last quarter, both record sums that outpace the numbers released by President Donald Trumps reelection effort earlier Wednesday night.

In June, 68% of donors were new to the campaign and the overall average online donation was $34. More than 2.6 million also signed up to join the campaign, according to a release announcing the fundraising totals.

The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee announced earlier they had brought in a whopping, then-record-breaking $266 million in the second quarter of 2020 -- only to be upstaged by the Democrats hours later.

MORE: Trump calls Russia bounty reports 'hoax' even as White House briefs intel on it

In June, Trump Victory, the joint fundraising committee between the RNC and the Trump campaign, along with other authorized joint fundraising committees, brought in $131 million, a significant jump in fundraising for the president's team after being outraised by the presumptive Democratic nominee in May. But still, they are facing a second straight month trailing in fundraising.

Biden and the DNC brought in $80.8 million in May, outpacing the $74 million raised by the joint Republican effort.

PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Win Mcnamee/Getty Images)

The Biden campaign did not provide a cash-on-hand number, but they are still at a significant war chest disadvantage against the Republicans, which said it had $295 million in the bank.

"Its clear that voters are looking for steady leadership, experience, empathy, compassion, and character -- and theyll find all of these qualities in Vice President Joe Biden. This has been our argument since day one of this campaign, and it will be our winning argument in November, Biden campaign manager Jen OMalley Dillon wrote in an email sent to supporters.

Trump's $266 million second quarter is over $100 million more than what was raised last quarter, a 71% increase, according to the campaign.

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MORE: Trump claims he's 'all for masks,' even for himself, despite never wearing one in public

June's defeat comes at a time of political peril for the president amid sinking polling numbers, trailing Biden nationally by nine points, according to FiveThirtyEight, and facing crises such as an ongoing pandemic and nationwide protests calling for racial justice.

The news also comes weeks after the president's Tulsa rally -- Trump's first in months -- drew lower-than-expected turnout after days of promising that over a million supporters had requested tickets to attend.

PHOTO: Former Vice President Joe Biden holds his protective face mask as he speaks about the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic during a campaign event in Wilmington, Del., June 30, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

In a recent New York Times/Siena poll, Trump trailed Biden by 14 points nationally, with 50% of registered voters saying they would support the former vice president if the election were held today.

"The Trump campaign's monumental June fundraising haul proves that people are voting with their wallets and that enthusiasm behind President Trump's re-election is only growing," Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement released before the Democrats released their total. "No one is excited about Joe Biden, which is why he has to rely so heavily on surrogates like Barack Obama and radical Hollywood elites. In stark contrast, President Trump is tapping into support from real Americans all across the country who have reaped the benefits of his America First agenda."

Trump's reelection effort has now nearly raised $1 billion, crossing over $947 million raised in the past two years with Wednesday's second quarter numbers, according to the Trump campaign.

ABC News' Mark Osborne contributed to this report.

Joe Biden, DNC raise more money than Donald Trump, RNC for 2nd straight month originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
President Donald Trump came to the White House briefing room Thursday morning to tout new employment numbers showing that 4.8 million jobs were added in June, calling it "spectacular news."

PHOTO: President Donald Trump arrives to speak to the media in the briefing room at the White House, July 2, 2020. President Trump spoke about the economy and recent jobs numbers. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

"Today's announcement proves that our economy is roaring back" from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump said.

Economic experts have said the numbers could be deceptive, showing only a temporary comeback before unemployment rises again.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House, July 2, 2020. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

He indirectly acknowledged the nationwide record surge in new cases in "some places where we're putting out the flames, the fires."

The president said his administration was working with governors to deal with the worsening crisis. "Getting rid of the flame, Trump said. "It's happening."

"The crisis is being handled," he said.

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Trump predicted a strong third quarter as well.

"The good thing is the numbers will be coming out just prior to the election, so people will be able to see those," he added.

After the president departed without taking questions, his economic advisers continued to defend the administration's push to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus even as some states have since had to reverse course due to a surge in cases.

I wouldn't say reverse, I would say the states appropriately are pausing certain things, like bars and gyms, which obviously are the more contagious types of things, and I think that the states are acting appropriately, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said as he played down the fact that some states have had to roll back their reopenings.

Asked if the White House regretted encouraging states to reopen so quickly, Mnuchin replied: "Absolutely not. I think we've had a very careful plan, again, working with the states. This is primarily the states' responsibility."

While Mnuchin sought to place primary responsibility on the states, he said he thinks they have struck "the right balance and we're working with the states on the health issues and the economic issues."

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"If you have to phase out, as Steven said, phase out bars, so be it, for a few weeks, I think some places might have been over-exuberant," the president's top economic Larry Kudlow added.

Mnuchin also defended the presidents not wearing masks even as the administration is now encouraging the general public to wear them.

Because hes the president of the United States and people are not around him close and the people who are around are tested, I don't think he needs to wear a mask, but the rest of us and absolutely in the president support wearing a mask, Mnuchin said.

He noted in his opening remarks that he and Kudlow were not wearing masks because they had both been tested.

Asked by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl if hes concerned about new unemployment claims rising, Mnuchin said we're going to be concerned until every single person is back to work but said the numbers have to be considered within the context of the current situation and argued that the focus should be on the jobs numbers, which he said are the most accurate numbers

Mnuchin spoke briefly about additional assistance the administration plans to negotiate with Congress. "There are going to be a number of businesses that are particularly hard hit, and we're going to be looking at giving those businesses additional money," Mnuchin said.

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Mnuchin also said the federal government is "working with schools and universities" to make sure students can return to school safely in the fall.

I think in most cases schools will be able to open safely. Some schools will need to spend money, he said, suggesting the administration will absolutely support funding in the next stimulus to support schools that may need to spend on equipment and other resources to allow for social distancing.

Trump claims new jobs numbers show economy is 'roaring back' from coronavirus originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
A New York state judge closed one chapter on an attempt to block a book by President Donald Trump's niece, which paints a harsh portrait of Trump and their family's history, ruling Wednesday that it can hit store shelves.

State appeals Judge Alan D. Scheinkman reversed a lower court's decision this week that issued a temporary restraining order.

Mary Trump's book about her uncle, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," is a potential bestseller, with tens of thousands of copies having shipped before its July 28 publication. The book has also been at the top of online lists for book presales.

"We support Mary L. Trump's right to tell her story in 'Too Much and Never Enough,' a work of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public," said Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for the company. "As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions, and we remain confident that the preliminary injunction will be denied."

Robert Trump, the president's younger brother, filed a suit in late June in Queens County Surrogate's Court, where the estate of their father, Fred Trump Sr., who died in 1999, was settled. However, the judge tossed the case out because it was not the proper venue.

IMAGE: 'Too Much and Never Enough' by Mary L. Trump (Simon & Schuster)

Lawyers for Robert Trump quickly refiled a claim in state court in Dutchess County in upstate New York, where he lives. Robert Trump has argued that Mary Trump is not allowed to publish anything about her family as part of a settlement agreement in Fred Trump Sr.'s inheritance case.

Judge Hal B. Greenwald initially issued a temporary injunction after Robert Trump refiled.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, said in a filing Tuesday that it had already printed 75,000 copies and that more copies are being made.

Simon & Schuster said in court documents that it would be unconstitutional to stop publication and that it was unaware that Mary Trump had signed a nondisclosure agreement. The company also said it believes it is not liable if she breached the agreement.

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"We did not learn anything about Ms. Trump signing any agreement concerning her ability to speak about her litigation with her family until shortly after press broke concerning Ms. Trump's Book about two weeks ago, well after the Book had been accepted, put into production, and printing had begun," CEO Jonathan Karp said in an affidavit. "And we never saw any purported agreement until this action was filed against Ms. Trump and Simon & Schuster."

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Karp said in his affidavit that Mary Trump revealed to the company that she leaked the president's tax returns to The New York Times for a 2018 investigation, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Karp argued that because "no litigation" was taken after the tax returns were leaked, the company was "entirely confident in Ms. Trump's ability to tell her story regarding her own family."
Carlos Barria/Reuters

In the days since The New York Times broke the news on U.S. intelligence examining claims of Russian bounties being offered to kill American military personnel in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump has turned his ire not at the Russian government, but instead on two of his favorite enemies: the news media and their confidential sources.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the president in recent days has privately expressedrather loudly, in the words of one of the sourceshis desire for a leak investigation into how that story ended up in the Times, and his wish for the leaker or leakers to face a heavy prison sentence.

This happens as the president publicly trashes the Times reporting as yet another hoax generated by his foes to damage him, and as the Trump administration does everything it can to publicly shame the leakers of the classified information. You may seek to undermine our President but in fact, you undermine our countrys safety and our countrys security, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Tuesday at a press briefing, in a scripted warning that was quickly clipped and blasted out on Trumps official social media feeds.

Its one of a number of ways in which administration officials and Trumpworld figures, including the president himself, have oscillated between claiming the story about the Russian bounties is false and asserting that the intelligence is accurate (though uncorroborated) and therefore dangerous to share with the public.

And as the president obsesses over who in his own government is trying to stab him in the back and leak to the press, officials elsewhere in the upper echelons of his administration have intensely debated for days the various diplomatic and retaliatory options against Russia that they could present to Trump.

In a normal world, the president would get on the phone to his foreign counterpart and warn him that if we ever track back an attack on our forces to Russian support, thats an actionable offenseand in theory he would mean it, and the warning would be taken seriously, said one former senior Pentagon official. But not in this world, unfortunately.

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As a U.S. intelligence report about Russian assistance to the Taliban circulates on Capitol Hill and throughout the national security apparatus, officials inside the State Department have begun to discuss whether to approach Russia through diplomatic channels to discuss the matter, according to one official familiar with those talks. Defense Department officials told The Daily Beast that leaders in the field have issued warnings about the Russian bounties to troops in the field.

There are a range of things we could be doing on the ground to respond and Im sure some of those things are taking place, a second former senior Pentagon official said. But it really is a question of whether the president is concerned enough to make those calls.

The push by the president to open an investigation into who leaked to The New York Times comes as officials inside the White House and within the intelligence and national security apparatus scramble to confront a burgeoning public-relations crisis. (Despite the presidents enthusiasm for finding a culprit, the Department of Justice has yet to make any moves on following through on Trumps wishes, according to two individuals familiar, but did not rule out the possibility.)

Over the past five days, loyalists of President Trump have seemed confused about whether to write-off the Times and its reporting all together or if they should condemn the outlet for publishing classified information. The administration faced a similar situation with the publishing of former National Security Adviser John Boltons book as it tried to claim at the same time that its contents were erroneous but also classified.

Meanwhile, some of the presidents most influential and visible allies in right-wing media have attempted to make the leak itself, not the contents of the intel or the allegations, the true villain in the story, re-running some of their well-worn defenses of Trump during the Russia investigation and the Ukraine scandal. Fox News host and Trump pal Jesse Watters said on Monday that it appeared to him that some sort of hater in the intelligence community leaked to the media in an effort to perpetuate this Russian cloud around the president. Fox Business star Lou Dobbs, a top informal adviser to Trump, said on-air Tuesday that what is troubling to me is three and a half years into this president's first term, we still have leaks that can be this noxious and thisannoying.

The real struggle for the administration seems to be not how it syncs messaging about the intelligencetheres consensus that it has not been corroboratedbut how various agencies address the question of whether and how the president was briefed. The Daily Beast and other outlets have reported the intelligence was included in a version of the Presidents Daily Brief earlier this year, though it remains unclear whether any official spoke directly to Trump about the intelligence and to what extent those officials raised the alarm. Various senior Trump officials, including Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, have said the president was not briefed on the intelligence because there was not a consensus on whether the intelligence had been corroborated.

I dont know that anyone dropped the ball as much as they didnt want to take [Trump] what he didnt want to hear, one of the former Pentagon officials said. Im sure thats consistent practice by now.

According to three individuals who have read or who are familiar with the intelligence report, the assessment is long and covers the span of several years, focusing generally on how Russia provides support, including financial assistance, to the Taliban. The report also touches on the Russian bounties first reported by The New York Times, though those who read the report say that data point is circumstantial and that the investigation is ongoing. Two individuals who spoke to The Daily Beast, though, said it is clear from the report that theres an increased risk for U.S. troops in Afghanistan because of Russias behavior.

As Trump continues to demand a leak investigation and fumes about the intelligence being made public, his deputies are on edge and have begun pointing fingers.

In a rare public statement in front of the White House Wednesday, National Security Adviser Robert OBrien told reporters that it was a senior Central Intelligence Agency officials decision not to brief the president because the intelligence was uncorroborated.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Reuters

Following Thursday morning's unemployment numbers, Donald Trump made one of his first public appearances following a growing scandal over US intelligence suspecting Russian military officials of providing "bounties" to Taliban-linked militia.

The president championed reports that 4.8m jobs were added in June as states started reopening their economies and people went back to work, with unemployment falling to 11.1 per cent, still higher than at the peak of the recession in 2008.

Mr Trump insisted his administration put the flame out in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, despite new cases of Covid-19 shooting up by nearly 50,000 in the US on Wednesday, the biggest one-day increase since the virus reached its shores as states put the brakes on reopening.

His political ally Herman Cain has been hospitalised for the coronavirus in Atlanta, Georgia after attending the president's campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 20 June, though Mr Cain's team said it was not certain when he contracted the virus.

Several states have recorded their highest single-day reports of new Covid-19 cases in recent days, including Florida, which saw a Thursday total eclipsing 10,000.

In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott ordered residents to wear face coverings in public as the state reported more than 8,000 new cases on Wednesday, it's largest spike since the onset of the outbreak.

Arizona also has mandated face coverings in the state after it reported nearly 4,000 cases this week, it's largest single-day spike yet.

As the president prepares for his Fourth of July event at Mt Rushmore, where social distancing and mask-wearing won't be enforced, he reversed his public position on wearing face coverings, saying he's "all for" them despite dismissing federal guidance urging Americans to do so since it was announced in early April.

The president of the Oglala Sioux tribal council was warned against Mr Trump holding the event in South Dakota on Friday over health fears among Native communities. He said the event would serve as an insult to Native people on whose land the Black Hills monument stands.

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Im all for masks says Trump in abrupt U-turn
U.S. President Trump participates in roundtable discussion at the White House in Washington

Reuters

On February 27, Trump was briefed on the possibility that a Russian military intelligence unit may have secretly paid Taliban-linked militants to kill US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, according to a report from The New York Times.

The same day, Trump had a prolonged meeting with the producers behind a dramatized play about ex-FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and met with African American media personalities to discuss "community empowerment."

The White House and Trump denied that the president was briefed on the suspected Russian operation, with Trump claiming US intel "did not find this info credible" and therefore did not report the situation to him or Vice President Mike Pence.

However, three NATO officials told Business Insider that they were briefed on the situation and the investigation into the suspected plot.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump was reportedly briefed on potential Russian bounty on US troops in Afghanistan on February 27  the same day he had a prolonged meeting with the producers behind a dramatized play about ex-FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

The New York Times reported on Monday that Trump received a written briefing on the suspected Russian operation back in late February, in which a Russian military intelligence unit may have secretly offered bounties Taliban-linked militants to kill US and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

One official pinpointed to The Times the date of the President's Daily Brief as February 27.

The Associated Press also reported on the president being briefed on the possible Russian operation but offered a timeline that dated a year earlier than what was laid out by The Times.

Related video: The rise and fall of Donald Trumps 365 million airline

On February 27 of this year, The Daily Beast reported that Trump spent 45 minutes with the actors and producers behind a dramatized play depicting former FBI agent Strzok and former FBI lawyer Page, who exchanged text messages about the upcoming 2016 election while having an affair  and have become targets of Trump's ire.

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The low-budget conservative play, titled "FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers," debuted at CPAC on February 27, with Strzok played by actor Dean Cain, who played Superman in the 1990s ABC show "Lois and Clark," and Page played by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" actress Kristy Swanson.

"We went for a 15-minute meeting that took 45 minutes," playwright Phelim McAleer told The Daily Beast at the time. "We were there for 45 minutes in the Oval Office, and he loves it, he loves the play."

Later on February 27, Trump met with African American media personalities, like Candace Owens and Diamond and Silk, to discuss "community empowerment," The Daily Beast reported. Meanwhile, the Dow took another dive the same day, amid early market fears prompted by the then-emerging coronavirus pandemic.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said neither Trump nor Vice President Mike Pence were briefed on the possible Russian operation.

"The United States receives thousands of intelligence reports a day, and they are subject to strict scrutiny," McEnany said during a Saturday press briefing.

Trump also claimed US intel did not report the situation to him nor Pence, claiming US intel "did not find this info credible" and calling The Times' report "possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax."

Russia has also denied the report.

However, three NATO officials told Business Insider that they were briefed on the suspected Russian operation.

"We were briefed [by the Americans] on a potential threat to our troops in Afghanistan from operatives potentially linked to the Russian intelligence services," one NATO military intelligence official said. "There is no indication that our troops  or any non-US NATO troops  have been targeted in these attacks, but all NATO services with casualties in Afghanistan over the past two years are currently checking for any connections."

Read the original article on Business Insider
President Donald Trump touted the record job gains in June Thursday, saying the U.S. was roaring back as the economy attempts to crawl out of a crater left by the coronavirus pandemic.

This is the largest monthly jobs gain in the history of our country," Trump said in a press conference Thursday morning following the Labor Departments monthly U.S. employment report.

Todays announcement proves that our economy is roaring back," Trump said, adding that the governments response to the pandemic was "working out very well."

The monthly job gains in May and June are historic, but the labor market is still facing a net loss of 14.7 million job losses from the coronavirus recession.

Jobs report: 4.8M jobs added and unemployment falls to 11.1% as more states reopen after COVID-19 shutdowns

Layoffs: 48M Americans filed jobless claims in 15 weeks

About 2.7 million jobs were added in May and 4.8 million positions were added in June -- both a record. However, they came after an unprecedented 22.2 million job losses in March and April.

Economists and analysts anticipate that the job figures will be volatile until a vaccine for the virus is developed.

It remains too difficult to call this trend with any real confidence as we continue to see-saw between lockdown tightening and lockdown loosening, Shane Balkham, chief investment officer at discretionary fund manager Beaufort Investment, said in a note. Instead, its the revision to these numbers in the next set of data that will prove most revealing."

The further reopening of the economy in June ushered back more temporarily laid off workers. The job gains were concentrated in industries that have been hammered by the pandemic, including leisure and hospitality, health care and retail.

Service-sector employment rose to 4.2 million in June, building upon the 2.5 million rebound in May. However, the two-month rebound of 6.8 million jobs only recovers 36% of the positions lost in March and April, according to Oxford Economics.

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The number of permanent job losses in June continued to climb, rising by 588,000 to nearly 2.9 million.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news briefing at the White House on Thursday, July 2, 2020, in Washington.

Economists have attributed the burst in job gains to the governments Paycheck Protection Program that provided small businesses loans that cover eight weeks of wages and other expenses. But the exhaustion of those loans threatens to lead to another wave of layoffs, economists caution.

The data was collected in mid-June before a recent surge in virus cases. And layoffs have remained high since then as more states across the U.S. have paused plans to reopen following a resurgence in cases, forcing more business to shutter.

The closures, along with patrons being unwilling to return to close-quarter establishments, may weigh on the payrolls numbers in July, Peter Essele, head of portfolio management at investment advisor Commonwealth Financial Network, said in a note.

Separate data released Thursday showed about 1.43 million workers filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, the Labor Department said, with more than 48 million Americans seeking initial jobless benefits in just 15 weeks. The total of those receiving benefits for consecutive weeks turned higher last week, rising by 59,000 to 19.29 million.

Last week, initial claims for state unemployment benefits jumped by 24,033 in Indiana. In Washington and Virginia, claims rose by 8,110 and 7,769, respectively. And Kentucky saw benefits spike by 5,600. Claims in Oklahoma, however, dropped by 41,933 while Maryland fell by 10,620.

As long as there is no final resolution of the pandemic, the economy might face a prolonged situation of moving back and forth in terms of lockdown measures, Christian Scherrmann, U.S. economist at asset manager DWS Group, said in a note. It is likely some businesses will not survive such a bumpy ride.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Unemployment: Trump touts jobs report but labor market remains grim
Fox News host Tucker Carlson continued his relentless attacks on social justice movement Black Lives Matter on Wednesday night, likening the protests over police brutality to coronavirus while describing the city where George Floyd was killed as our Wuhan.

Carlson led off his top-rated Fox News primetime program by referencing COVID-19, a disease that has currently killed roughly 130,000 Americans, in an effort to draw a comparison to the recent push for racial justice kicked off by Floyds late-May death.

We spent an awful lot of time this spring talking about viruses and how they spread, he proclaimed. One person infects another person who infects a third who then has contact with a larger group of people and infects 20 more, each of whom, and you know how it works. It's exponential. Pretty soon, individuals thousands of miles from the source of the outbreaks start getting sick.

Pivoting to the BLM movement, the conservative host asserted that craziness spreads very much the same way, adding that a single lunatic can pass a debilitating case of it to millions of others with just one appearance on MSNBC or via Twitter.

Hysteria is the most communicable disease known to man, Carlson declared. And we're now living through a pandemic of it.

On Memorial Day weekend, a man called George Floyd died in police custody in Minnesota, he continued. That's where this outbreak first began. Minneapolis was our Wuhan. The first cases appeared a little over a month ago.

After comparing Minneapolis to the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus at the heart of a worldwide pandemic originated, Carlson then complained about recent attempts to take down statues of Christopher Columbus.

Christopher Columbus was not a Minneapolis police officer, Christopher Columbus was an Italian navigator who died more than 500 years ago, he huffed. Columbus probably never even heard of George Floyd. He almost certainly didn't mistreat him personally. So why are people attacking Columbus' statute?

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Questions are not permitted during hysteria epidemics, the Fox star added. Logic of any kind seems to dramatically increase the severity of the symptoms. A patient may appear to be recovering from hysteria, speaking in nearly complete sentences, bathing independently on occasion.

From there, Carlson pivoted to an attack on GOP Sens. James Lankford and Ron Johnson for proposing a bill that would remove Columbus Day as a federal holiday and replace it with Juneteenth, claiming they were caving to the liberal mob and that more American holidays would be soon on the chopping block.

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Over 50,000 new coronavirus cases were counted nationwide on Wednesday, a new single-day record for the U.S. as spikes in the southern and western parts of the country continued.

According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, 50,203 new coronavirus cases were reported, setting a new record for the number of cases reported in a single day. While the national daily death count for the pandemic remains low compared to April, the new numbers surpassed the previous record set just last week, when 36,880 cases were recorded in a single day. Last weekend, the country passed the 2.5 million mark for total cases.

Arizona, California, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas all reported record-high totals of new cases on Wednesday. At least 23 states have altered reopening plans because of the recent surge in cases.

Vice President Mike Pence, leader of the White Houses coronavirus task force, visited Arizona on Wednesday and announced that the federal government is sending 500 health workers to the state to help with its rising caseload. The state also recorded a new high of coronavirus-related deaths Wednesday.

Help is on the way and were going to spare no expense to provide the kind of reinforcements that you will need across the state, Pence stated.

President Trump said in an interview that he is all for masks and would wear one if he were in in a tight situation with people, and hopes the virus is going to sort of disappear.

I think were going to be very good with the coronavirus, Trump said. I think that, at some point, thats going to sort of disappear, I hope.

More from National Review
Dover Brexit queue

Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images

British businesses fear the UK is heading for Brexit "disaster" with Boris Johnson's government unable to confirm new border arrangements will be ready in time.

Senior business figures tell Business Insider of growing fears that the UK government's planned new IT system to manage checks on goods heading to the UK won't be fully functional by January.

The UK Road Haulage Association said: "The worry over this new IT system is massive."

They warned that Britain was heading for a "cocktail for potential disaster."

"We will have chaos on day one and for many days afterwards," another senior figure told Insider.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

British businesses are increasingly worried that the UK government's planned system to check goods heading to the European Union won't be ready in time for when the Brexit transition period ends in 2021.

Boris Johnson's government plans to bring in an entirely new IT system to help check goods heading to the European Union from the start of January.

However, leading UK business groups have told Business Insider that the government has failed to confirm to them how the system will work and whether it will be fully functional in time.

One senior figure who is in close contact with the government about its Brexit plans told Business Insider that the government "just don't know" how the new arrangements will work.

"We're probably more engaged with the government than we've ever been," they said.

"The problem isn't the engagement, it's the answers. They just don't know [how this will work]. And we are getting to the point where these answers need to be the priority for the government, or we will have chaos on day one and for many days afterwards."

Once Britain leaves the Brexit transition period and the European Single Market next January, the government plans to implement a new IT system to manage the additional border checks that will be needed.

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The system is known as the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, or GVMS, as reported by Bloomberg this week.

Under the plans, truckers transporting goods are set to need a GVMS reference number before being allowed to depart for the EU. They will do this by digitally submitting information about what they're transporting. Their reference numbers will be checked by customs officials at locations that are yet to be specified but are set to be away from Britain's borders.

However, multiple business and industry groups affected by these plans have told Business Insider that the UK government has up to now failed to guarantee that this new IT system will be fully operational by January 1.

This, they say, means there is a prospect of truckers being subject to stringent checks by customs officials in Calais and elsewhere in the EU from January 1, creating chaos and delay at Britain's borders with its biggest trading partner.

One senior industry figure engaged in talks with the government, who wished to remain anonymous, said it was a "glaring omission" from the information they received about the GVMS system this week.

Another figure engaged with the government, the Road Haulage Association's Rod McKenzie, said confusion over how the IT system would work  and whether it'd be ready on time  was "a cocktail for potential disaster at the moment."

He told Business Insider: "The worry over this new IT system is massive. You wouldn't think you'd choose to run an entirely new and complex system with a bit of IT kit that nobody quite knows will actually work.

"The French might be helpful when it comes to UK imports staying in France  but what about those going further afield? It's so unclear and so frustrating."

He added: "We're going to have a new customs border process but we don't yet know what it is. We don't know what we will have to do to export goods to the EU. We're reliant on an IT system which we don't know will work.

"Any reasonable person would look at that and think 'there might be a problem here'."

Figures in the logistics industry point out that it took France well over a year to develop and test its own IT system for checks brought about by Brexit, whereas HMRC is trying to create its own in just six months. The French system was trialed a number of times before being deemed sufficient.

The GVMS will also cover customs checks on goods heading from Great Britain to Northern Ireland from next year.

The heads of two Northern Irish ports  Larne and Foyle  on Wednesday told the Northern Irish assembly's infrastructure committee they were doubtful that the GVMS would be ready in time for January 1.

Brian McGrath, who heads Foyle port, said: "I don't think the track record of government in terms of that sort of technology implementation would give anybody a great deal of comfort.

"It's very close to the deadline. I don't think too many people in the world industry think that's going to happen."

A UK government spokesperson said that HMRC would publish its full plan for preparing Britain's border for January this month.

"We are continuing our preparations for the end of the transition period and the introduction of new border controls, including by providing 84m to grow the customs intermediary sector to encompass EU trade after 2020," they said.

"We are regularly engaging with industry as plans develop, in particular with regard to a new IT system that will facilitate movement at the border. A border operating model will be published in July 2020."

Businesses don't know how Britain's Brexit borders will work

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove, who is heading the government's Brexit plans.

Reuters/Neil Hall

Naomi Smith, CEO of Best for Britain, which is campaigning for a comprehensive UK-EU trade deal, said: "This week we formally missed the opportunity to request an extension to the transition period.

"It is therefore jaw-dropping that in the very same week we find out the government cannot guarantee the IT systems needed to make our new borders operational will be ready in time."

Concern that the GVMS might not be ready in time comes amid confusion over how it will work in practice and potential chaos for the 10,000 trucks which arrive at the port of Dover every day if there are shortcomings.

The Road Haulage Association's McKenzie said that even if the system was fully operational by January 1, there might not be enough time for truckers to prepare for the new checks and processes it entails.

"Six months is probably, in reality, not enough time to get the comms out there and tell people what to do," he said.

Peter MacSwiney, who heads the UK government's own expert panel on customs, over the weekend said the government's handling of the new IT system had been "amateurish" and left businesses lacking important details.

"The GVMS relies on a flow of data that we don't have," he told The Telegraph newspaper.

"It's been devised without any thought of how things actually work in the real world.

How the hell is the driver going to know what the customs entry is? It's amateurish."

Read the original article on Business Insider
The meeting will be broadcast live on Channel 23. Those wishing to make public comment can email at info@manchestermd.gov beforehand or call in during the meeting to 410-239-3200. Commenters should include their name and address. Email comments will be read aloud during the hearing and phone comments will be heard via speakerphone.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has been a vocal critic of China over Hong Kong: Getty Images

The US House of Representatives has unanimously approved a bill that imposes sanctions on Chinese officials involved in the new national security law for Hong Kong.

The bill will punish any banks that do business with a list of senior Chinese officials involved in Hong Kong affairs, and also targets police units in Hong Kong that have clashed with protesters over the past 13 months of unrest in the city.

The bill had already passed the Senate, but now goes back to the upper house after some changes were made. The Senate could hold a second vote as early as Thursday, before the bill is sent to Donald Trump for his approval or veto.

Speaking in a rare appearance at the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee ahead of Wednesday afternoons vote, House speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the new Hong Kong security law represented a brutal, sweeping crackdown against the people of Hong Kong, intended to destroy the freedoms they were promised during the handover from Britain.

The new law in Hong Kong defines and bans subversion, secessionism, terrorism and foreign collusion, as well as setting up a national security office in the city for the first time that will not be answerable to local laws.

Also speaking in that hearing was the prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former Legislative Council member Nathan Law, who said China must be held accountable for the promises it has made to both Hong Kongers and the world.

Through fear intimidation, and heavy-handed governance, Beijing turns Hong Kong into just another Chinese city while trying to keep its outer shell, he told the committee. In doing so, it hopes to preserve the illusion that the city is still autonomous. The international community must not be confused.

Simply by speaking to the US congressional body, Law said, he risks being found in violation of the new laws provisions on colluding with foreign powers. Law said he had previously testified to the committee twice in the past year, but that then he did not have to worry about going back to Hong Kong afterward to continue my street activism, adding: This time is different.

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Ms Pelosi, who has been a vocal critic of Beijings actions regarding Hong Kong, later said that the US sanctions were an urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese government's passage of its so-called 'national security' law.

Politicians from both American parties urged the Trump administration to take strong action against China over the Hong Kong law.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the security law was an affront to all nations and that Washington would continue to implement Mr Trump's directive to end the territory's special trading status.

The US has already begun eliminating this status, which until now saw the US treat Hong Kong differently to mainland China because of its unique freedoms and autonomy, underpinning the citys position as an international financial powerhouse. The administration has halted defence exports to Hong Kong that might also double up as police equipment, and restricted the territory's access to high technology products.

China has said it will respond by imposing visa restrictions on Americans seen as interfering in Hong Kongs affairs - a move Mr Pompeo called a sign of how Beijing refuses to take responsibility for its own choices.

China also said on Thursday that it reserves the right to take corresponding measures against Britain, Hong Kongs former colonial power, after Boris Johnson said the UK would push ahead with its offer to ease visa rules for some three million Hong Kongers.

Britain said that anyone born in Hong Kong before 1997 would be allowed to come to the UK and stay for extendable periods of up to one year, potentially giving them the right to eventually apply for British citizenship down the line.

In a statement on Thursday, the Chinese embassy in London said: If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms governing international relations. We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures.

The embassy also called on Britain to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respect China's position and concerns, (and) refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any way.

Read more

Why activists are so terrified by Hong Kongs new security law

Chinas self-interest remains Hong Kongs best defence

Trump 'squandered' Hong Kong to 'sell soybeans' to China, Dem says

European leaders condemn deplorable Hong Kong security law

This new security law turns Hong Kong into a Chinese police state

Hong Kong paying millions to London PR firm to improve image
US authorities said their door remains open to Prince Andrew making a statement. (Getty Images)

US prosecutors have said they would like to talk to Prince Andrew following the arrest of a British socialite on child sex abuse charges in New York.

Ghislaine Maxwell has been charged with helping disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to sexually exploit and abuse multiple minor girls over a three-year period in the 1990s.

Audrey Strauss, acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, said Maxwell had played a critical role in helping Epstein identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse.

The FBI said it had been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwells whereabouts as they worked the investigation.

US investigators have said they also want to interview Prince Andrew about his friendship with Epstein as part of their inquiry into possible co-conspirators.

That has led to a transatlantic war of words, with US prosecutors accusing him in June of failing to cooperate with multiple requests they made to interview him about his contacts with the late Epstein, who died last August in a New York City federal prison.

US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said last month Andrew was falsely portraying himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate with an ongoing federal criminal investigation into sex trafficking and related offences committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.

Read more: Prince Andrew accuses US prosecutors of seeking publicity instead of answers

Ghislaine Maxwell, with the Duke of York after the wedding of a former girlfriend of the Duke, Aurelia Cecil in 2000. (PA Images)

Taking questions from reporters as she announced Maxwells arrest on Thursday, acting US attorney for the southern district of New York Audrey Strauss said investigators would welcome a statement from Prince Andrew.

Im not going to comment on anyones status in this investigation but I will say that we would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement, she said.

I have no further comment beyond what I just said, which is that our doors remain open, as we previously said, and we would welcome him coming in and giving us an opportunity to hear his statement.

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Andrew has publicly stated he will cooperate with any "appropriate law enforcement agency".

Virginia Roberts, also known as Virginia Giuffre, has accused Andrew of having sex with her when she was underage in the US and having been trafficked by Epstein.

Andrew stepped back from his senior royal duties in November, after a disastrous interview on BBC Newsnight about his friendship with Epstein.

He has faced repeated calls to speak to the US authorities about what he knew of Epstein, and they say he has not honoured his promise to co-operate with the investigation.

Andrew accused them of seeking headlines instead of help.

Audrey Strauss announcing charges against Ghislaine Maxwell in New York City. (Getty Images)

Read more: Prince Andrew's accuser calls him a 'toad' as Epstein interview seen as 'source of regret'

A source close to the Dukes working group said: The Dukes team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month, and to-date, we have had no response.

Maxwell, 58, has previously denied wrongdoing or knowledge of sexual misconduct.

At the news conference on Thursday, when asked if she would be willing to hear evidence from Maxwell concerning others involved despite the perjury charges against her, Ms Strauss said: This sometimes happens when there are perjury charges and people can go on from there and become co-operators if that is what you are asking, so Im not concerned about that.

In the event that she were to become a co-operator, I think that we can deal with that.

Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015 in New York City. (Getty Images)

Prince Andrew spoke about his friendship with Maxwell during the interview with Newsnight in November 2019.

He referred to Epstein as the plus one of Maxwell, who he denied throwing a birthday party for at Sandringham.

He also denied any knowledge of the photograph showing him with his arm around Ms Roberts in the home of Maxwell in Belgravia. He said he did not believe he had ever gone upstairs in Maxwells home.

Andrew said he had last seen Maxwell in London in the Summer of 2019, when she had been doing some rally.

He said they had not discussed Epstein.
Is the United States the greatest country in the world?

The Fourth of July arrives at a moment of reckoning, a time that a deadly pandemic rages, racial protests are in the streets, the economy has plunged into recession and a brutal presidential reelection race looms.

It's easy to understand why many Americans feel embattled by the present and concerned about the future.

A USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll taken just before the holiday that celebrates the nation's independence finds a sharp divide on that question along partisan and ideological lines. The assertion of American exceptionalism  the idea that the USA is a distinctive and distinctively admirable creation  is one that has animated commentators since Alexis de Tocqueville nearly two centuries ago.

Do it for loved ones: CDC urges Americans to socially distance for July 4th as cases surge

At this moment, one-third of those surveyed, 32%, called the United States "the greatest country in the world," and another 28% said it was "one of the greatest"  a 60% majority asserting American greatness.

The country "faces some tough challenges and we need to address them," acknowledged Patrick Dohogne, 56, a construction company executive from Hartland, Wisconsin, who was among those polled.

But, he said, "there's a lot of opportunity for people here, more so than most of the other nations in the world. So from that standpoint, I think we're still a pretty darn great country."

Not everyone was as sanguine: 12% of those surveyed said the United States was "an average country," and one-fourth, 24%, said it "has fallen behind the other major countries of the world." Three percent said it was "one of the worst."

"We haven't lost the 'Look at us as the greatest power in the world, the greatest country in the world,'" said Neomi Reid, 75, a retiree from Cincinnati. "But we have lost some of our power. We have lost some of our footing in other countries, those countries that really depended on the United States for good information, for good directions, and we don't have that anymore."

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Paleologos on the Poll: First we couldn't talk politics at Thanksgiving. Now, the 4th?

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive for the "Salute to America" Fourth of July event at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2019.

Dohogne is a Republican who plans to vote for President Donald Trump in November; Reid is a Democrat who plans to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden.

They illustrate the partisan split on this question. Almost 9 of 10 Trump voters, 87%, said the United States was the greatest or one of the greatest countries in the world. Almost 6 in 10 Biden voters, 59%, said it was average, has fallen behind or is one of the worst.

Among other demographic factors, there was also a difference along racial lines. White Americans were more likely than Black Americans to say the United States was "the greatest country," 35% compared with 20%. African Americans were more likely than whites to say the country had "fallen behind," 35% compared with 22%.

On this question, as on others in the survey, attitudes toward the current president seem to be shaping views. A solid majority of Republicans and conservatives said the United States is the greatest country in the world. They like the direction Trump has taken the nation during his 3 years in office. (His 2016 campaign slogan was "Make America Great Again," creating a MAGA acronym now ubiquitous on Trump paraphernalia.)

But Democrats and liberals are alarmed by many of Trump's actions. They believe the country is moving in the wrong direction.

In the survey, two-thirds of Americans, 67%, said the country was on the wrong track; just 20% said it was headed in the right direction. In a head-to-head match-up, Biden led Trump by 12 percentage points, 53%-41%, although the president had a significant edge in the enthusiasm of his supporters.

About that running mate: 72% of Democrats in USA TODAY poll say it's 'important' Biden pick woman of color

Former Vice President Joe Biden is set to take on President Trump in November's general election.

The USA TODAY/Suffolk poll of 1,000 registered voters was taken by landline and cellphone June 25-29. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Jacob Walker, 44, a political independent from Auburn, California, saw the approaching holiday as a moment for reflection.

"I think we've never been as great as we thought we are, think we've always had a shadow that we haven't recognized," the school administrator said in a follow-up phone interview. "Yet at the same time, our ideals are really good ones. One of the things that I really liked about the Fourth of July is that, you know, most countries celebrate independence like when they win a war."

But this holiday celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

"That's a declaration of a concept that all humans are created equal," he said. "That's pretty powerful, and even if we don't live up to that, it still, we have an ideal."

More: Despite warnings, the US wasnt prepared with masks for coronavirus. Now its too late

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Republicans, Democrats split on whether US is world's greatest country
USC students are being asked to stay home and continue their education online in the fall amid the coronavirus crisis. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Amid the alarming surge in coronavirus spread, USC announced it will no longer bring all undergraduates back to campus for the fall semester and will move to mainly online classes, reversing an earlier decision to welcome students back for a hybrid model.

The decision, announced by Provost Charles Zukoski late Wednesday, came the same day Gov. Gavin Newsom announced tougher restrictions on indoor activities. Zukoski recommended that students not return to campus for the semester and instead continue their education online.

The once-in-a-century COVID-19 pandemic has altered every aspect of our lives  the way we interact, work, and socialize  and with each new permutation of the pandemic, we must find ways to thrive, Zukoski wrote in a letter to students.

"Given the continuing safety restrictions and limited densities permissible on campus, our undergraduate students primarily or exclusively will be taking their courses online in the fall term," he said. "On-campus housing and activities will be limited."

Only 10% to 20% of courses during the fall semester will be conducted in person and on campus. These courses include certain labs, studios and performance classes, and research studies that require hands-on work.

Junior Jaya Hinton, co-director of USCs Black Student Assembly, said the change to online classes is the safest move. But she worries how low-income students and those who are the first in their family to attend college may struggle given next year's 3.5% tuition hike and that internet access for some may be limited at home.

"Charging full tuition seems ridiculous," she said. "This just puts our most vulnerable populations in a tough spot."

For Hinton, whose parents are working from home and two siblings, 10 and 17, are also in school, shifting to online classes in March proved to be a challenge  especially in a household with seven people.

"Our internet just couldn't sustain everyone that had to be online at the same time," she said. "It was just a difficult experience for all of us."

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The new USC decision echoes UCLAs plan for the fall to offer only 15% to 20% of courses on campus, and it reflects how colleges throughout the state and nation are moving to severely limit in-person courses, continue with online learning and dramatically alter student life during the pandemic.

Both the California State University  the largest four-year university system in the nation  and the Los Angeles Community College District have also moved the vast majority of their classes online in the fall.

Students who struggle to connect off campus will be able to apply for a one-time scholarship providing up to two free classes for the 2021 summer session to help ensure academic progress, USC said, and the university will also expand its financial and technical support for students with connectivity issues.

Students with on-campus housing contracts will be allowed to cancel them through July 15. For students who need to live on campus, only one student will be permitted per bedroom. Those living near campus will be required to make an appointment to use library spaces or dining facilities.

Whether students are here on campus or pursuing their studies and activities online, we want everyone to feel safe and supported, Zukoski wrote in the letter. We are in this together and together we will make this fall a rich and rewarding experience.

The new decision comes just a month after President Carol Folt said students would be able to return to campus for the semester, and three days after USCs chief health officer revealed a plan to reduce the number of students in campus housing and check for symptoms on a daily basis, according to the Daily Trojan.
Vanessa Guilen in a picture provided by Fort Hood base: (III Corps and Fort Hood - Facebook)

A suspect in the case of a soldier who went missing from her base in Texas has died by suicide, the day after unidentified remains were discovered by investigators.

Vanessa Guillen went missing on 20 April from a car park at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, and investigators had identified two suspects, one a civilian and one a soldier.

The Fort Hood Criminal Investigation Department (CID) announced on Wednesday that the soldier suspected of being involved in Ms Guillens disappearance had died by suicide, as investigators closed in on tracking him down.

The soldier was not publicly identified immediately as authorities were still trying to notify his family, but investigators confirmed he was a superior officer who allegedly walked in on Ms Guillen showering, sat down and watched, according to ABC News.

Investigators also announced that they have arrested the civilian suspect, and confirmed she had a connection to Ms Guillen.

In a statement, the CID said: The civilian suspect is the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier and is currently in custody in the Bell County Jail awaiting charges by civilian authorities.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Ms Guillens sister, Mayra Guillen, told reporters that she met the soldier who died by suicide when she visited the base earlier in the investigation.

That subject, I met him, not knowing he had something to do with it. I felt he had something to do with it, and I wasnt wrong, she said.

Ms Guillens family believe that her disappearance was connected to her claims of sexual harassment that she told colleagues about, but had not made a formal complaint about.

In an earlier statement, military officials said that they had no credible evidence of sexual harassment taking place, according to CBS.

However, her younger sister, Lupe Guillen, told reporters that there are so many military people who are suffering with sexual harassment and they sweep it under the rug like its a joke. My sister is not a joke. My sister did not deserve this. My sister deserves justice.

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She added: They lied to us for two months. My sister was sexually harassed they didnt keep my sister safe. They try to cover up for each other. Why? If this can happen to my sister, it can happen to anyone.

The news of the suspects death came a day after the CID revealed that unidentified remains had been found by investigators.

An attorney for Ms Guillens family told CBS that the remains could be of the solider, but that forensic experts needed to first analyse them.

Army spokesman Chris Grey said that no confirmation as to the identity of the remains has been made at this point and we ask for the media and publics understanding that the identification process can take time.

Read more

Five soldiers dead and four missing after floods swept away vehicle
Rapper Vanilla Ice has postponed a concert in Austin, Texas, Friday night following backlash over the event's safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The show was to have taken place at the Emerald Point Bar and Grill, but the venue's owner, William Brannam, told ABC News that after all the media attention surrounding the show, Vanilla Ice made the decision to reschedule.

Brannam also revealed that he'd received three death threats.

"Due to the increase in COVID-19 numbers in Austin were gonna move the concert to a better date," Vanilla Ice tweeted Thursday. "We were hoping for better Coronavirus numbers by July but unfortunately the numbers have increased quite a bit so for the safety and health of everyone were going to stay home."

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Responses were generally positive, with one person tweeting, "Thank you for putting your fans' safety before money."

Vanilla Ice, whose given name is Robert Van Winkle, says the venue, which can hold 5,000, was going to limit capacity to 450. According to Brannam, 84 tickets had been sold on EventBrite, while he'd sold all 96 available VIP tickets, plus 104 tickets for seating in the venue's upper deck. Last year, the "Ice Ice Baby" artist, 52, performed at the same place and drew 1,800 people.

PHOTO: Vanilla Ice performs at Mega Beer and 90s Music Festival at Magic City Casino, Nov. 9, 2019, in Miami. (Manny Hernandez/Getty Images)

Another '90s act, Color Me Badd, was also supposed to perform at the Emerald Point on Saturday, but that show was also rescheduled. Other postponed upcoming shows include "Wild Thing" rapper Tone Loc and "Gangsta's Paradise" rapper Coolio.

Brannam said all the artists have already been paid, and he hopes to arrange a '90s "super concert" with all three in the future.

Last weekend, country artists Chase Rice and Chris Janson faced huge backlash after playing live shows where social distancing wasn't practiced.

Vanilla Ice reschedules concert after COVID-19 backlash originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.  Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels, no stranger to making viral videos appealing to tough-on-crime politics, released a video Tuesday that said he will make special deputies of every lawful gun owner in this county if he feels the county is overwhelmed by protesters.

The three-minute video shows Daniels standing in front of 18 deputies as he derides civil rights protesters as godless disruptors and tells them to stay out of Clay County, a suburb of Jacksonville.

"If we cant handle you, Ill exercise the power and authority as the sheriff, and Ill make special deputies of every lawful gun owner in this county and Ill deputize them for this one purpose to stand in the gap between lawlessness and civility," he said.

"Thats what were sworn to do. Thats what were going to do. Youve been warned."

Video: Gunman opening fire at Louisville, KY park protest

Daniels, the countys first Black sheriff, is himself under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement related to an affair he had with a fellow officer when he was at the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office and a subsequent false arrest of that officer.

Watch: Black teens reflect on what its like to grow up in Tamir Rice's America

Qualified immunity: Why police are protected from civil lawsuits, trials

Daniels is a first-term sheriff up for reelection who has said he wants to one day be a congressman. He is being challenged by six opponents, including former Atlantic Beach Police Chief Michelle Cook, former Clay County Sheriffs Office Emergency Management Director Ben Carroll and Mike Taylor, a former FDLE agent and state attorneys investigator who has earned the endorsement of former Gov. Jeb Bush.

Post by ccsofl.

His challengers accused him of inviting chaos to Clay County and insulting the training necessary to become a sheriffs deputy.

We train under intense situations to control the adrenaline dump, Taylor said, and we dont do a perfect job at it, but we train to be prepared to make decisions under pressure. Thats necessary to be effective. To think we can put anyone in that role and itll be OK, were asking for a much bigger problem and inviting chaos and anarchy in the streets. The citizens of Clay County deserve better than that.

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Taylor added that deputizing private citizens could make the county liable to pay out lawsuits if the newly deputized citizens dont act appropriately. I dont believe it was intended to be a pro-police message. I believe it was intended to be a propaganda message. Real police professionalism actually acknowledges that professionally trained police officers cannot be replaced by a swearing-in ceremony.

Cook said the video was a sign Daniels wasnt capable of leading. What Daniels said yesterday may sound tough and macho. But, instead, it is a call for vigilantism and another signal that he is incapable of leading the sheriffs department and keeping Clay County safe.

She added: Instead of dealing with real issues in a meaningful way, he is behaving like a reality show sheriff and calling attention to himself. To make matters worse, he pulled 18 officers off the streets to be used as props for his taxpayer-funded campaign stunt. Its no wonder morale is so low among our fine officers.

Carroll, who spent 14 years at the Sheriffs Office, said he runs a nonprofit that trains churches and private schools, and he believes its foolish to think private citizens could replace deputies.

Im sure that was a political production for the sheriff. I doubt seriously that there will ever be the need in Clay County to deputize all the citizens to stand in the gap. I believe the sheriffs department is totally capable of standing in the pike.

Carroll said he supports citizens owning and training to use firearms to protect themselves, but he believes the Sherrifs Office must be capable of handling protesters on its own.

Follow Andrew Pantazi on Twitter: @apantazi

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Florida sheriff says he may deputize gun owners against protesters
These are some of darkest days in many years for democracy in Latin America. While Venezuelas dictatorship is moving ahead with measures to rig the December legislative elections and wipe out the countrys organized opposition, major democracies in the Americas  including the United States  are making things worse.

The international coalition of almost 60 countries that backed Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido, the countrys courageous opposition leader, is losing steam. It has been weakened by major defections  including Mexico and Argentina  and by President Trumps ambivalent statements about Guaido.

Mexico and Argentina, which until recently supported efforts to restore democracy in Venezuela, are now tacitly  if not explicitly  supporting Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

On June 27, when the 34-country Organization of American States condemned the Maduro regime for illegally appointing a pro-government National Electoral Council to oversee the upcoming elections for a new National Assembly, Mexico and Argentina shamefully abstained. Their abstentions were tacit approval for Maduros latest coup, which was condemned by a 21-vote majority at the OAS.

Whats more, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is scheduled to meet with Trump in Washington on July 9, said recently that he is willing to sell gasoline to the Venezuelan regime for humanitarian reasons. Both Mexico and Argentinas leftist populist governments now claim to be neutral in Venezuelas internal conflict and have reduced their participation in the Lima Group of Latin American countries that seek free elections in Venezuela.

Since Lopez Obrador took office, the Mexican government has effectively become a supporter of Venezeulas dictatorship, former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda told me this week. They dont say it explicitly, they try to hide it because they dont want to get in trouble with Trump, but deep in his heart, Lopez Obrador has no doubts. He stands with Maduro, and with Cuba, and with Nicaragua.

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Mexican officials say that Lopez Obrador is merely adhering to his countrys traditional foreign-policy principle of non-intervention in other countries internal affairs. Thats baloney. Mexico has a long history of intervening in others affairs.

Former Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas supported the Republicans during Spains civil war in the 1930s. President Luis Echeverria sided with the opposition to Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet and broke diplomatic ties with Pinochet in 1974. And President Jose Lopez Portillo supported the Nicaraguan opposition in the late 1970s and broke ties with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. These are just a few of many examples.

In Argentina, President Alberto Fernandez seems to be warming up to Maduro at the urging of his vice president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who is pretty much the power behind the throne. She spent several months in Cuba visiting her daughter last year, during which she met frequently with top Cuban officials.

But perhaps the most serious setback for Venezuelas organized opposition has been Trumps erratic Venezuela policy. As his former National Security Adviser John Bolton says in his book The Room Where it Happened, Trump has been all over the map on Venezuela, one day saying that it would be cool to invade Venezuela and the next day praising Maduro as a smart politician and belittling Guaido.

To make things worse, Trump publicly undermined Guaido by suggesting in a June 21 interview with Axios that he had never fully supported the National Assembly president. Axios ran the interview under the headline Trump cold on Guaido.

Despite the White Houses frantic damage-control efforts a day later, insisting that the United States continues to support Guaido, Trumps ambivalence about Venezuelas brave opposition leader undoubtedly has weakened Guaidos standing at home and abroad.

None of this bodes badly for Venezuela  or for democracy in Latin America. While Maduro prepares to rig the December legislative elections with the new pro-government electoral tribunal, Mexico and Argentina are looking the other way, and the Trump administration is paralyzed by its own indecisiveness and ineptness.

Time is running out. Guaidos National Assembly leadership is the last hope for a negotiated solution under stronger international pressure to hold free elections. Without Guaido, finding a peaceful political solution will be much harder, if not impossible.

Dont miss the Oppenheimer Presenta TV show at 8 p.m. E.T. Sunday on CNN en Espanol. Twitter: @oppenheimera
Just about everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong for Jarema about 13 years ago. He lost his job working as an instructor and trainer in the private sector, his home was foreclosed, and he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer  all within a short period of time. (Surgery was able to remove the cancer without chemotherapy or radiation, he said.)
Filmmaker Ryan White cautions that though television has made progress in its representations of LGBTQ people, there is still work to be done. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Long before Netflixs Tiger King began tracking its cast of colorful characters or Michael Jordan finally gave the go-ahead for ESPNs The Last Dance, Visible: Out on Television was scouring for talent to help chronicle the history of LGBTQ people on the small screen.

Producers David Bender, David Permut, Wilson Cruz and Wanda Sykes worked on the project for almost a decade until fledgling streamer Apple TV+ showed interest in backing it a few years ago. When acclaimed filmmaker Ryan White (The Case Against 8) came on board to direct, the series finally began to come together.

Structured around sit-down interviews from notable figures such as Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Billy Crystal, Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, Michael Douglas, Billie Jean King, Warren Littlefield, Ryan Phillippe, Raven-Symone, Greg Berlanti and Norman Lear, Visible weaves the often-improbable history of gay, lesbian and trans representation on American television. The Historic revelations are at times both disheartening and inspiring. Along with key figures in music, film and sports, TV eventually opened doors and led to greater acceptance for LGBTQ people in society after 50 years of programming.

I inherited 20-something interviews. I think I did 70-something on my own, White notes. Then we were able to hire a huge team because Apple gave us the resources to comb through, I don't know, tens of thousands of hours of television footage.

And, yes, White was shocked by the talent he was able to agree to participate. Caitlyn Jenner was his first yes, and from there the floodgates began to open.

If you could sit down and interview someone, Ellen and Oprah would be the most intimidating. And Anderson [Cooper], because they're all so famous for interviewing people, White says. And the only reason we have that lineup  that is not a testament to me. It's Wanda Sykes and Wilson Cruz because they're both so well connected in the industry.

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Few of those approached declined, but some schedules simply didnt coalesce. White laments, I would have loved to interview RuPaul. We could never figure it out."

The series was originally greenlighted for four installments. However, in the final months of editing White says it was clear hed be forced to make major cuts that would hurt the project without more airtime. Luckily, Apple gave the go-ahead for an additional episode.

I knew I wanted to do it semi-chronologically, White notes. Some people said, Oh, that'll alienate young people if you begin in the black-and-white era. And I think it's been proven by the response to this series  my only measurement is young people on Twitter  is the stuff from the '50s and '60s is what blows [peoples] mind and had to be the foundation of the beginning of the story.

Moreover, as White and his team began interviewing more people, unexpected story lines began to take shape. The 38-year-old experienced his own formative television years in the late 80s and 90s. Even so, he was caught off guard by some programs that came up over and over again from both older and younger subjects. One of those surprises was the 1970s series Threes Company, a multicamera sitcom that featured John Ritter as a California bachelor pretending to be gay so his landlord would let him be roommates with two single women. Ritter played his character as over-the-top and flamboyant when necessary, but for many young gay men it was the first time they saw themselves represented on television in any context.

I remember Jesse Tyler Ferguson, his first reaction to that question was, Oh, that was John Ritter on Three's Company, White says. Because he was a kid watching that show with his parents, and he's working out in real time that it was an inauthentic representation. Even though he was playing gay, with quotations, he wasn't a gay man.

White continues, That speaks to how damaging the absence of representation [is]. That people will look for themselves even in a caricature. I think we still see that now. When people aren't seeing themselves represented, they search for themselves in other characters. We [revisit] The Golden Girls and Designing Women in the '80s because, after the AIDS epidemic, LGBTQ characters were all but gone from television unless they were someone dying of AIDS, which was usually a white gay man.

White hopes the series stands as a celebration of historical moments for people of different generations who saw a glimmer of themselves growing up watching TV. Its also a reminder, however, that we can't pat ourselves on the back too much as an industry or as creators like we've reached the finish line.

The absence of trans male actors getting authentic trans male roles  it's so underrepresented, White says. Bisexual representation is still so misrepresented. [The series is] a celebration but also a reminder, hopefully, that there's a lot more work to be done.
Photo credit: Ket4up - Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics

A new computer model simulates how atoms collide and measures the consequences.

The model runs on a supercomputer, and researchers ran 600 different scenarios.

A zeptosecond is 10, and collisions ranged from about 1 to about 20 zeptoseconds.

Scientists have measured the faster-than-lightning speed of a nuclear reaction using a supercomputer to model and compare hundreds of different reactions that take just a billionth of a trillionth of a second.

In Physical Review Letters, the researchers describe using fully microscopic approaches to observe and measure collisions of different kinds of nuclei. Their goal: quantify the energy and time these exchanges take in order to better understand how they affect quantum phenomena like dissipation, which is how, and how much, energy leaves a reaction.

The scientists modeled 13 pairs of nuclei and studied 600 kinds of interactions.

Since part of quantum mechanics involves how the physical interactions of particles cause them to behave erratically or otherwise, the relative magnitude of nuclear reactions can help researchers categorize the reactions by energy required and other parameters based on that timing. They found a tenfold difference in timea zeptosecond versus 20 zeptoseconds, basicallybetween larger nuclear exchanges and smaller motions.

Colliding the pairs of nuclei made them break apart in a realistic way, and the size of the pieces (fragments) determined the speed and magnitude of the subsequent interaction. This is one reason the time frames were so broadly distributed: Sometimes what happened was just a tiny nick, and sometimes the two nuclei collided head on and exchanged much larger amounts of particulate.

First, the protons and neutrons swap between the newly-united fragments, in order to equalise their neutron-to-proton ratio. Known as charge equilibration, the calculations showed this is the fastest process, taking only one zeptosecond, Cosmos explains.

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Mass equilibration, with much more flow and exchange, took 20 times longer. And while these times varied greatly between different nuclear processes, the time didnt vary by which element was at play. Any combination of element nuclei took the same time for the same process.

A project at Vienna University of Technology is using a similar methodology, combining an electron microscope with a supercomputer molecule simulation in order to understand whats happening in a different kind of reaction: surface wear on metals. Both computer simulations involve powerful modeling of complex processes that are too tiny for scientists to meaningfully examine in realtime.

Instead of modeling individual atoms colliding, this simulation must imagine an entire surface in enough molecular detail to model wear. To make a simulation under 100 nanometers across takes weeks for the supercomputer to compile and run.

The nucleus experiment involves simulations of just two nuclei at a time in different combinations and dynamics, but the level of detail and time and energy measurement still requires massive computing power. Modeling realistic physics of how nuclei collide and break apart requires extensive programming and particles in the computer graphics sense.

Its like a very realistic, high-fidelity computer animationbut the results could inform the next generation of nuclear research.



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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to Indian soldiers killed during confrontation with Chinese soldiers in the Ladakh region - India Government Press Information Bureau via AP

Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, said it had deleted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's account at the request of the Indian embassy, as tensions between the two countries continue to simmer over a border skirmish.

Since posting on Sina Weibo the first time in 2015 during a visit to China, Mr Modi has been an infrequent user of the Chinese social media platform. He had more than 200,000 followers and 100 posts before the account was shut.

Sina Weibo announced the closure of the account late on Wednesday and the removal comes a few days after India banned dozens of Chinese apps, including Sina Weibo and ByteDance's TikTok, following the border clash between the two nations.

The Indian embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Mr Modi was among a handful of foreign leaders with a Weibo account. Others include Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau of Canada, and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.

Notably, Mr Modi revealed the birth dates of both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang by wishing them "Happy Birthday" on Weibo.

The discussion of senior leaders' private lives is extremely rare in China and the exact birth dates of most of them are not revealed publicly.

In contrast, Chinese leaders are rarely active on social media. Foreign social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China.

READ MORE: China annexes 60sqkm of India in Ladakh as simmering tensions erupt between two superpowers
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Editor's Note: As the world commemorates the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, the Center for the National Interests Korean Studies team decided to ask dozens of the worlds top experts a simple question: Do you believe that the Korean War will finally come to an end before its next major anniversary in 2025? The below piece is an answer to that question. Please click here to see even more perspectives on this important topic.

Who would disagree with the idea of ending the war on the peninsula? asked Rep. Bae June-young, spokesman of the United Future Party, the main opposition political group in South Korea, referring to the Korean War.

The fighting in that horrific conflict ended July 27, 1953, with an armistice, but the combatants have yet to agree to a treaty formally ending the war.

Dont expect a signing ceremony anytime soon. As long as the Kim family rules from Pyongyang, there will be no enduring peace on the peninsula. And there will be no treaty ending what the Kims call the Great Fatherland Liberation War.

At the moment, there is momentum for a treaty. In South Korea, 174 lawmakers in the 300-seat National Assembly submitted, just a few weeks ago, a resolution calling for a declaration of the end of the war. In the U.S., Rep. Ro Khanna, the California Democrat, successfully pushed for similar language to be included in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act.

With so many parties in favor of a peace treaty, why cant they ink one?

For one thing, a treaty is hard to conclude because a formal peace could disrupt what is now a generally tranquil situation. Independent South Korean lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun perceptively argues a declaration to end the war would effectively recognize North Korea as a normal state, lead to the end of the Souths military alliance with the U.S., and signal the international communitys acceptance of the North as a nuclear nation. In short, a treaty could actually make things worse.

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Perhaps these obstacles could be finessed, but it does not matter because peace is absolutely unacceptable to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. The DPRK, as it calls itself, maintains it is the only legitimate state on the peninsula. The war, which it started to get conquer the other Korea, is the defining moment for the Kim regime, and it is not in its interest to end it.

The Korean peninsula is the worlds most dangerous political experiment. There are now two Koreas: one full of rich Koreans and the other populated by poor ones. And they sit, of course, side-by-side.

The poor Koreans can accept relative poverty as long as they believe they are doing so for a cause. That cause, they have been told, is the removal of American forces from Korean soil and the extension of the Kim familys juche system to all points of the peninsula. So Kim family legitimacy rests on its holy duty to eliminate the Republic of Korea, the other Korean state.

A peace treaty, therefore, would be a tacit recognition the Kim family had failed in achieving its core goal. The regime, unfortunately, cannot survive in a peaceful peninsula.

So who disagrees with the idea of ending the war on the peninsula? That would be North Korea.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Losing South Korea and of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.

Click here to read the full article.
Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

When Facebook announced Tuesday that it would ban violent, anti-government boogaloo groups, it joined a number of social media companies taking new steps to control hate speech and misinformation on their platforms.

Ordinary users of Facebook and other social media providers have been joined on the platforms by a rising number of extremists, along with accounts devoted to spreading misinformation. In the past few weeks these companies, including Twitter, Snapchat, and others, have been accelerating their efforts to clamp down on hate speech, potentially violent movements, and conspiracy theories.

Facebook, in particular, has been facing increasing pressure from advertisers, users, and its own employees to do more to control harmful content. Some advocacy groups say theyre optimistic that new moves by Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube represent a higher level of commitment by social media companies across the board to address the problem.

On Tuesday, Facebook removed 220 Facebook accounts, 95 Instagram accounts, 28 individual pages, and 106 groups that made up an informal network of boogaloo users, as well as over 400 other groups and 100 pages that were hosting content the company says violated its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy.

Facebooks ban comes a month after members of the movement had allegedly used the platform to plan the May 29 shooting death of a federal security officer in Oakland, Calif. The officer was killed while guarding a federal courthouse during a Black Lives Matter protest.

Boogaloo is a loosely organized, far-right, anti-government group that coalesced on a variety of social media platforms. It built an identity based on shared memes and symbols such as loud Hawaiian shirts and igloos that play on references to the 1980s break dancing film Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. Adherents include a range of gun-rights extremists, anti-Semites, and white supremacists, according to organizations that study hate groups. Boogaloo supporters anticipate a civil war against what they see as a tyrannical government.

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In announcing its ban, Facebook promised to remain vigilant. So long as violent movements operate in the physical world, they will seek to exploit digital platforms, the announcement says, in part. As weve seen following other designations, we expect to see adversarial behavior from this network including people trying to return to using our platform and adopting new terminology.

What Other Companies Are Doing

Pressure on Facebook to toughen its content moderation practices increased in late May when Twitter tagged a post by President Donald Trump that appeared to advocate violent action against protesters, saying that it glorified violence.

When Facebook resisted calls to take similar action, a number of the companys longtime staffers wrote an open letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, calling the companys refusal to fact-check or label political speech cowardly. Employees later staged a virtual walkout to demand stronger action against objectionable content.

In addition, a movement called #StopHateForProfit started calling for an ad boycott of Facebook and Instagram. A long list of businesses, including North Face, Ben & Jerrys, Verizon, Honda, Best Buy, Pfizer, Unilever, Ford, Target, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Microsoft, have stopped advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

(Consumer Reports has also paused its paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram, saying that it is joining a growing number of nonprofits and corporations that are demanding meaningful action to stop the spread of misinformation and hate speech on the platforms.)

Critics of Facebook are hesitant to give the company much credit for banning the boogaloo groups. In some ways its remarkable, but its also too little too late, says Shireen Mitchell, founder of Digital Sistas and Stop Online Violence Against Women, groups that have long monitored the platforms moderation policies. For years, whenever there were threats of violence [against people of color] they did not do anything.

Melissa Ryan, CEO of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that specialized in combating online disinformation, says that Facebook is just catching up to other companies. Of all the tech companies, Facebook seems the least interested in making fundamental changes in their business model to make the platform a safer place, she says. But we seem to have reached a tipping point, and the ad boycott has so much to do with that.

Facebook denies that yesterdays actions were related to the boycott, saying that the ban on the groups resulted from months of investigation. The company added that over the years it has banned more than 250 white supremacist organizations and individuals, including David Duke, American Renaissance, and Richard Spencer.

Other social media companies have also become more active in removing, flagging, or taking actions to repress content for violating standards on hate speech or advocating violence.

YouTube banned well-trafficked channels and users that featured white supremacist content this week. They included the accounts of the far-right white supremacist figures Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, and Richard Spencer.

Reddit banned about 2,000 of its online communities this week in an effort to enforce an update to the companys content policies. The most significant was The_Donald, a group with more than 800,000 subscribers that was notorious for racist memes and encouraging violence and harassment. It had no official connection to the president.

Twitch, a livestreaming service and subsidiary of Amazon, suspended Trumps account this week for violating content policies after the account posted videos including a 2015 rally where he accused Mexico of sending drugs, crime, and rapists to the U.S.



Snapchat stopped promoting Trumps official account on the apps Discover page in June. The company said his behavior on other platforms could incite racial violence and promote injustice, although Trumps Snapchat posts hadnt violated company policies. The presidents account is still available to users who subscribe to it or search for it.

Twitter started adding information to some of Trumps tweets in May. The company labeled tweets about mail-in ballots and fraud as potentially misleading and added a link to information about the subject. The company obscured his tweet about shooting looters with a message saying it glorified violence. The tweet was still visible if you clicked a View link.

In the wake of such actions, Trump has joined other conservatives in accusing the social platforms of liberal bias. A number of prominent conservatives have opened accounts on Parler, a 2-year-old social media platform popular with Republican politicians.

How to Report Objectionable Content

Social media platforms provide their users with ways to report content that violates policies, including rules meant to protect against harassment, hate speech, and incitement to violence.

Facebook maintains this guide with details on how to report abusive content as well as spam. Essentially, to report a group or user, go to the appropriate page, click on the three-dot icon below the cover photo, and click on Report group, or Find support or report profile. To report an individual post, click on the three-dot icon in the top right of the post and click Find support or report post from the menu.

Instagram has a similar page with instructions on how to report objectionable content. To report a post, tap on the post, and then on the three-dot icon to pull up a menu that includes Report inappropriate. Reporting a profile is similar. You can report a comment by tapping the icon next to the comment. You can also report problematic content using this form, even if you dont have an Instagram account.

Follow these links to learn how to report objectionable content on the other social media platforms: Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, and Snapchat all have mechanisms for reporting objectionable comment on their platforms.





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Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright  2020, Consumer Reports, Inc.
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Key Point: When World War II hung on a knifes-edge in Europe, a couple of German carriers could have changed the outcome.

Dictators are not in the habit of admitting mistakes. But if Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini could talk from the flames of hell, they might have advice for todays America: dont give up your aircraft carriers.

Carriers today are being blown out of the water by critics who say they have become nothing more than expensive targets in an age of hypersonic ship-killer missiles. Should war erupt, say critics, U.S. carriers in the South China Sea would be overwhelmed by waves of missiles, aircraft and submarines.

Whether or not carriers are actually this vulnerable is another matter. The question here is more basic: What happens when navies operate without carriers? For an answer, we can turn to World War II, and more specifically the navies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (well leave out the Soviet Union, whose navy played a minor role in the war).

Germany and Italy did in fact dabble with aircraft carriers. Germany laid down the Graf Zeppelin in 1936, which still hadnt been completed by 1945. The Italian passenger Roma began its makeover into the carrier Aquila in 1941, and still wasnt finished when Italy surrendered in 1943.

Thus the mighty battleships and cruisers of the German and Italian surface fleets either had to operate within range of land-based aircraft, or do without air cover at all. How did this work out? Lets go back to 1941 to consider two famous examples.

In May 1941, the legendary German battleship Bismarck sortied from the French port of Brest on a mission to raid British shipping lanes in the North Atlantic. Its companion was the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, a powerful warship in its own rightbut not an aircraft carrier.

For a few days, the Bismarck terrorized the North Atlantic, culminating on the May 24 Battle of the Denmark Straits, where it humiliated the Royal Navy by destroying the battlecruiser Hood and damaging the battleship Prince of Wales with a few well-placed shots. Slightly damaged by a hit from the Prince of Wales that caused a fuel leak, the Bismarck headed toward sanctuary in the French port of Brest while the Prinz Eugen continued its mission.

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With Britains centuries-old maritime prestige on the line, the Royal Navy flung everything it had in a desperate race to catch the Bismarck before it reached France, including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and its obsolete Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers.

The odds were not in Britains favor. The weather was bad and the German battleship didnt even have to reach Brest. The Bismark only had to get within range of Luftwaffe aircraftperhaps a hundred miles or so beyond the French coastbefore the threat of German bombers would force the British fleet to give up the pursuit.

Like the chase scene in a cliffhanger, the Bismarck came so very close to safety. The British ships were low on fuel. Luftwaffe crews at their French airfields waited eagerly for the battleship to get within range. Instead, just twelve hours from succor, the Bismarck was spotted by British flying boats on May 27. The Ark Royal launched fifteen Swordfish into appalling flying weather, with the German battleship forty miles away, still out of range of the British fleets guns. Despite the bad weather and the fading light, one Swordfish managed a lucky torpedo hit that jammed the Bismarcks rudder so badly that the ship could only turn in circles. When the British fleet caught up the next morning, the outcome was inevitably a watery grave for Hitlers battlewagon.

And that grave was just three hundred miles from the French coast.

In the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany possessed the most powerful land-based air force in the world. But all the fuhrers aircraft and all the fuhrers pilots couldnt save the Bismarck, because they couldnt reach it.

The outcome might have very different if the Bismarck had been accompanied by an aircraft carrier like the Graf Zeppelin. Even just a handful of German carrier-based Me-109 fighters could have torn up the slow Swordfish, or at least spoiled their aim enough for the torpedoes to miss and the Bismarck to escape.

Now we turn to Italy. At first glance, Italy didnt need aircraft carriers because it was an aircraft carrier. The Italian Peninsula and Sicily, jutting into the Central Mediterranean, were covered with airfields. In the narrow waters of the Middle Sea, the Italian Navy could operate within a couple of hundred miles of land-based bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircraft in Italy, Greece, Crete and North Africa.

Why should the Italy Navy spend money on aircraft carriers when the Air Force could handle the air war? The answer became clear at the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. Seeking to intercept British troop convoys headed to Greece, the Italians dispatched a battleship and six heavy cruisers from Italy to a point off the Greek coast. They were supposed to have been protected by land-based fighters.

On March 28, 1941, the Italians ran into a British force of three battleships and the aircraft carrier Victorious. After an inconclusive battle between Italian and British cruisers, the Italian fleet withdrew and headed back to base. The British realized that their battleships couldnt catch up to the Italian force before nightfallbut the Swordfish torpedo bombers on the Victorious could. One Swordfish put a torpedo into the Italian battleship Vittoria Venetos propellers, knocking it out of the fight, while another torpedo left the heavy cruiser Pola immobile in the water. When two other heavy cruisers came to the aid of the Pola, they were attacked in a night battle by the British battleships, which sank all three cruisers.

And what of the Italian land-based fighters, which should have swatted the slow Swordfish biplanes from the sky? They never showed. The Italians discovered what the Japanese and Americans learned in the Pacific: land-based air support for fleets often failed, due to problems with coordination, communications, air force pilots untrained to fly long distances over water and the strain of maintaining continuous air patrols far from land.

Its not that aircraft carriers would have been a panacea for the Axis. Hitler didnt need the vast fleet of carriers the United States sent to the Pacific in 1945. Every carrier built would have meant fewer tanks and aircraft to stop the Soviet avalanche that eventually trampled Germany in 1945. As for Italy, it didnt have the resources to build many carriers.

But Germany and Italy didnt need many carriers. In early 1941, when the war in Europe hung on a knife edge, a couple of carriers at the right time and place could have made a profound difference.

None of this means that todays U.S. Navy necessarily needs ten carriers (President Trump has spoken of increasing this number to twelve), or that the carriers that America does need should be $13 billion Ford-class behemoths. Its also true that modern aircraft have much longer ranges in 1941, while computers and advanced communications systems enable land-based aircraft and ships to cooperate in ways unimaginable seventy five years ago.

But the utility of the aircraft carrier concept remains. As two of historys most infamous tyrants can attest, having your own floating airfield to provide air cover when and where your fleet needs it can be a matter of life and death.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. This article first appeared in 2019 and is reprinted here due to reader interest.

Image: U.S. Navy / Flickr

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In 2016, when Michelle Obama addressed the nation during a live broadcast from the Democratic National Convention, she said, I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. Some listeners applauded her bold remarks, others were shocked; still others held out in their disbelief. Theres no question, however, that one of the very emblems of our nation, the White Housethe seat of the highest office in the land, and arguably the worldwas built using enslaved labor. Even if most history books dont address it.

In so many ways, the built environment expresses who we are culturally and signals who holds powerthose who have the money to make decisions can transform their ideas into their material surroundings. Since before the United States of America was even a nation, it was being constructed around a European worldview that was built on a hierarchy of racial inequity, explains Mabel O. Wilson, a professor at Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. As it grew, the U.S. constructed an image of its history through a particular lens, while disregarding its conquest of Indigenous people and its use of enslaved labor.

Building that identity of whiteness, says Wilson, gives meaning to the cultureand all of that had to be invented, which has informed our society, our systems, and even our democracy. Its not just about a feeling; its what builds the modern world, adds the architect and author, who recently co-edited Race and Modern Architecture, which traces the discipline back to the Enlightenment. Today, racism and inequity are quite literally built into our culture.

For some of us, recognizing that revered emblems of our country actually represent the exploitation of one race for the benefit of another is difficult to hear and hard to admit; this inequity will be even tougher to repair. Yet acknowledging past injustice is a crucial step in rethinking, reframing, and restoring justice. What would it mean to have an open conversation about people who are willing to talk about it that way? asks Wilson.

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A complex network of discriminatory policy and planning.

Chicago social housing Photo: Via Getty Images



From Colonial-era and postCivil War land grabs to 20th-century legal loopholes, a complex and purposeful network of American policy and planning has wittingly increased inequity among Black and Indigenous people as well as other people of color. Following World War II, when the suburban housing market began to boom, Black peopleeven those with nearly adequate wealthwere subjected to unfair housing policies and discriminatory lending. Consigned to particular neighborhoods, they were largely unable to purchase property in the suburbs, and thereby denied access to the middle class at a time when it was blossoming. The result today is a disproportionate burden where it comes to poverty, unemployment, homelessness, public safety, public health crises, food insecurity, environmental injustice, and much more.



Such spatial inequalities continued into the 1970s, when urban renewal programs across the U.S. approved new highways that cruelly slashed cities into neighborhoods of haves and have-nots, their boundaries clearly defined by siting public housing developments at their edges. Segregation had been deemed unconstitutional, but in the built environment, its physical imprints remain unmistakable.

Innumerable other waypoints along this timeline highlight the inequities intricately woven into our systems and our spaces, which persist today. And untangling these complexities and coming to grips with the true nature of Americas history is going to be rough. But it is also necessary.

Unbuilding and reframing to move toward design justice.

Photo: Sanjay Suchak/UVA Communications via Howeler + Yoon Architecture

Design professionals alone, of course, are not to blame. But as a group of people who generally view themselves as progressive problem solvers, they have some powerand responsibilityto help un-build inequity. No one yet knows exactly how to build a just city. But with throngs of people pouring into the streets in support of Black Lives Matterthat is, into the very spaces where black Americans like George Floyd, Eric Garner, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many others, are being unlawfully killed by policeright now is the time to have some hard conversations and to reframe how we build and unbuild communities and spaces. Architecture is really good at being the vanguard, says Wilson. But without material changes in peoples lives, its just hot air.

There can be no moving forward until we acknowledge and reckon with our past. And while theres no single prescription for moving toward design justice, we must seek to end the systemic power structures that enable oppressive architecture as well as radically rethink how we build neighborhoods that liberate and celebrate our disenfranchised communities and protect and strengthen their culture, stories, and sacred places.

Removing overtly racist emblems and monuments from towns and cities across the country is a logical early step. Racist commemoration of false histories should be eliminated, says Bryan C. Lee Jr., design principal of firm Colloqate, which fought for three years to remove Confederate and racist monuments in New Orleans. Its a false narrative and a false history that was set in place to set fear in black people. Preservationists, too, are only beginning to address black history; too much has already been brushed aside.

Monuments to African American history are also crucial. Spaces such as the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, in Charlottesville, Virginia, designed by Howeler + Yoon Architecture in collaboration with Wilson, honor the lives of enslaved people who worked for and built the University of Virginia. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, located on six acres of land in Montgomery, Alabama, is a sobering monument to the thousands of Americans who were lynched.

Theres a need to hold and claim space, says Lee. We should have many, many more memorials. We dont recognize the pain of Black and Brown people in this country.

In our buildings and cities, design justice also means radically rethinking the design process. We have to institutionalize community power into the process, says Lee. That means including a diversity of community voices at every level, from planning and zoning decisions and roles to rethinking proposal requests and financing.

Photo: Designing Justice + Designing Spaces



Lee also emphasizes that architects and designers need longer lead times so they can listen to and engage with a broad spectrum of stakeholders from the start of any project. Design, of course, does not operate in a vacuum, and reframing supporting structurespublic spending, banking, planningneeds to shift too, says Lee. For example, he says, investing in affordable communities, not just affordable housing, gets closer to solving a root problem. If were able to expand the scope to where we can work with communities on use, and not just function, we can make a dramatic change right there.

Its like people keep on trying to fix the fence, but you cant; its built from rotted wood, says architect Deanna Van Buren, cofounder, executive director, and design director of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, which focuses on justice-centered work and ending mass incarceration. Like Lee, DJ+DS is interested in a deep design approach that addresses root causes of issues related to poverty, unequal access to resources, and the criminal justice system.

Working with community partners in the city of Atlanta, DJ+DS is transforming what was formerly the Atlanta City Detention Center into the Center for Equity. The citywide, yearlong, collaborative process brought together a broad spectrum of stakeholdersincluding a Mayors Task Force, community organizers, neighbors, law enforcement officials, and, very important, people who had been jailed thereto discuss and plan how to transform the site into a campus for building social and economic equity in the Black community.



This process is a prototype for unbuilding racism and ending mass incarceration, and is the first citywide process and reimagining of its kind, Van Buren and her team wrote about the project. DJ+DS has also helped create restorative justice centers in Oakland, California, and Syracuse, New York.

Prisons are the built environments knee on the necks of marginalized Americans.

High security Federal Prison in Florida USA Photo: Via Getty Images

If a world without prisons seems incomprehensible, consider this: The 13th Amendment, passed in 1865, banned slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. The phrase was inarguably an excuse to re-enslave Black labor and marks the moment our country entered into its condemnable moral contract with a prison-industrial complex. Even as rates of imprisonment have fallen overall in the past decade, the U.S. still has the highest rate of incarceration globally. And while Black Americans make up 12% of our population, they comprise more than a third of our incarcerated citizens.



Since 2004, the nonprofit organization Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility has called for professionals to boycott the design of prisons; since 2013, it has petitioned the American Institute of Architects to declare it unethical for members to design execution chambers or solitary-confinement spaces. The American Institute of Architects has not done so. Now consider that 88% of licensed architects working in the U.S. are white; just 2% are Black or African American, according to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.

Prisons and jails are the built environments knee on the necks of marginalized Americans, writes Van Buren. "What we had before and have today is an architecture of oppression, built on the backs of slaves and the bodies of prisoners. Now we are in a moment of protest and listening. What we will need is an architecture of liberation.

Whats next.

Architects, designers, and planners are uniquely trained to think in cross-disciplinary ways to solve problems, and have a massive role to play in healthy built environments that consider their duty to diversity and inclusion. Who gets hired, who becomes a partner, and who moves into the C-suite matters. So does reframing how we teach architecture and design and their histories. But to truly reckon with the racial inequity baked into our buildings, neighborhoods, towns, and cities, we will have to infiltrate deep-seeded, systemic racism.



We must collectively acknowledge past inequity, address our inherent biases, and admit toand reversethe steady racist policies and practices that have ensured a status quo of white privilege. Our built environments should not reflect the history and power of a few. They need to represent, reflect, and emphasize justice for all.

We have to understand what the built environment has done, and what we can do, says Van Buren. It starts everywhere and it is starting everywhereand it needs to happen now.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
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Key Point: These new ships were supposed to be a big improvement. They weren't good, but the Navy did learn a number of vital lessons from them.

The U.S. Navys Kearsarge-class was a small class, with just two hulls were completed. Despite the low number, the class was intended for greatness, but had some pretty serious design flaws.

Good Intentions

The Kearsarge-class had some improvements compared to the battleships that preceded itthey were better armored, were faster, and had larger, faster-firing guns arranged in a novel double-deck turret arrangementbut there were some serious design flaws that doomed the class.

Flawed Design

Because the gun turrets had vertical rather slanted walls, the 13-inch gun ports had to be particularly large to give the guns the necessary elevation for distance shots. While the large ports did give the guns the needed maneuverability, they left the turrets dangerously exposed.

From the deck, the turret floors could be seen. A well-placed shot that managed to pass through the turret port would explode inside the turret, likely disabling the gun, and could even cause the magazine to explode, seriously compromising the ships safety. Additionally, the 13-inch guns had to be returned to a slight 2 degrees of elevation in order to be reloaded, hampering their reload time.

The 8-inch guns above the 13-inch guns also suffered from design issues. Along with the 13-inch main guns, they had been designed prior to smokeless powder and were intended to use brown powder propellant. With the introduction of smokeless powder, the volume of needed propellant per shot decreased, and the rate of fire correspondingly increased. Although an increase in fire would normally be positive, in actuality this meant that the 13 and 8-inch guns ran the danger of interfering with each others shots.

Supporting the turreted main guns were fourteen 5-inch guns, seven to each side of the ship. During sea trials, the Navy realized that the center gun on both sides of the ship had been designed too close to the waterlinetoo close to the water. When seas were anything but calm, seawater washed over the gun, making it very ineffective.

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Though the Kearsarge-class was well protected using the latest Harvey armor, the protection between guns was poor. Specifically, the 5-inch guns had no protection from each otherthere were no screens between guns, so a direct hit on one gun had the potential to take out the adjacent guns as well.

Great White Fleet

A brainchild of Theodore Roosevelt, the Great White Fleet was named after a group of United States Navy ships that toured the world in 1907 as a demonstration of the United States naval might. Both the USS Kentucky and the USS Kearsarge participated in the journey, which lasted two years, despite their shortcomings as battleships.

In 1920, the Kearsarge was stripped of armor, guns, and superstructure and turned into a crane ship, and lifted supplies and components for other ships until 1948.

The Kentucky had a slightly more illustrious career. In 1906, the Kentucky was used in the 1906-09 American occupation of Cuba. 1915-16, she patrolled near Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico during the American occupation and was later worked up as a training ship once the United States entered World War I. She was scrapped in 1923.

Despite some modern features, the ships were immature in design and had serious flawssome of which were detrimentally carried over to the battleships that followed the Kearsarge-class.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture.

This first appeared in 2020 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia

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By Ann Wang

SAGYIN, Myanmar (Reuters) - The fine white dust that shrouds much of his northern Myanmar village also covers sculptor Chin Win as he leans over a half-finished Buddha statue.

"We are blessed to carve Buddha," he said at his stone workshop surrounded by the seven white hills that give Sagyin village its name, which means "marble" in Burmese.

For generations, artisans in this part of Buddhist-majority Myanmar have carved out a living from the marble, fashioning mostly colossal Buddha statues to be sold in the nearby city of Mandalay or exported to neighbouring China and Thailand.

(Click https://reut.rs/2BjaSWE to see a picture package of Sagyin.)

Many of the several thousand villagers here earn a modest living from the marble mines, hauling the slabs down the hill, carving them into statues, or exporting them overseas.

Burmese marble, which ranges from pure white to bluish grey, is prized for its hardness and texture. A 45-tonne slab can sell for $40,000. In Sagyin, specks of the stone are used for everything from brushing teeth to washing clothes.

"We grew up breathing the dust," said Chin Win, 35, who has been carving statues since he was 11 years old. "We use it as toothpaste, for soap powder, lipstick."

'NOT SAFE'

The stone used to be chiselled by hand. Now, much of the work is done with machines.

"I was born in this village and for generations this is what we have done: the men work on marble carving and the women work in the marble mines or polish the marble statues," said 25-year-old Mya Lay, in a house fashioned from dry bamboo sheets, with a floor made of marble chippings.

For years, she has walked down from the mines from morning till sunset carrying large marble slabs on her head, laborious work for about $3.50 per day.

"If I could I would leave the village and find a job in the city," she said, adding that she wanted a better life for her daughter.

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Some fear the clouds of dust that cloak the village could make them sick. Inhaling marble dust in other contexts has been linked to silicosis, a serious lung disease that can be deadly.

Few workers wear masks or other protective clothing, and several nursed rasping coughs, although they said the coughing could also be the result of smoking.

Kyi Khaing, a workshop owner, said most residents are too poor to worry about their health.

"I think the marble dust is not safe, but most people here only focus on survival, rather than their healthcare," he said.

NEW CHALLENGES

A bigger worry is the impact of the novel coronavirus, which originated in China late last year and has since spread globally, infecting more than 10.4 million people.

Myanmar has reported only 299 cases of the virus, and six deaths, but trade with China, which buys most of Sagyin's statues, has been hit.

The closure of the border between the two countries has meant Kyi Khaing, 49, has been unable to export his wares.

"The finished products are just sitting still," he said. "I haven't been able to deliver them anywhere. The buyers stopped coming as well."

Still, Kyi Khaing thinks some things in Sagyin will remain constant.

"I believe until I die we will still have marble here," he said. "Anywhere you dig, there are marble stones."

(Reporting by Ann Wang. Writing by Poppy McPherson. Editing by Karishma Singh and Sam Holmes)
Neighbors started seeing me doing it all and started asking if I could do it for them, Hartlieb said. I had some people I was doing stuff for, like dog walking and pet sitting, and I started doing it for even more people. Then, I created business cards with my dad and I think my dad doing this really got me to want to expand.
A simple on switch of a lamp nearly proved fatal for a Massachusetts woman on Wednesday when a jolt of electricity from a nearby lightning strike came through the house's wiring.

"I'm just very happy to be alive and I'm happy to be coming home to my children tonight, because it could have gone a very different way," Shelby Klopf said after returning home the night of the accident.

Shelby Klopf, 23, recounted the moments leading up to and immediately after getting struck by lightning in her home to ABC reporters. (ABC News)

The 23-year old resident of Bellingham was working from home in an enclosed porch that juts out of her house and into the backyard. When she reached to turn on the light, the jolt sent her flying backwards.

"All the sudden, I felt a huge boom, saw an extremely bright white light that has now affected my vision and I flew back," she said.

Shelby Klopf was working at this desk when she reached to turn on the lamp. Immediately, she was jolted backwards by an electric current from a nearby lightning strike. (ABC News)

Just 10 minutes earlier, Klopf's two young children were playing outside before coming in once the storm started.

According to AccuWeather Meteorologist Brett Rossio, a storm system that has remained nearly stagnant across New England over the past several days has remained the focus for showers and thunderstorms developing each afternoon with a little daytime heating.

"Some of the stronger storms have produced gusty winds as well," he said. "Bellingham was one of these locations that had one of these gusty thunderstorms."

When family members heard the boom, they raced downstairs to find Klopf on the ground, arms straight out and fingers paralyzed, as her mother-in-law Renee Rovedo described.

Klopf, a bit unsteady after the nearly tragic incident, is helped inside by her mother-in-law after returning from the hospital. (ABC News)

Klopf was rushed to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester before returning home later that night, but not without immense pain. She said that the shock gave her carpal spasms in her hands and feet, and she has also suffered from some memory loss.

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The home Klopf was working in wasn't impacted by the lightning in any form, however in 2002, a lightning strike triggered a small fire at the home. (ABC News)

Perhaps most shockingly, no visible damage was dealt to the home. However, 18 years ago, a lightning strike triggered a small fire at the same home, CBS reported.

Across New England, heavy rain and thunderstorms dotted the region, occurring in parts of Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts on Wednesday and triggering severe thunderstorm warnings.

Lightning safety specialist with the National Lightning Safety Council John Jensenius recently shared safety tips in an interview with AccuWeather's Monica Danielle. The tips include getting to safety indoors or in a hard-top, fully-enclosed vehicle as soon as you hear thunder. Once indoors, there are other important precautions to take to remain safe, according to Jensenius:

Stay away from anything that would conduct electricity toward you, which includes anything that plugs into the wall and plumbing.

Avoid washing dishes.

Avoid doing laundry.

Avoid taking a shower.

Wait 30 minutes before you go outside again.

"When you have a thunderstorm, you're going to have lightning. However, one of the things you can do, whether it's a building or your home is you can put up some lightning protection," Jensenius said, adding that often people think of lightning rods when it comes to protecting your home.

A lightning rod is designed to intercept lightning and conduct it down into the ground, so it doesn't cause major damage to buildings.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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Key Point: Had the Germans pursued these options, the British might have sought peace.

In the last article, we examined how Germany might have won the war if Hitler had been patient enough to wait on risking war until the German army was ready to fight. In this article, we will consider some ways the Germans might have goaded the British into accepting a negotiated peace before the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 while keeping the United States officially neutral in the conflict.

Dont allow the withdrawal of British Expeditionary Forces at Dunkirk

Hitlers decision to spare the BEF at Dunkirk and allow their evacuation to Britain from May 26 to June 4, 1940, was meant to underscore the fact that he wanted peace with Britain. Ironically, it was his very decision to deliberately spare the BEF and allow the withdrawal of 336,000 British and 210,000 French Ninth Army troops that enabled Churchill to reject Hitlers 1940 peace offer, which history shows he seriously considered accepting on May 26, 1940 before the BEF had been saved. It is a supreme irony of history that the one time Hitler proved he was serious about peace with Britain, his peace offering was precisely what ended up causing them to refuse, costing Germany any hope for victory in the war. The terms of this offer reportedly closely mirrored Hitlers proposed May 1941 peace offer, including granting nominal independence to Poland as a German protectorate along with a full German military withdrawal from France (except for Alsace-Lorraine), Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway. Peace with Britain, even if temporary, likely would have enabled Germany to negotiate favorable peace terms with the Soviets along the lines Stalin himself proposed. Of course, if Hitler had accepted a Four-Power Peace Conference and/or only occupied the Polish Corridor, he would never have had to attack Britain or France to win the war in the first place.

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Replace Admiral Canaris as Head of German Military Intelligence before the Dutch War Scare

Rear Admiral Wilhelm Canaris served as head of the German Abwehr Military Intelligence from 1935 to 1944. During this time, he helped plot the September 1938 coup against Hitler which was never carried out. However, once his plot to overthrow Hitler and the Nazis was aborted, he began a campaign of sabotage against Germany, which helped to ensure her eventual defeat. The first of these acts of sabotage was known as the Dutch War Scare of January 1939, in which he sent Britain false reports that Nazi Germany intended to invade Holland and then use it as a base from which to destroy British cities and bomb England into submission. These false reports caused British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to make his continental commitment to France the following monthsending a large British ground force to the defense of France in the event of the outbreak of war with Germany. They also may well have helped spur Chamberlains subsequent about-face in issuing the British military guarantee of Poland against German aggression in March 1939, without which the war likely would have been averted.

Then, in early 1940, Canaris began revealing all of Germanys battle plans to the Western Allies, starting with Hitlers planned invasion of France and the Low Countries which likely resulted in a very substantial number of German military casualties. Following the fall of France in June 1940, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco would likely have joined the Axis had Canaris not repeatedly talked him out of it. If Spain had joined the Axis, Portugal might have felt pressured to join the Axis as well to avert a possible German invasion. Spanish entry into the war would have enabled Hitler to capture Gibraltar and control the western approaches to the Mediterranean. Along with the German capture of the BEF at Dunkirk, this almost certainly would have caused Britain to accept Hitlers generous June-July 1940 or May 1941 peace terms, which in turn would have almost certainly precluded U.S. entry into the war and enabled Germany to survive its war with the Soviet Union. Hitler then planned to invade Switzerland, but Canaris was successful in convincing the fuhrer that doing so would not be worth the cost. In summer 1943, Canaris successfully negotiated an agreement with the heads of U.S. and British intelligence to overthrow the Nazis and assassinate or hand over Hitler in exchange for an end to the war in the West and Germany being allowed to continue fighting the Soviets in the East. Regrettably, President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill refused to honor the agreement, foolishly insisting on nothing less than unconditional surrender in furtherance of Soviet objectives.

Force Britain to Conclude a Negotiated Peace before invading the Soviet Union

Germany had to fight a two-front war in World War One, leaving German generals fearful about having to fight one again. During the Battle of Britain, Hitler should have continued bombing the RAF airbases when it was on its ropes instead of yielding to Churchills provocation to bomb civilian targets after Churchill ordered Bomber Command to bomb Berlin in late August 1940. Germany could have invaded and possibly succeeded in occupying part or all of Great Britain had Hitler won the Battle of Britain against the Royal Air Force. Even if the Germans were only partially successful in achieving their invasion objectives, the British would likely have quickly sought peace with Germany in order to prevent the capture and occupation of London and obtain a rapid withdrawal of German troops from the British Isles. However, Hitler may never have been serious about invading Britain, as he viewed them as natural allies against Soviet Communism and hoped they would agree to his generous peace terms delivered by Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess in May 1941. So he proceeded to cancel the German amphibious invasion plan, known as Operation Sea Lion, in September 1940.

Rather than take the very substantial risk of heavy German losses by launching an all-out amphibious invasion of Great Britain, Hitler might have chosen to pursue General Heinz Guderians daring plan to use a couple of Panzer divisions to capture Gibraltar, Spanish Morocco, French Morocco, Rio De Orio, the Canary Islands, Egypt and the Suez Canal in late 1940 or early 1941 in order to cut off British forces from their Mediterranean colonies. This though would have required Spanish approval for German forces to travel through Spain. Upon massing German troops on the Franco-Spanish border, Franco would not have refused due to his fear that if he did, German forces would invade and occupy Spain and depose him from power. If nothing else, Spain would have remained a pro-Axis neutral, though with a large number of German troops in the country, Franco might have felt pressured to join the Axis Powers. After capturing Egypt and the Suez Canal by early 1941, Germany would have been in a position to successfully bribe Turkey to join the war with promises of a return of the former Ottoman provinces of Egypt (divided with Italy), Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and parts of oil-rich Saudi Arabia. Just as he did in actual history, Hitler could have also offered Turkey the return of the oil-rich southern Caucasus Soviet republics to Turkish control.

With Turkish military assistance and the Berlin to Baghdad Highway having been completed in 1940, Axis conquest of the region would have been made much easier. With the British largely expelled from the Mediterranean, it would have fallen under Axis control. Then they could have supported the pro-Axis coup in oil-rich Iraq in April 1941 and returned Kuwait to Iraqi control. Britain and the Soviet Union would likely have responded to a German intervention in support of the new Iraqi government by staging an unprovoked invasion of Iraq just as they did in actual history in September 1941. The Germans could have occupied the western border region with Iran, but moving forces beyond that would have been difficult. Nevertheless, their increasing threat to Allied control of Iran and potential threat to British control of Indiawhere they could provide arms and military support to the pro-Axis Indian National Army in their attempts to liberate India from British rulewould have posed a very serious threat to the British Empire.

Had the Germans pursued this option, the British likely would have sought peace after the fall of the Suez Canal, and would certainly have done so following a German-Turkish conquest of Palestine and Iraqthe source of much of their oil. This path also would have forced the Soviets to divert a significant number of Red Army divisions to their southern flank to defend against a possible Axis invasion of the Caucuses from Turkey and/or Iran. This plan also would have allowed a peace treaty to be signed with pro-German Vichy France, after which all German troops could have been withdrawn. Hitler could have also accomplished his objective of deporting all European Jews to Palestine or Madagascarwhich the British had refused to allow him to do during the war in actual historypossibly averting the Jewish Holocaust. Needless to say, a successful Middle Eastern campaign would have successfully resolved the Axis fuel crisis while increasing the number of allies fighting on their side enabling it to fight more effectively and for a greater number of years than in actual history.

Dont declare war on the United States of America

While FDR was waging an undeclared war against Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic during most of 1941, Hitler acted scrupulously to avoid war with the United States, even ordering his U-boats not to return fire against U.S. Navy destroyers depth charging them. But following the expected Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Hitler did an abrupt about-face and declared war on December 10, 1941 in his most foolish and avoidable mistake of the entire war. Hitler apparently did so in order to show solidarity with his Japanese allies, even though, in the end, Nazi Germany received absolutely no military benefit from their alliance with Japan. After all, Japan refused to open up a second front against the Soviet Union as Hitler had requested they do after Germany invaded the USSR. Japan even signed a Nonaggression Treaty with the Soviet Union on April 13, 1941, thereby allowing Stalin to transfer twenty-eight Red Army divisions from Siberia that proved invaluable in stopping the Germans from capturing Moscow. These divisions then participated in the subsequent Soviet counteroffensive against German forces from December 1941 to May 1942. Had Hitler not declared war on the United States, it is doubtful that Congress would have ever declared war on Nazi Germany even after Pearl Harbor. In declaring war against the mightiest industrial power on Earth at the time while already fighting a life or death struggle against the Soviet Union, which was the second strongest industrial power in the world before he made peace with Great Britain, Hitler effectively ended up signing Germanys death warrant.

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and H.Q. staff officer with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as a Vice President of the Association of the United States Armys Utah Chapter and as Utah Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He can be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com. This article first appeared in 2019 and is reprinted here due to reader interest.

Image: Bundesarchiv / Wikimedia Commons

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Here's What You Need To Remember: If the U.S. and its allies deploy more of the next-generation fighter in the region, China may feel compelled to respond by speeding up its Xian H-20 program in the latest  and increasingly expensive and increasingly dangerous  tit-for-tat in the region.

While the goal of a stealth bomber is not to be seen  at least on radar  the Chinese military is reportedly weighing how to officially introduce the still-to-be-delivered next-generation warplane. Military experts, who have anticipated the arrival of the long-range aircraft for a while, may have to extend their wait at least until November.

The Xian H-20, which is expected to double the country's strike range, could make its public debut at this year's Zhuhai Airshow. But that is only providing the coronavirus pandemic is under control and contained. Should it make a return this autumn, the Xian H-20 could become akin to "Waiting for Godot" where its promised arrival is continually delayed.

"The Zhuhai Airshow is expected to become a platform to promote China's image and its success in pandemic control  telling the outside world that the contagion did not have any big impacts on Chinese defence industry enterprises:" an unnamed source told the South China Morning Post this week.

The aircraft had been previously teased about in viral marketing campaigns that wouldn't seem out of place for a Hollywood blockbuster, and Chinese media had teased that the aircraft would be part of a parade to celebrate the People's Liberation Army Air Force's seventieth anniversary in 2019.

There have also been concerns that if the bomber were to make an appearance at this year's airshow that it could heighten tensions by directly threatening countries that are within its strike range, notably Japan, South Korea and even Australia, including U.S. bases in those countries as well as in the U.S. territory of Guam.

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The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has estimated that the bomber has a cruising distance of more than 5,300 miles and could fly at subsonic speeds, while carrying four powerful hypersonic stealth cruise missiles.

This has provided Beijing with what has been described as a "nuclear triad" of ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and air-launched weapons. Such a combination of arms has been seen to provide the United States with 24/7 deterrence to prevent catastrophic actions from adversaries, but it could certainly change the power dynamic among China's regional rivals.

Last year in an annual report to Congress, the DoD warned that China could be inching closer to such a nuclear triad.

"The Beijing leadership is still carefully considering whether its commission will affect regional balance, especially as regional tensions have been escalating over the Covid-19 pandemic," another unnamed source told the South China Morning Post. "Like intercontinental ballistic missiles, all strategic bombers can be used for delivering nuclear weapons."

However, as the report to Congress also noted, a true nuclear triad is about more than just possessing the military platforms and weapons.

"To have a true triad involves doctrine, it involves training, a lot of things," Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver explained as reported by Business Insider last May. Schriver added that the Chinese military is "heading in that direction, toward having capable delivery systems in those three domains."

The Xian H-20 certainly provides the third piece of the triad, but the aircraft won't instantly level the playing field. The speed of the H-20 is reportedly slower than its original design. However, the H-20 could be an answer to the U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. If the U.S. and its allies deploy more of the next-generation fighter in the region, China may feel compelled to respond by speeding up its Xian H-20 program in the latest  and increasingly expensive and increasingly dangerous  tit-for-tat in the region.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.

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BEIJING, June 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Guilin, one of leading tourist locations in China, has recently hosted a series of events to celebrate the Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, which falls on June 13 this year.

Photo: Opening ceremony of the Cultural and Natural Heritage Day kicks off in Guilin city, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, June 13. (PRNewsfoto/Xinhua Silk Road)

In particular, a major forum was held in Guilin to share outstanding cases nationwide, which showed how protection of cultural heritages could boost local tourism and help fight against poverty.

During the events, Jinjiang Princes' City has impressed the participants as it is well protected.

Jinjiang Princes' City, originally built in 1372, covers an area of approximately 200,000 square meters. It was the residence of the princes in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). A total of 14 princes in the Ming Dynasty lived here.

"In order to bring the Jingjiang Princes' City back to life, Guilin has carried out archaeological cleaning and excavation and environmental remediation on 11 princes' tombs. All illegal buildings built against the city wall were demolished, so that the ancient city wall was exposed," said an official of the local government.

In addition to the government's efforts to protect the natural and cultural relics, individuals are also joining the campaign in the protection of cultural heritages.

During the events, an award ceremony was also held to reward the individuals for their contributions to the protection of the cultural heritages.

Tang Yijin, a 76-year-old villager in Guilin, has spared no effort to protect the cultural relics for many years. In 2009, he bought a group of ancient residential buildings with characteristics of the traditional buildings in north Guangxi and relocated them, avoiding their demolition due to the railway expansion.

When receiving the award, he said excitedly, "This honor is both a reward and a spur, and I will continue the cause of cultural relics protection and inheritance as always in the future."

During the events, an intangible cultural heritage experience hall in Guilin was inaugurated, focusing on the local opera and arts.

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In recent years, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has continuously increased protection and investment of cultural heritage.

Since 2018, Guangxi has launched the construction of special museums. The number of museums in the region has been up to 252, with nearly 20 million visitors annually, according to an official of the Culture and Tourism Department of the region. (Edited by Hu Pingchao with Xinhua Silk Road, hupingchao@xinhua.org)

Cision

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SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road
- Yangnong Group, a subsidiary of Sinochem International, has been given the title of "Outstanding Organization for Supporting the Prevention and Control of Covid-19" by CPCIF.

SHANGHAI, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 29, China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation hosted a video conference to honor 25 Chinese petrochemistry companies and 20 outstanding individuals for their proactive efforts in fighting against COVID-19. Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Group ("Yangnong") received the accolade in recognition of its special contribution to the production of urgent medical supplies.

Headquartered in Yangzhou, China, Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Group is a subsidiary of Sinochem International, with factories based in a number of cities across China.

During the epidemic, Yangnong had been running at full speed to produce the sodium hypochlorite, the chemical material used for producing disinfectant. From February 7 to 14, the Group donated 75 tons of sodium hypochlorite in batches to the first responders of COVID-19 in Wuhan. To date, Yangnong has donated 130 tons of sodium hypochlorite to about 300 companies and organizations. In addition, it has also supplied more than 10,000 tons of sodium hypochlorite to cities across China to alleviate the shortage of cleaning and disinfection chemicals for COVID-19.

The efforts of Yangnong Group in helping the nation tackle the pandemic have been acknowledged by the State Council of China early this year. In March 2020, it was among the first batch to be incorporated in the list of the key enterprises under the government business protection scheme and received an appreciation letter from the Medical Supplies Team of China's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Sinochem International has been coordinating with its subsidiaries to help domestic and overseas communities in preventing and controlling the spread of the virus. Aside from ensuring sufficient supplies of sodium hypochlorite, subsidiaries of Sinochem International have also donated medical protective equipment to the anti-epidemic centers in Hubei and Jiangsu. From May this year, ELIX Polymers, a manufacturer of ABS and a member of Sinochem International in Europe, has also donated ABS products to medical equipment manufacturers in Spain, ensuring the local 3D printing facilities have sufficient supplies of raw material to produce masks for medical institutions.

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(END)

Cision

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SOURCE Sinochem International
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Elaborate U.S. Air Force wargaming against potential major adversaries has again reinforced the services growth assessment request to still increase service size to 386 squadrons, up from 312.

We are doing lots of war games against peer competitors and came out to 386. That number is still the goal and then getting the right mix of the right squadrons and making sure they are ready to meet our nations demands, General Stephen Wilson, Air Force Chief of Staff, told The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in a recent interview.

Wilson, and his former fellow Air Force pilot Lieutenant General David Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute, both served during Desert Storm in the early 1990s, when the Air Force went to war with twelve operational squadrons. Now we have less, Deptula said in his conversation with Wilson.

The bottom line, according to senior Air Force leaders and experts observers, is that the U.S. Air Force will fall behind Russia and China by 2025 unless the service quickly embarks upon a sizeable expansion of its fighting technologies, weapons arsenal and major attack platforms. This means new bombers, fighters, drones, rescue helicopters and more. As part of the needed expansion, the Air Force Vice expounded upon a need to emphasize technological research and progress, citing eleven key areas of focus to include Directed Energy, Hypersonics, AI, Autonomy, cyber, Quantum and Space, among others.

Following a detailed analysis several years ago, which likely included close examination of threats, mission requirements and dangerous emerging technologies, the service laid out a request to grow from 312 operational squadrons up to 386. The largest needed increases, according to the Air Force plan, included a request for twenty-two new ISR Command and Control squadrons, seven more fighter squadrons and five more bomber squadrons.

The Air Force assessment, referred to by Wilson, says the analysis supporting the 386 squadrons needed to support the National Defense Strategy is based on estimates of the expected threat by 2025 to 2030. At the end of the Cold War, the Air Force had 401 operational squadrons. By any cursory estimation, it does not take much to notice an uptick in mission demands for the Air Force, coming on the heels of more than fifteen-years of counterinsurgency air support missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, confronting the threat of major warfare, the service is facing substantial requests from combatant commanders.

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Other details of the previous Air Force requested expansion plan include:

Five more bomber squadrons

Five more combat search and rescue squadrons

Twenty-two more command and control ISR squadrons

Fourteen more tanker squadrons

Seven more fighter squadrons

Seven more space squadrons

Meanwhile, statements from former senior Air Force leaders, Congressional analysts, observers and critics may go even further when it comes to voicing serious concerns about the services ability to meet anticipated threatscalling the current situation dangerous. The USAF is a geriatric forceit has bombers, tankers, and trainer aircraft over 50 years old; helicopters over 40; and fighters over 30it has a 2000+ pilot shortage, Deptula told TNI during a previous interview.

Kris Osborn is the new Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the ArmyAcquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters

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Washington (AFP) - Accused of failing to uphold their civic duty, younger Americans are behind the current COVID-19 surge, with several states moving to close bars, beaches and other places that saw huge crowds when lockdowns were eased.

The median age for new cases in Florida in the past few days has fluctuated between 34 and 36. In Los Angeles, 40 percent of new cases are among those under 40. And in the greater Phoenix area, the major center of the contagion in Arizona, half are under the age of 35.

In total, half or more of all the cases in California and Arizona since the start of the pandemic have been among the 18-49 age group, and the rate is expected to rise.

This in turn has fueled innumerable calls for individual responsibility from mayors, governors and federal officials in recent days.

"We issue a particular plea to young people," Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday, urging the use of masks. "This is about protecting our most vulnerable."

Bars have been shut once more in Texas, California and parts of Michigan. In Florida, they can't serve alcohol anymore.

In Texas, the governor has also banned "tubing" -- floating down a river in the inner tube of a tire. Thousands of the state's youths were going tubing, often in large groups, prior to the ban.

- Trump isolated -

President Donald Trump continues to minimize new records in confirmed cases (more than 50,000 were reported Wednesday, another single-day record). On Thursday, he said the US remained prepared and was the "king of ventilators."

But he is increasingly isolated in this position. Those under him appear to be taking the situation more seriously, and voicing their concerns.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced a "blitz" in testing in hotspots in Texas, Florida and Louisiana, specifically in order to detect cases among those younger than 35.

"When you have a lot of younger people who are asymptomatic, particularly in an outbreak situation, it is much harder, not impossible, but much harder to contact trace," said Brett Giroir, the official in charge of coordinating the national testing strategy.

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Just a few days ago, Pence made reassuring remarks that hotspots were limited geographically and young people were those most affected, meaning the number of severe cases were likely to be low.

But "it just doesn't make sense to say, we'll just keep it out of the nursing homes," Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told reporters Wednesday.

"That has not worked so far," he added, evoking the tragic experience of the country's northeast over the spring.

Will the increasingly strong warnings from authorities be heeded? Experts stress that the changes in behavior required are simple: frequent hand-washing, avoiding crowds, and covering your face when physical distancing isn't possible.

Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious diseases official, warned this week that on the current track the US could start registering more than 100,000 new cases per day.

He thundered against bars and beaches filled with young people mixing freely without face coverings.

"So they have an understandable attitude, which is unfortunate but understandable, 'If I get infected, what do I care, but it's likely I'm not even going to get sick,'" he told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday.

This is true, but that doesn't mean the infection won't get passed on, he said.

"We need to engender some societal responsibility in people, particularly the younger people," he added.

Given the known delay between having a confirmed infection, hospitalization and death, the coming weeks will show whether the country is listening.




From fluctuations in income flow to struggling with keeping demand stable, theres no gainsaying that small-to-medium scale ventures and start-ups have had to grapple with the economic downside of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world as of recent.

Part of the strategies that small businesses have had to deploy is e-commerce, which more-or-less, has gotten them acquainted with hunting for customers and clients beyond geographical enclaves.

Yet, as cities and economies start to reopen, even more people are looking for ways to support their favorite small businesses. Well, heres five ways to do just that  this time with Google Maps.





Report a place as re-opened on Google Maps



Business owners may not have the time or resources to keep the information on their online listing updated. If you know a business has reopened to the public, but its still marked as closed on Google Search or Maps, you can report it as re-opened.



Click on the Temporarily Closed banner on the business and select Suggest an edit to let us know that the business has reopened. And for businesses that have reopened with different hours, you can also submit updated open hours information too.





Spread the word with reviews, ratings, and photos Share your experience. Writing about a restaurants well-executed takeout window or adding photos of the menu or dish you ordered in your Maps review can help businesses you love to attract more customers.





Answer questions and check the facts You can share useful insights about places that youve visited by answering easy questions that pop up on Google Maps. You can also verify information about places that other people submit before its published on Google Maps.





Order delivery or takeout Many restaurants and cafes that are closed for dine-in service have pivoted to takeout and delivery. If youre not in the mood to cook, treat yourself while supporting one of your local restaurants. Use Google Maps to find restaurants around you that are offering takeout or delivery.



Use Plus Codes to help people find small businesses Is one of your local businesses in an area that doesnt have a street name? You can help people find them by using Plus Codes . Simply drop a pin on Google Maps and share the alphanumeric code with friends and family who then use the Google Maps search bar to get directions to the business.

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President Muhammadu Buhari says it is expected that the number of poor people in the country will triple as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.





In a statement on Wednesday, Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, said Buhari disclosed this in a recorded video message to a virtual high-level United Nations meeting focused on trends, options, and strategies in poverty eradication across the world.





The 2019 Poverty and Inequality in Nigeria report released by the National Bureau of Statistics in May showed that 82.9 million Nigerians are living in poverty.





Speaking on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Buhari said in Nigeria, like many other countries, the domestic supply chains and trading corridors have come under enormous strain, bringing to the fore the health versus economics debate.

The president expressed concern that more than 700 million people or 10 percent of the worlds population is classified as living in extreme poverty, adding that with a population of about 200 million people, a large percentage of Nigerians live in various categories of poverty.





All the while, they struggle with the most basic needs like nutrition, shelter, health, education and access to clean water and sanitation, Buhari was quoted to have said.





In this condition, the number of poor people is estimated to triple as livelihoods across almost all economic sectors have been adversely affected.





The president added that the prospect of the population sliding further into extreme poverty was real but gave the assurance that his government is also striving to reverse the trend.





The president said the recently developed economic sustainability plan, aimed at stimulating the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will extend protection to very poor Nigerians and other vulnerable groups through pro-poor spending.





It is my conviction that devoting our efforts towards human capital development, efficient management of our resources, greater financial inclusion and transformation of the agricultural sector to ensure food security are crucial to poverty eradication, he said.





In this regard, Nigeria continues to strengthen its existing social safety net initiative by increasing access to enrolees who fit the various programmes in the scheme.





Nigeria will also continue to provide easier and increased access to financial services for micro and small-scale businesses through the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme. But we are determined to do more.





Nigeria holds the view that education is a critical driver of sustainable development and has an immense capacity to eradicate poverty.





Educating our children, especially the girl-child, contributes significantly to the fight against poverty, environmental sustainability, and improved health, as well as building peace and resilient societies.

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The man who called police said Lane struck him in the face with a handgun at his residence and tied him to a chair in the basement, according to charging documents. Sattizahn Lane then said she wanted him dead, the man told police. She took his debit card out of his pocket and left to go to an ATM while Lane continued to hold the man at gunpoint, charging documents state. Sattizahn Lane returned and struck the man in the face until he gave her $600, police wrote. The pair then left the residence, leaving the man secured to a chair in the basement, charging documents read.
The Egypt international, who signed a new five-year deal in 2018, was the top scorer at the club this season with 17 Premier League goals, as they secured a 19th top-flight title with seven games to spare.

Im very happy; I cant describe my feelings after we won the league after 30 years. I can see peoples joy and this is so important for all of us, Salah told BeIN Sport.

I enjoy the atmosphere here; I love this place and I hope to stay for a long time. The atmosphere here is different to any other place.



We have adapted well as a team and our understanding is perfect. If this continues, we can achieve more.

Its difficult to maintain our current level but its not impossible, he said.

Salah hailed the impact of Club Captain Jordan Henderson and said he would pick the midfielder as the best player in the league this season.

Maybe Ill choose Henderson because hes the captain and hes been here for about eight-nine years.

He had a difficult time in the beginning and he was heavily criticised.

He, as a captain, is loved by all of us and he tries to help all players and helps youth players to adapt, he said.

Liverpool visit second-placed Manchester City in the league on Thursday.

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Home | News | General | Assessing the war against insurgency in northeast by Idoko Ainoko (Opinion)

Editor's note: In this piece, Idoko Ainoko, a public affairs expert based in Kaduna state writes on the insurgency in the northeast region of Nigeria and the operations of the military chiefs against terrorists.

Ainoko suggests that the commitment and doggedness of the service chief has continued to help keep Nigeria's territories secured.

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Someone said the other day that, "We can never go back to the old days prior to 2015, " and I asked what he meant by that.

It was when he explained to me that his position is based on the security situation in the country prior to 2015 that I got his drift.

Prior to 2015, the security situation in the country was so bad that people move about without being sure of the next minute as planted bombs could explode at anywhere and at any time; bombers could crash into any public space at the slightest chance, and terrorists could launch attacks and overrun any town or community they wish.

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To make matters worse, these heinous activities were not restricted to the precincts of the fringes of the Lake Chad region where the insurgents were concentrated but were almost everywhere and in almost all regions.

Major towns like Potiskum in Yobe State; Bama, Monguno and Biu in Borno state; Mubi, Michika and Garkida in Adamawa as well as Kano, Kaduna and the FCT became hotspots of terrorists activities.

But 2015 marked a watershed in the improvement of security in Nigeria.

With the inauguration of the current administration and the appointment of the current service chiefs, things took a turn for the better as the bombs stopped, attacks on towns and communities were highly reduced and restricted to certain places while normalcy returned to all parts of the country.

The magic that did this from the benefit of hindsight, is selecting round pegs in round holes in the security network of the country.

Do not display cowardice on war front- Military warns commanders

All the service chiefs are top security personnel who have backgrounds of sterling performances and service to the fatherland unlike in the past when politics dominated such decisions.

Experts in security say this would be about the first time that the three requirements of courage, confidence and commitment would be given due priority in the appointment of service chiefs.

These three, according to time tested records on security, form the basis for appointments into the top echelon of the military the world over and that in situations where any of the two are found in a person, it is considered to be a huge advantage not to talk of having the three in personnel.

Any commander in chief whose service chiefs come with the three attributes is considered as not only lucky but well equipped to take care of any eventuality.

Nigeria service chiefs in a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari. Photo credit: Aso Rock

Source: Facebook

With the improvement in the security situation in Nigeria and successes recorded in the theatre of operations, one can say without fear of contradiction that it was these three qualities that the president saw in the current set of chiefs before appointing them.

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It goes without saying that it is because they have convinced him that he has made the right choice that he decided to retain as it would not be easy finding these attributes in one fell swoop.

The first act of courage demonstrated by the service chiefs was moving to the theaters of operation any time action is needed on the battle field unlike in the past when top security officials sit in the comfort of their homes in Abuja and other state capitals giving orders to troops while making more demands for funds.

The service chiefs repeated this recently when they moved to Katsina in the wake of fresh attacks in the northwest.

When the president extended the tenure of the security chiefs, it was gathered that the extension may not be unconnected to a job well done by the service chiefs for ensuring law and order and peace of the country.

Corps member melts hearts with what he did for these children amid COVID-19, he deserves to be celebrated (photos)

It was said that their input made it possible for Nigeria to have elections in all parts of the country but ensure it was crises free. Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Boss Mustapha had also expressed same sentiments when explaining why the President is more disposed towards retaining the service chiefs.

He said while the president reserves the right to do as he wished, the security situation in the country requires thorough and meticulous handling. As the security chiefs move to the theatres of operation when the occasion demands, the chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai has been outstanding.

On assumption of duty, the army chief moved to the northeast and engaged troops in physical drills and warm-up exercises before moving with them to forests and other strongholds of the terrorists.

He repeated the act in April this year when the insurgents were regrouping to launch attacks on Nigerian communities and since then, it has been one success story after the other. This shows rare courage as there are layers of command the general would have relied on to get the job done but did not fear the risk to his life and was physically present at the battlefield.

Borno state governor suspends all hospital staff, gives reason

This is at a time troops were running away from the battlefield due to the perception that the insurgents were better equipped than them.

But Buratai, knowing that bravery is more important than any sophisticated weapon, used himself to show an example to the troops and since then, the story of the fight has not been the same again.

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This naturally comes with confidence as even if the courage was there, the troops would not have been motivated if they have not seen the kind of confidence displayed by the chief of army staff.

In the Art of War by Sun Tzu, it was made clear that the battle is won or lost at the level of confidence as even when one has the weapon and the confidence is not there, not much can be achieved.

Only APC guarantees presidency for Ndigbo - Igbo leader declares

Another thing this shows is a commitment to the cause of defending the nation and passion for the realisation of one of the cardinal objectives of this administration, to ensure adequate security for Nigeria and her citizens.

Without the level of commitment that drives an official to apply his skill and talent to a cause, the story in the northeast would not have been different.

All these have helped to make the war against insurgency and terrorism the success it is in Nigeria today. Indeed Nigeria cannot go back to the pre-2015 era of violence and mayhem as it seems to be in safe hands.

Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@corp.legit.ng drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest contributors.

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Home | News | General | Tinubu mourns Bode Akindele

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By Dapo Akinrefon

Former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday, described the late business mogul, Chief Bode Akindele, as a cheerful giver, who will be missed by the needy and oppressed Nigerians whom he loved and cared for.

In a statement titled: Tribute to Chief Bode Akindele, Tinubu said: Chief Akindele was an astute and driven businessman and the breadth and variety of his interests stand as a monument to his uncanny ability to achieve success no matter the nature of the endeavour upon which he decided to embark.

Chief Akindeles success was not limited to Nigeria or, indeed, Africa.

The statement reads in part: Through his perseverance, determination and consistency of effort and character, Chief Akindele was able to achieve greatness on a global scale.

His accomplishments in life stand testament to all that can be achieved by tenacious and astute African businessmen such as himself and his reputation as a leading industrialist and business tycoon will doubtless live on in the memory of his followers and fellow Nigerians.

What separates Chief Akindele from other men of means is his large-heartedness, the extraordinary enthusiasm with which he gave of his time and of himself.

Chief Akindele was a renowned philanthropist whose foundation employed and empowered many people. His passing will be keenly felt by the multitude of young Nigerians touched by his generosity. Throughout his life span, Chief Akindele lived charitably. He was regarded by everybody that knew him as a cheerful giver.

His beneficence towards his fellow man, particularly the people of Ibadan, was legendary. He shall be sorely missed by the needy and oppressed Nigerians whom he so loved and cared for.

While his passing is a great loss to the Nigerian people, we thank God that he was able to live a long and fulfilled life to the age of 87.

We are grateful to Almighty God for the time that we spent with Chief Akindele here on earth and for the way he was able to touch the lives of so many with his philanthropy.

He left his footprint in the sands of time and his memory will live long in the hearts and minds of all of us who were blessed to have known him personally and a multitude of those who did not.

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Home | News | General | Communities in South-East groan, as herdsmen take over farmlands

File photo of herders and their cattle.

By Anayo Okoli, Vincent Ujumadu, Peter Okutu, Chimaobi Nwaiwu, Ikechukwu Odu & Chinonso Alozie

The destructive activities of rogue herdsmen on farms in communities in Igbo land are becoming worrisome and frightening.

They, with hordes of cattle, have been invading farmlands with reckless abandon and making a mess of the crops which the poor village farmers toiled to put in place. Sadly, in some cases, these killer herdsmen even violently attack and kill the farmers if they have the gut to question them.

The evil activities are taking place in all parts of the South East: from Abia to Imo; from Anambra to Enugu and Ebonyi. The people have been crying especially in the face of the emphasis the Federal Government places on agriculture.

None of the herdsmen have been arrested and tried by the law enforcement agencies. Yet, the evil acts continue unabated.

The matter has been of great concern to Igbo leaders. Just recently, the association South East Town Unions, ASETU, who actually operate from the rural communities where the evil acts are committed, raised alarm over the rise in the destructive activities of the herdsmen. The President-General of the association, Chief Emeka Diwe lamented what the rural farmers are going through in the hands of these herdsmen.

Our people have died enough. We cried out when Ozuitem community in Bende area of Abia State was invaded and attacked by the herdsmen and nobody did anything. People were slaughtered and property destroyed. A month later, another community in the same Abia State, Ndi Okereke Abam in Arochukwu council, was equally attacked by the herdsmen. Nothing was done.

In early hours of April 6, 2019, the herdsmen attacked farmers settlement in Anambra West Council of Anambra State. They set the farm houses ablaze and killed the men and raped the women they captured, yet nobody came to our rescue.

Can we keep beating about the bush while our people are being taken to slaughterhouses day after day? What about the dastardly attack on Umuawa-Ibu community in Okigwe council area of Imo State. In all these cases, we cried to high heavens, petitioned here and there, and complained everywhere, yet the authorities never cared.

In Enugu, on June 14, 2019, the same herdsmen attacked a commercial bus carrying traders, mainly women returning from the market along Agbani-Ugbawka road in Nkanu East council area and abducted three young women after they had robbed the traders. The internal outcry over these atrocities has become deafening. These herdsmen also butchered a whole family and a Catholic seminarian on apostolic work in Nkanu.

The story is the same Ebonyi and Imo States. In Imo State, herdsmen have unleashed terror in Oguta, Ohaji-Egbema and Orlu as well as other parts of Igbo land. And recently, the killing of Ozoemena Iriaka from Umuekpu in Agwa community in the same Oguta council area was added in the list of casualties of these murderous herdsmen.

Even the international community has rated these herdsmen as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world, yet the Nigerian authorities have kept mum.

Despite these atrocious acts, the authorities have looked the other way, maybe to create a scenario that would elicit retaliation from so that they would criminalize and annihilate us and exonerate our predators. When citizens of Nigeria are slaughtered in cold blood and the authorities look the other way, it is a violation of those charters of peace.

For almost a decade, our people have endured the agony of murder, rape and molestation in the hands of killer herdsmen, a minority group that appears to be sacred cows because they control all state apparatus and hence are unleashing violence on our people.

Our people at the grassroots whose livelihoods depend almost entirely on their farmlands have had those farms ravaged by the herdsmen and their cattle. As I speak to you, there is hardly a single herdsman standing trial anywhere in Nigeria for these killings and atrocious acts; hardly can you find one in detention or even one being prosecuted. Our people now feel their lives do not matter anymore, Diwe lamented.

Living in fear

Farmers in Ugbene Ajima community, Uzo-Uwani council area of Enugu State said they now live in fear due to incessant destructive activities of suspected herders on their crops as well as threat to their lives. A farmer from the community who gave his name as Edward Ugwu, said he lost over N500, 000 when herdsmen harvested his cassava to feed their cattle.

According to Ugwu, farmers are afraid to go to their farms in the community for fear of herders attack. He said there is fear of famine in the community as most farmers have left their farms for fear of attacks.

Another farmer, Regina Iggah said she has not recovered from the shock since she was attacked in her farm. Iggah said her crops worth over N800, 000 were destroyed by herdsmen who allegedly invaded her farm with their cattle even as she appealed to the state and local governments to come to her rescue.

The traditional ruler of the community, Igwe Romanus Eze confirmed that he had been receiving series of complaints from farmers over destruction of their crops by herdsmen. He said he and the council chairman, Chukwudi Nnadozie have been obeying the peace initiative of the state government to settle all farmers/herders issues amicably.

The herdsmen problem is like a sucking mosquito on a mans scrotum.If you hit it hard, you will severe the genitals. If you leave it there, it would suck your blood and invariably give you malaria. We have been advised by the governor to manage them peacefully.

We normally engage the herdsmen in a peace talk and where they are culpable; we mandate them to pay for damages on peoples farms. Our forest guards and vigilante groups have been playing their roles to curtail these clashes, the monarch said.

Strangely, some farmers equally alleged that certain persons collect money from the herders to allow them access into the community, an action that emboldens the herdsmen.

Lamentations in Anambra

THERE is hardly any community in Anambra that is not complaining about the negative activities of herdsmen. Although most Anambra communities were used to herdsmen who graze their cows essentially in places that were not cultivated, the resurgence of herdsmen began when the federal government muted the idea of establishing Fulani colonies in the heart of Igbo villages.

Most communities objected to it because of the peculiar nature of the Fulani who, they argued, once they are given a place to settle, would try to dominate the area and chase the original dwellers out. Following the refusal of most communities to willingly donate their lands for the establishment of the Fulani settlements, the herdsmen adopted another method, which was to forcefully enter the farms.

From Ayamelum to Awka North; from Ogbaru to Ihiala; from Orumba to Anambra East and West, the story of Fulani herdsmen is the same.

Stories abound that apart from destroying farmlands, the herdsmen have been accused of raping women and sometimes killing their victims. In Anambra State, for instance, there is no day that one could not hear of worrisome activities of Fulani herdsmen.

Last week,10 communities in Awka North local government area of lamented the destruction of their farmlands by herdsmen, which they said, had become a daily occurrence.

Former chairman of Awka North local government area, Chief Shedrack Anakwue said the action of herdsmens menace in the area had led to astronomical rise in the prices of agricultural produce which is the main source of income for his people.

The herdsmen had left many families in pitiable situations as their source of livelihood, which is their farmlands, had been totally destroyed. The unfortunate thing is that the herdsmen alleged that they reached agreement with their host communities which allowed them to operate in any community as they liked.

When you confront the herdsmen, they tell you that they have settled the leaders of the community. Our elders are not happy about the situation but the leadership of the community appears to have been settled by the herdsmen.

President General of Ebenebe in Awka North, Mr. Paul Nnatuanya, lamented that the inordinate activities of Fulani herdsmen had become very worrisome, claiming that between September last year and now, farmers in the community had lost over N100 million to herdsmen.

Herdsmen are destroying our farmlands with reckless abandon. All the towns in Awka North are not spared from their dastardly act. They even come to graze their cattle in peoples houses and when you tell them to move, they will be looking at you as if you are talking to the cows, he said.

In the words of the Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese in Anambra State, Most Rev Paulinus Ezeokafor, the activities of herdsmen whose cattle destroy farmlands were undermining food production in the country, describing the killer herders as a big threat capable of increasing hunger in the country.

We condemn the killing and harassment of innocent citizens in their farms in some agro communities across the country. Some of them are now scared of going to their farms to avoid being murdered by killer herders.

We all know the economic implication of not having farm produce, which is that the prices of food items will increase and hunger will become the order of the day. I call on the Federal Government to rise to the occasion and put a stop to all forms of killing of innocent citizens in the country, including those who go to farms to produce food for our people, he said.

Igbo in Diaspora are also worried about the activities of herdsmen. The union said the killings of Igbo citizens by herdsmen had become routine and urged the governors of South-East to do something to end the ugly incidents.

To reduce the friction between the Fulani herdsmen and the communities, Governor Willie Obiano set up a joint security task force headed by the Commissioner of Police to ensure that the herders and their host communities live in harmony, Part of the agreement was that crops destroyed by the herdsmen should be assessed and paid for, just as the people should pay for cows lost in questionable circumstances.

With that arrangement, there has been peace in the various communities despite the increasing complaints by farmers on the activities of the herdsmen.

Also lamenting the situation, Bishop Henry Okeke of Mbamili Diocese of the Anglican Communion expressed worry over the alarming spate of killing by herdsmen and called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to step up action in securing the country.

Bishop Okeke said that Anambra West communities, predominately farmers are the food basket of the state and by extension providing food to neighboring states of Delta, particularly Asaba; Imo and Enugu, had their settlement attacked by herdsmen in January this year and left some people dead and others sustained injuries.

He particularly expressed fear over killings, attacks and sacking of communities by strangers pretending to be herdsmen while killing and destroying peoples farms, lamenting that the menace of killer herdsmen at the beginning of this years farming season affected the farming activities and would result to shortage of food supplies to Anambra and its neighboring states.

Anambra West council area of Anambra State was one of the areas in State that have taken a big share of killer herdsmen attacks in recent times, particularly this year 2020; the farmers were attacked in their farm settlements and some lives were lost and they suffered the effects of the attack socially and economically.

The Bishop noted that the primary responsibility of the government is to secure lives and properties of its citizens; when lives are secured, you talk of investments. If the government is serious about securing the country, they should arrest the bad security situation caused by killer herdsmen and other terrorist groups in the country, Bishop Okeke said.

Also lamenting the situation, a youth leader in the area, Odikpo Madubueze named some of the attacked communities to include Ifite Anam, Mmiata Anam, Umudeza Ebegbu and Iyiora Anam as well as Umuikwu Anam, Nzam, Inom, and Onono.

They were attacked by the herdsmen in January, the beginning of our farming season and seven people were killed while many sustained both gunshot and matches injuries. The youths were not happy that millions

of farm crops are being lost in terms of crops destroyed; lives are also lost. The attack by herdsmen on the communities was seen as an affront on the youths of Anambra West, but we were restrained by the Bishop Okeke who has always preached peaceful coexistence between the communities and the herdsmen.

The planned revenge by angry youths was aborted by the Bishop Okeke, who swiftly notified the state government and the security agents who mobilized to the council area to maintain peace, Madubeze said.

The traditional of Ifite Anam, Igwe Sylvester Udalor Nnose, said: The herdsmen forcefully occupied their settlement in our communities without the traditional ruler and President and Chairmen of the communities consent, yet they were allowed to stay even after forcefully occupying our land and the only way to pay us back for our magnanimity was killing our people.

Ebonyi

In Ebonyi State, the story is not different, only that the Government has put some measures in place the broker peace between communities and herdsmen. According to the State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Hon. Cletus Ofoke, who heads the Committee on matters of herdsmen\farmers conflicts, the Committee has been proactive in tackling herders and farmers misunderstandings. He said there is no sacred cow as anybody found culpable would answer for his or her crime in line with laws of the State.

We usually hold our Committee meetings once a month but in the case of an emergency, we usually reconvene. One of the measures that have assisted us in tackling this ugly trend is the strict enforcement of

the agreement we reached with Miyeti Allah in 2018. The Agreement is maintained.

If for instance, a farmer kills a cow belonging to a herder, he or she will pay for it; also, if herders allow their cows to destroy crops belonging to a farmer, they will pay for it. What has also helped us is the regular meetings we hold to look into any emerging development, in order to forestall it.

The Herders/Farmers Committee has been stepped down to the Communities, Development Centres, and councils to address issues. We dont allow foreign herders to stay except they want to cross over to another State. When such wants to happen, we are contacted and they are escorted by Police. We are usually communicated through their leadership. So, we have an existing synergy between us and the herders. The recent herders/farmers clash in Onicha has been addressed and those involved have been arrested accordingly. There is no sacred cow, Justice Ofoke said.

SEV learned that the recent herdsmen attack in Onicha council area, where an indigene of the State was alleged to have lost his life as a result of the clash between herdsmen and members of Ezube-Amankpuma village in Okawu community has been addressed.

During the recent incident in Onicha, the victim, Maduabuchi, was reportedly killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen and his body was found on along Onu Enuka road, after Ukaba Development Centre. A motorcycle belonging to the deceased was also taken away by his killers.

It was alleged that the herdsmen who were asked to leave the area by the villagers killed the deceased on their way out of the community.

It was alleged that the herdsmen had occupied a large farm land near Ukaba Development Centre before they were asked to leave. They were said to have been causing destruction in farmlands in the Community.

A community leader, Samuel Ugota said last year, we did not use that land because they took it over. This year, as we were about to farm on the land, they came again with hundreds of cows. But we insisted they must leave; two weeks ago, the youths went and pursued the cows out of the land. They (herdsmen) invited the police. When the policemen came, we explained the issue to them, and urged them to plead with the herdsmen to leave our farmland.

The State Police spokesperson, DSP Loveth Odah, confirmed the incident but noted that the Command was yet to unravel the circumstances surrounding the killing of the young man. She said the State Commissioner of Police, Philip Maku, had invited the people of the community to the Command where he urged them to cooperate with the Command to fish out the killers.

We are aware of the killing of the young man. His motorcycle was also taken away by his killers. But we are not aware he was killed by herdsmen. The CP has ordered a thorough investigation into the matter to unravel the circumstances surrounding the killing, and bring the perpetrators to book, Odah said.

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Home | News | General | Enugu killings: Rep raises alarm, urges Buhari, IGP to arrest, prosecute suspected culprits

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resumes calls for state police

By Levinus Nwabughiogu

Following the killing of a farmer, Mr Eugene Iloabani in Amankpunato autonomous community in Oji River Local Government Area of Enugu State, the Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Toby Okechukwu has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Mohammamed Adamu to arrest the suspected criminals.

Conveying his condolences to the bereaved family, Okechukwu who represents Aninri/Agwu/Oji-River Federal Constituency, Enugu State in a statement on Wednesday added that bringing the killers to justice would serve as a deterrent to other criminal elements in the country.

He said: While I commend the Government of Enugu State for its efforts at securing the State through investments in security, I call on the President and IGP to get our farms and state rid of criminal herders, hoodlums, and other forms of criminals immediately.

The primary purpose of government is the welfare of the people and security of lives and property. While we appreciate the myriads of challenges faced by the police and the efforts by the current IGP to reposition the agency for modern policing, we cannot possibly continue to allow our people to suffer repeated gruesome deaths in the hands of prowling criminals, who derive joy in killing, raping, and pillaging communities in their own lands.

I am also afraid that hunger virus would loom larger in the nearest future unless decisive steps are taken by the Federal Government, which is the sole custodian of instruments of coercion, to tame these criminalities, as people are getting more afraid to go to their farms.

While calling on the President to deploy more resources to the Nigeria Police to help build its capacity to protect lives and property better, Okechukwu equally urged him to lend his political weight to the bill for the establishment of state police.

From the nationwide incidences of killing, kidnapping, rape, and plundering by bandits, criminal herdsmen, insurgents, armed robbers, kidnap gangs, and other criminal syndicates it is very clear that we have a lot of work to do.

The Federal Government needs to render more material support to the current IGP in his efforts to groom the Nigeria Police into a truly modern, civil, and portent homeland security outfit.

Also, by the success recorded by the current administration in Enugu State with the introduction of Forest guards and Neighbourhood Watch groups in all communities, it becomes clearer that we can do better when states are constitutionally empowered to set up their individual state police service to complement the efforts of the federal security agencies.

It becomes imperative, therefore, for Mr. President to also lend his political weight to the Bill for the Establishment of State Police sponsored by Senator Ike Ike Ekweremadu in the current National Assembly, Okechukwu added.

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Home | News | General | Chelsea stunned by West Ham in derby thriller

West Ham secured a vital win over Chelsea to move three points clear of the Premier Leagues bottom three.

Super-sub Andriy Yarmolenko scored a last-gasp winner to give West Hams Premier League survival hopes a huge boost in a thrilling 3-2 victory over Chelsea at the London Stadium.

Introduced in the 78th minute for Jarrod Bowen, who had earlier set up goals for Tomas Soucek and Michail Antonio, Yarmolenko coolly slotted home at the end of a swift counter-attack to stun Chelsea..

The vital result lifts David Moyes side three points above the relegation zone, while Chelsea  for whom Willian scored twice, including a stunning free-kick  missed the chance to climb to third.

It is the first time the Hammers, who won the reverse fixture 1-0, have done the league double over the Blues since the 2002-03 season, although they were somewhat ominously relegated in that campaign.

It had not shaped up to be a good night for the home side when Soucek was initially denied his first goal for the club, a lengthy VAR review finding the prone Antonio to be offside when the Czech forced home the loose ball from a corner.

The Hammers woes were compounded when Issa Diop brought down Christian Pulisic in the area and Willian confidently converted the spot-kick.

But West Ham fought back and Slavia Prague loanee Soucek climbed above Cesar Azpilicueta to nod in the leveller from Bowens corner.

Moyes men took the lead when Bowen tricked his way into space and drove a low cross into the heart of the area, with Antonio on hand to provide the decisive finish.

However, they could not hold on at 2-1 and Willians cultured free-kick hit the inside of Lukasz Fabianskis left-hand upright before nestling in the net.

Remarkably, that was not the end of matters and, with the visitors pushing for a winner, the decisive goal came at the other end as Yarmolenko collected Antonios pass before slotting in.

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Home | News | General | Young, Sanchez and Eriksen all scored and set up goals as Inter Milan thrashed Brescia

Antonio Contes Inter maintained their good Serie A form since the resumption with a convincing 6-0 win over bottom side Brescia..



In-form Inter proved far too strong for Brescia on Wednesday as Antonio Contes men cruised to a 6-0 win at San Siro.

Inters top scorer Romelu Lukaku, who has found the net 19 times in Serie A, remained on the bench for the first 68 minutes as two of the Belgians former team-mates at Manchester United shone instead.

Ashley Young volleyed in the first following a cross from Alexis Sanchez, who then converted a 20th-minute penalty after Victor Moses had been fouled.

Danilo DAmbrosio and Roberto Gagliardini scored headers either side of half-time, with substitutes Christian Eriksen and Antonio Candreva adding late strikes as third-placed Inter kept their slim title hopes alive, moving eight points behind leaders Juventus.

It might have been a different story had Alfredo Donnarumma not blazed over in the third minute following a loose pass from Young.

The Inter left-back soon made up for that, though, steering a right-footed volley home two minutes later after being picked out by Sanchez.

Brescia had an even bigger mountain to climb when Moses got the wrong side of Ales Mateju in the box and was fouled, allowing Sanchez to double the Nerazzurris lead from the penalty spot.

Lautaro Martinez flashed a header just wide and Jesse Joronen clawed a corner off his line but Inter would not be denied a third, DAmbrosio heading in from Youngs looped delivery.

Martinez was frustrated not to get in on the act with two good chances either side of the break, though the home side were grateful to Young for sliding in and clearing inside the six-yard box at the start of the second period.

However, any thoughts Brescia had of getting back into the contest were extinguished by Gagliardini nodding in from Sanchezs 52nd-minute free-kick.

Conte showed no mercy by introducing Lukaku, Eriksen and Candreva from the bench, and the latter soon crashed an effort against the crossbar.

Eriksen then added a fifth, scoring at the second attempt after Joronen had initially denied both the midfielder and Lukaku, before Candreva rounded off the rout with a sixth Inter goal with two minutes to go.

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Home | News | General | COVID-19 Will Make The Poor, Poorer  Buhari

WERE DETERMINED TO DO MORE TO PROTECT POOR, VULNERABLE NIGERIANS  PRESIDENT BUHARI

President Muhammadu Buhari says the recently developed Economic Sustainability Plan, aimed at stimulating the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will extend protection to very poor Nigerians and other vulnerable groups through pro-poor spending.

The President spoke in a recorded video message to a virtual high-level UN meeting on trends, options and strategies in poverty eradication across the world..

The event took place at UN headquarters in New York, Tuesday and also served as the official inauguration of the Alliance for Poverty Reduction (APE), an initiative of the President of the General Assembly, Prof. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande.

Warning that COVID-19 pandemic risks reversing decades of progress achieved in the efforts to eradicate poverty globally, President Buhari apprised the UN meeting on steps to revive the nations economy in the wake of the pandemic.

It is my conviction that devoting our efforts towards human capital development, efficient management of our resources, greater financial inclusion and transformation of the agricultural sector to ensure food security are crucial to poverty eradication.

In this regard, Nigeria continues to strengthen its existing social safety net initiative by increasing access to enrolees who fit the various programmes in the scheme.

Nigeria will also continue to provide easier and increased access to financial services for micro and small-scale businesses through the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme. But we are determined to do more.

Nigeria holds the view that education is a critical driver of sustainable development and has an immense capacity to eradicate poverty.

Educating our children, especially the girl-child, contributes significantly to the fight against poverty, environmental sustainability, and improved health, as well as building peace and resilient societies, he said.

President Buhari also used the occasion to reiterate the commitment of his administration to poverty eradication, highlighting the national programme of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.

Nigeria attaches great importance to poverty eradication.

It is, for this reason, that in May 2019, on my inauguration for a second term in office, our Government committed itself to starting a Programme of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within a 10-year period, he said.

On the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, President Buhari said in Nigeria, as in many other countries, the domestic supply chains and trading corridors have come under enormous strain, bringing to fore the health versus economics debate.

On poor and vulnerable people, the Nigerian leader expressed concern that more than 700 million people or 10% of the worlds population are classified as living in extreme poverty.

All the while they struggle with the most basic needs like nutrition, shelter, health, education and access to clean water and sanitation.

In this condition, the number of poor people is estimated to triple as livelihoods across almost all economic sectors have been adversely affected, he said.

President Buhari also told the meeting that with a population of about 200 million; a large percentage of Nigerians live in various stages of poverty, adding that the prospect of the population sliding further into extreme poverty is real, stressing, however, that government was also striving to combat and reverse the trend.

Femi Adesina

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)

July 1, 2020

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Home | News | General | Irelands ex-president, Mary Robinson, to lead probe into AfDB Chief

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Akinwumi Adesina

Irelands former president Mary Robinson will lead a panel to investigate the leader of the African Development Bank (AfDB), accused by whistleblowers of corruption, the bank said.

Akinwumi Adesina, 60, a charismatic speaker known for his elegant suits and bow ties, became the first Nigerian to helm the AfDB in 2015  but a 15-page report earlier this year claimed that under his watch the bank had been tarred by poor governance, impunity, personal enrichment, and favouritism.

He was cleared by the organisations ethics committee, but international pressure has mounted with the United States calling in May for an independent investigation.

Robinson will lead the probe, alongside Gambias Chief Justice Hassan Jallow and the World Banks integrity vice president Leonard McCarthy, the banks board of governors said in a release on Wednesday.

The governors of the AfDB, one of the worlds five largest multilateral development lenders, expressed their complete confidence in the panel.

Robinson  a barrister by training  led Ireland from 1990 to 1997 before serving as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights until 2002.

The inquiry is due to deliver its findings in two to four weeks.

The AfDB plays an important if largely behind-the-scenes role in African economies, financing projects in agriculture, health, energy, education, transport and other development sectors.

[AFP]

Vanguard News Nigeria.

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As districts hobble into a new fiscal year, superintendents and chief financial officers are still struggling to figure out how (or whether) theyll open school buildings this fall and how to afford it all .

The coronavirus pandemic and the recent spike in infections means districts are under increased pressure to abide by strict, ever-evolving health guidelines. But its becoming more evident that many low-income districts will be forced to swallow sizeable budget cuts this year because of a precipitous drop in sales and income tax revenue.

Its a fiscal puzzle thats stumped even the most savvy and experienced administrators and consultants. Here are five problems that administrators are attempting to work through this summer as their fiscal years end and the clock is ticking on the start of the new school year.

Districts staffing and schooling models are built for five-day-a-week, in-person classroom instruction.

In-person classes are baked into school districts DNA. The amount of money theyre given by states is based on how many days students sit in front of teachers. Administrators use that money to hire enough teachers and teacher aides to keep in-person classrooms manageable. And more than a quarter of their staffcustodians, bus drivers, recess monitors, and cafeteria workersare paid based on how many hours they work inside the school building.

Administrators are now being asked to upend that entire infrastructure.

A coronavirus-resistant school day, administrators say, requires plenty more staff members to reduce student crowding and keep school buildings clean. But while distance learning, the cheapest reopening option, doesnt require as many staff members, it requires more laptops and other technology tools. Both models require new, unusual costs. And that might require new funding streams or spending flexibility .

Enrollment is expected to swing drastically. Districts roll their budgets over from one year to the next based on an educated guess of how many students will return in the fall.

But this year, the coronavirus, the economic fallout, and parents wavering feelings about students returning back to school has scrambled administrators assumptions.

Even in a hybrid back-to-school model, where students are learning both online and in-person, costs fluctuate based on how many students participate in in-person instruction and how many participate in distance learning.

Districts biggest back-to-school cost will be transportation. Because health experts advise districts from crowding students on the bus, administrators say they might have to quadruple their bus routes. That could quickly run into the millions of dollars.

In addition, with the unemployment rate being so high, some parents have moved in with other family members outside their school boundaries or, seeking employment, completely outside the district.

Administrators might not know exactly how many students theyll have this fall until the school doors open. The fewer students, the less money the district will receive from the state and the feds.

Administrators in recent weeks have polled parents to get a better sense of whether theyll send their children back to school in person this fall.

Theres no telling how long the recession will last, when a vaccine will be ready, or if there will be another spike in infections. The future during a pandemic and recession is hard to predict. But budgeting is all based on what administrators expect to happen during the school year, based on past experiences.

Its hard to know what next month will bring, let alone six months from now, said Martin Pollio, the superintendent of Jefferson County school district in Louisville, Ky.

As the pandemic continues, administrators are now asking, how many months worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) and cleaning supplies should we purchase? For how long should a district plan to operate distance learning programs?

If a vaccine is ready early this fall, or if theres a spike in infections and health departments order schools shut down, administrators are afraid theyll end up sitting on millions of dollars worth of PPE they cant use.

Another urgent concern: What will the economy do? If sales and income tax revenue continues to tank, districts can anticipate midyear budget cuts, an academically destructive and politically and emotionally fraught process.

Administrators still dont know how much money theyll have to work with this fall. Before they cut their K-12 budgets, a large portion of the nations state legislatures are waiting to see whether Congress will provide public schools with another pandemic-relief package.

That means it probably wont be until Augustjust weeks before the new school year is set to begin in most placesuntil districts know exactly how much money theyll have to work with this fall. Many state legislatures have established a rolling budget-making process , allowing them to reconvene throughout the fiscal year to make changes and cope with rapidly changing forecasts.

But remember: The last package passed by Congress, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES Act, was woefully insufficient to cover districts extraordinary COVID19-related costs. Many districts dont qualify for CARES Act money. And many states, including Georgia, Michigan, and New York have decided to fill deficits with CARES Act money, meaning, districts wont see any extra money this year.

That means districts will have to raid their savings accounts to pay for reopening costs or layoff staff.

Theres ramped up pressure from politicians and parents for districts to reopen schools; any mandates to do so will cost more money: A growing chorus of politicians has been demanding that schools reopen. That includes President Donald Trump, along with members of Congress, and mayors and city council members.



Closed schools are preventing parents from getting back to work and the economy from bouncing back, politicians argue.

Last week, Californias governor signed a law that requires districts to have some form of in-person instruction this fall, unless the local health department says otherwise. (The state spared districts from major budget cuts, but gave them no extra money .)

For the many districts that have already determined they cant financially afford to reopen safely, administrators worry local, state, and/or federal politicians will turn around this month or next and force them to reopen, amounting to what they describe as an unfunded mandate.

There are also a growing number of parents who want their restless kids back in school. And advocates say children cant academically afford to miss anymore months of in-person instruction.

Conversely, other parents argue that the mask-wearing and social distancing requirements schools will require are a step too far. If masks are mandated, administrators will have to buy thousands more than theyve currently budgeted for.



All of that adds up to even more uncertainty for those who have to put a budget together without knowing what the final bill for reopening schools will look like.
Were in the midst of a Carroll County summer like no other in terms of traditional activities that are casualties of the novel coronavirus. The fire company carnivals were scrapped or pushed way back. Common Ground on the Hill is off as are so many camps and anticipated gatherings. The Carroll County 4-H & FFA Fair will go on, but without the public allowed in for crowd-pleasing annual events such as the concert, demolition derby and rodeo.
Home | News | General | Money Laundering: I never met with Mompha, witness tells court

By Onozure Dania

An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) prosecution witness, Abiodun Audu, in the ongoing trial of internet celebrity, Ismaila Mustapha, also known as Mompha, yesterday denied ever meeting him in the course of filing his companys tax return.

The witness, Audu, who claimed to be a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN), told the Justice Muhammad Liman, of the Federal High court sitting in Lagos, that it was one Alhaji Hamodu, a director in Momphas company, Ismalob Global investments Limited, that contacted him to file the tax return for the company.

Mompha alongside is company are being tried by the EFCC, over alleged money laundering to the tune of N33 billion.

Both Mompha and his company are facing a 14-count-charge bordering on operating BDC without registration with CBN and other regulating Ministries, failure to comply with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in carrying out and unlawful negotiation of foreign exchange.

According to EFCC the offences committed contravened Sections 18(c) and 15(2)(d) of the money laundering prohibition Act,2011 as amended and punishable under Section 15 (3) of the same Act.

He had pleaded not guilty to all the counts.

At the resumed hearing of the matter yesterday, the witness, who was led in evidence by the EFCC counsel, S. I. Suleiman, said he was contacted by one Alhaji Hamodu, a director with Ismalob Global Investment Limited, to input July 2016 to June 2017, in his tax return to the FIRS.

He also testified that it was at the EFCCs office that the document relating to the tax return was shown to him when he was invited in 2020.

During cross-examination by Momphas counsel, Mr Gboyega Oyewole (SAN) who led Kolawole Salami and Ademola Adefolaju, the witness said he only relates with Alhaji Hamodu, adding that he never met with the defendant, Mompha.

He also told the court that the information on the companys self-assessment form was supplied by Alhaji Hamodu, who he said he knew to be a Bureau De Change operator. And that during the said period, Mompha was residing in Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE).

The witness, while being re-examined by the prosecutor, said both Alhaji Hamodu and Momphas signatures were on the companys tax Self-assessment form.

Following the conclusion of the witness evidence, the prosecutor, asked the court for an adjournment, to enable him to present the last witness in the matter.

Meanwhile, Momphas counsel, Oyewole (SAN), who didnt object to the adjournment, informed the court that the adjournment request of the prosecution, is unwarranted, as the agency, promised to produce all its witness today (yesterday), at the last court sitting.

Consequently, Justice Liman ordered the prosecutor to ensure that all the remaining witnesses are in court, on the next adjourned date.

The matter was however adjourned till July 10, for the continuation of trial.

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Home | News | General | Why we are worried about continued closure of schools  Danjuma, NAPTAN president

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Haruna Danjuma,

Following the outbreak of the Coronavirus disease in the country, the Federal Government ordered the closure of all schools and pupils and students have been at home since late March this year. The development has.led to calls by various interest groups in the education sector for government to quickly address the issue. In this interview, the National President of the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, Haruna Danjuma, speaks on the position of the association on the development. Excerpts.

By Adesina Wahab

SCHOOLS at all levels in the country have been closed for some months now, how do you feel as a parent?

I feel bad as an individual and as a parent. However, we all know it is not a man made problem and that it is a worldwide issue. We must, however, find a solution that is relevant to our situation in the country. The situation in the country deserves solutions that are peculiar to our problems. I just hope that we would get a solution to the problem as soon as possible. We are worried that precious time is being wasted and our children are stuck due to no fault of theirs.

Some people are expressing the fear that the long closure of schools can lead to the waning of the interest of students in education and increase the number of out-of-school children, what is your take?

It is a pity, as the current situation may eventually lead to an increase in the number of out-of-school children in most parts of the country. Pupils and students sent back home are already mixing with some people who have not been to school. Some of those they are mixing with are drug addicts and when they mix with such people they can influence the students negatively. This is a great concern to us. We are worried. While government is trying to reduce the number of out-of-school children, others are probably going to join them. Let the government come up with a timeline of how to open the schools and as an association, we are assuring the government that we will abide with whatever terms and conditions the government put forward. We want our children to go back to school.

How do you want the government to handle the current situation?

Government should as a matter of seriousness think about the way forward and find a way that this problem can be solved. We cannot continue to stand on the same spot forever. NAPTAN is ready at all times to do our best and our own part to get the sector going forward.

Recently, the Federal Ministry of Education sent a document to the National Assembly listing the conditions to be met before schools are reopened, how do you see those requirements?

The condition listed are stringent and really, it is the responsibility of the government to provide those facilities in public schools. As parents, we are ready to follow laid down rules and help in providing some of those things. Such is not strange to us. During the outbreak of Ebola, NAPTAN was not left out in the efforts to make our schools safe for all. In this case, we are ready to help in the provision of sanitizers, nose masks, Infrared thermometers among others. Concerning the provision of isolation centres and clinics, some public boarding schools can meet that.

Concerning over-crowding in schools, government can introduce the shift system. A set of students and pupils can go to school from 8am to 11am, another set from 11am to 2pm and another from 2pm to 5pm. Most problems are solved by proffering short, medium and long term solutions. If we say we have to wait until government provides enough classrooms through the Universal Basic Education Commission and State Universal Basic Education Boards, that would take a long time. It is easy and we should not confuse ourselves. Let the government give the timeline that schools will reopen.

Ghana recently announced that secondary school students waiting to write their final examinations would soon resume, are you going to suggest that to the Nigerian government?

Various stakeholders in the sector have made various suggestions to the government and we were not left out. We have suggested before now that students in terminal classes should be allowed to resume classes. They will have enough space to use since others may not resume with them and they would be prepared for WAEC NECO and NABTEB examinations. If this is not done many of them will lose out in the admission process to tertiary institutions that will start soon. It is not all of them that have already made their O Level results.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board came out few days ago with its benchmark for admission to tertiary institutions, with 160 marks out of 400 being benchmark for university, some.have described it as an indication that the standard of education is falling, is that so?

From.my understanding of the policy, the benchmark is just to guide the institutions. It is not that the candidates are not expected to score higher marks to secure admission. There will definitely be competition among the admission seekers. A candidate with 180 marks will be considered above the one that scored 160 marks.

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He said the prospect of the population sliding further into extreme poverty was real.

According to a statement on Wednesday by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, the President spoke in a recorded video message to a virtual high-level United Nations meeting on trends, options and strategies in poverty eradication across the world.

Buhari said his regime was working hard to reverse the trend.

The President cited the recently developed Economic Sustainability Plan, aimed at stimulating the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as one of the ways his regime intended to reverse the trend.

He said the plan would extend protection to very poor Nigerians and other vulnerable groups through pro-poor spending.

Buhari warned that COVID-19 pandemic had the potentials of reversing decades of progress achieved in the efforts to eradicate poverty globally.

He said that was why his regime was taking steps to revive the nations economy in the wake of the pandemic.

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Home | News | General | Group condemns call for sack of service chiefs

- A youth group have condemned the call for the sack of Nigeria's service chiefs by the Afenifere group

- The youths urged the Afenifere not to allow some politicians to use its platform for personal interests

- According to the youths, a number of people of the Yoruba nation are both in the ruling and opposition party and a group like Afenifere should protect the interests of people across both divides

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The Coalition of Afenifere Youth Groups (CAYG) on Wednesday, July 1, called apex Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere to desist from being used by political enemies of Nigeria for selfish interests.

The youth group in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Oloruntoba Etti, said that the Afenifere group is already looking like an extension of the opposition's political structure.

Retention of military chiefs is a disservice to Nigeria - Group tells Buhari

The spokesperson of the Afenifere group, Yinka Odumakin, had last week called for the sack of Nigeria's service chiefs over the security situation of the country.

However, the group alleged that call for the sack of the service chiefs has further reduced the group into a political tool and risks pitching the Yoruba people against each other.

Stating that the call for the sack of the service chiefs is laughable, Etti urged those in the business of exploiting the name of Afenifere for settling personal scores or money-making to desist from doing so.

Yinka Odumakin is the spokesperson for the Afenifere group. Photo credit: Yinka Odumakin

Source: UGC

There have been an argument for and against whether the service chiefs should stay on as Nigeria continues to battle insurgency.

Supporters of the service chiefs should not be changed while the battle against insurgency and banditry is still ongoing.

Those opposed to their continued stay say the president ought to try new hands to give the operations a new lease of life.

Kajuru violence: Nigerian govt is failing the people - ACF cries out

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Afenifere group had earlier condemned the N10.3 trillion national budget for the year 2020 presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly.

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The pan-Yoruba group described the presentation of the budget as a joke of a document.

The group also said that the country is in trouble if a quarter of that amount is to be committed to servicing debts and not paying them.

Buhari should put an end to banditry, unrest in Zamfara - Nigerians cry | Legit TV

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Home | News | General | Coronavirus: FG gives fresh update on reopening of primary, secondary schools

- Schools in Nigeria are not reopening yet, the Nigerian government has issued a new clarification

- Education minister Emeka Nwajiuba said the Nigerian government is only making plans for students in exit classes to write exams

- The minister explained that the move is important as exams are critical for the academic progress of students

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The Nigerian government has not started making plans for schools reopening, it is making plans for students in exit classes to write exams, Emeka Nwajiuba has clarified.

Nwajiuba who is the minister of state for education said this on Wednesday, July 1 during an interview on Channels TV.

The minister explained that despite the shutting of schools due to COVID-19, exams are critical for the academic progress of students.

Coronavirus: FG not yet making plans to reopen schools - Education minister clarifies. Photo credit: Education ministry's website

Source: UGC

He, therefore, stated that the ministry presented its concerns to the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and plans are only being made for those who choose to write these exams.

Nigerian man with 2 wives laments hardship under Buhari's administration, says he wants a 3rd wife

His words: We presented to the PTF and by extension, the federal government, the plans by examination bodies to hold their exams. The exams are critical for how children progress.

We examined it and we felt that it is important to allow those examinations to take place but ahead of them taking place, it is important that those children who have not had the opportunity to revise their syllabus, should have an opportunity to go through that and have a revision class before the exams.

Most people who can afford it are already saying they want to be at home and go to the exams from home, that is terrific.

But we understand the limitations of the average Nigerian because not everybody can afford laptops and devices and so if there are people who do have this access and feel confident that their children are ready for the exams, well, we are not compelling anybody to go to any school.

Retention of military chiefs is a disservice to Nigeria - Group tells Buhari

What we have done is make the facilities in our schools available."

Nwajiuba said state governments have been directed to put in place necessary measures to ensure the students are safe.

He also noted that resuming school to take the exams is not compulsory.

Its really not a compulsion, we are just making facilities available for those who want to take the exams," he said.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the Oyo state government had listed guidelines for teachers and students as it prepares to reopen schools on Monday, July 6.

As the planned resumption date draws nearer, the state's commissioner for education, Olasunkanmi Olaleye, has announced guidelines schools have to follow.

On the part of the state government, Olaleye said various training had been given to categories of school heads, principals and teachers on how to monitor and report to the appropriate authority any sign of illness related to COVID-19.

Kaduna, Gombe and others named among 32 states that may find it difficult to pay salaries after Covid-19

The commissioner said the state government has also set up Emergency Operation Centres (EOCs) in the state capital and at zonal levels.

Also, Incident Managers have been appointed for each school who would report any emergency directly to the EOCs. In addition, each class will have a Warder whose main duty is to relate with the incident managers on his or her observations.

Many Nigerians still don't believe Coronavirus exists - NOA DG | Legit TV

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Home | News | General | Good news for world's richest man Jeff Bezos as his wealth soars to N66.3 trillion, topping pre-divorce record

- Jeff Bezos' net worth has soared to $171.6 billion (N66,307,956,000,000), topping pre-divorce record of $167.7 billion (N64,800,957,000,000)

- Bezos' shares surged 4.4% to a record of $2,878.70 on Wednesday, July 1

- Despite relinquishing a quarter of his stake in Amazon as part of a divorce settlement in 2019, Bezos has continued to maintain his position as the richest person in the world

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Billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos net worth has surpassed its previous peak. His shares surged 4.4% to a record of $2,878.70 (N1,112,358.47) on Wednesday, July 1.

According to Bloomberg, the development boosted Bezos' fortune to $171.6 billion (N66,307,956,000,000). That tops his previous high of $167.7 billion (N64,800,957,000,000), set on September 4, 2018.

Legit.ng recalls that Bezos relinquished a quarter of his stake in Amazon as part of a divorce settlement in 2019.

CBN queried over missing $3.3billion

Amazon, however, declined to comment on its founders wealth.

Jeff Bezos. Photo credit: Bigography.com

Source: UGC

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously compiled a list of richest 10 richest person of all time in which Bezos was number 9.

Number 10 on the list was Genghis Khan of the Mongolian Empire. He lived between 1162 and 1227. He was a military leader. He was said to be generous with his wealth.

In other news, the United States has announced plans to sponsor Nigerians that can come up with a programme aimed at improving the lives of youths in the south-south geopolitical zone.

The disclosure was made by the US embassy in Nigeria, which said interested individuals should submit a proposal detailing how they would organise the programme.

The embassy wrote on its official Facebook page: "Consulate General Lagos Public Affairs Section announces a Request for Statements of Interest (RSOI) from organizations interested in applying for funding to implement a youth-oriented program focused on the South-South region of Nigeria.

State by state breakdown of Covid-19 cases in Nigeria as total exceeds 11,000

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"Organizations should submit a proposal detailing how they would organize a program involving youth or youth leaders in the region.

"Overall, the intent must be to promote peace and reconciliation by involving youth in capacity-building training that they can then share with other youth in their communities.

"The deadline for the receipt of applications for funding is July 30, 2020. All applications will be reviewed by the Consulate Grants Committee. Final determinations will be issued by August 30, 2020."

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Home | News | General | 2023: Were working on Igbo presidency  Ohanaeze, Amaechi, Izuogu, others

Ndigbo

Its an Illusion, says ex-Biafran soldier

By Anayo Okoli, Chimaobi Nwaiwu, Ikechukwu Odu, Peter Okutu & Chinonso Alozie

ENUGUApex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Alaigbo Foundation, Igbo National Congress, among others, yesterday, agreed that a president of Igbo extraction is achievable in 2023 as the Igbo are working towards its realization.

This came as an ex-Biafran soldier and prominent traditional ruler in Enugu State, Igwe Spencer Ugwuoke, expressed doubt over the realization of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction in 2023 because Ndigbo lacks unity of purpose.

Ugwuoke, who is the traditional ruler of Obimo autonomous community in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, insisted that lack of unity of purpose by the Igbo and deficient political structure would make it difficult for them to realize the dream.

The monarch said Ndigbo cannot be talking from both sides of the mouth without any recognizable leader and hope to capture a presidential seat in 2023.

This country has many miracles that occur at their own time, but I must tell you that there is no indication that an Igbo man will emerge president of Nigeria in 2023. This is because the Igbo have refused to forge a common font politically unlike what we have in other major ethnic groups in Nigeria; even the minority tribes are more united than the Igbo.

Though, the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Chief Nniah Nwodo, has improved the status of the Igbo in terms of achieving common ambition, there are still a lot to be done. Even among us, there are still some of us sabotaging Nwodos efforts.

We have to go back to Ohanaeze Ndigbo and make it the authentic mouthpiece of the Igbo because, as it stands now, the organisation is deficient inequitable representations of the different traditional institutions in South East, which is why it is difficult to speak with one voice. You always hear of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos, Abuja, Jos, South Africa and what have you. This is wrong and it is the origin of the discordant tunes affecting our political fortunes in Nigeria. Where have you seen the Oba of Benin and Sultan of Sokoto being countered by their subjects? It only happens in the South East.

When you are looking for something, you should not create enemies. You cannot be opposing Buharis administration and expect him to back you up for the presidency in 2023.

Lets create a platform to promote the pains of the South-East as a geopolitical zone that has not produced a president. Lets get leaders of thought, traditional rulers and chairmen of the state council of chiefs to meet their counterparts in other geopolitical zones for support. Let our politicians put their interest in a common pot for the interest of the zone and not be originators of discordant tunes.

Igbo Presidency is realisable but there has to be a long term plan geared towards achieving it. It is not possible in 2023, Igwe Spencer said.

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Igbo presidency achievable in 2023  Ohanaeze

Disagreeing with Igwe Ugwuoke, the umbrella organisation of the Igbo said Igbo presidency is achievable in 2023.

Ohanaeze Ndigbo through its spokesman, Uche Achi-Ogbaga, said Igbo presidency is achievable, adding that there is nothing like lack of unity of purpose as all Igbo cannot be in one political party or think alike.

He said that Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been galvanizing both Ndigbo and other ethnic groups and all parts of the country towards achieving this project.

Beware of enemies of Ndigbo  Mbazulike Amaechi

First Republic politician, Chief Mbazulike Amechi berated those who think that Igbo presidency is not realizable, describing such people as enemies of Ndigbo. He said that if the presidency of other sections of the country as possible, then the Igbo presidency is more possible and have more potentials of realization than others.

His words: In politics, just like in anything else, nothing is impossible. So, the traditional ruler who said that the Igbo presidency is not possible is out of reality, he is not being realistic.

Igbo presidency like every other political action is possible. However, Igbo presidency does not mean that Igbo man will be president of Igbo alone, for an Igbo man to become the president of Nigeria, he has to be president of Nigerians in general, not Igbo people. He has to be president of all Nigerians and Nigeria as a country, he has to be for everybody in Nigeria.

I have always told Ndigbo that to produce the president of Nigeria, we have to be organized, you have to strategize, you have to plan, you gave to work, to produce the president that will be for all Nigerians.

To be president of Nigeria, you have to have handshakes across the Niger, across the Benue, you have to reach out, you must recognize the fact that Northern Nigeria has a large population and there is nobody who can be president of Nigeria without the support and cooperation of a large section of the North. So, the Igbo man who will be the president must have the support of a considerable section of the North. The same thing is applicable to the West, he must have the support of the West.

Igbo votes alone cannot give anybody presidency of Nigeria and so, for an Igbo man to become president in Nigeria, he must reach out and make friends and also make sure that his political party has the spread to help him secure the seat of the president. So, whosoever that is saying Igbo presidency is not possible after meeting all these conditions does not know what he is talking about, in fact, he is an enemy of Ndigbo.

So if you are asking me about the possibility, honestly it is possible. There is every possibility of achieving it, it is possible and I must say I am personally working for that. Seriously, I am personally working for that, we can achieve it and I am putting much effort in the work I am doing for that.

Remember, since, after the civil war, many sections of the country, many influential people in Nigeria do not still believe that the war has ended. Some of them are still fighting the war collectively against Ndigbo but the Igbo have ignored them and gone ahead in spite of those people and I am encouraging Ndigbo to continue doing what they have been doing and not look back to avoid being discouraged.

Its achievable  Izuogu

Another top Igbo leader, Ezekiel Izuogu said, The Igbo have to be faithful members of their party, they have to believe in the ideology of the party. If you are a progressive you must be a progressive that Nigerians know and not just pretending to be in a political party. You must believe in their ideology and then work with it and emerge as the candidate of the party if you are good.

For example, he said:  Olusegun Obasanjo emerged from the southwest and even though the Yoruba did not vote for PDP, the whole nation agreed that the presidency should go to the southwest.

I am appealing to Nigerians to let us have the same mind. The Igbo have not gotten this thing since Nigeria was created,let us concede it to them and it will also help them to forget the issue of civil war and believe that they are wanted by other Nigerians.

That will also stop the issue of Biafra because immediately you give the presidency to the Igbo, the issue of Biafra will end and that will allow the country to be a better place for Igbo and other Nigerians.

We must build alliances with others  INC

Speaking also, the President of Igbo National Council, INC, Chilos Godsent was of the view that, The first thing to do is harmonize the internal political structure and build alliances with other political blocs. Then, well move into the three most popular political parties and bring up popular and credible persons that can be saleable.

We must come together  Obasi

In his own contribution, the former deputy governorship candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in the 2015 general election, Chief Jerry Obasi noted that the best way for Ndigbo to achieve the Igbo presidency is for them to come together as a people under a united Nigeria and engage other areas of the country with a calculated objective to purge their minds of hate and phobia against Ndigbo.

According to him, The Igbo race in Nigeria has suffered a series of mistreatments, socially, politically and economically. These forms of politically motivated mistreatments are compounded by a conspicuous and consummated conspiracy to deny the Igbo the Presidency.

Ndigbo continually take obvious steps towards the realisation of this much taunted Igbo dream of Igbo presidency without realisation. It has always been deliberately truncated by haters of Ndigbo who perceive they have an axe to grind with Ndigbo. Since 1999 to date, Ndigbo has participated in all of the Presidential elections, including the 2015 and 2019 Presidential elections which gave birth to General Muhammadu Buhari.

Chief Jerry Obasi said the issue of Igbo Presidency cannot be swept under the carpet, considering the socio-political challenges currently facing the South East region of the country.

He, however, agreed that the best way for Ndigbo to achieve the Igbo Presidency is for them to come together as a people under a united Nigeria, engage other areas of the country with a calculated objective to purge their minds of hate and phobia against Ndigbo.

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Home | News | General | EFCC arraigns Malabu oil, 6 others over alleged $1bn fraud

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Economic and Financial Crimes Commission

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

ABUJA  The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday, arraigned Malabu Oil & Gas Limited, six other companies and an oil tycoon, Aliyu Abubakar before the Federal High Court on a 48-count fraud charge.

The Defendants were docked over their involvement in alleged fraudulent transfer of controversial OPL 245, considered as one of the richest oil blocks in Africa.

Other defendants in the charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/268/2016, are A-Group Construction Company Limited, Rocky Top Resources Limited, Mega-Tech Engineering Limited, Novel Properties and Development Company Limited, and Carlin International Nigeria Limited.

EFCC alleged that they were involved in money laundering to the tune of about $1billion and N673million.

According to the anti-graft agency, Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd and two of its directors who are currently at large- Seidougha Munamuna and a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dauzia Etete, known as Dan Etete- directly or indirectly converted the sum of $401,540,000 paid from the Federal Government of Nigeria Escrow Account with JP Morgan Chase Bank in London into Malabu Oils account with First Bank of Nigeria Limited.

The Defendants were said to have converted the money, even when they knew that the funds formed part of unlawful activity, to wit: negotiation and signing of oil block 245 Resolution Agreement with Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Limited, Nigeria Agip Exploration Limited, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited whereby taxes due to the Federal Government was waived.

EFCC alleged that they took control of the sum of $401,540,000 in violation of section 9(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, an act punishable under section 15(3) of the same law.

More so, the agency alleged that Abubakar and Rocky Top Resources Limited, in September 2011, took control of the sum of $336,456,906.78 which was part of proceeds of unlawful activity in the Malabu Oil deal.

In another count in the charge, EFCC told the court that Abubakar and Imperial Union Limited, in August 2011, equally also took control of the sum of $34,540,00 they received from Malabu Oil and Gas, being proceeds of unlawful activity in the OPL 245 deal.

Abubakar was alleged to have neglected to report in writing to the EFCC certain single-fund transactions involving the bank accounts of his separate companies between 2011 and 2014.

The EFCC alleged that the firms being Designated Non-Financial Institutions, are by virtue of section 10(1)(b) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011, ought to report such huge transactions to the EFCC in writing, failing which is punishable under section 10(3) of the same law.

Abubakar and Carlin International Nigeria Limited allegedly failed to report the lodgment of N300m in the firms account by a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN) in February 2012.

The EFCC further alleged that the businessman and A-Group Construction Company Limited failed to report the sum of N32.108m paid to Triax BDC in January 2014; and N38m paid to them by Falana Properties Limited in August 2015.

The EFCC alleged that the sum of $73.5m paid to Rocky Top Resources by Malabu Oil in September 2013 was not reported.

It told the court that Abubakar and Megatech Engineering had in August 2011, failed to report the transfer of $180m that was made to them from Malabu Oils account.

They were said to have also failed to report another N50m transfer that was equally made to them in September 2016.

Meanwhile, the Defendants pleaded not guilty to the charge.

EFCCs lawyer, Mr. Bala Sanga did not oppose request for bail the 8th Defendant, Abubakar who is the only natural person in the charge, made through his lawyer, Akin Olujinmi, SAN.

Trial Justice Inyang Ekwo accordingly granted bail to the Defendant who is also facing multiple charges alongside the immediate past AGF, Adoke, SAN, over the alleged oil Bloc fraud.

Justice Ekwo subsequently adjourned the case till September 7 for trial.

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Home | News | General | $1.3m US Mansion Purchased By Ajimobi In 2016 Uncovered (Photos)

A House in Rockville, Maryland, United States, purchased by a former governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi, in 2016 for $1,347,200m  N522,713,600m (N388 per USD)  has been uncovered.

The residential building located at 10821 Symphony Park Drive, which attracts an annual tax of $18,198  N7,060,824m was purchased by Ajimobi during his second term in office as governor of the state in 2016.

According to findings by SaharaReporters, the purchase of the house in America is in gross violation of the code of conduct laws of Nigeria, which forbids serving public officials from operating bank accounts and purchasing property outside the country.

It was also gathered from sources at the Code of Conduct Bureau that the property was not listed among assets declared by the former Oyo governor until his tenure in office elapsed in 2019.

Also, checks with top real estate players in the US indicated that the Maryland property of Ajimobi was now worth at least $1.6m  N620,800,000m.

The revelation comes days after Ajimobi died at the First Cardiology Hospital in Ikoyi, Lagos, as a result of Coronavirus complications.

Before his demise, the late former governor had been embroiled in a bitter feud with the Oyo State Government headed by Seyi Makinde over the revocation of 48 plots of land belonging to him.

According to the state government, the revocation became necessary after the property violated its land administration laws.

Unwilling to lose the choice property without putting up a brave fight, Ajimobi took the matter to court where it remained until he died last week.

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The lines go north along a PPL route, ending near the Otter Creek substation. New lines then head east from there, connecting with the new Furnace Run Substation and then another PPL route heading south, back down to the Graceton substation in Pylesville near Route 165. There also is an east-west line running between Graceton and Conastone, according to a map of the proposed alternate route on the Transource website.
Home | News | General | Dinka tribe has some of the tallest people in Africa (photos)

- The Dinka people are one of the tallest people in Africa with most of the men above 5ft tall

- Reports have it that there is a strong community of the Dinka people in the diaspora

- In the precolonial era, they live mostly in farms and make ends meet through their livestock

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The Dinka people, a Nilotic tribe from South Sudan are known as some of the tallest people in Africa. The Tutsi of Rwanda is another. They live along the Nile in Bahr el Ghazal and Dinka Ngok of Abyei Area in South Sudan

According to oral traditions, the tribe originated from the Gezira in a place that is now known as Sudan. It should be noted that the Dinka people live mostly on farmland as they depend mostly on livestock for their livelihood.

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The population census conducted in 200 in Sudan showed that the Dinka people are about 4.5 million people, putting that at 18% of the countrys population and the biggest tribe in the nation. How Africa reports.

A collage showing people from the Dinka tribe. Photo source: HowAfrica

Source: UGC

Another thing worthy of note is their language is in Latin letters with some exported characters.

Their average male height is 182.6cm (5ft 11.9in) according to a survey done in 52 Dinka men between 1953 to 1954. In 1995, another survey showed it to be 5ft 9.4in.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the Tuareg tribe gives much power to women as they are allowed to decide their fate without the so-called supreme power of men.

Their men wear a blue indigo veil as a protective measure to keep their face safe from the dust of the desert.

The tribe never dumped their tradition of allowing men to wear veil instead of women despite their adoption of Islam.

Kogi guber: Huge number of APC aspirants is due to my efforts, says Gov Bello

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In the case of divorce, the women get to keep all the tents and the animals as the man is chased out to return to his mothers home with just a camel in his possession.

Also, whenever the women divorce their husbands, their mothers will throw them a party so that other men can know they are now available for new relationships.

One of the things that is beautiful about the tribe is that they have dignity and a Tuareg will never ask for things like water if they are not offered.

How I defied my parents to marry from another tribe - Nigerian man | Legit TV

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Home | News | General | Breaking: APC caretaker committee meets Bisi Akande over party's crisis

In its efforts to nip the crisis rocking the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the bud, members of the caretaker committee of the party have met with the former interim national chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande.

The Nation reports that Akande, who also chairs the partys national reconciliation committee, was a former governor of Osun state.

Legit.ng gathered that a source said the chairman of the caretaker committee, Governor Mai Mala Buni, led a delegation to Ila Orangun, which is the country's home of Akande.

The source said: The session was all about how to reconcile and reshape the party in the overall interest of all.

Akande is more important because he heads a reconciliation committee that has received over 170 petitions. The committee went to debrief Akande in order to know where the shoes pinch in the party, the source was quoted to have said.

Ize-Iyamu betrayed us as consensus candidate - Ogiemwonyi

The meeting which lasted about an hour was said to have dwelled on the assignment given to the committee.

Governor Buni led other members of the committee that included the secretary, Senator Akpan Udoedehe; Osun state governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, and Governor of Niger state, Sani Bello to the meeting.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that

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Home | News | General | Flashback: I was shocked the first time I went to his house - Nigerian lady shares grass to grace story of her family (photos)

- For Ochia Chukwudi Onyinye, a Nigerian, it is simply grace that has smiled on her and her spouse

- The first time she visited the man was a time any other lady would have been discouraged and disappeared

Onyiye stayed back, had hopes that it was going to be well and this came to pass

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A Nigerian lady identified as Ochia Chukwudi Onyinye has narrated the story of how she met her husband who had nothing when she first met him.

Legit.ng reported some months ago how the young lady who had been married to her husband for two years expressed that she and her husband went through thick and thin.

Onyinye shared her story on social media to celebrate their two years marriage anniversary.

She explained that when she first met her husband he had nothing. The lady also noted that the first time she went to his house she was shocked because it was empty.

Temi Otedola celebrates autistic brother lovingly on his 20th birthday (photos)

We went through thick and thin - Nigerian lady shares grass to grace story of her family Photo Source: Igboist group

The Imo state-born woman added that she decided to marry him despite the fact that he had nothing because she saw a future with him. Since then the two worked and struggled together.

According to her, they have both been through thick and thin but they stood by each other and their prayers were answered.

She noted that God finally rewarded their hard work and prayers. Onyinye further said she would continue to thank God for what he has done for her marriage.

The couple went through thick and thin together Photo Source: Igboist group

Read what she shared on Facebook

When I got to his house for the first time, I was shocked. There was nothing in it. Yes , absolutely empty. But I saw a brighter future in him. We got married .

We went through thick and thin. There were ups and down. But we stuck together and finally Finally Finally, God changed our story. He(God) put a new song in our mouth.

See what happened to this Nigerian after an American lady picked him off the street 19 years ago (photo)

From grass to grace, From story to glory. So, if you see me flaunting my blessings, I beg no vex, I worked for it.

Join me thank God. Its two years of Grace. Two years in marriage...

Many Facebook users joined her in celebration, they shared well wishing messages and prayers of more success with her.

Legit.ng had also reported how

How much should a man earn as salary before considering him for marriage - on Legit.ng

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Home | News | General | Pregnant lady and husband who lost their jobs amid COVID-19 pandemic get help from stranger they met online

- A woman, Kudzanai T Masiiwa, revealed she and her husband lost their jobs during the lockdown

- They are set to become parents in August and did not have anything ready for the baby

- A stranger heard about their story and decided to bless the soon-to-be parents with baby stuff

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A beautiful woman, Kudzanai T Masiiwa and her husband, both lost their jobs when the country went into lockdown to try and curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Unemployment placed more pressure on the couple, who are expecting a little girl in August. Masiiwa took to the #ImStaying Facebook page to detail how stressed she and her husband were about having no income months before they are going to become parents.

She revealed that they did not have anything prepared for their newborn baby despite her due date getting closer each day.

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However, one kind lady reached out and helped. Masiiwa told Mzansi social media users that the lady, Karien, helped by gifting them with all the baby necessities.

Her post read:

"Due to this lockdown my husband and I lost our jobs and it was the most painful and stressful time for us... I am pregnant and almost due and we didn't have anything prepared for our unborn baby. Last week we met a lady right here on Facebook Marketplace who gave us everything we needed to welcome our baby into this world. This is why I'm staying. #ThankYouKarien"

Take a look at the post below:

Screenshot of Masiiwa's Facebook post on #ImStaying.

Source: Facebook

Thousands of Africans reacted to the heartwarming story and their faith in humanity was restored.

Ellen Chigwenembe commented:

"May the Lord bless that person."

Shahida Mohamed added:

"Thanks you Karien... May you continue to be a blessing unto others. God bless you and your family abundantly."

Beautiful family photos of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's family break the internet

Cheryl-Anne Saunders wrote:

"Things will get better for you, just have faith and believe in the Lord."

Llouise Fitzgerald said:

"How kind is that! God bless!"

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In other news, Rehan Stanton who was abandoned by his mother when he was eight has had his life transformed as he now heads to Harvard Law School.

Rehan towed trash and cleaned dumpsters for years to make ends meet and also to fund his education.

After his mother left, he and his brother were raised by their father who had to work three jobs.

The 24-year-old said: I was probably too young to notice some of the things that happened, but I know it was bad."

My life has changed! Female shoe cobbler says after getting help through Legit.ng| Legit TV

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Home | News | General | AD: Why I lost 2019 gubernatorial election in Oyo- Oyedele Alao reveals

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By Adeola Badru

THE gubernatorial candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the 2019 general elections in Oyo State, Engineer Oyedele Hakeem Alao on Thursday, revealed the main reason the political party lost the 2019 gubernatorial election in the state.

Alao, during an interview with Vanguard in Ibadan, the state capital, revealed that leaders of the party in the state were sold out to work with another party in the state.

While speaking on electoral reforms and political system in Nigeria, Also said that the leaders of his party, one of whom is currently a political adviser in the cabinet of Engineer Seyi Makinde, were not interested in fielding a credible candidate.

He said that the leaders were only interested in reaching an agreement with other parties and offer their candidates for sale.

Alao while extolling the virtues of the immediate past Governor of the state, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, described the deceased as an illustrious son of the state who knew his onions.

He said: In fact, a lot of people asked me whether I really wanted to contest the 2019 governorship election or eyeing an appointment as a commissioner. I told them no. I said No because I want to make a difference. I have seen what is going on in the last eight years and our people have not really enjoyed dividends of democracy.

Ill conclude that nothing much is actually wrong with our electoral reforms, the drawback is the lack of genuine political will and commitment to enforce the electoral laws to have credible polls that will give Nigerians across the board good governance.

Thats why the Kofi Anan post-2019 election roundtable in Abuja with European Union (EU) described the 2019 elections as falling short of the international standard in the real democratic context, although there were some positive sides like the not-too-young-to-rule which offered a lot of young people the opportunity to contest the 2019 elections.

Electoral reform is an integral part of democratic development and in that term, it is undertaken to improve the electoral process(es) by promoting the general interests and rights of the citizenry while operationalising key principles as inclusiveness, impartiality, transparency, accuracy, and integrity, and these electoral processes include timely delivery of election materials, registration of political parties, vote counting method, reduction in gender imbalance, etc.

The excos of political parties, at both federal and state level, usually constitute themselves as autocratic. They would want to do things the way they want it.

How AD was run as a party really affected our efforts in the 2019 elections. In fact, there were so many internal problems with the party; the national body was fictionalised and there was also a court case, and above all, the South West excos were suddenly dissolved and our party leaders in the state eventually sold out.

There were parallel congresses in political parties; some political parties didnt do primaries, they handpicked party excos. The current PDP exco in the state (Oyo) which brought in the present government in the state is a clear instance.

Our political parties dont allow internal party democracy; no party ideology, people just move into where they can get a ticket and feed and thats why in the 2019 elections, they were moving from APC to ADC, PDP to ZLP and ADC to PDP. This is because what the majority of them know is politics, maybe they dont have alternatives and are not known with any profession unlike our deceased governor Senator Isiak Abiola Ajimobi who brought deep experience into governance.

The people of Oyo State have seen what is going on now and I believe, they know who to put in office in the next election, as well announce sooner or later the platform on which to contest, also adding that a lot of parties have been deregistered, including AD, and have all gone for life, he said.

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Home | News | General | Abia Govt denies relocating cattle market for RUGA settlement

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Ikpeazu

By Ugochukwu Alaribe

UMUAHIA  Abia state government has denied reports that it is relocating the cattle market at Aba waterside along Ikot Ekpene road, Aba, to Obehie in Ukwa West council area, for RUGA settlement.

Commissioner for Trade and Investment, Dr Cosmas Ndukwe, who disclosed this in a statement, explained that government is committed to ensuring that motorists and pedestrians are saved from struggling with daily at the Aba waterside area.

Describing the reports as false, malicious and an attempt to pitch the government against the people, Ndukwe stated that those behind the reports had assumed that a cattle market is the same as RUGA settlement.

In his words; The relocation of Cattle Market from Aba Waterside to Obehie will beyond anything else ensure that motorists and pedestrians are saved from struggling with cattle every morning, afternoon and evening at Aba Waterside.

The Governor deserves commendation for mustering sufficient political will to recover Aba Waterside from years of menace. The most acceptable to do is to support this germane effort that seeks to save lives, improve our hygiene and make trading less hazardous.

However, stakeholders from Asa, Ukwa West council area, had expressed concern over the relocation of the cattle market to the area.

The stakeholders who during a visit to the Deputy Governor, Sir Ude Oko Chukwu, yesterday, expressed fear over the relocation of a cattle market to the only oil-producing area of the state.

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Home | News | General | 2023: We Are Working On Igbo Presidency  Ohanaeze, Amaechi, Izuogu, Others

Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Alaigbo Foundation, Igbo National Congress, among others, yesterday, agreed that a president of Igbo extraction is achievable in 2023 as the Igbo are working towards its realization.

This came as an ex-Biafran soldier and prominent traditional ruler in Enugu State, Igwe Spencer Ugwuoke, expressed doubt over the realization of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction in 2023 because Ndigbo lacks unity of purpose..

Ugwuoke, who is the traditional ruler of Obimo autonomous community in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, insisted that lack of unity of purpose by the Igbo and deficient political structure would make it difficult for them to realize the dream.

The monarch said Ndigbo cannot be talking from both sides of the mouth without any recognizable leader and hope to capture a presidential seat in 2023.

This country has many miracles that occur at their own time, but I must tell you that there is no indication that an Igbo man will emerge president of Nigeria in 2023.

This is because the Igbo have refused to forge a common font politically unlike what we have in other major ethnic groups in Nigeria; even the minority tribes are more united than the Igbo.

Though, the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Chief Nniah Nwodo, has improved the status of the Igbo in terms of achieving common ambition, there are still a lot to be done. Even among us, there are still some of us sabotaging Nwodos efforts.

We have to go back to Ohanaeze Ndigbo and make it the authentic mouthpiece of the Igbo because, as it stands now, the organisation is deficient inequitable representations of the different traditional institutions in South East, which is why it is difficult to speak with one voice.

You always hear of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos, Abuja, Jos, South Africa and what have you. This is wrong and it is the origin of the discordant tunes affecting our political fortunes in Nigeria.

Where have you seen the Oba of Benin and Sultan of Sokoto being countered by their subjects? It only happens in the South East.

When you are looking for something, you should not create enemies.

You cannot be opposing Buharis administration and expect him to back you up for the presidency in 2023.

Lets create a platform to promote the pains of the South-East as a geopolitical zone that has not produced a president. Lets get leaders of thought, traditional rulers and chairmen of the state council of chiefs to meet their counterparts in other geopolitical zones for support. Let our politicians put their interest in a common pot for the interest of the zone and not be originators of discordant tunes.

Igbo Presidency is realisable but there has to be a long term plan geared towards achieving it. It is not possible in 2023, Igwe Spencer said.

Disagreeing with Igwe Ugwuoke, the umbrella organisation of the Igbo said Igbo presidency is achievable in 2023.

Ohanaeze Ndigbo through its spokesman, Uche Achi-Ogbaga, said Igbo presidency is achievable, adding that there is nothing like lack of unity of purpose as all Igbo cannot be in one political party or think alike.

He said that Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been galvanizing both Ndigbo and other ethnic groups and all parts of the country towards achieving this project.

Beware of enemies of Ndigbo  Mbazulike Amaechi

First Republic politician, Chief Mbazulike Amechi berated those who think that Igbo presidency is not realizable, describing such people as enemies of Ndigbo.

He said that if the presidency of other sections of the country as possible, then the Igbo presidency is more possible and have more potentials of realization than others.

His words: In politics, just like in anything else, nothing is impossible. So, the traditional ruler who said that the Igbo presidency is not possible is out of reality, he is not being realistic.

Igbo presidency like every other political action is possible. However, Igbo presidency does not mean that Igbo man will be president of Igbo alone, for an Igbo man to become the president of Nigeria, he has to be president of Nigerians in general, not Igbo people. He has to be president of all Nigerians and Nigeria as a country, he has to be for everybody in Nigeria.

I have always told Ndigbo that to produce the president of Nigeria, we have to be organized, you have to strategize, you have to plan, you gave to work, to produce the president that will be for all Nigerians.

To be president of Nigeria, you have to have handshakes across the Niger, across the Benue, you have to reach out, you must recognize the fact that Northern Nigeria has a large population and there is nobody who can be president of Nigeria without the support and cooperation of a large section of the North.

So, the Igbo man who will be the president must have the support of a considerable section of the North. The same thing is applicable to the West, he must have the support of the West.

Igbo votes alone cannot give anybody presidency of Nigeria and so, for an Igbo man to become president in Nigeria, he must reach out and make friends and also make sure that his political party has the spread to help him secure the seat of the president.

So, whosoever that is saying Igbo presidency is not possible after meeting all these conditions does not know what he is talking about, in fact, he is an enemy of Ndigbo.

So if you are asking me about the possibility, honestly it is possible.

There is every possibility of achieving it, it is possible and I must say I am personally working for that. Seriously, I am personally working for that, we can achieve it and I am putting much effort in the work I am doing for that.

Remember, since, after the civil war, many sections of the country, many influential people in Nigeria do not still believe that the war has ended.

Some of them are still fighting the war collectively against Ndigbo but the Igbo have ignored them and gone ahead in spite of those people and I am encouraging Ndigbo to continue doing what they have been doing and not look back to avoid being discouraged.

Its achievable  Izuogu

Another top Igbo leader, Ezekiel Izuogu said, The Igbo have to be faithful members of their party, they have to believe in the ideology of the party.

If you are a progressive you must be a progressive that Nigerians know and not just pretending to be in a political party. You must believe in their ideology and then work with it and emerge as the candidate of the party if you are good.

For example, he said:  Olusegun Obasanjo emerged from the southwest and even though the Yoruba did not vote for PDP, the whole nation agreed that the presidency should go to the southwest.

I am appealing to Nigerians to let us have the same mind. The Igbo have not gotten this thing since Nigeria was created,let us concede it to them and it will also help them to forget the issue of civil war and believe that they are wanted by other Nigerians.

That will also stop the issue of Biafra because immediately you give the presidency to the Igbo, the issue of Biafra will end and that will allow the country to be a better place for Igbo and other Nigerians.

We must build alliances with others  INC

Speaking also, the President of Igbo National Council, INC, Chilos Godsent was of the view that, The first thing to do is harmonize the internal political structure and build alliances with other political blocs. Then, well move into the three most popular political parties and bring up popular and credible persons that can be saleable.

We must come together  Obasi

In his own contribution, the former deputy governorship candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in the 2015 general election, Chief Jerry Obasi noted that the best way for Ndigbo to achieve the Igbo presidency is for them to come together as a people under a united Nigeria and engage other areas of the country with a calculated objective to purge their minds of hate and phobia against Ndigbo.

According to him, The Igbo race in Nigeria has suffered a series of mistreatments, socially, politically and economically. These forms of politically motivated mistreatments are compounded by a conspicuous and consummated conspiracy to deny the Igbo the Presidency.

Ndigbo continually take obvious steps towards the realisation of this much taunted Igbo dream of Igbo presidency without realisation.

It has always been deliberately truncated by haters of Ndigbo who perceive they have an axe to grind with Ndigbo. Since 1999 to date, Ndigbo has participated in all of the Presidential elections, including the 2015 and 2019 Presidential elections which gave birth to General Muhammadu Buhari.

Chief Jerry Obasi said the issue of Igbo Presidency cannot be swept under the carpet, considering the socio-political challenges currently facing the South East region of the country.

He, however, agreed that the best way for Ndigbo to achieve the Igbo Presidency is for them to come together as a people under a united Nigeria, engage other areas of the country with a calculated objective to purge their minds of hate and phobia against Ndigbo.

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Home | News | General | Ambassadorial nominees: APC youths mock Fayemi as Buhari excludes Ekiti

Some All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders in Ekiti State under the aegis of Ekiti APC Youth Congress (EAYC) have accused Governor Kayode Fayemi of high-handedness and nepotism.

They said his actions might spell doom for the party in the 2022 governorship election..

Their position was contained in a statement on Thursday by Tope Ogunkuade and Tunji Adeleye, EAYC Convener and Secretary, respectively.

They expressed dismay that despite Fayemis closeness to President Muhammadu Buhari, Ekiti has no single nominee among the 41 new ambassadors.

States like Oyo, Kwara and Kano had three; others like Adamawa, Borno and Benue had two, the group noted.

They recalled that said in May, Buhari appointed 42 career ambassadors without an Ekiti indigene.

EAYC dismissed the argument that Ekiti was omitted because it has Mrs Eniola Ajayi as Nigerian envoy in Hungary, pointing out that a State like Bauchi has a serving ambassador and got one slot.

The question is: What special benefit has Fayemis claimed closeness to the presidency brought to Ekiti? Even Oyo State where no one claims to be President Buharis closest ally has three nominees.

Besides, what political benefit is a situation where a single town has a Minister, Senator and Ambassador to the party?

The youths further condemned the governors alleged refusal to allow Local Government Chairmen make statutory appointments of

supervisors and advisers.

EAYC urged party leaders to prevail on Fayemi to focus on governance and provide quality leadership instead of running after a vice presidential position that only God can give.

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President Muhammadu Buhari has suspended the Managing Director/Chief Executive of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Adebayo Somefun, indefinitely.





This was contained in a statement signed by the Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Charles Akpan, on Thursday in Abuja.





Buhari also approved the suspension of other Directors in the agency.





They include Jasper Ikedi Azuatalam, Executive Director, Finance and Investment; Olukemi Nelson, Executive Director, Operations and Alhaji Tijani Darazo Sulaiman, Executive Director, Administration.





Some management staff who were also suspended are Olusegun Olumide Bashorun, General Manager, Administration/Human Resources/Maintenance; Lawan Tahir, General Manager, Finance; Chris Esedebe, General Manager, Claims and Compensation; Olodotun A. Adegbite, Deputy General Manager, Investment and Treasury Management; Emmanuel Enyinnaya Sike, Deputy General Manager, Finance and Accounts.





Others are Olutoyin O. Arokoyo, Deputy General Manager/Acting Head, Legal; Dorothy Zajeme Tukura, Deputy General Manager, Administration and Mrs. Victoria Ayantuga, Assistant General Manager, Internal Audit.





The ministry noted that their suspension was a violation of the Financial Regulations and Procurement Act and other acts of gross misconduct.

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County officers responded around 12:45 a.m. to the 700 block of Hammond Branch Drive in Odenton after someone called 911 about a shooting in a parking lot, police said.




Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi state, has alleged that politicians are playing games with the lives of Nigerians through COVID-19.





Bello spoke on Thursday while hosting the board of trustees of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation at his office in Lokoja.





The governor, who insisted that the state is COVID-19 free, said the disease is not new in Nigeria and that the country has its own way of treating it.





He said rather than subjecting citizens to hardship through a lockdown, the country should be busy exploring ways of treatment.





Bello said the death of Nasir Ajanah, the states chief judge, was natural and should not be attributed to COVID-19.





Let us stop this game, Nigerians are suffering, instead of the lockdown with its attendant negative effects on the people, why cant we turn it to employment opportunities, providing clothes for face masks to be imported to those countries who have the disease, Bello said.





COVID-19 is not a new disease in our climate, we have our own way of treating it, that is what we should be exploiting rather than subjecting our people to hardship, hunger, and starvation through the lockdown.





We know his medical history, he was my brother, we know we have been managing him since 2016 but this time, he was completely isolated, no one was allowed to even speak to him until he passed away, we cannot afford to be playing games with lives of Nigerians, this must stop.





The Kogi government has repeatedly accused the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) of perpetrating illegality through COVID-19.





Two patients who were transferred to Abuja from the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Lokoja, Kogi, tested positive for COVID-19 in the nations capital, but the Bello administration still insisted that there is no coronavirus in the state.





On Wednesday, doctors at FMC, Lokoja, declared indefinite strike over the poor response of Kogi government to COVID-19.





Gunmen had broken into the hospital, attacking doctors and other health workers ahead of a media briefing on COVID-19.





The government later blamed the incident on aggrieved patients, a claim some doctors refuted.





They had said the briefing was disrupted to stop a protest on the status of some COVID-19 patients who were being treated in the hospital.









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Home | News | General | Nigerian governor reveals how politicians are playing games with COVID-19

- The Kogi state governor, Yahaya Bello, has accused Nigerian politicians of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an avenue to play games with the lives of citizens

- Bello made the accusation when speaking with members of the BOT of the Sir Amadu Bello Memorial Foundation

- The governor said Nigeria could take advantage of the pandemic to provide employment opportunities

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The Kogi state governor, Yahaya Bello, on Thursday, July 2, accused Nigerian politicians of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an avenue to play games with the lives of citizens in the country.

He also said COVID-19 is not a new disease.

Governor Yahaya Bello stated that Covid-19 is not a new disease. Photo credits: Sahara Reporters

Source: UGC

The governor made the accusation when speaking with members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Sir Amadu Bello Memorial Foundation, who paid him a courtesy, The Nation reported.

Retention of military chiefs is a disservice to Nigeria - Group tells Buhari

Bello who said Nigerians were suffering, faulted the logic of imposing lockdown when such measures could cause hardship on the people.

He said Nigeria could take advantage of the pandemic to provide employment opportunities like manufacturing clothes face masks for exports to countries that have the disease.

Let us stop this game. Nigerians are suffering. Instead of the lockdown with its attendant negative effects on the people, why cant we turn it into employment opportunities; providing clothes for face masks to be exported to those countries who have the disease? He said.

The governor, who also said Covid-19 is not a new disease, stated that Nigeria has a way of treating it.

He argued that rather than making people go through hardships, Nigeria should exploit its own ways of treating the disease.

Meanwhile, Ondo state has been thrown into mourning following the death of the state commissioner of health, Dr Wahab Adegbenro, who died of Covid-19 on Thursday, June 2.

Lagos governor reveals when schools will likely resume

According to reports, Adegbenro has been battling Covid-19 infection over the last few days but efforts of the state health operatives proved futile as the commissioner later gave up the ghost.

Source from the government quarter claimed that the late commissioner died at the Federal Medical Center, Owo, after spending about ten days at the hospital. The commissioner's death came barely 48 hours after Governor Rotimi Akeredolu announced through his social media handles that he tested positive to the virus.

Born on June 5, 1955 at Ilara-Mokin in Ifedore local government area of Ondo state, Wahab Oluropo Adegbenro had his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (M.B; B.S) degree from University of Benin, Edo state.

He established Crown Hospital, Akure where he was the chief medical director. He later occupied many political positions before he was appointed the Ondo state commissioner of health, a position he held after managing the state culture and tourism commission.

Anxiety in Benue as 2 NAF officers contract Covid-19 disease

Ondo state has 325 cases of coronavirus as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced fresh 33 cases in the state on Wednesday, July 1

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Home | News | General | Coronavirus: WHO breaks silence on COVID-19 healing by T.B Joshua

- WHO has reacted to the COVID-19 healing by Pastor T.B Joshua

- Kameni Pierre, a Cameroonian medical doctor, claimed to have been healed of COVID-19 by T.B Joshua

- The world health agency, however, affirmed its readiness to collaborate with bodies like the SCOAN to advance the cause of the war against the deadly virus

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Following a video of a Cameroonian medical doctor, Kameni Pierre, who claimed to have been healed of COVID-19 by Pastor TB Joshua via his church channel Emmanuel TV, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reacted.

The Nation reports that the director-general of WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO executive director of health emergencies, Michael Ryan and other WHO officials were questioned about the miracle by a Cameroonian journalist, Simon Ateba, during an interactive media session on Wednesday, July 1.

If you have fever, its more likely due to malaria than COVID-19 - PTF coordinator says, begs private hospitals not to reject patients of other diseases

Legit.ng gathered that in the video, Pierre, a gynecologist and obstetrician, said he was suffering from COVID-19 and was in isolation in a hospital ward when he called in via video to receive prayer during an interactive programme on Emmanuel TV.

The presiding pastor of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), T.B Joshu and the WHO director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus.

Source: UGC

He displayed his COVID-19 positive medical report and while receiving prayer from Joshua, he vomited out the disease.

According to the report, days later, he held up a medical report confirming that he was diagnosed negative to COVID-19.

On Monday, a very popular pastor in Nigeria, T.B Joshua, released a video of a medical doctor in Cameroon who was said to have been cured of the virus through prayer, Ateba said before the panelists for their reaction.

Responding, Ryan affirmed the readiness of WHO to collaborate with bodies like the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) to advance the cause of the war against the deadly virus.

Official reveals what happened to 20 out of 37 health workers that tested positive for COVID-19 in the state

Certainly, spiritual leadership is very important in a time like this, Ryan said praising the role of faith-based organisations in providing accurate information to communities.

For Ghebreyesus, faith and science should go together.

He said: We know many religious leaders who would really advise their followers to follow their faith and at the same time use science. The two do not contradict; they go together We will call on all religious leaders to be in this fight and save lives.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the federal government said findings showed that the Madagascar herb called COVID Organics is a mixture containing largely anti-malaria ingredients.

It was reported that the minister of health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said further research on the efficacy of the Madagascar COVID-19 remedy would be conducted when funds for the research is approved.

Anxiety in Benue as 2 NAF officers contract Covid-19 disease

Ehanire made the disclosure at the Presidential Task Force Briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja. He stated that the primary plant used for the production of the Madagascar herb is grown in Nigeria.

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Home | News | General | Champions Liverpool suffer embarrassing defeat as Manchester City hit them 4-0

- Manchester City vs Liverpool ended embarrassingly for the champions

- Pep Guardiola's men defeated the the Reds 4-0 in a highly entertaining fxture

- De Bruyne, Sterling, and Foden all got on the score-sheet

It was an extraordinary night at the Etihad as English Premier League champions Liverpool were wallopped 4-0 by second placed Manchester City on Thurday, July 2.

Kevin de Bruyne opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the 25th minute after Joseph Gomez fouled Raheem Sterling in the box to open the flood-gates of goals.

Sterling himself grabbed the second goal ten minutes later to make it 2-0 leaving Jurgen Klopp and his ward hapless; and it was 3-0 on the stroke of half-time.

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Liverpool returned from the tunnel hoping to claim respect as they battled to reduce the scoreline, however it was an own goal by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the 66th minute that further embarrassed the champions as it ended 4-0.

Super Eagles boss Rohr reveals what he plans to do to Arsenal and QPR stars

Manchester City vs Liverpool: Raheem Sterling celebrates a goal. Photo Credit. Getty Images

Source: Getty Images

It was a resounding victory for Pep Guardiola's men over champions Liverpool who have an unassailable lead of 20points at the top of the standings.

With the result, Manchester City complement on their second-placed position with 66points from 32 matches.

Liverpool however remain on 86 points, however the champions are expected to lift the 2019/2020 trophy when they play at home to Aston Villa on Sunday, July 5.

Earlier, Arsenal vs Norwich City ended in a 4-0 win for the Gunners as they continue their remarkable comeback on the backdrop of defeats since returning from the break.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a brace from two mistakes and Granit Xhaka added the third while Cedric Soares completed the onslaught to push Arsenal up to seventh on the table.

The match ended 4-0 as the north London club are still in strong contention to play in Europe next season.

Former Real Madrid star reveals how Mourinho almost 'killed' Ronaldo despite scoring a hat-trick

Legit.ng earlier reported that Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers has defended Nigerian midfielder Wilfred Ndidi for the penalty he caused his side which gave Everton a 2-1 win over the Foxes in Premier League tie.

Everton on Wednesday night, July 1, maintained their home record against Leicester City after recording a controversial 2-1 win in an encounter played behind closed doors.

Richarlison scored the first goal for the hosts in the 10th minute after receiving a superb assist from Anthony Gordon in which Kasper Schmeichel was beaten.

And after six minutes Gordon netted the opener, Wilfred Ndidi was adjudged to have handled the ball in the box in which the referee gave Everton a penalty.

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Home | News | General | COVID-19: FG makes U-turn on resumption of schools across the country

- The federal government has said it has not yet given approval for the resumption of schools across the country

- The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 made the clarification on Thursday, July 2

- The PTF chairman, Boss Mustapha, said only students in critical classes were permitted to resume for revision

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The federal government has said it has not yet given approval for the resumption of schools across the country.

The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 made the clarification on Thursday, July 2, when addressing the controversy surrounding the resumption of schools, Channels TV reported.

The PTF chairman, Boss Mustapha, said only students in critical classes were permitted to resume for revision

Source: UGC

The PTF chairman, Boss Mustapha, speaking at the COVID-19 briefing in Abuja explained that only critical examination classes will be allowed to resume for those who need revision ahead of the exams.

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For the avoidance of doubts, schools have not resumed. Only critical examination classes will be allowed to resume for those who need revision before examinations, he said.

As we have informed you, the Federal Ministry of Education will consult further with stakeholders before issuing guidelines that will lead to full resumption.

He urged parents to ensure that their children take full advantage of electronic platforms provided for learning.

Mustapha emphasised that students in critical classes were only permitted to resume for revision before the commencement of their examinations.

He said the approval has been misunderstood and given different interpretations by Nigerians.

Meanwhile, the coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, has given more update on the federal government's decision on the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC).

Aliyu noted that the WAEC timetable is not determined by Nigeria and the government does not want a spill-over in the country's academic calendar.

COVID-19: FG reveals why mosques, churches may be closed again

Speaking during an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, July 1, he noted that any serious spill-over in the nations academic calendar will affect graduating students.

We have a large number of students that are in their exit year. They need to move on. We have exams that are not specific only to Nigeria but in West Africa, WAEC for instance.

We need to find a way to safely get these students to do their exams and exit, otherwise we will have a serious spill-over when it comes to education. COVID will go away eventually.

It may take a year or longer, but what we dont want is to have such a significant impact on our educational programme where children are unable to move at home where there is no mobility, he said.

The PTF had announced that schools will be reopened nationwide for graduating students with immediate effect.

African development bank authorises independent probe of Akinwumi Adesina

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Home | News | General | FG introduces tax on house rent agreements, others

- Nigerians will now be required to pay stamp duty on house rent agreements and Certificate of Occupancy in line with a new directive by the FIRS

- Abdullahi Ahmad, a spokesperson for the FIRS made the disclosure in a statement in Abuja on Thursday, July 2

- Ahmad said other common business-related transaction instruments should also be subjected to stamp duty

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Nigerians will now be required to pay stamp duty on house rent agreements and Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) in line with a new directive of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

Abdullahi Ahmad, a spokesperson for the FIRS made the disclosure in a statement in Abuja on Thursday, July 2, Daily Trust reported.

The federal government has mandated Nigerians to pay stamp duty on house rent agreements. Photo credits: Political Digest

Source: UGC

He advised Nigerians to ensure that documents pertaining to rent or lease agreements for their homes or offices are subjected to authentication with the new FIRS adhesive stamp duty.

APC reveals how it will screen Edo governorship aspirants to avoid a repeat of Bayelsa scenario

Ahmad also said other common business-related transaction instruments should also be subjected to stamp duty.

He pointed out that the new FIRS adhesive stamp duty is necessary in order to give the instruments the force of law and make them legally binding on all parties involved in such transactions.

The spokesperson disclosed that the new FIRS adhesive stamp duty was recently introduced by the government.

In another news report, the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBBS) has revealed that bank accounts in Nigeria have risen by 35 million between January to May 2020.

A breakdown of the data indicates that the total number of bank accounts grew astronomically to 160 million from 125 million, which represents a growth of 78.1 percent.

According to the data, the number of active accounts also grew by 32.1 million in 5 months from 79.4 million active accounts in January to 111.5 million by the end of May.

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Experts say this may not be unconnected with the lockdown which saw a greater dependence on alternative banking channels.

The number of active accounts for the last five months is far greater than the average of 74 million active accounts between January and December 2019.

However, the data also revealed a negative growth in current accounts as it witnessed a drop of 108 thousand accounts between January and May.

The total current account in January was 25.2 million, while it dropped to 25.1 million. The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the Nigerian economy has prompted the rollout of new economic policies, aimed at revamping the countrys economy, create jobs and wealth for the citizens.

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Home | News | General | FG reveals important update about Madagascar COVID-19 herb

- The federal government has given an update on the Madagascar COVID-19 remedy purported as a cure for the coronavirus disease

- The minister of health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said further research on the efficacy of the Madagascar COVID-19 remedy would be conducted

- Ehanire made the disclosure at the Presidential Task Force Briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja today

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The federal government has said findings have shown that the Madagascar herb called COVID Organics is a mixture containing largely anti-malaria ingredients.

The minister of health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, disclosed that the Madagascar COVID-19 herb contains ingredients for treating malaria. Photo credits: Collage from Twitter

Source: UGC

The minister of health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said further research on the efficacy of the Madagascar COVID-19 remedy would be conducted when funds for the research is approved, The Nation reported.

Ehanire made the disclosure at the Presidential Task Force Briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja.

He stated that the primary plant used for the production of the Madagascar herb is grown in Nigeria.

Kano begins house-to-house sample collection for Covid-19 test, relaxes lockdown on these days

The so-called Madagascar herb is one component of the malaria treatment medicine. Some years ago, the government actually imported this plant and has a plantation of it in trying to develop its own production of the artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT). The plantation is still there but the process has not gone that much further," he said.

We are looking into seeing what has held it up but the plant is here; it was intended for producing anti-malarial, and the type we have here has a very high yield of artemisinin  which is actually the active ingredient.

Meanwhile, the Kogi state governor, Yahaya Bello, on Thursday, July 2, accused Nigerian politicians of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an avenue to play games with the lives of citizens in the country.

He also said COVID-19 is not a new disease.

The governor made the accusation when speaking with members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Sir Amadu Bello Memorial Foundation, who paid him a courtesy, The Nation reported.

If you have fever, its more likely due to malaria than COVID-19 - PTF coordinator says, begs private hospitals not to reject patients of other diseases

Bello who said Nigerians were suffering, faulted the logic of imposing lockdown when such measures could cause hardship on the people.

He said Nigeria could take advantage of the pandemic to provide employment opportunities like manufacturing clothes face masks for exports to countries that have the disease.

Let us stop this game. Nigerians are suffering. Instead of the lockdown with its attendant negative effects on the people, why cant we turn it into employment opportunities; providing clothes for face masks to be exported to those countries who have the disease? He said.

The governor, who also said Covid-19 is not a new disease, stated that Nigeria has a way of treating it.

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Home | News | General | Kind Nigerian calls for help for 20-year-old lady who gave birth to triplets after she was molested

- A banana hawker, Nkechi Ezenwa, had triplets after she was molested

- After giving birth to the children, Ezenwa is seeking help on paying her medical bills

- During the delivery process, she reportedly used six different cylinders

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A man with the Facebook name Chidiebube Okeoma has called for help for a 20-year-old banana hawker, Nkechi Ezenwa, who gave birth to triplet after she was raped.

The new mother said she started having pangs of labour on Sunday, June 14, and after giving birth to one, she was told there were still more children in her womb.

Due to their lack of equipment, she was directed to another hospital that started rendering medical services after a deposit was made by a church member, Ugochi Uba who took her to the hospital.

Nigerian man with 2 wives laments hardship under Buhari's administration, says he wants a 3rd wife

After the whole delivery process, she was slammed with a bill of about N422,000, an amount she has called on Nigerians to help her settle.

"I have spent 6 cylinders of oxygen on the babies to make sure they are alive, Nkechi needs more blood to replace the blood she lost during the cesarean section.

"I bought a brand new power generator because of these babies where I spend up to 6000 naira daily to make sure the babies are kept warm inside because of the fear of Covid19, an unnamed doctor at the hospital reportedly said.

A collage of the lady and the triplet. Photo source: Facebook/Chidiebube Okeoma

Source: Facebook

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that to survive the economic hardship that the ongoing lockdown is causing, a woman named Peninah Bahti Kitsao living in Mombasa, Kenya, has been cooking stones for her children.

Before the coronavirus lockdown, the woman worked as a local laundrywoman. Now that restriction is in play, her customer base has drastically dwindled.

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Peninah said that she always hoped they would fall asleep as they wait on end for the meal (stones) to get done.

Her neighbour, Prisca Momanyi, who was taken aback by the whole act, informed the media about the womans plight.

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The woman has since received help as many donated money to her bank account that was opened for her by Momanyi.

The widow said she could not believe people would come to her rescue the way they did, calling everything a big miracle.

In speaking with the media, she said that she had to resort to that tactic because she had nothing. The widow, however, said that the children later knew that they were being lied to.

"They started telling me that they knew I was lying to them, but I could do nothing because I had nothing, she said.

Temi Otedola celebrates autistic brother lovingly on his 20th birthday (photos)

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Mnangagwa's dzimbabwe ruins have tilted beyond a stable state, by far beyond the leaning tower of Pisa, Italy. Mnangagwa's walls are tumbling and a little push will see them on the ground. Why should we wait any longer while he continues ruining our lives beyond repair. He is not stopping to think, he just gives an empty order as if all is normal. Besides decaying the economy and the respect of the nation within and beyond our borders, he now removes the little dignity left in our lives, OUR EDUCATION. Seriously, my fellow countrymen, how can we let him continue with this madness. Together with his Minister Mathema, their incompetences have taken a huge toll in mismanagement and misinforming the teachers and the entire education system. It is just unbelievably insane. What is the rush? A wise leader would rather delay exams until all things are in order, other than commence the sittings and then let villagers invigilate. You have undermined the role of teachers in our society to just mere individuals whose roles in shaping our society is negligible.

My fellow Zimbabweans, we must stand up for our lives, the future of our children and our country's dignity and prosperity. Right now Zimbabwe is a case study of a failed state, run by corrupt mongers, dominated by inconsistent policies and a government with a huge appetite for spending. A country that is on the blink of collapse yet the leader continues to hire a private jet for his trips even at a time when the whole world embraced video conferencing, ED still found a way to enjoy his luxurious life of traveling.

All civil servants deserve a good remuneration. Teachers, doctors and nurses deserve to be recognised for their patriotic roles in shaping our society in their respective duties.

My fellow countrymen and women, lets join hands with the nurses and teachers in a nationwide peaceful mass action. I call upon all democratic minded societies and movements including the workers' unions to deliver this message to all their members. Time is now, lets us not wait any longer. We will die in silence. Let it be peaceful but with a strong message- Enough is Enough. We are all suffering and some can hide behind the camouflage but we are a one person being subjected to this very same torture. Together we can create a real free Zimbabwe and leaders that share a common goal with us - that of reviving Zimbabwe to its true potential. Now is the time to show solidarity to our Lives, #OUR LIVES MATTER.

Lets unite for this common cause.

Dr Takesure Tazvishaya.
Home | World | Africa | Mixed reactions over re-opening of schools in Zimbabwe

Various stakeholders across the southern African country have expressed mixed feelings over the reopening of schools on the 28th of July this year.

Prior to the reopening of schools, the government is supposed to test over 136 000 teachers and ensure that schools comply to the 1:20 teacher, pupil ratio as per the World Health Organization (WHO) regulations.

With over 4.6 million learners expected to go back to school, the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) has said there is no urgency to reopen schools.

"Schools must not reopen now, it's still winter time. The academic year can simply be forwarded to next year," said Nation Muzvidziwa, ARTUZ's spokesperson.

Dr. Takavafira Zhou, president of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) also pointed out that the reopening of schools was not feasible.

"Schools can only open on the 28th of July subject to Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education meeting WHO standards in their entirety, but to assume that the government which has tested only 65 000 people since March can test 4.6 million students, 136 000 teachers and 50 000 ancillary staff in 26 days is to hope for a miracle to happen and it's impossible.

Worse still, government that is supposed to employ an additional 50 000 teachers and improve infrastructure in schools in order to guarantee social distancing and teacher-pupil ratio of 1:20 has not done anything so far.

Moreover, we are witnessing a quantum leap of COVID-19 cases in Zimbabwe and it would be suicidal and genocidal to open schools without COVID-19 abatement equipment such as testing kits, thermometers, sanitizers, PPEs, let alone training of teachers on how best to respond to the pandemic and health officials stationed in schools, as well as cleaning and disinfection of schools currently used as COVID-19 quarantine centres for returnees," said the leader of PTUZ.

Dr. Zhou further highlighted that their members will not be going back to work if the government fails to meet WHO COVID-19 guidelines.

"Teachers can never be willing to go back when their health, safety and welfare are not prioritised. Other than threats over their health and safety, teachers have a dispute of right which the employer is failing to address. Their salary was unilaterally and callously culled by the employer from US$550 to US$26. Teachers therefore, want the employer to restore their salary's purchasing power parity, let alone pay a reasonable risk allowance of US$150," said Dr. Zhou.

However, James Maiden the chief of communications at the country's United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) said schools should go ahead and reopen provided they meet the COVID-19 regulations.

"Children and schools are not the main drivers of the epidemic across countries, and there is no known evidence of the correlation between the rate of disease transmission and whether or not schools remain open or closed. Evidence on the negative impacts of school closures is overwhelming, with long-term implications for children's learning, safety, health and wellbeing.

We know that the longer children stay out of school, the more exposed they are to dangers. This is especially true for children who are already vulnerable. We are calling for schools to be among the first services to open when the appropriate safety measures are put into place," said Maiden.



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Baltimore Police said in a news release Wednesday night that their warrant task force arrested David Mills, 27, in the 2900 block of Westwood Ave. in the Northwest Community Action neighborhood without incident. The Salem, New Jersey, man was transported to Central Booking where he will stay until he is extradited.
"The politics are being shaped from the market, it is as if we are being told, if you won't have MDC-Alliance for an opposition then we will create an opposition for you through illicit market activities, through illicit NGOs, through disgruntled unions and through embassies mostly so given to making anti-government statements," George Charamba, Mnangagwa presidential spokesperson, confessed.

"When you coalesce that you will realise that we are in a phase where destabilisation has assumed a market form. The calculation was a health sector led generalised public strike, we are aware of such plots."

The greatest threat to any sitting government's hold on power comes from the people who become restless if they believe government is no doing enough to help them meet their needs and aspirations. The people of Zimbabwe are disgruntled because this Zanu PF government has failed to meet their basic needs of employment, decent housing, education for their children, etc. Instead of taking the blame on the cheek, after 40 years of bad governance turn the other cheek, the regime is illicit market, illicit NGO, etc. How typical!

Last year the World Bank reported that 34% of the people in Zimbabwe were living in abject poverty, i.e. they could not afford one decent meal a day much less education for their children, basic health care and other necessities of life. In comparison, all the other countries in the region had single digit percentages living in abject poverty.

The corona virus pandemic has only added yet another layer of hardships to the existing ones. And so, even more people are now living in abject poverty. Worse still; with Zanu PF refusing to step down so meaningful democratic reforms can finally be implement and thus end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance; all signs are the situation is set to get worse and not better.

IMF, WB and many donors have stopped giving Zimbabwe any assistance, they are fearful the donation will be looted by the ruling elite, especially in these corona virus times when there are so many nations in need of help and who would put the donations to good use. Zimbabwe has earned itself a reputation as a Banana Republic and we are paying dearly for it!

There is no doubt the tragic situation in which so many people are forced to live in abject poverty is morally and politically reprehensible and unsustainable. So far, Zanu PF has use brute force to stop street protests and other forms of public dissent. But history tells us that human beings are not sheep to go quietly to the slaughter; no amount of brutal oppression can keep the people quiet forever. The country's worsening economic situation is fuelling the people's anger and frustration and one of these days the wall that has held them back all these years will finally burst releasing a tsunami wave that will sweep away all before it.

"It is the economy, stupid!" said former US President Bill Clinton.

Lucky for President Clinton the US economy has doing very, very well, thank you. And the people voted for him back into office for a second term regardless of his womanizing and other scandals.

Mnangagwa is not so lucky, he is cursed, the Zimbabwe economy is not only in deep, deep trouble but, worse still, he has no clue what to do and his blundering incompetence and addiction to corruption are making a bad situation worse.

The people of Zimbabwe themselves are becoming increasing aware that they have a grime choice. Either they grab the nettle and demand that this illegitimate Zanu PF regime steps down so the nation can finally implement the reforms and end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Or do nothing and let the regime drag them deeper and deeper into this man-made hell-on-earth Zanu PF created.

40 years of Zanu PF gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have ignited such a fierce economic meltdown, everything is melting. The intense heat generated by the economic meltdown is becoming unbearable even Zanu PF hardliners are getting restless. There is talk of yet another military coup. So, the regime is now living in fear of a military coup and/or civil unrest!

Mnangagwa can blame the illicit market, the sanctions imposed by the west, the corona virus (new kid on the block), [even he cannot blame MDC given the party have lost all credibility], etc. for the people's restlessness. These are all scapegoat; the political unrest in being caused by the economic meltdown and it is his own his own addiction to corruption and his blundering incompetence that is fuelling the economic meltdown.
Home | World | Africa | Mupfumira trial kicks off

THE trial of former cabinet minister Prisca Mupfumira has kicked off at the Harare Magistrates court this Wednesday with both Mupfumira and her then Permanent Secretary, Ngoni Masoka pleading not guilty to all three counts.

The duo is being charged for two counts of criminal abuse of office as public officers and one of concealing a transaction.

The court heard that in one of the charges Mupfumira used state funds to pay air tickets and upkeep for her personal aides to attend her daughter's wedding in South Africa.

Mupfumira through her defence counsel led by Advocate Magwaliba denied all the charges saying she never directed Masoka to release funds as alleged by the state.

Masoka also told the court that he never received a verbal directive from the former Minister directing him to purchase the air tickets.

It is the state's case that the duo siphoned millions of dollars from the National Social Security Authority when they were at the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality industry.

The matter has been postponed to the 21st of next month for the continuation of trial.

In another court case, Harare City Council Acting Human capital director, Mathew Marara has appeared in court facing charges fraud involving 1.2 million United States Dollars for the illegal sale of stands.

It is the state's case that sometime in 2017, Marara sold a total of 150 stands in Kuwadzana suburb in Harare without council's approval.

He will back in court on Thursday for bail ruling.

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Home | World | Africa | 100 retail operators arrested for not accepting Zimdollar, bond notes

Refusing to accept the Zimdollar and bond notes as payment for goods has landed 102 Zimbabwean business owners and retail employees in trouble, with 28 of these appearing in court as the government enforces acceptance of the fast-falling local unit amid increased dollarisation of the economy.

As Zimbabwe's economy re-dollarises, some retail outlets are no-longer accepting payment for goods and services in the form of bond notes.

However, John Mangudya, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, has reiterated that Zim dollar and bond notes and coins "are still legal tender".

The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) now enforcing the Bank Use Promotion and Suppression of Anti Money Laundering Act to enforce usage of the local currency.

"Traders and business entities who continue to refuse to accept Zimbabwe currency bond notes and coins as a legal tender in business transactions risk being arrested and taken to court for the law to take its course," said the ZRP in a statement on Wednesday.

Retail operators and employees of retail outlets in Harare are appearing in court charged with violating the Bank Use and Promotion Act through side-lining the local currency as a medium of exchange.

According to police authorities in Zimbabwe: "A total of 102 suspects have been arrested with 28 appearing in court in Harare" since the onset of a blitz code named "Accept Zimbabwe currency" as legal tender on June 26.

President Emerson Mnangagwa's administration in Harare is battling to restore confidence in the local unit of exchange which has continued to lose value, with the official and street rates ballooning.

Local currency rejected

Bigger retailers such as OK Zimbabwe and Pick n Pay, however, are still accepting the local units of exchange.

Denford Mutashu, president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries told Fin24 that retailers have to accept the Zim dollar and bond notes to smoothen transactions and payment for goods and services.

Employees under the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the civil servants representative union, Apex Council, have been calling for remuneration in foreign currency.

The Apex Council said after a meeting of its top leadership on Wednesday that "the local currency has been rejected by the economy" hence it was calling on the government to reset salaries for government workers at US$475 for the lowest paid.

This comes as The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) noted in a new report today that "most goods and services in Zimbabwe are increasingly being priced in USD" which is "further constraining access to market foods as many poor households do not have access" to US dollars.

"Anecdotal information indicates bond notes and coins are increasingly being rejected across some markets," says the FEWSNET report.

It adds: "Economic volatility and depreciating parallel market exchange rates are progressively constraining livelihoods and disposable incomes."

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Home | World | Africa | Xenophobic ex-Joburg Mayor Herman Mashaba threatens to bounce back

Former Mayor of the City of Johannesburg Herman Mashaba has threatened to bounce back to his former position and relaunch the fight against hijacked buildings.

Speaking to South Africa media, Mashaba said, "Once I come back as mayor of Joburg we will intensify the raids to get rid of criminals."

Mashaba's statements were made on the background of a court ruling which declared that raids, searches, inspections, seizures, fingerprinting and arrests were unlawful by Judge-President Dunstan Mlambo, judges Piet Meyer and Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane.

The judges said the motivation for the raids came from Mashaba's office and were led by the municipality's group forensic and investigation service unit to deal with hijacked buildings and other serious crimes.

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Home | World | Africa | We need a transitional government: CSO

Pressure Group Ibhetshu Lika Zulu has called for a Transitional government as the economy is sinking at a very fast rate.

The pressure group secretary Mbuso Fuzwayo said the only way forward for a better country was through a transitional government.

"The economy is failing because of a failed leadership, the people are suffering and there appears to be no solution in the near future. Covid monies have been abused by those close to his family and that is enough reason for him to step down," said Fuzwayo.

"Mnangagwa has failed to fulfill his electoral promises, in short he has failed.We need some transition that can restore stability in our country's economy, separate executive from capturing legislator and judiciary."

Fuzwayo said there should be a level playing field for all political players for future elections.

"Takeout the military from the civilian life. Zimbabwe must be removed from election mode," said Fuzwayo.

"There must draft legislative amendments outside partisan politics and re-establish cordial relations between military and civilians across various sectors of life."

Fuzwayo said it was critical to develop an inclusive economic and currency stabilisation agenda through a multi stakeholder approach.

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Home | World | Africa | Wife whips cheating hubby with wire

A Bindura woman could not stomach her husband's cheating habits and resorted to assault him with a wire.

The matter came to light at the Bindura magistrates courts yesterday where Belinda Sekani (41) appeared before Maria Msika for the crime.

Sekani was sentenced to six months behind bars with 3 months suspended on condition of good behavior.

The remaining 3 were commuted to 105 hours of community service.

Prosecutor Vincent Marunya told the court, on April 18 Sekani's husband came home late and woke his wife.

The furious wife woke up and started accusing him of having an extra marital affair.

In a fit of rage Sekani pulled a wire which he used to assault the complaint on the shoulder.

The husband rushed to a police station to file a report leading to the arrest of the convict.

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As we commemorate the death of General Josh, let's get one thing clear Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU did not in 1987 join Zanu PF because it was a good party with good intentions and policies.

They joined Zanu PF to meet Mugabe's condition for him to stop killing ZAPU supporters, both real and perceived, predominantly Ndebele speaking people of Midlands and Matabeleland.

This was after mass murders, torture, agonising curfews, abductions and disappearances spanning five years had ended so many lives in this region.

No champagne was popped when the failed and now defunct Unity Accord was signed. Neither was the pact genuinely negotiated that we can have Zanu PF and tribal hooligans celebrating that Nkomo joined Zanu PF and expecting us to be allegiant to the cultist reactionary party on that account.

We are not fools. Neither are we stupid.

There is nothing of value to us from the Unity Accord and referring to it every time Zanu PF tribalism and marginalisation of people is mentioned is an insult and it should stop.

ZAPU pulled out from the Unity Accord in 2009. No one challenged the pullout legally, constitutionally and even politically.

Our reasons are on record and indisputable.

So Zanu PF morons need to stop associating ZAPU with their looting, corruption, tribalism and murders cult.
Frank Buyanga is famous for his fast cars and power moves in different boardrooms and stock exchanges across the world. Frank Buyanga has been praised by some sections of the media while others have vilified him over his business and personal manifesto.

Few have spoken about or written about Frank Buyanga's work towards furthering the gospel of Jesus Christ. Frank Buyanga regards his job as a Preacher of God's word as his most significant job. Reverend Frank Buyanga has turned his social media pages as a pulpit where he shares the word of God with his followers.

Reverend Frank Buyanga has consistently shared the word of God on social media and has proven to be a doer of the word. Frank Buyanga and his brands rose to the occasion and served several vulnerable communities during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Frank Buyanga reached out to the Eswatini community in South Africa, Zimbabweans in South Africa, his helping hand went as far afield as Sierra Leone. Communities in areas such as Shamva in Mashonaland Central will testify that Frank Buyanga is not only a Preacher but also a doer of the word of God.

The Bible states that faith without works is dead. Frank Buyanga's works for the vulnerable and the under privileged has proven that he is a man seeking the love and peace of God with all mankind.

Frank Buyanga has also been at the forefront of exposing corrupt deeds, at the expense of some friendships and luxuries. The Word of God admonishes us to condemn all evil deeds and Frank Buyanga has chosen to walk in the path of God. It is surprising that a man of his status and power would walk in the word and ways of God when it is easier for him to conform to the world order and nature of the ruling elite.

The life and deeds of Frank Buyanga are truly inspirational to Africa's young people who need an upright pan African icon to look up to. Frank Buyanga has stood firm on his belief that Africa must fully utilise her God given resources to come out of poverty.

A lot has been said about Frank Buyanga in the media, though the good deeds that he has done as a Preacher of the word of God remain unsung. Frank Buyanga does not publicise his good deeds in line with the word of God which says if you do good in secret, God will reward you in public.

As a young African, I am inspired by Frank Buyanga and have found an icon of the young generation who is worth looking up to and emulating.
Two former ministers are seeking readmission into Zanu-PF, nearly three years after they were expelled following the resignation of former President Robert Mugabe.

The late Mugabe resigned 21 November 2017 to avoid impeachment by legislators.

Business Times heard this week that Makhosini Hlongwane (Sports, Arts and Culture former minister) and Tapiwa Matangaidze (former Labour and Social Services deputy minister) have written to the Midlands province to be reinstated in the party structures.

Before their expulsion Hlongwane and Matangaidze were legislators for Mberengwa East and Shurugwi South respectively.

Zanu-PF Midlands province chairperson Daniel Mackenzie Ncube confirmed the duo has submitted letters to be re-admitted into the party.

"We have received the letters from the two former MPs wanting to rejoin the party and as the chairman province I want to see the members being re-admitted in the party. I believe in working together with them rather than expulsion," Ncube said.

"We shall sit as a province executive and consider the matter and forward it to the Politburo organ for consideration."

He said the province had already admitted other former cabinet ministers Francis Nhema, Flora Buka, and Jason Machaya who were expelled in the party in 2015 for allegedly supporting then vice president Joice Mujuru.

"We have already admitted Machaya, Nhema and Buka in the past years and there is no reason we cannot accept Hlongwane and Matangaidze as a province," Ncube said.

Meanwhile, the Zanu-PF Harare province has lifted the suspension of Godfrey Gomwe, the Harare District Coordinating Committee chairperson.

Gomwe was suspended last month for indiscipline by provincial chairperson Oliver Chidawu.

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Protests spread throughout the colonies but were particularly fierce (and effective) in Massachusetts. Colonists there managed to stop the enforcement of the tax by the harassment, intimidation, burning in effigy and other assorted affronts to the official who was appointed to distribute the stamps. When word of that action made it to Maryland, Chase gathered a mob of h is political supporters to pull the same sort of stunt Annapolis, flogging and burning the effigy of Zachariah Hood, the stamp distributor there, and tearing down the building where the stamped paper was to be stored. Hood fled the colony, and the governor ordered the stamped paper held on a British naval ship to prevent it from being destroyed, an action that also had the effect of preventing the Stamp Act from being enforced here. Chase was on hand when the Frederick County court became the first to reopen in defiance of the act, and he quickly resumed a stamp-free law practice there.
Home | World | Africa | Matiza, NRZ board clash

Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Biggie Matiza has declared war on the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) board and top management over failure to fully implement his directive on cancellation of the US$400m recapitalisation deal of the rail transport parastatal.

The Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group (DIDG) deal with NRZ was cancelled following revelations by Matiza that the investment firm was failing to raise funding for the transaction which is contrary to the NRZ board resolution which has not changed and endorsed the DIDG deal.

Business Times is reliably informed that Matiza is accusing the NRZ board and its top management for failure to effectively cancel the DIDG and is now considering axing the current general manager Lewis Mukwada together with the current board led by Martin Dinha.

A well-placed source close to developments said heads are expected to roll at the state-run rail company as Matiza looks at appointing people who are flexible enough to drive his vision for NRZ.

At a board meeting recently, Matiza is alleged to have demanded the dismissal of Mukwada from his position, a move which was rejected by the board leading to the current friction.

"Matiza has now resorted to pushing out NRZ GM and the rest of management in a bid to take control and illegally cancel a Bona Fide DIDG Tender.

At last week's NRZ board meeting, Matiza called the board and demanded the dismissal of Mukwada with immediate effect, something which the board has on record refused as it is without cause and tantamount to creating unnecessary legal battles," the source said.

Matiza is even heard saying "I am dismissing the general manager and then will fire the entire board around October and November and replace them with people who are fit enough to carry out my instructions."

Matiza said the shake-up at NRZ was all part of a restructuring initiative to modernise the rail company.

"The directive was only aimed at restructuring NRZ and come up with a structure that is in line with modern trends. There are no threats whatsoever," Matiza said.

NRZ public relations manager Nyasha Maravanyika said a directive was made by Matiza last Thursday but there was no fight between the shareholder and the board.

"There is no fight and as you are aware NRZ is under government and what the Minister did was to share his vision with the board and management. This vision therefore entails the reorganisation and restructuring of NRZ including management," Maravanyika said.

The proposed restructuring comes as DIDG executive chairman Donovan Chimhandamba accused Matiza of misleading government on DIDG's position.

"Right from the outset, we must point out that these submissions are being made to you and your board following a reasonably long and good relationship that had been built for the period that we had been engaging each other," Chimhandamba wrote in a letter dated June 24.

"We place on record right from the beginning that since his appointment as the Minister of Transport, Matiza never liked our organisation.

We have had it on very good authority that he has been misleading our position to the authorities with a clear intention of wanting to secure the termination of this tender and to replace the same with other players who are known non-indigenous."

Chimhandamba added: "The directive issued to your board falls outside the Minister's mandate.

The undue pressure which is being exerted on your board by him and other players is clearly unlawful and must be resisted.

We trust that your board will uphold the letter and spirit of our law and consider the merits and demerits of the case in dealing with this matter."

The cancellation of the DIDG deal has faced massive challenges and resistance following revelations that it was done in bad faith amid allegations Matiza cancelled the deal without following due process while ignoring DIDG's funding package that had strong backing from Afreximbank (the lead arranger), TDB alongside the South African commercial banks and infrastructure funds.

The DIDG/Transnet consortium was chosen in 2017 as the NRZ's partner in a US$400m deal which was aimed at recapitalising and rehabilitating the railway infrastructure.

DIDG has since instructed its lawyers Atherstone and Cook legal practitioners to sue Matiza and NRZ for US$215m after the controversial termination of the consortium's bid to recapitalise the rail company.

Government, however, has since moved on by engaging Russia's Union Wagons in a bid to revive the rail company that requires more than US$1bn to realise a complete turnaround. Sources have however, said that NRZ failed to provide US$1.5m deposit for 100 wagons valued at US$10m, raising questions on how the rail parastatal would deliver a US$1bn deal with the Russians.

The 100 wagons were supposed to have been delivered in January

- In contrast, DIDG delivered 14 locomotives and 200 wagons in February 2018 demonstrating the speed and capacity of the diasporans with less complicated financing structures.

- At its peak, the NRZ employed over 17,000 workers in the late 1980s. Today the staff complement has dwindled to 4,600.

- Freight declined to 2.6m tonnes in 2016 from 18m tonnes in 1998.

- DIDG's intervention boosted the volumes to 3.6m tonnes in 2018.

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With the gas comes a burning sensation in his mouth, nose and lungs. The face covering he wears to protect himself from COVID-19 provides little respite.

At some point, your mask gets so soaked with the gas, with the chemicals, you have to take it off and get a clean one, he said. You cant breathe.

Others Jarvis has protested alongside have fared worse. He said he has seen people on the ground, crying and vomiting, debilitated by the gas. Street medics that aid the marchers have stepped in to help, putting themselves at risk of exposure.

Banned from use in warfare, international law permits the use of tear gas for domestic riot control purposes, under the Chemical Weapons Agreement that took effect in 1997. Some cities have suspended its use since protests began last month. A federal judge in Denver issued a temporary restraining order preventing its use there.

Exposure to the gas in large quantities can lead to long term health issues, like Glaucoma, blindness, severe chemical burns to the throat and lungs or respiratory failure that could result in death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The Iowa West Foundation Board of Directors recently approved $6.2 million in grants and initiatives designed to make transformational impacts in southwest Iowa, according to a news release from the foundation.

Included in the funds is a $1.5 million commitment to the Southwest Iowa COVID-19 Response Fund, established in March with the Pottawattamie County Community Foundation.

For this cycle, we wanted to be positioned to support nonprofits in need due to COVID-19. Our priorities were to be available to help our most vulnerable populations to ensure that access to food and safe shelter was available to everyone, Pete Tulipana, president and CEO of the Iowa West Foundation, said in the release. We also sought to honor our ongoing commitments to key grants and initiatives. This ensures that those who are dependent upon our funding to maintain operations can continue to serve their clients.

Funding for the grants comes from investment earnings and the Iowa West Racing Association, which receives contractual fees from casino operators, Ameristar and Harrahs. Iowa West Racing Association is the license sponsor for Ameristar and Harrahs and the license holder for Horseshoe-Bluffs Run. The foundation targets resources into programs and projects that focus on economic development, education, placemaking and healthy families.
From left, siblings Kaden Colvin and Vance and Ryhin Moore are a trio of out-of-town beach bums every summer.

Kaden and Vance, both 13, and Ryhin, 14, are the grandchildren of Nancy Hoden, who operates Lake Manawa Beach. The three grew up near Mesa, Arizona, but have lived in Murrieta, California, for the past two years.

Every summer, the siblings spend a couple of months in Council Bluffs, staying with Hoden and other family. The spend many of their days at Lake Manawa Beach, where they spend equal time helping their grandma and having fun in the sun. They said they enjoy swimming, kayaking and floating on tubes, among other beach-related activities. When theyre not at the beach, the trio said they enjoy exploring Council Bluffs, Omaha and beyond. They said Omahas Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium is a spot they often frequent.

They also said they enjoy going shopping and dining out at new restaurants. Sometimes theyll make trips out to Des Moines to visit Adventureland. Being from states known for their warmth, the three said theyre used to the heat, but Iowas humidity often takes them aback each summer.
The 2020 Iowa primary election is today.

For those who haven't voted by mail, election offices are open today from from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Voters by mail must have had their ballot postmarked by Monday to be counted.

In today's election: there are two contested county elections, including the race to replace retiring Sheriff Jeff Danker, a Republican who is not seeking an eighth term.

Three Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office members are running to be the Republican nominee for sheriff: Chief Deputy Rob Ambrose, Deputy Danielle Bentzinger and Lt. Andy Brown.

There is no Democrat in the race.

There are two Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors seats available. Supervisor Tim Wichman is running to retain his seat. Hes joined in the Republican primary by Donn Dierks, Adam Houser, Mitchell Kay and Brian Shea.

Two will move on to the November general election.

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Democrat Lisa Lima is unopposed in the primary and will move on to the general election.

There are no contested primaries for local state House and Senate seats.
Wednesdays actions by the BPW was little more than an opening salvo and what could prove a long and drawn-out war to restore balance to the state budget, a problem counties and municipalities will inevitably face, too. Whatever programs were spared this week, they could easily be back on the chopping block soon. Experts simply cant accurately predict how far and fast tax revenues are going to plunge as the pandemic unfolds. The result is not unlike flying an airplane with parts falling off as lowered revenue estimates demand offsetting budget cuts. Lose a strut and its no big deal, lose an engine and suddenly youre kicking passengers out the door. Governor Hogans threat that sparing pay raises may ultimately cost thousands of state workers their jobs is surely within the realm of possibilities.
Pottawattamie County Public Health reported Wednesday that eight Council Bluffs residents are the latest in the county to contract COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel (new) coronavirus.

Also on Wednesday, the state announced a second TestIowa location will open Monday in Council Bluffs at All Care Health Center, 902 S. Sixth St.

The new cases brings the total tracked by the county to 756. Of the eight individuals, three are between 18 and 40 years old, one is 17 or younger, three are 41 to 60 and one is 61 to 80.

Three of the cases announced by Pottawattamie County Public Health are county residents who were tested in Nebraska -- one on May 26, two on June 1 -- with a delay in reporting between the states. The other five were tested between June 14 and June 26.

Of the cases tracked by the county, 157 are self-isolating at home, five are hospitalized -- the same number as Tuesday -- 557 have recovered and 26 of the cases were among non-residents/residents who have moved. There have been 11 COVID-19 deaths in the county.

The state COVID-19 website, coronavirus.iowa.gov, listed 694 cases in the county as of 4 p.m. on Wednesday. There have been 9,259 tests, for a positive rate of 7.5%. The state does not track epi-linked cases.
The court is bound by Iowa precedent decided in 2018 when the Iowa Supreme Court said a 72-hour waiting period was unconstitutional, he noted. Many of the same issues were raised and litigated at the time.

The Iowa Supreme Court in 2018 specifically recognized abortion as a fundamental right, and applied the high standard of strict scrutiny to the review of the act at issue, Turner said.

Planned Parenthood likely will be able to show substantially the same burden of harm to patients subject to a 24-hour waiting period as it did with the 72-hour waiting period, Turner ruled. This could be particularly true now in light of the COVID-19 health crisis, considering the now-blocked laws requirement for making multiple trips to an abortion provider.

The court also concluded that the time sensitive nature of abortion procedures supports that patients could face substantial injury if a temporary injunctive relief wasnt granted. In cases where a patient is at or near 22 weeks of pregnancy, she could be deprived of her fundamental right to an abortion, the judge said.
As we work through the month May, I want to give a couple of updates from the last few weeks. My priority bill, LB 644, has advanced from the first and second round of debate and will be heading to final reading soon. This bill was designed to help give the taxpayer clear and concise informa
Barbara and Christine Colucci long to remove their masks and kiss their 102-year-old mother, who has dementia and is in a nursing home in Rochester, New York. They would love to have more than two people in her room at a time so that relatives can be there too.
LINCOLN - The U.S. Department of Agriculture is offering a 50/50 match on Nebraska dollars invested in outreach to get more eligible families enrolled in SNAP, the program formerly known as food stamps.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When Donald Trump slapped a travel ban on Europe back in March to halt the spread of Covid-19, the U.S. president declared it the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a virus in modern history  and he criticized the European Union for not having acted quickly enough to do the same.

The tables have turned. Today, its the EU that is leaving American tourists out in the cold with its new shortlist of 14 countries deemed safe for non-essential travel. Despite Trumps bluster, the U.S. has racked up more than double the total caseload of the EUs 27 members, and it hasnt made the cut. Countries including Canada, Japan and Morocco have. China will be added to the list, provided it lifts its own curbs on European visitors.

While politically this will sting, it is at heart an epidemiological decision, as my colleague Andreas Kluth has pointed out. As if to prove that flight bans arent actually all that effective, especially when compared to domestic measures like widespread testing and movement curbs, the U.S.s record in controlling the infection curve remains poor. In the two weeks to June 29, cumulative cases per 100,000 people (the EUs preferred metric) stood at 137 in the U.S., one of the highest rates in the world. They were below 10 in France, Italy, and Spain.

Still, the comfort of statistics belies the general knottiness of lifting travel restrictions in Europe, which involves coordinating 27 member states with sometimes different priorities and policies.

To start with, the approved list isnt a law per se, but a recommendation  border controls remain the preserve of national governments. While nobody expects a country to unilaterally fling open its doors to Americans, enforcement is going to be an issue. The ban wasnt exactly watertight in the first place, as my Bloomberg News colleagues have reported, with allowances made for U.S. citizens living in the EU, Europeans living in the U.S., students and others. Countries such as Ireland and Denmark arent even part of the common border policy. Denmark is unlikely to take a relaxed approach to tourists given it was one of the first European countries to restrict travel and impose stay-at-home measures on its people. But its exemptions include businesspeople, au pairs and boarding-school students too.

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Making matters even more confusing, travel within the EU still wont be completely free even if the bloc has called for an end to internal border restrictions, restoring the free movement that symbolizes the unity of its single market. Some EU members are keeping others at bay over their handling of the virus. That means some nations will likely now be welcoming tourists from thousands of kilometers away while snubbing their own neighbors. Travelers from Sweden, for example, whose 14-day case rate is almost as high as the U.S.s, are restricted from freely entering countries including Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Cyprus. Brits are also personae non gratae in places such as Greece, where direct flights from the U.K. and Sweden arent allowed until July 15. Its not only Americans who will have to wait.

How to handle China raises other complications. The country should be a shoo-in based on how few new cases its reporting, but questions remain over how it handled the outbreak and the trustworthiness of its data crunching in the past. The Europeans have managed a workaround by asking the country to lift its own restrictions on EU travelers before it can fully make its way onto the EUs whitelist. Maybe theres a guide here for how Trump could get the go-ahead from the EU, provided his handling of the pandemic also improves. Its not all down to data.

For all the loopholes and muddles involved in lifting the EUs travel restrictions, it's reassuring that its happening at all  you have to start somewhere. But the freedom of countries to go their own way, on top of the the World Health Organizations warning that the pandemic is not even close to being over, means the unpredictability will be with us a while yet.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Brussels. He previously worked at Reuters and Forbes.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Dr. Jerry Coller deserved every inch of his fine obit (Jerome J. Coller, internist and physicians physician, dies, June 28). My husband and I were his patients some 40 years ago. A surgeon operated on my husband at that time for lung cancer, but informed me that night he was sure the primary was in the pancreas and that my husband would have maybe 6 months to live.
Kaylie Rosen was wrapping up a spring break internship in the field of her career dreams  pediatric physical therapy  and ready to return to boarding school in New Hampshire for the homestretch of her junior year. It was March, and the 17-year-old was already looking forward to summer break and a grand trip  part-tourist, part-volunteer  that would take her from Thailand to Laos to Ethiopia, where she was to work with orphans in the Selamta Family Project.

"Two days before we were supposed to come back to school, they were like, 'Uh, don't,' " Kaylie recalls in an interview with PEOPLE. "I had my heart set on these trips I had planned. Now it's lots of Netflix and Hulu."

But for Kaylie, the stakes are much higher than dashed college visits and canceled plane tickets. Having to self-isolate at home is a special challenge for her because Kaylie is one of the growing number of American teens who suffer from an anxiety disorder, up 20 percent between 2007 and 2012. With the upheaval of the pandemic, experts are seeing signs of a steeper spike this year. In a May survey by the Harris Poll, 70 percent of American teens reported mental-health struggles this spring.

For more on managing anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, pick up a copy of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

Theres a lot of fear, says Joseph F. McGuire, Ph.D., an expert in adolescent anxiety at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

RELATED: Shortness of Breath Is Common in Coronavirus and Anxiety  Heres How to Tell the Difference

For Kaylie, though, fear has nothing to do with catching the virus.

"I'm not afraid of germs or getting sick in the slightest," she says.

Instead, she worries that extended time back home on Long Island, New York with her parents  Lisa, a neuropsychologist, and Jeffrey, an orthopedic surgeon  brings her too close to the familiar demons of the illness she's known since she was 7, and keeps her too far from the support system she'd built for managing her symptoms.

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"I don't do well at home," Kaylie says (whose older sister Talia, 20, also suffers from depression and anxiety, and is also self-isolating at home). "My friends mean the world to me. They get me through everything. The fact that I can't see them, which is the way I usually deal with my life, was devastating."

LeAnn Rimes Opens Up About Her Depression and Anxiety: 'Taking Away the Shame Is So Important'

LeAnn Rimes does still slip into occasional periods of darkness, but she knows she can get herself out of it now

After struggling with depression, insomnia, panic attacks and anxiety that began to stir in the fourth grade, Kaylie suffered most acutely when she hit seventh grade and developed a paralyzing anxiety about school. It was her idea, in eighth grade, to get help at New Hampshire's Mountain Valley residential treatment center, which specializes in treating adolescent anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

There, she accepted that her illnesses, including OCD, are real, and that her parents cant cure them. I learned how to manage them myself, Kaylie says.

After 73 days at Mountain Valley, Kaylie went straight to the nearby Brewster Academy boarding school, also her idea.

Her mom Lisa explains: "Mountain Valley was the first time Kaylie had to take care of Kaylie and do the hard work on her own. She's not her strongest self when she's with us because it's too easy for her to rely on us to alleviate her discomfort."

Now that she's unable to return to campus, Kaylie has developed new strategies for managing her illness at home. She redecorated her older brother Jacob's old bedroom rather than move back into the childhood bedroom where anxiety and depression first tormented her.

RELATED: Police Brutality, Coronavirus, Unemployment: How to Mentally Cope with the Crises of 2020

Jacob's room "doesn't remind me of when I would be lying on the floor unable to move," Kaylie says. To make intrusive thoughts feel manageable, she keeps a list of them on her phone or draws them out in colorful calligraphy pens. "It sort of took the monster out of it for me," she explains.

Aundre Larrow Kaylie Rosen

Kaylie says she also now recognizes the onset of paralyzing panic and can call out to Siri to dial a friend for a calming chat.

Perhaps most important, she's at work  remotely  with the Ethiopian orphanage, launching an online virtual learning camp. Kaylie recruited other volunteers her age and is teaching English classes once a week, plus helping out with other classes.

Lisa credits both Kaylie and Talia with being "braver and stronger than I ever was  or am."

"I think Kaylie is going to have a resilience throughout her life that I am so proud of," Lisa says.

As for Kaylie herself, she says: "Hope is a big thing for me. ... For the first time in my life Ive been happy, and I know now what will keep me happy.

Reporting by Wendy Grossman Kantor

For information on anxiety and depression, go to ADAA.org and for more of Kaylie's storyincluding her sister Talia's story and how the Rosen family deals with their strong family history of mental health issuespick up the new issue of People, on stands Friday.
Nicole Maines is reflecting on her noteworthy origin story.

In a new LinkedIn News video as part of the #OutOnLinkedIn series, the Supergirl star, 22, reflects on her journey leading up to becoming the first transgender superhero on television. Maines, who plays Nia Nal (aka Dreamer) on the series, said she was "blessed" to grow up in a supportive household.

"I transitioned very, very young and I was very, very blessed and very lucky to grow up in the environment that I did and to have the parents that I did," said Maines. "They were never outright belligerent of me, and they never sat me down and told me that I was wrong and that I was going to hell for who I was."

"I asked them when I was going to get to be a girl because to me it was just the most natural thing in the world and it felt instinctual and it felt right," she added.

The Maine native explained what it was like to begin transitioning in elementary school, recalling a conducive environment at first, before a bathroom debate soured her early years.

"I first started transitioning in first grade; it was a very, very good relationship between my family and the school, and we took it very, very slow," she said, adding, however, "When they faced pushback from the special interest Christian right group, who said that my using the girls' bathroom, wasn't okay, they buckled."

According to Maines, her school assigned a "bodyguard" to oversee her when she used a staff bathroom separate from her classmates.

"They just sent a message to the rest of the community that said, 'Hey, here's this student who is so different from the rest of you that she cannot be permitted to exist in the same public spaces,'" Maines said of the situation. "People pick up on that, and we started facing harassment from folks that we had never had issues with before."

RELATED: OITNB's Selenis Leyva Says Working with Laverne Cox Helped Her Understand Her Trans Sister's Journey

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Dean Buscher/The CW Nicole Maines in Supergirl

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Maines said the situation led to a breaking point, and her family filed a suit, which went on to set a legal precedent for public bathrooms. "It came from a place of trying to do the right thing," she said, "trying to get justice for what happened. Standing up and saying enough is enough."

Before she was showing off her superpowers on the small screen, Maines said she was drawn to acting as a career because she loved playing dress-up as a child.

"As the little trans kid who couldn't transition and couldnt be who I wanted to be for the first few years of my life, dress-up was the one opportunity that I had to wear clothes and portray characters that I can see myself in and that I identified with," Maines said.

"I was always reenacting my favorite scenes in my favorite movies," she continued. "It was just grownups playing dress-up, and I thought that was the coolest thing on the planet."

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Trans rights activist Jazz Jennings discusses documenting her gender confirmation surgery on her TLC show 'I Am Jazz.'

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In 2018, Maines opened up to PEOPLE about when she realized her authentic gender identity, recalling how she noticed differences between herself and her twin brother Jonas.

"Growing up with him, I could see him identifying with all of our 'boy toys' and everything and he would be really comfortable in his skin and in his gender," she said at the time. "And at the same time, I wasnt."

"I thought it was the most natural thing in the world," Maines said. "I went up to my parents at 3 or 4 years old and I asked them when I would get to be a girl because I just expected that I would be."
Washington, PA (15301)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 82F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..

Tonight

Thunderstorms this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Low 56F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
The oil market continues to tighten, but the surge of coronavirus cases in the U.S. could derail the rally in crude prices. OPEC+ can claim most of the credit for engineering an oil price rally, keeping upwards of 9.7 million barrels per day (mb/d) offline for several months. The one-month extension through July added to the effort, as did the improved compliance. Although there is still the danger of demand outages in view of increased new cases of Covid-19, OPEC+ seems to have the market under control at the moment, Commerzbank wrote in a note on Wednesday.

The resurgence of demand has also boosted prices, despite the fact that demand remains significantly impaired relative to pre-pandemic levels. A smaller oil market has rebalanced and might even trade at a deficit for the remainder of 2020.

But the coronavirus continues to spread like wildfire in the U.S., Brazil, and India. The U.S. posted 48,000 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, a record high. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, warned that cases could top 100,000 per day if the current rate of infection is not slowed.

In the oil capital of Houston, ICU capacity is at 97 percent. Meanwhile, a total of 38 states now have an Rt value of over 1.0, meaning that each infected person is infecting more than one additional person  a sign that the spread is accelerating.

At least 19 states have paused or rolled back their reopening plans. New economic data shows that the nascent rebound has stalled in much of the country, and is now going into reverse.

Raymond James downplayed the significance of new closures in terms of its effect on the oil market, calling new shutdowns geographically localized.

In a global context, the trend is still broadly moving towards reopening, the bank said. While it is understandable that these stories are played up by the media, the fact of the matter is that these occurrences are essentially noise against the overarching backdrop of re-opening that continues to advance, so far, Raymond James analysts wrote in a note. The bank noted that of the 4.31 billion people that lived under some version of a lockdown in recent months, 3.56 billion are in areas that have now reopened, or 83 percent.

Related: Oil Rallies On Bullish EIA Inventory Data



Others see more trouble ahead. Although the oil price rally has stalled at about $40 per barrel, the downwards correction could justifiably have been greater due to the renewed spike in Covid-19 cases in the U.S. and the potential negative impact on demand, Standard Chartered wrote in a report.

[W]e remain wary of the sustainability of apparent increases in gasoline demand, as record-high new coronavirus cases in the top three gasoline-consuming US states (California, Texas and Florida) raise demand risks, and are at odds with recent market commentary based on a V-shaped recovery, Standard Chartered said.

Record-high inventories, increasing risks to demand, and the potential rapid return of shut-in production suggest to us that price recovery has run far ahead of what data trends can support, and that the longer oil prices take to correct lower, the larger that correction will likely need to be, the bank added.

Standard Chartered also said that Chinas strong oil import demand in recent weeks has less to do with a sharp recovery than it does with bargain-hunting in crude oil after the collapse in prices. Commodity markets are unlikely to be powered by a V-shaped recovery in import demand from Asia ex-China.

A few other negative factors are worth keeping an eye on. OPEC+ is leaning towards relaxing the production cuts at the end of the month, potentially returning 2 million barrels per day to the market. Although nothing has been decided, sources told Reuters that the production cuts could ease from 9.7 mb/d to 7.7 mb/d as soon as August.

Libya  which is not participating in the OPEC+ agreement  may also return some supply to the market. The bulk of the countrys output has been offline during the past year due to the civil war, but the failed siege on Tripoli by the Libyan National Army has led to negotiations and the potential restart of oil terminals.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has threatened a new price war if Angola and Nigeria do not up their compliance with the production cuts, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For now, though, oil traders are ignoring most of these bearish signals. The EIA reported a strong draw in crude inventories for the week ending on June 26, leading to price gains during midday trading on Wednesday.

The EIA data will likely lead crude benchmarks to keep their gains, and the enthusiasm could stay for a while, with traders longing for the next bunch of positive news, Rystad Energys oil markets analyst Louise Dickson said in a statement. However, Dickson noted a rather large caveat in the next sentence.

Keep an eye on Covid-19 though and how reported infections increase in the US and beyond, thats the Joker in the oil card deck, the analyst said.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Baker Hughes reported on Thursday that the number of oil and gas rigs in the US fell again this week, by 2, to 263, showing the second small loss in the number of active rigs in as many weeks after a long streak of major losses.

The total oil and gas rigs is now sitting at 700 fewer than this time last year.

The number of active oil and gas rigs in the United States has continued to decline over the last seventeen weeks.

The number of oil rigs decreased for the week by 3 rigs, according to Baker Hughes data, bringing the total to 185compared to 788 active rigs this time last year.

The total number of active gas rigs in the United States rose this week by a single rig, landing at 76 total rigs. This compares to 174 rigs a year ago.

To compare active rigs with supply figures, the EIAs estimate for oil production in the United States, which rose for the first time in eleven weeks for week ending June 19, held fast for the second week at 11 million barrels of oil per day for week ending June 26. Oil production in the United States is still 2.1 million bpd less than the all-time high for US production.

Canadas overall rig count rose this week by 5, settling at 18 active rigs. Oil and gas rigs in Canada are now down 102 year on year.

At 1:17pm, WTI was trading up 0.98% at $40.21 on the day and up almost $2 per barrel week over week. The Brent benchmark was trading up 1.31% at $42.58up roughly $1.50 per barrel from this time last week. The positive sentiment is thought to be triggered by better than expected jobs data.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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Angola is not too keen to compensate for its loose compliance with the OPEC+ cuts by making deeper production cuts in Q3, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing sources in the industry and OPEC.

OPECs top producer and de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, has been trying for weeks to persuade the laggards in the OPEC+ deal  namely Iraq, Nigeria, Angola, and Kazakhstan  to cut production in July, August, and September more than they are supposed to, in order to compensate for their failure to fully comply with the agreement in May and June.

OPEC+ agreed in June to extend the record production cuts of 9.7 million bpd by one month through the end of July, contingent on all countries in the pact complying 100 percent with their quotas and compensating for any lack of compliance by overachieving in the cuts in Q3.

At the video news conference following the OPEC+ meeting, Saudi Arabias Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, emphatically said that We have no room whatsoever for lack of conformity.

Still, Iraq, Nigeria, and Angola continued to pump above their targets in June as OPECs total production slumped to a three-decade low, thanks to the record production cuts and the extra efforts from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners to make further cuts last month.

Iraq  which has been the least compliant member of the coalition  has promised to compensate for the loose compliance in May and June with deeper cuts in July and the following months.

But Angola is not promising anything yet, according to Reuters sources.

Premium: The Country That Won The Oil War

Angola is saying they would not compensate for its overproduction in July-September like the rest of the countries but would be able to compensate only in October-December, an OPEC source told Reuters.

We are still trying to convince them, the source added.

Angola plans to deliver in August the full contractual volumes to customers in India and China, including MRPL, Indian Oil Corp (IOC), and Sinopecs trading unit Unipec, a source with knowledge of Angolas export plans told Reuters.

Just yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing delegates, that the Saudi Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, had threatened a new oil price war unless Angola and Nigeria toe the line.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Federal prosecutors in the United States are looking to seize Iranian gasoline on tankers currently en route to Venezuela by filing a civil-forfeiture complaint, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, as the U.S. steps up sanctions and pressure against both Iran and Venezuela.

Four tankers loaded with gasoline are currently traveling to Venezuela, after the first of five tankers carrying Iranian fuel for gasoline-starved Venezuela reached the country sitting on top of the worlds largest oil reserves in May.

Lack of diluents, lack of maintenance, lack of money, and lack of spare parts have forced Venezuelas refineries to operate at very low processing rates, if at all, and the holder of the worlds biggest oil reserves doesnt have enough gasoline for its people.

Iran is helping Venezuela and warned the United States in May not to interfere with any Iranian fuel shipments to Venezuela in Caribbean waters.

Now U.S. federal prosecutors are looking to seize the gasoline en route to Venezuela, prevent future shipments, and not allow Iran to take the payment for the delivery. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Zia Faruqui, said in the civil-forfeiture complaint that the U.S. alleges that Mahmoud Madanipour, a businessman connected with the designated terrorist organization Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has arranged the gasoline shipments, the Journal reported.

Iran and Venezuela cooperate in other ways to get Iranian help for Venezuelas oil industry, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams said earlier this year that Nicolas Maduros regime is paying Iran in gold for help with Venezuelas crumbling oil industry.

Those planes that are coming in from Iran that are bringing things for the oil industry are returning with the payments for those things: gold, Abrams said.

In April alone, Venezuela loaded 9 tons of gold, worth around US$500 million, on airplanes for Iran, in exchange for Iranian help for repairing Venezuelas crumbling refineries, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads from Oilprice.com:
Im not advocating for keeping our racist song. On top of its lyrics, I think Oh Christmas Tree is a stupid melody for a state song. But to pretend that Maryland was actually significantly divided on the concept of slavery or sympathy for the South during the Civil War seems to be an attempt to whitewash our history. We should be woke enough to admit that Maryland was part of the racist history of the United States. If we do change our state song, we should be putting a monument up listing our old songs lyrics and the new ones to say to the world that yes, we were racists but now we reject that past.
I agree that its well past time for Maryland to have a new state song (Shelve Marylands toxic state song now, June 25). But rather than completely eradicating Maryland, My Maryland, why not keep the stirring, well-known tune and fit it with lyrics celebrating our states history and beauty? I offer the following:
MANILA, Philippines  The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Wednesday said it will review its existing protocols to see if these are in need of improvements following the unfortunate incident involving a group of policemen and soldiers in Jolo, Sulu.

In a statement, AFP spokesperson Major General Edgard Arevalo said the AFP chief of staff General Felimon Santos Jr. and Philippine National Police chief Police General Archie Gamboa have agreed to revisit each Technique, Tactics, and Procedure (TTPs) to determine if these are current and are followed religiously to prevent the incident from happening again.

On Monday, June 29, four soldiers were killed after they were accosted by local police officers.

The Philippine Army earlier said the four men, who were wearing civilian clothes, were on an official mission when they were spotted by police officers on patrol.

When questioned by cops, the four men allegedly introduced themselves as members of the AFP. They were then asked to proceed to the Jolo Municipal Police Station for verification.

However, initial police report said the soldiers attempted to escape prompting police to give chase. When the men got off their vehicle, they allegedly pointed their firearms at the police, which prompted the cops to fire at them, resulting in their death.

But Philippine Army Commanding General Lieutenant General Gilbert Gapay criticized the spot report of the police, calling it fabricated, and full of inconsistencies. He also tagged the incident as a rubout and murder after noting that the soldiers did not try to escape and never fired a single shot towards police officers.

According to Arevalo, Gapays comments on the incident were based from a learned evaluation of information that were presented to him.

His point of view is supported by spot reports and eye-witness accounts of two civilians and of a motorcycle-riding soldier who was part of the operation trailing the SUV boarded by the four intelligence personnel, he said.

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While there is an initial result of the autopsy, Arevalo said the AFP will not reveal it yet to avoid preempting its announcement.

The slain soldiers were given military arrival honors when their remains were brought at Villamor Airbase in Pasay City on Tuesday afternoon.

We share the grief of LTGen Gapay and his call for an impartial and thorough investigation and his quest for justice as he minced no words in calling for accountability and liability for those involved in the incident, he added.

Arevalo also shared that as a way forward and apart from the yearning for justice, AFP chief Santos has tasked members of the staff and subordinate commanders to ensure that these soldiers who died in line of duty will be given the assistance, benefits, and entitlements due them.

The military also hopes for a swift yet thorough investigation of the incident, with the express cooperation of the PNP and the AFP.

While we are in search for truth and justice, we are also mindful not to allow the enemies of the state to take advantage of the incident to create a divide between the AFP and the PNP, Arevalo said.

The post AFP to assess tactics, procedures after Jolo incident appeared first on UNTV News.
For months, the commander-in-chief knew a Russian military intelligence unit was paying Taliban militants to assassinate American soldiers (NYT: Suspicions of Russian Bounties Were Bolstered by Data on Financial Transfers, June 30). Militants who killed our service members were given cash rewards by Russia. Despite being offered a menu of responses by U.S. officials, Commander-in-Chief Trump did nothing. The best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend was to do nothing. The ramifications of his decision are manifest and an abrogation of his oath. His deliberate inaction threatens our national security and significantly damages our country and our armed forces.
MANILA, Philippines  The Antipolo City government has ordered the lockdown of the citys public market after 18 of its tenants and vendors tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

The lockdown, which started on Tuesday (June 30), would be in effect for two weeks, according to Antipolo Mayor Andrea Ynares.

The patients are now in isolation for mandatory quarantine while disinfection procedures are currently being undertaken within the markets premises.

Meanwhile, the local government unit has started distributing relief goods to other tenants and vendors affected by the closure.

Ang amin pong paulit-ulit na panawagan sa atin pong mga kababayan ay sana po sumunod tayo sa mga umiiral na batas ngayon, mga alituntunin, appealed Relly Bernardo Jr. of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO).

[We constantly appeal to our constituents to follow health regulations, follow the law.]

Siguraduhin po na nakakasunod po tayo sa mga protocols gaya ng pagsusuot ng mask, regular hand sanitation, at physical distancing, he added.

[Always make sure that we are following protocols like wearing of masks, regular hand sanitation, and physical distancing.]

Likewise, the LGU is asking for help from the private markets in the city to conduct COVID-19 tests among their tenants.

The LGU added that private market owners can request from the city hall should they lack funds. MNP (with details from JP Nunez)

The post Antipolo City market on lockdown as 18 tenants, vendors contract COVID-19 appeared first on UNTV News.
MANILA, Philippines  The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Wednesday (July 1) denounced the claims made by lawyers and officials of ABS-CBN Corporation that it found the network compliant with labor laws and standards.

In a statement, the labor department said it denounces attempts by lawyers and officials of ABS-CBN to misrepresent its position to deceive members of the House of Representatives in its bid to gain congressional approval for a new franchise.

Additionally, DOLE denied ABS-CBNs claim that the department approves of the firms seasonal work status for its program employees.

DOLE said its inspectors found violations of labor practices on the part of ABS-CBN but added that the company took steps to correct those infractions.

It is therefore patently misleading to attribute to us the claim that ABS-CBN is a compliant company, the agency said adding that there are actually 67 pending cases against ABS-CBN in the National Labor Relation Commission (NLRC) and in various courts.

We also warn the broadcast firms counsels against wrongfully presenting policy issuances of the department to the advantage of their client, DOLE said.

The cited rule governing the employee-employer relationship in the broadcast industry 40 years ago, which is not aligned with the provisions of the Labor Code, does not anymore apply to date, it added.

The labor department said it will not let the matter pass.

The post DOLE denounces ABS-CBNs claim of compliance with labor practices appeared first on UNTV News.
MANILA, Philippines  President Rodrigo Duterte is set to fly to Mindanao to meet with top officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the wake of the killing of four soldiers by policemen in Jolo, Sulu last Monday, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said Thursday.

Ano, however, did not disclose the date and place of the presidents upcoming meeting with police and military commanders.

The Interior Secretary, who supervises the PNP, also said that Duterte may possibly talk to nine policemen involved in the shooting of soldiers.

The president is going to the south to talk to our PNP and AFP commanders, sabi ko nga kung may time pa siya ay kakausapin niya yung mga suspek, Ano said.

Malacanang said the president was saddened by the incident between the police and military officers.

He has also ordered for the National Bureau of Investigation to expedite the release of its probe findings.

The Palace also denied that the incident is the result of the alleged state-sponsored extrajudicial killings under the Duterte administration as claimed by former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.

Hindi po natin kinukunsinte ang patayan kaya nga po masinsinang imbestigasyon ang ginagawa natin dito sa pagpatay sa 4 na sundalo sa hukbong sandatahan, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.

Ano echoed Roques statement as he assured that those responsible for the Jolo incident will be held accountable.



Extrajudicial killing is not the policy of this government and the Sulu incident, we will exact justice and make sure those responsible shall be accountable, umasa kayo diyan. Ako mismo ang personal na nag-follow up ng kaso, he said.  RRD (with details from Correspondent Rosalie Coz)

The post Duterte to meet with AFP, PNP commanders following Jolo incident appeared first on UNTV News.
GCASH, the leading and preferred mobile wallet in the Philippines, has been tapped by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the disbursement of P16 billion of financial aid to over 2.4 million beneficiaries from seven regions in the country.

Through its partnership with GCash, the DSWD will be releasing the second tranche of its Social Amelioration Program (SAP) for beneficiaries nationwide.

The amount to be disbursed to beneficiaries GCash wallets range from P5,500 to P8,000 depending on the area. GCash is allowing the DSWD to tap its platform for the disbursement for free.

We at GCash believe in the value of partnerships, especially during times of great need. By providing the government with a safe, secure, transparent, convenient, and free disbursement platform, we are helping the Philippines win against the pandemic, GCash president and chief executive officer Martha Sazon said.

Beneficiaries of the second tranche of the SAP may use their mobile wallets for a variety of financial services.

GCash empowers users to pay for physical and online transactions to over 75,000 merchants, transact with over 400 billers and transfer funds to over 40 banks in the Philippines.

GCash users may also use their GCash wallets to buy airtime load, save money, invest in money market funds and purchase insurance products.

They also have the option of cashing out their financial assistance from partner establishments such as Puregold, Villarica Pawnshops, as well as ATMs through their GCash MasterCard.

Aside from disbursing the second tranche of SAP, GCash has also been assisting other national government agencies and local government units in distributing financial aid to Filipinos adversely affected by the national health situation.

So far, GCash has disbursed close to P2 billion in financial aid to more than 335,000 Filipinos.

Among its government partners are Makati City, Quezon City and Pasig City, as well as the Department of Transportation-Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board and the Social Security System.

We are happy to see that our platform is being used for the good of the many, especially those who are most in need. With GCash, we are providing a better alternative to physical distribution of cash aid, which can pose great health risks not only for beneficiaries, but also to government employees and volunteers, Sazon said. (PR)
MANILA, Philippines  Senator Panfilo Lacson has urged Philippine Army Commanding General Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay to temper his emotions over the killing of four soldiers by police officers in Jolo, Sulu.

While I can easily relate to Philippine Army Commanding General Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay and understand how he feels about the Army officers slain in Sulu, emotions running high at this point is the last thing they need, Lacson said in a statement on Wednesday.

Gapay earlier denounced the slay of his men, describing the incident as rubout and murder. He also called for the sacking of Sulus police chief following the incident.

Lacson, a former chief of Philippine National Police (PNP), said that decisiveness, not divisiveness is needed as he warned that terrorists and armed insurgents may exploit the situation.

For all they know, their common enemies such as the terrorists and armed insurgents are already celebrating the Sulu incident  and even making plans to exploit it, he said.

The senator said the enemies of the state are very capable of fanning the flames of animosity between the police and military by creating intrigues to further divide the countrys two major security forces.

Lacson also said that enemies of the State, through their legal fronts, have been sowing disinformation about the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and the National ID System.

Ultimately, decisiveness, not divisiveness, is needed in dealing with the enemies of the State and the Filipino people, he said.

On June 29, four soldiers were fatally shot by police officers some meters away from the Jolo police station.

Police said the military officers attempted to escape and opened fire at them while on their way to a nearby police station for identity verification. However, the Philippine Army disputed this claim, saying the soldiers did not try to flee and never fired a single shot towards police officers.

The nine police officers involved in the incident, as well as the chief of Jolo police station have been relieved from their posts.

The National Bureau of Investigation is already conducting a probe into the incident.

The post Lacson tells Army chief Gapay to temper emotions over slay of 4 soldiers appeared first on UNTV News.
THERES a group of harpists who call themselves the South Harp Trio. To know more about them, SunStar LIVE! interviewed Cebu-based Cecile Angela Abellana, 14; Mariella Beverly Bugtai, 20; and Cagayan de Oro-based Micah Luy, 15, by email.

SunStar LIVE! (SSL): How did you learn to play the harp?

Mariella: In March 2018, Maam JoAnn Cerdenia came to Cebu to give lessons at the Classic Orchestra Music Studio (Coms). She has a harp school in Quezon City and visits Cebu to give lessons and recitals.

Micah: JoAnn Cerdenia was my piano teacher when I was five years old. I have been playing the violin for five years. I also play the viola. The only reason I started playing the harp was when Maam JoAnn asked if I wanted to learn it. I thought it would be difficult but when I continued with the lesson, I started to like the harp more and more.

SSL: What particularly do you like in the sound of a harp?

Mariella: The harp is a unique and elegant instrument. I love how it relaxes the listeners and especially me, the player. The harp has a natural lullaby sound and when we play it, it calms my soul.

Angela: The harp has a gentle and soothing sound. It may depend on the piece being played but most of the time it is a calming sound, and it makes me relaxed and calm.

Micah: Theres a calming sound that the harp makes whenever I play it.

SSL: What other instruments do you play?

Mariella: I play piano and percussion. I ventured into playing the harp as there are not many harpists in the Philippines, so being able to play it excites me and I feel a sense of responsibility to continue playing the harp. It is a great honor to inspire others to appreciate the instrument and to help the growth of the harp community.

Angela: I played the piano since I was six. I also play the violin with the Classic Youth Orchestra, the Adventist Academy Cebu Orchestra and the Cebu Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. I am also part of the Harmonic Youth Choir as second soprano. When I started to play the harp, it was like a combination of my first instrument and the violin. A harp has strings like the violin but the strings are arranged like a piano. A lot of people do not play the harp so I wanted to try something new.

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SSL: Are there harps available in Cebu?

Angela: My father, Rey Abellana (the man behind Coms) borrowed two harps from the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation Inc. (SPSFI) but the strings had to be replaced. He asked around for sponsors for the strings as a set cost P45,000. It was only after two years that he was able to get the strings, from Maam JoAnn herself and from her student, Miss Elizabeth Sy. The harps we are using are Celtic harps. We have a pedal and a lever. The locally made harps are played by using the fingernails to pluck at the metal strings. There are no sharps or flats and consists only of the C major scale.

Mariella: There are many local harps made in Cebu but not of the quality performance. The harp I use is from SPSFI, borrowed by Coms.

SSD: What made you perform as a trio?

Mariella: It all started with Maam Cerdenia who told us we would be competing as a trio. We flew to Manila to prepare for the competition and thats how we all met.

Angela: I was asked if I wanted to join a competition in Singapore. I accepted, since it would be a nice chance to have an experience in competing internationally, and it would be my first. I also liked the challenge of playing as a group and I also expected to meet other harpists.

Micah: I was asked to compete with Angela and Mariella for the Singapore Harpfest 2019.

SSD: How did you come up with your name?

Micah: We never really considered having a name for the trio until earlier this year when we were asked for a name. Sir Hans, husband of Maam JoAnn, suggested the name.

SSD: What did you win in the Singapore competition and how did you prepare for it?

Micah: The competition for the harpfest was online. We recorded our entries and sent it to the jury. We practiced around three weeks and it was very, very intense. A month later, we were informed we were second in our category and we were given the chance to perform in Singapore for the Harpfest in September 2019.

Mariella: The competition had different categories like composition, solo performance, duets, chamber music.

SSD: How many times have you performed publicly as a group? Any more competitions to enter?

Angela: The first was when we had a recital before we recorded our presentation at the Harp Room Hall. The next was when we recorded our video for the competition in one of the halls of the UP Diliman College of Music, where there was also an audience. Then, a farewell recital before we left for Singapore. We also played at the birthday concert for Dr. Ingrid Sala Santamaria and in Robinsons Galleria.

Micah: We have not participated in any other competition but if given the chance, I would participate in it mostly for the experience.

According to Rey Abellana, JoAnn Cerdenia is from Cebu. She left Cebu for Germany to further her music studies. When she came back, she settled in Metro Manila and established the Harp Room, the only harp school in the Philippines. Years back, she often flies to Cebu to look for a partner with a music studio so she could teach Cebuanos to play the harp. It was only two years ago that she met up with Abellana and now there are classic harpists in Cebu. The South Harp Trio is the only trio of harpists in the Philippines.
MANILA, Philippines  Senator Francis Pangilinan is calling for an inquiry into the killing of four soldiers by local policemen in Jolo, Sulu.

Nakakabahala ang balitang ito. Ngayon pa lang na hindi pa batas ang anti-terror bill, may nangyayari nang ganito. Ano na lang ang laban ng ordinaryong tao? Pangilinan said in a statement on Wednesday.

On Monday afternoon, June 29, four members of the Philippine Army were fatally shot by police officers some meters away from the Jolo police station.

The Army said the four soldiers were on an official mission and were tracking suspected suicide bombers when they were accosted by the local police.

The soldiers, who had been wearing plain clothes, were said to have introduced themselves to the policemen. The cops allegedly told them to go with them to a nearby police station for identity verification.

Initial police report said that as their team and Army officers approached the police station, the soldiers vehicle allegedly sped off, prompting a car chase.

Police said they only defended themselves when the soldiers opened fire.

The Army disputed this claim, saying the soldiers did not try to escape and never fired a single shot towards police officers based on eye-witness accounts of two civilians and of a motorcycle-riding soldier who was part of the operation trailing the soldiers vehicle.

Pangilinan said the police and military have different versions of what happened, and an independent and impartial Senate probe will help bring out the truth.

This incident is disturbing because it appears that the police are quick in pulling the trigger without careful judgment. If they can do this to their fellow uniformed men, how much more to the ordinary civilians who are unarmed and defenseless? the senator said.

Nevertheless, Pangilinan called on military and police ground commanders to rein in their men to preserve peace and avert escalation of tension between the armed personnel.

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We should be going after the common enemy  terrorists, drug lords, armed groups, and in this time of the pandemic, COVID  not against each other, Pangilinan said.

The Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines earlier said they have requested the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct an impartial probe into the incident.

The nine policemen involved in the incident, as well as the chief of Jolo police station have also been ordered relieved from their posts pending investigation.

The post Pangilinan seeks Senate probe on fatal shooting of 4 soldiers in Jolo appeared first on UNTV News.
CCTV footage of the soldiers who responded to the site where four military personnel were shot by police

MANILA, Philippines  A Facebook post of former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Ricardo Visaya sparked anger among netizens against alleged members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in the video.

The former military chief himself criticized what he called as mishandling of the crime scene by alleged cops in the video.

The post was shared around 10,000 times and has drawn nearly 2,000 comments against the PNP.

READ: Misencounter between soldiers and police in Jolo kills 4

But according to the Police Regional Office in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR) Director PBGen. Manuel Abu, the men in the video were actually Army personnel in civilian clothes who first responded to the shooting site.

He said, even the person who entered the vehicle and moved the bodies of the victims was a soldier.

Iyon ang masaklap kasi nagresponde ang mga sundalo, kinuha nila ang mga laman, kaya pati mga baril pinagkukuha nila, Abu explained.

(Thats the problem because the soldiers responded to the scene, moved the bodies, and took the victims firearms.)

Hindi na hinintay iyong SOCO. Ibig sabihin baka wala silang alam o baka may itinatago, he added.

(They did not wait for the SOCO [Scene of the Crime Operatives]. Either they were ignorant of the procedures or they were hiding something.)

The Philippine Army admitted that the men in the video were indeed soldiers and according to Army Spokesperson Col. Ramon Zagala, the one who moved a body and placed a pillow behind its head was actually the brother of the victim, Cpl. Abdal Asula.

They checked ang pulse kung may buhay and then secured the vehicle. So from take down team to rescue to recovery at makikita mo rin sa video na parang bumubukas ang pinto. Iyong bumubukas na pinto iyon ay brother ng isa naming operative, Zagala explained.

(They checked the pulse if there was sign of life and then they secured the vehicle. So from take down to rescue to recovery, you will see in the video that someone was opening the door. That person is the brother of one of our operatives.)

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Kasi alam niya na ang brother niya ay iyong driver. So out of his instinct, sinu-sure niya ang gamit ng brother niya, he added.

(Because he knew that his brother was the driver. So out of instinct, he was securing his brothers belongings.)

READ: PNP admits no misencounter in Jolo incident

But Abu said the PNP might file cases against the soldiers for intruding into the shooting site.

Baka pakasuhan ko pa nga sila ng obstruction of justice kasi pagka-ganyan na may namatay na hindi dapat guluhin ang encounter site. Ginulo nila, the official said.

(I might even file charges against them for obstruction of justice considering that there were fatalities. The encounter site shouldnt be touched. They messed it up.)

Based on the PNPs version, the nine police suspects were still in the area when the responding soldiers arrived.

However, they chose to keep distance in fear of another gunfight.

Nine lang ang mga pulis na involved. They were in uniform. Nang dumating iyang mga nagresponde na Army na mga nakasibilyan, natakot ang mga pulis. Pumwesto sa gilid gilid kasi galit na galit ang mga Army. Baka magkabarilan ulit, Abu noted.

(Only nine policemen were involved. They were in uniform. When the responding Army team in civilian clothes arrived, the policemen became anxious. They positioned themselves at the sides as the soldiers were very furious. They feared starting another gunfight.)

But AFP Western Mindanao Command Spokesperson Major Arvin Encinas has a different version of what happened, saying the police suspects fled the scene before the responding soldiers arrived.

Right after nila binaril yung tropa, tumakas naman yung mga pulis na yun, umalis supposedly kung talagang hinabol nila eh di kinordon nila yung area, Encinas said.

(Right after they gunned down our troops, they fled. Supposedly, if the police were indeed chasing the soldiers, they should have cordoned the area.)

Pero right after na binaril nila, tumakas sila sa scene. Umalis, he added.

(But right after they shot the soldiers, they fled from the scene. They escaped.)

READ: Jolo police chief sacked over fatal shooting of soldiers

The investigation on the incident is ongoing but Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano already has a copy of the initial result of the investigation being conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). MNP (with details from Lea Ylagan)

The post Soldiers who rushed to Jolo shooting site may be charged with obstruction of justice  PBGen. Abu appeared first on UNTV News.
More than 800 people were killed or wounded in "deliberate attacks" targeting civilians in Afghanistan during the first half of 2020, the UN said Thursday, raising concerns the rising violence was aimed at derailing planned peace talks. While violence dropped in the run-up to the signing of a deal between the US and the Taliban in February, and immediately after a three-day ceasefire in May, attacks have since been increasing across the country. "In the first six months of 2020, preliminary figures indicate more than 800 civilians were killed and injured in deliberate attacks against civilians," the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement. The mission said the Taliban were responsible for half of those casualties. The insurgents and Afghan forces have regularly clashed across provinces, but in recent weeks attacks have targeted prosecutors, religious leaders, worshippers, journalists, healthcare and human rights workers. In May, a brazen daylight assault on a hospital in Kabul saw armed men rampaging through a maternity ward, killing 25 people including 16 mothers. The Taliban have denied responsibility for this and many other attacks, but acknowledge fighting government forces in the provinces. The bloodshed comes as the Taliban and Afghan authorities prepare to launch much-delayed peace talks aimed at ending the country's nearly two-decade-old war. "It's taken enormous work and some brave decisions for Afghans to reach the point of being on the eve of unprecedented intra-Afghan negotiations," UNAMA chief Deborah Lyons said. "There are spoilers who do not wish to see an end to war. No matter what tactics they employ to de-rail the peace process, they cannot be allowed to succeed." UNAMA urged the Taliban and Afghan authorities not to target civilians and push on with efforts to de-escalate the conflict ahead of upcoming talks. Under the US-Taliban deal, the insurgents were originally supposed to begin peace talks with the Kabul government in March. No start date has been announced.
An Australian white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers in last year's New Zealand mosque shootings will be sentenced next month after delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, court documents revealed Friday. Far-right extremist Brenton Tarrant was convicted in March of 51 murder charges, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism, after dropping his previous not guilty plea. At the time, New Zealand was in COVID-19 lockdown, meaning surviving victims and families of the slain could not attend court to see him sentenced. The South Pacific nation has since contained the virus, allowing social distancing rules to be suspended, which High Court judge Cameron Mander said cleared the way for Tarrant to be sentenced on August 24. "Now, in the absence of community transmission of the COVID-19 virus in New Zealand, our courts have returned to normal operations," Mander said in a judicial minute released Friday. "The public and, importantly, victims and their families living in New Zealand can attend court sittings." He said three days had been set aside for the sentencing but added "the hearing will take as long as is necessary". New Zealand does not have the death penalty but Tarrant, a former gym instructor from the Australian country town of Grafton, faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars. The terror and murder charges all carry life sentences, setting a minimum non-parole period of 17 years but giving the judge power to imprison without the possibility of release. Mander acknowledged that some victims and support people based overseas wanted sentencing delayed so they could attend in person, but pointed out that borders were likely to remain closed for a long period. "In the meantime the proceeding will continue to drift. That is an unsatisfactory situation," he said. The judge said livestream links could be set up for those based overseas to give victim impact statements. He said many other victims were finding the lengthy court case "exhausting and frustrating" and wanted it to come to an end. "They wish sentencing to happen as soon as realistically possible," he said. "Finality and closure is considered by some as the best means of bringing relief to the Muslim community." Tarrant armed himself with an arsenal of semi-automatic weapons and attacked the Al Noor mosque first, before moving on to the Linwood prayer centre, livestreaming the killings as he went. His victims were all Muslim and included children, women and the elderly. In a rambling manifesto posted online before the killing spree, Tarrant said he had moved to New Zealand with the specific aim of conducting an atrocity against Muslims. His actions prompted New Zealand to tighten gun laws and step up efforts to curb online extremism.
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, a former Utah Teacher of the Year who got her start in schools as a lunch lady, will soon step down as president of the National Education Association.

Eskelsen Garcia, age 65, has been at the helm of the nations largest labor union for six years nowduring which she has overseen the appointment of an education secretary who has frequently clashed with teachers unions, a historic wave of teacher activism, a U.S. Supreme Court blow to unions, and now a global pandemic that has changed how schools operate.

When she first took office in 2014 , her priority was getting rid of the high stakes attached to standardized test scores, including their use in teacher evaluations. In 2015, Congress passed a new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, that gave states testing flexibility and reduced the emphasis of test scores on teacher evaluations.

Eskelsen Garcia then turned her focus to sparring with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over the administrations push for more school choice. In her characteristic blunt manner, Eskelsen Garcia has accused DeVos of trying to destroy public schools, and has tried to block the administrations budget proposals that funded school choice initiatives.

She also led the union through the immediate aftermath of the 2018 Supreme Court decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31 , which said teachers unions cannot collect fees for collective bargaining from workers who decline to join the union. The decision caused the loss of nearly 90,000 fee-payers and made it easier for teachers to leave the union. However, the steep membership losses that were initially projected have not yet materialized.

Its all about talking to new folks and old folks about what you have to offer, Eskelsen Garcia said. You dont take it for granted. You have to inspire them to want to belong to you.

Meanwhile, teachers have gained public support through the Red for Ed movement, in which teachers across the country staged walkouts and demonstrations to call for higher pay and more school funding. Teachers in about a dozen states were supposed to get a pay raise this year, at least until the pandemics impact on the economy jeopardized those plans .

The NEA constitution prohibits Eskelsen Garcia from seeking a third term, so on July 2 and 3, she will perform one of her last duties as president and lead the Representative Assembly, which she has attended in some capacity for more than 30 years. The annual meetingwhich is mostly closed to press for the first time this yearwill be virtual and scaled down from previous years . Delegates will hear from Joe Biden, vote to endorse him in the general election, approve the unions budget, and elect new NEA officers, including a new president.

The election is between NEA Vice President Becky Pringle, special education teacher Mark Airgood, and 8th grade teacher Mark Norberg. Since the votes will be cast via mail, the new NEA president will not be announced until August, but Pringle is expected to win.

Education Week called Eskelsen Garcia to discuss her tenure as president, how the movement for racial equity is showing up in schools, and her hopes for the teaching profession, post-pandemic. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Youve had a very eventful two terms as NEA president. How do you think the teaching profession has changed over the past six years?

When I became president six years ago, which feels like 600 years ago, ... I had the opportunity to sit and brainstorm with some pretty incredible people. And when they said, Whats your priority going to be? I said, We have to get rid of No Child Left Behind. And folks shook their heads and went, Well, yeah, weve got a long legislative agenda here, and thats certainly on it. I went, No, no, no, you dont understand why that comes up for me. ... It is corrupting what it means to teach. It is corrupting our profession.

It was so much more than a law. It was the epitome of everything that people who didnt know what they were talking about were doing to public education. [When people ask me what my top accomplishments are, its] standing behind Barack Obama, watching him sign a piece of paper that meant the end of No Child Left Untested. ... That was more than a change in the law. That was the crack in the dam that made everybody question what all these so-called non-education experts were saying, that all you have to do is run public schools like a factory.

Now, we dont talk about standardizing, we talk about humanizing. We talk about looking at that whole blessed childmind, body, and characterand it has brought us to this place where today we are watching racial justice marches in the street. And we have prepared the ground for talking about the whole child, and talking about why Black lives matter, and why Black student lives have not mattered in too many cases in schools.

If anything, in six years, what Im most proud of is were no longer looking for easy solutions and one-size-fits-all. When you talk about that child and that childs needs, you have to look at it all.

[W]e made a very strong statement in support of Black Lives Matter in this last tragedyI think 10 to 15 years ago, when you talked about race, when you talked about LGBTQ [issues], when you talked about justice issues, whoever was [NEA] president would get a phone call [from an affiliate] saying, Oh, please dont do that. Our members dont like that. Thats not really what we do, why do we have to take a position on that? Now, I didnt get one of those calls. In fact, what I got was dozens of our affiliates sharing with me the statement they made in support of Black Lives Matter.

So we have had an incredible transformation, looking not only at the whole child and the business were in of nurturing the whole child. Were now saying, That childs world is our business. Whether or not that childs parent is facing discrimination ... is our business. And Im so proud of that.

Your election marked the first time in the NEAs history that three women of color filled the top leadership positions [president, vice president, and secretary-treasurer]. And the next NEA president could be a Black woman. At a time when schools are taking part in the national reckoning on race, can you talk about what it means to have such a diverse leadership team representing a mostly white profession?

Its the first time weve had three women [in the leadership team]. Weve never had three women, weve never had three people of color. Now, we have two African Americans, and Im Latina. I think it makes it so that even when we have members or affiliate leaders saying, Our core business is really advocating for our members and negotiating contracts and your sick leave and your health care and protecting pensions, you have Becky and Princess [Moss] and me saying, Heres why we care about DACA. Heres why we care about the fact that we were able to talk about this.

We looked at our members who were losing their lives because of COVID, and overwhelmingly they are African Americans who worked in the support of the schoolthey were the lunch ladies, the custodians. They were people who were not particularly well-paid. They were paraprofessionals who didnt have health-care benefits, and they were our members. So when we sit there and were actually the messenger and the messageheres the story of our livesnobodys going to argue with us, even if they want to. Theyre not going to question the lives weve led.

The fact that it took my husband six years to get his green card. The fact that my mother decided when I was a kid not to teach her children Spanish because people dont like hearing Spanish, Lily. They wont like you. The lives we lead and have led are part of the message. When we go out to a press conference or to talk to members, we talk about, Heres why this is important to me, and how it impacted my family. I have a gay son. When someone says, Lets not talk about the gays, [I say], Let me tell you about how that impacted him when he was in high school.

We have expanded internally and externally what it means to say all students will be prepared for lives they deserve to live. All our members will be respected and have a chance at succeeding in their professions. You have to talk about difficult issues like social and racial justice. You have to talk about why womens leadership is still something thats not the reality in much of our country, and in a lot of places, our own affiliates, when you see men being elected and women struggling to be seen as leaders. So yes, were going to develop leadership training, were going to budget for it, were going to invest in it until its a reality.

I love being part of a historic team and seeing the kind of gains were making. When you look at Janus, it was supposed to be a nail in our coffin. And who was president at the NEA at a time when that happened? A woman from Utah. And it didnt destroy my union.

The NEAs proposed budget shows that the NEA is projecting to lose more than 100,000 members over the next year. Does that concern you?

Its not because of Janus. Its because of this pandemic. Here is what is happeningyou have to prepare for politicians being stupid. ... Right now, school board members are meeting on some Zoom callits a five-alarm fire. If you are funded by the income tax, and people are being laid off of their jobs, businesses are closing, people arent being hired. Your funding source just fell off a cliff. And simultaneously, we are trying to be very creative about how you could possibly open schools in the fall. ... Everything were coming up with, were going to have to ask for more. We may not be able to make payroll. Were going to have to lay people off if [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell doesnt get off his seatbecause hes sitting on the HEROES Act that the House sent him that would have sent emergency funds to every school district so they didnt have to lay people off.

We have to plan for COVID layoffs, and thats where thats coming from. ... Our push right now is to get millions of people to call Mitch McConnell [and] senators. Were going to reflect the worst-case scenario in our budget, but we are doing a full-court press to make sure that doesnt happen.

Is there anything that you wanted to get done as president that you were unable to do? Do you have any regrets?

The work that is going to be with us forever, at least in my lifetime, is really going to be having people focus on trying to fix public schools. Theyll say, Heres a good public school, heres a not-good public school. I could never get enough people to see what I see. As people are saying, Well, lets try to get equal test scores"[buzzer sound] wrong answer! Or, Lets make it more competitive to be a teacher, lets make it harder to be a teacher, lets make it easier to be a teacher, lets do it online. Everybody kept saying, There are some schools that have so little, how are we going to get them the best teachers?

And I would scream. I have been actually known to scream and grab someones face and say, Listen to how easy it is. Go into the best public school in your state, ... and just take a quick inventory. Because the most affluent parents in your state know exactly what their kids need to have an edge to get into the best universities to have the best chance to succeed.

That is what every child needs and should have. ... I guarantee you white communities will be our standard for every school. ... [People would say], We could never afford to do that. And thats when I screamed and I said, We did afford itfor those kids. That is the foundation of our education system. It was designed to advantage certain communities, white affluent communities. It was designed to disadvantage, at worst, or to simply neglect, at best, poorer Black and brown communities. That is job one if we want to transform this system. Every school should look like our best public school, or we have not arrived. And we have not arrived.

Do you think law enforcement officers should be in school buildings?

I have great misgivings about that, and I am highly supportive of local school districts and school boards and our own associations across the country who are now doing a very deep analysis as to if that was ever a good idea.

I know that I have talked to friends whose kids are in white upper class or upper middle class neighborhoods. They are so grateful to have a police officer in their school. Theyre saying dont take the police officer away because that person is there to to save my child from an active shooter. If you go into a Black community that has had a very different experience with police officers in that community, ... a police officer in the school is more likely to be seen as the school disciplinarian. Now thats a very different role than if an active shooter comes, hes going to protect you. This person is [there] to discipline the students. ... Breaking a school rule can become criminalized, and it starts the school-to-prison pipeline.

I think it is incumbent on every single school district to do a deep analysis of our Black and brown children being disproportionately disciplined. And is that discipline appropriate, or is it being criminalized when it should have been an hour [of] after-school detention? I have grave concerns about armed police officers in schools. And I absolutely support people who say, We are going to rethink if that was the best use of our pitiful resources.

What do you think is next for the teaching profession? Their jobs will look a lot different this fall.

They will, but here is what I have always wanted for my profession. I started teaching in 1980. I didnt have a politician looking over my shoulder, saying, Heres the book you have to use. Heres how many minutes of reading I want you to have for your 6th graders. No, you cant have a science fair, thats not going to get our test scores up two points. I was the queen of everything. I was all powerful. My students knew it. And in the best way, they were part of what our lessons wereI was very project-based. ... I did all of those things because I decided my kids would love learning if I did those things.



My hope for the teaching profession is that people will recognize us for the creative, important, vital leaders of communities, and get out of our way and let us do our jobs in ways that bring teaching and learning to life. ... I want them to let us love our students in ways that make those kids sit up and believe in themselves and work harder than they ever thought they could work. Thats what I see happening, and its all part of the Red for Ed movement.

Finally, I am seeing a movement of teachers saying, I will be respected. And you will do right by my kids. And that is what is happening in red states and blue states and Republican states and Democratic states. And I got to see that. I got to be there and march in those parades. And that made me as proud of my profession as I have ever been in my life.

Whats next for you? What are your plans?

Im cleaning out my office, and Im taking plants off the wall, and Im looking at newspapers with headlines, some of which we talked about. And Im doing it with a smile on my face. You said, Do you have any regrets? No, I dont. I have a lot of mistakes I made. Thats different. Oh, to have been here at such a historic time, to believe that the next president of the NEA will be a game-changerand I got to do something about helping Becky Pringle be ready to take this on. [Editors note: A spokeswoman for Eskelsen Garcia clarified that she was speaking in support of Pringle as an NEA member, not in her capacity as NEA president.]



She has an election to win. But why do I support her in that election? Because she asks the right questions. She is smart and passionate. She does not suffer fools gladly. Get out of this womans way, because shes going to get something done. She will be the kind of person that grabs that baton and takes off in a cloud of dust, and I got to feel like I helped her prepare for that. So Ill ride off into the sunset. No, no definite plans at all. But Ill find another adventure. Im project-based, Ill find a project for myself.

Do you see yourself staying in the education world?

Its my life, its my love. Im a power freak, I am a control freak, and I believe that the most powerful people on the planet are educators. Christa McAuliffe [the teacher who was killed in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster] wasnt kidding [when she said], I touch the future, I teach. Its what we do. We do that for a living! We get paid for changing the world. Theres no better work than that.

Image: National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia speaks at a news conference on Nov. 1, 2017. Andrew Harnik/AP
A few people will be responsible for the bulk of a disease's spread. Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Perovskite structure. Credit: John Labram, Oregon State University.

Solar energy researchers at Oregon State University are shining their scientific spotlight on materials with a crystal structure discovered nearly two centuries ago.

Not all materials with the structure, known as perovskites, are semiconductors. But perovskites based on a metal and a halogen are, and they hold tremendous potential as photovoltaic cells that could be much less expensive to make than the silicon-based cells that have owned the market since its inception in the 1950s.

Enough potential, researchers say, to perhaps someday carve significantly into fossil fuels' share of the energy sector.

John Labram of the OSU College of Engineering is the corresponding author on two recent papers on perovskite stability, in Communications Physics and the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, and also contributed to a paper published today in Science.

The study in Science, led by researchers at the University of Oxford, revealed that a molecular additivea salt based on the organic compound piperidinegreatly improves the longevity of perovskite solar cells.

The findings outlined in all three papers deepen the understanding of a promising semiconductor that stems from a long-ago discovery by a Russian mineralogist. In the Ural Mountains in 1839, Gustav Rose came upon an oxide of calcium and titanium with an intriguing crystal structure and named it in honor of Russian nobleman Lev Perovski.

Perovskite now refers to a range of materials that share the crystal lattice of the original. Interest in them began to accelerate in 2009 after a Japanese scientist, Tsutomu Miyasaka, discovered that some perovskites are effective absorbers of light.

"Because of their low cost, perovskite solar cells hold the potential to undercut fossil fuels and revolutionize the energy market," Labram said. "One poorly understood aspect of this new class of materials, however, is their stability under constant illumination, an issue which represents a barrier to commercialization."

Over the past two years, Labram's research group in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has built unique experimental apparatus to study changes in conductance of solar materials over time.

"Teaming up with the University of Oxford, we demonstrated that light-induced instability occurs over many hours, even in the absence of electrical contact," he said. "The findings help clarify similar results observed in solar cells and hold the key to improving the stability and commercial viability of perovskite solar cells."

Solar cell efficiency is defined by the percentage of power from sunlight hitting a cell that is converted to usable electrical power.

Apparatus for testing. Credit: John Labram, Oregon State University

Seven decades ago, Bell Labs developed the first practical solar cell. It had a modest, by today's standards, efficiency of 6% and was costly to make, but it found a niche in powering the satellites launched during the nascent days of the space race.

Over time, manufacturing costs decreased and efficiencies climbed, even though most cells have not changed very muchthey still consist of two layers of nearly pure silicon doped with an additive. Absorbing light, they use the energy from it to create an electric current across the junction between them.

In 2012, one of Labram's collaborators, Henry Snaith of Oxford, made the breakthrough discovery that perovskites could be used as the main component in solar cells, rather than just as a sensitizer. This led to a storm of research activity and thousands of scientific papers being published each year on the subject. Eight years of research later, perovskite cells can now operate at 25% efficiencymaking them, at least in the lab, on par with commercial silicon cells.

Perovskite cells can be inexpensively manufactured from commonly available industrial chemicals and metals and can be printed onto flexible films of plastic and mass produced. Silicon cells, conversely, are rigid and made from thinly sliced wafers of almost pure silicon in an expensive, high-temperature process.

One issue with perovskites is their tendency to be somewhat unstable when temperatures rise, and another is a vulnerability to moisturea combination that can make the cells decompose. That's a problem for a product that needs to last two or three decades in open air.

"In general, to be able to sell a solar panel in the U.S. and Europe requires a 25-year warranty," Labram said. "What that means in reality is the solar cell should show no less than 80% of its original performance after 25 years. The current technology, silicon, is pretty good for that. But silicon has to be expensively produced in temperatures of greater than 2,000 degrees Celsius under controlled conditions, to form perfect, defect-free crystals, so they function properly."

Perovskites on the other hand are highly defect tolerant, Labram said.

"They can be dissolved in a solvent, then printed at close to room temperature," he said. "This means they could eventually be produced at a fraction of the cost of silicon, and hence undercut fossil fuels. However, for this to happen, they need to be certifiable with a 25-year warranty. This requires us to understand and improve the stability of these materials."

One path to the marketplace is a tandem cell made of both silicon and perovskites that could turn more of sunlight's spectrum into energy. Lab tests on tandem cells have produced efficiencies of 28%, and efficiencies in the mid-30s seem realistic, Labram said.

"Tandem cells might allow solar panel producers to offer a performance beyond anything silicon alone might achieve," he said. "The dual approach could help remove the barrier to perovskites entering the market, on the way to perovskites eventually acting as stand-alone cells."

Semi-transparent, perovskite films may also one day be used on windows, or in greenhouses, converting part of the incoming sunlight to electricity while letting the rest pass through.

"When it comes to energy generation, cost is the most important factor," Labram said. "Silicon and perovskites now show roughly the same efficiency. In the long term, however, perovskite solar cells have the potential to be made at a fraction of the cost of silicon solar cells. And while history has shown us that political action on climate change is largely ineffective, if you can generate electricity from renewable sources at a lower cost than fossil fuels, all you have to do is to make the product, then the market will take care of the rest."

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To calculate your dog's age in "human years" based on epigenetics, find the dog's age along the bottom axis and trace your finger straight up until you reach the red curve. Then trace your finger straight over to the left to find the corresponding human age. Credit: Cell Press

If there's one myth that has persisted through the years without much evidence, it's this: multiply your dog's age by seven to calculate how old they are in "human years." In other words, the old adage says, a four-year-old dog is similar in physiological age to a 28-year-old person.

But a new study by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine throws that out the window. Instead, they created a formula that more accurately compares the ages of humans and dogs. The formula is based on the changing patterns of methyl groups in dog and human genomeshow many of these chemical tags and where they're locatedas they age. Since the two species don't age at the same rate over their lifespans, it turns out it's not a perfectly linear comparison, as the 1:7 years rule-of-thumb would suggest.

The new methylation-based formula, published July 2 in Cell Systems, is the first that is transferrable across species. More than just a parlor trick, the researchers say it may provide a useful tool for veterinarians, and for evaluating anti-aging interventions.

"There are a lot of anti-aging products out there these dayswith wildly varying degrees of scientific support," said senior author Trey Ideker, Ph.D., professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center. "But how do you know if a product will truly extend your life without waiting 40 years or so? What if you could instead measure your age-associated methylation patterns before, during and after the intervention to see if it's doing anything?" Ideker led the study with first author Tina Wang, Ph.D., who was a graduate student in Ideker's lab at the time.

The formula provides a new "epigenetic clock," a method for determining the age of a cell, tissue or organism based on a readout of its epigeneticschemical modifications like methylation, which influence which genes are "off" or "on" without altering the inherited genetic sequence itself.

Epigenetic changes provide scientists with clues to a genome's age, Ideker saidmuch like wrinkles on a person's face provide clues to their age.

Ideker and others have previously published epigenetic clocks for humans, but they are limited in that they may only be accurate for the specific individuals on whom the formulas were developed. They don't translate to other species, perhaps not even to other people.

Ideker said it was Wang who first brought the dog idea to him.

First author Tina Wang, PhD, (right) with her husband, Brandon, and their dog, Belli, who inspired the study. Credit: Tina Wang.

"We always look at humans, but humans are kind of boring," he said. "So she convinced me we should study dog aging in a comparative way."

To do that, Ideker and Wang collaborated with dog genetics experts Danika Bannasch, DVM, Ph.D., professor of population health and reproduction at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and Elaine Ostrander, Ph.D., chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. Bannasch provided blood samples from 105 Labrador retrievers. As the first to sequence the dog genome, Ostrander provided valuable input on analyzing it.

Dogs are an interesting animal to study, Ideker said. Given how closely they live with us, perhaps more than any other animal, a dog's environmental and chemical exposures are very similar to humans, and they receive nearly the same levels of health care. It's also important that we better understand their aging process, he said, as veterinarians frequently use the old 1:7 years ratio to determine a dog's age and use that information to guide diagnostic and treatment decisions.

What emerged from the study is a graph that can be used to match up the age of your dog with the comparable human age. The comparison is not a 1:7 ratio over time. Especially when dogs are young, they age rapidly compared to humans. A one-year-old dog is similar to a 30-year-old human. A four-year-old dog is similar to a 52-year-old human. Then by seven years old, dog aging slows.

"This makes sense when you think about itafter all, a nine-month-old dog can have puppies, so we already knew that the 1:7 ratio wasn't an accurate measure of age," Ideker said.

According to Ideker, one limitation of the new epigenetic clock is that it was developed using a single breed of dog, and some dog breeds are known to live longer than others. More research will be needed, but since it's accurate for humans and mice as well as Labrador retrievers, he predicts the clock will apply to all dog breeds.

Next, the researchers plan to test other dog breeds, determine if the results hold up using saliva samples, and test mouse models to see what happens to their epigenetic markers when you try to prolong their lives with a variety of interventions.

Meanwhile, Ideker, like many other dog owners, is looking at his own canine companion a little differently now.

"I have a six-year-old dogshe still runs with me, but I'm now realizing that she's not as 'young' as I thought she was," Ideker said.

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Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Between March 21 and 28, as the country enacted quarantine measures, the United States experienced a 3,000% jump in joblessness claims. By the end of March, a stock market drop had wiped out all gains from the previous three years.

For months, shuttered restaurants, storefronts and offices punctured images of empty streets in New York City, Los Angeles and Venice, Italy. The ramifications of COVID-19 on economies around the world are becoming increasingly clear, and felt viscerally by the millions who remain unemployed or whose businesses teeter on the brink of bankruptcy.

Although the U.S. economy has added some back jobs since the initial low, Hawaii is facing Great Depression-level unemployment and in Kentucky people wait in line eight hours to speak to a person at the unemployment office.

Economists recently gathered for an online conference hosted by the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences' Department of Economics to discuss the economic impact of COVID-19 and how best to avoid a serious world-wide recession.

Closing down everything but the most vital operations was key to avoiding mass infections and death, but it's a risky strategy. "You put the economy in an induced coma, to reduce inflammation," said Romain Ranciere, professor of economics, finance and business economics at USC Dornsife. "But how fast will recovery happen? That's the question."

Around the world in 180 days

Infection rates have declined in some of the hardest hit countries, such as Italy and Spain. China reopened Wuhan Province, formerly the virus' epicenter. Spring and summer brought increased temperatures to the Northern Hemisphere, which bodes well for those currently in the thick of itearly research shows that the virus dislikes warm, humid environments.

But while northern countries bask in sunnier days, the southern hemisphere plunges into winter. This could mean a significant increase in infection rates below the equator, as conditions for the virus' improve and colder temperatures send people into confined spaces together.

"There's a bounce-back effect between the two hemispheres," said Ranciere. This rebound could mean that, just as the Northern Hemisphere feels safe to emerge from quarantine, the virus comes roaring back after wintering down south. Equal containment measures on both sides of the equator is essential.

However, many of the world's emerging economies reside in the Southern Hemisphere, which complicates the problem of seasonal rebound. "The strategy for advanced economies is largely out of reach for emerging economies," said Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Developing countries lack the financial resources to pay citizens to stay home from work. Reducing the rate of infection, or "flattening the curve," becomes a major challenge when workers must leave the house to feed their families. Poor health care infrastructure and limited access to clean water and soap for basic hygiene increase the likelihood of transmission. Economies dependent on supplying goods to wealthier nations are contending with suspension of commerce, further emptying state coffers.

Wealthier nations may be preoccupied with their own pandemic problems, but they shouldn't ignore emerging economies, said Gourinchas. Providing financial support so that all countries can enact strategies such as sheltering in place will both squash the virus worldwide and boost everyone's economic recovery.

"Recovery from the pandemic, and the recession, will be faster if it is global," he argued.

Of course, as the economic strain and health care costs skyrocket, even established economies may struggle to help anyone but themselves. This is true in some wealthier countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, who seem unable to reverse the upward trend in infection rates.

Chain reactions

Established economies are also grappling with supply chain disruptions. The U.S. imports 90% of generic medications from India and China. Lockdowns in these countries threaten U.S. supplies as factory workers stay home and production stops.

Additionally, some nations banned the export of certain medications outside the country, which could have led to drug shortages in countries that rely on these manufacturers. India restricted export of 26 medications, including acetaminophen, a commonly used pain reliever. In part this was due to their own reliance on China for the raw materials to manufacture these drugs. With Chinese manufacturing running at reduced capacity, resources for drug production are in short supply.

India eventually reversed the medication export ban, but items like N95 masks, which are also overwhelmingly produced abroad, remain exceedingly difficult to procure.

"All this reveals that global chains are much more sensitive and fragile than we thought," Rainciere said.

Our food supply chains also face obstacles, particularly in California. Much of the produce grown in the state requires hands-on harvesting, including grapes, lettuce, and strawberries, unlike grain production in Midwestern states, which can use unmanned machinery.

Harvesters are grappling with a backlog of unprocessed agricultural H-2A visas, which many foreign fieldworkers must obtain to work in the state. The pandemic and recent federal policies have essentially shut down visa processing.

Without stringent precautions, COVID-19 can spread rapidly among workers, who are often housed in rooms with up to 24 people, worsening the worker shortage and leaving produce to rot in the field, causing California's economy to sag.

Who's footing the bill?

The U.S. House recently approved America's newest COVID-19 relief billa staggering $3 trillion in assistance to citizens and businesses beyond the first infusion of $2 trillion in March. Other countries passed similar packages.

Each bill differs in the focus of its relief, says Ricardo Reis, professor of economics at the London School of Economics. "There is a mix between helping vulnerable individuals vs. helping businesses. European packages are very focused on 'going concern' with businesses. The U.S. package is very much driven toward social insurance, which makes sense because there are holes in the safety nets here."

Regardless of where the relief is headed, these sorts of eye-popping sums raise the questions of who pays for it all.

Some countries have adopted a strategy of "partial employment." Under this plan, employers retain their workers and pay a portion of their employee's salary while the government pitches in the rest. In Germany, 60% of a worker's wage is guaranteed if the employer pays a stipend, and in Denmark, 90% is guaranteed. Employers won't need to worry about recruiting and training new workers once the pandemic eases, which makes economic recovery swifter, and the government receives a helping hand in supporting citizens monetarily.

Increased taxation will likely play a role, particularly when it comes to health care costs. "When you look at health systems, you will see higher pressure for taxation to cover this," said Ranciere.

Most advanced economies already provide taxpayer funded universal health care. In the U.S., where insurance is mostly tied to employment, millions have suddenly found themselves without coverage and unable to afford private insurance rates. Support for a taxpayer funded universal health care system that doesn't rely on employment for access appears to be rising among Americans during this crisis.

"The question of whether health is a public good or a private good is being reconsidered. We're learning that health is a public goodif you don't insure everyone, they will infect other people," Ranciere said.

Opening the gates

As the country begins to emerge from lockdown, the most pressing concern is how to allow people to return to work to avoid serious economic damage, but without worsening the pandemic. Until a vaccine emerges, the virus will likely continue to spread unless social distancing is maintained. Even then, COVID-19 could mutate and reemerge seasonally like influenza.

Countries that enact strong social safety nets that help people stay housed and fed during this time can avoid many of the health ramifications that occur during traditional economic downtowns, which leave people destitute and unmoored.

Allowing those without the virus to leave confinement while those infected, and the immune compromised, remain at home may be our best bet at allowing the economy to safely and effectively rev up again. In the U.S., this would require a significant increase in testing and contact tracing. Unfortunately, the country still faces a shortage of tests months after the outbreak began. This may mean getting creative.

Ranciere described a wartime strategy for avoiding the spread of STIs that could help. Tasked with testing WWII U.S. Army recruits for syphilis but stymied by the cost of individual blood tests, Robert Dorfman at Harvard University devised a method for group testing instead. Drawing blood from 10 recruits, the samples were mixed and then tested as one. If no disease was present, the whole group could be released. As more folks form "quarantine bubbles" in the face of extended isolation, group testing could make increasing sense.

Similar testing strategies could help as citizens return to workand keep the economy more productive while we await the arrival of that hallowed vaccine.
Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab; background: ESO/S. Brunier

ESA's Gaia space observatory is an ambitious mission to construct a three-dimensional map of our galaxy by making high-precision measurements of over one billion stars. However, on its journey to map distant suns, Gaia is revolutionising a field much closer to home. By accurately mapping the stars, it is helping researchers track down lost asteroids.

Using stars to spot asteroids

Gaia charts the galaxy by repeatedly scanning the entire sky. Over the course of its planned mission, it observed each of its more than one billion target stars around 70 times to study how their position and brightness change over time.

The stars are so far from Earth that their movements between images are very small, hence why Gaia has to measure their positions so accurately to even notice a difference. However, sometimes Gaia spots faint light sources that move considerably from one image of a certain region of the sky to the next, or are even only spotted in a single image before disappearing.

To move across Gaia's field of view so quickly, these objects must be located much closer to Earth.

By checking the positions of these objects against the catalogues of known Solar System bodies, many of these objects turn out to be known asteroids. Some, however, are identified as potentially new detections and are then followed up by the astronomy community through the Gaia Follow-Up Network for Solar System Objects. Through this process, Gaia has successfully discovered new asteroids.

These six images show the asteroid Gaia-606 (indicated by an arrow) on 26 October 2016. The images, spanning a period of a little more than 18 minutes, were taken at the Observatoire de Haute Provence in southern France by William Thuillot, Vincent Robert and Nicolas Thouvenin (Observatoire de Paris/IMCCE). Gaia-606 was discovered in October 2016 when Gaia data hinted at the presence of a faint, moving source in this region of the sky. Astronomers immediately got to work and predicted the asteroid's position as seen from the ground over a period of a few days. The follow-up observations by Thuillot and his colleagues showed this was an asteroid that did not match the orbit of any previously catalogued Solar System object. Further investigation revealed some sparse observations of this object already existed; Gaia-606 has now been renamed 2016 UV56. The star closest to the asteroid is USNO-A2-1125-19276564. North is up, east to the left. Credit: Observatoire de Haute-Provence & IMCCE

Lost and found

These direct asteroid observations are important for solar system scientists. However, Gaia's highly accurate measurements of the positions of stars provide an even more impactful, but indirect, benefit for asteroid tracking.

"When we observe an asteroid, we look at its motion relative to the background stars to determine its trajectory and predict where it will be in the future," says Marco Micheli from ESA's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre. "This means that the more accurately we know the positions of the stars, the more reliably we can determine the orbit of an asteroid passing in front of them."

In collaboration with the European Southern Observatory (ESO), Marco's team took part in an observation campaign targeting 2012 TC4, a small asteroid that was due to pass by the Earth. Unfortunately, since the asteroid was first spotted in 2012, it had become fainter and fainter as it receded form Earth, eventually becoming unobservable. Where it would appear in the sky at the time of the upcoming campaign was not well known.

"The possible region of the sky where the asteroid might appear was larger than the area that the telescope could observe at one time," says Marco. "So we had to find a way to improve our prediction of where the asteroid would be."

"I looked back at the initial observations from 2012. Gaia had since made more accurate measurements of the positions of some of the stars in the background of the images, and I used these to update our understanding of the asteroid's trajectory and predict where it would appear."

Lutetia at Closest approach. Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

"We pointed the telescope towards the predicted area of the sky using the data from Gaia and we found the asteroid on our first attempt."

"Our next goal was to accurately measure the asteroid's position, but we had very few stars in our new image to use as a reference. There were 17 stars listed in an older catalogue and only four stars measured by Gaia. I made calculations using both sets of data."

"Later in the year, when the asteroid had been observed multiple times by other teams and its trajectory was better known, it became clear that the measurements I made using just four Gaia stars had been much more accurate than the ones using the 17 stars. This was really amazing."

Keeping Earth safe

This same technique is being applied to asteroids that were never lost, allowing researchers to use data from Gaia to determine their trajectories and physical properties more accurately than ever before.

This is helping them update asteroid population models and deepen our understanding of how asteroid orbits develop, for example, by measuring subtle dynamical effects that play a key role in pushing small asteroids into orbits that could see them collide with Earth.

Animated view of 14 099 asteroids in our Solar System, as viewed by ESAs Gaia satellite using information from the missions second data release. The orbits of the 200 brightest asteroids are also shown, as determined using Gaia data. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Dancing with daylight

In order to make such accurate measurements of the positions of other stars, Gaia has a complicated relationship with our own.

Gaia orbits around the second Lagrange point, L2, of the Sun-Earth system. This location keeps the Sun, Earth and Moon all behind Gaia, allowing it to observe a large portion of the sky without their interference. It is also in an even thermal radiation environment and experiences a stable temperature.

However, Gaia must not fall entirely into Earth's shadow, as the spacecraft still depends on solar power. As the orbit around the L2 point is unstable, small disturbances can build up and see the spacecraft heading for an eclipse.

Gaia's flight control team at ESA's ESOC mission control centre in Darmstadt are responsible for making corrections to the spacecraft's trajectory to keep it in the correct orbit and out of Earth's shadow. They ensure that Gaia remains one of the most stable and accurate spacecraft ever. On 16 July 2019, the team successfully performed a crucial eclipse avoidance manoeuvre, moving Gaia into the extended phase of its mission and allowing it to keep scanning the sky for several more years.

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E-waste -- discarded products with a battery or plug -- will reach 74 Mt by 2030, almost a doubling of e-waste in just 16 years. This makes e-waste the world's fastest-growing domestic waste stream, fueled mainly by higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, short life cycles, and few options for repair. Credit: Yassyn Sidki

A record 53.6 million metric tons (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in just five years, according to the UN's Global E-waste Monitor 2020.

The new report also predicts global e-wastediscarded products with a battery or plugwill reach 74 Mt by 2030, almost a doubling of e-waste in just 16 years. This makes e-waste the world's fastest-growing domestic waste stream, fueled mainly by higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, short life cycles, and few options for repair.

Only 17.4% of 2019's e-waste was collected and recycled. This means that gold, silver, copper, platinum and other high-value, recoverable materials conservatively valued at US $57 billiona sum greater than the Gross Domestic Product of most countrieswere mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse.

According to the report, Asia generated the greatest volume of e-waste in 2019, some 24.9 Mt, followed by the Americas (13.1 Mt) and Europe (12 Mt), while Africa and Oceania generated 2.9 Mt and 0.7 Mt respectively.

For perspective, last year's e-waste weighed substantially more than all the adults in Europe, or as much as 350 cruise ships the size of the Queen Mary 2, enough to form a line 125 km long.

Asia generated the greatest volume of e-waste in 2019, some 24.9 Mt, followed by the Americas (13.1 Mt) and Europe (12 Mt), while Africa and Oceania generated 2.9 Mt and 0.7 Mt respectively. Credit: UN Global eWaste Monitor

E-waste is a health and environmental hazard, containing toxic additives or hazardous substances such as mercury, which damages the human brain and/or coordination system.

Other key findings from the Global E-waste Monitor 2020:

Proper e-waste management can help mitigate global warming. In 2019, an estimated 98 Mt of CO2-equivalents were released into the atmosphere from discarded fridges and air-conditioners, contributing roughly 0.3 % of global greenhouse gas emissions

In per capita terms, last year's discarded e-waste averaged 7.3 kg for every man, woman and child on Earth

Europe ranked first worldwide in terms of e-waste generation per capita with 16.2 kg per capita. Oceania came second (16.1 kg) followed by the Americas (13.3 kg). Asia and Africa were much lower: 5.6 and 2.5 kg respectively

E-waste is a health and environmental hazard, containing toxic additives or hazardous substances such as mercury, which damages the human brain and / or coordination system. An estimated 50 tons of mercuryused in monitors, PCBs and fluorescent and energy-saving light sourcesare contained in undocumented flows of e-waste annually

E-waste in 2019 was mainly comprised of small equipment (17.4 Mt), large equipment (13.1 Mt), and temperature exchange equipment (10.8 Mt). Screens and monitors, small IT and telecommunication equipment, and lamps represented 6.7 Mt, 4.7 Mt, and 0.9 Mt respectively

Since 2014 the e-waste categories increasing fastest in total weight terms: temperature exchange equipment (+7 %), large equipment (+5 %), lamps and small equipment (+4 %). According to the report, this trend is driven by the growing consumption of those products in lower income countries, where those products improve the living standards. Small IT and telecommunication equipment have been growing more slowly, and screens and monitors have shown a slight decrease (-1 %), explained largely by lighter flat panel displays replacing heavy CRT monitors and screens

Since 2014, the number of countries that have adopted a national e-waste policy, legislation or regulation in place has increased from 61 to 78. While a positive trend, this is far from the target set by the International Telecommunication Union which is to raise the percentage of countries with an e-waste legislation to 50 %

The Global E-waste Monitor 2020 is a collaborative product of the Global E-waste Statistics Partnership (GESP), formed by UN University (UNU), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), in close collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The World Health Organization (WHO) and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) also substantially contributed to this year's Global E-waste Monitor 2020.

Cooling and heating devices (+7 per cent) have been the e-waste categories rising fastest in total weight terms since 2014, followed by large equipment (+5 per cent), lamps and small equipment (+4 per cent). driven by the growing consumption of those products in lower income countries. Small IT and telecommunication equipment have been growing more slowly, and screens and monitors have shown a slight decrease (-1 per cent), explained largely by lighter flat panel displays replacing heavy CRT monitors and screens. Credit: UNU/UNITAR SCYCLE

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Provided by United Nations University / ITU / UNITAR
Yurts in a valley in Kyrgyzstan. Credit: EJ Wolfson via Unsplash

In early June, livestock herders from two neighboring districts in Kyrgyzstan's Naryn oblast, or administrative region, clashed over disagreements regarding pasture access. Grazing disputes are not new, however, for herders in Kyrgyzstan, where glaciers in the Tien Shan mountains supply water for the herds which graze on the lush meadows of the country's highlands. Pastoralism is a long-held tradition in this Central Asian country, but it is becoming increasingly complicated by economic, environmental, and governance issues.

Herders from Kochkor, a district in northern-central Kyrgyzstan, had been granted official rights to access pastures in neighboring Naryn district until 2020. In November of last year, the government extended these rights to 2030 without input from local villagers, which heightened tensions between herders from the two districts. In June, when Kochkor herders moved with their animals up to these summer pastures, overt conflict broke out.

Local residents blocked roads to prevent the Kochkor herders from accessing the pastures the government had granted them rights to use for another decade. Further complicating matters, Kockhor herders also attempted to move their herds into a nearby pasture that was already occupied by herders from a third village.

A few hundred local Naryn district residents and migrating herders from Kochkor confronted each other, with road blockages, shouting, and general commotion lasting for days. While disagreements over land are not uncommon, June's clashes were larger and more intense than usual and prompted a response from the central government. As Ryskeldi Satke, a Kyrgyz journalist, explained, authorities sent police forces into the area in an attempt to prevent violence, and the central government responded to protests by setting up an inter-agency commission across various government ministries to determine pasture use rights. Kochkor herdersthose from the district granted grazing rights by the governmentare currently allowed to graze in the nearby pasture until the commission comes to an agreement.

Livestock raising is a critical part of Kyrgyzstan's economy. Nearly half of the country's labor force works in agriculture, and a major component of that is herding livestock. Sheep, cattle, goats, and horses provide meat, milk, and wool for those living throughout the country's mountains and valleys. Throughout Kyrgyz history, nomadic pastoralism has been the traditional way of life. Nowadays, many people, in rural and urban areas alike, have investments in livestock as a means of income. Moreover, the number of livestock in Kyrgyzstan has grown in recent decades, as local residents often use the remittances they receive from relatives who have migrated to Russia and Kazakhstan to purchase animals.

A highly decentralized system allocates pasture use rights in Kyrgyzstan, which contributes to tensions between herders. Local pasture committees determine rules about pasture use in their villages, such as the timing of movement between summer and winter pastures, fees for pasture use, management of fertilizer, and access to water. "As soon as a shepherd leaves the borders of a village district, his 'rights' can be disputed," Svetlana Jacquesson, a researcher at the American University of Central Asia, told Glacierhub.

Son Kul lake in northern Naryn province. Credit: Benjamin Goetzinger via Wikimedia Commons

According to Irene Mestre, a researcher at the French Institute for Central Asian Studies, borders between pastures have been unclear and changing since the end of the Soviet period in 1991. While herders from different villages typically accept grazing their animals on a shared pasture, problems can arise when determining which pasture committee collects payment and how much should be paid.

While local pasture committees are meant to represent the views of local resource users, many herders feel that guidelines are not reflective of their needs. Wealthier livestock owners typically occupy spots as representatives on these pasture committees. Kanat Tilekeyev, a senior research fellow at the University of Central Asia's Institute of Public Policy and Administration, spoke with GlacierHub about the increasing gap between rich and poor farmers. Wealthy livestock owners who own large quantities of animals, Tilekeyev explained, are often the ones whose concerns are heard by local pasture authorities, as they sometimes distribute the surplus yield from their activities to local pasture committees as bribes.

While decentralization of pasture authority can cause tension for herders moving across districts, placing control purely in the hands of the central government is not a universal fix. As Jeanne Feaux de la Croix, an anthropologist at the University of Tubingen, explained to GlacierHub, local communities have consistently handled disputes and created their own agreements regarding pasture use over the years. This suggests that maintaining autonomy on the local level while better integrating local concerns may be important to easing pasture access disputes. This is evident when considering the role of the central government in pasture issues.

The central government is involved in both pasture access issues and pasture degradation, a complicated and debated ecological issue in Kyrgyzstan. Naryn, like most of rural Kyrgyzstan, is not very populated, and thus the central government does not prioritize investment in the region's agricultural sector. Following independence from the Soviet Union, maintenance of roads and bridges that allow herders to reach remote pastures declined. Along with insufficient infrastructure, proper mechanisms for monitoring pasture quality have not been established, which has led to a lack of robust data on pasture health.

For some environmental advocates, the declining quality of pastures is evident, despite the dearth of formal data. Baktygul Chynybaeva, a journalist based in the capital city of Bishkek, spoke with GlacierHub about the ecological concerns of overgrazing, which she said is a main culprit of declining pasture quality.

Chynybaeva described how grasses are sparse, leading some herders to buy fodder from other regions to have enough to feed their livestock. For those who still rely on pasture, many animals are not getting enough nutrients or have even been known to eat harmful plants instead of grasses, causing them to become ill. Animal health is a concern for herders, many of whom now rely heavily on antibiotics. In turn, as Chynybaeva described, this shift raises concerns about the residents consuming these animal products.

Son Kul lake in northern Naryn province. Credit: Benjamin Goetzinger via Wikimedia Commons

But while some see pasture degradation as a pressing matter, there are varying perspectives on the quality of the land from those who actually graze animals. Many herders prioritize other livestock-raising needs, such as accessing remote, high pastures. Pastures closer to villages are coveted by herders and are typically the ones suffering from overgrazing, while remote pastures are underutilized, lush with high quality grasses, and well-supplied with water from glacier melt. However, because reaching these lands requires expensive and laborious journeys on poor quality roads, many herders find these pastures too difficult to use.

Thus, central government investment in rural infrastructure may be an important way to ease stress among herders, according to Mestre. By repairing roads and bridges and making it easier to access underutilized remote pastures, not only can livestock herders benefit from access to high-quality land, but concerns about overgrazing in pastures near villages can be alleviated.

Local peoples' ecological knowledge can help assess the quality of the land and determine other needs for those who raise livestock. Experts emphasize the importance of properly integrating community concerns in the process of creating pasture use rules. Pastoralism need not be blamed for pasture degradation, and livestock herders' more pressing concerns outside pasture healthsuch as access to remote landscan be addressed as well.

"There are multiple perspectives about the state of the land, about the level of degradation, about what constitutes good pasture," Marc Foggin, a conservation biologist at the University of British Columbia and director at Plateau Perspectives, told GlacierHub in an interview. "Most high level government views have focused for the most part on largely external 'specialist knowledge," [thereby] excluding insights from local community members, including pastoralists themselves."

Kyrgyzstan is also disproportionately impacted by climate change, which worsens the environmental stresses felt by herders and residents throughout the country. Glaciers in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan are melting at a rapid pace and have decreased in size by 20 percent in the past 50 years. Glaciers melting faster and earlier in the year as temperatures get warmer exacerbates water access issues for farmers and can have profound long-term impacts on agriculture. This has ramifications for pasture health as well, and thus broader concerns with ecosystems in Central Asia have consequences for livestock herders.

The pastoralist way of life in Kyrgyzstan is under strain by many forces. As the agricultural sector suffers due to lack of pasture access, government neglect, and climate change, many young people from Naryn are moving to urban centers, especially Bishkek, to seek new forms of employment.

The tensions between livestock herders in Naryn in June were no isolated incident. If the number of livestock in Kyrgyzstan continues to grow every year while local communities are marginalized, conflicts are likely to increase. It remains to be seen whether the central government can work in tandem with local peoples' robust traditions of governance and deep knowledge of pasture conditions to foster peace and sustainability.

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Provided by State of the Planet

This story is republished courtesy of Earth Institute, Columbia University http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

In response to a directive from Congress, the Department of Energy released a report this week assessing the risks of a 50-year-old cracking and crumbling concrete nuclear waste repository in the Marshall Islands, but the findings did little to ease the concerns of Marshallese leaders in the Central Pacific.

The DOE report found that Runit Dome, a repository for atomic waste the United States produced during Cold War weapons testing, is sound and that radioactive leakage into the nearby lagoon is not significant.

After Congress grew concerned last year about the leaking dome, it ordered the Department of Energy to produce a report on the dome's structural integrity amid climate change and rising sea levels.

The report noted that while sea level rise could increase storm surge, swells, and "lead to wave-induced over-wash of lower sections of the dome," there is not enough definitive data to determine "how these events might impact on the environment."

One Marshallese leader was disappointed the Department of Energy again downplayed the risks and declined to take responsibility for Runit Dome and its leaking contents.

"We don't expect the Enewetak community to feel any safer based on this report as it doesn't contain any new information from what they've seen ... and don't trust," said Rhea Christian-Moss, the chairperson of the Marshall Islands' National Nuclear Commission, a government-operated nuclear waste and radiation oversight panel.

"The report offers nothing new and is more or less what we expected to see," she said, lamenting the Senate's redaction of a critical line in the House's mandate, which stipulated that the Department of Energy provide a plan detailing the removal of the radioactive waste into a "safer and more stable location."

The Department of Energy report is signed by Dan Brouillette, the agency's secretary.

Terry Hamilton, the department's lead contractor on the project, said the report shows that "under the hard facts of radiation science, existing data and information show that the risks posed by Runit Dome are unlikely to impact on the health status of the people" living near the dome.

In November last year, the Los Angeles Times published an investigation of the lingering radiation legacy in the Marshall Islands, and the refusal of U.S. authorities to take ownership for the hazards posed by Runit Dome.

In December, Congress signed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020, which required the Department of Energy to provide a plan to repair the dome, evaluate the environmental effects of the dome on the lagoon over the next 20 years, and assess its structure and the potential risk to the people who live near it.

The department was also required to assess how rising sea levels could affect the dome.

Christian-Moss noted data gaps in the report, as well, including the level of radiation in groundwater leaking from the dome into the lagoon.

In 2019, at a presentation delivered in the Marshall Islands to Marshallese and U.S. officials, the DOE's contractor, Hamilton, mentioned elevated levels of radioactivity in giant clams living near the dome.

The new report does not mention the clams but states that not enough information is available to understand how leakage from the dome is affecting marine life. However, according to the Department of Energy, studies of people living nearby show normal levels of radiationsuggesting they are not being adversely affected.

"The absence of data to show any risk does not mean that there is no risk." she said. "So my main takeaway from the report is that many risks are still 'unknown.'"

Between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons on, in and above the Marshall Islands. Forty-four of those bombs were detonated in Enewetak Atoll, where Runit Dome is located.

Nowhere else has the United States saddled another country with so much of its nuclear waste, a product of its Cold War atomic testing program.

The waste site, known alternatively as the Tomb, holds more than 3.1 million cubic feetor 35 Olympic-size swimming poolsof U.S.-produced radioactive soil and debris, including lethal amounts of plutonium.

The radioactive material was collected, moved and contained by U.S. soldiers during the late 1970s. Many of those veterans say they were unaware of the contents and did not wear protective equipment.

The new report does not include a plan to repair the dome, which was required by Congress. Instead, the report's authors state that "no further maintenance of the dome is required at this time" beyond conducting occasional maintenance to the dome's cracking exterior, including the removal of vegetation. The report claims the visible cracking and spalling do not provide a hazard.

"All in all the message seems to be that we should be concerned but not alarmed," said Michael Gerrard, a legal scholar at Columbia University's law school. "It is as if Runit is like a radioactive sore in the middle of the Pacific, but one that can get by with Band-Aids for the foreseeable future unless they find more bleeding."

The Department of Energy authors also maintain that the lagoon's sediments are so contaminated with radioactive elements that any additional spillage from the dome would be undetectable.

"It remains to be seen whether the Marshallese will accept this report by the Americans, given how poorly the U.S. has treated the Marshallese in so many ways since 1945," said Gerrard.

The report also notes that in May 2019, Marshallese officials requested that the Department of Energy build a fence around the island where the dome is located, to keep people off.

In July 2019, Department of Energy officials responded claiming they didn't have the funding to build a fence and installation of a perimeter would be logistically too complex.

In 1981, the U.S. government declared in a report that the island should be quarantined indefinitely and that the "possibility would always exist that high levels of plutonium-contaminated subsurface soil could be exposed by wave or storm action."

Explore further New US law requires probe of Marshall Islands nuclear dump threatened by rising seas

2020 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(here called RNA editor) with its target site. RNA editors correct specific errors in the mitochondria and chloroplasts. Credit:  Bastian Oldenkott/Uni Bonn

Almost all land plants employ an army of molecular editors who correct errors in their genetic information. Together with colleagues from Hanover, Ulm and Kyoto (Japan), researchers from the University of Bonn have now transferred one of these proofreaders from the moss Physcomitrium patens (previously known as Physcomitrella patens) into a flowering plant. Surprisingly, it performs its work there as reliably as in the moss itself. The strategy could be suitable for investigating certain functions of the plant energy metabolism in more detail. It may also be valuable for developing more efficient crops. The study will be published in the journal The Plant Cell.

Plants differ from animals in that they are capable of photosynthesis. They do this in specialized "mini-organs" (biologists speak of organelles), the chloroplasts. Chloroplasts produce sugar with the help of sunlight, which in turn is used in other organelles, the mitochondria, to produce energy.

Both chloroplasts and mitochondria have their own genetic material. And in both of them this genome contains a lot of errors. "At least that is the case with almost all land plants," explains Dr. Mareike Schallenberg-Rudinger. The researcher heads a junior research group at the University of Bonn in the Department of Molecular Evolution under Prof. Volker Knoop. "They have to correct these errors so their power supply does not collapse."

In fact, land plants do the same, and in a very complicated way: They do not correct the errors in the genome itself. Instead, they correct the RNA copies that the cell makes of these DNA blueprints, which it then uses to produce certain enzymes, for example. So instead of correcting the original, it only irons out the inaccuracies afterwards in the copies.

(from left) Bastian Oldenkott, Prof. Volker Knoop, Dr. Anke Hein and Dr. Mareike Schallenberg-Rudinger investigate RNA editing in evolutionarily distant plants. Credit:  Elena Lesch/Uni Bonn

Functional despite 400 million years of evolutionary history

Molecular proofreaders, the so-called PPR proteins, are responsible for this. Most of them are specialists for only one particular error in the many gene copies that the cell produces around the clock. These errors occur when, in the course of evolution, a certain chemical building block of DNA (a letter, if you like, in the genetic blueprint) is swapped for another. When the PPR proteins find such a swap, they convert the wrong letter in the RNA copy (the building block cytidine, abbreviated C) into the correct version (uridine, abbreviated U).

"We have now taken a gene for a PPR protein from the moss Physcomitrium patens and transferred it into a flowering plant, the thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana," explains Schallenberg-Rudinger. "The protein then recognized and corrected the same error there for which it was also responsible in the moss." This is astonishing, since there are more than 400 million years of evolutionary history between Physcomitrium and Arabidopsis. The PPR proteins can therefore also differ significantly in their structure.

For instance, the thale cress contains PPR proteins that can identify errors but still require a separate "white-out" enzyme to correct them. In contrast, the PPR proteins of the moss Physcomitrium perform both tasks simultaneously. "In these cases, the transfer from moss to thale cress works, but the thale cress gene remains inactive in the moss," explains Bastian Oldenkott, doctoral student and lead author of the study. The macadamia nut appeared in evolution a little earlier than Arabidopsis. Its PPR protein being investigated is more similar to that of Physcomitrium. Once introduced into the moss, it therefore performs its service there without any problems.

The study may open up a new way to modify the genetic material of chloroplasts and mitochondria. "Especially for plant mitochondria, this is not yet possible at all," emphasizes Schallenberg-Rudinger. Using special "designer" PPR genes, for example, one might specifically render certain genome transcripts unusable and test how this affects the plant. In the medium term, this may also result in new findings for breeding particularly high-yielding, high-performance varieties. First, however, the researchers hope to gain insights into the complex interaction of genes in the functioning of chloroplasts and mitochondria.

The research carried out by co-authors Prof. Hans-Peter Braun and Dr. Jennifer Senkler from the University of Hanover proves that this approach can actually work. They were able to clarify what the PPR protein from the moss is needed for: If it is missing, the plant is no longer able to correctly assemble the machinery for the so-called respiratory chain in the mitochondria, which is used to generate energy. The work in the thale cress was carried out in cooperation with Matthias Burger (University of Ulm) and Prof. Mizuki Takenaka (University of Kyoto), a fine example of successful international cooperation.

Explore further Cell editors correct genetic errors

More information: Bastian Oldenkott, Matthias Burger, Anke-Christiane Hein, Anja Jorg, Jennifer Senkler, Hans-Peter Braun, Volker Knoop, Mizuki Takenaka and Mareike Schallenberg-Rudinger: One C-to-U RNA editing site and two independently evolved editing factors: testing reciprocal complementation with DYW-type PPR proteins from the moss Physcomitrium (Physcomitrella) patens and the flowering plants Macadamia integrifolia and Arabidopsis thaliana; The Plant Cell; DOI: 10.1105/tpc.20.00311 Journal information: Plant Cell Bastian Oldenkott, Matthias Burger, Anke-Christiane Hein, Anja Jorg, Jennifer Senkler, Hans-Peter Braun, Volker Knoop, Mizuki Takenaka and Mareike Schallenberg-Rudinger: One C-to-U RNA editing site and two independently evolved editing factors: testing reciprocal complementation with DYW-type PPR proteins from the moss Physcomitrium (Physcomitrella) patens and the flowering plants Macadamia integrifolia and Arabidopsis thaliana; The
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Prospective teachers appear more likely to misperceive Black children as angry than white children, which may undermine the education of Black youth, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

While previous research has documented this effect in adults, this is the first study to show how anger bias based on race may extend to teachers and Black elementary and middle-school children, said lead researcher Amy G. Halberstadt, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. The study was published online in the APA journal Emotion.

"This anger bias can have huge consequences by increasing Black children's experience of not being 'seen' or understood by their teachers and then feeling like school is not for them," she said. "It might also lead to Black children being disciplined unfairly and suspended more often from school, which can have long-term ramifications."

In the study, 178 prospective teachers from education programs at three Southeastern universities viewed short video clips of 72 children ages 9 to 13 years old. The children's faces expressed one of six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise or disgust. The clips were evenly divided among boys or girls and Black children or white children. The sample was not large enough to determine whether the race or ethnicity of the teachers made a difference in how they perceived the children.

The prospective teachers were somewhat accurate at detecting the children's emotions, but they also made some mistakes that revealed patterns. Boys of both races were misperceived as angry more often than Black or white girls. Black boys and girls also were misperceived as angry at higher rates than white children, with Black boys eliciting the most anger bias.

Anger bias against Black children can have many negative consequences. While controlling for other factors, previous research has found that Black children are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than white children. Black children's negative experiences at school also could contribute to the disparate achievement gap between Black and white youth that has been documented across the United States, Halberstadt said.

Those in the study also completed questionnaires relating to their implicit and explicit racial bias, but their scores on those tests didn't affect the findings relating to Black children. However, those who displayed greater racial bias were less likely to misperceive white children as angry.

"Even when people are motivated to be anti-racist, we need to know the specific pathways by which racism travels, and that can include false assumptions that Black people are angry or threatening," Halberstadt said. "Those common racist misperceptions can extend from school into adulthood and potentially have fatal consequences, such as when police officers kill unarmed Black people on the street or in their own homes."

Previous research with adults in the United States has found that anger is perceived more quickly than happiness in Black faces, while the opposite effect was found for white faces. Anger also is perceived more quickly and for a longer time in young Black men's faces than young white men's faces.

"Over the last few weeks, many people are waking up to the pervasive extent of systemic racism in American culture, not just in police practices but in our health, banking and education systems," Halberstadt said. "Learning more about how these problems become embedded in our thought processes is an important first step."

Participants in the study were predominantly female (89%) and white (70%), mirroring the gender and race of most public-school teachers across the country. The study didn't include enough people of color from any single race or ethnicity (Hispanic 9%, Asian 8%, Black 6%, Biracial 5%, Native American 1%, and Middle Eastern 1%) to analyze separate findings based on the race or ethnicity of the participants.

Explore further Prospective teachers more likely to view black faces than white faces as angry

More information: Amy G. Halberstadt et al, Racialized emotion recognition accuracy and anger bias of children's faces., Emotion (2020). Journal information: Emotion Amy G. Halberstadt et al, Racialized emotion recognition accuracy and anger bias of children's faces.,(2020). DOI: 10.1037/emo0000756
Credit: American Technion Society

A team of researchers from the Technion  Israel Institute of Technology has observed branched flow of light for the very first time. The findings are published in Nature and are featured on the cover of the July 2, 2020 issue.

The study was carried out by Ph.D. student Anatoly (Tolik) Patsyk, in collaboration with Miguel A. Bandres, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Technion when the project started and is now an Assistant Professor at CREOL, College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida. The research was led by Technion President Professor Uri Sivan and Distinguished Professor Mordechai (Moti) Segev of the Technion's Physics and Electrical Engineering Faculties, the Solid State Institute, and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute.

When waves travel through landscapes that contain disturbances, they naturally scatter, often in all directions. Scattering of light is a natural phenomenon, found in many places in nature. For example, scattering of light is the reason for the blue color of the sky. As it turns out, when the length over which disturbances vary is much larger than the wavelength, the wave scatters in an unusual fashion: it forms channels (branches) of enhanced intensity that continue to divide, or branch out, as the wave propagates. This phenomenon is known as branched flow. It was first observed in 2001 with electrons, and had been suggested to be ubiquitous and occur also for all waves in nature, for example sound waves and even ocean waves. Now, Technion researchers are bringing branched flow to the domain of light: they have made an experimental observation of branched flow of light.

Credit: American Technion Society

"We always had the intention of finding something new, and we were eager to find it. It was not what we started looking for, but we kept looking and we found something far better," said Asst. Prof. Miguel Bandres. "We are familiar with the fact that waves spread when they propagate in a homogeneous medium. But for other kinds of mediums, waves can behave in very different ways. When we have a disordered medium where the variations are smooth, like a landscape of mountains and valleys, the waves will propagate in a peculiar way. They will form channels that keep dividing as the wave propagates, forming a beautiful pattern resembling the branches of a tree."

In their research, the team coupled a laser beam to a soap membrane, which contains random variations in membrane thickness. They discovered that when light propagates within the soap film, rather than being scattered, the light forms elongated branches, creating the branched flow phenomenon for light.

"In optics we usually work hard to make light stay focused and propagate as a collimated beam, but here the surprise is that the random structure of the soap film naturally caused the light to stay focused. It is another one of nature's surprises," said Tolik Patsyk.

Credit: American Technion Society

The ability to create branched flow in the field of optics offers new and exciting opportunities for investigating and understanding this universal wave phenomenon.

"There is nothing more exciting than discovering something new and this is the first demonstration of this phenomenon with light waves," said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, the Bertoldo Badler Academic Chairholder in the Faculty of Physics. "This goes to show that intriguing phenomena can also be observed in simple systems and one just has to be perceptive enough to uncover them. As such, bringing together and combining the views of researchers from different backgrounds and disciplines has led to some truly interesting insights."

He added, "The fact that we observe it with light waves opens remarkable new possibilities for research, starting with the fact that we can characterize the medium in which light propagates to very high precision and the fact that we can also follow those branches accurately and study their properties."

Credit: American Technion Society

Distinguished Prof. Moti Segev, the Robert J. Shillman Distinguished Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering, looks to the future. "I always educate my team to think beyond the horizon," he said, "to think about something new, and at the same timeto look at the experimental facts as they are, rather than try to adapt the experiments to meet some expected behavior. Here, Tolik was trying to measure something completely different, and was surprised to see these light branches which he could not initially explain. He asked Miguel to join in the experiments, and together they upgraded the experiments considerablyto the level they could isolate the physics involved. That is when we started to understand what we see. It took more than a year until we understood that what we have is the strange phenomenon of "branched flow," which at the time was never considered in the context of light waves. Now, with this observationwe can think of a plethora of new ideas. For example, using these light branches to control the fluidic flow in liquid, or to combine the soap with florescent material and cause the branches to become little lasers. Or to use the soap membranes as a platform for exploring fundamentals of waves, such as the transitions from ordinary scattering which is always diffusive, to branched flow, and subsequently to Anderson localization. There are many ways to continue this pioneering study. As we did many times in the past, we would like to boldly go where no one has gone before."

The project is now continuing in the laboratories of Profs. Segev and Sivan at Technion, and in parallel in the newly established lab of Prof. Miguel Bandres at UCF.

Explore further How to bend waves to arrive at the right place

More information: Anatoly Patsyk et al. Observation of branched flow of light, Nature (2020). Journal information: Nature Anatoly Patsyk et al. Observation of branched flow of light,(2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2376-8
Vallarta Living



July 2020 News from PuRR Project Puerto Vallarta



Donations are the only source of funding to provide food, shelter, and veterinary care for the 200+ cats and kittens in residence at Purr Project, a no-kill feline shelter located just north of Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Here's the latest news from Purr Project, a non-profit, no-kill feline shelter located just north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that provides homeless cats and kittens a recuperative stay with the ultimate goal of adopting them out to loving homes sterilized, vaccinated and disease free.



SHELTER UPDATE



As of this writing, we have 61 kittens in the clinic, various casitas or in foster homes. Overcrowding causes stress, and like with human children, one gets sick and it spreads quickly. Fortunately, we have Linda's Casita and Macho's House for the ones that are healthy and ready for adoption. PetCo reopened their weekend Adoption Center in June but kitten adoptions have been very slow so far.



The good news is that the old Isolation Bungalows were remodeled with a donation received last December from Terri and Gray Levi for that specific purpose. The three tiny bungalows were given a face lift and a fourth larger one was added. It has been a perfect place for nursing mothers and their litters. Most recently it has been home to the 10 little kittens dumped one day in June.



VOLUNTEERS: KITTEN KUDDLERS



We have a group of regular volunteers who normally help with our various fundraising events like Kitty BINGO and the big Garage Sale. After a few months of self-isolation and no fund raisers, they were feeling anxious to do SOMETHING to help. So the 'Kitten Kuddler Crew' was organized to start socializing the many little kittens in need of human attention at the PuRR Shelter.



Under the supervision of Dra. Eva, they meet each week and spend several hours playing with or just loving kittens... and sometimes are called into service in the clinic to help bathe them. Thank you Brenda Gill, Pat Fields, Sharon Rose, Marilyn Khan, Shanti Doelger and Christine Salidivar!



FEATURED FELINE: PEPPER



Pepper came to the shelter exactly five years ago as a rescue by John Culpepper and is now about 8 years old. She is very small, is calm and sweet and likes attention but does not demand it. She would make a great companion for someone who wants to adopt an older kitty.



The PuRR Senior Center has been her home for years, but a Furr-ever Home with someone to love her would be wonderful! Contact Linda at



PURR PROJECT 2021 CALENDAR



The 2021 Calendar is back from the printer and ready to go!! It is beautiful and full of PuRR cats and kittens in their natural shelter environment. You can order yours by contacting Bama at



A donation of $25 each will cover mailing and you can pay online via PayPal or by check to our Delaware address. Marilyn will be leaving for the USA in mid July and can mail from there if you get your order in NOW! Otherwise, it will be sometime in the Fall before we can take orders again. A GREAT way to support the kitties and a great gift for your cat-loving friends!



GRACIAS! THANKS! MERCI! DANKE! ARIGATO!



Again, we so grateful to our faithful supporters and also some new friends who donated to PuRR last month! Many folks don't realize how much it takes in money and manpower to keep the shelter running. It's 7 days a week of feeding, constant cleaning and piles of laundry. Then there is the cost of giving medical care to 200+ felines. In addition the shelter supports two families with six young children. Thank you to: Shanti & Bob Doelger, Sharon Tognetti Weber, Victor & Tatiana Domilovskiy, Dolores Brittingham, Margaret & Jim Brown, Mary & Bob Fitzgerald, Kim Bonthron, Christine Salidivar, Sharon Trigg, John Grahan, Ken Fuerherm, Angie Hutchinson, Laurie Rice, Kathleen Atkins and Robert Weed.



For more Kitty News, please visit



PuRR Project is a Non-Profit shelter in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico that provides homeless cats and kittens a recuperative stay with the ultimate goal to adopt them out to loving homes. All of our residents have been sterilized, vaccinated and are disease free. We accomplish this through our own efforts as well as collaboratively with other animal welfare organizations. Both monetary donations as well as donations of dry cat food are most welcome a and much appreciated. For more information, visit PuRRProject.com or send an email to info(at)PurrProject.com. - Here's the latest news from Purr Project, a non-profit, no-kill feline shelter located just north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that provides homeless cats and kittens a recuperative stay with the ultimate goal of adopting them out to loving homes sterilized, vaccinated and disease free.As of this writing, we have 61 kittens in the clinic, various casitas or in foster homes. Overcrowding causes stress, and like with human children, one gets sick and it spreads quickly. Fortunately, we have Linda's Casita and Macho's House for the ones that are healthy and ready for adoption. PetCo reopened their weekend Adoption Center in June but kitten adoptions have been very slow so far.The good news is that the old Isolation Bungalows were remodeled with a donation received last December from Terri and Gray Levi for that specific purpose. The three tiny bungalows were given a face lift and a fourth larger one was added. It has been a perfect place for nursing mothers and their litters. Most recently it has been home to the 10 little kittens dumped one day in June.We have a group of regular volunteers who normally help with our various fundraising events like Kitty BINGO and the big Garage Sale. After a few months of self-isolation and no fund raisers, they were feeling anxious to do SOMETHING to help. So the 'Kitten Kuddler Crew' was organized to start socializing the many little kittens in need of human attention at the PuRR Shelter.Under the supervision of Dra. Eva, they meet each week and spend several hours playing with or just loving kittens... and sometimes are called into service in the clinic to help bathe them. Thank you Brenda Gill, Pat Fields, Sharon Rose, Marilyn Khan, Shanti Doelger and Christine Salidivar!Pepper came to the shelter exactly five years ago as a rescue by John Culpepper and is now about 8 years old. She is very small, is calm and sweet and likes attention but does not demand it. She would make a great companion for someone who wants to adopt an older kitty.The PuRR Senior Center has been her home for years, but a Furr-ever Home with someone to love her would be wonderful! Contact Linda at adopt(at)purrproject.com to adopt Pepper or any of our deserving cats.The 2021 Calendar is back from the printer and ready to go!! It is beautiful and full of PuRR cats and kittens in their natural shelter environment. You can order yours by contacting Bama at info(at)PurrProject.com. with your mailing information.A donation of $25 each will cover mailing and you can pay online via PayPal or by check to our Delaware address. Marilyn will be leaving for the USA in mid July and can mail from there if you get your order in NOW! Otherwise, it will be sometime in the Fall before we can take orders again. A GREAT way to support the kitties and a great gift for your cat-loving friends!Again, we so grateful to our faithful supporters and also some new friends who donated to PuRR last month! Many folks don't realize how much it takes in money and manpower to keep the shelter running. It's 7 days a week of feeding, constant cleaning and piles of laundry. Then there is the cost of giving medical care to 200+ felines. In addition the shelter supports two families with six young children. Thank you to: Shanti & Bob Doelger, Sharon Tognetti Weber, Victor & Tatiana Domilovskiy, Dolores Brittingham, Margaret & Jim Brown, Mary & Bob Fitzgerald, Kim Bonthron, Christine Salidivar, Sharon Trigg, John Grahan, Ken Fuerherm, Angie Hutchinson, Laurie Rice, Kathleen Atkins and Robert Weed.For more Kitty News, please visit PurrProject.com.



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It may not look like much, but this inch-long invader causes a world of trouble for native ecosystems.

How do you get rid of an invasive fish that is taking over waterways across the globe? With robot predators designed to scare them, of course!

Mosquitofish. They are small, pretty, perfect for aquariaand they're an invasive alien species in Australia. Just like the cane toad, they were introduced to eat pesky insects, and instead they tried to take over the natural wildlife through competition and predation.

Australia isn't unique in its story. In fact, mosquitofish are so amazing at invading ecosystems that they have been listed in the world's 100 worst invasive alien species by the IUCN.

How to fight an alien invasion

Dr. Giovanni Polverino from UWA and collaborators at New York University, Professor Maurizio Porfiri and his lab, are working to understand these alien species and how we could possibly combat them.

"It doesn't matter where you put it, this animal can make it and survive, and adjust to the new environmental conditions," says Giovanni.

"It's incredible, they naturally occur in freshwater, but they can also thrive in salt water where very few freshwater species can survive."

They are also very tolerant to different temperatures, and their eggs hatch inside their parent. "Giving birth" to live young is unusual in fishand it making them stronger and less susceptible to predation as eggs.

You have to give it to them, they are a pretty amazing species, able to survive just about anywhere. But with this comes huge impacts on biodiversity as they compete with native species.

"Humans have a strong impact on the world, and the spread of invasive species is our fault. They are animals that have been introduced by humans, into places where they don't belong. And the thing is, if we don't reverse or attenuate the issue, things are not going to get better."

Here in Western Australia, mosquitofish have been moving into areas of high biodiversity with unique species. Giovanni believes it is important to do something about this invasion before it is too late, and we lose important native species.

"If they are lost here, we can't just go somewhere else in the world and bring them back."

So what can we do?

Mosquitofish do have a natural predator, the largemouth bassanother fish on the worst invasive alien species list. Hopefully we've learnt enough from the cane toad story not to try and release another predator.

Chemicals like fish toxicants, or trapping them need lots of human time and effort to make it successful, and it can also have a detrimental effect on the native species.

So could scaring it into submission work instead?

Porfiri's team at New York University has been working with Giovanni to create a robot that looks, and moves like the largemouth bass, which could scare the mosquitofish so much that it changes its behavior.

Just like any other scientific experiment, the robot fish has evolved over time.

"We had no idea how to make a robot interact with live fish, so we started very, very basic, with something that looked like a fish, that we thought was moving like a fishbut that was with our eyes not with the eye of a fish!" Giovanni says.

They had to understand what the fish liked, didn't like, and work on the robot until it became an effective robot predator.

So just how does the robot work?

"The robot alters the behavior of the fish, but also the fish has an influence on the robotthey do interact with each other in real time. When the fish is close to the robot, the robot will attack and the fish will swim away. We are studying the mathematics of this interaction to understand the underlying relationship."

The team found that just 15 minutes of exposure to the robot largemouth bass per week had longer term effects on energy levels and body condition. The mathematical models also helped the team to understand the movement patterns that the robot should take to scare the invasive mosquitofish the most.

At the moment, these studies have been within tanks in controlled environments. Before the robots head out to help fight the aliens, there are a few more questions that need to be answered.

What are the long term impacts of the robot on the mosquitofish? How many of these predator robots are needed, and could they also affect the native species?

Giovanni and the team are working on finding answers alreadyand before we know it, robot fish could be part of helping humans reverse our mistakes. Aliens versus robots: the saga continuesand we know which one we'd rather win.

Explore further Robotic fish helps protect native species from invasive pests

This article first appeared on Particle, a science news website based at Scitech, Perth, Australia. Read the original article.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Some of the most massive and distant black holes in the universe emit an enormous amount of extraordinarily energetic radiation called gamma rays. This type of radiation occurs, for example, when mass is converted into energy during fission reactions that run nuclear reactors on Earth. But in the case of black holes, gamma radiation is even more energetic than that produced in nuclear reactors and is the product of very different processes; there, the gamma rays are created by collisions between light rays and highly energetic particles born in the vicinity of black holes by means of mechanisms that are still poorly understood.

As a result of these collisions between light and matter, the energetic particles give almost all their momentum to the light rays and turn them into the gamma radiation that ends up reaching Earth.

The astronomical scientific community suspects that these collisions occur in regions permeated by powerful magnetic fields subjected to highly variable processes, such as turbulence and magnetic reconnectionsmagnetic fields that fuse together, releasing an astonishing amount of energythat could be occurring in the jets of matter expelled by black holes. But probing these magnetic fields billions of light-years away from Earth requires very sensitive devices and to find the exact moment when the emission of high energy takes place.

This is precisely what the research team led by Ivan Marti-Vidal, CIDEGENT researcher of the Valencian Government at the Astronomical Observatory and the Department of Astronomy of the University of Valencia, and main author of this work, has achieved. This team has used ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array), the most sensitive telescope in the world at millimeter wavelengths, to obtain precise information about the magnetic fields of a distant black hole, at a moment when energetic particles were producing an enormous amount of gamma radiation.

In a recently published article in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the scientists report observations of the black hole called PKS1830-211, located more than 10 billion light-years from Earth. These observations demonstrate that the magnetic fields in the region where the most energetic particles of the black hole's jet are produced were changing their structure notably in a time interval of only a few minutes.

"This implies that magnetic processes are originating in very small and turbulent regions, just as the main models of gamma-ray production in black holes predict, which relate turbulence to gamma radiation," explains Ivan Marti-Vidal. "On the other hand, the changes that we have detected took place during a very powerful gamma-ray episode, which allows us to robustly relate them to the high-energy emission. All this brings us a little closer to understanding the origin of the most energetic radiation in the universe," he adds.

Interferometry and new algorithms

To analyze this data, the team of Marti-Vidal has used an advanced analysis technique that allows them to obtain information of rapidly changing sources from interferometric observations, such as those obtained with ALMA. "Interferometry gives us the power to observe the universe with an unparalleled level of detail; in fact, it is the technique on which the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is also based, which recently obtained the first image of a black hole," says Marti-Vidal. "A part of our CIDEGENT project is, in fact, dedicated to developing algorithms like the one we have used in these ALMA observations, but applicable to much more complex data such as those from the EHT, which would allow us to reconstruct, in a near future, 'movies' of black holes, instead of mere images," says the astronomer of the University of Valencia.

Alejandro Mus, CIDEGENT predoctoral researcher at the UV Department of Astronomy and a co-author of the article, develops his doctoral thesis in this field. "Within the EHT project, there are many experts from several institutions working against the clock to solve the issue of rapid source variability," says Mus. "At the moment, the algorithm we have developed works with the ALMA data and has already allowed us to obtain key information about how the magnetic fields associated to PKS1830-211 change at scales of a few tens of minutes. We hope to be able to contribute soon to the EHT with the more sophisticated algorithms we are working on," he concludes.

Explore further Quasar jets are particle accelerators thousands of light-years long

More information: I. Marti-Vidal et al. ALMA full polarization observations of PKS 1830211 during its record-breaking flare of 2019, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2020). I. Marti-Vidal et al. ALMA full polarization observations of PKS 1830211 during its record-breaking flare of 2019,(2020). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038094
Credit: Knafo et al.

URu 2 Si 2 is a metal that belongs to the family of heavy-fermion compounds in which several quantum phases (e.g., magnetism and superconductivity) can compete or coexist. These metals exhibit small energy scales that are easy to tune, a characteristic that makes them ideal for testing new physical ideas and concepts.

For instance, researchers have often used these compounds to test theories related to quantum phase transitions, quantum criticality and unconventional superconductivity. Studying heavy-fermion metals could ultimately unveil new physical properties of other correlated-electron materials that have shown promise for a wide range of applications, such as high-temperature superconductors.

A research team at the National Laboratory of High Magnetic Fields (LNCMI/CNRS) in France and Universite Grenoble Alpes, in collaboration with researchers at Okayama University and Tohoku University in Japan, recently carried out a systematic investigation of URu 2 Si 2 under a combination of high pressures and high magnetic fields. Their paper, published in Nature Physics, maps out a phase in the material that is so far poorly understood, delineating a complex three-dimensional phase diagram.

"The case of URu 2 Si 2 is quite particular," William Knafo, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "A mysterious phase exists in this system, but it has not been identified so far, despite over 30 years of research and the several hundreds of scientific papers published on this topic. The identification of this 'hidden-order' in URu 2 Si 2 remains one of the most challenging problems in solid-state physics."

Instead of trying to understand the mysterious 'hidden-order' phase in URu 2 Si 2 directly, Knafo and his colleagues wanted to gather new elements that could ultimately aid this quest in the future. More specifically, their goal was to determine how the combination of three parameters (i.e., magnetic field, pressure, temperature) influences the hidden-order phase and enables the stabilization of other quantum phases in the material.

Credit: Knafo et al.

"Our experiments are the state-of-the-art of what can be done today by combining three extreme conditions: high magnetic fields, high pressures, and low temperatures," Knafo said. "We generated high magnetic fields at the LNCMI-Toulouse, which is the pulsed-field site of the French National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which in turn belongs to the European Magnetic Field Laboratory."

In their experiments, Knafo and his colleagues generated pulsed magnetic fields of up to 60 teslas, which is approximately 1 million times greater than the Earth's magnetic field. These pulses had a total duration of 300 milliseconds.

The researchers then used a generator made of capacitor banks, which had a maximum energy of 14 megajoules but was charged at 3 megajoules, to generate several thousands of amperes of current and send it to a resistive magnet. Currently, only a few facilities in the world, situated in Los Alamos (U.S.), Tokyo (Japan), Dresden (Germany), Wuhan (China) and Toulouse, are equipped with the tools necessary to conduct research involving magnetic fields of this intensity.

"We used a pressure cell that can attain pressures up to 4 gigapascals (40 thousand times higher than the atmospheric pressure) inside a standard helium cryostat with temperatures down to 1.4 kelvin, that is, 1.4 degrees above the absolute zero (-273.15 C)," Knafo said. "We performed electrical resistance measurements on two small samples fitting inside the 1-mm-diameter hole at the heart of the pressure cell. One sample was the investigated material URu 2 Si 2 , while the second sample was a pressure gauge."

Finally, the researchers welded four tiny electrical contacts (i.e., wires with a diameter of 15 micrometers) onto their URu 2 Si 2 samples. This ultimately allowed them to measure the material's electrical resistance. To ensure the success of their experiment involving pulsed magnetic fields, the samples and wires they used had to be carefully prepared.

Credit: Knafo et al.

"The main achievement of our study is the determination of the three-dimensional phase diagram of URu 2 Si 2 , where the three dimensions are magnetic field, pressure and temperature," Knafo said. "We obtained the boundaries of the hidden-order phase, but also those from other quantum phases in this system: a spin-density wave, antiferromagnetism, polarized paramagnetism etc."

The researchers observed that at high pressures, the field-induced spin-density wave and hidden-order phases disappeared from URu 2 Si 2 , yet it exhibited antiferromagnetism. Moreover, they showed that a large amount of phase boundaries in the material are controlled by the field and pressure dependence of a specific parameter.

The findings gathered by Knafo and his colleagues set new constraints that could ultimately inform existing or emerging theories about electronic correlations and ordered phases in URu 2 Si 2 . More specifically, the 3-D phase diagram outlined in their paper could be an important step forward in trying to model and understand the material's elusive hidden-order phase, which could in turn help to unveil new physics.

"We will now continue our investigation of heavy-fermion materials," Knafo said. "Our present works focus on the new material UTe 2 , where a spectacular and rare phenomenon has been observed: superconductivity induced by a magnetic field. This new system is one of the best illustrations of the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in heavy-fermion materials."

Explore further Machine learning illuminates material's hidden order

More information: W. Knafo et al. Destabilization of hidden order in URu2Si2 under magnetic field and pressure, Nature Physics (2020). Journal information: Nature Physics W. Knafo et al. Destabilization of hidden order in URu2Si2 under magnetic field and pressure,(2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-0927-4

 2020 Science X Network
A white-throated sparrow. Credit: Scott M. Ramsay

Most bird species are slow to change their tune, preferring to stick with tried-and-true songs to defend territories and attract females. Now, with the help of citizen scientists, researchers have tracked how one rare sparrow song went "viral" across Canada, traveling over 3,000 kilometers between 2000 and 2019 and wiping out a historic song ending in the process. The study, publishing July 2 in the journal Current Biology, reports that white-throated sparrows from British Columbia to central Ontario have ditched their traditional three-note-ending song in favor of a unique two-note-ending variantalthough researchers still don't know what made the new song so compelling.

"As far as we know, it's unprecedented," says senior author Ken Otter, a biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. "We don't know of any other study that has ever seen this sort of spread through cultural evolution of a song type." Although it's well known that some bird species change their songs over time, these cultural evolutions tend to stay in local populations, becoming regional dialects rather than the norm for the species. This is how the two-note ending got its start.

In the 1960s, white-throated sparrows across the country whistled a song that ended in a repeated three-note triplet, but by the time Otter moved to western Canada in the late 1990s and began listening to the local bird songs, the new two-note ending had already invaded local sparrow populations. "When I first moved to Prince George in British Columbia, they were singing something atypical from what was the classic white-throated sparrow song across all of eastern Canada," he says. Over the course of 40 years, songs ending in two notes, or doublet-ending songs, had become universal west of the Rocky Mountains.

Otter and his team used the large network of citizen scientist birders across North America who had uploaded recordings of white-throated sparrow songs to online databases to track the new doublet-ending song. They found that the song was not only more popular west of the Rocky Mountains, but was also spreading rapidly across Canada beyond these western populations. "Originally, we measured the dialect boundaries in 2004 and it stopped about halfway through Alberta," he says. "By 2014, every bird we recorded in Alberta was singing this western dialect, and we started to see it appearing in populations as far away as Ontario, which is 3,000 kilometers from us."

The two different white-throated sparrow songs. Credit: Scott M. Ramsay

The scientists predicted that the sparrows' overwintering grounds were playing a role in the rapid spread of the two-note ending. "We know that birds sing on the wintering grounds, so juvenile males may be able to pick up new song types if they overwinter with birds from other dialect areas. This would allow males to learn new song types in the winter and take them to new locations when they return to breeding grounds, helping explain how the song type could spread," Otter says.

So the researchers harnessed sparrows with geolocatorswhat Otter calls "tiny backpacks"to see if western sparrows who knew the new song might share overwintering grounds with eastern populations that would later adopt it. They found that they did. And not only did it appear that this rare song was spreading across the continent from these overwintering grounds, but it was also completely replacing the historic triple-note ending that had persisted for so many decadessomething almost unheard of in male songbirds.

Otter and his team found that the new song didn't give male birds a territorial advantage over male counterparts, but still want to study whether female birds have a preference between the two songs. "In many previous studies, the females tend to prefer whatever the local song type is," says Otter. "But in white-throated sparrows, we might find a situation in which the females actually like songs that aren't typical in their environment. If that's the case, there's a big advantage to any male who can sing a new song type."

Now, another new song has appeared in a western sparrow population whose early spread may mirror that of the doublet-note ending. Otter and his team are excited to continue their work and see how this song shifts in real time with more help from citizen scientists. "By having all these people contribute their private recordings that they just make when they go bird watching, it's giving us a much more complete picture of what's going on throughout the continent," he says. "It's allowing us to do research that was never possible before."

Explore further Wildfires cause bird songs to change
Images from a satellite (LANDSAT) show massive erosion after the typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan. This influenced seismicity in the affected regions. Credit: NASA/LANDSAT

The Earth's crust is under constant stress. Every now and then this stress is discharged in heavy earthquakes, mostly caused by the slow movement of Earth's crustal plates. There is, however, another influencing factor that has received little attention so far: intensive erosion can temporarily change the earthquake activity (seismicity) of a region significantly. This has now been shown for Taiwan by researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in cooperation with international colleagues. They report on this in the journal Scientific Reports.

The island in the western Pacific Ocean is anyway one of the most tectonically active regions in the world, as the Philippine Sea Plate collides with the edge of the Asian continent. 11 years ago, Typhoon Morakot reached the coast of Taiwan. This tropical cyclone is considered one of the worst in Taiwan's recorded history.

Within only three days in August 2009, three thousand liters of rain fell per square meter. As a comparison, Berlin and Brandenburg receive an average of around 550 liters per square meter in one year. The water mass caused catastrophic flooding and widespread landslides. More than 600 people died and the immediate economic damage amounted to the equivalent of around 3 billion euros.

The international team led by Philippe Steer of the University of Rennes, France, evaluated the earthquakes following this erosion event statistically. They showed that there were significantly more small-magnitude and shallow earthquakes during the 2.5 years after typhoon Morakot than before, and that this change occurred only in the area showing extensive erosion. GFZ researcher and senior author Niels Hovius says: "We explain this change in seismicity by an increase in crustal stresses at shallow depth, less than 15 kilometers, in conjunction with surface erosion." The numerous landslides have moved enormous loads, and rivers have transported the material from the devastated regions. "The progressive removal of these loads changes the state of the stress in the upper part of the Earth's crust to such an extent that there are more earthquakes on thrust faults," explains Hovius.

Due to massive erosion after the typhoon Morakot the patterns of earthquakes changed for a time. Credit: Philippe Steer, Geosciences, Rennes, France

So-called active mountain ranges, such as those found in Taiwan, are characterized by 'thrust faults' underground, where one unit of rocks moves up and over another unit. The rock breaks when the stress becomes too great. Usually it is the continuous pressure of the moving and interlocking crustal plates that causes faults to move. The resulting earthquakes in turn often cause landslides and massively increased erosion. The work of the GFZ researchers and their colleagues now shows for the first time that the reverse is also possible: massive erosion influences seismicityand does so in a geological instant. Hovius notes, "Surface processes and tectonics are connected in the blink of an eye." The researcher continues, "Earthquakes are among the most dangerous and destructive natural hazards. Better understanding earthquake triggering by tectonics and by external processes is crucial for a more realistic assessment of earthquake hazards, especially in densely populated regions."

Explore further Erosion may trigger earthquakes

More information: Philippe Steer et al, Earthquake statistics changed by typhoon-driven erosion, Scientific Reports (2020). Journal information: Scientific Reports Philippe Steer et al, Earthquake statistics changed by typhoon-driven erosion,(2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67865-y
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The stages in which ribosomes synthesize life-sustaining proteins have been revealed in unprecedented real-time detail by UMass Medical School structural biologists Andrei Korostelev, Ph.D., and Anna Loveland, Ph.D. Their new study of this fundamental molecular mechanism, captured using state-of-the-art, time-resolved, cryo-electron microscopy was published by the journal Nature on July 1.

Ribosomes are the molecular machines that read genetic instructions carried by messenger RNA (mRNA) and translate the instructions into proteins by joining different amino acids. (Amino acids are brought to the ribosomes by corresponding transfer RNAs [tRNAs].)

"Understanding how ribosomes accurately decode mRNA and 'proofread' each tRNA delivered to them was a challenge," said Dr. Korostelev, associate professor of RNA therapeutics. "Time-resolved cryo-EM of protein synthesis on the ribosome showed how proofreading makes translation a very accurate process, which is essential for all life."

The research team, including former Korostelev lab postdoc Gabriel Demo, Ph.D., now a group leader at Masaryk University, used cryo-EM to visualize the delivery of amino-acid-bound tRNA to the ribosome. Visualizing the structural ensembles at different time points provided an unprecedented view of the complete reaction, from initial selection to tRNA proofreading and the addition of an amino acid to the growing protein. Comparison of reactions with correct and incorrect tRNAs uncovered that the small ribosomal subunit strongly holds the correct tRNA and rotates to allow its navigation into the ribosome's catalytic center on the large subunit. By contrast, the small subunit provides almost no support for an incorrect tRNA after initial selection, so it falls off, preventing the addition of an incorrect amino acid to the growing protein.

Korostelev lab postdoc Anna Loveland, PhD, gives an overview of the ribosome reactions captured with time-resolved cryo-EM in the resulting movie.

"I was excited to see so many different structures, or states, including short-lived transient states," said Korostelev. "These transient states are critical because they are the ones in which the decision-making takes place for the ribosome to accept correct tRNAs and reject incorrect ones."

Cryo-EM is a breakthrough technology for visualizing detailed cellular structures, including viruses and ribosomes at near-atomic resolution, with broad applications in structural biology and drug design. Korostelev was one of the faculty members who worked on the proposal for establishing the Massachusetts Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility at UMMS in 2016. The Korostelev lab, in which Dr. Loveland is a postdoc, studies how cells utilize ribosome complexes to make proteins.

"The big difference between the current work and the past work is that we were able to observe more detailed states that weren't previously visible," said Loveland. "By comparing the correct reaction with the incorrect reaction, we can see how the ribosome favors making correct proteins. In the past, we and others have had snapshots of different parts of the process stalled by inhibitors, whereas now we've visualized a total of 33 states along that pathway and we understand it in a lot more detail."

In the cell, ribosomes can join more than ten amino acids per second, so seeing a complete reaction of amino-acid-bound tRNA selection at near-atomic detail is a challenge. Loveland developed an approach to visualize these reactions with cryo-EM at the UMMS cryo-EM facility.

"We and others previously have had to inhibitin other words, stallribosomal reactions in order to see a single state" she explained. "Now we have found that by slowing down the reaction by cooling it on ice prior to cryo-EM, we're able to resolve so many states that we don't need those inhibitors. This approach allows us to observe what happens over an entire reaction, which is more similar to what actually happens in a cell."

These studies emphasize that high-resolution, time-resolved cryo-EM could become the bona fide structural biochemistry method for visualizing complex biochemical pathways without inhibitors. The ability to visualize reactions with greater accuracy, specificity and detail offers potential for future investigations.

(from left) Anna Loveland, PhD, Andrei Korostelev, PhD and GSBS student Christine Carbone examine images in the cryo-EM facility at UMass Medical School. Credit: University of Massachusetts Medical School

"Anna's achievement with time-resolved cryo-EM enabled us to create a 'movie' of the complete mRNA decoding reaction," said Korostelev. "To our knowledge this is the first time so many distinct states have been visualized without an inhibitor. We can now explore other challenging reactions and revisit the studies previously done with inhibitors to learn more."

Among many potential future applications of time-resolved cryo-EM, the technique could be used to see how ribosomes move along the messenger RNA while reading the genetic code. Frame-shifting, in which the ribosomes can slip like gears on viral mRNAs to help viruses make different proteins, is essential for survival and replication of some viruses. These include the now-rampant COVID-19 virus, so its frame-shifting mechanism could be a future drug target.

Explore further Why mRNAs blueprints that are more difficult to decipher have shorter lifetimes

More information: Anna B. Loveland et al. Cryo-EM of elongating ribosome with EF-TuGTP elucidates tRNA proofreading, Nature (2020). Journal information: Nature Anna B. Loveland et al. Cryo-EM of elongating ribosome with EF-TuGTP elucidates tRNA proofreading,(2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2447-x
When the second and third individuals arrived in Albany, they were supposed to quarantine themselves for 14 days.

However, they did not all quarantine. They went grocery shopping and bought food at drive-thru restaurants. They wore masks.

The couple that went grocery shopping, however, used the pickup option and did not enter the store. They also paid with a bank card and did not have contact with staff.

No Warren County residents other than the three COVID-positive individuals have been found to have been on the flights. Residents of other counties who were on these flights are being contacted as they are identified.

The three new Florida-related cases were considered mild as of Thursday, and were the only new cases confirmed among Warren County residents since June 24. The person whose test result was reported June 24 was cleared as recovered as of Thursday.

This case affirms the importance of the state travel advisory, and of the need for people who are traveling from designated states to quarantine even when they are asymptomatic, said Warren County Health Services Director Ginelle Jones.
WASHINGTON  On July 4, 1950, when Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL) first announced, This is RFE calling to an audience behind the Iron Curtain in communist Czechoslovakia, people listened because they expected the truth. Seventy years later, the platforms have proliferated and its mandate has grown, with RFE/RL delivering essential news via radio, TV, and digital media to more than 38 million people across 23 countries with little to no free press of their own.

RFE/RL has a noble mission and has played a historic role over decades in countries fighting for democracy and human rights, said Acting President Daisy Sindelar. The tools have changed, but the challenges are fundamentally the same. We have some of the most dedicated journalists in the profession and have earned the trust of our audiences. We know that even in the toughest environments, our work to report the news and model the values of an independent press are making a real difference to people with nowhere else to turn for credible reporting on the issues that matter to them.

In a tribute to RFE/RL on the occasion of its 70th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of its move from its original headquarters in Munich to Prague, Chairman of the Czech Senate Milos Vystrcil said, For many of my contemporaries and for me, RFE/RL has been a source of free information and a window into the free world...I am proud that now RFE/RL broadcasts from Prague, so we can...participate in the flow of free information to Russia and other post-Soviet countries. It is as important for the citizens of those countries now as the broadcasts from Munich were for us.

RFE/RL's 70th anniversary comes as it stands virtually alone in covering the coronavirus crisis in countries like Iran and Russia where officials have downplayed or outright denied the scope and impact of the pandemic. The anniversary also comes amid fresh threats against its journalists and editorial principles.

Independent blogger Ihar Losik, a social media consultant for RFE/RLs Belarus Service, is currently being held in a Minsk detention center, accused by authorities of using his Telegram channel to prepare to disrupt public order. Looking ahead to a presidential election in August, the government has been spooked by the Services dominance on digital platforms: it registered a record 3.3 million video views on YouTube, nearly 3 million visits to its website, and 1.2 million video views on Facebook in May, not least because of its unflinching coverage of the coronavirus, which state media ignored and the countrys authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has repeatedly dismissed as a psychosis.

One journalist with RFE/RLs Russian Service is under investigation because of an April 2020 interview she published with a St. Petersburg doctor who described shortages at his hospital of medical equipment and supplies to treat patients with the coronavirus. Pskov-based contributor Svetlana Prokopyeva is on trial for justifying terrorism after she speculated on air that political despair may have driven a teenager in Arkhangelsk in 2018 to detonate a suicide bomb. The Kremlins designation of RFE/RL as a foreign agent in 2017, and the tightening of the law in 2019 to target individual journalists, are tools revived from the Soviet era meant to inspire self-censorship and fear.

In Russia, where RFE/RL began broadcasting in 1953 following its Eastern European launch, the demand especially among younger audiences for real stories about real people has driven the growth and impact of RFE/RLs digital TV network, Current Time. Its up-close, live-streamed coverage of election protests, corruption, local activism, and arbitrary arrests is unique in a country where state TV spins propaganda and conspiracy theories and the political opposition gets no airtime at all.

RFE/RL has extended its reach in recent decades to populations deprived of a free press in Afghanistan, to counter extremist propaganda in militant strongholds in Pakistan, and, most recently, to EU member states where media pluralism is in decline. It also plays an indispensable role in Iran, breaking through official censorship to reach 15.4 percent of the countrys adult population on radio, internet, and TV. Within the first six months of 2020, its Iranian Service, known in Persian as Radio Farda, provided unique live coverage and critical analysis of national protests over gasoline prices, the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Qasem Soleimani, the downing of a Ukrainian jetliner, and the outbreak of the coronavirus. Irans government and official media, in every case, propagated conspiracy theories, concealed information, and lied.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, after Radio Fardas own investigation revealed that the government had vastly underreported the viruss death toll, the Services editor likened its work to a polygraph. He said, We detect the lies, report the facts, and people trust us.

About RFE/RL

RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to more than 38 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)
Vera French received a $100,000 transformation grant from the Quad-Cities Community Foundation as well as funding from the Sheila Murphy Trust to launch the program, Whitaker said. The money will pay for staff and staff training, transportation and program development.

The program is expected to help 100 people the first year, Whitaker said.

The Carol Center also has two other new offerings: A licensed therapist on-site and the formation of a peer-run Clubhouse, an international program in which people in recovery help those still struggling with anything from budgeting and computer skills to fitness and exercise.

Were very excited about that, Whitaker said.

Clubhouses  with 390 locations worldwide  "fulfill the basic human need of being wanted, needed, and expected," according to the website of the Independence Center, St. Louis.

The Salvation Army: Developer Andrew Wold purchased the former Salvation Army building in February and has already started work. He hopes to be finished with 34 high-end apartments by the first part of next year.

To help finance the project, he has received workforce housing tax credits and is applying for both state and federal historic preservation tax credits, he said.
7/2/20

A good Thursday to all. A firecracker hot weekend is shaping up around the Quad-Cities. Here are the weather details from the National Weather Service.

1. An afternoon high in upper 80s

Today there's a 20% chance of showers. Skies will be partly sunny with a high near 88 degrees and a low around 68 degrees.

Friday will be sunny with a high near 90 degrees and a low around 70 degrees.

Saturday will be sunny with a high near 91 degrees and a low around 70 degrees.

Sunday will be mostly sunny with a high near 91 degrees and a low around 71 degrees.

2. Flooding winding down in the Q-C

Area rivers and streams are slowly returning to their banks. Here are the latest river levels.

A Flood Warning continues for the Wapsipinicon River near DeWitt until Sunday. The river is at 12.3 feet and falling. Flood stage is 11 feet. Water is affecting residences along the river between Wheatland and Calamus. Water also affects businesses along the river near Calamus.
Before the barbecue, he had barely gone out, his brother-in-law Gustavo Lopez told CNN. But he was incredibly social and was feeling isolated and decided to visit his friends when the state lifted some restrictions, he added.

"Everywhere he went he made friends instantly," Lopez said. "He was missing his friends and missing his family. So as soon as they lifted some of the restrictions he felt free and he unfortunately went to this get-together to be with his friends and then this was the result."

A friend who was at the party reached out to Macias to say he had coronavirus, and he was aware of the diagnosis when he attended the gathering but didn't think he could infect anyone because he had no symptoms, Lopez said.

"Our understanding is that a gentleman had called him and said 'hey I was at the party, I knew I was positive. I didn't tell anybody,'" Lopez said. "I think the gentleman was regretting not telling everybody, and he was calling people who were at the party to recommend they get tested."

Macias was upset but blamed himself for the error in judgment, even using his Facebook post to warn friends about the dangers of the virus. About a dozen people who attended the party tested positive, Lopez said.
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Allow me to change the subject and tell you a bit about my family. A long time ago I had a grandfather I adored. He came to America in 1913 at the age of 23 from a small town south of Munich near Germanys border with Austria. I dont know why he left Germany. Being stupid, and self-involved I never asked. When his daughter, my mother, died some 30 years ago I inherited the family papers, including court documents that showed he abused my grandmother, physically and mentally, and then had her committed to an insane asylum, where she lived the final 17 years of her life. In those days men had all of the power. A signature on the right legal form and voila, a troubled wife is gone.

And then a few years back my aunt and uncle told me a story about my grandfather that finally ended my infatuation with a man people said I resembled. My grandfather, aunt, and uncle lived in suburban Chicago and the three of them drove in to city on occasion and sometimes my obviously disgusted grandfather could be heard angrily muttering from the back seat, Schwartze, Schwartze. Blacks, blacks. He didnt even like seeing African-Americans, let alone knowing they lived in Chicago. You see, my grandfather was a racist and had he stayed in Germany Ive no doubt he would have been a willing Nazi. Thats a bit of my family history and yours may not be much different; fortunately we can still do something about it. We can stand up, fight for justice, tell our stories, raise our voices, and never let the other guys band play us off.
Three Forks Wastewater Superintendent Steve Johnston shows how the autosampler works at the city treatment plant. Visit https://www.healthygallatin.org/coronavirus-covid-19/wastewater-data/ or https://thewalklab.com/covid-19-waste-water-monitoring/ to see test results and learn more about wastewater testing.
Law enforcement says it's prepared to keep the president and public safe on July 3 despite large crowds and challenging geography in Keystone and at Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

Mount Rushmore has a challenge of the geography, its surrounded by forest and is only accessible by car via one road, said Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom.

Keystone has some challenges in terms of just geography  it's small and theres limited parking, Thom said of the small town where protesters plan to gather and ticket holders will drive through to reach the national monument.

About 7,500 spectators are set to celebrate Independence Day at Mount Rushmore with fireworks and speeches from President Donald Trump, the Secretary of the Interior and Gov. Kristi Noem. Hundreds of others are expected to attend watch parties in Rapid City, protest in Keystone, or seek out a good view of the fireworks from vistas across the Black Hills.

Thom said his office has been in contact with multiple law enforcement groups  including the Secret Service  and said local, state and national agencies are ready to help direct traffic, keep protesters safe, and respond to scenarios involving people trying to hurt Trump, other officials or the public.
Mayor Steve Allender implored residents and visitors alike Wednesday to wear a face mask while celebrating Independence Day and President Donald Trump's visit to the fireworks display on Friday at Mount Rushmore.

"I think the jury is in on what we should be doing. I think it makes good sense for us to be wearing masks when we are going to public places," Allender said during a news conference. "Especially in places where we cannot control the distance between us and other people."

Allender's comments come just a few days after Gov. Kristi Noem said there will be no social distancing policy for those in attendance for the return of fireworks to Mount Rushmore and Trump's visit for the festivities on Friday.

The mayor said the spike in COVID-19 cases across the country means every citizen has a personal responsibility to do what it right.

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"By now you're figuring out, and if you haven't, you should be figuring out there is not a near end in sight to this pandemic. It's lingering," Allender said. "Part of the reason of that is we've done a good job of being safe... We are still ascending to our peak, but what we are seeing a a very slow ascent. That means we are pushing out the duration of the infection spread in our community."
Imagine running an operation that is mostly staff salaries and your revenue is cut in half or by a third, and you still have to try to make that work, said Shelly Ten Napel, CEO of the Community Healthcare Association of the Dakotas.

Before and during the pandemic, Ten Napel has lobbied for greater state and federal support for community hospitals and clinics.

Without help, we would not make it through this, or we would just make it and it would be such a different picture of [which] communitys providers can afford to be in, she said.

Ten Napel said elected officials, policymakers and the public must think deeply about the need for rural health care and find ways to continue to support providers who serve small communities.

Its kind of mind-blowing when you see your revenue crater, she said. We as a community need to figure out what services we think are important and figure out a way to support that.

Ten Napel and others say that if rural health care is allowed to diminish, small towns in South Dakota and across the country may falter or even cease to exist.
SME Bank has allocated up to RM2.1 billion in financial aid for its SME customers affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, to be offered through the SME Go scheme and the SME Technology Transformation Fund (STTF). Both initiatives were introduced under the PENJANA economic recovery plan.

Of the total, RM1.6 billion will be earmarked for the SME Go scheme, which is intended to help finance the pre-implementation stage of construction or supply/maintenance contracts awarded by the federal or state government and agencies. The financial aid is targeted at G2 and G3 contractors, referring to SMEs that are allowed to tender for government projects valued at less than RM500,000 and RM1,000,000, respectively.

Under the scheme, the financing limit offered is up to 100% of the contract cost, said the group president and chief executive officer of SME Bank, Aria Putera Ismail.

Meanwhile, RM500 million will be allocated for the STTF to help entrepreneurs in the services and manufacturing sector begin their digitalisation journey. They can tap into the STTF to purchase equipment, machinery, computer hardware, and other varieties of assets to enhance their productivity and efficiency, as well as help them penetrate new markets.

The asset to be financed under STTF shall be the collateral for the financing. The bank can obtain the guarantee schemes from Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Bhd or Syarikat Jaminan Pembiayaan Perniagaan, said Aria Putera. He also clarified that applicants can apply up to 80% of the acquisition cost (maximum RM3 million), and that the fund will be disbursed directly to the supplier or vendor when SME Bank receives verification of purchase invoices.

Aria Putera further added that the digital transformation programme that SME Bank undertook back in 2019 has put the bank in a good place to assist the government in executing key initiatives during this crucial period. The transformation programme, which took place over two years, saw SME Bank setting new directions and projects to improve its services for the digital economy.

Separately, Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar commented that SME Banks allocation of funds is expected to rejuvenate economic activities in the construction sector. Additionally, it will also encourage SMEs to adopt technology as the country embarks on the Fourth Industry Revolution (IR 4.0) to face the new normal.

You can find out more about the SME Go scheme and the STTF financing aid here.

(Source: The Star, New Straits Times)

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Recipients of the Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH) aid living in urban areas of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak will receive their payments for Phase 3 by the end of July, said Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz.

A total of RM3 billion has been allocated for this exercise, and it is expected to benefit 5 million recipients, comprising 3.8 million households and 1.2 million individuals. The amount of BSH aid awarded will be determined by the recipients income range, as follows:

Categories BSH Aid To Be Paid Households earning less than RM2,000 RM600 Households earning between RM2,001 to RM3,000 RM350 Households earning between RM3,001 to RM4,000 RM100 Singles (40 years of age and above) earning less than RM2,000 RM400

Note that the BSH aid paid during Phase 3 (figures show above) is inclusive of an extra RM100 financial aid, provided through the first economic stimulus package announced in February 2020. The extra cash, which was meant to encourage local consumption, was originally supposed to be paid out in May. It was subsequently postponed to July, to be disbursed together with Phase 3 of the BSH aid.

Tengku Zafrul also noted that households with children will receive an additional assistance of RM120 per child (below 18 years old), provided for a maximum of four children. For example, households earning less than RM2,000 with four children will receive RM1,080, he said.

Meanwhile, the payment for Phase 2 and 3 of the BSH aid for recipients in rural areas of Sabah and Sarawak (without bank accounts) will take place between 1 to 31 July 2020, to be facilitated by the Sabah Treasury and Sarawak Treasury. This also applies to the disbursement of Bantuan Prihatin Nasional (BPN) payments for the same group of recipients.

This initiative will benefit 53,325 recipients with a total financial payout of RM28.7 million, said Tengku Zafrul in a press statement for the 11th LAKSANA report on the implementation of the Prihatin economic stimulus plan and the PENJANA economic recovery plan. The statement also included updates on other initiatives, including the i-Lestari Withdrawal Scheme and the wage subsidy programme.

The BSH programme was first announced during Budget 2019, aimed at alleviating the burden of Malaysian households, particularly those from the B40 group. It was subsequently expanded during the tabling of Budget 2020 to cover single individuals aged 40 and above, and all disabled persons aged 18 and above with a monthly income of less than RM2,000.

(Source: Malay Mail)

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A Roanoke County software company says it has raised $2.5 million, primarily from outside investors, to market a data tool for bankers.

The maker of KlariVis also says that it has landed five paying clients in the six months that have passed since its national product rollout in January, and that it has identified 170 potential clients.

Were at the beginning, Kim Snyder, founder and CEO of KBS Analytics, said Wednesday.

The company employs 20 people, half software developers and half bankers, and has an office on Electric Road, Snyder said.

Snyder, the former CFO of Valley Bank, recalled data review being a cumbersome necessity in her previous job. Each work days email brought eight to 10 reports from the banks multitude of systems  one for new loans, another for loans paid off and another about mobile banking activity. Another report stated the balances of large depositors.

Dense but vital, the information was critical to spotting trends and red flags but hard to evaluate because different systems were used, Snyder said.

KlariVis is designed to extract and present only the choicest data points. The company is telling bankers it will enable them to sell more products and services to the customer base, she said.
Radford police are seeking help finding a West Virginia man who allegedly attacked his estranged wife in the city around midnight Saturday.

Dennis Ray Blankenship Jr., 36, of Bluefield, is being sought after an incident in which he is accused of pushing his estranged wife into a wall, putting his hand on her throat and blocking her exit from a residence because she did not go along with his sexual advances, according to a news release issued Monday by city police.

He is wanted on charges of domestic assault and battery, strangulation and abduction.

The incident occurred late Saturday in the 300 block of Fairfax Street, the news release said. Police were called at 12:07 a.m. Sunday after the woman, who was not named in the news release, got to a neighbors home and called for help, the news release said. Blankenship left before officers arrived.

Police ask that anyone with information about Blankenships location to call 540-731-5040 or email crimestoppers@radford.gov.

Blankenship was described as 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds. Police said he had connections in the New River Valley and in West Virginia.

The news release said that police consider Blankenship to be dangerous. An emergency protective order has been issued, the news release said.

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Roger Dean RD Huffstetler

Huffstetler was the first person in his family to graduate from college. He joined the Marines, and then he went to Harvard Business School on the GI Bill.

Hes concerned Americans dont have opportunities for success and about a generation doing worse than the last.

What I want for every American is that if you work hard, the country will have your back, Huffstetler said.

Huffstetler ran for the same seat two year ago, but lost the party nomination to Leslie Cockburn, who would go on to lose to Riggleman. His campaign is still the same.

Im from the working class and for the working class, and I want to get to Washington, D.C., and make sure people are taken care of, Huffstetler said.

Huffstetler wants people to know about his upbringing. His grandmother worked at a textile mill and grandfather drove a truck. His grandfather and father worked union jobs at Ford Motor Co. When he was a child, he had to live in subsidized housing. His father died of an Oxycontin overdose.

The Huffstetlers know intimately the struggles of rural Americans, and I care deeply about making their lives better, he said.
Republican Party activists did everything they could to structure this process so Congressman Riggleman would lose, Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington, said Sunday.

At various points throughout the day, people waited more than an hour-and-a-half in a line of cars to vote. Some people left without voting. Convention volunteers a few times directed people to a specific line, and then informed the voters after a long wait that they were in the wrong line, causing them to get at the end of the line and wait again to vote.

When you require people to drive several hours to cast a ballot, it shouldnt surprise you the most extreme people will do so, Farnsworth said.

It took more than six hours for results to be announced. The Riggleman team challenged ballots cast for Campbell County, alleging voting integrity issues and fraudulent voting.

Thats what losers say, Good said.
Here and there, Im still getting messages from folks who are having trouble getting through to the Virginia Employment Commission about unemployment benefits, the IRS about yet-to-be-received stimulus payments, and the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles about drivers license renewals.

Well have more about the latter in an upcoming column. In the meantime, I thought Id pass along a tip from Jim Marchman, a reader in Blacksburg. With a little bit of sleuthing on the internet, Marchman discovered a procedure to get in touch with a living, breathing person at the IRS.

There is a website that tells you how to  quote  hack the IRS phone tree, Marchman told me in a June 2 voicemail. It offers a detailed, 10-step process and advises which buttons to push on your phone at certain prompts in the agencys voicemail system.

Marchman tried it, and it worked.

I had to [call] at 7:15 a.m. and then still wait 40 minutes after going through all that to talk to somebody, Marchman told me. But, it can be done.
The protest that swept through Roanoke on May 30 started not long after a Roanoke minister prayed for justice and unification.

Bless us now, oh God, as we leave this place, the Rev. David Jones invoked before a large crowd gathered at Washington Park. But we never leave the place of solidarity, the place of unity and the place of love and peace. A place where we continue to seek the welfare of all people, regardless of color, regardless of age, regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of political affiliation.

Hours later, after midnight, the long day of protests ended with a Black man lying on his stomach on the sidewalk of Salem Avenue, his hands cuffed behind him as he was arrested by Roanoke police.

In between, people marched, prayed, shouted and chanted, and some were even pepper-sprayed. People who had never protested a day in their lives took to Roanokes streets yelling at police. Officers trained to protect and serve the public stood shoulder to shoulder in defense of their own police station as their fellow citizens massed in front of them.

Six days after the death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who died while a white police officer kept a knee on his neck, protests over his killing unfurled across the United States, including Roanoke.

Roanokes protests were nowhere near as violent as those in larger cities. Yet on the afternoon of May 30 and early morning of May 31, city officers used pepper or OC (Oleoresin capsicum) spray four times and fired pepper balls at the ground eight times on Campbell and Salem avenues, a police spokeswoman confirmed. There were few injuries, little property damage and, in the end, seven arrests. It was a day of prayer and profanity, slogans and speeches, confrontation and peacemaking.

From a rally to a march

The first event May 30 billed as "Say Their Names: Stop the Killing" was organized by Roanokes Black Lives Matter chapter and convened in Washington Park, a popular gathering place in the citys predominantly black Gainsboro neighborhood.

The park is named for Booker T. Washington, the famous Franklin County-born African American educator and author, who historically was known for not favoring confrontational civil rights demonstrations in the early 1900s. However, Washington famously protested the lynchings of Black people in 1904, writing that If the law is disregarded when a Negro is concerned, it will be soon be disregarded when a white man is concerned. Translation: If black people cannot expect protection from the law, then neither can anyone else.

Hundreds turned out on the sunny day beneath a bright blue sky dabbed with puffy clouds. Families with children held signs that read Black Lives Matter, Color is Not a Crime, Silence is Betrayal and I Cant Breathe, which were some of Floyds last words before he died. The crowd included scores of people, Black and white, young and old people, mothers with babies.

Taylor Saunders, an 18-year-old biracial woman from Roanoke, was part of the crowd. The widely viewed video of Floyds death had prompted her to come to the park. It was her first protest.

There was a feeling of, OK, enough is enough, Saunders said. How many more people have to die. ... How many people is this going to have to affect before it becomes a problem were willing to address?

She was also inspired by the outpouring of shock not just from Black communities but from people of all races. The world was responding to the need for change. It allowed the world to see just how much of a problem there was.

Before the march, Saunders stopped at a store to pick up supplies to make a sign, where she met another young woman doing the same thing. The other woman said it would also be her first protest. They agreed to check in on each other during the afternoon.

People at the park not only spoke of Floyd, but of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man killed by two white men in Brunswick, Georgia. They said the name of Breonna Taylor, killed in her apartment by Louisville, Kentucky, police. They remembered Kionte Spencer, a teen killed by Roanoke County police after a standoff in 2017. Some held signs in memory of Linda Pierson, a Roanoke woman killed in a hit-and-run earlier this year after she left her job as a cafeteria worker at the Roanoke City Jail. The man who hit her and fled will serve a year and a half in jail.

The event kicked off at 3 p.m. Brenda Hale of the NAACP and Bernadette B.J. Lark were featured speakers. Then, Jordan Bell, a 29-year-old local activist and chronicler of Roanokes African American history, stirred the crowd into action.

I come to you in the spirit of my ancestors who fought, bled and died for a country that didnt give a damn about them, Bell said in a tone that was direct. Standing with a hand in the pocket of his cargo shorts and wearing a white T-shirt with a logo, Bell told the crowd how he had recently spoken to Richard Chubb, an 84-year-old black activist and retired Roanoke educator, and had come away feeling that his own experience was not that dissimilar to that of the older man who grew up in a segregated society.

If yall want to march further downtown, Bell said to the crowd, again, Im with all of that.

Jones concluded his prayer by paraphrasing the Old Testament book of Amos, lines that Martin Luther King Jr. famously repeated many times, including in his "I Have a Dream Speech" and his "Letter from Birmingham Jail:"

We pray, of God, that one day we shall truly be able to see justice roll down like a river," Jones intoned. "... and flow like an ever-flowing stream over this land called America.

Just after 4 p.m., about an hour after the rally began, people began leaving the park and walking in unison down the hill toward Orange Avenue and eventually to downtown Roanoke.

Police react to march

Roanoke Police Chief Sam Roman would later tell reporters that the police department did not know that the people at the Washington Park rally planned to march downtown. On the day of the protests, Roman, who has ties in Roanoke going back nearly three decades, had been on his new job for two months.

Some early social media postings had indicated people would be marching down to the busy intersection at Orange Avenue and Gainsboro Road, but that idea had expanded, now including charting a loop around downtown. The demonstrators made their way along that route, joining in chants of no justice, no peace and other calls as they walked.

Police quickly set up a line of officers along Gainsboro Road to block the marchers at the intersection of Wells Avenue near Hotel Roanoke. As marchers chanted Hands up, dont shoot, they were again allowed to proceed. More police were stationed at the intersection of Salem Avenue and Second Street near The Roanoke Times building, but marchers passed through without being stopped.

Louis Garcia, worried by the police lines on the street, had taken out her phone and started livestreaming the demonstration. Just in case, thought the 18-year-old, who had just graduated from Patrick Henry High School.

But, as the marchers were let past and continued on their way together, she felt her heart lift.

I felt happy, she said of that moment. I felt that the diversity of this community was coming together, and that real change was going to start coming.

As the procession moved along Gainsboro Road, people were only a few city blocks away from where had once stood a large, predominantly Black neighborhood in northeast Roanoke, an area that had been razed by the city during a 1960s program called urban renewal, but which black Roanokers at the time called Negro removal.

As they crossed the Second Street bridge across the railroad tracks, the marchers were within view of what little remained of the Henry Street business district, a once-thriving economic and cultural hub of black Roanoke long eradicated.

Tatiana Durant, a 22-year-old Hollins University student and Patrick Henry High School graduate, marched with others into the heart of downtown with a feeling of safety because the police could see that the demonstrators' intentions were peaceful.

I thought, OK, now they can clearly see were not hurting anyone, were not rioting, Durant said. But clearly, they didnt take it that way.

Tense situation at Third Street

After crossing the bridge, marchers turned west onto Campbell Avenue and continued past the Noel C. Taylor Municipal Building, named for Roanokes first black mayor. When the crowd got to the intersection of Campbell and Third Street, barely a block from the police station and city jail, they were stopped by a line of police officers, blocking them from continuing toward the jail and police department.

Roman later said officials had come across information that suggested a small element was angling to use that day for vandalism and violence at the police station and jail. He did not reveal more details but said he felt the department had to take action.

The situation grew tense around 4:25 p.m. as marchers asked why they were being stopped and demanded the right to continue on.

Chants broke out as officers told marchers to stay back and not proceed up the street. A video taken at the scene showed an officer using hand-held pepper spray on a man wearing a blue bandana who had his hands up.

Some marchers were able to walk past the line of officers only to be met by more police. Saunders, walking in her first-ever demonstration, was at first unnerved by the sight of the barricades manned by officers in riot gear.

She said she told herself to be brave. I told myself, its going to sound cheesy, but I have to be willing to put myself in harm's way to see or effect change. That I had to think about the greater cause because at this point its not just about a single person. Its about making a change and its about community. Its not just about me.

Protesters were chanting as they waited in the street. Some spoke to officers animatedly as they asked why they were being halted. A few in the crowd shouted: F--- the police!

Garcia sensed the officers were becoming aggravated by the shouting. They were upset, she said.  They were visibly getting anxious at us.

Some marchers walked past the line of officers only to be met by more police.

A burst of popping noises rang out and smoke rose in the air. The police said a round of pepper balls were fired into the ground to hold the line set by the officers.

Several demonstrators, unsure of what was being fired, started running. Garcia saw a small child and a mother, who was in a state of panic and took off a cloth mask to give to the child even while coughing from fumes.

These people, the protesters, they just wanted to make sure their people were safe. You know what I mean? Garcia said. We wanted to make sure each other were safe before anything else happened  Thats a community instinct.

While running amid the crowd, Garcia felt a swirl of fear, frustration and worry. I was worried about the kids around me. There were so many little kids.

Saunders, now baptized into her first protest march, also began running. She saw the girl shed met earlier before the Washington Park event. Two women were pouring water on the girl's face and trying to wipe something out of her eyes. Saunders wasn't sure what had happened but ran over to help.

A few minutes later, a police officer with a bullhorn told the protesters, Go now. This is an unlawful assembly. You are subject to arrest. You are subject to arrest.

Finding a way past

Some of the leaders of the march approached to talk with police. Bell, one of the primary speakers at Washington Park and one of the march's leaders, said that Roman told him the group could not advance further west on Campbell. Bell replied, "Chief, they're not going back. The best thing to do is let us walk further up to, I think, Fourth Street."

Roman agreed to the compromise. "The chief says 'OK,'" Bell recalled later.

The marchers continued their walk up Campbell Avenue, passing the police station and jail, still guarded by police.

The crowd had become spread out, with not all of the original group continuing. Marchers proceeded along the north sidewalk, across the street from the police station, and many people turned downhill onto Fourth Street and made their way back to the park, where the afternoons events had begun.

Saunders said it was sometime after 5:30 p.m. when she returned to the park, where people prayed and a moment of silence was held and some people talked about what future actions needed to be taken.

When talking to reporters later, Roman would not say whether there had been deliberate acts by the protesters that prompted the use of pepper spray.

Roman alluded to the protesters attempts to cross the police barricades to get close to the police station. We could not allow that to happen, he said. He added that 99% of the fine folks who were marching downtown in Roanoke protested with peaceful intentions.

Roman and other city leaders have joined in the condemnation of George Floyds death in police custody. In a virtual forum later hosted by The Vine Church, in Roanoke, the chief said of Floyd's killing: "Its murder, thats how I feel about it.

Meanwhile, Saturday afternoons protests were about to spill into the night.

TreVaughn Wilson had attended the Washington Park rally and the ensuing march with members of his family, which included his 87-year-old grandmother, who had often told her grandson about the days of segregation when she could not eat at Roanokes downtown lunch counters because she was Black.

This was not her first protest. During Saturday afternoon's march, Wilson said his grandmother's eyes burned from the clouds of smoke.

They had no reason to pepper-spray us, he said. My grandma, being her age, there is no reason why she shouldnt be able to walk and peacefully protest.  You have babies crying. You have men running. There was a whole lot of chaos but the chaos was started because of what they did.

Wilson and his family went back to the park after the pepper spraying on Campbell Avenue. After the prayer, his family left. But some, including Wilson, talked about continuing to protest. A new round of demonstrations would begin emerging at the high-visibility Valley View area.

Local state of emergency declared

Wilson first went to the Valley View Walmart. It was still daylight. Police officers were there.

People were upset and frustrated by the days events. Some were shouting and loud and cursing during the demonstration, including Wilson, but he said no one was making threats.

Around 7 p.m., Roanoke City Manager Bob Cowell moved to declare a local state of emergency due to the concerns that violence could potentially break out in the area.

Police announced that protesters had three minutes to leave or be arrested. Wilson suggested people go to the Target parking lot if they couldnt stay at Walmart and started running toward there.

Wilson was arrested there not long after. He said he was told hed been accused of flipping over a womans shopping cart earlier on.

Video shot by other protesters show people gasping and screaming as officers approached Wilson, first pushing him onto the hood of a car hed been near, then taking him to the ground.

No, no, no, someone could be heard saying.

A woman who was recording police officers was pushed to the ground and pepper-sprayed, Wilson said.

Wilson said he didnt knock over a shopping cart, and is confident store security footage will clear him. He said he felt the officers, too, had been running on emotion that day.

By that point of the evening, many of the demonstrators in the mall area were newcomers to the protests. This was not the exact same group that had started the day at Washington Park, although there was some overlap between the two crowds.

Protests continued along parts of Hershberger Road, including demonstrations at Burlington Coat Factory. A window was damaged at one of the stores, but little other damage or injuries were reported.

Demonstrators left the mall area and headed back downtown, eventually protesting at a Sheetz gas station in the highly visible and heavily trafficked intersection of Orange Avenue and Williamson Road.

Roanoke Mayor Sherman Lea was at Valley View to watch the protests and police response. Lea, the second Black mayor in Roanokes history and a staunch supporter of the new police chief, who, likewise, is the second African American to hold such a post, later praised the police departments response and its success in keeping people safe. He also condemned the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis as an act of police brutality.

But in Roanoke, the police had kept the situation in hand, Lea said.

Our police officers were in charge. ... I thought they did an excellent job, Lea said two days after the protests. He added that there are some things that people said went astray, and were going to deal with those. But our men and women were on the forefront protecting the businesses and the people.

Nightfall brings more protests

Late Saturday night, a group of protesters numbering more than 200 walked around downtown, shouting slogans and marching continuously. Just before 11 p.m., police officers blocked off the 300 block of Campbell Avenue, but for the most part let the protesters continue their demonstrations.

Just after 11 p.m., the group headed north along Second Street toward the intersection with Campbell Avenue. The protestors mostly walked on sidewalks, with some in the crowd yelling at others not to block traffic. Vehicles blasted their horns in unison, seemingly as signals of encouragement to the crowd, many of whom raised fists in a response of unity.

The protesters, a mix of mostly young Black and white people, headed west on Salem Avenue near The Roanoke Times building and turned south onto Third Street, a path that took them right past the line of police officers sealing off the 300 block of Campbell, which is where the police station and jail are located.

As the protestors moved past the city police officers, state police and other law enforcement personnel, most of the demonstrators put their hands in the air and chanted "Hands up, don't shoot," a slogan that protestors across the country have used since the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The protesters and police did not seem to have any altercations or interactions as the crowd moved on to Church Avenue.

At that point, the protestors began to disperse even as many of them continued to walk down Church Avenue, where they encountered three police vehicles coming up the street. A loud pop was heard, which prompted one of the people in the group to say, "They smashed that window!" Actually, one of the police vehicles had run over a Deer Park water bottle, causing it to explode.

Nearby, some of the people who had followed the crowd with video cameras lined up to order food at the pickup window of the Texas Tavern, which had stayed open during the protests.

The family-oriented vibe that had marked some of the days earlier events had mostly disappeared by late Saturday night. The crowd was not threatening, but the group was younger and shouted a few more profanities.

Kairajahn Sims, a 25-year-old warehouse worker from Roanoke, was not part of the daytime march but joined the late-night downtown demonstrations.

When he arrived with friends, a group was marching around downtown, heading toward the courthouse steps, where police officers stood. He and his friends joined the group, walking and chanting:

"Black Lives Matter.

"I cant breathe.

"George Floyd.

"Hands up, dont shoot."

The crowd stopped outside the police department, where a line of officers stood on the sidewalk near the entrance. Some were Virginia State Police.

Roanoke television station WSLS (Channel 10) live-streamed the late-night protests on its Facebook page well after midnight. The videos show protesters followed police orders to stay back from the sidewalk. Several men in the group of demonstrators seemed to have taken over as leaders and were seen often telling people to stay back away from the police.

A lot of people were definitely voicing their frustrations, wanting to be heard, said Sims, part of the late-night crowd. He added that, It was as peaceful as possible.

That was until a few minutes after 1 a.m., when some type of firework exploded amid the officers in front of the police station. On Channel 10s live feed, people can be heard saying that the device had been lobbed over top of the protesters and fell right behind the police officers. The blast was fairly sizable, but no injuries were reported.

Sims didnt see the person who either threw or fired the device, nor did he know whether the person was one of the protesters. Regardless, the mood of the protest had changed again.

Police announced that the protests were now an unlawful assembly and gave demonstrators three minutes to clear the streets.

Many protesters left at that point. A few stayed along Campbell Avenue. A line of police officers moved west on Campbell toward the few remaining demonstrators.

The video shows more pepper balls exploding on the street sometime around 1:20 a.m. The crowd disperses.

By 1:40 a.m., a heavy police vehicle rolled north down Fourth Street toward Salem Avenue. More popping sounds were heard.

Earlier, Sims saw Tyreek Burrows, a guy he had known in high school. Burrows had been standing in the middle of Campbell Avenue, saying something to officers about Breonna Taylor and Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old black boy in Cleveland, Ohio, who was playing with a toy gun in a park when he was killed by police.

Burrows was saying  Why are you doing this, why are doing all of that. It was more like, Why, why, why, why. For the most part, thats what he was saying.

Sims didnt say anything. Burrows had a handgun on him, partially in his pocket, Sims said, but it was visible and he wasnt worried about Burrows pulling it out. He went to Burrows to help him, he said.

I got silent, Sims said. I wanted him to be able to voice his frustrations but I didnt want him to be by himself whatsoever. The No. 1 reason I didnt want him to be by himself was because as a young black man in America I understand not everybody is going to be on your side.

Sims noted how recently many armed demonstrators, mostly white men bearing semiautomatic weapons, have taken to the streets across the United States to protest shutdowns stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, but none of those protesters were stopped by police.

Burrows was arrested later and charged with unlawful assembly and carrying a concealed weapon. Sims, too, was among those charged with a misdemeanor count of unlawful assembly. Channel 10s livestream showed a black man on the sidewalk being arrested just before 2 a.m.

Eleven hours after the rally in Washington Park, the protests were over. But not for long.

Continuing protests

Sunday, May 31, saw more people come out and protest peacefully but loudly in downtown Roanoke.

Almost daily since then, a group calling itself No Justice No Peace has protested across the street from the police department.

Saunders, who had never protested before May 30, has become active in the demonstrations and is an organizer with No Justice No Peace.

After Saturday [May 30], it was kind of all history from there, she said. I thought something needs to be done.  So I kind of just jumped in headfirst. Im learning as I go.

Durant, the Roanoke native and Hollins student, has become one of the No Justice No Peace leaders. The events of May 30 absolutely influenced the decision to get more involved.

Durant has spoken to the Roanoke City Council about investing more money in community programs and less in law enforcement, and has also spoken to some police officers about possible changes. Even though the city council denied the group's request to delay passing the city's 2021 budget until police reforms were considered, Lea and other council members said earlier this week that they are open to looking at finding more money for community services and improving police training.

Saunders said that the groups goal isnt just to protest, but to address the systems and fix the systems.

I knew this was just the beginning, she said. It was kind of like a turning point for me. From this day forward, nothing was going to be the same.

Online layout and timeline were designed by online editors Brandon Ross and Stephanie Sheehan.

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Ralph Berrier Ralph Berrier Jr. has worked at The Roanoke Times since 1993. He covers the City of Roanoke and writes the Dadline parenting column. Follow Ralph Berrier Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Alicia Petska. Alicia Petska covers crime and public safety. She can be reached at (540) 981-3319 or alicia.petska@roanoke.com. Follow Alicia Petska. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
The group that has been raising money to reopen Roanokes two public swimming pools will use some of the funds to provide swim lessons for local families.

Supporters have raised $53,000 to open the Fallon Park and Washington Park swimming pools, which are closed this summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because it is unlikely the pools will reopen this year, the group will give $20,000 to the Kirk Family YMCA to provide free memberships and swim lessons to Roanoke families. The lessons will happen in the YMCAs indoor, family swimming pool.

The Kirk Family Y will use the majority of the gift to provide 125 people with three months of swim lessons and Y membership. The rest of the money will provide 20 youths a scholarship for the Ys swim team, along with free transportation to and from the Y for those swimmers and their families.

Mark Johnson, president and CEO of the YMCA of Virginias Blue Ridge, said teaching people to swim can build confidence and save lives.

Providing our youth access to water is so important, and teaching them to how to be safe in and around water is one of the most valuable skills the YMCA can provide, Johnson said.
After the founders death in 2010, Christina Abraham continued the practice while Mary Abraham, who had medical training in her native Egypt but was not a Virginia physician, ran the office.

The criminal charge to which the company pleaded guilty attributed the fraud to Mary Abraham. A complaint from a citizen alerted authorities to the situation, McGinn said.

Government health insurance programs make Xolair, a prescription medicine, available for ongoing treatment of allergic asthma and chronic hives.

The proper dose for many patients is a portion of the single-use vial in which the drug is supplied, but insurers agree to pay for both the administered portion and the unused portion on the condition the excess is thrown away.

The single charge against the company described Mary Abraham as a frugal person who instead stockpiled the unused portions for patient use and used fraudulent billings to obtain payment from insurers.

Mary Abraham was not charged.

It was extra medicine. I have it so I didnt throw it away. So I used it. Thats all, Abraham told The Roanoke Times by phone Friday. It was an honest mistake.

Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 19.

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Space is suddenly back in vogue following SpaceXs successful launch of two astronauts to the International Space station at the end of May and followed up with a successful launch of a GPS satellite at the end of June.

The commercial space business is riding high, it would seem.

But it is a high-risk game.

The space business requires not just deep pockets but a sound (and clear) business case to have any chance of success.

One casualty this year has been the low earth orbit satellite communications company OneWeb, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. in March.

Firstly, the business case: the idea is to launch 648 compact Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to provide global super fast broadband coverage by 2021. The timeline was optimistic  when the firm went into Chapter 11 it had only launched 74.

But the idea is a popular one, as others are also in the race.

SpaceXs Starlink already has 540 launched of June 13, 2020, initially targeted at North American coverage with more launches planned over the coming months. OneWeb was behind the curve and had burned through some $3 billion of investment from SoftBank. Yet, despite the dodgy economics, investment interest is apparently strong, the Financial Times reports.

The firm is based in London but manufactures in Florida, which may sound great from a security and quality perspective but has raised problems as to who will be allowed to invest in the firm.

The White House has already ruled out any Chinese involvement, despite strong interest from that quarter. The British government reportedly intends to invest around 500 million, taking a 20% equity position as part of a wider private-sector consortium bid. Japans NEC is interested and would presumably meet both London and Washington approval, but the Financial Times also reports strong Indian interest.

Bharti Enterprises, one of the worlds biggest telecom service providers, has emerged as a key private investor in the U.K.-backed consortium but has been an investor in OneWeb since an earlier round in 2015, along with Sir Richard Bransons Virgin Group, Qualcomm and Airbus. The Indian group, which is controlled by its billionaire founder Sunil Bharti Mittal, is one of several private investors in the consortium, offering yet another an example of the growing integration of large Indian corporates in Western economies seen as benign and supported by Europe and North America over Chinese participation.

The challenge for OneWeb is now compounded by the British governments objective, which has much less to do with global broadband and much more to do with a GPS system. Britain was booted out of the E.U.s Galileo GPS program when it voted to leave the E.U. in 2016  the final departure date is set for Dec. 31 this year.

Maybe in a fit of pique, the government announced it would build its own GPS system, but the costs have already spiraled from between 3 billion and 4 billion to 5 billion. Meanwhile, not one satellite has been launched yet.

The current administration wants to co-opt OneWebs system to provide GPS as well as wireless broadband, a tall order for a firm that is struggling to even produce and launch against its original LEO program.

From a manufacturing position, moving production from Florida to the U.K. would also be a challenge. The build-up of a high-tech production facility in the UK would be welcome (and is no doubt an additional attraction for the U.K. government) but the logistics of moving production would be tortuous and add substantially to delays.

Investors will need to maintain their patience for a considerable time before this business ever turns a profit.

By AG Metal Miner

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2020 has been a busy year, and wow we are already in July?!? In this collection reporter Willis Jacobson chooses some of his top stories from 2020. Follow more of his work on LompocRecord.com, and sign up for a News+ membership to support the work of local journalists in your community.
 Spotlighting our unique times as feds seek to resume execution this month | Main | "How Mandatory Minimums Are Weaponized" 

July 1, 2020

Was Prez Trump's real political mistake not going bigger on criminal justice reform?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this Axios piece headlined "Scoop: Trump regrets Kushner advice." Here are some excerpts:

President Trump has told people in recent days that he regrets following some of son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner's political advice  including supporting criminal justice reform  and will stick closer to his own instincts, three people with direct knowledge of the president's thinking tell Axios. Behind the scenes: One person who spoke with the president interpreted his thinking this way: "No more of Jared's woke s***." Another said Trump has indicated that following Kushner's advice has harmed him politically. Why it matters: This could be the final straw for federal police reform legislation this year, and it could usher in even more incendiary campaign tactics between now and November. Details: The sources said the president has resolved to stick to his instincts and jettison any policies that go against them, including ambitious police reform. Trump dipped his toe into police reform under pressure after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd  with an executive order that activists considered toothless  but he will likely go no further to restrain law enforcement officers, according to senior administration officials.

but he will likely go no further to restrain law enforcement officers, according to senior administration officials. Trump has made clear he wants to support law enforcement unequivocally, and he won't do anything that could be seen as undercutting police.... In response to this reporting, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement, "President Trump is very proud of the historic work that he's done to benefit all communities. The First Step Act made historic strides toward rectifying racial disparities in sentencing while his executive order to secure America's streets works with our nation's heroic police officers to ensure we have safe policing and safe communities."... Between the lines: Trump never really wanted criminal justice reform, according to people who have discussed the subject with him privately. He's told them he only supported it because Kushner asked him to. Though he has repeatedly trumpeted it as a politically useful policy at times. Trump now says privately it was misguided to pursue this policy, undercutting his instincts, and that he probably won't win any more African American support because of it.

"He truly believes there is a silent majority out there that's going to come out in droves in November," said a source who's talked to the president in recent days.

Anyone who has followed Prez Trump through the years should not be surprised by reporting that he has never been a real fan of criminal justice reform or that he is eager to praise and promote the police. But Prez Trump did play a key role in getting the FIRST STEP Act enacted back in 2018 and it has seemed his campaign had wanted to make this fact a significant talking point in the 2020 political season. But, in light of Prez Trump's poor recent poll numbers and his disaffinity for bold racial justice efforts, this story suggests he may be giving up on the prospect of securing any political advantage from criminal justice reform efforts.

But, as the question in the title of this post is meant to suggest, I think Prez Trump may be getting little political credit for criminal justice reform because he failed to really go big and because his frequent "tough" talk eclipses his reform efforts. Had Prez Trump pushed dramatic and historic reforms  by, say, advocating for federal marijuana reforms and pushing for a federal expungement statute and creating a clemency council in the White House  he might well have burnished a real reputation as a real reformer. And if Prez Trump stressed how these kinds of reforms advanced racial justice and racial equity in our criminal justice system, I really think he could have secured significant political benefits from being much more progressive on these issues than Joe Biden has historically been.

July 1, 2020 at 06:48 PM | Permalink

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Sweden said Thursday that Iran had agreed to compensate the families of the foreign victims of a Ukrainian passenger plane that was shot down outside Tehran in January.

The Boeing 737 aircraft was struck by two missiles and crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran airport on January 8, killing all 176 people on board.

The Islamic republic admitted days later that its forces accidentally shot down the Kiev-bound jetliner.

"We have signed an agreement of mutual understanding that we will now negotiate with Iran about amends, compensation to the victims' next of kin," Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde told news agency TT, in a statement confirmed by her press secretary to AFP.

Linde said the agreement had been reached after negotiations with Iran and the countries with citizens among the victims.

While it was still unclear what sums would be paid out, Linde said there was "no doubt" that Iran would follow through on the compensation.

Among the victims, many were Iranian-Canadians, but there were also victims from Sweden, Britain, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, including the nine crew members.

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FILE PHOTO: Royal Bank of Scotland signs are seen at a branch of the bank, in London

By Sumeet Chatterjee and Sinead Cruise

LONDON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland has begun a major restructuring in its overseas investment banking operations, cutting almost a quarter of full-time staff in the United States, two sources with knowledge of the plan told Reuters.

The taxpayer-backed lender is looking to cut between 80-90 jobs at its U.S. head office in Stamford, Connecticut, following consultation with various employee unions and representatives, one of the sources said.

The second source said the layoffs in the United States, where it employs 400 people, were the first in a broader plan to cut between 20-30% of NatWest Markets' non-UK workforce, with an undisclosed number of redundancies also being considered across Asia.

At least eight bankers based in Singapore were laid off on Wednesday, the second source said, with redundancies in Hong Kong also seen likely.

"In line with the multi-year process announced in February, we continue to progress our plan to refocus NatWest Markets on activities which directly support the bank's core customers and on areas where we will have a more stable and consistent revenue stream," a spokeswoman for NatWest Markets said.

"These are always difficult decisions, but we intend to make NWM a more sustainable business and will be supporting our colleagues through this process," she added.

The roles affected include economists, rates traders and credit traders, one of the sources said.

Earlier this month, RBS named Robert Begbie as chief executive of NatWest Markets, confirming a role he had held on an interim basis since December.

Begbie faces a tough task to revive RBS's investment banking operations, where returns and market share have underwhelmed investors, prompting some to call for a cull of the business.

(Editing by Carolyn Cohn)
Court hearing for Li Shengwu proceeds with him absent

SINGAPORE  The contempt of court hearing against Li Shengwu, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loongs nephew, over a Facebook post in 2017 was heard on Thursday (2 June), with Li absent from the courtroom.

The Attorney-Generals Chambers (AGC) argued in front of Justice Kannan Ramesh that Li, an assistant professor of economics at Harvard, ought to be fined $15,000 over his Facebook post, which the AGC said was guilty of scandalising contempt. Li is the eldest son of PM Lees younger brother, Lee Hsien Yang.

Justice Ramesh reserved judgement at the end of the hearing and will give the verdict at a later date.

The AGC argued on Thursday that the fine it was seeking took into account the nature and gravity of Mr Lis contemptuous allegation, the widespread republication of his statement, and his clear lack of remorse and reprehensible conduct in these proceedings.

It added that a substantial fine was necessary to deter Li and like-minded offenders from making similar baseless allegations impugning the independence of the Singapore Judiciary.

In July 2017, Li, 34, allegedly stated in a Facebook post that Singapore had a "pliant court system" and that the Singapore Government was "very litigious, prompting the AGC to take him to court over possible contempt of court. The comments were made in relation to an ongoing family feud between PM Lee and his siblings over the late first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's house at 38 Oxley Road.

Li then applied to set aside the court order that granted the AGC permission to serve papers on him in the US, but had his application dismissed by the High Court in March 2018. Li appealed against the decision in the Court of Appeal, but this too was dismissed on 1 April last year.

On 22 January this year, Li posted on his Facebook that he would no longer participate in contempt of court proceedings against him, saying that he would not dignify the AGC's conduct by my participation. He also discharged his lawyer Abraham Vergis.

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On Thursdays hearing, Li was absent, and had no lawyer present for the proceedings.

Representing AGC, Deputy Chief Counsel Low Siew Ling argued that Lis post posed a real risk of undermining public confidence in the administration of justice. She also stated that Lis attack on the judiciary was unfounded.

Lis post was published directly to his Facebook friends, which comprised a substantial number of people in Singapore, including members of the media, said Low.

Li could have foreseen that his post would make it to the public domain given that he was the grandson of Lee Kuan Yew, and held himself out to the public as being qualified to comment on Singapores politics and media on account of his connection to the Lee family, said Low.

His claims about the government and the judiciary would hence have attracted widespread public and media interest, said the AGC.

Response by Li

In response to the hearing, Li said the case has taken three years and thousands of pages of legal documents.

The whole course of events reflects poorly on the government and its priorities, Li said.

Li also noted that the AGC applied to conceal parts of his defence affidavit, with the result that they were not available to the court on 2 July, and cannot be found in the public record. This behaviour by the AGC is one reason why I decided not to participate in the proceedings against me, Li said.

Separately, Li quoted a comment by Law Minister K Shanmugam in parliament in August 2016, ...I cannot see how putting up a Facebook post poses a real risk of prejudicing proceedings unless you are the Prime Minister with a million followers and everybody reads what you say.

Maybe if there were more opposition MPs, the minister would speak more carefully, Li said.

Yahoo News Singapore has reached out to Li for comment.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

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Anwar questions if govt interfered in Petronas CEOs exit

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim has questioned if there was government interference in the recent departure of Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin (above) from Petronas.

Despite a contract lasting until April 2021, the national oil and gas companys president and CEO has been named the new chairperson of Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAS) effective July 1.

In a statement today, Anwar demanded that Petronas explain the move.

As an enterprise responsible for the management of the nations energy, the people are wondering about the real meaning behind the resignation and this must be promptly explained and detailed by Petronas.

Was there interference by the government? he asked.

The Port Dickson MP cited Standard and Poors latest move to downgrade Petronas from a stable rating to negative as it did for Malaysia as a whole.

According to The Edge, the global rating agency noted that the firm was sensitive to potentially negative government intervention should Malaysia face financial difficulties.

Anwar cautioned that complications at the state-owned firm - the countrys only Fortune 500 company and a significant contributor to the gross domestic product - could have a significant impact on the domestic economy.

The recent instability in Petronas has negatively impacted the national economy and affected sentiment among international investors.

The opposition demands swift clarification on this matter.

Petronas failure to resolve these questions will lead to investor distrust that will exacerbate the current situation, he said.

Reuters previously speculated that Wan Zulkiflee had resigned as he disagreed with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin over a plan to pay RM2 billion in sales tax to Sarawak.

Petronas later refuted the report.

On June 6, Muhyiddin thanked Wan Zulkiflee for his 37-year career at Petronas and said he was being moved to MAS to help restructure the struggling national carrier.

Petronas former chief financial officer Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz will serve as its new president and CEO.
Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal, Geoffrey Ma Tao-li delivers a speech during the ceremonial opening of the legal year at City Hall in Hong Kong

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong's chief justice said on Thursday that judges appointed to cases under Hong Kong's new national security law would be appointed on the basis of judicial and professional qualities, rather than politics.

In a rare statement, Geoffrey Ma said assigning judges to cases would be the sole responsibility of the judiciary, apparently seeking to allay fears that judges for national security cases would be picked by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam.

Beijing directly imposed the contentious security legislation on Hong Kong on Tuesday, bypassing the city's legislature and stoking concern over the erosion of freedoms in the former British colony.

Hong Kong's independent judiciary, one of many freedoms guaranteed when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997, has long been considered key to its success as a global financial hub.

Ma said judges for national security cases would be selected on the basis of judicial and professional qualities, not political considerations.

"Judges of foreign nationality are not excluded. They are expressly permitted to be appointed as judges in Hong Kong," Ma said.

Hong Kongs mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, enshrines the independence of the judiciary and states that judges may come from other common law jurisdictions. Its Court of Final Appeal has 23 judges, of whom 15 are foreign, from places like Britain, Canada and Australia.

According to the new security law, Beijing-backed leader Lam will select judges for cases related to the legislation, which has triggered alarm among some lawyers.

Lam has said that she would appoint a panel of judges for all courts based on recommendations from a judicial body, rather than select judges for individual cases.

The law has stoked fears among Hong Kong democracy activists and some foreign governments that Beijing is further eroding the autonomy promised when Britain handed it back to China under a "one country, two systems" formula.

The city's common law-based legal system is widely seen as the bedrock of that formula.

(Reporting by Greg Torode, Noah Sin and Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by John Stonestreet, Robert Birsel)
By Byron Kaye and Melanie Burton

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australian police set up suburban checkpoints in coronavirus hotspots in Melbourne on Thursday and were considering using drones to enforce stay-at-home orders as authorities struggled to contain new outbreaks in the country's second-largest city.

More than 1,000 police set up posts around 36 suburbs, which returned to lockdown after a spike in new infections.

While the rest of Australia opened state borders and loosened social distancing restrictions, Melbourne's state of Victoria promised to fine those in the affected zones that breached curbs on non-essential movement.

Victoria reported 77 new cases, up slightly from the previous day and in line with weeks of double-digit daily increases.

The state government has also commenced an inquiry into enforcement of hotel quarantine for people returning from overseas amid worries some new infections came from people who had dodged the mandatory two-week isolation.

"I'm obviously concerned about the outbreak, and I'm pleased that the premier has taken the action he's taken by putting in place the lockdown for the outbreak in those suburbs," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a televised news conference, referring to the Victorian state government.

"We have seen some levelling (in new cases) although they remain at elevated levels and that is of concern and that means as the lockdown now is in place, we would hope to see those numbers fall again."

Victoria police commissioner Shane Patton promised a heavy presence in "high-volume public places" and said police may even use drones to track down people travelling for reasons other than work, school, healthcare and grocery shopping.

"People will not know where we will be, they will not know how long we'll be there for, but they'll be intercepted," he said.

Australia has fared better than many countries in the pandemic, with around 8,000 cases and 104 deaths. However, the recent jump in Victoria has stoked fears of a second wave of COVID-19, echoing concerns expressed in other countries.

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Most states have said they will reopen their internal borders except to Victoria. Neighbouring New South Wales (NSW), the most populous state, has kept its border open except to people arriving from the targeted Victorian suburbs.

A director at Phat Milk cafe in Melbourne's Travancore, one of the affected suburbs, said the sudden return to lockdown had left him with a kitchen full of food.

"What do you do with that stock? You have to close the kitchen because it's takeaway," said the director, who gave only his first name, Hach.

"From four to six staff, you only have one staff on. It is hard, but you just got to find the passion, the drive, and be a bit creative and hang in there."

WEAK LINK

The Victorian outbreak has raised concerns about the efficacy of the state's quarantine procedures.

In neighbouring New South Wales, supermarket chain Woolworths Group put 50 staff at a Sydney store into isolation after a worker tested positive to the virus despite clearing a mandatory two-week quarantine in Victoria, authorities said.

Meanwhile, remote Northern Territory reported its first infection in two months after a traveler who had entered the country via Melbourne and completed quarantine showed symptoms after returning to his home territory.

"People will be anxious hearing this news ... but we have measures in place to protect our community (and) these measures have been followed," Northern Territory Health Minister Natasha Fyles told reporters.

The infected person, aged in their 30s, has been isolated in hospital, she added.

Globally, coronavirus cases exceeded 10 million on Sunday, a major milestone in the spread of a disease that has killed more than half a million people in seven months.

(Reporting by Byron Kaye and Melanie Burton; Editing by Sam Holmes)
By Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison signalled on Thursday his government may follow Britain in offering visas to Hong Kong citizens after China imposed a new security law on the city.

Britain said it would grant leave for Hong Kong citizens with British National Overseas Status, and their dependent families, to live and work in Britain for five years, and later apply for citizenship.

There are around 3 million Hong Kong citizens who hold, or are eligible to apply for, BNO passports. Britain's Foreign Minister Dominic Raab told parliament he had held conversations with other nations with close relationships with Hong Kong.

Morrison said on Thursday that events in Hong Kong were concerning and the Australian government was "prepared to step up and provide support".

Asked if Australia would consider offering safe haven to Hong Kong people, similar to Britain, he replied: "We are considering very actively the proposals that I asked to be brought forward several weeks ago and the final touches would be put on those and they'll soon be considered by Cabinet to provide similar opportunities."

Morrison didn't provide details of the proposals.

Chinas parliament adopted the security law, which punishes the crimes of secession and subversion, in response to protests last year triggered by fears that Beijing was stifling the Hong Kongs freedoms, guaranteed by a one country, two systems formula agreed when it returned to Chinese rule.

Australia's relations with China are strained after Canberra called for an international investigation into the source of the coronavirus.

Australia's Minister for Defence Linda Reynolds said in a speech on Thursday the region was facing "the most consequential strategic realignment since the end of World War Two".

"Nations are increasingly employing coercive tactics that fall below the threshold of armed conflict, cyber attacks, foreign interference and economic pressure that seeks to exploit the grey area between peace and war," she said in the speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Story continues

"In the grey zone, when the screws are tightened, influence becomes interference, economic cooperation becomes coercion, and investment becomes entrapment."

Canberra will boost defence spending by 40% to A$270 billion over the next 10 years, to focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Michael Perry)
A workman stands by as a bust of Belgium's King Leopold II is hoisted off of its plinth and removed from a park in Ghent. (PA)

A statue of former Belgian king Leopold II has been removed in the city of Ghent as Belgium marked the 60th anniversary of the end of its colonial rule in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The removal of the monarch's likeness on Tuesday took place only hours after Belgium's King Philippe expressed his "deepest regrets" for the violence the one-time colonial power inflicted on Congo and its people during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Leopold ruled Belgium during 1865-1909 and plundered DR Congo as if it were his personal fiefdom, forcing many of its people into slavery.

Recent Black Lives Matter protests against racism have given momentum to efforts to have monuments to Leopold removed.

It was the first time in Belgium's history a reigning king has expressed regret for the violence carried out by the former colonial power when it ruled over the African country.

A bust of King Leopold II rests in the back of a truck after being removed from a park. (PA)

King Philippe conveyed his "deepest regrets" for "acts of violence and cruelty" and the "suffering and humiliation" inflicted on Belgian Congo in a letter to the president of the DRC, Felix Tshisekedi, published on the 60th anniversary of the African country's independence.

Philippe wrote: "To further strengthen our ties and develop an even more fruitful friendship, we must be able to talk to each other about our long common history in all truth and serenity.

MORE: Could Bradford be next for local lockdown?

The letter was sent amid growing demands that Belgium should reassess its colonial past.

In the wake of the protests against racial inequality triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US, several statues of King Leopold II, who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium's colonial rule, have been vandalised, while a petition called for the country to remove all statues of the former monarch.

A bust of Belgium's King Leopold II was damaged by red paint, graffiti and cement at a park in Ghent last month. (AP)

"Our history is made of common achievements, but has also known painful episodes. At the time of the independent State of the Congo, acts of violence and cruelty were committed that still weigh on our collective memory," Philippe wrote, referring to the period when the country was privately ruled by Leopold II from 1885 to 1908.

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And the reigning monarch acknowledged: "The colonial period that followed also caused suffering and humiliation.

Black Lives Matter protests have broken out across the globe. (AP)

Leopold ruled Congo as a fiefdom, forcing many of its people into slavery to extract resources for his personal profit.

His early rule, starting in 1885, was famous for its brutality, which some experts say left as many as 10 million dead.

MORE: Couple travelled to collect heroin with two-year-old in back seat

After his ownership of Congo ended in 1908, he handed the central African country over to the Belgian state, which continued to rule over an area 75 times its size until the nation became independent in 1960.

"I want to express my most deepest regrets for these wounds of the past, the pain of which is today revived by discrimination that is all too present in our societies," Philippe wrote, insisting he is determined to keep "fighting all forms of racism.
FILE PHOTO: Logo of BP is seen at a petrol station in Kloten

By Ron Bousso and Shadia Nasralla

LONDON (Reuters) - When BP slashed its long-term oil price outlook last week, prospects in Canada and Angola were rendered worthless, company sources and analysts said, exposing broader risks the industry faces as the world pivots to low-carbon energy.

The $17.5 billion write-down, part of Chief Executive Bernard Looney's drive to wean BP off fossil fuel, was the biggest the London-based company booked since the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

BP lowered its long-term oil price outlook from about $70 a barrel to $55, slashing the value of its $14.2 billion early-stage exploration portfolio by two thirds. It also wrote down $8 billion to $11 billion in the value of producing assets.

BP did not detail which assets were rendered uneconomical by the price adjustment, but company sources said they included three areas, including resources in Canadian oil sands and ultra-deepwater wells off Angola, which involve high costs.

An analysis by consultancy Rystad Energy also showed BP's exploration impairments would include mainly Canada and Angola.

A BP spokesman declined to comment.

BP holds interests in three oil sands lease areas through the Sunrise Oil Sands project with Husky Energy, the Terre de Grace partnership with Value Creation and the Pike Oil Sands project with Canadian National Resources.

Canada's oil sands require complex and energy-intensive extraction processes that cause heavy carbon pollution.

"We recognise that oil sands projects raise environmental challenges and we are actively seeking ways to undertake these projects while minimising the environmental footprint," BP said on its website.

BP's 2019 annual report said the Canadian oil sand exploration resource was valued at $2.5 billion, while Angola's so-called "intangible assets" were valued between $1 billion to $2 billion.

"BP's revision makes their oil price outlook more realistic," said Parul Chopra, vice president for upstream research at Rystad Energy.

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"Oil sand projects in Canada have breakevens more than $45 per barrel and many ultra-deepwater projects in Angola, Brazil and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico have similar high breakeven prices."

Stranded assets https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/bdwvkarxxvm/eikon.png

STRANDED ASSETS

BP's new forecast of $55 a barrel, an average for the benchmark Brent oil until 2050, is much lower than assumptions made by several rivals, some of whose forecasts are $70 or more, suggesting they face the risk of large impairments in future.

The lower forecast highlights the risk of stranded assets, or oil and gas resources that can not be tapped if the world wants to meet targets in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by the end of the century.

Looney's predecessor Bob Dudley had previously dismissed the idea that BP had stranded assets.

Long-term price forecasts vary across the industry. At the lower end of the scale, the International Energy Agency lists an average oil price of $59 a barrel in 2040, based on its sustainable development scenario calculated against 2018 prices.

Meanwhile, Spain's Repsol booked 5.7 billion euros in upstream asset impairments, even when assuming oil would rise to $87 in 2035.

A Shell spokeswoman said its financial outlook was based on an oil price of about $65 by 2025.

Equinor assumes a price of $80 in 2030. A spokesman for the Norwegian state-owned oil company said cutting the assumption to $50 would reduce Equinor's net present value (NPV) by 17%.

Italy's Eni lists $70 as its long-term oil price assumption, although Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi said the firm still did not have stranded assets in a $50 scenario.

"The clock must be ticking on the assumptions used at Eni and in particular Equinor," said Andrew Grant at think-tank Carbon Tracker, which estimates oil majors would have to cut output by 35% from 2019 to 2040 to meet Paris targets.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso and Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Edmund Blair)
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Former All Blacks flyhalf Dan Carter will make a return to his native Canterbury for his first rugby game in New Zealand since 2015 at the weekend, but will still wear the blue and white colours of their intense provincial rivals Auckland.

The 38-year-old Carter, who spent his entire New Zealand professional career playing for the 10-time Super Rugby champion Canterbury Crusaders, did last month what many Christchurch-based fans think was treasonable by joining the Auckland Blues.

Carter, however, said he was not match fit enough to return to the field at the time and would need several weeks of the Super Rugby Aotearoa season to get prepared to play, which includes a match in club rugby this weekend.

"That's the plan," Carter told New Zealand's Newshub on Thursday. "I'm hopeful to get down there and pull on the blue and white of the Southbridge hoops this weekend."

Carter grew up in the small rural community of Southbridge, south of Christchurch, and recently raised more than NZ$20,000 ($13,000) for the club by auctioning one of his All Blacks jerseys.

Carter joined the Blues after stints in France and Japan, but has not played since February after Japan's Top League was shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak and barely played in the past 18 months after undergoing neck surgery in 2019.

The flyhalf's return this weekend could pave the way for him to make his Blues' debut against the Crusaders in Christchurch on July 11, he added.

"The last three weeks have been pretty intense training gradually building up my contact and getting my confidence back for playing again, so a bit of club rugby would be good," he said.

Carter last appeared for Southbridge in 2014.

(Reporting by Greg Stutchbury; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
Chinese tech giant Tencent has been fooled by impostors posing as representatives of the country's most famous chilli sauce brand, police said, in a saga that nearly pitched the two famous brands against each other in court. The dispute between Tencent -- owner of the WeChat app -- and legendary Chinese sauce Lao Gan Ma heated up this week when a court in the southern city of Shenzhen announced it would freeze assets of the chilli maker worth 16.24 million yuan ($2.3 million). The court said the request came from Tencent, which had sued the manufacturer for not paying advertising fees under a 2019 contract. But as confusion reigned, Lao Gan Ma said in a statement that it had never entered the commercial agreement with Tencent, and reported the matter to the authorities. Police in the southwestern city of Guiyang said Wednesday that three suspects aged between 36 and 40 had been detained in relation to the case. Preliminary investigations showed the trio had faked a Lao Gan Ma company seal and pretended to be managers of the chilli firm to sign a cooperation agreement with Tencent. "Their aim was to obtain online game package codes that Tencent gave away as part of its promotional activities, and they later illegally resold these online for financial gain," said the police statement. Captivated netizens called the incident an "embarrassment", with a hashtag on the topic racking up 460 million views on the Twitter-like Weibo by Thursday. Lao Gan Ma, a table-top staple in China whose name translates to "Old Godmother", hails from Guiyang and has found a fan base both at home and abroad.
The Hagia Sophia was Turkey's most popular tourist attraction in 2019 with 3.8 million visitors

A top Turkish court will rule on Thursday on the status of the Hagia Sophia, the world-famous Istanbul landmark which is now a museum after serving as a church and a mosque.

Here are five things to know about the Hagia Sophia:

- What is the Hagia Sophia? -

The edifice was first built as a church between 532 and 537 AD under emperor Justinian I and is considered the most important Byzantine structure.

After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, it was converted into a mosque before being opened as a museum in 1935 after the secular modern Turkish republic was established in 1923.

It was added to the list of UNESCO world heritage sites in 1985.

- What is its official status now? -

The Hagia Sophia remains a museum and hosts millions of tourists every year.

It was Turkey's most popular tourist attraction in 2019 with 3.8 million visitors.

There has been more religious activity inside the museum in recent years -- Erdogan recited the first verse of the Koran in 2018.

- Why has this become an issue now? -

There has been a long legal process leading up to the expected ruling on Thursday.

The Constitutional Court in September 2018 turned down a plea by an independent heritage association to open the building up for Muslim worshipping.

The main opposition secular Republican People's Party (CHP) has accused the government of using the issue to distract voters from economic woes and other issues following the coronavirus pandemic.

"Erdogan appears to be responding to a drop in voter support, which is likely a fallout of Turkey's COVID-19-induced economic downturn," said Tugba Tanyeri Erdemir, a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh.

Erdogan's supporters praised him for getting involved with lavish celebrations this year for the anniversary of the 1453 conquest of Constantinople, encouraging him to be more proactive, said Erdemir.

As early as 1994 when he was running for mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan promised to open the building to Muslim worshippers.

Story continues

- What is the international community's position? -

The United States and neighbouring Greece, which keeps a close eye on the state of Byzantine heritage in Istanbul, have expressed concern over a possible status change.

"We call on the Govt of #Turkey to maintain it as a @UNESCO World Heritage site & to maintain accessibility to all in its current status as a museum," Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, tweeted on June 25.

After passages from the Koran were read inside the Hagia Sophia, the Greek foreign ministry said it was "an unacceptable attempt to alter the site's designation as a monument" and "also an affront to the religious sentiment of Christians" worldwide.

A ruling to change the status would hurt Turkey-Greece relations, which are already strained over migration and drilling in the eastern Mediterranean.

- What would it change for visitors? -

Tourists could still visit the Hagia Sophia even if it is transformed into a mosque as they are able to see the Blue Mosque nearby.

But the example of the Hagia Sophia of Trabzon in northern Turkey, opened to Muslim worship in 2013, may give pause for thought.

"The number of visitors dropped significantly following its transformation into a mosque, especially because visitors could no longer appreciate the church's famous frescoes," Erdemir said, adding this had a negative impact on locals who depend on tourism revenues.
Workers' Party's secretary-general and Aljunied GRC candidate Pritam Singh (left) chats with residents during a party walkabout at the Kovan Market and Food Centre. Former party chief Low Thia Khiang (seated) was also present. (PHOTO: Nicholas Yong/Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE  The Workers Party (WP) has explained its decision not to send a candidate to participate in a televised General Election debate in Mandarin on national television on Wednesday (1 July).

Secretary-general Pritam Singh said on Thursday that while there are individuals within the party who can make speeches and communicate effectively with residents in Mandarin, the proficiency required to participate in a live debate is of a higher order.

We can do better, we should do better, he said during a party walkabout at Kovan Market and Food Centre.

Proficient Mandarin speakers in WP not contesting

The four political parties contesting the highest number of seats at the GE were invited by Mediacorp to send a candidate each to televised debates in English and Mandarin. While WP sent Sengkang group representation constituency (GRC) candidate Jamus Lim to the English edition, it decline the invitation to the Mandarin debate.

The Mandarin debate eventually featured Ong Ye Kung of the Peoples Action Party (PAP), Leong Mun Wai of the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) and Bryan Lim of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).

While WP has Members of Parliament who are proficient in Mandarin such as former secretary-general Low Thia Khiang and Chen Show Mao, both are not contesting in this GE.

One of the reasons Mr Low joined WP in the mid-1980s was because our Mandarin translation in some of our collaterals were not up to the mark, Pritam said.

And as a Nantah (Nanyang University) graduate and someone who speaks a very high order of Mandarin... he stepped forward and contribute. We hope more Singaporeans do so as well.

Low was present during the walkabout, greeting the residents and market stallholders, and showing no effects from his serious fall in April.

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PAP-lite? Pritam hopes PAP takes up all of WPs manifesto points

Pritam also responded to Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnans comment during the televised English debate that WP is PAP-lite.

Story continues

The Holland-Bukit Timah GRC candidate had said during the debate that WP takes whatever stand PAP has taken as a reference point, and basically take a step to the left. PAP could have written this manifesto, the minister said of WPs party manifesto for the GE.

Well if that is the case, I hope the PAP takes up all our manifestos points, and introduce them into its agenda, Pritam quipped.

That would really change the complexion of Singapore, and well have a more caring and compassionate society.

Follow Yahoo News Singapores GE2020 coverage here.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

GE2020 stories:

GE2020: Vivian Balakrishnan slams Chee Soon Juan over false statement of 10m population plan

GE2020: Heng Swee Keat's move reflects PAP's view WP has strong East Coast team  Pritam Singh

GE2020: Government never targeted 10 million population  Heng Swee Keat

GE2020: NCMP a 'ploy' by PAP to entice voters not to vote for opposition  Tan Cheng Bock

COMMENT: The NCMP scheme is good for who exactly?
FILE PHOTO: The logos of car manufacturers Fiat and Peugeot are seen in front of dealerships of the companies in Saint-Nazaire

By Giuseppe Fonte

ROME (Reuters) - Italy has approved a decree offering state guarantees for a 6.3-billion euro ($7.1 billion) loan to Fiat Chrysler's (FCA) Italian unit, the Treasury said on Wednesday, paving the way for the largest crisis loan to a European carmaker.

The formal announcement follows an endorsement by the country's audit court and brings to an end a lengthy approval procedure for the loan, which has drawn criticism in Italy.

By providing state support, Rome "aims to preserve and strengthen the Italian automotive supply chain," Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri said in a statement.

FCA's Italian division has tapped Rome's COVID-19 emergency financing schemes to secure a state-backed, three-year facility to help it weather the crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. The aid will also help Italy's broader car sector, in which about 10,000 businesses operate.

The loan will be disbursed by Italy's biggest retail bank Intesa Sanpaolo, which has already authorised it pending the approval of guarantees the government will provide on 80% of the sum through export credit agency SACE.

The request for state support sparked controversy because FCA is working to merge with French rival PSA and the holding company for the Italian-American carmaker is registered in the Netherlands. FCA's global brands include Fiat, Jeep, Dodge and Maserati.

Gualtieri said FCA would have to meet commitments on investments and jobs, but declined to say whether the Treasury had imposed conditions affecting FCA's planned 5.5 billion euro extraordinary dividend, a key element in the merger with PSA.

Italian politicians have called the dividend into question, although it should be compatible with the terms of the financing, because it is not due until 2021 and would be paid by FCA Italy's Dutch parent company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.

FCA, whose stock fell 4.4% to 8.665 euros on the Milan bourse, had no immediate comment.

($1 = 0.8853 euros)

(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte; Editing by Alex Richardson and Mark Potter)
July 2, 2020 | New research shows how the SARS-CoV-19 virus shifts the cell's activity to promote its own replication and to infect nearby cells. This, plus more, are featured in this weeks COVID-19 news from the biotech and research industries.

Research Updates

A team of researchers from EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the Quantitative Biosciences Institute's Coronavirus Research Group in the School of Pharmacy at University of California San Francisco (UCSF), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Institut Pasteur, and the Excellence Cluster CIBSS of the University of Freiburg have published work in Cell that shows how the SARS-CoV-19 virus shifts the cell's activity to promote its own replication and to infect nearby cells. The team identified dozens of clinically-approved drugs that could disrupt these mechanisms, and recommended that seven of these compounds, primarily anticancer and inflammatory disease compounds, be immediately tested in clinical trials. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.06.034.

A Cold Spring Harbor team proposes that overactive neutrophilsa common type of circulating immune cellmay drive the life-threatening blood clots and inflammation that occur in some patients with COVID-19. High levels of the sticky, pathogen-trapping webs produced by the cells were associated with the most severe cases of COVID-19. The team studied 33 COVID-19 patients and 17 age and sex-matched controls. They found that NETs triggering immunothrombosis may, in part, explain the prothrombotic clinical presentations in COVID-19 and NETs may represent targets for therapeutic intervention. Their work was reported online in the journal Blood. DOI: 10.1182/blood.2020007008

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories have performed the first room-temperature X-ray measurements on the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, the enzyme that enables the virus to reproduce. The X-ray measurements mark an important first step in the researchers' ultimate goal of building a comprehensive 3D model of the enzymatic protein. The model will be used to advance supercomputing simulations aimed at finding drug inhibitors to block the virus's replication mechanism and help end the COVID-19 pandemic. Their research results are publicly available and have been published in the journal Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16954-7

Investigators from Poland and Germany describe how excessive activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptors (AhRs) by the SARS-CoV-19 virus via the IDO1-kynurenine-AhR signaling pathway leads to "Systemic AhR Activation Syndrome" (SAAS). The authors hypothesize that therapies targeting downregulation of AhRs and IDO1 genes should decrease severity of infection. Their work was published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3233/RNN-201042.

Industry Updates

Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute announced a research agreement with Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) to characterize Lilly's next-generation anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. These collaborative studies aim to build on Lilly's current portfolio of neutralizing antibodies by exploring novel cocktails, half-life extension technologies and strategies to further enhance potency. The research team will evaluate antibody candidates, delivered from Lilly through their partnership with AbCellera, using the live virus in the Institute's Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory. Press release.

Sherlock Biosciences and binx health have entered into a strategic partnership to develop a rapid, point-of-care diagnostic test for COVID-19 leveraging CRISPR technology. The organizations will combine the binx io diagnostic platform with SHERLOCK CRISPR technology to create a test that is robust and simple to use. The currently-available Sherlock CRISPR SARS-CoV-2 kit uses the SHERLOCK (Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing) method to program a CRISPR molecule to detect the presence of a specific SARS-CoV-2 genetic signature in specimens collected from patients suspected of COVID-19 by their healthcare provider. The kit is intended for use in CLIA laboratories to assay nasal swabs, nasopharyngeal swabs, oropharyngeal swabs or bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) specimens. This planned solution with binx health is designed to provide rapid and accurate results in a single patient visit across many diverse CLIA-waived settings, such as clinics, doctors offices, assisted living centers, pharmacies and other easily accessible consumer venues. Press release.

Entos Pharmaceuticals announced the selection of two lead candidates for a pan-coronavirus Fusogenix DNA vaccine (Covigenix) from its prototyping program launched at the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The two lead Covigenix candidates show robust preclinical in vivo results, achieving all vaccine profile targets, including potency, ADE safety assessment, high immunogenicity, and efficacy. Lead Covigenix candidates stimulated neutralizing antibody levels and balanced T helper cell immunity in mouse models. In addition, no weight loss was observed at multiple doses of vaccine candidates. A $4.2M grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Research Nova Scotia (RNS), and the Institute for Ageing (IA) will be used to further develop the Covigenix vaccine candidates through animal challenge studies and human clinical trials. Entos will partner with the Clinical Trials Research Center at the Canadian Center for Vaccinology (CCfV) in Nova Scotia, Canada to initiate Phase I/II human clinical trials which will evaluate the safety, tolerability, immunogenicity and efficacy of the Covigenix vaccine candidates in late July. Press release.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has awarded three University of Saskatchewan (USask) research teams a total of $900,000 to help strengthen Canada's rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The projects will investigate the re-purposing of currently approved drugs to treat COVID-19 patients, evaluate some highly promising therapeutics against COVID-19, and help prepare for future outbreaks by gathering information on the best interventions public health officers have developed across the country. Press release. An additional $1.2 million from CIHR will focus on developing a saliva-based COVID-19 biomarker diagnostic test and prototype testing and examining COVID-19 incidence rates among Canadian dentists. Press release.

Zoic Labs and The Krogan Lab have partnered to make the SARS-CoV-2 Virus-Human Protein Interaction Map, an interactive data visualization tool that allows global scientists dynamic ways to visually connect with research. Coupled with the labs' SARS-CoV-2 protein-protein-interaction network, this Zoic Labs visualization can be a powerful tool for understanding the virus on a molecular level. It allows scientists around the world to share their findings and characterizes critical connections between the 27 SARS-CoV-2 proteins and the 332 human genes they interact with, lending a wealth of information about each gathered through research. The tool also provides in-depth knowledge about all current drug interactions and their statuses, and links to external sources for additional information about the virus proteins. More information.
Malaysia will file a lawsuit at the World Trade Organization over the European Union's plans to end the use of palm oil-based biofuels, a minister said Wednesday. The Southeast Asian country is the world's second biggest palm oil producer after Indonesia and would be hit hard by the EU's plan to phase out its use in biofuels by 2030. European restrictions were "discriminatory" and risked throwing the livelihoods of three million people into disarray, said Mohamed Khairuddin Aman Razali, the Malaysian minister overseeing the industry. Khairuddin did not say when Malaysia would take its action, which follows a similar WTO lawsuit filed by Indonesia last December. He added that Malaysia would also be involved as a "third party" in Indonesia's case. Palm oil is the world's most widely used vegetable oil and a key ingredient in a wide range of products from food to cosmetics. It is also Malaysia's largest agricultural crop. Environmentalists say it drives deforestation, with huge swathes of Southeast Asian rainforest logged in recent decades to make way for palm plantations.
Turkey's top court considered Thursday whether Istanbul's emblematic landmark and former cathedral Hagia Sophia can be redesignated as a mosque, a ruling which could inflame tensions with the West. The Council of State was looking at a case brought by a Turkish NGO, the Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment, during a short hearing. It will announce its decision on the fate of the UNESCO World Heritage site within 15 days, state broadcaster TRT reported. The sixth-century edifice -- a magnet for tourists worldwide with its stunning architecture -- has been a museum since 1935, open to believers of all faiths. Despite occasional protests outside the site by Islamic groups, often shouting, "Let the chains break and open Hagia Sophia" for Muslim prayers, authorities have so far kept the building as a museum. Hagia Sophia was first constructed as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire in the sixth century but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Transforming it into a museum was a key reform of the post-Ottoman authorities under the modern republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. But calls for it to serve again as a mosque have sparked anger among Christians and tensions between historic foes and uneasy NATO allies Turkey and Greece. Since 2005, there have been several attempts to change the building's status. In 2018, the Constitutional Court rejected one application. During the hearing Thursday, the prosecutor called for the latest case to be dismissed, arguing the decision to alter the Hagia Sophia's status "is a matter for the Council of Ministers and the Presidency," the official Anadolu news agency said. - 'High-profile symbol' - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan however said last month the decision was for Turkey's highest administrative court -- known as the Danistay -- adding: "The necessary steps will be taken following the verdict." But Erdogan also said last year it had been a "very big mistake" to convert the Hagia Sophia into a museum. "The Danistay decision will likely be a political one. Whatever the outcome, it will be a result of the government's deliberation," said Asli Aydintasbas, fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. But she said the government will weigh several issues, including relations with Greece, Europe and with the US where "religion is an important matter". Anthony Skinner of the risk assessment firm Verisk Maplecroft said converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque would "kill at least two birds with one stone" for Erdogan -- he would cater to his Islamic and nationalist base, and sustain if not exacerbate tensions with Greece, while seeking to cast Turkey as a formidable power. "Erdogan could not find a more high-profile and potent symbol than Hagia Sophia to achieve all these goals at once," Skinner told AFP. The Turkish leader has in recent years placed great emphasis on the battles which resulted in the defeat of Byzantium by the Ottomans, with lavish celebrations held every year to mark the conquest. Muslim clerics have occasionally recited prayers in the museum on key anniversaries or religious holidays. - Turks divided - Greece closely follows what happens to the Byzantine heritage in Turkey and is sensitive to the issue as it sees itself as the modern successor to Orthodox Christian Byzantium. Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni, who sent a letter of protest to UNESCO last week, said the move "rekindles national and religious fanaticism" and is an attempt to "diminish the monument's global radiance". She accused Turkey of using the monument "to serve internal political interests," arguing that only UNESCO had the authority to change Hagia Sophia's status. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday urged Turkey to keep Hagia Sophia as a museum, and to ensure it remains accessible to all. Turks are divided over its status. Istanbul shoemaker Mahmut Karagoz, 55, said he dreams he can one day pray under the dome of Hagia Sophia. "It is a legacy by our Ottoman ancestors. I hope our prayers will be heard, this nostalgia must come to an end," he told AFP. However economics student Sena Yildiz said she believes Hagia Sophia should stay as a museum. "It is an important place for Muslims, but also for Christians and for all those who love history," she said. burs-raz/bmm
As Europe begins its cautious reopening after weathering the pandemic's first wave in lockdown, many developing and middle-income countries continue to be battered by skyrocketing numbers of COVID-19 cases. With infections still growing daily in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nigeria among others, health experts warn that before the world can start buttressing for COVID-19's much-feared "second wave", it must help nations battling the virus now. The World Health Organization warned this week that the pandemic was "not even close to being over" even as European nations reopen their borders and millions head back to work. While the United States has had by far the highest caseload, there are growing fears over the fate of hugely populous nations whose COVID-19 curve is pointing inexorably upwards. India for example now has more than 566,000 confirmed cases and is registering nearly 20,000 new infections every day. Mexico has more than 220,000 confirmed cases, Pakistan nearly 210,000, and Bangladesh more than 150,000, with little sign of new infections slowing. - 'Quite worrying' - Trudie Lang, director of The Global Health Network at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Medicine, described the trend as "really quite worrying". "Even though the numbers might not be completely accurate because we've not tested so many, the curve is still the same shape," Lang told AFP. When COVID-19 emerged in China late last year, the government in Beijing rapidly imposed stringent lockdown measures in a bid to contain the outbreak. When in February European nations such as Italy and Spain uncovered clusters of the virus, they too adopted unprecedented limits on individual movement that eventually flattened the curve of new infections. Anant Bhan, a researcher in bioethics and public health policy, said heavily populated and decentralised countries such as India are struggling to keep lockdown measures effectively. "That makes it a bit more challenging for the healthcare system," he told AFP. "We might not have one peak, we might have multiple peaks because the spread of infection is variable across the country." - 'Far from peak' - For Azra Ghani, professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London, the delayed rise in COVID-19 cases shows in part how successful countries have been until now in limiting the virus' spread. "If you go back a few months there was a large seeding into Europe and that caused widespread epidemics there," she told AFP. "All these countries saw what was happening in Europe and reacted. The lockdowns appeared at a relatively early stage of epidemics. "As they've been coming out of lockdowns we're seeing infections building up in the same way it had initially in Europe, starting to spread in South America, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh," Ghani explained. For example Indonesia, the fourth most populous country on Earth, is registering around 1,000 new cases daily even as it eases lockdown measures. Hermawan Saputra, a public health expert at the Indonesian Public Health Association, told AFP the country was "still far from the peak of the pandemic". Experts previously predicted the outbreak to peak in July. "But since Jakarta has relaxed (lockdown) we think the peak will be reached in August or September," said Saputra. "This is honestly terrifying. Easing was premature and people misunderstood it as meaning they had complete freedom -- that's wrong." In Afghanistan, which has more than 30,000 confirmed cases, restrictions on movement are still in place. But the public doesn't appear to be getting the message, according to senior health official Ataullah Saeedzai. "The lockdown is still in place, but people are not taking it seriously," he told AFP. "People are not observing the lockdown, people are not observing social distancing." - Health systems stretched - More worrying perhaps is that COVID-19 is now inundating countries whose health systems were lacking even before needing to respond to a pandemic. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation as home to more than 200 million, is registering 600-700 new cases a day. The government said in April its intensive care capacity stood at just 350 beds. Kema Onu, who works in Abuja for the AIDS Health Foundation, said Nigeria's health system was "not properly equipped" to deal with COVID-19. "How many ventilators do we have in the country to take care of people who are critically in need of it?" he told AFP. "It would amaze you that even if you walk into major health care facilities here in Abuja, the prevention and control plan is not completely in place. The health system is a total shambles." In Pakistan, which has registered more than 200,000 cases, the central government has resisted nationwide lockdown measures, relying instead on local authorities to implement a patchwork of interventions. While the country has nearly 9,000 oxygenated ICU beds, Qaisar Sajjad, secretary general of the Pakistan Medical Association, told AFP the health system was on the brink of "collapse". "Even after months into this crisis our hospitals still lack some of the very basic facilities. We lack in both technical equipment as well as human resources," he said. And in Bangladesh, which an estimated additional 4,000 ICU beds to deal with COVID-19, hospitals are already facing oxygen shortages. "We are still at the climbing stage of the transmission," said Muzaherul Huq, a former head of the government institute of epidemiology and a former WHO senior official, adding many hospitals lack a centralised oxygen system. The virus has also begun to spread in the country's vast cramped refugee camps that house almost one million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled neighbouring Myanmar following a 2017 military crackdown. - 'Early days' - And as it circulates in developing nations, the virus is targeting communities already hard hit by other diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Ghani said a number of vaccination programmes effecting millions of children had been interrupted by the pandemic. There is also growing evidence that women in heavily affected countries are seeking to give birth at home rather than risk catching the virus in hospital. "Many countries are already seeing overwhelmed hospital capacities and if they are over capacity for one disease that inevitably means other diseases are not being treated," she said. As researchers scramble to find a COVID-19 vaccine, Lang said that poorer communities that traditionally lacked access to inoculations for other illnesses were at risk of missing out again. "Say we end up with a vaccine that's quite expensive and requires two or three doses," she said. "What chance really is there of that getting everywhere? "The ideal vaccine works perfectly with one dose and is cheap. Remove any of those elements and you increase the risk that it won't be distributed equitably around the globe." As much of Europe girds itself for a second COVID-19 spike, Ghani said the disease was likely to progress at different rates across the world, making its burden more like a continuum than a series of waves. "It's still early days -- most countries we won't have got more than 10-20 percent of the population infected and that's a long way off the level of spread that this virus could generate," she said. "We're going to see this virus circulate until at least the end of the year and that poses a constant risk of reinfection whenever interventions are relaxed." burs-pg/klm/txw
A campaign in the United States to remove symbols of the pro-slavery Civil War South gained momentum on Wednesday as workers began taking down statues in the Virginia city that was the Confederate capital and Mississippi retired the state flag. Workers in Richmond, Virginia, removed a statue of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a Confederate general, after the city's mayor ordered the "immediate removal" of Confederate monuments. In Jackson, Mississippi, the state flag was permanently lowered from the state's capitol and taken to a nearby museum. The Mississippi state flag was the last US state banner featuring a Confederate emblem. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said he was using his emergency powers to remove Confederate monuments in order to "expedite the healing process for the city." "It is past time," Stoney said. "As the capital city of Virginia we have needed to turn this page for decades." The mayor said that as the Southern capital during the 1861-65 Civil War, Richmond has been "burdened with that legacy." "The great weight of that burden has fallen on our residents of color," Stoney added. "These statues, although symbolic, have cast a shadow on the dreams of our children of color. "By removing them we can begin to heal and focus our attention on our future." Stoney called the move a "down payment" rather than a "solution" to racial injustice in the city and across America. He said the statues also presented a threat to public safety because protesters have been attempting to take them down during the coronavirus pandemic. - 'Come to terms with our past' - Work crews could be seen in televised footage removing the statue on Monument Avenue of Jackson, a Virginian who died in May 1863. A crowd of several hundred people erupted in cheers as the statue of Jackson mounted on a horse was removed from its stone pedestal by a crane. A nearby statue of Confederate commander Robert E. Lee has become a focal point for protests and has been covered in slogans such as "Black Lives Matter." Many Confederate monuments have come under attack, and some have been pulled down, in the past month as protesters against police abuse of African Americans target symbols of the country's legacy of slavery. President Donald Trump has opposed their removal and the Department of Homeland Security announced a special new task force on Wednesday to protect historic monuments across the country. In Mississippi, an honor guard lowered three state flags that were on the capitol property, folded them and presented them to state officials. They were then taken in a motorcade to a nearby museum where the 126-year-old standard will be relegated to history. The move came one day after Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill ordering the flag's removal. "Today we come to terms with our past, and we look to our future," said Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn, who was instrumental in the effort to remove the flag. "We have much to be proud of, and much to reckon with," Gunn said, adding that for some Mississippians, the flag has "been a shadow over their struggle to be free." Many African Americans believe the flag carries racist connotations, while some white southerners argue it is a symbol of Southern heritage. A commission has been tasked with selecting a new design for the state flag, which must be emblazoned with the words "In God We Trust." Mississippians, nearly 40 percent of whom are African American, will vote on the design in November. Mississippi was the only American state to still incorporate the Confederate standard on its official flag, after nearby Georgia dropped it in 2003. Efforts to remove Confederate monuments gathered momentum after a white supremacist shot dead nine African Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 and they picked up again following the May 25 death of George Floyd, an African American man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis. The NASCAR race car franchise last month banned the display of the Confederate flag at its events and four portraits of 19th century lawmakers who served in the Confederacy were removed from the US Capitol.
Singapore's Grab puts partnership with troubled Wirecard on hold A Grab logo is pictured at the Money 20/20 Asia Fintech Trade Show in Singapore

By Anshuman Daga and Aradhana Aravindan

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Southeast Asian ride-hailing and payments company Grab said it had put a partnership with scandal-hit Wirecard <WDIG.DE> on hold, days after the German payments firm disclosed a $2.1 billion (1.6 billion) financial hole that threatens its future.

"We have not begun business integration work on the Wirecard partnership and we are pausing the partnership till further notice," a spokeswoman from Grab told Reuters on Wednesday in response to a query about the status of the partnership.

The two companies had struck a payments agreement in March under which Wirecard was to process transactions made via the GrabPay e-wallet, starting with markets in Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.

Wirecard had not begun processing payments or signing up merchants on behalf of Grab, Southeast Asia's most valuable start-up, whose e-wallet is accepted by more than 600,000 merchants and small businesses in the region.

Responding to a query, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Tuesday that it had asked Wirecard to ensure that it keeps customer funds from its local activities in the country's banks.

This week, Wirecard's former boss was arrested on suspicion of falsifying its accounts, after the payments firm disclosed the financial hole and questioned whether trustees had actually held money on its behalf.

Germany's financial regulator also filed a fresh complaint against Wirecard with the prosecutor, saying the company's belated admission that billions were missing showed it had mis-stated its financial position between 2016 and 2018.

(Reporting by Anshuman Daga and Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
The US House of Representatives agreed unanimously Wednesday to seek tough sanctions on Chinese officials and Hong Kong police after Beijing imposed a security law that clamps down on the city. After a day in which Hong Kong authorities arrested hundreds of protesters, the House quickly passed the act that had already passed the Senate last week. Due to technical changes, the Senate will need to vote again. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bipartisan bill, vowed that the chamber would vote Thursday. "What's so sad about it is that the Chinese regime just thinks that they can act with impunity and repressing the spirit of democracy," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said before the House passage. "If we refuse to speak out on human rights in China because of commercial interests, we lose all moral authority to speak out for human rights any place in the world," Washington's top elected Democrat, long a vocal proponent of human rights in China, said in a rare appearance before a congressional hearing. President Donald Trump has not said if he will sign the bill but one of his allies briefly held up the Senate version, seeking changes. Trump publicly hesitated last year before signing another rights bill on Hong Kong which also lays out sanctions against Chinese officials for infringing on the city's autonomy. Unlike the previous act, the new legislation would make sanctions mandatory, limiting Trump's ability to waive them. In a crucial pressure point, it would also slap sanctions on banks that conduct transactions with violators. China on Tuesday imposed the long-threatened security law in Hong Kong that criminalizes "subversion" and other acts of dissent in a city to which it had promised separate freedoms. On Wednesday, Hong Kong police cracked down on protesters marking the anniversary of the city's 1997 handover from Britain, arresting about 370 people -- including 10 under the new law. - Biden blames 'weak' Trump - Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, accused Trump of allowing China to impose its will on Hong Kong through a hesitant response. "It's no wonder Beijing is acting with impunity. Time and again, President Trump has surrendered our values and reassured China's autocrats they have a like-minded partner in the White House," Biden said in a statement. "Where Trump has been weak, I will be strong, clear and consistent in standing up for our values," he said. The Trump administration has taken a series of actions in response to China's moves on Hong Kong, including restricting visas to an unspecified number of officials and blocking high-tech exports to the financial hub. Critics say the actions were not enough and that Trump has prioritized a trade deal with President Xi Jinping. John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor, wrote in an explosive new book that Trump explicitly asked Xi to help his re-election through buying farm produce. "Hong Kong has been on the backburner in an effort to sell soybeans and we haven't even sold the soybeans," Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat, told the congressional hearing. Biden's hard-hitting response came after Trump has tried to link his rival to Beijing, pointing to his extensive interactions with China as Barack Obama's vice president. Biden said that, if elected president, he would "fully enforce" laws on the rights of Hong Kong and Xinjiang, where China has detained some one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted that the Trump administration will do more to punish China -- by reducing the special privileges of Hong Kong. Trump "wants to ensure, with a handful of exceptions, that Hong Kong is treated just like mainland China because that's the way that General Secretary Xi has chosen to treat that place as well," Pompeo told reporters.
Drafted, debated, passed by lawmakers and signed by the governor in just 10 days, House File 2647 bans law enforcement officers from using choke holds unless an officer feels his or her life is threatened, bars agencies from hiring officers previously fired for misconduct or excess use of force, requires training on de-escalation techniques and anti-bias, and allows the state attorney general to investigate an officers conduct when his or her actions resulted in an individuals death.

What makes this historical is we are righting a historical wrong, Ako Abdul-Samad, a black man and state lawmaker from Des Moines, said as legislators discussed the proposal on June 11. Im saying to you today, my beloved brothers and sisters, and I mean all of you, not only are you a part of history, you are rectifying history. And that is something that you can tell your babies, your grandchildren, so they can tell this story from now on what we did in Iowa.

ABSENTEE BALLOTS

The states top elections official will require permission from legislative leaders before mailing absentee ballot request forms to voters during a public health emergency.
ATLANTA - Delta Air Lines will soon require customers to answer questions about whether they've experienced symptoms of COVID-19, or been in contact with someone who has, as part of the check-in process. Starting in mid-July, the Atlanta-based airline said, passengers will be required to fill out a health acknowledgment form. Passengers also must agree to face mask requirements during travel. ...
By the time I saw Hamilton, a little more than four years ago this week, I had committed the cast recording to memoryevery note, every inflection, every pauseto the extent that seeing it was like experiencing three hours of deja vu. But there was one moment that caught me utterly by surprise, one that the millions of people who know Hamilton only as an album and not as a stage performance will be able to experience for the first time when the filmed version of the show arrives on Disney+ on Friday.

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Watching the Hamilton movie, which was directed by the stage productions Thomas Kail and filmed with the original Broadway cast in situ at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, you might catch a few pieces of the show that didnt end up on the album. Most famously, theres the surprise scene in which Alexander Hamilton learns of John Laurens death, which features the longest exchange of spoken dialogue in the through-sung musical, and there are some brief interstitial cues that help usher Jonathan Groffs King George on and off the stage. But the most significant moment thats only in the stage version comes all the way at the endin fact, its the very last thing you see, the moment when Eliza Hamilton lets out her dying gasp and goes to join her husband on the other side.

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Hamilton closes with Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story, which provides an answer to the apparently rhetorical question thats been threaded through the show. Hamilton is dead, killed in a duel by his rival Aaron Burr, and hes survived by his wife, Eliza, who spends the 50 years after his death guarding his legacy. Up until that point, Burr has served as the musicals narrator, an awestruck chronicler of his bitter frenemys inexplicable success. (Kails movie largely keeps the camera on the audiences side of the proscenium, but it gets close enough that you can see the pained grimace on Leslie Odom Jr.s face as he recounts how Hamilton has once again managed to come out on top.) But in the finale, Eliza takes the baton from him and tells not only her late husbands story but her own.

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Throughout the show, Eliza is the character most concerned with Alexanders legacy, and questioning whether she even has a place in it. She begs him to let me be a part of the narrative, in the story you will write one dayand, after he violates her trust by having an affair and disgraces her by making it public, decides that shes taking herself out of the story altogether, striking back by destroying the thing she knows he values most: his words. They reconcile after their son Philip is killed in a duel, but its only after Alexanders death that Eliza puts herself back into the narrative, not as a passive subject hoping for a brief mention, but as its author.

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Theres so much packed into that instant, not least the short, sharp shock of it, a sudden cry that pierces the companys final note.

Its a huge shift, and one that Hamilton, for all its scope, is barely equipped to handle. The go-girl feminism of The Schuyler Sisters aside (work!), its a show in which women are muses and love interests, and occasionally just ballast. The incandescent luminosity of Phillipa Soos performance notwithstanding, Elizas role boils down to a variation on what Emma Thompson memorably summarized as Please dont go and do that brave thing. Who Lives, Who Dies doesnt remedy that problem, but it does acknowledge it, and one way to read the shows final moment, when Soo steps to the lip of the stage, lifts her eyes, and lets out an astonished gasp, is as a sundering of the fourth wall, a reminder that there is a world outside the play, and more stories to be told. (To those who feel its already past time for history to center figures like Eliza, Hamilton echoes George Washingtons answer to the question of whether the Black soldiers who fought to free the U.S. should be emancipated themselves: Not. Yet.)

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Interpreting that final gesture became something of an obsession for Hamilton fans whod actually seen the show. In interviews, Soo kept its meaning open, saying only that it had something to do with transcendence. For me, it felt like a way of definitively shifting the focus from story to storyteller, because the show survives Hamiltons death, but it ends the instant that Eliza dies; she ascends into the light, and the audience plunges into darkness. In the movie, with the proximity that only a combination of deep pockets and good timing could previously have afforded, you can see the way Soo lifts her eyes upward every time she sings to her husbands memory, so that when she gasps and, in an exquisite close-up, seems to glimpse something in the light, theres little question who it is shes seeing. Alexander promised to be waiting on the other side, and as she crosses over, you can tell that he was true to his word.

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Theres so much packed into that instant, not least the short, sharp shock of it, a sudden cry that pierces the companys final note, like the last blip before a heart monitor flatlinesand its all the more surprising if youre expecting the show to end as the album does, with the chorus gently fading out in unison. Telling his story has been Elizas way of keeping Hamilton alive not just his memory but the ideals for which he stood, even when he failed to embody them. In taking the pen from his jealous rival and writing Hamiltons history as an act of lovethe kind of love where you see your subjects faults for what they areshe becomes a proxy for Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, offering a new vision of U.S. history to people who have long been denied their rightful place in it, and claiming his own place in history as well. Eliza loves Hamilton the way Miranda loves America, by embracing its best and fighting to keep it from being overtaken by its worst, leveraging its past as a tool to brighten its future. When she finally sees what shes wrought, its almost more than her mind can bear. But just before the lights go dark, her expression passes through confusion and fear to something that looks most like joy.

For more of Slates Hamilton coverage, listen to a spoiler-filled discussion of the movie.
This recipe originally appeared on Food52.

Hearing the words, Your ice cream reminds me of when we ate ice cream at my mothers funeral would wipe the smile from most cooks faces. But for Nashville ice cream maker Lokelani Alabanza, this reaction from a customer was the ultimate compliment. Alabanza is a storyteller who mines Black history and cooking for inspiration, translating her discoveries into the language of sugar and ice, and triggering such profound emotions is the whole point.

Alabanzawho recently launched Saturated Ice Cream, a line of dairy free, CBD-infused flavors, and before that was the executive pastry chef and culinary director at Hattie Janes Creameryis a nostalgia junkie. I collect recipes and recreate them [through ice cream]. Its like collecting antiques but with food, she explains. One look at her vintage cookbook collection, which features volumes penned by Black chefs over the last century and longer, and its clear she has a fascination with the past.

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Alabanzas flavors include Gin & Juice, Nana Puddin, Sweet Potato Casserole, and Peanuts & Coke, each one an ode to the artifacts she uncovers on her sentimental journey through Black Americas past. There are so many stories to tell, and not enough time or patience for most people to read them. So Alabanza distills an entire era or event into a few scoops on a cone. How can I feed this to you? she thinks when something inspires her. How can I get this into an ice cream flavor?

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Alabanza has been amassing old cookbooks for as long as she can remember, combing estate sales and antique malls, or just receiving them from people. Everyone knows, Loke wants the old books, she laughs. But the books form her professional roadmap, each dog-eared page and underlined word an insight into a cooks soul.

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One of my favorite finds was a huge stack of recipe index cards wrapped in twine at a flea market. Theyre handwritten in cursive, organized by course. It cost, like, $5. Ive read through all of them. There are treasures hiding in the pages. One of her favorite desserts is Dees Coconut Pound Cake, a recipe she found in a cookbook with a wedding gift inscription from 1975. When it comes to recipe research, Alabanza says, I go deep.

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But the California native did not hit her stride until she moved to the South five years ago. I didnt realize how this is a place of preservation of food stories and traditions, she marvels. For Black Southerners, food is interwoven into identity.

Southern food is specific. Its about growing your vegetables, feeding your family, taking care of your community. She discovered Toni Tipton-Martins The Jemima Code, the groundbreaking compendium of more than 150 cookbooks published by Black American authors that reveals the role of Black women in shaping American cuisine. It gave Alabanza newfound pride in her heritage.

Church picnics! Ten different versions of a green bean! The dessert table! I didnt see that sense of tradition growing up out West.

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Seeing Black cookery in an elevated light gave Alabanza a new appreciation for her late grandmother, who hailed from Chattanooga, Tenn., and to whom she was very close. Her grandmother was a wonderful cook, but didnt leave behind any written recipes. Cooking these other womens recipes heals her longing for connection.

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I carry pieces of nostalgia with my grandmother. Im looking to create things from those places, she explains. Now that she lives close to her grandmothers birthplace, she finds reminders of her everywhere. When I see a lemon cake with lemon icing or a peach cobbler, they resonate deeply within me.

For Alabanza, the highest form of expression is creating a flavor that captures a historic moment, a time capsule gift-wrapped in a confection. When it all comes together, and the ice cream matches up to the intensity of her emotion, she feels a deep sense of satisfaction. It means that I am doing the thing that Im supposed to be doing. Her flavor called Juneteenth is a perfect example.

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Last year, Alabanza did a deep dive into the history of Juneteenth, the anniversary marking June 19, 1865, the day the Union army reached Galveston, Tex. and informed enslaved African-Americans that they were free. She combed the accounts of early Juneteenth parties for evidence of food and flavors, and condensed those traditions into a bright scarlet sorbet. On Juneteenth you make red food, to symbolize the blood of the millions of slaves that died in slavery, she explains. That was the old parable they would tell the young people. So youd have red velvet cake, strawberry cake, strawberry punch, and hibiscus tea.

Alabanzas Juneteenth tastes like a spring day, nearly as tart as it is sweet, with a color between watermelon and cherry. The flavor reveals itself in stages, starting with a juicy raspberry kiss followed by the tropical embrace of hibiscus. The elements are smoothed into each other with sugarthat sacred commodity of the cane-farming Southand a gulp of lime. The taste is a moment of celebration distilled into an ice cream, the feeling of eating fruit as a free person for the first time.

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Sign up for the Slate Culture newsletter The best of movies, TV, books, music, and more, delivered to your inbox three times a week. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

Compared to last year, Juneteenth 2020 is shaping up to be bigger than ever. People are open to learning what it means for America and the Black community, says Alabanza, and she feels lucky to be creating in this time of momentum around racial justice. In all honesty, it has helped launch this brand that Ive been sitting on for two years, she admits. But more than that, it could be the start of healing for the Black community on a mass scale. Whether youre teaching, parenting, or making cakes, its about making a space for the beauty to come in. My ice cream is one little piece of this.

For now, Alabanza is practicing her culinary alchemy, spinning a sometimes bitter past into glorious flavors. We have to get through this pain, but there is joy to be had.

The flavor Juneteenth will be available for delivery all summer in the Nashville area. Saturated Ice Cream will start by focusing on monthly ice cream subscriptions and local delivery, with national availability coming soon.

More from Food52:

A 2-Ingredient Sauce for Spicy, Creamy Noodles

How to Make Fresh Or Dried Bread Crumbs

Ruth Reichls Post-Work Late-Night Noodles

A Failed Apple Pie Brought Me Closer to My Father-in-Law

How to Organize Your Pantry& Keep It Shipshape
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The relationship between universities and their neighbors is notoriously complex. COVID-19 is about to make it worse. With schools across the country planning to bring students back to campuses as early as August, surrounding areas are likely to see sharp spikes in COVID-19 cases. Local governments, businesses, and individual residents need not be sitting ducks. They can, and should, sue now to prevent campus reopenings, or to require universities to implement safety measures that will protect surrounding communities.

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Universities do not and cannot operate in a bubble. Students, faculty, and staff live off campus, use public transportation to get to and from campus, go grocery shopping, have families with children who go to school and spouses who work at area businesses. If a campus becomes a locus of COVID-19 infections, the disease can rapidly spread throughout an entire area. Knock-on effects include burdening local hospital capacity, endangering the health of medical personnel and other front-line workers, possibly precipitating economically damaging lockdowns, and exacerbating racial disparities in whom the pandemic strikes and how hard.

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While faculty are flagging such problems for university administrators and in some cases pushing back against the reopenings, they are not the only ones who can take action now to avert these consequences. A wide range of individuals and organizations can and should take preemptive legal action, suing colleges on the grounds that reopened campuses threaten the public good. To bring these suits, parties have to show that they will suffer harms over and above those to the general welfare. Many individuals and organizations are situated to do this.

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For example, a local chapter of the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachersthe unions that organize K12 teachers throughout the countrycould file a claim on behalf of its members based on the anticipated extra burden on local teachers and their students should the university drive up infections as grade schools attempt to reopen as well. School boards and parents associations could join in such claims. Similarly, a hospital that serves the community could file a claim on the grounds that bringing students from all over the country to be in relatively close quarters is likely to lead to ICU bed overload.

By showing that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm if campuses reopen, vulnerable persons who live near universities, hospitals, service worker unions, and local governmentsamong othersshould be able to obtain specific, anticipatory relief. Remedies could range from requirements to take specific precautionary measures, including reengineering campus buildings to minimize chances of infection spreading, to mandates that all or almost all instruction be conducted wholly online without reopening buildings.

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Those who neighbor universities might be able to approach them informally first to seek commitments that the schools will take specific steps to prevent their campuses from becoming sources of disease. Hospitals and local governments might request upfront financial contributions to alleviate pandemic-related strains that campus reopenings will put on health care systems and other local infrastructure. If universities are not amenable to such overtures, then a formal legal proceeding can be brought.

Colleges and universities naturally first consider their own needs and interests. When it comes to COVID-19, it is more imperative than ever that they also attend to those off campus whom they affect so powerfully. Their neighbors have a right to such consideration. If it is not forthcoming, public nuisance law provides a legal tool for getting it.

It makes more sense for those likely to be sickened or otherwise harmed by university reopenings during this pandemic to pursue prophylactic legal action rather than await the harms and sue for damages later. By considering and formulating nuisance actions now, those who live and work near colleges can gain a voice in how these institutions conduct themselves this fall and for as long as COVID-19 poses substantial risks.
Donald Trump has long revealed himself to be a bully, one who punches down yet screams bloody murder when someone else so much as taps him. Nowhere is this trait more manifest than in his free speech hypocrisy. Throughout his political campaigns and his presidency, Trump has routinely decried the scourge of political correctness, slammed the weakness of snowflakes who cant handle his telling it like it is, and demanded the right to publish factual misstatements without correction on private social media platforms. Yet Trump has wielded the extraordinary powers and privileges of the presidencyusing everything from the presidential bully pulpit to the classification system to his leverage over executive branch personnelto threaten, intimidate, and punish those whose words embarrass or anger him.

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Lest the advantages of his office not fully protect him from unwelcome speech, Trump also continues to employ a technique that he has long used in his private life, his business life, and his political life: contracts featuring nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses, or NDAs. At the moment, Trump is engaged in litigation to stop the publication of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, which reportedly contains damaging revelations about him. Because Mary once signed an NDA, Trump has declared that she is not allowed to write a book. On Wednesday, a New York Supreme Court appellate judge lifted a temporary restraining order on publication of the book. Given the heightened public interest in information about the president and the strong presumption against prior restraints on publications of any kind, the interests at stake are on Mary Trumps side.

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Of course, though, Trumps penchant for NDAs goes well beyond his own family. More troubling still is his practice of requiring campaign staffers and White House employees to sign sweeping NDAs that bar them from criticizing Trump, his family members, or any Trump organizations for the rest of the signers lives. A recently filed case, now pending in federal district court in Manhattan, offers a fresh look at Trumps use of NDAs to muzzle former campaign staffers.

In Denson v. Donald J. Trump for President Inc., Jessica Denson, who worked on the 2016 campaign, seeks a judgment declaring that the form NDA that the campaign required its employees, contractors, and volunteers to sign is unenforceable. When Denson filed a previous state-court lawsuit against the campaign raising claims related to her employment, the Trump campaign sought to enforce the NDA against Denson through arbitration, claiming she violated the NDA by filing the lawsuit. Although an arbitrator initially granted damages to the campaign, a New York state appellate court vacated the award on the grounds that public policy prohibits parties from using NDAs to punish individuals for filing lawsuits. The court did not weigh in on the validity of the NDA itself, noting that any challenge to the campaigns NDA would have to be presented to the arbitrator in the first instance. While the campaigns arbitration proceedings were pending, Denson filed a federal lawsuit seeking to have the NDA declared invalid. The federal court agreed with the Trump campaign that Denson had to resolve her claim through arbitration. When Denson sought to initiate her own class arbitration challenging the NDA, however, the campaign asserted that it could itself choose to bypass arbitration, and insisted that the plaintiff file her purported claims in court. In her current lawsuit, filed last month, Denson does just that.

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The NDA that Denson challenges is breathtaking in its scope. Its nondisparagement clause prohibits campaign workers, for the rest of their lives, from demean[ing] or disparag[ing] publicly the campaign, Donald Trump, Trump family members, or Trump companies. The nondisclosure clause forever bars campaign workers from revealing confidential information or using such information in any way detrimental to Mr. Trump, his family, or any Trump businesses. Confidential information includes any information with respect to the personal life, political affairs, and/or business affairs of Mr. Trump or any Family Member. On the off chance that the definition leaves some kernel of information unshielded, it extends as well to all information  of a private, propriety or confidential nature or that Mr. Trump insists remain private or confidential (emphasis mine).

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Denson argues that the NDA is invalid on multiple grounds, including the First Amendments speech and press clauses and New York state contract law. Among Densons contract law arguments is the notion that any benefit from enforcing the contract is outweighed by the public interest in the free exchange of ideas. At the heart of each legal claim are two key insights about free speech in a democratic system. First, the right of the people to criticize and to share information about government officials is essential to democracy and the rule of law. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has extolled our profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. Second, speech that scrutinizes government officials is as vulnerable as it is valuable. One need not be a hardened cynic to fear that those who wield power will use it to suppress their critics. This commonsense insight is manifest in numerous aspects of First Amendment law, including the presumption against content-based restrictions on speech and the high bar that public figures must surmount to win damages against speakers who defame them.

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The Trump campaigns sweeping NDA affronts these foundational principles. This would be so even if Trump had not won the presidency and were merely an influential politician. That he is now the president of the United States makes starker still the NDAs insult to free speech and democratic discourse.

Finally, although the courts may not need to reach Densons First Amendment claim, given the strength of her state law positions, it is important to put to rest the notion that the campaigns NDA is a purely private instrument, and that the First Amendment therefore does not apply. It is true that the campaign organization technically is a private and not a governmental entity. However, the NDAs terms extend well beyond the time of Trumps candidacy and pertains to all information and views about Trump the president as well as Trump the candidate and private citizen. It seeks to stifle any unapproved utterance, from thousands of individuals throughout the course of their lives, about the president of the United States. The First Amendment would mean little if its protections could be circumvented so easily.

Trump has made clear that he values free speech only for himself and his supporters. The Constitution and the laws of New York state are not, thankfully, so selective.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
David Abrams is a guy who likes to sue. Chiefly he likes to sue entities that he views as aiding terrorists and terrorism, often based on stuff he finds online. In 2015, for instance, he sued the humanitarian organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter, under the False Claims Act, claiming the NGO had defrauded the U.S. government by supporting terrorists because it held events encouraging dialogue with Palestinian political parties and factions. Because at these meetings the Carter Center had provided physical assets of fruit, cookies, bottled water, and presumably other food and drink, it had, according to the suit, given material aid to terrorists. In 2018, a district court granted a Department of Justice motion to dismiss the lawsuit, finding that serving cookies and water at peace dialogues with Palestinians was not in fact an act of aiding terrorists but, rather, an indicator that Abrams just had a difference of opinion with the Carter Center about how to resolve conflict in the Middle East.

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Abrams is surely free to continue suing entities over the cookies they choose to serve. But, the ACLU warned in a motion Friday, one of his latest lawsuits threatens any nonprofit engaged in any civil rights advocacy on any politically charged issue.

Abrams target this time is the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to advancing democracy, equality, and basic freedoms in Israel. It raises millions of dollars that it distributes through grants to private Israeli organizations engaged in promoting human and civil rights, social and economic justice, religious pluralism, and other democratic causes. Abrams complaint openly states that, as was the case in the Carter Center litigation, his principle objection to NIFs work is that he disagrees with its mission. As his complaint contends, although the stated purpose of NIF is to help strengthen Israels democracy, NIF opposes what he views as Israeli security by supporting organizations that seek to undermine Israel.

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Abrams sued the group in 2019 under the New York False Claims Act, alleging that the New Israel Fund has violated its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status because some grantees engage in electioneering. The U.S. tax code does prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations from engaging in some forms of political activism, but grants the IRS authority to police those activities. Abrams brought his suit as a so-called qui tam action, in which a private party may bring an action on the governments behalf. Abrams complaint accuses NIF of fraud and demands over a hundred million dollars in treble damages plus civil penalties.

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The lawsuit is a longshot, but Abrams does not need to succeed in court to declare victory. As Lara Friedman has detailed at length here, Abrams has used the ambiguous language of material support regulations to intimidate and coerce NGOs into abandoning moral, humanitarian, political and financial support for Palestinians. Indeed, while he readily concedes that free speech protects the right of everyone to criticize Israel, he appears to be awfully fond of serial litigation designed to chill NGOs involved in any activity he deems anti-Israel. As such, hes sued Norwegian Peoples Aid; Doctors Without Borders (for operating hospitals in the Gaza Strip); Airbnb; the National Lawyers Guild (for refusing to publish an ad in a dinner journal); and the American Studies Association for unlawfully denying a group permission to join (the ASA says it never asked to join). Abrams likens this last lawsuit to Brown v. Board of Education. Some of these suits (like Norwegian Peoples Aid) end in settlements. Litigation is costly and burdensome.

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The NIF lawsuit shows Abrams is trying a new and dangerous tactic. Last Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union joined the New Israel Funds legal defense team in moving to dismiss Abrams lawsuit. They argue that the New York False Claims Act bars qui tam actions when all of the allegations in the complaint are substantially the same [as] allegations or transactions that have been publicly disclosed, and everything alleged here was already publicly disclosed in tax filings and the news media. The ACLU also argues that private litigants cant enforce federal tax laws under cover of state fraud statutes. As the motion to dismiss notes, This lawsuit is thus the wrong type of action, brought by the wrong party, in the wrong court. Finally, the motion sensibly points out that the nexus between NIF itself and the conduct of a handful of grantees in no way means that NIF is electioneeringand the complaint never does more to prove otherwise. Its true that some of NIFs grantees took actions to enforce civil rights guaranteed under Israels Basic Law in the larger context of the Knesset elections. But under Abrams novel view of the code, one could retroactively penalize legal actions and issue advocacy done by any group that was granted funds, simply because that civil rights work occurred in the context of an election.

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The truly frightening aspect of the lawsuit, and the reason the ACLU has intervened to stop it, is that it is trying to leverage the federal tax code into suppressing activity that represents core political and expressive activity. As the motion to dismiss puts it, if Abrams has his way, the New York False Claims Act would impose draconian damages and penalties against registered charities engaged in protected, and arguably tax-preferred, expression. And this is precisely why Congress chose to give the IRS, and not private litigants, exclusive authority to enforce Section 501(c)(3). The motion to dismiss concludes that if private parties with axes to grind could subject non-profits whose missions they dislike to the risk of massive retroactive liability based on novel interpretations of federal tax law, protected expression would be chilled and the administration and enforcement of tax law would be destabilized.

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Brian Hauss, one of the ACLU attorneys on the case, told me via email that this potential fallout is the reason the case is so important to the ACLU. Abrams far-fetched interpretation of the Internal Revenue Code would bankrupt non-profits for their work defending the ground rules of democracy, he wrote. Promoting freedom, equality, and the rule of law is not partisan political activity under the tax code.

Abrams is free to object to the political views of anyone he believes to be a terrorist. He is free to criticize political work that he believes undermines Israel. He is also free to file one frivolous lawsuit after another. Sure, endless, meritless litigation seems to be a way of life for those who cannot make their arguments effectively in other public fora. But the courts need not endorse the weaponization of the U.S. tax code to discourage speech and activism.
The city of Richmond, Virginia, took down a statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson on Wednesday as part of a broader push to remove roughly a dozen Confederate-era monuments on city land. Hundreds came out to watch the removal of the statue memorializing the Confederate general, a move steeped in symbolism given Richmonds role as the capital of the Confederacy. The political makeup of the state has changed dramatically over the past two decades, as has, more recently, the nature of the national conversation over the appropriateness of statues memorializing a dark, brutally repressive period of American history. The Jackson statue was one of numerous city monuments to the Confederacy created many decades after the Civil War aiming to rehabilitate the Souths image, recasting it as a defender of states rights rather than a propagator of slavery. When the Jackson statue was finally on the ground, the crowd cheered, and bells rang out from a nearby church.

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A new law in Virginia paving the way for cities and counties in the state to take action to remove Confederate memorials went into effect Wednesday, but the law requires a period of public comments before municipalities can carry out removals. The legislation grew out of an effort last month by protesters to topple a statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, which was partially taken down during demonstrations. Another statue on the citys Monument Avenue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee has been ordered taken down by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, but the order to remove the statue, which is on state land, is being challenged in court.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the removal of statues on city property, bypassing the new state laws timetable by extending emergency powers granted by the governor. The mayor framed the expedited removals as in the interest of public safety that is threatened by demonstrators gathering and potentially spreading the coronavirus, as well as injuring themselves or others toppling the monuments themselves. The 39-year-old Democratic mayor, bucking advice from the city attorney and relying on emergency powers, dispatched a crew to take down the statue after the City Council delayed a vote on removing it along with three others owned by the city along the avenue, the Washington Post reports. In addition to Jackson and Davis, the other two city-owned statues on the avenue honor Confederate figures J.E.B. Stuart and Matthew Fontaine Maury.

The Berlin Wall fell, but also the system fell with it, the mayor said of the removals. Now for us, as elected leaders, alongside our community, its our job to rip out the systemic racism that is found in everything we dofrom government, to health care, to the criminal justice system. The Virginia state Republican Party dutifully pushed back on the move, calling it a stunt that would fan the flames of the violent and chaotic protests.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in a blockbuster case concerning whether Congress can access the full, unredacted Mueller report. Special counsel Robert Mueller released that report a little more than a year ago, but Congress still has not seen the report in its entirety because the Department of Justice has withheld portions of the report that concern grand jury matters. Now, the Supreme Court will decide whether Congress can view those grand jury redactions, as centuries of precedent dictate, or whether the Trump administration can continue to obstruct Congresss legitimate oversight request. But just as important as what the court decides is when it decides it. The court should expedite its hearing of the case and decide it this summer. If it doesnt, it will in effect grant President Trump a de facto win by delaying resolution of this case until after this congressional term expires in January.

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The case concerns the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure that provides that grand jury matters must generally be kept secret. Significantly, the rule in question, known as Rule 6(e), has an important exception that allows district courts to release such materials preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding. Citing that rule, last August, the House requested that a district court release the portions of the Mueller Report that were redacted as grand jury materials, arguing that an impeachment proceeding is a judicial proceeding. It has now been close to a year since that request.

As Ive explained before, the Houses argument is supported by the text of the Constitution and a long history of Congress receiving grand jury materials. Regarding the former, the Constitution is clear that during impeachment the House functions as a grand jury and the Senate is a tribunal that decides whether to remove officers. Indeed, Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution uses the language of judicial proceedings, stating that the Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments, that no Person shall be convicted without a two-thirds majority, and that judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office. Further, Article III, Section 2 says that the Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment; shall be by Jury, indicating that impeachment is a type of trial for crimes.

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Precedent also supports the Houses request. In 1811, a grand jury in the Mississippi Territory forwarded the House of Representatives its presentment specifying charges against federal territorial Judge Harry Toulmin, which set in motion a House impeachment inquiry. More recently, during the Nixon impeachment, a district court forwarded grand jury materials regarding the Watergate investigation to the House Judiciary Committee. And the House received grand jury materials related to the impeachment of sitting federal judges in 1987 and 2010.

Notably, the Department of Justice consented to the release of grand jury materials in these earlier cases. But consistent with its pattern of obstructing legitimate congressional oversight, the Trump administration has refused to turn over the unredacted Mueller Report to Congress and has fought that disclosure for nearly a year in federal court. The administration lost in both the D.C. district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On Thursday, however, the Supreme Court agreed to hear this case on the merits, setting up another blockbuster fight over whether Congress can conduct legitimate oversight of this president.

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The problem with the Courts order granting the case is that it failed to say when it would hear it. And with this case, timing is everything. Typically, when the Supreme Court grants a case, it seeks further briefing, hears oral argument, and then issues a decision months later. In this case, the ordinary procedure would mean that oral argument would probably happen this fall. And that would make a final decision on the matter unlikely before 2021.

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But if the court subscribes to that ordinary procedure in this case, it would result in a de facto win for the Trump administration even if the court eventually decides that Congress is right on the law. As Ive explained before, the House is not a continuing body, and the current Congress exists only until January 3, 2021, at which point its on-going investigations will end, its subpoenas will expire, and a new Congress will be sworn in. Thus, if the case is not argued until the fall and not decided until spring 2021, the election will be over and the 116th Congress will have long since adjourned. Congress needs to see the full Mueller Report nowduring this congressional termto decide if it contains evidence of impeachable conduct. In short, if the Supreme Court does not decide this case in a timely manner, there is a real risk that even if Congress should have access to these grand jury materials, Trump will manage to run out the clock and delay any decision until it is too late.

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Thankfully, there is precedent for the court hearing important cases like this on an expedited timeline, even during its typical summer vacation. In United States v. Nixon, for example, a case about a presidents compliance with subpoenas, the court heard argument on July 8, 1974, and decided the case just two weeks later on July 24, all during its summer break. Bush v. Gore is another good example of expedition. The Supreme Court decided two cases arising out of the Florida recount in the 2000 election in roughly three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas of that year. In short, the court can act quickly when it wants to.

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Finally, expedition is especially warranted here given that there is no reason this case cant be heard on an expedited basis. Indeed, the parties have briefed this issue twice already in the lower courts, so they could easily file briefs before the Supreme Court on an expedited basis. The justices may be used to taking the summers largely off, but for an issue as important as this onewhether Congress can complete a major investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 election and President Trumps efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigationvacations can wait. To ensure that President Trump does not remain above the law, and that Congress can complete its legitimate investigation in a timely fashion, the court should hear this case this summer and decide it expeditiously.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to the Political Gabfest on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
President Donald Trump wants a fight over the Confederacy. On Tuesday night, responding to legislation that would remove the names of Confederate generals from U.S. military bases, Trump threatened to block funding for the armed forces. I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill, he tweeted, if it includes an amendment that would lead to the renaming  of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars.

Its grotesque that a president, in the midst of an outcry over police violence against Black people, would choose the Confederacy as his unyielding cause. But politically, Trumps move isnt stupid. Surveys taken in the past month suggest that this fight can be a winner for him. To beat himto get the bases renamed, get Confederate statues removed, and make the fight costly for Trumpadvocates of change must learn from the polls.

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Two weeks ago, a Politico/Morning Consult survey asked whether the Pentagon should rename military bases that are named after Confederate leaders or leave the names as they are. A plurality of voters, 48 percent to 33 percent, said the names should be left alone. Trumps position was a winner with independents, moderates, and suburbanites. It was also preferred by voters who somewhat disapproved of his job performance or who expressed a somewhat unfavorable opinion of him. In short, its an issue he could use to claw his way back into the election.

But Trumps opponents could frame the issue differently. In early June, a VoteVets/Public Policy Polling survey asked: The US Army currently operates ten major installations named after Confederate military commanders. The Marine Corps and the Navy recently banned all Confederate-related paraphernalia from bases around the world. Would you support or oppose a similar ban on Confederate imagery across the entire military, including renaming certain Army bases? When the question was put this way, in terms of paraphernalia and a military housecleaning that was already underway, a plurality of voters, including a plurality of independents, supported a ban.

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Most polls about Confederate generals have focused on statues. Here, too, Trump has an advantage. In a Morning Consult poll taken this week, pluralities of independents, moderates, suburbanites, and voters as a whole agreed that statues of Confederate leaders should remain standing rather than be taken down. Again, the presidents position was attractive to voters who somewhat disapproved of him or who viewed him somewhat unfavorably.

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The numbers get even better for Trump if he can drag the American Founders into the fight. In a Yahoo News poll taken last week, voters were closely divided on whether statues of Confederate generals should be removed. (Forty-one percent favored removal; 46 percent opposed it.) But when the poll asked about statues of American presidents who were slaveholders, like Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson, voters overwhelmingly opposed removing them. The consensus against removal included a plurality of Democrats and a plurality of people who said they would vote for former Vice President Joe Biden against Trump.

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Trump also benefits if he can focus the debate on ad hoc destruction by protesters. In a Harvard/Harris poll taken two weeks ago, more than 60 percent of Democratsand of people who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016agreed that statues of confederate figures should be removed. But Democrats and Clinton voters also agreed, by roughly the same margins, that local governments should block groups from physically destroying these statues.

Biden understands Trumps game, and hes not playing it. In an exchange with reporters on Tuesday, the former vice president rejected ad hoc destruction and distinguished the founders from leaders of the Confederacy. Its always better to do it peacefully, he said of dismantling statues. But if someone pulls down the statue of Jefferson Davis, Biden added, thats fundamentally different from wrecking the Jefferson Memorial.

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This weeks Morning Consult poll offers some hints on how to turn voters against Trumps position. It asked a series of questions beginning with this preface: Some Americans are calling for the removal of statues or monuments with racist ties. In your opinion, do you think statues or properties in honor of each of the following types of figures should be removed/renamed or not? A plurality of voters, 46 percent to 38 percent, said statues of Confederate military leaders and political figures should be left alone. But as the poll proceeded to other honorees, the balance of opinion turned against Trump. On figures who owned slaves, voters were evenly split at 40 percent. On figures who made racist comments, a plurality, 45 percent to 34 percent, favored removal. On figures who supported racist policies, the plurality for removal was 50 percent to 33 percent.

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At first glance, these numbers are baffling. How can Confederate leaders score better than leaders who supported racist policies? The answer seems to be that most whites, along with pluralities of independents and moderates, see Confederate statues as symbols of Southern pride, not racism. To persuade them that statues must come down or that bases must be renamed, you have to focus not on the Confederacy but on specific racist deeds and statements by the figures those statues or bases honor.

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Once the statues have been removed, people seem fine with it. Three weeks ago, an Economist poll asked voters whether they approved or disapproved of the decision to remove Confederate statues in Mobile, Alabama, and Richmond, Virginia. A plurality, 46 percent to 41 percent, approved. The absence of the ousted monuments becomes the new status quo. The same dynamic is likely with military bases: Fort Bragg becomes Fort Johnson, and life moves on.

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In the long term, Trumps side will lose. A healthy plurality of voters under age 35 says that bases honoring Confederate leaders should be renamed, and a plurality of every age group under 65 supports renaming them as part of a ban on Confederate imagery. Most young voters also agree that Confederate statues should come down. And its unlikely that this new generation, over time, will somehow develop an attachment to generals who fought for the wrong and losing side in a 150-year-old war. But first, they have to make sure this fight doesnt help the wrong side in November.

For more of Slates political coverage, subscribe to the Political Gabfest on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
American society is rapidly changing its attitudes about racism in policing after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. In a matter of a few short weeks, onceradical sounding policy demands, like defunding the police, have become commonplace thanks to the massive and diverse protests across the country. Prominent politicians, athletes (including NASCAR drivers), and other community leaders have joined the calls for a systemic reimagining of policing and the legal system. The courts have an important role to play in this national soul-searching. There is widespread agreement, including between Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, that the high courts qualified immunity doctrine has contributed to a culture of impunity. But there is a far more pervasive and enduring Supreme Court decision that needs to be changed if we genuinely want to tackle institutional racism.

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In Washington v. Davis, decided in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that laws or government policies that disproportionately harm Black people do not violate the Constitutions equal protection clause. The case was brought by aspiring Black police officers challenging the statistical disparity in test scores between Black and white test takers as a reflection that the D.C. police departments hiring policy was unconstitutional. The test, known as Test 21, was chock full of white cultural and idiomatic references that may well have contributed to the fact that from 1968 to 1971, 57 percent of Black applicants failed the test as compared with 13 percent of whites.

In a 72 decision penned by Justice Byron White, the Supreme Court decided that courts can only find that a law or governmental action violates the equal protection clause when a plaintiff can show that a state actor intended to discriminate, and that this intention, in turn, caused a discriminatory result. But discriminatory intent is virtually impossible to prove. Who openly admits they are racist? This nearly insurmountable bar means that laws that treat Black people worse than white people (for example, laws requiring exponentially harsher sentences for crack possession than for cocaine use) remain tolerated throughout society.

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As Osagie K. Obasogie noted in the New York Times, the result of this decision was the perpetuation of systemic racial discrimination and the ascendance of what is now known as the intent doctrine, which emerged in later cases as a simplistic search for a smoking gunindividual bad actors intentionally doing bad things with nothing but racial animus on their minds.

That isnt how structural racism works, it never was, and it meant thatironically enoughpolicing itself became both a profession with higher barriers to Black people and a mechanism to carry out racially discriminatory criminal laws. And discriminatory intent became a kind of unprovable holy grail in any effort to redress racist policies. A state simply had to assert a reasonable public interest to justify laws, such as promoting health, safety, or morals.

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The result is a kind of cyclical trap. Requiring evidence of racist intent means that many laws that harm minorities, either by design or as a result of vestigial racial bias, nevertheless survive constitutional scrutiny. Those laws in turn perpetuate racial disparities and weaken minorities political power, while the people who make laws have no incentive to upend the order they have created. For example, an April statistical analysis in Iowa revealed that 7.3 times more Black people in that state and 3.64 times more Black people nationally were arrested for marijuana possession than white people, even though both groups use the substance to approximately the same extent. Despite this obvious disparate impact, governments pretend that they do not well know that marijuana laws give the police a pretext to arrest more Black people. (A few states have now moved toward legalization, in part because of these racist results, even though the courts refuse to acknowledge the significance of these differences). Iowa also has a troubling disparity in its comparatively large Black prison population despite the states overwhelmingly white population. As Michelle Alexanders book The New Jim Crow details, hundreds of seemingly neutral laws work to criminalize and imprison Black men at extraordinarily high rates.

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One might think this systemic inequality can be solved by voting for legislators who will not tolerate racial disparities. But that option is also walled off. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board provided that photo ID requirements for voting were allowed, although the evidence clearly showed the purportedly neutral rules had a disparate impact on minority voting. The court nevertheless determined that voter ID laws prevent fraud, although there was almost no evidence of voter fraud that warranted curing. So: Black voters are prevented from using the not-particularly-neutral voting system to redress the not-particularly-neutral laws that are used against them in the criminal law apparatus.

In short, the U.S. Supreme Courts cramped reading of the equal protection clause in the 1970s has actively subjected people of color to unfair treatment, across the decades, and it has led to a ponderous case-by-case scrutiny of subjective bad intentions of selective bad apples, ducking a broad and results-oriented scrutiny of racialized systems. So long as the courts refuse to see a racial disparity as a problem deserving the strictest scrutiny, authentically neutral justice will remain out of reach.

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The scope of the problem was laid bare in the 1987 death penalty case McCleskey v. Kemp, which reaffirmed Davis and concluded that even overwhelming evidence of systemic racial disparities was not sufficient to show a constitutional violation. The majority dismissed statistics showing that Georgias legal system was far more likely to impose capital punishment in cases with a white victim than in cases with a Black victim. In the majority opinion, Justice Lewis Powell argued that accepting this evidence of racial disparity would force the court to reconsider the principles that underlie our entire criminal justice system. Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall presciently dissented this amounted to a fear of too much justice. Powell even admitted regretting his decisive vote in the case before his death.

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It is high time now for too much justice. Overturning Washington v. Davis would move the country significantly closer to racial equality. Such a reevaluation need not topple the entire legal system overnight. The court could, for example, find that a disparate impact creates a presumption of illegality that the government has to ultimately rebut by satisfying strict scrutiny. The government, after all, has in its possession the evidence explaining its actions. And if the government cannot respond, or gives a pretextual response, minority plaintiffs should prevail. Another important reform could require all state legislatures and Congress to make racial impact reports before any new crimes or punishments are enacted (Iowa already does this).

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This shift would place monumental pressure on the government to treat minorities equally. Truly taking on racial disparity in the law will require a determined grassroots effort and a more sympathetic Supreme Court. But first we must have the conversation about this decades-old decisions distorting effect on the various bureaucracies that comprise the justice system. The ultimate goal would be to use the formidable power of the legal system to ensure that Black Lives Matter in reality, and not just in theory.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to the Political Gabfest on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court refused to consider a challenge to Attorney General William Barrs effort to jump-start federal executions for the first time in nearly two decades, turning down a case questioning the legality of the governments lethal injection protocol.

That decision doesnt entirely clear the way for federal executions to resume. On Thursday, the Capital Punishment Project at the American Civil Liberties Union demonstrated that the challenges to the new death penalty push will continue. The organization has sued Barr in federal court to stop one of four upcoming scheduled executions on the basis of a religious liberty claim and the impacts of COVID-19.

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The suit is filed on behalf of Dale Hartkemeyer, who goes by the religious name Seigen and is a Buddhist spiritual adviser to one of the men set for execution, Wesley Ira Purkey. Seigen has been the spiritual adviser of Purkey, who raped and murdered 16-year-old Jennifer Long in 1998, for the past 11 years. Purkeys execution date, July 15, is the second of four scheduled federal executions in the next two months. The federal government has not executed anyone since 2003.

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Seigen is 68 years old and suffers from several lung-related illnesses that make him particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, he said in a sworn declaration. He also feels spiritually obligated to be by Purkeys side if and when Purkey is executed by the state.

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The lawsuit argues that Seigens rights are being compromised by Barrs rush to restart executions that will require hundreds to gather around prison communities that are epicenters of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whats more, federal executions had been on pause for 17 years and there appears to be no new urgency to the matter.

In order to help provide for a peaceful state of mind and a proper transition and liberation, it is my sacred religious duty to be at Mr. Purkeys execution, Seigen wrote. My failure to be there would, for me, constitute a troubling violation of my religious tenets and priestly obligations. Given my relationship with Mr. Purkey, which has developed over the course of eleven years, it is inconceivable that I should be absent and fail to share in his final tribulation.

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Seigens argument ties into the Supreme Courts ongoing battles over religious rights in the execution chamber. Last year, the courts conservative majority allowed a Muslim death row inmate in Alabama to be executed without his imam present, citing a technical reason. After that, though, the Supreme Court ordered prisons to allow religious advisers of all faiths to be present at executions if Christian chaplains are allowed. In response to that order, Texas rescinded its policy allowing chaplains to be present for executions entirely. But in June, the Supreme Court stayed an execution of a Texas inmate, Ruben Gutierrez, who requested a religious adviser be present during his execution. The courts current stance is essentially that, for now, executions cant go forward in cases where an inmate has made a timely request under a states existing regulations for a spiritual adviser and has been denied one.

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This would seem to bode well for Seigen and Purkey. While the religious rights in question in past cases applied to those of death row inmates, the ACLU argues that Seigen is similarly situated as a spiritual adviser who would have his rights denied due to the states insistence on holding an execution in the midst of a deadly pandemic.

The takeaway from what we saw in the Gutierrez case most recently is that the Supreme Court is very concerned when there is a burden on the exercise of religion connected with executions and that is an issue that is broadly implicated in this suit, Cassandra Stubbs, the director of the Capital Punishment Project, told me.

Stubbs notes that Seigen was fully willing to take on his religious obligation to attend the execution when it was initially scheduled in December but now feels that attending the execution at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, could threaten his health and life. As of Thursday, according to the Bureau of Prisons, 1,634 federal prisoners and 170 BOP staff had tested positive for COVID-19 and 91 prisoners and one staff member had died. In the Terre Haute facility, six inmates have tested positive and one has died, according to the government.

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Prisons are incredibly dangerous place for COVID-19. We know that Terre Haute has an outbreak right now and thats before this sprawling plan to bring hundreds of people from across the country to congregate, Stubbs said. The ACLU is concerned the executions will become a superspreader event, she said.

Should Seigens religious claim fail, heand potentially other litigants challenging this set of executionshave strong grounds to challenge the execution date as arbitrary and capricious agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies are allowed to carry out federal law. Federal regulations allow prisoners to have access to spiritual advisers of their choosing and that regulation would have to be circumscribed to allow this execution to go forward, it appears.

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The BOP regulations are crystal clear that Mr. Purkey has a right to have his spiritual adviser present. He has a right to designate [who that person is], thats always been the federal regulation, Stubbs said.

The lawsuit argues that scheduling the execution at a time that would deprive Seigen of his place as Purkeys chosen spiritual adviser would be in direct conflict with the bureaus own regulations as arbitrary and capricious under the APAs guidelines, particularly given the 17-year delay of federal executions. At least one state prisoner in Missouri has been executed since the pandemic started, but even state executions have mostly been frozen at a time when the federal government is inexplicably restarting its own executions.

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Stubbs also argues that executing Purkey now would not just risk those directly gathering for the execution but also their communities. Many communities surrounding prisons have suffered severe outbreaks.

If youre trying to think of a bad idea from a COVID perspective, trying to put together one of the riskiest experiences you can, you have all the ingredients here, she said. There are going to be media tents there, theres going to be protesters and buses and elaborate security. Its really fairly astonishing that BOP can move forward with this plan at a time when President Trump is canceling rallies in Alabama for COVID [reasons].

As Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has long argued in dissent, the death penalty in this country suffers from arbitrary application and serious unreliability. With a pandemic raging across the country, well know in the next two weeks if its about to become even more arbitrary.
This article is part of the Free Speech Project, a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech.

At the start of a hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence recently, Rep. Adam Schiff praised representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google for having taken significant steps and invested resources to detect coordinated inauthentic behavior. The comment passed by without note, as if coordinated inauthentic behavioror CIB, as those really in the know call itis the most natural thing in the world for tech companies to be rooting out and for members of Congress to be talking about.

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Such casual use of the phrase is remarkable when you remember that it was only invented, by Facebook itself, around two years ago. Its more remarkable still once you know, as former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos told me on The Lawfare Podcast, that the company was going to call it coordinated inauthentic activity but thought it probably best to avoid the acronym CIA, showing the arbitrariness of how some terms of art get created. And perhaps what makes it most remarkable of all is that no one really knows what it means.

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Most commonly used when talking about foreign influence operations, the phrase sounds technical and objective, as if theres an obvious category of online behavior that crosses a clearly demarcated line between OK and not OK. But a few recent examples show thats far from the case. This lack of clarity matters because as the election season heats up, theres going to be plenty of stuff online that will be varying degrees of coordinated and inauthentic, and as things stand, were leaving it to tech companies to tell us, without a lot of explanation, when something crosses over that magical line into CIB. That needs to change.

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Lets take the example of the TikTok teens and K-pop fans. After poor attendance at President Donald Trumps campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20, the internet was enamored with the story of how an Iowan grandmother had posted a TikTok video that led to a movement of young people reserving tickets for the rally to artificially inflate expected attendance numbers and mess with the Trump campaigns data collection. The campaign spread across TikTok and other platforms and was tactical and relatively sophisticated. Participants deleted videos after 24 to 48 hours to help conceal their plans and exchanged advice on how to acquire a Google Voice phone number so they could sign up with fake details. The rallys empty seats were an embarrassment for the president. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted about how Trumps campaign had been ROCKED and the Zoomers had made her proud. Whether or not the teens actually had any effect on rally attendance is debatable, but either way, on its face, it was a fun story of youth ingenuity with no harm done.

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But its not hard to imagine the very same set of actions by a different group of actors against a different target getting a different public response. What if QAnon conspiracy theorists or 4chan users targeted a Biden rally? Or a group of Russian or Chinese youth started signing up for anti-lockdown protest events? Obviously the TikTok Teen Tulsa Tomfoolery is a good kind of coordinated inauthentic behavior that is totally distinguishable from these other bad kinds on some kind of principled basis, right?

I asked this question on Twitter (earning an ok boomer reply from which I am still reeling). Partly in response, Facebooks head of security (or, by my unofficial title, chief CIB hunter) explained that the teens stunt wouldnt have met Facebooks definition of CIB because it did not involve the use of fake accounts or coordinate to mislead users of the platform itself (as opposed to misleading people off the platform). Im grateful to Facebook for engaging with the debatethese standards are still way too opaque, so public explanation of their thinking is helpful. But in this case, Facebooks definition is only a small part of the question, not least because most of the activity took place on other platforms. (TikTok has an even more opaque standard of its version of CIB, which I fear were going to learn more about the hard way.)

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The same cannot be said of another recent CIB controversy. In Popular Information, Judd Legum described how a network of 14 purportedly independent large Facebook pages drove traffic to the conservative site the Daily Wire, one of the most popular publications on Facebook, including by publishing the same articles at the same time with the same text. As New York Times writer Charlie Warzel put it, seems coordinated and inauthentic to me. Facebooks chief CIB hunter explained, again on Twitter, that CIB is reserved for the most egregious violations and this didnt meet the threshold because the accounts werent fake (although the company did admit to Popular Information today, months after Legums original reporting, that the pages were breaking its rules on branded content). The New York Times has previously reported that Facebooks reluctance to act against these pages was driven by fear of appearing biased against conservatives, which Facebook disputes. Whatever the motivation, such incidents and the lack of transparency around them raise the specter of political considerations playing a role in deciding when or how to take action.

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All of the major platforms, loath to get drawn into taking political sides, have insisted that their CIB-related rules are based on behavior, not content, in an effort to make the decisions appear neutral. But as these examples, and many others, show, defining what is coordination and what is inauthentic is far from a value-free judgment call. Rare is the piece of online content that is truly authentic and not in some way trying to game the algorithms. Coordination and authenticity are not binary states but matters of degree, and this ambiguity will be exploited by actors of all stripes. Michael Bloombergs brief presidential campaign was a case in point, leaving platforms scrambling to decide what to do about campaign employees tweeting identical messages and influencers posting memes for money.

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We are just at the very beginning of working out what the norms for acceptable online political mobilization are, and the only way to do this is through open and public debate. How many accounts do you need to constitute a network? When is an account inauthentic enough to be classified as fake? Is misrepresenting your name, location, or, say, financial ties enough? What exactly constitutes coordination, and how exactly do companies decide if the coordination is a grassroots movement or a carefully planned influence operation? Why are journalists able to find CIB, or things that look like it, before platforms? Is it OK if the behavior only misleads people off platform instead of other users?

Too often calls for greater transparency are met with the response from platforms that being more open about standards will only allow bad actors to better game the system. If they know the rules, they know how to work around them. This might be true, but transparency is a trade-off. CIB must not only be defined and removed, but also be seen to be defined in advance and then removed in order to restore peoples faith that the standards are indeed all about the behavior and not influenced by other factors. Im not convinced weve got the transparency trade-off right. For now, platforms (often, it seems, quietly nudged by governments) tell us trust us, we know it when we see it. Compounding the confusion, platforms work together to detect and remove CIB, but also seemingly have different standards. Worse still, fake accounts are apparently central to a finding that the magical line has been crossed, but platforms hold almost all the information needed to make that call. To their credit, platforms are getting better, but the past few weeks make it clear weve got a lot further to go.

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And while we need more transparency from platforms about what their rules are so that we can hold them to their own definitions, theres a deeper issue of why were leaving this to be debated on the terms of platforms particular policies in the first place. Facebook does have a somewhat detailed definition of CIB (even if it should be more detailed still), but Schiff obviously was not intending to congratulate Twitter and Google for removing what Facebook defined as CIB. We need to work out what this generic sense of CIBthe one that exists in the public imaginationreally means. When we let platforms decide this alone, they can do so in a way that makes CIB seem like a matter peripheral to their products. But opening up the question could suggest an answer that platforms fear: As things stand, CIB is impossible to clearly define or completely avoid. It may be that we need far more radical reforms than individual CIB-hunting operations (reforms centered on transparency and changing algorithmic amplification) to make sure public discourse isnt exploited and manipulated in corrosive ways. Congress should not be simply congratulating these platforms for removing CIB, but getting them to tell us exactly what they think it is and why a narrow definition serves society and not their own interests.

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If regulators and the public more broadly have been happy to let platforms define the terms of the debate so far, its in large part because of a scary narrative about resourceful foreign adversaries that make social media platforms a battlefield, requiring war rooms and secretive intelligence sharing to tame. But as Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory has warned, most online manipulation is entirely homegrown. The line between legitimate political organizing that simply is good at taking advantage of online affordances and CIB will never be easy to draw, but we cant just throw up our hands and let private companies do it for us without adequate oversight. And we shouldnt uncritically celebrate it as long as the decisions come out in favor of our side. The question of whether the teens should have done what they did (to which I say: go for it! I swear Im not a fun-hating boomer!) is different from the governance questions and what we demand platforms do in response. There cannot be a CIB for good carve-out from prohibitions on CIB, not least because we will never agree on what is good.

Oh, and the Iowan grandma who led the Tulsa rally caper? Shes been recruited to join a coalition supporting the Biden campaign, and teens have been contacting her with suggestions for more pranks to play on Trumps campaign. Shes sure not to be the only one making plans. So I guess the good news is theres likely to be plenty of opportunities for CIB to be clarified in coming months.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Back in March and April, when family would ask me what being at the epicenter of the pandemic (New York City) was like, I said it was the same as everywhere else, very boring. After all, even though I was in lockdown, so was pretty much everyone else. I was thankfully healthy. I didnt want to admit to anyone or to myself that I couldnt handle the relatively easy role I had been handed during the pandemic of woman sitting at computer.

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What I am starting to realize now is that life felt like being stuck in a little box of trauma for those weeks. I would sit in my 10-foot-by-10-foot bedroom, listening to sirens. I wondered when I would break into the stash of cold medicine Id gone to five pharmacies to find and then paid too much for. I wondered, if someone in our four-roommate apartment had urgent trouble breathingthe point at which we would have a chance of getting in-person medical helpwould the rest of us be able to carry them to the hospital? Were we close enough?

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At the time, I was really just focused on getting through it, whatever it was. I followed the advice to take things one day at a time; I bought a coloring book. I tried to focus on what I could control, which was  not much. Only now I am starting to recognize the effects of living this way. For me, it is that I am still nervous all the time, tired much of the time, and angry whenever I can muster it. Also, I found New York Gov. Andrew Cuomos widely mocked press conference stunt involving a foam mountain (it represented the peak and then drop of cases in the state) viscerally comforting. For me it was a clumsy physical manifestation of the fantasy that we have done the work, that we are safe. I wanted that stupid foam thing to be real.

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Reality is, of course, that the national coronavirus crisis is getting worse. Rather than making collective progress on dealing with the virus, the contours of our inability to do so are being laid, somehow, barer. Thirty-nine states are seeing increases in cases, with deaths at an incomprehensible 127,762 people as of this writing. The virus is spreading at private gatherings at homes, college-town bars, graduation festivities, Army survival training class, a backyard soiree. Travel, continued reopenings, and merriment could coalesce to bring yet more cases over the upcoming holiday weekend, experts warn. And we are in an easier season of the pandemic, when we have the option to somewhat safely dine at spaced tables in the open air and sun. There are comparatively fewer major holidays to be compelled to gather for right now, and for the next two months, no schools trying out reopening. We should all brace for a virus that is super-juiced by the conditions of fall and winter.

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As cases of the virus spread elsewhere, as new places become epicenters, and as we all watch hospital capacities, I tried to think of what I might tell someone in a state where things are getting bad, but are not yet as bad as they were in New York. Aside from a recommendation of what masks to buy (these), I dont have anything. For the love of God, dont go out? Everyone knows that. Weve all been exhausted by this virus for a long time, no matter our exact proximity to cases. Everyone wants to get off this ride, which is why many of us are loosening up on our social distancing measures and resuming parts of our lives. This is, of course, a big part of why the coronavirus is continuing to spread, and why we will not be able to get out of this anytime soon.

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The idea that the continued spread is the result of beleaguered people selfishly going out for a drink is wrong, too. Americas failure is not merely about regular people making poor choices. It is not for lack of actual solutions that we are still here; it is for lack of will and organized governmental effort to actually carry those solutions out. A Nobel Prizewinning economist has suggested that if we scale up testing enougheverybody gets a nasal swab every two weeks, with health care and other front-line workers getting tests more frequentlywe could return to almost normal. Instead, were in danger of plummeting back into a testing shortage. We could figure out how to extend government relief so that businesses that feel pressure to reopen could instead stay shut, and keep relief aid for the unemployed going, which would essentially provide systematic support for continued social distancing. We could have a president who sets an example by wearing a mask, as basically every other Republican has come around to suggesting.

Instead, we are here. Which, for me, is the same 10-by-10 room, only now Im watching as other Americans start to understand what it is like to be so horrifically close to a disease that we could control, but are choosing not to control. Maybe well all get angrier soon; maybe then well finally do more about it.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
This year started off with Democratic nominee candidates centering discussions around breaking up Big Techconversations that soon took a back seat due to the pandemic. But were reliant on tech now more than ever, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the CEO of New America, said during Tuesdays Future Tense event Will 2020 Change American Tech?

The pandemic has us more dependent on large tech companies like Amazon; contact tracing apps could play an important role in helping contain the spread of the coronavirus; a major switch to telework has potentially changed the way many of our jobs function in the long term. The year thus far has been a roller coaster, Slaughter said, and its only half over.

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Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, a partner at Greylock Partners, and a board member at New America, said the tech industry undoubtedly needs to improve if it is to function as a tool for the betterment of society. But he also thinks that technology can play a role in solving problems like racial injustices, the climate crisis, and other issues. So when the techlash becomes somewhat anti-technology, that poses a serious problem. Instead of focusing on ways to limit tech companies, he said, people should ask, How do we make [technology] better for American democracy, American society, American values for the world? And what [are] the ways that we interact in order to make that happen?

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But, Slaughter said, there is no real consensus as to what exactly defines American tech values. Chinaone of the biggest global tech competitorshas a surveillance-heavy relationship with tech and an almost authoritarian vision of what the internet is, she said. The EU distinctly values the protection of privacy online and often errs on the side of caution. Slaughter said the American tech space needs to create our own distinctive American vision of what the internet looks like that builds in privacy, equality, a measure of justice.

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In the tech race with China, perhaps the winning recipe is a multitude of smaller companies thriving rather than a handful of large companies dominating the space, Slaughter suggested. She argued that Zooms nearly overnight skyrocket to success amid a workforce going digital illustrates that pointa small company did better even though Google and Microsoft had infinitely more resources.

Those who push for antitrust regulation in tech must embrace two truths about the industry, Hoffman said. First, this is not an American-run universe anymore. When having these conversations about Big Tech, its crucial to take into account how the other global players handle the same situations. Is China going to break up its largest tech corporations? Probably not, Hoffman said. Second, he said, American tech is heading from five-plus major tech corporations to 10, not down to two or three. The competition between the current companies in Big Tech creates lots of spacenot just in the competition between the large firms themselvesbut for startups, and some of those startups will eventually become tech powerhouses themselves instead of being eaten up by the current players.

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The influence of these major tech companies goes far beyond the marketplace of ideas, however, especially in a year experiencing twin pandemics of coronavirus and racial injustice, Slaughter said. From algorithmic biaseslike in a recent case involving facial recognition softwareto a vast disparity between tech jobs depending on race, big tech plays a major role in racial injustice as well. The far-reaching level of influence tech has on day-to-day lives means harmful software can institutionalize racism across the entire country, he said. And in the same way, better software could be a critical anti-racist tool in society. If you want to be deploying software systems that have economic impact or social justice impact, you need to proactively prove that you are good on the civil rights vectors, Hoffman said. Tech needs to go beyond anti-bias training and diversity hiring, he said. The industry has to check itself in a way that ensures inclusion and is actively anti-racist.

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Another impactful way tech companies could work against racial injustice is by distributing financial resources to BIPOC-owned tech operations and individuals in the tech space, Hoffman said. Its the most American of solutionsownership of property is a core value. Making people who are disadvantaged in tech literal co-owners of society will help close the gap, he said, and prioritizing financial institutions that help the Black community is crucial.

Looking 25 years into the future, the twin pandemics could leave a lasting legacy. America has the ability to become the global tech hub within that time period, Hoffman saidbut on one condition. He said if the country continues to systemically prevent immigration, then theres little hope for a thriving tech community. Immigration is the countrys superpower, Hoffman said. Without it, American tech doesnt stand a chance.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
A street in the village of Varin in the north of central Slovakia bears the name of Jozef Tiso, the controversial President of the Slovak State during the Second World War (Source: Sme/Jozef Jakubco)

There are many statues in Slovakia over which we could debate whether their human models deserve a monument in a public space and then, there are those that should not even be the subject of a discussion and yet they stand.

The statue of the President of the clerical-nationalist Slovak State and Hitlers collaborator, Jozef Tiso, has not been torn down in Cakajovce near Nitra. In Varin near Zilina, they even named a street after this Roman Catholic priest.

Tiso's minister, Ferdinand Durcansky, has a bust in the town of Rajec, located in the Zilina Region, as well.

Tiso seen as a priest

The village of Cakajovce is infamous for its life-size statue of Jozef Tiso, the only one of its kind in Slovakia. It is part of a pantheon of Slovak functionaries of which the village boasts, situated near the town hall. It also includes a memorial to soldiers who fell in both world wars.
How to handle coronavirus problems while in Croatia

Croatia remains the most popular sea holiday destination for people from Slovakia, but the number of cases in the country is on the rise.

The coronavirus is spreading in Croatia faster than it did in May. Yet nothing suggests the country is planning to reintroduce a stricter regime at its borders. There are no obstacles for holidaymakers from Slovakia on the way to Croatia.

Related article How to travel to and from Slovakia post-coronavirus Read more

"There is no reason to suppose the Croatian government will want to complicate access to the country to citizens of so-called safe states in the near future," Slovak Ambassador to Croatia Peter Susko told Sme. "After all, in a televised debate earlier this week, the Croatian PM Andrej Plenkovic confirmed this."

Slovakia is also on the Croatian list of safe countries. Reciprocally, Slovakia considers Croatia to be safe.

It is key, however, to be responsible and observe hygienic rules, Susko noted.

"We recommend tourists to follow common sense and maintain the same safety measures like at home. That is, sufficient distance from other people on the beach, in restaurants, and other social contact, including popular boat trips," Susko said.

Dozens of new cases every day

2. Jul 2020 at 17:14 | Nina Sobotovicova
Slovakia needs to remove restrictions in the food retail sector

The EC has criticised the request to promote mostly Slovak-origin products in leaflets.

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It is possible that the pages in leaflets promoting Slovak products will soon disappear.

Slovakia has received a letter of formal notice from the European Commission, requesting that it remove restrictions in the food retail sector. Under the current legislation, drafted by the Slovak National Party (SNS) and adopted by the previous government, at least one half of products promoted in store leaflets have to be of Slovak origin.

Related article First a special levy, now leaflets. Brussels is checking SNS measures again Read more

The Commission considers that the Slovak measures create more advantageous marketing conditions for domestic products and restrict retailers freedom to decide on their assortment and the layout of their sales surfaces, the EC wrote in a press release.

These measures are against the EU rules on the free movement of goods and the freedom of establishment, it added.

Slovakia now has three months to respond to the arguments. Otherwise, the EC may decide to issue a reasoned opinion.

Retail chains welcome the EC attitude

The EC was addressed by the Slovak Modern Trade Alliance (SAMO), which unites foreign retail chains like Lidl, Kaufland, Tesco, Billa and Metro, in early July 2019. It claimed that the legislation did not respect the free movement of goods principle. It is the retailer that makes decisions on their business strategy, which is why they see the states order to have at least one half of the promoted products in leaflets to be of Slovak origin as a problem, explained Jan Lazur, a lawyer at the Taylor Wessing law firm, in the Sme daily article from November 2019.

SAMO and the representatives of the Slovak Association for Branded Products (SZZV) have welcomed the EC attitude, saying that the letter of formal notice names specific objections to the law.

The EC action proves that unlawful regulations were adopted during the previous election term that, unfortunately, still remain valid, said Martin Krajcovic, chair of SAMO. This state of affairs needs to be changed as soon as possible.

This is why they welcomed the measures adopted by the incumbent government that correct some previous legal regulations, and hope that they will continue rectifying the situation.

2. Jul 2020 at 19:52 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Euchred ($2.10) had the winning hand in the Canada Day feature at Inverness Raceway, posting a resounding 12-length win in his first pari-mutuel start in the comfortable confines of Cape Breton Island since October.

The eight-year-old son of Shadow Play wasted absolutely no time seizing control of the $1,250 winners-over pace, clearing from post 5 in line to Redmond Doucet and sprinting through early splits of :28.2 and :56.4 before opening up a 15-length margin on his four rivals in the second circuit. Euchred kept that margin nearly intact at the end of his 1:57 score, as Donald Beaton trainees Chase N Madi (Travis MacLean) and R Es Aiden (Rodney Gillis)  second and third respectively  only managed mild gains into Euchred's unsurmountable lead.

Walter Walker trains 55-time winner Euchred for Kayla Habicht Walker.

To view the complete Canada Day results from Inverness, click the following link: Wednesday Results  Inverness Raceway.
A power move to the front in the opening panel sealed the deal for Flash In The Pang, as he walked away with the Canada Day Pace on a special Wednesday afternoon (July 1) card at Red Shores at Summerside Raceway.

Leaving from post 3 in the $2,300 Canada Day feature at the Prince County oval, Flash In The Pang and driver Ken Murphy brushed to the lead before the opening quarter and waltzed through splits of :30.1, :59.1 and 1:28.1 before opening up by four lengths to win in 1:57. Slide Guitar (David Dowling) was second while Hemingway (Adam Merner) finished third.

Molly Murphy trains Flash In The Pang for owner Hughie Murphy.

Dowling took control of the leader board for drivers at the Prince County oval with two wins on the card, but it was the "Blue Knight," Jason Hughes, who scored a driving grand slam to bring himself to 1,498 lifetime victories in the bike. Hughes opened the card winning with his own Roxy Lund in 2:01.3, followed by Phil Dorleans in 1:59.1 for Donald Milligan, Southfield Sandy in 1:57.4 for Glen MacKay, and Noudidnt Blue Chip in 1:57.1 for trainer Jonah Moase.

Total handle for the 10-race card was $31,615.

To view Wednesday's complete results, click the following link: Wednesday Results  Summerside Raceway.

(Red Shores)
The Pennsylvania Sire Stakes made its 2020 debut on Wednesday afternoon (July 1) at Harrahs Philadelphia, as four $53,534 sire stakes and four $20,000 stallion series divisions for two-year-old pacing fillies in the spotlight.

JK Alwaysbalady, the offspring of two Horses of the Year in Always B Miki and JK Shesalady, posted an easy 4-1/2 length victory in an impressive 1:52.1 in her division. Yannick Gingras sent JK Alwaysbalady to the lead, yielded to Wicked Ways to sit in the pocket behind her, and then powered away late for trainer Nancy Takter and the 3 Brothers Stable.

Always B Miki picked up another sire credit in the Sire Stakes when Grace Hill, out of the mare Western Silk, made a quarter-move to control the throttle, then snapped home in :55.2 to complete a 1:53 victory while staying 1-1/4 lengths clear of Marsala Hanover. Dexter Dunn drove the Canadian shipper for trainer Nifty Norman and owner Tom Hill.

Gingras captured another Sire Stakes victory when the Captaintreacherous-Aria Hanover filly Blue Diamond Eyes posted a 1:53.3 victory after brushing to the lead just before the half. Stablemate Continualou closed strongly to miss catching the winner by only a half length, while Oceans Apart, another 1-1/2 lengths back, completed the trifecta sweep for trainer Ron Burke. Blue Diamond Eyes, the only favourite to win in the Sire Stakes ranks, is owned by Thomas and Scott Dillon.

In the other Sire Stakes division, Let Er Buck defeated Lyonssoftassilk by a neck at the end of a 1:55 mile. Mark MacDonald guided the Betting Line-Wild West Show filly for owner-trainer Ray Schnittker.

Dunn added two Stallion Series victories to his Sire Stakes win, with Somebeachsomewhere fillies Beach Crazy (1:55.3) and Podium Girl (1:56.2). Showmethetanlines (1:55.3) and High Minded (1:58.2) took the other Stallion divisions.

(with files from PHHA/Harrah's Philadelphia)
One of the greatest Maritime-bred pacing mares to set foot on a racetrack, Ramblinglily has passed away at the age of 10.

While racing exclusively in Atlantic Canada, Ramblinglily (Articulator - Crafty Jewel) amassed a 69-33-21 record for 123 top-three finishes in 155 career starts while banking $195,063 in purses. The homebred was trained throughout her career by Riverview, N.B.'s Allan Jones, who co-owned the pacer with Normand Leger of Shediac, N.B.

Her stakes pedigree reads like a canonical resource of Atlantic stakes events.

At 2, winner of ATSS - Breeders Crown consolation at Charlottetown Driving Park, Island Breeders - PEI Colt Stakes leg at Charlottetown Driving Park, Maritime Breeders Stakes elim at Truro; second in ATSS - A Division division at Northside Downs; third in ATSS-A division at Exhibition Park, Island Breeders Stakes final at Charlottetown Driving Park, Maritime Breeders Stakes final at Truro. At 3, winner of ATSS - Breeders Crown final at Charlottetown Driving Park, ATSS-A division at Inverness, division at Northside Downs, division at Summerside, Donnie & George Turner Memorial division at Truro, Maritime Breeders Stakes elimination at Charlottetown Driving Park, final at Charlottetown Driving Park, Maritimer Stakes elim and final at Exhibition Park; second in ATSS-A division at Truro, SK Colt Stakes division at Truro; third in IB - Ruby Chappell Stakes leg at Summerside. At 4, winner of Atlantic Pacing Series leg at Charlottetown Driving Park, final at Summerside, Invitation at Charlottetown Driving Park, Jr. Invitational at Fredericton; second in Invitation at Exhibition Park, Spud Island Classic cons at Charlottetown Driving Park; third in Atlantic Pacing Series leg at Exhibition Park. As aged, winner of Atlantic Pacing Series leg (twice) at Charlottetown Driving Park, leg (3 times) at Summerside, leg (twice) at Truro, Governors Plate elim (twice) at Summerside, Lobster Fest Open - formerly Lobster Carnival final at Summerside, Open at Charlottetown Driving Park, Open (15 times) at Charlottetown Driving Park, (twice) at Summerside, Spud Island Classic leg (twice) at Charlottetown Driving Park, final at Charlottetown Driving Park; second in Atlantic Pacing Series leg (twice) at Charlottetown Driving Park, leg at Summerside, final (twice) at Summerside, leg at Truro, Cecil Ladner Memorial at Charlottetown Driving Park, Governors Plate final at Summerside, Open at Charlottetown Driving Park, Open (10 times) at Charlottetown Driving Park, (twice) at Summerside, Preferred at Charlottetown Driving Park; third in Atlantic Pacing Series leg at Charlottetown Driving Park, leg at Summerside, Open (4 times) at Charlottetown Driving Park, at Summerside, Preferred at Charlottetown Driving Park.

"She had an extreme burst of speed for a short period. One of the most explosive I have ever driven," driver Brodie MacPhee told Trot Insider. "An absolute pleasure to drive. My heart sank when I read the news."

Ramblinglily was slated to return to the racetrack in 2020 but suffered an injury during a qualifying race at Exhibition Park. The connections made the decision to retire the pacing star and start her second career as a broodmare. She was set to be bred to Malicious but took a turn for the worse when having some issues with bowel movements prompted veterinary intervention. The injured ankle took a turn for the worse at the vet clinic.

"She had a complication that required surgery with only 50 percent chance of recovery," said Jones' graddaughter Ava Dickson in a Facebook post. "If she did recover chances were it could occur again in two weeks."

Because of the grim prognosis for recovery, the connections made the difficult decision to have Ramblinglily put down on Saturday, June 27.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the connections of Ramblinglily.
This past Sunday, 23-year-old Samuel Fillion scored his first victory as a professional driver and now he is hungry for more.

While competing in the last race on Sunday, Fillion, who hails from Mont-Joli, led from start to finish with the pacer D J Power, and notched a 1:56.2 victory at the Hippodrome 3R.

Fillion was patient. He was able to get to the front with D J Power, then rated the best fractions for his horse. Fillion kept his composure, as he did last year on the Quebec Regional Fair Circuit.

Driving harness horses the past five years at the fairs has seasoned Fillion in his quest to become a professional driver. Last year, he blossomed and earned his license. He started in 87 races and collected 18 wins, 11 seconds and 14 third-place finishes, good enough for a strong Universal Driving Rating (UDR), or batting average, of .331.

Now comes 2020 and Fillion is off to a great start. In four drives he has notched one win and two third-place finishes (his UDR is an impressive .416).

"The racing world is sometimes cruel, Fillion said. I heard comments that I was not able to win a race at H3R. Now its done and Ill do my best not to be last again.

On Sunday," Fillion explained, I thought I was going a long way behind Pascal Berube (Stock), but the opposite happened. I know this horse well. I even jogged him last week and I knew he was good, and on Sunday afternoon he showed it to everyone. I am very happy that this first victory is behind me. I will do my best to justify the confidence of the people who will put my name on their horses."

Fillion has earned the respect of owners and trainers that. Now, for this coming Fridays program at H3R, he has secured three drives, and is also scheduled to steer D J Power on Sunday.

My father had racing horses when he was young, Fillion said. My grandfather was a blacksmith at that time. After several years without horses, my dad bought a gelding, Classic Mondial. I was 14 when I start taking care of this horse. He performed well and that gave us the taste to continue and to buy others.

Now, Fillion added. I also have the opportunity to learn with my father-in-law, Jean-Marc Roy, and my brothers-in-law Louis-Philippe Roy and Pierre-Luc Roy, and I am very grateful for their expertise they share with me.

Fillion has a drive in the Preferred Trot (Race 5) on Friday. Its aboard Lucky Promesses from the far outside post eight. A tough position for any horse to overcome.

Last week, Fillion was able to get a third-place finish with Lucky Promesses. From the outside post this week, Fillion will need to find some good live cover to help keep him in the hunt.

The mare raced well last week for her first start of the year, Fillion said, despite her Post 8 this week if she had a good mile in her she can do well. We will see.

The race favourite is stablemate Holiday Party (to be driven by Pascal Berube), who was second in the top trot last week. Isabelle Binet trains both horses.

He is a young man from the same place as me, Berube said regarding Samuel Fillion. I lent him Fortune Fella for a final in Trois Rivieres two years ago, and he won. There are not many horses to drive in the early days of our career, so I wanted to help him and we needed someone to drive Lucky Promesses.

Other contenders in the field include Caroluzzo (Post 1), who was a 2:02.4 winner last week and is moving up in class, the front-end speedster R Rkadabra (Post 3) and Voodoo Man (Post 6).

When asked who his favourite driver is in harness racing, Fillion was a little bias.

Louis-Philippe Roy is my favourite driver, Fillion said of his brother-in-law. He started in fairs like me and now he's one of the best drivers in all of Canada. Also, I like his style and the way he sits on the bike.

First-race post time on Friday will be at 4:00 pm. For a free race program, visit www.hippodrome3r.ca.

To view the harness racing entries for Friday at H3R, click the following link: Friday Entries - Hippodrome 3R.

(Quebec Jockey Club)
Post Time with Mike and Mike, presented by the United States Trotting Association, has announce the lineup for Thursday (July 2) at 10:30 a.m. Guests include Nancy Takter and Dave Little.

Takter will discuss the horses in her barn set to take centre stage this weekend at The Meadowlands and in Pennsylvania Sire Stakes action Thursday at Harrahs Philadelphia. She will also talk about the great rivalry between Manchego and Atlanta that kicked off in the Miss Versatility series.

Little joins the program to discuss the Graduate and New Jersey Sire Stakes legs coming up at The Meadowlands, along with some of the great wagering opportunities that are available this weekend.

Post Time with Mike and Mike, presented by the USTA, can be heard live every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. via their website www.posttimewithmikeandmike.com or on demand at https://www.blogtalkradio.com/ptmikeandmike.

(Post Time with Mike and Mike)
Standardbred racehorse breeder/owner Luca Balenzano, 82, of Pompano Beach, Florida, passed away peacefully on Thursday, June 30, 2020.

Balenzano was born into a family of horsemen, and, because of fate, he himself owned many Standardbreds throughout the years. Most recently he was the breeder of millionaire Meladys Monet, along with his wife of 46 years.

Originally born in The Bronx, he settled on Long Island to be near Roosevelt Raceway where he could spend the day watching his horses jog, train and race. In 1998, Belanzano moved to south Florida where he got involved again racing at Pompano Park, but always said it doesnt feel the same. Nevertheless, he raced a trotter that he eventually bred to Revenue S and along comes Meladys Monet.

Balenzano is survived by his wife, Ester, many nieces and nephews, and his closest friend, Robert 'Bobby' Hiel, whom he considered his best friend and brother.

He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers. His burial will be at Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury, NY.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Luca Balenzano.

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The woman struck and killed on East Plaza Drive Friday night has been identified as Bethis Armida Villatoro Velasquez of Mooresville.

Velasquez was crossing East Plaza Drive around 9:22 p.m. Friday when she was hit by a vehicle, driven by Dana Yewell Frank Santiago of Salisbury, the Mooresville Police Department reported in a news release Wednesday.

An MPD officer arrived at the scene within a minute of the dispatch. Iredell EMS and Mooresville Fire and Rescue were also called to the scene. Velasquez was pronounced dead at the scene by Iredell EMS.

Police said Velasquez was wearing dark clothing and crossing a section of East Plaza Drive that has no lighting.

Santiago remained on the scene. After evaluating the driver, police said, neither alcohol nor speed were factors in the accident.

The Mooresville Police Department Traffic Safety and Enforcement Unit investigating the incident and that investigation has been turned over to the district attorneys office for review.
Kelsey N. McLelland recently received her masters degree in physicians assistant studies from Lenoir-Rhyne University.

McLelland is a 2012 graduate of North Iredell High School and is the daughter of Roger and Kathy McLelland of Statesville.

While at Lenoir-Rhyne, along with rigorous book studies, McLelland experienced hands-on clinical training at various hospitals, health clinics, urgent care facilities and doctors offices in emergency department medicine, psychiatry practice, family practice, gynecology, pediatrics, hospital care, surgery department and general internal medicine.

The program accepts only 40 students from hundreds of applications. McLelland described it as demanding 100% of ones time.

Prior to receiving her masters degree, McLelland attended Appalachian State University for four years and graduated in 2016 with a bachelor of science degree in exercise science.

While attending ASU, McLelland was employed as a certified nursing assistant and later qualified as a med-tech at an elder care facility.
The recent Caesar Act has posed a number of issues for the United Arab Emirates, who until recently were engaging in normalisation with the regime writes Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey warned the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in June against engaging with Bashar al-Assads regime.

It came after the US-sponsored Caesar Act was officially implemented, imposing sanctions on 39 companies and individuals affiliated with the Syrian regime in a bid to pressure Assad into peace talks after nine years of war.

The Caesar Act primarily aimed to target the regimes allies like Russia, China, Iran and Hezbollah. But Washingtons close regional ally, the UAE, seeks to defy the US and continue ensuring the survival of Assads regime, an essential actor for its geopolitical goals.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed (MBZ), who has driven the UAEs increasingly assertive foreign policy, called Assad on 27 March, seeking to build greater ties with his regime amid the coronavirus crisis.

I assured [Assad] of the support of the UAE and its willingness to help the Syrian people. Humanitarian solidarity during trying times supersedes all matters, and Syria and her people will not stand alone, MBZ wrote on Twitter.

This took place amid the UAEs efforts to counter Turkeys influence regionally, and the phone call therefore bolstered its ties with Damascus using the coronavirus crisis as a pretext.

Covert UAE support for Assad

The UAE has long presented its efforts in Syria as humanitarian, such as aiding refugees within the country. However, this pro-humanitarian guise acts as a smokescreen for its ulterior motives and backing for the Assad regime. There is, in fact, ongoing cooperation between the UAE and the Syrian regime within the intelligence sector.

Emirati officials are training Syrian intelligence officers inside the Emirates, according to a report in in Orient XXI. This process began on 15 January, with programs to last between two and twelve months. Thirty-one non-commissioned officers as well as eight civilian computer engineers are being trained in information and communication systems, computer security and networks.

The trainees are supervised by four officers of the Syrian intelligence services, including Colonel Zulficar Wassouf, responsible for training within the military intelligence services, as well as the cousin of the Syrian president, Lieutenant-Colonel Jihad Barakat.

These programs have continued despite Washingtons pressure on the Syrian regime and countries that support it.

Meanwhile, Emirati companies have supported Assads war efforts in breach of US sanctions. Dubai Computerlinks FZCO supplied prohibited US equipment to the Syrian regime to monitor and control internet traffic and was ordered to pay a small fine.

Some Emirati companies have also often supplied fuel to the Syrian military, and Dubai-based Yona Star acted as a shipping agent for the Syrian Air Force, Syrian Air Force Intelligence, the Army Supply Bureau and the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), which develops the regimes biological and chemical weapon capabilities.

In January 2019, the UAE hosted a Syrian business delegation, while in August that year, a delegation of over 40 UAE businessmen attended a state-backed trade fair in Damascus, despite US warnings.

Before 2011, the UAE was Syrias second-largest Arab investor, mostly in real estate and tourism, so it would ideally seek to revive its investments there.

Normalising Assads regime

Clearly the UAE has ensured that, despite past sanctions, it has built stronger ties with the Assad regime. Indeed, the regime has become increasingly important for the UAEs ideological and regional aims.

Since the Arab Spring, the UAE has pursued a crackdown on revolutionary forces across the region, fearing their success could inspire calls for reforms within the UAE itself. It has therefore tried to maintain the traditional status quo, supporting reactionary forces in various countries, and saw Assads authoritarian regime as a bulwark against change in Syria.

What is the Caesar Act and how will new US sanctions impact Syria?

Earlier in Syrias war, the UAE diverged from Saudi Arabia and Washingtons position, despite vocally opposing the Syrian regime at first, in line with the Arab Leagues stance. In 2014, it supported tens of thousands of alternative opposition fighters to counteract Islamist anti-regime forces. Then after Russia intervened in September 2015, which helped the regime regain control over most of the country, it openly accepted Assad and Russias presence.

The UAE supported normalising Assad in 2016, but Donald Trump snubbed this idea after assuming office. Abu Dhabi still retained its ties with Assad, and reopened its Damascus embassy in December 2018, marking a considerable shift after Syrias expulsion from the Arab League in 2011. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have now also ended their opposition to Assad, showing the impact of the UAEs normalisation efforts.

More recently, amid its growing regional rivalry with Turkey, Assad is seen as an increasingly important ally for Abu Dhabis efforts to counteract Ankara.

The UAE had previously backed the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, which Turkey has fought militarily, therefore seeking to check Ankaras influence. Yet after Turkeys military intervention to support the Syrian opposition in Idlib in February, Abu Dhabi focused more on bolstering Assad, to counter Turkeys efforts there.

The UAE is also engaging with Iran, which has proactively supported the Assad regime with militias since 2013, now showing a common alignment of their interests in Syria. The fact it now engages with Tehran shows how the UAE is further diverging from US policies, given Washingtons sanctions and maximum pressure campaign on Iran.

Though US pressure would deter some UAE actions, such as extensively supporting Syrias post-war reconstruction, Abu Dhabi can continue to secure Assads survival and control in Syria with its current limited efforts.

These measures will be tolerated, due to Washingtons negligence. After all, Abu Dhabi has undermined the United States stated foreign policy aims in other instances. For example in Yemen, it has cooperated with Al Qaeda and other extremists groups or individuals which the US has labelled as terrorists, such as Salafist warlord Abu al Abbas, despite Washingtons own counterterrorism campaign against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

Despite its breaches of US sanctions on Syria, the UAE is still an important regional and economic partner for Washington.

The US has shown it will not take a harsh stance on Emirati involvement in the country, should its support for Assad remain around current levels, even though these actions still undermine the US position on Assad and efforts to facilitate a peaceful political settlement.

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.
Syria has castigated the recent Brussels Conference, saying that foreign powers have no authority to interfere in Syrian affairs writes SANA.

Syria has stressed that the Brussels Conference and other conferences constitute a blatant interference in the countrys internal affairs, adding that the stances issued by the conference clarifies that the US, EU and the affiliated regimes continue their hostile policies against Syria.

On Wednesday, an official source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said, in a statement to SANA, that the Brussels Conference on Syria and the stances issued, clarified that the US, EU and the regimes affiliated to them continue their hostile policies against Syria, which were foiled and their failure was proved, citing the defeat of their aggressive project.

The source said that Syria condemns such conferences and considers them as a flagrant interference in Syrias internal affairs, which only the Syrian people and their legitimate government have authority over, asserting that the only assistance that such regimes could provide to the Syrians is to stop supporting terrorism, in line with UN Security Councils Resolution No. 2253 on combating terrorism and respecting Syrias sovereignty and non-interference in its affairs.

The source underlined that these regimes, who have provided all forms of support to terrorism, participated in the shading of Syrian blood, destroyed their achievements, and have been stealing their resources of oil, wheat, factories and historical ruins, hindering reconstructing and imposing successive sanctions against the Syrians, cannot in any way claim to care for the Syrians, holding these regimes responsible for the suffering of Syrians.

The source added that the Syrians, who have valiantly confronted the heinous terrorism, are able to face the unjust economic siege and the illegitimate unilateral sanctions and to preserve the national economy, which constitutes a pillar of the independent national decision.

The source stressed that the future of Syria is an exclusive right for the Syrians and the political and economic pressures will not succeed in dissuading the free will of the Syrian people.

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.
Turkish forces have engaged the Syrian army in the Abu Rasin region, amid a buildup of forces in Ayn Issa reports Al-Masdar.

The Turkish military and their allied militants launched a new attack against the Syrian army in northeastern Syria.

According to a field report from northeastern Syria, the Turkish military and their militant allies targeted the army troops in the Abu Rasin region of Hassakeh.

This attack was primarily concentrated on the villages near Bab al-Faraj, which is where the Turkish military currently has a large base.

A source from the Syrian army said their forces did not respond to this latest ceasefire infraction, but they have taken precautionary measures in case the Turkish military and their allies attempt to advance in Abu Rasin.

Meanwhile, on the Raqqa front, the Syrian Arab Army and Russian military have begun amassing troops in the Ayn Issa District, which is where the Syrian army currently shares a frontline opposite to the Turkish-backed militants.

The reason for the military buildup in Ayn Issa is likely due to reports of a new operation around this district, especially near the Turkish border, which is where the militants have launched artillery shells and missiles from.

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.
The Syrian government has sent another convoy of military vehicles to Ayn Issa, including long-range missile launchers and field artillery reports Smart News.

On Wednesday, the Syrian government sent reinforcements to the town of Ayn Issa, 48 kilometers north of Raqqa.

A military source from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reported to Smart News that the Syrian governments forces sent a military convoy of 25 military vehicles carrying fighters and logistical material, accompanied by Russian forces. Some of the reinforcements were stationed in the Abu Rasin area in Hassakeh and others in areas west of Tel Abyad.

The source stated that the reinforcements included long-range missile launchers and field artillery. The source noted that the Syrian governments forces have been strengthening their bases in those areas since October 2019.

The Syrian governments forces entered the Ayn Issa area in Raqqa and areas in Hassakeh, as part of an agreement with the Autonomous Administration to mobilize forces on the borders in order to repel the Turkish Army. The Autonomous Administration said that it is a military agreement, and that it will remain responsible for the civil administration and raise the Syrian government flag in governmental departments and institutions.

Russian forces were deployed in Raqqa, as part of the agreement with Turkey. The agreement required the withdrawal of the SDF from the safe zone, and the deployment of Russian-Turkish joint patrols, along with the deployment of the Syrian government forces forces there.

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.
Recent meetings held by Russia have caused concern with the regime, which has threatened Syrians involved with the process reports Al-Modon.

The Syrian regime is deeply concerned with regards to the respective meetings that Russia is holding with opposition and neutral Syrian bodies and figures, in particular the Jun. 15, 2020, meeting that gathered figures from the Alawite community who reside outside of Syria at the Russian Mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

Furthermore, the facilitator of the meetingwhich was conducted via encrypted electronic technologythe Humanitarian Dialogue Center leaked some details of what was discussed during the confidential session. A Syrian lawyer revealed that he had received death threats, due to his participation in the meeting.

Civil Work Movement Advisor, attorney Issa Ibrahim, told Al-Modon, that direct assassination threats were communicated to him from Damascus, due to what the regime considered crossing a red line. Ibrahim attributed the regimes anger to the fact that, the meeting broke the monopoly of the representation of the Alawite sect in Syria by the regime.

Moreover, Ibrahim explained that the invitation to meet with the first secretary of the Russian permanent diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Sergey Mitushin, was a Russian initiative, expressing his surprise at the regimes exasperation at the meeting with the Russians, knowing that they are among their strongest allies. Ibrahim also pointed out that a number of loyalists blamed Russia for inviting opposition figures, stressing that one of the loyalists said, Those who claim to represent the sect are not to blame, but it is rather Russia which met with them.

On the agenda of the meeting, Ibrahim said that Russian officials said they were going to talk to all Syrian parties, to know more about the diverse views, stressing that, the Russian proposal focuses on the idea of a central state, along with details of perceptions of the solution in Syria and the shape of that solution and the national conference.

Ibrahim further indicated that the Russian side was greatly dissatisfied with the general feeling that seems to overwhelm the Alawite community, which is that all that matters to the Russians is the protection of Assad and his regime, away from the interests of Syria as a state. He also said that, the [Alawite] sect is now actually languishing under the influence of a repressive intelligence regime, adding that, the Alawites do not consider the regime related to them, because the system has a diverse nature and that diversity does not make it secular or benign, for it is actually a corrupt system that uses sectarian, partisan and regional intolerance/fanaticism in order to achieve its political ends and to stay in power. That being said, it is not permissible to marry sectarianism and the regime.

Ibrahim continued that they attended the meeting with the Russian side as Syrians first with their Alawite sub-identity being respected and political diversity among the members of the delegation, which reflects the diversity of the sect from a political perspective.

In the same context, journalist Bassam al-Youssef, an Alawite himself, said that the meetings that Russia is conducting with Syrian opposition parties, whether with Alawite or non-Alawite figures (such as Moaz al-Khatib), are paving the way for a national meeting on a broader level, to solve the intractable political situation facing Russia in Syria.

According to Youssef, Russia has an urgent need to resolve the complex situation in Syria, because staying in the Syrian quagmire conflicts with Russian interests, especially as Moscow is starting to fear the repercussions of the Caesar Act.

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.
The guarantors of the Astana process have held a video meeting to discuss ongoing issues in Syria and to reaffirm their commitment to the countrys political unity and territorial integrity writes Alsouria Net.

The presidents of Turkey, Russia, and Iran met on Wednesday at a tripartite summit on Syria via video. The presidents set their priorities in the framework of the Astana process.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Our priority for Syria is to preserve its political unity and territorial integrity all the while establishing calm in preparation for a long-lasting solution to the conflict.

We have had to be on Syrian territory to be able to protect civilians there. We have stood by the Syrian people since the beginning of the crisis, and we have received hundreds of thousands of refugees, added Erdogan.

Erdogan stressed that his country will continue to do everything it can to support peace, security, and stability in Syria.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a clear statement. He said, We are paving the way for the diplomatic and political solution of the Syrian crisis with the assistance of the United Nations.

He stressed that his country, will stand in the way of all conspiracies targeting the Syrian people, their strength, and their economy. Referring to the continued support for the Assad regime, Putin added that Russia will continue to support the Assad regime in its war on terrorism until it is finally eradicated.

In reference to the Caesar Act, Putin considered that, imposing a boycott on Syria will not do the situation any good, but rather increase pressure on the people of Syria.

According to the Russian president, the countries guaranteeing the Astana track will work to restore economic and political security in Syria. He added, The sanctions on Syria, against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, are illegal and only aim to strangle the country.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stated, I believe that the Astana negotiations, being the best way to support the solution of the Syrian crisis through peaceful means, have achieved great feats so far. What is required of these three friendly countries as sponsors of this process is to strive to preserve and expand these negotiations.

Rouhani commented on the delay in holding Astana meetings between the countries sponsoring these negotiations as a result of the coronavirus.

He added, The many developments that this period has seen had led us to decide to hold the tripartite summit virtually, in the hope of organising a meeting in person in Iran soon.

Rouhani noted that, fighting terrorism in Syria, with a commitment to respecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity should continue, stressing his countrys continued support for the Assad regime more than ever before.

In a joint statement, the presidents of Russia, Iran, and Turkey warned that the US decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan threatens the security of the region.

Finally, they affirmed the continuation of their efforts to find a political solution for Syria and their commitment to the unity, independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, while rejecting any attempts to build a new reality in Syria under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

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.
Three protestors have been released by the regime, following pressure from the Men of Dignity movement reports Brocar Press.

The Syrian regime has released three civilians who had been arrested for participating in demonstrations.

Reports say that the release was facilitated by the local Men of Dignity movement.

On Tuesday night, the Facebook page for the Men of Dignity stated that, Ihsan Nawfal, Salman Faraj, and Bashar Tarabiya had been released. The page also pointed out that the release came as a result of the endeavors of the Men of Dignity movement.

A source from the Men of Dignity said that the rest of the detainees will be released soon, stressing that the operation came following pressure from the movement, as quoted by the site Suweida 24.

The movement is one of the most prominent local armed factions in Suweida, and was founded in 2013 by the Druze cleric, Waheed Balaous, who was assassinated by a double bombing that was attributed to the regime.

Suweida started witnessing demonstrations against the Syrian regime at the end of May, to which the regime responded with repression and arrests.

Human rights organizations, such as the Syrian Network for Human Rights, have documented the arrest of 10 people, and Human Rights Watch have called on the regime to release detainees who were demonstrating peacefully.

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.
Thursday, July 2, 2020

NCBE, Bar Update (July 1, 2020):

Florida

The Florida Board of Bar Examiners, with the approval of the Supreme Court of Florida, announced in a July 1 press release that the in-person July administration of the exam is canceled. The Board will instead administer an online exam on August 18 consisting of 100 multiple-choice questions and three essay questions. For the August exam only, applicants will not be required to take the MBE.

Massachusetts

On July 1, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners announced that a remotely administered exam for admission to the Massachusetts bar will be offered in lieu of the UBE on October 5-6.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2020/07/florida-and-massachusetts-switch-from-on-ground-to-online-bar-exams.html
North Redondo Beach will absorb most of the 2,500 new homes over the next eight year.
While most local booths said they weren't concerned about running out of stock, Holland said she did have trouble getting some of the smaller firecrackers because of production delays in China.

Really, I was afraid we werent going to have a tent this year (because of the pandemic), she said.

But Bass said he recommended people get to his tent early if they wanted to get specific fireworks. He said they sell down most of their stock each year, and in a normal year half the sales usually come on the Fourth itself.

Were already out of some things we would normally have going into the Fourth, he said.

Susan Dorcheus had driven to Basss tent from Castle Rock, and she said she got everything she normally buys. She doesnt usually attend the fireworks at the lake, she said, so this years purchase was no different for her.

With the increase in sales, there have also been national spikes in complaints about fireworks. Thats reflected here, according to Longview police.

Longview Police Sgt. Marc Langlois said fireworks-related calls appear to be trending up this year. In all of 2019, the department had 136 fireworks related calls.
Many colleges, including USC, have announced hybrid operations for the fall term that create, at least on paper, the option of remote participation in classes for both faculty and students. These schools say they cannot guarantee safety or note that they will be operating only as safely as possible. It might seem like they are acting wholly benevolently.

But these schools can be expected to argue that hybrid schemes demonstrate that nobody was required to be on campus as a condition of participating in classes. They will claim that anybody who does come to campus and contracts the disease agreed to shoulder the associated risks  and so cannot get damages from the school, regardless of whether its carelessness caused illness, injury or death.

Students, faculty and staff should make it hard for schools to assert assumption of risk defenses. Individuals can document that although they may come to reopened campuses, they are not thereby voluntarily agreeing to risk of becoming infected with the new coronavirus and consequential illness, impairment or death.
Google has said that it has temporarily blocked access to the banned 59 China-linked apps on its India Play Store. The company said it is reviewing the interim orders from the government and has already notified the affected developers.

While we continue to review the interim orders from the Government of India, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India, said Google spokesperson in a statement to HT Tech.

Also read: Bigo Live pulls its app from Google Play, App Store in India after the ban

This decision comes a few days after the Modi government blocked access to 59 apps in India that included some popular ones like TikTok, UC Browser, CamScanner and more. Some of the companies like Club Factory, Bigo Live and TikTok have already spoken up on the matter and have said that they will be working with the Indian government to come up with a solution.

Soon after the government announced the ban, popular app TikTok stopped showing up in search results on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. For several users, searching for TikTok on Google Play resulted in showing either some clone apps or apps to download TikTok videos from unpopular developers. The Apple App Store showed helper apps like VideoSplit for TikTok, but not the TikTok app itself.

Also read: TikTok stops working for users in India after govt bans the app

Meanwhile, PM Narendra Modi's account has been deleted from Sina Weibo, China's alternative to Twitter. The account was deleted on the request of Indian embassy.
Google has shared insights on what people in India searched for the most during the month of June. The most searched topics include Sushant Singh Rajput, solar eclipse and coronavirus.

The top trending topic on Google was Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Google Search Trends reveal interest spiked sharply on June 14 and it reached an all time high nationally. The regions where this search trend was highest was in Nagaland, followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Jharkhand. Solar eclipse which took place on June 21 saw an increase by 4,550% in India. Fathers Day which fell on the same day also saw an uptick of 1,050%.

One interesting insight Google Trends show is that coronavirus centric searches have actually dropped by 66% from May. But at the same time volumes have remained more than double than what we saw in February. In this topic the top trending coronavirus searches were   / coronavirus news which increased by 3,450%. The places where coronavirus has been searched most were in Goa, Delhi and Chandigarh.

People also really searched for vaccine for coronavirus latest update which increased by 1,350%. Searches for the coronavirus vaccine are actually increasing more than five times the usual monthly thresholds. Google saw a record monthly peak for vaccine searches in May. The most vaccine-related search topics were Patanjali corona medicine, Global vaccine summit and Dexamethasone.

Google has been sharing global search trends and Indias as well regularly especially since the onset of the pandemic and ongoing lockdowns. Search trends shift every month and even every week. Like last week, Google Search saw a huge increase in supporting the Black community, Pride month and more.
Even before the India ban on Chinese apps, homegrown alternatives to TikTok were making news. With the ban in effect these desi TikTok rivals are seeing huge surge in downloads and users.

TikTok was massively popular in India especially since it catered to even the smallest places across the country. TikTok has been removed from Google Play Store and App Store, and it has stopped working as well.

In the meanwhile, people have been flocking to homegrown TikTok rivals which are registering big spikes in downloads. As people move towards TikTok alternatives we take a look at some of the most popular ones.

Chingari

Chingari launched before the ban on TikTok and other Chinese apps. The app registered 500,000 downloads in just 72 hours. It currently has over 1 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Sumit Ghosh, co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Chinagri also tweeted saying the app had around 100,000 downloads per hour at one point.

Mitron

Bolo Indya

Bolo Indya is another TikTok rival in the making as it registered over 2.5 lakh downloads within just 24 hours of the ban. The app is also seeing active users spending over 62 minutes daily. Bolo Indya app has also registered 3,92,000 videos in those last 24 hours.

Roposo short video app has over 65 million downloads. (Roposo)

Roposo

Roposo app has been around for quite a few years. The short video app now has more than 65 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Roposo also said that TikTok influencers with up to 9.5 million followers have moved to its platform. Roposo has over 14 million video creators and it has 80 million videos created monthly.
The ban on 59 Chinese apps is still very fresh in India. And there have been new developments today as well. But the day started with Facebook admitting that it had been giving user data to third-party developers again. Google announced it is discontinuing its Pixel 3a series which launched last year.

Major shocker arrived as Google Play Store blocked all 59 Chinese apps in India. Samsungs upcoming Galaxy Note 20 Ultra showed up on the companys website. No surprise there. TikTok also clarified that its not going to take any legal action against the ban.

So heres a roundup of everything that made headlines in tech today.

Facebook user data

Facebook said that third-party developers continued to receive user data as updates even after it should have been stopped. Facebook had promised in 2018 that no third-party developer would get access to data 90 days after the user stops using the app. But turns out data was still accessible even after 90 days. Facebook however didnt specify the number of users that were affected.

Pixel 3a discontinued

Google has officially discontinued the Pixel 3a and Pixel 4 XL smartphones. Customers will still be able to purchase the phones as long as they are in stock. But Google will stop working on them. Google launched the Pixel 3a series as affordable Pixel phones last summer. Its expected to launch the successor Pixel 4a soon.

Google Play Store blocks Chinese apps

Despite the ban order, the 59 Chinese apps except for TikTok were still available on Google Play Store. But Google today announced it is temporarily blocking access to all 59 apps in India. Google also said that it has notified the developers, and it is currently reviewing the interim orders from the government.

Galaxy Note 20 Ultra leak

In what appears to be a not so surprising news, Samsung accidentally leaked its own smartphone Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. It appeared briefly at the companys official Russian website. Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is seen in a copper gold colour with three rear cameras, and its S Pen as well.

Tiktok ban

TikTok today clarified that it does not plan on taking legal actions against the Indian government for banning the app. The statement came amid reports stating that TikTok was going to do so. TikTok has been invited to meet with government stakeholders to respond and submit clarifications. Among the 59 Chinese apps banned, TikTok has been affected the most.
There have been a few reports doing the rounds that TikTok is planning to pursue legal action against the government of India for banning it in the country. The video-sharing platform has spoken up to dispel these rumours and has said that they have no plans of any such action.

There have been statements in the press concerning the possibility that TikTok might pursue legal action regarding the directive by the Government of India. We have no plans to pursue such action, the TikTok spokesperson said.

We are committed to working with the government to address its concerns. We comply with the laws and regulations of the Government of India. Ensuring the data sovereignty, security and privacy of our users has always been and will continue to be a top priority for us, the spokesperson added.

Some online publications had reported earlier today that TikTok may legally challenge the directive that banned 59 Chinese apps in India. TikTok's recent statement is in line with what they have been saying since the ban came into force.

TikTok's India head Nikhil Gandhi had said on Tuesday that they have been invited to meet with the concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications. The company also said that they will continue working with the government to solve matters.

One Monday night, the Indian government circulated a directive that banned these 59 apps in India and the list included popular apps like TikTok, WeChat, Shein, Club Factory, UC Browser etc.

Following this ban some of these apps, one of them being TikTok, could no longer be seen on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. By the next day TikTok had stopped working for users who already had the app downloaded on their smartphones.

Google released a statement today saying that they will be blocking all these 59 apps from the Google Play Store. Apple has not said anything about this yet and have not responded to our queries about what their decision is as far as these 59 apps are concerned but all the apps are no longer visible on the App Store either.
Zoom back in April put a 90-day feature freeze on the development of new features after a massive surge in its user base owing to the lockdown revealed several security and privacy issues with the platform. Now, as the 90-day feature freeze ends, the video-conferencing has shared a status report pertaining to the steps that the company took to address those issues.

To recall, Zoom, while enacting a 90-day feature freeze, had announced a list of seven steps that the company would be taking to fix flaws in its platform. This included sharing a transparency report and improving its bug-bounty program among other things. Now, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan in a blog post announced that the company would be announcing its first transparency report later this year.

About the Bug Bounty Program, the Zoom CEO said that the company had developed a Central Bug Repository that takes vulnerability reports from HackerOne, Bugcrowd, and security@zoom.us. The company has hired a Head of Vulnerability and Bug Bounty and several additional appsec engineers to fix flaws in its platform. Its also working with third-party accessors for the same.

Apart from its transparency report and the bug bounty program,Yuan also said that the company had worked with a group of third-party experts including the CISO advisory council, Lea Kissner, Alex Stamos, Luta Security, Bishop Fox, Trail of Bits, NCC Group, Praetorian, Crowdstrike, Center for Democracy and Technology to review and make enhancements to the companys products, practices, and policies. The company has also launched a CISO council comprising 36 CISOs from various industries to discuss various topics such as regional data center selection, encryption, meeting authentication, and features such as Report a User, Passwords, and Waiting Rooms and suggest improvements regarding the same.

Additionally, the company is working with third-party firms such as Trail of Bits, NCC Group, and Bishop Fox to review the entire platform including its APIs and data centres.

On the feature front, the company has rolled out Zoom 5.0 along with a bunch of new security features such as AES 256 GCM encryption, waiting room and limited screen sharing among others. It is now working on adding new security and risk management features on its platform. Lastly, the Zoom CEO said that he would continue to hold the weekly webinars, which started on April 1, until July 15 following which the company would move to hostly monthly webinars.

This period has brought about meaningful change at our company and made the safety, privacy, and security of our platform central to all we do, as we strive to be worthy of the trust customers place in us...But we cannot and will not stop here. Privacy and security are ongoing priorities for Zoom, and this 90-day period  while fruitful  was just a first step, the Zoom CEO said in a statement.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Africa's travel and tourism industry has lost $55-billion due to the closure of borders to limit the spread of coronavirus, the African Union said Thursday.

On a continent where safaris are a powerful tourist magnet, the sector has been badly hit by lockdowns that shuttered air, land and sea borders.

"The impact is really severe," African Union commissioner Amani Abou-Zeid said at a virtual briefing organised by the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"We are talking here about $55 billion (49 billion euros) lost within three months in a year when we were supposed to see an increase in travel and air transport," she warned. "There are airlines that may not survive COVID-19."

"In Africa tourism is not luxury," she said. "This is our livelihood."

Despite a steady rise in coronavirus cases, countries across Africa are forging ahead with plans to resume air traffic.

A handful of states reopened their borders last week, including Zambia and Sierra Leone. Senegal has announced the resumption of international air travel from July 15.

"As we are going to open... we are also now pushing for intra-African tourism," Abou-Zeid said, calling for lower taxes, reduced ticket fees and visa facilitation to encourage "Africans to see Africa".

She hoped the reopening of the skies would "cushion some of the serious impacts on ...air transport and tourism".

Africa has recorded more than 420,000 coronavirus cases and over 10,000 deaths.

South Africa is the hardest-hit country in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for around a third of total cumulative numbers in the region.

WHO regional chief Matshidiso Moeti has warned of a "certain underestimation of cases" due to test kit shortages and the tendency to test only symptomatic patients

Prosper Zo'o Minto'o of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) described the virus' impact on the African airline industry as "alarming".

Aircrafts flew 60 million less passengers on international routes over the past three months, and 30 million less for domestic travel.

Zo'o Minto'o estimated that airlines would require at least $20 billion (18 billion euros) in stimulus aid for them to take back to the skies.

Explore further WHO warns pandemic accelerating in Africa

 2020 AFP
Airbus' unions in France will begin talks with management next week on planned job cuts

European aircraft builder Airbus dangled a lifeline Thursday for some employees menaced by 15,000 layoffs planned worldwide over the coronavirus, saying government aid could rescue thousands of factory workers fearing for their livelihoods.

"We could preserve up to 500 jobs if the German government supported us via its programme to develop hydrogen drive for planes. Prolonging shorter hours schemes to 24 months could save 1,500 more," chief executive Guillaume Faury told news weekly Der Spiegel, adding that "talks are already under way on this".

Some 1,500 posts could also be saved in France, he said.

Germany and France have complained in recent days at around 5,000 layoffs each set to hit their countries, with Berlin urging fair distribution of the pain while Paris blasted the cuts as "excessive".

Faury told Spiegel that with around two-thirds of the world's jet fleet grounded by the pandemic in recent months, "the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the air travel sector was and remains catastrophic".

Airbus plans to slash production by 40 percent this year and next compared with previous plans.

"We can stabilise the company, but it's necessary to adjust the number of workers," Faury said.

From boom to shock

Airbus' plans for 15,000 layoffs were "excessive and disproportionate," said Jean-Francois Knepper, who represents workers organised in Force Ouvriere (FO)the largest union inside the plane maker's French operations.

"We don't know where we're going. It's a brutal shock," said David Neff, a 26-year-old technician at one of Airbus' factories in the Toulouse area.

"Before the Covid crisis, we were in the middle of a boom... we were planning to hire new people."

Airbus employs around 49,000 people in France, with 25,000 working for the giant group and its subsidiaries around Toulouse.

"We're worried. No one knows who's going to be knocked out. Some of us are paying off debts, if we lose our income, it's going to get complicated," said Ludovic Beller, a 29-year-old mechanic who has worked for Airbus for seven years.

Workers "will sit at the negotiating table... we're starting on Monday morning and it will last for four months," union representative Knepper said.

Unions have called on Airbus employees to demonstrate Wednesday at the company's Toulouse headquarters.

They plan to call for early retirements, voluntary redundancies, long-term shorter hours schemes and training to minimise the number of layoffs.

Faury said that as well as government aid, Airbus is discussing options like a four-day week "to spread the work among more employees", although "that won't solve all our problems".

With a 15-billion-euro ($16.9-billion) war chest to weather the crisis, "we see no need for a bigger state stake" in Airbus, Faury saidunlike German airline Lufthansa, rescued with a nine-billion-euro package from Berlin.

 2020 AFP
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In this Wednesday, March 25, 2020, file photo, American Airlines jets sit idly at their gates as a jet arrives at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. American Airlines and four smaller carriers have reached agreement with the government for billions more in federal loans, a sign of the industry's desperate fight to survive a downturn in air travel caused by the virus pandemic. The Treasury Department said Thursday, July 2, 2020, that it had finalized terms of new loans to American, Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and SkyWest Airlines. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

American Airlines and four smaller carriers have reached agreement with the government for billions more in federal loans, a sign of the industry's desperate fight to survive a downturn in air travel caused by the virus pandemic.

The Treasury Department said Thursday that it had signed letters of intent for new loans to American, Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and SkyWest Airlines.

All the leading U.S. airlines had previously accepted a combination of grants and loans to help cover payroll costs through Sept. 30. These five are the first carriers to tentatively accept loans from a separate $25 billion kitty that Congress set aside under a $2.2 billion measure to help companies hurt by the pandemic.

American Airlines said it signed a term sheet with Treasury for a $4.75 billion loan, which would be in addition to $5.8 billion that Treasury has already agreed to extend to American.

"We have to complete some legal work to reach a definitive credit agreement, but we expect to finalize that loan during the third quarter," American CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a note to employees. They said the additional loan would give American liquidity of about $15 billion.

American is generally considered the financially weakest of the largest U.S. airlines, having entered the pandemic with the largest amount of debt. Isom said in May that the airline was considering using its AAdvantage frequent-flyer program as collateral for a federal loan.

Details about terms of the new loans for American and others were not immediately clear. The Treasury Department said it would post documentation within 72 hours of the agreements becoming finalwhich, judging from American's comments, could be weeks from now.

A spokeswoman for SkyWest, which operates regional flights for the major airlines, said the company is still "evaluating our level of participation with the Treasury." The other three airlines signing letters of intent did not immediately answer requests for comment.

In this June 16, 2020, file photo, a traveler wearing a mask walks past empty American Airlines ticket counters in Terminal 3 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. American Airlines and four smaller carriers have reached agreement with the government for billions more in federal loans, a sign of the industry's desperate fight to survive a downturn in air travel caused by the virus pandemic. The Treasury Department said Thursday, July 2, 2020, that it had finalized terms of new loans to American, Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and SkyWest Airlines. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Spirit and Frontier are budget carriers that appeal primarily to leisure travelers. Hawaiian depends heavily on vacationers visiting the islands from the U.S. mainland and Asia  they have been subject to a 14-day quarantine upon arrival.

Airlines received special treatment from Congress and the White House during drafting of the virus-aid measure, which was approved in March. It provided up to $50 billion in grants, loans and guarantees to passenger airlines, plus $8 billion for cargo carriers. The measure gave Treasury power to seek compensation for taxpayers, including in the form of partial ownership stakes.

The airlines are expected to slash thousands of jobs in October, when the federal payroll help runs out. Many are encouraging employees to quit or retire.

American Airlines, which began the year with about 130,000 employees, still expects to have 20,000 too many for the number of flights it expects to fly this fall, its leaders said Friday. Delta Air Lines warned 2,500 pilots last week about potential furloughs.

Six leading airline unions have asked Congress to give the companies another $25 billion to prevent layoffs through next March.

Analysts believed interest in the second batch of federal loans would be lower because of the termsincluding giving the government a potential ownership stakeand the availability of money from private sources. Major carriers including American, United, Delta and Southwest have raised billions in available cash on the private credit market.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department was still talking with other airlines about loans and hopes to reach agreements as soon as possible. Some, including United Airlines, have said they would apply for loans but might not use them.

Air travel within the United States fell about 95% from March 1 through mid-April, as the government restricted travel to slow the spread of the virus and travelers feared contracting it. Travel has recovered slowly since then, but the number of airline passengers is still about 75% lower than a year ago.

Investors gave a muted reaction to Treasury's announcement. Shares of American Airlines and its three closest competitorsDelta, United and Southwestranged from down 1% to up 1% in midday trading.

Explore further US Treasury, airlines reach deal on financial aid

 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Tencent owns the messaging app WeChat

Chinese tech giant Tencent has been fooled by impostors posing as representatives of the country's most famous chilli sauce brand, police said, in a saga that nearly pitched the two famous brands against each other in court.

The dispute between Tencentowner of the WeChat appand legendary Chinese sauce Lao Gan Ma heated up this week when a court in the southern city of Shenzhen announced it would freeze assets of the chilli maker worth 16.24 million yuan ($2.3 million).

The court said the request came from Tencent, which had sued the manufacturer for not paying advertising fees under a 2019 contract.

But as confusion reigned, Lao Gan Ma said in a statement that it had never entered the commercial agreement with Tencent, and reported the matter to the authorities.

Police in the southwestern city of Guiyang said Wednesday that three suspects aged between 36 and 40 had been detained in relation to the case.

Preliminary investigations showed the trio had faked a Lao Gan Ma company seal and pretended to be managers of the chilli firm to sign a cooperation agreement with Tencent.

"Their aim was to obtain online game package codes that Tencent gave away as part of its promotional activities, and they later illegally resold these online for financial gain," said the police statement.

Captivated netizens called the incident an "embarrassment", with a hashtag on the topic racking up 460 million views on the Twitter-like Weibo by Thursday.

Lao Gan Ma, a table-top staple in China whose name translates to "Old Godmother", hails from Guiyang and has found a fan base both at home and abroad.

Explore further China's Tencent says former executive in graft case

 2020 AFP
This Tuesday, May 12, 2020, file photo shows the Tesla plant, in Fremont, Calif. Some Tesla workers and labor activists say the company is threatening to fire employees who haven't returned to the company's California factory since it reopened because they're afraid of catching the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

Some Tesla workers and labor activists say the company is threatening to fire employees who haven't returned to the company's California factory since it reopened because they're afraid of catching the coronavirus.

The group wants the practice to stop, and it also wants state and county officials to do a better job making sure proper safety procedures are followed at the factory in Fremont, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"There are people we are paying to keep us safe, and they're just turning the other cheek," said Tesla worker Carlos Gabriel, who is among the organizers of a rally scheduled for Thursday at the Alameda County Public Health Department in Oakland. "They should be holding (Tesla CEO) Elon Musk accountable."

A Tesla spokesman wouldn't immediately comment Wednesday, but company officials said at a public hearing on tax incentives in Texas last week that claims of Fremont workers being fired are untrue. Tesla has released plans to maintain worker safety including temperature checks, the wearing of gloves and masks, installing barriers between workers and maintaining social distancing. In early May, Musk told workers that they didn't have to return to the plant if they weren't comfortable with it.

A message was left Wednesday seeking comment from the health department.

Problems at the factory are among several that have flared up in the auto industry in recent weeks. Assembly lines at two Fiat Chrysler plants in the Detroit area were briefly shut down this week due to fears over viral spread, and local union officials want General Motors to close and clean an SUV factory in Arlington, Texas.

Gabriel and another Tesla worker say they have heard of COVID-19 cases among workers at the Fremont factory, but don't know numbers because the company won't tell them. They want the health department to release numbers and to trace whoever came in contact with sick workers rather than letting Tesla do it.

Branton Phillips, a towmotor operator who has returned to work, says many workers don't wear masks covering their nose and mouth in the plant, and they remove them and don't keep proper social distance when they go outside. He's worried about getting sick and spreading it to his longtime girlfriend who is vulnerable to the virus, he said.

"I had to go back. I need the (medical) insurance," Phillips said, adding that Tesla is trying to enforce mask requirements inside the factory. He says employees have been threatened with being fired, but then told they won't be fired, creating confusion.

Musk reopened the Fremont plant May 11 in defiance of Alameda County orders to stay closed. The county health department had deemed the factory a nonessential business that can't fully open under virus restrictions, but Tesla contended it was essential under federal guidelines.

The next day, however, the health department announced that the plant could return to manufacturing as long as it delivers on worker safety precautions that it agreed to.

Earlier this week, the United Auto Workers union sent teams to the two Fiat Chrysler plants and the Texas factory to investigate employee fears about other workers being infected, spokesman Brian Rothenberg said. He didn't know how many coronavirus cases there were at each of the plants.

GM says its safety protocols in Arlington are working and it has not changed production plans. It says in a statement that some workers have tested positive at the plant because there is no vaccine or cure.

Explore further Tesla picks Austin, Tulsa as finalists for new US factory

 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce combined two of its annual events  The Chamber Experience and Business and Bites  to bring the business community together for fun, networking and fundraising for the chamber. It was the chambers first large-scale in-person event since early 


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Dave Schwarz asks:

Do you know anything about the history of Colony Camera in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin? The Colony Camera at North Ave and 88th St. has been out of business seemingly forever...maybe 20 years now? But up until just a couple of years ago the Colony sign (with the Minolta logo) remained standing at the corner, and from what I could see as I drove past the store still had furnishings inside. In the past couple of years the sign was removed and the interior cleared out, and sometime last year a 'For Rent' sign appeared in the window of the store. But there it sits, unoccupied still. I can't imagine why the owner let the store sit, seemingly untouched, for at least a decade...probably closer to two.

Does anyone know the story?

Something similar happened just down the road from me. A very old building, from the 1880s, sat derelict and decaying on a prime piece of lakefront property. Not long after I moved here, a local landlord who owns a handful of rental houses on the shore started work transforming it into a modern house (and he did a great jobmy friend Dave, who you met in these pages, did the chimney). But I've always been curious about the circumstances that allowed the property to sit vacant for what had obviously been decades.

So many stories lie shrouded and obscured, from family secrets to corporate ones.

Mike

(Thanks to Dave)

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Kenneth Tanaka: "Idle properties are nearly always the result of title/ownership or tax issues. Perhaps the owner has died and the property gets tied up, perhaps the owner has fled back taxes and title reverts to a lender, perhaps its discovered to be atop a toxic landfill (OK, unlikely here). Etc. Theres a former rather ritzy Italian restaurant space a block from my home thats been inexplicably vacant for 20 years. It must be worth millions. Anyway, back to the camera store, I found this in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal from 2016."
Plaintiffs ask that they be allowed to gather  without limitation  despite the advice of medical experts and the current rise in infections. The risks in doing so are too great, she wrote. The Court acknowledges that Plaintiffs interest in gathering as a political party is important, especially leading up to an election. But this interest does not outweigh the governors interest in protecting the health of Illinois residents during this unprecedented public health crisis.

The judge also wrote that many political activities are still allowed, such as phone banks, virtual strategy meetings, and, as of Friday, June 26, gatherings like fundraisers and meet-and-greet coffees that do not exceed 50 people.

Moreover, allowing the GOP to hold mass gatherings would open the floodgates to challenges from other groups that find in-person gatherings most effective, she wrote, agreeing with one of the states arguments.

An injunction that allows plaintiffs to gather in large groups so that they can engage in more effective speech is simply not in the public interest. Such relief would expand beyond any gatherings and negatively impact non-parties by increasing their risk of exposure. Thus, the harms tilt significantly in the governors favor as he seeks to prevent the spread of this virulent virus, she concluded.
SPRINGFIELD  The state of Illinois, like most states, began a new fiscal year on July 1 and the person in charge of managing the states bank accounts said she fears it could be one of the most difficult years in modern memory.

This is going to be, I think, by far perhaps the most challenging year that I've had to manage as comptroller, state Comptroller Susana Mendoza said in an interview Wednesday. And that's saying something because, you know, I had to navigate the state through what was, when I took office, the worst fiscal crisis that our state had ever experienced, that two-year budget impasse.

The difference between then and now, she said, was that during the budget impasse, the state still had revenues flowing in, just no legal authority to spend it. But in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the near shutdown of the states economy that it forced, Illinois now isnt seeing anything close to the revenues it will need to fund the new budget.

You can pass whatever budget you want, she said. If the revenues don't come in the way you'd like them to, then there's not enough money to go around for all of the priorities that are represented by that budget. So, at the end of the day, we'll have to see month-to-month what our revenues look like. It's so completely up in the air.
It would have taken four or five years to raise that kind of money," Sawalich said. "With the donation, it took about a year.

The Orient Mine Explosion was one of the deadliest mine disasters in United States history and was the catalyst for the passage of the first enforceable federal coal mine safety legislation, the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act of 1952. According to Marcia Raubach, publicity director for the Old King Coal Festival, UMWA President John L. Lewis was at Orient #2 the day after the explosion and went underground while rescue operations were still going on.

The average age of the miners killed was about 41 years. The youngest was 19 and the oldest was 64. They left 301 dependents, including 109 widows, 175 children under the age of 18, and 17 were other family dependents. Forty-nine of the 119 miners killed were from West Frankfort, 38 from Benton and nine from Johnston City. The other miners were from Sesser, Thompsonville, Buckner, Christopher, Macedonia, Logan, Whittington, Carterville, Elkville, Herrin, Marion, Pittsburg and Zeigler.

Every five years, the Old King Coal Festival committee hosts a memorial service honoring the deceased on the date of the explosion. The next service will be in 2021 on the 70th anniversary.
When the officer spoke to one of the residents, the resident told the officer "he was unaware of the precaution to limit gatherings to less than ten people because of the current pandemic" and offered to stop the party, according to the police report. The resident "was cooperative and agreed to resolve the issue quickly" and the report was requested to be forwarded to the SIU Student Rights and Responsibilities office for review, according to the officers statement.

Organizational probation is a formal warning to the organization that the behaviors exhibited by the violation are unacceptable in an educational community, according to the SIU Student Code of Conduct.

While on probation, the fraternity cannot access, use, or be eligible to request any source of university funding. Members are also prohibited from traveling for any reason through the use of university funds, resources or vehicles for purposes of representing the organization, according to the code.

The COVID-19 directive, issued on March 27 by Dunn and Jennifer Jones-Hall, dean of students, ordered the cessation of any and all in-person activities in order to comply with the Jackson County Health Department and Illinois Department of Public Healths protocol on the COVID-19 pandemic. That included Gov. J.B. Pritzkers original stay-at-home order.
It's spiky, has beady little eyes and a beak. It's an Australian animal called an echidna (uh-KID-nah) and a baby, known as a puggle, was born
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  Astronauts completed their second spacewalk in under a week Wednesday to replace old batteries outside the International Space Station.

Commander Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken quickly tackled the big, boxy batteries. For every two outdated batteries coming out, a new and improved one goes in to supply power to the space station on the night side of Earth.

Within a couple hours, the astronauts had installed another new battery, the third one in this latest series of spacewalks that began last Friday. NASA plans to send the pair out twice more in July to finish the battery swap-outs that began in 2017. The new lithium-ion batteries should last the rest of the space station's life, according to NASA.

With their main chore completed, Cassidy and Behnken jumped ahead to loosen the bolts on the batch of old batteries coming out next time and remove other equipment. Some of the bolts required extra muscle, and another stubborn mechanism just wouldn't come off.

"Boy, it put up a good fight," Cassidy radioed. "These batteries, they like their home."

The astronauts had enough time to route power and Ethernet cables outside the 260-mile-high outpost, before the six-hour spacewalk drew to a close.
Except that apparently, somebody did. The New York Times reports that two American officials say the information was included in late February in the President's Daily Brief, a document summarizing national security concerns and assessments that is prepared by the intelligence community each morning for the president to read. In all fairness, that last word is problematic with this particular president, whose impatience with the printed word is legendary.

And besides, he's a busy man. Indeed, according to one of the Times' sources, the specific date the Russian intel was included was February 27, a day Trump met with "Diamond and Silk," two former Fox "News" personalities famed for being black and loud while supporting him. Because, you know, priorities.

Presumably, the PDB he received that day would have told him how three marines were killed by a bomb last April. Presumably, it would have informed him that this tragedy has emerged as the focal point of a probe suggesting Russia put a bull's-eye on Americans. Whereupon a normal president would surely have raised the alarm, confronted the enemy or, at a minimum, acknowledged the crime.

But again, Trump is a very busy man, what with coronavirus blame to dodge and Confederate statues to defend.
The legislation also raises the standard for rejecting a vote-by-mail ballot by requiring local election authorities to appoint a bipartisan panel of three election judges to verify voters signatures and the validity of the ballot. Previously, only one election judge made this determination.

While opponents of the legislation point to the potential for voter fraud, statistics show that while fraud is slightly more common than in-person voting, its a minuscule amount, according to an NPR.org article.

The article cites an op-ed by Amber McReynolds, a former Colorado election official and now the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, and Charles Stewart, director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, which noted while over the past 20 years, more than 250 million ballots have been cast by mail nationwide, there have been just 143 criminal convictions for election fraud related to mail ballots. That averages out to about one case per state every six or seven years, or a fraud rate of 0.00006%.

About a quarter of all voters voted by mail in the 2018 midterms.
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Back in August 2017, during a period in which activists sought the removal of statues of Confederate leaders, Trump made the classic slippery slope argument. "So this week, it's Robert E. Lee," he said. "I notice that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

A lot of people said that was ridiculous. The slippery slope argument "fails because there are obviously relevant distinctions that can be made between Washington and Jefferson on the one hand and Confederate leaders on the other," wrote Ilya Somin in The Washington Post on Aug. 15, 2017.

Today's rope-wielding mobs don't see it that way. Try to tell them there are "obviously relevant distinctions" to be made, and they'll just head to the next target. In the current atmosphere, such reasoning is going exactly nowhere.

It could be that tearing down some historical monuments on the basis of contemporary views inevitably leads to the targeting of other historical monuments, based on other contemporary views. Once started, it is hard to stop.
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The Luxembourgish refugee council (LFR) released a press statement addressing the state of refugees in Luxembourg and the lack of care received since the beginning of the outbreak.

LFR has launched a petition with two recommendations. First, the government is expected to provide asylum seekers with the possibility of a "family reunion" within six months. Second, they demand that the administration stop trying to push away refugees to other countries. Links PDF: LFR press statement
Cameroon's government faces mounting accusations that foot-dragging and incompetence have helped coronavirus gain a deadly grip.

In less than three months, the official case tally has risen to nearly 6,600, including 200 deaths -- the third-highest number of infections of any country south of the Sahara.

Compared with Europe and America, this total is low, but experts warn of COVID-19's ability to spread like wildfire in countries where health systems are weak and testing is poor.

Despite forecasts that cases would peak in June, schools and universities were suddenly told to reopen this week, prompting teachers and parents to warn that safety preparedness was nowhere near ready.

Cameroon on March 5 became the first central African country to register a case of the virus -- a 58-year-old French national who had arrived in the capital Yaounde in February.

But it was not until two weeks later that the authorities set down restrictions for the countrys 25 million people.

The opposition has repeatedly criticised what it says is the governments failure to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously, as many other African countries imposed radical containment measures early on.

Albert Ze, an economist specialising in health issues, told AFP that management of the epidemic had been "disastrous."

"We missed the opportunity to contain the virus at the very beginning," he said.

President Paul Biya spoke out about coronavirus more than two months after Cameroon recorded its first case /  AFP/File

President Paul Biya, who has been in power for nearly four decades, only appeared publicly on television on May 19, pressured by the opposition and the World Health Organization (WHO) after more than two months of silence.

- No lockdown -

"We are seeing a particularly significant progression of the epidemic -- it's extremely serious," Eugene Sobngwi, vice chairman of the health ministry's scientific council, told state television on May 24.

Cameroon could become "the laughing stock of the world," he said.

Rebutting such worries, Health Minister Manaouda Malachie on Monday said the case figures "should not be a cause for alarm... so far the government has been in control of the situation.

Ze accused the government of a lax response in key areas as the epidemic began to brew.

"Cameroon did not close its land, air and sea borders until March 18 -- 12 days after the first imported case, and weeks after many other African countries, he said.

The government was also laid back in social distancing, limiting gatherings to 50 people while other countries on the continent set a maximum of 10.

No lockdown has ever been imposed in Cameroon, and restaurants, bars and nightclubs were only forced to close after 6pm.

And those restrictions, as well as rules for distancing on public transport, were not implemented until mid-March.

Despite the late response, the impact of those measures was "immediate -- Cameroonians understood there was a major problem," said Professor Yap Boum II, an epidemiologist and head of a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) research centre in Yaounde.

A month after the start of the epidemic, the authorities required wearing of facemasks, and this too helped strengthen awareness and tighten control over the virus, he said.

But on April 30 the government abruptly eased public transport restrictions and allowed bars, restaurants and nightclubs to reopen in the evenings.

In the public's mind, the brakes were now off, said Boum.

The move "led to an almost total relaxation of the population, as if this announcement sounded the end of the epidemic, Boum said.

"We saw fewer and fewer people wearing masks, and more and more people in bars -- and a month later we more than tripled" the number of cases and fatalities, he said.

- Back to school -

Students at the Jean Tabi high school in Yaounde wear facemasks and visors on the first day back in the classroom /  AFP

The reopening of schools and universities, another unexpected move, has been attacked as premature by teachers unions and parents, who have taken to social media to voice their fears.

The amount of equipment made available is "ridiculously small," said Roger Kaffo, general secretary of the National Union of Secondary School Teachers, pointing out that the supply of 3,000 masks was not even one mask per teacher at secondary-school level.

Daniel Claude Abate, president of an association of small and medium-sized businesses and member of the ruling RDPC party, defended the governments decision not to impose the toughest restrictions.

"We cannot afford to shut down our countries, with fragile economies, as others do," he said.

Even so, "there should have been surveillance policy measures" to track the virus, he said, conceding the government had made "some mistakes."
At least 170 police officers in Peru have died after contracting the coronavirus while enforcing the South American nation's pandemic lockdown, the interior minister said Thursday.

Almost 10,000 officers have been infected with the disease as they enforced social distancing measures during Peru's 12 weeks of stay-at-home orders.

"We have 9,900 infected personnel and 170 deceased personnel. That is the figure that we currently have despite the efforts being made," Interior Minister General Gaston Rodriguez told reporters.

A further 4,000 police personnel, deemed vulnerable for reasons of age and health, were complying with mandatory quarantine, he said.

Among those infected, at least 1,000 were asymptomatic, police said.

Police officers stand guard at the Caqueta market in the north of Lima -- it is believed many of those with coronavirus were infected during such patrols /  AFP/File

According to the interior ministry, some 80,000 police officers are providing security in the country to enforce the country's mandatory confinement measures.

Peru is the second worst-hit country in Latin America after Brazil, with more than 208,000 cases and 6,000 deaths.

Most of the police cases occurred in the capital Lima, which is home to more than half the country's infections.

The vast majority of police infections occurred when officers patrolled markets and streets to ensure people were observing social distancing measures to avoid spreading the virus.
Cuban Antonio Veciana, a CIA spy who dedicated his life to trying to kill Fidel Castro and destabilize the island's communist government, has died in Miami at 91, his daughter said Friday.

The staunch anti-Castro crusader, who claims to have set into motion "Operation Peter Pan," a wave of panic that caused an exodus of thousands of Cuban children to the United States in the 1960s, died Thursday at a hospice after battling a long illness, his daughter Ana Veciana-Suarez told AFP.

His 2017 autobiography "Trained to Kill" chronicles how Veciana was recruited in 1959 by CIA agent David Atlee Phillips -- known by the alias "Bishop" -- and was trained in Havana to kill Fidel Castro, who died in 2016 from natural causes.

Originally an accountant at Cuba's National Bank, Veciana was taught to be invisible, to plot, to be unscrupulous, to distrust and most of all to carry out activities meant to tarnish the reputation of the country's revolutionaries.

"The work I did is what terrorists do. It's just that it wasn't called that," Veciana told AFP in an interview three years ago at his home, as his memoir was released.

Amid general destabilization on the island, Veciana spread a rumor that the Cuban government would strip parents of legal custody over their children.

Parents then sent some 14,000 children to the United States in an exodus known as "Operation Peter Pan."

Between 1960 and 1962, parents took their children out of Cuba via offices of the Catholic Church. Minors without adult companions were received at camps in Florida.

Veciana went into exile in the United States in 1961, following a failed attack on Castro.

When contacted by "Bishop" in Miami, Veciana founded the anti-Castro paramilitary group "Alpha 66," which during the 1960s and '70s carried out commando-type strikes against the Castro regime.

He subsequently carried out two other attempts on Castro's life, finally throwing in the towel and giving up his mission to kill the Cuban leader in 1979.
There are now 1,550 cases  1,233 confirmed and 317 probable  and 1,139 recoveries  893 confirmed and 246 probable  recorded in the state, as well as 20 deaths.

As of Thursday, there have been 47,932 tests performed for COVID-19 in Wyoming, an increase of 2,622 from Monday: 23,948 from the Wyoming Public Health Laboratory and 23,984 reported by other labs. Of those, 34,926 people have been tested.

Less than 73% of confirmed patients have fully recovered, a number that grows to 73.5% when factoring in probable figures.

Patients have tested positive for coronavirus in all 23 of Wyomings counties. Wyoming has the third lowest recorded number of coronavirus deaths of any state (Alaska and Hawaii), and its death rate (3 per 100,000 residents) is fourth-lowest to Montana, Alaska and Hawaii, according to the New York Times. The states infection rate (262 in 100,000) is eighth-lowest among states, also according to the Times, which includes probable counts where they exist.

Less than 10% of Wyomings cases required a hospital stay. In 25.5% of the cases, health officials dont know if the patient was hospitalized.
You know when you come face to face with pure evil, Itzen said. The question is: what do you do about that, your honor?

The prosecutor said that the vast majority of kidnappings in Wyoming dont resemble the apparent random abduction by a stranger that Hicks committed. The abduction, Itzen said, rightfully terrifies parents.

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After abducting the child, Itzen said, Hicks tried to destroy evidence: he threw out the girls sandal left behind in his truck and moved a tool box that appeared in a photo police circulated as they looked for Hicks.

Itzen said that Hicks needed extensive incarceration for the protection of society and supervision for the rest of his life. The prosecutor asked Wilking to sentence Hicks to 55 to 100 years. Such a sentence would enable for the Corrections Departments parole board to let Hicks out of prison after completing  depending on awards of credit for good behavior  the lesser number. If set free before completing the greater number, though, he would remain under parole agents supervision.

This will assure that at least someone will watch him if he ever gets out of the state penitentiary, Itzen said.
Hime was disappointed to learn of OMalleys response, which was provided to her by reporters. Contrary to OMalleys claim, Hime has only spoken to him once that she can recall, she said. That conversation came after the Ramirez incident. OMalley never talked to her about her concerns over the Facebook account, she claimed.

They clearly didnt even consider my concerns, she wrote in an email. They just skipped straight to belittling the nut job who brought the concerns forward. It really shed some light for me into the reality inside the sheriffs department.

OMalley did not make himself available for an interview and declined to discuss the email exchange with Snowberger. You are not aware of the totality of circumstances surrounding this whole issue, he wrote to reporters. Because of the personal sensitive nature of it, I can not and will not address particulars about my contact and or dialogue with Ms. Hime.

DeBree suggested its not unusual for officers to consider the mental health of citizens who file complaints against officers. Peace officers are frequently engaged in dialogue with people that require an assessment of a persons personal status, he wrote. That is something that is potentially discussed internally, but never externally, and particularly with the media.
He turned his base against medical experts, pushed their unfounded conspiracy theories, underplayed the severity of the virus and leaned into economic insecurities over remaining vigilant.

This has put his own voters in danger. The bizarre and tragically stupid anti-mask movement he champions by defiantly and childishly refusing to wear one threatens the very lives of his own supporters and their communities.

His campaign was reportedly seen removing thousands of social-distancing signs from his Tulsa rally to prevent the optics of empty seats  unsuccessfully, it turned out, as only 6,200 people showed up at the 19,200-seat venue. Eight of his own campaign staffers who attended have since tested positive for the coronavirus.

Hes moved most of the GOP convention to a venue that would allow larger crowds, though, who knows how long it will stay in Jacksonville, Fla., after that city mandated mask-wearing at indoor and outdoor events.

And hes tried to block mail-in voting  which would allow more people to vote without risking their lives at public polling places  to suppress Democratic turnout and help discredit the results if he loses.
NOT even the Senate could have sat yesterday.

Nobody from the Opposition bench and two Independent senators were present.

A lot of the senators are from Central and South and were trapped in the traffic created by the various protests in parts of the East-West Corridor, which made getting to Port of Spain a serious challenge.
Minister of National Security Stuart Young says the State received information that people were paid to protest yesterday.

Young was speaking at his ministrys office in Port of Spain during a news conference called as a result of fiery protests throughout the capital city from early yesterday.
Duluth, MN (55816)

Today

Showers early, then partly cloudy for the afternoon. Cooler. High 61F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 46F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.
IT was a Christmas Eve-like atmosphere in supermarkets yesterday as people rushed out to stock up on supplies for the Labour Day and Fathers Day weekend during which curfew hours have been extended.

During today which marks the Labour Day holiday and Fathers Day which is tomorrow, people are only permitted to be outdoors between the hours of 5.01 a.m. to 10.01 a.m.

The curfew in effect on these days is 10.02 a.m. to 5 a.m. the following day.

Even though there was a plea by Supermarket Association president Rajiv Diptee not to crowd the supermarkets yesterday, he said most of his member stores described the last-minute rush like Christmas Eve.
THE job of Police Commissioner is sacrosanct and the process of selecting a top cop must not be at the whim and fancy of a government, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said yesterday.

The former prime minister said the United National Congress (UNC) will decide whether it supports Governments move to make changes to the process of appointing a Police Commissioner (CoP) and Deputy Police Commissioners when it gets sight of the legal notice.
ON Sunday morning, just like Saturday morning, there was a lot of loud talking coming from the back of a mini- mart in Santa Cruz.

A mini-bar that has no bar licence (because it is in the middle of a residential community) but is a liming spot that has some great ties that apparently keep their loose practices untouched.
Eugene Laney Jr., DHLs head of international government affairs, said one problem was that some small businesses felt that NAFTA was complicated, which may have led to reservations about the USMCA. But he said the new deal should help.

Arizona businesses will benefit from the customs simplification, goods will move into Mexico without as much paperwork, seamless, Laney said.

While the basis of the new deal preserves the free-trade foundation of NAFTA, there are several changes, including new protections for intellectual property, relaxed restrictions on e-commerce and new environmental standards. It also requires that some Mexican businesses pay at least $16 an hour to workers in some parts of the auto manufacturing supply chain.

The pay requirement sets the stage for more manufacturing to move from Mexico to U.S, said Usha Haley, a professor of management at Wichita State Universitys Barton School of Business,

But Haley, who also directs the schools Center of International Business Advancement, said there are question marks regarding the enforcement of environmental obligations in the USMCA. She said Mexican infrastructure may have trouble handling strict guidelines set forth in the deal.
Ducey, when first asked about these in 2017, defended them as helping people know our history.

I dont think we should try to hide our history, he said. Its not my desire or mission to tear down any monuments or memorials.

But McPherson told Ducey on Wednesday that argument holds no water.

The removal of these monuments will not change history or erase it, he wrote. What does change with such removals is what Arizona decides is worth of civic honor and recognition.

Anyway, McPherson noted, its not like any of these were erected close to the time of the war.

It isnt just the foundation pressuring the governor on the issue.

A separate letter to Ducey on Wednesday signed by 200 veterans issued a similar call, saying these monuments dishonor and disrespect the service of those who swore and oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

Make no mistake, the Confederate soldiers honored by these monuments were domestic enemies fighting for the cause of slavery, leading to the loss of nearly 620,000 lives during the Civil War, the letter states.
Dakota graduated from Bret Harte in 2013 and went to Davidson College, NC where she earned a bachelor's degree in Arab studies. After spending time studying in the Middle East and Europe, she is happy to be home, writing about the community she loves.

Comment Policy Calaveras Enterprise does not actively monitor comments. However, staff does read through to assess reader interest. When abusive or foul language is used or directed toward other commenters, those comments will be deleted. If a commenter continues to use such language, that person will be blocked from commenting. We wish to foster a community of communication and a sharing of ideas, and we truly value readers' input.
Saying they dont want to be responsible for making decisions about public health, Tucson-area education leaders want clear targets on when it will be safe to reopen schools amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this week, Gov. Doug Ducey announced a delay on returning to classrooms until Aug. 17. Most Tucson schools were set to open between Aug. 5 and 10.

But some school leaders and public-health experts say the new date feels arbitrary and is not something schools can count on, leaving school leaders to navigate a patchwork of executive orders and funding decisions that leave many uncertainties.

We need more scientific reasons so schools can start to prepare, so schools see those numbers trending in the area that our health officials have identified, says Pima County Schools Superintendent Dustin Williams. These last-minute changes are making it very challenging to plan.

Ducey considered public-health metrics related to transmission and whats happening in hospitals, said Ducey spokesman Patrick Ptak, without identifying any specific numbers or percentages on transmission or hospitalizations that would lead to a safe or unsafe environment for schools to open.

He said the Aug. 17 date was chosen to give schools more time to prepare, in conjunction with steps to slow the spread of the virus, such as closing bars, gyms and movie theaters.

We continually evaluate the data and will continue to evaluate the data leading up to this date to make the best decisions possible for students, families and educators, Ptak said.
Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church has found an outside-the-box idea to bring people back to the church  if its flock cant come into the church, the church will bring the service to its flock.

As the pandemic continues, the church has started to provide a drive-in service for its parishioners and the local community.

Pastor Clint Cottrell said they cant meet in person because of the virus, since the majority of the congregation is in the 65-plus demographic, most susceptible to the disease.

We looked at the options we had. We were doing the service online, but that isnt the same, Cottrell said. A colleague of mine mentioned you can get an FM transmitter legally and have a drive-in service.

The service can be heard on 87.9 FM, though the range goes only to the end of the parking lot, giving the service the feel of a drive-in movie.

It worked. It actually sounds really good. And it only works in the parking lot. If you go 50 feet off the property, you wont hear a thing, Cottrell said. People can come and stay in their cars, roll up the windows and turn on the air conditioner.

The church typically did a contemporary service at 8:30 a.m. and a traditional service at 10:30. Now, they do a single 9:30 a.m. service (rain or shine) that is trimmed down to 40 to 45 minutes, to reduce the chance of someone needing to use a rest room.

The service has gained popularity. After bringing in 50 people for the first service a few weeks ago, about 75 came to the one last week.

Dress was casual. Even Cottrell wore a Florida shirt as the abbreviated band performed during the service. Whenever the pastor said something the congregation liked, they flashed their headlights, or honked if they felt Pentecostal as Cottrell said.

Holy Trinity does not hold communion, though people are welcome to bring their own bread and wine (preferably grape juice). To tithe, collectors come around in fishing nets to keep up with social distancing.

Cottrell said he expects to continue to do drive-in services throughout the month of July. The next indoor service is tentatively set for Aug. 9, virus permitting.

The church still has an online presence, doing Bible Study over Zoom twice a week. Wednesday morning at 9:30 and Sundays at 11 a.m.

Beverly Smith said she has noticed people who dont belong to the church coming to experience the service for themselves.

People see the sign and come in. I love it. You dont have to get dressed up. The only thing is that you cant have a choir, Smith said. You cant see people as much. You get your service and it gets you outside.

Lee Bobey said he also enjoys the outdoor service and does not want to miss it.

We have everything. Were not missing anything and it gives me the chance to get out. Im 89 years old and Im supposed to stay inside, Bobey said, who has been a member of the church for a year. It feels like a drive-in movie and I like those, too.

Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church is at 19251 N. Tamiami Trail.
Lee Virtual School accepting applications

Lee Virtual School is currently accepting applications until Aug. 3 for the fall semester. Students who enroll full-time in Lee Virtual can keep their current school choice for the spring semester if they wish to return to campus in January.

Lee Virtual School is one of Floridas top-ranked virtual schools and the only Kindergarten through 12th grade accredited online public school in our area. The challenging online learning program follows the school district calendar. Students have access to many of the same courses as they would in a traditional school including Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment (FGCU, FSW, FMTC and CCTC) along with the flexibility of a dynamic schedule. Students completing virtual courses receive the same accredited diploma as any other public school.

The process to enroll as a full time LVS student consists of:

* Submitting an application

* Verification of residency/grade level/instructional needs

* Student and parent attending a live online orientation session for their grade level

* Attendance to online onboarding during the first week of school

All of these steps are currently being conducted remotely to comply with safety concerns. A students enrollment in LVS is not final until all steps are complete. To begin the enrollment process, please fill out the forms online at https://forms.gle/ UW2VyKw5VLdq3HqT6.

Families and students interested in more in-depth information are invited to attend one of four scheduled information sessions. These sessions are accessed from the school website lvip.leeschools.net and are held online via zoom at 2 and 6 p.m., July 16, and 2 and 6 p.m., July 21.

Enrollment in LVS is expected to be a complete semester in order for students to receive credit.

FSW Foundation launches Stronger Together campaign

The Florida SouthWestern State College Foundation, Inc. has launched Stronger Together, a fundraising campaign aimed at supporting the Southwest Florida workforce and economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Funding will help FSW students who are facing financial hardships but are not CARES Act eligible. The campaign will also provide additional support to FSW workforce programs and provide educational opportunities to those who have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Located in Lee, Charlotte, Collier, Hendry and Glades counties, FSWs service area is the largest service area of Floridas 28 state and community colleges.

To learn more about FSWs Stronger Together campaign or to donate, visit foundation.fsw.edu/stronger2020/.

Serving nearly 22,000 students globally annually, FSW offers a variety of nationally-ranked, career-focused academic programs with two- and four-year degrees and professional certifications, several with 100 percent licensure pass and job placements rates. Students are also active in clubs and programs catered to their interests.

Visit www.FSW.edu for more information.

Annual Back to School Supply Drive under way

The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools Inc. is holding its annual Back to School Supply Drive from now through Aug. 5 at several participating locations throughout Lee County and at the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools. Donations will benefit the Foundations Education Resource Center which provides Lee County School District educators access to new and reusable classroom supplies at no cost. During this uncertain time we want to ensure that educators and students have the necessary tools to succeed.

Suggested donations include notebook paper, pens, #2 pencils, crayons, glue sticks, rulers, notebooks, three-ring binders, scissors, and backpacks. The Foundation wants to thank all the participating community and business partners for giving back and supporting our educators and students.

Donations can be made online by purchasing a backpack kit full of supplies at store.kitsforkidz.org/index.php/lee-schools.html

Local drop-off locations include Aubuchon Homes (Cape Coral), Miloff Aubuchon Realty Group (Cape Coral & Fort Myers), B&I Contractors, Edison National Bank/Bank of the Islands, Estero Chamber of Commerce, First 1 Bank (Fort Myers), Florida Title One LLC, Freds Award World, Gates Construction, Harbour Insurance and Staples (Cypress Lake Store).

Participating non-drop-off locations include Busey Bank (Fort Myers & Cape Coral), Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce, Markham, Norton, Mosteller, Wright & Co. P.A., Nova SouthEastern University (Fort Myers Campus), Porto Fino Dental and RG Architects

For additional information on how you can get involved, please contact Brittany Carroll at 239-337-0433 or by email Brittany@LeeSchoolFoundation.org.

The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools, Inc. is a private, 501(c)3 organization established in 1986. Its mission is to enhance and enrich the quality of public education in Lee County for students and educators through programs, resources, and experiences made possible through corporate, individual, and educational partnerships. The Foundation is rated Platinum organization by Guide Star.

Find us online at www.leeschoolfoundation.org
Phelan said this calculation boggles the mind because, for every dose going out the door  each manufacturer will use 10 times the amount of LAL to test every step along the way in the process. That includes vials, stoppers and other ingredients in the vaccines. In addition, Phelan said there are likely to be numerous companies producing vaccines in the test phase and along the way.
State capital at Vietnams top brewer Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp (Sabeco) will be soon transferred to the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) to move forward with implementing a prime minister decision on state divestment in 2020.

The government has set the deadline by August 31 for the transfer of 36 percent of state capital in Sabeco from the Ministry of Industry and Trade to SCIC.

SCIC will then be responsible for divesting the stake, which means that private and foreign firms will be allowed to invest in Sabeco.

The divestment of the trade ministrys 36-percent stake in the beer giant would add about VND37.6 trillion (US$1.6 billion) to the state budget, news site VnExpress reported.

Thailands Thai Beverage Public Co. Ltd. (ThaiBev) currently owns 54 percent of Sabeco after it purchased a majority stake worth $4.84 billion in the brewer from the trade ministry in December 2017.

After the deal, the trade ministry holds nearly 36 percent of Vietnams largest local brewer by market value.

Other foreign organizations own 9.71 percent of Sabeco, and the remaining is held by small shareholders.

Sabeco currently has 26 subsidiaries and is part of 18 joint ventures.

The companys total assets were estimated at over VND26.96 trillion ($1.17 billion) and its equity at VND20 trillion ($872.4 million) at the end of 2019, according to VnExpress.

At the end of its general meeting of shareholders in 2020 held on June 30, Sabeco submitted to shareholders for approval a plan to lower revenue targets for the year by 37 percent, or VND23.8 trillion ($1.03 billion), and profit after tax by 39 percent, or VND3.25 trillion ($141.3 million), compared to the figures of 2019.

Besides Sabeco, the list of companies having to transfer state capital to the SCIC before August 31 includes 13 other firms under the management of the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

In addition, 120 other enterprises where the state holds a share will be divested by their equity owners without having the stake transferred to the SCIC.

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Vietnam received just 8,800 foreign arrivals in June, down 61.3 percent from the previous month and 99.3 percent from the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office.

The international arrivals were primarily experts and technical workers working on projects in the country.

The decline is due to Vietnams continued implementation of prevention and control measures related to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

The Southeast Asian country has yet to open its doors to foreign tourists.

Vietnam has barred entry to foreign nationals since March 22 and suspended international flights, except a few organized to repatriate citizens, from March 25 in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19.

In the January-June period, Vietnam welcomed more than 3.7 million international arrivals, down 55.8 percent year-on-year, resulting in a tourism revenue drop of 53.2 percent to VND10.3 trillion (US$446.3 million).

Particularly, arrivals by air plunged 54.3 percent year-on-year to about three million, accounting for 81.2 percent of all arrivals while 559.600 came by road, a decrease of 66.8 percent.

Arrivals by sea rose 3.7 percent to 144,300.

Of the total 3.7 million arrivals, Asian visitors accounted for the majority of the tourist inflow with nearly 2.73 million, down 58.4 percent from the same period last year, while those from Europe were estimated at about 666,000, down 42 percent.

Likewise, visitors from the Americas totaled 234,500, down 54.8 percent.

Arrivals from Oceania reached 102,300, representing a 54.4-percent decline, and visitors from Africa numbered 12,100, down 46.6 percent.

Arrivals from Vietnams major feeder markets, including China, South Korea, and Japan, also sharply fell 63 percent, 60.4 percent, and 55.8 percent, respectively.

At a conference on tourism held in the southern province of Tay Ninh last week, Ho Chi Minh City Party chief Nguyen Thien Nhan proposed that the government build a road map for the gradual reopening of Vietnams tourism to international visitors in order for the industry to recover from the current downturn.

According to Nhan, Vietnam cannot wait until the pandemic is over to resume the international sector of its tourism, as the diseases handling in other countries remains unpredictable.

Nguyen Trung Khanh, head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said during a recent working session with the Ho Chi Minh City tourism sector that his agency will consider proposing the government relax travel restrictions and resume tourism promotions for international visitors on the basis of ensuring medical and travel safety, once the pandemic is controlled in Vietnams major feeder markets.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has also suggested the reconnection of flight routes to countries and territories having no new community infections in 30 consecutive days from the end of July.

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The World Bank (WB) has approved a total credit package of US$422 million to support a Vietnamese university development project and to help one Mekong Delta province confront climate change.

The WB Board of Executive Directors on Wednesday agreed to grant the credit to assist three Vietnamese universities and to build a climate-resilient city in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long.

The credit was supplied by the International Development Association (IDA).

The three universities involved in the university development project include Vietnam National University - Hanoi (VNU-Hanoi), Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCMC), and Da Nang University, which will receive $295 million.

The remainder of the credit will be used to help the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long deal with climate change.

The $295 million credit is meant to improve the three universities' teaching and research capacity.

The university development project will make a certain contribution in addressing some main challenges that the country's higher education system has faced, the WB said in a press release.

Thanks to the new budget support, the universities will have chances to modernize their own infrastructure and make their campus greener and available for digital transition.

Of the $295 million credit, the project for the VNU-Hanoi will cost $125.18 million, consisting of a $100.87 million credit package from the WB and the corresponding capital of $24.31 million from the Vietnamese government.

The VNU-Hanoi will spend the new credit building many new educational facilities on a 37.5-hectare area within its 1,000-hectare campus.

The new facilities include 18 buildings, each with one to eight floors, in addition to classes, libraries, laboratories, sport centers, wastewater collection centers, and drainage systems.

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The Vietnam National University  Ho Chi Minh City organized a ceremony on Thursday to announce the establishment of the Institute for Circular Economy Development (ICED).

This is Vietnams first circular economy institute.

The institute is intended to research and develop a circular economy in the Southeast Asian country on the foundation of an enterprise, government, and university ecosystem, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Huynh Dat, director of the university, remarked at the ceremony.

Setting up the ICED, the Vietnam National University  Ho Chi Minh City targets a circular economy connection between Vietnam and the world, Dr. Dat said.

The institute will become a tech transfer center dedicated to sustainable development in Vietnam, he added.

The ICED will open up opportunities for stakeholders to induce a circular economy, creating social and economic benefits from the proper use of resources and energy, said Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Hong Quan, director of the institute.

VinaCapital, a Vietnamese investment and asset management firm, and local food company Nutifood will provide funds to run the institute.

A circular economy is a restorative or regenerative industrial system prioritizing restoration, transitioning to renewable energy use, ruling out toxic chemical utilization, and aiming for the elimination of waste to protect the environment, according to the UK-registered Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

The Vietnam National University  Ho Chi Minh City is one of Vietnams two largest university blocs, alongside its equivalent in Hanoi.

The grouping has 27 units of training, scientific research, and technology transfer, as well as eight member schools, according to its website.

The university bloc currently enrolls above 60,000 full-time students, boasting an academic team of more than 300 professors and associate professors together with over 1,200 doctors.

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An Indonesian man who was found positive for the novel coronavirus on Tuesday has conclusively tested negative, the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control said on Thursday.

The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City tested the man and all of his contacts on Wednesday, and confirmed they were not infected, the committee said.

It did the tests after receiving a quick report from the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control (HCDC) on the Indonesians initial positive result.

The institute is one of the facilities authorized to conduct conclusive COVID-19 tests in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Indonesian in question is AJI, born in 1989, the committee announced.

AJI entered Vietnam via Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on March 11. He then went to Binh Duong Province, which borders the city to the north, in his companys car.

He stays on the second floor of a hotel in My Phuoc Ward, Ben Cat Town, Binh Duong.

He is an engineer in a factory at Binh Duongs Bau Bang Industrial Park, 20km from his hotel. He commutes to work in a private car provided by his company every day.

From March 11 till now, AJI has been in normal health and mostly traveled between his hotel and company.

On Tuesday, he traveled with a compatriot in their companys car to a medical facility in Thao Dien Ward, District 2, Ho Chi Minh City for a coronavirus check before his flight back to Indonesia, the HCDC said in its quick report on Wednesday.

His sample was taken by staff at the facility.

The patient visited Ben Thanh Market in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City prior to his return trip to Binh Duong.

His test, conducted by FV Hospital in the citys District 7, returned positive the same day so he was admitted to the Binh Duong General Hospital right away.

FV is not authorized to confirm COVID-19 cases.

A tracing report showed that he had had contact with 145 people, including 132 colleagues, company executives, drivers, and factory workers; seven people at the hotel; two at a diner; and four at a clinic in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City.

These contacts tests at the Pasteur Institute have all returned negative for the pathogen.

Vietnam has reported 355 COVID-19 cases as of Thursday, with 336 recoveries and zero deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Southeast Asian country has documented no locally-transmitted infection for 77 days in a row.

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A healthy baby boy was born on Tuesday morning as a result of the rare failure of an intrauterine contraceptive device (IUCD) in the northern Vietnamese city of Hai Phong, around 120 kilometers from Hanoi.

The birth of the stubborn boy was a massive surprise to both parents and doctors.

In fact, the situation was so bizarre that doctors made sure to snap a picture of the newborn holding the IUCD as a memento of the incident.

IUCD, also known as coil, is a small, often T-shaped birth control device that is inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy.

Dr. Nguyen Thanh Hoi, director of Hai Phong International General Hospital, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper the 3.3-kilogram baby is the womans third child, adding that he is healthy and even returned the contraceptive device to his parents afterward.

The 34-year-old mother is a bank employee working in Hai Phong.

She had given birth two times in 2011 and 2015 before choosing to have the IUCD placed inside her in 2018 at a local hospital.

She first suspected she might be pregnant when she missed her period and doctors found the embryo growing inside her womb despite the IUCD still being in place.

By the time she delivered, the IUCD had become lodged in her placenta.

After labor, doctors snapped photos of the newborn holding the IUCD to mark the special event and let his parents take it home as a joyful souvenir.

Copper IUCDs have a failure rate of about 0.8 percent while hormonal (levonorgestrel) devices fail about 0.2 percent of the time within the first year of use, according to a manual published by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, citing data from several U.S. health agencies.

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If it is true that Russia's military intelligence unit is putting out hits on U.S. military personnel, then they are terrible at their job. The violence they are allegedly inflicting on our soldiers is so inconsequential that the U.S. media rarely does any detailed reporting when a soldier falls in action in sand pits of Taliban-land.

Then there is this fact--the number of U.S. military personnel who died in the last six months in Afghanistan are dwarfed by the number of young black men killed in Chicago over the Memorial Day Holiday. If the Russians goal is to kill Americans they would be better off spending their money on the drug gangs that infest the American cities governed by Democrats. They would get more bang for their bucks. Only eight U.S. military personnel have died in Afghanistan in 2020 and only four of those were killed in "hostile" engagements. The other four succumbed to accidents. Twenty six U.S. military personnel died in Afghanistan in 2019. Twenty of those were from hostile actions. ( Icasualties.org provides the details).

Let us start with this fact--the Taliban do not need a financial incentive to kill U.S. military personnel. They have willingly taken up that cause for more than 20 years.

Anyone who embraces the stupid and absurd claim that Russia's military intelligence outfit, the GRU, is paying (has been paying) the Taliban to kill U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan, is either guilty of ignorance or congenitally retarded. It is that simple. There is not gray area here. The claim is a lie.

And then there are the actual peace talks with the Taliban that, despite dire warnings that this was a fools errand, appears to have paid off. U.S. forces are not being besieged nor savaged at their outposts in Afghanistan.

The Democrats supposed concern for the lives of U.S. military personnel fighting in foreign shit-holes stands in stark contrast to their silence about the mass slaughter of young black men in the major U.S. cities that have been ruled by Democrat politicians for more than a generation. Compare the murder body count in these cities (comprised largely of young, black males) with the U.S. soldiers allegedly killed in Afghanistan because of a Russian bounty--2124 U.S. citizens murdered in the United States in 2019 vice 20 U.S. soldiers killed in combat in Afghanistan:

New York City 2019--318

Philadelphia 2019--356, Blacks made up 85 percent of those killed, even though they make up about 41.5 percent of the citys population.

Baltimore 2019--348, Blacks made up 93% of those killed.

Washington, DC 2019--166, More than 80% of those killed were black.

Chicago 2019--490, More than 80% of those killed were black.

Detroit 2019--273. More than 80% were black.

St. Louis 2019--194, 90% of homicide victims were African American.

Oakland 2019--74, Majority were black.

Los Angeles 2019--253.

You are a 19 year old black man and want to see your 20th birthday, join the military and ask to be deployed to Afghanistan. You will be safer.

The movement of money through Russian banks to Afghan accounts tied to the Taliban should not shock anyone. It is called proceeds from heroin. After more than 20 years of spilling the blood of U.S. warriors in Afghanistan, we have made no dent in the production, distribution and sale of heroin, which is funding warlords and corrupt politicians alike in Afghanistan. This is not Russian bounty money. This is U.S. funded mayhem. Every America who buys heroin or some version of the drug on the streets is helping put money in the pockets of fanatics like the Taliban.

Fortunately, the money is so good that the Taliban are pulling their punches in going after U.S. troops. The Taliban make more from selling dope to the world than the Russian could ever offer. As long as the U.S. leaves the poppy fields alone, there is little incentive to attack us.

The behavior of the Democrats and some Republicans in accepting the damnable lie that the U.S. has solid, reliable intelligence about a Russian scheme to fund the Taliban to kill Americans is dangerous. The incessant cry about the non-existent Russian wolf is fraught with peril. At a minimum, it puts the Russians in the position of believing that these so-called political leaders are serious about picking a fight with Moscow and killing Russians. Russia is not going to sit back and be a punching bag for fools obsessed with ridding Washington, DC of Donald Trump.

The so-called intelligence officers, the faux journalists and the craven politicians are putting our nation at risk by spreading a lie and smearing Donald Trump. This cannot stand.
Days after the June 21 incident, founder Alex Smith said managers had made a mistake in turning the family away, and fired two managers involved. In an interview with The Baltimore Sun, Smith said he hoped for the chance to make amends to Dallas and wished to mentor him. The restaurant group also dropped the dress code at two of its properties in the Four Seasons Hotel and scaled back dress codes elsewhere.
The ABC has launched an initiative to raise awareness and support for the mental health to help those struggling with the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, bushfires and drought.

ABC Managing Director David Anderson said, With so many people saying their mental health has worsened of late, they are looking to the ABC to help them through these unsettling times.

Even as restrictions ease, the psychological aftershocks of coronavirus will linger for months to come. ABC Your Mental Health, in partnership with Lifeline and Kids Helpline, will raise awareness about issues affecting all Australians and drive a national conversation about how they can look after themselves and each other.

John Brogden, Lifeline Australia Chairman, said: The ABCs emphasis on the importance of connection will help save lives. We can never underestimate the power we have to connect with another person and the positive difference that can make. I congratulate the ABC for encouraging Australians to maintain their wellbeing and continue to reach out to those around us.

Craig Scarr, National Marketing Manager of yourtown (which provides Kids Helpline), said: Kids Helpline has been hit with rising demand for counselling services during the coronavirus pandemic, with children and young people contacting the service with issues around mental health, emotional wellbeing and physical health concerns.

Being involved in Your Mental Health with the ABC will enhance awareness about these issues by providing resources to help children and young people manage the psychological effects of the pandemic and a looming recession.

For more ABC Your Mental Health content, visit abc.net.au from 5 July

From 5-11 July, ABC Your Mental Health, in partnership with Lifeline and Kids Helpline, will support thousands of Australians struggling with issues such as anxiety, depression and stress during these challenging times.

With many people feeling their mental health has worsened this year*, the ABC will deliver trusted content across its television, radio and digital services, such as ABC iview and listen, to show all Australians that small changes can make a big difference to their wellbeing, including:

Mental health monologues by prominent Australians  including Hamish Blake, Steph Tisdell and Benjamin Law  for ABC iview, ABC social media and The Drum.

ABC Local Radios happiness exercises, comedy festival highlights, joy drops and Your Good Vibrations listener polls of the songs that make them happy.

Music for your wellbeing and mood across Double J, triple j Unearthed and ABC Classic.

Interviews and tips on ABC social media channels, including Sammy Js happiness exercises and Cuppa with Kumi and ABC Health features on Instagram.

Specialist RN content, including fitness challenges on Life Matters and Sporty.

Landline reports on care farms and equine therapy in regional areas.

ABC Science digital explores young peoples mental health, while Compass looks at an initiative to combat intergenerational issues, including mental illness.

Information and analysis across ABC News digital and broadcast, including News Breakfast and 7pm bulletins.

ABC Arts No Time For Quiet documentary about girls following their passion for making music.

iviews Your Mental Health collection includes Man Up and The Agony of the Mind.

If you need support, please call:

Lifeline on 13 11 14

Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800

* The ABS Household Impacts of COVID-19 Survey, released in May 2020, found that loneliness was the most widely reported source of personal stress for Australians during April, affecting more women (28%) than men (16%).

*A study by the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, released in May 2020, found a substantial increase in levels of psychological distress as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among young Australian adults aged 18 to 34.

Related
Australian Federal Police have sent a brief of evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, to consider charging an ABC journalist for publishing classified information over stories on potential war crimes.

ABC journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark were first notified they were under investigation nearly two years ago, after publishing The Afghan Files. The investigation led to the AFPs dramatic raid of the ABCs Sydney headquarters last year.

The brief of evidence only relates to Oakes, not Clark.

But special protections for journalists mean Attorney-General Christian Porter would need to draw upon powers introduced last year.

The Australian Federal Police received a referral on 11 July, 2017, from the Chief of the Defence Force and the then-acting secretary for defence in relation to the broadcast and publication of information assessed as classified material, an AFP spokesman said.

A brief of evidence has now been forwarded to the Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

ABC managing director David Anderson said, The Afghan Files is factual and important reporting, which exposed allegations about Australian soldiers committing war crimes in Afghanistan. Its accuracy has never been challenged.

The ABC fully backs Dan and we will continue to support him however we can.

Doing accurate journalism that is clearly in the public interest should not be an offence.

Would just like to point out at this moment that whether or not we are ever charged or convicted over our stories, the most important thing is that those who broke our laws and the laws of armed conflict are held to account. Our nation should be better https://t.co/dBYSXpn3z7  Dan Oakes (@DanielMOakes) July 2, 2020

Updated:

MEAA Media federal president Marcus Strom said: Its particularly cruel that Dan, and his colleague, Sam Clark, have had to wait so long to learn what will happen to them.

Its three years since the Afghan Files story broke and a year since the AFP raid. And yet, government agencies have moved with greater speed against a whistleblower and a journalist than they have in their investigation into the alleged war crimes, Strom said.

The ABCs journalism clearly embarrassed the Government and the Department of Defence because they had classified the war crimes allegations as secret so it could be hidden from the public. In fact, the story needed to be told because it was clearly in the public interest. We now know, from subsequent news stories, that there are multiple allegations of war crimes under investigation. And yet it is the truth tellers who face jail time, Strom said.

We should never forget that the AFP used a dangerously wide-reaching search warrant when it raided the ABC. It allowed the AFP to add, copy, delete or alter material in the ABCs computers. Such powers in the pursuit of whistleblowers and the criminalisation of legitimate public interest journalism should have no place in our democracy, he said.

The Attorney-General must drop any prosecution of Dan Oakes because the revelations in The Afghan Files have been proved to be in the public interest. And the Government must reform the bad laws it has introduced in the past seven years that fail to protect whistleblowers and that criminalise journalism, Strom said.

Source: ABC

Related
Nationwide News has lost an appeal against Geoffrey Rush, awarding the actor a record $2.9m defamation payout.

The Federal Court of Australia agreed with the original ruling that the Daily Telegraphs publications conveyed the imputation that Rush was a pervert.

Justices Jacqueline Gleeson, Richard White, Michael Wheelahan rejected all grounds of appeal for the newspaper, including for a retrial, that costs be reduced and that it defamed Rush.

The 2017 stories alleged Rush behaved inappropriately towards Eryn Jean Norvill, his co-star in the Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear.

He denied the claims.

The appeal court also rejected all of the Telegraphs arguments that the primary judge had overestimated how much work Rush would have lost as a result of the articles and the emotional impact of the defamatory claims.

This brings to a close a long-running and public case for Geoffrey Rush, who will be awarded the full $2.9m in damages the largest defamation payout to a single person in Australian history. The payout includes $850,000 in general and aggravated damages, $1.9 million for past and future economic loss, and $42,000 in interest.

This post updates.

Source: The Guardian, ABC

Related
NITV channel manager Tanya Denning Orman has been appointed SBS Head of Indigenous content.

She will oversee the development and delivery of First Nations storytelling across the SBS network.

This is the first time SBS has had a head of Indigenous content and follows a troubling week in which the broadcaster came under fire for workplace culture from former Indigenous staff.

Tanya Denning Orman joined NITV in 2007 as a commissioning editor and was appointed channel manager in 2012 when it became part of SBS. A Birri and Guugu Yimidhirr woman from North Queensland she is one of the youngest television executives in Australia

She continues as channel manager at NITV in addition to her new duties for SBS.

Related
Tyler, TX (75702)

Today

Mixed clouds and sun with scattered thunderstorms. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 88F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 68F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Trondheim, 1 July 2020: NORBIT, a global provider of tailored technology to carefully selected niches, today announces that the company has been awarded a major order from a governmental customer in North America.



The order includes multiple NORBIT multibeam sonar systems, iWBMSh STX, which is a turnkey multibeam sonar system to be used for 3D and 4D bathymetric surveys and seafloor mapping. The value of the order is approximately NOK 11 million and the order is expected to be delivered from the Oceans segment during the third quarter this year.

For more information, please contact:

Per Jrgen Weisethaunet, CEO, +47 959 62 915

Charlotte Knudsen, IR and Communications, +47 9756 1959



About NORBIT ASA

NORBIT is a global provider of tailored technology to carefully selected niches. The companys business is structured to address its key markets; Oceans, targeting the global maritime markets, Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS), offering connectivity solutions for truck applications, and Product Innovation and Realization (PIR), with in-house multidisciplinary R&D and manufacturing.



NORBIT is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, with manufacturing facilities in Selbu and Rros, Norway and 12 offices and subsidiaries around the world.



For more information: www.norbit.com

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.




Further enhances investor protection being centrally cleared (CCP)



1 July 2020 - Frankfurt and Zurich - The world-leading issuer of crypto ETPs, 21Shares AG, is officially listing its 21Shares Bitcoin ETP (ISIN: CH0454664001 - WKN: A2T64E) on the official market of Deutsche Borses Xetra electronic venue on Thursday July 2nd 2020. 21Shares AG has been present in the German market since the dual listing of seven of its ETPs on Borse Stuttgart since January 2020.

ABTC - with a track record of over 1.5 years and charging a low 1.49% management fee - leaped institutional acceptance of the digital asset industry forward by being the first ETP listed on a regulated stock exchange (the largest Swiss stock exchange). Inspired by the pioneering work from the 21Shares team, other issuers followed suit with similar structures replicating the original Bitcoin ETP issued by 21Shares.



Laurent Kssis, Managing Director at 21Shares AG, says: Our products have been available in Germany since we set foot at the beginning of the year thanks to all our German partners that made it possible. The listing on Xetra not only strengthens our current position in Germany but also opens up institutional-grade crypto products to the wider European and international markets. We look forward to bringing more novel asset classes to more demanding investors. Crypto is now ever more easy to access



Michael Lie, Head of Digital Assets at Flow Traders, says: Flow Traders has been working with 21Shares since November 2018 and views the increasing amount of crypto ETPs being listed in Europe as an extremely positive development for the market. As such it was a natural decision for us to participate as the Designated Sponsor on one of Europes largest exchanges. We are delighted to continue this effort and support 21Shares.



This is not 21Shares first foray into regulated markets which complements an already successful accolade of listings on European stock exchanges including the first institutional-grade crypto basket (HODL) in November 2018. According to management, 21Shares anticipates to further dual list its signatory crypto basket ETP HODL (ISIN: CH0445689208) once it gets regulatory clearance. In an otherwise unregulated crypto market, 21Shares AG continues to bring more transparency, protection, and integrity to investors by listing their fully-collateralized crypto ETPs on regulated stock exchanges.



Story continues

21Shares has already a presence in Germany with its third global office staffed by 4 employees. As a result, it plans to accelerate more listings of its crypto ETPs. ABTC delivers physical bitcoin exposure already for more than a year and the central clearing counterparty (CCP) will only reinforce investors' concerns regarding security and clearing matters.

About 21Shares

21Shares makes investing in crypto assets as easy as buying shares using your conventional broker or bank. Investors can invest in cryptocurrencies using a conventional ETP structure (or tracker) easily, with total confidence and security, cost-effectively thanks to the 21Shares suite of ETPs launched by 21Shares and now composed of 11 Crypto ETPs : the 21Shares Crypto Basket Index ETP (HODL:SW), 21Shares Bitcoin (ABTC:SW), 21Shares Ethereum (AETH:SW), 21Shares XRP (AXRP:SW), 21Shares Bitcoin Cash ETP (ABCH:SW), 21Shares Binance ETP (ABNB:SW), 21Shares Tezos ETP (AXTZ:SW), 21shares Bitcoin Suisse ETP (ABBA:SW), 21Shares Bitwise 10 ETP (KEYS:SW), Sygnum Platform Winners Index ETP (MOON:SW) and 21Shares Short Bitcoin ETP (SBTC:SW). The entire suite is listed on a regulated framework on the official market of Deutsche Boerse, SIX Swiss Exchange, BX Swiss and some on Boerse Stuttgart in CHF, USD, GBP and EUR respectively. Founded in 2018, 21Shares is led by a team of talented serial entrepreneurs and experienced banking professionals from the technology and financial world. Incorporated in Zug, with offices in Zurich, Berlin and New York, the company has launched several world firsts, including the first listed crypto index (HODL) in November 2018. 21Shares has 11 crypto ETPs listed today and has over $60 million in AuM in total listed.

Press Contact 21Shares

Laurent Kssis +41 44 260 86 60 press@21Shares.com

Disclaimer

This document and the information contained herein are not for distribution in or into (directly or indirectly) the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan or any other jurisdiction in which the distribution or release would be unlawful. This document does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in or into the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan.

This document does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase, any securities in the United States. The securities of 21Shares AG to which these materials relate have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. There will not be a public offering of securities in the United States.

This document is only being distributed to and is only directed at: (i) to investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order"); or (ii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"); or (iv) persons who fall within Article 43(2) of the Order, including existing members and creditors of the Company or (v) any other persons to whom this document can be lawfully distributed in circumstances where section 21(1) of the FSMA does not apply. The Securities are only available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such securities will be engaged in only with, relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents.

In any EEA Member State (other than the Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden) that has implemented the Prospectus Regulation (EU) 2017/1129, together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State, the "Prospectus Regulation") this communication is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of the Prospectus Regulation. Exclusively for potential investors in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden the 2019 Base Prospectus (EU) is made available on the Issuers website under www.21Shares.com. The approval of the 2019 Base Prospectus (EU) should not be understood as an endorsement by the SFSA of the securities offered or admitted to trading on a regulated market. Eligible potential investors should read the 2019 Base Prospectus (EU) and the relevant Final Terms before making an investment decision in order to understand the potential risks associated with the decision to invest in the securities. You are about to purchase a product that is not simple and may be difficult to understand.

This document is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for securities of 21Shares AG. Neither this document nor anything contained herein shall form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any offer or commitment whatsoever in any jurisdiction.

This document constitutes advertisement within the meaning of the Swiss Financial Services Act (the "FinSA") and not a prospectus. In accordance with article 109 of the Swiss Financial Services Ordinance, the Base Prospectus dated 13 November 2019, as supplemented from time to time (the "Base Prospectus") and the final terms for SBTC dated 22 January 2020 (the "Final Terms", and together with the Base Prospectus, the "Prospectus") have been prepared in compliance with articles 652a and 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, as such articles were in effect immediately prior to the entry into effect of the FinSA, and the Listing Rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange in their version in force as of January 1, 2020. Consequently, the Prospectus has not been and will not be reviewed or approved by a Swiss review body pursuant to article 51 of the FinSA, and does not comply with the disclosure requirements applicable to a prospectus approved by such a review body under the FinSA. Copies of the Prospectus are available free of charge from the website of the Issuer. Subject to applicable securities laws, the Base Prospectus and the final terms of any product mentioned herein can be obtained from 21Shares AG on the website.

Copies of this document may not be sent to jurisdictions, or distributed in or sent from jurisdictions, in which this is barred or prohibited by law. The information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, in any jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any jurisdiction.








The national historic landmark we are charged with stewarding should be reflective of our values of equality and opportunity for all, Bond said in a statement. We are not erasing history. Nor is it our intention to minimize the service and sacrifice of the men and women who have served with honor aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Taney. Our intention is to learn from history and celebrate the legacy of the ship and those who served aboard.
PAION AG / Key word(s): Regulatory Approval

PAION ANNOUNCES U.S. FDA APPROVAL OF REMIMAZOLAM (BYFAVO) FOR THE INDUCTION AND MAINTENANCE OF PROCEDURAL SEDATION





Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



PAION ANNOUNCES U.S. FDA APPROVAL OF REMIMAZOLAM (BYFAVOTM) FOR THE INDUCTION AND MAINTENANCE OF PROCEDURAL SEDATION - PAION will receive a milestone payment of EUR 15 million from Cosmo and tiered royalties on net sales ranging from 20% to 25% - Acacia, who will commercialize BYFAVOTM (remimazolam) in the U.S., is planning to launch in the second half of 2020

Aachen (Germany), 02 July 2020 - The specialty pharma company PAION AG (ISIN DE000A0B65S3; Frankfurt Stock Exchange Prime Standard: PA8) today announces that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved BYFAVOTM (remimazolam) for the induction and maintenance of procedural sedation in adults undergoing procedures lasting 30 minutes or less. BYFAVOTM is a very rapid onset/offset intravenous benzodiazepine sedative for use during invasive medical procedures lasting 30 minutes or less, such as colonoscopy and bronchoscopy. Approximately 25 million such procedures take place annually in the U.S., of which ~90% use moderate sedation. Remimazolam is also in development for general anesthesia. PAION has developed BYFAVOTM including the conduct of three Phase III clinical studies and granted Cosmo Pharmaceuticals NV (Cosmo) exclusive rights to develop and commercialize BYFAVOTM for the U.S. market in 2016. In January 2020, Acacia Pharma sub-licensed the commercial rights to BYFAVO in the U.S. from Cosmo. Under the terms of the agreement with Cosmo, PAION will receive a milestone payment of EUR 15 million from Cosmo and is entitled to tiered royalties on net sales in the U.S. ranging from 20% to 25%, which may be adjusted under certain conditions but cannot fall below 15% of net sales. End of inside information Information and Explanation of the Issuer to this News:



The safety of BYFAVOTM was evaluated in three pivotal studies in 669 patients undergoing colonoscopy (two studies) or bronchoscopy (one study), of whom 630 received BYFAVOTM. In these studies, the most common adverse reactions (incidence greater than 10%) following BYFAVOTM administration were hypotension, hypertension, diastolic hypertension, systolic hypertension, hypoxia, and diastolic hypotension. The labeling for BYFAVOTM includes a Boxed Warning regarding appropriate training of personnel and equipment that must be available when administering BYFAVOTM, during sedation and during the recovery period of the procedure. The Boxed Warning also addresses risks from concomitant use of BYFAVOTM with opioid analgesics and other sedative hypnotics. Acacia Pharma's first product, BARHEMSYS(R) (amisulpride injection), was approved by the FDA on 26 February 2020 for the treatment and prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) in adult patients and the company intends to launch both BARHEMSYS(R) and BYFAVOTM in the U.S. during the second half of 2020. About remimazolam

Remimazolam is an ultra-short-acting intravenous benzodiazepine sedative/anesthetic. In the human body, remimazolam is rapidly metabolized to an inactive metabolite by tissue esterases and is not metabolized by cytochrome-dependent hepatic pathways. Like other benzodiazepines, remimazolam can be reversed with flumazenil to rapidly terminate sedation or anesthesia if necessary. In clinical studies, remimazolam demonstrated efficacy and safety in around 2,900 volunteers and patients. Data so far indicate that remimazolam has a rapid onset and offset of action combined with a favorable cardio-respiratory safety profile. In Japan, licensee Mundipharma received market approval in general anesthesia in January 2020. In the U.S., licensee Cosmo Pharmaceuticals received market approval in procedural sedation in July 2020. In China, licensee Yichang Humanwell filed for market approval in procedural sedation in November 2018. In South Korea, licensee Hana Pharm filed for market approval in general anesthesia in December 2019. In Europe, PAION submitted a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in procedural sedation in November 2019 and results of an EU Phase III trial in general anesthesia are expected in the second half of 2020. In addition to procedural sedation and general anesthesia, based on positive Phase II study results, ICU sedation is another possible indication for remimazolam. Remimazolam is partnered in the U.S. (brand name BYFAVOTM) with Cosmo Pharmaceuticals, sublicensed to Acacia Pharma, in Japan (brand name Anerem(R)) with Mundipharma, in China with Yichang Humanwell, in Canada with Pharmascience, in Russia/CIS, Turkey and the MENA region with R-Pharm, and in South Korea and Southeast Asia with Hana Pharm. For all other markets including parts of the EU, remimazolam is available for licensing. About PAION

PAION AG is a publicly listed specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative drugs for out-patient and hospital-based sedation, anesthesia and critical care services. PAION's lead compound is remimazolam, an intravenous, ultra-short-acting and controllable benzodiazepine sedative/anesthetic. Remimazolam is partnered in multiple territories outside of Europe. Remimazolam was approved in the U.S. for procedural sedation in July 2020 and was approved in Japan for general anesthesia in January 2020. In China, licensee Yichang Humanwell filed for market approval in procedural sedation in November 2018 and in South Korea, licensee Hana Pharm filed for market approval for remimazolam in general anesthesia in December 2019. In Europe, PAION is seeking approval of remimazolam for general anesthesia and for procedural sedation. PAION submitted a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for procedural sedation in November 2019. Results of a Phase III trial in general anesthesia are expected in the second half of 2020. PAION's mission is to be a leading specialty pharmaceutical company in the fields of anesthesia and critical care by bringing novel products to market to benefit patients, doctors & other stakeholders in healthcare. PAION is headquartered in Aachen (Germany) with an additional site in Cambridge (United Kingdom). Contact

Ralf Penner

Vice President Investor Relations/Public Relations

PAION AG

Martinstrasse 10-12

52062 Aachen - Germany

Phone +49 241 4453-152

E-mail r.penner@paion.com

www.paion.com



Disclaimer:

This release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning the future business of PAION AG. These forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the current expectations, estimates and projections of PAION AG's management as of the date of this release. They are subject to a number of assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Should actual conditions differ from the Company's assumptions, actual results and actions may differ materially from any future results and developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Considering the risks, uncertainties and other factors involved, recipients should not rely unreasonably upon these forward-looking statements. PAION AG has no obligation to periodically update any such forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments. 02-Jul-2020 CET/CEST The DGAP Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.dgap.de


Quadient Continues to Give Support for Charitable Programs Providing Relief to Communities Impacted by COVID-19

Paris, July 2, 2020

Quadient , a leader in helping businesses create meaningful customer connections through digital and physical channels, shares an update on global initiatives to support communities impacted by the coronavirus. Supporting communities is an intregal part of Quadients Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy, as the company continues to encourage its employees to support and contribute to positive change in their communities.

Social distancing due to COVID-19 has resulted in many elderly residents in long-term care facilities becoming isolated from their loved ones. In its latest initiative, Quadient has donated various equipment, supplies, services, together with 12,500 in financial support, to multiple organizations in the U.S., France and the U.K. that are fighting social isolation faced by the elderly and enabling senior residents to send letters written by volunteers to loved ones.

 1 Lettre 1 Sourire

Words of love, photos or drawings are created by volunteers to light up the hearts of visit-deprived senior residents living in facilities in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Canada.

 Love for the Elderly

The organizations Letters of Love campaign collects cards and letters written by volunteers at a central hub in Cleveland, Ohio, and then mails them to senior communities across the U.S.

 Omegas A Letter from Louise

Volunteer letter writers are matched with an elderly recipient in the UK. A freepost envelope is included so the recipient can write a return letter.

Unfortunately, the current restrictions are hitting Omega clients harder than most. We are, therefore, extremely grateful for the generous package of support offered by Quadient, which will make a huge difference at a difficult time, said Carol Moody, team leader, A Letter from Louise. Not only have we incurred increased costs of working, but we also have had the most welcome extra responsibility of managing a groundswell of kindness by volunteers and their offers of help.

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This initiative is one of many efforts undertaken by Quadients employees in this difficult time. In the Czech Republic, Quadients team of software professionals have dedicated their time and skills to develop software on a pro bono basis for University Hospital Hradec Kralove. In the U.K., Quadient has provided 3D printing of thousands of protective masks and raised funds for National Health Service Charities in the UK through a run/walk event. These initiatives follow the announcements earlier this year of financial support and volunteerism dedicated to Dress For Success Worldwide, which is empowering women to achieve economic independence as economies reopen, and solidarity initiatives to support the employees during the crisis.

One of our core values at Quadient is community. I am proud of Quadients contributions in response to the spread of COVID-19, and how our employees around the world have volunteered their time and resources to help relief efforts in their local communities, said Geoffrey Godet, CEO, Quadient. During these exceptional times, when we have had to physically distance ourselves from each other, our purpose at Quadientto simplify the connections between people and what mattersis more crucial than ever before.

About Quadient

Quadient is the driving force behind the worlds most meaningful customer experiences. By focusing on four key solution areas including Customer Experience Management, Business Process Automation, Mail-Related Solutions, and Parcel Locker Solutions, Quadient helps simplify the connection between people and what matters. Quadient supports hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide in their quest to create relevant, personalized connections and achieve customer experience excellence. Quadient is listed in compartment B of Euronext Paris (QDT) and is part of the CAC Mid & Small index.

For more information about Quadient, visit quadient.com .

Contacts

Joe Scolaro, Quadient Sandy Armstrong, Sterling Kilgore Global Press Relations Manager Account Executive +1-866-883-4260 Ext. 1590 +1-630-964-8500 j.scolaro@quadient.com sarmstrong@sterlingkilgore.com

Attachment




01 July 2020, Limassol, Cyprus

The directors of SeaBird Exploration Plc (The Company) hereby give notice of an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the shareholders to be held on 16 Jul 2020 at 11.00 (local time) at Diagoras House 7th Floor, 16 Pantelis Catelaris Street, CY 1097 Nicosia, Cyprus.

Two of the largest shareholders in the Company, Anderson Invest AS and Vatne Equity AS, have expressed their interest in being represented on the companys Board of Directors with a joint representative. The Board of Directors welcomes the initiative, and has as a consequence proposed to increase the number of directors in the company by one, to a total of five, and the companys Nomination Committee has nominated Mr. Hans Christian Anderson to become a director of the company.

Further, in view of the Company`s efforts to cut costs, the Board of Directors has decided that the remuneration to each director shall be reduced so that the total remuneration to the board of directors remains unchanged following the expansion of the board.

The EGM notice contains proposed changes to the board of directors as well as the nomination committee. The agenda and other relevant documents distributed to the shareholders are attached to this announcement and will also be listed on the companys web-page: www.sbexp.com.

Contacts:

Stale Rodahl

Executive Chairman

+47 4840 0593

SeaBird is a global provider of marine acquisition of seismic data. SeaBird specializes in safe, high quality, and efficient operations within the 2D and source vessel segments, as well as in the shallow water segment. All statements in this press release other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, and are based upon assumptions as to future events that may not prove accurate. These factors include SeaBird`s reliance on a cyclical industry and the utilization of the company's vessels. Actual results may differ substantially from those expected or projected in the forward-looking statements.

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This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

Attachments




By Arno Schuetze and Alexander Hubner

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Police and public prosecutors raided Wirecard's <WDIG.DE> headquarters in Munich and four properties in German and Austria on Wednesday as they widened their investigation into the financial payments company that collapsed last week.

Wirecard filed for insolvency last week owing creditors almost $4 billion after disclosing a 1.9 billion euro ($2.1 billion) hole in its accounts that its auditor EY said was the result of a sophisticated global fraud.

The implosion of a financial technology company once seen as one of the hottest prospects in Europe has led to political finger-pointing in Germany and new investigations into potential financial skullduggery from the Philippines to Mauritius.

German prosecutors said on Wednesday they were widening their investigation to include suspected fraud, in addition to market manipulation and falsifying of accounts.

They are also now investigating Wirecard's Chief Financial Officer Alexander von Knoop and Chief Product Officer Susanne Steidl, in addition to former Chief Executive Markus Braun and operations boss Jan Marsalek.

None of the four could immediately be reached for comment.

Braun, who is Austrian, was arrested last week and released on bail. Germany has issued an arrest warrant for Marsalek, who was last believed to be in the Philippines. His lawyer declined to comment. Von Knoop and Steidl were still working for Wirecard, according to recent information from the company.

In parliament, the head of Germany's financial regulator BaFin defended its record in the face of criticism that its supervision of Wirecard was lax.

'ROUND-TRIPPING'

BaFin, which oversaw Wirecard's banking subsidiary, has taken most of the flak for the scandal so far. Sources have told Reuters that regulators discussed labelling Wirecard a financial holding company in 2017 and 2019, which would have allowed BaFin greater scrutiny, but took no action.

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BaFin President Felix Hufeld told lawmakers in a closed-door session the decision not to change Wirecard's status was taken with the Bundesbank and European Central Bank (ECB), according to his spokeswoman, who stressed Hufeld did not blame the ECB.

The Bundesbank and the ECB both declined to comment.

The central bank and financial services regulator in Mauritius said on Wednesday they had launched an investigation into whether Wirecard was linked to "round-tripping" with an entity registered in the offshore African financial centre.

Round-tripping is a kind of accounting fraud that entails booking fake transactions with counterparties that appear to be at arms length but are not, and is typically undertaken by companies seeking to inflate reported revenues.

Wirecard's administrator Michael Jaffe, meanwhile, has started scouting for potential buyers of the company's assets to recoup some money for creditors. He said investors from around the world had contacted him already.

Wirecard's U.S. subsidiary - which was Citi Prepaid Card Services before Wirecard bought it in 2016 - has already been put on the block.

Investment banking boutique Moelis has been hired to find a buyer for the U.S. business while Alvarez & Marsal is sounding out interest in Wirecard's UK subsidiary, according to people familiar with the matter.

Alvarez & Marsal declined to comment while Moelis was not immediately available for comment.

"For any buyer, the most interesting aspect may be Wirecard's customer list and the contracts for processing payments for credit card firms," one investment banker said.

LOSING PATIENCE

Wirecard, which was founded in 1999, started out handling payments for gambling and adult websites and now processes payments for major global companies including Visa <V.N> and Mastercard <MA.N>.

Jaffe has started marketing Wirecard's assets to rivals such as Ingenico <INGC.PA>, Adyen <ADYEN.AS>, Worldline <WLN.PA> and Nets, as well as to banks and private equity groups, though time was of the essence, people familiar with the matter said.

"Key customers and employees are starting to turn their backs on Wirecard, significantly reducing its value. If Visa and Mastercard pull out it's game over," one of the people said.

While some of the operating assets were expected to find new homes, the fate of Wirecard's bank - which has been ring-fenced to prevent any outflow of cash - remains unclear.

"Wirecard Bank is still not insolvent. Payouts to merchants and customers of Wirecard Bank are being executed without restrictions," the administrator said.

While the administrator may recover some money from selling Wirecard's assets, some creditors are losing patience.

British bank Lloyds <LLOY.L> sold a 120 million euro tranche of Wirecard's revolving credit facility to 10 investors at about 17 cents on the euro, a person close to the matter said, adding that others creditors were also trying to offload loans.

German asset manager Union Investment, which had big investment in Wirecard, followed other investors in saying it was considering legal action.

Wirecard bondholders are also discussing whether or not they can take legal action against the banks that organised the sale of the securities, according to a source close to the investors.

(Additional reporting by Christian Kraemer, Hans Seidenstuecker, Abhinav Ramnayaran, Tom Arnold, John O'Donnell; Editing by Douglas Busvine and David Clarke)
The plan from the beginning was for Sarah Stein to give birth at Ruber International Hospital in Madrid, where the Steins have lived on military orders since August.

But this was before COVID-19, before the global pandemic was declared, before Spain became a coronavirus hotspot, and before Sarah and her husband, Air Force Major Chris Stein, contracted the illness.

Read Next: Cluster of COVID-19 Cases in US Troops Emerges at Kuwaiti Air Base

Lives have been upended worldwide by the pandemic, and sadly, thousands have died. But amid the hospitalizations, lockdown orders, lost wages, restlessness, rancor and stress, there are small successes and triumphs, like Sarah and Chris Stein's, who didn't know they had it in them to deliver a baby at home, without help, in the middle of a raging plague.

"It turns out that that birth is not this traumatic medical event for most people, for a healthy person. It's just a natural process that you have to be present with," said Chris Stein during a phone interview from his family's apartment near Plaza de Espana.

The Steins were looking forward to a three-year tour in Spain for an assignment at the Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy. They wanted their two daughters, Lorelai, 7, and Audrey, 4, to learn Spanish, and they knew that they would be adding to their family, with a third baby due on April 4.

Soon after settling into their apartment in December, however, reports of a new flu-like illness in Wuhan, China, began gaining attention. By the end of January, that city was sealed off. And in late February, the novel coronavirus turned up in northern Italy.

Three weeks after that, Chris Stein began to feel ill -- fatigue, chills, body aches, "just ripped," he said.

"I didn't know it was COVID at the time because that was when they were like 'Oh, you don't have to worry unless you have this really strong dry cough, high fever or have been in contact with someone from China or Northern Italy,' " he said.

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When Sarah lost her sense of smell days later and started feeling "off," the couple began to worry.

"From that point forward, it was like the most stressed experience we've had in our lives," Chris Stein recalled.

After Chris's boss tested positive for the virus, the couple was tested and found positive. With the baby due in just over two weeks, they called Sarah's obstetrician to find out what the protocol would be for a mother with the coronavirus.

The Steins learned that if Sarah tested positive during delivery, the baby would be taken from them and kept in isolation in the hospital.

For the couple, this was a horrifying thought -- a lost opportunity to nurture the baby in the first weeks of his or her life.

The two began praying the baby would arrive on the due date, when Sarah likely would test negative.

"How was Sarah going to nurse? How could she have skin-to-skin contact?" Chris asked. "We really are committed to those things."

The positive tests also affected their plan for childcare of Lorelai and Audrey during the birth. Since Chris and Sarah both had the virus, the girls likely carried it too, even though they tested negative. They couldn't be around others who didnt have COVID-19, so Chris's supervisor, Navy Capt. Jason Weddle, and his wife, Stacie Weddle, volunteered to take them.

Their entire household -- Jason, Stacie and three children -- had also been ill, from March 14 to March 26.

"That is what military families do -- we help each other out no matter what the cost," Stacie Weddle said in an email to Military.com. "We had stocked up on dry goods and frozen food and not left the house until it was time to pick up the Stein's girls."

The new plan was for Chris Stein to get retested on April 1, and if negative, let him take the baby home from the hospital. But on April 1, Sarah woke up with irregular contractions. She thought they were false labor because they were sporadic. Nevertheless, when they didn't stop, the Steins called the Weddles to pick up their girls, a drive Stacie said was the "most challenging aspect" of the ordeal for them.

"It was my first time out of the house since March 13. The roads were deserted and there was a general sense of abandonment on what normally are crowded highways and city streets. I had to go through two armed checkpoints -- one upon entering the city and one while leaving the city. I did not want the girls to be scared so I told them what a great job the policemen were doing keeping us safe," Stacie said.

At the Stein apartment, the contractions remained sporadic, coming 7 minutes apart and sometimes 2 minutes apart. When the doctor finally recommended they go to the hospital, Sarah stood, and her water broke. She felt the urge to push. "I was like, DON'T PUSH, DON'T PUSH! I'll grab the bag," Chris Stein said.

Sarah simply sat back down on the sofa. "If we leave now, we're having the baby in the car," Chris remembers her saying.

He grabbed some towels, and three contractions later, the baby "just came right out" into Chris's arms.

"It was so wild -- the biggest rush you can ever imagine in your life. I put her on Sarah's stomach and then when she started to cry, we knew she was healthy and safe. It was a huge relief," Chris Stein said.

Anyone who has ever had a baby or attended a birth knows the experience doesn't end with delivery of a squirming, squalling, tiny little human. The next part is really messy, involving the umbilical cord, delivery of the placenta and recovery care for the mother.

Chris ransacked a first aid kit he'd just received during a State Department medical class, finding it was "all for trauma like clotting massive wounds and tying off limbs" but "nothing in here I could use for a birth."

He didn't want to cut the umbilical cord without a doctor's supervision, but after Sarah delivered the placenta, and they decided to go to the hospital, Chris couldn't figure out how to carry the baby (still attached to the placenta) and the bucket holding the placenta AND help his wife to the car.

Thank God for Google. Chris found instructions on the internet and cut the cord.

When the couple arrived at the hospital, they were met by a team of doctors who wanted to take the baby and isolate her from Sarah until she tested negative for COVID-19 for at least 24 hours.

Not wanting to be separated from their newborn, they declined care. A pediatrician looked over the baby to make sure she was healthy and the trio returned home.

After the experience, Chris and Sarah decided that none of the names they'd picked for their new daughter were suitable. Turning once again to the internet, Chris Stein became drawn to the name Sadie, which he learned is a diminutive form of Sarah.

"After everything we went through with this baby, I hope she is half as strong as her mother. I definitely wanted her to have her mom's name," Chris said.

Today, the enlarged Stein family is settling into life in Spain under the new normal -- specified outdoor hours in the morning or late night for adult workouts, working from home and home- schooling, and taking their daughters outside during the hours set aside for "children's walk time."

The Weddles have adjusted too, with a son having flown to Spain after his university closed, conducting virtual visits to college campuses with another son and teleworking.

For Americans living overseas, the pandemic has been both "challenging and a benefit," Stacie Weddle said. It has drawn members of the military community even closer, she said, but they also are frustrated by what they see as "many European countries successfully managing outbreaks and quarantines while news from home reveals violence and protests over wearing masks."

But taking care of the Steins children and the home birth, she added "was the absolute best news we had in so long."

"It was heartwarming to be able to help out others at a time when we had been feeling at a loss as to how to help out our community from a place of quarantine," Stacie Weddle said.

Chris Stein said he and Sarah were very worried about having a baby during the pandemic, especially since early reports out of China were that women delivering babies who had COVID were getting very sick, being put on ventilators and given Cesarean sections.

A study released this week appeared to confirm the early anecdotal reports, finding that pregnant women are five times more likely to be hospitalized and 1.5 times more likely to be admitted to the ICU for COVID-19.

But as the birth was happening, their concerns evaporated, he said.

"Everything we deal with on a daily basis, on a yearly basis, like PCS moves, deployments -- all that prepares [military families] for the challenges in life. Military families are just strong," Chris Stein said.

While he doesn't recommend home birth for everyone, he does encourage other military families to "take control of their own health outcomes."

"Had we not done our own research and felt empowered to make our own decisions, we would have induced the day that we had a positive test. The baby would have been quarantined for 14 days away from us and everything that we had planned about 'skin-to-skin' and breastfeeding and all that kind of stuff would have been ruined," Chris said.

"You have to speak up. You have to do your own research."

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Related: DoDs COVID-19 Cases Pass 10,000 as Army Sees 31% Increase in a Week
When in 2010, former VC Michael Kim set out to raise a fund that he would invest in a spate of micro VC managers, the investors to which he turned didn't get it. Why pay Kim and his firm, Cendana Capital, a management fee on top of the management fees that the VC managers themselves charge?

Fast forward to today, and Kim has apparently proven to his backers that he's worth the extra cost. Three years after raising $260 million across a handful of vehicles whose capital he plugged into up-and-coming venture firms, Kim is now revealing a fresh $278 million in capital commitments, including $218 million for Cendana's fourth flagship fund, and $60 million that it will be managing expressly for the University of Texas endowment.

We talked with Kim last week about how he plans to invest the money, which differs slightly from how he has invested in the past.

Rather than stick solely with U.S.-based seed-stage managers who are raising vehicles of $100 million or less, he will split Cendana into three focus areas. One of these will remain seed-stage managers. A smaller area of focus -- but one of growing importance, he said -- is pre-seed managers who are managing $50 million or less and mostly funding ideas (and getting roughly 15% of each startup in exchange for the risk).

A third area of growing interest is in international managers in cities where seed-stage startups can now reliably find follow-on financial support. In fact, Kim says Cendana has already backed small venture firms in Australia (Blackbird Ventures), China (Cherubic Ventures, which is a cross-border investor that is also focused on the U.S.), Israel (Entree Capital) and India (Saama Capital), among other spots.

Altogether, Cendana is now managing around $1.2 billion. For its services, it charges its backers a 1% management fee and 10% of its profits atop the 2.5% management fee and 20% "carried interest" that his fund managers collect.

"To be extremely clear about it and transparent," said Kim, "that's a stacked fee that's on top of what our [VC] fund managers charge. So Cendana LPs are paying 3.5% and 30%." An observer "might think that seems pretty egregious," he continued. "But a number of our LPs are either not staffed to go address this market or are too large to actually write smaller checks to these seed funds. And we provide a pretty interesting value proposition to them."

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That's particularly true, Kim argues, when contrasting Cendana with other, bigger fund managers.

"A lot of these well-known fund of funds are asset gatherers," he says. "They're not charging carried interest. They're in it for the management fee. They have shiny offices around the world. They have hundreds of people working at them. They're raising billion-dollar-plus kind of funds. And they're putting 30 to 50 names into each one, so in a way they become index funds." The problem, says Kim: "I don't think venture is really an asset class. Unlike an ETF that's focused on the S&P 500, venture capital is where a handful of fund managers capture most of the alpha. Our differentiation is that we're creating very concentrated portfolios."

How concentrated? Cendana typically holds anchor positions in up to 12 funds, plus makes $1 million bets on another handful of more nascent managers that it will fund further if they prove out their theses.

Some of the managers that Cendana has backed have outgrown the outfit from an assets standpoint. Cendana caps its investments in funds that are $100 million or less in size. Over time, however, it has backed 22 seed-stage managers, including 11.2 Capital, Accelerator Ventures, Angular Ventures, Bowery Capital, Collaborative Fund, Forerunner Ventures, Founder Collective, Freestyle Capital, IA Ventures, L2 Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, MHS Capital, Montage Ventures, Moxxie Ventures, Neo, NextView Ventures, Silicon Valley Data Capital, Spider Capital, Susa Ventures, Uncork VC (when it was still SoftTech VC), Wave Capital and XYZ Ventures.

As for its pre-seed fund managers, Cendana has been the anchor investor in roughly 10 outfits, including Better Tomorrow Ventures, Bolt VC, Engineering Capital, K9 Ventures, Mucker Capital, Notation Capital, PivotNorth Capital, Rhapsody Venture Partners, Root Ventures and Wonder Ventures.

For those curious about its returns, Kim says that Cendana's very first fund, a $28.5 million vehicle, is "marked at north of 3x" and "that's net of everything."

He's optimistic that the firm's numbers will look even better over time.

According to Kim, Cendana currently has 38 so-called unicorns in its broader portfolio. It separately hold stakes in 160 companies that are valued at more than $100 million.
Australia has unveiled plans to dramatically tool-up its military as threats from China mount, but some see collapsing trust in the United States alliance as an underlying motivation. On paper, Australia's landmark defence review released Wednesday was all about a middle-ranking military power looking north at an increasingly belligerent emerging superpower and deciding it was time to get some of the world's most high-tech weapons. Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled plans to buy missiles that could strike targets thousands of kilometres away, step-up cyber capabilities and invest in things that could define future warfare like hypersonic missiles, lasers and battlefield robots. Australia's backyard, he said, had become the battleground of the 21st century and the country needed to wake up to the new reality. But beyond real concerns about Chinese hacking, territorial seizures, economic coercion and "grey-zone" operations just short of open warfare lay an unspoken acknowledgement: America's defence umbrella -- which had long offered protection from these threats -- is looking very leaky. "Australia is losing faith in the United States," Van Jackson, a former Pentagon official and expert on Asian security policy told AFP. Policy officials cannot publicly admit it, he said, "but that's clearly what this is all about". "It's not just that China's more aggressive in this region. It's China fears combined with US unreliability and strategic incompetence." - Changing of the guard - For much of the last century, Australian security relied on the United States. After independence from Britain, Australia actively supported the US-led rules-based order and its forces fought in wars from Vietnam to Iraq. In return, it got the protection of the world's preeminent nuclear power. But even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office and threatened to set fire to decades-old security treaties, Washington had shown an increased reluctance to play security guard for countries rich enough to afford their own defence. There is no guarantee the United States can continue to be a global policeman, even if it wanted to, observers note. "I think they've been a bit rattled by the sheer unpredictability and unreliability of President Trump," Sam Roggeveen, director of the international security programme at Sydney's Lowy Institute told AFP, referring to Australian policymakers. "But I think they also recognise that no matter who is in charge in Washington, that the shift in the strategic balance from a US-led system to one where China is the leading strategic and military power in the region is inevitable." "Our ally is not going to be in charge of the Asian strategic order over the long term. So we've got to prepare for that." In response, Roggeveen said, Canberra decided Australia would "take greater responsibility for our own security." That stops short of trying to develop an Australian nuclear deterrent, but "the intent here is to essentially make the costs of wanting to attack Australia too high," said Peter Jennings, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. "(It is) to strengthen our capacity for independent military operations and to sustain those operations over a lengthy period of time without drawing on the US alliance." But some worry Australia is entering an arena with enormous risk, and potentially opening the door to a conflict it cannot win and without commensurate investments in diplomacy and building alliances with other democracies. "The big conversation really that the government needs to have with the Australian people, is what kind of risks are we prepared to run and what kind of costs are we prepared to pay if we want to confront China on various issues," said Roggeveen. "If we're proposing to buy, or even to develop strike weapons... an adversary like China, they can throw that back at us multiplied by three, four or 10." "I think that would be an escalatory step, which would actually destabilise our region, and ultimately would actually make our region more dangerous for Australia."
Singapore Democratic Party chief Chee Soon Juan debated against Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in a televised broadcast featuring representatives from four political parties on 1 July 2020.

by Sean Lim

For me and many of my friends  first-time voters and fresh university graduates looking for jobs  the big winners from Wednesday evenings (1 July) televised general election (GE) debate were the Peoples Action Partys (PAP) Vivian Balakrishnan and Workers Partys (WP) Jamus Lim.

They have shown hope that it is possible to have mature and constructive political discourse in Singapore.

Who could have done better? Singapore Democratic Partys (SDP) Chee Soon Juan. I expected his performance to be on par with the robust standard of debate, given that he is a veteran politician who has been around since 1992. Not only did he appear overshadowed by his PAP and WP opponents, the combative and airing of grievances approach he took during the debate felt dated. It is not an approach younger voters like me resonate with.

Instead, many prefer the constructive approach as observed in the online support for Dr Lim. We were in awe of how sharp and eloquent WPs Lim, a 44-year-old economist, was in arguing his case. The foreign minister also showed that he is worth his salt, but I suspect Singaporeans are more stingy when it comes to praising the establishment.

Comparatively, Chees combative approach felt like something one would expect from  in millennial parlance  a boomer (not a good thing). It was reinforced when he flogged a dead horse during the debate, by bringing up Dr Balakrishnans overspend for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games, which was under his purview. Chee did so when the minister questioned him on the amount of money required for his proposed schemes on retrenchment benefit and income for the elderly.

Cmon, wasnt that issue done and dusted with two elections ago? Im not sure who Dr Chees target audience is but if it is the young voters, being overly confrontational is definitely not the way to go.

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Good jobs versus just jobs

Beyond the politicians performance, the debate threw up issues such as unemployment, social mobility, safety nets, and help for small and medium enterprises. As a first-time voter who recently graduated from the university, the most immediate concern for me is obviously jobs. I have sent applications to companies but did not make much headway. This isnt unexpected, given the gloomy job market due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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While it is reassuring to hear Dr Balakrishnan saying that jobs is a central focus in the PAPs campaign  he also reiterated the initiatives his government has introduced (cue traineeships and National Jobs Council)  I thought he missed Lims point on good jobs.

Granted, the PAP government did its part in creating jobs. Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said in the Fortitude Budget that 100,000 jobs will be created, which is three times the usual annual number. But as Lim said, It is not sufficient to have jobs  of course we want jobs  but we want good jobs, jobs that will enable workers to work with dignity.

I agree. Having a good job is important to me, and I treat it as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. I do not want a job just for the sake of keeping myself in the workforce, which was what Dr Balakrishan said. Or a position simply for me to tide through the pandemic. A productive job which brings about satisfaction and a decent salary is something I desire, but seemingly out of reach these days.

I wonder if these new jobs created match my career aspirations, and whether they remain useful after the economy has recovered. Also, with other working adults expected to be retrenched (or already retrenched), will there be enough jobs to go by for both school-leavers and retrenched workers?

Perhaps I might be expecting too much from the PAP. We are in an unprecedented crisis and I should just take any job out there first. But assuming I listened to such advice and be less choosy, will I end up in a job with a lower starting salary and will this then affect my pay throughout my career?

Unfortunately, these burning questions were not fleshed out by the political parties during the debate. I hope there will be more opportunities for politicians to discuss this further.

Id like to see more of such robust cut-and-thrust emerge in the next term of Parliament. I believe this is how the government can strengthen and defend its policies  convincing Singaporeans in the process instead of forcing people to accept them.



Sean Lim recently graduated with a political science degree from the National University of Singapore.

Follow Yahoo News Singapores GE2020 coverage here. Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at t.me/YahooSingapore

Other Singapore stories:

GE2020: PAP's Vivian, SDP's Chee engage in fiery debate live on national TV

GE2020: PAP candidate Tan See Leng clarifies directorship issue surfaced on social media

COMMENT: PAPs GE2020 tactics show ingenuity of GRC system

GE2020: Parties explain, analyse candidacy decisions as they begin campaigning

GE2020: E-rallies to be live-streamed from Suntec, 3 time slots per day
Demonstrators gathered in Moscows Pushkin Square on July 1 to protest proposed constitutional amendments, including one that would allow President Vladimir Putin to run for additional terms in office and stay in power until 2036, reports said.

This video shows a small group of protesters assembled in the central square of the city, with one demonstrator seen holding a sign at the foot of the statue of Pushkin.

Other amendments being voted on include adding articles promoting a patriotic education, reiterating the ban on same-sex marriage, and adding explicit mention of God to the constitution, according to the BBC. The weeklong election  which critics say has no proper monitoring or independent scrutiny  came to an end on July 1.

Russias Central Election Commission said on Twitter that, as of 8 pm Moscow time, turnout across the country was 65 percent, and roughly 72 percent of voters had supported the constitutional amendments. Credit: Mary_Rodina via Storyful
Reopening of Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea in Urayasu, Japan

(Reuters) - Japan's Fujifilm announced a deal with India's Dr Reddy's and Dubai-based Global Response Aid to sell its anti-flu drug Avigan for COVID-19 treatment globally excluding Japan, China and Russia.

Germany, in the meantime, said it has for now secured enough supplies of remdesivir, which is set to become the first COVID-19 treatment approved in Europe.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

* For a U.S.-focused tracker with state-by-state and county map, open https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Authorities will lock down more than 300,000 people in Melbourne's northern suburbs for a month from late on Wednesday after two weeks of double-digit rises in new cases in Victoria, Australia's second most populous state.

* The Kazakh government has proposed starting its second lockdown from July 5 and maintaining it for at least two weeks, after a sharp rise in new cases.

* South Korea has started distributing stocks of the COVID-19 treatment remdesivir that have been donated by Gilead Sciences Inc and plans to begin talks to buy more supplies in August.

EUROPE

* The British government will outline plans for air bridges later this week that will allow people to go on holiday to certain countries without facing quarantine on their return, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said.

* Poland's biggest coal producer, state-run PGG, said most of its infected miners have recovered from the coronavirus.

* Spain and Portugal officially reopened their joint border to all travelers after a three-month closure.

AMERICAS

* New cases in California rose by 8,441 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, the highest single-day increase since the start of the pandemic.

* Brazil will restrict the entry of foreigners to the country for 30 days, as death toll nears 60,000.

* Canada's official birthday celebrations for the first time will be completely online, it extends a global travel ban and a mandatory 14-day quarantine for most travelers to Canada, including citizens returning home.

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MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* President Tayyip Erdogan said that the European Union had treated Turkey in a restrictive way over the pandemic in what he said was a political stance.

* Child labour has increased in top grower Ivory Coast's cocoa sector during its lockdown, according to a report released by an industry-backed foundation.

* The United Nations raised $7.7 billion in humanitarian aid for Syria.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* A vaccine developed by German biotech firm BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has shown potential and was found to be well tolerated in early-stage human trials.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

* Global stocks bogged down in worries about surging coronavirus cases in the United States on Wednesday, even as a slew of data hinted at signs of an economic recovery in Europe and Asia.

* Global tourism revenues are expected to fall by up to $3.3 trillion due to restrictions, with the United States standing to lose the most, according to a U.N. study.

* Sweden's central bank held its key rate at 0% as expected and substantially boosted the size of its asset purchases, as it tries to soften the economic blow.

* German retail sales rebounded sharply in May and unemployment rose less than expected in June, signalling that an economic recovery is gathering steam.

* India's unemployment rate in June fell to 11% from 23.5% in May as economic activities resumed after government eased restrictions.

(Compiled by Anita Kobylinska and Linda Pasquini; Edited by Giles Elgood)
The case traces back to August 2016 when county police officers went to an apartment building in Randallstown to serve arrest warrants on Gaines for not appearing in court on a traffic case and on her fiancee for an alleged assault. After no one opened the door, the first officers unlocked it with a key from the apartment complex and later kicked it in to break the security chain.
The Justice Department is weighing whether to charge John Bolton, President Trump's former national security advisor, with disclosing classified information. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to criminally charge John Bolton with disclosing classified information in his upcoming White House memoir, and the Justice Department late Wednesday ramped up its legal campaign by seeking a temporary restraining order to block publication of a book that is being billed as a scathing rebuke of President Trump, according to court documents and people familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department sought a temporary restraining order from a federal judge to prevent Bolton from releasing the memoir as planned on June 23, according to the court filing. It is not clear how successful such a legal fight would be. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy excerpt of the book. It is also in the hands of journalists who have begun to chronicle its findings in stories. The Justice Department has sought a hearing on the matter for Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington.

Such a legal maneuver would amp up the fight begun Tuesday when the Justice Department filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to order Bolton to halt the release of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, pending the conclusion of a prepublication scrub of the manuscript for classified information.

The suit alleges that Bolton is in breach of nondisclosure agreements that required such a review and clearance by the National Security Council before he can publish a book.

The Justice Department described the book as a 500-plus page tome rife with classified information. The internal discussions about whether to charge Bolton with releasing classified information are occurring at the highest levels of the Justice Department and involve Atty. Gen. William Barr, the person said.

An attorney for Bolton, Charles Cooper, did not respond Wednesday to an email seeking comment. Cooper has said that Bolton labored for months with National Security Council officials to remove classified information and that the White House is using the review process as a pretext to censor his client.

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The Justice Department is under pressure from Trump to block the books release. On Monday, Trump said that his former national security advisor faced a criminal problem if he didnt halt publication.



Bolton, a conservative foreign policy hawk who served as national security advisor from April 2018 through September 2019, clashed with Trump throughout his tenure, officials have said.

Bolton is just the latest former Trump administration official to emerge as a critic of the presidents leadership. Former Defense Secretary James N. Mattis early this month sharply criticized the presidents handling of protests over police violence and racial inequality.

Simon & Schuster, Bolton's publisher, has touted the book as an inside account of the Trump White House in which the former advisor describes the presidents inconsistent, scattershot decision-making process and his dealings with allies and enemies alike, from China, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Iran, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Bolton, the publisher said in a statement, argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trumps Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy  and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them.

In the excerpt of the book published by the Wall Street Journal, Bolton described how Trump tried to enlist Chinas president, Xi Jinping, to help his reelection effort.

In a meeting with Xi in June 2019, Bolton wrote, Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to Chinas economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure hed win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trumps exact words, but the governments prepublication review process has decided otherwise.

The New York Times and Washington Post both published stories Wednesday by reporters who read the book, with the Post describing the memoir as the most substantive, critical dissection of the president from an administration insider so far. In a review, the New York Times said the book toggles between two discordant registers: exceedingly tedious and slightly unhinged.

House Democrats asked Bolton in the fall to testify in their impeachment inquiry, but he declined to participate, saying he would only testify if a federal judge ruled in an unusual lawsuit brought by a former deputy who sought clarity on whether he should comply with a similar subpoena or follow White House orders not to cooperate. The House, in the end, dropped its subpoena for the deputys testimony and never sought one for Bolton. Democrats said fighting in court over such a subpoena would have dragged impeachment out for months.

Democrats have since blasted Bolton for withholding his knowledge for a lucrative book deal. The Justice Department estimates Bolton is being paid at least $2 million for the memoir. On Wednesday, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted that Bolton may be an author, but he is no patriot.

Trump was impeached by the House in December for pressuring Ukraine to launch an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrats presumptive presidential nominee, over his sons work for a Ukrainian energy company.

The Senate voted to acquit Trump in February along a mostly party-line vote. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) voted to convict the president of abusing his power but acquitted him of a charge of obstructing Congress.




MUNICH (Reuters) - Georg Ratzinger, the brother of former Pope Benedict who nurtured a very close relationship over decades to his sibling, has died at the age of 96 in the German town of Regensburg on Wednesday, the local archdiocese said.

In June, Benedict, aged 93, had spent five days in his native Germany to visit his ailing brother, who was also a priest.

It was the first time that Benedict left Italy since 2013, when he became the first Pope to resign in six centuries.

Benedict was not present when his brother died because he had returned to Rome earlier, the archdiocese's spokesman Clemens Neck said. "He died at his house in Regensburg today, surrounded by people close to him."

Georg and Benedict entered a seminary where they both trained to be priests at the same time in January 1946, after both serving in the army before Nazi Germany's defeat at the end of World War Two.

Even following Benedict's elevation to the papacy in 2005, they remained in close touch, with Georg telling the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that his brother would regularly phone him on a private phone whose number only the Pontiff knew.

(Reporting by Joern Poltz in Munich and Thomas Seythal in Berlin; editing by Maria Sheahan and Chizu Nomiyama)
Reports that China forced women from its Uighur ethnic minority to be sterilised or have an abortion, demand a strong government response, French senator Esther Benbassa has said. Her comments add to global calls for a UN probe into what experts describe as "demographic genocide".

"The crackdown of minorities by Chinese officials is not new but this is really persecution," commented senator Esther Benbassa.

The French-Turkish-Israeli historian was reacting to reports claiming the Chinese government is slashing birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities in its Xinjiang province, while loosening restrictions on Han Chinese - who represent 92 percent of the Chinese population.

The newly published research revealed this week sheds further light into Beijings Xinjiang crackdown.

"We saw this coming a long time ago in university circles," Benbassa told RFI.

"We saw it in the news we used to receive about the fate of our colleagues working in this region. We warned the authorities, but France does not always react clearly, but there is no doubt there is a genocide," she said.

Her fears were echoed in a statement on Monday by a new global caucus of politicians called the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

Fears of genocide

"The world cannot remain silent in the face of unfolding atrocities," the group, made up of senior legislators from around the world, said in its statement.

"Our countries are bound by solemn obligations to prevent and punish any effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group," it added, citing fears of a hidden "genocide."

According to the findings, published by leading China scholar Adrian Zenz, birth rates in Xinjiang, an autonomous region on the north-west border of China, "fell by 84 percent in the two largest Uighur prefectures between 2015 and 2018, and declined further in 2019. For 2020, one Uighur region set an unprecedented near-zero population growth target".

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Under China's now-abandoned 'one child' policy, women had been encouraged and often forced to take contraceptives to limit the number of children they had.

Forced birth control

For Zenz, whose research is based on government data, policy documents and interviews of ethnic women, those birth-control measures are nothing compared to what is happening in Xinjiang right now.

Uighur and other minority women have reported forced sterilisations and intrauterine device insertions (IUD), and officials have threatened to detain anyone who has too many children.

China's birth control campaign has been fuelled by a policy of mass internment initiated in early 2017 for anyone showing signs of religious extremism".

In reality, detainees were frequently women who violated birth control quotas.

A woman who fled Xinjiang last year told the Associated Press that they would chant the following lines during daily flag-raising events: If we have too many children, were religious extremists.  That means we have to go to the training centres.

Being fair

The Chinese government has dismissed the reports as "fake news," insisting that it treats all ethnicities equally.

It said that the new birth-control measures are simply meant to be fair, allowing both Han Chinese and ethnic minorities the same number of children.

However, while fair on paper, research shows that in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilisations, IUD insertions and detentions imposed on minority women for having too many children.

German researcher Zenz added that the findings raise concerns about whether Chinas forced suppression of its minority population can be characterised as a demographic campaign of genocide under United Nations definitions.

UN inquiry

The report, published at a time when Beijing is facing a global backlash for its treatment of minority groups, has triggered calls for a UN investigation into human rights violations by the Chinese government.

"We hope to be able to make positive law, that is to say: coordinate between countries," said French senator Andre Gattolin, one of the members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China pushing for the UN inquiry, quoted in the daily Le Monde.

Gattolin, who has long campaigned against human rights abuses in China, said the aim was to achieve similar legislation to the Magnitsky Act, which "already exists in several European countries and punishes the perpetrators of political persecution in Russia".

Recent legislation by the Trump administration would point in that direction. The new US law imposes sanctions on those responsible for oppressing China's Uighurs, a majority Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority.

The UN estimates that more than one million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang which China says are vocational skills training centres and necessary to tackle extremism.

No time to wait

Benbassa disagrees. "They put them in camps, Uighur children cannot study in their own language, we're talking about a lost generation," she said.

Benbassa, who is also an author, began documenting Beijing's repression of the Uighur community after doing research on Turkey's Ottoman Empire. Uighurs, like Turks, are considered ethnically Turkic.

In 2018, she wrote an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron alerting him to the repression of China's Muslim minority and the plight of a teacher named Tiyip Taspholat who went missing.

"We were expecting a clear position from the government, for it to defend the Uighur community, its culture, and for it to ask China to put an end to its anti-ethnic policy against the Uighurs."

But the response she received several months later was disappointing. While the letter by the president's office stated its concern about the "situation in Xinjiang" and called on Beijing to "respect the rights of individuals" living there, it made no mention whatsoever of the Uighur population.

"I dont think the French government is willing to put its relations with China in jeopardy to protect the Uighurs," Benbassa said, while insisting a strong response is needed.

As for a potential UN probe, she argues that time is of the essence. "People die during investigations. We must take a clear policy."
Seven political parties took to national television on 2 July, 2020. (SCREENCAPS: CNA)

SINGAPORE  Seven political parties took to national television on Thursday (2 July) to broadcast their campaign manifestos to the public, in the first of two party political broadcasts (PPBs) scheduled for this General Election (GE).

The amount of airtime allocated is determined by the number of candidates fielded by the party. The order of the PPBs is also determined by the number of candidates fielded, with the broadcast of the party fielding the least number of candidates aired first, and that fielding the largest number of candidates aired last.

Here was how the English broadcasts transpired:

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Reform Party

The Reform Party (RP) wants to see substantial government spending to combat not only the immediate economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis, but also a lasting change in the economic model. It is calling for vastly improved social safety nets, such as universal health care, cash payments to families, a seniors pension, and a minimum wage.

When we build our recovery, we face a choice, said Charles Yeo, RP candidate for Ang Mo Kio group representation constituency (GRC). Continue as before with a system that works for an elite few while the majority struggle, or change and build back a Singapore that is better for all and fairer in every sense.

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National Solidarity Party

The National Solidarity Party (NSP) believes Singaporeans deserve a government which can hear everyones voices. The government should be one which is consultative and seeks the opinion of the people for all major decisions.

It is our responsibility to choose a government, which has the ability to find solutions for the challenges we are facing and at the same time accountable to Singaporeans, said Spencer Ng, NSP candidate for Sembawang GRC.

This accountability cannot be achieved if PAP (Peoples Action Party) has the super-majority in the Parliament. No one is immune to mistakes. The opposition can offer perspectives which the PAP may miss out.

NSP has called for the government to ensure Singaporeans have priority for quality jobs, reduce the cost of living, abolish the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and honour Singaporeans rights to withdraw their CPF savings at 55 years old.

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Peoples Voice

Peoples Voice (PV) wants to deliver a fairer and more prosperous society for the many, and not just the privileged few. It has called for a need to regain our country, our dignity, and our future by restoring the balance of power in favour of the Singapore people.

It is thereby advocating a freeze of all S-Passes and a dramatic reduction in the number of the Employment Passes.

There are many Singaporeans who are well qualified to do the jobs which are paid S$2,400 and above, and are deprived of doing them because these jobs are presently done by foreigners, said Michael Fang Amin, PV candidate for Jalan Besar GRC.

A government is like a father to its citizens. And a father who provides for alien children whilst allowing the breakfast, lunch and dinner of his own children to be stolen is a bad father.

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Singapore Democratic Party

The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) said that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has not kept his promise to lessen the burden of the cost of living for Singaporeans. Water prices, Town Council fees, healthcare costs, electricity rates, bus fares, school fees  all have increased, and the Goods and Services Tax will follow suit soon.

Trust the PAP? Trust doesn't come from what you say, it comes from what you do, said secretary-general Chee Soon Juan, who is running for Bukit Batok single-member constituency.

SDP has drawn up an alternative vision for Singapore, crystallised in its 4 Yes 1 No campaign: yes to suspending the GST until end-2021, yes to introducing a retrenchment benefit scheme for retrenched workers, yes to providing a $500 monthly income for the elderly, yes to putting the people first, and no to having a 10 million population.

Through the decades, the SDP has never wavered in our commitment to speak up for you, Dr Chee said. To us, politics is not about self-glorification. Neither is it about enriching ourselves. Rather, it is about speaking up for you, our fellow citizens.

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Workers Party

The Workers Party (WP) said that, amid the COVID-19 fear, the PAP could end up with 100 per cent of the elected seats in Parliament. However, it does not need all elected seats to have the mandate to govern.

It said that any vote to the WP will count in three ways:

It will raise issues that PAP Members of Parliament (MPs) cannot or will not raise.

It will prompt other sincere and capable people to come forward in future elections to contest for the WP.

Having rational, responsible and respectable WP MPs in Parliament will help safeguard the country.

Our long-term dream is for Singapore to have a healthy democracy where there are two or three parties who could form a competent and honest government, said party secretary-general Pritam Singh, who is also a candidate for Aljunied GRC.

We have seen from the experiences of other countries that power can fall into the wrong hands. The PAP is not immune to such a risk. PAP self-checking can fail. If the wrong people show their true colours only after reaching our highest offices, Singapore is finished.

Pritam added that the partys candidates could have pursued a much easier path by joining the PAP or by simply staying out of politics. However, they have taken this far more challenging path because they love the country.

A vote for us is a vote for checks and balances to safeguard Singapore for coming generations, he said.

We must not be an aristocracy where power is held by the few. We must be a democracy where power is in the hands of the many.

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Progress Singapore Party

The Progress Singapore Party (PSP) has urged Singaporeans to vote for transparency, accountability and independence by voting for the party.

Secretary-general Tan Cheng Bock has assured the voters that PSP candidates have the abilities to look after their constituencies. If voted in, the candidates will ask the tough questions to ensure the government is transparent and accountable to the people.

Having a PAP monopoly in Parliament is not a formula for success. For the past 20 years, the PAP has had a strong monopoly. However, prosperity has not flowed to all Singaporeans, he said.

Many PMETs are still out of work and their jobs are displaced by foreigners. The previous mandate did not always mean good outcomes for Singaporeans.

With the government spending billions of reserves on post-COVID-19 recovery measures, Dr Tan asked who will check how the money is spent, if the PAP dominates Parliament. He said that the government is already struggling for answers during the COVID-19 crisis, as seen by the explosion of dormitory cases in April.

They do not have all the answers. For years you have heard the PAP say that you cant do it without them. I want you to know, that you can do it. We can do it together, he said.

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Peoples Action Party

The PAP is seeking a clear mandate to lead Singapore through the storms ahead, and believes the lives, jobs and future of Singapore are at stake in this GE. Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, candidate for East Coast GRC, said that the COVID-19 crisis has left Singapore highly exposed to profound uncertainties ahead.

It is unclear how bad it can get. The economic crisis has caused severe disruptions, with no end in sight, he said.

In some countries, the pandemic has further divided people, even leading to riots and unrest. All these pressures have sharpened geopolitical tensions, making an already troubled world more volatile.

In a more fractious world, Singapore has to do its best to stay relevant, competitive and secure. Heng, who is PAPs first assistant secretary-general, said the partys urgent priority over the next few years is to protect lives and save jobs.

It has provided wage subsidies, job creation, care and support packages to help with daily cost of living, and extra support for the hardest-hit Singaporeans. In the long term, it will step up efforts to transform and grow the economy, and deepen links to the world to enable business, including small and medium enterprises, to expand beyond Singapores shores.

To make sure that no Singaporean will be left to walk alone, we will continue to build a more fair and just society, Heng said.

But just as at past turning points in our history, for plans to become reality, we need strong partnerships among Singaporeans, and between our people and the government. This is what has given us an edge in this crisis thus far.

Your ideas, your passions and your energies will be our strength. And with this strength, we will emerge stronger as an economy, as a society and as one people. We will create a better future together.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at t.me/YahooSingapore

Follow Yahoo News Singapores GE2020 coverage here.

Other Singapore stories:

SDP removes No to 10m population aim from GE2020 campaign after Heng Swee Keats statement

COMMENT: SDP's Chee Soon Juan sounded like a 'boomer' at live debate

GE2020: We can do better, says Pritam of decision not to send WP candidate for Mandarin TV debate

GE2020: Government never targeted 10 million population  Heng Swee Keat

GE2020: NCMP a 'ploy' by PAP to entice voters not to vote for opposition  Tan Cheng Bock
AFP UK

When I talk to frontline warriors, when I talk to doctors, they tell me that in the fight against the coronavirus, they used yoga as a protective shield" said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he kicked off another muted International Yoga Day. "When I talk to frontline warriors, when I talk to doctors, they tell me that in the fight against corona, they used yoga as a protective shield, he added. Yoga Day -- proposed by Modi and adopted by the United Nations in 2014 -- is observed mostly in India, but also worldwide on the Northern Hemisphere's longest day. Throughout the pandemic, India's ministry of yoga and ayurveda has touted yoga and herbal medicines -- sales of which have boomed -- to protect and even cure those with the virus.
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP)  Indonesian fishermen discovered 94 hungry, weak Rohingya Muslims on a wooden boat adrift off Indonesias northernmost province of Aceh, an official said Wednesday.

The people were found by three fishermen late Monday on the rickety boat about 6 kilometers (4 miles) off the coast, local police chief Muhammad Jamil said.

He said the group of Rohingya cried out for help and jumped onto the fishermen's boat, but its engine also stopped working on the way to shore. They remained on the boat Wednesday awaiting a decision by the local government whether to accept them.

We are still waiting for further instructions on what we should do with them, Jamil said. He said authorities provided them with food and water and villagers donated clothes.

The 49 women, 15 men and 30 children were weak from hunger and dehydration after a two-week voyage, Jamil said.

He said it wasnt clear where the group was traveling from or where it was headed because none could speak English or Malay.

In April, Malaysia denied entry to a boat carrying about 200 Rohingya due to coronavirus fears.

Rights activists are fearful that large numbers of Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority from mainly Buddhist Myanmar, may be trapped on boats at sea. Reports say they are fleeing ongoing persecution in Myanmar and hardship in refugee camps in Bangladesh where many have fled.

More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since August 2017, when the military launched a clearance operation in response to attacks by a rebel group. Security forces have been accused of mass rapes, killings and the burning of thousands of homes.

Authorities in Myanmar say the Rohingya migrated illegally from Bangladesh, even though many families have lived in Myanmar for decades. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless. They are also denied freedom of movement and other rights including education.
Irelands chief medical officer spearheading the battle against coronavirus is stepping aside to care for his terminally ill wife.

Dr Tony Holohan has been the Governments key adviser and at the forefront of public health messaging on combating the infection.

He said his wife was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2012 and had been admitted for palliative care last Saturday.

Dr Holohan added: A plan has been put in train for others to take over responsibility for different aspects of my role.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn (Niall Carson/PA)

His deputy, Dr Ronan Glynn, will take over responsibility on an acting basis.

Dr Holohan said: As a husband and father and as a public health doctor, I am conscious that we have been through tough times together.

He added: Many families across the country have been affected by the course of Covid-19, suffering pain and loss of loved ones.

His wife Emer was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2012.

He said: She has had a number of difficult years with her disease and was admitted for palliative care last Saturday.

I now want to give my energy and attention and all of my time to Emer and to our two teenage children, Clodagh and Ronan.

The rate of spread of coronavirus in Ireland is higher than it was in recent weeks, public health experts warned.

The number of cases increased towards the end of last week, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) said.

It added the general transmission rate was low but clusters had been associated with international travel.

Professor Philip Nolan, the epidemiologist advising the Government about the spread, said: The reproductive number is now estimated to be closer to 1 than it has been in recent weeks.

The R number is easily influenced by small changes to the transmission of the virus.

Prof Nolan added: We have noticed an increase in the number of cases towards the end of last week.

It is a trend that NPHET will continue to monitor closely.

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On Thursday, the authorities said another five people had died and another 15 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin paid tribute to Dr Holohans work during the public health emergency (Julien Behal/PA)

Taoiseach Micheal Martin paid tribute to Dr Holohans work during the public health emergency.

He said: His work, experience and briefings helped people to understand the gravity of the situation facing us, while his calmness reassured us that if we followed the guidelines and advice we would overcome these great challenges together.

Every home in Ireland has come to know Dr Tony Holohan.

His leadership during the pandemic has given us all confidence that the decisions being made are based on solid public health advice.

As a country we owe him and his family a great debt of gratitude.

Under the chief medical officers watch, Ireland has driven the rate of infection down from a peak in April, when hundreds of cases were being diagnosed each day and hospital intensive care units were becoming more crowded.

In his final briefing, Dr Holohan said there were low levels of transmission in Ireland.

He added: We are still concerned and cautious about the risk that is associated with travel outside this country.

Dr Holohan said work on drawing up a list of countries which it was relatively safe to travel to was still going on, due to be published this time next week.

He said: We see new travel-related cases making up an increasing share of the total number of cases that we have had.

A small number of cases can quickly lead to additional spread and a large number of cases occurring here.

We have had a cluster in association with travel outside of this country.

The Taoiseach said he shared his caution about international travel.

He said: What is worrying the public health officials, worrying me, is continued volatility at the international level.

Some countries doing well three weeks ago are not doing as well now.

We have to be very cautious here.

Economic recovery depends on continued suppression of the virus.

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said he would like to see a return to international travel as soon as it is safe to do so (Aine McMahon/PA)

Earlier, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said he would like to see a return to international travel as soon as it is safe to do so, adding that Ireland cannot close itself off indefinitely.

For people who travel to countries that are on a green list published next week, the 14-day quarantine will not apply.

Mr Varadkar said: I am also conscious of the fact that thousands of people work in the domestic tourism sector and in our airports and airlines.

Im also conscious that people have worked very hard over the past few months and are looking forward to a break but it has to be done safely.

He added: We all know we cant cut off the country forever.

We cant stop people from visiting their friends and families.

We cant stop business executives coming into Ireland to create jobs so we need to get that balance right.

Dr Holohan also urged people to use their own sense of acceptable risk in gauging whether it is safe to go into particular pubs and restaurants.

Northern Irelands Health Minister Robin Swann and chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said: Our thoughts are very much with Dr Tony Holohan, his wife Emer, their children and family circle at this time.

We have worked very closely with Tony and his colleagues in the Republic of Ireland from the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. We very much appreciate all their support, co-operation and friendship.

This is devastating news.

The family can be assured of the support and compassion of everyone across this island.
Johnny Depp is set to find out whether his High Court libel claim against The Sun over allegations he was violent towards ex-wife Amber Heard can go ahead next week.

The 57-year-old actor is suing the tabloids publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its executive editor Dan Wootton over an April 2018 article which referred to Mr Depp as a wife beater.

The article related to allegations made against Mr Depp by actress Ms Heard, 34, that he was violent towards her during their marriage  claims he strenuously denies.

Amber Heard alleges that Johnny Depp was violent towards her during their marriage (Anthony Devlin/PA)

In a last-ditch attempt to derail the High Court trial, due to start next Tuesday, NGNs legal team asked Mr Justice Nicol to strike out Mr Depps claim.

Adam Wolanski QC argued the Hollywood star was in serious breach of a court order because he had not given NGNs legal team what he referred to as the Australia drugs texts between Mr Depp and his assistant, Nathan Holmes.

The messages, sent in late February and early March 2015  shortly before an alleged incident in Australia between Mr Depp and Ms Heard, which she claims was a three-day ordeal of physical assaults  demonstrated that Mr Depp was trying to get drugs during the Australia visit, Mr Wolanski said.

He told the court that references to happy pills and whitey stuff showed Mr Depp was trying to obtain MDMA and cocaine, which he argued was profoundly damaging to his case.

In a ruling on Monday, Mr Justice Nicol found that Mr Depp had breached an unless order requiring him to disclose documents from separate libel proceedings against Ms Heard in the US  which include the text messages.

The judge said: The Australian drug texts were adverse to the claimants pleaded case and/or were supportive of the defendants pleaded case.

However, Mr Depps legal team made an application for relief from sanctions which, if successful, will mean the trial goes ahead despite the actors breach.

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Amber Heard and Johnny Depp married in Los Angeles in February 2015 (Jonathan Brady/PA)

Mr Justice Nicol will give his ruling on Mr Depps application on Thursday morning.

At a hearing earlier this week, Mr Depps barrister David Sherborne said the trial should go ahead so the actor can have vindication over the published allegations and argued that it would be wholly disproportionate to strike out the actors claim.

However, lawyers for NGN said the trial should not go ahead and that the disclosure exercise undertaken by Mr Depps lawyers was conducted at the very least totally incompetently and quite possibly with a view to the deliberate withholding of damaging documents.

Mr Wolanski said: In my submission, unless the whole disclosure exercise is carried out afresh with a different legal team, the defendants cannot have a fair trial.

The barrister also said Mr Depp can have vindication, if he is entitled to it in separate libel proceedings brought against Ms Heard in the US.

The alleged incident in Australia is one of 14 separate allegations of domestic violence, between early 2013 and May 2016, that NGN relies on in its pleaded defence to Mr Depps claim.

Mr Justice Nicol is also expected to rule on Mr Depps application for an order requiring Ms Heard to disclose evidence, including a covert audio recording made of a conversation between herself and her former husband in July 2016.

The actor has also asked for all communications between Ms Heard and a contact saved in her phone as Rocketman, who Mr Depp claims is SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, and between her and actor James Franco.

Johnny Depps former partner Winona Ryder is expected to give evidence (Yui Mok/PA)

A three-week trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in London  which was due to start in March, but was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic  is listed to begin on July 7, with Mr Depps former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder among the witnesses expected to give evidence.

The court has heard Mr Depp intends to travel from his home in France to London to give evidence, while Ms Heard is believed to have already travelled to the UK from California.

The libel claim against NGN and Mr Wootton arises out of publication of an article in The Sun in April 2018, under the headline: Gone Potty  How can JK Rowling be genuinely happy casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?

Mr Depp has brought separate libel proceedings against Ms Heard in the US, which the court heard are set for trial next year.

The pair met on the set of 2011 comedy The Rum Diary and married in Los Angeles in February 2015.

In May 2016, Ms Heard obtained a restraining order against Mr Depp after accusing him of abuse, which he denied.

The couple settled their divorce out of court in 2017, with Ms Heard donating her seven million US dollars (5.5 million) settlement to charity.
Police have launched a murder investigation after a five-year-old girl died after being stabbed at a flat in south London.

The child has not been formally identified, but police said they are confident she is Sayagi Sivanantham.

Officers and paramedics were called to the property in Monarch Parade, Mitcham, south London, at 4pm on Tuesday, where the youngster and a 35-year-old woman were found with knife wounds.

Both were taken to hospital and the girl was pronounced dead a short time later.

Police remain at the hospital, where the woman - who a neighbour said she had found "lying in a pool of blood" - is in a life-threatening condition.

Neighbour Elsa Gonzales, 47, said she heard screaming and crying coming from her next-door flat, where a family of four from Sri Lanka lived.

Mrs Gonzales, a former emergency department worker, rushed inside to find the mother and child in the bedroom.

"I saw the woman lying on the floor in a pool of blood," she said.

"There was blood everywhere. I looked on the bed and saw the girl, she was covered in a blanket."

Police said no arrests have been made and they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident as they believe everyone involved was known to each other.

Mrs Gonzales, who has lived in the building for 12 years, said: "It's really breaking my heart, the child was a smart kid, she was always smiling.

"She was a cheeky little girl, always playing with the neighbourhood kids. To see her so lifeless, it's like my heart is bleeding. She (the woman) was a good mum."

A Sri Lankan girl, 15, who lives in the same building, said her family were friends with the mother and child.

She described her as "playful and talkative".

"They were a happy family, we knew them for about seven years," she said. "We feel sad hearing the news."

Detective Chief Inspector Justin Howick said the incident will be shocking for the local community but reassured them nobody else is being sought over Sayagi's death.

Any witnesses or anybody with information should call police on 101, call the incident room on 02087858244, tweet @MetCC quoting CAD5109/30JUN or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
As a rule of thumb, Alkire said, shoot fireworks in the same jurisdiction they were purchased; that way, they are sure to be legal. In Harford County, fireworks are illegal except the sparklers and snap-pops  which are not technically defined as fireworks  that can be found in big-box stores like Target and Walmart, he said.
More than 100 workers have been killed after a landslide at a jade mine in Myanmar today (July 2). The miners were engulfed by a terrifying wave of mud after heavy rain throughout the night and morning. Footage shows the deadly landslide moving across the mine valley shortly before midday. It was one of the worst accidents in the country's history of jade mining, which is lucrative but highly dangerous. The Myanmar Fire Services Department said the disaster happened close to the Chinese border in Kachin state. Rescue workers had retrieved at least 113 bodies by noon with operations suspended due to heavy rain. The fire service said in a statement: ''The miners were smothered by a wave of mud. A total of 113 bodies have been found so far.'' Police said that owners of the mine had ignored warnings not to work during the rainy weather due to the risk of landslides. Jade is one of the world's most precious stones and is sought-after in neighbouring China. Myanmar, or Burma, is the world's biggest producer.
African elephants (Loxodonta africana) with a baby elephant...

Hundreds of elephants have been found dead in Botswana - and experts don't know why they died.

The animals, numbering more than 360, died in mysterious circumstances during the past three months, according to conservationists working in the southern African nation.

Some carcasses were found clustered around waterholes, while others appeared to have died "falling flat on their faces," said Niall McCann, director of conservation at UK charity National Park Rescue.

Sharing an article in The Guardian, he tweeted: "A catastrophic die-off of elephants is happing in northern Botswana, and no one knows why.

"It's vital that a team of independent experts visit and sample the carcasses before any more elephants die, or this spills over into the local human population."

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Live elephants seen nearby appeared physically weak, observers said. Other species in the area did not appear to have been affected by whatever struck down the elephants.

"One elephant was observed walking in circles, unable to change direction although being encouraged by other herd members," according to a report by wildlife conservation charity Elephants Without Borders.

While the Botswana government is still testing samples from the dead elephants, poaching has already been ruled out as all the animals still had their tusks.
By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday urged Turkey to let Istanbul's former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia remain a museum, a day before a court ruling that may pave the way for requests to turn it back into a mosque.

Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was at the heart of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires, is one of Turkey's most visited monuments.

Finished in the year 537 with futuristic building techniques in what was then Constantinople, it was the main cathedral in Christendom - and the world's largest - for 900 years before becoming an Ottoman mosque in 1453.

It was converted into a museum in 1934 under the secular founder of the modern Turkish republic, Kemal Ataturk, but the case before the court challenges the legality of this step. President Tayyip Erdogan, a pious Muslim, has proposed making Hagia Sophia, called Ayasofya in Turkish, into a mosque again.

In a statement, Pompeo praised the Turkish government for maintaining the building "in an outstanding manner" as a museum, but said a change in its status would diminish its legacy.

"We urge the Government of Turkey to continue to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum, as an exemplar of its commitment to respect the faith traditions and diverse history that contributed to the Republic of Turkey, and to ensure it remains accessible to all," Pompeo said.

The deputy chairman of Erdogan's AK Party, Numan Kurtulmus, promptly retorted that the issue was a matter of national sovereignty:

"The sole decision-making authority about the status of Hagia Sophia ... belongs to Turkey. We do not need anyones advice or recommendation on our own affairs."

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Editing by Dan Grebler and Kevin Liffey)
Police in Northern Ireland have made a significant number of arrests and seized hundreds of thousands of pounds in a major UK sting against organised crime.

Some 25 searches as part of Operation Venetic resulted in the seizure of more than 365,000 in cash, as well as drugs, high-value vehicles, laptops, jewellery and designer handbags.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it has also mitigated more than 15 threats to life as part of the operation.

Five people have so far been charged, four of whom have been remanded in custody and one is on High Court bail.

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The operation, led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), has been described as the UKs biggest law enforcement operation against serious and organised crime.

There was also work done in collaboration with law enforcement partners across Europe and internationally.

Detective Chief Superintendent Andrew Freeburn said the operation targeted organised crime groups using encrypted technology in a bid to evade law enforcement.

To date, he said, PSNI searches in Northern Ireland have resulted in the seizure of 15 phones using Encrochat software and more than 360,000 in cash.

This has been the largest and most significant law enforcement operation ever mounted in the United Kingdom in the fight against organised crime groups, he said.

It has focused on attacking their use of encrypted communication called Encro devices on which individual members of crime groups co-ordinate their illegal activities.

The organised crime groups thought that by using encrypted technology they could fly below the radar of law enforcement, however this operation should send a clear message that the combined strength of PSNI working in partnership with our law enforcement partners that no-one is beyond the reach of the law.

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He said that over the past couple of months PSNI officers have worked with the NCA and HM Revenue and Customs in reviewing the material seized and assessing what criminal offences have been committed.

Story continues

We have secured evidence to prosecute a significant number of known criminals who thought they were beyond our reach. In Northern Ireland we have charged five people, four of whom have all been remanded in custody and one on High Court bail, he said.

The 44 charges range from conspiracy to commit murder, possession of significant amounts of criminal property, various drugs offences involving class A and class B drugs, including conspiracy to import and also being concerned in the supply.

This morning we have also arrested a 64-year-old man in the Newry area. Searches are currently ongoing and so we have seized another high-end vehicle so far.

And there will more to come as we continue to disrupt this criminal network operating here in Northern Ireland who have links to criminals both nationally and internationally.

Craig Naylor, the NCAs deputy director of investigations for Northern Ireland, Scotland and the North of England, said: Operation Venetic is unprecedented across Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom and Europe. It is the broadest and most significant co-ordinated piece of activity into serious organised crime intended to cause significant damage to organised crime groups.
Thousands of Palestinians protested Wednesday in Gaza against Israel's West Bank annexation plans, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said talks were ongoing on the project, which faces intensifying international opposition. Netanyahu's centre-right coalition government had set July 1 as the date from which it could begin implementing US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace proposal. While no major announcement was expected on Israel's self-imposed kick-off date, Netanyahu's office said talks with US officials "on the application of sovereignty" were ongoing. Netanyahu was also discussing annexation with his security chiefs, it added, saying "further discussions will be held in the coming days". In Gaza City, several thousand protesters gathered, some brandishing Palestinian flags and placards condemning Trump. "The resistance must be revived," Gaza protester Rafeeq Inaiah told AFP. "Israel is afraid of force." Smaller demonstrations were held in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Jericho, attended by a handful of left-wing Israeli politicians opposed to annexation. "We want to affirm our support for peace," former Labour party official Ophir Pines-Paz told AFP. The Trump plan, unveiled in January, offered a path for Israel to annex territory and Jewish West Bank settlements, considered illegal under international law. Netanyahu supports the Trump plan, which has been roundly rejected by the Palestinians. But the veteran right-wing premier has not laid out how he intends to implement the US proposals. Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, fired some 20 rockets from the coastal Palestinian enclave into the Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday, a demonstration of force aimed at dissuading Israel from moving forward, Hamas sources told AFP. The militant movement, which has fought three wars with Israel since 2008, was scheduled to hold a joint press conference Thursday in Ramallah alongside the West Bank's ruling party Fatah. - Growing global opposition - Writing in Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Wednesday, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that although he was a "passionate defender of Israel," he viewed annexation as "contrary to Israel's own long-term interests." "Annexation would represent a violation of international law," he said. Australia, in a rare criticism of Israel, warned against "unilateral annexation or change in status of territory on the West Bank". France, Germany, several other European states and the United Nations all oppose annexation, as do the Gulf Arab states, with which Israel has increasingly sought warmer ties. Germany's parliament, however, passed a motion Wednesday warning against "unilateral sanctions or threats of sanctions" on Israel over annexation. Such moves would "have no constructive effect" on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, it said. The EU cannot threaten sanctions against Israel without unanimous support among members. Jordan, one of only two Arab nations that has diplomatic ties with Israel, has repeatedly warned against the move, saying annexation could trigger a "massive conflict". - Domestic opposition - Israel's defence minister and alternate prime minister Benny Gantz has said annexation must wait until the coronavirus crisis has been contained, amid a sharp spike in new Israeli and Palestinian cases. Israel annexed east Jerusalem following the 1967 Six Day War and then the Golan Heights on the Syrian border in 1981, in moves never recognised by most of the international community. While some settlers have urged Netanyahu to take similar action in the West Bank, some hardliners oppose the Trump plan as it envisions the creation of a Palestinian state across roughly 70 percent of the West Bank. "Trump's plan is to establish a Palestinian state in the land of Israel while leaving the Jews with little crumbs," Daniela Weiss, a settler movement leader, told AFP. "This thing will not happen. We will not eat this bait. We will not fall into this trap." Despite the mounting headwinds, experts have stressed that Netanyahu may still move forward in the coming days, noting that he is keenly watching the US presidential election and may be eager to act if he fears Trump will not win a second term. Presumptive US Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden is opposed to any unilateral annexations by Israel.
Businesses breathe sigh of relief as Spain, Portugal open border to all travel Controls at the Spanish-Portuguese border in Vilar Formoso

MADRID/LISBON (Reuters) - Neighbours Spain and Portugal reopened their border on Wednesday to all travellers after a three-month closure to prevent the spread of coronavirus, bringing relief to local business owners who have struggled to make ends meet without tourism.

"It has been miserable since we reopened in May. There are no customers," Jose Valentim, a restaurant owner in the Portuguese border town of Elvas, told Reuters. "We hope that from today onwards some Spaniards will be able to come.

For Luis Pinheiro, a 53-year old construction supervisor who commutes across the border every day from the Spanish city of Badajoz to his native Portugal, the reopening has emotional as well as economic significance.

"Now you can start to see friends who you've been missing for a long time," he said. "There will be a big reunion and this will start to bring back the connection between the two countries."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his Portuguese counterpart Antonio Costa oversaw short ceremonies in Badajoz and the Portuguese town of Elvas to mark the reopening of their 1,200-km (750 mile) border.

Both countries' flags flew as national anthems were played at the events, which were also attended by Spain's King Felipe and Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

"We are two fraternal peoples who share not only history, culture and affinity, but also a vision of what happened with the pandemic and the challenges and transformations that lie ahead," Sanchez said in Elvas.

All other travel restrictions within the European Union were lifted last week.

"Our shared prosperity and common destiny within the European project depend on this border being open," Costa tweeted earlier on Wednesday.

The border had remained open to the transport of goods and cross-border workers throughout the epidemic but tourist and leisure travel had been restricted since mid-March.

Story continues

Most of Portugal downgraded to a "state of alert" on Wednesday, with gatherings still limited to 20 people, but restrictions remained stricter across Lisbon's suburbs as authorities tackle a surge in coronavirus cases.

Portugal has been hailed as a coronavirus success story but it now has the second highest number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Europe after Sweden in the past 30 days, according to the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

With nearly 250,000 cases and more than 28,000 deaths Spain was worse hit, but authorities managed to bring the outbreak under control through one of the world's strictest lockdowns.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Nathan Allen in Madrid and Catarina Demony and Victoria Waldersee in Lisbon; Editing by Nathan Allen and Angus MacSwan)
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

The idea that British trans women could one day carry a baby might soon be a reality, says prolific surgeon Christopher Inglefield, who explains that a successful 'womb transplant' has already resulted in a healthy pregnancy in Brazil. Just six weeks after the surgery, the Brazilian woman who received the womb also started menstruating.

Said case took place two years ago and saw the unnamed trans woman receive a womb that was donated from a deceased biologically female person. It was a major moment for fertility scientists, who were thought to be overjoyed at the birth of a healthy baby girl weighing in at 5.6lbs.

Mr Inglefield, founder of the London Transgender Clinic and a specialist in his field, told The Mirror, "This pioneering birth is extremely important for any trans female who would like to carry her own child. Because once the medical community accept this as a treatment for cis women with uterine infertility, such as congenital absence of a womb, then it would be illegal to deny a trans female who has completed her transition.

"There are clearly anatomical boundaries when it comes to trans women but these are problems I believe can be [overcome] and the transplant into a trans female is essentially identical to that of a cis female."

Photo credit: Carlina Teteris

In terms of the legalities of a trans woman falling pregnant, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) have confirmed that there are no rules or regulations that say trans women who have received a uterus transplant should be denied IVF treatment.

But how does the science side of it all actually work? "The most important step is the harvesting from the donor, as great care is required to avoid damage to the arteries and veins supplying the uterus," said Dr Inglefield. "The 'plumbing in' is straight forward: donor vessels are connected to the pelvic artery and veins which are the same in both males and females."

Story continues

He went on to explain, "With a uterus transplant in a trans female, the neovaginal would be opened at the pelvic end to accept the donor womb, and the same procedure is used in a cis female transplant, with the donor uterus being attached to the native vagina."

Photo credit: Raimund Koch

Hormone supplements could be taken throughout the pregnancy to replicate the changes that occur in a biologically female body, however, Mr Inglefield says it's unlikely a trans woman would be able to give birth naturally  a Caesarian section would be the safest choice for both mother and baby.

This groundbreaking new transplant surgery also gives hope to cisgender females with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome (which sees the body fail to develop a functioning uterus that could carry a child, or have a menstrual cycle). It's believed to affect around 1 in 4,500 women.

To date, there have been 39 womb transplants carried out across the world, resulting in the birth of 11 babies (the first being the earlier mentioned case in Brazil).

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For Joseph Sanchez, a Filipino security guard who worked here for seven years, the decision to leave was easy. Nikkei Asian Review reports in its article Over 1m migrants flee Middle East, hitting Asian economies that the 47-year-old was laid off after the private school that employed him switched to online classes because of the coronavirus outbreak.

"I haven't received four months' worth of pay, but I don't want to stay in this expensive city without a job," said Sanchez, who had diligently sent home three-quarters of his monthly pay of 1,950 dirhams ($530). Sanchez is one of more than 1 million foreign workers in the Middle East waiting for travel restrictions to ease so they can return to their mostly Asian home countries. With the pandemic and weak oil prices devastating the labor market, petroleum-producing Middle Eastern nations have favored protecting the jobs of citizens. Migrant workers, who in some cases make up half of these countries' labor forces, have been left adrift.

This saps both these countries' economic strength and the huge flows of remittances that foreign workers send back home -- a vital source of money for consumer spending in Asia. The coronavirus crisis could wipe out 900,000 jobs in the UAE. Signs of mass outflows of workers are already emerging. Private-school operator GEMS Education said in June that it will close an Indian-curriculum school here in March 2021. Shutdowns of schools for foreign families mark an about-face from the long enrollment waitlists of the oil boom.

In a June report on new challenges created by COVID-19, Jadwa Investment forecasts 1.2 million foreign workers to leave the Saudi Arabian labor market in 2020. But it also sees Saudis' unemployment rate holding steady at 12%, meaning that the newly jobless are mostly migrants. As young Saudis continue to enter the labor market, foreigners have a harder time finding work.

The country pushed to replace migrant labor with Saudi citizens in a policy shift known as "Saudization." But the massive departure of foreigners will disrupt the economy in the short term. Saudis show little interest in low-paying jobs, making the future of the Saudization plan uncertain.

Coronavirus outbreaks in overcrowded housing have prodded Arab states of the Gulf to address what international human rights groups have criticized as poor labor and living conditions for migrant workers. But foreign workers are largely ineligible for economic or income security measures available to citizens.

The COVID-19 crisis has added a new element to these disparities. Kuwaiti actress Hayat al-Fahad sparked a backlash after proposing to quarantine migrant workers in the desert to free up hospitals for Kuwaitis. She later said she misspoke.

Foreigners make up about half of the workforce in Gulf countries, with Asians -- particularly those from India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka -- accounting for 60% to 70% of this segment. These migrants plugged labor gaps in the oil-exporting nations while sending funds to their home countries, serving to support economies on both sides and creating a win-win situation.

The mass returns will also deal at least a short-term blow to their home countries, whose weakened employment markets will be hit by waves of new job seekers. Already-fragile health care systems could be further strained by returnees infected with the virus.

Money sent from migrant workers is the largest financial inflow into low-income countries, exceeding direct investment, securities investment and international aid. Remittances to low- and middle-income countries will decline a fifth on the year in 2020, the World Bank predicts.

Global remittances are "private income transfers that are countercyclical" and help lessen the blow of economic shocks in home countries, International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director Antoinette Sayeh and a co-author argue in a recent article.

But migrant-source countries now face the double punch of "capital flight as well as a drop in remittance flows," putting more pressure on their economies, fiscal health and societies, the authors warn.
The U.S. president has privately come to that grim realization in recent days, multiple people close to him told POLITICO, amid a mountain of bad polling and warnings from some of his staunchest allies that he's on course to be a one-term president, Politico writes in the article Trump admits it: Hes losing. Trump has endured what aides describe as the worst stretch of his presidency, marred by widespread criticism over his response to the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide racial unrest. His rally in Oklahoma last weekend, his first since March, turned out to be an embarrassment when he failed to fill the arena.

What should have been an easy interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday horrified advisers when Trump offered a rambling, non-responsive answer to a simple question about his goals for a second term. In the same appearance, the normally self-assured president offered a tacit acknowledgment that he might lose when he said that Joe Biden is gonna be your president because some people don't love me, maybe." In the hours after the interview aired, questions swirled within his inner circle about whether his heart was truly in it when it comes to seeking reelection.

Trump has time to rebound, and the political environment could improve for him. But interviews with more than a half-dozen people close to the president depicted a reelection effort badly in need of direction  and an candidate who repeatedly undermines himself. Under the current trajectory, President Trump is on the precipice of one of the worst electoral defeats in modern presidential elections and the worst historically for an incumbent president, said former Trump Political Adviser Sam Nunberg, who remains a supporter. Nunberg pointed to national polls released by CNBC and New York Times/Siena over the past week showing Trump receiving below 40 percent against Biden. If Trump's numbers erode to 35 percentage points over the next two weeks, Nunberg added, Hes going to be facing realistically a 400-plus electoral vote loss and the president would need to strongly reconsider whether he wants to continue to run as the Republican presidential nominee.

Behind the scenes, Trump and his team are taking steps to correct course. In the week since his Tulsa rally, the president has grudgingly conceded that hes behind, according to three people who are familiar with his thinking. Trump, who vented for days about the event, is starting to take a more hands-on role in the campaign and has expressed openness to adding more people to the team. He has also held meetings recently focusing on his efforts in individual battleground states. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who effectively oversees the campaign from the White House, is expected to play an even more active role.

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale was blamed internally for the Tulsa rally failure. Some people complained about him trumpeting that 1 million people had requested tickets, a boast that fell flat when thousands of seats sat empty during Trump's speech. Parscale has been a target of some Trump allies who argue the campaign is lacking a coherent strategy and direction. But people close to the president insist that Parscale's job is safe for now. Trump, who visited the campaigns Arlington, Virginia headquarters a few months ago, has told people he came away impressed with the sophistication of the organization. Parscale, whose background is as a digital strategist, has received some reinforcements in recent weeks. Longtime Trump adviser Bill Stepien was given added responsibilities in the campaign, including working with political director Chris Carr and the Republican National Committee on voter turnout. And Jason Miller, a veteran of the 2016 campaign, was brought back to serve as a chief political strategist, a position that had been unfilled.

But those internal moves have done little to calm Republican jitters about the president's personal performance. Fox News host and Trump favorite Tucker Carlson issued a blunt warning on his show this week that the president could well lose this election. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, another close Trump ally, told reporters that the president needs to make the race more about policy and less about your personality.

Trump's team insists the presidents numbers are bound to improve as he steps up his public events and intensifies his attacks on Biden. People involved in the campaign say they have settled on two main avenues to go after the former vice president: That hes beholden to liberals who want to do away with law and order, and that hes a consummate Washington insider. The campaign has begun a massive TV ad campaign going after the 77-year-old former vice president, including over his mental capacity and his nearly five-decade political career. Hoping to make inroads with African-American voters, Trump's campaign is running ads slamming Biden over his central role in the 1994 crime bill.

The commercials are airing in an array of states including Georgia, a traditionally red state where Trump suddenly finds himself in a fight. The cash-flush campaign is expected to remain on the TV airwaves in a host of key states through the election. Veterans of Trumps first presidential campaign liken their current predicament to the nightmarish summer of 2016, when he was buffeted by an array of self-inflicted scandals  from his criticism of a Gold Star family to his attack on a federal judge of Mexican ancestry. Then as now, Trump trailed badly. There was similar fretting in 2016 and if it had been accurate, Hillary Clinton would be in the White House right now. Joe Biden is the weakest Democrat candidate in a generation and we are defining him that way, said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh. We are four months from Election Day and in the end it will be a clear choice between President Trumps incredible record of achievement and Joe Bidens half-century of failure in Washington, D.C.

Still, Trump advisers acknowledge that tearing down Biden will require a level of discipline he isnt demonstrating. They have pleaded with Trump  who has used his Twitter account to vilify critics from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to former national security adviser John Bolton  to stop focusing on slights that mean little to voters. Biden's low profile during the pandemic has made it that much harder for Trump to land a punch, his advisers said. But Republicans say he and his campaign need to figure out something soon. The key factor has been that Biden has been able to stay out of the race, said David McIntosh, the president of the pro-Trump Club for Growth. Republicans have to start defining Biden and put resources and effort and consistent messaging behind it.
Known as the Pathfinder of the Seas he was an astronomer, historian, meteorologist, cartographer and geologist. Confined to shore duty because of an injury, he gathered and analyzed thousands of Navy logbooks and published the first wind and current charts  creating the field of oceanography. He mapped the Atlantic floor in 1855, and his work was crucial to the laying of the first transatlantic cable.
The United States will finance several transport and communications projects linking Afghanistan with Central Asian countries. This was discussed at the talks in Tashkent by Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov with US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad. The meeting was also attended by the Chief Executive Officer of the United States Corporation for International Development Financing (DFC) Adam Bohler.

The American side highly appreciated the efforts of the leadership of Uzbekistan to promote a regional approach in the peaceful settlement of the situation in Afghanistan and reiterated its readiness to continue active cooperation in this direction, the Foreign Ministry press service said. Representatives of the two countries exchanged views on attracting DFC funds to finance projects aimed at expanding economic, transport and communication ties between Afghanistan and the countries of the region.

As the director of the Central Asia and the Caucasus Institute (USA) Frederick Starr previously told Vestnik Kavkaza, "Central Asian countries regard Afghanistan not as a troubled neighbor, but as an integral part of the region." A number of investment projects are being jointly implemented in the transport, energy and humanitarian sectors. To the question of the Vestnik Kavkaza, what place Central Asia occupies on the map of American politics, Starr answered briefly and comprehensively - "special." It is noteworthy that Frederick Starr is a supporter of the Democrats, the keeper of the approaches of the Obama administration, which the current president Donald Trump is trying to get rid of. At the same time, the Central Asia-US cooperation format C5 + 1 created under Obama does not touch. Since Washingtons goal is to realize its project Big Central Asia, which includes Afghanistan and the post-Soviet republics.

By coincidence, or it was still planned like that, during the visit of Zalmay Khalilzad in Tashkent, a ministerial meeting was held in the format of the video conference C5 + 1. Khalilzad took part in it, since the talks at the talks were about the development of cooperation in the region, including Afghanistan. Abdulaziz Kamilov proposed to strengthen cooperation in several areas: the development of the digital economy; consolidation of national transport strategies; stimulation of innovation in agriculture; building up the energy potential of Central Asian countries; improving the socio-economic situation in environmentally unfavorable zones of Central Asia, including the transformation of the Aral Sea region into a zone of innovation and technology.

Some of the projects promise to finance the American DFC. However, according to the expert on Central Asia and the Middle East, Alexander Knyazev, there will be no large costs from the United States. Most likely, India will invest, which has become more active in Afghanistan. India previously provided $ 3 billion for the development of Afghanistan, but still remains out of work in this country. This was reported by the Indian edition of moneycontrol.com. India must join forces with Central Asia to achieve peace in Afghanistan, the Indian capital is believed.

New Delhi intends to create a new integration (cooperation) format in the region that would ensure the growth of Indias geopolitical and geo-economic influence. This trend is also manifested in the desire of India to develop bilateral relations, in particular, with Uzbekistan, and in such a difficult field as military cooperation. With this in mind, we can expect in the near future and the expansion of the trilateral to quadripartite level: USA - Afghanistan - Uzbekistan - India. And the already begun dialogue "Central Asia - India" will become its complement and should contribute to the involvement of other Central Asian countries in this process. It is also possible to put forward a hypothesis about an attempt to create a controlled geopolitical axis of Tashkent-Delhi (or even Tashkent-Kabul-Delhi) in the context of a general increase in Washingtons activity in the region, Alexander Knyazev told Vestnik Kavkaza. The expert believes that India and Uzbekistan can be represented as moderators of the United States in Afghanistan. The United States will try to shift real work to them.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has travelled to Qatar for a day of meetings on Thursday, and met with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Presidential Communications Directorate said in a statement, Ahval reports.

The two leaders were to discuss the relations between the two friendly and brotherly countries in all aspects, according to a previous statement.

In images released by Erdogans office, the president was seen occasionally wearing a face mask, which he removed during the meetings.

Erdogan left Turkey for the first time for the Doha meetings since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the country in March.
France is suspending its involvement in a NATO naval operation off Libyas coast after a standoff with a Turkish ship and amid growing tensions within the military alliance over Libya.

Frances Defense Ministry said Wednesday that France sent a letter Tuesday to NATO saying it is suspending its participation in Sea Guardian temporarily.

A ministry official said France wants NATO allies to solemnly reaffirm their attachment to the arms embargo on Libya, Arab News reported.

France has accused Turkey of repeated violations of the U.N. arms embargo on conflict-torn Libya and branded the Turkish government in Ankara as an obstacle to securing a cease-fire in the North African nation, which Turkey firmly denies.

France is also calling for crisis mechanism to prevent a repeat of an incident earlier this month between Turkish warships and a French naval vessel in the Mediterranean. NATO is investigating what happened.

France says its frigate Courbet was lit up three times by Turkish naval targeting radar when it tried to approach a Turkish civilian ship suspected of involvement in arms trafficking. The ship was being escorted by three Turkish warships. The Courbet backed off after being targeted.

The French frigate was part of Sea Guardian, NATOs naval operation in the Mediterranean, at the time of the June 10 incident. France claims that under the alliances rules of engagement such conduct is considered a hostile act.

Turkey has denied harassing the Courbet. Turkey's ambassador to France was questioned in the French Senate on Wednesday and defended Turkey's actions as peaceful and crucial to restoring stability to Libya.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israelis to continue wearing masks and respect social distancing measures, as confirmed novel coronavirus cases spiked following the easing of lockdown measures, Deccan Herald reports.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting on the virus, he said the past 24 hours had seen nearly 1,000 new infections confirmed.

Israel had imposed tight lockdown restrictions following its first registered Covid-19 case in February, then began cautiously easing them in mid-April. Netanyahu said that for the moment, places of worship, bars, event halls, and clubs would stay open, but with gatherings limited to 50 people -- or 20 in private homes.

"We don't want to go back to a policy of general lockdown," he said.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the United States must immediately impose sanctions on Russia over reports that Moscow offered Taliban militants money to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.



"We must institute sanctions against Russia and we must do it right away," Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC.

Her comments echoed those of Senator Bob Menendez, in which he called for sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and other top officials in the country over allegations in media reports that Moscow offered reward money for the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Department of Defence has repeatedly noted there is no information to confirm Friday's Nytimes.com article in which the bounty allegations were sparked. U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed claims that he was informed on unverified intelligence on the matter, insisting that "it didn't rise to that level" and suggesting that a "secret source" cited by the New York Times "probably does not even exist".



The allegations have been denied on all sides, with the Kremlin slamming the reports as "nonsense" and the Taliban refuting them while noting that its actions are not related to foreign intelligence agencies or governments.
Chief of Russias General Staff Valery Gerasimov discussed security in Europe and arms control during a telephone talk with Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Stuart Peach, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Thursday, TASS reports.

"The sides discussed the situation in the sphere of European security and arms control. They touched upon the issues of the fight against the spread of COVID-19 and measures to prevent incidents during military activity," the ministry said.

This was the second contact between Gerasimov and Peach. Last time, they communicated in late November in Baku when they discussed the prevention of incidents along the Russia-NATO engagement line, including the prospect of resuming a dialogue of military experts, and also the European security and the situation in crisis regions.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday that the OPEC+ group of oil producers is expected to start easing oil output cuts from August as previously agreed.

He also said the global oil market might achieve a balance between supply and demand in July and could even face a shortage of crude, while oil consumption may not recover to pre-crisis levels before the end of 2021.

OPEC+, including Russia, agreed to reduce their combined oil output by around 9.7 million barrels per day, or some 10% of global consumption, to tackle the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Record cuts were meant to last until the end of June but have been extended into July.

Key OPEC+ ministers will meet in mid-July at a panel, known as the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), to recommend the next level of cuts.

Novak told an online conference of experts on Thursday that no decision has been made yet about the future of the deal.

"We will have a partial resumption of the unprecedented cuts starting from Aug. 1," he said.
Amidst the new wave of foreign investment and relocation after the pandemic, director general of the Foreign Investment Agency Do Nhat Hoang explained Vietnams outstanding advantages and how it can seize arising opportunities.

Do Nhat Hoang - Director general of the Ministry of Planning and Investments Foreign Investment Agency

In the context that numerous foreign investors are considering relocation to Vietnam, how can we best attain more foreign investment after the pandemic subsides?

Since 2018, due to the trade war between the United States and China, a lot of Chinese and overseas businesses that were located in China have moved to other countries. Some technical giants have already withdrawn from China to return to the United States or other countries which include similar conditions, while a number of Chinese investors also expanded to other countries to avoid the very high tariffs from the US. However, this is not a massive wave in a short time, and is just part of businesses China+1 strategy, meaning they will keep their projects in China while expanding investment out of this nation.

Moreover, COVID-19 has exposed the shortcomings of the supply chain for depending on a single economy. In order to cope with the interruption of their supply chains, multinational corporations have been moving their factories to other countries, in an attempt to restructure their supply sources. In this case, Vietnam is one of the promising lands with a lot of advantages. The Vietnamese government has already established a special taskforce to welcome investing giants, and the National Assembly has adopted the amended Law on Investment to further facilitate investment activities like cutting the list of industries and trades not open for investment, and adding some preferential investment industries and trades. The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) also encourages real estate developers and localities to provide the best conditions to welcome giants to Vietnam, such as preparing enough clean land at reasonable price; being ready with infrastructure, transport, and power and water systems, as well as labour resources; supporting investors to implement administrative procedures; and suggesting good partners in auxiliary industries.

How can the wave of foreign investment relocation impact the Vietnamese industries?

The restructuring of supply chains after the trade war and COVID-19 increases the demand on a local developing supporting industry, logistics, and more. So it is necessary to accelerate the growth of local businesses, and improve products quality to meet the conditions of foreign investors supply chains. Besides tax incentives in the amended Law on Investment, the Foreign Investment Agency will build special incentives for foreign investors to help local companies join their supply chains.

What advantages does Vietnam have compared to other countries which are also crafting policies to mobilise foreign investment after COVID-19?

Vietnam has outstanding advantages. Its political stability consolidates investor confidence and Vietnam is one of the few countries maintaining high GDP growth at 6.5-7 per cent over the past decade.

In 2019, Vietnam was one of 20 countries reporting the highest growth at 7.02 per cent. In the first quarter of this year, despite a lot of difficulties caused by the global health crisis, the country still grew by 3.82 per cent, while most other countries did not grow or reported negative growth.

Manufacturing cost is affordable and the preferential investment policies are quite good compared to regional countries. Vietnam has also joined numerous free trade agreements.

Next, labour resources are abundant with a golden population structure and an extremely cheap cost. Vietnam is a promising market with more than 96 million people, ranking 15th in the world, and the investment climate is continuously reviewed and improved. The country is located in the centre of Asia, connecting China and ASEAN countries, and it takes only 3-5 hours to reach dynamic markets like China, India, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and the ASEAN.

The business environment of the country has also improved significantly and was recognised by reputable organisations such as the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and the US News & World Report.

After successfully controlling the pandemic, Vietnam is highly appreciated and emerging as the safest destination for investors. Moreover, recent trade deals such as the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, which has just been approved by the National Assembly, have become a modern expressway connecting Vietnam and the biggest economies elsewhere, as well as opening a huge space for co-operation and trade.

Besides, a series of laws related to investment, enterprises, and public-private partnerships, which were drafted by the MPI and just approved by the National Assembly, contribute to accelerating the relocation of high-tech projects that could generate much more added value and link local businesses in Vietnam. VIR

Nguyen Huong

More foreign investment inflows into Vietnam The Sino-American trade war together with supply chain disruptions due to the novel coronavirus pandemic has prompted many an investor to plan to relocate their production facilities in order to reduce their reliance on China.
The number of borrowers is expected to increase, but this also poses higher risks for finance companies.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) reported that outstanding loans have reached VND8,300 trillion, or 134 percent of GDP, of which 55 percent have been provided to businesses and 45 percent to individuals.





Finance companies reports show that credit growth in Q1 was relatively satisfactory compared with the general situation of the banking sector, though growth rates were not as high as previously.



HD SAISON, for example, reported that outstanding loans in the first three months of the year increased by 4.9 percent, or higher than initially planned.



The figure of MCredit had reached VND10 trillion as of the end of Q1, higher than the VND9 trillion of the same period last year. As for FE Credit, the figure was VND61.6 trillion, up by 16 percent. This brought pre-tax profit of VND918 billion, up by 20 percent.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) reported that outstanding loans have reached VND8,300 trillion, or 134 percent of GDP, of which 55 percent have been provided to businesses and 45 percent to individuals.

Pham Xuan Hoe, deputy director of the SBVs Banking Strategy Department, estimated that unofficial consumer lending accounts for 15-20 percent of total outstanding loans to the economy (VND1,160-1,550 trillion).



Meanwhile, consumer loans provided via banks and finance companies were worth VND1,000 trillion as of the end of 2019, or 11.4 percent of total outstanding loans.



There are no official statistics about consumer loans through other channels.



The pandemic has had an impact on the consumer finance market, but there is still room for growth as the current outstanding loans just account for 11.4 percent of total outstanding loans to the economy, much lower than the average 40 percent in other economies.



According to Can Van Luc, chief economist of BIDV, Vietnams consumer loans, if counting the loans to fund house purchases and repair, account for 19 percent of total outstanding loans.

If not counting real estate credit, consumer loans would just account for 12 percent of total outstanding loans, much lower than the 21 percent in China.



Luc predicted that credit would rise again with the expected growth rate of 3.5-4 percent by the end of the second quarter.

The credit growth rate is expected to reach 9-10 percent by year end, and if this occurs, it will be a relatively high credit growth rate in the region.



Consumer lenders have been warned of bad debt increases as many borrowers have lost their jobs or seen their income decrease.

Moodys has lowered the credit rating of three finance companies, nFE Credit, Home Credit Vietnam and SHB Finance, and two banks, VP Bank (the holding company of FE Credit) and SHB (the holding company of SHB Finance).

Kim Chi

Credit grows slowly, but banks still make profits Though demand for loans was low in the first five months of the year, commercial banks were able to implement 40-50 percent of their business plans.
In Baltimore, some ballots were printed incorrectly, forcing election workers to manually transfer voters choices to new forms that could be scanned for correct results. Ballots also were delivered late to voters in the city and Montgomery County, which state election officials blamed on SeaChange. The vendor argued in turn that the state was late in sending it the necessary voter lists.
Switzerlands drug maker Novartis Pharma Services AG has announced a GMP qualification for Lek Pharmaceuticals d.d. within the scope of certification for medicines in Vietnam,

but doubts have been raised about recognition in regards to the valuable and much-sought-after PIC/S-GMP and EU-GMP standards.

Confusion reigns over the status of certification for Novartis Lek arm, Photo: Le Toan

The Drug Administration of Vietnam (DAV) under the Ministry of Health (MoH) has announced the list of foreign-invested manufacturing factories failing to attain PIC/S-GMP and EU-GMP recognition, with some being required to make further clarifications. They include Novartis Pharma Services AG.

Specifically, in Annex 2 of the DAVs Dispatch No.3518, Novartis Pharma Services AG site with the registered name Lek Pharmaceuticals d.d. is required to give further clarification regarding the company submitting a general file of the manufacturing establishment showing the manufacture of dosage forms without special requirements.

Novartis was also asked to provide an inspection report, or CPP certificate of a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certification agency, clearly showing the dosage forms without special requirements within the scope of certification.

A representative of Novartis Vietnam Co., Ltd, told VIR, Novartis appreciates the MoHs transparency with regards to the announcement, which shows the prudent-monitored operations of the industry, and makes it convenient for companies and the community to have fast access to sufficient information and guidance from the MoH during the implementation of the process.

The representative also elaborated, As one of the leading global pharmaceutical companies with operations in Vietnam, we comply with all regulations and guidance from the MoH. As of now, the DAV and MoH have approved and announced the GMP qualification for Lek Pharmaceuticals within the appropriate scope of certification for our medicines in Vietnam.

Despite Novartis announcement of the GMP qualification, it remains unclear whether the manufacturing site gets the high-in-demand PIC/S-GMP and EU-GMP certifications.

GMP is a basic standard, in a system for ensuring products are consistently made and controlled according to quality standards. It is designed to minimise the risks involved in any pharmaceutical production that cannot be eliminated through testing the final product. In Vietnam in 2004, the MoH issued Decision No.3886/2004/QD-BYT implementing the principles and standards of good manufacturing practices.

For western medicines, by the end of 2010, all enterprises producing external medicines and medicinal drug had to achieve GMP-WHO standards at least.

Meanwhile, PIC/S-GMP and EU-GMP are higher-standard certifications than GMP. EU-GMP certification is the highest recognition available by companies in the pharmaceutical space, while the PIC/S-GMP is a non-binding, informal co-operative arrangement between regulatory authorities in the field of GMP of medicinal products for human or veterinary use.

It is open to any authority with a comparable GMP inspection system. PIC/S presently comprises 53 participating authorities from all over the world.

On receiving the EU-GMP and PIC/S-GMP certifications, drugs channels can gain advantages and high profit in tenders in Group 1 of brand-name drugs which go to the hospital system, or the ethical drugs channel, which is the most profitable segment.

At present, there is no difference in tax incentive treatments in domestically-owned and foreign-invested facilities conducting outsourcing in Vietnam, all being subject to VAT exemption. Together with that exemption, currently the cost of brand-name drugs is 10-20 times higher than generic products, thus bringing in high profit for multinational corporations.

In the wake of the advantages, multinationals are rushing to seek PIC/S-GMP and EU-GMP recognition for their manufacturing sites. Besides Novartis, other famous multinational corporations in the race include GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, F.Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., and more.

However, the path is not rosy for all of them. In the 72nd list of application for the announcement of manufacturers with PIC/S-GMP and EU-GMP qualifications which meet or did not meet requirements announced by the DAV-MoH in April, 64 applications require additional dossiers/clarifications.

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Vietnam Shareholding Company, proposed by Sanofi Vietnam, and Pharmatis, proposed by Abbott Laboratories Singapore Plc. and Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd.-FTO-3, are also on the list of those failing to receive the standards recognition. VIR

Bich Thuy

Gradual but radical changes set to sweep pharmaceutical landscape The upcoming implementation of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) is expected to transform the competitive landscape of Vietnams pharmaceutical and medical industry.
Since 2013, the state budget has collected VND1.9 trillion a year from casinos and prize-winning electronic games.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), licensing of prize-winning electronic games was done in accordance with the Prime Ministers Decision 32 until Decree 86/2013 was promulgated.





By that time, more than 20 businesses had licenses, mostly in large cities with developed tourism such as Nha Trang, Quang Ninh, Phan Thiet, Hanoi and HCM City.



On July 29, 2013, the government issued Decree 86 on the business of prize-winning electronic games for foreigners. The legal document was later amended and supplemented in the Decree 175/2016.

From the time Decree 86 took effect to December 31, 2019, 42 tourism accommodation establishments got certificates on meeting conditions to provide prize-winning electronic game services in nearly 20 provinces and cities, with the total game machines of 2,611.

From the time Decree 86 took effect to December 31, 2019, 42 tourism accommodation establishments got certificates on meeting conditions to provide prize-winning electronic game services in nearly 20 provinces and cities, with the total game machines of 2,611.



The highest revenue from casinos and prize-winning electronic games is mostly sourced from southern provinces, which account for 50 percent of the total market revenue, followed by the central and northern regions.



FIA reported that the total revenue from prize-winning electronic games in 2018 reached VND13.248 trillion, an increase of 22.8 percent over 2017, or twice as much as 2013. The amount of taxes and fees paid to the state budget was VND2.785 trillion in 2018, up by 26 percent over 2017.



According to Do Van Su from FIA, since 2013, prize-winning electronic games pay VND1.9 trillion to the state budget every year. Since the day a full legal framework was set, the market has been growing steadily year after year and the current market size is two times higher than it was before the promulgation of the decree.



The prize-winning electronic games club at Pullman Saigon Center in HCM City reported profit of VND20.1 billion in 2018, while Charlie One Club of Mariott Hotel in Hanoi reported profit of VND60.6 billion.



According to Su, the government of Vietnam has allowed 11 businesses to run casinos, including 10 casinos reserved for people with foreign passports and one for Vietnamese.



Of these, eight casinos are operational, including six small ones in the northen and central regions (Lao Cai, Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Da Nang) and two large ones in Ba Ria  Vung Tau (capitalized at over $4 billion) and Phu Quoc (over $2 billion).



Meanwhile, three casinos have not been put into operation in Quang Nam, Khanh Hoa and Thua Thien-Hue.



Corona Phu Quoc is the only casino allowed to receive Vietnamese people on a trial basis.



In 2019, the total revenue of eight businesses running casinos was VND2.5 trillion, and they paid VND1.34 trillion to the state budget.

Le Ha

Casino development helps stimulate tourism demand in VN In a document to the government, the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIE) suggested developing casino services and prize winning games as a solution to recover the economy after the epidemic ends.
From July 1, Ms. Carolyn Turk will work at the World Bank (WB) Hanoi office as its country director in Vietnam, according to the office.

Ms. Carolyn Turk. Photo: WB website

A United Kingdom national, Turk joined the World Bank in 1998. She has since held various positions including Senior Poverty Specialist based in Vietnam, Senior Social Development Specialist and Lead Social Development Specialist in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region, and Country Manager for Rwanda. Her most recent assignment was the Country Director for Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan and Eritrea.

Prior to joining the World Bank, Turk worked with the UK Department for International Development. She holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Economics from the University of Cambridge UK, and has authored numerous publications on poverty and inequality, including a book based on research into gender inequality in 20 countries.

The official will shoulder the leading role in intensifying WB investment and knowledge sharing programmes with Vietnam so as to help the country achieve the goal of becoming a middle-high income state by 2045.

As of June 30, 2020, the WB had provided Vietnam with more than 24.86 billion USD, including grants, credits and loans aimed to support development programmes.

Over the past six months, it pledged an additional 516.67 million USD for projects in the fields of transport, urban development, university education, climate change and green growth. WBs study and consultation programmes in Vietnam have also created a strategic source of knowledge and consultation, thus providing a timely assistance to the national development roadmap./.

World Bank/VNA
If you want to get to know the person youre talking to, take a look at the shoes theyre wearing. They can tell a great deal about the elegance of the woman who chose them.

They are not only protectors of the feet; they also silently reflect the inner thoughts, emotions, intellect, and cultural maturity of the wearer. They can also bear witness to a community, a group of people who wear them, value them, and bring them to the next level of wearable art.

Such attitudes drive a young woman from Hue who has taken her shoes to the wider world.

Local significance, global thinking

After graduating from college in 2008, Nguyen Ngoc Quynh Anh, then 23, ventured abroad to Ceske Budejovice in the Czech Republic to start a new life selling goodies in a 500sq.m store.

Two years later, she moved to Strakonice and decided to get a business of her own off the ground. She noticed that guarantees on goods from the EU were usually for two years, whereas the goods she imported from China to sell were covered for much less time. She put all of her capital into opening a new store and stocking its shelves. Sales were slow, though, and outlays continued to exceed revenue. Problems mounted.

Quynh Anh resolved all of the problems one at a time and managed to remain in the foreign country. Life was tough, but not insurmountable.

She tossed and turned at night, however, trying to think of a way to make ends meet while leaving her personal imprint and making good use of her roots.

Take local action with overall global thinking was the mantra she adopted, and she decided to return to Hue in 2014 to find her market niche.

At first I only thought about making a product that could be sold abroad, that bore Vietnamese culture and expertise, she remembered. But I had a hard time determining what that product might be.

Her hometown of Hue was the royal capital of the Nguyen dynasty for 143 years, from 1802 to 1945. It was a magnet drawing in many craft guilds to serve the court and its demanding contingent: martial arts mandarins, men of letters, doctors, teachers, and artisans.

Traditional crafts need connoisseur clients to thrive and keep the work flowing. More than 80 traditional guilds are now operating in and around Hue, half of which are known nationwide.

Quynh Anh recalled she spent a great deal of time visiting traditional guilds to watch artisans work meticulously on every product.

She paid numerous visits to My Xuyen Village in Phong Hoa Commune, Phong Dien District, 40km north of Hue.

In 1802, when the first Emperor of the Nguyen dynasty ascended the throne, the court invited carpentry masters to begin building the capital. These masters were mostly from the north, but on their way to Hue they stopped at My Xuyen and took some young boys with them as apprentices. These young apprentices would later become the new generation of My Xuyen carpenters.

Their descendants have retained the craft to this day.

SIGNIFYING MARK: Royal seal for contemporary use. VNS Photo Tuan Hoang

Back in the mid-19th century, wood carvers were at their best as the new dynasty constructed its Forbidden City. Ornate wooden palaces and homes were gradually being built.

Their expertise can still be seen in artworks and architecture. The level of carving techniques reached a pinnacle during this time. Hue has its own signature wooden houses, with ornate decorations, called nha ruong. The most beautiful were made by the wood carvers of My Xuyen.

Traditional values

Nearby is Tien Non Village in Phu Mau Commune, Phu Vang District, where Emperor Khai Dinh assigned master artisan Nguyen Duc Bui to restore all of the gilded woodwork in the Forbidden City.

The lacquer that gilded the woodwork was harvested from Phu Tho, a hilly region some 80km north of Hanoi or more than 750km from Hue.

In the mid-19th century a trip between the two locations could take months. The latex from the lacquer trees would be treated for three months until it separated into three levels, with each then coated on wood as appropriate.

Traditional lacquer in Hue has three purposes: to coat boats and wood, to gild with gold and silver leaf, and for lacquered bas relief.

The basic colours of traditional lacquer were mahogany, red, and black, as well as gold and silver from real gold and silver powder or in thin leaves. More natural colours were added later, such as blue, grey, egg-shell white, crab pink, and mother-of-pearl.

A finished lacquer product should have between five and seven layers of lacquer coating. The artisan then polishes the surface with water so that the layers underneath reveal themselves and give it a three-dimensional appearance.

Todays Hue lacquer works are in new forms and continue to surprise aficionados. Regular objects, ornaments, and creative jewellery keep lacquer present in daily life and not just limited to artistic pieces adorning walls in galleries and private homes.

Ethnic tapestry

When Quynh Anh visited the mountainous districts of A Luoi and Nam Dong near Hue, she learned of the ethnic Ta Oi peoples traditional tapestry. The young entrepreneur met with master artisan Ho Thi Hop, who made the most difficult zeng works of art.

In September, Ta Oi women collect cotton from the hills to take home and make thread. The fibres are dyed and weaved into a new piece. Different sizes of cotton thread are used and nothing goes to waste.

The more decorative a zeng piece of cloth, the more value it possesses. Beautiful pieces play an important role in rituals, religious practices, and ancestor worshipping ceremonies. They also act as a valuable object a woman takes to confirm a serious relationship with a man. A future husband will offer his parents-in-law a piece of zeng cloth as a mark of respect.

From her trips, Quynh Anh first came upon the idea of creating special footwear. It must be suitable for all sizes and shapes of feet, while bearing local significance. The reason she wished to break into the footwear industry was because she had noticed that Vietnam was a major sneaker producer but didnt have a local sneaker brand.

She wanted to change that.

Her footwear, she decided, must follow international quality standards, with designs in line with global trends, and bear features not found in other shoes.

After spending long periods on field trips to villages in Hue, Quynh Anh identified three materials and processes that, put together, would form the product she had been searching for: made from wood, coated with lacquer, and featuring zeng fabric.

When she hit a dead-end while sketching her first shoes, she lacked the skills to move on. So she took classes with a senior student at the Hue College of the Arts.

To start her dream of producing shoes with a complete new look and sheen, Quynh Anh tried using all of the bits left over from a house construction. Jackfruit wood was the best material for clogs, sandals, and shoes, as it is easy to carve and found in abundance, given that Hue is home to classic wooden houses.

The particulars craftsmen applied to larger projects were now turned to decorating smaller pieces -- tiny bronze drums, lotus motifs, dragons, phoenixes, and details from ethnic tapestry all found their way into her wooden shoes. On each, Quynh Anh left her own stamp, inspired by the royal seal.

DESTINED FOR ELSEWHERE: Artisans work on wooden sandal designs, which are then sent to boutiques in Europe. VNS Photo Tuan Hoang

The human factor

Looking back on her first days in business, Quynh Anh said the hardest task was talking to artisans, having her ideas accepted, and then seeing them come to life. The wood carvers and lacquer artisans were the hardest to win over.

For many generations, master lacquer artisans in Hue only worked on large paintings or decorating a royal pavilion, palace, or emperors tomb, she explained. They only used dark colours and only worked on flat surfaces.

The real challenge in decorating the sole of a shoe is that the lacquer artisan must work on a curved surface, make two decorations that were exactly the same, and use a wider range of colours.

I asked the best people doing the job how to go about it, she said.

It was a rocky road, of course. No one wanted to work for her. Artisans thought she was out of place, starting a new business but demanding the best. Others thought she was trying to destroy their traditional craft and flat-out refused. Younger craftsmen who wanted to work for her, meanwhile, were not sufficiently skilled.

She demands that the traditional technique of having seven layers of lacquer be used on a tiny shoe sole, which is like trying to 'kill a chicken with a buffalo knife', one artisan said, and similar sentiments were expressed by others.

Such hurdles, though, could not stop her from finding the best craftsmen to do what Quynh Anh believed to be the best for her products. Having been away from home since she was young, she maintained her calm, persistence, and belief to convince people to shelve their traditional thinking.

She walked every step along the way with the carvers and lacquer artisans, to identify the best solutions to problems they encountered and to establish an effective workflow.

We experimented countless times to find a new colour that would be feasible on a shoe sole, said Hoang Ngoc Luong, a lacquer artisan who worked with Quynh Anh. We had to go beyond the traditional techniques we had learned from our masters.

Master carver Truong Dinh Phuong said he used different machinery to cut the wood as precisely as possible, before polishing by hand.

Taking her shoes from a design on paper through many steps to become a finished product was a long and arduous task, but was effective in maintaining tradition in a contemporary setting while adding new artistic flourishes.

It took three years for Quynh Anh to come up with her first pair of shoes. She founded her company in 2018, which she called Xua.

Friendly on the feet

While spending so much time, money, and effort on the artistic elements of her products, Quynh Anh steadfastly maintained her first and foremost requirement for a pair of shoes: comfort.

The materials, style, and harmony with a persons outfit say a lot about who is wearing them. If you want to know who the person youre talking to is, consider their shoes, is Quynh Anhs mindset.

All Xua shoes are made to last at least three years. Once she sold the first batch, she became more confident in finding a market.

Local artisans began to be less sceptical about what she said. A new path for traditional artisans had been laid out, allowing them to be involved in contemporary creations.

The company adopted a strategy to produce shoes for export, and Europe is one of the most demanding markets in the world, with quality control so strict you need to be certified.

Quynh Anh has complete confidence in her products, as they combine the work of many craftsmen and come at competitive prices.

Any other local company trying to copy what we do would have to find the same type of people we have, while foreign companies making similar shoes simply cant beat our prices, she said.

The company has exported shoes to France, the Czech Republic, and Italy in Europe and to the US, where Xua shoes sell for VND10 million (US$450), like other luxury footwear. They have also found their way on to fashion catwalks around Europe.

The most difficult task is finding a way to use tradition in modern life, Quynh Anh said.

HEAD WEAR: Motorbike and military helmets with lacquer and egg-shell decorations have become collectibles among artistic young people. VNS Photo Doan Tung

Using traditional crafts, motifs, and tapestry is not new in Vietnams fashion circles. The most well-known designer in this regard is Minh Hanh, who uses traditional motifs and materials in her collections, which have been on catwalks in France and Italy. Her ao dai collections were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, before artistic footwear was around.

Having combined the use of zeng fabrics in her shoe designs, Quynh Anh wanted to highlight the hard work and artistic values of this Ta Oi secret. But the shoes also have some unwanted side-effects.

In hot and damp weather like in Vietnam, its just not comfortable to wear these shoes for a long time, she explained. But in a milder climate, its no problem.

The colours of traditional zeng are all dark. If we want brighter colours, we must provide Ta Oi weavers with the specific shade, and its hard to convince them to change their habits, she said.

She must always work with a translator, and misunderstandings should always be taken into account.

CREATIVE SOURCE: Quynh Anh finds inspiration for today's practical designs from the arts of kingdoms of old. VNS Photo Tuan Hoang

The premiere of Xua shoes at the national festival of traditional crafts in Hue in April 2019 was noticed by exporters and new markets were then added to Xuas ever-growing list.

Agents for world-renowned companies also contracted Xua to make products.

It is quite difficult to market a new product in Europe, said the owner of a company that exports furniture manufactured in Vietnam, who preferred to remain anonymous. The margins are very small, but if you want a foothold in the market you need to accept this.

Unique products never follow the path well-trodden. Xua has connected with women from the diplomatic corps in Vietnam, who not only get to wear artistic, quality shoes but also learn much about Vietnamese culture by doing so.

Quynh Anh said shes forever grateful to the traditions of Hue. My achievements so far have been from simply connecting resources already available in the ancient royal city, she said. VNS

Do Quang Tuan Hoang

Ta Oi ethnic minority preserve traditional Zeng weaving The traditional craft of Zeng (brocade) weaving has long been the pride of the Ta Oi ethnic group in A Luoi district, Thua ThienHue province.
With the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership scheduled to be signed this November, doors will soon open to attract more investment and swell Vietnams trade with international partners.

Last week, two Vietnamese companies, Hanoimilk JSC and Bel Vietnam Co., Ltd. were granted permission for exporting dairy products, including fermented milk and cheese, to China by their General Administration of Customs. The administration is also now appraising a dossier on obtaining an export code for Vietnams NutiFood JSC, with results expected to be announced soon.

According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trades (MoIT) Department for Asian and African Markets, China has so far provided export codes for four Vietnamese companies to export dairy products to its market, including TH Group, Vinamilk, Hanoimilk, and Bel Vietnam.

Currently, average import tax rates for Vietnams dairy products into China are amounting to 10-15 per cent.

However, these rates are expected to be removed with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), meaning that Vietnamese dairy products could have a bigger market in China.

In 2012, leaders of the 10 ASEAN member states and the ASEANs partners, namely Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, launched negotiations for the RCEP.

In 2013, the first negotiation round was kicked off, and then followed by another 27 rounds. However, India dropped out of the RCEP in September 2019, aiming to protect its vulnerable sectors and persuade China to grant reciprocal market access.

Strong commitment

At the 36th ASEAN Summit last week, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated that the bloc committed to economic liberalisation and connectivity with the early inking of the RCEP. Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh reaffirmed that as ASEAN chair in 2020, Vietnam has been working closely with other member countries to maintain the blocs leadership and close co-operation with the five partners, to accelerate finalising RCEP talks and the legal review of the deals wording so that it may be inked in Hanoi in November, when the fourth RCEP Summit will take place.

The inking of the RCEP in 2020 will send a message that the negotiating countries support a multilateral trade system, and increase economic integration among regional nations, therefore contributing to recovering economic activities, and establishing a new normalcy in the whole region, said a statement from the MoITs Department for Multilateral Trade Policy.

The 15 negotiating nations stressed that the RCEP will provide a more stable and predictable economic environment to support the much-needed recovery of trade and investment in the region, which has been adversely affected by COVID-19.

Regarding India, all parties said India has been an important member in the RCEP, and its participation in the deal could contribute to the entire regions progress and prosperity. They stress that the RCEP member states are open for India to rejoin, the statement said.

The RCEP is regarded as the worlds largest regional trade agreement as it covers a market of roughly 30 per cent of the worlds population, or about 2.3 billion people.

Good times ahead

The RCEP signatories have committed to opening their doors to goods, services, and investment, simplify custom procedures, setting up rules of origin and removing trade barriers to enhance trade facilitation.

The RCEP will establish high-quality rules for the supply of services between parties, including obligations to provide access to foreign service suppliers, to treat local and foreign suppliers equally on a national level and to treat foreign suppliers as well as suppliers of any other non-RCEP country. Service suppliers from the RCEP countries will benefit from commitments to enhance the transparency and predictability of domestic regulation affecting trade in services, bettering the business climate in the region.

Currently, no specific levels of tariff reductions under the RCEP have been revealed.

Former Malaysian Ambassador to Vietnam M. Zamruni Khalid told VIR that Vietnam and Malaysias participation in the RCEP has enhanced their position as an attractive location for investment, and Malaysian firms will benefit more from the Vietnamese market via the RCEP.

A sector of big interest for Malaysian financiers is agriculture as the country has developed expertise in logistics and packaging for agriculture and agro-based products. While agriculture is a major contributor to Vietnams economy, the sector is still lacking in terms of technologies and output quality, said Khalid. This provides opportunities for potential Malaysian investors, especially by bringing in advanced, value-added processing technologies.

Ibnu Hadi, Indonesian Ambassador to Vietnam, told VIR that he is optimistic about the impacts of the RCEP on Vietnams economy, and expects it to expand trade and woo more investment inflows.

Such impacts will help Vietnam reap higher growth and deepen its business climate in regional and global value chains, allowing the country to boost exports, Hadi said. Moreover, the benefits from the RCEP will become more visible if Vietnam improves institutional reforms.

According to Hadi, the RCEP will also offer massive opportunities for Vietnams agricultural exports.

Demand for agricultural products from the agreements member states is high, especially tropical agricultural products and assorted processed food. Moreover, China which accounts for 30 per cent of the worlds total trade, is a huge market for Vietnam, the ambassador said.

Vietnam is among the largest exporters of farm produce in the world, such as coffee, rice, pepper, fish, and shrimp. It is expected that agro-forestry-fishery export turnover this year will be around $43 billion, up from $41 billion last year.

Tim Harcourt, professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, told VIR that based on his calculations, the RCEP will give numerous opportunities to Vietnam in many sectors thanks to the its tariff reductions. This is particularly true for sectors like ICT, textile, footwear, and agriculture. Vietnam has strengths in all of these sectors.

Under the RCEP, import tariffs for these products will be slashed remarkably upon the deals entry into force, and will be reduced to zero within 3-10 years.

Preparation is everything

According to experts, to benefit from the RCEP, Vietnam needs to improve its economic institutions, including corporate governance, rule of law, and overall transparency. The countrys main task will be at home, undertaking structural reform so its institutions are transparent and effective, to boost productivity and international competitiveness and to take advantage of all the trade deals on offer, Harcourt said. Vietnam needs to improve its skills and infrastructure and its overall institutions.

Meanwhile, Raymond Mallon, senior economic advisor from the Australia-Vietnam economic reform programme, told VIR that although the RCEP will enable Vietnam to attract more foreign direct investment, much remains to be done for the country to significantly benefit from the deal.

Authorities need to remain aware of the business and investment environment in other countries to further improve the national business climate and protect its natural environment, Mallon said.

Nguyen Dat

RCEP serves up golden opportunities for ASEAN The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is to be a driver for the recovery of the ASEAN economy after the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.
Given the complicated political-security and socio-economic situation in the world and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam has made a lot of contributions as a non-permanent member of the United National Security Council (UNSC),

said Do Hung Viet, director general at Department of International Organisation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

An open debate of the United Nations Security Council on the Middle East situation, including Palestine held on January 21 under the chair of Viet Nam.

Speaking at a press conference organised by the Ministry of Information and Communications held on Tuesday in Hanoi, he said Vietnam has successfully completed the set tasks despite facing a lot of challenges.

As a non-permanent member of UNSC, Vietnam has shown its stance of following the UN Charter and basic principles of international law, supporting the finding of solutions to regional and international conflicts through peaceful negotiations in the spirit of independence, activeness, responsibility and balance, Viet said.

Viet Nam has also promoted its experience in the process of national development, international and regional integration, he said.

Viet believed the results achieved in the past six months would create favourable conditions and act as momentum for the country to do better in the future.

He attributed the achievement to the Partys foreign policy, close leadership of the Government and coordination between ministries and agencies as well as the role of the press.

Do Hung Viet, director general at Department of International Organisation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaks at the meeting.

According to Viet, the country has gradually participated in UNSC activities in a more deep and proactive manner. This was demonstrated by the fact that Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has taken part and made a speech at a high-level virtual meeting entitled "75th Anniversary of the end of World War II" in response to an invitation by the Estonian Foreign Minister.

Viet Nam and a number of countries proposed the Security Council to meet on the COVID-19 pandemic and urged the Security Council to issue a document on the issue.

As the president of the Security Council in January, Viet Nam has chaired and coordinated many regular and irregular tasks, including chairing formal meetings and confidential consultations of the Security Council, promoting negotiations and chairing Security Council decisions.

In addition, Viet Nam presides over work between the Security Council member countries and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, maintaining regular cooperation with local and international press on behalf of the Council, approving and circulating important documents of the Security Council in the position of President.

Viet emphasised that Viet Nam took the initiative to organise two important events which attracted the attention of the United Nations, the international community and marked a milestone of Viet Nam at the UNSC.

The first event was an open debate of the UNSC with the theme 'Promoting compliance with the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security', he said.

It was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh with the participation of 111 speakers. Under Viet Nam's leadership, for the first time, the Security Council adopted a separate Presidential Statement of compliance with the UN Charter.

As president of the Security Council, Viet Nam organised a meeting on cooperation between the United Nations and ASEAN. This was the first time this topic has been discussed at the UNSC.

Through its activities at the UNSC, Viet Nam has enhanced its prestige and position as well as that of ASEAN in the international arena, Viet said.

He also said Viet Nam has presented itself as a responsible member which actively took part in planning and implementation of decisions on international peace and security.  VNS
Vietnam affirmed its consistent support for the disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

The United Nations Security Council held avideo conference meeting as its 15 members took up the Secretary-Generals ninthreporton the implementation of resolution 2231 (2015) ahead of the scheduled expiration of a UN arms embargo on Iran on 18 October.  VNA/VNS Photo

It also pledged support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday (local time).

The meeting discussed the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Irans nuclear programme, over the last six months.

Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, said the JCPOA and Resolution 2231 are important achievements of multilateral diplomacy and dialogue as the JCPOA plays the essential role in the global architecture for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as in regional and international security.

However, she said the UN regrets that the future of the JCPOA is in doubt, adding it also regrets the USs withdrawal from the JCPOA, re-imposition of sanctions, and decision not to extend waivers for oil trading with Iran and stop all projects that this deal allows.

These decisions have caused difficulties for Iran and member countries of the UN Security Council in implementing the JCPOA and Resolution 2231.

The UN is also saddened that Iran, in response to the US withdrawal, has moved to reduce its commitments under the JCPOA since July 2019, she said, citing IAEA monitoring results that Iran has surpassed limits stipulated in the JCPOA on uranium enrichment and its stockpiles of heavy water and low-enriched uranium.

The Under-Secretary-General said the adherence to and full implementation of Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA remain the best ways to solve differences among parties in the Iran nuclear issue and ensure regional stability.

At the meeting, an EU representative affirmed that the remaining parties of the JCPOA will continue efforts to maintain this agreement, stressing that the full and effective implementation of all sides is the decisive factor.

The Permanent Representative of Belgium to the United Nations Marc Pecsteen called on regional and international organisations to take appropriate actions to contribute to the JCPOA implementation, and on relevant parties to avoid actions escalating tensions.



Ambassador ang inh Quy, head of Viet Nams permanent mission to the UN, reiterated Viet Nams consistent support for the disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Resolution 2231, and the JCPOA.

He appealed to the parties concerned to promote negotiations to solve differences, keep fully and effectively implementing Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA, exercise self-restraint and avoid activities that may undermine trust or escalate tensions.

The JCPOA was signed in Vienna (Austria) in 2015 with the participation of Iran and the P5+1, namely the UK, France, the US, Russia, China, and Germany. Under this deal, Tehran has to limit its nuclear weapon development programme in exchange for sanctions relief.  VNS
Carbon pricing instruments are receiving increasing market support and attention as the world grapples with how to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,

but the choice and design of a carbon pricing instrument should always be driven by national circumstances.

Vietnam is committed under various agreements to curb the increase of GHG emissions

This was one of the main factors pored over at a workshop last week in Hanoi on the role of carbon pricing and market instruments in nationally determined contribution (NDC) implementation and the potential for application in Vietnam, hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the World Bank.

The workshop aimed to build a carbon pricing approach including support to develop market-based instruments and raise awareness, knowledge, and capacity of related ministries, businesses, and industry associations on carbon pricing tools.

Around the world, a growing number of businesses are leading the transition toward a low-carbon future. A well-designed carbon is indispensable to reduce GHG emissions in a cost-efficient way, but carbon pricing alone is insufficient to address it, said Rahuh Kitchlu, energy sector co-ordinator at the World Bank in Vietnam.

Carbon pricing is a market-based strategy for lowering GHG emissions. The aim is to put an actual monetary value on carbon emissions so that the costs of climate impacts and the opportunities for low-carbon energy options are better reflected in production and consumption choice.

There are two main types of carbon pricing  carbon taxes and emission trade schemes. Gasoline taxes, taxes for coal mining and natural gas or oil drilling feed-in tariffs, and reduction of fossil fuel subsidies are other examples of indirectly reflecting a price on carbon into consumer or business decisions, according to the World Bank.

Truong Duc Tri, director of the Vietnam Partnership for Market Readiness Project, said that carbon pricing has played an important long-term role in helping jurisdictions and companies achieve zero emissions. He added that 30 countries and territories have been applying carbon taxes and thirty-one countries and territories have been applying emission trading system.

Selecting a national appropriate carbon pricing instrument is an important element, affecting the sustainable development of the country, business, and communities as well as ensuring the complacence with international commitments.

Thus, Tri said that carbon pricing requires a complete database on GHG emissions and other related matters such as transparency and accuracy of activity dates, business dates, GHG inventories, and also a registration system that falls under international criteria.

Besides that, researching carbon pricing requires comprehensive assessment on economic and social impacts as well as consensus among stakeholders including government, the economic sector, enterprises, and communities.

A representative of the Ministry and Planning and Investment said that a growing number of private sector players, particularly investors, are also driving the climate agenda forward by using carbon pricing tools to understand and manage climate risks. Many developing countries are looking to identify effective options to engage the private sector, including working with international partners.

He gave recommendations on carbon pricing tools that need a transparent legal framework to encourage the private sector, increase reliability, and share information as well as take advantage of international support.

Vietnams Green Growth Strategy provides a pathway to achieve its NDC goals. Private investment will play a significant role in meeting Vietnams demand for green finance, with 70 per cent of the $21 billion in total investment expected to come from the private sector.

In addition to supporting the achievement of the countrys mitigation and adaptation goals, the participation of the private sector will help advance the countrys sustainable development objectives, including promoting the more efficient use of natural resources, cutting costs for households and firms, and improving the competitiveness of the economy, according to the Center for Clean Air Policy, a global non-profit climate research and development group.

The NDC strategy highlights the key role that private sector finance will need to play beyond more traditional sectors for green investment, such as renewable energy. For example, $12 billion in international support will be needed in the agricultural sector to meet Vietnams NDC target, more than twice the amount needed in the energy sector.

It is necessary to have a solid database and ensure data quality before the market can officially trade in carbon pricing, said Hoang Van Tam, from the Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade at the workshop.

The participation of stakeholders in the design and pilot stage is an important factor to ensure the success of the programme. Besides that, incentives and penalties should be clearly stated in carbon pricing and market instruments, Tam said.

So far, solid waste and steel are the two piloted fields for Vietnam joining the carbon market. The potential for facilities in two sectors in the coming time can be achieved at a level seen within groups of low-emission countries through improving process performance, managing raw materials, and upgrading technology.

Much more action will be needed going forward to meet the Paris Agreement commitments. In that, Vietnam commits to reducing at least 8 per cent of GHG emissions by 2030, and up to 25 per cent if it receives effective support from the international community.

Nguyen Thi Huyen - Deputy head, Environmental and Sustainable Development Institute of Energy Currently, Vietnam does not had a specific sanction, price, or market for CO2 so we do not have a basis for selling it. We can use market price of the clean development mechanism (CDM) but it is very cheap. Therefore, although we have pointed out different scenarios for fuel field, we have troubles with price. The current CDM is applied for all industries in the whole country but it should be made based on electric and energy so that we can have an orientation to follow. Moreover, the coefficient of CO2 is now different from the ones in the past. Now the energy industry is importing a large amount of coal and using types of mixed coal at different rates with different emission coefficients, so giving out clear indicators for each type and sector is very important and convenient. Regulations should also outline benefits and duty of enterprises from carbon pricing and market-based instruments so that they can implement it voluntarily, and contribute towards sustainable development. Le Thu - Environmental specialist, World Bank Currently the Vietnamese government is striving to reduce GHG emissions. This is one of the highest commitments of Vietnam. Besides carbon pricing, there should be additional policies such as policy on reducing GHG emissions or promoting production of clean electricity. In the long term, building a carbon market will bring us a lot of benefits in the future. To do that, the government should help enterprises strengthen their ability and accompany them during implementation of carbon pricing. The carbon market has great impacts on the economy, and it is a chance for competition between enterprises. The carbon market also relates to all people so it should be understood by not only enterprises but also all citizens. We should let enterprises steadily get ready by changing technology or input material. There is a positive signal that the draft of the amended Law of environmental Protection is mentioning implementation of a carbon credit market in Vietnam. Luong Quang Huy - Deputy head of Climate Change and Ozone Protection, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment In the Law of Environmental Protection 2014 and the Partys Resolution No.24-NQ/TW of June 03, 2013, on active response to climate change, regulations on reducing GHG emissions have been mentioned. However the ability of policy, technical, building, and implementing carbon pricing in Vietnam is still limited and not strong enough to join the global market. Along with lacking in experience, Vietnams budget for these activities is also limited. To reach targets, we must invest tens of billions of US dollars, change policies and orientation of economic development, and even alter the mindset of the political and socio-economic system. Besides these, challenges include human resources and a responsive ability that requires us to mobilise different resources, particularly in the private sector, to participate. Carbon pricing is necessary for sustainable development, and all market-based instruments like tax and credit need a synchronised action programme. VIR

Hao Thu

Can Tho unveils low-carbon transformation project in energy sector The Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on April 21 launched a project on promoting low-carbon transformation in the energy sector for the 2020-2030 period and with a vision to 2050.
When he was a student at university, Hoang Trung Hieu had eight scientific journals presented at international conferences.

Hoang Trung Hieu (third from right) works with his research team members at the University of Science, Vietnam National University-HCM City branch.

His journals studied the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computer vision in addressing health care problems.

After graduating in 2019, Hieu became a researcher at his school - the University of Science, Vietnam National University HCM City.

In 2019 alone, Hieu and his research team presented three scientific pieces of research at leading conferences.

The research he feels most proud of is a proposal on a new method of classifying intestinal endoscopy images to help detect common diseases.

The method gives recommendations via images to doctors and helps them diagnose diseases.

The research outcome was reported at the ACM Multimedia Grand Challenges-BioMedia Track last year in Nice, France.

Hieus passion for science began when he was a child.

Born in 1997 in Nha Trang City, central Khanh Hoa Province, Hieu started to show an interest in technology at an early age.

He took apart all his electronic toys to learn the structure inside and assembled the pieces into new machines.

At primary school, he read books to learn about technology.

Soon realising his passion for science, Hieus father took him to a computer class near his house where Hieu learned computing and then tried competing in scientific creativity contests at school and district level.

Awards at those competitions motivated him to apply for and pass the exam into the computer class for talented students at Le Quy Don High school in Khanh Hoa.

When I was in high school, I felt inferior to my classmates. My understanding of science and technology then was very simple. I was not confident standing in front of crowds and talking about something. I thought I could not continue scientific research for the long term.

But a competition was a turning point for me.

In 2014, Hieu, in grade 11, was nominated by his high school to compete in a scientific contest in the southern region for secondary and high school students.

The experience that I gained from that competition, friends and teachers that I met not only changed my mindset but also inspired me to follow my passion, he said.

He also gained more confidence with second prize in the computer science category and third prize in the final ranking of that competition.

Hieu at the lab of the University of Science.

He was admitted without having to take the exam to the Information Technology Faculty of the University of Science, Vietnam National University HCM City where he found AI was his passion.

Taking a fellowship course in the US, scholarships in France, Japan and attending a number of local and international scientific conferences, Hieu said although AI has not developed in Vietnam, Vietnamese students and researchers are not inferior to their foreign peers in this sector. What they lack is confidence.

Foreign students are very active and dare to raise their voice. Vietnamese students are quite reserved, possibly because of lacking confidence in foreign languages.

He advised young people who are keen on pursuing science to learn soft skills and foreign languages.

Young people when at school should seek international student exchange opportunities from which they can make friends with foreign peers, learn communication skills and science knowledge, or simply practise team-working skill and improve their foreign language skills.

At the same time, they should maintain good academic performance and be confident to present ideas to persuade others, he said.

Hieu is preparing to embark on doctorate life next year at the University of Illinois, US.

Hieu said after graduation, he will return to Vietnam to continue research and contribute innovations to his homeland.

Each young person should be led by passion and make it motivation on the path of exploring and developing themselves. Determination and patience will lead to success, he said. VNS

Universities concerned about graduates foreign language proficiency Most schools require IELTS 4.5 English skill level for their graduates in non-linguistics majors, but this is seen as too low by many educators.
Three student teams at International University from the space engineering programme under the Vietnam National University-HCM City won prizes at the 10th University Physics Competition.

Representatives of teams fromInternational University in HCMCity havewonprizes atthe 10th University Physics Competition.  Photo courtesy of the university

The prizes included one silver medal and two "potential" prizes.

The 10th University Physics Competition attracted 305 teams that were asked to resolve one of two problems: protecting travellers to Mars or designing a rollercoaster.

The University Physics Competition is an international contest for undergraduate students who work in teams of three at their home colleges and universities all over the world, and spend 48 hours in November analyzing a real-world scenario using the principles of physics, and writing a formal paper describing their work.

At the start of the contest, each team selects one of two problems which appear on the website. Problems are written to be accessible to students who have had at least one year of university physics but are designed to be conceptually rich and open-ended in nature, so that they are still challenging to senior level students.

The problems may contain incomplete information, so the students have to do background research and make some reasonable assumptions in order to proceed with the analysis. This means that there may not be one unambiguously correct method, but instead, there may be many useful approaches and approximations.

During the contest, teams may use books, journals, computers, the Internet, programs that they write, or any other nonliving resources, but they may not consult with any people outside of their team.

Teams must perform a theoretical analysis of the scenario presented using the principles of physics, and write a formal paper, in English, detailing their work. Each paper must begin with a 300-word summary, providing key details and results of the work performed. Each paper must include a list of references used, as well as make in-text citations to these resources.  VNS
After participating in a thorough RFP process, we are honored to have been selected to continue serving as the group benefits broker and consultant, and benefits administration and technology solution for the University of Maryland Medical System. We look forward to continuing to serve the people of UMMS with the same level of excellence that they, and our thousands of other benefits clients, have come to expect from us.
Four more COVID-19 patients recover, total hits 340

Four more COVID-19 patients have made a full recovery and were discharged from the National Tropical Diseases Hospital on Thursday morning.

The patients have brought the countrys total recovered to 340, making up 95.7 per cent of total COVID-19 cases in Viet Nam.

They all are female Vietnamese citizens, including Patient 343 and Patient 345, who returned home from Finland and Sweden on June 6, and Patient 354 and Patient 355 from Kuwait on June 18.

Patient 343 (27, living in Cam Pha District, Quang Ninh Province) and Patient 345 (39, living in Bac Tu Liem District, Ha Noi), were admitted to the hospital on June 19.

Two other women, including Patient 354 (48, residing in Binh Chanh District, HCM City) and Patient 355 (43, residing in Nhu Xuan District, Thanh Hoa Province), were admitted to the hospital on June 24.



The four patients had two tests and both came back negative for SARS-CoV-2. They currently have no cough, no chest pain, no breathing difficulties and are in a stable condition.

These patients will continue to be isolated and monitored for the next 14 days.

As of Thursday morning, the health sector reported no new COVID-19 community transmission cases over the past 77 days. The country confirmed total 355 COVID-19 cases and no fatalities have been reported, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Medical workers check temperature for Lao students

Vietnam recorded no new cases of COVID-19 as of 6pm on July 1, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

The country has gone through 76 consecutive days without new COVID-19 infections in the community.

Among the total 355 confirmed cases, 215 were imported and quarantined upon arrival.

The committees treatment sub-committee reported that 336 patients or 94.6 percent of the total have given all-clear and there is no death.

At present, 19 patients are being treated at health facilities nationwide and most are in stable condition. Four tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 once and four tested negative at least twice.

As many as 12,960 people having close contact with patients or entering from pandemic-hit areas are quarantined at hospitals, concentrated quarantine facilities, and homes.

One patient recovers, no new cases reported

A 24-year-old Vietnamese man was given the all-clear from COVID-19 on Wednesday evening, according to the latest announcement from the Ministry of Health.

He was the 335th COVID-19 patient in Viet Nam and was receiving treatment at the HCM City Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

No new cases were reported on Wednesday evening, and Viet Nam has not seen any new cases in the community for 76 days.

At present 19 patients are under treatment. Four of them tested negative for the disease for the first time whereas four others tested negative twice.

More than 12,900 people are under quarantine at hospitals, quarantine centres and at home across the country.

Vietnamese, Indian medical corps discuss COVID-19 prevention

Vietnamese and Indian medical corps engaged in a teleconference on COVID-19 prevention and control on July 1.

The event was co-chaired by Director of the General Department of Logistics Military Medical Department Maj. Gen. Nguyen Xuan Kien and his Indian counterpart Lt Gen Anup Banerji.

Participants discussed the state of the pandemic in each nation and shared solutions used in response to the disease.

Exchanging knowledge on diagnosis, prevention and treatment measures, they highlighted the role of the army in the fight against COVID-19.

The sides agreed to continue organising more online conferences on the topic among experts to talk about their demand for cooperation in building treatment plans and assessing drug effectiveness.

IMF hails Vietnams anti-pandemic model

A recent article posted on the website of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spoke highly of Vietnams success in the fight against the COVID-19.

It said Vietnam completed the assessment of medical risks, publicised guidance against the disease, promulgated the national-level response plan and established the national steering committee at an early date, adding strict control measures were gradually applied.

While major economies in the world applied a strategy of extensive testing with high costs, Vietnam focused on high-risk cases along with tracking and quarantine, the article pointed out, saying early preventive measures and the use of public and military facilities have helped the country reduce costs in the fight.

Besides, the fund further said, transparency is a very important factor in Vietnams success, and the multi-media approach has consolidated the peoples trust and ensured that the whole society abide by pandemic control measures. This is also a significant lesson for other developing countries.

COVID-19: Thai schools reopen, Indonesia and Philippines record new cases

Schools across Thailand reopened on July 1 after months of online teaching due to restriction measures against COVID-19.

Preventive measures are still seriously applied at schools.

Thailand has gone through 37 days in a row without new local transmissions.

As of July 1, the country recorded 3,173 COVID-19 cases, including 58 deaths.

The same day, the Indonesian Ministry of Health reported more 1,385 COVID-19 cases and 58 fatalities, bringing the tallies to 57,770 and 2,934, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Philippines health ministry confirmed more 999 infections and four deaths, raising the total to 38,511 and 1,270 respectively.

Indonesian capital extends large-scale social restrictions amid COVID-19

Indonesias Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan on July 1 announced that the capital is extending its transitional travel restrictions in the city by 14 days and tightening supervision of traditional markets and train services.

The city administration had decided to keep its large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in place until July 15 after reviewing the situation of the pandemic in Jakarta with the COVID-19 task force, Anies said.

Speaking at an online press conference, he highlighted the need for Jakarta to improve the public's discipline in using face masks, washing hands regularly and maintaining social distancing to minimise the number of infections in case of removing restriction measures.

This is the fifth time Jakarta has extended its PSBB since April 10.

As planned, the city administration will deploy military, police and administration officers to supervise the implementation of health protocol at traditional markets and on commuter trains, as those places had become hotbeds of transmission.

As of July 1, Indonesia reported 57,770 COVID-19 cases, including 2,934 deaths.

Vietnamese women in Germany present face masks to locals

A group of female Vietnamese nationals living in the German city of Dresden has contributed to fighting the novel coronavirus pandemic there by sewing and buying face masks to be used by both local residents and medical workers.

Representatives from the Vietnamese female group in Dresden presented a haul of 900 face masks on July 1 to the Evangelisch Clearingstelle church, a local humanitarian organisation.

The group had originally been established for the purpose of helping those living in Berlin without health insurance.

Previously, the Vietnamese group distributed over 250 face masks to the AWO Bayouma-Haus multi-cultural centre in order to provide extra protection for local medical workers.

The group also sewed and presented over 1,000 face masks to a number of offices throughout Berlin.
The Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court on July 2 handed down a death sentence on a Taiwanese citizen charged with trafficking an extremely large amount of heroin from Vietnam to Taiwan.

Defendant Chen Tsen Wei in the courtroom on July 2 (Photo: VNE)

According to the indictment, Chen Tsen Wei , 34, and his two accomplices Yen Yung Chu va Yu Chi Fu have repeatedly entered Vietnam since November 2018 to traffic drugs. They rented warehouses in Binh Duong province and Ho Chi Minh City to store electric glue, but in fact to hide and ship drugs back to Taiwan.

After two successful deals in early 2019, Chen came back to Vietnam again in March 2019 to carry on the third affair. At about 20.30 on March 27, Chen and Yen Yung Chu were caught red handed transporting five carton boxes containing 895 cakes of heroin (approximately 317 kg) from Binh Duong to HCM City.

Chen offered bribes but was refused by on-duty police officers. He ran away and was detained shortly afterwards, while Yen managed to escape.

In the courtroom, Chen admitted that he had entered Vietnam and masterminded a drug trafficking ring from Vietnam to Taiwan.

Currently, the police are on the hunt for Chens two accomplices, Yen Yung Chu va Yu Chi Fu. VOV
Traffic safety situation in Vietnam had improved greatly in the first half of this year, largely due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and two new laws, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh has said.

A traffic jam is seen on Nguyen Trai Street, Hanoi.

According to the National Committee for Traffic Safety, between December 15, 2019, and June 14, 2020, 6,790 traffic accidents were reported nationwide, killing 3,242 people and injuring 4,939 people.

Compared with the figures in the same period last year, accidents reduced by 19.02 per cent, deaths by 568 or nearly 15 per cent and the number of injured victims reduced by 1,419 people or 22.32 per cent.

Chairing the meeting reviewing the countrys traffic in the first half of this year, head of the committee Binh said that reduced transportation as a result of social distancing order in combination with strong implementation of two new decrees that brought stricter fines for drink driving and a change in business conditions for automobile transportation contributed to the results.

At the meeting, Binh applauded the ministries of Transport and Public Security and relevant parties for developing and implementing the two decrees effectively.

However, he noted that transport issues remain complex, especially as major fatal accidents still occur. For example, six people were killed after a boat carrying 12 people sunk on the Krong No River in central Dak Nong Province on June 13. The overloaded boat was designed to carry only three people at a time and had no life jackets.

On June 17, a container truck collided with a bus head-on in Quang Ninh Province, killing three people.

Such accidents worry people a lot, he said, adding there are other problems like overloaded vehicles, traffic congestion in urban areas, drink driving and violations in granting driving licences and in vehicles registration.

At the meeting, Binh called for better communication about traffic safety and measures to implement traffic decrees more effectively.

Khuat Viet Hung, vice head of the National Committee for Traffic Safety reported that in the last six months, the Directorate for Roads of Vietnam, traffic-related departments and inspectors of transport departments nationwide conducted more than 27,600 inspections, detecting nearly 28,600 violations and collecting total fines worth more than VND93.2 billion (US$4 million).

As many as 127 cars/trucks and 80 inland waterway vessels were seized, while the operations of 124 inland waterway ports were halted.

Traffic police cracked down on some 1.8 million violations on roads, railways and inland waterways, collecting fines in excess of VND1.6 trillion ($70 million)

Police withdrew the driving licences of nearly 151,000 lawbreakers and seized nearly 305,000 vehicles.

Compared with figures of last years first half, the number of violations in the first half of this year fell by 151,471 cases while fines increased by VND343 billion.

During the national campaign to inspect and handle road violations from May 15 to June 14, traffic police nationwide stopped 1.69 million vehicles and detected 401,000 violations, seized 61,563 vehicles and withdrew the driving licences of 27,293 people.

Of the violations, 0.07 per cent were related to the drivers using narcotics, 5.1 per cent related to drink-driving, 7.9 per cent related to speeding, 1.2 per cent related to overloading and 12.6 per cent were related to driving licence/vehicle registration issues.

About 3 per cent of the violations are related to the drivers not obeying traffic lights.

From Wednesday (July 1), drivers across the country could pay fines online at the national public service portal dichvucong.gov.vn. People also can apply for or change driving licences using the portal. The two services are among six online public services which were launched on Wednesday. VNS
With Vietnam boasting many pristine lakes that feature untouched scenery, there are plenty of great suggestions of famous lakes for people to take trips to.

Ba Be lake located in the northern province of Bac Kan is one of the 100 largest freshwater lakes globally and the biggest in Vietnam. Sailing a boat to explore discover the majestic natural beauty of the area is an unforgettable experience for many visitors. (Photo: Virginie.pegoraro)

Ho Guom, also known as Sword Lake, is the most famous lake in the centre of Hanoi. Plenty of local people and tourists regularly gather around the lake in order to enjoy fresh air in the morning and view the stunning sunset in the evening. (Photo: Flickr)

Elsewhere in the capital, West Lake is an ideal spot for young people to enjoy at sunset. Surrounding the lake are a number of other popular places such as Nghi Tam flower village and Tran Quoc pagoda. (Photo: Unsplash)

Bien Ho in Pleiku is well known as a pearl of the Central Highlands region. It is widely considered that dawn is the most suitable time in which to contemplate the areas array of beautiful scenery. (Photo: Flickr)

Xuan Huong lake can be found in the heart of the Central highlands resort town of Da Lat. It spans a total area of 32 hectares and is situated 1,478 metres above sea level. Tourists are able to cycle around the lake while enjoying the fresh air of the Central Highland city. (Photo: Flickr)

Tri An lake in Dong Nai province is an impressive sight for viewers due to its crystal water. The site is suitable for travelling during the hot summer days with guests able to witness and enjoy the peaceful life of local fishermen. (Photo: Flickr)

Dau Tieng lake in Tay Ninh province serves as the largest irrigation reservoir nationwide, as well as throughout the entire Southeast Asian region. It is a popular attraction among visitors due to its romantic landscape and unique ecosystem.

VOV/Zing
Just over one-fourth of co-op members reside in zip codes other than 50613, she said. Forty-six percent of those members live in Waterloo, Elk Run Heights, and Evansdale. Thorson said co-op members also live in Waverly, Janesville, Hudson, Independence, Dike, Grundy Center, Jesup, New Hampton, Tripoli, Traer, and other cities as well.

Last summer, the co-op solicited suggestions from its membership and the community, and ended up with over 100 suggestions. The board also sought advice from other food co-ops across the country, as well as other industry experts.

Jacqueline Hannah, assistant director at Food Cooperative Initiative, a consulting company that supports start-up food co-ops across the U.S., said the decision by the co-op is the right move.

This co-op has been very meticulous in its decision-making process, and moving to a more regional name is a shrewd and smart decision on their part, especially as they look long-term for sustainable success, she said.

The board was clear that its still working to open an 8,000-square-foot full-service grocery store in or near downtown Cedar Falls, but they pointed out that the grocery store is really the first step in a long-range plan that could include satellite locations, a food truck, or even additional sites in other communities in the region.
Statewide

All information from the Iowa Department of Public Health, except where noted. (In parenthesis: how the number has changed since the day before.)

The total number of people who tested positive for an active novel coronavirus infection since testing began in March 2020.

7-day average of cases: 422 (+31)

Percent change in cases over 14 days: 34.1% (no change). National average: 82.4% (no change). (Info: KFF.org)

The average number of people who become infected by an infectious person. Over 1.0 means the virus will spread, and below 1.0 means it has stopped spreading. (Info: Rt.live)

Deaths: 717 (+1)

The total number of people whose deaths were attributable to the novel coronavirus since IDPH began tracking such deaths in March 2020.
We have to be very careful in the labor movement that we dont stand up and say its OK to tell one group of people that they shouldnt be able to organize, said Terry Melvin, the secretary-treasurer of the New York State AFL-CIO and president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, an international organization. Thats something that would be a slippery slope if it will open the door for others to come up with reasons that another group should not be able to organize.
If you intend to rotate drivers, keep in mind that you might pay more for each driver beyond you and your spouse or domestic partner. Renting has some other pause-and-think considerations:

Size. Rental companies typically designate sizes differently than their customers do. Avis and Enterprise consider the Ford Fusion a full-size sedan. People who drive, say, a Chevrolet Impala, would quibble.

An Impala is about 21/2 feet longer than a Fusion, bigger inside with more room in the trunk, according to automakers specifications. The auto industry and the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency call it large.

Fusion is ranked midsize. That's important because bigger means more expensive. Rental companies may call an Impala a premium car, and the price goes up accordingly.

Expect the same size shuffle if you're renting an SUV. Don't expect a roomier car than your own only to find it's not so. Check the numbers.

And keep in mind that whatever you ask for when you reserve the vehicle isn't guaranteed. The ads say, or similar. You and the rental company might disagree about what's similar.

Upsells. Though you can negotiate, the rental agent will be happy to rent you a bigger car for more money. Or they could push you to buy damage insurance.

Your personal insurance or the major credit card you use to rent the car often covers rental damage. Check first to be sure. After a fender bender, it's too late.

Toll roads. Note in advance any tolls on your likely route. If you have an electronic toll device from home  one like E-ZPass that is usually mounted on your windshield and lets you pass through a toll booth without stopping to pay, it could be accepted where you're headed.

Toll roads and bridges in parts of 18 states now accept E-ZPass. Among the benefits in this era of keeping your distance are not shelling out cash at every toll booth and not needing to encounter a person.

If you accept the rental agency's offer to supply a device, it is likely to cost more than you expect. Rental-car transponders, such as PlatePass, say they charge a user the highest undiscounted toll plus a $5.95 fee for each calendar day that a toll is paid. And the tolls show up on your credit card bill one to three weeks after you've returned the vehicle to the rental company.

Taxes. They're often more than you'd think, driving up a seemingly cheap car rental into one that might have you second-guessing yourself.

More than 40 states add excise taxes, daily fees or both onto the usual state sales tax as of August 2019, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least 15 allow local governments to tack on their own charges because lawmakers see it as a tax on tourists, not residents. The total can mean 2 percent to 19 percent more on your bill.

Cleanliness. Rental companies have upgraded their cleaning, and some are aggressive about it. They're also making the whole process touchless, or as close as they can manage.

What to look at in your own car

Yikes, renting a vehicle sounds like a bad idea or at least stressful, you're thinking. But here are some reasons to think twice before driving your own car:

Wear and tear. A long road trip could accelerate your need for future repairs, especially if you head out with a vehicle that's between visits to the shop or already has an intermittent problem. Easy answer: Get service before you set off, even if it throws off your maintenance schedule a bit.

Cost. Here's one way to measure it: In 2020 the IRS allows people to claim deductions of 57.5 cents a mile for business use of a personal vehicle, half a penny less than in 2019. The business figure is supposed to cover the spectrum of costs associated with owning and driving a vehicle.

Forget about the business part and just use the 57.5 cents as a guide. That's $575 for a 1,000-mile trip  fuel, depreciation, insurance and accelerated maintenance from extra wear and tear. You might be able to rent a car for a week for roughly half that, but you'd still have to put gas in the tank.

Lease considerations. In normal times  remember those?  if your personal car was leased, you might rent for a road trip to keep yours from exceeding the mileage limit and having to pay an extra-mileage fee when you turn in your car. But lately because of work-from-home and stay-at-home rules imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19, few people have logged many miles. You might set the mileage-limit consideration aside this time.

Beavis at AMCI Global is a drive-your-own guy: If you do go, take your own car. You know where it's been."
Getty Images

En espanol | The American flag has evolved over time along with the nation. The first official red, white and blue flag bearing 13 stars and 13 stripes debuted in 1777. Today's familiar 50-star flag dates back to 1960, the year after Alaska and Hawaii became states. Legends and misconceptions about the flag have also evolved over time. Here's a closer look at 10 myths about the American flag and the truth behind each of them.

Myth #1: Betsy Ross created the first American flag

The familiar story of George Washington walking into a shop and asking Betsy Ross to sew a flag originated with William Canby, a grandson of Ross, said Peter Ansoff, president of the North American Vexillological Association, a group devoted to the study of flags. Canby presented his tale with little supporting evidence to the Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1870, nearly a century after the original flag was created. He claimed Ross told him the story right before her death in 1836, when he would have been around 11 years old.



"Obviously, he was still a youngster at the time, and he was writing this much later than that, Ansoff said. There are many discrepancies in the story  some things that just don't make sense."

Since Washington was out in the field commanding the army, for example, he didn't spend much time in Philadelphia, where Ross upholstery shop was located. Additionally, flags were first made not for ground troops but for naval forces, which Washington had little to do with, Ansoff said. The true creator of the first American flag is likely lost to history.

Myth #2: The flag has always had stars and stripes

America's earliest flags did not have stars and stripes. A flag used in 1775, for example, did have stripes, but it displayed the British Union Jack crosses in the canton, the top left corner of the flag that's also known as the union. The primary use of a national flag at that time was for naval ships to be able to recognize each other.

Congress didn't adopt the flag with 13 stars and 13 stripes as the official U.S. flag until 1777.

Myth #3: Americans have always flown the flag

Prior to the Civil War, flags were really only flown in an official capacity on ships, forts and government buildings. In the antebellum period, if a citizen had flown his flag on his house or carriage, people would have thought that was strange. Why is he doing that? He's not the government, Ansoff said.

The outbreak of war in 1861 quickly changed Americans attitudes about displaying the flag.

"At the beginning of the Civil War there was an outburst of patriotism, Ansoff said, and very soon, you saw people flying flags everywhere to show their support for the Union cause."

Myth #4: Red, white and blue have official meanings

The colors of the flag were not assigned any official meaning when the first flag was adopted in 1777. The traditional meanings assigned to the colors may have arisen five years later, in 1782, when Charles Thompson, the secretary of the Continental Congress, waxed poetic about the colors in the Great Seal of the United States, which he helped design. Thompson described the red in the seal as representing hardiness and valor; the white, purity and innocence; and the blue, vigilance, perseverance and justice.

As for the origin of the red-white-and-blue color scheme, it's likely no coincidence that the British flag bore the same three colors.
Victoria Lusk

Special to the American New

While many Americans are still hunkering in, the smells of tropical vacations and fruity drinks will soon once again be readily available in the form of lotions, soaps, body sprays and hand sanitizers at one local store.

Bath & Body Works will open today at 10 a.m. For weeks, it has been one of two retail stores that hasnt reopened in the Aberdeen Mall, 3315 Sixth Ave. S.E.

The chain has been slowly testing the reopening of stores across the nation after most closed in mid-March when COVID-19 began to spread. Sales have always remained strong online, however. According to Fox Business, online sales surged some 85% due to an increased demand for hand sanitizers and scented soaps.

AT&Ts malls location remains closed and will not be reopening, according to mall manager Karla Spear.

The food court has most recently seen the departure of Wishbones Smokehouse, Gotcha! and Farmboys, which follow the closure of the Little Dipper on Dec. 31. But the ice cream shop might reopen soon under new ownership, Spear said.

Meanwhile, AMC has pushed back the date for opening its theaters to July 30. In previous news releases, AMC said it would open most theaters on July 15, with the rest to follow on July 24. AMC Classic Aberdeen 9 is at the mall.

Altering the opening date is due to changes in the release dates for movies like Mulan and Tenent. Other release dates have also been moved back since last weeks column, including:

Unhinged, opens July 31.

My Brothers Crossing, opens July 31.

Cut Throat City, opens July 31.

The Broken Hearts Gallery, opens Aug. 7.

Tenet, opens Aug. 12.

Greenland, opens Aug. 14.

Mulan, opens Aug. 21.

Aberdeen Mall currently offers a free or cheap rent program. For information on leasing, visit aberdeenmall-sd.com/leasing.

Newer retailers in the mall include West Oak and JBs Country Store.

While store hours vary, the mall has established regular hours  from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays and from noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Food tidbits

Danger Von Dempseys Pizza & Brewhaus, 1023 S. Main St., switched things up with a popup hot dog stand of sorts Monday. Dempseys Proper Hot Dog Co. is based in Watertown, where owner Sean Dempseys first business is also located. The hot dog business serves a variety of dogs, including Coney Island, Chicago and Cincinnati versions. Learn when they will return to Aberdeen again, or where you can find them in Watertown, by following Dempseys Proper Hot Dog Co. on Facebook.

Buffalo Wings & Rings is the newest local restaurant to partner with Zapoya Delivery (formerly Zip Dish Delivery). Order delivery from the following 11 Aberdeen establishments at zapoya.com:

Subway.

The Millstone.

Taco Johns.

Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant.

Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant.

Marlins Family Restaurant.

Tokyo Sushi and Steakhouse.

Qdoba.

Danger Von Dempseys Pizza and Brewhaus.

Sammys.

Buffalo Wings & Rings.

According to Business Insider, chain restaurants throughout the U.S. are permanently closing 900 locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of those are franchises we do not have in Aberdeen or the area. However, the article noted that Ruby Tuesday has closed 147 restaurants since January. Ours remains open. The article also said that Starbucks announced on June 10 that it would close up to 400 company-owned stores, but offset those by adding new stores.

News and notes

Mikes

Barber Shop has closed until further notice, according to a post on the businesss Facebook page. Owner Michael Hurd said that he is searching for a new location in Aberdeen or another community while thanking customers for their patronage.

The Frederick Community Store now carries original artwork, prints and cards from Aspires Creative Expressions artists.

The Market on the Plaza has begun to ask community members what they want to see inside the business when it opens next summer in the new Malchows Plaza. To give feedback, like and follow the

businesss Facebook page

.

Roy Lake Resort, which is east-southeast of Britton in Marshall County, has been purchased by the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks, which took over operations March 2. The business had been for sale since 2017. Make reservations for Roy Lake online at

campsd.com
Morgan Matzen

Rapid City Journal

Gettysburg, Penn., has sent a letter to its sister city in South Dakota explaining why it doesn't display the Confederate flag "on its police uniforms, patrol cars, stationery or from official Borough flag poles."

The letter, dated June 29, was sent just before the anniversary of the Civil War's Battle of Gettysburg and days before the Gettysburg, S.D., City Council will consider the fate of its police logo that features the Confederate flag.

The Potter County seat, known as Where the Battle Wasnt on the city website, has come under fire for its police logo in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody.

Copies of the letter were sent to the towns council, Mayor Bill Wuttke and George Floyds uncle, Selwyn Jones. Jones lives in Gettysburg and has spoken out against the police departments use of the Confederate flag.

The mayor and police department defend the logo, stating it is a part of the towns history even though local historians have said that only one Confederate soldier homesteaded there among dozens of Union soldiers.

The patch, which shows the American and Confederate flags overlapping and a cannon to represent the battle that the town was named for, was created in 2009 by Scott Barksdale, a South Carolinan, after he learned of the history of the town.

Jones has said that he's since spoken with Wuttke about the patch, telling him over the phone "Man, that's got to go." Jones said Wuttke responded with, "We'll see about it."

Were not wanting the liberals and the press telling us we have to change it, Wuttke also has said. People here do not feel its racism."

What the letter says

The correspondence from the site of the Battle of Gettysburg is not intended to compel the South Dakota town to change its police logo, the letter notes, but to explain how the city of around 7,800 people views the use of the Confederate flag and symbols in the town.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, supports inclusion, diversity, and acceptance in the community and in fact has a radical intolerance for inequality, the letter reads. While our Borough does not have an official policy on the use of the Confederate flag, we are keenly aware of what it represented during the Civil War and today remains associated with white supremacist groups.

Charles Gable, borough manager for the Pennsylvania town, said the letter was sent in the hope to foster a productive exchange of perspectives that recognizes our nations original sin: slavery.

A debate about the use of the Confederate flag exists in the Pennsylvania borough, Gable writes, as local tourist shops sell and display the flag to the consternation of many. Yet, the city itself doesnt display the flag on police uniforms, patrol cars, stationery or city flag poles.

Council meeting

In the minutes from a special June 12 City Council meeting, Gettysburg Police Chief Dave Mogard said hes not in favor of the patch he wears every day, but not against it either.

Would you put the Confederate flag on your business or your home? If you are not willing to put the Confederate flag on your business or your home, then why is it being forced upon our agency? Mogard asked at the meeting, noting that hes willing to use a different patch for the department.

Justin Cronin, a former Republican state senator from District 23, said during the public comment portion of the meeting that he was concerned at how quickly the meeting had been called. He also said the councils discussion of the meeting was handled in a group text, which violates the state's open meeting laws.

I think the citizens of this community deserve a lot better opportunity to gather their thoughts, Cronin said. At this point, after having heard this from the members of this community, I would advise you for your own good to cease this and seek legal counsel pursuant to Chapter 1-25 of the South Dakota Codified Law Open Meeting Rules, conducting public business on private cellphones via text.

According to the town's website, the next Gettysburg City Council meeting starts at 7 p.m. Monday. It will be a Zoom meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Where history was made

The Battle of Gettysburg is considered the most important engagement of the Civil War. It began on July 1, 1863, as Confederate troops led by Gen. Robert E. Lee were advancing through the Union state of Pennsylvania where it clashed with the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Gen. George Meade.

Statues, markers and monuments in and around the borough associated with the Confederacy remain in and around the Pennsylvania town.

These markers must be used to teach future generations our history, if for no other purpose, so that we collectively can acknowledge the strides weve achieved as a Nation toward that more perfect union and that we fought a war to help get there, Gable writes.

Wuttke previously told the Journal he's worried that people will tear down the Civil War memorial in front of the Potter County Courthouse if future protests occur in Gettysburg, a town of around 1,100 people in north-central South Dakota.

Calls to remove Confederate symbols have rung out across the nation in the wake of George Floyds death on May 25 in the custody of Minneapolis police. As part of many demonstrations, protesters in other states have torn down Confederate memorials.

While some believe the presence of the monuments is a reminder of the nations history, others argue that removing Confederate statues and flags helps dismantle monuments that glorify white supremacy and memorialize a rebel government whose founding principle was to continue the enslavement of people of color.
Staff reports

Aberdeen News

President Donald Trump's Friday visit to Mount Rushmore is will be streamed by the South Dakota Department of Tourism and is expected to be broadcast on TV.

Folks who want to watch the stream can go to travelsouthdakota.com/mount-rushmore-fireworks. Specifics hadn't been released as of late Thursday morning.

The program is expected to begin at 4 p.m. Mountain time Friday, with fireworks to begin between 9:30 and 9:45 p.m. Mountain time. In between, Trump will speak. He's scheduled to arrive in South Dakota at 6:45 p.m. Mountain time.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is also set to speak. And South Dakota's congressional delegation  Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds and Rep. Dusty Johnson  plan to attend.

About 7,500 people will gather to listen to Trump and watch the fireworks. It's the first display at Mount Rushmore since 2009. Only ticket holders can attend. The monument will otherwise be closed until 5 a.m. Mountain time Saturday.

 Staff reports
The BIG ARTS Performing and Visual Arts scholarship recently received a $2,000 gift from the Tower Gallery. The scholarship is awarded annually to high school and college students looking to further their education in the arts. This year, a total of $10,000 was awarded to three students: Farah Alkhadra, Isabella Sbarra and Emily Schaf.

Supporting arts in the community is at the core of the BIG ARTS mission, Programs and Gallery Manager Lauren Huff said. Its great when the community comes together to support these incredibly talented students. We are very grateful to Marianne Ravenna and Tower Gallery for their generous support.

Alkhadra is working toward her Bachelor of Arts in art, with a minor in English, at Florida Gulf Coast University. She plans to use her scholarship on art supplies needed for her classes and is on track to graduate in the spring of 2021. Alkhadras goal after graduation is to continue with curatorial work and art conservation in a museum setting.

Sbarra is a 2020 graduate of Cypress Lake High School and plans to attend Belmont University in the fall. She plans to use her scholarship toward tuition, and her goal is to learn skills that will root her in the music business. Sbarra plans to study music theory and digital audio workstations.

Schaff is in her final semester at Florida Gulf Coast University, where she is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in art. She plans to use her scholarship toward her senior project and is working on proposals for the works she will showcase at the FGCU Wasmer Art Gallery at the end of the fall semester. After graduation, Schaff plans to continue her education and get her Master of Arts in painting.

The Tower Gallery gift was the result of an April auction featuring a piece by artist Mary Keough, a member of the co-op who has displayed her work at BIG ARTS. Proceeds from the auction are donated to a different island organization each year. Ravenna noted that this years had a personal connection.

My son was a recipient of the BIG ARTS Visual and Performing Arts Scholarship in 2008 and used the money to attend Berklee College of Music, she said. For me its a special donation that we wanted to give because its personal.
Elisa Sand

esand@aberdeennews.com

The Mobridge Municipal airport is one of six airports in South Dakota to receive a Federal Aviation Administration grant, according to a news release.

Mobridge will be reconstructing its airport beacon and a taxi lane and rehabilitating the runway apron. The grant award is $190,000.

This grant was one of nearly $800 million in airport safety and infrastructure grants awarded across the U.S., according to the release. Of that, $689 million is from the Airport Improvement Program, and $104.4 million is from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act for a 100% federal share.

 Staff reports
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Democracy Now!

Paha Sapa is the traditional name the Lakota people give the sacred center of their universe. The region is also known as the Black Hills, in South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore, itself named after a gold rush lawyer and speculator. The Mount Rushmore Monument features the sculpted heads of four U.S. presidents  Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt  blasted out of the ancient granite between 1927 and 1941 by 400 workers, directed by sculptor Gutzon Borglum. Earlier, he was recruited by the Daughters of the Confederacy to carve the huge Stone Mountain memorial to Confederate leaders in Georgia. While he left that project in a dispute, Stone Mountain allowed Borglum to hone his mountain carving skills, enabling the Rushmore monument. Borglum was close to the Ku Klux Klan and was likely a member.

On Friday, July 3, kicking off this weekends Independence Day holiday, President Donald Trump is rallying at Mount Rushmore with a fighter jet flyover and fireworks, which are banned in the area due to extreme forest fire potential. With 7,500 people expected, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a staunch Trump ally, declared, We wont be social distancing. Face masks will not be required. This comeback event occurs as the U.S. suffers an explosion of COVID-19 cases and a charged national debate on how to deal with statues and symbols enshrining systemic racism.

Tribal governments and activist organizations in the region are calling for the events cancellation. The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands hes about to visit belong to the Great Sioux nation, Oglala Sioux president Julian Bear Runner told The Guardian. He doesnt have permission from its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time. ... Its going to cause an uproar if he comes here.

Trumps ill-timed, inflammatory spectacle is reminiscent of his failed June rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was scheduled to fall on Juneteenth, a day that celebrates the end of slavery in 1865, at a venue not far from the scene of one of the worst massacres of African Africans in U.S. history, the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. Under pressure, Trump moved his rally to June 20, the day after Juneteenth. One million people preregistered for the rally, but local police estimated that only 6,500 actually attended, with thousands of empty seats in the auditorium and an outdoor stage built to accommodate 40,000 overflow attendees left vacant. It was a public relations disaster of epic proportions for the Trump/Pence campaign.

The U.S. government acknowledged tribal sovereignty over the Black Hills in two separate Fort Laramie Treaties, in 1851 and 1868, committing the land for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupancy of the Sioux. In the 1870s, gold was discovered there, and the U.S. Army drove the indigenous people out. The decades-long armed indigenous resistance to the waves of settler colonists effectively ended with the Armys brutal massacre of Lakota women, children and the elderly at Wounded Knee on Dec. 29, 1890.

The resistance never died, though, despite the poverty and violence institutionalized by the reservation system. In the late 1960s and 1970s, occupations of Alcatraz Island and Wounded Knee highlighted Native American demands for justice. More recently, during the Standoff at Standing Rock, representatives from over 200 tribes from throughout the Americas successfully delayed the Dakota Access Pipeline. Indigenous frontline resistance is still at the fore, continuing to challenge the DAPL as well as the Trump-approved Keystone XL pipeline, the Alberta tar sands in Canada, and at numerous resource extraction sites in the Amazon.

Indian Country has been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and tribes have taken action to protect themselves. Both the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux enforced roadblocks, allowing in only reservation residents and guests. Gov. Kristi Noem threatened legal action, and appealed to the Trump administration for help. After the White House threatened to withhold COVID-19 relief funding, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe filed suit against Trump in federal court. The case is pending.

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier has joined Julian Running Bear of the Oglala Sioux in calling for the removal of the Mount Rushmore memorial. Said Frazier, Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise or treaty than the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore. Vigorous, indigenous-led protests are planned.

This week alone, Trump retweeted a video of a supporter shouting white power! and signed an executive order to preserve monuments, including Confederate statues. From Tulsa to the Black Hills, our white supremacist in chief fans the flames of division he hopes will propel him to reelection.
George F. Will

Washington Post Writers Group

Blaine, Blaine,

James G. Blaine

The continental liar from the state of Maine.

Burn this letter!

 Democratic campaign doggerel, 1884

Because of his grandiloquence, House Speaker Blaine was called the Plumed Knight by a man suggesting Blaines nomination at the Republicans 1876 convention. Despite Blaines participation in the fragrant politics of the Gilded Age, when railroads showed their gratitude to helpful legislators (hence Blaines instruction concerning an inconvenient letter), he eventually came close to being called Mr. President.

But in 1884, after he had been a senator and secretary of state and was at last his partys nominee, a supporter, a prominent protestant minister, characterized Democrats as the party of rum, Romanism and rebellion. Catholics  waves of whom had been arriving for decades as immigrants, many settling in New York  voted their umbrage. Blaine lost New York, and hence the presidency (to New Yorker Grover Cleveland), by 1,047 votes out of more than a million cast.

On Tuesday, 127 years after his death, Blaine had another bad day. The U.S. Supreme Court held, 5-4, that a Montana policy based on the state constitutions Blaine Amendment violates the U.S. Constitution.

In 2015, Montanas legislature, seeking to provide parental and student choice in education, enacted a program similar to ones in 18 other states  a small (up to $150) tax credit for individuals and businesses donating to private, nonprofit organizations that dispense scholarships to help children attend private schools. Children like those of Kendra Espinoza, a single mother and office assistant, who took a second job, as a janitor, to enable her two daughters to attend a non-denominational (not Catholic) school. The Institute for Justices libertarian litigators supported her when she challenged Montanas Department of Revenue ruling that scholarship recipients could not use their funds at the 70% of Montana private schools that are religious.

The department, validated by the state Supreme Court, said this prohibition was required by Montanas constitutional stricture (adopted in 1884, readopted in 1972, and similar to 36 other states provisions) that no direct or indirect public monies shall be spent for any sectarian purpose or to support any institution controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination. Such Blaine amendments  so named because of his pandering to anti-Catholic (a subset of anti-immigrant) sentiment  were widely adopted, and for a while were required by Congress for the constitutions of new states entering the union. Protestants resented the impertinence of Catholics who founded schools that taught their faith as forthrightly as public schools (nurseries of piety, said many 19th century educators) then taught Protestantism via the King James Version of the Bible.

On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by the other conservatives (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh), held that Montana had violated the U.S. Constitutions guarantee of the free exercise of religion: A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious. Social conservatives might suspend, for a moment, their despair that Roberts and Gorsuch have defected to the Dark Side.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined in dissent by Elena Kagan (Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor also dissented), said that Montana did not make the decision that Roberts said it made. Because Montanas Supreme Court had struck down the entire scholarship program, all private-school parents were in the same boat, so the U.S. Supreme Court had no occasion to address the matter.

Perhaps, but Robertss language will splendidly annoy the annoying teachers unions, which oppose choice programs that dilute the public-school monopoly: Roberts said that parents have a constitutionally protected right to direct their childrens religious upbringing by sending their children to religious schools.

The court has split many hairs about tangential contacts between government and religious schools. When it held that government can fund religious schools textbooks but not maps, a bemused Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1978 wondered: What about atlases, which are books of maps? The good news, especially today, is: Fevers  those of cranky secularists as well as anti-Catholic bigots  burn out.

Blaine exploited a longstanding prejudice. As early as 1855, Massachusettss governor, the entire state Senate and all but three members of the state House were members of the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party, and the legislatures Nunnery Committee searched for underground dungeons in convents. Today, Blaines portrait hangs in the U.S. Capitols Speakers Lobby, unmolested by the cancel cultures enforcers, who probably admire his truculent spirit.
Aberdeen News

A controversial design used by the Gettysburg Police Department has apparently been removed from public view.

Gettysburg resident Selwyn Jones, the uncle of George Floyd, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune this week that the design, which features both U.S. and Confederate flags, is no longer being used around town.

Yes, they are gone, Jones was quoted as saying by the Star Tribune.

The American News could not confirm the report with Gettysburg officials on Thursday.

However, locals in the Gettysburg area say the decal has been removed from police department vehicles, according to an Associated Press story.

Jones has called for the crest to be changed.

The topic is set to be discussed at a Gettysburg City Council meeting on Monday evening.

On Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an American Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, issued a news release about the issue.

We welcome this apparent decision to remove a symbol of racism, white supremacy and slavery from the departments logo, vehicles and facilities. All such symbols honoring the traitors and racists of the Confederacy should be eliminated nationwide, Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said in the release, which referenced the Star Tribune story.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for the design to be removed in a release issued earlier this week.

Floyd died May 25 while in the custody on Minneapolis police. An officer had his knee on Floyds neck for roughly eight minutes. That incident and the deaths of other Black Americans have sparked nationwide rallies and protests, including calls for the removal of Confederate symbols and monuments and accountability for police. Monuments across the country have been removed or, in some cases, destroyed or taken down by citizens.

The Gettysburg design, which has been on uniforms and vehicles, shows the flags overlapping and a cannon that represents the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. It has been in use since 2009.

This is not the first time the design has come under scrutiny, but pressure for a change has been more intense since the death of Floyd.

Gettysburg Mayor Bill Wuttke told the Star Tribune this week that the police department was working on something different, but that the community felt pressured to do so by liberals and the media.

After a June 12 Gettysburg City Council special meeting, Police Chief David Mogard apparently took a step toward a transition. He removed a sticker with the design from the police department door, Dakota News Now TV reporter Ryan Martin said in the Star Tribune story.

During the meeting, Mogard said he doesnt like the Confederate flag being on his uniforms patch.

In recent days, Gettysburg, Penn., sent a letter to its South Dakota sister city explaining why it doesnt display the Confederate flag on police uniforms, vehicles or elsewhere.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, supports inclusion, diversity, and acceptance in the community and in fact has a radical intolerance for inequality, the letter reads in part, according to a copy procured by the Rapid City Journal. While our Borough does not have an official policy on the use of the Confederate flag, we are keenly aware of what it represented during the Civil War and today remains associated with white supremacist groups.

But there is a debate about the Confederate flag in the town, Charles Gable, borough manager, said in the Journal story, noting that the flag is sold at some local tourist shops.

In the letter, he said that it was sent in the hope to foster a productive exchange of perspectives that recognizes our nations original sin: slavery.
Staff reports

Aberdeen News

A second person involved in a wreck on June 18 in Potter County has died, according to a news release from the South Dakota Department of Public Safety.

Mariah LeBeau, 24, of Aberdeen died in a Sioux Falls hospital on Saturday, according to the release.

She was the driver of a2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo that was westbound on U.S. Highway 212 near mile marker 209 about 16 miles west of Gettysburg, according to the release.

Her passenger, Joseph Skye, 35, of Rapid City was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the release. Neither Skye nor LeBeau were wearing a seat belt.

LeBeau lost control as her vehicle entered a right-turning curve. It crossed the center line and collided with an eastbound2013 Ford F350 pickup driven byCalen Decker, 19, of Gettysburg, according to the release.

Decker was not injured. He was wearing a seat belt.

The wreck was at 10:27 p.m. It's still under investigation, per the release.

 Staff reports


Pernatty C & Horse Well Drilling program & Stage 2 update

Melbourne, July 2, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Cohiba Minerals Limited ( ASX:CHK ) is pleased to announce that the Heritage Survey for the planned drilling programs at both Pernatty C and Horse Well will commence on July 6 (3 - 4 days duration) and is the final step prior to mobilising the drilling teams.The Kokatha Aboriginal Corporation (KAC) has done an excellent job of facilitating the field trip and will be accompanied by Australian Heritage Services and Euro Exploration who are overseeing Cohiba's field activities.The Company can also announce that it has received formal notification from the Deputy executive Director, Mineral Resources SA confirming the approval and subsequent transfer of 51% ownership of the Olympic Domain tenements to Cohiba.Cohiba's CEO, Andrew Graham says, "We are pleased that the Kokatha Aboriginal Corporation (KAC) has not only exited external administration in a healthy position but has hit the ground running in relation to facilitating the Heritage Surveys. We are grateful for their prompt action and professional approach.We look forward to the satisfactory completion of the Heritage Survey and the subsequent immediate deployment of drilling teams to Pernatty C and Horse Well to drill test our numerous targets.We also maintained a strong focus on achieving our strategic goal of acquiring 51% ownership of the Olympic Domain tenements and are pleased that this has been formally approved by the Deputy Executive Director for Mineral Resources, SA. We appreciate the promptness with which this was assessed and communicated."About Cohiba Minerals Limited

Cohiba Minerals Limited (ASX:CHK) is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange with the primary focus of investing in the resource sector through direct tenement acquisition, joint ventures, farm in arrangements and new project generation. The shares of the company trade under the ticker symbol CHK.

The Company recently acquired 100% of the shares in Charge Lithium Pty Ltd, which holds exploration licences in Western Australia.


Conversion of Nova Minerals Debt

Perth, July 2, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Torian Resources Limited ( ASX:TNR ) is pleased to advise that Nova Minerals ( ASX:NVA ) (Nova) has elected for an early conversion of its convertible note (Note) in the Company (Conversion Agreement).Executive Director, Mr Paul Summers said, "We are delighted that Nova has elected to convert its debt at this early stage. Since Nova has come on board at the end of March this year, they have been exceptionally supportive of Torian. In addition to the excellent technical expertise that they have provided, we have consistently utilised synergies across the two companies that has enabled us to bring various costs down as a result.Nova's early conversion leaves us debt free as we head into an exciting phase for our Company.Further, the early conversion represents a clear vote of confidence in our systematic exploration strategy.Following the conversion, Nova will hold approximately 17.5% of the issued shares in Torian.We take this opportunity to thank Nova for their ongoing support and welcome them to our registry as our largest shareholder.We look forward to working closely with Nova in the months and years ahead."NVA CEO, Mr. Christopher Gerteisen said: "Nova is pleased to be able to show its commitment to Torian, its dedicated management, strong technical team and quality projects in the prolific Eastern Goldfields district of Western Australia. We will continue to work closely with the Board of Torian and offer our support to maximise long term value for all shareholders."INTENTION TO UNDERTAKE A RIGHTS ISSUEIn addition, Torian advises it intends to undertake a pro-rata rights issue (Rights Issue) to fasttrack a targeted and systematic Phase 2 drilling programme at the Mt Stirling Gold Camp that will include:- Follow-up drill targets at Mt Stirling where the Company has just completed a preliminary eight-hole drill programme- Preliminary exploration drilling at the Diorite Block, where the Company has just completed a mapping and sampling programmeTorian has appointed Mahe Capital as the Lead Manager for the Rights Issue. Details of the upcoming program as well as the ratio and price that the Rights Issue will be undertaken at are yet to be determined. The Company anticipates further details to be announced shortly.Conversion Agreement TermsPursuant to the Conversion Agreement, Nova has agreed to lift the security held over the Company and convert the Convertible Notes that have a face value of $413,325 into 91,850,000 fully paid ordinary shares in Torian at the conversion price of $0.0045 per share on the following conditions:1. Torian to continue to pay Nova interest of $4,133 per month until 25 March 2021 being the remaining time period of the Note were it not extinguished;2. Torian issuing Nova a further 2,755,500 ordinary shares on completion of the Conversion Agreement in satisfaction of the proceeding three months of interest that would otherwise be payable in cash referred to in point one above;3. Torian announcing its intention to undertake a pro-rata entitlement offer with the record date for participation in the Rights Issue being after the date of conversion of the Nova Note; and4. Torian issuing a rights issue prospectus that has the ancillary objective of permitting secondary trading of the shares issued upon conversion.Management ChangesTorian is pleased to advise that Mr Peretz Schapiro has agreed to take on the role of Executive Director to assist the Company with the development of its gold targets as well its long-term corporate and financial objectives. Mr Schapiro will receive remuneration of $96,000 per annum with a 3-month notice period. In addition, and as a result of Mr Schapiro's appointment, Mr Paul Summers has agreed to lower his remuneration to $96,000 per annum. All other terms remain unchanged.About Torian Resources Limited

Torian Resources Ltd (ASX:TNR) is a gold exploration and development company with an extensive and strategic land holding comprising eight projects and over 400km2 of tenure in the Goldfields Region of Western Australia.

Torian's flagship project, Zuleika, is located along the world-class Zuleika Shear. The Zuleika Shear is the fourth largest gold producing region in Australia and consistently produces some of the country's highest grade and lowest cost gold mines. Torian's Zuleika project lies north and partly along strike of several major gold deposits including Northern Star's (ASX:NST) 7.0Moz East Kundana Joint Venture and Evolutions (ASX:EVN) 1.8Moz Frogs Legs and White Foil deposits.

Torian's other projects include the strategically located Mt Stirling and Malcolm Projects in the Leonora region (near Red 5's King of the Hills Project), where it recently completed updated Mineral Resource Estimates and preliminary scoping studies, and a suite of other projects in the Kalgoorlie region including Credo Well JV Zuleika JV, Bonnie Vale, Gibraltar and Mount Monger/Wombola.


Convertible Note Conversion

Melbourne, July 2, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Nova Minerals Limited ( ASX:NVA ) ( FRA:QM3 ) ( OTCMKTS:NVAAF ) is pleased to advise that it has elected to convert the secured convertible notes (Notes) it holds in Torian Resources Limited ( ASX:TNR ) (Torian) which was the subject of its ASX release dated 26 March 2020.Nova has agreed to convert all of the Notes, which have a face value of $413,325, into 91,850,000 fully paid ordinary shares in Torian at the conversion price of $0.0045 per share on the following conditions:- Torian to continue to pay Nova interest of $4,133 per month until 25 March 2021 being the remaining time period of the Notes were they not converted.- Torian issues Nova a further 2,755,500 ordinary shares in satisfaction of the proceeding three months of interest that would otherwise be payable in cash referred to in the bullet point above.- Torian announces its intention to undertake a renounceable pro-rata entitlement offer with the record date for participation in the Rights Issue being after the date of conversion of the Nova Notes.- Torian issuing a rights issue prospectus that has the ancillary objective of permitting secondary trading of the shares issued upon conversion of the Notes.As a consequence of the conversion, NVA will hold an interest in approximately 17.52% of the issued share capital of Torian.NVA CEO, Mr. Christopher Gerteisen said: "Nova is pleased to be able to show its commitment to Torian, its dedicated management, strong technical team and quality projects in the prolific Eastern Goldfields district of Western Australia. We will continue to work closely with the Board of Torian and offer our support to maximise long term value for all shareholders."About Nova Minerals Ltd

Nova Minerals Limited (ASX:NVA) (FRA:QM3) (OTCMKTS:NVAAF) is a dynamic explorer and developer of its flagship Estelle Gold district in the Tintina gold belt. Nova's strategy is to substantially increase the current 4.7Moz resource on the Korbel prospect. Subsequently to continue to lock in value through moving Korbel towards production whilst increasing the resource base across the pipeline of targets within the Estelle gold district. Nova Minerals also holds strategic investments in Snow Lake Resources Ltd (Thompson Brothers Lithium Project), Torian Resources Ltd (ASX:TNR) and RotorX Aircraft Manufacturing Co.


Appointment of CEO and New Project Acquisition

Perth, July 2, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Taruga Minerals Limited ( ASX:TAR ) is pleased to announce the appointment of experienced South Australian based geologist, Thomas Line, as CEO of the Company. Thomas has been working as the Project Manager for Taruga in leading the exploration program on the Flinders project and has been instrumental in the acquisition of both the Flinders and Torrens Projects. Prior to this appointment Thomas worked for SIMEC Mining as a Senior Exploration Geologist on the 10mtpa iron ore mine in the Middleback Ranges in South Australia.Thomas will continue to lead the Company's IOCG exploration efforts in South Australia, including the maiden drilling campaign scheduled for early Q4 2020.Taruga CEO Thomas Line commented, "South Australian geology is a strong passion of mine and the exploration efforts to date at Flinders have been extremely encouraging as numerous high-grade and shallow IOCG targets are being developed. The addition of the Torrens Project to the TAR portfolio creates even more potential and my appointment as CEO means full time dedication in turning TAR into a successful exploration company."EL 6437 - TORRENS PROJECTTaruga is pleased to announce the inclusion of the Torrens Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold (IOCG) Project (EL6437), as part of its 100% option agreement with Strikeline Resources Pty Ltd, with no changes to the original acquisition terms. The Torrens IOCG Project borders the Flinders IOCG Project to the north and is situated within the G2 Structural corridor which hosts the nearby Olympic Dam and Carrapateena IOCGs.Strong magnetic and gravity anomalies have been identified at Torrens, which have had limited or no drilling. The magnetic anomalies at Torrens, which are currently being reprocessed, are similar to those at Flinders to the south where significant grades of copper and gold mineralisation have been reported from surface exposures. Historic drilling at Torrens has intersected anomalous copper, gold and precious metals across several metres in various drill holes, often associated with altered breccias similar to those which host IOCG-style mineralisation identified at the Flinders Project. No information regarding quality control procedures or assay methods used is available for the drilling data.Taruga CEO Thomas Line commented "We are extremely excited to include the Torrens Project to our growing portfolio of highly prospective and underexplored IOCG-style targets in South Australia. Torrens represents a frontier within the highly prospective G2 structural corridor. We are looking for large systems from surface, and these anomalies have the potential for the definition of high tonnages of copper and gold bearing breccias."Torrens Forward Exploration Program- Review of all historical exploration activities including drilling- Reprocessing and modelling of geophysical data including high-resolution company aeromagnetic and gravity data, and government magnetics- Broad-suite surface geochemistry including auger drilling and surface rock-chip sampling at historic artisanal mines- Commence drill-testing of priority targetsCEO remuneration package- $160,000 per annum plus superannuation.- A $25,000 sign-on fee has been agreed and certain short-term incentives have been set which are based upon performance of various milestones relating to the exploration projects and results.About Taruga Minerals Limited

Taruga Minerals Limited is a mineral exploration company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:TAR) with a focus on acquiring and developing highly prospective Gold, Copper and precious metals exploration projects in Australia. Taruga's highly experienced management team led by Mr Mark Gasson and key advisors Ashanti Capital, has provided the Company with exposure to the exciting, under explored, High-Grade Flinders Copper-Gold-Silver Project on the margin of the Gawler Craton, South Australia. Taruga has an exclusive, 12-month option to acquire the Flinders Project from Strikeline Resources Pty Ltd.
The Progressive Club of the Islands will hold its virtual monthly meeting on July 9 at 4 p.m.

The guest speaker is Dr. Lorie Fridell, chief executive officer and executive-level instructor with Fair and Impartial Policings National Training Team. She will provide insight on implicit bias awareness training for law enforcement in North America. Her presentation will address issues of impartial policing work, implicit bias and what attendees can do to help.

Fridell is an American criminologist known for more than 30 years for research on police, especially regarding racial profiling. She is a professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of South Florida, where she has taught since 2005. Previously, Fridell was the research director at the Police Executive Research Forum.

Along with her USF colleague Wesley Jennings, Fridell is the co-editor-in-chief of Policing: an International Journal of Police Strategies & Management. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, PBS Hour, CBS Sunday Morning, Harvard Business Review and other media outlets.

To attend the meeting, email pcisancap@gmail.com to receive the Zoom link or watch live at www.facebook.com/pcisancap.

Annual dues for the Progressive Club are $30 for an individual or $60 for a couple. To renew a membership or join, mail a check payable to PCI to: PCI, P.O. Box 898, Sanibel, FL 33957.

For more information, contact 410-336-2612 or pcisancap@gmail.com.
Alyssa Bostwick, program development and special projects coordinator at the Golisano Childrens Hospital of Southwest Florida, addressed the Sanibel Captiva Lions Club on June 17 via Zoom. She updated members on the status of the Lee Health system and progress at the childrens hospital.

Bostwick reported that Lee Health has seen a total of 896 patients with COVID-19 and 141 of the admissions were still in the hospital. Although there has been a recent uptick in the number of patients, the system is not overwhelmed and not near capacity. She detailed the precautionary measures being taken and the cleaning process being used. Bostwick said there is sufficient isolation so people should not be concerned about using the ER, if necessary. She indicated that most outpatient consultations were being done through telemedicine.

Bostwick also had news about the forthcoming opening of the ophthalmology center at the childrens hospital. Three new ophthalmologists have been hired. When the center is fully operational, it is estimated that the wait time for an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist will be approximately one week  versus the recent experience of families having to wait 272 days for an appointment.

She commented on the financial strain on the Lee Health system caused by the pandemic. Elective procedures were eliminated, which caused approximately $85 million in lost revenue. Bostwick pointed out that it is one of the few systems in the state that does not receive tax funding. All funding for the system is through patient fees and donations from the Southwest Florida community.

For more information about the Sanibel Captiva Lions Club, contact Membership Chair Steven Schulz at P.O. Box 391, Sanibel, FL 33957, or 239-233-6261, or visit www.sanibelcaptivalionsclub.org.
Facebook Celebrity

The Honky Tonk Rock N' Roll Steakhouse co-owned by the 'First Kiss' star is taking the local government to court over restrictions amid ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Bosses at Kid Rock's Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N' Roll Steakhouse are suing officials in the city of Nashville for loss of income during the coronavirus crisis.

The "First Kiss" star's venue was forced to shut its doors during the Covid-19 pandemic but, since being allowed to reopen with heightened health and safety regulations, bosses were slapped with the citation after failing to comply amid the reopening effort.

Subsequently, the venue was one of four Nashville bars to receive a five-day beer permit suspension, with managers furious over the decision.

Steve Smith, co-owner of Kid Rock's Big Honky Tonk and Steakhouse, blasted the order preventing bar service, insisting, "The Nashville government is, like, communist. They've got us behind a Berlin Wall."

He told The Tennessean, "We met with Mayor Cooper and the doctors weeks ago and explained how having bar service is safer than table service. Theyre doing everything they can to put us out of business."

Now, according to Vulture, a lawsuit has been filed along with several other Nashville businesses for loss of income during the pandemic, claiming there is a "disparity" between how the city has treated restaurant owners and protestors in recent demonstrations.

Smith has been reluctant to alter business practices throughout the health crisis and previously evoked the Constitution in March (20), calling the mandate to close the Honky Tonk and other private businesses "unconstitutional."
WENN Celebrity

The 'Do the Right Thing' filmmaker welcomes white support for Black Lives Matter protests because he believes it's crucial in order for the movement to bring real change.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Spike Lee is optimistic about the future of the Black Lives Matter movement - because the protests have such strong support from young white activists.

The "Da 5 Bloods" director has highlighted police brutality since the early days of his career, including in his 1989 masterpiece "Do the Right Thing", which featured one character, Radio Raheem, being killed in a police chokehold.

The director says that despite many needless deaths of African-Americans in the 30 years since its release, he's more optimistic the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May (20) will bring real change.

"It's never been about how (Black people) respond to it," Lee says on a new episode of Luminary's Black List Podcast. "It's been about how our white sisters and brothers respond to it."

"And have you been watching CNN like I have? People are marching all over God's Earth chanting, yelling (and) screaming 'Black lives matter,' and they're not Black... That's the big difference."

"You see a young generation of my white brothers and sisters (and) they are out there in full effect. I mean, forget about the rest of the world for a second. White folks are marching in Salt Lake City (and) Des Moines, Iowa, where there ain't no Black folks for a minute."

During the chat, reported by Variety, Lee also addresses the moves to remove Confederate symbols, celebrating the slavery-supporting states in the American Civil War, such as flags and statues from display that have gained support in many U.S. states.

"F**k that flag," he explains. "That flag, to me, (makes me feel) the same way my Jewish brothers and sisters feel about the swastika... And them motherf**king Confederate statues need to come the f**k down."
Instagram Celebrity

The 'Havana' hitmaker encourages her U.S. devotees to register so that they can cast their vote at the upcoming presidential election in November this year.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Camila Cabello is encouraging fans to get out and vote as part of a new campaign from bosses at Headcount.

The "Havana" hitmaker is pushing young people to gear up for the November (20) election in the U.S. by encouraging them to register to vote, revealing she will personally reach out to fans, who have checked out their voter registration status at HeadCount.org/Camila, at random each month.

Those running the organisation, which launched in 2004, have previously teamed with stars like Ariana Grande, Jay-Z, and Beyonce to encourage over 650,000 people to register to vote.

Last month (Jun20), Cabello took to Instagram to promote voting in a message written in both Spanish and English.

"We promised to use this time to prepare for ACTION - so one of the most important things you can do right now is VOTE," she wrote. "23 states have elections this month. Your vote has the power to create lasting change and you're voting for more than just the president. Don't let this moment pass you by. Verify your voter registration, get vote-by-mail info, know your ballot: headcount.org."
WENN/Johnny Louis Celebrity

In her lawsuit, Blythe Brown claims that 'The Da Vinci Code' author cheated on her during their 22-year marriage with a 'political official' as well as his personal trainer.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown's ex-wife has accused him of siphoning off some of his fortune to conduct "sordid, extramarital affairs" in a new lawsuit.

The mystery novelist, 56, and his ex Blythe Brown divorced last December (19), but in a lawsuit filed at the Rockingham Superior Court in New Hampshire on Monday, June 29, she alleges he engaged in "unlawful and egregious conduct" during their 22-year marriage.

Blythe, 68, is suing him for allegedly misrepresenting their shared wealth in a sworn financial affidavit given as part of their divorce agreement, and for intentionally and negligently inflicting emotional distress on her.

The painter and art historian tells The Boston Globe: "This lawsuit is about standing up for myself and asserting my self-worth. I have continually tried to absorb the shocking truth withheld during our divorce that Dan had been leading a double life for years during our marriage."

The writer's net worth has been estimated at more than $178 million (143 million), earned from his Robert Langdon series of books - which have been adapted into films starring Tom Hanks.

In her lawsuit, Blythe, who according to evidence in the author's victorious 2006 plagiarism case read through texts to help her husband, states that from 2014 Dan, "started to act distant, dressed differently, and instigated arguments". They separated four years later.

She alleges that in 2014 her ex-husband embarked on an affair with a Dutch horse trainer who stayed at their home while recovering from shoulder surgery, claiming that he secretly bought her a horse worth $345,000 (278,000), a new car, a horse transport truck, and paid for home improvements to her flat in her homeland.

Blythe claims she subsequently discovered he had conducted additional affairs with a "political official", as well as his personal trainer.

"I trusted this man for decades as my life's love," she says. "I don't recognise the man that Dan has become. It is time to reveal his deceit and betrayal. After so much pain, it is time for truth."

Dan denies the allegations, standing by his original declarations, telling the Globe he is "stunned" by her "false claims."

He adds: "On the day that Blythe and I married, I never remotely thought that we eventually would grow so far apart."
WENN Celebrity

The blonde bombshell shares a video of the shirtless 'Beverly Hills, 90210' alum in what looks like a pool or a hot tub, just hours after he was spotted grabbing lunch with the Australian model.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Brian Austin Green is clearly enjoying his single life. The 46-year-old actor has been spotted with more than one woman following his split from Megan Fox and is not showing any signs that he's ready to be in an exclusive relationship with one of them.

On Tuesday night, June 30, the actor, best known for his portrayal of David Silver on 1990s series "Beverly Hills, 90210", fueled Courtney Stodden dating rumors after he made an appearance in her Instagram video. The blonde bombshell shared a clip of shirtless Brian as they hung out in what looks like a pool or a hot tub.

In the video, Courtney seemingly recorded a message for someone named Ashley. She then introduced Brian, "Here's 90210 ," before he cut her off and entered the frame to say hello to the mystery woman.

"I've never seen him, I don't know who this is," the ex-wife of Doug Hutchinson jokingly said of the man next to him. She appeared to change her tune in the caption, writing, "9021 now I kn0w..."

Brian and Courtney first sparked romance rumors earlier this month after they hung out together at the Mejico Grill & Tequila Lounge in Agoura Hilla, California on Saturday, June 13. The two were seen leaving together, with the actor carrying a takeout bag along with him.

Despite the sighting, it was said there was nothing romantic going on between Brian and Courtney yet. About the Saturday outing, an eyewitness told PEOPLE, "They picked up food together. Brian had already paid for food. They were not acting at all like they are together."

Brian reconnected with the 25-year-old model just hours after he had a lunch date with Maxim model Tina Louise. Earlier on Tuesday, the "Anger Management" alum was seen grabbing lunch with the 38-year-old Australian beauty at Sugar Taco in Los Angeles.

According to TMZ, the restaurant wasn't quite open when they rolled up, so they did a lap around the block together. Later, they returned and eventually ate out at Sugar Taco, before leaving together. The two didn't show any public display of affection, but they clearly enjoyed each other's companion and had a fun conversation during their walk.

Meanwhile, Brian's estranged wife Megan Fox has been romantically linked to rapper Machine Gun Kelly.
WENN/Instagram Celebrity

The 'Girls Trip' star likens photos from the Kentucky Attorney General's engagement party with his white fiancee to a scene from movie 'Get Out' as he lets Breonna Taylor's killers on the loose.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron is under fire after photos of his engagement party surfaced online. The Republican politician caught heat for celebrating his betrothal to his fiancee instead of charging Breonna Taylor's killers.

Among those who weighed in on Daniel's engagement photos were a number of celebrities, namely Tiffany Haddish and Megan Thee Stallion. The actress/comedian likened photos from the 51st Attorney General of Kentucky's engagement party with his white fiancee to a scene from Jordan Peele's horror film "Get Out".

"This looks like a Scene from the movie get out," she quipped underneath a post by fellow actress Amanda Seales, who shared another user's post. The original poster also slammed Daniel as writing in the caption, "Instead of charging the killers of #BreonnaTaylor .. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron had an engagement party this weekend."

Megan shared the post on her own page and wrote along with it, "So of the tables were turned I wonder how he would feel. He really just does not care." She went on demanding justice for the slain young black African-American woman, "ARREST THE OFFICERS THAT KILLED BREONNA TAYLOR."

Beyonce Knowles' mother Tina Lawson was also enraged after seeing the pictures of Daniel's engagement party. "I was shocked to learn that the attorney general for Kentucky is a 34 year old black man. When Breonna's Mother Tamika asked to speak with him, he had someone else call her.!" she posted on her own account.

She added, "I have no problem with who he marries, that is his personal business. That is not what this post is about! I just don't understand his actions!!!" She went on criticizing everyone in the party for ignoring the COVID-19 guidelines by ditching their masks, asking, "And where are their masks?"

Breonna died on March 13 during a police raid at her home in Louisville. Three plainclothes LMPD officers executed a no-knock search warrant in search of Jamarcus Glover and Adrian Walker who were suspected of selling controlled substances from a drug house more than 10 miles (16 km) away.

Breonna's house was included in the search warrant because the 26-year-old emergency medical technician had a prior relationship with Jamarcus. Breonna was killed during a shootout between her boyfriend Kenneth Walker and the officers.

Brett Hankison, one of the officers involved in Breonna's death, got fired from the Louisville PD, but no criminal charges have been filed.

More than 100 days after Breonna's death, Rihanna also questioned why the killer are still on the loose. "over 100 days after #breonnataylor was MURDERD!! Her killers are at home watching Netflix on the couch. WTF is America?!" she posted on June 26. She added in the caption, "yerrrrr @danieljaycameron , where we at with this my brother?!"

Viola Davis echoed the sentiment, responding to Rih's post with angry emojis.
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People suspect that the pair, who share a son named Slash Electric, put an end to their relationship after fans notice that they have unfollowed each other on Instagram.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Rest assured, everyone. Amber Rose and Alexander Edwards are still very much dating. The couple has recently sparked rumors that they might be splitting after people found out that the two unfollowed each other on Instagram, but the former stripper was quick to debunk it before the rumors spread even wider.

Taking to the comment section of Hollywood Unlocked, Amber blamed their recent social media activities to hackers. "First of all his page got hacked that's why he hasn't posted, they blocked me," the star explained, before assuring her fans that they still love each other dearly as saying, "Relax he's my life as well as my kids."

It should be noted that this isn't the first time the two were rumored to be over because they unfollowed each other on the photo-sharing site. The same thing happened last month, with Amber posting cryptic messages that could be a hint at troubles in paradise. "Do whatever the f**k you want, just don't hurt people," she said. "Self love is not selfish love. Don't say maybe if you want to say no. Gut feelings are real feelings."

Amber and AE, who is the Vice President of A&R for Def Jam Records, first met through a mutual friend but didn't start dating until 2018 following her separation from 21 Savage. In October last year, the pair welcomed a son named Slash Electric.

While Slash, whose name is taken after Guns N' Roses' guitarist, is the couple's first child together, Amber also shares Sebastian Taylor Thomaz with her ex-husband Wiz Khalifa. The two got married in July 2013 before she filed for divorce from him less than a year after their marriage, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split. The exes are now peacefully co-parenting Sebastian.
WENN/Instagram/Patricia Schlein Music

In a now-deleted Instagram post, the Louis Vuitton designer claims that the artwork he designed for the late star's upcoming posthumous debut album was inspired by his last conversation with the rapper.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Virgil Abloh has explained his widely-criticized art for Pop Smoke's posthumous album cover. After the reveal of the artwork was met with backlash from fans who accused the Louis Vuitton designer of being "lazy," he revealed his thought process behind the art.

"the last conversation i had with @realpopsmoke was about what we were gonna do in the future. this album cover was one of like 5 things we talked about," he wrote in a now-deleted post along with the album cover. "he mentioned his story felt like the metaphor of a rose and thorns growing from concrete of of his hood in Canarsie, Brooklyn."

"in your memory I just finished it yesterday," the CEO of the Milan-based label Off-White went on sharing. "as evident of the whole idea, the t-shirt insinuates it's mandatory we put an and to this cycle of violence that plagues us, we need to shoot for the moon & aim for the stars. as heavy is it is we are celebrating your life the whole way thru. rest in peace young one."

Virgil has been slammed for the artwork, with one person calling out his "lack of creativity" in making the cover art. Another social media user commented, "Wow look like the fair spray paint shirts. Issa a no. RIP Pop Smoke."

An online petition was also launched demanding a change on the album's artwork, with the petition creator writing, "Virgil deada** was wild lazy with Pop Smokes Album cover and he needs to fix it." One person who signed the petition shared, "I'm signing because this n***a Virgil is an artistic terrorist." Another chimed in, "Never let this n***a touch a computer ever again."

50 Cent also weighed in on the cover art, suggesting that he had seen it before it was unveiled and never approved it. "Hey Virgil we need new album art, they ain't going for this bulls**t. Love ya work let's get to it," he posted on his Instagram page on Tuesday, June 30. "Steven i told you this s**t was eww let get it right!" He has since shared numerous alternative versions for the album cover.

Steven Victor, the head of late rapper's label Victor Victor Worldwide, quickly responded to fans' outcry, promising that the album cover art would be changed. "BRB. MAKING A CHANGE," he tweeted, adding, "POP WOULD LISTEN TO HIS FANS."

The album itself, which will mark Pop's debut studio album, is set to be released on July 3 and the date likely won't be affected by the cover's change. The 19-track set will serve as the follow-up to the "Welcome to the Party" spitter's mixtapes "Meet the Woo" and "Meet the Woo 2".
Universal Pictures Movie

The Owen Grady depicter reveals in a video chat with a fan, who nabbed the chance after donating to the All In Challenge, that he's recently returned to London to film the new 'Jurassic World' sequel.

Jul 2, 2020

AceShowbiz - Chris Pratt is back to work after months in quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic. The actor revealed during a video chat with a fan that he recently returned to London to resume the filming of "Jurassic World: Dominion".

"I'm doing well," Pratt told his fan Terry, who also won a role in the upcoming "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" sequel. "I'm back in London currently. We're back in production on 'Jurassic World: Dominion'."

Terry nabbed the rare chance to speak with Pratt after he donated to the All In Challenge. The charity is aimed to end food insecurity amid the pandemic. In addition to the call, he won a role in the potential blockbuster flick, where he will be "destroyed in the jaws of an animated dinosaur."

"Congratulations to Terry our #AllInChallenge winner!" Pratt wrote along with the video which he shared on his Instagram page. "Watch me zoom bomb Terry, his wife Julie and daughter Kelsey as we all discuss his future as a Dino snack! Thanks Terry! And big ups to everyone who entered the sweepstakes. It's been an honor to be part of the #AllInChallenge which has raised over $59 MILLION to help feed the hungry during this global crisis."

The production on "Jurassic World: Dominion" had kicked off in February and moved to England in March, before it was shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak. To ensure the safety of all cast and crew members, the production is taking numerous precautions during filming, including having Your Doctor test all cast and crew before they started on the production. The private medical facility will also test the cast and crew at times throughout production, and they will also be antibody tested.

Bryce Dallas Howard will reprise her role as Claire Dearing, with some of the original cast of the "Jurassic Park" movies, including Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, returning. Neill recently teased how much the original cast would be involved in the upcoming movie, telling Yahoo!, "We're all the way through the film, Jeff, and me, and Laura."

Jake Johnson, Omar Sy, Justice Smith and B.D. Wong also star in the film, which is directed by Colin Trevorrow. The movie is set for a June 21, 2021 release in the United States.
YouTube Celebrity

The British socialite who once dated the disgraced financier has been taken into custody by the FBI as she's been fighting allegations of sexual exploitation of underage girls.

Jul 3, 2020

AceShowbiz - British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested by the FBI, in the U.S. state of New Hampshire.

Maxwell, who is a former girlfriend of Epstein, was taken into custody on Thursday (03Jun20) morning, and she is due to appear in a federal court later, NBC News reports, citing two unnamed sources.

Her attorneys have fought allegations she was involved in Epstein's abuse of dozens of young girls for years by denying them in civil lawsuits.

The charges she is facing are yet to be announced, but according to The New York Times, they are "criminal charges linked to his alleged sex-trafficking operation."

Maxwell went to ground following Epstein's arrest last July on charges that he abused and trafficked in women - with her whereabouts remaining unknown after the billionaire, who pleaded not guilty, killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell the following month.

The search for the daughter of deceased British media baron Robert Maxwell has been the subject of huge media interest, with sightings of her claimed all over the world.

After the death of her father in a mysterious yachting accident in 1991, and subsequent collapse of the family media empire, the socialite moved to the U.S. and became Epstein's lover and associate, mixing with the great and good from politics, the arts and science.

Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's alleged victims, has said in a civil lawsuit that Maxwell recruited her into the shamed mogul's circle, and claims he forced her to have sex with him and friends including British royal Prince Andrew - who has strongly denied the allegations.

Maxwell has denied Giuffre's accusations, prompting the alleged victim to file a defamation suit against the socialite in 2015.
YUBA CITY, Calif.  Divers were back at the Feather River in Yuba City Wednesday, searching for one of two drowning victims.

Police say emergency crews were called to the Feather River Parkway at about 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, to a report of two drownings.

Witnesses were able to pull one of the men from the water and performed CPR, but he died on the ride out to the hospital. The other man has not been located.

Police told Action News Now that even though the beach there is a popular swim spot, the river can still be dangerous.
BUTTE COUNTY, Calif.- The coronavirus is impacting people's ability to pay rent but the state of California is extending its eviction ban to help people make it through these tough times.

The order was supposed to end in July but Newsom pushed it back to the end of September.

Now renters who are struggling have an extra two months to pay their rent before evictions are allowed.

One man told Action News Now it's nice that the state is stepping up to help.

"It's not people's fault they can't pay rent or support their family with no job, so it's amazing they are helping and making it a priority and making sure people can't get evicted," said renter, Tyree Haynie.

Governor Newsom's order does not eliminate rent, people still have to pay it down the road.

Priscilla Ramirez, the property manager at Willow Oak Villas in Chico says they haven't been hit too hard and are working with tenants who need their help.

"The few we do have, we have been communicating with them and seeing what's going on week by week and making them feel comfortable, letting them know we are in this together," said Ramirez.

Once the order expires, Ramirez says they will work with each person on a case by case basis when figuring out when the amount due will be paid.

The order signed by Newsom on Tuesday also extends previous orders that let people obtain marriage licenses through video conferencing and waives redetermination tests for Californians on Medi-Cal.
California governor rolls back more openings due to virus

Gov. Gavin Newsom will once again shut down indoor activities for 19 counties and that includes Glenn County. The ban includes things like restaurants, bowling allies, arcades, movie theaters, zoos, and more. The order also includes shutting down bars and parking lots at state beaches ahead of the fourth of July weekend.

Glenn County forced to shut down several indoor activities

Glenn County health representatives say the county will uphold the order. Glenn County says it found itself on the governor's list because it was unable to meet three of the six metrics: including new case rate, test positivity rate, and the number of daily tests over a 14 day period.

California creates 'strike teams' to enforce virus limits

The governor is also moving to create 'strike teams" from 10 state agencies to enforce his new guidelines. Newsom said the teams would go after the people and businesses that are - as he says - "thumbing their noses." The strike team will include reps from the CHP, occupational safety and health, consumer affairs, and other state licensing agencies.

Downtown Chico delays Open Air Marketplace launch until further notice

The Downtown Chico Business Association (DCBA) says the Thursday night market opening will be delayed. The DCBA Executive Director - Melanie Basset said it was a difficult decision. She said the decision was made to delay after the governor's news conference Wednesday, where he asked people to avoid large crowds. The DCBA says they will assess the situation on a day to day basis.

California gas tax increase take effect

Prices at the pump will increase for Californians as the state gas tax rises for the third time in four years. The 3.2 cent boost brings the total gas tax to around 50.5 cents a gallon. The tax is a result of Senate Bill 1, which passed in 2017. Its expected to bring in about $7 billion this fiscal year alone to pay for maintenance and repairs of the states roads.

Suspect wanted for Yuba City hit-and-run & shooting

Yuba County detectives are searching for William Joseph Henson of Marysville. They say he crashed into and killed a motorcyclist after a drive-by shooting in which he tried to kill a woman. Deputies say he is considered armed and dangerous and if you see Henson, call 911 and do not approach.

Police investigating after local restaurant break-in

Chico police are searching for a burglar after a break-in at a local restaurant. Police responded to a call from 'Tong Fong Low's' on East 20th Street. Officers found a broken window and evidence someone had come into the restaurant. The manager told Action News Now the burglar also broke into the safe -and took off with cash. He also says this is the second 'break-in' in about month.
At the dawn of 2020 the world was faced with a new, unknown situation. Our nation was put under complete lockdown. This situation came with challenges of its own. The campaign #ShareYourPressure from Medulla featuring veteran actor Boman Irani was birthed from this very idea. The agency did not let the lockdown stifle their rigor to create new campaigns. In fact, the pressures of the lockdown inspired the campaign, ensuring every consumer could relate to it.

#ShareYourPresure highlights the effects of the new normal throughout the two-minute film. Lockdown ka pressure, favourite sabji na milne ka pressure, sab saaf rakhne ka pressure, even birthday cake ke jugaad ka pressure  are all captured and showcased in the campaign. Interestingly, the production of the campaign faced its own pressures, with the film being shot entirely on location in Bomans house, with each member of his family involved in the shoot, including his sons wearing the honorary title of on-site director and producer respectively and his wife calling action and featuring in a scene.

As the social distancing continues, Bomans memes to #ShareYourPressure on the Eris Circa Facebook page have already gone viral. Participate and you could stand a chance to feature in one of his posts too.

Commenting on the development, Praful Akali, Founder & Managing Director, Medulla Communications said, "These are interesting times for the advertising world. Not only is it challenging but also exciting to see how we help brands reach the audiences for a better and safer healthcare system within India. The focus is to keep people safe during these trying times and not compromise on health."

Sharing his comments on the film, Boman Irani said, "It gives me tremendous pleasure to be a part of this ad film. For blood pressure management, doctors require a hypertensive patient to regularly monitor BP. With technology advancing, it is only important for us to bring the same healthcare systems into our homes, and adopt validated devices that can provide timely updates when required."

Amit Bakshi, Chairman, and Managing Director, Eris Lifesciences said, "Cardiovascular diseases (CVD), in the chronic disease segment, are the leading cause of mortality in India. Hypertension is our second largest therapy area and we are upping our ante by closing the loop with one of the most validated devices for blood pressure management. We have world-class data in the form of 'India Heart Study', which was conducted on the same 'Circa' device, further validating our commitment to Hypertension therapy.
Bharti Airtel and Comfort Investments II, an affiliated entity of CAP V Mauritius Ltd, an investment fund managed and advised by affiliated entities of The Carlyle Group, have announced an agreement under which Comfort Investments II will invest $235 million in Nxtra Data Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Airtel engaged in the data centre business.

The post-money enterprise valuation of Nxtra is approximately $1.2 billion and Carlyle will hold a stake of approximately 25 per cent in the business upon completion of the transaction, with Airtel continuing to hold the remaining stake of approximately 75 per cent. The transaction is subject to the necessary regulatory approvals, including approval from the Competition Commission of India.

Headquartered in New Delhi, Nxtra from Airtel offers secure data centre services to leading Indian and global enterprises, hyperscalers, start-ups, SMEs and governments. Nxtras nation-wide portfolio of 10 large data centres and more than 120 edge data centres provides customers with co-location services, cloud infrastructure, managed hosting, data backup, disaster recovery, and remote infrastructure management.

India is witnessing a considerable surge in demand for secure data centres as businesses undertake digital transformation and consumer demand for digital services continues to increase. The expansion of hyperscalers across the region following the governments directive on data localisation is propelling a lot of this demand, with other market drivers including the growth in user data and increase in cloud penetration.

Nxtra is building multiple large data centres across the country to capture the significant growth opportunities in India. Last year, the company commissioned a state of the art data centre in Pune and is building more across Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata. Nxtra will use the proceeds from this transaction to continue scaling up its infrastructure and offerings across the country.

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, commented, At Airtel, we have built a robust data centre portfolio that is future ready and scalable. For us, the security and data privacy requirements of our customers are our top priorities, which we have established as a key differentiator for our data centre offerings. Rapid digitisation has opened up a massive growth opportunity for data centres in India and we plan to accelerate our investments to become a major player in this segment. We are delighted to have Carlyle as a strategic partner in this exciting journey, particularly given their experience in this industry, and look forward to working with them.

Neeraj Bharadwaj, Managing Director of the Carlyle Asia Partners advisory team, added here, India is set to become one of the largest markets in the world for digital services. Airtel, with its proven track record of solid execution and customer focus, is well positioned to leverage the potential growth of data centres in India. We look forward to collaborating with Airtel to unlock the full potential of Nxtra.

According to Greg Zeluck, Co-Head, Carlyle Asia Partners advisory team, Airtel is a high quality partner in India with whom Carlyle executives have built a strong and constructive relationship with over many years. We are delighted to be collaborating on this together, and believe Airtels nation-wide network and strong governance, coupled with Carlyles data centre experience and operational capabilities, creates a compelling partnership that will help Nxtra to capture growing demand as data usage continues to surge.

Airtel is the largest player in Indias enterprise connectivity segment and serves over 2,500 large businesses and over one million medium and small businesses.

Carlyle has prior experience in data centre ownership through investments in Coresite in the US and Itconic in Spain. The firm has deep local knowledge within India having been investing in the market since 2000, with notable investments including SBI Life, SBI Card, HDFC, India Infoline, Delhivery and PNB Housing Finance, as well as the recently announced Piramal Pharma Ltd and SeQuent Scientific Ltd. Carlyle had invested more than $2.5 billion in India as of March 31, 2020.
With the spread of the novel virus across the globe, the pandemic had impacted thousands of lives across countries. A nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, 2020 and it was advisable to stay at home. However, with change in situation Work from Home WFH has become a way of life currently. During this time, Healthcare workers have been working day and night and to honor their spirit, Crocs and Priyanka Chopra Jonas donated 10,000 pairs of footwear to healthcare workers in India. During this time, digital and social media emerged to play a much larger role in our everyday lives. Thus, in order to keep the audiences engaged and create a buzz around the brand, WFH campaigns were initiated.

Crocs X PC Donate 10000 Footwear to healthcare workers in India - Healthcare workers are the one who have been standing on their feet and working day & night for the safety of the citizens. In order to keep the spirits of Healthcare worker high, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Crocs joined them in the fight against Covid 19 and donated 10,000 footwear to healthcare workers in India. The Croslite material used by Crocs to make the footwear is comfortable enough to allow one to stay on his feet all day. For doctors, nurses and frontline medics working overtime this comfort feature has been a welcome relief. Also, the footwear is easy to clean and thus is an added bonus. This helped us position Crocs as an easy to clean and comfort footwear. Our communication not only focused on creating awareness about the brands initiative but also making the people aware about the benefits of wearing Crocs during this pandemic.

Crocs x WFH Campaign - Understanding the importance of social media and how crucial a role it plays, Crosshairs Communication initiated various influencer driven activities for the brand which included  Crocs X WorkFromHome Campaign and Crocs X Lockdown Engagement Activity. These activities with leading celeb influencers like Sneha Namandi, Ekta Kaul, Rupali Bhonsle, Rashi Mal, Arya Vohra and others from the fraternity helped us to garner maximum digital visibility for the brand.

Action Plan  With the objective of garnering maximum visibility for the brand, Crosshairs Communication team took it to the print and digital media through simple and highly informative, visuals and content. The curated content was utilized in initiating conversation in the print and digital media. The brand initiative was circulated amongst the media through press release along with informative quote from Priyanka Chopra Jonas, sending out a message to the world on the pandemic and expressing gratitude toward the healthcare workers for standing strong during this situation. Also the message on the brands initiative was carried across Instragam, Facebook and Twitter platform. In order to create a buzz around Crocs as a WFH Fashion, Crosshairs Communication initiated an Influencer driven activity where the influencers created content around Crocs X WFH with the customized Jibbitz charms from Crocs. Also Crocs X Lockdown Engagement campaign was initiated where influencers had to create content around various activities that they can do with their Crocs at Home as suggested by Crosshairs Communication. These included Crocs X Netflix, Crocs X Workout, Crocs X Fashion from home, Crocs X Cooking, Crocs X Reading and Crocs X Pets.
Dainik Savera Times recently became the No.1 Hindi Daily in Punjab and the fastest growing newspaper in North India as per Audit Bureau of Circulation and Indian Readership Survey.

According to IRS 2019 Q4 data, the daily grew its Total Readership by 7.6% even as India was beset by Covid-19 crisis and its competitors in the Punjab region saw a degrowth in readership. Its Average Issue Readership (AIR) was also least impacted compared to the top newspapers in Punjab.

Read Also : RED FM and Suryan FM Network reach 5.26 crore listener base: IRS 2019 Q4

It has presence in 6 states  Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Delhi NCR with 23 editions and circulation of more than 7.31 lakh copies per day. The publisher is backed by Shital group of industries from Punjabs heartland city Jalandhar (Punjab).

The management of Dainik Savera has given full support to the employees during this tough time by dispensing with salaries on time, even though their circulation and advertising revenue has been severely affected by Covid-19.

During the early days of the Lockdown, the newspaper also ran an awareness campaign, to make people aware that the virus is not spread from the newspaper and that it is safe to buy them.

In fact, the newspaper publisher routinely organizes a number of events from live concerts of big starts to social services like celebrating Environment Day. They also organize Auto Expo shows in Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar.

The newspaper has mobilized its operations to contribute Rs 3 Crores for the Nepal Relief Fund, Rs 2.5 Crores for Kerala PM Relief Fund, Rs 3 Crores for Jammu and Kashmir Relief Fund and Rs 3 Crores towards the Uttarakhand Relief Fund. It has once again taken efforts during the pandemic to provide food, mask and sanitizers to poverty struck populations.

As a part of their circulation/promotion drive, the daily gives annual subscription to clients and their survey teams go to various villages, towns, districts and also organises regular events for promotion purposes.
Masks, Gloves, Santizers and Washing hands have become the norm to protect oneself from contracting COVID, but what about the beverage or drink you have? Do you, anymore, want to use mugs and cups used by other people? Sometimes, even complete strangers? Can you be sure the mugs and bottles you use are properly disinfected? Do you trust anyone more than yourself to clean properly? The solution is `Use Your Own to Guard your body & fuel your mind.

HotMuggs, the flagship brand of Hot Stuffs Pvt Ltd, have launched `Use Your Own programme that promotes safety through incremental hygiene, advocating Separate mug for each individual. Mr.Rajat Jain, CEO  Hot Stuffs Pvt Ltd, said, We firmly believe that mindfulness is the need of the hour, and hence we are promoting the concept of `Use Your Own with a dual objective - the hygiene point of view, where option of personalization ensures no mix-up; and second, from a point of view of mental strength by surrounding yourself with as many positive thoughts as possible. While disposables might also be an option but they are not sustainable.

Promoting Use your Own, one has mugs, bottles and tumblers with multiple designs and themes to choose from, with add-on cards on safety tips & Precautions, reinforcing a positive atmosphere through powerful, life mantras. Further Rajat Jain added, Our latest range of mugs, bottles and tumblers are positioned as a style and sensibility statement, with an assurance of quality. The trendiness is to not only appeal to the hygiene and health consciousness of customers, but also promote positivity in work atmospheres.

Hot Stuffs had launched the range in the institutional segment providing the concept of Personalized and non-personalized mugs, bottles and tumblers for their employees, customers and so on. These could be used as a souvenir to thank Covid Warriors too! In the first phase, the merchandise is available just a click away online at the company's site www.hotmuggs.com. The accent of promotions is Secure is the Cure -- Use You Own. A campaign stressing the importance of hygiene and health consciousness will promote the concept of Use Your Own.

For the retail segment, the company has planned a second phase and is exploring to enhance the reach by reaching out to the traditional retail distribution chain and other special format stores like fitness, sports, personal accessories and so on. In these channels, the company has also planned a platform approach in terms of promotions and activations.

Hot Muggs, available through leading online portals, lifestyle stores across the country, Shop-in-shop concepts, co-branding and co-marketing, is a stylized drinkware concept, available in innovative out of the box designs that are trendsetting with the emerging trends and lifestyle. and targeted this at the discerning Indian Middle Class, Housewives, Yuppie families and the Youth.

Hot Stuffs offers the widest selection of drinkware products like Mugs, travel Mugs, flasks, bottles, and related accessories available under the flagship Hot Muggs brand. The company has a team of designers who hail from NID and are working on lifestyle accessories that focus on the concepts of attitude and personality. The company has also been involved as the official licensed merchandiser for many global brands, like: Disney, Movies, Yash Raj Films, and IPL teams.
An interesting POV by Monica Gangwani, Country Leader and Executive Director, Healthcare, Ipsos India.

As the country celebrates National Doctors Day on July 1st, it is an opportune time to understand the impact of COVID19 on the doctors practices and consultations. Doctors who are one of the key stakeholders of the healthcare industry have had a tough time navigating through the pandemic. There are some specific key trends that have emerged and they could be here for the long haul, even when everything will be back to what is being called the new normal. We have seen wide adoption of teleconsultation and telemedicine by doctors in treating patients during this difficult period, with 52% of all consultations being remote/ tele-consultation, significantly higher than those happening pre-COVID19 at 25% (based on Ipsos COVID19 Impact Study on Physician Practice).

Indian Healthcare Infrastructure highly ill-prepared to deal with pandemics

Before we assess the adoption of tele-health as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, a look at Indias healthcare infrastructure will be revealing. Broadly, Healthcare in India has faced decades of neglect that have left Indias health system with a very weak arsenal to fight and eliminate diseases. The economy is ill-equipped to bear the burden of Indias burgeoning population, even in terms of basic infrastructure. The OECD data shows an abysmal 1 hospital bed per 2000 population in India and 1 practicing doctor for 1250 population. In fact, if we look at Indias health spending, it is a mere 3.7% of the GDP, which is among the lowest in the world, with preventive healthcare being relegated to an even lower priority. Of this 3.7% spending, private sector accounts for 76% of the pie, while the govt contribution is a paltry 24%.

Indias overburdened health infrastructure was in no way prepared to handle a pandemic of the scale of COVID 19! Since its outbreak in India in early 2020 which resulted in the worlds biggest lockdown starting 25th March, the Govt and healthcare industry took several measures to counter the situation:

COVID19 has compounded problems for doctors and patients alike!

Despite the lockdown and the restrictions, COVID 19 spread its tentacles rather fast and healthcare professionals being frontline workers bore the brunt of this disease in a rather severe way. Ipsos analyzed some of the key qualitative inputs through physician posts on COVID 19, accessed from G-MEDs Global Physician Forum. Physicians highlighted a number of issues surfacing due to COVID19: there were concerns due to reduced face-to-face patient, some felt overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of information, some spoke of unsafe working conditions (non-availability of PPE suits and other safety gear) that led them going to hospitals/ clinics with a deep sense of fearfulness.

Further, doctors felt highly constrained in treating patients, especially the more vulnerable groups like the elderly who needed most care and those suffering from chronic illnesses. Then there were prescription supply issues, with medicines prescribed for COVID 19 being in short supply. Doctors also felt there were appointments and treatment delays due to patients reluctance to enter hospitals and there were new hospital protocols with respect to visits. Non COVID19 patients were reluctant to come to hospitals due to fear of contracting the virus and resultantly non COVID 19 cardiovascular and cancer patients saw higher mortality rates. There was anxiety among patients of unknown consequences and mental health issues of those in solitary confinement went up.

Telehealth a boon during COVID 19

COVID 19 has not just necessitated but also expedited the shift to telehealth and telemedicine and increased its uptake. Physicians on G-MED community talked about using telehealth to remotely monitor patients with existing chronic conditions, those under new treatment and to monitor COVID19 patients.

During the lockdown phase on March 25th, the Indian Government published the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines and legitimized the use of teleconsultation by registered medical practitioners. Physicians are now increasingly adopting third party platforms to conduct tele-consultations. Healthcare technology companies have also played a key role by offering easy to use platforms for appointments, consultation, prescriptions, fees collection and even supply of medicines and diagnostic tests for patients. There are now sophisticated softwares to read images by providers and there is a growing interest in noise cancelling headphones or microphones to aid in better quality of consultations.

Barriers too in terms of cost, time, resource availability, technology, reimbursement were seen to be less of a hindrance, as most countries were seen to be moving to telehealth.

Challenges of Telehealth

It was a mixed bag when we looked at the physicians ability of leveraging telehealth. There were a large number of physicians who felt ill equipped about telehealth because of fear of medico-legal implications, patient data privacy concerns, lack of experience and training. Technology platform barriers were felt by physicians for specialist platforms run by 3rd party service providers for virtual health offerings. Collection of fees using a virtual platform was also a real challenge voiced. Physicians perceived that patients too had their own challenges with technology and comfort levels with telehealth, due to lack of experience and access to remote monitoring equipment at home.

Remote consultations are here to stay!

All the challenges notwithstanding, doctors have seen merits of telehealth during the pandemic. It has proved to be a reliable method to treat and monitor patients, especially the elderly, the follow up and controlled patient groups (not requiring major changes in therapy). Interestingly, physicians did not hold this shift to virtual as something temporary or knee jerk in response to the pandemic. In fact, 75% of the physicians on the GMED community talked about doing more virtual consultations in the future, even post pandemic. Thus it looks like this change in practice dynamics is here to stay!
Media Moments, leading marketing communication consultancy that delivers integrated communications services to some of the best Indian and global companies, has recently announced the launch of its new business vertical (http://mediamoments.in/bfsi/) that intends to offer brand building, digital and creative expertise to banking and financial sector (BFSI). This new move comes after demonstrating 11 years of success in offering innovative marketing and communication services to a bouquet of global brands across consumer tech, consumer durables, fashion, real estate, retail and ecommerce space.

Over the last few years, digital technologies have transformed the BFSI industry globally. Digital transformation in the sector has led brands in banking, finance and insurance sectors to reach and interact with customers on a broader aspect, through technology, integrated apps, and digital channels. Hence aligning digital strategies to customer lifestyle/touchpoints through intelligent marketing solutions & advanced analytics that offer personalized experiences has become a prerequisite for brands in the financial sector. With a dedicated team and budget to grow themselves digitally, these brands require expert consultants who not only guide them towards digital growth but also help them execute and implement these strategies successfully.

With this new vertical, Media Moments aims to bridge this gap and vows to offer the highest impact marketing strategies and measurable financial marketing solutions for search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per- click advertising (PPC), content marketing, data analytics and marketing automation, video Marketing and integrated marketing. This narrow focus and specialized service offering will help the agency to remain on the forefront of industry trends in the BFSI sector and easily integrate with the brand's existing marketing teams.

Commenting on the expansion, Mr. Sandeep Sreekumar, Managing Director, Media Moments, said, Broad sectors like BFSI cannot be treated as other sectors, they need expert support to help in disruption and growth strategies. With this new vertical we aim to solve such business growth challenges and work with C-Suite executives to curate solutions and strategies that perfectly blend business goals with new age digital techniques. With this narrow focus on the BFSI sector, we also bring immediate value, in-depth knowledge and expertise from our experience of working with renowned brands in the sector over the years.

The new division will be led by a team of experienced strategists, analysts and creative professionals who are experts in the BFSI domain.

Talking further about Media Moments expansion Sandeep added, The launch of new vertical is part of our aggressive plan and long term growth strategy. Over the last 11 years, we have developed a deep consumer understanding and delivered award winning integrated campaigns, AI based solutions, consumer centric ad films, videos and offered end to end digital solutions for brands across categories. We are very excited with this new launch and look forward to delve deeper into the sector and help brands improve their digital performance

Headquartered in Bangalore, Media Moments has been recognized as one of the leading communication agencies in India offering trailblazing marketing and communication services to many new as well as established brands from different sectors not only in India but also in many other countries. Media Moments believes that a deep understanding of how to create and execute a hybrid communication plan on both offline and online that encompasses Creative & Branding, Digital, Marketing Automation, Media Influencers and Branded Communities Strategic Communication & PR equips them to be a valued partner. The company has successfully counselled brands like Aditya Birla Group, Prestige Group, Salarpuria Sattva, Himalaya Men, Myntra, TCL, VLCC, Max Fashion, Reliance Trends, One Plus, Globe Capital, Blackberrys Fashion, LOccitane and others to name a few.
General Secretariat of the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications; General Secretariat DETEC

Bern, 02.07.2020 - President Simonetta Sommaruga has held further talks in recent days as part of her intensive ongoing round of telephone diplomacy. The main topic addressed during the phone calls with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas was current developments in the Middle East conflict.

The conversation with President Rivlin took place on Thursday, 2 July, that with President Abbas on Monday, 29 June. The main subject during both calls was the intention announced by Israel to annex parts of the West Bank. Switzerland is concerned that such a step would lead to violent reactions and destabilise the region.

Ms Sommaruga stressed to President Rivlin that an annexation of parts of the West Bank was not compatible with international law. Furthermore, it would impede a return to the negotiating table on the Middle East conflict. She reiterated that Switzerlands involvement in efforts towards a fair and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians was based on a two-state solution  based on international law and the corresponding UN resolutions. She declared that Switzerland would not recognise a change unless it was the result of a negotiated settlement between the parties.

During both calls, Ms Sommaruga reiterated Switzerlands willingness to contribute towards the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Switzerland is glad to offer its good offices.

In addition to discussing the Middle East conflict, Ms Sommaruga also addressed the situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in their respective countries with President Rivlin and with President Abbas. Switzerland has expanded its humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in partnership with the UN, the EU and Norway to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. In a further programme, Switzerland supports the creation of jobs in Gaza.

There are regular exchanges with Israel on medical matters related to the COVID-19 crisis, particularly in terms of cooperation between start-ups in both countries. With regard to the Middle East conflict, Ms Sommaruga also spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan on 18 June.

Address for enquiries

DETEC Information Service: Geraldine Eicher, +41 79 211 30 52, info@gs-uvek.admin.ch

Publisher

General Secretariat of the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications; General Secretariat DETEC

https://www.uvek.admin.ch/uvek/en/home.html



Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home.html




Crops are developing well across the state as summer arrives, with most crops in average-to-good condition, although heat stress is showing in some crops in western areas.

Across the state, NDSU Ag Extension agents are reporting dry conditions, especially for the topsoil.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the entire western half of the state is at least dry, with a large swath of moderately dry conditions from north to south.

For late-planted crops in the eastern region of the state, those plants have mostly germinated and are putting on leaves now that summer is bringing heat units.

Crops are starting to really come along in Cass County with the sun and heat weve been getting recently. While there always seems to be a few wet spots in some low and heavy clay areas, most fields are getting pretty dry now, said Kyle Aasand, NDSU Ag Extension agent in Cass County.

Across the state, canola is blooming or bolting, and peas are beginning to bloom, while barley, durum and spring wheat are mostly jointing, and in some areas, heading.

Sunflower plantings are 89 percent seeded, with some 64 percent emerged, slightly behind the average.

Farming was difficult this spring due to flooding, which led to soggy roads and water damaging roadways and bridges, making it a challenge to get into fields to plant and spray. That means some plants are only now emerging in fields.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum recently put in for an emergency declaration for widespread flooding in 21 eastern counties, which occurred when the Red River dropped below major flood stage in Pembina, N.D.
By day, shes Michelle Hoffman, a Gilbert mother of three who owns the My CBD Store in Ahwat
Kyrene Chief Financial Officer Chris Hermann broke down the districts cost in this new fiscal year of coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gov. Doug Ducey said last week that while there are encouraging trends in COVID-19 cases recently, Arizonans must still observe safety protocols.
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North Augusta resident Perry Holcomb has filed an initial brief to the South Carolina Court of Appeals regarding a Freedom of Information Act case against the city of North Augusta.

Holcomb sued the city in November 2018. His initial lawsuit stated that the city, mayor and City Council violated FOIA when City Council amended a list of projects for Capital Projects Sales Tax IV. That list was included in a document called Agenda 050718 Complete.

In October 2019, circuit court judge Clifton B. Newman signed an order in favor of Holcomb, finding that the city did violate FOIA, enjoining the city from future similar violations and awarding attorneys fees and costs to Holcomb.

The city appealed Newmans order.

The brief filed by Holcomb on June 25 states that the circuit court was correct in finding that the city violated FOIA when it amended the list of projects and that the court was correct in finding that the Agenda 050719 Complete constituted the meeting agenda for the purposes of FOIA.

The S.C Code of Laws states that "after the meeting begins, an item upon which action can be taken only may be added to the agenda by a two-thirds vote of the members present and voting; however, if the item is one upon which final action can be taken at the meeting or if the item is one in which there has not been and will not be an opportunity for public comment with prior public notice given in accordance with this section, it only may be added to the agenda by a two-thirds vote of the members present and voting and upon a finding by the body that an emergency or an exigent circumstance exists if the item is not added to the agenda."

Court order finds that North Augusta, City Council violated FOIA A decision has been made in a lawsuit against the city of North Augusta that claims the city violated the Freedom of Information Act during an action that allocated money toward the New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam.

The brief filed by Holcomb states that the first part of the law  the two-thirds vote  appears to have been satisfied, but not the finding of emergency or exigent circumstances.

Without satisfying both prongs, the amendment attempted by the City at the May 7, 2018, City Council meeting violates FOIA, entitling Holcomb to declaratory and injunctive relief and consequently attorneys fees and costs, the brief states.

Regarding whether the document is an agenda, the brief says that if the City did not want the Agenda 050718 Complete/Regular Agenda of May 7, 2018, to be treated as an agenda, it should not have called it an agenda.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Gaza City is home to dozens of ancient houses, some dating back hundreds of years. But these frail houses are collapsing due to natural factors and lack of official care. In a bid to salvage the heritage of Gaza City and its archaeological houses, Palestinian businessman Jawdat al-Khudari decided in early June to buy some of them. He proceeded to execute restoration works to bring them back to life.

Khudari, who in recent years managed to restore four out of five ancient houses he acquired in central Gaza City, told Al-Monitor that restoration works require a great deal of efforts, months of continuous work and a lot of money. He noted that the restoration processes have shed light on the historical periods and civilizations in Gaza City.

Preserving Gazas heritage is not limited to governmental or heritage institutions. Khudari described it as a collective effort by anyone who can help, especially since only few ancient homes remain standing.

Al-Monitor toured the area known as Old Gaza in central Gaza City, where the ancient homes are located. Many of those houses have been destroyed by bulldozers over the years. Some were replaced with modern residential buildings and commercial stores. Only a few abandoned ancient homes have withstood demolition.

Archaeology and restoration expert Suleiman Hashem is overseeing the restoration of an ancient house with an area of more than 325 square meters (3,500 square feet). He told Al-Monitor that the house dates back to the Byzantine era but bears the marks of other historical periods, such as the Mamluk, Ottoman and British eras.

Five skilled restoration workers trained by French experts who are currently in the Gaza Strip are helping Hashem on his mission. He was able to restore more than 70% of the house during several months. Just like Khudari, he also stressed the need for funds, not to mention building materials. Some materials that are used in the process are brought from ancient homes that either collapsed or were destroyed by their owners.

Hashem, who participated in the restoration of many ancient houses in Gaza City, noted that restoring one house takes between six months and two years. There are more than 100 houses and archaeological structures dating back thousands or hundreds of years in the Gaza Strip, he said. They all need restoration and continuous maintenance.

The lack of governmental and foreign funding is one of the most prominent obstacles to preserving the heritage of Gaza. This prompted some institutions and businessmen to buy and restore ancient structures to exploit them in cultural projects such as schools or libraries for children, or as commercial establishments such as restaurants that are very popular among the residents of the enclave.

The director of the General Department of Antiquities at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Gaza, Jamal Abu Raida, praised the individual efforts made by businessmen as well as the government efforts in cooperation with some heritage preservation institutions. He told Al-Monitor, however, that these efforts remain modest given the number of houses and archaeological structures in need of restoration and maintenance.

He pointed out that the ministry lacks the funds to finance the restoration of old houses or archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip, adding, UNESCO is the only external party that provides financial support for such restoration works. But its support remains meager and disbursed over intervals.

Abu Raida noted that the ministry has been seeking during the past months to secure funding from Arab and international bodies, such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), for the restoration of houses dating back to the Ottoman era. Its efforts remain unfruitful.

Clarifying the ministrys position on the demolition of some ancient houses by some investors, he said, There have been many demolitions in recent years. Most recently, at the beginning of this year, an investor demolished two ancient houses to construct two big residential buildings. We are prosecuting him in court.

Article 17 of Law No. 11 of 2018 on Tangible Cultural Heritage in Palestine prohibits the destruction or tampering of archaeological sites. Under Article 64 of the law, whoever destroys a proven heritage in whole or in part without obtaining written permission from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities shall be sanctioned with imprisonment for a period of no less than five years and a fine of no less than 10,000 Jordanian dinars (about $14,100) and no more than 30,000 Jordanian dinars ($42,300) or its equivalent in a legally circulating currency, or with one of these two penalties,

Mahmoud al-Balawi, the official in charge of projects aimed at preserving cultural heritage at the Iwan Center for Cultural Heritage at the Islamic University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor that in the coming days restoration works will start on an ancient house in al-Daraj neighborhood, in eastern Gaza City, after funding was secured. The house dates back more than 120 years.

He explained that the center has been preserving the heritage of Gaza City in three phases over the past 15 years: It handled cleaning works and removal of debris and rubble from 65 ancient houses, partially restored 35 houses and completely restored seven houses.

Balawi said that the lack of funding and absence of relevant legislation represents the greatest challenge in preserving Gaza's heritage. The cost of repairing a single house does not exceed $60,000, which is a small amount to pay for preserving heritage. This has encouraged some businessmen to buy and restore some ancient houses for residential or commercial purposes.

Individual initiatives seem to have succeeded in bringing back to life some of the ancient houses in Gaza. But the biggest challenge remains to restore abandoned houses that may crumble at any time due to natural factors if not maintained or that are ransacked by thieves and antiquities dealers.
RAMALLAH, West Bank  On June 24, the Israeli police and a team from the Jerusalem Municipality demolished a stone plaque bearing the Turkish flag and the emblem of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) in Jerusalem. The stone plaque had been placed there to mark Turkeys contribution to a restoration project for the citys Yusufiye Cemetery.

Yusufiye Cemetery, which is affiliated with the Islamic Waqf and adjacent to the Old City wall, is well known in Jerusalem and hundreds of years old. It was restored with the support of Turkey via TIKA, but Israeli police claim that no license was issued for the plaque to be placed.

TIKAs media office told Al-Monitor, Turkish stone plaques were illegally taken off the wall of Yusufiye Cemetery, which the agency has restored. This shows that the Turkish efforts for peace and prosperity in the region are arousing discomfort. It stressed that all of the agencys activities are carried out with the permission and approval of the countries it cooperates with, and all necessary procedures were respected in the Yusufiye Cemetery restoration works that were completed in 2015, upon the request and in cooperation with the local authorities.

TIKA added that it will continue to deploy efforts to protect the historical monuments in Jerusalem for future generations and add value to the region. The efforts made by those who seek to malign the Turkish institutions activities in Palestine will not succeed. It explained, In order to prevent such an unfortunate and illegal act from happening [again] at Yusufiye Cemetery, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and office in the region will follow the official diplomatic and legal procedures.

Turkey's presence in Jerusalem has been increasingly angering Israel. Ever larger numbers of Turkish pilgrims have been visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque since 2015, after Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) included Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Turkish umrah program and Turkey pumped millions of dollars in aid, relief and charity projects via Turkish institutions such as TIKA.

Israeli author Yossi Melman wrote in the British Middle East Eye newspaper June 26 that Turkish activity in Jerusalem, part of its strategic moves in the Middle East, has become a threat to Israel. Melman noted that the Israeli police and security services are monitoring Turkey's growing activities in occupied East Jerusalem via TIKA, which provides the Palestinians with cash and food donations. He said, The Israeli authorities claim that under the guise of cultural and humanitarian work, Turkey is promoting the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan's grandiose vision of restoring the glory days of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine for centuries until World War One.

Israel Hayom, which is tied to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, published a study June 22 by a researcher who previously worked as an adviser on East Jerusalem affairs at the Jerusalem Municipality, which found that Turkey is the non-Arab Islamic country that is currently leading the action in East Jerusalem and funding nearly 10% of the civil society activities.

Israel Hayom also revealed June 1 that Israel and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in secret US-backed talks since December about having Riyadh join the Jordan-run Jerusalem Islamic Waqf Council.

The newspaper quoted an anonymous Saudi source as saying that Jordan has grown more flexible and consented to Saudi Arabia joining the council due to increased Turkish influence at Al-Aqsa. Jordan conditioned its approval on Saudi Arabia channeling funds to other Islamic associations in Jerusalem to push back the Turkish ones, according to the paper.

In response to the Israeli report, Turkey stated its support for Jordans position in Jerusalem. The Turkish Embassy in Amman said in a June 4 statement, Turkey supports Jordan in the role it plays to protect the holy sites in Jerusalem, and expressed confidence that Amman will do so to the best of its ability, a tacit rejection of any Saudi role in the management of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has developed a plan to counter Turkish influence in Jerusalem. Israel Hayom first reported on Oct. 6, 2019, that there was a plan designed to hinder the Turkish aid delivery to the Palestinians, including aid to rebuild the houses in the Old City, and revoking residence permits from Turkish language teachers. It is still unknown when the government will discuss the plan.

Jerusalemites' appreciation for Turkish support is also raising concern in Israel. Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, the president of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, told Al-Monitor that destroying the stone plaque at the cemetery, and with it historic documentation of the Turkish governments restoration efforts, points to Israeli concern about Turkish influence.

Sabri added, Israel is annoyed by the Turkish projects in Jerusalem, where its humanitarian, educational, cultural and health projects are not correlated with any political or military issues," calling the Israeli efforts against the Turkish projects in Jerusalem "acts of reprisal.

Head of the Jerusalem-based Anti-Judaization Committee Nasser Hadami told Al-Monitor, The Turkish activities in the city preserve Jerusalems Islamic identity and culture and enhance the Jerusalemites resilience. That has annoyed Israel, which seeks to change the citys history and features.

Israeli-Turkish relations are unstable after decades of strong economic and military relations. The two parties severed ties in 2010 following the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara ship carrying aid to the Gaza Strip that killed 10 Turks. In March 2013, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Erdogan about the attack. On June 27, 2016, the two sides signed an agreement to restore diplomatic ties, according to which Israel would pay $20 million in compensation to the victims families and Turkey would be permitted to send humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The suppression of Turkish activities in Jerusalem not only reflects the tepid bilateral relations between Israel and Turkey but shows Israel's eagerness to extend sovereignty over the city.
This week brought more economic bad news for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised downward its forecasts for economic contraction this year as a result of both COVID-19 and declining oil prices, as we report here.

The IMF now projects a 7.6% contraction in gross domestic product, a key measure of economic output, for the GCC in 2020, compared with its April forecast that there would be a 3% decline this year.

Contributing to the drop is a projection that Saudi Arabias economy will shrink 6.8%, nearly tripling the April estimation of a 2.3% decline.

The downturn in GCC economies has limited the prospects and planning for the GCC and frames the emerging contest between the United States and China in the region.

The "false choice" between the US and China in the Gulf

The commander of the US Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, said last month, Russia doesnt have the economic resources to come into the region in the way that China does, and that the United States must confront Chinas economic advances in the region, as we report here.

In a must-read assessment of how the US-China strategic competition plays out in the Gulf, Karen Young , a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and contributor to Al-Monitor, makes the case that there is no real choice between Washington and Beijing for Arab Gulf states seeking global partners for trade and investment.

And if there is such a "choice," she argues, its because the United States has let China get the jump in public diplomacy.

By focusing on state investments and publicizing them widely, China has made the US litmus test in the region about bilateral, state finance, writes Young. In contrast, what the United States and its allies offer the region is a system of access to international capital, to institutions that reward governance, rule of law and ultimately local job creation, rather than the enrichment of state entities, contracts that boost state bank balance sheets, and volatile project flow that rarely creates lasting local growth or employment.

On this score, the United States is not, nor should it be, losing a contest for economic influence. Chinese business in the region is of a different scope.

The reasons for the Chinese presence as a contractor in the Gulf and co-investor in Gulf infrastructure and energy projects are simple, Young explains. The Gulf oil exporters want to maintain a good customer service relationship with China, state-to-state investments can avoid the public scrutiny of bond offerings and disclosures to international investors, and sometimes the deals are just faster and easier to close. China is a good partner in some investments and loans that don't make economic sense otherwise, serving as an alternate balance sheet for state entities on both sides.

The United States has not recognized how its own presence in the Middle East works in partnership with its allies and how nongovernmental investment, trade and ideas work in parallel and in direct evidence of an alternative to China, adds Young.

There is no logic to a choice between the United States and China, only opportunities lost, Young concludes.

Oman seeks to avoid getting pulled into Gulf disputes

The IMF projects a GDP decline of 2.8% this year for Oman. Compounding its woes is Omans public debt, which averaged 85% of GDP even before the COVID-19 and oil price crises.

Muscat this year drastically cut its expatriate work force and retired large numbers of civil-service employees to reduce public expenditures, and the Oman Investment Authority is consolidating and taking control of $17.7 billion worth of assets that have been held by the sultanates sovereign wealth funds, as Sebastian Castelier reported here.

These cuts have led to Omans first budget surplus in years, but its still just a start. Muscat will likely still seek financial assistance from its Gulf neighbors, but, as explained above, those coffers are mostly bare because of the regional economic downturn.

Its also complicated by regional politics. Oman worries that seeking a bailout from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, on the one hand, or Qatar, on the other, could draw it into the current divide within the GCC, Castelier writes, something it has until now avoided by maintaining an independent and neutral foreign policy posture.

Seeking assistance from within the region, however, would mitigate Omani dependence on China, to which it is heavily indebted.

The safest provider of aid would likely be Kuwait which, like Oman, maintains a neutral posture in Gulf affairs. Last year Kuwait invested $2 billion in Omans Duqm refinery.

However, hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices following half a decade of budget deficits, Kuwait is expected to be the only country in the world to run a budget deficit above 30% of GDP, according to estimates, Castelier explains. Qatar, which is expected to be the only Gulf country to run a fiscal surplus this year despite an ongoing global recession, could play a key role.

Will migrant workers return to GCC?

The economic downturn and budget cuts in the GCC have forced the region to trim its dependence on foreign workers. Masses of low-income migrant workers lost their jobs and returned to their countries, even though there was little chance of employment back home, writes Sabena Siddiqui.

Siddiqui notes that GCC development often depends on "vision plans and megaprojects, including in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and a high percentage of both the skilled and unskilled workers necessary to implement the projects come from abroad.

But the slowing or cancellation of these projects as a result of the economic downturn means migrant workers may have no work to come back to.

The impact of the economic and labor downturns varies across the region, as the UAE  especially Dubai  depends on tourism, while Kuwait doesnt, and is instead focusing on reducing the number of expat workers.

Throughout the Gulf, The demand for high-skilled expats will continue to increase, Siddiqui concludes, as it will take years of investment in education, professional skills and training for local citizens to replace them. Meanwhile, unskilled workers will not be required due to popular nationalization drives.
The Democratic-held House is taking another stab at ending US support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemens Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The House Armed Services Committee voted 31-25 Wednesday to add language to a key defense authorization bill that would ban the Donald Trump administration from using funds to provide the Saudi coalition with logistical support in its war against the Houthis.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced the amendment, which mirrors a provision he introduced last year to pull the United States out of the Yemen war. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., was the lone Republican to join Democrats in voting for the amendment.

Two years ago, a similar amendment to end US refueling of Saudi-led coalition planes only received 19 votes, said Geo Saba, Khannas legislative director. We will work tirelessly to keep it in the final bill as it moves to conference in an effort to help bring an end to the war.

Khannas legislation  alongside another provision he added to defund any offensive military action against Iran  proved to be a major obstacle in negotiations with the Republican-held Senate to arrive at a compromise defense bill last year. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., ultimately agreed to drop the provision from last years bill amid opposition from the White House and Senate Republican leaders.

The Khanna amendment all but ensures another showdown with the Senate over the Yemen war, as the upper chambers version of the legislation is unlikely to include any similar restrictions.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attempted to add similar Yemen war restrictions to the Senate defense bill Wednesday. However, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., blocked Sanders procedural request to proceed with a floor vote.

A bipartisan majority of the US Senate has already voted three times  to halt all US military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, Sanders said on the Senate floor. It is time for us to do that again. This time not just in words, but in action: No money going toward US participation in this horrible war, which is destroying a nation of some of the poorest, most desperate people in the world.

Khanna and Sanders led the respective efforts in the House and Senate to pass legislation last year intended to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition pursuant to the 1973 War Powers Act.

The House voted 247-175 and the Senate voted 54-46 to pass the Yemen war powers resolution last year. However, Congress did not have enough votes to override President Trumps veto.

Trump has already threatened to veto this years bill over other bipartisan provisions to rechristen US military bases named after Confederate leaders.
Egypt has reopened its major tourist attractions and resumed international flights for the first time since they were suspended in March.

Two flights carrying more than 350 Ukrainian tourists arrived from Kiev in the cities of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh Wednesday, the Civil Aviation Ministry said. Just three coastal governorates  Red Sea, South Sinai and Marsa Matruh  are reopening for foreign tourism this month.

On March 19, Egypt paused all international air traffic, with the exception of repatriation flights, in an effort to control the spread of the coronavirus. As flights resumed Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister Mohamed Manar said sanitation measures and medical screenings were in place to keep travellers safe.

The national carrier EgyptAir operated 14 international flights carrying a total of 2,000 passengers from Cairo, with more planned in the coming weeks.

Some two dozen major tourist sites also opened Wednesday, including the iconic Giza Pyramids, the Citadel of Saladin and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Tourism is a key sector of the Egyptian economy, accounting for 5% of the countrys gross domestic product. Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled el-Anani has said tourism losses from the lockdown could reach into the billions of dollars.

Mosques across the country reopened under strict precautions Saturday for the first time in three months. The Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, however, has postponed the reopening of churches in Cairo and Alexandria amid a spike in infections in those cities.

The Arab worlds most populated country has recorded nearly 70,000 coronavirus cases and 3,034 deaths.
Two militants who allegedly had been plotting terror attacks were killed in an exchange of gunfire with security forces in the Jalbana area of North Sinai June 30. The Egyptian news reports quoted a statement by the Interior Ministry that weapons and ammunition were seized during a police raid that thwarted terrorist attacks planned to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the June 30 Revolution.

The ongoing North Sinai war on terrorism has inflicted a heavy toll on the military and police  the primary targets of the Islamic State-affiliated insurgency in Sinai. It has also claimed the lives of dozens of civilians as the violence spilled over from Sinai into the rest of the country. News of the deaths was both a reminder of the authorities' failure so far to restore security and stability (despite President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's repeated promises to end the unrest) and a further example of the extrajudicial killings and other rights abuses recurrent since Sisi decreed a sweeping anti-terrorism law in mid-2015. Shielding the military and police from prosecution for disproportionate use of force, the law has allowed security forces to escape accountability for such actions.

Commemorating the anniversary of the military-backed protests that overthrew Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, on July 3, 2013, the country's largely pro-government media turned a blind eye to such malpractices. Instead, jingoistic songs glorifying Sisi and the "glorious revolution" that brought him to power blared from car radios. Public service messages aired incessantly on Egyptian TV channels throughout the day, highlighting Sisi's accomplishments while vilifying the "terrorist" Muslim Brotherhood. Sisi, who led the military coup that overthrew Morsi, has since overseen a brutal crackdown on the Islamic group's leaders, members and sympathizers. Thousands of opposition figures have been detained on charges of belonging to the terrorist group. Many of them have been tortured, killed or forcibly disappeared.

Amr Magdi, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, believes the Sisi regime started off "on a wrong footing" and has since been unable to backtrack. He cites the Rabaa Massacre that saw nearly 1,000 pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters killed by security forces in a single day of violence on Aug. 14, 2013. Committing such a horrific atrocity was telling of the nature of the regime the popular uprising had helped bring to power," Magdi told Al-Monitor. "Having committed such excesses from the beginning made it hard for the regime to retreat as they felt their personal safety was at stake."

He continued, When Egyptians took to the streets on June 30, a military coup wasn't what they had bargained for. The goal was to have early elections or at least to force the Morsi government to be more inclusive and work toward achieving the Bread, Freedom, Social Justice slogan of the 2011 uprising. But the military hijacked the people's movement and installed a military-backed government  this is fundamental to understanding why the trajectory from July 3 was a wrong trajectory.

The crackdown, which in the early years of Sisi's rule targeted political opponents, was later expanded to target rights defenders, liberal activists and journalists. In recent weeks, the government has stepped up efforts to silence the few remaining independent media voices. Nora Younis, editor-in-chief of Al Manassa  one of hundreds of websites that have been blocked in the country  was arrested June 24 on charges including operating an unlicensed platform and misusing social media. She was released the following day on bail of a 10,000 Egyptian pounds (around $618) pending further investigation.

Younis arrest sent a chilling message to other journalists, forcing many into silence. In the repressive climate, it is not surprising that there has been little criticism in the Egyptian media of the government's heavy-handed policies. Newspaper editors and TV talk show hosts have meanwhile turned their wrath on dissenters, demonizing anyone remotely critical of the government and labelling them "foreign agents" and "traitors." As expected, the media coverage of the June 30 anniversary was biased and propagandist: Only government cheerleaders were allowed on TV talk shows to discuss Sisi's "unprecedented" achievements and sing the praises of the regime.

Egyptian newspapers devoted entire pages to the government-funded megaprojects implemented over the last six years. Some of these projects  such as the ambitious health campaign to rid the country of Hepatitis C, the reclamation of land for agricultural use and construction of the new Grand Egyptian Museum (set to open as early as next year)  are indeed worthy of praise. Some others like the construction of a new administrative capital and the $8 billion expansion project to the Suez Canal, have meanwhile stirred controversy with critics saying the megaprojects were undertaken to "boost Sisi's image."

Nevertheless, many of the infrastructure projects (construction of roads, bridges, airports and affordable housing for low-income families) carried out by military-run companies are a source of pride for many Egyptians, coming after decades of stagnation and turmoil.

Some analysts, however, argue that the massive surge in megaprojects (most of which are managed by the military) and their expanded role in economic activities, such as media broadcasting and domestic supply chains, have entrenched the military deeper in the economy  a role the generals may likely be reluctant to relinquish.

Concerns are also growing over the military's unfair competition with the private sector, with complaints from the latter of being crowded out of lucrative sectors by the military. A handful of military companies have started opening up their businesses to domestic and foreign investors  a small step in the right direction  but the move has done little to reassure the private sector, which feels that competing with an institution of such heavy political clout puts them at a disadvantage.

Speaking in an address on the eve of the June 30 anniversary after inaugurating a number of developmental projects, Sisi vowed to press ahead with economic reforms to undo the corruption and neglect from which Egypt has suffered for years. He also pledged to protect Egypt's national security from regional threats in an apparent reference to rising tensions with Ethiopia and Turkey.

But Sisi also faces a number of domestic challenges, not least of them the insurgency in Sinai and the deep polarization in society. Aware of the rising discontent, he has said that the army is fully prepared to confront any threats to Egypt's national security, whether inside the country or abroad.

Nowhere were the divisions more evident than on social media with government supporters flaunting photos of themselves raising the Egyptian flag at the 2013 protests while opponents shared images of the deposed Morsi, who died of a heart attack at a trial hearing in July last year.

A widely circulated video showing Sisi promising that Egyptians would see a "very different" Egypt by June 30, 2020, provoked satirical comments from some critics.

One Twitter user shared the video, adding the tongue-in-cheek comment coming soon.

Online calls for a fresh round of protests on June 30 also gained momentum in the days leading up to the anniversary, with activists listing reasons Egyptians should rise against the government.

Although it was highly unlikely that any such protests would materialize in the repressive environment, the government was not taking any chances: A public holiday to mark the occasion was abruptly canceled. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced that the holiday has been postponed to July 2 so that citizens may enjoy a long weekend with their families.

Magdi is skeptical about what lies ahead. The society remains deeply divided without any transitional justice or a pause from unjust daily detentions and mass trials. Egypt is completely on the wrong trajectory; this can only make the future harder for everyone.
CAIRO  In what was described by rights advocates as part of a crackdown against Egypts medical staff, a doctor in northern Egypt has been remanded in custody for 15 days as of June 27 by the state security prosecution pending further investigation into the charges of misusing social media, spreading false news and being involved in a terrorist organization.

Mohamed Moataz El-Fawal, a university lecturer of radiology and board member of the Sharqiya province syndicate branch, was arrested one day after he voiced his views online about Prime Minister Mustafa Madboulys recent remarks on Egypts medical personnel.

Fawal has been accused with the same set of accusations used to terrorize anybody with a free voice, a medical syndicate board member told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

The syndicate has taken all the necessary measures to offer him proper defense. But there is nothing else we can do, he said.

The Egyptian Medical Syndicate addressed the prosecutor-general, calling for Fawals release until the investigation is over. The syndicate further said that a doctor should not be penalized for his syndical activities.

The local group Egyptian Front for Human Rights said in a statement June 27 that Fawal was forcibly disappeared for two days prior to interrogation.

The authorities are seeking to intimidate doctors by such charges to force them to perform their duties under pressure  and, at the same time, refrain from talking publicly about the mismanagement of the public health sector, human rights lawyer Fahd el-Banna told Al-Monitor.

Once dubbed Egypts white army, security authorities, state-owned and private media outlets close to the regime turned against medical personnel after the latter had exposed the facts about the states incompetence in handling the coronavirus pandemic. They were further nailed and intimidated by authorities.

At least six doctors had earlier been detained after they expressed their concerns on social media about the countrys mismanagement of the crisis.

The doctors were all almost charged with the same charges of Fawals, a set of accusations frequently used by the authorities against dissidents.

This is a state of violation against doctors who have the right to be protected. In case they need to be questioned, only the syndicate can do that, Banna said.

Meanwhile, on the same day Fawal was arrested, activists and a number of doctors reported on social media outlets that security forces cordoned off the medical syndicates building in downtown Cairo, shortly before the board attempted to hold a press conference to discuss several issues about the challenges facing doctors, including Madboulys remarks.

It was later announced on the unions official Facebook page that the presser was canceled for technical reasons.

Strife has erupted between medical personnel and the government following controversial statements made by Madbouly June 13 in which he insinuated that some of them fell short of handling COVID-19 cases.

During a televised speech on the latest measures taken by the government amidst the coronavirus pandemic, Madbouly claimed that the absence of some medical staff members from their posts in a number of provinces caused more deaths.

On the same day, the medical syndicate was quick to react to the premieres comments, releasing a strongly worded statement that demanded his apology.

According to the unions statement, Madbouly ignored the actual reasons behind the surge of deaths: the scarcity of capacity at public and isolation hospitals, medical supplies and beds at intensive care units.

Ever since the pandemic [prevailed] in Egypt, doctors have shown the greatest examples of sacrifice at work, under huge pressure from these difficult circumstances, a lack of personal protective equipment at some hospitals in addition to the ongoing attacks on medical personnel by the patients [frustrated] families, the statement read.

We call on the prime minister to check the lists of doctors deaths since the  pandemic first appeared in Egypt. The number of doctors who have been martyred reached 100, while over 3,000 contracted the virus, the syndicate said.

In an attempt to retract Madboulys accusations a few hours after his speech, official Cabinet Spokesman Nader Saad told state TV that the prime minister did not mean to generalize, saying that a few members of the medical personnel were irresponsible, which resulted in a deficiency in medical service provision.

"No single press conference [on the pandemic] was void of words of praise  the premiere [just] talked about exceptional occurrences that do not influence the [reputation] of Egypts doctors, Saad told talk show host Wael el-Ebrashy in a telephone interview, adding that there were two incidents currently being investigated.

Nevertheless, an online campaign was launched on social media by activists and medical professionals who released pictures of themselves and their colleagues at isolation hospitals, some with sarcastic comments about them being "layabouts. The #supportEgyptsdoctors hashtag has been trending for days on Twitter.

Preventative medicine Dr. Hekmat Mahmoud posted on Twitter a picture of her colleagues: Those are the doctors of Zagazig University Hospital who donated their blood when they found the blood bank empty, collecting 74 cases  #supportEgyptsdoctors."

A layabout doctor who caused the death of patients  lost his eyesight because he believed in his role, Nevo Gamal tweeted, in reference to Mahmoud Samy, a doctor who lost his eyesight while treating coronavirus cases due to extremely high blood pressure resulting from exhaustion and overwork.

Celebrities and politicians reacted as well.

Actress Menna Shalaby tweeted: Thank you, Egypts doctors. You are in [our hearts]. May God bless those who [aided] us with their pure souls. May God protect those who are [still] alive.

Aboelela Mady, head of Wasat, a moderate Islamist political party, tweeted: Thanks to Egypts doctors (men and women), you and all medical personnel. We wont be able to thank you enough for the extraordinary efforts you exerted in combating the novel coronavirus. Many of you even lost their lives amidst this sacred mission  dont pay attention to those who dont appreciate your worth.

Later in the same week, notorious lawyer Samir Sabry filed a complaint June 25 before the prosecutor general and the state security prosecution against medical syndicate president Hussein Khairy, accusing him of inciting doctors not to perform their duties.

The complaint was followed a few days later by a similar one presented by a journalist working at a state-owned newspaper and two unknown lawyers against Khairy and the Cairo branch syndicate head Shereen Ghallab.

Banna believes such action is illegal.

Those who file complaints like these are fame-seekers. They have no business filing them. Only a government representative or a patients family can legally do that, Banna told Al-Monitor.

Later on, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi seemed to have been trying to ease the ongoing tension.

The Egyptian people have the right to be proud of the sacrifices of its loyal citizens of the medical staff and those in charge of the health care system in the country for controlling the coronavirus and containing its consequences, Sisi said during a brief speech June 29 commemorating what the regime and its supporters describe as the June 30 revolution.
The United Nations Security Council reviewed on June 29 the developments of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Ethiopia is building along the Blue Nile, after a decade of deadlock in negotiations. During the meeting that was held via videoconference upon Egypts request, the council members called on Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to engage in negotiations to reach an understanding under the African Union (AU) brokerage.

Egypt had asked the Security Council on June 20 to intervene to resume talks over the GERD dispute. Shortly after, on June 25, Sudan addressed a letter to the council in line with the Egyptian stance. The two countries complained about Ethiopias unilateral decision-making, including its intention to start filling the dam reservoir before an agreement is reached.

Egypt is concerned about the possible negative impact of the dam on its annual share of Nile water, which it relies on to meet over 95% of its freshwater needs. Around 85% of Nile water comes from the Blue Nile, on which the GERD is being built at a cost of $4.6 billion. Ethiopia considers this project vital to develop its economy and save millions from poverty.

Sudan sees some GERD benefits in organizing the Blue Nile water and making use of the electricity generated from it. Still, it wants guarantees regarding the dams safe and convenient operation to ensure the safety of its own dams, including the largest Sudanese dam known as the Roseires Dam.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said at the June 29 Security Council meeting that filling and operating the dam unilaterally, without an agreement, will increase tensions and might stir crises and conflicts threatening the stability of an already-troubled region.

Shoukry noted that Egypt had submitted a letter to the Security Council to ensure that Ethiopia would not take unilateral measures in filling and operating the dam, adding that the bill does not aim to undermine the negotiation process or jump to conclusions.

Ethiopias UN Representative Taye Atske Selassie criticized in his speech before the council the step to refer the GERD crisis issue to the Security Council. He called on the council to let the matter take its course with the AU. He also vowed that his country would not harm Egypt or Sudan.

Sudans UN representative Omer Siddig, for his part, urged the leaders of the three countries to show their political will and commitment to resolve the few remaining issues and ratify the agreement. He asked that any party taking an action that would obstruct the AU efforts be deterred.

Mediation efforts led by South African President and current Chairperson of the AU Cyril Ramaphosa rekindled hopes temporarily of a possible satisfactory agreement over the GERD during a videoconference June 26, which the Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese presidents attended.

During the virtual emergency African summit, all three presidents agreed to return to the negotiation table to reach an agreement within two to three weeks.

The AU also announced after the summit the formation of a committee, made up of representatives of the three countries and South Africa and technical figures from the AU, who will participate as observers to contribute to resolving the pending legal and technical issues.

The committee will have a week, as of June 27, to submit its first report about the negotiations to the AU head.

The three countries vowed during the summit not to make any statements or take measures that would jeopardize or complicate the AU-led negotiations.

However, these promises did not last long. An altercation broke out between Shoukry and Selassie before the Security Council meeting when Selassie accused Egypt of being stiff in the negotiations. Shoukry rejected the accusations.

William Davison, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, objected to the internationalization of the GERD crisis by resorting to the Security Council. He told Al-Monitor via email, Escalating the crisis might deepen Ethiopias resolve not to make any concessions and to proceed with filling the dam early July, as scheduled.

Still, Davison hopes the increasing international focus on the GERD and the intervention of the AU as mediator will revive negotiations and reach a middle ground on the pending technical and legal issues.

The intervention of the AU was a ray of hope to stop the hostile discourses that culminated in military threats. Diplomatic tensions had also been escalating between Egypt and Ethiopia over the GERD after the failure of the latest negotiation round in mid-June that was spearheaded by Sudan and brokered by the United States, South Africa and the European Union. The outcome was a draft agreement that Sudan said achieved great progress on key technical issues.

Nevertheless, there is a list of unresolved technical issues, including the operation method of the dam during the years of drought, when rain level is low and during which water supplied by Ethiopia to the downstream countries will be scarce. Also, there are some legal matters related to whether the agreement and its mechanism to solve disputes must be binding for parties, which is what Egypt is demanding.

Based on Egypts request in 2019, the United States tried to act as mediator, thus leading to talks that lasted four months in Washington before collapsing in February. Ethiopia refused to sign the agreement and accused the Donald Trump administration of being biased to Egypt.

During his speech before the June 26 African summit, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said his country is open to a balanced and fair agreement that would allow Ethiopia to achieve its desired economic development and increase its power-generation capacity, all the while minding the interests of Egypt and Sudan and not harming their water rights.

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said at the summit that the African leaders are wise and capable enough to solve their issues themselves.

Cairo and Khartoum released two official statements following the African summit June 26 regarding an agreement with Ethiopia to delay filling the GERD reservoir until an agreement among the three is reached.

But Ethiopia announced the day after the summit that it would start filling the reservoir within two weeks, while construction works are ongoing. It vowed to try to reach a final agreement with Egypt and Sudan during this time. Ethiopia did not mention delaying filling the dam in a statement issued by the prime ministers office June 27, and it stuck with the timeline it had announced earlier  beginning of July.

Davison hopes that tripartite negotiations under AU brokerage will not be obstructed due to the dam-filling matter. He said, This issue must not prevent the negotiations from focusing on key pending matters.

However, Davison expects the negotiations to collapse if Ethiopia moves forward with filling the dam before agreeing with Egypt and Sudan. He noted, Relations between Ethiopia and the two downstream countries might go downhill and fuel further regional instability.
Iranian officials say there was an incident at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant today. Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said a "shed [under construction] outside of the facility was damaged in the incident. He said there was no loss of life, no harm in the activities at Natanz and no need for concern, adding that experts are reviewing the incident.

Local officials described the incident as a fire. Fabian Hinz of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies tweeted that the pictures shared from the AEOI indicate the fire was at Natanzs new centrifuge assembly workshop.

The incident at Natanz is the third such incident in a week. On June 26, there was a large explosion near the Parchin military complex in east Tehran. Residents from surrounding suburbs videoed the flames from the explosion. Iran claimed it was a gas tank explosion. Another gas explosion occurred June 30 at a private medical clinic that left 19 people dead. The private facility had reportedly received numerous warnings from the city regarding safety concerns, and the city had wanted to shut it down.

According to BBC Persian, a group calling themselves Homeland Cheetahs is attempting to take credit for what they call an attack on the Natanz site. The group sent an email to BBC Persian, but the authenticity of the groups existence could not be verified. They claimed to be an underground opposition within Irans security apparatus. Most Persian language Twitter users mocked the idea of a group named Homeland Cheetahs.

In other news, Iran is still struggling to deal with the coronavirus and has seen deaths spike in recent weeks. According to Health Ministry Spokesperson Sima Lari, there have been 148 deaths in the last 24 hours due to the virus, bringing Iran's total to 11,106. She said the provinces of Khuzestan, Kurdistan, East and West Azarbaijan, Hormozghan, Bushehr, Khorasan Razavi and Kermanshah have been labeled red zones due to the high number of cases. Some of the cities in these provinces, such as Bushehr, have implemented guidelines and movement restrictions for citizens to slow the spread of the virus.

The high numbers have begun to worry Iranian officials, who are now concerned about a looming disaster in the fall. Ghassem Janbabaee, deputy health minister, said, There are no stable epidemic conditions in any province in the country. He warned that traveling between provinces and not following health guidelines has raised the number of infections, adding that if a proper plan to confront the coronavirus is not put in place, during the cold season we will certainly face a more serious crisis.
A year ago on July 1, then Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi issued a decree ordering the factions of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to integrate fully into the state security forces.

A year later, they not only have not been integrated but are again resisting demands to assimilate with state security services, challenging the Iraqi government in multiple ways.

Previous efforts by Haider al-Abadi, who preceded Abdul Mahdi as prime minister, also failed. The PMU law Abadi introduced to parliament was approved, but he was unable to implement it.

Like his predecessors, current Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has given priority to dealing with this crucial problem. But some of the PMUs are digging in against him.

Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iran militia within the PMU, celebrated the June 29 release of members who had been rounded up a few days before by trampling on photos of Kadhimi and burning them together with US and Israeli flags.

The scene was shocking for Iraqi public, as the militia is a part of the Iraqi security forces, which are under the command of the prime minister as the commander in chief of the armed forces.

This puts the lie to statements from the PMU that it is an official security force affiliated legally with the Iraqi state.

Moreover, Kataib Hezbollah Secretary-General Ahmad al-Hamidawi said following the release of his militias detainees, The weapons of the Islamic resistance are a fundamental legitimate right, and will not be given away except to Imam Mahdi (the 12th Shiite imam). The weapons will not be restricted or be taken away.

The head of Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Qais Khazali, had previously told Kadhimi that he never would be able to stop the resistance movement's attacks against US bases as none of the previous Iraqi governments were able to do so.

A number of Kataib Hezbollah members were arrested in the early morning of June 26 by the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) under suspicion that they were preparing an attack against properties in Baghdads Green Zone.

Soon after, a group of Kataib Hezbollah members and allies, including other militias, entered the Green Zone with heavy weapons, threatening action against the service unless the Kataib Hezbollah members were released. Three days later, 13 detainees were released due to lack of sufficient evidence.

But Kadhimi spokesman Ahmad Mulla Talal said in his weekly press conference June 30 that one of the detainees was still in the custody and that the relevant court is continuing the investigation of him.

We have received very accurate intelligence information about an attempt to target sensitive sites and important foreign diplomatic missions. The CTS and other state security apparatuses dealt with the issue promptly.  The CTS had a court warrant to arrest one person who was the organizer of the [terrorist] operation. As he was accompanied by other people, the CTS arrested all but soon after all detainees except the organizer were released, Talal said.

As the Kadhimi government tries to impose the states law on all security entities, including all PMU factions, a new parliamentary coalition has been formed to support and strengthen the prime minister's efforts.

The leader of the Hikma Movement, Ammar al-Hakim, said June 30 that he has formed a new parliamentary bloc called Iraqioon that "supports the strong and capable state, with national sovereignty and public will.

This came a day after a meeting of the PMUs Fatah bloc led by Hadi al-Amiri about the raid against Kataib Hezbollah. Amiri criticized the Kadhimi government's action, saying, We say to those who cry for the restoration of state prestige, what prestige are you talking about while foreign forces are moving everywhere in the country, and the airspace is completely violated and the American and Israeli planes roam the skies of Baghdad and target the sons of Iraq, more importantly our two leaders Muhandis and Soleimani. This was in reference to the US killing of PMU and Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in January at the Baghdad airport.

It seems that Hakim is trying to bring a number of political blocs, including Abadis Nasr coalition, and some independent parliamentarians under one umbrella to confront the Fatah bloc were it to make a move toward withdrawing confidence from Kadhimi government.

So far, 41 members of parliament have joined the Iraqioon Coalition. Fatah has 48 seats.

Meanwhile, Iran seems very quiet about Kadhimis actions against pro-Iran militias, as no Iranian officials reacted to the raid against Kataib Hezbollah.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in response to a question about the Iraqi government raid, This is an internal Iraqi matter and Iran will not interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq. He also said, Iran is confident that the government and people of Iraq will deal with their internal affairs in a way that brings order and stability to the country.

It seems that Iran is not willing to add more tension to the region at a time the country is facing tough sanctions and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps even more important is that the United States is running a campaign in the Security Council to extend the arms embargo on Iran that is scheduled to end in October.

Iran is already violating the arms embargo, even before its expiration date, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a Security Council meeting June 30, adding, Imagine if Iranian activity were sanctioned, authorized by this group, if the restrictions are lifted.
The difficulties facing Palestinian journalists have led many to express themselves solely on digital media. But even with this relatively free medium, they are now dealing with a restrictive cybercrime law and pressure from Israel and social media companies in the absence of clearly defined rights and responsibilities. These three powerful forces are threatening press freedom in Palestine.

Palestinian officials including government spokesman Ibrahim Milhem, who spoke to Al-Monitor, insist that while press freedom is guaranteed by both local and international law, the government will not tolerate hate speech, slander and other forms of defamation on digital media.

Nibal Thawabteh, director of the Media Development Center at Birzeit University, told Al-Monitor that Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has been a supporter of journalism. Prime Minister Shtayyeh is a smart person who has spent serious efforts on issues of development and breaking away from the occupation, and for that he has built a strong connection between the government and the people, and media has been an important vehicle for that.

Walid Batrawi, a veteran journalist and media instructor, told Al-Monitor that while journalists are practicing their profession freely, the number of professionals is decreasing and journalists are practicing self-censorship more and more due to the overall restrictive atmosphere.

Press freedom issues therefore are increasingly being fought on the digital landscape, according to Palestinian human rights and media freedom activists.

The latest use of the Palestinian cybercrime law against a journalist was the case of Tulkarem-based journalist Sami al-Sai, who was accused of running a Facebook page critical of certain Palestinian security officials in Tulkarem and for being a supporter of Hamas. His lawyer Muhannad Karaje told Al-Monitor that Sai was released July 1 on bail. He said that the judge was convinced there was no need for any further investigation in the case.

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, or the MADA Center, condemned the arrest in a June 11 statement and called for Sai's release.

Human Rights Watch stated June 25 that it has documented the systematic practice of Palestinian security forces arbitrarily arresting and torturing critics and opponents, including for peaceful expression. HRW said that data provided by the Palestinian government indicate that between Jan. 1, 2018, and March 30, 2019, the [Palestinian Authority] detained 752 Palestinians over social media posts. Shtayyeh had vowed in a July 2019 meeting with the group that there would be no arrests or persecution of Palestinians for peaceful free expression, the rights organization added.

Omar Shakir, HRWs Israel and Palestine country director who was deported from Israel and is now based in Amman, told Al-Monitor, If Prime Minister Shtayyeh is serious, he should start by releasing Sai from detention.

Freelance reporter Mustafa Ibrahim wrote for the pro-PLO MaanNews May 6 that since March, the coronavirus emergency has given cover to undermine freedom of expression in Palestine.

Last October, the Ramallah Magistrate Court ordered local internet service providers to block access to at least 49 news sites in the West Bank and Gaza following a request from the Palestinian attorney generals office, according to reports from the regional press freedom group Skeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, the Palestinian online rights organization Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

On June 17, 13 Palestinian nongovernmental organizations and nonprofit media outlets created a coalition to defend digital freedom of expression. The coalition, which includes the MADA Center and Maan News, said that it plans to protect the rights of journalists and freedom of expression through legislation and relevant international organizations.

In addition to problems with Palestinian security forces, journalists, especially those living in Jerusalem, are seeing their press freedom progressively curtailed. Journalists from Palestine TV have been arrested and banned from working in Jerusalem. Israel has regularly requested that digital companies block Palestinian news sites on claims that they incite violence. The Vienna-based International Press Institute and even the Israeli Press Syndicate have condemned Israel for these violations.

Israeli authorities are accused of committing more than 50 violations against Palestinian journalists in occupied Jerusalem during the first half of 2020, according to the Journalists Support Committee. In a June 18 report, the nonprofit organization representing journalists said the Israeli occupation expelled four journalists from the city, arrested seven and summoned 14 for police interviews.

Mousa Rimawi, director of the MADA Center, said that the arrests come at a time when Israeli authorities are watching social media closely and targeting Palestinians.

Weve noticed that in the last several months, more people are being arrested for expressing their views on social media, Rimawi told Al Jazeera on May 23, adding that in many cases Palestinians are detained for legitimate political expression and not incitement.

The MADA Center reported in February that in 2019 social media companies, mostly Facebook, committed 181 violations against Palestinian content and blocked news pages and the journalists accounts.
ISTANBUL  Discussions of converting Istanbuls iconic Hagia Sophia into a mosque have percolated for years in Turkish politics. And following a brief hearing Thursday, a Turkish court is preparing to issue a verdict on the matter within 15 days.

The sixth-century structure was originally built as a cathedral and converted into a mosque following the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, today known as Istanbul. The Hagia Sophia was later changed into a museum in a 1934 decision that came about a decade after the founding of the Republic of Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Since then, the structures status has been the subject of political debate, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly voicing intentions to convert the Ayasofya, as its known in Turkish, into a site for Muslim worship in recent decades.

Seen as a move that would appeal to nationalist and religious voters at a time when support is waning for Erdogans ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) amid economic pressure from the coronavirus crisis, a decision is now looming after a Turkish court heard arguments from a group seeking to annul the 1934 decision.

We think they will see that Ayasofya being a museum for 86 years has hurt and saddened the Turkish people, Selami Karaman, a lawyer arguing the case, told reporters after the hearing.

He added, This mosque  is the personal property of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, in reference to the Ottoman leader who led the conquest of Constantinople.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said changing the Hagia Sophia into its present status as a museum was a centerpiece of Ataturks attempt to create a secular, European, Western-facing republic.

A century later, Erdogan is carrying out his own revolution  to shape Turkey into his own image, a country that is conservative socially, politically Islamist and facing the Middle East, Cagaptay told Al-Monitor. He added, He is using the Hagia Sophia to underline his own revolution  that is, a religious revolution of flooding Turkeys public space, education and government with religion.

While Cagaptay said the conversion may not take place this year, he expects Erdogan, who arrived in Qatar Thursday for a state visit, to follow through on the long-held ambition before leaving office.

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara director for the German Marshall Fund, also said he believed the Turkish government would seek to convert the building in the near future. Noting the move would reverse a downward trend in voter support for the AKP in the short-term, Unluhisarcikli said a conversion would pose a direct challenge to Istanbuls popular Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of Turkeys main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP).

This is a clear attempt at discrediting Ekrem Imamoglu by putting him on the wrong side of a polarizing discussion, Unluhisarcikli told Al-Monitor. Of course, converting Ayasofya into a mosque will be very popular among the wider public, but it will also be a divisive issue within the CHP. Thats important.

He added that a significant share of voters supporting Turkeys various opposition parties view the debate, if not on religious grounds, as an issue of national sovereignty. Opposing a court decision to convert the structure would put Imamoglu at odds with many of his supporters, Unluhisarcikli said.

Imamoglu is the target here, Unluhisarcikli told Al-Monitor. As the mayor of Istanbul, he will need to respond. And as the cosmopolitan person that he is, it is difficult for him to support this conversion.

Ahead of the court case, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement Wednesday, urging the Turkish government to continue to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum, as an exemplar of its commitment to respect Turkeys diverse faith traditions and history, and to ensure it remains accessible to all.

Pompeos comments were soon after met with criticism from Turkeys Foreign Ministry, whose spokesperson, Hami Aksoy, said the Hagia Sophia, situated on our land, is the property of Turkey, like all our cultural assets. He said any issue regarding the building is our internal affair as part of Turkey's sovereign rights."

The debate was also criticized by the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who said converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque would sow discord between Christians and Muslims around the world. Similar statements were issued by Greek leaders Thursday, who view the building one of the most important sites of Orthodox religious and cultural heritage.

The developments come after Muslim prayers were recited in the Hagia Sophia on May 29 in celebrations marking the anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, an event that also drew criticism from Greek leaders.
Turkey says it is disappointed it did not make the cut for countries whose citizens are allowed to visit Europe this summer starting Wednesday.

The European Union unveiled a list of countries this week from which it will allow tourists as the zone tries to boost its economy amid the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Turkey, as well as the United States and Russia, notably did not make the list of 14 countries deemed to have low enough coronavirus numbers to warrant nonessential travel.

Turkey voiced opposition to the EUs decision.

We are disappointed that Turkey has not been included in the list, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding, The measures Turkey has taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic as well as her efforts and success in this respect are evident.

Turkey allowed businesses to reopen and domestic travel to resume in June after closures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19. Virus cases are still rising by more than 1,000 per day in the country, according to Health Ministry statistics.

Turkey has mixed relations with EU states. Turkey is currently in a row with the EU and its members Greece and Cyprus over offshore drilling in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey and France are also in disagreement over a naval escalation between the two in the sea last month that had to do with Libya.

On the other hand, Turkey and Italy conducted a joint naval drill in the Mediterranean last month and the two have a certain amount of agreement on the Libya conflict.
Beginning with July 1, The European Union opened its borders to visitors from 15 countries. The full list of the first 15 countries ranges from Algeria to Uruguay, from Georgia to South Korea, from Serbia and Montenegro to New Zealand, from Morocco to Canada. Europe will open its borders to China as well, provided China opens up to travelers from the EU.

European doors will remain closed to travelers from the United States, Brazil, and Russia, due to the rate of the spread of coronavirus. Turkey, a candidate member of the EU, which performed well above the EU average in the Covid-19 struggle, however, is among those countries that the travel ban from and to the EU will remain in effect.

Given the success of the Turkish Covid-19 strategy, the disappointment expressed by the spokesperson of the Turkish Foreign Ministry for the decision was not unexpected.

Indeed, Turkeys coronavirus statistics, for instance, in comparison to EU member Sweden, are much better. The Turkish population is almost nine times as much as Sweden, but the number of cases per 1 million is 2,370 in Turkey, while the figure stands at 6,777 in Sweden. The death rate in Turkey is 60.8 per 1 million in Turkey, and 528.1 in Sweden. Even in comparison to Germany, which has roughly the same population as Turkey and is lauded for a successful Covid-19 strategy, Turkey seems to be doing as well as Germany. The number of total confirmed cases in Germany is some 200,000 and in Turkey is some 195,000.

The reason for Turkeys exclusion from the EUs reopening can be explained by political reasons instead of public health concerns.

According to the New York Times, the EU is putting into effect a complex policy, by not opening its borders to some countries like the United States, Brazil, and Russia, sought to balance health concerns with politics, diplomacy, and the desperate need for tourism revenue. Although Turkey is not mentioned in the NYT story, the exclusion of it is the most striking example for the EUs political considerations.

The EU constitutes the main trading partner of Turkey. More than 50% of the Turkish trade is with the EU plus the United Kingdom.

Moreover, more than ever, Turkey needs tourism revenues during a period when its foreign exchange reserves are increasingly depleted, and the country is facing a looming catastrophic financial crisis. In the year 2019, in the first nine months, 41 million tourists visited Turkey, and the annual tourism revenue amounted to 34,5 billion dollars. The Russian, German, and British tourists constituted the first three far ahead of the rest that visited the country in 2019.

To be deprived of tourism revenue in 2020 may have a devastating effect on Turkeys economy, and it is unthinkable that the European leaders are not aware of this simple fact. Why then Turkeys exclusion?

French President Emmanuel Macrons statement a day before the decision provides a clue. In a joint press conference with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron bashed Turkey with vitriolic words.

Accusing Turkey of criminal responsibility in Libya, Macron questioned Turkeys association with NATO in an apparent reference to Ankaras Libya policies.

All the French media outlets highlighted the remarks of Macron flanked by Merkel and the presser came only 24 hours before Germany would take over the EU presidency.

In his statement, Macron described Turkey as a country that pretends to be a NATO member, in any case, it claims so.

Frances discomfort with Turkeys policies is not new. On June 22, Macron lamented Ankara 22 for playing a dangerous game in Libya and mentioned the brain death of NATO.

On June 10, French and Turkish frigates came dangerously close to an armed confrontation. The Turkish frigates escorting a cargo ship refused to let a French frigate under NATO command inspect the cargo.

Alleging Turkey's intervention in Libya increased the terrorist threat to Europe, Macron emphasized that Turkish drilling agreements signed with Libyas internationally recognized Government of National Accord in the Eastern Mediterranean threaten the integrity of EU member countries including Greece and Cyprus.

"I consider today Turkey does not respect any of the commitments made at the Berlin conference [January 2020], increased its military presence in Libya since then and massively reimported jihadist fighters from Syria," Macron said.

Apart from its strong wording, the symbolism of Macron remarks should not be missed. The remarks came at Schloss Meseberg, a German government guest house near Berlin, in the presence of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a day before she took over the EU presidency.

There is every reason to think Merkel, even if reluctantly, is on board with Macron vis-a-vis Turkey's policies in the Eastern Mediterranean and Libya.

Not letting the Europeans travel to Turkey and not allowing Turks into the EU, with the consideration it may inflict on the ailing Turkish economy, should be seen as issuing an expensive political bill to Ankara.

The list of safe countries will be reviewed every two weeks to reflect the changing realities of the coronavirus outbreaks in individual nations, the EU officials said, and countries could be added or removed from the list.

That is the best the Turks can hope at the moment.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson published an op-ed today calling on Israel to cease its plans to annex the West Bank.

Johnson wrote from the perspective of a friend to Israel in the Israeli news outlet Ynet.

As a life-long friend, admirer and supporter of Israel, I am fearful that these proposals will fail in their objective of securing Israels borders and will be contrary to Israels own long-term interests, he wrote.

Israels unity government formed in May, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to start annexing parts of Palestinian territory in the West Bank on July 1.

The plan has hit roadblocks recently, making Netanyahus planned start date today unattainable. The United States is open to annexation conditionally but wants Netanyahus partners in the government, the Blue and White party, to be fully on board. Blue and White leader and Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the July 1 start date is not sacred on Monday. A Netanyahu confidant also said today that annexation will not move forward on the planned date due to the need for full backing from the United States.

Johnson published the op-ed today when annexation was supposed to begin. In the article, Johnson recalled his several trips to Israel, which began when he was a teenager. The article was not a hit piece against Israel. Johnson argued that annexation would hurt Israel by damaging its improved relations with Arab and Muslim states.

Annexation would put in jeopardy the progress that Israel has made in improving relationships with the Arab and Muslim world, wrote Johnson. He added, Israels enemies would seize upon it and use it against those in the Middle East who want to see progress.

Israel has recently grown closer to Gulf countries due to their shared concerns over Iran.

Johnson also wrote that annexation would violate international law and called on both Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate an end to the conflict.

Johnsons comments come amid rising international opposition to annexation. In an unprecedented op-ed in Israeli media last month, the United Arab Emirates Ambassador the United States Yousef Al-Otaiba also argued that annexation would hurt Israels desire for improved relations with the Arab world. Otaibas article was likewise on Ynet.

Jordans King Abdullah II is also vehemently opposed to annexation, saying it could cause a massive conflict. Jordan, Israels neighbor that has a high population of people with Palestinian origins, is one of only two Arab countries to have full relations with Israel  the other being Egypt.

Some members of the US Congress have also come out against annexation recently.

Most West Bank residents are Palestinian and Arabic-speaking. Control is divided between the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority. Thousands of Jewish Israeli settlers began living there after Israel took the West Bank from Jordan during the 1967 war. Netanyahus plans are to annex the settlements and the Jordan Valley in the territory.

Annexation is supported by nationalists on the Israeli right who believe the area has religious significance and is necessary for Israels security. Palestinians, however, feel it denies them self-determination and will further enable violations of their human rights. There is also opposition from the Israeli left and some Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
In an extremely rare move, the Vatican announced it summoned the ambassadors of both the United States and Israel over the latters plan to annex parts of the West Bank.

According to a statement from the Holy See, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin met with US Ambassador Callista Gingrich and Israeli Ambassador Oren David on Tuesday.

A senior diplomatic source told Reuters that Parolin met with the two ambassadors separately.

The meetings were arranged in order to express the concern of the Holy See regarding possible unilateral actions that may further jeopardize the search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, read a Vatican statement. The Holy See reiterates that the State of Israel and the State of Palestine have the right to exist and to live in peace and security, within internationally recognized borders.

The Vatican last waded into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in November, when it issued a rare statement that reiterated its support for a two-state solution after the Donald Trump administration gave its approval to Israels building of settlements in the West Bank.

The Vatican has recognized Palestine as an independent state since February 2013. Parolins outreach comes as Israel is preparing to annex parts of the West Bank, land the Palestinians have long sought for a future state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government will begin the process of annexation this month, conditional on US approval. Under the plan, Israel would extend its sovereignty over up to 30% of the disputed territory, including Jewish settlements and the fertile Jordan Valley.

But Netanyahus coalition government missed its self-imposed deadline of July 1 to begin annexation talks. Defense Minister Benny Gantz reportedly told US diplomats that the Wednesday target was not a sacred date and that annexation may need to wait until after Israel has dealt with its novel coronavirus outbreak.

Israels plan to lay permanent claim to the land has been met with widespread condemnation from the United Nations, Arab League and much of the international community. It has also drawn criticism from the leaders of the Catholic and Anglican churches in the United Kingdom.

In an op-ed published this week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote that annexation would violate international law and be contrary to Israels own long-term interests. Last month, the UAEs ambassador to the United States argued that annexation would hurt chances for rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world.

Thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza City on Wednesday for a day of rage protest led by the militant group Hamas. Other protesters took to the streets for smaller, peaceful demonstrations across the West Bank.
Listen to Outbreak Alabama: Stories from a Pandemic, above.

Today, we hear from Dr. Karen Landers, Assistant State Health Officer with the Alabama Department of Public Health. We cover a difficult topic: Alabamas mortality rate, or as its commonly referred to, the death rate.

As of Wednesday, July 1, 2020, Alabama had 38,442 confirmed cases and 947 confirmed deaths, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. AL.coms Dennis Pillion reported this week about 1 in 9 Alabamians age 65 and older who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 has died.

State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said that about three quarters of all of Alabamas deaths are senior citizens, while they only make up about 17 percent of the states cases. Despite the Safer at Home restrictions, which Governor Kay Ivey extended until July 31st on Tuesday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Alabama continues to increase.

I spoke to Assistant State Health Officer Dr. Karen Landers about Alabamas mortality rate, how the numbers work and whether theyve changed at all, who in Alabama is dying and why insisting youll be fine since the death rate is so low is a dangerous way to live.

Learn more about COVID-19 from the Alabama Department of Public Health.

Outbreak Alabama will release two or three episodes per week, chronicling the experiences of those directly impacted by COVID-19s spread, including health care professionals, business owners, city leaders, artists, AL.com reporters and many others.

If you or anyone you know is affected by coronavirus and want to share your story, please email bflanagan@al.com. For all of our coverage on the outbreak and how it continues to impact Alabama, visit AL.com/coronavirus.

Listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, please rate it and write us a review. Thank you for listening.

More from Outbreak Alabama:

Its on us, yall

The unemployment crisis

Trending the wrong direction

Do we even want a football season?

Where is God right now?

Are you ready for concerts again?

CNNs Kaitlan Collins on covering COVID-19 and Trump

Protesting during a pandemic

Cases are surging in Tuscaloosa

Nick Saban steps it up

Whats next for schools?

The spike in Montgomery

Astonishing disparities in the rural South

Where is the nursing home data?

Is it a mistake to reopen now?

Whiter Thomas on staying creative during the pandemic

Our successes and failures so far

The return of retail

A barbers dilemma

Is it really time to reopen Alabama?

A coronavirus survivors message to the rest of us

Ivey not ready to reopen just yet

Crime in the age of coronavirus

What role do our churches play?

The absence of sports

Learning from a distance

Walt Maddox on leading Tuscaloosa through coronavirus

Social distancing, or not

Coronavirus early impact on musicians

Alabama restaurants
If your kids are bored with the standard sparklers and snappers theyve tried each Fourth of July, maybe its time for them to graduate to something a bit bigger and louder, under strict supervision.

Reminder: Anyone younger than 16 must be accompanied by an adult in order to purchase fireworks, by Alabama state law.

Driving up the highway, youll often spot fireworks stands full of options, and you rarely even know what theyll do once you light that little green fuse. You just know to light, run away to a safe distance and usually cover your ears. But what about the kiddies? I stopped at a stand in Alabama to ask the folks running what theyd recommend for children to safely enjoy with their parents this weekend, plus how theyre selling during the pandemic.

With the virus, some cities and towns arent having traditional big gatherings and shoots, people are more interested to have smaller groups at home, do it within the family, have a cookout and not gather in big groups, Ninja Fireworks manager Michael Lander says. Weve seen some good traffic from families coming out for the kids so they can do more at home.

He kindly pointed out several items he thinks your kids will enjoy this Fourth of July weekend, plus the age groups that might match the products. Youll find them at this Ninja Fireworks , two of them located at 5851 Highway 43 North in Northport, and most others. And yes, they have plenty of sparklers if you want to keep it simple.

The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Airborne Trooper ($6.99, buy one get one)

A lot of kids like parachutes, especially with Army men, Lander said. This one has a plastic Army man who goes up in the air. Its good for the day time because its not going to light up. Kids can chase after it and catch the man. Thats a buy one, get one free. Ages: 7-9 years

The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Unicorn and Dragon ($12.99 each)

Lander called each of these a special kind of fountain that spews out colors and sparks fro the creatures ears, hooves and mouths (in the dragons case, of course). And the best part: Once the fireworks finish, the toy remains intact for the kid to keep beyond the Fourth. And theyre cute, Lander said. Ages: 4-6 years

The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Vehicles ($5.50-8.99)

Stands should have a wide selection of vehicles thatll light up. I always liked the tanks and things when I was little, Lander said. Each of these pictured above does something a little different including shooting sparks out of the back, rolling around, whistling and more. Same as the unicorn and drag, the vehicles will remain intact after going off. Ages 5-8 years

All-Star Pack. The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

All-Star Bag ($13.50)

Most stands will have several kinds of assortment packs varying in different sizes. This bag, for much younger children to enjoy under supervision, will have items that Lander says will stay close to the ground like sparkles with vibrant colors. Nothing too loud thatll shoot in the air and scare. This pack also includes snappers and sparklers. Ages 3-5 years

The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Pirate and Princess Swords ($5.99)

Fireworks swords? Where were this when I was a kid? Lander describes this as giant sparkler fountains. Just hold the handle as the swords (for pirates and princesses) shoot out sparks. Another item you can keep as a toy once they burn out. You obviously dont want them pointing at each other, Lander says, insisting on parental supervision. Ages 8-10 years

Loaded for Fun pack. The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Loaded for Fun pack ($27.99)

Most of these items are colorful and create a lot of noise once shot into the air. You can spread it out over a long period of time, Lander says. Ages 7-10 years

The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Angel Kiss

This unique fountain-style firework delivers showers of sparks from the ground, but this Angel Kiss is noiseless. Lander notes some parents have kids who dont like the whistling fireworks, so they offer options they dont make any noise.

Snow Cone. The Ninja Fireworks stand on Highway 43 in Northport, Ala., helped us identify some fun and safe options for kids this Fourth of July. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Snow-Cone ($22.99)

Lander calls this one of their more popular fountain fireworks with tall sparks and showers that will last a minute or more. Kids of any age would like watch something like that, he says. It looks like a snow cone on fire. You need more information?
To watch John Lewis: Good Trouble is to take a ride on a time machine, a trip exploring the remarkable life of an Alabama sharecroppers son who became an icon of the civil rights movement and preserved his ideals through a career in Congress.

But this brand-new documentary from Magnolia Pictures and director Dawn Porter isnt the kind of time machine that takes you to the beginning of the story and drops you off, then lets you work your way back up to the present. This one shuttles you back and forth through time, letting some themes emerge, letting it sink in that the story of Lewis life is as much about his country as it is about him, letting it show that progress is never a done deal.

Back to 1965, to a confrontation between nonviolent demonstrators marching for the right to vote and Alabama state troopers forming an angry sea of blue that surges over them. Forward to 2018, to midterm elections plagued by voter suppression efforts. All the way back to a childhood on a farm in Troy, Ala., to a boy preaching to the chickens. Forward to that child, now 17, sending a letter off to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and getting a reply that brings him into Kings orbit. Forward a little more to college days in Nashville, to the start of the sit-ins that began to show the power of nonviolent protest.

Forward to 2018 again, to the sense of chicanery and injustice around Stacey Abrams defeat in her run for governor of Georgia, balanced by Democratic control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Back to 1961, riding into Rock Hill, S.C., with the freedom riders and being beaten by Klan members. That was when he lost his fear, Lewis says. When you lose your sense of fear, youre free, he says.

John Lewis, at front of procession at right in tan coat, faces Alabama State Troopers in a scene from "John Lewis: Good Trouble."

Forward to 2013, to a Supreme Court ruling in a case originating in Alabama, a ruling that cuts away a major provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Theyre saying in effect that history cannot repeat itself, comments Lewis. I say, come walk a mile in my shoes.

Forward to 2016, where the rulings impacts are seen in changes that systematically make it harder for many to vote. Back to 1963, where John Lewis, walking in his shoes, speaks at the March on Washington -- and then, a couple of weeks after that triumph, surveys the horrible scene of the 16th St. Baptist Church bombing.

On and on, back and forth, past and present. A project such as John Lewis: Good Trouble easily can fall into the trap of simply admiring a subject who was already widely agreed to be admirable. Porter avoids that: Shuttling back and forth through time, the director weaves a picture of civil rights, voter rights, as an ongoing fight, not something won and secured by the blood, sweat and tears of the past. Porter effectively gets it across that admiring John Lewis is pointless if no one follows his call.

Congressman John Lewis is shown in a scene from "John Lewis: Good Trouble," a documentary being released July 3, 2020.

Lewis is a Democrat, and one liberal enough to sometimes to be a thorn in the side even of his Democrat colleagues. Naturally those most inspired by him are on the same side of the aisle, and the documentarys guest list is a Whos Who of people whose presence is guaranteed to irritate some: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Their praises illustrate Lewis power to inspire. But not as much as the comments from his brothers and sisters and longtime friends, and certainly not as much as the comments of Lewis himself.

Hes seen progress in his lifetime, he says, but As a nation and as a people were not quite there yet. We have miles to go.

You only pass this way once, he says. You have to give it all you have.

Its a lot easier to believe, coming from someone whos done it.

John Lewis: Good Trouble is being released Friday, July 3, for theatrical and at-home viewing. Up-to-date information on streaming options can be found at www.johnlewisgoodtrouble.com. Additionally, Magnolia Pictures Virtual Cinema Program offers a viewing option that routes a portion of the proceeds to Birminghams Sidewalk Film Center. For information, visit www.magnoliapictures.com/virtualcinema
Can you take over and make over an entire city? Ben and Erin Napier, stars of the HGTV series Home Town, aim to give it a try in Wetumpka.

This Alabama city, nestled along the Coosa River in Elmore County, has been chosen for the Napiers new reality series, Home Town Takeover. The Napiers -- famed for renovation and revitalization projects in Laurel, Mississippi -- plan to apply their skills to private homes, public businesses and historic buildings in Wetumpka.

The city was selected from thousands of photo and video submissions highlighting over 2,600 American towns, according to HGTV.

In January, HGTV and Home Towns production company RTR Media put out a casting-call of sorts, inviting residents of Americas small towns (population 40,000 or less) to log on to a website to make the case that their town should be the one featured in the new series, HGTV says on its website. Applicants were encouraged to highlight aspects of their town that make it special, fascinating, historic or unique  including distinctive features like vintage period architecture, special destinations or a classic main street.

Home Town Takeover, a six-part series, is set to air in 2021. However, TV viewers can get a preview tonight on Home Town: A Small Town Salute. On the hourlong episode, which airs at 7 p.m. CT, the Napiers highlight the changes made in Laurel, and throw a spotlight on Wetumpka as the subject of their new show.

Ben and I often speak about our love of small town living and what that lifestyle means to the people who live in one, Erin Napier said on the HGTV website. The people of Wetumpka know they have a small town thats worth saving, and now the world will see why this tight-knit community deserves a fresh start.

The Napiers and HGTV producers were drawn to the natural beauty of the Wetumpka landscape, the website says, and the team was intrigued by the oddball appeal of the wonderfully strange Wetumpka Meteor Crater.

Other factors were influential in the choice, as well:

Wetumpka faces many of the same challenges that beset small and remote towns across the country  closing businesses, compromised employment prospects, outmigration of young people, the impact of natural and climate-related disasters as well as homes and neighborhoods in varying stages of neglect or disrepair.

A glimmer of optimism came a few years ago with a plan to revitalize, but the endeavor was set back when a tornado struck the town, decimating the police station, a historic church, a number of homes and hundreds of acres of land. But the prospect of hope and progress remained alive, just waiting for sparks to ignite.

The town itself could be characterized as a sort of diamond in the rough. With its picturesque setting and features, it has served as the location for the filming of several Hollywood productions including The Grass Harp (based on the Truman Capote novella), The Rosa Parks Story and the fantastical Tim Burton feature, Big Fish  three films with central themes tied to and drawing on the historical South.

In short, Wetumpka is a place steeped in a certain authentic, heritage-rich, easy-pace tradition thats essentially the perfect landing place for Ben, Erin and crew  not to mention some special surprise guests.

Home Town: A Small Town Salute will air again at 2 a.m. CT on Friday and 8 a.m. CT on Saturday on HGTV.
Three community leaders in Huntsville are combining to provide free COVID-19 testing for underserved communities in the Rocket City.

Alabama A&M University, Huntsville Hospital and Toyota are developing the initiative that will provide up to 50 coronavirus tests per day at the mobile medical clinic that will be deployed to neighborhood locations and serve walk-in patients.

Toyota made the announcement Thursday.

We are grateful for this incredible support and partnership with Toyota and Alabama A&M University,

David Spillers, CEO of Huntsville Hospital Health System, said in the announcement. Our health system exists to serve our communities. This partnership enables our organizations to provide vital health care services to our underserved population.

According to the Toyota announcement, the collaboration evolved from a partnership established in 2018 between Toyota and Alabama A&M to identify and solve mobility-related community needs. Toyota provided grant funding and Toyota Way training to support a student-led program where assessments and research were conducted to determine the need and develop a solution.

Alabama A&M is allocating $100,000 of its grant funding from Toyota to the Huntsville Hospital Foundation to finance the mobile testing program.

The hospital has offered to provide clinical services and training for Alabama A&M students in the field.

"This initiative is one more of the many outreach efforts on the part of the University to improve the lives of our citizens. Education must be holistic, addressing all factors that contribute to the advancement, including ensuring a healthy populace," Alabama A&M President Andrew Hugine said in the announcement.

The announcement said that the mobile medical clinic, comprised of two mobile units, will work collaboratively with the city of Huntsvilles COVID-19 response plan and goals to increase local testing options that do not require doctors orders. In the future, the unit will have the capacity to provide preventative care and health screening services.

Increased testing is vital to slowing the spread of the virus, but not everyone can access current testing

Sites, Dave Finch, Toyota Alabama president, said in the announcement. For Toyota, mobility is more than just moving people from point A to point B, its also about finding better ways to bring critical services to people. Bringing together the right partners to better serve the community is something we are continuously looking to do.
Kansas recently became the latest state requiring its residents to wear face masks while in public due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This is a simple, proactive step we can take to keep Kansans at work, get our kids back to school, and keep ourselves and our neighbors healthy, Gov. Kelly said. Wearing a mask is not only safe  but it is necessary to avoid another shut down.

The order requires Kansas to wear masks in stores and shops, restaurants and in any situation where social distancing of 6 feet cannot be maintained, including outside.

The Kansas order is the latest in a series of similar ones enacted in other states.

According to Masks4all.com, 20 states have orders that require face coverings in public settings. Most of the orders cover instances when social distancing isnt possible; others cover all indoor public spaces.

Alabama is listed under the category of states where masks are required in businesses but not under a face covering mandate. All of the states surrounding Alabama are listed in the same category.

Iowa, Montana, Wisconsin and South Dakota are listed as not having any sort of statewide masks ordinances.

You can see the complete list here.
This is an opinion cartoon.

Coronavirus

Once in a blue moon. Thats about how often it feels like I see anyone else wearing a face mask in public. At the local grocery store. At the pharmacy. Or when I wander into a restaurant - filled with people pretending the pandemic is a prank - to pick up a takeout order.

If you have a face, put a mask on it

Its a Safer at Home order, Alabama. Not a Sodom and Gomorrah reunion party.

Why does red state America resist face masks?

Alabamafication unmasked

Generally speaking with this blue moon/red state resistance, and maybe its just what I see in my little corner of lovely Lower Alabama. Birmingham and Montgomery were first to mandate masks. With the recent spike of COVID-19 cases, Mobile and Huntsville are reluctantly wobbling to the masking party.

Worst fears': Mobile County grapples with rising COVID-19 cases

18 percent of Alabamians must wear masks in public, more cities could follow soon.

Mask up, Mobile: City requiring face coverings in public

One recent public exception on the Gulf Coast was Fairhopes peaceful Memorial March and Prayer Gathering, where a diverse crowd of about 200 masked, semi-socially distanced people gathered in mid-June to honor George Floyd.

How did public health become politicized? Starts at the top with Dear Leader, I reckon. Trumps doing a bang-up job leading by example during this pandemic. He refuses to wear a face mask. He endorses dangerous, unverified drugs. He refutes science and the advice of medical experts. The arrogance and ignorance is trickling down, bigly. Record numbers every day. Biggest numbers in the world. America has led by example in mishandling the pandemic.

Alabama adds 1150+ coronavirus cases

Outbreak Alabama: The death rate

Americas COVID-19 numbers are great again, and flying to the moon.

The moon is not impressed.

Check out more cartoons by JD Crowe

COVID-19 cases spike, Trump blames testing

Nick Saban: Portrait of a real leader

Fearless Fauci more loyal to truth than to Trump

Coronavirus vs the economy: Alabama dances with the devil

Jeff Sessions deserves to be put on a pedestal

Angels of Mercy: COVID-19 nurses are the next PTSD veterans

Alabama physician exorcises his coronavirus demons through art
Gov. Kay Ivey is open to discussing changing Alabamas Confederate holidays but said that ultimately, the matter would have to be decided by the Legislature.

Ivey spokesperson Gina Maiola told AL.com that the process of eliminating or changing any of the states three Confederate holidays would have to work through the Legislature."

Gov. Ivey is certainly open to the discussion and looks forward to hearing their ideas.

Gov. Ivey believes that in many ways, Alabama has played a central role throughout American history in how the country has changed and progressed, Maiola added. Our state is the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement, for example. The governor believes that while we cannot change the past or erase our history, she is confident that we can build a future that values the worth of each and every citizen.

Alabama has three Confederate-related holidays: Robert E. Lee's birthday on third Monday in January (celebrated along with birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King); Confederate Memorial Day on fourth Monday in April; and birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis on the first Monday in June.

Each of the days paid holidays for state employees.

Attention on the states Confederate holidays grew last month as the state celebrated the birthday of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, just as protests over police brutality against African Americans rocked the state.

Recent legislative efforts to do away or change the holidays have failed.
Attorneys with two Birmingham law firms filed a lawsuit today challenging Gov. Kay Iveys appointment of James P. Jim Naftel II as one of Jefferson Countys two probate judges.

The lawsuit does not challenge Naftels qualifications but says the appointment is not valid because state law requires the governor to choose from three nominees submitted by the Jefferson County Judicial Commission.

Ivey Press Secretary Gina Maiola said the governor disagrees.

The state constitution gives the governor the authority to fill this vacancy, Maiola said in an email. Judge Naftel is highly qualified to serve as probate judge, and the governor looks forward to his many years of excellent public service to the people of Jefferson County and the state as a whole.

The lawsuit, signed by attorneys Bruce Rogers of Bainbridge, Mims, Rogers & Smith; and Barry Ragsdale and Meghan Cole of Sirote & Permutt, was filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court today.

Ivey announced the appointment of Naftel on Tuesday. Naftel replaced Alan King as Jefferson County Probate Judge Place 1. King, a Democrat, retired in May after 19 years in the position.

The Place 1 judge is the presiding judge and serves as the countys chief election official.

The lawsuit says Naftel is highly qualified for the position and did nothing wrong in accepting the appointment. But it says Ivey failed to follow the law in making the appointment.

The lawsuit says voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1950 creating the Jefferson County Judicial Commission. When vacancies occurred in a circuit judgeship in the county, the commission was to submit three nominees from which the governor would choose a replacement.

In 1973, voters approved another constitutional amendment creating the Unified Judicial System under Article VI of the constitution. The lawsuit says Article VI requires that all judicial vacancies in Jefferson County, including those on probate courts, be filled from nominees submitted by the Jefferson County Judicial Commission.

The lawsuit says that after King announced his retirement numerous attempts were made to persuade the Jefferson County Judicial Commission to screen and evaluate candidates to replace him. The attorneys who filed the lawsuit sent a letter to the members of the commission formally requesting them to act on the probate court vacancy but received no response, the lawsuit says.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys asked the court to issue a ruling that Naftel is not lawfully serving as probate judge.
An employee of the Madison County jail has tested positive for COVID-19, officials confirmed today, marking the first confirmed case of the disease inside the facility.

The jailer is self-isolating until it is safe to return to work, according to Madison County Sheriff Kevin Turner, whose office operates the jail.

In a news release, the sheriff said his office has worked with its contracted medical provider to ensure that all precautions are being taken concerning the affected employees contact with the inmates prior to the positive test result.

No inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the news release. A sheriffs office spokesman didnt immediately respond to questions, including whether any inmates have been tested.

We take the health and safety of our inmates and employees very seriously, Turner said in a statement. To date our efforts to reduce exposure to COVID are working because we have not had an inmate test positive. However, we continue to evaluate our processes daily to make sure we are doing our part to protect everyone in our facility.

The sheriff said efforts to prevent the spread of coronavirus include cleaning, sanitizing, isolating inmates for 14 days when they enter the jail, and requiring employees to wear masks. A spokesman didnt respond to a question about whether inmates are wearing masks.

Southern Health Partners, the jails contracted medical provider, is operating a full-time medical unit to evaluate and treat anyone with symptoms, the sheriff said.

In addition, the Jail has designated areas to isolate anyone who presents flu or COVID like symptoms, and our healthcare provider has tests kits available if needed, the sheriff said in the news release.

The county jail in Huntsville houses inmates arrested by the Madison County sheriffs office, Huntsville Police Department, Madison Police Department and other agencies within the county.

Inmates and employees in several city and county jails across Alabama have tested positive for the coronavirus during the pandemic.

In Alabamas prison system, nine inmates and an employee have died after testing positive. Seventy cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the state prison inmate population, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections, and 170 employees have tested positive.
Mobile joined a growing number of cities in Alabama Wednesday by mandating people wear a mask or face covering while within city limits during the month of July.

The city ordinance passed with a 6-1 vote and concluded close to six hours of discussion and debate spanning the past two days. It also included a few exceptions including outdoor activities in parks and doesnt apply to children ages 10 and under or for people who could suffer substantial mental or physical health problems from wearing a mask.

Another exemption, according to Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, will be inside restaurants. He said the city will send out a FAQ on Thursday that will provided specifics as to what the ordinance covers, including its start date. Stimpson said he was hopeful it could be implemented on Friday.

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson talks to the media on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, after the Mobile City Council supported an ordinance requiring people to wear masks for the next 30 days while in public. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).

The whole idea behind it was to slow what has been a rapid increase of the cases (of coronavirus) in the past couple of weeks, said Stimpson.

Mobile joined Tuscaloosa to approve a mask mandate in the past week as the number of COVID-19 cases continue to soar statewide. Alabama added 906 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, and Mobile County  which has set single-day records for new COVID-19 cases in the past week  added another 63. Since the pandemic began in March, Mobile County has had close to 3,700 confirmed cases of the virus which is the third highest in the state behind Jefferson and Montgomery counties.

The rash of city ordinances comes after Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, during a news conference Tuesday, said it would be next to impossible to enforce a statewide mask-wearing mandate. Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery have mask wearing ordinances in place. Jefferson County instituted its ordinance on Monday.

Few, if any, tickets have been issued in cities where there is a mask ordinance and Stimpson said he doesnt anticipate tickets being written in Mobile. He said that the city has ordered a total of 14,000 masks that police plan to distribute to people who do not have one. He said that law enforcement anticipates voluntary compliance to the ordinance, but that ticket-writing will be at a police officers discretion.

Violators will face a $50 fine for a first offense, which is higher than Tuscaloosas $25 fine. A second-time offender in Mobile will be fined $100.

We have the ability to write the citation, said Stimpson. There will be someone who will test you. Lets just hope we have voluntary compliance.

Council members suggested they have already been tested by ordinance opponents who, in recent days, suggested that some of them were in the back pocket of billionaire investor George Soros, whose support for liberal and progressive causes has earned him derision by conservative commentators and the target of conspiracy theories. During Wednesdays meeting, at least one speaker shouted, This is Nazism at the council, while another speaker refused to give his name because he was concerned about having Antifa at my front door. Accusations of tyranny and unconstitutional were also hurled at the council. Three police officers arrived midway through the meeting to oversee the proceedings.

Council members said they were supporting the ordinance to protect the health and safety of Mobile residents, not because of a political agenda. Other said they were swayed to support the ordinance after it received overwhelmingly support from the leaders of Mobile Countys medical community, including the chief medical officers at the citys four hospitals who spoke in support of the measure during Tuesdays meeting.

The last thing we want to do is have another shutdown of our economy, said Councilwoman Gina Gregory. We have to protect our businesses, tax revenues and our people at the same time.

She added, We heard from nine doctors (on Tuesday). I heard some people say, they must have been bought off by George Soros. You really think doctors in Mobile, Alabama, were bought off by George Soros?

Stimpson said he had not received similar emails, but added that social media  while having its benefits  can get things hyped up and maybe overhyped, to a degree.

He added, My hope is there will be peace and calm abut this. The spirit of the city councilors and the way they were expressing (their viewpoints) was a genuine effort and an understanding of both sides of the issue.

Said Councilwoman Bess Rich, We have to do what is best for everyone. Its very sensitive. People are on edge. We get it.

Mobile City Councilman John Williams speaks during the council's meeting on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, at Government Plaza in Mobile, Ala. Williams was the only "No" vote in a 6-1 decision to mandate people wear masks within city limits for the next 30 days. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).

Councilman John Williams, the only No vote on the council, said he doesnt oppose masks and supports private businesses establishing mask policies, such as what is currently in place at Whole Foods and Costco in Mobile. He said his concern was having the city adopt an ordinance he believes is unenforceable.

He said the wording with the ordinance lacked definition such as what constituted a face mask. He also questioned why the ordinance exempted children under 10, and how that age was determined. He also said the ordinance, which requires masks to be worn on congested sidewalks, could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

I have a definition of a congested sidewalk and my picture is New York on New Years Eve or Mobile, Alabama, at the MoonPie (Over Mobile) next to the (band) stage, Williams said. But two to three block away, that might be the application?

Williams, during Tuesdays meeting, requested the councils vote be laid over for one week. Council rules allow a single member to hold a council agenda item for one week after it is first introduced for consideration. The mask ordinance would have then been scheduled for a vote during the councils July 7 meeting, but a majority  at the urging of the medical leaders who spoke on Tuesday  opted to hold a special meeting on Wednesday and get the ordinance adopted before the Fourth of July weekend.

The ordinance could be extended into August. Dr. Bernard Eichold, the countys health officer, said he believes 30 days is the bare minimum, saying that 60 days would offer an opportunity for gathering better data. Other cities that have adopted similar ordinances, like Tuscaloosa, have a 30-day window in place as well.

Im sensitive to proposing mandates on the public and the difficulties likely to enforce it, said Councilman Joel Daves. Were dealing with something weve never dealt with before. The situations changes as we go from week to week. We know things now we didnt know six weeks ago, and we will know things six weeks from now we dont know today. Public officials have a responsibility to act and to act in a timely manner. (We) may end up looking back on this and deciding it wasnt the right decision.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advocating mask wearing to help prevent the spread of the virus, noting that it spreads mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, talks or raises their voices (shouting or singing, for example).

Statistics show that mask wearing is making inroads toward reducing the virus. One analysis published by the Philadelphia Inquirer shows that in states where mask wearing is mandatory in public, the number of new coronavirus cases dropped 25% from June 1-7 to June 15-21. In states where masks are recommended but not required, the number of new cases during those same time periods increased by 84%.

A University of Washington computer model also suggests that 33,000 American lives could be saved from Covid-19 between now and Oct. 1 if more people wore masks.
Patrice Endres was abducted from her Cumming, Ga. hair salon on April 15, 2004. Her remains were found 600 days later, on Dec. 6, 2005, in Dawson County, Ga.

The murder of the 38-year-old mother is profiled in an episode of Netflixs reboot of the classic Unsolved Mysteries that points to Alabama Death Row inmate Jeremy Bryan Jones as a possible suspect.

Jones, a drifter from Oklahoma, was convicted in Mobile County for the Sept. 2004 murder of 45-year-old Lisa Marie Nichols. Jones raped and shot Nichols, then set fire to Nichols Turnerville area home.

The show includes interrogation footage of Jones from Jan. 19, 2005. She said she had a family that loved her very much. She started crying which started to make me cry, Jones said of Endres.

Jones was also implicated in the deaths of Amanda Greenwell, 16, of Douglasville, Ga. and Katherine Collins, 45, a New Orleans sex worker. Jones claimed to have killed 21 women in five states in 12 years, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported in 2005.

Mobile County Sheriffs Office Capt. Paul Burch said on the show that Jones told investigators he needed to tell them about a hairdresser he had abducted at knife-point from a Georgia salon, drawing diagrams of where his and her cars were. Burch was a detective who investigated Nichols murder.

Jones said he killed Endres and threw her off a bridge into a creek 65 miles from the salon. Authorities searched to no avail. He had a demon inside, you know, that he liked to sexually abuse women, Burch says. By definition, he is a serial killer.

Jones recanted his confession and police found no evidence to link Jones to her murder, but have never eliminated him as a suspect.

Polygraph tests backed his confessions to several murders, the AJC reported in 2005. The article ran two days before Endres body was found and police seemed to consider Jones a prime suspect. Endres vanished the same month Greenwell was found dead.

Mobile County Sheriffs Office Sgt. Mitch McRae told the AJC then that he didnt buy Jones story of having stopped at the salon to ask for directions, but the article seems to indicate McRae suspected Jones killed Endres. Hes a stalker; he gets excited about his victims. Hell talk about killing a person like its a 10-point buck.

Burch said on the show that Jones told detectives things about Endres death only someone who was there would have known. I believe hes a strong possibility for Patrices murder, Burch said.

Jones, facing execution in Alabama since 2005, told the AJC that same year that he had never killed anyone and would one day be free. Ill write me a book and laugh my ass off, Jones said.

Anyone with information about Endres murder is asked to call the Georgia Bureau of Investigation or go to unsolved.com.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday evening blocked a ruling by a federal judge in Alabama that would have allowed curbside voting statewide and certain exemptions in three counties from rules for casting absentee ballots in the July 14 runoff.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill had earlier appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the June 15 preliminary injunction by U.S. District Court Judge Abdul Kallon to allow curbside voting statewide and to allow exemptions from certain absentee ballot rules in several counties. The 11th Circuit denied that request and Merrill on Tuesday turned to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay.

Merrill and state officials were pleased with the ruling, while groups involved in filing the lawsuit vowed to continue the fight to get the voting rules changed by the general election in November.

SCOTUS decided the appeal in a 5-4 decision. Four of the nine justices - Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan voted for denying the states request to stay Kallons order.

With the news that we have received a Stay in this process, I am excited that the United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of those who believe in strict interpretation of the Constitution and has decided to grant the Stay and not endorse legislating from the bench. pic.twitter.com/qwTg5skBs0  John Merrill (@JohnHMerrill) July 3, 2020

Merrill opposes efforts to offer curbside voting for the runoff.

Merrills office said as of Thursday morning that no counties have indicated they are planning to offer curbside voting.

One civil rights attorney tweeted out disappointment in the SCOTUS ruling.

This decision is incredibly disappointing for high-risk Alabama voters hoping to vote safely on July 14. Were so grateful to our clients and co-counsel. Onward to trial. @splcenter @NAACP_LDF @AlabamaADAP @GreaterBhmMin @AlabamaNAACP @PeopleFirstofAL https://t.co/QCQjjboWmg  Caren E. Short (@carenshort) July 3, 2020

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, whose office represented the state and Merrill in the case, said they are pleased that the Supreme Court acted quickly to grant the States emergency stay request so that Alabamas absentee voting laws remains in effect for the upcoming July 15, 2020 run-off election.

Alabama is again able to enforce laws that help ensure the fairness and integrity of our elections.

To protect against absentee ballot voter fraud, Alabama law has for years required most categories of voters who apply for an absentee ballot to submit a copy of their photo ID, according to a statement from Marshall.

For similar reasons, Alabama law requires that absentee voters have two witnesses, or one notary sign the envelope in which a voter submit the absentee ballot. The district courts preliminary injunction had prohibited local election officials in Jefferson, Lee, and Mobile Counties from enforcing these anti-fraud provisions against many voters.

And the injunction had prohibited the Secretary of State from halting curbside voting that otherwise complied with state law, Marshall stated.

As we argued in our stay request to the Supreme Court, the district courts injunction undermined confidence in the ongoing election by altering the anti-fraud provisions related to absentee voting, Marshall stated. Though Alabama has undertaken extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of voters during the pandemic, including making absentee voting available to every eligible voter for the upcoming runoff and giving voters more than three additional months to obtain their ballots, plaintiffs sought more by demanding that the photo ID and witness requirements be shelved for the pandemic. But the Supreme Court has previously recognized the importance of safeguards  to deter and detect fraud and to confirm the identity of voters. And the Court has cautioned lowered courts against altering election laws on the eve of an election.

Groups involved in filing the lawsuit to ease the voting rules responded to the SCOTUS ruling.

We are deeply disappointed by the Supreme Courts stay, said Deuel Ross, Senior Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. Unfortunately, this means that Alabama voters who are at greater risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19 will be required to risk their health and violate CDC recommendations in order to vote on July 14. This is occurring at a time when COVID-19 infections are soaring in Alabama and nationwide. Nonetheless, the litigation will continue and we intend to seek relief for our clients and other voters in time for November.

Kallon ruled on June 15 that Merrill could not block counties from offering curbside voting. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by organizations and groups who claimed that certain restrictions on voting in Alabama violated the rights of people who were at high risk of serious illness from COVID-19 because of disability and medical conditions.

The plaintiffs, four individual voters and three organizations -- People First of Alabama, Greater Birmingham Ministries, and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP -- said certain restrictions, including what they said was a de facto ban on curbside voting, forced them to risk exposure to COVID-19 in order to vote. Curbside voting, if available, would be a safer alternative than voting inside a polling place, they argued.

The plaintiffs are represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program.

Merrill and the state of Alabama are defendants in the case. They first asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block Kallons order, but the appeals court denied the states request for a stay. The state then turned to the Supreme Court.

The state argued that trying out a brand new voting procedure, curbside voting, during a pandemic would create more logistical and safety problems than it would fix and is likely unlawful.

The plaintiffs, in their response filed today, noted that Kallons order does not require any counties to offer curbside voting. It only says the state cannot block those efforts as long as they otherwise comply with the law. The state has no law specifically prohibiting curbside voting, but Merrill has opposed those efforts in the past, according to the court documents.

The state also argued that the Supreme Court has repeatedly warned lower courts not to issue orders that effectively change state election laws near the date of an election. But the plaintiffs said curbside voting would not change state election law.

Merrill, in a reply filed this afternoon, called that speculation and said there were numerous logistical concerns associated with setting up curbside voting.

Besides seeking a ruling to allow curbside voting, the plaintiffs also challenged certain absentee voting requirements:

the requirement that voters have their absentee ballot envelope either notarized or signed by two adult witnesses

the requirement that a voter mail-in a copy of their photo ID with the absentee ballot application or absentee ballot

Kallons ruling on those issues applies only to Jefferson, Mobile, and Lee counties. The judge ruled that election officials in those counties could not enforce the witness and photo ID requirements on voters who were at enhanced risk of serious illness from COVID-19 and who sign a statement under penalty of perjury declaring that.

Jefferson County Circuit Clerk Jacqueline Anderson-Smith said her office began this week sending out the waiver statements with absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots, in accordance with Kallons ruling. The plaintiffs, in their motion filed with Thomas today, see officials in Mobile and Lee counties are also issuing the statements in compliance with Kallons order.

Merrill has previously announced that any voter who does not want to vote in-person on July 14 can vote by absentee ballot. They can do so by checking a box on the application that says they have an illness or infirmity that prevents their attendance at the polls.

Gov. Kay Ivey postponed the runoff from March 31 to July 14 because of the pandemic.

Updated at 9:30 p.m. July 2 with SCOTUS ruling. Updated at 10 p.m. July 2 with comments from the Alabama Attorney General.
Two state prison inmates who tested positive for COVID-19 have died with a four-day span, the Alabama Department of Corrections said Wednesday.

Billie Joe Moore, 73, who was serving a life sentence at St. Clair Correctional Facility for a Morgan County murder, died last Saturday, the agency said. Henry Robinson, 56, who was serving a 20 years for a Mobile burglary at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County, died Tuesday.

Both inmates had pre-existing health conditions. Moore had advanced lung cancer, which caused him to be hospitalized June 23. He was found to have tested positive for COVID-19 after his death.

Robinson was taken to a local hospital for medical care unrelated to COVID-19; he was not displaying symptoms of the virus before his hospitalization, but he tested positive for the coronavirus when he was admitted to the hospital.

Besides Moore, another St. Clair inmate tested positive for the virus. They were taken to a local hospital and remains under care there. The dormitory in the prison where that inmate was housed was placed on quarantine.

Since the pandemic began in March, 70 coronavirus cases have been confirmed at state prisons; 40 of those are active cases.
Sheriff Matt Gentry on Wednesday announced the formation of a Community Response Team to focus on drug investigations and other crimes in Cullman County.

The specialized unit  which consists of a lieutenant, a sergeant and three deputies  actually began in March. Their goal, the sheriff said, is simple.

Their mission is to go out and provide peace in the community,' Gentry said. They provide peace and solve problems.

The sheriffs office responds to about 67,000 calls for service a year. With the current staff we have, thats a lot of calls,' Gentry said.

The team will respond to any community concern whether its a drug dealer in the neighborhood, a spate of burglaries or even a resident with an outstanding criminal warrant. It will help patrol deputies who are busy answering day-to-day calls. This team allows us to have extra resources to focus on the problems,' Gentry said.

Those on the team are: Lt. Matthew Bales, Sgt. Terry Smith, and deputies Jesse Cummings, Cheryl Hawkins and Nick Watkins.

Since March 14, the team has made 101 arrests. It also has seized 1 pound of methamphetamine, 2 pounds of marijuana, 4 grams of heroin and 4 ounces of prescription opioids.

Any law enforcement officer will tell you that arresting and solving drug-related crimes,' Gentry said, will also solve thefts and burglaries as often they run together.
The queen of the Golden Flake fortune is back in control of her money.

The Alabama Supreme Court released a ruling Thursday ordering that the appointment of a temporary guardian and conservator-- who was appointed to handle Joann Bashinskys money and affairs in October 2019 after two former employees claimed she was mentally unfit-- is void. The court also ruled Greg Hawley, the temporary guardian, must account for all of Ms. Bashinskys funds and property.

The states highest court dismissed the emergency petition for a guardian and conservator but did not dismiss the permanent petition, because that had not been decided by the probate court so it was not an issue the high court could consider.

In its Thursday ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court criticized decisions made by Bashinskys former employees, their lawyers, and the probate judge. The state Supreme Court said the probate court Judge Alan Kings decision to not give Bashinksy time to get a lawyer at an October 2019 hearing was unfathomable. The court also ruled that Bashinskys basic due-process rights, were egregiously violated.

This fact suggests that the probate court had already decided that Ms. Bashinsky was not competent to make her own decisions (and) indicated prejudgment of the very question at issue in that hearing: Whether Ms. Bashinskys competence was sufficiently in question to warrant appointment of a temporary guardian and conservator, the court stated.

The last activity in the court case of the 88-year-old queen of Birminghams potato chip empire happened in January, when the Alabama Supreme Court halted upcoming hearings until they could rule on her petition. Her lawyers filed to the Alabama Supreme Court in late 2019.

Bashinsky has been embroiled in a legal battle against two of her former employees, who claimed the woman has dementia and is unable to make decisions regarding her estimated personal estate of $80 million. Her total estate, including funds from her trust and business funds, is estimated at around $218 million.

Bashinsky, of Mountain Brook, is the widow of Sloan Y. Bashinsky, who owned the majority stock in Golden Enterprises Inc. and was the founder, chairman, and CEO of Golden Flake Foods  a 96-year-old Birmingham-based company.

Golden Flake was founded in 1923 in the basement of a Hills Grocery store in north Birmingham. In addition to chips in iconic flavors like Sweet Heat, cheese puffs, cheese curls, tortilla chips, snack crackers and several other flavored chips are made at Golden Flakes sprawling factory complex in southwest Birmingham.

In 1968, Golden Flake went public.

Pennsylvania-based Utz Quality Foods bought Golden Enterprises, Golden Flakes parent company, for $141 million in 2016. Utz is a private company.

Court records from the Alabama Supreme Court claim Bashinskys competency was contested by two former employees who were fired on the same day they asked the Jefferson County Probate Court to appoint both a temporary and permanent guardian and conservator of Bashinskys estate. Bashinskys lawyers disputed the claim, saying Bashinsky does not have dementia and did not need a guardian or conservator.

Bashinskys legal team said in their filings to the Alabama Supreme Court that the emergency petition was not due to any emergency at all; the high court ruled in her favor. Regardless of whether emergency is defined in a statue, the lack of a definition does not empower a court to act in violation of basic constitutional rights and fundamental fairness, the Thursday order stated.

The common theme in legal contexts that permit emergency action is an immediate threat of actual, substantial harm to the person or to the property at issue Boiled down to the basics, the occasion for the emergency petition was Ms. Bashinskys demand that $17.5 million in a $35 million investment account managed by Level Four be transferred to Morgan Stanley, the court stated.

Regardless nowhere in the emergency petition or in the subsequent reports (by court representatives) is there any evidence indicating that Ms. Bashinsky is at immediate risk of sustaining substantial harm to her health, safety, or welfare.

Court filings show the two petitioners believed Bashinskys adult grandson, her only blood relative and sole heir, has undue influence over Bashinsky. They claim she has loaned over $23 million to her grandson since 2012, and of that money, $13,468,000 was loaned in the first seven months of 2019. When asked by a court representative in 2019, according to court records, Bashinsky said the loans to her grandson were excessive but that he was her only grandson and she wanted to help him with his business ventures.

While lawyers and court representatives may believe Bashinskys loans and gifts to her grandson are financially unwise, the Alabama Supreme Court states that belief is not enough to invoke an emergency procedure.

Bashinsky said again during an interview with AL.com she is aware of the loans and gifts shes made to her grandson. I love him and Id do anything for him, Bashinksy said. She had one daughter when she married Sloan Bashinksy, and the late Bashinsky adopted that daughter. He had several children from a prior marriage. Bashinskys daughter died, and her grandson is the only blood relative she has.

I helped raise him, and I did a good job, she said laughing. He has nobody to go to Im all hes got.

During the same 2019 interview, Bashinsky questioned why her former employees would object to her giving or loaning money to her grandson; hes the only person who will receive her money when she dies, she said. I wanted to help him Bashinsky said. I loaned him whatever he needed, because I could afford it.

Bashinsky said when she dies, her grandson will get everything she has: She would rather see him enjoy it now while shes alive.

Burton Dunn, one of the attorneys representing the two petitioners, said previously that the two petitioners were looking out for Bashinsky. They are doing their best to protect her and her assets at a time when shes vulnerable, he said at the time.

He and co-counsel Ralph Yeilding released a statement after the Alabama Supreme Courts ruling was announced. The Supreme Court indicated that the trial court still must deal with the permanent petition that we filed, and its decision does not have any bearing on that matter. Our clients are confident that the trial court will focus on the long-term best interests for protecting Mrs. Bashinsky, which is their goal.

This story was updated with comments from Dunn and Yeilding.
Birmingham police are conducting a homicide investigation Wednesday night after a man was shot and killed on a street in the southwest part of the city.

West Precinct officers responded to the 1600 block of Maple Avenue around 5:45 p.m. to investigate a ShotSpotter call.

When they arrived, they found the victim laying in the roadway suffering from a gunshot wound and unresponsive. The man, who was not publicly identified because the coroner had yet to arrive on scene, was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to the preliminary investigation, witnesses said someone in an unknown vehicle drove by the street, fired shots and struck the victim. Police dont have any suspects in custody.

Anyone with information on the incident was asked to call Crimestoppers at 205-254-7777 or the Birmingham Police Departments Detective Bureau at 205-254-1764.
The University of Alabama had known for weeks of rumors that Tuscaloosa County students who knew they had COVID-19 attended parties in the county, but a thorough investigation by the university did not identify any UA students who took part in the parties, the school said Thursday.

Tuscaloosa City Fire Chief Randy Smith told a pre-meeting of the Tuscaloosa City Council earlier this week that he confirmed rumors of students in the county attending parties while they were aware that they had COVID-19. Smith said he was able to confirm the reports through local doctors offices and the state Health Department.

While Smith did not specify which students were attending so-called COVID-19 parties, where partygoers were allegedly trying to infect their peers for fun, UA conducted its own investigation into the rumors, the school said.

We have been aware for weeks of the rumors about COVID parties. We conducted a thorough investigation, and although we have been unable to identify any students who may have participated in these types of activities, we will continue to follow up on any information we receive and educate our students about essential precautions, the university said in a statement. Our students want a return to on-campus instruction and the extracurricular opportunities they enjoy, and we fully expect them to safeguard their personal health and safety and that of everyone at the university and in our city.

The university said it would implement extra precautions when school is scheduled to reopen in August, including no-cost COVID-19 testing for all students, faculty and staff; enhanced cleaning; and social distancing and mask rules.

It is essential that students cooperate and comply with these guidelines to allow for the safe return and continued operations of our campus, UA said.

The universitys Student Government Association on Thursday said it has been working with the school to enact safety measures to keep students safe.

THREAD: a statement from @uasga



Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, UA SGA has worked tirelessly with the University to strongly encourage social distancing, the wearing of face masks and robust hand washing to stem the spread of Coronavirus.



(1/5)  Alabama SGA (@uasga) July 2, 2020

The association also urged students to adhere to the city of Tuscaloosas mask ordinance, which goes into effect Monday.

We recognize that many students have already sacrificed so much to stop the spread of COVID-19, but in order to ensure a safe return to campus in the fall, we must continue to socially distance for our neighbors and ourselves, the group said.
We are in the midst of the worst pandemic in over a century.

Alabama is one of 16 states that has shown a sharp increase in infections since our economy has opened up. We need to recognize and address this disturbing trend. We need to acknowledge that things are getting worse, not better.

Together, we need to work to reverse this trend and improve outcomes for all Alabamians. We are in the second inning of a nine-inning pubic health crisis.

It is not a hoax. It is not the flu. It is a highly infectious virus that has killed over 127,000 Americans and 854 Alabamians in just four months. And imagine what the death count would be had we not instituted some safety measures beginning in March.

This pandemic is not a political crisis, it is a medical one.

As such, we must rely on data and facts and science to deal with its course and impact. We should rely on our public health officials for their guidance. After all, they are the experts in epidemiology and medicine and virology. They are not politicians, and politics do not enter into their findings or recommendations. The data tell us that hand washing, mask-wearing, and social distancing are the three steps that are most effective in mitigating this deadly virus.

These steps are simple, easy to do, and with very little intrusiveness in our daily lives. A combination of these steps can make a demonstrable difference in containing and diminishing Covid-19, which is especially important now as we work to change the trajectory of this pandemic.

These three steps are essential safety measures. If done regularly, they can help to make sure you dont get the virus and you dont spread the virus. In addition, they will help with the tens of thousands of Alabamians who have the virus and are spreading it but are asymptomatic themselves.

Everyone wants our economy to stay open. But we have to make sure that we are opening and maintaining our economy in the safest way possible. Hand washing, mask-wearing, and social distancing are definitively effective; that has been proven and is not a partisan issue. Although Alabamas economy has opened up, most of us have held back from restaurants, bars, shops, and group activities because we know the virus has not been contained. In fact, the virus is far more rampant now than before.

We will not be able to achieve normalcy again until a vaccine is available. Until then, we must rely on the public health measures we know will work. If you dont want to get sick and you want our economy to remain open, do these three simple steps on a consistent basis: wash your hands, wear a mask, and keep your distance.

Your individual freedoms as an American are not on the table. They are not being deprived. It is no different than being required by law to wear a seatbelt in your car to protect your safety. Similarly, hand washing, mask-wearing, and social distancing can help save your life and the lives of others. They are the smart, effective, and respectful things to do. For parents, this pandemic can be a teachable moment. This is your chance to be a role model for your children by using effective health strategies in the face of this deadly virus.

Children watch their parents closely.

They internalize what they see and hear. For teenagers and young adults, it is expected that you feel healthy and strong and invincible. But the truth is that young people are being infected with Covid-19 at an alarming rate, and more than a few are requiring hospitalization.

So now is your chance to develop self-care skills and practice what the experts are telling us. For older Alabamians, you are at greater risk for serious symptoms associated with Covid-19, primarily because you have more underlying medical conditions.

As such, it is critical that you utilize health measures routinely. And by doing so, you are modeling proactive behavior for all of us. Our state needs our concerted effort and widespread cooperation. We cannot let this pandemic continue to hold the upper hand. Our backs are against the wall.

Lets all be a part of the solution. Together, we have the opportunity to make the difference now. It can be done.

Alan D. Blotcky, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice. He is also Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

**As a footnote, the medical information contained in this piece was reviewed by Michael Saag, MD., an infectious disease expert.
In a letter to Senate leadership on Thursday, Sen. Doug Jones called on Congress to increase the availability of federal funds to Alabama and other state labor departments as unemployed Alabamians struggle to get answers on administrative issues that are causing their benefits to be delayed or denied.

As we continue to observe the grave status of unemployment and its repercussions on our nation, I urge the leadership of the Senate to consider including language that addresses unemployment issues in the next pandemic relief legislation in July, the senator wrote. I respectfully urge the inclusion of language providing greater availability of federal funds for state Departments of Labor, to ensure that hardworking Americans can rely on temporary monetary aid to help feed their families and keep a roof over their heads during these trying times.

Unemployed Alabamians throughout the state have flocked to Montgomery, including some who have camped overnight, after they ran into administrative issues that led to their claims being denied. While face-to-face contact with a state Labor Department representative is not necessary to get a claim approved, unemployed workers have gone to the Montgomery facility after attempts to reach the agency through email or over the phone were unsuccessful.

The Alabama Labor Department gets about 210,000 calls a day about unemployment questions since the pandemic began in March, and the agency does not have sufficient infrastructure to field all those calls.

Put simply, ADOL is overwhelmed by the massive influx of claims, said Jones, who included a Montgomery Advertiser article about the problem with his letter. An article in the Montgomery Advertiser, enclosed with this letter, details the difficulties that Alabamians are experiencing. In an effort to address claims more efficiently, ADOL opened an in-person claims center in Montgomery, Alabama, but it too was inundated by the unmanageable number of claimants. While the ADOL has noted that an in-person presence is not required to file or resolve unemployment claims, technical glitches and difficulties reaching ADOL staff have so frustrated claimants that for many, traveling to Montgomery seems to be the only remaining option. These claimants seek such urgent relief that they have been camping out overnight in the hopes that their claims will be resolved. To make matters worse, Alabamas unemployment fund is on track to become insolvent within the next month or two.

Alabama Labor Department spokeswoman Tara Hutchinson said the department supports Jones push to increase federal funding for state unemployment agencies.
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Yanceyville, NC (27379)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. Hot. High 93F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

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Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
In the Moroccan capital Rabat, people welcomed the end of more than three months of coronavirus lockdown with the joy of a religious holiday.

They met friends, played at the beach and visited relatives on Thursday.

The pandemic, however, has left its scars on the countrys economy and Moroccans well-being that will take a long time to heal.

Coronavirus is the least of my worries, said Mohammed Tighiri, a waiter in the Best Coffee cafe in the city centre, his mask resting on his chin.

If my boss isnt able to pay his bills, I wont be able to pay mine.

In the neighbouring city of Sale, teenagers and children gathered to cool off in the Bouregreg River.

With no physical distancing, they splashed and dipped in the cold water, wrapped arms around each others shoulders and sang songs in celebration of their newfound freedom.

Morocco has so far recorded nearly 11,900 coronavirus infections and 220 related deaths, and has not yet announced when it will reopen to international travel.
In January, I was followed around a store.

It was at the airport before the coronavirus turned air travel on its head. I had just checked in for my flight, and had seen, on my way to security, a stuffed toy in a storefront display that I thought my best friends baby would like.

As I considered the toys on the initial rack that had caught my eye, a store associate appeared with a basket but did not say anything; she just stood at the wall a few feet away from me, watching.

I greeted her, but she still did not smile or make eye contact, just nodded and mumbled an almost inaudible fine.

I would have tried to let this go, would have told myself she was just having a bad day, and that we need to stop expecting poorly paid store associates to give us eight hours of cheer in addition to stocking shelves and serving customers.

Except that, as I continued through the store, more associates appeared, also saying nothing. There was the man to my left, another to my right, a woman to my far right, all in addition to the initial woman with the basket who was now so close behind me that she seemed not to be helping so much as stalking me.

The men, when I made eye contact with them, said, How are you Maam? This would have seemed innocuous if not for the conduct of the man to my left, who appeared startled when I looked at him, as though I had caught him doing something he shouldnt have; he muttered his greeting before drifting back behind the mid-store display that he had approached me from.

I slowly put the stuffed animal I was looking at back on the shelf. When I looked up, I saw my sister. She had been standing just outside the store, but came inside when she observed what was happening.

Do you still want to get anything from here? she asked evenly; she would tell me later how furious she had been watching the moment unfold.

No. I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and walked away, saying a mumbled Thank you to the four store associates as I did  I am not sure why, perhaps to convey the civility they had presumed me to be without.

The writer and her sister on a trip to Vancouver [Photo courtesy of Michelle Chikaonda]

A matter of race

#TravellingWhileBlack  the hashtag might have been on my US Twitter feed. Except that this is a complicated hashtag, because what I just described happened not in the United States, where I now spend most of the year, but in South Africa, one of two countries I transit through whenever visiting my mother in my home country of Malawi.

Furthermore  none of the store associates were white. Each one, including the manager I returned to the store to later speak to about the incident, was Black.

When something like that happens, race is both the first and last thing one imagines as the reason.

First  because it is always first. Living as a Black woman in the US, race is never far from my mind and a person of colour would be foolish to ever let that particular guard down completely.

Last  because I want to believe that in 2020 the reason I was presumed to be a criminal had to have been anything but that.

Maybe I was not dressed right; maybe I did not flash my British Airways boarding pass openly enough; maybe I did not engage in loud enough mindless conversation with my sister so that they would hear my virtually flawless American accent; maybe I did not strategically angle my roller bag so that they could see the Delta Silver Medallion tag attached to the side handle.

Maybe there was something I did, some signal I gave, whereby as soon as I walked into the store I was immediately branded not as a customer but as a thief, and this by people who looked exactly like me.

Xenophobic attacks

In September 2019, South Africa descended into the latest of many waves of xenophobic violence against Black Africans of foreign origin.

Shops were looted and destroyed, people were beaten in the streets, and, in at least one horrific case, a man was burned to death. More than 100 Malawians were displaced in the violence, and the Malawi government repatriated 75 citizens back to Malawi.

The claim among the rioters and attackers was that foreign Black people were taking their jobs, their money and their marriage partners.

But Malawians in South Africa are there for the simple reason that the opportunities we want do not exist in Malawi; if they did, we would be at home, and I am indeed in the US for that reason. We migrate, take whatever opportunities we find, work long hours with few holidays, send money home occasionally, return home infrequently.

This has been the case since many great-grandfathers and great-uncles of mine, on both sides of my family, migrated by foot to South Africa back in the 1930s and 1940s to work in the mines; only now it is no longer mines but construction and transportation, and no one travels there on foot any more, now that there are direct buses between Blantyre and Johannesburg.

As a Malawian observing the violence from afar, I did not understand it.

Demostrators march against xenophobic attacks in Khayelitsha township near Cape Town [File: Reuters]

South Africas problem is not foreign Black people  it is that nearly three decades after apartheids dissolution as government policy, the foundations apartheid built are still very much an economic reality.

Unemployment is staggeringly high; students graduate from university into an economy with vastly fewer jobs than willing workers; and white South Africans still hold the bulk of South African land and wealth. Foreign Black people are not the reason for this state of affairs, any more than migrant workers from Latin America are the reason for the USs continually expanding wealth gap between the rich and the poor.

Being a victim is no excuse to then turn around and make a victim of someone else. As much as I understood the rioters anger and frustration, I could not justify the violence directed against my people. Every non-South African Black person deciding to depart South Africa today will not change South Africas root issues  that the economic sins of apartheid are not being repaired quickly or aggressively enough.

The political will exists in words only. The majority of the population continues to stagnate a few slippery steps above poverty with little hope of financial security or advancement, while a select few continue to speed further into the future with bigger houses and fancier cars, casting barely a backward glance at those being left behind.

Racism and xenophobia against ourselves  fellow Black people caught in our own varying webs of post-colonial, neo-colonial, post-authoritarian regime recoveries  are distractions from the truth of the real fight that still needs to be conquered. Burning me, the Malawian in South Africa, to death does not do a thing to change that  it serves only to illuminate the wrong darkness.

A global web of anti-Blackness

Anti-Blackness is a global phenomenon, and when I walked into that store I merely walked into one of its many iterations.

Certainly, this was one of colonialisms chief exports and enduring legacies. The lie that we, the native Black people in Africa, were fundamentally inferior to the white man is what propelled colonialisms arrival and then fuelled its multigenerational tenure on our lands; the drive to align with that lie to achieve the approval of ruling white people is a poisonous inheritance of the politics of survival that continues to be handed down.

The store associates, then, were only somewhat acting out of their own volition; but in a larger sense, they were simply caught up in a global web of anti-Blackness for which they had no choice but to act out their required roles  in that particular instance, to remind me that my expressed positionality in that moment, a Black shopper with a British Airways boarding pass, was a threat to the established order of whiteness vis a vis Blackness.

I was not supposed to have the ability and papers to travel effortlessly between my third-world home of origin and my first-world home of choice; I was not supposed to have the kind of casual buying power that meant I could walk into a store without a plan or a budget and make a purchase without caring for the impact on my bottom line.

I was supposed to be flying the cheapest airline, not merely the airline I prefer independent of cost; and I certainly was not supposed to be travelling with a family member, my sister, who reinforced all of those realities in double.

I was not occupying my expected place in the social order of whiteness, in other words, and thus like a pathogen I had to be reminded that I was distinctly unwelcome, and eliminated. Anti-Blackness is not solely a feeling inside an individual, then  it is a systemic, entirely global, programming.

Racist legacies

In my chosen home of the US, anti-Blackness is baked into its very institutional frameworks, the immovable reality born of the twin legacies of slavery and the Jim Crow era.

It has determined the shape and spread of cities; it predestines what jobs people can get, what homes they can buy, what schools they can send their children to, and whether or not those children matriculate to college or prison.

It is at the root of over-policing in Black communities and the disproportionately high number of Black Americans killed by police each year.

A family poses in front of a Black Lives Matter banner left on a fence surrounding the White House [Reuters]

But because I am aware of this reality, I can expect it and even predict it in a way that means I will never again be caught as off guard as I was that afternoon in Johannesburg.

When I walk into American stores, I instinctively watch out of the corner of my eye to see if the store associate who has suddenly appeared is really organising that dress rack or is trailing me; I pay attention to the quality of service I receive in restaurants compared to other, paler customers. I endeavour to conduct as much of my non-work business as I can either over the internet or by phone; this way the person at the other end of the interaction cannot see what I look like and make determinations on how to deal with me based on their internalised assumptions about Black people, and thus the Black woman in front of them.

I plan for anti-Blackness in my American life, then, in ways that I do not once my overnight flight from London to Johannesburg has crossed the Mediterranean Sea and entered African airspace. As problematic as that is, it is a necessary pragmatism that makes my American life easier. My hypervigilance to the possibility of racism never leaves me completely; after almost 18 years in the US, 36 in the world, I know better than to believe that any pocket of the world is immune to that violence.

I have experienced it even in my majority-Black home country of Malawi; if I have experienced it there, no place is completely safe. But safer, yes, and that is what threw me into a spin in that store. Because it was in majority-Black South Africa, and it was in an airport  a place to transit through, not a place with norms to learn and realities to understand. Just a place to arrive at and a place to leave, in between the two places where I live.

The table is ours

I, an archetype of a Malawian in South Africa, can either be a thief of objects or a thief of opportunities but I cannot be both, and I outright refuse the limitations of those categorisations. They are over-simple classifications for wildly complex problems, and turning the rotting eye of apartheid onto ourselves solves none of those issues, but instead allows off the hook a system that very much must remain under interrogation for the ills it continues to visit upon people who look like me  like us.

It is easy to turn on ourselves and fight for whatever haphazard scraps may fall from that very tall table; it is a lot harder to demand an equal seat at that table, indeed, our fair portion of the whole meal. But this we must.

I must be able to shop in a South African airport and have my presence go unquestioned; I must be able to check in at a first-class airline counter and receive the right cabin assignment, without having to correct a desk agents reflexive assignment of an economy class seat.

The mantle of apartheid says that we, as Black people anywhere, are not equal to seats at the big table; that on the one hand, we deserve greater privilege and yet will be immediately suspect when we acquire it. But we must refuse this simplicity, in the spaces we choose to occupy, in the ways we walk through the world, in our actions towards other Black people.

The table is ours, as well as the right to exist  as complex and human as we want  while seated there.

We must do this in a way that brings all of us to the table, skinfolk and kinfolk, and make South Africas rainbow nation not merely an aspirational slogan, but a sustainable and permanent reality.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
On June 30, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeos address to the UN Security Council calling for an arms embargo on Iran to be extended was expected to dominate the international news agenda. However, Irans judiciary stole the mornings headlines by issuing an arrest warrant for Donald Trump the day before.

Tehran prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr said on Monday that Trump, along with more than 30 others accused of involvement in the January 3 drone attack that killed Irans top general, Qassem Soleimani, face murder and terrorism charges. The prosecutor added that Tehran asked Interpol for help in detaining the US president.

The same day, the US special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, denounced the warrant as a propaganda stunt at a press conference in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Our assessment is that Interpol does not intervene and issue Red Notices that are based on a political nature, Hook said alongside the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs. Interpol soon issued a statement confirming that it would not be helping Iran to impose the warrant.

The timing of the arrest warrant caused many to believe that it was merely a tactic to divert attention from the US call for the extension of the arms embargo. Hook had previously claimed that lifting the arms embargo on Iran would turn Tehran into the arms dealer of choice for rogue regimes and terrorist organisations, dismissing Irans threats to retaliate as mafia tactics.

Under the terms of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, the arms embargo and the international travel ban on prominent members of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are due to expire in October. Having withdrawn from the JCPOA in May 2018, the US is no longer in a position to change the JCPOAs rules. Yet this has not stopped Washington from pressuring other members of the JCPOA to extend the embargo.

A symbolic yet practical move

Although it is doubtful Iran expected the warrant to lead to President Trumps arrest, or even to constrain his movements, it was clearly designed to exceed the simple symbolism of its timing.

A move hatched by the hardline conservatives in Irans government, and about which President Hassan Rouhanis moderates have said little, the issuing of the arrest warrant is expected to shine a spotlight on the arbitrary way the US uses  and some would say abuses  international law for its own benefit.

The targeted killing of Mr Soleimani completely swept away the standard related to extraterritorial use of force by a state, stated Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. The US Department of Defense at first justified its targeting of General Soleimani as a deterrence against future Iranian attacks on Americans, and only later added that it was done in self-defence against an imminent threat. No further information was ever provided about the nature of this imminent threat. To Callamard, this was unacceptable, as the test for so-called anticipatory self-defence is very narrow: it must be a necessity that is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation. This standard, she stated in a tweet issued right after the killing, is unlikely to be met.

Iran warned the US after Soleimanis death that it would not forget, and has, with this move, indicated not only to its own people, but also to the international community, that it is playing the long game, and that Soleimanis extrajudicial killing remains a driver of policy.

The warrant, though a political rather than military manoeuvre, is part of a larger Iranian strategy to expose Washingtons injustice and dishonesty to the international community. In the case of Soleimanis killing, the US not only changed its justification for the assassination after the fact, but it also offered no corroborating documentation to the international community.

What is more, though it lacks Interpols support, the warrant gives Iran the legal right to demand that countries in which Trump and the others named in it are travelling, issue extradition measures. It is highly unlikely that any country would attempt to extradite the US president to Iran, but the legal obligations brought by the warrant could prove an irritating distraction should it be used to interrupt the travels of targeted US officials in the future.

The warrant also draws attention to the arbitrary, and at times illegal, travel restrictions the US has imposed on countless Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

Zarif addressed the UNSC after Pompeo on Tuesday and used this opportunity to counter his claims about Irans supposed aggression. But he was only able to do so because the coronavirus pandemic forced the meeting to be held virtually. If he attended the meeting at the UN headquarters in New York in person, he could have been apprehended on the grounds that his movements are circumscribed by targeted US sanctions  something he encountered at the last UN meeting he attended. This is despite the UN rules, established when it took up residence in New York City, that disallow the US from exerting domestic policy on UN activities.

Retribution by other means

In the slinging match between the two states that is being fought on every imaginable platform  Twitter, the territory of Iraq, international law, the narrow Straits of Hormuz  there are only two rules, which both follow rigorously: always attack, and do not cede the limelight for long. As the number of months before both administrations presidential elections dwindles, the US-Iran standoff has become a dance macabre to see who can damage the other the most without going to war.

The US hopes to destroy the JCPOA once and for all. The Iranians  along with all the other signatories (the EU, China, Russia)  are fighting to keep it alive.

Should the US prevail in extending the arms embargo beyond October, Iran has threatened to leave the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), triggering the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the region.

Should the US fail  and both China and Russia have stated they will veto any US action  Washington plans to engineer a snap-back of UN sanctions on Iran, a strategy designed not only to devastate the latters already reeling economy, but kill the JCPOA beyond any rescue by Joe Biden, Trumps Democratic rival in the upcoming presidential race. Iran meanwhile has stated that although it restarted its nuclear programme after the US left the deal, it can shut it down easily to comply with the JCPOA should a new US administration roll back the sanctions.

With such a busy and high-stakes agenda, there is every chance that there will be more vitriol, more manipulated facts, and more surprise moves by both parties as the scene plays out in the coming months.

In his speech following Pompeos at the virtual UNSC meeting on Tuesday, Zarif ridiculed a map of flight trajectories presented by the US secretary of state illustrating how the range of advanced aircraft Iran would likely buy could threaten Europe should the embargo be lifted. Yet as Henry Rome, a regional specialist at the Asia Group in New York points out, Iran is unlikely to go on a buying spree, and will ensure the technology is being transferred domestically.

Both the map, and the speech, might have been more entertaining, and the warrant more effective, were the risks of miscalculation, drawing the whole theatre into war, not so high.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
UN human rights experts have condemned the enforced disappearance of Idris Khattak, a Pakistani human rights defender, calling it an "intolerable attack" on his legitimate work against a range of human rights and minority violations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, nine UN human rights experts called for a prompt and impartial investigation into the abduction and incommunicado detention of Khattak and said that they are extremely concerned by the authorities' continued practice of enforced disappearances, leaving thousands of cases unresolved in the country.

Khattak was last seen on November 13 last year after security agents stopped his car near the Swabi interchange in the northernmost province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On June 16, the Pakistani authorities acknowledged for the first time that he has been in the custody of law enforcement authorities and detained incommunicado since then.

"The enforced disappearance of Khattak, which began over seven months ago, is an intolerable attack on his legitimate work of monitoring, documenting and advocating against a range of human rights and minority violations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan," the independent experts said.

The experts are Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Luciano Hazan (Chair-Rapporteur), Tae-Ung Baik (Vice-Chair), Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Bernard Duhaime, Houria Es-Slami, and Henrikas Mickevicius; Mary Lawlor; Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Fernand de Varennes RP, Special Rapporteur on minority issues.

"We are extremely concerned by the authorities' continued practice of enforced disappearance, leaving thousands of cases unresolved in the country. We call for a prompt and impartial investigation into the abduction and incommunicado detention of Khattak, and for the prosecution of those responsible," the experts said.

They condemned the widespread silencing of human rights defenders through intimidation, secret detention, torture and enforced disappearance, whether with the direct involvement of the Pakistani government or with its complicity or complacency.

"Even today, Khattak remains deprived of the most basic protections of the law and his enforced disappearance subjected him and his family to severe and prolonged suffering, that could amount to torture," the experts said.

"Given the arbitrariness of Khattak's arrest and detention and the very serious violations of his integrity and procedural rights, we call on the Government of Pakistan to immediately release Khattak and to provide him and his family with adequate redress and rehabilitation," they added.

Pakistan has a long history of enforced disappearances, many of which have targetted human rights and minority defenders critical of the government and the military, as well as persons suspected or accused of involvement in the opposition.

While successive governments have promised to criminalise enforced disappearance, none has taken concrete steps and the practice continues with impunity.

The experts stressed that there can be no justification for the Pakistan government's failure to end enforced disappearances and that any such violation must be investigated, prosecuted and punished.

"Truth and justice must be served, both in the case of Idris Khattak and for countless other victims and their families in Pakistan. State-sponsored disappearances and related impunity may amount to a crime against humanity and must end now," they said.

The experts have taken note that Pakistan's Commission on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has been seized of the case and called on the commission to ensure accountability.

The experts will continue to engage with the Pakistani authorities to assist them in eradicating the "horrendous practice" and to closely monitor the situation.

-ANI

Also Read: China supplying weapons to Arakan Army armed group to weaken India, Myanmar: Report
If you are old enough to remember the hit comedy movie of 1980, Caddy Shack, then you will recall that a gopher infestation was threatening a golf course in Nebraska. The somewhat deranged groundskeeper was tasked with getting rid of the pest. His efforts at eradication include shooting, f
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Lake Charles, Louisiana (70615)

Today

Mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. Low 73F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Shane Morigeau is a lifelong Montanan and a member of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
In the American Thinker (June 30), Jack Cashill offers an eloquent plea for an Atticus Finch to take up the cause of George Zimmerman in suing those responsible for perpetrating the Trayvon Hoax. There is another case, also in Florida, awaiting its Atticus Finch, the product of an earlier moral panic, the now largely forgotten "mass sex abuse in daycare" hysteria. These cases, replete with lurid charges the media mindlessly and breathlessly disseminated in the 1980s and '90s, are today widely recognized as a modern version of the Salem witch trials of the 1690s, down to allegations of Satanic rituals by caregivers. Despite this, one victim remains incarcerated. Frank Fuster has now served thirty-five years in prison for a crime not only that he did not commit, but that never happened. His first parole hearing is scheduled an unbelievable 114 years from now  in March 2134.

Why is Fuster alone still in prison when the dozens of other victims of the daycare hysteria were all released, most of them long ago? That includes just to cite a sample  the Edenton 7 in North Carolina, whose plight was brilliantly set forth by Ofra Bikel on PBS; the Amiraults in Massachusetts, for whose defense, in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz won a Pulitzer; Kelly Michaels, the young aspiring actress sentenced to 47 years for supposedly sexually molesting virtually all the three- to five-year-old children at Wee Care Day Nursery in New Jersey; and the 43 adults charged with close to 30,000 crimes against young children in Wenatchee, Washington. Sometimes justice was wickedly slow, as in the case of Fran and Dan Keller, who served 21 years in prison before they were finally released in 2013 and their conviction set aside. The couple, who ran a daycare center out of their Texas home, had each been sentenced to 48 years on absurd testimony that included accusations that they had drowned and dismembered babies in front of other children, transported the children to Mexico to be sexually abused by soldiers in the Mexican army, dressed as pumpkins and shot children in the arms and legs, and so on.

I have detailed at length the reasons (among them simple bad luck) that account for Fuster's failure to win his freedom in "The Last Victim" in National Review of September 10, 2018. Suffice it to say here that it was not that the case against him was any stronger  it was marked by the same egregious flaws as all the others. The charges were the work of therapists who over many months badgered, bribed, coaxed, bullied, and coerced reluctant preschoolers  they initially denied anything happened  into saying what prosecutors wanted to hear. Indeed, Robert Rosenthal, who served as appeals attorney for the defendants in many of the high-profile cases, has called the Fuster case (known as "Country Walk" for the upscale development in which it took place) "the worst I have ever seen." That's because of the brutality with which thenstate attorney Janet Reno treated Fuster's young wife, Ileana, in an effort to wring a confession from her. In a sworn deposition, Stephen Dinerstein, the experienced investigator employed by the Fusters' attorneys, described how the bright, attractive 17-year-old girl with shiny black hair now, only months later, "appeared as if she was 50 years old[.] ... She has sores and infections on her skin and states that no sanitary conditions exist or are provided, that the shower, when received, is a hosing down in the cell. That she is in a cell with nothing in it but a light in the ceiling and that she is often kept nude and in view of everybody and anybody."

Nonetheless, Ileana held out for eleven months, insisting she could not confess to things that had never happened. She cracked only after her own lawyer (who wanted her to plea bargain) brought in an outfit called Behavior Changers to help her "recover" her supposedly repressed memories. Reno now obtained the "confession" she sought and then some  Ileana testified that Frank hung her in the garage; spread feces on her; forced her, at knifepoint, to perform sexual acts on the children; put snakes in her genitals and the children's; and stuck a cross in her rectum. In 2001, in an interview with Frontline, Ileana would testify how the false testimony had been elicited from her: "Since they had all the stories from the children and I didn't remember, they will make me close my eyes and they will tell me the story. Then in my mind, I have to go step by step the way they were telling me the story[.] ... If I made a mistake, then they would correct me. And we would do this over and over until I got the memory piece that supposedly was missing." All this was done through 35 sessions, late at night, disturbing her sleep cycles and compounding her confusion. This was enlightening but offered Frank no legal benefit.

That Fuster has survived over three decades in prison is astonishing. Child-abusers are known to be in danger from fellow inmates. In Fuster's case, the danger was exacerbated by ABC's occasional rebroadcasts of Unspeakable Acts, a docudrama that portrayed Fuster as a monster, accepting as fact the attacks on small children of which Fuster was accused. He was seriously attacked five times and almost died when, shortly after a rebroadcast, an inmate stabbed him in the neck with a pen whose point went so close to the artery that it could not be removed. As recently as July 2018, Fuster was badly beaten by a group of inmates while being transferred from one prison to another. Several officers had openly discussed his case in the hearing of others on the bus, saying he had "raped 70 children."

For the past 17 years, Fuster, without financial resources, has had no legal representation. Surely there is some lawyer in Florida who would be willing to take up the cudgels to set right this hideous blot on U.S. law enforcement. Amy Gershenfeld Donnella, Fuster's last lawyer, who vainly sought to have his conviction overturned in federal court, says that although difficult, it would not be impossible to bring the case back into Florida state court. She points out that "every state post-conviction statute, and all the cases interpreting them, have provisions that enable an innocent person  and a wrongly convicted person  to overcome procedural hurdles including statutes of limitation."

Rael Jean Isaac's most recent book is Roosters of the Apocalypse: How the Junk Science of Global Warming is Bankrupting the Western World.
Reading conservative media over the past month, I have noticed a pattern develop. More and more writers are arguing that the ubiquitous assumption of systemic racism in America is untrue. In fact, theres never been a better place to live as a minority than in America in the 21st Century. While I agree with many of the arguments made, I have to disagree with the conclusion. You see, I have also been listening to the personal histories of individual blacks across the country, and I now see the widespread, systemic racism that infects the United States in 2020.

Discussions of systemic racism typically start with slavery. Although that is the greatest example of systemic racism in our history, the United States fought a war with itself in which hundreds of thousands of Americans paid the ultimate price to end slavery here. However, although legalized slavery was ended by the Civil War, fighting this war didnt end racism. After the war, groups like the KKK worked hard to prevent the newly freed slaves from exercising their full rights as citizens. These efforts evolved into the set of laws we know as Jim Crow, a systemic web of statutes and cultural norms that treated blacks as inferior in every way.

But wait! Didnt the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and particularly the Civil Rights Act of 1964, end the Jim Crow laws? Yes, the overt, legally enforced racism of the first half of the 20th Century was debunked, disgraced, and dismantled by the Civil Rights movement but it was quickly replaced with a more subtle system of racism. This one was not encoded directly into state laws or local ordinances but was created by the indirect outcomes of a new kind of political initiative: civil rights laws, welfare payments, court decisions, and statist economic policies.

Civil rights laws, supposedly passed to guarantee to blacks equal protection under the law and all the rights granted under the Constitution, were quickly interpreted to require racial quotas be met by schools, by government, and even by private businesses. The subtle racism of quotas is the assumption that blacks cannot earn these positions on their own merits so, instead of doing the hard work of helping blacks develop skills and habits needed for success, we should give them handouts and pat ourselves on the back for being so helpful. Meanwhile, these quotas have reduced the black graduation rates at colleges and increased racial strife by angering the more qualified applicants who lost out.

The welfare system created by the Great Society, supposedly passed to help the poor of all races, quickly resulted in creating a permanent underclass who were dependent on government handouts. The black family, which stayed together through slavery, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, and Jim Crow, was splintered apart when government handouts replaced the wages earned by a husband and father. This pushed fatherless youths into the streets to join gangs and kill each other off with both guns and drugs. A more racist system could hardly be imagined.

The Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, a procedure that has a more racist past than a Confederate statue. Abortion was a key part of the eugenics movement in this country going back to the 1920s, when Margaret Sanger created the precursor to Planned Parenthood. Abortion was used to purify the white race and eliminate the black race back then, and black women continue to have abortions to at far higher rates than whites and Hispanics to this day. These deaths have reduced the black population, watered down their representation in society, and eliminated the potential contributions of millions of people to this world.

Meanwhile, in most large cities, regulatory and social welfare policies reduced freedom, opportunity, and prosperity for the people living in them, and a lot of blacks live in them. Basic city services that help people get and keep jobs, like decent roads, public transportation, and affordable housing, have crumbled under policies that prioritize public employee pensions, rent control laws, and entrenched political power. But the most devastating casualty in these cities has been quality education. The failure of cities to provide a high school diploma that had some worth in the marketplace has hurt black prospects for decades.

I hope, as you read through my description of systemic racism in America today, you have noticed a common culprit in all of it. Everything described above has been the stated public policies of the Democrat party all the way back to the days of slavery. Democrats opposed Abraham Lincolns and the newly formed Republican Partys anti-slavery platform in 1860. After the war, the KKK became the militant arm of the Democrats and the Jim Crow laws that grew out of the Reconstruction were administered by Democrat politicians throughout the South.

The modern Democrat politician has raised systemic racism in this country to levels a white plantation owner in the antebellum South could have only dreamed of. After all, while the plantation owner treated his slaves as property, he also had a self-interest in keeping his slaves healthy and strong enough to do their work; the Democrats only self-interest is keeping blacks voting for Democrats, and they will do that most reliably if they are kept weak, poor, and dependent.

But I have not even mentioned the crassest form of Democrat racism yet: coopting black leaders with promises of money and power to help promote all these policies among their fellow blacks. How these leaders could have gotten in bed with the very party that had trampled blacks down for a century is a mystery to me. Without their support, however, all the Democrat platitudes about helping the poor and fighting racism would have been quickly rejected for the insidious racism that created them and the horrible results produced by them. With the support of those leaders, Democrats have been able to exploit blacks repeatedly by scaring them that Republicans want to enslave them and teaching them that every setback they encounter is evidence of racism.

The Democrats are terrible at a lot of things: fighting wars, growing an economy, educating children, protecting citizens from global pandemics, and guaranteeing constitutional rights, among others. But they are excellent at one thing: shifting the blame to others for their own racism and their constant failures.

I am tired of being called a racist because, as a white man, I am part of the system that holds blacks down. The truth is that, as a Republican, I have opposed and voted against the racist policies described in this article since I was old enough to vote. I hope that black citizens of this country will #WalkAway from the Democrat Party and be set free to live and work and prosper along with the rest of us.

I am heartbroken over systemic racism and want nothing more than to see the Democratic politicians who built it and sustain it stripped of all their power by the very victims of their racist policies.

Image credit: Pixbay

Steve Matteucci has degrees in Economics, Law, Taxation, and Theology. His book, How to Be a Trustee: Practical Thinking on Settling a Living Trust
Prominent Fox News channel daily anchor Ed Henry was summarily fired yesterday as the #MeToo movement has apparently claimed its latest mark. The announcement came in an internal email to Fox News staff early Wednesday morning, followed by an email to journalists including this author that featured a screen shot of the internal email announcing Henry's "termination." The cause for Henry's dismissal was alleged confirmation after a brief "independent investigation" of "a complaint about Ed Henry from a former employee's attorney involving willful sexual misconduct in the workplace years ago."



Screen shot of Fox News's July 1, 2020 internal email to staff signed by FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and FOX News Media president and executive editor Jay Wallace.

No further details of Henry's alleged "sexual misconduct" have been provided, nor has any new information been published by the media. Henry's first response was in a terse tweet at 7:51 P.M. Wednesday that quoted his attorney, Catherine Foti: "Ed Henry denies the allegations referenced in the Fox announcement and is confident that he will be vindicated after a full hearing in an appropriate forum." According to the Associated Press, "[t]he alleged victim [who made the allegations] is represented by noted sexual harassment attorney Douglas Wigdor. He also would not provide any details of the case."

Henry, 48, has worked for Fox News since 2011. Previously, he reported for CNN for seven years, and prior to that, he wrote for The Hill. At Fox News, Henry started as the White House correspondent and later served as a frequent studio anchor. Last December 19, it was announced that he would be promoted to co-hosting his own daily show, America's Newsroom, with Sandra Smith MF 9 A.M.12 noon E.T., starting on January 20, 2020. In the news release announcing Henry's new job, FNC's Jay Wallace said, "Ed is one of the best all-around journalists in the field and his ability to transition from breaking news to anchor has made him a valuable addition to the team."

In June 2010, in a lavish wedding in Las Vegas, Henry married Shirley Hung. Reportedly, they are still married. At the time, Henry was CNN's senior White House correspondent and Hung was a CNN senior producer. In 2014, Hung joined NPR, where she is now chief Washington editor. On May 4, 2016, In Touch magazine published a "world exclusive" titled "Married 'Fox News' White House Correspondent Ed Henry's Affair Exposed."

In a world exclusive, In Touch ... reveals the bombshell news that Fox News Chief White House correspondent Ed Henry, who has been married to NPR's deputy Washington editor Shirley Hung since 2010, had a 10-month affair with Las Vegas hostess Natalia Lima. In Touch's investigation goes in-depth inside Ed's secret double life, including images of the steamy text message exchanges with Natalia, photos of their secret rendezvous and all the details inside their secret affair.

In response to the wide coverage of In Touch magazine's story, Fox News issued a statement: "We recently became aware of Ed's personal issues and he's taking some time off to work things out." Henry was off the air for four months until August 2016, when  having been removed from the high-profile White House beat  he was given a new role as a general assignment reporter, as CNN noted, "under the title chief national correspondent, a less prestigious role at the network." While Henry was on hiatus, FNC co-founder and chairman Roger Ailes, who reportedly gave Henry a reprieve for his alleged transgressions, resigned after allegations that he had sexually harassed female FNC employees, charges that Ailes vigorously denied until his death in May 2017. During that period (201617), Fox News was a focal point for the budding #MeToo movement. In 2017, prominent Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Eric Bolling left the channel after published allegations (in the case of Bolling, unsourced allegations) of sexual improprieties, which both men denied.



Ed Henry (left) tearfully announces on Fox & Friends Weekend (July 7, 2019) that he will be taking several months off to donate part of his liver to his sister Colleen. Screen shot from Fox News broadcast.

Last year, Ed Henry took several months off from hosting duties at Fox News to undergo elective surgery to donate part of his liver to his ailing sister, Colleen. His book about the successful transplant, Saving Colleen: A Memoir of the Unbreakable Bond Between a Brother and Sister, was scheduled for publication on September 15, 2020. It was reported later on Wednesday, however, that the publisher, Harper Collins, has now canceled the book.

Less than an hour into the program Wednesday morning that Henry previously co-hosted, at 9:54 A.M. E.T., Sandra Smith, who will remain as co-anchor until a permanent replacement for Henry is selected, read a brief statement on camera (video clip here).

A moment now for some news about the co-anchor of this program, Ed Henry. After a recent claim and investigation involving sexual misconduct in the workplace, Ed has been terminated from Fox News. In an internal memo to employees, FOX News Media CEO, Suzanne Scott, and President and Executive Editor, Jay Wallace, addressed this very serious issue in an effort to bring full transparency to it and emphasized that we will continue to strive to maintain a safe and inclusive workplace for all employees. Rotating anchors will be sitting in with me until a replacement is named.



Sandra Smith announces Ed Henry's firing, Fox News channel, July 1, 2020.

As might be expected, Henry's abrupt and unexpected termination yesterday was widely and immediately covered by both the MSM and alternative media. The overwhelming response of Fox News channel viewers, typified by the comments at Variety's story, entailed defenses of Henry and criticisms of Fox News's hypocrisy in the hiring of Democrat operative Donna Brazile and the ongoing prominent role on the channel of left wing analyst Juan Williams. In 2017, before she was hired by Fox News, Brazile admitted that in 2016 when she was working for CNN she provided debate questions to Hillary Clinton's campaign prior to televised, supposedly spontaneous candidate debates. Meanwhile, serious allegations against Williams of sexual harassment when he was working for the Washington Post in the 1990s resulted in a slap on the wrist for the commentator and subsequent non-stop career advancement including at NPR and to this day at Fox News.

The last time this author wrote about Ed Henry was on October 1, 2019 after a 13-minute segment that featured Henry, who was co-hosting Fox & Friends Weekend, testily jousting with Fox News weekend program host Mark Levin went viral. The segment made headlines  including grabbing the attention of President Trump, who offered criticisms of Henry in a dozen tweets.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran journalist who writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications. He also appears in the media, including recently as a guest analyst on BBC World News. Peter's website is http://peter.media. For updates on his work, follow Peter on Twitter at @pchowka.
After all that time in the basement, not doing very much, Joe Biden still can't quite decide who his running mate is going to be.

According to Breitbart News:

Former Vice President Joe Biden is pushing back his timeline for announcing a running mate, seeming to signal his campaign has yet to find an acceptable candidate. Biden told reporters on Tuesday after delivering an address on the coronavirus pandemic that his campaign was still evaluating its options. In late May, he floated the idea of unveiling his running mate by August 1. When pressed if the announcement would meet his initial August timeline, Biden backtracked, claiming his staff was just getting "underway now in the hard vet of going into the deep background checks" required for each of the prospective candidates.

Yes, he's addled as a result of his advanced age, and very often doesn't know which room  or state  he's in.

But more likely, it's that the choices he has are all pretty disgusting.

Every last one of them is bound to alienate a large portion of his electorate, driving a lot of them to stay home or, heaven forbid, switch to Trump. Biden is currently leading in the polls, and whomever he picks is bound to splinter that lead or else nullify it as enthusiasm fizzles.

Whom does he have? Most swampers are now focused on Elizabeth Warren. She's got high positives among black voters, higher than even the black candidates who are supposed to serve as clickbait for black votes, and large parts of the progressive left are all in for her "let's kill Wall Street" program. She's famous for her big sweeping programs, supposedly to be financed with ease by "taxing the rich," and refuses to let herself be pinned down by cost. That's got to be good for attracting leftist voters who view double-entry bookkeeping as no better than "cops." She's also got a big donor base, which, to Joe, would be a priority, given his penchant for getting his family members "taken care of."

Why is she such a bad idea anyway? Well, because Wall Street despises her, and that's bound to put a damper on donations for old Joe as a result. It also could lead to moves to thwart her, and him, and Biden knows all about how money politics moves are played. Worse still, she's hopelessly "white"  and not just white, but an affirmative-action cheat who bit and clawed her way to Ivy League teaching positions by posing as a fake Indian. In an age of race-wokeness, that's not going to go over well with a certain chunk of Democrats. It's also going to give President Trump a field day. Lastly, she represents Massachusetts. No extra-bring-alongs from there  Biden already has blue Massachusetts in the bag.

Second possibility is Kamala Harris  and on some lists, she's first. She's black, she's female, she's got a bonus East Indian ancestry, she's very, very left-wing  yet she's also a good marching soldier for the Democratic Party establishment, which, standing in her pearls and corporate suit, is her first loyalty. She's a sharp speaker who can rally the left with her anti-Trump zingers, and she wants the job badly. She's also politically wily, agilely lying low and saying nice things about Joe in her bid to woo him to pick her, something that probably amounts to a plus to the team trying to pick a running mate for Joe.

She's a practiced suck-up to the more powerful, which should please the Democrats holding Joe's puppet strings, literally learning at Willie Brown's knee about how to advance.

But to a lot of us, even Democrats, that's a lot of what's disgusting. Will the feminists enjoy telling all the little girls that Harris achieved her political success by sleeping her way to the top? Or worse still, harboring a sex-harasser in her office, a creep who used to make the office girls bend down under his computer to fix various issues so he could see their underwear, triggering lawsuits and big payouts, something she claims to know nothing about, despite her "leadership" in the office? She doesn't quite fit the feminist bill with those embarrassing details.

More problematic still, she's a former prosecutor and state attorney general, shorthand in woke world for "cop." And not just any "cop," but a verifiably corrupt one  throwing people in jail for pot offenses while giggling on a radio show that she too smoked pot. She kept people in jail even after their sentences were up in order to have a bank of "volunteers" to fight California's fires, which surely wasn't her job to ensure, but...loyalty to the establishment first, right? She endorsed despicable alterations to "confession" transcripts in a death penalty case by other corrupt district attorneys instead of firing their keisters and vacating the tainted case.

She yelled about defunding the police  while earlier, traveling around with a Los Angeles Police Department detail across the state, to every party and gala she went to, a significant misuse of resources for personal status purposes.

And lastly, she did very poorly in Iowa and other early primary states. Why? Because with all her fake laughter and suckey-uppiness, it's likely she came off as a phony. Voters don't like phonies and they especially don't like them being behind the scenes presidents, which is what Harris is likely to be.

Finally, she's not going to bring any added value to the electoral tally  she's from California, and California is already in the tank for Biden.

There's also Rep. Val Demings of Florida, who's also black and seemingly low key, who doesn't have any major negatives on the national stage, which is a plus for Joe ... except that it's solely because she is not well known. She's from Florida, which is a swing state and that may mean winning that important state. Lot to like about her on those grounds.

She does have a big negative for Biden, though if he hopes to win woke leftist votes  she's a former police chief of Orlando. Democrats don't like cops.

Then there's Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a Thai-American, which would fill in the woman-of-color box, and a disabled veteran, with a record of executive experience, too.

She has fewer negatives, but would she excite the wokester base, which by the way, doesn't like military service? She's not all that impressive a public speaker. Plus, being from Illinois ought to get her associated with the blue-state hell there, which might turn off moderates, and in any case, won't bring in anything extra votewise from her state, since Illinois is already in the bag for him.

There's also Rep. Karen Bass of California. She too is black and fills in that checkmark box. She's an engaging speaker and ambitious, but not in any obviously lean and hungry way in the manner of Harris. She's woke as heck and a creature of the Democratic machine establishment.

One problem: She's made some grotesquely pro-Castro statements, and Sandalista-style praises of some of the worst economic disasters in the hemisphere. Good luck swinging Florida with that record, Joe.

There's also his old buddy, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who's also Black and female, and a comfortable old shoe for Joe, given that she goes back to the Get Trump salad days of deep state, and unmaskings of Trump officials, complete with bids to cover up the plotting. She's also comfortable lying on cue in the name of elections, she did in the aftermath of Benghazi. She's a good one for Joe, because she knows where all the bodies are buried. And she's the gateway to bringing back all the Obamatons back into the White House. How does Secretary of State Ben Rhodes sound?

She's never been a politician, though, and she's kind of a non-starter in polls. She'd undoubtedly do anything Joe wants in a future presidency, so why waste her on the veep slot, which requires bringing in something extra? She can't deliver.

Every last one of these candidates, and plenty more  I left off Stacey Abrams because the Biden people have already leaked out that they are repelled by her  amounts to some kind tokenism, which Black voters aren't too keen on, as this recent poll from this Washington Examiner piece shows.

Yet with Biden leading in the polls now, you can bet that there's some fearsome power moves going on behind the scenes among the Democratic Party's power-brokers - Team Obama, Team Bernie, the congressional Black Caucus, plus the Democratic campaign operatives looking to find a way to secure swing voters  who have nothing in common with the first three groups. With Joe Biden addled and isolated, you can bet they're moving like pirates to secure the top berth to power. Someone's going to be the power behind the throne in a Biden presidency, since it's not going to be Biden. With high hopes for winning and huge power to be taken, you can bet it's vicious behind the scenes, a secret civil war among war lords, that is bound to keep extending until one gets bit in the neck and drops from the cliff.

It certainly would explain why Joe's having such a hard time making up his mind as high campaign season beckons, and it also explains the Democrats' shifting plans on when and where to hold a convention. They're fighting among themselves all right, and it's got to be fierce.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of four images by Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; The Circus via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0; Julia Pickett via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; and personal photo.
Critics ask: What has Joe Biden ever accomplished other than enriching his own family via various governmental grifts and leaving Barack Obama with chapped butt cheeks from Joe's constant smooching?

Plenty, folks, no joke.

For one, Joe Biden single-handedly killed the #MeToo movement, an anti-male meme that said all women claiming sex abuse must be believed, regardless of any evidence or lack thereof. This movement culminated in the absurd charges against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Without proof, we were told Kavanaugh was an aspiring rapist; a dispenser of date-rape drugs; an exhibitionist; and, worst of all, a thrower of ice cubes. And the various questionable ladies making these charges had to be believed, no matter their motives or political ties, case closed. Based on the Senate confirmation hearings, many on the left will tell you we now have a sexual predator on the Supreme Court.

Things changed dramatically when one Tara Reade came along and accused Joe Biden of once attacking her, kissing her without permission, and performing a vaginal exam without a medical license. In the Capitol Building, no less. Faced with the end of his presidential ambitions, Biden came out swinging against Reade.

First, he claimed he didn't remember Reade, and considering Joe's age, that's certainly believable. Then Biden stated that no one had ever publicly reported such an assault before, which is also undeniably true. The coup de grace of Biden's defense was him saying repeatedly, it never happened, it never happened, whatever "it" was.

And just like that, the mainstream media nodded their heads in amiable agreement, due process was once again in force, and poor Tara Reade was summarily consigned to the trash bin of history. #MeToo was dead, as dead as...you know, you know, the thing.

Speaking of the thing, what Joe Biden has done to the English language is just plain astounding. He's made us all reconsider our outdated, patriarchal, and no doubt white supremacist view of what constitutes correct English grammar and syntax.

Biden forms sentences the way Jackson Pollock paints, tossing nouns around willy-nilly, throwing antecedents to the winds, and leaving participles hanging whenever possible. Joe's made us reassess our views on verbs  are they even necessary in a sentence? And the beauty of Biden's Newspeak is that it sounds just as good when muffled by Biden's butch, black mask as it does when you can see Joe's lips moving. Argle-bargle a la Biden, served fresh and with a smile whiter and brighter than the porcelain of my bathroom sink.

But what Joe Biden will most be remembered for, other than helping President Obama organize a soft coup against President Trump, is striking a blow for differently abled people everywhere. By becoming the first man to ever run for president while suffering from dementia, Joe's shown them that anything's possible.

Biden's often unaware of what day it is, what state he's in, and even what office he's campaigning for. But he's not gonna let that stop him from trying to run the most powerful country in the world  no, sir! And if you think a man whose brain has clearly turned into tapioca should be in a rest home instead of the White House, well, you're just a lying, dog-faced pony soldier. And probably fat, too.

We've had our first black president; now it's time for our first fried president. Biden's already secured the critical Hair Club for Men endorsement. The only thing now standing in his way is the Bilco doors in Biden's basement. They've got a tricky locking thingy; it took me a while to figure out how to work it.

That's Joe Biden, folks: #MeToo-slayer, mangler of the English tongue, and proud advocate for the mentally deranged. I'm sure Biden would heartily approve of this message, at least if it were on a teleprompter in letters ten inches tall and Joe had remembered to take his meds. Thank God his wife's a doctor, albeit a doctor of education.

Caricature by Donkey Hotey.
The recent decision of the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 ruling, negating the requirement that abortionists have privileges at a local hospital, is a travesty in women's health care in America.

I state up front that I am pro-life, am a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist, and have written about my pro-life stance on American Thinker in the past. I have given 41 years of my professional life to ensuring the health and safety of my patients, mother and fetus.

In my practice, I have had to prove adequate training, supervision, and competence. Also, all surgeries are peer-reviewed and any complications discussed in detail. The medical record is required to be thorough and honest. Those surgeons with more complications than expected are liable for corrective action, even losing that privilege. This is to ensure an excellent standard of care. These standards apply to hospitals and surgical centers. The surgicenters require their practitioners to have privileges at the local hospital. That is because, even in the best of hands, complications do happen. And that surgeon who did the procedure knows the patient best and can attend to the complication at the hospital, where more services are available in the emergency setting.

In states that do not require abortionists to have local hospital privileges, these safeguards are egregiously missing. The so-called pro-choice crowd likes to tout how safe abortions are. But how do we know? The CDC is one agency that is supposed to tabulate abortion complications, but many states do not require these to be reported. Abortion facilities do not want this information widely known. And their medical records are abysmal compared to hospital records. I have never been to an abortion facility, and it is possible that many of them follow strict quality standards, but I doubt they have real peer review.

I have seen the result of these shoddy practices. Because a facility did not look at the aborted "material"  what was assumed to be the aborted baby  well enough, I have had people show up in our emergency room with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. The patient was told not to call the abortionist  just go to the local E.R. Sometimes, women show up with an infected uterus from a botched abortion and do not tell us what they had done. This places a burden on the treating physician and can lead to a delay in proper management of an acute complication. Again, the abortionist is not held accountable because the patients are told not to come back. Abortionists are not held accountable for serious complications, such as perforated uterus, injury to bowel or bladder, hemorrhage, severe infection, and incompletely performed procedure. The responsibility and liability falls on the responding attending physician, who is at an information disadvantage.

I fail to understand why two standards of care are allowed in this way. An abortion facility is an ambulatory surgicenter without the strict surveillance and quality required of any other surgical center. The pro-abortion crowd claims to be promoting women's health, but its position on this issue is diametrically opposed to the best standards of women's health. These people have argued that requiring their abortionists to have privileges at a local hospital restricts many women from getting an abortion. That may be true in some cases. But it also keeps them from being involved in surgeries that do not meet the standard of care of every other surgical center. If abortion facilities cannot meet these basic and simple requirements, they should be closed.

Roger Taylor is a physician in private practice. He received his medical degree from the University of Chicago.
With the K12 school year on the brink of returning, policy-makers and pseudo-experts are coming out of the woodwork to make your child's life at school less enjoyable than it used to be. Individuals associated with countless organizations are now infiltrating K12 schools at a rate higher than previously thought. The COVID-19 fiasco has allowed this to occur, and school systems are accepting these outside parties.

While some school districts have decided to go back to the way things were before the PLANdemic, many school districts are moving to a full-online platform for their districts' K12 education. Many districts are also combining these two models, and the confusion that is coming with it should highlight what school officials have in mind.

For example, in one major school district in southwest Ohio, the city's health commissioner has become involved in the decision-making process regarding students returning to school. This health commissioner believes that all students who ride school buses this fall should have to wear face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This health commissioner goes even farther by suggesting that students should sit only one or two per seat and that students should sit next to only their peers whom they already live around and play with while outside school. The exact quote reads:

County and city health officials are recommending that because children from the same neighborhood play with each other, they should sit next to each other on the bus, filling the vehicles from the back to the front so neighbors are close together, with a family's siblings ideally sitting next to each other, because 'there's no way we can run the bus five times to the same neighborhood and have every other seat [empty].'

George Orwell's 1984 student-spy police patrol is also fully in play. Keep in mind that students have already been trained to tattle on one another with such social and emotional learning programs within their schools and classrooms as PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) and The PAX Good Behavior Game. Students have had years to practice this tattle approach. Now the health commissioner within this district stated:

What they (students) do beyond that time is up to them. I think there'll be a way for parents to opt out (wearing masks on busses), if they're not comfortable with that. There can be a warning system if kids are messing with their masks, or whatever.

You read that right. A "warning system, or whatever"! The student-filmed YouTube videos that stem from this are going to be an incredible phenomenon.

The health commissioner continued to state that this district and its city council are in communication with neighboring districts, and Catholic schools are also providing their guidance. They also stated that they can't wait for the governor of Ohio to make decisions and guidelines first. It's the local school districts that must first have a plan in place. Finally, teachers and staff members were now going to be required to have their temperatures taken every day before entry into their school buildings, and they would need to fill out a questionnaire as to how they were physically feeling at the time

Apparently, county health commissioners are also completely unaware of the negative health effects of wearing a mask: 1. Dr. Fauci 60 Minuets Overtime and 2. Nurse  RN Delivers Message about Covid19 & N95 Masks and 3. Testing Oxygen Levels Under A Mask w an OSHA Air Quality Monitor.

Many school districts are having students decide right now whether they want to learn at school or at home, using district online resources. Once these decisions are made by the students and their families, they allegedly become permanent. Another neighboring school district in southwest Ohio recently polled parents' perceptions regarding online learning for the new year. Roughly 40% of parents who took the poll (which had about 750 parent participants) want their local school district to move to partial or full-time home-based online learning. Not only is this movement in a positive direction, but this is a massive number, and it's a big school district. My guess is that this school district is not alone in the shock that is about to hit when administrators see firsthand the incredibly low levels of student attendance, the likes of which they can't imagine. These parental perceptions are not just centered on COVID-19. This has been surging in America for a long time.

Sean M. Brooks, Ph.D is the author of multiple books,including;Violence among Students and School Staff, Purposeful Deception, and Discourses on Education.

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Another Coronavirus Wave This Year Could Result In The Loss Of 340 Million Jobs:- The coronavirus pandemic shattered each and every field across the globe. Crores of people lost their jobs and are left in a deep financial crisis. It will take years for many businesses to bounce back and retain their glory. Countries like the USA and UK too could stand before the wave of coronavirus. The International Labour Organization (ILO) warned of one move coronavirus wave that would hit during the second half of this year. This would result in the loss of 11.9% jobs globally which is equal to 340 million full-time jobs across the world.

The report is published in the fifth edition of the International Labour Organization Monitor: COVID-19. The report made it clear that the recovery of the market for this year in any field would be uncertain. The report also said that there was 14% drop in the global working hours in the second quarter of 2020 which is equal to the loss of 400 million full-time jobs. This is the worst-hit crisis in the recent decades as per the report. The second half of 2020 would be more challenging like the second quarter of the year.

There would be lot of restrictions for the employees because of the financial crunch in the market in all the fields. Despite of the lockdowns lifted all over, people are not ready to come out and because of this, there is no boost for several businesses. The slash in the jobs and the budgets would continue as it takes years for the normalcy to return back.
(Image source from: Timesnownews.com)

Goa Tourism Opens From Today:- The tourism and hotel industry is badly hit after the arrival of coronavirus pandemic. It may take years for the tourism industry to bounce back as the tourists will not head for holidays anytime soon. Goa is one of the favorite beach destinations for many and is shut from March after the coronavirus pandemic hit the country. Goa had a low number of coronavirus cases over these months because of the strict lockdown. The borders of the state too are closed. Goa will be open for the public from today announced the Tourism Ministry. Around 250 hotels across the state will be open and they are granted permission after all the necessary guidelines are followed by these hotels.

Goa Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar announced the details. All the passengers arriving to Goa should have to get their coronavirus test done prior to their arrival. All the hotels should be pre-booked. All those who are yet to be tested will have to give their test and leave the hotel premises only after they are tested negative with coronavirus. As of now, the tourism services in Goa would be limited and they would be expanded as situations calm down. There are 713 active cases in the state currently and 330 people are in quarantine now.

(Video Source: Goa 365 TV)
New information today on a river outing near Eden; Organizers take steps as they try to convince Pittsylvania leaders to approve large musical festivals; Danville School leaders consider redrawing school attendance zones; Chatham has "three-peated" as Regional Baseball champ.
(Image source from: Nationalheraldindia.com)

Coronavirus India Tally Reaches 6 Lakhs:- Coronavirus is having a huge impact all over India. The country is badly hit because of the coronavirus and the new cases are increasing at jet speed. 19,000 new cases of coronavirus are registered in the country and the total touched 6 lakh mark in India by yesterday. Maharashtra, New Delhi and Tamil Nadu are the most hit states because of coronavirus. The total number of deaths in the country reached 17,800 by yesterday. India is the fourth worst-hit country in the world after Russia, Brazil and the USA. A total number of 79,075 cases are active in Maharashtra. Mumbai alone has 29,715 cases from the state.

Four lakh cases of coronavirus are reported in the month of June in India. 507 people passed away in the country yesterday alone. Mizoram is the only Indian state without a new coronavirus case registered yesterday. 30% of the cases of Karnataka comes from Bengaluru. As per the reports from the Union Health Ministry, the total number of active cases of coronavirus in India are said to be 2,26,947 and 3.5 lakh people recovered completely from the virus. The Maharashtra Prison Department said that a total number of 363 inmates and 102 jail staff are tested positive with coronavirus in the state.

German biotech firm BioNTech and US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has shown potential. They are said to be in human trials currently. There is no domestic transmission of coronavirus in Thailand and the country reported six new cases. All these are foreign travelers. Union Home Minister Amit Shah will chair a key meeting to review about the situation of coronavirus in the country and in the national capital Delhi.

(Video Source: NTV Telugu)
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A Google practice of paying others to remain in default positions on search is now facing scrutiny in the UK. Thats following a report revealed by the UKs Competition and Markets Authority, now making headlines. According to the report, the company pays out around 1.2 billion, equating to roughly $1.5 billion, in the UK alone. That funding is part of contracts that help it remain the default search provider on any number of devices.

Perhaps shockingly, the substantial majority of that goes to Apple. And that helps Google remain the default search provider on Apple devices. Specifically in Apples Safari browser. While that still leaves a significant sum of money being paid elsewhere to the same end, thats not the crux of the problem. According to the report, deals like that generate a significant barrier to entry and expansion.

Now, Google is not the only company to engage in deals that place its products  search or otherwise  in default positions. At the heart of the matter, the problem appears to be Googles size and its ability to dole out more dollars than competitors. Summarily, the findings highlighted by the deal between Apple and Google point to struggles faced by competitors. In any market where Google is able to buy its position, others cant afford to keep up.

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What does the report suggest should be done to address with default positions, for Google or otherwise?

Apples practices are also central to the problem, reports indicate. The company profits heavily from deals involving default positions. In fact, an estimated $9 billion per year is brought in by the company on that front alone. Apple hasnt disclosed any official figures on the matter. But, with Google estimated to pay over $1 billion for its position in Safari  back in 2014  the figure seems likely.

But both companies are central to approaches suggested to fix the issue by the report. That suggests a multifaceted approach starting with limiting Apples ability to monetize default positions. And any rules created around that would undoubtedly limit more than Apple on that front too. Instead, theyd most likely extend to include limits on any such transactions.

The report also upheld a solution that would mirror those put into place elsewhere in 2017 and 2018.

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In 2017, a ruling was issued that forced Google to allow Yandex and other search engines on Android devices. Thats as the default, with the option to be selected by end-users. Perhaps more pertinently, as highlighted in recent antitrust probes in the US, the EU has already forced a similar response. On Googles own devices, or devices running its operating system Android, it is forced to offer a choice too. Here, the report suggests that users should be given a choice for their search engine on startup.

That would likely apply to all such devices.

Will any action be taken on this?

Whether or not any action is taken by the UK, Google is presently facing a steep uphill battle elsewhere already. And that battle could dramatically change its position globally. Not only is the company currently under investigation to determine whether its broken antitrust laws in its home region. Several US states are also actively calling for the company to be broken up.

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The outcome of those investigations and the push for a breakup  with other major tech giants not excluded  could render the UKs report moot.

It remains to be seen whether any government agency around the globe takes action. But if Search is broken away from Android, for example, Google would effectively be forced to compete with itself and with other companies on more level footing. Thats not just for space or default positions. But also in effectively every other aspect of its current conglomerate business.
European police have arrested thousands of criminals following a sting operation and the hacking of phones from subscription-based provider Encrochat. The massive operation has been ongoing since April 1, with arrests occurring in Norway, Sweden, France, Netherlands, and the UK. Reports indicate that the actual encryption was broken by police a month prior to the operation.

In the UK alone, police arrested as many as 746 suspects. They also seized 54 million  approximately $67 million  77 firearms, and two metric tons of Class A and B drugs. Thats according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Aside from the primary busts, NCA also attributes the prevention of many kidnappings and executions to the hacking of Encrochat. In total, they say police were able to mitigate over 200 threats to life, beyond the arrests. Arrests themselves stretched across the gamut of criminals from middle-tier to the kingpins. And those even included iconic untouchables that are said to have evaded capture for years.

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The NCA says that now, it has the evidence to prosecute the crimes.

The platform has shut down now since being subject to police hacking but what is Encrochat?

The devices sold by Encrochat were modified Android phones running two operating systems. One of those, presumably a close-to-stock Android, was run to avoid attracting suspicion. The other was locked down and encrypted end-to-end.

In effect, Encrochat installed its own messaging platform. But it also removed features that are typically utilized to capture criminals. For instance, GPS, camera, microphone, and similar functionality typically found with the technology were removed completely. Users could also completely wipe the devices with the entry of specialized PINs. Text messages  encrypted, of course  were sendable. And calls could be made over secure VOIP platforms.

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Otherwise, the phones were intended to leave as small a footprint as possible. And to limit the amount of data that could be gleaned. Encrochats services, meanwhile, were offered on a subscription. That cost end-users thousands of dollars per year. But, given the extent of the assets recovered, that likely didnt make too big a dent in the criminal incomes in question.

The devices didnt run common apps or services as part of the effort to further privacy goals.

This raises privacy concerns and not just in Europe

Now, the use of hacking across Europe by police has arguably done more good than harm in this instance. But encryption is still part of a much larger debate thats still raging about just how much police should have access too.

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For instance, in the US, a judge recently ruled that police could search users phones. But they cant bypass devices protected by a lock screen. Or, at the very least, agencies such as the FBI cant take pictures of information on the lock screen without a warrant. Even after the phone is in custody, that information cant be unduly used without proper procedure being followed.

Despite widespread contention about such searches and other state-sponsored spying, however, it may not remain against the rules for long. Lawmakers in the US have and continue to pressure their peers to pass legislation that would make it much easier for the FBI and others to access that data.

One example of that is the recently-reported Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act forwarded by representatives in Washington. The end goal is to effectively make warrant-proof encryption illegal. In effect, the proposed bill would require tech companies to help law enforcement crack encryption. Or at least where theres a warrant requesting it.

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So these types of sting operations could feasibly spread, depending on a number of factors. Beginning with how legislators vote in the representation of their constituents.
Facebook has once again shared users data with developers the company admits. This has meant that a few thousand developers could access inactive users data who have not logged in for 90 days. This comes as Facebook faces a widespread advertiser boycott in July. The company has also been under fire from Joe Biden to promote more real news.

Engadget reports that Facebooks guidelines clearly express that this should never happen. The guidelines state that inactive users data should remain private.

An inactive user is defined as someone who has not logged in for 90 days. This was introduced after the high profile Cambridge Analytica scandal back in 2018.

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User data shared again by Facebook

Facebook has not provided any detail about how long this issue has been going on for. It also did not share any details on how many users may have been impacted. Estimates suggest that if affected approximately 5,000 developers for the last several months.

Facebook claims that it fixed the issue the day after the company notices it. However, the company will continue to investigate further to get to the bottom of the issue.

The company claims that it has improved its policy and strategy in this area over the last few years. However, another example of data sharing suggests otherwise.

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Facebook plans for improvement

In 2018, Facebook made sure inactive accounts no longer received updates. However, the company found that in some instances this did not occur.

For example, in some fitness apps if you invited friends for a workout the software may not have recognized that some people had been inactive for months.

The company was quick the point out that the information shared was not inconsistent with the original permissions users signed up to. However, Facebook does have some plans to try and improve the system. This is largely based around simplifying terms to make it easier to understand and run.

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Facebook is now introducing new Platform Terms and Developer Policies. This is to ensure businesses and developer more clearly understand their responsibilities. In theory, these new policies will limit the data that can be shared with third parties.

The plan is also to strengthen data security requirements. This will make it clearer as to when developers need to delete users data.

Facebook is clearly working to improve the data security of users. However, as more issues like this come to light the less users will trust the company. Facebook needs to work hard in the coming months to rebuild the trust from its users on a number of issues, not least data security.
Senior executives from Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple will each testify at a House antitrust hearing later this month. Thats according to reports citing a Twitter tweet from Recode co-founder Kara Swisher. The potentially historic hearing marks the first time the CEOs of each company will appear to testify at a single House Judiciary hearing.

Each of the companies decisions to attend the hearing was reportedly conditional, with one exception. More directly, each company  except Apple  agreed to attend only if the others were able to make it happen. And Apple CEO Tim Cook was reportedly the last to confirm his attendance.

The hearing, confirmed in an interview with US Congressional Representative David Cicilline, will include Mr. Cook, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, and Googles Sundar Pichai.

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What is this House antitrust hearing about?

The hearing serves as the final push by lawmakers in an ongoing investigation into the four companies. The investigation centers on antitrust laws. For clarity, those laws are set in place in a bid to prevent any single company from becoming too powerful. They are intended to promote vigorous competition and prevent anti-competitive practices.

Each of the four companies in question has become a hotbed of questions regarding how big theyve become. Each has, for example, business dealings as web companies. But each also has real-world physical products across a plethora of categories in the technology market.

According to Representative Cicilline, it has become clear that the markets these companies participate in are not functioning properly on the competitive front. So the goal of this probe into the companies is to examine the circumstance more closely. With the potential of formulating new antitrust rules for the modern technology industry.

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Summarily, the committee overseeing the hearing hopes to gain a better understanding of the situation, in order to formulate legislative proposals to reform and regulate the digital market. The hearing marks the final step in that probe. This will be an opportunity for the CEOs to provide the requisite insight into their respective markets. And for legislators to determine whether or not the companies are doing enough to keep everything above board.

When is this hearing happening?

After the hearing, the lawmakers will be settling in to review and compile their results. Its currently expected to happen in the last week of July. But not every CEO will necessarily appear in person. Instead, they may need to attend virtually due to still-rising figures in the global pandemic  particularly in the US.

In the meantime, this will not mark the end of trouble for any of the four companies in question. Each is also currently under investigation by the FTC and Justice Department. The former agency is investigating Amazon and Facebook. While the latter is investigating Google and Apple.

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That investigation was kicked off around the same time as the probe by the House Judiciary Committee. And, unlike the hearing, could potentially result in more direct real-world consequences when its finalized. The hearing, by contrast, is likely to result in new regulation and rules but not in any fines, fees, or punitive actions.
OnePlus recently announced that the OnePlus Nord will arrive to Europe and India, at least initially. The US was not mentioned as a launch market for the device, so we decided to reach out to the company.

OnePlus was quick to respond. The companys spokesperson said that the company is used to focusing on just a few markets first and then expanding, that has worked well for them in the past.

OnePlus will bring affordable handsets to the US, at some point in the future

She continued by saying that the OnePlus Nord will initially be available in Europe and India, but that the company is looking forward to bringing more affordable smartphones to North America in the future.

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Now, this could mean that the OnePlus Nord will arrive to the US at some point. On the other hand, it could mean that some other, future budget phone will. One thing is for sure, affordable OnePlus handsets are coming to the US, and Canada as well.

The OnePlus Nord name has been confirmed just recently. The company also confirmed that the phone will be fueled by the Snapdragon 765G, and thus support 5G.

The phone is also expected to offer two front-facing cameras, and rumored to sport four cameras on the back. An in-display fingerprint scanner will probably be included as well.

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The device will feature a flat display, and that will probably be a fullHD+ AMOLED display with 90Hz refresh rate. OnePlus promised not to release any more 60Hz smartphones, so 90Hz is expected.

The phone probably wont ship with IP certification for water and dust resistance. Wireless charging probably wont be a part of the package either. Fast charging will, though, probably 30W fast charging.

Android 10 will come pre-installed on this smartphone, along with OnePlus OxygenOS. The device will include two SIM card slots, while a 3.5mm headphone jack probably wont be included. Were only guessing, though.

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A 64-megapixel main camera is rumored for the OnePlus Nord

A 64-megapixel main camera is rumored to be included on this phone. Before that, a 48-megapixel camera has been rumored. So, it remains to be seen what will happen.

OnePlus has been hyping up this smartphones arrival for quite some time now. OnePlus even released the first part of its documentary regarding that device, a behind-the-scenes development-type documentary.

On top of everything, we do know that the device will cost less than $500. That is something the companys CEO confirmed during the aforementioned documentary.
It has been announced that Pandora will receive a dark mode as part of the Android 10 update as reported by Android Police. This makes the radio streaming app the latest of many to get the feature as part of Android 10. This process has so far been quite slow for many apps and Pandora is no different.

Some apps have implemented a dark mode relatively seamlessly and quickly. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides has had difficulties owing to the configuration of the layout of the app currently. Facebook has also taken its time to implement the highly requested feature and even now it is now rolling out to everyone.

Dark mode coming to Pandora

There are very little in the way of details on what the dark mode will look like. Pandora did not want to be part of APK Mirror which allows new updates to be viewed before they come out.

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However, it is likely that most users will be happy with the change. Dark mode is always a heavily requested feature and whatever it looks like it will impress.

However, most users have moved on from the more traditional radio station set up of Pandora. Therefore, it may not arrive to much fanfare owing to the relatively low user base.

There will still be those that enjoy Pandoras music recommendation engine so this will be a great move for them.

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Android Police is expecting the feature to roll out very slowly from the company over the coming weeks and months. However, there are no concrete details on a timescale so you will have to watch this space.

Pandora also adds offline podcast support

Dark mode is not the only new feature coming to the app, although it is the most important and exciting.

Pandora has also announced that the app will now support offline podcast support. This feature will only be available for its plus and premium users.

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However, a feature like this will be very welcomed by its users as it is something we have come to expect from other streaming apps.

Pandora has also recently launched a new Black Music Forever radio station to support black music. This was a great move from the company as part of wider initiatives to support minorities in the music business.

Hopefully, Pandora can continue to provide these updated and modern features for its user base. A dark mode and offline podcast support is a good start but more can definitely be done to improve the platform.
Samsung has launched a UV sterilizer to disinfect your smartphone, earbuds, smartwatch, a pair of sunglasses, or other similar accessories. Aptly named UV Sterilizer, this niche gadget can kill up to 99 percent of germs and bacteria on the surface of your smartphone in just about ten minutes.

The new product is a clean-looking 22.8 x 12.8 x 4.9 cm rectangular box with smooth edges and corners. It uses UV-C radiations to kill germs and bacteria on both sides of whatever you place inside.

You simply put a fitting object inside, close the lid, press the button, and wait for about ten minutes. This gadget can comfortably accommodate objects of the size of a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra.

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Samsung has also added an LED indicator to notify users that the sanitizing process has completed.

However, what makes this gadget more interesting is that it can also wirelessly charge your phone or other compatible gadgets while they are being cleaned. This rectangular box can charge all Qi standard devices wirelessly at 10W speed.

UV Sterilizer is Samsungs latest offering to help keep your phone clean

This UV Sterilizer isnt Samsungs first venture to help keep your phone clean. Back in March, when the coronavirus was just declared as a pandemic, the South Korean giant launched a free device sanitization service in several parts of the world.

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Users could simply walk into an official Samsung Service Center (where the sanitization service was available) and get their smartphones cleaned for free.

The new product essentially does the same thing, just that you can now take it home and sanitize all your pocketable electronic gadgets whenever you want. Samsung also launched a hand hygiene app for its smartwatches a couple of months back.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect mankind globally, people have become more aware of personal hygiene. Face masks, hand sanitization, and social distancing have become a norm. Our phones spend the better part of the day in our hands, so they need cleaning as well.

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Researchers say the coronavirus can survive on surfaces like glass, metal, or plastic, which make the most part of our handheld electronic gadgets, for a significant period of time. And this is why Samsung is launching a UV sterilizer to clean them.

The company is currently selling the new UV Sterilizer only in Thailand, though. The product costs 1,590 baht, which roughly converts to just over $50.

Its unclear if and when Samsung plans to bring this niche product to other markets around the world. Given the worrisome COVID-19 situation, that should happen sooner rather than later.
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Frank Buck is the author of Get Organized!: Time Management for School Leaders. "Global Gurus Top 30" named him #1 in the Time Management category for 2019 and 2020. Dr. Buck speaks throughout the United States and internationally about organization and time management. You can reach him through his website: FrankBuck.org. Follow him on Twitter @DrFrankBuck.
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(ANSA) - MILAN, JUL 2 - Italian police on Thursday arrested 14 people over suspected illegal waste trafficking in the northern region of Lombardy.

The suspected gang allegedly trafficked ferrous material abroad, police said.

Police seized some 15 million euros in assets.

The illicit traffic was "principally in scrap iron", police said.

The gang also operated in Hungary and Croatia, police said.

Some 28 people were placed under investigation in all. (ANSA).


(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 2 - Roberto Rustichelli, the head of the Italian antitrust authority, said Thursday that the fiscal polices of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland made them "authentic tax havens within the eurozone".

He told a Lower House committee that these countries conduct "aggressive fiscal practices that damage the economies of the other member States and, in part thanks to these practices, register very high growth rates".

He said that, at the moment, the EU's legislative framework has led to "a disparity in the competition conditions of the market between member States" as it allowed "fiscal and contribution dumping between countries".

Rustichelli said that, while Italy's GDP has grown 5% in the last five years, Ireland's has risen 60%, Luxembourg's 17% and the Netherlands 12% in the same period.

He said that companies moving their tax bases to other European countries was hitting Italy hard.

"Some studies estimate that, due to unfair fiscal competition at the European level, the Italian tax authorities lose the possibility to tax over 23 billion dollars of profits," he said.

"11 billion of profits are moved to moved to Luxembourg, over six billion to Ireland, 3.5 billion to the Netherlands and over two billion to Belgium.

"This leads to damage to Italy that can be estimated to amount to between five and eight billion dollars a year".

Rustichelli said that this means demands for fiscal frugality from countries such as the Netherlands should be seen in a new light.

"This situation takes on an additional problematic consequence in the case in which countries that support these unfair fiscal practices demand budget tightening from the countries they drain resources from,"he said. (ANSA).


(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 2 - Withdrawing Italy's ambassador from Cairo will not solve the case of Giulio Regeni, the Italian student tortured and murdered in Cairo in 2016, Foreign Undersecretary Manlio Di Stefano said Thursday.

Regeni's parents urged the government to pull the envoy after a videoconference between Cairo and Rome prosecutors on Wednesday again failed to register any progress on Italy's request to hand over five Egyptian security service officers.

Claudio and Paola Regeni described the latest summit as a flop and said the ambassador should be withdrawn and a planned sale of two frigates to Cairo stopped.

Di Stefano said Thursday: "I don't think that withdrawing the ambassador is a solution.

"If you pull the envoy you effectively stop dialogue, but we need to dialogue because we must have the truth on Regeni.

"Pressure can be exerted in a thousand ways, certainly not by withdrawing the ambassador...an ambassador means something, it isn't a pawn for blackmail".

Rome prosecutors said Wednesday that Egypt's chief prosecutor was still only mulling a response to their requests to quiz five intelligence service officers over the Regeni case.

Rome prosecutors had a videoconference on the case on Wednesday, after which chief prosecutor Michele Prestipino said their requests focused among other things on "the choice of domicile on the part of those probed, and on the presence and statements made by one of those probed in Kenya in August 2017", when he allegedly referred to the case.

Regeni's parents said the strategy of "cosying up" to Egypt and, among other things, offering arms sales (the two frigates) had been shown to have "failed". They called for the ambassador to Cairo to be recalled.

Wednesday's videoconference had "clearly failed," said Paola and Claudio Regeni.

The Rome prosecutors have named major Magdi Ibrahim Abdel al-Sharif, captain Osan Helmy, and three other members of the Egyptian National Security Agency as being suspected of having had a hand in Regeni's death.

Last month Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio wrote to his Egyptian counterpart reiterating Italy's demand for the truth about Regeni's death.

Cambridge doctoral researcher Regeni, 28, was found dead on February 3 2016 a week after disappearing on the Cairo metro.

He had been tortured so badly that his mother said she only recognised him by the tip of his nose.

Rome prosecutors placed the five members of Egypt's security apparatus under investigation for the murder, sparking Cairo to stop significant cooperation in the probe into the Friuli-born researcher's death.

At various times Egypt has advanced various explanations for his death including a car accident, a gay lovers' tiff and abduction and murder by an alleged kidnapping gang that was wiped out after Regeni's documents were planted in their lair.

Regeni was researching Cairo street sellers unions for the British university, a politically sensitive subject. The head of the street hawkers union had fingered Regeni as a spy.

Rome recently drew condemnation from Regeni's parents by announcing the sale of the two frigates to Egypt.

Premier Giuseppe Conte said the deal was on a separate level from cooperation on the Regeni case. (ANSA).


(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 2 - Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Thursday that it is possible that Italy will be hit by a second wave of the coronavirus.

"The scientific community does not rule it out," Speranza told RAI television.

"We hope that it does not happen but, faced with the risk, we must keep the precautionary rules, that is using masks, preventing crowds and washing hands.

"And then we we must reinforce the national health service.

"We have put more money into it in the last five months than in the last few years.

"For me, it is only the start".

. (ANSA).


(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 2 - Premier Giuseppe Conte on Thursday told the parties supporting his government that "we must all dare" as he sought to reach a deal within the executive on the so-called 'simplification decree'.

The planned package aims to streamline bureaucratic procedures to help the recovery after the coronavirus emergency and the premier has described as it as "the mother of all reforms".

But the centre-left Democratic Party is reportedly holding back on some points regarding provisional changes to the code for public contracts amid concerns this could aid corruption.

"It's time for courage," Conte said.

"Italy is not willing to take any steps backwards.

"We cannot afford to miss this date with history for Italy. We must all dare.

"We cannot accept the principle of not doing things out of fear of infiltration".

The premier also denied reports of a rift between him and PD leader Nicola Zingaretti after a meeting failed to materialize.

"We were meant to meet yesterday but we didn't manage to and so we postponed it to today," Conte said.

"I was astounded to read about a rift.

"The ruling majority is united. We work together on all fronts every day". (ANSA).




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A Saudi-led coalition has started a military operation against Yemens Houthi movement after it stepped up cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, Saudi state television reported on Wednesday.

In Yemen, Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported air strikes on the capital Sanaa, Marib, al-Jouf, al-Bayda, Hajjah and Saada provinces throughout the day and into the night.

Residents in Sanaa described the air raids as violent. Al Masirah said late on Wednesday a number of people had been injured there.

The Western-backed coalition with Saudi Arabia and UAE as the main partners has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement for five years. The coalition said earlier that there would be a news conference on the operation that aims to neutralise the Houthis military capabilities, Al-Ekhbariya channel and Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV said.

Last week, Houthi fighters fired missiles that reached the Saudi capital Riyadh in the first such assault since a six-week ceasefire prompted by the novel coronavirus epidemic expired in late May. The coalition said it intercepted the attack.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government from the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014. The Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt system.

The conflict is largely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

(REUTERS)
Qatar Airways is continuing to work closely with governments around the world to resume commercial flights in line with entry restrictions.

Qatar Airways reinstates 11 destinations. Image: Qatar Airways

The airline said it is hopeful further commercial flight restrictions will be eased throughout July, with the carrier planning to resume almost two thirds of its pre-covid19 network by the end of the month. The airline expects its number of flights to almost double in July with close to 3,500 flights scheduled, compared to just under 2,100 in June.

To ensure travellers can plan their travel with peace of mind, the airline has also extended its booking policies to offer even more choice to its passengers. The airline will allow unlimited date changes, and passengers can change their destination as often as they need if it is within 5,000 miles of the original destination. The airline will not charge any fare differences for travel completed before 31 December 2020, after which fare rules will apply. All tickets booked for travel up to 31 December 2020 will be valid for two years from the date of issuance. For full terms and conditions visit qatarairways.com/RelyOnUs.

Passengers flying Business Class on Qsuite equipped aircraft can avail of the enhanced privacy this award-winning suite provides, including sliding privacy partitions and fully closing doors that create a private sanctuary. Passengers can also opt to use the Do Not Disturb (DND) indicator in their private suite, if they wish to limit their interactions with the cabin crew. Qsuite continues to be available on flights to more than 20 destinations including London, Sydney, Singapore and Dallas Fort Worth with plans to add it to more routes throughout the summer.

Qatar Airways has further enhanced its onboard safety measures for passengers and cabin crew. The airline has introduced Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for cabin crew which includes gloves, face masks, safety glasses and a new protective gown that is fitted over their uniforms. A modified service that reduces interactions between passengers and the crew inflight has also been introduced.

Onboard, all Qatar Airways passengers are now provided with a complimentary protective kit.
Owosso, MI (48867)

Today

Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 68F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 42F. NW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Chatham, VA (24531)

Today

Mostly sunny. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 93F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
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Back in April, Ford Motor Company kicked off a partnership with Wayne State University, the Wayne State University Physician Group and ACCESS, focused on delivering mobile COVID-19 tests.

After more than two months, the coalition has tested more than 10,000 people in Michigan, and a new expansion promises to increase that number exponentially as infections surge across the country.

Ford announced this week it and its in-house business incubator, Ford X, have converted four Transit vans to mobile testing units.

One of the Transits is geared specifically toward health care workers, offering better protective equipment, drop-down workspaces and centrifuges for analyzing blood. This provides a safer and more effective environment for health care workers whose work remains so crucial amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Phillip Levy, vice president of translational sciences and clinical research innovation at WSU as well as the chief innovation officer for WSUPG, the expansion allows more local communities to take advantage of testing.

He also noted having more test sites allows the units to expand their capabilities into blood pressure screenings and HIV tests.

As a community nonprofit, we see firsthand that major health disparities exist within the most vulnerable populations. During these trying times, this project has been a heartwarming reminder of the strong bonds of humanity and what can happen when we join hands to battle even the most formidable of challenges, said ACCESS COO Lina Hourani-Harajli.

When the program launched in April, two Lincoln Navigator SUVs were used for the testing sites. Borrowed from the Lincoln Personal Driver program, the Navigators will continue to serve in the fight against COVID-19 by running equipment and supplies between the test units and laboratories.
It was back in May 2018 when Nissan officially launched the Terra for the Philippine market. While it was late to the lucrative seven-seater pickup-platform vehicle (PPV) market, it quickly built a reputation and became one of the brand's best-sellers along with the Navara pick-up truck. It then received a modest update for the 2020 model year when it was given a new nose, an upgraded infotainment system, and a revised tailgate design.

Clearly, the SUV could use a design refresh, and it looks like we won't have to wait long for that to happen. Just recently, pictures of what appeared to be the 2021 Nissan Terra made their way onto social media. Posted at a Facebook Group called 'Terra Club Thailand', the heavily-camouflaged SUV appears to be undergoing tests on public roads.

While it may be difficult to spot what Nissan exactly did to the Terra, it looks like the SUV will have a chunkier-looking exterior. Based on the pictures, the 2021 Terra will have a bigger rear bumper, a slightly larger spoiler, as well as what looks to be a bigger centerpiece for the tailgate.

The doors and fenders, on the other hand, might also come with some minor revisions since both appear to have some fake body panels attached to hide the changes. Finally, it appears that the taillights will have a different look altogether.

There are no pictures of the Terra's redesigned front fascia yet. However, we do have an idea of what it could actually look like. Last May, Nissan revealed that they will be revealing a total of 13 models in the next 18 months. Included in the teaser is a side profile of the Terra and we also got a glimpse of its refreshed face.

Based on the shady silhouette, it looks it will have a Patrol-like design with its distinct headlights, and bolder LED daytime running lights. We have yet to see the V-Motion grille, but we won't be surprised if it will have a bigger or more prominent design.

With just six months left before 2020 ends, Nissan appears to be putting out all the stops in getting the Terra for its eventual launch next year. And with the company already putting out the Rogue/X-Trail, and the Kicks, having the 2021 Terra (or 2021 Navara) out next could help with Nissan's sales figures amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Once it officially debuts, we're hoping that the PH-spec 2021 Terra and Navara could be built at Mitsubishi's plant in Laguna.
Think Suzuki SUVs, and more than likely you'll immediately think of the go-anywhere Jimny, or the Vitara B-segment crossover. Now, there's a new high-riding model that goes by the name of Across.

No, it's not a completely new model made by Suzuki themselves. It's actually a badge-engineered Toyota RAV4 that is based on the plug-in hybrid version that doles out an impressive 306 PS. But how did Suzuki managed to get the RAV4 and turned it into the Across?

The Across is actually the result of the two companies' latest agreement in which Toyota will be supplying hybrid powertrains, as well as hybrid vehicles based on the RAV4 and Corolla Wagon. Meanwhile, Suzuki will be producing two new compact cars for Toyota in India and will be based on the Ciaz and Ertiga.

Back to the Across itself, the RAV4-based crossover doesn't look too far off exterior-wise from the original Toyota. Perhaps the only major difference the Across has against the RAV4 is its slightly altered front end. It adopts a Swift-like front grille, reshaped foglight bezels, along with more elongated headlights. Other than that, the alloy wheels, black body cladding, and LED taillights of the Across still resemble the ones seen on the RAV4.

Much like the Across' exterior, the interior is practically the same as the one on the RAV4. The only difference is that it gets a Suzuki badge on the steering wheel. Beyond that, it gets similar high-tech features like the 9-inch infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, dual-zone automatic climate control, leather upholstery, and the control panel for the plug-in hybrid system.

The Across even comes with Toyota Safety Sense (TSS) which serves as the car's intelligent suite of active driver aids. These include a pre-collision system, lane tracing assist, dynamic radar cruise control, road sign assist, blind-spot monitoring, and rear-cross traffic alert.

Under the hood, the Across is powered by a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine that benefits from two electric motors. The engine alone makes 177 PS with 219 Nm of torque. Suzuki did not release the combined system output of the Across. But since this is essentially based on the RAV4 PHV sold in Japan, we're guessing it also has over 300 PS available on tap. It also has an all-electric range of 75 km, an electric E-Four AWD system, and a continuously variable transmission.

Will the Suzuki Across be sold here in markets like the Philippines? Not exactly, as Suzuki will only offer the rebadged Toyota RAV4 in Europe. With Suzuki not having a compact crossover in their lineup, the Across will serve as the automaker's contender in the segment in Europe. But with Toyota also selling the RAV4 PHEV in the European market, will there be a price war between the two brands?
Volvo Philippines is playing catch up by offering huge discounts for the Swedish midsummer month. A Swedish car brand, born and bred in the Scandinavian country that celebrates the longest day of the year through a grand fete. In celebration of this cherished Swedish tradition, Volvo PH offers up to Php 1 Million Off on select Volvo units including T8 Plug-In Hybrid variants.

This limited Swedish Midsummer offer is available on the Volvo S90 sedan, Volvo XC40 crossover, Volvo XC60 compact SUV, and the Volvo XC90 mid-size SUV. Combining the innovative powers of modern technology and the innate care for people and the environment that Volvo has, these plug-in hybrids deliver excellence in every mile.

Mixing Swedish Tradition and Technology

Giving a nod to its Swedish roots, Volvo PH gifts the local market with a sweet treat through a generous price slash on its bestselling models. More than the reduction in prices, it is the desire to share with the motoring public the advantages of driving a car that has been designed with people in mind.

The Volvo Concierge is available online through the Volvo Philippines Facebook page at www.facebook.com/volvophilippines to entertain queries and provide remote assistance to Volvo-related concerns. Alternatively, customers may also reach Volvo PH through these mobile numbers at +63 917 623 6366 (sales) or at +63 922 859 3216 (aftersales service), through email at [email protected], or the Volvo Philippines website at www.volvocars.ph.
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As an advertiser boycott of Facebook over its tolerance of hate speech continues to snowball, the company has begun making small, incremental changes to mollify activists while it tries to buy time to evolve its content policies.

Driving the news: Sources tell Axios that the product and policy changes sought by the #StopHateForProfit campaign were long under discussion both inside Facebook and with some external groups. Meanwhile, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly told employees that the boycotting advertisers will be back before long.

What were hearing: Before the boycott started, Facebook had been in touch with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), with whom Facebook and its COO Sheryl Sandberg have a longstanding relationship. The ADL often provides input on Facebooks policies, including its policies on hate speech.

Details: Facebook has been having private conversations about curbing hate speech with civil rights groups and marketing industry leaders for months.

After the company's decision in May not to remove a post from President Trump that many thought incited violence in the wake of George Floyd's death and the ensuing protests, civil rights groups criticized Zuckerberg and the company for not taking action.

The leaders then decided to go public with a boycott to pressure the tech giant to move faster.

Driving the news: In the past few days, the company has ramped up internal and external communications about the boycott.

Facebook's global sales leader Carolyn Everson has been on calls with advertisers to assure them that Facebook has been listening to their concerns about hate speech and working to come up with solutions to address them, sources tell Axios.

has been on calls with advertisers to assure them that Facebook has been listening to their concerns about hate speech and working to come up with solutions to address them, sources tell Axios. Michael Kassan, founder and CEO of the powerhouse media advisory firm MediaLink, said he's been involved in several conversations with Facebook about this issue on an ongoing basis.

founder and CEO of the powerhouse media advisory firm MediaLink, said he's been involved in several conversations with Facebook about this issue on an ongoing basis. "I think Facebook is trying," he said, "I know the effort and the intensity is real and I know the intent is right. Whether they can act fast enough remains to be seen."

he said, "I know the effort and the intensity is real and I know the intent is right. Whether they can act fast enough remains to be seen." Kassan notes that Everson's respect among marketers will help the company get through the situation, but that ultimately, brands are feeling strong public pressure to act on this issue.

among marketers will help the company get through the situation, but that ultimately, brands are feeling strong public pressure to act on this issue. "If you're a marketer and you don't participate in the boycott, you're going to get trolled in a different way," he said, noting the difficult position brands are in. He said that many marketers are "apologetic" right now towards Facebook, noting that they feel pressured to join the boycott, even if they don't normally like to negotiate that way.

in the boycott, you're going to get trolled in a different way," he said, noting the difficult position brands are in. He said that many marketers are "apologetic" right now towards Facebook, noting that they feel pressured to join the boycott, even if they don't normally like to negotiate that way. In a video town hall meeting with employees last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told staffers that he thinks the boycotts are a repetitional issue more than a revenue issue and that he expects the departed advertisers to return "soon enough," per The Information.

Facebook has taken several steps over the past few days to publicly address the controversy over its policies. By the end of June, over 400 companies, including major Fortune 500 firms like Unilever, CVS and Verizon, said they would be boycotting the brand.

On Wednesday, Nick Clegg, the company's VP of global affairs and communications, penned a post describing the company's view of its progress on eliminating hate speech on its platforms.

Nick Clegg, the company's VP of global affairs and communications, penned a post describing the company's view of its progress on eliminating hate speech on its platforms. It also posted a blog post describing the work it's doing in response to the nine recommendations outlined by the #StopHateforProfit boycott organizers, which includes the ADL, along with Color for Change, Common Sense Media and NAACP.

describing the work it's doing in response to the nine recommendations outlined by the #StopHateforProfit boycott organizers, which includes the ADL, along with Color for Change, Common Sense Media and NAACP. Facebook will meet with the boycott's organizers, as Reuters reported and a company spokesperson confirmed to Axios. That will happen Monday or Tuesday, the ADL confirmed to Reuters.

with the boycott's organizers, as Reuters reported and a company spokesperson confirmed to Axios. That will happen Monday or Tuesday, the ADL confirmed to Reuters. Last week, Zuckerberg said Facebook will begin labeling posts that break its rules but are deemed "newsworthy" because they come from public figures.

What's next: Sources say that results from the company's third civil rights audit, which addresses many of the concerns from the civil rights groups, will be announced alongside more changes to its policies in the next few weeks.
The Business Roundtable called on Congress in a statement Wednesday to pass a police reform bill before its August recess.

Why it matters: The announcement by Business Roundtable, made up of CEOs of Americas 193 largest companies, reflects the rising pressure on corporations  from values-centric employees, shareholders and customers  to take stands on controversial public issues they once would have avoided.

The big picture: The business group issued a list of recommendations as Republicans and Democrats compete over differing police reform bills.

It recommends that Congress invest in community policing programs and creates a national police misconduct registry to catalog officer disciplinary records, which it believes will promote public accountability.

It also backs establishing a minimum national standard on the use of lethal and non-lethal force, banning chokeholds and carotid holds  except when deadly force is warranted  and creating higher standards for the use of no-knock warrants.

What they're saying: Corporate America cannot sit this one out, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement. "CEOs are leaning forward and saying 'We have a problem.' You cannot watch the George Floyd video and say 'we don't have a problem.'"

"There's a national outcry for reform. With these policy recommendations as a starting point for possible bipartisan consensus, we call on all Members of Congress to act in urgency and get something done and signed into law before August."

Go deeper: The major police reforms that have been enacted since George Floyd's death
The number of coronavirus cases increased in the vast majority of states over the last week, and decreased in only two states plus the District of Columbia.

Why it matters: This is a grim reminder that no part of the United States is safe from the virus. If states fail to contain their outbreaks, they could soon face exponential spread and overwhelmed health systems.

Flashback: A month and a half ago, shortly after states began reopening, cases were decreasing or holding steady in most states. The rapid spread of the virus since then shows how quickly the state of the pandemic can change.

Florida, for example, saw cases decline by 14% between May 4 and May 11. This week, cases increased by 109%.

The big picture: States continue to set new records for their number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations on a regular basis.

Officials in Los Angeles County have warned that hospitals could run out of beds in two to three weeks, the L.A. Times reported.

Just yesterday, Texas, Arizona and Georgia reported record-high case numbers.

Between the lines: Axios uses a rolling seven-day average to minimize the effects of any abnormalities in how and when new cases are reported.

Some states saw large increases in testing over the last week, which could account for the growth in cases. But in 36 states, case growth exceeded testing growth, meaning that the spike in cases generally isn't due to increased testing.

In Washington, for example, testing increased by 92% over the last week while cases increased by only 33%.

But in Florida, testing increased by only 69%. In California, testing increased by 20% and cases increased by 35%, and in Tennessee, testing increased by 32% and cases by 61%.

by 32% and cases by 61%. In a handful of states, including Oregon, Arkansas and Louisiana, testing actually decreased.

What we're watching: Hospitalizations are rising nationally, but the death rate continues to decline. That's at least partially because younger people are getting infected at high rates, but they can easily spread the virus to more vulnerable family members or coworkers.

Governors in some of the hardest-hit states have taken nominal steps to control the pandemic, like closing bars.

But these states' public health infrastructures  like their testing capabilities  are quickly becoming overwhelmed, and there's no reason to think that as people continue to interact with one another, their hospitals aren't at risk of getting overwhelmed too.

The bottom line: The United States initially avoided the nightmare scenario of coronavirus patients dying untreated in hospital hallways  but this scenario is no longer out of the question.
Tomorrow's high-profile hearing in the Foreign Affairs Committee's investigation into the firing of State Department inspector general Steve Linick was postponed late on Wednesday by Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.).

Why it matters: Brian Bulatao, a top State Department official and close confidante of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's, has emerged as a central figure in Linick's removal. The agency watchdog was removed at Pompeo's request.

Linick says Bulatao was the one who called him to inform him of the news of his night firing.

What he's saying: Engel said in a statement that Bulatao asked him on Wednesday afternoon to delay Thursday's hearing, in light of the agency receiving its IG report on the Trump administration pushing through the sale of $8 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.

Bulatao said delaying the hearing would allow the department to make an "expedited review" of the IG report, per Engel's statement.

Engel added that Bulatao requested the committee defer depositions with other witnesses until after his testimony, which Engel declined to do.

Catch up quick: Linick testified to lawmakers in June that he was conducting a probe into the administration's efforts to circumvent Congress to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia when Pompeo recommended that Trump fire him. The probe personally involved Pompeo, according to Linick.

Pompeo has called the claims leveled against him "unsubstantiated" and claimed that he didn't know about Linick's other ongoing investigation into the secretary of state's alleged misuse of staff.

Pompeo told the Washington Post in May: The president obviously has the right to have an inspector general. Just like every presidentially confirmed position, I can terminate them. They serve at his pleasure for any reason or no reason.

What's next: The committee will continue to review documents and interview witnesses, and "Bulatao will appear at a hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee later in July," Engel wrote in his statement.

Go deeper: Pompeo says he wasn't aware ousted inspector general was investigating him
The injunction on a memoir about President Trump written by his niece was lifted on Wednesday by a judge in New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division, Second Department.

Driving the news: The judge ruled that publisher Simon & Schuster did not seem to be bound by the confidentiality agreement signed by Mary Trump, author, of the book "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man," which was due for release on July 28. However, Justice Alan Scheinkman upheld the restraining order against the president's niece.

What they're saying: "While Ms. Trump unquestionably possesses the same First Amendment expressive rights belonging to all Americans, she also possesses the right to enter into contracts, including the right to contract away her First Amendment rights, the judge said.

"Unlike Ms. Trump, Simon & Schuster has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights."

The big picture: The president's younger brother Robert Trump filed a lawsuit against their niece, who's the daughter of their deceased elder brother Fred Trump Jr., over the tell-all book.

The president told Axios' Jonathan Swan last month that Mary Trump was "not allowed to write a book" because of the non-disclosure agreement she signed.

A New York judge issued an injunction temporarily blocking publication of the memoir on Tuesday.

What's next: Mary Trumps attorney Ted Boutrous tweeted that he would file a brief in the trial court on Thursday explaining why the order against her "must be vacated."

Go deeper: Trump says niece "not allowed" to write book because of nondisclosure agreement

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
Armenias Court of Appeals adjourned on Thursday the first hearing on the pre-trial arrest of Gagik Tsarukian, the indicted leader of the main opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), sought by prosecutors.

The district court in Yerevan refused on June 21 to sanction Tsarukians arrest on vote buying charges rejected by him as politically motivated. Both the prosecutors and Tsarukians lawyers appealed against that decision. The lawyers objected to the courts conclusion that investigators have grounds to suspect that the BHK leader handed out vote bribes during parliamentary elections held in 2017.

One of Tsarukians lawyers, Emin Khachatrian, said the Court of Appeals rescheduled the hearing for July 7 because it has not yet received all petitions and other documents which the litigants sent to it by post.

The prosecutors kept pressing for Tsarukians arrest even after it emerged on Tuesday that he has been infected with the coronavirus. According to Khachatrian, Tsarukian stays mostly at home while visiting a Yerevan hospital for treatment on a daily basis.

The National Security Service (NSS) says that Tsarukian created and led an organized group that bought more than 17,000 votes for the BHK during the 2017 elections. It claims to have collected documents showing that a BHK candidate, Vazgen Poghosian, distributed vote bribes to residents of the Gegharkunik province. The NSS also says that Poghosian has given incriminating testimony against Tsarukian.

Khachatrian told RFE/RLs Armenian service that Tsarukian and Poghosian were brought face to face and interrogated by the NSS recently. He said the joint interrogation only reinforced the defense lawyers belief that the criminal case against their client is baseless. But he did not give any details.

Tsarukian, who is one of the countrys wealthiest persons, and his party maintain that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian ordered the criminal proceedings in response to the BHK leaders June 5 calls for the governments resignation. Pashinian and law-enforcement authorities deny that the case is politically motivated.
By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani actors and directors are invited to take part in distance education programs conducted by the Russian Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS) with the support of the Russkiy Mir Foundation.

The Russian Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS) has prepared a cycle of education programs for professional actors, directors, and university professors from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Uzbekistan.

The main goal of the project is to promote the traditions of the Russian theater school, strengthen cultural ties between the theater communities.

The Russian Institute of Theater Arts provides a wide range of educational programs on acting, speech and stage technique.

The programs will be held in July at GITIS Center for Continuing Education within the framework of the project "Culture".

The programs will involve GITIS's best teaching staff who is going to train about 300 people in a month.

All participants will receive a certificate in the end of distance education.

Applications are accepted until July 12.

For more information, please visit, GITIS's official website.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
But a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission lays out a number of circumstances  from other major shareholders teaming up to someone making an offer to buy Tribune Publishing  that would terminate the agreement and allow Alden to buy more shares.
By Akbar Mammadov

The Board of the Union of Azerbaijani Cinematographers has sent a letter of protest to French Ambassador France Zacharie Gross and the leadership of the Cannes International Film Festival over a film presented to the festival.

The film in question includes events taking place in the Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territories and serves to strengthen the feeling of hostility towards our country and people, the unions press service Ali Valiyev told Azertag on July 1.

The film Should the wind fall (Si Le Vent Tombe) has been made by th Armenian director Nora Martirosyan.

Valiyev also noted that the film will be shown in Venice, New York, Deauville, Toronto, San Sebastian, Angouleme, Busan and Lyon.

Createros of this film do not want to hide their intention to expand the scope of the film to further inflame hostility between peoples and to increase hatred against Azerbaijan and our people, who long to return to their native lands, Valiyev said.

He stressed that in this regard, the Union of Cinematographers will do everything possible to prevent the screening of the film at the Cannes Film Festival, which aims to impose the notorious ideological intentions of the so-called regime, that is not recognized by the international community, the UN and international organizations, on the French public and citizens of other countries.

Earlier, on June 12, the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan also protested the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival over the film screened by Armenia in occupied Karabakh.

It should be noted that the Khojaly airport featured in the film was first put into operation in Azerbaijan's same-named city occupied by Armenia on 26 February 1992. As a result of the occupation, the airport stopped its operation for air communication.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
President Ilham Aliyev has shared a post in his Facebook page on the national police day celebrated in the country today.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan's first police bodies were established in 1918.
By Ayya Lmahamad

President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated his counterpart Vladimir Putin on the outcome of the referendum in which the vast majority of Russian citizens endorsed amendments to the Constitution.

During the telephone conversation on July 2, Aliyev described the constitutional amendments in Russia an important event in the social and political life of Russia and another manifestation of Russian peoples support for policies pursued by President Putin.

Moreover, Aliyev expressed confidence that these amendments to the Constitution will make a significant contribution to further development, prosperity and further strengthening of social and political stability in the Russian Federation.

Additionally, during the telephone conversation, issues related to the further development of strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Russia were discussed.

On his turn, Putin thanked the Azerbaijani president for his attention and congratulations.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov has attended an international conference on "Global Energy and International Political Risks" held by the Valdai International Discussion Club and Azerbaijans Center of Analysis of International Relations on July 2-3.

The agenda of the forum includes the development of energy in the world and the main international political risks for the energy sector.

Within the framework of the conference, a new report of the Valdai Club Political risks for world energy: from resource nationalism to molecules of freedom and climate weapons will be presented.

The conference, held in cooperation with Azerbaijani partners, is a logical and natural continuation of President Ilham Aliyev's participation in the annual conference of the Valdai Club in 2019. President Aliyev addressed the plenary session of the conference together with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the leaders of the Philippines, Kazakhstan and the King of Jordan. Azerbaijan International Relations Analysis Center (AIR Center) is a partner of Valday Club. The purpose of this centre, established in 2019, is to prepare documents and recommendations on strategic issues in international relations, said the club.

The work of the participants on the first day of the conference (July 2, 10:00 - 13:25) has been fully open to the media.

The expert session "World Energy in the Context of Transformation of the World Order" will be dedicated to the impact of global political movements on the world energy sector.

The key question is: when exactly the transformation of the peacekeeping regime can move into a regime of acute crisis and what can be done to reduce the pressure on the energy sector and the world economy as a whole? the club asks.

The July 3 conference will be held in a closed format according to the Chatham House rules with the participation of senior representatives from Russia and Azerbaijan.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijan is committed to its OPEC+ obligations and will continue to play an active role in the modern global energy system, Azerbaijans Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said in an international conference on "Global Energy and International Political Risks" on July 2.

Speaking about the conditions of instability, uncertainty and complexity in the global energy sector, the minister noted that the countries should be more open to cooperation and innovation both at the national and global levels.

Commenting on instability in the world oil markets, Shahbazov said: "I believe that in this emergency situation, the main mission of the oil-producing countries is to ensure the consistent operation of the OPEC plus format as a sustainable and effective mechanism for fulfilling the commitments made. Stability in the oil market meets the interests of all market participants, and in this regard, I consider it important to further expand the OPEC plus format by attracting other large oil manufacturers. As for the fulfilment of commitments, I believe that the three-month performance of OPEC plus countries, including July, will become the basis for the next steps. Azerbaijan is committed to its obligations and will continue its active role in the modern global energy system.

He emphasized that joint efforts will enable to turn the problems of the unstable energy system into opportunities and achieve positive results in solving actual issues of global energy by responding quickly to ongoing changes.

The minister noted the return to the regulatory mechanism in the OPEC plus format and the adoption of a historic decision in April as one of the first steps in this direction.

He stated that the OPEC plus agreement is currently the only tool to support the market. However, the recession in the global economy and the prolongation of limited economic activity are putting serious pressure on demand. Global daily oil demand fell by 6.4 million barrels in the first quarter, in the second quarter this figure is estimated at over 17 million barrels. The downward trend is expected to weaken in the second half of the year. However, unfortunately, given the environment of uncertainty, it is impossible to say with certainty that demand will fully recover in the near future.

Shahbazov linked Azerbaijan's current position as an energy country with the achievements of the oil strategy, which is the consequence of the resolute will of national leader Heydar Aliyev during the years of independence. Besides, he noted that with energy projects, the energy policy pursued under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev contributes to energy security and intercontinental integration, prosperity, an environment of cooperation based on the principle of mutual benefit between states.

Emphasizing the importance of the Southern Gas Corridor as a contribution of this policy, the minister said that the last segment of the Southern Gas Corridor, the TAP which will supply gas to Europe, is nearing completion despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic.

The Southern Gas Corridor is planned to be fully operational by the end of this year, during the difficult period of the energy sector. The Southern Gas Corridor is a project that promotes the development of the country's gas sector and the establishment of industrial enterprises with increased gas production and ensures sustainable development, noted Shahbazov.

The minister highlighted the fact that gas production in the country is expected to reach 38.2 billion cubic meters (b.c.m) this year and 44.5 billion cubic meters in 2022.

Furthermore, Shahbazov spoke about the process of accelerating energy transformation due to the pandemic. In this regard, he also noted the steps taken to make a breakthrough in the development of renewable energy in the country, as part of the reform process in the energy sector.

"As a positive result of negotiations with international energy companies, without waiting for the adoption of the law, we launched pilot projects with a capacity of 240 MW of wind and 200 MW of solar energy. Preparations are underway to create approximately 1,000 MW of additional capacity to increase the share of renewable energy sources in the country by 30 per cent by 2030," added Shahbazov.

Furthermore, the minister touched upon the role of cooperation with Russia in the development of relations between the two countries.

Shahbazov underlined that Russian companies have invested $4 billion in Azerbaijan's energy sector as of April 1. Currently, LUKoil is involved in projects related to the Azerbaijani fuel and energy complex. At the same time, Rosneft and Gazprom are expected to join the cooperation.

The minister also noted that Azerbaijan and Russia also actively cooperate in the field of oil transit.

In January-May this year, 990,000 tons of Russian oil was transited via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. During that period, SOCAR exported 33,000 tons of petrochemical products to Russia. Some 53,000 tons of petrochemical products were imported to Azerbaijan from Russia, said Shahbazov.

He stressed that a memorandum on energy cooperation is currently being worked on.

It should be noted that the conference is held by the Valdai International Discussion Club and Azerbaijans Center of Analysis of International Relations on July 2-3.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Energy Ministry and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) have agreed to implement joint projects on the development of the countrys bioenergy map, the ministry reported on July 2.

The topic was discussed during the meeting held between the ministrys department head Zaur Mammadov and Director-General of IRENA Francesco La Camera.

The sides also discussed the project on conducting wind energy measurements for auctions and collecting data on wind indicators in accordance with internationally accepted standards.

During the meeting, Mammadov spoke about the prospects of development of renewable energy sources in Azerbaijan, the work done and current projects in this area. He noted that the draft law on the use of renewable energy sources in the production of electricity" has been submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers and agreed upon with the relevant agencies.

Furthermore, Mammadov emphasized that Azerbaijan is preparing to organize auctions on renewable energy projects.

In his turn, La Camera touched upon the long-term fruitful cooperation between the IRENA and Azerbaijan.

He also spoke about IRENA's partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to accelerate the transition to low-carbon energy and achieve sustainable development. In this regard, La Camera highlighted the prospects for expanding relations with Azerbaijan in the framework of this cooperation.

Discussing the joint projects and further issues, the sides expressed their confidence that the cooperation between Azerbaijans Energy Ministry and IRENA is highly appreciated and that cooperation will also continue successfully in the future.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Trend

Georgia imported 248.7 tons of medicaments in measured dose, totaling $19.9 million from Turkey from January through May 2020, Trend reports referring to National Statistics Office (Geostat).

On an annualized basis, Georgia decreased the medicaments' import from Turkey by 369.8 tons.

Over the same period last year, 618.5 tons of medicaments put up in measured doses were imported by Georgia from Turkey for a total amount of $39 million.

Turkey ranked first in Georgias commodity circulation in the reporting period.

From January through May 2020, total imports from Turkey to Georgia amounted to $478.8 million. In turn, Georgia exported goods worth $81.7 million to Turkey.

The foreign trade turnover of Georgia with Turkey in the reporting period exceeded $560.5 million, which is 13.3 percent of Georgia's total trade turnover.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - Governor Ducey and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs have invested $9 million in CARES Act funding to AZVoteSafe initiative to support safe and secure voting statewide.

Majority of the funds will be going to county election officials to help them hire temporary staff and increase curbside voting on election day along with early voting and purchasing PPE items to keep voters and poll workers safe due to the need following the coronavirus pandemic.

Voting is a fundamental right and duty in our democracy, said Governor Ducey. Were working together to ensure all voters can exercise their right to vote safely this election. My thanks to Secretary Hobbs, election departments across the state and everyone working to make sure Arizonans can cast their ballots safely this year.

In partnership with @SecretaryHobbs, Arizona is investing $9 million in CARES Act funding to support safe and secure voting this election. #AZVoteSafe 1/ pic.twitter.com/jRRt7MEImI  Doug Ducey (@dougducey) July 2, 2020

County records and election departments throughout the state will receive the following according to a press release:

19,00 reusable face masks for election workers

160,000 disposable face masks for voters

10,000 face shields for election workers

175,000 pairs of gloves

3,200 gallons of hand sanitizer

2,400 bottles of disinfectant spray

10,000 disposable pens

"From the start weve said that Arizonans should not have to choose between their health and their right to vote," said Secretary Hobbs. "With support from election experts and the Governor's Office, we are going to make sure voters here dont have to make that choice.

We are announcing #AZVoteSafe today  a plan that invests $9 million in CARES Act Funding to keep voting safe and secure in Arizona during the 2020 election season. READ MORE: https://t.co/RA0Vo4RbxM 1/3 pic.twitter.com/RNV7UY9LRZ  Secretary Katie Hobbs (@SecretaryHobbs) July 2, 2020
BUCKEYE, Ariz. (3TV/CBS 5)  Five inmates who were moved from Perryville Prison to Hickman's Family Farms in Buckeye have tested positive for COVID-19, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry confirmed.

According to ADCRR spokesman Bill Lamoreaux, one of the women was taken back to Perryville after she showed symptoms of the disease. She tested positive and has been isolated.

Lamoreaux said all of the inmates at Hickman's were tested after that. Four came back positive. "The inmates who tested positive are now also isolated at Perryville and are being medically monitored," he said in an email response to questions from Arizona's Family.

The inmates at Hickman's were retested earlier this week, Lamoreaux said. "Each inmate at Hickman's has been given two masks and will continue to undergo regular medical monitoring," he said.

It was late March that ADCRR confirmed that it was moving about 140 minimum-security inmates from its prison complex in Perryville to Hickman's with plans for them to stay and work there during the health emergency. The idea was to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus at the prison.

"It really is a concern for us controlling the spread of infectious disease. Inmates entering and exiting our facilities are primary concern," said ADCRR Director David Shinn said at the time. "This gives us the ability to permanently deploy this crew of 139 female inmates."
TEMPE, AZ (3TV/CBS5) -- With the governor's new orders issued Monday, police officers around Arizona once again had to quickly learn what their role is in all this.

"I've been with Tempe Police Department for 16 years, and I don't recall a time where we've had such a health scare and such a real public health issue occurring that laws and proclamations are changing everyday, new ones are coming out, so we're just adapting," said Detective Greg Bacon.

The Tempe Police Department has attorneys look over orders as soon as they're announced. "They collaborate, they review the order, and then they provide a direction, so to speak, for the police department," said Bacon.

Arizona to close bars, gyms, theaters again; delay start of school Governor Doug Ducey and state leaders announced pushing back the opening of schools in Arizona in the fall due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

That direction goes down the chain of command, so officers know how to educate businesses and their customers. "Proclamations have been ongoing with COVID since March, so I think we're in that mindset now of how to do it a little more efficiently, a little more quicker and get the info to the officers, so they're prepared to handle it," said Bacon.

He said the department Some of the businesses just don't know the rules. "Some of the bars and restaurants, that can get confusing because of the different licenses and everything, so making sure they understand the license they were issued, are they allowed to stay open?" said Bacon.

The Phoenix Police Department said it writes up training paperwork after reviewing orders.

"It's a challenge," said Mercedes Fortune with Phoenix Police Department. "It's a challenge for us. It's a challenge for our community. There are so many different things that change and a lot of questions from those, so we want to make sure we facilitate that info."

Supervisors brief officers, and they pass out informational fliers to businesses. The department is also very focused on taking an educational approach. "We provided an internal message to our employees, so they're aware of the changes, and there's also conversations and briefings that happen by supervisors," said Mercedes Fortune with Phoenix Police Department.

She said a precinct commander has to approve any citations before they are written. Tempe also requires supervisor approval before a citation can be given. Wednesday, both departments said they had not given any citations following Ducey's new orders on Monday.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe economic impact on hospitals and health systems throughout the United States, and AMITA Health is no different, Nelson said. We have supported all our associates in many ways throughout the pandemic, including pay continuance and temporary premium pay for our frontline workers most affected, but like other health systems we have had to make some difficult decisions.
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS5) -- It's an idea that many teachers and students support: start off the new school year with online classes, as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb across the state.

Kathy Hoffman is Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction. "The governor made the decision to close bars, close gyms, so how can we open schools if we're not able to have some of our other businesses open?" asked Hoffman.

Hoffman agrees with Gov. Doug Ducey's decision this week to push back the start of the school year to August 17 for in-person learning.

School districts do have the choice to start online classes sooner, and Hoffman is all for it."We don't know what this is going to look like in July and August, so I do encourage that as schools get started as soon as possible," said Hoffman. "We just cant keep delaying the beginning of school year. We want to get back going again. I think there is a way to do that effectively."

Digital learning, however, is not a simple solution for all Arizona students. A new study by Common Sense Media and the Boston Consulting group shows that 29-percent of Arizona students don't have access to the Internet. That's more than 335,000 students.

Ilana Lowery with Common Sense Media said the digital divide in Arizona is greater than many realize, forcing many low income students to delay the start of their education this year, while other kids are getting a head start.

"Fifty-six percent of the students who lack access to the Internet are black, Latino and Native American," said Lowery. "Now, if you look around Arizona, those are some huge populations that are not going to be prepared, with students not going to be provided the opportunity to be successful, the way other areas are going to be."

State educators have created a task force to address the digital divide, and find ways to get Internet access to all students across the state.
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS5) -- As the Fourth of July weekend approaches, it's time to think about how your four-legged friends might react to fireworks.

Fireworks can be magical, with bright colors that light up the night sky. But the loud booms that come along with them can be terrifying for your pets.

Those are very, very scary for the dogs," said Dr. Melissa Thompson, Vice President of Medical Operations at the Arizona Humane Society. Dr. Thompson suggests keeping pets inside and making sure that all gates are secure, latched and locked.

But just in case your pet does slip out the door, you will want to make sure they have a collar with your contact information on it. "Even better yet, if you can go and get them micro-chipped," said Dr. Thompson.

While your pet is inside, you can turn on your TV, turn on some music or use a white noise machine to try to drown out the noise of the fireworks outside. You can also wrap up your pet in a Thundershirt; the wrap feels like a warm hug to them. Like swaddling an infant, ThunderShirt applies a gentle, constant pressure to your dog or cats torso.

Though it might sound extreme, you could also consider medicating your pet. "If your dog is one that reacts strongly to those things, make sure to talk with your vet to see if there are medications you can give your pet," said Dr. Thompson. Medication could keep your pets calm and help them sleep so they are not disturbed by the fireworks.
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - The Phoenix City Council took a major step on Wednesday to rename two street names that many have called offensive and derogatory.

Council members unanimously approved to start the process of changing the names of Squaw Peak Drive and Robert E. Lee Street. The vote comes after Mayor Kate Gallego and Councilwoman Thelda Williams sent out a memo last month saying the street names should be called something else.

Phoenix mayor wants to change 'offensive' names of two Valley streets Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego wants to change the "offensive" names of two streets in Phoenix.

"To me, this is low-hanging fruit and something we should have done a long time ago and I'm glad we're doing it now," Councilman Carlos Garcia said.

Robert E. Lee was a commander in the Confederate Army. There has been a recent push following the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody to take down Confederate monuments and change the names of things named after those linked to the Confederacy. Robert E. Street runs east and west from 40th Street until it curves into 52nd Street just south of Union Hills Drive. Councilman Jim Waring said the street was changed to Robert E. Lee Street in 1961, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

"With the timing and the name it has, it's hard to believe somebody wasn't trying to send a message and clearly not a positive message and that offends me greatly," said Waring. "This isn't some history thing. This is a surface street in Phoenix."

The options the council is considering changing the street name to are Freedom Street and Justice Street.

"It is so disrespectful and hurtful and as we've heard from folks on the call traumatic to have these names on the streets and I acknowledge it's going to be tough for the neighbors and I hope we can support them," said Garcia.

"Squaw" in Squaw Peak Drive degrades Native American women. Squaw Peak was the original name of the Phoenix Mountains' second-highest point but was changed to Piestewa Peak in 2003. The peak was named in honor of Army Spc. Lori Piestewa, who was the first known Native American woman to die while fighting in the U.S. military. She was also the first female soldier to be killed in action in the Iraq War. Squaw Peak Drive runs from Lincoln Drive up to Piestewa Peak. Possible new names for that street include Peak Drive and Piestewa Peak Drive.

There are concerns about how much it's going to cost and how much time homeowners will need to follow through on the change.

"I know the list is long. You have to change every legal document that you have but I think it's worth hearing and moving forward on," Williams said.

The council approval means the City will hold four virtual public meetings, two for each street, to get feedback from the community. The dates for those meetings haven't been set yet.

"It feels great that this is a unanimous vote and look forward to important dialogue with our community and residents," said Gallego.

+5 Phoenix votes to change offensive street names Phoenix leaders can now rename streets they find offensive without the approval of the home and business owners who live on those roads.

In 2017, then-Mayor Greg Stanton also made an effort to change those same two street names. At the time, the council approved the move but the changes didn't go through.
Ghislaine Maxwell has been accused by multiple women of recruiting them when they were underage and grooming them for sex with Epstein and other powerful men
Titled Edith Farnsworths Country House and part of a larger reexamination of Farnsworths role that will be on display at the house and its visitors complex through December 2021, the exhibit also was shaped by veteran Chicago interior designer Robert Kleinschmidt and Nora Wendl, who teaches architecture at the University of New Mexico and is an expert on Edith Farnsworth. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has owned the home since 2003 and runs it has as a house museum, deserves credit for cooperating with this provocative endeavor.
Another toasty day ahead in Phoenix! Temps are set to climb to 109 later this afternoon. Dew points are up in southern Arizona, so it may feel a bit more humid out there.
I didnt shed a tear when statues of the Confederacys President Jefferson Davis or leading slavery defender John C. Calhoun, a two-time vice president of the United States, were toppled. Call me old-fashioned, but I think we should be civilized enough in this country to find new homes for our old artifacts from a misbegotten time without unlawfully destroying property.
Bluefield, WV (24701)

Today

Mixed clouds and sun with scattered thunderstorms. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 81F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening, then cloudy with rain likely late. Low near 60F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
ASEAN, Chinese senior officials meet online

The 26th ASEAN-China Senior Officials' Consultation (ACSOC) was held in the form of video conference on July 1.









Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung. (Photo: VNA)

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of ASEAN SOM of Vietnam, represented the country in the role of the ASEAN Chair 2020 at the event.



Chen Xiaodong, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, head of ASEAN SOM of China, highly appreciated the active response of ASEAN in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.



Recalling that China has actively promoted cooperation with ASEAN countries in response to the pandemic since the early days, the official affirmed that China would continue boosting cooperation with ASEAN in sharing information, experience, production and distribution of vaccines and drugs against COVID-19.



He went on that many specific initiatives have been proposed by the Chinese side such as the use of the ASEAN-China cooperation fund to support collaborative response activities, the organisation of the ASEAN-China forum on health cooperation, and the establishment of safe corridors between China and ASEAN countries.



China proposes to soon establish the ASEAN-China ministerial meeting on disaster response and coordination to promote economic corridors in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), while identifying the theme of cooperation in 2021 as the Year of ASEAN-China cooperation development, and upgrading the ASEAN - China strategic partnership to a comprehensive strategic partnership on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of ASEAN-China relations in 2021.



ASEAN countries affirmed that China has always been one of the blocs leading partners and the largest trading partner, playing an important role in maintaining peace, stability and cooperation in the region.



They welcomed China's efforts in disease control and maintenance of stability and socio-economic development, and appreciated China's active support for ASEAN initiatives on the COVID-19 response fund and regional emergency medical supplies reserve.

The two sides agreed to together curb the spread of the pandemic and, at the same time, step by step recover economic and trade activities in the new normal context. They will continue completing the development of the ASEAN-China Plan of Action for the 2021  2025 period to outline priorities for cooperation in the new circumstance.



Both ASEAN and China demonstrated strong determination to sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) this year and effectively execute the Protocol to Amend the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA), thus showing strong commitment to free and open multilateral trade.



They reaffirmed their commitments to promoting dialogue, cooperation and trust building in order to ensure peace and stability in the region, including matters in the East Sea, while fully and seriously implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties on the East Sea (DOC) and soon resuming negotiations on the Code of Conduct on the East Sea (COC).



As the ASEAN Chair this year, Deputy Minister Dung said ASEAN has demonstrated the highest political will in fostering joint actions and common response in line with the ASEAN theme Cohesive and Responsive this year.



ASEAN and China, as strategic partners, should further strengthen concerted efforts to effectively respond to the pandemic and beef up cooperation to minimise its social and economic impact, towards sustainable recovery, he said, adding the two sides must also continue bolstering the implementation of the agreements reached by their leaders.



Speaking of conventional and non-conventional emerging security challenges in the region, Dung said ASEAN has adopted a comprehensive approach for security issues as complex developments have been seen in the region.



Dialogue, cooperation, trust building and mutual acceptance of standards play a key role in addressing all these security challenges, he continued. ASEAN and China should step up partnership in capacity building to actively tackle non-conventional security challenges, he stressed, adding that they also need to promote mutual trust and respect for each other, adhere to international laws, practice self-restraint and peacefully settle disputes and differences.



He went on to say that ASEAN will continue working closely with China to fully and effectively implement DOC and build COC in line with international laws, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Lightfoot threw Brown under the bus just two weeks on the job. Undercutting her new police superintendent in front of his troops was a bad move. I hear hes disgusted. A few days ago, she also threw former police Superintendent Eddie Johnson under the bus, releasing that old video of Eddie sleeping in his car. It changed the subject for a news cycle. But Black cops liked Eddie. He was one of them. She did herself no favors.
DHS Announces New Task Force to Protect American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues

Press Release:



WASHINGTON Today, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad F. Wolf, announced the establishment of the DHS Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT), a special task force to coordinate Departmental law enforcement agency assets in protecting our nation's historic monuments, memorials, statues, and federal facilities.



"DHS is answering the President's call to use our law enforcement personnel across the country to protect our historic landmarks," said Acting Secretary Wolf. "We won't stand idly by while violent anarchists and rioters seek not only to vandalize and destroy the symbols of our nation, but to disrupt law and order and sow chaos in our communities."



On June 26th, President Trump issued an Executive Order to ensure that our historic monuments and statues will be protected. The Order, "Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Activity," directs DHS, within its statutory authority, to provide personnel to assist with the protection of federal monuments, memorials, statues, or property.



As a result, DHS created the PACT, which will conduct ongoing assessments of potential civil unrest or destruction and allocate resources to protect people and property. This may involve potential surge activity to ensure the continuing protection of critical locations. DHS's Office of Operations Coordination will also partner closely with the Departments of Justice and Interior to establish information and intelligence sharing.



"As we approach the July 4th holiday, I have directed the deployment and pre-positioning of Rapid Deployment Teams (RDT) across the country to respond to potential threats to facilities and property," said Acting Secretary Wolf. "While the Department respects every American's right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated."


Lamar State College Orange and Lamar State College Port Arthur will slow plans to reopen campuses as the numbers of coronavirus in Southeast Texas continue to rise.

Lamar State College Orange will now stay in Phase II for an additional two weeks instead of moving forward with Phase III on July 6, college spokesperson Amy Moore said in a statement. Phase III is now expected to begin July 20 and campus will then open regular hours, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Starting July 6, LSCO will require face-coverings starting, with masks available for those that do not have their own.

We are proud of our Gator communitys efforts to fight this virus; however, we feel we need to do more, Moore said in the statement.

Phase III will see extended hours, more access to the public and less restrictions on gatherings. The full plans are available on the colleges website.

Lamar State College Port Arthur, which currently requires face coverings in accordance with a local mask order, also will delay their next phase.

We are also pausing at Phase II of our reopening plan because of the significant rise in cases over the past week or so, LSCPA spokesperson Gerry Dickert told The Enterprise in a statement. We had planned for all employees to begin a traditional work schedule in July but we are delaying the implementation of Phase III and the reopening of the campus until Monday, July 20.

Current guidelines have LSCPA campuses open to the public Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m with staff working from their offices until 5 p.m.

Eligible employees, with supervisory approval may design a flex schedule that will allow them to work from home, Dickert said. Although faculty will teach courses online, some limited technical courses will meet on campus.

Lamar University announced a similar delay at the end of June, opting to delay opening until July 13. But LU President Ken Evans said the university still plans on holding classes on campus in the fall.

Right now, we are operating on the assumption that we will hold classes on campus, and online, Evans said in the address. As we focus on classes this fall semester we are taking into account what the governor tells us, what we can do, and looking at the actions of other universities in the state.

As of July 2, Lamar University has confirmed 20 confirmed cases of the virus, LSCO has confirmed nine confirmed cases and LSCPA has had one case, according to officials.

isaac.windes@hearstnp.com

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Then Rice called and explained, in a patient and genial way, how frustrating this urban legend has been for her. She recounted her thinking, assured me that colleagues from the Brookings Institution, where she worked at the time, would back her up, and said, with a laugh, Ill swear on a stack of Bibles! Unsure what to think, and with the deadline for the Tribunes print edition looming, I deleted the reference.
As the Fourth of July weekend approaches, San Antonio officials are urging residents to stay home and limit gatherings.

Coastal communities from Corpus Christi to South Padre Island have limited access to beaches. The advisories and restrictions come as coronavirus cases spike in Texas.

The officials' efforts may be helped by the high bacteria counts at some beaches reported by the Texas General Land Office's Beach Watch program.

On ExpressNews.com: 'An extremely dangerous time' - Bexar County reports 1,268 new coronavirus cases

Beach Watch monitors Texas' recreational beaches for Enterococcus bacteria, also known as fecal matter. Water samples at approximately 61 beaches along the coast are collected and analyzed weekly.

The bacteria can come from a variety of sources, the program says, including sewage systems, stormwater runoff, boating waste, humans, livestock and wildlife. Elevated levels are associated with runoff after rainfall.

The program does not monitor for the Vibrio vulnificus bacteria - "flesh-eating bacteria" - which can be found naturally in salt water around the world.

This week, Beach Watch found several locations near Corpus Christi reporting high levels.

Continue scrolling to see the fecal matter levels at Texas beaches this week.
Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise, Photo Editor

This weeks announcement by Chevron Phillips Chemical had to be about the most disappointing thing Orange County residents could have read. But as discouraging as it is, its not a death knell for this project. There are valid reasons to believe it will be built some day, and Orange County residents must not give up hope.

Chevron Phillips said it would delay a decision on whether to invest nearly $6 billion for a new plant in Orange County to sometime in 2021. A decision might have come this year, though 2021 was always a possibility. The company never said conclusively that the plant would be built here as opposed to other potential sites, but Orange County sure seemed to be a strong contender.
Bedford, PA (15522)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 89F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening. A steady rain arriving overnight. Low 61F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Covid-19 has been catastrophic.

In the first few weeks of lockdown, InterTradeIreland spoke to businesses that had watched their sales fall off a cliff. The organisation understands the pandemic has forced many firms to face difficult choices and decisions.

InterTradeIrelands job now, is to help small firms get back on their feet, in this new normal. The organisations experience of helping SMEs grow cross-border trade to an all-time high of 6.4 billion, underlines it knows how to listen and respond to what companies require.

The cross-border body has launched a powerful mix of resources to assist SMEs move through from the reaction to recovery phase. These include a series of online webinars full of practical advice, a business platform to help companies collaborate and two fresh initiatives for cross-border traders.

Emergency Business Solutions will assist to steer SMEs though the current landscape while E-merge will help companies improve their digital offering, as now more than ever, an e-commerce presence is crucial.

One business that has found the innovative E-merge programme useful is The Armagh Cider Company, which has grown to include a range of soft drinks and mixers. We had some traction with online sales for the mixers through Amazon but not so much for the Orchard Twist, which until lockdown was just listed in some cafes and restaurants in Northern Ireland. We needed to engage much more on social media and also to increase our brand awareness and so drive sales from our website says company Director Mark Troughton

We found InterTradeIrelands E-Merge programme to be invaluable. It really helped to have a consultant who we were able to bounce ideas around with, decide on a plan and get things done quickly. The potential for future business is great and we have already started seeing more traffic to the website and more sales, both in Northern Ireland and Ireland concludes Mark.

If you would like to find out more information on the opportunities in the cross-border market and what support is available to help your business react and recover, visit InterTradeIreland.com
The flow of certain food products into Northern Ireland could be halted if expanded Irish Sea checkpoints are not ready for the end of the Brexit transition period, MLAs have been warned.

Members of Stormont's Infrastructure Committee heard evidence from representatives of the four main ports here - Belfast, Larne, Londonderry and Warrenpoint - about their plans to implement post-Brexit trading arrangements.

A protocol contained in the Brexit Withdrawal Treaty is the arrangement by which Northern Ireland continues to follow single market rules for goods and administers the EU's customs code at its ports.

The Government has acknowledged more regulatory checks will be needed on some goods entering here from Britain, with the expansion of infrastructure to carry out sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) screening of animals and food products.

But the Government has insisted there will be no new physical customs infrastructure in Northern Ireland.

Yesterday, port bosses gave evidence to MLAs on plans to expand their SPS checking facilities ahead of the end of the transition period at the end of the year.

They voiced concerns about an ongoing lack of certainty about what will be required come January 2021, as proposals contained in the UK Government's command paper on the issue had not yet been agreed by the EU.

MLAs heard that planning permission for new facilities is still required, while there had not yet been any detailed discussions with the Treasury on funding the expansions.

David Holmes, CEO of Warrenpoint Port, was asked by Sinn Fein MLA Liz Kimmins what would happen if the facilities were not ready by the end of the year.

"As it stands, assuming the joint committees (UK-EU) don't move the goalposts and declare that there are less checks required, then there is a potential scenario across Northern Ireland that the food products that require SPS checks won't be able to come in," he said.

"That's in a worst-case scenario."

The ports are working in conjunction with Stormont's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and HMRC on the requirements for the new checkpoints. Brian McGrath, CEO of Foyle Port, said a hard Brexit could be devastating, with the loss of 40% of trade.

"Instead of being congested, it'll be tumbleweeds we'll be dealing with," he said.

Maurice Bullick, finance and compliance director at the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, said: "We are, I would suggest, very well advanced with DAERA in terms of an in-principle agreement as to how that point-of-entry facility will be structured and how it will operate."

Larne Port boss Roger Armson said it was also "very close" to an agreement to get a "spade in the ground to be ready for January 1".

However, Mr Armson warned that anything that slows the exit of each vehicle from a ferry, even by a number of seconds, could have a disruptive impact on business.
A Belfast big data tech company is doubling its workforce as it creates over 120 new jobs in a 8.3m investment.

AquaQ Analytics specialises in analysing data, and has major clients in industries such as data mining and data analytics.

Once filled, the 123 jobs will contribute total salaries of 3.2m, equating to an average salary of 26,000 per role.

The investment in the new jobs  35 of which have already been filled  has been backed by economic development agency Invest NI.

Jonny Press, chief technology officer at AquaQ Analytics, said: We are delighted to be expanding our Belfast team and have invested in new premises to support this growth, which we hope to move into when the time is right.

These jobs will enable us to broaden the skill set across our team, increase the global reach of our business and meet the needs of our growing client base.

The area of Big Data technology is something that we recognise will be of great importance to the wider tech sector, particularly as companies look at new ways to innovate due to Covid-19. As part of this, we are excited to be involved in the Girona collaborative growth programme supported by Invest NI, and bring our Big Data expertise to NIs first smart micro-grid energy project.

Economy Minister Diane Dodds said the reinvestment by the company was welcome news and reflected the importance of the digital sector in the drive to deliver higher-paid jobs.

Big Data is a rapidly growing area of Northern Irelands tech sector.

It is important to utilise and optimise data to obtain valuable business information that will help to revive industry sectors like hospitality and tourism following Covid-19.

The companys expansion with 123 new jobs will double its workforce, and help it to strengthen its position in export markets and diversify into new sectors.

Once all are in place, the jobs will contribute over 3.2m of annual salaries to the Northern Ireland economy.

Roles still to be filled include software engineers and data and business analysts. The company said its looking for both graduates and experienced people. All staff are working from home. The company has received support of 861,000 from Invest NI.

Brian Dolaghan, executive director of business and sector development at Invest NI, sad: We have a long standing relationship with AquaQ Analytics and are pleased to continue supporting the company as it strengthens its presence in Northern Ireland.

Since establishing in Northern Ireland back in 2011, we worked with the company to support its growth.

Our support has helped them create new jobs, invest in skills development and export markets which has resulted in AquaQ Analytics winning numerous contracts in global markets.

It is this exact partnership approach which is catapulting the company forward and I look forward to seeing where this expansion takes it in the future.

Company clients include investment banks and hedge funds.

Staff largely work from Belfast, which the company describes as a near shore operating model.

However, staff have also been based overseas on client sites, in locations including Hong Kong.
Odeon is one of the chains reopening some cinemas on July 4 (Yui Mok/PA)

The first cinemas to reopen their doors will start showing films on July 4 after months of darkened screens.

All Showcase cinemas and 10 Odeon cinemas around England will open after closing in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, with a mixture of recent releases and older offerings available to draw film fans back to theatres.

The Odeon cinema at Manchesters Trafford Centre will screen Sonic The Hedgehog, Birds Of Prey and Bad Boys For Life, which were all released earlier this year, as well as The Hangover from 2009 and Batman Begins from 2005.

The big screen is back! 



We're so excited to be reopening our cinemas across the UK, starting from July 4.



Head to our website for full details including our comprehensive new safety measures: https://t.co/9zKnxdJvyW pic.twitter.com/VYZL7J3h7h  ODEON (@ODEONCinemas) June 25, 2020

Other films directed by Christopher Nolan, including The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk and Interstellar, will also be available later in the month, ahead of the release of his latest offering Tenet, which has already had its release date moved twice.

Another 88 Odeons are also planned to reopen by the end of July, including the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, which will reopen on July 13.

Showcase cinemas will also show older films on its opening day, including 1985s Back To The Future and the 2019 Oscar winner Bohemian Rhapsody.

Vue, Cineworld and Picturehouse had all planned to reopen on July 10 but have pushed their first screenings back to July 31.

UPDATE: In line with recent changes to upcoming film release dates, we are moving our re-opening date to July 31. Find out more here >> https://t.co/xR3wVYZ1YJ pic.twitter.com/pyeyEk9Y2z  Cineworld Cinemas (@cineworld) June 30, 2020

Proxima, starring Eva Green, was due to be released on July 10 but will now open on July 31.

Unhinged, starring Russell Crowe, was due for release on July 17 but has also been pushed to July 31.

Cinemas are planning to use socially distanced seating plans and enhanced cleaning when they reopen and Cineworld, which has about 100 cinemas around the UK, has said it has updated its booking system to ensure social distancing, and adapted its daily movie schedules to manage queues and avoid the build-up of crowds in lobbies.

It has also said it has enhanced cleanliness and sanitation procedures across all sites.

Vue said it had taken lessons from the successful reopening of its cinemas in several European countries.

Having taken comprehensive steps to safeguard our staff and customers, Vue is ready to welcome back customers to its UK cinemas.

We know from successfully re-opening cinemas across Europe  including some 70 sites in Germany, Denmark, Holland, Lithuania, Poland and Italy  that audiences after lockdown are itching to enjoy the big screen experience again, with the added reassurance of rigorous new operating protocols and appropriate physical distancing.

We also want to offer a great choice of content for the big screen experience and, despite having many classic films and recent releases lined up to whet the appetite of cinema audiences this summer, the worldwide rescheduling of the release dates of Mulan and Tenet has prompted us to review our opening dates.

Under this revised plan, we will begin a phased reopening of our cinemas in the UK from July 31 rather than July 10.

From the moment we reopen, customers will be met with a host of quality classics including the 10th anniversary edition of Chris Nolans Inception and George Lucass Empire Strikes Back, as well as popular Event cinema such as National Theatre Lives critically acclaimed Fleabag. This line up will be complemented by the eagerly awaited launch of major new titles such as Tenet and Mulan, which are now due in mid-August.
Almost 20 members of one family who live in small border village have tested positive for coronavirus after gathering to mark the one-month anniversary of a relative who died from the illness.

The family, who live on the Republic side of the border, lost an elderly relative four weeks ago and some of the extended family recently got together to commemorate her passing.

The virus is believed to have spread among those who gathered, who returned to their respective households and passed it on to other family members, including several young children.

It comes as figures show the number of clusters being detected in private households in the Republic is rising rapidly.

Figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HSPC) show an 87% increase in the number of clusters in private dwellings in the last week.

There were 390 outbreaks attributed to private households on June 21, compared to 728 cases one week later on June 28.

A cluster is defined as two or more people being infected with the disease in one location.

Dr Jack Lambert, a specialist in infectious diseases at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, said the public needs to "get back to basics" when it comes to preventing infection.

"There is a lot of talk about bringing Covid in from other countries but there is still Covid in Ireland," he said.

"But there are still infections among people who haven't travelled and that continues to be a risk.

"As soon as we let down our guard, be it with social distancing, or handwashing, or wearing masks, then it's a no-brainer that the infections will flare up again.

"We need to get back to basics. If you are in a family gathering all of the basics apply.

"If you are congregating and not socially distancing and there is one person in the room who has Covid and doesn't know it then everyone in the room is going to get it. That's what's happening already."

As the country re-opens, Dr Lambert warned that public complacency could lead to further spikes.

"This is a new virus that we don't know exactly how contagious it is," he said.

"One person can spread it to three others. One person with no symptoms can spread it to 10 other people."
Youre in this quandary where, OK, the citys telling us you cant be congregating but the law says you have the right to stand there, Martino said. We could use a little help in moving people along a little bit that just come to hang.
Production has resumed on a new Nicole Kidman movie at Belfast Harbour Film Studios after it had been stalled due to lockdown.

Belfast Harbour, a major landlord with vast interests ranging from the port to a hotel, office blocks and the studios, said it expects its 2020 revenue will take a hit of between 10% and 20% from the pandemic.

But chairman David Dobbin confirmed life is returning to the set of Viking revenge saga The Northman at the Giant's Park studios.

He said: "The setbuilders are back on site and I think we're hopeful that filming will maybe start late July early August. We also have a lot of interest in the long-term pipeline for renting it for productions."

In a briefing on the company's financial results for 2019, chief executive Joe O'Neill said it hopes to soon obtain planning permission for an extension to the studios.

But he said that afterwards "we absolutely have to look at what market demand looks like".

He added that "if the market prospects appear strong to us then we are committed to make further investments in that sector".

Belfast Harbour yesterday announced "solid" financial results, with turnover down 4% to 65.9m and operating profits down 15% to 30.6m.

The fall was down to the end of a major offshore wind farm sustainable energy contract, which had been worth around 6.5m, and a fall in the amount of coal passing through the port. However, Mr O'Neill said the harbour was hopeful of attracting more wind farm occupants to a facility currently occupied by cruise ships. He said it was the best facility of its kind for wind farms.

But he said new 20m cruise ship facilities would not now be built until there is both a pick-up in demand for cruises, and more wind farm clients. And he said he hoped there could be more demand from the Republic for wind farm work now that the Green Party is sharing power.

Mr Dobbin said the harbour had managed to offset the loss of the wind farm contract as it had benefited from a full year's trading of the AC Marriott Hotel and business at its multi-storey car park.

Belfast Harbour's City Quays 1 and 2 offices are home to a large number of corporates, with many employees now working from home.

Mr O'Neill said: "We're looking at a phased return for most of them from towards the end of the summer, which is aligned with childcare. But there's no expectation of a full return until early 2021."
Belfast Crown Court heard the 59-year-old father-of-two has paid back all the money he stole.. (stock photo)

A man who stole over 100,000 from a mental health charity has avoided prison after being handed a suspended sentence.

Trevor William McKirgan, from Grasmere in Coleraine, siphoned off a total of 102,035 from Inspire Wellbeing over a five-year period.

Belfast Crown Court heard the 59-year-old father-of-two has paid back all the money he stole.

McKirgan appeared via video-link and was handed an 18-month sentence, suspended for three years. He admitted stealing the money from his employers from June 2013 to October 2018 while working as their finance business partner.

McKirgan began working at the charity in 2009, and his offending emerged after he left in 2018 and his successor discovered an irregularity in the financial records.

Records showed a payment had been made to a counsellor who had ceased working for the charity two years previously, police were informed and an investigation was launched.

This investigation revealed McKirgan had been siphoning money from the charity by diverting payments made out to self-employed counsellors into his own bank account.

At the time of his offending McKirgan was one of only a small number of people with access to the charity's payment system, and he stole small sums over a five-year period which amounted to just over 100,000.

When arrested in October 2018 he admitted the theft, co-operated with the police and said he acted alone.

McKirgan claimed he used the money to maintain his family lifestyle after losing a well-paid job he had before joining the charity.

At yesterday's sentencing Judge Stephen Fowler QC said McKirgan's offending was a serious breach of trust, where a "significant amount of money was stolen from a charity".

The judge said that after suffering financial strains for a number of reasons, it appeared McKirgan stole from his employers to "fund a lifestyle for himself and his family that was no longer sustainable on his income".

All the money has since been repaid to the charity.

Saying he accepted McKirgan was "thoroughly ashamed of his offending behaviour, deceit and lies", Judge Fowler spoke of McKirgan's fall from grace, loss of reputation and the impact this has had on him and his family.

Judge Fowler imposed a suspended sentence and warned McKirgan that any further offending over the next three years could result in a prison sentence.
First Minister Arlene Foster has led calls for an apology from Michelle O'Neill, who was among senior Sinn Fein members attending the funeral of leading republican Bobby Storey on Tuesday.

Mrs Foster said the Deputy First Minister had "undermined" the Executive.

"She needs to apologise, she needs to recognise the wrong that has been done and she absolutely needs to make amends for what has happened," she said.

Alliance leader Naomi Long, UUP MLA Doug Beattie and TUV leader Jim Allister all said Mrs O'Neill should consider her position.

And there have now been calls for Sinn Fein politicians in the Republic who attended the funeral with thousands of mourners - including new leader of the Opposition Mary Lou McDonald and TD Pearse Doherty - to stay away from the Dail for two weeks in quarantine.

However, Mr Doherty said he would not advise anyone attending the funeral to quarantine.

"Neither would I encourage people who went to Tesco yesterday to quarantine either," he added.

Fine Gael Senator Garret Ahearn has written to the Dail chairman saying such a request is "in the interest of everybody's health and safety".

"It would be extremely regrettable if a cluster of Covid-19 cases was created in Leinster House because some members travelled to Belfast," he said.

Meanwhile, a former Sinn Fein political adviser said watching the scenes from the funeral had left her "absolutely fuming".

Naomi Bailie had served as an adviser to Chris Hazzard MP.

"What happened there was totally indefensible and to hell with any of them who try to spin it," she said in a social media post. "If there's a straw to break the camel's back in my case, this is my back broke tonight."

Justice Minister Mrs Long said when the rule makers break the rules it is more hurtful "for all who made huge sacrifices to obey the regulations".

To be frank, it broke our hearts. Helena Dallat-O'Driscoll

While the UUP's Doug Beattie said Mrs O'Neill had "absolutely damaged the office of the Executive by her actions".

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said the display "showed a blatant disregard for the sacrifices made by so many".

One of the families to have made that sacrifice was that of his party colleague John Dallat MLA, who died on May 5.

"It has been very, very painful and this has compounded that pain," his daughter Helena Dallat-O'Driscoll said.

Expand Close Helena Dallat-ODriscoll, daughter of the late SDLP MLA John Dallat / Facebook

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Whatsapp Helena Dallat-ODriscoll, daughter of the late SDLP MLA John Dallat

"When we were organising dad's funeral we did what we thought we needed to do. We had no wake. We didn't get to bring his remains home. We had a very small, private funeral. We didn't carry his coffin. None of his MLA colleagues were able to travel to it.

"To be frank, it broke our hearts. We felt we had to make those sacrifices in the greater interest of safety and society. As a family we didn't think we should be treated any differently."

She added: "I think it's obvious Michelle O'Neill needs to reflect on how that funeral appeared to be conducted. She needs to reflect on her authority to give advice to the rest of us on Covid restrictions."

In a statement last night Mrs O'Neill defended her attendance.

"The organisers of Bobby Storey's funeral put in place measures to ensure compliance with the public health guidelines and regulations around funerals," she said.

"This proactive approach by the organisers included a cortege limited to 30 people, a socially distanced Mass, and stewarding along the route to prevent crowds joining the cortege.

"The organisers also live-streamed the funeral to encourage people to stay at home and pay their respects.

"In advance of the funeral, the organisers were in contact with the PSNI and made them aware of the arrangements. I am confident that the organisers ensured the funeral Mass, cortege and ceremony was within public health regulations and guidance."

The Diocese of Down and Connor said its churches had been advised on June 4 that numbers attending funeral Masses should be restricted to 10 mourners.

The diocese said it received updated guidance from The Executive Office on Tuesday evening - after the funeral had taken place.

"This guidance was communicated to priests, funeral directors and all involved in the organisation of funerals," it said in a statement. "It is for the statutory authorities to investigate suspected breaches of the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) Regulation NI 2020. Since a PSNI inquiry is under way, it would be inappropriate for the diocese to make any further comment."

Earlier, Secretary of State Brandon Lewis questioned the attendance of Sinn Fein Executive ministers. Mr Lewis said he understood that some people were "frustrated and angry".

"People have given so many sacrifices over the last couple of months," he said. "I can understand people's frustrations. It's not something I would have done."
The DUP's Sammy Wilson has added to growing calls for people to come forward with information about the murder of Carrickfergus man Glenn Quinn.

This week senior members of the UDA distanced themselves from the brutal murder in January after his sister called for his killers to be handed over.

Three men claiming to represent the south east Antrim UDA leadership approached a pastor in Carrickfergus to say they were not responsible for killing the 47-year-old, and those with any information would not face consequences for going to the police.

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East Antrim MP Mr Wilson welcomed the statement and said he hoped it would help to bring justice to the family.

"If it leads to people being less afraid, for people to come forward, it will help the police to successfully conclude this investigation," he said. "I also don't know if this means that UDA members were not involved in any way, or if they know who is involved and have disassociated themselves from them.

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"Anybody who has information should give it to the police, whether they're in (an illegal) organisation or a Sunday School teacher. I know that the family are greatly cut up about the whole thing and they clearly want to try and get some justice for their brother.

"Hopefully this statement will encourage people to come forward who thought there was paramilitary involvement.

"There is great fear in parts of Carrickfergus - if the organisation have information about who did it I would hope they would do the right thing as well."
Stormonts First Minister has vowed not to collapse the devolved executive if the Deputy First Minister refuses to stand down over her attendance at an IRA veterans funeral.

Sinn Fein has rejected the DUPs call for Michelle ONeill to step aside amid a fierce political row about her actions at Bobby Storeys funeral.

The event in west Belfast on Tuesday drew hundreds of people on to the streets when coronavirus restriction are in place.

First Minister Arlene Foster has written to her partner-in-government asking her to stand down pending police and Assembly standards investigations into the scenes at the funeral.

The move has plunged the recently restored powersharing institutions into crisis again, with four of the parties in the five-party coalition Executive calling for Ms ONeill to stand down.

Expand Close Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill attending the funeral in west Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill attending the funeral in west Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA)

The events have some echoes of the cash-for-ash furore that toppled the devolved government in 2017 when Mrs Foster refused to accede to a Sinn Fein call for her to temporarily stand down pending an investigation into a botched green energy scheme.

However, Mrs Foster has said she will not collapse the institutions in the way the late Martin McGuinness did when he quit as a joint head of government in January 2017.

She said it was vital Northern Ireland had a government amid the coronavirus emergency.

Why would I punish the people of Northern Ireland for the bad behaviour of Sinn Fein? she said.

People expect me to lead, I will lead and I am not going to walk away from the government of Northern Ireland at a time when we are having severe challenges ahead of us. I think that that would be a dereliction of my leadership and Im not prepared to do that.

Thursdays scheduled Stormont press conference on the coronavirus emergency with Mrs Foster and Ms ONeill was cancelled due to the row.

Mrs Foster confirmed she was not prepared to appear on a joint platform with Ms ONeill until the row over her attendance at the funeral was resolved.

There is a credibility issue now and we have to deal with that, she told UTV.

What we need to do is to find a way to build the credibility back.

The leaders of the five main Stormont parties are due to meet on Friday to attempt to defuse the escalating row.

I am satisfied that my actions at Bobby Storeyas funeral are in line with public health advice



These petty attempts to political point score must end and the Storey family giving space to grieve



My thoughts are with Bobbyas much loved partner Teresa and the Storey family today pic.twitter.com/CQ445OBPjQ  Michelle OaNeill (@moneillsf) July 1, 2020

Earlier on Thursday, Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald said Ms ONeill would not be stepping aside. She said no one should be punished for attending the funeral of a friend.

Under Stormont regulations and guidance, friends of a deceased person should only attend the funeral if none of the bereaved family members are attending. Mr Storeys family did attend Tuesdays funeral.

Mrs McDonald said the Stormont Executive should keep focused on work to tackle the Covid-19 emergency.

That work is under way but it is not finished yet, so, no, I dont think anybody should be punished or asked to step aside or step down because they attended the funeral of a friend. No, I dont, she said.

On Wednesday, Mrs Foster urged Ms ONeill to apologise and make amends for what happened at Tuesdays funeral in west Belfast.

The Deputy First Minister declined and defended her actions, insisting she acted within Covid-19 rules and guidance.

She differentiated between the management of the funeral cortege and service and scenes along the route when hundreds gathered to watch the procession pass. Ms ONeill insisted that was outside of her control.

The DUP called for Ms ONeill to step down following her refusal to apologise.

Updated Stormont lockdown measures currently limit funerals to a maximum of 30 people  having previously been 10.

Friends should only attend when there are no family members of the deceased in attendance, according to the rules and guidance.

The Diocese of Down and Connor has said St Agnes Church should still have been applying the 10-person limit to funerals on Tuesday morning.

The diocese said it was only informed by Stormont officials on Tuesday evening that more numbers could be accommodated.

It is understood that more than 100 people were inside St Agnes for Mr Storeys funeral.

While Stormont is anticipated to sign off guidance that would allow more people to attend a funeral, depending on the size of the church, that move has not yet been announced.

Expand Close SDLP leader Colum Eastwood called for Ms ONeill to step aside (Brian Lawless/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp SDLP leader Colum Eastwood called for Ms ONeill to step aside (Brian Lawless/PA)

Police have said they are investigating whether there were any breaches of lockdown rules during Tuesdays events.

Ms ONeill has insisted the funeral cortege was limited to 30, while social distancing inside the church was exemplary.

However, she has acknowledged that a selfie taken at the cemetery of her posing close to two men, one of whom had his arm on her shoulder, should not have happened.

She said the photo happened in a blink of an eye as she was leaving the graveside.

On Thursday the SDLP also called for Ms ONeill to step aside and allow her actions to be examined by Assembly standards authorities.

SDLP deputy leader and Stormont infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon said: We always have to show leadership even in the midst of our grief and a lot of hurt has been caused, and I think an apology earlier on would have helped this situation.

The Ulster Unionist Party and Alliance Party have also called for Ms ONeill to stand down.

There was one further coronavirus-linked death reported in Northern Ireland on Thursday, taking the total recorded by the Department of Health to 552.

There were seven new cases of the virus confirmed, bringing the total in the region to 5,768.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said he was not contemplating the collapse of Stormont powersharing.

He said: It was interesting that Covid-19 facilitated a coming together and Government dynamism with the Executive that we have not seen before.

Mr Martin told RTE: It would be a pity if Covid was to lead to a rupture.
Arlene Foster has called on Michelle O'Neill to show "contrition" as pressure mounts on the Deputy First Minister ahead of a party leaders' meeting at Stormont on Friday.

The five other main political parties in Northern Ireland are all calling on Ms O'Neill to step aside over her actions at Bobby Storey's funeral.

But Mrs Foster told the Belfast Telegraph that, despite growing public anger over the coronavirus guideline breaches, she would not be collapsing the Executive if Ms O'Neill refuses to resign.

The Ulster Unionists have said that an apology isn't enough and that Ms O'Neill has damaged public confidence in Stormont so much during a major health crisis that she has to go.

The First Minister was speaking as details emerged of a stormy 90-minute Executive meeting on Thursday during which ministers from every other party rounded on Ms O'Neill.

"It was relentless," said a Stormont source.

"Michelle was hammered from all sides over her unacceptable behaviour at the funeral. She continued to insist that she had done nothing wrong."

A meeting of the party leaders' forum - the second since devolution was restored six months ago - was called by Mrs Foster to address the crisis.

It will be held at 10am at Stormont. The SDLP, Alliance, Ulster Unionists and the Green Party are also calling on Ms O'Neill to stand aside. People Before Profit is the only party not doing so.

Sinn Fein president, Mary Lou McDonald, said no-one should be "punished" for attending the funeral of a friend.

But under Stormont guidelines, friends of a deceased person should attend the funeral only if none of the bereaved family members will be present. Mr Storey's family did attend Tuesday's funeral.

Mrs Foster said: "Michelle needs to seriously reflect on the hurt, anger and upset that has been caused by telling people to abide by rules which she has not done herself.

"It is very damaging to the public health messaging of the Executive. It causes a major credibility problem."

The joint Executive press conference hosted by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister was cancelled on Thursday.

Mrs Foster said: "I can't currently stand beside Michelle and give out health advice.

"It can't be business as usual. But the DUP won't bring down the Executive because that would be only punishing the people of Northern Ireland for the bad behaviour of Sinn Fein.

"As a party, we will not be walking away from government during a public health crisis."

However, Mrs Foster said that she was not prepared to appear on a joint platform with Ms O'Neill until the row over her attendance at the funeral was resolved.

Speaking in Dublin, Mary Lou McDonald said that she wouldn't be calling for her colleague Ms O'Neill to step aside as the Executive had a heavy workload to do due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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She said: "That work is under way but it is not finished yet, so, no, I don't think anybody should be punished or asked to step aside or step down because they attended the funeral of a friend.

"In relation to Bobby Storey's funeral, I was very honoured to be asked by his family to attend the mass.

"I was one of a very small number of people to be there and to do a reading at that mass. There was a limited cortege and people lining the streets.

"But this is the problem, when somebody is a public figure or where somebody dies in very tragic circumstances - people will come out to pay their respects."

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Ms McDonald claimed that the funeral organisers "did their best to maintain social distancing".

The DUP has asked the PSNI to investigate the Storey funeral breaches.

The party's South Antrim MLA and vice-chair of the Health Committee, Pam Cameron, also called on all the Sinn Fein MLAs who attended the event to self isolate to ensure that they are not spreading Covid 19.

Ms O'Neill has defended her actions, insisting she acted within Covid-19 rules.

She has differentiated between the management of the funeral cortege and service and scenes along the route when thousands gathered to watch the procession pass. The Deputy First Minister has insisted that was outside of her control.

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But Ulster Unionist leader Steve Aiken rejected her arguments. "There has to be a mea culpa from Michelle O'Neill. She has to say what she did was wrong and she has to step aside," he said.

"That is the only way to restore faith in the Northern Ireland Executive at a time when potentially thousands of people's lives are at risk from coronavirus.

"In any normal political society, Michelle O'Neill would be gone by now.

"This is not an orange or green issue. The integrity and authority of the Executive is at stake."
Joleen Corr, seen here with mother Carol, died after being put in vegetative state by her partner Michael OConnor

The mother of Joleen Corr has said she is "relieved" after her daughter's killer was handed his 16 year minimum tariff for an attack which left her daughter with permanent and severe brain damage which ended her life.

Speaking shortly after her daughters killer was handed his 16 year minimum tariff, Joleens grieving mum Carol said there are a lot of mixed emotions...but theres relief as well that justice has been served.

Michael OConnor (34), who appeared at Downpatrick Crown Court via videolink from prison, clapped and rubbed his hands together at the end of the hour-long hearing on Thursday.

Judge Geoffrey Miller QC told the physical and psychological bully he would serve at least the full 16 years behind bars for the murder of Joleen Corr and would only be released under a lifelong licence when the Parole Commissioners considered it safe to do so.

Praising the dignity and fortitude of Joleens family who also watched proceedings by video conference call, the judge described Joleen as a bubbly young woman whose life was cruelly cut short by the actions of OConnor.

Whether he got 16 years or 25 years doesnt make a difference, said Carol, its not going to bring Joleen back and it wont take away our pain.

He is a serial woman beater and abuser who sought out vulnerable people...he is just evil, says Carol adding that Joleens death has been like a life sentence for us - our pain will never go away and we will live with it for the rest of our lives.

Carol also praised the actions of the police and prosecution and everybody who helped bring this man to justice, they all did a fabulous job and I take my hat off to them.

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OConnor claimed that he and mother-of-one, 27-year-old Joleen had been fighting over her mobile phone at the top of the stairs on December, 1, 2016 when OConnor lashed out, punching Joleen so hard that he broke her jaw, propelling her down the stairs at her home in Thomas Russell Park in Downpatrick.

OConnor went to bed and in the morning, casually had a bath and took a bus to Belfast with the couples five-year-old son where he had a haircut, essentially leaving Joleen to die.

She had sustained a brain injury which was so severe that doctors initially opted not to treat her. Joleen was left in a vegetative state until a landmark ruling in 2018 when doctors withdrew life support and she tragically died on April 26.

OConnor had been due to go on trial last February but at the 11th hour, with a jury sworn and witnesses poised to testify, he asked to be re-arraigned and finally admitted his guilt, firstly to manslaughter and then when that was not accepted by prosecuting QC Philip Mateer, to her murder.

Expand Close Joleen Corr at home with her family. Mum Carol, Jim (brother), sisters Chloe (12) and Christine (10). Credit: Colm O'Reilly / Facebook

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Whatsapp Joleen Corr at home with her family. Mum Carol, Jim (brother), sisters Chloe (12) and Christine (10). Credit: Colm O'Reilly

Sentencing OConnor Judge Miller said that OConnors actions that night has to be seen in the context of a man who used violence, both physical and psychological as a means of control and was the culmination of continual domestic violence perpetrated against Joleen who was vulnerable and with a child in the house.

One shudders to think what that little boy witnessed or heard, said the judge.
Without the rodeo, there are no entry fees or concession sales, the latter of which usually benefit a local group willing to take on hot dog duty. There is no prize money for competitors who come from around the country to try their luck on the back of a bull. And there is no work for the people who work a rodeo.
Tributes have been paid to Warrenpoint man Loughlin Maginn (39) who was killed in a freak accident in Rathfriland.

Police said Mr Maginn died after he became trapped under his car shortly before 12.30pm on Wednesday when it rolled a short distance in a car park in Downpatrick Street.

It is the second tragedy for the family after his father, who had the same name, was murdered aged 28 in a notorious loyalist shooting in Rathfriland in 1989.

He had been accused at the time of being an IRA member which his family always denied.

Sinn Fein councillor Gerry O'Hare commented: "It's devastating news, I would know his brother and sister fairly well who live in the same village outside of Warrenpoint."

On the family losing both a father and son in shocking circumstances, he said: "It's a really tough time for them now, my heart goes out to them."

Ulster Unionist councillor Glenn Barr commented: "I understand that he had stopped to use the bathroom at the car park and when he turned around the car was reversing towards him.

"There was a young girl in the car at the time and he tried to stop it but he got crushed under the vehicle. My thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time."

Sinn Fein's South Down MP Chris Hazzard said the community had been left "shocked and saddened" by his death.

"My heart goes out to all the family at this very sad time. I was heartbroken for them all today when I heard this tragic news," he said.

"The PSNI have appealed to any drivers who may have dashcam footage which could help them establish exactly what happened to get in contact with them. Loughlin and his wider family are well respected in the local area and today's news will leave many shocked and saddened.

"Our thoughts are with all Loughlin's friends and loved ones at this sad time."

SDLP MLA Sinead Bradley passed on her condolences to the family and also thanked emergency services attending the scene.

"Their commitment to stepping up in the most challenging of circumstances is always appreciated."

Ms Bradley added: "May he Rest in Peace."

Police have urged anyone that witnessed the incident or captured dash-cam footage to contact them on 101, quoting reference 773 for July 1.

Two Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers were convicted of aiding the UFF in the murder of Loughlin Maginn Sr, a father-of-four who worked as a poultry processor.

In response to the family denials of IRA membership, the UDA plastered photos of Mr Maginn across Belfast at the time claiming they were from a security force file. Mr Maginn's death also led to the establishment of the Stevens Inquiry which investigated allegations of state collusion.
A Coleraine woman who set up a mental health charity in memory of her "inspirational" brother has been recognised by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Yasmin Geddis (27) established the Zachary Geddis Break the Silence Trust in October 2017. It is in honour of her brother, who took his own life at the age of 20.

She has been awarded a Points of Light Award, which is given each day in recognition of outstanding individuals making a difference where they live.

It is currently focused on people serving their community through the pandemic.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Ms Geddis said she was grateful for the award and paid tribute to her brother.

She said: "Zachary was my only brother - it was just the two of us and now it is like a part of me is missing.

"We set up the trust on his 21st birthday and it helps keep him with me on a daily basis.

"He was a very inspirational person himself and the fact that his story and his life has touched the lives of hundreds and hundreds of other people keeps me and my parents going.

"He was ill for a long time before he died and even though we did everything we could and he got access to all the services, including private counselling, it still didn't help. During that time we noticed gaps in services which are the services we offer in the trust, and when people come and tell you that you have helped save a life, that means everything to me."

Ms Geddis set up the trust three years ago as a lasting legacy of mental health support for young people in Northern Ireland and to decrease the stigma around suicide.

Since its establishment, the charity has tirelessly supported young people through counselling, mentoring, advocacy, legal advice, crisis intervention, and workshops, all provided free of charge.

Mr Johnson wrote to Ms Geddis saying: "In helping others, and tackling stigma around suicide and mental health difficulties, you have created a lasting tribute to your brother Zachary."

He added: "I am truly lost in admiration of your strength."

Ms Geddis is accompanying her father Terry on a fundraising cycle around Ireland for the trust, which began on Monday.

Along the way they will light candles in every town they visit in memory of those who died by suicide before returning to Coleraine on July 12.

To contribute to the fundraising cycle visit www.gofundme.com/f/ZGBTST.

Anyone who is experiencing a mental health crisis can telephone Lifeline on 0808 808 8000 or ring the Samaritans on 116 123.
The organiser of a Black Lives Matter rally in Londonderry said if police fail to take action after hundreds people attended the funeral of veteran republican Bobby Storey they will be guilty of normalising institutional racism.

Lillian Seenoi Barr of the North West Migrants Forum received a police caution and faces prosecution for her role in the rally held in Derrys Guildhall Square on June 6, when another 57 people were also issued with fines. A further 15 people attending a similar rally held in Custom House Square in Belfast were also fined.

No fines were issued at a protect our statues protest which took place outside Belfast City Hall a week later.

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Mrs Barr said the actions of the police at the Black Lives Matter demonstration stood in stark contrast to the way they dealt with other mass gatherings which have taken place since, including the funeral of IRA veteran Mr Storey. She said: I do not want to play politics but what happened in Derry on June 6 caused deep offence to my community and serious questions need to be asked of the police about the inconsistencies in applying the legislation around coronavirus control measures.

There was another rally by people who wanted to protect statues one week later, where no action was taken by the police and again no action was taken at the funeral on Tuesday.

The police have to drop the fines, they have to drop the charges against people at the Black Lives Matter rally and issue an apology to our community because otherwise it is blatant discrimination. If they fail to do that, then they are normalising institutional racism.

Mrs Barr said the police need to treat everyone equally.

They treated black people in this country differently from anybody else, she said.

How can you justify that action right now?

A spokesman for the PSNI said: The Police Ombudsmans Office is carrying out an investigation into how the police have enforced the Coronavirus Public Health Regulations at large public gatherings and the Northern Ireland Policing Board have also commenced a review of the police response to Covid-19.

We are also aware of anticipated legal proceedings in relation to protests on June 6, as well as a forthcoming judicial review.

We welcome the independent oversight of police actions and as these matters are ongoing, it would be inappropriate for the PSNI to comment further at this time.
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has questioned the attendance of senior Sinn Fein politicians at a large funeral in west Belfast for IRA veteran Bobby Storey (Julien Behal/PA)

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has said politicians should lead by example.

Mr Varadkar was speaking in Dublin as Northern Irelands Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill faced calls to quit over her attendance at a large funeral for IRA veteran Bobby Storey.

Ms ONeill has insisted that her actions were in line with social distancing, but four out of the five parties in the Stormont Executive have urged her to step aside.

I am satisfied that my actions at Bobby Storeyas funeral are in line with public health advice



These petty attempts to political point score must end and the Storey family giving space to grieve



My thoughts are with Bobbyas much loved partner Teresa and the Storey family today pic.twitter.com/CQ445OBPjQ  Michelle OaNeill (@moneillsf) July 1, 2020

Mr Varadkar said he saw a huge contrast in the behaviour of Sinn Fein politicians with those of Taoiseach Micheal Martin, whose family were unable to travel to Cork to be with him as he became Irelands premier last weekend.

I think it is important that politicians try to lead by example  there are rules and regulations that we make and we expect others to stick to them, Mr Varadkar said.

Expand Close Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, left to right, former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill arrive for the funeral (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, left to right, former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill arrive for the funeral (Liam McBurney/PA)

I dont want to comment on a funeral because you know, ultimately it was a funeral and I think we need to respect that.

I do think there was a huge contrast between what we saw last Saturday where Micheal Martin became Taoiseach and his family couldnt travel up from Cork to be with him.

In contrast, Michelle ONeill turned up for a photo op. It does show a different attitude. Sinn Fein is different to other parties and not in a good way.
Belfast, Alderman Frank McCoubrey, lays a wreath at the Cenotaph at Belfast City Hall

The Lord Mayor of Belfast took part in a wreath-laying ceremony as the 104th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme was marked yesterday.

Many men from the 36th (Ulster) division and the 16th (Irish) division lost their lives in the battle, which began on July 1, 1916.

In Belfast the traditional wreath-laying ceremony at the cenotaph was led by Frank McCoubrey, following a special meeting of the City Council.

Also in Belfast, members from Lodges in Ballymacarrett District LOL No 6 held simultaneous acts of remembrance at five war memorials in the east of the city.

These were Strandtown War Memorial, Belmont Road; Willowfield War Memorial, Woodstock Road; Cregagh War Memorial, Picardy Avenue; Workman Clark & Co. Memorial, Titanic Quarter; and the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland War Memorial at Schomberg House, Cregagh Road.

The commemorations were in lieu of the annual Battle of the Somme parade, which was cancelled due to Covid-19.

The District Master, Wor. Bro. Sammy Sharkie, led the commemorations by laying the wreath at Strandtown where the parade traditionally stops each year for a short service.

Low-key ceremonies also took place in other towns and villages across Northern Ireland.

On the north coast the Mayor of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council Mark Fielding placed a wreath at Portstewart War Memorial to mark the anniversary.

A wreath was also placed at Northern Ireland's national war memorial, the Ulster Tower, in France.
Ghislaine Maxwell has been accused of playing a critical role in Jeffrey Epsteins sexual abuse of underage girls, as investigators said they would welcome a statement from the Duke of York in relation to the scandal.

Maxwell, who faces charges over her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of girls by the disgraced financier, was detained in the US on Thursday.

Acting US attorney for the southern district of New York Audrey Strauss said Maxwell, daughter of late media mogul Robert Maxwell, had helped Epstein identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse.

Announcing the charges against Maxwell, Ms Strauss told a press conference on Thursday that authorities would welcome a statement from the Duke of York in relation to the investigation.

Maxwell has previously denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of sexual misconduct by her former boyfriend and long-time associate Epstein, who took his own life in prison last year while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

Ms Strauss claimed that Maxwell had helped Epstein to exploit underage girls  some as young as 14 years old  and in some cases would participate in the abuse herself.

Maxwell was among Epsteins closest associates and helped him exploit girls who were as young as 14 years old, she told reporters.

Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse.

Expand Close Audrey Strauss (John Minchillo/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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One of Epsteins alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, claims that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Andrew at the socialites London townhouse.

Ms Giuffre has claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and alleges the duke had sex with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17, still a minor under US law.

Andrew categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre, while his lawyers have insisted the duke has repeatedly offered to provide a witness statement to the investigation.

When asked about the duke at Thursdays press conference, Ms Strauss called on him to speak with investigators regarding the Epstein case.

Im not going to comment on anyones status in this investigation but I will say that we would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement, Ms Strauss told reporters.

But a source close to the dukes working group said that his lawyers have twice communicated with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in the past month.

The dukes team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month and to date we have had no response, the source said.

Four of the six charges cover Maxwells dealings with Epstein from 1994 to 1997, when she was in an intimate relationship with him, according to the indictment.

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She is charged with conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

According to the indictment, three unnamed minors were allegedly induced and enticed by Maxwell, who facilitated for them to be groomed by Esptein at properties he owned.

These include residences in New York City, Palm Beach in Florida and Santa Fe in New Mexico, as well as Maxwells personal residence in London, the indictment says.

The court papers claim that Maxwell was present for interactions between the alleged victims and Epstein, including interactions where the minor victim was undressed or that involved sex acts with Epstein.

She would encourage the underage girls to give massages to Epstein, many of which resulted in him sexually abusing the victim, the indictment alleges.

Maxwell was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, and is expected to appear before a magistrate judge in the District of New Hampshire on Thursday.

US attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents one of Maxwells accusers, said she and her client applauded the socialites long overdue arrest.

Maxwells brutal, ruthless behaviour caused my client tremendous pain, Ms Bloom said in a statement.

All others accused of enabling Jeffrey Epsteins predations must immediately be brought to justice as well.

FBI New York assistant director William Sweeney told the press conference that investigators had been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwells whereabouts.

More recently we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago, he told reporters.

Authorities claim that Maxwell, who is also charged with two counts of perjury, allegedly lied when being questioned under oath in 2016.

Maxwell lied because the truth as alleged was almost unspeakable, Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, then delivered them into the trap that she and Epstein had set for them, Ms Strauss told reporters.
Dominic Raab has been critical of Beijing over its recent handling of Hong Kong (UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA)

Boris Johnson has accused China of breaching a key treaty with Britain by imposing a heavily criticised national security law on Hong Kong.

But what is the background to the legislation, why is the UK concerned, and how has the world responded?

 What is Britains link to Hong Kong?

Hong Kong island was ceded to Britain after Chinas defeat in the First Opium War in the 19th century, with China later leasing the New Territories, which forms Hong Kongs rural areas, to Britain for 99 years in 1898.

The approaching expiration led to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed in 1984, in which Britain agreed to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.

It became a Special Administrative Region of China run under the one country, two systems principle.

 What assurances were given when Britain handed it to China?

Under the Joint Declaration, China guaranteed that for at least 50 years Hong Kongs way of life, including its freedoms and its high degree of autonomy, would remain unchanged.

Hong Kong was to have its own government and legislature composed of Hong Kong people, while its capitalist system, currency and financial markets were to remain intact.

 What has happened since?

Critics have long accused China of eroding Hong Kongs special status, and pro-democracy protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong last year in response to Beijings tightening grip on the territory.

China has passed a controversial national security law which makes activities deemed subversive or secessionist punishable by imprisonment, and it is seen as targeting anti-government demonstrators.

The law came into effect on Tuesday night and police have already made hundreds of arrests under it  including one person said to have displayed a sign with the Union flag which called for Hong Kongs independence.

 What does this mean for Hong Kong on the global stage?

Hong Kong is a major financial hub, and there are concerns that the law change could put this status under threat.

The US House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday that would impose penalties on banks doing business with Chinese officials who implement the national security law.

 How did Hong Kong get its status as a major finance hub and is this now in doubt?

The financial services sector grew rapidly under British rule and around three-quarters of the worlds top 100 banks have a presence in the city.

Its location  with access to mainland China and other large markets like Singapore, Japan and Australia  has helped it thrive, along with a lack of capital controls. Many of Chinas largest firms list in Hong Kong to attract foreign investment, such as e-commerce company Alibaba.

Markets dislike uncertainty and a lack of predictability on future events could cause problems for Hong Kong, with companies looking to places with a more Western legal system, such as Singapore, to set up shop.

 How has Britain responded?

Boris Johnson has vowed to introduce a new route for people in Hong Kong with British National (Overseas) status to apply for visas to live and work in the UK and apply for citizenship.

Downing Street said they will be eligible to travel to the UK immediately ahead of the details of the scheme being finalised in the coming weeks and that they will not face salary thresholds.

Mr Johnson told MPs the law violates Hong Kongs high degree of autonomy and is in direct conflict with Hong Kong Basic Law.

China has chosen to break their promises to the people of Hong Kong and go against their obligations to the international community.



 will not turn our backs on the commitments we have made to the people of Hong Kong. pic.twitter.com/ir19ghzq28  Dominic Raab (@DominicRaab) June 30, 2020

 What is British National (Overseas) status?

Hongkongers were considered British citizens from the start of British rule and were able to enter and live in the UK until 1983, when citizens from colonies were granted different status based on ancestry and where they were born.

Many people in Hong Kong became British Dependent Territories citizens which only gave them the right to live and work in the region, and only British Citizens had the right to live in the UK.

Under the Hong Kong Act of 1985, a new nationality for British Dependent Territories citizens was agreed for the transition to Chinese rule with the creation of the British National (Overseas) status.

 Can people still become British Nationals (Overseas) and how many are there?

No, acquisition was never automatic and registrations began in 1987 and finished at the end of 1997.

The number of people holding valid BN(O) passports as of April 17 was 357,156, according to a written question tabled in the House of Commons. The number of people eligible is estimated to be around three million.

 What about their dependants?

Nothing has been said on this in the past week, but Mr Raab was asked on June 2 what options would be explored to support BN(O) passport holders.

He said: Fundamentally, rather than just wait for international co-operation on the specific issue of what will happen to those who are not willing to stay in Hong Kong, we feel that we have a dutyas a matter of international law, moral responsibility and historical responsibilityto come out and lead.

That is why we have said that we will allow the 300,000-plus passport holders, along with their dependants, to come to the UK in the way I described.
Jacob Rees-Mogg accused the First Minister of wanting a metaphorical wall between Scotland and England (House of Commons/PA)

Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wants to build a wall between Scotland and England, Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.

It follows a comment made by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday that there is no border between Scotland and England  which was mocked by the SNP  after Ms Sturgeon failed to rule out border checks on English visitors.

The Commons Leader said it may not be a bricks and mortar structure in the vein of Hadrians Wall or US President Donald Trumps border wall with Mexico, but Ms Sturgeon wants a metaphorical wall.

There is no border between England and Scotland and it was shameful to call for a border of that type of kind to be erected to stop people travelling freely between constituent parts of the United Kingdom Jacob Rees-Mogg

During Business Questions on Thursday, Mr Rees-Mogg criticised Ms Sturgeons shameful remarks after SNP Commons business spokesman Tommy Sheppard said the Government is led by someone who thinks the border does not exist.

Mr Rees-Mogg replied: He mentions borders, and I noticed that Nicola Sturgeon wishes to have a wall  perhaps she is modelling herself on other leading political figures  between England and Scotland.

But, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said, there is no border between England and Scotland and it was shameful to call for a border of that type of kind to be erected to stop people travelling freely between constituent parts of the United Kingdom.

The Scottish Tourism Sector is just preparing to get back to its feet. To take the legs out from under it with reckless and damaging talk of border closures and quarantining of visitors from England, Wales or Northern Ireland is very unhelpful. The PM is right.  https://t.co/lxkFsqNZIk  Andrew Bowie MP (@AndrewBowie_MP) July 1, 2020

One never thought that Nicola Sturgeon would model herself on American political figures and want to build a wall  at least a metaphorical wall if not actually getting like Hadrian with the bricks and mortar.

Earlier, shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz urged the Government to extend protections that stop landlords being able to evict tenants during the Covid-19 pandemic, which are due to come to an end next month.

She said: Given the masses of job losses in every sector  from retail, food service, aerospace, hospitality, arts and music  with emergency legislation coming to an end and the furlough scheme winding down, thats going to be the perfect storm and people are going to be caught up in it.

Responding, Mr Rees-Mogg said: Emergency provisions were made  1 billion was made available to help people who are renting and the Government is very conscious of the need to protect people who are in the private-rented sector.

Expand Close First Minister Nicola Sturgeon came under fire in the Commons chamber (Fraser Bremner/Scottish Daily Mail/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp First Minister Nicola Sturgeon came under fire in the Commons chamber (Fraser Bremner/Scottish Daily Mail/PA)

He later said he sees nothing wrong with Cabinet ministers having to queue up to vote after virtual proceedings were abandoned.

Ms Vaz said it was a waste of time for ministers to have to spend 15 minutes in a line stretching outside the Commons chamber to cast their vote, and urged Mr Rees-Mogg to bring back online voting for MPs.

Mr Rees-Mogg replied: The speed with which we got through earlier this week was pretty much the normal speed and therefore things are working, Government business is getting through, and scrutiny is taking place.

He added: Im not as soft-hearted as the honourable lady and I think a Cabinet minister queuing for a few minutes is no bad thing.
The Government has published safety advice for schools in England ahead of a full return in September.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has unveiled his much-anticipated detailed plan for how to get all children in all year groups back to the classroom in the autumn term after up to six months at home.

Here are the main points from the Department for Education (DfE) guidance:

 How will the number of contacts between children and staff be minimised?

Schools in England have been told to keep classes or whole year groups apart in separate bubbles.

Primary schools are encouraged to have bubbles that include a whole class, while secondary schools are likely to need bubbles that consist of an entire year group so the full range of subjects can be delivered.

Older children will also be encouraged to keep their distance within groups of students and from staff.

Schools have also been advised to stagger break and lunch times, as well as start and finish times, to keep groups apart and avoid creating busy corridors, entrances and exits.

 How are children expected to get to school?

Students have been advised to keep their use of public transport to a minimum in the autumn.

Parents, staff and pupils will be encouraged to walk or cycle to school if at all possible  and schools have been told to consider using walking buses to reduce the use of public transport.

On dedicated school buses, the one-metre plus social distancing rule will not be required. Instead, schools should consider whether pupils can be grouped in their bubbles on the designated transport.

 What activities are likely to be avoided in the autumn?

Returning to nurseries, schools and colleges is vital for young peopleas education and wellbeing. All children and young people, in all year groups, will go back full time from the beginning of the autumn term.https://t.co/a4rjl9MJ5e pic.twitter.com/2DA9RiHY1c  Department for Education (@educationgovuk) July 2, 2020

Schools should avoid large gatherings, such as assemblies or collective worship with more than one group.

The advice also says singing, wind and brass playing should not take place in larger groups, such as school choirs and ensembles, as there may be an additional risk of infection.

Students will be asked to sit at forward-facing desks, rather than face-to-face at circular tables.

 What measures will be taken if there is a Covid-19 case in school?

By the autumn, all schools will be provided with a small number of testing kits that they can give to parents collecting a child who has developed symptoms.

The whole school, or all pupils in a year group, may have to self-isolate at home if a school has two or more confirmed coronavirus cases within a fortnight.

But the guidance insists that school closures may not be necessary if there are a number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 on site if schools implement the recommended controls.

If there is an outbreak, mobile testing units will be sent to schools to test anyone who has been in contact with someone who has tested positive.

 What happens if there is a local lockdown?

Expand Close Prime Minister Boris Johnson joins a socially distanced lesson during a visit to Bovingdon Primary School in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire (Steve Parsons/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Prime Minister Boris Johnson joins a socially distanced lesson during a visit to Bovingdon Primary School in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire (Steve Parsons/PA)

Every school will need to plan for the possibility of a local lockdown to ensure education continues.

The Government expects schools to have the capacity to offer immediate remote education if there is a local lockdown  or if a group of pupils need to self-isolate.

Schools should have a strong contingency plan in place for remote education by the end of September.

 Does my child have to attend school in September?

School attendance will be mandatory again from the beginning of the autumn term, which means parents could face fines if they decide to keep their child off school.

This week, Mr Williamson said families may face financial penalties if they keep their children at home, unless there is a good reason for the absence.

It is down to school heads to record whether an absence is unauthorised.

 Will the curriculum and exams look different in the next academic year?

Today weave published detailed plans for nurseries, schools and colleges to prepare to welcome all children back.



Endorsed by medical experts from @PHE_uk, our guidance will reassure parents and carers about what to expect for their children. pic.twitter.com/xQxYl6HPm2  Department for Education (@educationgovuk) July 2, 2020

GCSE and A-level exams are set to go ahead  but Ofqual is looking to push back the start date for the GCSE exams to June 7.

In exceptional circumstances, a Year 11 pupil could be allowed to discontinue a subject if the school judges that they would perform significantly better in their other subjects  such as English and mathematics.

Substantial modification to the curriculum may be needed at the start of the year so teaching time can be prioritised to address significant gaps in pupils knowledge.

Pupils starting secondary school in Year 7 in September may need to be taught essential knowledge and skills from the primary school curriculum to address gaps in English and maths.

 What will happen to breakfast and after-school clubs?

The guidance says schools should consider resuming any breakfast and after-school provision from the start of the autumn term to support working parents and ensure vulnerable children have healthy meals.

Schools should look at how they can make the provision work alongside their wider protective measures, including keeping children within their year groups or bubbles where possible.

But if it is not possible to maintain the bubbles used during the school day, then schools should instead use small, consistent groups, the advice says.

 What is happening in the other devolved nations?

Last week, Wales became the first country in the United Kingdom to reopen its primary and secondary schools for all pupils since they closed in March.

The Scottish Government aims to have all children back in school on a full-time basis on August 11.

The education minister in Northern Ireland hopes to be able to change school reopening plans to allow for a full return to the classroom in the autumn.

Under current plans, schools must comply with one-metre social distancing guidance for pupils when classes restart at the end of August.
When Micheal Martin made his acceptance speech as Taoiseach in Dail Eireann, he did so in the absence of his wife and family. They did not travel from Cork, because they were observing the travel restrictions in the Republic of Ireland: only essential travel and no further than 20km, or within your own county.

Watching the coverage, I caught sight of the Deputy First Minister for Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill. She was far away from her home in Tyrone, or from Stormont. Was her decision to travel essential? Unlikely.

Ms O'Neill had no role in the proceedings at the Convention Centre, or a vote in the process for the election of the Taoiseach. She posed for photographs with the Sinn Fein president, Mary Lou McDonald, and another colleague, Pearse Doherty.

Ms O'Neill seems fond of photo-opportunities. Deputy McDonald fell victim to coronavirus and spent a period of time in quarantine and self-isolation. She broadcast from her home on a regular basis, passionately urging the public to stay safe, self-isolate and not to make any unnecessary journeys. Ms O'Neill may have missed these podcasts.

One assumes the new leader of the Opposition in the Dail is familiar with the travel restrictions and rules imposed on her fellow citizens in the Republic of Ireland.

The Sinn Fein president is well aware that a photocall with her Northern Ireland colleague does not constitute "essential business".

Ms O'Neill breached the travel rules in place for the Republic of Ireland and also the spirit of the rules in place in the north. A minor breach, perhaps. Not one that many people would notice. So, she got away with it: that's Sinn Fein; they make their own rules.

Except Ms O'Neill is not a private citizen, or just a member of Sinn Fein. She is the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and, as such, is co-steering, with the First Minister, Arlene Foster, the Government response to the Covid-19 pandemic. She has been making the rules which the public are obliged to follow.

Therefore, it is not unreasonable for the same public to expect O'Neill to comply with those same rules, too.

In fact, it goes further than that: Ms O'Neill has been the most entrenched politician in Northern Ireland against relaxing the rules, or observances, since this whole crisis started. And in that she was right.

But she does not get to choose which rules she follows and those she sets aside.

The funeral of the late Bobby Storey was not the first breach of social distancing at republican funerals. Though it must be noted that the funerals of two DUP stalwarts and fathers of prominent DUP politicians were private and largely compliant with health guidelines.

This is not to make any comment on the deceased, other than he was a senior former member of the IRA. Apart from that, he was a private citizen with a family who now mourn his loss.

Past membership of the IRA (or any other organisation in Northern Ireland) does not come with exemptions to public health and safety rules.

It was natural and inevitable that the deceased's comrades and colleagues would want to pay their respects.

But the leadership of Sinn Fein now hold public office in both parts of Ireland and they have much wider obligations to the public.

There is more than an expectation that they demonstrate civic leadership by personal commitment to good practice, especially during a pandemic, They chose not to.

Sinn Fein members who wanted to show respect to the deceased could have done so, like the rest of us, who have family and friends who recently passed away, via social media, or by letter. They chose not to.

They could have used their expansive social media network to ask their members and the public to follow guidelines on mass gatherings and stay away from the funeral. They chose not to.

Sinn Fein, as an organisation, could have arranged a memorial service to celebrate the life of the deceased at a later stage. They chose not to.

Instead, they chose to ignore health guidelines. They chose to plan for a grandiose funeral. They chose to facilitate a large crowd. They chose to walk in procession, for the most part without wearing masks, despite the large gathering.

They chose options which made social distancing practically impossible. They chose to breach even the church guidelines for attendance at a funeral service. Sinn Fein chose to take control. This - and the fallout from the event - lies at the door of Connolly House.

When so many are making huge sacrifices to protect and shield those in the most vulnerable age-category from coronavirus, it was bizarre in the extreme to witness so many septuagenarian Sinn Fein politicians in close proximity without either masks, or gloves.

What credibility has Ms O'Neill in asking the public to wear face masks in the future?

Politicians in government rule as much by moral authority as they do by legal authority. Lose moral authority and the bond of trust between government and the public breaks down.

Ms O'Neill's defence - and that of her colleagues - is almost Dominic Cummings-esque. And she almost got away with it, too, except for those selfies taken at the funeral, hugging other people present.

Ms O'Neill can hug comrades, but members of the public can't hug parents and grandparents can't hug their grandkids. Another "do as I say, not as I do" rule for the Deputy First Minister.

Both the Ulster Unionists and Alliance have called on Ms O'Neill to consider her position. This won't do much for harmony around the Executive table, which is already strained by the marginalisation of the three minority parties by Sinn Fein and the DUP.

But Ms O'Neill is unlikely to resign. Arlene Foster has stopped short of calling on Michelle O'Neill to stand aside and has merely asked to her apologise.

Ms O'Neill showed much less generosity when Mrs Foster was under pressure in 2017. Then, Ms O'Neill said: "If Arlene Foster has any sense of the outrage and anger in the public, then she will step aside."

Another example of Sinn Fein setting standards for others, but ignoring any which apply to their performance in public life.

The general public, as opposed to a majority of Sinn Fein supporters, are truly outraged at what they see. But outrage alone is no longer enough to force a resignation.

The DUP will feign dismay at their Executive partners, but will muddle through with Sinn Fein to keep the Executive going.

If Michelle O'Neill had any nous, she would immediately heed Arlene Foster's advice and offer an abject apology. She can always wash her hands afterwards.
People coming to Chicago from 15 states experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases must self-quarantine for 14 days upon entering the city beginning next week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced late Thursday afternoon.

The order, which will go into effect on Monday, does not apply to people who are at the airport for a connecting flight or driving through the city on their way elsewhere, city officials said.

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The city of Chicago will also shut down bars that arent following social distancing guidelines and increase patrols in problem areas, Lightfoot and other officials told liquor license holders on a conference call ahead of the Fourth of July weekend.

If you squander this opportunity we will shut you down and you will not reopen anytime soon, Lightfoot said on the call, according to two sources.

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Illinois health officials Thursday reported 869 new known cases of COVID-19 and 36 additional confirmed fatalities, bringing the total number of known cases to 144,882 and the confirmed death toll to 6,987.

Heres whats happening Thursday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:

8:24 p.m.: No apparent COVID-19 spread from George Floyd protests; Chicago and Cook officials keep wary watch on reopening

Protests in Chicago and the suburbs over the Minnesota death of George Floyd as a police officer knelt on his neck so far have caused no identifiable uptick in COVID-19 cases, city and suburban Cook County officials said this week.

But they also noted that cases have been leveling off in Chicago and the suburbs, and increasing slightly statewide. Those trends came not only in the wake of the protests, but also as testing expanded across the state and stay-at-home orders were relaxed, making it tough to know precisely why the numbers changed, they said.

I would use caution to pin that to protests, said Dr. Jennifer Layden, chief medical officer for the Chicago Department of Public Health. At a similar time we were seeing the protests, we also were gradually coming out of shelter in place, meaning more people are going back to work, there was opening up of restaurants and stores, (and) we were seeing small gatherings. ... So, if we saw an uptick, it would be very difficult to know if it was related to protests or social gatherings that people are having in their home. Read more here.  Hal Dardick

7:44 p.m.: Bars and restaurants find themselves at coronavirus crossroads for July Fourth: Its going to be a tough weekend

Ahead of a summer holiday weekend that, in normal times, would mean packed patios and crowded bars, restaurant and bar owners are facing fines of up to $10,000 if COVID-19 restrictions are flouted.

Its a tough line to toe for businesses just barely scraping by after nearly three months of being closed due to the pandemic. In Pilsen, La Vaca Margarita Bar has been open for outdoor dining for a few weeks, converting its parking lot into a patio with tables spaced 6 feet apart. Read more here.  Josh Noel, Louisa Chu, Adam Lukach, Gregory Pratt and Grace Wong

5:46 p.m.: Chicago Cubs expand COVID-19 testing to the families of players and coaches

The Chicago Cubs are expanding their efforts in the battle against the coronavirus by inviting the families of uniformed personnel to participate in testing.

Cubs President Theo Epstein said Thursday the wives of several players have been through the testing process. Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy revealed Wednesday that he spent 30 days quarantined after testing positive and wanted to share his experience with players and their families. Read more here.  Mark Gonzales

5:23 p.m.: Lightfoot orders anyone coming to Chicago from states where COVID-19 is surging to quarantine for 14 days

People coming to Chicago from 15 states experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases must self-quarantine for 14 days upon entering the city beginning next week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced late Thursday afternoon.

The city ordered the quarantine for anyone who has spent more than 24 hours in the following states before arriving in Chicago: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

The order, which will go into effect on Monday, does not apply to people who are at the airport for a connecting flight or driving through the city on their way elsewhere, city officials said.

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Like every action we have taken in response to the COVID-19 crisis, this decision was difficult but necessary in order to ensure the continued health and safety of Chicagos residents and businesses, Lightfoot said in a statement.

Anyone violating the order could face fines of $100 to $500 per day, up to a maximum $7,000, the city said.Under the order, quarantine means staying at a single designated home or dwelling for 14 days before doing any activities outside of the home or dwelling, the city said.

The order by Lightfoot mirrors a similar measure taken in New York City. It was unclear how the city plans to monitor or enforce the order.With neighboring Indiana and other states pausing their reopening plans or even moving backward as new cases of the coronavirus surge, officials in Chicago and Illinois said Wednesday they have no plans to alter loosened rules that took effect statewide last week.

Lightfoot previously said the city tracks its data closely and will not hesitate to take action if they see an upward swing. Read more here.  Gregory Pratt

4:23 p.m.: Hurricane Harbor may reopen soon, but Six Flags Great America still questionable

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water parks in Gurnee and Rockford may be reopening soon, though a reopening for Six Flags Great America remains less certain.

More than a month has passed since Six Flags laid out how it thought it could reopen as safely as possible considering the ongoing pandemic, but its Gurnee-based amusement and water parks remain closed, as do all amusement parks, trampoline parks and indoor playgrounds.

Six Flags has received word from the Governors Office that its two water parks are allowed to begin opening, spokeswoman Caitlin Kepple said. An opening date has not yet been set.

Our full-time team is now back on property and working to implement our comprehensive reopening safety plan so that we can welcome guests to Hurricane Harbor Chicago and Hurricane Harbor Rockford soon, she said in an email. Read more here.  Emily K. Coleman

4:21 p.m.: Of the COVID-19 pregnancy cases reported in Illinois, Black and Latina women make up over 70%

At around 25 weeks pregnant with her first child, a 21-year-old Hispanic woman became infected with COVID-19.

The young womans doctors at St. Anthony Hospital in Little Village were just learning more about the coronavirus as it hit Illinois in the spring, and they wanted to monitor the babys growth.

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But her insurance did not initially approve the growth ultrasound, her doctors said. So they had to wait to schedule a scan to check her baby. This delayed their ability to assess the pregnancy and created extra stress.

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There were a lot of barriers for her, said Margarita Flores, a St. Anthony midwife who helped treat her.

When she delivered in June, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia  high blood pressure in pregnancy that can lead to serious, or even fatal, complications for both mom and baby. The baby was born small.

The mom and her baby, whose names were not shared for privacy reasons, are doing well now, said Flores and her doctors.

The coronavirus has amplified the challenges pregnant women face. And even more so for Black and Latina women, who might be disproportionately affected by COVID-19, according to recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, and who experience extra burdens of not only implicit racism within the health care industry, but also socioeconomic factors that can impact their ability to access care. Read more here.  Alison Bowen

3:32 p.m.: Chili Davis, the former Cubs hitting coach, will work remotely when the Mets open camp because of COVID-19 concerns

Former Chicago Cubs hitting coach Chili Davis will keep working remotely when the New York Mets open summer training camp Friday.

The New York Post was first to report that Davis, 60, wont be on site at Citi Field for the beginning of practices because of concerns about the coronavirus.

The timeline for him to join us is uncertain yet, Mets manager Luis Rojas said on a video call Thursday.

The Post, citing unidentified sources in its report, said Davis does not have the virus.

Davis was the Cubs hitting coach in 2018 but was fired nine days after the Rockies beat the Cubs in the National League wild-card game. Read more here.  Mike Fitzpatrick

2:31 p.m.: 869 new known COVID-19 cases, 36 additional deaths

Illinois health officials Thursday reported 869 new known cases of COVID-19 and 36 additional confirmed fatalities, bringing the total number of known cases to 144,882 and the confirmed death toll to 6,987.

Chicago Tribune staff

1:44 p.m., (Updated 5:43 p.m.): Federal judge denies GOP request to prevent Pritzkers crowd limit rule from applying to political gatherings

A southern Illinois judge on Thursday declared Gov. J.B. Pritzkers orders aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 to be void, saying state law doesnt allow governors to extend disaster proclamations beyond 30 days.Pritzker first declared a statewide disaster because of the pandemic on March 9 and has issued extensions every 30 days.

The implications of Clay County Circuit Judge Michael Mchaneys order, which stemmed from a lawsuit filed by state Rep. Darren Bailey, were not immediately clear. The state is in the fourth phase of Pritzkers reopening plans and continues to be under a number or restrictions, including on crowd sizes and on how businesses can operate.

The ruling came hours after U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis denied the Illinois Republican Partys request to temporarily block Pritzkers limit on gatherings from applying to political parties.

The Clay County ruling is the latest twist in a legal battle that has raised the profile of Bailey, a Xenia Republican who is running for a state Senate seat in the November election.

Bailey has drawn personal rebukes from the governor and was kicked off the House floor in a bipartisan vote during the General Assemblys special session in May for violating a rule requiring lawmakers to wear masks.

McHaney previously ruled in Baileys favor, exempting him personally from Pritzkers stay-at-home order. Bailey later withdrew and refiled his lawsuit, bringing the case back before the judge. The governors office attempted to move the case court, but a federal judge in southern Illinois sent it back to Clay County.

This is a victory for freedom. This is a victory for the people of Illinois, Bailey said Thursday outside the courthouse, where he was greeted by supporters, some of whom wore T-shirts that read My governor is an idiot on the front and Fire Pritzker on the back but none of whom appeared to be wearing the face coverings required under Pritzkers executive order.

Pritzker spokeswoman Emily Bittner downplayed the significance of the ruling in a statement.Every other court  both state and federal  that has considered these exact issues has agreed with the administration that executive orders protecting Illinoisans health and safety are well within the governors constitutional authority, Bittner said. This includes a federal court decision earlier today.

The Illinois attorney generals office is expected to appeal the ruling in state court. Read more here. Dan Petrella

1:24 p.m.: Illinois Holocaust Museum reopens July 15 in Skokie

The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in north suburban Skokie will reopen to visitors July 15  with free admission for the day and limits on the number of visitors at any one time. The museum, devoted to the subject of the Holocaust in mission but in practice embracing a wide range of subjects and exhibits having to do with tolerance and human rights, also has announced an extension of the popular current Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The exhibit about the Supreme Court justice and her popularity now will run through Jan. 3, 2021. Before the closure, said museum marketing vice president Marcy Larson, RBG had been on track to be one of the most popular weve ever had.

Read more here. Doug George

1:22 p.m.: Brookfield Zoo has reopened, and the animals might outnumber the humans

Brookfield Zoo is reopening this week, albeit slowly, with lions and tigers and zoo members first. The zoos gates swung open Wednesday for those holding seasonal memberships, with the general public to follow July 8. Tickets are being sold at reduced capacity, with timed admissions and only in advance.

On a hot and sunny first morning with temperatures edging their way towards 90 degrees, those admissions were just a trickle, with whole tree-lined boulevards inside the park free from strollers, crowds, humans of any kind. If youve ever wanted to feel like it was just you and the animals, this is your chance.

But be warned not all exhibits are open yet. Visitors will not be able to enter any of the indoor habitats  so still closed are the primate houses, the dolphins and aquatic shows, and all of the indoor bird and aviary exhibits. But that leaves a lot open in the zoos 216 acres of grounds  including the lions, tigers and big cats, bears, hoofed animals such as bison and zebra, kangaroos and more.

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Read more here. Doug George

1:21 p.m.: Mayor Lori Lightfoot, city officials threaten to shut down bars that dont follow social distancing guidelines

The city of Chicago will shut down bars that arent following social distancing guidelines and increase patrols in problem areas, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and other officials told liquor license holders on a conference call ahead of the Fourth of July weekend.

If you squander this opportunity we will shut you down and you will not reopen anytime soon, Lightfoot said on the call, according to two sources.

Maureen Martino, executive director of the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce, said the message from the mayor was clear and stern.

Obviously the mayor has been very careful about reopening because of the virus and we dont want to go backwards. Its everyones best interests to follow the rules, Martino said. A couple bad operators can set us back. Were hoping to make the mayor proud this weekend.

On the call, the city said that the Chicago Police Department and Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Department would be proactively canvassing problems areas, with potential for immediate closure orders and citations of up to $10,000 each on bar owners that arent following rules.

A PowerPoint slide with that message said: The time for education is over.

Read more here. Gregory Pratt

12:23 p.m.: Horses stand idle and clowns call it quits as the coronavirus cancels Illinois rodeos. This is the first time ever that we wont have a rodeo.

Forty horses are crowded around Lenora Calzavara, their breath hot and their tails swishing.

These arent riding horses, waiting for someone to take them out for a trot. These are rodeo horses, bred for their ability to buck riders off in less than eight seconds.

A horse named Mafia Witch is the queen bee in the bunch, with her witchy-white mane blowing in the wind. She was the 2016 world champion bareback horse.

Theres her son, a blonde called Capone; another bareback bronc, the copper-colored mare named Angel Heart, and Shaken Not Stirred, a light brown saddle bronc who bucks his riders out of the saddle.

Summer is usually the busiest time of year for the horses, who travel from rodeo to rodeo, throwing off riders and entertaining crowds.

But for months, the horses havent done much besides graze on Calzavaras pasture in Harvard, Illinois.

They are all bored to death because this is the first time ever that we wont have a rodeo, said Calzavara, owner of Big Hat Rodeo.

Read more here. Ally Marotti

10:25 a.m.: Alabama college students held coronavirus parties and whoever got virus first won cash prize, officials say

Several college students in an Alabama city organized COVID-19 parties as a contest to see who would get the virus first, officials said.

Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry said students hosted the parties to intentionally infect each other with the new coronavirus, news outlets reported.

McKinstry said party organizers purposely invited guests who tested positive for COVID-19. She said the students put money in a pot and whoever got COVID first would get the cash.

It makes no sense, McKinstry said. Theyre intentionally doing it.

Read more here. Associated Press

10:20 a.m.: Bars and nightclubs are becoming dangerous hot spots for COVID-19, health experts warn'

When the bars in Michigan reopened in June, Tony Hild forgot about face masks, social distancing and caution and headed out to Harpers Restaurant and Brewpub, a popular spot in the college town of East Lansing. There was a line out the door. Inside were 200 people dancing, drinking and shouting over the music.

It was just so crowded, and Im like, This is going against everything Im told not to do, said Hild, 23, a college student. But I didnt think I was going to get it.

As people eager for a night out flood back into public after months of confinement, public health experts say that college-town bars, nightclubs and corner taverns are becoming dangerous new hot spots for the coronavirus, seeding infections in thousands of mostly young adults and adding to surging cases nationwide.

Louisiana health officials tied at least 100 coronavirus cases to bars in the Tigerland nightlife district in Baton Rouge. Minnesota has traced 328 recent cases to bars across the state.

And in East Lansing, home to Michigan State University, nearly 140 cases have been linked to Harpers, Hild included. He came down with a sore throat, chest pains and fatigue, and by then  more than a week later  he had already visited four other restaurants.

Read more here. The New York Times

10:18 a.m.: For some suburban theaters, reopening not feasible with fraction of audience capacity

As some entertainment venues are starting to slowly welcome patrons back, others are finding its not feasible to open under the states Phase 4 guidelines.

Among those is the Tivoli Theatre in downtown Downers Grove, part of the family-owned Classic Cinemas movie theaters. The historic 1,012-seat theater had planned to open June 26, but was caught off guard when the guidelines issued June 22 in Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois plan allowed for a lower audience capacity than anticipated. Per the states guidelines, theaters should operate at lesser of 50 guests OR 50% of overall theater or performance space capacity.

We can open, but ... because (the Tivoli) only has a single screen, that would be 50 people per show time and theres no way we can make that work financially, said Chris Johnson, CEO of Classic Cinemas.

It doesnt mean we wont reopen at some point, it just makes it extremely challenging.'

Read more here. Kathy Cichon

10 a.m.: Wrigley Field rooftops reach agreement with city to open for Cubs games, rooftop manager says

The city of Chicago has approved rooftops around Wrigley Field opening at 25 percent capacity for Cubs games, according to the general manager of a rooftop venue.

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"We can open our rooftop," said Freddy Fagenholz, general manager of Murphy's Rooftop.

Fagenholz said he received a call from the city Wednesday that their license was approved with safety restrictions related to COVID-19.

Read more here. Madeline Buckley

9:15 a.m.: Whats it like as COVID-19 Phase 4 allows jazz clubs like Andys to reopen

When Chicago guitarist Andy Brown headed out for his gig Wednesday night at Andys Jazz Club, he realized hed forgotten something.

I was so excited as I walked out of my house, I was halfway to my garage when I realized what he had left behind, Brown told the audience during his first set. My guitar.

So he rushed back inside to get it.Thats what happens when you havent played a concert gig in 3-1/2 months.

But Brown and his bandmates  pianist Jeremy Kahn and bassist Joe Policastro  clearly have been practicing during the shutdown, judging by their exuberant performance at Andys, which reopened last weekend. Each instrumentalist packed so much melodic content and rhythmic drive into their solos, it sounded as if they were unleashing a torrent of pent-up musicality. Which, of course, they were.

I was sort of planning for this period, said Brown in an interview. The game hadnt even begun till this past weekend, when phase four of the states reopening plan allowed clubs to reopen at 25% occupancy.

7:05 a.m.: Chicago to focus on ticketing bar, restaurant violations of COVID-19 guidelines over July 4 weekend

Chicagos Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Department on Thursday will begin ramping up its enforcement of health guidelines for phase four of the states coronavirus reopening plan, especially at bars and restaurants, according to a news release from the mayors office.

The city has focused on reaching out and educating businesses up to this point, but this weekend expects to focus on writing tickets up to $10,000 related to social distancing, capacity limits and face coverings, according to the release.

City inspectors also are now able to immediately order the close of businesses they believe are committing egregious violations of the guidelines, according to the release.

Among the rules under the citys version of phase four: customers must practice social distancing and use face coverings; bars and restaurants have to keep to 25% of indoor capacity or 50 people; alcohol sales end at 11 p.m.; and lines outside must be managed.

The citys encouraging anyone who sees violations to call 311.

Since phase three of COVID-19 reopening began June 3, the city has issued 59 warnings or notices to correct and 9 citations, after 377 investigations of violations.

Chicago Tribune staff

6 a.m.: Lightfoot dismissed questions about ability to afford new CTU contract if economy tanked. Then COVID-19 hit, damaging CPS budget for years.

After the Chicago Board of Education approved an expensive new teachers contract last fall following a bitter strike, Mayor Lori Lightfoot dismissed as 100% wrong the notion that the school district could have trouble affording the deal if there was an economic downturn.

Then came COVID-19, stay-at-home orders and a resulting recession that has hammered public finances across the country. Now, the financial fault lines that the Tribune identified have been breached as Chicago Public Schools officials try to put together a new spending plan in the coming weeks.

There are short-term problems: The state, which has its own financial woes, did not include extra education funding in its new budget that CPS was counting on to help pay for the teacher contract. And property tax collections the district is heavily relying on could decline because people and businesses might not have the wherewithal to pay their bills.

Over the longer haul, the school district faces the double-whammy prospect of further erosion in property tax collections and higher pension contribution costs triggered by the economic downturn, budget analysts said.

Read more here. Hal Dardick and Hannah Leone

6 a.m.: You think the first half of 2020 was unpredictable? Wait until the second half.

The first six months of 2020 have been, shall we say, a lot: a whipsaw presidential primary, a worldwide pandemic, economic collapse and massive, sometimes violent protests over police brutality and racial injustice.

If little of that was predictable, imagine how volatile the next six months might be.

While COVID-19 cases are decreasing in Illinois, a sharp contrast to other areas of the country, nearly all plans for major events remain subject to change. But as it stands, schools will return to in-person instruction, some safety net benefits related to the pandemic will cease and the Chicago Bears will start their season by playing the Detroit Lions at noon on Sept. 13.

Thats the plan, anyway. As 2020 has amply demonstrated, who knows how things will actually shake out? Here are some things to look forward to in the second half of 2020.

Read more here. John Keilman, Madeline Buckley

Breaking coronavirus news Stay up to date with the latest information on coronavirus with our breaking news alerts.

Here are five things that happened Wednesday related to coronavirus in Illinois:

As other states reverse course amid COVID-19 surge, Illinois and Chicago officials said theyre watching metrics but have no plans yet to tighten restrictions.

Illinois will open more small-business development centers, including 5 in Chicago, to help COVID-19 recovery

Brookfield Zoo reopening at reduced capacity  right now there may be more animals outside than people.

McDonalds plan to reopen dining rooms has been put on hold as COVID-19 cases surge in parts of U.S.
Pictured are the COVID-19 safety improvements made to Courtroom H at the Rock County Courthouse, 51. S. Main St., in Janesville. All courtrooms will have protective barriers and other measures installed in the coming weeks as the county prepares to reopen in-person court proceedings.
Police stand guard in front of the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) detention facility in Depok, Indonesia, during a riot that killed five officers and a detainee, May 9, 2018.

Six Indonesian Islamic militants went on trial Wednesday for allegedly planning and instigating a prison riot in West Java province that left a half-dozen people dead, including five police officers, in May 2018.

Prosecutors at the East Jakarta District Court indicted the six defendants on charges of criminal conspiracy and use of violence that caused deaths during the riot, which lasted from May 8 to May 10 that year. All six pleaded not guilty as the indictment was read out to them Wednesday.

The defendants  Suparman, Syawaludin Pakpahan, Suliono, Handoko, Wawan Kurniawan, and Suyanto  are being tried virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They could face the death penalty if convicted under Indonesias anti-terrorism laws.

Beginning in April [2018], defendant Suparman (alias Maher) had been simulating the arrest and ambush of [police] with several other terrorism inmates, the indictment said, referring to how the defendants had rehearsed for the riot in Depok.

Prosecutors said the defendants began meeting in January 2018 to plan a terrorist act in the prison, which is attached to the headquarters of the elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) police unit near Jakarta. They were being detained or serving sentences for terrorism-related offenses.

The defendants denied being involved in the riot.

I did not do  what was charged. At that time, I was ill with a gastric reflux, Suparman told the court when Chief Judge Nelson Jafasar asked him to respond to the indictment. Witness testimony is expected to begin when the trial resumes on July 8.

Five officers and an inmate were killed during the riot that involved 155 prisoners and went on for 40 hours.

At the time, police said the riot was started by a quarrel between a guard and an inmate over food. Officials said rioters attacked guards, seized their weapons and held an officer hostage.

The indictment made no references to the alleged quarrel. Preparations for the riot included physical training and creating duplicate keys, authorities said.

Police said the five dead officers had been tortured with most suffering deep neck wounds and other injuries. Four other officers were injured, including an officer who was taken hostage.

Authorities said the inmates had armed themselves with about 30 weapons taken from an area where the prison stored contraband seized during police operations.

During the riot police allowed the inmates to meet with cleric Aman Abdurrahman, the de facto leader of Indonesian supporters of the Islamic State (IS) terror group, who was being held at the prison. He was sentenced to death a month later following his conviction on charges linked to ordering terror attacks beginning in 2016.

A few days after the riot was put down, a series of terrorist attacks struck Indonesia, including suicide bombings that targeted churches in Surabaya  the countrys second largest city  and that involved two families. Authorities pinned the attacks and the prison riot on Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), the Indonesian affiliate of IS. In all, 48 people were killed.

The combination of the prison riot and the attacks led Indonesias parliament to pass revisions to toughen the countrys anti-terrorism law.

Previous convictions

Two of the defendants connected to the riot are serving lengthy prison terms for previous convictions on terror-related charges.

Syawaludin, 45, was sentenced to 19 years for killing a policeman in North Sumatra in 2017, while Wawan Kurniawan, the leader of a JAD cell in Pekanbaru on Sumatra Island is serving an 11-year sentence for holding terrorist training exercises.

Last year, a court in Jakarta sentenced Dita Siska Millenia, 18, to two years and eight months after finding her guilty of trying to assist the rioters by coming to the Brimob headquarters in the wake of the riot.

Police arrested Dita and seven others for allegedly trying to storm the prison after the riot. A man who stabbed an officer guarding a post outside the Brimob headquarters was shot and killed.

Police also killed another suspect as he allegedly tried to strangle officers who were arresting him in the nearby town of Bekasi on suspicion that he and others were heading toward the detention center to assist the inmates.

IS claimed that its fighters were responsible for the riot, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based website which monitors extremist activity and communications on social media.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who faces trials on corruption charges linked to the embezzlement of billions of dollars from the state development fund 1MDB, arrives with supporters at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, June 5, 2020.

Updated at 12:06 p.m. ET on 2020-07-03

United States justice officials have announced their efforts to recover another U.S. $96 million in assets, including paintings by Claude Monet and Andy Warhol as well as high-end Parisian properties, purchased allegedly with money misappropriated from Malaysian fund 1MDB.

This comes as questions surround the new government in Putrajaya over whether it is serious about prosecuting cases linked to beleaguered state development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, including those involving former Prime Minister Najib Razak. More than $4.5 billion was embezzled from the fund founded by Najib in 2009 to jump start economic development in Malaysia, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice have alleged.

The complaints filed today in the Central District of California identify additional assets traceable to the 2012 and 2013 bond offerings. These assets include luxury real estate in Paris, artwork by Claude Monet and Andy Warhol and accounts maintained at financial institutions in Luxembourg and Switzerland, the DOJ said in a news release issued Wednesday.

These seemingly endless civil forfeiture complaints associated with the 1MDB scandal are representative of the seemingly endless schemes used to hide and launder money as part of the sophisticated efforts to steal from the Malaysian people, Don Fort, chief of the Criminal Investigation department at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, said in the release.

Fort said the forfeiture complaints would return millions more to Malaysia.

[W]here it belongs and where it can finally be used for its original intended purpose  to improve the lives of everyday Malaysians, he said.

The leader of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said he had been in touch with U.S. investigators.

We were aware of the DOJ action before the announcement was made. We are always in contact related to 1MDB case, MACC chief Azam Baki told BenarNews on Thursday.

He said Malaysia had established an international task force in 2018 with the U.S., Switzerland, Singapore, Canada, Luxembourg and other countries related to the 1MDB investigation in connection with international investigations into billions of dollars that went missing from the fund.

Previously, officials had said that 1MDB money was believed to have been laundered through financial institutions in several jurisdictions including several of the countries mentioned above.

Charges dropped against Najib relative

Meanwhile, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who took office in March, and his government have been criticized for 1MDB-related issues following a decision by prosecutors to discharge criminal money-laundering charges against Najibs stepson, Reza Aziz.

Reza who allegedly used funds to set up a film production company, Red Granite, which produced the Academy Award-nominated film The Wolf of Wall Street, struck a deal with the government to forfeit about $107 million of 1MDB assets.

Muhyiddin said he did not have a role in the deal.

In a blog post on June 25, Mahathir Mohamad, who succeeded Najib as prime minister in 2018 after his Pakatan Harapan coalition pulled off an election upset, alleged that Muhyiddin was planning to free Najib from all 1MDB-related charges.

Far from fulfilling his pledge to bring down Najib, Muhyiddin is now trying to ensure Najib is exonerated from all charges and will be able to contest in the upcoming election. Najib then would no longer need Muhyiddin, because Najib himself is hoping to be the prime minister once more, Mahathir said.

Muhyiddin took over as unelected prime minister after Mahathir resigned from the post and his government collapsed, when Muhyiddin and other MPs quit the coalition to form a new alliance with other parties including Najibs United Malays National Organization (UMNO). Since then, Mahathir has sought to have Muhyiddin removed from the top government office.

Criminal charges

Najib, for his part, faces a total of 42 criminal counts linked to abuse of power and money laundering connected to 1MDB and a subsidiary. He could face decades in prison if convicted.

The former prime minister is awaiting a July 28 verdict on seven charges linked to a 1MDB subsidiary, SRC International, and continues to stand trial on 25 charges linked to 1MDB.

The 1MDB trial was to resume on Thursday but the Kuala Lumpur High Court agreed to Najibs request for a delay to allow him to campaign in Chini in Pahang state to increase voter turnout in a by-election for a state government seat. The 1MDB trial is to resume July 15.

In addition, Najib is standing trial for alleged abuse of power in tampering with 1MDB audit report along with Arul Kanda Kandasamy, the funds former CEO.

To date, the Department of Justice has turned over $620 million to Malaysia from the liquidation of assets, including those that financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, agreed to return as part of a settlement with the DOJ in 2019.

The agreement did not constitute an admission of guilt or liability on the part of Low or the asset owners, an attorney for Low said in a message to BenarNews. "Mr. Low maintains he has engaged in no wrongdoing in relation to 1MDB," the attorney, Benjamin Haslem, wrote.

The subject of an international manhunt, Low faces criminal charges in Malaysia for his role in allegedly embezzling billions of dollars from 1MDB through his relationship with Najib.

This report has been updated to include a statement from an attorney for Low Taek Jho.


Philippine security forces killed four suspected pro-Islamic State militants during a clash in the southern province of Maguindanao, an army spokesman said Thursday.

The suspected members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) group were riding in a pickup truck on Wednesday when they ignored a military checkpoint on a highway near the town of Shariff Aguak, prompting a chase, spokesman Lt. Col. Anhouvic Atilano.

The BIFF fighters identified as Rahib Lumenda Esmail, Arsad Ukom Utto, Prati Kuludan, and Aliofmer Talimbu were wounded in the clash that followed. They were rushed to a nearby hospital, but were later declared dead, he told BenarNews.

He said the troops had received a tip about possible militants in the region.

Our troops were informed by our counterparts about the suspicious group of men, Atilano said, adding that a rifle, grenade launcher and ammunition were recovered from the truck.

The BIFF is a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a former armed separatist group that signed a peace deal with the government in exchange for control of an expanded autonomous region on Mindanao Island. MILF leaders are part of a transitional government in the south and many of its fighters have given up their weapons to join the military.

The BIFF, meanwhile, is one of several groups in the southern Philippines that have pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

BIFF guerrillas, however, did not join other pro-IS militants in taking over the southern city of Marawi for five months in 2017. The siege and an ensuing battle with government forces killed an estimated 1,200 enemy combatants, soldiers and civilians, including Isnilon Hapilon, the IS leader in the Philippines.

Wednesdays shootout in Maguindanao occurred as President Rodrigo Duterte was expected to sign a strengthened anti-terror bill, which, critics warned, could lead to abuses of human rights. The bill, passed by the parliament, needs Dutertes signature to become law.

While the military has said the bill has enough safeguards to protect Filipinos from arbitrary arrests and mistaken identities, it imposes stiff penalties and imprisonment against anyone found to be working with local and foreign terrorist organizations. It also authorizes officials to carry out warrantless arrests and hold suspects for up to two weeks.

The latest clash follows an incident on June 26 when government security forces killed four suspected militants linked to the Abu Sayyaf Group during a pre-dawn raid in Metro Manila.
Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana talks to reporters during a visit to Pag-asa (Thitu), a Philippine-occupied island in the disputed Spratly chain in the South China Sea, April 21, 2017.

The Philippines and Vietnam on Thursday separately denounced Beijings decision to stage naval exercises this week in contested waters of the South China Sea, saying this could deepen international tensions in the strategic waterway.

Chinas launching on Wednesday of five days of drills in waters around the Paracel Islands was highly provocative, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said, as he noted rising tensions stemming from Beijings perceived aggressiveness in the sea region.

In Hanoi, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had lodged a diplomatic note with Beijing to complain about the drills that seriously violate Vietnams sovereignty.

The maneuvers began on Wednesday and were expected to run until Sunday. Other ship traffic was to be prohibited in the affected waters, according to Chinese state-run media and a June 27 announcement by the Maritime Safety Administration of Hainan province.

Although the Philippines has no official territorial claim in the Paracel chain, Lorenzana said the exercises would trigger alarm bells for all the claimants in the South China Sea, which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea.

Well, that is very concerning. We view that with alarm, Lorenzana told an online forum on Thursday organized by the National Defense College of the Philippines, where reporters were invited to participate.

The Chinese can do theirs in their own territorial waters within their exclusive economic zone, Lorenzana said, referring to naval exercises. But if you do it here in contested areas, as I said earlier, then thats highly provocative.

China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim the Paracel Islands. The Philippines, for its part, claims Macclesfield Bank, which lies east of the Paracels, but which China considers part of that chain. Beijing has also included the bank as part of its administrative district named after the Paracels.

Chinas drills around the Paracel Archipelago seriously violate Vietnams sovereignty, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement issued Thursday.

The action by Beijing was also detrimental to the relationship between China and ASEAN in their efforts to negotiate a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, as well as maintain peace, stability and cooperation in the maritime region, the ministry said.

There was no immediate response from Chinas government or state-run media to Thursdays criticism by the Philippines and Vietnam.

Elsewhere in the sea region China, Taiwan and four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)  the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei  have competing claims to the Spratly Islands, where Beijing has constructed artificial islands and installed military outposts on atolls.

Amid the [COVID-19] pandemic, the tension in the West Philippine Sea continues, the Philippine defense chief said. Four years after the Hague ruling that favored the Philippines, the South China Sea region remains  a contested geopolitical space and a potential flashpoint.

Lorenzana was referring to a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that went in Manilas favor. President Rodrigo Duterte has never enforced that ruling, and instead has sought closer bilateral ties with China, while distancing the country from the Philippines traditional ally, the United States.

The Duterte administration, however, lately has been voicing its displeasure with Chinese actions in the South China Sea, and has sided with other claimant states including Vietnam. Last year, a Chinese ship sank a Filipino boat in contested waters, leaving 22 Filipino crew members floating at sea until they were rescued by a passing Vietnamese boat.

More recently, Manila protested Chinas creation of two districts in the sea region and the designation of Kagitingan Reef within an administrative region it calls Nansha district.

China is the most assertive and aggressive among the claimant states, Lorenzana said.

Recently, there has been a slight increase in the occurrence of incursions and harassment perpetrated by Chinese vessels  both military and civilian  against the Philippine Navy, Philippine Air Force, Philippine Coast Guard and Filipino fishermen, he said.

Between August 2019 and early 2020, there had been nearly 20 incidents of harassment in the sea region that involved Chinese military ships, commercial boats and maritime militia, Lorenzana said.

Weighing these events, the Philippine government believes that matters of sovereignty can be prudently solved, or best resolved in peaceful and diplomatic channels, he said.

During an online meeting of ASEAN leaders hosted by Hanoi last week, both the Philippines and Vietnam were vocal about recent Chinese activities in the South China Sea.

Even as our region struggles to contain COVID-19, alarming incidents in the South China Sea occurred, Duterte said during his speech before ASEAN counterparts on June 26. We call on parties to refrain from escalating tensions and abide by responsibilities under international law.
Health department spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said in an email Thursday that state officials were inspecting Roseland to make sure it was following the correction plan. If the hospital was still not in compliance with state and federal requirements, she said, the department would continue to cite the facility and require action to correct the deficiencies.


This effort will raise donations to help Central Oregons creative artists  musicians, visual artists, performers and creative workers  by offering grants and a platform to bring attention to the talent that needs help to continue thriving in this community throughout the pandemic and beyond.

More Info
Voters passed a $195 million bond issue to build a new central library and improve several satellite libraries. The new location will be north of the sheriff's offices. Some oppose the new location, even through the board paid $12 million for the land. Some want more funds allocated to the other, satellite libraries. Your thoughts? Email us at letters@bendbulletin.com

You voted:
Unique Clay, a Black postal carrier who tested positive for the coronavirus, died a week after giving birth to her third child in May, according to a news report. Her 11-year-old daughter found her dead at home. In April, Eli Solano, a Latina mom, passed away after her battle with COVID-19 shortly after giving birth to a baby boy, according to a fundraiser from her family. The state Health Department recently investigated Roseland Community Hospital after a 31-year-old pregnant woman died from the virus there in May. The report does not list a name, but Cook County medical examiners office records of coronavirus deaths show a 31-year-old Black woman named Lolita Davis, who was pregnant, died May 15.
WHITE CLOUD  Michigans Dragon at Hardy Dam, located in Mecosta and Newaygo counties, will soon open three segments to the public for hiking and mountain biking.

The segments, which surround the Hardy Pond Reservoir, total approximately six miles and include three bridges and three scenic overlooks.

The public can access the following segments:

 A portion of Segment 4, called the "Brower Loop," has been completed. Residents are encouraged to enter Brower Park in Mecosta County and park at the upper lot for boat trailer parking. The start of the roughly 1.5-mile loop is just on the other side of the nearby amphitheater.

 Segment 9 is partially complete, with several miles of trail ready for visitors. Parking is available at Sandy Beach County Park in Newaygo County. The trail runs to the northeast, approximately 3 miles. Visitors should be sure to stay on the trail, as it runs alongside several private properties and roadways. Residents are asked to return to Sandy Beach to continue to segment 10.

 Segment 10 is completely finished, and is an approximately 1.7 mile run of trail to the southwest of segment 9, ending at Hardy Dam County Marina. Parking is available at Sandy Beach County Park.

Detailed maps of the open sections can be found at thedragon.us/the-dragon-trail/trail-conditions/. Visitors will need to follow protocols at campgrounds to ensure they have parking passes.

According to a news release, more miles are in the works for later this year.

"The completed miles have come to fruition thanks to committed volunteers and generous corporate funders and partners," the release stated. "A total of $1.1 million has been raised towards the $3.7 million goal."

The completed Dragon Trail will include 11 segments, 23 bridges, 13 scenic overlooks, and surround 4,000 acres of water.

Named for the Hardy Pond Reservoirs resemblance to a Chinese Dragon, the project is managed by the Newaygo and Mecosta County Park Commissions and West Michigan Mountain Biking Alliance.

According to a Michigan State University Center for Economic Analysis study, the Dragon will draw 100,000 annual visitors and generate $4.15 million in annual economic activity, with at least 70 new jobs.

There is already quite a buzz about the Dragon Trail. Were thrilled to be able to let mountain bikers and hikers get out on it, Jeff Abel, Mecosta County Parks Superintendent, said in the release. The trail is poised to become a major regional asset and attraction, and were motivated to keep adding miles to the completed total.

The newly launched Dragon Trail website, located at thedragon.us, provides further detail on forthcoming trail openings and construction progress.

The website is the go-to resource for updated information on the Dragon Trail, including the comprehensive trail plan, sustainability measures, trail features, and opportunities to support the trail.

Fundraising opportunities will be shared on the website in the future to raise the final $2.6 million of the $3.7 million campaign.

Residents interested in helping or donating to the cause may visit thedragon.us.
As we have been reporting, the city of Chicago is the most violent place in America and little is being done about the incredible murder rate in some black neighborhoods.

A quick look at the stats: last year murders in Chicago were up 57% from 2015, shooting incidents up 46%, shooting victims up 47%.

On New Year's Day, 28 more people shot in Chicago.

It is obvious that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner will not protect innocent people and solve the problem.

But what is the problem?

The vast majority of shootings are being done by low-level gang members who are running wild in the streets.

An investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times shows that even if the cops do find a gang member with a gun, that person is given a very light sentence - maybe a year in prison.

So the justice system in Chicago is not punishing the thugs convicted of carrying illegal weapons with any severity.

That's problem number one.

Secondly, there's policing.

Here in New York City, shooting incidents are at a record low. And this is a tougher town than Chicago.

The reason shootings are down is because the New York police target the gangs and arrest them for any and all violations.

They hound gang members, truth be told.

But in Chicago, the opposite is true. The police do not want any part of engaging violent gang members.

Why? Because the liberal politicians in Chicago are making it impossible for street cops to do their jobs.

In fact, the ACLU is now running street crime in the Windy City.

Mayor Emanuel has instituted an ACLU-suggested policy that mandates a two-page police report each time a cop stops someone for questioning.

That means the cops are spending hours filling out paperwork if they even ask anyone what they're doing on a street corner at four a.m.

How insane is that?

And then there is the racist angle.

Most of those shot in Chicago are poor black people.

If the mass murder were happening in Chicago's business district, believe me, it would be stopped cold.

So Mayor Emanuel and Governor Rauner can be accused of racism because they allow the madness to continue.

In San Francisco, it's property crime.

Since 2010, crimes like arson, car theft, and larceny are up a whopping 64%.

Why? Because San Francisco politicians have stopped the police from enforcing quality of life crimes.

Therefore homeless people are all over the place - urinating and defecating in the streets, panhandling, and, when they need money to buy booze or drugs, committing crimes.

The situation is out of control and a disgrace. And that's what happens when liberal politicians demand that the police stop enforcing laws.

Look, there's a civility factor in this country.

With nearly 325-million folks living here, there have to be standards of behavior.

But in San Francisco, there are not. You can do whatever you want and therefore a beautiful city has now become blighted.

Add to that insane social policies, like San Francisco's General Assistance policy.

Ready? The city gives indigent people - homeless, those roaming around - three hundred bucks a month cash and benefits.

And where does that money go? Many times to purchase drugs and alcohol.

So if you are a West Coast drug addict, where would you go?

San Francisco of course - where the free money is.

Summing up, terrible laws, cowardly politicians, and apathetic voters all lead to chaos.

People continue to die in Chicago. And San Francisco is a chaotic mess.

But, unless voters wise up, nothing will change.

And that's the memo.
Its challenging times for everybody, but in terms of the organizations that are out there doing the work, theyre the ones that are feeling the most pressure, she said. We dug into the coffers and pushed out additional funds. For us, collections is important because it helps us learn about ourselves and each other. We really based grants on merit. Unfortunately, the merit was how much under pressure are they? We looked at the groups that were having the hardest financial time and those were the top of the list.
Bill breakdown the differences between the Vietnam protests and Black Lives Matter. Can these radical leftists successfully tear down our nations institutions?



Plus, analyzing President Trumps chances at reelection. Will the Silent Majority come out in support of the President?

OReilly also shares his Stand Up For Your Country campaign and how it can help President Trump.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Secretary Clinton's big victory in New York yesterday knocks Bernie Sanders pretty much out of the race. Although Mrs. Clinton still faces an FBI investigation, barring an indictment over the email situation she will represent the Democratic Party in the presidential election. Donald Trump also scoring big in New York, and now it looks like he will get the Republican nod. Talking Points does not see a way for the GOP establishment to stop Mr. Trump, even if he doesn't have the 1,237 delegates needed to be nominated on the first ballot. Simply put, Trump is so far ahead that Ted Cruz, John Kasich or any other Republican phantom simply does not have the constituency to take the nomination away from Trump. Any back room dealings will be quickly exposed and will doom the Republican Party. So I must admit that I am stunned. As I said last night, the two most shocking political stories in my lifetime are the assassination of President Kennedy and the rise to political prominence of Donald J. Trump. History will record that this was an uprising, a movement of the people supporting a candidate who has absolutely no ties to the political establishment. Republican voters are so angry they don't care what Mr. Trump says about other people. They don't care if his programs are controversial. They simply want to hear his message stated in a blunt way. Trump's strategy has been brilliant in mobilizing support. But it has also put him in a position where most Americans view him unfavorably, at least according to the polling. The Real Clear Politics average has Mr. Trump's unfavorable rating at 65%, Hillary Clintons at 54%. Those numbers can of course come down because now it's really a one-on-one race for the White House. That being said, Bernie Sanders will likely hang in there because if Mrs. Clinton is indicted, he'll be in line for the nomination. I also expect Ted Cruz to compete energetically in the remaining primaries and John Kasich to at least make it through the Northeast primaries that will come to a head next Tuesday. All in all, tall cotton right now for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Whether you like them or not, you have to give both credit for entering a very tough arena and coming out victorious. And that's the memo.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com The far left once again banging the drum that America is a terrible country, racist in every way. The cable arm of NBC News is peddling that. Here's what happened yesterday in a discussion about Ebola, ISIS, and illegal immigration: HOWARD FINEMAN, MSNBC ANALYST: The brown people coming from the South, the Arab people coming from the East, the black people coming from Africa, nobody's saying that in so many words. Nobody's saying it at all, but it's in the background of this whole discussion, and anybody who would deny that doesn't know how this country operates. Well I deny it and know how the country operates, and we are not a racist nation. He is full of you know what. Laws and high level decisions are not based on skin color anymore. But in order to drive African-Americans to the polls the race card is now being played with just two weeks before the election. Thus, that disgraceful exhibition. On the Ebola front, the administration is now back-tracking on the travel ban, as we told you it would. Today, it announced restrictions on anyone traveling from West African nations affected by Ebola. They will only be allowed to enter the USA at five airports: JFK, Newark, Dulles, Atlanta and O'Hare in Chicago. As Talking Points predicted, if there is one more Ebola case, there will be an overall travel ban imposed. In just a few moments, we will talk with the Liberian ambassador about the situation. But back to the race card. Fair-minded Americans should be deeply offended, deeply offended that their country is being smeared with the bigotry brush.



Certainly there are individual cases of racism; they occur within every ethnic group. No government can stop individual stupidity. But in America there is opportunity for all. Unfortunately that opportunity has been beaten down recently by bad economic policies. The Democratic Party believes that Washington should run the economy, but that has failed. The Republican Party wants a free market economy with low taxation and aggressive job expansion. The problem is, the free market economy was abused during the Bush administration, and the economy collapsed because of it.



That's what led to the election of the very liberal Barack Obama, who promised greater prosperity for all.



That promise remains unfulfilled, as wages for working Americans have gone down during Mr. Obama's tenure, and unemployment among black Americans remains higher than any other group. So, the far left is desperate, and the only way Democrats can keep power in the Senate is for African-Americans to once again bloc vote. And they must turn out in great numbers on November 4th. That is why liberal zealots are trying to demonize their country by playing the race card. And that's the memo.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com According to a Gallup poll, nearly 40% of Americans say they are conservative thinkers; 24% say they are liberal. But is there any group in the country more maligned than conservatives? Maybe serial killers. Enter conservative Senator Ted Cruz from Texas. Yesterday he announced he is running for president. Mr. Cruz wants to return America to traditional, conservative tenets. He is very clear about that and there is little compromise in his platform. That has angered the left and even some moderate Republicans. REP. PETER KING (R-NY): "Now Ted Cruz may be an intelligent person, but he doesn't carry out an intelligent debate. He oversimplifies. He exaggerates. And he basically led the Republican Party over the cliff in the fall of 2013." Congressman King referring to Senator Cruz's attempt to shut down the government if Obamacare was not repealed. In the Wall Street Journal today the lead editorial compares Ted Cruz to Barack Obama, both men beginning their presidential quest just having two years in the Senate. Both men are young. President Obama was 45 at the time he started running. Ted Cruz is 44. But the comparisons end there. However, it is interesting to see how Mr. Cruz's resume is being scrutinized by the media while Barack Obama's inexperience was essentially given a pass. Here's a Washington Post editorial from January 18th, 2007 quote: "No Matter what your political leanings are, you're likely to feel at least a twinge of excitement about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's decision to compete for the Democratic presidential nomination." The Post basing its assessment on Mr. Obama's mixed race, citing the historical significance of it. But Ted Cruz is part Cuban, a fact that was immediately brought up: WHOOPI GOLDBERG, COMEDIAN: "I do. I want to see your birth certificate. ((APPLAUSE)) And you're a mixed, gentleman, right? You are mixed. I want to know, are you talking for the Cuban side or the white side?" Well that's nice. Ms. Goldberg also referring to the fact that Ted Cruz was born in Canada. That shouldn't be a problem for Cruz according to the Harvard Law Review, which says a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally considered a natural born U.S. citizen. But facts really don't matter anymore in this country do they? So expect the Canadian deal to be wrapped around Senator Cruz's neck along with other fabrications. CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: "Accusing Obama, the president of the United States, of being under communist influence for going to Harvard Lawwhich of course is where Ted Cruz went! But he wasn't under communist influence. This guy is bad news." But the record shows that Ted Cruz did not say President Obama was under communist influence at Harvard. The senator did chronicle the resumes of some professors he considers Marxist and said Mr. Obama might be a good person to lead them. But sarcasm is not fact. But again, facts don't really matter anymore. Talking Points believes that conservative Americans are the most maligned mainstream group in the USA. If you don't believe in global warming, you're labeled a loon. If you believe life begins at conception, you're a religious fanatic. If you want strong action against the jihadists, you're a warmonger. And on and on. If any minority group in the country was smeared the way conservatives are, there'd be a Justice Department investigation. So good luck to Ted Cruz. He most likely will not win the nomination, but his entry into the race is a positive thing if you believe that America should be a vibrant democracy where all sincere views are considered. And that's the memo
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com All over the country, Americans are worried about the Ebola virus. The danger is clear, but somewhat exaggerated. There is no threat of an Ebola epidemic in the USA right now. But what is not exaggerated is the dishonesty of the federal government. Last night we called for the head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Thomas Frieden, to resign because he has been misleading the folks, not telling us the full story about how Ebola is spreading, and about how it can be contained. The biggest fabrication the doctor is putting out there is that stopping West Africans from coming to the USA would somehow diminish the world's ability to fight Ebola in Africa. As we said last night, that is flat out false. You can read that Talking Points memo on BillOReilly.com. Tonight, a brand new ABC News--Washington Post poll tells the story. Question: In dealing with the Ebola outbreak, would you support or oppose restricting entry to the United States by people who've been in affected countries? A whopping 67% support. Twenty-nine percent oppose. Four percent are clueless. Also, Do you think the United States is doing all it reasonably can to try to prevent further cases of Ebola in the United States, or do you think it should do more? Thirty-three percent: doing all it can. Sixty-four percent: should do more. That scientific poll mirrors our BillOReilly.com poll where we asked, Do you believe the federal government is doing enough to protect Americans from Ebola? Just three percent say the government is doing enough. Ninety-seven percent say it is not. As the death toll continues to mount, people all over the world are getting more concerned. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 10,000 new Ebola cases a week in Africa could happen within the next few months. Here in the U.S., a 26-year-old Dallas nurse -- Nina Pham, who contracted the disease from the Liberian Thomas Duncan, who came to the U.S.A. and died -- has received a blood transfusion from an Ebola survivor. And in Omaha Nebraska, Ashoka Mukpo continues to fight for his life after he contracted Ebola in Africa while working for NBC News. There is no question that all the nations in the world should be trying to help stop the epidemic in West Africa. But that will be a long process. Preventing West Africans from entering the USA could happen today -- passports and visas denied. But the Obama administration continues to dither, and the CDC continues to put out false information. Therefore the concern in America continues to grow. And that's the memo.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com I came back from vacation because I'm furious about how the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown is being reported and how various people are reacting to it. So let's run it down. Mr. Brown is a victim, shot six times by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson -- who up until August 9th had a very good record. Now some suspect him of murder, and a grand jury is hearing the case. Also, Attorney General Holder went to Ferguson, Missouri today to meet with FBI agents and state authorities, who are conducting separate investigations. Good, the Feds should look into this case and their investigation should be transparent. That is, Americans should get hard information as it comes out. Which brings us to this video of Mr. Brown, stealing from a convenience store and pushing the clerk around. Agitators called the release of the video a smear against Michael Brown and his family, further inflaming the situation. But facts are not smears and this goes to Mr. Brown's state of mind on the day he was killed. Americans have a right to know what happened leading up to the shooting. You don't suppress an important piece of information in a case like this when only one side of the story is being reported by the media, which is generally terrified of any racial situation. Then there is the looting. Disgraceful. And one guy even has a gun, shooting the locks off the doors while his cohorts break in and steal merchandise. It doesn't get any lower than this. The people rioting and looting in Ferguson are dishonoring the memory of Michael Brown and his grieving family. They are insulting them. Again, disgraceful. The Factor has been investigating those arrested. On Monday night 78 people were taken into custody, and we believe about 30 of them have criminal records. Only four out of the 78 are from Ferguson. Many of the others are trouble-makers. But the liberal media will never report that, nor will they report the true picture of criminal justice in the United States. Instead NBC News pays Al Sharpton to deliver garbage like this: AL SHARPTON: A young man  18 years old. Shot down in the street unarmed and rather than address it, you try to smear the young man rather than uphold the principles of justice and dignity. I want you to know these parents are not going to cry alone, they're not going to stand alone, they're not going to fight alone. We have had enough! Enough of what Al? Police efficiency? In 2012, the last stats available from the FBI, there were about twelve million arrests in the USA. That averages 34,000 arrests per day. In 99.9% of those cases, the perpetrator was not killed by police. In fact just over 400 fatal police shootings a year are recorded in this country, according to the FBI. So let me restate: 12 million arrests a year, 400 fatal shootings. Many of them justified. And Al Sharpton has the nerve to insult the American police community, men and women who risk their lives protecting us? This charlatan has the gall to do that, and NBC News pays him? My God, why is this acceptable? Also on MSNBC, another agitator said this: MICHELLE BERNARD: There is a war on black boys in this country. In my opinion, there is a war on African-American men. ((EDIT)) It is an absolutely deplorable situation that the United States, which is supposed to be the greatest nation on Earth, sits back and allows black boys to be murdered. Black boys being murdered in the context of Ferguson. Are you kidding me? The truth is that 91% of black homicide victims are killed by other blacks. Ninety-one percent. Yet that woman tries to mislead folks by accusing American law enforcement of shooting down young black men in the streets. It is beyond belief. What is going on in this story, beyond belief. Yet these people get away with it and in certain places they are even respected. Incredibly, Al Sharpton is going to speak at the funeral of Michael Brown on Monday morning. The slogan the racial agitators are using in Ferguson is Hands Up - Don't Shoot. They apparently believe that Michael Brown was trying to surrender when Officer Wilson shot him dead. Maybe that's true, we'll find out. But MSNBC put a person on the air who said Mr. Brown was shot in the back. That turns out to be false, according to an autopsy. We also hear today that Officer Wilson has an orbital blowout fracture of his eye socket. The Factor has not been able to confirm that, and we do not want to try this case on television. We are only reporting the alleged injury to demonstrate that there will be much more to come in this case. That is why there is an investigation, and a grand jury, and a trial process. But to the race hustlers, Officer Wilson is already guilty. They have convicted him. Their slogan is no justice, no peace. I guess that's lynch-mob justice because those people will never accept anything other than a conviction of murder in this case. They don't care what really happened. They want Officer Wilson punished. And he should be punished if he murdered Michael Brown. If a jury finds Wilson guilty, he should be put in prison for the rest of his life. But Officer Wilson is entitled to the presumption of innocence, something Al Sharpton will never give him because Sharpton only cares about his own self-aggrandizement and if he has to stoke racial hatred to get that, that's what he'll do. I know this man. His record defines him. Yet he has succeeded in bringing his brand of racial grievance to the White House. When President Obama announced his Brothers Keeper initiative, I was there. Sharpton was there. Finally, the president himself. He was completely correct to call for calm in Missouri. That's his job, to lead the nation. But now, the president should step aside and allow his own Justice Department -- headed by Eric Holder, certainly sympathetic to Michael Brown -- to uncover the facts. As you saw with the O.J. Simpson acquittal, our justice system can be very flawed. But it's all we have. It's the only thing separating us from the anarchy that Al Sharpton and others want to impose. What happened to Michael Brown should never happen to any American. What happened after his death should never happen in this country. But it is happening and only the truth will overcome the chaos. That's the memo.
Covid-19 driving fundamental shifts in Africa's consumers The Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to a new kind of African consumer who is already displaying fundamental shifts in consumption and purchase behaviour...

In-store Covid-19 safety protocols

How Covid-19 is shifting retail customer priorities - report Covid-19 is driving significant changes in customer experience, supply chains, health and hygiene, and employee engagement, according to the Deloitte Consumer Sentiment in Grocery Retail report...

Pricing a deciding factor

Shopping less often but spending more per visit

The report analyses BrandsEyes social media data and Bonsellas consumer survey data to assess shifts in buying habits and consumer priorities during the pandemic. Bonsella is a consumer rewards programme located in 150 tier 2 independent retailers across South Africa. The programme rewards customers with instant airtime to their mobile phones.Commenting on the report findings, BrandsEye chief executive, Nic Ray said: Since the lockdown, complaints about retailers have focused on Covid-19 issues such as price changes, stockouts and store hygiene. And while pricing is unsurprisingly consumers chief concern in deciding where to shop, across all LSMs, people are acutely aware of the safety and health measures retailers are taking around Covid-19. These measures are influencing where people are deciding to do their shopping."The majority of shoppers surveyed wanted Covid-19 safety protocols implemented by retailers. Social media conversations about branch or store physical safety had the second-largest increase during lockdown increasing by 11.7 points, and complaints about it increased by 13.5 points.Shoppers expected retailers to adhere to social distancing measures and took to social media to praise those that met their expectations and criticise those that did not.The report reveals that 39.1% of customers said the main reasons why they shopped at their primary store was due to Covid-19 safety measures and store sanitation.Social distancing at checkout-tills was the most desired in-store Covid-19 safety measure mentioned by 70.7% of those surveyed. This was followed by shoppers wearing masks (68.5%) and staff wearing masks (57.6%).According to Andrew Weinberg, CEO of Retail Engage, which owns the Bonsella brand, there has been significant shift in consumer adoption to health precautions in stores, over the last three months. Most stores implemented the appropriate health and safety measures quite quickly resulting in consumer confidence and continued support of the stores.The most valuable resources and indicator on what is happening on the ground is the analysis of consumer buying behaviour, combined with intercept consumer research and review of historical trendlines. Retail Engage has staff located in stores throughout South Africa, and the feedback and research surveys from these staff have been extremely valuable, the company says.According to the report, 81.5% of surveyed shoppers chose their primary store based on price, followed by specials and sales (52.2%). On social media, affordability and changes in pricing were conversation topics that had the largest increases during the lockdown.Consumers took to digital channels to complain about price-hikes in particular, leading to a 14.7 point increase in complaints about changes in pricing and an 11.6 point increase in complaints about competition and price-fixing.Since lockdown began, consumers have made less frequent visits to shops but are spending more per visit, with basket value increasing by 30%.Some survey respondents said they had been purchasing groceries in larger quantities to decrease the number of visits made to the shops, while others did so because of concern over stock-outs and forthcoming price hikes.
Distell has launched Click2Collect.co.za, a web-based solution to help South Africans order alcoholic drinks from more than 22,000 taverns countrywide in a simpler and safer manner.

Western Cape pilot

How Click2Collect works

National Liquor Traders Council created to transform tavern industry A new national body has been formed to help transform South Africa's taverns into modernised and technology-savvy business enterprises...

The Click2Collect platform allows consumers to locate their nearest tavern  some they may not even have been aware of  to place an order for payment on collection. The consumer then books collection for a specific date and time.The platform is designed to improve convenience for users, cut out queuing at taverns and make it easier to avoid crowds and maintain safe social distancing.Distell is a large South African producer and marketer of spirits, fine wines, ciders and RTDs beverages. It lists household names like Amarula, Nederburg, Three Ships, Savanna and Klipdrift under its brand stable. Although Click2Collect is designed by Distell, the platform allows consumers to order any alcoholic beverage, including those offered by other producers.The company is first implementing a special pilot project in the Western Cape to test the platform to ensure quick, smooth and convenient user capability.Wilson Khupe, Distells head of sales and distribution in Southern Africa, said: We are collaborating and working with selected taverns in the Western Cape, offering them support, educational content and tools. Importantly, we are also soliciting feedback from these taverns to tweak where necessary in order to deliver a best-in-class solution.Apart from the obvious benefits for consumers such as safety and convenience in obtaining their alcoholic beverages of choice, the system enables taverns to trade in a socially responsible manner, as well as allows access to data that will allow them to focus on what their patrons want and avoid the burden of unnecessary stock."Khupe added, Distell is committed to assisting taverns, restaurants and other licenced establishments to continue trading responsibly, so they can generate an income, maintain staff and pay overheads during this challenging time.Click2Collect.co.za allows orders to be collected from Monday to Thursday between 09:00 and 17:00, as per current Government liquor trading and consumption regulations with only 20 slots allocated per hour, making social distancing easier to maintain.On accessing the platform via QR code or by going to www.click2collect.co.za , users need to confirm that they are of legal drinking age before being allowed to use the site. They are then able to use the search bar to find the nearest taverns to their home. They can click the red location item to choose their preferred liquor outlet. This minimises the need for travelling excessive distances to purchase alcohol and therefore limits potential exposure to the Covid-19 virus.The consumer will then need to input their details, including their name and surname, e-mail address and cell number, choose their preferred pick-up date and time, and add their items to the cart before checking out. Once an order is placed on the Click2Collect.co.za platform, the liquor outlet and consumer each receive confirmation via SMS, containing a link with the order details, ticket number and address of the pickup point.On collection, consumers are required to show their confirmation with their ID as proof that they are over 18 years of age. They pay for their order, receive their goods and are encouraged to enjoy their purchase at home.Lefa Mapilo, secretary of the Western Cape Liquor Traders Organisation, said the Click2Collect platform is a win-win for both legal liquor traders and their customers. Apart from the simple convenience it offers, it eases traffic to taverns as well as controls the number of customers visiting these taverns at a given time, with an important emphasis placed on the wearing of masks. Essentially, Click2Collect.co.za allows taverns to trade responsibly, helping these liquor outlets to keep their staff and customers safe.The launch of Click2Collect comes shortly after the similar Hola Club Click & Collect drinks buying platform was introduced by Touchsides, Heineken SA, Diageo and Pernod Ricard in June.
A total of 10 short films, including two from South Africa, have been selected for the African Women in the Time of Covid-19 Short Film Competition - which is being held by the Ladima Foundation, in partnership with DW Akademie. The 10 selected films will premiere via a live stream on 10 July 2020 and then be available for viewing on various platforms from 11 July.

Watch the PREMIERE of African Women in the Time of Covid-19: 10 Selected Films, on the Ladima Facebook page on 10 July at 15:00 CAT. Catch the films from 11 July on other platforms including My Movies Africa, PremiumFree, & @AiMfilmfest website.#LadimaAfrica #LadimaFilmComp pic.twitter.com/R7BUfdVe0E  Ladima Foundation (@LadimaAfrica) July 2, 2020

'Being' - Malak El Araby (Egypt)

The short film competition invited African women to share their stories about the personal, economic, and social impact of Covid-19 in Africa. The brave and powerful films that were submitted sadly have reflected the extremely difficult circumstances that many African women are facing. The stories have shown how in too many cases that the pandemic has indeed impacted women harder and in different ways than on their male counterparts.An overwhelming response saw just under 200 women from 18 African countries sharing their moving and honest stories on a diversity of topics with dominant themes of domestic violence, altered access to opportunities, increased burden of care, although also of resilience and hope.The following films and filmmakers were selected:Malak is a 21-year-old film major graduating senior at The American University in Cairo. Malak is passionate about filmmaking and photography, winning third place UIFF in South Korea and working on multiple movies in Egyptian cinema. Malaks short films are always inspired by women empowerment, portraying their struggles and stories.

Being - Short film from Malak El Araby on Vimeo.



'Being' is about how everyone took everything for granted before the pandemic. How the little things in life are what matters most. How we never realise what we have until it is lost. What we miss and what we should appreciate in life after all of this is over.





'Blunder' - Fezeka Tholakele (South Africa)

'Moyo' - Hellen Samina Ochieng (Kenya)

'My Sunshine' - Chioma Divine Favour Mathias (Nigeria)

Love, Zawadi - Wambui Gathee (Kenya)

Worlds Apart - Yehoda Hammond (Ghana)

The Tempest - Skinnor Davillah Agello (Kenya)

Face Mask for Sale - Neha Manoj Shah (Kenya)

Loop: Every End Has a Beginning - Faith Ilevbare (Nigeria)

Fezeka Shandu is a 26-year-old aspiring filmmaker who grew up in the dusty streets of Umlazi, KZN South Africa. Growing up she always had a love for films and theatre. She has always wanted to tell stories in a simple way, but meaningfully and realistically.'Blunder' is about a couple who planned to get married before the lockdown was introduced, with all the rules and regulations everything has paused, however, the girlfriend's (Naledi) uncles decided to show up for lobola negotiations because they believe that culturally such things can't be postponed as it will upset the ancestors.Hellen Samina Ochieng is a 22-year-old creative based in Nairobi Kenya and an undergraduate student at Taita University. She has always had a strong passion for the feminist cause as she has seen first-hand how the inherently patriarchal Kenyan society affects women and young girls.Moyo tells the story of Achieng, a young single mother working as an underpaid nurse in Mbagathi Hospital, Nairobi. She struggles with the grim financial, mental and physical realities of being a single mother and the pressures of being a front-line, essential worker in a country crippled by a pandemic. When Achieng is called into the hospital at midnight to attend to a Covid-19 emergency, she must turn to Mike, her abusive ex-boyfriend, to take care of her daughter Waridi.Chioma Divine Favour Mathias is a writer, cinematographer/filmmaker, and actor. She is a graduate of statistics and the last of four kids.This short story is about the struggle of a single mother with a disabled child, trying to fend for herself and her baby at the same time surviving the effect of the pandemic. She did all she can to stay strong and sharp even in the face of tribulations. This story depicts the true strength of an African woman.Aurelie Stratton is an actress, writer, director and producer who graduated from Wits Drama School and moved to the United Kingdom shortly after graduation to further her study, career and experiences. After her return, she then co-founded a production company, You Kicked My Dog Productions with Emmanuel Castis and they produced the acclaimed short film Sides of a Horn, which qualified for the 2020 Oscars.In 'Ill Call You Later'Jo and Bec are sisters and can only communicate through video calls during the lockdown. Jo has not been taking Bec's calls because she is hiding something. Lockdown has been more dangerous for Job than Bec realisesWambui Gathee is an emerging director/producer rising steadily in the African film scene. She is a firm believer of artistic visual storytelling and her work voices and represents the true African narrator.With the lockdown measures being enforced, vulnerable women and young girls are put in a position where the life-threatening outside is safer than their own homes and at times forced to make difficult choices.Yehoda Adukwei Hammond is a 19-year-old and third-year film directing student at the National Film and Television Institute in Ghana. She is currently interning as a second assistant director with Esse Productions. Growing up in Ghana and Accra, she gained a keen interest in social issues occurring in her country, with a soft spot for girl child education.Rhema and Erica are junior high school students whose education has been interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. The differences in their economic situations have directly altered the course of their education and how they cope with the current times.Davillah is a professional dancer and choreographer and a filmmaker based in Nairobi Kenya. Born in Kogello Siaya county, an area rich in culture and dance, which played a major part in her love for dance and storytelling. She has taken part in numerous dance performances i.e. One Africa Music Fest in Dubai, Dance for Sale in Germany, I Can Dance finalist aired on KTN. She was nominated at the Sondeka Awards 2018 in the story through dance category. Safaricom Twaweza, Chapa Dimba.The Tempest is a short film about a dancer Davillah_S expressing how Covid -19 has changed her family and personal life, as well as millions of other lives across the globe. The dance performance is devised to reflect Davillah's challenges and solutions for coping with the pandemic while encouraging those who view the piece to stay positive and safe.Neha is from Nairobi and has worked in film and advertising since 2006. She is a skilled communicator who specialises in production design and has written and directed seven short films. Nehas stories revolve around challenging social constructs and bringing awareness to the audience through film. Neha has won two awards in media (Kalasha International Film and TV and Oshwal Award) and three of her short films have been showcased in film festivals in Kenya and the UK.They say this is the new norm, that things will be okay. At first, it's all fun and games, but time has a way of draining you. This is the story of a single mother in the time of corona, stuck, with no choice but to survive.Faith is a visual artist, using film as her medium of expression, and is passionate about creating films for social justice, especially telling stories of social issues affecting women globally. She wants to use film to start a narrative that will bring about change and conversations surrounding those issues. Born in and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Faiths first degree is in a medical-related field, but her passion for storytelling couldn't be held back: she graduated top in her class in Digital Film Production SAE Institute, Cape Town and currently works in Lagos, Nigeria, as a video journalist with the BBC.Loop is a short film highlighting the negative effect of domestic violence on children exposed to such violence during the lockdown.The 10 selected films were chosen by a panel of expert judges including Cornelia Glele, a journalist, blogger and filmmaker from Benin, Lizelle Bisschoff, a researcher and curator of African film and founder of Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival in Scotland; Nse Ikpe-Etim, a multiple-award-winning Nigerian actor with over a decade of active years on stage and screen; Professor Martin Mhando, a research fellow with Murdoch University, Western Australia and an award-winning filmmaker and experienced festival director; as well as Philippa Ndisi-Herrmannwho makes both short and long films, both fiction and documentary and whose prior work includes a melange of essayist documentary, photography and poetry, the majority of which she shot, directed, produced, and recorded sound for herself.For more information on the films, filmmakers and viewing opportunities visit www.ladima.africa The 10 films will premiere on the Ladima Foundation Facebook page at 3pm CAT on Friday, 10 July 2020.From July 11th films will then also be available to watch and stream on The Ladima Foundation website, www.ladima.africa
It recognises that nuclear is too expensive, but feels there are political reasons to pursue this technology. This would offer an opportunity to mend relations with Russia, which were effectively promised a nuclear construction deal during the tenure of former President Jacob Zuma. This plan was scuppered after it was associated with the State Capture scandal.
Current that is, as long as your current takes a wide view; like all Chicago-area museums the Illinois Holocaust Museum has been shut since mid-March by the COVID-19 pandemic. Notorious RBG, about the supreme court justice and her popularity, now will run through Jan. 3, 2021. Before the closure, said museum marketing vice president Marcy Larson, RBG had been on track to be one of the most popular weve ever had.
Joao Lourenco is counting on the First Lady and two ministers to restore Angola's balance sheets after the fall of the oil price and with the country's foreign debt representing more than 100% of the GDP.

The Angolan economy is essentially based on oil exploitation.Falling world oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic have made Angola one of the countries most exposed to financial crisis. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today worsened the outlook for the evolution of Angola's economy, now anticipating a recession of 4% this year, which puts the Angolan GDP in decline for the fifth consecutive year.The rating agency Standard and Poor's has given Angola its highest risk rating of CCC. The country's external debt stands at $8bn this year.Angola is struggling to meet repayment deadlines for eurobonds issued by the country and will have to mobilise $1.5bn this year.In an attempt to reverse the trend, President Joao Lourenco has surrounded himself with those closest to him; notably Edultrudes Costa, director of the president's office. The latter is a protege of Ana Dias, the First Lady.Diamantino, the oil minister, who's heavy responsibility of finding a formula to keep the countrys economy afloat, while the price of crude oil is falling. Prior to his post of oil minister, Diamantino was head of Ferrangol, and was President Lourenco's partner in a mining investment.President Joao Lourenco relies also on Borges at the Ministry of Energy to come to his rescue when all seems to tip towards an ongoing economic crisis. Borges is in fact the person who made contracts with Privinvest when Lourenco was defense minister. So, one of the inner circles.Ana Leal, an investigative reporter for TVI, a channel based in Portugal, is investigating Borges, the head of state's right-hand man. According to analysts on the ground, the reporters investigation is focused on conflict of interests outside of Borges diplomatic duties, involving private investments held with his sons and associates.The team that advises the Angolan president is supported by Ana Dias Lourenco, Joao Lourenco's wife. Ana Dias Lourencos influence started in her former role as director of the World Bank for four years.Previously very involved in financial matters, the Angolan first lady is bringing her financial expertise to fend off the increasingly unbearable situation in Angola, where her husband's promises to improve the population's daily life have been slow to materialise, even more so those to fight corruption. It should be noted that the negotiations over Angola's debt to China are being conducted by three public banks: China's Eximbank, the China Development Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Needless to say, China is the USs number one controversial business partner.Meanwhile, public finances are scarce and Angola needs to hope for a miracle at the end of the Covid-19 lockdown, which has started to ease. A miracle that will revive its economy, up until now fundamentally dependent on oil exploitation.
If you only know Jimmy Eat World for "The Middle"  which, admittedly, just might be the best pop-punk tune ever recorded by a band not named the Buzzcocks or the Mr. T Experience  then make time to listen to the emo-classic "Clarity," which presents a very different side of the band. And one of the highlights of that album is this powerful "Fireworks" number.
Hong Kong: Judge designation explained

The designation of judges and the operation of the courts in handling cases concerning the National Security Law must be subject to the requirements of the Basic Law, Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma said today.

In a statement, Mr Ma said the Chief Executive shall designate judges at each level of court to handle cases and appeals in relation to the National Security Law.

As stated in the government booklet on the National Security Law issued on July 1, judges are to be designated by the Chief Executive after consultation with the Court of Final Appeal Chief Justice.

Mr Ma said that designated judges can only comprise judges who have been appointed pursuant to the requirements of the Basic Law and that all designated judges will therefore come from the existing ranks of the Judiciary.

This is prescribed under Article 44 of the National Security Law, he added.

Appointments of judges under Article 88 of the Basic Law are made by the Chief Executive on the recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, which is chaired by the Chief Justice, Mr Ma said, noting that this has always been the position in Hong Kong.

Another relevant provision of the Basic Law is Article 92, he said.

As the Chief Executive has made clear, designated judges, like all judges, are to be appointed based on their judicial and professional qualities. These are the only criteria relevant to the appointment of judges.

This means that judges should not be designated on the basis of any political considerations, reinforcing the principle that in the handling or determination of any legal dispute, only the law and legal principle will be considered, he added.

The Chief Justice also said judges of foreign nationality are not excluded and that they are expressly permitted to be appointed as judges in Hong Kong under the Basic Law.

Such judges include the Non-Permanent Judges of the Court of Final Appeal from common law jurisdictions, whose immense contribution to Hong Kong has repeatedly been acknowledged by the Chief Executive, he said.

Mr Ma pointed out that while Article 44 of the National Security Law refers to the designation of a number of judges, this is not automatically to suggest the unsuitability of other judges in the Judiciary.

He noted that in considering the suitability of judges to be designated, any legal objections will have to be taken into account, such as those set out in Article 44 or any objections based on bias or reasonable perceptions of bias or other legal objections.

It is intended that once the term of designated judges comes to an end, other suitable judges may be designated, he said, adding that this will apply as far as Court of Final Appeal Non-Permanent Judges from common law jurisdictions are concerned.

He also said that the listing and handling of cases as well as the assignment of which judge or judges to handle cases or appeals will be determined by the court leader of the relevant level of court.

These are matters within the sole responsibility of the Judiciary, he said, emphasising that the independence of the Judiciary and the rule of law are cornerstones of the Hong Kong community.

It remains the mission and the constitutional duty of the Judiciary to maintain and protect judicial independence and the rule of law, Mr Ma added.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
If you had asked 40-year-old Melonie, she would have said yes, Johnson said. But 50-plus Melonie says no. My personality does not allow me to seek validation through others; I have to wake up in the morning and like what I see in the mirror. Im never afraid to say, I dont know or I need help.
Celebrate in what was the capital city of the Colony and Commonwealth of Virginia from 1699 to 1780. For the holiday, Colonial Williamsburg will hold a reading of the Declaration of Independence and share the stories of enslaved Africans, who made up more than half of the citys population when the Declaration was signed. Take part in Chownings Pig Roast for $45 (adults) or $22 (children) and an auction that included hand-forged items and American-made furniture.


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However, Natanz did become a point of controversy last year as Iranian officials refused to allow an IAEA inspector into the facility in October after allegedly testing positive for suspected traces of explosive nitrates. Nitrates are a common fertilizer. However, when mixed with proper amounts of fuel, the material can become an explosive as powerful as TNT. Swab tests, common at airports and other secure facilities, can detect its presence on the skin or objects.
Those killed in such accidents are usually freelance miners who settle near giant mounds of discarded earth that has been excavated by heavy machinery. The freelancers who scavenge for bits of jade usually work and live in abandoned mining pits at the base of the mounds of earth, which become particularly unstable during the rainy season.
The courts action also could mean the justices never have to reach a definitive ruling in a sensitive dispute between the executive and legislative branches of government, if either Trump loses reelection or Republicans regain control of the House next year. Its hard to imagine an administration of Democrat Joe Biden would object to turning over the Mueller documents or House Republicans would continue to press for them.
LAKE WAHTOPANAH  Several homes and cottages have been lost to flood waters overnight at Chimo Beach, including the year-round mobile home residence owned by RM of Riverdale Mayor Todd Gill.

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This article was published 1/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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LAKE WAHTOPANAH  Several homes and cottages have been lost to flood waters overnight at Chimo Beach, including the year-round mobile home residence owned by RM of Riverdale Mayor Todd Gill.

In the past three days since Sunday night's storm system dropped vast amounts of precipitation on a large swath of western Manitoba, communities have been battling rising flood waters upstream from the town of Rivers.

"Something went wrong here," one flooded-out homeowner told the Sun. "We've had storms in the past, and mist would hit our window, but nothing like this."

Chimo Beach is located about three kilometres east of the town of Rivers along the southeast side of Lake Wahtopanah.

MICHELE LETOURNEAU/THE BRANDON SUN, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE RM of Riverdale Mayor Todd Gill's flooded front yard at Chimo Beach, near Rivers.

Significant rainfall on Tuesday night has added to regional woes.

Earlier this week, severe flooding along the Little Saskatchewan prompted a few logs to be taken out of the dam at Minnedosa to help release some of the excess water in the lake and relieve pressure on the dam. The dam on the Little Saskatchewan River at Rapid City gave out on Monday due to the high water.

Locals estimate that about two inches (roughly five centimetres) fell near Rivers as the storm system passed on Tuesday night. That rainfall, combined with flooding coming from upstream along the Little Saskatchewan River which flows into Lake Wahtopanah, has forced the water in the lake to rise substantially, advance several metres beyond the regular shore line, and engulf a number of residences.

The Brandon Sun has a team in the region covering the flood. We will have a full report in Thursday's paper.

--The Brandon Sun
Editor's note: This is the latest information we have available on the potential for flooding along the Assiniboine and Little Saskatchewan rivers as of 11:33 p.m. on Wednesday night. We will be updating our website as we learn more.

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This article was published 1/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Editor's note: This is the latest information we have available on the potential for flooding along the Assiniboine and Little Saskatchewan rivers as of 11:33 p.m. on Wednesday night. We will be updating our website as we learn more.

Manitoba Infrastructure has recommended the evacuation of people and livestock from about 30 to 40 properties along the Little Saskatchewan River downstream of the Rivers Dam in the rural municipalities of Riverdale and Whitehead.

The provincial government "does not have confidence in the dam at Rivers," Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler said during a media conference in Brandon on Wednesday evening.

An "abundance of caution" has pushed them to "strongly recommend" those downstream evacuate themselves and their livestock, he said, adding the province was in the process of issuing notices approximately 30 to 40 notices to affected residents as he spoke.

As of Wednesday evening the RM of Riverdale called the evacuation of these residents "mandatory," though the order did not apparently include livestock.

TYLER CLARKE/THE BRANDON SUN Mayor Rick Chrest speaks as Agassiz MLA Eileen Clarke and Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler look on during a media conference in Brandon on Wednesday evening.

Earlier in the evening Minister Schuler said the Rivers dam was facing up to 12,000 cubic feet per second of pressure  "unprecedented" flows he said the 60-year-old dam was not designed to take. Some estimates have the flow peaking at as much as 18,000 cubic feet per second within five to eight days.

Schuler said since they cant see the bottom of the spillway it was difficult to tell whether the dam was compromised. However, they were in the process of shoring up its wings with rocks.

The municipalities of Riverdale, Whitehead and Cornwallis and the City of Brandon have been notified. Municipal officials are working with the province to ensure residents downstream of the dam are aware of the situation and have destinations in mind if asked to evacuate as a precaution.

Manitoba Infrastructure is also recommending that all use of Lake Wahtopanah be suspended immediately.

In Brandon, city councillors spent Wednesday evening alongside staff and volunteers in delivering evacuation preparation notices to "several hundred" residents of low-lying areas along both sides of the Assiniboine River, Mayor Rick Chrest said during Wednesdays media conference. Later in the evening at about 10:12 p.m. the City of Brandon issued more details about the operation, stating that the notices were given to homes in the area between First Street North and 26th Street North, from Stickney Avenue north to Galbraith Crescene "in the event that significant water comes Brandon's way."

Chrest said the flyers highlight the elevated risk of flooding in the region and urges them to "make themselves prepared to be evacuated on short notice."

A notice issued by the Rural Municipality of Whitehead on Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, crews had closed Grand Valley Road and were in the process of piling up a makeshift dike at its intersection with 18th Street, which Chrest described as "the only opening in our dike system."

In sharing this news, Chrest reiterated Schulers words in that these actions are being taken out of an "abundance of caution."

Impacted residents are asked to plan to stay with a friend or relative if at all possible. If staying with friends or relatives is not an option, more information can be obtained by calling the City of Brandon Enquiry Centre at 204-729-2186.

Also, according to Wednesday evening's press release from the province:

Overland flooding is being reported in areas across the Assiniboine River watershed. A number of rivers, including the Little Saskatchewan River, are above flood stage and low-lying land near the river is affected.

Flooding of low-lying areas is expected for most portions of the Assiniboine River and its tributaries. However, water is expected to remain below flood protection levels at most locations along the Assiniboine and Souris rivers.

A flood warning has been issued for the Whitemud River as the run-off from upstream watersheds is passing through the Arden and Gladstone areas. Water could rise above bank-full levels within a short period in the Whitemud River watershed.

A flood warning remains in place for the Little Saskatchewan River and Whitemud River watersheds. As well, a high water advisory remains in place for the Spruce Woods Provincial Park area.

Operation of the Portage Diversion could begin within the next 48 hours to limit flows in the lower Assiniboine River to 10,000 cubic feet per second. The level of Lake Manitoba is currently 811.5 feet, which is in the middle of the desired water level range. The operation of the Portage Diversion is not anticipated to have a significant impact on the level of Lake Manitoba. This operation is in accordance with Portage Diversion operating guidelines.

Manitoba Infrastructure crews are working in the flood-affected areas. Staff are monitoring water level conditions and inspecting infrastructure on an ongoing basis.

Property owners are advised to take precautions as water levels could rise significantly in a short time in these areas.

 mgoerzen@brandonsun.com

 tclarke@brandonsun.com
While no evacuations have been ordered yet for people in Brandon, the city has been handing out notices to residents and businesses in areas at risk for flooding.

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While no evacuations have been ordered yet for people in Brandon, the city has been handing out notices to residents and businesses in areas at risk for flooding.

The areas considered at risk are shaded in orange in the attached image.

North of the river, the area considered to be in the most potential danger is on the east side of 18th Street North, along Kirkcaldy Drive.

South of the river, areas on both sides of 18th Street North are in potential danger. The danger zone extends from 26th Street North on the west side to 6th Street North on the east side and from Stickney and McDonald Avenues on the south side to John Avenue on the north side.

Residents in these areas are asked to prepare to be evacuated at a moment's notice.

If an evacuation order is issued, Brandonites will be notified via the city's emergency siren, local radio stations, online on social media, in-person door-to-door visits and at brandon.ca. The Sun will also report if an evacuation order is issued.

In preparation for evacuation, the city recommends that each member of a household get a suitcase or duffle bag with the following items ready:

Photo ID and a document containing your home address.

Medications

Manitoba Health ID card

Wallet and bank cards

Cell phone and charger

Eyeglasses, contact lenses and solution

Change of clothes

Infant and childcare supplies

Dentures

Additionally, those with mobility aids and prosthetics are encouraged to bring those items with them.

Pet owners should make sure they bring pet food, a collar with identification, a toy or comfort item, a kennel and proof of vaccinations with them in case of evacuation.

Before departing a home, consider moving valuable items to the top floor. Anyone who ends up evacuated should make sure to keep all receipts related to expenses incurred like flood-proofing, meals and lodging.

 The Brandon Sun
Manitoba Infrastructures Hydrologic Forecast Centre issued an updated flood warning and high-water advisory for southwest and western Manitoba this afternoon.

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Manitoba Infrastructures Hydrologic Forecast Centre issued an updated flood warning and high-water advisory for southwest and western Manitoba this afternoon.

The Rivers dam is facing unprecedented flows on the Little Saskatchewan River following heavy rains and Manitoba Infrastructure has indicated there is potential for a structural failure, the department said in a news release.

A weather system has brought significant precipitation in the past week in southwest and western Manitoba. Some areas have received record-high precipitation of more than 200 millimetres during this period. The precipitation has caused water levels to rise in rivers and creeks in these areas.

A flood warning remains in place for the Little Saskatchewan River and Whitemud River watersheds, while a high water advisory remains in place for the Spruce Woods Provincial Park area.

Overland flooding is being reported in areas across the Assiniboine River watershed. A number of rivers, including the Little Saskatchewan River, are above flood stage and low-lying land near the river is affected.

Flooding of low-lying areas is expected for most portions of the Assiniboine River and its tributaries. However, water is expected to remain below flood protection levels at most locations along the Assiniboine and Souris rivers.

A flood warning has been issued for the Whitemud River as the run-off from upstream watersheds is passing through the Arden and Gladstone areas. Water could rise above bank levels within a short period in the Whitemud River watershed. Projected flows will be in excess of the peak flow during the 2011 flood event.

Manitoba Infrastructure crews are working in the flood-affected areas. Staff are monitoring water level conditions and inspecting infrastructure on an ongoing basis.

Property owners are advised to take precautions as water levels could rise significantly in a short time in these areas.

 The Brandon Sun
RIVERS, RAPID CITY, MINNEDOSA AND SPRINGHILL  An expected second wallop of thunderstorms and rainfall hammered several communities in southwestern Manitoba Tuesday night, worsening flood zones in areas already struggling with drenched land and homes.

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RIVERS, RAPID CITY, MINNEDOSA AND SPRINGHILL  An expected second wallop of thunderstorms and rainfall hammered several communities in southwestern Manitoba Tuesday night, worsening flood zones in areas already struggling with drenched land and homes.

The Brandon Sun revisited hard-hit areas it stopped at on Tuesday (See Page A4 for a story on Tuesdays travels). The localized scenes of devastation, in comparison to sunny green fields along what highways remained open, seemed incongruous. The occasional watery stretches of road also belied what many residents struggled with  total loss. Emotions veered from tears and shock to laughter, as neighbour helped neighbour and humour kept everyone working at the cleanup, and filling and piling sandbags to protect against the relentless advance of water.

Sometime in the early evening of Wednesday, a notice went out from the Rural Municipality of Whitehead, which includes the towns of Kemnay and Alexander.

"The Province of Manitoba has notified the RM of Whitehead there is the possibility the Rivers dam may break. The Little Saskatchewan and the Assiniboine rivers are rising rapidly. This notice is a warning that the situation may change quickly and you may need to evacuate as you may have no way out or your residence may be directly affected," according to the notice.

"Please have your bags and important items ready to go on very short notice."

RIVERS

Just outside Rivers, at the Chimo Beach Resort  a community of cottages and year-round homes  properties just barely hanging on after Sundays record rainfall were lost, including Mayor Todd Gills mobile home.

The small community, on the southeast shore of Lake Wahtopanah, is at a disadvantage. Upstream of the Little Saskatchewan River is Rapid City, where a dam breached after Sundays storms, and Minnedosa, whose own dam had logs removed to let more raging water through to protect the town.

The Cherewyks place, which theyve had for 49 years, barely hung on Monday as the swelling lake reached the level of the decking. On Wednesday morning, water reached well above the wrap-around deck.

"I just cant see how it happened," said Anne Cherewyk.

"Why wouldnt they open the gate here? If they opened the gate, theyd lose the bridge, I guess."

Work continues on sandbagging and diking around Craig Mayors cabin on the shore of Lake Wahtopanah on Wednesday.(Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)

While her son was there to help, along with neighbours, she said her husband couldnt be there. The cabin and the barn were all his work over the years.

"This is too much for him, to see all this. Its just too devastating for him," said Cherewyk.

Downstream of the Rivers dam is a bridge. Water levels were dangerously close to overcoming that structure, even as the Rivers dam held on. One man, who declined to share his name, said there were more than 130 spots overcome by water which the Rural Municipality of Riverdale needs to tend to. He also said Lake Wahtopanah was receiving all the water from Lake Audy on down.

"Were just getting crapped on over here," he said.

At the Jake Fast Park, a small campground next to the Cherewyks, Shirley and Stan Glushek lost the battle. Stan removed the septic tank from the couples trailer Wednesday morning, moving it to high ground. The trailer could not be salvaged. He and others, however, did manage to save a Brandon womans fifth-wheel RV that had water to its belly on Monday.

In 2008, July 1, Craig Mayor, his son and his daughter moved into their place near Gills.

"Eleven days later, my brother was killed on the highway out there in a head-on collision, on July 12. Its a tough time around here come the first of July," said Krystal Mayor, through tears..

"To see your neighbours lose their homes and try to save your own  Im very overwhelmed. But Im so full of love and joy to see the community coming together."

RAPID CITY

Cleanup and fixes after the Sunday assault were for naught in Rapid City, when the community was hit hard a second time.

At one street corner, a sinkhole had been repaired Monday. Tracy and Garry Jones live half a block away. On Wednesday, friends were helping remove furniture from their home. After Sundays rainfall, their basement filled with 10 to 12 inches of sewer backup. They were running five pumps.

"We just making headway yesterday (Tuesday). We went to Brandon for supper," said Tracy, adding a call with a neighbour indicated they should get home.

"We got here and it filled up again. Were just trying to get everything out because its getting stinky."

Family, friends and neighbours all work to sandbag and dike around Craig Mayor's cabin on the shore of Lake Wahtopanah on Wednesday after further rain Tuesday night exacerbated the already serious flooding situation along the Little Saskatchewan River watershed. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)

About the repaired sinkhole giving way, Tracy said the ditch was like a rushing river. She said Garry is exhausted from waking up every night since Sunday night every half hour to monitor and deal with the situation.

"Were just grateful to have a community  helping each other out," Tracy said.

She planned on cooking and delivering food.

"Thats what small communities are for."

MINNEDOSA

Patrick and Patti Menard celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary today  if they have a moment. On Wednesday, they gutted the home theyve been working on for 35 years.

The couple, among approximately 80 people who evacuated their homes Tuesday night, moved everything they own, including appliances, into a nearby church. After Sundays record rainfall, their basement had filled. After Tuesdays storm, the unfinished basement filled to the top.

"Its so hard. Its just so hard," Patti said, trying to stop herself from sobbing.

The pumper truck was filling up with water from the Menard home for the second time. Friends and neighbours formed a line, removing debris, wall materials and flooring. Trucks with sandbags arrived and those same neighbours helped pile them up around the home.

Included among the helping friends was Alison Burgess, who the day before was herself crying as she removed all the refrigeration and freezer units, as well as food stock, from her restaurant on the main street, the Corner Stone Grill.

"It has never flooded here," Patti said.

The couple will now have to remove a couple of feet of drywall from the main floor rooms. Patti, not the first to mention this, thought she could relax a bit after COVID-19 stresses. She works at the school, which is visible from her home. On Monday, school staff was evacuated from those premises.

"Its just been a totally difficult time," she said.

Volunteers clean ruined flooring out of the home of Patrick and Patti Menard in Minnedosa on Wednesday after it was flooded by the Little Saskatchewan River on Sunday evening and again Tuesday night. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)

SPRINGHILL

Springhill Hutterite Colony, a community of 139 people approximately 10 minutes northeast of Neepawa, flooded between 11 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday.

Colony secretary and manager Colin Wollmann and several other community members describe a terrifying evacuation of approximately 100 people from their homes to the gym. Around midnight or 1 a.m., the men carried children and some of the women through hip-high water in the dark. The current was strong.

"Its a miracle nobody drowned," said Wollmann.

He said the colony handles water events all the time, but this one was fast.

"We had equipment ready and everything, but it was too much," he said.

"Weve never seen the sheer amount of water in that short period of time."

Judy Hofer said the water rushed down from the northwest side of the property, from the direction of a dugout, through the shelterbelt and came rushing all the way down to the homes, then toward the school.

"We couldnt walk," she said.

A seamstress, all her materials were soaked  her sewing room is in her basement  and she sent them to a colony further to the north to be washed. Other soaked items were being burned.

Depending on where they were located on the property, all basements had between two inches and two feet of water. By 4 a.m., as the sky lightened, the water flooding the property began seeping away.

The province has not made a statement and the Minister of Infrastructure was unavailable for comment.

 mletourneau@brandonsun.com

 Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism.
TORONTO - A Canadian engineer arrested in Egypt last year arrived back in Canada on Thursday and was in need of medical attention, his family said.

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TORONTO - A Canadian engineer arrested in Egypt last year arrived back in Canada on Thursday and was in need of medical attention, his family said.

The health of Yasser Albaz, 52, of Oakville, Ont., had been deteriorating and was a "top priority, his daughter Amal Albaz said.

Albaz, who had been vocal in calling for her father's release for more than a year, said the family's ordeal was finally coming to an end.

"We are forever grateful for each and every person who supported our family," she said in a statement.

A friend of the family, Ahmad Attia, said Albaz was in self-isolation at home. It was not clear what treatment Albaz might need, he said.

"It is really too early to tell until physicians see him," Attia said.

Egyptian authorities detained Albaz at the Cairo airport after a business trip in February 2019. He is a dual citizen of Canada and Egypt and was travelling on his Canadian passport at the time.

His daughter has previously told The Canadian Press that the family did not know why he had been detained and questioned, since he had not been charged. She also said Canadian diplomats had been barred from visiting him in prison since March because of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Albaz's family grew more frantic last month after learning the husband and father had developed symptoms of COVID-19, and that a 42-year-old fellow inmate in the prison had died from coronavirus disease. Albaz, had pre-existing medical conditions that put him at an even greater risk, his family said.

They said he was being held in a prison with unhygienic conditions, limited ventilation and almost no medical care."

The family expressed their gratitude to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had also spoken out about Albaz's case and talked to the president of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last year during a meeting in Ethiopia.

They also thanked Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, who raised the case with his Egyptian counterpart last month. Champagne had been responsive to the family, the daughter said.

"We are extremely grateful for the support of our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister Anita Anand, Ambassador Jess Dutton, and supportive members of parliament and government staff," the family statement said.

Global Affairs Canada confirmed the return. The government was "pleased that Yasser Ahmed Albaz has been reunited with his family here in Canada," spokeswoman Angela Savard said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 2, 2020.
HALIFAX - Nova Scotia has announced its third recent case of COVID-19 involving people arriving from outside the country, with the latest being a temporary foreign worker from Mexico.

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This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Stephen McNeil arrives at a news conference in Halifax on Sunday, March 15, 2020. Nova Scotia has announced its third fresh case of COVID-19 in less than a week, with the latest being a temporary foreign worker.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

HALIFAX - Nova Scotia has announced its third recent case of COVID-19 involving people arriving from outside the country, with the latest being a temporary foreign worker from Mexico.

The string of new infections comes after the province had gone three weeks without any new cases.

Premier Stephen McNeil said Thursday the temporary foreign worker tested positive for the virus during his initial 14-day quarantine period. The worker has remained in isolation since testing positive.

The two other individuals with COVID-19 both were Nova Scotians who had travelled to the United States.

On Wednesday, the province announced that passengers on a flight from Toronto to Halifax last week may have been exposed to COVID-19. The Nova Scotia Health Authority said the potential exposure occurred June 26 on WestJet Flight 248.

In the latest case, McNeil said the protocols in place for temporary foreign workers worked.

"Public health is doing the important work of contact tracing .... It's a very good reminder to all of us that COVID-19 is still present in our province," he said.

The cases acquired by Nova Scotians in the United States come amid a growing spread of the virus in many American states.

The number of new confirmed novel coronavirus cases in the United States climbed to a high of more than 50,000 per day on Thursday, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

McNeil meanwhile confirmed that Atlantic Canadians will be allowed to travel throughout the region as of Friday.

McNeil said this is being permitted despite the recent cases in Nova Scotia because the presence of the virus in the four provinces remains low, and the tourism industry is struggling.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 2, 2020.
A central part of these festive celebrations, fireworks, causes anxiety for many pets distressed by the abrupt explosions. And this year, cities across the country, including Chicago, are seeing unprecedented numbers of calls about illegal fireworks being lit off, as people bored with coronavirus shutdowns blow off steam. In Chicago, 911 calls about fireworks this year were up 756% from 2019 through Sunday, to 10,833 calls so far this year from 1,265 in the same period in 2019.
Holmes, who lost his daughter Tamara Sword to gun violence in 2015, said the recent gun violence against children is unprecedented. Weve lost so many babies in Chicago through the years, so many. But never this many. Not like this, he said. Ive seen many of them hurt but not this many, so close together within weeks after week after week and just days apart, not this close.
About 7 a.m., a 29-year-old man, who was a passenger of a vehicle, was shot in the Little Village neighborhood. The man saw three people standing on a corner in the 3300 block of West Cermak Road when he heard gunshots. A short time later, he was dropped off at home and noticed he was bleeding. The man got himself to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was treated and released for a gunshot wound to the bicep, police said.
About 11:10 p.m., a 30-year-old woman was in a fight in the 10900 block of South Oglesby Avenue. At some point the person she was fighting pulled out a gun, and it discharged, hitting the victim in the right upper chest.
In April 1979, two gunmen broke into the couples home, tied up the defendant and three of their young children, locked them in a closet, and shot Gaimari to death with his own guns that were in the house. The couples 16-year-old daughter discovered what happened when she came home.
Weather Alert

...SEVERE THUNDERSTORM POTENTIAL THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING... A line of strong to severe thunderstorms with damaging wind gusts is expected to sweep east across our region this afternoon into this evening. The risk for severe thunderstorms increases from Marginal Risk over central Virginia, to Slight Risk generally north of I-66 and US-50, to Enhanced Risk along and near the Mason-Dixon Line. Damaging wind gusts are the primary threat, although large hail and an isolated tornado are also possible. The initial line of storms should enter western Maryland and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia between 1 and 4 PM. It is then expected to move east across the Shenandoah Valley and west central Maryland between 3 and 5 PM. The line should reach the Baltimore and Washington metro areas and southern MD between 5 and 8 PM. All times are current best estimates, and people should be ready to seek shelter when storms threaten or warnings are issued.
The head of Perpetual's latest acquisition wants to turn the 134-year-old Australian wealth manager into a world-leading ethical funds giant with sustainable investment strategies embedded into every portfolio.

But is Perpetual's boss Rob Adams on board? Not yet, Trillium Asset Management CEO Matthew Patsky said from Boston.

Perpetual completed the $63.8 million acquisition of Trillium this week, and will soon start moving Australian investors into the US fund manager's actively managed global portfolios of companies with strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings.

Perpetual CEO Rob Adams said the term "ESG" might become obsolete. Credit:Louie Douvis

Mr Adams said he was surprised by the positive market reaction in January when it was announced Perpetual would acquire the 38-year-old American firm known for pressing investors to divest from South Africa during apartheid. Trillium, which has $5.7 billion under management and is specialised in offering portfolios that take into account companies' environmental and social risks, will keep operating as an independent business under Perpetual's ownership.
The Commonwealth Bank has confirmed the future of the payments startup it has heavily backed, Beem It, is under review as it considers options that triggered the sacking of Beem It's chief executive Angela Clark in February.

"We are open to exploring growth options for the business including consolidation if it delivers the best possible payments utility for Australians," a CBA spokesman said.

"Beem It has done a great job of attracting more than 1.2 million people to its free app that provides a great payments experience."

Angela Clark left the Commonwealth Bank to take up her role at Beem It. Credit:Louie Douvis

Beem It was launched in 2018 as a mobile application platform allowing instant and free payments between bank accounts targeting the Millennial market for uses such as splitting bills.
Question: I have noticed as virus cases have gone down in Australia, some high-profile people (but also my friends and family), have been saying government measures went too far.

They are saying the economic and social cost of strong lockdowns will be worse than the health cost if we had gone for lighter measures. They're talking about job losses and mental health problems.

Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit:

As someone who has had mental health concerns and struggled with unemployment over my adult life, I think it's awesome that these topics are getting airtime. But why only now? Most of my friends and family and many of these celebrity commentators have taken no interest in these topics until now.

Maybe I am being too negative, but could it be it's OK to bring up these problems when it's easy to blame someone for them  "Oh the bloody government"  but not OK to bring them up when the answer is more complicated or might involve a change in thinking?
If youre familiar with The Babysitters Club, that classic 80s series about a group of enterprising young teens, youre probably aware that Netflix is bringing a sleek, new television version to our screening devices on Friday. And the reviews, so far, are solid. Unlike other reboots, (Fuller House, 90210) this one manages to capture the essence of the books, while still remaining fresh. Its set in present day but includes the classic 1980s motifs that made the series so compelling, like the landline telephone and earrings.

Yes. earrings. And this is central to the popularity of the series that spanned 14 years and spawned over 200 books. Author Ann M Martin didnt just write characters, she spun entire worlds into existence. If you were introduced to a new name or babysitter club member, you would be told, not just about her background and family, but her exact address, height, snack food of choice, secret fears and entire wardrobe.

No character would have lasted the 200 novels without their intricately detailed identities, made manifest through clothes. Credit:Netflix

Before costume designer Patricia Field elevated brunch dressing to high art in Sex and the City, replete with over-sized corsages and couture gowns, Martin was fully cognisant of the importance of fashion within a novel. She understood in a way few writers do that clothes are as much a part of a character as anything else.

And, as any self-respecting fan of the books will tell you, (we are legion and we use Retinol A creams now) wearing mismatched earrings or a single feather dangling from your lobe was as important to Claudia Kishis identity as Carrie Bradshaws name plate necklace.
Equipment underpinning Australia's telecommunications network, including the rollout of 5G, comes from a company the US Defence Department has named as being "owned by, controlled by or affiliated with China's government, military or defence industries".

The revelation comes as the relationship between Australia and China continues to deteriorate amid tit-for-tat espionage claims, and calls by some federal politicians for Australia to boost its capacity to manufacture telecommunications equipment to reduce the reliance on Chinese-made components.

An Optus 5G site in Australia. Credit:Jamila Toderas

A letter from the Pentagon to US lawmakers last week included a list of what it claimed were 20 Chinese military-linked companies operating in America. The list has been kept since 1999 but this is the first time it has been made public.

Among the companies was Panda Electronics Group. Panda Electronics has a joint venture in China with Swedish giant Ericsson, which is a major supplier of equipment used by network providers Telstra and Optus in Australia's telecommunications sector.
Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph has lost its appeal against a defamation decision awarding actor Geoffrey Rush almost $3 million in damages.

Mr Rush, 68, set a defamation damages record last year when he was awarded $2.87 million for two Telegraph articles and a poster published in 2017, which accused him of "inappropriate behaviour" towards a co-star in the Sydney Theatre Company's 2015-16 production of King Lear.

Geoffrey Rush leaves the Federal Court in April last year after his defamation win. Credit:James Brickwood

His accuser was not named in the stories but was later revealed to be Eryn Jean Norvill, who played opposite Mr Rush as King Lear's daughter Cordelia. She did not speak to the Telegraph for its stories but later agreed to give evidence in court.

Mr Rush's defamation payout is the largest ever awarded to a single plaintiff in Australia and includes $1.98 million for past and future loss of work and $850,000 in non-economic damages for distress and hurt, plus $42,302 in interest.
It is "highly likely" more Melbourne suburbs will be forced back into lockdown, epidemiologists say, as Victoria records its single biggest increase in community transmission of coronavirus since the pandemic began.

Another 77 people in Victoria were reported to have coronavirus on Thursday and there are now 332 confirmed cases that have been acquired through unknown sources, a jump of 31 since Wednesday.

Police enforce lock-down restrictions in Broadmeadws. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Some infectious disease experts say symptomatic COVID-19 patients in Melbourne's hotspots should be separated from their families and put in isolation in hotels or lodgings at the taxpayers' expense to stop the virus from infiltrating entire households.

Suburbs on the edges of danger zone postcodes were at most risk of having severe restrictions enforced if authorities could not contain the spread in neighbouring areas, they suggested.
A high-profile Sydney neurosurgeon has been found not guilty of assaulting his wife in a scuffle at their home in Sydney's east last year, after a magistrate accepted he acted in self-defence.

Tim Steel, 56, a surgeon at St Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst, faced a hearing in Downing Centre Local Court accused of punching and slapping his wife Emma Steel, 41, ripping out one of her hair extensions and pinning her down at their Bellevue Hill home on the morning of December 14.

Dr Tim Steel leaves court in Sydney this week. Credit:Peter Rae

He was also accused of kicking another person in the stomach and jumping into a swimming pool while holding a phone, rendering it inoperable.

Mrs Steel said in an interview with police on the morning of the incident that she told her husband "I know where you were last night", which led to him jumping up out of bed and grabbing her phone.
Ten Melbourne postcodes covering 36 suburbs have been locked down for four weeks, until July 29, as the state grapples with a second coronavirus spike. Semester three is due to begin on July 13. West Footscray mother Narelle Wilson lives in a hotspot but both of her daughters would need to leave the lockdown zone to attend their schools in the nearby unrestricted suburbs of Yarraville and Footscray. "If schools in Victoria are open then we're happy to go back," she said. Ms Wilson said she did not want to see schools in lockdown areas close while others were open. She said she understood the reasons for closures but worried about the disruption to her daughters' education if they were to continue. Her daughter Edith Dillon, who turns 15 on Friday, is hopeful she'll be able to return to the classroom.

"It would feel weird; if they have to shut I understand they have to do it but it would be better if we didn't have to do it and go back to remote learning," she said. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video "I feel like I learn a lot better when you're with everybody else who's also doing it." By Thursday, 20 schools had been linked with positive new cases in the past week, forcing their closure for deep cleaning, along with contact tracing of infected staff and students. Professor Nigel McMillan, director in infectious diseases and immunology at Menzies Health Institute Queensland at Griffith University, has backed the government's plan to reopen schools when the holidays end, saying there was growing evidence that children did not spread the virus anywhere near as much as adults.

Loading "Weve seen outbreaks around workplaces, weve seen outbreaks in old peoples homes ... we just dont see it in schools at all and we dont really know why," said Professor McMillan. "It is probably, on the balance of probabilities, the right thing to do in terms of leaving schools open," he said. Because kids can be infected, [but] they just dont seem to pass it on. If a kid was infected at school we would expect to see many classmates getting it and it just doesn't seem to happen. The current safety processes, involving frequent hand-washing and hygienic cleaning, with social distancing among staff but not among students, was, so far, proving successful, Professor McMillan said.

Meredith Peace, president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union, said schools had not experienced significant problems with transmission when staff and students returned from remote learning in term two. Premier Daniel Andrews raised the prospect of enforcing temperature checks on students this week, but Ms Peace said "the jury is out" on whether they were an effective shield against transmission. She said the union would continue to be guided by the advice of the Chief Health Officer on how to maintain health and safety at schools.
The SUV driver was pronounced dead at the scene and the driver of the Honda, a 30-year-old woman, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in serious condition, according to police.
Security guards employed at quarantine hotels are still misusing or not using personal protection equipment, as the government investigates failures in its own operation linked to Victoria's second COVID-19 spike.

Healthcare workers and guests across various hotels say they have seen guards wearing masks incorrectly or not at all in recent days.

A sign photographed inside the Rydges on Swanston in Carlton in May.

Security guards at the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne's CBD were seen on Monday congregating and not wearing masks, a security source at the hotel said.

Guards were rushed into a one-hour infection-control training session, delivered by nurses, at one Melbourne hotel on Wednesday to try to get them up to speed.
A few months ago hundreds of volunteers would crack eggs, dice vegetables, mix meat and sort other food to be distributed to Victorians in need from FareShare's Abbotsford kitchen.

However, as with most things, the COVID-19 pandemic intervened and in late-March FareShare had to suspend its 800-strong volunteer workforce as it could no longer manage the constant flow of people in and out of its bustling kitchens.

FareShare chef Crickette Derjeu in the charity's kitchen. Credit:Eddie Jim

"We couldn't guarantee the safety of our community," said FareShare communications director Lucy Farmer.

Over one sleepless weekend, they were able to restructure much of their organisation and introduce a full staff of professional chefs.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has declared there are "major gaps" in Australia's new defence strategy, accusing the Coalition government of a "botched" submarine program and failing to build up the nation's cyber defences fast enough.

Mr Rudd also hit out at the government's Pacific "step-up", saying its aid spending in the region has only just recovered to where it was in 2013, which had opened the door to China "because Australia was seen as an unreliable aid partner".

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd says the defence strategy contains three significant gaps. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Rudd's predecessor, John Howard, welcomed the Morrison government's major update to its defence strategy, saying China under President Xi Jinping was now a much more assertive and authoritarian power than when he was prime minister. Mr Howard said the Morrison government's defence build-up was part of a deterrence strategy to encourage Beijing to reverse course.

The Morrison government this week released a new Strategic Policy Update and Force Structure Review, which committed the nation to developing an anti-ballistic missile defence shield under a $270 billion build-up of the ADF over the next decade.
The Australian Federal Police has recommended prosecutors consider laying charges against an ABC journalist over stories revealing allegations of potential war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.

The AFP has sent a brief of evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, after three years of investigating ABC journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark over their 2017 "Afghan Files" series of stories.

Federal police raiding the ABC headquarters in Sydney in 2019. Credit:Nine

According to the ABC, the AFP has recommended the Commonwealth DPP consider charging Oakes over the leak, but is not referring any case against Clark.

In a statement, ABC managing director David Anderson said the public broadcaster was advised on Thursday that the AFP was referring allegations against Oakes to Commonwealth DPP.
Queensland's Health Minister has pushed back against calls to let Victorians come to the northern state, while southern cases continue to soar.

The Sunshine State will reopen its borders on July 10, but travel from Victoria will remain restricted.

South Australia and Queensland will maintain a hard border closure for anyone who has recently visited Victoria.

The Northern Territory and NSW have taken a more targeted approach and will only restrict visitors from Melbourne's coronavirus hot spots.
Australia's decision to purchase longer range anti-ship missiles, part of a revised 10-year defence strategy, has caused few ripples throughout south-east Asia.

In fact the upgrade in Australia's strike capacity is likely to be quietly welcomed by our allies in the region. They are under no illusions about how much the security environment has changed as China has grown into a great economic power with an expanding military presence in the region, and the United States has become a less reliable security partner.

Shares concerns about regional stability: Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, centre, shares a light moment with Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, left, and State Secretary Pratikno after his swearing-in ceremony last year. Credit:AP

As former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull observed recently, there is nothing that nation can do - short of war - to demilitarise the islands China has claimed in the South China Sea.

It is in that context that Australia has decided to bolster its strike capabilities to defend itself and its allies in the region.
Amsterdam: Dutch sex workers welcomed customers back as the Netherlands further eased coronavirus measures, but they were advised to avoid heavy breathing and kissing to help reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19.

Erotic dancers and prostitutes lost their main source of income for 3 months and generally did not have access to state support during lockdown.

Sex workers in Amsterdam have had to rely on savings during the coronavirus lockdown. Credit:Getty Images

They were surprised when the government brought forward the date they could reopen from a tentative September 1 to July 1.

Amsterdam's red-light district, where thousands of tourists generally crowd the canals to see sex shows, erotic gift shops and prostitutes, has been deserted.
Bryan, OH (43506)

Today

Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 71F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 45F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
When health officials began recommending people wear masks in public places to slow the spread of COVID-19, they turned to whatever was available, be it a hand-sewn fabric mask, cut up t-shirt or winter balaclava. Now theyre often required, in places where social distancing is a challenge. As Illinoisans cautiously return to more activities put on hold during the pandemic, some are looking for masks that are tolerable for more than a quick grocery run.
Whether we have two of them on the field, all three of them on the field, well get creative and have some fun with it," defensive coordinator Joe Barry said.
There are a whole host of words we'd use to describe our experience in the beauty industry. Enlightening comes to mind, as does histrionic (at times). Above all, though, we'd regard it fruitful. You see, many a lesson has been imparted upon us in our years serving at the altar of the beauty Gods. Thou shalt always blend her eyeshadow; thou shalt always wash her brushes; and, most importantly, thou shalt always remember how all that glitters is not gold. The latter lesson is ironic, really, seeing how we'll be taking this sleek, gold-encased Hourglass mascara for a whirl. Dubbed the Caution Extreme Lash Mascara, it is the vegan and cruelty-free label's first venture into the lash market. Interesting, alright. Here's what we found.

The promise

Product: Hourglass Caution Extreme Lash Mascara

Shade availability: 1

Uses: Lengthening, volumising, and defining lashes all while dispensing a dramatic, sky-high lift.

Waterproof capabilities: None

Smudge-proof capabilities: None

Price: $50

The people

Emily Heng, Beauty Editor

Buckle up, buckaroos  we're going to be taking on a non-waterproof mascara in this scorching heat. Knowing this, you can't blame me for being appropriately cautious (ha) at the revelation. Nevertheless, I slicked on coat after coat of the Caution Extreme Lash. I liked how it wasn't the thick, clumpy formula of nightmares, but rather, a buildable one that allowed for multiple layers with ease. By my fourth swipe-through, my lashes looked significantly lengthened and perky. And, despite my doubts, I'm pleased to report that the mascara held up well all until lunch time, where I braved the humidity for a kopitiam lunch. Alas, not all good things last. Perhaps I'll use this on days where I know I'll be safely ensconced in air-conditioned malls and offices.







Sharlyn Teo, Beauty Publicist

Someone asked me if I had eyelash extensions on while I was wearing this mascara  so that's testament to how good this is in terms of lengthening and volumising. Packaging-wise, I like how it looks luxurious and has a good weight to it so it doesn't feel flimsy. The best part of it is probably the brush, though. It "grips" onto my lashes really nicely, enough so that it coated them relatively well even when I was trying it on without a mirror. My main concern was that it wouldn't be able to hold a curl thanks to my slick-straight lashes that sink at just about any provocation. Surprisingly enough, I have no complaints in this area. The pigment on this is insane, too, which I love.





Hazirah Rahim, Digital Creative

I made the mistake of attempting too many layers the last time, and it started feeling a tad clumpy. My second attempt with just two layers definitely fared better. All in all, it's a light formula that'll have you forgetting you have any mascara on even after a full day of wear. I'm also very much in love with its gold packaging  it feels expensive, though my only gripe is that it's a little heavy to tote around in my tiny makeup bag. I didn't experience much smudging, but that's probably assisted by the fact that I don't have oily lids.





Lim Jie Le

I like how much it delivers in term of volume. My lashes look crazy voluminous with just one coat, which I appreciate. If you're the type who considers smudging a deal breaker, though, then you should probably avoid this. I noticed smears along the lower lash line after a few hours. Another plus point: how it could be easily removed with just a potent micellar water, unlike other waterproof options that leave me tugging and yanking at it all day.





The payoff

There's no doubt as to this mascara's lengthening, volumising, and defining capabilities. Qualms, however, range from smudging to clumpiness after applying too-much layers, so be sure to keep that in mind should you take it out for a spin. All in all, we recommend slicking this on when you know you'll be indoors. Mighty as it is in giving dramatic, lifted lashes, it quails in Singapore's heat.



Join in the fun: sign up via this form to join our Buro. Beauty Club. Then, send an email to [email protected] expressing your interest in trying out this week's find. We'll invite you to swing by our office to test-drive the goods for yourself. Naturally, you'll get to bring the product home. We'll contact you a week later so you can send in your final thoughts. Easy-peasy.
Google on Thursday said it has temporarily blocked access to those apps that were still available on the Play Store in India even after the government banned on 59 apps this week. "While we continue to review the interim orders from the Government of India, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India," a Google spokesperson said.

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



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Digital Editor
A US-India business advocacy group has welcomed India's ban on Chinese apps, including TikTok, saying the move will provide opportunities to American and Indian

Amidst escalating tensions with in eastern Ladakh, the Indian government on Monday banned 59 mobile phone applications, mostly having Chinese links, citing threats to national security.

Mukesh Aghi, president of US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum, told PTI on Wednesday that this is India's internal security matter.

India felt that a lot of these were accessing and transferring data. We feel that the steps taken by India is to protect its own internal security, and we support that.

It (banning of apps) does provide the opportunity for US But I think it provides more opportunities for Indian to step up and build domestic Because that's one area in India that has tremendous strength, he said.

This gives more opportunity to Indian to access this market, he said.

Noting that there are quite a few world class coming out of India, Aghi said that there is a tremendous revolution taking place in India in this area itself.

The current geopolitical shift does provide India to get its legitimate right to be in the leadership arena, he said, adding that China's move to intrude into the Indian territory and try to humiliate India is the objective to deny that rightful role for India.

India has no choice but to push back and stand up to Otherwise, if India is seen as a weaker entity here, it will send a wrong message to the rest of Asia which are supporting India. So, gave no choice to India, but to stand up, he said.

It is the only country at the moment standing up to China, both from a military perspective, from a trade and economic perspective, technology perspective while the rest of the world has not stood up to China, Aghi added.

Amidst heightened border tensions with China, there are reports that customs authorities at Chennai and Vishakhapatnam ports in India are conducting extra scrutiny of consignments from China.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
As part of the deal, KKR will acquire stake from the founding Mody family at Rs 745 per share (or 5 per cent premium to the closing price of Rs 715 on the BSE). According to a BSE notification, KKR has entered into an agreement to acquire 41.7 million equity shares of JB Chemicals, representing 54 per cent, from the promoters of the company, said a company statement on Thursday. After this transaction, an open offer ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
My mom often said that he probably shouldve made the military his career because he loved it, Labuz-Stowers said. He would always talk about how he liked the structure, he liked the camaraderie, and he liked the rules. It was just something that really agreed with him.
At a time when companies are bracing for tough measures to mitigate the impact of losses due to the Covid-19 crisis, PhonePe said that there will be no salary cuts or lay-offs at the digital payments firm. The Walmart-owned company said it continues to hire and has plans to add about 600 people across areas such as engineering and marketing over the next few months.

The firm also said that it would retain its 8,500 off-role sales team and there won't be any layoffs there as well. A majority of the firms direct 1,200 employees are engineers, and 25 per cent of them are ...
recorded 2,442 fresh cases on Wednesday, taking the infection tally in the city to over 89,000, while the death toll from the disease mounted to 2,803,the authorities said.

Recently, had eclipsed Mumbai as the city worst-hit by the pandemic in the country.

Sixty-one fatalities were recorded in the past 24 hours, the health department bulletin said on Wednesday.

The death toll from COVID-19 in Delhi stood at 2,742 on Tuesday.

The bulletin said the death toll due to the infection has risen to 2,803 andthe total number of cases mounted to 89,802.

Besides, Mahesh Verma, the head of a Delhi government committee tasked with strengthening the preparedness of hospitals to battle coronavirus, has said the city's COVID-19 tally may not reach 5.5 lakh cases by July-end as estimated earlier, but one needs to see how the virus behaves during the monsoon.

Meanwhile, aDelhi government panel has recommended roping in postgraduate students, pooling of resources and cash incentives to address the problem of staff shortage in hospitals amid a surge in cases, sources said.

The two-member committee, comprising Verma and Dr BL Sherwal, director, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH), was formed last week.

According to the bulletin, 59,992 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far, while the number of active cases stood at 27,007, adding that 5,51,708 testshave been conducted.

The number of containment zones in the city on Wednesday stood at 437.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Well, one Springfield bill that included a casino for Chicago tried to gut state oversight of gambling by immediately firing the five-member Illinois Gaming Board. Another proposal would have forbidden suspension or revocation of a Chicago casinos license  even if organized crime got a foothold in the gambling. Some legislation would have given City Hall a role in regulating a casino owned by, yes, City Hall. The sleaziest provision would have outlawed the presence at a Chicago casino of the Illinois State Police, who help Gaming Board agents regulate the states other casinos.
An international tribunal dealing with the killing of two Indian fishermen in 2012 by two Italian marines has upheld the conduct of the Indian authorities over the incident, the said on Thursday.

MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said the tribunal upheld the conduct of the Indian authorities under the provisions of the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).

India accused the two Italian marines on board the MV Enrica Lexie, an Italian flagged oil tanker, of shooting dead two Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast on February 15, 2012.

The Arbitral Tribunal was constituted under Annex VII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on June 26, 2015 on the request of Italy in respect of the dispute.

Srivastava said the tribunal held that the actions of the Italian military officers and, consequently, Italy breached India's freedom of navigation under UNCLOS Article 87(1)(a) and 90.

"The Tribunal observed that India and Italy had concurrent jurisdiction over the incident and a valid legal basis to institute criminal proceedings against the marines," Srivastava said at an online media briefing.

"The Tribunal rejected Italy's claim of compensation for the detention of the marines. However, it found that the immunities enjoyed by the marines as State officials operate as an exception to the jurisdiction of the Indian courts and, hence, preclude them to judge the marines," he added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Over 35 acres of land in nine



villages on the outskirts of the city have been earmarked for burial or cremation of bodies of victims in the backdrop of safety concerns raised over funerals held in burial grounds located amidst residential areas.

Deputy Commissioner of Urban District G N Shivamurthy issued an order setting apart about 35.5 acres in the villages under four Taluks of North, South, Anekal and Yelahanka.

The order directed the respective Tahsildars to register these chunks of land as reserved for burial grounds and not to use for any purpose.

According to the sources in the district administration, Health Minister B Sriramulu and Revenue Minister R Ashoka had directed the officials to identify places on the city outskirts to dispose of the bodies of victims.

Sriramulu had on Wednesday said victims would not be laid to rest in burial grounds in the city and separate places will be earmarked on the outskirts in the backdrop of safety concerns raised by public.

He had also warned against unscientific disposal of used Personal Protection Equipment kits worn by the kin of the dead for the final rites, referring to reports about such instances.

In some places, people have also expressed concern over bodies of those who died of the being buried in their neighbourhood.

As of Wednesday, has 16,514 COVID-19 cases and the death toll stood at 253.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A senior member of the Maharashtra



government's task force has tested positive for coronavirus, a health official said on Thursday.

He had been admitted to hospital last week.

The task force of nine senior doctors was formed on April 13 in view of increasing number of cases and deaths in the state, especially in

It was asked to monitor the treatment protocol for patients and ICU procedures and help streamline the health services in the state in the face of the pandemic.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Groups that hold blood drives have been canceling blood collection out of concern that the events could potentially aggravate the coronavirus outbreak. For months, Illinoisans have been told to not congregate, and blood drives entail people getting together. No order was ever given to shut down blood drives, which are considered an essential service, and mask-wearing, social distancing and other preventive measures could be used. Nevertheless, many groups chose not to risk it.
The on Wednesday issued notice to Telangana Department and state government asking about the policy decision on online classes.

" on Wednesday pushed for a ban on online classes in private schools. The suit was filed by the Hyderabad School Students' Parents Association. The Petitioner's counsel brought to the court that it was illegal to start classes without starting the academic year," read a statement by the Hyderabad Schools Parents' Association.

It further stated that the counsel explained that there was serious injustice to poor students with online classes. "Will everyone have the financial burden of buying laptops and smartphones? The High Court queried on this occasion. The advocate for the government has brought the matter to the attention of the DEOs. The High Court has issued notices to the state government that the government has not made clear policy on online classes," it added.

The Court has made observations on the plight of financially deprived students. The government pleader notified of no decision or guidelines issued regarding online classes. The court made an observation that the petitioner has rightly pointed out the plight of parents having more than one child which has put the additional financial burden and also the children are made to sit with full uniform for online classes.

Further, the proceedings assured that no online classes should be conducted and if any online classes are conducted to collect the fees in contravention of government order, parents should inform the concerned District Officer and the DEO shall take appropriate legal action on the schools which are violating the order.

The court also noted that it is very pathetic to conduct classes for nursery and lower grade children. The matter is further posted for July 3.

The petition prayed that the Court may be pleased to direct the respondents to legal action against the private schools for conducting online classes and for collecting term fee, admission fee, developmental charges, library fees, extracurricular activity fee, transportation fee instead of only monthly fee in violation of government order dated April 21 to access online classes.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid escalating border tension



between India and China, the shopkeepers in city's largest mobile phone market said they have decided not to sell Chinese gadgets henceforth, and urged Indian companies to manufacture good quality and affordable devices to provide an alternative.

These vendors have even covered the signboards of Chinese brands in their shopping complex with banners saying "Made In India".

The multi-storey Murtimant Complex on Relief Road in the eastern part of the city houses over 50 retail as well as wholesale shops, which sell and accessories worth lakhs of rupees every day.

As calls for boycott of China-made goods erupted across the country after 20 Indian soldiers died in a violent face-off with Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan valley last month, the shopkeepers in decided not to sell any products manufactured in the neighbouring country.

"We have decided to boycott Chinese items. In the coming days, we will permanently remove the signboards of the Chinese mobile phone brands. Since we have already stocked China-made devices, we will sell them in the next one month and then buy only Indian or South Korean goods," said Rakesh Mehta, a shop owner.

Another shopkeeper said that no one is interested in selling Chinese goods if traders get such devices from Indian manufacturers.

"I support this call for boycott, but it's also a fact that Chinese goods is a lot cheaper. We are selling it because customers are not ready to shell out more for the high-end products," said a wholesale trader.

Meanwhile, Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena also started a movement against Chinese goods and urged the shopkeepers to stop the sale in the next one month.

"We have requested all the shopkeepers to stop the sale of Chinese items. We gave them one months time to clear the stock. All of us need to stand firmly with our country and show our patriotism. China is using our money against our own army. This must stop" said Gujarat chief of the outfit, Raj Shekhawat.

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, UC Browser, SHAREit and WeChat, saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The ministry of defence (MoD) has acknowledged the seriousness of the situation in Ladakh, where Indian soldiers are facing off against Chinese intruders, by approving the purchase of weapons and equipment worth Rs 38,900 crore. In the current situation and the need to strengthen the armed forces for the defence of our borders, and in line with our Prime Ministers clarion call for Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-sufficient India), the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), in its meeting of July 2 held under the chairmanship of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
The governments crackdown on Chinese companies may not hit ongoing highway contracts as any disruption at this juncture can potentially derail these projects. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will complete these contracts but will not award fresh projects to Chinese firms. There are 10-12 projects being executed by Chinese companies in joint ventures with Indian firms.

They will be allowed to function but there will be no new contract for Chinese firms, an official said. As far as the contracts where the tenders have been floated, the issue will ...
Ignoring these conditions accepts there will be more risk to the health of vulnerable indigent students who historically are taught in overcrowded classrooms. Further, if children are going to go to school during a pandemic, they need immediate access to professionals who can recognize symptoms of illness. Chicago Public Schools has a nursing shortage, and most schools do not have a nurse available every day, making the guideline to test students as symptoms arise nearly impossible to meet.
India needs foreign direct investments worth Rs 50 to 60 trillion and the money can be tapped mainly through infrastructure projects as well as MSME sector to accelerate the wheels of coronavirus-hit economy, according to Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

Emphasising that at this juncture Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is the need of the hour, the senior minister said such funds would benefit the country as there is a need for pumping in liquidity into the market. Economic activities have been significantly disrupted in the wake of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns that were in ...
Prime Minister and Russian President discussed the crisis on Thursday and resolved to strengthen the Indo-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-Covid world.

During a telephonic conversation, the two leaders agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral summit to be held in India later this year.

The prime minister conveyed his keenness to welcome Putin in India for the bilateral summit.

The leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-Covid world, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said.

Putin thanked Modi for the phone call and reiterated his commitment to further strengthening the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries in all spheres.

During their conversation, Modi congratulated Putin on the success of the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the victory of the Allied Forces in the World War 2, and also for the successful completion of the vote on constitutional amendments in Russia, the statement said.

The prime minister noted the participation of an Indian contingent in the military parade held in Moscow on June 24 as a symbol of the abiding friendship between the people of India and Russia.

An official statement issued by the Russian side said the two leaders discussed topical issues on the Russian-Indian agenda and confirmed their mutual commitment to further strengthening the privileged bilateral strategic partnership and close cooperation both in the bilateral format and within international organisations and associations.
Last month, the government notified new criteria for classification of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on the basis of turnover and investment in plant and machinery. "We advise you to initiate necessary action for reclassification of enterprises as per the new definition w.e.f July 1, 2020 and issue necessary instructions to your branches/controlling offices in this regard, at the earliest, RBI said in a communication to ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
The government on



Thursday invited global e-commerce majors to set up shop in the state, promising them attractive incentive packages to boost their growth.

Chief Minister has been writing to top automobile companies, electronics majors and those engaged in aerospace in the recent past about the opportunities available in the state in the wake of the impact caused by COVID-19 on the world economy as companies were likely to exit certain countries and relocate their manufacturing activities in India.

has constituted a Special Investment Task Force to attract investments under the leadership of chief secretary K Shanmugham.

In March, the government had signed a memorandum of understanding with 17 companies which committed investments of Rs 15,128 crore.

In its steps to reach out to global industrialists, Palaniswami on Thursday wrote to senior managements of global e-commerce companies inviting them to set up base in the state promising them attractive investment packages.

Palaniswami has personally reached out to five global heads in e-commerce sector --- Rakuten Crimson House CEO Hiroshi Mikitani, B2W CEO Marcio Cruz Meirelles, Sea Ltd (Shoppee) CEO Forrest Li, Qoo10 Pte Ltd Founder Ku Young Bae and Zalando SE Headquarter CEO Robert Gentz, the release said.

The initiatives by the government to attract overseas investors also include setting up country specific investment facilitation desks by the guidance bureau and conducting diplomatic outreach programmes.

The letter to the global heads of the companies by the chief minister outlines the advantages of the state and promises a customised incentive package as per their requirement.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday his government was considering an offer of safe haven to residents threatened by China's move to impose a tough national security law on the semi-autonomous territory.

Morrison said Cabinet would soon consider options to provide similar opportunities as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered Hong Kongers.

When we have made a final decision on those arrangements, then I'll make the announcements, Morrison told reporters.

But if you're asking: are we prepared to step up and provide support? The answer is: yes. Britain is extending residency rights for up to 3 million Hong Kongers eligible for British National Overseas passports, allowing them to live and work in the U.K. for five years.

Morrison said "we think that's important and very consistent with who we are as a people and very consistent practically with the views that we've expressed. could potentially offer residents temporary protection visas that allow refugees to live in the country for up to three years.

bypassed Hong Kong's Legislative Council to pass the sweeping legislation without public consultation.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the laws threatened Hong Kong's judicial independence and the rights and freedoms of its people.

An offer of safe haven to residents would further strain relations between and its most important trading partner,

They have not positively contributed to Australia's -- or the region's -- security and stability, Australian Defense Minister Linda Reynolds told a security think-tank.

has watched closely as has actively sought greater influence in the Indo-Pacific, she said.

Australia is far from alone in being troubled by this. Morrison on Wednesday announced 270 billion Australian dollars ($190 billion) in additional defence spending over the next decade, which will include long-range missiles and other capabilities to hold enemies further from its shores.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The payments by Alphabet Inc's Google to Apple Inc to be the default search engine on Apple's Safari web browser create "a significant barrier to entry and expansion" for Google's rivals in the search engine market, the UK markets regulator said in a report released on Wednesday. Apple received the "substantial majority" of the 1.2 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) that Google paid to be the default search engine on a variety of devices in the United Kingdom in 2019, according to the report.

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On the first day after passed the national security law, the Police arrested over 370 people for participating in the pro-democracy march.

On the annual July 1 pro-democracy march, more than 370 people were arrested and the Police deployed water cannon truck, pepper balls, and tear gas to quell the demonstrators, Free Press reported. Ten people were apprehended for allegedly breaking the national security law.

The protests took place across Causeway Bay and Wan Chai. The protesters chanted "five demands, not one less" and sang the pro-democracy anthem "Glory to Hong Kong."

To muzzle the voices of pro-democracy protesters, the Hong Kong Police had earlier put a ban on the annual July 1 pro-democracy march. However, the protesters had announced that they would continue with their demonstrations.

Activists hit the streets on Wednesday in anger over the new law as the city marked 23 years since its handover from British to Chinese rule.

The Chinese Parliament on Tuesday passed the controversial legislation for Hong Kong, ignoring the worldwide outcry and protest in the semi-autonomous city against the law.

The Hong Kong government has no jurisdiction over the national security agency in Hong Kong and its staff when they are discharging duties provided in the law.

According to the new law, arson and vandalising public transport with an intent to intimidate the Hong Kong government or Chinese government for political purposes will constitute acts of terrorism, the Hong Kong Free Press reported.

The law also states that certain national security cases will be held behind closed doors without juries in Hong Kong if they contained state secrets, although the verdict and eventual judgements would be made public.As per the new law, Beijing will be setting up an office for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong, with personnel dispatched from relevant Chinese security agencies.

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If we had been this passive in 1776, we would still be part of Britain. Yet even as we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, we dont seem willing to assert independence from a virus that in four months has killed more Americans than the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq wars did over 70 years.
The members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday held an in-person meeting for the first time since mid-March, the council's president for the month of July, German Ambassador to the United Nations Christoph Heusgen said in a press briefing.

"We had for the first time since for almost three and a half months a physical meeting of the members of the Security Council," Heusgen said. "We met this morning in the German house [the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations] with all the ambassadors, and we had a good informative discussion."

Heusgen also said he hopes that in July, the Security Council will return to its regular in-person meetings at the UN headquarters in Manhattan if conditions allow.

"It's much more convenient and much better for the atmosphere if we meet in person, but, of course, it has to take place under conditions that are compatible with all the medical implications," the diplomat said.

The 15-members body switched to virtual meetings in mid-March when New York City was placed under to suppress the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had also advised all non-essential staff to telecommute amid the outbreak of the

Currently, the UN headquarters is under phase 0 of the physical return. The first phase, which is expected to start no earlier than August, will allow maximum occupancy at 400 people a day.

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The has unanimously adopted its first resolution that demands immediate cessation of hostilities and explicitly states that it does not apply to terror groups, a vindication of India's position that terrorists do not respect ceasefires and such initiatives must be circumscribed by countries facing cross-border terrorism.

The United Nations Security Council, the 15-member powerful organ of the global body, on Wednesday unanimously adopted the first COVID-19-related resolution that backed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call for global ceasefires in the wake of the pandemic.

The resolution, drafted by France and Tunisia, demands a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations on its agenda and supports the efforts undertaken by the Secretary-General and his Special Representatives and Special Envoys.

Significantly, it affirms that this general and immediate cessation of hostilities and this humanitarian pause do not apply to military operations against the ISIS, al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with al-Qaeda or ISIS, and other terrorist groups, which have been designated by the Security Council.

Sources told PTI that this particular paragraph of the resolution vindicates what India has been saying all along.

The sources said that one can have a global ceasefire but you cannot ignore the fact that India is subject to cross-border terrorism. This is exactly why there cannot be a ceasefire against terrorism - the terrorists do not respect ceasefires, they said.

For the resolution to affirm very clearly that the general and immediate cessation of hostilities do not apply to the terror groups is a clear reflection of the recognition of what India has been saying all along on this, they said.

The sources said that this vindicates the position which India has always held that there cannot be a blanket ceasefire and a global ceasefire must be circumscribed by countries like India which are facing and fighting cross-border terrorism.

India has consistently said that terrorism has emerged as the most serious scourge of the current times and endangers peace, security and prosperity, and has condemned cross-border terrorism.

In February during President Donald Trump's state visit to India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump in a joint statement denounced any use of terrorist proxies and strongly condemned cross-border terrorism in all its forms.

In the joint statement, the two leaders called on Pakistan to ensure that no territory under its control is used to launch terrorist attacks, and to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of such attacks, including the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks.

They called for a concerted action against all terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, ISIS, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen, the Haqqani Network, Tehrik-e-Taliban, D-Company and all their affiliates.

Several of Pakistan-based terror groups, such as LeT and JeM, proscribed by the Security Council's Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee, have carried out dastardly terror attacks in India and are associated with other terror outfits such as al-Qaeda.

The resolution calls upon all the parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days in order to enable the safe, unhindered and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance.

It also calls for enabling provisions of related services by impartial humanitarian actors in accordance with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, and medical evacuations and in accordance with law, including humanitarian law and refugee law as applicable.

Guterres welcomed the adoption of the resolution on and the Council's recognition of his efforts to respond to the crisis, in particular his appeal for a global ceasefire.

The Secretary General's appeal for a global ceasefire has been endorsed by nearly 180 countries, more than 20 armed groups, as well as religious leaders and millions of members of civil society.

The adoption of this resolution will send an important signal to conflict parties and may help change calculations on the ground, a statement issued by his spokesperson said.

The Secretary-General continues to urge individual member states to redouble their efforts for peace in the conflicts in which they have influence, it added.

"He looks forward to working with all stakeholders to advance efforts towards concrete ceasefires and durable peace, the statement added.

According to Johns Hopkins Resource Center, the contagion has infected over 10 million people and killed more than 516,000 across the world.

The US is the worst affected country with over 2.6 million cases and more than 1,28,000 deaths.

The COVID-19, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has also battered the world economy with the International Monetary Fund saying that the global economy is bound to suffer a "severe recession".

Scientists are racing against time to find a vaccine or medicine for its treatment.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The (WB) has approved US $500 million in budgetary support for to address the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, achieve macroeconomic stability and support reforms, local media said.

The money will help strengthen fiscal management, promote transparency and private sector growth, and undertake foundational reforms in the energy sector to transition to low-carbon energy, the reports said on Wednesday, quoting a statement issued by the WB, Xinhua news agency reported.

These reforms are critical to build fiscal resilience and stimulate recovery from impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the statement added.

The money support for has been approved under the "Resilient Institutions for Sustainable Economy" program.

Commenting on the development, Lead Country Economist for the Shabih Mohib said the program could help Pakistan attract new investments and spur economic recovery, adding that a foundation could be built for sustainable growth driven by the private sector.

The project will be financed by a US $250 million credit from the Development Association and a US $250 million loan from the Bank for Reconstruction and Development, according to the statement.

--IANS

rt/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Shares of Pfizer India jumped 8.5 per cent to Rs 4,313.4 apiece on the BSE on Thursday after the company's US-arm said that one of its Covid-19 vaccines showed encouraging results in very early testing of 45 people. At 9:50 am, the stock was ruling 5 per cent higher at Rs 4,176.85 on the BSE, as against 365 points, or 1 per cent, gain in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.

A combined 145,933 shares have changed hands on the counter on NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report. Study volunteers given either a low or medium dose of one of the four vaccines that the company is ...
Amid reports of China violating the basic human rights of Uyghur Muslims and Hong Kong citizens, Chinese Foreign Ministry has urged the United States to secure the human rights of ethnic minorities in the country.

"We are following the latest developments of the situation following the death of George Floyd. "Black lives matter." Their human rights should be protected. Racial discrimination against ethnic minorities remains a social ill in the US. What is happening right now once again shows the seriousness of racial discrimination and violent law enforcement by the police, and the urgency for the US to address them. We hope the US government will take concrete measures to fulfill its due obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to protect the legal rights of ethnic minorities in the US," said Zhao Lijian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, during a press conference.

On Monday (local time), US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted, "The United States condemns the use of forced population controls against Uyghur and other minority women and calls on the CCP to cease its campaign of repression. History will judge how we act today."

Meanwhile, during a press briefing, he said that China's continuous campaign of repression has reiterated the fact that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has no respect for human life and basic human dignity.

"German researcher Adrian Zenz's shocking revelations are sadly consistent with decades of the CCP practices that demonstrate an utter disregard for the sanctity of human life and basic human dignity," he said while adding "We call on the CCP to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanising abuses."

According to the US State Department, more than a million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups have been detained in camps in Xinjiang.

In these camps they are "subjected to torture, cruel and inhumane treatment such as physical and sexual abuse, forced labor, and death," the CNN reported.
Affle India announced that its Singapore subsidiary, Affle International has entered into a definitive Share Subscription Agreement to acquire 8.0% ownership in OSLabs incorporated in Singapore. The acquisition will be completed before 25 July 2020.

A total consideration of USD 2.86 million for 8.0% of ownership, will be paid on or before the date of closing of the agreement.

Indus OS is a mobile app and content discovery platform, operating Indus App Bazaar which is India's largest independent indigenous apps store. Indus OS platform is designed to help users discover digital content and services in the language of their choice. Utilizing its proprietary AI-driven app recommendation engine, Indus OS optimizes the user experience, delivering higher engagements and bringing app developers, smartphone brands and users on a single India centric platform.

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Financial stocks were in demand after the government on Wednesday launched special liquidity scheme of Rs 30,000 crore for the non-bank lenders.

Among the non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), Muthoot Capital Services (up 4.99%), Reliance Capital (up 4.94%), Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services (up 4.36%), IDFC (up 2.96%), Indiabulls Housing Finance (up 2.41%), LIC Housing Finance (up 1.82%), Edelweiss Financial Services (up 1.51%), Bajaj Finance (up 0.9%), Muthoot Finance (up 0.62%), Bajaj Finserv (up 0.59%) and Manappuram Finance (up 0.57%) advanced.

Among the housing finance companies (HFCs), GIC Housing Finance (up 11.04%), Can Fin Homes (up 5.53%), HDFC (up 2.59%), Indiabulls Housing Finance (up 2.48%) and LIC Housing Finance (up 1.88%) edged higher.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 502.38 points or 1.42% to 35,916.83.

The Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the special liquidity scheme in March 2020 to improve the liquidity position of NBFCs and HFCs.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will provide funds for the scheme by subscribing to government guaranteed special securities issued by the Trust. The total amount of such securities issued outstanding shall not exceed Rs 30,000 crores at any point of time.

The Government of India will provide an unconditional and irrevocable guarantee to the special securities issued by the Trust. The scheme was launched on 1 July 2020 through a Special Purpose Vehicle in the form of SLS Trust set up by SBI Capital Markets (SBICAP).

Certain conditions have also been put in place for the NBFCs and HFCs to become eligible for the new scheme. The RBI underlined that NBFCs including microfinance institutions that are registered under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, excluding those registered as core investment companies; HFCs that are registered under the National Housing Bank Act, 1987; firms with net NPAs less than 6%, as on 31 March 2019; firms that are rated as investment grade by a rating agency; and the firms which have made a net profit in at least one of the last two preceding financial years; will be eligible for the new scheme.

The scheme will remain open for 3 months for making subscriptions by the Trust. The period of lending (CPs/NCDs of NBFCs/HFCs for short duration of upto 90 days) by the Trust shall be for a period of upto 90 days. The financing would be used by the NFBCs/HFCs only to repay existing liabilities and not to expand assets. Further, those market participants who are looking to exit their standard investments with a residual maturity of 90 days may also approach the SLS Trust.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings on Wednesday said that the India's non-bank financial institutions (NBFI) will continue to face elevated near-term risks, even as economic activity picks up with the easing of the country's nationwide lockdown.

These risks revolve around liquidity and asset quality in particular and reflect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on borrowers' repayment capabilities, as well as the effects of the moratorium on collections.

India, meanwhile, reported 2,26,947 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 17,834 deaths, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

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Before you pick up a firearm and pull the trigger, aiming for somebody else, think about the number of children that have been killed just in the last two weeks. A 1-year-old, a 3-year-old, a 13-year-old, a 10-year-old. A list that is painful for me to even recite, she said.
Pfizer jumped 4.98% to Rs 4172.60 after the company's US-based parent reported positive preliminary results from a joint project to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

An early trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine from US-based Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech showed it's safe and prompted patients to produce antibodies against the new virus, keeping it in the lead pack for a pandemic shot.

The preliminary data come from a so-called phase 1/2 trial that aimed to show the vaccine is not toxic and triggers an immune system response to prepare the body to fight off the virus.

The study of Pfizer's and BioNtech's vaccine candidate, called BNT162b1, is undergoing scientific peer review. If the vaccine is successful, the companies expect to manufacture up to 100 million doses by the end of this year and potentially more than 1.2 billion doses by the end of 2021.

Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech are in a race with companies including AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc. and dozens of other biopharmaceutical outfits and academic groups to come up with a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19.

Pfizer's net profit fell 5.9% to Rs 103.01 crore on 6.3% decline in net sales to Rs 502 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

Pfizer is a research-based global biopharmaceutical company which is engaged in the discovery, development and manufacture of healthcare products.

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The domestic equity benchmark continued to trade with significant gains in morning trade. Shares across Asia were upbeat after US-based Pfizer Inc said its experimental COVID-19 vaccine showed encouraging results in early testing.

At 10:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 284.89 points or 0.80% at 35,699.34. The Nifty 50 index added 82.40 points or 0.79% at 10,512.45.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 0.40% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.84%.

The market breadth favored the buyers. On the BSE, 1423 shares rose and 775 shares fell. A total of 109 shares were unchanged.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty IT index rose 2.17% to 15,051.55.

The index had fallen 1.75% in the past three sessions.

Among the index constituents, Infosys (up 3.65%), NIIT Technologies (up 3.17%), TCS (up 2.41%), Wipro (up 2.12%), MindTree (up 1.79%), HCL Tech (up 1.49%), Info Edge India (up 1.38%), Tech Mahindra (up 0.86%) and Larsen & Toubro Infotech (up 0.71%) advanced.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Pfizer surged 5.04% to Rs 4175 after the company's parent firm Pfizer Inc. on Wednesday said that preliminary data from the first of four experimental COVID-19 vaccines being tested by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech showed encouraging results in very early testing.

Coal India shed 0.15% to Rs 133.70 after provisional coal production dropped 12.8% to 39.20 million tonnes (MT) while provisional coal offtake shrunk by 15% to 41.61 MT in June 2020 over June 2019.

TVS Motor Company was up 0.21% to Rs 384.60. The company recorded over three-fold increase in June 2020 sales to 198,387 units from 58,906 units sold in the month of May 2020. Its June sales, however, are lower by 33.22% as compared to 297,102 units sold in the same period last year. Total exports were 53,123 units in the month of June 2020, down by 24% from 69,900 units in June 2019.

TVS Motor said it is witnessing a positive uptake in both domestic retail as well as exports. The company faced supply chain constraints in June; however, it has undertaken various countermeasures, some of which have started yielding results in June itself. The company is expecting to overcome these in the month of July.

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Tata Motors announced its sales in the domestic & international market, for Q1 FY21, which stood at 25,047 vehicles, compared to 1,37,545 units during Q1 FY20.

Ashok Leyland reported a 82% decline in total sales at 2,132 units for June 2020, as against 12,085 units in the same month last year.

TVS Motor Company registered sales of 198,387 units in June 2020 as against 297,102 units registered in the month of June 2019.

Coal India's coal output fell to 39.20 million tonnes in June, compared with 44.95 million tonnes in the same period the previous year. Offtake fell to 41.61 million tonnes in June 2020 from 48.98 million tonnes in June 2019.

NMDC said its iron ore production stood at 2.52 MT in June, same as it was in June 2019. Its sales were at 2.48 MT in June 2020, slightly lower from 2.66 MT in June 2019.

Eveready Industries India reported 1,289.21% surge in consolidated net profit to Rs 63.07 crore on 13.64% drop in total income to Rs 298.26 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

Urja Global has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Ogata Motors India for manufacturing of electric vehicles in Delhi.

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In the wake of the growing military tension on the India-China border, there have been calls for boycott of Chinese products. These have little impact on strategic reality. Equally, the plea that India cannot afford to do without Chinese imports is not a truism.

If bilateral tensions escalate, then there may be a scenario in which India and China cease to trade. How would the Indian economy be hit in such a situation? That would depend on the extent to which India is able to do without Chinese imports and investment. In this extreme circumstance, the situation is not dire. First, ...
US President believes that China's "aggressive stance" against India and other countries in the region confirms the "true nature" of the ruling Communist Party of China, according to his spokesperson.

The armies of India and China have been locked in a bitter standoff at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh for the last seven weeks, and the tension escalated after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on June 15.

Amid the ongoing standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the US was "closely monitoring" the current situation and supports a peaceful resolution to the border crisis.

"With regard to India and China, we are closely monitoring the situation. He (the president) is as well. And he said that China's aggressive stance along the India China border fits with the larger pattern of Chinese aggression and other parts of the world and these actions only confirmed the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party, she told reporters during her news conference on Wednesday.

Both India and China have expressed a desire to de-escalate and the United States supports a peaceful resolution of the current situation, McEnany said.

Earlier, during a Congressional hearing, US lawmakers expressed concern over the aggressive Chinese actions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

"This past month, China engaged in deadly clashes along the Line of Actual Control, resulting in the tragic deaths of a dozen Indian soldiers and an unknown Chinese death toll as well," said Congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee, during a hearing on coronavirus and US-China relations.

Senior fellow at Brookings Institute Tanvi Madan told members of the House Select Intelligence Committee that since early May there have been attempts by the People's Liberation Army of China to "unilaterally change the status quo" along the LAC, the de facto boundary between the two countries.

This, along with the coronavirus pandemic, has had and will continue to have an impact on Indian views and approaches towards China, the United States, and the order, she said.

Madan said that when Chinese President and Indian Prime Minister met in October 2019, they sought to stress on Sino-Indian cooperation.

However, the pandemic and the boundary crises have demonstrated that despite Delhi and Beijing's efforts over the last few decades to engage, India-China ties remain a fundamental and increasingly competitive relationship that can even spill over into conflict, she said.

Observing that the boundary crisis and the pandemic have reinforced and accelerated concerns in India about China's lack of transparency, Madan said it sends uncertain commitment to the rules-based order.

The Indian government has signalled that the boundary crisis will have a serious impact on the broader relationship, particularly if the status quo ante is not restored speedily, she noted.

Informing the lawmakers that public perception about China has "deteriorated considerably", the Brookings Institute senior fellow said during the pandemic and the boundary crisis, Delhi has already imposed restrictions or additional scrutiny on Chinese economic and technology interests within the broader strategic community.

"In India, there is a near consensus that ties with Beijing need to be reassessed and reset, " she said.

The boundary crisis and the pandemic have led to calls for India to maintain and even deepen its partnership with the US and for Washington to play a more sustained and robust role in ensuring that a rules-based order prevails in the region and globally, she said.

Madan told the lawmakers that the boundary crisis remained serious and requires careful watching.

"Washington will be considering different scenarios. It should also assess what New Delhi might ask of it in each case, whether or not the US is willing to be responsive, and if it is, prepare for those contingencies," she said.

"If the US wants to be responsive or to show support to India, it should convey this willingness while taking care not to escalate the situation. Such support will facilitate a closer Indian alignment with the US in the future," she said.

However, Washington should not try to push India into decisions or choices or let Delhi think it is taking advantage of the boundary crisis. That would be unhelpful if not counterproductive, Madan cautioned.

"How India deals with these health and national security crises as well as the choices and tradeoffs it makes will affect the US. It will offer opportunities, but potentially also challenges," she said.

The willingness of partners like India to cooperate with the US in the region and globally will depend not just on Chinese missteps but on Washington's' willingness and ability to respond, Madan said.

She said that the ability for the US to be helpful to India has been enhanced by a number of agreements and dialogue mechanisms that have been set up over the last decade.

During the hearing, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi asked that without taking steps that would escalate the crisis, what can the US do to assist India to productively respond to this situation and get China to comply with a rules-based order.
APL Apollo Tubes Ltd

APL Apollo Tubes Limited (APL Apollo) is one of India's leading manufacturers of branded steel products. APL Apollo's multi-product offerings include over 1100 varieties of MS Black pipes Galvanized Tubes Pre-Galvanized Tubes Structural ERW Steel tubes and Hollow Sections. With state-of-the-art-manufacturing facilities The Company serves as a one-stop shop' for a wide spectrum of steel structural ...> More
Chadane C. Gordon, 25, of the 600 block of West Central Road, Arlington Heights, was charged July 1 with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, aggravated battery and attempted aggravated criminal sexual assault, according to Arlington Heights Police Commander Joseph Pinnello. Gordon also was charged with violation of mandatory supervised release from prison, according to authorities. He was released on parole from Stateville Correctional Center in February after serving time for residential burglary and retail theft, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Ferns N Petals, a popular online gift portal, introduces their latest Rakhi collection 2020 and is all set to deliver Rakhis across 70 plus countries around the globe.

Raksha Bandhan is undoubtedly the most-awaited Indian festival celebrated by siblings. The eye-catching collection of colourful and embellished Rakhis by Ferns N Petals will add more joy to the festival and help people make it special for their siblings.

Along with an extensive range of Rakhis for brothers, sisters, and kids, Ferns N Petals is also providing Rakhi delivery in USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and many other countries.

They have introduced free shipping to all countries to help people send Rakhi and Rakhi gifts abroad without spending extra money. Their same-day Rakhi delivery works absolutely fine for last-minute orders and ensures on-time delivery.

Customers can choose from stunning Rakhis & combos online and send Rakhi to Canada, UAE, UK, Qatar, South Africa, Singapore, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Indonesia with their same-day Rakhi delivery service.

Keeping in mind the situation of lockdown due to the outbreak of coronavirus, Ferns N Petals has introduced a contactless delivery feature that promises safe and secure delivery of products to customer's doorstep directly.

Other than a variety of Rakhi options, Ferns N Petals introduces new and unique Rakhi gifts for brothers and sisters. They have put together their best gifts like chocolates, Indian sweets, dry fruits, cakes, personalized gifts & exclusive hampers with Rakhis to create premium Rakhi combos.

"Ferns N Petals is upholding its brand values and sticking together during these unprecedented times. We make sure to provide our customers with a safe & secure way to send love and wishes to their close ones through gifts. We are quite excited for the upcoming Raksha Bandhan celebration and hence present our latest collection of 500 plus unique Rakhi designs, gifts and edibles delivered to major countries like USA, UK, Canada and Australia to help customers extend their love & wishes for their siblings. With international Rakhi delivery service & free shipping, we promise to take care of gifting needs & help people express their heartfelt emotions to their siblings," said Swati Gupta, Sr Manager, Ferns N Petals about the latest Rakhi collection & delivery across 70 plus countries.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 2 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Omidyar Network India, an investment firm focused on social impact, announced that it has fully utilized the capital pool of Rs 10.75 crore under its Rapid Response Funding Initiative for Covid-19.

The initiative was launched on March 24, 2020 - since then 2000 applications were received and 67 proposals have been approved. Of this, Rs 3.25 crore was contributed by employees of Omidyar Network India.

Applications received: some highlights

The 2000 plus applications received from across the country provide good insights into the types of non-profit solutions that are being set up.

* While the majority of proposals were focused on physical health (79 per cent), some (3 per cent) were for addressing mental health challenges too.

* Nearly half (49 per cent) the proposals were technology-focused - primarily online and mobile based solutions.

* The solutions focused on supporting the vulnerable sections - the lower 60 per cent of the country's income distribution represented by the daily wage earners, vendors, the gig-economy workers, and small businesses.

"The response of the nonprofit sector to the current crisis has truly been awe inspiring. The way they have galvanized into action has dispelled many myths associated with the nonprofit sector. NGOs and nonprofits have responded rapidly to provide cost-effective solutions. They are adopting new technologies at a fast pace. They are collaborating with each other to create a more effective response. If they continue to be funded adequately, these organizations will continue to play an increasingly greater role in India's response to the pandemic both in the medium and the long term," said Roopa Kudva, Managing Director, Omidyar Network India, while commenting on the initiatives in response to Covid-19.

Profile of proposals approved under RRFI:

The amount of Rs 10.75 crore has been deployed towards the following mix of themes:

* Direct relief work, grassroots awareness campaigns, on-ground programs to mobilize volunteers (47 per cent)

* Fact-based inputs to inform the thinking of policy-makers/influencers in supporting the NHB (12 per cent)

* Data, apps and other technological solutions (27 per cent)

* Collaborative efforts amongst funders and solution providers (12 per cent)

* Economic resilience of NHB workers and small businesses (2 per cent)

Listed below are the 67 initiatives chosen for funding under the Rapid Response Funding Initiative. They include a wide range of organizations - non-profits, coalitions of NGOs and civil society organizations, for-profit businesses seeking to create non-profit solutions as well as research bodies:

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

DISCLAIMER

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Axis Bank board on Thursday approved the proposal to raise up to Rs 15,000 crore to boost capital buffers amid coronavirus pandemic. Fundraising will be done through issue of equity shares or depository receipts or any other instruments or securities representing convertible securities linked to equity shares, Axis Bank said in an exchange filing. The instruments may also include qualified institutional placement, American depository receipts, global depository receipts programme, preferential allotment, or any other means necessary, it added.

The plan is "subject to the approval of the Shareholders at the ensuing 26th Annual General Meeting of the Bank, in relation to the above fundraising proposal," the bank said. Shares of Axis Bank were trading at Rs 423.20, down 10.05 points, or 2.32 per cent on NSE at the time of reporting.

Meanwhile, in June, credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings (S&P) downgraded the Foreign Currency Ratings of the bank saying, "We lowered our ratings on Axis to reflect our expectation that heightened economic risks facing India's banking system will affect the bank's asset quality and financial performance."

Earlier this week, HDFC Bank said that it plans to raise up to Rs 50,000 crore via unsecured perpetual debt instruments, Tier II Capital Bonds and Long Term Bonds in the domestic market. The fundraise would be done in one or more tranches, HDFC Bank said in its annual general meeting (AGM) notice. The bank said it will consider "to Issue Unsecured Perpetual Debt Instruments(part of Additional Tier I capital), Tier II Capital Bonds and Long Term Bonds (financing of infrastructure and affordable housing) on a private placement basis and in this regard to consider and, if thought fit, to pass the following resolution, as a special resolution."

Also read: 5 cops arrested in Tuticorin custodial deaths case; residents celebrate with crackers

Also read: PM Modi quits Chinese social media platform Weibo after ban on 59 apps
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), the country's largest fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company, on Thursday announced that its flagship skincare brand Fair & Lovely will be rebranded as Glow & Lovely. The men's range under the brand will now be called 'Glow & Handsome'.

Last week, the company had announced to drop the word 'fair' from its famous flagship brand to make it more "inclusive and diverse".

"HUL today announced the next step in the evolution of its skin care portfolio to a more inclusive vision of Positive Beauty, and introduces Glow & Lovely, the new name for the Fair & Lovely brand," the company said in a regulatory filing.

Over the next few months, Glow & Lovely will be on the shelves, and future innovations will deliver on this new proposition, it added.

Also Read: Rebranding Fair & Lovely unlikely to impact demand for fairness creams

Fair & Lovely is the most ubiquitous brand in skincare segment in India with market share over 80 per cent. Over the years, Fair & Lovely has became a bestselling product, registering sales of about Rs 4,000 crore last year.

Though the company has not mentioned the reason behind the change in the brand name, the decision has been taken in the wake of protests across the world, especially in the United States, seeking authorities and companies to discourage racism or actions that can lead to racism.

Also Read: HUL to drop 'Fair' from 'Fair & Lovely' to become more 'inclusive'

The company made this move shortly after Johnson & Johnson also decided to stop selling dark-spot reducers Neutrogena Fine Fairness and Clear Fairness.

Meanwhile, shares of HUL ended Thursday's trade at Rs 2,152.20, down 0.85 per cent, against previous closing price of Rs 2,170.70 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

By Chitranjan Kumar
Novartis AG agreed to pay more than $729 million to settle U.S. government charges it paid illegal kickbacks to doctors and patients to boost drug sales, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday. The Swiss drugmaker will pay $678 million to resolve claims it organized tens of thousands of sham educational events where it lavished doctors with exorbitant speaker fees, expensive dinners and alcohol to induce them to prescribe its cardiovascular and diabetes drugs more often.

It will also pay $51.25 million to resolve charges it funneled money through three charitable foundations to cover co-payments of Medicare patients so they would purchase its drugs. Both settlements resolved civil charges that Novartis violated the federal False Claims Act.

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss in Manhattan called the incentives for doctors "nothing more than bribes," and said federal healthcare programs paid hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements for prescriptions tainted by kickbacks. "Giving these cash payments and other lavish goodies interferes with the duty of doctors to choose the best treatment for their patients and increases drug costs for everyone," Strauss said in a statement.

The Justice Department said the speaker programs and other promotional events occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the co-payments were made from 2010 to 2014. In connection with the settlements, Novartis agreed to curtail its speaker programs and enter a five-year corporate integrity agreement.

It also accepted responsibility for many allegations underlying the larger settlement, for which it set aside funds in July 2019. "We are a different company today -- with new leadership, a stronger culture and a more comprehensive commitment to ethics," Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan said in a statement. The $678 million payout includes $591.4 million in damages to the U.S. government, a $38.4 million forfeiture for violating an anti-kickback statute and $48.2 million to U.S. states.

Also read: Coronavirus fallout: HUL aims to shift supply from China; in talks for alternatives
The CB-CID has arrested four more policemen in the Tuticorin custodial deaths case of Jayaraj and Bennicks after the arrest of a cop in the case on earning Thursday morning. These cops allegedly beat the father-son duo ruthlessly and allegedly sodomised them in police custody before they succumbed to injuries.

Among those who have been arrested are sub-inspector Balakrishnan, constables Muthuraj and Murugan and inspector Sridhar. Sridhar has been booked under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (murder). Earlier, SI Ragu Ganesh was suspended and arrested on Wednesday.

The brutal torture of the two victims by cops have shaken the entire nation and many are comparing it with the murder of George Floyd in the US, which led to the global outrage over racism.

After the arrest of Ragu Ganesh, residents of Sathankulam, Thoothukudi, were even seen bursting firecrackers.

#WATCH Tamil Nadu: Residents of Sathankulam, Thoothukudi burst firecrackers y'day after Sub Inspector Ragu Ganesh, who suspended, was arrested by CB-CID in Tuticorin custodial death case.



Sub Inspector Balakrishnan & constables Muthuraj & Murugan also arrested; 4 arrests so far pic.twitter.com/ygldNXaQh3 a ANI (@ANI) July 2, 2020

"We have changed the charges to include murder charges. We are talking to other people and will take action post inquiry. In the preliminary investigation has led us to narrow down on four people. We will see how the case progresses," IG Shankar told India Today.

J Jayaraj, 59, and Bennicks Immanuel, 31, were subjected to a brutal thrashing, which resulted in rectal bleeding and eventual death, according to a letter to government officials written by Jayaraj's wife J Selvarani.

The Sathankulam police, in its first information report (FIR), said Jayaraj and Bennicks were picked up on June 19 (Friday) for breaching coronavirus lockdown rules. After they were allegedly subjected to brutal torture in custody, Bennicks died on Monday, while Jayaraj died on Tuesday. Tamil Nadu CM E Palaniswami has assured that action over this incident will be taken as per the law.

READ: 'India's George Floyds': Father-son's custodial death sparks social media outrage
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that it would assess the feasibility of conducting CA exams, scheduled between July 29 and August 16, in view of the spike in number of COVID-19 cases across the country and consult states and examination centres on this issue. The ICAI''s counsel told a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar that cases of coronavirus have increased and some of the states have extended the restrictions imposed amid the spike in the number of infection.

He sought time from the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna, for contacting examination centres to access the ground situation and explore the feasibility of conducting the exams. The top court was hearing through video conferencing a plea which has challenged the ''opt out'' option provided by the ICAI to the candidates alleging that it "arbitrarily" discriminates between the aspirants in the May cycle of CA examination.

The apex court, after hearing the submissions, said it would hear the matter on July 10. On June 29, the apex court had observed that ICAI should be flexible in conducting exams amid the COVID-19 pandemic and take care of candidates' concerns. It had suggested that option for change in examination centre should be made available to the candidates till the last week before the scheduled exams considering the fact that an area may become a containment zone due to the coronavirus situation.

The apex court had said that ICAI should be flexible on the issues of ''opt out'' and change of examination centre as the situation prevailing due to the pandemic was not static and continuously changing. Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, appearing for the petitioner, had earlier told the bench that number of examination centres should be increased and there should be one centre per district.

The ICAI had expressed difficulty on this and told the court that over 500 examination centres have been identified and sanitized properly. The ICAI's counsel had earlier said that out of around 3,46,000 registered aspirants, only 53,000 have taken the ''opt out'' option.

The petitioner, president of 'India Wide Parents Association', has claimed in the plea that ICAI has stated that students, who have already submitted online examination application for May examination cycle, shall be allowed to ''opt out'' and carry forward their candidature to November 2020 examination cycle.

"It is respectfully submitted that Respondent No.1 ICAI has notified that for the students who choose opt-out option, this attempt (May 2020) will be treated as cancelled/not counted. Thus, such student will be deprived of the May, 2020, attempt, as compared to other group of students, who choose opt-in option," the plea said, while seeking quashing of the announcement made in this regard on June 15.

"The said ''opt-out'' option discriminates between those underprivileged group of CA students/ aspirants, who are living in remote areas of the country or living in the containment zones and thus are slated to lose one precious ''examination attempt'' by choosing ''opt-out'' option amidst ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as compared to that privileged group of students/ aspirants, who are living in big cities/ green zones and thus they have no problem in appearing in the said examination," it said.

It has said that free transportation and accommodation should be provided to the aspirants near their respective examination centres. It has further sought directions to the authorities to conduct mandatory free COVID-19 test of all aspirants and teachers and staffs deployed at the examination centres.

Also read: Coronavirus pandemic: Delhi HC seeks Centre, AAP stand on PIL seeking e-registration of documents
Anticipating surge in demand for ventilators as coronavirus cases spike, Kerala-government owned company is preparing for commercial production of the country's cheapest emergency ventilator for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The non-invasive ventilator to be produced by Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceuticals (KSDP) could be priced in the range of Rs 7,500-8,000, compared to currently available lowest-priced ventilator at around Rs 15,000, as per a report by The Financial Express.

The company is expecting to start production of ventilators by July-end after getting approval from Kerala Government and ICMR.

The ventilator to be produced by the KSDP is based on a model developed by NIT Calicut. The Kozhikode-based public technical university has inked a technology transfer pact with KSDP.

Also Read: Coronavirus Vaccine Update: Oxford, Moderna frontrunners; Pfizer shows promise

"We expect to go into production by July-end, provided we get go-aheads from Kerala Government and from ICMR. The prototype by NIT researchers, had been vetted and validated by doctors at Calicut Medical College," the leading daily quoted CM Chandrababu, Chairman, Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (KSDP), as saying.

Also Read: Coronavirus update: 19,148 new cases, 434 deaths in 24 hours; India breaches 6 lakh mark

As per the report, the approval for commercial production of ventilators is unlikely to be delayed, given the shortage of this life supporting device in India.

The state-owned enterprise has already established its plant for ventilators. The current capacity of the plant is to produce 200 ventilators per month, but the company is confident of scaling up for supply to the national market, once it gets the ICMR nod.

Also Read: Patanjali Coronil update: Medicine to be sold as 'corona management' drug; key developments

Though this life supporting device is not a substitute for the mechanical invasive ventilator, but it is portable and can be used for COVID-19 treatment.

"The exhaled air of Covid-19 patient, using the conventional non-invasive ventilator, would be infected. In the model that we developed, the exhaled air is bubbled through soap solution to disinfect it, before releasing to the atmosphere," Sajith Vandana, Head, School of Materials Science and Engineering (SMSE), NIT Calicut told the daily.

With coronavirus rapidly spreading in the country, the central government last month cleared a proposal to allow state-owned Bharat Electronics to manufacture 30,000 ventilators in the next two months in collaboration with local manufacturers. Besides, many automobile makers like Maruti, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Hyundai India have also been asked to manufacture ventilators at their respective facilities.
The government on Thursday approved the proposal for procurement of 21 MiG-29 along with upgradation of existing 59 Mig-29 aircrafts and procurement of 12 Sukhoi Su-30 MKI aircrafts. The government-to-government procurement was in process for over a year. The purchase of aircrafts is expected to boost the strength of the Indian Air Force (IAF). This proposal was approved along with others, amounting to an approximate cost of Rs 38,900 crore, at the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) meeting chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday.

"While the MiG-29 procurement and upgradation from Russia is estimated to cost Rs 7,418 crore, the Su-30 MKI will be procured from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) at an estimated cost of Rs 10,730 crore," the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

ALSO READ: India-China clash: Rafale jets with Meteor missiles to arrive next month

"In the current situation and the need to strengthen the armed forces for the defence of our borders and in line with our Prime Minister's clarion call for 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat' the Defence Acquisition Council in its meeting of July 2, 2020 held under the Chairmanship of Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh accorded approval for Capital acquisitions of various platforms and equipments required by the Indian Armed Forces. Proposals for an approximate cost of Rs 38,900 crore were approved," it stated.

The approvals granted today include acquisitions from Indian industry of Rs 31,130 crore with focus on indigenous design and development.

ALSO READ: India-China row: Indian armed forces move air defence missile systems into Ladakh sector

"The equipment are going to be manufactured in India involving Indian defence industry with participation of several MSMEs as prime tier vendors. The indigenous content in some of these projects is up to 80 per cent of the project cost. A large number of these projects have been made possible due to Transfer of Technology (ToT) by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the indigenous industry," the Ministry stated.

The DAC also approved procurement of long range land attack cruise missile systems with a range of 1,000 km and Astra Missiles for Navy and Air Force. The panel also gave the go-ahead to procurement of Pinaka missile systems for raising additional regiments over and above the ones already inducted. Other acquisitions include BMP armament upgrades and software defined radios for the Indian Army. The cost of these design and development proposals is in the range of Rs 20,400 crore, the Defence Ministry said.

The procurement of aircrafts and other platforms comes at a time when border tensions between India and China are at a high.

ALSO READ: Ladakh standoff: India, China hold third round of Lt Gen-level talks
Delhi's Commonwealth Games (CWG) village has beenturned into coronavirus care centre amid the surge in infection rates in the city. According to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, around 480 beds have been prepared in the CWG stadium.

Yesterday, CM Kejriwal and Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia visited CWG Stadium to review the preparedness of the COVID care facility. Kejriwal told media that separate wards have been created for both men and women at the COVID care centre adding that additional space have been made for doctors and nurses to stay.

Doctors For You, a non-profit organisation, is supporting the Delhi government in setting up the facility.

"A massive expansion of the number of COVID-19 beds is underway in Delhi. The number of cases in Delhi is now decreasing (comparatively) and the situation seems to be getting under control," Kejriwal told the media after the visit.

Still, the Delhi government is preparing for all possible situations considering the unpredictability of the novel coronavirus as no one can say when the cases might increase or decrease, he added.

Moreover, many banquet halls were being acquired in Delhi and more centres like the one at CWG village will be established in the coming days, Kejriwal said.

At present, Delhi has registered 89,802 cases out of which 27,007 are active, and 59,992 are cured or discharged. The national capital has reported 2,803 deaths due to coronavirus so far. Delhi's mortality rate stands at 3.12 per cent, whereas the recovery rate stands at 66.8 per cent.

In Delhi, coronavirus cases surged in the month of June. According to Delhi government data, 66,526 fresh coronavirus cases were reported from June 1 to June 30.

For the last few days, the Centre has been overseeing Delhi's preparations. Recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced a number of steps, including house-to-house survey, ramping up testing and bed capacity, to arrest the spread of coronavirus.

Additionally, Delhi government panel has recommended roping in postgraduate students, pooling of resources of hospitals and cash incentives to address the problem of shortage of staff in hospitals.

Also read: Coronavirus update: 19,148 new cases, 434 deaths in 24 hours; India breaches 6 lakh mark

Also read: Coronavirus update: BioNTech, Pfizer vaccine shows promising results in early trials
I think having the bell-ringing done virtually is something we can do to carry on the tradition and give people a sense of normalcy, he said. We talked about what else we could do, given we cant have a full blown event and well have half a dozen board members and staff involved in the bell ringing.
Tightening the noose around goods coming from China, the government has asked e-commerce companies like Flipkart and Amazon to display country of origin for 'new listings' of products on their platforms. The move comes days after the Delhi high court issued notices to e-comm companies on a plea seeking mandatory display of manufacturer country if products are imported to India. The Centre later asked the companies to find out a way to display the country of origin on products.

In its latest order, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) joint secretary has written to these companies to declare such new details under the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules of 2011. Though no fixed deadline has been given, the e-commerce players have been asked to ensure necessary compliance under the legal metrology rules at the earliest, CNBC TV18 reported.

READ: 70% 'Made in China', eh? Centre to ask Flipkart, Amazon, others to disclose 'origin'

The DPIIT is likely to hold a meeting with these e-comm representatives, next week to chalk out a plan to display the "country of origin" on old items too. On June 25, the companies had urged the government to give them at least five months to comply with the latest labelling norms.

The 'country of origin' labels would help the customer discern between a local and foreign-made product. The decision to label items come amid calls to boycott Chinese goods in wake of India-China border clash.

Besides, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and small manufacturers under the banner of Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) had proposed to make displaying the country of origin mandatory for online platforms. Amid the growing anti-China sentiment, these bodies had claimed 70 per cent of items sold on Amazon and Flipkart are of "Chinese origin", which was not benefiting local manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the Centre is also planning colour codes for desi and foreign-made products. This will be along the lines of green for vegetarian and red for non-vegetarian food items colour codes.

READ: Flipkart, Amazon, others seek up to 5 months to put 'country of origin' labels on items
Union Minister of Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has called the recent ban imposed on 59 Chinese apps a "digital airstrike" by India against China. He said this while speaking at a virtual BJP rally in Bengal, where he explained that the apps were banned to protect the data of millions of Indians.

Prasad said, "For security and sovereignty of India, for countrymen's digital security and privacy we have banned 59 apps, including TikTok. India knows how to look in the eyes of those eyeing our borders and to protect countrymen, India can even do a digital strike."

He also said that India is for peace but if anybody casts an evil eye "we will give a befitting reply."

Earlier this week, India had banned 59 apps with Chinese links. Among them was the popular video-sharing app TikTok. The Centre has said the apps "prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country". The list of apps that have been banned also includes Helo, Likee, CamScanner, Vigo Video, Mi Video Call Xiaomi, Clash of Kings as well as e-commerce platforms Club Factory and Shein.

The move by the Centre came two weeks after the incident in Galwan Valley on June 14, in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives in a tussle with the Chinese army.

Justifying the move, the Information Technology Ministry said it received many complaints from various sources, including several reports about the misuse of some mobile apps for "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India".

Also Read: Reliance Jio urged to expand data connectivity at 10,000-bed coronavirus care centre

Also Read: Coronavirus update: This company is set to make India's cheapest emergency ventilator
India is in talks with the US and Canada and the countries in European and Gulf regions on establishing individual bilateral bubbles which will allow airlines of each country in the pact to operate international flights, said Arvind Singh, Chairman, Airports Authority of India (AAI), on Thursday.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) had on June 23 said India is considering establishing "individual bilateral bubbles" with the US, the UK, Germany and France.

Singh said, "This morning, I took a brief from the key point person (from the MOCA) who is negotiating with the countries, and he said that we are in constant touch. We are working on a consensus to restart the international flights. This is going to be through air bubbles."

"Talks are mainly going on between India and the US, India and Canada, India and Europe and India and the Gulf countries to start flights in these bubbles," he said at a webinar called "Reposing the faith in flying" organised by the GMR group.

Scheduled international passenger flights remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Singh said the MOCA official has informed him that the discussion with the countries is at a "very advanced" level and the effort is to restart international flights at the earliest.

"I am sure there would be a positive outcome of the talks with the US, Canada and with the Gulf countries and the negotiations are going on," he noted.

The EU has presently banned the flights from India as the number of coronavirus cases are rising in the country, Singh said.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on June 20 said the government will start thinking on the resumption of scheduled international passenger flights in mid-July, when it expects the domestic air traffic to reach 50-55 per cent of the levels before the coronavirus.

After nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak, the government resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25.

However, it had then allowed the airlines to operate the maximum 33 per cent of their pre-COVID flights. The MOCA increased the limits on June 26 from 33 per cent to 45 per cent.

The MOCA on June 23 had said, "As we contemplate further opening up in response to demands, we are looking at the prospect of establishing individual bilateral bubbles, India-US, India-France, India-Germany, India-UK. These are all destinations where demand for travel has not diminished. Final decisions pursuant to negotiations are expected to be taken soon."

"We have received requests from authorities in several countries including the US, France, Germany among others requesting that their air carriers be allowed to participate in the transportation of passengers along the line being conducted by Air India under Vande Bharat Mission. These requests are being examined," it added.

Air India started international chartered flights under the Vande Bharat Mission from May 6 to help people stranded due to the pandemic reach their destinations.

The MOCA's June 23 statement had come after the US Department of Transport (DOT) said on June 22 that it appears that Air India may be using its passenger repatriation charter flights as a way of circumventing the government of India-imposed prohibition of all scheduled international services.

"We are taking this action (of allowing only those Air India flights from July 22 that have DOT's approval) because the Government of India has impaired the operating rights of the US carriers and has engaged in discriminatory and restrictive practices with respect to the US carrier services to and from India," the DOT had said.

Also Read: Coronavirus in Mumbai: BMC to buy 27 lakh Favipiravir tablets for Rs 80 per tablet from Glenmark

Also Read: Reliance Jio urged to expand data connectivity at 10,000-bed coronavirus care centre
With the ban on 59 Chinese applications by the government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also decided to quit Twitter-like Chinese social media platform Weibo. On Wednesday, PM Modi's Weibo account appeared blank as there were no profile photos, posts, and comments.

It is said that an official process was initiated to allow PM Modi to quit the Chinese microblogging site. PM Modi joined Weibo in 2015 and had a total of had 115 posts on it. The PM had over 2,00,000 followers before quitting the social media platform.

As per media reports, Weibo has a more complex procedure to quit for VIP accounts. Before quitting Weibo, PM Modi's all posts, around 113, were manually deleted. The last two posts that were not removed were photos of PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Xinping together.

Apparently, it's difficult to remove posts comprising pictures of Xi on Weibo. However, now all posts have been removed.

The BJP's IT wing head Amit Malviya said PM Modi's decision to quit Weibo sends out a "loud and clear" message that if red lines are crossed, there will be consequences.

The Central government on Tuesday banned 59 Chinese apps, saying that they were "engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".

The ties between India and China have come under strain due to the military standoff at the Ladakh border.

Also read: ByteDance confident ban on TikTok, Helo will be lifted soon

Also read: No layoffs, salary cuts on cards, assures CEO Kevin Mayer after TikTok ban
Key Highlights

Railway employees union AIRF calls privatisation a "wishful thinking", vows to launch protest

Railways on Wednesday invited bids from private sector for investment of about Rs 30,000 crore

With Dedicated Freight Corridors expected to become operational in 2021, several trunk routes will be free to run more trains

Indian Railways recovers only 57% of the cost of travel, while ferrying almost 23 million passengers on a daily basis.

Country's largest railway union All India Railwaymen's Federation (AIRF) has said it will protest against the government decision to privatise part of the railway operations. AIRF says train passengers will be hit the most in case private companies run the trains, and plans to rope them in for the protests.

"All this is wishful thinking. Railways has not been able to profitably run even three Tejas trains. The break-even occupancy for these trains is 70% but it has not been more than 40-50% on an average. So, why would a private company put their money in a loss-making business," AIRF General Secretary Shiva Gopal Mishra told BusinessToday.In.

The Railways has billed Tejas Express trains as corporate passenger trains. It charges higher fare for the journey and does not admit any concessional pass. Vowing to protest against the privatisation drive, Mishra says the government had tried to privatise train operations earlier but failed to do so after protests by the Railways staff.

"We are running trains professionally. We are providing good quality service at an affordable fare. There is no reason to privatise trains. We are creating a platform where the general public would also be involved and a massive protest would be launched at grass-root level," AIRF General Secretary said.

Seeking private investment of about Rs 30,000 crore, the Railways on Wednesday invited bids from private companies for running passenger trains on 109 pairs (origin-destination) of routes. The concession period for the project shall be 35 years and the private firms will be responsible for financing, procuring, operation and maintenance of trains.

"By going in for privatisation, the government will destroy the Railways and make travelling costly. We outrightly condemn the government move. After discussing the issue with our central members we would launch protest against it," said National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) President Guman Singh.

Making a strong case for privatisation, the Railways has said that the objective of this initiative is to introduce modern technology, rolling stock with reduced maintenance, reduce transit time, create more jobs and provide enhanced safety.

With Dedicated Freight Corridors expected to become operational in 2021, the Railways expects that it will free up several trunk routes of congestion, thus giving scope for running more trains on these routes. These additional passenger trains could be run by private companies. With Railways incurring losses in running passenger trains it wants to speed up privatisation. On an average, Indian Railways recovers only 57% of cost of travel while ferrying almost 23 million passengers on a daily basis.
The Uttarakhand High Court on Wednesday issued notices to yoga guru Ramdev's Patanjali, Union and state governments, seeking a reply within a week on the firm's Coronil drug. Hearing a PIL challenging Ramdev's claims regarding the medicine, a division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice R C Khulbe issued the notices.

Also read: 'Never claimed Coronil can cure coronavirus': Patanjali does U-turn as doubts grow stronger

It asked the Union and state governments; Patanjali; the director of the AYUSH department in Uttarakhand; ICMR and Rajasthan's NIMS University, which is said to have collaborated with the company in manufacturing the medicine, to file their replies within a week. The PIL filed by advocate Mani Kumar has sought a ban on the drug, accusing the yoga guru of misleading people by launching Coronil as a medicine to cure coronavirus.

The drug neither has the certification of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) nor did Patanjali Ayurved has the licence to manufacture it, the PIL has contended. While Patanjali claims that the drug has been tested by NIMS University, the Rajasthan institute denied it, the PIL said.

Also read: Patanjali's Coronil to now be available in market; all protocols followed, says Baba Ramdev

Meanwhile, the Union AYUSH Ministry said Patanjali can sell Coronil but only as an immunity booster, days after yoga guru Ramdev's company launched it as a medicine for COVID-19 and is now calling it a product to manage the disease. Ramdev claimed that the ministry had asked him to use the term Covid management in place of Covid treatment and he is following the instruction.

Also read: Coronavirus in Bihar: Groom dead, 95 guests test COVID-19 positive after wedding in Patna
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated India's first plasma bank on Thursday. The plasma bank is set up at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) Hospital in the national capital. The Delhi CM said, "If someone needs plasma, they will need a doctor's recommendation. The hospital or doctor will approach ILBS". CM Kejriwal has issued numbers -- 1031 and 8800007722 --where people can contact for the donation of plasma to save the lives of COVID-19 patients.

What is plasma therapy?

Plasma therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 and transfusing those into a coronavirus infected patient to help kick-start the immune system to fight the infection. Unlike blood donation, only the plasma is drawn from the blood.

As of July 2, Delhi has 59,992 recovered patients, making them prime candidates for blood plasma donations.

Who can donate plasma?

A COVID-19 infected person can only donate plasma to another COVID positive patient. However, the plasma donor has to first fully recover and must be free of all coronavirus symptoms. People between 18 to 60 years of age can donate their plasma to corona patients.

Who cannot donate plasma?

1. If someone is less than 50 kg

2. If someone has ever been pregnant

3. If someone is diabetic

4. If someone's blood pressure is more than 140 and diastolic less than 60 or more than 90

5. If someone is a cancer survivor

6. If someone has chronic kidney/liver/lung/heart diseases

Just reviewed Delhi govt's new Plasma Bank. It is world class and modern. Donors are being taken care of very well by staff. I urge recovered Corona patients to come forward and donate their plasma. https://t.co/0yeVwCIx5H - Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) July 2, 2020

In one of the recent press conferences Kejriwal had informed that Delhi's LNJP Hospital conducted plasma therapy on 35 COVID-19 patients, and of them, 34 were saved and one patient died. Similarly, 49 patients were administered the therapy in private hospitals and 46 people recovered from the deadly virus.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain, who had tested positive for COVID-19, was also administered the plasma therapy. He has now recovered.

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Health Minister Narottam Mishra said that a plasma bank has also been formally started at a private hospital in Indore city. The facility has been set up by Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences (SAIMS), where plasma of patients who have recovered from the infection is being stored.

Besides, the Maharashtra government has also kicked off a trial for plasma therapy with the launch of 'Project Platina', which will be conducted in 17 medical colleges in the state. Several other states, including Punjab and Kerala, are running trials to see the efficacy of plasma therapy.

Also read: Delhi coronavirus update: COVID care centre with 480 beds set up at Commonwealth Games village

Also read: SBI ATM transaction rules changed from July 1: Check account limits, charges, other details
Titan Company share rose in afternoon trade today as stocks of consumer durables goods pushed the market higher set to close in the green for second consecutive session. A rise in gold price above Rs 50,000 per 10 gram mark in the Mumbai retail market also tilted sentiment in favour of the gems and jewellery maker. The stock was the top gainer in the consumer durables sector today.

Share price of Titan Company gained 4.74% or Rs 45 intra day to Rs 993.70 against previous close of Rs 948 on BSE. The stock closed 3.98% higher at Rs 986.35.

The large cap stock has gained after 6 days of consecutive fall.

The stock trades higher than 5 day, 20 day and 50 day moving averages but lower than 100 day and 200 day moving averages. However, the share of Titan has lost 25.42% in one year and fallen 16.83% since the beginning of this year.

Market cap of the firm rose to Rs 87,353 crore. Total 1.93 lakh shares of the company changed hands amounting to turnover of Rs 18.84 crore. The stock hit 52 week high of Rs 1,389 on October 10, 2019 and 52 week low of Rs 720 on March 24, 2020.

Share Market Highlights: Sensex ends 429 points higher, Nifty at 10,551; M&M, Cipla, Titan top performers

Meanwhile , Sensex closed 429 points or 1.21% higher at 35,843 and Nifty gained 121 points to 10,551 in the current session.

Consumer durables led the gains with the BSE index rising 552 points or 2.73% to end at 20,822 against previous close of Rs 20,360. Top gainers on the index were Titan, Symphony (3.61%) , Voltas (3.59% ), Whirlpool (2.13%) and TTK Prestige (1.44%). Sole loser on the ten-stock index was Orient Electric falling 0.93% to Rs 196.10.

Titan Company share falls 3% post earnings surprise in Q4; here's what brokerages say

Here's what brokerages said about the Titan Company stock

JM Financial has a hold rating on Titan Company Ltd with a 12-month target price of Rs 1,040. The last traded stock price was Rs 977.25

Titan's annual investor 'meet' was a sombre affair this time round and no one wanted to spell out a specific growth target for this year or the next. The message , says the brokerage, was very clear. Key task at hand is to ensure businesses get back on their feet at the earliest and once the situation normalises, be aggressive on growth and market shares.

The brokerage maintained a hold rating as FY21E could be a tough year given possible spill-over effects of a locked economy on jobs, income and consumer sentiments.

Sharekhan has given a Buy call on the stock with a target price of Rs 1,130.

Titan Company Limited (Titan) posted mixed performance in Q4FY2020 with consolidated revenue declining by 4.3% affected by the lockdown; however, high gross margin led to PAT declining by 2% to Rs 342.8 crore (better than our as well as street expectation). Post the easing of the lockdown norms, 85% of Tanishq stores and 75% of World of Titan stores are operational.

Jewellery and watches businesses are expected to come to normalcy by Q4FY2021. With strong traction to Gold Exchange Scheme, pent-up wedding demand, and gold being the safest asset class for investment, near-term growth prospects are intact for the jewellery business. Stable balance sheet and strong brand positioning would aid Titan to gain market share from smaller players. The stock has corrected by 24% in the past four months.

Motilal Oswal Financial Services said the investors should remain little cautious going ahead as the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal may be painful for the company. The June quarter of FY21 would be negatively impacted owing to the 'ineffective hedge' on account of higher gold prices, which would be reversed in subsequent quarters.

"In addition to the COVID-19 impact, higher prevailing gold prices and the likely lower share of high-value studded jewellery would weigh on profitability. Moreover, management's reluctance to reduce staff costs, while good for long term growth, would have an adverse impact on near-term profitability," Motilal Oswal added.
Stamp duty is a tax collected by state governments. It will be applicable whenever you purchase fresh MF units, be it via lumpsum or the SIP route. It will not be applicable on redeeming MF units. Hence, it is a tax on the buyer, not the seller

If your SIP is due in the next few days, you must know that the entire SIP amount will not get invested in the mutual fund. From July 1 onwards, purchasing and transferring mutual fund units have started attracting the stamp duty of 0.005 per cent and 0.015 per cent, respectively.

Stamp duty is a tax collected by state governments. It will be applicable whenever you purchase fresh MF units, be it via lumpsum or the SIP route. It will not be applicable on redeeming MF units. Hence, it is a tax on the buyer, not the seller.

What about systemic transfer plan (STP) or switching to a new MF scheme in one go? Stamp duty will be levied in both the cases, since you are purchasing fresh units in a new scheme after selling the existing ones. Same holds true in the case of dividend reinvestment plans, in which dividend reinvested in buying fresh units will attract stamp duty.

In case of transfer of units on stock exchanges, for example, buying units through a stock-broker will attract 0.15 per cent stamp duty. Off-market transfer of units, that is, transfer of units from one demat account to another will attract the same rate.

"Effectively it will act as an entry load as allocation of units will be at net amount post deduction of stamp duty," explains JM Financial in a research note.

For example, if the investment amount is Rs 1 lakh, after paying stamp duty of 0.5 per cent or Rs 5, Rs 99,995 will go into the chosen MF scheme.

The government in 2019 amended the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 to create a mechanism to enable states to collect stamp duty on all securities market instruments, including mutual fund units. Initially it was supposed to be effective from January 2020, but got postponed to April, and then July.

Longer the investment horizon, lesser the negative impact

If you are a long-term investor, you need not be worry about this new tax. It'll have negligible impact on your returns. However, if you invest in liquid funds, you need to factor in the impact of stamp duty in your return expectations.

"Stamp duty is being charged as a one-time charge of 0.005 per cent, which will be an absolute percentage, however, the simple annualised impact of the same on returns will keep reducing with higher period of holdings," says B&K Securities in a research note.

In an illustration in its research report, B&K shows that the impact of stamp duty on net returns reduces from 1.83 per cent in a single day to 0.26 per cent in seven days, 0.12 per cent in 15 Days and further to 0.06 per cent as the investment period crosses 30 days. For example, if pre-stamp duty return on a liquid fund is 3.50 per cent, the net return - factoring in the stamp duty - will amount to 3.24 per cent for seven days, 3.38 per cent for 15 days and 3.44 per cent for 30 days.

"Imposition of stamp duty will impact in case of churning the portfolio. It will encourage the investors to stay invested for a longer duration and not churn portfolio for higher yields," says JM Financial report.

Returns on liquid funds still better than FDs

Since there is no stamp duty on fixed deposits (FDs), should you prefer short-term FDs over liquid funds due to this additional tax on latter? Not necessarily. Liquid funds have performed better than short-term FDs of the same duration in terms of returns till now (see table). Although liquid funds are one of the safest options in debt mutual fund, there is no guarantee that past performance will continue in the future also. Based on market conditions there always remains a chance of fluctuation in returns. So, if you are looking at predictable returns, FD could still be a more suitable option.

Also Read: Globally funds are moving back to riskier assets: Swati Kulkarni of UTI MF

Also Read: Mumbai airport fraud: CBI books GVK group chairman GVK Reddy, son for siphoning off Rs 705 crore
Acknowledging the liquidity crisis being faced by the MSMEs, leading bankers of the country on Thursday said they will continue to lend their support to these units even during the post-COVID era.

There is a need for the bankers to provide more support to the micro, small and medium enterprises, State Bank of India Managing Director Arijit Basu said.

Speaking at a webinar organised by ICC, he said, "MSMEs will remain a crucial cog in the wheel of the economy.

For India to become self-reliant, MSMEs have an important role to play."

Basu said these units must have a viable business plan to avail credit from banks.

According to him, the fundamental issue that the corporates and MSMEs are facing is related to the stressed assets.

For SBI, he said that there is no worry to lend as the bank's provision coverage ratio (PCR) was around 85-87 per cent.

Basu hoped that the second half of the current fiscal will be good.

Punjab National Bank MD and CEO S S Mallikarjuna Rao said it is not that the MSMEs started facing the problem during the COVID-19 crisis.

"The MSMEs have been passing through tough times for the last two years. They have been facing cash flow problems," Rao said.

He said these units were not having surplus cash flow as their operations were at stress, while fixed costs did not reduce.

"There is a requirement for providing liquidity support to the MSMEs for which the government has come out with the credit guarantee scheme," he said.

He felt that the hand-holding will be required for the MSMEs even after the COVID-19 crisis.

Also Read: Coronavirus in Mumbai: BMC to buy 27 lakh Favipiravir tablets for Rs 80 per tablet from Glenmark

Also Read: Reliance Jio urged to expand data connectivity at 10,000-bed coronavirus care centre
Steven Glink, an attorney for the former student and her father, said the family told him Vidmar had pulled the girl out of class on three separate occasions during her senior year to have her try on a choir dress in the changing room.
The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has reinstated its old ATM withdrawal limit and transaction fee from July 1. This is because the 3-month rebate announced by the Finance Minister expired on June 30.

During the lockdown, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed that debit cardholders could withdraw money free of charge for three months - April, May and June. Hence, July onward, ATM transactions for SBI customers is going to be slightly expensive.

Here are SBI's new ATM withdrawal limits and charges:

1. SBI account holders will now be able to do only eight free transactions--5 transactions at SBI ATMs and 3 transactions at other bank ATMs. This rule is applicable for people living in these metro cities (Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad). In non-metro areas, SBI account holders will get 10 free transaction - 5 at SBI ATMS, and 5 at others.

2. SBI will charge a fee ranging from Rs 10 plus GST to Rs 20 plus GST for any additional financial transactions.

3. For any additional non- inancial transactions, the Bank will charge a fee ranging from Rs 5 plus GST to Rs 8 plus GST.

4. And in situation like 'transaction decline due to insufficient balance,' SBI will charge a fee of Rs 20 plus GST.

5. For all salary accounts at all locations, SBI will offer free unlimited transactions at SBG ATMs and other bank ATMs.

Also read: Coronavirus update: 19,148 new cases, 434 deaths in 24 hours; India breaches 6 lakh mark

Also read: Delhi coronavirus update: COVID care centre with 480 beds set up at Commonwealth Games village
Highlights DuckDuckGo is unreachable for many users in India on several networks.

The company has said the seach engine could be blocked in India.

Tor browser can still help access the DuckDuckGo search engine.

Days after India imposed a ban on a total of 59 apps that belong to Chinese companies, several people are unable to access the search engine DuckDuckGo in India. The privacy-centric search engine seems to be unresponsive on all networks, as reported by several users in India on Twitter and Reddit. After the number of flags poured in, DuckDuckGo acknowledged the issue and said it is talking to the Indian ISPs over the reason behind the blocking.

A number of Twitter users took to Twitter to report that DuckDuckGo is inaccessible for them on multiple networks, including Reliance Jio and Airtel. While the effective extent of this issue is not clear, it is affecting DuckDuckGo users on both cellular and broadband connections. It is also not clear whether it is a glitch or a phased curb on the search engine.

"To our users in India: We've received many reports our search engine is unreachable by much of India right now and have confirmed it is not due to us. We're actively talking to Internet providers to get to the bottom of it ASAP. Thank you for your patience," said DuckDuckGo in a statement on Twitter Wednesday.

We have reached out to the internet service providers to know why DuckDuckGo is unreachable in India.

Chances are Department of Telecom has asked the ISPs to block DuckDuckGo in India, much like what it did with the Chinese apps a day ago. The reason to why DoT would do such a thing is unclear. DuckDuckGo is a US-based search engine company, which was not a part of the list that banned 59 apps earlier this week. If the criterion does not include DuckDuckGo as a Chinese app, we could be looking at another case that might be similar to WeTransfer.

DoT blocked WeTransfer last month over the reasons that were mainly centred on security reasons. The entire domain of the WeTransfer website was blocked across all the ISPs in India, leaving the file-sharing platform useless.

Meanwhile, DuckDuckGo seems to have found the solution for users who are affected by the unprecedented glitch. The search engine has suggested users should use the third-party DNS-provider 1.1.1.1. It is a DNS fixing app that can solve network connection issues by redirecting the URL to a new DNS. We used the 1.1.1.1 app to access DuckDuckGo and we were able to open the website.

Mind you, the app is available on Android, which means DuckDuckGo can be accessed on Android phones. To access DuckDuckGo on desktops and mobile, users can access the search engine on the Tor Browser, which is also a non-tracking internet browser.
Amid the uproar on social media over significantly high electricity bills in Maharashtra, one of the power suppliers Adani Electricity has explained how it calculated the charges. It said that since meter readings were called off by Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), the company based the bills for March, April and May on the average billing of the previous three months of December, January and February. Since electricity consumption is less during winter months, the average also fell resulting in low bills during the lockdown months before shooting up in June.

The clarifications from MERC and Adani Electricity came after netizens from the state took to social media to ask about the process behind the high electricity bills in the month of June. Actress Taapsee Pannu asked the company how the electricity bill could be Rs 36,000 when it was less than Rs 5,000 in April and May. Actress Renuka Shahane also took to Twitter to ask how her bill has spiked from Rs 5,510 in April to Rs 18,080 for May. She said that she was billed Rs 29,700 for May and June together.

And this one is for an apartment where no one stays n its only visited once in a week for cleaning purpose @Adani_Elec_Mum I am now worried if someone is actually using the apartment without our knowledge and you have helped us uncover the reality  pic.twitter.com/GeBQUSJaft  taapsee pannu (@taapsee) June 28, 2020

Meter reading that was temporarily halted due to the coronavirus lockdown has been resumed from June.

WHY THE SPIKE

Typically, electricity consumption shoots up from April till the onset of monsoon. But during the lockdown, consumers ended up paying less since the meter readings were not being taken and calculations were based on the average of the previous three months. The MERC order came in March, following which the companies computed the lockdown bills based on the electricity charges of December, January and February. Since those are winter months, electricity consumption was less, which brought down the average, leading to low bills for the three months. However, upon calculation of the meter readings after lockdown, the extra amount left from the three months were added to the June bill, showing a significant spike in charges.

Also read: Rs 3,850 in May, Rs 36,000 in June: Unusual hike in electricity bill shocks celebs, Mumbai residents

"Moreover, a large number of individuals also refrained from going out, as well as worked and studied from home during this pandemic," it said. The company said that this rise in consumption has been witnessed across utility levels. "In some segments, power consumption has increased by two-three-fold. Moreover, due to the lockdown, as most consumers were working from home, the consumption of power had increased even more," it added.

MERC reiterated AEML and said, "The balance amount payable after adjusting the average bill amounts for each of the three months March, April and May have led to higher bill that was issued in June."

Adani Electricity added that upon receiving the actual meter readings, the bills will be adjusted and the extra amount would be debited or credited.

HOW IT WAS CALCULATED

Since commercial and industrial establishments were shut during the lockdown months, the power companies allowed a moratorium on the payment of fixed charges. Arrear charges were also waived off by the companies. The bills were processed on the basis of 10 per cent of average energy consumption for establishments where meter reading was not available.

Adani Electricity said that if the customer has paid more or equal to 80 per cent of the bill amount then the delay payment charges (DPC) on the unpaid amount will be reduced by 50 per cent. For instance, if the bill amount is Rs 2,000 and if the customer has paid more than 80 per cent or Rs 1,650 then DPC has been charged as 0.65 per cent which is half of normal charge of 1.25 per cent on the balance amount. In case the bill on actual reading is lower than the assessed billed amount, DPC will be recomputed based on the actual bill, it said. Once calculated, the amount would be added or deducted from the bill.

Also read: Infosys workforce increases 166% in 10 years but electricity consumption only 20%

"In case, the amount paid by you based on the assessed billing is higher than that payable as per actual reading (when taken), the holding charge (equivalent to 1-month MCLR rate of SBI as on billing date) on excess amount paid shall be credited to the consumer," it said. If the bill is lower, then the amount will be levied on the consumer's account.

BILL PAYMENTS ON EMI

MERC has also allowed companies to accept bills on EMIs. If the bill is more than double the average for the period of March to May then consumers would be allowed to make the payments in three EMIs.

It also said that if a bill is being contested, the companies cannot disconnect the electricity line. "Nobody should be disconnected for non-payment until the bill related grievance of the consumer is redressed, including the exercising of choice for making payment in EMIs," said MERC.

BILL GRIEVANCES

As confusion around high bills mount, MERC has asked power companies to take measures to address these issues.

The power suppliers in the state -- MSEDCL, BEST Undertaking, AEML and TPC -- have been asked to ensure transparency while dealing with consumer grievances. Grievance officers will also be appointed to ensure that the concerns are addressed within a day. Software utility for consumers to verify their bills must also be provided, it said. It said if excessive consumption is noticed then meter reading should be checked on suo moto basis.

Also read: Coronavirus impact: Eight core industries' output shrinks 23.4% in May
O-RAN has recently published 23 new or updated specifications and the O-RAN Use Cases and Deployment Scenarios white paper

The 2 nd release of O-RAN software Bronze adds support for new key elements of the O-RAN architecture and updates aligned with the latest O-RAN specifications

release of O-RAN software Bronze adds support for new key elements of the O-RAN architecture and updates aligned with the latest O-RAN specifications O-RAN Virtual Exhibition adds more demonstrations of O-RAN based technologies

The O-RAN ALLIANCE has continued its progress towards making the Radio Access Networks (RAN) truly open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable.

The O-RAN ALLIANCE welcomes TELUS Communications Inc. and U.S. Cellular as new operator members, bringing the total to 26 major carriers. O-RAN now has over 200 companies driving the definition and realization of O-RAN technology.

Recently Released Specifications and White Paper

Published in February 2020, the O-RAN Use Cases and Deployment Scenarios white paper introduces the initial set of O-RAN use cases and cloud native deployment support options.

O-RAN use cases drive the O-RAN architecture and demonstrate its unique benefits, including utilization of AI/ML modules to empower network intelligence through open and standardized interfaces in a multi-vendor network. The white paper also introduces the O-Cloud cloud computing platform that can host relevant O-RAN functions to enable flexible deployment options in virtualized telco clouds.

Recently published specifications bring new or updated features to all parts of the O-RAN architecture, allowing vendors to progress with improved O-RAN based implementations. For more details, please check this O-RAN Blog post.

O-RAN Software Community Bronze Release

On June 21, 2020, working with the Linux Foundation, the O-RAN SW Community published its second SW release dubbed Bronze. The software adds support for new key elements of the O-RAN architecture and provides updates to align with the latest O-RAN specifications:

The initial release of an A1 policy manager and an A1 controller that implements the Non-Real-Time Radio Intelligent Controller (Non-RT RIC) architecture.

The Near-Real-Time RIC updated to current O-RAN E2 and A1 specifications with 5 sample xAPPs.

Initial O-CU and O-DU Low/High code contributions that support a FAPI framework and integration between the O-DU and RIC with E2 functionality and subscription support.

A Traffic Steering and Quality Prediction use case leveraging an E2 interface data ingest pipeline to demonstrate the functionality of RAN traffic steering with an E2 interface KPI monitoring capability.

OAM use cases that exercise Health Check call flows including the Near-RT RIC and its O1 and A1 interfaces.

The new use cases, the Bronze software release, and the new O-RAN ALLIANCE members are indications that this global forum is working exactly as intended, reaching across borders to drive innovation and build consensus, said Andre Fuetsch, Chairman of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and Chief Technology Officer  Network Services, at AT&T. As this coalition evolves, we look forward to seeing how it continues to broaden access to 5G and other new access technologies.

Over the past 6 months, O-RAN working groups and the O-RAN Software Community have extensively engaged to achieve tight alignment between the specifications and the Bronze release open source code, said Chih-Lin I, the Co-Chair of O-RAN Technical Steering Committee. Specific progress related to both the Non-RT-RIC and the Near-RT-RIC frameworks and associated key interfaces deserves special mention for its importance in enabling AI/ML capabilities in RAN. The O-RAN virtual showcase further demonstrates the growing momentum towards global adoption and deployment of O-RAN solutions.

Ericsson is actively engaged in shaping the future of the O-RAN initiative by enabling Non-RT RIC (Non-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller) and A1 interface to support fine-grained intelligent steering of the RAN, said Per Beming, Head of Standards and Industry Initiative in Ericsson. During OSC Bronze release, Ericsson continued as the key contributor to Non-RT RIC project by improving support for intent based intelligent RAN optimization using A1 interface. This specific capability allows operators to leverage both RAN and non-RAN data to enrich end user experience.

The work within the O-RAN ALLIANCE is a great example of how strong industry collaboration can help accelerate technology innovation, said Udayan Mukherjee, Intel Fellow, Network Platforms Group and Chief Technologist, Wireless Infrastructure, at Intel. As a major contributor to the FAPI library specifications, architectures and software in O-RAN, Intel is pleased to see how this work can enable an O-RAN Distributed Unit platform that is compliant with O-RAN standardized stack interfaces.

The O-RAN Software Community has reached an important achievement with its second software release. This milestone is the result of a tremendous effort from across the O-RAN community, said Gil Hellmann, vice president, Telecom Solutions Engineering, Wind River. As the lead for the INF project delivering the edge cloud infrastructure portion for the O-RAN workgroup based on the Yocto and StarlingX open source projects, Wind River looks forward to continuing our contributions to the community to accelerate the commercialization of 5G vRAN.

To learn more about the O-RAN Software Community Bronze release please read this O-RAN Blog post, and to access the code, check out the O-RAN Software Community website.

The O-RAN Software Community has been open to any participants that want to get involved in the creation of software for future RAN  for more details please visit https://www.o-ran.org/software.

Expanded O-RAN Virtual Exhibition

With the cancelation of MWC-Barcelona, on April 21, 2020 the O-RAN ALLIANCE created an online showcase. The O-RAN Virtual Exhibition includes demonstrations of real O-RAN based equipment in the form of videos, animations, charts and text.

The Virtual Exhibition currently hosts 31 demos presented by 38 O-RAN companies. O-RAN plans to keep adding more content and features to make its virtual showcase a valuable tool for RAN industry players to present real-world solutions embodying O-RANs architecture and specifications.

In addition to previously announced demos, O-RAN member companies have recently created 12 new virtual demonstrations of real O-RAN technology:

The first demo sponsored by SageRAN demonstrates end to end high throughput traffic running over through SageRANs 5G Stand Alone Open RAN Stack. This demo includes both X86 and ARM based O-DU/O-CUs and an eCPRI based O-RU.

The second demo sponsored by Keysight demonstrates Keysights O-RAN Test Solution for O-RUs. This test suite enables NEM development/manufacturing, Operator, and OTIC Labs to accelerate O-RU conformance testing.

The third demo sponsored by VIAVI demonstrates VIAVIs O-RAN validation Solution for O-CU subsystem test. This complete wraparound framework enables NEMs, Operators, OTIC Labs and integrators to ensure that the O-CU can be robustly tested and optimized for high-quality and performance.

The fourth demo sponsored by Benetel demonstrates a 5G Non Standalone (NSA) platform comprised of Benetels product family of 4G & 5G Remote Radio Units, developed in compliance with the O-RAN specification, and a O-CU & O-DU implementation that is based on the OAI software stack and supports O-RANs 7.2x open fronthaul specification.

The fifth demo sponsored by Parallel Wireless demonstrates a unified 2G through 5G cloud-native O-RAN solution. This makes Parallel Wirelesss software-based Open RAN stack easy to manage and delivers cost-savings to MNOs using it to modernize or expand their networks.

The sixth demo sponsored by ArrayComm showcases two O-RAN Whitebox demonstrations: The first demo is an end to end demo using an ARM Based Multi-vendor Whitebox 5G gNB. The second demo demonstrates Whiteboxs FPGA real time downlink bit processing (CRC, FEC, RateMatching) and uplink bit (CRC, FEC, RateMatching, HARQ) processing throughput test.

The seventh demo sponsored by Lenovo and NTS demonstrates an integrated small cell solution based on cloudification and virtualization. This demo showcases the decoupling of hardware and software based on O-RAN architectural principles.

The eighth demo sponsored by NVIDIA demonstrates an O-RAN Open fronthaul-based hyper converged 5G CloudRAN, Core Network and MEC solution for the edge. This demo showcases the value of NVIDIA GPU and Mellanox SmartNIC-based, cloud-native, and scalable NVIDIA EGX platform, that enables software-defined, high performance and low latency solution on COTS servers.

The ninth demo sponsored by Comba Telecom showcases macro open RAN high efficiency multi-RAT RRU solution fully compliant with the O-RAN architecture supporting Split 7-2x and Split 8 fronthaul interface to O-DU, as well as E2E 5G NR indoor Open RAN solution built upon Intel-based server platform and Intel FPGA.

The tenth demo sponsored by Baicells, QCT and Keysight demonstrates the 5G SA indoor pico cell solution with multiple O-RUs via Fronthaul Gateway based on Indoor Pico Cell (IPC) Hardware Reference Design (HRD). To verify the performance of IPC HRD, the multi-UE emulator is used to test the cell merging as well as active UE numbers.

The eleventh demo sponsored by Baicells, QCT, Wind River, Keysight and China Unicom demonstrates the E2E Indoor Pico Cell solution based on IPC HRD and Open Cloud platform. In addition, the co-platform for both O-CU/O-DU and 5GC are tested with multi-UE emulator to showcase the commercial readiness for practical deployment.

The twelfth demo sponsored by Ericsson illustrates how the OSC (O-RAN Software Community) A1 controller function supports QoE refinement in RAN through the use of A1 policies. This specific capability allows operators to implement policy aware service assurance, application aware QoE prioritization and perform continuous evaluation of current vs. target QoE. O-RANs Non-RT RIC function and A1 interface enable fine-grained and intelligent control of the RAN.

About O-RAN ALLIANCE

O-RAN ALLIANCE is a world-wide community of over 200 mobile operators, vendors, and research & academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. As the RAN is an essential part of any mobile network, O-RAN ALLIANCEs mission is to re-shape the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks. The new O-RAN standards will enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve user experience. O-RAN-compliant mobile networks will at the same time improve the efficiency of RAN deployments as well as operations by the mobile operators. To achieve this, O-RAN ALLIANCE publishes new RAN specifications, releases open software for the RAN, and supports its members in integration and testing of their implementations.

For a short video describing O-RANs progress, see www.o-ran.org/videos

For more information please visit www.o-ran.org

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005778/en/
RSA Conference, the worlds leading information security conferences and expositions, returns to the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) for its 8th year.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005708/en/

RSA Conference 2020 APJ Keynote Highlights for Virtual Learning Experience (Graphic: Business Wire

Running from July 15 to 17, 2020, during Singapore business hours (GMT+8), the annually sought-after Conference will be delivered as a free virtual learning experience with cybersecurity industrys most forward-thinking leaders. This decision stems from Conferences commitment to connect the global cybersecurity community, especially during this time where cybercriminals are exploiting vulnerabilities around longer-term remote working and learning arrangements, as well as the publics fear around the global pandemic.

The anticipated keynote line-up was revealed by RSAC 2020 APJs organizers, who hope that insights from experts will help inform organizations and end users alike as they navigate our new normal.

Participants can look forward to a comprehensive agenda and keynote line-up, interactive learning breakouts and networking time with peers and experts, strategically planned to cover regional and global cybersecurity issues.

Keynote speakers and sessions include:

Reality Check: Cybersecuritys Story

Rohit Ghai, President, RSA, will talk about the importance of the human element in the cybersecurity industry, especially cybersecurity professionals, and the role they have played in the last six months. In moving forward, post COVID, Rohit will share about how we can write a successful and resilient story together.



It's our stories that make us human, but the cybersecurity industry has an incomplete and oversimplified view of the characters in our stories. I am thrilled to explore the significance behind the human element and share how we can reclaim the narrative on the role of humans in this age of unpredictability, said Rohit Ghai, President, RSA.

The Rise of Digital Empathy

The cybersecurity industry has undergone much change and learning in the past few months as organizations continued to scale virtual private networks and collaboration tools to provide for the shift to remote working overnight. In her keynote, Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft, will be discussing the five long-term security implications of the global pandemic and more importantly, how it gives rise to digital empathy.



In the early days of the pandemic, we saw Zero Trust shift from a business option, to a business imperative, said Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President, Cybersecurity Solutions Group, Microsoft.



While the current health crisis we face together has created a number of security implications, it has also influenced five longer term paradigm shifts for the cybersecurity industry, including the rise of digital empathy towards greater inclusive end-user experiences, explained Johnson.

The Hugh Thompson Show with Special Guest, George Takei

This inspiring and entertaining keynote session by Hugh Thompson, Program Committee Chair, RSA Conference, and George Takei, Author, Performer and Activist, will explore the power of positivity in the face of adversity, celebrating the power in each individual to impact the world for good, and how new heroes have emerged in the cybersecurity sector to fight new foes, with their diverse skills and approaches, innovation and grit.



I am incredibly excited to have George Takei join me in what I know will be an inspiring and entertaining keynote session touching on how extraordinary circumstances and seemingly unsurmountable adversity have the power to bring out the best in us, said Hugh Thompson, Program Committee Chair, RSA Conference. It is important that we celebrate how we can positively impact the world. I believe we, as a global cybersecurity community, will emerge from the current crisis the world faces  better, stronger and able to help the next generation of cybersecurity experts be ready to tackle future challenges.

More Details on RSA Conference 2020 APJ:

To view the full agenda, please visit this link

To register, please click here

To watch short Quick Look videos from speakers, click here

For Press / Media Registration, please register here

About RSA Conference:

RSA Conference is the premier series of global events and on-demand programs where the world talks security and leadership gathers, advances and emerges. Whether attending in the US, the EMEA region, the Asia-Pacific region or online, RSA Conference events are where the security industry converges to discuss current and future concerns and get access to the people, content and ideas that help enable individuals and companies to win, grow and do their best. It is about bringing all people in the cybersecurity industry together and empowering the collective we of the cybersecurity industry to stand against cyberthreats around the world. RSA Conference is the ultimate marketplace for the latest technologies and hands-on educational opportunities that help industry professionals discover how to make their companies more secure while showcasing the most enterprising, influential and thought-provoking thinkers and leaders in security today. For information on events, online programming and the most up-to-date news pertaining to the cybersecurity industry visit www.rsaconference.com.

RSA Conference logo, RSA, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005708/en/
Ireland's state-run "bad bank" hopes to deliver a total surplus to the government above its projected 4 billion euros, chief executive Brendan McDonagh said after paying the first 2 billion euros on Wednesday.

The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), established in 2009 during a crash that halved Irish property values, used 32 billion euros of debt to rid Ireland's mostly nationalised banks of risky property loans with a face value of 74 billion euros.

NAMA, which has repaid all the debt, said its deleveraging programme was 96% complete at the end of 2019 but that it would have to mitigate the risks presented by the changed coronavirus-related economic backdrop to maximise the full surplus.

McDonagh said the NAMA was beginning to see interest again in the properties for sale in its portfolio after the coronavirus disruption and that it had not seen any big adjustment in office pricing to date.

NAMA remains confident of at least delivering the full 4 billion euro surplus despite the disruption, he added, but hoped to exceed that "if things go right".

"If COVID had happened in 2016, we'd have 5 or 6 billion euros of loans to resolve, we now have 1.3 billion and we are debt free. I think NAMA is in a good place to see this out."

The 2 billion euro surplus had been earmarked to pay down some of Ireland's high national debt. But with the government borrowing heavily to keep the economy afloat, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said it would instead help support individuals and firms impacted by COVID-19 in the coming months

"This repayment will materially reduce the level of borrowing needed to get us through this crisis. The money has been earmarked for spending and will greatly assist the government," Donohoe said in a statement. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
With the OECDs efforts to agree a global response to corporate taxation apparently rejected by the US recently, Irish Finance Minister Pascal Donohoe appears to be leading the charge not to give up hope in favour of national or EU responses.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Donohoe said he believes that trade tensions are likely to develop if the EU were to take a unilateral approach on this issue, referring to the retaliatory actions of the US to some proposals to tax digital companies in Europe.



Goodbody Stockbrokers warns that Ireland is more than a casual observer on this issue and it has more to lose than most in the EU from the point of view of both tax revenues and employment if FDI flows were to suffer due to an eroding of tax competitiveness or a flaring of trade tensions.

Ireland has already recognised that it is likely to receive less corporate tax revenue in the future as changes are implemented. However, Goodbody warn that the more important aspect is the impact on jobs.

Ireland has been consistent in its view that unilateral changes to corporation tax rules runs the risk of the EU losing this investment in its entirety, not to mention the likely retaliation from the US and its impact on trade and investment.



According to Goodbody Stockbrokers, "With Donohoe in the frame to become the next head of the Eurogroup, he has plenty at stake personally and would play a major role in directing these discussions if he were to be successful. We will know this day next week whether his campaign is successful."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Ryanair used its return to a more regular schedule on Wednesday to pile pressure on its home market of Ireland to ease travel restrictions in a debate that has pitted airline bosses against increasingly cautious health officials.

Ireland's then caretaker government said last week it planned to lift a 14-day quarantine for anyone traveling to and from countries that have also suppressed the coronavirus from July 9 and would publish a list of safe countries.

However, new prime minister Micheal Martin, appointed last weekend, said on Monday he would take a cautious approach to opening up air travel after health authorities warned this could reignite the coronavirus crisis in Ireland.

"We can't say we're somehow different, close the doors and throw away the keys. On that basis we may as well move out to the Aran Islands," Eddie Wilson, chief executive of Ryanair's main airline unit, told the Newstalk radio station, referring to the tiny Irish islands off its west coast.

"We'll have zero cases of COVID maybe momentarily, we'll have zero jobs and we'll have zero tourists ... The one country that's sitting out in the northwest of the Atlantic that needs air travel most is saying that we're actually closed."

In an interview with Reuters, Ryanair Group Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said Ireland's chief medical officer, Tony Holohan, was being over-cautious and should stick to health, not travel advice.

Ryanair, Europe's largest budget carrier, ramped up its flights from Dublin on Wednesday as it returned to a more regular schedule, even as the Irish government's advice remained that citizens should not travel abroad for non-essential reasons.

Cillian De Gascun, the country's top virologist, said on Wednesday the importation of cases from abroad was now the biggest risk to Ireland's low level of infections, while one of Martin's ministers was highly critical of Wilson's intervention.

"Haven't found myself shouting at the radio in quite a while but that interview on air travel and COVID-19 changed all that," Higher Education Minister Simon Harris, who until last week was health minister and the public face of the crisis, tweeted.

"As a citizen, I'll keep taking my public health advice from our Chief Medical Officer and would recommend you do likewise." (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Devon L. Ward, a disgruntled customer whom police say beat 39-year-old Wayne Deutsch with a metal object at his window tinting shop June 12, turned himself into police Thursday and is being held at the Will County jail, the Will County sheriffs office said in a statement.
Pigs raised on a farm in the U.S. on May 5.

Chinese scientists have identified a new form of swine flu virus with the potential to cause a pandemic, according to peer-reviewed research published Monday in the U.S. science journal PNAS.

The pathogen, known as G4, genetically resembles the H1N1 variant that spread worldwide in 2009 and 2010. Experts said that there is no immediate danger of a new pandemic.

Nonetheless, the virus carries all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans, said the researchers, who are affiliated with several Chinese universities and the countrys Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The paper comes at a time of heightened anxiety about virus strains jumping from animals to people and causing disease. The current Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than half a million people globally, is thought to have begun when a previously unknown, highly infectious coronavirus passed from animals to humans in central China.

The researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from pigs in slaughterhouses across China between 2011 and 2018, which they used to isolate 179 flu viruses. Most were of the G4 variety, which has been predominant in pigs since 2016.

Further testing revealed that G4 is highly infectious, binds easily to human cell receptors, and replicates efficiently within them.

The scientists also found that it caused more severe symptoms in ferrets than other viruses. Ferrets are commonly used in flu research because they display similar symptoms to humans.

Additionally, the researchers showed that human exposure to seasonal flu viruses does not develop effective immunity against G4.

Some 10.4% of swine workers and 4.4% of the general population returned positive antibody tests for the virus, proportions that the researchers described as disconcerting. Younger workers showed higher infection rates than those over 35.

Having bridged the species gap, the virus could become a pandemic threat in future if it starts transmitting readily between humans, experts said.

Ian Mackay, a virologist at the University of Queensland in Australia, told Caixin in a phone interview that the virus ticks a lot of boxes for a potential pandemic pathogen.

It does have a lot of the tools that make it quite a risk for spread somewhere down the track, with some adaptation, he said. Perhaps its already ready to go, it just hasnt had the opportunities.

From the data presented, it appears that this is a swine influenza virus that is poised to emerge in humans, Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney, told Science magazine. Clearly this situation needs to be monitored very closely.

However, other specialists said the virus cannot yet spread readily from person to person, a key characteristic of large epidemics.

Theres no evidence that G4 is circulating in humans, despite five years of extensive exposure, tweeted University of Washington biology professor Carl Bergstrom.

Contact reporter Matthew Walsh (matthewwalsh@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)
Trending in China: Chinese Netizens Tell Indian Prime Minister Modi To Shut The Door On The Way Out As He Quits Weibo

Heather Mowbray / Jul 02, 2020 07:38 PM / Trending Stories

Whats trending?

Ten million users on Weibo, Chinas equivalent of Twitter, have read the news that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has dropped his Sina Weibo profile, depriving his 244,000 followers of future posts by the leader. On Thursday, Modis profile picture and 115 posts under the Prime Minister Modi VIP account were removed, with the account since deleted at the request of the Indian Embassy in Beijing.

Whats the story?

As reported by South Asian multimedia site ANI, 113 posts were deleted manually, while the request for the account to be deleted was being processed by Sina Weibo. Prior to the accounts deletion, two images remained on the page, photos of Modi with Chinas President Xi, which the Indian side said they could not remove without authorization.

Since joining the Chinese social media platform in 2015, Modi had marked key occasions with Chinese language posts and pictures. His first entry on May 4, 2015 read Hello China! Im looking forward to connecting with my Chinese friends on Weibo. His final post was a traditional Chinese Lunar New Year greeting on Jan. 25 this year. In May 2019, an image of Modi at the foot of the Himalayan glaciers in celebration of his election victory was released on the platform.

Sina Weibo hosts VIP accounts of many world leaders and international celebrities seeking access to Chinese internet users. This week, Tesla CEO Elon Musks mother joined Weibo, with a call for Chinese fans to purchase her upcoming memoir, instantly accruing thousands of followers.

What are people saying online?

Weibo users wonder who is really losing out as the Hindu Nationalist Party leader says a quiet goodbye to his followers at a time of increased tensions after last months China-India border dispute. Since the deadly clash, Modis Weibo account had come under increasing attack by Chinese netizens. With Indias removal of Weibo and 58 other apps from local app stores on Monday, commentators have discussed the fate of existing Indian Weibo accounts which still seem to be accessible to users.

Some believe Modi should have been a little thicker skinned, comparing his action to that of the U.S. ambassador to China who maintains his Weibo page despite being the subject of longstanding criticism from Chinese netizens. One popular comment was that in the face of growing tensions, India should spit out and hand back the $750-million AIIB loan recently granted to assist the government in responding to the adverse impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A sliding scale of goodbyes from Chinese netizens from deferential to manzou busong, the equivalent of shut the door on your way out, make up most comments on the news. Several evidenced indifference to India with surprise that Modi had been on Weibo at all, given his lack of posts. Some people leave and you never even knew they were there, was one such comment. Another Weibo user was gearing up to make money by selling his account which was registered with the Chinese transliteration of Narendra Modis name.

Related: India Ban Could Hit Tiktok's Parent Company to the Tune of 6 Billion

Contact editor Marcus Ryder (Marcusryder@caixin.com
Trending in China: If You Cant Beat Them, Join Them  Why Tencent is Laughing At Itself

Yilin Chen / Jul 02, 2020 04:33 PM / Trending Stories

Whats trending?

In a bizarre twist of events after internet giant Tencent sued Chinas best-known chili sauce brand Lao Gan Ma for unpaid advertising fees that stemmed from a March 2019 contract, police investigations revealed that Tencent was actually scammed by three people impersonating Lao Gan Ma marketing staff. Although Tencent has not issued a formal statement regarding the incident, it has resorted to self-deprecating humor as the best way to handle the public relations fallout across social media platforms.

Whats the story?

Tencents PR team has turned to self-mockery following the realization that they were swindled by impersonators. The companys official account on Sina Weibo, Chinas biggest social media site, jokingly encouraged netizens to message the account with tips and clues if they suspect a similar fraud in the future. Well offer 1,000 bottles of Lao Gan Ma chili sauce as the reward for helpful tips, the company wrote.

In an effort to win over netizens sympathy, the tech giant also used its logo of a chubby penguin to create a video titled Im the clueless penguin that ate fake chili sauce, which mocks its own naivety. The video and other jokes were published across Tencents official accounts on multiple social media platforms, including video streaming site Bilibili and the Quora-style Zhihu.

The fact that three impersonators could fool Tencent has revealed problems in Tencents cooperation with commercial partners. Meanwhile, Lao Gan Ma staff claim that they were fully ignorant of the brands advertisements imbedded in Tencent games and were never notified of overdue payments before Tencent filed the lawsuit. The case is under further investigation.

What are people saying online?

Tencents PR move seemed to have resonated well with netizens. Amused users flocked to Tencents official account on Weibo and commented with puns and memes of penguins, laughing at the easily deceived company.

Jokes aside, some users argue that people should not be distracted from the problems that this case has exposed. While some say that Tencent should conduct thorough background checks of commercial partners, others question why Tencent and the initial court ruling were so hasty to freeze Lao Gan Mas 16.24 million yuans ($2.3 million) worth of assets without confirming the details of the dispute.

Contact editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)
A green algae bloom has again reached the shoreline of Qingdao, marking the 15th straight year the algae have invaded the eastern Chinese citys waters. On June 12, the local government issued the lowest-level emergency response warning for the bloom. Workers are trying to fight off the algae by placing nets along the coast to prevent it from reaching shore. And when it does, they are using bulldozers to remove it

Jun 21, 2021 03:53 PM
St. Johnsbury, VT (05819)

Today

Scattered strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High around 90F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low 64F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Those threats must be taken seriously, officials said. A relationship with a police officer who is assigned to the district and trained to work with students can help de-escalate incidents without arresting a student. As such, the district established a task force and drew up guidelines for when and how police should be used in schools, said District 65 Board of Education President Anya Tanyavutti.


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The current iteration of the governors Restore Illinois plan does not allow amusement parks, trampoline parks and indoor playgrounds to reopen until Phase 5 when all sectors of the economy are allowed to return to normal. Getting to Phase 5 would require a vaccine or treatment option to be available, or the disappearance of new cases for a sustained period of time.
Sullivan wrapped up her 39 years as an educator  24 with District 204  Tuesday by saying goodbye to the handful of people inside Crouse Education Center in Aurora, the building where, up until the last few months, shed worked everyday as superintendent for the last six years.
Do you have an athlete in mind that contributes to the team or sport, holds sportsmanship and team spirit, has epic playmaker moments and/or in general makes the the sports fun? If yes, please make your nominations for our edition of Athlete Spotlight.

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Every decision we have made for the past nearly four months has prioritized the health, safety and well-being of our staff and community members before all else, Seleb said. Once we determined we had the necessary procedures, supplies and safety protocols ready, we set the date of July 22 for our library service level 2 opening of the main library only to the public for limited self-service.
This Carteret County map shows confirmed COVID-19 cases broken down by zip code. The number in parentheses is the number of COVID-19-related deaths. (Carteret County map)
Carroll, IA (51401)

Today

Windy with a mix of clouds and sun. High 71F. Winds NNW at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Generally clear skies. Low 52F. NNE winds shifting to SSW at 10 to 15 mph.
Photo: Contributed

Canada Day has long been one of my favourite days of the year.



It is the one day where we, as a country, come together to celebrate all that makes us proud Canadians.



This year will be much different.



We will not have:

Large community gatherings

Parades

Local entertainers

Important cultural performers

End-of-day fireworks.

In our riding we have seen more and more inclusion of Indigenous First Nations in our celebrations, which has been very positive.



This year, we will all find new and different ways to celebrate what it means to us to be Canadians, as we collectively honour our great nation.



Over these past few challenging months, we have recognized the many brave and courageous Canadians who loyally served us in healthcare, in seniors care, in emergency services and in essential services, often retail work environments.



All these people deserve our gratitude and our appreciation and we thank them.



I would also like to take a moment to sincerely thank and recognize members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.



Yes, the RCMP, like any organization, has challenges and certainly have bad actors.



When these bad actors present themselves, it is vital that these institutions use due process and hold those responsible to account in a transparent way, so that public trust is upheld.



However, it is also important that we not tarnish all RCMP officers with the same brush.



We must recognize those who bravely serve our communities and never forget the many officers that have made the supreme sacrifice, in the line of duty, for Canada.



It is often the families of the fallen who are left to deal with their loss privately, while the public moves on.



In addition, we must not overlook that in many communities, the RCMP may be the only resource available.



The lack of resources for mental health services should be rightfully directed to the various levels of government to rectify.



Before I close this weeks report I would like to share a few observations.



When we see the recent spike in COVID related cases south of the border and elsewhere, it should serve as an important reminder that we must continue to be cautious and vigilant at all times.



We should also reflect on how fortunate we are to live in a country, that for many decades, has embraced universal health care.



Our healthcare system is not perfect, but no Canadian who might feel they have COVID related health symptoms is afraid to seek out medical help for fear of being unable to afford the cost of that care.



That is a wonderful part of being Canadian.



As we reflect on being Canadian, let us not allow hate to divide us, let us embrace a country where we can all share what makes us unique.



Happy Canada Day to one and all.



My question this week:

How will you celebrate Canada Day this year?

I can be reached at [email protected] or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.
Most of our beaches are unguarded and we urge the public to learn about the dangers of Lake Michigan before swimming or letting their children enter it, he said. Even on calm days, the lake can be dangerous. The bottom is uneven with holes and deep drop-offs especially near sandbars. These inshore holes are very dangerous to small children and non-swimmers.
Photo: The Canadian Press Police pass near the drug rehabilitation center that was attacked the previous day in Irapuato, Mexico, Thursday, July 2, 2020. Gunmen burst into the center and opened fire Wednesday, killing 24 people and wounding seven, authorities said. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

The killing of 26 people in an unregistered drug rehabilitation centre in central Mexico is the deadliest such attack in a decade and has led to calls for change in a prosperous state that has become a cartel battleground.

Authorities in the city of Irapuato in Guanajuato state on Thursday raised the death toll from 24 after two of the seven people injured in the attack died.

Police in Guanajuato state said Wednesday's attack occurred at a modest two-story house on the outskirts of Irapuato. Apparently the attackers shot every male at the rehab centre, letting only the females go.

Rosa Alba Santoyo, three of whose sons were killed in the attack, said a female addict at the centre said the gunmen told the women to get out, before gunning down the men.

Santoyo said two of her sons, construction workers aged 29 and 39, were at the centre because they had problems with drugs. Her youngest son, 27, had been at the centre previously and recovered, and had only returned Wednesday to bring his brothers soft drinks when the gunmen killed all three of them.

Two of her sons were in a photograph of the massacre on the front page of the local newspaper. Their bullet-ridden bodies lay next to the other victims, prone on the floor of the centre amid piles of blankets. They were apparently made to lie down before being massacred. Her youngest son was found shot to death at another spot.

Santoyo, who works at a factory that make cleaning products, said that up until a month or two ago, there had been a military post across the street from the centre, but that for some reason it had been withdrawn. Mexico's army and national guard have been given a number of tasks in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic that may have required those troops.

A woman who lives near the centre, Mary Moreno, said the gunmen simply burst into the rehab and started shooting. Guanajuato, a prosperous industrial hub with foreign auto plants, has become Mexico's most violent state, a situation the government seems unable to remedy.

The government doesn't do anything anymore, said Moreno.

The state is the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and a local gang - the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel - and the state has become the most violent in Mexico.

No motive was given in the rehab centre attack, but Gov. Diego Sinhue Rodriguez Vallejo said drug gangs appeared to have been involved.

"The violence generated by organized crime not only takes the lives of the young, but it takes the peace from families in Guanajuato, the governor wrote. Rodriguez Vallejo belongs to the conservative opposition party National Action, and the state's crime problem has been the subject of political divisions.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Thursday that changes must be made to solve Guanajuato's problem, because the circumstances demand it.

The problem was allowed to grow, it grew a lot and we have to see if there was some sort of co-operation, criminal conspiracy between the criminals and officials, Lopez Obrador said, without specifying who he was accusing.

There have been persistent reports that state authorities who once tolerated the Santa Rosa de Lima gang, turned in the recent years to allowing the Jalisco cartel to enter the state in hopes they would the end the local gang's systematic extortion of businesses.

But while Santa Rosa is a less sophisticated gang that started out with robbing freight trains and stealing fuel from government pipelines, it has proved tougher than expected for Jalisco to crush, in part because Jalisco's rival, the Sinaloa Cartel, may be contributing money and guns to Santa Rosa.

Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at such facilities in the past. It was one of the deadliest attacks on a rehab centre since 19 people were killed in 2010 in Chihuahua city in northern Mexico. More than a dozen attacks on such facilities have occurred since then.

Mexico has long had problems with rehab centres because most are privately run, underfunded and often commit abuses against recovering addicts. The government spends relatively little money on rehabilitation, often making the unregistered centres the only option available for poor families.

In addition, addicts and dealers who face attacks from rivals on the streets sometimes take refuge at the rehab clinics, making the clinics themselves targets for attack.
Photo: CTV News Vancouver

A Vancouver senior has been sentenced to 14 months in jail after pleading guilty to child porn charges.

Vancouver police say 68-year-old John Penry Roberts pleaded guilty on Monday to possession and distribution of child porn, according to CTV News Vancouver.

Roberts was charged following an investigation in 2017, where police raided his home and seized multiple electronics.

Const. Tania Visintin describes the case as "a disturbing investigation for detectives" as they had to review more than 1.9 million images and videos. This includes 20,000 images and 4,000 videos which were determined to be child pornography.

While Roberts' address was not disclosed, authorities say he lived there for decades and it was one block away from an elementary school, daycare and park.

-With files from CTV News Vancouver
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Colombian cement demand declines 33% in May

ICR Newsroom By 02 July 2020

Domestic dispatches of grey cement in Colombia fell by 33.1 per cent to 705,900t in May 2020 when compared with May 2019, when they stood at 1.055Mt, according to the countrys statistics office, DANE.



Ready-mix companies represented the largest drop as their offtake declined by 52.5 per cent YoY, followed by the concrete products segment, which contracted by 46.6 per cent. Building companies and contractors reduced their purchases by 36.7 per cent while the retail sector reduced its consumption by 22.6 per cent.



Output from Colombian cement plants declined by 30.4 per cent YoY to 778,700t in May 2020.



January-May 2020

In the January-May 2020 period dispatches were down 25.4 per cent to 3.707Mt from 4.972Mt in the 5M19.



Demand from ready-mix concrete companies fell by 37.1 per cent YoY, while sales to the concrete products segments fell by 32.6 per cent. Building companies and contractors reduced their offtake by 25.7 per cent while dispatches to the retail segment were down 21.1 per cent YoY.



Domestic production contracted by 24.1 per cent YoY to 3.905Mt when compared to 5.143Mt in the 5M19.

Published under
JSW Group reportedly set to reduce imports from China

02 July 2020

Parth Jindal, managing director of JSW Cement, has announced on social media that JSW Group plans to reduce its net imports from China.



"The JSW Group have a net import of US$400m from China annually and we pledge to bring this down to zero in the next 24 months," said Mr Jindal.



In the comment, Mr Jindal referred to the clash on the border of both countries, which took place earlier in June.



JSW Cement currently imports clinker from China to supply its grinding operations.

Published under
Raysut Cement targets east African expansion

02 July 2020

Oman's Raysut Cement plans a five-fold increase in its cement production capacity, says Joey Ghose, Raysut Cement's CEO. The expansion would see Raysut Cement increase production from 5Mta to 26Mta in the next few years.



The expansion would be accomplished through a mixture of joint ventures, acquisitions and greenfield cement projects, added Ghose. Expenditure would amount to US$65-78m in the next two years. The main area for growth would be in east Africa where the company plans to add 16Mta of capacity and 1Mta in Yemen, while the Pioneer subsidiary is already building a 1.2Mta plant in Tbilisi, Georgia.



East Africa is seen as an emerging market that Raysut Cement could soon increase its presence. "East Africa is a booming market for the next 50 years, and we expect to become a strong player there. Last year, we sold 1.2Mta in east Africa. We have a market share of 90 per cent in Zanzibar and 45 per cent in Madagascar. The margins in new markets are nearly twice that of Oman. The percentage... is 50 per cent per tonne compared to 12 per cent in Oman. We have a cost advantage of nearly 30 per cent over all other players in the east African market.



"Exports to Madagascar, Reunion islands, Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, Mayotte, Comoros and Zanzibar will provide us with the volume that we need for our Salalah plant as the demand now is less than half a million tonnes," he said.



These sales will be added to growth potential in Somalia. "In Somalia, we are the largest suppliers in north and south Somalia. We supply 80,000t of bulk cement to Somalia each month, and we hope to convert that into locally manufactured cement by using clinker from Salalah and adding 35-40 per cent local content," added Ghose. "We are planning a grinding facility in Somalia with an option to convert it to an integrated unit."



Domestically, the new Duqm grinding plant is expected to become operational by the year-end, while sales would be driven by the new projects awarded in the Dhofar region and the upcoming projects in Duqm to drive sales.

Published under
Murfitt made the rounds in the building but said it was hard to get through the crowd because of the number of people there. He recognized the odor of burnt marijuana and asked a manager if she could look at camera footage to see if they could find who it was. She returned and advised she did not have the key and could not check the video, the report stated.
Egyptian cement exports decline by 32% Jan-May 2020

02 July 2020

Egyptian cement exports declined by roughly 32 per cent during the first five months of 2020 to US$47m, compared to US$68m during the same period in 2019.



Egypt exported cement in the 5M20 to about 51 countries, including 18 countries who had not imported Egyptian cement in the same quarter in 2019, reports Egypt Today.

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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, Vice Admiral and U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams and Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey will take part in a "Wear a Mask" flyaround tour of Georgia on Thursday.

The first stop in the tour encouraging everyone to follow the guidance of public health officials to stop the spread of COVID-19 ahead of the July Fourth Weekend will be in Dalton.

A press conference will be at Hamilton Medical Center at 9 a.m.

Governor Kemp, Surgeon General Adams and Dr. Toomey later in the day will visit Augusta and Brunswick.

Georgia state health officials on Wednesday reported there have been 2,827 people in the state who have died from the coronavirus - 22 more since Tuesday.



The confirmed cases are now at 84,237 - up from 81,291 - an increase of 2,946.



Hospitalizations are at 11,275 - up 224 since Monday.



Whitfield County has 51 new cases for a total of 1,152 and remains at 10 deaths. Officials said 57 have been hospitalized.
During World War II it was a common practice to have some type of insignia or saying on the nose of a bomber that reflected some correlation to a hometown or person of the crew. On July 3, 1942, Laurence Durwood Sies graduated from training as an Aviation Cadet and was designated as a pilot in the Army Air Force.

The Peerless Clipper was one of these and was purchased as a result of War Bond sales by the Peerless Woolen Mills of Rossville, Georgia, across the state line near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

It was a B-24 bomber in the 449 Bomb Group 717, Bomb Squadron and the plane was initially assigned to the crew of Chattanooga native Sies.

who operated Sies Electric Company in Chattanooga on 11Street after the war until his death.

According to his daughter, Katie Henderson, Sies flew 52 missions during the war. Twenty-five missions were the normal limit before being transferred to another plane.

The plane was lost on April 2, 1944 over Steyr, Austria located in the Austrian federal state of Upper Austria. The aircraft flew into a mid-air collision resulting from a rocket attack by Lufwaffe fighters which shot down two other bombers, Miss Behavin and Superstitious Al-o-ysius." The plane then was piloted by 1st Lt. Jake Kury and all 11 members of his crew perished and only one man survived out of the 31 men flying in the three planes.

Sies would survive the war and raise four daughters. He lost his rank when he flew under the Market Street Bridge in a P51 Mustang on a lark. He moved up the ranks from 2nd Lt. to Major, but as a result of his under the bridge caper was demoted back to Captain.

According to his son-in-law, Dave Pope, who married Sies youngest daughter Laura, after serving his 25 missions on the Peerless Clipper, Sies transferred to the O.S.S. which was the predecessor to the present-day CIA. He flew a B-24 bomber at night in an aircraft that had no numbers and was painted black.

The plane's duties included dropping money, propaganda pamphlets and French Nationals of the resistance fighters in occupied France who would be parachuted into their native country.

For his military service, Sies was awarded several decorations while serving in the Air Force. They included the Distinguished Flying Cross American, Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Cross France, Silver Star Croix DeGuerre, American Theater Metal, Distinguished Service Medal, European Theater Metal and others.

It is another story about a Chattanooga young man and his Rossville Peerless Woolen Mill connection that is part of the military legacy of our community.

* * *



Jerry Summers

(If you have additional information about one of Mr. Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact Mr. Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com
Officials of Chattanooga-based mall owner CBL & Associates said it has entered "forebearance agreements" with its creditors.

Farzana Khaleel, chief financial officer, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, "The company is continuing to engage in negotiations and discussions with the holders and lenders of the companys indebtedness. There can be no assurance, however, that the company will be able to negotiate acceptable terms or to reach any agreement with respect to its indebtedness."

CBL & Associates earlier skipped certain interest payments due to its creditors.

The firm saw a shutdown of its malls with the arrival of the coronavirus, and it has also had several damaging lawsuits.

The filing says:

On June 30, 2020, CBL & Associates Limited Partnership (the Operating Partnership), the majority owned subsidiary of CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. (the REIT) (collectively, the Operating Partnership and the REIT are referred to as the Company), and certain subsidiary guarantors (the Subsidiary Guarantors) entered into the following forbearance agreements.

Forbearance Agreement with Respect to the 2023 Notes

The Operating Partnership, the Subsidiary Guarantors and the REIT, as a limited guarantor, entered into a Forbearance Agreement (the Notes Forbearance Agreement) with certain beneficial owners and/or investment advisors or managers of discretionary funds, accounts or other entities for the holders or beneficial owners (the Holders) of in excess of 50% of the aggregate principal amount of the Operating Partnerships 5.25% senior unsecured notes due 2023 (the 2023 Notes). Pursuant to the Notes Forbearance Agreement, among other provisions, the Holders have agreed to forbear from exercising any rights and remedies under the indenture governing the 2023 Notes solely with respect to the default resulting from the nonpayment of the $11.8 million interest payment that was due and payable on June 1, 2020 (the Interest Payment), including the failure to pay the Interest Payment by the end of the 30-day grace period (the Interest Default).

The forbearance period under the Notes Forbearance Agreement ends on the earlier of July 15, 2020 and the occurrence of any of the specified early termination events described therein.

Forbearance Agreement with Respect to the Credit Agreement

The Operating Partnership, the Subsidiary Guarantors and the REIT, as a limited guarantor, entered into a Forbearance Agreement (the Bank Forbearance Agreement) with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as administrative agent (the Agent) for the lenders (the Lenders) party to the Credit Agreement, dated as of January 30, 2019 (as the same may be amended, restated, supplemented, replaced or otherwise modified from time to time, the Credit Agreement). Pursuant to the Bank Forbearance Agreement, among other provisions, the Agent, on behalf of itself and the Lenders, has agreed to forbear from exercising any rights and remedies under the Credit Agreement solely with respect to the Specified Defaults (as defined in the Bank Forbearance Agreement), including the cross-default resulting from the Interest Default.

The forbearance period under the Bank Forbearance Agreement ends on the earlier of July 15, 2020 and the occurrence of any of the specified early termination events described therein.

The foregoing description of the Forbearance Agreements does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the full text of the Forbearance Agreements, copies of which are filed as Exhibits 10.1 and 10.2 and incorporated herein by reference.

ITEM 7.01 Regulation FD Disclosure

As previously reported, the Company elected to not make the Interest Payment with respect to the 2023 Notes and, as provided for in the indenture governing the 2023 Notes, to enter the 30-day grace period to make such payment. The Operating Partnership did not make the Interest Payment on the last day of such 30-day grace period. The Operating Partnerships failure to make the Interest Payment is considered an event of default with respect to the 2023 Notes, which results in a cross default under the Credit Agreement. While the event of default is continuing under the indenture, the Trustee or the holders of at least 25% in principal amount of the 2023 Notes may declare the 2023 Notes to be due and payable immediately. While the event of default is continuing under the Credit Agreement, the Agent may and shall upon the direction of the requisite lenders, declare the loans thereunder to be immediately due and payable. Further, if either the 2023 Notes or the Credit Agreement were accelerated, it would trigger an event of default under the Operating Partnerships 4.60% senior unsecured notes due 2024 and the Operating Partnerships 5.95% senior unsecured notes due 2026, which could lead to the acceleration of all amounts due under those notes.

The Company is continuing to engage in negotiations and discussions with the holders and lenders of the Companys indebtedness. There can be no assurance, however, that the Company will be able to negotiate acceptable terms or to reach any agreement with respect to its indebtedness.
State Senator Bo Watson, State Rep. Robin Smith, State Rep. Mike Carter, Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger and Chief Deputy Austin Garrett have endorsed Bill Hagerty for U.S. Senate.

I am proud to support Bill Hagerty for U.S. Senate, said Senator Watson. When he gets to Washington, he will work with President Trump and the Senate majority to protect our Tennessee conservative values and stand up to the radical Democrats that continue to push their socialist policies.

Rep. Smith said, I support my friend Bill Hagerty for U.S. Senate because we need his leadership to work with President Donald Trump to defund Planned Parenthood, support our military and build the wall.

Rep. Carter said, Bill Hagerty will work with President Trump to stand up to Communist China and rebuild our economy, and thats why I support him to be our next Senator. I am proud to join President Trump in fully endorsing Bill for the U.S. Senate.
The fireworks also will be live-streamed so others can enjoy them remotely on the citys Facebook page at Valparaiso Now, and will be visible beyond the ticketed area. A rain date for the fireworks has been set for Sunday, though other events will not be rescheduled.
The Tennessee Supreme Court issued an order on Thursday canceling the July 28 -29, administration of the Uniform Bar Examination in Tennessee. Although stringent public health and safety protocols were planned for the administration of the July 2020 examination, the potential benefits of administering the examination do not justify the risk of assembling groups of people in limited space for a multi-day examination, when another examination will be administered in Tennessee in two months.



The Court order cited the recent increase in confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Tennessee. On Wednesday, Tennessee reported the largest single day increase in new COVID-19 cases. In the last week, all three locations for the July 2020 exam, Knoxville, Memphis, and Nashville, posted their highest single day increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Some of the largest increases statewide have been among people aged 22  35, the age group of the majority of those scheduled to take the bar examination. The Nashville mayor announced today a major reversal in the plans to reopen the city.

The Tennessee Supreme Court and the Board of Law Examiners are acutely aware of the toll the ongoing pandemic is taking on bar examination applicants and are committed to administering the Uniform Bar Examination in 2020, while making every effort to minimize the risks associated with the spread of the COVID-19 virus. All applicants for the July 2020 examination who have not been determined ineligible for the examination or who have not already transferred their application to the February 2021 examination should expect to sit for the fall examination in Tennessee, to be conducted Sept. 30  Oct. 1.

Applicants to the Tennessee bar are afforded broad permissions to practice pending admission and can begin working immediately upon graduation, drafting documents, meeting with clients, and appearing in court. Applicants can continue to practice even if subsequent examinations are affected by the national healthcare crisis, said Bill Harbison, president of the Board of Law Examiners. We understand that this has been a difficult time for recent law school graduates and the Board is committed to making the Uniform Bar Examination available to all July 2020 applicants before the end of the year, absent any new safer at home orders or other significant changes.

A copy of the order can be found here


The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Chattanooga Chapter, Inc. in partnership with the Hamilton County Voters Coalition, will host a Virtual Candidates Forum for candidates vying for seats in the following offices: Tennessee Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Tennessee House of Representatives, Hamilton County Department of Education School Board and Sessions Court.The virtual forum will take place Thursday, July 9 from 7-8:30 p.m. Join on the NCBW Facebook page: facebook.com/NCBWChattanooga.All qualified candidates have been invited to participate.The forum will be moderated by DWauna Young Mann. Each candidate will be allowed to briefly share their platform. In addition, the public will be asked to submit their questions during the Facebook Live broadcast.Neither NCBW or HCVC endorse nor do they contribute to political campaigns. The role for presenting this forum is to provide a venue where the public can be educated on candidates platforms.
Popular Red Bank veterinarian Dr. Charles Conley died suddenly on Tuesday.

This Facebook post is from the Red Bank Animal Hospital:

"It is with profound sadness that the Red Bank Animal Hospital family announces the sudden loss of Dr. Charles 'Chuck' Conley.

"Dr. Conley passed away Tuesday, June 30 after suffering a severe stroke. This has happened so quickly that we are all still struggling to absorb the news. While people have a tendency to laud the deceased, in this case no matter how effusive the praise, it will never capture how loved, respected, and admired he was by his family, friends, colleagues, and clients.

"We know this will come as a great shock to our friends and clients.

Know that we appreciate your kindness and understanding at this difficult time. While we are devastated, we will continue to do everything we can to continue providing care for our patients and clients with the utmost attention and dedication. Dr. Conley would not have it any other way."

Originally from Memphis, Dr. Conley attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for both his undergraduate and graduate work. He graduated in 1981 with a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine in Medicine and Surgery. After a year spent working at a small animal clinic in Knoxville, he came to Chattanooga and began working at the Red Bank Animal Clinic. On May 1, 1999 the current 4,000-square-foot hospital was opened. Dr. Conley has done mixed animal work, emergency medicine, and he has served twice as President of the Hamilton County Veterinary Association.



Dr. Conley has been married to his wife Lisa since 1978 and they have two daughters, Adrienne and Michelle.
In addition to trying to keep their romantic spark alive while parenting two young children under two, 90 Day Fiance stars Asuelu Pulaa and Kalani Faagata wrestled with the idea of visiting Asuelus home country of Samoa in recent episode of the fifth season of TLCs 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After.

While Kalani tentatively considered the idea, a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa changed her mind, leaving Asuelu feeling betrayed.

In TLC GOs sneak peek of the upcoming episode of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After, Asuelu and Kalani argued on the way to their family vacation to California. Asuelu pushed back against Kalanis insistence that motherhood was difficult, even comparing his American wife negatively to Samoan mothers.

Kalani Faagata | Kalani Faagata via Instagram

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Asuelu Wants to Go to Samoa With Kalani and the Kids Despite a Dangerous Measles Outbreak

Kalani and Asuelu argued over womens jobs on their road trip

In the 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After sneak peek, Kalani revealed that she simply wasnt comfortable bringing little Oliver and Kennedy to Samoa while there was a dangerous measles outbreak. Now, Asuelu and Kalani were heading to California to celebrate Olivers second birthday party with her family in California.

As for Asuelu, he was deeply bitter about the decision. He admitted that he felt like he had no power in his family and that no one was on his side. Im upset because Im not man of the house, he told 90 Day Fiance producers.

The tension between Kalani and Asuelu was obvious as they drove to California from Utah with Kalanis mom. The boys were both sick and crying, and the couple began bickering about their respective roles in the family.

You think my job is easy? Kalani asked Asuelu, who simply nodded yes in response.

Just her job, or all womens jobs? Kalanis mom asked her son-in-law incredulously.

Asuelu paused for a long moment before he answered, Womens jobs.

Really? All women? Even in your country, too? Kalanis mother wanted to know.

Thats when Asuelu dropped a bombshell about what he thought about women in the U.S.: No. American women, he said, as Kalanis jaw dropped.

Asuelu negatively compared his wife to Samoan women

Asuelu explained his feelings in more detail in an interview with 90 Day Fiance producers. He said that many American women had the benefit of technology that made their jobs as mothers more convenient.

Womens job here, its easy, he argued (as Kalani shot him quite a glare). Cleaning the house. Put the laundry in the machine, machine clean it. Put the dishes in the dishwasher. Everything here, you can use machines. Even the kids, you can put on TV. Watch. Easy.

The 90 Day Fiance star took a jab at his wife as he compared her negatively to the women hed known in his home country. Women in Samoa use their hands to do all of those work without any complaint, he pointed out. I think Kalani cant do what mother in Samoa do.

Kalani took offense at Asuelus comments. She retorted in response, Then why dont you do it, if its so easy?

Kalanis mom warned Asuelu not to talk like that to her daughter

As their tense road trip continued, Asuelu and Kalani continued to argue about how much they both helped out with their children. Kalani insisted that she did virtually all of the childcare, while Asuelu claimed that he helped more than his wife said he did.

Kalani called her husband a liar, while Asuelu shot back, Lying b*tch.

His shocked wife replied angrily, I do everything for him, referring to their son. Its nowhere near fair. And if its so easy, why dont you do any of it, then?

Because thats a womans job, Asuelu snapped. He added bluntly, And the sound of your voice is so f****ing annoying, too.

Kalanis mom had finally had enough. She asked Asuelu if he would speak this way in front of his own mother. So Asuelu, when you talk with my daughter when your moms there, youre going to talk like that? she asked.

Its my wife, the 90 Day Fiance star told his mother-in-law. I can talk to her whatever, he said angrily, adding that Kalani was asking him stupid questions.

But Kalanis mother was having none of it. Give me a break, she exclaimed to Asuelu. Its disrespectful to me, and I dont like the way youre talking to my daughter.

As for Kalani, she believed Asuelu was just trying to sabotage their trip by picking a fight because he had wanted to go to Samoa so badly. The 90 Day Fiance star said she was appalled at her husbands self-centeredness. It shows that he doesnt really care about me and the boys, that hes just number one to himself, she lamented.
A good argument is being made that cooking competition shows are just a little too ubiquitous on TV. the Food Network gets the most credit for starting that concept, if certainly not cooking shows themselves. Latter go back multiple decades on TV when including names like Julia Child.

Amateur chefs competing to create the best dish, though, can too often become a bit cutthroat. All one needs to see there is a Gordon Ramsay cooking competition show to see how that plays out.

Some fans of this concept are getting tired of the messy, timed competitions. Now they want something perhaps more casual. Should cooking competitions go back to the basics to instruct or inform, or will they only get more frenetic?

Are viewers really learning any cooking tips on competition shows?

Amanda Freitag, Marcus Samuelsson, Alex Guamaschelli, Marc Murphy, Maneet Chauhan, Chris Santos | Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Most sources like The Atlantic give the popular Food Network show Iron Chef the credit for bringing cooking competition shows to America. This was 20 years ago after Japan started the trend in the late 90s.

By the middle of the 2000s, only two cooking competition shows existed, which then jumped to nearly a dozen five years later. Jumping ahead to today, one can find almost 20 of them on the air, either on network TV or on streaming.

They also seem to get more chaotic as time goes on. The timing system used seems to get shorter as well, making the competitions all the more frenzied, including creating a million mistakes.

As a result, it leaves it open for the judging panel to become more scrutinizing by yelling at contestants to get their food on the plates. Concepts like this may not teach anyone anything other than realizing you need more than five minutes to create something edible.

Fans on social media want cooking competitions to slow down

The season premiere of Guys Ranch Kitchen is dedicated to the memory of Carl Ruiz, a great friend and colleague who made Flavortown a better place. His friendship, humor and amazing cooking will be missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him. pic.twitter.com/BFmRlEBsqT  Food Network (@FoodNetwork) September 28, 2019

RELATED: Food Network Fans Are Annoyed with The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond for Smiling Too Much

On Reddit, someone started a thread proclaiming how tired they are of the competitive nature of these shows. Said the original thread starter: It seems like most new programming over the past eight to 10 years has been competition-based and TIMED (as opposed to instructional/educational). This includes louder, frantic background music to amp up the drama. 

Maybe it does seem like a get off my lawn sensibility, yet the initial point of cooking shows was to teach viewers how to make something they could create at home. In a competition show, it seems the only incentive is to bring laughs rather than offer a way to create something worthwhile.

Nevertheless, a commenter noted this ever-increasing pace of trying to make something in the shortest amount of time is not necessarily ubiquitous. A show like Guys Ranch Kitchen (hosted by Guy Fieri) is more about taking time to create perfection in a dish.

Part of this appeal comes in bragging rights and chefs merely basking in the glory of appreciating one anothers food creations.

Can Guy Fieri change the direction of cooking competition shows?

If anyone could change how these shows operate, it would be Fieri. He already nearly dominates the schedule on The Food Network.

At the same time, he does partake in the rushed quality of competition if going by Guys Grocery Games. Not that this show is quite as hurried as ones invented by Gordon Ramsay.

Perhaps it really is time for these shows to slow down and savor the ingredients. In a time when quarantine is making more people prepare food at home, slowing down to create something tasty will likely become more in demand.
On Sept. 22, 2013, millions of viewers tuned in to Dexter for the last time to see what would happen to its titular character. After eight seasons of watching him commit dozens of murders around Miami, it made sense for Dexter Morgans story to end in either prison or death. But show creators went all the way left-field and showcased something that no one saw coming.

The ending frustrated many fans who had been committed to the show for seven years and gained recognition as one of the worst finales in television history. In hindsight, a lot of people think the alternate ending would have been more fitting for Dexter.

Michael C. Hall posing for a photo in September 2010 | Matt Carr/Getty Images

The ending of Dexter

Dexter was preparing to leave Miami with his girlfriend Hannah and son Harrison when he learned that his sister Debra had been shot. Debra seemed fine at first but surgery complications left her comatose and on life support. With essentially no chance of recovery, Dexter decided to pull the plug, leaving him emotional and feeling responsible for his death.

Not wanting to see anyone else in his life hurt, Dexter distanced himself from Hannah and Harrison. As they headed to Argentina without him, he took Debras body out to sea and dumped it. He then drove his boat straight into the eye of a hurricane, making it seem like he was going to kill himself. But it turned out that he was only faking his death. He moved to Oregon and found work as a lumberjack.

While fans had hoped for a certain ending, show creators have said that they didnt have much of a say in terms of closing Dexter. Producer John Goldwyn previously admitted to Vulture: They wont let us kill him. Showtime was very clear about that. When we told them the arc for the last season, they just said, Just to be clear, hes going to live.'

RELATED: Fans Hated the Dexter Finale, But Heres Why It Was Actually Brilliant

The alternate ending of Dexter

Former showrunner and producer Clyde Phillips told E! News in 2013 that he had something completely different in mind for the series finale.

He envisioned that, In the very last scene of the series, Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, Oh, it was a dream. And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, No, its not a dream. Dexters opening his eyes and hes on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary.

Theyre just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery. And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killedincluding the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible killing, Doakes who hes arguably responsible for, Rita, who hes arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there, Phillips continued.

Thats what I envisioned for the ending of Dexter. That everything weve seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexters execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die. I think it would have been a great, epic, very satisfying conclusion, Phillips added.

Phillips wound up leaving the show after season 4 but even if he stayed, its hard to imagine that this ending would have happened given Showtimes stance. Still, many fans have said that it seems like a much better conclusion to Dexters story.

Way better, read one tweet. Im just going 2 pretend this is how it ended.

The alternate ending would have been a million times better, another tweet said in part.

Echoing that, another person wrote, That ending would have been infinitely better!!

Is there any chance of a Dexter reboot?

Fans have been hoping for years that Showtime will make it up to them with a reboot. However, there arent any solid plans for one just yet.

Actor Michael C. Hall has said that he would be open to reprising his role in the future, but only if the storyline is right.

Its a possibility given how the show ended that we could revisit Dexter, Hall explained to Variety in 2018. I have just yet to, for my part, imagine or hear someone elses idea that makes it feel worth doing. But never say never.
Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) and Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) from Friends are one of the most iconic TV couples of all time. But before and after this on-again, off-again duo got together, Ross was in several other serious relationships. He was also married more often than any of the other six castmates on the show.

Ross blames everyone but himself for the marriage breakdowns. As he says on the show, First divorce: wifes hidden sexuality, not my fault. Second divorce: said the wrong name at the altar, kind of my fault. Third divorce: they shouldnt let you get married when youre that drunk and have stuff drawn all over your face, Nevadas fault.

Here is a breakdown of Rosss three divorces over 10 seasons of the show.

Everyone joked about Rosss many divorces

Ross, Carol, and Susan | Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

RELATED: Friends: The Many Reasons Ross Geller Was the Least Likable Friend

Each character on Friends had a quirk to their personality that they got teased for, and for Ross, that was how many times hed been divorced. Each relationship ended for a different reason and Ross had plenty of excuses for why the relationships needed to end. But that didnt stop all his friends from making fun of him, Screen Rant reported.

The first episode of the series introduces the audience to Rosss first ex-wife, Carol. Ross goes through an emotional time when he discovers that Carol has decided to move in with her partner, Susan, after confirming she is a lesbian.

Later, Carol tells Ross she is pregnant with his child, and the three parents  Ross, Carol, and Susan  must work to navigate raising the baby, Ben, together.

Ross and Emily were doomed from the start

Ross and Emilys wedding | Oliver Upton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

After Rachel and Ross have their catastrophic we were on a break fiasco, she inadvertently introduces him to his next wife, Emily. Rachel is trying to get Joshua, a customer at Bloomingdales to ask her out and agrees to take her bosss niece Emily to an event. While there, Ross becomes smitten with her.

Emily lives in London and their long-distance relationship moves at a fast pace. Ross proposes and convinces her to marry him after just six weeks.

At Ross and Emilys wedding, he accidentally says Rachels name during their vows. Meanwhile, Rachel had flown to London to confess that she still had feelings for Ross before deciding to keep it to herself. Emily forgives him but makes Ross vow to never see Rachel again. Because he cant make that promise, they get divorced soon after marriage.

A crazy night in Vegas leads to Ross and Rachels wedding

Ross and Rachel | NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

After a very tumultuous relationship, Ross and Rachel get married after having way too much to drink in Vegas. They arent technically together when they get hitched. Ross is hesitant to get divorced for the third time, so he pretends hes going to get the marriage annulled and doesnt. Six months later, they get a divorce. Both admit that they would have expected the marriage to last forever if it hadnt been a drunken mistake.

Ross and Rachel get together at the end of the series and while they dont get married during the show, Joey alludes to that eventuality during the spinoff show, Joey, when he says all his friends are married and starting families.

Even though Ross had more than his fair share of heartbreak, he ultimately winds up with the woman hes loved since childhood. It just took a long road to get there.
The royal family could be bracing for more bad press following the arrest of Prince Andrews close friend and Jeffrey Epsteins confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell.

News broke on July 2 that the British socialite, who has been referred to Epsteins ex-girlfriend, was taken into custody in New Hampshire on charges she conspired with the late disgraced financier to sexually abuse minors. Prince Andrews name has been associated with Epstein and Maxwells over the last year after he was accused of having sex with one of their alleged victims when she was a minor. Now, following Maxwells arrest, many royal watchers are wondering: Is the Duke of York next?

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell | Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

RELATED: Prince Andrews Ex-Wife Sarah Ferguson Has Her Own Dark Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

What Maxwells arrest could mean for Prince Andrew

In November 2019, Prince Andrew gave a car crash interview via the BBC about his association with Epstein. The duke showed no empathy for the alleged victims and did not come off as believable when he was questioned about encounters with his accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

During the interview, the Duke of York said that he was willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations if required.

In late January, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman revealed that law enforcement officials reached out to Andrews legal team in the hopes of interviewing him but have not received any cooperation.

Prince Andrew | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Its fair for people to know whether Prince Andrew has followed through with that public commitment, Berman said, before adding, To date, Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation.

The Guardian noted that after Maxwell was arrested, Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss told reporters for the Southern District of New York officials would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to speak with them for the benefit of his statement. Our doors remain open, as we have previously said, and we would welcome his coming in and giving us an opportunity to hear his statement.

In the past, sources told The Telegraph that Maxwell would never implicate the duke if she was to be interviewed by the FBI over the Epstein scandal.

Can members of the royal family be arrested?

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew | Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Prince Andrew has denied the allegations against him and without further evidence is in no danger of being arrested. However, if youre wondering whether members of the royal family can be arrested the answer is yes, with the exception of Queen Elizabeth II.

The monarch is immune from being arrested. The royal familys website states, Although civil and criminal proceedings cannot be taken against the sovereign as a person under U.K. law, the queen is careful to ensure that all her activities in her personal capacity are carried out in strict accordance with the law.

The blanket immunity, however, is only for the head of state and does not extend to other royals so they can, in fact, be arrested and prosecuted. However, there are a few loopholes.

According to the legal encyclopedia Halsburys Laws of England, members of the royal household cannot be arrested in civil proceedings, they cannot be cuffed in a monarchs presence, and no arrest can take place in or near the palace.

RELATED: Are Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice Treated Unfairly By Other Royals Because of Prince Andrew?
Just a young boy in the Netherlands in the 1940s, Dr. Jan Pol of Nat Geo Wilds The Incredible Dr. Pol saw his share of hardship and deprivation living among Nazi soldiers during World War II.

In his recollection of this difficult era in his life, and certainly the world at the time, the resilience and unflagging industriousness the 77-year-old veterinarian is known for shines through.

Dr. Jan Pol of The Incredible Dr. Pol | Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic

RELATED: The Incredible Dr. Pol: The Camera Operators Point of View  Its Nearly Impossible To Work

Dr. Pol grew up on a farm

Dr. Pol grew up on a dairy farm, where he was responsible for many of the animals  cows, chickens, goats. Even at his young age, under 10, Dr. Pol was expected to do his part on the busy farm.

RELATED: The Incredible Dr. Pol: The Real Reason Dr. Emily Left

I was the youngest of six raised on a dairy farm in the Netherlands, so, yes, I would have liked to become a farmer, Pol told Hollywood Soapbox in 2016. But theres not enough land in the Netherlands. And when my brother needed help, actually the veterinarian picked me up to deliver piglets at my brothers place. That was a lot of fun. Then I said, Well, if not a dairy farmer, Ill be working with large animals. 

Dr. Pols farming childhood prepared him to become a rural veterinarian

It was his upbringing on a farm that uniquely equipped the veterinarian to understand the life of those who rely on their land for their livelihood. A sick cow or horse to a farmer can mean ultimate economic devastation. Simply put, Dr. Pol is intimately familiar with farm life, its ebbs, flows, and challenges.

And hes not willing to allow a small thing like his age to stop him from treating farm animals  and smaller critters  for as long as hes able.

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[T]hank goodness we dont have mandatory retirement here, so, yes, as long as I can do it and the farmers and the clients depend on me, Id like to keep going, Dr. Pol said. How long that is, I dont know.

His recollection of living among Nazis

Dr. Pol, in his 2015 memoir, Never Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow: My Life as a Country Vet, revealed for the first time his familys experience living under the Nazi regime during World War II. It is a fascinating glimpse into one familys brave response to bigotry and intimidation.

During the war we were not allowed to own anything; everything belonged to the occupier, Dr. Pol wrote. All the production was for the benefit of the occupier. These werent TV Nazis; they were the real thing. These people were very dangerous.

They would come and inspect your farm, and if you got caught hiding anything, the best thing that would happen is they would take you to prison for a few years.

The family hid a calf or other food in order to ensure they would have some kind of sustenance for their own future. And, at other times, they would hide the most vulnerable among those of their village.

In those times, it wasnt just livestock that we hid, he recalled. For a time, we sheltered a young Jewish boy who was somewhere between my age and my next oldest brother, who was seven years older than me. There was also a Jewish family hiding in a little shed, which wasnt more than a deer-blind, in our woods. All the local people brought them food and the Nazis never found out about them. . . My parents never turned away one person.

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Just a stones throw from Orlando, Wekiwa Springs presents a big, clear natural swimming hole for visitors of all ages to enjoy. Set up blankets or chairs on a large hillside bordering one side of the spring, or find a spot right at the water. Then dive in and explore the second-magnitude spring pumping out 43 million gallons of water per day.
A movie cannot really capture the entirety of what soldiers go through in war. However, what a good war movie can show in two hours is enough to make audiences who may never find themselves in life or death situations a bit of what soldiers sacrifice for them. It could also make veterans watching feel heard, understood and thanked. The Outpost is such a movie.

The true story of The Outpost

Based on Jake Tappers book, The Outpost begins by telling us that PRT Kamdesh in the Kush Mountains of Afghanistan was dubbed Camp Custer. The outpost unfortunately lived up to its name when Taliban attacked it in 2009.

Scott Eastwood | Screen Media

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The Outpost introduces the outpost at the bottom of vast mountains. Its not long before they take fire from above. Its a somewhat regular occurrence. Director Rod Lurie identifies the areas of the outpost with on screen text as he introduces the unit of individual soldiers.

Some of soldiers were going to follow throughout the film include Staff Sgt. Romesha (Scott Eastwood), Staff Sgt. Carter (Caleb Landry Jones), Sgt. Martin (Cory Hardrict), Sgt. Hardt (Jack DeVos), Commander Zahid (Ahmad Sakhi), Stephen Mace (Chris Born), Cpt. Yilescas (Milo Gibson) and Fist. Lt. Keating (Orlando Bloom).

A day in the life on The Outpost

Day to day, this outpost is supposed to be blocking the flow of weapons to Taliban insurgents. Frequently, enemy fire interrupts basic activities. They take out the enemy and go back to work.

Orlando Bloom | Screen Media

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The guys make some off color jokes to get through their tour. In civilian society, we might reprimand them but on the front lines, you can forgive them. Nothing they say invalidates their actions and they do call each other out when it gets personal.

Depicting the final battle

On Oct. 3, 2009 Taliban forces did descend from the mountains to attack the outpost. The amount of Taliban on the hill is like an army of Gremlins or monsters from Starship Troopers, and its probably real extras, not CGI doubles. Thats something you dont see much in movies anymore, so the sheer number of enemies feels overpowering.

The soldiers have to hold off the Taliban who all have higher ground. Lurie captures dynamic shots of soldiers running through the outpost with live explosions behind and beside them. He never resorts to shakycam. Its harrowing enough to just see the battle.

Caleb Landry Jones | Screen Media

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The layout of the outpost and the introduction to the many soldiers stationed there pays off when youre following them in battle.The Outpost captures how everyone is screaming over each other, rightfully, but its not a cacophony Everyone is saying something they mean and the ones with authority or good ideas get through. Medical situations add suspense, as its a normal part of battle. You have to attend to the wounded before fighting has stopped, and with limited access to medical supplies.

An epilogue addresses soldier coming home with trauma. Thats a worthwhile side most war movies dont show unless its all about PTSD. The Outpost is a harrowing depiction of battle in the most recent war and it honors the brave soldiers who lived it, or died for it. The Outpost opens in select theaters and on VOD July 3.
Today, Ryan Murphy is reinventing and revolutionizing TV and film. The multi-talented screenwriter, director, and producer continues to bring characters  often pushed to the fringes  into the spotlight. Women of a certain age are not relegated to sexless grandparents; LGBTQ youth are not supporting characters but leads. He is here to change the status quo and his political statements surfaces in front of and behind the camera. Yet, it wasnt always so easy for Ryan Murphy to get his projects greenlit.

Ryan Murphy | Kevin Winter / Staff

During an interview with The Guardian, the man behind American Horror Story, Glee, The Politician, and more, explained that he was turned away many a time before his ideas received the attention they deserved.

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Ryan Murphy talks rejection

As The Guardian notes, Ryan Murphy is a self-identified gay kid from Indiana who moved to Hollywood in 1989 with $55. He arrived on a mission to bring stories he could relate to  to fill a void and connect with viewers who were failing to see themselves on the screen. He told The Guardian:

I only wrote or created shows that I really wanted to watch, so they inevitably had gay characters and trans characters and minoritiesAnd I made them the leads instead of the sidekicks, because that is what I did in my own life. The Guardian

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While Ryan Murphys work has since gone on to receive both critical and audience acclaim, he initially had a tough time getting past those who were afraid his work was too niche  unrelatable to the masses. He explained himself as:

Somebody who couldnt sell a script and was being told that everything I did was too gay or too out-there The Guardian

Ryan Murphy stuck to his guns; he refused to change his narratives to suit those who were judging his works. And, luckily he did. Because Ryan Murphy continued to pump out the stories fans have come to know and love, we are lucky enough to receive the creator in all his glory today. And, Murphys got a few more highly-anticipated projects on the horizon  ones that align with his desire to bring marginalized groups into focus.

Whats coming next from Ryan Murphy?

Ryan Murphy will be bringing two Broadway productions to Netflix in the near future: The Prom and The Boys in the Band (among other upcoming projects).

The Prom is a musical with music by Matthew Skylar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin, and a book by Bob Martin and Beguelin. The story focuses on a group of Broadway stars  narcissistic and attacked for such in the press  who decide to take on a mission for a little good publicity. They head to a small town in Indiana, where a lesbian adolescent is told she cant go to the prom. While they arrive with selfish desires, they find compassion lying beneath their narcissism (in the most humorous ways). Ryan Muphys Prom, starring Meryl Streep, James Corden, and Nicole Kidman is sure to be an uplifting musical.

As for The Boys in the Band, the recent Broadway revival and the upcoming Netflix movie will feature the same cast members: Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannels, Jim Parsons, and more. The play revolves around a group of gay men who gather in NYC for a birthday party, and the situation grows complex when one of the hosts roommates from college randomly pops in. The original Broadway play was considered revolutionary for its depiction of gay men.
Since the death of George Floyd on March 25 under the knee of Minnesota Police Officer Derek Chauvin, protests have sprung up in virtually every major city in the United States, calling for a review of law enforcement standards and police conduct across the board.

Cheshires Police Department, led by Chief Neil Dryfe, has been paying attention to the national conversation and believes the road ahead for many law enforcement agencies will change as a result of the civil discourse.

What I have done is review our policies regarding the use of force, explained Dryfe. I believe I took the opportunity to strengthen it. But any real change that might come would have to be implemented at the state level.

Dryfe took the opportunity to explain that neck restraints, at least in his time as an officer, have never been part of Connecticut Police policy.

No Connecticut police officer, at least in my time as an officer, has ever been taught or trained in neck restraint, he said.

Many legislators have offered various policy initiatives aimed, they claim, at decreasing incidents of excessive police force. One idea that has gained some traction is that of a civilian review board to look at complaints against officers and cases in which excessive force may have been used.

Dryfe, who used to work in Hartford prior to his arrival in Cheshire, is skeptical about the implementation of such boards.

The devil is really in the details, he commented. I have been a police officer for over 30 years. I understand the apprehension of officers having their actions reviewed by people who dont understand police work. There needs to be a training process, and those people need to have some sort of interaction with the job.

Dryfe focused on video cameras, which played an important role in bringing attention to Floyds case.

The George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks incidents are really rare, he commented. Its rare that you get footage of the entire event, from beginning to end.

The Brooks incident occurred on June 12 in Atlanta, Georgia. Brooks was shot three times in the back as he ran away from police; there was an altercation immediately before the shooting where he had taken an officers taser in order to defend himself.

All CPD officers have body cameras, according to Dryfe, as well as dashboard cameras on patrol cars. Governor Ned Lamont has also imposed a chokehold ban, a body camera mandate, and restrictions on military equipment utilized by police.

Another more radical solution would be to defund the police, which has gained popularity among some protestors. While some may call for a complete defunding of all law enforcement, many of its proponents have insisted that the initiative would instead look to divert a certain amount of funds that have initially gone towards the police department towards other local departments and employees, such as social workers, mental health professionals, and others.

Of course there are things that our office does that could probably be done by someone else, admitted Dryfe. Maybe our officers are unable to navigate that, and possibly a mobile crisis team may help. But sometimes the situation proves to be tricky.

While Dryfe sees the potential benefit of other service providers responding to a crisis, he is wary of that being floated as an alternative to officer engagement, as those service providers may not be available as often as police officers are.

They would need to be available 24/7 like the officers are, and it would need to be done properly, he explained. There is lots of room for improvement, but I am also apprehensive (about) anything that seems like a perfect solution.
For those of us who have known the Lower Columbia for the better part of a century, the little settlement of McGowan almost comes into focus a
As D. L. Mayfield understands it, the American Dream offers a simple formula: Anyone can make something of themselves if only they try hard enough.

In one sense, I cant argue with this formula because its been the story of my life. Ive worked hard, and to a large degree Ive built the life I want. Yet in another sense, I know its fanciful to believe Im a purely self-made woman. My skin color, my family, my place of birth, my education, and my personal connections are just a few of the advantages Ive enjoyed.

In her latest book, The Myth of the American Dream: Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power, Mayfield calls upon Christians to reject the work hard and achieve your dreams formula as both false and dangerous. For some, she argues, trusting in the American Dream is a recipe for disappointment. (After all, plenty of hard-working people see their ambitions thwarted by misfortune, injustice, or structural barriers.) For others, the ones who do seem to succeed, the greater danger is self-satisfied complacency. Overlooking their privileges, they fail to ask why others cant follow the same path.

To expose the insufficiency of the American Dream, Mayfield measures it against the prophecy found in Isaiah 61, the passage Jesus used to inaugurate his public ministry in Luke 4:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord s favor. (Luke 4:1819)

Instead of orienting our lives around the false ideals of affluence, autonomy, safety, and power, Mayfield argues that Gods people in America are called to something different and betterto the Bibles vision of the good life, as reflected in the person and work of Jesus.

Paying Attention

The call of Mayfields book is clear: to pay attentionto ones own life, the history and current landscape of the United States, and the story of white evangelicalism within it.

Mayfielda writer and activist living in Portland, Oregonhas certainly paid attention, and it serves her readers well. Although her writing is strong and intense, she doesnt create a spectacle. Its clear shes done the emotional work of processing her experiences growing up within white evangelicalism. This allows her to see certain flaws and blind spots that others might neglect.

Mayfields doubts about the American Dream are not, first and foremost, a function of her political beliefs. They arise, instead, from thoughtful observation of the lives of her neighbors. Much of her adult life has been spent working with and living alongside refugee groups, often in the capacity of teaching English classes. Seeing the struggles those refugees endure while trying to gain an economic and cultural foothold in the United States has moved her to fresh consideration of why the American Dream seems so cruelly unattainable to those on the lower rungs of society.

As Mayfield sees it, the ideals of the American Dreamthe appeal of affluence, autonomy, safety, and powerare more a pagan than a Christian inheritance. Pushing back on the idea of American as a Christian nation, she instead argues that the United States bears a close resemblance to those nations in the Bible that oppressed Gods people. It is important, she writes, for those of us who are embedded in the dominant culture of the United States to take the time to meditate on the ways of Pharaoh, who ruled off of predatory economic practices and was never satisfied. The Bible shows us example after example of empire and how it works in the world: places like Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Rome.

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These observations reminded me of my experience studying the book of Exodus a few years ago. Reflecting on Pharaohs use of Israelite slave labor to build his kingdom, I was spurred to consider the unseen, oppressive forces (both current and historic) that allow me to live with ease and comfort, enjoying access to good food, stylish clothing, and a mortgage for a home in a place of my choosing. Mayfield pushes readers to make these kinds of connections, identifying parts of ourselves that are more like Pharaoh than Moses.

Within American evangelical culture, one of the most influential exponents of the American Dream is Dave Ramsey, the popular personal-finance guru and radio host. Without identifying him by name (though it is plain enough who she is talking about), Mayfield writes perceptively about Ramsey and his money-management philosophy, which forthrightly holds out the pursuit of millionaire status as a good and honorable goal. She praises his rants against debt, his encouragement of frugality, and his warnings against chasing after a consumeristic culture in our spending habits. But she also beautifully captures the tension involved in marketing all this as distinctively Christian wisdom, especially when structural barriers in place prevent many Americans from putting it into practice.

Ramseys program, Mayfield writes, is part advice column, part celebrating those people who have done it, who have achieved the American Dream of being debt free, of paying off their mortgage, of being a millionaire. The only problem is, being financially safe and secure isnt a major theme of Scripturebut unjust economic practices are.

And we shouldnt be surprised to see those unjust practices persist, Mayfield warns, so long as our imaginations are captured by the prospect of making millions rather than a vision of prosperity that promotes our neighbors flourishing in systemic ways. It isnt enough for Christians to follow the American dream, get rich, and then donate their excess wealth to the needy. For Mayfield, that pattern only entrenches the conditions that create neediness in the first place. Instead, she argues, we need to recover the Bibles full witness on economic life, which includes Old Testament Jubilee texts that often sit uneasily with the philosophy of free-market capitalism.

Mayfield is perhaps most scathing in her excavation of a childhood spent in the homeschooling and white-conservative subcultures of the United States. The aim of this education, she writes, was to train conservative Christians to take up influential positions in the world, uncorrupted by the evils of modernity and liberalism, and to return America once more to the biblical morality that is supreme above all others.

Describing her homeschooling history curriculum, she recounts learning of a pristine wilderness discovered by Europeans, a sacred Constitution written by a heroic, God-fearing group of Founding Fathers, and a Civil War that was mostly unfortunate because it splintered our nation.

But of course, these lessons glossed over the displacement and murder of indigenous peoples, the tensions and compromises involved in crafting the Constitution, the heterodoxies of the Founders (to say nothing of their all-too-human moral flaws), and the centuries of terrible racial injustice whose wounds are still with us today.

Living the Questions

As I finished the book, several questions surfaced. First, what role does the church, both local and universal, play in this discussion?

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In theory, the church should stand as an outpost of Gods kingdom in our place of exile, modeling sacrificial love of God and neighbor in a world devoted to affluence, autonomy, safety, and power. Mayfield is correct to fault certain strains of white evangelicalism cozying up to power and blurring the boundaries of Christianity and the American dream. But it helps to consider the black church as a counterpointa community living out the values of Gods kingdom while too often being denied basic forms of freedom and respect, much less affluence, autonomy, power, and safety. While Mayfield is quick to quote nonwhite Christian activists, scholars, and clergy members, The Myth of the American Dream would have been benefitted from a more sustained look at the faithful witness of the black church.

My next question gets a little more personal: If one wants to reject the idolatry of the American Dream, to what extent does that entail, in Mayfields judgment, making the same choices she does? Because her own story is so tightly intertwined with the argument of her book, Mayfields personal accounts can easily give off a fairly prescriptive impression.

I felt this most acutely while reading about her decision to send her daughter to public school. For Mayfield, this was an act of solidarity with her neighbors and a means of exposing her daughter to diverse people and perspectives. As someone (like Mayfield) who grew up in a conservative Christian homeschooling subculture, Im thankful for robust discussions on schooling that look beyond an individual familys desires to consider the racial and socioeconomic consequences of our choices.

Yet I did not sense Mayfield conceding much room for opting out of public schooling without bowing to the American Dream. While I cheer on my friends who send their kids to public school and participate in the life of our own public schools as best I can (without school-age children), I also firmly believe that parents or caregivers can make different choices without being unduly influenced by a desire for racial, economic, or cultural self-segregation.

Should more parents scrutinize their reasons for avoiding public schools? Absolutely. Will that result in more decisions for public schooling? Not necessarily.

My life situation diverges from Mayfields in many ways. And while her epilogue points to anecdotes of friends and family members who live out biblical ideals under different circumstances, I still felt a nagging sense of guilt as I read her book. How can someone like me resist the American Dream and live a life defined by the lordship of Jesus? Should I leverage my affluence, autonomy, power, and safety for kingdom purposes, after the example of biblical figures like Lydia, Phoebe, Esther, Joseph, and the Roman centurion of Luke 7? Or is the only solution to throw it all away?

As I ponder these questions, Im reminded of the words of poet Rainer Maria Rilke: Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

In the meantime, Ill keep paying attention.

Abigail Murrish lives in Norwood, Ohio, where she works for her church and curates the newsletter Given Appetites. You can subscribe to her newsletter and find her online at abigailmurrish.com.
Outside a US congressmans office, Christians holding homemade protest signs and clergy dressed in their robes and collars attend a march to challenge the separation of families seeking asylum at the USMexico border. They join in impassioned chants of Keep the kids, deport the racists! and Lock them up! referring to those who work for the US Border Patrol. In protesting the dehumanizing ugliness of children being separated from their parents they dehumanize others in return, calling for their rights to be taken away and their freedoms restricted.

Inside the offices of a Christian nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to immigrants, volunteers from a local church assist young immigrants with their DACA applications. These young men and women came to the US with their families when they were children and now find themselves undocumented, unable to live, work, or attend college in the US without the threat of deportation. The volunteers chat with the eager immigrants over donuts and coffee as they navigate the complex paperwork that will allow them to legally remain in their communities.

While the Christians in both these scenarios may believe very similar things about immigration, they have chosen to live out their convictions in dramatically different ways. But what makes us immediately recognize them as distinct from one another? I would suggest that the Christians in the second example are reflecting Gods beauty in the way they live out their beliefs about immigration. I believe that while God expects the content of our beliefs to be righteous, he also wants the form of our faith to be beautiful. Today, Im using immigration as an example of how we can critically assess our beliefs and ask ourselves if they are displaying Gods beauty in the world, but the framework I propose could apply to any number of convictions held by Christians, even beliefs on which we might disagree.

The Beauty of the Lord

Before we can ask if our beliefs are reflecting Gods beauty, we have to understand what Gods beauty is, and why we as Christians should make it our goal to reflect it in our convictions at all. Jonathan King, a professor of theology and the author of The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics, explains that beauty is inherent to God, and its reflected in everything that he does. The psalmists write songs of praise about Gods beauty. Davids only request in Psalm 27:4 is to gaze on the beauty of the Lord. Isaiah says that the reward for the righteous will be to see God in his beauty (33:17). Pastor and author John Piper understands Gods beauty as the peculiar proportionality and interplay and harmony of all Gods attributes. In other words, beauty encompasses the perfect way in which Gods attributes work together, even when they seem paradoxical. Attributes like Gods justice and mercy, goodness and truth, holiness and compassion exhibit a symmetry and perfection that sets him apart from us.

Biblically and historically, Gods beauty has also been closely tied to Gods glory. Hundreds of times in Scripture, the biblical authors use the word glory to refer to Gods overwhelming worthiness and beauty and to communicate that God is set apart from every other being in the universe. Gods aim from Genesis to Revelation is to make his unique glory and beauty known throughout the entire world. Psalm 96:3 instructs those who follow God to declare his glory among the nations, and John makes the foundational claim of Christianity that in Jesus God became flesh and revealed his glory to us (John 1:14). King calls Gods beauty the outward expression of his glory that is expressed and perceivable as an aesthetic quality of his glory in his work of creation, redemption, and consummation. Gods salvific action in the world is not just effective; it is also beautiful.

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Jonathan Edwards, the 18th century American preacher, wrote extensively about Gods beauty. He believed that when Christians are saved, God opens our eyes to see his beauty in a way we could not before and causes our hearts to have a relish of the loveliness and sweetness of the supreme excellency of the Divine nature. King builds on this understanding by suggesting that reflecting Gods beauty in the world is an essential part of what it means for Christians to imitate Jesus and follow his example. When we consider all this together, Gods beauty can be defined as the unique relationship between his attributes by which he accomplishes his work in the world and reveals his glory. But why does it matter that our beliefs and the actions they inspire reflect Gods beauty?

Beautiful Belief in Practice

By measuring our beliefs and convictions by the standard of Gods beauty, we can ensure that our actions reflect Gods true character instead of just one aspect of it. While the Christians chanting Keep the kids, deport the racists! may be wanting to communicate Gods grief and anger over the separation of immigrant families, they are failing to reflect his love for all people. Even if they are successful in shedding light on the horrors of taking immigrant children away from their parents, they are doing so in a way that blinds the world to Gods attributes of grace, mercy, and compassion.

In contrast, the church members who are serving young immigrants through legal assistance are able to reflect the symmetry and perfection of Gods character as they demonstrate Gods love for immigrants while also embodying respect for the laws of government. As they make it their goal to live out their convictions about immigration under the sheen of Christs beauty, the Holy Spirit empowers them to express their love from the place of tension that exists between Gods abiding holiness and endless grace.

Its important to clarify that the shortcoming of the immigration protest is not that it is impersonal while the second example is individualized and particular. There are many beautiful things that are impersonal. Nature cannot audibly and individually speak to us, and yet we recognize it as a declaration of Gods glory and a reflection of his beauty.

The choice between our two examples is also not about pragmatism. Though the second example may seem likely to accomplish more good than the first, seeking to reflect Gods beauty as we live out our beliefs is not primarily about utility. We are each created in Gods glorious and beautiful image, so of course people will be drawn to those who mirror their Creators beauty in the world, but we should not pursue beautiful beliefs because they are pragmatic. What makes beautiful beliefs so valuable is the fact that they reflect Gods perfect character and its juxtaposition to everything that is not beautiful, regardless of whether they are always effective in attracting others to follow him. Seeking to manifest Gods beauty in our convictions is faithful, even if it is not always fruitful.

Jesus as Our Example

In Jesus, we encounter a perfect model for living out our convictions from within the brilliance of Gods beauty. Just after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus again predicts his imminent death to his disciples. He explains that a grain of wheat has to be buried in the ground and die so that it can reproduce. Then he offers up a spontaneous and urgent plea: Father, glorify your name! (John 12:28). Pastor and author Eugene Peterson, in an assessment of Jesuss prayer, recognizes that the roots of glory are in death and burial.

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If we want our beliefs to display Gods beauty and bring him glory, death is necessary. We have to die to our preconceived notions and assumptions about how we should live out our convictions in the world. We have to die to our fear of judgment from other Christians for being too soft. We have to die to our need to be right and show how everyone else is wrong. We have to die to our desire to be recognized for what we believe (whether we want to be recognized as separate from the world and radical or in touch with modern-day moral standards). For our convictions to reveal the unparalleled beauty and glory of God, we must follow the example of Jesus, who in his life and death perfectly modeled beautiful belief.

Month after month, volunteers from the local church in our opening example faithfully offer their time to walk young undocumented immigrants through the labyrinth of complicated paperwork necessary to secure legal work permits and drivers licenses so that they can pursue their American dreams. In another mid-size American town, a local pastor is convicted that he needs to teach his congregation what the Bible says about immigrants and disciple them to love them well. When their states governor announces that they are refusing to resettle Syrian refugees in their state, dozens of church congregants attend a protest with Bible verses about loving and welcoming immigrants handwritten on their signs. Members of the congregation also call the governors office to explain why they believe their faith compels them to welcome the stranger, and their pastor joins a group of other faith leaders to meet with the governor in person. Instead of giving into the temptation to dehumanize those who are opposed to welcoming refugees they develop practices of protest and advocacy that reflect Gods beauty.

Christians from both communities join God in his grief over the marginalization of immigrants in their country and the unjust laws and policies that cater to fear instead of encouraging faith. Christians from both towns rejoice when their advocacy and service can help vulnerable immigrants find belonging and safety in their communities. Their actions sometimes fail to bring about the effect they hope and pray for, but because they have committed to faithfully mirroring Gods beauty as they live out their convictions, they know that regardless of the individual results, their actions will continue to live on as worship.

God cares both about what we believe and how we live out our beliefs in the world. I believe he wants our convictions to be shaped by creativity and our deepest-held beliefs to be dumbfoundingly beautiful. A good way for us to begin thinking about how to reflect Gods beauty in our beliefs is to examine our convictions, especially those about controversial issues, and ask ourselves if the way we talk about them and act on them primarily emphasizes a single aspect of Gods character. Has our passion for Gods truth blinded us to his goodness? Has our zeal for Gods justice caused us to lose sight of his grace and mercy? Has our focus on Gods compassion led us to downplay his holiness? Once we have identified any deficiencies, we can work to reintroduce those missing features of Gods character into our speech and our actions as we cultivate beautiful belief.

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We all hold different convictions, so my goal is not to tell you what to believe. My prayer is simply that no matter what our moral, political or theological views, we would undertake with our whole hearts and with Christs help to reflect Gods beauty in the way we live them out. Is there a conviction you have that needs to be fired in the kiln of Gods beautiful character? I cant promise you it will be painless, but I can assure you it will be worth it. Becoming more like Jesus always is.

Tabitha McDuffee is a writer and student living in Southern California. She blogs at TabithaMcDuffee.com and is completing her masters degree in refugee protection and forced migration studies from the University of London.

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The bronze plaque of the former Kathe Kollwitz School (now a charity organization) is engraved with the words "Here, on July 29th, Vietnamese children living and studying at Kathe Kollwitz Heim welcomed President Ho Chi Minh. (Photo: VNA)



In an interview with the German News Agency before the visit, President Ho Chi Minh said his visit to Germany, together with a number of other foreign countries, aimed at strengthening the friendship between the Vietnamese people and their brother countries, as well as promoting cooperation among brother parties.



Regarding the relationship between Germany and Vietnam, Uncle Ho assessed that the bilateral relationship developed very successfully, and the visit was to further strengthen and develop the friendly relationship between the two countries.

After the flight carrying Uncle Ho landed at Schonefeld Airport in Berlin at 11:30 am on July 25th, 1957, Uncle Ho and the senior Vietnamese delegation attended many activities, including close contacts and visit to people, soldiers and workers in Germany. The declaration on the visit said that during Uncle Hos visit to Germany, he was welcomed by President Wilhelm Pieck and National Assembly Chairman Johannes Dieckmann. In a speech to welcome President Ho Chi Minh, National Assembly Chairman Dieckmann affirmed that his visit was the culmination of the development of friendly relations between the two countries, and that despite thousands of kilometers distance, the two country felt very close to each other. The closeness was based on a common concern, which was to ensure world peace and build socialism in each country. In response, President Ho Chi Minh expressed his sincere thanks for the affection and support that Germany gave to Vietnam. He emphasized that the cause of Vietnam's struggle would continue with many difficulties, but the fight for justice would surely win.

During his visit to Germany, he visited many cities, companies, and cultural and scientific organizations to better understand the socialist structure, as well as the development issues in Germany. Everywhere he went, he was well received by the warmth of German people. The visit became a very impressive symbol for the friendship between the two nations, according to the declaration.

Among his footprints in Berlin is the Tierpark Zoo, where he visited the day before the end of his visit to Germany and when he returned to Vietnam, he sent a baby elephant, Kosko, to the zoo. It also included the Stralsund shipbuilding workshop on Riems Island, where Uncle Ho boarded a German Navy ship to visit the Baltic Sea and took photos with the young sailors.

One of the locations that Uncle Ho expected to visit was Moritzburg, Sachsen state, where Vietnamese students were sent to study. The visit took place on July 29th at Kathe Kollwitz school, where 350 outstanding students aged 9-15 were sent to study in Germany in 1955. Talking to the students, he advised them to study hard to become useful people in the future, and to help build the country. After Uncle Ho's visit, the school put aside a space as a campus to keep Uncle Ho's visits memory. The bronze plaque of the former Kathe Kollwitz School (now a charity organization) engraved the words "Here, on July 29th, Vietnamese children living and studying at Kathe Kollwitz Heim welcomed President Ho Chi Minh.

In Germany's archives, there remain many precious photos about President Ho Chi Minh when he walked to visit the Dresden ancient city.

Uncle Ho's visit to Germany 63 years ago was not only the foundation for the good relations between Germany and Vietnam today, but also the pride and emotion of so many generations of Vietnamese people./.
China has unveiled 22 areas for the protection and utilization of cultural relics from revolutionary times, according to an official circular.

The areas include renowned historical sites related to the legendary Long March starting in 1934, a 12,500-km-long expedition undertaken by the Red Army, according to the document jointly issued by four departments of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council.

This was the second time for China to release such a list. In March last year, the country made public the first list of 15 areas, which span across 20 provincial-level areas.

Liu Yang, an official with the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said priority should be given to the protection of revolutionary heritage in these areas.

He also stressed the need to innovate ways to bring the revolutionary cultural relics to life and promote cultural and tourism integration in a bid to vitalize and develop the old revolutionary bases.
Looking at Marxism and Critical Race Theory in light of the problem of racism in America.

Image: By Allison C Bailey via Shutterstock

Today I am glad to welcome Dr. Kelly Hamren to The Exchange. Kelly is an assistant professor of English at Liberty University. Her dissertation focused on twentieth-century Russian poetry, with an emphasis on the horrors resulting from Marxist-Leninist ideology in the Soviet Union. Since my Twitter feed is filled with people calling one another marxists, I thought it might be good to hear from a scholar who knows a bit more about it.

During the weeks following the death of George Floyd, I have been following the news with an increasing sense of sadness and concern for the problems facing the United States regarding race and racism.

Ive been unsure how to respond as Ive scrolled through social media and watched increasingly polarized rhetoric on both sides of the political aisleexcept to listen to the voices of Black friends and neighbors who are hurting and to pray for justice.

Ive tried to apply the biblical principle of being slow to speak (James 1:19), but Ive been convicted recently about joining a particular thread of the (inter)national conversation taking place among those who share my faith in Jesus Christ and want to support truth and justice without compromising on principles peculiar and integral to our faithprinciples that they are afraid might be stealthily replaced by rhetoric from other, incompatible frameworks of thinking.

Two frameworks Ive been hearing about increasingly often are familiar to me from my own field: Critical Race Theory and Marxism. Because I have some expertise in these areas, I want to offer some thoughts and, hopefully, clarification to the conversation.

Ill begin by giving some credentials, not to ask for accolades but to indicate why I want to address these areas of the cultural conversation in particular. I have two English degrees (B.A. and M.A.) from a Christian university and a Ph.D. in literature and criticism from a state university.

In my field, Marxism is one of the most commonly studied and most influential perspectives, and Critical Race Theory is also a significant force and gaining momentum. As a result, Ive studied these theories extensively.

What gives me an unusual perspective in my field, however, is the fact that my primary research interestand the topic of my doctoral dissertationis twentieth-century Russian literature. My studies have convinced me that the sufferings and deaths of millions are not only correlated with but largely caused by the Marxist-Leninist agenda, and I am therefore deeply opposed to Marxism as a framework.

I hope that, knowing this, those patient enough to read these notes will acquit me of being a closet Marxist covering a secular agenda with a veneer of Bible verses.

That said, I do believe that some reactions to the protests following the death of George Floyd in particular and the Black Lives Matter movement in general are based on a failure to recognize important nuances in the conversation.

Im going to address what I believe to be some problematic reasoning Im seeing come from Christian sources on race:

Argument #1: Like all sin, racism originates in the human heart. Therefore, the solution to racism is for peoples hearts to change. Systemic racism, on the other hand, is a Marxist idea.

Response: The first sentences claim is true. If you believe in original sin (Genesis 3, Romans 5), you have to admit that any sin originates in the human heart. Sin might be aggravated by circumstances, but circumstances dont cause sin. However, the conclusion that the solution to racism is for peoples hearts to change is true but incomplete.

If people are born in sin and people build a society, that society will be structured in ways that reinforce whatever sins dominate the hearts of those who build it. Therefore, even if many peoples hearts change a few generations later, those structures might still perpetuate the problems associated with that societys original sins.

This is whyand I believe this is an important distinction as wellit is possible to recognize that many individual police officers might not be racist and still believe that changes in police departments need to take place to discourage injustice.

What those changes might bealterations in training, changes in criteria for which areas are patrolled more often, etc.is an important conversation, but having it does not mean condemning all police officers, many of whom are no doubt grieved at the horrific actions of other officers, such as the murderer of George Floyd. The problem can be built into structures and (some) individual hearts.

Here is how the above arguments are distinct from Marxism:

Marxism posits that socio-economic forces create the problem, not that they perpetuate the problem. A true Marxist does not believe that individuals have essential selves apart from the historical contexts in which they develop.

As an atheistic philosophy, Marxism does not allow for belief in a soul, and therefore, people are merely the products of the world they live in (referred to as a superstructure of social norms, historical forces, religious ideas, etc.).

The way to change people is to change society, and, for those who follow the most progressive version of Marxism, to dismantle society and recreate it from the ground up (this is what Lenin tried to do in Russia and Mao Tsetung tried to do in China). I know people who hold to the most extreme version of this philosophy.

If you believe (as I do) that sin, such as racism, originates in the human heart and merely manifests itself in society, you can recognize the above project as fundamentally utopian. It wont work because whatever society you build from scratch will still have problems (perhaps new ones, perhaps the same ones) because you wont have fixed the source of the problems (the human heart).

Only one Person can eradicate sin from the world, and I pray for that Persons coming with an increasing sense of urgency these days.

However, to reject the claim that fixing society at the structural level will fix everything does not mean that we should reject the idea of being good stewards of the society in which we live. The fact that we will never be able to eradicate sin (this side of the resurrection) does not mean we should sit back and allow it free reign.

Those among my fellow believers who oppose abortion are already recognizing that sin and its effects can be addressed on both individual and societal levels. Meeting with a desperate woman outside a clinic and convincing her not to end her babys life is addressing it at the individual level.

But many who reach out to prospective patients outside clinics also campaign for legal protections for the unborn and support clinics (like our local Blue Ridge Womens Center) that provide desperate women with other options, resources, counseling, and support. Other systemic changes might involve better guarantees for parental leave, stronger incentives for paternal involvement or financial support, and funding for adoptive and social service venues.

Addressing the problem of abortion at the systemic level does not mean caving into Marxism unless we believe that doing so is the only, complete, and permanent solution.

I firmly believe that if we are to work toward racial reconciliation, we need to admit that the history of racism in the United States (slavery, Jim Crow, etc.) has left us with problems that need to be addressed at the heart level AND at the structural level.

Argument #2: Critical Race Theory is a Marxist framework, and therefore, it is antithetical to the gospel.

Response: Critical Race Theory is indeed deeply informed by Marxism. As a result, I recognize that, as a Christian scholar, I will not agree with all of its tenets. Howeverand bear in mind, this is coming from someone who wrote a dissertation about the ways in which Russian poets coped with Marxist-Leninist oppressionMarx was not wrong about absolutely everything. Very few thinkers are (probably because they are all made in Gods image) wrong about everything.

Here are two statements on which I, as a Christian scholar, actually agree with Marxwhile vehemently rejecting his philosophy as a whole:

1) Power does exist, and people do sometimes use it to oppress others.

Reading the Old Testament will make these truths abundantly clear (Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, the list goes on). And everyday experience makes these truths abundantly clear. Just ask anyone whose boss fired him/her for no good reason. Even Marxs cited evidence for the above truths was legitimate. During the Industrial Revolution, factory workers had few legal protections, worked overly long hours in unsafe environments, and received few benefits and low pay.

2) Oppressed people do suffer, and their suffering is often unjust.

I actually believe that as a Christian, I have a much better foundation for supporting the above statement than Marx did. If people are merely cogs in the wheel of history, its hard to explain why anyone should care if they suffer. The fact that most Marxists I know are deeply compassionate people is, I believe, a testament to their humanity (being made in Gods image), not their philosophy.

Because I believe people are made in Gods image (Gen. 1); the God whom I worship warned his followers repeatedly not to oppress the poor, widows, foreigners, etc. (cf. Deut. 15:7 and countless other passages); and Jesus reached out to those whom society despised (women, Samaritans, etc.); I can argue with confidence that my faith is wholly consistent with working to mitigate oppression in the society in which I live.

By doing so, I am not embracing an alternate gospel but merely living in a way consistent with the gospel I have embraced since I was a child.

What some are referring to as social justice these daysmaking sure our laws and institutions dont make it easier for the powerful to oppress marginalized groupsoften refers to good, old-fashioned biblical justice.

This may mean that those who have more should be given structural incentives to share with those who have less. Ruth was able to pick up the grain from behind Boazs reapers because he was following the biblical mandate for them not to go back and pick up what theyd droppedthat was reserved for the poor and the immigrants. He could have argued that it all belonged to him, since he planted it, but he was willing to share.

Requiring him to give up every scrap of grain from his field to distribute it equally among the whole town would have been Marxs solution, but requiring him to leave a little behind was Gods solution (Lev. 23:22).

Exactly how the principle of protecting the poor should be translated into legislation and cultural practices today is a separate questionone Im not prepared to address here. Some incentives already exist (e.g., tax breaks for charitable donations). Im merely pointing out that Christians who express concern about the disparity between the haves and have nots should not be labeled Marxists by other Christians on that criterion alone.

And if the term social justice is sometimes co-opted by Marxists, rejecting the concept outright robs Christians of the chance to become part of the conversation regarding its definition and application. It is a fluid concept right now, and using the term in a way that validates biblical principles of justice can help shape the way in which the cultural conversation develops.

Backing out of the conversation, on the other hand, involves relinquishing the chance to have what could be an important, positive influence.

Argument #3: The Black Lives Matter movement is Marxist and supportive of the LGBTQ communitys attempts to criminalize traditional, biblical views of sexuality.

Response: The official Black Lives Matter movement, started by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, is indeed built on a Marxist foundation and deeply involved with LGBTQ agendas. I took an entire doctoral-level cultural studies course on the Black Lives Matter movement, so Im very aware of these connections.

However, as the course in question also involved a study of Twitter campaigns and hashtags (yes, people study Twitter in academia these days), I became just as aware that most people who use the #blacklivesmatter hashtag have no connection to the movement proper.

The hashtag itself speaks a truth, and people who hold up a sign at a protest proclaiming that truth are not necessarily involved with or even aware of the tenets of the movement proper. Conversations surrounding the Black Lives Matter protests should not assume that the slogan is owned by the movement (nor should the movement itself try to own all those who use the hashtag or the slogan).

I also believe that if Christians fail to become involved in promoting the truth behind the slogan, we are lending credence to the Marxist claim that Christianity exists merely to perpetuate the injustices it (Marxism) seeks to correct.

I think many of my fellow believers would be surprised how many people in my field are disgusted by our faith not because they believe we hold outdated ideas about God (though thats a common belief as well) but because weve failed, so many times throughout history, to stand up for the oppressed.

My response to that disgust is that theyre not wrong about Christians having done the wrong thing at many times throughout history but that, when Christians have done the wrong thing, weve been acting in a way inconsistent with the tenets of our own faith. Because I believe that even Christians struggle with sin, Im not surprised when I study history and read about my brothers and sisters having massive blind spots and acting accordingly (it makes me wonder what my own massive blind spots are).

But I do believe that those blind spots are just thatblind spots, areas in which they failed to see the truths of Scripture or understand how to apply them. When I see atrocities perpetrated by Lenin, Stalin, or Mao, however, I see the source of those atrocities built into their own philosophy and its assumption that creating a virtual paradise (a classless society) is possible and therefore worth achieving no matter what the cost.

Also, for the record, those in the LGBTQ community are highly sensitive that they not be left out of conversations involving justice for other marginalized groups. While I hold to a traditional, biblical view of sexuality that would offend many in the LGBTQ community, I do believe it is important that they be treated like the human beings they are, and I am willing to listen to them even if I will not agree with all of their claims.

There is a real fear among members of the LGBTQ community that they will suffer violence and dehumanization from others (and instances of such violence are well-documented).

As human beings, they deserve protection from those threats. Conversations over the distinction between disagreement and dehumanization are difficult because they involve questions regarding identity categories, but I hope and pray that such conversations can still happen.

Argument #4: The concept of white privilege is unjust because it blames white people today for atrocities, such as slavery or segregation, that were set up generations ago and that they had no hand in creating. It also suggests that white people today should feel guilty for racism even if they are not racists themselves.

Response: Some people probably do use the term white privilege in this way (the conversation is developing at such a rapid pace that such terminology is developing new shades of meaning at an accelerated rate). However, the term is helpful in describing a real phenomenonone that Ive personally witnessed taking place. Bear with me, and Ill define it first, then share a personal story to illustrate what I mean.

White privilege refers to the phenomenon in which white people receive certain societal benefits that they did not earnbenefits they receive by default simply for being white.

To be clear, I do not feel guilty for being born white. I was created that way, and its no more a sin to be born white than it is to be born a member of any other race.

However, I do recognize that some peopleand some institutionswill respond to me differently because I am white. I do not, for example, get followed around department stores by loss-prevention officers because I look like the kind of person who might steal something. My Black friends do have that happen to them.

This is where the term privilege gets sticky, because it can be understood to mean I have a benefit that I shouldnt havei.e., that we should both be followed around the store. Actually, however, what Im receiving is the benefit of the doubtthe default assumption that Im going to be honest until I do or say something to undermine that assumption.

What the concept of privilege actually suggests is that we should both get the benefit of the doubt. It is not a privilege because I shouldnt have it; it is a privilege because I have it and other people just as honest as I am do not have it. The term, in this context, calls attention to an unjust and illogical disparity in expectations.

Now, how should I respond? Should I feel guilty for the racism informing the tendencies of loss-prevention officers to target customers other than me for surveillance?

I shouldnt feel the guilt of being individually culpable for what other people do. After all, I didnt ask the loss-prevention officers to follow other people around. However, I should feel guilty if I recognize the larger problem at work hereboth individual and systemic racismand do nothing about it.

I cant fix it single-handedly, but I can speak up. I can vote. I can teach texts in my classroom that confront these issues. I can say something when a white friend tells a racist joke. I can listen to my friends of color when they share their experiences and allow myself to be guided by their insight. If I dont, Im part of the problem and share the guilt of perpetuating it (even though I didnt personally cause it).

I might also feel other emotions, such as anger, which is a proper response to injustice. This is, in fact, exactly what I felt when I visited the local social security office to get an updated card after my wedding thirteen years ago.

My sister, a Korean-American adopted at three-months-old and naturalized as an American citizen in early childhood, had gotten married to her husband in the same ceremony. She, being more on top of things than I was, had already gone to the office to get her card. She had taken the required documents listed on the websitebirth certificate, current social security card, a photo ID, etc. When she arrived at the office and showed her papers, however, they demanded more: they wanted to see other papers, records, etc. that were not officially required when she already had a valid social security card.

I remember them demanding that she make several trips to their officeI even remember hearing that they wanted to make her take a test in American history (because all real Americans apparently know their history so well). Finally, she got the card.

Having heard about all the hoops they had made her jump through, I was nervous about going to get my card. I double-checked that I had everythingbirth certificate, social security card, photo ID, etc.

When I got to the window, I handed over my current card and said I was there to get an updated card with my new name. The woman behind the counter handed it to me without even asking to see my drivers license.

When I got back to my car, I called my sister and ranted about what racist jerks ran the social security office and how outraged I was on her behalf. I probably felt a little self-righteous, if Im honest, for my outrage, and I do believe I was right to feel the outrage. I shouldnt have felt so righteous, though.

A more righteous person would have walked back inside and asked to speak to the employees supervisor. Maybe I wasnt a racist, but I didnt do anything to challenge racism when it hit me in the face, and so, notwithstanding my righteous anger, I failed to do the right thing because I dont like confrontations.

I hope and pray that, given the injustices on national news these days, I will do the right thing the next time I get a chance to. Its why Im writing this essay-length note, knowing full well that my Marxist friends (if they take the time to read it) will not appreciate my objections to their philosophy and that some of my Christian friends (if they take the time to read it) will see me as selling out.

I want to do the right thing this time, though, and so Im doing my best to add to a difficult conversation. I welcome any and all honest responses, whether they agree with me or not. There are important questions being raised about issues that directly and/or indirectly affect my brothers and sisters in Christand my friends of other faiths and no faith who share similar concerns about justice.

So Ill end my long reflections by saying, on or off social media, lets talk.
Kevin Giles, in his new book  one more than he thought he would ever write  explores the connection of complementarianism and male abuse of women. Is there correlation? Causation? A connection at all? His book is called The Headship of Men and the Abuse of Women: Are They Related in Any Way?

This book belongs on a shelf in every pastors library. Every pastor. Agree or not, read it. Why did Giles write this book, and here he begins to explore the correlation-causation discussion:

In this book ... I argue headship teaching can encourage and legitimate domestic abuse and it must be abandoned if domestic abuse is to be effectively countered in our churches.

I write because I have long been a sharp critic of headship teaching. I have argued over forty years that this is not the creation-ideal and it can be toxic for needy and controlling men who are present in all our churches and among the clergy. It can encourage and legitimate abuse. I am convinced that Scripture in fact makes the substantial equality of the sexes the God-given ideal.

His focus in the first chapter is the SBC in the USA and the Sydney Anglicans in his home country, Australia. He opens with a shorter story about the SBC and their annual meeting

What this SBC annual meeting [of 2018] made plain was that the abuse of women as individuals could not be separated from its headship teaching that implied the secondary status of women in the church and the home. The woman problem in Southern Baptists Churches is just one of the many huge challenges this denomination faces, possibly its most pressing and important one, and one that the church is unable to address because they have made the hierarchical ordering of the sexes a matter of faith. They have claimed this is what a true Christian should believe. This is costing the church dearly.

Image: Cover Photo

He then turns to The Anglican Diocese of Sydney and their big meeting in 2018 in which there was discussion and debate about complementarianism, about physical abuse of women by male leaders in Sydney Anglican churches, and how the two are connected. A long document was produced.

I quote here his summary of that discussion:

Following the tabling and acceptance of this document, a large percentage of synod members wanted a motion put, stating publicly that abuse and violence in a marriage were a valid reason for divorce. The power brokers in the diocese were opposed to this because for them the Bible only gave two grounds for divorce, adultery (Matt 19:9), and desertion (1 Cor 7:15). They thus carefully worded the motion that went before the chair of synod. The motion asked the archbishop or regional bishops to approve the remarriage of a divorced person, where that person has been abused physically or emotionally by their former spouse. The motion was worded in this way because the opponents did not want to be seen as opposing an abused woman leaving her marriage, possibly in fear of her life. Opposing remarriage was less of a problem. This made for a very confusing debate. In the minds of most of those present in synod if someone is validly divorced, then they can remarry. Divorce annuls marriage vows. Once the debate began the real issue in contention soon became apparent. Those opposed were convinced that domestic abuse and violence were not biblical grounds for divorce. Dr. Mark Thompson, the principal of Moore College, led the opposition. He said, We must be very careful that in our right and proper concern for the victims of domestic abuse, we do not redraw our doctrine of marriage. Bishop Peter Lin, also speaking in opposition, was even more explicit. He said as awful as abuse and violence in a marriage might be, the Bible did not allow this to be a valid reason for divorce. In opposing he motion, several speakers appealed to 1 Pet 3:1-6, where they believed the Bible asked married Christian women to accept abuse and violence at the hand of their husband. Others quoted Mal 2:16, following the RSV and NRSV translation, I hate divorce says the Lord.

All those in favor of the motion, like those in opposition, saw the issue as whether or not abuse and violence in a marriage is a valid reason to leave ones husband and divorce him, and they were convinced it is. They won the day. As the debate drew to a close, Robert Tong, a strong opponent of the motion [Tong disputes this on my FB Page as there is no evidence he is a strong opponent, which is not saying hes not an opponent but that theres no evidence], moved that it be a secret ballot. This did not help him or his friends. The motion was carried 325 to 161. What is remarkable is that 161 voters were convinced that a Christian woman should not divorce her husband no matter how abusive and violent he might be, even if she was in fear of her life and that of her children! [My emphasis.] Their biblical view of marriage could not allow it. Upholding their doctrine of marriage was more important than protecting women.

Archbishop Glen Davies, himself a conservative evangelical and complementarian, and who was chairing the synod, said that for him personally this is one of the most contentious and difficult issues that I have had to deal with. Why this matter was for him, and the 161 opponents of the motion, so difficult is clear. It was expressed many times by speakers against the motion. Scripture gives no explicit basis for a woman to divorce her husband for abuse or violence. 

He then turns to his own evaluation, setting up where he will go in this book:

For me [Kevin Giles], the God revealed in Jesus Christ would not expect a woman in fear of her life and possibly the life of her children to stay in her marriage at any cost. I do not need a text to convince me of this. If anyone thinks otherwise, I can only conclude there is something un-balanced in their theology. They are like the Pharisees of old who could justify their behavior by appeal to a text (Matt 5:21-47; 15:1-20; 19:1-7; 22:23-33; 23:1-36; etc.) and yet Jesus judged them to be in error, calling them hypocrites (Matt 7:5; Luke 6:42; 13:15; etc.).

Having this discussion is hard everywhere. Theres much to lose, much to gain  for both sides of this conversation. Complementarians need to be honest enough to look at the facts.
Episcopal Church files motion against order favoring breakaway SC diocese in $500M property dispute

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The Episcopal Church is fighting a judge's order giving $500 million in church properties to a breakaway diocese in South Carolina, countering a 2017 state Supreme Court ruling that allotted the properties to the national denomination.

The motion was made in response to an order from South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Edgar Dickson, who had been tasked with enforcing the state Supreme Court's ruling against the breakaway diocese.

Rather than affirming the high court's decision, however, Dickson issued an order that said each parish, rather than the national denomination, owns its property.

The Court should reconsider the Order and should alter or amend it to carry into effect the result mandated by the [state] Supreme Courts decision, stated the motion filed on behalf of The Episcopal Church.

The motion argues, among other things, that the court lacked the authority to issue the Order and that it misinterprets and contradicts the state Supreme Court's decision.

Even if this Court somehow had the authority to relitigate the issues upon which the Supreme Court previously ruled, the Order incorrectly analyzes the facts and improperly applies the law, the motion adds.

After eight years of the adversarial process, for the Circuit Court to take away legally recognized rights at this time  based on the identical record that led to the Supreme Courts reversal of [a lower court decision]  is nothing short of arbitrary and capricious.

In November 2012, the majority of the members of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina voted to leave the national denomination, leading to years of litigation over church properties.

They voted to leave over theological differences and the apparent mistreatment of their leader, Bishop Mark Lawrence. The breakaway diocese later joined the Anglican Church in North America.

In August 2017, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that The Episcopal Church and the continuing Episcopal members owned the $500 million diocesan properties and name, and not the breakaway diocese.

Acting Justice Costa Pleicones wrote the majority opinion. He concluded that the lower court ruling had an "error of law" that produced "a distorted view of the issues in this case."

However, on June 19, Dickson issued an order arguing that each parish owned its property based upon neutral principles of law rather than being held in trust by the national Episcopal denomination.

This is a property matter, and the title holders are the owners of their property as set forth in their deeds. There is no clear, convincing evidence of an expressed or constructive trust applicable to any parish, wrote Dickson.
Florida Gov. DeSantis signs law requiring parental consent for abortion

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill into law requiring parental consent before an abortion can be performed on an underage girl.

While the governor did not make a public statement about the new law, it's proponents, such as Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, lauded the measure, stressing that parents have the right to know that their child is pregnant and considering an abortion, Fox13 in Tallahassee reports.

The serious and irrevocable decision to end a pregnancy involves undergoing a significant medical procedure that results, in many cases, in lifelong emotional and physical impacts, Galvano said in a statement.

The parents of a minor child considering an abortion must be involved in such a substantial and permanent decision, he added.

The Republican-majority state legislature has, in recent years, passed several bills regulating abortion. In 2015, Florida passed a bill requiring a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, but that law is being challenged and has not gone into effect.

In 2004, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment requiring parental notification before their child has an abortion. The recently passed law goes even further by requiring parental consent.

The parental-notification law contained within it a process whereby minors are allowed to go to court to avoid notifying their parents about obtaining an abortion  referred to as a judicial bypass  a feature that is also part of the consent measure.

Galvano said Tuesday that for those who are in a situation of abuse or where parental consent is not in the childs best interest, the bill provides a judicial waiver process that still involves the intervention of an adult.

Abortion rights groups are decrying the new law.

This law will put already at-risk young people in even greater danger at the worst possible time, Stephanie Fraim, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said in a statement.

The new law regulating abortion comes on the heels of a significant setback at the Supreme Court for the pro-life movement in the case of June Medical Services v. Russo, which concerned a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at local hospitals in cases where their patient suffers and emergency. This is a standard requirement that also pertains to doctors who work at ambulatory surgical centers.

In a 5-4 decision earlier this week, the high court ruled that the law was unconstitutional. The court's four Democratic appointees, along with Chief Justice Roberts, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, voted against the Louisiana law, with Roberts citing a recent Supreme Court precedent in 2016. The Supreme Court similarly ruled in that case, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, striking down a similar law in Texas, though Roberts voted in support of the Texas law.
Less than 30% of US churches actively addressing racism, study shows

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Less than 30% of American churches are actively engaged in addressing racism or racial inequality even though most pastors agree that churches should oppose the social ills, according to recent research from Barna.

Despite the ongoing social unrest over racial inequality and police brutality sparked by the killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers in May, only 29% of Protestant pastors from Barnas pastor panel said their churches were either completely or mostly actively involved in addressing racism or racial inequality. Another 30% of the 2,350 Protestant senior pastors on the panel polled in online surveys from March 20  June 15, said they were somewhat involved in addressing the issues at their church.

I was surprised that many people said that they were somewhat engaged in [addressing racism], Pastor Albert Tate of Fellowship Monrovia in California said in response to the data during a recent ChurchPulse Weekly podcast with hosts Carey Nieuwhof, a former lawyer and founding pastor of Connexus Church in Ontario, Canada, and David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group. Also in the discussion was the Rev. Nicole Martin, executive director of healing and trauma at the American Bible Society.

Theres a whole propaganda [surrounding this] and people are comforted by voices that convince them that this issue isnt even real, let alone someone empathizing in this moment, Tate added.

Nearly all pastors, 94%, agree the Church has a responsibility to publicly denounce racial discrimination and 89% say it's important for church leaders to publicly show support for people of color, Barna also found.

And while 62% of pastors said their church made a statement on the recent protests happening across the nation, having conversations about issues of racism in church has been difficult because of the different perspectives people hold.

The majority of white practicing Christians, 61%, believes issues of racism are the result of an individuals own beliefs and prejudices against people of other races while two-thirds of black practicing Christians, 66%, argue that racial discrimination is historically built into American society and institutions, Barna found in 2019. This situation has made it challenging for many white pastors to discuss the issue from their pulpits.

Every Christian would say, community shows up in the Bible and that God cares about community, Martin said in discussing the concept of individual versus communal faith. And yet, for some reason, one of the challenges of evangelicalism is this hyper-individualization when it comes to salvation. Its, I accept Jesus for myself. He saves me from my sins, which then allows for some people to say, Well, I personally like black people, therefore, [addressing racism] is not my problem.

This challenge was recently highlighted in the case of white Mississippi Pastor Bishop Scott Volland who was recently booted by The Heights Church in Columbus, Ohio, for supporting the idea that black lives matter (as a human fact) and standing with protesters against racial injustice.

Over the last couple of weeks, what weve heard sporadically over the last several months has become much more concentrated, in that many here do not share my views. Whether it is saying that black lives matter (as a human fact), or in speaking out to remove racially offensive/insensitive monuments or politicians, I have been informed that my agenda will not work at this church, and that I dont speak for the church. Nor do they agree with me sharing them publicly or being involved in any type of: marches, peaceful protests, governmental meetings, interviews, etc. concerning race or racism, Volland said in announcing his June 21 departure.

My heart grieves for 101 different reasons in this season, Martin added. There is a part of my heart that grieves for the lack of consistency and thorough education for white Christians to see themselves in this context.

Barna found that 93% of U.S. Protestant pastors agree that it's important for church leaders to guide their congregations in thinking about racial justice, but when politics come into play that support wanes. Some 61% of pastors say conversations about race are too political, contributing to the difficulty in having these discussions.

Both Martin and Tate stressed that God is able to handle tough conversations.

If God is big enough to handle all of these things, then what fear is not an authentic one that you cant bring to Christ and say, Im afraid of that right there, Martin said.

Youve got to do what Paul does, Tate advised. Paul said, When I was with the Jews, I became like the Jews. When I was with the Gentiles, I became like them. I became those things so that I might win some.
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Several days ago, one of my daughters arrived home after a long day of working as a teacher for a local childcare center. I asked her about her day and she shared an interesting and disturbing moment she had encountered with her mother and me.

My daughter and some of the other childcare teaching associates were engaged in a discussion about one of todays heightened and unresolved societal problems covering the American landscape  racism and violence against black men and women and police brutality against unarmed black men.

The recent murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery were also included in the conversation. As the dialogue continued, a newly employed teacher  a young woman of a youthful appearance who looked as though she had recently graduated from high school, interjected with her comments.

She said, They deserved to die. Black people are animals. With an expression of dismay, my daughter responded, You know Im black, right? The woman replied, Oh! I thought you were Hispanic. Afterward, the childcare owner who was present during the occasion told the woman, You need to get up and come to my office right now. After a short conversation, the woman was fired and the owner apologized to my daughter for her behavior. My daughter and a teacher of Puerto Rican descent are the only people of color who are employed at the center.

When my daughter was a student in a predominantly white populated high school in a small northern Michigan town, her history teacher, upon entering into the black history section of their book, shared with his students that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the attorney who was involved in the noted 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court lawsuit.

After being challenged by my daughter and another student  the only two blacks in the classroom  the teacher was adamant about being correct. Thurgood Marshall was the lead attorney during the landmark case which outlawed racial segregation in United States schools. A concerted effort should be made by all educators teaching black history that accuracy is instilled in their instructions.

This countrys educational system already has a long and troublesome track record of distorting, omitting or barely referencing the history of African Americans and other people of color in its history books. Therefore, a recalibrated mindset of inclusion needs to take effect.

Bigotry is taught, not inherited. If not corrected, it will most likely flourish into the evil of racism. Unwilling or lacking the desire to build relationships with other races and to learn about their cultures because of ignorance and fear is an excuse but not an acceptable one.

The heart has to change. Its the last frontier because we as a country have tried so many other things. This nation has passed laws that we thought were written in stone but can be changed with a stroke of a pen.

When you go to the doctors office to see a new doctor for the first time, you have to complete a lot of forms before he will see you. He wants to know your medical history, your mother and fathers history and possibly the histories of your grandparents. In order to diagnose and resolve the problem, you have to know the history of the problem.

Likewise, in order to begin to resolve the issue of racism, the white population has to engage with blacks in constructive dialogue in order to learn and understand their history in this country, the tragedies, the sacrifices and the triumphs of black history which is also American history. Although our cultures are different, we have a lot in common  experiencing pain and fear, having hopes, a desire to learn and wanting to be loved.

You can look at the various and pivotal moments before and since the founding of this country  the year of 1619, the slavery era, the Civil War, the Reconstruction era, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement era and the present  and say that these were not social and political crises. They were and are now spiritual crises.

The white populace within the church body of Christ and as a collective voice throughout the history of the United States has been vocal in their sanction for bigotry and racism or has remained silent in regards to race relations. There have been a few stalwarts here or there, but the human body cannot function in its maximum capacity with its limbs in restrictive operating conditions and the blood haphazardly flowing through our veins  attempting to out maneuver blood clots.

Therefore, the body of Christ will not function and reach its highest potential as mandated by God if his whole armor (Ephesians 6:11) is not worn at all times. Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10-29) and tries to immediately steal Gods word if its not rooted deeply in the heart (Mark 4:15). He accomplishes those things by manipulation through disobedience, divisions and distractions, and among other things. (I Corinthians 1:10) Can you imagine if the Trinity were divided amongst themselves God the Father against the Holy Spirit, Jesus the Son against God the Father, and the Holy Spirit against Jesus the Son? He would be a God of disorder and not of order.

Now is the time for the body of Christ  consisting of many races and ethnicities  to become united under the manifold grace of God and to relinquish and speak against the divisions of hatred and fear. This has to occur before we can spiritually impact our cities, states, the country and the world through our speeches and prayers. As Christians, we are supposed to share common experiences that shape the way we understand the worldview kingdom of God including our faith, race, national origin, gender and class. The desire for a change begins in our hearts and manifest in our homes, our church body and the houses of worship, and out amongst the people.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong. Therefore, the focus should be on the church house, not the local or state governments, or The White House.

Each one. Teach one. This African American proverb was written by an unknown author and believed to have originated in the United States during slavery when Africans were denied education.
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The past two weeks of Supreme Court rulings have not been encouraging. After the disastrous ruling in Bostock arbitrarily expanded civil rights protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity, the Court, in June Medical, all but handcuffed meaningful state efforts to restrict abortion.

Finally, good news. The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, held its ground on discrimination against religious education. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Court ruled that a state tax credit which [discriminates] against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to attend them violates the First Amendments Free Exercise Clause.

The case dates back to 2015 when the state of Montana created a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for individuals who donate to organizations that provide scholarships to private school students. After creating the program, the Montana Department of Revenue ruled that such a tax credit, if used to fund to religious private schools, would violate the states version of the Blaine Amendment, which prohibits state funding of religious education.

Kendra Espinoza, a single mom who works extra jobs in order to send her kids to a Christian school, challenged the Department of Revenues ruling in court. In late 2018, the Montana Supreme Court acknowledged that the Departments ruling probably ran afoul of the U.S. Constitutions Free Exercise Clause. However, instead of overturning the ruling, it invalidated the entire program.

Thankfully, that didnt work.

In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said that when otherwise eligible recipients are disqualified from a public benefit solely because of their religious character, we must apply strict scrutiny. His statement was a reference to the Trinity Lutheran decision, a case that was successfully argued by the Alliance Defending Freedom in 2017.

Strict scrutiny means that the action can only be justified by a compelling governmental interest. Montana lacked a compelling government interest. Instead, the state argued that the law served Montanas interest in separating church and State more fiercely than the Federal Constitution.

Montanas interest, replied Justice Roberts, is actually limited by the Free Exercise Clause. In other words, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause cannot be pitted against each other. The separation of church and state cannot be done by discriminating against the Church, and religion is not a secondary part of the First Amendment.

And, Roberts continued, the attempt to sweep the Free Exercise problem under the rug by invalidating the whole program doesnt change what he called Montanas error of federal law. After all, because of the Trinity Lutheran decision, the Montana Court already knew the Departments ruling was unconstitutional. But, instead of applying the decision as it should have, it invalidated the whole program to make absolutely sure that religious schools received no aid. That action in itself violated the Free Exercise Clause, according to Roberts: A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.

Roberts opinion is a resounding repudiation of dozens of Blaine Amendments in other states as well. Originally targeted to limit Catholic education, these amendments provide legal cover for treating religious institutions and the people who depend on them as second-class citizens. Roberts made it as clear as possible that they, and we, are not.

Roberts also rejected Justice Breyers argument for a flexible, context-specific approach that may well vary from case to case. Religious institutions and citizens should not be at the mercy of courts waxing philosophical about the purposes of the Religion Clauses, and then applying them on an ad hoc basis. Not to mention, its hard to imagine Breyers flexible, context-specific approach being applied to any other right, such as abortion.

Perhaps the best part of this ruling is that it offers a roadmap for Christians who hope to help people like Kendra Espinoza afford Christian education. The Montana program can serve as a model for other states and could even open the door for other solutions such as vouchers. Educational innovation has long been among the best gifts of Christians to the wider world. This is an open door for us to be even more creative today.

Thats why this decision is such good news. After the earthquakes from the Court the past few weeks, its certainly nice to have some solid ground on which to stand.

Originally posted at breakpoint.org
In 1955, the 28-unit Blue Bird Courts were considered a premier hotel in Conroe.

So its fitting that The King  Elvis Presley  laid his head there when he and his band were in Conroe for the Louisiana Hayride Tour in August 1955.

But the lodge was also host to weary travelers, salesmen, families new in town, honeymooners, mischievous teenagers and some military helicopters on one occasion from 1947 through the late 1970s.

Until the freeway was built in the 1960s, old Texas 75 was the main thoroughfare between Dallas and Houston and those at The Blue Bird Courts had a front-seat view for the goings on along the highway.

I used to sit in the lobby and watch all the cars go by and people check in, said Ginger Backhus whose aunt Opal Smoot Jacobs worked at The Blue Bird Courts.

Wayne Inglets grandparents, Abner H. Whitey Crouch and Rose Crouch owned The Blue Bird Courts and his parents Earl and Wynabell Inglet managed the property.

One of his favorite things as a kid was sitting outside the hotel and waiting for the prison buses to come by from Sugar Land traveling to the Prison Rodeo in Huntsville.

The Blue Bird Courts are no more, but memories of the times there are still vivid for those who stayed there or grew up there.

Start of the Blue Bird Courts

Abner Henry Whitey Crouch was born in Kentucky in 1887.

As a young man he traveled to Cincinati, Ohio and worked on the citys ice wagon and operated a street car there.

His cousin, Charlie, convinced him to seek the fortunes of oil work in Texas and Oklahoma.

Along the way, he met Rose Caldwell in Henrietta, Texas. They married in 1916. In Texas, he became engaged in the pipeline side of the energy industry.

According to his grandson Wayne Inglet, during the late 1920s and 1930s he had his own pipeline company.

Hed tell the story that one of his little, insignificant competitors was a company called Brown and Root, Inglet said.

He said his grandfather was always very ambitious with many friends and a strong personality.

His grandparents bought approximately 1,500 acres in the area of what would become Lake Conroe in 1939. He was able to pay $25,000 cash for the property. Part of the property is now the Seven Coves subdivision.

A need after the war

Following World War II, he also had the vision to open a motel in Conroe.

In the 1940s, when you came to Conroe you were traveling by train if you were coming from a great distance because the road system was terrible, Inglet said. Since it was just after the war, he thought there was a need for somewhere for people to stay outside of the big cities.

Work started on the lodging in 1946 with the property taking up almost a full city block. The hotel was between Waco and Austin streets along Frazier Street. A Family Dollar store is now located on the property.

Inglet said his grandfather picked an unfortunate time to build following the war.

He had difficulty obtaining materials due to shortages.

For example, his grandfather once told him he had to drive all over creation to find enough toilets for the motel. The building was also made out of stucco and the flat roof later gave them tremendous leak issues.

Inglets parents were the half-owners and managers of the property until their deaths in November 1958. Then the Crouchs took over and Inglet, 13, moved in with his grandparents along with his two brothers.

He said they sought commercial business and had many salesmen stay there, including employees of Texas Auto Transports that hauled new cars from place to place. It was considered a charge stop where TAT employees stayed free and then TAT payed the bill each month.

A single was $4 a night. A double was $7 or $8. There were also some larger rooms for whole families that could be had for $10 or $11.

Happy memories and one not-so-happy memory

Growing up at The Blue Bird Courts brought many happy memories for Inglet.

In his youth, downtown and its drug stores and soda fountains and the Liberty and Crighton Theatres were in walking distance. So were his schools and the original county library.

The first library was next to the Subway restaurant where The Blossom Shop is now.

At the time it was vacant where the Subway is today. So his walk from the hotel and across the lot to the library lead to many happy hours of reading.

I spent tons of time at the library as a kid, he said. The time spent there shaped the rest of my life. I love history. All of that love of history started a block and a half away from The Blue Bird Courts at the library.

He went on to write a book about his uncle Sidney Inglets war-time experience.

He can laugh about it now, but at the time he didnt so much cherish the large lot The Blue Bird Courts sat on.

It was his and his brothers job to mow the lot and they were paid $2 a piece by their grandfather.

He said the lot was so large that by the time you finished mowing, it was time to start again.

Inglet remembers clearly one Saturday morning he woke up not looking forward to the hot day of mowing ahead. To his delight, he looked outside to discover it was pouring rain. He and his brother went to see a movie instead.

By the mid-1960s the property became more than his grandparents could handle and they sold the business. But they both remained in Conroe the rest of their lives with Mr. Crouch dying at 94 and Mrs. Crouch dying at nearly 104.

New owners

Conroe businessmen Wallace Lampton and L.C. Shepard became the new owners.

Lampton ran a grocery store and Shepard had a furniture business.

Backhus aunt, Opal Smoot Jacobs worked for them at the hotel.

She also spent many happy hours of her youth there.

Shed help the maid clean on Saturdays and Sundays. She also recalled that there was no automatic light switch so theyd go from one end to the other turning on the lights.

It sounds boring, but was fun as a kid, she said.

She also shared memories of a bird named Buster.

He was a funny bird, she said. His cage was by the window and he sounded like guys trying to start and old car. He also said watch the dogs. He picked that up when people came in the office. When people came in, Opal would open the door and always say that and he picked it up.

Carol Defoors grandmother, Lillie Taylor, worked the reception desk there. She went by Lola and was known as one of the best cooks in town.

She ran Mrs. Macs cafe down the street with her mother, Mrs. McCoy.

She rented out rooms, but she also cooked for just about everyone there, said Defoor. Some of the people lived there week to week and didnt have much so shed cook all types of meals for them.

She called her grandmother a fixer who never met a stranger.

Shed try to fix everybody, Defoor said. If they were hungry, she fed them, and if they needed something she helped them.

When Defoor was married, she and her new husband spent their honeymoon there, courtesy of her grandmother. Her husband was about to ship out for military service, but they spent the first two nights of their marriage at Conroes Blue Bird Courts.

She said the rooms were small, quaint and simple. She didnt even think there was a phone in the room.

The demise of The Blue Bird Courts

In the 1960s, I-45 was constructed through Conroe and people began to travel along the interstate from Houston to Dallas. Then Lake Conroe was completed in 1973 as a destination for Houston residents to come play for the weekend.

This signaled a slow death for mom and pop businesses along Texas 75.

The Blue Bird Courts were torn down in the late 1970s. Today several businesses sit on that block.

And while the building may be gone now, its memories are a reminder of simpler times and simpler traveling.
American Airlines will have over 20,000 more employees than it needs to operate a deeply reduced flying schedule as travel demand slowly rebuilds amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The estimate represents about 20% to 30% of American's expected workforce later this year. Not all would necessarily be furloughed after Sept. 30, however, because the carrier is continuing efforts to trim jobs through leave, early retirement and voluntary separation programs, the airline's top executives said.

"We still have work to do to right-size our team for the airline we will operate," Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a memo to employees Thursday. "We are committed to resetting the airline using a different playbook than the one of past crises where last-in, first-out furloughs were the expected result."

American's sobering outlook illustrates the depth of the airline industry's challenge to recover from the biggest collapse in travel demand. Carriers worldwide have parked jets, slashed flying, boosted borrowing, trimmed workforces and in many cases received billions of dollars in government aid. While leisure travel is slowly returning, passenger numbers are about a quarter of last year's levels. A full rebound isn't expected until at least 2023.

American has reduced its summer 2021 international schedule by 25% from pre-pandemic levels, signaling a limited recovery. The company has also notified flight attendants that it has as many as 8,000 more of them than it needs. American said it would cut staffing on some flights, close two bases for flight attendants and reduce the size of others.

In addition, American last month said its officer ranks would shrink by 30%. It was the first phase of changes under which almost a third of management and support staff will be cut.

U.S. carriers are prohibited from implementing mass involuntary layoffs through September under the terms of the government's aid for payrolls, airlines' largest expense.

American said Thursday that it signed a term sheet with the U.S. Treasury for an additional $4.75 billion loan, and expects to finalize the deal this quarter. The financing, in addition to the $5.8 billion in payroll support received earlier, brings liquidity to $15 billion, the Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier said. American has reduced its daily cash burn to less than $35 million at the end of June from $100 million in April.

The airline took in more than $1 billion in cash receipts in June, up from $11 million in April but far below the average of $4.2 billion monthly during the same periods of 2019, Parker and Isom said. American's average number of filled seats has climbed to 63% last month from 15% in April.

The company flew 4.2 million customers in June, compared with between 17 million and 19 million a year earlier.
After Texas set a new record of 8,029 new positive COVID-19 cases this week, doctors are urging Houstonians to take all possible COVID-19 precautions during Independence Day weekend.

"Having fun for two days may mean some people will be harmed for a long period of time," Houston Methodist ICU Director Dr. Faisal Masud said. "I understand people's frustration, but if we don't battle this appropriately, we will see the harm in the short-term and long-term. "

BRINK OF CAPACITY: Houston hospitals now transferring COVID-19 patients to other cities

Masud said that not taking necessary precautions with social distancing, wearing masks, good hygiene could lead to a devastating outcome.

"The alternative which we have clearly seen in the last 3 weeks is terrible, " Masud said. "Over 8,000 cases in Texas. It's going so much in the wrong direction."

Memorial Hermann Pediatric ER medicine physician Dr. Robert Lapus weighed in about the crucial steps ahead of July 4th.

"We have to work really hard and double down on what's been asked, making sure you always wear masks, social distancing, only meeting in small groups, isolating yourself if you're not feeling well," Lapus said. "The numbers we see today are a reflection of what happened weeks before, and the numbers continue to rise."

Memorial Hermann officials added that they are actively expanding the ICU capacity to meet the community's need. When it comes to crowds of any kind during July 4th, there was one resounding message.

"We are social creatures by nature," Lapus said. "Whether or not it's a bar or a restaurant, the important thing is if you meet in large groups and closed spaces, you have a high risk of getting infected. Keep to small groups. Stay outdoors versus a closed space where air is recirculated. Hygiene is very important."

RECORD HIGH: Texas sets another record with over 8,000 new cases

The critical thing is stay vigilant and safety-focused this July 4th, Lapus said.

"Texans and Houstonians are tough people. We have the ability to overcome obstacles like Harvey," Lapus said. "We have to make up our minds that this is what we're going to do. Hopefully we'll decrease the numbers.

Masud asked Houstonians to think of freedom a little differently this year.

"We celebrate July 4th as freedom--the freedom to make a good decision and to look out for each other," Masud said. "We have a choice now, but if people aren't doing it, the choices will go away. 8,000 cases--now they have to isolate themselves. They lost lots of freedom yesterday. Don't negate all the hard work that everyone's trying to do."
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China's e-commerce industry continued to thrive last year despite mounting downward economic pressures and lingering trade tensions, according to a report from the Ministry of Commerce.

China led the world in e-commerce, with about 51.26 million people employed in the sector in 2019.

The country's e-commerce transactions hit 34.81 trillion yuan (about 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, with online retail sales reaching 10.63 trillion yuan, up 16.5 percent year on year.

E-commerce has contributed a great deal in terms of "promoting consumption, stabilizing foreign trade, alleviating poverty, and boosting employment," playing a key role in ensuring the country's steady and high-quality development, the report said.

In 2019, online retail contributed 45.6 percent of the growth in the country's total retail sales.

The report also said that China has established bilateral e-commerce cooperation mechanisms with 22 countries.

In addition, China approved 24 cross-border e-commerce pilot zones in 2019, bringing the total number to 59. These pilot zones provide a streamlined system with simplified regulations for faster examination and approval, customs clearance, and easier information sharing for cross-border e-commerce imports and exports.

Since the start of the year, the e-commerce industry has played a prominent role in guaranteeing supplies, facilitating work resumption and stimulating consumption amid the COVID-19 epidemic, said the report.

The ministry pledged more measures to promote the digitalization of traditional industries and ensure the high-quality growth of the e-commerce sector.

China had more than 900 million internet users at the end of last year, with an internet penetration rate of 64.5 percent, according to the report.
Several Houston restaurants have temporarily closed due to COVID-19. The closures are typically announced on social media platforms and come at the discretion of restaurant owners.

HOUSTON COVID-19 UPDATES: What you need to know for July 10

To help slow the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas restaurants to return to service at 50 percent capacity on June 29. It's a reduction of the 75 percent capacity limit issued under Phase 3 of Abbott's reopening plan.

On Thursday, Texas saw the second-largest increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths since the pandemic began. From Wednesday to Thursday, cases increased by 4.53 percent for a total of 235,915 cases statewide, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis. An additional 106 new deaths were reported, bringing the state's death count to 2,976.

Below is a list of restaurants temporarily closed in Houst0n due to COVID-19.
ORANGE  West Orange-Cove Consolidated Independent School District is the first in Southeast Texas to release a plan for what school could look like when it opens next month, as districts across the region grow increasingly impatient with the lack of guidance from the states education agency.

I have been awaiting essential guidance from state officials so that I know what West Orange-Cove CISD is expected to do, allowed to do, or restricted from doing when school resumes in August, Superintendent Rickie Harris said in a letter to parents. Because of rapidly changing information pertaining to the spread of COVID-19 in our state, a delay in receiving guidance and instructions from the State of Texas authorities has forced the district to prepare multiple strategies and scenarios to be prepared for the various what ifs that might occur due to the virus.

In a call last week that gave guidance to school leaders on how districts will be funded for students that choose virtual learning, officials were told by the Texas Education Agency that health and safety guidance would be available as soon as this week.

Related: TEA again delays releasing reopening guidelines

An official with the TEA declined Wednesday to specify when that guidance would be released, only that it is forthcoming.

Harris said the district, which has formed a task force to discuss multiple options, is moving forward without guidance, echoing frustrations of other district leaders in the region.

We have started working on the in-person model without guidance from TEA based on the CDC recommendations and have a working plan, he said. We will do our best to provide as safe an environment for students as possible. Yet under the current circumstances that we are facing, it will be very difficult to keep anyone from bringing the virus into our schools.

The plan for in-person attendance includes precautions such as weekly health screenings, daily temperature checks, reduction in student movement, physically distancing classrooms, one-way hallways, alternative lunch locations, use of face shields for both staff and students provided by the district, limited sharing of supplies, staggered arrival and release times, reduced bus capacity and limited events and gatherings.

Harris noted the shutdown of summer workouts after only six days due to positive coronavirus cases as an early indicator of the dangers of reopening.

As superintendent and a parent, I have great concerns about the in-person option, but please know we will do what is best for the students of West Orange-Cove CISD, he said.

Parents with concerns will be given the opportunity to continue distance learning, with registration starting July 15.

Online schooling still will include time with a teacher. But unlike the emergency flex-learning plan put in place in March, students will have a curriculum specifically tailored to the online environment.

Students will be expected to participate in standardized state assessments, and will check in with teachers every day through Zoom, Google Classroom or another online learning management system.

The district said in recently released guidelines that learning could happen live over video calls or through pre-recorded lessons, adding that all related services will be provided through Zoom by WO-CCISD.

West Orange-Cove CISD will ask parents to choose in-person school or online school when registering students for classes beginning in mid-July so we can appropriately structure staffing for August, Harris said.

The superintendent said he still is hoping for guidance from the state.

WOCCISD and all other school districts look forward to the soon-to-be-released requirements and guidance from state officials regarding in-person school and measures that must be adhered to for the overall safety of students and staff to minimize the spread of the virus in our schools and, by extension, our communities, he said. We are moving forward with our planning and preparations.

Finalized, detailed plans soon will be available on the districts website.

isaac.windes@hearstnp.com

twitter.com/isaacdwindes
Discovery Green has a new public art installation, a mural honoring essential workers called Hands of Heroes.

Houston artist Anat Ronen painted the mural at the Jack C. Alexander Plaza, in front of The Grove restaurant.

"The design process was interesting. It started with an idea to honor healthcare workers, and then the protests started and the social justice unrest took center stage, making it obvious we needed to change the concept," said Ronen.

LOCAL ARTIST WANTS HEROES' NAMES FOR NEW MURAL: After surviving COVID-19, artist wants Houston heroes' names for new 'Resilient' mural

Stunning images make this new mural a great place to take a photo supporting the city's diversity.
Ninety-nine new cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed on Thursday by City of Laredo and Webb County officials, bringing the total number of recognized positives in Laredo to 1,703. Thursday's update also saw the 27th death due to the virus in Laredo.

A female in her 70s with underlying health conditions was under treatment at Doctors Hospital when she died Wednesday.

No further information was immediately available due to the city's policy of not releasing identifying information on COVID patients.

Laredo hospitals saw another spike in admissions due to the coronavirus. As of noon, 100 people are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19, with 30 people currently in the intensive care unit.

Before June 23, hospitalizations had hovered at 15 or below, but the number has continued to grow, with city officials previously reporting Doctors Hospital and Laredo Medical Center are both at or near their maximum COVID capacity. Though beds remain available, officials said a shortage in medical staffing is limiting capacity at both hospitals.

City health officials on Wednesday said that they are in close contact with state officials, should they need additional assistance in the way of temporary tented treatment centers or medical personnel.

The increase in positives is the third-greatest reported in Laredo since the emergence of the coronavirus in March.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Texas set a new high for single-day coronavirus cases, the second day in a row a new record-high was set. In a 24-hour window from Tuesday to Wednesday, the state recorded 8,029 new positive coronavirus cases, a 4.9 percent increase. Fifty-two deaths were also recorded in this window, bringing the statewide total to 2,509 deaths.

In Laredo, 914 cases of the virus are active infections. 762 people have passed their mandatory quarantine and have been cleared by city health officials to return to the general public.

As of noon Thursday, 9,717 COVID tests have been submitted in Laredo. 7,006 tests have returned negative.

1,008 tests are still pending results, though 442 are presumed negative due to being over 30 days old.
Houston hospitals are now feeling the impact of the recent surge in COVID-19 patients. According to Houston Chronicle's data team, Tuesday marked the highest single-day increase in COVID-19 cases for the state to date with more than 7,000 new cases reported.

Harris Health Systems, the public health system which operates Ben Taub and LBJ hospitals is now transferring COVID-19 patients to other healthcare facilities in outlying areas like Kingwood and the Woodlands. According to Harris Health Systems officials, 49 percent of the patients in Ben Taub's ICU are COVID-19 positive. Combined ICUs at Ben Taub and LBJ Hospitals are now at 85 percent capacity.

"We are now transferring out COVID-19 patients on a daily basis, because we don't have the internal capacity to manage them," said Charlie McMurray-Horton, the associated administrator of Clinical Integration and Transformation of Harris Health.

The significant uptick in cases has resulted in a search to find more hospital beds for Ben Taub patients.

"We at Harris Health Systems have to transfer our patients," McMurray-Horton said. "The intensity and level of the surge has definitely increased."

McMurray-Horton added that all Houston hospital ERs are facing the same flow of patients and challenges together, collaborating to help everyone in the community.

"We have a great collaboration with Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann, so they've taken several patients," McMurray-Horton said. "Not only in the TMC, but also in their outlying hospitals, like Kingwood, the Woodlands. Texas Children's is also making some adjustment to take adult patients. Everyone has risen to the challenge to meet the community's need."

McMurray-Horton compared the COVID-19 crisis situation to a hurricane that never ends.

"Houstonians know how to prepare and galvanize in a hurricane," McMurray-Horton said. "We prepare for it and we do the recovery. Houston Strong. We are doing that now. It's just that a hurricane lasts 5 days. This has been continuous."

From first responders to long-term care facilities, the impact of the uptick in Houston's COVID-19 cases is now being felt across the board, McMurray-Horton said.

"The higher the numbers, the bigger the burden is on the entire healthcare system in Houston," McMurray-Horton said.

McMurray-Horton is not shocked by the rising numbers, but she is concerned about the COVID-19 surge in Houston.

"I'm not surprised because the size of our area," McMurray-Horton said. "We're the third largest county behind NY, LA, and Chicago. It's concerning because we had the opportunity to impact it early on. We need to get back to the basics to control the increase. People got comfortable when we initially didn't get that surge. I have all the faith that we'll start impacting those numbers and bringing them down."

alison.medley@chron.com
When Texas bars were shut down a second time in four months, Houston's Capitol Bar Midtown co-owner, Shawn Outlaw was more than upset about it.

"It's heartbreaking. It's really heartbreaking for us. The first quarantine was a struggle.," Outlaw said. "We had to pay our mortgage and our rent. It's not just me, it's the bar backs, it's the security. If you say, 'hey guys, it'll be a month and then we'll reopen,' it's hard to see if you can make it."

The toughest part of the whole shutdown was the uncertainty and what to tell all of his employees.

"We all have our own homes. I rent an apartment in Midtown," Outlaw said. "I didn't expect that. They'll let you pay half. But the bills keep coming in."

It's even tougher when the bar follows all the specified COVID-19 guidelines.

"We are a patio bar. When we were allowed to reopen, we closed off the dance floor," Outlaw said. "We closed off half of the bar inside. We told people to grab their drinks and go outside on the patio. We took the requirement and went above it."

He emphasized that the staff also took measures right at the door.

"We had sanitizer at stations on all bartops, we did temperature checks and had signs," Outlaw said. "We want to do that for the customers' safety and our staff's safety."

When asked about other clubs that were packed like Cle and Spire, Outlaw said that businesses should have a COVID-19 certification to ensure safety for the customers and staff.

"They're taking a broad scope when they shut down everybody. It's unfair to those who are trying to do the right things. Why can't we figure out a way to do a COVID-19 certification to make things safe for customers? Then, you don't punish people who are really trying."

Outlaw had planned on attending a protest of bar owners against the shutdown in Houston. Outlaw's friend who attended the protest in Austin said that some bar owners said they didn't know how they were going to survive.

"We are just trying to provide for our families and our employees families," Outlaw said. "We're all shut down or we should all have a right to be open."

Outlaw said the one thing that's truly hurting his staff and other bar owners is simply not knowing what's ahead.

"We can ride it out a little longer--or I close up shop," Outlaw said. "It's the unknown. I can handle a month. But I can't handle 6 months. It would be nice to know what I'm looking at. Unfortunately, I don't have that option because we have no idea."

Outlaw shares this message with other Texas bar owners.

"Hang in there. Hopefully we'll be back open soon," Outlaw said.
While ladies with the Klein Stake church group were used to sewing quilts for homeless clients of Northwest Assistance Ministries, the group decided to rev up their sewing machines and create cloth masks for local groups in need.

Women with Klein Texas Stake, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints group, and other women from church groups in the area crafted more than 1,200 masks for local groups in the Houston area and beyond. Laurie Moreland, president of the Klein Stake Relief Society, said she reached out to members of the interfaith community who participated in the Interfaith Quilting Bee after hearing from Karen Weakly with NAM.

Giving back to their roots: Cavity Patrol Pediatric Dentistry to donate funds to Cy-Hope for every new patient

Our church congregation has been working with NAM and their homeless program, Moreland said. Karen Weakly knew that we had a lot of ladies that sewed. So when all of this corona stuff hit the fan, she thought she would call her friend at the church and see what we can do.

Women with Christ the Good Shepherd Catholic Community, St. Edwards Catholic Community, Northwoods Presbyterian Church, Greenwood Forest Quilters and Lakewood United Methodist churches all participated in making the masks. The West Texas, Tomball Stake, Houston West Stake, North Stake and Cypress Stake branches of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also participated.

I thought, Oh these ladies had just done all of these masks (for NAM), I dont know, Moreland said. But others joined in. I know a lot of people in this area, Ive been here for 20 years, and I just put it out on my social media and invited other groups of our church in different parts of the northwest Houston area.

COVID-19 testing is purely private: Harris County Public Health encourages residents to get tested, assures privacy

NAM received more than 380 masks from the project, while other masks were delivered to Spring Creek Village Care Center, Buckingham Senior Living, Harris County Constables offices, the Klein Stake food pantry, known as Bishops Storehouse, and St. Joseph Hospital in College Station at later dates.

(NAM) needed them for volunteers who helped with handing out food to kids that dont have lunches, with school not being in session, Moreland said. A lot of their volunteers at the food pantry fulfill those needs so those folks that interface with the public need protection.

Normally, the interfaith quilters craft quilts for homeless clients of NAM, Moreland said.

Since donating 280 masks to Klein ISD for a summer program for students, Moreland said the group may consider making more masks if the need is still there and the ladies are up for it.

I think if I know these ladies like I do, any time there would be a need if I were to put it out there they would help, she said. As we kind of went on and on, I was a little worried because these ladies had made so many masks and used up all of their stuff. Some of them were just so bored during that first month and anything they could do to help was great. They felt satisfaction and they were really blessing the lives of people.

chevall.pryce@chron.com
China is ready to roll out policies to deepen the reform and opening up of national high-tech zones to boost high-quality development, the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday.

The Chinese government places high importance on the development of national high-tech zones. Premier Li Keqiang set out clear requirements for national high-tech zones to play a leading role in pooling innovation resources.

With 30-plus years of development, China's national high-tech zones have grown into pacesetters in terms of innovation, industry and talent in the country's economic and regional development. They have effectively contributed to the shift of growth model, structural upgrading and international competitiveness. In 2019, the 169 national high-tech zones in China created 12.2 trillion yuan (about 1.72 trillion U.S. dollars) in output and their export volume reached 3.8 trillion yuan, accounting for 12.3 percent in China's GDP and 22.05 percent in the country's export.

"The vital role of national high-tech zones in underpinning innovation-driven development must be brought into full play. If we are to move China's economy up the value chain and promote high-quality development, we must harness the magnetic effect of the high-tech zones, and bring out their potential and strength," Li said.

The Wednesday meeting noted the exemplary and leading role of national high-tech zones, as important launchpads for promoting high quality development, in deepening reform and opening up. They also help spur entrepreneurship and innovation, and create jobs for college graduates.

Applicable policies tried and tested in pilot free trade zones and national innovation demonstration zones will be extended to national high-tech zones, where more pro-innovation policies will be piloted. Regulations on long-term multiple-entry visa and residence permit for overseas talent will be relaxed.

"The key in bringing out the advantages of these zones is reform and opening up. Unjustified restraints shall be removed. The government shall do its best in making a difference where breakthroughs and new steps are possible, to boost market confidence," Li said.

National high-tech zones will be further opened up. Diverse forms of cooperation will be encouraged between these zones and foreign counterparts, to better integrate them into international industrial and supply chains.

National high-tech zones will be granted provincial or municipal administrative powers on economic matters.

Commercial banks will be encouraged to set up branches dedicated to science and technology sectors in national high-tech zones. Intellectual property pledge financing will be supported. Qualified developers of national high-tech zones may go public to raise funds.

"Faced with the current situation, greater opening-up of national high-tech zones is crucial to maintaining stability in industrial and supply chains," Li said.

The meeting adopted the draft regulation on ensuring payments to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), providing for contract signing, funding provision and means of payment for government departments, public institutions and large enterprises in their dealings with SMEs.

The regulation sets out requirements on payment period and acceptance review. A payment information disclosure system will be established. The regulation also lays down provisions for handling complaints, penalty for acts of bad faith, and disciplinary action and accountability.

The meeting urged government departments and public institutions at all levels to lead by example in implementing the regulation and meeting related payments.

State-owned enterprises and large platform companies should also strictly enforce the regulation.
OST Liquor is the new black owned liquor store in Third Ward area offering a creative customer experience. The store held its grand opening on Houston's holiday, June 27, and is ready to serve the community.

The Third Ward area has shown major support of the business, and they plan to expand their reach even further.

"Right now is definitely the time to be a black owned business. If you're not African-American, you're being awakened by things that have been happening in our community. Now it's like you can feel a shift in energy-- people want to go out of their way to shop black," Owner, Chirs Cooper said. "There's been a super large outpouring of support in Houston. That's been a huge success for us."

As majority owner of the liquor store, Cooper detailed the importance of black ownership in an area like Third Ward.

"We thought that Third Ward was a significant place to have a black-owned liquor store, especially on a street like OST. It's quite a few black businesses in the area. We think of OST as a black corridor, there was no better place to open it," Cooper said.

The couple not only owns the OST Liquor Store, but also the beauty supply, housed next door to the establishment.

The store is not only concerned about representation in the liquor business, but also educating the community on different alcohol, and exposing people to different brands.

"We want to highlight the smaller brands, the ones that a lot of people may not know of," Cooper said. "Total Wine and Spec's don't always come into our neighborhoods. We understand that African-Americans are very brand loyal. We want to educate our community and our people about the different options that they actually have."

Customer service is big when shopping for your favorite drinks, and OST Liquor is prioritizing just that. The store has an open floor plan, perfect for shopping for your favorites, and also to ask employees for assistance.

OST Liquor has come up with a few solutions to help Houston receive their drink needs during COVID-19.

"You have to think about it- it's 2020. You can order online for pickup and delivery, and use our app. We want to give people excellent customer service and meet people where they are," Cooper said. "We came up with 'double-cup cocktails' where we're packaging drinks-- not mixing them but packaging the liquor so you can make your favorite signature drinks at home."

The company wants to help other businesses thrive as well.

"We've partnered with a black-owned company called Mall Run to do our deliveries in the Houston area," Cooper said.

The store delivers to customers who live inside the loop, and the store packages liquor--so you can be your own bartender, from the comfort of your own home.

The owner, a Houston transplant originally from the Bay Area, used some of his hometown connections to secure a deal with rapper E-40's liquor and wine brand.

"Again, it's just about educating the community and giving exposure to the brands people may not know."

OST held its grand opening last Saturday, and is already making waves in the Third Ward area. The OST Liquor Store is located at 3928 Old Spanish Trail, Suite E, Houston, Texas 77021.
Investigative journalist Wayne Dolcefino was arrested and jailed Tuesday after interrupting court proceedings.

Dolcefino was found in contempt of court by Harris County Criminal Court at Law 16 Judge Darrell W. Jordan June 30 after entering the courtroom while Judge Jordan was conducting a hearing via Zoom.

'LUDICROUS': Montgomery County judge takes aim at Abbott's order shutting down bars

The spectator (Dolcefino) was disrupting court, he was warned 3X: have a seat or leave courtroom. He refused, kept demanding to interview judge. Upon final warning, Judge stated he would be held in custody, to which spectator responded: Do what you have to do, a court document reads.

According to KPRC 2, Dolcefino went to request investigators be added to cases he is currently working on.

The court document further states the Dolcefino "prevented the court from conducting its proceedings in a dignified, orderly, and expeditious manner."

Dolcefino was found guilty and sentenced to three days in Harris County Jail, six months of probation and a $500 fine.

Dolcefino was an investigative reporter at ABC13 before founding Dolcefino Consulting in 2012.
3 1 of 3 Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Lakeshore Elementary in Humble was one of five schools selected as the host location for a new SPARK Park by Harris County Precinct 1.

Harris County Commissioners Court signed off on Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Elliss plan to invest $50,000 into five new SPARK Park projects across the area, providing $10,000 for each project. The parks will be at Anderson Elementary and the Arabic Immersion Magnet School in Houston ISD, Horn Elementary in Alief ISD, Lakeshore Elementary in Humble ISD and Royalwood Elementary in Sheldon ISD, according to a press release.
There were six arrests for sex crimes in Fort Bend County from June 21-27. Listed below are the names of the suspects and the currently known details of their alleged crimes. All defendants on this list are innocent until proven guilty.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: 'An operation completely out of control': Damning HPD narcotics audit reveals hundreds of errors

Jose Antonio Argueta-Santos, age 32, from Stafford, was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. He is being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement without bail. In 2013, Argueta-Santos was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to two years in prison.

Rex Allen Caine, age 59, was arrested for allegedly failing to comply as a sex offender. In 1998, Caine was found guilty of sexual assault and served five years probation. He was also given a requirement to register as a sex offender until 2024.

Robert Charles Clark, age 64, from Alvin, was arrested and charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child. Court documents allege that in 2004, Clark sexually assaulted a child under the age of 15.

Cameron Everett Green, age 20, was arrested for alleged indecency with a child by exposure. Green is a registered sex offender. In September of 2019, Green was found guilty of indecency with a child by exposure. He was sentenced to five years probation and given a required sex offender registration until 2034.

MORE BY CLAIRE GOODMAN: We feel like were being targeted: Katy bar owners suffer under governors shutdown order

Malcolm Dewayne Hall, age 20, from Houston, was arrested and charged with two counts of felony aggravated sexual assault of a child. Hall is a registered sex offender. In 2017, he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 14.

Brandon David Michalik, age 18, was arrested and charged with sexual assault.

claire.goodman@chron.com
The Katy Independent School District Board of Trustees approved a 2 percent compensation increase for district employees for the 2020-2021 academic year at its meeting on Monday, June 22.

That includes a 1 percent annual increase and a 1 percent lump sum to be distributed in December, which has been paid in past Decembers.

Related: Katy ISD to return to in-person instruction, offer a remote option in fall

Chief Human Resources Officer Brian Schuss said according to conversations with his peers, the pay bump was in line with Katy ISDs competitors, who are considering no pay increases to increases of 2 percent.

While we wish we could do more when, you know, as the conversations progress and budget development and then kind of the time that were in, considering that  also information is kind of swirling around about potential budget cuts to education in the future. So taking that, taking all of that into consideration, thats why were going to be recommending the 1 percent annual and the 1 percent lump sum in 2020-2021, Schuss said.

He said based on the districts hiring schedule, each teacher will receive $660 for the annual increase and $660 for the December lump sum for a total increase of $1,320. The $660, Schuss said, is based on a 20-year midpoint. Schuss added that the districts other employees will also get the 2 percent.

Related: First Paetow H.S. class overcomes much to graduate

This comes in Katy ISDs second year of a compensation plan that Schuss said includes an objective of being sustainable, equitable and market competitive. He said the 2020-2021 plan fits well with the goal and with bringing in highly qualified people.

Schuss pointed out that in studying academic stipends, the district was below market competitors in some areas, so those had been adjusted. Also, the district will pay a $5 a day increase to its substitutes.

Chief Financial Officer Christopher J. Smith shed some light on the budget situation. He said although House Bill 3 is in effect next year, it is unknown what the state legislature will do with funding going forward and that the decisions will likely depend on how much longer the COVID-19 pandemic hangs on.

I know this comptroller later this summer is going to be readjusting his revenue estimates, Smith said. But we often also have to remember that  and I mentioned this last month  that House Bill 3 has been a little bit less expensive than the state had budgeted for; that property values rose higher than the state, which saved the state a little bit of money this last year. And then they use the federal funds to help make us whole.

Top hits: Get Houston Chronicle stories sent directly to your inbox

He said as an effect of House Bill 3, the school board had been very aggressive about giving out raises: $15 million for teachers, counselors, librarians and nurses and $5 million to other district staff members, excluding administration.

Smith said the new budget is more conservative because of factors in the economy right now and because they do not know what future budget cuts could look like.

Right now, were watching our future budgets carefully. But it is our commitment to this staff to take care of our employees, he said. We love them. They do a great job. And in future years, as soon as this economy turns back around, well be able to do a little bit more for our folks.

tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
courtesy of Google Maps

A man is dead after being struck Wednesday night by a passenger car as he traveled down an east Montgomery County road.

At 9:03 p.m., a 2008 Ford Focus driving down Ford Road near Mills Branch Road in Porter, approached a sharp curve. Michael Aaron McMaster, 49, of Kingwood, was on his 1999 Harley Davidson traveling east bound on Mills Road, approaching the same sharp curve when he was hit by the Ford car, according to Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Erik Burse.
As the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the Montgomery County Public Health District along with the Montgomery County Hospital District is making it easier to get tested by launching an online registration process for its voucher program.

According to MCPHD officials, testing is now available for both symptomatic and asymptomatic. The testing is for Montgomery County residents only.

To get a voucher, go to mchd-tx.org or mcphd-tx.org and click on the Need to be tested link. Fill out the information. A voucher will be emailed. Once you have the voucher, make an appointment at your choice of testing center and get tested.

MCPHD confirmed 96 new cases Thursday and the countys 37th death. The death is a Porter man in his 90s who was a resident of a long-term care facility.

The total number of cases is now 2,353 with 960 of those active. The total number of patients hospitalized in Montgomery County hospitals, both county and non-county residents, is now 186, 48 of those in ICU.

The offices for the Montgomery County Public Health District and the Montgomery County Hospital District will be closed Friday, so the next case update will be Monday.

According to the SouthEast Texas Regional Advisory Council (SETRAC), as of Wednesday, there were still 58 percent of general hospital beds available in the county, but one 6 percent of ICU beds were available.

Heading into the holiday weekend, health officials urged residents to avoid large gathering.

You have the power to keep businesses and restaurants open, said Misti Willingham, PIO with MCHD. This Fourth of July holiday weekend avoid large groups of people. Wear a mask (if it is necessary to be in public), wash your hands or use hand sanitizer frequently, disinfect surfaces in your car and around your home, and practice social distancing. These actions will reduce your chances of contracting COVID-19.

For more information, the MCHD/MCPHD COVID-19 Call Center is open Monday-Friday 8:00am-3:30pm. Please call 936-523-5040.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
As voters start heading to the polls for the Republican and Democratic primary runoff elections, officials with Montgomery County Elections has taken precautions to ensure a safe environment to cast ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elections administrator Suzie Harvey said she hopes voters will early vote to avoid more crowded polls on election day, July 14. The general election is Nov. 3.

Harvey explained that voters should wear a face mask or face covering at the polls and use the hand sanitizer provided when entering the polls.

Masks, face shields and hand sanitizer and gloves are provided to poll workers to help keep voters safe. Floor markers are in place to help with social distancing and poll stations are set up six feet apart.

Harvey also encouraged voters to bring their own pen for check in.

If not, we have a device at every station where they need to use a pen that sanitizes the pen after every use, she said.

In April, Montgomery County received just under $105 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act of 2020 or CARES Act. The act provides that payments from this distribution cover costs between March 1 and Dec. 30 which were necessary expenditures due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

That funding, Harvey said, allowed for the hiring of more poll workers to help during voting.

They are there just to sanitize the voting equipment after each use and sanitize frequently touched surfaced like tables and door handles, Harvey said.

For those that might have symptoms, including fever, cough, hills, muscle aches, shortness of breath, sore throat, headache, diarrhea, loss of taste of smell or anyone that has been in contact with a COVID-19 positive person, curb side voting is available.

Since Monday, voter turnout has been low. One the Republican side, just 3,124 voter have made it to the polls and just 761 Democrats have cast their ballots.

Early voting will continue noon to 5 p.m. Sunday and from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. July 6 through July 10. Voters can vote at any early voting location in the county.

Early voting locations are the following:

North Montgomery County Community Center, 600 Gerald Street, Willis

Lone Star Community Center, 2500 Lone Star Parkway, Montgomery (Note: Not the Lone Star Convention Center in Conroe.)

East Montgomery County Fair Association Building, 21675A McCleskey Road, New Caney

South County Community Center, 2235 Lake Robbins Drive, The Woodlands

Lee G. Alworth Building, 207 W. Phillips, Conroe

Magnolia Event Center, 11659 FM 1488, Magnolia

West Montgomery County Community Development Center, 31355 Friendship Drive, Magnolia

Spring Creek Greenway Nature Center, 1300 Riley Fuzzel Road, Spring

For more information on voting, COVID-19 procedures or curbside voting, call Election Central at 936-539-7843.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
Chinese technology firm Huawei and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) on Wednesday agreed to boost cooperation in the fields of education and artificial intelligence.

During a meeting between Deputy General Director of Huawei in Morocco Zhu Yuan and Director General of ICESCO Salem Ben Mohamed Al-Malik, cooperation in the research related to technology was also discussed, the Rabat-based organization said in a statement.

Zhu praised the ICESCO's work to support efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, noting Huawei attaches great importance to its social responsibility and has provided assistance to local communities in the countries where Huawei operates.

Huawei is very focused on granting scholarships to students from these countries to continue their studies in the field of technology in China, he said.

For his part, Al-Malik said ICESCO adopted a new vision to opening up to countries that are not members of the organization, international and regional organizations and institutions of civil society.

ICESCO has launched many important initiatives and programs to support efforts to counter the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the 200,000-U.S.-dollar ICESCO Coronavirus Award for researchers who discover an effective treatment or vaccine against the virus, he noted.
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration has awarded a major border security contract to a California technology start-up that will use artificial intelligence on an unprecedented scale, pairing the president's giant steel barrier with the kind of "virtual wall" long favored by Democrats to prevent illegal crossings from Mexico.

The five-year agreement between U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Anduril Industries calls for the company to deploy hundreds of solar-powered mobile surveillance towers designed to operate in rugged locations. With cameras and thermal imaging, they detect moving objects and feed an artificial intelligence system capable of distinguishing among animals, humans and vehicles, sending location and mapping information right to the cellphones of U.S. patrol agents.

The effectiveness of the Anduril system in pilot programs so far, and the administration's deepening commitment to the technology, raises an obvious - if awkward - question for Homeland Security officials as President Donald Trump spends billions of taxpayer dollars to speed up his border wall project. If the Anduril system can spot migrants and smugglers from miles away and guide U.S. agents right to them, what is the point of building a costly physical barrier in isolated border areas where there are few crossings?

In their opposition to Trump's physical border barrier, many Democrats have promoted "smart" border technology as a more effective and cheaper alternative to the $15 billion concrete-and-steel version Trump is racing to install and which he is promoting on the campaign trail.

The CBP contract announced Thursday designates the Anduril system as a "program of record," meaning a technology so essential it will be a dedicated item in the Homeland Security budget. While it does not specify a dollar amount, Anduril executives said the agreement is worth several hundred million dollars.

CBP said in a statement Thursday morning that it plans to deploy 200 "Autonomous Surveillance Towers" by 2022. It says agents can set up the systems at a location along the border in just two hours.

"These towers give agents in the field a significant leg up against the criminal networks that facilitate illegal cross-border activity," Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott said in the statement, which does not mention Anduril by name. "The more our agents know about what they encounter in the field, the more safely and effectively they can respond," Scott said.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has criticized Trump's border wall plans and said he will not spend money on physical barriers. If elected, he will face intense pressure to repudiate Trump's signature project and bring the bulldozers and excavators to a halt.

Anduril's contract leaves the company in a position to benefit regardless of the outcome in November, with an artificial intelligence system that could reinforce the president's physical wall or develop into the kind of virtual wall Democrats have said they prefer.

"No matter where we go as a country, we're going to need to have situational awareness on the border," Matthew Steckman, Anduril's chief revenue officer, said in an interview. "No matter if talking to a Democrat or a Republican, they agree that this type of system is needed."

Anduril's founder, 27-year-old Palmer Luckey, sold his previous company, Oculus, to Facebook for $3 billion in 2014. He was forced out at Facebook in 2017 after a donation to a pro-Trump group angered co-workers, but he denied that politics got him fired.

Luckey, who grew up in southern California's Orange County, cultivates a nerd-warrior image, dressing in flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts while running the company he named after a sword in "Lord of the Rings." Venture capital firms recently poured another $200 million into Anduril, which is now valued at nearly $2 billion, the company said Wednesday.

Steckman, who previously worked for Pentagon contractor Palantir, said Anduril's broader goal is to compete in the larger, more lucrative defense contracting market. The deal with CBP allows Anduril to showcase its artificial intelligence system, Lattice, as an all-seeing shield that can protect U.S. military bases and other strategic sites.

Anduril also has developed aerial drones that can be deployed to feed the Lattice system, but the company said it is not planning to use that equipment for its contract with CBP, and will rely instead on the tower-mounted mobile cameras.

Border security experts and Anduril executives say the Lattice system is a breakthrough in border technology, because the company claims the artificial intelligence software is capable of distinguishing between an animal and a human with 97% accuracy, reducing the number of times agents respond to sensors triggered by cattle, deer, peccary and other large mammals wandering the borderlands.

The system does not use facial recognition or other personal identification technology, minimizing the privacy concerns typically associated with the deployment of powerful government surveillance equipment across large open spaces. It is designed primarily for use in remote border regions with few people, not urban areas with more crossings, to provide agents with what the company calls "wide area understanding."

From the beginning of Trump's presidency, CBP officials embraced, and modified, his original vision for a Great Wall-style edification along the border, resulting in the see-through steel bollard design now under construction. CBP officials say the barrier is the physical anchor of a broader "wall system" that includes layers of surveillance technology, including cameras and sensors.

The Anduril system can be deployed in steep, mountainous areas where barrier construction is not feasible, or as a secondary layer with a panoramic view of new border fence.

CBP's previous, billion-dollar attempt to build a virtual wall ended in failure a decade ago, and in recent years Trump has often mocked Democrats' preference for such systems while touting his version.

"They'd say, 'No, no, we don't need a wall. We can have airplanes flying above. We can have pic- - people taking pictures. We can have drones,' " Trump said last month during a trip to the border in Arizona to commemorate the completion of 200 linear miles of new steel barriers. "I say, 'What are you going to do? Take pictures of everyone flowing across?'

"Walls are the greatest technology," the president said. "They work."

An irony of CBP's contract with Anduril is that during the past three years that the Trump administration has spent billions of dollars to put up a physical barrier, technological advances have finally made a virtual wall system feasible. The Lattice system relies on some of the same chip technology developed by Tesla and other companies for driverless cars, Steckman said.

CBP officials for years have been eager to develop more advanced surveillance systems, and they credit higher interdiction rates in recent years with improvements in their detection abilities, or "situational awareness."

"The desire of the Border Patrol for quite some time has been complete situational awareness for all the territory between ports of entry, but it's never been achieved because it was never invested in," said Ronald Vitiello, a 30-year Border Patrol veteran who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement until Trump abruptly removed him last year.

Vitiello said he is skeptical a Biden administration will be willing to invest in Anduril because the Democratic Party's base is so intensely opposed to Trump's immigration policies. "I don't think the political winds will allow him to advocate for stronger border security or even smarter investments," Vitiello said. "I just don't see it, because the conversation around border security right now is so skewed."

Adam Isacson, a security analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), said the Anduril system"fits right into Democratic Party rhetoric about having smart border technology instead of a fifth-century wall."

But he cautioned it could clash with "post-George Floyd era concerns about law enforcement having too much power."

"It's hard to gauge where the Democratic Party is," Isacson said. "And some of the folks who were for border technology in the past may be less trusting, if given this new ability, of a law enforcement agency like the Border Patrol that has aligned itself so much with Trump."

Luckey's reputation as a Trump supporter could also hurt the company, Isacson added.

Department of Homeland Security officials say they remain on track to complete 450 miles of new barriers by the end of 2020. To add miles as quickly as possible, the Trump administration has been digging, blasting and bulldozing through national forests, wildlife preserves and other protected areas in western states where the federal government already controls the land.

Environmental groups and traditional ranching families along the border have watched with alarm as Trump's barrier bisects desert ecosystems, erases archaeological sites and cuts across stream channels and rivers. The Anduril system offers a low-impact, impermanent, greener alternative that appeals to landowners along the border.

William McDonald, a fifth-generation rancher in southern Arizona and lifelong Republican who has denounced the wall as destructive and wasteful, said "smart" border technology is unintrusive and effective. "It's already working where it's in place," he said. "It has a low impact on the environment and wildlife movement. It targets illegal crossers, period."

Large physical barriers are considered most effective in more urban areas of the border, where agents have less time to interdict someone and prevent them from getting into a vehicle. In more remote areas where agents are sparse, smugglers and border-crossers can breach or climb over barriers to advance northward, but the nearest road may be several miles away, giving Border Patrol a time advantage. Their biggest challenge is detection.

In 2010, then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano ended a CBP contract with Boeing to build a virtual wall system, SBInet, that was gathered information from electronic sensors along U.S. borders.

CBP officials say the government pulled the plug amid frustrations that agents were flooded with raw data and sensor input that didn't mesh with their existing enforcement tools and techniques.

Since then, Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems has deployed sophisticated cameras in towers along the border, but its equipment is more expensive and less mobile than Anduril's, current and former CBP officials say. The Anduril towers have a smaller footprint and can be moved around easily, so they also help CBP avoid some of the land-use conflict issues that arise when the company requests access to tribal land, private property and environmentally sensitive areas.

Former CBP commissioner Kevin McAleenan, who resigned as acting DHS secretary last fall, established a "DHS Silicon Valley Initiative" in 2016 to pair experienced CBP officials with software engineers. The agency began working with Anduril when the company was being formed.

McAleenan said he is not aware of any other security firm developing a federal program of record so quickly.

"We took a company and technology solution from initial concept, to pilot, to widespread deployment in less than four years," McAleenan said in an interview. "That's unprecedented. That's how it should work."

The system Anduril has developed in concert with CBP is worth installing regardless of whether border wall construction goes forward, Steckman said, because U.S. agents need surveillance capabilities with or without a physical barrier.

"You can get those eyeballs through people or with an autonomous system," he said. "I would argue that because of the massive labor and cost reduction in not using people, this is a pretty good way to put eyes on whatever you need to put eyes on."

Steckman said the Lattice system is not built to capture personal information, only categories of moving objects.

"We know at a distance whether it's a person, it's a cow, it's a vehicle, it's an aircraft, it's a ship," Steckman said. "We don't know anything below that level, but for border security, especially in rural locations, that's enough to make a decision."

"Instead of a having a person's brain be the sensor fusion engine," he said, "the software surfaces information up to the point that a decision can be made, so the user can then go and do something about it."

---

The Washington Post's Aaron Gregg contributed to this report.
A Memorial Village police officer shot and killed a man Wednesday night outside a west Houston hospital, according to Houston police.

The man had allegedly reached for the officer's unholstered gun after a lengthy struggle as she tried to get him in the back of her patrol car around 10 p.m., according to Houston Police Department Asst. Chief Larry Satterwhite. The scuffle happened outside Memorial Hermann Memorial City Hospital along Interstate 10 near Gessner Road, where the suspect had just been released from treatment after a separate fight with officers earlier in the day.

The suspect's identity was not immediately known.

RESCUE: Houston worker freed after tractor rolls on top of him

His interaction with law enforcement started around 2:45 p.m. Wednesday when someone called 911 to report a suspicious car somewhere in The Villages, Satterwhite said.

Officers with the Memorial Villages Police Department, which serves three of the six small cities along the Interstate 10 corridor, found the man, a woman and a 9-month-old child inside the car with several pieces of opened mail, credit cards, fraudulent pieces of identification and evidence that they had broken into mail boxes, Memorial Villages Police Chief Raymond Schultz.

The woman had warrants for her arrest from Burleson County for mail theft, Schultz said. She was taken into custody without any incident, he said.

As they took the man into custody, he managed to break free from his handcuffs and struggled with officers, who eventually shot him with a Taser, Satterwhite said. Paramedics took him to Memorial Hermann for an elevated heart rate after the stun gun shock.

Officers monitored him as he was being treated, Satterwhite said.

He was released from the hospital around 9:45 p.m., which is when the officer escorted him to her patrol car in the parking lot.

"There was another struggle and a fight occurred there at the patrol car," Satterwhite said. "It was just him and her, and he's a lot bigger than her. He managed to break free."

The quarrel moved into a nearby parking garage, where the officer struggled to get him back in handcuffs, Satterwhite said. At that point, the officer had pulled her gun and had already radioed for backup.

"There was a constant struggle between the two of them," Satterwhite said. "Her radio was tangled up. The suspect had her radio, and there was some kind of struggle or pulling against each other. At some point, he reached for her firearm, and subsequent to that she fired what we know was at least two rounds that struck the suspect."

Paramedics took him back to the nearby hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.

As of early Thursday morning, police were having a hard time identifying him because of the numerous fake IDs they found in the car, Schultz said. It is unclear if he has since been positively identified.

The woman remains in custody on the Burleson County warrants. The child was handed over to CPS as police continue their investigation.
Spring ISD board members held a special meeting Tuesday night to go over various plans and options being prepared for students and parents for the next school year as the pandemic continues.

Tiffany Dunne-Oldfield, Spring ISDs chief of innovation and communications, said planning teams started developing the plan in May to meet Texas Education Agency requirements.

Whats in the budget for 2020-21?: Spring ISD passes deficit budget for employee raises, full-day pre-K

The planning process started with four scenariosminimum social distancing, significant social distancing while keeping schools open, a combination of significant social distancing and rolling closures of schools, and the worst-case scenario being all schools closing and going back to remote learning, as they did in the Spring semester.

The very act of scenario planning and the discussion it involves about imagining if this happens what would we do, this really helps you build a clear purpose, which is to open in a safe way, but it also created opportunities for us to reimagine what school could look like, Dunne-Oldfield said.

A survey was released by the planning team to staff and parents asking about their comfort regarding school during the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked if they were concerned about the well-being of their family should students go back to school, 97% of parents and 95% of staff said they were concerned.

Entering school year amid the pandemic: Spring ISD mulls several school reopening plans

Of those surveyed, only 8% of parents said school should reopen as normal as possible, with 60% of parents saying schools should be virtual, and one out of four families said they were evaluating other educational opportunities.

In the plan as it stands, Dunne-Oldfield said the school schedule planning team recommended going to remote learning on Wednesdays so campuses can be deep cleaned, which got a favorable response from both parents and staff, and parents also showed support for face coverings as well.

More Information Learn more about Spring ISD's operational decision meter here. See More Collapse

There are two learning options the district is looking at providing next year, she said, one called the safety-first hybrid model, and the second option being the empowered learning at-home model, which was used after the pandemic began during the spring semester.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas sees record-breaking day with more than 7,000 new cases

Whether you chose the remote option, or you choose the hybrid, youre going to be able to participate in curricular activities, she said.

Both options will have synchronous and asynchronous learning, meaning times students will be watching their teacher instruct live and doing work on their own time.

What scenario the district takes depends on what threat level the pandemic is currently to the community. The district has a threat level based on outbreaks in the district area that is designed for making decisions, whether they will be pulling back from in-person learning or doing more of it.

The worst threat level is set to red, meaning the outbreak is present and worsening, and almost all learning will be remote save for a few students needing in-person instruction, Spring High School Principal Diaka Melendez, part of the planning team, said. Should the threat level be green, schools will operate on the Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday schedule for all campuses while still restricting high-risk activities.

Melendez said the schools would also potentially try to keep social distancing by having staggered arrivals, dismissals and period transitions.

Jack Mann, Spring ISDs director of transportation, said the transportation planning committee thought through different scenarios for managing social distancing in a school bus. This would again depend on the operational decision meter. Should the meter be in green, Mann said they would have minimal social distancing with two students per seat and require wearing masks. As the meter goes to yellow, orange or red, those are more restricted, limiting the number of students per seat on the bus, and requiring students to exit the bus from front to back to maintain social distancing.

Depending on the level of social distancing, we would mark the seats so it would be very clear to students as they boarded the bus which seats they are available to use, Mann said.

Shelly Copeland, Spring ISDs director of child nutrition, said waivers had been extended through June 2021 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture allowing them to continuing offering curbside meals for students doing remote learning, and another waiver was granted allowing schools to adjust meal times outside of the normal 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. timeframe as they deal with the need to space students coming through the cafeteria.

Most likely each campus will be taking advantage of a variety of serving methods and curbside meals for students choosing virtual learning, Copeland said.

paul.wedding@hcnonline.com
You are here: Business

China's first 500 kW wave energy converter was delivered to Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Tuesday.

Named "Sharp Eagle - Zhoushan," the converter is part of a wave energy demonstration project set up by the Ministry of Natural Resources, which will be located near Dawanshan Island, Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province.

Developed by the institute and built by China Merchants Heavy Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., the device is currently the largest wave energy converter in China.

Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, CAS, said they would work with related companies to develop wave energy conversion technology and facilities further.
The swimming pool season in The Woodlands Township took another hit on Wednesday as officials from the townships Parks and Recreation Department announced the closure of the Harpers Landing community swimming pool facility for the rest of the year.

The pool, one of seven smaller community swimming facilities that were opened on June 6, could not be maintained due to multiple issues stemming from the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic. The shuttering of the popular pool comes after two other community swimming pools were temporarily closed after staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. No staffers at Harpers Landing have tested positive, officials noted.

Related: The Woodlands summer swimming season to remain limited to 7 community pools

In a press release, officials stressed no lifeguards or staff at the Harpers Landing pool had tested positive for the coronavirus, but challenges from COVID had impacted the pool operations, especially the staffing of the facility with lifeguards.

Due to staff training challenges with social distancing and staff shortages due to the Covid 19-Pandemic, The Woodlands Township will be closing the Harpers Landing pool starting July 1, officials stated in the press release. To date, there have been no lifeguard staff that have tested positive or who are in quarantine at Harpers Landing Pool.

Nick Wolda, communications director for The Woodlands, said the issue of lifeguard training has been difficult amid the pandemic restrictions and shutdowns.

This is a fluid process. We were very clear early on that we had a limited number of lifeguards ready and trained. This is why The Woodlands Township could not open all the pools. The challenge is that we have not been able to train lifeguards since March due to social distancing requirements , Wolda said in an email. This left Aquatics (Division) with a fixed number of guards available this summer which was far less than previous years when lifeguards could be trained through the end of May. Its not physically possible to train additional guards at this point in time. With the recent quarantine of several lifeguards for up to fourteen days, we have had to make modifications in pool shifts.

Related: Woodlands briefly closes pool after staffer tests positive for COVID-19

With the Harpers Landing pool closed for the year, the only swimming pools that remain open include: Alden Bridge, Sawmill, Forestgate, Bear Branch, Wendtwoods and Creekwood.

Under changes approved by the township Board of Directors in late May, the fee structure for the 2020 season only is as follows: resident day pass costs were reduced from $6 to $5; the non-resident day pass cost was decreased from $12 to $10; and season pass rates were kept at the normal $40 for residents and $120 for non-residents.

The pools will have very limited access due to the 50 percent capacity rules. Alden Bridge can only have 194 bathers at one time; Sawmill is set at 128 people; Wendtwoods is limited to 208 people; Bear Branch is limited to 116; Creekwood is reduced to 136 people and Forestgate is limited to 138 swimmers.

Two of the pools have had temporary closures due to staff testing positive for COVID-19, including Alden Bridge and Wendtwoods. The Bear Branch Park Recreation Center was also briefly closed due to a staffer testing positive for the coronavirus. All three facilities have reopened.

The remaining six community swimming pools as well as the Rob Fleming Aquatic Center were never opened this year and will remain closed until the 2021 season.

jeff.forward@chron.com
The Town of New Canaan has completed 3,021 tests for the coronavirus over the past seven weeks through its local Community Testing program with Stamford Hospital, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihans recent update about the virus to residents.

The testing program is also paused until August.

While we will be pausing our local testing program until August, if you have not been tested, and feel symptomatic, please contact you primary care provider to consult, and obtain a prescription to be tested. There is a list of area testing sites on the towns website at the COVID 19 page, Moynihan said.

There have been three presumed PCR, (Polymerase Chain Reaction), positive cases found. Two people who took these tests have since retested negative, Moynihan said.

Only 95 IgG antibody positive cases, amounting to about 3 percent have also been found, which shows that very few New Canaanites have contacted the virus thus far, Moynihan said.

No positive cases have been found in any Waveny Care Center employee, patient, or resident since the towns largest private employer has tested them for the last two weeks, Moynihan also said. Over 10 percent of the towns population has now been tested, and the demand for the testing has now declined considerably, Moynihan also said.

This supports our conclusions that the first wave of the novel (corona) virus is behind us, and that the presence of this virus in our immediate community as of this moment in time is currently extremely low, but still present, Moynihan said.

RELATED: New Canaan First Selectman Kevin Moynihans update about the coronavirus in the town to residents for Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Moynihan also spoke about the employee of the New Canaan YMCAs day care program testing positive for the virus, and how it relates to the town.

As you may have read in the press this week, an employee of the YMCAs day care program who resides in Stamford tested positive last Friday, and the YMCA is handling the situation in accordance with state guidelines. It is important to understand that technically this is not a New Canaan case under state reporting requirements, but a City of Stamford case. However, this case does remind us that the virus can travel to New Canaan. When you analyze New Canaans COVID case rate, you see the superb job our community, our local healthcare providers, and agencies have done to get us to this position. This hard work, and dedication to our communitys health can easily be undone by only a few of our citizens or neighbors careless behavior. We see now with every news broadcast the price to our local communities when we do not abide by the practices that got us to phase two, Moynihan said.

Moynihan also spoke about the progress that has been made, what residents are able to do with the re-opening of businesses, and public activities in the town.

Phase two re-opening of businesses, and public activities is underway, and we each have a role in whether we move forward, or must reverse course. Please remember to support our local businesses, and restaurants as they continue to re-engage safely. They need your support more than ever before, and thanks for the sacrifices that they have made, as well, Moynihan said.

Wearing face masks when inside buildings, and in public places, social distancing in crowded areas, and washing hands to lessen the chance of the virus being transmitted to people, also remains important.

Please remain diligent in the adherence to the practices of wearing masks when indoors and in public places, social distancing when in crowded areas, and frequent washing of hands to minimize the risk of transmission of the virus, Moynihan said.

You need only look at what is happening in other parts of the country to realize that it takes only one person not adhering to guidelines, or traveling to, and from a hot spot to spread this very transmittable virus, and to create a new crisis in New Canaan. If not for yourself, please think of others who may have pre-existing conditions, and can ill afford to be inflicted. Take action, be part of the solution, Moynihan also said.

Moynihan also spoke about the practices, and how they pertain to the towns continued re-opening of its facilities like Town Hall fully to the public on Monday, July 6, 2020.

As we re-open town facilities, we remind everyone again to be cautious with frequent hand washing, social distancing, and wearing of (face) masks. When you get the chance, please thank our local health care providers. They have been courageous, and deserve our greatest appreciation, and continued support for being on the frontlines, and risking their own health to care for our residents, and loved ones, Moynihan said.

Moynihan finished his update with a reminder about the 4th of July holiday weekend.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government sternly condemned rioters' violent and illegal acts on Wednesday and voiced full support to the police in strictly enforcing the law.

The Hong Kong police said they had arrested around 370 people as of 10:00 p.m. Wednesday local time, including six males and four females for suspectedly violating the newly enacted law on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR.

The other arrestees were arrested for unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct in public place, furious driving and possession of offensive weapons.

Crowds were gathering in the vicinity of Causeway Bay, Wan Chai and Tin Hau on Hong Kong Island since Wednesday noon. Some rioters blocked roads, set fires and vandalized public facilities and shops across the areas.

Some of them even assaulted police officers on duty, including attacking them with sharp objects, ramming a vehicle into them, and assaulting them during an arrest action, leading to the injury of seven police officers in total.

A spokesperson of the HKSAR government said in a statement on Wednesday night that the HKSAR government sternly condemned those who participated in the unlawful assemblies, committed violent and illegal acts and even caused severe bodily wounding to police officers.

The HKSAR government will not tolerate any illegal act undermining social peace and stability, and will fully support the police in strictly and resolutely enforcing the national security law in the HKSAR and other laws of the HKSAR to restore social order and peace and protect Hong Kong residents' life, property and legitimate rights and freedoms, the spokesperson said.
Only a few hours had passed since President Donald Trump pardoned 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and the men of 1st Platoon were still trying to make sense of how it was even possible.

How could a man they blamed for ruining their lives, an officer the Army convicted of second-degree murder and other charges, be forgiven so easily? How could their president allow him to just walk free?

"I feel like I'm in a nightmare," Lucas Gray, a former specialist from the unit, texted his old squad leader, who was out of the Army and living in Fayetteville, N.C.

"I haven't been handling it well either," replied Mike McGuinness on Nov. 15, the day Lorance was pardoned.

"There's literally no point in anything we did or said," Gray continued. "Now he gets to be the hero . . ."

"And we're left to deal with it," McGuinness concluded.

Lorance had been in command of 1st Platoon for only three days in Afghanistan but in that short span of time had averaged a war crime a day, a military jury found. On his last day before he was dismissed, he ordered his troops to open fire on three Afghan men standing by a motorcycle on the side of the road who he said posed a threat. His actions led to a 19-year prison sentence.

He had served six years when Trump, spurred to action by relentless Fox News coverage and Lorance's insistence that he had made a split-second decision to protect his men, set him free.

The president's opponents described the pardon as another instance of Trump subverting the rule of law to reward allies and reap political benefits. Military officials worried that the decision to overturn a case that had already been adjudicated in the military courts sent a signal that war crimes were not worthy of severe punishment.

For the men of 1st platoon, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, the costs of the war and the fallout from the case have been profound and sometimes deadly.

Traumatized by battle, they have also been brutalized by the politicization of their service and made to feel as if the truth of what they lived in Afghanistan - already a violent and harrowing tour before Lorance assumed command - had been so demeaned that it no longer existed.

Since returning home in 2013, five of the platoon's three dozen soldiers have died. At least four others have been hospitalized following suicide attempts or struggles with drugs or alcohol.

The last fatality came a few weeks before Lorance was pardoned when James O. Twist, 27, a Michigan state trooper and father of three, died of suicide. As the White House was preparing the official order for Trump's signature, the men of 1st Platoon gathered in Grand Rapids, Mich., for the funeral, where they remembered Twist as a good soldier who had bravely rushed through smoke and fire to pull a friend from a bomb crater and place a tourniquet on his right leg where it had been sheared off by the blast.

They thought of the calls and texts from him that they didn't answer because they were too busy with their own lives - and Twist, who had a caring wife, a good job and a nice house - seemed like he was doing far better than most. They didn't know that behind closed doors he was at times verbally abusive, ashamed of his inner torment and, like so many of them, unable to articulate his pain.

By November 2019, Twist, a man the soldiers of 1st Platoon loved, was gone and Lorance was free from prison and headed for New York City, a new life and a star turn on Fox News.

This story is based on a transcript of Lorance's 2013 court-martial at Fort Bragg, N.C., and on-the-record interviews with 15 members of 1st Platoon, as well as family members of the soldiers, including Twist's father and wife. The soldiers also shared texts and emails they exchanged over the past several years. Twist's family provided his journal entries from his time in the Army. Lorance declined to be interviewed.

In New York, Sean Hannity, Lorance's biggest champion and the man most responsible for persuading Trump to pardon him, asked Lorance about the shooting and soldiers under his command.

Lorance had traded in his Army uniform for a blazer and red tie. He leaned in to the microphone. "I don't know any of these guys. None of them know me," Lorance said of his former troops. "To be honest with you, I can't even remember most of their names."

- - -

The 1st Platoon soldiers came to the Army and the war from all over the country: Maryland, California, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Indiana and Texas to name just a few. They joined for all the usual reasons: "To keep my parents off my a--," said one soldier.

"I just needed a change," said another.

A few had tried college but quit because they were bored or failing their classes. "I didn't know how to handle it," Gray said of college. "I was really immature."

Others joined right out of high school propelled by romantic notions, inherited from veteran fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, of service and duty. Twist's father served in Vietnam as a clerk in an air-conditioned office before coming back to Michigan and opening a garage. In his spare time Twist Sr. was a military history buff, a passion that rubbed off on his son, who visited World War II battle sites in Europe with his dad. Twist was just 16 when he started badgering his parents to sign his enlistment papers and barely 18 when he left for basic training. His mother had died of cancer only a few months earlier.

"I got pictures of him the day we dropped him off, and he didn't even wave goodbye," his father recalled. "He was in pig heaven."

Several of the 1st Platoon soldiers enlisted in search of a steady paycheck and the promise of health insurance and a middle-class life. "I needed to get out of northeast Ohio," McGuinness said. "There wasn't anything there."

In 1999, he was set to pay his first union dues and go to work alongside his steelworker grandfather when the plant closed. So he became a paratrooper instead, eventually deploying three times to Afghanistan.

McGuinness didn't look much like a paratrooper with his thick, squat body. But he liked being a soldier, jumping out of planes, firing weapons and drinking with his Army buddies. After a while the war didn't make much sense, but he took pride in knowing that his soldiers trusted him and that he was good at his job.

Nine months before 1st Platoon landed in rural southern Afghanistan, a team of Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden.

Samuel Walley, the badly wounded soldier Twist pulled from the blast crater, wondered if they might be spared combat. "Wasn't that the goal to kill bin Laden?" he recalled thinking. "Isn't that checkmate?"

Around the same time, Twist was trying to make sense of what was to come. "I feel like the Army was a good decision, but also in my mind is a lot of dark thoughts," he wrote in a spiral notebook. "I could die. I could come back with PTSD. I could be massively injured."

"Maybe," he hoped, "it will start winding down soon."

But the decade-long war continued, driven by new, largely unattainable goals. When McGuinness saw where the platoon was headed - just 15 or so miles from the spot in southern Afghanistan where he had spent his second tour - he warned the new soldiers they were going to be "fighting against dudes who just really f---ing hate you."

They were told by commanders they were waging a counterinsurgency war in which their top priority was winning the support of the people and protecting them from the Taliban. But no one seemed entirely sure how to accomplish that goal. They helped build a school that never opened because of a lack of teachers and willing students. They met with village elders who insisted they knew nothing about the Taliban's operations or plans.

In May 2012, they moved to a new compound near Payenzai, a remote Afghan village west of Kandahar, which consisted of little more than mud-walled houses, hardscrabble farmers and the Taliban.

So began what Twist described, in a blog post written years later, as an "entire month of despair."

Four soldiers were severely wounded in quick succession. On June 6, Walley lost his leg and arm to a Taliban bomb. Eight days later, yet another enemy mine wounded Mark Kerner and 1st Lt. Dominic Latino, the platoon leader. Then, on June 23, a sniper's bullet tore through Matthew Hanes's neck, leaving him paralyzed.

The platoon was briefly sent back to a larger base a few miles away to shower, meet with mental-health counselors and pick up their new platoon leader. Lorance had served a tour as an enlisted prison guard in Iraq before attending college and becoming an infantry officer. He had spent the first five months of his Afghanistan tour as a staff officer on a fortified base.

This was his first time in combat.

"We're not going to lose any more men to injuries in this platoon," he told then-Sgt. 1st Class Keith Ayres, his platoon sergeant, shortly after taking over on June 29, according to Ayres's testimony.

His strategy, he said, was a "shock and awe" campaign designed to cow the enemy and intimidate villagers into coughing up valuable intelligence. When an Afghan farmer and his young son approached the outpost's front gate and asked permission to move a section of razor wire a few feet so that the farmer could get into his field, Lorance threatened to have Twist and the other soldiers on guard duty kill him and his boy.

"He pointed at the child . . . at the little, tiny kid," Twist testified. He estimated the child was 3 or 4 years old.

On Lorance's second day, he ordered two of his sharpshooters to fire within 10 to 12 inches of unarmed villagers. His goal was to make the Afghans wonder why the Americans were shooting at them and motivate them to attend a village meeting that Lorance had scheduled for later in the week, his soldiers testified.

His real motive, though, seems to have been cruelty. "It's funny watching those f---ers dance," Lorance said, according to the testimony of one of his soldiers. Lorance didn't pull the trigger. Instead, he stood by his men in the guard towers, picked the targets and issued orders. His troops finally balked when he told them to shoot near children. They refused again a few hours later when he ordered them to file a false report saying that they had taken fire from the village.

"If I don't have the support of my NCOs then I'll f---ing do it myself," Lorance exclaimed, according to testimony, referring to noncommissioned officers.

On the day of the killings for which he would be convicted, Lorance posted a sign in the platoon headquarters stating that no motorcycles would be permitted in his unit's sector. The platoon's soldiers were falsely told before the day's patrol that motorcycles should be considered "hostile and engaged on sight." Several soldiers testified that Lorance told them that senior U.S. officials had ordered the change. At least two sergeants recalled the guidance had come from the Afghans and did not apply to U.S. forces. Due to the conflicting testimony, the jury of Army officers acquitted Lorance of changing the rules of engagement. Still, Lorance's actions left soldiers confused on the critical, life-or-death question of when they were authorized to open fire.

The mission that day was a foot patrol into a nearby village to meet the elders.

Less than 30 minutes after they rolled out of the gate, three men on a motorcycle approached a cluster of Afghan National Army troops at the front of their formation. Lorance and his troops were standing about 150 to 200 yards away in an orchard, tucked behind a series of five-foot-high mud walls on which the Afghans grew grapes.

At the trial, Lorance's soldiers recalled how he had ordered them to fire.

"Why aren't you shooting?" he demanded.

A U.S. soldier fired and missed. The motorcycle carrying the three men, none of whom appeared to be armed, came to a stop. Upon hearing the shots, McGuinness began running toward Lorance, who was closer to the front of the U.S. patrol, to see out why they were shooting.

The puzzled Afghans were now standing next to the stopped motorcycle, "trying to figure out what had happened," according to one soldier's testimony. Gray, who was watching from a nearby armored vehicle, recognized the eldest of the three men as someone the Americans regularly met with in the village. He recalled the Afghans waving at them.

"Smoke 'em," Lorance ordered over the radio.

At first Gray and the other soldiers in the armored vehicle weren't sure whom Lorance wanted them to shoot. "There was a back and forth with the three of us in the vehicle," Gray recalled in an interview.

Then Pvt. David Shilo, who was in the turret of the armored vehicle just inches from Gray, fired, striking one of the men, who fell into a drainage ditch. Because the platoon had been told that morning that motorcycles weren't allowed in their sector, Shilo testified that he thought he was acting on a lawful order. Shilo declined to be interviewed.

The two surviving Afghan men bent to retrieve their dead colleague when Shilo cleared his weapon and shot again, killing a second Afghan. The third man ran away. Two U.S. soldiers testified that it was possible that an Afghan soldier also fired.

A few minutes later, a boy approached the dead men and the motorcycle, which was standing on the side of the road with its kickstand still down. Lorance ordered Shilo to fire a third time and disable the bike. This time he refused.

"I wasn't going to shoot a 12-year-old boy," Shilo testified.

Relatives of the dead were now on the scene screaming and crying. Lorance's immediate superior officer, Capt. Patrick Swanson, who was two miles away and couldn't see what was happening, ordered him over the radio to search the bodies.

Lorance was convicted of lying to Swanson, telling him that villagers had carried off the corpses before his men could examine them. In fact, Lorance's troops searched the bodies of the dead Afghans and found ID cards, scissors, some pens and three cucumbers, but no weapons, according to testimony.

The troops continued their patrol into the village while McGuinness and a small team of soldiers provided cover from a nearby roof. About 30 minutes after the first shooting, McGuinness spotted two Afghan men talking on radios.

"We have to do something to the Americans," one of the men was saying, according to U.S. intercepts. McGuinness and his troops received permission from the company headquarters to fire and killed the two men. The platoon cut short the patrol and returned to the base.

At the outpost the soldiers were shaken. "This doesn't feel right," Gray said.

"It's not f---ing right at all," McGuinness replied.

A few minutes later Lorance burst into the platoon's headquarters ebullient. "That was f---ing awesome," he exclaimed, according to court testimony.

"Ayres looked sick," one of the platoon's soldiers testified. McGuinness was furious.

The lieutenant tried to reassure his sergeants. "I know how to report it up [so] nobody gets in trouble," he said, according to testimony.

Lorance's soldiers turned him in that evening, and at the July 2013 trial, 14 of his men testified under oath against him. Four of those soldiers received immunity in exchange for their testimony. Lorance did not appear on the stand, and not one of his former 1st Platoon soldiers spoke in his defense. The trial lasted three days. It took the jury of Army officers three hours to find him guilty of second-degree murder, making false statements and ordering his men to fire at Afghan civilians. The jury handed down a 20-year sentence.

In response to a Lorance clemency request, an Army general reviewed the conviction and reduced the sentence by one year.

- - -

The war crimes and their aftermath followed Lorance's soldiers home to Fort Bragg and, in some cases, into their nightmares. On many nights Gray woke up to the image of a group of Afghan soldiers surrounding his cot and emptying their rifles into his sleeping body in retaliation for the murders.

"I dreamed it," he said, "because I thought that's what would happen."

Dave Zettel wasn't on the patrol when the killings were committed but was in the guard tower when Lorance ordered him and another soldier to fire harassing shots into the neighboring village. On his first full day back in the States, Zettel went out to a dinner with a large group from the platoon and their families.

By the end of the night, the soldiers, rattled from the tour, the stress of Lorance's upcoming trial and the return home, were intoxicated and emotionally falling apart. Zettel held it together until he was alone in a taxi with his wife and brother. In the quiet of the cab, he felt a crushing guilt that he had made it home unscathed.

"I just lost my s---. I felt like a failure," he said. "I felt abandoned and so f---ing angry."

In Afghanistan, Army investigators, who were primarily pursuing Lorance, threatened Zettel with aggravated assault charges for the shootings in the tower. And they showed McGuinness a charge sheet accusing him of murder for killing the Afghans who were talking on the radios about targeting Americans.

The threats of prosecution hung over them for months. Eventually, the Army concluded that McGuinness's actions were justified. Prosecutors never pursued charges against Zettel.

Instead the Army issued administrative letters of reprimand to Zettel and Matthew Rush, the soldier who fired the rounds at the civilians from the tower. Zettel had watched from the tower but did not shoot.

Ayres and McGuinness - the senior sergeants in the platoon - received disciplinary letters, which can hinder or delay promotions, for their failure to turn Lorance in sooner or stop the killings on the third day.

McGuinness legally changed his surname, which had been Herrmann, in an effort to shed the stigma of the crimes. "I wanted to get away from the entire situation and I thought I'll change units and no one will know," he said. But, because of the investigation and trial, McGuinness's orders to report to an airborne unit in Italy were canceled. "I ended up staying. People didn't forget," he said. "It was awful."

Shilo, who fired the fatal shots at the men on the motorcycle, was granted immunity and left the Army not long after the trial.

Even those who weren't punished or even on the patrol that day felt tainted. To some of their fellow troops they were the "murder platoon," a bunch of out-of-control soldiers who had wantonly killed Afghans. To others they were turncoats who had flipped on their commander. Gray was waiting for a parachute jump at Fort Bragg when he overheard a lieutenant colonel deride the platoon as nothing but a bunch of "traitors and cowards." Gray was just a low-ranking specialist, so he kept his mouth shut.

The unit had seen some of the heaviest fighting of the long Afghanistan war, but received no awards for valor. There was no recognition for Twist, who had pulled Walley from a blast crater and applied a tourniquet to the remains of his arm and leg. No one acknowledged Joe Fjeldheim, the platoon medic, who had cut a hole in Hanes's neck and inserted a breathing tube after a sniper's bullet left him paralyzed and choking for air.

"Not a single write up. The only thing we received were Purple Hearts for the guys that got messed up," Zettel said. "We were treated like we had an infectious disease. The Lorance issue evaporated any support from the Army when we got back, and it was absolutely crushing to those who needed help."

A group from the unit gathered regularly at Zettel's apartment off post to drink. Some Saturdays Fjeldheim would show up at 9:30 a.m. with booze and a plan to stay numb through the weekend. When the troops were too hung over to make it to mandatory morning formation and training, he would administer intravenousdrips in the barracks.

"I was working at Macy's, and I'd dread coming home because someone was doing something stupid or crying in the bathroom," said Zettel's wife, Kim. Often, it fell to her to offer a bit of empathy.

The soldiers blamed the killings when they were passed over for promotions or stripped of rank for drinking too much or missing formations. In early 2014, Gray was hospitalized for alcohol withdrawal and put on suicide watch. He had been drinking a half-gallon of whiskey each night to fall asleep. "It was my off switch," he said. A few days into his hospital stay, when he was still dosed up on Valium, an officer visited him.

"Why are you like this?" the officer pressed. "They are just dead Afghans. Why do you care so much?"

The question infuriated Gray. Before the war crimes, he had believed he was helping Afghans and defending his country. "It's like you're this hardcore Christian and some entity drops from the ceiling and says it's a sham," he said. "That's how it was for me. I thought of the Army as this altruistic thing. I thought it was perfect and honorable. It pains me to tell you how stupid and naive I was. The Lorance stuff just broke my faith. . . . And once you lose your values and your faith, the Army is just another job you hate."

- - -

McGuinness tried to intervene on behalf of his soldiers. He talked to Gray's new commanders, who McGuinness said wanted to run him out of the Army for being drunk.

"Did you ask him why he's drinking too much?" McGuinness pressed them.

Zettel asked McGuinness to meet with his new platoon sergeant when the Army, without explanation, blocked him from attending Ranger School.

McGuinness also spoke up for Jarred Ruhl, who had been one of his best soldiers in combat. Ruhl came home from Afghanistan with orders for Hawaii and a promotion to sergeant. But he soon began skipping morning formation, was demoted twice to private first class and forced from the Army.

"I just don't know how to deal with everything that happened," Ruhl told him. He had been standing next to Lorance when the lieutenant gave the orders to kill the Afghan men.

McGuinness, who said he felt like a failure for not stopping the killings or shielding his men from the fallout, was also self-destructing. "I was mouthy and insubordinate," he said. He felt distant from his two young children and said he was drunk "six days a week."

When conservatives rushed to turn Lorance into a hero, McGuinness felt as though the last shreds of his integrity were under assault. Former Lt. Col. Allen West, who had been relieved of command in 2003 for staging a mock execution of an Iraqi prisoner and was later elected to Congress in the tea party wave, blasted Lorance's conviction in a Washington Times op-ed as a product of the Army's "appalling" rules of engagement.

The rules were drafted by generals who worried that high civilian casualty rates were driving Afghans to support the Taliban. But West insisted that the rules put U.S. troops at undue risk and reflected President Barack Obama's "outrageous contempt for the military." West didn't respond to a request for comment.

Fox News's Sean Hannity took up Lorance's case, calling the conviction a "national disgrace."

In 2014, McGuinness was out drinking with an Army friend, and when the friend went home, stayed at the bar until he had downed enough booze to "sedate a rhino." A military police officer found him later that night, sitting in his truck on All American Parkway, the main drag through Fort Bragg, with a gun in his mouth.

A nurse in the psychiatric ward at Womack Army Medical Center asked him if he really wanted help. "If you tell me that to get better, I've got to eat a 100-pound bag of gummy bears, then I'm going to eat 100 pounds of gummy bears," he recalled telling her. "I just can't do this s--- any more."

It was the end of a 16-year Army career.

Soon the platoon began to suffer losses at home. First Kerner, who was wounded in a bomb blast with the unit's first platoon leader, died in March 2015 of cancer at age 23. Doctors discovered the malignancy when they were treating his combat wounds. Five months later Hanes, who was paralyzed by the bullet he took to his neck, died of a blood clot at age 24.

"Saying I love you doesn't even scratch the surface of how much you truly mean to me," he wrote in a note to the platoon three months before he fell into a coma. His closest friends from the unit - Zettel, Dallas Haggard and Fjeldheim, the medic who saved his life - were at his bedside in York, Pa., during his final unconscious hours.

At the funeral there was heavy drinking, just like at Bragg, but now that many in the platoon were out of the Army and no longer had to worry about drug tests, there was also cocaine to numb the pain.

Wives traded tips about how to persuade their husbands to go to therapy and talked about hiding their guns when they grew too depressed.

Ruhl complained to McGuinness that life at home felt empty. "Are you in therapy?" asked McGuinness, who was seeing a therapist and getting ready to start college at age 33.

"I don't know if I can do it," Ruhl said.

"It doesn't f---ing matter what you think you can do," he pressed. "It can't make things worse."

A few months later Zettel, who had finished college and was commissioned as an officer, stopped in to see Ruhl at his home in Fort Wayne, Ind. Zettel was on his way to a leadership course for new Army officers in Missouri.

Ruhl's stepbrother told him that Ruhl had pulled a gun on a woman in a traffic dispute just days earlier. "Take his gun," Zettel advised Ruhl's stepbrother. "Take it apart and hide the pieces so that he can't get it." It was impossible, the stepbrother said. Ruhl took his gun everywhere.

Ruhl confided to Zettel that there were days when he couldn't stop thinking about killing himself.

"How are we going to fix this?" asked Zettel, who helped Ruhl sign up for a counseling at a VA hospital.

Before he could start, Ruhl pulled his gun on an acquaintance at a party. His stepbrother tried to wrestle it away and the firearm discharged, severing Ruhl's femoral artery. He died before paramedics arrived.

Zettel came back for the funeral, then returned to Missouri to finish his five-month leadership course. Four years had passed since the war crimes, but the murders and their aftermath still seemed inescapable. A captain teaching Zettel's class on rules of engagement used Lorance as a case study, telling the new officers that Lorance had been trying to impose discipline on a platoon that had lost control after one of its soldiers was shot in the neck. The captain was referring to Hanes, who had given Zettel his first salute when he was commissioned as an officer.

Lorance's soldiers, the captain continued, had violated the rules of engagement and now Lorance, who hadn't fired a shot, was serving a 19-year prison sentence.

Zettel blew up. "I was there and you need to stop running your mouth," he recalled shouting at the instructor.

The instructor suggested they step out of the classroom. Zettel grew angrier.

"If I ever see Lorance on the street," he said. "I am going to rip his f---ing throat out."

- - -

Six days after Trump was inaugurated as president, Hannity asked him in a White House interview about pardoning Lorance. "He got 30 years," Hannity said incorrectly. "He was doing his job, protecting his team in Afghanistan."

"We're looking at a few of them," said Trump of the case.

In the months after his conviction, Lorance had begun to receive support from United American Patriots (UAP), a nonprofit group that represents soldiers accused of war crimes. UAP helped Lorance find new lawyers who claimed in an appeals court filing that they had uncovered evidence showing that the younger victim was "biometrically linked" to a roadside bomb blast that occurred before his death. The sole survivor, the lawyers said, took part in attacks on U.S. forces after the Americans tried to kill him.

"The Afghan men were not civilian casualties . . . but were actually combatant bombmakers who intended to harm or kill American soldiers," the lawyers wrote in their appeal.

In 2017, a military appeals court dismissed the biometric data as irrelevant because Lorance had "no indications that the victims posed any threat at the time of the shootings." The judges found that the surviving victim's decision to join the Taliban after the platoon tried to kill him probably would have helped prosecutors by demonstrating "the direct impact on U.S. forces when the local population believe they are being indiscriminately killed."

But the biometric evidence and support from UAP helped Lorance's mother and his legal team get on Trump's favorite television shows - "Fox & Friends" and "Hannity" - where they offered a new account of the killings that differed dramatically from the sworn testimony. In their telling, the motorcycle wasn't stopped on the side of the road with its kickstand down, as testimony and photos from the trial demonstrated, but was speeding toward Lorance and his men when he ordered them to fire.

"He's got to make a split-second decision in a war zone," Hannity said on his television show. "How did it get to the point where he got prosecuted for this?"

"I feel if he had not made that call," Lorance's mother replied, "my son today would be called a hero, killed in action."

Hannity turned to Lorance's lawyer, John Maher. "Was there anybody in the platoon that was with Clint that said that was the wrong decision?" he asked.

"That I don't rightly know," replied Maher, who had reviewed the platoon's testimony.

"Then who made the determination that this was the wrong thing to do?" Hannity pressed.

"The chain of command," Maher said.

"People that weren't there," Hannity concluded. Hannity and a Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a recent interview, Maher said his response to Hannity's question had been "potentially inartful." Lorance was in prison because the 1st Platoon soldiers turned him in and testified against him.

But Maher maintained that Lorance had made a split-second decision to protect his men from an enemy ambush. Some of the 1st Platoon soldiers said that the Afghan men had been standing on the side of the road for as long as two minutes before the U.S. gun truck opened fire on Lorance's orders. Others, including Lorance, estimated they had been stopped for only a few seconds.

"That's probably an eternity sitting here in the safety of this environment," Maher said. "But I assure you that it's not like that under volatile, uncertain, unforgiving conditions where life and death are right around the corner and a tardy decision results in death or dismemberment."

The Afghan men were about 150 to 200 yards from the U.S. position when they were killed. To reach Lorance and his troops, they would have had to scale multiple shoulder-high mud walls.

Zach Thomas, who had been standing just yards from Lorance when he gave the order to fire, was driving to community college in 2017 when he heard Hannity talking about the Lorance case on the radio.

"My blood just started boiling," he recalled.

Thomas had spent his last day in the Army testifying against his former platoon leader. He was just 18 when he left for Afghanistan, and like many in the unit, his return home had been difficult. He drank to blunt his PTSD and depression. Two of his sergeants were so worried about him that they let him move out of the barracks and spend his last two months living at their house. His plan after the Army was to forget about Afghanistan and start a new life in his hometown of Crosby, Tex.

Thomas pulled over on the side of the road and looked up the number for Hannity's radio show in New York City on his cellphone.

"I'm a big fan, but y'all are being led the wrong way," he told a producer for the show. "This isn't some innocent guy." The producer asked him if he knew about the biometric data Lorance's lawyers had uncovered.

"I don't know about any of that information, but I was there and these people were not enemy combatants," he said. He could tell he wasn't convincing the producer so he gave her McGuinness's cellphone number and urged her to call him. She talked with McGuinness as well but never invited him on the show.

A handful of other soldiers from the platoon did their best to counter Lorance's story. Todd Fitzgerald, who was also standing near Lorance when he ordered the killings, took to Reddit to defend the unit. He and several other soldiers spoke to the New York Times for a story that detailed the inaccuracies in Lorance's defense. Fitzgerald, McGuinness and Gray were interviewed for a documentary about the case, "Leavenworth," that aired on the Starz Network.

In April 2018, the platoon suffered its fourth death since returning home when Nick Carson, 26, crashed his car late at night.

Carson had been with McGuinness in Afghanistan on the day of the killings, and like his squad leader had been threatened with war crimes charges.

"I don't know what's fixing to happen, but our platoon leader is making us all out to be murderers," he told his parents in a 2012 phone call from Afghanistan. "Just know, I am not a murderer."

Carson's mother and stepfather were at Fort Bragg a few months later when he returned from the war. "He got off that big plane, hugged us and cried and then he said, 'I love y'all but I need to be by myself. I just need to go,' " recalled his stepfather.

Carson stayed in the Army after the combat tour, but he struggled with PTSD, depression and anger. He and Ruhl had been best friends and were supposed to go to Hawaii together when they returned from Afghanistan. After Ruhl's death, Carson tried to explain on the platoon's private Facebook page why he was skipping his friend's funeral. "It's not that I can't physically be there," he wrote. "I won't let my last memory of Jarred be at his funeral. I am sorry for that. Most of you know how close Jarred and I were, so this has been extremely difficult to accept."

On the night of the car accident that killed him, Carson had been drinking and wasn't wearing a seat belt. His parents said he may have fallen asleep while driving. The platoon blamed the war crimes and the deployment.

In Afghanistan, the platoon had dubbed themselves the "Honey Badgers" after the fearless carnivore.

Back home, they began to refer to themselves as "the cursed platoon."

- - -

On October 23rd at 2:44 a.m., Twist's wife, Emalyn, messaged Sgt. 1st Class Joe Morrissey, who had been Twist's team leader with the platoon in Afghanistan.

"James committed suicide tonight," she wrote from the hospital where the doctors were preparing to harvest his organs. "Could you let his other Army friends know. . . . This is a fucking living nightmare." It was the platoon's fifth death since returning home four years earlier.

Morrissey woke to the message at Fort Bragg and began sobbing. His soon-to-be ex-wife knew immediately that another member of the platoon was gone. His first call was to McGuinness, who was returning home from a late-night shift as a bouncer at a Fayetteville bar. The two immediately began calling the rest of the platoon, which was scattered across the country.

The deaths had imbued them with a grim fatalism. "Who is it this time?" a few answered when they saw the 5 a.m. calls from Morrissey's phone.

"It's James," Morrissey said again and again.

At Fort Jackson, Zettel was administering a predawn fitness test to recruits when he got the call. He punched a fence and rushed back to his office so the new soldiers wouldn't see him fall part. Alone at his desk, Zettel thought about the steady stream of calls and texts Twist had sent him over the past five years, and he wondered if the messages were an indirect way of asking for help.

McGuinness caught Gray as he headed off to his job at a weapons arsenal in southwest Virginia. His wallpaper on his work computer was a photo of Twist and him in Afghanistan, their rifles slung across their chests. "Back when we were cool," Twist had written when he texted it to Gray.

The hardest call was to Walley, the soldier Twist had dragged from the blast crater. "What's wrong?" his fiancee asked him when he got the call. "It's Twist," Walley told her. She tried to hug him, but he pushed her away. "I need to take this in alone," he said.

At the funeral, Walley spoke first for the platoon, rocking back and forth on his prosthetic leg. Walley was wounded a month before the murders, but they had affected him too. At times, he felt abandoned by those who had tried to distance themselves from the unit, the murders and the war. "I have to wake up every single day and look in the mirror. Every single day I am hopping in a wheelchair," he often thought. "I don't get to forget."

In January 2016, he was drunk and despondent in his apartment outside Atlanta and accidentally fired his pistol through the ceiling and into the apartment above him. After the shooting, Walley cut back on his drinking and returned to college. He was just one semester from graduating.

He stared out at the packed and silent church.

"Twist would probably give me a little bit of crap right now for having not wrote a speech," he began. "But I figured I'd just tell a story. It's a little bit of a harsh story, but I think it needs to be told."

Walley had spent dozens of hours reconstructing every second of the day he was injured. Eight years after the blast, he and his fellow soldiers would still argue over the smallest details: What kind of bomb had caused his wounds? Was it a pressure plate or remote-detonated? What exactly did Morrissey say as he and Carson lifted Walley into the helicopter? For Walley, the details were sacred. Remembering brought him comfort.

He took a breath and described the explosion and its aftermath. "My right leg was about 20 feet away. It was completely removed. My left leg, the tibia ripped through the [skin]; my foot was facing toward my butt," he said. His right arm was mangled.

"Twist ended up coming through this cloudy haze," Walley continued. "He was the most selfless man that I ever knew on this planet. He did not care if he died. He did not care if his limbs were to get ripped off. He didn't care. He just cared that his guys were okay."

A few minutes in a combat zone can define a life for good or for ill. "I believe that 10 minutes defined Twist," Walley said.

Morrissey spoke next of Twist's successes as a soldier, state trooper and father. "Those of us who knew Twist were extremely proud," he said. "Unfortunately . . . underneath it all, the demons are still there, still tearing away at us day in and day out."

- - -

The 1st Platoon soldiers were still filtering home from Twist's funeral when Pete Hegseth, a "Fox & Friends" co-anchor who had advocated on Lorance's behalf, tweeted that Lorance's pardon was "imminent."

The actual release came two weeks later on Nov. 15.

"It's done. It's a political move," one of the 1st Platoon soldiers wrote on the group's private Facebook page. "Time to move on."

Ayres, who had skipped all five of the platoon's funerals, agreed. "Not worth any of our time," he wrote. "What matters is that everyone that matters knows he is a piece of s---. Let's move on and enjoy life."

For McGuinness it wasn't an option. He couldn't bear the thought that Lorance was being hailed as a hero by Trump and others, while soldiers like Twist were being forgotten. "I've buried people that struggled with what happened, and whether through their own hands or their actions, they're gone," he said. "I'm not going to sit quietly while he gets paraded around and they're not recognized."

He texted with Gray, who wasn't on Facebook.

"Fuck it all," Gray wrote. "The one reprieve we had is gone."

"I feel so shitty right now," McGuinness replied.

"I'm going to drink until I can sleep," Gray added.

"I might do the same," McGuinness said.

Others in the platoon argued on social media with pro-Trump friends, who insisted Lorance was innocent. "You realize I was f---ing THERE, right?" one soldier wrote to a fellow veteran. "Like you realize I was one of the godd--- WITNESSES who testified, right?!"

Later that evening, Twist's father, John, called McGuinness, hoping to talk about his son and the pardon. McGuinness shared his memories of Twist, who came to the platoon when he was just 19. "We put so much work into him," McGuinness said. He talked about Twist's quirks - his irritating tendency to correct McGuinness when he got a minor fact wrong about a weapons system.

Twist's father asked whether the murders and the trial might have contributed to his son's torment. Twist wasn't on patrol the day of the killings, but McGuinness believed that what had happened with Lorance had wounded him too. "Twist had a big heart. He was like Gray. He wanted to do good," McGuinness said. "When Lorance took that away, he took a little part of Jimmy, too."

In Lorance's hometown of Merit, Tex., Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." blared from a sound system in the parking lot of the local high school. A cheering crowd of about 300 people had spent the previous two hours in the cold and dark awaiting Lorance's arrival.

"This is absolutely amazing," Lorance said as his car, escorted by the county constable, rolled to a stop in the high school parking lot.

"It's a hometown hero's welcome," said his cousin from the back seat.

Lorance climbed atop a flatbed trailer. Someone from the crowd gave him an American flag. The vice commander of the local VFW handed him a microphone.

"God Bless Texas!" Lorance yelled. "God Bless America!"

At his side was the head of UAP, the group that had worked to free him. Lorance's case and the publicity generated helped the group boost annual donations by about 150 percent, from $1.8 million in 2015 to more than $4.5 million in 2018.

Lorance, who was wearing his crisp, blue Army uniform - his pants tucked into his boots, paratrooper style - knew exactly what his backers wanted to hear. "We finally have a president who understands that when we send our troops to fight impossible wars, we must stand behind them," he told the crowd.

"Amen!" cried a voice from the high school parking lot.

"Amen is right!" Lorance answered.

For those in the parking lot that night, Lorance's freedom was proof that Trump would stand up for them and their town, population 215, at a moment when large swaths of the country seemed to hold them and their way of life in contempt. "You know how many people just want to see that someone cares," said Tiffany West, 37, who was standing feet from the stage.

Lorance thanked his family and the lawmakers who pressed for his release. He talked about Trump and Vice President Pence, who had called him at the penitentiary to tell him that they were setting him free. "We had a nine-minute conversation," Lorance said. "Yeah, I was timing it. . . . They took time out of their busy day to ask me what I was going to do with the rest of my life."

He blasted the craven "deep state" military officers he blamed for his conviction. "That's not really the military. That's the politicians who run the thing," he said. "The men and women in the mud and dirt. That's the real U.S. military."

He was still talking nearly an hour later when the television news crews from Dallas, about 60 miles away, began packing up their equipment.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I know it's cold."

"Go ahead!" a voice shouted.

"You're home!" added another.

Soon the crowd began drifting away for the night, past Merit's post office, its volunteer fire department, its recently shuttered convenience store, and the decaying wood clapboard building that once held its cotton gin. Lorance handed the microphone back to the local VFW's vice commander, a Gulf War veteran who had organized the gathering and would now get the final word.

"There's going to be people out there that are going to try to use this against Trump," he warned. "Well, we're going to throw it right back in their faces!"

The next morning Lorance boarded a plane for New York City, where he appeared on "Fox & Friends" and Hannity's radio show. In December, he joined Trump onstage at a GOP fundraiser.

In interviews after his release, Lorance insisted that the soldiers who testified against him were pressured by the Army or had turned on him because he was an exacting commander and they lacked discipline. "When I walked into the guard tower and the soldiers didn't have their helmet or body armor on, I told them to put it on," he told Blue Magazine, which advocates on behalf of police officers. "And they didn't like that, they didn't like taking orders like that, but I was brought in there to enforce the standard."

- - -

In Grand Rapids, Twist's father spent much of the winter trying to unravel the mystery of his son's death. His dining room table was covered with foot-high piles of papers from James's life.

There were old report cards, passports and programs from high school wrestling matches. A second pile from the Army included a spiral notebook that his son had used as a diary when he was going through basic training. A third pile contained a printout of the essay - "The Invisible War Inside My Head" - that his son wrote the day before he died.

In it, Twist wrote briefly about the killings that had "rocked and split up" his platoon. The longest section of the essay recounted the day Walley lost his arm and leg. "I found Sam in a small crater," he wrote. "He was missing his right foot and all the muscle and skin around his right tibia/fibula." That image, he said, played again and again in his head when he returned from the war.

"I really don't understand what PTSD is," his father said. "You can read about it, but I don't get it. So far the only thing I can get is that it's like having . . . poor Sam Walley getting blown up" playing in your head over and over. "And how do you get rid of that?"

Twist's wife, Emalyn, 27, also had been thinking about the meaning of her husband's life and sudden, violent death. In early March she was sitting alone in the parking lot of a nearby Target. Her three children - ages 1, 3 and 5 - were with a friend. She balanced a Starbucks coffee in one hand and hit record on her cellphone camera.

"It has been kind of a bad week, filled with a lot of 'it shouldn't have to be that way' kind of moments," she said. Earlier that morning, she had turned over their house keys to the new owners. Her 5-year-old son spotted the family's moving trucks in the driveway and panicked, yelling for her to "stop them."

Twist's children remembered their father as a dad who liked to wrestle and sing them to sleep. Emalyn couldn't forget her husband's insecurity, bouts of self-loathing and verbal abuse. On the night her husband took his life he was upset with her for going to see a therapist and terrified that she was going to divorce him. In a blog post, Emalyn described him slamming his head into the kitchen counter until blood was running down his face. Then he stormed to their bedroom and shot himself.

Emalyn pressed a pair of leggings to her husband's head in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. With her other hand, she dialed 911. As she listened for the sound of approaching sirens, she stifled the urge to vomit and prayed that their children would not wake.

"I couldn't stand to live in that house or sleep in that bedroom when I had seen so much in there, and that just makes me mad, because I loved that house and I loved that neighborhood," she said to her cellphone camera. "And I shouldn't have had to leave. I shouldn't have had to pull my kids out of their little social circle and all those people who loved them. It shouldn't have to be that way."

For years she had helped her husband hide his pain from family, friends and even his fellow soldiers. Now she was determined to be honest. "I just don't have to keep up this facade of the grieving widow all the time, even though that's also what I am," she said. "There's almost always more to every story than we know. It's important to pay attention to that."

She stopped recording, turned on the ignition and picked up with her day.

- - -

In April with the country locked down by the coronavirus, McGuinness arranged for a dozen of the guys from the platoon to get together on a video call for beers. He and Walley were finishing up their last few college courses before they graduated. A couple of the soldiers and wives were expecting their first children. Two were in the early days of divorces.

An hour into the call almost everyone was drunk or stoned - except for the pregnant wives. One soldier kept streaming as he sat on the toilet. When he was done everyone screamed at him to wash his hands. Another soldier vomited and curled up on the floor.

"This is better than getting together at funerals," McGuinness said cheerily.

The troops talked about their plans for the future. Morrissey was just back from another tour in Afghanistan, where he mostly sat on base while the Afghans fought each other. "There's no war left there anymore," he said.

"What are you going to do when you retire?" McGuinness asked him.

"Let me finish, before you laugh," Morrissey replied. "I'm going to go to school to be a barber and open one of those high end barber shops where you can get a drink, a real gentleman's haircut and shave with a straight razor."

Walley tried to talk, but everyone was talking over him. "No one listens to me," he joked. "Everyone just stares at the guy with two limbs." He and his fiancee were planning their wedding for the spring of 2021. They had already reserved a "mansion where we can fit the whole platoon," he said.

"Just tell me the day and I'll be there," McGuinness promised.

Zettel and his wife were expecting their first child on Aug. 10. He was planning on leaving the Army for good in October. "It's not going to join the Army," Zettel said of his unborn child. "I'm going to burn everything so it doesn't even know I was in the f---ing Army."

The soldiers talked about the guys they had lost to suicide and self-destructive behavior. And they spoke briefly about Lorance, who has a memoir titled "Stolen Valor" that is going to be published by Hachette Book Group in the fall, when Lorance has said he is planning to start law school. A blurb for the book, posted by the publisher, calls Lorance "a scapegoat for a corrupt military" and asserts that "his unit turned on him because of his homosexuality." Lorance's lawyer said there was no evidence that homophobia played a role in conviction.

"We looked," Maher said, "and we came up with nothing."

In interviews, troops said that in Afghanistan they didn't know Lorance was gay and wouldn't have cared.

"We took s--- from so many people for so long," McGuinness said. "I'm not letting that happen anymore. I'm going to fight back."

The soldiers shared tips about how to find a good therapist and promised to look out for one another so that there would be no more funerals.

"You guys mean everything to me," McGuinness said. "We have to do this more often. We have to look after each other. If you guys are hurting, hit me up. We can do this instead of just letting things fester."

He rose from his desk chair - a little wobbly from all the beer. It was 2:30 a.m., and they had been talking for more than four hours. "I love you a--holes," he said, and signed off the call.

- - -

The Washington Post's Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Chinese officials on Wednesday stressed the significance of the law on safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), noting that the law marks a turning point and will bring the region back on track in terms of its development.

Chinese lawmakers on Tuesday voted to adopt the 66-article law, and later passed a decision to list the law in Annex III to the HKSAR Basic Law.

The promulgation and implementation of the law will be of profound and far-reaching significance for upholding and improving the institutional system of "one country, two systems" under new conditions. It will also safeguard China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and ensure long-term peace, stability and prosperity in Hong Kong, Shen Chunyao, director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said at a press conference.

The law is designed to bring tranquility to Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said at the press conference.

The law came into force in Hong Kong at 11:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday, upon its promulgation by the HKSAR government in the gazette.

Opinions were solicited from all relevant sectors, in particular, those from the HKSAR, during the formulation of the law, Shen said.

Shen stressed that the jurisdiction of the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR only targets the very few criminal cases that severely endanger national security.

The law does not target the entire opposition camp in the HKSAR, Zhang said, noting that different political views, including those not in the government's favor, can still exist.

The law does not criminalize normal international communication and exchanges either, Zhang said.

On national security legislation stipulated in Article 23 of the HKSAR Basic Law, Shen said neither a relevant decision by NPC nor the law adopted by the NPC Standing Committee can substitute the relevant legislation, as stipulated by Article 23 of the HKSAR Basic Law.

The HKSAR should complete, on its own, the relevant legislation stipulated by the article as soon as possible, Shen said.

In response to some countries' so-called "sanction" threats, Zhang said enacting a law on safeguarding national security in a local administrative region is entirely an internal affair of China.

The law will fully protect the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the vast majority of Hong Kong residents, and the legitimate rights and interests of overseas investors in Hong Kong, Zhang noted.
The Twin Cities once drew black families fleeing racism in the Jim Crow South, and with their combination of progressive policies and prosperity, regularly rank among the best places to live in America.

Taxes, for decades, have been redistributed from wealthy suburbs to poorer communities to combat inequality - an effort bolstered in recent years by raising state income taxes on the rich. The result: more money for schools, affordable housing and social services in lower-income neighborhoods.

But the prosperity fueled by the region's Fortune 500 companies and progressive policies has not translated into economic equality. Instead, the wealth gap between Minneapolis's largely white population and the city's black residents has deepened, producing some of the nation's widest racial disparities in income, employment and homeownership.

Such disappointments offer cautionary notes for those promising change in Minneapolis and other areas of the country in the aftermath of protests against police brutality and systemic racism - and raise questions about how far the movement to shift funding from police departments to other services can go toward delivering racial justice.

The shortcomings have given rise to an urgent debate about where Minneapolis went wrong and what measures would bring better results. Economists, lawyers and civil rights advocates in the Twin Cities say progressive tax policies could not make up for other aspects of structural racism, such as access to credit or jobs. Some say investments in affordable housing in low-income neighborhoods deepened segregation and poverty. Others argue for better enforcement of federal laws to combat discrimination in lending, employment and housing.

"Minneapolis seems to have been blindsided by these realities. They relish the fact that they are seen as this bastion of progressivism," said Marvin Owens Jr., senior director of economic programs at the NAACP, which released a report in December highlighting the Twin Cities' growing racial economic disparities. "The warning was if we don't address these issues, this was a tinder box that would explode."

The typical black family in the Twin Cities earned $39,851 in 2017, lower than the median income for African Americans nationally and less than half as much as the typical white family income of $82,371, which is much higher than white households nationally, according to the NAACP report. A quarter of black households lived in poverty, five times the poverty rate for white households.

Those enduring disparities, which erupted onto the national stage after George Floyd was killed in the custody of Minneapolis police last month, highlight the flawed premise, touted by President Trump and other Republicans, that economic prosperity is a remedy for racial inequality.

5 1 of 5 Photo for The Washington Post by Jenn Ackerman Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Washington Post photo by Salwan Georges Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Photo for The Washington Post by Tim Gruber Show More Show Less 5 of 5









Having the "strongest economy in the world" is "the greatest thing that can happen for race relations, for the African American community," Trump said amid protests after a video emerged of an officer kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes.

But the outcome for black residents in Minneapolis and St. Paul also undercuts the liberal argument that spending on progressive policies can create systemic change.

Civil rights and community leaders in the Twin Cities say racial equity cannot be achieved without gaining a greater understanding of how the country's racist foundations continue to affect the criminal justice, education and health systems. Too often, they say, progressive programs focus on "fixing" something perceived to be wrong with the black community rather than fundamentally reshaping underlying inequities in society.

"In order for Minneapolis and the region to actually change the trajectory for people of color, whites are going to have to be uncomfortable," said Gary Cunningham, chief executive of Prosperity Now, a national nonprofit focused on racial wealth equity. "They are going to have to have conversations about how their privilege maintains the status quo and how resources and wealth are distributed in their communities."

Cunningham, who grew up in Minneapolis and served as the city's associate schools superintendent and deputy civil rights director, said that for too long, there has been a "huge disconnect between the progressive policies that are put in place and the outcomes that they get."

"Good intentions don't change the conditions for young boys and girls growing up in north Minneapolis," he said.

Black residents, who account for less than a fifth of the Twin Cities' population, are worse off today by some measures than they were 20 and 30 years ago, even as the fortunes of their white counterparts held steady or improved, according to census data.

Nationally, the economic gulf between black and white Americans has changed little since a federal commission in 1968 identified "white racism" leading to "pervasive discrimination in employment, education and housing" as the cause of uprisings in African American communities.

Black residents in the Twin Cities are younger and more likely to be immigrants than white residents, but these differences still do not fully explain the racial economic disparities, according to a 2016 analysis by the Metropolitan Council, a regional government agency. Such disparities existed before the influx of immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia and Liberia, leading the agency and other researchers to conclude that "systemic discrimination is part of the equation."

Minnesota's progressive reputation was cemented nearly five decades ago when a Time magazine cover featured then-Gov. Wendell Anderson on a fishing trip, with a headline touting "The Good Life."

Anderson, a Democrat, had worked with the Republican-controlled legislature to pass laws known as the "Minnesota Miracle." Among the key provisions: a redistributive tax policy introduced in 1971 that required wealthy communities in the Twin Cities region to share their commercial property tax revenue with the poorest areas. Income and sales tax revenue from rich suburbs across the state also was shared with less-affluent cities and rural communities to fund schools, police and housing.

"The whole idea was we are going to invest in the future so everyone does better," Cunningham said.

It would be the beginning of a suite of policies that over subsequent decades increased investments in housing, schools and small businesses in disadvantaged communities.

But the main beneficiaries of many of the policies were working-class whites, said Samuel Myers Jr., an economist at the University of Minnesota whose research on what he calls "the Minnesota paradox" focuses on the problem with race-neutral remedies to racial inequality.

In the 1970s, following civil unrest over systemic racism and a lawsuit on school segregation, the Twin Cities embarked on a new set of reforms, building subsidized housing for low-income families throughout its wealthier white communities, said Myron Orfield, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who leads the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity.

But political and philanthropic leaders abandoned the region's well-known integration policies in the 1990s in favor of directing additional tax dollars to finance social services, housing and schools in low-income communities of color, he said.

"There's nothing wrong with gigantic redistributive programs, but they don't overcome the problems that segregation causes," said Orfield, a former civil rights attorney. "The structures of people's lives did not change - they didn't have better jobs, they didn't live in safer neighborhoods, they weren't more likely to graduate from high school. If you allow segregation to get worse, inequality is going to get worse."

Even more state aid poured into poor communities in 2013, when then-Gov. Mark Dayton raised taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans. The Democrat and Target fortune heir had campaigned to "Tax the Rich!" - saying everyone should pay their "fair share" to keep society "functional." The income tax rate, already fairly high for top income earners compared with other states, increased from 7.85 percent to 9.85 percent for individuals making more than $150,000.

The Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence, a business-backed think tank, called it the country's "most progressive" state income tax.

And yet today, the region lands near the bottom nationally when it comes to racial economic disparities, especially homeownership.

Despite a slew of programs to help first-time home buyers, only a quarter of black residents in the Twin Cities own their homes, compared with more than three-quarters of white residents - and much lower than the national black homeownership rate of 42 percent.

Orfield said one of the reasons the programs have not significantly boosted black homeownership is that they encourage prospective home buyers to invest in segregated, low-income neighborhoods where property values have depreciated over time.

Others say the state's homeownership assistance programs failed to close the racial gap because many black families lack the financial assets to participate.

The average house in north Minneapolis goes on the market for about $250,000, whereas the average black resident qualifies for a home loan of about $180,000, according to Steven Belton, president and chief executive of the Urban League Twin Cities. Government assistance typically covers only half the gap, which leaves prospective home buyers having to rely on their personal network or net worth to make up the difference, he said.

"For white people, the homeownership program is working really well," Belton said. "The policy doesn't really address the problem: If we know the disparity is in black homeownership, the dollars should be targeted toward African Americans."

Black leaders say programs targeting equity tend to focus on neighborhoods - not race.

"A state like ours is so hesitant to assign a race lens to our incentives that we too often defer to geography," said Tawanna Black, founder and chief executive of the Center for Economic Inclusion. "Attaching Zip codes as qualifiers is not enough. Part of the challenge is this isn't a region or state that has gone above and beyond to create policies to drive racially equitable results."

In addition to investing in homeownership programs, Minnesota has created financial incentives for the construction of affordable housing that critics say end up exacerbating segregation. Each year, tens of millions in local and federal subsidies are directed toward poor black, Latino and Southeast Asian neighborhoods in the Twin Cities, Orfield said.

Affordable housing developments are more likely to be approved in poor, minority neighborhoods where they qualify for more government subsidies, enabling developers to turn bigger profits, Orfield said. "The city and big foundations put extra money on the table," he said. "If you build in a white neighborhood, you have to go to 15, 20 public meetings to get the white neighbors not to have a stroke."

On the flip side, Orfield's research also shows that developers have taken advantage of public subsidies to rehabilitate historic structures in gentrifying Minneapolis neighborhoods and turn them into artists lofts with yoga studios, rooftop fire pits and skyline views - accommodations that draw overwhelmingly white tenants. These developments represent the highest end of "affordable housing" in the Twin Cities - too expensive for most low-income residents to afford with government housing vouchers, Orfield said.

Minneapolis drew national attention for its 2018 move to eliminate single-family zoning, billed as another progressive policy to remedy racial disparities. But Orfield said simply building duplexes and triplexes is unlikely to promote integration because the new construction may not be affordable. Some of the densest neighborhoods in the city are the whitest, he said.

Not everyone agrees that racial integration is the solution to inequality.

Myers, the University of Minnesota economist, said racial economic disparities are a direct result of government-sanctioned redlining and urban planning that limited or wiped out black wealth, and also a result discrimination in so many facets of American life, including employment and lending. Stricter enforcement of federal civil rights laws should be prioritized, including funding for such oversight, he said - and discrimination should be criminalized.

"The policies advanced by progressives in Minnesota have focused on credit repair, homeownership training and other factors that assume that the problem of racial disparities in homeownership are due to black deficiencies," Myers said. "The liberal and progressive policies tend to work to help improve the capacities of minorities without changing the underlying structures that are in place that created the disparities to begin with."

He said it's hard for progressive Minnesotans to accept that ongoing discrimination is a cause of persistent racial disparities. "The main thing that explains the Minnesota paradox is the fact that, unlike Mississippi or Alabama, where there are overt racists, racism in Minnesota is never open or explicit."

Now protesters across the country are pushing for another progressive policy - defunding the police, a step that's gaining traction in Minneapolis and other cities.

Most members of Minneapolis's Democratic-led city council were quick to signal that they intend to dismantle the city's police department as other cities such as Los Angeles and New York announced cuts to the police budget so money could be redirected to black communities.

Some activists are skeptical that dismantling the Minneapolis police would channel funds into improving the economic prospects of black residents. After all, the Minnesota legislature failed to do so when the state saw a $1 billion revenue surplus in 2016, said the Urban League's Belton.

The legislature appropriated $35 million to address racial inequities, but lawmakers decided that "equity included every community and their mother," Belton said.

Every marginalized group got in line for the money, Belton said. The Urban League ended up splitting $4.2 million with four other nonprofit organizations, he said, a circumstance that yielded too little to make a significant difference.

"If you look at the numbers overall, there was zero impact," Belton said. "We pat ourselves on the back for being progressive in a state that extols the virtues of diversity, equity and inclusion, but we have no reason to be self-congratulatory.

"Minnesota works for white people - at the expense of black people."
RICHMOND, Va. - The former capital of the Confederacy removed a second Confederate monument on Thursday morning, taking just over an hour to dismantle and lower the statue of Navy officer and oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury.

"This is the day. The time has come," said Joseph Ball, 69, a retired history teacher taking in the scene with his 2-year-old grandson, Thomas, and dozens of others along Richmond's iconic Monument Avenue.

Maury's statue was removed the morning after Mayor Levar Stoney, D, bucking advice from the city attorney, dispatched workers to the avenue to dismantle a towering memorial to Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson.

Stoney's spokesman said Wednesday evening that the three other city-owned Confederate memorials - honoring Maury, J.E.B. Stuart and Jefferson Davis - also would be coming down soon.

Protesters toppled the statue of Davis, president of the Confederacy, in early June, but the bulk of his enormous columned monument remains in place.

A law that took effect in Virginia on Wednesday allows cities and counties to act on their own to remove such tributes, which since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody have been the focus of nightly protests against police brutality and racial injustice.

Virginia's new law on monuments does not allow local governments to take them down immediately. They are supposed to follow a multistep process, including a public hearing and two 30-day waiting periods.

Washington Post photo by John McDonnell.

Stoney is using emergency powers to skip those steps, saying the monuments pose a threat to public safety. The mayor expressed fear that protesters could be hurt or killed if they tried to take the statues down themselves. He also said the monuments, as a magnet for demonstrations, could contribute to the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Stoney said he had the power to act because the city is under a state of emergency, declared by Gov. Ralph Northam, D, at the mayor's request when the demonstrations first broke out and extended earlier this week through the end of July.

The Republican Party of Virginia called Stoney's actions illegal, but no court challenge has surfaced.

Northam has ordered the removal of a fifth, state-owned statue on the boulevard that honors Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. His order is being challenged in court.

The tribute to Maury is the most obscure of the five statues devoted to "Lost Cause" leaders in Richmond. Still, its dismantling was, to those gathered, a major milestone in the city's long reckoning with its painful and divisive racial history.

The monument showed a metal figure of Maury seated in front of a stone base, crowned by a large globe ringed by a frenzied, storm-tossed mix of waves, people, cattle and other animals.

Maury, a Virginian, joined the Navy at age 19 and - after a stagecoach accident left him lame - devoted himself to the study of navigation, meteorology, winds and currents, according to his Navy biography.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Maury - known as a "pathfinder of the seas" and the "father of oceanography" - resigned his commission as a Navy commander and joined the Confederacy. He spent the war in the South and in England, where he acquired ships for the Confederacy, the biography says.

After the war ended, Maury went to Mexico and attempted to set up a Confederate colony under Emperor Maximilian, but the plan fell apart, according to an Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Maury. He eventually returned to Virginia and taught meteorology at Virginia Military Institute.

His statue, erected in 1929, was created by Richmond sculptor Frederick William Sievers, who also made the Jackson monument.

On Thursday, it took workers half an hour to saw through the wrought-iron fencing surrounding the memorial. They then moved forward with crowbars to loosen the statue of Maury, whose face had been covered in recent weeks with red, yellow and green paint.

Wrapped in chains and heavy belts, some laced under Maury's knees, the statue was raised from its stone pedestal by a forklift around 10 a.m. and set in the grassy traffic circle surrounding the monument.

A few minutes later, the statue was aloft again, as hard-hatted workers guided it to a flatbed truck. It took three tries, with the forklift backing up to readjust, until the statue rested in the truck bed, where it was resecured with yellow straps and covered with a tarp.

The crowd, which had grown to about 100, cheered as the drape went overhead.

"Take it to the dump!" called out an African American man who said he was an Army combat veteran and a "native Richmond son" but declined to give his name.

"I'm 50 years old," he said. The statue "has been up my whole life."

The workers left the globe in place and said they were going farther west on the avenue to move a cannon, which stood alone and was not part of the bigger monuments the street is known for. The circled back east after that, picking up a second cannon from a Monument Avenue median strip, before concluding work for the day.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a significant blow to House Democrats' efforts to have access to secret grand jury material from Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, saying it would decide next term whether Congress is authorized to see the material.

The decision to hear the case next fall means the House Judiciary Committee cannot have access to the material before the election. A lower court ruled this spring that the committee was entitled to see the previously withheld material from Mueller's probe, which also investigated whether President Donald Trump obstructed the special counsel's work.

It is unlikely there could be a Supreme Court decision even before the end of the current congressional term in January.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco had told the Supreme Court it should decide for itself the "significant separation of powers" issues raised in the case. Despite the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Congress has no need for the information, Francisco wrote in a brief to the court.

"The House already has impeached the president, the Senate already has acquitted him, and neither [the committee] nor the House has provided any indication that a second impeachment is imminent," Francisco wrote.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said he was disappointed by the court's decision to review the lower court, adding that Attorney General William Barr had reversed longstanding Department of Justice practice in opposing the release of the material.

"Unfortunately, President Trump and Attorney General Barr are continuing to try to run out the clock on any and all accountability," Nadler said in the statement. "While I am confident their legal arguments will fail, it is now all the more important for the American people to hold the president accountable at the ballot box in November."

House General Counsel Douglas Letter had told the court that the withheld material "remains central to the committee's ongoing investigation into the president's conduct," adding that the committee's probe "did not cease with the conclusion of the impeachment trial."

The House went to court last July, before the formal start of its impeachment proceedings involving the president's alleged effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge Trump in November.

Mueller's report found insufficient evidence to conclude that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia, and Mueller neither exonerated nor accused Trump of obstructing justice.

The Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller's report and said it would provide congressional leaders with the full report minus the grand jury materials. It said Barr lacked discretion to release that information.

The secret sections of the special counsel's report the House wants to access are separate from the material the Justice Department recently released detailing some of the evidence aired at the trial of Trump associate Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress.

In its 2-to-1 opinion, the D.C. Circuit said the House was legally engaged in the kind of judicial process that exempts Congress from secrecy rules typically shielding grand jury materials.

It said grand jury records are court records - not Justice Department records - and have historically been released to Congress in the course of impeachment investigations involving three federal judges and two presidents.

The House Judiciary Committee's "need for the grand jury materials remains unchanged. The committee has repeatedly stated that if the grand jury materials reveal new evidence of impeachable offenses, the committee may recommend new articles of impeachment," wrote Judge Judith Rogers, who was joined by Judge Thomas Griffith.

"Courts must take care not to second-guess the manner in which the House plans to proceed with its impeachment investigation or interfere with the House's sole power of impeachment," Rogers wrote.

Judge Neomi Rao dissented, saying the committee lacks legal grounds to ask the court to enforce a subpoena for the grand jury materials. Rao would have returned the case to district court to determine whether the committee can still show that its "inquiry is preliminary to an impeachment proceeding and that it has a 'particularized need' for disclosure."

Francisco said the House's inquiry was not a judicial proceeding that merits a grand jury exception.

"Treating a Senate impeachment trial - a proceeding before elected legislators - as a 'judicial proceeding' departs from that ordinary meaning," he told the court.

The case is Department of Justice v. House Committee on the Judiciary.

---

The Washington Post's Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report.
It was just hours before President Donald Trump was set to take the stage for his rally in Tulsa last month when the news broke: Six staff at the site had just tested positive for the coronavirus.

The president, who was en route from Washington, was livid that the news was public, according to people familiar with his reaction. In the tent outside the BOK Center, where campaign staff were being tested before the event, the release of the information caused a scramble.

Health-care workers were quizzed about whether they had leaked the information about the positive cases to the news media - and then were given a different list of people to test, according to two people with direct knowledge of the events.

The flurry inside the tent was part of a cascade of events triggered by Trump's insistence on holding the June 20 rally inside the Tulsa arena, despite the adamant warnings of health officials about the rising risks of the novel coronavirus in Oklahoma.

Tim Murtaugh, a campaign spokesman, said the Trump campaign "performed more tests than originally anticipated" in Tulsa, adding that the event was in compliance with Oklahoma state guidelines and that campaign employees "wore masks during the rally in accordance with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines."

He did not respond to follow-up questions about who received the additional tests at the site, which provided screening for not just staff, but local leaders and top Trump supporters, as well. He declined to specify whether more campaign staffers than anticipated were tested.

The White House referred requests for comment to the campaign.

On Sunday, a second round of testing was provided in Virginia for campaign staff, according to people familiar with the event. Murtaugh, who initially declined to discuss the additional tests, later acknowledged that the campaign had arranged for the procedure for those who had returned from Tulsa and anyone else who wanted one and contracted a testing firm in Virginia to handle the volume quickly.

"We care about our people and their safety," said Murtaugh, who did not respond to questions about whether any of the tests were positive.

In the past two weeks, the campaign has contended with waves of fallout from the rally, where the president put on a pugilistic performance before an arena that was only partly filled.

Two more advance staffers tested positive after returning to Washington. And dozens of Secret Service agents on the trip were ordered to self-quarantine at home because two of the staff who tested positive in Tulsa were Secret Service employees.

Videos and photos then emerged showing that before the rally, workers removed thousands of "Do Not Sit Here, Please!" stickers from seats in the arena that were intended to mark recommended distances between rallygoers.

In Tulsa, where many rally attendees did not wear masks, coronavirus cases climbed in the days immediately following the event, according to local health officials, who have said it is still unknown whether the gathering contributed to the problem.

Back in Washington, some top campaign officials, including campaign manager Brad Parscale, self-quarantined at home, while other employees went to hotels, according to campaign advisers.

Campaign aides had hoped the rally would be a needed return to normal - urged on by the president who wanted to go back on the trail, both for his own political fortunes and to signal that the country was on the rebound. They noted that other large events, including protests across the country after the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis, took place before the rally.

But some advisers now see the rally as ill-advised, an event that created a cascade of problems that have challenged the campaign and its staff. Campaign officials had previously said they were planning more large rallies, but the Tulsa event has led to increased concerns and debates on how - and whether - they can be pulled off.

Michael Glassner, the longtime architect of Trump's rallies, had been reassigned in the campaign to handle lawsuits, campaign officials said Wednesday, confirming a report in Axios.

Several Tulsa residents and business leaders had warned that the rally in their city would inevitably lead to the spread of the virus in their community and possible deaths. A group of them went to court trying to block the Trump campaign from hosting the rally. They expressed concern about the number of spectators - and people in Trump's entourage - who would probably not wear masks.

The Los Angeles company that managed the BOK Center acknowledged that the gathering created substantial risks.

"We certainly agree that the CDC and other relevant medical experts believe that this type of event is ill advised," Joseph Farris, an attorney for the company that manages the BOK Center, said during a court hearing before the rally. "No question about it. And we don't argue that the CDC . . . classifies events like this as presenting the highest possible risk."

The campaign had agreed to test its staff before the event, and a tent was set up at the site, staffed by health-care workers with equipment.

Among those who passed through were Trump campaign workers and top allies and surrogates, according to people with knowledge of the operation. Staffers and top supporters entered the arena wearing masks after they'd been tested, though many rallygoers did not.

Health-care workers inside the steamy tent initially were given a list of more than 200 people to test, two people with knowledge of the event said.

But then some people began testing positive. At one point, a campaign staffer was tested three times after a first test showed up positive - and all three tests came back positive, according to a person with knowledge of the incident.

After the news that six people had tested positive, health-care workers were questioned about whether they had shared the information and given a different list of employees to test, according to the two people with direct knowledge. It is unclear how the list was changed.

The situation made the health-care workers uncomfortable, the people said, and some said they thought that people who needed to be tested were not.

Murtaugh said that testing was not halted or limited, but declined to provide details.

In the aftermath, some Secret Service agents returning from the Tulsa trip were directed not to get tested until Wednesday, days after the rally, an instruction that was given without explanation and which some agents found perplexing, according to two people familiar with the instructions.

The Secret Service declined to comment.

Back at the campaign's headquarters in Alexandria, many staff were not wearing masks and some feared that could increase the possible spread after the return of those who were in Tulsa, according to people familiar with their concerns.

Asked whether staff wear masks in the office, Murtaugh said the campaign follows CDC guidelines.

Meanwhile, Tulsa County saw record-setting spikes of coronavirus cases in the days after the Trump rally - with the discovery of roughly 200 to 250 new cases each day.

In all, the county charted 902 new cases of the virus in the week after the rally, an increase of 15 percent over the week that led up the president's visit. This week, new cases have fallen slightly, with an average of 93 positive cases per day so far.

- - -

The Washington Post's Julie Tate, Alice Crites, Robert Costa and Craig Timberg contributed to this report.
UPPER THUMB  Two new COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Sanilac County, according to the daily state report for July 2.

That puts the number of cases there at 49, with the death toll remaining at five.

Huron and Tuscola Counties each reported no changes to their numbers, remaining at 57 cases and three deaths and 227 cases and 26 deaths, respectively.

Across the state, there were 543 new confirmed cases along with 15 new deaths. Of those deaths, 13 were from a vital records search.

Michigan now has 64,675 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 5,966 deaths.

Ann Hepfer, the health officer for Huron and Tuscola Counties, said that they remain in surveillance mode and are monitoring what is happening not just in the area, but around the country.

There are multiple states that are showing the virus spreading like 'wild fire,' Hepfer said in a press release. This is extremely concerning and appears that the U.S. is going backwards. None of us can afford to let this happen again. All it takes to spread this virus is one person in a bar, like what just happened in Lansing over the past week and now close to 100 people are infected.

She urged people to continue doing their part in stopping the spread of the virus, namely to continue wearing masks, social distancing, and washing hands for 20 seconds before you eat or touch your face.

"These are easy steps that do not cost us anything and will reduce the spread of infection to yourself and your loved ones, Hepfer said.

Hepfer also said the health department has received numerous complaints from people that feel some are not taking this pandemic seriously and not wearing masks and social distancing. She urged those not wearing masks or social distancing to not put themselves in harms way.

Testing is still taking place at the Great Lakes Bay Health Care Center parking lot in Bad Axe, for Huron County, and the Tuscola County Health Department parking lot in Caro.

The Huron County testing site runs from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Testing will not be provided on July 6 due to not enough staff available on that day.

The Tuscola County testing site has changed its testing time to 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on Thursdays due to extreme heat conditions.

The following information is required for those getting tested: full name, date of birth, address, telephone number, and insurance information and numbers.

Testing is open to anyone who lives in a rural area with or without symptoms.
WASHINGTON - The White House is not planning an immediate response to intelligence reports of Russian bounties given to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan because President Donald Trump does not believe the reports are true or "actionable," according to two senior administration officials.

Trump is not convinced he should do anything about the bounty issue, which he decried in a Wednesday morning tweet as "just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party." One administration official said there is an internal White House dispute about how much information to declassify to support the president's skepticism of the intelligence.

Some of Trump's own senior intelligence officials viewed the information as credible enough to warn the Pentagon and allies so they could ensure they had measures in place to protect their forces in Afghanistan, and to begin developing options for responding to the Russian operation, national security adviser Robert O'Brien said Wednesday.

And though the administration has sought to downplay the veracity of the intelligence, O'Brien said the CIA has asked the Justice Department to open a leak investigation on the matter.

The officials cautioned that Trump's posture could change as pressure mounts from Congress to respond to the reports of Russian bounties, as intelligence analysts suspect the deaths of three Marines in Afghanistan in 2019 may have resulted from the Russian operation. Like others interviewed, the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

White House communications director Alyssa Farah declined to comment on the intelligence reports except to say they were "uncorroborated," and to criticize "selectively leaked intelligence." The president, she said, "always puts the safety and security of U.S. service members above all else."

O'Brien told reporters Wednesday that CIA Director Gina Haspel distributed the intelligence to coalition forces "to make sure they could have force protection." He said as soon as the Pentagon received the information, "we made sure we had tactics in place . . . to look after our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in Afghanistan."

Officials from several NATO allies in Afghanistan, however, said they were not officially informed until last week.

O'Brien said Haspel circulated the "raw intelligence - even though it wasn't verified." Former intelligence officials say, however, that officials would not have circulated the intelligence or taken precautionary measures had they not believed the reports were credible.

In a news conference Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to confirm the reported information - if not the intelligence community assessment of it - saying that "the intelligence community handled this incredibly well."

The administration receives multiple threat reports from throughout the world every day, Pompeo said, "so I can assure you that whatever reporting it is that you're referring to, that we responded in precisely the correct way, with respect to making sure that our forces are postured appropriately, that they were aware of the level of the threat, the credibility of the threat, and that we were there."

Responding to lawmakers of both parties who are "suggesting that they are shocked and appalled by this," Pompeo said, "they saw the same intelligence that we saw, so it would be interesting to ask them what they did when they saw whatever intelligence it is that they are referring to." He said the information was shared "more broadly" than with just the intelligence committees.

Russian involvement against U.S. interests in Afghanistan is "nothing new," Pompeo said. Russia has been "selling small arms that have put Americans at risk for 10 years." Without referring specifically to the bounty report, Pompeo said he brings up Afghanistan "with great frequency" in talks with his Russian counterparts.

His message to them, he said, is "Stop this."

O'Brien reiterated Wednesday that though officials decided not to present Trump with "uncorroborated" intelligence, they took the situation seriously enough to prepare options for the president. "If this eventually becomes something that's proven, or something that we believe, we need to have options for the president to deal with the Russians," O'Brien said during an appearance on Fox News' "Fox & Friends."

But former officials who have taken part in options development say national security officials would not have begun the process had they not felt the information had to be taken seriously. Options including sanctions and diplomatic censure were debated in late March. The administration's special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, was said to prefer confronting the Russians directly about the matter.

"They obviously thought it exceeded the threshold for action, which implies that it was more than a stray, uncorroborated report," said Katrina Mulligan, a former director on the National Security Council staff in Barack Obama's administration.

Asked whether Trump is prepared to take any action on the options O'Brien has said have been prepared, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that "I won't get ahead of the president. I also won't get ahead of the intelligence, which at this moment is unverified."

McEnany said it was the decision of the intelligence officer in charge of verbally briefing the president to not to tell him about the bounty reports, a decision that "O'Brien agreed with." Intelligence, McEnany said, is normally not "transmitted up to the president" until there is "a strategic decision for the president to make" on what to do about it. "That's the way intelligence works."

Senior intelligence officials on Thursday will brief the bipartisan congressional leadership, including the chairmen and vice chairmen of both chambers' intelligence committees, McEnany said.

But former intelligence officials familiar with the briefing process say decisions on what to include in the oral briefing are not made by the career intelligence officer alone, but rather in consultation with the national security adviser, director of national intelligence and the CIA director.

Former intelligence officials have said that it is not unusual for presidents to be briefed on significant threats even if not fully corroborated, and that the intelligence community has determined that the bounty intelligence is credible.

"It's O'Brien's responsibility to brief the president about threats big and small - and about what the White House is doing about them," Mulligan said. "The intelligence community briefs the president on what he needs to know. Sometimes it involves a strategic decision. Sometimes it doesn't. But it's no less relevant for the president to understand."

Democratic lawmakers have expressed alarm about the reports and White House inaction, with some, including New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez and California Rep. Adam Schiff, calling for sanctions against Russia.

Some Republicans have also pressed for a strong response if the reports are corroborated, they said. "If intelligence reports are verified that Russia or any other country is placing bounties on American troops, then they need to be treated as a state sponsor of terrorism," North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis tweeted this week.

Former intelligence officials said divisions in Washington will embolden Moscow. "A failure to respond puts U.S. troops at risk across the globe and guarantees that Putin's violations of international law, assassinations, cyberattacks and efforts to undermine the United States will continue unabated," said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior strategic analyst on Russia in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and before that at the CIA.

The Russian military spy agency said to have offered the bounties is the GRU, and in particular a sub-unit that in 2018 in Britain poisoned a former GRU official turned British double agent. A different GRU unit interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, carrying out hacking attacks meant to exacerbate discord in the Democratic Party.

Putin has learned from 2016 that the GRU is an effective tool for attacking the United States, said Thad Troy, a former CIA officer, now with Martin+Crumpton Group, who was one of the first U.S. officials to meet with Putin in the late 1990s, when Putin ran Russia's FSB, the main successor to the KGB.

"Though Putin has continually been active against the United States, 2016 was sort of an aha moment for him, that this works," Troy said.

Missy Ryan, John Wagner, Colby Itkowitz and John Hudson contributed to this report.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

After this COVID-19 pandemic was declared and Hale County was put under a stay-at-home order, I went more than a month without seeing my parents.

That may not seem like long to some, but thats about the longest I think Ive ever gone without setting foot inside their home. If I go too long (at least two weeks), I get a phone call from my mom trying to persuade me to stop by.

Its not that I dont want to see my parents. I do. I just love them too much to put them at risk of contracting coronavirus.

Im still working from home but my husband works in Lubbock, which has maintained a mess of coronavirus hot spots since area activity began. Hes considered an essential worker so he hasnt stopped going back and forth every day.

Were both a bit germophobic and always carry sanitizer. And shortly after area activity was detected, his company set a requirement for employees to wear masks.

So I know hes taking precautions and doing what he can to decrease his chances of contracting coronavirus and/or being an antibody carrier.

But hes in an office with about 100 others and we dont know for certain that theyve been doing the same. You never know what precautions others are taking (or not).

My parents and in-laws are in the high-risk categories and Ive got more loved ones here in Plainview who are, as well.

Thats also why I choose to wear a mask. Thats why Im choosing to practice social distancing.

Ive heard from and seen social media posts by too many people who believe themselves immune. Any time Ive been to the stores for a supply run, it seems like I can count on one hand how many people (besides store workers) are actually wearing masks. The general thought seems to be that if you contract COVID-19, its survivable.

It may be for you. But what about the at-risk individuals in your life?

Wearing a mask doesnt guarantee immunity. Its not really for you. Its purpose is to decrease your chances of spreading any antibodies to those around you.

Plainview Councilwoman and Mayor Pro-Tem Susan Blackerby said it best during a recent City Council work session.

If people dont want to wear one, thats their prerogative, she said. But you have to be respectful to those around you. You dont know who might be a compromised individual with a health problem.

We caved the weekend before Mothers Day and finally visited some of our loved ones. Admittedly, my husband and I have ventured out a few more times since then just to see them. Were still taking precautions.

But things are not back to normal. The spread of coronavirus is still a problem and Governor Greg Abbott has said Texas is still experiencing its first wave.

In the past week alone, Hale County has experienced double-digit jumps in case counts almost every day. Its also set record highs.

Keep taking precautions that have been outlined by local leaders and health care professionals: maintain social distance, wear masks in public and wash your hands or sanitize them frequently. Do your part to stop the spread.

The case counts youre reading daily are not inflated. In fact, they might be underreported. A person infected could be asymptomatic. They could have it, spread it and get over it before even detecting it in their system.

The numbers are also not meant to scare you  but I hope youre concerned about them.

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services (https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83), a cluster of counties in the Amarillo area (Potter, Moore, Randall and Deaf Smith Counties) are leading the panhandle in case counts. Lubbock County is right behind them. Hale County has the third highest case count in the panhandle.

Its been a boring few months  I get it.

Im not the healthiest, but if I were to contract the virus, I like to think I could survive it. Thats still not worth it to me to be the reason my loved ones, or maybe your loved ones, dont.

So in the words of Lubbock Mayor Dan Pope: Wear your damn mask.
The Global Talent Stream has helped welcome tens of thousands of workers to Canada since it launched in 2017.

Global talent is pivoting north to Canada The Global Talent Stream has helped welcome tens of thousands of workers to Canada since it launched in 2017.

Global talent is pivoting north to Canada The Global Talent Stream has helped welcome tens of thousands of workers to Canada since it launched in 2017.

Global talent is pivoting north to Canada The Global Talent Stream has helped welcome tens of thousands of workers to Canada since it launched in 2017. Mohanad Moetaz Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

Sans Font Size A

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Canada is awesome.



Those were the words of Shopify CEO Tobias Lutke in a tweet addressing skilled talent that are currently prevented from working in the U.S.

Lutke himself is a German immigrant to Canada who helped build Shopify into a multi-billion dollar global corporation, headquartered out of Canadas capital city, Ottawa.

If this affects your plans consider coming to Canada  instead. Shopify is hiring all over the world and we have lots of experience helping with relocation. Let us know at https://t.co/dmzfp4EwB9 https://t.co/yUUjoEt9gp  Tobi Lutke  (@tobi) June 23, 2020

Since its inception three years ago, the Global Talent Stream (GTS) has contributed to over 40,000 people coming to Canada to work in numerous tech roles, such as software engineers, web designers, computer engineers, digital media, and design.

The GTS allows these skilled workers to obtain a Canadian work permit within just two weeks after getting a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) approval, which also takes about two weeks.

Like with other work permits under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), employers are required submit an LMIA application. However, employers are exempt from the advertising requirements usually associated with an LMIA (normally, an employer needs to show the federal government they advertised for a vacancy and were unable to find a Canadian to do the job).

The GTS may prove to become more appealing after the U.S. decided to freeze new work visas for the remainder of the year.

The U.S. work visa suspension includes the H1-B visa, a popular visa for talented individuals seeking employment in technology and other specialty occupations.

In contrast, Canadas reputation for being welcoming extends to talented individuals in specialty occupations. Even with the coronavirus pandemic affecting travel and immigration worldwide, the GTS remains open.

Need assistance with a temporary visa application process? Contact wp@canadavisa.com

Get help with Canadian work permits and TRVs

How the Global Talent Stream works

There are two categories under the GTS: Category A and Category B. Both categories help Canadian employers recruit highly skilled talent.

Under Category A, employers must be referred by a designated referral partner (or a Quebec partner for employers in Quebec).

A designated referral partner must prove that the employer operates in Canada, focuses on innovation, is willing to grow and has identified a qualified foreign worker to hire.

In addition, the position must be unique and specialized. This means that the candidate must:

be offered at least an $80,000 annual base salary (or higher depending on the occupation s prevailing wage for the year).

Have advanced knowledge of the industry

Have an advanced degree in an area that is of interest to the employer

Have a minimum of 5 years of experience in the field.

Under Category B, the employer must be hiring to fill one of twelve occupations, listed below with their corresponding National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes.

Computer and information systems managers (NOC 0213)

Computer engineers (NOC 2147)

Mathematicians and statisticians (Subset of NOC 2161)

Information systems analysts and consultants (NOC 2171)

Database analysts and data administrators (NOC 2172)

Software engineers and designers (NOC 2173)

Computer programmers and interactive media developers (NOC 2174)

Web designers and developers (NOC 2175)

Computer Network technicians (NOC 2281)

Information systems testing technicians (NOC 2283)

Producer, technical, creative and artistic director and project manager  Visual effects and video games (Subset of NOC 5131)

Digital Media and Design (Subset of NOC 5241)

In addition, the salary of the position must be equivalent to the occupations prevailing wage or higher.

Canada values talent

Canada seems to have an opportunity to become a leader in technology and innovation post-coronavirus.

The Global Talent Stream provides leeway for Canada to achieve this and roar louder.

Following the recent U.S. announcement, many highly talented individuals as well as employers may consider Canada as a more favourable option.

Another major benefit for such individuals is Canada also offers them a defined path to permanent residence. In a given year, some 60 per cent of the over 300,000 people who obtain Canadian permanent residence are economic class immigrants, many of whom are tech workers. If they are eligible for an Express Entry program, GTS workers can obtain Canadian permanent residence within 6 months or less.

Need assistance with a temporary visa application process? Contact wp@canadavisa.com

Get help with Canadian work permits and TRVs

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After weeks of demands by police reform activists, the New York City government cut the New York City Police Departments budget by an unprecedented amount early Wednesday morning.

But in approving the citys fiscal year 2021 budget, did Mayor Bill de Blasio shift more than $1 billion away from the police as he claimed? Or was it really a more modest amount, bolstered by budget trickery? A deeper look at the numbers suggests that the mayors $1 billion total relies on overly optimistic assumptions and a flexible understanding of what counts as NYPD spending. But the criminal justice reform advocates decrying the adopted budget probably arent taking enough credit for influencing a budget that, even under the strictest reading, reduces NYPD spending by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Analyzing the city budget is always difficult  adjustments are made mid-year and costs are shifted between agencies. It can make even the most budget-literate analysts go cross-eyed. And theres a surprising amount of subjectivity inherent in discussing the budget, something the mayor can use to his benefit when hes trying to explain how he arrived at $1 billion in police budget cuts. Here are some of the most pressing questions about what happened to the NYPDs budget.

How much was the budget cut?

Last years fiscal year 2020 budget allocated $5.61 billion to the NYPDs expense budget. And when de Blasio presented his executive budget in April, he proposed keeping spending at about the same level  $5.64 billion. But in the past couple months, the mayor and the City Council agreed to serious cuts to the NYPD. In the fiscal year 2021 budget the mayor signed Wednesday morning, the NYPD has been allocated $5.22 billion. Thats a 6.8% reduction from the year before, or $382 million less.

How did they cut that much?

By doing a mix of things. The city hopes to save $55 million this year by cutting one of the four annual classes of new recruits. Thats 1,163 fewer officers that will need to be paid. The city will save another $5 million by putting a hiring freeze on non-safety positions, $12 million by canceling or reducing some outside contracts and another $5 million on delaying the purchase of some new vehicles. But the biggest savings  $355.2 million, according to the mayors office  is reducing the amount the department plans to spend on overtime payments to officers.

That sounds too good to be true.

Yes, the NYPD is notorious for exceeding its overtime budget. Even though the NYPDs budget was $5.6 billion in fiscal year 2019, the department ended up spending $5.98 billion by the end of the year  largely thanks to overtime. It was the same situation in fiscal year 2020, which just ended on June 30. The NYPDs budget was $5.61 billion and it is projected to actually spend a record $6.08 billion.

Will that just happen again this year?

Maybe. Reporters questioned de Blasio about it at his budget press conference Tuesday, and he promised that the NYPDs management is better now than its ever been. Newly appointed NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea is a very smart data-driven modern manager, de Blasio said. He is going to find ways to make things happen. Im just convinced.

Got it. But wait, you said the budget was only cut by $382 million?

Yes, but there were also a few major cost shifts that the mayor is counting toward that $1 billion total. Certain programs like school safety agents  uniformed officers who dont carry guns and patrol the citys public schools  will be moved under the Department of Education. That alone will shift $307 million from the NYPD  eventually. The change did not appear to be reflected in the budget signed Wednesday, and the mayors office has said the transition will be phased in over time. Thats also true of the $42 million saved by moving the expense for school crossing guards out of the NYPDs budget. The city will also move some employees who work in homeless outreach out of the NYPD, saving the department about $4.5 million.

So $382 million in cuts and $354 million in cost shifts  thats not even $750 million. How did the mayor get to $1 billion?

The city spends more on policing than just whats included in the NYPDs expense budget. An analysis from the Citizens Budget Commission found that the city is actually spending about $10.9 billion on the NYPD. About half of that isnt included in the NYPDs budget, but rather its centrally allocated spending on costs like pensions and health insurance for officers. The mayors office is also counting cuts to these areas to get to the $1 billion total.

How much is getting cut there?

About $163 million, according to the mayors office. Thats the money saved by not hiring one class of new officers, but it also counts all of the pension costs and fringe benefits for school safety agents and crossing guards. The city will still be spending that money, but its no longer attributable to the NYPD.

Are there any other budget tricks?

Definitely. The mayor is also hoping to increase the NYPDs revenue next year by $42 million by getting traffic enforcement agents to write more tickets. Its not clear why the mayor would count that as part of a $1 billion budget cut, since it doesnt actually decrease spending.

Sounds like the mayor was getting a bit desperate to hit the magical $1 billion number.

It does seem that way. In fact, the number is such a stretch that New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson refused to say the city had cut that much. He and other council leaders had agreed during negotiations to set $1 billion in cuts as the goal, but in his Tuesday press conference, Johnson said that he and the council had fallen short. And police reform activists who had pushed for the cuts seemed to be in universal agreement on that point.

We wont fall for Mayor de Blasio and the City Councils funny math or lies to try to trick New Yorkers into thinking they made $1 billion in direct cuts to the NYPDs almost $6 billion FY21 expense budget, read a statement from Anthonine Pierre, spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, a group that had called for the cuts.

So why aim for $1 billion at all?

The demand for $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD came from advocacy groups, which seemed to dominate the discourse. And in the midst of ongoing protests against police brutality and systemic racism, it makes sense that Democratic politicians like de Blasio and Johnson would want to align themselves with the mass movement. But the mayor, the council speaker  and admittedly, the media  may have gotten too caught up in the numbers. The $1 billion number was always somewhat arbitrary, and more of a means to an end. Advocates real goals were broader, and included changing the way that officers interact with the public. They were bound to be disappointed by anything less than radical change.
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The press has sometimes been criticized for its inability to focus on more than one major story at a time. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that our work is organized and presented in a way that doesnt reflect lived experience. We separate crime reporting from health reporting from business and politics reportingas if these subjects arent all related, as if the happenings of one beat cannot be best understood in the context of another, or stripped of categorization entirely. The artificial separation of news events may be why we have not, in large part, centered the troubling case of Vanessa Guillen.

In the past six months, as the deadly coronavirus pandemic has collided with a much older threat, systemic racism, we saw the connection of all things: a racist healthcare system, racialized and unchecked capitalism, willfully ignorant leadership, and the erasure of these links in media accounts. A major narrative emerged in coverage, about state violence against Black people, and the anti-racist uprisings in response. In the mix should have been Guillen, a twenty-year-old specialist in the United States Army who was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. On April 22, she went missing. According to her sister Mayra, Guillen had plans to spend the day hiking with friends. But she was unexpectedly summoned into work and, around 11:30am, stopped responding to Mayras text messages. Calls went straight to voicemail. Mayra reported her sister missing and drove three hours to Killeen, the city that surrounds Fort Hood. Officers initially refused to give her access to the area where her sister lived; for hours, the family says, they refused to shut down the base and search for Guillen. A day later, the Army Criminal Investigation Command opened an investigation. Only then did officials enter the armory where Guillen worked. There were her car keys, wallet, military ID, and barracks-room keyall left behind.

Local and national media have since covered the story, and Guillens family has been vocal, enlisting the help of a lawyer and celebrities such as Salma Hayek to publicize the case and pressure the military to act. In recent weeks, officials at the base have sent out hundreds of soldiers, who used drones, helicopters, and dogs to look for her. Guillens mother, Gloria, said during a news conference at Fort Hood, If they find my daughter dead, I will shut down this base.

This week, near the Leon River, about thirty miles from Fort Hood, men building a fence noticed a stench and what looked like hair protruding from the ground. They called the police. Local law enforcement and military officials, who had previously searched the area, returned and, with the help of cadaver dogs, found partial human remains that Guillens family believed to be hers. It was a shallow grave; concrete had been poured on top, and rainstorms had helped conceal it. Press accounts later reported that, after Guillen went missing, an unnamed witness saw a man struggling to lift a large Pelican-brand storage case into a car; a burnt storage lid of the same brand was found near the grave site.

Early on Wednesday, Killeen police approached a suspect named Aaron David Robinson, a twenty-year-old combat engineer from Illinois and a colleague of Guillens on the base. According to the Army, Robinson, realizing that he was about to be arrested, killed himself. A second suspect, an unnamed civilian woman, was arrested by Killeen police. Guillens sisters held another press conference with the familys lawyer, this time demanding a congressional investigation of Fort Hoods handling of the case. They didnt keep my sister safe, Guillens younger sister Lupe said. How can this happen at a military base? (Army investigators deny that their efforts were less than aggressive.) Later that day, more human remains were found near the Leon River. Theyve yet to be identified by the Army Criminal Investigation Command.

The details of each life and death differ in important ways, but the press is always a character, often making the wrong choices about focus and framing.

Vanessa Guillens story is horrifying, yet it has not risen to the level of urgency with which we have treated other recent deaths. Its difficult to say why, because the Guillen murder touches on many of the themes now in the news: a life endangered in the custody of officials; a woman of color gone from the world; denial and obstruction by police. At first, Army investigators claimed that Guillen had reported to a scheduled check-in the day she went missing. Later, they backtracked, saying that there had been an error in their paperwork. The investigators did not explain who made the error or why. Nor would they hand over information about who called Guillen into work that day, or about the whereabouts of her cellphone. Sharing this information, they said, could jeopardize the case. (Sound familiar?)

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The Guillen story also links to #MeToo, since Guillen had previously spoken to family and friends about being sexually harassed by a superior. On Wednesday, the familys lawyer, Natalie Khawam, held a press conference in Washington, DC, during which she said that Guillen had told her mother, sisters, and other soldiers that a superior had been harassing her. Guillen said that a superior had intentionally walked in on her while she was showering and that she had been followed while she was running. The US military has a long, documented history of sexual assault, and of disappearances. Their families have complained about lackluster responses from military police. At a press conference on Thursday, military officials said they couldnt corroborate any evidence that Guillen had been sexually harassed or that the allegations were connected to her disappearance; they also said that Robinson was not involved in the harassment allegations.

The unsolved disappearance of Guillen is the story of Breonna Taylor is the story of Nina Pop is the story of Tony McDade. The details of each life and death differ in important ways, but the press is always a character, often making the wrong choices about focus and framing. Investigators accounts of what happened are still murky; families are left grieving and without answers. Maybe if there were a video, Guillens life would have suddenly become of belated, widespread national import. Without a sense of connection to the bigger narratives in our midst, too many livesand murdersgo unnoticed. So long as violence against Black and brown people continues to happen in this country, the press will keep having opportunities to better handle these stories, to situate them in our reckonings with white supremacy and patriarchal abuse. But for Guillen, it seems that we are, again, too late.

ICYMI: Saheed Vassell and forgotten victims of police brutality

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Alexandria Neason is CJR's Staff Writer and Senior Delacorte Fellow. Previously, she was a reporter at the Village Voice and covered education for the Teacher Project, a partnership between Columbia Journalism School and Slate. A team she worked on won the 2016 Education Writers Association award for news features. Follow her on Twitter @alexandrianeas.
The killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and the protests that followed, helped spark a debate in many newsrooms and journalism schools around the country about the time-honored principle of objectivity in journalism, and whether it serves any useful purpose. Former Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery wrote in the New York Times that what we call objective journalism is constructed atop a pyramid of subjective decision-making, and has been defined almost exclusively by white reporters and their mostly white bosses. Since then, journalists at the Los Angeles Times and other newsrooms have spoken out about their longstanding experiences of racism, and the impact those have had on the journalism they and their employers do. So is objectivity a relic? And if so, what should we replace it with? We got a group of journalists and other experts together on CJRs Galley platform this week for a virtual panel discussion on those and other related questions.

Lewis Raven Wallace is a writer, journalist, and author of the recent book The View From Somewhere, as well as the host of a podcast of the same name. He is also a co-founder of Press On, a Southern collective of journalists, storytellers, and organizers that uses journalism in the service of liberation. Wallaces book is based in part on his personal experience as a former reporter for Marketplace, from which he was fired in 2017 after he wrote a blog post questioning the idea of objective journalism. As a transgender journalist, it was a scary time, he said during our interview. I didnt feel I could or should have to be silent about the Trump administrations attacks on trans people, people of color, and freedom of the press. Wallace said, in his view, its not an either/or debate between personal journalism versus objective journalism. I believe objectivity itself is a myth thats been perpetuated based on a normative white male cisgender perspective in journalism, he said. The journalism we call objective is generally just biased towards acceptable social and political norms.

The media, Wallace said, needs to think about the relationship between journalism, identity, community, and truth. Focusing on that relationship can offer a path forward for journalism that rebuilds trust with audiences, he saidtrust that has been lost after decades of supposed objectivity.

ICYMI: Kayleigh McEnany, media critic

Morgan Givens also argued that there needs to be a complete reframing of what journalism is and how it operates. Givens is a writer, performer, and audio producer based in Washington, DC. He works with NPR and WAMU, and is also a former police officer who worked in prisons to eliminate sexual violence. Black Americans have always lived in a United States where police killed us and still do with impunity, but this was an America that white journalistic institutions and those who allow them to function ignored, he said. Is ignoring these communities an example of being objective or ignoring the truth because the reality makes white journalists uncomfortable?

Heather Chaplin is the founding director of Journalism + Design at the New School. She is also co-host of the podcast Tricky and has been a fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. She told CJRs Josh Young that she tries to distinguish between objectivity and neutrality, which is a concept that has never made any sense to me. I think what people are upset about, and incorrectly calling objectivity, is really BS neutrality. When the New York Times bends over backwards to give voice to someone espousing obviously racist views thats not objective. Thats trying to adhere to a nonsensical notion of neutrality.

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Brent Cunningham is the executive editor of the Food and Environment Reporting Network, and a former deputy editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, where he wrote a piece for the magazine in 2003 entitled Rethinking Objectivity. He said he agrees with Wesley Lowery that this embrace of an impossible standard has produced coverage that fails to convey the truth of a given situation, given cover to lazy reporting, and allowed those who would spin and distort the truth the ability to do so without being called on it.

Will Meyer is a writer, editor, and musician from western Massachusetts and editor of a local publication called The Shoestring. He told CJR that in addition to moving beyond a commitment to an old-fashioned concept like objectivity, I would argue that [we] need to move beyond an advertising/commercially driven press system. Yes, the objectivity standard absolutely privileges the white male vantage point, and I would agree with everyone who says there needs to be more work on diversifying newsrooms. But Meyer said he also thinks that the practice of journalism has to think about moving beyond the commercial pressures that created this shoddy standard to begin with.

Heres more on objectivity and newsrooms:

Rigor : Wallace said in his interview that just because he isnt a fan of traditional objectivity, this doesnt mean that I dont advocate for rigor and meticulousness and the use of some of these methods, such as seeking multiple sources, eye witnesses, careful data analysis, etc. Fudging numbers and interpreting them based on your own biases are two different things, he said . Lying, and applying a frame to facts and truth, are also two different things. Neither are objective, but the latter is what we are all doing in all of our efforts at journalism. So we also need more nuance in how we talk about work that isnt objective. Is it evidence-based? Is it transparent about its methods? Is it transparent about its biases?

Failure : If we can recognize the ways our society has failed in considering the idea of objectivity, Givens said , if we can take the time to pause and reflect when we have a biased idea or a prejudiced thought, if we can recognize it in ourselves, then we can get to the truth. Its only when we fail to recognize our own human nature and the biases we already have, he argues , that we miss the truth. This isnt about losing the ability of journalism to shake the foundations of power and be truth tellers, its about allowing others to tell the truth that has always been ignored, and that will make many people uncomfortable in the beginning.

Commerce : Cunningham explained that the emergence of so-called objective journalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had a noble goal, but also one that was perhaps less noble . The idea of an objective take on the newsas opposed to the rampant partisanship that had always characterized news coverageseemed like a step forward, he says. But at the same time, the Penny Press movement was taking newspapers to a mass audience, with support from advertisers, as the nation industrialized. Those advertiserssame as their counterparts todaywere eager to have their ads appeal to as many people as possible, and so the news that surrounded them needed to be as inoffensive to partisan ideologies as possible. So progress had a commercial end as well.

Bias : Mark Lukasiewicz is Dean of the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University, and was a longtime producer at NBC News and ABC News. He described how early in his career he reported on the Solidarnosc labor movement in Poland, despite the fact that his parents were Polish and supporters of the movement. Compare that to the recent incident at the Post-Gazette in Pittsburgh, he said, where reporter Alexis Johnson wasnt allowed to cover the protests because of a single humorous tweet comparing the aftermath of looting to a Kenny Chesney tailgate party. Generations apart, a stark difference in whose bias is tolerated, and whose is forgiven or ignored, Lukasiewicz said.

Other notable stories:

ICYMI: Why did Matt Drudge turn on Donald Trump?

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Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.
Uncle Ho worked at House 54 from December 1954 to May 1958. (Documentary photo)



"Hello Vietnam. As a Korean who loves Vietnam, I want to join Vietnamese people to celebrate Uncle Ho's 130th birthday", said Mr. Park Chan Kyong, a veteran journalist who has 35 years experience working for the French news agency AFP, showing his affection for Vietnam as well as President Ho Chi Minh.



Explaining the image of President Ho Chi Minh in his memory that leaves a very good impression on him, even though he never met Uncle Ho, journalist Park Chan Kyong said his interest in Uncle Ho was aroused many years ago when he heard about him from his father.

Since then, Mr. Park Chan Kyong has found and read a number of books about Uncle Ho as well as Vietnamese history, and increasingly admires him for his endless love for the people of Vietnam as well as the indomitable spirit of struggling for national independence.

The love for Uncle Ho and Vietnam was also a reason encouraging him to visit Vietnam. The first thing he and his wife did in Vietnam was to visit Uncle Ho's Mausoleum and his simple stilt house.

Referring to Uncle Ho's role in Vietnam's struggle for independence and foreign countries movements for independence after Vietnam gained its independence, journalist Park Chan Kyong said Uncle Ho was a symbol in the struggle for independence and reunification of the Vietnamese people. He led and urged all Vietnamese people in a long and enduring struggle for national independence and freedom, as my father told me earlier, that President Ho Chi Minh spent all his time and efforts for the independence and reunification of Vietnam, he said.

According to Park Chan Kyong, newly discovered documents in archives in Paris, France, show that Uncle Ho made friends with some of the members of the Korean Provisional Government in 1920. Since the meeting at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Uncle Ho and soldiers fighting for independence for the Republic of Korea became close friends, inspiring each other and encouraging each other in their struggles for independence.

During the talk with Vietnam News Agency reporters, journalist Park Chan Kyong restated that both Vietnam and the Republic of Korea had gained considerable success in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, saying it is also his pleasure, as a Korean journalist who always loves Vietnam and always admires and respects President Ho Chi Minh./.
SCA Appraisal Appoints Director and Managers

SCA Appraisal has created a new Customer Success division and appointed Monica Diaz as its senior director.

SCA, based in Burbank, California, appointed Lucano Figueroa to lead the divisions Financial Services/Government Group, Yesenia Barreto to lead the Third-Party Administrators Group and Amye Chow to lead the Insurance Group. Figueroa has 18 years experience with SCA, Bareto 13 years and Chow nine years, the company said.

Diaz will be accountable for end-to-end delivery to clients across three unique markets:insurance, third-party administrators and financial services/government.

All aspects of a claim will be handled by a vertically-integrated team that is familiar with our clients business objectives and processes. Diaz stated. We know we are an extension of our clients claims resources and we are aligned accordingly.

SCA, founded in 1979, operates private passenger auto, specialty, heavy equipment and financial service appraisals in all 50 states with its own staff or through franchises.

AqualisBraemar Appoints Director of Loss Adjusting

AqualisBraemar has appointed Olivier Decombes as director of its London-based loss adjusting unit, which services European and African markets.

The firms adjusting service specializes in the investigation and resolution of insurance claims and commercial disputes within both the energy, power and marine industries. Key services include loss adjusting, expert witness, dispute resolution and risk assessment, the company said in a press release.

Decombes joins AqualisBraemar from Barbican Insurance Group where he held the role of head of energy, power and utilities. After graduating from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Industries Chimiques Nancy, France with a chemical engineering degree, Decombes began a 12-year career with Schlumberger as a field engineer engineer and held assignments in Africa, Latin America and the United States, the company said.

Decombes transitioned into the energy insurance market with Infrassure Ltd. in Zurich, quickly rising to the position of the energy regional manager. He later joined CV Starr with positions both in Paris and London, where he held the position of chief underwriting manager before moving on to Barbican.

In December we launched an international recruitment drive to ramp up our adjusting business serving all aspects of the oil, gas, power and engineering sectors, stated Allan Kelly, managing director of the AqualisBraemars adjusting division in Europe and West Africa. Oliviers appointment is part of that continuing campaign. We will add further new members to the team soon.

The company is part of Oslo-listed consultancy group AqualisBraemar ASA.

Munich Re Announces Executive Appointments

Munich Re America announced the appointment of Cathy Smith as chief risk and underwriting officer and Kamalesh (Kam) Jha as senior vice president and chief underwriting officer for the reinsurers stock insurance carrier, American Modern.

Smith is based in Princeton, New Jersey, and reports to Tony Kuczinski, president and chief executive officer of Munich Re US Holding.

Jha succeeds Smith at the American Modern post. He is based in Amelia, Ohio, and reports to Andreas Kleiner, president and chief executive officer of American Modern.

Smith oversees regional underwriting and pricing, as well as integrated risk management for the Munich Re US property and casualty companies, which consist of Munich Reinsurance America, Inc., American Modern, HSB, and the Munich Re Specialty Insurance operations.

Smith had served as senior vice president and chief underwriting officer at American Modern since 2017. She joined American Modern in the Amelia, Ohio, home office in 2015 as vice president for regional product management, and shortly afterward was named vice president, head of product and underwriting. Smith holds a BA degree in Economics and an MBA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Kam Jha joins American Modern with more than 20 years of experience in technology and insurance. He is responsible for execution of the American Modern product and underwriting strategy.

Jha will also become a member of the Executive Management Board of American Modern. Jha holds a Bachelor of Technology (Mechanical Engineering) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Varanasi, India, as well as an MBA in Marketing and Product Management from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
NEW YORK  Harvey Weinstein and his former studios board have reached a nearly $19 million settlement with dozens of his sexual misconduct accusers, New York states attorney general and lawyers in a class-action lawsuit said Tuesday.

The agreement was announced by New York Attorney General Letitia James and Chicago attorney Elizabeth A. Fegan.

The deal, if approved by judges in federal courts, would permit accusers to claim from $7,500 to $750,000 from the $18.8 million settlement.

The former Hollywood producer was convicted earlier this year of rape and sexual assault against two women. Accusations by dozens of women in 2017 destroyed his career and gave rise to #MeToo, the global movement to hold powerful men accountable for their sexual misconduct.

The 68-year-old former film producer was diagnosed in March with the coronavirus just days after he was moved to the states maximum security Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo to begin serving his 23-year prison sentence.

This settlement is the culmination of several years of hard work by survivors who not only initiated the (hash)MeToo movement around Weinstein, but also used their platforms to seek justice for all of those who were afraid to come forward for fear of retaliation in Hollywood, Fegan said.

Included in the news release was a statement by plaintiff Caitlin Dulany, who said Weinstein isolated and assaulted her after they met in 1996 at the Cannes Film Festival.

When I came forward and shared my story about the assault, I knew there wouldnt be a straight path to justice, Dulany said.

Harvey avoided accountability for decades, leveraging his power to hide behind a web of deceit, and I was determined to join the class action to ensure meaningful change for all survivors, she said. I am proud that this settlement will help so many women who are long overdue for justice and relief.

James said in a release that the deal would resolve claims in a New York state lawsuit and in a class-action lawsuit that was pending in federal court.

After all the harassment, threats, and discrimination, these survivors are finally receiving some justice, James said.

She called it a win for every woman who has experienced sexual harassment, discrimination, intimidation, or retaliation by her employer.

Gerald Maatman, lead counsel for the Weinstein Companies, declined comment.

Messages seeking comment were left for Weinstein and individuals on his former studios board.

Attorneys Douglas H. Wigdor and Kevin Mintzer, who represent some of Weinsteins accusers in lawsuits, said in a statement that the proposed settlement was a complete sellout of the Weinstein survivors.

They called it deeply unfair, saying it does not require Weinstein to accept responsibility and doesnt require him to pay any money toward it. They also said the director defendants will receive millions of dollars to reimburse their defense costs.

The lawyers said the deal would also harm women who do not join the settlement because they would be unable to pursue large amounts of money from insurance companies which would receive protection from the deal.

We are completely astounded that the Attorney General is taking a victory lap for this unfair and inequitable proposal, and on behalf of our clients, we will be vigorously objecting in court, the lawyers said.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Shaun Thaxter, the former chief executive of drugmaker Indivior Plc, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a criminal charge arising out of a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the marketing of its opioid addiction treatment Suboxone.

Thaxter pleaded guilty in federal court in Abingdon, Virginia to a misdemeanor count of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. The plea came a day after Indivior said he was stepping down as CEO.

Prosecutors said Thaxter failed to prevent employees from sharing misleading safety information about the drug with Massachusetts Medicaid program as it considered expanding coverage for it.

Wick Sollers, his attorney, said Thaxter was unaware of the alleged misstatements when they were made. Thaxter faces up to one year in prison when he is sentenced on Sept. 29 and has agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and forfeitures.

The plea came after Indivior in April 2019 was indicted and charged with engaging in an illegal scheme to boost prescriptions of Suboxone in one of the few corporate prosecutions related to the U.S. opioid addiction epidemic.

Prosecutors alleged Indivior deceived doctors and healthcare benefit programs into believing the film version of Suboxone, which has an opioid component, was safer and less susceptible to abuse than similar drugs.

The indictment said Indivior also used an internet and telephone program touted as a resource for opioid addicts to connect them to doctors it knew were prescribing Suboxone and other opioids at high rates and in suspect circumstances.

Prosecutors said the scheme began before British consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser spun off Indivior. Reckitt Benckiser last year agreed to pay $1.4 billion to resolved related claims.

Slough, England-based Indivior denies wrongdoing and is scheduled to face trial in September. Indivior on Tuesday said it is working to resolve outstanding investigations and litigations as expeditiously as possible.

About the photo: In this March 11, 2013 file photo, Shavonne Bullock, a recovering heroin addict, holds a demonstration dose of the medication Suboxone in Chicago. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
Nearly a year and a half after collapsing under $30 billion in liabilities from wildfires sparked by its equipment, PG&E Corp. has emerged from the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The California power giant said in a statement Wednesday that it had successfully completed its restructuring and exited Chapter 11.

Now PG&E is left to fend for itself as a new wildfire season is already underway. Critics say the company has yet to fully address the daunting operational challenges it faces, even after overhauling its board and pledging to submit to more state oversight and divide operations into regional units to focus more on safety.

This is an important milestone, but our work is far from over, PG&Es Interim Chief Executive Officer Bill Smith said in the statement. Our emergence from Chapter 11 marks just the beginning of PG&Es next eraas a fundamentally improved company and the safe, reliable utility that our customers, communities and California deserve.

The company says it has taken great strides toward rectifying its problems and putting itself on course to deliver safe, clean power to California for years to come.

PG&E is committed to emerging from Chapter 11 as a fundamentally improved and transformed utility that meets the highest safety, governance, and operational standards, former Chief Executive Officer Bill Johnson said in a June 20 statement.

One of PG&Es next moves will be searching for a new chief executive officer to permanently replace Johnson, who was hired to steer the company through bankruptcy and announced in April that hed retire June 30.

The company also plans to sell its iconic downtown San Francisco headquarters and move to Oakland.

PG&E filed for Chapter 11 in late January 2019 after its power lines started some of the worst blazes in California history. They included the Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise and killed more than 80 people. The company pleaded guilty on June 16 to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. State regulators fined PG&E $1.9 billion in connection with the blazes.

The utility, founded more than a century ago, is paying $25.5 billion to cover damage claims it resolved in bankruptcy through settlements with fire victims, insurers and local government agencies. It is funding the reorganization with $9 billion it raised through equity offerings and more than $13 billion in the debt markets.

The company will exit Chapter 11 having nearly doubled its debt to almost $40 billion, raising concerns about its financial durability and its ability to make an estimated $40 billion in investments required to fire-proof its grid. In the meantime, the utility will need to resort to intentionally shutting off power to keep its lines from igniting fires during wind storms.

If PG&E gets into trouble again, California has the option to take the utility over as part of an agreement with the state to back its reorganization plan.

One advantage PG&E will have once it formally exits Chapter 11 is a state fund established to help utilities cover liabilities from future fires linked to their equipment.

About the photo: Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) trucks sit on a roadside in Paradise, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019. PG&E Co., Californias biggest utility owner, faces $30 billion in potential wildfire liabilities, and its bankruptcy plan has reverberated across the power industry. The states big utilities have seen their shares plunge since Novembers deadly Camp Fire, and PG&Es debt rating has been cut to junk status.

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
William Russell Allton was born in Dewey, Oklahoma on April 25, 1931 to Russell Frank and Alice Mae (Steffens) Allton. He attended school in Claremore and graduated with the class of 1948. On August 26, 1949 Bill married Jimmie Louise Reed and the couple made Tulsa home for the first 25 year
FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- The ongoing national conversation on racial injustice and inequality has sparked Mayor Patrick Cooney to pen a letter to residents about the citys commitment to equality and inclusion.

In light of recent events, theres somewhat of an awakening in our country to these problems, so I thought that it was something we needed to address, Cooney said. The more-inclusive community is a community that will benefit us.

Thats the right thing to be. Its what our residents want. Were looking for ways to make sure people feel welcome here as employees, visitors and residents.

Cooney said shortly after demonstrators started protesting the death of George Floyd and inequality in America, Fairview Park leaders began discussing ways the city could become more inclusive.

Then, after speakers at a June City Council meeting referenced previous racial incidents taking place in Fairview Park, the mayor said clarifying the citys position with an open letter was the right thing to do.

Some people felt it wasnt enough, some people thought it was too much, but I think overall people agree with the message (that) we need to be a more inclusive society and city, Cooney said.

Any way we can work addressing racism, harassment and discrimination is good for everybody.

The mayors letter stated a need to examine the citys policies and procedures, which the Fairview Park Police Department is already in the process of completing. Theres also talk of not only purchasing body cameras for police officers, but expanding the police departments community outreach efforts.

I believe that an organization reflects the values of its leaders, Cooney stated in the letter. Based on my interactions with Chief Erich Upperman these last six months, I know that discrimination of any kind has not, and will not, be tolerated.

Chief Upperman has trained his officers to be professional when dealing with all members of the public and -- while others may disagree -- to apply the law fairly and equally to all. Chief Upperman and all of the officers of the Fairview Park Police Department have my full support, and I look forward to working with them to explore ways we all can better serve our community.

Not only did Cooney suggest that employees undergo bias and prejudice training, but he also recommends bringing the Ohio Municipal Leagues R.E.A.L. (Race Equity and Leadership) Ohio program to the city.

Due to COVID-19 restricting mass gatherings, Cooney said a virtual meeting wouldnt have the same effect. The plan is to schedule future meetings and training sessions once the pandemic is over.

We dont have anything specific, which is one of the criticisms, but were working on it, Cooney said.

Council President Michael Kilbane commended Cooneys letter, noting a 2019 resolution he presented that reinforced the citys commitment to diversity and inclusion.

As far as racial inequality, racial profiling and racism in general in Fairview Park goes, I can only speak for myself by stating that I have zero tolerance for it, but -- unfortunately -- it does exist here, Kilbane said.

Im glad the mayor stated in his letter that he will have zero tolerance for racist behavior among city employees and staff. Its a great start, and it needed to be said aloud, he said.

The City Council president noted that at an upcoming meeting, he plans to assign the topic of anti-racism to the Local Government and Community Services Committee.

Well be discussing ways that we can ensure that our residents and businesses are free from biases and prejudices based on race, religion, gender and sexual identity, Kilbane said. Black lives do matter in Fairview Park.

Read more news from the Sun Post Herald.
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- An occupant has been found for the large building at Oakwood Commons that, even though its construction has been completed since early 2018, has yet to open for business in any way.

That building, at 40,000 square feet, was built for use as a kosher supermarket, and that will be its use beginning, perhaps, early next year.

South Euclid Economic Development Director Michael Love said that a kosher supermarket known as The Grove Kosher Market will open in the building, located just off Warrensville Center Road on the southern end of Oakwood Commons.

A new owner has purchased the building and has plans to open a kosher market, Love said. They are in the process of submitting their plans. We should have the plans in July, and then I think it would be at least six months until they open.

Its called The Grove Kosher Market and they are out of Florida. This is actually their first store out of the South Florida region.

When asked why South Euclid was chosen as The Groves first out-of-state store, Love replied: I think they saw this is a great market for them to locate in. The demographics match exactly what theyre looking for.

The building had originally been constructed to serve as the home of Seasons Kosher Market, but Seasons, in early 2019, filed for bankruptcy. Love said Seasons, which had locations in New York and a couple of other locales, has since been purchased and now only operates out of New York City.

The Oakwood Commons building was built with a 20,000-square-foot main floor and a 20,000-square-foot basement. The basement was to serve as the supermarkets kitchen. Love said he has yet to see The Groves plans, but thinks The Grove may also use the basement as a kitchen because some kitchen equipment has already been installed there.

Love said he is not only pleased to have a building of that size filled, but also for another reason: Some people had been looking at it for other uses that I didnt think would be as good, so its good its being filled with its intended use.

Love declined to name what some of the other proposed uses may have been.

In other South Euclid business news:

-- Love said that the Chase Bank branch that has been under construction at the corner of Cedar Road and Miramar Boulevard is scheduled to open for business July 7. The construction took place on the onetime Young Israel temple site. The former temple property, between the new Chase branch and University Heights Dental, 14141 Cedar Road, is now fully developed.

-- Clean Express Car Wash has taken over the former Walgreens property, 4363 Mayfield Road, just west of Giant Eagle, and is working on converting the former 20,000-square-foot drugstore building into a car wash. Love said the car wash is expected to open in early August.

-- Meanwhile, Walgreens moved its business east to the onetime Dairy Queen building, 4546 Mayfield Road. It is a building that, in recent years, had been home to payday loan business LoanMax. LoanMax closed about a year-and-a-half ago.

Walgreens has been working to convert the building into its newer model of store, which is smaller than those such as the building now being made into a car wash. Since December, Walgreens has been operating on the site of its new location out of a trailer, which is serving as a pharmacy.

It will be a Walgreens express store, Love said. Theyre converting the old Dairy Queen, so it will be about a 3,500-square-foot store with a drive-thru pharmacy. But youll also be able to go into the store and get a basic selection of products that a Walgreens would typically sell.

Love said Walgreens has submitted its plans to the city and that renovations should be starting shortly. He believes the store will open sometime in the fall.

Book Club discussion

South Euclid residents and the community at large are invited to join the citys 2020 Online Book Club & Discussion Series that focuses on issues of diversity and inclusion. The topic of upcoming discussions will be the bestselling book White Fragility: Why Its So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo.

Conversations about White Fragility will take place as online Virtual Zoom Forums, and discussion will be facilitated by diversity, equity and inclusion professional Kimberly Chapmon-Wynne from Mosaic Insights Consulting, and Keith Ari Benjamin, South Euclids director of community services and certied diversity professional.

Each session will take approximately 90 minutes. The sessions schedule looks like this:

-- At 7 p.m. July 16, the discussion will center on White Fragility, from the introduction through Chapter 4.

-- At 7 p.m. July 30, it will be White Fragility, Chapters 5 through 8.

-- At 7 p.m. Aug. 13, the topic will be White Fragility, Chapters 9 through 12.

Register for the free series at cityofsoutheuclid.com/diversity. To learn more about the book, visit here.

Read more from the Sun Messenger.
BEREA, Ohio -- The Berea Police Department has cleaner, safer air in the station and in squad cars, thanks to the Kiwanis Club of Berea.

Kiwanis donated four ozone generators, which are used for odor control. The two larger generators also remove bacteria, mold, viruses and impurities from the air.

Police Chief Dan Clark said the two smaller generators are used in police cruisers for odor control. The two larger generators use UV light to sanitize spaces in the police station.

We have an older building, Clark said. Air circulation is challenging in certain areas.

The generators cannot be used in occupied rooms. Once the ozone cleanser is done operating, using an automated timer, the room must be opened and aired out for a period of time to let the ozone dissipate.

Clark said the generators operate for about an hour or more, depending on the size of the room, to control odor and bacteria.

Clark said similar equipment is used on boats and in hotels.

It smells like the air after a storm, said Amy Decker, administrative assistant. It smells clean.
MEDINA, Ohio -- The Leadership Medina County Board of Trustees welcomed new members to its board replacing retiring members, Brooke Bell, Steve Chrisman, Terri Grimm, Dean Harris, Claus Meyer and Susan Ungham.

Radiah Blanton, Class of 2016, currently serves as the Director at the Brunswick Campus of Cuyahoga Community college. She brings considerable knowledge and connections, having nurtured partnerships with many Medina County organizations such as the Northern Medina Chamber Alliance and the Medina County Economic Development Corporation.

Rick Dumperth, a graduate of the class of 2013, is a past trustee and has remained active in the organization ever since. He is very excited to once again participate on Leadership Medina Countys board. Rick currently works for Wolff Brothers Supply.

Stephen Hambley, Class of 1995, currently serves as the Ohio State Representative District 69. He is looking forward to continuing his good works in the community by serving on the Leadership Medina County board.

Edward Kinney, Class of 2019 is the current Chief of Police for the Medina City Police Department. Having recently completed the program himself, he is eager to continue the spirit of leadership on the board.

Theodore Klimczack, Class of 2014, is a Senior Manager of Tax Services at Rea and Associates, Inc. Of his upcoming experience, he said, I am excited for this opportunity and look forward to seeing the direction that this talented group of leaders take our organization. I learned so much while going through the signature program. I met so many great leaders that I am still friends with today. I look forward to meeting many more in my new role on the board.

Kathy Warner, Class of 2014, joins the board from Jobs for Ohio Graduates. There, she serves as the Program Director. Warner is no stranger to finding innovative ways to serve her community, having founded the non-profit First Impression, Inc. First Impression, Inc. a non-profit organization created to address the needs of challenged/displaced women trying to secure jobs. It provides gently used business attire and support to help increase the self-confidence and esteem of the clients.

Jamie Stilla, Class of 2017. Jamie is the Manager of the Seville branch of the Medina County District Library. Im so excited to take this next step with Leadership Medina County. What an honor and privilege to be able to take a key role within this outstanding organization that connects so many great leaders. I am up for the challenge and look forward to contributing at a higher level for the benefit of our amazing county. shared Jamie.

Leadership Medina County Officers are President Joel Hlavaty of Frantz Ward, LLP; Vice-President, Kimberly Bolas Miller, Westfield; Karen Gaub, Secretary, Dairy Farmers of America|Mideast Area and Josh Price, Treasurer, HHL Group, Inc.
NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio -- At least one audience member attending Tuesdays special City Council meeting -- called to discuss Councilman Dan Langshaws threatening phone call to a City Hall secretary -- wasnt happy when council voted 6-0 to charge Langshaw with misconduct and malfeasance.

This is bulls---, North Royalton resident Bob MacKay stated loudly after the council vote.

MacKay suggested that council, which played a recording of Langshaws June 20 phone call during Tuesdays meeting, was withholding a second half of the recording.

You guys are destroying a city by taking a good man (Langshaw) out of office, MacKay told council members.

Langshaw remains in office after Tuesday nights vote. Council will next schedule a public hearing, where it will weigh the case against him, and afterward may vote to remove him from office, censure him or take another disciplinary action. Langshaw, with help from an attorney, will have a chance to defend himself.

MacKay predicted to council that residents will circulate petitions to remove several of them from office, due to the vote to charge Langshaw.

I hope you guys sleep well, because this is bulls---, MacKay said. This is our city. We voted him (Langshaw) in, we should be the ones who vote him out.

MacKay exchanged words with other audience members, including North Royalton resident Tony Santangelo, who said someone in a position of authority like Langshaw cannot speak to a secretary the way Langshaw did.

In the June 20 phone call, Langshaw threatened to defund the salary of the secretary, Jaime Anton, unless she convinced Mayor Larry Antoskiewicz to reverse his decision to close the city jail.

This is the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to this city, MacKay said to other audience members. And they are burying a good man (Langshaw) who stands up for not just his ward, but the entire f------ city of North Royalton.

Audience members told MacKay to watch his language, saying he was just like Langshaw, who used several profanities during his call to Anton.

Yeah, Im just like him, because I care about my city, MacKay said.

After the confrontation, MacKay told cleveland.com that councils action Tuesday was a wrongdoing.

Dan Langshaw is a standup man, MacKay said. Hes done more for the city that all these councilmen have done in all their terms combined. Dans a man for the people.

MacKay said Langshaw fights for causes he believes in, like keeping the city jail open.

Conversely, Santangelo told cleveland.com that Langshaws behavior was unacceptable.

Whether you think the mayor should have or should have not closed the jail, as an elected official (like Langshaw), there is a certain protocol and conduct you need to follow when youre voicing your displeasure, Santangelo said.

Santangelo said Langshaw needed to understand his position of authority before making the comments he did to Anton.

Thats intimidation, thats harassment, thats threatening, Santangelo said.

Read more from the Sun Star Courier.
ORANGE, Ohio -- The Orange Police Department has agreed to adopt and implement state standards established by the Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board, but there will no significant change in how the department operates, Police Chief Chris Kostura said.

The standards are the first of their kind in Ohio and were developed and established by the Columbus-based Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board as part of the states efforts to strengthen community and police relations, according to a press release from Ohio Criminal Justice Services.

Other police departments in the Chagrin Valley area that have completed the certification process are Bentleyville, Chagrin Falls, Gates Mills, Hunting Valley, Pepper Pike and Solon.

A lot of these things weve always done; we just never had a policy on it, Kostura said.

All were doing is fine-tuning what the state is asking us to do. There will be no change to the way Orange Village does business.

The standards that must be met for certification include policies on use of force, agency recruitment and hiring, vehicular pursuit, employee misconduct, bias-free policing, telecommunications training, body-worn cameras and community engagement.

Some of these (standards) are not applicable to us, like telecommunications training, because we have a central dispatch, and body-worn cameras, which we dont have, Kostura said.

To me, its not a very big deal. We have been operating like this for a very long time under the rules they are looking for. They just changed some of the wording around.

Nearly 500 agencies employing more than 27,000 officers -- representing more than 85 percent of all law enforcement officers in Ohio -- are either certified or in the process of becoming certified, the press release stated.

The state has partnered with the Buckeye State Sheriffs Association and the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police to help certify Ohios nearly 900 law enforcement agencies on a process to ensure that they are in compliance with Ohios new standards, the release indicated.

In December 2014, former Gov. John Kasich signed an executive order announcing the Ohio Task Force on Community-Police Relations after a series of incidents in Ohio and around the nation highlighted the challenges between the community and police.

The task force included 24 members representing the governor, legislature, attorney general, the Supreme Court of Ohio, local law enforcement, organized labor, local community leaders, the faith-based community, business, municipalities and prosecuting attorneys.

In April 2015, after a series of public forums held around the state, the task force delivered its final report to Kasich, who then established the Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board to oversee implementation of recommendations from the Ohio Task Force on Community-Police Relations.

Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio

Theft: Mayfield Road

Walmart management reported June 24 that it had discovered that an employee had pocketed a total of more than $3,600 in cash from registers over a course of several weeks. In a statement to the company, the 18-year-old Cleveland woman said she started taking the money to pay for her prom and graduation, before they were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

She said she did not plan to keep the money, but kept stealing it because she had not been caught. She was arrested and charged with eight counts of theft.

Theft: Lander Road

Two metal hanging flower baskets were reported stolen from the city June 18. They had been hanging on the fence on the bridge over Interstate 271. The baskets are valued at $80 each.

Theft: Mayfair Boulevard

A resident reported June 18 that a package had been stolen from her home sometime in the past month while she was staying away from her home. She said it was to contain a Gucci handbag, valued at $526, that she had purchased on Ebay.

Theft: Mayfield Road

A man stole two iPhones from the AT&T store June 19 and left in a vehicle that was not located. An employee said the man removed the charging cords from the phones, which sounded an alarm. The suspect quickly fled from the store.

He was later identified as the same suspect from a theft at T-Mobile in May. The following day, Berea police picked up the suspect, a Lyndhurst man, 37, and turned him over to Mayfield Heights police. He is being charged with theft.

Fraud: Chelmsford Road

A resident said June 23 that he had been scammed by someone who called him, claiming to be from his mortgage lender. The caller told him the company was allowing relief due to the coronavirus pandemic. He was advised to purchase a pre-paid gift card in the amount of $410 to pay only for his taxes and insurance.

The resident purchased the card and provided the information from it. A week later, he called his mortgage company, Wells Fargo, and learned that there was no such program.

Officers found the phone number online to be associated with similar scams.

Domestic violence: Mayfield Road

A 30-year-old resident was arrested for domestic violence June 22 after an incident in a vehicle at the Gates Mills Place apartments parking lot. The victim may also be charged, as she appeared to be an equal participant in the incident.

Suspicion: Maplewood Road

Officers responded to the Arbor Court apartments June 21 for a report of a man masturbating near the parking garage. They located the suspect, who was staying in an apartment with a friend. Through translation, they learned that he had been in the country from Vietnam for just three weeks. He admitted to being outside, but denied masturbating. He was warned that such actions could lead to arrest.

Assault: Mayfield Road

A pregnant woman reported June 22 that her ex-boyfriend had arrived unannounced at her Gates Mills Place apartment and held a pocket knife to her chest. The suspect had left the area before officers arrived. The incident is under investigation.

Littering: Golden Gate Plaza

A Chick Fil-A employee littered several napkins and other items under his vehicle June 23. Officers asked that he pick up the items, but as he did so, he was argumentative and said it was not a police matter.

He wanted to know who had accused him, and said he was going to post the incident on Facebook. The trash was subsequently picked up and he returned to work.

Fraud: Mayfield Road

A woman said June 23 that someone had found her credit card at Circle K, then used it fraudulently. Police arrested a 19-year-old man June 20 in connection with the incident. He is a Walmart employee.

Disturbance: Marsol Road

A man reported at 3:14 a.m. June 21 that his father had locked him out of his apartment after an argument. Officers learned that the father had been living with the son for a couple of weeks. He subsequently gathered his belongings and left without incident.

The son was found to have an active traffic warrant with South Euclid police and was advised.

Read more news from the Sun Messenger.
COLUMBUS, OhioGov. Mike DeWine is slated to announce what he calls the next phase of Ohios coronavirus reopening process during his 2 p.m. Thursday briefing, including issuing new state guidelines for schools.

The governor has also promised to disclose what restrictions will be included in a new health order, as well as details on the seven metrics state officials are using to determine the states coronavirus response, including where to deploy COVID-19 tests.

Coronavirus cases are again on the rise in Ohio. On Wednesday, more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the state, marking the highest single-day increases in cases since April. Ohios urban areas are driving the recent increases, particularly in Southwest Ohio.

DeWine has said his health guidelines for Ohios 600-plus school districts to follow when reopening in the fall wont be mandatory. In general, the state has left it up to each school district to decide on its own plan.

After imposing a stay-at-home order and closing non-essential businesses in mid-March, the DeWine administration has been gradually rolling back restrictions during the past month.

Mass gatherings of more than 10 people are still prohibited, though there are a number of exceptions (such as weddings, funerals, protests, and church services). DeWines administration has also set up mandatory guidelines for a variety of economic sectors to follow, including for bars and restaurants, campgrounds, hair salons, and casinos.

DeWines announcement comes as several Ohio cities are imposing or considering rules requiring every person in public to wear a mask. The governor said in a statement Wednesday that such ordinances are an appropriate and welcome response, though to date he hasnt disclosed any state-level rules for wearing masks.

One announcement DeWine wont be making Thursday is ordering bars to be closed again. Its a step several other states have taken recently as coronavirus cases mount, but DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said Wednesday that closing bars is not on the agenda.

Watch the governors briefing here:

Read more Ohio coronavirus stories:

As coronavirus cases mount, is it possible to keep Ohio bars open in a safe way?

Dayton to become first major Ohio city to require masks in public

Akron councilwoman proposes making masks mandatory in public

Ohios big urban counties drive spike in coronavirus cases, per capita data shows

Update: 2,022 Ohio nursing home patients have died with coronavirus
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The count of patients from nursing homes and other long-term care facilities who have died with coronavirus is now at least 2,022, according to updated information released Wednesday night by the Ohio Department of Health.

This is up 73 from 1,949 a week ago.

Seventy percent of the 2,876 reported coronavirus-related deaths in Ohio have involved long-term care facility patients. Another area of concentration has been Ohios prisons, home to 86 inmate deaths and five to staff, according to data released by the prison department on Wednesday.

Overall in Ohio, 53% of the deaths have been to people age 80 and older, with another 24% in their 70s and 14% in their 60s.

Efforts to restrict the spread of the virus into nursing homes led to bans on visitors for months. Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday announced a softening of the limitations, beginning July 20. Outdoor visits will be allowed when certain safety standards are met, including having all residents and staff tested.

The state began tracking nursing home cases by facility on April 15, reporting 7,119 cases to patients and 3,400 to staff since then in its once-weekly report. Case numbers by nursing home are shown in the chart below.

The number of patient cases reported has risen from 6,735 last Wednesday, June 24, and from 6,404 on June 17, while the number of staff cases is up from 3,193 and 2,977 the last two weeks.

Excluding those who have died, are hospitalized or have recovered, 708 patients and 370 staff currently have coronavirus, up from 611 and 302 a week ago, according to the health department.

This weeks report listed 1,653 deaths for cases since April 15. Separately, the department has said there were another 369 deaths of patients for cases that pre-date the start of the more detailed tracking on April 15. The death totals are released only by county, not by facility.

Among the deaths since April 15, the counties with at least 100 each are Franklin County (273), Lucas (186), Cuyahoga (163), Mahoning (152), Summit (146) and Hamilton (111).

Below is a list of case totals by facility. If you are having trouble viewing the list, use this link instead.

Read previous coverage

Where are Ohios biggest coronavirus spikes?

Mapping Ohios coronavirus cases, plus latest case, death, hospitalization trends

Q&A: Is Ohio experiencing an alarming coronavirus surge? What does the latest data mean?

See coronavirus cases by day for each Ohio county
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga Countys former human resources chief pleaded guilty Thursday to two misdemeanor charges of obstructing official business and received a two-year probation sentence.

Douglas Dykes also vowed to cooperate in the ongoing corruption probe into the jail and county government, as well as any future cases.

Dykes entered a plea deal that saw all felony charges against him dropped. The plea makes him the highest-ranking county official to plead guilty to a crime since the 2010 federal corruption probe that ensnared dozens of elected officials, government employees and contractors people and ushered in a new form of government nearly a decade ago.

Dykes, 55, of Cleveland Heights, was indicted in January 2019 on felony charges of theft in office and tampering with records, as well as obstructing official business and misdemeanor falsification charges, for illegally converting a $13,500 moving expense perk for an IT official into a $15,000 signing bonus in 2017.

Former jail director Ken Mills and IT general counsel Emily McNeeley were charged at the same time as Dykes with misleading county officials in unrelated cases. Prosecutors on Wednesday added Dykes name to the list of witnesses expected to testify against Mills.

Dykes pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of obstructing official business related to the payment, and one count related to his submitting of a cashiers check with the IT officials name on it in January to repay the bonus.

Retired Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Patricia Cosgrove sentenced Dykes to 90 days in jail on each count but suspended the sentence. Instead, she placed Dykes on probation for two years.

As part of the plea agreement, Dykes agreed to testify truthfully at future hearings and trials related to the investigation and prosecution of corruption offenses in Cuyahoga County.

Prosecutors will also not object if Dykes were to seek to have his record expunged in the future.

I didnt think I did anything wrong, Dykes said Thursday. After extensive conversations with my attorney, I understand that I made a mistake. Thats why Im pleading guilty.

Thursdays plea marked the latest development in a bizarre legal saga that has included allegations of witness intimidation and hidden payments.

Dykes was among the three current or former officials indicted in January 2019 as part of a probe that started under Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael OMalleys office and was transferred to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yosts office.

Investigators collected thousands of documents as well as electronic devices in a Feb. 14, 2019 raid at Budishs office in the countys downtown headquarters. Budish has not been charged with a crime or publicly identified as a target of the investigation.

Dykes was charged with theft in office, tampering with records, obstructing official business and falsification. Prosecutors accused him of illegally switching $13,500 in moving expense perks for former IT department official James Hay into a $15,000 signing bonus after then-Fiscal Officer Dennis Kennedy rejected the payment because Hay did not actually move to Cleveland to take the job.

Dykes asked for permission to switch the payment from Budishs then-Chief of Staff Sharon Sobol Jordan, then-Law Director Robert Triozzi, who also denied Dykes request, prosecutors said. Dykes made the switch anyway, prosecutors said.

Kennedy and the countys then-budget director Maggie Keenan flagged the payment to Hay to County Inspector General Mark Griffin, and she and Kennedy each provided statements to investigators, according to court records. Triozzi and Jordan each provided corroborating evidence of Dykes actions, prosecutors said.

County and state auditors both later deemed the payment, and several others that the county had made were illegal because officials did not consult the countys council before doing so.

Triozzi, Jordan, Budish and Dykes all defended the payments in an interview with cleveland.com reporters and editors in early 2018.

Hay had struck an agreement to pay back the money in 2017 in monthly installments of less than $200.

Budish allowed Dykes to continue working in his $176,000-a-year position after his indictment because the administration expressed confidence in Dykes innocence, and noted that Dykes did not personally benefit from the crime he is accused of committing.

The cleveland.com editorial board also criticized the case against Dykes.

Prosecutors in mid-2019 had made a plea offer to Dykes that would have resulted in him going into a diversion program. Doing so would have allowed him to wipe his record of the charges in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation. Dykes and his attorney rejected the deal, citing his innocence.

Dykes in December participated in the firing of Keenan, whose statements to investigators about his payments had been handed over to Dykes attorneys through the pre-trial exchange of evidence. Prosecutors argued in court filings that the move amounted to witness intimidation and retaliation.

Budishs chief of staff, Bill Mason, said he, and he alone, made the decision to fire Keenan and asked Dykes to help with the termination process days earlier. Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said Keenans name was not on the official witness list, so she was not a witness against Dykes when he participated in her firing.

Keenan on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing Budish, Mason, Dykes and other county officials of retaliating against her for being a whistleblower about Dykes payment and other county malfeasance.

Prosecutors in January revealed in court that Dykes had quietly cut a $10,000 cashiers check for the rest of the money that Hay owed. The check listed Hays name as the remitter, and did not have Dykes name or signature on it. Dykes wrote the check without consulting Hay or Jordan.

Dykes resigned his position days after the revelation.

Jordan on Thursday said that a member of Dykes church gave him the money that he used to pay off Hays account, and Dykes thought it would help end his case. Jordan said he told Dykes to hang on to the check until the case was over.

I dont know what he was trying to do, but I can guarantee you that it was nothing nefarious, Jordan said.

Cosgrove told Dykes that he could have avoided the suspicion had he been more candid about the payment.

There was a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, Cosgrove said. You chose the wrong way to do it.

Read more stories

Indicted Cuyahoga County HR chief Douglas Dykes resigns

Indicted Cuyahoga County HR chief paid off debt at heart of corruption case in possible act of forgery, prosecutors say

Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budishs administration mum about indicted HR chief paying back money he is accused of stealing

Indicted Cuyahoga County HR head participated in budget directors firing in act of witness intimidation and retaliation, prosecutors allege

Cuyahoga Countys fired budget director Maggie Keenan sues county over retaliation for whistleblowing

Three Cuyahoga County administrators indicted in corruption probe
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A Maple Heights man was sentenced to more than six years in prison Wednesday, convicted of eight burglaries in Cleveland, Bedford, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.

Bobby Weatherspoon, 51, pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including theft, grand theft, breaking and entering, and attempted felonious assault in connection with a string of burglaries from June 2019 to October 2019, according to Cuyahoga County prosecutors.

Investigators say Weatherspoon broke into homes and stole jewelry, electronic equipment, purses, wallets and other valuables.

In September 2019, he drove a stolen vehicle to a 39-year-old womans home in Shaker Heights and tried to steal items from her garage, prosecutors say. The woman arrived home confronted Weatherspoon, who got into the stolen vehicle and drove away, striking the womans vehicle with her two children, ages 17 and 14, still inside.

Also in September, Weatherspoon led Maple Heights police on a chase but lost control of his car and struck another vehicle. He managed to run from the scene before being arrested.

Detectives from Shaker Heights, Bedford, Cleveland Heights and Cleveland used DNA and video evidence, as well as eyewitness accounts, to connect Weatherspoon to the burglaries, prosecutors say.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio fined Dominion Energy $1 million for a November gas pipeline explosion in Pepper Pike.

PUCO determined that the cause of the explosion was the "failure of a 30-inch steel distribution main, that released natural gas into the atmosphere which subsequently ignited," according to a news release from PUCO Wednesday afternoon.

PUCO's report says Dominion failed to follow proper procedures, had poor construction practices and a lack of oversight.

The agreement also requires Dominion Energy to create a plan to improve its gas safety program.

"A third-party consulting firm will investigate and provide a root cause analysis within 90 days. Dominion and PUCO staff will review the analysis and determine an implementation plan," PUCO said in a statement released Wednesday. "A third-party consultant will then evaluate Dominion's adherence to the implementation plan to ensure the company adequately improves its processes and procedures."

The company will pay the $1 million to the state with an additional $500,000 that the commission can impose if Dominion Energy does not fulfill the terms of the settlement or implementation plan.

A preliminary investigation showed that a welding failure caused a rupture that, in turn, caused an explosion that happened at 12:54 a.m. on Nov. 15 on Shaker Boulevard near the Pepper Pike Services Department.

Firefighters from Pepper Pike and Beachwood went door to door to evacuate residents living within the vicinity of the explosion. They were later allowed to return to their homes.

No one was hurt in the explosion.

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PUCO announces investigation into November Pepper Pike gas line explosion

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 19-year-old Maple Heights man faces a federal charge that accuses him of trying to set a parking attendants booth on fire during the May 30 Black Lives Matter protests in downtown Cleveland.

Timothy James Goodner is charged with one federal count of arson. A federal affidavit accompanying charging documents showed that federal agents managed to track Goodner down through tips and social media.

The case against the Goodner illustrates the broad authority federal investigators and prosecutors have used in their investigations into rioters and demonstrators here and throughout the country. While not unheard of, arson cases are often charged at the state and local level.

In Goodners case, the federal agent said that some of the equipment damaged in the fire was used for interstate commerce, giving federal authorities jurisdiction over the case.

Goodner, who was arrested June 22, is one of a handful of the more than 100 people arrested after the mostly peaceful demonstration that devolved into a riot and resulted in burned police cars, property damage and some looting throughout downtown Cleveland.

It also resulted in a contentious standoff with Cleveland police, Cuyahoga County Sheriffs deputies and demonstrators as law enforcement tried to get control of a small group of protesters that descended upon the front doors of the downtown Justice Center.

Goodners suspected role in the demonstration centers on an incident that happened at the Shaias Parking Lot located in the 1200 block of West 3rd Street, across the street from the Justice Center. A video posted on Twitter showed multiple people trying to set fire to the attendant booth.

Law enforcement released video and stills of the incident, and ATF special agent Matthew Hartnett said they received several anonymous tips about Goodner, whom they later identified through Instagram, the affidavit says.

Local police and fire departments most commonly handle arson cases. The ATF and federal prosecutors brought the charge against Goodner under a statute that requires evidence that the act happened to any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property used in interstate or foreign commerce. The statute says someone convicted of a federal arson faces between 5 to 20 years in federal prison.

Hartnett noted in the affidavit in Goodner's case that he spoke with Allen Shema, Director of Property Management for Weston Incorporated, which owns the parking booth.

Sheman told investigators that a company in Canada makes the equipment parking lot customers use to make automated payments. Hartnett also noted that the pay machine administers payments through a company called Parking Revenue Recovery Services in Colorado. He also added that the paper claim tickets customer used to reclaim their cars are printed by Southland Printing Company in Louisiana.

Jonathan Witmer-Rich, associate dean for academic enrichment and professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, noted that most violent acts, much like all crime, are prosecuted at the state level.

Congress has used its authority to regulate interstate commerce to create laws for many crimes that U.S. attorneys would otherwise not have a way to charge. Federal judges have routinely given prosecutors wide latitude to pursue cases that may only have tangential links to interstate commerce.

Prosecutors have also gotten creative in Cleveland and elsewhere. For example, when the U.S. Attorneys Office prosecuted a small Amish community for a series of beard-cutting attacks in 2011, they based hate-crime charges on the fact that the shears used in the attacks were made in New York and brought to Ohio.

Witmer-Rich questioned, however, why federal prosecutors were charging protesters. He noted that the Justice Department could conceivably charge 90 percent of all arsons, as the connection to interstate commerce can easily be proved. It doesnt, though.

Are Cuyahoga County and city of Cleveland somehow not capable of handling arson or violence in a protest? I dont see any evidence of that, he said, adding that it appeared to be an unnecessary use of federal power that can be handled at the local level.

Daniel Ball, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman, declined to comment on the case when reached Thursday.

Herdman issued a press-release statement.

Todays indictment reflects the continued resolve of federal law enforcement to identify, arrest, and prosecute those individuals responsible for the widespread damage in our downtown on May 30, he said. This defendant is alleged to have committed arson during the riot that followed an otherwise peaceful, Constitutionally-protected assembly. We will continue to seek out and prosecute those who were engaged in similar acts on that day.

Herdman took to Twitter after this story published Thursday evening and said that his office will seek federal charges on anyone who burned, looted or defaced downtown Cleveland on May 30 wherever it has jurisdiction.

Why?

1) Arsonists are not protestors

2) People seeking to exercise #1stAmendment rights cannot do so during a riot

3) Where we have jurisdiction, we are going to seek federal charges on anyone who burned, looted, or defaced downtown Cleveland on May 30https://t.co/uoOpCs5itF  U.S. Attorney Herdman (@USAttyHerdman) July 2, 2020

Cleveland.com and Plain Dealer reporters Eric Heisig and Cory Shaffer contributed to this story.

Read more crime stories on cleveland.com:

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Public Utilities Commission of Ohio fines Dominion Energy $1 million for Pepper Pike gas explosion
Beijing is working hard to effectively contain the spread of the latest cluster of COVID-19 cases. Countries all over the world, such as Singapore and Germany, have also suffered some resurgence despite dealing with the initial first outbreak with vigorous measures.



The ability to deal with such unfortunate, but largely expected occurrences is something local authorities in Beijing are becoming accustomed to handling with speed and conviction. How authorities are preventing second waves in countries that were the first to suffer a viral outbreak is undoubtedly of much interest for those around the world preparing for a possible repeat.

The key to controlling the new infections as seen in Beijing, is testing efficiency. The city currently has a capacity to test over one million people a day, and just how it manages to do so is both a technological feat in itself and a testament to the tenacity of local authorities.

The importance of testing for effective isolation of those infected cannot be understated. Compared to countries such as the United Kingdom, where the entire country has just reached a capacity to test 200,000 a day, this highlights the important steps taken by the Chinese authorities in dealing with this virus, and how other countries should learn from it.

Coordinated pooling of laboratory manpower across the nation has been vital. A test is only as good as the laboratory technicians and scientists who process them, and staff from Liaoning and Hubei provinces, as many as 200 of them, have been drafted into Beijing to help facilitate the high level of daily testing demanded.

It is not just staff that are needed to facilitate tests however. The raw supplies and materials needed to produce the tests in the first place should also be of top priority, in particular, reagents and chemicals needed to extract the RNA from nasal swabs.

Countries looking to prevent a second wave would be well advised to stock up on the necessary ingredients to prevent an international scramble as happened the first time round. Lessons, hopefully, will have been learnt by governments from that early chaos.

In its second phase of dealing with COVID-19, Beijing has adopted some stricter measures, such as the addition of 24-hour security checkpoints in local communities. Areas of high risk have been pinpointed, and targeted measures for each area to prevent infections are also in place.



Movement in and out of specific neighborhoods have been carefully monitored, with each area being considered for alterations to restrictions on a case by case basis. Track and trace systems are prioritized for those deemed vulnerable, or at risk due to their profession (e.g. medical staff). This is ensuring that the entire city of 21 million does not grind to a halt.

It is the speed and conviction of the decision-making process that is a weapon all authorities around the world can choose to utilize in the face of the deadliest pandemic of our time. The virus has many biological weapons on its side, with the threat of asymptomatic carriers and respiratory transmission deep in the anxieties of our global population.

However, Beijing's swift response to its outbreak, which is highly likely successful, should be of interest to other local authorities around the world.

Jorge Holloway is a global technology and business commentator based in London, initially specializing in start-ups and technology PR.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

If you would like to contribute, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A 27-year-old man is accused of shooting a man to death outside a store in the citys Glenville neighborhood.

Rodriguez Hitchcock of Cleveland is charged with aggravated murder. Hitchcock was arrested Thursday. A court date has not yet been set.

Hitchcock is accused of shooting Martize Battle, 26, about 5:30 p.m. outside the Central Fox Market on Sellers Avenue near East 117th Street.

The two men talked outside the store when Hitchcock pulled out a gun and pointed it at Battle, according to police.

Battle ran away and dropped a gun on the sidewalk, police said. Hitchcock fired at Battle several times as he ran away. Bullet struck him in the head and stomach, according to police.

Officers found Battle dead between two parked cars outside the store.

Hitchcock served two prison sentences for prior robberies in Lakewood. He and four others on Aug. 5, 2012 shoved a man to the ground, repeatedly kicked and punched him and stole money from his pockets at an apartment on Clifton Boulevard and Fry Avenue.

He was sentenced to nine months in prison in that case. In July 2013, he and another man carjacked a man at gunpoint inside an apartment building garage on Edgewater Road in Lakewood. He was sentenced to five years in prison in that case.

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The United States reported a whopping 52,788 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, the largest single-day total since the start of the pandemic. President Trump speculated in a Fox Business interview that the virus was going to sort of disappear at some point, but many other officials are far less optimistic.

Across the country, plans for a gradual return to normalcy are quickly being cast aside, with California, Michigan and New York City the latest to rethink some aspects of reopening. More than 800,000 new coronavirus cases were detected in the United States in June, many of them in Sun Belt states that were quick to reopen. At least 125,602 deaths have been reported since the start of the pandemic. (Washington Post)

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Hundreds of teens at pong fest party exposed to coronavirus, officials say (CNN)

Trump calls Russia bounty reports hoax even as White House briefs intel on it (ABC News)

Trump says painting Black Lives Matter on New Yorks Fifth Avenue would be a symbol of hate (Washington Post)

National news

Seattle police clear CHOP protest zone (Seattle Times)

Harsh book about Trump family by presidents niece can be published, judge rules (NBC News)

Trumps evangelical approval dips, but remains high (The Hill)

Trump says he supports larger payments to Americans than Democrats in next coronavirus relief bill (CNBC)

Alabama students throwing COVID parties to see who gets infected: Officials (ABC News)

Stonewall Jackson statue down after Richmond mayor orders removal of Confederate monuments (NBC News)

8 Louisiana police officers indicted after allegedly using unnecessary excessive force (CBS News)

Soldier, a suspect in disappearance of Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, kills self when confronted by police (CNN)

Proposed HUD rule rolls back Obama-era protections for homeless transgender individuals (CBS News)

World news

Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents (BBC)

Hundreds arrested in Hong Kong protests, as analysts weigh in on national security laws impact (CNBC)

Germany disbands elite army unit over extremism concerns (Associated Press)

From museum to mosque? Turkish court to rule on Hagia Sophias fate (Politico)

24 shot to death in attack on drug rehab center in Mexico (NBC News)

Archaeologists find ancient Aboriginal sites underwater, off the coast of Australia (CNN)

U.S. issues warning for companies importing from Xinjiang, China (ABC News)

Coronavirus: New Zealand minister resigns after lockdown blunders (BBC)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - With coronavirus cases rising in Ohio and around the country, should Gov. Mike DeWine close down bars?

Despite bars being ideal places to spread the virus, DeWine doesnt intend to do that at his Thursday briefing, his spokesman said.

Were talking about whether he should consider such a move on This Week in the CLE.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts Thursdays daily half-hour coronavirus news podcast, with help from editors Kris Wernowsky and Jane Kahoun. We answer many of the questions youve sent through our text message platform.

Youve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom account, in which he shares once or twice a day what were thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.

And youve been offering all sorts of great perspective in our coronavirus alert account, which has 13,000-plus subscribers. You can sign up for free by texting 216-279-7784.

Here are the questions were answering today:

What is City Hall saying about the claim this week that the Justice Center was not breached during the May 30 riot downtown? The claim, made publicly by Cuyahoga County Sheriff David Schilling Jr., flies in the face of what the Police Chief Calving Williams earlier told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. And no evidence has emerged to support the chiefs statement. But Mayor Frank Jacksons administration wont talk about it, citing an ongoing investigation.

Should Ohio Governor Mike DeWine close the bars to stop the spread of the coronavirus? Will he? Bars are an easy place to spread the virus, with patrons crowding in enclosed areas to socialize and drink alcohol, which often results in them lowering their guard and not wearing masks as they become increasingly inebriated. The governor is holding a briefing Thursday, but re-closing bars is not on his agenda his spokesman says.

How much need is there is Cuyahoga County for rental assistance for people who lost their incomes during the coronavirus pandemic? The nonprofit taking applications for tenants seeking rental assistance because their livelihoods were affected by the coronavirus pandemic said Wednesday that hundreds of people had completed applications online on the first day the website went live.

What does U.S. Senator Rob Portman, a die-hard supporter of President Trump, have to say about the growing scandal involving Russia putting a bounty on U.S. solders in Afghanistan? Portman told reporters Wednesday that Russia should be sanctioned if reports that it offered bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. troops are verified.

On the eve of the July Fourth holiday, how sky-high are the sales of fireworks in Northeast Ohio? Perhaps coronavirus-related boredom is a factor as fireworks sales are booming in the area.

Want more? You can find all our past episodes here.

Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here.

If you use Stitcher, we are here.

RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.

On Google Podcasts, we are here.

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Gov. Mike DeWine announced guidelines for reopening schools in the fall on Thursday, though the guidelines werent immediately available to review because of an issue with the states website.

Though the governor initially stated the website had been hacked, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted provided an update later in the governors news briefing that the website had not been hacked, but there were technical difficulties.

The state created two sets of guidance, one to provide health guidance and the other for learning guidance. DeWine said he intends to work with the General Assembly to provide financial assistance for the costs associated with reopening, like buying hand sanitizer.

Read the document with health guidelines, and a general planning document, in the document viewer at the bottom of this post.

DeWine announced sweeping budget cuts to education in May, including a $300 million reduction in K-12 public-school funding and $110 million from college and university funding, though some cuts were offset through federal funds.

DeWine highlighted some suggestions in the documents, like maintaining six-foot distance where possible. One mandate is that schools should develop a plan for face coverings, and that staff need to wear masks or face shields.

The guidelines do not require students to wear face coverings, but strongly suggest that students in third grade and up should wear masks.

If a student, staff or volunteer begins to show COVID-19 symptoms or has a temperature above 100 degrees at school, the person must be separated from the rest of the school, given a face covering and monitored by a staff member wearing personal protective equipment. Schools should then contact the local health department.

Schools also must provide hand sanitizer in high traffic areas including entrances to buildings and classrooms and instruct students and staff to use the sanitizer, according to the document.

Other highlights in the guidelines say that schools should vigilantly assess for symptoms, increase opportunities for hand washing and amp up cleaning and sanitizing in schools to limit spread on surfaces.

Before the announcement, schools were already planning for multiple scenarios, assessing the costs related to sending students back to school and developing remote learning strategies so as not to be caught unprepared if the coronavirus hits again.

But leaders needed the guidelines to see what rules are mandated and what is just a suggestion, to avoid having to walk back potential plans. Akron schools, who delivered a draft plan on Monday evening, will finalize their plan while addressing the guidelines.

Our plan already addressed the most serious concerns of our families, staff and public health officials, but we will go back now and review it and make necessary changes, Superintendent David James said in a statement.

The American Pediatric Association recently issued recommendations for school reopening, advocating all decisions should start with the goal of getting children back in the classroom.

DeWine said in a coronavirus briefing last week that the guidelines should have no surprises and though the implementation might change district-to-district, the science remains the same. He also said to expect flexibility for schools to take charge of planning, so that leaders can craft a plan suitable for their community.

He reiterated at the beginning of the briefing on Thursday that the guidelines reflect local control of schools.

Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro, in an interview Thursday, said that the state offered ample opportunity to collaborate on the guidelines and he appreciated the focus on student success.

If there is one concern that we have, its that theyre presented as recommendations, not requirements, he said.

Without strict guidelines, there could be a little too much wiggle room. OEA will continue to support teachers unions efforts in advocating for safety measures, both for students and staff, he said.

The Ohio Federation of Teachers issued a statement after the guidelines were announced Thursday, stating that the increased measures need funding. President Melissa Cropper writes the organization will continue to advocate for the federal HEROS Act, which would provide additional assistance.

Our first priority is, and will continue to be, safety for our students, for our communities, and for our members and their families. We are concerned that local governments and school districts will have to make decisions about the Governors recommendations at a time when they are anticipating budget crunches and beginning to make spending cuts, Cropper said in a release.

Implementing many of these recommendations has a financial cost, but not implementing them may lead to greater rates of illness and death. Districts need to be free of financial concerns so they can make the best decisions for their students and communities.

This story has been updated to show additional comments from education leaders and the governor, as well as to include more detailed information from the K-12 health guidelines document.

Health guidelines document

Planning guidance document
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Cuyahoga County and six others across the state have been placed on Alert Level 3 under Ohio Gov. Mike DeWines new coronavirus alert system, with the governor asking residents to consider necessary travel only.

The other counties placed on the same alert Thursday were Butler, Franklin, Hamilton, Huron, Montgomery and Trumbull.

In these counties, the governor said, Ohioans should limit activities as much as possible. Wear a mask when you go out, for sure. Consider online options, perhaps even for church services. Many cases of community spread are present in these counties.

However, the governor said the new system did not come with any mandates; its just a way of informing the public and local authorities.

Alert Level 3, or red, is the second highest on the new warning system announced Thursday. DeWine said Franklin County is being monitored to potentially be raised to the highest level of concern, Level 4, noted as purple alert.

Though DeWine said community spread of coronavirus exists in all 88 counties, 53 counties were assigned the lowest level - Alert Level 1, or yellow.

Another 28 counties were assigned Alert Level 2, or orange.

He detailed a seven-point monitoring system that may be increased to 10 measures.

Meeting none or one of the current criteria places a county in Level 1; two or three in Level 2; four or five in Level 3; and six or seven in Level 4.

Here are the criteria:

* 1. New cases per capita - Alert triggered when there are 50 per cases per 100,000 residents over a two-week period.

* 2. Increase in new cases - Alert triggered if number of new cases increases for five days.

* 3. Non-congregate living cases - Alert triggered when at least 50% of the new cases in the past three weeks are from places other than long-term care facilities or prisons.

* 4. Early indicator: emergency rooms - Alert triggered when there is a sustained increase over five days of visits from people with symptoms or confirmed cases.

* 5. Early indicator: doctor visits - Alert triggered when there is a sustained increase in out-patient visits, including tele-visits, over five days from people with symptoms or confirmed cases.

* 6. Hospitalizations - Alert triggered when there is a sustained increase of new COVID-19 patients over five days, based on the county or residence, not the location of the hospital.

* 7. Intensive Care Unit occupancy - Alert triggered when ICU occupancy in a region exceeds 80% of total ICU beds, counting both coronavirus patients and those in ICU for other reasons.

Cuyahoga County has met the first four criteria, DeWine said, noting that the spread is growing outside the congregate settings.

Onset of new cases the last two weeks is at its highest level to date, emergency room visits have doubled, and out-patient doctor visits with symptoms have tripled, DeWine said of Cuyahoga County.

Our best defense moving forward is to be on the offense, DeWine said in explaining why the alert system was developed. How we live with this virus. We have to be smart about it. We need to be careful about it.

Just to the west of Cleveland, Huron County is at Alert Level 3, largely because of a spike in cases on farms. In Trumbull, north of Youngstown, DeWine said emergency room visits have tripled. Huron, Trumbull and Butler counties each met four of the criteria.

Montgomery, Hamilton and Franklin counties each met five criteria. DeWine said Hamiltons cases are up fourfold, and the growth in Franklin has been explosive, with 1,500 new cases in the last two weeks.

DeWine said the indicators that may be added later involve contact tracing, tests per capita, and positive tests rates.

Read related coverage

Cuyahoga, Ohios other big urban counties drive spike in coronavirus cases, per capita data shows

Dayton to become first major Ohio city to require masks in public

Ohio health officials trace coronavirus outbreak to Put-in-Bay

2,022 Ohio nursing home patients have died with coronavirus
Rotunda Rumblings

Open bar? With coronavirus cases again on the rise, is it possible to keep Ohio bars open in a safe way? As Jeremy Pelzer found, a number of medical experts assert bars are ideal places for the virus to spread, though a DeWine spokesman said re-closing them isnt on the agenda when the governor announces his latest shift in plans on Thursday.

Still trending up: The Ohio Department of Health reported 1,076 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, the largest daily increase since April. Per Andrew Tobias, reported current hospitalizations increased by just four from the day before, but are up by 212, or 41%, from the week before.

Under the mask: Dayton will become the first major city in Ohio to require mask wearing in public. Mayor Nan Whaley announced the measure Wednesday afternoon, Seth Richardson reports. Southwest Ohio has been the epicenter of a massive spike in coronavirus cases. Whaley said masks could help combat the spread of the virus as the state continues reopening. The order takes effect 8 a.m. Friday.

Early education: The coronavirus shut down early education, causing a major child-care problem for families. Ohio leaders discussed how the coronavirus continues to cause troubles in early education and how it has highlighted that the lack of capacity should be a top issue, in a forum hosted by OSUs Crane Center for Early Education Research and Policy. Emily Bamforth has details.

Off base: As President Donald Trump repeated threats to veto a defense spending bill because it contains language requiring name changes for military bases named for Confederate leaders, both of Ohios U.S. senators told Sabrina Eaton they back the name changes. They should have their names on nothing, period, said U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, calling Confederate generals traitors.

Russias bounty: U.S. Sen. Rob Portman on Wednesday told Eaton that Russia should be sanctioned if reports that it offered bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. troops are verified. Brown that if Trump knew about the bounty reports, he did nothing, and if he didnt know it makes you wonder what intelligence briefings he actually listens to or reads.

Gas light: Between March 24 and June 1, fuel consumption plummeted 71% in Cuyahoga County and four neighboring counties, resulting in a $38.2 million drop in state gas-tax revenue, according to Mary Kilpatrick. However, the lack of traffic had benefits, too: Cuyahoga County saved $62 million on traffic congestion, $172.5 million on crashes, $3 million on pavement maintenance and $71.5 million on emissions costs.

Boom: State regulators have slapped Dominion Energy with a $1 million fine for a November gas pipeline explosion in Pepper Pike, according to Kaylee Remington. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio issued the fine Wednesday after determining Dominion failed to follow proper procedures, had poor construction practices, and lacked proper oversight. In addition to the fine, Dominion must create a plan to improve its gas safety program.

Godspeed, Annie Glenn: Ohios U.S. Senators on Wednesday introduced a resolution to honor the life, legacy and achievements of Annie Glenn, the childhood sweetheart and widow of former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn who became an advocate for children, the elderly and people with disabilities, Eaton reports. She died in May at age 100.

School rules: Ohio State University students and staff returning to campus this fall will be required to wear masks indoors and must sign a pledge affirming they understand whats needed to fight the spread of coronavirus, according to Jennifer Smola of the Columbus Dispatch. Students, faculty and staff must also complete health and safety training modules or face as-yet-unspecified accountability measures.

College Dems shakeup: The College Democrats of America are making major structural changes, and the groups president has resigned, after Denison University student Matt Nowling, the lone Black member of the groups executive board, announced his resignation, citing racism and classism among leadership. As Maggie Astor of the New York Times reports, College Democrat delegations from 39 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico threatened to withdraw from the organization unless Nowlings demands for reform were met. Nowling announced on Twitter Wednesday that he will become the College Dems interim president.

My way or the highway: In a party-line vote, the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday adopted a $1.5 trillion infrastructure spending bill that Democrats said would create jobs while rebuilding the nations dilapidated roads, bridges, public transit, rail, airports, ports and water systems, writes Eaton. Republicans who opposed the bill called it an effort to implement the Green New Deal masquerading as a highway bill.

Bon voyage: A 20-foot-high statue of Christopher Columbus was removed from its pedestal outside Columbus City Hall by city workers early Wednesday morning, the Dispatch reports. Its the second statue of the European explorer, whose voyages to the Americas in the late 15th Century kicked off centuries of exploration, colonization and genocide, to be removed in his namesake city. The Columbus Art Commission hasnt yet decided what will take the statues place.

Gerrymander jumble: Slate.com has a challenge for you  how quickly can you put together a puzzle of Ohios convoluted congressional districts? Hurry before Ohios next redistricting process begins after the 2020 U.S. Census.

Full Disclosure

Five things we learned from the Feb. 12, 2020 financial-disclosure form filed by Rodney Creech of Preble County, the Republican nominee for Ohio House District 43:

1. He reported earning $80,000 from being self-employed in 2019, as well as $53,000 from serving as a Preble County commissioner.

2. He and/or his immediate family run four businesses: Creech Farms/Superior Ag Solutions, Lawn Plus LLC, The 1808 Cafe, and RJC Properties LLC.

3. The only investment he listed was an IRA with Thrivent Financial.

4. At some point in 2019, Creech owed at least $1,000 to 10 different creditors: Farm Credit Mid-America, Green Velvet Sod Farms, Twin Valley Bank, Ford Motor Credit Company, Ally Financial, John Deere Financial, Caterpillar Financial, Vermeer Heartland, Helena Chemical, and Huntington National Bank.

5. At some point last year, Creech was owed at least $1,000 by Adam Bowen.

On the Move

Katie Caprez is stepping down as state Rep. Kyle Koehlers legislative aide to take a job as a lobbyist with Roetzel & Andress public law section starting July 6. Koehlers new aide is Megan Ryser, who most recently served as a constituent aide to state Rep. Scott Lipps.

Birthdays

Douglas Babcock, legislative aide to state Rep. Adam Miller

Ex-state Rep. Martin Sweeney

Straight From The Source

Its catching on - in a good way!

- Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, commenting on a tweet from Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb encouraging the use of face masks.

Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Ohios U.S. Senators on Wednesday introduced a resolution to honor the life, legacy and achievements of Annie Glenn, the childhood sweetheart and widow of former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn who became an advocate for children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

She died in May at age 100.

The resolution introduced by Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Rob Portman notes that Annie Glenn overcame a lifelong stutter at age 53 and subsequently became an avid public speaker and an award-winning advocate for people with communications disabilities.

Her service to our state and advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities, particularly those with speech disabilities, combined with Johns legacy as an American hero and Ohios longest-serving United States Senator have made them a couple that will live forever in Ohio history, said a statement from Portman.

Brown noted that he currently occupies the same U.S. Senate office that Glenn did, and that he named his main office conference room in Annie Glenns honor.

Annie will be remembered for her work to lift others up, including those who shared her struggles with communicative disorders, said a statement from Brown. Her passion for helping others, along with a kind spirit and sharp wit, endeared Annie to anyone who met her.

If the Senate approves the resolution, a framed copy will be presented to Glenns family.

More coverage:

Annie Glenn, widow of former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn, dies at age 100

Ohios U.S. Senators back renaming Confederate-named military bases, despite Trump veto threat

Sen. Rob Portman calls for sanctioning Russia if outrageous bounty reports are true

U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Louisiana abortion law, similar to Ohios, requiring doctors to have agreements with nearby hospitals

Senate Democrats including Ohios Sherrod Brown thwart consideration of GOP police reform bill

Ohios U.S. Senators urge support for Asian tire dumping complaint

Vice President Mike Pence to visit Lordstown on Thursday

Ohio Congress members introduce bill to help hospitals financially hit by coronavirus

Can he do that? Local health experts question President Trumps decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization

Q & A: Trump adviser and Cleveland native JaRon Smith discusses police reform

Ohio Democrats in Congress praise Supreme Court DACA decision decried by Trump: Read it here

Prompted by Cleveland case, Sen. Rob Portman introduces bill to crack down on Chinese intellectual property theft

Senate passes bill by Sen. Rob Portman to fund National Park repairs

What is Juneteenth and should it be a federal holiday?

Panel chaired by Rep. Marcia Fudge examines voting during the COVID-19 pandemic

Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown decries calls for business liability relief in COVID-19 legislation

The $600 question: Should the federal unemployment subsidy continue?
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio Department of Health missed a Thursday afternoon deadline to release the states daily coronavirus statistics, a delay the state officials attributed to technical issues facing the platform Ohio uses to release the information to the public.

During a coronavirus briefing Thursday, Gov. Mike DeWine initially termed the problems facing the website a hack. But Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said later in the news conference that it was actually unspecified technical issues that were vexing state IT workers.

Normally, the health department releases statistics of daily cases, deaths, hospitalizations and other COVID-19 statistics around 2 p.m. each day. The numbers are closely watched and analyzed by media, including cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, as well as health researchers and members of the public. But the updated numbers were still not available as of 3:17 p.m. Thursday.

Theyre working through these. They did want to let us know the case reporting system, theyre still having trouble with it. Theyre going to update that information for you out there as soon as they can, Husted said. ...They hopefully will have them resolved soon.

DeWines coronavirus briefings already have an unusually large audience for government-produced video programming.

But Thursdays news conference was particularly closely watched because DeWine had said he planned to announce the schools re-opening plan, as well as criteria through which the state, in a significant change in its strategy in responding to COVID-19, would consider measures in individual counties in response to local spikes in case numbers.
In our world of divisiveness, generally, most people can agree  crime is bad. But what about hate crimes? We have all heard the loaded-phrase before, but many remain unclear about what elevates a seemingly regular crime into a hate crime? Two recent incidents reported on by the Clevel
 Flash

Chinese and Indian military commanders on Tuesday held the third round talks, and made progress on deescalating the situation along the border, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday.

Zhao said the two sides continued working towards implementing the consensus reached at the two earlier rounds of commander-level talks. They had made progress in the effective measures by frontline troops to disengage and deescalate the situation.

"China welcomes that. We hope the Indian side will work with the Chinese side towards the same goal, keep up close communication through military and diplomatic channels, ease the situation, and reduce the tension along the border," he said.
 Flash

U.S. state of Texas reported more than 8,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, breaking the record again as mayors are asking the governor to roll back reopening process in the state.

According to Texas Health and Human Services, as of Wednesday there were 168,062 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state, 8,076 more cases than that of Tuesday. The death toll reached 2,481.

In Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States and the largest city of Texas, over 800 new COVID-19 cases were added.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner tweeted on Wednesday that he is asking Texas Governor Greg Abbott to scale back reopening.

"I and the mayors of other cities have sent a letter to Governor Abbott asking to roll back capacity at gyms and bowling alleys," he tweeted.

Texas city of Galveston, an island along the Gulf of Mexico, has decided to close its beaches to the public for the July 4th holiday weekend amid a spike in new coronavirus cases.

Galveston Mayor Jim Yarbrough said the order restricting beach access would be effective at 5 a.m. Friday. The beach closure will end at midnight Monday, Houston Chronicle reported.

Yarbrough received permission from the Texas General Land Office, which governs the state beaches, to do so, said the report.

Meanwhile, the Commissioners Court of Harris County, where Houston is located, on Tuesday approved a 15 million U.S. dollar Emergency Rental Assistance Program to help serve low-income residents to pay their rents.

The program will be in addition to the 30 million dollar in assistance already distributed, local media reported.

The Emergency Rental Assistance Program will provide a one-time payment of 1,000 dollars per household in Harris County to be used for rent and fee payments directly to landlords.

Commissioners said this program comes after researchers estimated that the poverty rate would increase from 12.8 percent to 16.3 percent this year, local TV station ABC13 reported.
Rabbi Howard Kutner, director of spiritual living at Menorah Park in Beachwood, was remembered as a meticulously observant Jew, an effective teacher and as a congregational rabbi for the residents  in every sense.

Kutner died June 29 at age 63.

Rabbi Kutners friendship and guidance were felt throughout Menorah Park among staff, residents and families alike and we will cherish the memories of the times each of us spent with him, Menorah Park CEO Jim Newbrough said in a statement to the Cleveland Jewish News June 30.

When I joined Menorah Park, Rabbi Kutner spent the first year teaching me many meaningful aspects of Judaism from holidays to traditions. I gained a deeper understanding in Judaism and great respect for Rabbi Kutner. His important Judaic lessons have and will stay with me, because of how he taught. Through humor and a quick wit, he helped all of us, including me, feel comfortable and open to learning with a strong sense of enthusiasm.

Residents of Montefiore on the same campus praised his teaching, said Rabbi Akiva Feinstein, director of spiritual care at Montefiore. Residents often said they were surprised at how Kutner could present material in a way that was enjoyable, Feinstein said.

He was really a great teacher because he could explain contents that were deep to anybody, Feinstein said. His persona was that he was a community rabbi. Many of the residents would always tell me, I feel like I have a rabbi.

Feinstein said Kutner took that responsibility seriously and was, at the same time, approachable and at peoples level.

Kutner, who was born May 8, 1957, became director of spiritual learning in 2017 after serving as associate rabbi under the mentorship of Rabbi David Bader at Menorah Park for 13 years.

Rabbi Ephraim Nisenbaum, founder and director of Jewish Learning Connection in University Heights, said he first met Kutner at Menorah Park.

At some point, Kutner began attending services at Jewish Learning Connection, and he regularly attended services there on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. He often led the davening, Nisenbaum said.

He felt connected to G-d when he prayed, Nisenbaum told the CJN. He really did. He said each word so carefully. He enunciated each word carefully.

Nisenbaum said the two engaged in discussions of Jewish law, or halacha, as well, both theoretical and practical concerns.

Nisenbaum said while Kutner was meticulous in his observance, he was also respectful of the different levels of observance among residents at Menorah Park.

He knew how to make people feel good, he said. Both in his personal life and his professional life, he walked a balance.

Kutner grew up in Queens, N.Y., and received rabbinic training at Yeshiva University in New York City. He came to Beachwood after working as a pulpit rabbi at Beth Israel Synagogue in Omaha, Neb. He told the CJN in a 2017 interview he was drawn to the quality Cleveland-area educational opportunities for his four children, leading him to the Menorah Park position.

He came to Menorah Park with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and dedication, and established relationships with his new congregation very quickly, a statement from Menorah Park read.

In his role as associate rabbi, he increased the number of weekly classes and led well-attended Ask the Rabbi classes and conducted Shabbat services, the statement continued. On several occasions, questions arose during these services which then become part of the next Ask the Rabbi session. Rabbi Kutner observed women on campus stating they did not have a bat mitzvah as young girls. Acknowledging the void, he extended a bat mitzvah invitation to residents. Ten women, ages 89 through 96 signed up for bat mitzvah classes, and they named their group WOW, Women of Wiggins. They shared their life lessons with the nation as they studied and prepared.

Kutner said in the 2017 CJN interview, When you become their rabbi, its a wonderful thing because many of them are no longer members of synagogues at their advanced age. They can still feel like they have a rabbi that cares about them and has taken care of their religious and spiritual needs.

According to the statement, Their great sense of accomplishment is thanks to Rabbi Kutner and the way in which he made learning an engaging and interesting experience. He was not only an exceptional spiritual leader with a vast knowledge of Torah, but also an incredible teacher with ever-present warmth and humor. Several bar and bat mitzvot followed throughout the campus, and he also led vow renewals with several couples joining together in these heartfelt ceremonies.

Along with Associate Rabbi Joseph Kirsch, the spiritual team offered services inclusive of all segments of the community, the statement said. Their focus was to enrich the lives of residents through spiritually uplifting services, educational opportunities and special programs. Rabbi Kutner furthered his education by studying chaplaincy and served as chaplain-in-training at the Cleveland Clinic. He along with Rabbi Kirsch supported pastoral and spiritual needs. He also implemented a strong kosher supervision process throughout campus. Pastoral visitation, intergenerational programming, hospice, end-of-life counseling and decision making, kosher supervision, Jewish holidays and special programming were all important aspects of his role.

Kutner, who was trained as an Orthodox rabbi, led dVar Torah sessions at board meetings and acted as cantor while reading from the Torah at services.

Kutner is survived by his wife, Nechama, and their four children: Yechiel, who is studying in Israel, and Eliyahu, Binyamin, who is studying at Yeshiva University, and Chana Lieba, who lives in Greater Cleveland.

A graveside funeral was held June 30 at Mount Olive Cemetery in Solon.
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This iron figure representing Horatio Lord Nelson is part of an iron umbrella holder made for the front hall of a Victorian house. Few collectors today would recognize the man as a British naval hero who lived from 1758 to 1805.
 Flash

Belarus on Wednesday delivered a joint statement on behalf of 46 countries at the 44th session of UN Human Rights Council, voicing support for China's anti-terrorism and de-radicalization work in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.



"We urge refraining from making unfounded allegations against China based on disinformation," they said in the statement.

"We reiterate that the work of the Human Rights Council should be conducted in an objective, transparent, non-selective, constructive, non-confrontational and non-politicized manner. We reaffirm our commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights and our firm opposition to the practice of politicization of human rights issues and double standards," the joint statement said.

"Terrorism and extremism are common enemies to the human beings, and pose severe threats to all human rights. We note with concern that terrorism, separatism and extremism have caused enormous damage to people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, China, and seriously infringed upon their human rights," it added.

The countries noted with appreciation that China has undertaken a series of measures in response to threats in accordance with the law to safeguard the human rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, saying "There was no single terrorist attack in Xinjiang in the last three years. Safety and stability have been restored in Xinjiang."

Agreeing that "human rights of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang have been effectively safeguarded," the countries "appreciate China's openness and transparency which is evident from, among other things, inviting more than 1,000 diplomats, officials of international organizations, journalists and religious personages to visit Xinjiang, who witnessed Xinjiang's remarkable achievements."

The statement took note that the Chinese government has extended an invitation to the High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang, and that the two sides are keeping contact on the matter.
The coronavirus pandemic has shed a bright light on Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers and prompted the company to take extraordinary steps to reassure employees, legislators and the broader public that it's protecting workers.

Amazon has changed how its warehouses operate to improve safety, offered additional benefits to workers who fall sick and set up a relief fund for delivery contractors.

But a crucial piece of Amazon's shipping operations was left out of the company's response to the pandemic, some workers say.

Workers at Worldwide Flight Services, a company that serves the Amazon' Air freight network and other carriers, say they have gone without many of the benefits provided to warehouse and delivery employees. They also say they weren't provided with bonuses, hourly wage increases, extra paid sick leave or unlimited unpaid time off, despite working long hours at the height of the pandemic. Employees accrue paid sick leave over time, so they're able to take a limited number of days off if they're sick, but once that time runs out, they must return to work.

WFS workers say managers aren't enforcing mask requirements and that hand sanitizer and soap are in short supply at facilities. At one WFS facility in Phoenix, safety concerns became so severe that a worker filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration last month.

WFS is one of several companies that maintain lucrative contracts with Amazon Air. Workers load and unload cargo from Amazon planes at airports across the country, but they're not considered Amazon employees. Instead, Amazon contracts with third-party companies like WFS, which employs the workers. Amazon outsources other areas of its logistics network, including last-mile delivery, which has been a subject of controversy in the past.

Before and during the pandemic, Amazon's cargo partners, including WFS, have played an outsized role in ensuring the company can achieve its increasingly crucial goals of one- and same-day delivery.

"These workers are vital," said Cathy Morrow Roberson, founder of consulting firm Logistic Trends & Insights. "It's like the connective tissue for your body, except they're the connection between the airplane and the warehouse. Without them, packages would just be sitting in these facilities."

Amazon spokeswoman Kate Kudrna said the company's "first priority" is the health and safety of workers involved in its operations, adding that Amazon has provided WFS with face masks during the pandemic.

"All of our airline delivery providers must comply with the Amazon Supplier Code of Conduct and Federal Aviation Administration Regulations," Kudrna said in a statement. "We take seriously any allegation that a delivery provider is not meeting those requirements and expectations, and review accordingly."

WFS didn't respond to multiple requests for comment. After publication, WFS said in a statement that all employees have been notified of the company's corporate guidelines around Covid-19 via several forms of communication, including shift briefings, company newsletters and posters inside facilities. The company said it performs daily inventory checks to make sure personal protective equipment is replenished at facilities.

"The safety, security and wellbeing of our employees and operations are our greatest priority," WFS said in a statement. "Our local management teams are accessible to any staff needing clarification of our Covid-19 policies and procedures."

As Amazon was hit with a surge of coronavirus-related demand in March, WFS workers were on the front lines, handling the Prime packages ordered by millions of Americans who were cloistered inside their homes.

Demand has stabilized but the workers now face a new round of coronavirus outbreaks around the country. WFS workers say they feel just as vulnerable as during the beginning of the pandemic, since they still lack the basic protections to be able to do their job safely.
A fire and an explosion struck a building above Iran's underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility early on Thursday, a site that U.S.-based analysts identified as a new centrifuge production plant.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran sought to downplay the fire, calling it an "incident" that only affected an under-construction "industrial shed," spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. However, both Kamalvandi and Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi rushed after the fire to Natanz, which has been targeted in sabotage campaigns in the past.

Kamalvandi did not identify what damaged the building, though Natanz governor Ramazanali Ferdowsi said a "fire" had struck the site, according to a report by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. Authorities offered no cause for the blaze, though Iran's state-run IRNA news agency published a commentary addressing the possibility of sabotage by enemy nations such as Israel and the U.S. following other recent explosions in the country.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far has tried to prevent intensifying crises and the formation of unpredictable conditions and situations," the commentary said. But "the crossing of red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran by hostile countries, especially the Zionist regime and the U.S., means that strategy ... should be revised."

A photograph later released by the atomic energy agency and state TV video showed a brick building with scorch marks and its roof apparently destroyed. Debris on the ground and a door that looked blown off its hinges suggested an explosion accompanied the blaze.

Data collected by a U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite suggested the fire broke out around 2 a.m. local time in the northwest corner of the Natanz compound. Flames from the blaze were bright enough to be detected by the satellite from space.

"There are physical and financial damages and we are investigating to assess," Kamalvandi told Iranian state television. "Furthermore, there has been no interruption in the work of the enrichment site. Thank God, the site is continuing its work as before."

The site of the fire corresponds to a newly opened centrifuge production facility, said Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. He said he relied on satellite images and a state TV program on the facility to locate the building, which sits in Natanz's northwest corner.

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security similarly said the fire struck the production facility. His institute previously wrote a report on the new plant, identifying it from satellite pictures while it was under construction and later built.

Iranian nuclear officials did not respond to a request for comment about the analysts' comments. However, any damage to the facility would be a major setback, said Hinz, who called the fire "very, very suspicious."

"It would delay the advancement of the centrifuge technology quite a bit at Natanz," Hinz said. "Once you have done your research and development, you can't undo that research and development. Targeting them would be very useful" for Iran's adversaries.

There was no previously announced construction work at Natanz, a uranium enrichment center some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. Natanz includes underground facilities buried under some 7.6 meters (25 feet) of concrete, which offers protection from airstrikes.

Natanz, also known as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, is among the sites now monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency after Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The IAEA said in a statement it was aware of reports of the fire. "We currently anticipate no impact on the IAEA's safeguards verification activities," the Vienna-based agency said.

Located in Iran's central Isfahan province, Natanz hosts the country's main uranium enrichment facility. There, centrifuges rapidly spin uranium hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium. Currently, the IAEA says Iran enriches uranium to about 4.5% purity, above the terms of the nuclear deal, but far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. It also has conducted tests on advanced centrifuges, according to the IAEA.

The U.S. under President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018, setting up months of tensions between Tehran and Washington. Iran now is breaking all the production limits set by the deal, but still allows IAEA inspectors and cameras to watch its nuclear sites.

However, Natanz did become a point of controversy last year as Iranian officials refused to allow an IAEA inspector into the facility in October after allegedly testing positive for suspected traces of explosive nitrates. Nitrates are a common fertilizer. However, when mixed with proper amounts of fuel, the material can become an explosive as powerful as TNT. Swab tests, common at airports and other secure facilities, can detect its presence on the skin or objects.

Natanz also remains of particular concern to Tehran as it has been targeted for sabotage before. The Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be an American and Israeli creation, disrupted and destroyed centrifuges at Natanz amid the height of Western concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

Satellite photos show an explosion last Friday that rattled Iran's capital came from an area in its eastern mountains that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites. Iran has blamed the blast on a gas leak in what it describes a "public area."

Another explosion from a gas leak at a medical clinic in northern Tehran killed 19 people Tuesday.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies and former Iran analyst for the prime minister's office, said he didn't know if there was an active sabotage campaign targeting Tehran. However, he said the series of explosions in Iran feel like "more than a coincidence."

"Theoretically speaking, Israel, the U.S. and others have an interest to stop this Iran nuclear clock or at least show Iran there's a price in going that way," he said. "If Iran won't stop, we might see more accidents in Iran."

Late Thursday, the BBC's Persian service said it received an email prior to the announcement of the Natanz fire from a group identifying itself as the Cheetahs of the Homeland, claiming responsibility for an attack on the centrifuge production facility at Natanz. This group, which claimed to be dissident members of Iran's security forces, had never been heard of before by Iran experts and the claim could not be immediately authenticated by the AP.
Stocks in Asia Pacific rose on Thursday, following positive news overnight about the development of a potential coronavirus vaccine.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong led gains among the region's major markets, rising 2.85% to close at 25,124.19 following a Wednesday holiday. Shares of Chinese internet giant Tencent soared 3.99% while Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing skyrocketed 6.06%.

Tensions in the city were closely watched after China's controversial national security law went into effect and Hong Kong police announced their first arrests under the measure. Police said in a tweet that they arrested about 370 people Wednesday, of which 10 were for alleged national security law breaches.

Mainland Chinese stocks also saw robust gains on the day, with the Shanghai composite rising 2.13% to around 3,090.57 and the Shenzhen component adding 1.292% to about 12,269.49.

South Korea's Kospi rose 1.36% to close at 2,135.37. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.11% to close at 22,145.96 while the Topix index advanced 0.27% to finish its trading day at 1,542.76.

Meanwhile, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 jumped 1.66% to close at 6,032.70. Trade surplus for May came in at 8.025 billion Australian dollars ($5.55 billion) on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the country's bureau of statistics. That was below expectations of a trade surplus of 9 billion Australian dollars in a Reuters poll.

Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index gained 1.94%.

"I think it's very interesting that even with the events of yesterday, of course, the Hang Seng market is the relative outperformer today," Ben Powell, chief investment strategist for Asia Pacific at BlackRock Investment Institute, told CNBC's "Street Signs" Thursday morning Singapore time.

Powell said the market moves were testament to the global "policy revolution," referring to drastic measures adopted by authorities around the world to keep financial markets afloat as the pandemic hits global economies.

"Even with the complexities of domestic politics, geopolitics, the virus itself which is still with us ... this policy revolution is helping financial markets to have healed ... back in March and now to continue to perform rather well," Powell said. "Having a moderately pro-risk stance, we think, continues to be right  both globally and here in the region."

Investors watched for reaction to a recent study of a coronavirus candidate being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech that showed the drug created neutralizing antibodies. The results, which were posted online, have yet to be reviewed by a medical journal.

"We are cautious," Joseph Capurso, head of international economics at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note. "We have received positive news about potential vaccines in the past, but all are yet to see widespread production and distribution."

A top World Health Organization official warned Wednesday that certain countries may need to reimplement lockdowns. In the U.S., more than 12 states have paused or rolled back their reopenings following a recent spike in cases. Globally, more than 10 million people have been infected by the coronavirus and at least 511,000 lives have been taken, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
People protest at a Uighur rally on February 5, 2019 in front of the US Mission to the United Nations, to encourage the State Department to fight for the freedom of the majority-Muslim Uighur population.

Federal authorities in New York on Wednesday seized a shipment of weaves and other beauty accessories suspected to be made out of human hair taken from people locked inside a Chinese internment camp.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told The Associated Press that 13 tons (11.8 metric tonnes) of hair products worth an estimated $800,000 were in the shipment.

"The production of these goods constitutes a very serious human rights violation, and the detention order is intended to send a clear and direct message to all entities seeking to do business with the United States that illicit and inhumane practices will not be tolerated in U.S. supply chains," said Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner of CBP's Office of Trade.

This is the second time this year that CBP has slapped one of its rare detention orders on shipments of hair weaves from China, based on suspicions that people making them face human rights abuses. The orders are used to hold shipping containers at the U.S. ports of entry until the agency can investigate claims of wrongdoing.

Rushan Abbas, a Uighur American activist whose sister, a medical doctor, went missing in China almost two years ago and is believed to be locked in a detention camp, said women who use hair weaves should think about who might be making them.

"This is so heartbreaking for us," she said. "I want people to think about the slavery people are experiencing today. My sister is sitting somewhere being forced to make what, hair pieces?"

Wednesday's shipment was made by Lop County Meixin Hair Product Co. Ltd. In May, a similar detention was placed on Hetian Haolin Hair Accessories Co. Ltd., although those weaves were synthetic, not human, the agency said. Hetian Haolin's products were imported by Os Hair in Duluth, Georgia, and I & I Hair, headquartered in Dallas. I & I's weaves are sold under the Innocence brand to salons and individuals around the U.S.

Both of the exporters are in China's far west Xinjiang region, where, over the past four years, the government has detained an estimated 1 million or more ethnic Turkic minorities.

The ethnic minorities are held in internment camps and prisons where they are subjected to ideological discipline, forced to denounce their religion and language and physically abused. China has long suspected the Uighurs, who are mostly Muslim, of harboring separatist tendencies because of their distinct culture, language and religion.

Reports by the AP and other news organizations have repeatedly found that people inside the internment camps and prisons, which activists call "black factories," are making sportswear and other apparel for popular U.S. brands.

The AP tried to visit Hetian Haolin Hair Accessories Co. more than a year ago during an investigation into forced labor inside the camps. But police called the cab driver taking AP journalists to the area, ordering the driver to turn back and warning that the cab's coordinates were being tracked.

From the road, it was clear the factory  topped with "Haolin Hair Accessories" in big red letters  was ringed with barbed wire fencing and surveillance cameras, and the entrance was blocked by helmeted police. Across the street, what appeared to be an educational facility was topped with political slogans declaring "the country has power" and urging people to obey the Communist Party. It was unclear whether the factory was part of a detention center, but former detainees in other parts of Xinjiang have described being shuttled to work in fenced, guarded compounds during the day and taken back to internment camps at night.

The Chinese Ministry of Affairs has said there is no forced labor, nor detention of ethnic minorities.

"We hope that certain people in the United States can take off their tinted glasses, correctly understand and objectively and rationally view normal economic and trade cooperation between Chinese and American enterprises," the ministry said in a statement.

Last December, Xinjiang authorities announced that the camps had closed and all the detainees had "graduated," a claim difficult to corroborate independently given tight surveillance and restrictions on reporting in the region. Some Uighurs and Kazakhs have told the AP that their relatives have been released, but many others say their loved ones remain in detention, were sentenced to prison or transferred to forced labor in factories.

While tariffs and embargoes over political issues are fairly common, it's extremely rare for the U.S. government to block imports produced by forced labor.

The 1930 Tariff Act prohibited those imports, but the government has only enforced the law 54 times in the past 90 years. Most of those bans, 75%, blocked goods from China, and enforcement has ramped up since then-President Barack Obama strengthened the law in 2016.

Rep. Chris Smith said that while the allegations of forced labor are appalling, "sadly they are not surprising."

"It is likely that many slave labor products continue to surreptitiously make it into our stores," said Smith, a New Jersey Republican who has taken a lead on anti-human trafficking legislation.

On June 17, President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, condemning "gross human rights violations of specified ethnic Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region in China."

Earlier, calling for its passage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decried what she described as China's mass incarceration, forced sterilization and journalist suppression.

"Beijing's barbarous actions targeting the Uyghur people are an outrage to the collective conscience of the world," she said in a statement.
Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., have introduced a bill prohibiting retailers from declining cash payments from customers, as businesses promote "contactless" digital payment as they grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.

Retailers and mall owners, including Nordstrom and Simon Malls, have encouraged the use of contactless transactions such as Apple Pay to minimize the risk of spread in their stores and properties. But the senators warned that should any retailer ban cash entirely, it would be discriminatory at a time when many Americans are facing financial hardship.

About 20% of U.S. households have no or limited access to checking and savings accounts. Of those households, about 6% are "unbanked," meaning they have no access at all. Fourteen percent of unbanked Americans are Black, 11% are Hispanic and 4% are White.

And as weekly jobless claims grow by the millions, the number of Americans without access to bank accounts may rise.

"While I fully understand that businesses have expanded their contactless payment options during the pandemic, refusing cash discriminates against certain populations and denies people equal access to the same goods or services," said Menendez in a statement

The Payment Choice Act targets businesses that refuse to accept cash as payment, post signs stating that cash will not be accepted or charge a higher price for cash over other forms of payment. It proposes a maximum fine of $2,500 for the first offense and $5,000 for the second.

A similar bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Donald M. Payne Jr., D-N.J., last year.

State governments also have legislation prohibiting card-only policies, targeting the retailers and restaurants that were experimenting with ways to minimize cash before the pandemic. Massachusetts already bans retail establishments from discrimination against cash buyers.

Companies have sought to speed up their operations and compete against the efficiency offered by technology giants like Amazon. While credit cards often result in fees for businesses, cash can be more cumbersome and timely to manage.
 Flash

Russia, Iran and Turkey on Wednesday adopted a joint statement on Syria after a video teleconference of the leaders of Astana process guarantor countries, the Kremlin press service said.

The presidents of the three countries discussed the current situation on the ground in Syria, reviewed the developments since their last meeting on Sept. 16, 2019, in Ankara, and confirmed their determination to enhance the trilateral coordination in light of their agreements, the joint statement said.

The three sides "noted their strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic as well as to the goals and principles of the UN Charter," it said.

They rejected all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives, and expressed their determination to stand against separatist agendas aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria as well as threatening the national security of neighboring countries, it added.

They reviewed in detail the situation in the Idlib de-escalation area and underscored the necessity to maintain calm on the ground by fully implementing all agreements on Idlib, according to the statement.

They also expressed grave concern at the humanitarian situation in Syria and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling on the international community, particularly the UN and its humanitarian agencies, to increase their assistance to all Syrians without discrimination, politicization and preconditions.

The statement said that the presidents agreed to hold the next tripartite summit in Iran as soon as possible.

The process toward a peaceful settlement in Syria, also known as the Astana process, was launched in January 2017 by Russia, Iran and Turkey in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, which has been renamed Nur-Sultan.
Netflix announced this week that it will start putting 2% of its cash holdings, initially up to $100 million, into financial institutions and organizations that directly support Black communities in the U.S.

"We believe bringing more capital to these communities can make a meaningful difference for the people and businesses in them, helping more families buy their first home or save for college, and more small businesses get started or grow," the video streaming service wrote in a blog post.

It was Aaron Mitchell, director of talent acquisition at Netflix and Harvard Business School alum, who proposed the idea to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. He then teamed up with Netflix treasurer Shannon Alwyn to develop the program.

Mitchell was inspired by Mehrsa Baradaran's award-winning book, "The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap," the blog post says.

Baradaran, a professor of law at UC Irvine Law, explores the persistent racial wealth gap by examining the history of Black banking, from when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863 to today. She reveals how housing segregation, racism and Jim Crow credit policies created "an inescapable economic trap for Black communities and their banks," and challenges the idea that Black banking and "community self-help" is the key to Black economic progress.

"The catch-22 of Black banking is that the very institutions needed to help communities escape the deep poverty inevitably become victims of that same poverty," Baradaran writes. "Blacks were poor and, due to segregated housing, their homes were worth less. What this meant for Black banks was that their deposits were costlier and their loans were less stable, which created a combustible situation over time."
WHEN: Today, Thursday, July 2, 2020

WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk on the Street"

The following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with Vice President Mike Pence and CNBC's Wilfred Frost on "Squawk on the Street" (M-F 9AM  11AM) today, Thursday, July 2nd. The following is a link to video from the interview on CNBC.com: /video/2020/07/02/vice-president-mike-pence-on-latest-jobs-report-and-coronavirus-outbreaks.html

MANDATORY CREDIT: "CNBC"

1. Mandatory credit to "CNBC" on first reference.

2. The onscreen "CNBC" logo must be clearly visible and unobstructed at all times in any image, video clip or other form of media.

3. Embedded web video must stream from the CNBC.com media player with the unobstructed credit as described above.

WILFRED FROST: Carl, thanks so much. And a very good morning to Vice President Mike Pence who joins us now very good morning to you.

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Good morning, Wilf. Good to be with you. It's a great day in America.

FROST: Indeed, Mr. Vice President. As you're suggesting, a very strong jobs number adding 4.8 million jobs, the expectation 2.9. Two months in a row of positive beats in that regard. You must be very pleased.

PENCE: Well, we're very pleased. As the President said this morning this is evidence that the American economy is coming back strong, which is a testament to the resilience and strength of the American people, but it's also a testament unquestionably to the historic steps President Trump took to see our nation through this coronavirus pandemic. The mitigation efforts, the rescue packages. They're all confirmed, today nearly 5 million jobs created and when we look at the number of jobs that were lost initially through this pandemic  at the worst moments some 22 million jobs lost, we've cut that now by a third. 8 million Americans we've lowered that number, unemployment down to 11%. This is a great day for America. And it's a great tribute to the leadership of President Donald Trump.

FROST: Mr. Vice President, the absolute numbers as you're suggesting are very impressive, though that slightly misses the context. You know, unemployment 11.1% nicely down from a near 15% peak, but well above the 3.5% low back in February. I'm sure you'll agree that we're not quite in the moment of real celebration yet. We need a couple more months, like we've just seen before we'll get there, and on that note, I wondered whether you were worried, the spikes we've seen in various cases in certain states in the last couple of weeks might derail this economic recovery.

PENCE: Well, let me say first we couldn't agree more that we're making tremendous progress. Last month, nearly 3 million jobs added. This month nearly 5 million jobs added. But we have a ways to go. But the good news is because of all the policies that President Trump put into effect over the first three years, the foundation of this economy is strong, and I think that's what you're seeing. Certainly, the mitigation efforts, the American people have embraced and continue to embrace and hotspots around the country have had a tremendous effect. Certainly, the rescue packages, but I have to tell you Wilf, the fact that that this President cut taxes, rolled back regulation, fought for free and fair trade, unleashed American energy I think explains a "why now" for two months in a row we've seen strong economic numbers and it's on that strong foundation that we're going to continue to move our nation forward. But to your point about the pandemic, I was in Arizona yesterday, Texas over the weekend, I'll be in Florida later today because the President's instructed us to make sure that in those states that are seeing a rise in coronavirus cases, and particularly a rise in positivity rates, that we want to make sure those states have everything they need. And, again, what I heard yesterday in Arizona, is that because of the steps the President took to reinvent testing  now more than 33 million tests performed across the country  PPE supplies are strong, testing are strong, more therapeutic medicines are available every day. And we're going to stay with these states that are seeing rising cases every step of the way as they continue to take steps to mitigate the expansion of the coronavirus, but we're going to keep opening up America again and have more days just like today.

FROST: Mr. Vice President, when we do see cases spike, there's always a lot of finger pointing as to who's to blame. Sometimes you and the President, sometimes that the respective state governors. But I wonder whether certainly compared to February and March, given that people are much more aware of the virus, much more educated about the virus, whether individual people may need to take more responsibility if they do decide to go out and do things and if they do catch the virus it's really down to them.

PENCE: Well Wilf, I have to tell you I couldn't be more proud of this President's leadership in the coronavirus pandemic. Remember before January was over, he suspended all travel from China, and stood up the White House coronavirus task force. We mobilize not only a whole of America  a whole of government, but a whole of America approach. And the American people for those 45 days to slow the spread made incredible sacrifices. And what we see happening across the Sunbelt today, particularly in four states of California, Arizona Texas and in Florida is really a function of the fact that we're expanding testing, and it may well be that younger Americans began to congregate in settings where the coronavirus was apt to spread. That's why the President and I support efforts by Governor Ducey, Governor Abbott, Governor DeSantis to modify or pause aspects of their reopening. But I must tell you the fact that we're finding that roughly half of all of the new cases across the Sunbelt are younger Americans. It's good news that we know who has it. We can take steps to slow the spread by focusing on encouraging younger Americans to practice social distancing, wear a mask when it's indicated or when social distancing isn't possible. But also it's good news because as we all know younger Americans are much less susceptible to serious outcomes and as we see the fatality rate today is roughly where it was in March, that's a testimony to what all the American people are doing to our healthcare workers, and to the steady progress that we're making. Every day we're one day closer to putting this coronavirus in the past.

FROST: You mentioned wear a mask Mr. Vice President. Why not take the extra step and make that a national directive? That the tradeoff seems so attractive it doesn't take away, much of our experiences as economies reopen and there's such proven benefits on the flip side.

PENCE: Well, I don't think there's a need for a national mandate. The truth is that we're monitoring right now 12 states that have rising cases and rising positivity. And we're fully supporting efforts that the governors are taking, and local health officials are taking to encourage people to practice good hygiene, social distancing. Wear a mask when social distancing is not possible or as indicated by the local circumstances. But the reality is, as you see in these economic numbers today, this economy is coming back strongly because the American people have learned along the way, how we get our country back to work, how we get back to worship and ultimately how we get back to school. Just earlier this week the CDC issued updated guidance on K-12 education on higher education, and we're going to get the kids back to school this fall just every bit as much as this report today shows that America is going back to work.

FROST: Goldman Sachs put out some research this week, Mr. Vice President, saying, "a face mask could potentially substitute for lockdowns that would otherwise subtract nearly 5% from GDP." A face mask mandate nationally. Does that sway your argument at all?

PENCE: Well, look, I think the President said yesterday that we support wearing face masks and every time that they're indicated or social distancing is not possible. But I think one of the keys to the historic leadership that President Trump brought to the coronavirus pandemic is we recognize that this pandemic would impact different parts of the country in different ways. And so we formed a partnership with governors across America to make sure they had what they needed, when they needed it. We gave them guidance to practice the kind of mitigation that was appropriate. I mean there are some areas of the country, in fact large areas of the country will, where we have a very low number of cases at all. And so, it's not a one size all approach, whether it be on testing or on supplies. And on mitigation efforts what we want to do is empower governors and local officials to give the guidance to the people in those communities that's most appropriate for their circumstances. But make no mistake about it, what you see today is that America is going back to work, and the American people are finding a way every day to put this coronavirus farther in the past. And our part, we're just going to continue to make sure the states that are seeing rising cases have everything they need to meet this moment for their healthcare workers, for testing, for therapeutics and medicine. And we have every confidence that standing on the solid foundation, building this economy over the last three years, that we're going to continue to see America growing stronger and healthier every day.

FROST: We had Larry Kudlow on CNBC earlier in the week, and he said, or made clear, that the administration position has been that you don't want to extend the extra $600 of unemployment benefit that currently expires at the end of this month. Is that position changing at all? Does the strong number today cement the position?

PENCE: Well I think you've heard the President say we have a real concern about creating an unintended incentive for people to stay on the sidelines in this economy, and that $600 plus up in unemployment  many believe has contributed to that. Now you see these numbers today people are coming off the sidelines, the increase in labor participation is encouraging. But the next rescue package was President Trump has made clear that we're supportive of really needs to focus on growth and getting people back in the workforce, but also growing this economy. That's why we want to deal with issues like a payroll tax cut, which will put money in the pockets of working Americans immediately and make capital available for businesses on an ongoing basis. We think liability protection is critical as businesses adhere to state, local and CDC guidance, that they would be able to do that without fear of an avalanche of lawsuits that would stifle our economy. And all of those policies will be what we look at. But the most important thing is the next rescue package provides support for families and creates the kind of incentives that keep this economy growing strong, as evidenced in the jobs numbers today.

FROST: I totally get that Mr. Vice President. You mentioned the numbers earlier. 22 million jobs lost since March, added back 7.5 million. It's almost certain next month we're not going to add 15 million jobs because there won't be 15 million new jobs available. So what would you say to those people that lost their job in March, through no fault of their own and still didn't have a job, offered to them to go back to, if that extra unemployment benefit expires at the end of the month?

PENCE: Well, I would say to them that we're going to make sure there's unemployment benefits, but whether there's a plus up of that was in the last legislative package is the only thing that's being debated. I mean, look what we want to do with President Trump is determined to do is to be there for families who through no fault of their own have been impacted by this pandemic, to be there for small businesses. I mean, you see the jobs numbers today nearly 5 million jobs created. That's a lot of people that were sidelined and laid off, simply because of this pandemic and we made it possible through paycheck protection for those small businesses to find their way through, to keep people on the payroll and now they're coming all the way back into the workforce. But I want to tell you Wilf, that as we go forward, we're confident that states across the Sunbelt are going to be able to take the kind of steps necessary to stem the tide of rising cases and positivity rates. We're confident that they're going to have the testing and the PPE supplies and medicines to meet that moment. And I think the only long term threat to a vibrant, American economy is the kind of policies that Joe Biden and the democrats are advocating. Where you have a President who built this economy on a foundation of tax cuts and rolling back red tape and unleashing American energy. In Joe Biden, you've got some  even this week in the midst of challenging times in the life of our economy Joe Biden said he was going to raise taxes in America. And we know that their plan his version of the green New Deal crushing the economy through regulations, crushing the American energy economy by banning fracking. All of those policies, I really believe that most Americans know would be exactly the wrong prescription, as we're seeing the American people standing up again and moving this economy for. And that's why President Trump and I are going to fight every day, between now and November 3 to make sure that we get four more years in the White House to bring this economy all the way back, and then some.

FROST: That said, Mr. Vice President, could there be an argument in the future to increase taxes? Sust the stock markets right next to the chart of it, as we speak, it's already experienced its V-shape bounce. The economy is bouncing, but still has a long way to go to complete that V-shape. And, I guess, as we stand, it does look like the virus has hurt and the responses by both government and central banks has hurt the have nots in society more than the haves. Is there any case to increase for example, capital gains taxes on stocks, at some point in the future, given the stocks have risen so much to rebalance things?

PENCE: I think the last thing that you would ever want to do at a time of a growing economy, or for me as a conservative anytime, is to raise taxes on working families or businesses across this country. Look, President Trump has made it clear from the outset of this administration. The key for this nation's future is growth. And from early on the President focused on getting this economy growing again. More than 7 million jobs created in the first three years, wages were rising and rising most rapidly for hardworking blue-collar Americans. And I think as you're seeing this economy coming back, 400,000 jobs created of African Americans. Literally seeing people coming off the sidelines. It should be a strong affirmation that the foundation President Trump laid of less taxes, less regulation, more American energy, free and fair trade is exactly the right prescription. The democrats and Joe Biden, they're laying out their prescription for America, and it's exactly the wrong approach, not just in a time of a pandemic. But it's the opposite of the policies that grew this economy the last three years, and they're going to get this economy growing more than ever before in the next four years.

FROST: Mr. Vice President, I know we're up against the clock. One final question if I may, which is on China. Have they crossed a line past the point of no return of normal relations, if you will, by passing the National Security Law in Hong Kong this week?

PENCE: Well the National Security Law that that China passed and now is imposing on Hong Kong is a betrayal of the international agreement that they signed, and ultimately, it's unacceptable to freedom loving people around the world. And President Trump has made it clear that we're going to be modifying our trading relationship and the trading status with regard to Hong Kong and we're going to continue to speak out on behalf of the people of Hong Kong and on behalf of human rights of people within China. Look, China has a choice to make. They can join the family of nations through, not just economic engagement, but through further political liberalization and human rights or they can continue down this authoritarian path. And what we hope is, as the President has done, he stood strong against China. He stood up by imposing tariffs on China, he's been tougher on China than any president in my lifetime, but all through the while the President has always made it clear that we want a better relationship with China. We want to reset the trading relationship, but we want China to recognize international agreements, to recognize the human dignity of all of their people, and that includes all the people of Hong Kong.

FROST: Mr. Vice President, we thank you for your time today and wish you a very happy Fourth of July weekend.

PENCE: Thank you, Wilf.



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Cornell University President Martha Pollack told CNBC on Thursday that holding in-person classes this fall during the coronavirus pandemic is safer for her school's students than opting for all virtual instruction.

Pollack said the university conducted student surveys and spoke with off-campus landlords in Ithaca, New York  where Cornell is located  and found that up to 50% of Cornell's students planned to be in the town in the fall no matter what.

"If we are having residential instruction, we can mandate testing, and tracing and isolation, on a very aggressive regular basis," Pollack said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "We will be much less able to do that with students who are online and just happen to be living in Ithaca, as opposed to Chicago or Atlanta or wherever."

Cornell is the latest university to announce its plans for the fall, following upheaval to spring semesters across the U.S. as the Covid-19 outbreak prompted a switch to remote instruction. Decisions about the fall have implications for students and staff, as well as for the financial outlook for schools and the communities they are in.

The fall semester at Cornell is scheduled to begin Sept. 2 and will consist of both in-person and online classes, according to a letter to the university community from Pollack. Students will have to wear face masks during classes, which have fewer people than normal and have socially distanced seating.

Pollack stressed on CNBC that Cornell's decision to reopen its Ithaca campus  while still holding a hybrid mix of in-person and online classes  was best for the university, based on many students' intentions to return to the town anyway.

"I want to be clear, it's safer for our students at Cornell. We did the study with regard to the conditions in Ithaca," she said. 'It doesn't necessarily apply elsewhere, although the methodology could be used elsewhere."
In this article DIS

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards national

Efforts to fully reopen the U.S. economy are faltering as 19 states pause or reverse plans to ease restrictions on business as new cases spike across the country. Despite the surge of infections, Vice President Mike Pence told CNBC the White House wants to press ahead with reopening after job numbers came in better than expected. Pence defended the administration's position on masks, saying there's no need for a national mandate. Nearly half of all states have implemented mask mandates in one form or another, including Texas. This is CNBC's live blog covering all the latest news on the coronavirus outbreak. This blog will be updated throughout the day as the news breaks. Global cases: More than 10.88 million

Global deaths: At least 521,694

Countries with most cases: United States (more than 2.73 million), Brazil (more than 1.49 million), Russia (more than 660,000), India (more than 625,000) and Peru (more than 292,000) The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University as of July 3, 11:50 a.m. London time.

England to relax quarantine rules for Spain, Germany, France and Italy

12:15 p.m. (London time)  The U.K. government is lifting compulsory quarantine for travelers from low-risk destinations starting next week. Spain, Germany, France and Italy are on the list of countries that will be exempted from quarantine when arriving in England starting Monday. A full list of nations deemed 'low-risk' will be unveiled on Friday. Media reports suggest that up to 75 countries may be removed from quarantine.  Silvia Amaro

Fitch downgraded a record number of sovereign ratings and it's not done yet

4:01 p.m. (Singapore time)  Ratings agency Fitch downgraded a record 33 sovereign ratings in the first half of this year. But as the pandemic pummels government finances, more downgrades are likely. Fitch's global head of sovereign ratings, James McCormack, told CNBC on Friday that the agency has a negative outlook for the credit ratings of 40 countries and sovereign entities  they could potentially be downgraded in the coming months. Governments are spending more to cushion the blow to their economies due to prolonged lockdowns  necessary to slow the spread of the virus. That is expected to cause a deterioration in the financial positions of all 119 countries rated by Fitch, McCormack said. Fitch warned in a May report that sovereign defaults could hit a record this year due to the pandemic and weakness in oil prices. Yen Nee Lee

How Hong Kong beat coronavirus and avoided lockdown

11:38 a.m. (Singapore time)  Hong Kong has a densely packed population of 7.5 million people. It has recorded around 1,200 cases of Covid-19. In contrast, its financial rival Singapore has over 44,000 cases. Since having its first confirmed case in January, Hong Kong went through phased closures of government offices, schools, gyms and bars. But other services were relatively unaffected, including dine-in service at restaurants, shops, malls, and trains. Reasons why Hong Kong escaped an uptick in cases while managing to avoid a lockdown boils down to its experience with SARS, strict quarantine measures, contact tracing, cultural habits and the role of its government. Uptin Saiidi

Mailing every American a mask would be an 'incredibly' efficient stimulus: Former Obama advisor

11:20 a.m. (Singapore time)  Former Obama economic advisor Jason Furman told CNBC the U.S. government should consider mailing everyone a face covering to help slow the virus from spreading. "There's really not a lot monetary or fiscal policy can do in the face of an out-of-control virus," Furman said on "Closing Bell." "A mask is one of the steps that can control that virus," the Harvard University professor said. Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise across some Southern and Western states, prompting governors in places such as Texas and Arizona to pause or rollback parts of their economic reopening. Kevin Stankiewicz

Trump administration issues air travel guidelines

Travelers wearing protective masks use kiosks to check-in at the American Airlines Group Inc. counter at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, July 1, 2020. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

6:20 p.m. ET  The Trump administration said airline passengers and crews should wear masks throughout their journeys but stopped short of mandating them or requiring social distancing on board, a contentious issue now between carriers. The guidelines, issued jointly by the Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, said airlines and airports should require face coverings, saying they are particularly necessary any time social distancing cannot be maintained." The officials said airlines and airports should advise travelers "when it may not be possible to meet social distancing expectations" and stress the importance of wearing a mask and keeping hands clean during those times. The recommendations come as U.S. airlines' policies on leaving some seats unsold to space passengers out on flights have diverged in recent weeks. The Trump administration also said airlines should collect passenger contact data to assist with disease-tracing efforts. Leslie Josephs

Dr. Fauci warns that coronavirus is mutating and may be transmitting more easily

Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci wears a face mask while he waits to testify before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the Trump Administration's Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch | Pool via Reuters

5:48 p.m. ET  The coronavirus appears to have mutated in a way that might help it spread more easily, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said. All viruses mutate, but most mutations will not meaningfully change the behavior of the pathogen, its ability to spread or the disease it causes in humans. "The data is showing there's a single mutation that makes the virus be able to replicate better and maybe have high viral loads," Fauci said in an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association's Dr. Howard Bauchner. "We don't have a connection to whether an individual does worse with this or not; it just seems that the virus replicates better and may be more transmissible." Will Feuer

Texas Gov. Abbott mandates face coverings

5:04 p.m. ET  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring all residents to wear a face-covering in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive coronavirus cases. The decision was made because the percent of total tests coming back positive and the hospitalization rate both increased too much, Abbott said. "Wearing a face covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways we have to slow the spread of COVID-19," Abbott said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization both recommend that people wear them as a way to slow the spread of the virus. Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

U.S. military coronavirus cases surge as Pentagon lifts travel restrictions

4:49 p.m. ET  The number of U.S. active-duty military personnel infected with the coronavirus has spiked in the past three weeks, a revelation that comes as the Pentagon lifts travel restrictions in 48 states. As of Thursday, the Pentagon has reported a total of 18,071 cases. Of those 12,521 are active-duty military, 2,644 are civilians, 1,740 are dependents and 1,166 are contractors. These figures include 8,683 recoveries and 38 deaths across the entire department. Amanda Macias

Cash-strapped bar owners reckon with closing their doors a second time

An employee sweeps inside a closed bar in Austin, Texas, June 26, 2020. Sergio Flores | AFP | Getty Images

3:54 p.m. ET  Six states are closing thousands of bars again ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. But bar owners aren't happy with the rollbacks. "The stop and start costs thousands of dollars for every business," said David Kaplan, co-owner of Death & Co, a cocktail lounge with locations in Los Angeles, Denver and New York. The Texas Bar and Nightclub Association is suing the state over Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to close bars for the second time in three months. Others, like Todd Quigley, owner of Craft and Growler, a Dallas-based craft beer bar, take issue with how states are treating bars and restaurants differently. Amelia Lucas

Dr. Anthony Fauci warns against balancing lives with the economy

3:46 p.m. ET  White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association that "we're in an unprecedented pandemic" and officials can't "balance lives against the economy." "You have people who think in one direction and those who think in the other" when it comes to the decision to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic safely", Fauci said. Every state in the U.S. has reopened parts of their economies in recent weeks. Some, including Texas and Florida, have had to walk back those plans as cases spiked and outbreaks flared up across America. "You don't want to balance lives against the economy," he said. "So let's get public health to help us to get the economy open as opposed to two opposing forces." Noah Higgins-Dunn

Disney World suspends fall college program

With Minnie, Mickey and friends, Walt Disney World President Josh D'Amaro waves to guests gathered on Main Street USA, in the Magic Kingdom in the final minutes before the park closed, Sunday night, March 15, 2020, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Joe Burbank | Orlando Sentinel | Getty Images

3:38 p.m. ET  Walt Disney World has suspended its fall college program, according to an email to prospective participants obtained by WDW News Today. The program has been suspended until further notice, WDW News reports, because the park is still in the early stages of reopening and many of the Disney housing complex buildings remain closed. Eligibility requirements for the program will be amended so those who applied after having recently graduated can still apply when the program re-starts, according to the report. The announcement comes after Disney canceled internships and June-start college program members in April, according to WDW News Today. Alex Harring

Amazon delays Prime Day until October due to coronavirus

3:35 p.m. ET  Amazon is pushing back its annual Prime Day sale event until at least early October. The company gave third-party sellers a placeholder date of the week of October 5, according to an email obtained by CNBC and first reported by Business Insider.The email cautions that "exact Prime Day dates have not been announced." An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement: "We have not made any announcements regarding Prime Day." Amazon has delayed its annual shopping event several times in recent months due to coronavirus-related constraints. The company previously targeted September as the potential timing for Prime Day, but the company now faces new coronavirus outbreaks across the country, which could threaten to upend its logistics operations again. Annie Palmer

Employment may never fully recover in some industries

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3:02 p.m.  Despite June's better-than-expected payrolls numbers, employment may never return to pre-Covid levels in a handful of sub-industries. The long-term, nationwide pivot toward e-commerce had already put pressure on apparel retail employment, and economists say the coronavirus could act as a catalyst for employers to cut labor costs permanently. Other sectors, such as leisure and hospitality, are posting more robust rebound in payrolls numbers. Bars and restaurants employed 12.3 million Americans in February 2020, only to see that figure collapse to 6.2 million in April. It's since rebounded 47% off that low and for June rose to 9.2 million jobs. Couriers and message carriers are among a rare group that have actually seen a net gain in employment since January. Thomas Franck

Researchers find neurological damage in four children with coronavirus inflammatory syndrome

2:48 p.m.  Children diagnosed with Covid-19 pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or PMIS, may develop new neurological symptoms without any of the respiratory issues commonly associated with the virus, according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA Neurology. After examining 27 pediatric patients with coronavirus PMIS between March 1 and May 8, researchers found that four experienced new neurological symptoms. They included impaired brain function, headaches, brainstem and cerebellar issues, muscle weakness and reduced reflexes. All four patients required admission to the intensive care unit for treatment. Although the study is small, researchers say the results show that Covid-19 can also cause neurological damage in children - not just adults - without any of the respiratory symptoms that have become a clear indicator of the virus. Scientists emphasized that since respiratory symptoms were uncommon among PMIS patients, clinicians should suspect Covid-19 in children who show new neurological problems without any other symptoms. Jasmine Kim

Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain hospitalized

Herman Cain Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

2:41 p.m. ET  Former presidential candidate and onetime possible Fed board nominee Herman Cain was hospitalized after being diagnosed with the coronavirus. Cain, 74, was told Monday that he had tested positive for the disease, according to a statement posted to his official Twitter account. By Wednesday, he "had developed symptoms serious enough that he required hospitalization," the statement said. Cain was at President Donald Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma last month, and was photographed sitting in close proximity with other attendees, none of whom appeared to be wearing masks. The Trump campaign said Cain did not meet with the president. Kevin Breuninger

Facebook will tell users to wear a mask

People wearing masks walk past a "Real New Yorkers Can Handle It" sign near Union Square amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 16, 2020 in New York City. Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images

2:22 p.m. ET  Facebook and Instagram users will start seeing alerts at the top of their feeds that encourage masks or face coverings when in public. It's the latest move on Facebook's end to use its platform to try and slow the spread of Covid-19. After the WHO declared Covid-19 a global health emergency in January, Facebook started removing misinformation about the outbreak from its platforms. The company in April began warning users if they have liked, reacted or commented on harmful coronavirus posts that the company has found to be misinformation and removed. Jessica Bursztynsky

Moderna vaccine trial reportedly delayed

1:52 p.m. ET  Shares of Moderna fell as much as 9.4% on a report the company's late-stage trial for a potential coronavirus vaccine will be delayed. Moderna, which is working with the National Institutes of Health, was expected to begin a phase 3 trial with 30,000 participants for its vaccine candidate later this month, pending the results from its mid-stage trial. However, the company is pushing back the expected start date, according to health-care publication STAT News. Moderna's experimental vaccine contains genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA. It became the first candidate to enter a phase 1 human trial in March. Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

These states are requiring people to wear masks

12:45 p.m. ET  Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C. are mandating people wear masks in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The regulations vary from state to state, with some governments requiring people to wear masks in all public spaces while other states require masks only in certain circumstances. Here's a list: California

Connecticut

Delaware

Hawaii (essential businesses)

Illinois

Kansas

Kentucky (employees in essential businesses)

Maine

Maryland (indoor stores, public transit)

Massachusetts

Michigan (grocery stores, pharmacies)

Nevada

New Jersey (indoor businesses, public transit, construction)

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

Oregon (indoor spaces)

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Virginia (indoor businesses)

Washington D.C.

Washington state Vice President Mike Pence, in an interview with CNBC, reiterated the Trump administration's position that a national mandate for people to wear masks is not necessary, even though coronavirus cases are surging. Spencer Kimball

NIH says it's possible Americans will be able to attend sports events this fall

12:23 p.m. ET  National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said it's possible Americans will be allowed to attend sporting events in time for the fall football season. Sports fans and players across the world have been frustrated by canceled games as public health officials urge event-based businesses to temporarily close as the coronavirus continues to rapidly spread across the globe. Collins, speaking with a Senate committee, said rapid coronavirus testing, which can produce results in under an hour, will make sporting events feasible. "We want to see Americans have a chance to have some normal experiences of enjoying life," he told lawmakers. "I do believe this should be possible. Berkeley Lovelace, Jr.

In-person classes safer than virtual, school to spend millions on testing, Cornell president says

12:20 p.m. ET  Holding in-person classes this fall is safer for Cornell University students than conducting an all-virtual semester, President Martha Pollack told CNBC. Pollack, appearing on CNBC's "Squawk Box," cited university research that found almost 50% of Cornell students intend to return to Ithaca, New York, where its campus is located, no matter how classes are held. "If we are having residential instruction, we can mandate testing, and tracing and isolation, on a very aggressive regular basis," Pollack said. "We will be much less able to do that with students who are online and just happen to be living in Ithaca, as opposed to Chicago or Atlanta or wherever." Cornell's plan  which includes robust testing that will cost between $3 to 5 million  may not work for every college, Pollack stressed. "I want to be clear, it's safer for our students at Cornell. We did the study with regard to the conditions in Ithaca." Kevin Stankiewicz

Amazon Air contractors face safety risks as new coronavirus outbreaks emerge

12:08 p.m. ET  Employees at Worldwide Flight Services (WFS), an Amazon Air subcontractor, say they continue to face an unsafe work environment during the pandemic. WFS workers say managers aren't enforcing mask requirements, and say hand sanitizer and soap are in short supply at facilities. At one WFS facility in Phoenix, safety concerns became so severe that a worker filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) last month. WFS is one of several companies that maintains lucrative contracts with Amazon Air. Workers load and unload cargo from Amazon planes at airports across the country, but they're not considered Amazon employees. As a result, some WFS workers say it feels like Amazon turns "a blind eye" to working conditions there, especially amid the coronavirus crisis. As Amazon was hit with a surge of coronavirus-related demand in March, WFS workers were on the frontlines, handling the Prime packages ordered by millions of Americans who were cloistered inside their homes. Demand has stabilized but the workers now face a new round of coronavirus outbreaks around the country. WFS workers say they feel just as vulnerable as the beginning of the pandemic, since they still lack the basic protections to be able to do their job safely. Annie Palmer

Nashville reverts to a modified Phase Two reopening on Friday as cases soar

An employee wearing rubber gloves and a mask greets patrons at Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant on April 27, 2020 in Franklin, Tennessee. Jason Kempin | Getty Images

11:49 a.m. ET  Nashville will move back to phase two of its reopening process, with restaurants and bars reverting to phase one, beginning Friday, NewsChannel 5 Nashville reported. Restaurants will go back to half capacity, down from 75%, while bars must now close for the next two weeks. Retail and commercial businesses can still operate at 75% capacity, while "high touch" businesses like beauty salons and gyms can remain open at half capacity. Mayor John Cooper said in his weekly Covid-19 update that the city will remain in the phase for "at least a few weeks," with no timeline given, according to NewsChannel 5 Nashville. Alex Harring

American getting $4.75 billion federal loan, overstaffed by 20,000 employees for fall

11:35 a.m. ET  American Airlines warned employees that it expects it has 20,000 more employees than it needs for its reduced fall schedule and painted a weak picture of travel demand. The Fort Worth-based carrier, which had 133,700 at the end of 2019, is urging employees to take voluntary options like buyouts, to avoid involuntary cuts once restrictions set by federal aid expire on Oct. 1. The carrier reached a deal for $4.75 billion in a separate federal loan, the Treasury Department said. While booking trends have improved, American told staff that demand remains far below last year's levels. For example, it flew 4.2 million people in June, up from just 965,000 passengers in April. "But to be clear, even with traffic trending upward, the absolute numbers behind these improvements are quite somber: The customer count for the same period last year was between 17 and 19 million each month," CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a staff note. They said cash receipts topped $1 billion in June up from $11 million in April, but that it brought in an average of $4.2 billion a month over that period last year. Leslie Josephs

The worst of the U.S. outbreak to end by January, Gottlieb says

Dr. Scott Gottlieb Cameron Costa | CNBC

10:49 a.m. ET  The U.S. coronavirus outbreak will come to an end by January "one way or the other," thanks to a vaccine or because enough people will have already been infected and have some immunity to it, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC. "Either we'll get to a vaccine or we'll just have spread enough it's just going to stop spreading efficiently, so we have a short period of time to get through," Gottlieb said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We should do everything we can to preserve what we want of our way of life over that time period to just get through it." Gottlieb's hopes for an effective vaccine or for the U.S. population to achieve so-called herd immunity to curb the outbreak both depend on what scientists learn about the role of antibodies. Unfortunately, there's still no clear evidence that antibodies give people any protection against being reinfected. Will Feuer

Pence says there's no need for national mask mandate

10:35 a.m. ET  Vice President Mike Pence said the White House does not need to impose a national mask mandate requiring that all American citizens wear a face covering to protect against the coronavirus. "There are some areas of the country, large areas of the country, where we have very low number of cases at all," Pence said in on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "It's not a one-size-all approach whether it be on testing or on supplies and on mitigation efforts. What we want to do is empower governors and local officials to give the guidance to the people in those communities that are most appropriate to those circumstances." Pence's comments echoed President Donald Trump's sentiments. "I don't know if you need mandatory," Trump said when asked whether he'd support a national mask mandate. Yelena Dzhanova

New cases reported daily by state

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Dow climbs more than 300 points after strong U.S. jobs report

9:35 a.m. ET  Stocks opened higher as investors cheered a bigger-than-expected rise in jobs during June as the economy tries to recover from the coronavirus shutdown, CNBC's Fred Imbert and Thomas Franck reported. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 355 points higher, or 1.4%. The Nasdaq Composite hit a record high, climbing more than 1%. The S&P 500 gained 1.3%. Melodie Warner

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Britain to ease isolation measures for certain travelers

Passengers, wearing protective face masks, walk through the international arrivals hall after arriving at Terminal 2 at London Heathrow Airport in London, U.K., on Monday, June 8, 2020. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

8:51 a.m. ET  Britain will ease quarantine requirements for travelers from specific areas, Reuters reported Thursday. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that self-isolation requirements will be scaled back for people arriving from certain countries or territories. More details are expected to come this week, according to the spokesperson. The update comes as other nations and U.S. states impose stricter travel restrictions amid flaring outbreaks. Alex Harring

U.S. private payrolls surge in June, but jobless numbers hold steady

8:35 a.m. ET  The U.S. added a staggering 4.8 million nonfarm payrolls in June, according to data released by the Labor Department, as the country seeks to recover from virus-related shutdowns and stave off further outbreaks amid reopening. The reported payrolls came in well above the 2.9 million payrolls economists had expected. The unemployment rate sits at 11.1%, also better than expected, but still far higher than pre-pandemic levels. The jobs market isn't fully out of the woods, though. More than a million Americans each week file for initial unemployment benefits, with 1.427 million claims coming in for the week ended June 27. Continuing claims, representing those who have filed for benefits for at least two weeks, ticked higher on a weekly basis to 19.29 million. Sara Salinas

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Belgian retirement home uses 'cuddle curtain' to enable visits

7:13 a.m. ET  One of the hardest parts of the coronavirus pandemic for many people has been that social distancing measures have prevented them from visiting or comforting elderly relatives. But a retirement home in Belgium appears to have found a solution to the problem by creating a "hug curtain," Reuters reported Thursday. Visitors to the Jardins de Picardie nursing home, which is near Belgium's border with France, can embrace relatives now by using the large plastic curtain that staff installed on June 14. It has proved very popular, staff told the news agency, with one elderly resident saying the curtain was "the most beautiful invention" she had ever seen. She cried the first time she was able to hug her daughter again. Holly Ellyatt

U.S. reports more than 50,000 new cases in a single day

People sit in their vehicles while waiting in line to enter a Covid-19 drive-thru testing site at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, U.S., on Tuesday, June 30, 2020. Marco Bello | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday vowed that the Trump administration would "keep opening up America" despite a recent surge in coronavirus cases.

Pence told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" that the White House will stay with state leaders "every step of the way as they continue to take steps to mitigate the expansion of the coronavirus."

The vice president's remarks came after President Donald Trump celebrated a record-breaking rise in nonfarm payrolls in June. The U.S. added 4.8 million jobs last month, according to the Labor Department.

But despite Trump's optimism on the economy, a recent spike in coronavirus cases has other administration officials, such as health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, warning that the outbreak will be "very disturbing" if it is not reined in quickly.

The U.S. on Wednesday reported more than 50,000 Covid-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, marking the highest single-day total yet as the virus sweeps through Sun Belt states.

Pence said the White House wants to "make sure these states have everything they need" to fight the outbreak.

"But we're going to keep opening up America again and have more days just like today," Pence said.
A New York appeals court cleared the way Wednesday for a publisher to distribute a tell-all book by President Donald Trump's niece over the objections of the president's brother.

The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division said it was lifting a restraint that a judge put on Simon & Schuster a day earlier that would have blocked distribution of "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."

Although the book was scheduled to be published on July 28, Simon & Schuster said thousands of copies of the 75,000-copy first run of the book had already been sent to bookstores and others.

The appeals ruling, though, left in place restraints against Mary Trump, the book's author and the president's niece, after the president's brother said in court papers that she was part of an agreement among family members not to write about their relationships without permission.

The president's brother, Robert Trump, had sued Mary Trump to block publication. An email seeking comment was sent to Robert Trump's lawyer Wednesday.

The appeals ruling restrained Mary Trump and any agent of hers from distributing the book, but the court made clear it did not consider the publisher to be an agent, though that issue could be decided in further proceedings at the lower court.

"The evidence submitted is insufficient for this Court to determine whether the plaintiff is likely to succeed in establishing that claim," the appeals court said.

In a statement, Simon and Schuster said it was gratified with the ruling, which it said would let Mary Trump tell her story. The publisher said the book was of "great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public."

It added: "As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions, and we remain confident that the preliminary injunction will be denied."

Mary Trump's lawyer, Theodore Boutrous Jr., said in a statement it was "very good news that the prior restraint against Simon & Schuster has been vacated. He added that he believed a similar finding was necessary for Mary Trump, "based on the First Amendment and basic contract law."
CNBC's Jim Cramer said Thursday that the economic response by the Federal Reserve and the Trump administration to the coronavirus pandemic has been critical to the recovery of U.S. jobs and the financial markets.

"They threw a lot at the economy in order to make it work, and I think you could argue from that employment number, it is working," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street," referencing the record 4.8 million nonfarm jobs added in June.

"I don't think the stock market is lying here. I do think there is a level of speculation, but there also are a lot of companies that would've gone out of business that didn't," Cramer added.

U.S. stock indexes were rattled by the advent of the new coronavirus, falling rapidly from their February records highs into bear market territory, defined as more than 20% off a recent peak. But since its late March bottom, the S&P 500 has risen more than 40%, as of Wednesday's close.

The "Mad Money" host specifically referenced the swift and wide-ranging emergency action from the Fed, saying that Chairman Jerome Powell "deserves a lot of credit" for helping keep the corporate bond market functioning when it "could have gone very bad."

Cramer also complimented Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, especially for working across the aisle with Democrats. Collectively, the Fed and the Treasury learned lessons from the 2008 financial crisis and this time responded aggressively, Cramer contended.

"How did the cruise lines survive? How did the airlines survive? And the answer is Secretary Mnuchin and the Federal Reserve decided they weren't going to fail," Cramer said. "You could argue that the banks should have already had their dividends cut, but there was so much money being pumped in that they seem safe. The Fed and Treasury decided not to let this become a depression."
A son hugs his father at the Geriatric Clinic Tres Figueiras on June 16, 2020 in Gravatai, Brazil. The clinic created the Tunel do Abraco (hug tunnel) for elderly residents to be able to hug relatives after more than 70 days apart due to the coronavirus pandemic. The tunnel is made of a thick plastic curtain with sleeves, which guarantees the safety of families. After each use, the environment is cleaned by a clinic professional.

One of the hardest parts of the coronavirus pandemic for many people has been that social-distancing measures have prevented them from visiting or comforting elderly relatives.

But, enterprising individuals, and institutions, have been coming up with the next best thing to a "real" hug: The "cuddle curtain"  essentially, a big plastic sheet with improvised armholes that allow individuals to embrace without direct contact.

Needless to say, the inventions (often made out of shower curtains) have provided several tear-jerker moments on social media, with videos of family reunions and cuddles through curtains between old and young  and indeed any loved-ones separated by the coronavirus pandemic  going viral.

A retirement home in Belgium told Reuters on Thursday that its "hug curtain" has been a hit with elderly residents, allowing them to see and, more importantly, embrace, their visiting relatives for the first time in months after lockdowns prevented both visits and physical contact.

Staff and residents at the Jardins de Picardie nursing home, which is near Belgium's border with France, say the large plastic curtain that staff installed on June 14 is proving very popular.
The worst of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak will end by January either with a vaccine or because enough people in the country will have already been infected and have some immunity to it, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday.

The restrictions and guidance implemented to curb the spread of the virus will not last forever, he said, urging people to practice public health precautions until the U.S. can safely return to normalcy. He added that it's fine to socialize, but within reason and people should consider keeping "a small social circle."

"This will be over by January one way or the other," he said on "Squawk Box." "Either we'll get to a vaccine or we'll just have spread enough it's just going to stop spreading efficiently, so we have a short period of time to get through. We should do everything we can to preserve what we want of our way of life over that time period to just get through it."

Policymakers are betting on an effective vaccine or that enough of the population will recover from the virus and achieve so-called herd immunity to curb the outbreak. However, there's still no clear evidence that antibodies give people any protection against being reinfected.

Gottlieb sits on the board of pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which is one of the more than 10 firms with a coronavirus vaccine either currently in or preparing to begin clinical trials. On Wednesday, Pfizer reported positive results from its early stage human trial, sending the stock up more than 3% on the day. The results have yet to be peer-reviewed.

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has previously said he's "cautiously optimistic" a vaccine will be ready for U.S. distribution by early 2021. Several of the major companies with potential vaccines in development have already begun to invest in ramping up manufacturing of doses in preparation to meet demand if the vaccine candidates prove safe and effective in humans.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in congressional testimony last month that he is hopeful one of the several vaccine candidates will prove safe and effective, but he warned that "there's never a guarantee." It's also likely that any coronavirus vaccine would not provide lifelong immunity, but rather would create some protection for a limited period of time, Fauci said.

"You can have everything you think that's in place and you don't induce the kind of immune response that turns out to be protective and durably protective," Fauci said of a vaccine. "So one of the big unknowns is, will it be effective? Given the way the body responds to viruses of this type, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will, with one of the candidates, get an efficacy signal."

Even without a vaccine, Gottlieb said there's a chance the virus could stop spreading efficiently in the U.S. by January if enough people get it and develop antibodies, which scientists believe offer some protection against infection. However, Fauci and other scientists have stressed that researchers do not fully understand the role of antibodies in this virus.

The relationship between antibodies and immunity is one of the many questions researchers are now seeking to answer about the coronavirus, which emerged just seven months ago. Whether the presence of certain kinds of antibodies equates to immunity against infection and how long that immunity might last are two key questions that remain unanswered.

A study published last month in the academic journal Nature Medicine found coronavirus antibodies might last only two to three months after a person becomes infected. Researchers examined 37 asymptomatic people, those who never developed symptoms, in the Wanzhou District of China. They compared their antibody response to that of 37 people with symptoms.

Scientists conducting larger vaccine studies later this year hope to answer some of the remaining questions about Covid-19 antibodies.

Even if antibodies do confer immunity or some level of protection, the U.S. has a long way to go before there's enough protection to drive the spread of the virus down. Citing a study published earlier this week, Gottlieb said Tuesday that about 25% of New York City-area residents have probably been infected with the coronavirus already.

The authors of the study he cited, however, said 67% of the population needs to have been infected to achieve herd immunity, which is necessary to give the general public broad protection from the virus.

 CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic-testing start-up Tempus and biotech company Illumina.
A protester at the picket line wears a helmet written on no layoffs during a demonstration in Spain.

The unemployment rate in the euro zone came in at 7.4% in May, as the region grapples with the economic shock from Covid-19.

It comes after a number of European economies took their first steps to reopen in May, which has allowed some workers to return to their jobs. However, the social-distancing measures that remain in place and ongoing travel restrictions are limiting the pace of the recovery.

The unemployment rate in the 19-member region rose to 7.4%  the worst reading since November last year. According to the European statistics office, the number means that 12.146 million people in the euro area were unemployed in May.

Youth unemployment, those aged between 15 and 24, also increased to 16% in May, from 15.7% in April.

Some economists are expecting much worse unemployment figures going forward as governments reduce benefit schemes. At the height of the sovereign debt crisis during the last decade, the euro area experienced an unemployment rate of just above 12%.

Speaking on Friday, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said the world may be past the worst of the pandemic, though she cautioned that there is a risk of a second wave of infections.

The ECB has forecast a contraction of 8.7% in euro zone gross domestic product for the whole of 2020, followed by a rebound of 5.2% economic growth in 2021.
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Armed assailants attacked a rehabilitation center in the central Mexican town of Irapuato on Wednesday, killing 24 people and injuring another seven, local media reported.

The afternoon attack targeted a rehabilitation center for young drug addicts in the community of Arandas, near Irapuato in Guanajuato state, local daily Correo quoted Irapuato Police Chief Pedro Cortes as saying.

Emergency teams took seven people to hospital following the attack with assault rifles, Cortes said.
Five airlines have struck agreements with the Treasury Department for portions of $25 billion in federal loans aimed at softening the blow of the coronavirus pandemic on their businesses.

American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Sky West Airlines, Spirit Airlines and privately-held Frontier Airlines have signed letters of intent for the loan terms, the Treasury Department said Thursday.

Other airlines have said they expect to be eligible for billions in federal loans but haven't yet signed letters of intent, though conversations are ongoing, a Treasury Department spokeswoman said.

U.S. passenger airlines, posting their first losses in years because of the virus, were allowed to apply for portions of the $25 billion in federal loans, funding set aside under the CARES Act in March.

The Treasury Department didn't disclose the amounts and terms of the loans, for which airlines were required to put up equity, warrants, or senior debt to compensate taxpayers. But executives have been previewing the amount they expect to receive.

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told staff that the airline expects to finalize the $4.75 billion-loan in the third quarter. Last month he told shareholders that the carrier plans to use cash flows from its AAdvantage frequent flyer credit card as collateral.

In the spring U.S. airlines started receiving portions of an additional $25 billion in aid that secures sector jobs through Sept. 30, relief that airline labor unions want extended through next March.
Aerial view of the home of Ghislaine Maxwell in Bradford, New Hampshire. NBC News

Ghislaine Maxwell, the accused procurer for dead convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday at a New Hampshire home purchased in an all-cash transaction for $1 million last December by a "legal entity." That entity, a limited liability corporation, was created after the homeowner's real estate agent balked at selling to an anonymous buyer, the agent told CNBC. "I assumed it was a famous actress" who bought the secluded property, the seller's agent said in a phone interview. The agent spoke within hours of learning from another real estate agent that British socialite Maxwell was busted by the FBI at the 156-acre property in Bradford, New Hampshire, at around 8:30 a.m. ET. A large boulder on the property is carved with the words "Tuckedaway." "Never met her, never saw her," said the agent, who requested anonymity because she did not want her name associated with Maxwell and the Epstein case.

Ghislaine Maxwell attends VIP Evening of Conversation for Women's Brain Health Initiative, Moderated by Tina Brown at Spring Studios on October 18, 2016 in New York City. Sylvain Gaboury | Patrick McMullan | Getty Images

Authorities said Thursday that Maxwell was caught at a 156-acre property in that town, where land records list just one lot of that size, on East Washington Road. "The defendant appears to have been hiding on a 156-acre property acquired in an all-cash purchase in December 2019 (through a carefully anonymized LLC) in Bradford, New Hampshire, an area to which she has no other known connections," said a court filing by Manhattan federal prosecutors. An LLC is a limited liability corporation. Other records show the buyer was Granite Reality LLC, whose listed manager is a Boston lawyer named Jeffrey Roberts. Roberts did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The web site of his firm, Nutter McClennen & Fish, says that Roberts "chairs Nutter's Private Client Department and serves as a member of the firm's Executive Committee." "His broad-based practice consists of estate planning for high net worth individuals," among other areas, according to the web site. Nutter, whose spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, is located at the same Boston address as the mailing address of the LLC that bought the property. William Sweeney, the assistant director of the FBI in charge of the New York Field Office, said of Maxwell, "She slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims continue to live with the trauma inflicted on them years earlier." Maxwell's criminal defense lawyer, Lawrence Vogelman, declined to comment when CNBC when asked if she was the actual buyer of the property. The property was featured by WMUR-9 in May 2019 in an article titled "Mansion Monday: Peace, quiet and breathtaking views in Bradford," which says: "this custom-built timber frame home in Bradford is one where you can truly get away from it all."

The main residence has "four bedrooms, three full bathrooms and one half-bath," according to WMUR, which called the home "an amazing retreat for the nature lover who also wants total privacy." "From every room, there are views of the Mt. Sunapee foothills to the west," the article said. Maxwell, 58, appeared in New Hampshire federal court hours after her arrest to begin facing charges of conspiring with the now-dead Epstein in the mid-1990s to sexually abuse underage girls, as well as on two counts of perjury. The daughter of crooked media mogul Robert Maxwell is accused of helping Epstein recruit and groom girls as young as 14 to satisfy his sexual obsessions, and of participating in the alleged abuse at times herself. The charges were filed in Manhattan federal court by the same prosecutors' office that had Epstein arrested last July on child sex trafficking charges related to alleged conduct from 2002 through 2005. At Thursday's hearing in New Hampshire, a magistrate judge granted Maxwell her request to be sent to Manhattan, in the custody of U.S. marshals, for a detention hearing that will decide whether she can be released on bail. Epstein, a wealthy investor who was a former friend of Prince Andrew and of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton hanged himself in a Manhattan federal jail last August after being denied bail. Until last December, the property where Maxwell was arrested was owned by a lawyer. The lawyer's real estate agent said the property features an "absolutely gorgeous home. It had a main house and a guest house."

The words "Tucked Away" sit at the end of a driveway to the property where Ghislaine Maxwell may have been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Bradford, New Hampshire, U.S., July 2, 2020. Brian Snyder | Reuters

When it went on sale, the agent was contacted by representatives of a would-be buyer, who wanted to purchase the residence and land without disclosing their identity. "At first they didn't want to tell me their names," the agent said of the buyer's representatives, who wanted to use a "totally fictitious name" for the purchaser on sales records. When the agent objected to selling to an anonymous person, a legal entity was created by the buyer, the agent said. "We checked out that it was a legal entity," said the agent, adding that it is not uncommon for purchases to be either trusts or limited liability corporations created for that purpose. The agent also noted that the buyer "wanted a quick closing." At the closing of the sale, the buyer did not appear, but had a representative handle the transaction, according to the agent, who assumed that representative was a lawyer.
Indian oil petrol pump staff wearing and gloves as as a preventive measure against the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) near Jor Bagh on March 18, 2020 in New Delhi, India.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect global oil demand to return to pre-pandemic levels by 2022, citing a pick-up in commuting, a shift to private transportation and higher infrastructure spending.

In a research note published Thursday, analysts at the U.S. investment bank estimated global oil demand would decline by 8% in 2020, rebound by 6% in 2021 and "fully recover" to pre-coronavirus levels by 2022.

Gasoline was thought to stage the fastest demand recovery among oil products as a result of a pick-up in broader commuting activity, a shift from public to private transportation for commuting, and a higher use of cars to substitute air travel for domestic tourism  particularly in the U.S., Europe and China.

Diesel demand was forecast to recover to 2019 levels by 2021, boosted by government-led spending on infrastructure projects.

However, Goldman Sachs warned jet fuel demand had been the "biggest loser" from the coronavirus crisis, with consumer confidence on flying set to stay low in the absence of a vaccine and consumer behavior potentially set to change over the long term.

Consequently, the U.S. bank does not expect jet fuel demand to return to pre-Covid-19 levels at least before 2023.
Herman Cain, the Godfather's Pizza magnate who twice ran for president and was briefly considered as a potential Federal Reserve Board nominee under President Donald Trump, was hospitalized Wednesday and is being treated for the coronavirus.

Cain, 74, was told Monday that he had tested positive for the disease, according to a statement posted to his official Twitter account. By Wednesday, he "had developed symptoms serious enough that he required hospitalization," the statement said.

Cain is currently being treated at an Atlanta-area hospital, the statement said, where he is "resting comfortably" and is "awake and alert."

TWEET

On Wednesday  two days after Cain was said to have tested positive  he tweeted his apparent support for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's decision not to require mask-wearing or social distancing during Trump's upcoming visit to Mount Rushmore.

"Masks will not be mandatory for the event, which will be attended by President Trump," Cain tweeted. "PEOPLE ARE FED UP!"

Cain TWEET

Cain is not on a ventilator and is doing well, his staff told Newsmax, the conservative news outlet where Cain has worked as a contributor since April.

A spokeswoman for Cain could not immediately be reached for comment.

Last month, Cain attended Trump's much-hyped rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the kickoff event for the president's reelection bid after the coronavirus pandemic forced him off the campaign trail for months.

Critics, including local public health officials, had urged Trump to postpone the rally, warning that hosting a large gathering of people could spread the disease.

Cain posted a photograph of himself at the June 20 rally sitting in close proximity to other attendees, none of whom appeared to be wearing masks, as many health officials currently advise.

Cain TWEET

Days later, Cain wrote in The Western Journal that "the media worked very hard to scare people out of attending the Trump campaign rally last Saturday night in Tulsa." Cain wrote that the rally was a success and disputed criticisms about underwhelming turnout at the event.

At least half a dozen members of Trump's campaign staff who helped prepare the rally in Tulsa had tested positive for the coronavirus before the event. The campaign assured at the time that "no COVID-positive staffers or anyone in immediate contact will be at today's rally or near attendees and elected officials."

Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told NBC News in a statement that Cain "did not meet with the President" at the Tulsa rally.

In the Twitter statement Thursday, Cain's staff wrote, "There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus, but we do know he is a fighter who has beaten Stage 4 cancer."

"With God's help, we are confident he will make a quick and complete recovery," the statement said.

Cain had served in leadership roles at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City between 1989 and 1996. He later became a player in Republican politics as an economic advisor to Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign before briefly launching his own bid in 2000.

In the 2012 GOP presidential primary season, Cain gained outsized media coverage with his catchy "9-9-9" economic plan to replace much of the federal tax code with a 9% business transactions tax, a 9% personal income tax and a 9% sales tax. Critics called the plan "dubious" and impractical.

Cain suspended that campaign in December 2011 following accusations of sexual harassment, which he denied.

Cain regained the media's attention in April 2019, when Trump announced that he was considering nominating Cain to the Federal Reserve Board.

Within a month, however, Trump tweeted that his "truly wonderful" friend had "asked me not to nominate him for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board."

Cain said at the time that "people who hate me" are "already digging up the negative stuff that are in stories from eight years ago ... I'm not going to let the accusers run my life or determine my career."
Protesters chant for five demands during street protests on Hennessy Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, China on July 1, 2020.

About 370 protesters were arrested in Hong Kong on Wednesday  10 of them were apprehended for breaching the new security law just one day after it took effect.

The new law came into force late Tuesday night, hours after the top decision making body of China's parliament passed the controversial legislation.

Police used water cannons to disperse thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong who poured out into the streets. In some cases, the protests turned violent. Seven officers were injured while on duty, police said.

Opponents of the law say it undermines the city's autonomy that was promised when Hong Kong was handed over from the U.K. to China.

British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said the fact that Beijing can have jurisdiction over complex national security cases is a "flagrant assault on freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful protest for the people of Hong Kong."

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Under the "one country, two systems" policy, the territory is given more freedoms than other cities in China, and has a largely separate legal and economic system from the mainland that is attractive to international businesses. That framework was supposed to be in place until 2047.

Critics say the new law grants the central government in Beijing sweeping powers to clamp down on dissent in the Chinese territory, which saw more than a year of protests that sometimes turned violent.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the law "draconian" and said it "ends free Hong Kong."
The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Moving Forward Act, a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package that included funds to help child-care providers make the necessary modifications to their facilities in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Moving Forward Act specifically allocates $10 billion over the next four years to finance grants to improve child-care centers, including construction, renovations and improvement to facilities to address both longstanding issues and new challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The legislation calls for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct an assessment of the conditions within the child-care industry in order to ensure that funds are being distributed in a way that improves the availability of quality child care and that funding is given to centers that demonstrate high need. The grants will be distributed across public and private sectors.

"The Moving Forward Act recognizes that child care is infrastructure, central to rebuilding our economy, stabilizing our workforce and educating our children," Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said Wednesday in a floor speech in support of the bill. "The pandemic has pushed this vital sector to its breaking point and we cannot afford to let it fail."

About 60% of child-care programs temporarily closed at some point during the last four months due to coronavirus, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. While states are starting to allow child-care facilities to reopen, providers may be slow to return because of strict capacity and operating rules that create financial burdens.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a number of recommendations for day cares, preschools and child-care facilities to ensure the safety of children, families, teachers and employees as programs start to reopen. These guidelines include implementing social distancing strategies such as spacing out seating and nap areas, restricting classroom sizes, limiting the mixing and interaction of children and curbing the use of shared toys, supplies and learning aids as much as possible.

State regulators are also providing mandates for child-care providers, but the rules vary widely. In Massachusetts, for example, the Department of Early Education and Care issued a 32-page guidance that, among other protocols, limits class sizes to a maximum of 10 children and sets up specific teacher-to-child ratios based on the age of the kids. But guidance from other states around the optimal class size and provider-to-child ratios varies.

For some child-care centers, the pandemic is already proving too much and they will never reopen their doors. In Alaska, five Anchorage-based providers out of 244 total in the area closed permanently since the pandemic broke out, according to Thread, an organization focused on supporting early childhood education. Across the state, 69% of all programs are open, but many of those are only serving 30% to 50% of their capacity.

Overall, the U.S. could lose up to 4.5 million child-care slots if providers can't weather the shutdown and reopening process, the Center for American Progress estimates.

Permanent closures would not only result in job losses, but may also increase the cost of child care. Widespread closures could force parents to seek out new, more expensive programs. Among day cares, preschools and child-care facilities that do come back, some may need to increase the cost of tuition in order to afford smaller class sizes, additional staff and PPE supplies.

"The Covid-19 health and economic crisis has pushed an already-struggling child-care industry to the brink of collapse, and important but costly new health and safety measures will force providers even farther into the red," says Sarah Rittling, executive director of early childhood education advocacy organization the First Five Years Fund.

The inclusion of child care in Wednesday's legislation reinforces lawmakers' understanding that child care is essential to the infrastructure of the U.S. and the need to prioritize such investments as a way to underpin the broader economy, Rittling adds. "We look forward to continuing our work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to find effective solutions to the challenges facing our nation's child care providers and the families they serve."

In addition to the Moving Forward Act, several Democratic lawmakers introduced the Child Care is Essential Act at the end of May. That legislation would create a $50 billion "child-care stabilization fund" to provide grants to help pay for personnel, sanitation, training and other costs associated with reopening and running a child-care facility right now.

In the House of Representatives, the Child Care is Essential Act has been assigned to the House Budget committee and currently only has about a 5% chance of being enacted, according to predictive intelligence firm Skopos Labs.

"American businesses and families are asking for relief to keep the child-care industry from collapsing in the short-term and for robust funding to sustain the industry in the future," says Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America. "It's time for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to step up and give child care the support it deserves."

Don't miss more in this series:
Parler, a social media app that conservatives are flocking to for its free speech promises, will not be pushing ads on its central platform, but will instead be using influencers to bring in money.

"Our business model is going to be an ad revenue model. The idea of how we're going to do it isn't going to be a centralized model for ads, it will be specific around influencers. So advertisers will target influencers and those people with a large reach, rather than us as a platform," Parler CEO and founder John Matze told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday.

"The idea is you boycott individual influencers whose content that you don't like, not necessarily us as a platform."

Parler has presented itself as a town square of sorts, without censorship, in a time when some believe dominant Silicon Valley platforms have been out to censor conservative voices. (Others have argued that platforms aren't doing enough to stop hate speech, leading to a July boycott of Facebook advertisements.)

Following a Wall Street Journal report that the Trump administration was looking for alternatives to Facebook and Twitter, Parler was the top-ranked iPhone app in the news category, ahead of Twitter and Reddit, and 24th overall, just behind Venmo and WhatsApp, according to App Annie. User growth surged to 2 million users.

That growth has been sustained, Matze said Thursday.

"People don't want to be told what to think, people don't want to be told what to say anymore," he said. "People want to address problems in society on their own."

But with the concept of the app being that it allows all free speech, that means it allows some hate speech to a degree.

Matze told CNBC that he understands that bad actors are on the app, but believes its a minute percentage, and they don't stick around on the app. He added that the company is "scaling up," so it won't be a "long-term problem."

"I think it is going to work out really well, I think that we're going to solve a lot of these partisan issues by allowing people to speak again," he said.

--CNBC's Ari Levy contributed to this report.

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Stocks moved higher on a strong June jobs report, though concerns of a rising number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. lingered.

Here are five experts on what the jobs report says about the road to recovery.

Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, sees a stalemate on Capitol Hill.

"Normally in the months before a presidential election, both parties are trying to create a series of show votes where they say, "We were for this, and the other guys are against it." And they don't really want to reach compromises. And so the philosophy of the CARES Act was we don't have to decide who should get relief and rescue money, everybody gets money.  And now we're coming to the spot where you've got to choose: Is the money going to go to people? Is the money going to go to small business? Should the money go to big business? And to get a strong number like this, I think actually it's going to make the compromise decision a little harder, because there's going to be some people who say, "Well, if the economy is going to be strong, let's just wait a couple of months before we do anything." So I think there's a potential of a speed bump."

Kate Moore, head of thematic strategy for BlackRock's Global Allocation investment team, says companies need to adjust to the new normal.

"The market is pricing in more of a V-shape recovery. It's certainly pricing in a V-shape recovery in terms of earnings. The consensus is at about $163 [for S&P 500 earnings] for 2021, and we're trading at 19 times that at current levels. So I think what the analyst and investment community need right now is confirmation from companies as they report second-quarter earnings, which are going to be abysmal, confirmation that they've modified their business models and they are thinking about an existing Covid, not a post-Covid, world."

Nada Eissa, former deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, sees an uneven recovery for the job market.

"I don't think the numbers are meaningless, but I do think that we're not thinking about the fact that we have this resurgence in the virus, and the resurgence has two elements. One is the unforced errors by officials who basically opened without following the guidelines and have had now to pull back. But we've also seen a resurgence in places that did do the hard things so restaurants were set to open for diners in New York City. That's now on hold. And so I think that, looking forward, I don't know that we're going to be able to see the same types of job growth or continued job growth. I think it's going to be very jagged."

Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, digs into the numbers.

"If you look at the payroll numbers, obviously a large upside surprise. The household survey was an even bigger upside surprise in terms of the decline in the unemployment rate, especially when you adjust for misclassification. If you look at the Labor Department release, they're basically saying that the unemployment rate adjusted for misclassification came down from 16.4% or so to 12.1% or so. That's a 4 percentage point decline in the true unemployment rate, and a very large gain. Now, the claims numbers have been softer in recent weeks, for sure. And, that does deserve some weight, because this is a series that is long established, and is an administrative count, therefore quite high quality.  And it does tell you something about at least the layoff side. What the claims numbers don't tell you is the amount of rehiring. That's something that you really have to get from the monthly unemployment and payroll report."

David Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research, says the job market still has a ways to go.

"It's still not clear to me as though today's job number in and of itself gives you a V-shaped recovery .... But we have to keep in mind the deep hole we're coming out of. I mean, there's no question that the jobs are coming back more quickly than anybody would have anticipated, including me just a few months ago. But we have to also recognize the fact that the economy was reopening ahead of schedule, so it would make sense that we start seeing some job creation coming back. But the hole is still so big in the context of losing 22 million jobs in two months so far. With all the reopenings that have happened and all the stimulus that's taken place, we've recouped a grand total of one third of that."

Disclaimer
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at an event at Facebook's Headquarters office in Menlo Park, California on January 15, 2012.

Facebook confirmed that it's shutting down two of its little-known social media apps shortly after their launch.

TikTok rival Lasso and Pinterest rival Hobbi will both be terminated on July 10.

Lasso, the more popular of the two, allowed people to record videos up to 15 seconds long and overlay music on top. It was launched a year-and-a-half ago.

"We place multiple bets across our family of apps to test and learn how people want to express themselves," a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC via email.

"One of these tests was Lasso, our stand-alone short-form video app, which we have decided to shut down and remove from all app stores on July 10. We thank everyone who shared their creativity and feedback with us, which we'll look to incorporate in our other video experiences."
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) talks to Chinese President Xi Jingping during the BRICS meeting in Goa, India, on October 16, 2016.

China's Twitter like service, Weibo, has removed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's account at the request of the Indian embassy in Beijing.

The unusual move comes amid rising tensions between India and China over their disputed border high in the Western Himalayas and a clash earlier this month that left 20 Indian soldiers dead.

India retaliated by banning 59 Chinese apps, including high-profile ones such as TikTok and WeChat. Weibo is also on the list. New Delhi is also reportedly weighing whether to let Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei participate in the rollout of the country's next-generation 5G mobile networks.

Weibo announced late on Wednesday that it had received a request from the Indian embassy in China to close Modi's account.

"Weibo received an application from the Indian embassy in China, which said: '(I) hope to have the official Weibo account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed from the platform,'" it said.

The Chinese microblogging platform complied with the request and announced that: "Weibo has closed what was certified as the account of the Prime Minister of India."

The Indian embassy in Beijing was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Modi has been on Weibo since 2015 but posted quite infrequently.

His first ever post was written in Chinese and translated as: "Hello China! Looking forward to interacting with Chinese friends through Weibo."

Because social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are effectively blocked in China, Weibo is a major way to communicate with a Chinese audience.
An artist's rendering of a Momentus Vigoride transfer vehicle deploying satellites in orbit. Momentus

A space startup offering a "last mile delivery" service for spacecraft is continuing its deal spree this year, becoming an increasingly important player in the growing small satellite market. Momentus, a Santa Clara, California-based company, has so far struck $40 million worth of customer contracts this year and announced on Thursday its latest deal with Dutch small satellite specialist ISILaunch. Its the eighth such deal Momentus has unveiled in 2020, with the company providing its orbit transfer services for ISILaunch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch in December. The core of Momentus' business is Vigoride, a simple vehicle that consists of frame, an engine, solar panels, avionics and a set of satellite deployers. The company calls it a transfer vehicle, akin to the delivery truck that would bring a package to its final destination after a large cargo aircraft delivered it to the airport. The Momentus transfer vehicle is especially important for satellites that hitch a ride on large rockets, an increasingly popular industry practice called ridesharing. Additionally, the company touts its transfer vehicles as adaptable to essentially any rocket available on the market. The Momentus service essentially shuttles spacecraft from a rocket to each spacecraft's intended final orbit, in what Momentus CEO Mikhail Kokorich explained as an "extremely cost efficient manner." "Vigoride is especially designed to use big rockets to distribute satellites in low Earth orbit," Kokorich told CNBC. "From a single launch we can drop into multiple orbits, and just change altitude or change inclination, dropping you in several spots. Basically increasing the flexibility of a big rocket launch dramatically."

Momentus

The company launched its first demonstration mission last year, which proved that the key part of its transfer vehicle  the water plasma engines  worked. It has the first mission for Vigoride lined up this year, currently slated for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December. Momentus has raised nearly $50 million in capital to date, from investors including Prime Movers Lab and Y Combinator. It's grown to more than 60 employees quickly after its founding in 2017. Although its water plasma engines are key to Momentus' business, Kokorich emphasized his operation is "not a propulsion company."



"We're a delivery service," Kokorich said. Momentus pointed to market analysis by consulting firm Northern Sky Research, which issued a report in November 2019 that gave a very bullish forecast on the market for small satellites. The number of satellites launched each year has steadily grown, the report found, from 70 satellites in 2010 to 493 satellites in 2019  and Northern Sky expects that to reach over 1000 a year by 2030. Likewise, the report found that Momentus' initial target market  small satellites launched to low Earth orbit, one of the most common destinations  would grow from less than $250 million in 2018 to about $750 million in 2020 and nearly $1.5 billion by 2024. That's why Kokorich plans for Vigoride to be just the first of an increasingly more capable fleet of transfer vehicles that Momentus offers. "In the big picture, we would like to build the infrastructure for industrialization beyond Earth in space," Kokorich said. "The first step is developing a last mile delivery in space transportation."

A line-up of Momentus' planned transfer vehicles. Momentus

"As a next step we need in our vehicles to deliver like stuff to high orbits, like other activities that can be an extremely unique service," Kokorich added. He believes the cost of transportation "is always the enabler of any industry." The cost of launching satellites has steadily dropped, which Kokorich attributed to the competitive pricing that SpaceX has introduced with its largely reusable rockets. "The larger the rocket you have, the more efficient you can launch the payload, because the proportion of the rocket mass is less," Kokorich explained. "And the side of rocket reusability as a technology is pushing the price for rocket launches much lower."

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the U.S. Air Force's first GPS III satellite. SpaceX

The market for Momentus' transfer vehicles comes into play due to satellites becoming smaller and smaller, but needing a way to get from the orbit the rocket drops them off in to the orbit the spacecraft will operate in. Kokorich noted that small spacecraft have also created a market for smaller rockets, such as those by Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Astra, and Relativitiy. "That service is really valuable but it's kind of like a private jet, when you need to be going very fast. The small rockets will forever be more expensive than large rockets," Kokorich said. Momentus is therefore focused on those rideshare customers, who want a cheap way to get to orbit but need a boost to get to the precise destination. "It's essentially created the need for last mile delivery, so [small satellites can use big rockets. It will not substitute in all cases small rockets, because sometimes you need to fly fast. But if you don't need to fly fast, if you just need to deploy your stuff, you can do this much cheaper with Vigoride," Kokorich said.
Netflix's Reed Hastings. Ernesto S. Ruscio | Getty Images

With four months to go until the 2020 elections, employees at tech companies are ramping up their political donations, and sending the vast majority of that money to Democrats. The tech industry has long leaned left, but President Donald Trump's policies on immigration and trade, coupled with his responses to the coronavirus pandemic and the nationwide protests against police violence, have created an even wider partisan imbalance than in the past. Tech employees not only strongly favor Joe Biden, the Democratic party's presumptive nominee for president, but they're also funneling money to Democratic candidates in competitive congressional races, particularly in the Senate, where the Republican majority is now at risk. One reason for the big disparity between the donations is that tech workers were donating to the many candidates in the Democratic presidential primaries, while Trump ran virtually uncontested. Among the 17 U.S. tech companies valued at $100 billion or more, employees at Netflix are the most liberal based on fundraising data, with 98% of their donations going to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets website. Qualcomm is the most conservative, with a 50-50 split that very narrowly favors Republicans. Below is a ranking of those companies, from most liberal to most conservative. (Campaign finance laws restrict individual donations to $2,800 per election, or $5,600 between the primary and general election.) Netflix Democrats - $340,485 (98%), Republicans - $7,124 (2%) This is nothing new for Netflix. Employees at the video-streaming company sent 98% of their donations to Democrats in 2016 and 99.6% in the 2018 midterm elections. The biggest individual recipients of Netflix employee funds for this cycle were Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the primary. Then comes Biden, followed by Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings donated to Buttigieg and Biden, according to records from OpenSecrets and the Federal Election Commission. By far the biggest recipient of Netflix employee money has been the Senate Majority PAC, a political action committee that's "solely dedicated to building a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate," according to its website. Nvidia Democrats - $154,466 (93%), Republicans - $11,673 (7%) Biden is the second-leading individual recipient from Nvidia workers, behind Sanders, but above Warren and Buttigieg. Employees have also sent money to DNC Services Corp., a Democratic PAC. Nvidia employee donations heavily favored Democrats in 2016 as well, with those candidates receiving 97% of money from employees, but as recently as 2014, the split between the parties was almost even. Adobe Democrats - $401,937 (93%), Republicans - $28,137 (7%) Like Netflix employees, those at Adobe always lean heavily left. In 2016, Democrats received almost 99% of employee money. Also like at Netflix, Adobe employees favored, in order, Sanders, Warren, Biden and Buttigieg. The leading overall recipient of Adobe employee money is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign group of House Democrats. IBM Democrats - $1,496,234 (90%), Republicans - $163,804 (10%) From employees of IBM, Biden has raised less than Sanders or Warren. He has also raised only twice as much as Trump, a narrower margin than at most other large tech companies. Like at Adobe, the DCCC has received more IBM employee money than any single candidate. In 2016, IBM workers sent 88% of political donation money to Democrats, a number that jumped to 92% for the 2018 midterm elections.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, left, speaks as Marc Benioff, chairman and co-chief executive officer of Salesforce.com listens during a keynote at the 2019 DreamForce conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Nov. 19, 2019. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Salesforce Democrats - $457,119 (89%), Republicans - $59,181 (11%) Salesforce employees have strongly preferred Democrats since 2010, sending at least 88% of their money to candidates from that party in each cycle over the past decade. Biden is the third-biggest recipient among presidential candidates at Salesforce, behind Sanders and Warren. Among organizations, workers at the cloud software company have sent the most money to a group called Tech for Campaigns, which connects political campaigns with developers to try to "flip state legislatures all across the country blue." CEO Marc Benioff hasn't contributed much this year, but in this cycle he's been an equal opportunist. Last year, he contributed to Republican Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, and Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, while also writing checks to Democrats Jay Inslee, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker for their presidential primary campaigns. He also contributed to Democrat Mark Kelly, who is trying to unseat Sen. Martha McSally in Arizona. Alphabet (Google) Democrats - $5,437,048 (88%), Republicans - $766,920 (12%) Google employees may not be the most partisan but they do provide, by far, the most capital among tech companies. Sanders, alone, received more than $1 million from Google workers, followed by Warren and Biden. A PAC called Future Forward USA has received $750,000. Democrat Amy McGrath, who is running for the Senate in Kentucky against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has received more from Google employees than any other Senate candidate. Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif., who flipped the seat two years ago and is now trying to hang onto it, is also pulling in Google money.

Microsoft President Brad Smith. Muller | Munich Security Conference

Microsoft Democrats - $3,969,072 (85%), Republicans - $690,953 (15%) Microsoft has seen one of the most dramatic swings in the tech industry. Four years ago, employees at the software giant sent only 53% of their donations to Democrats, increasing that number to 76% in 2018. Biden is second to Sanders among individual recipients. DNC Services and the Senate Majority PAC are tops among organizations. In September, Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, contributed $125,000 to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund, a big backer off the DCCC and a group that helps fund House Speaker Pelosi's PAC. McGrath has also received a good chunk of cash from Microsoft employees. Apple Democrats - $1,243,825 (84%), Republicans - $228,653 (16%) Apple is trending less to the left than in 2016, when 91% of money from the iPhone maker's employees went to Democrats. In this cycle, Biden has raised less than Sanders, Warren or Buttigieg. Even the Republican National Committee has attracted more Apple money than Biden. One of Trump's leading financial supporters in tech comes from Apple. Doug Vetter, a vice president and associate general counsel at the company, contributed $150,000 earlier this year to the Trump Victory PAC and over $100,000 to the Republican National Committee. PayPal Democrats - $145,483 (84%) Republicans - $27,529 (16%) PayPal employees sent 71% of donations to Democrats in 2016. The top recipients this cycle were Sanders, Biden and Warren, followed by presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Cisco Democrats - $798,586 (80%), Republicans - $204,400 (20%) What a difference four years makes. For the 2016 campaign, only 36% of employee money from the networking company went toward Democrats, a number that jumped to 73% in 2018. The order among Democratic primary candidates goes Sanders, Biden and Warren. The next-biggest recipient of Cisco employee cash is Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who represents the company's home district in Congress. Amazon Democrats - $2,677,112 (77%), Republicans - $783,349 (23%) Trump's threats against the company and personal attacks on CEO Jeff Bezos (whom he sometimes calls Jeff Bozo) probably don't help his cause among Amazon employees. When Trump first ran four years ago, Amazon employees directed slightly less  75%  of their money to Democrats. Sanders and Warren were the top two presidential recipients among Amazon workers, even though those two candidates were the biggest advocates for breaking up Big Tech. The biggest checks from Amazon have come from Steven Kessel, a senior executive who left the company last year after two decades. Kessel contributed about $175,000 to the DNC between September and October 2019, just before his departure.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey are sworn-in for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing concerning foreign influence operations' use of social media platforms, on Capitol Hill, September 5, 2018 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Facebook Democrats - $1,634,153 (77%), Republicans - $480,133 (23%) Biden is behind only Sanders when it comes to Facebook employee money, though among organizations, the Republican National Committee has received more funds than any other. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's billionaire chief operating chief, who previously worked for then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, committed $150,000 to Women Vote!, a PAC focused on getting women to support pro-choice female Democratic candidates. Naomi Gleit, the company's vice president of product and social impact, has contributed $50,000 to the Pelosi Victory Fund, which goes toward helping the DCCC and reelecting Pelosi. Intel Democrats - $790,769 (68%), Republicans - $372,667 (32%) Intel is another example of a legacy technology company that's moving more Democratic among its employee base. Typically, employees from the chipmaker have donated 35% to 45% to Republicans. In this cycle, employees at Intel have directed their heftiest checks to Sanders, Warren and Biden, with the DCCC and Democratic National Senatorial Campaign Committee tops among organizations. Kelly in Arizona has been one of the leading recipients in Senate races. Broadcom Democrats - $326,616 (68%), Republicans - $154,058 (32%) Broadcom's employee data is hard to make sense of from one election to the next, in part because the company is so acquisitive that the staff makeup changes frequently. In 2016, Democrats received 84% of money from Broadcom employees, a number that sank to 48% in 2018. As with many tech companies, the order of donation sizes goes Sanders, Warren and then Biden. However, in Senate races, McConnell is the leading recipient.

Safra Catz, chief executive officer of Oracle, arrives at Trump Tower in New York, on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016. Albin Lohr-Jones | Pool via Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Swiss drugmaker will pay $678 million to resolve claims it organized tens of thousands of sham educational events where it lavished doctors with exorbitant speaker fees, expensive dinners and alcohol to induce them to prescribe its cardiovascular and diabetes drugs more often.

Novartis agreed to pay more than $729 million to settle U.S. government charges it paid illegal kickbacks to doctors and patients to boost drug sales, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday.

It will also pay $51.25 million to resolve charges it funneled money through three charitable foundations to cover co-payments of Medicare patients so they would purchase its drugs.

Both settlements resolved civil charges that Novartis violated the federal False Claims Act.

A Novartis spokesman said the costs of the settlement were covered by provisions that it had already made.

Its shares were indicated 0.4% higher in pre-market activity on Thursday.

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss in Manhattan called the incentives for doctors "nothing more than bribes" and said federal healthcare programs paid hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements for prescriptions tainted by kickbacks.

"Giving these cash payments and other lavish goodies interferes with the duty of doctors to choose the best treatment for their patients and increases drug costs for everyone," Strauss said in a statement.

The Justice Department said the speaker programs and other promotional events occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the co-payments were made from 2010 to 2014.

In connection with the settlements, Novartis agreed to curtail its speaker programs and enter a five-year corporate integrity agreement.

It also accepted responsibility for many allegations underlying the larger settlement, for which it set aside funds in July 2019.

"We are a different company today, with new leadership, a stronger culture and a more comprehensive commitment to ethics," CEO Vas Narasimhan said in a statement.

The $678 million payout includes $591.4 million in damages to the U.S. government, a $38.4 million forfeiture for violating an anti-kickback statute and $48.2 million to U.S. states.
Children diagnosed with Covid-19 pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or PMIS, may develop new neurological problems without any of the respiratory issues commonly associated with the virus, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers examined 27 children with Covid-19 PMIS, who were previously healthy, between March 1 and May 8 at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, England. They found that of the 27 patients, four experienced new neurological symptoms.

Symptoms included impaired brain function, headaches, brainstem and cerebellar issues, muscle weakness and reduced reflexes. All four patients required admission to the intensive care unit for treatment.

Although the study is small, researchers say the results show the coronavirus can also cause neurological damage in children  not just adults  without any of the respiratory symptoms that have become a hallmark indicator of Covid-19.

Neurological issues have been previously reported in adults with the coronavirus. The paper cites a different study published in May on the Wiley Online Library that examined 214 coronavirus patients in Wuhan, China. Of those patients, 78 experienced neurological symptoms, which included dizziness, headache, impaired consciousness, acute cerebrovascular disease, seizures and ataxia, which mimics being drunk, with slurred speech and stumbling.

Researchers of the pediatric study observed splenium signal changes in the corpus callosum area of the brain, or lesions on the brain, in the four patients. They said although these findings are not specific to SARS-CoV-2, clinicians should consider the virus when diagnosing children who have new neurological symptoms.

Moreover, scientists emphasized that since respiratory symptoms were uncommon among PMIS patients, clinicians should suspect Covid-19 in children who show new neurological problems without any other symptoms.

In April, health officials first observed a rise in coronavirus cases in children who developed a rare inflammatory condition. Symptoms of PMIS were similar to that of Kawasaki syndrome, which causes swelling of the heart's blood vessels and mainly affects children under the age of 5.

The World Health Organization had announced that it would investigate whether there is a relationship between Covid-19 and the inflammatory conditions. Since then, no new symptoms or inflammatory disease have been reported in children infected with the coronavirus.

Scientists have said that young adults are less likely to become severely ill than older adults, according to early findings on the virus. However, this new study shows that despite the typically mild acute infection, children may be at a high risk of a secondary inflammatory syndrome.
Investors might want to steer clear of the favorite stocks of rookie investors dabbling in the market, according to Goldman Sachs.

The Wall Street firm examined the favorite stocks of small investors and how they perform, finding stocks with the highest individual investor activity have underperformed over the following two weeks.

"This suggests individual investors may have tried to 'buy-the-dip' in individual names, but the stocks have not immediately outperformed," Goldman Sachs analyst John Marshall told clients.

Retail investors flooded into the market during the first half of 2020 as stocks experience the fastest bear market in history. The major online brokers  Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Etrade and millennial stock trading app Robinhood  saw new accounts surge as rookie investors sought to take advantage of a "generational buying movement."

Goldman tracked the volume of "small trades"  those less than $2,000  as a proxy for retail investor participation. The Wall Street firm said small trades in the S&P 500 spiked to 7% over the past three months, from 3% in January of 2019.
Members of a local electoral commission empty a ballot box at a polling station after a nationwide vote on constitutional reforms in Moscow on July 1, 2020.

Russians have overwhelmingly voted in favor of changes to the country's constitution that enable President Vladimir Putin to potentially stay in power up to 2036.

With all the votes counted, the electoral commission said Thursday morning that the final count showed 77.9% of those who voted were in favor of amendments to the constitution of Russia and 21.2% against, state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Data showed voter turnout was 65%, the commission said.

The constitutional amendments covered a raft of issues ranging from the minimum wage and pensions, to giving Putin the right to run for two more six-year terms in office. The 67-year old's current term ends in 2024.

The vote on constitutional amendments was billed as a referendum, but in reality the changes had already been passed by Russia's parliament and the public vote was seen as a move to legitimize the amendments. Putin has not yet explicitly stated that he will run for office again.

Critics of the Kremlin say the vote was neither transparent nor conducted according to usual electoral standards; ballot boxes were set in conventional polling stations but also on pavements, and in fields and parks.

Some voters  those in Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod region  were able to vote online, and votes were cast from abroad too. A Russian cosmonaut even voted from space as he is stationed at the International Space Station. Controversially, incentives were also reportedly offered to voters, with reports of prizes being up for grabs.

Russia's electoral commission has rebuffed accusations of irregularities, however, saying on Twitter that it had received few complaints and had taken measures to prevent double voting, adding that voter lists would be checked and verified.
Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales numbers reported by Tesla, and the electric car maker's numbers held up significantly better than its competitors. Tesla's deliveries fell by just 4.8% from the same quarter last year even as auto sales the world over, and especially in the U.S., slumped during the quarter after Covid-19 outbreaks led to health restrictions on households, travel and businesses, mass layoffs and wage cuts.

Shares of Tesla zoomed nearly 9% to $1,219.02 in Thursday's premarket, a day after closing 3.7% higher to $1,119.63.

Analysts expected Tesla to deliver about 72,000 vehicles during the last three months, according to a consensus of analysts surveyed by FactSet. A broader set of analyst estimates, compiled by Bloomberg, set higher expectations  83,000 vehicle deliveries in the second quarter.

Tesla shares soared in premarket trading Thursday after the automaker said it delivered about 90,650 vehicles in the second quarter, handily beating Wall Street expectations as the electric car maker's sales withstood the economic downturn better than most competitors.

General Motors, Toyota Motor, Fiat Chrysler and Ford all saw their second-quarter sales plunge by more than 30% as the coronavirus caused consumers to stay at home and dealerships and factories to shutter.

Tesla said it produced 82,272 vehicles in the three months ended June 30 including 75,496 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and only 6,326 of its older, higher priced Model S and Model X vehicles. The company did not say how many electric cars it made at its new Shanghai plant versus its US factory in Fremont, California.

It did not break out deliveries by geography, or by model either.

Instead, Tesla reported combined deliveries of 80,050 Model 3 sedans and Model Y cross-over SUVs, and combined deliveries of 10,600 of the older and more expensive Model S and X vehicles.

The production and delivery data comes a day after Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent out an e-mail congratulating his tens of thousands of employees on their "amazing" execution "in such difficult times."

In the first quarter, Tesla said it made more vehicles than it sold with 102,672 units produced, and 88,400 delivered. During the second quarter of 2019, Tesla said it made 87,048 vehicles including 72,531 Model 3s, and delivered 95,200, including 77,550 Model 3s.

During the second quarter, Tesla had to close its main U.S. car plant in Fremont, California, for several weeks due to orders from local health officials enforcing coronavirus shutdowns. It slashed pay for salaried workers and delayed giving raises, promotions and bonuses to employees until after a performance review that should be completed by the end of July.

Musk clashed with local health authorities over the restrictions. He also downplayed the severity and prevalence of Covid-19 in the U.S., even though he delayed the company's Battery Day and shareholder meeting until September, citing safety for crowds in the face of the coronavirus.

In the U.S., Tesla also faced two new federal safety probes, one over touchscreen failures in its vehicles, and another regarding a battery cooling system that may pose a fire risk in its older Model S vehicles.

In order to stoke demand for the company's electric vehicles, Tesla cut vehicle prices during the second quarter in North America and China.

Its Shanghai car plant came back online quickly after a coronavirus-related shutdown, however. Sales in China began to recover with the company selling 11,095 made-in-Shanghai Model 3s there in May, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.

On Wednesday, ahead of its deliveries report, Tesla's valuation edged higher than Toyota's. The American automaker's sales are a small fraction of its Japanese competitor, however. In 2019, Tesla reported deliveries of 367,500 vehicles globally, while Toyota reported sales that were 29 times higher at 10.7 million units.

Tesla had been expected to meet or beat street expectations for quarterly deliveries because Musk has been sending out "Everybody" e-mails to Tesla employees, which signal how the company is doing, and typically leak to press.

He sent one such e-mail on Wednesday around 11 a.m. PT to Tesla employees with the subject line "Congratulations Tesla Team!." The e-mail said, in its entirety: "Just amazing how well you executed, especially in such difficult times. I am so proud to work with you!"
"We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one another  and that means wearing a face-covering in public spaces," he added.

"Wearing a face covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways we have to slow the spread of COVID-19," Abbott said in a press release.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Thursday requiring residents across the state to wear a face-covering in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive Covid-19 cases as the outbreak rapidly spreads across the Lone Star state.

Abbott also issued a proclamation giving mayors and county judges the ability to impose restrictions on some outdoor gatherings of over 10 people.

Texas carved out several exemptions to the order, waiving the requirement for religious services. Kids under the age of 10 and people with a medical condition that prevents wearing a face covering are exempt from the order. The order says face coverings are also not required while exercising or voting, among other activities.

The order, however, expressly requires anyone at a protest or demonstration with more than ten people to cover their face. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has previously warned about the "potential for widespread transmission" of the coronavirus at "group gatherings during church events and within the broader community."

After the first violation of the order, people will be issued a verbal or written warning, according to the text of the order. Every subsequent violation is punishable by a fine of up to $250. Local police "can and should" enforce the rule, according to the order, but Abbott said police cannot detain or arrest people for violating it. The order is effective as of 12:01 p.m. Friday, local time.

Abbott's announcement comes after the governor had resisted calls for a statewide mandate by some Democratic politicians. The governor did allow local and city officials to issue their own requirements, but only after nine mayors from some of the largest cities in Texas sent a letter to Abbott, urging him to give them the "authority to set rules and regulations" mandating face masks in public.

Abbott said in a recorded announcement that he made the decision because the percent of total tests coming back positive and the hospitalization rate both increased too much. In the second half of May, Texas reported an average of about 1,500 new coronavirus cases every day, Abbott said. In the past week, "that number quadrupled," he said.

"Both of those danger zones have now been triggered," he added.

The CDC and the World Health Organization recommend that people wear masks as a way to slow the spread of the virus. Scientists say the virus can spread through respiratory droplets that pass when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Studies suggest the masks serve as a helpful barrier.

On Wednesday, Texas reported a record-high spike of 8,076 new cases in a 24-hour period, according to the state health department. The virus has now infected more than 168,000 people in Texas and killed at least 2,481 people.

By comparison, New York state had around 10,000 new daily cases at the height of its pandemic earlier this year.

Across Texas, there are 12,894 hospital beds and 1,322 ICU beds still available, but hospitals in some particularly hard-hit areas like Houston have said they are approaching surge capacity.

"We are now at a point where the virus is spreading so fast, there is little margin for error," Abbott said.

As more Texans have become infected with the virus, fallen ill and become hospitalized, Abbott last week ordered the suspension of elective procedures to make more room for Covid-19 patients in hospitals throughout the hardest hit counties: Bexar, Dallas, Harris and Travis counties. On Tuesday, he expanded the order to include Cameron, Hidalgo, Nueces and Webb counties. That affects some of Texas' biggest cities, including San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Austin.

"Importantly, these spikes are not limited to just the big cities," Abbott said. "More than 91 counties have hit record-high numbers in just the past three days."

Texas was among the first states to reopen. Abbott allowed the state's stay-at-home order to end on April 30 and by May 1, all stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls were allowed to reopen with modifications.

"Covid-19 is not going away," he added. "In fact, it's getting worse."
Members of the D.C. National Guard stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial monitoring demonstrators during a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 2, 2020 in Washington, DC.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has confirmed a report by The Associated Press that some of the service members who were mobilized to Washington, D.C., last month in response to civil unrest over the killing of George Floyd were issued bayonets. Defense documents obtained by the AP show some were not trained in riot response.

Members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, which is based in D.C. and typically guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, were mobilized last month to respond to massive protests over the treatment of Black Americans and systemic issues of police brutality. But they were never actually sent to the protests after they arrived.

The soldiers were issued bayonets for their June 2 deployment  but told they were to remain in their scabbards and not attached to their service rifles, Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark A. Milley wrote to two U.S. representatives in a letter that was obtained by the AP. The soldiers were also told no weapons were to enter the capital without clear orders and only after nonlethal options were first reviewed, he said.

Milley said the order to mobilize the troops came from Major Army Gen. Omar Jones, who serves as commander of the military district of Washington. His letter, dated June 26, was sent to two Democratic Congressmen, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, and Rep. Ted Lieu of California, who asked him for an explanation after the AP first reported on the use of bayonets on June 2.

Roughly 700 members of the 82nd Airborne Division were sent to two military bases near the District Capitol Area. The soldiers were armed with live-rounds, bayonets and riot gear. Bloomberg reported on June 11 that the Old Guard was also issued bayonets.

Upon arrival, neither the 82nd or The Old Guard were ever called off base and into the city to respond to protests. Division paratroopers were sent back to Fort Bragg on June 4, just days after they arrived.

But the reports also led to sharp condemnation and outrage on social media platforms.

An unclassified military document obtained by the AP also shows that some of the soldiers were not prepared to deal with the protesters. Instead commanders planned to give paratroopers the proper training within 96 hours of their arrival in Washington, the document shows.

While some infantry soldiers are trained in crowd control, especially those preparing for an overseas deployment, they don't typically undergo training for riot control and domestic civil unrest.
A man seats in front of a closed newstand at LAX Airport at the start of the Memorial Day holiday weekend during the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic in Los Angeles, California on May 22, 2020.

The Trump administration on Thursday said air travelers should wear face coverings like masks and announced a series of other guidelines aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19 in air travel.

Major U.S. airlines require air travelers to wear masks onboard flights and have recently warned travelers that they will refuse service to customers who don't comply, with a few exceptions like medical issues.

"Airlines and airports are strongly encouraged to require that everyone correctly wear a mask or cloth face covering in shared spaces," with a few exceptions such as medical issues or when eating or drinking, federal officials said in their guidelines. "Wearing a mask or cloth face covering is particularly necessary any time social distancing cannot be maintained."

They also called for airlines to collect passenger health declarations as well as contact information to aid government disease-tracing efforts.

The recommendations were jointly issued by the Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The guidelines called for physical distancing at airports. While they stopped short of mandating distancing during flights, the officials said airlines and airports should advise travelers "when it may not be possible to meet social distancing expectations" and stress the importance of wearing a mask and keeping hands clean.

Labor unions had called on the federal government to mandate masks on board.
In this photo taken in Hong Kong on June 3, 2020, Reese Tan, a 25-year old tutor, poses with his British National (Overseas), or BN(O), in his favorite part of the city and the place he would miss the most if he leaves, the bustling shopping and eating district of Mongkok.

The U.K. is offering around 3 million Hong Kong residents a path to British citizenship after a new national security law was imposed in the city, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Wednesday.

That announcement came after Beijing passed and implemented a new national security law in Hong Kong. Raab called the move "grave and deeply disturbing."

"The enactment and imposition of this national security law constitute a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration," U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Wednesday.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by then Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher guarantees Hong Kong's autonomy under the "one country, two systems" framework. The city was a British colony for over 150 years before being transferred back to China in 1997.

The new national security law is spurring concerns about excessive oversight from Beijing and eroding rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.
U.S. President Donald Trump (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Jim Watson and Peter Klaunzer | Pool, AFP | Getty Images

Relations between the U.S. and China  the world's top two economies  could worsen further as both countries have signaled that they are prepared to fight each other in many more ways, according to a political risk expert. "There's a lot of room for escalation here. I think that it's, by now, quite clear that we're in for the darkest chapter yet of U.S.-China relations," Todd Mariano, director for U.S. at Eurasia Group, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Thursday. "We're seeing moves now more on the technology and export front. I think the troubling sign is simply the multiplicity of fronts at which the two countries are fighting or preparing to fight," he said. In the past few years, disputes between the two countries were focused on areas such as their trade imbalance and contest in technology  which triggered a tariff war threatening to derail the global economy. In recent months, the U.S. and China have hit out at each other over a wider range of issues which include the origin of the coronavirus and the autonomy of Hong Kong.

There's a lot of room for escalation here. I think that it's, by now, quite clear that we're in for the darkest chapter yet of U.S.-China relations. Todd Mariano Eurasia Group

Hong Kong, a major business and financial center in Asia, is a self-governed Chinese territory that has a special trading relationship with the U.S. But Washington has started to pare back some of the city's privileges under U.S. law as Beijing tightens its control over the territory by enacting a national security law. In addition, China's expanding Belt and Road Initiative and continued assertions in the South China Sea also feed into its tensions with the U.S., according to Mariano.

The Belt and Road Initiative is a massive infrastructure push that many analysts and critics see as China's way of spreading its global influence through lending. The South China Sea is an important sea route for world trade where Beijing has claimed most of it as its own territory, even though other countries also lay claim to parts of it. "Having such a widespread conflict, I think, really undermines the ability of policymakers to sort of cordon off and resolve tensions on these issues," said Mariano.

Trump or Biden?

Analysts have warned that U.S. President Donald Trump, in seeking a second term in the White House, could ratchet up rhetoric and other actions against China in a bid to woo voters. The U.S. presidential election is scheduled for November this year. If Trump gets reelected, Washington's stance toward Beijing will remain: More bluster, more threats and probably even more tariffs, said William Reinsch, senior advisor and Scholl Chair in international business at think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies.

I've asked that question to a bunch of Americans doing business in China and they all said the same thing: They think that the Chinese prefer Trump to be reelected. William Reinsch Center for Strategic and International Studies
Protestors and police officers clash for the second morning in a row on July 1, 2020 in New York City following a budget vote. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images) David Dee Delgado | Getty Images

A global corporate reckoning that began in the United States after the killing of George Floyd has prompted industries long dominated by White males, such as the financial sector, to rethink diversity. George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, who knelt on Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd was arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. His death ignited worldwide protests aimed at addressing racial injustice and inequality. Wall Street has long been an industry dominated by White males. At Goldman Sachs, just 2.7 percent of executives, senior officials and managers are Black. At Citi, 2 percent of executives and senior managers are Black.

Closing the racial wealth gap

While companies and banks cannot single-handedly solve the systemic and historic racism that has existed in the United States since its founding, an effort is being made to try and give Black Americans a better chance at economic equality. In addition to the obvious benefit closing the racial wealth gap would mean for affected communities, a 2019 McKinsey report projected doing so could net the U.S. economy between $1.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion by 2028. "Public companies and private companies have to focus on 'how can you show your corporate purpose,' not just to your employees and your clients, but in every society you work," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told CNBC's Hadley Gamble in a World Government Summit panel last week. He added that "purposeful" companies are going to have better long term profitability. BlackRock has promised 30 percent more Black employees at the firm by 2024. As CEO of the world's largest asset manager, Fink oversees more than $6 trillion and hires 16,000 people across the globe, only 5 percent of which are Black. Global Infrastructure Partners Chairman Adebayo Ogunlesi told CNBC's Hadley Gamble that thanks to "prodding" from CEOs like Fink, business is recognizing that it has a leadership role to play in society in areas like economic and racial injustice.

Wall Street wakes up

Under pressure, banks have taken steps to do more to fight racism. Many CEOs released statements and spoke out about the killing of George Floyd, recognizing the deep divisions America faces when it comes to race. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon released a statement recognizing the "reality" of police brutality, and "coupled with the COVID crisis, highlights the inequities black and other diverse communities have and continue to face every day," vowing to do more as a firm. Wells Fargo pledged to double Black leadership over the next 5 years at the bank. According to a memo, only 6 percent of the San Francisco-based bank's senior leaders are Black. Bank of America announced a $1 billion, four-year commitment of additional support to help local communities address economic and racial inequality accelerated by Covid-19.

The gender gap
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The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies is holding a hearing Thursday on "Operation Warp Speed," the Trump administration's plan to rush development on a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is scheduled to testify along with Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Gary Disbrow, acting director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority's office of the assistant secretary for preparedness and response.

The hearing comes as several pharmaceutical and biotech companies such as Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are in the process of developing an experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

Pfizer released positive results Wednesday from its closely watched early-stage human trial of its vaccine. The company's working alongside with the German drugmaker BioNTech.

Pfizer said one of its four coronavirus vaccine candidates produced neutralizing antibodies, which researchers believe is necessary to build immunity to the virus, in all participants who received two of the 10 or 30 microgram doses after 28 days, according to the preliminary data.

The drug giant said the vaccine was generally well tolerated, though the experimental vaccine caused fever in some patients, especially for those who were in the 100 microgram group.

Another leading vaccine candidate Moderna is expected to enter a late-stage trial later this month. If all goes well in Moderna's next trial, its vaccine could be available for public distribution by the end of the year.

Scientists hope to get a vaccine to market soon but are setting expectations low for how quickly it can happen.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has said he is "cautiously optimistic" scientists can find a safe and effective vaccine by early 2021.

 CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Read CNBC's live updates to see the latest news on the COVID-19 outbreak.
Kieferpix | Getty Images

Just a few months ago, before the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the global economy, the unemployment rate in the U.S. hovered around 3.5%. The tight labor market meant skilled workers held the edge over employers, who had to pay big to entice top talent. At the top of many a job seeker's list, next to good money: salary transparency. Proponents say the disclosure of how much money employees make not only opens up communication around equality within an organization but helps workers feel more confident about whether they're being paid fairly. For some workers, openness indicates a corporate culture that values fairness and trust. It's also indicative of what many U.S. companies say they're striving for when it comes to standing for more than just their bottom line, especially in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis and new racial equality drive. "If you want to have a culture of trust and collaboration and thus one of retaining and attracting employees, transparency is being asked for  not only by the workers, but it's also being driven by the senior management team and HR," said Paul McDonald, senior executive director at Robert Half, a staffing firm for the creative industry. According to a recent survey from Robert Half, 77% of advertising and marketing hiring managers said their organization offers some level of salary transparency, with 34% reporting full transparency  salary data is available to everyone, inside and outside the firm. Numbers from a February 2020 Mercer report issued shortly before the pandemic shut down the U.S. are similar, with 67% of companies saying that openness about compensation is increasingly important. McDonald said the changes have been taking place gradually, but now uncertainty weighs. "We've seen the movement toward pay transparency as being a component of culture shift over the past decade, although current events are certainly changing the dynamics of this conversation."

A changing job market and the push for better pay

Gender, race and salary gaps

The slow march toward greater workplace pay transparency started more than a decade ago, when sites like PayScale and Glassdoor came online, arming workers with salary data to help negotiate raises or pay at new jobs. "Every aspect of the workplace was opaque; there were a lot of assumptions  dark corners  that made it hard for employees to navigate," said Alison Sullivan, community trends expert at Glassdoor, where people have been anonymously posting company reviews since 2007. The increasing amount of wage data from third-party sources uncovered something else: gender and racial pay gaps, which have become today's driver for salary transparency in corporate America. An Obama-era EEOC law requiring employers to report work data demographically (which has since stalled); the Time's Up and #Metoo movements; a handful of state laws banning employers from asking about salary history; and recent pressure from the investor community for public companies to disclose how they pay all employees are starting to narrow these salary gaps. According to Glassdoor, women earned $0.79 for every $1 men earned in 2019. Things are bleaker for Black and Latina women, who earn $0.62 and $0.54, respectively, for every $1 men earn, according to data from the National Partnership for Women & Families. These numbers also reveal a lack of female and minority representation in both higher-paying jobs and leadership roles.

Getty Images

Currently, Glassdoor does not include salaries broken down by race, only across gender. And efforts to bring this data into sunlight have helped: The Glassdoor 2019 data showing women earned $0.79 per every $1 men earn was up from 2016, when women earned $0.76. After the momentum in the past few years, Glassdoor's CEO recently committed to expanding its own data to better shine a light on racial inequalities in the workplace. "It's encouraging to see companies around the globe discussing how to improve representation and diversity, and it's important that pay equality is included in these discussions too," Sullivan said. "Achieving full-pay equity means companies must recognize all who experience pay gaps and how it's exacerbated for those in underrepresented groups. To date, there has been a disconnect in broader discussions acknowledging the amplified effects of the racial pay gap among companies." Natasha Lamb, managing partner with Arjuna Capital, an investment firm focused on socially responsible investments, said the importance of pay transparency is simple: "When companies publish their numbers, gaps shrink," she said. Since 2016, Arjuna has collected gender pay gap disclosures from 22 leading consumer, financial and technology firms; its most recent scorecard awarded only Citigroup, Mastercard and Starbucks with an A. Half of the firms earned an F for their lack of quantitative reporting about median gender and racial pay gaps.

When companies publish their numbers, gaps shrink. Natasha Lamb managing partner at Arjuna Capital

Investors, said Lamb, want to see that companies are putting best practices in place when it comes to equal pay for equal work, especially today. Some public firms  but not enough, she said  are closing pay gaps with annual audits that track all pay, hiring more women and people of color and moving them up the ladder into higher-paying jobs. "Gender and racial pay equity is more important now than ever, as it is the most economically vulnerable among us that are at the biggest risk in this pandemic," she said. "The wealth gaps experienced by women and people of color can add up to $1 million over the course of a career  that's the difference between security and insecurity when crisis hits." While the work Mercer has done in this area has always focused on gender and race, clients clearly were more focused on gender in recent years, said Gail Greenfield, a principal at the consulting firm's Washington, D.C., office who specializes in pay equity. "Frankly, there just has not been attention on race and ethnicity. It took a second stage to gender," she said. But now Greenfield is getting far more inquiries than they ever have about racial diversity and Black employees. "It's coming up in requests from clients that I didn't see a month ago," she said.

Ending the taboo of talking salary

Lifting the taboo of talking about money at work and being as open as possible with workers is something that most firms say is important, but they're still pretty bad at it. According to the Mercer survey, only 14% of companies have approached pay transparency beyond a moderate level and 60% say that managers are not trained to effectively deliver pay communication. Robert Half research shows that about one-third of companies offer full transparency  wage info is shared within and outside an organization  while the bulk of firms either disclose all or some wage data internally. "Most employers are being partially transparent, sharing compensation philosophy with staff and publishing salary ranges, but there's still lack of transparency with sharing pay ranges for all positions including director level and up," said Amber Clayton, a director at the Society for Human Resource Management. This could be partly due to a generational divide, where young Gen Y and Gen Z workers who share everything on social media clash against Boomer and Gen X senior managers, who were taught young that they shouldn't go around talking about money, which some associate too closely with self-worth.

Mercer's Greenfield said even with a combined focus on gender and race, don't expect companies to embrace full salary transparency across all employees. "In my experience, when they reveal pay equity, they reveal as much as they can to satisfy the viewer, so to speak, but not more than they need to." Broad studies and data points showing how much women or people of color were paid compared to white male employees lack specific detail. Greenfield said it is still a fraction of companies, less than 100, that actually reveal full pay equity data, and an even smaller number of firms which disclose that information for both gender and race. "Most companies are asking themselves if they are willing to share a range for a person's role," Greenfield said. "That's the level of transparency we are talking about now.  We are a long way from moving to a world where we know what other people are paid exactly," she said, but she added that employers do recognize how much information is now available to employees and prospective employees because of sites like Glassdoor and Salary.com. She said for employees in discussions with managers, sticking to inquiries about salary ranges for positions and what determines where a candidate fits into that range  rather than efforts to push for full disclosure of each specific employee's pay  is a good approach. "Put the onus on the employer," she said. But she added, "There's more momentum toward pay transparency, but not a lot of transparency."
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  J&T Express has apologized again to the public after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to shut down the delivery service provider over mishandling of delivery packages.

The courier service found itself in hot water after a video, showing J&T Express staff mishandling parcels and not wearing protective gears, went viral on social media.

The President got irked and ordered government agencies to investigate customer complaints against J&T Express Philippines.

We appreciate the concern expressed by the President towards our customers welfare as well as the well-being of our many partners and employees, the companys vice president, Zoe Chi, said in a statement.

Furthermore, we will cooperate with the government in any investigation that it will conduct," Chi said. "We are committed to improving our services for the benefit of the public.

Among those probing J&T Express are the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).

J&T Express Philippines Brand Manager Leonardo Alampay said the company has submitted the findings of its internal investigation to CIDG on Wednesday.

Alampay added the management has already sanctioned the personnel who were caught on the video carelessly throwing parcels and packages onto a van.

He also confirmed the employee who recorded the video was also penalized since taking photos and clips inside J&T warehouses is prohibited.

The brand manager, however, said employees who will catch their colleagues doing such unacceptable practices can report directly to their supervisors and not through social media.

Chia, meanwhile, reiterated that the viral video was an isolated case and does not reflect the company's standards on the proper handling of customer shipments.

The company has 24/7 monitoring across all its facilities, branches, and warehouses," Chi said. "Each of these facilities is also manned by security guards and employs a real-time tracking system."

The firm also said its communication lines are open for customers whose items were damaged or lost during the delivery process.

In the event that the parcel is damaged, they can be identified in our facility, be traced and accounted for either in our branches, warehouses and down to the very name of the rider who delivers these parcels to their recipient, Alampay said.

Any parcel that is lost, no matter how improbable that might be regarding the system that we are using, they can be compensated for justly and fairly through our claim system," he added.

Customers can also contact the J&T Express Philippines 24/7 hotline at (02) 8911-1888 or send an e-mail at customerCA@jtexpress.ph.

They can also message the companys Facebook page J&T Express Philippines or Instagram or Twitter accounts with the handle @jntexpressph.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  Investor attitude towards the Philippine banking system remains strong even as two big local banks are tagged in the Wirecard financial scandal, the central bank chief said.

"Overall, the Wirecard issue does not pose significant reputational impact on the Philippines. We also do not see a negative impact on investor optimism or shareholder confidence," Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno told reporters Thursday.

Investor sentiment and even stock market fluctuations remain largely a reaction to the global pandemic rather than the Wirecard fiasco, he added.

BDO Unibank and the Bank of the Philippine Islands have been tagged in the financial crunch faced by the German payments firm after denying Wirecard's claim that they held $2.1 billion in trust.

This was discovered after Wirecard's auditor presented bank certificates to the local banks, which both said the documents were fake.

Wirecard has filed for insolvency and admitted that the missing money might have never existed in the first place.

Diokno refused to share details of the BSP investigation on the issue, but maintained that there is "no proof" that the funds are lodged with the two banks.

"So far, our investigation does not lead to any trace of the alleged missing 1.9 billion euros entering the Philippines, which by its value alone will trigger reporting to the Anti-Money Laundering Council and internal due diligence or review by our banks," he said, describing the Wirecard's issue as mainly a case of an "internal financial reporting fraud."

CNN Philippines reported earlier this week that a BPI treasurer-in-trust-for account carrying P100 million was certified in 2017 to fulfill the requirements for Wirecard e-Money Philippines, Inc.  the local arm of the German company  to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

BPI President Cezar Consing has said the bank cetificate looked fake and maintained that his bank never had a relationship with Wirecard.

However, a law firm said the bank account was legitimate and was used as repository of the paid-up capital, or "show money", of the local unit when they sought to operate in the Philippines.

READ: Law firm confirms working with Wirecard to open PH unit, says BPI account under treasurer's name real

However, Diokno did say that the case bolsters the BSP's numerous attempts for the easing of the country's bank secrecy laws to allow regulators to peer into deposit and transaction records and better guard against questionable deals and possible financial crimes. The measure has been long pending in Congress, but has never been passed by lawmakers.

He added that "strong corporate governance" protocols within banks would allow officials to catch rogue employees and prevent any wrongdoing.

Wirecard's former chief executive officer Markus Braun has been arrested in Germany for charges of accounting fraud, while its former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek is reportedly being pursued by authorities.

The Philippines' Department of Justice mounted its own probe upon learning that Immigration records showed that Marsalek may have flown to the country just last week and could be staying here.

Back here, a BDO marketing officer has been sacked while a BPI assistant manager has been suspended pending internal investigations, with the lenders saying they may have been involved in issuing the fake bank certificates to Wirecard.

"I would like to emphasize that the banking industry is resilient amid the Wirecard and the DOSRI transaction issues," Diokno added.

A separate probe has been carried out by the Anti-Money Laundering Council in an attempt to uncover who may be involved in the supposed money trail that found its way from Munich to Manila.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  More than 15,000 prisoners have been released to decongest overcrowded jails, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano bared Thursday.

In a statement, Ano said the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology freed the 15,000 persons deprived of liberty or PDLs from March 17 to June 22 to control the spread of COVID-19.

Of the 15,322 freed prisoners, 5,910 were from Metro Manila, 1,557 were from Calabarzon, 1,487 were from Central Visayas, 1,041 were from Central Luzon, 897 were from Zamboanga Peninsula, 762 from Northern Mindanao, while the rest are from other regions.

Ano said majority of those released were senior citizens and had light or bailable offenses. The release was also authorized by courts and is in accordance with guidelines issued by the Supreme Court due to the pandemic.

This includes Administrative Circular (AC) No. 33 2020 supplemented by the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) Circular No. 89 2020 allowing electronic filing of information and transmission of release orders; OCA Circular No. 91 2020 stressing guidelines for the release of qualified PDLs through self-recognizance and provisional dismissal; and AC No. 37 2020, which authorizes pilot testing of video conference hearings of their criminal charges.

Ang paglaya ng libo-libong PDLs ay patunay na hindi sila nakakaligtaan at hindi pinapabayaan. Patunay rin itong gumagana ang justice system sa bansa kahit pa man may pandemya, Ano added.

[Translation: The release of thousands of PDLs proves that they are not being neglected. It also shows that the justice system works in the country under the pandemic.]

To date, 549 of the 783 confirmed COVID-19 cases among PDLs have already recovered, while 90 recoveries out of 135 cases were recorded among BJMP personnel, Ano said.

The Philippines has recorded a total of 38,511 COVID-19 cases and 1,270 deaths so far.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  The largest business group in Cebu has appealed to private banks to extend the payments of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) amid the re-imposition of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the area.

Felix Taguiam, president of Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), disclosed that many SMEs are experiencing financial hardship due to the pandemic crises.

We are asking the private banks here to extend the payments for everything, from loan payments to interest adjustments, Taguiam told CNN Philippines The Final Word with Rico Hizon on Thursday night.

Taguiam said CCCI also referred their SME members to the Department of Trade and Industry for assistance to secure small bank loans and help restart their businesses amid the ECQ in Cebu City.

He added that the reimposition of ECQ last June 16 dealt a further blow to the businesses there. President Rodrigo Duterte extended the ECQ in Cebu City last Tuesday, at least until July 15.

The second time around, it is really hard for everybody especially to the businesses here, the CCCI president said.

Due to movement restrictions, Taguiam noted that most SMEs in the city started moving their businesses online to find a market even during the pandemic.

I hope everybody in the business is trying to adjust and adapt (to online sales), he said.

The CCCI head expressed hope that Cebu City will revert to a general community quarantine setting by July 16, as around 60 to 70 percent of the citys economy depends on SMEs.

A lot of employees really want to work but cant because there is no transportation, there are border controls, and everything is banned, Taguiam lamented.

CCCI has over 900 member enterprises in the fields of trade, industry, service, information and communications technology, and sectoral business associations.

As of Thursday's count by the Department of Health Central Visayas Center for Health Development, Cebu City has 6,288 confirmed COVID-19 cases along with 3,481 active infections. A total of 195 died and 2,612 recovered from the virus there.

Government officials named Cebu City as the new hotspot of COVID-19 in the country due to the spike of infections in the past weeks.
A flag-raising ceremony is held by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland at the Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong, south China, July 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

HONG KONG, July 1 (Xinhua) -- China's Hong Kong celebrated Wednesday the 23rd anniversary of its return to the motherland, after a law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong came into force Tuesday night.

China's national flag and the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) were hoisted and the national anthem was played at a ceremony at the Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong Island at about 8:00 a.m. local time Wednesday in celebration of the anniversary.

Helicopters flew over Victoria Harbor, displaying the national and regional flags, and a fireboat sprayed a water-column salute.

At a reception following the flag-raising ceremony, Chief Executive of the HKSAR Carrie Lam stressed the significance of the return anniversary and said the new national security law will help restore stability in the HKSAR.

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the HKSAR was passed unanimously on Tuesday at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and took effect at 11:00 p.m. local time the same day upon its promulgation by the HKSAR government in the gazette.

The legislation came as Hong Kong had been gripped by prolonged social disturbances since June of last year. Intensified violent incidents and riots trampled order and the rule of law, threatened people's safety, and endangered national security.

Lam called the enactment of the law a turning point to take Hong Kong out of the current impasse and restore stability and order from the chaos.

The HKSAR government will do its utmost and remain steadfast in its duties to fulfill the primary responsibility of implementing the law in Hong Kong, Lam said, saying a committee on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR will be established.

A series of celebrations were held on Wednesday for the anniversary, including parades of floats and fishing vessels and residents singing the national anthem in chorus.

At the opening ceremony of celebrating activities, Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, highlighted the successful practice of "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong over the past 23 years.

The social unrest arising from the now-withdrawn ordinance amendments concerning fugitive transfers since last year has exposed the tremendous risks Hong Kong is facing in safeguarding national security and posed a grave challenge to "one country, two systems," Luo said.

"With the elapse of time, we will get a good view that the promulgation of the law marks a significant turning point for Hong Kong to move from turmoil to stability, and a major milestone for the practice of 'one country, two systems' in Hong Kong," he said.

Celebrations can be spotted across Hong Kong. Residents sang the national anthem in the chorus at multiple landmarks, including Victoria Peak and the Hong Kong Observation Wheel.

In Victoria Harbor, 150 fishing vessels, decorated with the national flag and banners, sailed in a procession to celebrate the anniversary and the passage of the new law, which were warmly greeted by joyful Hong Kong residents on the harbor front.

The captain of the pilot boat, surnamed Leung, participated in every parade since 1997. The man, 68, said the lives of fishermen have become better and better since Hong Kong's return to the motherland. "Only when our country is prosperous, can Hong Kong be prosperous," he said.

Cally Kwong, an NPC deputy from the HKSAR, participated in the parade of floats and said she felt "very special" today as the new law took effect.

The law came at the right timing as after a turbulent year, Hong Kong residents long for a peaceful life, she said, stressing that the legal mechanism on safeguarding national security will guarantee Hong Kong's future.

"Hong Kong is our home and we must cherish our home," she said.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  A robotics company from Denmark utilized robots as a tool for disinfecting small and large places to kill pathogens including COVID-19.

Blue Ocean Robotics introduced its UV Disinfection (UVD) Robots, where long cylindrical-shaped ultraviolet lamps are placed on top of robotic object that can move around places to detect virus and bacteria.

The companys chief executive officer, Claus Risager, said the UVD Robots can drive around itself and spot its target.

This meets the UV-C light (in the UVD Robot) on these bacteria and viruses and completely destroys it, Risager told CNN Philippines Rico Hizon on The Final Word.

Risager proudly stated the fast-paced UVD Robots can kill 99.99 percent of viruses and bacteria in all surfaces and hotspots for up to 10 minutes. This is why it is effective in disinfecting hospital hallways and patient rooms in this time of COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

He added that the innovative robots can also be used in disinfecting small and large places, from houses and offices to hospitals and airports.

Minding the dangerous health risks UV lights may pose on people especially on their skin, Risager assured that the UVD Robots has a system to minimize such exposure. He said the robots has the ability to shut off its lamps when it gets close to people.

It is a very extended safety system on these robots," he noted. "That is very important."

UV-C lights used by UVD Robots lamps are not harmful to humans since they are generated to kill live organisms thriving in surfaces, Risager added.

Blue Ocean Robotics started to develop the UVD Robots in 2014 and rolled out in the market in 2018 in Odense, Denmark.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2) President Rodrigo Duterte has not expressed any objections to the provisions of the controversial anti-terrorism bill, the countrys security adviser said Thursday.

I talked to my fellow Cabinet members about it, and they said, so far, he has no objections to the provisions of the proposed anti-terrorism bill, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. told CNN Philippines The Source.

As of publishing, Malacanang has yet to give an update on the status of the proposed measure, which has been under review by the Palaces legal team. The President has until July 9 or 30 days from receipt of the enrolled copy to act on the bill, otherwise it would lapse into law.

His spokesperson Harry Roque previously noted Duterte is inclined to sign the bill which seeks to impose stiffer penalties for terrorists and those found to be helping or engaging in related acts. The chief executive also earlier certified the measure as urgent.

RELATED: Duterte to personally review anti-terrorism bill for constitutional infirmities  Roque

Esperon, for his part, said he will also personally push for the bills passage, citing that it has been in the legislative mill for three years.

If passed, the anti-terrorism bill which targets to repeal the Human Security Act of 2007 will allow suspects to be arrested without warrant and detained without charges for up to 24 days.

The proposed measure was met with a flurry of criticism from netizens and rights groups who voiced out concerns on its broad and vague provisions that may supposedly lead to human rights violations. Critics also argued the measure may be used to target those who express dissent against the government.

However, the security adviser allayed these concerns, saying government officials themselves will ensure that their Constitutional safeguards including rights to freedom of expression and assembly will be protected.

If they are just expressing their dissent, their ideas, and legal expression of what they have against injustices, we allow that, Esperon said.

We would even protect them to be able to do that. Activism is not terrorism, and terrorism is not activism," he added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  As families of the four Army intelligence personnel killed in Jolo, Sulu grieve their loss and demand accountability, President Rodrigo Duterte and top security officials are appealing for calm among the ranks.

The remains of three of the four Philippine Army intelligence personnel killed in a shooting incident on June 29 lie in state at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani after being flown in from Zamboanga.

For the families of Sergeant Jaime Velasco, 38, and Captain Irwin Managuelod, 33, the loss is too much to bear.

An Army honor guard watches over the casket of Sgt. Jaime Velasco as the fallen soldier's father watches by.

Velascos father, who shares his name and profession, said he never forced his children to enlist in the military. He said Jaime found military service as a promising career to provide for his wife and three young daughters.

Mabait yung anak ko. Bakit ginanyan nila? Kaya yan ang medyo nagpapasama sa loob ko. Nagpakilala na, 'Kabaro lang kita.' Nag-raise-your-hand pa, binanatan pa nila, he said on Wednesday.

[Translation: My son was kind. Why did they do this to him? Just the thought of it makes me feel depressed. He clearly introduced himself as a soldier. He raised his hand. Yet they still shot him.]

April Joy Managuelod, widow of slain Capt. Irwin Managuelod, speaks with reporters as family members and friends watch on.

April Joy, Captain Managuelods widow, is still in shock over what had happened. They were married in September of last year. They were planning their life as a family, but those plans were cut short when Irwins name emerged as one of those confirmed killed in what the Philippine National Police calls a shooting incident.

Hindi ko maintindihan bakit kabaro pa, she says, describing just how traumatic it was knowing what happened to her husband. Kakapirma lang namin ng marriage certificate, tapos kahapon, death certificate na niya yung pinipirmahan ko, she said, holding back tears.

[Translation: I dont understand why it had to be a comrade (who shot him.) We just signed our marriage certificate. Yesterday, its already his death certificate Im fixing my signature on.

Both families only have one demand: That justice be served  and served properly.

Kung sakaling ano man ang kahitnatnan ng imbestigasyong ito, sana naman yung walang bias ba, na pantay-pantay. Kami pang na-agrabyado, kami pa ang may sala? Hindi makatarungan yung ginawa nila. Sana maparusahan ang dapat maparusahan, Velasco said.

[Translation: Whatever happens in this investigation, I hope its fair and unbiased. We were the ones aggrieved by what happened, yet we are accused of being at fault? What they did is not justifiable. Those who deserve to be punished must be punished.]

Alam ko po lalabas po talaga ang totoo. Di po kami papabayaan nung mga mistah ni Awen at ng buong Armed Forces, Irwins widow says.

[Translation: I know in the end that the truth will emerge. Awens fellow classmates (in the Philippine Military Academy) and the Armed Forces will be there for us.]

The family of Major Marvin Indammog requested for privacy during the wake. Corporal Abdal Asula, who received full military honors, was buried in Sulu to keep with Muslim traditions.

Philippine Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala said the families of all four soldiers will receive pension and funeral assistance.

Vice President Leni Robredo, who visited the wake, also provided assistance to the bereaved families. Other officials who visited were Senator Risa Hontiveros, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, and the Armys commanding general, Lieutenant General Gilbert Gapay.

Calling for calm among the ranks

Major General Corleto Vinluan, commander of Joint Task Force Sulu and the Philippine Armys 11th Infantry Division, said emotions are running high among Army units in Sulu, where the four slain Army personnel were based.

Nandito ako sa ground. Mahirap yung ground commander na, kapag nakita kang galit ng tropa. Magagalit down the line yan, down to the lowest ranking enlisted personnel, galit na yan. Yun ang delikado, Vinluan said in a phone interview.

[Translation: Im here on the ground. Its difficult for a ground commander to be seen angry by your men. The anger goes down the line, down to the lowest ranking enlisted personnel. Once they get mad, thats dangerous.]

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana relayed that President Rodrigo Duterte does not want the issue to escalate further, joining calls from top military and police leaders for calm among the ranks.

Ang gusto niya, wag nang lumaki. One of these days, kakausapin din niya yung mga tropa sa South, Lorenzana says, quoting the commander-in-chief. Sabi niya, Kakausapin ko yan para di lumaki.

[Translation: He wants the issue to stop escalating. One of these days, he will talk to troops in the South. He said, I will talk to them so that the situation diffuses.]

Duterte has sought for a meeting to talk to the nine police personnel implicated in the shooting incident.

Lorenzana said he has also advised military leaders to control their people, saying that an investigation on the incident is now underway.

Both Army Chief Gapay and PNP Chief General Archie Gamboa said that the incident does not affect the relationship between the two armed services.

In a statement, Gamboa appealed for calm over what he called speculation and misrepresentation of facts, some possibly done on purpose, that tend to erode the police-military unity by driving a wedge between Sulu PNP and 11th ID, Philippine Army.

Gapay said that the Army will revisit policies such as their Standard Operating Procedures and other policies.

In order to prevent any similar incidents like these from occurring in the future, I call for sobriety from each and every member of the Philippine Army. Let us all remain steadfast in our quest for truth and justice, Gapay said in a statement.

CNN Philippines Senior Correspondent David Santos contributed to this report.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2, 2020)  Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said India has expressed its intent to carry out navigation activities in the South China Sea.

In an online forum on Thursday, Lorenzana said navigation in the South China Sea is open to all countries.

"We do not prevent other countries from passing through or doing things there in China Sea. The British do passes through the China Sea. The French, all other countries. We do not invite them to come," he said.

Lorenzana, however, said Indian presence in the area may add to complications in the disputed waters. China has a long-standing border dispute with India.

"If they (India) want to come, it's OK with us. But at the same time, if they come, they will be increasing the tension in the area," Lorenzana said.

Lorenzana, meanwhile, said China's naval exercises in the South China Sea are a cause for a concern.

Reports earlier stated that China's naval exercise in the disputed Paracel Islands showcases its capability to storm and seize islands.

Lorenzana said China can conduct war games within its exclusive economic zone, but doing them in contested areas is highly provocative.

"That is very concerning... If they did it in the part of the South China Sea then it's okay. But if they're doing it in the contested areas, then that will sound the alarm bells for all the claimants here in the South China Sea," Lorenzana said.
CNN Philippines (Metro Manila, July 2)  MRT-3 said Thursday it will deploy fewer trains beginning Monday, July 6, as more depot workers tested positive for coronavirus.

The number of trains could be reduced to between 10 and 12 trains, from 16 to 19, although this is not yet final, Department of Transportation Undersecretary for Railways Timothy John Batan said in a briefing.

The number of trains that will run next week would be based on the number of maintenance workers who could render services next week, he added.

The official added they were working with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board to increase the number of augmentation buses in service so passengers won't be too inconvenienced.

Batan also said there are no plans to shut down MRT-3 operations, although they continue to monitor the situation. However, there would be a temporary halt to train service on some weekends because of rail replacement activities.

The suspended weekend operations will cover the following dates: July 4-5, August 8-9, August 21-23, and September 12-13.

MRT-3 logged 127 COVID-19 infections, Batan reported. Of the number, 124 are depot personnel of the rail line's maintenance provider while three are MRT-3 railway workers.

A mass swab testing identified the number of cases, Batan said, adding that the infected individuals have been quarantined.

It was also emphasized that the depot employees had no interactions with passengers.

MRT-3 is already operating with only 13 percent of its capacity due to the physical-distancing rule aimed at limiting both the staff and passenger's risk of exposure to COVID-19 and curbing the spread of the viral disease.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2) Two opposition lawmakers are seeking a probe into Mondays fatal shooting incident in Jolo, Sulu, which left four Army intelligence officers dead.

Senator Risa Hontiveros on Thursday filed Senate Resolution No. 460, urging the proper Senate panel to investigate, in aid of legislation, the shooting incident involving personnel from the local Sulu police.

Hontiveros said she is likewise seeking the establishment of measures against the excessive use of force and violence within the police force.

The police gunned down unarmed plainclothes soldiers, who could easily have been innocent civilians, Hontiveros said in a statement.

She continued: Ilan pa ang kailangan mamatay -- sibilyan man o militar, sa Maynila man o sa Jolo -- para matigil ang karahasang ito? Our law enforcers should preserve peace in our communities, not disturb it."

[Translation: How many people need to die whether civilian or military, whether in Manila or Jolo to make the violence stop?]

Senator Francis Kiko Pangilinan echoed the sentiment, as he also urged the upper chamber to hold an independent investigation in order to give justice to the victims and the families they left behind.

He also urged ground commanders of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to ensure peace and avoid escalation of tension among security personnel in the aftermath of the incident.

We should be going after the common enemy -- terrorists, drug lords, armed groups, and in this time of the pandemic, COVID -- not against each other, Pangilinan said.

The four slain Army officersall from the 9th Intelligence Service Unit of the 11th Infantry Division were gunned down on Monday by Jolo cops, who had first claimed self defense.

PNP later ruled out the "misencounter" angle, saying that based on their analysis of reports on the ground, the soldiers did not fire a single shot at the police.

The chief of Jolo Police has been relieved from his post following the incident, with PNP citing command responsibility.

The nine cops tagged in the shooting have been disarmed and placed under restrictive custody. They are also facing a third party probe by the National Bureau of Investigation, which has been tasked to submit an initial report on the matter by next week.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  The smuggling of pork and pork products is the country's biggest concern as it buckles up against the new swine flu from China, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said on Thursday.

"[A]ng pinakaproblema natin most of the time is yung smuggling at tsaka yung merong dinadala na produkto galing mga countries na bawal tayo mag-import," said Agriculture Secretary William Dar in the Laging Handa virtual briefing.

[Translation: Our main problem most of the time is the smuggling of these products from countries we imposed import restrictions on.]

Dar made the statement in light of recent reports of a new strain of swine flu in China called G4, which is similar to the H1N1 swine flu that led to the 2009 pandemic.

In a separate briefing, Agriculture Asst. Secretary Noel Reyes assured that G4 is not yet in the country, adding that the import of pork, meat products, and hogs from China and other countries infected with African swine fever remains prohibited.

READ: Agri group calls for suspension of agricultural imports to prevent entry of new swine flu from China

However, the department is not taking any chances.

"Nakikiusap po kami na sa mga nagne-negosyo na nagpaparating pa rin illegally nitong mga pork and pork products na galing lalo na sa China, meron na silang epidemic in terms of swine flu, huwag natin dagdagan ang problema natin sa bansa," Dar pleaded, adding that the Philippines' battle against ASF is not over yet.

[Translation: We are asking businessmen who keep bringing pork and pork products from China illegally to not add to the country's problems anymore.]

The Agriculture chief also noted that quarantine measures have been ramped up in seaports and airports to help curb the smuggling of unsafe and questionable goods.

Earlier this week, the DA urged hog raisers to report unusual hog deaths as well as cases of swine exhibiting any flu-like symptoms in light of the new swine flu strain.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 3) - The San Juan City government will wait until all the COVID-19 test results of the more than 600 vendors and workers are available before it decides when it will reopen the city's main public market.

will wait until all the COVID-19 test results of the more than 600 vendors and workers are available before it decides when it will reopen the city's main public market.

Mayor Francis Zamora inspected the Agora market on Thursday as it underwent disinfection after a fish vendor tested positive for the coronavirus disease.

The case prompted city officials to shut down the facility on Wednesday and test all its workers. Should there be more than three confirmed cases, the market will stay closed for another two weeks, Zamora said.

"Mayroon tayong mas maliliit na wet market sa iba't ibang mga barangay, yung mga talipapa, pansamantala dito muna tayo kailangan na bumili o sa mga grocery o supermarket natin," he said.

[Translation: We have smaller wet markets in other barangays, we can buy from there temporarily or in groceries or supermarkets]

The mayor added that only workers who got negative results will be allowed to sell again after securing a health clearance from the city health office.

Meanwhile, some fish vendors stood outside the market on the same day, worried about their livelihood.

"Kailangan naming makapagtinda ulit, marami po kaming pangangailangan, gastusin, bayarin," Melissa dela Cruz, one of the vendors said.

[Translation: We need to sell again, we have a lot of needs and expenses.]

But Zamora said the city might also use this opportunity to rehabilitate the market. During the renovation, the vendors will be moved to the Plaza ng Masa temporarily.

San Juan City has almost 400 coronavirus infections as of Wednesday.

CNN Philippines' Paolo Barcelon and Janine Peralta contributed to this report.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  Private hospitals in Cebu province, including coronavirus hotspot Cebu City, are being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, according to data and an official of the Department of Health.

DOH data as of June 30 show that 77.97 percent of the beds for COVID-19 patients in the province are occupied.

Nearly all or 98 percent of the isolation beds at the Chong Hua Hospital -- Cebu City's major private facilities handling COVID-19 patients -- are presently being used, DOH spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a media forum on Thursday.

All beds are taken in other private hospitals in the province such as Mactan Doctors Hospital in Lapu Lapu City and Cebu North General Hospital in Cebu City, according to the DOH. This is also the case for Eversley Childs Sanitarium in Mandaue City and Talisay District Hospital, in Talisay, which are DOH hospitals.

Vergeire noted that Cebu is experiencing what private hospitals in Metro Manila experienced during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak a few months ago. Private health care providers are being swamped by patients as they tend to be the preferred facilities, not government hospitals.

Ang talagang pinupuntahan ng tao ay private hospitals, she said. [Translation: People really go to private hospitals.]

She reiterated that Cebu City also needs additional health care workers, which is why the DOH has deployed additional doctors, including infectious disease specialists, and nurses to private and government hospitals there.

Ang private hospitals nila ay na-o-overwhelm pati sa [human health resources], she said. Translation: Their private hospitals are being overwhelmed, including their health care human resources.]

Vergeire said that COVID-19 inter-agency task force members including DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III and Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, overseer of the COVID-19 response in Cebu City, have been visiting hospitals in Cebu since Wednesday to determine how the government could be of assistance to them.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 2)  A policeman was killed and three others were wounded in a shooting incident at a checkpoint in Sultan Kudarat on Monday.

According to a report from the Esperanza Municipal Police Station, Police Executive Master Sergeant Arnold Paclibar was killed in the shootout.

Those injured were identified as Police Staff Sergeant Chato Maycong; Josephine Danggan, a barangay health worker; and Arnel Saldo, a tanod in Barangay Poblacion.

The two policemen are based at the Esperanza Municipal Police Station.

The victims were conducting a quarantine checkpoint in the area when they asked the passengers of two motorcycles to present documents. The officials, however, reportedly found out that the documents did not match the motorcycles.

Police said a passenger of one of the motorcycles pulled out a gun and shot at Paclibar. Maycong reportedly fired back but he was shot at as well.

The suspects quickly fled the scene, while the victims were rushed to the hospital, where Paclibar was declared dead on arrival, the police report said.

An investigation into the incident is underway.

Stringer Dennis Arcon contributed to this report.
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(CNN) - The current spike in new coronavirus numbers is due to an increase in cases, not because of more testing, Admiral Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health for the US Department of Health and Human Services said on Thursday.

There is no question that the more testing you get, the more you will uncover  but we do believe this is a real increase in cases, because the percent positivitys are going up. So, this is real increases in cases, Giroir told the House Select Committee on Coronavirus.

Giroir the US we did flatten the curve earlier during the pandemic, but we are not flattening the curve right now, the curve is still going up.

Across the US, some states are doing better than others, Giroir said, four states are counting for about 50% of our new cases, and they're very concerning to all in public health.

Those states are California, Arizona, Texas and Florida  which all posted record new cases this week, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Giroir, who has recently been critical of younger generations said, we really do believe the current outbreak is primarily due to under 35s, with a lot of gatherings and not appropriate protection  like masks.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "COVID-19 spike in US due to increase in cases  not more testing, federal official says"
(CNN)  Sleep problems in early childhood may be linked to the development of certain mental health disorders in adolescence, according to new research.

A study of 7,155 children in the United Kingdom found that waking up frequently during the night and irregular sleep routines as babies and toddlers was linked to psychotic experiences in children ages 12 and 13. Also, children who slept for shorter periods at night were more likely to be associated with borderline personality disorder at ages 11 and 12.

The research, which published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, was the first time possible links between early childhood sleep problems and adolescent psychotic experiences and borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms have been examined.

"We know from previous research that persistent nightmares in children have been associated with both psychosis and borderline personality disorder," said lead author Isabel Morales-Munoz, a research fellow at the Institute of Mental Health at the University of Birmingham.

"But nightmares do not tell the whole story. We've found that, in fact, a number of behavioral sleep problems in childhood can point towards these problems in adolescence," she said.

Adolescence, typically defined as the ages between 10 and 19, is a key period in human development because of brain and hormonal changes, and it's now thought to be when many mental health problems start.

Prior research in Australia found that babies with persistent severe sleep problems in their first year were at greater risk for anxiety and emotional issues in later childhood. Sleep problems in children and adolescents have been shown to predict the development of various emotional and behavioral problems, including depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, risk-taking and aggression. However, findings have been inconsistent, especially when based on objective measurements of sleep, rather than parental reports.

Sleep and mental health are closely connected in adults, with sleep problems increasing the risk for developing particular mental illnesses as well as resulting from mental health issues.

Parents shouldn't worry

Dr. Jenny Radesky, an assistant professor of developmental behavioral pediatrics at Michigan Medicine, said that disturbed sleep in early childhood was a marker of many things, and there wasn't a clear mechanism by which it could be influencing the risk of these diagnoses, which may sound scary to parents.

She also noted that the study didn't appear to have properly adjusted for parental mental illness, which, given the genetic underpinnings of mental illness, could explain both why a child had sleep differences in early childhood and why the child is exhibiting mental illness symptoms in adolescence.

"The biggest takeaway for parents is that sleep is part of self-regulation. We need to wake our brains up, and settle them back down. We need to handle fears and separation from our loved ones," she said. "For this reason, sleep is usually much harder for children with self-regulation problems in early childhood -- whether due to anxiety, early ADHD, sensory integration challenges, trauma or lots of other developmental differences that may not rise to the level of a diagnostic label."

Morales-Munoz agreed that parents struggling with their baby or child's sleep shouldn't be overly worried by these findings.

"The advice that I would give to parents is that if they are worrying about their child having some sleep problems, they should consult a specialist," she said.

"In many cases, these parental worries are indeed part of a normative developmental stage (such as, for example, their child waking up a few times during the night, or having problems falling asleep) but still it would be beneficial to know that, and parents could feel more relaxed; but in other cases, these are indeed part of a developmental problem," she said via email.

A novel finding

The analysis took into account some factors that could explain the link -- such as childhood adversity or whether any sexual abuse had been reported -- but did not control for variables such as developmental delay or hyperactivity, prenatal medication or environmental factors.

The study did find that depression at the age of 10 partially explained the associations between these specific sleep problems and psychotic symptoms -- but not the association between sleep problems and borderline personality disorder.

"We want to highlight that this is a very novel finding and this has not been reported before, thus there is no previous evidence to support these findings, and further research examining the specific stages of sleep development in childhood are needed," said Morales-Munoz.

"However, these findings might be explained by the fact that sleep highly varies in early childhood (compared to later stages, such as adolescence and adulthood), and that specific sleep patterns might have different significance and effects at specific stages of the childs development."

Adequate sleep in childhood is essential to cognitive and emotional function, the study said. And early sleep problems could be a signal that might increase the vulnerability of adolescents to mental health disorders.

"It's crucial to identify risk factors that might increase the vulnerability of adolescents to the development of these disorders, identify those at high risk, and deliver effective interventions. This study helps us understand this process, and what the targets might be," said Steven Marwaha, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Birmingham in the UK and senior author on the study.

"This study helps us understand this process, and what the targets might be."

Brain development

The data was drawn from the Children of the 90s study, more formally known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a health research project in the UK that enrolled more than 14,000 pregnant women in 1991 and 1992.

In the study, sleep behavior was reported by parents when the children were 6, 18 and 30 months, and assessed again at 3.5, 4.8 and 5.8 years old.

The results showed a particular link between infants at 18 months old who tended to wake more frequently at night and who had less regular sleep routines from 6 months old, with psychotic experiences in adolescence.

A shorter nighttime sleep duration and later bedtime at 3.5 years of age were associated with borderline personality disorder symptoms, the study found.

This story was first published on CNN.com Infant sleep issues linked to mental health problems in adolescents, study suggests
Danville, WV (25053)

Today

Strong thunderstorms likely. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High around 80F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Low 61F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Weather Alert

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH 300 IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EDT THIS EVENING FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS IN NEW YORK THIS WATCH INCLUDES 4 COUNTIES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK CLINTON ESSEX FRANKLIN ST. LAWRENCE IN VERMONT THIS WATCH INCLUDES 12 COUNTIES IN CENTRAL VERMONT ADDISON ORANGE WASHINGTON IN NORTHEAST VERMONT CALEDONIA ESSEX ORLEANS IN NORTHWEST VERMONT CHITTENDEN FRANKLIN GRAND ISLE LAMOILLE IN SOUTHERN VERMONT RUTLAND WINDSOR THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF ALBURG, BRADFORD, BURLINGTON, DANNEMORA, GOUVERNEUR, ISLAND POND, JOHNSON, LAKE PLACID, MALONE, MASSENA, MIDDLEBURY, MONTPELIER, NEWPORT, OGDENSBURG, PLATTSBURGH, PORT HENRY, POTSDAM, RANDOLPH, RUTLAND, SARANAC LAKE, SOUTH HERO, SPRINGFIELD, ST. ALBANS, ST. JOHNSBURY, STOWE, TICONDEROGA, TUPPER LAKE, VERGENNES, AND WHITE RIVER JUNCTION.

...Scattered Strong to Severe Thunderstorms Expected This Afternoon and Early This Evening Across the North Country... A very unstable air mass will lead to strong to severe thunderstorm development across northern New York and Vermont this afternoon. Thunderstorms are expected to begin across Saint Lawrence County and the northern Adirondacks between 1 and 3 pm. Thereafter, storms will move eastward across the Champlain Valley between 3 and 6 pm, and across central and eastern Vermont between 5 and 8 pm. Thunderstorm activity will be widespread today. Damaging winds will be the primary threat associated with these thunderstorms. Large hail is also possible, in addition to brief torrential rainfall and dangerous cloud to ground lightning. If you have outdoor plans this afternoon into early this evening, keep a close eye on forecasts and warnings. Have a plan to move to a sturdy shelter if threatening weather approaches your location.
Penn State announced a fall return to in-person classes on June 14, receiving mixed reactions from both students and faculty  however, many forget that the universitys decision will also impact local businesses.

Many State College businesses are both excited and apprehensive for the students return.

Marie Librizzi, owner of the Old Main Frame Shop & Gallery and former owner of Sadies Gourmet Waffles, said the past few months have been difficult without students and faculty.

I think its great that the kids are coming back, Librizzi said. Its been a very trying time for small businesses.

Librizzi witnessed the hardship firsthand, as she had to permanently close Sadies Gourmet Waffles in March after six years of business.

While she worries about what social distancing will look like in the fall, Librizzi said businesses are happy to finally get people back spending money.

Joshua Feggins, the assistant general manager of Snap Custom Pizza in State College, is less worried about revenue and more worried about social distancing.

Snap Custom Pizza never closed during the peak of the pandemic and remained open during the red phase of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfs reopening plan.

Weve been doing okay with sales, Feggins said. We had a lot more locals come into the downtown area.

Feggins said he is excited to see students returning, but is concerned for their health.

It becomes a little difficult to remind customers to wear face masks while walking around and to keep social distancing, Feggins said. [Im] hoping the college isnt opening back up just to bring in more revenue. I hope they are worrying about peoples health.

MORE CAMPUS COVERAGE

Penn State faculty members express concerns regarding universitys fall reopening plan On June 14, Penn State announced that students will return to in-person instruction in the f

He also spoke about the uncertainty surrounding Penn States fall plans.

What [are students] coming for if were going to end the semester early? Feggins said. Is the pandemic really subsiding and are we really going to worry about everyones health?

McLanahans was considered an essential business, so it also remained open during the coronavirus shutdown.

Jim French, the general manager at McLanahans, said he believes the coronavirus situation is very multifaceted.

[Penn States] announcement was short on details and we dont know how many students will actually return, French said. Everybodys in a wait-and-see right now.

French said McLanahans is excited for students to return to Happy Valley, but unsure of what that will look like.

Id be lying if I didnt say we were a little nervous, French said.

Elaine Meder-Wilgus, the owner of Websters Bookstore Cafe, is grateful for the uptick in business.

The bookstore has been able to stay afloat because its main customer base isnt undergraduate students, but State College residents and Penn State graduate students.

Meder-Wilgus said the business has lost an enormous amount of money as a result of the shutdown.

[The pandemic has been] catastrophic for business, Meder-Wilgus said. Being a business owner, you have to be incredibly resilient.

Meder-Wilguss priority will be to keep everyone safe by following the proper social distancing guidelines.

Ive been well supported by this community, but its been incredibly hard, Meder-Wilgus said. Im focusing on the positive.

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Penn State students consider staying home for fall semester amid coronavirus pandemic Though many Penn State students were thrilled when the university announced its plans to reo
Though many Penn State students were thrilled when the university announced its plans to reopen in the fall semester, others didnt share in their jubilation.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many students are no longer able to afford the cost of tuition, housing or other college-related expenses. Others simply dont want to enroll in classes that may be online anyway  especially those paying out-of-state tuition.

Madison Borkovich said that while shes still finalizing her decision, she might not return to campus because she feels the full cost of tuition isnt worth the online experience, even if some of her classes are still being held in person.

I feel like its really sort of insensitive of [Penn State] to expect students to pay the same tuition and fees, Borkovich (sophomore-human development and design, and film and video) said.

Borkovich added that since a majority of events and activities have been or will be canceled due to the pandemic, the on-campus experience won't be the same.

A college is a business, for sure, Borkovich said. But even a business has sensitivity for its customers, and I just feel like even though [the university] is saying [it's showing empathy and sensitivity], theres not really a whole lot of it actually being shown.

Borkovich created an online petition calling for Penn State to partially reimburse students, as many classes will be held online via Zoom.

A related letter written to university leadership by Borkovich and other members of the Penn State community asks that the World Campus tuition rate be applied to classes held online.

MORE CAMPUS COVERAGE

Penn State faculty members express concerns regarding universitys fall reopening plan On June 14, Penn State announced that students will return to in-person instruction in the f

Were students told they would be returning to campus, just for the sake of charging them an on campus tuition rate? the letter reads. That is certainly how it feels to the majority of us.

As of Wednesday, the petition had more than 380 signatures.

Holly Winters had planned to transfer from West Chester University of Pennsylvania to Penn State this fall, excited to begin her new college journey, when the university's announcement was made regarding the fall semester.

Now that these unfortunate circumstances are setting in, Im thinking I may just have to take the semester off online, Winters said.

Winters's rent in State College will be $850 each month. She said if her classes and activities are limited, she will not be able to afford the cost of the virtual experience.

I was looking forward to joining clubs, making new friends, getting [a hands-on] education, but all that seems kind of out the window now, Winters said.

Likewise, Bars Bayraktar said that as an international student, his main concern is traveling abroad while the virus continues to spread globally.

I think this is [not the] right time to go abroad during the COVID-19 crisis, especially [to] countries like the UK or the [United States], Bayraktar (freshman-astronomy and astrophysics) said via email.

Bayraktar said he wishes Penn State had decided not to reopen given the special circumstances that countless students are facing going into the upcoming academic year.

Bayraktar added he knows of various other international students who face similar issues, and who cite finances as a main reason not to return to campus this fall.

MORE CAMPUS COVERAGE
Statewide, 1,279,267 Coloradans had voted as of June 30 at noon, and only 5,257 of them  just over 0.4%  came in person to do so. Colorado Politics talked to county clerks about what they learned about the in-person voters.
Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday.
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
Microsoft this week warned enterprise and education customers running Windows 10 that it will start replacing the old, original Edge browser on their PCs with the newer Chromium-based version on or after July 30.

First to get the forced swap will be machines in educational settings, Microsoft said, citing back-to-school scheduling for the prioritization. (Many K-12 schools, along with colleges and universities, are saying, "We will share a business timeline at a later date," wrote Elliot Kirk, senior program manager with the Edge team, in a July 30 post to a company blog.)

According to Kirk, PCs serviced by Windows Update will be automatically upgraded to the Chromium Edge. "This update will not impact devices in education and business updated by Windows Update for Business (WUfB) or by Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)," he asserted.

Microsoft first broached the auto-swap idea in mid-January, alongside the public release of the first Stable channel build of Chromium Edge. Then, it set firm guidelines for which PCs would forcibly replace the legacy Edge with the new edition. In short, Windows 10 Enterprise, Education and Workstation Pro would be untouched, as would Windows 10 Pro systems joined to an Active Directory (AD) or Azure Active Directory (AAD) domain; those updated using WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) or WUfB (Windows Update for Business); and those controlled using tools such as Intune and SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager).

Although many assumed Microsoft would quickly begin the new-Edge-for-old-Edge exchange after its January missive, the company didn't do so until early June. Then, when Microsoft announced the swap start, it made clear that its original plans had not changed.

A careful parsing of Kirk's post  as well as some recently-revised support documents  points to a slightly different go/no-go on the Edge swap. Kirk made clear that any device serviced by Windows Update would be eligible, thus including those running, say, Windows 10 Education or even Windows 10 Enterprise, which under earlier rules had been immune by virtue of their SKU (stock-keeping unit).

Organizations that want to stymie this effort can use the Blocker Toolkit for Edge-to-Edge released in December 2019. The kit, which can be downloaded directly from here in .exe format, blocks Windows Update delivery of the new Edge. It does not prevent students or workers from manually obtaining the Chromium-based Edge. This support document, last revised June 30, covers the Toolkit.

Microsoft's Kirk confirmed that most other elements of the swap are still in place. Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) will remain untouched, he said, as will the in-place choice of default browser on the PC. (In other words, the new Edge will not suddenly be declared the default over, say, the already-set Chrome or Firefox.) And the legacy Edge will not be physically deleted from the system, but instead hidden, with any attempts calling it up launching Chromium Edge.

After Windows Update pushes the new Edge onto a PC, the service will shortly refresh the browser to the "latest version currently in-market," Kirk said. Microsoft updates Edge on the same schedule as Google does Chrome  approximately every six-to-eight weeks  with security updates issued as needed between each version.

By the time Microsoft begins this new Edge swap, it will likely start with Edge 84, slated to release around July 21.
215 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore on July 1, including 4 imported cases

The Ministry of Health reported 215 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore as of 12 pm on July 1. This takes the nations tally of infections to 44,122.

The vast majority of the new cases are work permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories. There are also ten cases in the community, of whom six are Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents and four are Work Pass holders.

Photo courtesy: Twitter/@sporeMOH

Among the six Singaporean cases, one had been identified as a contact of a previously confirmed case, and had already been quarantined earlier. Epidemiological investigations are ongoing for the remaining cases, of whom three had been swabbed under enhanced community testing after being diagnosed with acute respiratory infection.

Among the four Work Permit holders, two been identified as contacts of previously confirmed cases, and had already been quarantined earlier. They were tested during quarantine to verify their status, even though they are asymptomatic. The remaining two cases are also asymptomatic and were detected due to proactive screening of workers in essential services.

Additionally, there are also four imported cases, all of whom had been placed on Stay-Home Notice or isolated upon arrival in Singapore.

Three Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents had returned to Singapore from Pakistan on June 19 and 20. They were placed on Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in Singapore, and had been conveyed in separate dedicated transport to SHN facilities to commence their 14-day isolation. They are asymptomatic, and had been tested while serving their SHN.
EU reopens borders to 15 countries; Singapore, India, UAE and US not on the list

Photo courtesy: dakotaviking on Pixabay

The European Union on Tuesday agreed to reopen its borders to 15 countries starting July 1 as it continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Singapore, India, the UAE and the United States failed to find a place on this list, which is to be revisited every two weeks.

Non-essential travel to the EU has been banned since mid-March and this reopening comes based on countries with similar or better control of the COVID-19 pandemic as the bloc itself.

The countries that are on the approved list are - Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Algeria, Georgia, Montenegro, Morocco, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand and Tunisia.

China is also on the list but conditional upon Beijing making the same allowance for Europeans.

.@EUCouncil agrees to start lifting travel restrictions for residents of some third countries



Find out more: https://t.co/m80mijpMxp  EU Council Press (@EUCouncilPress) June 30, 2020

The list is legally non-binding and the EU said member states "remain responsible for implementing the content of the recommendation."

National authorities "should not decide to lift the travel restrictions... before this has been decided in a coordinated manner," the statement added.

Travellers from this list of countries will most likely be able to go to Europe and then travel freely throughout the Schengen area, which includes 22 EU countries, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Singapore has no plans to increase population to 10 million: PMO

Singapore government said it has not proposed, planned nor targeted for the country to increase its population to 10 million, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a statement.

Responding to statements circulating on various online platforms, National Population and Talent Division (NPTD), Strategy Group, PMO, stated "categorically that these statements are untrue".

Photo courtesy: STB

The topic became hot topic on July 1, especially after Chee Soon Juan from Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) confronted Dr Vivian Balakrishnan in a General Election 2020 debate on Channel News Asia.

Refuting Chee's, Dr Balakrishnan said his claim that Singapore was looking to raise its population to 10 million is false. "The government doesn't have a target for the population; what we want is a Singapore core that is demographically stable."

PMO added in its statement that the government regularly explains its approach to population planning, including through annual updates at the Committee of Supply debates.

"In a Factually article published in March 2020, the Government reiterated that Singapores population size is affected by many factors, including birth rates, life expectancy and global developments. The article also states that the Government does not seek to achieve any particular population size."
Chef and food truck aficionado Brad Miller travels across the country to find the latest and greatest bites on wheels. He highlights the innovative chefs who push the boundaries of food and their customers' curious palates.
Corsicana, TX (75110)

Today

Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 93F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 68F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.




Here is the principal similarity between then and now. In 1962, in the western (Ladakh) sector and the eastern (North-East Frontier Agency) sector, the Chinese presented a vast array of forces and an assemblage of armament long before battle was joined, taking us by surprise. In 2020, a military confrontation may not materialise, but the Chinese have evidently prepared for one over a long period of time, catching the Indian side wholly unawares.

Unlike 60 years ago we now have satellite imagery, enough fighting forces on the ground, and infrastructure and logistics right up to the Line of Actual Control, in addition to functioning airfields and suitable aircraft all across the Chinese front. But none of this has removed the factor of surprise.

In sum, in spite of the continual and rapid build-up in our state of preparedness, especially in the last 15 years, we were not prepared. We were found wanting when the crunch came. We were presented with a fait accompli, with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) crossing our front yard and knocking on our door in the Galwan River Valley, the north bank of the Pangong Lake, and apparently yet again in the Depsang Plains, from where we had obliged them to vacate in 2013.

These locations of Chinese penetration prejudice our security inordinately and in a deeply disturbing way in that, if the PLA were to have its way, our base at Daultat Beg Oldie, which is practically the north-eastern- most tip of the former Jammu & Kashmir state (now in the Union Territory of Ladakh) still under our jurisdiction, can be cut off and be severely compromised.

This base affords us the geographical lookout to the Karakoram Pass to the east, and to the west to Gilgit (through which Chinas vital road to the Gwadar Port crosses), and is in close proximity of the Siachen Glacier. A key consideration that lends great strategic value to this area is that this is the one region where the military forces of China can physically unite with Pakistans against India.

Nehru came under sharp criticism by leading politicians, including those in the Congress, yet held week-long session of Parliament amidst military reverses in Himalayas One can perceive some important similarities between the border situation with China under Prime Minister Narendra Modi now, and the one that obtained in the tenure of the countrys first leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, leading eventually to the month-long clash in 1962 in which the Indian forces were routed, though they showed determination in icy conditions, and rare courage. But there is also a major fundamental difference that highlights leadership qualities in one case and not the other, that privileges the idea of not shirking the responsibility of advancing the countrys claims even in the face of a military reverse, as Nehru showed. For China, this never ceased to be a matter of anxiety, in spite of its formidable military capability.Here is the principal similarity between then and now. In 1962, in the western (Ladakh) sector and the eastern (North-East Frontier Agency) sector, the Chinese presented a vast array of forces and an assemblage of armament long before battle was joined, taking us by surprise. In 2020, a military confrontation may not materialise, but the Chinese have evidently prepared for one over a long period of time, catching the Indian side wholly unawares.Unlike 60 years ago we now have satellite imagery, enough fighting forces on the ground, and infrastructure and logistics right up to the Line of Actual Control, in addition to functioning airfields and suitable aircraft all across the Chinese front. But none of this has removed the factor of surprise.In sum, in spite of the continual and rapid build-up in our state of preparedness, especially in the last 15 years, we were not prepared. We were found wanting when the crunch came. We were presented with a fait accompli, with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) crossing our front yard and knocking on our door in the Galwan River Valley, the north bank of the Pangong Lake, and apparently yet again in the Depsang Plains, from where we had obliged them to vacate in 2013.These locations of Chinese penetration prejudice our security inordinately and in a deeply disturbing way in that, if the PLA were to have its way, our base at Daultat Beg Oldie, which is practically the north-eastern- most tip of the former Jammu & Kashmir state (now in the Union Territory of Ladakh) still under our jurisdiction, can be cut off and be severely compromised.This base affords us the geographical lookout to the Karakoram Pass to the east, and to the west to Gilgit (through which Chinas vital road to the Gwadar Port crosses), and is in close proximity of the Siachen Glacier. A key consideration that lends great strategic value to this area is that this is the one region where the military forces of China can physically unite with Pakistans against India.



To effectively prepare for the worst case scenario, and in order to maximise our state of security readiness, it is critical to go on asking the right questions and task independent experts without losing time to present a report to Parliament within a tight time-frame, in weeks, not months, since time is of the essence as there is a long summer ahead, which may be ideal to initiate hostilities from the Chinese end, or conceivably our own.

Although the facts are not entirely clear on account of the government keeping a tight lid on them, it is hard to believe that reporting on Chinas military build-up in Ladakh (and elsewhere) by our intelligence and military system will have failed in its entirety -- to such a degree that the higher military command and the political masters in Delhi wont get a whiff of it (as had evidently happened in the case of Kargil when the Pakistanis penetrated fairly deep without New Delhi knowing).To effectively prepare for the worst case scenario, and in order to maximise our state of security readiness, it is critical to go on asking the right questions and task independent experts without losing time to present a report to Parliament within a tight time-frame, in weeks, not months, since time is of the essence as there is a long summer ahead, which may be ideal to initiate hostilities from the Chinese end, or conceivably our own.

In case of a confrontation with a foreign power, the country will stand four square behind our armed forces and the government, but to give confidence to the country the government must give the people transparency- and that does not mean opening out operational secrets.

Modi can take a leaf out of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehrus book in this regard, and in respect of stating this countrys position upfront, as Nehru did in his continual communication with his Chinese counterpart Chou En-Lai before, during and after Chinas invasion across our frontier in 1962. Now it is quite apparent that Prime Minister Modi failed to broach the border question with Chinese President Xi Jinping in any substantive fashion in his numerous meetings with Xi.

The two so-called informal summits (Wuhan and Mahabalipuram), after the 2017 Doklam crisis, had been proposed by the Indian side but evidently turned out to be wasted opportunities. As a country, we need to know what their purpose was, besides being photo-ops to build the image of the two leaders.

In spectacular contrast -- and this is the real difference between 1962 and now -- Nehru maintained strategic communication, detailing points of Indias core security interests, not only with the adversary but also with the people of India. He came under sharp criticism by leading political figures, including in his own Congress party, and yet held a week-long session of Parliament while the disastrous military conflict in the Himalayas was on. More than 150 MPs participated in the debate.

Nehru presented White Papers to Parliament in this period on Indias and Chinas actions, and on November 14 a resolution was passed, reaffirming Indias claim to Aksai Chin. Nehru accepted the Colombo Proposals of early 1963- for the two armies to withdraw 20 km and to fill the gap with civilians (police)- only after Indias position on territory was lodged with China yet again.

In his June 19 meeting with opposition parties, Modi stated -- whether he knowingly dissembled or not is not clear -- that Chinese forces had not entered the Indian side. He was not upfront with the country. Beijing took advantage of his statement and immediately made an official claim to the Galwan River Valley.

It must be clearly understood by the country -- not just the government -- that the 1962 debacle was on account of severe troops shortage, with the Indians being outmanned one to five, a serious equipments shortage, and absence of supply lines in the high mountainous terrain. These do not hold good now.

---

*Senior journalist based in Delhi. A version of this article first appeared in The Asian Age
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On Tuesday, a vehicle carrying Republican Governor Kim Reynolds hit and drove through Jaylen Cavil, a Black Lives Matter protestor who was attempting to block her in the hopes that she would roll down her window and speak to him. Instead, her driver plowed through Cavil like a Republican tax cut getting through congress. At least, that's what happened according to his account. Said Cavil:

"The SUV that Gov. Reynolds was driving in drove right up to me. I was standing right in front of the car and I just stood there. I was like, 'I'm going to stand here. Surely the driver of the governor is not going to hit me with her car. This is the governor, my governor, who's supposed to be representing me. I'm sure that her car is not going to intentionally hit me.' I was wrong."

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Cavil was not injured, but was shocked when the car hit him and said the "impact spun him around and lifted him slightly onto the hood of the vehicle." However, Sgt. Alex Dinkla, a spokesperson for the Iowa State Patrol tells it differently, saying in a statement:

"Today, the Iowa State Patrol investigated an incident that occurred near Ackley, Iowa, involving a demonstrator and a state-owned vehicle transporting Governor Reynolds. As the vehicle started to leave a scheduled stop and enter the roadway, a demonstrator approached which caused the Governor's vehicle to slow. The demonstrator stopped short and to the side of the vehicle. As the vehicle began to turn away from the protestor and onto the roadway, the demonstrator intentionally stepped in front of the slowly moving vehicle. The demonstrator had little to no physical reaction to any contact he created and the vehicle then entered the roadway."

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There might have been a time where you could chalk this up to a tale of "he-said-she-said" if it weren't for the fact that we have now seen plenty of footage where police officers and others barrel through protesters and then drive away.
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Crossville, TN (38555)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some locally strong to perhaps severe. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 83F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Showers and thundershowers early, then overcast overnight with occasional rain. Low 59F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Henry Sam Chauncey Jr. looks at the unrest in Americas streets today and keeps thinking about 50 years ago when the leaders of Yale University and New Haven kept a lid on the May Day protests.

Chauncey then was special assistant to Yale University President Kingman Brewster, who was dealing with thousands of angry demonstrators coming into New Haven because Black Panther Party members, including Bobby Seale, were going on trial for allegedly murdering a man they believed was a government informant. (Seale was acquitted.)

Brewster made the controversial and risky decision to open up the Yale campus to the protesters rather than closing its gates to them. It worked; the feared widespread violence never came.

I think what made Kingman unique among college presidents of the 60s and 70s was that when someone came to see him  a rich man, a wild-eyed radical, a Black student  that person would leave saying: I met the guy and I think he respects me, Chauncey said.

Weve got to respect each other, regardless of our title or color or amount of money or background; thats the only way were going to get ahead in this world, Chauncey said Wednesday afternoon as we sat outside Yales Street Hall on Chapel Street. I learned that from Kingman Brewster.

Because I had given Chauncey a heads-up on what we would be discussing (todays Black lives matter protests vs. the 1970 May Day demonstrations), he had thought things over and typed up three relevant quotes. He handed the slip of paper to me.

The first quote was what Chauncey considers to be the key sentence from the Kerner Report, the conclusions of a commission appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of Americas race riots in 1967 and suggest how to address the problem.

Here it is, from February 1968: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal.

The second quote is from the philosopher and writer George Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those who do not know historys mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

After I read that one, Chauncey said: We dont understand our own history. Until we do, were going to be in trouble.

The third quote can be seen at Brewsters grave site: The presumption of innocence is not just a legal term; rather it lies in the commonplace belief in the innocence of the stranger.

I asked Chauncey what Brewster would say about the ongoing national strife if he were alive today. Chauncey smiled and replied, I know the first thing he would say would be: Sam, weve been here before.

The people who lived through those days in New Haven, with storefronts boarded up and National Guardsmen and their tanks in the streets, remember that nobody knew what was going to happen and everybody was on edge. Chauncey recalled the day he learned a bomb had been placed in the basement of his home on Hillhouse Avenue.

It was discovered by our cleaning lady, Chauncey said. She called me at my office and said, Theres something in your basement. It looks like a bomb to me. The police came in and maybe a bomb squad. It was some kind of amateur device. Of course having a bomb in your house is not a very cheerful thought. But given all that was happening in those days, I cant tell you I was surprised.

Chauncey noted a bomb did go off in Yales Ingalls Rink (no injuries) while protesters were having a dance there and an office being used by the demonstrators was burned in what was found to be an arson attack. He doesnt believe the protesters were responsible for either of those two incidents.

When I asked Chauncey how he would advise mayors and police chiefs across the country who are dealing with street protests, he said, The first thing is to get somebody to get you the history. Get out the Kerner Report. They need to understand theres a history  what happened before and how it was dealt with.

Chauncey compared the restrained approaches shared by two New Haven police chiefs, James Ahern in 1970 and Otoniel Reyes today. Chief Reyes understands the Ahern theory of crowd management: the less police you have, the better. Dont try to stop the crowd; go with them. Keep an eye on the radical leaders. When you see something being destroyed or something illegal, stop it quickly, get them out of the way.

I think Reyes understands that most of the people in the crowd are good people who are passionate about what they believe, Chauncey said. The polices job is to see that some bad guy doesnt do something stupid.

Chauncey noted that during May Day weekend, Jim Ahern threw a limited amount of tear gas, only when there was looting going on.

Chauncey contrasted this restraint with Attorney General William Barr ordering police and National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., to use tear gas, batons and explosive devices to clear away Black lives matter protesters who were being nonviolent. President Donald Trump then walked through that area, Lafayette Square, to pose while holding up a Bible in front of St. Johns Episcopal Church.

This is a man who doesnt know history, Chauncey said of Barr.

Chauncey acknowledged he is not an expert on the topic but he said those working for change should employ the internet to spread their message. Social media can be used positively. How can we use it to bring people together? I dont know how you keep Donald Trump from going crazy on the internet.

He returned to the first quote, from the Kerner Report, about two separate and unequal societies. We now have three pandemics: COVID-19, racism and the economic gaps in our society. In a way theyre the same and can be dealt with in the same way. If we eliminate the three, we will have peace.

Chauncey added: The only way to prevent racism is to deal with it through education and understanding.

He noted that in order for us to fight the virus as well as racism, Preventive measures are the most important things.

Contact Randall Beach at 203-865-8139 or randall.beach@hearstmediact.com.
When two problems are put together to come up with a solution, government is working.

Problem: Nonprofits are at a loss with many volunteers who are retired now choosing to stay home and safe during the pandemic.

Problem: Youth face fewer jobs this summer with some camps closed that used to provide employment and with other opportunities shrunk by the pandemic.

Solution: ConnectiCorps.

This is a new community service program, modeled after the successful national AmeriCorps, that provides an avenue for young people to work and acquire skills with nonprofits in the areas of food security, housing and antipoverty assistance.

Nonprofits across the state are on the frontlines of the COVID emergency, providing critically needed services to vulnerable people across Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont said Tuesday in announcing the program. The ConnectiCorps program is a great way to provide support to those nonprofits and to offer to our young people the opportunity for public service in these times of great challenge to our communities.

It will be a national AmeriCorps program on the state level. Participants will receive a modest income, mileage reimbursement and be eligible for a stipend to help pay for their higher education or repay qualified student loans.

This is possible through a state partnership with the Connecticut Community Nonprofit Alliance and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, which contributed a significant grant through its COVID-19 Response Fund. ConnectiCorps also will be funded through an AmeriCorps state and federal grant approved by Serve Connecticut, which is the Connecticut Commission on Community Service under the state Office of Higher Education. Thats a lot of collaboration and, as always with taxpayers money involved, transparency is imperative.

The initial focus will be on the greater Hartford region, given the contribution of the Hartford Foundation, and participants will live in the communities where they will serve.

We would like to see other philanthropic organizations step up to expand the focus to other regions, especially Fairfield and New Haven counties which have been particularly affected by the coronavirus.

ConnectiCorps will recruit 60 to 80 youth for part-time service  with COVID-safety training and personal protection equipment  at up to 20 nonprofit sites for a year. The experience gained and the community connection made can be pivotal for a young person.

Employment opportunities for Connecticuts youth got another boost this week with the governor releasing an additional $2 million from the Coronavirus Relief Funds to expand the Connecticut Youth Employment Program, an ongoing initiative through the state Department of Labor, which already had $4.5 million allocated.

The expansion of this state-wide program will give more youth jobs with community health agencies where they will support and educate populations disproportionately affected by the virus.

The pandemic has had a devastating impact on the economy, as well as public health. Establishing the ConnectiCorps and increasing financial support of the youth employment program are two positive steps by government to provide opportunity to youth while strengthening communities.
Most Independence Day fireworks displays around Connecticut have been canceled, but not all. Stamford, for example, is holding a 10-minute fireworks presentation on July 5.

Waterbury is not having its usual food truck festival at the Brass Mill center Mall during the display on July 5, and is asking residents not to gather in mall parking lots. the fireworks will be shot off from Holy Land USA. Naugatuck's display on July 2 will go on (rain date July 3) but there will be no downtown festival as in previous years. New Britain is holding its display as a drive-in event on July 4.

Other towns are still holding out hope. The Rowayton Civic Association, for example, is hoping "that as summer progresses, the Governor and town of Norwalk 'social/physical distancing' policies can allow us to reschedule for a date at the 'end of summer.'"

Scroll to see which towns have already made definitive or tentative plans regarding their fireworks shows.
contributed photo

WESTPORT  A 34-year-old Bridgeport woman was charged with credit card theft and illegal use of a credit card after allegedly making multiple unauthorized purchases, police said.

Williemae Reed, who was employed at Balduccis Market on Post Road East in 2018, was arrested on a warrant and charged with credit card theft, sixth-degree larceny and illegal use of a credit card.
Erik Trautmann / Hearst Connecticut Media

WESTPORT  While the towns Fourth of July fireworks display is canceled, First Selectman Jim Marpe is encouraging residents to celebrate the holiday with a sense of community, hope and some imagination.

Although COVID has restricted our ability to gather, we cant forget that the July Fourth Holiday is more than fireworks, parties, and picnics, Marpe said in a news release on Thursday. Instead, it can serve as an opportunity to reflect and re-direct the energy we may have spent in those celebratory rituals.
Gov. Ned Lamont shut the door Thursday on a full-scale reopening of Connecticut bars in mid-July, though he said a formal announcement wont come until next week.

Im sorry to disappoint you, but I think the bars are going to have to take a pause right now, Lamont told reporters during a daily briefing at Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison. Im just looking around at the rest of the country.

The governor already ordered visitors from 16 other states to self-quarantine for two weeks upon arriving in Connecticut. He noted that Texas, Florida and California  three states with rapidly escalating COVID-19 infection rates  have closed bars in many areas. Im learning from that, he said.

On Thursday the state Department of Public Health reported two new fatalities in the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the total to 4,326. There was a net increase of one patient, for 101 people hospitalized, down from 1,972 on April 22. There were 74 new positive COVID-19 tests out of 11,461, for a percentage of six-tenths of 1 percent.

The month of June had 4,371 infections reported from 225,816 tests, for a 1.93 percent rate. That compares with a rate of 8.8 percent positive results in Connecticut in May. The state announced Thursday it will no longer report results on weekends and instead will report the full weekend results each Monday.

For the past two weeks, Connecticut restaurants and bars licensed to serve food have been allowed to serve customers indoors, including alcoholic beverages, with restrictions.

Indoor capacity must be limited to 50 percent, with parties spaced at least six feet apart and guests wearing masks when not eating and drinking.

Parties can be seated at bar counters provided they are:

Ordering food;

Seated six feet apart;

The bartender is separated from customers by a plastic shield.

Scott Dolch, executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association, said many small bars serve little or no food, and were counting on being able to serve patrons just seeking alcoholic drinks in mid-July.

There also have been discussions between the association and the Lamont administration about removing the plastic shielding requirement, though no decision had been reached.

Dolch said he remains hopeful that talks between the association and the governors staff will continue.

Lets go back and revisit where we are currently and where were trying to get, Dolch said, adding that Connecticut bar owners understand they must be diligent in enforcing any public health standards tied to a broader reopening. Its not only about metrics. Its also about following the rules.

The governor hinted on June 29 that he was considering scaling back phase three of Connecticuts economic reopening from the pandemic, and specifically reassessing bars.

Besides reopening bars and amusement parks in mid-July, the administrations plan calls for limits on indoor gatherings to grow in about two weeks from 25 people to 50. The limit on outdoor gatherings would jump from 100 to 250.

Lamont continued to stress that Connecticut, and several of its neighboring states in the Northeast, have made great progress in stemming coronavirus spread through social distancing and other public health measures.

Were open because of each and every one of you doing the right thing, Lamont said, referring to the more than 140 state beaches, parks and forests that are open for the Fourth of July weekend.

For seven consecutive days, fewer than 1 percent of Connecticut residents tested for the virus have been found to be positive, he said.

Dont take that for granted because youve seen whats going on around the rest of the country, Lamont added. You see how that can change fast. But also you can see the benefits of paying attention.

Surging caseloads in large states in the southern and western U.S. have dominated headlines over the past week. But on Monday, Lamont acknowledged the spread is creeping closer to Connecticut, with increasing infections in Ohio and other Rust Belt states.

But new data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center shows several key states have begun to trend in the wrong direction.

The rolling, three-day average for new infections in Ohio was 381 on June 13, and had more than doubled to 886 by June 27. In Pennsylvania, new infections jumped from 452 to 574 over the same period. In Michigan  which connects quickly to upper New York via Canada  infections rose from 202 new daily to 319 during those two weeks.

State beaches, parks and forests are expected to reach capacity this weekend.

Lamont and other administration officials Thursday warned people not to relax social distancing and other public health safeguards when celebrating the long holiday weekend.

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes said most state beaches, parks and forests are expected to reach capacity this weekend.

Potential visitors are urged to check the states website before going, she said, adding a new webpage has been created to provide updates when beaches and parks have reached capacity and cant accept more visitors.

Attendees must wear masks, maintain a six-foot distance from others when walking, and keep 15 feet apart from other parties when setting up a towel or blanket at beaches, Dykes said.

Swimming is not available at most inland parks, in large part because the ponds or lakes involved with those sites often feature beach areas that are too small to allow sufficient distancing between guests, she added.

Private indoor events are limited to 25 people and outdoor gatherings to 100 guests, acting Department of Public Health Commissioner Deidre Gifford said.

Those attending municipal fireworks shows are expected to remain 15 feet apart from other parties in attendance, she said.

Staff writer Ken Dixon contributed to this report.
The League of Women Voters of Connecticut and the Connecticut State Conference of the NAACP have filed a lawsuit calling on Secretary of the State Denise Merrill to expand absentee voting for the November election, a move Merrill has made clear she cannot do without the extension of emergency powers by Gov. Ned Lamont or a formal change passed by the legislature.

The groups, along with a Connecticut voter who does not feel comfortable voting in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are calling on the state to extend the medical exemption covering COVID for absentee ballots to the November election.

An executive order signed by Lamont said any eligible Democratic or Republican voter will be allowed to use an absentee ballot to vote in the Aug. 11 primary. Applications are being sent this week to 2 million eligible voters. However, because the governors public health emergency order expires Sept. 9, he cannot mandate that the ballots be made available for the Nov. 3 general election.

Thursdays lawsuit marks the third legal action filed in recent weeks regarding mail-in voting in Connecticut. The first two were filed in state courts by critics of the concept including four Republican congressional candidates on the primary ballot who are part of a group called Fight Voter Fraud Inc. They filed a lawsuit Wednesday with the Connecticut Supreme Court, asking the court to order Merrill to stop sending out the voter applications that misinform the true legal requirements for voting by absentee ballot.

COVID-19 remains a threat, and it is critical that our fall elections are carried out in a way that assures voters and election workers can participate safely, which means Connecticut must have absentee vote-by-mail available for everyone in November, said Carol Reimers, president of the League of Women Voters of Connecticut, in a statement.

Merrill has called upon the Connecticut legislature to pass reforms in an upcoming special session that would apply to the November general election, and it seems lawmakers are poised to take up the issue and make a change at least for the duration of the pandemic.

An executive order issued by Lamont allows every Connecticut voter to vote by absentee ballot in the August primary. But Lamonts emergency powers are slated to expire in September, prior to the November election.

Several lawsuits have been filed by Republicans alleging, with no evidence, that allowing widespread vote-by-mail will result in voter fraud.

"No Connecticut voter should be forced to choose between protecting their health and casting their ballot, Merrill said. As I have said for months, the legislature should come into special session immediately to allow Connecticut voters to cast their votes by absentee ballot in November.

More than 46,000 Connecticut residents have contracted COVID-19 and over 4,300 have died with the virus.

While many states have widespread mail-in voting and early voting, Connecticut does not have any form of early voting outside of voting absentee and requires voters provide an excuse such as illness or absence to obtain an absentee ballot.

Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut NAACP State Conference, said that Black voters, who have been disproportionately impacted by coronavirus, will also be disproportionately impacted by the inability to vote by mail in November.

The Black Community has been hit the hardest in the state by COVID-19 by devastating our peoples health and finances, and now it seems we will be hit the hardest politically in the state of Connecticut if there are not protections put in place for voting rights in November, he said. We need to do everything possible to prevent a huge political catastrophe in November, and that means making sure people are able to vote in a safe manner.

kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2563; @kaitlynkrasselt
GREENWICH  Detectives traveled to Chicago this week to arrest a suspected con artist who is accused of bilking an 87-year-old local woman out of more than $200,000, police said.

Police called it a sweetheart scam, one that entrapped the elderly Greenwich woman on social media with fake photographs and declarations of love.

Kayode Ogunjimi, 30, of Oswego, Ill., a distant suburb of Chicago, was detained by police authorities there after he was arrested in Arlington Heights on June 12 on the Greenwich arrest warrant, police said.

On Wednesday, Greenwich police picked up Ogunjimi from the Cook County Jail and transported him to Greenwich, where he was booked on a charge of first-degree larceny.

The case unfolded when the womans bank noticed suspicious transfers in September and alerted police, the arrest report stated.

Ogunjimi contacted the woman on social media and struck up a friendship on the Internet, using the Hangout application, a Google software program, police said. He went by the name of Bernard Slack and spun a tale of working on an oil rig, using a fake photo of a handsome older gentleman to entice his victim, according to authorities. Police said Ogunjimi used a photo of a white man in his communications, though he is Black.

At some point Slack (Ogunjimi) professed his love for the victim and began asking the victim for money relating to a new business in the amount of $200,000, according to the arrest report. The victim believed Slack and started to send money via wire transfers. This money ended up in Ogunjimis possession.

Ogunjimi was held on $300,000 bail.

Police said an extradition hearing was held in Illinois on June 15, and Ogunjimi agreed to face the charges in Connecticut.
A great feature about employee universities is that credit unions dont all have to follow the same blueprint, says Holly Baumel, director of staff development at $620 million Blackhawk Community Credit Union in Janesville, Wisconsin.

The  resources dedicated to the development of the staff and support from leadership are bigger factors to its success than the actual size of the credit union, Baume says. The program could easily be scaled to fit the size of the institution.

CUES member Erica Kemp, AVP/branch strategy at $1 billion Credit Union 1 in Anchorage, Alaska, suggests that once a credit union acquires a growth mindset and has the numbers to support it, it should be looking to expand the skill sets of staff with robust training programs.

Fast-growing organizations cannot always wait to find already skilled talent when they need to expand, she says. So, utilizing a training program earlier can help to set up current staff to be prepared.
Lifting the credit union member business lending (MBL) cap would help small businesses and low-income families disproportionately impacted by the lockdowns, Young Voices John Kristof wrote this week on the Foundation for Economic Education site. Noting that the country is in a recession and Congress is in a fiscal gridlock, he says billions in capital could be freed up by simply lifting the MBL cap currently set at 12.25% of assets.

The cap leaves billions of dollars of potential loans to businesses off the table. In an analysis of FDIC and National Credit Union Administration call data, the Credit Union National Association estimates that, if the MBL cap were lifted, credit unions would lend an additional $5 billion in capital to small and informal business ventures over the next year, he writes. Another $5 billion to small businesses and entrepreneurs could translate to 50,000 jobs created over the same period.

The article notes that these funds are for the most part economic opportunities unique to credit unions, as opposed to loans stolen from banks, as Small Business Administration research shows that 81% of business loans given by credit unions would not have been given by traditional banks.
Cullman, AL (35055)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 86F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Showers and thunderstorms likely. Low 64F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall may reach one inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
STORY LINK Pound South African Rand (GBP/ZAR) Exchange Rate Falls as ZA Records First Current Account Surplus in 17 Years

Pound Sterling South African Rand (GBP/ZAR) Exchange Rate Slumps on Upbeat ZA Trade Balance

With the domestic lockdown restrictions only effective as from late March, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on South Africas imports and exports were still limited in the first quarter of 2020.

Sterling (GBP) Struggles as UK Heads for Extreme Brexit Crunch Point

The second to last week and the last week of July are going to be the extreme Brexit crunch point.

If theres not movement by the week of 20th or the week of 27th, that maybe the second wave of selling in Sterling.

Any reasonable reaction to this number must also price in the resurgence in cases. A shortfall, particularly even one that may be mildly negative, would quickly reinforce the shadows of doubt being cast on plans for unfettered re-openings.

Pound Rand Outlook: Will Upbeat US Jobs Data Boost ZAR?

A better-than-expected outcome could go some way to settling the near-term debate that the US labor market will heal relatively quickly and justify new highs in US equities.

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The Pound Sterling South African Rand (GBP/ZAR) exchange rate edged -0.4% lower today, leaving the pairing trading at around R21.1595.The South African Rand rose on Thursday as investors were optimistic after a report suggested a coronavirus vaccine being developed by German biotech firm BioNTech and US giant, Pfizer has shown potential during the early stages of human trials.Although, gains were largely limited as markets awaited the release of the latest US jobless and non-farm payrolls.Meanwhile, the Rand edged higher today after data showed the country recorded its first current account surplus in 17-years during the first three months of 2020.South Africas central bank showed the trade balance more than doubled. The current account saw a surplus of 1.3% of GDP, up from a deficit of 1.3% of GDP in the last three months of 2019.This boosted the Rand as the last recorded surplus was in the first quarter of 2003.In a statement, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) said:The Pound struggled to make gains against the South African Rand as the risk-off mood boosted riskier assets.Sterling was driven largely by a weaker US Dollar (USD), although this did little to boost the GBP/ZAR exchange rate.Investors continued to assess the likelihood of Britain signing a trade deal with the European Union by the end of this year.This month is going to be crucial for the British currency as it will become clear whether the country will be able to reach a deal with Brussels.According to Stephen Gallo, European head of FX strategy at BMO:Sterling struggled to make gains as risk appetite increased ahead of this afternoons US jobless and non-farm payrolls.Traders nervously awaited the latest data which is expected to show the United States added around three million jobs to the economy last month.Although, with the estimates varying wildly, this limited gains in riskier assets such as ZAR. This also comes as markets worry about whether the worlds largest economy can sustain a recovery despite the surge in coronavirus cases.Vishnu Varathan, head of economics at Mizuho Bank in Singapore said:Looking to this afternoon, upbeat US jobs data could boost the South African Rand (ZAR) against the Pound (GBP).If data supports arguments that the US economy will be able to sustain its fragile economy despite rising coronavirus cases, the Rand will make further gains.Commenting on this, Stephen Innes, strategist at AxiCorp stated:Meawhile, Sterling could suffer further losses on Friday if both UK consumer confidence and Junes services PMI disappoint.If confidence does not rise as high as expected and the service sector continues to contract at a fast pace, the Pound South African Rand (GBP/ZAR) exchange rate will slide further.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

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STORY LINK GBP to CAD Exchange Rate Up as Sterling Rebound Benefits from Weak Oil

GBP Exchange Rate Rebound Limited by Britains Gloomy Coronavirus Outlook

The second to last week and the last week of July are going to be the extreme Brexit crunch point,



If theres not movement by the week of 20th or the week of 27th, that may be the second wave of selling in Sterling,

In the June DMP survey, businesses expected their sales in 2020 Q2 to be 38% lower than they would otherwise have been because of Covid-19, employment to be 8% lower and investment to be 38% lower.



Sales were expected to recover only gradually over the next year with the negative impact from Covid-19 lessening from 38% in 2020 Q2 to 26% in Q3, 16% in Q4 and 10% in 2021 Q1.

CAD Exchange Rates Strained by Weaker Oil Prices and Global Coronavirus Outlook

GBP/CAD Exchange Rate Forecast: UK Services Data May Not Influence Outlook

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Despite a lack of solid support for the Pound, the British Pound to Canadian Dollar (GBP/CAD) exchange rate has been recovering since yesterday. Sterling has been more easily able to advance against a weakening Canadian Dollar, as concerns persist over Canadas coronavirus outlook and the currency is hit by weakness in prices of oil, Canadas most lucrative commodity.After opening this week at the level of 1.6893, GBP/CAD spent about half the week trending lower. GBP/CAD touched on a low of 1.6775 earlier in the week, which was just above last weeks quarterly worst level of 1.6772.Yesterday though, the Pound experienced a rebound in demand. GBP/CAD jumped by over a cent, and continues to climb today. At the time of writing, GBP/CAD is trending in the region of 1.6992 after slipping from this mornings fortnight high of 1.7024.Investors have been adjusting positions on currencies as Q3 2020 commences, but the global coronavirus outlook continues to dominate headlines. Markets are also awaiting key data due for publication before the end of the week.In the middle of the week, investors piled back into the Pound. Sterling was bought back from its cheapest levels in profit taking, as the currency was perceived as undervalued.Sterling continues to advance today amid speculation that there if there is any Brexit development, it could well be soon. According to Stephen Gallo, Head of FX Strategy at BMO:However, while these hopes boosted Sterling a little today, Sterlings outlook remains marred in uncertainty overall amid coronavirus and Brexit jitters.Today, the Bank of England (BoE) published its latest survey of businesses. The Decision Maker Panel (DMP) survey showed that businesses were less optimistic about the pandemic than a month ago. According to the BoEs report:The Canadian Dollar has been weaker this week, which has made it easier for GBP/CAD to register some recovery.Markets have been increasingly anxious over the global coronavirus outlook. As the number of new cases soar in some major economies, including the US, investors have been more hesitant to hold on to currencies correlated with risk.As the Canadian Dollar is often correlated to risk, trade and commodity sentiment, it has been less appealing amid rising coronavirus second wave fears.Weaker prices of oil have also been weighing on CAD. Oil is Canadas most lucrative export, and as a result the Canadian Dollar is often correlated to oil prices.As coronavirus fears worsen and fears of a potential oil price ware flare up again, oil prices have been tumbling over the past week. This has kept pressure on CAD.On top of this, while it beat expectations Canadas April growth rate results were still disappointing to investors overall amid a shocking contraction in growth.The Pound continues to climb against a weaker Canadian Dollar today, but the pairs potential for gains is limited.While the Pound could see stronger support if tomorrows key UK data impresses, the data could also hit the Pound lower.Tomorrows European session will see the publication of Britains final June services and composite PMI reports.If the data impresses it could help the Pound to hold its ground. On the other hand, weak data could worsen concerns about the coronavirus pandemics impact on Britains economy.In fact, Sterling may not gain even if the data impresses. Concerns over how the coronavirus is impacting Britain continue to loom over the outlook.Instead, the Pound is more likely to advance if the Canadian Dollar remains weak. If risk-sentiment weakens or oil prices continue to plunge, the Canadian Dollar will remain under pressure.The Pound to Canadian Dollar exchange rate could instead tumble again if oil prices rebound or risk-sentiment improves.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

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Artificial Intelligence  A Brief History

Uploaded on 2020-07-02 in Directors Reports

Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that enables a computer to think or act in a more 'human' way. AI is becoming a bigger part of our lives, as the technology behind it becomes more and more advanced. Machines are improving their ability to 'learn' from mistakes and change how they approach a task the next time they try it. Some researchers are using AI to teach robots about feelings and emotions.

AI is is a set of sciences, theories and techniques (including mathematical logic, statistics, probabilities, computational neurobiology, computer science) that aims to imitate the cognitive abilities of a human being. Furthermore, AI has a long history as a concept and has recently made incredible advances.

The intellectual roots of AI, and the concept of intelligent machines, go back as far as Greek mythology.

History of AI

Philosophers have for a long time floated the possibility of intelligent machines as a literary device to help us define what it means to be human. There is an incredible match between binary logic (as derived from Aristotles Laws of Thought) and the engineering principles of electrical and electronic circuits. Electricity can flow or not flow, a switch can be on or off.

And this exactly matches the binary nature of the true/false distinction for propositions in Aristotelian logic. So, naturally, Aristotelian logic came to underlie all digital (binary) computation. Later Rene Descartes (1596-1650), was interested in the idea of mechanical humans. And so when Francine his daughter died at the age of five of scarlet fever, he was so wracked with grief that he decided to build a replica, supposedly indistinguishable from the girl as she had been in life.

Details vary from account to account, but most agree that this robot Francine traveled everywhere with him. She would sleep in a kind of casket next to his bed.

In 1646, Christina of Sweden summoned Descartes to her castle and sent a ship for him. As ever, the casket went where he went, and at night he would take her out of her casket in his cabin and wind her up and talk to her. Accounts vary on what happened next, but most converge on the idea that the ship had encountered bad weather, and the superstitious crew was getting spooked hearing the chatter in Descartes supposedly single room at night.

Suspecting some kind of witchcraft either the captain or the deck hands broke into the philosophers cabin while he slept, opened the casket, and were horrified by what they found there. Some accounts insist that she sat up of her own volition.

In any case, the petrified crew grabbed the robot Francine and ran her up to the deck, where they smashed her to pieces and threw them into the sea.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, (1646 -1716) saw the possibility of mechanical reasoning devices using rules of logic to settle disputes.

In the 20th century after modern computers became available, following World War II, it has become possible to create programs that perform difficult intellectual tasks. In the 1950s, the fathers of the field Minsky and McCarthy, described artificial intelligence as any task performed by a program or a machine that, if a human carried out the same activity, we would say the human had to apply intelligence to accomplish the task. That obviously is a fairly broad definition, which is why you will sometimes see arguments over whether something is truly AI or not.

AI systems will typically demonstrate at least some of the following behaviours associated with human intelligence:

planning

learning

reasoning

problem solving

knowledge representation

perception

motion &manipulation

social intelligence and creativity

Narrow AI is what we see all around us in computers today: intelligent systems that have been taught or learned how to carry out specific tasks without being explicitly programmed how to do so. This type of machine intelligence is evident in the speech and language recognition of the Siri virtual assistant on the Apple iPhone, in the vision-recognition systems on self-driving cars, in the recommendation engines that suggest products you might like based on what you bought in the past.

Unlike humans, these systems can only learn or be taught how to do specific tasks, which is why they are called narrow AI.

Artificial general intelligence is very different, and is the type of adaptable intellect found in humans, a flexible form of intelligence capable of learning how to carry out vastly different tasks, anything from haircutting to building spreadsheets, or to reason about a wide variety of topics based on its accumulated experience. This is the sort of AI more commonly seen in movies, the likes of HAL in 2001 or Skynet in The Terminator, but which doesn't exist today and AI experts are fiercely divided over how soon it will become a reality.

Since 2010, however, the discipline has experienced a new boom, mainly due to the considerable improvement in the computing power of computers and access to massive quantities of data. Two factors explain the new boom in the discipline around 2010.

Access to massive volumes of data. To be able to use algorithms for image classification and cat recognition, for example, it was previously necessary to carry out sampling yourself. Today, a simple search on Google can find millions.

The discovery of the very high efficiency of computer graphics card processors to accelerate the calculation of learning algorithms. The process being very iterative, it could take weeks before 2010 to process the entire sample. The computing power of these cards (capable of more than a thousand billion transactions per second) has enabled considerable progress at a limited financial cost (less than 1000 Euros per card).

In 2012, Google X search lab, built an AI recognise cats on a video. More than 16,000 processors have been used for this last task, but the potential is extraordinary: a machine learns to distinguish something. In 2016, AlphaGO, Google's AI specialised in Go games, beat both the European champion and the reigning world champion. Go has a combinatorics much more important than chess - more than the number of particles in the universe.

Among machine learning techniques, deep learning seems the most promising for a number of applications (including voice or image recognition). In 2003, Geoffrey Hinton (University of Toronto), Yoshua Bengio (University of Montreal) and Yann LeCun (University of New York) decided to start a research program to bring neural networks up to date.

Experiments conducted simultaneously at Microsoft, Google and IBM showed that this type of learning succeeded in halving the error rates for speech recognition. Similar results were achieved by Hinton's image recognition team.

AI Today

Now AI tools present a range of new functionality for businesses, but the use of Artificial Intelligence also raises ethical questions. This is because deep learning algorithms, which underpin many of the most advanced AI tools, are only as smart as the data they are given in training. Because a human chooses what data is used for training an AI program, the potential for human bias is inherent and must be monitored closely.

Some industry experts believe that the term Artificial Intelligence is too closely linked to popular culture, causing the general public to have unrealistic fears about AI and improbable expectations about how it will change the workplace and life in general.

Researchers and marketers think augmented rather than Artificial Intelligence has a more neutral connotation, will help people understand that AI will simply improve products and services and not replace the humans that use them. Robotics and AI look set to change many things for the better. But with robots taking over so many of the tasks that were traditionally done by humans, its natural to wonder whether they will also be stealing our jobs.

Its probably more helpful to think in terms of the transformative effect of technology. From the invention of the printing press to the advent of the combustion engine, technology has enabled all the key stages of human progress, and the so-called fourth industrial revolution will be no different.

While some jobs may gradually disappear, this wont happen overnight, and there will be opportunities for new career choices that we probably cant even imagine now, provided we continuously evolve our STEM education curriculum at a pace that ensures the skills demanded in industry can be met by the future workforce. When humans and AI powered systems work together they are most effective, the symbiosis of people and machines, using human imagination, creativity and personality, but combined with the precision, strength, reliability and automation of robotic systems, will see humans fully empowered to take on the tasks we do best.

One of the biggest breakthroughs for AI research in recent years have been in the field of machine learning, in particular within the field of deep learning.

This has been driven in part by the easy availability of data, but even more so by an explosion in parallel computing power in recent years, during which time the use of GPU clusters to train machine-learning systems has become more prevalent.

Not only do these clusters offer vastly more powerful systems for training machine-learning models, but they are now widely available as cloud services over the Internet. Over time the major tech firms, the likes of Google and Microsoft, have moved to using specialised chips tailored to both running, and more recently training, machine-learning models.

The evidence of which jobs will be supplanted is starting to emerge. Amazon has just launched Amazon Go, a cashier-free supermarket in Seattle where customers just take items from the shelves and walk out. What this means for the more than three million people in the US who works as cashiers remains to be seen. Amazon again is leading the way in using robots to improve efficiency inside its warehouses.

Fully autonomous self-driving vehicles aren't a reality yet, but by some predictions the self-driving trucking industry alone is poised to take over 1.7 million jobs in the next decade, even without considering the impact on couriers and taxi drivers.

Yet some of the easiest jobs to automate won't even require robotics. At present there are millions of people working in administration, entering and copying data between systems, chasing and booking appointments for companies. As software gets better at automatically updating systems and flagging the information that's important, so the need for administrators will fall.

Among AI experts there's a broad range of opinion about how quickly artificially intelligent systems will surpass human capabilities.

Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute has asked experts their predictions for AI, over the coming decades.

Notable dates included AI writing essays that could pass for being written by a human by 2026, truck drivers being made redundant by 2027, AI surpassing human capabilities in retail by 2031, writing a best-seller by 2049, and doing a surgeon's work by 2053.

They estimated there was a relatively high chance that AI will beat humans at all tasks within 45 years and automate all human jobs within 120 years.

Royal Society: Council of Europe: InnovateUK: ZDNet: BBC:

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MATTHEW TOTH

mtoth@dailyamerican.com

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against a resolution from Republican lawmakers geared to end Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfs COVID-19 powers, calling the attempt unconstitutional.

In a 5-2 ruling Wednesday, the court said that Resolution 836 did not fall within the categories that can avoid the governors desk  bypassing the opportunity for a veto.

The resolution sought to take away some of the emergency powers granted to Wolf under Title 35 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes.

In his majority opinion, Justice David Wecht wrote that lawmakers failed to comply with the state constitution when they didnt present it to Wolf for signature or veto.

Based upon the plain text of the statute . . . (the) provision allowing the General Assembly to terminate a state of disaster emergency by concurrent resolution requires presentment of that resolution to the Governor, He wrote. Because the General Assembly did not present H.R. 836 to the Governor for his approval or veto, the General Assembly did not comply with its own statutory directive.

The House and Senate passed the resolution on June 9, stating that Wolf abused his emergency powers by failing to consult lawmakers on business shutdowns. More than 20 Democrats voted to approve the measure.

We express no opinion as to whether the Governors response to the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes wise or sound policy. Similarly, we do not opine as to whether the General Assembly, in seeking to limit or terminate the Governors exercise of emergency authority, presents a superior approach, Wecht wrote.

Earlier Wednesday Wolf expanded his mask-wearing order to include anytime anyone leaves home. The original order signed in April only required mask-wearing in businesses.

This mask-wearing order is essential to stopping the recent increase in COVID-19 cases we have seen in Pennsylvania, he said in a press release. Those hotspots can be traced to situations where Pennsylvanians were not wearing masks or practicing social distancing  two practices that must be adhered to if we want to maintain the freedoms we have in place under our reopening.

During a press conference, Wolf applauded steps taken by Pittsburgh and Allegheny County to close bars to limit the spread of COVID-19.

I think moving forward this is the way things are going to work, he said. That we dont take these broad-based draconian steps. That we actually have focused, surgically precise ways of dealing with specific problems.

The Daily American reached out to the Wolf administration to comment about the ruling, but did not receive a response Wednesday.

By Friday, all of Pennsylvania will have moved to the green, or the least-restrictive phase, of Wolfs reopening plan.

State Rep. Carl Walker Metzgar, a Republican representing part of Somerset County, said it was unfortunate that the Court took the position that it can rewrite the law to require the governors consent to terminate the governors own disaster declaration.

By way of this decision the governor can now rule with the consent of only 17 state senators (enough to stop a veto override)  this goes against the basic principles of democracy, he said in an email to the Daily American.

In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, a Meyersdale native, wrote that allowing a governor to defend emergency powers was inconsistent with the separation of powers.

In this regard, I simply cannot envision that the framers of the Pennsylvania Constitution contemplated that the Governor could be invested with a panoply of exceptional powers . . . but that the Legislature nonetheless would be powerless to implement a counterbalance that was not then subject to the chief executives own veto power, he wrote.

See the court opinions at dailyamerican.com.
OUR TOWN

The Daily American

Pennsylvania Highlands Community College has developed five different types of classroom instruction for their fall 2020 course offerings. The new class formats were created to ensure that all students feel comfortable and safe within their preferred learning environments.

Dependent upon individual preference, students may register for classes using split section, virtual classroom, online, in-person and hybrid class formats.

Split section classes are offered two days per week, with class held one day on campus and the second class delivered by Zoom video conference at the students preferred location. For example, in a Monday/Wednesday class schedule, half of the class meets in person on Monday while the other half meets through Zoom. On Wednesday the groups switch, holding class on Zoom or in person.

In virtual classroom instruction, students participate in class online through Zoom at a scheduled day and time each week. Students can choose their preferred day of the week when registering for classes.

Online classes are solely presented online and are not scheduled to meet on specific days or times. Online classes are reading and writing intensive, with weekly required assignments, readings, forums, tests and activities. Students who take online classes should have strong time management, reading and writing skills.

In-person classes are held on campus for either one, two or three days per week during scheduled times. Smaller class sizes are being offered to comply with social distancing guidelines.

Hybrid classes are a combination of in-person and online instruction. Students must attend class physically on scheduled days and times, as well as completing online assignments, readings, activities and projects.

Split section classes are a new concept for Penn Highlands, said Barbara Zaborowski, interim vice president of academic affairs. This format will allow us to have students on-campus and face-to-face with faculty while maintaining mandated social distancing rules. In addition to social distancing, students will need to wear face coverings while onsite.

Students are required to wear face coverings when physically present at all college locations. In addition, hand sanitizing stations are available at each entrance and students are encouraged to use them when entering any college facility. Access to the colleges computer labs and the library are to be readily available for students at the Richland campus. All computer lab and library areas are to be monitored and sanitized regularly, with every other computer workstation available for student use to provide proper social distancing.

Anyone who has questions pertaining to the new classroom methods listed above can contact the colleges admissions office at 814-262-6446 or admissions@pennhighlands.edu. Summer office hours for admissions are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday.
ISLAMABAD, July 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad held talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi here on Wednesday on the peace process in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan said.

Khalilzad's visit to Pakistan, the second one in a month, was part of his regular engagement for consultations and exchange of views on the Afghan peace and reconciliation process, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Qureshi welcomed the latest developments including announcements on formation of a negotiating team and establishment of the High Council for National Reconciliation by the Afghan government for the negotiations with the Taliban, according to the statement.

"He (Qureshi) urged that all sides should make earnest efforts for reduction in violence. He also emphasized that it was important not to let the spoilers undermine or derail the process of intra-Afghan negotiations," the statement said.

The Pakistani foreign minister expressed the hope that release of prisoners would be completed soon to pave the way for the earliest commencement of intra-Afghan negotiations.

Under the Taliban-U.S. agreement signed on Feb. 29, the Afghan government would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban would free 1,000 prisoners of the government. The slow pace of the release of prisoners has delayed the intra-Afghan dialogue, which was scheduled to start on March 10.

He also raised the issue of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and underlined the role of the international community for a time-bound and well-resourced roadmap for the return of Afghan refugees to their homeland with dignity and honor.

The statement said Khalilzad expressed condolences on the loss of lives in the terrorist attack on Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi on Monday and extended U.S. support. Enditem

[ Editor: ZY ]
Dalton, GA (30720)

Today

Thunderstorms. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 89F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Showers and thunderstorms likely - heavy rainfall is possible, especially this evening. Low 67F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.
File photo

Erin Davidson, a first-grade teacher at Cedar Ridge Elementary School, reads to her students on their first day of classes in August of 2019. Whitfield County Schools will wait until late this month to announce how students will return for the 2020-21 academic year that begins Aug. 6, and that decision will be made in conjunction with the Whitfield County Health Department.
Protesters taped photographs of 4J school board members to the exterior of the school district building and spelled out "thanks" under the photos of members who, before the official vote, said that they supported removing student resource officers from schools. (Francis O'Leary /Daily Emerald)
Fireworks displays will light up the sky in Ulster and Dutchess counties on Saturday night, July 4.
KINGSTON, N.Y.  Trustees are anxious to avoid giving the impression that discussions have stalled on the use of police as resource officers i
Brexit Latest News:

Without an extension in place, the UK is on a path to formally Brexit in a hard fashion: without a new EU-UK trade deal.

The end is nigh? Not quite. The context in which this is occurring  against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic  means that even a late request for an extension to the transition period is likely to be granted.

Retail trader positioning sees conflicting signals among the majors GBP -crosses.

No EU-UK Trade Deal, for Now

The British economy is in duress owing to the pandemic-driven recession and market participants are becoming anxious over whether or not Brexiting as fast as possible is the best path forward. The key June 30 Brexit transition period extension request deadline has now passed, leaving the British Pound in a greater state of uncertainty as the COVID-19 outbreak continues to weigh on global growth prospects.

Now that the June 30 extension request deadline has come and gone, we see ourselves on a path where a hard Brexit is once again a distinct possibility. And that creates an environment where volatility in the British Pound takes on a bias tilted to the upside.

If we do see a rise in volatilitythe backdrop of the Sterling and local assets will shift materially. With general risk aversion high and in some regards still rising across the globe, this situation would lead us to the opinion that the British Pound is likely to be treated as a more at-risk currency and underperform relative to other currencies.

Hard Brexit on the Horizon?

Now that the self-imposed deadline for an extension has passed and the UK has not received an extension from the EU, then in theory, the time horizon has solidified for a full Brexit (of the hardest variety: retaining access to the EU via World Trading Organization (WTO) rules).

If the EU and the UK are unable to reach an agreement before the end of 2020, then we are looking at a situation where the UK will lose all of its access to its privileges and it will be treated as if it were a brand new country, meaning it would be treated as if it were subject to WTO. The UK would have to pay substantial taxes, higher tariff rates and the cost of goods coming into the UK would increase significantly  all of which would hurt British businesses and households.

What does this mean? There is nothing stopping the EU and the UK from negotiating for a new extension. True, this is an agreement between people; were not dealing with the laws of nature, i.e. gravity. The context in which this is occurring  against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic  means that even a late request for an extension to the transition period is likely to be granted.

But with each passing day, the uncertainty around the British Pound will grow a little bit more, increasing likelihood of there being a much more volatile outcome for the British Pound  for both bulls and bears.

GBP/USD Rate Technical Analysis: Daily Chart (July 2019 to July 2020) (Chart 1)

GBP/USD rates saw a meaningful uptick higher in the final trading days of June, but contextually, it may not mean much. The parallel descending channel in place relative to the June swing high and mid-month swing low shows that GBP/USD rates remain within the short-term bearish structure; further to this point, GBP/USD rates are below the rising trendline from the March 2020 coronavirus pandemic crash lows.

Momentum remains weak, even as GBP/USD rates have nudged above their daily5, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA envelope, which is still aligned in bearish sequential order. Daily MACD is trending lower at its signal line, while Slow Stochastics are moving back towards neutral. While the short-term profile has become less bearish, the downside remains the favored outcome at this time. It will take a move above 1.2700 to convince markets (well, at least this strategist) that GBP/USD gains are not fleeting.

IG Client Sentiment Index: GBP/USD Rate Forecast (JULY 2, 2020) (Chart 2)

GBP/USD: Retail trader data shows 48.16% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.08 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 22.41% lower than yesterday and 5.16% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 20.18% higher than yesterday and 7.15% higher from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests GBP/USD prices may continue to rise.

Traders are further net-short than yesterday and last week, and the combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a stronger GBP/USD-bullish contrarian trading bias.

GBP/JPY Technical Analysis: Daily Rate Chart (July 2019 to July 2020) (Chart 3)

Like GBP/USD, GBP/JPY rates are contending with the rising trendline from the March 2020 coronavirus pandemic crash lows; unlike GBP/USD, GBP/JPY rates are above this trendline. Further strength in equity markets caters to a stronger GBP/JPY, although price action at the start of July has not seen much strength  dojis forming on the first two candles of the month following a bounce higher.

While GBP/JPY rates are above their daily5, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA envelope, it remains in bearish sequential order. Daily MACD has risen in bearish territory back to its signal line, while Slow Stochastics are rebounding towards their median line. Between the two pairs, GBP/JPY rates, at the moment, have a more bullish profile.

IG Client Sentiment Index: GBP/JPY Rate Forecast (JULY 2, 2020) (Chart 4)

GBP/JPY: Retail trader data shows 61.36% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 1.59 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 5.73% higher than yesterday and 19.09% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 6.69% lower than yesterday and 30.25% lower from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-long suggests GBP/JPY prices may continue to fall.

Traders are further net-long than yesterday and last week, and the combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a stronger GBP/JPY-bearish contrarian trading bias.

EUR/GBP Technical Analysis: Daily Rate Chart (July 2019 to July 2020) (Chart 5)

EUR/GBP rates have been on a steady rise higher the past several weeks, ever since breaking out of the seven-week sideways consolidation between 0.8682 and 0.8786. The rally in context of the rising parallel channel has recently met resistance at the descending trendline from the 2008 and 2017 highs.

Despite the pullback, the rising parallel channel remains intact, and the daily 5-, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA envelope remains in bullish sequential order). To this end, daily MACD remains in bullish territory and Slow Stochastics have neutralized back to their median line. While near-term price action has weakened momentum, the technical perspective remains bullish; a break below 0.8980 would invalidate this point of view.

IG Client Sentiment Index: EUR/GBP Rate Forecast (JULY 2, 2020) (Chart 6)

EUR/GBP: Retail trader data shows 47.83% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.09 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 37.29% higher than yesterday and 27.44% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 7.51% lower than yesterday and 0.73% lower from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests EUR/GBP prices may continue to rise.

Yet traders are less net-short than yesterday and compared with last week. Recent changes in sentiment warn that the current EUR/GBP price trend may soon reverse lower despite the fact traders remain net-short.

The Coronavirus Pandemic Changed Brexits Trajectory

In December last year, after the Tory partys general election trouncing, public opinion was in favor of a Brexit as soon as possible, with the plan to finish the transition period with a completed trade deal by December 31, 2020. But the circumstances have changed over the past six-plus month thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

In fact, the UK has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases over the last several weeks, sparking the UKs death rate to exceed many of its neighboring countries, ultimately triggering the erosion of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnsons popularity.

As the coronavirus perspective has worsened and government approval has eased in the UK, the opinion polls that once supported Brexit as soon as possible have shifted: now, more Brits are saying they dont need to leave as soon as possible, with suggestions the government should request an extension  something that the EU is willing to grant.

Effectively during the transition period, the UK gets all the benefits of being a full-fledged member of the EU. And the EU is okay with the UK retaining those privileges for a longer period of time due to the uncertainties brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Retaining this market access will make the UKs economic recovery that much easier in a post-coronavirus pandemic world.

Are we on a path to a hard Brexit? Yes. Will it happen? There's still plenty of time to change course.

--- Written by Christopher Vecchio, CFA, Senior Currency Strategist
Ashland, KY (41101)

Today

Strong thunderstorms likely. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 88F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Showers and thundershowers this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Low 59F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Sunbury, PA (17801)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 91F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with showers and a few thunderstorms. Low 63F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
With every new development from his Californian base camp, with each fresh initiative that finds him strapping on his trusty crampons of wrath to scale new-found peaks of pique, I worry about Harry. I really do. He's just so furious all the time!

Whatever next for our little lost prince, as he negotiates what he believes to be the grim fairy tale of his so-called life?

This week saw details emerge of the true Sussex mindset as papers were lodged in Meghan's upcoming case against our sister newspaper, The Mail On Sunday.

There were claims that the couple's wedding raised a billion pounds in revenue for the UK; that the Royal Family did not take proper care of the duchess when she was pregnant; that other Royals did things that she was not allowed to do, and so on.

JAN MOIR: With every new development from his Californian base camp, with each fresh initiative that finds him strapping on his trusty crampons of wrath to scale new-found peaks of pique, I worry about Harry. I really do. He's just so furious all the time!

It certainly channels into the victim narrative the pair favour as they repackage themselves for an American audience  but all that is for another day.

It is Prince Harry who concerns me here. Indeed, he should concern us all.

In a very short space of time, the 35-year-old has thrown life as he knew it into the bin, burning all his bridges as he went.

He has abandoned his public and royal duties, his birthright, his military appointments and much of his charity work to rush off to California with the woman he adores and their baby son.

There, he lives beyond his means behind the walls of a soulless McMansion, nestled in the chaparral shrubs high above Sunset Strip.

Among neighbours who star in soap operas or are former wives of long-dead moguls, he abides by the diktats of a wife who appears to be deep in the embrace of a powerful saviour complex  one that appears to have infected him, too.

This week Harry was on the racist hunt, hectoring everyone about our 'unconscious bias' from what looked like the basement corridor leading to the butler's pantry in his new home.

Whatever next for our little lost prince, as he negotiates what he believes to be the grim fairy tale of his so-called life? This week saw details emerge of the true Sussex mindset as papers were lodged in Meghan's upcoming case against our sister newspaper, The Mail On Sunday

For many of us, a member of the British Royal Family earnestly lecturing the world on white privilege is more laughable than anything else  but Harry does not see the joke.

Or understand the rich seam of irony he seems determined to mine.

We have been here before with the prince, who has previously preached about climate change while taking private jets on the sly, and urged the troubled to talk with professionals about mental health problems while providing little practical advice as to how this could be achieved.

One wonders how all this will play out in America, where the neediest members of society have even less chance of accessing mental health experts than they do in the UK.

In the meantime, behind the walls of their compound, all the Sussexes can do is ride out the pandemic and await the next acceptable bandwagon upon which they can jump together, no doubt holding hands.

This week it was Stop Hate For Profit, an advertising boycott against Facebook to which they offered their support.

In an email to the organisation, they asked which brands they could target on behalf of the pressure group. Please, no.

I imagined Harry, with his years of marinated privilege and his half O-level in geography, getting on the blower to the sleek boss of Coca-Cola or Levi's or Unilever to tell them what they should and should not be doing with their marketing and advertising budgets.

Behind the walls of their compound, all the Sussexes can do is ride out the pandemic and await the next acceptable bandwagon upon which they can jump together, no doubt holding hands.

Cringe! With their sense of self-importance and their billion-pound wedding (ahem), the Sussexes may have left royal life behind them  but they've still got more front than Buckingham Palace.

The Stop Hate For Profit campaign is exactly the sort of fashionable, liberal, problematic, fraught cause to which courtiers from a constitutionally-apolitical institution such as the House of Windsor would advise the Sussexes against touching with a royal bargepole and matching pegs on their noses.

But there is no steadying hand on the tiller now, more's the pity.

The great paradox is that the independent, Stateside Prince Harry needs the monarchy more than ever before.

It is no secret that it is Prince Charles who foots most of the couple's bills, and it is Princess Diana who posthumously provides much of the goodwill that paves Harry's way to prominence in America.

In the week that would have been his mother's 59th birthday, he gave out awards in her name via a Zoom link.

Even with the best of intentions, using Diana's burnished legacy as part of his own personal marketing plan often feels wrong.

Meanwhile, as part of their plan to become financially independent, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have signed on with the New York-based Harry Walker agency for speaking engagements  the same agency that commands fees of 322,000 for Barack Obama and half that for Bill Clinton.

It is no secret that it is Prince Charles who foots most of the couple's bills, and it is Princess Diana who posthumously provides much of the goodwill that paves Harry's way to prominence in America

With the best will in the world, what is Harry going to say worthy of that kind of cash? His USP is that he was Diana's son and Diana died and that is his trump  no capital letter needed  card. But how long before Americans tire of this?

The nearest thing America has ever had to a royal family of their own was the Kennedys.

And the nearest thing the Kennedys had to a royal prince was John F. Kennedy Jnr, whose own father died in circumstances perhaps even more wretched than Princess Diana's.

But JFK Jnr got on with his life, rather than using the tragedy of parental death as a sympathy prop, a lightning rod, a public barometer of his own feelings.

Although he was later to die in tragic circumstances himself, he did not let it define him.

Maybe one day Harry will do the same. In the meantime, we must listen to his pious homilies and try not to judge  but to understand his quest to conquer the yawning chasm in his soul.

Daring Debbie still a rock queen at 75

Debbie Harry is 75? How can that have happened? This is even worse than Madonna turning 60.

It just seems like yesterday when Debbie was on Top Of The Pops in a pioneering boiler suit or managing to make even an appearance on The Muppets seem cool.

What a life she has lived.

A former Bunny Girl, she once escaped an abduction attempt by serial killer Ted Bundy, she was attacked in her flat by someone else, and at one point lost nearly all the money she'd earned from selling 40 million albums because of bad management deals and tax bills.

Debbie Harry is 75? How can that have happened? This is even worse than Madonna turning 60

A former Bunny Girl, she once escaped an abduction attempt by serial killer Ted Bundy, she was attacked in her flat by someone else, and at one point lost nearly all the money she'd earned from selling 40 million albums because of bad management deals and tax bills

I remember interviewing her in New York in the 1970s  good god, how old am I? Let's not dwell.

We went to dinner in Manhattan, she gave me gifts including a Debbie Harry soap on a rope (I still have it) and she took drugs in the limo, while then-boyfriend Chris Stein told her off because I was obviously such an innocent.

Last year she wore thigh-high boots for a magazine shoot and said that she stopped taking drugs not because it was wrong but because it was such 'a drag' having to find them.

'Luckily, I could handle the withdrawal,' she said. What a queen.

Selfish leaders to blame for lockdown hell

Poor people of Leicester. The thought of returning to full lockdown is almost more painful than lockdown itself.

To taste freedom, then have it dashed from your grasp? To search fruitlessly for loo roll again or wonder why there is no Dijon mustard? I don't think I could bear it.

The problem is that we are not in control of our destiny. We are at the mercy of others, beholden to the rabble.

Poor people of Leicester. The thought of returning to full lockdown is almost more painful than lockdown itself. To taste freedom, then have it dashed from your grasp? To search fruitlessly for loo roll again or wonder why there is no Dijon mustard? I don't think I could bear it

And that includes people who won't social- distance, people who won't wear masks, people who don't take their rubbish home from the beach, people who insist on partying, despite government-backed strictures.

It is infuriating  but the leader classes don't set a very good example, do they?

Like Dominic Cummings, like Stanley Johnson, like the mayor of Leicester. For them, the rules apply  but only up to a point.

Like Dominic Cummings, like Stanley Johnson, like the mayor of Leicester. For them, the rules apply  but only up to a point

There are always mitigating circumstances. There is always an exception to the rule. There is always a 'but' and an excuse.

They are happy to lead, to obey until the point that they have to make some sacrifice or alter their behaviour. After that, forget it. They provide miscreants with marvellous excuses, which leads us to the mess we are in today.

Anyone who thinks we are going to come out of this as a wiser, more tolerant and stronger society is only kidding themselves.

I feel on the verge of rage almost all the time. And I'm nice.

Keep schtum, Tom

Newsreader Tom Bradby has been talking again of how William and Harry inspired him to be honest about his mental health.

The ITV News At Ten anchorman and devoted pal o' princes had to go on extended sick leave in 2018 because he was suffering from insomnia.

William and Harry's campaign to speak out on mental health resonated with Tom and helped him through his difficulties, which is good news.

However, instead of speaking out, I often find myself wishing Tom would zip it instead.

Newsreader Tom Bradby has been talking again of how William and Harry inspired him to be honest about his mental health

Just like Emily Maitlis, he will seize any opportunity to exhibit his highly-buffed, impeccably-elite, carefully-curated liberal views on any topic when in front of a camera. Just try to stop him!

He has been lavishing praise on Black Lives Matter  in the UK a Marxist group coming under increasing criticism.

Bradby described the 'White Lives Matter' banner flown over Burnley as 'offensive'.

Many might agree  many might not  but is it really Tom's place to make his personal views so obvious? Surely he's a conduit for the news, not a newsmaker?

Speaking of the bleeding obvious, I had to laugh when he introduced Political Editor Robert Peston as someone who had been 'predicting an economic crisis for weeks now'.

You don't say! Give Robert a medal, Tom. He's the sage of the age.

900 T-shirt? It will sell like hot cakes

Girls, dont you just love the new Dioriviera summer collection?

For the fashion house Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri has designed sailor-stripe tops in ice-cream colours bearing names of sunny destinations.

They are divine  but a darling little silk and cotton T-shirt costs a staggering 900. Will there be any takers?

For fashion house Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri has designed sailor-stripe tops in ice-cream colours bearing names of sunny destinations. They are divine  but a darling little silk and cotton T-shirt costs a staggering 900. Will there be any takers?

I am afraid so. The pandemic has not chased away excess and bling-lust among super-stupid global high- rollers, more is the pity.

Scaled-back weddings instead of pricey extravaganzas involving 300 yards of tulle and a trip to Bali? Who said Covid was all bad?
The first arrest was a man clutching a black flag inscribed with the words Hong Kong Independence in both English and Chinese.

By the time dusk fell over the skyscrapers and ferries of one of the worlds great cities, another nine protesters including a 15-year-old girl and a woman with a sign featuring the British flag  had been seized under a harsh new security law.

Created in secrecy by Communist Party chiefs in Beijing, this draconian measure is designed to throttle the freedoms that made Hong Kong such a special place. Its sudden imposition marked a dark day for democracy with big global consequences.

Those protesters now risk life imprisonment. They can be carted off into Chinas sinister network of compliant courts and brutal jails as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip on the former British colony.

Yet still, thousands joined the territorys annual rally to mark the anniversary of its handover to China in 1997 with hundreds of pro-democracy protesters seized by the increasingly thuggish police force.

Pictured: Riot police officers pinning down a protester during the demonstration. Following the passing of the National Security Law that would tighten on freedom of expression, Hong Kong protesters marched on the streets to demonstrate. Protesters chanted slogans, sang songs, and obstructed roads. Later, riot police officers arrested several protesters while using paintballs and pepper spray, July 1 2020

Crowds chanted slogans such as resist till the end, despite fusillades of pepper spray and pellets. One man admitted he was scared of going to jail, but for justice I have to come out today, I have to stand up.

Such bravery is impressive, as I saw for myself last year, spending three weeks with these protesters amid the tear gas and baton charges as citizens raised in comparative freedom fought the repression of Communist China.

Futility

At a time when the West is so disturbingly complacent over its own democracies, it was inspiring to meet protesters prepared to risk everything to protect liberties that we take for granted.

Most were young, affable and highly-educated. They admitted to their fears and the probable futility of taking on the might of the Chinese state with umbrellas and wok lids (to place over rounds of tear gas). What alternative do we have? asked one.

Yet it was also sad talking to such youthful idealists given the near-certain trajectory of their struggle. I will keep fighting because this is our home and we must protect our freedoms at all costs, said one 18-year-old student, admitting she was terrified.

Pictured: China's President Xi Jinping voting on a proposal to draft a security law on Hong Kong during the closing session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 28 2020. China passed the sweeping national security law for Hong Kong on June 30, 2020

When I asked another young woman why she took such risks, she told me of visiting a Chinese city and being fined for jay-walking, the money taken from her online bank account by the time she had crossed the street thanks to all the facial recognition cameras. Who wants to live in such a society? she asked rightly.

These people sought to avoid being sucked into a state relying on repression and technology to control one fifth of the worlds population. Now they fear for their future trapped in the straitjacket of Chinas Orwellian society.

The chilling new security law was drafted in secret with even Carrie Lam, Hong Kongs dismal and subservient leader, kept in the dark  then imposed on Tuesday.

Pictured: Demonstrators take part in a protest against the new national security law on July 1, 2020 in Hong Kong, China

Yesterday, people were deleting social media accounts, fearing that family members who had voiced criticism would not be allowed back to visit them, and wondering if they might, one day, be carted off to a Chinese cell under the deliberately vague legislation.

We have to be very careful what we say since you have no idea what is a criminal offence now, one activist told me. We all know the consequences if we are taken to China and forced to confess.

The new law is designed to end the protests that exploded early last year, convulsing the territory. It has four core offences  separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries  that allow authorities to target dissidents at will.

Dystopian

The measure unleashes Chinese security agencies to operate openly for the first time, permits courts to hear cases in secret and even applies to foreign nationals, provoking fears that critics could be prosecuted when entering the territory.

This moment marks the death of the one country, two systems deal, which was agreed with Britain under the 1984 handover pact and supposed to have been kept for 50 years after Hong Kong was returned to China.

Clearly it shows that Beijing under Xi Jinping, its aggressive nationalist president, cannot be trusted. Boris Johnson deserves credit for his firm response in offering three million residents the chance to settle in this country.

Pictured: Riot police officers walk as anti-national security law protesters march during the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain, in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2020

These events underline our naivety in dealing with China, especially since Xi won power in 2013. Beijing had, after all, made its intentions clear six years ago with a white paper insisting it had comprehensive jurisdiction over Hong Kong.

Yet first we thought trade would corrode Communist autocracy, then we hoped the internet could destroy dictatorship. David Cameron tried to chum up to Xi with boasts of a golden era and toe-curling talk of helping deliver the Chinese dream.

But as those Hong Kong protesters know all too well  and despite Chinas amazing economic rise  Chinas president is delivering a dystopian nightmare to his 1.3 billion citizens while rapidly building up military strength and flexing his growing power.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Beijing has allowed a forced abortion and sterilisation programme on Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, who have already been subjected to 24-hour surveillance with many thrown into concentration camps.

One survivor of these awful places intended to crush traditional cultures told me of enforced medical treatments and horrific torture ranging from beatings and mass rape to medieval-style devices such as a nail-studded chair.

China has embraced the digital age yet found ways to ruthlessly control citizens with technology.

It is even creating a social credit system to thwart negative attitudes, which bars those failing to stick to its strict diktats from the best jobs, schools and rail services.

Pictured: Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks during a press conference on the new national security law in Hong Kong, China, 01 July 2020

Hong Kong is, unfortunately, probably beyond salvation. But we must be aware of the implications as the world slides into a new Cold War tussle between autocracy and freedom.

For Xi, the ultimate prize is Taiwan  an island beacon of democracy just off Chinas coast, once the refuge for forces defeated by Maos Communists, which he seeks to reunify with its motherland.

Beijing hoped support for peaceful unification would grow in Taiwan as the two nations grew close economically.

Now the crackdown in Hong Kong has showed the hollowness of its promises  so support for China has unsurprisingly crashed.

Slaughter

This hideous crushing of Hong Kong, regardless of the consequences for one of the worlds financial centres, shows Chinas Leninist leadership has abandoned any hope of seducing Taiwan with sweet talk of freedom.

Meanwhile, China has shown it will brazenly use coral atolls in the South China Sea to expand its terrain and slaughter Indian solders on a disputed Himalayan mountainside.

So how will the West respond if China tries to attack or blockade its ally Taiwan?

As one protester in Hong Kong said to me, this is a long battle between democracy and despotism. Who knows how it will end? he asked.
Who is to blame for Britain's appalling Covid-19 death rate - the second highest in Europe, exceeded only by Belgium?

Many, especially on the Left, point to Boris Johnson's alleged failures. One is that he missed five consecutive Cobra meetings in late January and early February, when plans for combatting the pandemic were discussed. A second common complaint concerns his slowness in imposing lockdown.

Others prefer to concentrate their fire on Health Secretary Matt Hancock. They say he must take responsibility for the testing fiasco, and the way in which Covid-19 has been allowed to run riot in care homes.

Neither man can be absolved. But those often politically motivated critics who look only for villains in the Government risk letting off possibly the main culprit. I'm speaking of Public Health England (PHE).

Yesterday during Prime Minister's Questions (pictured), Boris Johnson was harried by Sir Keir Starmer and he declared the Government - he meant PHE - had 'acted decisively'

Until March, most of us were only dimly aware of this quango, which employs 5,500 people and keeps an eye on people's health in England. Set up in 2013, it was the misconceived offspring of the Coalition Government's bewildering health reforms. It is a kind of wing of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Those interested in this obscure but powerful organisation should visit its website, which is full of fascinating data (one of the few things PHE pulls off very well). A key part of its mission statement is its boast that it enjoys 'operational autonomy'.

That means that, in its day-to-day running, the quango is free from ministerial diktat. Although he is Secretary of State, Mr Hancock is not supposed to pick up the phone and tell the panjandrums of PHE what to do. They are largely a law unto themselves.

In normal times, this might not matter very much. During this crisis, it has been crucial. Whenever PHE makes a mistake - and it has made a catalogue of them over the past few months - Mr Hancock finds himself carrying the can, even though the error probably wasn't his.

Take the most recent example of the organisation's incompetence. Sir Peter Soulsby, mayor of newly locked-down Leicester, has criticised PHE for being slow to share testing data with the city's officials, who he says have been trying to obtain figures 'for weeks'. The British Medical Association makes the same point.

Why have PHE officials sat on their backsides although a speedy intervention was vital? Because it is a presumptuous, centralising body which thinks it knows better than people on the ground.

Yesterday, during Prime Minister's Questions, Boris Johnson found himself involved in the can-carrying exercise normally undertaken by Mr Hancock. Harried by Sir Keir Starmer, he declared the Government - he meant PHE - had 'acted decisively'. I think not.

In fact, the PM is well aware of the quango's deficiencies. In his speech on Tuesday, he grumbled about PHE, though without naming it. He spoke of 'the parts of government that seemed to respond so sluggishly that sometimes it seemed like that recurring bad dream when you are telling your feet to run and your feet won't move'.

The organisation's foot-dragging in Leicester has in truth been relatively minor in comparison with its most spectacular errors. Some of these were so egregious that it is an outrage that no one has so far been sacked.

Probably its worst blunder concerned care homes. On February 25, PHE published advice which stated that it was 'very unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected'. This guidance was not withdrawn until March 13.

Sir Peter Soulsby (above), mayor of newly locked-down Leicester, has criticised PHE for being slow to share testing data with the city's officials, who he says have been trying to obtain figures 'for weeks'

Very unlikely! According to the Office for National Statistics, at least 14,404 people had died with Covid-19 in care homes by June 12. That number will have increased significantly over the past three weeks.

The effect of PHE's assurance, one may reasonably surmise, was to induce a lethal sense of security in the minds of those running care homes. They will have inevitably drawn comfort from advice coming from a reputable official body. God alone knows how many lives were lost as a result.

Public Health England is meant to look after our health. So it's more than a little strange that it should have in this instance caused an unknown number of deaths. It's far from being the only example.

The quango is in charge of testing, and was therefore responsible for abandoning widespread tracking of the virus when it began to accelerate in mid-March. Many scientists regard this as a catastrophic decision which contributed substantially to the UK's high death rate.

At the time, the deputy chief medical officer for England, Jenny Harries (whose home is the Department of Health rather than PHE), declared: 'There comes a point in a pandemic where that [track and trace testing] is not an appropriate intervention'. I wonder whether she still thinks that.

PHE was also at fault over the subsequent painfully slow roll-out of mass testing  for which Mr Hancock was as usual blamed  though the failure to produce a workable testing app can't specifically be laid at its door.

That predictable debacle was a Department of Health/NHS co-production. Mr Hancock's entrusting of this project to the hands of people with a proven record of technological failure is an unmatched example of the triumph of hope over experience.

The truth is that much of the official medical establishment has shown itself ineffectual during the pandemic. Why was it so slow to adopt masks when most of the rest of the world was embracing them?

Many have blamed Health Secretary Matt Hancock for Britain's Covid-19 death rate, saying he must take responsibility for the testing fiasco, and the way in which Covid-19 has been allowed to run riot in care homes

And why did the Government's medical and scientific advisers cling until mid-March to their equally out-of-step belief that closing schools would only be of marginal benefit, and that large gatherings were not necessarily undesirable?

So it's not just the failings of Public Health England that should be addressed. The Government received poor advice on various fronts from boffins who were more categorical than they had any right to be. PHE was nonetheless uniquely dysfunctional. I can't see how it can be exculpated from causing needless deaths.

Early this week, Mr Johnson stated again that he has changed his mind about obesity. He no longer holds the libertarian view that people who want to stuff themselves endlessly with junk food should be left alone to kill themselves.

Can he really have confidence that this flawed organisation is capable of dealing with the scourge of obesity? Surely after the experiences of the past few months, it is obvious that the unaccountable quango is not fit for purpose.

Some people will go on blaming Mr Johnson for all that has gone wrong. He and Mr Hancock have undoubtedly made mistakes. They've also been too trusting of PHE, though they inherited the whole rotten system, along with its 'operational autonomy', and had limited room for manoeuvre.

But it's childish for critics to bang on about the errors of individuals while ignoring the institutional failings of a body which let down the country at a moment of crisis - and will do so again if left unreformed.

We need an organisation that is smaller, cleverer, less centralised and directly answerable to Government.

The 'hard rain' which the PM's maverick adviser Dominic Cummings wants to fall on the civil service must descend like a downpour on Public Health England.
A Dutch artist is using modern technology to create realistic photo-style portraits of famous figures only depicted in paint and sculpture.

Bas Uterwijk, from Amsterdam, explained that he wanted to see if he could create realistic digital renderings of key faces in history, including Vincent Van Gogh and Napoleon.

He also turned his talents to statues like Michelangelo's David and the Statue of Liberty.

Bas uses Artbreeder, a 'deep-learning' software which can create life-like images from scratch or based on a composite of different portraits.

Bas Uterwijk, from Amsterdam, can create likenesses of famous historical figures using 'deep-learning' technology. Pictured: The famous statue of David, by artist Michelangelo, at Florence's Galleria dell' Accademia in Italy, right: an AI-generated portrait of David shows what he would most likely have looked like

The deep learning software used by Bas is able to create a realistic portrait of the Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh, based on his own self-portraits in oil

Bas, who has also made a realistic portrait of Lady Liberty, explained the challenge was to stay true to the person's likeness as well as achieving the highest level of realism

The software uses data points - of common facial features and photographic qualities - to make an image, Bas explained to Femail.

'I try to guide the software to a credible outcome. I think of my work more as artistic interpretations than scientifically or historically accurate,' Bas said.

The artist, who has so far completed before 50 to 60 of the AI-generated images, said: 'I work on many images at the same time, sometimes leaving them for weeks to pick them up later when I have new inspiration or have stumbled on additional source material.

The artist came back to his portrait of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte several times to achieve better results

He started working on this original picture of American outlaw Billy the Kid, left, to eventually obtain the portrait on the right

The software was able to create the right picture of American president George Washington by generating data that learns from thousands of photographs of human faces

Bas said the challenge of his undertaking was to achieve near perfect photo-realism while also staying true to the person's likeness, as well as giving his models interesting expressions.

'The software tends to drift to averages easily because of its nature, so for that last one I sometimes need some extra tricks and methods to get what I want,' he explained.

Currently, Bas is working on a model of Anne Frank: 'There are several known photographs of her so I might make her older, at an age she never reached,' he said.

Bas created some of the portraits from images of statues or busts, like the one of Roman emperor Caracalla on the left. After the software create a base image, the artist said he used additional tricks to add to the likeness of the image

The AI model is able to reproduce a likeness of the portrait by adding details. The software generates these details by gathering data of photos of human faces. Pictured: The original Girl with a Pearl Earring portrait by Johannes Vermeer on the left, and the AI model on the right

On the left, a portrait of a Fayum Mummy, which dates back to Roman Egypt. On the right, the AI version

Bas said he 'guided' the deep learning software to get the most credible outcome. Left: one of the last self-portraits of Rembrandt, on the right, a photo-realistic version
A wedding guest has shared a video of the shocking moment she collapsed face-first into the aisle just as the bride and groom prepared to share a kiss at the altar.

Jade Tuncdoruk, from Sydney, shared the now-viral video on TikTok showing herself collapsing from a heat exhaustion at her friends' wedding in January.

As the couple were pronounced man and wife, the 24-year-old tumbled to the ground during the ceremony, while her boyfriend Lachie Brycki, who was one of the groomsmen, tried to rush to her side.

'That time I passed out at my friends wedding as they were about to kiss and my boyfriend almost ran in front of them,' Jade said along the caption of the video, which was posted on Wednesday.

Jade Tuncdoruk, from Sydney, suffered an unfortunate mishap after collapsing at a wedding

The Instagram model said she was already feeling ill leading up to the fall.

'I remember knowing I was going to pass out because I'd had heat stroke before and all I could think was "please don't let me ruin my friends' wedding",' she explained.

Luckily for Jade, she didn't upstage the bride because the newlywed couple were completely unaware of the incident when they walked down the aisle.

'I woke up and they hadn't noticed (they even made it down the aisle). Everyone did a great job at helping me and distracting them,' she said.

The footage has since been viewed more than 8.6 million times, with many praising her quick-thinking boyfriend for rushing to her aid.

She also shared a picture of herself icing her head following the dramatic fall.

'When I passed out at my friends' wedding from heat exhaustion and had to ice my nose and I simultaneously ate canapes,' she said.

The 24-year-old fainted face-first as the bride and groom were just about to kiss at the alter

Her boyfriend Lachie Brycki (second from right), who was one of the groomsmen, tried to rush to her aid after he realised Jade had fainted in the crowd

The Instagram model shared a picture of herself icing her head following the dramatic fall

The couple attended the wedding in January this year but Jade shared the video this week

Many urged Jade to 'marry that man' because 'he's a keeper' for quickly 'reacting' when he found out she had passed out.

'Everyone's all like "aw so sweet" but really if your boyfriend doesn't do this you need a new one,' one woman joked, while another added: 'Why is this straight out of a movie?'

'How cute how his first instinct is to run to you,' another person said, while one added: 'What a loyal man, I love him.'

Others pointed out the best man did a great job for making sure the nuptials were not interrupted while informing the boyfriend his girlfriend had fainted in the crowd.

'We stan that best man. He made sure the bride and groom got their kiss moment while nudging the boyfriend to go around and to be sure he did go check,' one said, while another suggested: '[The best man] controlled the situation well.'

And another person said: 'Oh my god, they held him back from checking on his girl. So glad he ran behind.'
An Australian fake tan label has released a 'genius' back applicator mitt so users of their mousse don't have to call on their housemates or a partner to help rub it in.

Luna Bronze, created by best friends Maddy Balderson and Rhiannon Hall, released the easy-to-use application device in early June to help customers who struggle fake tanning their own backs.

'Tanning your back and other hard-to-reach places is now a thing of the past with the Self-Tan Back Applicator,' the website read.

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Sick of asking other people to tan your back? Luna Bronze, created by best friends Maddy Balderson and Rhiannon Hall, released an easy-to-use application device

Customers are advised to dry the applicator after every use before pumping the foam or lotion onto the velour side of the mitt

'Made from premium material this reusable self-tan applicator will give you an even coverage for flawless tanning results every time.'

Customers are advised to dry the applicator after every use before pumping fresh foam or lotion onto the velour side of the mitt.

Then you place the applicator behind you, put your fingers through the handles on either side and move the product up and down the length of your back.

For those who don't want to bend over to wipe fake tan down the back of their legs, this device can be used for that area too.

For those who don't want to bend over to wipe fake tan down the back of their legs, this device could also come in handy for that area too

How do you use the back applicator? The Luna Bronze back applicator can be purchased from Mecca or the company website for $19. Customers are advised to dry the applicator after every use before pumping the foam or lotion onto the velour side of the mitt. Then you place the applicator behind you, put your fingers through the handles on either side and move the product up and down the length of your back. Advertisement

The reviews are unanimously in favour of the unique design.

'So smart! I can never reach that spot usually,' one woman wrote online.

'I can hear my husband rejoicing from here. This is exactly what every fake tan lover needs,' said another.

Luna Bronze launched its first self tanning lotion online in 2017, after one of the founders 'had a run in' with Basal Cell Carcinoma at the age of 27.

Best friends Maddy Balderson and Rhiannon Hall (pictured), grew up sunbathing - but when Maddy (right) got Basal Cell Carcinoma, they knew they had to change their ways

The best friends developed their own natural range of products to suit their sun-kissed needs without falling victim to harmful UV rays

'As soon as that happened, it really woke us up to the horrible way we were treating our skin; sunbaking and rarely wearing sunblock,' Maddy - who had the health scare - told Daily Mail Australia in 2018.

'I always feel better with a tan but no longer wanted to risk further damage and ageing.'

So they developed their own natural range of products to suit their sun-kissed needs without falling victim to harmful UV rays.

'We'd always been conscious of the ingredients in the products we used, and after trying a few tanning products we realised that the product we wanted; a simple, natural and organic moisturiser that provided a natural looking tan, didn't really exist,' Maddy said.

As a result Luna Bronze is packed with aloe vera, rosehip oil, jojoba oil and lemon myrtle to moisturise the skin, and a 100 per cent natural DHA to lightly colour the skin.
Meghan Markle has been 'checking in' for updates and to offer 'genuine and love and support' to a biracial woman who is said to have recently survived an alleged hate crime.

Last week, the Duchess of Sussex, 38, spent 40 minutes on the phone to Althea Bernstein, an 18-year-old EMT from Wisconsin, as an assault is being investigated as a hate crime after she was allegedly burned by lighter fluid thrown at her and ignited by a white man.

Michael Johnson, the CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County, who has been in touch with Althea, has now explained how the Duchess of Sussex, 38, has continued to check in with him on how the teenager is doing.

He posted on Facebook yesterday: 'I am blown away by Meghan Markle! She called me again today while my wife and kids were in the car and said, "Hey Michael, this is Meghan, I am just checking in."'

Meghan Markle, 38, has been 'checking in' with Boys and Girls Club staff and talking about 'the plans she supports', according to Michael Johnson Pictured, during a video address to leavers at the Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles in which she shared her 'absolute devastation' at racial divisions and the death of George Floyd in the US

He went on: 'We talked for about 10 minutes about a lot of things including Althea and her wellbeing.

'We also talked about some plans she supports but I can't share yet...so stay tuned.'

He added: 'I love how poised and down to earth she is, her passion, her commitment to children and how she is following up with genuine love and support.

'Meghan, you are amazing and if you ever wanted to work for Boys and Girls Club in Wisconsin we would hire you in a minute.'

Last week, Meghan Markle spoke with Althea Bernstein as an assault is being investigated as a hate crime after she was allegedly burned by lighter fluid thrown at her and ignited by a white man

Last week, Michael revealed how the Duchess had reached out to him in order to contact Althea about the crime.

Speaking to Channel 3000, he explained: 'Her and Meghan talked about the importance of self care and allowing herself to heal.'

'And she applauded her for the way that she responded and pretty much said, "Hey, Michael, give me her cellphone number. I want to stay in touch. And let me know when you want me to come back and talk to people in Wisconsin.'''

Speaking of how Althea is doing, Michael continued: 'She's struggling. 'It's a challenge for her. It's very, very emotional. I talked to her three or four times today, and I'll tell you Meghan lifted her spirits.'

Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, has revealed how the Duchess has continued to 'check in' to talk about things including Althea and her future plans

Taking to Twitter, he penned: 'On the phone with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle the Duchess of Sussex.'

'Prince Harry shared that young people voices matter and Meghan has agreed to talk with girls in Wisconsin and we will be scheduling that soon. Thank you for caring!'

The incident occurred at about 1am on Wednesday in Madison, Wisconsin, as Althea was driving to her brother's house.

She had stopped at a red light with her driver's side window down when she heard someone yell out 'n****r.' She looked around and saw four white men by her car.

It comes after Meghan and Prince Harry, 35, spoke with Michael last week about working with the people of Winconsin in the future

One sprayed liquid on Althea's face and neck and threw a flaming lighter at her, she told police.

According to a police incident report, the attackers used a spray bottle to spray lighter fluid on the teenager's face.

Althea described the four white men to Madison365 as 'classic Wisconsin frat boys.'

Two were allegedly wearing all black, and the other two were wearing jeans and floral shirts.

Over the last month, groups of far-right counter-protesters wearing Hawaiian shirts have disrupted Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Althea had stopped at a red light with her driver's side window down when she heard someone yell out 'n****r.' She looked around and saw four white men by her car. Pictured, her injuries

Althea believes all four men were intoxicated during the incident.

She said she pulled forward, put out the flames and drove home where her mother encouraged her to go to the UW Hospital emergency department.

Althea was treated for second- and third-degree burns, and told Madison365 that she was put through a decontamination routine to get the lighter fluid off her skin because i it was continuing to burn her.

'They had to pretty much scrub the skin off, which was extremely painful,' she said.

'Burn pain is something I can't even really describe. I don't know how to describe it. It was horrible.'

Althea will need to repeat the procedure every few days and, once she heals, will have to undergo plastic surgery to repair the damage.

Police say they are looking at surveillance footage to see if any part of the attack was captured on camera.

Althea said her happy childhood memories of growing up in Madison have been overshadowed by the memories of this attack.

'I never really knew someone could hate you just by looking at you,' she said.

'They didn't know me. I didn't know them. I was just driving my car and minding my own business.'

In spite of all this, she told Madison365 that she's glad the men didn't attack someone more vulnerable,

'I'm glad it was me, and not someone like a pregnant woman, or a child, or someone who doesn't have the health care that I do or the support system that I do,' Althea said.
An expert whose live TV interview was interrupted by her toddler looking for advice on where to place a painting has revealed they settled the dilemma - while a journalist who was interrupted mid-broadcast by her son looking for biscuits has said she was 'mortified' he asked for two, not one.

Dr Clare Wenham, from South London, appeared on BBC News yesterday to discuss the coronavirus crisis when her daughter Scarlett began rearranging a unicorn picture behind her - and even struck up a conversation with the newsreader.

After Dr Wenham apologised, Scarlett remained in the room and began rearranging a shelf behind her, trying to figure out where to put her painting.

This morning Dr Wehham tweeted that they decided on a spot for the artwork, and thanked people for their 'kind words normalising the work-parent balance that so many are juggling amid Covid-19 chaos'.

Dr Clare Wenham, from South London, has revealed she and daughter Scarlett (pictured) have settled the dilemma of where to place her unicorn painting

Sharing a photo of her with her daughter, she revealed: 'Today Scarlett wants to be #superheroelsa.'

During the interview yesterday, Scarlett marched into the room ask her mother where she would like her picture - while she was on live TV.

After attempting to continue the interview, BBC presenter Christian Fraser gave in and addressed the little girl, saying: 'Scarlett, I think it looks better on the lower shelf. It's a lovely unicorn.'

Upon hearing her name mentioned, Scarlett asked her mother: 'Mummy, what's his name?'

'My name is Christian,' replied the newsreader, to which Scarlett went on: 'Christian, I'm just deciding where it can go and where Mummy wants it to go.'

Dr Clare Wenham, from South London, appeared on BBC News yesterday to discuss the coronavirus crisis when her daughter Scarlett began rearranging a unicorn picture behind her - and even struck up a conversation with the newsreader

Sharing a photo of her with her daughter, Dr Wenham revealed: 'Today Scarlett wants to be #superheroelsa'

'I think just on that shelf is great, thank you,' said Dr Wenham, adding: 'I'm so sorry'.

The presenter remained in good spirits about the interview, joking that it was 'the most informative interview I've done all day'.

Today Christian was praised by viewers yet again for his warm interaction with young Scarlett - with Twitter users drawing a comparison to how Sky News anchor Mark Austin handled a similar situation on his channel yesterday.

Journalist Deborah Haynes, from Kent, was interrupted by her son, who paid her a visit to discuss how many biscuits he was allowed to eat.

Viewers were less than impressed when Mark abruptly ended his chat with Foreign Affairs editor Deborah - especially before inquiring what type of biscuits were on offer.

Viewers were less impressed when Mark Austin abruptly ended his chat with Sky News Foreign Affairs editor Deborah - especially before inquiring what type of biscuits were on offer

Deborah was seen stopping mid-sentence as her son opened the door and came in, saying: 'Hold on that's my son arriving, really embarrassing.'

'Can I have two biscuits', he asked, to which Deborah replied: 'Yes, you can have two biscuits, really sorry about that.'

Mark, 61, from London, then cut the interview short, saying: 'We'll leave Deborah Haynes there, in full family swing' - which left many viewers disgruntled.

Tweeting in response to Dr Wenham's post today, one viewer wrote: 'Fair play to the reporter too who engaged with the wee lass. Can't say that same for Mark Austin, though.'

When Mark Austin cut his interview with Deborah short following the interruption, Twitter erupted with rage

Another said the interaction between Scarlett, Dr Wenham and Christian was 'lovely to see', adding: 'Just stay clear of Mark Austin. He's clearly not a little people person.'

Yesterday one viewer tweeted that Deborah was 'multi-tasking just fine and had resolved the whole thing', adding: 'Did he really cut off the interview at the point when the biscuit negotiation had already been concluded?'

'My thoughts exactly, said another, 'And, so been there while working from home too... savvy kids know when to leverage snacks.'

Charlie Haynes commented: 'What a shame Sky ended the interview so quickly'.

Even Piers Morgan took to Twitter to tease: 'Why did you cut away? this was by far the best TV you've anchored for months.. and @haynesdeborah was handling things with hilarious aplomb.'

Mark himself seemed to regret his decision, later admitting: 'It was the best bit of the programme. Should have stayed with you! Smart negotiator right there.'

Both channels' viewers were delighted by the two unexpected gatecrashers, with one teasing that Clare's daughter was the 'best child interrupts news' clip they'd ever seen, while Deborah's son was praised for his keen biscuit negotiation skills.

Several joked that the toddler had chosen the perfect time to 'gain leverage in the snack negotiations'.

'Send the kid to Brussels to lead the Biscuit negotiations. Let's get biscuits done', wrote one.

Another added: 'He knew what he was doing - gaining leverage in the snack negotiations. If mum hadn't been on the telly, he'd have ended up with a piece of fruit. Two biscuits - great result.'

Journalist Deborah Haynes (pictured), from Kent, was interrupted by her son during an interview for Sky News

Despite several users finding the 20-second incident amusing, several commented on the conduct of Austin writing that it was a 'shame' the interview ended so abruptly

Deborah later tweeted thanking the public for their 'lovely' reaction to the interview, teasing that her son managed to land himself a couple of chocolate digestives - while Mark himself seemed to regret his decision to end the interview, later admitting: 'It was the best bit of the programme. Should have stayed with you! Smart negotiator right there'

Deborah later tweeted thanking the public for their 'lovely' reaction to the interview, revealing that her son managed to land himself a couple of chocolate digestives.

'Thank you for the lovely comments after my son's impromptu appearance mid-live-broadcast,' she wrote. 'I can confirm that his high-stakes negotiating skills netted him two chocolate digestives.'

Speaking to Greg James this morning, Deborah revealed said she was 'dying inside' after the incident and was 'really embarrassed'.

She added that her son 'shuffled off thinking that he could get his biscuits' and 'came back a few minutes later because he couldn't find his biscuits'.

Viewers found the incident hilarious, with several teasing that Deborah's son had chosen the perfect time to 'gain leverage in the snack negotiations'

Deborah said he enjoyed his snack, adding: 'I was mortified that he asked for two biscuits, not one.'

While lockdown may exacerbated the volume of children dropping in on their parent's interview, it was a peril of those working from home long before the pandemic.

In 2017, Robert Kelly, an associate professor of Political Science at Pusan National University in Busan won the hearts of the nation when his two children interrupted in on air.

Hilarious footage showed expert Robert, 47, handling serious questions on the country's president, Park Geun-hye, being ousted from power.

But suddenly, a toddler bursts into the room in a bright yellow top and performs a comical dance behind the Cleveland, Ohio, native.

Kelly focuses entirely on the camera as he attempts to blindly hand off his daughter, who is clearly curious as to who he is talking to.

And his parental problems soon double as a baby also excitedly makes his way into the room under his own power in a walker.

To complete the farce, his wife Jung-a Kim then comes skidding through the threshold.

She grabs the two youngsters and attempts to drag them out of the door, but one of them can be heard wailing and the baby's walker suddenly won't fit back through the door.

The interviewees toddler bursts into the room in a bright yellow top and performs a hilarious dance behind him

His parental problems soon double as a baby also excitedly makes his way into the room in a stroller

Eventually, she manages to get them both out, and the interview continues.

When the interview finishes, broadcaster James Mernendez says: 'There's a first time for everything. I think you've got some children who need you!'

Last month Good Morning Britain Meteorologist Laura Tobin found herself having to improvise on air while juggling working from home and childcare.

GMB shared a clip of Laura trying to prerecord a weather forecast only to be joined by her daughter Charlotte, two, who Susanna Reid was meant to be playing quietly nearby.

'Mummy's just going to talk to some people, can you just be really quiet,' Laura was seen asking her daughter. Just seconds later though she was forced to gently shush Charlotte as she continued to talk.

Laura managed to get through a few lines before her little girl wandered into shot, leading to giggles and an apology from Laura to her producers.

Sharing photo of herself and Charlotte, Laura admitted that at least her little girl didn't interrupt her live broadcast.

'Thats a wrap from me & my helpful assistant Charlotte (who also helped with makeup) I hoped shed be distracted by play-Doh & colouring-She wasnt (for a recording) BUT breakfast meant my live weather went uninterrupted. Who can relate?', she penned.

In October last year, NBC reporter Courtney Kube was interrupted by her young son during a live news broadcast - after he wandered onto the set at their Washington DC studios.

Courtney Kube was reporting for NBC, when her young son interrupted her on set

Kube, who is NBC's national security and military reporter, was ever-the-professional as her cheeky toddler began hugging her and tried to pull on her hair.

'Excuse me, my kids are here!' Kube smiled as she tried to remove her son from the camera's view.

Earlier this year, newsreader 's young daughter was seen entering the screen during a live broadcast to tell her mum that she had just received a text message.

The incident took place on local channel TaghilTV in the city of Nizhniy Taghil located in the south-western Russian region of Sverdlovsk Oblast

In the footage, the anchor, named Anna Kizilova, reads out the news before a little girl enters the frame and tries to hand her a phone.

When the mortified presenter tries to gently push her daughter Elizaveta out of shot, the girl says: 'But mum, you have a message.'

The TV presenter told Central European News (CEN) that she had to collect her daughter from nursery and quickly return to work when the incident happened.

She said: 'I wasn't married at the time and my mum lived on the other side of town so there was no one I could leave her with when I had to go to work.'

Kizilova said that she was not punished by channel bosses for the live mishap.

She commented: 'I was worried about losing my news role, but the producer asked the team about the public reaction and was told that it had been positive.

The incident took place in 2012, but was shared on social media earlier this year.
The Queen and her family will be 'distressed' to hear that Meghan Markle did not feel 'protected' during her pregnancy, a royal expert has claimed.

Royal editor Russell Myers told Lorraine Kelly on Good Morning Britain that the senior members of the royal family will be upset at new claims that Meghan Markle felt the Firm failed to protect her while she was pregnant with her first child Archie in 2019.

The claim was made within the latest documents released as part of her High Court battle against the Associated Newspapers Limited, publishers of The Mail On Sunday, over an article which reproduced parts of a letter she had sent to her father Thomas Markle in August 2018.

Myers added that upcoming books which will be published this summer and claiming to uncover 'the truth' about Megxit were also likely to deepen the upset.

Royaeditor for the Daily Mirror Russell Myers told Lorraine Kelly the royal family will be distressed by reports that Meghan Markle did not feel 'protected' during her pregnancy

Speaking to Lorraine, the royal expert said the situation was 'very very sad indeed,' and added the royal family were likely to feel upset by the Duchess of Sussex's latest court submissions.

'They're all also disturbing readings for the royal family. They will be really, really distressed,' he said.

He added he had looked back at the public statements the queen had issued in January following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's announcement that they intended to withdraw from their royal duties.

'I think at the time, and certainly reading back on them now, they're very, very heartfelt,' he said.

In documents submitted in regards to her legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited, publishers of the Mail on Sunday, Meghan Markle has aired some complaints. She said she felt 'unprotected by the institution of the royal family' during her pregnancy with Archie last year (pictured in February 2019 in London)

'The queen mentions family, how they took Meghan into their heart of the family, how she was so impressed with her.

'And certainly these claims that she felt unprotected, especially when pregnant, will be very, very distressing to hear for the Queen, Philip, Charles, Kate and William,' he said.

In document submitted in her legal case, Meghan Markle claimed she felt 'unprotected by the institution of the royal family' during her pregnancy and was 'prohibited from defending herself' against media reports while pregnant.

Myers said the royal familly will be 'absolutely upset' by the revelations of upcoming books claiming to uncover the truth about Prince Harry and Meghan's much talked about Megxit from the royal family

In legal filings, her lawyers said Meghan had 'become the subject of a large number of false and damaging articles by the UK tabloid media, specifically by the defendant, which caused tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health.'

Lorraine added she could not help feel these untimely revelations would divide the family further, and remarked: 'This is not gonna help, is it? They looked like they wer just coming together and then BAM you've got this.

However, the presenter noted that learning Meghan felt this way during her pregnancy was 'very very sad.'

Lorraine Kelly said she felt the situation was 'very very sad' and that the new claims would 'not help' the family come together again

Meghan's submissions also claimed that her royal wedding to Prince Harry at Windsor Castle raised more than 1billion in tourism revenue for Britain.

She also said the income generated for the public purse 'far outweighed' the contribution of taxpayers' money towards crowd security in May 2018.

UK taxpayers contributed to the estimated 32million cost of the wedding, although the church service, flowers and reception were paid for by the Royal Family.

The majority of the estimated figure - 30million - was funded by the taxpayer and mostly spent on security measures, including costs on protecting Windsor with a heavy police presence, crowd control and restrictions placed on businesses.

Claims made in upcoming book about the royal couple and their incredible exit from the royal family are likely to open some old wounds as well.

A new book, Royals at War, by investigative journalists Dylan Howard and Andy Tillett, in their explosive new book Royals At War, reveals the former American actress' announcement didn't go down well with the Duke of Sussex, 35.

The book claimed Meghan 'embarrassed' Prince Harry after divulging she was pregnant during Princess Eugenie's wedding day 'in a huge social gaffe' which left the bride and her mother Sarah Ferguson 'furious', a new book has claimed.

The Duchess of Sussex, 38, is said to have revealed she was carrying her first child when celebrating Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank's nuptials with the rest of the Royal family on 12 October 2018.
Meghan Markle's best friend Daniel Martin has revealed he joined a 'fun Zoom call' to celebrate Archie's first birthday in May.

Daniel, who lives in New York, told People magazine that he has been 'checking in with' the Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex, 38, during the coronavirus lockdown.

The makeup artist, who has been close friends with Meghan for over a decade after meeting on Suits, explained: 'We did a birthday Zoom for Archie that was fun...Since we havent been seeing each other, everyone has been making a conscious effort to check-in, so its nice.'

Daniel has often joined the Duchess at key moments in her royal life, including her wedding and baby shower, as well as around the time of Archie's christening, sparking rumours he was one of the baby's secret godparents.

Meghan Markle's BFF Daniel Martin, who lives in New York, has revealed how he took part in a 'fun Zoom call' for her son Archie's first birthday in May (pictured, Archie with the Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex in September)

The makeup artist, who has been isolating at his home in New York, said he had been 'checking in' with Prince Harry and Meghan during the lockdown.

The Duke and Duchess have been spending the period at Tyler Pery's $18 million mansion in Los Angeles, having stepped back from royal duty at the end of March.

They celebrated Archie's first birthday in May, with a source telling People magazine how Meghan crafting a strawberry and cream smash cake while Prince Harry decorated their LA mansion with balloons.

Insiders revealed how the couple crafted a 'really simple but incredibly joyous' celebration for their son, with the trio taking time to video call to chat with his godparents and family.

The makeup artist, who is believed to have been close to Meghan for a decade, revealed he has been 'checking in' with the Duke and Duchess during lockdown

Charlie van Straubenzee, Prince Harry's childhood friend, Tiggy Pettifer, Prince Harry and William's former nanny, and Mark Dyer, his minder, are the only of Archie's godparents to be revealed.

The source explained: 'Meghan made the cake  strawberries and cream. And Harry helped with decorations and blew up balloons.'

The 'simple' and 'incredibly joyous' day involved Meghan baking a birthday smash cake for her son with strawberry and cream flavours.

The 'smash cake' has been huge in the US for several years and has now taken off in the UK, with celebrities adopting the messy trend. Coleen Rooney celebrated her son Cass' second birthday with a professional cake smash photo session that she uploaded to her Instagram account earlier this year.

Daniel has been by Meghan's side at many of the key moments in her life, including working with her on her beauty looks for her final royal engagements in the UK (pictured, the Duke and Duchess in March)

Daniel is believed to have known Meghan for over a decade, having met her while the former actress worked on Suits.

He has remained in contact with the Duchess throughout her life in the royal family and has often seen her over the last year.

Daniel was by Meghan's side on her wedding day as he perfected her make-up and attended her famous baby shower in New York last February alongside celebrities like Gayle King and Serena Williams.

He was one of the first to visit the Duke and Duchess of Sussex when they moved into Frogmore Cottage shortly before Archie's birth.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex celebrated their son's first birthday at Tyler Perry's $18 million Beverly Hills mansion where they are currently living

And the makeup artist sparked rumours he could be one of Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor's secret godparents when he shared pictures from London in the days after the baby's christening.

Archie Harrison was christened in Windsor last July, but the couple - who reportedly chose 'close and old friends' to be godparents - refused to release their names, insisting they were 'private citizens'.

The royal also surprised Daniel in New York for his birthday last September, with the makeup artist revealing the news by sharing a snap on Instagram of a plate of cupcakes.
Going without haircuts, manicures and facials means many people are emerging from lockdown looking a little worse for wear.

But these royal and celebrities are looking more radiant than ever after three months out of the spotlight.

More time outside, a slower pace of life and a shift towards pared back beauty regimes are among the factors behind the stunning natural makeovers - or 'glow ups' - undergone by everyone from Gemma Collins to the Countess of Wessex.

Among the most marked differences are in the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, both 38, who swapped a hectic royal schedule for more time at home in Norfolk with their children.

One skincare expert claimed the extra rest has left Kate looking 'fresh-faced and glowing' and William 'five years younger'.

Here, with the help of experts in fashion, hair and skincare, FEMAIL breaks down exactly what has gone into these amazing lockdown makeovers...

THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE

Relaxed and radiant: From her sun-kissed hair to her flowy dress, it was clear the Duchess of Cambridge was feeling perfectly at ease as she visited a children's hospice last week (right), in only her second royal engagement since the start of lockdown. Left, the Duchess in March

From her sun-kissed hair to her floral sundress, the Duchess of Cambridge's lockdown transformation was on full display when she visited a children's hospice last week, in only her second royal engagement since the start of lockdown.

Skincare specialist Lucy Xu, founder of London Premier Laser and Skin Clinics (www.londonpremierlaser.co.uk), noted Kate, 38, is 'glowing' thanks to spending more time outside with William and their three children, Prince George, six, Princess Charlotte, five, and Prince Louis, two.

Fewer royal engagements has allowed Kate to take a break from wearing heavier make-up on almost a daily basis, leaving her complexion 'clear and fresh'.

Lucy said: 'Kate's skin post lockdown is glowing and her complexion looks clear and fresh. The under eye area looks brighter and you can see that her skin is slightly clearer than the first photo, this could be down to not having as many public appearances so not having to wear as much makeup and enjoying a much more stripped back routine.'

Meanwhile award-winning personal stylist Susie Hasler, who runs Style By Susie said lockdown has revealed a new side to Kate's fashion personality.

She said: 'As a nation, we all fell in love with Kate - and her style has evolved over the years to that befitting of a future queen. However, what were seeing during lockdown is not only can she look regal and elegant, she can also "muck in" the same as everyone else.

'Her style is much more relaxed - and what has happened is that those who thought her look was out of reach for them - financially and style-wise - are now seeing a look thats much more obtainable.

Celebrity hair stylist James Johnson added Kate is embracing the 'natural movement' in her locks, rather than opting for more 'obvious' styling. He said: 'Kate is the queen of effortless yet still looks classy and on point. Shes been switching up her styles and showcasing a mixture of lockdown looks, showing us all how to look good on video work calls.'

THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE

Daddy cool: Prince William looking sun-kissed in an open-collared shirt on a video call with Canadian healthcare workers last week (right). Left, the royal in a video recorded in March

With his beaming smile and shirt unbuttoned to reveal a glimpse of chest hair, Prince William looked more like he was on holiday than conducting a royal engagement as he spoke to Canadian healthcare workers from his Norfolk home last week.

'An unbuttoned shirt, who would have thought it!,' said Susie. 'Its such a contrast to how we usually see our future king on his outings. Hes usually a shirt, tie and jacket man, we dont often see him looking all that comfortable in casual wear or jeans.

'Now, rather than feeling as though what he wears or the person he is is out of reach, he wouldnt look out of place at your Zoom office drinks, similar to any of your other workmates. And he seems like hes having a laugh too - the change is very becoming.'

Lucy agreed there has been a dramatic change in William in the last three months, saying the less stressful life out of the spotlight has left him looking 'a little more fresh and baby faced'.

'Stress, celebrity status and constant events can promote the development of wrinkles around the eyes, forehead and mouth,' she explained. 'So it looks clear that the last four months of hibernating has done wonders for Wills overall complexion and he looks five years younger.'

James praised William for 'sharpening up' his style during lockdown, saying: 'Men struggle just as much within lockdown! Where most mens hair is shorter the shape is quickly out grow. Respect to prince William for braving the shave and smartening up his image in lockdown.'

GEMMA COLLINS

Natural beauty: The queen of reality TV glamour, TOWIE star Gemma Collins (left in January) has been embracing a more low key look in Instagram snaps shared during lockdown (right)

Usually known for her glamorous looks, TOWIE star Gemma Collins has delighted fans with lockdown snaps showing off her natural beauty during lockdown.

Gemma, 39, has kept herself looking camera ready but has opted for less dramatic make-up, which has worked wonders for her skin, according to Lucy.

'Gemma is looking super fresh in that second photo. Makeup free, or at least wearing much less makeup her skin looks youthful, fresh and glowing and her complexion actually looks younger than in the top photo,' she said.

'Gemma has clearly benefitted from not wearing as much makeup during lockdown and her skin looks as if it has had a new lease of life.'

James added that swapping her signature flowing extensions for a 'statement bob' has given her a revamped, more 'elegant' look.

'She works the natural Bob so well,' he continued, 'because it shows off her stunning facial features. A sharp bob is a statement look for a bold boss lady. Gemma's great because she works short and long hair equally as cool, showing us how to switch it up instantly with extensions.'

VICTORIA BECKHAM

Sun-kissed: Lockdown in the country has treated Victoria Beckham well, as photos of her glowing complexion show (right). Left, the design mogul in March, before lockdown started

Lockdown in the country has treated Victoria Beckham well, as photos of her glowing complexion show. The mother-of-four, who has been living with husband David and her three youngest children, looks as radiant as ever despite not having access to professional facials or other treatments.

Lucy described the transformation as 'jaw dropping', adding: 'Her skin looks dewy and fresh and you can see that she isnt wearing as much foundation or cover up.

'She most likely has been spending her lockdown increasing her skin care and using many high end luxury products, especially since she most likely has had more time to care for her skin. Her skin has also clearly benefitted from a bit of a relief from wearing makeup every day. Glowing and dewy she is definitely wearing overnight masks and upping the serums and oils in her regime.'

Speaking to FEMAIL, James Johnson noted how a subtle change in colour works to brighten Victoria's look.

He said: 'Victoria has added colour! These pieces of colour are great for fine hair as it adds depth and definition making the hair appear thicker. The colour is perfect for the hotter summer days too.'

SOPHIE WESSEX

Keeping things casual: The Countess of Wessex has embraced a more laid back look for her lockdown appearances (right). Left, Sophie at the Central School of Ballet in February

Experimental: The Countess of Wessex opted for a bold camouflaged look for an outing to the NSPCC headquarters in London last month. It is a signal of her post-lockdown style

Known for her down-to-earth nature, Sophie's personal style has become notably more relaxed in recent weeks.

The royal, 55, who has been in lockdown with Prince Edward and their two children in Bagshot Park, Surrey, was most recently seen volunteering at a Weybridge charity shop, where she wore a sleeveless blue top and white trousers.

Susie commented: 'Sophie Wessex has always been a favourite for her incredibly regal outfits and accessories. But, during lockdown, weve seen her progressively ditch - what has become - this now outdated look.

'Shes gone from one extreme to another! But its something that we all welcome right now, as were all making the best of whats in our wardrobe, and not many of us are pulling the ball gowns out of the wardrobe to work from home.'

James observed Sophie had been wearing her hair in easy-to-do styles that could potentially disguise an outgrown lockdown cut.

He explained keeping a piece of fringe down at the front help makes the look softer and girly while the overall styles are 'effortless but manageable'.

Lucy added: 'Sophies skin has a wonderfully even complexion. She is lucky to have small pores and a wonderful glow to her skin, and for her age doesnt suffer with too many wrinkles around the eyes or mouth.

'You can see that her skin actually appears more bouncy and dewy, especially around her forehead, cheeks and nose. She has most likely also had a bit of downtime from public life, and that combined with wearing less makeup has clearly worked wonders.'
The boy who was left in floods of tears over discussions on The School that Tried to End Racism has revealed how he was scared to speak about issues in case his classmates intentionally 'twisted his words.'

Last Thursday night, viewers of the Channel 4 documentary wept after watching Henry Littell, 13, from Surrey, break down and flee the classroom as he tried to talk about white privilege with his classmates.

Pupils in Year 7 at Glenthorne High School in South London were separated into 'affinity groups' of white and non-white students to discuss race and ethnicity during a three-week experiment.

The segregated affinity groups took place once a week, while 24 pupils aged 11 and 12 had further workshops and lessons together on white privilege and racial inequality throughout the programme.

Now Henry has explained why he was so terrified of speaking up in case he was misrepresented by his peers, telling The Telegraph: 'It would spread and everyone would know about it, and then people would say, "Oh, youre racist" and things like that. Even when it wasnt about racism, they twist your words.'

Henry Littell, 13, from Surrey, who appears in the Channel 4 documentary The School That Tried to End Racism, has opened up about the challenges of the experience and violent bullying he suffered in his childhood

Henry has now revealed how prior to the experiment, he was scared of speaking out about the importance of fairness having been the victim of violent bullying during primary school.

Henry was left terrified to go into the school, where bullies would pick on him because he 'used to ballet'.

The 13-year-old said he was pushed up against a gate and punched by older students, while on another occasion he was swung around by older boys who thought it would be 'funny'.

He also revealed how there had been racist name calling at the school, and he now regrets not stepping in to stop it.

While appearing on the programme, the then 11-year-old appeared highly emotional, and broke down in tears as he spoke to his parents about the affinity groups (pictured, with father Kevin)

He said: 'I felt too scared to say something about it.'

However the youngster has since settled into secondary school, where there is a 'boys-only' dance class.

How does the experiment work? Inspired by similar experiments by Mariama Richards in the US, for three weeks, 24 Year 7 students, aged 11 and 12 and from diverse ethnic backgrounds, were given a programme of classes to explore their racial heritage and issues around ethnicity. The groups were segregated into a white and non-white group for one session a week, for three weeks, and encouraged to discuss race and ethnicity. The hope is that by separating children by race, they are able to be more frank and honest about their experiences, without fear of offending or feeling uncomfortable. The groups then come back together to discuss all that they have learned. The goal of the experiment is to encourage a more honest discussion about race, with the aim that it will break down barriers and increase mutual understanding. The aim is that intervening at an early stage can help to change children's attitudes before they become crystalised with adulthood. Advertisement

His mother Sarah revealed that a lot of the older children from the class 'look after' and have taken Henry under their wing.

Since the programme was filmed last year, Black Lives Matter protests have swept across the world, with the family sharing podcast and video recommendations that they have found informative.

Henry and his two siblings Eloise, 21, and George, 19, have also tried to share what they have learnt about racial politics with their parents.

The 13-year-old said he would 'love to' join the protests in the wake of George Floyd's death in the US, but feels Covid-19 is a barrier at the moment.

And Sarah believes it is vital that parents endeavour to talk to their children about race, even if conversations are difficult.

She insisted these issues relate to everyone, including white parents, because of its impact on 'friends' and 'the people you see in the outside world'.

Meanwhile Henry revealed how the school has continued teaching pupils about racism since the end of the experiment, focusing each week on a different topic for morning registration.

He said he now feels more confident to speak about race, explaining: 'I have been frightened to ask a question. [But] asking questions is how people learn.'

Kevin and Sarah said they were keen for his education to become more diverse, explaining that they 'hoped the Government deals with the red tape' and allowed change to happen 'more quickly.'

Henry, along with a whole class of 11-year-olds in their first year at secondary school, volunteered to take part in the three-week programme, aimed at reducing unconscious bias, at the school which has a nearly 50/50 make-up of white and non-white pupils.

The scheme separated children by race into affinity groups, to allow them to have conversations and discussions about race.

Teachers were trained to run the affinity groups, with Dr Nicola Rollock, an academic who works on race relations, and Professor Rhiannon Turner, joining the school throughout the experiment to observe how the children behaved.

During the test, students were shown pictures of black faces and white faces with a list of positive and negative words.

The youngster revealed he had been scared of speaking out about racism after finding classmates 'twist words' and misrepresentations would 'spread across the school' (Henry, pictured front row, left, along with his classmates who took part in the experiment)

They were told to associate the negative words with black faces and positive words with white faces, and were timed to see how quickly they did it.

Halfway through, the test changed to match negative words with white faces and positive words with black faces.

After a break, the teacher explained that the results showed there was an unconscious bias, with the majority of the class showing the bias towards white people by completing the task of associating positive words with them more quickly.

Eighteen out of the 24 pupils showed a significant preference towards white people, with two showing a black preference and four showing no bias at all.

Meanwhile Henry's mother Sarah revealed she believes all parents should speak to their children about race issues

Who is Mariama Richards? Mariama Richards is an American diversity and inclusion practitioner who started affinity programmes at schools in New York and Washington DC. Although her initial schemes were voluntary, they were later made mandatory. She launched the schemes while working as the Director of Progressive and Multicultural Education at Ethical Culture Fieldston School, where she launched mandatory affinity groups in the lower schools in 2015. The mandatory programme was built into the school day, with 8-year-old children of all races separated into racial 'affinity groups' once a week for five weeks. During 45 minute sessions, they would talk about race - what it meant to be a member of that race, their commonalities and differences, and other people's perception of them. The goal was that children would feel free to raise questions and make observations that in mixed company might be considered impolite. Once the smaller race groups had broken up, the children would gather in a mixed-race setting to share, and discuss, the insights they had gained. The experiment aimed to to help children learn to break unexamined silences and use their voices to discuss race and ethnicity honestly. Advertisement

After the test, Mr Grant asked the children to tell him their thoughts, with one student called Henry explaining: 'Personally, I don't think that there was too much of a problem. People overthink it.

He added: 'I don't think much about race. It's just not normally something I discuss.'

Speaking at the water fountain with his friend Bright, Henry admitted: 'I know they say not to feel bad about it, but you still feel bad about it because you know you've done something wrong.'

Students, including girls Beth and Miyu and boys Bright and Henry, were asked to divide into white and non-white groups, with the idea that the children could discuss their experience of race without judgement.

Viewers were left in tears after watching Henry break down and flee the classroom during the first episode of the Channel 4 documentary series

In the white group, discussion was stilted and the pupils struggled to know what to say, as Mr Grant asked them: 'Have you ever thought what it means to be white?'

Henry told his group of white peers: 'Listening to their group, it sounds like they're enjoying it a lot. But I don't know if that's because we're not there...or...'

Other experiments included discussing 'what it means to be white', and doing a 'privilege walk', where they stepped forward or back in response to questions about their lives.

After being separated, the groups came back together and are asked to provide feedback, but Henry burst into tears and said he actually felt 'jealous' of the other group before he fled the room.

After it emerged that 18 out of 24 pupils had an unconscious bias towards white people, Henry revealed to his friend that he 'felt bad' about the test

The youngster confided in his friend Bright, revealing that while the teachers had told him 'not to feel bad', he still felt like he had 'done something wrong'

Later, speaking to his parents Kevin and Sarah, he cried again, explaining: 'What we were talking about is what it means to be white. And it felt really weird. I didn't feel comfortable talking.

'If I had the choice, I would be with my friends, not just by race, because that feels awful.'

He told the camera: 'Since the start of my life, I've been told that your race doesn't really matter. It's who you are as a person.'

And, after he was separated from his non-white friends for an affinity group, Henry broke down in tears in front of his class

In the second affinity group session, the children were asked to bring in objects that reflect their own cultural background.

Henry explained: 'I think we should not have affinity groups. Nearly every single person in our group said they feel less comfortable in affinity groups than in the whole group.'

And after Mr Grant asked why the white pupils found it so difficult to discuss race, the students admitted they were worried about upsetting others.

Unable to contain his emotion while his classmates appeared to laugh at him, the youngster fled the room and was comforted by a teacher

One of the pupils said: 'If we say something, that they think is or might be racist, it might be asking a simple question, they might be like 'Wow.''

Meanwhile, Henry said he was scared of saying something offensive, which could follow him around for life.

After several more days, Henry said he was learning to feel more comfortable about having the conversations, revealing: 'I've learnt that race is actually a bigger issue that I thought it was, and it's not talked about enough.'

The School That Tried To End Racism airs Thursday at 9pm on Channel 4.
The visit was hosted by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, chairman of TfL

The Prince of Wales arrived at a Transport for London (TfL) training centre to thank London Underground staff for working during the coronavirus pandemic today.

Charles, 71, met contract cleaners and station staff at Ashfield House, near West Kensington station in west London during the visit, which was hosted by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, chairman of TfL.

Ashfield House is TfL's main training centre and has been in operation throughout the pandemic, providing training to station staff.

The Tube network has maintained 50% of services at the height of the outbreak when a third of staff were ill, shielding or self-isolating.

Prince Charles, 71, smiles as he arrives at a Transport for London (TfL) training centre to thank London Underground staff for working during the coronavirus pandemic today

The Prince of Wales is greeted by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan- before meeting key workers from Transport for London, who have worked throughout the Covid-19 pandemic on July 2 in London

The royal met contract cleaners and station staff at Ashfield House, near West Kensington station in west London during the visit

Many of the drivers, station staff and other workers have since returned to the front line and now more than 90% of the timetable is operating.

The outbreak took its toll and 44 London transport workers have died due to coronavirus.

The royal family have been slowly returning to public duties as lockdown restrictions have been relaxed, and Charles has already attended a ceremony welcoming France's President Macron to the UK and met health and care workers at a hospital in Gloucester last month.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have also been meeting the public, visiting local businesses close to their Norfolk home.

The royal and Sadiq Khan were sure to keep their distance in a bid to adhere to social guidelines amid the COVID-19 pandemic

A smiling Prince Charles learned that the Tube network has maintained 50% of services at the height of the outbreak when a third of staff were ill, shielding or self-isolating

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan showed Charles around Ashfield House - which is TfL's main training centre

The royal looks in high spirits as he continues to slowly return to royal engagements as the lockdown restrictions begin to ease. Pictured, with Sadiq Khan

Prince Charles uses his signature socially-distant greeting (pictured) as he visits the TFL training centre

Charles was seen grinning throughout function and was seen laughing with both the London Mayor and the key workers.

The London Mayor said about Charles: 'He reached out to us and said "I want to say thank you, because I know you've kept the city going."'

He added: 'The great thing, he's met everyone from cleaners who are crucial to keeping public transport clean, the deep cleaning, to the commissioner - so you can see the response in their faces.

'There's a ripple effect with him coming down, they'll speak to their colleagues who will speak to their colleagues, but their families will know that His Royal Highness came to say thank you.

'But for the public transport running during the lockdown, NHS workers, care workers, those who work in shops wouldn't be able to get to work to serve our city.'

Prince Charles donned a navy blue striped suit for his visit - as he slowly returns to royal duties amid the coronavirus pandemic

The 71-year-old has been slowly returning to public duties as lockdown restrictions have been relaxed

Prince Charles was all smiles during his visit to Ashfield House -which has been in operation throughout the pandemic, providing training to station staff

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan arrives to meet key workers from Transport for London, who have worked throughout the Covid-19 pandemic along with Prince Charles

The Prince of Wales and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan met with key workers - before thanking them for their tireless hard work amid COVID-19

During the visit Charles met the outgoing TfL Commissioner Mike Brown and his successor Andy Byford, along with a range of workers.

Dane Commissiong, 50, originally from Trinidad and a customer service supervisor for a group of four stations centred around Hammersmith in west London, joked with Charles about the upcoming England vs West Indies Test match series which will be played behind closed doors.

The prince quipped: 'A bit depressing, you hit a six and no one cheers.'

Mr Commissiong said later he had been glued to the daily Government briefings about coronavirus and having a strong team of colleagues motivated him to come to work despite the threat of the virus.

He said: 'You do have that in the back of your mind that coming to work there are risks with the current pandemic but we followed the guidelines of the Government.'

The 50-year-old's manager Jane Black added: 'There were days at Hammersmith where maybe what you would call the rush hour - you'd get 10 people, at the start of the lockdown that's what we were looking at.'

Prince of Wales with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (L) meets Dane, Customer Service Supervisor (second right) and other key workers from Transport for London, who have worked throughout the Covid-19 pandemic

The Prince of Wales is greeted by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan as he arrives - but the duo ensure to maintain a 2 metre distance between them

Charles was seen grinning as he departed after meeting key workers from Transport for London

Environmentally-conscious Charles left the function after meeting the workers in his Audi etron electric car

The Prince of Wales and Mayor of London were seen laughing together during a visit to London Underground's training headquarters in West Kensington

Ahead of the meeting Sadiq Khan greeted the royal with Charles' signature socially-distant greeting

The pair chatted with Mike Brown MVO, Commissioner of Transport (second right) and Andy Byford, Commissioner of Transport (right)

Transport for London staff who have helped to maintain the tube service throughout the coronavirus crisis seemed in good spirits as they chatted to the pair

The Prince of Wales chatted with members of the Transport for London staff
Concerned Uber passengers subjected to a 'no mask, no ride' rule are claiming they have been in cars where the driver hasn't worn adequate PPE.

The company announced on June 12 that from June 15, all drivers and passengers across the UK must wear face coverings during journeys, in line with government policy, to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Drivers in London are required to submit a photograph of themselves to verify they are following the new rule before they can begin working their shift, while passengers and drivers are allowed to cancel a trip without financial penalty if the other party is not wearing a face covering.

An Uber spokeswoman told FEMAIL that 'to help protect the health and safety of everyone who uses the app, face coverings or masks are mandatory for anyone riding or driving with Uber. Any driver found to be ignoring this requirement risks losing access to the Uber app'.

Despite this, numerous passengers have taken to Twitter to report theirs didn't take the advised precautions.

Uber announced on June 12 that from June 15, all drivers and passengers across the UK must wear face coverings during journeys, in line with government policy, to stop the spread of coronavirus (pictured: stock image)

This week broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer claimed she took three cars in one day and only one of her drivers was wearing PPE.

The TalkRadio host, 52, from Birmingham but based in London, tweeted on Sunday: 'I've taken three Ubers today and two of the drivers weren't wearing face masks when we got in the cars.

'Cab driving is among the highest risk occupations for coronavirus - so why not? If we all abide by these simple rules, we'll ALL be safer. This is really not complicated.'

She followed up with: 'FYI, I asked both of them to put their masks on. Which they did. It why wait to be asked when they, sitting in front of me, are more at risk than I am, when I'm wearing a sodding mask?

This week broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer claimed she took three cars in one day and only one of her drivers was wearing PPE

The TalkRadio host, 52, from Birmingham but based in London, tweeted on Sunday: 'I've taken three Ubers today and two of the drivers weren't wearing face masks when we got in the cars'

'It's a small point but one worth making: @Uber *require* all drivers and passengers to wear face masks as a condition of use. I am happy to obey their rules to use their service to help keep their drivers safe. Why aren't their drivers as keen to protect themselves?'

It's a question other users of the minicab service have also asked. Alex Szabo, from London, complained to the company in a tweet on June 25.

He wrote: 'I had a journey yesterday and even though your newsletters and apps rave about masks and safety your driver did not wear a mask. I realise they are self-employed but they represent your own company!'

Liz Palmer, from Birmingham, also took to social media to call out the firm, tweeting on June 17 in response to a post by Uber stating its new rules: 'Have you told your drivers that masks are compulsory?

A London taxi driver tweeted a photo of what he claimed to be an Uber vehicle where the driver wasn't wearing a mask

Shockingly, Twitter user Michael Afemare, of London, claimed he jumped in an Uber on June 27 wearing a mask, but his driver's was on the passenger seat. He said: 'I asked shouldn't he be wearing it? He reluctantly put it on incorrectly with immense sarcasm'

'I cancelled two Ubers this eve because neither were wearing masks. I was wearing mask and gloves to help protect them and other passengers - I expect the same courtesy.'

In the same thread, Alex, from Hertfordshire, replied: 'What about the Uber I just got in, who is wearing no mask?'

Shockingly, Twitter user Michael Afemare, of London, claimed he jumped in an Uber on June 27 wearing a mask, but his driver's was on the passenger seat. He said: 'I asked shouldn't he be wearing it? He reluctantly put it on incorrectly with immense sarcasm.

Numerous Uber users tweeted that their drivers hadn't worn masks on their journey, meaning they felt unsafe

'My driver had a cough. The windows were closed and locked. He refused to let me open my window because it was raining. He broke all of the safety protocols you have in place to keep everyone safe. I'm honestly baffled and disappointed.'

On June 22, Lyndsay Marchand, from Sutton, tweeted: '@Uber so, face masks mandatory? Not for my driver on Saturday who picked me up, no mask, and his WIFE sitting in the front seat.

'Said he couldn't wear a mask because of his beard. I've been socially distancing and wearing masks for weeks. If I catch Covid I'll know from where.'

In response to the announcement that face coverings would be mandatory on June 12, another Twitter user who goes by the name Lord Moai tweeted: 'What about your drivers? Especially @ubereats drivers. All of them with no face masks as it is not mandatory for them. Hard to make mandatory something to the public and not to your own people.'

And it seems the issue isn't unique to Uber. A London taxi driver who tweets under the username @glenda_hoddle claimed to have seen 'scores' of private hire drivers from the likes of Ola cabs and Kapten 'not wearing masks'.

And it seems the issue isn't unique to Uber. A London taxi driver who tweets under the username @glenda_hoddle claimed to have seen 'scores' of private hire drivers from the likes of Uber, Ola cabs and Kapten 'not wearing masks'

They tweeted on June 25: 'You need to tell your drivers to wear face masks properly and make sure passengers wear theirs too.'

The following day they tweeted a photo of a cab, believed to be an Uber, with a driver no wearing a mask on the Essex Road.

Twitter user Aimee, from London, claimed she took two Addison Lee taxis on June 30, but neither of her drivers had masks on.

Twitter user Aimee, from London, claimed she took two Addison Lee taxis on June 30, but neither of her drivers had masks on

She asked: 'So is there some rule that passengers have to wear masks in taxis but drivers don't?' In response, Hannah Wright, from London, tweeted: 'Yah I had this! I think surely both should be wearing?'

According to its website, Addison Lee is asking that all passengers wear a face covering when they travel. Passengers with a respiratory condition that prevents them from wearing a face covering, children under three and people with disabilities are exempt.

It states: 'Our policy is to provide drivers with as much equipment as they require to feel safe, remain protected and keep our passengers safe, but (as a minimum) we provide our drivers every week, with five pairs of protective gloves, five face masks and antibacterial hand sanitiser.'

It does not state that it is mandatory for drivers to wear masks. Its 'guidance' is that all taxi and private hire (TPH) drivers should wear a face covering at all times when in a taxi or private hire vehicle.

Femail has reached out to Ola and Addison Lee for comment.
A polyamorous couple has revealed how they fell in love with another woman and became a triad, but they admit critics have told them they are disrespecting the Lord' and 'going to hell' because of their three-way relationship.

Insurance supervisor, Shayla Oliphant, 26, from Phoenix, Arizona, met senior driver, James Bolden, 28, from Memphis, Tennessee, in high school. The two dated for a while before drifting apart but then resumed the relationship in 2015.

After four years of dating, the couple decided to switch things up and spoke about extending the relationship. The two met manager trainee, Shantay Nelson, 30, also from Phoenix, and the group began their life as a triad in 2019.

Throuple: Shayla Oliphant (right) and James Bolden (center) went from being a couple to a triad in 2019 after meeting their new love Shantay Nelson (left)

Special bond: The former twosome felt watching each other fall in love with Shantay helped extend their own relationship after years of dating

Story: Shayla, 26, from Phoenix, Arizona, met James, 28, from Memphis, Tennessee, in high school. They dated for a while before drifting apart but then resumed the relationship in 2015

'Everything changed when Shantay joined us. Me and James were able to watch each other fall in love with her, which extended our own relationship with each other. From the beginning, we all just clicked. We'd been actively searching for someone to join us for a few years,' Shayla said.

'Polyamory is something that has to be experienced to be fully understood. It's about communication, commitment, and love. We don't choose and stick with one single thing in any other area of our lives. Why should we with love?

'Once after posting a picture of us all on Instagram, someone commented telling us how we were "disrespecting the Lord," and would "go to hell" for what we were doing, but we have the opportunity to both nurture our relationship as a whole and the relationships within it. It's a level of commitment that allows us to be open and real with each other.'

The triad has never been happier, yet navigating a polyamorous relationship isn't without its struggles. While James receives pats on the back and comments like, 'Your life must be awesome,' Shayla and Shantay are constantly quizzed on how they deal with jealousy.

Plus one: After four years of dating, the couple decided to switch things up. Shayla and James met Shantay, 30, also from Phoenix, and the group began their life as a triad

Talking it out: The triad deals with jealousy through open communication

Try it: 'Polyamory is something that has to be experienced to be fully understood. It's about communication, commitment, and love,' Shayla said

Opening up: Shayla admitted that she once got jealous that James and Shantay were going to have sex without her, but they talked through it later

It's something the trio has learned to navigate through good communication - holding each other in equal regard and regularly checking in on each other's feelings.

Online trolls have remarked that the triad will 'go to hell' but even hateful comments cannot rattle their deep connection to each other.

'Jealousy is a natural human emotion, but what's important is how we react to it. That means communicating the concern to my partners if I feel the need to. No one is above the other,' Shayla said.

'When we first became a triad, I was on my period and couldn't fully join in during sex. I got jealous and stopped the whole thing. I felt so bad because I already knew that sex would happen without me.

'We talked it through later and I made clear that it was my fault and not theirs. We became more understanding of each other and simply moved on.'

Making it work: The threesome has gotten their families' approval, though they were hesitant about the relationship at first

Online trolls: The throuple has gotten backlash, however, with some critics telling them they are 'going to hell' and 'disrespecting the Lord'

Look of love: The triad insists that they have never been happier

Spreading the word: Thousands of people listen to their podcast, 3lationship Goals, in which they discuss their three-way relationship

The triad's families were unsure at first about the idea of the relationship, but soon after, they saw how happy the throuple was.

A similar sentiment is felt on the triad's social media pages where people have been inspired by the group to experiment in their own relationships.

'Everyone has been more than accepting to all of us. Shantay's sister was hesitant at first but she realized how truly happy Shantay was. Likewise, my mother was confused but has warmed to the idea since then,' Shayla said.

'Thousands of people listen to our podcast, 3lationship Goals, and send messages of love and support - whether they are polyamorous or not.

'People use our experience to bring up the idea with their own partners. Our platform has also allowed people to educate themselves on what it means to be poly.'
Jane Moore has called on Prince Harry to acknowledge his own past shortcomings when it comes to dicussions on racism.

Discussing the Duke of Sussex's speech via video link for yesterday's Princess Diana Awards, where he apologised for 'endemic' institutionalised racism, the Loose Woman panelist said she would have liked to see him admitting to his own mistakes.

She referred specifically to a 2006 video, which surfaced three years later, showing the Prince using a derogatory term to describe a Pakistani soldier, which saw St James's Palace apologise and the royal, then 25, sent to diversity course.

'Any mistake that somebody's made in the past can be forgiven, but for me, I would like him to have said, '"I myself have made mistakes".

Jane Moore was reacting to Judy Love, who said that being married to a biracial woman could have pushed Harry to reflect on his own mistakes.

Discussing the Duke of Sussex's speech via Zoom for last night's Diana Awards, where he addressed the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK, the Loose Woman panelist Jane Moore said she would have liked to see Prince Harry admitting to his own racist past

The royal had to attend an equality and diversity course in 2009 after a video shot in 2006 showed him using a racial slur during his training at Sandhurst when he was 21 (pictured in Remembrance Sunday in his uniform in 2007)

'For me, that's what was missing,' Jane told the panel. 'He himself has a history.

'A video was leaked out where he was saying some very inappropriate non PC things, and St James's Palace had to issue an apology and he got sent onto some sort of diversity course.

She said she would have rather the Duke of Sussex had apologised for his own actions, rather than 'lumping everybody in the same thing and going on apologising for the whole of our generation and society'.

'I think I don't think need Prince Harry to apologise for me, because I've not done the things that he's done in his past,' she said.

Jane Moore said it would have been a more powerful statement if Harry ad owned up to his own mistakes

'I thought it would have been more powerful if he had actually said, "Look, I've made mistakes".'

The 2006 video was recorded when Harry was 21 and training at Sandhurst military academy. It resurfaced 2009, after the Prince had already been embroiled in controvery for wearing a Nazi officer costume to a Halloween party in 2005.

In the video, Harry could be heard while filming and using the offensive term 'our little P*** friend' while introducing an officer to the camera. In another instance, he called another officer a 'rag-head.'

It was circulated by the now defunct News of the World.

At the time, St James's Palace had insisted that Harry had not used the word with any malicious intent. They also had added the prince understood how offensive the term was.

Fellow panelist Judy Love noted Harry was perhaps reflecting on his past mistakes now that he was married to a woman of Black heritage (pictured on Commonwealth Day with Meghan Markle)

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said at the time: 'Neither the Army nor the Armed Forces tolerates inapropriate behaviour in any shape or form, and all substantive allegations are investigated.

'We are not aware of any complaint being made by the individual.'

In the days following the incriminating video, Harry was then sent on a an equality and diversity course.

Now, 11 years on, the royal addressed the Black Lives Matter movement, which has found new strength following the police killing of George Floyd in the US.

The panel was discussing the Duke of Sussex's speech during the Diana Wards where he shafred his wife's apology for endemic institutionalised racism

Referring to Meghan's speech supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, Harry joined her in apologising that they hadn't got the world to a place where young people 'deserve to be'.

Speaking from a personal point of view, Harry said: 'My wife said recently that our generation and the ones before us haven't done enough to wipe the wrongs of the past. I too am sorry.

'Sorry that we haven't got the world to the place where you deserve it to be. Institutional racism has no place in our societies, yet it is still endemic.

'Unconscious bias must be acknowledged without blame to create a better world for all of you. I want you to know that we are committed to being part of the solution and to being part of the change that you are all leading. Now is the time and we know that you can do it.'
Netflix premiered a new reality show called Say I Do on July 1, and viewers are already flocking to it  and raving about it on Twitter, describing it as Queer Eye, but for weddings.

In the first season of the show, which debuted with eight episodes on Wednesday, a trio of talented gay men help plan spectacular weddings for deserving couples who  due to some tear-jerking reasons  haven't had the wedding of their dreams.

The combination of romance, weddings, and personal drama seems to have been a recipe for success for the new series, which is already trending on the streaming platform.

New on TV: Netflix premiered a new reality show called Say I Do on July 1

They do! In the first season of the show, which debuted with eight episodes on Wednesday, deserving couples get amazing weddings

Exciting: The weddings are a surprise to one member of the couple

Spotlight: In the premiere, Marcus and Tiffany get a re-do for their wedding, which was a disaster the first time around

Each episode of the show spotlights a different couple who, prior to filming, hadn't had the wedding they wanted for a variety of reasons.

Enter three queer men who step in to save the day: fashion designer Thai Nguyen, chef Gabriele Bertaccini, and interior designer Jeremiah Brent.

The trio help one half of each couple plan a wedding, and together they surprise their other half with the beautiful nuptials.

Fans are calling out the show for being a tearjearker, with many calling out the first episode in particular for leaving them sobbing.

In the premiere, Marcus and Tiffany get a re-do for their wedding, which was a disaster the first time around.

Love it: Fans are calling out the show for being a tearjearker, with many calling out the first episode in particular for leaving them sobbing

'Okay yall I stumbled upon Say I Do: Surprise Weddings on Netflix and I am straight up SOBBING at the very first episode omfg,' one Twitter user wrote. 'This poor woman!! What theyre doing for her is so heartwarming.'

'I am not even halfway through the first episode of Say I Do on Netflix and Ive already cried 3 times,' tweeted another.

'The show Say I Do on Netflix is the best show I have ever watched, wrote a third, while a fourth said: 'If y'all thought Queer Eye was an emotionally tear jerking, just wait until you watch Say I Do on Netflix.'

'I wouldnt recommend watching Say I Do on Netflix unless youre trying to be all in your feelings,' warned one more.

'I wouldnt recommend watching Say I Do on Netflix unless youre trying to be all in your feelings,' warned one

In addition to the emotional moments, fans are loving the three magic-makers who put together the fantastic weddings.

Nguyen  the Tan France of the series  designs the wedding dresses. Born in South Vietnam, he learned to sew as a boy before immigrating to the US with his family in 1993.

According to Oprah Magazine, he went on to attend FIDM and worked for BCBG Max Azria.

He also has some celebrity fans, having designed for Jennifer Lopez, Cindy Crawford, Katy Perry, Kristen Bell, Leona Lewis, Laverne Cox, Kate Beckinsale, Samira Wiley, and LaLa Anthony, and was previously on Bravo's fashion competition series, Launch My Line.

Nguyen happens to be engaged, as well, but is waiting to have his own wedding until his parents accept him marrying a man.

The guys: Fans are loving the three magic-makers who put together the fantastic weddings

Famous: Fashion designer Thai Nguyen, chef Gabriele Bertaccini, and interior designer Jeremiah Brent are the stars

Meanwhile, Gabriele Bertaccini was born in Florence, Italy and now lives in Los Angeles, where he founded the catering company Il Tocco Food.

He also founded the underground dining series Culinary Mischief and is a spinning instructor at Flywheel.

As for comparisons to his Queer Eye counterpart, Antoni Porowski, he said: 'Antoni is such a sweetheart. There is a lot that we have in common: The passion for food and what food represents. It brings people together. It's the glue.'

Finally, Jeremiah Brent previously appeared on The Rachel Zoe Show, the TLC series Nate and Jeremiah By Design, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

He is married to fellow interior designer Nate Berkus, with whom he has two children.
Viewers of 'The School That Tried to End Racism' last night said the students gave them 'hope' after a three-week experiment revealed a 'significant drop' in unconscious racial bias among a class of 11-year-olds.

In the Channel 4 documentary series, pupils in Year 7 at Glenthorne High School in South London were split into 'affinity groups' of white and non-white students to discuss race and ethnicity.

The first episode revealed 18 of the 24 pupils showed a preference towards white people, with two showing a black preference and four showing no bias at all.

But after a three-week experiment, which involved a series of talks and focus groups on race, the students were told there had been a 'significant drop in unconscious white bias'.

Viewers took to Twitter to praise the show, with one user writing 'the young people involved have given me hope for the future.'

Pupils in Year 7 at Glenthorne High School in South London were separated into 'affinity groups' of white and non-white students to discuss race and ethnicity during a three-week experiment in Channel 4's new documentary The School That Tried to End Racism

The pupils were seen cheering after being told they showed a 'significant drop' in unconscious racial bias after completing a three-week experiment, on the second episode of The School That Tried To End Racism

Another wrote: 'Just finished watching the Channel 4 experimental programme "The School That Tried to End Racism".

'Hats off to all the young students who took part - gripping stuff.'

Others dubbed the show 'powerful' and 'gripping', writing it has inspired them to 'learn and change' their approach to race.

In the first episode, most of the students showed a significant preference towards white people, with two showing a black preference and four showing no bias at all.

Following the IAT test (implicit-association test), the class was then put through a series of talks and focus groups to see if they could change their opinions.

At the end of episode two, the teacher revealed they had indeed passed the test with flying colours, telling a jubilant classroom: 'At the beginning of the experiment, the IAT test showed the majority of the class had an unconscious white bias.

'Our aim of this project was to see if by doing a series of exercises, we could change this unconscious bias.

'You did the IAT task again, and at the end of the project, I can reveal that there has been a significant drop in unconscious white bias'.

As the classroom cheered, the teacher continued: 'In fact, you're all pretty close to the neutral position - very little to no unconscious bias'.



Viewers were impressed by the show's approach and praised the programme as 'fascinating'

At the end of episode two, the teacher revealed they had indeed passed the test with flying colours

Speaking about the results, Dr Nicola Rollock said: 'What's key is that we have to be active in our efforts to educate, and confident in addressing race in schools.

'We can't leave addressing race to chance'.

White student Beth admitted: 'Before I felt quite intimidated and nervous to discuss anything to do with race, but now I feel open and ready to share'.

Meanwhile, Professor Rhiannon Turner said: 'Addressing unconscious bias is really something that needs to be integrated into the whole school system, so that it's discussed the whole way through the school system.

Speaking about the experiments, she added: 'They are all starting to get a more sophisticated understanding of how racism plays out. It's not all just individual comments but the more every day, subtle forms of racism.

'It's just such a big change from the beginning of the programme'.

Student Mckai observed: 'I think this just shows how much the activities really benefit us. We've had that unconscious bias towards white people for 11/12 years, and we've done this for three weeks and we're nearly neutral.'

Head teacher Stephen Hume admitted: 'This experiment really has affected me and it's absolutely our responsibility to build it into the curriculum'.

In the first episode, eighteen out of the 24 pupils showed a significant preference towards white people, with two showing a black preference and four showing no bias at all

Following the IAT test (implicit-association test), the class was then put through a series of talks and focus groups to see if they could change their opinions

In episode 1, the class of 11-year-olds in their first year at secondary school volunteered to take part in the three-week programme, aimed at reducing unconscious bias, at the school which has a nearly 50/50 make-up of white and non-white pupils.

The scheme separated children by race into affinity groups, to allow them to have conversations and discussions about race.

Teachers were trained to run the affinity groups, with Dr Nicola Rollock, an academic who works on race relations, and Professor Rhiannon Turner, joining the school throughout the experiment to observe how the children behaved.

Viewers were overwhelmed by the dramatic results on The School That Tried To End Racism

In the second episode the students were divided into ethnic groups again and the groups were given talks and tasks before taking the unconscious bias test again

On the second episode of The School That Tried To End Racism, student Miyu, 11, points out that non-black ethnic minorities are often classed as 'other', despite facing different stereotypes and issues when BAME historical and current issues were being discussed

Dr Nicola explained: 'The approach to race in this country has been one of colour blindness. We pretend we don't see race. That approach isn't working.

The class of 11-year-olds in their first year at secondary school volunteered to take part in the three-week programme, aimed at reducing unconscious bias, at the school which has a nearly 50/50 make-up of white and non-white pupils.

The scheme separated children by race into affinity groups, to allow them to have conversations and discussions about race.

Teachers were trained to run the affinity groups, with Dr Nicola Rollock, an academic who works on race relations, and Professor Rhiannon Turner, joining the school throughout the experiment to observe how the children behaved.

The first task was a game built by a group of professors at Harvard University, which is now widely accepted as a benchmark for measuring unconscious bias.

Viewers were left in tears after watching Henry, 11, break down and flee the classroom during Channel 4's The School That Tried to End Racism in the first episode

After it emerged that 18 out of 24 pupils had an unconscious bias towards white people, Henry revealed to his friend that he 'felt bad' about the test

During the test, students were shown pictures of black faces and white faces with a list of positive and negative words.

They were told to associate the negative words with black faces and positive words with white faces, and were timed to see how quickly they did it.

How does the experiment work? Inspired by similar experiments by Mariama Richards in the US, for three weeks, 24 Year 7 students, aged 11 and 12 and from diverse ethnic backgrounds, were given a programme of classes to explore their racial heritage and issues around ethnicity. The groups were segregated into a white and non-white group for one session a week, for three weeks, and encouraged to discuss race and ethnicity. The hope is that by separating children by race, they are able to be more frank and honest about their experiences, without fear of offending or feeling uncomfortable. The groups then come back together to discuss all that they have learned. The goal of the experiment is to encourage a more honest discussion about race, with the aim that it will break down barriers and increase mutual understanding. The aim is that intervening at an early stage can help to change children's attitudes before they become crystalised with adulthood. Advertisement

Halfway through, the test changed to match negative words with white faces and positive words with black faces.

After the test, Mr Grant asked the children to tell him their thoughts, with one student called Henry explaining: 'Personally, I don't think that there was too much of a problem. People overthink it.

He added: 'I don't think much about race. It's just not normally something I discuss.'

Professor Rhiannon explained: 'Research shows for 11-year-olds, making friends from different racial groups is easier.

'But as children get older, there is a process of self segregation where children split off into different racial groups on the basis of their ethnicity.

'Intervening at this age if crucial if we are to target and change children's attitudes before they become crystallised with adulthood.'

After a break, the teacher explained that the results showed there was an unconscious bias, with the majority of the class showing the bias towards white people by completing the task of associating positive words with them more quickly.

Eighteen out of the 24 pupils showed a significant preference towards white people, with two showing a black preference and four showing no bias at all.

Dr Rhiannon explained: 'We are exposed at an early age to white people in positions of power, white heroes and heroines.

'All of these influences tell us that white people are better than black and ethnic minority people in society.'

Speaking at the water fountain with his friend Bright, Henry admitted: 'I know they say not to feel bad about it, but you still feel bad about it because you know you've done something wrong.'

The School That Tried To End Racism aired Thursday at 9pm on Channel 4.
Zara was a beautiful divorcee. Tanned and toned from regular gym sessions, she had glossy black hair and a knockout smile.

We had met on the dating app Tinder and I decided to take her to Home House, a private members' club in London's Marylebone, for our first date, where she devoted the entire evening to a vituperative slating of her ex-husband.

She didn't ask me a single question about myself. Not one. I don't think she even noticed when I picked up the 200 tab at the end of the evening (I was raised to be chivalrous and, like most men I know, don't mind paying if my date appreciates the gesture).

I think she was in mid-rant about her ex-husband's filthy habit of leaving his dirty boxers on the floor as I silently handed over my credit card.

Paul Ratner, 36, (pictured) shares his online dating disasters on Bumble, Hinge and Tinder that he has 'notched up' over the past seven years

Glutton for punishment that I am, however, I carried on seeing 33-year-old Zara for another three months. 'No, but you don't understand. She's really pretty!' I'd protest, when friends expressed horror at some of my anecdotes.

And, to be fair, she did start asking me questions: she seemed very interested in my commercial property consultancy firm's turnover, the value of my flat in Hampstead, North London  and whether I'd consider paying her daughter's private school fees.

We finally called it a day shortly after her birthday. Zara made it clear that she'd really like a white Range Rover  I bought her a Chanel bath set. She texted the next day to say she was 'happy for us to part ways' and I responded with 'that's absolutely fine'.

So ended one of the many online dating disasters I have notched up over the past seven years.

Last month, divorcee Kim Thompson wrote despairingly in the Mail of the two disastrous years she had spent online dating, bemoaning the liars, bores and weirdos who seem to saturate the market. 'Are there no decent men left?' she lamented, as other women queued up to share their equally horrific tales of woe.

Well, Kim, I'd just like to point out that it's just as difficult for us men 'out there'. Lack of quality dates is not a women-only problem and mercenaries, cheats and oddballs are not restricted to the male of the species.

At least Zara was honest: she never hid the fact that her aim was to quit her job as a nail technician and for her and her daughter to live a lavish life, courtesy of a wealthy husband. I hear she's married now and I wish her all the luck in the world.

But why is finding a life partner so difficult nowadays? My lovely parents recently celebrated their ruby wedding anniversary, having started dating aged 16 when their eyes met across a crowded Luton airport, long before internet dating had been invented.

I grew up believing that something equally wondrous would happen to me. I didn't think it was too much to expect as, at 5ft 11in tall, solvent, dark and (I'm told) relatively handsome, I think I have a lot to offer.

After leaving Merchant Taylors' independent school in North-West London, I went on to Warwick University to study economics and politics. I got my first job in the property business in my early 20s and, aged 25, set up my own company.

By the age of 29, I'd had four quite serious relationships but still hadn't met anyone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. So, when a fellow guest at a wedding told me about the new world of app dating, my foray into Tinder, Bumble and Hinge began.

Never did I imagine that now, at the ripe old age of 36  a time in my life when I expected to have children and to be spending my weekends flying kites and enjoying dinner parties with other parents  I would still be single.

Is it because I'm especially picky? I don't think so. What I'm looking for in a wife is someone with a sense of fun who is intelligent and attractive  I don't think that's asking too much, do you?

Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that my bizarre and disastrous experience with Zara is far from unique.

Another date I'll never forget was Isabelle: a gorgeous, olive-complexioned 31-year-old estate agent, of Greek descent, whom I first came across on the dating app Hinge in about 2013.

I arranged to meet her for drinks at the London Edition boutique hotel in Soho and she arrived in a top-of- the-range Mercedes SLK  I like cars and have an Audi TT, so I knew it was worth about 35,000  then regaled me with tales of how successful she had been 'playing' the London property market and the extravagant lifestyle it afforded.

Paul is left asking why is finding a life partner so difficult nowadays? His parents celebrated their ruby wedding anniversary, having started dating aged 16, long before internet dating had been invented (file photo)

After our third date, she asked if I wanted to see where she lived and drove me along the King's Road in Chelsea, pointed to a very swanky block of flats, then inexplicably dropped me at the Tube station.

The next time we met, I suggested after dinner that she might like to show me inside her lovely flat.

She turned to me sternly and said: 'Oh Paul, do you really think I could afford to live there? That's just a story I tell people. I actually live 20 miles out, in Essex. And this isn't my car  it's rented through a car-sharing scheme. In fact, I have to get it back by midnight.'

Pointing to her designer threads, she added: 'These aren't my clothes, either. They're all borrowed.'

It didn't matter to me whether she was rich or poor and I told her so. But a chill ran down my spine as I realised I was trapped in a car with a compulsive liar whom I didn't know. What else could she be hiding?

As we stopped at traffic lights, I instinctively reached for the passenger door handle, hoping to escape, but it was locked.

Thankfully, she dropped me at the station and neither of us ever made contact again.

I think she was a 'fake-it-till-you-make-it' kind of girl, but there was no way I could build a life with someone if I could never trust a word she said.

Within months, I'd met Lisa, who had long black hair that she wore in an alluring beehive, and green eyes and with whom I was utterly smitten.

When she discovered I was interested in politics, she revealed she had a 'double first' in the subject from University College London.

After finding out I ran my own company, she told me all about her award-winning businesses. I couldn't believe how much we had in common.

All the while she regaled me with tales about partying with A-list celebrities.

It was as if someone had created my perfect woman and delivered her to me. And throughout the three months we dated, I was utterly besotted.

Then, one day, without warning, Lisa ghosted me  she suddenly stopped picking up when I called and didn't return my messages.

Via a mutual friend, I heard she was dating someone else and gradually discovered this was her modus operandi: dating a man for three to four months while pretending to be whatever she thought he wanted her to be, then moving on to someone new.

Still, I was heartbroken and refused to believe it until a friend said: 'Do you really think she got a double first from UCL?'

Without asking my permission, he had done some research: it turned out UCL don't actually award double firsts and, even if it had  this was before the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced  it had no record of Lisa ever going there.

Since lockdown began, Paul has become even more determined to find his Miss Right, as 'it would have been so much nicer to have had someone to share this time with' (file photo)

Then came Georgia  29, slim, with green eyes and curly brown hair, who taught piano in schools  who came into my life via Tinder.

On our third date, she invited me to her parents' house in Hertfordshire for dinner, along with her sister and brother-in-law. I was delighted.

Georgia had a real warmth and I loved the fact that she, like me, was clearly family-oriented.

But we had barely finished our starters when her mum began grilling me about how much I earned from my business and where I lived. I'm guessing she was trying to establish if I was suitable marriage material, but it felt more like being credit-checked.

The evening went from awkward to downright bizarre when Georgia's mother, a slim, wiry woman without obvious muscles, challenged her son-in-law to an arm-wrestle.

I sat wide-eyed as the mum, clearly as strong as an ox, beat him hands down. It turned out this was something of a party piece.

I don't know if I should have been flattered or offended  or if the whole display was a veiled warning of what could happen if I mistreated her daughter  but, luckily, she didn't challenge me to a turn.

Georgia turned 30 soon afterwards and, for our fourth date, I took her to The Ivy Cafe in Marylebone to celebrate, and bought her flowers and a Smythson leather-bound notebook.

Sometime between the main course and dessert, she announced that her master plan was to be married and have a baby within a year  and if that didn't happen, she would book herself into a sperm bank and try for a baby alone.

I almost choked on my wine. I mean, I too want to settle down but I want to know I'm with the right person.

However, I do understand that a ticking biological clock puts women in their 30s under far more pressure than men, and I thought the kindest thing I could do, given that I wasn't yet completely sure about her, was end the relationship so she could look for someone who was.

As it turned out, she found that someone pretty fast and I understand they were married within six months.

Then there was Amanda, 28, a Welsh Valleys vixen. She was incredibly vivacious with big blonde hair, steely blue eyes and a come-hither smile. As we merrily worked our way through two bottles of red, I felt I had finally met someone I could really connect with.

That was until the subject of politics came up and she proudly announced that she voted for the British National Party.

Things got heated when I told her I didn't see the BNP as a political party but as a nasty racist rabble who had no place in British public life.

I also mentioned that I had run for Parliament, for the Conservatives, in 2015, in the same constituency as former BNP leader Nick Griffin stood for in 2000. While I lost to Labour, I'm relieved to say so did he.

That was my first and last date with Amanda. As a Jewish man, I'm guessing I wouldn't have been her perfect spouse either.

Paul is not letting his ''bizarre experiences with online dating' put him off, as he has a socially distanced drinks date planned with a woman he met on Bumble

Another memorable one-off was with Cathy, 29, a stunningly beautiful Londoner. When the conversation turned to what we both did for a living, she announced proudly: 'I take leases on flats and then sub-let them to other tenants without the landlords knowing.'

Taken aback, I asked: 'Isn't that illegal?' And she replied: 'It's not not illegal'.'

I'd thought women couldn't get any stranger but then, last year, came Jasmine, 34, a petite brunette with a nose stud and tattoos who worked in the music industry. She looked like trouble but, in a way, I found her exciting and fun.

Our third date was at her local pub. She texted me en route to say: 'I'm here early, what would you like to drink?'

Thrilled, I replied 'whisky on the rocks'. But when I turned up, she was nowhere to be seen and wasn't answering her phone.

I waited at the bar, confused and a bit worried about her, for 20 minutes, until she emerged from the toilets wearing hot pants, white trainers and a long white T-shirt horribly stained with vomit, which she said had come from 'a friend's son'.

She never explained what she was doing in the loos all that time and I've no idea why, as she only lived around the corner, she hadn't gone home to change. Something felt very odd about it all.

My friends agreed when I told them the tale afterwards. Perhaps it was inevitable that it just fizzled out. Real-life dates have obviously been off the agenda since March, but I've had a few over WhatsApp, none of which I felt was right for me.

However, being alone during lockdown has made me even more determined to find my Miss Right  it would have been so much nicer to have had someone to share this time with.

I'm still a romantic and believe there are women out there with whom I'd be a good match.

So why have I had so many bizarre experiences with online dating? I don't believe the people it attracts are any odder than those you'd find in the general population. But when your first encounters with a romantic interest are in real life, you pick up on nuances that are absent when you're relying on computer algorithms to decide if someone is a match.

I'm not letting that put me off, though, and I have a date  with a woman I met on Bumble  planned for this evening.

We are having socially distanced drinks in Regent's Park, North-West London.

No one can accuse me of being a quitter. And who knows, this one might just be 'the one'.

The women's names have been changed.

As told to Helen Carroll.
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Coronavirus has become a dire situation for states like Texas, Arizona and Florida - and the latest projections suggest it will only get worse over the next month.

Models created by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) PolicyLab and updated on Wednesday predict that cases will only continue to surge in these states, as well as 'spread' to towns and cities that neighbor those with significant outbreaks, including rural Colorado, parts of Delaware and cities in Ohio.

The researchers noticed a disturbing trend: emerging hotspots seem to be cropping up along interstates like I-95 as the virus travels US highways with migrating people.

And perhaps more concerning still, previous hotspots - such as Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Baltimore - are showing signs that they may be poised for resurgences.

The CHOP PolicyLab researchers' forecasts come as eight states hit their respective record high single-day infection numbers yesterday and Another 47,000 cases were added to the US total.

Echoing Dr Anthony Fauci's warning that the US could hit 100,000 infections a day if things continue this way, the CHOP experts urged that Americans not become or continue to be lax about measures to curb the spread, such as avoiding large groups and wearing masks.

Researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's PolicyLab project that hard-hit parts of Arizona, like Maricopa County, will continue to see steep rises in daily infections for weeks to come before the state can flatten its epidemic curve

CHOP now predicts Maricopa County's daily infections will rise to 8,000 - modest, compared to its previous June 24 prediction that the Arizona county would see more than 25,000 cases a day by mid-July (above)

'We need to admit that we are losing the battle nationally to contain this dangerous virus as it engulfs more communities across the country, including those in the Northeast and Midwest that worked so hard to reduce cases and get back to a relatively normal way of life,' said Dr David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at CHOP and a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine.

In March and April, cities like New York and Chicago were struck fast and hard by coronavirus outbreaks. National attention turned next to Michigan, where there were 1,953 infections in a single April day at the peak of the state's outbreak.

The three were among the first places dubbed hotspots, and the steep rise of cases in New York City threatened to overwhelm its hospital system.

Now, only between 60 and 70 percent of hospital beds in New York state are occupied.

Illinois recorded its record low number of deaths in a single day - 12 - on Monday.

Michigan started handing out face masks on its public transit vehicles, slowed the spread, and quietly slipped from the 'hotspot' category by the end of April.

But then people began to return to fairly normal life, including going to bars. Since a dozen cases were first linked to Harper's Brewpub in East Lansing on June 23, the number of infections traced back to the bar has ballooned to 138.

Currently, Maricopa County, Arizona, many counties on the East Coast, in Southern Florida, and a smattering of counties in the Midwest, South and West of the US have more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people, but CHOP scientists predict burgeoning outbreaks along some interstates as vacationers travel this summer

In Illinois, 30 new coronavirus deaths were confirmed today - more than double its record low, just three days later.

Cases are creeping upward again in cities like Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Baltimore too.

The CHOP team noted that burgeoning hotspots are appearing along I-80, moving from central Illinois into Iowa, and on I-90 North into upstate New York.

With summer upon the US, a stop to interstate travel is unlikely, but other potential stopgaps to slow the spread of coronavirus are lacking.

'During a heavy travel season, the absence of a strong national response, including a nationwide masking mandate, will continue to threaten the viability of our economy and the ability of our schools to reopen in the fall, while depleting and surpassing available health care resources to care for the sick,' said Dr Rubin.

Patterns in Baltimore, which seemed to get its coronavirus outbreaks under control, suggest daily cases could surpass 400 by mid-July after the Maryland county saw a massive spike at the end of June

'Whats even more worrisome is that we'll soon add July Fourth travel to this challenging situation - vacationers will be visiting locations that even during the Memorial Day holiday had relatively low disease activity - but are quite the opposite now.'

On the East Coast, Delaware has been only moderately affected by coronavirus.

But with reopenings and warm weather, travelers flocked to its oceanside towns. Tuesday, John Carney ordered that beachfront bars in several towns close down ahead of the Fourth of July weekend after a sudden uptick in cases there.

In its last projections, published two weeks ago, PolicyLab warned that Maricopa County, Arizona, could see more than 20,000 new infections a day by mid-July.

On Wednesday, the state reported 4,900 new coronavirus cases and 88 deaths, the highest number yet in a single day, by far.

State governor Doug Ducey ordered bars, gyms and movie theaters to close and urged residents to wear masks outside their homes. Face masks have been made mandatory in the city of Phoenix (which is in Maricopa County).

Jackson, Missouri could see more than 100 new cases a day by late-July, PolicyLab predicted

Even counties like Knox, Tennessee, home to several colleges, are set to see worrisome rises in cases, the CHOP investigators said Wednesday

Thanks in part to these measures, CHOP's projected case numbers for the next month are considerably lower (but still appallingly high).

CHOP now projects that, by mid-July, daily cases in Maricopa County will near 8,000.

Although coronavirus outbreaks have seemed to bleed from community to community along interstate travel routes, that's only one pattern of spread.

'Travel alone cannot explain the worsening forecasts,' the CHOP researchers wrote in a blog post.

'We dont know whether it is fatigue and/or weak enforcement of city or state masking mandates, but our vigilance to properly protecting ourselves and those around us during a pandemic is eroding at a time when we need it most.

'And its not just the big cities - college towns across the country, from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Lansing, Michigan, are joining the list, threatening the reopening of schools that seemed so possible just a month ago.'
Coronavirus patients are more likely to suffer from a stroke compared to flu patients, a new study suggests.

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City found that 1.6 percent of those with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, experienced a stroke.

By comparison, just 0.2 percent of patients with influenza had a stroke caused by blockage in the brain, making their risk of the medical condition eight times less likely than those with coronavirus.

None of the flu patients who suffered a stroke died, but nine of the coronavirus patients did.

Of more than 1,900 patients either in the ER or hospitalized with coronavirus, 1.6% suffered an ischemic stroke compared to 0.2% of flu patients. Pictured: Lt Natasha McClinton, an OR nurse, prepares a patient for a procedure in the ICU aboard the US hospital ship USNS Comfort in New York City, April 23

About 26% of coronavirus patients arrived at the ER complaining of stroke symptoms while 74% developed one while hospitalized (above)

Researchers studied the risk of ischemic strokes, which occur when blood flow is blocked to the brain.

They are more difficult to treat and deadlier than hemorrhagic strokes, which occurs when a weakened vessel in the brain ruptures and bleeds into the organ.

About 87 percent of all strokes are ischemic strokes, according to the American Stroke Association.

For the study, published in JAMA Neurology, the team looked at 1,916 patients who visited emergency department or were hospitalized with COVID-19 from March 4, 2020, through May 2, 2020.

They were compared with 1,486 patients who visited the ER or were hospitalized with influenza from January 1, 2016 through May 31, 2018.

Results showed that 31 coronavirus patients - or 1.6 percent - suffered a stroke.

About 26 percent arrived at the ER complaining of stroke symptoms while 74 percent developed one while hospitalized.

One-third of coronavirus patients who suffered a stroke had severe cases and were on mechanical ventilators.

Fatality rates were higher among patients with COVID-19 with ischemic stroke with 32 percent dying compared to vs 14 percent of COVID-19 patients without ischemic stroke who died.

However, just three flu patients - a mere 0.2 percent - also suffered a stroke.

On average, flu patients were younger, female and had fewer underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease.

'The proportion of patients with ED visits and hospitalizations with COVID-19 who had an acute ischemic stroke was higher than the proportion seen in patients who visited the ED or were hospitalized with influenza.' the authors wrote.

'These findings suggest that clinicians should be vigilant for symptoms and signs of acute ischemic stroke in patients with COVID-19 so that time-sensitive interventions...can be instituted if possible to reduce the burden of long-term disability.'

In the US, there are more than 2.6 million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 128,000 deaths.
The odds that a New York City resident admitted to a hospital for COVID-19 will die vary wildly, depending on what hospital they go to, a New York Times investigation has revealed.

Hospital data obtained by the Times shows that mortality rates for COVID-19 patients are as low as 11 percent at private Manhattan hospitals, and over 40 percent at public hospitals in less wealthy boroughs.

Nearly seven months into the pandemic, already data suggests that it's not just underlying health conditions that put some Americans at risk for more severe coronavirus, but, equally, outcomes have divided along racial and socioeconomic lines.

Overall, about one in five coronavirus hospitalized patients in New York City have died, according to the Times, but where a New Yorker is treated may dramatically affect their survival odds, the investigation suggests.

NYU Langone's flagship hospital has one of New York City's lowest coronavirus death rates at 11 percent. By contrast, more than 41% of COVID-19 patients Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn have died, a New York Times investigation revealed

As of Thursday morning, 212,412 people in New York City have contracted coronavirus, and an estimated 23,104 have died (including both confirmed and probable deaths reported by the city's health department).

That puts the city's overall COVID-29 death rate at roughly 11 percent, a slightly higher figure than the New York Times's estimate of hospital deaths.

To-date, 55,022 people in New York City have been hospitalized for coronavirus.

About 5,502 of them will die, according to the Times's calculation of the death rate in New York City hospitals.

But which people may depend upon the borough they live in and which hospital within that borough they are admitted to.

Even hospitals that sit across an intersection from one another can have vastly different death rates for coronavirus patients.

Both New York University Langone's flagship hospital and Bellevue Hospital Center are located at Madison Avenue and East 30th St in Manhattan.

New York City is home to some of the nation's best hospitals.

Among them, NYU Langone ranks second only to Columbia University's hospitals as the best private facilities in the city.

NYU Langone is a university hospital with better access to clinical trial drugs like remdesivir and far more income than public hospitals

Located at the same intersection as NYU Langone, the public Bellevue Hospital Center's coronavirus death rate is twice as high as its neighbor's

Bellevue is one of the best of New York City's 11 public hospitals.

But outcomes for coronavirus patients at NYU are worlds away from outcomes for those at Bellevue.

According to data obtained by the Times, about 11 percent of COVID-19 patients hospitalized at NYU Langone's flagship location have died.

The mortality rate for coronavirus patents at Bellevue is double that, at 22 percent.

One thing that separates the two - and the outcomes for their patients - is resources.

NYU Langone grosses about $2.26 billion and employs 20,424 people, inclusive of about 1,000 doctors. In Q1 of 2019 alone, it made about $153 million.

In 2019, New York Health and Hospitals - of which Bellevue is one - made a total of $36 million. It employs about 40,000 people across its 11 hospitals.

In Brooklyn, 41 percent of coronavirus patients at Coney Island Hospital, another public facility, have died, bringing the death toll at the hospital to 363.

At Mt Sinai's flagship hospital in Manhattan, just 17 percent of patients have died.

But even within that same prestigious, private hospital system, survival odds vary wildly.

Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn has one of NYC's worst coronavirus death rates, at 41%

Depending on what hospital they were treated at, some NYC coronavirus patients were less likely to have access to experimental treatment with remdesivir in clinical traisl (file)

The death rate for COVID-19 patients at Mt Sinai's Brooklyn branch is 34 percent, and its Queens hospital has performed little better, with a fatality rate of 33 percent, according to the Times.

Residents of the two outer boroughs are, on the whole, poorer than those who live in Manhattan and more likely to be people of color.

Granted, the likelihood that someone will die of coronavirus (or any disease) is influenced not just by wealth but by many factors that are out of a hospitals hands, including underlying health conditions, when the person seeks medical attention and how extensive their exposures to the virus have been.

The Times's analysis doesn't control for these in the way that a rigorous scientific study would.

But there are many factors within the walls of a hospital that play a role too.

For example, not all hospitals are granted equal access to experimental treatments, such as the antiviral remdesivir.

University-affiliated medical centers and large hospital systems are typically the top choices for clinical trials.

As a result, independent facilities like the Brooklyn Hospital Center fall toward the bottom of wait lists to receive and attempt to treat patients with trial drugs like remdesivir.

Remdesivir may not be a life-saver - about seven percent of patients who got the drug in the NIH trial died, compared to about 11 percent of those who didn't - but it does improve recovery times by 30 percent and some evidence suggests that if could reduce death risks if given early enough.

Perhaps more importantly, a clinical trial - even for an ineffective drug - may change the kind of care a patient gets.

'Youre super attentive to those patients,' said Dr Mangala Narasimhan, a regional director of critical care at Northwell, another New York City hospital told the Times.

'That is an effect in itself.'
MEMOIR

THE BEATLES AND BEYOND

by Don Short (Wymer 14.99, 254pp)

This rollicking memoir  a veritable treasure trove of anecdote and gossip  is not so much a trip down Memory Lane as a star-strewn cavalcade down Memory Motorway.

Don Short is the uncrowned king of showbusiness reporters. Anyone who grew up reading the popular papers in the Sixties and Seventies, as I did, will have followed his endless scoops in the Daily Mirror, when that paper sold five million copies a day.

Short was a canny businessman, too, and went on to run a very successful syndication department for this newspaper.

Don Short who was a Daily Mirror showbusiness reporter in the Sixties and Seventies, has penned a memoir. Pictured: Don with Paul, John and George

When rival papers wondered whether to check on yet another Short scoop, these words from a distinguished Fleet Street editor would ring in their ears: If Don Short says its true, then it is.

This was a time before social media, before mobiles and the internet when, as a journalist following a story, you had to be there. If you really wanted to know about the stars, you had to know them.

Showbiz wasnt ruled by the PR and marketing machinery that controls so much of the news these days. Then, it meant constant travel, though you did get to stay in the best hotels. The Mirror had two planes on standby at Gatwick Airport for use any time.

For anyone over  ahem  a certain age, this is a magical roll call of showbiz royalty. Short knew everyone  The Beatles, the Stones, Burton and Taylor, Bowie, Richard Harris, Elvis, Roger Moore and his various wives. Here is Don having Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pattie Boyd round for dinner at his house, and when Dons six-year-old daughter cant sleep, Paul sings her a lullaby. When Paul and George head for Ireland with their girlfriends, Don tracks them down and clambers into their room with a prized bottle of whisky.

John Lennon asks him to act as peacemaker when his father, Freddie, who had deserted Lennon at the age of seven, comes back into his life. It didnt work out too well and we leave Lennon shouting at his father: Get out, youre just a good-for-nothing drunk! Get back to the gutter where you belong! Families, eh?

Don gives an account of Marjorie Wallace who was crowned Miss World in 1973, and had affairs with stars including Tom Jones (pictured) and George Best

Short even coined the term Beatlemania, and his excellent contacts with the band enabled him to break the world-exclusive story of their break-up in 1970. Paul Quits The Beatles ran the banner headline, and the news flashed round the world.

This was a time when the words man, dig and bread (never just money) were scattered like confetti and when MeToo was a distant hashtag.

As Anthony Zorba the Greek Quinn tells Short: I dont know where nature says you should only love one woman. I am not the kind of man who washes up the dishes or puts his slippers by the fireside. Indeed not.

THE BEATLES AND BEYOND by Don Short (Wymer 14.99, 254pp)

Shorts invited out to Thailand by Roger Moore who is filming a Bond film. After one epic party, he comes across the star, crippled by a monstrous hangover, and proffers an Alka-Seltzer with the words: I cant remember Bond ever having a hangover. Bond isnt human, replies Moore. But Roger Moore is.

For those with long memories, there is a splendid account of Marjorie Wallace who was crowned Miss World in 1973.

Marji, bless her, had affairs with more or less everyone, including Tom Jones and George Best. The romance with Jones was intense enough to rock his marriage to the long-suffering Linda. Eventually, she was read the riot act by Eric and Julia Morley, who ran Miss World and feared the contest was being tainted by Marjis epic high-living. Ive been a fool, she told them. I shall never see either of them again.

A couple of hours later, Marji was back with Jones at his London hotel. She was stripped of her title, which was quite a tabloid show-stopper in those more innocent times.

But Marji still had a way to go. She became engaged to the U.S. racing driver Peter Revson, who then perished in a fireball in a racing accident. Poor Marji was distraught. But not so distraught that she couldnt meet up again with Jones in Las Vegas.

Criticised for moving on a little too fast, she said she would never forget Revson but life must go on. Spot on, Marji. And thanks, Don, for a real feast.
Hungarian airline Wizz Air flew about 100,000 more passengers in June than Ryanair, though both airlines have seen customer numbers fall off a cliff since last summer due to the lockdown.

Just over half a million people travelled on a Wizz Air flight last month compared to around 400,000 who flew on a Ryanair plane.

The figures were a massive improvement on the previous month when the airline industry was brought to a virtual standstill by heavy travel restrictions imposed by governments across Europe and the wider world.

Wizz Air announced it was cutting around a fifth of all its positions back in mid-April

Wizz Air's growing operations were enhanced by the launch of 64 new routes, and the opening of three new bases across Europe, which were in Dortmund, Germany, St Petersburg, Russia, and the Romanian city of Bacau.

Its total passenger figures were still 86.1 per cent below their levels in 2019 though, while its seat capacity fell by three-quarters on an annual basis.

Ryanair's traveller levels sank at an even faster rate, however, dropping by 99 per cent from 14.2 million the year before. The group flew just 2,800 scheduled flights in June, and none were with its subsidiary airline Lauda, whose fleet was wholly grounded.

The poor results come the day after pilots at the Irish company agreed to have their wages cut by 20 per cent in order to save 260 jobs from being lost after months of falling demand for flights.

Chief executive Michael O'Leary warned staff prior to a pilots' union vote that redundancies would take place unless members agreed to accept salary reductions.

The British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA), the trade union representing UK pilots, said 96 per cent of its Ryanair-employed members agreed to the deal's terms, which will also see the pay cuts restored to their full amount over the coming four years.

Ryanair Group flew just 2,800 scheduled flights in June and had only 400,000 passengers

BALPA General Secretary Brian Strutton said it was a 'terrible time for aviation and for employees in all airlines,' and that his organisation did 'not relish accepting pay cuts,' which would impact many of their union's members.

'But,' he added, 'we are at least pleased to have ensured that the overwhelming number of pilots whose jobs were at risk will continue to be employed.'

Wizz Air announced it was cutting around a fifth of all its positions back in mid-April and slashing the pay of its workers, including pilots and crew, due to the collapse in European air travel.

Its finances remain relatively strong though and in the year to the end of March, it underlying profits jumped by a sixth to 307million thanks to carrying around 40 million passengers, nearly 16 per cent more than the preceding year.

The airline boasts of having 'the lowest CO2 emissions per passenger/km amongst all competitor airlines' at 57.9 in the year to the end of June.

Even so, Wizz's per passenger emissions were nearly two-thirds greater last month due to the massive fall in load factor, which was only slightly above 50 per cent.

Shares in Wizz Air were down a third of a per cent to 3,331p around mid-afternoon.
King's Cross has launched a three-month summer art exhibition as the area reopens for business.

The 67-acre estate, which is owned by King's Cross Central Limited Partnership, has brought in Andy Leek to be its resident artist until September.

Restaurants, bars and pubs are reopening tomorrow after months in lockdown.

Artwork by resident artist Andy Leek will feature as the Kings Cross area reopens

Andy Leek, pictured, wants his art to help spread optimism as people return to King's Cross

And King's Cross, as well as hosting one of the UK's biggest transport hubs, boasts offices owned by tech giants Facebook and Google, where thousands of employees work.

Leek has been tasked with putting on an exhibition of works that 'spread optimism and fun and capture the public mood as the nation emerges from lockdown'.

The 34-year-old is known for his 'notes to strangers' project, which saw him leave messages  such as 'You are enough'  for people to find across London in public spaces, newspapers and underground trains.

Leek's first installation will be called 'This Much', taking the form of 28 'messages of hope and love' in the shape of outstretched arms.
Ryanair boss Michael OLeary described the coronavirus crisis as the worst the airline industry has endured in its 100-year history

Passenger numbers in Europe will return to pre-crisis levels by next summer despite falling 97 per cent last month, Ryanairs boss predicted yesterday.

Michael OLeary described the coronavirus crisis as the worst the airline industry has endured in its 100-year history, eclipsing the September 11 terror attacks that took place almost 20 years ago.

But he offered hope to shareholders who have seen Ryanairs share price collapse by 30 per cent since the crisis began, by predicting a sharp recovery in short-haul air travel across Europe.

He insisted the lure of cheap travel will drag passenger numbers up to 2019 levels by next summer, and predicted restrictions on travel will be largely lifted across Europe by the middle of next month.

But yesterday the airline served up a reminder of the devastating impact of coronavirus on the industry, as it confirmed it carried just 400,000 passengers last month, down 97 per cent from 14.2m in the same month last year.

Speaking to the Mail before the figures were released, OLeary said: I think well see a very rapid return to normal volumes because of lower prices.
Pressure is mounting on HSBC and Standard Chartered as the banks find themselves 'caught in the crossfire' of a diplomatic row centred on Hong Kong.

In its latest move against Beijing, the US has proposed sanctions on banks which do business with Chinese officials who are cracking down on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

And in retaliation against Boris Johnson's offer to allow 3m Hong Kong citizens to come to the UK, China warned there would be 'consequences'.

In its latest move against Beijing, the US has proposed sanctions on banks which do business with Chinese officials who are cracking down on pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged banks on Wednesday not to 'sacrifice' Hong Kong's freedoms in their bid to boost profits in Asia.

Experts fear that major London-headquartered firms may find themselves caught between sanctions from the West, and punishments from Beijing as the Communist regime threatens to use them as pawns in its efforts to win back control of Hong Kong.

Matthew Henderson, director of the Asia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, said: 'In the case of Hong Kong, sanctions will target assets managed by British banks, lawyers, and accountants operating within the city.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged banks on Wednesday not to 'sacrifice' Hong Kong's freedoms in their bid to boost profits in Asia

These institutions will be forced to choose between complying with the sanctions or maintaining their relationships with the system which the sanctions are targeting.

'The Chinese will very likely react by forcing other British businesses to take sides one way or the other.'

HSBC and Standard Chartered in particular  both of which are headquartered in London, but do most of their business in Asia  have already come under fire from politicians in the UK and the US for supporting a draconian national security law imposed by China on Hong Kong.

Hundreds of people have already been arrested in the territory amid protests this week as the law came into force.

It is feared the laws will encroach on human rights and reduce Hong Kong's attractiveness as a financial centre.

But British lenders in the region found themselves in an interminable bind, as China reportedly threatened to curtail their ability to do business there unless they supported the law.

Raab said in Parliament: 'I've been very clear in relation to HSBC and I also say the same thing in relation to all of the banks: the rights and the freedoms and our responsibilities in this country to the people of Hong Kong should not be sacrificed on the altar of bankers' bonuses.'

HSBC and Standard Chartered have already come under fire from politicians in the UK and the US for supporting a draconian new national security law imposed by China on Hong Kong

The move by US lawmakers to introduce sanctions on banks which work with certain Chinese officials will put HSBC and Standard Chartered in an even stickier spot.

Benedict Rogers, deputy chairman of the Conservative Human Rights Committee and co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, said: 'My understanding is that the US sanctions are principally aimed at Chinese financial institutions and not the international banks like HSBC at this stage.

'But clearly if HSBC behaves more and more like a Chinese bank because of the pressure from the Chinese regime, then they could find themselves affected by it.'

The heightened tensions between China and the US are particularly problematic for HSBC, which effectively connects the financial plumbing between New York and Hong Kong and facilitates smooth trading between the East and the West.

Matt Kilcoyne, deputy director of think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, said: 'Firms like HSBC and Standard Chartered preach corporate responsibility in the West, but then they turn their back on human rights in countries where that's less in favour.

'That has now come back to bite them, as they find themselves increasingly caught in the crossfire.

'They have to make a decision between the banking system of the West and that in Beijing, and that will be difficult because they make most of their profits in Asia.

'But they also have a duty to their customers and shareholders in the West, who expect them to uphold proper corporate practice and human rights around the world.'

He added that HSBC's position on Hong Kong was a 'kick in the teeth' for its UK customers and shareholders, and that he knew 'a lot of people' who had switched from HSBC to another bank in recent months.

Kilcoyne said: 'These banks do make a lot of money in Asia  but if they're going to lose a lot of customers over this in the long term, that's not good for shareholders.'

Standard Chartered shares climbed 2.6 per cent yesterday, while HSBC went up 4.5 per cent.
Donald Trump claimed the US economy is 'roaring back' as official figures showed firms hired a record 4.8m workers last month.

The unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 per cent in June from 13.3 per cent in May as the world's biggest economy bounced back more sharply than expected.

The increase of 4.8m workers on payrolls is the biggest monthly rise since records began in 1939, and comes after a 2.5m bump in jobs in May. The rise was also far bigger than the 3m increase predicted by many economists.

President Trump hailed the latest US jobs figures showing the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 per cent in June from 13.3 per cent in May

The jobs recovery was broad based, with figures from the US Labor Department showing leisure and hospitality firms took on 2.1m workers, manufacturers added 356,000 jobs and retailers recruited 740,000 staff.

The figures triggered a rebound on global stockmarkets and were pounced upon by Trump who tweeted immediately: 'Great jobs numbers!'

In a White House press conference, the president described the numbers as 'spectacular news for American workers and American families and for our country as a whole'.

He said: 'Today's announcement proves that our economy is roaring back  it's coming back extremely strong.'

But experts quickly pointed out that the figures were collected in the second week of the month and therefore predate a second wave of infections which has hit several large US states including California, Florida and Texas.

Melissa Davies, chief economist at Redburn, said there is 'plenty of good news in the US non-farm payrolls report', but added: 'There will not only be a virus second wave, but a second wave of job losses as companies enter bankruptcy and new economic realities set in.'
A white Florida realtor who pointed a gun at a black homeowner and accused him of stealing a flyer from his own mailbox has been charged with aggravated assault.

Joseph Max Fucheck, 58, made racist remarks to Dwayne Wynn, as he accused the victim of not living at the Miami-area home, and said 'this is why you people get shot'.

He now faces felony charges of aggravated assault with a firearm with prejudice and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced Tuesday.

He's being charged under the state's hate crime law.

Scroll down for video

A white man Joseph Max Fucheck, 58, was caught on video pulling a gun and making racist remarks alleging a black homeowner did not live in their own home

Fucheck was caught on camera clearly pulling out a gun on Dwayne Wynn

Miami-Dade County court records show Fucheck, who is being held without bond is facing charges of aggravated assault with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon

'It is sad that racism can turn the most mundane act into a confrontation with potentially violent overtones,' Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.

Wynn was speaking with a neighbor outside his home on June 14 when Fucheck drove by in an SUV, placed a flyer in the victim's mailbox and drove away, investigators said.

Wynn walked across the street to see what had been left in his mailbox. The card was for Fucheck's real estate business and read 'We Buy HousesCASH!' and 'We Buy Houses FAST!'

He then walked back across the street to speak with his neighbor.

Soon afterwards, Fucheck drove back down the street, exited the SUV and began yelling obscenities at Wynn.

Fucheck accused Wynn of stealing the card, despite his insistence that it was his home and his own mailbox.

Dwayne Wynn was across the street at a neighbors house when Joseph Fucheck put a real estate card in his mailbox advertising his business

Officials said that Fucheck then pulled out a handgun and demanded the card back.

Wynn began to record the encounter with his cellphone camera.

Fucheck jumped out of his vehicle and began swearing at Wynn.

'That's not your property motherf*****! I saw you! I was down the street watching you! I saw you take that out of there. You're just a motherf****** nosy neighbor! Give me my card, that's my property!''

When Wynn came home to retrieve the card, Fucheck then confronted him insisting that he did not live there and pulled out his gun

Wynn was across the street speaking with a neighbor when Fucheck dropped off his card at his Miami-area home before driving away

The details as to what allegedly occurred were detailed in a release by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle

Fucheck continued to wave the gun: 'Damn right I carry a motherf****** gun.'

He continued to accuse Wynn of not owning his property.

Fucheck can be heard on the video using racist slurs and claiming 'this is why you people get shot' before eventually driving away, authorities said.

There were a number of witnesses to the disturbing incident, including children.

'After speaking with all the involved witnesses and reviewing the evidence, we are alleging that but for the fact that Mr. Wynn is a black male, the entire incident would not have occurred,' the state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.

'That's not your property motherf*****! I saw you! I was down the street watching you! I saw you take that out of there. You're just a motherf****** nosy neighbor! Give me my card, that's my property!'' Fucheck ranted

'It is sad that racism can turn the most mundane act into a confrontation with potentially violent overtones,' Rundle said.

'All Mr. Wynn wanted to do was go into his mailbox for his mail. Suddenly, as the video shows, Mr. Fucheck accosted him with a barrage of ugly statements and racial slurs.

'This incident was about much, much more than the obnoxious behavior of an irate man arming himself and screaming at someone he did not know and had no reason to fear. With this arrest, we are alleging today that the incident was about hate and intimidation, pure and simple.'

'There is no place in our diverse County for hate and the violence that too often spawns from it,' Miami-Dade Police Department Director Alfredo Ramirez said in the statement.

Jail records did not list an attorney for Fucheck who could comment on the charges.
Some industries are bouncing back after the coronavirus, as Australian jobseekers are encouraged to apply for tens of thousands of positions on offer.

The transport and logistics, finance, energy and mining and software and IT services sectors are confident about growth in the second half of the year, LinkedIn Australia Managing Director Matt Tindale told Daily Mail Australia.

But some of the industries most heavily impacted by coronavirus restrictions such as travel and education are expecting a slower recovery over the next six months.

Mr Tindale said software companies such as Atlassian are currently looking to fill 230 roles, while Datacom is looking for more than 1,000 people in cities such as Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.

As restrictions start to ease and businesses start to reopen there were 90,000 jobs offered in Australia during May, according to date from Australia's Regional Institute

INDUSTRIES WITH THE MOST JOBS Transport and logistics

Finance

Energy and mining

Software and IT services

Sales and customer service

Digital marketing

Graphic design Source: LinkedIn Advertisement

'Software professionals are able to work remotely with ease and are generally accustomed to using technology for a range of business functions,' Mr Tindale said.

'Having a business model that can work remotely has meant that many software and IT professionals have been able to adapt to working from home with little change to productivity, thus preserving jobs.

'They have also been in higher demand than usual as companies increasingly invest in digital to help them throughout the crisis, so weve seen this sector continue to hold strong throughout lockdown.'

Mr Tindale said that job seekers are now 1.4 times more likely to apply for employment in other areas.

He said these is extremely prevalent for industries, such as travel, which have been heavily impacted by coronavirus restrictions.

Hiring appeared to be stabilising and showing signs of recovery - but is dependent on a number of factors such as businesses continuing to reopen.

'An unprecedented number of people have lost their jobs as a result of this pandemic, and it will likely take some time before we get back to the levels of growth and strength we saw before the pandemic hit,' he said.

Australia's unemployment figures increased from 85,700 people in May 2019 to 927,600 people in May 2020.

The massive increase is due to coronavirus restrictions shutting down businesses and preventing travel.

Matt Tindale, Managing Director LinkedIn, Australia and New Zealand, told Daily Mail Australia sectors such as transport and logistics, finance, energy and mining and software and IT services have confidence in how their industry will bounce back (stock)

But as restrictions start to ease and businesses reopen there were 90,000 jobs offered in Australia during May, according to data from Regional Australia Institute.

Many were in capital cities such as Sydney, which had 23,240 job vacancies, or Melbourne, which had 18,726 vacancies.

But there are plentiful employment opportunities in regional areas as well.

The Newcastle and Hunter region in New South Wales had 2,133 jobs on offer.

The Pilbara and Kimberley region in northern Western Australia had 1,315 job vacancies while Far North Queensland had 2,656.

JOBS IN REGIONAL AUSTRALIA Regional WA: 2,786 Regional SA: 722 Regional QLD: 8,292 Regional NSW: 8,347 Northern Territory: 319 Regional VIC: 3,473 Data from May 2020 Source: Regional Australia Institute Advertisement

JOBS IN CAPITAL CITIES Perth: 7,597 Adelaide: 3,869 Brisbane: 9,748 Sydney: 23,240 Canberra/ACT: 4079 Melbourne: 18,726 Data from May 2020 Source: Regional Australia Institute Advertisement

Regional Australia Institute's chief economist Dr Kim Houghton explained what kind of jobs were flourishing in regional areas.

'In May 2020 the jobs in most demand in regional Australia continued to be well paid mid- to high-skilled professionals and trades jobs,' he said.

'These two occupations accounted for almost half of all advertised vacancies. Sales workers in many industries have been hit hard by the COVID-19 restrictions, and these jobs made up just six per cent of advertised vacancies for May.'

He said coronavirus restrictions, such as closing state borders and preventing overseas travellers, cause the drop in vacancies from the year before.
The former Atlanta cop charged in the death of Rayshard Brooks has been released from jail on bail, an official said on Wednesday.

A Georgia County judge on Tuesday set bond for Garrett Rolfe, 27, at $500,000, and added numerous conditions, including that he wears an ankle monitor and obeys a curfew.

Rolfe left Gwinnett County Jail at 12.27am EDT on Wednesday, according to county Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Shannon Volkodav.

Garrett Rolfe (left), who is charged in the death of Rayshard Brooks (right) has been released from jail on bail, an official said on Wednesday

Representatives for the jail, police, Rolfe and Brooks' family were not immediately available for comment.

The white former police officer is charged with felony murder and 10 other offenses in the shooting of Brooks, a 27-year-old black man, at a Wendy's parking lot in south Atlanta.

At a hearing on Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jane Barwick said she would allow Rolfe to be freed from jail while awaiting trial because she did not believe the former officer was a danger to the community or a flight risk.

Brooks' June 12 death exacerbated tensions in the United States over police brutality and racism stoked by the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Surveillance and cellphone video of the Atlanta shooting was widely viewed on social media, triggering sometimes-violent demonstrations and the burning of the fast-food restaurant.

Garrett Rolfe (right), the former cop who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks in an Atlanta Wendy's parking lot, is seen on a television screen at his bond hearing via video conference on Tuesday

At Tuesday's hearing, before the judge gave her decision, Brooks' widow Tomika Miller asked the court to deny bond, saying she would not feel safe with the former officer free.

'I say 'no' because mentally, I'm not able to handle it. I don't feel safe with him out there,' she said.

Rolfe's attorneys have said they intend to present strong evidence asserting he was legally justified in using deadly force because he was acting in self-defense.

Rolfe was fired from the police and had been held at the Gwinnett County jail.
Police are investigating a complaint after footage emerged of a black man being 'punched and kicked' by officers as they tried to tackle him to the ground.

The video shows the young man being pinned to the pavement on Wellesley Road, Croydon, London, on June 26 after around eight officers tried to restrain him following a brief chase.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that a public complaint had been recorded and that the 'actions of each officer' in the footage was being assessed.

The footage, which has been circulating on social media, was shared under the Black Lives Matter hashtag #BLM.

The movement has remained at the centre of protests in the UK and US after George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died after police officer Derek Chauvin put his knee on his neck in Minneapolis on May 25 for nearly nine minutes.

Members of the police force catch the man, who was trying to flee the scene in Croydon, south London, and try to restrain him

The group of officers hold the man and try and push him to the ground as he continues to struggle

During the clip, the group of officers surround the man who, police say, had been trying to flee the scene, and wrestle him to the pavement.

As the man puts up a struggle, one officer kicks him as other members of the force try to restrain him and bring him to the ground.

Just seconds later, an officer appears to punch him as the man remains on the ground.

Witness Alex Over shared the clip on Twitter next to the caption: 'Would anybody like to explain this?? This was in #croydon.

'The guy looked terrified and the way the police kick and hit him, I'm not surprised. Please look into this #BlackLivesMatter.'

The Metropolitan Police said that police officers in a marked patrol vehicle detained the man after believing that he was in possession of a 'sharp object'.

In a statement to MailOnline the police said: 'On Friday, 26 June at 14:14hrs, officers in a marked vehicle on proactive patrol on Wellesley Road, Croydon observed a man run away on seeing police.

'He was instructed to stop but continued to run. Officers observed what appeared to be a sharp object in his hand.

'Officers followed the man and attempted to detain him for the purposes of a search. During this the man resisted and became aggressive.

'A number of officers restrained the man and he was placed in handcuffs as they believed he had a weapon on him.

The group of officers restrain the man on the ground as he continues to struggle on the pavement

The group of officers hold the man down to the pavement following a brief chase in Croydon

Some of the officers continue to hold the man down on the pavement next a marked police van

'No weapon was found but an umbrella spoke was found nearby which the man admitted to discarding while running from police.

'The man was not arrested and no injuries were reported at the time.

'A public complaint has been recorded and this will be assessed by the Mets Department of Professional Standards.

'The Met is aware of the video and the actions of each officer seen in the footage will form part of this assessment.'
'Super Saturday' will cause a spike in Britain's crucial R rate and has already climbed back towards the dreaded number of one, a statistician has claimed.

Pubs, restaurants and hairdressers are finally re-opening on July 4, after months of being closed to help contain the UK's Covid-19 outbreak.

Scientists have concerns it will spark the rapid spread of the virus again, causing the reproduction rate  the number of people an infected patient passes the infection to  to spiral above one.

Keeping the rate below one is considered key to easing lockdown because it means the outbreak is shrinking as not everyone who catches it passes it on. If the figure  which the Prime Minister put at the very heart of the country's battle against the virus  rises higher than one, it could see the disease spiral out of control.

Number 10's scientific advisory panel SAGE has reported that the R rate has stayed in a range of between 0.7-0.9 since the end of May, based on modelling from a dozen different groups.

But Dr Mike Lonergan, a senior statistician and epidemiologist at The University of Dundee, said it spiked within this rage to the high 0.9s in June. He admitted the rise could have been prompted by shoppers, protests and crowded beaches over June, and said he expects the R rate to accelerate further in July.

Other scientists who expect the R rate to rise in the coming weeks say that it is not a cause for panic because it is inevitable it will increase with fewer cases.

Dr Mike Lonergan, a senior statistician and epidemiologist at The University of Dundee, said the R rate spiked to the high 0.9s in June from 0.84

Many parts of the lockdown imposed in March were unravelled by Mr Johnson in June as new daily deaths and cases declined.

Schools opened on June 1, the same day up to six people from different households were allowed to meet for the first time in months.

Non-essential retail opened up to shoppers once again on June 15, causing huge queues and crowds in some places.

Thousands of Brits congregated at protests for the Black Lives Matter movement, including a mass gathering in Parliament Square on June 6.

Mr Johnson relaxed social distancing from two metres to one, which would have allowed people to stand closer together.

And England's beaches continued to be flooded with Britons throughout June, often in crowds with little social distancing at all.

Dr Lonergan examined the impact of easing lockdown in the previous month after noticing that the decline in new coronavirus cases has slowed.

This became apparent on June 23, when the data was presented at a Downing Street press conference led by Mr Johnson.

One of the presentation slides showed new coronavirus cases during the epidemic were not dropping off as dramatically as they once were.

Dr Longergan calculated an estimated R number based on two things - data on daily new cases and how long it takes each person to pass on the disease to someone else.

He admitted his model, not yet published in an academic journal, is more simple than those used by Sage, which take into account other factors such as trends in movement.

However, his model 'strongly showed' a real change in the R number around June 9, when it crept up from an estimated 0.81 to 0.94 over a fortnight.

Dr Lonergan warned the rise was a 'significant' amount  but is not indicated by the government's own figures.

Dr Longergan said his model 'strongly showed' a real change in the R number around June 9, when it crept up from an estimated 0.81 to 0.94 over a fortnight (right quarter)

Dr Lonergan observed that the decline in new coronavirus cases has slowed, according to Government data presented on June 23 (pictured), which prompted him to measure the R rate

WHAT IS R0? Every infectious disease is given a reproduction number, which is known as R0 - pronounced 'R nought'. It is a value that represents how many people one sick person will, on average, infect. WHAT IS THE R0 FOR COVID-19? The R0 value for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was estimated by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team to be 2.4 in the UK before lockdown started. But some experts analysing outbreaks across the world have estimated it could be closer to the 6.6 mark. Estimates of the R0 vary because the true size of the pandemic remains a mystery, and how fast the virus spreads depends on the environment. It will spread faster in a densely-populated city where people travel on the subway than it will in a rural community where people drive everywhere. HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO OTHER VIRUSES? It is thought to be at least three times more contagious than the coronavirus that causes MERS (0.3 - 0.8). Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases, and has an R0 value of 12 to 18 if left uncontrolled. Widespread vaccination keeps it suppressed in most developed countries. Chickenpox's R0 is estimated to be between 10 and 12, while seasonal flu has a value of around 1.5. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO HAVE A LOW R0? The higher the R0 value, the harder it is for health officials control the spread of the disease. A number lower than one means the outbreak will run out of steam and be forced to an end. This is because the infectious disease will quickly run out of new victims to strike. HOW DOES A LOCKDOWN BRING DOWN THE R0? The UK's draconian lockdown, imposed on March 23 has slowed Britain's coronavirus crisis, studies show. Scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine last month analysed the virus in the UK. They estimated each infected patient may now only be passing COVID-19 on to 0.62 others, down from 2.6. The team said the virus was struggling to spread because people were having less contact with others. They used a survey of 1,300 people who were asked to list what human contact they had in the past 24 hours. This was compared to a similar survey done in 2005 to give an idea of how it had changed because of lockdown. Advertisement

Discussing the findings, Dr Lonergan told MailOnline: 'The pattern is very clear: there was quite a big a change around the 9th June.

'News reports, and anecdotal evidence, showed mass attendance at demonstrations and crowded beaches in the UK during June.

'I think we are already seeing the start of what will happen through July. And it will accelerate.'

He said the loosening of lockdown over June used up most of the 'safety margin' in terms of how much the R rate could safely increase.

It leaves 'little scope' for easing the lockdown any further without causing the R rate to dramatically topple over one and re-start the spread of the disease.

If there was only scope of an increase of 0.2 in the R rate, an increase of 0.13 in June is already more than half.

Dr Longergan believes measures to reduce the R rate which have worked so far 'will need to continue for another year, at least'.



The findings come ahead of 'Super Saturday', when pubs, cinemas, restaurants and other cultural venues will open for the first time in three months.

Some scientists argue the move has come too soon, including former chief scientific adviser Sir David King, chair of the independent Sage group.

The Government has reported the R rate  naturally around 3  is between 0.7 and 0.9 since May 29.

But the official estimates do not indicate fluctuations within that range, to show if it has increased or decreased in any given week.

Therefore, it is possible it could be closer to 0.7 at the end of May, and 0.9 by the end of June  but this data is not available.

A leaked government document at the end of June, seen by the HuffPost, suggested the R rate of the coronavirus in England could be higher than one.

There are several teams from different universities working to estimate R values to inform the Government.

They use different models which are not publicly available, except one  Professor Neil Ferguson's from Imperial College London.

Dr Longergan said it could be 'slightly dangerous that there is no way of checking what they are actually doing'.

'I do think all of the model estimates of R over time should be published, along with details of the models,' he said.

'We really have no idea what SAGE thinks or recommends, and that makes it hard to judge whether they are being listened to, or how reasonable the decisions and advice are.'

But scientists have explained an increase in the R rate is not a reason to be panicked. In fact, they say it will be a sign cases are coming down to low levels.

As the number of people with the virus falls, the data measuring them will be more volatile and affected by small outliers or unusual events.

A large margin of error could mean one 'super-spreading' event, when one person infects a lot of others, could send the R rate for one area soaring.

Scientists think the R rate of the coronavirus in Britain has plummeted from almost 4 to close to 0.5 since the lockdown was introduced on March 23, but it has ticked up slightly in recent weeks because there are still problems in hospitals and care homes, even if few people are catching the infection in the community

But this will not mean the virus is out of control, as long as the rate can be brought back down to below one over a longer period.

R RATE HAS 'DROPPED IN EVERY REGION' A team at Public Health England and Cambridge University believe the R rate has dropped in every region to be between 0.7-0.9, putting it in line with the official figure given by SAGE after last month saying it had risen to above the dreaded level of one in several regions. The team calculated that the crucial 'R' reproduction rate fell to just 0.46 in the capital in the aftermath of the lockdown being introduced. However, the rate in London  as well as other regions  slowly began to creep up to between 0.8 and 0.9 by mid-May but has dropped or remained stable in the past month. At the beginning of the outbreak London was the worst affected region but the latest numbers suggest it is now ahead of all but two regions in terms of recovery. In contrast, the Midlands has an R rate of 0.89, the highest for any region in the country. Government advisers last week claimed the R rate for the UK and England remains between 0.7 and 0.9 for the third week in a row. But they admitted it could be as high as 1.0 in the North West. Advertisement

Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government's chief scientific adviser, last month said the UK is approaching the point where the R will no longer be an accurate measure.

The Department of Health has diagnosed an average of 890 people per day with the coronavirus over the last week  around a third of the total cases.

Other data from the Office for National Statistics and King's College London suggest that between up to 3,000 people are catching the virus each day.

As the total number of people becomes lower, the proportionate impact of a super-spreading event gets much larger.

For example, if there are 1,000 people infected with the virus and they all infect 0.8 people each on average, or 800 in total, the R will be 0.8.

But if 995 of them infect 0.8 people each, on average, but five of them don't realise they are ill and infect 10 people each, there are now a total of 846 extra patients.

This means the R rate is 0.846 - a marginal increase.

However, if there are only 10 people with the virus in an area, with nine of them at an R of 0.8, and one of them is a super-spreader and infects 10 others, there are 17 patients from those 10 and the R rate has risen to 1.72.

Professor Carl Heneghan, a statistician at the University of Oxford, told MailOnline: 'There is a problem with using the R rate now, as infection comes down to very low levels.

'The R will fluctuate, so you would expect the R to become a less accurate measurement of the epidemic.

'No-one will get a handle on the R rate when 80 per cent of people are asymptomatic and the virus is circulating at such low levels.

'What really matters is looking at data such as hospital admissions, 999 calls, GP consultation rates and NHS 111 interactions. And when we look at these, all of them are reassuringly coming down.'
Bishop Timothy Doherty, of the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana (pictured), took the action against the Rev. Theodore Rothrock, of St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel, for comments that the pastor wrote Sunday in the weekly bulletin

A bishop suspended a suburban Indianapolis Catholic priest from public ministry on Wednesday for comparing the Black Lives Matter movement and its organizers to 'maggots and parasites' in a recent church bulletin.

Bishop Timothy Doherty, of the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana, took the action against the Rev. Theodore Rothrock, of St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel, for comments that the pastor wrote Sunday in the weekly bulletin.

'The only lives that matter are their own and the only power they seek is their own,' Rothrock wrote. 'They are wolves in wolves clothing, masked thieves and bandits, seeking only to devour the life of the poor and profit from the fear of others. They are maggots and parasites at best, feeding off the isolation of addiction and broken families, and offering to replace any current frustration and anxiety with more misery and greater resentment.'

The diocese expressed 'pastoral concern for the affected communities' in a statement posted on its website.

'The only lives that matter are their own and the only power they seek is their own,' Rothrock wrote. 'They are wolves in wolves clothing, masked thieves and bandits, seeking only to devour the life of the poor and profit from the fear of others. They are maggots and parasites at best, feeding off the isolation of addiction and broken families, and offering to replace any current frustration and anxiety with more misery and greater resentment'

The diocese expressed 'pastoral concern for the affected communities' in a statement posted on its website. Deacon Bill Reid will serve as Administrator of St. Elizabeth Seton

'The suspension offers the bishop an opportunity for pastoral discernment for the good of the diocese and for the good of Father Rothrock. Various possibilities for his public continuation in priestly ministry are being considered, but he will no longer be assigned as Pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Deacon Bill Reid will serve as Administrator of St. Elizabeth Seton,' the statement said.

Rothrock had been due to take over as pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel next month.

Rothrock issued an apology Tuesday night in a message sent to parishioners and later posted on the church's website, The Indianapolis Star reported.

'It was not my intention to offend anyone, and I am sorry that my words have caused any hurt to anyone,' Rothrock wrote.

Black Lives Matter protesters march through Indianapolis on June 6

The church must condemn bigotry, which is 'a part of the fabric of our society,' he wrote.

'We must also be fully aware that there are those who would distort the Gospel for their own misguided purposes,' Rothrock wrote. 'People are afraid, as I pointed out, rather poorly I would admit, that there are those who feed on that fear to promote more fear and division.'

Doherty said Tuesday that Rothrock should issue a clarification of the bulletin comments.

The newly formed Carmel Against Racial Injustice group sought Rothrock's removal from leadership. The group has said it planned to demonstrate Sunday on the sidewalk surrounding the church. It wasn't clear Wednesday whether Rothrock's suspension changed that. The group didn't immediately reply to a message left Wednesday seeking comment about the suspension.
A Burmese cat called Oscar has narrowly escaped death after he fell asleep in a washing machine and got trapped in a 12-minute hot water cycle with detergent.

Amanda Meredith, Oscar's owner, heard a strange meowing sound inside her Mudjimba home, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, shortly after her husband, Angelo, put on a load of washing.

At first, the pet owner thought the odd noise was coming from a cupboard.

She went outside to hang out another load of washing, but when she returned inside the sound persisted, prompting her to investigate.

Burmese cat Oscar (pictured) has had a lucky escape after getting trapped in a hot washing machine cycle during a nap

That's when she realised two-year-old Oscar was in the front loader washing machine.

'The poor little cat had his hands on the glass as he was doing the rotations and he was looking at me,' she told ABC News.

'It was tragic.'

The feline was stuck for a further two minutes as the cycle drained and the washing machine door unlocked.

Ms Meredith called her vet Dan Capps, of Beachside Veterinary Surgery, Coolum Beach, who said Oscar would be 'touch and go' for the first six hours.

Oscar, who was left bruised and battered from the hard fins inside the washing machine, stayed at the veterinary practice for 24 hours and was given medication, including anti-inflammatories.

Once he was home, Ms Meredith said he slept solidly for the next seven days.

Vet Dan Capps has warned pet owners to check machines before turning them on as they become an ideal napping spot for cats during cooler months (stock image)

Dr Capps said the event is not that unusual, as washing machines are an ideal place for cats to cosy up during colder weather.

He urged pet owners to always check machines before putting on loads.

Ms Meredith said after a few weeks Oscar made a full recovery but she feels he has used up three of his nine lives.

Although the incident was horrifying for her at the time, Ms Meredith said she can now laugh about it- and Oscar does not appear to be too traumatised by the sight of the washing machine.

'He sits there and watches it tumble-turn all the time,' Ms Meredith said.

A similar misadventure occurred in Tasmania in April last year when kitten Poppy became trapped in her owner's washing device during a cycle.

Despite suffering a concussion and getting water in her lungs, the little feline made a full recovery in three weeks.
The Los Angeles City Council voted to cut the Los Angeles Police Department's budget by $150million.

The City Council approved the massive budget slash in a near landslide victory of 12-2 on Wednesday in the latest blow dealt to police forces.

It will affect overtime pay and reduce the number of employees to the lowest level in 12 years.

New York City's police budget was just slashed by a billion dollars and the police department in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed two months ago, was abolished by its city council.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the LAPD's hiring took the hit, plummeting the number of officers to just 9,757 by next summer.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a $150million budget cut in a 12-2 vote on Wednesday as law enforcement is increasingly criticized

It is the lowest level of staffing at the LAPD since 2008.

At the moment, there are approximately 9,000 sworn officers and 3,000 civilian employees with the department,

Overtime pay also took a large cut, with around $97million being removed.

City policy analysts and council members warned that at least part of those overtime hours could end up being worked by the department, especially in the event of a major emergency.

In those cases, the department could 'bank' the overtime by letting officers work the hours but delay payment for a future year. This would allow officers to be paid for those hours with higher salaries.

Councilman Curren Price said two-thirds of the money saved would be diverted to social services for black, Latino and other communities.

The entirety of the 2020-2021 Los Angeles city budget is around 10.5billion, according to KCAL 9.

The $150million slash represents eight per cent of the almost $1.8billion LAPD budget geared exclusively towards policing.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (pictured) previously vowed to keep officer levels at the LAPD high, but appeared to waver as calls to defund the budget mounted

The LAPD has been publicly scrutinized by politicians and civilians as protests over police brutality continue nationwide

'This is a step forward, supporting minority communities in ways in which they deserve  with respect, dignity and an even playing field,' said Price, the only Black member of the budget committee.

Maintaining a 10,000-officer staff had been a goal of Los Angeles officials after the department reached that number for the first time in 2013.

At the time, Garcetti was running for mayoral office and vowed to keep staffing levels high.

The only opposing votes came from Councilman John Lee, a former Republican, and Joe Buscaino, a Democrat and former police officer.

Democrats in the City Council overwhelmingly backed the budget cut.

Buscaino wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Daily News on Monday that argued police budget cuts would not spark a culture change in the force.

Instead, he suggested pouring more money into the city's Community Safety Partnership, a program meant to foster relationship between authorities and residents in certain housing communities.

Councilmen Joe Buscaino and John Lee (left and right) were the only members to veto Wednesday's vote

'We should and we must invest in communities of color, but that task becomes exponentially harder when we are cutting slices of the budget from a smaller and smaller pie,' wrote Buscaino.

'If we want real reform, and not just a reactive, feel-good budget cut, we need to invest in the long term plan.

'And I believe the best option we have for making the quickest changes that will have the most impact is to expand the Community Safety Partnership.'

Wednesday's vote is another example of how much views, and subsequently policies, have changed since protests have sparked across the country after the death of George Floyd.

In fact, Garcetti was pushing for a seven per cent increase to the LAPD budget as recently as April.

But activists with Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles said the budget cut is 'literally pocket change.'

'Its a slap in the face. You need to defund the police, take way more money, put way more money into these programs,' Rebecca Kessler told The Los Angeles Times.

The group had supported the 'People's Budget,' a plan that eliminates police spending and diverts funds to social services like mental health care.

Pictured: Payton Martin (center) joins members of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and their supporters during a demonstration to demand that the Board of Education defund school police, reallocating funds to other student-serving initiatives

Rebecca Kessler: 'Its a slap in the face. You need to defund the police, take way more money, put way more money into these programs'

Protesters calling to defund the Los Angeles Police Department have staged demonstrations at city meetings.

Council members have discussed ways of redirecting nonviolent 911 calls away from the LAPD and to other officials.

A vote this week saw council members direct city staffers to create an 'unarmed model of crisis response' for review.

Supporters like Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah lauded the move.

'Rolling back police functions has the potential to have a far greater impact on advancing the call to defund the police than approving a meager cut of $150 million,' she said.

Pictured: The LAPD arrive to arrest protesters for curfew violation after a day of peaceful protest against police brutality and to demonstrate in Los Angeles

Others wondered if large budget cuts would encourage more crime in neighborhoods.

'Without any enforcement, [crime] is going to get worse,' said resident Ray Rios. 'The big question is, whos going to keep order?'

Rios, the president of the Hillside Village Property Owners Assn. in El Sereno, said his community has been hit with a series of illegal fireworks and car break-ins.

He said the officials should focus on reforming the department, not chipping away at its staff.

The debate over law enforcement has occurred over the backdrop of a coronavirus case surge in California - worrying budget analysts who previously warned that the pandemic negatively affected the city's finances.

If not careful, Los Angeles' revenues could fall between $45million to $409million below projected estimates.

Council members on Tuesday passed a plan to encourage some 2,850 civilian city employees into retirement to save money.

A buyout package will offer up to $80,000 and employees can begin applying for the payments next week.

Maintaining a 10,000-officer staff had been a goal of Los Angeles officials after the department reached that number for the first time in 2013

Pictured: A protester speaks with an LAPD officer during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd in Hollywood, California

If all eligible staffers commit to the retirement plan, Los Angeles could save $58.7million this year and $125million from 2021-2022.

On the other hand, the city would have to spend $28.5million on buyout packages this year - or $10,000 per employee.

Councilman Paul Krekorian said $40million of the LAPD budget cut will be made into an 'insurance policy' to help cover the cost of city services of the retirement plan doesn't generate enough money.

The retirement plan was also seen as another way to avoid furloughing almost 16,000 city workers.

Several other police departments have faced a reckoning as the country re-examines its law enforcement and racism.

On Tuesday, New York City officials voted to remove $1billion from the city's police force budget.

Unrest continues: Protesters chanted slogans during a protest to defund the NYPD in a place they are calling the 'City Hall Autonomous Zone', ahead of Tuesday's vote

A protester in front of the Second Precinct Police Station in Minneapolis on Thursday holds a 'Justice for George Floyd' placard. The Minneapolis city council is set to take the first step toward banning the police department

The contentious budget passed with 32 votes in favor and an unusually large 17 votes against just ahead of the midnight deadline following hours of delays - leading to criticism from all sides.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative for parts of the Bronx and Queens, said the policing cut amounts to 'funny math' and does not go far enough in reducing the force's $6billion annual budget - which activists want to reinvest in community services instead.

But council member I. Daneek Miller, co-chairman of the Councils Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, bitterly opposed the move, saying it makes no sense to cut funding at a time when crime is on the rise.

Mayor Bill De Blasio has warned that 22,000 city employees may lose their jobs come October, when a new class of police officers is due to start training despite Tuesday's cut, if other savings cannot be found.

People march in the street during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Minneapolis on Thursday.

Earlier this month, the Minneapolis City Council voted 12-0 to abolish the police force after Floyd's death and weeks of protests.

George Floyd, 46, died in police custody after a white police officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest.

The 12-0 vote is just the first step in a process that faces significant bureaucratic obstacles to make the November ballot, where the city's voters would have the final say.

And it came amid a spate of recent shootings in Minnesota's largest city that have heightened many citizens concerns about talk of dismantling the department.

The proposed amendment next goes to a policy committee and to the city's Charter Commission for a formal review, at which point citizens and city officials can also weigh in.
A distraught mother whose teenage son narrowly escaped death after being struck by a driver high on ice has lashed out at the woman responsible.

Alanna Davis and her 13-year-old son Thomas 'TJ' Campagna were driving along Kingsway Highway in New South Wales on December 19, 2017 when their life changed forever.

The driver, who was under the influence of ice, fell asleep behind the wheel, swerved onto the wrong side of the road and hit the Davis family car head-on.

TJ suffered extensive injuries and was airlifted to Canberra Hospital as doctors battled to keep him alive.

TJ (pictured) suffered a perforated bowel, fractured ribs, loss of his appendix and lower abdominal muscle, collapsed lung, chipped teeth, and psychological trauma after the crash

The driver, who was under the influence of ice, fell asleep behind the wheel when her car smashed into Ms Davis and her son (pictured, the car they were in)

He had suffered a perforated bowel, fractured ribs, loss of his appendix and lower abdominal muscle.

His lung also collapsed, and he was left with chipped teeth, ongoing issues with his intestines and psychological trauma.

The driver was sentenced to five years in prison and had her driving licence suspended for three years from the date of her release.

She will be eligible for parole on December 18 this year.

After spending two years in and out of hospital, TJ's mother has lashed out at the driver for all the trauma she caused their family.

'I feel pure hate and disgust for the person who caused it [the crash],' she told ABC.

'It's not something I'm over and there are triggers all the time in everyday life which I have to deal with.'

After spending two years in and out of hospital, TJ's mother (pictured, with her son) lashed out at the driver for the trauma she caused their family

TJ (pictured) was finally able to return to school full-time after missing out on days due to his struggles and trauma in year 8 and 9

TJ was finally able to return to school full-time after missing out on days due to his struggles and trauma in year 8 and 9.

Ms Davis has taken it upon herself to speak to school children about the dangers of driving on drugs.

'We all have choices  The crash that we were involved in was not an accident,' she said.

'She made that choice. If she wanted to use drugs, she could have, but she didn't have to drive. She made that decision to hurt us.'

She believes students understand her message as they respond in shock, silence and sometimes even tears.
A NASCAR driver will debut a Trump 2020 car in the Brickyard 400 race against Bubba Wallace this weekend, just weeks after the black driver found a 'noose' in his garage.

Corey LaJoie, 28, will take to the tracks this Sunday in his newly painted Ford Mustang which will have 'Trump 2020' splashed across the hood and rear-quarter panels, his race team announced Wednesday.

Go Fas Racing revealed the new design for the number 32 car ahead of the race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, this weekend and pledged its support for Donald Trump's reelection campaign.

A NASCAR driver will take to the tracks this Sunday in his newly painted Ford Mustang which will have 'Trump 2020' splashed across the hood and rear-quarter panels (pictured), his race team announced Wednesday

'I am honored to be part of the President's re-election campaign through the Patriots of America PAC,' team owner Archie St. Hilaire said in a statement.

'As a Trump 2020 supporter, this team will do everything possible to secure victory on and off the track electing President Donald Trump to a second term.'

LaJoie said he hoped the design would spur more racing fans to vote in the upcoming election.

'With an estimated 75 million NASCAR fans out there, I was surprised that about 15 million of those fans are not registered voters,' he said Wednesday.

'I will give my best effort to get NASCAR fans registered to vote, through our team efforts on and off the track. When they see the car, hopefully, it makes them race to the polls in November.'

The blue, red and white design also features 'Your Vote Counts' and was created in partnership with the pro-Trump Patriots of America PAC.

The overt show of support for Trump on LaJoie's car at the upcoming event comes after Wallace debuted a Black Lives Matter paint design on his car at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia in early June. He is driving a different blue design this weekend.

Corey LaJoie, 28, (right) will debut the Trump 2020 car in the Brickyard 400 race against Bubba Wallace (left) this weekend, just weeks after the black driver found a 'noose' in his garage at another event

Go Fas Racing revealed the new design for LaJoie's number 32 car ahead of the race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This comes after Wallace, 26, debuted a Black Lives Matter paint design on his car at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia in early June (pictured)

Wallace, the only black NASCAR driver, found himself at the victim of a suspected hate crime when a 'noose' was found in his garage stall at Talladega Speedway on June 21.

Wallace, 26, had only two weeks earlier led calls for the Confederate flag to be banned from NASCAR venues and races.

NASCAR agreed to ban the flag and both the company and Wallace faced a major backlash from their southern fans.

One driver on NASCAR's truck series, Ray Ciccarelli, vowed to retire at season's end over the move.

Meanwhile a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans staged a protest, with a small propeller plane flying the Confederate Flag over the race track and a caravan of cars parading it in front of the main entrance before the scheduled race.

The discovery of the noose-like rope sparked fears Wallace was the target of a racist attack.

All 39 other NASCAR drivers rallied in support of Wallace at the race's restart the following day, collectively pushing his No. 43 car to the front of the grid in a show of solidarity.

Wallace, the only black NASCAR driver, found himself at the center of a suspected hate crime when a 'noose' was found in his garage stall at Talladega Speedway on June 21. All 39 other NASCAR drivers rallied in support of Wallace before Monday's restart (pictured) following the discovery of the noose, collectively pushing his No. 43 car to the front of the grid in a show of solidarity

NASCAR released a photo of the suspected 'noose' found in Wallace's garage stall which was investigated by the FBI as a possible hate crime before being revealed to be a garage door pull rope that had been in use for at least a year

Wallace, an Alabama native, became overwhelmed with emotion and fought back tears as his car owner, NASCAR legend Richard Petty, gave him a hug in the moments before the race began.

NASCAR and the FBI both launched investigations into the 'noose', which revealed the rope was in fact a garage door pull-down rope that was previously used in the same stall by a white driver, Paul Menard, in 2019.

Footage from earlier years showed similar garage door pulls being used by other drivers, although none appeared to look exactly like a 'noose' in the same way the rope in Wallace's stall did.

Wallace had only two weeks before the 'noose' incident led calls for the Confederate flag to be banned from NASCAR venues and races. Some southern fans were outraged and flew the Confederate Flag over the northern Alabama race track before the scheduled race and a caravan of cars paraded the rebel banner in front of Talladega's main entrance (pictured)

According to US Attorney Jay Town and FBI Special Agent Johnnie Sharp Jr., nobody could have known that Wallace would be assigned that specific stall prior to the June 21 race.

Circuit officials questioned representatives from every NASCAR track to learn exactly how many garage door pull-down ropes were tied in a similar manner.

Of the 1,684 stalls across 29 tracks, only 11 had knotted pull-down ropes, and just one of those had been fashioned into a noose - the one in Wallace's stall - according to NASCAR.com.

Some people have slammed the investigation over the rope a 'hoax' and said NASCAR had somehow overreacted over the shocking incident.

Wallace hit back at the accusations saying the whole experience was 'just short of pure hell' for him and that the 'common denominator is racism'.

Brickyard 400, the annual 400-mile NASCAR Cup Series points race, will take place on Sunday at 1 p.m. local Indiana time.
House prices in wealthy, waterfront suburbs of Australia's big cities are falling at a faster rate during the coronavirus downturn.

Upmarket areas of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth suffered much steeper than average falls in June, CoreLogic data showed.

CoreLogic's head of research Tim Lawless said Australia's COVID-induced economic contraction was hurting richer areas more, repeating what happened between 2017 and 2019 when tighter lending rules sparked another property market downturn.

'Higher-value markets tend to be more reactive to changes in the environment, having led both the upswing and the downturn over previous cycles,' he said.

House prices in wealthy, waterfront suburbs of Australia's big cities are falling at a faster rate during the coronavirus downturn. Pictured is the Gwawley Bay section of Sylvania Waters in Sydney's Sutherland Shire, which suffered a 1.7 per cent property price fall in June - more than double the city-wide average of 0.8 per cent

Melbourne's inner east was Australia's worst-performing real estate market in June, with dwelling values falling by 2.1 per cent.

This was much steeper than greater Melbourne's 1.1 per cent plunge in house and apartment values - the third consecutive month of decline.

In early 2019, the inner-city area near the Yarra River was Australia's worst performing housing market but was among the first to recover.

Upmarket areas of Perth along the Swan River last month also suffered a 2.1 per cent plummet in property prices - a level much more severe than the city's overall 1.1 per cent drop.

Sydney's north shore, which takes in Sydney Harbour and Middle Harbour, suffered a 1.5 per cent monthly decline in property prices.

The Sutherland Shire in the city's south, which includes Cronulla and Sylvania Waters on the Georges River, suffered an even more disastrous 1.7 per cent decline in June.

Melbourne's inner east was Australia's worst-performing real estate market in June, with dwelling values falling by 2.1 per cent. This was much steeper than greater Melbourne's 1.1 per cent plunge in house and apartment values - the third consecutive month of decline. Pictured is a terrace at East Melbourne

Greater Sydney by comparison suffered a 0.8 per cent fall in house and unit prices.

Australia's worst property markets Perth inner: DOWN 2.1 per cent Melbourne inner east: DOWN 2.1 per cent Perth north east: DOWN 1.9 per cent Brisbane inner city: DOWN 1.8 per cent Sydney Sutherland: DOWN 1.7 per cent Sydney north shore: DOWN 1.5 per cent Melbourne south east: DOWN 1.2 per cent Melbourne outer east: DOWN 1.2 per cent Melbourne inner: DOWN 1.1 per cent Sydney Parramatta: DOWN 1.1 per cent Source: CoreLogic dwelling price falls in June across price segments within statistical areas Advertisement

Brisbane's inner-city suburbs along the Brisbane River copped a 1.8 per cent decline in home values.

This was significantly worse than the Queensland capital's 0.4 per cent drop last month.

Daniel Walsh, the director of the Your Property Your Wealth buyers' agent, said demand was still holding up in outer-suburban areas of Brisbane.

'During coronavirus, we remained active in middle-ring locations that offer houses around the $400,000 to $500,000 mark, and mostly had the pick of the crop,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Now, listings are still constrained, but the number of active buyers has surged two- to three-fold compared to March and April.

'In fact, we have have seen up to 30 groups going through just one open home because of the lack of stock with first-home buyers and owner occupiers the most common buyer type.'

First-home buyers intending to live in their property made up 32 per cent of borrowers in April, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.

They can also buy a home with only a five per cent deposit as taxpayers guarantee the rest of the 20 per cent deposit, under the federal government's $500million First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.

Another 10,000 places opened up this week and are available during the next year.

Mr Walsh said first-home buyers were particularly keen on houses in outer suburban areas.

Upmarket areas of Perth along the Swan River (pictured) last month also suffered a 2.1 per cent plummet in property prices - a level much more severe than the city's overall 1.1 per cent drop

'A good solid home under $475,000 has a lot of competition, due to the five per cent first home buyers' deposit scheme and the stock levels being significantly reduced over the past three months,' he said.

Australian property markets bleed SYDNEY: down 0.9 per cent to $1,010,426 MELBOURNE: down 1.3 per cent to $802,551 BRISBANE: down 0.4 per cent to $557,265 ADELAIDE: down 0.2 per cent to $476,639 PERTH: down 1.1 per cent to $459,376 HOBART: up 0.4 per cent to $516,600 DARWIN: up 0.4 per cent to $470,136 CANBERRA: up 0.1 per cent to $716,150 Source: CoreLogic Home Value Index for June 2020 of median house prices Advertisement

'On average we have seen between 20 to 40 groups through an open home on properties under $475,000 with multiple offers on these properties selling in the first open home for list price and in some cases over.'

Home owners are more reluctant to sell in some cities more than others, with SQM Research data showing Sydney listings fell by 1.6 per cent in June to 29,590.

Brisbane's tally of properties on the market remained steady at 28,814.

In Melbourne, the number of listings last month rose by 2.7 per cent to 39,494.

SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher said the coronavirus malaise had led to more property discounting.

'Of course, we know that conditions are far from normal,' he said.

'And this is illustrated in the fall in vendor asking prices for the month.'
A maternity scandal that has cost the lives of dozens of mothers and babies is among the worst in the history of the NHS, lawyers said last night.

They compared the failings at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust to those at Mid-Staffordshire, where up to 1,200 patients died needlessly between 2005 and 2009.

Police dramatically announced on Tuesday that they had launched a criminal inquiry into maternity care at the two Shropshire hospitals.

It followed a meeting with NHS officials and Donna Ockenden, a senior midwife who has been carrying out an independent review since 2017.

She has already identified 1,250 cases, some of which date back to the 1970s.

A maternity scandal that has cost the lives of dozens of mothers and babies is among the worst in the history of the NHS, lawyers said last night. Pictured: Katie Wilkins, 24, whose baby daughter Maddie was stillborn at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in February 2013 after busy midwives left her in a side room for 48 hours and failed to properly monitor her, welcomed the developments yesterday

Laura Preston, a principal lawyer in clinical negligence at Slater and Gordon, said: Weve had a lot of inquiries  the numbers are scary quite frankly, in terms of overall size and recency.

Some of the cases go up to 2019, a couple of years after the independent investigation began. Some go back to the 1970s, so we are looking at a 40-year span which, in my opinion, can only point to a rather unhealthy culture in that particular trust.

There is no doubt comparisons are going to be made to Mid-Staffs. You have to question how something involving this many people, this many tragedies, hasnt come to the fore over such a long period of time and if there werent elements that have been covered up or deliberately withheld.

Its not one individual thats for sure, its culture and systemic failings. But you also have to question senior level management of the trust, certainly in obstetrics and gynaecology departments, where this care will have been given.

Rhiannon Davies of Ludlow Shropshire pictured with her daughter Kate just moments after her birth on Sunday March 1, 2009

Kate and Andrew Barnett from Newtown lost their son Jenson two days after his birth in June 2013, after he suffered brain trauma during an unsuccessful forceps delivery

The fact that there is now a criminal investigation speaks volumes. There is obviously compelling evidence within [Miss Ockendens] investigation that has led them down that road.

Mrs Preston believes the compensation bill is likely to run into millions, if not hundreds of millions, of pounds.

But she said the courts were ill-equipped to establish the right level of compensation over the deaths of babies where there was negligence. The courts have wrangled with this for many, many years, but the truth is theres no adequate sum of money you can give to compensate families when a baby dies, she added.

In cases where babies have been left critically injured and will have life-long care needs the figure for compensation will run into millions  although the overall figure will be anyones guess. It wont be a small number, given how many cases there may be.

These families are traumatised. I would certainly encourage anyone who has any worries about the care they have had at Shrewsbury Hospital to come forward and seek professional support.

Yesterday Miss Ockenden released a statement to reassure families that the launch of the police inquiry will not affect the progress of her review, which was set in motion by former health secretary Jeremy Hunt in April 2017. She confirmed that initial findings and recommendations will be published later this year, with the full review due in 2021.

Miss Ockenden said her team would work with West Mercia Police to identify cases relevant to the criminal investigation. Last year a leaked interim report described the culture at the maternity unit at the trust as toxic.

It revealed that there had been at least 45 avoidable deaths, including those of 42 babies and three mothers.

There were also 51 cases of brain damage or cerebral palsy in infants and 47 further incidents of substandard care from 1979 to 2017.

Katie Wilkins, 24, whose baby daughter Maddie was stillborn at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in February 2013 after busy midwives left her in a side room for 48 hours and failed to properly monitor her, welcomed the developments yesterday.

This feels like a significant moment, she said. Im really pleased the police are investigating, it feels like they are being very thorough and finally something might get done.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust to those at Mid-Staffordshire, where up to 1,200 patients died needlessly between 2005 and 2009, has been reviewed. Pictured: The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital

Nothing can bring Maddie back, but we just want justice for her. We know what happened at Shrewsbury Hospital is the reason Maddie is not with us. Weve been trying to get somebody to listen and take on our case for eight years, now at last it feels like we are getting somewhere.

Louise Barnett, chief executive at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust, said it was co-operating with the police probe.

A public inquiry led by Sir Robert Francis QC in 2013 condemned the appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people at Mid-Staffs. Some patients were left lying in their own human waste for days, forced to drink water from vases or given the wrong medication.

That inquiry followed a 2009 investigation by the Healthcare Commission which estimated that between 400 and 1,200 more patients died at Stafford Hospital than would have been expected.

The hospital has been renamed County Hospital and is run by a different trust.
A white New Jersey woman has been dubbed 'Permit Karen' for calling the police on her black neighbors after she allegedly repeatedly harassed them about needing a permit to install a patio in their backyard.

On Monday Fareed Nassor Hayat, an attorney and law professor at the City University of New York, and his wife Norrinda filmed the moment their neighbor, Susan Schulz, stormed their front lawn and called the police on them.

The couple said Schulz walked onto their property three times in 30 minutes to ask if they had a permit to install a stone patio in their backyard, on the other side of the fence from her yard, according to Tap Into Montclair.

Fareed said his contractor had already checked to see if permits were needed and they weren't required in Montclair for their renovation work.

Still, Schulz repeatedly demanded to know about the permits and their verbal dispute escalated to her calling the cops claiming that Fareed pushed her.

Viral video shows the moment white woman Susan Schulz of Montclair, New Jersey calls the cops on her black neighbors, accusing one of them of pushing her

Fareed Nassor Hayat and his wife Norrinda claimed Schulz walked on their property three times asking if they had permits for a stone patio they were building in their backyard. Their verbal dispute culminated into Schulz calling the police claiming Fareed pushed her. Schulz pictured talking to police and claiming she was pushed to neighbors

The shocking video shared to Facebook begins with Schulz accusing Fareed of pushing her.

At the start of the clip Schulz is seen on the phone saying, 'Im calling the police'.

'Call the police. We expect that of Amys. We expect that!' Norrinda says, her voice shaking behind the camera.

'He attacked me The gentleman who is taller than me pushed me off his property, Schulz says to the police on the phone, adding she doesnt think they have permits to do the renovation work on their home.

'Shes been waiting two years to do this to us!' Norrinda exclaims.

A neighbor walking her dog stops and slams Schulz for harassing the neighbors.

'Shame on you! In this climate right now, youre especially not supporting members of our community here,' the woman says.

'Did you just see him, who pushed me 10 feet?' Schulz replies.

'I didnt put my hands on you, woman,' Fareed says.

A neighbor walking her dog stops and slams Schulz for harassing the neighbors saying: 'Shame on you! In this climate right now, youre especially not supporting members of our community here'

'This is for the people so they can see even in Montclair what we are living with, even in Montclair, for two years. Susan from Marrion Road has been harassing us for two years,' Norrinda Hayat said in the video clip the couple later shared to Facebook

Fareed, an attorney and Law Professor at the City University of New York, shared the video on Facebook on June 29 where it's gone viral with over 11,000 views, and where commenters have dubbed Schulz 'Permit Karen'. Cops say neither party have filed complaints following Monday's incident

Another neighbor behind the camera defends Fareed saying, 'No I watched it, and he didn't.'

'Are you going to say you didnt put your hands on me?' Schulz asks.

'No one put he put his hands on me. I asked you to please leave,' Norrinda replies.

'Oh my god. Cause youre attorneys. You know what to do!' Schulz shouts.

'Exactly. So please walk away from our property,' Fareed says.

'Just let her. So our kids dont have to see the police please. Please just go inside with them,' Norrinda says to her husband.

Neighbors across the road also defend the Hayats, saying: 'He was angry. She [Norrinda] was pushing him back.'

'Look at my arms!' Schulz complains coming near the neighbor, leading her to jump back shouting, 'Dont come near me without a mask.'

Schulz then walks back to the couple and asks them to stop recording.

The 'Permit Karen' incident triggered a brief protest on Tuesday where protesters marched down the street outside Schulz's home chanting 'Black Lives Matter'

Protesters were seen carrying signs as they walked through Montclair in Schulz's neighborhood. Some neighbors came out with their own signs to show solidarity

The cops were called, arriving after a majority of the protesters had left. pic.twitter.com/3RVh391vv5  sophia. (@sophialavergne) June 30, 2020

'No. This is for the people so they can see even in Montclair what we are living with, even in Montclair, for two years. Susan from Marrion Road has been harassing us for two years,' Norrinda says.

Police arrived on the scene at 12.23pm. Officers said that neither party has filed a formal complaint with the police department.

Police officials said the dispute was 'related to work being done on the property of one of the residents'.

The outburst triggered a brief protest on Tuesday where young protesters and students marched down the street chanting 'Black Lives Matter'.

Fareed shared the video on Facebook on June 29 where it's gone viral with over 11,000 views, and where commenters have dubbed Schulz 'Permit Karen'.

Social media users dubbed Schulz as 'Permit Karen' for calling the cops on her neighbors without a threat

'It has happened again. White entitlement and black hate embodied in Susan who lives on Marion Road and works at the EPA, called the police to lodge a false report of assault against me when told to leave our property,' he wrote in his post.

'Karen' is the nickname coined to white women who have called the police on black people for doing everyday activities such as selling lemonade, mowing the lawn, and barbecuing in parks.
She was one of 1,400 Air New Zealand cabin crew to be made redundant

Jones said she will work at Countdown until the aviation industry bounces back

She got herself a job in a factory at New Zealand supermarket giant Countdown

The 25-year-old worked her last shift at Air New Zealand on Wednesday

Sarah Jones, from Auckland, was told in May she would be made redundant

A former Air New Zealand flight attendant has been forced to find a job stacking shelves at a supermarket factory after being made redundant.

Sarah Jones, from Auckland, was told in May she would laid off after international travel ground to a halt amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

'It made everyone feel pretty gutted as we loved it at Air New Zealand,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

The 25-year-old, who worked at Air New Zealand for five years, found herself a job at supermarket giant Countdown.

Ms Jones works in the factory processing delivery orders, where many of her colleagues are also former cabin crew who have also been made redundant.

Sarah Jones, an Air New Zealand stewardess who was made redundant, uploaded a video with side-by-side shots of her last day at work next to her at her new job at Countdown supermarket

Sarah Jones, from Auckland, was told she would be losing her job in May, after international travel ground to a halt amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Ms Jones said she plans to work at Countdown until the aviation industry is back up and running again.

'It's pretty hard to find another job at the moment as everyone is looking,' she said.

'It's important to remember it doesn't matter where you work right now and to just keep doing what you're doing.

'But I miss working with new people everyday, getting to bring people to visit New Zealand and being able to visit other countries with my friends.'

Ms Jones, who was one of 1,400 Air New Zealand cabin crew to be made redundant, filmed a TikTok video of her last day of work.

She uploaded a video with side-by-side shots of her last day as a stewardess next to her working in a supermarket aisle.

'Yesterday. Last day at work before redundancy,' the right side of the video was titled, along with a video of her dancing clad in her Air New Zealand uniform.

On the left the former flight attendant posted a video of her dancing while unpacking shelves at her new job, titled 'Today'.

The 25-year-old found herself a job at New Zealand supermarket giant Countdown, where she works in the factory processing delivery orders. Pictured: at her last day at Air New Zealand

The Kiwi airline has already made 4,000 workers redundant, and has said it expected its original workforce of 12,500 to halve

The TikTok video has been viewed more than 160,000 times, and racked up 17,000 likes.

On Wednesday Ms Jones posted a video posing next to a plane on her last day of work.

'Do you know what it feels like to lose your job over something that you didnt do,' she said.

'I dont know how to explain it but its pretty lame. Just because Ive been carrying it well, doesnt mean its not heavy.

'I've watched it fall apart around me for the last three months. Today was my last day ever but at least I got to spend it eating cake with my pals.'

Ms Jones posted photos of her former colleagues, herself disarming the plane door for the last time, and a cake with icing that reads 'redundancy cake'.

The avid TikTok user's job loss comes just a week after 100 planned cabin crew redundancies were reversed as domestic demand within New Zealand bounced back.

The Kiwi airline has already made 4,000 workers redundant, and has said it expected its original workforce of 12,500 to halve.

Last week Qantas announced it would axe a fifth of its workforce and grounding the bulk of its international fleet to try and survive the COVID-19 crisis.

The flying kangaroo has shed 6,000 jobs as part of a drastic three-year plan to slash costs by $15 billion.

Almost 15,000 other staff will remain stood down without pay or on enforced leave.
Michael McCormack has defended the controversial decision to replace Australia's iconic kangaroo logo with a new heavily stylised image of a gold wattle.

The deputy prime minister said the new logo, which has been compared to a picture of a coronavirus molecule, is 'beautiful' and 'looks pretty good'.

The newest Australian Made logo, which cost $10million to create, was unveiled on Tuesday night and will be used to market Australia to the rest of the world.

Australia's Nation Brand Advisory Council, set up by former PM Malcolm Turnbull, recommended to scrap the iconic kangaroo in a report that was adopted by Trade Minister Simon Birmingham.

The decision to redesign the iconic logo with the gold blob has shocked and outraged many Australians, with a number of people comparing it to a 3D model of the coronavirus.

But Mr McCormack disagrees, going as far as calling the new Australian Made logo 'beautiful'.

Australia's Nation Brand Advisory Council felt the kangaroo (pictured, left) only reinforced what foreigners already knew about Australia, the new logo (pictured right) was chosen to be 'a blank canvas, to tell a new Australian story'

The decision to dump the iconic kangaroo and replace it with the gold blob has shocked and outraged plenty of Australians, with many comparing it to a 3D model of the coronavirus (pictured)

'The wattle is to attract attention at international trade shows,' he told 2gb.

'I think it's a good idea.'

He argued the symbol does not resemble a 3D model of a coronavirus because those are usually red and this design is gold.

But former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce disagreed, comparing the design to both coronavirus and bird poo.

'Last year in parliament I was promoting our kangaroo Australia Made logo that I fought hard to  improve to show what products came from our nation and in what proportion,' he said in a post on Facebook.

'Now I hear of some dippy idea to replace the kangaroo with an interpretive emblem that is a cross between the coronavirus and bird poo on your windscreen at 80km an hour.'

The redesign has sparked outrage from many Australians, most of whom were against the new symbol.

Deputy prime Minister Michael McCormack has defended the new Australian Made logo, calling it 'beautiful'

Australia's Nation Brand Advisory Council (pictured left to right: Wesley Enoch, Glenn Cooper, Bob East, Austrade CEO Stephanie Fahey, Andrew Forrest, Christine Holgate, Jayne Hrdlicka, Alan Joyce, Edwina McCann and Mike Cannon-Brookes)

The council was chaired by mining magnate Andrew Forrest and included Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, Vogue editor-in-chief Edwina McCann and billionaire Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Poll Which design do you prefer? Kangaroo Gold wattle Which design do you prefer? Kangaroo 1824 votes

Gold wattle 48 votes Now share your opinion





The gold wattle symbol will be used by businesses and government agencies, while the iconic Australian Made kangaroo logo will continue to be used on Australian-made products.

Many social media users agreed with Mr Joyce, with some thinking it was a joke.

'Australia's official logo has changed from the Kangaroo to the COVID19 symbol... sorry Wattle,' one person wrote on social media.

'Kangaroo is still better than a symbol of hay fever,' another wrote.

'Utter F**kwitts. Changing the Australian Kangaroo icon for a gold ring of dots that has no connection with Aussie's...PUT THE KANGAROO ICON BACK,' wrote another.

Vogue editor-in-chief Edwina McCann (pictured, left) and Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate (right) were also part of the advisory council

The newest Australian Made logo, which cost $10million to create, was unveiled on Tuesday night and will be used to market Australia to the rest of the world

'The new ''Australian Made'' symbol of the golden wattle is a terrible replacement for the current one of green triangle with the yellow kangaroo,' another person wrote.

'It cost $10m of our money to decide on this change? Leave it or make a new spin on this iconic logo, I say,' another wrote.

'You have to be joking, it looks like a vomit spray. It doesn't represent anything about Australia in the least,' a social media user wrote.

'Why is the government wasting money on this while there are so many bigger issues going on? Surely the old design represented 'Made in Australia' no matter what industry it was from,' another person asked.

NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham slammed the design as a 'waste of money creating confusion internationally'.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce (pictured, left) and billionaire Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes (right) were part of the council which opted for the new design

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce (pictured) called it a 'dippy idea', comparing it to the coronavirus and bird poo

'In light of the Wuhan virus, it's now plain embarrassing as it looks like a representation of COVID-19,' he told the Daily Telegraph.

In a report by the Nation Brand Advisory Council, which was accepted by Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, it was explained that the kangaroo only reinforced what foreigners already knew about Australia.

The council found that Australia should pushing other, lesser-known assets such as technology and education.

'Australia is internationally popular for its friendly people and natural beauty. However, there is room to improve perceptions around our business capability. There is an opportunity to increase foreign investment if we can strengthen awareness of our products and services overseas,' the report said.

'We love our kangaroo  it is currently the most internationally recognised shortcut to Australia. But we considered whether it would shift perceptions of our nation, or simply reinforce what people already knew about us.'

The council found that Australia should pushing other, lesser-known assets such as technology and education (pictured A2 milk chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka and Sydney Festival Artistic Director Wesley Enoch)

The council said its preference for the Nation Brand mark was the wattle.

'It's our national flower and, while it is not immediately recognisable internationally, it will become so over time.'

The logo will be used by business, industry and government agencies. The kangaroo logo will still be used for Australian-made products.

Australian Made Campaign Chairman, Glenn Cooper, said the iconic kangaroo logo will continue to be used as the global product symbol.

'The iconic green-and-gold kangaroo logo has been clearly identifying Australian goods in export markets for more than 34 years with great success,' he said.

The iconic Australian Made kangaroo logo will continue to be used on Australian-made products, while the gold wattle symbol will be used by businesses and government agencies (pictured: An example of the design)

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack says the newest design will be used at international trade shows

'It is by far Australia's most recognised and trusted country-of-origin symbols and is central to the export strategies of Aussie exporters taking their goods abroad. There is no need to make a change in this space.'

He said should the Government proceed with a new overarching Nation Brand to promote Australia more broadly then the Australian Made logo is perfectly positioned to work in concert with it.

'For decades now, the Australian Made logo has been used as a trusted country of origin mark alongside other Australian brands. It has a strong track record in this regard,' said Mr Cooper.

'For now, it's business as usual for the Australian Made logoproviding recognisable and trusted country of origin branding that makes the Australian connection instantly and clearly, here and overseas.'
Woolworths has been hit with a record $1million fine for bombarding customers with marketing emails even after they unsubscribed.

The supermarket giant spammed 1.2million customers with five million emails in the space of a year and was fined $1,003,800 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The emails were sent between October 2018 and July 2019 and the million dollar penalty is the largest ever issued by the regulator.

ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin said Woolworths' non-compliance with the Spam Act 2003 was 'inexcusable'.

Woolworths breached the Spam Act 2003 five million times in the space of a year and was fined $1,003,800 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

'Woolworths failed to act even after the ACMA had warned it of potential compliance issues after receiving consumer complaints,' she said.

'Australians have the right to unsubscribe from marketing emails that they do not want to receive.

'In this case, consumers claimed that they had tried to unsubscribe on multiple occasions or for highly personal reasons, but their requests were not actioned by Woolworths because of its systems, processes, and practices.

'The ACMA's actions should serve as a reminder to others not to disregard customers' wishes when it comes to unsubscribing from marketing material.'

Within the last year, businesses have forked out $1,753,500 to the regulator for breaching spam and telemarketing laws.

In January, Optus was slapped with a $500,000 fine for two million breaches.

Woolworths was issued the penalty after customers complained they were still receiving spam emails after unsubscribing (file image)

WooliesX Managing Director, Amanda Bardwell, apologised for the breach which had been fixed last year.

Ms Bardwell said the issue arose after households were sharing the same email address but different Woolworths Reward accounts, meaning multiple marketing messages were being sent.

'We respect the right of our Rewards members to choose how and when we communicate with them and apologise for failing to act on all unsubscribe requests as required under the law,' she said.

'Many of the breaches were the result of technical and systems issues, which we fixed in 2019.

'Subsequent breaches occurred because we continued sending communications to email addresses shared by multiple Rewards members, where only one member had made an unsubscribe request.

'While we were acting on unsubscribe requests from individual Rewards members, we did not assume it meant other members sharing that email address had to be opted-out as well.

'We accept this position and have unsubscribed all members who share an email address where at least one of those members has told us they want to unsubscribe.'
Pet owners hold grave fears for their beloved animals because they're stranded in transit from overseas due to Melbourne's strict new coronavirus shutdowns.

Virus hotspots across the city are in lockdown for the second time within weeks after an alarming spike in new infections with 289 cases recorded across Victoria in the last four days alone.

That includes 77 new cases on Wednesday, Victoria's biggest daily total since March 31.

Australia's only quarantine facility for cats and dogs is located in Melbourne's north, and international flights to the city have been diverted or cancelled until further notice.

A cargo-only flight consisting of pets stranded in Doha, Qatar is due to touch down in Melbourne on Thursday night.

Pets have been stranded in transit from overseas and can't arrive in Australia for quarantine due to ongoing coronavirus restrictions in Melbourne (stock image)

Cats and dogs arriving from overseas must undergo a minimum 10-day quarantine period at Mickleham Post Entry Quarantine Facility before being reunited with their owners.

A quarantine stay at the facility starts from $2000.

Andrew Speers and his wife Ellen Tyrrell, who recently returned to Australia from London, haven't seen their beloved schnoodle Hilde in at least three months.

Hilde was already on her way to Melbourne for quarantine when the new lockdown was announced on Tuesday.

The dog is now stranded at Doha Airport's animal care facility in Qatar until further notice after her connecting flight to Melbourne was cancelled.

Her owners have pleaded for compassion, amid growing fears Hilde may be put down if she's stuck in Doha for an extended period.

'I think what's most disappointing about this to us is it feels like a mistake's been made to fix a mistake,' Mr Speers told the Age.

'Their immediate welfare is OK. But they're not designed to be long-term care facilities and [if] the animals keep building up ... it's going to reach a very critical point very soon.'

Cats and dogs arriving from overseas must spend a minimum 10 days at Melbourne's Mickleham Post Entry Quarantine Facility (pictured)

The couple have already forked out thousands on housing, flights and vaccinations to relocate Hilde.

'It's been a long and ongoing saga involving multiple airlines. We had a flight and it's been ripped away from us at the last minute,' Mr Speers said.

The Department of Agriculture has since told Daily Mail Australia a cargo-only flight with all pets stranded in Doha will arrive in Australia on Thursday night.

'The department has also received confirmation of a flight from the UK via Singapore with companion animals on board will also get here as expected,' a spokeswoman said.

'The department is taking all steps to ensure that alternative arrangements are made for animal imports during stage 3 COVID restrictionsparticularly those that may have been caught in transit.'

A cargo-only flight loaded with pets stranded in Doha will arrive at Melbourne International Airport on Thursday night

The department said it is working to establish alternative arrangements for other pets that remain stranded overseas in transit.

The department acknowledged pet owners have experienced great difficulties in organising the transport of their animals from overseas during the ongoing pandemic.

'In order to ensure animal welfare and manage the significant biosecurity risks posed by international transport of animals, all animals destined for the quarantine facility at Mickleham must arrive directly into Melbourne Airport,' its website states.

'Animals cannot be transhipped to Melbourne on a domestic flight from another Australian port.

'The current COVID-19 pandemic does not change the existing risks posed by diseases of biosecurity concern to Australia or the need for cats and dogs to meet the import permit conditions in full.'
Even when Sir Keir Starmer gets the better of Boris Johnson at PMQs, as he did yesterday, it's hard to declare him the outright victor.

For all the Labour leader's clever clogs queries and forensic abilities, he remains the most insipid figure at the despatch box. Drab. Dull.

Must give the news bulletin boys who decide which clips to use a right headache.

Trouble is he's such a lawyer. Not the sort of glamorous slick shooter you see in US legal dramas, dressed tip-to-toe in Armani and yelling 'objection, your honour!' with manly vigour.

Even when Sir Keir Starmer gets the better of Boris Johnson at PMQs, as he did yesterday, it's hard to declare him the outright victor

No, Sir Keir is a real life legal eagle, one of those prodding, probing bods obsessed with statistics and mind-numbing details that leave poor jurors bamboozled.

Yesterday he zoned in on the Prime Minister's decision to reintroduce lockdown restrictions in Leicester following a recent surge in coronavirus cases.

He accused the Government of reacting to the flare-up far too slowly.

Back in those ghoulish days of high death tolls, Boris shrivelled at this line of questioning. But now he comes out swinging.

That is to say, he denies all. 'We acted decisively,' he insisted.

Sir Keir's bundle of evidence did not corroborate this. Apparently the Government had not provided Leicester with sufficient testing data. Eek! Data alert.

He reeled off some flim-flam about 'pillar one' and 'pillar two' data not being passed on to the local authorities. Pillar one data? Sorry, m'lud. Lost me already, I'm afraid.

For all the Labour leader's clever clogs queries and forensic abilities, he remains the most insipid figure at the despatch box. Drab. Dull.

Once again, Boris insisted his opponent was mistaken. Leicester had all the data. They were pillar to post with data. Sir Keir was talking tripe, piffle, balderdash.

Sir Keir sighed. When Boris swats him away clumsily like this, a thick crinkle develops in the middle of the Starmer's forehead.

It's that same expression you see among exasperated holidaymakers at dreaded car rental kiosks.

The Labour leader then turned to the Government's stuttering test and trace system which he said still wasn't working properly.

Course it's working, Boris insisted triumphantly. It was a 'great achievement on the part of the entire population!'

That look of angst reappeared on Sir Keir's face. Back in his courtroom days presumably by now he'd be seeking to treat the PM as a hostile witness.

Starmer then accused the PM of 'brushing away' this issue.

Had these words been uttered by Blair or Brown, they might have sounded more aggressive and thus generated more anger around the Labour benches.

Instead they stayed largely quiet.

Trouble is he's such a lawyer. Not the sort of glamorous slick shooter you see in US legal dramas, dressed tip-to-toe in Armani and yelling 'objection, your honour!' with manly vigour

However, they did perk up a bit as attention turned to the Prime Minister's economic recovery plans which Starmer regarded as insufficient.

The PM palmed him off like a Baptist minister deriding a non-believer. 'We are going to build, build, build and deliver jobs, jobs, jobs!' he cried.

This might have been a good time for Sir Keir to inform the PM, as he is wont to do, that he would hold him to the 'jobs, jobs, jobs' pledge once the Government's furloughing scheme comes to an end.

Not even the most boosterish of us believe it's going to be anything less than a bloodbath.

But instead he embarked on a lecture with doom-laden percentages and figures.

Naturally Boris wasn't interested, launching instead into his pre-prepared finale: 'We are the builders; they are the blockers.

We are the doers; they are the ditherers. We are going to get on with it and take this country forward.' Tory MPs cheered madly.

Their man had been outflanked at every turn but the PM had just bulldozed his way out of trouble.

The session did at least provoke one revelation of significance when Boris later agreed with James Sunderland (Con, Bracknell) that China was now in 'clear and serious breach' of the Sino-British joint declaration following its actions in Hong Kong, and the UK would therefore be offering relevant citizens a chance to settle here.

Most welcome they will be too, if we can find anywhere to house them. Looks like Boris will have to get his 'build, build, build' pledge up and running even fast.
An alleged organised crime syndicate has been busted with 7kg of heroin and almost $2million in duffel bags at a Western Sydney hotel.

Heavily armed tactical police stormed the Bass Hill location and arrested four men as part of a major investigation led by Strike Force Alverton.

Three of the men were charged with drug supply after properties in the Blue Mountains were raided, while the other man was released pending further inquiries.

Part of the 7kg of heroin that was seized is pictured with yin yang symbols marked on the packages

An officer from the New South Wales Tactical Operation Group stands over one of the men who was arrested

One of the men arrested is escorted by police to the Bankstown Police Station

The joint investigation by the State Crime Command's Organised Crime Squad, the New South Wales Crime Commission and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission was set up to investigate high-level drug supply.

As part of those investigations, the strike force team arrested two men aged 29 and 23, inside a hotel room with packets of heroin marked with yin yang symbols and $1.9million in cash.

Police say the bags of drugs has a street value of over $3million.

The two other men, aged 35 and 29, were arrested outside the Hume Highway building after they allegedly attempted to flee the scene in a white Mazda CX5.

All four of the men were taken to Bankstown Police Station on Wednesday.

'Subsequent search warrants were executed at properties in the Blue Mountains, Cabramatta, Canley Vale and Guildford with the assistance of North West Metropolitan and South West Metropolitan Regional Enforcement Squads and the Operations Support Group,' NSW police said.

A man has been arrested as part of Strike Force Alverton and is pictured being placed into the back of a police paddy wagon

One of the four men arrested is pictured in the back of a police car with his hands cuffed behind him

A total of $1.9 million dollars was found in duffel bags during the operation and seized by police

'Across the four locations police seized $247,000 cash, cocaine, cannabis, prescription drugs, hard drives, a CCTV recording device, and mobile phones.'

Police will allege the 35-year-old man from Cabramatta is a 'senior member of a criminal syndicate and facilitated the supply of a commercial quantity of prohibited drugs across Sydney'.

He was charged with four counts of drug supply and directing a criminal group.

The 29-year-old was charged with three counts of possessing and supplying a prohibited drug and participating in a criminal group.

The 23-year-old man was also charged with drug supply and participating in a criminal group.

One of the men arrested is pictured on the ground as investigators from Strike Force Alverton stand over the him

An investigator is pictured walking one of the men who was arrested to the police during the sting

All three were refused bail and will appear at Bankstown Local Court on Thursday.

The second 29-year-old man was released without charge but investigators from Strike Force Alverton say their inquiries are still continuing.

Anyone with information that may assist Strike Force Alverton is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Detective Superintendent Martin Fileman will hold a media conference at 1pm on Thursday to give further details about the case.

Hand cuffs are placed on one of the men who was arrested in the operation in Western Sydney
A newly-engaged woman has been separated from her Victorian fiance for months due to ongoing coronavirus restrictions.

Gold Coast resident Sarah Sleeman, 40, has not seen her partner Eric Zuniga, 45, in four months and has no idea when she will be able to visit him in Melbourne.

Ms Sleeman, who got engaged in January, cancelled a trip planned for later this month after Victoria announced it was implementing coronavirus lockdowns again.

Sarah Sleeman (pictured left) has been separated from her new fiance Eric Zuniga (pictured right) for four months due to the coronavirus pandemic and Victoria's COVID-19 spike

Ms Sleeman (pictured) right has no idea when she will be able to visit her fiance in Melbourne

'I don't want to risk it, I've got my daughter here, and if I had to isolate that's a long time to be apart from her.

'There's also a massive fine we could incur and that's not something that sits well with us,' Ms Sleeman told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Sleeman, an out-of-work events planner, has only been able to spend five weeks with Mr Zuniga since the pair became engaged.

'It is really tough but there's just no way around it because he is from Melbourne,' she said.

Victoria has recorded a dangerous spike in COVID-19 with 77 new cases reported on Thursday and a total of 415 active cases.

The state reintroduced stay at home orders for 36 hotspot suburbs across ten postcodes overnight to stem the spread of the disease.

The Melbourne spike has also led Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to exclude Victorians from Queensland's border reopening on July 10.

The couple have been in a long-distance relationship for two years since meeting on a cruise

Pictured: Ms Sleeman and Mr Zuniga got engaged in January this year

'Due to the current community transmission levels, the border with Victoria will remain closed and will be strengthened.

'Anyone who has travelled from Victoria, including Queenslanders, will be prevented from entering or will have to quarantine at a hotel at their own expense for two weeks,' she said on Tuesday.

Ms Sleeman met Mr Zuniga, who works for Boeing, on a cruise two years ago and the pair entered into a long-distance relationship.

The events planner said she had always wanted to prioritise her daughter Ruby Burgess, 9, and Mr Zuniga's children from a previous relationship.

'Eric's got two daughters and I have a daughter, so we wanted to do what was right by the girls and see them through the end of high school.

'That's never really been an issue because one of us had always been able to come for a few days or a weekend every month,' she explained.

Ms Sleeman said she had no idea when she would see her fiance again as most flights were already booked out and she didn't want to risk going to NSW.

'We want to follow the rules and doing a mercy dash interstate doesn't really sit well with us.

'We want to go home, not halfway,' Ms Sleeman explained.

Residents from all states and territories apart from Victoria will be allowed to enter Queensland from July 10 with a border declaration.

The stage three lockdown restrictions across the 36 suburbs in Melbourne will be enforced until at least July 29.

Locals are only permitted to leave their homes for essential reasons such as exercise, purchasing food and receiving medical care.
The Northern Territory has recorded its first coronavirus case in three months after a returned traveller from Victoria brought the disease over the border.

A Darwin man in his 30s was quarantined for two weeks in a Melbourne hotel before staying with family in one of the city's virus hotspots for a few days.

Upon returning to Darwin on Monday, the man began to feel unwell and tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday night.

It had been almost three months since the last confirmed case of COVID-19 in the Northern Territory was recorded on April 6.

NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles revealed the man flew to the Top End via Brisbane during a press conference on Thursday.

NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles (pictured) revealed there was a new case in the Top End during a press conference on Thursday

'We have a traveller, a Darwin person in their 30s who returned from overseas. They undertook quarantine in Melbourne,' Ms Fyles said.

'They then did have a couple of days and they were staying with family in one of the hotspot locations in Melbourne, I understand, before they were able to get a flight - Melbourne-Brisbane, Brisbane-Darwin.

'They arrived in Darwin on Monday starting to feel unwell and were tested and those results came through last night.

'They're now in the care of Royal Darwin Hospital in isolation and I want to reassure the community - there has been minimal contact with the broader community.'

NT Chief Health Officer Hugh Heggie said 'there's no risk to the community' with the new case since the man is isolated in hospital.

'The person is well, mild disease, in the hospital and the contacts are being currently tracked and traced as per a normal public health response,' Mr Heggie said.

'It's true that he did come from an area in Melbourne that is defined as a "hotspot" and we actually have vigilance with this and monitoring people that come back and I've got to say, he did all of the right things.'

The man boarded Qantas Flight 836 from Brisbane to Darwin on Monday. Ms Fyles said contact tracing will be undertaken for all other passengers aboard the flight (file image)

A man gets tested for COVID-19. The Darwin COVID-19 patient felt unwell on Monday and got tested, getting back a positive result on Wednesday night

The man had boarded Qantas Flight QF836 from Melbourne to Darwin via Brisbane on Monday and contact tracing will be undertaken for all other passengers aboard.

Ms Fyles said Territorians 'mustn't become complacent around coronavirus'.

'Even though it has been since 6 April we had our last diagnosed case locally here in the Territory, I can understand that people will be anxious hearing this news,' she said.

'There is no cure, there is no vaccine. In terms of the Northern Territory - Territorians have worked hard and we need to continue to do that.'

Darwin's one active case of COVID-19 is the Territory's 30th case of disease - the smallest total for any state or territory.

The latest case comes after 73 new cases sprouted up in Victoria and 14 more arose in NSW on Wednesday. Another eight popped up in NSW on Thursday.

This means there are now 386 active cases of coronavirus in all of Australia.

A drive-through COVID-19 test centre in Melbourne. The city has locked down 36 of its suburbs and residents of those areas are now banned from entering NSW

Three women walk through Sydney while wearing face masks. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has warned New South Wales residents that a second wave of coronavirus could hit the state

As numbers rise Victoria, Melbourne has locked down 36 of its suburbs to curb the spread of the disease.

New South Wales has banned people from the 36 Melbourne suburbs while keeping an open border to other Victorians.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said anyone from those areas caught in NSW could face six months in jail and an $11,000 fine from 11.59pm on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has warned New South Wales residents that a second wave of coronavirus could hit the state at any time.

'There is no doubt in my mind that during the course of the pandemic, we will get a spike,' she said on Sunrise on Thursday.

'It is about how you deal with it.'
Robert Jenrick has been summoned before MPs to explain serious mistakes in his handling of a Tory donors 1billion homes plan.

The Commons housing select committee said it disagreed with the Prime Ministers claim that the matter is closed.

Yesterday the committee wrote to the Housing Secretary with a list of 26 unanswered questions and demanded that he appear before it in a fortnight.

Mr Jenrick is embroiled in a cash for favours row over his approval of Richard Desmonds proposal for a 1,500-home development on the site of the Westferry print works in east London.

Secretary of State for Housing Robert Jenrick (pictured) has been summoned before MPs to explain serious mistakes in his handling of a Tory donors 1billion homes plan

The minister overruled the planning inspector and his own officials to grant permission in January, two months after he sat next to the tycoon at a Tory fundraising dinner.

In a letter to Mr Jenrick yesterday, the housing select committee said it would not normally scrutinise individual planning decisions but in this case we feel it is important to make an exception.

The Housing Secretary last week was forced to hand over documents that show he sped up the approval process.

Mr Desmond urged him to do so before the introduction of a local levy that he said would cost him 45million.

Mr Jenrick is embroiled in a cash for favours row over his approval of Richard Desmonds (right) proposal for a 1,500-home development on the site of the Westferry print works in east London

Emails between Mr Jenricks officials show that he was insistent that the planning decision was made ahead of the deadline.

The minister subsequently agreed for his decision to be quashed after admitting it had been unlawful by reason of apparent bias.

Clive Betts, the select committees Labour chairman, yesterday wrote in his letter to Mr Jenrick that the documents do clearly demonstrate that serious mistakes were made during this process, and that these put into doubt your ability to act as a neutral arbiter in this case.

He added: The committee respectfully disagrees with the Prime Ministers assertion that the matter is closed.
A mother-of-two downed two bottles of vodka before driving to McDonald's because she was 'hungry', and wound up ploughing into another car.

Kim Maree Kurki, 52, was four times over the limit when she rear ended another car near Calamvale McDonald's in Brisbane's south around 7.40pm on April 1.

Police spotted her making a rather slow getaway, driving at just 10km/h before pulling her over.

Kurki then blew a blood alcohol reading of 0.222 per cent, before officers watched her take 'approximately five minutes' to put her seatbelt on when put in a police car.

Kim Maree Kurki, 52, was four times over the limit when she crashed into another car in Calamvale after driving to McDonald's (pictured McDonald's in Calamvale)

The 52-year-old told police she didn't want to stop because she was 'worried she was going to be arrested', Senior Constable Pedersen said, The Courier Mail reported.

'Police observed the defendant take approximately five minutes to put on her seatbelt in the police vehicle,' he said.

Kurki pleaded guilty to failing to give required particulars at a crash and driving under the influence of alcohol on Wednesday at Richlands Magistrates Court.

Defence lawyer Garry Wooler said the mother, who also suffers from mental health problems, had turned to alcoholism during isolation because the lockdown became 'too much' to handle.

Kurki's two children live with her ex-husband who Mr Wooler said has no 'sympathy' for her.

'Her mental health issues impact on her ability to make decisions and come to terms with the loss of her children,' he said.

Magistrate Aaron Simpson said the details discussed in court painted a 'very sad picture'.

'I wish you well in beating your addiction  but don't make your issue someone else's issues, don't take to the road,' he said.

Kurki was fined $2,000 and disqualified from driving for two years.

She is receiving help for her dependency on alcohol.
The Prime Minister's father has jetted to Greece in flagrant disregard of pandemic travel advice from the Government.

Stanley Johnson flew despite Foreign Office guidance saying Britons should not go abroad unless they have to.

The 79-year-old arrived in Athens last night to visit his mountain villa. He boasted of his trip in a pair of Instagram posts showing his plane coming in over Athens.

The former Tory MEP had flown via the Bulgarian capital Sofia because the Greek government has banned direct flights from the UK until mid-July.

Speaking from the balcony of his villa in northern Greece last night, Mr Johnson said: 'I'm in Pelion on essential business trying to Covid-proof my property in view of the upcoming letting season.

'I need to set up distancing measures at the property because they're taking it very seriously here.

Stanley Johnson (pictured in an image posted to Instagram yesterday) flew into Athens via Sofia despite Foreign Office guidance saying Britons should not go abroad unless they have to

The former Tory MEP had flown via the Bulgarian capital Sofia because the Greek government has banned direct flights from the UK until mid-July

'The Greeks are trying to stop bulk arrivals from the UK but they were quite happy to have me coming in.

'All they wanted to know where I was coming from and what I was doing. Then I had my temperature taken and was swabbed twice.

'We must get these air bridges set up as soon as possible. From what I've seen the arrival of the British will not be a danger to the Greeks because they're so careful here.'

The four-bed villa in Pelion has a pool and terraces with views of the mountains and the sea. The beach is only a five-minute walk through an olive grove.

Mr Johnson's trip shows it could be possible to travel via a third country to get around rules designed to stop the spread of coronavirus.

It is not the first time he has decided to act against government advice on the pandemic.

The 79-year-old (pictured with Georgia Toffolo) arrived in Athens last night to visit his mountain villa

The villa in Pelion has a pool, mountain views  and is just a five-minute walk from sea

Before the lockdown was introduced he suggested he would carry on going to the pub even though over-70s were urged to stay indoors. He said: 'Of course I'll go to a pub if I need to go to a pub. The people who run pubs need a little bit of people  they don't want people to not be in the pub at all.'

The Foreign Office is advising British nationals against all but essential international travel. Its says there are limited travel options between the UK and Greece and no direct flights.

On Tuesday, Greece announced it was extending its ban on UK flights until July 15. The measures will be kept under continuous review, according to the country's prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Under the current rules, Mr Johnson is likely to have to quarantine for 14 days on his return.

The Prime Minister's chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, was at the centre of a lockdown row in May after it was revealed that he drove from London to Durham. Mr Cummings claimed he made the 200-mile journey in order to be close to family who could care for his son.

Despite the rules containing no exceptions to allow Mr Cummings' trip, the Prime Minister defended his adviser's actions.
A pill made from gut bacteria is being tested by British scientists as a treatment for coronavirus.

In a trial launched today, patients will be given either the medication, which contains a strain of gut bacteria found to reduce damage to lung tissue caused by inflammation.

Patients often become seriously ill when their immune system overreacts to coronavirus and starts to cause collateral damage to the body.

It is hoped the drug will stop this without dampening the immune response needed to clear the viral infection.

A pill made from gut bacteria will be given to patients in a trial launched today as a possible Covid treatment, to reduce damage to lung tissue caused by inflammation (file photo)

If the drug works, scientists plan to give it to patients before they develop breathing problems, reducing hospital admissions and numbers needing intensive care beds.

The pill, from a class of medicines known as biotherapeutics, contains billions of cells from the microbiome  the community of bugs in our guts.

Pre-clinical trials of the drug, made by Leeds-based 4D pharma, uses strains of gut bacteria which have been found to reduce damage caused to lung tissue by inflammation.

The pill, known as MRx-4DP0004, reduced a type of immune cell, understood to be a key driver of inflammation and lung damage in coronavirus patients.

Now patients at Plymouth University Hospital will start the treatment today before being rolled out at sites across the UK.

Two thirds of the 90 patients will be given the medication twice a day, for two weeks  while the remaining third are given a placebo.

They will then be monitored daily to see if their symptoms improve or the virus progresses, before follow-up appointments after 14 and 28 days.

Early trials on asthma patients passed safety checks so it is hoped it could be approved quickly, if it's found to work.

Duncan Peyton, CEO of 4D pharma, said being able to develop safe treatments was the 'holy grail' for treatments.

He said: 'Being able to safely treat the hyper-inflammation in the lungs, related to COVID-19, should be priority when developing therapies for patients suffering from the more serious respiratory effects of the infection.

'Given the excellent safety profile of our drug, we would eventually like to treat patients with mild symptoms, before they need to go to hospital - reducing the chances of respiratory complications and the requirement of intensive care.'

Dr Alex Stevenson, Chief Scientific Officer, 4D pharma said: 'Reducing hyperinflammation, particularly in the lungs, is key to preventing the exacerbation of symptoms associated with more severe COVID-19.

'4D pharma has shown MRx-4DP0004 has the ability to target inflammation in the lungs, potentially reducing the respiratory issues central to COVID-19.'

Coronavirus vaccine WILL give long-term protection says Oxford study chief - as US experts find their own jab triggered antibody levels THREE times higher than in recovered patients

By VICTORIA ALLEN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

A jab against coronavirus should last for several years at least, said the British scientist whose own vaccine project is the global front-runner.

Professor Sarah Gilbert told MPs she was optimistic that a vaccine would provide 'a good duration of immunity'.

She is the world-renowned expert leading an Oxford University team that is devising a vaccine, so her claim could help to dispel the fears over how long protection against Covid-19 might last.

Concerns had been raised after those with other types of coronavirus  which are less dangerous and cause the common cold  were able, in tests, to be reinfected within a year.

But Professor Gilbert told the Commons science and technology committee there may be a better result from a vaccine than the natural immunity acquired when individuals simply recover from a virus.

A jab against coronavirus should last for several years at least, said the British scientist whose own vaccine project is the global front-runner (stock photo)

Professor Sarah Gilbert, an expert leading an Oxford University team that is devising a vaccine, told MPs she was optimistic that a vaccine would provide 'a good duration of immunity'

She said: 'Vaccines have a different way of engaging with the immune system, and we follow people in our studies using the same type of technology to make the vaccines for several years, and we still see strong immune responses.

'It's something we have to test and follow over time  we can't know until we actually have the data  but we're optimistic based on earlier studies that we will see a good duration of immunity, for several years at least, and probably better than naturally-acquired immunity.'

Asked for a timeline on the vaccine, after the prospect was raised of facing the winter without one, Professor Gilbert told the committee: 'I hope we can improve on those timelines and come to your rescue.'

Some 8,000 Britons are taking part in a major trial of the Oxford vaccine, which is being manufactured by pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca. But, as rates of coronavirus have fallen in this country, researchers are also aiming to vaccinate 4,000 individuals in Brazil and 2,000 in South Africa.

It comes as an experimental coronavirus vaccine being tested by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech produced neutralizing antibodies were between 1.8 and 2.8 times greater than those seen in recovered patients.

The vaccine candidate uses part of the pathogen's genetic code to get the body to recognize the coronavirus and attack it if a person becomes infected.

How the injectable vaccines from Imperial College London and Oxford University would work

The trial, which used 45 people in three groups and a control group, showed encouraging early results.

'We still have a ways to go and we're testing other candidates as well,' Philip Dormitzer, chief scientific officer at Pfizer's research laboratories, told STAT News.

'However, what we can say at this point is there is a viable candidate based on immunogenicity and early tolerability safety data.'

The key question in this trials however is whether the vaccine will protect them from becoming infected, or simply make them less ill. It may also work less well in older people because their immune systems are weaker.

Kate Bingham, head of the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, told MPs she was less optimistic that the jab could protect against catching the infection and it's more likely it will only reduce the severity of symptoms.

Kate Bingham told MPs today she was confident the world would have some form of vaccine against Covid-19 by early 2021. But she said she was less optimistic that the jab could protect against catching the infection and it's more likely the vaccine will be able to reduce severity of symptoms

It comes as an experimental coronavirus vaccine being tested by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech produced neutralizing antibodies were between 1.8 and 2.8 times greater than those seen in recovered patients

She told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee: 'I'm relatively optimistic we will find a vaccine that will be able to treat the population.

'The caveat is... is it a full sterilising vaccine, which means you can't get infected, or is it one that basically just takes the edge off the symptoms so it reduces mortality?

'Clearly we would like to get to a sterilising vaccine so that people are prevented from being infected.

Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, also gave evidence to the committee, warning that the UK must 'prepare for the worst' this winter, rather than rely on the development of a vaccine.

But he said he has now seen tests for coronavirus of a good standard which can produce a result in a 'few minutes'.

Sir John said: 'That would be transformative because we could all test ourselves regularly and test our kids after they've been off to a rave and all that stuff.'

He also urged Britons to have the flu jab to 'avoid pandemonium in A&E departments'.
Rush was given $850,000 general damages and $2million in special damages

The Daily Telegraph reported Rush had been accused of inappropriate behaviour

Journalist Jonathon Moran was found to have been reckless regarding the truth

Three judges have dismissed an appeal by Nationwide News against a finding it defamed Geoffrey Rush and against the awarding of $2.9 million in damages.

The Daily Telegraph's publisher and journalist Jonathon Moran were found to have been reckless regarding the truth when they reported Rush had been accused of inappropriate behaviour during a Sydney theatre production of King Lear in 2015.

In the Federal Court in 2019, Justice Michael Wigney ruled a poster and two articles contained several defamatory meanings - including that Rush was a pervert and a sexual predator - and the publisher hadn't proved they were true.

The Oscar winner was awarded $850,000 general damages and about $2 million in special damages to cover past and future economic loss.

Three judges have dismissed an appeal by Nationwide News against a finding it defamed Geoffrey Rush and against the awarding of $2.9 million in damages

The Oscar winner was awarded $850,000 general damages and about $2 million in special damages to cover past and future economic loss

Justices Richard White, Jacqueline Gleeson and Michael Wheelahan on Thursday dismissed the appeal.

One involved challenging the finding the publication implied the actor is a pervert, but the full court stated a reasonable reader of the article was likely to reach that conclusion.

This was particularly so as the article concerned a man's use of authority or stature in the workplace to obtain sexual gratification by inappropriately touching a non-consenting co-worker.

Nationwide also challenged Justice Wigney's finding Erin Jean Norvill, who played the role of Cordelia and alleged Rush sexually assaulted her, was not a reliable witness.

This assessment was based on findings that were not 'glaringly improbable' or inconsistent with incontrovertible facts, the full court concluded.

The court also noted Nationwide had not challenged the judge's finding Rush was a credible witness and evidence given by the production's director and other cast members was honest and reliable.

The court said the award of $850,000 for non-economic loss was appropriately high but not manifestly excessive given the serious nature of the defamation and other factors.

It also rejected claims the judge erred in his assessment of damages for economic loss.
Sweden's Prime Minister has ordered a public inquiry into the country's handling of the coronavirus crisis amid rising criticism of its soft approach to lockdown.

More than 5,300 Swedes have died compared to around 250 in Norway, 600 in Denmark and 325 in Finland, all of which have populations around half the size.

Sweden, unlike the rest of Scandinavia, chose not to close restaurants, bars, schools and shops to fight the spread of the virus.

Its per capita death rate has soared to fifth-highest in the world, after Belgium, the UK, Spain and Italy, despite the country being sparsely populated and equipped with exemplary hospitals.

'It is not a question of whether Sweden is going to change as a result of this - the question is how,' Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told a news conference on Tuesday.

Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told a news conference on Tuesday: 'It is not a question of whether Sweden is going to change as a result of this - the question is how'

Office colleagues have some after-work drinks next to the water in Stockholm on June 25

The commission has a broad mandate to look at how the virus arrived in Sweden, how it spread, the government's and other authorities' response, and the effect on equality.

Sweden's response to the virus outbreak, which has relied mainly on voluntary measures and common sense hygiene rules, has led to its being snubbed by its neighbours and other countries in Europe that have kept their borders shut to Swedish tourists.

Its toll is still lower than in some European countries, such as Britain, which has one of the worst death rates in the world.

Criticism in Sweden has focused mainly on the death toll among elderly residents of care homes, who make up the majority of deaths from the virus, and the late start to widespread testing.

The head of the Public Health Agency says Sweden followed established practice.

Anders Tegnell, who has become the face of Sweden's virus strategy, told Reuters it remained unclear whether total lockdowns were effective.

Anders Tegnell, who has become the face of Sweden's virus strategy, told Reuters it remained unclear whether total lockdowns were effective (pictured: Tegnell speaks during a daily news conference in Stockholm on June 3)

The commission will report on elderly care at the end of November, although its final conclusions are not due until 2022, ahead of a national election.

On Tuesday, the country of 10.3 million inhabitants reported a total of 68,451 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, and 5,333 deaths.

Sweden has seen an uptick in new cases in recent weeks, but the country's Public Health Agency said this could largely be traced to a dramatic increase in the number of tests being performed, as the number of deaths and people treated in intensive care has remained steady.
Australia's decision to change its marketing logo shows the nation is 'confused and anxious', Chinese state media has claimed.

Australia's iconic kangaroo logo, used by businesses and government agencies at trade shows and conferences, has been replaced by a heavily stylised image representing the native gold wattle plant.

Aussies panned the new design when it was unveiled earlier this week, claiming it looked like a 3D model of the coronavirus.

On Wednesday night, Chinese state media website The Global Times turned the knife, claiming the new logo was a part of a bid to revive Australian trade amid tensions with China.

Australia's Nation Brand Advisory Council felt the kangaroo (pictured) only reinforced what foreigners already knew about Australia

The new national logo (pictured) will be used to market Australia to the rest of the world

'To a certain extent, the use of the controversial new logo may underscore the Australian government's eagerness to promote its profile in the global marketplace,' the editorial read.

'It is also a sign of the growing anxiety over its trade prospects amid its deteriorating relationship with China  its largest trade partner.'

Beijing and Canberra have been at loggerheads in recent weeks after Australia led global calls for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, which first surfaced in Wuhan late last year.

China retaliated by slapping an 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley, suspending beef imports and telling students and tourists not to travel Down Under in an apparent attempt to damage the Australian economy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects the troops during a parade to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China

Chinese troops marching during a military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in October

Around one third of Australia's exports go to China and the article claimed that Australia cannot replace Beijing with other markets.

'While it is understandable that Australia is eagerly seeking to diversify its export markets to reduce its economic dependence on China, it is dubious how much of its diversification efforts could really cushion the economic blow from China on the Australian economy,' the article read.

The new logo cost $10million to create and was unveiled on Tuesday night.

Australia's Nation Brand Advisory Council, set up by former PM Malcolm Turnbull, recommended scrapping the kangaroo in a report that was adopted by Trade Minister Simon Birmingham.

The council was chaired by mining magnate Andrew Forrest and included Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, Vogue editor-in-chief Edwina McCann and billionaire Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

However, the decision to redesign the iconic logo with the gold blob has shocked and outraged plenty of Australians, with many comparing it to a 3D model of the coronavirus.

The decision to dump the iconic kangaroo and replace it with the gold blob has shocked and outraged plenty of Australians, with many comparing it to a 3D model of the coronavirus (pictured)

'Australia's official logo has changed from the Kangaroo to the COVID19 symbol... sorry Wattle,' one person wrote on social media.

'Kangaroo is still better than a symbol of hay fever,' another wrote.

'Utter F**kwitts. Changing the Australian Kangaroo icon for a gold ring of dots that has no connection with Aussie's...PUT THE KANGAROO ICON BACK,' wrote another.

'The new ''Australian Made'' symbol of the golden wattle is a terrible replacement for the current one of green triangle with the yellow kangaroo,' another person wrote.

'It cost $10m of our money to decide on this change? Leave it or make a new spin on this iconic logo, I say,' another wrote.

'You have to be joking, it looks like a vomit spray. It doesn't represent anything about Australia in the least,' a social media user wrote.

'Why is the government wasting money on this while there are so many bigger issues going on? Surely the old design represented 'Made in Australia' no matter what industry it was from,' another person asked.

NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham slammed the design as a 'waste of money creating confusion internationally'.

Australia's Nation Brand Advisory Council (Pictured left to right: Wesley Enoch, Glenn Cooper, Bob East, Austrade CEO Stephanie Fahey, Andrew Forrest, Christine Holgate, Jayne Hrdlicka, Alan Joyce, Edwina McCann and Mike Cannon-Brookes)

'It's a complete fiasco that should be chucked in the bin.'

In a report by the Nation Brand Advisory Council, which was accepted by Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, it was explained that the kangaroo only reinforced what foreigners already knew about Australia.

The council found that Australia should pushing other, lesser-known assets such as technology and education.

Poll Which design do you prefer? Kangaroo Gold wattle Which design do you prefer? Kangaroo 1824 votes

Gold wattle 48 votes Now share your opinion





'Australia is internationally popular for its friendly people and natural beauty. However, there is room to improve perceptions around our business capability. There is an opportunity to increase foreign investment if we can strengthen awareness of our products and services overseas,' the report said.

'We love our kangaroo  it is currently the most internationally recognised shortcut to Australia. But we considered whether it would shift perceptions of our nation, or simply reinforce what people already knew about us.'

The council said its preference for the Nation Brand mark was the wattle.

'It's our national flower and, while it is not immediately recognisable internationally, it will become so over time.'

The logo will be used by business, industry and government agencies. The kangaroo logo will still be used for Australian-made products.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce and billionaire Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes were part of the council which opted for the new design

Vogue editor-in-chief Edwina McCann and Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate were also part of the advisory council

Australian Made Campaign Chairman, Glenn Cooper, said the iconic kangaroo logo will continue to be used as the global product symbol.

'The iconic green-and-gold kangaroo logo has been clearly identifying Australian goods in export markets for more than 34 years with great success,' he said.

'It is by far Australia's most recognised and trusted country-of-origin symbols and is central to the export strategies of Aussie exporters taking their goods abroad. There is no need to make a change in this space.'

He said should the Government proceed with a new overarching Nation Brand to promote Australia more broadly then the Australian Made logo is perfectly positioned to work in concert with it.

'For decades now, the Australian Made logo has been used as a trusted country of origin mark alongside other Australian brands. It has a strong track record in this regard,' said Mr Cooper.

'For now, it's business as usual for the Australian Made logoproviding recognisable and trusted country of origin branding that makes the Australian connection instantly and clearly, here and overseas.'
A pair of young writers have sensationally quit their lucrative jobs as art critics in protest over the 'whiteness' of their own team.

Five hires, who are all white, were selected in May to be part of a respected team of reviewers at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

The initiative, which was funded by the Copyright Agency and the Judith Neilson Institute, was aimed at enhancing arts and review coverage in Australia.

But four of the critics have since slammed the newspapers for a 'lack of diversity in the selection, which resulted in an all-white group'.

Two of the writers, Bec Kavanagh and Jack Callil, have since resigned from the programme because it 'fails to reflect Australia's diverse literary community'.

Bec Kavanagh (pictured) resigned from the programme because it 'fails to reflect Australia's diverse literary community'

Jack Callil (pictured) sensationally quit the gig in protest because it 'fails to reflect Australia's diverse literary community'

The pair released a joint statement which read: 'This selection fails to reflect Australia's diverse literary community, and is a missed opportunity to support non-white voices in arts criticism in Australia.

'We want our work to be part of a landscape that recognises the nuances in understanding and experience needed to engage with works of art on multiple levels; we all miss out if there's only one voice in the room.'

They went on to say how grateful they were to be given the opportunity.

A third writer, Tiarney Miekus has not quit, but she has spoken out about the whiteness of the group, calling it 'completely appalling and shameful'.

She said she will give up some of her salary to allow the company to hire a person of colour.

'From the outset I have found this completely appalling and shameful. It shows the media's bias when it comes to supporting the voices and opinions of people of colour and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers in arts publishing,' she wrote on twitter.

Cassie Tongue (pictured) has proposed she reduce her hours and share the job with a person of colour

Tiarney Miekus (pictured) has not quit, but she has spoken out about the whiteness of the group, calling it 'completely appalling and shameful'

'The selection was not ethical or representative of arts writing and art practices in this country today.

'Since the announcement, I've had many exchanges with multiple editors. Having essentially halved the number of pieces I'll be publishing, I've been advocating the extra funding set aside for my role  visual arts in Melbourne  be used to publish arts pieces by black, indigenous, people of colour writers.'

A fourth writer, Cassie Tongue, has proposed she reduce her hours and share the job with a person of colour.

The fifth writer, Chloe Wolifson, has not commented on the issue.

Two of the writers, Bec Kavanagh and Jack Callil, have since resigned from the programme because it 'fails to reflect Australia's diverse literary community'

Tiarney Miekus has not quit, but she has spoken out about the whiteness of the group, calling it 'completely appalling and shameful'

Nine, who owns both mastheads, released a statement announcing they would be reopening the application to include more diverse voice.

'We accept the reasons why Jack Callil and Bec Kavanagh have decided to resign,' a statement said.

'We are reopening applications for the two freelance book critic roles, considering the previous applicants as well as seeking to ensure the roles are posted more widely to encourage a greater diversity of applicants.

'The successful applicants will need to have expertise as literary critics and strong writing skills.'

The move comes after thousands of Aboriginal rights activists attended rallies in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide amid the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Black rights protests sprung up around the world in response to American demonstrations following the death of black security guard George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today suggested Nicola Sturgeon is to blame for delays to publishing which countries will be made exempt from coronavirus quarantine travel restrictions.

The UK Government was expected to publish a list on Monday of countries which will no longer be subject to the 14 day self-isolation rules.

But publication has been repeatedly pushed back causing holiday chaos and increasing anger from the struggling airline and tourism industries.

Mr Shapps today indicated opposition from the Scottish Government was the reason why details are yet to be made available.

Ms Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, has criticised Downing Street for apparently failing to consult her on the plans and on Monday she said she wanted to 'take a bit of time to consider the public health impact' of what was being proposed amid fears abolishing quarantine could cause a spike in infections.

Responding to the SNP's transport spokesman Gavin Newlands in the House of Commons this morning, Mr Shapps said: I would say to the honourable gentleman, I would appreciate his help in ensuring air bridges can get going as quickly as possible and report to the House.

I am very keen to get the devolved administrations including the Scotland Government on board so we can get this thing announced.

The Scottish Government said the suggestion it is responsible for the delays is 'completely unfounded' while Ms Sturgeon told her daily coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh at lunchtime that Mr Shapps' intervention was 'not helpful'.

Meanwhile, furious travel industry bosses are demanding answers from ministers amid claims that originally proposed 'air bridge' plans have effectively been ditched.

The Government is expected to publish a list of more than 75 countries which will be exempted from quarantine on arrivals to the UK, including key holiday destinations in Europe, Turkey, New Zealand and the Caribbean.

However, efforts to thrash out reciprocal 'air bridge' deals to ensure that British holidaymakers do not face restrictions on arrival in another country appear to have floundered.

That means that in many cases Brits still face being ordered to isolate on arrival if they travel abroad, with Greece among the countries enforcing the rule.

Ministers have previously said that a blanket ban on all non-essential international travel will start to be eased from July 6.

Pictured: Passengers queue up to check in for flights at Stansted Airport London, Britain, 01 July 2020. The UK Government is set to announce that Britons can travel to 95 countries, but only a handful actually permit people travelling from the UK

George Morgan-Grenville, chief executive of luxury travel company Red Savannah, today called Boris Johnson's blanket quarantine policy 'a disaster'

What are the current holiday rules, why have changes been delayed and who is to blame? What are the current rules? People arriving in the UK - including returning Britons - are currently required to self-isolate for a fortnight. What is changing? The UK Government is expected to announce a list of more than 75 countries which will be exempt from the restrictions. Which countries will be included? Key holiday destinations in Europe, Turkey, New Zealand and the Caribbean are likely. The US may not be due to high levels of infection. Wasn't this supposed to have already been announced? Air bridges have long been touted by ministers. A list of destinations had been promised before the quarantine policy's first review on June 29. But publication was pushed back, first to Monday, then Wednesday and now to Friday. Why has there been a delay? The Government has always insisted no date was set for the policy to be announced. But opposition to easing quarantine from Nicola Sturgeon has been blamed for the slow roll out. When will changes come into force? It was announced last week that measures would be relaxed for people returning from 'safe' countries from July 6. Advertisement

The proposals are looking increasingly shambolic with the Government announcement repeatedly delayed despite airlines and tour operators warning they are on the verge of disaster.

Ministers initially promised a list of air bridges would be published well in advance of the deadline for reviewing the blanket quarantine policy on June 29.

But that was pushed back from Monday to Wednesday, before being shunted again to today. Sources said the government is now 'hoping' to make an announcement tomorrow.

Ministers agreed a new traffic light system last week that would pave the way for the creation of 'travel corridors', allowing tourists to visit certain 'green' countries deemed safe without the need to quarantine at either end.

But Ms Sturgeon suggested this week the Scottish Government could boycott the scheme, meaning it would not apply at airports such as Glasgow and Edinburgh.

That is thought to have undermined negotiations with other countries, which were being conducted on a UK-wide basis.

A promised air bridge to Greece is already in doubt after Athens said it was not ready to accept flights from Britain, which still has a relatively high coronavirus 'reproduction' rate  meaning the illness is not fully under control.

A travel industry source said: 'The Greek move opened a can of worms and led to other EU countries with similarly low R rates also thinking they should look at blocking British holidaymakers.'

Travel companies are demanding clarity from the Government as they claim the delay in confirming the full details is preventing people from booking holidays.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport (DfT) called the policy a 'developing policy' but declined to comment further.

Today, George Morgan-Grenville, chief executive of luxury travel company Red Savannah, called the Government's policy 'a disaster' and 'lousy'.

The Government has been working on a traffic light system based on Covid risks in other countries, and plans on permitting travel to both 'green' and 'amber' countries

Nicola Sturgeon has been threatening to boycott the government's plans for air bridges with other countries

Which countries are likely to be on the Government's 'safe' travel list? As many as 75 countries could be exempted from the quarantine restrictions when the Government finally publishes its list of 'safe' travel destinations. A Foreign Office ban on non-essential travel could be lifted for countries including: Austria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Denmark, Turkey, France, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Barbados, New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Bermuda and Gibraltar. Only countries which are judged to be sufficiently low risk will make it onto the list. Downing Street has played down the reports of the list including more than 75 countries ahead of the official announcement. Advertisement

He told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme: 'The whole of quarantine has been a disaster. It was a lousy piece of secondary legislation.

'There was no business or regulatory impact assessment carried out, there was no consultation carried out. And effectively what it did was to prevent the industry after four months of no sales from getting back on its feet again.

'The Government are very fond of saying that they've been following the science, but the scientists aren't quite as fond as saying they've been following the Government.

'There were numerous scientists... saying the exact opposite, saying it would have a negligible impact on public health and that it was a very odd time to bring it in.'

Paul Charles, from the Quash Quarantine group, said: 'Each day there is a delay is a day of lost bookings and more jobs likely to go in the travel sector.'

Theresa Villiers, the former environment and Northern Ireland secretary, who was transport minister in the coalition, said the quarantine policy 'hasn't been worth it'.

'This policy has caused damage to the travel industry, and inconvenience for holiday-makers, without any evidence of it working effectively to cut Covid risk,' she said.

Having been one of the MPs urging Home Secretary Priti Patel to delay the restrictions when they were introduced a month ago, she added: 'Air bridges needed to be in place from the start to deliver a risk-based approach which imposed quarantine only on flights from places with high rates of infection.'

Mr Shapps gave little doubt during Transport questions in the Commons this morning that he blames the Scottish Government for the delays in publishing the 'safe' countries list and striking 'air bridge' deals.

As well as his broadside at Mr Newlands, the Transport Secretary also told SNP MP Philippa Whitford: 'There is something the honourable member may be pleased that she can do, which is to ask the Scottish Government to join with us in ensuring we can have these air bridges in place nationwide as quickly as possible.'

Mr Shapps also hinted that the easing of travel restrictions would be accompanied by more extensive screening at airports.

Conservative former minister Dame Cheryl Gillan asked Mr Shapps about the introduction of a Covid-19 testing programme at airports.

Pictured: Tourists arrive at Nikos Kazatzakis International Airport in Crete, Greece, on Wednesday, July 1, 2020. The passengers - most of them from Germany - came from Hamburg on the first international flight to arrive in the island

'The uncertainty of this puts a lot of pressure on us': Families blast Government over travel chaos A family due to travel to Hungary next week has blasted ministers for the lack of clarity over when quarantine measures will end. Agnes Macsari, 36, was planning to travel with her partner Laz, 26, and two-year-old son Aaron to attend her father's 60th birthday. But she said the current 'unfair' uncertainty surrounding air bridges has left her family 'stressed' and unsure whether to travel. Agnes Macsari said uncertainty over air bridges and quarantine had hit her family's travel plans She told MailOnline: 'We are very much stressed about our upcoming trip to Hungary next Tuesday (7th July). 'We both working and living here for 10 years, we have a dual national son. We havent seen our family in seven months. 'We should travel to Hungary for a week as its my fathers 60th Birthday next week. But the uncertainty around the air bridge list is putting us into a situation where we cannot decide whether to go or not. 'It feels so unfair that we dont know if we will need to self-isolate on our return for 14 days or not.' She added: 'The uncertainty of this puts a lot of pressure on both of us (who are keyworkers and been working through the pandemic without a day off) and has an effect on our mental health as well.' Advertisement

He replied: 'She's absolutely right, it's very important to ensure we can provide reassurance for passengers but also do something useful with the screening beyond perhaps just what asking people to take a temperature check provides, and so we are actively working with Heathrow and other airports to put exactly those types of schemes in place.'

Mr Shapps said he will be saying more about this 'in time for the following review' of air corridors.

Ms Sturgeon later slapped down Mr Shapps as she said she will continue to work in 'as collaborative and constructive a manner as possible with the UK Government' in the fight against coronavirus.

She said: 'Some of these interventions, such as the one from Grant Shapps today, frankly, is not helpful in that regard.'

She added: 'I want to open travel as quickly and as comprehensively as possible but I want to make sure that in doing that we just don't take too many or too high a risk around the virus.'

The Scottish First Minister said she wanted to 'take care' when changing travel rules and insisted she would not be 'dragged along' in making decisions.

Scottish Government Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf had earlier shot back at Mr Shapps over the suggestion that the SNP administration was responsible for delays in air bridges being announced.

He said: 'This suggestion is completely unfounded. We have sought, as far as possible, a four-nations approach to this issue, but such a policy requires meaningful consultation by the UK Government - something which has so far been lacking.

'I joined ministers from the other devolved administrations for a discussion with Matt Hancock last night to discuss the latest UK Government proposed list of "air-bridge" countries - which had been significantly changed from those provided late on Sunday and which were presented to my officials less than an hour beforehand.

'Further information, including yet more revision to the list of countries, was not provided until after the meeting had ended.'

The UK Government is expected to announced that Britons will be free to travel to the majority of European Union countries, all British overseas territories and a number of other long-haul destinations - including Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

However, countries will only be included on the list if they are judged to be sufficiently low risk. That means the US, which has seen a large increase in coronavirus cases, is unlikely to be included.

Quarantine restrictions on arrivals into the UK were imposed on June 8 - which includes returning UK citizens - and put an end to the hope of holidays abroad.

However, it was announced last week that measures would be relaxed for people returning from 'safe' countries from July 6.

Have your holiday plans been disrupted? **Are your holiday plans being affected? Please email: tips@dailymail.com or mark.duell@mailonline.co.uk ** Advertisement

The Government has been working on a traffic light system based on Covid risks in other countries, and plans on permitting travel to both 'green' and 'amber' countries.

But Greece's announcement it was extending its ban on flights from the UK caught the UK Government - who were set to release the list on Monday - by surprise.

The country opened to tourists for the first time since lockdown yesterday, but said visitors for the UK would have to wait until at least July 15 to be permitted entry.

According to The Times, other countries have raised the alarm over the proposed air bridge agreements following the outbreak of Covid-19 cases in Leicester.

The Government has been criticised by figures in the travel sector for not revealing the full details of its relaxation of the measures, saying that it is preventing people from booking holidays with confidence.

The lack of clarity surrounding the potential changes to travel restrictions has caused confusion for many holidaymakers, many of who have been left in limbo.

Social media users complained that they already had existing holidays booked but were unsure whether they will be able to make the trip.

One said the 'lack of information coming from the government is the killer' and that they would 'just like to know one way or another'.

**Are your holiday plans being affected? Please email: tips@dailymail.com or mark.duell@mailonline.co.uk **
A Sydney father-to-be who will lose his tongue to cancer before the birth of his first child has made an inspirational declaration to soldier on with his upcoming surgery.

Emergency services worker Sean Finnerty was recently diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma - a rare cancer in the salivary glands.

The 15-year survival rate of patients in Australia is 40 per cent.

In coming weeks he will have his tongue removed, leaving him unable to ever speak to the baby boy his wife Jess will give birth to in October.

Sean Finnerty (pictured, right, with his wife Jess) was diagnosed months after the couple discovered they were expecting their first child. Their baby boy is due in October

But his father Stephen Finnerty said the frightening prospect has not quashed his positive outlook.

'The morning after he received the shitty news I rang Jess to see how they were,' Mr Finnerty wrote in a Go Fund Me page dedicated to his son's cancer battle.

'She said they were laying in bed and Sean was reading up on good Glossectomy outcomes.'

'He then said "come on Jess ,we know what is happening now. Lets get up and deal with it".'

The shocking diagnosis came months after he and his wife of almost two years found out they were expecting their first child.

Sean will be unable to speak or work as a fireman or paramedic again after he undergoes surgery to remove his tongue (pictured with wife Jess on holidays in Hawaii two years ago)

As well as from losing the ability to communicate verbally, Mr Finnerty will also be unable to eat solid food for the unforeseeable future.

He will also be forced to give up his career as a fireman and paramedic, unable to ever work again in either profession.

'By the time their baby boy is born, Sean will have had surgery and radiation to attempt to limit the chance of the cancer returning,' the Go Fund Me page states.

'Sean will miss being able to ever talk to his little boy by a matter of weeks.'

The fundraising page to help relieve the massive financial burden facing Mr Finnerty and his wife in the future has already raised almost $170,000 in six days.

'He will need support from his loved ones to get through this and if we could somewhat relieve the financial burden it will help tremendously with the stress hes already dealing with,' organiser Luke Rogerson wrote.

'Sean is one of the most selfless people I have ever met, throughout this whole ordeal he just worries more about how his family is than himself.

Almost $170,000 has already been raised to ease financial pressure on the parents-to-be (pictured, together)

Mr Rogerson has been overwhelmed by the support that has flooded the fundraising page has recent days.

'This is incredible, the love and support Sean has received from all of you... I cant even put the feelings into words,' he wrote.

'Sean and his family are overwhelmed, its beautiful to see. So many generous people I cant even begin to explain how much this will help Sean though this difficult time.'

Stephen Finnerty thanked everyone who has donated and for the kind messages of support Jess and Sean have received.

'Sean has told me that he is embarrassed, humbled but so grateful to receive all these well wishes,' Mr Finnerty wrote.

'[He] has been an inspiration to us all with his attitude and how positive he is under pretty cr**y circumstances to put it mildly.'

'As parents we couldnt be prouder of the way the family has pulled together.

'We love you Sean and Jess and will be there with you all the way.'
Chad Daybell appeared in court Wednesday after he was charged with two new felonies in connection with the deaths of wife Lori Vallow's children JJ and Tylee.

Daybell showed no emotion and spoke to answer only 'yes', 'I do' and 'thank you' to questions posed by the judge, as two counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence were added to the existing charges against him.

This came one day after Vallow put on an emotional display in her court appearance Tuesday, wiping away tears as she was also charged with two new counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

The couple are already being held in custody in Idaho awaiting trial on various charges relating to the disappearance of Vallow's son JJ, seven, and daughter Tylee, 17.

The children were last seen alive in September and the couple repeatedly told authorities they were safe, before their bodies were found in the yard of Daybell's pet cemetery last month.

No one has been charged over the children's deaths and it is not yet clear how they died.

Chad Daybell appeared in court Wednesday after he was charged with two new felonies in connection with the deaths of wife Lori Vallow's children JJ and Tylee

Daybell showed no emotion and spoke to answer only 'yes', 'I do' and 'thank you' to questions posed by the judge, as two counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence were added to the existing charges against him

Daybell appeared in Fremont County Court Wednesday via a Zoom call after an amended criminal complaint was filed by the state accusing him of conspiring with his wife to keep the bodies of her children hidden on his rural property.

Judge Faren Eddins said he was 'redoing the initial appearance on the same case number' after the state amended the charges Tuesday - one day after investigators carried out another search of his property.

It is not clear whether evidence found during Monday's search led to the new charges being filed.

The conspiracy charges are different to those filed against him earlier this month, which were two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

Daybell, dressed in a shirt and tie, sat next to his attorney John Prior and stayed mostly silent during the virtual court appearance.

Prosecuting attorney Rob Wood was also present during the 13 minute court appearance.

A preliminary court hearing has been scheduled for August 3 and 4.

The couple (pictured together) are already being held in custody in Idaho awaiting trial on charges of concealing evidence and neglecting Vallow's son JJ, seven, and daughter Tylee, 17

JJ (left) and Tylee (right) were last seen alive in September and the couple repeatedly told authorities they were safe, before their bodies were found in the yard of Daybell's pet cemetery last month. Tylee's body was so badly burned when it was discovered that she had to be identified by her jawline, according to court records released Tuesday

Vallow had her court hearing in Fremont County Court Tuesday evening where the new charges were read to her - while her emotional adult son watched on and Wood and Eddins were also present.

Vallow, who wore a long sleeve blue green top and a blue face mask during Tuesday's court appearance, sat next to her attorney Mark Means and spoke only to answer 'yes' to confirm she understood the new charges, her rights and had received a copy of her arrest prior to the hearing.

At one point, the mother, who had repeatedly refused to say where her children were before the grim discovery of their remains, reached for a tissue and wiped away tears from her eyes.

Her eldest son and the distraught brother of JJ and Tylee, Colby Ryan, also joined the hearing remotely with his wife Kelsee by his side.

Ryan choked back tears and wiped his eyes as he listened to the charges read out against his mother.

There was some disagreement between Means and Wood after Wood said Vallow's attorney had represented Daybell in the past.

Lori Vallow (bottom left) appeared in court Tuesday via a Zoom call on new charges - while her emotional adult son Colby Ryan (bottom right) watched on

At one point, the mother, who had repeatedly refused to say where her children were before the grim discovery of their remains this month, reached for a tissue and dabbed tears from her eyes

Eddins said he would make a decision over whether there was any conflict of interest in Means now representing Vallow.

Her next court hearing has been scheduled for August 10 and is expected to last for two days.

Vallow and Daybell each face up to five years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine on each of the new felony counts, which Eddins said could be served consecutively or at the same time.

They are each being held on $1 million bail.

The distraught relatives of Tylee and JJ issued a joint statement Wednesday asking for privacy and thanking people for their support as they grieve.

'We are utterly devastated trying to comprehend how our children, full of brilliant light and jubilance for life, ended at the hands of those who were supposed to love and protect them,' the families wrote.

The families said they have faith in the judicial system and are confident justice will prevail.

Public memorial services will be held at some point in Rexburg, Idaho, where the kids last lived, Phoenix, their home before Idaho, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, where JJ's grandparents live, they added.

The 'cult' mom appeared in Fremont County Court Tuesday evening via a Zoom call where the charges on two counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence were read to her and her bond was set at $1 million

Her eldest son and the distraught brother of JJ and Tylee, Colby Ryan, also joined the hearing remotely with his wife Kelsee by his side

The bodies of JJ and Tylee were finally discovered June 9 - almost nine months since they were last seen alive - after police tracked cellphone data from Lori's dead brother Alex Cox.

Cox died in December in mysterious circumstances too.

When police eventually dug up the bodies, seven-year-old JJ's was easy to identify but Tylee's was decomposed beyond recognition that she had to be identified by her jawline, court records released Tuesday reveal.

'It was not possible to identify those remains by simply looking at them as they were too damaged by fire and dismemberment and no longer had any recognizable features,' they read.

'However, Dr. Glen Smith, an orthodontist and Deputy Coroner in the Ada County Coroner's Office was able to identify these remains as belonging to Tylee Ryan by matching an irregular jawline with an X-ray of Tylee when she was alive,' a police officer wrote about the discovery.'

JJ and Tylee, left, went missing in September and their bodies were found a few weeks ago after police tracked cell phone data from their uncle Alex Cox's (right) cell phone. He died in December

Chad Daybell, 51, was arrested on June 9 and charged with two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence. Lori Vallow Daybell, has been in jail for the last four months, charged with desertion of children and three misdemeanors. Both remain in jail on $1million bail

The documents also reveal that cops asked Lori where JJ was after he was reported missing by relatives but that Lori lied. She then fled to Hawaii.

Lori was recorded on bodycam telling police her son was with her friend, Melanie Gibb, in Arizona, and that Tylee was living with her and attending BYU-Idaho.

Rexburg Police officers were seen at Daybell's home in Salem on Monday around 1.15pm.

Daybell's son Garth was seen moving boxes out the home in the days after his father's arrest on June 9 as another child of the 'cult leader' prepared to move in.

It is not known if the new charges against Vallow and Daybell relate to Monday's search.

Officers were seen entering the home and searching exterior buildings on the property including a shed and barn and entering the backyard with cameras.

The officers left around 2.50pm but did not disclose any details of their search or what they were looking for. Fremont County Sheriff's deputies were assisting Rexburg Police in Monday's search.

Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood had declined to comment on the warrant.

Monday's investigation marked the third known time Rexburg Police have searched Daybell's property. Monday's search was on a much lower-scale than the warrant served at the same residence on June 9 which led to Daybell's arrest.

At that investigation scene, dozens of officers flanked the home and surrounding roads were closed for two days as Daybell's property was excavated and police discovered the remains of the two children.

Rexburg Police officers executed a third search warrant at Chad Daybell's Salem, Idaho property on Monday afternoon. Investigators entered the home, were reportedly seen in the backyard with cameras and searched a shed and barn in the yard

Monday's investigation marked the third known time Rexburg Police have searched Daybell's property and is likely linked to the discovery of the remains of wife Lori Vallow's missing children Joshua 'JJ' Vallow, seven, and Tylee Ryan, 17, in June

Daybell is pictured being placed in cuffs and arrested on June 9 following the grisly discover of the children's remains

Chad Daybell's adult son, Garth, was seen moving boxes in and out of the family home in Salem, Idaho, on June 11

The last known sighting of Tylee was on September 8, when she visited Yellowstone National Park with her family. JJ, who would have turned eight last month, was last seen two weeks later on September 23.

Vallow married Daybell less than two months after her kids vanished.

During the previous raid of Daybell's home on January 3, authorities removed 43 items from the property and combed over several sections of the yard with metal detectors and rakes.

Daybell was arrested June 9 and charged with two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

Vallow has been in jail for the last four months, charged with desertion of children and three misdemeanors.

In this aerial photo, investigators search for human remains at Chad Daybell's residence in the 200 block of 1900 East in Salem, Idaho on June 9

In this aerial photo, investigators search what appears to be a burn pit and dig near a patch of recently disturbed earth

Tylee was last seen on September 8 when she visited Yellowstone National Park with her family (pictured). JJ was last seen two weeks later on September 23

Vallow and Daybell - the prolific Doomsday author, alleged cult leader and former grave digger - had repeatedly refused to say where the children were but insisted that they were safe.

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 was autistic, in months.

When officers first went to Vallow's home in Idaho on November 26, she told them that JJ was visiting relatives in Arizona.

Officers returned the following day and found that Vallow and the man she married weeks earlier, Daybell, 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.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General's Office and Fremont County Sheriff's Office are still investigating the death of Daybell's wife Tammy, who mysteriously died at the Salem home in October.
Suburban shopping strips across Melbourne have become overnight ghost towns as Victorians trapped in COVID-19 hot spots are confined to their homes.

Bustling communities a day ago have all but vanished as Victorians in 36 suburbs were plunged back into lock down restrictions not seen since March.

Areas across Melbourne's western suburbs have been abandoned as residents adhere to their new world for at least the next month.

An empty row of shops is seen at the Olsen Place shopping village in the suburb of Broadmeadows on Thursday

An empty bench outside a closed pizza shop in Broadmeadows on Thursday

BEFORE: People shopping before the suburb lockdown along Keilor Rd in Niddrie on Wednesday

AFTER: Keilor Road in Niddrie on Thursday

In Broadmeadows, which just days ago was bustling with activity, there were scenes of desolation on Thursday.

The normally thriving Broadmeadows Central shopping centre had reverted back to its early coronavirus foot traffic of March.

There were similar scenes across the locked down suburbs surrounding Melbourne.

Along the Keilor Road shopping strip - on the border of locked down Niddrie and the free suburb of Essendon - traffic had been reduced to a crawl.

A day earlier, cafe worker Naomi Serratore from the Tin Roof Cafe told Daily Mail Australia she would be out of work on Thursday.

'It's just disappointing that half of a street can open but we can't and it's just a loss of business,' she said.

'It's a family run business so it's upsetting to us to all lose our jobs and a loss of income.'

But as residents in lockdown endure their first full day under the new restrictions, cracks in the controversial plan are already beginning to emerge.

On Thursday, Daily Mail Australia observed scores of vehicles at Victoria Police check points at the borders of COVID-19 hot spots moving unhindered into neighbouring suburbs.

Thursday along Keilor Road in Niddrie

Wednesday along Keilor Road in Niddrie

Broadmeadows Central was heaving with foot traffic last week. On Thursday, it had all but been abandoned

Olsen Place shopping village in Broadmeadows is usually packed with people. Lockdown has seen it once again deserted

Police at a Broadmeadows check point could only stop a limited number of vehicles at a time. Many were simply waved through

Police had set up booze buses in various locations across Melbourne, including Roxburgh Park, Broadmeadows and Taylors Lakes - all in Melbourne's north west.

Victorians expecting a 'Ring of Steel' were instead greeted by a 'Ring of Straw', with most motorists observed skipping the police check points altogether.

Daily Mail Australia looked on as short queues of cars along Camp Road in Broadmeadows were directed into a holding lane where masked officers checked their licences and asked where they were going.

Meanwhile, an officer armed with a wand directed traffic not able to get into the checking lane to move on.

Checks on those that moved through the lane ranged from 28 seconds to a minute-and-a-half.

Daily Mail Australia did not observe a single motorist turned around over a two hour period.

Officers had arrived at Camp Road about 7.30am and were expected to remain there throughout Thursday.

A quiet road in the suburb of Broadmeadows, which is one of the suburbs that has gone into lockdown

Broadmeadows Central shopping centre just last week. On Thursday it was practically empty

People enjoyed a coffee at Brimbank just days ago. This week they have all been put into lockdown

One motorist who passed through the Broadmeadows checkpoint later told Daily Mail Australia that he had passed through the checkpoint with an old licence, that had a different address on it.

'They just waved me on through,' he said. 'It is a complete joke.'

Motorists flooded talk back radio with word of their experience at the road blocks.

Many expressed surprise at the ease that they had moved through them.

Those that were stopped claimed they were asked for their licence and where they were headed.

One woman said she simply told the officers she was headed to work and sent on her way.

The Victorian government re-imposed stay-at-home orders for residents in ten postcodes after recording 212 new cases of the deadly virus in three days.

Restaurants, gyms, pubs and all other non-essential services in the suburbs must once again close their doors.

The lockdown will last for four weeks and came into force at 11.59pm on Wednesday.

Victorians have been warned that police would be enforcing the orders with random vehicle checks similar to random breath tests and would dish out on-the-spot fines.

Victoria has recorded 77 new coronavirus cases overnight, including 31 cases of community transmission.

Of the new cases, 13 have been linked to pre-existing outbreaks, with the source of 27 cases under investigation.

A total of 20 cases have been linked to an outbreak spanning eight households in a Roxburgh Park extended family.

The streets of Footscray, in Melbourne's west, were practically deserted on Thursday
A bystander was in hysterics after watching a driver accidentally reverse onto the bonnet of a police car.

An 80-year-old man had parked his Holden Rodeo utility in between two other cars on Rocky Point Road in Ramsgate in Sydney's South on Wednesday afternoon.

But as the driver was leaving he accidentally slammed into a Mazda station wagon in front, before reversing into the front of the police car and smashing the bonnet.

A bystander (pictured) filmed himself laughing hysterically after watching a driver accidentally ram into a police car in Ramsgate, Sydney on Wednesday

A passer-by who witnessed the bizarre collision filmed himself laughing next to a very unimpressed police officer.

'What happened Mr Drifter? That's f**ked,' the man is heard saying to the officer.

The video, which was shared to popular Instagram page Brown Cardigan, received more than half a million views.

'That's f**king gold!' one commented.

'That's a write off!' another said.

NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia paramedics attended the scene but nobody was injured.

The driver returned a negative breath test.
Year 12 students in Western Australia have been offered $500 from their high school to improve on their predicted ATAR in their final exams.

Damian Shuttleworth, principal of Carine Senior High School in Perth, said the reward scheme was aimed at motivating disengaged students in leaked emails obtained by The West Australian.

'The plan outlines a strategy to provide recognition of effort, which this award program aims to do by rewarding those students who have maintained or increased their effort and motivation in challenging circumstances,' he reportedly said.

Many students are not motivated to study hard in Year 12 since they have already been offered spots in university courses based on their predicted Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) from Year 11.

Carine Senior High School (pictured) in Perth has offered its Year 12 students $500 to improve on predicted ATAR scores they were given in Year 11

If the unique program goes ahead, Year 12 students with a predicted ATAR of 80 or above will have to maintain or improve their mark to get the $500 reward.

Those with a predicted below 80 ATAR could still score the $500 by lifting their Year 12 ATAR above 80 or improving by more than five points.

Lastly, the top 10 students who did not take enough courses to be eligible for an ATAR will also get the $500 prize.

But since Carine Senior High School is a public school, it falls under the jurisdiction of the WA Department of Education.

Principal Damian Shuttleworth (pictured) reportedly said the reward scheme was aimed at motivating disengaged students under 'challenging circumstances'

WA Education Minister Sue Ellery completely ruled out the scheme on Thursday.

'No, it isn't (going to happen). I think it was well intentioned but we don't pay students to do their school work so it's not going to proceed,' she told 6PR.

'There is an issue, universities obviously are really keen to get as many students as they can next year because they've lost international students due to the pandemic and so they're offering early offers to students based on their Year 11 results.

'And there is a concern amongst senior secondary educators that that might mean for some kids they'll take their foot off the pedal and just think they can cruise through Year 12.

'There's a much bigger picture here because it's not just about getting into university, it's succeeding when you get to university.'

Ms Ellery said Year 12 is crucial in preparing high school students for university since it teaches them studying and organisational skills.
Virgin Australia has added 17 new routes to its domestic network shortly after the struggling airline was purchased by an American private equity firm.

The new routes include a one way trip from Sydney to Ballina for $89 and Sydney to Hobart from $139.

Trips from Brisbane to Proserpine and Adelaide to Sydney are both priced from $135 with plans to have nearly 40 aircraft in operation by early August.

This comes days after Bain Capital agreed with Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd to buy Australia's second-biggest airline for an undisclosed sum.

Virgin Australia previously entered administration on April 21 owing $6.8billion to more than 15,000 creditors.

The 17 new domestic routes include a one way trip from Sydney to Ballina for $89 and Sydney to Hobart from $139

Virgin Australia Group chief commercial officer John MacLeod said the airline is excited to resume flights to numerous holiday destinations in Australia as travel restrictions are eased.

'We're pleased to have continued our collaborative effort with the federal government to reintroduce some services as we start to see confidence return,' Mr MacLeod said.

'And as each state and territory comes closer to finalising their plans for the easing of restrictions and the reopening of borders.'

Mr MacLeod said many of the Virgin Australia aircraft have been parked and their staff are prepared to return to the skies.

'With the increase in flights we're announcing today, we're looking forward to serving our guests as they travel to visit family and friends, or take a well-deserved break,' he said.

New safety measures have been introduced to reduce the risks of the coronavirus and to increase people's confidence in flying again.

Trips from Brisbane to Proserpine and Adelaide to Sydney are both priced from $135 with plans to have nearly 40 aircraft in operation by early August (pictured: Byron Bay)

Bain Capital already has plans to reshape the airline company into a mid-market value service.

It has also vowed to scrap its high-end airport lounges and half of its fleet while refocusing its flight routes and keeping as many staff as possible.

The fleet size of the airline will be cut in half with the number of planes reduced from 130 to 70.

The airline's exclusive and invitation-only lounge, 'The Club', is expected to be massively overhauled.

Bain Capital's managing director in Australia Mike Murphy said they plan to strengthen Virgin's regional services and ensure the airline offers good value for leisure customers while continuing to serve business travellers.

'We are determined to see that Australians have access to competitive, viable aviation services for the long term,' Mr Murphy said.

'Under our ownership, we will strengthen Virgin's regional services and ensure the airline emerges offering exceptional experiences at a great value while continuing to service business travellers, as well as those of us travelling for fun or to visit loved ones.'

Virgin Australia has about 9,000 employees and Bain plans to keep 5,000 to 6,000.

Bain's bid was chosen over a rival offer from Cyrus Capital Partners and a recapitalisation proposal put forward by Virgin Australia bondholders, administrator Deloitte said.

Bain is using private equity as well as its distressed and special situation funds for the deal, according to Deloitte, which said the deal provided a 'significant' injection of capital into the airline.

Bain will inject $600million of cash upfront, $600million to cover travel credits held by customers and $450million to cover employee entitlements.
A Tasmanian juice company has hit back after coming under fire from shoppers over a new campaign thanking locals for their support during the pandemic.

Juicy Isle recently emblazoned 'Thank you for supporting local' stickers on its products in appreciation of customers' support during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the Hobart-based company's popular orange juice contains less than 10 per cent Australian ingredients.

A shopper expressed outrage over Juicy Isle's new stickers after noticing them on products at a Woolworths supermarket in Launceston.

Juicy Isle has been slammed by some consumers over the new stickers on its products

'This misleading, disgusting lie of a sticker making people think it's Australian, it should be illegal to falsely advertise it as something its not! ABSOLUTELY LIES!' the woman posted in a public Facebook group.

She also slammed the supermarket giant for selling the brand.

Juicy Isle chief executive Paul Mealor defended the new stickers, insisting its range was Australian made and owned.

'During these challenging times we are very thankful for the support our loyal customers continue to give use,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'The sticker was our way of saying thank you for continuing to support local Tasmanian business like ours.'

Juicy Isle's orange juice states that it's made from less than 10 per cent of Australian ingredients

The shopper's Facebook post (pictured) slamming Juicy Isle sparked a divided reaction

Unlike many businesses, Juicy Isle has kept all staff on during the pandemic.

'We employ 75 local Tasmanian workers and do our best to support local growers and local businesses,' Mr Mealor said.

'We source fruits that are locally available and grown in Tasmania, and are the largest single user of Tasmanian Apples and blackcurrants.'

He added oranges aren't grown in Tasmania, hence the lack of local ingredients in its orange juice.

The Facebook post sparked a divided reaction as many leapt to Juicy Isle's defence.

'Technically the sticker is not a lie.... the company is actually right here in Tassie. They do package their products here in Tassie. They do employ Tasmanians. So when you purchase this product you are supporting local,' one person commented.

Another added: 'Its packed in Australia. So youre supporting Australian jobs.'

Juicy Isle chief executive Paul Mealor told Daily Mail Australia the stickers are a new initiative

Some agreed with the woman's claims that the stickers were misleading.

'The thing is if we did get so worked up about Aussie products and jobs a few years ago we wouldnt be in such a manufacturing wasteland now. Good on her , it is a bit misleading when you are rushing around a supermarket and just grabbing stuff without time to read the fine print,' a woman commented.

One man added: 'It's not about the juice. It's about trying to deceive people into believing they are buying and supporting local, when in fact it's not.

Daily Mail Australia also contacted Woolworths for comment.
Female magpies have been revealed as chattier and louder, according to new Australian research.

Associate Professor Amanda Ridley, from the University of Western Australia, said magpies are some of the most vocally complex songbirds in the world.

'It's not always obvious to the human ear, but we've found females call a lot more often than males and at much higher maximum and minimum frequencies,' she told ABC News.

New research has shown that Australian magpies (pictured) can tell when other birds are lying and that female magpies are often more chatty and loud

Magpies (pictured) are some of the world's most vocally complex songbirds

Ms Ridley, who has been studying the well-known birds for eight years, said most people were unaware that magpies have different calls.

She explained her research had revealed that magpies have a detailed system of communication.

'They have really complex communication compatible to rudimentary human language,' Ms Ridley said.

She also explained the Australian bird could tell if another magpie was lying.

'We're looking more and more into the vocals and what we've also found is that magpies can tell the difference between individuals who give them reliable information and those who don't,' Ms Ridley said.

THE AUSTRALIAN MAGPIE The Australian Magpie is one of the world's most complex songbirds It can be found across Australia and lives near trees and open areas The magpie is black and white and feeds on insects and larvae Magpies will often perform a loud flute-like song in pairs or groups The birds are known to become aggressive during their breeding season, July to September, and attack humans or animals near their nests Advertisement

Ms Ridley tested her theory by recording two magpie sounds in the wild.

She recorded one magpie that warned other birds when it saw a snake and another magpie that signalled when it did not actually see the predator.

Ms Ridley then played both calls to several groups of magpies that she had been studying.

The call from the bird who saw the snake was passed on and the magpies responded as if there was danger but the second call was not passed on and was ignored.

Ms Ridley said there was still a lot more to learn about magpies and explained the bird could also sing for as long as 70 minutes and as loud as a lawn mower.

The Associate Professor said Australians would be hearing many more magpie calls as breeding season begins in July and will peak around August and September.

Aussies have been advised to keep an eye out for nesting sites and wear glasses and a hat to avoid being attacked by a territorial magpie.
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The US has seen a record 52,000 new COVID-19 cases within 24 hours on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The surge marks a new one-day record of infections as states across the country reopen.

According to the tracker, there were 52,898 new cases over the 24 hours to Wednesday evening. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the US was 2,686,249 early Thursday morning and the number of deaths stood at 128,062.

The daily coronavirus case numbers have remained around the 40,000 mark in recent days. The news comes as more than 44,000 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the US on Tuesday.

Adding to the rise in cases, hospitalizations for COVID-19, the contagious respiratory disease that first emerged in China, are also increasing in Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.

The US has seen a record 52,000 new COVID-19 cases within 24 hours on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. This map shows the concentration of coronavirus cases in the US

This map shows how the number of COVID-19 cases in the US has skyrocketed since January to over 2.6million in July

On Wednesday alone Texas broke its daily record and recorded 8,076 new cases, which is nearly 1,000 more than the day prior.

The startling spikes in cases have forced states such as Texas, California and Florida to buckle down and halt their reopenings.

On Wednesday California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all bars, indoor restaurant operations and movie theaters to shut down immediately in most parts of the states, nearly three weeks after the states bars, stores, restaurants, and salons opened for the first time following a three-month lockdown.

Since then, the number of COVID-19 cases have begun to rise again, increasing nearly 50 percent over the last two weeks, with a 43 per cent spike in hospitalizations.

Contrary to the data, President Donald Trump insisted the virus will simply disappear during an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday.

'I think were going to have a vaccine very soon,' he said.

'Were headed back in a very strong fashion ... And I think were going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point thats going to sort of just disappear. I hope,' he added.

Tuesday's new case increase of more than 44,000 infections marked a jump of more than 80 percent compared to a single day increase reported just two weeks ago, according to a Reuters tally.

Steep national increases in cases are driven by a handful of states, eight of which hit record-high new cases Tuesday. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.

Top US infectious disease specialist Dr Anthony Fauci warned during a Tuesday Senate hearing that daily infections could soar to 100,000 'if this does not turn around' and, while he declined to predict a specific number of fatalities, he worries the death toll in the US could reach 'disturbing' heights.

President Trump has attributed the surging daily case numbers to a 'great' expansion of coronavirus testing in the US. The number of test run Tuesday, June 30, was nearly double the number of tests run on May 30, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.

But the number of daily cases has now far surpassed what was thought to be the pandemic's peak, in April.

Public health experts warn that, although the number of people dying each day is down significantly, these increases typically lag behind case increases, with one recent study estimating a 17-day delay.

Eight US states - Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas - hit record-highs for new coronavirus cases on Tuesday. COVID-19 cases across the US increased by 46 percent in the week ending June 28, compared to the previous seven days, with the majority of rises occurring in the West and South of the country

Amid alarming coronavirus case increases, states are beginning to roll back their reopenings. After its cases doubled over the past two weeks, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued an executive order for bars, gyms and movie theaters to shut down immediately on Monday.

Tuesday, Delaware ordered some of its beach towns shut down their bars after a recent spike in cases.

More than 11,500 people in Delaware have now tested positive for coronavirus and the state announced 95 new cases Tuesday. Over the weekend, 270 new cases were diagnosed.

Delaware Governor John Carney's order was met with protests in at least one town. Citizens in Dover took to the streets brandishing signs that read 'enough is enough.'

The re-closures come just before the July 4 weekend, which would have been a boon to businesses, especially in beachfront towns, where bars will now have to shut their doors.

Like Delaware, Alaska's total number of cases is low compared to more populous states like California or Texas, but the recent uptick is disturbing.

TEXAS: With 6,975 new cases confirmed Tuesday, Texas hit a new record-high for its number of daily coronavirus infections

ALASKA: The state has ranked near the bottom of the US for coronavirus cases, but set a record high of 48 new infections on Tuesday

On Tuesday, 48 new cases were confirmed in the sparsely populated state, bringing the total to 544 (including 144 visitors).

It's the largest single-day increase in cases in the state to-date, and includes 12 non-residents. Fourteen Alaskans have died of coronavirus.

Alaska was among the last states to be hit by coronavirus. Only Hawaii and US territories like Guam and the Virgin Islands currently have fewer cases.

In the past three weeks, as cases have ticked up in the state, Alaska has stepped up screening and testing at its airports. Last week, about 5,000 travelers were tested. Airport screening and testing has resulted in 45 positive tests so far, according to KTVA.

Arizona is still the most worrisome state. New daily infections there - as sell as in Florida, Louisiana, Idaho and Washington state - have more than doubled in the past week.

ARIZONA: Once again, Arizona has hit a record high number of new daily coronavirus infections with nearly 4,7000 new infections confirmed yesterday

ARIZONA: Nearly 1,600 people have died of coronavirus in Arizona, but public health experts warn the death toll may lag behind the surging case rates

According to data tracking from Johns Hopkins University, 4,630 new coronavirus cases were added to Arizona's talley on Tuesday. That falls just shy of Monday's record 4,682 new cases in the state.

Arizona's Republican governor Doug Ducey on Monday all bars, gyms, movie theaters and water parks to close for at least 30 days.

The state's cases increased 29 percent in the last week after reporting several record daily increases in cases.

Most Arizona bars and nightclubs opened after the governor's stay-at-home and business closure orders were allowed to expire in mid-May.

Texas, too, has rolled back its reopening, which began in mid-April. Yesterday, 6,975 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in the Lone Star state, shattering its previous single-day increase record of 5,996 new cases last week.

On Friday, Governor Greg Abbott announced a number of new, but modest restrictions on businesses.

Even as cases have surged, daily deaths have remained relatively low in the US. Public health experts warn that death increases may lag several weeks behind case increases, but a major fatality spike has not been seen following the April peak of daily infections, according to a chart from OurWorldinData.org

Bars or restaurants that gross most of their income from alcohol must close at noon. Dine-in restaurants are allowed to stay open, but only at 50 percent occupancy. All river rafting and tubing businesses were ordered closed, and outdoor gatherings of more than 50 people must now get permission from local authorities to proceed.

He stopped short, however, of re-issuing full closures or stay-at-home orders.

Governor Abbott said the state would take further action only if the rate of positive tests there exceeds 10 percent. With 2,119,036 total tests run and 159,986 cases, the state now current rough positivity rate is 7.5 percent.

Now, local leaders are calling on the governor to allow them to issue their own stay-at-home orders.

'If you are not willing to take these actions on behalf of the state, please roll back your restriction on local leaders being able to take these swift actions to safeguard the health of our communities,' Sam Biscoe, interim Travis County judge, wrote in a letter to Abbott on Monday.

California has taken a much stricter approach to the pandemic and was one of the first states to shutdown.

But its cases are once again surging. Now, 222,917 Californians have tested positive in total, with 6,367 new positives confirmed Monday, marking the second-highest single day increase in the state to-date.

Governor Gavin Newsom ordered bars in several counties, including Los Angeles County, to reclose, and reinstated stay-at-home orders in the border county of Imperial, California.

OKLAHOMA: The state has had relatively low case rates, but on Tuesday it set a record of more than 12,500 new cases (Pictured: a graph of cases by date of onset. Cases confirmed on Tuesday may be reflected in bars for previous days, when symptoms began)

IDAHO: On June 30, Idaho set a record for the highest number of new infections in the state to-date, suggesting it may become a hotspot

On Tuesday, Governor Newsom warned that more restrictions - including mandatory mask-wearing and potentially renewed stay-at-home orders - are to come.

'Tomorrow well be making some additional announcements on efforts to use that "dimmer switch: that weve referred to, and begin to toggle back on our stay-at-home order and tighten things up," said Newsom during a press briefing.

'The framework for us is this: if youre not going to stay home and youre not going to wear masks in public, we have to enforce and we will, and well be making announcements on enforcement tomorrow.'

South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Idaho also hit their greatest number of new cases in a single day since coronavirus hit the US.

Although increases in the Southern US have been largely blamed for the surging overall US total, the addition of these states suggests that the issue may be more widespread than previously thought.
BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Countries are alerted to a resurgence of the novel coronavirus pandemic while gradually easing lockdowns and phasing in economic recovery.

Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious-diseases expert, said on Tuesday the United States is "not in total control" of the COVID-19 pandemic, giving a dire warning that infection cases could go up to 100,000 per day.

"We are now having 40-plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told senators at a hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

His comments came as the U.S. daily number of reported new cases is outpacing that of April, bringing the total tally to more than 2.6 million, with over 127,000 fatalities as of Tuesday afternoon, showed data from Johns Hopkins University.

Fauci warned that some states are "skipping over" checkpoints in the federal reopening guidelines and that this is leading to new hotspots in states like Texas, Florida and Arizona.

The outbreaks in various parts of the country put "the entire country at risk" and "clearly we don't have this under control," Fauci added.

In the United States, many states have either paused or partially reversed their staged re-openings over the resurgence of COVID-19 cases nationwide, while mandating mask-wearing in public places.

Governor Ron DeSantis of southeastern state Florida on Friday ordered to close bars immediately as a record 8,942 new COVID-19 cases were reported in a single day. The previous record of 5,511 was set just two days before.

"It is increasingly clear that many governors reopened their states too quickly, reigniting the virus and hurting their economies," Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, wrote Monday in an analysis, citing the states of Arizona, California, Florida and Texas.

On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that a second outbreak of the coronavirus could force governments and people to "withdraw again from economic activity."

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday announced a 5-billion-pound (about 6.2-billion-U.S.-dollar) plan to fuel economic recovery, saying the government "is wholly committed not just to defeating coronavirus, but to using this crisis finally to tackle this country's great unresolved challenges of the last three decades."

An earlier planned easing of lockdown restrictions from July 4 is expected to bring the hard-hit tourism industry to a rebound, with a phased resumption of operation.

Out of the over 400 sites that English Heritage cares for, only six sites are currently open. On July 4, 44 sites are set to be open and a similar amount from Aug. 1, with some sites remaining closed possibly until next year.

In the last few weeks, businesses in Turkey are wary of a second wave of coronavirus contagion following the government decision to relax lockdown restrictions since June 1.

In the last 10 days, Turkey recorded between 1,200 and 1,500 new daily cases, compared with between 800 and 900 daily infections during the strict lockdown period.

"The economy cannot survive another round of business shutdowns. We are facing this massive threat because people are not taking necessary precautions," Machinery Exporters Association Chairman Adnan Dalgakiran said during a television interview, referring to citizens who are reluctant to wear masks and disrespect distancing rules.

After revising down its forecast for the global output last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday also revised down its forecast for the Asian economy amid the mounting COVID-19 fallout, projecting a 1.6-percent contraction in 2020 and warning of "clouds on the horizon."

"Projections for 2020 have been revised down for most of the countries in the (Asian) region due to weaker global conditions and more protracted containment measures in several emerging economies," Chang Yong Rhee, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, wrote in a blog post.

The projection came as COVID-19 continued to spread in the Asia-Pacific region while the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the worst was yet to come in the pandemic as global cases and death tolls climbed.

In Canada, the government on Tuesday extended the current ban on international travellers until July 31, according to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

"The Government of Canada remains committed to protecting the health and safety of Canadians and reducing the spread of COVID-19 in Canada," said the CBSA in a news release.

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed a proposal to relax the ban on international travellers, saying that moving too quickly could spark a second wave of the coronavirus in Canada.

[ Editor: ZY ]
An urgent health warning has been issued after an outbreak of Salmonella transmitted from backyard chickens.

Queensland Health said 17 cases of the disease have been detected since June 26 - 13 of whom are children under the age of 11.

The bacterial disease affects the human intestines and can lead to stomach cramping, fever and diarrhoea within six hours.

The state's health authority said the handling of chicks 'purchased in the two-week period prior to their illness' were responsible for the outbreak.

An urgent health warning has been issued after an outbreak of Salmonella transmitted from chicks 'purchased in the two-week period prior to their illness' (stock image)

'These chicks have been obtained from a range of produce and pet stores in Queensland,' acting executive director of Queensland Health's Communicable Diseases Branch Dr Alun Richards said.

'Backyard poultry can harbour and shed Salmonella that cause illness in humans, even though the birds are healthy and clean.'

'The investigation into the supplier of chicks is currently ongoing.'

Queensland Health has issued a range of public health advice to help Queenslanders stay safe from the disease - including washing hands immediately after touching backyard poultry.

'Most people infected with Salmonella develop diarrhoea, fever and stomach cramps six to 72 hours after being exposed to the bacteria,' the department said.

'The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days and most people recover without treatment.

Queenslanders have been told to wash their hands immediately after touching backyard chickens, their eggs, enclosures, or any area they roam through

'Children younger than 5 years, adults 65 and older and people with weakened immune systems may develop a more severe illness.'

The health authority advises:
Australia is considering offering safe haven visas to Hong Kong residents endangered by draconian national security laws imposed on the city by China, in a move likely to further inflame tensions with Beijing.

Scott Morrison said the situation in Hong Kong was 'very concerning' and the government was 'very actively' considering proposals to welcome in residents.

'When we have made a final decision on those arrangements then I'll make the announcements,' The prime minister told reporters on Thursday.

'But are you asking, 'are we prepared to step up and provide support?' The answer is, 'yes'. We think that's important and very consistent with who we are as a people.'

The new laws criminalise acts collusion with foreign forces and acts that undermine the Chinese state with life imprisonment.

Australia is considering providing a safe haven to Hong Kong residents in response to China's sweeping new security law in a move likely to further inflame tensions with Beijing

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the situation in Hong Kong was 'very concerning' and his government was 'very actively' considering proposals to welcome in residents

More than 300 Hong Kong residents were arrested by local police on Wednesday after the new laws came into force, which illegalise acts that undermine the Chinese state with life imprisonment

China bypassed Hong Kong's Legislative Council to pass the sweeping legislation without public consultation.

A teenage girl waving an independence flag was among hundreds of people arrested during protests against the laws in Hong Kong this week.

Mr Morrison said cabinet ministers were considering safe haven arrangements 'very actively' after the United Kingdom opened a path to citizenship for millions of Hong Kong residents.

'There are proposals that I asked to be brought forward several weeks ago and the final touches will be put on those,' he said.

'They'll soon be considered by cabinet to provide similar opportunities.

'We think that's important and very consistent with who we are as a people and very consistent practically with the views we have expressed.'

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said the laws violated the city's 'One Country, Two Systems' pact with China.

'These laws are a clear breach of the agreement for the handover from the former British colony to the People's Republic of China,' he told ABC television.

'That had in it provisions for autonomy and democracy for Hong Kong, and democratic principles are important.'

Riot police stand guard after pushing back protesters demonstrating against the new security law during the anniversary of the Hong Kong handover from Britain, Wednesday, July 1

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the laws threatened Hong Kong's judicial independence and the rights and freedoms of its people.

Australian lawyers fear the broadly defined offences will have a chilling effect on public life.

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people on Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in defiance of the sweeping security legislation introduced by China to snuff out dissent.

The law has sent a wave of fear through the city and rattled the legal community in a business hub that has built its reputation on the independence and reliability of its courts.

It comes a day after the United Kingdom announced a new route for those with British National Overseas status and their families to move there and eventually apply for citizenship.

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people on Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in defiance of the sweeping security legislation

A police officer raises his pepper spray handgun as he detains a man during a march against the national security law

Any offer is sure to further strain Canberra's relationship with Beijing, coming after repeated clashes between the two sides.

Most recently, Australia enraged China by calling for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Canberra has also pushed back against what it describes as China's economic 'coercion', covert influence campaigns and the use of technology companies like Huawei as a tool for intelligence-gathering and geopolitical leverage.

China has warned its students and tourists against going to Australia, slapped trade sanctions on Australian goods and sentenced an Australian citizen to death for drug trafficking.

Hong Kong was under UK jurisdiction until Britain handed it back to China in 1997 with a guarantee that Beijing would preserve the city's judicial and legislative autonomy for 50 years.

But critics say the new law - passed by Beijing's rubber-stamp parliament this week without its text being released to the public - breaches the 'One Country, Two Systems' principle that formally entered international law in 1984.
A hulking Bondi drug kingpin who tried to import half a tonne of cocaine into Sydney may 'look tough', but actually has a 'soft heart' and cries about his ordeal in private, his glamorous ex-lover says.

Bikini model and beauty worker Krissy Marsh has penned a letter to a judge about the tender and sensitive side of her former flame Darren John Mohr, 46 as he faces life behind bars on Friday over a failed $150million coke haul.

Muscular Mohr - described as narcissistic, ego-driven and self-centered in court - once flaunted the extravagant lifestyle he shared with Ms Marsh on social media, with the pair driving luxury cars and taking overseas holidays.

But Ms Marsh claimed to reveal a very different side of the 'senior' drug figure in a letter to Supreme Court Justice Helen Wilson.

A lover's letter: Krissy Marsh, who has been described as the former girlfriend of Darren Mohr, described the drug syndicate operative as having a 'soft heart' and crying about his ordeal

Ms Marsh told Supreme Court Justice Helen Wilson she speaks to him everyday. She described him as having been her friend, boyfriend and de-facto lover over a 10 year period

Ms Marsh wrote that Mohr (above, at the gym) 'tried to portray a certain persona in order for him to seem 'tough'... but is actually a kind, gentle and caring person

'My experience and opinion of his character is that he is a very kind, caring and driven man,' Ms Marsh wrote in a letter released by the court to Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Marsh posing during her time as a bikini model

'Unfortunately at times Darren tried to portray a certain persona in order for him to seem 'tough.'

Ms Marsh said the reality was that Mohr - who the court heard had travelled to Chile and Thailand to organise the mammoth drug importation and lied to a jury - was 'kind and caring' and a really good listener.

Ms Marsh said she 'very surprised' he had gotten himself involved in criminal activity with 'one stupid mistake' as he had 'always' respected police and authorities.

'He is the type of person to give you the shirt off his back,' she said.

'He may look like a tough guy but I assure you his heart is soft.'

She said he often confessed how sad he felt about being in this position.

'He often talks about waking in the night tormented by regret over what he was involved in and the repercussions those actions had on other people.

Ms Marsh penned a 600 word character reference to the court for Justice Helen Wilson to consider on sentencing

Ms Marsh once described Mohr as her 'king' (together above). Ms Marsh wrote in her letter : 'I would say with confidence that I know him very very well. My experience and opinion of his character is that he is a very kind, caring and driven man'

Mohr flaunted his extravagant lifestyle with Ms Marsh on social media. Above, the pair sit behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce and deliberately flash their designer watches for the camera

'.... It certainly takes a lot for Darren to cry and I have been in his presence when he has been talking about the magnitude of this, his regret over the pain he has caused others and ultimately himself.

''I honestly believe he has no chance of re-offending as this was one, stupid mistake and it has never been his intention to be a criminal or even be associated with criminals.'

Mohr himself wrote a letter to the judge which was picked apart by Crown Prosecutor Michelle England as 'cliched and formulaic'.

Ms England told the court Mohr's decision to help coordinate the drug deal wasn't an 'impulsive' decision and argued it was motivated by greed.

The court heard Ms England describe Mohr as a 'senior member' of the cartel but his barrister, Grant Brady SC, placed him below other members of the syndicate.

Mohr was found guilty of conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of drugs by a jury following a four week trial, where the court heard he 'lied' to the jury.

He will be sentenced on Friday.
Victorian schools may be forced to shut down yet again after the state recorded its first student-to-student coronavirus case.

The infection was just one of 77 new cases confirmed on Thursday, two days after Premier Daniel Andrews sent 36 Melbourne suburbs into lockdown to slow the spread of the virus which has been surging in recent days.

A number of schools in Victoria have closed after a string of positive COVID-19 tests.

'There has been some student-to-student transmission and also teacher-to-teacher transmission at some schools,' Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton told reporters.

Five coronavirus cases have been traced back to Albanvale Primary School in Melbourne's outer west.

Cleaning crews are seen entering Keilor Views Primary School in Melbourne after students tested positive for COVID-19

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton is pictured speaking to reporters about the rising number of coronavirus cases in the state

The infections are made up of three students, one teacher and one close contact.

Two other separate school infections have been linked to Al-Taqwa College in Truganina, also in the city's west.

'When there's a heavy load of community transmission, more students getting infected, these schools have closed,' Prof Sutton said.

'We probably didn't have such a level of community transmission [before] that we were going to see so many cases in schools.

'I also think that we weren't sufficiently pushing for testing of students and maybe because we hadn't had a lot of cases in kids, there wasn't a real push.'

In the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic Victoria enforced the tightest restrictions in Australia and was the only state to order the shut down of schools.

Premier Andrews only lifted the order five weeks ago on May 26, but now students may again be forced to back into at-home learning.

There are almost 87 cumulative outbreaks in the state, making the containment a massive challenge for health authorities.

Police stop drivers at a checkpoint set up in response to Victoria's surge in coronavirus cases

Police direct traffic at a suburban roadblock site in Broadmeadows, Melbourne

'We're now obviously engaging with a lot of families, getting testing of kids at a household level, and so probably picking up cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed previously,' Prof Sutton said.

Mr Sutton said he's unsure whether children would return the classroom after the school holiday break on July 12.

'I will give as much notice as I can around the resumption of school in those restricted postcodes,' he said on Thursday.

'I want to see both that we're turning transmission around but also that we don't have such levels of community transmission, with students becoming infected, that our resourcing is all focused on response to cases in schools.'

Meanwhile, the state government confirmed veteran judge Jennifer Coate will lead the inquiry into Victoria's disastrous hotel quarantine program.

The program is on hold for a fortnight and Corrections Victoria is taking over its operation from private security.

Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday said genomic sequencing had traced a big proportion of coronavirus cases to breaches in hotels hosting returned travellers.

Keilor Views Primary School in Melbourne is shut down and cleaning crews are pictured moving in

The Victorian government is considering fresh lockdown measures as the state is swamped by a second wave of coronavirus

The inquiry will report its findings by September 25.

Professor Sutton said he wasn't aware of breaches from staff workers at the hotels, but hoped the inquiry would help reveal possible mistakes.

As authorities try to stem the outbreak, Prof Sutton said the focus was on transmission across communities.

Victoria have recorded a total of 2303 coronavirus cases, including 20 death.

There are 415 cases which remain active.

Of the new cases, 13 are linked to outbreaks, 37 were detected through routine testing and 27 are under investigation. None are in hotel quarantine.

The increase in cases of community transmission linked to an unknown case hit 31 on Wednesday night.

Victoria has recorded double-digit case numbers for 16 days, particularly in Melbourne's northern and western suburbs, prompting localised lockdowns from Thursday.

Albanvale Primary School (pictured) has been closed due to a coronavirus outbreak

This map shows the suburbs which have stay-at-home orders after a spike in coronavirus cases

Residents of these postcodes will only be able to leave their homes to shop for food and supplies, to receive or provide care, to exercise and to study or work if they can't do so from home.

Prof Sutton said a big proportion of the cases were detected in the hot zones, but not exclusively, and warned the continued growth meant more people could die.

'When you've got 70-odd cases every day, there is absolutely an expectation that some of those people will die,' he said.

'That's why it's incumbent on all of us to be minimising our interactions with others.'

He emphasised that all Victorians should reconsider seeing people in other households, including family and friends.

There are now 20 patients in hospital, including four in intensive care.

'I certainly feel for people, and it's frustrating to see some areas where those restrictions aren't in place, just across the road from where you might be,' Prof Sutton said.

'We all have to cop it on the chin. The alternative is that there's increased transmission and that there are more and more postcodes or all of metro Melbourne or all of Victoria that goes into a shutdown.'

A planned easing on restrictions for Victoria was delayed in June, with family gatherings quoted as one of the sources of a further spread of the virus.
Tributes have been paid to a teenage girl who died after she was run over by a school bus at her own high school in front of horrified students and teachers.

Zoie Bell, 14, was hit outside Ulladulla High School, where she was a student, in Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast shortly after 3pm on Wednesday.

Paramedics were called to the school and set up a screen where they desperately tried to save her but she died at the scene.

Students and teachers who witnessed the accident have been left distraught but have set-up a memorial inside the school with flowers, photos and messages left as tributes to the young girl.

Zoie Bell, 14, (pictured) was hit outside Ulladulla High School, where she was a student, in Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast shortly after 3pm on Wednesday

Paramedics were called to the school and set up a screen where they desperately tried to save her but she died at the scene

The mother of a student who attends Ulladulla High School, Leonie Smith, said her daughter was very close to Ms Bell and she slept over at their house last weekend.

'My daughter is devastated and I am too. I just feel sick to my stomach. I spoke with Zoie yesterday at my daughter's school when she walked past me,' Ms Smith told The Daily Telegraph.

'She was a lovely girl and was a great friend to my daughter.'

Another student's mother, who wished to remain anonymous, said those who witnessed the accident looked visibly upset by what they had seen.

'I had a cry when I found (out) she died, but I think that was the Mum coming out in me. I just could not cope with that,' the mother said.

South Coast District Police acting superintendent Ray Stynes said there were about twelve students on the bus when it hit Ms Bell.

The bus driver gave a negative breath test at the scene and was taken to hospital for further mandatory testing.

Students and teachers who witnessed the accident have been left distraught but have set-up a memorial inside the school with flowers, photos and messages left as tributes to the young girl

The bus driver gave a negative breath test at the scene and was taken to hospital for further mandatory testing

Mr Stynes said he had spoken to the school's principal and staff members on Wednesday.

He said condolences from police go to the family of the child and the school community.

The Department of Education said there would be counselling sessions available for students at the school on Thursday.

'The Ulladulla High School community and the department are deeply saddened by the tragic death of one of our students yesterday afternoon,' a Department spokesperson said.

'Our thoughts and heartfelt sympathies are with the students family and friends at this most distressing time, and with our staff members who were first responders on the scene.

'The department arranged for counselling to be available at the school today and will provide ongoing extensive support for everyone impacted by this tragic event.'

A GoFundMe page has been launched on behalf of Ms Bell's family to 'help make their life a little easier during this difficult time.'

The fundraising campaign had a target of $10,000 but just four hours after it was created, it has raised $10,828.
Shocking video footage has emerged of a police officer punching a woman in the face at Miami International Airport.

The startling assault was filmed on an officers bodycamera and shows a Miami-Dade Police Department officer punching a woman on Wednesday evening.

The clip shows a woman facing two officers and yelling at one of them, before getting close to his face.

'I really should. You black, you acting like youre white but youre really black. Whatre you gonna do?' the woman, who is black, says getting close to the officer near his chin.

Suddenly the cop snaps and punches the woman in the face. He then throws his hands on her and brings her to the ground as officers in the background shout 'Woah, woah'.

Shocking video footage has emerged of a police officer punching a woman in the face at Miami International Airport on Wednesday evening

The clip shows a woman facing two officers and yelling at one of them, before getting close to his face. She said: 'You acting like youre white but youre really black. Whatre you gonna do?'

A second officer rushes to pull the two apart, as does the officer behind the bodycamera recording the incident.

In the clip, the officer who punched the woman is heard claiming 'she headbutted me.'

Its not clear what the argument was about.

One law enforcement source said the woman was complaining loudly about a missed or delayed flight.

A ticket agent called police and an officer arrived to try to calm her, but a confrontation escalated into violence and with her being pushed to the ground.

Several sources identified the officer as Antonio Clemente Rodriguez, a black officer of Puerto Rican heritage, who was stationed at the airport, according to the Miami Herald.

The video surfaced on social media leading Miami Dade Police Department Director Alfredo Ramirez to announced an investigation into the incident. He said that he ordered for involved officers to be relieved of duty.

The officer punched her in the face then pushed her to the ground. Two nearby officers then ran to break up the confrontation

One law enforcement source said the woman was complaining loudly about a missed or delayed flight, leading a ticket agent at the airport to call police

'I am shocked and angered by a body cam video that I just saw involving one of our officers. Ive immediately initiated an investigation and ordered that the involved officers be relieved of duty,' he said.

'Actions such as these undermine the hard work that we have invested in our community and causes my heart to break for our community and for the vast majority of our officers who dedicate their lives to serving our County. This will not stand, and I assure our community that any officer acting in this vain will be held to account,' he added.

Ramirez said he also asked State Attorney Kathy Rundle to join the investigation.

The other officers involved in the incident and the woman have not been named.

The president of the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association said the officer hit the woman with an 'open-hand slap,' which is sometimes called a 'diversionary strike.'

Miami Dade Police Department Director Alfredo Ramirez condemned the attack and ordered for an investigation. He said the police officers involved have been relieved of duty

Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez slammed the video as 'appalling' and an 'unnecessary excessive use of force'

'Clearly she was the aggressor. She was being asked to leave. Shes being belligerent and she pushes her face right into his face,' PBA President Steadman Stahl said.

The incident emerged in the wake of national protests decrying police brutality against black people and the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white cop in Minneapolis on May 25.

Some protests have escalated into clashes with police. In South Florida, two police officers have been arrested in battery cases since the protests emerged.

Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez slammed the video as 'appalling' and an 'unnecessary excessive use of force'.

'Thats NOT what our @MiamiDadePD are trained to do. @MDPD_Director Ramirez has ordered the officer relieved of duty & investigation is underway. This is why I instituted body cameras & MDPD is reviewing all footage.'
Police officers in Queensland will get a one-off $1250 bonus and two weeks extra leave for going 'above and beyond' during the pandemic.

The Queensland Police Union struck up the deal with the state government on Thursday after 'thorough negotiations and discussions'.

'As we all are only too aware, police and all members of the QPU are the ones on the frontline during this pandemic,' Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers wrote to members, the Courier Mail reported.

'We are the ones working on the borders. We are the ones doing the compliance. We are the ones keeping the public safe.

The Queensland Police Union struck up the deal for its members on Thursday after 'thorough negotiations and discussions', costing taxpayers $14-15 million

The deal, which will cost taxpayers $14-15 million, comes despite the Palaszczuk Government's 12-month wage freeze for all public servants

'The QPU has secured recognition from the government of just how much we are going above and beyond to keep Queensland safe.

The deal, which will cost taxpayers $14-15 million, comes despite the Palaszczuk Government's 12-month wage freeze for all public servants.

Queenslands 12,000 police officers and 45,000 teachers were legally entitled to a pay rise in July.

The Queensland Police Union last year signed three-year agreements with the government to secure 2.5 per cent wage increases each year.

But in April Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said all pay rises for public servants would be put on hold after COVID-19 devastated the state economy.

Mr Leavers said the two weeks of extra leave would be classified as 'COVID-19 leave,' with the $1250 payment to be deposited into members' accounts in coming weeks.

Mr Leavers said the state government also supported the Union's proposal for presumptive legislation for those with post traumatic stress disorder.

In April Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said all pay rises for public servants would be put on hold after COVID-19 devastated the state economy

The proposal means police officers with PTSD would be eligible to claim workers' compensation without having to prove their illness is work-related.

In March, prior to coronavirus being declared a pandemic, 107,000 government workers including teachers and nurses had already been paid one-off $1250 bonuses worth more than $130million.

Thursday's deal comes amid a wage dispute between New South Wales public sector workers and the NSW government.

The proposed 12-month wage freeze for NSW police, teachers and nurses is aimed at saving about $3billion, which would be reinvested in public projects - creating up to 20,000 jobs.

Late last month the industrial umpire ruled NSW public sector workers aren't guaranteed a 2.5 per cent pay rise under Premier Gladys Berejiklian's wages policy.

Frontline workers were instead offered a $1,000 bonus to help sweeten the deal which would block their 2.5 per cent pay rise.
A muscle-bound man who allegedly tried to force a woman into a car at axe point before heroic bystanders intervened has been remanded in custody.

Cameron Turgay Bardak, 29, is accused of attacking two people in a carpark on Adelaide Street in the Brisbane CBD shortly after 5pm on Wednesday.

He was charged with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm, choking and enter premises with intent.

Cameron Turgay Bardak (pictured), 29, is accused of attacking two people in a carpark on Adelaide Street in the Brisbane CBD just after 5pm on Wednesday

Bardak, from Wishart in the city's south, did not apply for bail during a hearing at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Police will allege Bardak confronted a woman who was known to him and demanded she get into his car while threatening her with an axe.

The woman was then allegedly attacked with the axe and choked.

A group of men who witnessed the alleged attack rushed to the woman's aid, which allowed her to escape

Bardak is accused of slashing a woman known to him with an axe then trying to force her into a car. Police will allege a group of men rushed to her aid and restrained him until officers arrived

The group struggled with the alleged attacker but managed to restrain him until police arrived.

The Gold Coast woman aged in her 20s suffered a cut to the head and bruising to her shoulder and hands.

One of the men who helped the woman suffered a cut on his wrist after he was also allegedly attacked with the axe during the ensuing struggle.

Bardak will face Brisbane's Magistrates Court again on July 20.
Ousted Fox News anchor Ed Henry has denied the sexual misconduct allegations against him and insisted he will be fully vindicated.

Henry, 48, posted a statement from his attorney Catherine Foti on Twitter Wednesday evening, just hours after the network announced his firing.

'Attorney Catherine Foti: Ed Henry denies the allegations referenced in the Fox announcement and is confident that he will be vindicated after a full hearing in an appropriate forum,' he tweeted.

Fox News announced Wednesday it had dismissed the America's Newsroom host after receiving a complaint from a former employee accusing the top news anchor of willful sexual misconduct in the workplace 'years ago'.

The allegations surfaced as Henry was rebuilding his career following a four-month leave of absence in 2016 due to an alleged extra-marital affair with a Las Vegas cocktail waitress.

The father-of-two took a break to work on his marriage to NPR's Chief Washington Editor Shirley Hung after Natalia Lima, 42, revealed she had a ten-month affair with Henry between 2015 and February 2016.

Ousted Fox News anchor Ed Henry denied the sexual misconduct allegations against him and insisted he will be fully vindicated on Twitter Wednesday evening

Henry, 48, posted a statement from his attorney Catherine Foti on Twitter Wednesday evening, just hours after the network announced his firing after receiving a complaint from a former employee accusing the top news anchor of willful sexual misconduct in the workplace 'years ago'

In a memo to all staff Wednesday morning, FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and FOX News Media President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace said they received a complaint from the attorney of a former employee on June 25 accusing Henry of sexual misconduct in the workplace.

The memo said the alleged misconduct took place 'years ago' but did not specify when.

It added that Henry had been suspended the same day the complaint was received pending investigation.

An outside investigator was hired and, based on the results of that probe, Fox fired Henry, one of the networks most prominent journalists.

'We would like to bring a very serious matter to your attention in an effort toward full transparency given the actions we have taken to improve the culture here over the past four years,' the memo read.

'FOX New Media strictly prohibits all forms of sexual harassment, misconduct and discrimination. We will continue striving to maintain a safe an inclusive workplace for all employees'.

Ed Henry and his wife Shirley Hung, pictured, married in 2010 after meeting while they both worked in CNN. In May 2016, a Vegas cocktail waitress revealed she had an affair with Henry

Natalia Lima, 42, said she began an affair with Henry in 2011. She broke the news in 2016, causing Henry to take a four-month leave of absence to mend his relationship with his wife

America's Newsroom will now have rotating co-hosts joining Sandra Smith until a permanent replacement is named. Henry had served as co-anchor since December of last year.

Henry worked as a late morning news anchor on Fox, between the hours of 9am and 12pm and was considered a rising star.

He joined Fox in 2011 and covered the Obama administration as Fox's chief White House correspondent after starting out his career with Roll Call and at CNN between 2004 and 2011.

Henry continued at the helm of much of the network's coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 before being sidelined over a tabloid scandal.

He had slowly rebuilt his career following a four-month leave of absence, which ended in 2016, after there were published reports of an extramarital affair that he conducted with Vegas cocktail waitress Lima.

In May 2016, Lima spoke out about her ten-month affair after she met the political journalist at a Las Vegas gentleman's club.

Ed Henry and Shirley Henry pictured (center) in 2012 before his affair

This photo of Lima taken at the Sapphire Pool & Day Club  a sister venue which adjoins Sapphire Las Vegas strip club where Lima met

A close friend told Daily Mail Online that Lima is a celebrity stylist and a 'good Christian girl', denying any knowledge of a connection to Sapphire club

Lima performed steamy $2,000-an-hour routines for Henry in a private VIP 'Skybox' at Sapphire Las Vegas strip club before they engaged in a secret love affair at luxury hotels when the veteran newsman visited Sin City.

Lima revealed their affair, forcing Henry to take time off work in a bid to mend his relationship with his wife Shirley Hung, who was then NPR's Deputy Washington Editor.

The couple married in 2010 after meeting while they both worked in CNN. They have two children together, Mila and Patrick.

Lima claimed that she and Henry first met in 2011, shortly after the newsman married his wife at Las Vegas' Wynn Hotel, but only embarked on an affair in 2015.

'Whenever he was in town, we would pretty much just have sex. He has a really high sex drive,' Lima told In Touch magazine, stating that they first stayed in touch over social media.

She alleged that the pair even slept together in the hotel where he had married his wife.

Lima said she was left devastated when he broke it off in February 2016  and felt 'used' by Henry when she revealed the affair four months later.

The reports of the affair caused former Fox CEO Roger Ailes to publicly rebuke him, stating that 'this raises serious questions about Ed's lack of judgment, especially given his position as a journalist'.

Ailes was also later forced out of Fox News when he was accused of sexual assault and harassment by numerous women, including former Fox hosts Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson.

On Henry's return, he shifted to the position of chief national correspondent, often appearing as a co-host on Fox & Friends Weekend before taking over America's Newsroom last December.

Fox offered no details of the complaint that resulted in Henry's firing, only to say that it happened 'years ago'.

According to Variety, the complaint was brought to Fox by Wigdor LP, a law firm that has represented several of the network's former employees who alleged sexual misconduct or discrimination at the media company.

Lawyer Douglas H. Wigdor told the New York Times that he was representing the former employee in the case but did not comment of Henry's dismissal.

The latest revelation comes after Fox had attempted to comeback from sexual assault and harassment cases that rocked the network and resulted in several high-profile departures from those accused and the people accusing them.

In their memo Wednesday, company bosses said that they 'encourage any employee who has a sexual harassment, discrimination or misconduct complaint of any form to report it immediately'.

After Ailes' departure, the network has gone some way to changing its culture under the guidance of new CEO Suzanne Scott.

In the past, Henry's departure and the internal investigation into the allegations would not have been made in a public fashion.

Fox founder Roger Ailes, who died in 2017, was accused of harassment by female employees

Former Fox star Bill O'Reilly left the network after his own sexual harassment scandal. The dismissal of O'Reilly and Ailes sparked an attempt by Fox to change its workplace culture

Former FOX hosts Megyn Kelly, left, and Gretchen Carlson, right, accused Fox founder Roger Ailes of sexual harassment and he was ousted by the company

Ailes and former Fox prime-time star Bill O'Reilly were previous ousted from the network over claims of sexual misconduct.

O'Reilly left the network in 2017 after it was revealed that several women received financial settlements after claiming he harassed them.

In May 2017, it was also revealed that O'Reilly's ex-wife claimed in an affidavit filed during the couple's divorce proceedings that the disgraced host physically assaulted her when she found him having phone sex.

Two of the women who received settlements after accusing O'Reilly of harassment, Andrea Mackris and Juliet Ruddy, stated that they believed he was masturbating when he called them up for unwanted phone sex conversations.

In 2019, the movie Bombshell was released based on the sexual harassment allegations made by Fox News female employees against network founder Ailes.

Kelly has claimed that Ailes, who died in May 2017, sexually harassed her multiple times during her tenure at Fox News, including trying to force her to kiss him on the lips.

She left Fox News in January 2017, making her debut at NBC in June of that year, where she was said to earn a reported $15 to $20million a year but her contract was terminated two years later.

Her former co-worker Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes in July 2016, claiming she was fired for refusing his advances.

She signed an NDA as part of her reported $20million out of court settlement with the network.
A former stripper from Sydney who smuggled large quantities of ice and cocaine on flights into Hobart, often using a fake name, has dodged extra jail time.

Alexandra Rose Kobelke, 26, was in November sentenced to two years and eight months' behind bars for her role as a 'worker' in the drug trafficking operation.

She flew 13 times between Sydney and Hobart over a 13-month period from December 2017, bringing thousands of dollars back to her home state.

Former Sydney stripper Alexandra Rose Kobelke, 26, (pictured) has avoided further jail time after an appeal on her two tear sentence for smuggling large quantities of ice and cocaine

Tasmania's Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) launched an appeal against her sentence, arguing it was manifestly inadequate.

The appeal was dismissed by the Court of Criminal Appeal in Hobart on Thursday.

The three-judge panel agreed with the DPP that Kobelke's sentence was manifestly inadequate, agreeing a five-year jail sentence was more appropriate.

But they dismissed the appeal on discretion, noting Kobelke's relatively young age, lack of previous criminal convictions and potential imminent release.

Kobelke's non-parole period of 16 months, backdated to March 2019, expires on July 5.

Acting Justice Brian Martin said Kobelke's role as a 'worker' in the drug ring should not be glossed over as she knew she was involved in a large-scale operation and had a critical role.

He added, however, Kobelke's original sentence was not a gross departure from an appropriate range.

Kobelke was arrested in January last year at Sydney airport carrying ice worth $40,000 and about $16,000 of cocaine, plus ecstasy.

She had smuggled drugs using cryovac vacuum packages to hide their smell and on nine occasions bought plane tickets under false names to fly into Hobart.
A troubling cluster of COVID-19 cases has been linked to a New York party host who knew they had coronavirus symptoms and threw a bash anyway, but attendees are refusing to work with health officials to contain outbreak.

Health officials in Rockland County, New York are investigating a cluster of nine or more coronavirus cases that are linked to a large party thrown earlier this month.

The blowout on June 17 in West Nyack led the host and eight partygoers to test positive for the contagious respiratory virus.

A crowd of up to 100 people, most in their earlier 20s, turned up to the house party, which violated a state order banning gatherings of over 10 people, according to the New York Times.

A party host in Rockland County, New York threw a bash with over 100 guests despite knowing they had coronavirus symptoms on June 17, leading to a cluster of nine cases. The county has over 13,600 confirmed virus cases and 668 deaths from COVID-19

It was the first of three large parties in Rockland County in the past two weeks. The other two parties where guests are believed to have overlapped were thrown on June 20 and June 27, both in New City.

Officials say multiple people who attended one or more of the parties are refusing to cooperate with contact tracers, a strategy that is crucial to mitigating the spread of COVID-19, leading local officials to issue subpoenas.

'My staff has been told that a person does not have to or wish to speak to my disease investigators. They hang up. They deny being at the party even though we have found their name from another attendee,' Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Ruppert said in a press conference Wednesday.

Officials announced subpoenas will be issued to eight non-compliant party goers believed to have attended the June 17 party on Wednesday. Those who do not comply by Thursday face fines of $2,000 a day, officials said.

'We are deadly serious. I will not allow the health of our county compromised because of ignorance, stupidity or obstinance,' Rockland County Executive Ed Day said.

Issuing subpoenas to help curb to the outbreak is a tactic used during the measles outbreak in Rockland County years ago to force people to work with contact tracers.

The cluster of cases may be linked to an infected student from Florida who attended a Horace Greeley High School drive-in graduation ceremony on June 20 in Chappaqua, according to NBC.

Health officials are now asking anyone who attended that graduation ceremony to self-quarantine until July 5 and work with contact tracers who may call.

New York has been the hardest-hit state in the COVID-19 pandemic with nearly 400,000 confirmed cases and nearly 25,000 fatalities. Governor Andrew Cuomo at his daily coronavirus press briefing on Wednesday

Ruppert says she has intel that more festivities may be planned for July Fourth.

On Wednesday Rockland County reported 1.2 percent daily positive tests, the highest percentage of all seven counties in New Yorks Mid-Hudson region.

The county has 13,602 confirmed virus cases and 668 deaths from COVID-19 as of Thursday midnight.

On Wednesday five people in the county were hospitalized with confirmed cases of the virus and five others were suspected of having the virus.

New York has been the hardest-hit state in the COVID-19 pandemic with nearly 400,000 confirmed cases and nearly 25,000 fatalities.

In New York City 3,000 disease detectives and case monitors were hired by last month in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.
Coles has been forced to reinforce product limits on additional grocery items following a coronavirus outbreak at its chilled distribution centre in Melbourne.

The supermarket giant has implemented two pack restrictions on many chilled and frozen items, pasta sauces and canned goods in Victoria and Tasmania, along with New South Wales stores in Lavington, Albury and Deniliquin.

Affected items include fresh milk, butter, cheese, margarine, chicken thighs and breasts, prepacked carrots and potatoes, and frozen fruit and vegetables until Coles chilled distribution centre in Laverton returns to full operation capacity.

A 'significant portion' of the centre's workforce are self-isolating at home after a number of employees tested positive to coronavirus last week.

A two item limit on fresh milk has been introduced in Coles across Victoria and Tasmania

There are also temporary two pack limits on canned vegetables, fruit, meat, baked beans and spaghetti, along with pasta sauce after increased demand as Victoria battles a second wave of new infections.

'Our team is working hard with our suppliers to replenish our stores as soon as possible, and we apologise to customers of our Victorian and NSW border stores who may find some chilled and fresh produce lines are temporarily out of stock,' a Coles statement read.

'To help us provide a safe shopping experience for all, we ask that customers continue to treat our team members with respect, buy only what they need, continue observing social distancing in stores, make use of the sanitising stations at the entrance, and plan their visit so they can be 'speedy shoppers'.'

Coles has also re-routed stock to other distribution centres in other states, established pop-up distribution centres in Victoria and working with suppliers to deliver products directly to stores.

Additional limits have been introduced on essentials such as canned good and pasta sauce

A number of employees at Coles' chilled distribution centre in Laverton, Melbourne (pictured) recently tested positive to coronavirus

The latest restrictions in Tasmania, Victoria and on the NSW border are in addition to nationwide one pack limits on toilet paper and paper towel re-introduced last week.

Two-pack limits on eggs, pasta, rice, longlife milk, mince, flour, sugar and hand sanitiser were also implemented in stores across Victoria and on the NSW border.

Coles is working with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services to have all staff at its distribution centre at Laverton tested for COVID.

The facility has been deep cleaned daily over the past week.

'The Victorian Government is working with Coles to ensure the distribution centre can remain open and keep food on shelves, and has confirmed all necessary precautions and steps have been taken by Coles to ensure the site has been appropriately cleaned and that relevant measures are in place regarding testing and isolation of team members,' the supermarket added.
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A protester was seen on camera calling a cop 'black Judas' and saying he 'should know better' during a demonstration outside New York City Hall Tuesday night.

Footage on social media shows the protester, who moments earlier was dancing provocatively in front of a line of cops, screaming 'traitor' at the officer outside One Police Plaza.

The altercation came hours before the City Council voted to scrap $1billion from the NYPD's budget, after weeks of protests calling for the force to be defunded in the wake of the Memorial Day death of black man George Floyd.

Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced this week that Black Lives Matter will be painted outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in the city.

A protester called a cop 'black Judas' and said he 'should know better' during a demonstration outside New York City Hall Tuesday night

Footage on social media shows the protester screaming 'traitor' and 'black Judas' at the officer outside One Police Plaza

In the video, a woman wearing a face mask begins ridiculing the officers calling them 'f**king idiots' and saying they 'go to clown college'.

'I can't believe you all are getting paid to sit there like f**king idiots,' she says.

'You guys go to clown college for like 26 weeks.'

The dancing protester then joins in slamming cops saying they don't 'even have a college education'.

'Your hairdresser has to go to school for longer than you do,' they shouted.

'Half of you don't even have a college education - to be out here making demands about the people when you can't even read a f**king history book.'

The protester then singled out a black cop stood at the front of the police line, comparing him to Judas Iscariot - Jesus Christ's disciple who betrayed him.

In the video, a woman wearing a face mask (left) begins ridiculing the officers calling them 'f**king idiots' and saying they 'go to clown college' before the other protester joins in

'Your hairdresser has to go to school for longer than you do,' the protester shouted before singling out the black cop

Moments earlier the protester was seen dancing provocatively in front of a line of cops

'You should f**king know better. You should know better,' the protester shouted at the cop.

'Traitor! Traitor to your f**king people! You're like the f**king black Judas.'

Late Tuesday, the City Council voted in favor of slashing the NYPD budget but protesters gathered for another night Wednesday demanding the cuts should go further and the force be defunded entirely.

Demonstrators gathered in the park and street outside City Hall in Lower Manhattan as night fell.

The zone, dubbed 'Abolition Park' by it occupiers, now includes food, medical and information stations for protesters wanting to camp out in the area.

Late Tuesday, the City Council voted in favor of slashing the NYPD budget but protesters gathered for another night Wednesday (pictured) demanding the cuts should go further and defund the force entirely

Demonstrators gathered in the park and street outside City Hall in Lower Manhattan as night fell

The Black Lives Matter fist symbol is projected onto the walls of the city as protesters gathered another night

The zone, dubbed 'Abolition Park' by it occupiers, now includes food, medical and information stations for protesters wanting to camp out in the area

Protesters hold up a BLM sign and raise their fists as they demand further cuts are made to the NYPD

Protesters had toasted their victory with prosecco on Wednesday after the NYPD took a $1billion hit to its budget and failed to disperse crowds in the 'Occupy City Hall' campsite.

Bottles of $8.99 prosecco were passed through the crowd at around lunch time to celebrate Tuesday's city council vote which removes funding from the NYPD's recruiting and overtime budgets.

One person was not welcome at the party - the famous pro-Trump Naked Cowboy who ordinarily entertains tourists in Times Square.

He was thrown out of the campsite by the protesters after arriving in underwear and holding a guitar that was covered in Trump stickers.

The protesters are still not satisfied though. They want the department to be defunded even more or entirely abolished.

Between 5.30am and 7.30am, officers cleared barricades surrounding the park and tried to push back protesters who spilled over from the park and onto the street.

The protesters had set up barricades on Chambers Street and Center Street to try to expand their 'cop free' zone but police removed them not long after the sun came up to allow traffic to pass through the area again.

Three people were arrested before the situation calmed down again. The park continues to be occupied with protesters in tents and there are dozens of cops in riot gear surrounding it. It is unclear how long the protesters will be allowed to stay there.

An NYPD spokesman told DailyMail.com on Thursday that the protesters are allowed to remain in the park at present but that the situation was being constantly evaluated.

The protesters are outraged that the NYPD has only been stripped of $1billion and not more, saying it needs to be entirely defunded or more heavily penalized.

Protesters toasted with prosecco and champagne on Wednesday morning after the NYPD had $1billion stripped from their budget

A protester opens a bottle of prosecco with his teeth. Bottles of sparkling wine were passed through the crowds

The protesters toasted their victory but still won't leave the park. They say they want more money to be taken from the police department

Protesters painted the word Pigs onto their umbrellas in an insult to the cops at the scene

Robert Burck,aka the Naked Cowboy, plays his guitar and thanks a police officer for his service at the City Hall protest on Wednesday morning to the outrage of the Black Lives Matter crowds

Burck was forced out of the encampment by angry protesters who took offense to him

Burck, holding a guitar covered in Trump stickers, was shown out by huddles of angry protesters

Burck was forced out by multiple Black Lives Matter protesters on Wednesday afternoon

The cut, which comes amid a $9billion shortfall in city revenues due to coronavirus lockdown, will cancel the recruitment of 1,163 new officers, strip $484million from the overtime budget and transfer $354million to other services - including handing control of school safety officers from the NYPD to the Department of Education.

Democrats and protesters are unsatisfied with the cut and say more needs to be done. Police union chiefs, however, are warning that it could have a dangerous effect on officers' ability to keep the city safe.

Trump waded into the row on Wednesday morning, tweeting: 'NYC is cutting Police $ by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue.

'This will further antagonize New Yorks Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, Pigs In A Blanket, Fry Em Like Bacon.

'Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, wont let this symbol of hate be affixed to New Yorks greatest street.

'Spend this money fighting crime instead!'

Combined with de Blasio's lenient bail reform that puts more criminals on the street than before, and a court system that has been back-logged for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they say crime is inevitably on the rise and that slashing the budget is not necessarily the right move.

There are also ongoing complaints that the NYPD is not cracking down on low-level crime like people breaching social distancing rules while dining outdoors, drinking in the street or being generally anti-social.

NYPD cops face off against protesters on Chambers Street outside City Hall on Wednesday morning. The protesters have occupied the park next to City Hall for more than a week now and are demanding that the NYPD have more of its $6billion budget cut. $1bn has been taken off already but they say it's not enough

Hundreds of protesters have occupied the park and are refusing to disperse. On Wednesday morning, they huddled beneath umbrellas and chanted 'hold your ground' as the cops tried to move them back into the park

The cops removed the barricades the protesters had set up to push them back into the park and off of the street

Some of the cops used batons to try to push crowds back. They responded by hitting the officers with their umbrellas

The protesters linked arms to stand their ground. They were eventually slowly pushed off of the street

Three people were arrested on Wednesday morning. It's unclear why, but cops were seen trying to drag this man from the crowd. He was protected by the other protesters who held on to him

Another of the men who were arrested on Wednesday morning at the City Hall protest camp

It is unclear why the man was arrested or whether or not he was injured

NYPD cops dismantle barricades surrounding the Occupy City Hall protest camp on Wednesday morning

The cops pushed some of the protesters back violently as they tried to clear the street for traffic

DE BLASIO: BLACK LIVES MATTER WILL BE PAINTED OUTSIDE TRUMP TOWER THIS WEEK De Blasio said on Wednesday that Black Lives Matter will be painted on Fifth Avenue, outside Trump Tower, this week. In an interview with MSNBC, he said: 'That is going to be in a matter of days. 'Whenever he comes back to his old state he'll get a message that he still doesn't understand. 'Maybe seeing it outside his doorstep will help him get the point.' Stores along Fifth Avenue, like Valentino, have tried already to get out out of their leases because they say the appeal of New York City has been lost due to COVID-19. Other cities have already painted enormous Black Lives Matter logos along their streets. Advertisement

Across NYC residents have been terrorized for nights on end by illegal fireworks being set off through the night, seemingly with little intervention from the cops.

The city's income took a $9billion hit when businesses shuttered at the start of the pandemic and now many remain closed.

Traffic levels in the city aren't predicted to return to their 2019 normal until November.

Restaurant and retail traffic in New York City is currently 43.6 percent of the 2019 normal, whereas national traffic is at 53.2 percent of normal. Foot traffic from late-May to late-June in New York City increased roughly 18.3 percent, compared to the national increase of 27.7 percent, according to Zenreach data.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Tuesday that he understood every department must face cuts but that the decision had also been heavily influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement and that it was 'punitive'.

He insisted that his officers 'are not going to allow mob rule to take over this city'.

'We're all going to have to make cuts, we understand that, when you look at the fiscal crisis with COVID.

'What concerns me is cuts that have to be made because of tough fiscal decisions vs cuts that could appear to be punitive.

'We'll review all the numbers... it's concern. It's going to impact our ability, I believe, to keep New Yorkers safe in some way, shape or form.

'But we're also managers and it's my job to make the most of the resources that we do have.

'I don't think anyone listening thinks that this is the climate right now doesn't have an impact on what's going on with the budget.

'I think that's self-evident.

'It's my job to make sure it doesn't but we have to also take a look at what's going on, cutting head count at a time of rising crime is going to be an extreme challenge for the men and women of this department,' he said.

Commissioner Shea went on to say that slashing the budget would harm communities of color the most because that is where there is most violence.

Earlier in the morning, protesters stood atop a barricade with 'abolish police' signs taped to it

The protesters had set up barricades on Center Street to try to expand their autonomous zone

The front of the Surrogate Courts building has now been defaced with graffiti

Protesters set up a barricade at the cross section of Chambers and Center street to try to keep police out

The officers removed the barricades first thing on Wednesday morning to allow traffic to pass through again

An NYPD officer holds her shield up in a line of other cops in riot gear for another day of crowd control at City Hall

The protesters linked arms to defend themselves from the police. Many wore shields or masks to protect themselves and others from coronavirus

A protester with a megaphone on Wednesday morning spoke calmly to the cops and asked them if they'd eaten breakfast

A different protester lay face down in the street. It's unclear if they were one of the three people later arrested

The protester was distraught as they got off the ground and screamed while the officers stood behind them

Protesters link arms at the City Hall park protest on Wednesday morning

Protesters hold a Black Lives Matter sign on Wednesday morning

Unrest continues: Protesters chanted slogans during a protest to defund the NYPD in a place they are calling the 'City Hall Autonomous Zone', ahead of Tuesday's vote

The vote comes following weeks of protests and fraught negotiations with Mayor Bill de Blasio as New York City grapples with a $9billion revenue loss due to the coronavirus pandemic

Protesters locked arms outside City Hall on Tuesday as lawmakers debated the city budget on policing amid mounting pressure from its residents

A protester climbs a statue outside Surrogate's Court near an encampment outside City Hall on Tuesday

Demonstrators block traffic near an area being called the 'City Hall Autonomous Zone' that has been established to protest the New York Police Department and in support of 'Black Lives Matter'

New York Police Department officers stand guard in riot gear on the grounds of City Hall as demonstrations continue in the 'City Hall Autonomous Zone' that has been established to protest their department

Protesters link arms outside New York's City Hall as politicians take a last-minute vote on a budget which aims to strip $1billion from the NYPD

Police officers stand guard outside City Hall in New York as protesters pressure city leaders into defunding their department

An ambulance drives through demonstrators near of an area being called the 'City Hall Autonomous Zone'

'It's going to impact our patrol strength, our training, and it's probably going to impact people of color more than anyone else.

'We know where the violence occurs in this city,'

'My job is to make sure we are as efficient as possible, we're doing everything can to keep New Yorkers safe... we're going to have to be creative,' he said.

Over the last week, there has been a 'significant uptick' in crime across the city.

Shea said it was down to a combination of bail reform and a back-logged court system.

He questioned why the courts still weren't operating because of COVID when thousands were being encouraged to protest peacefully against the police.

Chaos: Video footage shared on social media showed the moment a violent clash broke out between cops and protesters as officers attempted to control the crowds by pushing them towards the sidewalk with their batons

Violence breaks out: Some protesters were seen pushing back as cops shoved them with their nightsticks

One protester, who is out of frame, is heard firing back at the cops saying they are 'not welcome here' and urging them to leave

A demonstrator climbs a traffic lamp wearing a shirt that reads 'defund the police' ahead of a city hall vote that stripped $1billion in funding from the NYPD

Demonstrators stage a sit-in protest on the steps of city hall in New York as they campaign to defund the NYPD

Black Lives Matter protestors continue to congregate at City Hall as part of the 'Defund NYPD' and 'Occupy City Hall' movement in New York

Two protesters join hands and raise their fists in the air in a symbol of defiance and solidarity amid defund the police protests

Protesters gather outside the New York City Municipal Building near City Hall Park to protest policing

People take part in a protest to defund the police in a place they are calling the 'City Hall Autonomous Zone' in support of 'Black Lives Matter'

Protesters have occupied City Hall Park day and night for at least a week calling for the city's police budget to be slashed

Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the PBA, said: 'Mayor de Basio's message to New Yorkers today was clear: you will have fewer cops on your streets.

'Shootings more than doubled again last week.

'Even right now, the NYPD doesn't have enough staffing to shift from one neighborhood without making another neighborhood less safe.

'We will say it again: the Mayor and the City Council have surrendered the city to lawlessness. Things won't improve until New Yorkers hold them responsible.'

De Blasio defended the budget and said it would be down to good leadership from police bosses to keep people safe.

He said his focus was on helping young people.

'Our young people have experienced something we would never have wished on them. We need to uphold them and help them through this moment in history.

'They're going to inherit this city... our young people need to be reached. Not policed. We need to figure out how to nurture and support them,' he said.

On Monday, the George Washington statute in Washington Square Park was defaced by vandals who threw red paint on it.

The NYPD is now hunting for the suspects who were seen throwing paint balloons at the monument then fleeing.

President Trump tweeted about the incident and demanded the pair turn themselves in.

'We are tracking down the two Anarchists who threw paint on the magnificent George Washington Statue in Manhattan. We have them on tape.

'They will be prosecuted and face 10 years in Prison based on the Monuments and Statues Act. Turn yourselves in now!' Trump said.

The two suspects who threw paint on the Washington statue in Washington Square Park are now being hunted by police

The vandals were filmed with one other person who was wheeling a Citi Bike - which is digitally tracked - through the park at 3.20am on Monday
The first potential coronavirus vaccine developed in the southern hemisphere is set to begin human trials in Adelaide.

Australian company Vaxine will use a clinical trial unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital to test the COVAX-19 vaccine.

Forty volunteers aged between 18 and 65 will be given two doses three weeks apart and will then have blood tests to measure protective antibody and responses.

Pictured: The first potential coronavirus vaccine to begin human trials - which will use a trial unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital

Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky said COVAX-19 used a type of technology that mirrored previous work on vaccines for the SARS coronavirus.

He said that was believed to provide the most certain and reliable results.

Vaxine business manager Sarah Pringle said the company had been working for 18 years to develop a successful pandemic vaccine platform.

'Pandemic research is not something you can turn on and off like a tap,' she said.

'People should not think that short-term funds no matter how large can deliver instant pandemic solutions after a crisis hits; it will always be too little, too late.'

Results from the trial's first phase - which will investigate if the potential vaccine can create COVID-19-inducing antibodies - will be available in eight weeks.

Pictured: Members of the public line up outside a walk in COVID testing clinic in Brunswick, Melbourne on Thursday. Forty volunteers aged between 18 and 65 will be given two doses three weeks apart during the trials

Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky (pictured) said COVAX-19 used a type of technology that mirrored previous work on vaccines for the SARS coronavirus

A woman gets a COVID-19 test at a testing site in Melbourne on Thursday as the world awaits a coronavirus vaccine

The trials would then move onto human testing in older people and if successful again, the drug would be put up for Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approval.

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

Professor Petrovsky said in all it could take six months to develop a readily available vaccine.

Work on the vaccine began in January in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.

Last month, it emerged the world could know within weeks if a coronavirus vaccine is imminent.

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the first results from the clinical trials of several different candidates should be known by late July.

'That would be a good time for us to tell whether any of the candidate molecules are looking promising,' he told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

The government is examining Australia's capacity to manufacture vaccines if a working one is found.

At the moment, it would be able to make some of those being trialled but not others, Professor Murphy said on Monday.
A cafe owner has told a judge his whole family will be deported if he is jailed over his indecent assault charge.

Miguel Dantas De Sa was found guilty in May of indecently assaulting a 16-year-old waitress during an evening shift at a cafe in Adelaide on November 12, 2016.

The 28-year-old offered the teenage waitress $200 to have sex with him and made her expose herself to him at work on her first evening shift.

De Sa has filed an appeal to his charges and begged Judge Liesl Chapman in Adelaide District Court not to put him in jail as his whole family would be deported.

The Advertiser reported his lawyer Craig Caldicott said his parents and sister were living in Australia through his working visa, meaning if De Sa is deported they all must go.

Miguel Dantas De Sa was found guilty of indecent assault after offering a 16-year-old $200 for sex at an Adelaide cafe

'If he receives a period of 12 months' imprisonment or more then, by federal law, he does not pass the 'good character' test and will be deported back to Portugal. So there is a flow-on effect, and the net result is they will be deported as a family,' he said.

Mr Caldicott urged Judge Chapman to put De Sa on a good behaviour bond.

On the evening of the assault De Sa had asked the teenager to wear a dress to work, which she did not do as it was cold and went to the cafe wearing jeans and a shirt.

De Sa took her into the cafe cool room where he sized her up, asked her sexually driven questions, offered her $200 for sex and had her give him a massage.

He also asked her to pull her pants down to 'look at her bum', which she did as he continued touching her hips and bare backside.

De Sa was charged with two aggravated counts of indecent assault and one aggravated count of communicating with a child to procure sexual activity.

De Sa's lawyer told Adelaide District Court his family will be deported if he is jailed as they were all living in Australia through his working visa

The victim previously said she felt that she had to do as he said because De Sa was her boss and told the court on Thursday he acted as if his actions were acceptable.

'I'm still suffering from emotional and psychological effects. It makes me feel ashamed, uncomfortable, embarrassed and many other things my words fail to describe,' she said.

Dr Julie-Anne Lake said De Sa must be imprisoned for his actions.

'This incident was an entree into procuring her to have sex with him for money. That's completely unacceptable,' she said.

De Sa will be sentenced in two weeks.
A serial fraudster spent over half-a-million dollars on expensive products by using bank cards belonging to other people.

Siang Ng, 29, used the bank cards to shop up a storm at luxury stores throughout Melbourne, Victoria including Chanel and Louis Vuitton.

But he handed over his own VIP account details and gave them his girlfriend's address which lead to his capture.

Ng, a Malaysian citizen, pleaded guilty to 17 charges, including obtaining $510,000 in financial advantage and property by deception, and attempting to obtain another $95,000.

Siang Ng, 29, used the bank cards to shop up a storm at luxury stores throughout Melbourne, Victoria including Chanel and Louis Vuitton (stock image)

For 12 months starting in June 2017 he was involved in an operation with three others, targeting banks in central Melbourne.

One of the group members would send a message to another, advising them to transfer specific amounts of money, ranging between $28,000 and $42,000.

The others would then go into a bank with fraudulent identification documents and transfer the funds from that person's bank account, without them knowing.

In October 2017 Ng sent a message to someone called Mel, telling them "my workers now at bank".

Prosecutors say the texts make it unclear just how senior Ng was in the operation.

It appeared at times that he was in charge of workers, but at other times sent photos of receipts which might be proof he was doing a job for someone else.

Either way, County Court Judge Gavan Meredith said Ng played a significant role in a sophisticated series of transactions.

But he handed over his own VIP account details and gave them his girlfriend's address which lead to his capture (stock image)

He used other bank cards to purchase smartphones, spent $2000 on Givenchy distressed sweats and t-shirts and $16980 on handbags and costume jewellery at Chanel.

He gave his girlfriend's name and previous address at Givenchy, and used his own Chanel VIP account details.

Ng also spent $29,115 on a backpack, tote, sneaker boots, slippers, belts and a briefcase and more at Louis Vuitton.

Ng was later shown on CCTV footage, wearing the Givenchy sweats, trying to buy a $21,000 wallet, but the transaction was declined as suspicious. It wasn't the first time.

Police were alerted and searched Ng's home the following day, discovering the luxury goods.

He'll be sentenced later this year. Ng, whose student visa expired in 2016, is in immigration detention.
Five teenagers have been arrested following a wild brawl with up to 20 schoolboys in Sydney's west.

Police were called to a bus stop on Fetherstone Street in Bankstown at 2.30pm on Thursday after a fight broke out amongst the teenagers.

The group fled after officers arrived at the scene.

Police were called to a bus stop in Bankstown in Sydney's west on Thursday afternoon after a fight broke out between school boys. Daily Mail is not suggesting anyone pictured has been arrested

Five people have since been taken to Bankstown Police Station.

No injuries were sustained and no charges have been laid.
Alarming footage has emerged of elderly COVID-19 susceptible shoppers using the self-service checkouts at a Sydney Woolworths - where a worker had tested positive to the virus after leaving lockdown in Melbourne.

Just hours after NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she feared a second wave could hit her state, the worker at Balmain Woolworths, in Sydney's inner west, was found to have the virus.

He had contracted COVID-19 in Bangladesh and travelled to Melbourne - but flew up to Sydney after two weeks in hotel quarantine - and immediately resumed his job.

The store was deep cleaned on Wednesday night and 50 of the man's colleagues are now in isolation.

While there is no suggestion the women were at risk of contracting COVID-19, the footage confirms what Ms Berejiklian is concerned about - Australians getting back to normal life, doing their groceries - and thinking they can no longer get the virus.

The decision to keep the store open has outraged locals, with one woman taking to a popular Facebook group and telling others she had called Woolworths to complain.

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The spread of COVID-19 out of Melbourne hotspots could be potentially deadly, with people in other states and territories across Australia already re-acclimatising back into normal life

A worker at Balmain Woolworths, in Sydney's inner west, was confirmed to have the virus on Thursday

'I have just spoken to Woolworths head office who told me that the store was closed and when I assured them it wasn't she checked the details,' one woman wrote.

'I was then told the store was still open because it had been deep cleaned last night so it could remain open.

'My argument was that if this happened in a school it would be closed for two days while it was deep cleaned. Why would this not happen at a grocery store?'

Supermarket bosses and cleaning teams gathered together and discussed how best to deal with the crisis.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said the man had initially caught COVID-19 in Bangladesh, before flying to Victoria.

He tested positive on his fourth day in hotel quarantine, but 10 days later was cleared to fly home to Sydney on Jetstar Flight JQ510 on June 26.

NSW Health is contacting travellers who sat in the same row and in the two rows in front and behind of him on the flight.

On his second day back at work on June 28 the man's manager noticed he had flu-like symptoms and sent him off to get checked. Again he tested positive.

The store was deep cleaned on Wednesday night and 50 of the man's colleagues are now in isolation, with shoppers returning to the store on Thursday (pictured)

The decision to keep the store open has outraged locals, with one woman taking to a popular Facebook group and telling others she had called Woolworths to complain

The positive test has only furthered concerns about the re-emergence of COVID-19 nationally, off the back of Victoria locking down 36 suburbs across Melbourne.

Residents in Balmain are encouraged to be on alert for coronavirus symptoms.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said anyone who visited the supermarket store on either of the days the man worked should come forward for testing if they have symptoms.

'NSW Health is now acting on a precautionary basis. Balmain residents should be on alert for any symptoms and come forward and get tested,' Mr Hazzard said.

'In NSW, we have always taken a strong position on hotel quarantine, processing more than 30,000 returning travellers since March 29.'

A large team of police officers, nurses and airport staff began greeting new arrivals to Sydney from Thursday, on the hunt for visitors from Melbourne's hotspot suburbs

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has also called for an inquiry into his state's hotel quarantine program, after allegations of staff falling asleep on the job and sleeping with returned travellers were revealed.

But NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said the release of the man from hotel isolation had been ticked off by medical experts.

'If you are symptom free 72 hours and it's been at least 10 days since your onset of your symptoms than you are deemed non-infectious,' Dr Chant said.

'The reports from Woolworths was there wasn't really any overcrowding even though it's quite a compact store.'

Dr Chant said the man worked in the self-serve checkout section of the store but was considered to be a 'low-level' of infectious.

The man had worn a mask on his flight from Melbourne to Sydney, but there are still concerns he could have infected those sitting near him.

Five people were caught at Sydney Airport arriving from those hotspots, while one woman who was awaiting COVID-19 testing arrived from Melbourne via train

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

NSW Health began testing passengers arriving into the state from Victoria from 12am on Thursday.

While the border remains open, anyone who lives or has visited 36 suburbs identified by the Victorian government as COVID-19 hotspots is banned from entering NSW.

They face fines of up to $11,000 or even six months jail if caught.

Five people were caught at Sydney Airport arriving from those hotspots, while one woman who was awaiting COVID-19 testing arrived from Melbourne via train.

Passengers arriving in Sydney from Melbourne told Daily Mail Australia of their shock at the lack of questions being asked before departure.

They said the first they had been quizzed about visiting a hotspot was in Sydney, by which point they could have potentially infected a plane load of people.
The Liberal Party is leading the charge to raise and broaden the GST to cover the cost of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since its debut in Australia 20 years ago this week, fruit and vegetables have been exempt from the ten per cent Goods and Services Tax.

Some Liberal figures want it increased to 12.5 per cent.

The federal government is set to deliver the steepest budget deficits since World War II as coronavirus threatens to cause the sharpest downturn since the 1930s Great Depression.

The Liberal Party is leading the charge to raise and broaden the GST to cover the cost of the coronavirus pandemic

Federal Liberal Party president Nick Greiner, a former New South Wales premier, wants the GST broadened so the commonwealth government can give more money to the states.

'I do think personally that making the base wider is sensible if you want the GST to be the most significant source of state revenue,' he told Sky News Australia.

'Having a GST or a value added tax or a consumption tax that covers only 60 per cent and it doesn't cover fresh food, health, education, the private spending on those, they're the things that are growing.'

NSW Liberal state Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has called for the GST to be raised beyond its existing ten per cent level so the states can, in exchange, abolish inefficient payroll and property stamp duty taxes.

'GST is one of our most effective taxes, and it has a relatively low economic cost, but we definitely do not use it as much as many other nations,' he told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

Revenue from the federal government's GST is distributed via the Commonwealth Grants Commission to the states and territories, which have all declined to levy income taxes.

Former Telstra chief executive David Thodey's report for the NSW government into federal-state financial relations, released yesterday, called for the GST to be increased.

Since its debut in Australia 20 years ago this week, fruit and vegetables have been exempt from the Goods and Services Tax. Pictured is a Woolworth supermarket in Brisbane

Mr Greiner said Australia would have less revenue to fund an economic recovery if the GST wasn't increased.

Foods that are GST free Bread and bread rolls without a sweet coating (such as icing) or filling Flour, sugar, pre-mixes and cake mixes Cooking oil Unflavoured milk, cream, cheese and eggs Spices, sauces and condiments Bottled drinking water Fruit or vegetable juice Tea and coffee (unless ready-to-drink) Baby food and infant formula (for children under 12 months of age) All meats but not pet food Fruit, vegetables, fish and soup (fresh, frozen, dried, canned or packaged) Honey, jam and peanut butter Breakfast cereals Source: Australian Taxation Office Advertisement

'It's harder for Australia to recover and increase its ongoing, long-term economic growth which is clearly the answer to fixing the jobs problem created by COVID,' he said.

'The cost of inaction is very great but it also kicks the problem downstream.'

In 1999, the Australian Democrats led by Meg Lees only agreed to pass then prime minister John Howard's GST package through the Senate if fresh food was exempted.

Labor was opposed to the GST, campaigning against it at the 1998 election, while the Australian Democrats were divided over the issue - having no senators in federal Parliament within a decade.

Mr Greiner doubted Labor would support GST reform at a federal level.

'I don't think GST reform is very likely without a grand bargain between the centre left and the centre right and I don't sense that's about to happen,' he said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a Liberal MP from NSW, last year ruled out raising the GST following calls from West Australian Liberal senator Dean Smith to raise it from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent.

The only major change to the GST occurred on January 1 last year when the exemption was extended to tampons, the opposite of what Mr Greiner is broadly advocating in broadening the base.

Deloitte Access Economics is predicting a $143billion budget deficit for 2019-20, representing 7.3 per cent of gross domestic product - the largest since World War II.

The government has already spent $154billion on three stimulus packages and the Parliamentary Budget Office fears public debt by the end of the decade will be $620billion higher than forecast.
A teenager accused of stabbing two sisters to death during a birthday celebration in a London park appeared in court today.

Danyal Hussein, 18, appeared in custody at Westminster Magistrates Court after being charged with the murders of Bibaa Henry, 46, and her 27-year-old half-sister Nicole Smallman.

Hussein, of Blackheath, south east London, is also charged with possessing an offensive weapon.

The sisters were killed in a frenzied knife attack at Fryent Park in Wembley, North West London, in the early hours of June 6.

The sisters had spent the evening celebrating Ms Henry's birthday, but police were called to the park the next day at about 1pm to reports of two women found unresponsive.

Detectives and paramedics attended the scene but Ms Henry, who lived in Brent, and Ms Smallman, from Harrow, were both pronounced dead at the scene.

Danyal Hussein, 18, appeared in custody at Westminster Magistrates Court after being charged with murder

Bibaa Henry (left) and Nicole Smallman (right) were murdered in Wembley, North West London

Police said they were happily taking selfies, listening to music and dancing with fairy lights (pictured) until at least 1.13am on June 6, but calls to them at about 2.30am went unanswered

Hussein was arrested at his home in Blackheath, south London in the early hours.

The teenager stood in the dock wearing a grey sweatshirt and grey tracksuit bottoms, but did not enter a plea.

During the three minute hearing he spoke only to confirm his name, address, and nationality as British.

There was no application for bail. Hussien is next due to appear at the Old Bailey on Monday, July 6.

The bodies of the sisters were found by Ms Smallman's boyfriend Adam, who also found the murder weapon after taking it upon himself to return to where they were last seen.

The victims' family have criticised the initial police response and were left shocked when it was claimed two officers had taken 'sickening' photographs of the bodies.

The women were in a group of people who gathered in the park from 7.40pm on June 5 to celebrate the birthday, with people leaving gradually during the evening.

By about 0.30am on June 6, only the sisters remained, and they are last thought to have had contact with their family and friends at 1.05am.

Police said they were happily taking selfies, listening to music and dancing with fairy lights until at least 1.13am, but calls to them at about 2.30am went unanswered.

Both sisters were then reported as missing to police late on June 6, before they were both found on Sunday. A post-mortem gave the cause of death as stab wounds.

Forensics officers investigate at Fryent Park in Wembley, North West London, on June 9

Officers guard forensics tents at Fryent Park on June 8 while the investigation continues

Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding said: 'This investigation into the awful death of two sisters is of course a priority for the Metropolitan Police Service and my officers have been working around the clock to identify the person responsible.

'They dehumanised our children': Mother slams 'toxic' Met Police after officers 'took selfies' with bodies of her murdered daughters Mina Smallman The grieving mother of two women who were stabbed to death slammed the 'toxic' Metropolitan Police after two officers were accused of taking selfies next to the bodies of her daughters. Mina Smallman said the accused officers 'dehumanised' her murdered daughters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry by taking the selfies in Wembley - which are believed to have been shared with members of the public. Mrs Smallman told the BBC yesterday about the moment she learned her daughters were dead, saying: 'All I remember is letting out a howl that came from the core of my soul, that's the only way I can describe it.' And speaking about the selfies, she added: 'The lead person said "I don't know how to tell you this but police officers were taking selfies and posing for pictures with your dead daughters". 'Those police officers dehumanised our children. If ever we needed an example of how toxic it has become, those police officers felt so safe, so untouchable, that they felt they could take photographs.' Advertisement

'Given the significance of this development, we visited the family in person today to inform them of the arrest. Our thoughts remain with them at this very difficult time.

'A team of forensic officers have been a constant presence at the park over the last few weeks carrying out meticulous fingertip searches at what is a vast and complex crime scene.

'Whilst that work has now concluded, smaller searches in outer areas of the park will continue. To date officers have recovered more than 1,000 exhibits  including property belonging to both Nicole and Bibaa, collected hours of CCTV and visited hundreds of homes and businesses.

'And those enquiries remain ongoing. I would continue to appeal to the public to come forward with any information they feel may be relevant to our investigation.'

It comes after two Scotland Yard officers were arrested for allegedly taking 'sickening' photographs of the bodies of the two murdered sisters.

The grieving family were said to have been 'extremely distressed' after it emerged that 'non-official and inappropriate photographs' were taken at the murder scene.

It is alleged that two officers deployed to guard the murder scene took photographs of their bodies and sent the images to a group of people, including members of the public.

Both were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office last Monday and the matter was passed to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) to investigate.

The referral last Friday was made on the same day that the women's family released a haunting last image of the sisters with fairy lights as they danced together in the park.

The selfies, taken on a tripod barely an hour before the double murder, were recovered from one of their mobile phones after their bodies were found.

The watchdog is also investigating whether officers properly carried out a search after the women were reported missing due to the length of time it took to discover their bodies.

The independent investigation will consider whether any criminal charges should be brought.

A police officer stands next to flowers at an entrance to Fryent Park in Wembley on June 8

An aerial showing police guarding the forensics tents at Fryent Park in Wembley on June 8

Both officers, who are based on the North East Command, have been suspended from duty and are currently on police bail.

The victims' mother Wilhelmina Smallman was the first female BAME archdeacon in the Anglican church.

Last month Mrs Smallman released a heartbreaking tribute to her elder daughter Ms Henry, a senior social worker and Ms Smallman, a freelance photographer.

She said: 'The pain we feel as a family is so deep no words can express how we are feeling.'
Alabama students have been throwing parties to see who can get coronavirus first - with the 'winner' taking home a pot of money.

The hosts of the parties in Tuscaloosa deliberately invited people who had tested positive for coronavirus, according to city councilor Sonya McKinstry.

She told ABC news: 'They put money in a pot and they try to get COVID. Whoever gets COVID first gets the pot. It makes no sense. They're intentionally doing it.'

It comes as the city council voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance requiring people to wear face coverings in the street.

Recently the city, home to The University of Alabama and several other colleges, has seen a spike in cases with a total of 2,049 testing positive and 38 deaths, according to the Department of Public Health.

Fire chief Randy Smith confirmed the students behavior at a city council meeting on Tuesday.

The hosts of the parties in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, deliberately invited people who had tested positive for coronavirus, according to officials. Pictured, DCH Regional Medical Center opened a drive-thru testing facility in the city

'We thought that was kind of a rumor at first,' Smith told the council members. 'We did some research. Not only do the doctors' offices confirm it but the state confirmed they also had the same information.'

Alabama has recorded 38,422 COVID-19 cases, an increase of 10,696 in the last 14 days, according to data provided by the state Department of Public Health. At least 947 people have died in Alabama from the virus.

City councilor Sonya McKinstry said people were putting money in a pot and taking it home if they became ill first

Arrol Sheehan, spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Public Health, said the state's 'Safer at Home Order' asks people who test positive to quarantine at 'their place of residence for a period of 14 days'.

She said violation was a misdemeanor with potential fines of up to $500.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey previously said she would extend the 'Safer at Home' orders until July 31 because of the rise in cases.

The staggering move is in a similar manner to so-called chicken pox parties which some parents organised to spread the illness to their youngsters while they were still at a young enough age to effectively fight it off.

However the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned vaccination is the only safe way to avoid the potentially life-threatening illness.

It says: 'There is no way to tell in advance how severe your childs symptoms will be. So it is not worth taking the chance of exposing your child to someone with the disease.'

The Alabama parties come after a cluster of COVID-19 cases were linked to a New York party host who knew they had coronavirus symptoms and threw a bash anyway.

Attendees are refusing to work with health officials to contain the outbreak.

The blowout on June 17 in West Nyack, Rockland County, led the host and eight partygoers to test positive for the virus.

Fire chief Randy Smith (pictured) told the city council on Tuesday that he could confirm the students' behavior

A crowd of up to 100 people, most in their earlier 20s, turned up to the house party, which violated a state order banning gatherings of over 10 people, according to the New York Times.

It was the first of three large parties in Rockland County in the past two weeks. The other two parties where guests are believed to have overlapped were thrown on June 20 and June 27, both in New City.

Officials say multiple people who attended one or more of the parties are refusing to cooperate with contact tracers, a strategy that is crucial to mitigating the spread of COVID-19, leading local officials to issue subpoenas.

'My staff has been told that a person does not have to or wish to speak to my disease investigators. They hang up.

'They deny being at the party even though we have found their name from another attendee,' Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Ruppert said.

A party host in Rockland County, New York, threw a bash with over 100 guests despite knowing they had coronavirus symptoms on June 17, leading to a cluster of nine cases. The county has over 13,600 confirmed virus cases and 668 deaths from COVID-19

Officials announced subpoenas will be issued to eight non-compliant party goers believed to have attended the June 17 party on Wednesday. Those who do not comply by Thursday face fines of $2,000 a day, officials said.

'We are deadly serious. I will not allow the health of our county compromised because of ignorance, stupidity or obstinance,' Rockland County Executive Ed Day said.

Issuing subpoenas to help curb the outbreak was a tactic used during the measles outbreak in Rockland County years ago to force people to work with contact tracers.

The cluster of cases may be linked to an infected student from Florida who attended a Horace Greeley High School drive-in graduation ceremony on June 20 in Chappaqua, according to NBC.

Health officials are now asking anyone who attended that graduation ceremony to self-quarantine until July 5 and work with contact tracers who may call.

Ruppert says she has been tipped off that more festivities may be planned for July Fourth.

On Wednesday Rockland County reported 1.2 percent daily positive tests, the highest percentage of all seven counties in New Yorks Mid-Hudson region.

The county has 13,602 confirmed virus cases and 668 deaths from COVID-19 as of Thursday midnight.

On Wednesday five people in the county were hospitalized with confirmed cases of the virus and five others were suspected of having the virus.

New York has been the hardest-hit state in the COVID-19 pandemic with nearly 400,000 confirmed cases and nearly 25,000 fatalities.

In New York City 3,000 disease detectives and case monitors were hired by last month in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, Alabama has started cutting unemployment benefits for people who refuse to return to work after the coronavirus lockdown.

Employers reported 3,336 people to state authorities for refusing to return to work since January, according to AL.com.

Workers who are directly affected by coronavirus will not have their benefits cut - but a general unease about returning to work is not a good enough excuse, officials say. Ohio has previously imposed similar rules.

New York has been the hardest-hit state in the COVID-19 pandemic with nearly 400,000 confirmed cases and nearly 25,000 fatalities. Governor Andrew Cuomo at his daily coronavirus press briefing on Wednesday

Tara Hutchinson, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Labor, said cases had been reported where bosses 'have called the employee back to work and the employee has refused'.

The volume of 'refusal to work' cases being reviewed is unusually high due to the pandemic, she said.

The state has so far denied benefits to 909 workers who opted not to return and has stopped benefits in order to review 2,317 more cases.

The federal CARES Act allows workers impacted by Covid-19 to stay on unemployment benefits under some circumstances.

These include employees who currently have the disease itself, or are caring for someone who is infected.

Caring for a child whose school is closed or dealing with the Covid-19 death of a primary breadwinner are other exceptions under the federal legislation.

However, those who simply feel unsafe returning to work are not protected. 'A general fear is not a valid reason,' Hutchinson said.

After the labor department is notified of a 'refusal to work' by an employer, it contacts the employer and employee to learn details of the situation and to determine whether to end benefits.

Hutchinson said the review has been delayed by the overwhelming volume of claims her office is managing.

Alabama has begun docking unemployment benefits for people who refuse to return to work after the coronavirus lockdown (file photo)

'We have a limited amount of staff and only a couple of people can work the refusal to works,' she said.

UAB professor of Management, Dr. George Munchus, said going forward will require mutual adjustments from employers and workers.

'Employers are going to have to listen to some of the ideas the employees have on how to make the workplace safe,' he said.

Alabama has started reopening from lockdown despite a rise in new cases, with 9,181 new infections reported in the last two weeks.

Over the two weeks up to June 21, Alabama had the second highest number of new cases per capita in the nation.

South Carolina was fourth while Louisiana and Mississippi were also in the top 10 amid fears of a growing surge in the South.

Dr. Selwyn Vickers, dean of the UAB School of Medicine, said the South has high rates of diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease and high blood pressure - all illnesses that put people at risk from Covid-19.
A British man has died after plunging down an open manhole while visiting his parents on the Costa del Sol.

The alarm was raised after a local spotted the 40-year-old at the bottom of the eight foot hole.

Police and paramedics were called to the scene, close to a roundabout at the top of a sprawling residential area called Calahonda by the AP-7 motorway, around 5pm on Saturday.

The British man was found close to a roundabout at the top of a sprawling residential area called Calahonda by the AP-7 motorway

He was pronounced dead shortly after emergency responders reached the scene and firefighters pulled his body out.

The cause of death was a head wound he suffered during his fall.

Investigators have concluded the unnamed Briton suffered a tragic accident.

The dead man's nationality was only made public today.

He had travelled to the area to visit his parents.

Police have not commented on local reports he had left his parents' home in the early hours of Saturday morning and had been drinking before his accident.

The manhole he fell down is on privately-owned land.

It was not immediately clear this morning if he lived in Spain or had flown to the Costa del Sol from the UK after the end of lockdown for the family visit.

It comes as airline bosses admitted that the coronavirus crisis meant that Britons may be able to fly to Europe more cheaply.

Ryanair boss Michael OLeary said the only way his airline can recover is by slashing fares for the next year or two to encourage air travel.

As Ryanair resumed flights, OLeary said lower fares would be funded by cutting pay for its 18,000 staff.

He said: The Spanish hoteliers and the Portuguese resorts are offering historically low prices for families in July and August.

'They want to get people back moving again. So travel will never have been cheaper on short-haul around Europe.'
British tourists making a quick get away to Spanish holiday resorts have found themselves charged a 'covid tax' by bar and restaurant owners.

The unofficially imposed 'servicio Covid' is said to help bars and restaurants pay to fit their staff out in PPE.

However the charge, varying from 1 per drink to 1 per round, has come under fire from cash strapped tourists looking to enjoy their usually affordable holiday destination.

Andrew and Deborah Goding, a retired British police officer and business owner in their 50s, now expats in Mallorca, have warned tourists: 'Just to let all the idiots that are travelling to Spain that they will be hit with a covid tax on each round of drinks they purchase.

British holidaymakers arrive in Majorca yesterday. Planes touched down from Manchester and London carrying a mixture of holidaymakers and expat property owners

Planes full of British holiday makers have arrived at Spanish holiday destinations today with Ryan Air, Wizz air and Easy Jet. Pictured: Holiday makers arrive in Mallorca

Andrew and Deborah Goding, expats in Mallorca

'That's if they can find a bar open! And that is the same here in the Balearics! Absolutely ridiculous getting on a plane this year.'

Planes full of British holiday makers have arrived at Spanish holiday destinations today with Ryan Air, Wizz air and Easy Jet flying out from Luton, Gatwick, Newcastle and Manchester.

Spain has now entered the 'new normal' phase 4 of its de-escalation plan, which allows travel between regions.

However many bars have remained closed, with Spain's central government leaving the decision to re-open nightspots like discos down to regional governments.

Magaluf has kept all of its nightclubs shut and party boats in Majorca and Ibiza have been banned - with many bars closing early and last orders moved to 2am instead of 4am.

First British tourists joined the locals enjoying the sea and beaches of Magaluf yesterday

First British tourists on the streets & bars of Magaluf where customers are reportedly being charged a 'covid tax'

British tourists arriving their Hotels yesterday morning in Magaluf, Majorca

Across Spain 5ft social distancing measures are still in place with face masks mandatory when in in public spaces.

Track and trace also means all shops, businesses and transport companies are obliged to keep passengers contact information for up to four weeks for tracking and tracing purposes.

Some bars who have chosen to open have hiked up prices in an effort to make back lost profit and provide staff with PPE.

Mr and Mrs Goding, expats in Mallorca, told the MailOnline: 'Having just endured one of the harshest lockdowns in Europe I am very concerned.

'The population of the island has complied. All businesses have been closed. One person per house has been allowed out but only for necessities observing all rules. The rate on the island dropped significantly to almost zero.'

Adding: 'The behaviour of British in the last few weeks only confirmed my fears. Large gatherings and violence toward police. When they come, they will be faced with police who don't take any nonsense. We had the army out in our village, this is how seriously it has been taken. On the spot 100 euro fines for not wearing a face mask in public. Public sunbathing and use of beaches limited, again, masks must be worn. All these factors may make a holiday more like a Boot Camp.

A family board Ryanair flight FR2190 to Malaga at London Southend Airport on July 1, 2020 in Southend-on-Sea, England

British tourists head out for a day at the beach yesterday after arriving in Majorca

'This morning the government are implementing a Covid tax on meals and drinks. This all is assuming you can find a bar or restaurant open. Tourism is needed here, however it does appear that the recent spike in the UK is cause for concern to the Balearics government.

'A state of lockdown could be introduced at any time, once more stranding tourists abroad. Tourist Covid-19 cases will not be treated here in line with government directions. This means a flight home, if you can get one.

'My worry is for all my Spanish friends that work and have young families. They have done what they have been told religiously and hoped to be able to work again once the Pandemic was under control. It seems that a second wave is imminent, businesses will be lost and people will suffer. Tourism will not assist the recovery, only hinder it.'

Several bars including Bar 97 in Mijas, near Malaga is now charging an extra 50 cents on every pint since opening, according to The Sun.

Spain has now entered the 'new normal' phase 4 of the de-escalation plan, which allows travel between regions

However customers who had recently attended the bar seemed to have no criticism over prices, instead just enjoying the relaxed ambience.

Holiday makers Wendy and Mike wrote in a review: 'Unlike some other places we have visited, Bar 97 is welcoming but at the same time reassuring in these strange times. This is all done in a very relaxed manner and always with a smile.. .Well done guys for getting it so right!'

Harry, 27, from the north of England, said: 'Really don't see a problem with this, the bars need to catch up on profits they've lost for months... you're on holiday for a week, just pay the extra money and enjoy yourself. #covidtax #magaluf.'

Paul Midgaff, who lives in Marbella, Spain, said: 'I haven't seen any business applying such a tax here in Marbella, maybe there are isolated cases in Spain.'

Andy and Debs, British expats who retired to Mallorca, have warned tourists: 'Just to let all the idiots that are travelling to Spain that they will be hit with a covid tax

Harry, 27, from the north of England, said: 'Really don't see a problem with this, the bars need to catch up on profits they've lost for months'

Paul Griffiths, 59, and wife Heather, 64, from Stretford, Greater Manchester told The Sun that hey were looking forward to 'drinking lager in the sun' after arriving for a two-week holiday in Santa Ponsa.

Mr Griffiths said they had been shielding at home due to underlying health conditions which he described as 'absolutely terrible'.

Mrs Griffiths added: 'I was so looking forward to our holiday. I can't wait to sit outside and eat breakfast and to be able to go to the beach and enjoy the sun.'
Holidaymakers will soon be paid to travel around Thailand as the government moves to revitalise the tourism industry following the coronavirus pandemic.

Government officials have announced an AUD $1million package to boost tourism that will be in effect from July 15.

Tourists can get their accommodation subsidised by up to AUD $140 a night and can also receive a $30 per day voucher for food or other services at local businesses.

There is one catch, however, the scheme is currently only available to Thai citizens.

But, if successful, the scheme could prompt similar support packages to draw in overseas tourists to the popular holiday destination.

In June Thailand's tourism minister said a 'travel bubble' between Australia and Thailand was being considered.

Tourists can get paid to travel around Thailand with the government announcing an incentive package to get tourism up and running after the coronavirus crisis

Tourists at one of Thailand's popular 'half moon' parties in 2019

Around 800,000 Australians visit Thailand each year and the tourism industry is one of the top earners for the subtropical Southeast Asian nation.

Tourism Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said the possibility of the 'travel bubble' with Australia would focus marketing efforts towards 'high-end visitors' looking for luxury holidays.

International travel is still being prohibited by the Morrison government and some fear that it will be banned until July next year.

However, the notion of 'travel bubbles' with Pacific countries who have managed to contain the virus may mean certain destinations could be opened earlier.

The governments of New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand have each specifically mentioned they are looking at such arrangements with Australia.

CEO of Australian travel company Luxury Escapes Cameron Holland said he expected individual resorts in Thailand who rely on overseas visitors would be offering incredible deals once flights are opened.

'Some of our top performing Thailand resorts have included Le Meridien Khao Lak, JW Marriott Khao Lak, Banyan Tree Bangkok, Amarai Koh Samui and Outrigger Phuket,' Mr Holland told 9 Honey.

'These deals are generally more than a bed in a room, they encompass meals, drinks and exclusive activities. We're looking forward to unveiling new deals with our Thailand partners in the next few months.'

In addition to the accommodation and food payments the Thai scheme will also offer a travel subsidy of AUD $50 to use on domestic airfares or buses.

Travellers must book a trip outside their own province at least three days in advanced to claim the one-off subsidies.

A similar incentive package for domestic tourism in Australia is expected to be announced soon.

Federal tourism minister Simon Birmingham has previously said the government is investigating a domestic travel incentive scheme to offset the loss of revenue from international visitors being experienced by tourist destinations in Australia.

Travel companies will also offer their own incentives with Jetstar launching a 'Tourism Recovery' sale in June.
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Former Chancellor George Osborne is set to buy a stunning 1.6 million country retreat - but could face a 153,000 bill thanks to the second home stamp duty policy he pushed through while in office.

The 49-year-old ex-Tory MP has had an offer accepted on a Georgian home is in the picturesque Somerset town of Bruton, and will see him become neighbours with a range of actors, designers and directors.

The five-bedroom, late 18th century, Grade II-listed house is set in three acres of grounds in the town dubbed the most fashionable place in Britain by the Times in 2015.

Mr Osborne, who revealed in May that he is dating Thea Rogers, the 38-year-old former chief of staff who overhauled his image while he was at the Treasury, reportedly 'loved' the house but, under policy he introduced in 2016 as chancellor could be hit by a three per cent stamp duty surcharge.

This policy means he would face a tax bill of 153,750 rather than 105,750.

George Osbourne, 49, has had a bid accepted on this 1.6 million, five bedroom, late 18th century Somerset country retreat in Bruton

The railway station at Castle Cary, near Bruton, means that he will be able to commute to Paddington in 90 minutes for his main job as editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard

The seller of the property, a retired antiques dealer, is building a smaller home for himself on what was the house's croquet lawn

The former chancellor has a history of buying and selling expensive properties both during and after his time in office

Bruton was described by Country Life as the 'new Notting Hill', after the area in west London and is a haven for wealthy celebrities

Mr Osborne's tax on second homes has unexpectedly raised 6.6billion in revenue - but isn't doing what it was designed to do, according to an expert.

The three per cent stamp duty surcharge on additional properties was introduced by the former Chancellor in 2016.

The Treasury had a 2.9billion target for it of by the end of the 2019/2020 tax year but it has raised billions more, according to figures from HM Revenue & Customs.

Mr Osborne revealed in May that he is dating Thea Rogers (above), 38, the former chief of staff who overhauled his image while he was at the Treasury

Mr Osborne had claimed that the levy, which is paid by buyers on top of existing stamp duty, would dampen the investor market and help first time buyers.

The tax has hit nearly four million purchases but an expert branded it 'arbitrary and unfair' after the figures were reported by The Times.

Many of those affected are believed to be neither landlords nor second home buyers.

Adam Kay, a tax partner at accountants Saffery Champness, told The Times that the tax is not working.

He said: 'The whole point of this was to stop people buying too much property to stop them clogging up the housing market  many cases have nothing to do with that. It is reasonable to argue that it isn't working.'

His prospective property is close to the railway station at Castle Cary, near Bruton, means that he will be able to commute to Paddington in 90 minutes for his main job as editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard.

He was promoted to the position last month, with Emily Sheffield, David Cameron's sister-in-law, replacing him as editor.

Mr Osborne's new neighbours would include Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the theatre producer, Sam Taylor-Johnson, the film director, Mariella Frostrup, the Times Radio presenter, and Alice Temperley, the fashion designer.

The seller of the property, a retired antiques dealer, is building a smaller home for himself on what was the house's croquet lawn.

He met Mr Osborne during a viewing and spoke to the Times about the chancellor.

He said: 'He said he loved the house and believed we could be good neighbours. I am sure he is right. It is a wonderful area which has become very vibrant in recent years.'

Bruton was described by Country Life as the 'new Notting Hill', after the area in west London.

The former chancellor has a history of buying and selling expensive properties both during and after his time in office.

Mr Osborne and his wife, Frances, 51, bought a family home in Notting Hill in 2006 for 1.85 million before the house was put on sale for 4.95 million in March after they announced their divorce.

The split came months after Mr Osborne bought a 3 million chalet in Verbier, Switzerland.

His new neighbours would include Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the theatre producer, Sam Taylor-Johnson, the film director, Mariella Frostrup, the Times Radio presenter, and Alice Temperley, the fashion designer

The seller met Mr Osborne during a viewing and said: 'He said he loved the house and believed we could be good neighbours. I am sure he is right. It is a wonderful area which has become very vibrant in recent years'

Mr Osborne's tax on second homes has unexpectedly raised 6.6billion in revenue and he could now be forced to add to the total

Estate agents Knight Frank said: 'Dating from the late 18th century and Grade II listed, Prospect House is a beautifully proportioned Georgian house, built of local stone with Doulting stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof'

Mr Osborne and his wife, Frances, 51, bought a family home in Notting Hill in 2006 for 1.85 million before the house was put on sale for 4.95 million in March after they announced their divorce

The agency added: 'It has been the home of the current owner for the past 26 years and during that time the house has been renovated throughout'

In 2012, he also made a 400,000 profit on the sale of a farmhouse near his constituency home which had been part funded by his MP expenses.

He stood down as MP for Tatton at the 2017 general election.

He has since taken on several lucrative jobs including a 1 million-a-year role as a consultant to Blackrock, the fund manager.

Mr Osborne reportedly 'loved' the house but, under policy he introduced, the former chancellor could be hit by a three per cent stamp duty surcharge

Knight Frank wrote: 'The house has great charm and is immaculately presented, with the interior designed to enhance the original architectural features'

The gorgeous property is sure to be the perfect retreat for the former chancellor, with a half-hour train ride into his job at the Evening Standard in London

The house is approached via a tree-lined drive, which slopes up gently to a gravelled parking area beside the house with parking space for several cars

He stood down as MP for Tatton at the 2017 general election. He has since taken on several lucrative jobs including a 1 million-a-year role as a consultant to Blackrock, the fund manager
Scots Gaelic could be dead within a decade as university researchers have found that social use of the language is at the 'point of collapse'.

A major study forecasts that just 45 per cent of people from the Western Isles will have an ability to speak Gaelic next year.

Researchers from the University of the Highlands and Islands Language Sciences Institute (UHI) noted that just 11,000 people reported an ability to speak the language - with most Gaelic speakers confined to people aged 50 plus.

They also noted the number of native Gaelic speakers fell from 80 per cent in 1981 to 52 per cent in 2011 - an average 13 per cent decline per decade.

UHI researchers are now warning that the ancient language could be dead by 2030 unless the Scottish government takes radical action to save it.

Professor Conchur O Giollagain, UHI professor of Gaelic research, said the Gaelic-speaking communities are 'falling apart'.

Scots Gaelic could be dead within a decade as university researchers have found that social use of the language is at the 'point of collapse' (pictured, road sign on the Isle of Harris)

Proportion of people in the Western Isles with an ability to speak Gaelic (1981-2021)

Number of people aged 3-17 in the Western Isles with an ability to speak Gaelic (1981-2011)

He said: 'It is not being spoken in the families to a large enough level and there is a lack of social use of Gaelic among the young.

'They don't see how it is relevant to their lives. If we continue along the trajectory we are on at the minute the level of spoken Gaelic in these communities will soon resemble what happened in other parts of the mainland.

'In 10 years' time... there won't be communities of speakers.'

Researchers found that only 11,000 people are habitual Gaelic speakers.

There was a net loss of 9,660 Gaelic speakers in 1981-2011, and a 41 per cent fall in Gaelic speaker numbers in the 3-17 age group from 1981-1991.

The study also found a faster rate of decline in the use of Gaelic among people aged between three and 17 compared to people aged 50 plus between 1981-2011.

Researchers from The University of the Highlands and Islands Language Sciences Institute (UHI) noted that just 11,000 people report an ability to speak the language - with most Gaelic speakers confined to people aged 50 plus (pictured, sign for Culloden Battlefield, Inverness)

A major study forecasts that just 45 per cent of people from the Western Isles will have an ability to speak Gaelic next year (pictured, road sign in Stornoway)

At the 2011 census, less than 2,000 young people - 42 per cent of those aged between 3 and 17 - were reported to have some ability in Gaelic.

Around 25 per cent of Gaelic speakers now use the language at home.

When this number drops to 15 per cent, Scots Gaelic will have entered its 'final stages' - known as the critical or 'moribund' threshold.

At this point, Scots Gaelic would be largely restricted to marginal aspects of community life, institutional practice and to the elderly.

How Scots Gaelic is on the way to becoming a 'dead language' Number of people aged 3-17 in the Western Isles with an ability to speak Scots Gaelic (1981-2011) 1981 - 5,329

1991 - 3,166

2001 - 2,395

2011 - 1,989 Proportion of people in the Western Isles with an ability to speak Scots Gaelic (1981-2021) 1981 - 80 per cent

1991 - 69 per cent

2001 - 61 per cent

2011 - 52 per cent

2021 (forecast) - 45 per cent Source: The Gaelic Crisis In The Vernacular Community: A Comprehensive Sociolinguistic Survey Of Scottish Gaelic (Conchur O Giollagain, Aberdeen University Press) Advertisement

Prof O Giollagain said: 'The status quo and the social continuity of Gaelic as a community language are clearly now incompatible. The situation is so critical; the vernacular community is falling apart and those charged with supporting Gaelic need to face up to these issues.'

He added: 'More of the same will give you more of the same crisis. It is imperative we have an open and honest discussion.'

Iain Caimbeul, also of UHI, said: 'We hope this research will be valuable to those interested in seeking to shift public policy assumptions from a sole dependence on the school system for creating the next generation of fluent (Scots) Gaelic speakers.'

The study involved research throughout the Western Isle, in Gaelic-speaking Staffin on Skye, and Tiree, and island in Argyll and Bute in the Highlands.

It found that English was the default language even in Gaelic-speaking families, while there was 'general indifference among the young'.

A similar crisis is taking place in Ireland, where just 17,000 people use Irish habitually despite official figures showing it is spoken by nearly 2million people.

Half of the 500,000 Welsh people who can speak Welsh do so routinely.

Mairi MacInnes, chairwoman of Bord na Gaidhlig, said: 'One of the key messages from the research is that for the older generation of Gaelic speakers in the islands, Gaelic was and remains the default language of the community. For most younger people, the default language is now English. This finding will come as no surprise to anyone who lives in the islands or anywhere else'.

She added the board was 'listening and willing to discuss with island communities what else they want to happen, in addition to the many positive things which are already in place, to encourage greater use of Gaelic in the islands and elsewhere'.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish government said: 'The Gaelic language is a vital part of Scotland's cultural identity and Ministers support efforts to improve access for speakers to learn and use the language. We are interested in the proposals in the book and look forward to discussing the value of current initiatives and the new structures suggested to strengthen Gaelic in the islands.'

'Although the Gaelic language is in a fragile condition, there are a range of policies and interventions in place to promote the learning, speaking and use of Gaelic in the islands and these are constantly kept under review.'
Half of Britons with tell-tale Covid-19 symptoms don't get test results for at least four days after they first become ill, it emerged today.

Scientists have warned the huge delays are rendering Number 10's contact tracing scheme useless, and could allow the epidemic to spiral back out of control.

SAGE says close contacts need to be tracked down and told to self isolate within 24 hours of interacting with a coronavirus-infected patient.

Any longer than that risks allowing people to unknowingly infect countless others, making it impossible for tracers to hunt down every contact.

But it is currently taking 96 hours before the track and trace process even begins on many symptomatic patients, The Telegraph reports.

This is because of the time it takes to ship tests, process the results, and pass them on to the government's contact-tracing scheme. It doesn't account for any postal delays or faulty samples, which can make it take even longer.

The Government has repeatedly failed to hit its own testing targets throughout the crisis, after struggling to bump swabs up to 100,000 a day in April then missing it for eight days straight in May.

The Prime Minister promised on June 3 that every coronavirus test would be turned around within a day by the end of the month.

Half of home Covid-19 tests are taking four or more days to give a diagnosis, it emerged today as Boris Johnson fails on his promise to process all swabs in 24 hours

But Number 10 has so far failed to provide any data on progress towards hitting the target with the deadline now having passed.

The first set of what will be weekly statistics on the 24 hour target will be published today  but they will only cover the period between June 18-24.

That means it will not become clear until the end of next week, when the second set of data will be published, if the target was met by June 30.

Asked yesterday if the Government does not yet know if the target was met by the deadline, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman told MailOnline: 'I don't, no.'

Dr David Bonsall, of Oxford University, who has been advising the Government on contact tracing, told The Telegraph: 'We have made it clear from the very start that speed is absolutely critical, we have got to find people before they infect others.

'Our modelling shows that we have to turn tests around within 24 hours from the point of symptoms. If it is taking four days to turn tests around, contact tracing will have very little effect on the virus.'

Modelling by Dr Bonsall's team at Oxford found that taking longer than two days after a person showed Covid-19 symptoms to track their contacts halved the number of cases that were caught.

If a contact was not traced within six days then tracking them down would be useless because the are likely to have already passed it on to others, they found.

Was Leicester's Covid surge down to more TESTING? Public Health England say increase in tests may be behind part of the increase that was not caused by any specific outbreak There is no obvious source for a recent rise in coronavirus cases in Leicester and the growing number of people found carrying the virus could partly be due to a 'growth in availability of testing' in the city, a bombshell report revealed today. Public Health England's investigation also found 'no explanatory outbreaks in care homes, hospital settings, or industrial processes' after the rise in infections led to the UK's first local lockdown. The report reveals that about half of all cases were among Asian or British Asian people living in Leicester, and focussed in the east of the city, where BAME communities make up two-thirds of the local population. It came as official figures published last night showed that coronavirus positive tests in England are down from 10.7 cases per 100,000 population to 6.7 in just a week - a drop of 37.4 per cent based on the latest available figures. Health Secretary Matt Hancock tightened restrictions across Leicester and nearby suburbs on Monday, ordering non-essential shops to close and urging people not to travel in or out of the area. The PHE report found an increase in the number of people aged under 19 who had been infected in the East Midlands city, from 5 per cent of all cases in mid-May to 15 per cent in June, and a similar increase in infections among working-age people. The report said the increase in positive tests is 'probably linked, in part, to the availability of testing to the general public'. Advertisement

The majority of tests have been carried out in hospitals and in care homes, with more than 9.6million swabs handed out to patients, residents and staff - known as 'Pillar 1' testing.

Home tests of symptomatic cases have accounted for more than 2.8 million tests, half of the Government's 'Pillar 2' testing scheme for people in the community.

Drive-through centres, which make up the rest of 'Pillar 2' tests, have so far accounted for 2.1million swabs.

Yesterday there were 146,624 Pillar 2 swabs done in the community, more than 100,000 of which were home swabs.

Mr Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock have faced questions throughout the pandemic over the amount of time it takes for people to get their test results.

The Prime Minister was grilled on the issue in the House of Commons on June 3 by former health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Mr Hunt asked the Prime Minister to reveal how many tests were being processed within 24 hours and to commit to publishing that number on a regular basis.

Mr Johnson replied: 'The answer is that we already turn around 90 per cent of tests within 48 hours.

'The tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile test centres, are all done within 24 hours, and I can undertake to him now to get all tests turned around in 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that.'

But the Government has failed to disclose whether they count their 24-hour target from the moment the test is taken or when a person develops symptoms and asks to have a test.

Professor John Newton - who was made leader of the UK's testing programme in April - said the latter strategy was crucial to curbing the epidemic.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'We've rapidly expanded our testing capability into a world-beating industry and anyone with symptoms can now get a test.

'There has been consistent improvement in testing turnaround times and these will be published in the next NHS Test and Trace figures.'

Downing Street has been repeatedly pressed in recent days to give an update on whether the Government was on track to hit the end of June target. However, data on the issue has not been released.

The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman was yesterday unable to say whether the pledge had been met.

The spokesman said: 'We said that was something that we wanted to achieve by the end of the month and we're talking to Department of Health and Social Care about how we can make that data available.

'We've been working to turn around those test results as quickly as possible but I don't have those figures for you.'

The Government's failure to set out any progress which may have been made towards hitting the target has prompted concerns that the deadline has not been met.

Mr Hunt has previously written to the Prime Minister seeking an update and reassurances that efforts were on track.

Last week the Tory chairman of the Health Select Committee said: 'Test and Trace needs rapid turnaround of test results to be effective so I am concerned that I have still not had a reply to my earlier letter to the Prime Minister asking for data on 24 hour test turnaround.

'Today I have written again asking him to confirm that we are on track to meet his 24 hour turnaround target by the end of June.'
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Anthony Fauci has warned that America's coronavirus lockdown was lifted too soon, was never strict enough in the first place, and that young people are driving a second wave that has seen daily infections top 50,000.

Dr Fauci, the White House's top virus adviser, said the 'very disturbing' new rise in cases is being caused in part by the fact that the US never got its first wave under control - only locking down around 50 per cent of the country compared to 97 per cent as happened in most of Europe where daily infections are now very low.

That meant that when the economy started to reopen, the virus began spreading rapidly almost immediately because there were still a large number infected people to pass the disease along, he told BBC Radio 4 in the UK.

But he added that the rise is also being driven by people, particularly young people, gathering in large groups, without socially distancing, and often without wearing masks - such as in bars, at beaches, and during protests.

'What happens when you do that, and you don't wear a mask, you get the kinds of outbreak we're seeing,' he said.

Dr Anthony Fauci has warned that a 'disturbing' new spike of coronavirus cases in the US is being driven by ineffective lockdowns and people - particularly young people - gathering in large groups at beaches, in bars, and during protests (pictured, people on Hollywood Beach in Florida on Sunday)

Daily new cases in America have now risen to over 50,000 per day, larger than any total seen during the first wave, which has seen some states roll back their reopening plans (pictured, people gather at Salt River in Arizona, one of the badly-hit states)

'What they've got to realize is that although you as a young person are infected and may not get any consequence of it... it is likely you will infect someone else who will infect someone else, who might infect a vulnerable person.

'Then you get into very serious consequences, maybe even death. We need to engender some societal responsibility in people, particularly the younger people.'

Fauci spoke after the US reported a record 52,000 new COVID-19 cases within 24 hours on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

There were a total of 52,898 new cases over the 24 hours to Wednesday evening. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the US was 2,686,249 early Thursday morning and the number of deaths stood at 128,062.

The daily coronavirus case numbers have remained around the 40,000 mark in recent days. More than 44,000 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the US on Tuesday.

Adding to the rise in cases, hospitalizations for COVID-19, the contagious respiratory disease that first emerged in China, are also increasing in Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.

Dr Fauci said America only locked down around 50 per cent of the country, unlike European nations which shut down 97 per cent and have reduced daily case totals to double-digits in many places that were previously epicenters

America is now recording daily case totals that are far in advance of the first wave, and has a total case count of more than 2.5million, the highest number of cases anywhere in the world

Speaking about the numbers, Fauci said: 'Obviously it's a serious situation. If you look at the different curves between the European Union, the UK and others... they've had big spikes, and then they've brought it down almost or even to base line in some countries.

'The situation in the United States has been more problematic. We got hit very badly, worse than any country with regards to the number of cases and the number of deaths.

'The problem we're facing now is that an attempt to so-called reopen or open the government and get it back to some form of normality - we're seeing very disturbing spikes in different individual states in the United States.

'What we've seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that we've seen. That is not good news, we've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak.'

The US has seen a record 52,000 new COVID-19 cases within 24 hours on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. This map shows the concentration of coronavirus cases in the US

This map shows how the number of COVID-19 cases in the US has skyrocketed since January to over 2.6million in July

On Wednesday alone Texas broke its daily record and recorded 8,076 new cases, which is nearly 1,000 more than the day prior.

The startling spikes in cases have forced states such as Texas, California and Florida to buckle down and halt their reopenings.

On Wednesday California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all bars, indoor restaurant operations and movie theaters to shut down immediately in most parts of the states, nearly three weeks after the state's bars, stores, restaurants, and salons opened for the first time following a three-month lockdown.

Since then, the number of COVID-19 cases have begun to rise again, increasing nearly 50 percent over the last two weeks, with a 43 per cent spike in hospitalizations.

Contrary to the data, President Donald Trump insisted the virus will simply disappear during an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday.

'I think we're going to have a vaccine very soon,' he said.

'We're headed back in a very strong fashion ... And I think we're going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear. I hope,' he added.

Tuesday's new case increase of more than 44,000 infections marked a jump of more than 80 percent compared to a single day increase reported just two weeks ago, according to a Reuters tally.

Steep national increases in cases are driven by a handful of states, eight of which hit record-high new cases Tuesday. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.

Dr Fauci warned during a Tuesday Senate hearing that daily infections could soar to 100,000 'if this does not turn around' and, while he declined to predict a specific number of fatalities, he worries the death toll in the US could reach 'disturbing' heights.

President Trump has attributed the surging daily case numbers to a 'great' expansion of coronavirus testing in the US. The number of test run Tuesday, June 30, was nearly double the number of tests run on May 30, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.

But the number of daily cases has now far surpassed what was thought to be the pandemic's peak, in April.

Public health experts warn that, although the number of people dying each day is down significantly, these increases typically lag behind case increases, with one recent study estimating a 17-day delay.

Eight US states - Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas - hit record-highs for new coronavirus cases on Tuesday. COVID-19 cases across the US increased by 46 percent in the week ending June 28, compared to the previous seven days, with the majority of rises occurring in the West and South of the country

Amid alarming coronavirus case increases, states are beginning to roll back their reopenings. After its cases doubled over the past two weeks, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued an executive order for bars, gyms and movie theaters to shut down immediately on Monday.

Tuesday, Delaware ordered some of its beach towns shut down their bars after a recent spike in cases.

More than 11,500 people in Delaware have now tested positive for coronavirus and the state announced 95 new cases Tuesday. Over the weekend, 270 new cases were diagnosed.

Delaware Governor John Carney's order was met with protests in at least one town. Citizens in Dover took to the streets brandishing signs that read 'enough is enough.'

The re-closures come just before the July 4 weekend, which would have been a boon to businesses, especially in beachfront towns, where bars will now have to shut their doors.

Like Delaware, Alaska's total number of cases is low compared to more populous states like California or Texas, but the recent uptick is disturbing.

New York has managed to greatly reduce its number of coronavirus cases since the peak of infection in early April, but there are now fears of a second wave as bars start to reopen (pictured, crowds celebrating Pride in Manhattan's West Village)

Protesters, some of whom are not wearing masks, are pictured marching through downtown Los Angeles on June 23 - as coronavirus cases started to spike in California

Protesters, the vast majority of whom are not wearing masks, are pictured marching through Austin, Texas, on June 28 - even as cases spike across the state

Texas (pictured, people at a bar in Austin) is also among states that have been badly hit during the second wave, forcing governor Gregg Abbot to close bars and reduce restaurant capacity

TEXAS: With 6,975 new cases confirmed Tuesday, Texas hit a new record-high for its number of daily coronavirus infections

ALASKA: The state has ranked near the bottom of the US for coronavirus cases, but set a record high of 48 new infections on Tuesday

On Tuesday, 48 new cases were confirmed in the sparsely populated state, bringing the total to 544 (including 144 visitors).

It's the largest single-day increase in cases in the state to-date, and includes 12 non-residents. Fourteen Alaskans have died of coronavirus.

Alaska was among the last states to be hit by coronavirus. Only Hawaii and US territories like Guam and the Virgin Islands currently have fewer cases.

In the past three weeks, as cases have ticked up in the state, Alaska has stepped up screening and testing at its airports. Last week, about 5,000 travelers were tested. Airport screening and testing has resulted in 45 positive tests so far, according to KTVA.

Arizona is still the most worrisome state. New daily infections there - as sell as in Florida, Louisiana, Idaho and Washington state - have more than doubled in the past week.

ARIZONA: Once again, Arizona has hit a record high number of new daily coronavirus infections with nearly 4,7000 new infections confirmed yesterday

ARIZONA: Nearly 1,600 people have died of coronavirus in Arizona, but public health experts warn the death toll may lag behind the surging case rates

According to data tracking from Johns Hopkins University, 4,630 new coronavirus cases were added to Arizona's talley on Tuesday. That falls just shy of Monday's record 4,682 new cases in the state.

Arizona's Republican governor Doug Ducey on Monday all bars, gyms, movie theaters and water parks to close for at least 30 days.

The state's cases increased 29 percent in the last week after reporting several record daily increases in cases.

Most Arizona bars and nightclubs opened after the governor's stay-at-home and business closure orders were allowed to expire in mid-May.

Texas, too, has rolled back its reopening, which began in mid-April. Yesterday, 6,975 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in the Lone Star state, shattering its previous single-day increase record of 5,996 new cases last week.

On Friday, Governor Greg Abbott announced a number of new, but modest restrictions on businesses.

Even as cases have surged, daily deaths have remained relatively low in the US. Public health experts warn that death increases may lag several weeks behind case increases, but a major fatality spike has not been seen following the April peak of daily infections, according to a chart from OurWorldinData.org

Bars or restaurants that gross most of their income from alcohol must close at noon. Dine-in restaurants are allowed to stay open, but only at 50 percent occupancy. All river rafting and tubing businesses were ordered closed, and outdoor gatherings of more than 50 people must now get permission from local authorities to proceed.

He stopped short, however, of re-issuing full closures or stay-at-home orders.

Governor Abbott said the state would take further action only if the rate of positive tests there exceeds 10 percent. With 2,119,036 total tests run and 159,986 cases, the state now current rough positivity rate is 7.5 percent.

Now, local leaders are calling on the governor to allow them to issue their own stay-at-home orders.

'If you are not willing to take these actions on behalf of the state, please roll back your restriction on local leaders being able to take these swift actions to safeguard the health of our communities,' Sam Biscoe, interim Travis County judge, wrote in a letter to Abbott on Monday.

California has taken a much stricter approach to the pandemic and was one of the first states to shutdown.

But its cases are once again surging. Now, 222,917 Californians have tested positive in total, with 6,367 new positives confirmed Monday, marking the second-highest single day increase in the state to-date.

Governor Gavin Newsom ordered bars in several counties, including Los Angeles County, to reclose, and reinstated stay-at-home orders in the border county of Imperial, California.

OKLAHOMA: The state has had relatively low case rates, but on Tuesday it set a record of more than 12,500 new cases (Pictured: a graph of cases by date of onset. Cases confirmed on Tuesday may be reflected in bars for previous days, when symptoms began)

IDAHO: On June 30, Idaho set a record for the highest number of new infections in the state to-date, suggesting it may become a hotspot

On Tuesday, Governor Newsom warned that more restrictions - including mandatory mask-wearing and potentially renewed stay-at-home orders - are to come.

'Tomorrow we'll be making some additional announcements on efforts to use that 'dimmer switch: that we've referred to, and begin to toggle back on our stay-at-home order and tighten things up,' said Newsom during a press briefing.

'The framework for us is this: if you're not going to stay home and you're not going to wear masks in public, we have to enforce and we will, and we'll be making announcements on enforcement tomorrow.'

South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Idaho also hit their greatest number of new cases in a single day since coronavirus hit the US.

Although increases in the Southern US have been largely blamed for the surging overall US total, the addition of these states suggests that the issue may be more widespread than previously thought.

Dr Fauci says US should share remdesivir with the world after Trump administration cornered world supply in drug used to treat Covid-19

America's top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci today demanded that Donald Trump share coronavirus wonder drug remdesivir with the world after the US bought up most of the globe's supply.

Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says he is in favour of an 'equitable type of distribution' of the treatment - one of only two drugs proven to be effective against Covid-19.

Donald Trump was today accused of 'undermining' the global coronavirus fight by potentially denying the rest of the world supplies of remdesivir.

The US has bought almost the entire global supply of remdesivir (pictured), one of only two drugs proven to be effective against coronavirus

Remdesivir is the only drug approved in the US to treat coronavirus. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the purchase on Monday. It means that any other country will be hard-pressed to get access to the potentially life-saving antiviral medication.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Dr Fauci said: 'I've always been as a scientist and a public health official one that feels strongly that whenever you get an intervention, you should have a real careful look at the equity of trying to get some reasonable equitable type of distribution, particularly when you get a product that's limited'.

The scientist said that if the US produces the best vaccine, it should also share it with the world.

He said: 'When the United States government is involved in, to a greater or lesser degree, subsidising the development of a number of vaccines, not only ones that were developed in the government auspices, but those in which various candidates at various companies are utilising resources from the government to develop their vaccine - as part of that, we made it clear that we wanted to make sure that enough vaccine was produced.'

Britain's business minister Nadhim Zahawi has criticised the US President's decision to make the rest of the world compete for the medication, originally designed to treat Ebola but proven to speed up recovery time for coronavirus patients.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the deal with Gilead last night. Pictured, President Donald Trump on Thursday, June 25

Mr Zahawi told Sky News: 'It's much better to work together than to work to undermine each other, so we'll continue in that spirit.'

He said the UK had 'rightly' stockpiled dexamethasone, another accepted treatment for coronavirus, but suggested cooperation rather than competition was the way forward.

Dr Andrew Hill, a senior visiting research fellow from Liverpool University, said: 'This deal that's been struck by America means that people with Covid-19 in the UK can't get access to these treatments that would get them out of hospital quickly and might improve their chances of survival.

UK patients took part in the clinical trials that showed that the drug worked, Dr Hill said. 'A lot of drugs haven't worked, so I think the people in Britain deserve something in return from the United States,' he said.

'We have to have equality between countries. We have to have the ability of UK health authorities to access these drugs in return for taking part in these studies and people risking their own health.'
A Missouri lawyer seen with his wife brandishing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home last weekend has claimed that most of the aggressors were not people of color and he didn't imagine that the incident would become a 'race issue'.

He also insisted that he 'thought what was coming through [his] gate was death', during an interview with Good Morning Britain on Thursday morning.

Mark McCloskey, 63, and his wife Patricia, 61, were filmed on Sunday evening drawing a AR-15 and handgun on protesters outside their $1.5million mansion in to a well-to-do St. Louis neighborhood.

Mark McCloskey appeared alongside his attorney Albert Watkins for an interview on Good Morning Britain on Thursday morning

They are heard shouting at the protesters to leave their neighborhood and have claimed that demonstrators broke down a gate into the private community.

Protesters were en route to Mayor Lyda Krewson's home to demand her resignation after she released the names and addresses of residents who had suggested defunding the police department.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain alongside his attorney Albert Watkins, McCloskey said he was surprised that the incident had 'turned into a race issue'.

He claimed: 'There was no thought whatsoever in my head at the time that I grabbed my rifle what the race or nationality or religious background or anything of the people coming through that gate.'

His lawyer added: 'And interestingly, the people who were the aggressors here were not people of color.'

McCloskey continued: 'The vast majority of the people were Caucasians, at least that's what I could tell.

'How they can turn this into a race baiting situation, which is what it is, is complete nonsense because race had absolutely nothing to do with it, it never entered my mind.'

Amid accusations that the couple had broken the law by brandishing guns on peaceful protesters, McCloskey insisted that the demonstrators had broken down a gate to enter private property and he had feared for his life.

'What I was facing was an angry group of people that were, the best that I could tell, about to kill me and burn my house, and there has been significant precedent for that in the city of St. Louis.

'Sufficient that what I thought was coming through that gate was my death, and I took the appropriate action.'

McCloskey, who works as a personal injury lawyer, also maintained his stance of being a civil rights advocate and added that he had represented 'people in civil rights cases against police excessive force.'

Armed homeowners, Patty and Mark McCloskey, stand in front their house along Portland Place and confront protesters marching to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson's house on Sunday

'I represent a young black man right now who is sitting in prison as a result of excessive police violence against him,' he said.

Also during the interview, McCloskey said that he announced it was private property before grabbing his rifle. He claims that a protester pulled out pistol magazines and told him: 'You're next.'

People at the protest have claimed that it was peaceful and no one had been carrying weapons.

The lawyer has previously shared pictures of the destroyed gate which he said was all down to the work of the protesters Sunday night.

He dismissed claims that the gate was already broken as 'nonsense'.

The married couple came out of their house armed on Sunday to prevent protesters from walking onto their property after they claim they broke their way into a gated community. Police said not charges are being brought

About 300 protesters had gone through a gate into this closed-off community and were marching in front of the McCloskey home, which is pictured center. The family said they were having dinner outside when the demonstrators arrived

Despite Mark's claims, video footage from the protest shows the demonstrators walking through the gate, which was completely intact and open, when they are immediately shouted at by an armed McCloskey to 'get the hell out of my neighborhood'.

'This is private property, get out,' the lawyer is heard saying, as the person recording the video points out his gun.

A man can be heard telling McCloskey to 'calm down' while another is heard shouting 'this is a public street a**hole'.

'Then call the cops,' another person shouts.

McCloskey continuously repeats 'private property, get out'.

Video of the McCloskeys went viral Sunday night after they were seen aiming the guns at demonstrators who walked by their palatial property in the wealthy Forest Park area at around 6pm on Sunday.

Mark McCloskey could be seen carrying a firearm as protesters entered his neighborhood

At one point, the pair seemed to be unknowingly pointing their weapons at one another other while trying to keep protesters away from their home - dubbed the Niemann Mansion.

The pair are both personal injury lawyers and run McCloskey Law Center from inside their extravagant home. The company's website was taken offline on Monday afternoon.

Police said Monday that people in the crowd yelled threats at the couple and that the McCloskeys would not be charged.

They added that they are still investigating but labeled it a case of trespassing and assault by intimidation against the couple by protesters in the racially diverse crowd.

Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner issued a statement later Monday: 'I am alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend, where peaceful protesters were met by guns and a violent assault.

'We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated.'

On Monday morning, President Donald Trump retweeted footage of the couple without comment.

Demonstrators chanted 'Let's Go' as the couple stood their ground at their front door, patrolling back and forth.

One video showed Patricia McCloskey coming on to her front lawn closer to protesters

A livestream shows protesters walking through the gate to the path in front on the McCloskey home on Portland Place. The video points out Mark McCloskey holding a gun

One video posted to Twitter of the demonstration shows the woman holding her gun at a protester who is wearing a t-shirt that reads, 'Hands up, don't shoot'.

The individual appeared to be trying to get people to move away from the house at the time.

Patricia McCloskey is seen moving closer to the protesters speaking to them as some stand and argue back.

Other demonstrators are heard shouting at everyone to 'Go' as the woman continues waving her handgun at them from her front lawn and Mark McCloskey watched from the front door with his rifle.

St. Louis police confirmed they were called to Portland Place at around 7.20pm on Sunday night for an incident involving trespassing and assault 4th intimidation after the McCloskeys issued a 'call for help'.

Husband and wife, Mark and Patricia McCloskey are both personal injury lawyers

'The victims stated they were on their property when they heard a loud commotion coming from the street. When the victims went to investigate the commotion, they observed a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with 'No Trespassing' and 'Private Street' signs,' police said.

'Once through the gate, the victims advised the group that they were on a private street and trespassing and told them to leave. The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims.

'When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police. The investigation is ongoing.'
America's top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci today demanded that Donald Trump share coronavirus wonder drug remdesivir with the world after the US bought up most of the globe's supply.

Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says he is in favour of an 'equitable type of distribution' of the treatment - one of only two drugs proven to be effective against Covid-19.

Donald Trump was today accused of 'undermining' the global coronavirus fight by potentially denying the rest of the world supplies of remdesivir.

Remdesivir is the only drug approved in the US to treat coronavirus. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the purchase on Monday. It means that any other country will be hard-pressed to get access to the potentially life-saving antiviral medication.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Dr Fauci said: 'I've always been as a scientist and a public health official one that feels strongly that whenever you get an intervention, you should have a real careful look at the equity of trying to get some reasonable equitable type of distribution, particularly when you get a product that's limited'.

The scientist said that if the US produces the best vaccine, it should also share it with the world.

He said: 'When the United States government is involved in, to a greater or lesser degree, subsidising the development of a number of vaccines, not only ones that were developed in the government auspices, but those in which various candidates at various companies are utilising resources from the government to develop their vaccine - as part of that, we made it clear that we wanted to make sure that enough vaccine was produced.'

Dr Anthony Fauci, pictured today, demanded that Donald Trump share coronavirus wonder drug remdesivir with the world after the US bought up most of the globe's supply

The US has bought almost the entire global supply of remdesivir (pictured), one of only two drugs proven to be effective against coronavirus

Dr Fauci has also warned that the US risks a greater outbreak of coronavirus after it failed to lock down as effectively as countries like the UK.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What we have seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that we have seen.

"We have got to get that under control, or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States."

Asked why the increase was happening, he said: "When you look at the fact that we never got things down to base line where so many countries in Europe and the UK and other countries did, they closed down to the tune of about 97% lockdown.

"In the United States, even in the most strict lockdown, only about 50% of the country was locked down.

"That allowed the perpetuation of the outbreak that we never did get under very good control."

Britain's business minister Nadhim Zahawi has criticised the US President's decision to make the rest of the world compete for the medication, originally designed to treat Ebola but proven to speed up recovery time for coronavirus patients.

Mr Zahawi told Sky News: 'It's much better to work together than to work to undermine each other, so we'll continue in that spirit.'

WHAT IS REMDESIVIR AND DOES IT WORK AGAINST COVID-19? Remdesivir was developed by Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola, the deadly hemorrhagic fever that emerged in West Africa in 2014. Ebola, like Covid-19, is caused by a virus, and scientists have tested remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients. Trials produced encouraging results earlier this year when it showed promise for both preventing and treating MERS - another coronavirus - in macaque monkeys. Studies on humans have produced mixed results. In a US government-led study, remdesivir shortened recovery time by 31 per cent  11 days on average versus 15 days for those given just usual care. But it had not improved survival according to preliminary results after two weeks of followup. Results after four weeks are expected soon. The drug appears to help stop the replication of viruses like coronavirus and Ebola alike. It's not entirely clear how the drug accomplishes this feat, but it seems to stop the genetic material of the virus, RNA, from being able to copy itself. That, in turn, stops the virus from being able to proliferate further inside the patient's body. Advertisement

He said the UK had 'rightly' stockpiled dexamethasone, another accepted treatment for coronavirus, but suggested cooperation rather than competition was the way forward.

Dr Andrew Hill, a senior visiting research fellow from Liverpool University, said: 'This deal that's been struck by America means that people with Covid-19 in the UK can't get access to these treatments that would get them out of hospital quickly and might improve their chances of survival.

UK patients took part in the clinical trials that showed that the drug worked, Dr Hill said. 'A lot of drugs haven't worked, so I think the people in Britain deserve something in return from the United States,' he said.

'We have to have equality between countries. We have to have the ability of UK health authorities to access these drugs in return for taking part in these studies and people risking their own health.'

Dr Deborah Gleeson, Public Health lecturer from LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, told SBS News: 'It's quite outrageous that the US government has bought up almost the entire next three months supply of remdesivir.

'It's a very concerning precedent because if we see the vaccine coming from a US company, we're likely to see the same type of behavior and hoarding by the US and other developed countries.'

'With a pandemic like Covid-19, the problem won't be solved until it's sold for the whole world.'

Many countries fear the US action will leave them short of the drug in the event of a second wave of the virus later this year.

Italian newspaper La Repubblica said supplies to Europe were at 'high risk' while a spokesman for the German Ministry of Health said: 'The federal government secured remdesivir for the treatment of corona patients at an early stage.

'There are still enough reserves at the moment. Approval of Remdesivir for use in the European market is expected later this week. Admission entails the obligation to be able to deliver to a reasonable extent. We expect Gilead to honor that commitment. 

Maria Jesus Lamas, spokeswoman for the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products, said: a 'strict monitoring' of the 'stock' of remdesivir is being carried out and they have asked the subsidiary of the company in Spain to 'bring as many treatments as possible.'

She added that if the current situation remains the same there should be enough stock but it is unclear if the country suffers from an outbreak similar to what occurred in the Spring.

New York University bioethicist Dr Arthur Caplan told DailyMail.com: 'I suspect there will be enough demand [in the US] - even though remdesivir is not a wonder drug - that it will be used here and won't go anywhere else for many, many months.

'It's not a huge loss, but it's a loss. It will mean more suffering. I don't think it's going to cost lives.'

National Institutes of Health (NIH) tests of remdesivir indicated that patients treated with the drug recovered 31 percent faster than those who got a placebo.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the deal with Gilead last night. Pictured, President Donald Trump on Thursday, June 25

'We deliberately made sure that we had enough stock of dexamethasone, rightly so,' he said.

'But we also want to cooperate because the best outcome for the whole world is that we work together.'

Dexamethasone, a cheap steroid that has been around for decades, became the first medicine proven to reduce the death rate among hospitalized patients.

One leading Oxford University scientist involved in trials of the medicine called for fairer access to the drug, manufactured by California-based pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences.

Professor Peter Horby, chair of the UK government's advisory panel Nervtag, said Gilead would have been under 'certain political pressures locally' as a US company.

The Oxford scientist told BBC Radio 4's Today program argued that fair pricing and access of any drugs proven to fight the coronavirus were two crucial issues in the pandemic.

Professor Horby said: 'The trial that gave the result that allowed remdesivir to sell their drug wasn't just done in the US, there were patients participating through other European countries, in the UK as well, and internationally, Mexico and other places.

'And I wonder how they would feel knowing now that the drug is going to have restricted availability in their own country and would they have volunteered for that trial if they had known that?'

Mr Zahawi went on to highlight deals struck by AstraZeneca to supply a vaccine around the world if the Oxford team's work is successful.

'By attempting to compete, I think we ultimately undermine all of our strategies.'

Meanwhile, Gilead has donated a supply of the drug to Australia's national medical stockpile, with the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, saying there will be enough to meet demand in the county.

Despite this Alice Motion, Associate Professor from University of Sydneys school of chemistry said the US actions were 'a real concern'.

She said: 'Remdesivir is a medicine that helps people to recover faster, but imagine if the same thing happened with a vaccine that emerges. That would be terrible.'

Associate Professor Barbara Mintzes from the University of Sydneys Charles Perkins Centre and School of Pharmacy told The Guardian: 'The US arrangement to buy 500,000 doses of remdesivir from Gilead raises concerns not only about access in other countries but also how to prevent profiteering from the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuring that patients who need treatment are able to access it.'

British business minister Nadhim Zahawi accused President Donald Trump's administration of 'undermining' the global fight against coronavirus by making countries compete for medications proven to help

It comes after the German government strongly condemned an alleged US attempt to get exclusive rights to a vaccine being developed by CureVac, a pharmaceutical company based in the southwestern Germany city of Tubingen, in March.

In May, the French government reminded home-grown pharmaceutical giant Sanofi that equal access for everyone to any future vaccine 'is not negotiable' after the company's CEO told US media Washington would be prioritized.

Sanofi later changed its mind under pressure from the French government.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, previously warned: 'We know it is in both of our interests to work collaboratively and cooperatively to keep our citizens safe.'

The drug will likely be unavailable for critically ill patients across Europe until October, raising fears for coronavirus patients in the across the world (Pictured: Gilead Sciences in California)

The drug's impact on survival odds was minimal. Just over seven percent of those on remdesivir died, compared to 11.9 percent of those on not on the drug.

But even this potential benefit will be unavailable to other countries for at least the next three months.

WHAT IS THE OTHER DRUG USED TO TREAT COVID-19? Dexamethasone, a cheap steroid that has been around for decades, became the first medicine proven to reduce the death rate among hospitalised patients. An Oxford University scientist who led a British trial of the drug, Professor Peter Horby, said treating eight people with the drug could save one life and cost just 40 in total. It could save up to 35 per cent of patients relying on ventilators - the most dangerously ill - and reduce the odds of death by a fifth for all patients needing oxygen at any point. Dexamethasone, first created in the 1950s, is usually given to treat ulcerative colitis, arthritis and some types of cancer. It is already licensed and proven to be safe, meaning it can be used in human patients immediately, and is a generic drug, meaning it can be manufactured cheaply and en masse by companies all over the world. Results of the RECOVERY trial, which involved 6,000 Covid-19 patients and was led by Oxford University scientists, suggest the steroid can prevent death in one in eight ventilated coronavirus patients and one in 25 on breathing support. It is the first trial to show a treatment provides significant impact in reducing the risk of death. But the drug  given as either an injection or once-a-day tablet  had no benefit for people who were hospitalized with the virus but did not require oxygen. Advertisement

'The WHO and other groups have said that it's not good to hoard a drug that you don't need...people may argue that we should give it to the countries that need it most,' Dr Caplan said.

'But Trump has made it clear that he is going to provide drugs and vaccines - if they become available - to Americans first. He feels it's the right thing to do and I suspect that there's a little bit of a political motivation, given that there's an election coming up, I'm not surprised at all.'

Gilead Sciences, which makes remdesivir, has already donated about 120,000 treatment courses of the drug to the US stockpile - a supply set to run out next month.

Remdesivir is under patent to Gilead, which means no-one else is able to make the drug without permission.

An option for the British government is the 'compulsory license', which is a legal tool that would allow the Gilead's patents for the drug to be ignored.

Generic versions of the drug could them be bought from countries such as India which do not recognize the patent.

However, the UK does not like to do this as it would irritate the domestic pharmaceutical industry which claims 20 year copyrights are needed to make back the cash invested in developing new treatments.

Now the US will have guaranteed access to all 500,000-plus treatment courses the company plans produce in July, and 90 percent of its production for August and September.

'President Trump has struck an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorized therapeutic for COVID-19,' said HHS Secretary Alex Azar.

'To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it.

'The Trump Administration is doing everything in our power to learn more about life-saving therapeutics for COVID-19 and secure access to these options for the American people.'

Hospitals will be able to purchase the drug in amounts allocated by the HHS and state health departments.

As this is a hospital drug patients will not pay for it directly  for Medicare and most private insurers the cost is incorporated into payments made by the insurer.

The HHS has already been allocating 1.5 million doses donated by Gilead earlier in the outbreak after remdesivir first showed its effectiveness against the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in clinical trial results announced at the end of April.

According to the HHS it will continue to allocate the drug to states and areas based on Covid-19 hospital burden.

Brian Hicks, Medical Devices Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, said: 'The US Governments latest purchase will have wide-ranging implications for its own citizens, as well as for the broader global community. Firstly, as six doses of remdesivir are administered per treatment per patient, less than 100,000 patients in the US will initially be treated with it. According to GlobalDatas COVID-19 Dashboard, there are over 1.7 million active cases currently in the US. Combined with a concerning resurgence of cases in recent weeks, the majority of US patients in the next few months will fail to access the drug.

'Secondly, with Gileads recent remdesivir pricing announcement, some patients, regardless of whether under private insurance or certain government programs, will also struggle to even afford treatment. Many COVID-19 patients who lack health insurance or sufficient funds will view remdesivir treatment as a luxury.

'Thirdly, it will take almost three months for Gilead to produce the initial 500,000 approximate doses even just for US patients, meaning that the millions of COVID-19 patients outside the US will not have access to the drug until October 2020 at the earliest. Even when additional stocks become available, this is a clear ethical issue as it is possible that rich, developed nations will purchase all available stocks and thus leave poorer, developing nations to continue seeking treatments.

'As Gileads remdesivir production rate is projected to increase in the next few months, GlobalData expects hundreds of thousands of patients to be treated with it before a potential vaccine is developed. The accelerated recovery of these patients health will also benefit hospitals, as more beds, ventilators, and other medical devices will become available for other patients. Despite these benefits, Gilead should continue to address the availability and cost challenges, as this pandemic will need to be conquered by all countries cooperating and supporting one another.'

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that there were 98.4 people hospitalized for every 100,000 people in the US.

Various models have estimated that by mid-July, between 1,000 and 15,000 Americans will be newly hospitalized a day. Many of those projections have shifted upwards in recent weeks, as the number of new cases in states like Texas and Arizona have hit new highs on a daily basis.

By July 15, the University of Washington's Institute of Health Metrics (IHME) currently projects that 209,553.86 US hospital beds will be full.

With 100 percent of Gilead's supply committed to the US next month, 94,200 patients will be able to receive a full treatment course.

The US has purchased 100% of next month's global supply of the antiviral remdesivir to treat American coronavirus patients and 90% of the supply for August and September, meaning there will be very little left for other nations

Gilead has been criticized for charging $2,340 for a typical remdesivir treatment course for those covered by government health programmes in the US and other developed countries. This is despite remdesivir costing less than $10 to produce.

Gilead Sciences Inc rose 1.8 per cent as a result of its pricing, as Wall Street's main indexes inched up on following a sharp selloff last week.

HOW MUCH WILL REMDESIVIR COST? Gilead Sciences announced it would charge governments of developed countries $390 (320) per vial of remdesivir. Most hospitalized patients will need six vials of the Ebola drug  equating to $2,340 for every patient, the California-based firm said. Gilead's chief executive Daniel O'Day revealed the pricing structure in an open letter. Mr O'Day wrote the firm had set the price for developed countries 'to ensure broad and equitable access at a time of urgent global need'. It did not announce which countries this would apply to  and said the $390 price would apply to Americans covered by government healthcare. For US private insurance companies, the cost will be $520 (420) per vial, or a total of $3,120 (2,540) per patient. But Gilead is allowing pharmaceutical firms to make generic supplies of the drug in 127 poor or middle-income countries. The price was swiftly criticized with a consumer group called it 'an outrage' because of the amount taxpayers invested toward the drug's development. Advertisement

The drug interferes with the virus's ability to copy its genetic material, stopping the virus from proliferating further inside the body.

In a US government-led study, remdesivir shortened recovery time by 31 per cent  11 days on average versus 15 days for those given just usual care.

But it had not improved survival according to preliminary results after two weeks of followup. Results after four weeks are expected soon.

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a nonprofit group that analyzes drug prices, said it likely costs $9.32 (7.60) to make a 10-day course of remdesivir.

'This is a high price for a drug not shown to reduce mortality,'said Dr Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.

'Given the serious nature of the pandemic, I would prefer that the government take over production and distribute the drug for free.'

Peter Maybarduk, an attorney at the consumer group Public Citizen, called the price 'an outrage.'

'Remdesivir should be in the public domain' because it received at least $70million in US public funding toward its development, he said.

'The price puts to rest any notion that drug companies will "do the right thing" because it is a pandemic,' Dr Peter Bach, a health policy expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York said.

'The price might have been fine if the company had demonstrated that the treatment saved lives. It didn't.'

Gilead says it will have spent $1billion on developing and making the drug by the end of this year.

The drug has emergency use authorization in the US and Gilead has applied for full approval.

President Trump and his administration have taken a resolutely 'America-first' approach to the coronavirus pandemic

In 127 poor or middle-income countries, the company is allowing generic makers to supply the drug. Two countries are doing that for around $600 per treatment course.

'We're in uncharted territory with pricing a new medicine, a novel medicine, in a pandemic,' Gilead's chief executive, Dan O'Day, said.

Gilead estimated that with 90 percent of its supply dedicated to the US government for August and September, there will be enough of the drug for 174,900 and 232,800 treatment courses, respectively, each of those months.

Cases are expected to rise in much of the rest of the world as well. Brazil, for example, is projected to need more than five times as many beds per 100,000 people in its population as the by July 15, according to IHME's model.

Saudi Arabia is projected to have 15 times as many full beds.

By September, the IHME model projects that the number of hospitalizations for coronavirus will be higher in nations in Africa, the Middle East and South America than in the US

But for those nations, there will be no remdesivir - an antiviral originally developed to treat Ebola, which can shorten recovery times markedly, and may improve survival odds, marginally - available next month, and very little available through August and September.

The international community never managed to agree upon a way to fairly distribute vaccines and treatments for the 2009 H1N1 swine flu.

And there are no entities with the authority to enforce such distribution. The WHO can call upon nations to behave in a philanthropic manner, but it has no punitive authority.

'Who's in charge to say where [a drug or vaccine] will go? It's really just local governments and they tend to respond politically more than ethically or scientifically,' said Dr Caplan.

Hoarding remdesivir away from the rest of the world may not have particularly deadly consequences for other countries, but it's the latest signal of a nationalist posture that could, if and when a vaccine is available, Dr Caplan said.

'I think when China has one, it's likely want to keep its vaccines [for itself], and India for India, and Britain for Britain, and the US for the US, too.

'We need to have a much more serious discussion about the future distribution for drugs and vaccines.'

China has already approved an experimental COVID-19 vaccine for its military members, and the UK currently leads the race among the rest of the world's nations - so it could even be the US that loses out on the life-saving immunization as a result of the nationalist approach to development being taken by the Trump administration and, seemingly, much of the world.
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A second wave of coronavirus infections in Australia has been blamed on security guards who admitted having sex with quarantined travellers at the hotel where they were being held.

Suspected covid-19 sufferers staying at the five-star Stamford Plaza in Melbourne were told to isolate in their rooms for a 14-day period after arriving in Australia at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now the city of Melbourne is battling a second wave of coronavirus infections, and resident have been forced to stay indoors or face a $1,625 fine while grocery stores take measures to stop panic buying.

The state of Victoria recorded 77 new cases of the virus yesterday - its biggest total since March 31, bringing the total number of new cases since Monday to 289.

Melbourne had largely beaten the virus at the end of April and no new cases were recorded on June 5 but cases are now soaring upwards again.

An investigation has been launched after 31 cases of coronavirus were linked to the luxury Melbourne hotel, with guards revealing they had slept with solo guests multiple times weeks ago and had even taken some of them to 7-11 stores and busy shopping centres.

Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews told the Herald Sun that there had been a 'handful' of breaches by staff at hotels including Stamford Plaza and Rydges on Swanston hotel, also in Melbourne, where isolated travellers were staying.

The Stamford Plaza is a five-star hotel in the center of Melbourne at the 'Paris end' of the city's Collins Street and boast a gym, a pool and high-end furnished rooms.

Melbourne has gone back into lockdown with police checkpoints across the city - just weeks after Australia celebrated beating Covid-19.

Returning overseas travellers are ushered into the InterContinental Hotel for the beginning of their 14-day imposed quarantine in Sydney, Sunday, March 29, 2020. This hotel is not linked to the outbreak in Melbourne, but was part of the same quarantine regime

The Stamford Hotel in Melbourne. An investigation has been launched after 31 cases of coronavirus were linked to the luxury hotel, with guards revealing they had slept with solo guests multiple times weeks ago and had even taken some of them to 7-11 stores and busy shopping centres.

A presidential suite at Stamford Hotel, Melbourne, Australia, where quarantined guests and security guards allegedly 'mingled' too closely

Melbourne had largely beaten the virus at the end of April and no new cases were recorded on June 5 but cases are now soaring upwards again.

Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews told the Herald Sun that there had been a 'handful' of breaches by staff at hotels including Stamford Plaza and Rydges on Swanston hotel, also in Melbourne, where isolated travellers were staying.

Melbourne has gone back into lockdown with police checkpoints across the city - just weeks after Australia celebrated beating Covid-19.

One security guard, named only as Sam, has spent the past two months working as a quarantine hotel security guard in Melbourne.

Speaking anonymously to 9News, Sam said his colleagues would share lifts with groups of travellers, escort them for exercise and then go into the community as normal despite the risk of spreading the virus.

'On their break, guards were going for a break, and they were going to 7-Eleven, McDonalds, KFC, everywhere, and they were exposing everyone to that,' he told 9News.

'We were trying to control the virus, but the way they have done everything, I think we were spreading the virus, not controlling the virus.'

The security guard also claims he was told not to take a test for COVID-19 in case he tested positive and wouldn't be able to work.

'When I knew that there was positive cases in the hotel I have asked them, do I need to go for a test or something? And they said no, no, no don't worry, don't stress because we need people, so if you (go) for a test they will ask you to self-isolate, so don't go, we will let you know when to go for a test,' he said.

Another anonymous security worker told Today he was given five minutes of training before beginning his first shift.

The curve in Victoria has skyrocketed over the past couple of weeks as coronavirus infections continue to grow from within the suburbs of Melbourne

Sam, a security guard who has been assigned to quarantine hotels in Melbourne for the past two months, said his fellow workers exposed the community to coronavirus by going for lunch at 7-Eleven and McDonalds on their breaks

An investigation has been launched into the sex scandal at the luxury Stamford Plaza (pictured) which has been linked to 31 cases of coronavirus in the city after the guards slept with isolated travellers and also let families to go between rooms to play cards

The security guards, employed to monitor returned travellers inside quarantine hotels in Victoria, could have helped to cause the state's second outbreak of covid-19 by sleeping with locked-down guests, it has been claimed.

Security guards also ignored protocol to allow families to go between rooms to play cards and had shared lifts with travellers while escorting them for exercise.

Claims that security staff were sexually active with some of the guests, including those in isolation in the hotels will form part of the investigation.

The allegations have been heard among police and government circles, as well as within the hotel industry, the Herald Sun reported.

Other allegations which will be investigated include security firms engaging in 'ghosting' - a practice which involves inflating the amount of guards listed on duty to charge the government and taxpayer more for their services.

Operators charged the government for a certain number of staff even though there were less working, even giving fake names for the non-existent employees, the paper reported.

Premier Daniel Andrews said DNA tests showed a number of cases could be linked to 'staff members in hotel quarantine breaching well-known and well-understood infection control protocols'.

He added: '[The tests] left me in no doubt that if not right now, but certainly back weeks and weeks ago, there was a significant infection control problem.

'That is unacceptable to me. I'm sure that will be unacceptable certainly to all of those who will be impacted by the restrictions that we have had to reimpose.'

Officials said the breaches were linked to a significant number of cases in late May and early June, with reports from The Age suggest the slip-ups from security guards directly account for 51 of the new cases.

Police pull vehicles aside at a checkpoint in the locked-down suburb of Broadmeadows in Melbourne on July 2

Staff are believed to have contracted the virus, taken it home to the suburbs and sparked the community transmission - with some spreading the virus by sharing a lighter.

Other infections have been linked to the Rydges on Swanston hotel, which is also in the state capital.

Andrews also said on Wednesday morning the whole state could be shutdown if the localised lockdowns, which began at midnight, did not stop the spread of the virus.

'If we don't get control of this really quickly we will end up with a whole state shutdown,' Mr Andrews said.

The fact that one of the country's biggest cities has been sent back to square one with full lockdown restrictions is providing a salutary lesson about the dangers of easing restrictions too early as other countries emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 300,000 residents living across the 36 suburbs that are in Melbourne's 10 COVID-19 hotspots woke to police checkpoints as they were plunged back into lockdown today for another four weeks.

Residents are only allowed to leave home for work or school, to give care or for essential shopping and exercise. Anyone who leaves their home for other reasons could get a $1,652 fine, and restrictions on buying food have been reintroduced to stop panic buying.

Masked officers used light beacons and cones to flag down motorists approaching each checkpoint and each motorist is being asked where they are going, where they have come from and the reason for their travel.

Australia has recorded a total of 104 deaths due to coronavirus so far and restrictions began to be eased from mid-May in a three-stage plan.

The country's low death rate has been explained by the fact it is a large island nation with borders than can be locked down and that it is inhabited by a comparatively small population that lives, in the main, in low-density cities.

It comes as the UK is poised to lockdown more local areas after the city of Leicester reimposed restrictions after a spike in cases this week.

In Victoria there are 415 active cases with 20 patients in hospital and four in intensive care, two more than yesterday.

Of the 77 new cases, 13 are linked to outbreaks, 37 were detected through routine testing and 27 further cases are under investigation. There are five previous cases that have been reclassified. None are in hotel quarantine.

After just four weeks of freedom, those residents now under lockdown again will be banned from leaving their homes except for work and school, food shopping, giving care and daily exercise.

Restaurants, gyms, pubs and all other non-essential services in the suburbs must once again close their doors.

Affected businesses will be compensated with a government cash grant of $5,000.

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton confirmed Victoria was suffering a second wave after recording zero cases on 5 June.

He said: 'One of the issues is people do move around a little bit. Obviously now, with the restrictions in force, people should be limiting their movement to the fullest extent possible.'

Residents from the ten postcodes in 36 suburbs will not be allowed to go on holiday and the government will announce a support package for affected tourism businesses tomorrow.

The lockdown will last for four weeks and came into force from 11.59pm on Wednesday.

Police will be enforcing the orders with random vehicle checks similar to random breath tests and will dish out on-the-spot fines.

Victoria has a population of 6.4 million, making it the second most populous state in Australia behind New South Wales.

It comes as Gladys Berejiklian has warned New South Wales residents that a second wave of coronavirus could hit the state at any time.

In an interview on Sunrise on Thursday morning, the premier said residents must remain vigilant.

She said: 'There is no doubt in my mind that during the course of the pandemic, we will get a spike,' she said.

'It is about how you deal with it.'

Police inspect driver licences at a checkpoint in the locked-down suburb of Broadmeadows in Melbourne on July 2

Members of the public line up outside a walk in COVID testing clinic in Brunswick, Melbourne on July 2

A healthcare worker is seen testing for COVID-19 in Keilor, Melbourne on Wednesday (pictured), as the state's premier warned all 6.4 million Victorians could soon be locked down

This map shows the suburbs which will be subject to stay-at-home orders from Wednesday at 11.59pm after a spike in coronavirus cases

Members of the public are tested at a walk in COVID clinic in Brunswick, Melbourne today

Ms Berejiklian said she was not considering shutting the border with Victoria because she had not received health advice to do so.

'Keeping the borders open is the right thing to do,' she said.

However, New South Wales has banned people from the 36 Melbourne suburbs.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said anyone from those areas caught in NSW could face six months in jail and an $11,000 fine from 11.59pm on Wednesday.

New South Wales residents are allowed to return home from those hotspots but must isolate at home for 14 days.

Mr Hazzard said he was 'still working through' how police will enforce the rule - but said one option would be to quiz drivers with Victorian licence plates on where they have been.

There are no plans for border checkpoints.

Victoria's Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen previously admitted there had been breaches of physical-distancing measures at the Stamford Plaza hotel.

'There's been some closer mingling than we would have liked of these guards in the workplace,' she said.

'There's a large cohort of security guards and workers and unfortunately it does appear that quite a few of them have worked for single or multiple days whilst infectious.'

Andrews has said no international travellers will be allowed into Melbourne for the next two weeks while the quarantine program is reset under the supervision of Corrections Victoria, which run the state's jails.
An elderly couple have been reunited in time to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary after spending almost 15 weeks apart.

Wendy Andrews visited her husband Colin nearly every day for the past seven years.

But as coronavirus swept the UK and the nation went into lockdown her visits were forced to stop and the pair were separated.

Colin suffers from dementia and lives at the Glebefields Care Home in Drayton, Banbury.

Colin and Wendy Andrews were reunited for the first time in almost 15 weeks to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary. But the pair met at a social distance as Colin, who suffers from dementia, lives in a care home

The care home helped to bring the pair together for their diamond wedding anniversary, baking them a cake and organising a socially distanced party with balloons.

'It was wonderful. It couldn't have been any better,' Wendy said.

'They brought him outside, and we had to keep our distance.

'We couldn't touch him or hold him or anything like that, but it was really good. I think he recognised us'.

Staff at the Banbury care home came along to celebrate with the couple at the outdoor celebration.

Staff at Glebefields Care Home in Drayton, Banbury, came together to organise the socially distanced celebration for Colin and Wendy's wedding anniversary, baking them a cake and decorating the home with balloons

Colin and Wendy met at a dance when Colin was serving with the RAF. Wendy would visit him every day for almost seven years at his care home before the coronavirus lockdown hit

Wendy added: 'The chef made a cake, and all the nurses came outside. There was a big 60 balloon. They made a big effort so that was really lovely.

'They even wrote me a card from Colin, and I had some red roses. It was just lovely.'

The couple's daughter Sanchia Andrews was also there to make their anniversary a memorable one.

She said: 'It was nice for mum. It was quite an emotional time because mum hadn't seen him for such a long time.

'It was amazing. I'm so glad it happened. It was just so lovely for mum to see him on their anniversary.'

Wendy met Colin at a local dance while he was serving in the Royal Air Force (RAF) in Nottinghamshire.

The pair have been married for 60 years after Colin proposed to nurse Wendy when he returned to Banbury from Cyprus, where he had been posted with the RAF

He left for Cyprus with the RAF shortly after their first meeting.

She said: 'When he was in Cyprus, I started my nurse's training.

'He only did his National Service for two years and came back to Banbury. I was still living in Worksop. It wasn't as easy back then.

'Colin said "let's get married." I transferred to Banbury, and finished my nurse's training at the Horton in Banbury.'

Their diamond anniversary celebrations had to take place outside because of social distancing rules as Colin lives in a care home where Wendy regularly visits him

Nisha Shaji, General Manager at Glebefields Care Home said: 'We have had such a lovely day celebrating Colin Andrews and Wendy's 60th wedding anniversary.

'It's so wonderful to see two people still very much in love after all these years!

'The staff at Glebefields were able to facilitate a safe visit for the couple to celebrate this occasion, which is a welcome development in what has been very strange times.

'The visits at our home are well organised, and a lot of safety measures have been put in place to keep everyone safe.

'It was wonderful to see how happy it made both of them.'
This is the glamorous Dutch trainer riding a 277,000 prize horse given to her by multi-millionaire author Dan Brown who lies at the heart of a bitter court battle between him and his ex-wife.

Dressage rider Judith Pietersen is accused of having an affair with the Da Vinci Code writer which contributed to the demise of his 21-year marriage to Blythe Brown.

The brunette in her 20s, who met the couple in 2013 when she flew from Holland to the US to train their horses, has been flung into the spotlight by the American couple's very public legal dispute this week.

Miss Pietersen, described in court papers as the 'young horse trainer from Holland' and given the initials JP, was soon identified.

The Frisian horse expert, who lives in Apeldoorn an hour from Amsterdam, is said to have received lavish gifts from the 56-year-old thriller writer who is a huge fan of equestrianism.

Dressage rider Judith Pietersen is accused of having an affair with the Da Vinci Code writer which contributed to the demise of his 21-year marriage. The author shared this photograph of Pietersen to his Facebook page in 2014

The author and his wife Blythe Brown (pictured together at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006), split last year after 21 years with Brown accused of behaving 'wrongfully and blatantly' and lying about extramarital affairs

The author's estranged wife Blythe is pictured next to his alleged mistress on a farm in 2014

Brown is accused by his ex-wife of having donated horses, a two-horse transport truck and a car to Miss Pietersen, and financed her training stable.

He is also said to have paid for renovations to the woman's apartment in Holland.

One of the gifts is alleged to be the prize-winning horse named LimiTed Edition worth 277,000 ($346,700).

She now lives in a converted barn in the town of Voorst, 60 miles east of Amsterdam, and runs a stables nearby which she visits twice a day.

Today, a white Volvo car was parked on the drive and a small dog barked at visitors from the living room.

The property, which has a thatched roof, is surrounded by plush countryside and is next to a field of corn.

A neighbour said she had only been living there a few months: 'When I spoke to her she seemed quite nice, told me that she had come down from the north of the Netherlands towards Groningen.'

Miss Pietersen has posted several pictures of the horse on Facebook in which she is competing and also standing proudly next to it with a wide smile on her face.

In one post which was accompanied by a heart emoji, she described the horse as 'So amazing - my big love Limited Edition... Proud on this fantastic horse, he is really a dream horse!'

In another recent post, she captioned a picture of her riding LimiTED Edition: 'Working hard preparing for show season, and hoping we can all start competing again soon!'

Miss Pietersen has yet to comment on the claims of a relationship, but her spokesman said: 'I can imagine that she is shocked by the media attention.'

The affair is said to have begun in 2014 when she was hired to train a horse owned by the Browns.

She stayed at their home while recuperating from shoulder surgery at home and became Brown's mistress, it is said.

Brown and Miss Pietersen are said to have met again in Friesland when he travelled there as ambassador for a theatre show in Leeuwarden in which she had a role.

She has posted several pictures of the horse on Facebook in which she is competing and also standing proudly next to it with a wide smile on her face

The author is best known for his celebrated novel, The Da Vinci Code. Audrey Tautou and Tom Hanks starred in the 2006 movie adaptation (right)

The Frisian horse expert, who lives in Apeldoorn an hour from Amsterdam, is said to have received lavish gifts from the 56-year-old thriller writer who is a huge fan of equestrianism

In an interview at the time, she said: 'I knew from a very young age that my life would be all about horses. '

Referring to the author's admiration of horses, she added: 'I recognize that friendly character of the Friesian horse that Dan Brown has fallen for.

'A Friesian horse is also loyal, a hard worker, gives much more than you actually ask of him.'

The two 'liked' items from each other's Facebook page and the author posted a picture of her on his webpage in November 2014.

In the explosive lawsuit launched by Mrs Brown, it said: 'The net effect of these transgressions substantially reduced the marital estate.'

Confronted by his ex-wife earlier this year over the affair Brown is said to have admitted: 'I've done bad things with a lot of people.'

Other affairs reportedly included a hairdresser, Brown's personal trainer, and a politician on the Caribbean island of Anguilla where the Browns had a holiday home.

Brown is accused by his ex-wife of having donated horses, a two-horse transport truck and a car to Miss Pietersen, and financed her training stable

'Dan has lived a proverbial life of lies for at least the past six years, seeming to be the epitome of a world-famous novelist leading a simple life in his home state of New Hampshire, while in reality he was something quite different' her lawsuit claims.

'For years, Dan has secretly removed substantial funds from his and Blythe's hard-earned marital assets to conduct sordid extra-marital affairs with women  one half his age  and to pursue a clandestine life.'

The couple split last year after 21 years with Brown accused of behaving 'wrongfully and blatantly' and lying about extramarital affairs.
This is the shocking moment a raging thug screamed 'I am Jesus!' moments before ploughing his stolen car into a bus stop, killing a retired magistrate.

Gavin Collins, 39, had been out of prison for just days before going on a 30-minute crime spree in which he broke into three cars, in one of which he crashed into 87-year-old grandfather Terry Radford.

He also raided three properties, smashed into two houses and repeatedly rammed a police car as he tried to escape during half an hour of chaos in Nottinghamshire, which saw him jailed for life yesterday.

Shocking dashcam footage from during the spree shows him driving erratically and screaming 'Let's go! Let's go! I'm enraged. I'm Jesus. I'm the descendant of God.'

Gavin Collins, pictured left, was jailed for life after ploughing into a bus stop and killing Terry Radford, 87, pictured right

Police and paramedics pictured at the scene in Mansfield Road, Skegby, in April last year

In the footage, Collins speeds down the road and shouts: 'Watch me go! I'm getting stronger and stronger by the second' before crashing into a house moments later.

Nottingham Crown Court was told how he burst into a man's house in Tibshelf, Derbyshire on April 19 last year and grabbed his victim's car keys.

After losing control of that vehicle, he smashed into a house on Mansfield Road in Skegby, Notts.

He then carjacked a woman who was driving on the A38 by opening her car door and forcing her out onto the road.

Minutes later he got out of the car, after colliding with some barriers, and approached a house on foot.

He banged on the window shouted to be let in before picking up a slab from the garden and throwing it at the patio doors which shattered.

After breaking into a car, Collins rips out off the rear view mirror while careering past others on the road

The thug smashed into two houses in stolen cars during his 30-minute crime spree

Collins was screaming 'I am Jesus' as he was driving frantically and overtaking other vehicles

Collins then barged inside and threatened the homeowners before leaving with the keys to their car.

He went to a neighbouring property where he demanded the resident remove an electronic tag from his ankle.

Collins drove off in their Seat Leon for about 20 yards before he reversed at speed, mounted the pavement and hit Mr Radford who was waiting at a bus stop.

The grandfather and retired magistrate suffered horrific injuries and died at the scene.

Collins then sped off again but was cornered by police in the cul-de-sac.

Additional footage shows the killer repeatedly ramming the police car and reversing into a wall before driving away.

Moments later he was surrounded by officers with tasers after smashing into a tree and becoming trapped in the car.

Yesterday, Collins was jailed for life, with a minimum of 14 years to serve, after he was found guilty of manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

Collins repeatedly rammed a police car during a chase and reversed into a wall before driving away

Police finally cornered him in a cul-de-sac and pointed tasers as he was pulled out of the car

He was also found guilty of two counts of aggravated vehicle taking, two counts of burglary and one count of attempted robbery in connection with a series of incidents in Mansfield and Ashfield.

Mr Radford's grieving family said in a statement: 'We're absolutely devastated at the loss of the most wonderful dad and grandad who was loved and respected by everyone.

'He was the hub of our family. He was 87 but remained intelligent, articulate and funny.

'He was great company to be with and was as sharp as a pin.

'He was extremely fit and most people took him for a healthy 70-year-old.

'Having looked after mum who had extreme dementia, and who we lost last September, he was finally getting his life back.

'He had three holidays planned for 2019 including to the USA and a European river cruise.

'Now he won't get to live out those dreams and his family and wide circle of friends won't get to share more great times with him.'

Detective Inspector Becky Hodgman, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: 'This is a tragic set of circumstances that has obviously had a devastating and profound impact on Mr Radford's family and friends.

'Our thoughts continue to be with them at this extremely difficult time as well as with those people affected by Collins' actions that day.'
Protesters rallying against Africa's first coronavirus vaccine have accused researchers of 'manipulating the vulnerable' into volunteering for testing of Oxford University's coronavirus vaccine.

Around 2,000 people in South Africa are expected to take part in the Johannesburg trial, which began last week.

The vaccine is also being tested in the UK, Brazil and researchers say that it needs to be tested in Africa to ensure it is not affected by local conditions in the country.

But demonstrators gathering at the University of the Witwatersrand, where the trial is based, burned their masks and claimed tests were being carried out on poor people who don't understand the risks.

'The people chosen as volunteers for the vaccination, they look as if they're from poor backgrounds, not qualified enough to understand' protest organizer Phapano Phasha said ahead of the event.

'We believe they are manipulating the vulnerable', the activist and political commentator added. Some 2,000 volunteers in South Africa are expected to take part.

People protest against Covid-19 vaccine trials in Africa outside the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 1. Banners were held that said 'We NOT guinea pigs' and 'we are not your labrats'

Researchers must first ensure the vaccine works elsewhere before bringing it to Africa, Phasha said.

'The narrative we got is our continent is a dumping ground', she said in reference to the widely circulated remarks made earlier this year by French researcher Jean-Paul Mira.

Mira had said: 'Shouldn't we be doing this study in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatments, no resuscitation?' and compared it to AIDS studies.

'In prostitutes, we try things because we know that they are highly exposed and that they do not protect themselves.'

Those in charge of the South Africa vaccine trial have volunteers were given an explanation about the trial and possible risks. Above, a volunteer received an injection from a medical worker during the country's first human clinical trial for a vaccine against coronavirus

Vaccine volunteers wait to receive an injection at the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg

The French researcher later apologized for his comments, but they continue to circulate on social media among vaccine opponents.

It's important that vaccines be tested in Africa to see how they perform in the local context, professor of vaccinology Shabir Madhi, leader of the new trial in South Africa, told reporters and others in a webinar Sunday.

He said volunteers were given an explanation about the trial and possible risks and had to score 80% on a questionnaire to take part.

Protests held signs that said 'Africa is not your playground' and 'we don't want the gates of hell here'

Phasha asked why more affluent parts of South African society had not been targeted.

'I believe in science,' she said. 'And I believe that science has managed to solve most of the problems society is faced with. I'm not against vaccinations, I'm against profiteering.'

Fellow protesters sang and danced with banners saying 'We not guinea pigs' and 'No safe vaccine.'

'If you want to test, test in the areas which they call the epicenter of the world,' demonstrator Sean Goss said.

Experts have noted growing resistance and misinformation around testing across the continent.

Anti-vaccine sentiment is escalating to 'the worst I've ever seen,' the CEO of the GAVI vaccine alliance, Seth Berkley, said at a conference last week.

'In general, people in Africa know the diseases and want to protect each other,' he said. 'In this case, the rumor mill has been dramatic.'

The trial is part of one already underway in Britain to test the vaccine and has been developed at the University of Oxford.

Meanwhile, anger among African health officials and others was swift in response to Mira's comments earlier this year.

The Ethiopian director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, decried them as 'racist' and a 'hangover from a colonial mentality.'

The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, called the remarks 'very disgusting' and 'condescending.'

'Africa CDC will continue to work very closely with the World Health Organization to ensure that only ethically and scientifically sound clinical trials for vaccines and therapies will be conducted in Africa, using exactly the same standards and principles as those employed elsewhere in the world,' Nkengasong said in a statement.

'These principles will be guided by respect for the dignity of Africans, the beneficence and non-maleficence, and justice.'

Africa has seen troubled testing and treatment over the years.

Some families in Nigeria won payouts in a legal fight with Pfizer after several children died of meningitis in a clinical trial for an oral antibiotic in 1996.

And earlier this year, South Africa's Commission for Gender Equality said dozens of HIV-positive women had been forced or coerced into sterilisation after giving birth at public hospitals.

It's not clear when Africa's first Covid-19 vaccine trial will begin showing results, but a concerned Madhi said the local surge in confirmed cases could mean seeing them months earlier than expected.

South Africa now has more than 151,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, the most on the African continent. Africa overall has more than 400,000 cases.

As the pandemic picks up speed in Africa, health officials are urging that any vaccine be distributed equitably around the world.

A volunteer wearing a protective face mask is injected in the arm as part of the vaccine trial. The trial is part of one already underway in Britain to test the vaccine and has been developed at the University of Oxford.

A quarter of all vaccines for other diseases are used in Africa and yet the continent has little production capacity, putting its 1.3 billion people at risk of being near the end of the line for any vaccine.

The new global attention to racial injustice creates a key time to act, the head of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control told the AU vaccine conference last week.

'If we don't use this moment when, for better or worse, we have the political attention of people, we will regret it,' Chikwe Ihekweazu said.

Africa must play a role in the new vaccine trials, the vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Mamokgethi Phakeng, and the chair of South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Thokozani Majozi, wrote this month in the Sunday Times newspaper.

They, too, brought up the French researcher's comments and they criticized the calls for an 'African-only' approach to finding a vaccine, saying it would pull the continent even further from the global stage.

'It would be tragic if Africa chose not to take part, at all levels, in clinical trials of a Covid-19 vaccine - or any medical treatment that could save lives,' they said.

Coronavirus vaccine WILL give long-term protection says Oxford study chief - as US experts find their own jab triggered antibody levels THREE times higher than in recovered patients

By Victoria Allen, science correspondent for The Daily Mail

A jab against coronavirus should last for several years at least, said the British scientist whose own vaccine project is the global front-runner.

Professor Sarah Gilbert told MPs she was optimistic that a vaccine would provide a good duration of immunity.

She is the world-renowned expert leading an Oxford University team that is devising a vaccine, so her claim could help to dispel the fears over how long protection against Covid-19 might last.

Concerns had been raised after those with other types of coronavirus  which are less dangerous and cause the common cold  were able, in tests, to be reinfected within a year.

A jab against coronavirus should last for several years at least, said the British scientist whose own vaccine project is the global front-runner (stock photo)

But Professor Gilbert told the Commons science and technology committee there may be a better result from a vaccine than the natural immunity acquired when individuals simply recover from a virus.

She said: Vaccines have a different way of engaging with the immune system, and we follow people in our studies using the same type of technology to make the vaccines for several years, and we still see strong immune responses.

Its something we have to test and follow over time  we cant know until we actually have the data  but were optimistic based on earlier studies that we will see a good duration of immunity, for several years at least, and probably better than naturally-acquired immunity.

Professor Sarah Gilbert, an expert leading an Oxford University team that is devising a vaccine, told MPs she was optimistic that a vaccine would provide 'a good duration of immunity'

Asked for a timeline on the vaccine, after the prospect was raised of facing the winter without one, Professor Gilbert told the committee: I hope we can improve on those timelines and come to your rescue.

Some 8,000 Britons are taking part in a major trial of the Oxford vaccine, which is being manufactured by pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca. But, as rates of coronavirus have fallen in this country, researchers are also aiming to vaccinate 4,000 individuals in Brazil and 2,000 in South Africa.

It comes as an experimental coronavirus vaccine being tested by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech produced neutralizing antibodies were between 1.8 and 2.8 times greater than those seen in recovered patients.

The vaccine candidate uses part of the pathogen's genetic code to get the body to recognize the coronavirus and attack it if a person becomes infected.

How the injectable vaccines from Imperial College London and Oxford University would work

The trial, which used 45 people in three groups and a control group, showed encouraging early results.

'We still have a ways to go and we're testing other candidates as well,' Philip Dormitzer, chief scientific officer at Pfizer's research laboratories, told STAT News.

'However, what we can say at this point is there is a viable candidate based on immunogenicity and early tolerability safety data.'

The key question in this trials however is whether the vaccine will protect them from becoming infected, or simply make them less ill. It may also work less well in older people because their immune systems are weaker.

It comes as an experimental coronavirus vaccine being tested by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech produced neutralizing antibodies were between 1.8 and 2.8 times greater than those seen in recovered patients

Those who received either two shots of the low or medium dose of the vaccine generated levels of neutralizing antibodies between 1.8 and 2.8 times greater than those seen in recovered patients (above)

Kate Bingham, head of the UKs Vaccine Taskforce, told MPs she was less optimistic that the jab could protect against catching the infection and it's more likely it will only reduce the severity of symptoms.

She told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee: 'I'm relatively optimistic we will find a vaccine that will be able to treat the population.

'The caveat is... is it a full sterilising vaccine, which means you cant get infected, or is it one that basically just takes the edge off the symptoms so it reduces mortality?

'Clearly we would like to get to a sterilising vaccine so that people are prevented from being infected.

Kate Bingham told MPs yesterday she was confident the world would have some form of vaccine against Covid-19 by early 2021. But she said she was less optimistic that the jab could protect against catching the infection and it's more likely the vaccine will be able to reduce severity of symptoms

Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, also gave evidence to the committee, warning that the UK must prepare for the worst this winter, rather than rely on the development of a vaccine.

But he said he has now seen tests for coronavirus of a good standard which can produce a result in a few minutes.

Sir John said: That would be transformative because we could all test ourselves regularly and test our kids after theyve been off to a rave and all that stuff.He also urged Britons to have the flu jab to avoid pandemonium in A&E departments.
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Only eight of England's 50 areas worst-hit by coronavirus are in the South, according to official data that lays bare the country's North-South divide amid the growing threat of more 'local lockdowns'.

Leicester  the first city in UK to be struck by further Covid-controlling measures  has the worst infection rate in the country, with 140.2 cases confirmed between June 15-21 for every 100,000 people. It is followed by a cluster in the North West of England, with Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale all recording at least 50 coronavirus infections for every 100,000 people in the same seven-day spell.

Analysis of the Public Health England data shows they aren't the only places in the North to be rocked by flare-ups of the disease, which has claimed at least 55,000 lives across the whole of the UK.

Only eight authorities in the South of England  Bedford (42), Luton (26.6), Central Bedfordshire (15.9), Kent (13.5), Slough (13.4), Thurrock (12.2), Milton Keynes (10.8) and Swindon (10.4)  are currently in the 50 worst-hit areas.

In comparison, just six authorities at the bottom of the table are in the North or the Midlands  South Tyneside (0), Redcar and Cleveland (0.7), Sunderland (1.8), North East Lincolnshire (1.9), Rutland (2.5) and Northumberland.

One of the main causes of the 'North-South' divide in coronavirus cases in England is down to the disparity in job roles, experts believe  pointing to figures showing London is recovering quicker than most regions.

Scientists say infections may have dropped at a faster rate in the capital because there are more white collar jobs there, therefore more employees were able to work from home and isolate from others. In deprived areas people are more likely to have to go to work and use public transport  raising their risk of being infected.

Government sources say Leicester-style shutdowns could be 'just days away' for other places ahead of the biggest step back to normal life with Brits set to flock to the pubs to celebrate 'Super Saturday'.

Only eight authorities in the south of England  Bedford (42), Luton (26.6), Central Bedfordshire (15.9), Kent (13.5), Slough (13.4), Thurrock (12.2), Milton Keynes (10.8) and Swindon (10.4)  are currently in the 50 worst-hit areas. In comparison, just six authorities at the bottom of the table are in the north or the Midlands  South Tyneside (0), Redcar and Cleveland (0.7), Sunderland (1.8), North East Lincolnshire (1.9), Rutland (2.5) and Northumberland

THIRTY-FOUR AREAS IN ENGLAND HAVE SEEN SPIKES IN COVID-19 CASES OVER THE PAST WEEK Thirty-four areas in England have seen coronavirus infection rates rise in the past week, fuelling concerns that more places could be hit with Leicester-style localised lockdowns. Redcar, a seaside town in North Yorkshire, and leafy Wokingham in Berkshire suffered the biggest week-on-week spikes in Covid-19 cases up to June 28, Public Health England (PHE) figures show. Coronavirus infections in Redcar and Cleveland jumped from 0.7 to 5.1 per 100,000 people, while in Wokingham they rose from 0.6 to 3. Some experts say case rates in countryside getaways and idyllic seaside resorts might fluctuate over summer as more Britons choose to go on staycations because of the uncertainly of travelling abroad. East London boroughs of Havering (1.4 to 5.1) and Barking and Dagenham (1.9 to 5.4) were among the authorities that recorded the biggest percentage spikes. Elsewhere in the capital, cases per 100,000 rose from 1 to 3.1 in Richmond, and infections in the western boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham and Hillingdon went up from 5.9 to 12.4 and 2.6 to 5.9, respectively. Thirteen London boroughs in total saw cases creep up in the last week, as the virus appears to be making a small resurgence in the capital following the latest lockdown-loosening measures. The same data showed Leicester's rate of new Covid-19 cases has 'stabilised'  rising from 140.2 to 141.3 cases per 100,000 people. Other hotspots in Yorkshire, Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale, saw cases drop. Redcar, a seaside town in North Yorkshire, and leafy Wokingham in Berkshire suffered the biggest week-on-week spikes in Covid-19 cases up to June 28, Public Health England (PHE) figures show. Coronavirus infections in Redcar and Cleveland jumped from 0.7 to 5.1 per 100,000 people, while in Wokingham they rose from 0.6 to 3 Advertisement

Health Secretary Matt Hancock this week confirmed lockdown measures will be extended in Leicester for at least two weeks, after a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases.

Pubs in the city are not be allowed to be reopen this weekend to celebrate 'Super Saturday', nor are its residents allowed to visit friends and relatives  unlike everywhere else in the country.

Figures show Leicester  whose infection rate was twice as high as the next worst-hit authority  reported 944 coronavirus cases in the two weeks up to June 23.

Government officials, politicians and scientists are divided over whether Leicester is experiencing a real surge in cases or whether more cases have identified because testing has been improved.

And whether the data in each authority is made up of testing in hospitals (severe Covid-19 cases), or drive-thru centres and home test kits (mostly key workers, possibly with mild cases) is unclear.

But a tightening on lockdown like that seen in Leicester  with the closure of non-essential shops and schools again  can't be ruled out for other towns in England.

Recent government data shows the areas suffering higher numbers of new cases are typically in the Midlands or the North, and those faring the best are in the South.

'On this data, there is clearly a North/South divide here and the important thing to consider is why,' Joshua Moon, a research fellow in science policy at the University of Sussex, told MailOnline.

'There was a frequent phrase being used early in the epidemic that the virus was "a great leveller" because the virus infects you regardless of your socioeconomic status.

'These local lockdowns are going to show just how false that claim is by hitting the most important and hardest hit communities first be they North/South, black/white, rich/poor.'

Evidence has emerged during the coronavirus pandemic to show those who live in the poorest parts of England and Wales are dying more than those in affluent areas.

And black and Asian people are more likely to both catch the coronavirus and die from it than white people, which is only partly explained by genetic differences, public health officials say.

Other reasons for the disparity include housing conditions, public-facing occupations such as health care workers and structural racism, according to Public Health England.

And a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions can be partly blamed for a higher risk of catching Covid-19 in BAME people.

For example, black people are statistically more likely to be overweight than white people, while both Asian and black populations have been found to have a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease.

This can help in part explain why some parts of England have suffered far worse than others during the pandemic, which first began in China in December but quickly spread to strike every corner of the planet.

A number of factors impact infection rates in each area and are likely to drive outbreaks, including demographics in terms of ethnicity, household structures, and movement.

Looking at ethnicity specifically in the worst-hit areas, almost half of Leicester's population is of Asian heritage or from black backgrounds.

In the east of Leicester, where the outbreak is at its worst, up to two-thirds of residents are BAME compared with 13.8 per cent in the UK broadly. Forty per cent of London's population is of a BAME background.

In comparison, the 2011 Census shows that when compared nationally, there is a significantly lower proportion of people in West Berkshire who define themselves as coming from a BAME background - just five per cent.

West Berkshire, 50 miles (80km) from London, hasn't found any new Covid-19 cases recently, followed closely by Gloucestershire, Wokingham and Cornwall.

LEADERS OF COUNCILS THREATENED BY LEICESTER-STYLE LOCKDOWNS REJECT THE IDEA Council leaders in areas threatened by Leicester-style lockdowns have rejected the idea - while claiming figures released by the Government detailing the highest coronavirus infection rates are out-of-date. Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale were identified as three of the areas of England most at risk of being hit by a 'local lockdown' like the one imposed in Leicester to control Covid-19, according to Public Health England data. Statistics for the week ending June 21  the most recently available  show those areas had the highest Covid-19 infection rates in the country, each with more than 50 positive tests per 100,000 people. Only Leicester recorded more (140.2). But leaders in the worst-affected areas have asserted they can see no reason to subject their regions to similar restrictions, while complaining the data released by Public Health England on its website was out of date. Figures seen by the Daily Telegraph supported their claims that infection rates in these badly-hit locations had dropped in the seven days to June 27. According to this data, the number of positive cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 people fell from 53.8 to 34.7 in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Council leader Sir Stephen Houghton said authorities 'don't believe we need additional restrictions like Leicester', which was subject to extended lockdown measures on Monday. 'We need to monitor the situation, particularly with restrictions being eased this weekend, and for that we need more granular detail of the location of test results,' he said, adding PHE should make detailed information about the locations of outbreaks more readily available. Barnsley Council had moved to squash rumours of a local lockdown there as Public Health England (PHE) data emerged showing its high infection rate on Wednesday. Town leaders called for 'extra care and vigilance', Sky News reported, but denied measures like those seen in Leicester will be necessary. Advertisement

South Tyneside, the only Northern authority to report zero new cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 in the week to June 21, is also more than 95 per cent white.

It's cumulative coronavirus case toll  the second highest in England followed by Sunderland  can be explained by other factors, experts say, including an ageing population and the fact the North East is a largely industrial area.

One of the main causes of the 'North-South' divide in coronavirus cases in England is down to the disparity in job roles, experts believe.



Mr Moon said: 'Locations with the highest transmission are also locations that likely have higher numbers of individuals with jobs that can't be done remotely, or that have a high reliance on public transport rather than personal transportation, or that have higher proportions of key workers in logistics or transport.

'What is concerning is that local lockdowns mean that there are going to be economic consequences in areas that were already hardest hit by the financial crisis.'

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline: 'In deprived areas people are more likely to have to go to work, less likely to be able to work from home, and more likely to use public transport.

'They can't distance themselves from others. Factories and manufacturing work are opportunities to mix and mixing is what it's all about. You wouldn't put a food processing factory in London because it's too expensive.'

Food processing factories have shown to have a higher transmission risk because of the cold environments, with outbreaks recorded at plants in Anglesey, Wrexham and West Yorkshire.

Infectious disease experts also say the working conditions may increase the risk, because workers must talk louder over machinery or have coffee breaks together.

Experts say infections may have dropped at a faster rate in London because there are more white collar jobs there, therefore more employees were able to work from home and isolate from others.

Various boroughs of the capital are reporting very few cases, including the City of London which recorded zero coronavirus cases per 100,000 population.

There are clearly high rates of poverty in places like inner London, but these areas have relatively younger populations, and young people are less likely to have high rates of severe Covid19 infections on average.

Hospitals in the Midlands have been the worst affected outside of London, NHS England data shows, with 5,707 deaths by yesterday, compared to 6,090 in the capital

'LEICESTER LEPERS' ARE BANNED FROM HOLIDAY PARKS, CAMPSITES AND HOTELS Local child-protection worker, Tracy Jebbet (pictured with her family), revealed her upcoming holiday to Cornwall had just been cancelled Concerns of a 'leper' effect have emerged today after tourist destinations said they would turn away visitors from Leicester. Pentewan Sands holiday park near St Austell, Cornwall, said on Facebook it was no longer open to visitors from the East Midlands city. There have also been concerns in destinations near Leicester, with health officials in Skegness saying they are worried about the prospect of visitors 'travelling from an area with a higher rate of infection than ours'. While the rest of Britain will see pubs, hotels and campsites reopening this weekend, Leicester has been told to go the other way. Schools must close, along with non-essential shops and people are being told to stay at home. Many residents say they now find themselves branded as outcasts. 'We're like the Leicester lepers,' local child-protection worker, Tracy Jebbet, told Radio Leicester as she revealed her upcoming holiday to Cornwall had just been cancelled. The management of her St Austell campsite - Pentewan Sands - have announced a ban on all bookings from Leicester and have told her she cannot go. Advertisement

Data on movement in the UK, compiled by Google which reports trends across places such as parks, work, and residential areas, suggests more people in the hardest-hit coronavirus areas are going to work and less are staying at home compared with the least-hit areas.

Since lockdown, both London and Leicester have had a 57 per cent drop in transport use. But Leicester has seen only an 18 per cent drop in people going to work compared with London's 29 per cent.

Only nine per cent more people are staying at home - where they are at less risk of catching the coronavirus - in Leicester compared with London's 12 per cent and West Berkshire's 19 per cent.

Dr Andrew Preston, a reader in microbial pathogenesis at University of Bath, who noted a multitude of combined factors are fueling a divide in England, said it was interesting the areas hardest hit did not have the largest populations.

The millions of people in London, living, working and travelling closely together, was largely blamed for the capital's severe coronavirus outbreak in March and April.

But the same can't be said for Leicester, with no more than 330,000 inhabitants, according to the most recent 2011 ONS consensus, Bradford (350,000) or Barnsley (245,000).

Dr Preston told MailOnline: 'There could be a balance between having sufficient density of population but perhaps being small enough that there is one or just a few areas where people will congregate (e.g. a distinct town centre).

'In London, once the daily commute into the "city centre" stopped, it very likely broke up the population in to a large number of more isolated populations, in all the different boroughs.

'Smaller places may not have these localised centres, so when restrictions ease, there may be just one shopping area, where all of the population headed.'

Dr Preston added: 'There are clearly other sensitive factors, ethnicity is associated with risk of disease.

'I've seen reports describing how some ethnic groups tend to support multigenerational households, which might facilitate spread from youngsters who are likely asymptomatic to older people who are more likely to display symptoms.

'And, it does look like socio-economics plays a role, as it does in many diseases, so the wealth of the towns could well be a factor.'

Last week, Leicester's city councillor Ratilal Govind told MailOnline he thought there had been a lack of communication with people who do not speak English as a first language in the city.

He said: 'I have seen young people getting together, having a few drinks and conversation. They are just social gatherings. With these young people there is a language barrier. They are speaking their own language and I tell them to disperse in Gujarati. There is a lack of communication made worse by the language barriers'.

But Dr Preston said despite there being communities with high numbers of people who might not be fluent English speakers, 'there is clearly sufficient understanding of the need to book a test if showing symptoms, so it's hard to know if that holds water'.

Philip Thomas, a professor of risk management, University of Bristol, believes if the North is genuinely seeing more coronavirus cases now, it is likely to be because people there have less immunity than in London.

Data published by Public Health England suggest that London has had significantly more exposure to Covid-19 in the past - 17.5 per cent of healthy adults by the end of April compared with between nine and 11 per cent in the North West, Midlands and North East - based on antibodies in the blood. And other research suggests a level of protection from T-cell immunity.

'On the other hand, what data there are for the South West, South East and East of England suggest that these parts have had less exposure than the Midlands and the North,' Professor Thomas told MailOnline.

'It is possible that London has already achieved herd immunity, which would be marvellous news. Not the Midlands and the North yet.'

He added that Britain should prepare for an expected rise in cases, as seen in Leicester, and second peak as we move out of lockdown because 'the Government is pursuing a contradictory strategy'.

'It wants to take the restrictions off the economy, which is a very good idea. Lockdown is not sustainable and leads to national impoverishment.'
A woman has been filmed holding a black woman and her 15-year-old daughter at gunpoint in a horrifying confrontation leaving them fearing for their life.

A shocking video, taken by the victim, shows a white woman pointing a pistol at Takelia Hill and her 15-year-old daughter Makayla at a parking lot outside an Oakland County Chipotle restaurant in Orion Township, Michigan.

The woman was subsequently arrested.

According to Hill, her daughter was allegedly bumped into by the woman as they were entering the fast food restaurant at around 8pm.

Makayla asked for an apology from the woman, and an altercation erupted which saw Takelia and Makayla hurl insults at the woman, calling her 'ignorant' and accusing her of being racist.

A shocking video, taken by the victim, shows a white woman holding a pistol at a family with her hand placed on the trigger at a car park in Orion Township, Michigan

Speaking to The Detroit News, Makayla said: 'Before I could walk into Chipotle, this woman was coming out and I had moved out the way so she can walk out.

'She bumped me and I said, 'Excuse you.' And then she started cussing me out and saying things like I was invading her personal space.'

The teenager called her mother over. 'I walked up on the woman yelling at my daughter,' Hill said.

A shocking video, taken by the victim, shows a white woman pointing a pistol at Takelia Hill (pictured) and her daughter

'She couldn't see me because her back was to me, but she was in my daughter's face.'

The later part of the altercation, which had moved to the restaurant parking lot, was then caught on camera.

Hill and her daughter can be seen arguing with the woman, whose identity remains unknown, about how she had allegedly bumped into the daughter.

'She did something wrong, she needs to apologize,' Hill can be heard saying.

'You're blocking me from getting in my car,' the woman replies.

The driver of the car then proceeds to get out and open the door for the woman to get in as Hill and her daughter accuse her of being 'ignorant' and a 'dumb a** b****'.

The two women then implore the man to 'do something', to which he replies: 'Who the f*** do you guys think you are? You called her names, she did nothing to you.'

As the man goes to get back in the car, the daughter can be heard telling him: 'You're very racist and ignorant.'

As the altercation continues, the woman says from the passenger seat of the car: 'You can't just walk around calling white people racist. This is not that type of world. White people aren't racist, no one is racist.'

As Hill continues to ask the woman why she bumped her daughter, she responds: 'I care about you and I'm sorry if you've had an incident where someone has made you feel like that.'

The car window is then wound up and the pair go to drive away.

Hill is then seen behind the car and appears to punch the vehicle's back window. It is unclear from the video how Hill came to be behind the car.

According to Hill, she thought the driver of the car was attempting to hit them so she knocked on the back window of his SUV to stop him, The Detroit News reported.

The pair then emerge from the vehicle and the woman points a gun at her.

In the clip, she is heard saying: 'Get away!'

Hill then replies: 'She got the gun on me, she was about to hit me with the car. Call them, get the license plate. Get the license plate now! Cause you were about to hit me with the car?'

In the clip, the woman holding the firearm is heard saying: 'Get away!'. She then walked back to the car and the pair drove away from the scene (right). The woman was later arrested by police.

The woman then says: 'Don't you f***ing jump behind my car!', shouting repeatedly: 'Get the f*** back!' pointing the gun straight at the victim.

She then walks back to the car and the pair drive away from the scene.

The woman was later arrested by police.

Hill said her other two daughters were in the car at the time of the altercation, which has left the family traumatized.

The video was posted to Twitter with the words: 'This happened today in Auburn Hills, MI. Another Karen...'

The footage has since gained over 4.5 million views, sending shockwaves across the internet.

It is not known if the woman was charged with any offences.

Auburn Hills Police department confirmed the incident happened in Orion Township.

The incident comes as the concept of a 'Karen' has come to denote someone who represents white entitlement amid widespread Black Lives Matter protests.

In the past month several months the nickname has taken off, after multiple videos of white women throwing tantrums in public.

One of the first 'Karen' incidents was in Central Park when Amy Cooper (pictured) called the cops on black birdwatcher Christian Cooper, alleging that he was threatening her, when all he'd asked her was to do was put her dog on a leash

One of the original 'Karen' videos involved white woman Amy Cooper calling the police on Christian Cooper, a black birdwatcher in Central Park, claiming he was threatening her when he had simply asked her to put her dog on a leash.

Christian Cooper was never charged but he has since described the footage as proof of how quickly a white person can be to make a false or overzealous accusation against a black person to law enforcement.

In light of police brutality and systemic racism within law enforcement, such false accusations, he said, can be particularly dangerous.

In another example, a white New Jersey woman was dubbed 'Permit Karen' for calling the police on her black neighbors after she allegedly repeatedly harassed them about needing a permit to install a patio in their backyard.

Fareed Nassor Hayat, an attorney and law professor at the City University of New York, and his wife Norrinda filmed the moment their neighbor, Susan Schulz, stormed their front lawn and called the police on them.

The couple said Schulz walked onto their property three times in 30 minutes to ask if they had a permit to install a stone patio in their backyard, on the other side of the fence from her yard
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Britain's biggest ever crime bust has captured 746 crooked kingpins and foiled hundred of plots after raids by every UK police force, with 54 million of dirty cash, two tonnes of drugs and 77 firearms seized after an impenetrable phone network was smashed.

A sting spanning the globe saw scores of raids carried out across the country in a major move in the battle against drugs, guns and illegal activity. During the two-month operation officers seized the illegal cash along with firearms including hand grenade and machine guns.

But it was only made possible after the National Crime Agency and European forces managed to get inside a formerly secure phone system called EncroChat in an operation dubbed Operation Venetic. It is a messaging system, which is similar to WhatsApp, and is only pre-loaded onto special phones which have to be specially bought.

Criminals paid 1,500 for a six month contract to use them and could send a 'kill code text' which wiped everything on the customised Android handset. Experts in France and the Netherlands infiltrated the illegal communication network, which helped them understand what crimes gangs were planning, like in TV hit The Wire.

In the show one of the police officers built up cases against crooks by using a device called the Triggerfish, which collected data from their phones.

In the real world, investigators found 60,000 users worldwide and around 10,000 users in the UK alone on EncroChat  the sole use was for coordinating and planning the distribution of drugs, guns, dirty cash, money laundering and plots to kill rival criminals.

It was a treasure trove of evidence as top level criminals could be monitored speaking freely about their operations and plans, thinking their network could never be cracked.

The huge UK operation managed to pull in over 54million in criminal cash as from gun and drug dealers

They seized 77 firearms, including an AK47 rifle, sub machine guns, grenades, and 1,800 rounds of ammo

Major drug dealers who were targeted saw officers find more than two tonnes of deadly Class A and B drugs

Among the finds were an incredible 28 million Etizolam pills - known as street Valium from an illicit laboratory

Officers also seized expensive trappings of wealth including 55 high value cars, and 73 luxury watches

The company EncroChat is shrouded in mystery, but is based in the Netherlands, and says it has addresses there as well as in Turkey and Latin America.

Scotland Yard said that of the 177 people taken into custody during the operation, 99 people have been charged so far.

LIVERPOOL: A man was arrested in his underwear during a raid before being questioned by police

BIRMINGHAM: The haul from the nationwide sting found 54million in cash among drugs and guns

LONDON: A total of 13million was seized, including 5million recovered in just one sting, the Met's largest individual seizure

BIRMINGHAM: Officers lead away a suspect among the 132 arrested during the worldwide sting carried out by police forces

BIRMINGHAM: The National Crime Agency and police take part in raid on April 26 in relation to the Encrochat investigation

LONDON: The raids saw 14 firearms recovered, including Scorpion submachine guns and 500 rounds of ammunition

BIRMINGHAM: Officers who carried out the stings brought 1,800 rounds of ammunition into custody stores

LONDON: Footage from the dramatic raids saw armed police storm a variety of properties across the country

BIRMINGHAM: Raids saw gang members taken off streets with police saying they had 'mitigated over 200 threats to life'

WALES: The NCA said crooks had been targeted over a two-month period after the network was compromised

What is the 'EncroChat' smartphone system used by the mafia to move money, drugs and order murders EncroChat was a secret platform where users were able to communicate privately between specially-designed handsets - often to run drugs, traffick people and even order murders. These devices, costing 1,500, are usually Android-based smartphones that had their GPS sensors, microphones, and cameras stripped out, encrypted chat apps installed by default to allow people to sent private messages. It is now emerging that criminal syndicates across the world had one - with one in six of the 60,000 users in the UK. Marketed as the electronic equivalent of two people having a conversation in an empty room, it enabled users to send written messages or make voice calls through an encrypted system. There were thought to be 60,000 users internationally, including 10,000 in the UK, with prices at 1,500 for a six-month contract. Investigators say that the platform, which was not in itself illegal, was designed to be secure against unwanted outside access, and in the UK was used purely for criminal purposes. Since the breach, the Encrochat platform has shut down. According to the Encrochat website, customers had access to features such as self-destructing messages, that deleted from the recipient's device after a certain length of time. There was also panic wipe, where all the data on the device could be deleted by entering a four-digit code from the lock-screen. The National Crime Agency said the handset could also be wiped remotely. Encrochat made sure that there was no way to link the SIM or device to the user's account, and its handsets had no camera, USB data port, GPS or microphone to make them extra secure. Investigators became aware of the platform in around 2016, but it grew in popularity in the following two years after law enforcement hacked the encrypted Blackberry PGP system. Before Encrochat, hosted in France, shut down, National Crime Agency deputy director Matt Horne said: 'We assess there are up to 10,000 people in the UK using the Encrochat platform, and we assess that is completely for criminal purposes. 'The platform is provided by internationally based individuals, and it allows those people that wish to participate in having one of these devices to have a specially-designed handset, which is hardened against law enforcement forensic techniques. 'The device has a bespoke operating system, which is designed to frustrate law enforcement's ability to collect intelligence or evidence from these devices. They utilise an encrypted messaging system in order to communicate between criminals.' Advertisement

But as they chatted away, law enforcement officers were collecting clues in real-time to collect enough evidence to put them behind bars.

The Metropolitan Police alone detained 132 people  including some from the most serious organised crime network in the capital - with more than 13.3million in cash seized among machine guns and narcotics.

One of the operations seized 5million in one go  which is the force's largest ever single cash haul.

Many of the arrests were of seemingly-respectable people living luxury lifestyles, but hiding their secret criminal empires.

Incredible footage of one raid showed armed officers deploy nearly a hundred flash bombs in a 1.45am mission two weeks ago on a high-end property in the Home Counties.

Heartstopping bodycam footage shows them get into the building screaming 'armed police' as they gain access, with one man in his boxer shorts standing with his hands up.

He was arrested on suspicion on large-scale importation of drugs and has been released pending investigation. An imitation firearm was seized.

A source said: 'The flash grenades are used to disorientate when police arrive when they suspect the person could be armed.'

The vast Met operation  codenamed Eternal  was made possible through a team-up between the National Crime Agency and European partners.

Data from the encrypted EncroChat phone system was shared with them, identifying a number of serious criminal plots.

The international partnership revealed there were approximately 1,400 London-based users of the secret call network.

Their handsets had allowed them to plot crimes, but the teams managed to infiltrate it and dismantle the system.

Commissioner Cressida Dick said: 'This operation is the most significant activity, certainly in my career, we have ever carried out against serious and organised criminality across London.

'Organised crime groups have used encrypted communications to enable their offending.

'They have openly discussed plots to murder, launder money, deal drugs and sell firearms capable of causing atrocious scenes in our communities.

'They were brazen and thought they were beyond the reach of the law.

'Organised crime does not respect geographical boundaries.

'Those responsible for it adapt quickly and take advantage of every opportunity.

'This operation has enabled us to target those at the top of the hierarchy and individuals we have known about for years but have not been able to tackle head on.

'This offending has a direct impact on our communities  those involved appear to have an air of respectability, but their actions leave a trail of misery and are inextricably linked to the violent scenes we see play out on our streets. Our investigators, intelligence analysts, firearms officers, Territorial Support Group and our local officers have worked day and night over the past two months to progress our investigations as part of this operation.

'Through this work with our international partners, we have significantly developed our understanding of organised criminality in London and the ways in which some of our most prolific and dangerous offenders operate.

'This is just the beginning, there are many more people we are investigating. We know who they are and we have seen what they are doing and who they are doing it with. We will not rest until they have seen justice.'

Elsewhere officers from the NCA, supported by Merseyside Police, arrived at a home in Melling at about 7.30am yesterday morning.

The action was one of five separate swoops on Merseyside, including in Halewood and Anfield.

All the five warrants in the county were linked, and are connected to alleged high-level drug dealing and firearms offences, with guns used to 'enforce' in criminals' Class A turfs or patches.

The man arrested in Melling is suspected of working with others on a 'national and international scale,' police added, and 'how it comes back into Merseyside, and those people then control others and how that then leads to misery and corrosive effect on the community.'

BIRMINGHAM: Drugs that were discovered when the National Crime Agency and police took part in a raid on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: A carbine conversion kit that discovered when the NCA and police took part in a property raid on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: Blocks of cocaine discovered when the NCA and police took part in a raid on a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: A National Crime Agency leaves a property following a raid on June 26 in relation to the encrypted system

BIRMINGHAM: a gun that was discovered when the NCA and police took part in the raid relating to Encrochat on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: A raid on a property on June 26 related to Encrochat, a military-grade encrypted communication system

BIRMINGHAM: Officers from the National Crime Agency and police take part in raid on a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: Officers from the National Crime Agency in the doorway of a property during a raid on June 26

LONDON: Bundles of cash in a plastic bag, in one of the evidence pictures released by the Metropolitan Police

LONDON: Piles of cash are laid out on a bed in one of the evidence photographs released by Scotland Yard

LONDON: One of the guns which was recovered during a raid of a property in the capital

LONDON: Boxes of cash are pictured following one of the raids by the Metropolitan Police

Another of the organised crime groups was thought to have roots in Nottinghamshire, with links into Liverpool. A number of warrants in the county has led to the seizure of 7.5kg in cocaine and heroin, and 620,000 in cash.

How police smashed criminal gangs in the UK, Europe and the UAE by hacking their phones Police today dismantled huge chunks of a criminal drugs, guns and people trafficking network spanning the globe after four years of trying. After two months of planning officers in major cities across the UK simultaneously struck kingpins all over the country. In April, at the height of lockdown in Europe, police in France and the Netherlands finally infiltrated the EncroChat platform. The phone system, similar to a walkie talkie system allowed users to send encrypted communications and offered a secure mobile phone instant messaging service believing that they were safe from detection. There were 60,000 users worldwide and around 10,000 users in the UK  the sole use was for coordinating and planning the distribution of illicit commodities, money laundering and plotting to kill rival criminals. But detectives infiltrated the system - and the crime syndicate collapsed like a house of cards in June. This is what we know about they operation, known Venetic, with 746 arrests, and 54m criminal cash, 77 firearms and over two tonnes of drugs seized so far in Britain. This is what we know so far: March 2020: After four years of work, police in France and the Netherlands finally infiltrate the EncroChat system . The data harvested about who was used was shared via Europol, to countries all over the world all over the UK. April and May: Officers continue to take down information from 60,000 users including 10,000 in the UK. There are also a series of raids June 13: The owners of the EncroChat system realised the platform had been penetrated and sent a message to its users urging them to throw away their handsets. June 14: Users are sent a 'kill code' that disables their phones and wipes its memory. June 15: Police forces in 30 areas across the UK carry out raids using counter-terrorism armed officers to arrest the bosses of the gangs selling drugs and arms in the UK. Advertisement

Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Kirby, who heads up East Midlands Special Operations Unit said they were tracked using Encrochat.

He said: 'It was an encrypted app used entirely by criminals.

'It was used for criminality across what we call 'threat areas' - money, drugs, firearms, and the ability to endanger lives through criminal feuds.

'It is a drugs supply gang dealing in kilos and large amounts of money. It told us about criminal networks in our area and what they are up to.

'They really thought they were safe but it was a gold mine for law enforcement.

'We had the keys to that code and we were aware of everything that was going on.

'It was like the Enigma code.'

There was also action in Northern Ireland where hundreds of thousands of pounds were seized among a 'significant' number of arrests.

Police who carried out 25 searched came away with more than 365,000 in cash, as well as drugs, high-value vehicles, laptops, jewellery and designer handbags.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it stopped more than 15 threats to life as part of the operation.

Five people have so far been charged, four of whom have been remanded in custody and one is on High Court bail.

Detective Chief Superintendent Andrew Freeburn said the operation targeted organised crime groups using encrypted technology in a bid to evade law enforcement.

He declared: 'The organised crime groups thought that by using encrypted technology they could fly below the radar of law enforcement, however this operation should send a clear message that the combined strength of PSNI working in partnership with our law enforcement partners that no-one is beyond the reach of the law.'

Their seizures coincided with five raids by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau across Dublin and Meath.

During the operation, officers recovered 7,000 in cash, a car and encrypted electronic communication devices.

Elsewhere more than 90 kilos of Class A drugs, seven firearms and 88,000 in cash has been seized in Bedfordshire as part of the UK's largest ever operation to combat serious and organised crime.

Twenty-one people have been arrested in the county and 11 people charged so far as part of a major coordinated period of action by law enforcement agencies across Europe.

The business of secrets: The firm behind EncroChat EncroChat is based in the Netherlands, but says it had offices in Latin America and Turkey. While all of its websites have now disappeared, cached versions of the pages give a glimpse into the world its users lived. Promises of end-to-end security solution to guarantee anonymity were frequently pledged with utter discretion. It also insisted its servers were not in the US or any NATO countries and were offshore. The firm positioned itself as a legitimate company with users in over 140 countries, at odds with the criminal revelations of the past 24 hours. It appeared to realise the game was up three weeks ago and messaged all users on June 13 to tell them to throw away their devices. Advertisement

Throughout June Bedfordshire Police worked alongside colleagues from the ERSOU to run two intensive days of action against suspected organised crime gangs.

This was followed up today with another wave of enforcement action, with more than 70 police officers and staff involved in warrants across Luton.

Abroad the Dutch National Police Force carried out raids and arrested more than 100 suspects.

Officers seized over 8,000 kilograms (17,600 pounds) of cocaine and 1,200 kilograms (2,600 pounds) of crystal meth.

It also shut down 19 synthetic drugs labs and confiscated of dozens of firearms, believed to be intended to be used in murders.

Jannine van den Berg, chief of the force, said getting inside Enchrochat had turned the tide on the war on crime.

She said: 'It was as though we were sitting at the table where criminals were chatting among themselves.

Andy Kraag, head of the Dutch national police's central investigation division, added: 'Now, what seems to be possible only in thrillers and police series we've actually seen happen before our own eyes.

'We've actually been able to see what happens in real time with the criminals.'

One gang the sting targeted was smuggling guns and drugs through a network spanning Europe and the United Arab Emirates.

In France the operation is called 'Emma 95' and has a 60-strong operation, but has not announced its arrests. The whole investigation is supervised by magistrates in Lille.

The data harvested from Encrochat was used by specialist detectives to build a case against criminals identified in the chats through analysis of hundreds of handsets and thousands of messages.

Crooks who had been previously completely unknown to the police were among those discovered at the centre of the web of illegality.

Arrests in 34 separate operations so far in London saw arrests for conspiracy to murder, possession of firearms, money laundering and conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs.

It has seen 99 people charged and 14 firearms recovered, including Scorpion submachine guns and revolvers and 500 rounds of ammunition.

A total of 36 encrypted devices, 620kgs of Class A drugs and 12kgs of Class B drugs were also nabbed by officers.

One compromised network linked international organised crime and serious violence across London through a gang spanning the UK, Europe and UAE importing and distributing cocaine and firearms.

LONDON: Some of the cash recovered from a raid in the capital by officers from the Metropolitan Police and NCA

BIRMINGHAM: A camera operator films as the National Crime Agency and police take part in raid on a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: The National Crime Agency and police take part in raid on a property during the Encrochat probe on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: Heroin that was discovered when the NCA and police took part in raiding on a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: A member of the raid team holds a battering ram as police take part in the raid on a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: The National Crime Agency and police take part in raid on a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: A member of the National Crime Agency leaves a house following a raid on June 26 in relation to Encrochat

BIRMINGHAM: The National Crime Agency and police take part in raid on a property in relation to a probe into Encrochat

BIRMINGHAM: Officers from the National Crime Agency, regional crime squads and police forces carry out a raid on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: A National Crime Agency officer comes out of a door as police take part in raid on a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: The National Crime Agency and police take part in raid on June 26 relating to the Encrochat probe

LONDON: A gun and ammunition on top of an evidence bag which was recovered during a raid by the Metropolitan Police

LONDON: Stacks of cash found by Metropolitan Police detectives during the international Operation Venetic

LONDON: Bundles of cash discovered during a police raid of a property in the capital by the Metropolitan Police

This unit planned to shoot and kill a member of a rival group, but they were able to be stopped before they acted with a loaded pistol believed to be the intended murder weapon found.

Where the Operation Venetic raids took place Hullbridge, Essex

Basildon, Essex

South Woodham Ferrers, Essex

Liverpool

Birmingham

London

Oldham, Greater Manchester

Cleveland

Glasgow

Edinburgh

Aviemore

Blantyre

Larkhall

Whitburn

Johnstone

East Kilbride

Clydebank

Coatbridge

Renfrewshire

North Lanarkshire

Newry, Northern Ireland

Cardiff

Newport, South Wales Advertisement

A Met spokesperson added: 'This is the most significant operation the Metropolitan Police Service has ever launched against serious and organised crime

'Those arrested under one investigation were identified as being part of the most high-harm OCN in London with long-standing links to violent crime and the importation of Class A drugs.

'The central figures of this group led lavish lifestyles, live in multi-million pound properties with access to top of the range vehicles.

'They appear to be successful, respectable business people but they are dangerous individuals. Our enforcement activity against them reflects this  we used our most highly trained firearms officers and sophisticated tactics to arrest them at their addresses.'

NCA Director of Investigations Nikki Holland, said:

'The infiltration of this command and control communication platform for the UK's criminal marketplace is like having an inside person in every top organised crime group in the country.

'This is the broadest and deepest ever UK operation into serious organised crime.

'The NCA is proud to have led the UK part of this operation, working in partnership with policing and other agencies. The results have been outstanding but this is just the start.

'A dedicated team of over 500 NCA officers has been working on Operation Venetic night and day, and thousands more across policing. And it's all been made possible because of superb work with our international partners.

LONDON: A cash seizure from a property in Vauxhall in South London during the EncroChat investigation on June 22

LIVERPOOL: Merseyside Police was involved in the raids as officers made a breakthrough in the fight against organised crime

MERSEYSIDE: Cash seized in the Anfield area of Liverpool on June 22 during the huge investigation

LONDON: Cash seized by police and NCA officers during a raid at a property in Vauxhall, South London, on June 22

BIRMIMGHAM: Designer shoes that were discovered when the NCA and police took part in a property raid on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: Cash that was discovered when the NCA and police took part in raiding a property on June 26

BIRMINGHAM: 25,000 in cash that was discovered when the NCA and police took part in a raid on a home on June 26

LONDON: Bundles of cash seized from a property in Vauxhall, South London, during the investigation

LONDON: Officers arrested some of London's longest-standing and most dangerous criminals and seized 13million in cash

BIRMINGHAM: A gun found by the Regional Organised Crime Unit for the West Midlands Region (ROCU) during the probe

LONDON: A gun found during a raid on a property in the capital which is part of the Operation Venetic investigation

LONDON: Huge amounts of cash were found during one of the raids in the capital by the Metropolitan Police

LONDON: A gun and ammunition are pictured in an evidence photograph released by Scotland Yard today

'This year the police are winning': How criminals sent frantic messages as the net closed in on them Frantic messages exchanged between criminals using EncroChat revealed how they knew their time might be up as the net closed on the encrypted communications system. Here is what the messages said: 'This year the police are winning'

'NCA as u know well are sophisticated and relentless'

'If NCA then we have a big problem'

'The police are having a field day' The phones - which have pre-loaded apps for instant messaging, the ability to make VOIP calls and a kill code which wipes them remotely - have no other conventional smartphone functionality and cost about 1,500 for a six-month contract. Advertisement

'Together we've protected the public by arresting middle-tier criminals and the kingpins, the so-called iconic untouchables who have evaded law enforcement for years, and now we have the evidence to prosecute them.

'The NCA plays a key role in international efforts to combat encrypted comms. I'd say to any criminal who uses an encrypted phone, you should be very, very worried.'

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the action showed how determined law enforcement was in tackling the threat of crime.

She said: 'This operation demonstrates that criminals will not get away with using encrypted devices to plot vile crimes under the radar.

'The NCA's relentless targeting of these gangs has helped to keep us all safe. I congratulate them and law enforcement partners on this significant achievement.

'I will continue working closely with the NCA and others to tackle the use of such devices  giving them the resources, powers and tools they need to keep our country safe.'
Britons are taking a more lax attitude to social distancing as the number of coronavirus cases falls and the Government allows the lockdown to loosen, new figures reveal today.

More than a quarter the public (26 per cent) agreed they were now paying less attention to social distancing rules and other guidelines than they were at the beginning of the crisis.

Young people and those on higher incomes were seemingly more likely to now take a lax attitude to adhering to the measures.

Four in ten (42 per cent) of people aged 18 to 24 said they were now paying less attention to social distancing.

One in three (35 per cent) of people aged 25 to 34, and a similar proportion of Londoners, were taking a more relaxed approach to the rules.

However, people over the age of 45 were much more cautious, with just 16 per cent of pensioners saying they are now paying less attention to the rules.

High earners are more likely than low earners to agree they are paying less attention to lockdown than they were previously - 34 per cent to 22 per cent.

The figures in a poll conducted by Populus for communications consultancy the Zinc Network, appear to quantify shocking scenes from across Britain last week, with police having to break up large illegal raves and other outdoor gatherings.

Louis Brooke, executive director at Zinc Network said: 'These findings show a nation divided on age, income and regional lines on attitudes to the lockdown.

A massive block party in Maida Vale took place last week as riot police battled hundreds of revellers with shields and truncheons while dodging missiles thrown at them

Other footage taken that night shows revellers dancing on top of a van during the rave in London

'Young people, those on higher incomes and those living in London say they are already paying significantly less attention to social distancing guidelines.

'The polling underlines the complexity of the challenge the Government faces as it continues to ease the lockdown at this critical stage in the pandemic.'

On the pace of lockdown easing, almost two thirds of high income respondents (57 per cent) said they believed it was 'about right' compared to 47 per cent of low income respondents.

The numbers also suggest there is a significant divide between the four Home Nations in terms of how comfortable people are about lifting lockdown with residents in England significantly more nervous than their counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Some 42 per cent of English people said that lockdown was being eased too quickly, compared to 22 per cent in Northern Ireland, 14 per cent in Wales and six per cent in Scotland.

The latest Business Impact of Coronavirus Survey Survey (BICS) conducted between June 15-28 also showed the differing pace of retail revival

Just 25 per cent of people rated the UK Government's performance during the coronavirus crisis favourably.

Meanwhile fresh data released by the Office for National Statistics showed a nation slowly coming out of hibertation as the lockdown eased.

The proportion of people working from home fell from 33 per cent to 29 per cent at the end of June as the number of people travelling to work increased from 44 per cent to 49 per cent.

The latest Business Impact of Coronavirus Survey Survey (BICS) conducted between June 15-28 also showed the differing pace of retail revival.

Footfall in retail parks had increased to around 70 per cent of its level the same time last year on June 28. But footfall in shopping centres was just under 50 per cent and that in high streets was below 40 per cent of its level in the same period last year.

The report noted: 'On 15 June, many types of non-essential shops and businesses were allowed to reopen in England. This is reflected with a large upward movement in all three indices, with shopping centres seeing the greatest increase, footfall more than doubling from 14 June to 15 June.

'Note that while footfall in high streets and shopping centres has followed a very similar pattern, the trend of retail parks is somewhat different.

'Following the Prime Ministers announcement on 16 March, retail parks saw their footfall drop roughly one week later than high streets and shopping centres.

'Their initial drop in footfall was somewhat less severe, and the recovery in footfall through April and May was greater, compared with the other two categories, reflecting that many essential stores are often at retail parks.'
A truck driver from California penned a tragic last Facebook post tinged with regret just a day before dying from coronavirus.

Tommy Macias, 51, who lived in Los Angeles, said he caught the killer virus at a party in early June as coronavirus restrictions in the state were eased.

In the post he admitted he 'f***ed up' by not wearing a mask and failing to keep a distance from people, saying he felt guilty for putting his family at risk.

Tommy Macias, 51, a truck driver from California (left), caught coronavirus at a party early last month before being rushed to hospital on June 21 (right), where he died just a few hours later

A day before he was taken to hospital he uploaded this message to Facebook, admitting hye 'f***ed up', begging people to wear masks in public, and praying for his own survival

Macias, who was overweight and had diabetes, ended the post by writing: 'Hopefully with God's help I'll be able to survive this.' He died a day later.

Gustavo Lopez, his brother-in-law, told NBC that from March until early June, Macias was following guidelines and only going out when necessary.

However, in early June Macias traveled 70 miles to Lake Elsinore to attend a party with a large group of others.

Included in the crowd was a friend, who Lopez did not name, who had tested positive for coronavirus and knew about the diagnosis.

But because he did not have symptoms, the person thought he could not infect other people.

Lopez said he next saw Macias on June 11, shortly after the party, when he 'didn't look right' and appeared to be very sweaty.

It was around that time that the infected friend informed people at the party of his diagnosis, prompting others to get tested.

California is currently in the midst of a major spike in coronavirus cases that has prompted Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) to lock parts of the state back down

There were more than 6,000 coronavirus cases reported in California on June 29, while hospital and ICU admissions have jumped by almost 50 per cent

Macias took a test on June 16, which came back positive on June 18.

More than a dozen people who also attended the party have since come back positive for the virus.

Macias penned his last Facebook post on June 20, writing: 'Some of you know, but most don't. I f***ed up and went out a couple of weeks ago and I contracted the coronavirus.

'Monday I tested for it and it was confirmed on Thursday. Because of my stupidity I put my mom and sisters and my family in jeopardy. This has been a very painful experience.

'This is no joke. If you have to go our wear a mask and practice social distancing. Don't be a f***ing idiot like me.

'Thank you to all my friends who have brought me food, and to everyone who has been there for me.

'Hopefully with God's help I'll be able to survive this. I love you all.'

Macias was rushed to hospital the following day around 11am after struggling to breathe. A final photo in the hospital shows him being given oxygen with a mask.

Some time between 6pm and 7pm doctors took the decision to put him on an invasive ventilator. Two hours later he was dead.

Lopez said: 'I think what he wanted people to know, this is a real thing. It's serious, and it kills people.'

Macias, who was affectionately known as 'Big Sexy', did not marry and did not have children. His friends and family remembered him as a big-hearted man who was always willing to help others.

He is survived by his mother, two sisters, four nieces and two great-nieces.

Under the new measure, restaurants are permitted to continue with outdoor dining service but must shut down indoor operations

The US is now logging more than 50,000 coronavirus cases per day in a second wave of infections that is already larger than the first

California is currently one of the worst-hit states with coronavirus in the US, which has seen its daily case toll balloon to more than 50,000.

More than 6,000 people tested positive for the virus in California alone Wednesday, while admissions to hospital and ICU also climbed by around 50 per cent.

That has seen governor Gavin Newsom vow to roll back reopening plans with restaurants, bars, wineries, movie theaters, and other indoor venues closed across most of the state for at least three weeks, shortly after reopening.

Some beaches are also being closed ahead of the July 4 this weekend, and while there is no state-mandated closure Newsom said parking and road access will be restricted to ensure there is no overcrowding.

He is also recommending that large firework displays are cancelled, and warned people not to meet with those outside of their household.

The US now has more than 2.6million coronavirus cases and 128,000 deaths, the most of any country in the world.
Alleged victims named glamorous Katie Blaymire - who denies any wrongdoing - as the ex-pat allegedly responsible for running a scam involving currency exchange

A former British fitness teacher is at the centre of a suspected fraud in Dubai after dozens of people claim they have been conned out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Alleged victims named glamorous Katie Blaymire - who denies any wrongdoing - as the ex-pat allegedly responsible for running a scam involving currency exchange.

Over the last two months the 34-year-old has allegedly taken money to exchange from UAE based airline workers, many of them British, faced with losing their jobs due to the coronavirus crisis.

Some say they have lost their life savings by taking up Blaymire's offer to exchange their local money into other currency and send it to their overseas bank accounts.

Blaymire, a regular on the Dubai social scene, admitted to MailOnline that 'people are owed a lot of money' but claimed she was working for other people.

She said: 'Someone approached me to work for them. I did take money and I have tried my best and have tried to sort it out. I know people are owed a lot of money.'

Blaymire also admitted she was jailed last year over a bounced cheque - but claimed it was a mix up by the bank that led to 15 days in a police cell.

The alleged money exchange victims include a pilot who wanted to send money to his family to pay for a funeral and another who had planned to use money for a deposit on a house.

Blaymire is believed to have been handed more than 300,000 to exchange over the past months.

One alleged victim told MailOnline: 'I gave her money with the promise that it would be transferred to my family overseas, but it looks like she has kept it.

'When I confronted her she just comes up with a litany of excuses and says the money will be paid. That was months ago. I know I will never see the money again.'

Over the last two months the 34-year-old has allegedly taken money to exchange from UAE based airline workers, many of them British, faced with losing their jobs due to coronavirus

Blaymire, a regular on the Dubai social scene, admitted to MailOnline that 'people are owed a lot of money' but claimed she was working for other people

At least 20 people so far are believed to have filed complaints with police and the Serious Fraud Office in London is understood to have been alerted.

It is understood that Blaymire is currently banned from leaving Dubai after being jailed last December over a 'bounced' cheque.

Her former business partner says she was arrested at the airport when she tried to leave on Christmas Eve for a holiday in France.

Alleged victims told MailOnline she joined a Facebook page for out of work cabin crew based in Dubai.

Many had posted messages looking to exchange local UAE currency for Euros or dollars in the hope of avoiding charges made by banks and currency exchange dealers.

Blaymire met several in person and offered to 'swap' their local currency for money held in her overseas accounts, including one in Benfleet, Essex, by using established electronic transfer sites in the UK.

Blaymire is alleged to have used the fake names of Imogen Smith and Dawn Smith.

One victim, a 36-year-old Australian cabin crew member, wanted to send money home to her parents.

It is understood that Blaymire is currently banned from leaving Dubai after being jailed last December over a 'bounced' cheque

She met Blaymire outside at her apartment in Dubai marina and says she handed over 6,000.

Sally (name changed) said she later received copies of the transfer that she suspects to be fake.

She says demands for her money were met with repeated excuses and over three months after giving Blaymire the cash she has not had anything back.

MailOnline has seen dozens of text and WhatsApp messages where Blaymire provides explanations for not transferring the money.

Many of the emails sent to the alleged victims showing money transfers are undated.

Sally said: 'There is much uncertainty in the airline industry and lots of cabin crew have been wanting to change local currency into the currency of their home country.

'She offered a quick and cheaper way to do this, but it seems to be all a scam.

'She met me person to person which gave the air of respectability. She was very convincing and I believed her that the money would be sent to Australia. She told me she had an Australian account and the money would come out of that.

'She even told me her boyfriend worked in the finance which all gave it an air of being respectable.'

It is understood that police in Dubai have initially told the victims they cannot take any criminal action as the transactions were from one person to another and there was no legal contract.

They have been advised to sue Blaymire in the civil courts but for many the cost of lawyers and translators far outweighs how much they have lost.

It is understood that police in Dubai have received dozens of complaints about her.

Another alleged victim was a Belgian cabin crew member who wanted to send 25,000 Euros to his overseas account.

He said: 'She came to my apartment; she was very convincing and charming. A few days after giving her the money she sent a copy of the transaction.

'I have tried to get my money back and she has only returned 15,000 Euros. I am still owed 10,000 Euros and I don't think I will ever see my money again.

Blaymire denied to MailOnline that she was operating a scam. She said she had carried out many currency exchanges and had repaid all money that was owed

'She told me that she had Euros sitting in an account from a property deal but I doubt that it even exists. She seemed so nice. Lots of people were swapping currency after making contact on a Facebook page.'

Alleged victims, who set up a support group to compile Blaymire's activities, say they have been contacted by more than 100 people.

Among them is British restaurant owner Valy Ossman who says he is owed 36,000 by Blaymire.

He wanted money transferred from the UK to his account in Dubai as he planned to open a second restaurant in the tourist hot spot.

He said: 'I needed to convert about 42,000 into dirhams in a cost-effective way to open the restaurant.

'Even a small fluctuation in rates and fees on this amount could mean a difference of several thousand dirhams.

I was looking to get the best deal from exchange houses when 'Imogen' messaged me and offered to do a swap at market spot rate.

She explained that she was looking to raise funds to be able to return to her husband in the United Kingdom. It seemed like a plausible reason.'

When Ossman's money failed to arrive he suspected he had been scammed and went to the police to file a complaint.

His wife found a notebook left behind by Blaymire where she had written down the names of people she had spoken to.

Few of the alleged victims expect to get their money back but hold out hope the authorities will take action.

It is understood that Blaymire, who is originally from Burnley, Lancashire, is not allowed to leave the UAE as she has outstanding debts owed to swimming instructor Alex Campbell.

It is understood that Blaymire, who is originally from Burnley, Lancashire, is not allowed to leave the UAE as she has outstanding debts owed to swimming instructor Alex Campbell

He says he took her to court after he invested about 15,000 in her fitness company called FloatUAE in return for a job.

In 2016 Blaymire had started the company offering fitness workouts at five star hotels using floating mats on pools and appeared in a promotional video publicising the new fitness trend.

When 51-year-old Campbell tried to cash a security cheque for his investment he says it bounced. He filed a complaint with police which meant her name was flagged up with immigration control when she tried to leave Dubai.

It is understood Blaymire was arrested and jailed on Christmas Eve 2019.

Alex told MailOnline: 'She called me on Christmas Day pleading with me to help her get out by dropping the case. She was being held in a police jail and did not want to get transferred to a main prison.

'She agreed to a payment plan in front of a judge and was released on January 8th.

'Despite telling the judge she would agree to a payment plan I have not received anything.'

'I spoke to her in March and she said she can't pay the money due to the Covid-19. She has never apologised but just says she wants to put this behind her.

'I don't have any sympathy for her. She will not be able to leave until the money has been paid as there will still be an arrest warrant out for her.'

A businessman claimed he is owed thousands after he invested in Blaymire's scheme to develop an app for people to order take away food.

The Dubai resident, who asked not to be named, said gave Blaymire 28,000 as an investor.

'She spent about 2,000 on the software developers and that was it. The app was never developed and I've never seen my money.'

Several alleged victims who have tried to get their money back say they have been threatened by friends of Blaymire.

In the six years she has lived in Dubai she was a fixture on the nightclub scene with her photo often appearing in magazines while photos posted on social media show the blonde enjoying life in the sun and at parties.

Blaymire denied to MailOnline that she was operating a scam.

She said she had carried out many currency exchanges and had repaid all money that was owed.

She said: 'Many people happily used this service with no complaints, many have used more than once and been satisfied. People received their money on time with no issues.'

She claimed Mr Campbell had been paid money that he is owed. Mr Campbell supplied court documents to MailOnline which he said prove the debt owed.

Blaymire said she was not responsible for the receipts of money transfers sent to her alleged victims but would not explain where they came from.

She also denied being banned from leaving Dubai but confirmed she was aware police in Dubai were investigating her.
The murder probe into the death of Good Morning Britain's weatherman Alex Beresford's cousin was dropped because his attacker 'was defending his home'.

The investigation into the fatal stabbing of Nathaniel Armstrong, 29, in Fulham, west London, on March 16, 2019, was discontinued after the CPS found 'there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction'.

Mr Armstrong died just 11 days after his popular weatherman cousin intervened in a GMB debate on knife crime with John Apter, chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales.

He won widespread praise for his comments on how to tackle youth violence in the black community.

But, shortly afterwards, his cousin was stabbed in the chest and died of a ruptured heart.

The Gregg's worker died in the same street, Gowan Avenue in Fulham, that Jill Dando was murdered in.

Nathaniel Armstrong was fatally stabbed in Fulham, London, on March 16, 2019, just 11 days after his popular weatherman cousin intervened in a GMB debate on knife crime

Lovell Bailey, 29, from Birmingham, was arrested at Gatwick Airport, charged with murder and appeared in court, but the case was dropped last June.

It has now emerged that the decision was taken after the Crown Prosecution Service reviewed their own decision and sought extra advice from a Queen's Counsel.

They decided that there was little prospect of a conviction if Mr Bailey used the 'Householder's Defence'.

In 2013 the High Court ruled that householders can use a disproportionate level of violence if they reasonably believe it is necessary.

Mr Armstrong's parents listened to the hearing via video link at West London Coroner's Court.

The inquest heard evidence from police reports and advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) regarding the murder investigation into Mr Armstrong's death.

Senior coroner Chinyere Inyama said: 'Mr Bailey was arrested and counsel's view was that there was danger if the CPS proceeded in a charge of murder.

'There was real concern that there was a likelihood of unsuccessful prosecution based on the Homeowners Defence.

'They had a review from an operative from the CPS homicide unit.

'They had some concern because there is a likelihood that Mr Bailey would be able to avail himself under what is called the Homeowners Defence.

Alex Beresford won widespread praise for his comments on how to tackle youth violence in the black community

Pictured: Officers at the scene in Fulham, West London, where Mr Armstrong, the cousin of TV weatherman Alex Beresford, was stabbed to death

'They then had further advice from Queen's Counsel.

'Having had that, they decided the prospect of conviction was not enough so they discontinued the prosecution.'

Speaking outside the inquest Mr Inyama told of CCTV evidence which showed two men approaching a house before Mr Armstrong was stabbed, suggesting a possible argument for self defence.

A family tribute read aloud at his inquest read: 'His beautiful essence transcended to people across all walks of life.

'There was an outpouring of love and affection after his passing.

'Nathaniel left footprints on everybody's hearts. He will be sadly missed.'

Mr Inyama expressed his condolences to the family and read evidence to the court.

Good Morning Britain weatherman Alex Beresford (left) and his cousin Nathaniel Armstrong(right)

He said: 'He was fatally stabbed at 00.17am on March 16, 2019.

'Police found Mr Armstrong lying in the road with stab wounds to the chest.

'Paramedics arrived shortly after and tried to save him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

'He was pronounced life extinct on March 16, 2019. He died outside 1 Gowan Avenue.'

Referring to the medical cause of death, he added: 'This was due to hemoperricardium or bleeding around the heart due to stab wounds to the chest.'

A pathologist report confirmed Mr Armstrong, born in Basingstoke, died from stab wounds.

Toxicology reports suggested Mr Armstrong was under the influence of cannabis when he died but the inquest heard this did not account for his death.

Mr Inyama said: 'THC was detected in rations that would indicate recent cannabis use.

'He was therefore likely to be experiencing the effects of the drug at the time of the incident.

'Cannabis in the system did not account for his death.'

The senior coroner gave a narrative cause of death and said the family 'are not going to get the answers you wanted.'

He said: 'Nathaniel Armstrong was fatally stabbed by an identified assailant.

'But there is insufficient evidence to be sure of the justification or otherwise of the action taken by the assailant

'Condolences to all of you. It has hardly given you more answers.

'It is one of those cases where you are not going to get the answers you wanted from the criminal prosecution or the coroners' process.'

Mr Beresford said at the time: 'No-one would have expected it, especially after I spoke out. You couldn't make it up.

'It's come as a big surprise that it's happened to Nathaniel.He is 29, not in a gang, he went to a good school, university.

'Nathaniel was a bright young man with his whole life ahead of him and this tragedy is yet one more example of a needless life lost to knife crime.'

In a chat with host Piers Morgan, John Apter, chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, had called for more prisons to be built as a deterrent.

Mr Beresford then shouted across the GMB studio: 'Prison doesn't work though. It does not work.

'I've grown up in some of these communities you guys are talking about. Prison is not a deterrent. Some of these boys don't fear prison.

'If you don't change the environment you won't change anything and that's the key thing.

'This has been happening for years. And it's not always in the media. It won't change. It's going to take several things to come together. Yes policing is one thing.'

When Piers Morgan argued in favour of stop-and-search, Alex said: 'Often you don't catch them, Piers. Avon and Somerset Police I know for a fact do knife sweeps.

'Often you get the innocent young black boy who gets stopped by police and gets frustrated.

'We've all seen them on social media where they get arrested because they can't control their anger.

'That's how that relationship with the police breaks down.'
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The US could be heading for a surge in coronavirus deaths as startling data shows the number of confirmed daily cases and Americans being hospitalised by the infection is continuing to rise.

More than 2.6million people in the US have already been struck down with the disease  a quarter of the world's total. And at least 128,000 citizens have died since the crisis spiralled out of control.

Soaring numbers of people started testing positive for the coronavirus in June after the outbreak appeared to be shrinking. Yesterday a record-high of 52,000 new cases were confirmed across the country, a figure described as 'disturbing' by the White House's top virus adviser Dr Anthony Fauci.

And the average numbers of people being diagnosed rose consistently throughout June  from 151,143 in the first seven days of the month to 288,258 last week, driven by soaring outbreaks in many Republican-voting states.

While rising cases is partly a result of more testing being carried out  President Donald Trump admitted he told officials to 'slow the testing down' when the numbers got too high, which health chiefs later claimed was a joke  more people are also ending up in hospital.

President Trump claimed last week that the US's death toll was 'way down' and the rate of fatalities was 'one of the lowest in the world' and said told Fox News: 'We have more cases because we do the greatest testing. If we didn't do testing, we'd have no cases. Other countries they don't test millions.'

The number of hospitalisations is one that can't be spun to look better and data shows it is on the rise after falling for two months between April and mid-June, bolstering claims from leading scientists that coronavirus lockdowns designed to suffocate the virus were lifted too soon.

A decline in the number of people dying also appears to have levelled off, prompting one expert to say America is 'losing the battle' against Covid-19. The US on June 27 recorded 2,516 more deaths, according to the World Health Organization  up from 733 the Monday before.

This trend is likely to start rising again within the next two weeks  or fade out within days because it the figures are a blip  as some of the increasing numbers of people infected in mid-June start to die in the nation's hospitals. It takes two to four weeks for a Covid-19 patient to die, on average.

Data in the US has shown a shift in the areas that are being worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, with Trump-voting states now accounting for a majority of new confirmed cases each day  73 per cent of all new daily cases diagnosed on June 28.

Nine out of the 10 states with the biggest increases in daily positive tests since May have been those which voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, with Arizona, Idaho, Florida and South Carolina seeing case counts surge.

The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has risen to more than 35,000 in recent weeks after hitting its lowest point since April in mid-June. As hospitalisations rise, deaths are expected to increase proportionately (Data from The Covid Tracing Project)

The number of people dying of the coronavirus had been falling in May and June but appears to have levelled off and started to increase again in recent weeks, with spikes in late June and more than 2,500 deaths on 27 June

The number of people dying of Covid-19 in the US has remained relatively stable in June - there were a total 6,398 in the first week of the month, according to the WHO, and 6,178 in the past seven days.

But the number of people in hospital is on the rise and will inevitably lead to more deaths. Data for July 1 showed there were 35,937 people in hospitals across the country.

The number had hit its lowest point since April in the middle of June, when there were 27,115 patients accounted for on June 15, a significant drop from a peak of 59,260 on April 15, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project. There were more than 50,000 people in hospital at any given time between April 10 and May 6.

As the number of people in hospital gets higher the number of deaths would be expected to rise proportionally with it.

Experts fear that as the number of cases rising and the emergence of new hotspots - Delaware, Ohio and Colorado are projected to be on track for new outbreaks - means the virus is now totally out of control.

Dr David Rubin, a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, said yesterday: 'We need to admit that we are losing the battle nationally to contain this dangerous virus as it engulfs more communities across the country, including those in the Northeast and Midwest that worked so hard to reduce cases and get back to a relatively normal way of life.'

Many areas face second lockdowns after attempting to get back to normal, as the virus has rebounded in locations where rules were relaxed.

Arizona, Texas, California, Florida and Delaware have rolled back plans to lift lockdown rules amid surging cases, and eight states - Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas - hit one-day record numbers of cases yesterday when the national total was 52,898 in 24 hours.

In comparison, the most cases recorded in a single day in Britain was 6,201 on May 1. In Brazil the most cases recorded in a day has been 54,771.

As the numbers of people being diagnosed with the virus increases, so too will the number of people being admitted to hospital with severe Covid-19 - assuming the cases are spread throughout all age groups.

It can take up to a week, on average, for someone's condition to deteriorate to the point they need hospital care after they have developed Covid-19 symptoms.

The number of people being diagnosed with Covid-19 in the US has surged in June to its highest ever level yesterday, with 52,000 new cases. This is in part due to improved testing provision but experts say infections genuinely appear to be rising, too

A greater proportion of new coronavirus cases are being diagnosed in states that voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Those states tend to be more rural and have lower incomes (Data by the Associated Press)

ARE THE US'S SECOND LOCKDOWNS AN OVER-REACTION? Various states and cities in the US are rolling back plans to reopen after lockdown or even bringing in new measures amid rising numbers of Covid-19 cases. In California, Arizona and parts of Delaware, bars have been asked to close once again to try and stop the spread of disease. But the people catching the coronavirus now are younger than they were in the earlier days of the pandemic, data shows, suggesting that the risk of death is lower and strict lockdowns may not be as necessary. In Florida, the median age of people testing positive is now in the mid-30s, down from higher than 65 in March, New York Magazine reports. 'If you look at that 25-to-34 age group, that is now by far the leading age group for positive tests,' said Governor Ron DeSantis. In Arizona, cases have soared among the under-19s in an eight-fold rise, while they rose six times for people between 20 and 44, and just two times for over-65s. The average age fell from 49 to 35. In Oklahoma around half of new cases are among under-35s, NY Mag reported, and cases have been attributed to younger people at bars and beaches in Michigan and Delaware. Younger people are known to be significantly less likely to die if they catch Covid-19, and scientists in the UK say the risk of death from any cause has not been increased for people under the age of 45 because of the pandemic. So locking down entire cities or states because of rising cases among the young could be a step too far, some argue. British columnist Gerard Baker, writing in The Times newspaper today, said they were a 'gross overreaction'. He said: 'Well need more evidence before we can say for sure how serious the new surge is but the overall picture continues to suggest that the threat from the virus has been consistently overstated... 'The new data we are seeing in the US suggest that, far from justifying the most extreme lockdown measures, with all the damage to the economy they do, the spread of the virus is much less of a threat to health and life than was widely argued. 'With proper, targeted protection of the most vulnerable it would probably not have been necessary to shut down entire economies.' Advertisement

Most people sent into hospital then recover but, for those who don't, it can take weeks longer for them to be moved to intensive care or to become so ill that they die.

Throughout the pandemic, scientists have suggested there is a lag of between two and four weeks, on average, between somebody becoming ill with Covid-19 and dying of it.

Surging numbers of cases in June, therefore, could lead to rises in the daily death tolls within the next week or two.

Speaking in mid-June, when the numbers of cases started to rise again, Dr Ali Mokdad, a global health expert at the University of Washington, told the Associated Press: 'We're going to see a rise in deaths in many places in the United States.'

Recent startling spikes in cases have forced states such as Texas, California and Florida to buckle down and halt their reopenings after businesses hoped to emerge from statewide lockdowns.

On Wednesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered all bars, indoor restaurants and cinemas to shut down immediately in most parts of the state, nearly three weeks after they opened for the first time following a three-month lockdown.

Since then, the number of Covid-19 cases began to rise again, increasing nearly 50 per cent over the last two weeks, with a 43 per cent spike in hospitalizations.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued an executive order for bars, gyms and movie theaters to shut down immediately on Monday.

Tuesday, Delaware ordered some of its beach towns shut down their bars after a recent spike in cases.

Top US infectious disease specialist Dr Anthony Fauci warned during a Tuesday Senate hearing that daily infections could soar to 100,000 'if this does not turn around' and, while he declined to predict a specific number of fatalities, he worries the death toll in the US could reach 'disturbing' heights.

President Trump has attributed the surging daily case numbers to a 'great' expansion of coronavirus testing in the US. The number of test run Tuesday, June 30, was nearly double the number of tests run on May 30, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.

But the number of daily cases has now far surpassed what was thought to be the pandemic's peak, in April.

Public health experts warn that, although the number of people dying each day is down significantly, these increases typically lag behind case increases, with one recent study estimating a 17-day delay.

But there are concerns that locking down cities and states again could be an over-reaction because the elderly - who are far more likely to die if they catch the coronavirus - are not catching it as often as they were.

In Florida, the median age of people testing positive is now in the mid-30s, down from higher than 65 in March, New York Magazine reports.

'If you look at that 25-to-34 age group, that is now by far the leading age group for positive tests,' said Governor Ron DeSantis.

In Arizona, cases have soared among the under-19s in an eight-fold rise, while they rose six times for people between 20 and 44, and just two times for over-65s. The average age fell from 49 to 35.

In Oklahoma around half of new cases are among under-35s, NY Mag reported, and cases have been attributed to younger people at bars and beaches in Michigan and Delaware.

Younger people are known to be significantly less likely to die if they catch Covid-19, and scientists in the UK say the risk of death from any cause has not been increased for people under the age of 45 because of the pandemic.

Nine out of the 10 states with the biggest increases in daily positive tests since May have been those which voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, with Arizona, Idaho, Florida and South Carolina seeing case counts surge

So locking down entire cities or states because of rising cases among the young could be a step too far, some argue.

NEW DAILY CASES IN US TOPS 52,000 FOR THE FIRST TIME The US has seen a record 52,000 new COVID-19 cases within 24 hours on Wednesday July 1, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The surge marked a new one-day record of infections as states across the country reopen. According to the tracker, there were 52,898 new cases over the 24 hours to Wednesday evening. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the US was 2,686,249 early Thursday morning and the number of deaths stood at 128,062. The daily coronavirus case numbers have remained around the 40,000 mark in recent days. The news comes as more than 44,000 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the US on Tuesday. Adding to the rise in cases, hospitalizations for COVID-19, the contagious respiratory disease that first emerged in China, are also increasing in Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona. On Wednesday alone Texas broke its daily record and recorded 8,076 new cases, which is nearly 1,000 more than the day prior. The startling spikes in cases have forced states such as Texas, California and Florida to buckle down and halt their reopenings. On Wednesday California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all bars, indoor restaurant operations and movie theaters to shut down immediately in most parts of the states, nearly three weeks after the states bars, stores, restaurants, and salons opened for the first time following a three-month lockdown. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued an executive order for bars, gyms and movie theaters to shut down immediately on Monday. And on Tuesday, Delaware ordered some of its beach towns shut down their bars after a recent spike in cases. Advertisement

British columnist Gerard Baker, writing in The Times newspaper today, said they were a 'gross overreaction'.

He said: 'Well need more evidence before we can say for sure how serious the new surge is but the overall picture continues to suggest that the threat from the virus has been consistently overstated...

'The new data we are seeing in the US suggest that, far from justifying the most extreme lockdown measures, with all the damage to the economy they do, the spread of the virus is much less of a threat to health and life than was widely argued.

'With proper, targeted protection of the most vulnerable it would probably not have been necessary to shut down entire economies.'

State-by-state data shows there has been a shift in the locations where people are spreading the virus most, too.

While the early days of the US's epidemic was concentrated in wealthy urban cities - New York remains one of the worst affected cities in the world - analysis by the Associated Press shows the spread of the virus has shifted from Democratic-voting states to Republican ones.

On June 28, states that voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election accounted for an overwhelming 73 per cent of all new cases diagnosed, with the remaining 27 per cent in states that voted for Hillary Clinton.

This was a total reversal of the situation in March when, for the first week of the month, 91 per cent of cases were diagnosed in Democratic states.

Data shows that nine out of the 10 areas which have seen the biggest surges in cases between May and July were Trump-voting areas. In particular, Arizona, Idaho, Florida and South Carolina saw big surges.

Alaska, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Utah, Oklahoma are all also seeing rises in infections, while a larger proportion of states where outbreaks are shrinking were ones that voted for Hillary in 2016.

In the east, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Illinois and New Hampshire are all seeing marked declines in their case counts.

Trump supporters have been less likely to take the threat of the virus seriously, according to AP, and Republican governors have been more likely to put off enacting lockdowns on their citizens, potentially contributing to the spread.

They have been more likely to take the lead of the president, who has been criticised for not taking Covid-19 seriously enough.

Contrary to data showing the outbreak is still very real crisis for the US, President Donald Trump insisted the virus will simply disappear during an interview with Fox on Wednesday.

'I think were going to have a vaccine very soon,' he said. 'Were headed back in a very strong fashion ... And I think were going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point thats going to sort of just disappear. I hope.'

New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo - a Democrat - hit out at the president last week on CNN, and said: 'You played politics with this virus, and you lost... You told the people of this state, you told the people of this country, the White House: "Dont worry about it. Go about your business. This is all Democratic hyperbole."

'It was never politics,' he added. 'It was always science.'
Woolworths customers have been urged to get tested for coronavirus after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

Shoppers who are dispalying symptoms of the virus and shopped at the Balmain Woolworths on June 27 and June 28 should get tested, NSW Health said.

It comes after the male staff member flew from Bangladesh to Melbourne in early June where he tested positive for COVID-19.

Woolworths customers have been urged to get tested for coronavirus after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19 (pictured is the Balmain store where an employee worked while he had the virus)

He was put into quarantine from June 10 to June 26 before flying back to Sydney on Jetstar Flight JQ510 on Friday, June 26.

After landing in Sydney the man worked at the Balmain Woolworths that weekend.

When he started to show COVID-19 symptoms again he underwent another test which returned a positive result on Wednesday.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said anyone who visited the store on days the man worked should be tested if they had any flu or cold-like symptoms, however mild.

'NSW Health is now acting on a precautionary basis. Balmain residents should be on alert for any symptoms and come forward and get tested,' Mr Hazzard said.

'In NSW, we have always taken a strong position on hotel quarantine, processing more than 30,000 returning travellers since March 29.'

The Balmain Woolworths underwent a deep clean on Wednesday night before reopening for business.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said NSW Health immediately commenced rigorous contact tracing procedures after the man tested positive.

'Fifty staff at the store have been told to self-isolate immediately, while NSW Health officials are contact tracing anyone else who may have been in contact with the man,' Dr Chant said.

'The man worked in the self-service section of Darling Street Woolworths.

'While we believe him to be a low-level risk of infection we are taking every precaution possible to protect the people on NSW.'

Dr Chant also said it was 'too premature' to know what information Victoria had on the man's condition when he left the state for Sydney.
A British judge has today refused to give Venezuela control of more than $1 billion (800 million) of gold bullion sitting in the Bank of England.

Mr Justice Teare's ruling found it unlawful to hand over the haul to President Nicolas Madura because the UK does not recognise him as head of state.

Instead, the British government 'unequivocally recognised' opposition leader Juan Guaido as the Venezuelan premier, the High Court heard.

A British judge has refused to give Venezuela control of more than $1 billion (800 million) of gold bullion sitting in the Bank of England

The South American country's central bank, Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV), took legal action to release the gold held on its behalf, which it wants to sell to help tackle its coronavirus crisis.

BCV says it has agreed to transfer the funds to the United Nations Development Programme to buy 'healthcare equipment, medicines and basic foodstuffs'.

But the Bank of England said it is 'caught in the middle' of rival claims to the gold, from the BCV board appointed by Mr Maduro and an 'ad hoc' board appointed by Mr Guaido.

Mr Maduro, who became president of Venezuela following the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013, was sworn in for a second term last year amid claims of vote-rigging in the 2018 election, which was boycotted by opposition parties.

Mr Guaido declared himself acting president in January 2019 and, a month later, then foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said the UK recognised Mr Guaido as 'the constitutional interim president of Venezuela until credible presidential elections can be held'.

Today, Mr Justice Teare said: 'Her Majesty's Government does recognise Mr Guaido in the capacity of the constitutional interim president of Venezuela and, it must follow, does not recognise Mr Maduro as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela.

'Whatever the basis for the recognition, Her Majesty's Government has unequivocally recognised Mr Guaido as president of Venezuela.

'It necessarily follows that Her Majesty's Government no longer recognises Mr Maduro as president of Venezuela... there is no room for recognition of Mr Guaido as de jure president and of Mr Maduro as de facto president.'

Mr Justice Teare's ruling found it unlawful to hand over the haul to President Nicolas Madura, pictured, because the UK does not recognise him as head of state

At a four-day preliminary hearing in June, Nicholas Vineall QC - representing the 'Maduro board' of the BCV - argued that the UK 'unequivocally recognised' the government of Mr Maduro despite considering his position to be 'illegitimate'.

He added that recognising Mr Guaido as head of state would be 'an impermissible intervention in the affairs of Venezuela' and also 'unlawful under international law'.

Mr Vineall said the UK 'does not approve of the Maduro government' but 'continues to recognise the Maduro government', sending an ambassador to Venezuela and receiving Mr Maduro's representative.

However, Andrew Fulton, representing the 'Guaido board' of the BCV, said the UK government 'has decided to recognise Juan Guaido as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela and has denounced the 'illegitimate, kleptocratic Maduro regime''.

He added: 'In the courts of other countries whose governments have chosen to take a different stance to the UK on the legitimacy of Mr Maduro, the members of the Maduro board may enjoy a more sympathetic reception to their assertions that they are entitled to speak for the BCV.

'In England, however, those claims are doomed.'

Sarosh Zaiwalla, senior partner at Zaiwalla & Co, representing the BCV, said an appeal would be made against the decision, which he claimed was 'to the detriment of the Venezuelan people whose lives are at risk'.

Instead, the British government 'unequivocally recognised' opposition leader Juan Guaido, pictured right with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab earlier this year, as the Venezuelan premier

'The Banco Central de Venezuela will be seeking leave of the court to appeal this Judgment, which it considers entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground,' he said.

'None of the Board members of the so called 'ad hoc Administrative Board' of BCV appointed by the Mr Guaido have been resident in Venezuela for some years now.

'Mr Maduro's government is in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions, and only it can ensure the distribution of the humanitarian relief and medical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

'This is the reason why it issued a claim against the Bank of England, which had refused to act on its instructions to assist in permitting Venezuela's gold reserves to be used to fund efforts by the United Nations Development Programme to purchase food, medicine and medical equipment for the use of the Venezuelan people during the coronavirus pandemic.

'This outcome will now delay matters further, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people whose lives are at risk.'
A London-based Hong Kong student has said that she is keen to take up UK government's 'lifeboat' offer to live and settle in Britain after China launched a brutal crackdown on the city's pro-democracy protesters with its new national security law.

Eunice Wong, who has just finished her Master's degree in the UK, said the escape route provided by No. 10 was 'the only option' for her because it would no longer be safe for her to go back home.

Ms Wong could be among 'hundreds of thousands of people' who plan to uproot their lives in the former British colony and come to the UK to avoid being persecuted by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities.

'Hundreds of thousands of people' from Hong Kong might come to the UK after the Government offered an escape route to around three million British National Overseas passport holders in the former colony, according to an activist who has been granted asylum

Eunice Wong, who has just finished her Master's degree in the UK, said the escape route provided by No. 10 was 'the only option' for her out of fears that she could be persecuted back home. Pictured, a man is detained by riot police during a demonstration on July 1 in Hong Kong

Boris Johnson yesterday unveiled firm plans for the UK to take in up to three million Hong Kong residents who hold the British National Overseas (BNO) passports as Downing Street blasted China over the draconian new clampdown on the opposition.

Q&A on Hong Kong's British Nationals Overseas (BNOs) What is a British National (overseas)? Hong Kongers could register for this special status before the 1997 handover. They get a UK passport but no automatic right to live and work in the UK. You cannot apply to become a BNO. How many of them are there? As of February, there were 349,881 BNO passport holders. The Government estimates that there are around 2.9million BNOs currently in Hong Kong. What is Britain offering them? A path to citizenship. BNOs will get five years 'limited leave to remain'. They can then apply for 'settled status'. After 12 months with settled status, they can apply for citizenship. Their close family will also be eligible. Advertisement

'This lifeboat scheme will help these British Nationals and their dependents to come to the UK if they need to. BNOs are given the chance to work and contribute into society and work towards citizenship which was previously restricted with visas,' Ms Wong told MailOnline.

The Imperial College London graduate, who is in her 20s, said that because she had spoken to media in the UK, she would be deemed an offender of the security law and persecuted by Hong Kong authorities.

But she noted that it was hard to estimate how many people in Hong Kong would move to the UK through the route at present.

'It depends on the details released from the Home Office [before we can make] such a big decision, as Hong Kong is where our roots are and leaving our home is a big change,' she added.

'Furthermore, there is no access to public funds so BNOs who come will have to be financially well off in order to support themselves and are able to come and get a job.

'Some people who are eligible for a BNO might already have a different nationality, therefore, they might not want to come to the UK.'

'Hundreds of thousands of people' from Hong Kong might take advantage of No.10's offer and move to the UK, said a former British consulate worker who alleged he was tortured in China.





Simon Cheng is the first person to have been granted political asylum by the Home Office in response to China's crackdown on the Hong Kong anti-government movement after he was allegedly shackled, beaten, forced to stand for long hours in secret detention in the Chinese city of Shenzhen.

Mr Cheng, a British overseas national, announced Wednesday night that his immigration application had been approved last Friday by the British government, possibly heralding a new wave of immigrants from the Asian financial hub.

Simon Cheng (pictured) is the first person to have been granted political asylum by the Home Office in relation to China's crackdown on the Hong Kong anti-government movement after he was allegedly shackled, beaten, forced to stand for long hours in secret detention in China

The file picture taken on November 29, 2019 shows Hong Kong protesters wearing masks depicting Simon Cheng old banners as they attend a rally outside the British Consulate General in Hong Kong after he was allegedly tortured for long hours in Shenzhen, China

Thousands of Hong Kong citizens have already expressed their desire to move to Britain on social media platforms.

A Facebook group named the 'Official Group for BNO Equality Movement' has seen nearly 3,000 new members in the past month.

Numerous Hong Kong websites have published articles explaining the process of applying for a BNO, including one titled 'Things you must know before immigration'.

Hong Kongers have also flocked to voice their plan to escape to the UK on Twitter.

One wrote: 'Unlike most Chinese, we will contribute and maintain the value of freedom and democracy in UK.'

As of February, there were nearly 350,000 BNO passport holders, while the Government estimates there are around 2.9million BNOs living in Hong Kong.

Thank you for the support. Unlike most Chinese, we will contribute and maintain the value of freedom and democracy in UK.  Alex  (@alexhk2019) July 1, 2020

Hong Kong is where I live and the police are hurting hk and so is China and our chief executive is doing nothing because she is working with China and the only one whos doing anything is borris Johnson he is giving a chance for hkers to move to the uk so I might just go there  alexander pritchard (@alexanderprit13) July 2, 2020

Conservatives are proud for you to set a precedent and have millions of freedom loving HKers join you.https://t.co/C461IQAS1h  justin vung (@852852hk) July 1, 2020

Simon Cheng is a former British consulate worker in Hong Kong who was kidnapped & tortured by the Chinese security services. He was granted asylum in the UK. He says "hundreds of thousands of people" from Hong Kong may choose to come to the UK #R4Todayhttps://t.co/dADKrvUM2h  BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) July 2, 2020

Police officers are seen in front of a water cannon during a march against the national security law at the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain, in Hong Kong on July 1

Police officers detain protesters during a rally against a new national security law on the 23rd anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on July 1

Mr Cheng, a British overseas national, was detained in China for over two weeks last August after Beijing accused the former consulate worker of inciting unrest amid mass anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong.

The 29-year-old announced in a Facebook post Wednesday night that his immigration application had been approved last Friday by the British government.

He wrote: 'The UK Home Office has granted me the eligibility for asylum. The Prime Minister's Office and Foreign Office are also introducing immigration policies to protect the overseas British passport holders and their family members.

'I sincerely thank the British government for fulfilling its moral obligations and showcasing political courage to rescue British citizens. [I] hope I can be the first (of many), and those Hong Kong citizens who have not been taken into account could seek protection,' the pro-democracy supporter added.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (pictured in the House of Commons on July 1) has offered three million British Nationals Overseas (BNO) passport holders to relocate to the UK after China imposed draconian new national security law in the Asian financial hub

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking during Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons in London on July 1

It comes after British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has offered three million British Nationals Overseas (BNO) passport holders to relocate to the UK after China imposed draconian new national security law in the financial hub.

Mr Raab told MPs yesterday the 'bespoke' new arrangement to be implemented in the coming months would grant BNOs five years' limited leave to remain in the UK with the ability to live and work.

They would then be eligible to apply for settled status and would be able to apply for citizenship after 12 months with that status.

However, the Foreign Secretary later said 'only a proportion' would be likely to take up the new status.

He also said that if Beijing tried to stop people with British National (Overseas) status from leaving Hong Kong, there would be little that could be done by the UK.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian (pictured) told reporters at a press conference today that 'all the consequences shall be borne by the UK side' after Britain drew up plans to offer residency to three million Hong Kongers

China today threatened to punish Britain for offering three million Hong Kongers an escape route from Beijing's crackdown on dissent - warning at a press conference that the UK would 'bear the consequences'.

Hours after Britain accused China of manoeuvring to 'strangle' Hong Kong's freedoms with a 'grave and deeply disturbing' new security law, Beijing's embassy in London called the offer a breach of international law and warned: 'We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures.'

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters that 'the UK should bear any consequences caused by this... Hong Kong matters are China's domestic affairs, and no countries have any right to intervene.'
Chief constables could be stripped of their powers to make key decisions in their areas amid calls to nationalise the way police forces operate.

Sir Thomas Winsor, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, set out his proposals for a voting system that would nationalise decisions on policing policies and practices for the 43 forces in England and Wales.

He said the current system was 'no longer fit for purpose'.

Under the plans, he said the Home Secretary would have special voting rights and be able to 'veto' or 'force something through' as long as there are 'checks and balances'.

This means training, police kit and operating standards could be decided upon by a nationalised vote.

In his annual State of Policing report, Sir Thomas warned: 'There are not 43 best ways of doing the same thing. Best practice is not being adopted everywhere.'

Sir Thomas Winsor, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, set out his proposals for a voting system that would nationalise decisions on policing policies and practices for the 43 forces in England and Wales

Officers in Bristol were said to be 'furious' after they were ordered not to intervene when protesters tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston during anti-racism protests last month

Chief Inspector of Constabulary slams protesters attacking police as lockdown is lifted Sir Thomas Winsor said the coronavirus pandemic had 'tested police forces in dealing with the lockdown, the greatest curtailment of individual freedom this country has ever known.' But he hit out at members of the public who had attacked police at demonstrations. He added: 'Very regrettably, as lockdown conditions have been relaxed, the police now face a harder task. In some cases, they have been faced with resistance and violence. 'They have also faced violence when policing public demonstrations. Nothing justifies violence. Police officers are our fellow citizens, doing the tough work we ask them to do, in hazardous and demanding conditions, to keep us safe. 'Hard enforcement against those who assault police officers and other public service workers should be firm and fast.' Advertisement

In the report, Sir Thomas said: 'There is an increasingly pressing need to develop an effective and efficient single system of law enforcement, with clear local, regional and national components.

'There is an important role for the Home Office to play, particularly in making regional and national functions work more efficiently and effectively, whilst respecting local conditions and priorities.

'The time has come to establish a much higher degree of single-system operation in the 43-force structure of England and Wales. This doesn't mean redrawing the map.

'Single-system operation can be achieved far more efficiently and effectively, and without legislation, turf wars and wasteful management introspection.

'There are not 43 best ways of doing the same thing.'

The public must also decide whether they are willing to pay more to see police solve common crimes like burglaries, the chief inspector of constabulary said.

Sir Thomas said there is a 'real risk' that forces' inability to successfully investigate high-volume offences is 'causing a loss of public confidence in policing'.

His annual assessment of policing in England and Wales published today states some crime investigations 'have been reduced to little more than a telephone conversation with the victim'.

Just 6% of burglaries, 3% of vehicle crimes and 13% of violent crimes were detected across England and Wales in 2018/19, according to the report for Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS).

Sir Thomas said: 'So how much unsolved crime is the public prepared to tolerate? Does the public want to pay more for a better service?'

Derbyshire Police Chief Constable Peter Goodman announced he was retiring, after a police watchdog probe into his personal conduct

Derbyshire Constabulary has been behind a series of controversial actions during lockdown - including putting black dye in the Blue Lagoon, near Buxton, to deter swimming

Public 'may need to tolerate crimes such as burglary and car theft' Sir Thomas's report also said the public may need to tolerate crimes such as burglary and car theft going unsolved unless they are prepared to pay more through their council tax. He added: 'If the public wants some very significant improvements in the investigation and detection of these kinds of offences, then they're going to have to answer the question: Do we want to pay more?' Sir Thomas said police numbers are at their lowest level since 2010 but rising because of the Government's plan to recruit 20,000 extra police officers within three years. But he said: 'You don't just need 20,000 more big, heavy lads to deal with pub fights. You need people with the skills to deal with modern criminality, a great deal of which is online.' He said the uplift would mean a total of 54,000 people would have to be recruited into the police over the three years - including 20,000 officers to replace those who leave the service and an additional 14,000 staff to support the extra officers. He said around a third of the police service is expected to have under five years' experience within the next five years. Advertisement

This comes as police forces across the UK have been criticised for their handling of the lockdown throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Officers in Bristol were said to be 'furious' after they were ordered not to intervene when protesters tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston during anti-racism protests last month.

Mark Shelford, a police and crime commissioner candidate for Avon and Somerset, claimed police had 'two opportunities to intervene' when Black Lives Matter campaigners ripped down the statue and dumped it into Bristol Harbour.

The force's chief constable Andy Marsh admitted officers held off making arrests to avoid a 'very violent confrontation'.

Derbyshire Constabulary has also been behind a series of controversial actions during lockdown.

Its drone unit filmed walkers in the Peak District on March 26, three days after restrictions began.

Officers also put black dye in the Blue Lagoon, near Buxton, to deter swimming.

Weeks later, chief Constable Peter Goodman announced he was retiring, after a police watchdog probe into his personal conduct.

A week into lockdown Lancashire Police issued 123 fines for breaches of the rules over the weekend, while officers in Cheshire summonsed six people for various offences, including multiple people from the same house going out to buy 'non-essential' items.

South Wales Police also hit out at MP Stephen Kinnock for visiting his father, former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, on his birthday.

Elected commissioners were introduced to England and Wales in 2012 by then-Home Secretary Theresa May, with the goal of making officers more accountable through election - but low turnout at PCC elections have sparked criticism of the process.

A report into PCC elections, published in October 2019, revealed that a total of 5.49 million votes were cast in the November 2012 PCC elections, representing a turnout of just 15.1%  the lowest recorded level of participation at a peacetime non-local government election in the UK.
Johnny Depp's libel claim against the Sun newspaper over allegations he was violent towards ex-wife Amber Heard will go ahead next week, the High Court has ruled.

The actor, 57, is suing the tabloid's publisher News Group Newspapers and executive editor Dan Wootton over a 2018 article which referred to Depp as a 'wife beater'.

The article related to allegations made against Depp by actress Heard, 34, that he was violent towards her during their marriage - claims he strenuously denies.

In a last-ditch attempt to derail the High Court trial, due to start next Tuesday, NGN's legal team had asked Mr Justice Nicol to strike out Depp's claim.

The actor (left, in February), 57, is suing the tabloid's publisher News Group Newspapers and executive editor Dan Wootton over a 2018 article which referred to Depp as a 'wife beater'. The article related to allegations made against Depp by actress Heard (right, in December), 34, that he was violent towards her during their marriage - claims he strenuously denies

Adam Wolanski QC argued the Hollywood star was in 'serious' breach of a court order because he had not given NGN's legal team what he referred to as the 'Australia drugs texts' between Depp and his assistant, Nathan Holmes.

Mr Justice Nicol found on Monday Depp had breached an 'unless order' requiring him to disclose documents from separate libel proceedings against Heard in the US - which include the text messages.

But in a ruling on Thursday, the judge said he would grant Depp's application for 'relief from sanctions', meaning the trial will go ahead as planned.

The judge said his decision was conditional on Depp giving an undertaking that he will not seek sanctions against Heard for allegedly breaching a court order, made during separate libel proceedings in the US, by providing the Sun's legal team with evidence.

During a hearing last week, Mr Wolanski said the messages, sent in late February and early March 2015 - shortly before an alleged incident in Australia between Depp and Heard, which she claims was 'a three-day ordeal of physical assaults' - demonstrated Depp was trying to get drugs during the Australia visit.

He told the court references to 'happy pills' and 'whitey stuff' showed Depp was trying to obtain MDMA and cocaine, which was 'profoundly damaging to his case'.

The alleged incident in Australia is one of 14 separate allegations of domestic violence, between early 2013 and May 2016, NGN relies on in its pleaded defence to Depp's claim.

Mr Justice Nicol refused an application by Depp's legal team for an order requiring Heard to disclose evidence, including a covert audio recording made of a conversation between herself and her former husband in July 2016.

The actor had also asked for 'all communications' between Heard and a contact saved in her phone as 'Rocketman', who Depp claims is SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, and between her and actor James Franco.

David Sherborne, representing Depp, told the court on Monday Heard had 'two extra-marital affairs' or 'extra-relationship affairs' with Elon Musk and James Franco while she was going out with/married to Depp.

Depp, 57, in one of his most famous roles in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series as the eccentric Captain Jack Sparrow

The barrister said this was relevant to the actor's case 'because part of the defendants' case or Heard's position is it was Depp's supposed paranoia and mistaken belief she was having affairs that caused him to be violent'.

But rejecting the application Mr Justice Nicol said: 'The central issue for the defence of truth is whether Mr Depp assaulted Ms Heard.

'Even if she had been unfaithful to him, that would be irrelevant on that central issue.

'I am not therefore persuaded that these categories of documents are necessary for the fair disposal of the litigation.'

A three-week trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in London - which was due to start in March, but was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic - is listed to begin next Tuesday, with Depp's former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder among the witnesses expected to give evidence.

The court has heard Depp intends to travel from his home in France to London to give evidence, while Heard is believed to have already got to the UK from California.

The libel claim against NGN and Mr Wootton arises out of publication of an article in the Sun in April 2018, under the headline: 'Gone Potty - How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?'

Depp has brought separate libel proceedings against Heard in the US, which the court heard are set for trial next year.

The pair met on the set of 2011 comedy The Rum Diary and married in Los Angeles in February 2015.

In May 2016, Heard obtained a restraining order against Depp after accusing him of abuse, which he denied.

The couple settled their divorce out of court in 2017, with Heard donating her seven million US dollars (5.5 million) settlement to charity.
A Russian ex-policeman has revealed how he has lived with a bullet lodged in his brain for ten years after he was shot by a gang.

Doctors gave Vladimir Krutov, 36, a one in a million chance of survival.

Extraordinary X-rays reveal the bullet remains lodged at the top of his head after surgeons refused to remove it due to almost certain risk of death during surgery.

The bullet was fired from a 7.62-caliber Nagan revolver and 'entered the base of the skull and passed through my entire brain', Krutov said.

Doctors gave Vladimir Krutov, 36, a one in a million chance of survival

The bullet was fired from a 7.62-caliber Nagan revolver and 'entered the base of the skull and passed through my entire brain', Krutov said

Fellow policeman Dmitry Voronin, then 26, was killed in the St Peterburg shootout after the officers stumbled across an imminent gang robbery of a gaming centre.

A fight ensured after the officers challenged the three men, and Krutov remembers his colleague shouting that there was a gun.

The pair were repeatedly punched - Vladimir suffered 20 blows - before their own handcuffs were used on them.

Extraordinary X-rays )above left) reveal the bullet remains lodged at the top of his head after surgeons refused to remove it due to almost certain risk of death during surgery. The bullet left a hole more than one inch in diameter in the base of his skull (above right)

They were forced to the ground before convicted murderer Vyacheslav Vorozhtsov shot Voronin at short range, his blood drenching Vladimir.

'There was a shot, I heard a clap - and something very hot sprinkled on me,' he said.

'Five seconds, another clap - and my lights went out.

'They only came on again nine days later- in Alexandtrovsky Hospital, where I was operated on, had trepanation, and came out of a coma.'

Doctors have been left astonished that the police sergeant - who took invalidity pension after the shooting - has gone on to live a normal life. He is pictured above left with his wife Marina and above fight with five-month-old daughter Varvara

The bullet inside his head measures three quarters of an inch by one third of an inch and left a hole more than one inch in diameter in the base of his skull.

Doctors have been left astonished that the police sergeant - who took invalidity pension after the shooting - has gone on to live a normal life.

A year-and-a-half ago he married wife Marina, 36, and is now the proud father of a five-month-old daughter Varvara.

He said: 'I was given a one in a million survival chance.

'It was unrealistic to survive when a bullet passes through the whole brain, damaging all parts.

'When I was in a coma, I had a heart failure - and underwent clinical death.'

He lost more than half his blood, his jaw was broken in four places, and his nose was also smashed.

Fellow policeman Dmitry Voronin, then 26 (above), was killed in the St Peterburg shootout after the officers stumbled across an imminent gang robbery of a gaming centre

'I thought I was in the next world. I was completely paralysed, only the fingers on my left hand worked,' he said.

'People walked around in white gowns, masks.'

Yet two months later in October 2010 he walked unaided out of the hospital - 'I'm a former sportsman and I fight for my targets. The doctors could not believe their eyes.'

Six top neurosurgeons examined him and decided removing the bullet would lead to death.

Vladimir is banned from flying or going to the sauna but he can run nearly a mile, even though he suffers serious headaches.

'When I go and collect someone from the airport, and go through security, I always cause problems.

'But I tell them: "I've got a bullet in my brain".'

He said: 'In the maternity hospital, when I took my daughter in my hands for the first time, I said to my wife: "This is what I remained alive for."'
An adorable cat who lost her eyes due to neglect has become an internet sensation with tens of thousands of followers.

Persian Moet, six, is now living a happy life in Nottingham thanks to owner Emily Shotter, who picked her up from an animal charity in Oman.

She began posting pictures of her online and the feline quickly turned into a social media star.

Persian cat Moet, pictured, who lost her eyes due to neglect has become an internet sensation with tens of thousands of followers

The cat, pictured, was born to an unregulated breeder in Oman, where Emily picked her up from an animal charity

Moet, six, pictured left, is now living a happy life in Nottingham thanks to owner Emily Shotter, pictured right

'Moet was born to an unregulated breeder and taken to a place called the 'pet shop',' Emily said.

'The cats there were neglected, Moet was often left without food and water, a dirty cage, no bed to lie on, no toys.

'Over time she just got sicker and sicker, and eventually she went blind.'

Emily says Moet was rescued and brought to an animal charity, where she was treated and her eyes were removed.

She first met the cat in 2014, and she has been uploading pictures of her online since 2018, gaining thousands of followers and promoting the cat's non-profit online store.

The feline, pictured, was often left without food and water, a dirty cage, no bed to lie on and no toys

Moet, pictured, was rescued and brought to an animal charity, where she was treated and her eyes were removed

Emily first met the cat, pictured left and right, in 2014, and she has been uploading pictures of her online since 2018

Emily says she wants to donate profits from the cat's online store to a volunteer group called Omani Paws

Social media users have flocked to comment on images of Moet, pictured, with one describing her as 'the most beautiful cat ever'

Emily said: 'We donate 100% of profits to a volunteer group called Omani Paws, who do rescue, rehoming, fostering, feeding and helping sick and injured animals.

'One day we hope Moet hits the big time so we can donate and help much more.'

One user commented on a photo of Moet, saying: 'Moet is the most beautiful cat ever!'

Another one said: 'She is such a gorgeous girl!'
Historian David Starkey could lose his University of Cambridge fellowship after he claimed 'slavery was not genocide' because 'so many damn blacks live in Africa and Britain.'

Dr Starkey, 75, was accused of racism following an interview with BeLeave founder Darren Grimes, during which he argued the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is 'wholly and entirely a product of white colonisation'.

Speaking via video link from his home, the historian said 'the only reason that these young black protestors are here' is 'because of slavery'.

He added: 'What has happened of course is that the only reason that these young black protestors are here - isn't it slavery?

'It's only because of the great African diaspora, the compulsory diaspora, because of slavery. What of course that brings you up to confronting is of course slavery was not the equivalent of the Holocaust.

'Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there? An awful lot of them survived.

'And again, there's no point in arguing against globalisation or Western civilisation: they are all products of it. We are all products of it.'

In response to the remarks, Fitzwilliam College said the matter of Starkey's Honorary Fellowship will be considered at a Governing Body meeting next Wednesday.

Historian David Starkey has come under fire after claiming 'slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa, or in Britain'

In an interview with Darren Grimes, the founder of the pro-Brexit campaign group BeLeave, Starkey said BLM is aiming to delegitimise Britain and 'the West in general'

The 75-year-old called Black Lives Matter (BLM) 'wholly and entirely a product of white colonisation' and its activists 'not culturally black Africans'

Starkey (left) told Darren Grimes (right) that BLM are trying to impose a 'false history' of Britain on the country by making slavery 'central to the picture'

In a statement, it said: 'Fitzwilliam College does not tolerate racism.

'We support and promote freedom of speech in our academic community, but we have zero tolerance of racism. Dr David Starkeys recent comments on slavery are indefensible.

'Fitzwilliam was founded upon values of fairness and mutual respect and we are proud of the Colleges inclusive and diverse membership.

'The matter of Dr Starkeys Honorary Fellowship will be considered by the Governing Body at its meeting next Wednesday.'

Varsity claimed it is 'almost certain' his fellowship will be revoked.

When asked what he would say to BLM activists who want to 'decolonise the curriculum' during the controversial interview on Tuesday, Dr Starkey replied: 'You cannot decolonise the curriculum because you, Black Lives Matter, are wholly and entirely a product of white colonisation.

'You are not culturally black Africans. You would die in seconds if you were dumped back in black Africa because you wouldn't know how to cope.

'You're a product yourselves of cultural and racial mix.'

His comments follow nearly a month of anti-racist demonstration and protest around the UK following the killing of George Floyd in the US.

In response to the remarks, Fitzwilliam College (pictured) said the matter of Starkey's Honorary Fellowship will be considered at a Governing Body meeting next Wednesday

Starkey's comments were denounced by Sajid Javid, who tweeted: 'We are the most successful multi-racial democracy in the world and have much to be proud of. But David Starkey's racist comments ("so many damn blacks") are a reminder of the appalling views that still exist'

Outraged social media users denounced Starkey for comments he made in the interview

Dr Starkey's remarks were denounced by Sajid Javid, the former Home Secretary, who tweeted: 'We are the most successful multi-racial democracy in the world and have much to be proud of.

'But David Starkey's racist comments ("so many damn blacks") are a reminder of the appalling views that still exist.'

Other social media users followed suit, with one Twitter account asking if Starkey 'feels similarly' about the Armenian, Rwandan and Cambodian genocides.

Another posted: 'Absolutely disgraceful comments from David Starkey.'

'This man hates as much as he breathes', another social media user claimed.

One angry Twitter account posted: 'Imagine if he said that about the Holocaust. Quite rightly he never would be allowed on TV again.'

One person wrote: 'Replace "slavery" for "the holocaust" and "damn blacks" for "damn jews" and you'd quite rightly never be allowed in the public eye ever again.'

'As David Starkey probably knows, only one genocide in history has come close to actually eradicating an entire population,' another tweeted.

'The so-called Black War of the 1820s reduced the number of indigenous Tasmanians to fewer than 300. Guess which empire perpetrated it?'

One social media user commented: 'David Starkeys ignorant diatribe consolidate the impression that British historians are much more reactionary than they are.'

Another said: 'Open-mouthed at David Starkeys racism. Words fail me.'

Outraged social media users denounced Starkey for comments he made in the interview

Starkey, a well-known TV and radio personality, called slavery the 'terrible disease that dare not speak its name' that was 'settled nearly 200 years ago'.

'The honest teaching of the British Empire is to say quite simply it is the first key stage of world globalisation,' Starkey said.

'It's probably the most important moment in human history, and it is still with us.

'So that's how you go about tackling it. And as for the idea, as I said, that slavery is this kind of terrible disease that dare not speak its name - it dare not speak its name, Darren, because we settled it nearly 200 years ago.

'We don't normally go on about the fact that Roman Catholics, once upon a time, didn't have the vote and weren't allowed to have their own churches because we had Catholic emancipation. And do you know what, we had Catholic emancipation at pretty much the exact same time that we got rid of slavery in the 1830s.

Outraged social media users denounced Starkey for comments he made in the interview

'We don't go on about that because it's part of history. It's a question that's settled.'

Starkey told Mr Grimes that BLM are trying to impose a 'false history' of Britain on the country by making slavery 'central to the picture'.

Talking about US race relations, he said: 'Slavery in the South was substituted for by a system of organised repression - economic, social and everything else - in the form of segregation. But that's never been true in Britain.

'In other words, we're having a false history forced upon us.'

Starkey made his comments on 'Reasoned', which is hosted by Mr Grimes - the founder of pro-Brexit campaign group BeLeave.

Mr Grimes won his appeal last year against a 20,000 fine imposed by the Electoral Commission in 2018 after being accused of breaching spending rules during the EU referendum campaign four years ago.

Starkey stirred controversy in 2011, when he told the BBC in an interview about the riots that 'the whites have become the blacks' and that 'a particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion'.
The country's leading aerospace giant has today announced more than 1,700 job losses at factories in Wales and Bristol.

Job cuts planned by Airbus include some 1,435 at its plant in Broughton, north Wales, and 295 at Filton, Bristol, the aerospace company has revealed.

The company said it had opened talks on its 'adaptation plan', which it unveiled earlier this week in response to the collapse in air travel as a result of the pandemic.

Workers at its plant in North Wales are now set to bear the brunt of the cuts.

Airbus aircraft landing gear is tested at the Airbus aircraft manufacturer's Filton site

engineer conducts a fatigue test on a Airbus A380 sharklet wing tip on a test rig at the Airbus aircraft manufacturer's Filton site

How coronavirus has affected UK airlines and travel operators Flybe: Europe's largest regional airline collapsed on March 5 after months on the brink, triggering 2,400 job losses and left around 15,000 passengers stranded across the UK and Europe. British Airways: The International Airlines Group, which also includes Iberia and Aer Lingus, said on March 16 that there would be a 75 per cent reduction in passenger capacity for two months, with boss Willie Walsh admitting there was 'no guarantee that many European airlines would survive'. The company has since said it wants to reduce the number of staff by 12,000. Loganair: The Scottish regional airline said on March 30 that it expects to ask the Government for a bailout to cope with the impact of the pandemic. Jet2: The airline has suspended all of its flights departing from Britain until April 30. A number of Jet2 flights turned around mid-air last month while travelling to Spain when a lockdown was announced in the country. Virgin Atlantic: The airline said on March 16 that it would have reduced its lights by 80 per cent by March 26, and this will go up to 85 per cent by April. It has also urged the Government to offer carriers emergency credit facilities worth up to 7.5billion. Ryanair: More than 90 per cent of the Irish-based airline's planes are now grounded, with the rest of the aircraft providing repatriation and rescue flights. Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said his airline would be forced to shed 3,000 jobs while seeking pay reductions of up to 20 per cent by those who remain. TUI: Holiday giant Tui is looking to cut up to 8,000 roles worldwide with the firm calling Covid-19 the 'greatest crisis' the industry has faced. The UK's biggest tour operator posted losses of 845.8 million euro (747m) in the first half of 2020, compared to 289.1 million (255m) in the same period 12 months previously. Easyjet: The budget carrier is expected to lose up to 4,500 jobs across its entire network including around 1,900 UK employees. Some 727 of its UK-based pilots are at risk of redundancy, equivalent to about one-third of its pilots in the country. Advertisement

A statement said: 'These figures include integrated corporate functions which support all divisions in the UK.

'This split reflects the significant impact the Covid crisis has had on the UK's commercial aircraft manufacturing activities which are concentrated in Broughton.

'Airbus will continue to meet regularly with its trade union partners in the UK in order to identify solutions that will help us implement this adaptation while minimising the social impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the company.'

The Broughton site makes wings for Airbus.

Peter Hughes, Unite's Wales regional secretary, said: 'The level of job losses planned for Broughton are far larger than we originally anticipated and can only bring into crystal-clear focus how urgent the need for UK Government intervention now is.

'Welsh Government have committed to doing everything they can, but the financial intervention that is now required to support jobs at Broughton can only come from Westminster.

'Our calls for Boris Johnson's Government to intervene in the crisis that is engulfing the aerospace sector have so far fallen on deaf ears. They can't hide anymore, the voices of thousands of workers and their families from across North Wales and north-west England are screaming for help.

'The governments of France and Germany are already acting to support their aerospace workers. If the UK Government does not do the same then our country's position as a world leader in the aerospace sector will be consigned to history.'

Daz Reynolds, Unite's convenor at Broughton, added: 'Our members at Broughton are devastated to hear of the scale of the job losses for our site.

'We are a world-class workforce who have built up Broughton to be one of the best manufacturing sites in Europe.

'The workforce recognises the enormous challenges facing Airbus and are prepared to look at every avenue available to mitigate the proposed job losses.

'Our position remains that we will not accept one single compulsory redundancy at this site.'

This comes as a union warned the UK's world-class aerospace industry will be lost forever unless there is urgent action to support the sector through the current crisis.

Unite said its research revealed that almost 12,000 aerospace job losses have been announced in recent months at some of the UK's biggest companies, including 1,700 by Airbus earlier this week.

The union said it has repeatedly warned that without swift action to support the aerospace industry, more jobs will go on a 'vast scale' and the UK's crown as an industry leader will be 'stolen' by competitor countries.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury (left) said the company's future was at stake after the coronavirus pandemic rocked the air travel industry (right, Philippe Mhun, Executive Vice-President Programmes and Services)

An Airbus employee constructs a wing for an Airbus A350 aircraft at Airbus' wing production plant near Broughton in north-east Wales

An Airbus A320 plane carrying chief physician Denis Protsenko and a team of doctors of the Novomoskovsky multipurpose medical center for coronavirus patients

A study for the union showed that 102,000 workers are directly employed in the aerospace sector, with many thousands more in indirect employment.

The sector has a turnover of more than 38 billion, generating over 9 billion for the UK economy every year.

Unite said it wanted the UK government to follow the lead of countries such as France and Germany and put in place a programme the sector needs to survive, rebuild and recover.

The global airline industry has been hammered by the impact of coronavirus, with the huge slump in demand for international travel leading to thousands of planes being grounded and staff numbers slashed.

Last month, MPs urged the Government to 'strongly penalise' BA for 'taking advantage' of the Job Retention scheme by claiming taxpayer subsidies to pay the wages of 23,000 staff, shortly before announcing mass redundancies.

Meanwhile holiday giant Tui is looking to cut up to 8,000 roles worldwide with the firm calling Covid-19 the 'greatest crisis' the industry has faced.

Airbus has announced job losses (Ben Birchall/PA)

The UK's biggest tour operator posted losses of 845.8 million euro (747m) in the first half of 2020, compared to 289.1 million (255m) in the same period 12 months previously.

Earlier this week, easyJet announced it expects to lose up to 4,500 jobs across its entire network including around 1,900 UK employees.

Some 727 of its UK-based pilots are at risk of redundancy, equivalent to about one-third of its pilots in the country.

And Ryanair pilots have agreed to a 20 per cent pay cut in a bid to avoid up to 3,000 job losses after boss Michael O'Leary warned the airline would axe roles following a collapse in demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Pilots' union Balpa announced 96 per cent of its members from the firm voted in favour of the temporary slash in wages.
Mark Zuckerberg has told Facebook employees that the company is 'not gonna change' its policies on 'hate speech', despite an advertising boycott which has seen the company's share price drop by $60 billion and wiped more than $7 billion from his personal wealth.

The Facebook CEO addressed a staff town hall on Friday, in light of the growing #StopHateForProfit campaign.

More than 500 companies have now signed up, calling on the tech giant to do more to prevent racist and hate-filled posts on its site.

'We're not gonna change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small per cent of our revenue, or to any percent of our revenue,' said Zuckerberg, according to The Information.

Mark Zuckerberg, 36, told employees on Friday that the company would not bow to pressure

'My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.'

He added that the boycott was a 'reputational and a partner issue' rather than a financial one, because most of Facebook's revenue comes from small businesses and not large brands.

The top 100 brands on Facebook in 2019 likely brought in only 6 per cent of Facebooks total $70 billion in annual revenue, according to a Morningstar research note citing Pathmatics data.

Facebook said last year its top 100 advertisers accounted for less than 20 per cent of total ad revenue.

On Wednesday Dunkin Donuts, LEGO and Consumer Reports joined the boycott, following on from Target, Best Buy and Clorox.

Lego has become the latest company to join the Facebook boycott for the month of July

Dunkin Donuts has also joined the #StopHateForProfit campaign, launched on June 17

The boycott was started by civil-rights groups including the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Color of Change on June 17, with North Face the first large company to sign up. Others soon followed.

Facebook saw $60 billion in market value erased in just two days earlier this week as major brands joined the boycott, but its shares have largely rebounded since then. Zuckerberg lost $7.2billion of his own net worth.

More than 500 companies, including major brands such as Coca-Cola, Ford, Starbucks, Verizon, Adidas, and Unilever, have pulled ads from the social-media platform as part of the campaign.

On Friday, as the boycott gained steam, Facebook said it would attach labels to 'newsworthy' posts from politicians that violated its hate-speech policies  a significant reversal for the company  and tighten up its rules for advertisers.

In response to the boycott, a Facebook spokeswoman said the company invests billions each year to ensure safety and continuously works with outside experts to review and update its policies.

The company has banned 250 white supremacist organizations from Facebook and Instagram, she said, adding that the companys substantial investment artificial intelligence technology allows Facebook to find nearly 90 per cent of hate speech before users report it.

We know we have more work to do, and well continue to work with civil rights groups, GARM, and other experts to develop even more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight, the spokesperson added.

Jonathan Greenblatt (left), CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, and Derrick Johnson (right), CEO of the NAACP, are among those leading the boycott of Facebook advertising

Facebook executives also have tried in multiple private discussions to address advertisers' concerns, but those talks ultimately broke down, with advertisers calling Facebook's efforts 'simply not moving' and the boycott's organizers demanding that Zuckerberg personally attend because 'he is the ultimate authority'.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg. last week asked to meet with the campaign organizers along with Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, who returned to Facebook this month after resigning over the companys direction last year.

But the civil rights groups insisted Zuckerberg also be at the table, with Anti-Defamation League Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt noting that as CEO, chairman and the companys largest shareholder, he is the ultimate authority.

Zuckerberg has now agreed to meet with leaders of the NAACP, Color of Change, and the Anti-Defamation League.

The meeting has not yet happened.

Zuckerberg's comments Friday suggest he may have already made up his mind, and he seemed to hint that the boycott might actually be backfiring.

'If someone goes out there and threatens you to do something, that actually kind of puts you in a box where in some ways it's even harder to do what they want because now it looks like you're capitulating, and that sets up bad long-term incentives for others to do that [to you] as well,' Zuckerberg said, according to The Information.
When she posted a seemingly innocuous photograph of her home online Kirsty McBain had no idea that Twitter would find something fishy about the image.

The Eden-Monaro by-election hopeful was getting ready for a candidate debate on ABC South-East radio on Thursday morning when she posted a picture of herself at her dining room table.

In the corner of the photo a fish tank is just about visible, and is full of bright green algae.

One alarmed woman said the tank looked as though it had not been cleaned for quite a while and was worried for the welfare of Ms McBain's fish.

'As someone who has fish - and knows how clean the tank must be kept in order for them to remain alive, I couldn't help but notice the tank in Kristy McBain's photo. Is it a fish tank or decorative algal blooms?' the woman said.

Ms McBain was getting prepared for a candidate debate on ABC South-East radio on Thursday morning when she posted the picture

Kristy McBain (pictured) is the local mayor for Bega and is the favourite to win the federal seat

One person said the bright green fish tank was a farm for algae growth

Others users were quick to jump into the discussion with some saying the fish tank should be looked after more while others said Ms McBain might be too busy actually doing her job.

'There cannot be fish in that,' one person said.

'Let's just say Albo would be wise to hold back the fisheries portfolio,' another person added.

'Maybe she's a bit busy doing her actual job,' a third person said.

'Sharp pick up on that,' added a fourth person.

Ms McBain is one of five key candidates in the Eden-Monaro by-election which will see voters go to the polls on July 4.

The seat of Eden-Monaro was vacated when Labor MP Mike Kelly (pictured) retired

Twitter users were quick to join the debate about Ms McBain's dirty fish tank

A by-election in the seat of Eden-Monaro will be held on Friday.

It comes after Labor member Mike Kelly retired from the seat in April for health reasons.

While there are 14 candidates in the running, expectations are that the race is down to Liberal Fiona Kotvojs and Labor's Kristy McBain.

Dr Kotvojs ran against Dr Kelly in the 2019 federal election, slicing two points off his margin to come in only 1685 votes behind.

Ms McBain, until recently the Bega mayor, came to national prominence during the bushfire crisis.

She also has the weight of history on her side, with no government of the day having won a seat off the opposition in a by-election for a century.

Labor has estimated the personal vote of Dr Kelly is worth three or four points since he broke the seat's decades-long bellwether status in 2016 to take it back off the Liberals.

Born and bred in Queanbeyan, Mr Barilaro (pictured with his family) left school to work in his father Domenico's window frame and door manufacturer, Ryleho, which he later managed

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has invested a lot of time personally into campaigning with Ms McBain, who he spruiks as in touch with locals.

People have consistently raised with him the bushfire recovery and worries they're being left behind or missing out from coronavirus support.

'On top of a difficult summer, they read these reports and the gap between government announcement and delivery is enormous,' Mr Albanese told AAP.

'It's about the local impact of those national events. It's about how people are being impacted, how they feel, whether the government has been there to support them.'

Locals had been 'justifiably cynical' about the timing of government announcements during the by-election campaign, such as a package targeting orchards, wineries and timber mills hurt by the bushfires.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected as offensive a suggestion the $86 million package was pork-barrelling.

His campaign for Dr Kotvojs has hinged on the benefits he says having a government backbencher will bring voters over picking someone from the opposition.

'Right here, right now, it's about jobs and jobs here in Eden-Monaro,' he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.

'I need someone here on the ground ... who will fight for those jobs and will storm into my office and say, 'The primary producers need this now, boss,' or, 'The timber millers need this'.'

One person joked that Ms McBain should not be given the fisheries portfolio

With the Nationals also running a candidate in Trevor Hicks, the coalition campaign had a rocky start and end with infighting between the parties.

NSW state ministers John Barilaro and Andrew Constance knocked each other out of contention at the start of the race, while in the final week Mr Barilaro, the deputy premier, has faced accusations he's undermining the Liberals so he can have a clear tilt at the seat in 2022.

The state Nationals leader denied those claims on Thursday, but said he hadn't ruled in or out running in the seat next time around.

'Everyone knows I'm a mate of Mike Kelly ... the loss actually in this by-election is that we've lost Mike Kelly as the local member and a representative for this region,' he told reporters in Queanbeyan.

The betting markets have Ms McBain ahead, as do the opinion polls, although there has been a late surge of punters backing Dr Kotvojs.

Whether that makes much of a difference when more than two in five voters have cast their ballot early or by mail remains to be seen.

NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance (pictured with wife Jennifer) declared he would run before pulling out
A pervert once branded the 'world's most prolific child porn collector' has been freed after serving just seven years of a 1,000-year sentence in Georgia.

Peter Mallory, now 72, was handed the term - the longest ever doled out in the state - in 2013 after being found guilty of collecting 26,000 files of children being abused.

He became eligible for parole in December last year and was freed on May 27 this year after a ruling by a parole board. It is thought he has since settled in Atlanta.

Peter Mallory (pictured left when he was arrested in 2011, and right in 2018), a former TV station owner branded 'the world's most prolific child porn collector', has been freed on parole

The five-person board ruled that due to 'performance credits' such as entering into treatment, completing education and good behavior, Mallory qualified for release.

He will be subject to court supervision, will have to wear an ankle bracelet, and will have to register as a sex offender, the New York Daily News reported.

Mallory is also banned from Troup County, where his crimes were committed.

District Attorney Herb Cranford confirmed Mallory's release to the Atlanta Journal Constitution this week, saying he opposed it but was 'powerless to stop it'.

In another parole review in December last year, Cranford wrote that: 'No amount of supervision can stop a compulsive sexual deviant like Mallory from seeking out the most heinous images and videos of small children being sexually abused.'

A pair of Mallory's victims opposed the latest attempt to release him, but were ultimately overruled.

Mallory, who owned and operated the TV33 station from the West Georgia Technical College campus, first came to police attention in 2011 when detectives were alerted to a computer he used which had 600 files of child abuse on it.

Mallory was found to have collected 26,000 files of child abuse including rape on computers at the TV station he ran on the campus of West Georgia Technical College (pictured)

Investigations subsequently led officers to the TV station, where a stash of child porn containing more than 26,000 files was uncovered.

They included 'images and videos of children being raped, tortured and sexually exploited,' Cranford said.

Police also uncovered a secret desk camera that Mallory used to record young women in his office.

He was arrested in April the same year on 60 counts of sexual exploitation of children, tampering with evidence and three counts of invasion of privacy.

Mallory was convicted in December 2012 and sentenced in January the following year to 1,000 years, believed to be the longest sentence ever handed out in Georgia.

As he was sent down, the judge describe Mallory as 'probably the most prolific collector of child pornography in the entire world.'

However, his crimes meant that he had to be considered for parole, and first became eligible last year.

Mallory had appealed against his sentence, but a judge found in April this year that the penalty was justified.

Following Mallory's release, parole board spokesman Steve Hayes said the board is 'confident he will be closely monitored'.
A U.S. district judge has ordered attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre to destroy evidence from her case against Ghislaine Maxwell.

Senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled Wednesday that the lawyers from Cooper & Kirk had improperly gained access to the documents.

Former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, who had been seeking to gain full access to the Maxwell documents, was also denied them.

A U.S. district judge has ordered attorneys for Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre (pictured) to destroy evidence from her case against Ghislaine Maxwell

Former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, who had been seeking to gain full access to the Maxwell documents, was also denied them

Preska said she was 'troubled' to learn during oral arguments last week that Giuffre's lawyers were given sealed documents against Maxwell.

Giuffre alleges that Maxwell recruited her as the 'sex slave' of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his friends when she was underage.

'The Court was troubled to learn at the June 23 oral argument that replacement counsel for Ms. Giuffre, Cooper & Kirk, had received from Ms. Giuffre's former counsel, Boies Schiller Flexner, the Maxwell materials at issue in their entirety,' Preska said.

'Asked to explain how those materials came into the firm's possession, attorneys from Cooper & Kirk explained that they had obtained access to the materials because Ms. Giuffre retained them 'both to represent her in [Giuffre v. Dershowitz] and to represent her in conjunction with the Boies Schiller firm in the Maxwell case.'

Preska rejected claims by Giuffre's lawyers that they were entitled to the documents because they'd been hired to represent her in the Maxwell case, the New York Post reported.

The Giuffre v Maxwell protective order has long kept the potentially-explosive Epstein files under wraps.

Preska reasoned that the protective order only provides access to the 'preparation and trial' of Giuffre's settled lawsuit against Maxwell and since that lawsuit is inactive, 'Cooper & Kirk necessarily cannot play an active role in litigating them.'

The Giuffre v Maxwell protective order has long kept the potentially-explosive Epstein files under wraps (Maxwell and Epstein pictured above)

The judge ordered Cooper & Kirk lawyers to destroy the evidence, along with 'any material, including work product, derived from' it.

She directed the lawyers to submit an affidavit afterwards.

Former Epstein attorney Dershowitz, who is counter-suing Giuffre for causing 'serious harmto his reputation, his business and his health', was also refused access to the documents.

The court ruled: 'Critically, the agreed-upon unsealing procedure can only work as intended if non-parties are willing to participate. Handing over to Mr. Dershowitz all of the materials from Maxwell, which would necessarily include all of the sealed filings that are the subject of the unsealing protocol, would threaten that balance.'

Dershowitz has repeatedly sought full access to the Epstein files.
Security guards hired to monitor returned travellers quarantining in Melbourne hotels took them shopping and on sneaky trips to 7-Eleven while claiming the JobKeeper payment and moonlighting as Uber drivers.

The shocking new details about severe breaches at hotels come just a day after claims guards were having sex with guests in coronavirus lockdown.

Whistleblowers have revealed how some guards walked returned travellers to 7-Eleven stores and to busy shopping centres for some retail therapy.

Many were accused of not wearing face masks, taking lunch breaks at McDonald's and KFC despite coming in contact with potentially infected guests, and driving Ubers at night.

Insiders have detailed how guards were being paid cash-in-hand for lockdown work while still claiming JobKeeper payments.

The worrying misconduct which is believed to have lead to a second COVID-19 outbreak in Victoria is now under investigation.

If the rate of coronavirus infections do not slow down Victoria could be heading towards 1,000 active cases by the end of next week.

Pictured: Staff inside the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne are seen moving luggage for guests in hotel quarantine on June 25

Dozens of residents in Melbourne line up for a COVID-19 test on Thursday amid a second spike in cases

A security guard, named only as Sam, has spent the past two months working as a quarantine hotel security guard in Melbourne.

He said his colleagues would share lifts with groups of travellers, escort them for exercise and then go into the community as normal despite the risk of spreading the virus.

'On their break, guards were going for a break, and they were going to 7-Eleven, McDonald's, KFC, everywhere, and they were exposing everyone to that,' he told 9News anonymously.

'We were trying to control the virus, but the way they have done everything, I think we were spreading the virus, not controlling the virus.'

The security guard also claims he was told not to take a test for COVID-19 in case he tested positive and wouldn't be able to work.

'When I knew that there was positive cases in the hotel I have asked them, do I need to go for a test or something? And they said no, no, no don't worry, don't stress because we need people, so if you (go) for a test they will ask you to self-isolate, so don't go, we will let you know when to go for a test,' he said.

Another anonymous security worker told the Today show he was given five minutes of training before beginning his first shift.

Sam, a security guard who has been assigned to quarantine hotels in Melbourne for the past two months, said his fellow workers exposed the community to coronavirus by going for lunch at 7-Eleven and McDonalds on their breaks

'This entry is closed': Signs are seen in the windows of the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne

Pictured: Dumped shoes and a jacket are seen outside a closed St Vinnies de Paul in Glenroy, Melbourne on Thursday

Pictured: Quiet streets are seen in Glenroy, Melbourne on Thursday as 36 suburbs enter lockdown

The Herald Sun reported that industry insiders said some security guards were being paid cash in hand for their hotel quarantine shifts while receiving JobKeeper payments from the government.

A well-respected security subcontractor reportedly had their agreement terminated abruptly at a hotel where there is a coronavirus cluster and another business was given the job.

One senior industry figure told the publication some providers hired for the quarantine failed to use the 'right procedures, the right people and, most importantly, the right supervision'.

'The writing was on the wall from the word go,' the figure said.

'You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. You end up with a guy who's being paid no dough. You get the bottom of the barrel.'

The Victorian Government on Thursday announced the state's troubled hotel quarantine program would be probed by Justice Jennifer Coate amid a second spike in coronavirus infections. Pictured: A taxi driver outside the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne is seen wearing face mask

A large proportion of recent coronavirus cases in Victoria have been traced to breaches in hotels hosting the returned travellers for their government-enforced 14 days of quarantine. Pictured: Guests at the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne are seen wearing masks as they get into taxis

The Age reported guests and healthcare workers who have been at Melbourne quarantine hotels throughout the week spotted security guards not wearing protection gear.

A security source at Stamford Plaza said guards were seen assembled together without face masks.

At least 31 coronavirus cases are linked to an outbreak at the hotel.

Dr Vyom Sharma, who worked across quarantine hotels in Melbourne, said security guards had not received the same level of training as medical professionals.

'Yes, it's true, this is the second outbreak that's associated with security/hotel staff,: he wrote on Twitter.

'The hotel/security staff aren't trained in the same way that nurses/doctors have been. I'm sure they were given intro training.

'But medicos train over the span of a degree/career. We STILL make mistakes, frequently identified by infection control when we get audited.'

A general view of the quiet shopping precinct in the locked down suburb of Dallas on Thursday

A member of the Australian Defence Force takes a swab sample at a drive-through COVID-19 testing site in Fawkner, Melbourne, on Thursday

A man walks along closed businesses in Glenroy, Melbourne on Thursday

There are currently 415 active cases in Victoria but the state is seeing about 70 new cases a day.

On Thursday, the Victorian Government announced the state's troubled hotel quarantine program would be probed by Justice Jennifer Coate amid a second spike in coronavirus infections.

There are allegations of under-trained staff, inadequate personal protective equipment, billing rorts by private security contractors and even claims that some hotel guards slept with guests.

A large proportion of recent coronavirus cases in Victoria have been traced to breaches in hotels hosting returned travellers for their government-enforced 14 days of quarantine.

Pictured: A staff member inside the Stamford Hotel moves luggage. At least 31 coronavirus cases are linked to an outbreak at the hotel.

A general view of the Rydges on Swanston hotel in Melbourne. A coronavirus cluster was reported at the hotel between the end of May and beginning of June

Government staff go door-to-door in Brunswick West to explain testing procedures on Thursday

Justice Coate, one of the state's most experienced judicial officers, will lead the inquiry into the coronavirus quarantine arrangements for returning travellers.

'It is abundantly clear that what has gone on here is completely unacceptable and we need to know exactly what has happened,' Premier Daniel Andrews said.

Justice Coate will look into allegations that infection control protocols were breached at the quarantine hotels.

The inquiry will probe decisions and actions by the government, hotel operators and private contractors, as well as the training of staff.

Opposition leader Michael O'Brien on Thursday told reporters the hotel quarantine program had been a complete and utter debacle, and demanded the sacking of Health Minister Jenny Mikakos.

'The government decided to put in place poorly trained unqualified private security guards to look after hotel quarantine,' he said.

Healthcare workers are seen at a COVID-19 drive-through testing facility in Keilor, Melbourne

The curve in Victoria has skyrocketed over the past couple of weeks as coronavirus infections continue to grow from within the suburbs of Melbourne

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

He also showed concern the inquiry would be a 'cover up', rather than shining light into what had happened.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said the role of police in hotel quarantine was to provide assistance for returned travellers and help make sure they reached their accommodation, not to supervise the hotel security.

Police Minister Lisa Neville on Thursday added that government and agencies had little time to implement the quarantine program, saying the inquiry will scrutinise the decision-making during that process.

'It was for agencies to work out the best system to do that, to get hotels who put their hands up at that time,' she said.

'We did it within 24 hours so quick decisions were made by various agencies and again I'm not going to throw anyone under the bus.'

All international flights are being diverted from the state for a fortnight as the program is put on hold.

Once it resumes, Corrections Victoria will have taken over the program's operation from private security contractors.

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Thursday he wasn't aware of breaches by staff workers at the hotels, but hoped the inquiry would help reveal possible mistakes.

The Victorian government has provided $3 million for the inquiry, which will report by September 25.
A powerful network of British business and political elites rub shoulders with Chinese dignitaries and top executives, an insider has revealed to MailOnline.

London's 48 Club, which aims to strengthen the UK's commercial ties with Beijing, has come under the microscope after an explosive new book claimed its members were being 'groomed' by the Chinese state.

The Club has rubbished the claims made in the Hidden Hand as 'inaccurate' and insisted it is an 'independent' company.

Now, a former member of the 48 Club has lifted the lid on the organisation which counts ex-deputy PMs Michael Heseltine and John Prescott among its associates.

A picture of former home secretary Jack Straw at an event has also surfaced after he denied ever hearing about the club.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source said the group was 'very powerful' and attracted the 'creme de la creme' of UK society.

48 Group Club chairman Stephen Perry meets with President Xi in Beijing in 2018. Peter Mandelson is also pictured in the background

Michael Heseltine presenting Jack Straw with the Fellowship Award from the '48 Group Club' that promotes China/UK relations Chinese New Year dinner at the Guildhall in 2007

On the 48 Club's website, which was briefly taken down amid the book storm, its mission statement is to foster commercial and cultural harmony between Britain and China

They recalled how Beijing's ambassador in London would come to events to bang the drum for Sino-Anglo relations by highlighting China's rapid economic growth.

Mayfair art galleries were among the venues where the 'Who's Who of China's big companies' would network with the 48 Club, the ex-member said.

Describing who would attend these networking events, they told MailOnline: 'Senior business people, senior diplomats, British diplomats, businesses owners, people who are prominent, they are C-level executives of big companies, both UK and Chinese, who have interests in China.'

Among these firms was Huawei, the telecommunications giant at the heart of a heated row raging through the ranks of the Conservative Party.

Boris Johnson has been forced to review his decision for the company to build parts of the UK's 5G infrastructure after facing rebellion from a caucus of Sinosceptic MPs who claim it could leave the country vulnerable to sabotage.

Yet despite Huawei flaring tensions in Westminster, the 48 Club source said they were firmly wired in to the British establishment via their attendance at group events.

Detailing which Chinese firms would attend, they said: 'Very powerful people. People who are the decision makers within society.

'The UK head of Huawei was there, the head of China Telecom was there. I don't know what influence they would have at those meetings, but it's people meeting each other.'

From the British side, Lord Heseltine and Lord Prescott, both once deputy prime ministers, lead the cast of politicians who are counted as fellows.

The source said he also saw New Labour architect Peter Mandeleson and Tony Blair's No 10 director of communications David Hill at events.

Tony Blair himself has been named as an honorary fellow on the group's website, but his office told MailOnline they had no idea why he was listed.

Amid confusion, the 48 Club have clarified: 'Associate members have no connection with the Club other than that honour, unless a separate contribution to the Club has been established.'

The source recalled how Beijing's then ambassador in London, Fu Ying, would come to events to bang the drum for Sino-Anglo relations by stressing China's economic growth and saying the nation would welcome British investment

China's President Xi Jinping (right) meets with the 48 Group Club chairman Stephen Perry at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 16, 2018

The 48 Group Club, also known as 'The Icebreakers', are a 500-strong outfit with headquarters in Bayswater

The source, who has not been a member for several years, said that they never saw any lobbying by Chinese companies done publicly.

They also cast doubt on the group being used as a vehicle for the Chinese Communist Party to exert influence overseas.

He said of 48 Club chairman Stephen Perry: 'I've known Stephen for some time and it's always been about business, never about anything else.'

On the 48 Club's website, which was briefly taken down amid the book storm, its mission statement is to foster commercial and cultural harmony between Britain and China.

It adds: 'The Club offers an important  and often key  network of contacts for those active in building relations through any field from commerce to culture.'

The ex-member said that members would gain access to senior Chinese officials at events.

They told MailOnline: 'Different provinces of China have their own Mayors and they would have trade breakfast forums to promote that particular province.'

The 48 Club is a 650-member strong organisation which helps British companies break into the Chinese market, according to its website. It offers a range of levels of membership and personal consultancy from chairman Stephen Perry

The club's website was pulled but an archived version of the site outlines its mission statement

Some of these events would be sponsored by banking and corporation giants, said the source.

'Huawei may sponsor an event or China Telecom may sponsor an event, or Standard Chartered, which has a massive influence in mainland China, or HSBC for example, the people from their China desk would be there.

What is the 48 club? A group of British elites to foster relations with China The 48 Club is a 650-member strong organisation which helps British companies break into the Chinese market, according to its website. It dates back to the efforts of businessmen to forge greater Sino-Anglo alliances following the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The first trip in 1953 took 16 representatives of British companies, including current chairman Stephen Perry's father Jack, to China to discuss trade. It paved the way for a second visit in 1954 where 48 representatives from British companies embarked on a trade mission to China. Since its inception, the club claims to command gravitas among the Chinese businesses community to the extent that it is 'the most respected name in China-Britain trade'. According to its website, the 48 club's mission statement is to 'have a vital role in unfreezing the cultural deficit between China and the world'. The group was particularly close with former Chinese premier Hu Jintao, who is pictured with several of the 48 club's members, including Perry. The club hosts seminars and dinners for its members, while also offering 'support and consultancy services to British companies entering China's market'. The 48 Club claims to be funded by its members. Mr Perry is managing director of the London Export Corporation, a consultancy firm about the Chinese market. Advertisement

'Practically, the Who's Who's of China's big companies and their senior managers would be there.'

However they stressed that membership was not just limited to big business, but also entrepreneurs hoping to break into the Chinese market.

'I remember one person was thinking of selling British baby milk powder to China. That's an example, he was there looking for people, partners or buyers,' he said.

Earlier this week, the Times reported that the 48 Club was taking legal action to stop the publication of Hidden Hand.

But the 48 Club said in a statement: 'It has been reported in the media that we have initiated legal proceedings against the authors of a book entitled Hidden Hand.

'This is not the case. The Club's legal advisors wrote to the publishers after the book was drawn to the Club's attention through a German media enquiry and the Club and its members were previously unaware of the book.

'It became clear that the book contained a number of inaccurate and potentially libellous statements relating to the role and function of the 48 Group Club and some of its members.

'On taking legal advice the Club wrote to the publishers of the book to request sight of the text and opportunity to correct and respond to the errors in the book.

'Errors have been acknowledged by the publishers and we are working to correct the others.'

Relations between Beijing and the West have soured during the coronavirus crisis as many governments accuse China of covering up its early outbreak and allowing it to spread.

Beijing is also being increasingly assertive in its foreign relations, taking greater control of Hong Kong and projecting its naval power in the South China Sea.

A leaked dossier from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance also accused Beijing of 'disappearing' whistle-blowers who exposed the seriousness of the coronavirus , while Donald Trump fanned conspiracies of Covid-19 spilling out of a Wuhan laboratory.

And in Britain, a Tory backbench rebellion and mounting pressure from the White House has forced Boris Johnson to review the decision to allow Huawei to build the UK's 5G network.

America is also urging the UK to ditch Huawei and Google has banned the Chinese telecoms giant from its apps.

Critics fear that giving Huawei access to the country's vital telecoms infrastructure could be used by China to steal secrets from Britain or launch crippling cyber attacks.

Tory MP Bob Seely told MailOnline: 'There is a real need for foreign lobbying laws in this country. Our lobbying laws are very weak compared to other countries.

'The US brought in tight lobbying laws in the 1930s and Australia did so last year.

'We badly need a foreign lobbying law so if people in power - politicians, current officials, soldiers, the great and the good so to speak - are lobbied, the rest of us need to know.'
This is the embarrassing moment Robert Peston tried to liven up a TV shoot with an impromptu dance session, turning the studio into a cheesy 'nightclub'.

The ITV Political Editor can be seen dancing along to the beat with his guests in the studio while disco lights flash.

The panelists had been discussing the reopening of nightclubs with new social distancing rules in Australia, where plans are said to include encouraging clubbers to dance from their chairs.

Peston's guests got into the spirit of the discussion when the lights started flashing and smoke spread through the studio, replicating a real nightclub in the studio.

The ITV Political Editor can be seen dancing along to the beat with his guests in the studio while disco lights flash and the room fills with smoke

Labour MP John Ashworth can be seen getting into the spirit of the new rules as the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care wildly waves his arms over his head.

Tory MP Nicky Morgan can also be seen getting in to the music from home.

The former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport turned into the show via video call.

The panelists had been discussing the reopening of nightclubs with new social distancing rules in Australia, where plans could include encouraging clubbers to dance from their chairs

Nicky Morgan, the former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, turned into the show via video call and danced away to the beat from home

The clip shows the Loughborough MP smiling and swaying her shoulders to the beat as she is sat in front of a bookcase.

But British diplomat and former Downing Street Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, looks on seemingly unamused as Peston shakes his head to the beat.

It is a far cry from the more serious topics usually discussed on ITV's Peston, which airs on Wednesday nights.

British diplomat and former Downing Street Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell,does not look on amused and does not join in the dancing like Peston's other guests

Labour MP John Ashworth can be seen getting into the spirit of the new rules as the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care wildly waves his arms over his head

ITV director Erron Gordon posted the video on Twitter, joking that Peston's studio was a 'sick new club' that had opened up in West London

Some social media users were less than impressed by Peston's dancing skills and chose to stick to lockdown instead of taking part in the partying

Others branded the Peston stunt 'cringe' and joked that the ITV Political Editor and his guests 'should be arrested' for their embarrassing dancing

Mocking the London club scene's strict dress codes, one viewer said this was the only place in West London where punters can wear trainers inside the nightclub

Another social media user continued the joke and asked if women would get free drinks, a common ploy to entice in female clubbers

The clip was broadcast live to audiences on Twitter last night, and ITV director Erron Gordon shared the clip on social media on Thursday.

It shows the camera panning around the various guests and is understood to have been filmed during a break in filming.

GMB series director Gordon wrote: 'Sick new club in Shepherds Bush opened tonight #Peston.'

Viewers branded the clip 'cringe' and joked that the Peston studio was 'the only club in West London where you can wear trainers'.
Some residents living in coronavirus hotspots are refusing to get tested because they believe in damaging conspiracy theories, it has been claimed.

Some locals in the Melbourne suburb of Keilor Downs, one of the worst affected areas, believe testing is linked to 5G, while others are anti-vaxxers.

Sheryl, who lives in Keilor Downs, told ABC radio that she had seen a number of disturbing comments on social media.

She said that residents were avoiding testing because they thought it was a way for 'the government to control them'.

'From what I have seen on some of our local group pages it comes down to conspiracy theories,' she said.

Pictured is a man getting a COVID-19 test in Broadmeadows, one of Melbourne's coronavirus hotspots

Testing has been ramped up in Melbourne after hundreds of new cases of coronavirus

While many residents living in coronavirus 'red zones' have come forward for testing, hundreds are refusing (pictured is a medic testing a driver for the virus in Keilor Downs)

'We've see people turning around and saying it (the virus) is caused by 5G, there are other members of the community saying that this is the government's way of controlling us.

'And yet again we have other people who are claiming that this is just a virus and we all get the flu every year and this is no different.'

Another resident told Daily Mail Australia that she had seen a lot of anti-vaxxer comments on the Keilor Downs Neighbourhood Group on Facebook.

'There were so many anti-vaxxer comments about the testing that they ended up being deleted,' she said.

'People think that this is a way for the government to control you. It is really disturbing.'

In another Facebook post one resident suggested that there was a link between 5G and COVID-19.

'We don't need to be rocket scientists to see the hotspots and the 5G areas are connected do we?' the woman wrote

Some residents are claiming new 5G phone network towers are causing COVID-19 (pictured)

Many Facebook groups have called out conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers and said they will not tolerate the posting of misinformation on their pages (residents line up for testing in Melbourne)

WHY VACCINES ARE IMPORTANT Immunisation is a simple, safe and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases before they come into contact with them. Immunisation not only protects individuals, but also others in the community, by reducing the spread of preventable diseases. Research and testing is an essential part of developing safe and effective vaccines. In Australia, vaccines must pass strict safety testing before the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) will register them for use. Approval of vaccines can take up to 10 years. Before vaccines become available to the public, large clinical trials test them on thousands of people. High-quality studies over many years have compared the health of large numbers of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Medical information from nearly 1.5 million children around the world have confirmed that vaccination does not cause autism. People first became concerned about autism and immunisation after the medical journal The Lancet published a paper in 1998. This paper claimed there was a link between the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Since then, scientists have completely discredited this paper. The Lancet withdrew it in 2010 and printed an apology. The UK's General Medical Council struck the author off the medical register for misconduct and dishonesty. Source: Australian Department of Health Advertisement

Other community group pages have been forced to tell their members they will not accept the posting of misinformation.

'We won't tolerate plain stupidity or comments designed to deliberately upset people,' one group moderator wrote.

'This includes anti-vaxxer comments, there are plenty of groups for that.'

There have been almost 1,000 residents in two hotspots - Broadmeadows and Keilor Downs - who have refused to take the test.

Victoria recorded another 77 new cases of COVID-19 - most of them in Melbourne's inner north and west.

The spike in cases prompted a lockdown across 10 postcodes from Thursday until July 29.

The spike in cases prompted the lockdown across 10 postcodes from Thursday until July 29 (staff pictured directing traffic queues waiting to get into a pop-up COVID-19 test site)

Residents of these postcodes will only be able to leave their homes to shop for food and supplies, to receive or provide care, to exercise and to study or work.

The state government has also confirmed veteran judge Jennifer Coate will lead the inquiry into Victoria's hotel quarantine program.

A large proportion of the state's recent cases has been traced back to infection control breaches in hotels hosting returned travellers.

So far, 2,303 Victorians have had coronavirus and 20 people have died.

There are now 415 active cases and 20 patients in hospital, including four in intensive care.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd said Melbourne residents now back in lockdown shouldn't feel like they are alone during this time.
Chinese vendors sold extremely sick or even dying cats, dogs and guinea pigs at a so-called 'pet' market which also offered live animals for their meat, campaigners have revealed.

Stalls in the filthy market sold live pigeons, chickens, and quails as food while other creatures, such as rabbits, were crammed into faeces-encrusted cages waiting for their new owners, according to an undercover investigation.

Animal rights group PETA has warned that markets like this one could cause even more pandemics, such as the bird flu, when the world is already battling COVID-19.

A video provided by PETA shows two ill-looking dogs being caged at the so-called pet market in eastern China in May. Investigators found that vendors there also sold live animals as food

The footage also shows a cat appearing to be severely ill while lying in a shared cage in the market. Animal campaigners warned such an environment could cause more pandemics

A guinea pig was spotted lying motionless in a cage at the market in eastern China. The footage was allegedly filmed in May when COVID-19 was on the rise in many parts of the world

Footage supplied to MailOnline by PETA shows some birds and chickens waiting to be traded in dirty coops while other creatures, such as guinea pigs and rabbits, were squeezed into cages in the dozens.

The market appeared to offer more than half a dozen species, either sold for their meat or as companion animals.

No veterinary care was seen provided to those sick animals.

One section of the video shows a cat lying in its shared cage looking helpless and very ill while another part purports to show a dying guinea pig on offer.

Dead animals were also spotted dumped into bins near the living.

Vendors told investigator that the live pigeons, chickens, and quails were sold for their meat

Some animals were crammed into filthy cages in the dozens, according to footage from PETA

The video was allegedly filmed at an unnamed market in eastern China in May when COVID-19 cases were on the rise in many parts of the world.

The deadly disease was first detected in a live animal market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Although its exact origins remain unknown, experts believe it came from bats and was passed onto humans through wild animals sold as food.

But animal rights campaigners concerned that live animal markets like this one could trigger another outbreak of the bird flu.

'Diseases run rampant when animals are confined to filthy, enclosed spaces,' said PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker.

'While the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unpredictable, one thing is certain: Live-animal markets will continue to put the human population at enormous risk.'

Animal rights campaigners concerned that live animal markets like this one could trigger another outbreak of the bird flu, especially from the H7N9 virus. 'Diseases run rampant when animals are confined to filthy, enclosed spaces,' said PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker

Investigators spotted what looks like a dead rabbit dumped in a bin near cages of live animals

Earlier this year, two Chinese provinces were hit by 'highly pathogenic' bird flu when Beijing was in the thick of containing the coronavirus outbreak.

Nearly 2,000 fowl were killed by the H5N6 strain of avian influenza on a poultry farm in Sichuan Province, Chinese agricultural authority announced yesterday.

Just eight days earlier, 4,500 chickens were reported to have died of the H5N1 virus in the province of Hunan.

H7N9, another strain of avian influenza virus, causes little or no illness in poultry but can jump onto humans.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has described it as 'one of the most lethal influenza viruses'.

The strain was first detected in human in China in March 2013.

As of 18 June 2020, a total of 1,568 laboratory-confirmed human H7N9 infections, including at least 615 deaths, had been reported to the WHO.
Jennifer Alejandra Insuasti, 32, who worked at Walt Disney World in guest relations has been charged with first-degree grand theft

A woman who worked in guest relations at Disney World has been accused of stealing more than $160,000 from the company which she allegedly funneled to her friends and family under the guise of refunds.

Jennifer Insuasti, 32, from Kissimmee, Florida, has been charged with grand theft.

Her job involved offering cash refunds to guests who were unhappy about their experience for any reason while visiting the popular Orlando theme park.

Her role also allowed her to also offer free tickets as compensation.

But for two years, between March 2016 and July 2018 she allegedly issued more than 40 fake refunds, and directed the cash towards the bank accounts of people she knew, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

'Agents found that, on numerous occasions, using old refund accounts as a cover, she misdirected money into her personal account or the accounts of her friends,' the Florida Department of Law Enforcement alleges.

'Guests still received their refunds, but money was stolen directly from her former employer.'

Guests still received their refunds, but she 'misdirected money into her personal account or the accounts of her friends' allegedly funneling a total of $160,000 from the company

Investigators were able to track where the transactions went after noticing Insuasti appeared to be friends with seven of the people on her Facebook page.

In total, Insuasti is accused of making more than 40 fake refunds varying from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, through a combination of checks and credit cards belonging to her friends and family.

Insuasti handled guests complaints and was able to offer free refunds or tickets

The Sentinel notes that one relative didn't question a deposit of $18,567 when it allegedly appeared in her account, which she apparently went on to use for bills and school books.

Another friend allegedly received $24,000.

None of the friends or family members have so far been arrested in connection with the case.

Insuasti, who left and returned to Disney employment several times over the years including 2009, 2013 and 2016, is accused of sticking $16,305 directly into her own account. She left the company in 2018.

Insuasti has been booked into the Osceola County Jail on a first-degree felony grand theft charge.

A report by the FDLE also notes that Insuasti stole from Disney 'in several different ways' but has not provided any additional details.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday 'of course' President Trump should have been briefed on intelligence claims Russia had bounties on U.S. service members in Afghanistan.

'Of course, the president should have been briefed. This is of the highest priority force protection, a threat to our men and women in uniform,' she said at her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill.

She added that she thought that before she and other members of the Gang of Eight were briefed on the issue by CIA Director Gina Haspel and National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone.

The briefing took place Thursday morning in a secure room in the U.S. Capitol.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged the White House with perpetuating a con when officials claimed the president wasn't briefed because the information was not 'verified'

Speaker Pelosi said President Trump should have been briefed on the intelligence report claiming Russian bounties on U.S. service members in Afghanistan

Afterward, she charged the White House with perpetuating a con when officials claimed the president wasn't briefed because the information was not 'verified.'

'The White House put on a con - that if you don't have 100% consensus on intelligence that it shouldn't rise to a certain level. Well we would practically be investigating nothing if you had to start off 100%. So don't buy into that. And neither does the intelligence community. It's gathering intelligence and they have enough intelligence to know where we have to go next with it,' she said.

It was the first intelligence briefing for Pelosi on the issue and came as she slammed President Trump as 'unqualified and ethically unfit' to serve as president and commander-in-chief.

'The fact is very clear. The President is intellectually unprepared, personally unqualified and ethically unfit to serve as President of the United States.

'And now he has undermined any credibility he may have had as Commander-in-Chief, if he could call a possible assault on our troops, our men and women in uniform, by the Russians a hoax, without even wanting to read about it, learn more about it and make a really informed judgment about it,' the speaker told MSNBC on Wednesday.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said President Trump is 'intellectually unprepared, personally unqualified and ethically unfit to serve' as commander in chief

The President has proved himself to be wholly unqualified and ethically unfit to serve  and now he has undermined any credibility he may have had as Commander in Chief. @DeadlineWH pic.twitter.com/OVrTetPp9r  Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 2, 2020

'He'll say this is a hoax, and it's a hoax that they are 24/7 trying to disrupt our election as they did in 2016.

'He says the coronavirus is a hoax. The fact is the president himself is a hoax,' she said.

The Gang of Eight consists of the top leadership in Congress from both parties and the heads of the intelligence committees.

Besides Pelosi, it includes Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner as the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence committee, and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Rep. Devin Nunes as the chairman and ranking member of the House intelligence committee.

The briefings for the Gang of Eight are more detailed than a briefing for all members of Congress.

The White House has already held separate briefings for some Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Democrats complained they only heard from White House staff - Chief of Staff Mark Meadows led their briefing - while Republicans heard from intelligence officials. Additionally, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe was on Capitol Hill Wednesday to brief members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Pelosi has asked for an all-House briefing on the Russian bounties while Schumer has demanded a similar one for the Senate.

Meanwhile, President Trump on Wednesday claimed that many in the intelligence community didn't believe that the Russian government was paying a bounty on American troops in Afghanistan.

He continued to claim he had never been briefed on the matter, saying it didn't rise to the level of president, and called the report a 'hoax.'

'We never heard about it because intelligence never found it to be of that level, where it would rise to that,' Trump told Fox Business in an interview. 'When you bring something into a president and I see many, many things and I'm sure I don't see many things that they don't think rose to the occasion. This didn't rise to the occasion.'

It was his second time that day referring to the matter as a 'hoax.'

'The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited @nytimes has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!,' Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.

The White House has struggled to do damage control and contain the fallout from Friday's report in The New York Times on the allegation against Russia. The administration has focused its counterattack on the argument that Trump was never briefed on the matter.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the congressional Gang of Eight would be briefed on the Russia bounty issue on Thursday

President Donald Trump said many in the intelligence community didn't believe a report that the Russian government was paying a bounty on American troops

In his interview with Fox Business, Trump argued the intelligence community didn't even buy it.

'From what I hear, and I hear it pretty good, the intelligence people didn't even - many of them didn't believe it happened at all. I think it's a hoax. I think it's a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats,' Trump said.

But the president declined to detail what he would do if the report turned out to be true, simply saying: 'If it did happen, the Russians would hear about it. And anybody else would hear about it that was involved.'

Officials in the administration have not disputed the existence of the intelligence report but have said it was not verified and that was why it was not presented to President Trump.

National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien told 'Fox & Friends' on Wednesday morning the president wasn't briefed because the allegation against Russia was 'uncorroborated.'

But he also acknowledged the allegation was in Trump's briefing material - but the briefer didn't tell the president about it.

'The president's career CIA briefer decided not to brief him because it was unverified intelligence and, by the way, she's an outstanding officer and - in knowing all the facts I know - I certainly support her decision,' he said.

Trump's National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien told 'Fox & Friends' the president wasn't briefed because the allegation was 'uncorroborated' but O'Brien admitted information was in president's daily briefing - it just wasn't given to him by the CIA officer doing the briefing

O'Brien, after his appearance on Fox News, was asked by reporters at the White House if the information about Russia was in the president's daily brief but he declined to say either way.

'We don't get into to written classified documents. Unfortunately that that's something that there's been spent a little too much that in Washington lately,' he said.

While Trump and his staff have argued he was not briefed on the matter, reports indicated the information was in the president's daily brief - a compilation of intelligence reports given to the commander in chief and top administration officials. Trump is said not to read it carefully and is, instead, orally briefed on the matters at hand.

President's Daily Brief The President's Daily Brief (PDB) is a daily a multi-source intelligence digest of high-level information and analysis on national security issues produced for the president and key cabinet members and advisers. It has been presented in some form to the president since 1946, when President Harry Truman received the Daily Summary. In 2014, the PDB transitioned from a print product to electronic delivery at the request of President Barack Obama. Given the sensitive nature of the information, most PDBs - even those from many years past - remain classified. Source: Intelligence.gov Advertisement

O'Brien seems to confirm this with his account.

'The person who decided early on whether the president should be briefed on this in the Oval ... was a senior career civil servant, at a CIA officer,' he told reporters at the White House.

'And she made that decision because she didn't have confidence in the intelligence that came up. We get raw intelligence and tactical intelligence, every day, hundreds of pieces of intelligence coming every day, thousands of pieces of intelligence come in a week. She made that call,' he said.

The New York Times reported in May that Trump's CIA briefer is Beth Sanner, who has three decades of experience. The piece also detailed how the president has a short attention span, rarely reads his daily brief (except for graphs and photos he likes to look at) and tends to get his information from conservative news outlets.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president wasn't angry about not being briefed because he has 'great faith' in his staff.

'The president believes that and has great faith and Ambassador O'Brien and the others who made the decision that this shouldn't be risen to his desk. It was a career CIA officer with more than 30 years of tenure who made the decision not to brief it up and the National Security Adviser agreed with that decision. She's an excellent officer and does great work,' she said Wednesday at her press briefing.

'But this is unverified still at this very moment,' she added.

And McEnany said on Tuesday the president does read his briefing reports.

'The President does read and he also consumes intelligence verbally. This president I will tell you is the most informed person on planet earth when it comes to the threats that we face,' McEnany said.

As the administration has struggled to down play the shocking report, Democrats have piled onto the president, accusing him of a 'dereliction of duty' in the words of Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee who spoke in Wilmington on Tuesday.

'If these allegations are true and he did nothing about any of this, then, in fact, I think the public should - unrelated to my running - conclude this man is not fit to be the president of the United States of America,' Biden said of Trump.

Joe Biden said of Donald Trump that 'this man is not fit to be the president of the United States of America' during remarks in Wilmington on Tuesday

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee (left with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on the right) said 'there may be a reluctance to brief the president on things he doesn't want to hear'; Schiff and Hoyer were among the eight House Democrats briefed by the White House on Tuesday morning

Hillary Clinton, Trump's 2016 Democratic rival, criticized the president for not knowing about the intelligence.

'Either he knew and chose to do nothing, or he didn't know because he couldn't be bothered to do his job,' she wrote on Twitter.

Biden also slammed Trump for reports he does not read his daily briefing, noting he and President Barack Obama read theirs every day when they were in office.

'The president brief was something I read every day as vice president. The president read it every day. I was briefed every morning before I got to the White House, and then again. The idea that somehow he didn't know or isn't being briefed, it's a dereliction of duty if that's the case. If he was briefed, and nothing was done about this, that is a dereliction of duty,' Biden said of Trump.

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said 'there may be a reluctance to brief the president on things he doesn't want to hear.'

Schiff made his comments after eight House Democrats received a briefing at the White House on Tuesday morning.

'You briefed the president in the manner in which he or she receives information. If the president doesn't read the briefs, it makes it doesn't doesn't work to give him written product, and not tell him what's in it,' Schiff said.

'So, I don't want to comment on this particular case but I just say it's not a justification to say that the president should have read whatever materials he has. If he doesn't read, he doesn't read. They should know that by now,' he noted.

Some Republicans have jumped to the president's defense.

'This morning I attended a long briefing at @WhiteHouse on reports about Putin putting bounties on our troops in Afghanistan. I'm confident @RealDonaldTrump didn't know about the report, and it's clear our intelligence agencies aren't in complete agreement on this,' wrote Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, the chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee, on Twitter on Tuesday.
Talks between the UK and the EU over a post-Brexit trade deal broke up early today as officials gave a gloomy assessment of progress.

The first round of face-to-face negotiations since coronavirus struck had been due to conclude tomorrow after a week of politicking in Brussels.

But UK chief negotiator David Frost revealed today that they would be finishing early.

And he gave a downbeat assessment of the progress, with both sides at loggerheads over issues including fishing rights and trading standards.

In a statement Mr Frost said: 'We have completed our discussion of the full range of issues in the negotiation in just over three days.

Our talks were face to face for the first time since March and this has given extra depth and flexibility to our discussions.

'The negotiations have been comprehensive and useful. But they have also underlined the significant differences that still remain between us on a number of important issues.

UK chief negotiator David Frost gave a downbeat assessment of the progress, with both sides at loggerheads over issues including fishing rights and trading standards

In a statement EU negotiator Michel Barnier echoed his UK counterpart, saying there were 'serious divergences'.

'We remain committed to working hard to find an early understanding on the principles underlying an agreement out of the intensified talks process during July, as agreed at the HLM (high level meeting) on 15 June.

'Talks will continue next week in London as agreed in the revised terms of reference published on 12 June.'

The two sides are trying to have a trade agreement in place before the UK quits the transition period at the end of the year.

In a statement EU negotiator Michel Barnier echoed his UK counterpart, saying there were 'serious divergences'.

He hit out at apparent attempts by the UK to agree sector-specific agrements, saying 'we will continue to insist on parallel progress on all areas'.

'The EU expects, in turn, its positions to be better understood and respected in order to reach an agreement. We need an equivalent engagement by the United Kingdom,' he added.

'We continue to believe that an agreement is possible and in everyone's interest.'

Boris Johnson this week set a three-month deadline for concluding Brexit trade deal talks.

Downing Street said the Prime Minister would not allow the talks to run beyond September because it would leave businesses with too little time to prepare for the end of the transition period in December.

No 10 confirmed that Mr Frost will start his new job as the PMs national security adviser at the end of August.
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President Donald Trump bragged about the 'largest monthly job gain in the history of our country' in a hastily arranged public appearance after the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%.

Trump called the numbers 'spectacular news for American workers.'

The president came to the White House press room to brag for 15 minutes about the economy after U.S. employers added a substantial 4.8 million jobs in June as the job market improved for a second straight month. He did not take questions from the media in an event the White House called a 'press conference.'

But the numbers still remained far short of regaining the colossal losses the economy suffered this spring and experts warn unemployment numbers could surge again if the number of coronavirus infections continues to spike.

And Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic rival in November, warned the economy is still in trouble because of the coronavirus pandemic.

'Today's report is positive news and I'm thankful for it, for real, but make no mistake we're still in a deep, deep job hole because Donald Trump has so badly bungled the response to the coronavirus,' he said.

President Donald Trump bragged about the 'largest monthly job gain in the history of our country' in a hastily arranged public appearance after the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%

President Donald Trump swings a wooden baseball bat as he attends a 'Spirit of America Showcase' event in the Cross Hall of the White House

President Trump winds up and practices his swing during a showcase of small businesses at the White House

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin acknowledged there is more work to be done. 'Our work is not done. Our work won't be done until every single American that lost their job due to COVID is back to work,' he said

President Donald Trump, with Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow (left) and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin (right) gave a 15-minute statement bragging about economic numbers but did not take questions from the press

Trump, however, maintained a positive attitude.

'It's coming back faster, bigger and better than we ever thought possible,' he said of the economy.

Polls show voters give Trump high marks on his economic prowess but give him low grades on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and race issues. The president has banked his re-election campaign on his economic message.

And he down played concerns about the rising number of coronavirus cases as the country reopens. The United States reported 49,932 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, the fifth single-day case record in eight days. Several states are seeing record numbers of infections.

'Our health experts continue to address the temporary hot spots in certain cities and counties and we are working very hard on that,' the president said. 'It's got a life. And we are putting out that life because it's a bad life that we are talking about.'

And he ended his remarks on an optimistic note.

'Next year will be an historic year. Next year will be an incredible year for jobs and growth,' he said. 'Virtually every one of our great companies is setting records. So I want to thank everybody for being here today. These are historic numbers in a time when a lot of people would have wilted. And it is an honor to be a president - thank you very much.'

The United States has now recovered roughly one-third of the 22 million jobs it lost to the pandemic recession.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin acknowledged the work to be done.

'Our work is not done. Our work won't be done until every single American that lost their job due to COVID is back to work,' he said at the White House.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 4.8 million jobs in June, the Labor Department's closely watched monthly employment showed on Thursday. That was the most since the government started keeping records in 1939. Payrolls rebounded 2.699 million in May.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls increasing by 3 million jobs in June.

And with confirmed coronavirus cases spiking across the Sun Belt states, a range of evidence suggests that a job market recovery may be stalling. In those states and elsewhere, some restaurants, bars and other retailers that had re-opened are being forced to close again.

The re-closings are keeping layoffs elevated: The number of Americans who sought unemployment benefits barely fell last week to 1.47 million.

Though that weekly figure has declined steadily since peaking in late March, it's still more than double the pre-pandemic peak set in 1982. And the total number of people receiving jobless aid remains at a sizable 19 million.

President Trump spent Thursday touting the low employment figures

Hunting for work: In Frankfort, Kentucky, the local state had to set up a temporary unemployment office which was swamped in mid-June

California has re-closed bars, theaters and indoor restaurant dining across most of the state. Florida has also re-closed bars and beaches. Texas has reversed some of its efforts to reopen its economy. New York has paused its plans to allow indoor dining.

Credit and debit card data tracked by JPMorgan Chase show that consumers reduced their spending last week after having increased it steadily in late April and May. The reversal has occurred both in states that have reported surges in COVID-19 and in less affected states, said Jesse Edgerton, an economist at J.P. Morgan.

Nationwide, card spending fell nearly 13% last week compared with a year ago. That's worse than the previous week, when year-over-year card spending had fallen just under 10%.

And Kronos, which produces time management software, has found that in the past two weeks, growth in the number of shifts worked has slowed in the Southeast and is now rising at just half the rate of the Northeast.

'The pace of recovery is starting to slow,' said Dave Gilbertson, an executive at Kronos. 'We are expecting to see more of a plateauing over the next couple of months.'

Thursdays jobs report is based on data gathered in the second week of June, which helps explain why the figures reflect an improving trend. Last week's plateau in work shifts will instead affect the July jobs figures, to be released in early August.

McDonald's has paused its reopening efforts nationwide, and Apple says it will re-close 30 more of its U.S. stores, on top of 47 that it had already shut down for a second time.

Economists have long warned that the economic benefits of allowing businesses to reopen would prove short-lived if the virus wasn't brought under control.

Until most Americans feel confident enough to dine out, travel, shop or congregate in groups without fear of infection, restaurants, hotels and retailers will lack enough customer demand to justify rehiring all their previous workers.

Still, some bright spots in the economy have emerged in recent weeks. Manufacturers expanded in June after three months of shrinking, the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group, said Wednesday.

New orders are flowing in, and factories are adding more jobs, the ISM said.

And record-low mortgage rates are encouraging more home buyers. Purchases of new homes rose sharply in May. And a measure of signed contracts to buy existing homes soared by a record amount, a sign that sales should rebound after falling for three straight months.
Two brothers drowned on Tuesday after being dragged under water by a strong current during low tide while swimming with a group near a Delaware river as a Good Samaritan managed to save two other swimmers.

Delaware State Police identified the victims as 21-year-old Kevin George Jr and his brother 20-year-old Zion George.

Authorities said the brothers were visiting an area of South Bowers Beach, near the Murderkill River, with Kevin's 20-year-old girlfriend and another 20-year-old male.

Police said they received a report of two swimmers that had been carried away by strong currents just before 3pm on Tuesday.

Delaware State Police identified the victims as 21-year-old Kevin George Jr and his brother 20-year-old Zion George (both pictured)

Search and rescue crews responded to the area where the brothers were last seen swimming on Tuesday

According to authorities and witnesses, the brothers and their friend had entered the Delaware Bay to swim during low tide conditions.

But while they were swimming, the tide changed and the current pulled all three into the Murderkill River.

At the time, Michael Hignutt, the assistant chief of South Bowers Beach Fire Department, was fishing in the area along with his cousin, Timothy Smith.

Hignutt said he and Smith immediately rushed to help after hearing screaming.

'Both Hignutt and Smith entered the water in an attempt to rescue the swimmers,' police said.

Hignutt was able to rescue the unidentified male and bring him to shore before realizing Kevin's girlfriend had entered the water to try and save him and Zion.

At the time, Michael Hignutt (pictured), the assistant chief of South Bowers Beach Fire Department, was fishing in the area along with his cousin, Timothy Smith. Hignutt said he and Smith immediately rushed to help after hearing screaming and rescued two of the swimmers

By 9pm Tuesday night, crews suspended their search and rescue efforts and on Wednesday led a recovery mission

Around 10.30am Wednesday morning, crews discovered Kevin's body in the Murderkill River near where he was last seen. Zion's body was located around 10.45am in the same area

She was then pulled out by the current before being rescued by Hignutt and taken to safety.

Kevin and Zion were unable to be located, and multiple police, fire departments, maritime, and Emergency Medical Service agencies responded to the scene and conducted a search and rescue operation.

By 9pm Tuesday night, crews suspended their search and rescue efforts and on Wednesday led a recovery mission.

Around 10.30am Wednesday morning, crews discovered Kevin's body in the Murderkill River near where he was last seen. Zion's body was located around 10.45am in the same area.

Police said that neither of the four were strong swimmers, which was especially dangerous for that particular area.

Hignutt said his heart goes out to the survivors and what they witnessed because: 'I was there. Thats my job, thats why I got into it. Its not for some people.'

A friend of the George brothers shared a tribute to them on Instagram.

'This really hit home [sic] I havent felt this pain since my dad died. This really crazy yo [sic} yall can live through me on god I love yall Rest In Peace,' the tribute reads.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has temporarily called off the painting of a 'Black Lives Matter mural' just feet from the U.S. president's former home in Trump Tower, which was scheduled to begin Thursday on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

No explanation was given by City Hall as to why the painting was postponed last minute and rescheduled to an unspecified time next week.

The postponement came after President Trump and Mayor de Blasio engaged in a Twitter spat over the mural on Wednesday night with Trump branding it a 'symbol of hate' and demanding the money for its creation be spent on the NYPD instead.

Many of the luxury shops close to where the mural is planned had barricades set up on Thursday morning, and cops were seen guarding the entrance to Trump Tower.

'It has been postponed due to scheduling change,' a city spokesperson told the New York Post. 'Well be sending out more details in the coming days on a new date.'

The Black Lives Matter mural was scheduled to begin painting on Thursday but was postponed without explanation. It is due to be located by these stores

Cops were seen guarding Trump Tower close to where the mural was scheduled to begin painting on Thursday morning before it was rescheduled until next week

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio called the president's response the 'definition of racism'

The mural will be located next to luxury stores such as Tiffany & Co

The painting had been originally scheduled to begin at 11am on Thursday. Instead the only public event the mayor had scheduled was a 10am press briefing in City Hall further downtown.

The high-end stores such as Gucci, Abercombie & Fitch, Bvlgari, Prada, Piaget and Tiffany located close to where the mural will be have not commented on the painting or its postponement.

Some of those attending only found out it had been rescheduled last minute .

'I do not know,' activist Michael Tucker told the Post. He only received word the painting wasn't going ahead as planned on Thursday morning.

'Im trying to figure that out myself,' he added.

The Fifth Avenue Association was also only informed of the change on Wednesday night.

'The city alerted us late last night it would not be moving forward the mural today. We have no additional details at this time,' President Jerome Barth said.

The Black Lives Matter mural was first announced last week to emulate those in other cities by painting the letters on a prominent roadway, in this case, beside a former home of President Trump.

It is believed it will take one hundred gallons of paint to create and will close off traffic by Trump Tower for a number of days once painting begins.

De Blasio appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe Wednesday to provide an update on the mural's creation, nearly a week after he first unveiled plans for the words to be painted down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

'Whenever Trump comes back to his old state (New York), he'll get a message that he still doesn't understand. Maybe seeing outside his doorstep will help him get the point,' de Blasio grinned.

Trump didn't take kindly to de Blasio's taunt, taking to Twitter to lash out at the mayor, who had overnight slashed the NYPD budget by more than $1 billion.

Trump didn't take kindly to de Blasio's taunt, taking to Twitter to lash out at the mayor, who overnight slashed the NYPD budget by more than $1 billion

'NYC is cutting Police $ by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue,' the President blasted.

'This will further antagonize New York's Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, 'Pigs In A Blanket, Fry 'Em Like Bacon'. Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, won't let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York's greatest street. Spend this money fighting crime instead!'

De Blasio responded directly to Trump's tweet, calling it the 'definition of racism'.

'Heres what you dont understand: Black people BUILT 5th Ave and so much of this nation,' de Blasio wrote.

'Your luxury came from THEIR labor, for which they have never been justly compensated. We are honoring them. The fact that you see it as denigrating your street is the definition of racism.

The mayor responded directly to Trump tell him 'you don't understand'

'You also dont know that NYs Finest are now a majority people of color. They already know Black Lives Matter,' he continued in a second tweet.

'There is no symbol of hate here. Just a commitment to truth. Only in your mind could an affirmation of peoples value be a scary thing.'

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also weighed in, according to NBC New York, supporting the mural in general but criticizing de Blasio for NYPD budget cuts amid a recent spike in violence in the Big Apple. He claimed the goal was to just to appease protesters with budget cuts but to have reform of the police department.

'Now it's about making the actual change. Not just saying to the protesters, "I'm with you",' Cuomo said.

De Blasio's NYPD budget cut will cancel the recruitment of 1,163 new officers, strip $484million from the overtime budget and transfer $354million to other services.

The contentious budget passed the City Council with 32 votes in favor and an unusually large 17 votes against just ahead of the midnight deadline following hours of delays.

The area around Trump Tower surrounded with barricades on Thursday morning

High-end stores such as Gucci, Abercombie & Fitch, Bvlgari, Prada, Piaget and Tiffany located close to where the mural will be have not commented on the painting or its postponement

Barriers were already set up along Fifth Avenue when the postponement was revealed

Last week President Trump claimed the NYPD were 'furious' about the proposal to paint a 'Black Lives Matter' mural in Manhattan as they faced hefty budget cuts.

After plans for the mural were first unveiled, Julia Arredondo, a spokeswoman for de Blasio, attacked Trump in a statement, saying: 'The president is a disgrace to the values we cherish in New York City.

'He can't run or deny the reality we are facing, and any time he wants to set foot in the place he claims is his hometown, he should be reminded Black Lives Matter.'

New York is following in the footsteps of Washington D.C., which had the street leading to the White House painted with a 'Black Lives Matter' mural on June 5.

According to city officials, similar murals are planned for across New York in the coming days including one in Harlem on Adam Clayton Powell and 125th Street and another in Lower Manhattan on Center Street between Worth and Reade streets.
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Archaeologists have uncovered a huge World War One tunnel system where dozens of soldiers' remains are believed to be entombed.

The underground bunker is located on a hill in Flanders in Belgium where the notorious Battle of Messines - where an estimated 59,562 soldiers were killed - took place in 1917.

During the battle the British pummelled the German fortifications on the ridge with millions of shells.

The bunker, which would have accommodated up to 300 troops, was discovered about 20ft below ground, a depth that would have made it shell-proof.

But it is thought the artillery bombardment caused the timber-lined walls and ceilings around the entrances to collapse, burying the men inside alive.

Steps forming part of the structure down to the tunnel system, which experts have said is one of the largest underground structures ever discovered in Flanders

The underground shelter is believed to have accommodated up to 300 men. Above, one of the newly uncovered entrances to the bunker which remain blocked by tonnes of earth

Archaeologists have so far uncovered four different entrances, each leading to a flight of 21 wooden steps.

But the openings remain blocked by tonnes of earth from the war.

Experts believe there are up to four more entrances to the network, which covers an area under a 400metre section on the main road through the village of Wijtschate.

It is hoped that one of these will be accessible to allow them to safely enter the dug out or send in a remote camera.

Historians have so far uncovered an array of 200 military and personal artefacts, that date back over 100 years.

Archaeologists uncover the preserved remains of a medial stretcher (left), and an entirely in tact cartwheel (right)

These include a perfectly preserved wooden stretcher, parts of a narrow-gauge railway and a wooden cartwheel.

German army helmets have also been found along with a bayonet, a pair of wire cutters and glass bottles.

The Germans occupied the ridge near the city of Ypres from 1914 until June 1917.

It was taken by British and Irish troops during the Battle of Messines, which lasted for seven days and effectively saw the Germans battered into submission.

A German bayonet - perhaps belonging to one of the 1,300 missing men at the end of the Battle - was uncovered (left), as were a perfectly preserved wooden cartwheel (right)

The Germans suffered 35,000 casualties, with 1,300 men of the 33 Fusiliers Regiment missing by the end of it - some who may be buried in the underground shelter.

Robin Schaefer, a German military historian who has been advising the Flemish Heritage Agency on the excavation work, said it is one of the largest underground structures ever found in Flanders.

He said: 'This is an enormous underground shelter that, according to German accounts from the period, accommodated up to 300 men - a company in size.

'The rule of thumb was that 21 steps going down into the ground made a dug out shell proof.

'It would have been smaller than you think inside. There would have been very cramped little rooms, not comfortable at all and very oppressive with low ceilings.

The underground bunker is located on a hill in Flanders in Belgium where the infamous Battle of Messines took place in 1917

An archeologist inspects the steps at an entrance to the tunnel. It is thought that artillery bombardment caused the timber-lined walls and ceilings around the entrances to collapse, burying alive the men inside

The preserved remains of a stretcher were uncovered amid tonnes of mud, one of 200 military and personal artefacts discovered so far

Wooden steps leading down into the tunnel, part of a flight of 21. Experts believe up to four more entrances are yet to be discovered

A preserved timber lined wall from the tunnel is pictured above. During the battle the British pummelled the German fortifications on the ridge on the edge of the village of Wijtschate with millions of shells

'After the battle the whole area was like the surface of the moon. Everything was shelled to smithereens, we are talking millions and millions of shells.

'The entrance shafts to this dug out may have collapsed under the shell fire.

'Most of the men were taken prisoner but many of them were never found and they still rest there. There could be a real time capsule in the tunnel.

A pair of wire cutters was one of hundreds of artefacts discovered in the excavation process

The rotten and rusted remains of a German soldier's helmet. It is believed the bodies of dozens of soldiers may be entombed inside

One of the entrances to the bunker (left) just metres away from houses. It is hoped that one entrance will be accessible to allow them to safely enter the dug out or send in a remote camera. Pictured right is the road through the village of Wijtschate where the bunker was found

'When we hear about a substantial underground structure being found in this area we listen because there is a good chance of finding a large amount of casualties. We hope that is the case here.'

The tunnel network was discovered by Belgian workmen installing a new sewage system in Wijtschate.

After they began finding artefacts in the sub-soil they alerted the relevant authorities.

Excavation work is being carried out by the Flemish Heritage Agency with the help of archaeology students from Ghent University

The area of Wijtschate was captured and held several times by both sides during the course of the war. After the Battle of Messines, the Germans re-took the ridge in 1918.
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Police pepper sprayed protesters and arrested 25 people for refusing to leave Seattle's reclaimed Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone on Wednesday night.

Officers took back their precinct just hours earlier following an executive order for demonstrators to vacate the area. They had abandoned the building and several blocks around it on June 8 following clashes with demonstrators calling for an end to police brutality.

A 10-day dispersal order remains in place as neighbors say 'we've lost residents and small businesses' after violence overran the cop-free zone and two teenage boys were killed. A huge clean up operation went into effect Wednesday after police cleared out the protesters.

In a statement issued at 5.30am on Thursday officials confirmed the 25 arrests for failure to disperse, assault, and obstructing. They added: 'Police deployed blast balls and pepper spray while attempting to make arrests after individuals in the crowd began throwing bottles at officers.

'Mayor Durkans Executive Order remains in effect today. Officers will disperse groups or individuals as needed, or make arrests, to ensure safety in the area.'

The clean up was set to continue Thursday as those living and working in the area said 'no one has won'.

Police confirmed they had earlier arrested an additional 44 people for crimes including failure to disperse, assault and obstruction after taking back their precinct. That followed an executive order from Mayor Jenny Durkan following the two deadly shootings and a more than 500 per cent rise in crime in the area.

As residents in the neighborhood watched from balconies, police cleared out the protesters' tents from the park and made sure no one was left in the park's bathrooms. Capitol Hill business owner Faizel Khan told King5: 'No, I don't think anyone has won anything out of this I think we've actually lost.'

In a statement issued at 5:30am on Thursday officials confirmed the 25 arrests for failure to disperse, assault, and obstructing. They added: 'Police deployed blast balls and pepper spray while attempting to make arrests after individuals in the crowd began throwing bottles at officers'

Police pepper sprayed protesters and arrested 25 people for refusing to leave Seattle's reclaimed Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone on Wednesday night

Police and protesters clashed overnight Wednesday hours after police took back their precinct

A 10-day dispersal order remains in place as neighbors say 'we've lost residents and small businesses' after violence overran the cop-free zone and two teenage boys were killed. A huge clean up operation went into effect Wednesday

The area around the East Precinct and Cal Anderson Park remains closed to the public with only those who live and own businesses there allowed back in.

'I think we've lost a mayor. We've lost a city council person. We've lost residents. We've lost small businesses. We've lost the Black Lives Matter movement. The loss of life for children is the worst part of it', business owner Khan added.

One anonymous shop owner added: 'It seems like we're supposed to sacrifice our piece of mind, our safety, for this movement and that doesnt seem fair.'

City workers were then left to clean up huge piles of trash and tents left behind by protesters as bulldozers moved in and crushed the camp.

'I was just stunned by the amount of graffiti, garbage and property destruction,' Police chief Carmen Best said after she walked around the area.

City crews dismantle the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area outside of the Seattle Police Department's vacated East Precinct

The clean up operation began at Seattle's Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone on Wednesday

A group of local business owners had sued the city, claiming that officials abandoned the area and made it impossible to run businesses because there was no police or fire protection.

Police confirmed they were forced to use pepper spray during the arrest of one person who was armed with a metal pole. They later added: 'Individuals in crowd are throwing bottles at officers. Officers deployed pepper spray and are making arrests.'

Wearing helmets and wielding batons and rifles, Seattle police stood shoulder-to-shoulder on several streets while others created a makeshift fence with their bicycles, using it to push dozens of protesters back away from the center of the CHOP zone just east of downtown.

'Our job is to support peaceful demonstration but what has happened on these streets over the last two weeks is lawless and it's brutal and bottom line it is simply unacceptable,' Chief Best said.

Pictures show trash and debris being collected by city workers with tents and protest signs taken down

TIMELINE OF VIOLENCE IN SEATTLE'S CHOP ZONE June 8: Protesters occupy the area; police abandoned the precinct June 20: A 19-year-old man is shot dead and a 33-year-old man was wounded June 24: Nearby businesses and property owners filed a federal lawsuit against the city June 29: Two teens shot - one fatally - in Jeep at zone's concrete barriers June 30: Barricades at Seattle's cop-free zone are torn down as protesters replace concrete barriers with trash cans and couches July 1: Early hours : Mayor Jenny Durkan demand all barriers are removed after a 525 per cent spike in violent crimes in the area 5am: Police swarm the zone 5:30am: Eyewitnesses say officers have cleared the area 7am: Chief Carmen Best confirms police have taken back precinct Advertisement

One protest organizer, Derrek Allen Jones II, said some demonstrators attempted to stay but were surprised by the early intervention by officers who were 'trampling everything I seen in sight, flipping tables.'

'People were trying to hold their ground but you could see the cops literally storm through people's beds while they were sleeping. And literally say 'If you don't get out, we will force you out or arrest you,' he said.

Protester Jessie Livingston, 36, told The Guardian: 'Were going to organize sit-ins, were going to spam the city officials, were going to show up to city council meetings, were going to do everything we know how to do. Were not going anywhere.'

One man dressed in black was peacefully led away in handcuffs and other demonstrators sat on the wet ground until their small group was handcuffed and detained.

Police also tore down fences that protesters had erected around their tents and used batons to poke inside bushes, apparently looking for people who might be hiding. One officer took down a sign saying 'We are not leaving until our demands are met: 1. Defund SPD by 50% now. 2. Fund Black Communities. 3. Free all protesters.'

After police evicted the protesters, heavy equipment was used to remove concrete barriers, cart away debris from the encampments while officers strung yellow caution tape from tree to tree warning people not to reenter.

The move to dismantle the area follows the shooting death of a 16-year-old boy, named as Antonio Mays Jr, in the early hours of Monday morning. A 14-year-old was also critically injured when eyewitnesses say armed security inside the zone fired 300 rounds.

Lorenzo Anderson, 19, was shot on the protest area on June 20.

His father, Horace Lorenzo Anderson, said: 'This doesn't look like a protest to me no more. That just looks like they just took over and said we can take over whenever we want to.'

Volunteer medic Marty Jackson had described the area as an 'active war zone' and said: 'I don't think we're gonna stop here.'

'The recent public safety threats have been well documented,' Mayor Jenny Durkan said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. 'These acts of gun violence resulted in the tragic deaths of two teenagers, with multiple others seriously wounded. Despite continued efforts to deescalate and bring community together, this violence demanded action.'

Durkan also said while she supported the police in making arrests Wednesday, she doesn't think many of those arrested for misdemeanors should be prosecuted. She also said she was committed to work that would dismantle systemic racism and build true community safety.

'Events in the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone this morning, while necessary, should not diminish the cause of racial justice,' Gov. Jay Inslee said in an emailed statement.

Best said in addition to the fatal shootings, robberies, assaults, violence and property crimes have occurred in the area in the last few weeks. She said she wanted police to move back into the precinct so officers could better respond to needs in the area. Protesters have said they should not be blamed for the violence in the area.

Wearing helmets and wielding batons and rifles, officers converged on the area at dawn

Mayor Jenny Durkan, right, had demanded all barriers be removed from the city's 'occupied' protest zone after a 525 per cent spike in violent crimes in the area. Chief Carmen Best, right, said: 'The CHOP has become lawless and brutal. Four shootings-two fatalrobberies, assaults, violence and countless property crimes have occurred in this several block area'

City workers begin to dismantle tents and barricades left behind after the CHOP area in Seattle was reclaimed by police

There had been mounting calls by critics, including President Donald Trump, to remove protesters.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr praised Best for what he called 'her courage and leadership in restoring the rule of law in Seattle.'

'Chief Best has rightly committed to continue the substantive discussion while ending the violence, which threatens innocent people and undermines the very rule-of-law principles that the protesters profess to defend,' he said in a statement.

Seattle Black Collective Voice, which was formed by people in the protest zone, said previously that their work would continue even if they were forced out of that area. On Wednesday afternoon the group said via Twitter, 'We don't end with CHOP.'
Director Spike Lee has compared the Confederate flag to Nazi swastikas as he praised the white BLM supports who would 'make the big difference'.

The legendary New York-based film boss demanded the 13-star symbol be removed from public display along with statues of military leaders from that time.

Speaking to host Franklin Leonard on Luminary's Black List podcast he said: 'That flag, to me, the same way my Jewish brothers and sisters feel about the swastika, I feel about that flag,' the BlacKkKlansman director said.

'And them motherf**king Confederate statues need to come the f**k down.'

Lee grew up in Brooklyn in the 1960s - the time of Martin Luther King's 'I have a Dream Speech' and when civil rights protests were rife.

He says this year's protests are 'different'.

The legendary New York-based film boss Spike Lee demanded Confederate flags be removed from public display along with statues of military leaders from that time

Demonstrations have been held across the world over the last two months following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

'Have you been watching CNN like I have? People are marching all over God's Earth chanting, yelling, [and] screaming "Black lives matter", and they're not Black That's the big difference,' he said.

The Confederacy, a group of 13 southern states which split from the US between 1861 and 1865, had a constitution that prohibited laws 'denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves.'

But while some view the flag as a sign of white supremacy, others claim the Confederacy was formed as a southern show of strength against increasing federal powers. They claim the flag celebrates state freedom.

The Confederacy, a group of 13 southern states which split from the US between 1861 and 1865, had a constitution that prohibited laws 'denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves'

The American Civil War raged for four years before it was slowly dismantled and its members were brought back into the US fold.

Talking about his 1989 film Do The Right Thing, which ends with a riot sparked by the murder of a black man by a police officer, Lee said: 'It's like the film was made yesterday.'

Lee added: 'So, there are two ways to think about it. That it's still unique. It's still new. And then also, Black people are still being murdered [and] dying.'

'If you've seen Do the Right Thing, how can you not automatically think of Eric Garner, and then king George Floyd?'

'It's never been about how [Black people] respond to it. It's been about how our white sisters and brothers respond to it.'

Lee, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott accept the award for best adapted screenplay for BlacKkKlansman at the Oscars in Los Angeles last year

He pointed out the number of white people who have been seen holding up Black Lives Matter placards at demonstrations across the world.

Lee said now: 'You see a young generation of my white brothers and sisters [and] they are out there in full effect. I mean, forget about the rest of the world for a second.'

'White folks are marching in Salt Lake City [and] Des Moines, Iowa, where there ain't no Black folks for a minute.'

The writer-directors 2018 film BlacKkKlansman, opens with a shot from Gone with the Wind that features a tattered Confederate flag before a speech by a white supremacist played by Alec Baldwin.

During a ceremony outside the Mississippi State Capitol building in Jackson on Wednesday the state's formerly official flag was taken down for the final time

It comes after Mississippi's state flag was retired and brought to a museum after Republican Governor Tate Reeves signed a law stripping its official status.

During a ceremony outside the Mississippi State Capitol building in Jackson on Wednesday the flag was taken down for the final time.

It was the last official US flag to bear the confederate symbol.

Lee previously revealed his thoughts on the controversial stance of 'defunding' the police in an interview.

The 63-year-old filmmaker spoke to Al Roker on Sirius XM 's Off the Rails show, where he said he thought the term 'defund' was 'tricky.'





Lee, whose new film Da 5 Bloods debuted on Netflix last month, made it clear that he didn't want to get rid of the police.

Thoughts: Filmmaker Spike Lee revealed his thoughts on the controversial stance of 'defunding' the police in a new interview

'We need police! Let the record state, Im telling my brother Al Roker we need police, but we need a police system that is just,' Lee revealed.

'And its so hard with the police unions. I mean they protect their guys, they protect that blue no matter what. And so that has to be dealt withthey have to be careful with the words because already this guy is running with that,' he added.

The BlacKkKlansman director was referring to President Trump, or as Lee calls him, 'Agent Orange'.

He added: 'Hes trying to twist the narrative like they did with Kaepernick and the kneeling  trying to say that was about disrespecting the flag, but that wasnt it at all.'

Need police: 'We need police! Let the record state, Im telling my brother Al Roker we need police, but we need a police system that is just,' Lee revealed

'Weve got to be careful what we say because one or two wrong words, theyll twist that thing around and the narratives change,' he added.

For that reason, Lee said he thinks there needs to be, 'better terminology' than 'defund the police' because that has been, 'equated to disband the police'.

Roker added that, 'we want police, we just want a different kind of police.'

Lee said: 'We're at a very important point, not just in American history, but world history.

'I think the young people, our white sisters and brothers, they're joining us, and I haven't seen this since I was growing up in the 60s in Brooklyn.'

The filmmaker's new project Da 5 Bloods follows four former soldiers who fought together in the Vietnam War, who return to the country to find their squad leader's remains, and the fortune in gold they helped him bury.

The film stars Chadwick Boseman, Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Jean Reno and Paul Walter Hauser.
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Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein and alleged madam who is accused of procuring young girls for him, will be transferred from New Hampshire to New York to face child sex trafficking charges on Thursday.

Maxwell was taken into custody in Bradford, a small town in New Hampshire, on Thursday morning. Special Agent William Sweeney said at a press conference later that the FBI after 'discreetly keeping tabs' on her for some time and that she recently moved to the property.

Reuters reports that Maxwell bought the 156-acre property for all cash, using an LLC to hide her identity, in December. Agents 'moved in' this morning. No other circumstances surrounding her arrest are known.

In a videolink court appearance on Thursday afternoon, her attorneys agreed to have the case moved to the Southern District of New York - where she is being charged.

Journalists could not see her but they were permitted to dial in to listen to the proceedings.

Prosecutors asked the judge to deny her bail, saying she is a flight risk with an international network of friends and access to unlimited resources.

She has been held for now without bail and is likely to appear in court in New York City either tomorrow or on Monday.

It's unclear where she will now be detained before her next court appearance but the judge said she would be 'temporarily' placed in custody.

A grand jury returned a sealed, six-count indictment against her on June 29, almost a year after Epstein was charged.

It accuses her of enticing underage girls to travel for sex, actually having sex with them and Epstein and later lying about it under oath in depositions when she was being sued by Virginia Giuffre Roberts, one of Epstein's accusers who says she had sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17.

Scroll down for video and to read the full indictment

Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, gestures as she speaks during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, July 2, 2020, in New York

Maxwell has not been seen since last August when she was photographed at an In-N-Out Burger in Los Angeles, ten days after Epstein's suicide

Maxwell was picked up by the FBI and NYPD detectives at 8.30am at the property in Bradford, New Hampshire, she had bought in December 2019 using a limited liability company called Granite LLC to shield her name

The gate at Maxwell's property - called TuckedAway - on Thursday after she was arrested on Thursday

The charges relate to incidents that happened between 1994 and 1997 and involve three unnamed victims, the youngest of whom was 14. The alleged abuse happened at Epstein's homes in New York, Florida and New Mexico and at Maxwell's home in London.

Epstein has been accused of abusing dozens more girls and Maxwell is tangentially associated with the decades of alleged horror because, the accusers say, she was always by his side or making arrangements for him and them.

Maxwell, the British socialite daughter of the late, disgraced newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell whose impressive international network of friends and acquaintances includes the Clintons, has been a ghost since Epstein was arrested last June on charges of sex trafficking. She is who introduced him to Prince Andrew and set up the 2001 London night out when the royal allegedly had sex with Giuffre.

On Thursday, Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said the investigation into Epstein's decades of abuse is ongoing and that she'd 'welcome' Prince Andrew 'coming in to provide a statement', prompting speculation that he may among people investigators may focus their attention on next.

'We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us. We would like to have the benefit of his statement. Our doors remain open. We would welcome him coming in and giving us an opportunity to hear his statement,' she said.

It opens the door to questions of jurisdiction and whether or not US Attorney Strauss may charge for alleged incidents that happened in London and not America. Among the claims in the indictment is that Maxwell groomed one of the victims in London. At her press conference, Strauss said some of the sexual abuse also happened at Maxwell's house in London.

The charges against Maxwell are: conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, Enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, Transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury.

If convicted, she could face life in prison on the most serious charge - transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity - which carries a minimum 10 year sentence.

The indictment alleges;

Maxwell groomed three unnamed girls, all under the age of 18, in London, New York and Florida, and New Mexico between 1994 and 1997

She befriended them by taking them to the movies or on shopping sprees and 'normalized' abusive behavior by getting undressed in front of them herself

She encouraged them to travel to meet Epstein and engage in sex acts with them and him like 'group massage sex' in Epstein's homes

Her introduction of them to him resulted in him abusing them when she was not present

She lied in 2016 depositions while being sued by Virginia Giuffre Roberts that she'd never groomed or had sex with underage girls herself

It reads in part: 'Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated Jeffrey Epstein's access to minor victims knowing that he had a sexual preference for underage girls and that he intended to engage in sexual activity with those victims'.

When she met Epstein, she had an astonishing network of influential and important friends and acquaintances around the world which many say is what drew him to her.

THE ALLEGATIONS THE CHARGES Conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts (5 years max sentence) Enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts (20 years) Conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity (20 years) Transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity (10 years minimum, life maximum) X 2 counts of Perjury (x 10 years) THE 'FACTS' Prosecutors say Maxwell groomed three girls between 1994 and 1997 for Epstein. They are not named in the indictment, but she allegedly targeted them in London, Florida, New York and New Mexico. Maxwell, it is alleged, would befriend the girls by asking them about their life and their schooling. She would put them at ease by taking them to the movies and taking them shopping, winning their trust to later deliver them to Epstein, it's alleged. To 'normalize' the abuse that would come later, prosecutors say she undressed in front of the girls herself and asked them sexual questions. She then not only facilitated Epstein abusing them, prosecutors say, but took part in some of it herself. The alleged sex abuse includes 'sexualized group massages'. The indictment also says Maxwell made the girl feel 'indebted' to Epstein by encouraging them to take money from him and let him pay for their education and travel. Advertisement

Among them are Bill and Chelsea Clinton.

She was photographed at Chelsea's wedding and she also flew with Clinton on Epstein's private jet, dubbed the 'Lolita Express' because it was used to ferry young girls to his private Caribbean island or ranch in New Mexico.

She has also been photographed with Epstein and Donald and Melania Trump at parties, years before Epstein became a social pariah.

Among the allegations in the indictment is that Maxwell groomed the girls, including one in London.

'Victim 1' met Maxwell when she was 14 in 1994, the indictment reads.

'Maxwell 'groomed [her] by taking her to the movies and on shopping trips.

'She also asked her about school, her classes, her family and other aspects of her life.

'She then sought to normalize inappropriate and abusive conduct by, among other things, undressing in front of her and being present when she undressed in front of Epstein,' according to the indictment.

The trio then engaged in 'group massage sex' on more than one occasion, the indictment claims.

'Victim 2' met Ghislaine in 1996 and groomed her at Epstein's New Mexico ranch.

'Victim 3' met Maxwell in London in 1994 and was groomed until 1995 where she had sex with them.

At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Acting US Attorney for the Southern District Audrey Strauss, said: 'Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, then delivered them into the trap that she and Epstein had set for them.

'She pretended to be a woman they could trust, all the while she was setting them up to be sexually abused by Epstein in some cases, by Maxwell herself.

'Today after many years, Ghislaine Maxwell finally stands charged for her role in these crimes.'

FBI Special Agent William Sweeney said the bureau had been 'keeping tabs' on Maxwell 'for some time'.

'We have been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwell for some time.

'She slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims continue to live with the trauma inflicted on them years earlier.'

Maxwell has not been seen since August 2019 when she was spotted at an In-N-Out Burger, ten days after Epstein' s suicide.

She has made no public comment about the scandal or about Epstein's death last August and her whereabouts have been largely unknown.

DailyMail.com tracked her down in a small New England town where she was living with tech CEO Scott Borgerson in August 2019 but aside from that, her movements have been a mystery.

Maxwell is who introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein and who facilitated the 2001 night out in London (pictured) when Andrew allegedly had sex with Virginia Giuffre Roberts, then 17. He denies they ever met

Maxwell with Prince Andrew at Ascot in the UK in 2000

Maxwell has an astonishing network of high profile friends and acquaintances. She is shown at Chelsea Clinton's 2010 wedding

Maxwell and Bill Clinton on the Lolita Express - Epstein's private jet that was used to ferry underage girls to his private island in the Caribbean and his ranch in New Mexico

Maxwell with Epstein and Donald and Melania Trump in 2000

Since Epstein's arrest and suicide, his victims have demanded that others involved in the abuse be brought to justice. Maxwell has always been at the top of their list.

She allegedly approached girls in high schools, at country clubs and even in the street if she thought they would be to Epstein's liking.

She would tell them that she worked for a wealthy man who would generously help them if they agreed to come to his home and massage him for money, the women say.

Giuffre has shared the most explosive allegations against her.

She claims that Maxwell took part in her first sexual encounter with Epstein and that the three of them regularly had sex.

She also claims that when she tried to break free from Epstein, Maxwell threatened her.

Others have told how Maxwell facilitated their travel and taught them how to please the financier sexually.

When Epstein was arrested in Palm Beach in 2007, she stood by him, writing in a character statement that he'd helped her through the death of her father.

From socialite to 'child sex-trafficker': How Ghislaine Maxwell grew up as the 'favorite' daughter of disgraced newspaper baron Robert and went from mixing with royals, politicians and moguls to 'procuring minors' for bill

Ghislaine Maxwell grew up well versed in mixing with royals, politicians and moguls but her life of privilege came to an abrupt end Thursday as she was arrested and accused of recruiting victims for Jeffrey Epstein.

As the 'favorite' daughter of disgraced newspaper baron Robert she boasted an impeccable network of contacts and starry circle of friends.

The French born socialite, 58, spent decades at the most exclusive of parties, pictured with the likes of Donald Trump and Prince Andrew and riding private jets with Bill Clinton.

But on Thursday Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire, accused of helping procure underage sex partners for convicted sex offender Epstein. She is due to appear in a federal court later.

An indictment said she facilitated Epstein's crimes by 'helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse ' girls as young as 14. It also said she participated in the sexual abuse.

The French born socialite, 58, spent decades at the most exclusive of parties, pictured with the likes of Donald Trump, left in 1997, and Prince Andrew and riding private jets with Bill Clinton. She is pictured right with Eptein in 1995

As the 'favorite' daughter of disgraced newspaper baron Robert, Ghislaine boasted an impeccable network of contacts. The father and daughter are pictured in 1984

Maxwell has previously denied the allegations against her. Epstein killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell, pictured in 1986, had been a regular on the New York social scene after meeting Epstein in the 1990s, using her connections to secure them both access

Until her arrest Maxwell had been virtually invisible since the autumn of 2016. But it wasn't always that way.

In fact, Maxwell, who speaks with a British accent, had been a regular on the New York social scene after meeting Epstein in the 1990s, using her connections to secure them both access to the most exclusive of parties.

As one of Epstein's accusers, Maria Farmer, told The Guardian: 'Ghislaine was key in making me feel safe.'

She added: 'I trusted her because she is a woman...she had that way about her, you know, the popular girl in school, she was one of those. She knew everybody.'

Born in Paris on Christmas Day in 1961 to her French mother Elisabeth and dad Robert Ghislaine was the youngest of nine. She grew up at Headington Hill Hall, a mansion leased from the council.

Maxwell went on to be educated at Marlborough College, then Oxford University and was used to a privileged, public-school and Oxford-educated lifestyle. She is also said to be a helicopter and submarine pilot and able to speak four languages.

But when her father Robert, one of the most powerful media magnates  and most notorious fraudsters  in modern history, died her world crumbled.

Robert spent his business career investing in Israel's economy after losing most of his family during the Holocaust.

He died aged 68 in 1991 in suspicious circumstances after falling off his megayacht named after Ghislaine, the Lady Ghislaine. Her mother reportedly died in 2013.

Heartbroken, Ghislaine is then is said to have fled to New York aged 30 where she is understood to have first met Epstein.

She is said to have been broke after it was revealed her father had stolen nearly 500million ($623 million) from employee pension funds. Robert Maxwell biographer Tom Bower said she 'worshiped rich, domineering men'.

But the relationship was more complicated than that.

Maxwell used her impeccable social contacts, like her friendship with the Prince, to introduce Epstein, a gardener's son, to society. In return, she used the financier's millions to support a lavish lifestyle which included a home on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a wardrobe of designer clothes and helicopter lessons.

Born in Paris on Christmas Day in 1961 to her French mother Elisabeth and dad Robert Ghislaine was the youngest of nine. She is pictured left with her sisters and right in 1984

Maxwell went on to be educated at Marlborough College, then Oxford University and was used to a privileged, public-school and Oxford-educated lifestyle. She is also said to be a helicopter and submarine pilot and able to speak four languages

Robert Maxwell biographer Tom Bower said she 'worshiped rich, domineering men'

Prince Andrew has publicly invoked his friendship with Maxwell as the reason he came into pedophile Epstein's orbit.

He blamed Maxwell for bringing Epstein to Windsor Castle and Sandringham in 2000. 'Remember that it was his girlfriend (Maxwell) that was the key element in this,' the Prince told Maitlis. 'He was the plus one.'

The Prince corrected previous reports that he threw a birthday party for Maxwell at Sandringham at which Epstein is believed to have met other members of the Royal Family including Prince Charles: 'It was a shooting weekend,' he said.

Photographs have also emerged of Maxwell joining a grinning Andrew and Epstein at Royal Ascot Ladies' Day in 2000.

And of course, it was at Maxwell's Belgravia Mews house that Virginia Roberts Giuffre alleges Epstein first 'sex trafficked' her to the Prince when she was just 17. It is a charge the Prince has continuously and vehemently denied.

She was photographed at Chelsea Clinton's wedding and she also flew with Bill Clinton on Epstein's private jet, dubbed the 'Lolita Express' because it was used to ferry young girls to his private Caribbean island or ranch in New Mexico.

Maxwell is pictured meeting Princess Diana in 1984. Maxwell used her impeccable social contacts, like her friendship with the Prince, to introduce Epstein, a gardener's son, to society

She has also been photographed with Epstein and Donald and Melania Trump at parties, years before Epstein became a social pariah.

Friend Euan Rellie, told Tatler: 'Every single interesting, pretty, new girl to arrive in New York would end up going for tea with Ghislaine, then being introduced to Jeffrey. She was the acceptable face of a rather mysterious billionaire.'

Maxwell lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent travel companion on trips around the world.

Epstein killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He was initially investigated in Florida and pleaded guilty to state charges in 2008 that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. He was free a little after a year in prison.

Maxwell has, for years, been accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.

The indictment said that as early as 1994, Maxwell would 'entice and groom' minor girls by asking them about their lives, their schools and their families.

Recent years have seen Maxwell quietly holed up in Manchester-by-the-Sea, north of Boston, with tech company boss Scott Borgerson.

She has not been seen in public since a photograph emerged of her sitting outside an In'N'Out Burger restaurant in Los Angeles in August. Reports soon emerged those images may have been 'faked' by her lawyer to disguise her whereabouts.

Now she must face allegations of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury.

The charges relate to incidents that happened between 1994 and 1997 and involve three unnamed victims, the youngest of whom was 14. The alleged abuse happened at Epstein's homes in New York, Florida and New Mexico and at Maxwell's home in London.

If convicted, she could face life in prison on the most serious charge - transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity - which carries a minimum 10 year sentence.
Northern Ireland's powersharing assembly has been thrown into crisis after Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill refused demands to quit for attending an IRA funeral.

Ms O'Neill, who has regularly urged the public to comply with COVID-19 orders, joined leading Republicans including Gerry Adams in ignoring social distancing rules to attend Bobby Storey's funeral on Tuesday.

Storey was the alleged intelligence chief of the IRA and served 20 years in prison at the height of the Troubles.

Hundreds of people turned out for the funeral in West Belfast and police are investigating potential breaches of lockdown rules.

The move has plunged the recently restored powersharing institutions into crisis again, with four of the parties in the five-party coalition Executive calling for Ms O'Neill to stand down.

Sinn Fein made clear that Ms O'Neill would be going nowhere, with a spokesman saying: 'Michelle O'Neill will not be stepping aside as Deputy First Minister under any circumstances.'

The Democratic Unionist Party demanded Ms O'Neill step down as Deputy First Minister for joining hundreds of people on the streets of Belfast on Tuesday (pictured)

On Wednesday, Mrs Foster urged Ms O'Neill to apologise and make amends for what happened at Monday's funeral in west Belfast

What are the rules on funerals in Northern Ireland? At the height of the lockdown in Northern Ireland, funerals were limited to 10 attendees. A measure of confusion surrounds what guidelines were in operation on Tuesday and whether they applied to funerals. Recently issued guidance on the resumption of church services allow for more than 10 people in the church, with numbers dependent on the size of the building involved. However, that guidance did not initially include funerals, baptisms and weddings. An anticipated move to apply the new guidance to those events as well had not been publicly announced by Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Diocese of Down and Connor said its churches should still have been applying the 10 attendee limits to funerals on Tuesday. The diocese said it received an update from the Executive Office on Tuesday evening, advising it of amendments to guidance on funerals, lifting the cap on 10 people. Apart from the debate on numbers, guidance on the NI Direct website also states that friends of the deceased should only attend a funeral service if no family members are in attendance. Several of Mr Storey's family attended Tuesday's service. Notably, this aspect of the funeral guidance is covered by a law in the coronavirus regulations, with people only allowed to leave their house to attend the funeral of a friend if family members of the deceased are not attending. In respect to what happened outside the church, the Stormont regulations on Tuesday allowed for outdoor gatherings of up to 30 people. Advertisement

A scheduled joint press conference today on the coronavirus emergency with First Minister Arlene Foster and Ms O'Neill has been cancelled.

The events have some echoes of the cash-for-ash furore that toppled the devolved government in 2017 when Mrs Foster refused to accede to a Sinn Fein call for her to stand down pending an investigation into a botched green energy scheme.

But DUP sources have indicated there is no appetite within the party to pull down the institutions in the way the late Martin McGuinness did when he quit as a joint head of government in January 2017.

Several leading Sinn Fein figures attended, including party president Mary Lou McDonald, former president Mr Adams, Stormont finance minister Conor Murphy and high-profile TD Pearse Doherty.

Despite coronavirus restrictions, many hundreds of people filled the streets to see Mr Storey's cortege passed by and dozens and dozens of stewards lined the route to prevent crowds joining the procession.

Images of the cortege's journey through west Belfast showed multiple scenes where social distancing did not appear to be observed.

In one, Ms O'Neill was posing for a selfie in the cemetery, with two attendees in close proximity, one of them with his hand over her shoulder.

On Wednesday, Mrs Foster urged Ms O'Neill to apologise and make amends for what happened at Monday's funeral in west Belfast.

The Deputy First Minister declined and defended her actions, insisting she acted within Covid-19 rules and guidance.

She differentiated between the management of the funeral cortege and service and scenes along the route when hundreds gathered to watch the procession pass. Ms O'Neill insisted that was outside of her control.

Senior DUP figures met on Thursday to discuss their next step following Ms O'Neill's remarks.

Afterwards, the DUP's Westminster leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said: 'I think now is the time to step up and demonstrate respect and integrity.

'The law on these matters is clear and what happened at that funeral has sent out a very, very bad message to people in Northern Ireland.'

Ms O'Neill (front right), who has regularly urged the public to comply with COVID-19 orders, joined leading Republicans including Gerry Adams (centre) at the funeral

He told BBC Radio Ulster: 'In light of the failure of Sinn Fein yesterday to grasp the opportunity to apologise, it is our view that the Deputy First Minister must now step back from her role while these matters are investigated by the PSNI.

'We will be asking the standards authorities in the Assembly to examine whether those MLAs who attended the funeral broke the code of conduct for MLAs, and we will also be asking the PSNI to specifically investigate any potential regulatory breaches by executive ministers including the Deputy First Minister.'

Earlier on Thursday, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood called for Ms O'Neill to step aside and allow her actions to be examined by Assembly standards authorities.

The Ulster Unionist Party and Alliance Party have also called for her to stand down.

Guidance set by the Northern Ireland Executive says a maximum of 30 people should attend a funeral, and friends should only attend when there are no family members in attendance.

Ms O'Neill has insisted the funeral cortege was limited to 30, while social distancing inside the church was 'exemplary'. It is understood that more than 100 people were inside the church.

Ms O'Neill has insisted the funeral cortege was limited to 30, while social distancing inside the church was 'exemplary'. It is understood that more than 100 people were inside the church.

On Wednesday, Ms O'Neill acknowledged that a selfie taken at the cemetery of her posing close to two men, one of whom had his arm on her shoulder, 'should not have happened'.

She said the photo happened in a 'blink of an eye' as she was leaving the graveside.

Mr Eastwood told Radio Ulster: 'I don't want any more instability, I argued for three years for the Assembly to come back, but equally I don't think that anybody should be above the law.

'The point isn't that she accidentally broke some obscure piece of guidance, she broke the guidance that she set out, that she argued for, that she stood over and made the case for, rightly and sensibly. But then decided to set that all aside because I think, for Sinn Fein, they believe that there is one rule for them and one rule for everyone else, and that it is always movement first with them, and I think that is very hard for the public to take in.

'I couldn't tell you how many people have contacted me furious about this, and remembering all of the sacrifices that they made during the most difficult days of this pandemic.'
Celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz has lost an audacious legal bid to gain access to a trove of confidential papers naming some of the Jeffrey Epstein's closest associates.

The top secret documents are part of a historic defamation case that Virginia Giuffre, previously known as Virginia Roberts, brought against the dead pedophile's alleged madam and facilitator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was arrested Thursday in New Hampshire and is due to appear in court later.

The cache is subject to a long-standing protective order but attorneys for Dershowitz, 81, argued that it contains depositions and materials crucial for his own defense as he battles Giuffre in a separate, ongoing defamation case.

Senior US District Judge Loretta Preska turned down the Harvard professor's request this week saying he had not presented 'an extraordinary circumstance or compelling need' to overturn the 2016 protection order made by her deceased predecessor, Judge Robert Sweet.

Attorneys for Alan Dershowitz, 81, argued that it contains depositions and materials crucial for his own defense

Dershowitz is battling Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre in a separate, ongoing defamation case

The top secret documents are part of a defamation case that Epstein's victim Virginia Giuffre brought against his alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell

She also criticized the sweeping nature of Dershowitz's demand for 'all fillings and discovery materials' relating to the 1,000-plus dockets filed in the Southern District of New York in the Giuffre-Maxwell case.

'In other words, it is not a targeted strike that Mr. Dershowitz proposes, but a carpet bombing,' Preska quipped in a judgement published Tuesday.

She was equally scathing, however, of Guiffre's legal arrangements after learning that her lawyers in the Maxwell case had handed over the very same confidential materials to her current law firm, Cooper and Kirk.

Since the Maxwell proceedings were long-concluded nobody could be actively working on the case, Preska reasoned.

She concluded that Giuffre's legal team was in breach of Judge Sweet's order, ordering Cooper & Kirk to destroy all copies of the materials in their possession.

Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell last August 10, the official verdict of suicide by hanging still hotly still disputed by his family and former legal team

The undoubted winner from the latest round of legal maneuvers was an unidentified 'John Doe' who is believed to be one of numerous public figures linked to Epstein now trying to stop their name getting into the public domain.

The mystery party's attorneys Nicholas Lewin and Paul Krieger had argued that allowing Dershowitz access would derail the painstaking legal protocol already agreed upon to decide how and when materials in the Maxwell-Giuffre case should be unsealed.

'This marks Dershowitz's second  or, by some measures, third  attempt to make an end-run around this Court's carefully constructed unsealing protocol,' they stated in a letter to the court.

In a rare confluence of interests, lawyers for Maxwell and Giuffre all agreed at a teleconference last week that giving Epstein's outspoken former attorney confidential materials and depositions from a case he was not involved in, would spark 'leakage concerns.'

The Giuffre-Maxwell case ended five years ago but Giuffre's attorneys have fought a protracted legal battle to have documents containing the names of numerous 'non parties' unsealed.

Preska ruled last May that she would unveil portions of documents on a rolling basis once the named individuals had been notified and given the opportunity to lodge legal objections.

Judge Loretta Preska said Dershowitz had not presented 'an extraordinary circumstance or compelling need' to overturn the 2016 protection order

Dershowitz, one of the attorneys who secured a much-criticized plea deal more than a decade ago in Florida, has called Giuffre a 'complete, total liar' in her allegations against Epstein

Maxwell continues to protest her innocence and has resisted Giuffre's motion, claiming the papers should be 'afforded the lowest presumption of public access'.

The British-born socialite, accused of recruiting young girls for the billionaire predator and being present herself while abuse was taking place, has not been seen in public since Epstein's death.

The Duke of York has denied Giuffre's claims and Maxwell has also denied her involvement. Epstein and Prince Andrew are spotted in 2011

Giuffre claims she was among those trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with rich, powerful men including Britain's Prince Andrew and Dershowitz.

Dershowitz, one of the attorneys who secured a much-criticized plea deal more than a decade ago in Florida, has called Giuffre a 'complete, total liar.'

Insisting the pair never met, let alone had sex, he has repeatedly challenged his accuser to voice her allegations publicly and unequivocally, claiming she was afraid of perjuring herself.

But in the recent documentary series, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, Giuffre did just that, saying on camera: 'I was with Alan Dershowitz multiple times. At least six that I can remember. I was trafficked to Alan Dershowitz from Epstein.'

Dershowitz counter-sued last November, saying Giuffre 'spread malicious lies' and falsely smeared him as a 'sexual predator, pedophile, abuser, child molester and other negative epithets' to extort a settlement.

He also made an appearance in the Netflix show, saying: 'Let me state categorically: I never had sex with an underage person in my life.

'Even when I was an underage boy, I never had sex with an underage girl. I never had sex with anyone related to Jeffrey Epstein.'

Giuffre was allegedly recruited to become Epstein's sex slave in 1999, and has been at the center of much of the Epstein scandal since it first came to light, most notably for her claims against Prince Andrew.

In his pomp, Epstein was a close associate of some of the world's richest, powerful men, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, director Woody Allen and Saudi leader Mohammad bin Salman.

Epstein was a close associate of some of the world's richest, powerful men, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, director Woody Allen and Saudi leader Mohammad bin Salman

Donald Trump and future wife Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000

In 2008 he became a registered sex offender after pleading guilty to Florida state charges of unlawfully paying a teenage girl for sex.

However Epstein served a mere 13 months in jail, much of the time allowed out on work release, after agreeing a controversial 'sweetheart deal' to avoid federal charges.

Clinton and Trump both said they hadn't seen Epstein in years and knew nothing of his misconduct when new charges were brought against him in July 2019, accusing him of trafficking girls as young as 14 to provide 'massages and sex acts' in Florida and New York.

More than a dozen more women, not previously known to law enforcement, came forward to accuse him of sex abuse after the charges, which carried a prison sentence of up to 45 years, were made public.

However Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell last August 10, the official version of suicide by hanging hotly disputed by his family and former legal team.
Australia is looking to offer skilled Hong Kong nationals the opportunity to resettle Down Under.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia is 'prepared to step up and provide support' for residents endangered by new national security laws imposed by China.

It's likely the government will use the skilled migrant visa as an avenue for those wishing to flee Hong Kong, The Australian reports.

Ministers were 'actively considering' safe haven arrangements, which would allow all residents a path to Australia, but the fast tracked resettlement of skilled workers is the most likely outcome.

It comes after the United Kingdom opened a path to citizenship for millions of Hong Kong residents.

Australia is looking to offer Hong Kong nationals the opportunity to resettle Down Under through the skilled visa program. Pictured: A protester is detained in Hong Kong

Pictured: Riot police stand guard after pushing back protesters demonstrating against the new security law during the anniversary of the Hong Kong handover from Britain on Wednesday

The cabinet will also deliberate options for Hong Kong nationals who are already in Australia as tourists or on other visas.

A senior government source told the publication the skilled migrant visa had been the topic of conversation as an effective option for Hong Kong nationals.

The visa allows people to sponsor eligible relatives for permanent residence in Australia.

Liberal MP Tim Wilson welcomed the consideration of the safe haven.

'Australia shares strong values and aspirations with Hong Kong liberal democrats and would provide a safer, freer existence than under the Chinese Communist Party,' he said.

Ben Bland, the Lowy Institute's Southeast Asia program director, said Australia's quality of life and economic opportunities is a selling point.

'But many Hongkongers want to stay and struggle for the future of their city,' he said.

'To flee your home, friends and family, potentially forever, is not an easy decision.'

Pictured: A police officer raises his pepper spray handgun as he detains a man during a march against the national security law on Wednesday

The new laws in Hong Kong criminalise secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces.

A teenage girl waving an independence flag was among hundreds of people arrested during protests against the laws in Hong Kong this week.

China bypassed Hong Kong's Legislative Council to pass the sweeping legislation without public consultation.

Mr Morrison's British counterpart Boris Johnson has unveiled firm plans for the UK to take in up to three million Hong Kong residents.

Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions Mr Johnson said: 'The enactment an imposition of this national security law constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British joint declaration.

'It violates Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and is in direct conflicts with Hong Kong's basic laws. The law also threatens freedoms and rights protected by the joint declaration.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia is 'prepared to step up and provide support' for residents endangered by new national security laws imposed by China

'We made clear that if China continued down this path we would introduce a new route for those with ''British National Overseas'' status to enter the UK, granting them limited leave to remain with the ability to live and work in the UK and thereafter to apply for citizenship, and that is precisely what we will do now.'

Mr Morrison said Australia was looking to provide 'similar opportunities' as the UK.

'There are proposals that I asked to be brought forward several weeks ago and the final touches will be put on those,' Mr Morrison said on Thursday.

'They'll soon be considered by cabinet to provide similar opportunities.

'We think that's important and very consistent with who we are as a people and very consistent practically with the views we have expressed.'

Foreign Minister Marise Payne expressed deep concern about the 'troubling' laws and warned the world would continue watching Hong Kong closely.

Senator Payne said the laws threatened Hong Kong's judicial independence and the rights and freedoms of its people.

Pro-democracy demonstrators are pictured during protests in Hong Kong last year

The Chinese embassy in Australia condemned her remarks and accused the minister of meddling in Hong Kong's affairs.

'We strongly deplore (the) Australian foreign minister's statement,' the embassy said in a statement.

'We hope the Australian side takes an objective and rational view on the legislation, abide by international law and basic norms of international relations, and stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs.'

Australian lawyers fear the broadly defined national security offences will have a chilling effect on public life in Hong Kong.
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China's 'unacceptable' crackdown in Hong Kong could shut the door to Huawei's involvement in Britain's 5G mobile network, Boris Johnson has said as London and Beijing traded blows today.

Mr Johnson said the draconian new security law that China has imposed on Hong Kong was 'plainly an unacceptable breach' of the freedoms that the city was guaranteed after Britain handed it back in 1997.

Linking the crisis to the Huawei deal, the PM told the Evening Standard that 'I don't want to see our critical national infrastructure at risk of being in any way controlled by potentially hostile state vendors... so we have to think very carefully about how to proceed now.'

Q&A on Hong Kong's British Nationals Overseas (BNOs) What is a British National (overseas)? Hong Kongers could register for this special status before the 1997 handover. They get a UK passport but no automatic right to live and work in the UK. You cannot apply to become a BNO. How many of them are there? As of February, there were 349,881 BNO passport holders. The Government estimates that there are around 2.9million BNOs currently in Hong Kong. What is Britain offering them? A path to citizenship. BNOs will get five years 'limited leave to remain'. They can then apply for 'settled status'. After 12 months with settled status, they can apply for citizenship. Their close family will also be eligible. Advertisement

Mr Johnson has been under massive pressure to change course on Huawei after agreeing in January to give the Chinese tech giant a 'limited' role in the 5G network, despite fears that Beijing would use it for espionage.

Since then, the coronavirus pandemic and the chaos in Hong Kong have thrown Britain's relations with China into crisis - with Beijing now threatening to punish the UK for offering refuge to Hong Kongers.

Hundreds were arrested in a crackdown on Hong Kong protesters yesterday just hours after the new law came into force, bringing in long prison sentences for dissent and trials run by the mainland Communist Party.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab yesterday unveiled plans to offer residency and a possible route to citizenship to British Nationals (Overseas), a group of nearly three million people with links to Hong Kong.

But Beijing regards them as Chinese nationals and its embassy in London warned today that 'we firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures'.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a press conference today that 'the UK should bear any consequences caused by this... Hong Kong matters are China's domestic affairs, and no countries have any right to intervene.'

Mr Raab admitted last night that there would be little the UK could do if China tried to stop Hong Kongers from leaving.

China did not say how it might retaliate, but it has recently hit Australia with a series of tariffs, export bans and warnings against travelling and studying in the country after it led global calls for an inquiry into coronavirus.

Australia said today it is considering a similar citizenship offer, while Taiwan has opened an office to help Hong Kongers take refuge there.

Boris Johnson (pictured at his House of Commons office yesterday) has warned that the Huawei 5G deal could be scuppered by China's crackdown in Hong Kong

Riot police officers pin down a protester during a demonstration in Hong Kong yesterday amid anger at Beijing's new security law which could lead to suspects being tried by Communist Party courts on the mainland

Protesters march in Hong Kong yesterday in a fresh round of demonstrations which saw hundreds arrested, including some people detained under Beijing's new national security law

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian (pictured) told reporters at a press conference today that 'all the consequences shall be borne by the UK side' after Britain drew up plans to offer residency to three million Hong Kongers

Hong Kong police last night arrested a man accused of stabbing a police officer during protests over the new security law (pictured_ - taking him off a Cathay Pacific flight to London moments before it took off

Riot police detain a man as they clear protesters taking part in a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China

Hong Kongers look to take up Britain's offer 'Hundreds of thousands of people' from Hong Kong might come to the UK after the Government offered an escape route to around three million people in the city, says a former British consulate worker who alleged he was tortured in China. Simon Cheng is the first person to have been granted political asylum by the Home Office after he was allegedly shackled and beaten in secret detention in the Chinese city of Shenzhen. Mr Cheng, a British overseas national, announced Wednesday night that his immigration application had been approved last Friday by the British government. The pro-democracy activist, 29, today said that 'hundreds of thousands of people' from Hong Kong might follow his footsteps and choose to come to the UK. The former consulate worker was detained in China for over two weeks last August after Beijing accused the former consulate worker of inciting unrest amid mass anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong. Simon Cheng (pictured) is the first person to have been granted political asylum by the Home Office in relation to China's crackdown on the Hong Kong anti-government movement after he was allegedly shackled, beaten, forced to stand for long hours in secret detention in China Eunice Wong, a Hong Kong student who has just finished her Master's degree in the UK, said she would be taking advantage of the offer. 'It's the only option. I don't think I can go back home now. I will be persecuted,' she told The Times. In a separate interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, Ms Wong said she would not be able to go home again after talking to foreign media. Thousands of Hong Kong citizens have already expressed their desire to move to Britain on social media platforms. A Facebook group named the 'Official Group for BNO Equality Movement' has seen nearly 3,000 new members in the past month. Numerous Hong Kong websites have published articles explaining the process of applying for the new BNO rights, including one titled 'Things you must know before immigration'. Advertisement

The PM is under pressure on Huawei from all sides, with Tory backbenchers repeatedly bringing up the issue in yesterday's Commons debate on Hong Kong.

Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, also raised concerns about China's influence on the UK university sector - citing claims that 'Chinese students have already been influenced to silence debate and change outcomes here in the UK'.

Labour has also called for Britain to 'develop home grown alternatives' to Chinese technology and make 'a proper assessment of the national security implications' before green-lighting the Huawei deal.

Mr Raab told MPs that Huawei's role was currently 'under review' by the National Cyber Security Centre, with ministers no longer sticking by the January deal to let Huawei into 35 per cent of the network and none of its 'core' elements.

Unveiling the offer to Hong Kongers, Mr Raab said the 'bespoke' new arrangement to be implemented in the coming months would grant BNOs five years' limited leave to remain in the UK with the ability to live and work.

They would then be eligible to apply for settled status and would be able to apply for citizenship after 12 months with that status.

At the moment, BNOs can travel on a British passport and receive UK diplomatic help but do not have the automatic right to live or work in Britain.

The status had to be acquired before 1997 and can no longer be applied for, although 'dependents' of BNO holders will be eligible under the scheme.

As of February, there were nearly 350,000 BNO passport holders, while the Government estimates there are around 2.9million BNOs living in Hong Kong.

'This is a special, bespoke set of arrangements developed for the unique circumstances we face and in the light of our historic commitment to the people of Hong Kong,' Mr Raab said.

However, the Foreign Secretary later said 'only a proportion' would be likely to take up the new status.

He also said that if Beijing tried to stop people with British National (Overseas) status from leaving Hong Kong, there would be little that could be done by the UK.

Mr Raab told ITV's Peston programme: 'There is diplomatic leverage, there are other ways that we can persuade China not to fully implement either the national security law or some of the reprisals you talk about.

'But ultimately we need to be honest that we wouldn't be able to force China to allow BNOs to come to the UK.'

The Chinese embassy in London insists that 'all Chinese compatriots residing in Hong Kong are Chinese nationals'.

'If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms governing international relations,' it said in a statement.

'We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures,' it said without elaborating.

A protester uses a sharp object against a police officer who is trying to detain a man (C) during a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong

The officer retreats after being stabbed in the arm and receives treatment to his bloody wounds from his colleagues

How UK and China have clashed over 5G, Covid-19 and human rights In October 2015, then-PM David Cameron told Chinese state TV that Britain and China were entering 'something of a golden era in our relationship' - but those ties have since been thrown off course by a series of disputes. HUAWEI AND 5G Beijing has been angered by Western fears that Chinese tech giant Huawei could be used as a front for Communist Party espionage. Huawei has long been lobbying to help build Britain's 5G mobile network, but some politicians fear that Beijing could commandeer the technology to tap into communications. China has previously accused UK ministers of showing 'deep-rooted pride and prejudice' by raising fears about Huawei's involvement. Huawei denies any spying link. In January 2020, Huawei was granted a limited role in the 5G network after the government said it could manage the risks and would keep Huawei out of the 'core' of the network, limiting its role to 35 per cent. But US pressure has prompted a rethink in recent weeks. Ministers admitted this week that US sanctions are 'likely to have an impact on the viability of Huawei as a provider'. Britain is now studying ways it can cut Huawei out of its system entirely and build up an alliance of European and Asian providers that reduces China's dominance in the field. CORONAVIRUS CRISIS UK ministers have said that China faces a 'reckoning' over its handling of the coronavirus crisis, which started in Wuhan late last year and has killed more than 40,000 people in Britain. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said in May that China has questions to answer about how the disease was allowed to spiral out of control, amid claims that China covered up the outbreak in its earliest days. Britain was among the countries to back Australia's calls for a WHO investigation into the pandemic. China has responded to Australia's pressure with a series of retaliatory measures. China's state-run Global Times stoked further tension in May by saying the UK's response to Covid-19 was 'flippant and ill-prepared' and saying the UK needed a 'miracle' to escape the 'mess' it was in. HUMAN RIGHTS Britain voiced concern about the crackdown in Hong Kong during last year's protests, saying that mass arrests and the use of live ammunition risked 'inflaming tensions'. In addition, Britain was one of 23 countries to voice alarm about Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where ethnic minority Uighurs have allegedly been detained in 're-education camps'. A joint statement signed by Britain said there were 'credible reports of mass detention; efforts to restrict cultural and religious practices; mass surveillance disproportionately targeting ethnic Uighurs; and other human rights violations and abuses'. Britain also urged China to give 'meaningful access' to UN investigators to assess the situation in Xinjiang. INFLUENCE ON BRITAIN'S ELITE A London club packed with political and business elites was caught in a row last month after a book claimed it was being used by China to 'groom' Britain's elites. The pro-China 48 Group Club, which lists Lord Heseltine among its patrons, is taking legal action over the book which suggested that China sees the club as a channel for its lobbying efforts. The club denied being a 'vehicle for Beijing' and said it was an 'independent body' promoting 'positive Sino-British relations', The Times reported. Experts have previously warned about Chinese tactics of 'elite capture' by appointing prominent foreigners as well-paid advisers and making them 'more amenable to Communist Party aims'. Advertisement

Separately, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned at a daily briefing today that Britain would bear all consequences for any actions it took over Hong Kong.

'All Chinese compatriots in Hong Kong, including those holding the British National (Overseas) passports, are Chinese citizens,' Zhao said.

'Before Hong Kong returned, the UK side had clearly promised not to provide the right of abode in Britain for holders of the BNO travel documents. The UK side has ignored the Chinese side's solemn position and insisted on changing the policy to provide a route for the relevant individuals to stay in the UK and obtain UK citizenship.

'[The UK's move] has seriously breached its own promises and violates international law and the basic principles of international relations. The Chinese side strongly condemns this and reserves the rights of further reactions. The UK should bear any consequences caused by this.'

Zhao said no amount of pressure from external forces could 'shake China's determination and will to safeguard national sovereignty and Hong Kong's prosperity and stability', also criticising a US move towards sanctions.

Hu Xijin, the editor of the state-run Global Times, struck a different tone by saying that Britain should either grant citizenship immediately or not at all.

'Johnson government should give Hong Kong BNO passport holders UK citizenship, rather than let them go through a long period of uncertainty,' he said.

'No matter what's China's official response, Chinese people have no objection to UK opening its arms to Hongkongers who want to leave.'

Britain regards the new security law as a breach of the 1984 treaty which agreed the terms of the handover - but China regards it as a historical document with no validity today.

China unveiled the details of the security law on Tuesday night after weeks of uncertainty, pushing one of the world's most glittering financial hubs on to a more authoritarian path.

Article 38 of the law even appears to claim jurisdiction over 'every person on the planet' for supposed national security crimes committed overseas.

Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under a deal known as 'one country, two systems' which maintained rights such as free speech and an independent judiciary that are unknown on the mainland. Beijing promised to preserve the city's way of life until at least 2047- but critics say its special status is now dead.

Hong Kong police began their new crackdown on dissent yesterday, boasting of their draconian new powers as they rounded up hundreds of pro-democracy activists including a 15-year-old girl waving an independence flag.

Police used water cannons, tear gas and pepper spray to drive protesters back on the 23rd anniversary of the former British colony's return to Chinese rule. Three were injured when a man flying a Hong Kong independence flag rammed his motorbike into a group of officers.

Ten people were specifically arrested under the new security law, which lines up long prison sentences for crimes of 'subversion' and 'terrorism' which critics fear could be used to silence dissent.

Around 370 were arrested on other charges, including unlawful assembly and possessing weapons.

Police said that one officer was stabbed in the arm by 'rioters holding sharp objects'. They added that the suspects fled and bystanders offered no help.

Authorities later arrested a 24-year-old man at the city's airport in the early hours of Thursday on suspicion of attacking and wounding an officer during protests.

A police spokesman said the arrested man was surnamed Wong but could not confirm if he was leaving Hong Kong or working at the airport.

Wong had purchased a ticket on Wednesday and boarded the flight with no check-in luggage, the official said. He did not respond to the air crew who called him by name, and was not at his designated seat. Police identified him after conducting a sweep of the plane.

Local media reported he was arrested after a relative tipped off police about his his travel plans.

Protesters chant slogans during a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. - Hong Kong police made the first arrests under Beijing's new national security law on July 1 as the city greeted the anniversary of its handover to China with protesters fleeing water cannon

Pictured: Riot police officers walk as anti-national security law protesters march during the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain, in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2020

Pictured: A woman reacts after she was hit with pepper spray deployed by police as they cleared a street with protesters rallying against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020

Pictured: A police officer raises his pepper spray handgun as he detains a man during a march against the national security law at the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2020

Hong Kong citizens graffiti lyrics from the Chinese national anthem Hong Kong protesters have sprayed a graffiti quoting lyrics from the Chinese national anthem to urge the city to rise up against Beijings crackdown on freedoms. The writing that read Arise! All those who dont want to be slaves! was spotted Wednesday on the street of Hong Kong. It was revealed after a picture of the graffiti was shared on Twitter by Luke de Pulford, a local human rights activist. Hong Kong protesters have sprayed a graffiti (pictured( quoting lyrics from the Chinese national anthem to urge the city to rise up against Beijings crackdown on freedoms The quote came from Chinas national anthem, March of the Volunteers which refers to several volunteer armies that opposed Japan's invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s. Composed by playwright Tian Han in 1934, the song was initially adopted as a provisional anthem in 1949 by the Communist government. When Tian was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the song was briefly and unofficially replaced by 'The East is Red'. It was restored and became the official Chinese national anthem in 1982. The song also became the national anthem for Hong Kong and Macau following their handovers to China in 1997 and 1999, respectively. Advertisement

The new law is seen as Beijing's boldest step yet to bring the semi-autonomous territory under control of the authoritarian mainland.

Campaigners say the 'one country, two systems' formula which was meant to guarantee Hong Kong's freedoms until 2047 is now dead - but China insists the law is an internal affair targeting only a handful of 'troublemakers'.

The law also allows China's feared security agencies to openly set up shop in Hong Kong for the first time, and could open the door for dissidents to be tried on the mainland. An influential group of barristers says the law will weaken the independent judiciary which is seen as key to Hong Kong's success as a business hub.

Brought in following anti-government protests last year, it outlaws any action deemed to be against the national interest of China.

Anyone shouting slogans or holding flags calling for independence is violating the law, regardless of whether violence is used. Even driving a bus full of protesters could be deemed illegal.

The most serious offenders will be labelled 'terrorists', transferred to the mainland and receive a maximum sentence of life in jail.

One example of a terror act, for example, is attacking public transport, something protesters often did last year. But it also includes providing support or assistance for such acts.

'This would mean many 'moderate' or peaceful supporters of the protest movement would be caught under the law if the extreme protesters they assisted were to be arrested as terrorists,' Hong Kong lawyer Antony Dapiran said.

Some trials will be held behind closed doors. A new police unit unaccountable to local laws has also been given licence to operate in the territory. Beijing, not Hong Kong, will have power over how the law is interpreted.

Ahead of the protest, pro-democracy activist Tsang Kin-shing, of the League of Social Democrats, warned there was a 'large chance of our being arrested'.

He said: 'The charges will not be light, please judge for yourself.'

A man who gave his name as Seth, 35, said: 'I'm scared of going to jail but for justice I have to come out today, I have to stand up.'

Media tycoon Jimmy Lai said the law meant Hong Kong was 'dead'. He added: 'It's worse than the worst scenario imagined. Hong Kong is totally subdued, totally under control.'

Mr Lai, 72, who also supported the Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989, thinks Beijing will come for him but is unfazed. 'I cannot worry, because you never know what kind of measures they will take against me,' he said.

Pictured: Riot police (L) deploy pepper spray toward journalists (R) as protesters gathered for a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China

Pictured: Helicopters with China's national flag and the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region fly over the Victoria Harbor during a ceremony to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China on July 1, 2020 in Hong Kong, China

Pictured: Riot police secure an area in front of a burning road block during a demonstration against the new national security law on July 1, 2020 in Hong Kong, China

Pictured: A row of riot police officers is seen in front of a water cannon vehicle during a march against the national security law at the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain, in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2020

Pictured: Pan-democratic legislator Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, Vice convener for Hong Kong's Civil Human Rights Front Figo Chan, and activist Leung Kwok-hung, also known as 'Long Hair', march at the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain, in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2020

Pictured: Protesters chant slogans and gesture during a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China

Pictured: Demonstrators take part in a protest against the new national security law on July 1, 2020 in Hong Kong, China

Pictured: A protester (centre R) is detained by police during a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. - Hong Kong police arrested more than 300 people on July 1 - including nine under China's new national security law - as thousands defied a ban on protests on the anniversary of the city's handover to China

Hong Kong barristers warn of threat to independent judiciary Hong Kong's new security law undermines its independent judiciary and could lead to suspects being deported to the mainland, an influential group of barristers has warned. In a scathing critique, the city's Bar Association said the new law dismantles the legal firewall between Hong Kong's independent judiciary - which is seen as crucial to the city's success as a business hub - and China's Communist Party-controlled courts. The Association said the new national security offences were 'widely drawn' and 'are capable of being applied in a manner that is arbitrary, and that disproportionately interferes with fundamental rights, including the freedom of conscience, expression and assembly'. 'Lawyers, judges, police and Hong Kong residents were given no opportunity to familiarise themselves with the contents of the new law, including the serious criminal offences it creates, before it came into force,' it said. Barristers said the law makes clear 'suspects can be removed to face trial in Mainland China' and points out that the process does not have the usual checks and balances of extradition hearings. It noted the law allowed mainland security agents working in Hong Kong to be 'above the reach of local law' and said empowering the city's chief executive to appoint judges to oversee national security cases undermined judicial independence. In response, China dismissed the statement as 'unfounded', claiming officials had held dialogue sessions with Hong Kong residents to hear their opinions on the law. 'The lawyers' association's claim... that the law lacked meaningful consultation is totally unfounded,' said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. Advertisement

Hong Kong's Beijing-backed leader Carrie Lam strongly endorsed the new law in her speech marking the 23rd anniversary of the handover yesterday.

'This decision was necessary and timely to maintain Hong Kong's stability,' Lam said following a flag-raising ceremony and the playing of China's national anthem.

Speaking at the harbour-front venue where the last British governor Chris Patten handed Hong Kong back to Chinese rule, Lam described it as the most important development in the 23 years since then.

Mr Raab yesterday rebuked HSBC for supporting the new law, saying that the rights of Hong Kong should not be 'sacrificed on the altar of bankers' bonuses'. HSBC was originally known as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

British banking giants HSBC and Standard Chartered - both with a major presence in Hong Kong and on the mainland - joined other firms in publicly backing the law last month.

The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce described the passing of the law earlier this week as 'instrumental in helping to restore stability and certainty to Hong Kong, which has been severely impacted by the social unrest since last year'.

'We need a stable environment which the (security law) aims to provide.'

Analysts and members of the business community have said the law could add to the risk and complexity of doing business in Hong Kong, but is unlikely to spark an exodus of foreign firms because the city is still seen as the gateway to the Chinese economy.

The city's Bar Association, an influential group of barristers, said the new law dismantles the legal firewall between Hong Kong's independent judiciary - which is seen as crucial to the city's success as a business hub - and China's Communist Party-controlled courts.

Hong Kong restaurant is raided by police for displaying pro-democracy posters A noodle restaurant in Hong Kong has been forced to shut down after police raided the eatery for displaying pro-democracy slogans, pamphlets and figurines. The owner of 'Bowl and Plate', Gordon Lam, announced the store closure today on Facebook after being warned by the authorities that the restaurant's decorations might breach the new national security law. The post was accompanied by pictures of Mr Lam tearing down the slogans that were put up six months ago to show support of the ongoing anti-government protests in the city. A noodle restaurant in Hong Kong has been forced to shut down after police raided the eatery for displaying pro-democracy slogans, pamphlets and figurines. The picture shows the owner, Gordon Lam, taking down the posters following police raid The store closure was announced today by the owner after being warned by the authorities that the restaurant's decorations might breach the new national security law Another image previously uploaded on the noodle bar's Instagram shows the restaurant's walls being filled with posters with slogans backing the pro-democracy protesters and supporting Hong Kong's independence. Many customers have left supportive comments under Mr Lam's post. One commenter wrote: 'They can't tear them down. They are in our hearts.' Another one read: 'The most important thing is that you're safe. We will help you once the business is reopened. One bowl...I'll eat a few more bowls!' Advertisement

The Association said the new national security offences were 'widely drawn' and 'are capable of being applied in a manner that is arbitrary, and that disproportionately interferes with fundamental rights, including the freedom of conscience, expression and assembly'.

'Lawyers, judges, police and Hong Kong residents were given no opportunity to familiarise themselves with the contents of the new law, including the serious criminal offences it creates, before it came into force,' it said.

China's move has provoked a backlash around the world. The US House of Representatives last night agreed unanimously to seek tough sanctions on Chinese officials and Hong Kong police.

On Thursday, Australian leader Scott Morrison said he was 'very actively' considering offering Hong Kongers safe haven.

Taiwan has opened an office to help Hong Kongers wanting to flee, while a proposed bill in the United States offering sanctuary to city residents has received widespread bipartisan support.

China routinely dismisses all such criticism as interference in its domestic affairs. One of the crimes in the Hong Kong security law explicitly outlaws receiving funding or support from overseas to disrupt lawmaking in Hong Kong or impose sanctions on the city.

Amnesty International said the new law was a 'far-reaching threat to Hong Kong's freedoms'.

Its Asia-Pacific regional director, Nicholas Bequelin, added: 'With its vague language and provisions for secret trials, hand-picked judges and mainland security agencies operating freely in the city, the law is wide open to politically motivated, capricious and arbitrary interpretation by the authorities.

'Hong Kongers are facing an assault by the Beijing authorities and the Hong Kong government on freedoms that they have long enjoyed.'

One major cause of alarm is Article 38 of the law which purports to claim jurisdiction over national security offences committed overseas, even by foreigners.

'If you've ever said anything that might offend [China] or Hong Kong authorities, stay out of Hong Kong,' Donald Clarke, an expert on Chinese law at George Washington University, wrote in an analysis.

'I know of no reason not to think it means what it appears to say: it is asserting extraterritorial jurisdiction over every person on the planet,' Clarke wrote.

The UK updated its travel advice on Hong Kong, saying there is an 'increased risk of detention and deportation'. It advised Britons to 'avoid protests and demonstrations.' Political leaders across the spectrum have condemned China's crackdown, which came quicker than anyone expected.

But Rod Wye, of the Chatham House think-tank, said Beijing will not care as it takes advantage of global instability and rifts opening up between Western powers.

'The USA and EU are moving in different directions in many areas. It is perhaps to China's advantage that that should be so,' he said.'Expressions of concern are certainly not going to change the Chinese intention one little bit.'

Pictured: Xie Feng, commissioner of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region addresses a flag-raising ceremony to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland on July 1, 2020 in Hong Kong, China

Pictured: A person is detained by riot police officers during a march against national security law at the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain, in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2020
The lawyer for Madeleine McCann's kidnap and murder suspect Christian Brueckner has insisted his client is 'no psychopathic monster'.

Friedrich Fulscher described the 43-year-old serial paedophile as a 'friendly conversationist'.

He went on to claim: 'The prosecutor's office seems to have shot at our client and is now trying to correct their lack of evidence by any means possible.

'I experience him as a very calm and friendly interlocutor, and the atmosphere between us has always been very pleasant.'

He said Brueckner has not spoken about the case 'and he has a right to silence', which does not infer guilt.

Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner (pictured) may not face charges for the three-year-old's disappearance, German prosecutors have said

German prosecutors have repeatedly claimed they have 'concrete evidence' that the three-year-old - who vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007 - was killed.

Last month they insisted they had shared this information with Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann in a letter.

This was despite the McCanns' furious insistence that they had not received a letter.

Fulscher has in the past claimed the prosecutor's office have not shared Brueckner's case file with him to indicate what proof they allegedly have against him.

Brueckner's lawyer Friedrich Fulscher described him as 'a very calm and friendly interlocutor' and said the atmosphere between us has always been very pleasant'

Brueckner is said to have logged into a radio cell tower close to Madeleine's hotel on the night she vanished.

Fulscher criticises the fact that it is not clear how large the radio cell was at the time or whether Brueckner had even had the alleged conversation with an unknown person.

Brueckner is currently serving a 21-month sentence in Kiel, Germany for drugs offences, and it was reported last this month that he could soon be out of prison on parole.

Lawyers have reportedly filed a request for him to be released after serving two-thirds of his sentence, but prosecutors fear he may flee the country after his release.

In 2011, Brueckner was sentenced to 21 months in jail for his part in a drugs trafficking ring that supplied marijuana to VIP clients.

The serial sex offender is also facing a separate sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman on a waterfront villa less than a mile from where Madeleine went missing in Portugal in 2007.

Although he was convicted in December 2019, he appealed against his seven-year sentence and so it cannot be imposed until his appeal avenues are exhausted.

Brueckner moved from Germany to Praia da Luz in 1995 after serving part of a two-year sentence for molesting a six-year-old girl in Wurzburg.

At the time of Madeleine's vanishing he was living in the area about a 10-minute drive away.

Following his identification as a suspect in the case, he has further been linked to the disappearances of six-year-old boy Rene Hasse in the Algarve, 1996, and five-year-old girl Igna Gehnricke in Germany, 2015.

it was claimed a Portuguese prepaid phone number received a call from the suspect 'from the same place' Madeleine was last seen alive (Pictured: Ocean Club in Praia Da Luz)

Christian Brueckner is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007

Police previously said a phone linked to Brueckner had received a 30-minute call between 7.32pm and 8.02pm on the night Madeleine disappeared from the Ocean Club apartment complex.

Scotland Yard took the unusual step of releasing two mobile telephone numbers as part of an appeal to end the 13-year mystery on June 4.

The first number +315 912 730 680 is believed have been used by the prime suspect.

He received a call from another Portuguese number + 351 916 510 683 while in the Praia de Luz area.

Mr Wolters confessed last month 'the investigation may not lead to a charge for the murder of Madeleine McCann,' as it 'could be stopped if we fail to find the missing evidence.'
A mother-of-one who burst into another woman's home and then battered, strangled and stabbed her in front of the victim's grandchild was jailed for 11 years today.

Shereena Oghani, 28, targeted 56-year old stranger Shukri Wando at complete random after loitering around her neighbourhood in Moss Side, Manchester, apparently looking for a home to rob.

The sentencing judge described the frenzied attack as the 'stuff of nightmares' and branded Oghani as a 'significant risk to the public' before jailing her.

Mrs Wando answered a knock at her front door only to be confronted by Oghani who then stabbed her with such force one of the two knives she grabbed during the assault, bent under the ferocity of the blows.

Shereena Oghana, a mother-of-one, has been jailed for 11 years after attacking a grandmother in her home during a vicious robbery the sentencing judge called 'the stuff of nightmares'

As the victim was being attacked, her 18-month grandson bravely tried to intervene but was bundled aside by the attacker.

Oghani eventually fled with Mrs Wando's laptop before being seen washing blood from her hands in a puddle outside.

Mrs Wando who lives in Moss Side, Manchester, was left for dead following the attack but despite suffering multiple slash and stab wounds to her face, back and scalp, made a miraculous recovery.

At Manchester Crown Court, Oghani of Stretford faced a charge of attempted murder but prosecutors accepted her guilty plea to the lesser charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. She also admitted robbery and assault.

Det Con Mike Baylay, of Greater Manchester Police, said: 'This was a vicious and vile attack which saw the victim, quite frankly, left for dead and caused great distress for the woman's young grandchild who was also targeted during this random act of savagery.

During a violent armed robbery, Shereena Oghani used such force that one of the two knives she used to stab Mrs Wando bent out of shape. She also used a chair and a laptop as weapons

'While today's verdict is a welcome result, it will do very little to heal the emotional and physical consequences that Oghani's victim has suffered, and I hope that Oghani will find it within herself to portray any ounce of remorse while she sits behind bars.

'Aside from the brutality of the use of weapons, Oghani's attempt to strangle the victim using a scarf showed a complete disregard for the woman's life; the randomness and viciousness of Oghani's actions mean the streets are much safer without her.'

The incident occurred at 4pm on November 13 last year after Mrs Wando's daughter had taken her other children to the dentist leaving the victim at home with her youngest grandchild.

Oghani, who had been under the influence of drugs, was seen pacing up and down the street for around 30 minutes before knocking at Mrs Wando's front door.

The attack on Mrs Wando was said to last at least 20 minutes as Oghani held down her victim with one hand while stabbing her with the other before fleeing the scene with a laptop

Mark Kellet prosecuting said: 'Mrs Wando answered the knock at the door only to be confronted by the defendant who pushed her back into the hallway before locking the door behind her. There was no explanation for why the victim was targeted.

'The defendant punched her to the head three times and then grabbed the victim by the hand and dragged her to the kitchen. She located a knife then slashed Mrs Wando about the body as the victim struggled to get free.

'She was holding Mrs Wando with one hand whilst stabbing her with the other. That part of the attack lasted almost 20 minutes.

'The defendant was also biting Mrs Wando and ended up in possession of two knives.

After the attack, Oghani was found by police five days later in London. She was arrested following a bust up in a supermarket.

'She also strangled Mrs Wando, all the time shouting and screaming in a language the victim didn't understand.

'She then dragged Mrs Wando to the sitting room and continued hitting her. She picked up a laptop and struck her to the face with it. She also hit her with a chair and Mrs Wando lost consciousness.

'It was impossible to say how many times she was struck. She was stabbed to the back of head whilst on the floor. Mrs Wando came round but the defendant broke a chair over her before stamping on her head.

Shereena Oghani has been jailed for 11 years for wounding with intent, robbery and assault after attacking a grandmother in her own home in front of the victim's 18-month old grandson

'The violence was witnessed by her grandson and he was running around the room trying to help his grandmother. He was obviously distressed and frightened by what happened and as he did so was pushed and kicked out of the way.'

Oghani left the property and Mrs Wando herself made the call to the police despite her wounds.

In a statement the victim, who was born in Somalia, said: 'I still suffer pain from the injuries and I live in fear and no longer feel safe in my house. It had also had an impact on my grandson who had to witness the attack.'

Oghani went on the run but was arrested five days later 250 miles away in London following a bust up at a supermarket.

When told what it was about she replied: 'You're joking.'

She has a history of mental illness and of going missing and has 17 previous offences in her record including convictions for violence against police.

Just a month before the robbery she had been given a suspended prison term for a house burglary.

In mitigation her lawyer Dan Gaskell said her client had been exploited by others and added: 'Prior to the attack she had been give some blue pills and can remember little after that.

'She was taken away from the area by an individual who had a controlling influence on her.'

But sentencing Judge Alan Conrad QC told Oghani: 'You launched a savage and sustained attack in Mrs Wando repeatedly punching her and stabbing her with two knives one of which bent in the attack and using other items as weapons.

'You also tried to strangle your victim and caused her serious physical and emotional injury, the psychological effects of which will endure. A small child was struck during your frenzied violence.

'Such an attack is the stuff of nightmares for any householder and the shock extended to the mother of the little the boy present who was out with her other children at the time.

'I am satisfied you present a significant risk to the public of causing serious harm.'

Oghani will serve at least two thirds of her sentence and following her release will be on licence until 2035 under the the terms of an extended sentence.
Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the central state of Guanajuato should consider reshuffling its law enforcement departments following the massacre of at least 28 patients at a drug rehabilitation center Wednesday.

Guanajuato authorities registered a total of 35 homicides in a day in which 14 other states across the Mexican republic failed to report any murders.

'It is not interference. We are not going to recommend it to anyone. This has to come from the government itself, but changes must be made to resolve the issue of Guanajuato. Yesterday was very strong,' Lopez Obrador said during his daily press briefing Thursday morning.

Authorities in the municipality of Irapuato said that several gunmen barged into the facility located in the Jardines de Aranda neighborhood at 5:20pm and opened fire on the rehab patients.

Images of the gruesome attack that were shared across social media showed all of the victims were most likely gathered in one room before they were all shot dead and left lying beside and on top of each other on mattresses and the blood-soaked floor.

Guanajuato government officials said Thursday that the rehabilitation facility did not have the required permits to operate.

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

Pictured are some of the 28 drug rehab center patients who were assassinated Wednesday in Guanajuato, Mexico. At least four patients remain hospitalized

Authorities reported 35 murders in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato on Wednesday, including 28 at a drug rehabilitation facility in the municipality of Irapuato

Mexican federal authorities announced that 28 people were shot dead and four others injured after suspects opened fire at a drug rehabilitation center in Irapuato, a city in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato, which has been plagued by cartel violence

Once a tranquil state following a truce between local cartels, violence has exploded across Guanajuato over the last four years due to an ongoing turf war between the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, viewed by analysts as the most dynamic criminal organization in the country.

Murders in Guanajuato increased by 222 percent in 2019 with 3,540 homicides after 1,096 were reported in 2016. At least 1,903 murders have been reported in the first five months of 2020.

At least 61 homicides were reported in June in the city of Irapuato.

Lopez Obrador, who has blamed his predecessors for the wave of violence that has engulfed Mexico two years into his term, said that the Guanajuato state government permitted the insecurity issues to escalate and that there needs to be an investigation into possible ties between authorities and criminal organizations.

'You have to see if there is no collusion, that is, a criminal association between crime and authority,' the leftist president said. 'Because one of the things to avoid is that criminal association. There has to be a full division, paint the line, crime is one thing and the authority is another.'

The victims were found lying beside and on top of each other

Local police officers, the National Guard and agents with the Attorney General of Guanajuato were reportedly at the scene after the suspects fled

Mexican newspaper El Universal reports that a group of armed suspects arrived to the rehabilitation center in a red truck and fired several rounds at patients after entering the building.

The suspects reportedly fled the scene. Some victims were rushed to local hospitals while others reportedly left on their own means.

No motive was given in the attack, but Governor Diego Sinhue said drug gangs appeared to have been involved.

'I deeply regret and condemn the events in Irapuato this afternoon,' Sinhue wrote.

'The violence generated by organized crime not only takes the lives of the young, but it takes the peace from families in Guanajuato.'

Pictured: A woman is overwhelmed with emotions and comforted by others near the crime scene where 24 people were killed in Irapuato

The suspects in the brutal shooting have not been identified and authorities have not disclosed a specific motive for the attack

A police cordon lies on the floor at the entrance of a drug rehabilitation facility where assailants killed several people on Wednesday

Pictured: Members of the media stand outside a drug rehabilitation center where 24 were shot dead and seven injured in an attack on Wednesday

Gov. Diego Sinhue: 'The violence generated by organized crime not only takes the lives of the young, but it takes the peace from families in Guanajuato'

Videos taken from the scene showed heavy law enforcement presence and civilians could be heard crying in the background.

Neither the identity of the victims or the suspects have been publicly disclosed.

It is the second such attack to take place in Irapuato in the past month.

On June 6, 10 men were killed when gunmen opened fire in a rehabilitation center for addicts in Irapuato. It was not immediately clear if the same facility was hit both times.

On February 8, five patients were gunned down when armed men raided an Irapuato rehabilitation facility. At least two homes, a car repair shop, cars and motorcycles were set on fire by the suspects after they fled the scene.

Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at such facilities in the past.

Wednesday's incident was one of the deadliest attacks on a rehab center since 19 people were killed in 2010 in Chihuahua in northern Mexico. More than a dozen attacks on such facilities have occurred since then.

Mexico has long had problems with rehab centers because most are privately run, underfunded and often commit abuses against recovering addicts.

Members of the National Guard and forensic investigators work near the drug rehabilitation facility

A similar attack took place on June 6 when a gunman killed 10 men at a rehabilitation center for addiction on June 6

Gov. Sinhue did not reveal details of the incident, but said drug gangs appeared to be involved in the shooting

The government spends relatively little money on rehabilitation, often making the unregistered centers the only option available for poor families.

In addition, addicts and dealers who face attacks from rivals on the streets sometimes take refuge at the rehab clinics, making the clinics themselves targets for attack.

Still other gangs have been accused of forcibly recruiting recovering addicts at the centers as dealers, and killing them if they refused.
Canadian police this morning arrested an armed man who entered the grounds where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the country's Governor General live in Ottawa.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police tweeted that Trudeau and Governor General Julie Payette were not present at the time of the incident at the sprawling Rideau Hall estate at 1 Sussex Drive early Thursday.

Police said the man was arrested at around 6.40am local time without any incident and is now being interviewed. Police have not released his identity and said charges are pending.

A Dodge Ram is parked at Rideau Hall, the estate where Canada PM Justin Trudeau lives, after police say an armed man entered the grounds early Thursday

A robot removes a leather jacket from the suspect's pickup truck at Rideau Hall in Ottawa

A police dog was brought in to inspect the vehicle, which was found to contain what looked like Canadian Forces rations

An anonymous source told CBC News the suspect had driven from Manitoba and had a long gun and a note with him.

Photos taken at the scene showed a visibly damaged wrought-iron entrance gate and a police robot examining a black Dodge Ram pickup truck parked on the estate grounds.

The vehicles airbag appeared to have deployed, purportedly after the Dodge had crashed through the gate.

The rear backseat door was open, revealing inside a stack of cardboard boxes and what appeared to be Canadian Forces rations, reported the Ottawa Citizen.

A police officer guards the front gate to Rideau Hall. Trudeau and his family were not at home at the time of the incident

The entrance gate looks bent and there is debris scattered on the ground following the incident Thursday morning

A police officer yells to stop a vehicle from passing the damaged iron entrance gate

The robot was seen removing a black leather jacket adorned with patches and insignia from the pickup truck.

A police dog was also brought it to search the intruder's vehicle for any dangerous materials.

Payette, who is the representative of Queen Elizabeth II as Canada's head of state, holds a mostly ceremonial position.

Trudeau, 48, his wife, Sophie, and three children live in a cottage on the sprawling property where the governor general resides because the prime minister's traditional residence at 24 Sussex Drive is in disrepair.

Trudeau lives in a cottage on the property where the governor general resides because the prime minister's traditional residence is in disrepair (pictured at home on Monday)

Trudeau was last seen on Wednesday harvesting broccoli at the Ottawa Food Bank Farm in Ottawa to mark Canada Day (pictured)

Trudeau was last seen on Wednesday harvesting broccoli at the Ottawa Food Bank Farm in Ottawa to mark Canada Day.

'We thank the RCMP and police for quickly resolving the situation this morning at Rideau Hall. All of our staff are safe,' Payette tweeted.

Trudeau has not commented on the incident as of late Thursday afternoon.
A Florida county commissioner has objected to a fellow council member setting his Zoom background to a Black Lives Matter mural image.

Commissioner Ken Welch has appeared in virtual meetings with the Black Lives Matter street mural in South St. Pete as his backdrop over the past few weeks.

Pinellas County Commissioner Kathleen Peters took issue with the image and is now asking that he remove it.

Commissioner Ken Welch has appeared in virtual meetings with the Black Lives Matter street mural in South St. Pete as his backdrop over the past few weeks

Pinellas County Commissioner Kathleen Peters (pictured) took issue with the image and is now asking that he remove it

Peters explained that while she has no problem with the artwork itself, she found it inappropriate that he should make it his Zoom background during work calls.

'I have no problem with the artwork behind him personally, I don't.

'But the bottom line is once you start one person having a sign and that is in fact a sign, even though it's artwork  now what's to say I'm not going to put up a piece of artwork about, abortion, just for an example,' she told Florida Politics on Tuesday.

Several local artists painted the Black Live Matter mural on the street during a Juneteenth 2020 celebration in St. Petersburg, Florida

Peters claimed that she even received emails from constituents who are offended by the image.

On Tuesday, the commissioner raised the issue at the end of a meeting to discuss funding amid the Covid-19 crisis. She suggested the development of a document setting out policies and guidelines for council members.

Welch defended his background, saying: 'In 2020 in the world that we're living in we need to speak out on issues.

'This is a Zoom background and I will continue to use this Zoom background because I feel that strongly about it.'

No further action was taken.

Taking to Twitter, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman wrote: 'It is just shameful that Commissioner Peters has an issue with a few letters of our BLM street mural being used as Commissioner Welch's background'

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman afterwards criticized Peters for asking Welch to change his background.

Taking to Twitter, the mayor wrote: 'It is just shameful that Commissioner Peters has an issue with a few letters of our BLM street mural being used as Commissioner Welch's background.

'Her judgment is way off and her politics are clearly out of step with who are in Pinellas and St. Pete. Really unbelievable.'

The St. Petersburg 'Black Lives Matter' street mural was hand-painted by several local artists and was unveiled during a Juneteenth celebration last month in response to the killing of George Floyd, as the area saw weeks of protests against racism and police brutality.
Prince Harry's nightclub boss friend has racked up a 35,000 legal bill after a court battle with a millionaire polo player and his weather presenter wife.

Howard Spooner, 50, ran a string of London venues with Guy Pelly, another friend of the Duke of Sussex, but was unsuccessful in recouping funds from associates over a failed joint venture for a posh hotel.

Mr Spooner, Charles 'Brook' Johnson and Sally Faber Johnson agreed over a lunch to become equal partners in The George, a prestigious 17-bed townhouse on the Isle of Wight.

However, the relationship turned sour after they fell out over spending, Swindon County Court heard.

Mr Spooner's barrister, Josh Lewison, told the court the two men agreed Mr Johnson, 73, of Marlborough, Wiltshire, would stump up 150,000, with 65,000 paid immediately and the remaining 85,000 invested as and when it was needed.

This account was disputed by the Johnsons, however, with Charles' wife Sally, 55, claiming she had bought furniture with the 85,000 which had been loaned to the hotel.

Attempts at mediation between the partners came to nothing and the case ended up in court.

Howard Spooner, pictured left with wife Lucy, was unsuccessful in recouping funds from Charles 'Brook' Johnson and Sally Faber Johnson, pictured right, over a failed joint venture for a posh hotel

Emma Williams, for Sally Johnson, alleged the flamboyant nightclub owner had tried to exclude her husband from the management of the company and transfer 100,000 out of the hotel company bank account into the account of a firm controlled by him alone.

On March 20, the Johnsons' solicitors sent Mr Spooner a pre-action letter, to which he replied claiming to be owed 85,000, telling lawyers their clients should 'come to the table to buy out, sell out or stump up what they owe'.

The solicitors responded on March 24 warning the claimed debt was disputed.

Mr Spooner issued a formal statutory demand for the cash on behalf of the firm on March 27, effectively warning the Johnsons they could be hauled before the courts if they did not pay up.

A month later, he issued a second statutory demand for payment for 16,612 plus interest, which it was claimed was owed to a directors' loan account.

This was served on both Johnsons and a company jointly owned by the couple, Sarcen Ltd.

The Johnsons' lawyers had been preparing to fight both demands for payment and a hearing was fixed.

But last Thursday, five days before the hearing - Mr Spooner withdrew the demands.

And in a two-hour hearing on Tuesday he was ordered to pay 35,000 in legal costs to the Johnsons.

Ms Williams, for the couple, argued that the celebrity club owner had acted improperly in making the demands for payment, describing his conduct throughout the legal proceedings as 'utterly deplorable', and that he should have known he did not have the relevant authority to do so.

It was also alleged that Mr Spooner sent Mrs Johnson WhatsApp messages that were 'tantamount to blackmail'.

The trio agreed over a lunch to become equal partners in The George, pictured, a prestigious 17-bed townhouse on the Isle of Wight, but the relationship turned sour after they fell out over spending

One of which appeared to suggest he would sell the alleged debt to 'your daughter's drug dealer', adding: 'Somebody else can come and collect it from you. I'm bored of trying to get you to be honest and reasonable.'

Josh Lewison, for Mr Spooner, said his client had been trying to do his best for the company in trying to collect what he saw as a debt owed by his former business partners.

He argued the money would ensure the hotel could come out of the lockdown period in a comparative financial good health.

He added: 'In this case Mr Spooner was not going to derive any personal benefit from the litigation. He was simply trying to collect a debt he saw as due for the company.'

Contrary to the claims of the Johnsons, Mr Lewison said his client genuinely believed he had the authority to issue demands for payment and that it was Mr Spooner being threatened with warnings by the couples' lawyers.

Deputy District Judge Napier acknowledged he was not being asked to rule on whether the statutory demands should be set aside.

But he told the lawyers in his view Mr Spooner had used the statutory demand process improperly and there were 'very serious irregularities' in the administration of the company.

He ruled Mr Spooner should pay a contribution to the Johnsons' legal costs of 35,000.

Following the hearing, Mr and Mrs Johnson said: 'Whilst we regret that this dispute had to come to court, we are delighted by the judgment. Deputy District Judge Napier has fully vindicated our position.

'This is a satisfying conclusion to a challenging period and we look forward to putting it behind us.'
McDonald's plans to pause the reopening of its dine-in service by 21 days in the US as the number of coronavirus cases rise in the country.

'Our resiliency will be tested again. Covid-19 cases are on the rise,' McDonald's US President Joe Erlinger said in a company letter seen by Reuters.

'This surge shows nobody is exempt from this virus - even places that previously had very few cases.'

In the letter, which was also from Mark Salebra, head of the National Franchisee Leadership Alliance owners association, operators were urged to continue to follow the company's health and safety guidelines.

Employees were encouraged to wear gloves and masks during shifts at their respective restaurants.

McDonald's (a St Paul, Minnesota restaurant pictured during the pandemic) plans to pause the reopening of its dine-in service by 21 days in the US as the number of coronavirus cases rise in the country, according to a letter from McDonald's US president, Joe Erlinger

In the letter, Erlinger (pictured) urged operators to continue to follow the company's health and safety guidelines. Employees were encouraged to wear gloves and masks during shifts at their respective restaurants

There are about 2,000 McDonald's restaurants that already allow dine-in service.

And according to the letter, that service can only continue if local officials don't tighten social distancing regulations in those areas.

The fast-food chain that saw a 30 per cent dip in global sales in the first two months of the current quarter, has been hurt by the shut down of its restaurants.

During the coronavirus-induced lockdowns, fast-food restaurants had to limit operations to drive-through, takeaway and delivery through third-party apps as dining-in remained closed, leading to lower sales.

The announcement came just a day before the US reported a record 52,000 new COVID-19 cases within 24 hours, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The surge marks a new one-day record of infections as states across the country reopen.

According to the tracker, there were 52,898 new cases over the 24 hours to Wednesday evening.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the US was 2,686,928 late Thursday morning and the number of deaths stood at 128,064.

During the coronavirus-induced lockdowns, fast-food restaurants (a McDonald's pictured) had to limit operations to drive-through, takeaway and delivery through third-party apps as dining-in remained closed, leading to lower sales

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the US was 2,686,928 late Thursday morning and the number of deaths stood at 128,064

The daily coronavirus case numbers have remained around the 40,000 mark in recent days. On Tuesday, more than 44,000 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the US.

Adding to the rise in cases, hospitalizations for COVID-19, the contagious respiratory disease that first emerged in China, are also increasing in Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.

Dr Anthony Fauci has also warned that America's coronavirus lockdown was lifted too soon, was never strict enough in the first place, and that young people are driving a second wave of infections.

Fauci, the White House's top virus adviser, said the 'very disturbing' new rise in cases is being caused in part by the fact that the US never got its first wave under control - only locking down around 50 per cent of the country compared to 97 per cent as happened in most of Europe where daily infections are now very low.

That meant that when the economy started to reopen, the virus began spreading rapidly almost immediately because there were still a large number infected people to pass the disease along, he told BBC Radio 4 in the UK.

But he added that the rise is also being driven by people, particularly young people, gathering in large groups, without socially distancing, and often without wearing masks - such as in bars, at beaches, and during protests.

Dr Anthony Fauci has also warned that America's coronavirus lockdown was lifted too soon, was never strict enough in the first place, and that young people are driving a second wave of infections

'What happens when you do that, and you don't wear a mask, you get the kinds of outbreak we're seeing,' he said.

'What they've got to realize is that although you as a young person are infected and may not get any consequence of it... it is likely you will infect someone else who will infect someone else, who might infect a vulnerable person.

'Then you get into very serious consequences, maybe even death. We need to engender some societal responsibility in people, particularly the younger people.'

'The situation in the United States has been more problematic. We got hit very badly, worse than any country with regards to the number of cases and the number of deaths.

'The problem we're facing now is that an attempt to so-called reopen or open the government and get it back to some form of normality - we're seeing very disturbing spikes in different individual states in the United States.

'What we've seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that we've seen. That is not good news, we've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak.'

On Wednesday alone Texas broke its daily record and recorded 8,076 new cases, which is nearly 1,000 more than the day prior.

The startling spikes in cases have forced Texas, California and Florida to halt their reopenings.

On Wednesday California Gov Gavin Newsom ordered all bars, indoor restaurant operations and movie theaters to shut down immediately in most parts of the states, nearly three weeks after the state's bars, stores, restaurants, and salons opened for the first time following a three-month lockdown.

Since then, the number of COVID-19 cases have begun to rise again, increasing nearly 50 per cent over the last two weeks, with a 43 per cent spike in hospitalizations.

Public health experts warn that, although the number of people dying each day is down significantly, these increases typically lag behind case increases, with one recent study estimating a 17-day delay.
President Trump waved off the 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day in the U.S. saying they're 'being handled' as he focused on reopening churches and businesses during his appearance Friday in the White House briefing room.

'It's got a life. And we are putting out that life because it's a bad life that we're talking about,' he said, talking about the virus. He also claimed to be 'putting out the fires.'

Shortly after Trump spoke, his Democratic rival Joe Biden appeared via livestream and criticized the president's response to the pandemic, saying he was 'stunned' that the tens of thousands of new COVID-19 cases were never mentioned.

'Today's report is positive news and I'm thankful for it, for real, but make no mistake we're still in a deep, deep job hole because Donald Trump has so badly bungled the response to the coronavirus,' Biden said.

Trump came out to the podium to tout adding 4.8 million jobs to the economy, saying the economy was 'roaring back, coming back extremely strong,' all while states are having to rollback closures due to the slew of new COVID-19 cases.

President Trump waved off the 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day in the U.S. saying they're 'being handled'

Joe Biden delivered brief remarks after the president's briefing room appearance, saying he was 'stunned' that the president didn't mention the 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day figure

Joe Biden pointed out that the jobs data was from the work week of June 12. Since then, cases around the U.S. have nearly doubled per day

Biden pointed out that the jobs data was from the work week of June 12 and cases per day have nearly doubled since then.

'Look, let's not lose sight of a critical point, this report measures job gains as of June the 12th. In the days since we've seen cases spiking around the country. Some businesses close again, some states reimposing restrictions,' Biden said. 'And in the last two weeks we've seen almost 3 million new unemployment filings and another 1.7 million people seeking pandemic unemployment uninsurance.'

'There's no victory to be celebrated,' Biden said.

When Trump talked about the virus Friday, he downplayed the spikes and continued to cheer on the reopening.

'And now we're opening it up and it's opening up far faster than anybody thought even possible and more successful,' the president said.

Biden interpreted what the president said by claiming, 'Donald Trump has just given up.'

'He's not even trying to secure the public health anymore,' the Democrats' presumptive nominee said. 'He'd rather go back to his campaign rallies, he's not interested in uniting us in this fight of a common threat we face and he's decided that he has more to gain by dividing this country for his political purposes.'

Without giving guidance to states, Biden suggested, the pandemic would only grow worse.

Trump has continued to give states' full authority to deal with reopening and said he'd only get involved 'if we see something egregious' - meaning if a state was too cautious in its reopening.

'We've gotten involved with a couple of them when we thought it was unfair,' the president said. 'We'd like to see churches open quickly. And some of them just don't want do to that,' he complained.

At the podium, he championed his administration's handling of the virus, saying it saved 'millions.'

Biden chided him for rarely acknowledging the dead.

'Has he even once expressed any real empathy for the families who will never be whole again because of this virus?' the former vice president asked.

Trump expressed that his priority was getting Americans back to work.

'We've implemented an aggressive strategy to vanquish and kill the virus and protect Americans at the highest risk, while allowing those at lower risk to return safely to work - that's what's happening,' he said. 'Our health experts continue to address the temporary hotspots in certain cities and counties and we're working very hard on that.'

Biden warned that Trump's optimistic spin was dangerously out of touch.

He pointed to comments Trump made during a Fox Business Network interview Wednesday suggesting the coronavirus would 'will disappear, I hope.'

'It's like deja vu all over again,' Biden said. 'We're months into this crisis and that's his best answer? Quit hoping for the best Mr. President, quit claiming victory with almost 15 million ... Americans still out of work because of the crisis, quit ignoring the reality of this pandemic and the horrifying loss of American life.'

'Act. Lead. Lead. Or get out of the way so others can, Mr. President,' Biden instructed.

The president also said that on a governors call with Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the coronavirus taskforce, not a single executive asked for medical supplies.

'The relationship with the governors is very good,' he said. 'Mike Pence made a call just yesterday and said what do you need and not one governor needed anything.'

'They don't need anything. They have all the medical equipment they can have,' Trump continued. 'Thank you, U.S. government.'

However during Pence's trip to Arizona Wednesday, the state's governor did ask the U.S. government for 500 medical professionals to be deployed to the state to handle the spike in cases.

Trump's remarks stood in contrast to the dire warnings being spouted over the last two weeks by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4 in the U.K., Fauci said the U.S. coronavirus lockdown had been lifted too soon and was never strict enough to begin with.

'The problem we're facing now is that an attempt to so-called reopen or open the government and get it back to some form of normality - we're seeing very disturbing spikes in different individual states in the United States,' Fauci said.

'What we've seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that we've seen,' he continued. 'That is not good news, we've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak.'

Trump won't be helping things over the next two days as he travels to South Dakota Friday to deliver remarks at Mt. Rushmore.

'We'll be giving out free face masks, if they choose to wear one. But we won't be social distancing,' South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said in an interview with Fox News Channel's Laura Ingraham on Monday.

Then, on Saturday, Trump will host his 'Salute to America' event on the White House South Lawn and on the Ellipse.

'Weve communicated with them that this is not in keeping with CDC and Department of Health guidance,' complained D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Zoe Phillips from Chelsea, west London, sent Ministry of Defence worker Neil Cross 60 WhatsApps and emails and threatened to kill herself, a court heard

A businesswoman who bombarded her ex-lover and his fiancee with messages after he announced his engagement in a newspaper has admitted harassing the couple.

Zoe Phillips from Chelsea, west London, sent Ministry of Defence worker Neil Cross 60 WhatsApps and emails and threatened to kill herself, a court heard.

The 53-year-old went to Mr Cross's fiancee's work and fired off messages to her company email account after 'following her ex around all evening' at a charity ball.

The brand manager contacted Major Harry Wallace on Facebook after the victim blocked her on social media to use the army officer as her 'conduit' to Mr Cross.

She begged the high-ranking officer to help her get in touch with her old flame in a series of 'very long' messages.

Phillips, a brand manager for Nestle and Biogen, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court today wearing a navy blue pencil skirt and a suit jacket.

She sat outside the dock because she was 'nervous', having previously denied both counts of harassment.

But today her lawyer Aneurin Brewer advised her to change her plea and Phillips admitted the allegations.

The 53-year-old went to Mr Cross's fiancee's work and fired off messages to her company email account after 'following her ex around all evening' at a charity ball, Westminster Magistrates' Court (pictured) heard

Mr Brewer said: 'She is perhaps understandably quite nervous of being in that space considering the current problems.'

Prosecutor Misba Majid said at an earlier hearing: 'This matter goes back to January 2019.

'The alleged complainant Neil Cross was in fact in a very short relationship with the suspect and he sets out in his statement going on four dates with the suspect when the decision was made to render that short relationship in January 2019 and they should in fact be friends.

Phillips, a brand manager for Nestle and Biogen, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court today wearing a navy blue pencil skirt and a suit jacket (pictured)

'This was communicated to the suspect by Mr Cross and that agreement was made. However the crown's case is in February Mr Cross had organised a charity ball which Ms Phillips in fact attended.

'During the course of that ball she followed him round all evening. He explained she did not want her to follow him and she responded by simply continuing.

'Again he explained he did not want to attend those events, initially ignoring the invitations, but then communicating he didn't want to attend and he had in fact entered into a new relationship.

'He communicated to her in March that he had entered into relationship with Ms Williams.

'Throughout 1 May to 31 December 2019 he received a number of texts and emails from Ms Phillips.

'There were a number of WhatsApp messages talking about their relationship and her apologising about contacting him and making reference to the fact that she would take her life describing how much she still likes him.

'I'm summarising as there are about 45 texts but the general nature is that she's upset about the new relationship and unhappy about him blocking and unblocking her.

'She was blocked but then contacted him through different avenues on his work email address, that being a Ministry of Defence email address and giving Mr Cross great difficulty to get her blocked from that address having received all those emails.

'On 4 October 2019 Ms Phillips had gone on to send a further 15 emails in a row and on that same day he received a number of telephone calls from an unknown number.

'They announced their engagement in the Telegraph and Ms Phillips in fact commented on that on the website making reference to the fact that she was still in love with Mr Cross and was not happy about the end of their relationship.'

District Judge Nicholas Rimmer today told Phillips she would remain on conditional bail, ordering her not to contact either of the alleged victims or Major Wallace.

She is also banned from attending any Ministry of Defence establishment.

Phillips admitted two counts of harassment without violence. She will return to court for sentencing on July 30.
Prince Andrew is said to be 'bewildered' over the lack of response from US justice officials as the Royal Family brace themselves for new revelations after the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell.

Andrew's six-month standoff with the FBI deepened after Maxwell was detained for allegedly helping to lure underage girls who were then sexually abused by Epstein.

Her arrest in Bradford, New Hampshire, will now intensify calls for Andrew to be quizzed about any involvement he may have had, despite him denying wrongdoing.

Andrew has previously claimed he has offered three times to be a witness in the case, but US prosecutors say he has declined their request to schedule an interview.

A source close to the Duke's working group said: 'The Duke's team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month and to-date, we have had no response.'

Royal author Robert Jobson has suggested Andrew must now be living in fear that Maxwell will implicate him in the 'gruesome' activities of paedophile Epstein.

Mr Jobson who has written several books about the Royal family said that the arrest of Maxwell had to be a cause for concern and an embarrassment for the Queens 60-year-old son.

He keeps protesting his innocence, but her arrest has brought everything more sharply into focus. It is certainly a very worrying development for him,' Mr Jobson said.

It is obviously a cause concern for him as nobody knows what she is going to say. She could strike a deal with prosecutors for a lesser sentence in return for implicating others.

I would have thought that in order to open up the case, she is going to be asked to name other names. That is where it could become even more difficult for Andrew.

If she says anything about him, and she is bound to be asked about him, it could implicate him or cause trouble for him. Whatever happens, it is an embarrassment because she was clearly close to him and there are some pretty gruesome charges against her.

If nothing else, it will bring into question his judgment when it comes to friendships as these are pretty unsavoury charges that she faces.

Maxwell lived for years with Epstein, whose victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre claimed she arranged for her to have sex with the Duke of York at her London townhouse.

Andrew denied her story and claimed last month he was being treated as a second-class citizen by the US justice system, and it was untrue that he had not co-operated.

Gloria Allred, who is based in Los Angeles and represents 16 accusers of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, said the Queen's 60-year-old son must 'contact the FBI immediately'.

Andrew and Virginia Roberts, aged 17, at Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse in London in 2001

She said today: 'The arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell is a major development and demonstrates that the criminal investigation is serious and that it continues.

'It is long overdue for Prince Andrew to stop making excuses and to stop playing the victim. He should contact the FBI immediately and agree to appear for an interview.'

Asked what 58-year-old Maxwell's arrest could now mean for the Duke, a spokesman for his legal team told MailOnline this afternoon: 'We won't be commenting.'

Today, Audrey Strauss, acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said she would 'welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us to have the benefit of his statement' but would not comment further on him in relation to the probe.

Ms Strauss said the FBI would be 'seeking detention' for Maxwell and that her team would be 'in dialogue with the Bureau of Prisons about it'.

When asked if she would be willing to hear evidence from Maxwell concerning others involved despite the perjury charges against her, Ms Strauss said: 'This sometimes happens when there are perjury charges and people can go on from there and become co-operators if that is what you are asking, so I'm not concerned about that.

Epstein is pictured with Ghislaine Maxwell in New York in 2005. Lawyers for Maxwell have previously said she denies any wrongdoing

'In the event that she were to become a co-operator, I think that we can deal with that.'

Andrew has previously said he became friends in 1999 with Epstein - who killed himself in jail last August - after being introduced to him through Maxwell.

The Duke, who stayed at Epstein's house in 2010 after the financier's conviction, said in a disastrous BBC interview last November that he did not regret their friendship.

Epstein and Maxwell were at a party hosted by the Queen at Windsor Castle in June 2000, and also attended a party for Maxwell at Sandringham in December that year.

Royal author Mr Jobson said he believed that the Duchess of York had first introduced Andrew to Ghislaine, the daughter of crooked newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell who plunged to his death from his yacht in mysterious circumstances in 1991.

Ghislaine in turn introduced Andrew to billionaire Epstein who jumped at the chance of ingratiating himself with a member of the Royal family.

Mr Jobson said: Andrew was clearly close to them both. He invited them to Royal enclosure at Ascot and a party hosted by the Queen at Windsor Castle in 2000 as well as a shooting weekend in Sandringham later in the same year.

It is the case that Ghislaine has also associated with other members of the Royal family, so people are going to become quite concerned.

She has ben in the Royal circle so it becomes more and more embarrassing because it is all getting closer and closer to the Queen.

Andrew has tried to distance himself a bit from Epstein and can say that more was made of their friendship than what there actually was, but it was clear that he was still friends with Ghislaine after his friendship with Epstein ended.

He was in touch with her long after he severed his ties with Epstein.

Mr Jobson said Andrews closeness to Ghislaine was illustrated by the infamous photograph of him with his arm around 17-year-old Virginia Roberts which was said to have been taken in Ghislaines flat in London in 2000.

He said: While some close to Andrew have said the photograph was fabricated, the key problem is that it was allegedly taken at Ghislaines home and she is there in the picture lurking in the background.

The photograph is being used all the time, so now that she has been charged with procuring under age girls, it has become even more of an embarrassment and potentially damaging for him.

Lawyer Gloria Allred, who is based in Los Angeles and represents 16 accusers of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, is pictured outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on February 21

Andrew is photographed with the disgraced Epstein in New York's Central Park in 2010

The US Department of Justice has formally asked the Home Office for help to question the Duke, which could see him grilled in court about his links to Epstein.

But Andrew's lawyers said it was a cynical publicity stunt, accusing US officials of breaking their own rules, telling untruths and trying to mislead the global public.

Today, an indictment claimed Maxwell 'assisted, facilitated and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse' girls under the age of 18.

Mr Jobson who has written books on Prince Charles and Princess Diana also said that Maxwells arrest made it an even more distant prospect that Andrew would ever be able to return to public life as a working Royal.

He said: At this moment in time, until this matter is completely cleared up and people are satisfied that he is telling the truth and is completely innocent, as he says he is, there is no way back for him because there is so much hanging over him.

It would be impossible for him to carry out his duties. The fact that the whole Epstein saga is now on Netflix and there is a new book about it doesnt help his case.

But I dont think he is going to put himself in a position where he could be charged. I dont see him going to America.

The only way he can start to clear his name is to present himself for questioning to the FBI. I dont think his lawyers will want him to do that because it could leave him exposed.

It means he is between the devil and the deep blue sea because he cant expose himself and risk becoming the next central focus of the Epstein inquiry.

Epstein killed himself in a federal prison in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was accused by women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex.

The indictment included counts of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury.

Maxwell has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some of the claims against her 'absolute rubbish'.

She was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the 'highest-ranking employee' of Epstein's alleged sex trafficking ring. The lawsuit claimed she oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal activity from police.

The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York will announce charges later today against Maxwell 'for her role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein'.

Federal prosecutors said in court papers she had 'enticed and caused minor victims to travel to Epstein's residence in different states' and that Maxwell would assist in their 'grooming for and subjection to sexual abuse.'

Prosecutors charged that Maxwell was well aware of Epstein's preference for minor girls, and that he intended to sexually abuse them.

Maxwell has kept a low profile since the death of Epstein, a financier who was accused of raping and trafficking underage girls over nearly two decades.

Some of Epstein's alleged victims have said Maxwell lured them into his circle, where they were sexually abused by him and powerful friends. Maxwell was an ex-girlfriend of Epstein who became a longtime member of his inner circle.

Andrew had promised last year, after a disastrous Newsnight interview, to 'help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations' into Epstein.

According to Andrew, the first he heard from the FBI in their 16-year investigation into Epstein was on January 2.

And he was just beginning the process of suggesting how he might answer their questions when, according to his friends, the Americans 'went nuclear'.

On January 27, Geoffrey Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, stood outside Epstein's New York mansion and publicly accused the prince of reneging on his pledge by offering 'zero assistance' to the FBI.

On March 9 he claimed the royal had 'completely shut the door' on cooperating.

One of Epstein's victims, Virginia Roberts, now Virginia Giuffre, alleges she had sex with the Duke of York three times when she was 17 at the behest of the billionaire paedophile

Andrew (second left) has said he became friends with Jeffrey Epstein (right) in 1999, after being introduced to him through Ghislaine Maxwell. Pictured: Melania Trump, Andrew, Epstein's friend Gwendolyn Beck and Epstein at a party at the Mar-a-Lago in Florida in 2000

But on June 8, as Epstein's victims demanded he 'end the cat and mouse game', Andrew's City law firm Blackfords issued a 604-word statement effectively calling the Americans liars.

It called Mr Berman's claims 'inaccurate' and said it had agreed to cooperate with the Department of Justice on the basis 'our discussions and the interview process would remain confidential', insisting it was given an unequivocal assurance on this point.

Blackfords said: 'The Duke of York has on at least three occasions this year offered his assistance as a witness to the DoJ.

'Unfortunately, the DoJ has reacted to the first two offers by breaching their own confidentiality rules and claiming that the Duke has offered zero cooperation. In doing so, they are perhaps seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered.'

The statement by Andrew's lawyers continued: 'It is a matter of regret that the DoJ has seen fit to breach its own rules of confidentiality, not least as they are designed to encourage witness cooperation.

'He is being treated by a lower standard than might reasonably be expected for any other citizen. Those same breaches of confidentiality by the DoJ have given the global media - and, therefore, the worldwide audience - an entirely misleading account of our discussions with them.'

But Mr Berman hit back by saying: 'Prince Andrew yet again sought to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate with an ongoing federal criminal investigation into sex trafficking and related offences committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates, even though the prince has not given an interview to federal authorities, has repeatedly declined our request to schedule such an interview, and nearly four months ago informed us unequivocally - through the very same counsel who issued today's release - that he would not come in for such an interview.

'If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors remain open, and we await word of when we should expect him.'

Andrew spoke to the BBC's Emily Maitlis for a Newsnight interview in November last year

Andrew is being represented by Clare Montgomery, a leading QC in extradition cases. She represented the Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet and also the Swedish state in its 2012 attempt to extradite Julian Assange.

Last month it was also revealed that the DoJ formally applied to the Home Office in May under a 1994 treaty between the two countries to provide Mutual Legal Assistance.

The request from the Americans - a 'diplomatic nightmare' which has yet to be granted, according to Whitehall sources - means Andrew could be forced to answer FBI questions in a British court.

He would in theory be entitled to 'plead the 5th' Amendment, remain silent to avoid incriminating himself.

Asked previously during a Fox News interview whether the US had asked Britain to hand over Andrew, attorney general William Barr said: 'I think it's just a question of having him provide some evidence.' Asked if he would be extradited, Barr replied 'No'.

Gloria Allred, who represents two women treated as sex slaves by the late Epstein, previously said: 'By refusing to voluntarily answer questions posed by law enforcement, Prince Andrew has demonstrated disrespect for the victims and their need to know the truth.

'It is time for the prince to stop this cat and mouse game and stand before the bar of justice'.

Miss Roberts, 36, who claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times when she was 17, previously retweeted a comment calling on the Home Office to extradite him to America.

Andrew vehemently denies any wrongdoing and says he does not even recall Miss Roberts.
A Brazilian mother who 'dreamed' of becoming a mum has died from coronavirus just moments after giving birth to twins, as the country tops more than 60,000 Covid-19 deaths.

Larissa Blanco gave birth to baby Guilherme and Gustavo at a private hospital in Sao Paulo at the weekend - but suffered a massive bleed which caused a cardiac arrest.

The mother-to-be had tested positive for coronavirus on June 12 after suffering severe flu-like symptoms, her 'distraught' 24-year-old husband Diego Rodrigues said.

Larissa's health rapidly deteriorated and she was admitted to hospital just two weeks later on June 26.

The mother-to-be had tested positive for coronavirus on June 12 after suffering severe flu-like symptons, her 'distraught' 24-year-old husband Diego Rodrigues said

Despite the best efforts of medics who battled desperately to save Larissa, the young mother then suffered a cardiac arrest and died

Brazil has seen more than 60,000 coronavirus deaths - with more than 1,000 fatalities recorded in the past 24 hours

The next day she was transferred to the private Botucatau hospital where she went into labour.

Diego - who also tested positive for coronavirus but has since recovered - said he was in the surgery room when his children were delivered.

He said Larissa 'saw that wonderful little face and I was really emotional, that was her dream', local media reported.

After a minor complication the second child was born, at which point Diego left his wife to accompany his newborns.

But doctors soon rushed after him to say that Larissa had suffered a haemorrhage and urgently needed a blood transfusion because she 'wasn't managing to pull through'.

Despite the best efforts of medics who battled desperately to save Larissa, the young mother then suffered a cardiac arrest and died, her husband said.

'The doctor said that because of Covid her body could not take it'.

The new dad said: 'I am distraught, I can't her her out of my head.

'God let her leave two little angels for me to look after, to give me strength. I cried so much when I first saw them, it was the most beautiful thing.'

Larissa is one of Brazil's more than 60,000 coronavirus victims as the South American country struggles to contain the spread of the disease

The young mum died of coronavirus moments after giving birth to twins

Diego remains in hospital with his twins who are being monitored.

Larissa is one of Brazil's more than 60,000 coronavirus victims as the South American country struggles to contain the spread of the disease.

More than 1,000 fatalities were recorded over the last 24 hours, the health ministry said on Wednesday, and the South American country has suffered the largest number of daily deaths globally for the last week.

It is the second worst affected nation in the world for both cases and fatalities after the United States.

President Jair Bolsonaro has come under fire for dismissing the seriousness of the pandemic and the need for social distancing.

He wont a legal fight on Tuesday to dismiss a court ruling requiring him to wear a face mask in public.

Bolsonaro has regularly broken the social distancing measures in place in the capital, giving handshakes and hugs at rallies, hosting barbecues, hitting the shooting range and going out for hot dogs, generally without a mask.

The president, who has famously compared the virus to a "little flu," has railed against the measures state and local authorities are taking to fight it, arguing that business closures and stay-at-home measures are needlessly wrecking the economy.

However, since the first ruling on June 22, Bolsonaro has worn a mask at all public appearances.

Brazil has the second-highest COVID-19 death toll in the world after the United States, with nearly 60,000 deaths and 1.4 million confirmed cases.

Brazil is showing no signs of reducing either its number of daily cases or deaths.

With more than 46,000 new cases, the country of 212 million now has 1.44 million people infected, although analysts believe the true figure is much higher.
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Thirty-four areas in England have seen coronavirus infection rates rise in the past week, fuelling concerns that more places could be hit with Leicester-style localised lockdowns.

Redcar, a seaside town in North Yorkshire, and leafy Wokingham in Berkshire suffered the biggest week-on-week spikes in Covid-19 cases up to June 28, Public Health England (PHE) figures show.

Coronavirus infections in Redcar and Cleveland jumped from 0.7 to 5.1 per 100,000 people, while in Wokingham they rose from 0.6 to 3.

Some experts say case rates in countryside getaways and idyllic seaside resorts might fluctuate over summer as more Britons choose to go on staycations because of the uncertainty of travelling abroad.

East London boroughs of Havering (1.4 to 5.1) and Barking and Dagenham (1.9 to 5.4) were among the authorities that recorded the biggest percentage spikes.

Elsewhere in the capital, cases per 100,000 rose from 1 to 3.1 in Richmond, and infections in the western boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham and Hillingdon went up from 5.9 to 12.4 and 2.6 to 5.9, respectively. Thirteen London boroughs in total saw cases creep up in the last week, as the virus appears to be making a small resurgence in the capital following the latest lockdown-loosening measures.

The same data showed Leicester's rate of new Covid-19 cases has 'stabilised'  rising from 140.2 to 141.3 cases per 100,000 people. Other hotspots in Yorkshire, Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale, saw cases drop.

Redcar, a seaside town in North Yorkshire, and leafy Wokingham in Berkshire suffered the biggest week-on-week spikes in Covid-19 cases up to June 28, Public Health England (PHE) figures show. Coronavirus infections in Redcar and Cleveland jumped from 0.7 to 5.1 per 100,000 people, while in Wokingham they rose from 0.6 to 3

The 25 local authorities with the highest rate of cases per 100,000 people in the week ending June 28 1. Leicester 141.3 (140.2) 2. Bradford 45.8 (69.4) 3. Barnsley 35.1 (54.7) 4. Rochdale 35.0 (53.6) 5. Oldham 30.1 (38.6) 6. Kirklees 26.2 (30.3) 7. Rotherham 26.1 (33.6) 8. Sheffield 24.4 (20.6) 9. Bolton 23.5 (15.8) 10. Doncaster 21.3 (17.4) 11. Blackburn with Darwen 20.8 (32.9) 12. Knowsley 20.1 (6.0) 13. Peterborough 18.9 (27.9) 14. Bedford 18.1 (42.0) 15. Manchester 17.5 (21.6) 16. Leicestershire 17.3 (20.8) 17. Tameside 16.9 (33.3) 18. Luton 15.0 (26.6) 19. Calderdale 14.8 (12.4) 20. Stoke-on-Trent 14.1 (18.0) 21. Blackpool 13.6 (10.8) 22. Derby 12.8 (24.5) 23. Hammersmith & Fulham 12.4 (5.9) 24. Leeds 11.7 (19.8) 25. Cheshire East 11.3 (16.0) Advertisement

Hikes in case rates were also observed in Knowsley in Merseyside, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Cornwall. But just because these areas saw the biggest increase in case rates does not necessarily mean the crises in the regions are spiralling out of control.

The actual number of infections in these areas is so small that even just a handful of cases in a week risks skewing the rate upwards.

Officials are likely to be keeping their eyes on a handful of areas where local lockdowns might need to be imposed because their overall rate of infections is much higher than the rest of the country.

According to the data, Leicester is still the worst affected area with 141.3 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people, rising slightly from last week's 140.2, a rate which spooked the Government into shutting the city down.

Public Health England said the risk of another outbreak in Leicester 'remained high' but for now cases 'had stabilised'.

Leicester still has more than triple the amount of Covid-19 cases than the next worst hit area of Bradford, which has 45.8 cases, down from 69.4 a week ago.

Barnsley has 35.1 cases per 100,000, with Rochdale (35), Oldham (30.1), Kirklees (26.2), Rotherham (26.1), Sheffield (24.4), Bolton ( 23.5) and Doncaster (21.3) ) making up the top 10 worst effected coronavirus areas.

Yesterday Department of Health sources said local lockdowns could be 'just days away'. But ministers have yet to officially confirm which parts of England are in the firing line.

Council leaders in areas threatened by Leicester-style lockdowns have rejected the idea of rolling back the draconian curbs.

Barnsley Council leader Sir Stephen Houghton said authorities 'don't believe we need additional restrictions like Leicester', which was subject to extended lockdown measures on Monday.

'We need to monitor the situation, particularly with restrictions being eased this weekend, and for that we need more granular detail of the location of test results,' he said, adding PHE should make detailed information about the locations of outbreaks more readily available.

Barnsley Council had moved to squash rumours of a local lockdown there as Public Health England (PHE) data emerged showing its high infection rate on Wednesday. Town leaders called for 'extra care and vigilance', Sky News reported, but denied measures like those seen in Leicester will be necessary.

In a joint statement, the council's director for public health Julia Burrows and lead councillor Sir Steve said: 'The number of cases is Barnsley is higher than the national average.

'We are seeing transmission in the community across the borough, and like many places across the country have had clusters and outbreaks in a handful of care homes, schools and workplaces, as we expected would happen.'

They said the clusters have 'started to ease thanks to local control measures and we are seeing the early signs of a return to the reduction in daily cases', which means 'we do not believe at this stage any further measures will need to be implemented such as the ones seen in Leicester'.

Rochdale council chief executive Steve Rumbelow added: 'We're not at all as bad as Leicester. The one thing we don't have from PHE, which is crucial in managing the local situation, is the detailed data from the testing.'

Separate figures published by Public Health England on Thursday show the cumulative rate of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population since the outbreak began.

Leicester is top of this list (994.6 cases per 100,000 people), followed by Oldham (761.4), Barnsley (750.0), Bradford (748.9) and Blackpool (724.3). The area of London with the highest cumulative rate of cases so far is Brent (523.0).

SO HOW HAS THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK CHANGED IN YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITY? UTLA name Rate per 100,000 population WEEK BEFORE % CHANGE Redcar and Cleveland 5.1 0.7 601.37% Wokingham 3.0 0.6 396.67% Barking and Dagenham 5.7 1.4 298.59% Knowsley 20.1 6.0 233.22% Richmond upon Thames 3.1 1.0 199.02% Havering 5.4 1.9 179.90% North Somerset 3.7 1.4 167.14% Hillingdon 5.9 2.6 125.57% Hammersmith and Fulham 12.4 5.9 109.11% South Gloucestershire 0.7 0.4 102.86% Cornwall and Isles of Scilly 1.4 0.7 101.43% Croydon 2.9 1.6 82.69% Harrow 2.8 1.6 75.00% Reading 3.1 1.8 66.30% Ealing 6.7 4.1 64.55% Gloucestershire 1.0 0.6 50.79% Plymouth 2.3 1.5 50.00% Kingston upon Thames 1.7 1.1 50.00% Hartlepool 6.4 4.3 49.88% Bolton 23.5 15.8 48.89% Wandsworth 4.0 2.8 44.20% Solihull 6.5 4.7 40.00% Merton 5.8 4.4 33.49% Enfield 3.6 2.7 32.96% Blackpool 13.6 10.8 26.65% Hounslow 9.2 7.4 24.90% Liverpool 7.7 6.3 22.68% Doncaster 21.3 17.4 22.20% Calderdale 14.8 12.4 19.22% Sheffield 24.4 20.6 18.35% Wiltshire 1.4 1.2 17.50% Haringey 3.0 2.6 14.29% Brent 5.4 5.1 5.84% Leicester 141.3 140.2 0.80% Bristol, City of 1.9 1.9 0.00% Dorset 1.1 1.1 0.00% Halton 6.2 6.2 0.00% North East Lincolnshire 1.9 1.9 0.00% St. Helens 6.7 6.7 0.00% Sunderland 1.8 1.8 0.00% Westminster 4.7 5.1 -7.66% West Sussex 2.9 3.3 -10.74% County Durham 4.6 5.1 -11.13% Waltham Forest 4.7 5.4 -13.28% Kirklees 26.2 30.3 -13.53% Oxfordshire 4.4 5.1 -14.34% Staffordshire 7.9 9.4 -15.90% Leicestershire 17.3 20.8 -16.56% Kensington and Chelsea 6.4 7.7 -16.67% Lewisham 1.7 2.0 -16.67% Wigan 4.6 5.5 -16.67% Middlesbrough 6.4 7.8 -18.26% Manchester 17.5 21.6 -18.65% Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 1.0 1.3 -19.84% Nottingham 8.5 10.6 -19.96% Surrey 2.9 3.7 -20.54% Cheshire West and Chester 9.7 12.3 -21.41% Stoke-on-Trent 14.1 18.0 -21.75% Greenwich 2.5 3.1 -21.97% Oldham 30.1 38.6 -21.98% Rotherham 26.1 33.6 -22.48% Wolverhampton 7.6 9.9 -23.08% Salford 7.9 10.2 -23.09% Medway 4.7 6.1 -23.53% North Lincolnshire 3.5 4.7 -24.95% Sandwell 5.5 7.3 -24.97% Herefordshire, County of 1.6 2.1 -25.00% Sutton 1.5 2.0 -25.00% Isle of Wight 2.1 2.8 -25.09% Kent 10.0 13.5 -25.58% Bexley 3.2 4.5 -27.19% Cambridgeshire 3.7 5.1 -27.42% Cheshire East 11.3 16.0 -29.53% Walsall 3.2 4.6 -30.72% Newcastle upon Tyne 3.7 5.3 -31.33% Peterborough 18.9 27.9 -32.16% Derbyshire 6.5 9.7 -32.47% Birmingham 6.5 9.6 -32.78% Northamptonshire 9.9 14.9 -33.33% Barnet 1.5 2.3 -33.48% Bradford 45.8 69.4 -34.04% Swindon 6.8 10.4 -34.75% Rochdale 35.0 53.6 -34.75% Slough 8.7 13.4 -34.97% Barnsley 35.1 54.7 -35.83% Northumberland 2.2 3.4 -36.15% Redbridge 2.3 3.6 -36.46% Suffolk 0.9 1.5 -36.55% Blackburn with Darwen 20.8 32.9 -36.75% Warrington 5.7 9.1 -36.82% Cumbria 3.6 5.8 -37.87% Worcestershire 3.6 5.7 -38.15% Essex 3.5 5.8 -39.52% North Tyneside 2.9 4.9 -40.00% Telford and Wrekin 5.1 8.4 -40.05% Leeds 11.7 19.8 -41.02% Dudley 2.2 3.7 -41.71% Buckinghamshire 3.5 6.1 -42.39% Hackney 1.4 2.5 -42.80% Thurrock 7.0 12.2 -42.81% Sefton 4.7 8.4 -43.47% Luton 15.0 26.6 -43.84% Warwickshire 5.6 10.3 -45.79% Lincolnshire 3.0 5.7 -46.57% Stockport 6.5 12.3 -47.24% Derby 12.8 24.5 -47.63% Shropshire 7.2 13.7 -47.74% Hertfordshire 2.4 4.6 -49.14% Tameside 16.9 33.3 -49.34% East Sussex 4.5 9.0 -50.00% Newham 1.7 3.4 -50.15% Lancashire 7.4 15.0 -50.53% Wakefield 9.0 18.6 -51.59% Bury 6.3 13.2 -52.02% Brighton and Hove 2.4 5.2 -53.38% Southwark 1.6 3.5 -54.47% Wirral 8.4 19.2 -56.47% Bedford 18.1 42.0 -56.95% Nottinghamshire 5.4 12.6 -57.64% Bracknell Forest 1.6 4.1 -60.10% Southend-on-Sea 8.2 20.8 -60.54% Milton Keynes 4.1 10.8 -62.04% Stockton-on-Tees 5.6 14.7 -62.04% Devon 0.4 1.0 -62.38% Trafford 3.8 10.2 -62.46% North Yorkshire 5.0 13.8 -63.56% Norfolk 1.6 4.3 -64.12% Central Bedfordshire 5.6 15.9 -64.46% Hampshire 0.4 1.2 -64.52% Lambeth 0.3 0.9 -66.30% East Riding of Yorkshire 4.7 14.1 -66.67% Tower Hamlets 0.9 2.8 -66.78% Windsor and Maidenhead 0.7 2.0 -66.83% Islington 0.8 2.9 -71.33% York 1.9 6.7 -71.36% Bromley 0.6 2.1 -71.56% Coventry 1.4 5.7 -76.27% Darlington 0.9 4.7 -79.96% Camden 0.4 1.9 -80.10% Somerset 0.9 4.7 -80.86% Kingston upon Hull, City of 3.8 22.6 -83.04% Gateshead 0.5 3.5 -85.84% Southampton 0.4 5.5 -92.78% Bath and North East Somerset - 1.0 N/A City of London - 0.0 N/A Portsmouth - 0.9 N/A Rutland - 2.5 N/A Torbay - 0.7 N/A West Berkshire 1.3 0.0 N/A South Tyneside 0.7 0.0 N/A

England's North-South Covid-19 divide: Only EIGHT of the country's 50 worst-hit authorities are in the south, official data reveals

Only eight of England's 50 areas worst-hit by coronavirus are in the South, according to official data that lays bare the country's North-South divide amid the growing threat of more 'local lockdowns'.

Leicester  the first city in UK to be struck by further Covid-controlling measures  has the worst infection rate in the country, with 140.2 cases confirmed between June 15-21 for every 100,000 people.

The data was only correct up until June 21 and newer figures have since been released.

It is followed by a cluster in the North West of England, with Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale all recording at least 50 coronavirus infections for every 100,000 people in the same seven-day spell.

Analysis of the Public Health England data shows they aren't the only places in the North to be rocked by flare-ups of the disease, which has claimed at least 55,000 lives across the whole of the UK.

Only eight authorities in the South of England  Bedford (42), Luton (26.6), Central Bedfordshire (15.9), Kent (13.5), Slough (13.4), Thurrock (12.2), Milton Keynes (10.8) and Swindon (10.4)  are currently in the 50 worst-hit areas.

In comparison, just six authorities at the bottom of the table are in the North or the Midlands  South Tyneside (0), Redcar and Cleveland (0.7), Sunderland (1.8), North East Lincolnshire (1.9), Rutland (2.5) and Northumberland.

One of the main causes of the 'North-South' divide in coronavirus cases in England is down to the disparity in job roles, experts believe  pointing to figures showing London is recovering quicker than most regions.

Scientists say infections may have dropped at a faster rate in the capital because there are more white collar jobs there, therefore more employees were able to work from home and isolate from others. In deprived areas people are more likely to have to go to work and use public transport  raising their risk of being infected.

Government sources say Leicester-style shutdowns could be 'just days away' for other places ahead of the biggest step back to normal life with Brits set to flock to the pubs to celebrate 'Super Saturday'.

Only eight authorities in the south of England  Bedford (42), Luton (26.6), Central Bedfordshire (15.9), Kent (13.5), Slough (13.4), Thurrock (12.2), Milton Keynes (10.8) and Swindon (10.4)  are currently in the 50 worst-hit areas. In comparison, just six authorities at the bottom of the table are in the north or the Midlands  South Tyneside (0), Redcar and Cleveland (0.7), Sunderland (1.8), North East Lincolnshire (1.9), Rutland (2.5) and Northumberland

Health Secretary Matt Hancock this week confirmed lockdown measures will be extended in Leicester for at least two weeks, after a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases.

Pubs in the city are not be allowed to be reopen this weekend to celebrate 'Super Saturday', nor are its residents allowed to visit friends and relatives  unlike everywhere else in the country.

Figures show Leicester  whose infection rate was twice as high as the next worst-hit authority  reported 944 coronavirus cases in the two weeks up to June 23.

Government officials, politicians and scientists are divided over whether Leicester is experiencing a real surge in cases or whether more cases have identified because testing has been improved.

And whether the data in each authority is made up of testing in hospitals (severe Covid-19 cases), or drive-thru centres and home test kits (mostly key workers, possibly with mild cases) is unclear.

But a tightening on lockdown like that seen in Leicester  with the closure of non-essential shops and schools again  can't be ruled out for other towns in England.

Recent government data shows the areas suffering higher numbers of new cases are typically in the Midlands or the North, and those faring the best are in the South.

'On this data, there is clearly a North/South divide here and the important thing to consider is why,' Joshua Moon, a research fellow in science policy at the University of Sussex, told MailOnline.

'There was a frequent phrase being used early in the epidemic that the virus was "a great leveller" because the virus infects you regardless of your socioeconomic status.

'These local lockdowns are going to show just how false that claim is by hitting the most important and hardest hit communities first be they North/South, black/white, rich/poor.'

Evidence has emerged during the coronavirus pandemic to show those who live in the poorest parts of England and Wales are dying more than those in affluent areas.

And black and Asian people are more likely to both catch the coronavirus and die from it than white people, which is only partly explained by genetic differences, public health officials say.

Other reasons for the disparity include housing conditions, public-facing occupations such as health care workers and structural racism, according to Public Health England.

And a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions can be partly blamed for a higher risk of catching Covid-19 in BAME people.

For example, black people are statistically more likely to be overweight than white people, while both Asian and black populations have been found to have a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease.

This can help in part explain why some parts of England have suffered far worse than others during the pandemic, which first began in China in December but quickly spread to strike every corner of the planet.

A number of factors impact infection rates in each area and are likely to drive outbreaks, including demographics in terms of ethnicity, household structures, and movement.

Looking at ethnicity specifically in the worst-hit areas, almost half of Leicester's population is of Asian heritage or from black backgrounds.

In the east of Leicester, where the outbreak is at its worst, up to two-thirds of residents are BAME compared with 13.8 per cent in the UK broadly. Forty per cent of London's population is of a BAME background.

In comparison, the 2011 Census shows that when compared nationally, there is a significantly lower proportion of people in West Berkshire who define themselves as coming from a BAME background - just five per cent.

West Berkshire, 50 miles (80km) from London, hasn't found any new Covid-19 cases recently, followed closely by Gloucestershire, Wokingham and Cornwall.

LEADERS OF COUNCILS THREATENED BY LEICESTER-STYLE LOCKDOWNS REJECT THE IDEA Council leaders in areas threatened by Leicester-style lockdowns have rejected the idea - while claiming figures released by the Government detailing the highest coronavirus infection rates are out-of-date. Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale were identified as three of the areas of England most at risk of being hit by a 'local lockdown' like the one imposed in Leicester to control Covid-19, according to Public Health England data. Statistics for the week ending June 21  the most recently available  show those areas had the highest Covid-19 infection rates in the country, each with more than 50 positive tests per 100,000 people. Only Leicester recorded more (140.2). But leaders in the worst-affected areas have asserted they can see no reason to subject their regions to similar restrictions, while complaining the data released by Public Health England on its website was out of date. Figures seen by the Daily Telegraph supported their claims that infection rates in these badly-hit locations had dropped in the seven days to June 27. According to this data, the number of positive cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 people fell from 53.8 to 34.7 in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Council leader Sir Stephen Houghton said authorities 'don't believe we need additional restrictions like Leicester', which was subject to extended lockdown measures on Monday. 'We need to monitor the situation, particularly with restrictions being eased this weekend, and for that we need more granular detail of the location of test results,' he said, adding PHE should make detailed information about the locations of outbreaks more readily available. Barnsley Council had moved to squash rumours of a local lockdown there as Public Health England (PHE) data emerged showing its high infection rate on Wednesday. Town leaders called for 'extra care and vigilance', Sky News reported, but denied measures like those seen in Leicester will be necessary. Advertisement

South Tyneside, the only Northern authority to report zero new cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 in the week to June 21, is also more than 95 per cent white.

It's cumulative coronavirus case toll  the second highest in England followed by Sunderland  can be explained by other factors, experts say, including an ageing population and the fact the North East is a largely industrial area.

One of the main causes of the 'North-South' divide in coronavirus cases in England is down to the disparity in job roles, experts believe.



Mr Moon said: 'Locations with the highest transmission are also locations that likely have higher numbers of individuals with jobs that can't be done remotely, or that have a high reliance on public transport rather than personal transportation, or that have higher proportions of key workers in logistics or transport.

'What is concerning is that local lockdowns mean that there are going to be economic consequences in areas that were already hardest hit by the financial crisis.'

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline: 'In deprived areas people are more likely to have to go to work, less likely to be able to work from home, and more likely to use public transport.

'They can't distance themselves from others. Factories and manufacturing work are opportunities to mix and mixing is what it's all about. You wouldn't put a food processing factory in London because it's too expensive.'

Food processing factories have shown to have a higher transmission risk because of the cold environments, with outbreaks recorded at plants in Anglesey, Wrexham and West Yorkshire.

Infectious disease experts also say the working conditions may increase the risk, because workers must talk louder over machinery or have coffee breaks together.

Experts say infections may have dropped at a faster rate in London because there are more white collar jobs there, therefore more employees were able to work from home and isolate from others.

Various boroughs of the capital are reporting very few cases, including the City of London which recorded zero coronavirus cases per 100,000 population.

There are clearly high rates of poverty in places like inner London, but these areas have relatively younger populations, and young people are less likely to have high rates of severe Covid19 infections on average.

Hospitals in the Midlands have been the worst affected outside of London, NHS England data shows, with 5,707 deaths by yesterday, compared to 6,090 in the capital

'LEICESTER LEPERS' ARE BANNED FROM HOLIDAY PARKS, CAMPSITES AND HOTELS Local child-protection worker, Tracy Jebbet (pictured with her family), revealed her upcoming holiday to Cornwall had just been cancelled Concerns of a 'leper' effect have emerged today after tourist destinations said they would turn away visitors from Leicester. Pentewan Sands holiday park near St Austell, Cornwall, said on Facebook it was no longer open to visitors from the East Midlands city. There have also been concerns in destinations near Leicester, with health officials in Skegness saying they are worried about the prospect of visitors 'travelling from an area with a higher rate of infection than ours'. While the rest of Britain will see pubs, hotels and campsites reopening this weekend, Leicester has been told to go the other way. Schools must close, along with non-essential shops and people are being told to stay at home. Many residents say they now find themselves branded as outcasts. 'We're like the Leicester lepers,' local child-protection worker, Tracy Jebbet, told Radio Leicester as she revealed her upcoming holiday to Cornwall had just been cancelled. The management of her St Austell campsite - Pentewan Sands - have announced a ban on all bookings from Leicester and have told her she cannot go. Advertisement

Data on movement in the UK, compiled by Google which reports trends across places such as parks, work, and residential areas, suggests more people in the hardest-hit coronavirus areas are going to work and less are staying at home compared with the least-hit areas.

Since lockdown, both London and Leicester have had a 57 per cent drop in transport use. But Leicester has seen only an 18 per cent drop in people going to work compared with London's 29 per cent.

Only nine per cent more people are staying at home - where they are at less risk of catching the coronavirus - in Leicester compared with London's 12 per cent and West Berkshire's 19 per cent.

Dr Andrew Preston, a reader in microbial pathogenesis at University of Bath, who noted a multitude of combined factors are fueling a divide in England, said it was interesting the areas hardest hit did not have the largest populations.

The millions of people in London, living, working and travelling closely together, was largely blamed for the capital's severe coronavirus outbreak in March and April.

But the same can't be said for Leicester, with no more than 330,000 inhabitants, according to the most recent 2011 ONS consensus, Bradford (350,000) or Barnsley (245,000).

Dr Preston told MailOnline: 'There could be a balance between having sufficient density of population but perhaps being small enough that there is one or just a few areas where people will congregate (e.g. a distinct town centre).

'In London, once the daily commute into the "city centre" stopped, it very likely broke up the population in to a large number of more isolated populations, in all the different boroughs.

'Smaller places may not have these localised centres, so when restrictions ease, there may be just one shopping area, where all of the population headed.'

Dr Preston added: 'There are clearly other sensitive factors, ethnicity is associated with risk of disease.

'I've seen reports describing how some ethnic groups tend to support multigenerational households, which might facilitate spread from youngsters who are likely asymptomatic to older people who are more likely to display symptoms.

'And, it does look like socio-economics plays a role, as it does in many diseases, so the wealth of the towns could well be a factor.'

Last week, Leicester's city councillor Ratilal Govind told MailOnline he thought there had been a lack of communication with people who do not speak English as a first language in the city.

He said: 'I have seen young people getting together, having a few drinks and conversation. They are just social gatherings. With these young people there is a language barrier. They are speaking their own language and I tell them to disperse in Gujarati. There is a lack of communication made worse by the language barriers'.

But Dr Preston said despite there being communities with high numbers of people who might not be fluent English speakers, 'there is clearly sufficient understanding of the need to book a test if showing symptoms, so it's hard to know if that holds water'.

Philip Thomas, a professor of risk management, University of Bristol, believes if the North is genuinely seeing more coronavirus cases now, it is likely to be because people there have less immunity than in London.

Data published by Public Health England suggest that London has had significantly more exposure to Covid-19 in the past - 17.5 per cent of healthy adults by the end of April compared with between nine and 11 per cent in the North West, Midlands and North East - based on antibodies in the blood. And other research suggests a level of protection from T-cell immunity.

'On the other hand, what data there are for the South West, South East and East of England suggest that these parts have had less exposure than the Midlands and the North,' Professor Thomas told MailOnline.

'It is possible that London has already achieved herd immunity, which would be marvellous news. Not the Midlands and the North yet.'

He added that Britain should prepare for an expected rise in cases, as seen in Leicester, and second peak as we move out of lockdown because 'the Government is pursuing a contradictory strategy'.

'It wants to take the restrictions off the economy, which is a very good idea. Lockdown is not sustainable and leads to national impoverishment.'
A portrait by Picasso of his lover Marie-Therese Walter is set to appear at auction for the first time.

Sotheby's will auction the charcoal drawing created in 1931 which the famous Spanish artist personally kept until he died in 1973.

The largely unseen piece of art shines a light on one of the greatest love affairs of the 20th century and was drawn when the romance was still very much a secret.

The Picasso, titled Femme endormie, will be sold on July 28 and has an estimate of 6million-9million.

The Picasso, titled Femme endormie, will be sold on July 28 and has an estimate of 6million-9million

Helena Newman, worldwide head of Sotheby's impressionist and modern art department, told The Guardian: 'It is an absolute gem, it is so exquisitely beautiful. He has applied a technique which gives an incredible intimacy to the work.

'It's charcoal and is effectively the hand literally almost caressing her. It is just wonderful, it looks back to the great drawings of the Renaissance yet it is so incredibly modern and free and spontaneous and direct.

Marie-Therese Walter (pictured) was the mistress of Pablo Picasso

'It is like you are looking over his shoulder as he is drawing it.'

Picasso was 45 years old when he fell in love with Walter who was 17 at the time.

They met outside a department store in Paris in 1927, when he promised her they would 'do great things together'.

They conducted their affair in secret for several years until his wife, Olga Khokhlova, found out and left in disgust.

His grandson Olivier Widmaier Picasso said the affair was like Picasso being 'reborn'.

Walter inspired several of his paintings, drawings and sculptures, some of which critics say are the greatest works of his career.

Many of these pieces were featured in a 2018 exhibition at the Tate Modern.

The portrait going on sale was bought by its present owner in 1986 and has not been seen nor publicly exhibited since.

Pablo Picasso (pictured) was 45 years old when he fell in love with Walter who was 17 at the time

Other Picasso paintings from 1932 that were inspired by Walter have often sold for millions.

In 2010, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust sold for 66million while Le Reve was bought for 103million by hedge fund manager Steven A Cohen.

Femme endormie forms part of a private collection of works that tells the story of 20th century European avant-garde art.

The collection includes work from artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Alberto Giacometti, Marc Chagall, August Macke and Jean Arp.
The National Enquirer is laying out evidence which it says proves Lauren Sanchez's brother was the sole source of its story about her affair with Jeff Bezos.

Lawyers for the magazine, which last year broke the story that led to the collapse of Bezos's 25-year marriage, say Michael was paid $200,000 for information in October the previous year after a series of meetings with staff.

But Michael, who is suing the magazine for libel, says he was contacted by the magazine first to confirm information that reporters already had.

While his suit does not state where the magazine got its information, private sleuths hired by Bezos to find the source previously pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia.

Security firm FTI Consulting claimed last year that a private message sent from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Bezos in 2018 appeared to have installed spyware on his phone which began stealing data.

Lawyers for the National Enquirer magazine, which broke the story in 2019 that led to the collapse of Jeff Bezos's 25-year marriage, say Michael Sanchez (pictured) was paid $200,000 for information in October the previous year after a series of meetings with staff

While it is not clear what data was taken or where it was sent, the firm concluded that a significant amount of information was hacked.

Five months later, the Enquirer story appeared. The magazine has vehemently denied that Saudi Arabia was the source of the information.

In new papers seen by TMZ, lawyers for the Enquirer say Michael first contacted a reporter at the publication in September 2018 offering information on a major affair.

After a back-and-forth with the editorial department, Michael agreed to meet them the following month, the magazine claims.

At that meeting, lawyers say he revealed the content of some of the messages along with pictures but refused to say who was involved.

Lauren Sanchez and Bezos attend the Amazon Prime Video celebration on January 16, 2020 in Mumbai, India. The article led to the collapse of Bezos's marriage to Mackenzie, who he wed in 1993 before he founded Amazon

In new papers seen by TMZ , lawyers for the Enquirer say Michael first contacted a reporter at the publication in September 2018 offering information on a major affair

Scottie Nell Hughes, Michael Sanchez and John Phillips at Politicon at Pasadena Convention Center on July 30, 2017. Michael met with magazine bosses Dylan Howard and James Robertson in New York

Two weeks later the reporter involved approached her bosses and asked for $300,000 to buy the story after learning it was about Bezos.

The following day a deal was signed for $200,000, which magazine bosses say is the most they have ever paid for a single story.

Michael then met with magazine bosses Dylan Howard and James Robertson in New York the following week when they claim to have learned that the 'other woman' involved was Michael's sister.

At the same meeting, they claim, Michael offered them a nude photo of Bezos that had been sent to his sister.

Conversations about the story continued, with Michael revealing in November that neither his sister nor Bezos knew he was handing the information over, allegedly telling the magazine: 'Neither one have a clue.'

Two months later, in January 2019, the Enquirer eventually published the story which quickly went around the world.

It prompted the collapse of Bezos's marriage to Mackenzie, who he wed in 1993 before he founded Amazon, and who settled for $38billion in June that year.
Doctors say that this Fourth of July weekend will be a 'tipping point' in the U.S. coronavirus outbreak as they warn that it is 'crucial' people don't gather in large groups.

The holiday weekend comes as authorities in several states are closing up bars and other drinking establishment for the second time as the country continues to see record numbers of new coronavirus cases.

Experts say that focus should instead be given to reopening schools as the academic progress of the country's children struggles, resulting in 'virtual dropouts'.

According to the New York Times, the sudden switch to online learning because of the pandemic has resulted in some students losing up to a year in academic progress.

On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that city schools would reopen in some form this September with a cap on how many students can attend.

It comes as the number of new daily coronavirus cases in the U.S. topped 52,000 for the first time Wednesday and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's top virus adviser, warns that lockdown has been lifted too soon.

Doctors have warned that this Fourth of July weekend will be a tipping point for the country's coronavirus outbreak. Pictured people prepare for the weekend in a California bar

The spike in new cases has caused for bars to close down again in several states. Bars acrossa Orange County, pictured here, will be forced to shut down again beginning Thursday

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced New York City schools will reopen in some form from September. Pictured a teacher in a closed NYC public school in June

Health officials are warning that if people do not follow guidelines this Fourth of July weekend, it could lead to a further rollback of reopenings as states struggle to keep their number of new daily coronavirus cases from rising.

'Its crucial that people not gather this weekend,' Sacramento County Health Director Dr. Peter Beilenson told CBS.

'Theres no question that the actions people take this weekend can determine the future in the next couple weeks and the next few months as well.'

Doctors are especially warning against gathering in bars after large outbreaks have been linked to drinking establishments in several states.

In Louisiana, at least 100 cases were linked to the Tigerland nightlife district in Baton Rouge while in Minnesota, 328 recent cases have been traced to bars across the state, according to the New York Times.

In East Lansing, Michigan, an outbreak tied to a large brewpub near Michigan State University has spread to nearly 140 people in 12 counties, causing authorities to recruit nursing students and retirees to help with contact tracing.

'In 12 days, we went from two identified cases to 128, and, honestly, I don't have today's numbers yet,' Ingham County health officer Linda Vail said Wednesday before cases shot up again.

She described her outlook as 'shocked and overwhelmed'.

Crowded indoor spaces filled with people yelling, leaning close to hear one another and touching the same sticky surfaces are 'the opposite of social distancing,' said Dr. David Hamer of the Boston University School of Medicine.

'Can you do social distancing at a bar? Can you wear a mask while drinking?' Hamer said. 'Bars are the perfect place to break all those rules.'

In recent weeks, college towns across America have seen clusters of cases that have been traced back to bars. Bars and restaurants near the University of Iowa and Iowa State University closed only weeks after the governor allowed them to reopen.

Pictured, patrons fill the Crow Bar in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Authorities are reclosing bars in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of new coronavirus infections

Pictured, a bartender pours a beer for a customer at Shade Bar NYC in New York

Dr Anthony Fauci has warned that a 'disturbing' new spike of coronavirus cases in the US is being driven by ineffective lockdowns and people - particularly young people - gathering in large groups at beaches, in bars, and during protests (pictured, people in Florida on Sunday)

As of last week, 90 percent of cases in the county that is home to Kansas State University involved people ages 18 to 24. Health officials said most of them spent time in a bar and restaurant district known as 'Aggieville'.

Citing a similar spike, the Kansas county that includes the city of Lawrence and the University of Kansas also ordered bars and nightclubs to close beginning Friday for the next two weeks.

'Congregation at a bar, inside, is bad news,' Dr. Anthony Fauci told a Senate panel Tuesday. 'We really have got to stop that.'

Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles and some Pennsylvania counties are closing bars to slow the spread of the virus. Florida and Colorado have told bars they cannot serve alcohol on site.

Many bar owners and employees feel that they have been unfairly singled out, particularly because restaurants are still open and serving alcohol.

In Texas, bar owners said that on Friday after they were forced to close their doors, they noticed restaurants were still packed.

'You can go into a restaurant and they have bars, and you can have as many drinks as you want,' said Nikki Forsberg, owner of the Old Ironhorse Saloon in Blanco, Texas. 'It doesn't seem fair. Restaurants get this pass and the bars don't.'

Yet as bar owners push to be allowed to stay open, health experts are warning that focus should instead be placed on reopening schools as the country risks a high level of 'virtual dropouts' with children losing up to a year of academic progress.

Health experts believe more of an emphasis should be placed on reopening schools rather then bars. Pictured, people stand outside The Duplex bar in New York City

Pictured, Rodney Ott makes mixed drinks from behind the bar as he reopens fully for the first time amid the coronavirus outbreak in Michigan. Another bar in the state has been linked to a coronavirus outbreak that has infected nearly 140 people in 12 counties

In a Twitter thread, infectious disease epidemiologist Helen Jenkins said that 'schools reopening should be high priority'.

She says that more has to be done outside of schools by keeping other places closed to ensure that children will be able to physically attend classes in the Fall.

'"How do we safely reopen schools?" is not the right question,' she said.

'It places emphasis only on what we need to do *within* schools to make them safe not fully considering impacts of community transmission but if community transmission gets too high in the Fall, the schools will have to close regardless.

'So by making schools reopening and staying open a priority, a better question is "how can we keep community transmission low enough that the schools will not need to close?"

'I propose we need to look at *all* the things that we want to reopen and face the fact that if we truly want to prioritize schools opening and staying open, some other parts of our society might just have to wait,' Jenkins continued.

'What has to wait is debatable: sporting events? bars? seem lower priority than schools. Other things can be included. But point is: keeping *community* transmission low enough to ensure schools continue should be the framing.'

'If somebody said to me, "Do you want to be able to go and dine in at your favorite restaurant, over the next year, at some point, or do you want to have a guarantee that your kids are going to get to go to school every day?," it would be an easy decision to make,' Jenkins added in an interview with Slate.

Infectious disease epidemiologist Helen Jenkins outlined in a lengthy Twitter thread that 'schools reopening should be high priority' and look to reopen over other places

'I think the politicians are trying to have everything. They are trying to make everyone happy, but I suspect were not going to be able to have everything.'

The importance of making schools a priority reopening in Fall was emphasized by Joseph G. Allen, an assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard University, who highlighted the impact it is having on children in an op-ed with the Washington Post.

'Twenty percent of Boston high school students didnt log into class in May, and only half of the elementary school children in Philadelphia made daily contact,' he wrote.

He added that school closures work to widen the country's educational gap, exacerbate racial and social inequalities, impact children's health and puts them at greater risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence.

Allen said that strictly measures would be implemented in schools to allow them to reopen including cleaning the air indoors and wearing masks with breaks built into the day.

'Make no mistake, there will be outbreaks in some schools even with these measures. Whether we open schools will be determined by our risk tolerance as a society,' Allen continued.

'What will we accept for schools? If the answer is zero cases, that will require us shutting schools for another year. The costs of that approach are too great, especially when there are proven risk-reduction strategies at hand.'

Experts have warned that school closures are leading to 'virtual dropouts'. Pictured, school buses in Westchester County, New York, as schools remain closed

Experts are also warning that some students could lose up to a year of academic progress if closures continue. Pictured, students from each graduating 5th grade class practice before they Pledge Allegiance for their upcoming virtual graduation in New York City

Epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer B. Nuzzo and pediatrician Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein argued for a similar set of measures in a recent op-ed for the New York Times.

'Officials let bars, restaurants and gyms open, despite warnings from public health experts that these environments pose the greatest risk for spreading the disease,' they wrote.

'Yet political leaders seem to have paid scant attention to safely reopening schools.'

They blasted these priorities as 'backward' arguing that the current disruption to children's learning could have a lifetime effects on their income and health, and arguing that Austria, Denmark, Germany and Norway had successfully managed to reopen schools without any outbreaks.

They added that very few child deaths of coronavirus have been reported and that school-age children in the U.S. have only been hospitalized at a rate of 0.1 per 100,000, compared with 7.4 per 100,000 for adults ages 50 to 64.

On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he would be reopening schools in the Big Apple in some form this September.

The nations largest school system will implement measures including staggered classes to comply with social distancing.

'Schools will be opening in September,' de Blasio said. 'Each school will have a number that is the maximum number of kids that can be in that school with social distancing using every conceivable space in that school.'

The decision was announced after the White House's top virus adviser Dr. Fauci stated that America's coronavirus lockdown was lifted too soon, was never strict enough in the first place, and that young people are driving a second wave that has seen daily infections top 50,000.

Dr. Fauci said the 'very disturbing' new rise in cases is being caused in part by the fact that the US never got its first wave under control - only locking down around 50 per cent of the country compared to 97 per cent as happened in most of Europe where daily infections are now very low.

That meant that when the economy started to reopen, the virus began spreading rapidly almost immediately because there were still a large number infected people to pass the disease along, he told BBC Radio 4 in the UK.

But he added that the rise is also being driven by people, particularly young people, gathering in large groups, without socially distancing, and often without wearing masks - such as in bars, at beaches, and during protests.

'What happens when you do that, and you don't wear a mask, you get the kinds of outbreak we're seeing,' he said.

Fauci spoke after the US reported a record 52,000 new COVID-19 cases within 24 hours on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

There were a total of 52,898 new cases over the 24 hours to Wednesday evening. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the US was 2,686,249 early Thursday morning and the number of deaths stood at 128,062.

The daily coronavirus case numbers have remained around the 40,000 mark in recent days. More than 44,000 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the US on Tuesday.

Adding to the rise in cases, hospitalizations for COVID-19, the contagious respiratory disease that first emerged in China, are also increasing in Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.

On Wednesday alone Texas broke its daily record and recorded 8,076 new cases, which is nearly 1,000 more than the day prior.
Manson family killer Bobby Beausoleil was denied parole for the 20th time during a Skype hearing on Wednesday, DailyMail.com can disclose.

The 72-year-old was previously cleared to leave jail on January 3, 2019 but that decision was overturned by California Governor Gavin Newsom three months later.

His latest bid for release was denied outright and Beausoleil will have to spend another 18 months in his cell at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville before he becomes eligible to reapply.

During the hearing, Beausoleil claimed he was 'a completely changed man' who would be able to contribute to society via his art and music.

The killer has used his time in jail to set up a website which he uses to sell religion-themed paintings, many featuring skulls, with titles such as 'A Rip in the Veil' 'Fearsome Mercy' and 'An Enlightened One'.

But that did not sway the parole panel.

Bobby Beausoleil was denied parole for the 20th time during a Skype hearing on Wednesday. He's pictured in a 2016 mugshot

Beausoleil is one of five surviving members of the Manson Family still in jail and was convicted of the brutal 1969 murder of his friend, musician Gary Hinman. Pictured in 1969

Beausoleil is one of five surviving members of the Manson Family still in jail and was convicted of the brutal 1969 murder of his friend, musician Gary Hinman.

Beausoleil was part of the murderous gang who killed musician Gary Hinman (pictured)

The other Manson Family killers, Bruce Davis, 77, Leslie Van Houten, 70, Patricia Krenwinkel, 72, and Tex Watson, 74, have also made repeated bids for parole but have been foiled by a succession of California governors.

The quintet was originally sentenced to death in 1970 along with Charles Manson but the death sentences were overturned when California abolished the punishment in 1977.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Hinman's cousin Kay Martley, 82, said she was relieved by the decision to keep Beausoleil behind bars and added she is 'excited' there is no chance of parole until at least 2022.

She said: 'I am so excited. I was in the Skype parole hearing [on Wednesday] and I'm relieved Bobby Beausoleil was denied parole and can't reapply for 18 months.

'This is the first time in the last six years that a parole board hasn't rubber stamped the previous board's decision.'

Beausoleil has been in jail since 1970 after being convicted of Hinman's murder. Although the Colorado musician's death has been eclipsed by the later Tate-LaBianca killings, the facts make for gruesome reading.

Mistakenly believing that Hinman had come into a $21,000 inheritance, Manson arrived at his home along with Beausoleil, Susan Atkins and Mary Brunner on the evening of July 25 1969 and demanded the cash.

When he refused to hand over the money, telling them he did not have it, Manson sliced off his ear and then left the property  leaving him to be tortured to death over two agonizing days by the other three.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Hinman's cousin Kay Martley, 82, said she was relieved by the decision to keep Beausoleil behind bars and added she is 'excited' there is no chance of parole until at least 2022

The Manson Family killers carried out their murders under the orders of Charles Manson, pictured as he is escorted by a deputy and his lawyer following the Gary Hinman case

Manson Family killers, Bruce Davis (left) and Leslie Van Houten (right), pictured in recent mugshots and in court, were cleared for release last year but the decision was overturned by California governor Gavin Newsom

After Hinman died, the gang used his blood to daub the words 'Political Piggy' and a picture of a panther paw print on the wall of his Topanga Canyon home.

His body was left to rot for three days before it was discovered by friends concerned that he hadn't been in contact.

Beausoleil was arrested 11 days later on August 6: discovered sleeping in the back of Hinman's Fiat car just off Highway 101 near San Luis Obispo, California.

His arrest meant he was not involved in the brutal Tate murders on the night of August 8 1969 nor the deaths of the LaBiancas the following evening, although both Brunner and Atkins were.

Manson had told his followers that the murders were intended to ignite a race war which he dubbed 'Helter Skelter' after a Beatles lyric.

Along with Sharon Tate's younger sister Debra, 67, Martley has long campaigned to keep the Manson killers behind bars and attends every hearing.

Beausoleil is pictured speaking with the media after the jury returned a verdict against him of first-degree murder in the the death of Gary Hinman

Debra Tate, 66, (left), the sister of murdered actress Sharon Tate, previously told DailyMail.com that Davis should not be released and is a 'domestic terrorist'

In July last year, she was there when a parole board agreed to release Davis, who was convicted of killing the Manson Family's final victim, Donald 'Shorty' Shea, from the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo.

During the hearing, which was attended by DailyMail.com, Martley, who lives in Denver, Colorado, told the board: 'Bruce Davis already had a second chance when his death sentence was commuted to life. He doesn't deserve a third one.'

Although Davis was granted parole  for the sixth time  that decision was overturned by Governor Newsom.

Davis has since been moved to San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco and will face the parole board again in December.

Next to face the parole board is Van Houten who is scheduled to have another hearing on July 23.

Watson was denied parole in October 2016 for five years and cannot reapply until October 2021. He is currently incarcerated at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.

Krenwinkel was also denied parole for five years - in June 2017 - and cannot apply for release until 2022.
Emmari Jackson, 21, has been charged with battery after an incident at Orlando International Airport on Wednesday

A 21-year-old Texas woman allegedly flew into a rage when she was told she had to pay $65 to carry a bag aboard a Spirit Airlines flight in Orlando, prompting her to throw a bag of shoes at one agent, punch another in the head, hit another in the head with a metal dustpan, and then jump on top of a company supervisor.

Emmari Jackson was arrested and taken into custody by Orlando Police Department officers on Wednesday afternoon.

While she was being booked at Orange County Jail, she allegedly refused to cooperate and told officers that she was infected with COVID-19.

Jackson is then reported to have coughed on equipment, according to ClickOrlando.com.

Orlando police responded to reports of an assault at round 2pm Wednesday at Orlando International Airport.

Jackson apparently had an issue with a carry-on bag before her scheduled departure on a Spirit Airlines flight.

When officers arrived, they said Jackson was angry when she was told by a Spirit ticket agent that she could not board the aircraft because of her behavior.

The ticket agent told police that Jackson threw a bag of shoes at several agents who were manning a service desk.

One witness claimed Jackson then reached over the service counter to hit an agent.

Jackson is then alleged to have walked over to another agent and punched them in the head.

A Spirit supervisor who was trying to call police was then attacked by Jackson, according to investigators.

Jackson ran at the supervisor, punched them in the back of the head, and jumped on top of them, police allege.

As witnesses tried to pull Jackson off the supervisor, Jackson allegedly kicked one of them in the head.

Jackson allegedly flew into a rage when she was told she had to pay $65 in order to bring a carry on bag with her aboard a Spirit Airlines flight

Jackson is then alleged to have grabbed a metal dustpan used by airport staff to clean a custodial cart and hit a victim in the back with it, police said.

The officers later learned that Jackson was angry after she was told that she needed to pay a $65 surcharge if she wanted to bring her carry on luggage onto the plane.

Jackson was booked into Orange County Jail, where she allegedly hit a corrections officer.

While she was going through the booking process, Jackson was allegedly non-compliant.

She then told officers she was diagnosed with COVID-19 before she started to cough on equipment.

Moments later, a nurse arrived and gave Jackson a face mask as a safety precaution.

Jackson allegedly continued to be uncooperative. At one point, she coughed and spit in an officers face and then kicked that same officer in the chest, it is alleged.

She was charged with battery and battery on a corrections officer for incidents which took place at the jail and at the airport.

Jackson is being held on $3,500 bond at the Orange County Jail.
President Donald Trump's July Fourth celebration on the National Mall will give away as many as 300,000 face masks to people who want them but the White House still won't advise people to wear them.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced the mask distribution when he outlined the plans for this Saturday's celebration, which includes 'multiple flight demonstrations from different branches of our military, in particular the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, and a monumental firework display,' he said in a statement.

The 35-minute show - the second 'Salute to America' - will include more than 10,000 fireworks.

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump will host a viewing party on the South Lawn of the White House, an event that comes the day after they'll be at Mount Rushmore to observe the return of the fireworks celebration there.

'President Trump's 2020 Salute to America will be a patriotic tribute to our men and women in uniform,' Bernhardt said.

Social distancing will encouraged but there is no indication that face masks will be mandatory.

President Donald Trump's July Fourth celebration on the National Mall this weekend will give away as many as 300,000 face masks but people are not required to wear them

Thousands of people came to President Trump's 'Salute to America,' held on the National Mall last year

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump at last year's Fourth of July celebration

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that the CDC recommendations on masks does not make wearing them mandatory.

'The president has said that we should follow our local authorities with masks, so that's the decision,' McEnany said. 'He encourages people to follow those authorities. CDC guidelines, I'd also note, say recommended but not required and we are very much looking forward to the Fourth of July celebration.'

President Trump told Fox Business Network Wednesday he'd wear a mask in 'in a tight situation.'

'I'd have no problem,' he said.

'Actually, I had a mask on, I sort of liked the way I looked, I thought it was OK. It was a dark, black mask and I thought it looked OK. It looked like the 'Lone Ranger,'' Trump added.

Meanwhile, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has warned about the dangers of a large crowd on the National Mall but has no jurisdiction as the event takes place on federal lands.

'We know this is a special event for the Department of Interior. We've communicated to them that we do not think this is in keeping with the best CDC and Department of Health guidance. But this event will take place entirely on federal property,' Bowser told the Associated Press.

Washington is in phase 2 of its reopening plans. And coronavirus cases are on the rise throughout the nation. The U.S. reported almost 50,000 new cases on Wednesday, the fifth single-day case record in eight days.

New outbreaks are showing up in the South and West. And several red states led by Republican governors are stepping back on their reopening processes as the number of infections spike.

Additionally, the Trump administration announced it will put special law enforcement teams in place to protect monuments over the 4th of July holiday weekend, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday.

There were no details given on the teams' sizes or makeup, which monuments will be protected and what that protection will look like.

'While the department respects every American's right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated,' Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said.

President Trump has railed against protesters who took down several statues - many of them with ties to the confederacy - as part of the Black Lives Matters demonstrations that sprung up after the death of George Floyd.

Ahead of the celebration on the National Mall, Trump and the first lady will travel to South Dakota on Friday to watch a fireworks display at Mount Rushmore, the first since 2010 when the National Park Service stopped them out of concern they could ignite wildfires in the nearby 1,200 acres of forest.

'I'm going to Mt Rushmore on July 3, we're going to have a tremendous evening,' the president said at the White House on Thursday.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who plans to attend the event with the Trumps, told Fox News that 'we won't be social distancing.' Face masks are also not required.

She has down played concerns about the coronvirus even as cases are on the rise in her state. At Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa last month, eight members of his advance team tested positive for the coronavirus.

In addition to the concerns about wildfires and surging coronavirus infections, Native American groups are planning to protest the president's visit as they see Mount Rushmore resting on ground stolen from their ancestors.

An immediate concern for the July 3 event is the threat of fire. South Dakota is suffering from abnormally dry conditions this summer, increasing the risk for wildfires in the Black Hills area.

The National Park Service completed an Environmental Assessment that evaluated the potential effects of resuming fireworks ahead of the celebration and no significant impact was found.

Fireworks at last year's Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall with the Lincoln Memorial and the U.S. Capitol visible

U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly over the Lincoln Memorial at the 2019 Salute to America

A scene from the July 3, 2004 celebration - there have been no fireworks at Mount Rushmore since 2010

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota said there would be no social distancing at July 3 event at Mount Rushmore

But Bill Gabbert, former fire management officer for Mount Rushmore and six other national parks in the area, told the Argus-Leader last month that the fireworks were 'ill advised.'

'Burning debris, the burning embers and unexploded shells fall into a ponderosa pine forest and ponderosa pine is extremely flammable,' he said. 'Shooting fireworks over a ponderosa pine forest, or any flammable vegetation, is ill advised and should not be done. Period.'

The U.S. Drought Monitor labeled nearly all of southwestern South Dakota, including most of the Black Hills area, as 'abnormally dry.' Past firework displays have caused 21 fires in the forest area surrounding the monument.

Fire fighters will be standing by.

The National Park Service 'has cleared and treated fuels in the immediate vicinity and will be stationing rapid response teams/assets in locations to protect the area,' Interior Department spokesman Ben Goldey told DailyMail.com.

Ian Fury, a spokesperson for Governor Noem, told DailyMail.com that 'we are confident that the Rushmore Fireworks celebration can be conducted safely.'

He said there was a 'Go/No-Go checklist' for the event to determine safety conditions for the fireworks.

'The Go/No-Go checklist for the event was developed in collaboration with several state, local, and federal agencies. This checklist is based primarily on forecasted and current weather and fuels conditions that are used to predict fire behavior as well as the availability of fire suppression resources,' he said.

And past fireworks events also left scorch marks on top of the sculpture of the four presidents at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial carved into the stone face Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's roughly 60-ft.-high granite faces depict Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

In addition to the fireworks, the even will include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old monument.

The celebration is expected to last 18 minutes and cost $350,000. It is being paid for by state funds.

Around 7,500 people are expected to show up to watch the fireworks display. The state held a lottery to distribute tickets. 'All participants may be subject to health screening requirements,' was the warning listed on the lottery's webpage. The page says nothing about wearing a face mask or observing social distancing protocols.

Past firework celebrations have caused 21 wildfires to break out in the Black Hill surrounding Mount Rushmore; fire fighters will be standing by for the July 3 event

South Dakota has had dry weather this year, increasing the risk for wildfires in the Black Hills area - a past forest fire in seen the picture above

President Donald Trump, seen speaking at last year's July 4th celebration on the National Mall, pushed for the firework display at Mount Rushmore

The planned fireworks are also drawing sharp criticism from Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land stolen from them.

Several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for the Trumps visit. Many Native American activists say Mount Rushmore is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation.

'Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism thats still alive and well in society today,' Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective, told the Associated Press. 'It's an injustice to actively steal Indigenous peoples land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.'

The monument was conceived in the 1920s as a tourist draw . South Dakota historian Doane Robinson recruited Gutzon Borglum, a renown sculpture at the time, to abandon his work creating the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia, which was to feature Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson.

Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, according to historians, which he joined to raise money for the Confederate memorial.

He left Stone Mountain to work on Mount Rushmore.
Care home residents are at risk of becoming 'homeless' if the Government doesn't prevent the collapse of struggling chains which have lost income during the Covid-19 pandemic, an expert has warned.

Adam Gordon, a professor of the care of older people at Nottingham University, said many frail, vulnerable people are at risk because care homes have been pushed to 'breaking point' and may go bust.

Data suggests 30,000 of Britain's 400,000 care home population have died during the pandemic.

The bed vacancies in care homes as a result would have slashed income for care homes, predominantly run by private companies in the UK.

Coupled with the huge costs of PPE that has been marked up massively and other disease control measures, it has left a burning hole in the care sectors' pocket.

Adam Gordon, a professor of the care of older people at Nottingham University, said many frail, vulnerable people are at risk because care homes may go bust. (stock)

Speaking during a webinar put on by the Royal Society of Medicine, Professor Gordon said: 'I've seen figures that have suggested most care homes start to run into trouble with financial stability when their occupancy rate drops below 70 per cent.

'There are a significant percentage of care homes around the country with a bed occupancy between 40 to 50 per cent at the moment.

'Unless there are consistent and systematic efforts undertaken by governments to fish those organisations out, we will see care homes organisations go bust before pandemic is over.

'When that happens, the frail, vulnerable residents that live there will be homeless.'

According to the Office for National Statistics, at least 14,404 people had died with Covid-19 in care homes in England and Wales by June 12.

Britain has Europe's worst Covid-19 care home death toll Coronavirus has killed more care home residents in Britain than any other European country and the death rate is 13 times higher than Germany's, a study has found. The paper, by the London School of Economics, compared the effects on care homes across European nations and the US and New Zealand, taking data from mid-June. Up to 5.3 per cent of Britons living in care homes have died since February, when the coronavirus outbreak began to spiral out of control. It found Spain suffered the most, with 6.1 per cent of its care home population wiped out by the disease  a total of at least 19,533 people. But the researchers said it was difficult to compare Spain because of the way officials count cases. They wrote: 'There is no way of knowing whether a region's data refers only to confirmed cases or if non-confirmed cases are also included.' Data in the paper showed, however, that care home residents in Britain had died at a rate 13 times higher than those in Germany, where 0.4 per cent of its some 800,000 residents had passed away. France saw half the rate of care home deaths as Britain, at 2.4 per cent of its 600,000 residents. Shadow care minister for Labour, Liz Kendall MP, called the statistics 'appalling' and said the Government had been too slow to act on protecting care homes. The study estimated more than 32,000 excess deaths in care home residents (of which there are around 400,000). Excess deaths include other fatalities likely to be linked with the pandemic but not always Covid-19 directly. People may not receive normal levels of treatment for other illnesses. Bosses in the care sector were left dismayed during the peak of the crisis as they struggled to get protective equipment supplies and tests from the Government. Experts say care homes were left behind as ministers focused their efforts on preparing hospitals for the pandemic, and it has now been homes bearing the huge burden of coronavirus outbreaks, which continue to rumble on months later. Advertisement

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) says 340 Covid-19 deaths had been in care home residents (41 per cent of its total) until June 19.

And 47 per cent of Scotland's 4,155 Covid-19 deaths registered to date related to deaths in care homes, taking the UK's Covid-19 death toll in care homes to at least 16,700.

But a study last week suggested the pandemic had caused a far higher number of deaths in care home residents.

The London School of Economics said up to 5.3 per cent of the 400,000 Britons living in care homes have died of suspected or confirmed Covid-19 since February, when the coronavirus outbreak began to spiral out of control.

That would mean 21,000 had died. But a further 11,000 excess deaths - those that would not have happened in an average year - have been recorded, suggesting a sheer number of care home residents have died from causes indirectly caused by the pandemic.

The figures mean the coronavirus has killed more care home residents in Britain than any other European country and the death rate is 13 times higher than Germany's.

Professor Gordon said: 'Those care homes that have been infected by Covid, often very excellent care homes through no fault of their own, have lost up to a third of their paying clients.

'Care homes are predominantly private organisations in the UK, and to have a massive increase in expenditure at the same time losing a significant chunk of your income, pushes your business model to the breaking point.'

Care homes have spent more money than usual on PPE, which Professor Gordon said soared in price.

'A significant financial impact was sustained by care homes early in the pandemic when the NHS as a monopoly provider bought up pretty much all the PPE in the country,' he said.

'Care homes found that the cost of PPE might be inflated by up to a factor of 100. Items that would usually cost one pound were now costing 100. That was the level of increase in increase in price.

'A lot of care homes did what they could and put their money out for those things.'

It follows a National Audit Office (NAO) report this month found that care homes were overlooked in order to protect the NHS.

It said plans to distribute personal protective equipment (PPE) were hampered because officials ignored warnings in 2019 to stockpile gowns and visors - and didn't have enough of them when the need arose.

This resulted in less than half of the necessary equipment being available to healthcare workers on the frontlines of the crisis.

The report also revealed that NHS hospitals discharged 25,000 people into care homes during the peak of Britain's Covid-19 crisis, between March 17 and April 15, without testing them for the coronavirus.

Coronavirus has ravaged care homes, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock come under fire for saying in May that the Government threw 'a protective ring' around care homes right from the start of the pandemic.

Two-thirds of care homes in Scotland have reported a case of Covid-19, official data shows. A huge 536 of those 689 have reported more than one suspected case.

Some 42 per cent of care homes in England and Wales have reported suspected or confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks, according to the most recent data from Public Health England.
Three former Michigan youth center staff members charged in the death of a black teenager who was restrained after throwing a sandwich have been arraigned.

Michael Mosley of Battle Creek and Heather McLogan of Kalamazoo turned themselves in Wednesday to authorities and appeared in Kalamazoo County District Court on involuntary manslaughter and second-degree child abuse charges.

A third former employee of Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo, Zachary Solis of Lansing, was arraigned Tuesday after turning himself in.

Michael Mosley of Battle Creek, left, Zachary Solis of Lansing, center, and Heather McLogan of Kalamazoo are charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree child abuse

Three youth center workers were arraigned in the death of Cornelius Fredericks, 16, an African American teenager who died after he was wrongfully restrained at the Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo

An investigation heard how Fredericks had been 'slammed' and 'thrown to the floor' after throwing his food in a 'significantly disproportionate' response to the bread-throwing incident

They were charged last week in the May 1st death of 16-year-old Cornelius Fredericks, two days after he lost consciousness.

Authorities have said Fredericks went into cardiac arrest April 29 while being restrained. He was hospitalized but died two days later. His manner and cause of death was listed as a homicide.

An investigation heard how Fredericks had been 'slammed' and 'thrown to the floor' in a 'significantly disproportionate' response to him throwing his food.

The youngster's family said he had screamed 'I can't breathe' as staff members placed their weight on his chest for nearly 10 minutes.

A doctor who performed the autopsy, said Fredericks had been restrained on the ground, resulting in asphyxia.

Fredericks pictured in the hospital after a staffer restrained him and he fell unconscious. He was placed on life support and died on May 1, two days after the incident

Mosley, 47, and Solis, 28, are accused of restraining Fredericks in a 'grossly negligent manner,' Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting said last week while announcing the charges.

McLogan, 48, is accused of gross negligence for allegedly failing to seek medical care for the teen in a timely manner.

Each was released on bond pending probable cause conferences later this month.

'She has no prior criminal history whatsoever,' defense attorney Anastase Markou said of his client, McLogan, during her arraignment.

Solis was 'overcharged' and only doing what he was told to do by his superiors, his attorney Donald Sappanos told MLive.com Tuesday.

Lakeside Academy said company officials support the decision to bring charges against their former employees, calling Fredericks' death 'tragic and senseless.'

Attorney Kiana Garrity, who represents Mosley, told MLive.com in a statement that Mosley was following Lakeside Academy protocol.

Prosecutor Jeffrey Getting called Fredericks' death a 'tragedy beyond description.'

Dr Ted Brown, who performed the autopsy, said Fredericks had been restrained on the ground, resulting in asphyxia.

'In my opinion, the complications of him being restrained, on the ground in a supine position by multiple people, is ultimately what led to his death,' Brown said.

An investigation alleged that staff had failed to follow their emergency procedures to obtain medical care and had 'excessively restrained' the teenager.

The death of Fredericks comes in the midst of a Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the nation, sparked Floyd's killing, demanding the end of the systemic racism against black people

Michigan state authorities found that the staff's actions to 'push [Fredericks] out of his seat and initiate a restraint' were 'significantly disproportionate to the behavior of [Fredericks] throwing bread'.

'Throwing bread is not a demonstration of imminent threat of harm to self or others and did not warrant physical management,' investigators said.

Investigators also saw footage of staff with their 'weight on [his] chest, abdomen and legs, making this an unsafe and excessive restraint'.

The restraint was also allegedly out of line with Fredericks' treatment plan which called for staff to speak to his 'anger management and coping skills'.

'The evidence indicates that facility staff failed to follow their facility policy to obtain emergency medical care for resident care at the time of and immediately following this incident,' the investigation report said.

Signs bearding Fredericks' name pictured outside Lakeside Academy last month

In a civil lawsuit filed last month against Lakeside Academy and Sequel Youth and Family Services, the family said the teen screamed 'I can't breathe' as staff members placed their weight on his chest for nearly 10 minutes. Fredericks went into cardiac arrest April 29.

'The excessive use of restraints and the lack of concern for Cornelius' life draw an eerily similar comparison to that of George Floyd's death,' according to the lawsuit, which alleges negligence and says Lakeside staff improperly and wrongfully used restraints on Fredericks.

The lawsuit seeks damages allowed under the Michigan Wrongful Death Act. No financial amount was specified.

Lakeside Academy, a facility for teenagers with behavioral problems, last month lost its contract with the state of Michigan to care for youth in the state's foster care and juvenile justice systems and its license to operate.
The Royal Albert Hall will go bust next year if it fails to secure millions in loans and donations, the chief executive has warned.

Craig Hassall said lockdown has cast the cash-strapped BBC Proms venue into its most 'perilous' crisis yet as it approaches its 150th anniversary.

The dormant Kensington theatre has burned through 12million since it shuttered and has relied on a 5million rescue package to weather the economic hits of the virus.

But it is still in a race against time to raise a further 5million to 10million if it is to survive to reach the milestone.

Forecasting a bleak situation of hundreds of redundancies, the Hall has turned to the public for donations to save the 'livelihoods' of its staff.

The Royal Albert Hall will go bust next year if it fails to secure millions in loans and donations, the chief executive has warned

Mr Hassall lashed out at Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden for not setting out a comprehensive timeline for the beleaguered performing arts sector to reopen, leaving them in the lurch.

'The Government support has been very oblique and vague,' the chief executive told the i newspaper.

He said ministers 'haven't been helpful' and claimed he only had one meeting with the Culture department a month ago.

Mr Hassall added that, under the Government's current direction for theatres, it would be 'operationally, financially and artistically' impossible for the Hall to reopen.

From August, the furlough scheme will place a greater financial burden on employers, who will be asked to split the costs of wages with the Treasury, before the scheme is wound down entirely by October.

Faced with an existential crisis, the Royal Albert Hall has made a desperate plea for public donations.

Craig Hassall said lockdown has cast the cash-strapped BBC Proms venue into its most 'perilous' crisis yet and made a bleak forecast of hundreds of redundancies

Prominently displayed on its website, it asks: 'We are a charity with no regular funding from government and we rely on the income from our shows.

'It costs us 12.7m a year to maintain our Grade I-listed building and 14.3m to pay our staff. We need urgent donations to survive this crisis.

'Without your support, the Hall and the livelihoods of our team are at risk. If you can, please join others in donating today.'

Opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria, the Hall claims to be the busiest music venue in the world.
Boris Johnson signalled today that the job furlough scheme that has paid the wages of millions at a cost of billions will not be extended any further.

The Prime Minister complained that the scheme, due to run until October, was keeping people in 'suspended animation' and would come to a halt.

His comments came as the nation gears up for the widest relaxation of the lockdown so far he, with hospitality and other businesses set to reopen on Saturday in an attempt to kick-start the economy.

Earlier this week it was revealed Britain's furlough bill had soared past 25billion, while more than 12 million jobs now being propped up by the state.

In an interview with the Evening Standard today, Mr Johnson said: 'I've got to be very, very blunt with you. We've spent 120 billion supporting people, it's a huge commitment and we have put our arms around people.

'But I think people need to recognise that the particular restrictions that furlough places on you are not, in the long-term, healthy either for the economy or for you as an employee.'

He added: 'You are keeping people in suspended animation ... I am being absolutely frank with you, we are pushing it out until October, but in the end you have got to get the economy moving.'

The Prime Minister complained that the scheme, due to run until October, was keeping people in 'suspended animation' and would come to a halt

His comments came as the nation gears up for the widest relaxation of the lockdown so far he, with hospitality and other businesses set to reopen on Saturday in an attempt to kick-start the economy

The coronavirus job retention scheme (JRS) which pays 80 per cent of salary costs for staff - rose 2.6billion this week from 22.9billion the week before.

It is now supporting 9.3 million jobs according to data released by the Treasury and HMRC this morning.

Additionally the support scheme for the self-employed rose to 7.7billion, across 2.6million claims.

Banks have lent small businesses 29.5billion-worth of 100 per cent state-backed loans, up about 1.5 billion pounds from the previous week.

Larger firms had received 11.1 billion from the government's main lending scheme, with the biggest companies getting an extra 2.3 billion pounds.

It came as the the Prime Minister last night begged bosses to hold off on cutting jobs after 12,000 staff were axed in just two days.

Boris Johnson said firms should use the furlough scheme and wait until the economy improved before deciding whether to lay employees off.

After a string of firms announced job losses on Tuesday, the misery continued yesterday with John Lewis warning of cuts.

The retail giant told staff it was 'highly unlikely' all of its department stores would reopen, as it announced the closure of one of its central London offices to cut costs. The much-coveted staff bonus will also be cut to zero for the first time since 1953.

Upper Crust also axed 5,000 jobs yesterday, saying sales of its baguettes in train stations and airports had collapsed amid falling passenger numbers.

Management consulting firm Accenture announced 900 job losses, and Topshop's owner Arcadia reduced the number of staff in its head office by 500, citing 'very challenging times'.

Elsewhere in retail, Harrods, furniture seller Harveys and TM Lewin cut more than 1,500 jobs between them.

After a string of firms announced job losses on Tuesday, the misery continued yesterday with John Lewis warning of cuts (Pictured John Lewis in Kingston, Surrey)

Harrods (pictured), furniture seller Harveys and TM Lewin cut more than 1,500 jobs between them.

Ryanair pilots and cabin crew, who were forced to agree pay cuts of up to 20 per cent yesterday, were still waiting for a final decision on 3,500 job cuts. Virgin Money said it would make 300 redundancies and close or merge 52 branches.

On Tuesday, 3,700 redundancies came at Airbus UK and EasyJet, including 700 pilots.

Experts believe unemployment could hit 10 per cent even as taxpayers pay the wages of 11 million workers.

They fear redundancies are picking up speed as the Government prepares to pare back the furlough scheme from August 1.

It follows a 20 per cent contraction in the economy because of the lockdown, making it the worst month on record.

This week Mr Johnson laid out a route map out of recession focused around large infrastructure projects, investment in the NHS and schools, and cutting planning red tape.

Boris Johnson said firms should use the furlough scheme and wait until the economy improved before deciding whether to lay employees off

Sir Philip Green's Topshop empire today revealed redundancy plans, with the Arcadia group poised to cut around 500 of its 2,500 head office jobs amid a restructure in face of the coronavirus crisis (stock image)

Department store John Lewis is expected to lose stores, workers and one of its headquarters as well as jobs at its sister business Waitrose (stock image)

Harrods (pictured, the department store) today revealed it must slash around 700 posts

But yesterday he warned workers were still at a 'very, very serious' risk of losing their jobs. He said: 'I say to employers to keep supporting your workers with the furloughing scheme, it's much better to wait for times to get better rather than laying people off.'

Defending his plans for the economy, he added: 'We're going to build, build, build and deliver jobs, jobs, jobs for the people of this country.'

In response, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: 'Next week's financial statement could be the last chance to save millions of jobs. Will the Prime Minister start now by extending the furlough scheme for those parts of the economy which are still most at risk?'

The coronavirus crisis has hammered UK business, with John Lewis unveiling reopening plans for another 10 stores including its first in Wales and Scotland as well as the chain's flagship shop in Oxford Street - but sources admitting it is 'highly unlikely' that all 50 will ever reopen again.

John Lewis boss Sharon White, who joined from broadcasting watchdog Ofcom before the pandemic began, has written to 80,000 staff at the retailer and its supermarket Waitrose warning them that their bonus is unlikely next year as she tried to improve profits.

Harrods boss Michael Ward has also told his staff that 700 jobs will have to go because of the need to cut costs.

In a memo to staff, he said: 'With a heavy-heart, today I need to confirm that due to the ongoing impacts of this pandemic, we as a business will need to make reductions to our workforce' and said 14 per cent of its 4,800 staff would likely lose their jobs'.

John Lewis was struggling before the pandemic shut down their department stores and supermarkets.

In March profits slumped by 23 per cent to 123million and the bonus paid to staff since 1953 was dropped to two per cent of salary - the lowest for more than 60 years.

Sharon White's letter to thousands of staff, leaked to the Evening Standard, said: 'The difficult reality is that we have too much store space for the way people want to shop now.

John Lewis boss Sharon White has written to staff warning that jobs, stores and the annual bonus are all under threat because of coronavirus

The lockdown has hammered UK business with John Lewis unveiling reopening plans for another 10 stores (Kingston pictured) including its first in Wales and Scotland as well as the chain's flagship shop in Oxford Street - but sources admitted it is 'highly unlikely' that all 50 will ever reopen again.

Waitrose jobs could also go and staff are likely to lose out on their bonuses for the next year

How John Lewis' new boss is forced to wield the axe just months into the job Sharon White only joined John Lewis in January and has been hit by a pandemic that shut its stores and Waitrose supermarkets and now she must cut jobs, stores and bonuses. Ms White, 52, announced last summer she would leave her job as chief executive of Ofcom to take over from current chairman of the retailer Sir Charlie Mayfield at the beginning of next year. Cambridge-educated Ms White had a number of senior civil servant roles at the Treasury and Ministry of Justice before she joined the media watchdog in 2015. The 53-year-old has no formal retail experience and has been described as an 'unlikely candidate' by her predecessor. She is married to Robert Chote, who is head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, with whom she has two children. The couple have been repeatedly dubbed 'Mr and Mrs Treasury'. The mother-of-two was even rumoured to be in the running to become the next Governor of the Bank of England, a 480,000-a-year role. After becoming Second Permanent Secretary in 2013, The Voice named Ms White as the seventh most powerful black person in Britain. She was born to Jamaican immigrant parents and was brought up in Leyton, east London, where she went to a state secondary school. Ms White graduated from Cambridge with an economics degree before studying for her Master's at University College London. Advertisement

'As difficult as it is, we now know that it is highly unlikely that we will reopen all our John Lewis stores.

'Regrettably, it is likely that there will implications for some Partners' jobs. We are in active discussions with landlords about ending some leases and renegotiating others to make the terms more flexible'.

On the bonus, she said: 'We entered the crisis with weakening profits, and we have taken a number of actions to preserve cash. Support from the Government has been a big help  they have paid most of our furlough costs and given us a holiday from business rates.

'Trade too has not been as bad as our worst-case scenario thanks to a lot of hard work from our Partners. However as our competitors reopen we expect trading to be tougher in the second half of the year.

'There is clearly a lot of uncertainty but as things stand, it is hard to see the circumstances where we will be able to pay a bonus next year. I know this will be a blow for partners who have made sacrifices these past months.'

John Lewis has opened 20 stores with social distancing in June and will now open ten more - raising questions about the remaining 20.

It said said shops in Basingstoke, Cardiff, Chelmsford, Chester, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Stratford and the Trafford Centre will reopen on Monday July 13.

Its Oxford Street department store will open later in the week, on July 16, as John Lewis said the size of the shop meant it needed extra time to finalise plans.

The latest raft of reopenings will take the total for the group so far to 32 since lockdown restrictions have eased for non-essential shops, with 18 remaining closed.

England was the first to allow retailers to reopen, on June 15, followed by Wales on June 23 and Scotland on June 29.

John Lewis said it will open more of its shops later in the summer, although insiders have warned previously it is 'highly unlikely' all 50 will ever reopen again.

The grim day for retail also saw Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group blame 'very challenging times' as it revealed plans to trim its head office operations.

The firm, which also owns Burton and other high street brands, said: 'Due to the impact of Covid-19 on our business including the closure for over three months of all our stores and head offices, we have today informed staff of the need to restructure our head offices.'

Up to 5,000 jobs are also under threat at the group which owns Upper Crust and Caffe Ritazza following plunging passengers numbers at railway stations and airports amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The SSP group warned it expects to open only around a fifth of its sites in the UK by the autumn as travel is set to remain at very low levels amid the Covid-19 crisis.

It has launched a consultation on a restructure to 'simplify and reshape' the business in the face of the pandemic, which could lead to more than half of its 9,000-strong peak season workforce being axed.

Bensons for Beds, Harveys and TM Lewin have all announced layoffs and store closures.

Up to 3,500 jobs could go at Ryanair, unless pilots and cabin crew agree to a pay cut. The airline's planes, above at London Southend Airport yesterday, are taking to the skies once again today with around 1,000 flights scheduled to take place

Upper Crust and Caffe Ritazza are now at risk Up to 5,000 jobs are under threat at the group which owns Upper Crust and Caffe Ritazza following plunging passengers numbers at railway stations and airports amid the coronavirus pandemic. The SSP group warned it expects to open only around a fifth of its sites in the UK by the autumn as travel is set to remain at very low levels amid the Covid-19 crisis. It has launched a consultation on a restructure to 'simplify and reshape' the business in the face of the pandemic, which could lead to more than half of its 9,000-strong peak season workforce being axed. Advertisement

The group, which employs 9,000 people and has around 580 stores including those trading under the Caffe Ritazza brand, said head office and UK staff will be affected.

Pre-lockdown, SSP traded from around 2,800 units in airports, railway stations and motorway services stations. It served 1.5million customers every day in 35 countries.

SSP Chief executive Simon Smith said: 'In the UK the pace of the recovery continues to be slow.

'In response to this, we are now taking further action to protect the business and create the right base from which to rebuild our operations.

'Regrettably, we are starting a collective consultation which will affect our UK colleagues.

'These are extremely difficult decisions, and our main priority will be to conduct the process carefully and fairly.'

Upper Crust owner SSP Group is axing up to 5,000 UK jobs (pictured, in Marylebone Station)

The 122-year-old shirtmaker's 66 shops, which also sell shoes, suits and ties, will disappear from the UK high street but its online platform will remain (file photo)

Harveys became another casualty of the pandemic on Tuesday as the furniture chain fell into administration, with the immediate loss of 240 jobs

TM Lewin collapsed into administration on Tuesday with 600 jobs axed.

The 122-year-old shirtmaker's 66 shops, which also sell shoes, suits and ties, will disappear from the high street but its online platform will remain.

Shirtmaker TM Lewin collapses into administration TM Lewin collapsed into administration yesterday with 600 jobs axed. The 122-year-old shirtmaker's 66 shops, which also sell shoes, suits and ties, will disappear from the high street but its online platform will remain. The firm blamed the coronavirus pandemic for the move to digital-only as it could not afford to pay rents after stores shut in March. A TM Lewin source told MailOnline an email was sent to staff 25 minutes before a Microsoft team meeting to tell them they were being made redundant. Advertisement

The firm blamed the coronavirus pandemic for the move to digital-only as it could not afford to pay rents after stores shut in March.

Earlier this month official data from the Office for National Statistics showed there were 600,000 fewer people on the payroll in May than in March.

And the number of people claiming work-related benefits, which includes the unemployed, was up 126 per cent to 2.8 million.

Money expert Martin Lewis said: 'Due to the change in furlough coming on August 1, I think hundreds of thousands of people  possibly a million  could face redundancy in the next six weeks.'

From August 1, companies will be asked to pay national insurance and pension contributions for the hours an employee is on furlough ahead of further increases in September.

There are particular fears for jobs in the travel, retail and leisure industries where demand is not expected to recover for many months.

Many pubs, bars and restaurants have said they will struggle to make a profit when they start to open this Saturday, even with one-metre distancing.

There were also fresh worries for the creative sector yesterday as Norwich Theatre Royal called off its Christmas pantomime and laid off 113 people  half its staff.
The number Covid-19-like outbreaks has doubled in workplaces across England as shops reopen and lockdown loosens, data revealed today.

Official statistics show 43 'respiratory outbreaks' occurred in workplaces between June 21 and 28  double the 22 the week before.

And there were a total of 109 outbreaks in June, compared to just 22 in May as 'non-essential' shops reopened and the nation finally returned to work.

More promising figures from Public Health England, however, show the number of outbreaks in hospitals fell from 27 to 13 and it fell from 112 to 58 in care homes.

Hospitals and care homes have remained hotspots for the virus during lockdown but cases in those settings now appear to be dwindling.

Although PHE does not specify all the outbreaks are Covid-19, they are 'respiratory outbreaks' - meaning lung infections - and it is not cold or flu season, so many are likely to be the coronavirus.

Public Health England's report said the overall number of outbreaks has declined.

'There have been declines in the number of care home and hospital incidents,' it said.

'The number of incidents in educational settings remains relatively stable whereas the number of incidents in workplaces has increased from 22 in week 25 [June 21] to 43 in week 26 [June 28].

'Since Pillar 2 testing became open to everyone during week 21 [May 22] more outbreaks of mild disease have been detected in settings with healthy younger populations.'

The spike in workplace outbreaks of coughs and colds has coincided with the Government allowing 'non-essential' shops to reopen.

Outdoor shops like car dealerships and markets were allowed to reopen from June 1.

And high street stores and other 'non-essential' shops were permitted to reopen from June 15, meaning all shops could start to open again with social distancing measures.

Throughout May, when most of England was still under lockdown, there were 22 respiratory outbreaks reported to Public Health England.

But in June - after shops were allowed to begin reopening - there were 109. Every week in June averaged more outbreaks than the entire month of May.

As the number workplace outbreaks has risen, however, the number of positive tests being declared by the Department of Health has fallen.

During May a total of 105,314 people were diagnosed with Covid-19, which fell dramatically to 37,167 in June.

Outbreaks in PHE's data do not have defined sizes, so it is not clear how many individual people are involved in each incident.

The data also shows that the numbers of outbreaks surged in schools after they were allowed to reopen to Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils.

After 29 outbreaks in May, when the numbers of pupils were strictly limited and only the children of key workers were attending, there were 137 in June.

Data today showed that the Covid-19 outbreak in England appears to have stopped shrinking and there are still up to 3,600 people catching the disease each day ahead of 'Super Saturday' this weekend when pubs will reopen and social distancing loosened.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) data suggests 25,000 people across the country currently have Covid-19, or one in 2,200 people (0.04 per cent of the population)  a huge drop on the 51,000 active cases the week before.

But the same data shows the virus is spreading at a slightly quicker rate, with an estimated 25,000 new cases in the week ending June 27  up from the 22,000 infections occurring in the community the week before.

ONS statisticians, who made their projection based on swab testing of 25,000 people picked at random, warned the speed at which the outbreak is declining has 'levelled off'.

The estimate is in line with yesterday's prediction by Public Health England and Cambridge University academics, who claimed up to 3,000 people are still getting infected each day.

This included 1,000 in the Midlands, which is home to Leicester  the first UK city to be hit by a 'local lockdown'. Their estimate is based on modelling of based on death data, antibody surveillance sampling and mobility reports.

But both guesses are much higher than the one by King's College London scientists, who believe around 1,200 people are being struck down each day. The academics rely on people logging in to a symptom-tracking app and confirming they have tested positive.
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The death of George Floyd - a 46-year-old Black man - on May 25 in Minneapolis, U.S. as he was being detained by four police officers sparked fury across the United States, but has also proven to be the catalyst for anti-racism movements around the world.

The shocking killing that was captured on video and shared widely on social media has galvanized millions of people into taking action, with protesters filling the streets and taking to social media.

Demonstrations against police brutality have grown into calls for equality in society, with the anti-racism movement largely unifying behind the 'Black Lives Matter' message that has now spread across the globe.

Agora, a photography app company that compiles photographs submitted by its users - both amateur and professional - and that runs photography awards to showcase the best submissions has released a series of images taken during the Black Lives Matter movement as part of the company's own #StopRacism campaign.

The 48 images have been voted as the best by the app's users, and as those that best reflect the message of the campaign. The $1000 reward for the contest's most-voted-for photograph will instead be donated equally to the Black Lives Matter, The Bail Project, NAACP, and @reclaimtheblock organizations, the company said in a statement.

'We felt the need to play our part and provide a visual platform for the voices speaking out against racial injustice,' the statement said,' the statement read. '[The] finalist and winning photos ... constitute a visual manifesto for change and continue to give importance and space to amplify the message of racialised communities, combat racial injustice, and educate people around the world.'

'I can't breathe' by Kenyan photographer Onyango Dennis (@onyangodennis) was the overall winner, receiving the most number of votes from the community.

'I can't breathe' by Kenyan photographer Onyango Dennis (@onyangodennis) - pictured - was the overall winner of the competition run by Agora receiving the most number of votes from the community

Left: A woman holds up a sign that reads 'If you're tired of hearing about racism imagine how tired people are of experiencing it' at a Black Lives Matter protest. Right: Two women at a Black Lives matter march hold signs, one of which reads 'I can't breathe'

Signs made by anti-racism protesters, with messages including 'Black Lives Matter', 'Love not hate makes America great' and 'Defund the police' lie on the ground and are propped against a wall in the U.S.

Pictured: A woman wearing a mask holds a Black Lives Matter sign at protests in Madrid, Spain

Left: 'I am not black, but I stand with you' is one of the messages on this person's sign at Black Lives Matter protests in Canada. Right: A man holds a sign that reads 'Black and proud' while holding his fist in the air at protests in Spain

Left: Two woman of different colours embrace in a photograph called 'The Human Race is the only Race that should exist.' Right: Two woman, hands clasped together, raise their hands in the air

Pictured: Two black men - one of which is albino - sit together in a photograph with the title 'Bond'

Left: A woman with what looks like the skin condition Vitiligo and a man put their foreheads together in a photograph titled 'The love we give'. Right: Peaceful protesters gather in front of the Mission Police Department. One man wears a jacket with a picture of George Floyd's face on the back

Pictured: A proud couple holds their newborn baby in a photograph titled 'When cultures come together'

Pictured: A group of women out protesting hold placards with messages that include 'silence implies consent', 'Justice 4 all' and Demand integrity and care

Pictured: Two boys - one white and one black - play the drums together

Pictured: A nurse joins protesters in marching down the street with a sign that reads 'let empathy be your new normal'

Pictured: A black man covered in pink paint puts his arm around a younger smiling white white boy at the beach

Pictured: A group of people in Spain gather together to join the Black Lives Matter protests

Left: A group of children pose for a photograph titled 'On ne nait pas raciste, on le devient', which translated from French to mean 'We are not born racist, we become one'. Right: Protestors in Germany join the Black Lives Matter protests, holding signs that read 'We are one human race' and 'Racism is not over but I'm over racism'

Left: Pictured: Protesters in San Diego, U.S. join the Black Lives Matter march. Right: Protesters in Rotterdam, The Netherlands join the Black Lives Matter march

Pictured: A young black woman takes a moment to herself in a photograph titled 'Somber'

Pictured: A group of women wearing masks join the Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. One holds a sign that reads 'White Silence = Violence'

Pictured: A police officer in the U.S. takes a knee, an act that has become to be a sign of solidarity with the black community and protest against police brutality

Left: A man holds his hand up tot the camera in a photograph titled 'Stop racism'. Right: Two people - black and white - hold hands in a photograph titled 'friendship'

Left: A young boy raises his first in the air, a symbol recognised as one of solidarity with oppressed people popularised by the Black Power movement. Right: A black man holds the hands of a white person to his shoulders in a photograph titled 'Humans'

Pictured: Protesters march in the USA. One holds up a sign that reads 'Black people have every right to burn down a country they built for free'

Pictured: A man in Bolivia holds a sign that reads 'No al racismo - no al golpe de estado - no al auto nombramiento.' The sign translates to 'no to racism - no to the coup - no to the self appointment'

Pictured: A black man smiles at the camera in in Spain

Pictured: Two men rest their heads on eachother's shoulders while standing among the surf in Ghana

Pictured: Two young girls - one black and one white - hold hands and grin at eachother in a photograph titled 'Amigas' in Spain

Left: A mixed race family in France post for a photograph titled 'Love has no borders'. Right: A black woman and man clasp hands and bow their heads in a photograph titled 'Together we are stronger together'

Left: Pictured: A young boy at a Black Lives Matter protest holds a sign that reads 'George Floyd was my: Brother, Cousin, Uncle, Father, Friend, Co-Worker, Neighbor'. Right: People in Germany take part in a Black Lives Matter protest. One person holds a sign that reads 'Mensch = Mensch' which translates to 'Human = Human'

Pictured: A black woman wearing face paint, a headscarf and an apron poses for a photograph titled 'Be yourself'

Pictured: Three black men in Ghana wearing traditional tribal clothes hold up a flag together in a photograph titled 'Bond'

Left: Two people hold hands in a photograph titled 'stop racism'. Right: A young woman wearing a traditional Parsi dress holds up a sign that reads 'Black Lives Matter

Pictured: A woman holds a sign that reads 'silence = violence' at a Black Lives Matter protest in the UK

Pictured: Two people in the U.S. join a Black Lives Matter protest holding signs, one reading 'Justice for all black lives lost to police brutality' and another that reads 'privilege is when you think it is not a problem cause u aren't affected' (sic)

Pictured: A woman speaks to a crowd of people during a Black Lives Matter protest
Iran has denied anyone was injured by a fire and an explosion at it's nuclear research plant 200 miles from Tehran.

US-based analysts noticed the explosion at the facility which has been identified as a new centrifuge production plant.

Iran is enriching uranium at a quicker rate following the collapse of a deal signed in Paris.

The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran admitted there had been 'an incident' but insisted it only affected an 'industrial shed'.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency claimed the damage could have been caused by Iranian or American saboteurs.

The incident happened at the facility in Natanz, which had been hit in sabotage attacks in the past.

A fire has destroyed a building at an Iranian nuclear complex around 200 miles south of Tehran, pictured

The building is part of the complex where the Iranian regime houses its centrifuges for uranium enrichment, increasing the potency of the metal so it could be used to make a bomb

The news agency claimed: 'The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far has tried to prevent intensifying crises and the formation of unpredictable conditions and situations,' the commentary said. But 'the crossing of red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran by hostile countries, especially the Zionist regime and the U.S., means that strategy ... should be revised.'

A photograph later released by the atomic energy agency and state TV video showed a brick building with scorch marks and its roof apparently destroyed. Debris on the ground and a door that looked blown off its hinges suggested an explosion accompanied the blaze.

Data collected by a U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite suggested the fire broke out around 2 a.m. local time in the northwest corner of the Natanz compound. Flames from the blaze were bright enough to be detected by the satellite from space.

'There are physical and financial damages and we are investigating to assess,' Kamalvandi told Iranian state television. 'Furthermore, there has been no interruption in the work of the enrichment site. Thank God, the site is continuing its work as before.'

The site of the fire corresponds to a newly opened centrifuge production facility, said Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. He said he relied on satellite images and a state TV program on the facility to locate the building, which sits in Natanz's northwest corner.

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security similarly said the fire struck the production facility. His institute previously wrote a report on the new plant, identifying it from satellite pictures while it was under construction and later built.

Iranian nuclear officials did not respond to a request for comment about the analysts' comments. However, any damage to the facility would be a major setback, said Hinz, who called the fire 'very, very suspicious.'

'It would delay the advancement of the centrifuge technology quite a bit at Natanz,' Hinz said. 'Once you have done your research and development, you cant undo that research and development. Targeting them would be very useful' for Iran's adversaries.

Th site includes underground facilities buried under some 7.6 meters (25 feet) of concrete, which offers protection from airstrikes.

Natanz, also known as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, is among the sites now monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency after Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The IAEA said in a statement it was aware of reports of the fire. 'We currently anticipate no impact on the IAEAs safeguards verification activities,' the Vienna-based agency said.

Located in Irans central Isfahan province, Natanz hosts the countrys main uranium enrichment facility. There, centrifuges rapidly spin uranium hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium. Currently, the IAEA says Iran enriches uranium to about 4.5 per cent purity, above the terms of the nuclear deal, but far below weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent. It also has conducted tests on advanced centrifuges, according to the IAEA.

However, Natanz did become a point of controversy last year as Iranian officials refused to allow an IAEA inspector into the facility in October after allegedly testing positive for suspected traces of explosive nitrates. Nitrates are a common fertilizer. However, when mixed with proper amounts of fuel, the material can become an explosive as powerful as TNT. Swab tests, common at airports and other secure facilities, can detect its presence on the skin or objects.

Natanz also remains of particular concern to Tehran as it has been targeted for sabotage before. The Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be an American and Israeli creation, disrupted and destroyed centrifuges at Natanz amid the height of Western concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

Satellite photos show an explosion last Friday that rattled Irans capital came from an area in its eastern mountains that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites. Iran has blamed the blast on a gas leak in what it describes a 'public area.'

Another explosion from a gas leak at a medical clinic in northern Tehran killed 19 people Tuesday.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at Israels Institute for National Security Studies and former Iran analyst for the prime minister's office, said he didn't know if there was an active sabotage campaign targeting Tehran. However, he said the series of explosions in Iran feel like 'more than a coincidence.'

'Theoretically speaking, Israel, the U.S. and others have an interest to stop this Iran nuclear clock or at least show Iran theres a price in going that way,' he said. 'If Iran wont stop, we might see more accidents in Iran.'
CHANGSHA/URUMQI, July 1 (Xinhua) -- When Huang Tianlun decided to return to his village deep in the mountains to start up a business after a decade's working in a city, his father discouraged him. But he insisted on pursuing his dream -- to change the fate of his fellow poverty-stricken villagers.

He made it. Two years after he served as Party chief of Jiaoxi village in Yongshun County in central China's Hunan Province, Huang, 38, has successfully helped villagers shake off poverty and move into new homes in a displacement program for poverty reduction.

FULFILLING THE MISSION

Huang, a native of Jiaoxi village, graduated from college in 2005 and became a journalist for a commercial newspaper in Changsha, the provincial capital. In the same year, he joined the Communist Party of China under the influence of his father, also a Party member. Becoming Party chief of a village has been his ideal since he was young.

During his college studies, Huang said he was deeply moved by a TV drama series based on a true story, featuring a doctor who went to the Pamir Plateau to help treat the sick in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, from the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu in the 1960s.

"The doctor made great contributions to people living on the plateau. I thought the Party was really great," said Huang.

In 2014, he quit his job at the newspaper and returned to his home village, which is located in a national nature reserve, to start his own business. He developed greenhouses, sight-seeing agriculture, and sold produce. Three years later, he was elected to be a member of the Party branch of the village, and director of the villagers' committee, because of his high education background and experience. He was later appointed Party chief of the village, where nearly 70 percent of the village's 655 people lived in poverty due to its harsh natural conditions and poor infrastructure.

Though Huang's father did not support his decision to work in the village, the young man insisted and stayed.

"A poverty-stricken village needs people to come back. To eliminate poverty and vitalize the rural areas, young people are needed to do things. I wanted to take the initiative," Huang said. "I felt obliged to accomplish the mission assigned by the Party."

He said he had worries that he would meet with various difficulties as he lacked work experience in rural areas, and it was no easy task to handle villagers' affairs.

In pushing the targeted poverty reduction measures, he encountered a small setback. Precise identification meant that unqualified households would be removed from the registered list of poverty-stricken villagers. That means they would get less or no poverty-relief fund and could not enjoy other policy support for poverty-stricken families any more. He faced opposition and obstruction from some villagers, including his relatives, but he stuck to his sense of fairness.

"I kept my principles and original aspirations," Huang said.

Thanks to a government-funded relocation program, the villagers moved to their new houses in a township from their reclusive village. They also tried to plant herbs to increase incomes.

Last year, the per-capita net income of villagers reached 7,600 yuan (about 1,075 U.S. dollars), and the village shook off poverty overall. "We plan to increase the planting of the herb, and develop e-commerce to expand sales," said the village Party chief.

LAND OF DREAM, SUCCESS

Like Huang, the vast rural regions have become a land of dreams and opportunities for hundreds of thousands of young Party members to serve the people and realize their value by helping farmers shake off poverty and live a better life.

In Oqar County, Xinjiang, 28-year-old Zhou Long is devoted to poverty alleviation work.

Zhou, deputy government head of Boritokay Township and also a Party member, has been working in Xinjiang since graduating from a teachers' college in Sichuan Province, in southwestern China.

The township shook off poverty in 2018. "We have done a solid job in poverty alleviation in recent years," Zhou said, adding he cares most about the families on the verge of poverty.

It is his routine to visit households, go to the fields to chat with villagers, and discuss solutions with other officials to increase the income of herders and farmers.

Last year, villagers were mobilized to plant tulips, roses, and other flowers. "The sales of these have already been booked out, and the revenue is much higher than that of vegetables," Zhou said. "One of our key tasks is to strengthen the coordinated development of agriculture and husbandry."

Hua Mengli is busy at her family farm in Jurong City, Jiangsu Province. The farm covers an area of 72 hectares and has an annual revenue of 8 million yuan. Yet the landscape was totally different a few years ago.

This 25-year-old girl chose horticulture technology as her major at the Jiangsu Vocational College of Agriculture and Forestry, where she joined the Party. After graduating in 2016, she gave up the opportunity to work at the college but instead chose to work in her father's farm, which was at a loss then.

She and four of her classmates now work together to operate the farm differently from her father.

"People in cities have a huge demand for rural farming experiences," Hua said. She began to shift the traditional management model to a service-oriented one. The farm provides services such as produce picking, fishing, catering, and delivery of fruits and vegetables for tourists and customers.

They even built a plant cultivation lab to foster flowers and seedlings. Last year, the farm received orders for seedlings worth 4.5 million yuan.

The farm has provided stable jobs for 12 college graduates and dozens of villagers nearby.

"Affluence is not the only criterion for success. Through our example, farmers can master more scientific planting knowledge, and protect the ecological environment, which is the greatest comfort," Hua said. Enditem

[ Editor: ZY ]
An 18-year-old accused of pushing a statue of slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol Harbour is set to escape with a police caution - if he attends a meeting on other monuments, his lawyer has revealed.

The bronze memorial to the 17th Century slave merchant was pulled down during a Black Lives Matter protest on June 7 and later dumped in the harbour.

The teenager was interviewed under caution after going to a police station voluntarily following the toppling, which sparked a wave of attacks on other statues.

But on Thursday his solicitor Mark Robinson claimed the young man has been offered a police caution if he donates to an anti-slavery charity and goes to a meeting to 'discuss the future of all statues' in Bristol.

An 18-year-old accused of pushing a statue of slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol Harbour is set to escape with a police caution - if he attends a meeting on other monuments, his lawyer has revealed

Writing on LinkedIn, Mr Robinson posted: 'Thank you to all you guys who shared the advice about legal assistance from solicitors and barristers for those that attended the protests.

'As a direct result of this I successfully secured an out of court disposal yesterday for a client interviewed under caution who was caught on CCTV pushing the Edward Colston statue into Bristol harbour.'

He added the conditions of the caution are that that he attends a meeting on the future of statues and makes a donation to an anti-slavery charity.

However, Bristol City Council said they have not been asked to hold any meeting.

A spokeswoman said: 'We have not been asked to host a meeting of this sort.'

Last month, Avon and Somerset Police released the CCTV images of 15 people suspected of vandalising the Colston statue.

The 18-year-old was not one of those featured.

Mr Robinson and Avon and Somerset Police have been approached for comment.

The news comes a day after a 24-year-old man was arrested in connection with the toppling of the statue.

The bronze memorial to the 17th Century slave merchant was pulled down during a Black Lives Matter protest on June 7 and later dumped in the harbour

The force said on Monday the 24-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and has since been released under investigation.

The statue had been in the city centre since 1895.

After it was toppled, it was thrown in the water near Pero's Bridge  named in honour of an enslaved man.

The council has since retrieved the statue, which will now be displayed in a museum along with placards from the Black Lives Matter protest.

Detective Superintendent Liz Hughes said in an appeal on June 22: 'The incident attracted worldwide attention and there's no denying it has polarised public opinion  but in the eyes of the law a crime has been committed and we're duty-bound to investigate this without fear or favour.

'I'd like to reassure people we're carrying out a thorough, fair and proportionate investigation and have sought early investigative advice from the Crown Prosecution Service.'

The investigation is still ongoing, Avon and Somerset Police said.

The toppling of the statue provoked fierce debate amid dozens of Black Lives Matter protests around the country following the death of black man George Floyd in the US.

The teenager was interviewed under caution after going to a police station voluntarily after the toppling, which sparked a wave of attacks on other statues

But on Thursday his solicitor Mark Robinson claimed the young man has been offered a police caution if he donates to an anti-slavery charity and goes to a meeting to 'discuss the future of all statues' in Bristol

Councils across the country reviewed the status of numerous statues commemorating controversial figures, including other slave traders.

Two days after the Colston statue fell, a monument to slaveholder Robert Milligan was removed from the London Docklands.

Liverpool University then announced it will rename a hall of residence dedicated to 19th century Prime Minister William Gladstone, whose father was one of the biggest slaveholders in the West Indies.

Oriel College at Oxford University also voted to remove a statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes.

The Grade II listed sculpture of Colston had been the subject of intense criticism due to his role in the Atlantic slave trade.

It is believed the merchant made some of his fortune by buying and selling slaves.

The toppling of the statue was condemned by major political figures, with Home Secretary Priti Patel describing the vandalism as 'utterly disgraceful' and 'completely unacceptable'.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson branded the incident as a 'criminal act' and called for police to take action against the protestors involved, while Sir Keir Starmer described the manner in which the statue was toppled was 'completely wrong'.

However, Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees argued: 'I am of Jamaican heritage and I cannot pretend ... it was anything other than a personal affront to me to have it in the middle of Bristol.'

In response to the targeting of statues, ministers were believed to be considering sentences of up to 10 years for the worst offenders.
Federal law enforcement officials have arrested a Washington D.C. man who was the alleged 'ringleader' of a group who attempted to tear down a statue of Andrew Jackson outside the White House.

Jason Charter was arrested at his home by the FBI and U.S. Park Police on Thursday morning and charged with destruction of federal property.

Charter is alleged to have played a major role in attempting to the topple the historic monument at Lafayette Park outside the White House on June 22.

He is also accused of destroying a statue of Confederate leader Albert Pike in Washington on June 19.

Federal prosecutors have charged Jason Charter who is believed to be the alleged ringleader involved in vandalizing the statue of former President Andrew Jackson

Jason Charter appears in social media to be an antifa supporter

Demonstrators were seen using chains to try and topple the bronze statue on June 22nd

Protesters congregated night after night in Lafayette Square in Washington DC

The FBI's criminal complaint was based upon video footage and screengrabs gathered by local news stations.

The FBI alleges that local news video shows Charter seen 'standing over the toppled Pike Statue, pouring an unknown liquid onto the statue.'

Charter could be seen 'waving others away from the statue, and squatting down behind the statue where his hands are not visible. Seconds later, the statue catches fire. Charter is said to be 'seen standing over the flames as it burns.'

According to Fox News, sources say that Charter has connections to Antifa.

Charter declared the bringing down of statues to be a 'national service' rather than a crime

Protesters on Monday night are pictured attempting to pull down the statue of Trump's hero

Charter's Twitter and Facebook profile shows him wearing various face masks which made law enforcement's job of identifying him even easier

Of the attempt to topple the Jackson statue, a federal law enforcement official said: 'They were very organized. Charter was on top of the statue and directing people ... they had acid, chisels, straps and a human chain preventing police from getting to the statue.'

'At the Jackson Statue incident, Charter is additionally seen wearing a red set of ski goggles and a yellow ventilator mask. Charter's face is clearly visible at different times during each incident.'

The joint Park Service and FBI complaint also includes a tweet from a Twitter account under Charter's name that states: 'Tearing down statues of traitors to the nation is a service to this nation not a crime.'

'At the Jackson Statue incident, Charter is additionally seen wearing a red set of ski goggles and a ventilator mask. Charter's face is clearly visible at different times

Charter is also believed to have participated in another protest on June 26 at Lincoln Park in Washington.

On that occasion, demonstrators were looking to topple of a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Charter is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Washington at some time on Thursday.

Last week four other men accused of damaging the Jackson statue were charged with destruction of federal property in connection with their alleged effort to tear down the monument.

The four are Lee Michael Cantrell, 47, of Virginia; Connor Matthew Judd, 20, of Washington, D.C.; Ryan Lane, 37, of Maryland; and Graham Lloyd, 37, of Maine.

The complaint, which was unsealed Saturday, states that on June 22, the four men participated in damaging the statue alongside other protesters, while also being captured on video 'attempting to pry the statue off its base with a wooden board and trying to pull the statue down with the aid of a yellow strap.'

It also claims there is video evidence showing 'Lloyd as he breaks off and destroys the wheels of cannons located at the base of the statue.'

The document states: 'Lloyd is then captured on video pulling on ropes in an effort to topple the statue and handing a hammer to an unidentified individual involved in the incident.'

'This office remains steadfast in its commitment to protect the sacred First Amendment right of individuals to peacefully protest, but these charges should serve as a warning to those who choose to desecrate the statues and monuments that adorn our nation's capital,' said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael R. Sherwin.

The bronze statue has stood in Lafayette park since 1853.

Large crowds chanted outside the White House last month to demand justice for George Floyd

The president last month has took aim at Black Lives Matter protesters who have vandalized statues, threatening them with 10 years in prison

Jackson, a populist who admirers say reformed Washington DC, is a hero of Trump's, and the president chose his portrait to hang in the Oval Office when he moved in.

Jackson's detractors point out that he was a slave owner who championed the 'Trail of Tears' policy of forcing Native Americans west of the Mississippi.

The movement to topple or deface monuments of Confederate war heroes and U.S. presidents with poor civil rights records has angered the president.

Last week, Trump signed an executive order aimed at protecting monuments and statues, making the issue a priority for the Justice Department.

'I just had the privilege of signing a very strong Executive Order protecting American Monuments, Memorials and Statues  and combating recent Criminal Violence,' Trump announced on Twitter.

Last month Trump showed off an Executive Order he signed to protect monuments and statues

'Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country.'

Trump has long derided efforts to bring down monuments, often calling them 'foolish.'

'I think many of the people that are knocking down the statues don't even have any idea what the statue is, what it means, who it is when they knocked down,' he said during an interview.

'Now they are looking at Jesus Christ, they are looking at George Washington, they're looking at Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson.

'Not going to happen, not going to happen while I'm here.'
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday morning that New York City is moving 'full steam ahead' with plans to reopen public schools in September with social distancing guidelines in place.

'Each school will have a number, that is the maximum number that can be in that school with social distancing. Using every conceivable space in that school, we are going to convert everything that can be converted into a classroom to accommodate social distancing,' the mayor said during his daily briefing at City Hall.

'For schools that cannot accommodate all their kids in the building at one time, by definition, some kind of staggered schedule. That piece will be determined with the schools.'

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday morning that New York City is moving 'full steam ahead' with plans to reopen public schools on September 10

Students will be required to wear face coverings and stay six feet apart, and schools will have hand-washing stations and deep-cleaning protocols in place

A staggered schedule could mean having students split into groups, with some attending classes in person, while others learning remotely from home, or having alternate school days, or half-day shifts.

De Blasio promised that the 'final configuration' concerning staggered schedules will be announced 'well in advance' to allow parents ample time to plan accordingly.

New York City has the largest school system in the nation, with more than 1.1million students enrolled in 1,866 schools.

As coronavirus cases and deaths were climbing in New York City in mid-March, de Blasio shuttered the schools and switched the district to remote learning, which has proven equally challenging for educators, students and parents.

The mayor acknowledged the hurdles facing public schools as the city, along with the rest of the nation and the world, continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

De Blasio closed city schools in mid-March as the number of coronavirus cases and deaths was on the rise in New York City

Schoolteachers Aurora Chen (L) and Melissa Wong (C) give a gift from the graduating committee to a student who just graduated at Yung Wing School P.S. 124 on June 29

'We know the sheer logistical challenges with schools that were overcrowded before the coronavirus and now have to practice social distancing,' he said.

The mayor said that a recent Department of Education survey has found that 75 per cent of families supported sending their children back to school in September.

When schools reopen on September 10, students, teachers and staff will be required to wear face coverings and practice social distancing, which will entail staying at least 6 feet apart, although the mayor did not say how that will be enforced.

In addition, hand-washing stations will be set up and school facilities will be deep-cleaned daily to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Nearly four years after a white Iowa police officer shot and paralyzed an unarmed black driver during a traffic stop, he was fired from the Cedar Rapids police force, but not for the shooting.

It has emerged that Sgt Lucas Jones had been fired for violating department policy by giving a black female driver a break and letting her go without arresting her during another traffic stop

Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman announced Jones' firing on June 18 without elaborating on the reasons.

Activists had long been clamoring for Jones' firing, arguing that in 2016 he unfairly pulled over, struggled with and needlessly shot a fleeing Jerime Mitchell, who was left paralyzed and has attended some recent protests in his wheelchair.

Scroll down for video

Sgt Lucas Jones, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, officer (left) who has faced protests for shooting Jerime Mitchell (right), an unarmed black man in 2016 says he's being unfairly terminated for giving a break to a driver. Mitchell, who was paralyzed by Jones, is seen at a police protest in June

Jones pulled Mitchell over on November 1, 2016, for driving without a license plate light

The city continues to defend the shooting in court, acknowledging that it has spent $280,000 on an outside law firm to represent Jones in a lawsuit filed by Mitchell, now 41.

A grand jury long ago declined to charge Jones, who claims he sped up to pull over Mitchell for not having a license plate light. He says he fired in self-defense after Mitchell resisted and began driving away as they struggled.

It was the second time in a year that Jones had shot a suspect, having killed an armed white drug suspect who fled from officers in a 2015 case in which authorities also cleared Jones and defended his actions.

Instead, a termination letter released this week shows that Jones was fired over his handling of a traffic stop two days before he shot Mitchell in which he gave a young black mother a major break.

The letter says that Jones should have arrested the woman - the daughter of a tow truck driver who was a professional acquaintance of Jones - for driving with a suspended license and had her car impounded under department policy.

Instead, he let her go, had her father come pick up the vehicle, turned off his body microphone to conceal his actions and later gave untruthful statements about doing that during a 2017 internal investigation, the city alleges.

The city re-examined the October 30, 2016, stop after Jones discussed it during a January legal deposition taken by lawyers for Mitchell in the ongoing lawsuit. The city investigated the stop in 2017 and didn't discipline Jones, who was later promoted to sergeant.

In the deposition and an interview with The Associated Press, Jones said the break he gave the woman is the kind of policing that would improve relations between white officers and black citizens they serve.

Jones said he believed he had the discretion to let her off, and that the decision saved her up to $2,400 in fines and towing fees and prevented the loss of her license for another six months.

A struggle ensued after Mitchell allegedly cursed at Jones and resisted

Jones later said he fired on the unarmed man in self-defense because Mitchell attempted to drive away during the scuffle

Jones said he pulled over the woman because her SUV had no license plates. He said she was crying and saying she needed the vehicle so she could work and support her children. She was not intoxicated, her license had been suspended only for a failure to pay traffic fines and she had no arrest record.

'I told her I was willing to cut her a break because I think the biggest piece of this job is having humanity and having compassion,' Jones said, adding that arresting her would not have promoted public safety.

In the deposition, Jones testified that he 'would continuously violate this policy in order to create a positive impact on someone's life.' Based partly on that admission, the city opened a disciplinary investigation after prodding from Mitchell's lawyer.

The city's termination letter claims Jones said in the deposition that he would 'knowingly violate department policy as he sees fit' - a statement that he called a mischaracterization.

Through his attorney, Jones accused the police department of treating him unfairly and denying him the chance to defend himself by withholding information from him.

'They've kept all of the information, essentially, and all the cards to themselves, and they've presented this one-sided case all the way through the chain of command,' Jones' attorney Skylar Limkemann told KCRG.

'It's only now, after Lucas is fired, that he's given the materials, including the recommendations and the reasoning for the decision that they opposed, and then implemented, to be able to respond to.'

Jones said he would appeal his firing in the coming days, accusing the chief of caving in to political and legal pressure and making him a 'scapegoat.' He said he believes the protests over George Floyd's death under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer were just but that the focus unfairly shifted to him.

Jones has launched a public fundraising campaign to pay for his appeal, which the police union won't cover since Jones is now a supervisor.

'I would go broke and live under a bridge if I have to in order to clear my name,' he said. The former Marine, who worked for the department for a decade, said that being called a liar 'kills me to my core' and that he has passed a polygraph test.

Mitchell was struck in the neck and paralyzed. A grand jury in December 2016 refused to charge Jones with any crime

But Mitchell's attorney, Larry Rogers, said the woman's traffic stop shows that Jones was an officer who selectively enforced the law and turned off his audio when convenient.

'He is utilizing an unlawful favor that he did for the daughter of a friend who happened to be black to suggest he does not act in discriminatory practices,' Rogers said.

Rogers contends that Jones also turned off his audio during the Mitchell stop, which was captured on dashcam video without sound. Jones has denied that and said he's not sure why his equipment didn't work.

Jones pulled over Mitchell, then aged 37, near Coe College on November 1, 2016, because both lightbulbs on his license plate were burned out.

The dashcam footage shows Jones on patrol when he comes across Mitchell's truck.

Jones pulled Mitchell over and asked him to step out of the car before attempting to put him in handcuffs.

Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden previously said that Jones smelled a strong odor of marijuana.

Mitchell was angry about being stopped and cursed at Jones, then eventually heeded orders to get out of the truck after locking himself in it, the prosecutor said.

Jones told Mitchell he intended to detain him and reached for his handcuffs before the two began to scuffle, Vander Sanden said.

The two men fell to the ground before Jones called his K-9, which attacked Mitchell, out of the vehicle.

Mitchell tried to get back into his truck, with Jones clinging to his body and yelling at him not to drive.

As the vehicle began to move, Jones grabbed his service weapon and fired three close-range shots. One bullet struck Mitchell in the neck and paralyzed him, causing him to lose consciousness.

The county prosecutor defended that decision, saying Jones fired in self-defense during a scuffle in which Mitchell was trying to drive away.

A backpack in Mitchell's truck contained a pound of marijuana and text messages suggested he was on his way to deliver it when stopped, Vander Sanden said at the time.

Leslie Neely, a 31-year-old mother who helped organize protests against police brutality in Cedar Rapids, said Jones' firing was 'a great start' but the city has more work to do to reform the police and compensate Mitchell for his injuries.

'There was a lot of damage done and a person's life was impacted forever,' she said. 'I think the city has a long way to go.'

In October 2015, Jones and another officer shot and killed 21-year-old Jonathan Gossman, who allegedly pointed a loaded gun at them during a foot chase.
Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been hospitalized with the coronavirus after attending President Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa last month.

He was admitted Wednesday to an Atlanta-area hospital, is doing well and is not on a ventilator, according to Newsmax, where he hosts the weekly show 'Herman Cain's America.'

Cain attended Trump's disastrous June 20th rally in Tulsa, where eight members of the advance team tested positive for the coronavirus and the campaign staff had to self-isolate afterward in case of infection.

Herman Cain was hospitalized with the coronavirus - he attended President Trump's June 20th rally in Tulsa, where he tweeted the above photo

Few attendees wore masks or socially distanced at President Donald Trump's rally

At 74, Cain is in the high-risk group for the virus because of his age. He's also a cancer survivor - in 2006, Cain bet a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer, which also had spread to his liver.

He tweeted a photo of himself in the stands with the words: 'Heres just a few of the #BlackVoicesForTrump at tonights rally! Having a fantastic time!'

His staff said in a statement there is 'no way to know for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus.'

He tested positive on June 29 and was hospitalized on July 1. Cain was not wearing a mask nor following social distancing protocols in the photo from the Tulsa event. The rally, which only had 6,200 attendees in an event space that could hold 19,000 - did not turn into the campaign comeback the Trump team had hoped for.

The president came under fire for holding a rally as coronavirus cases were rising in Oklahoma and several states as the reopening process picked up. Few attendees wore masks or socially distanced.

Local health officials on the ground cautioned against the rally and a group of businesses sued to stop it - a legal move that failed.

Trump postponed it by one day when it was originally scheduled on the anniversary of one of the worst racial riots in the country, which took place in Tulsa in 1921.

Additionally, an outdoor speech the president was scheduled to give for those who couldn't make it into the BOK Center, where the rally took place, was canceled when he was in route to Tulsa because the expected overflow crowds never materialized.

The Trump campaign bragged they had given away 1 million tickets but many of those were online tricksters, who signed up for the free tickets but had no intention of attending.

Trump was reportedly furious when he saw the sea of empty blue seats waiting for him that night although the White House denied any anger on his part.

And he was criticized for using the racist phrase 'Kung flu' when talking about COVID-19. He also said he ordered less testing once he heard cases were on the rise - a statement White House officials later rushed to say was a joke.

Additionally, the Washington Post reported that videos and photos emerged showing that before the rally, workers removed thousands of Do Not Sit Here, Please! stickers from seats in the BOK Center that were intended to mark recommended distances between attendees.

Herman Cain, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, now hosts a weekly show on Newsmax - Trump considered him last year for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board

President Donald Trump's Tulsa rally ended up being a disaster instead of the campaign comeback it was designed to be

Cain, the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, ran for the 2012 presidential nomination.

His catchy 9-9-9 tax plan and strong debate performances made him a serious contender. But, in November 2011, he faced allegations of sexual misconduct  all of which he denied  and suspended his campaign in December.

Cain had been accused by two women of sexual harassment when he served as CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s. Later two more women came forward. Cain acknowledged that the restaurant organization made financial settlements to the complainants but denied any wrong doing.

But his campaign was not able to recover from the scandal.

In April 2019, Trump considered Cain for an appointment to the Federal Reserve Board but he withdrew himself from consideration after several Republican senators said they would not vote for his confirmation.
Ghislaine Maxwell groomed a girl in London in the 1990s before introducing her to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein knowing he would abuse her, court papers claimed today.

Maxwell, 58, is said to have 'groomed and befriended' the child between 1994 and 1995, even though she knew the victim was under the age of 18.

The court papers allege that Maxwell would discuss the victim's life and family before introducing her to Epstein for 'multiple interactions'.

During these meetings Maxwell allegedly encouraged the girl to massage Epstein, and the billionaire sexually abused the victim.

The papers allege Maxwell was aware that Epstein engaged in sex acts with the victim on multiple occasions - this includes times when the victim was under the age of 18.

Epstein is pictured with Ghislaine Maxwell in New York in 2005. Lawyers for Maxwell have previously said she denies any wrongdoing

This included sexualised massages. The victim's identity is unknown.

Maxwell, who has been accused of helping to procure underage girls for the disgraced financier, was detained in New Hampshire on Thursday.

The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said charges over her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of girls by Epstein are to be announced at 5pm BST.

Maxwell has previously denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of sexual misconduct by the disgraced financier, who took his own life in prison last year while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

One of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, claims that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with the Duke of York at the socialite's London townhouse.

Ms Giuffre has claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and alleges the duke had sex with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17, still a minor under US law.

One of Epstein's victims, Virginia Roberts, now Virginia Giuffre, alleges she had sex with the Duke of York three times when she was 17 at the behest of the billionaire paedophile

Andrew, who categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre, stepped down from royal life last year after a disastrous Newsnight interview about his relationship with Epstein.

He has faced repeated calls to talk to the FBI and US prosecutors still investigating Epstein, while a row emerged in June over the duke's availability to answer questions about the disgraced financier.

US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said Andrew had sought to 'falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to co-operate', but had repeatedly declined requests to schedule an interview.

The duke's legal team rejected these claims and said that Andrew had made three offers to give a witness statement to investigators.

Acting US attorney for the district Audrey Strauss struck a milder tone on Thursday when she told reporters she would simply 'welcome' a statement from the Queen's son at a press conference announcing charges against Maxwell, including allegations she participated in the abuse of young girls by Epstein.

'I'm not going to comment on anyone's status in this investigation but I will say that we would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement,' she said.

Andrew is photographed with the disgraced Epstein in New York's Central Park in 2010

Epstein's former girlfriend Maxwell is the daughter of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell.

In a statement on Twitter, the attorney's office said: 'There will be a press conference today at noon to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein.'

An indictment made public on Thursday said Maxwell facilitated Epstein's crimes by 'helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse' girls as young as 14.

The socialite faces counts of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

She also faces two counts of perjury, while the indictment says Maxwell repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct.
Kellyanne Conway conceded that Americans weren't wearing masks as much as they should be to combat the spread of COVID-19, but made it clear she didn't think it was President Trump's job to be the mask police.

'People are not wearing masks. And I don't think they're not wearing masks because the president of the United States is not wearing a mask. They're not wearing a mask because nobody's saying put the mask on,' Conway said outside the White House Wednesday.

That responsibility was up to state and local officials, as she said, 'it's up to the local folks to enforce it.'

Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday outside the White House that Americans aren't wearing masks not because President Trump isn't wearing one but because 'nobody's saying put the mask on'

President Trump, photographed during an appearance in the briefing room Friday, has been resistant to mask-wearing, though said Wednesday that he'd put one on in close confines, though said he didn't support a federal mandate

'You want to have it both ways, the governors said the president can't tell us when to reopen, we get to decide that. OK, then they should tell their local officials to implore and then enforce mask-wearing,' Conway suggested.

'Somehow we want the president of the United States to run around to every local community,' she said.

Conway's comments came as U.S. cases of coronavirus were topping 50,000 a day.

A number of Republican senators have responded to the spike by suggesting that Trump don a mask as he's previously politicized the issue.

Trump's resistance against mask-wearing has been well-documented.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first put out its advisory that Americans should wear facial coverings, Trump expressed then it wasn't for him.

'Well, I just don't want to wear one myself,' he said at an April 3 White House press briefing.

'I just don't want to be doing - I don't know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behidn the beautiful Resolute Desk - the great Resolute Desk - I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don't know. Somehow, I don't see it for myself,' Trump said. 'I just - I just don't. Maybe I'll change my mind, but this will pass and hopefully it'll pass very quickly.'

Then the Associated Press reported in May that he believed putting one on would 'send the wrong message.' He also said he'd look ridiculous and the visuals would be used in attack ads.

The president has only put a mask on once - and even then wouldn't model it for reporters - as he visited a Ford Motor Co. plant in Michigan the same month.

'I didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,' he said then.

And on Memorial Day, he mocked Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, for wearing one to services.

In June, during a sit-down with the Wall Street Journal, Trump politicized the issue further by suggesting that some people wore mask to 'signal disapproval of him,' the newspaper said.

On Wednesday, the same day Conway talked to reporters, Trump said he was open to wearing a mask in close confines, but didn't think a nationwide mask mandate was necessary.

'I'd have no problem,' he told Fox Business Network. 'Actually, I had a mask on, I sort of liked the way I looked, I thought it was OK.'

'It was a dark, black mask and I thought I looked OK. It looked like the "Lone Ranger,"' Trump said.
The City of Somerville passed the ordinance during a council meeting on June 25, with it being signed into law on Monday by Mayor Joseph Curtatone

A city just outside of Boston has unanimously voted to allow for polyamorous relationships, out of growing concern from residents hoping to visit their partners in hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

The City of Somerville passed the ordinance during a council meeting on June 25, with it being signed into law on Monday by Mayor Joseph Curtatone, Councilor Lance Davis told the Boston Globe.

The ordinance may be the first of its kind in the country. Several Massachusetts cities had already passed domestic partnership policies prior to the passing of same sex marriage in the state in 2004.

'I don't think it's the place of the government to tell people what is or is not a family,' Davis said during a council meeting last week.

The ordinance for the city (pictured) may be the first of its kind in the country

He added: 'Defining families is something that historically we've gotten quite wrong as a society, and we ought not to continue to try and undertake to do so.'

'I don't think it's the place of the government to tell people what is or is not a family,' Councilor Lance Davis said during a council meeting last week.

Councilor JT Scott made the suggestion to change the ordinance to feature the language that was more inclusive of polyamorous couples.

It comes as residents in the city of just more than 85,000 have asked city officials for consideration when visiting their partners in the hospital who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

'The ordinance was ready to go, but it just didn't feel right to me. I wanted more input,' Davis said during the meeting.

At one point during the meeting, Davis - a lawyer - even suggested that upwards of 20 people could count in partnerships with each other legally.

Davis said that he has received mostly positive response from residents in the progressive suburb.

'I got an e-mail from someone at my church that said, "Wow, this is amazing. Thank you so much for doing this,"' he said.
New York City police are searching for a suspect who slashed a two-year-old boy's face in a random attack in Manhattan.

Authorities said the incident occurred around 9.30am while the child's babysitter was pushing him in his stroller.

They were near the intersection of West 110th Street and Morningside Drive in Manhattan's Morningside Heighs neighborhood.

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New York City police are searching for a suspect (pictured) who slashed a two-year-old boy's face in a random attack in Manhattan

Police have also released surveillance footage that shows the suspect (pictured) wearing a white t-shirt and dark shorts

According to Pix 11, the stranger walked up to them and attacked the child with a sharp object.

Authorities have not said what the toddler was cut with. Police said the nanny was not injured.

The child was immediately taken to the hospital where he received stitches for the wound above his right eyebrow.

New York police have also released surveillance footage that shows the suspect wearing a white t-shirt and dark shorts.

In the short clip, the man is seen jogging away from the scene while covering his face with his t-shirt.

The child's father, who wished to remain anonymous, told ABC News: 'My wife was horrified. My son is very nervous, also under stress.'

As of Thursday afternoon, police have not made any arrests.

Police are asking that anyone with information contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).

In the short clip, the man is seen jogging away from the scene while covering his face with his t-shirt
Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth said on Thursday that she would put a hold on the confirmation of over 1,000 military promotions until Defense Secretary Mark Esper provided assurances on the promotion of a former White House aide who testified in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who provided some of the most damaging testimony during an investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives into Trump's dealings with Ukraine, is up for a promotion to colonel.

However, there is concern his promotion could be affected due to political reasons.

'Our military is supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy. It is simply unprecedented and wrong for any commander in chief to meddle in routine military matters at all,' said Duckworth, a former Army National Guard helicopter pilot who lost both legs when she was shot down in Iraq in 2004.

Block fears: Lt. Co. Alexander Vindman was escorted from the White House after testifying in Donald Trump's impeachment trial. Now there are fears he might not be considered for promotion to colonel in a revenge strike by Trump

Blocking powers: Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois Democrat, says she intends to hold a total, of 1,123 promotions until she has written conformation that Vindman's 'deserved' promotion has not and will not be blocked in revenge

She is also reportedly under consideration by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to be his running mate.

Duckworth intended to place a hold on 1,123 senior military service members' promotions until Esper 'confirms in writing that he did not, or will not, block the expected and deserved promotion of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman to colonel,' a statement said.

Duckworth's action would make it far more difficult and time-consuming to approve such promotions, especially given how little time the Senate has before the November elections.

Vindman and his twin brother were escorted from the White House in February.

'We sent him on his way to a much different location, and the military can handle him any way they want,' Trump said at the time.

Esper said in November that Vindman should not fear retaliation over his testimony.
A St Louis couple who made headlines nationwide for standing on their porch brandishing guns aimed at Black Lives Matter demonstrators have been in a long-running, gun-toting row with their neighbors, it has emerged.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a husband and wife personal injury attorney duo, were filmed on Sunday evening aiming at protesters who walked by their mansion on the way to Mayor Lyda Krewson's house.

They said they were scared, and were defending their property.

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Mark and Patricia McCloskey, pictured on Sunday night with guns outside their home, have been engaged in a long-running row over a 1,143 sq ft patch of land near their property

The disputed area around their St Louis property is marked in red

The personal injury lawyers confronted protesters who marched past their home Sunday

Yet the couple have been long engaged in a different battle for their home - this one waged at the St. Louis Circuit Court since 2017, which has also seen guns drawn.

The trustees of Portland Place, where they live, say the 'sliver of land' beside their home belongs to them, as it was described in assessor's documents more than 116 years ago.

The McCloskeys, however, say the legal concept of 'adverse possession' means they own it - the idea that land can be occupied and, after a period of many years, owned.

In an affidavit, Mark McCloskey described the land as lying within their block, and said it 'consists of one thousand one hundred forty-three (1,143) square feet' and 'laying north of the Portland Place sidewalk'.

On Monday, Judge Joan Moriarty ruled against the McCloskeys' motion to end the case without a trial, which means the three-year battle continues.

The McCloskey's home in St Louis, at One Portland Place, is in a gated community

'Between the time of acquisition of One Portland Place and the construction of the above-referenced ten foot wall, the McCloskeys regularly prohibited all persons, including Portland Place residents, from crossing the Parcel including at least at one point, challenging a resident at gun point who refused to heed the McCloskeys' warnings to stay off such property,' states an affidavit in the lawsuit.

The McCloskeys and the trustees have argued over seeding and landscaping, over tiles and tuckpointing, and even over the 'Private Street' sign.

According to the lawsuit, obtained by the St Louis-Post Dispatch, 'Mark McCloskey dug up the sign and reinstalled it on the south side of the sidewalk.'

McCloskey on Tuesday night told CNN he was scared for his life by the 'mob' of protesters.

'I was a victim of a mob that came through the gate,' he said.

'I didn't care what color they were. I didn't care what their motivation was.

'I was frightened, I was assaulted, and I was in imminent fear that they would run me over, kill me, burn my house.'

McCloskey, 63, rejected the suggestion he was a symbol for those who rejected Black Lives Matter.

'I'm not the face of anything opposing the Black Lives Matter movement,' he said, calling the notion 'completely ridiculous.'

'I was a person scared for my life who was protecting my wife, my home, my hearth, my livelihood.'

Albert Watkins, a St. Louis attorney for the McCloskeys, said in a statement to The Washington Post that they 'acted lawfully' out of 'fear and apprehension.'

The confrontation was not race-related, he added, and white 'agitators' were responsible for provoking the white couple.

'My clients, as melanin-deficient human beings, are completely respectful of the message Black Lives Matter needs to get out, especially to whites,' he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Ghislaine Maxwell went to 'extreme lengths' to stay under the radar over the last year while in hiding, prosecutors said in court documents on Thursday after arresting the 58-year-old on child sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell is accused of not only procuring three underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with between 1994 and 1997 but also of having sex with them herself.

She was arrested at a home sprawling $1million New Hamphire property on Thursday morning.

She bought the house in December for cash, paying for it through an LLC to avoid detection.

Before then, prosecutors say she moved location at least twice but that she stayed in New England. She was last seen in public in August 2019 at an In-N-Out Burger in L.A., ten days after Epstein killed himself in prison.

It's unclear how long the FBI was watching her.

According to a memo filed in court on Thursday asking for a judge to deny her bail, Maxwell changed her phone number and her email address.

Ghislaine Maxwell, shown last August - the last time she was seen publicly - was arrested on Thursday morning

Maxwell was picked up by the FBI and NYPD detectives at 8.30am at the property in Bradford, New Hampshire, she had bought in December 2019 using a limited liability company called Granite LLC to shield her name

Maxwell was arrested at the luxurious mountain top home  dubbed Tuckedaway  outside tiny Bradford, New Hampshire

She registered a new phone number under the name 'G Max', and used a different, unspecified fake name to have packages delivered to her.

She also moved money between 15 different bank accounts, the total balance of which has varied from hundreds of thousands of dollars to $20million over the last few years, according to investigators.

In once case, she moved $500,000 from one account to another.

The prosecutors point to the fact she has three passports (British, French and American) and say her high-flying, international lifestyle makes her a major flight risk.

She has not yet gone before a judge.

A grand jury returned a sealed, six-count indictment against her on June 29 which accuses her of enticing underage girls to travel for sex, actually having sex with them and Epstein and later lying about it under oath in depositions when she was being sued by Virginia Giuffre Roberts, one of Epstein's accusers who says she had sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17.

Prosecutors say there is strong evidence to back up what is alleged.

The charges relate to incidents that happened between 1994 and 1997 and involve three unnamed victims, the youngest of whom was 14. The alleged abuse happened at Epstein's homes in New York, Florida and New Mexico and at Maxwell's home in London.

Epstein has been accused of abusing dozens more girls and Maxwell is tangentially associated with the decades of alleged horror because, the accusers say, she was always by his side or making arrangements for him and them.

Maxwell, the British socialite daughter of the late, disgraced newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell whose impressive international network of friends and acquaintances includes the Clintons, has been a ghost since Epstein was arrested last June on charges of sex trafficking. She is who introduced him to Prince Andrew and set up the 2001 London night out when the royal allegedly had sex with Giuffre.

Epstein with Maxwell in 2000

On Thursday, Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said the investigation into Epstein's decades of abuse is ongoing and that she'd 'welcome' Prince Andrew 'coming in to provide a statement', prompting speculation that he may among people investigators may focus their attention on next.

'We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us. We would like to have the benefit of his statement. Our doors remain open. We would welcome him coming in and giving us an opportunity to hear his statement,' she said.

It opens the door to questions of jurisdiction and whether or not US Attorney Strauss may charge for alleged incidents that happened in London and not America. Among the claims in the indictment is that Maxwell groomed one of the victims in London. At her press conference, Strauss said some of the sexual abuse also happened at Maxwell's house in London.

The charges against Maxwell are: conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, Enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, Transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury.

If convicted, she could face life in prison on the most serious charge - transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity - which carries a minimum 10 year sentence.

The indictment alleges;

Maxwell groomed three unnamed girls, all under the age of 18, in London, New York and Florida, and New Mexico between 1994 and 1997

She befriended them by taking them to the movies or on shopping sprees and 'normalized' abusive behavior by getting undressed in front of them herself

She encouraged them to travel to meet Epstein and engage in sex acts with them and him like 'group massage sex' in Epstein's homes

Her introduction of them to him resulted in him abusing them when she was not present

She lied in 2016 depositions while being sued by Virginia Giuffre Roberts that she'd never groomed or had sex with underage girls herself

It reads in part: 'Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated Jeffrey Epstein's access to minor victims knowing that he had a sexual preference for underage girls and that he intended to engage in sexual activity with those victims'.

When she met Epstein, she had an astonishing network of influential and important friends and acquaintances around the world which many say is what drew him to her.

Among them are Bill and Chelsea Clinton.

She was photographed at Chelsea's wedding and she also flew with Clinton on Epstein's private jet, dubbed the 'Lolita Express' because it was used to ferry young girls to his private Caribbean island or ranch in New Mexico.

She has also been photographed with Epstein and Donald and Melania Trump at parties, years before Epstein became a social pariah.

Among the allegations in the indictment is that Maxwell groomed the girls, including one in London.

'Victim 1' met Maxwell when she was 14 in 1994, the indictment reads.

'Maxwell 'groomed [her] by taking her to the movies and on shopping trips.

'She also asked her about school, her classes, her family and other aspects of her life.

'She then sought to normalize inappropriate and abusive conduct by, among other things, undressing in front of her and being present when she undressed in front of Epstein,' according to the indictment.

The trio then engaged in 'group massage sex' on more than one occasion, the indictment claims.

'Victim 2' met Ghislaine in 1996 and groomed her at Epstein's New Mexico ranch.

'Victim 3' met Maxwell in London in 1994 and was groomed until 1995 where she had sex with them.

At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Acting US Attorney for the Southern District Audrey Strauss, said: 'Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, then delivered them into the trap that she and Epstein had set for them.

'She pretended to be a woman they could trust, all the while she was setting them up to be sexually abused by Epstein in some cases, by Maxwell herself.

'Today after many years, Ghislaine Maxwell finally stands charged for her role in these crimes.'

FBI Special Agent William Sweeney said the bureau had been 'keeping tabs' on Maxwell 'for some time'.

'We have been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwell for some time.

Since Epstein's arrest and suicide, his victims have demanded that others involved in the abuse be brought to justice. Maxwell has always been at the top of their list.

She allegedly approached girls in high schools, at country clubs and even in the street if she thought they would be to Epstein's liking.

She would tell them that she worked for a wealthy man who would generously help them if they agreed to come to his home and massage him for money, the women say.

Giuffre has shared the most explosive allegations against her.

She claims that Maxwell took part in her first sexual encounter with Epstein and that the three of them regularly had sex.

She also claims that when she tried to break free from Epstein, Maxwell threatened her.

Others have told how Maxwell facilitated their travel and taught them how to please the financier sexually.

When Epstein was arrested in Palm Beach in 2007, she stood by him, writing in a character statement that he'd helped her through the death of her father.
The mayor of a town in southern Mexico had to backtrack on his suggestion that residents should consider having sex often because it would be a good way to prevent the contraction of the coronavirus.

Juan Carlos Mezhua Campos was addressing his constituents from Zongolica, Veracruz, on June 21 via a video recorded social media post when he quickly apologized and said he was just joking.

'It is very important that these days we have, let's say healthy eating, play sports, making love is a good sport,' Mezhua Campo as he chuckled. 'So everyone has to get into that at least once in a while. Sorry, I was trying to make a joke but it didn't come out that well.'

Juan Carlos Mezhua Campos, the mayor of the Veracruz, Mexico, municipality of Zongolica joked during a social media video recorded address that his residents should consider having sex to stop the spread of the coronavirus

Juan Carlos Mezhua Campos apologized during a video-recorded address to residents in the southern Mexican town of Zongolica when he told residents that they should 'play sports, making love is a good sport' as a way to stop the spread of COVID-19

The mayor's humorous advice on how to fend off the ravaging virus did not fall well with residents from the municipality with a population of just 27,000. The video was quickly removed from social media networks.

Mexico on Thursday reported it had eclipsed Spain for sixth in the globe with 28,510 COVID-19 deaths. The country has registered 231,770 confirmed coronavirus cases.

The announcement came on the same day in which the major of the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, Francisco Cabeza de Vaca, took to Twitter to reveal that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Zongolica, Mexico, mayor Juan Carlos Mezhua Campos

Tamaulipas, located south of Texas, has recorded more than 6,000 confirmed cases and at least 356 deaths, though low rates of testing mean the actual number of infections is believed to be vastly higher.

On Wednesday, the northern state of Nuevo Leon announced that it would be presenting residents with a preventive plan that it hopes will slow down the spread of the deadly virus after health officials reported a fifth straight day with at least 600 confirmed cases.

Although it was not imposed as a law, governor Jaime Rodriguez proposed that beginning this weekend residents should consider remaining home and pleaded with people to stay at home between the hours of 10pm to 5am from Monday to Friday.

Nuevo Leon, which sits directly across from Texas, has reported 11,700 confirmed cases and 392 deaths.
The New York Police Department is investigating a double homicide after two men were found dead inside a vehicle, shot in the back of their heads.

Police officers responded to the scene on Sedgwick Avenue near Depot Place next to the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx after receiving a call at 1.07am.

When they arrived, officers discovered a large crowd surrounding the vehicle, the New York Daily News reports.

Officers responded to the scene on Sedgwick Avenue near Depot Place next to the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx after receiving a call at 1.07am

The crowd had made the shocking discoveries of the bodies.

At the scene, one of the victims - an unidentified 30-year-old man - was found dead behind the wheel of the parked vehicle.

Another man was found dead in the passenger seat but he has not yet been identified.

Both victims were shot in the back of their heads. Multiple gun casings were found outside the vehicle at the scene.

The double homicide is being investigated by the NYPD.
A Brooklyn man was arrested this week after he burned down his own home while setting off 'illegal fireworks' in the driveway of his residence.

Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro announced the arrest of Damien Bend, 36, on Thursday.

Officials said he was arrested for arson in connection to the house fire that was 'ignited by illegal fireworks'.

The incident was captured on surveillance footage in the area and shows Bend and two other people standing in the driveway as he sets off the fireworks.

The incident was captured on surveillance footage in the area and shows Bend and two other people standing in the driveway as he sets off the fireworks when one of the pyrotechnics goes through his window (right)

Bend continued to set off the remaining fireworks before entering his house to retrieve more. Even after entering the home where the firework had started burning, it didn't appear that Bend realized the firework had started a fire (pictured near the window) in the home

By the time Bend and his friends realized the house was on fire, flames were seen bursting through the window

In the video, Bend is seen igniting pyrotechnics in the driveway when a burst from one of them entered an open window on the first floor.

Bend continued to set off the remaining fireworks before entering his house to retrieve more.

Even after entering the home where the firework had started burning, it didn't appear that Bend realized the firework had started a fire in the home.

By the time Bend and his friends realized the house was on fire, flames were seen bursting through the window.

They are then seen trying to put the fire out using a water hose to no avail.

Firefighters responded to Bend's home at 1709 East 51 Street in Brooklyn during the evening of June 24 for reports of a fire on the first floor of a two-story home.

They are then seen trying to put the fire out using a water hose to no avail

Authorities said the blaze took 12 units and 60 members to bring under control. Fire Marshals subsequently conducted an investigation and determined that the fire was incendiary. The home is seen after the fire

Bend has been charged with arson in the fourth degree and will be prosecuted by the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. Bend's home is pictured before the fire

Authorities said the blaze took 12 units and 60 members to bring under control.

Fire Marshals subsequently conducted an investigation and determined that the fire was incendiary.

'Illegal fireworks pose significant dangers to the safety of New Yorkers and their property,' said Commissioner Nigro.

'Our Fire Marshals will continue to actively enforce the laws relating to illegal possession and sales of fireworks in New York City.'

Bend has been charged with arson in the fourth degree and will be prosecuted by the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.

In the last nine days, Fire Marshals have arrested 17 people and confiscated approximately $36,700 worth of illegal fireworks. Fireworks are illegal in New York City.
Jeffrey Epstein allegedly raped a 17-year-old girl in his Manhattan mansion while Prince Andrew was there, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Caroline Kaufman, now 26, accused Epstein of raping her during a 'modeling interview' in December 2010 in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit claims the assault took place after Kaufman was photographed naked by 'an older woman' she now believes to be Ghislaine Maxwell  Epstein's alleged madam who was arrested Thursday morning in New Hampshire on suspicion of child sex trafficking.

Maxwell is accused of enticing underage girls to travel for sex, actually having sex with them and Epstein and later lying about it under oath in depositions when she was being sued by Virginia Giuffre Roberts, one of Epstein's accusers who says she had sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17.

Prince Andrew has unequivocally denied having engaged in sex with minors and claims he had no knowledge of Epstein's criminal behavior.

Representatives for the Duke of York did not immediately return DailyMail.com's request for comment about Kaufman's lawsuit.

The suit does not accuse Prince Andrew of any wrongdoing or of being aware of the alleged assault, merely claiming that Kaufman met him while at Epstein's mansion.

Caroline Kaufman (pictured) claims she was raped by Jeffrey Epstein when she was 17 years old during 'modeling interview' at his Manhattan mansion in 2010

In a federal lawsuit, Kaufman claimed that Epstein raped her after she was photographed naked by 'an older woman' she now believes to be Ghislaine Maxwell, the financier's alleged madam. Maxwell (above with Epstein) was arrested Thursday on sex trafficking charges

Kaufman claims she was introduced to Prince Andrew when she visited Epstein's home around December 2010. Prince Andrew and Epstein were pictured together in Central Park that same month (above)

Kaufman's suit alleges that she was 'recruited' by one of Epstein's 'close associates', Susan Hamblin, at a horse show in Lake Placid, New York, when she was 16 in early 2010.

'Hamblin approached Kaufman to ask her if she was a "model,"' the documents said.

'Hamblin then told Kaufman that her "boss" could help Kaufman get into the modeling industry. During these conversations, Kaufman made clear to Hamblin that she was only 16 years old at that time.'

Months later Kaufman agreed to visit Epstein's $56million home on the Upper East Side in around December, after repeated calls from Hamblin.

Kaufman claims that Epstein's 'close associate' Susan Hamblin (pictured) 'recruited' her by approaching the then-16-year-old at a horse show and asking if she wanted to be a model

While at the mansion she was introduced to several people including Prince Andrew - who was photographed walking around Central Park with Epstein around the same time - according to the suit.

Kaufman claims that during the visit she was taken into a private area and told to undress for an older woman who took photos of her naked. She believes that woman was Maxwell.

After the photoshoot, 'Maxwell advised Kaufman that her "boss" wanted to meet her,' the legal filing states.

'Kaufman then put a bikini back on and was escorted by Maxwell into a massage room. Epstein was nude on the massage table as she entered the room.

'After Maxwell left the room, Epstein got up off the table, grabbed Kaufman and threw her against the massage table.

'During this encounter, Epstein vaginally and anally raped Kaufman, while saying: ''I know you love it.''

'Kaufman was screaming for help during this encounter, but no one came to her rescue.'

'Upon finishing, Epstein left the room ... and [Kaufman] started hyperventilating. She then exited the massage room.'

After the encounter Hamblin allegedly gave Kaufman $500 in cash and told her: 'Mr. Epstein is a very powerful man and he knows presidents. If you say anything he will kill you and your family.'

Kaufman claims she was invited to Epstein's mansion on the Upper East Side (pictured) for a 'modeling interview'

The lawsuit does not accuse Prince Andrew (left) of any wrongdoing or of being aware of the alleged assault, merely claiming that Kaufman (right) met him while at Epstein's mansion

Kaufman suffered 'extreme distress, humiliation, fear, psychological trauma, loss of dignity and self esteem and invasion of her privacy' from the assault, the suit states.

She explained the trauma in gut-wrenching detail in an interview with The Sun, revealing how her arms are covered in scars from the times she attempted to harm herself.

'I've had to live in darkness. I've been severely suicidal,' she said. 'I was very social and outgoing and then afterwards just very antisocial. I didn't want to talk to anybody.'

'I had dreams of being a supermodel. And also I had dreams of working with the horses and everything,' she continued.

'I turned 18 and I became a stripper. I was working at a club all the time and not thinking I had any meaning left.

'I didn't think anyone wanted me for anything besides sex.'

Kaufman (pictured) recounted the alleged assault in an interview with The Sun, describing how she became suicidal and abandoned her modeling dreams to become a stripper because: 'I didn't think anyone wanted me for anything besides sex'

Kaufman's suit names Epstein's estate and its executors, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, as defendants. It accuses Epstein of using women to 'recruit' and 'manipulate' his young female victims, offering modeling opportunities or money.

In her legal filing, Kaufman is demanding damages and legal costs from Epstein's estate, along with a jury trial of the civil case.

'Epstein and his co-conspirators enticed Kaufman to cross state lines, with the full knowledge and intent to sexually exploit Kaufman,' the filing states.

'Epstein intentionally committed sexual misconduct and rape in the first degree by sexually assaulting Plaintiff when she was 17 years old.

'As described above, Epstein, vaginally and anally forced himself upon the intimate parts of Plaintiff's body in an offensive and sexual manner without her consent.

'Epstein's encounters with girls and young women, as well as his trafficking scheme, involved recruiting young females by making false promises and using his wealth, power and threats to intimidate the females into submission to his demands.

'This same pattern was repeated numerous times with numerous young women.'

The documents claimed Epstein and his alleged conspirators then used 'financial power, promises, and threats' to ensure their victims 'remained compliant with their demands'.

It says the financier 'hired staff to maintain and keep secret this network of sexual abuse for years' and said that his alleged crimes were perpetrated in New York, Florida, New Mexico, the United States Virgin Islands, and Paris'.

The lawsuit accused Epstein of using women to 'recruit' and 'manipulate' his young female victims, offering modeling opportunities or money. Kaufman is pictured (left)

Kaufman is being represented by Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who has represented several of Epstein's other victims.

'On behalf of Caroline we are filing this claim against the estate so that she can receive some type of recovery for what Mr Epstein did to her,' Kuvin told The Sun.

'We're also going to be sending her claim to the fund and allowing the fund administrator to evaluate her claim as well. And hopefully she will receive some type of justice at the end of all this.'

He added: 'The goal is for all of these women to come forward to be heard and receive a fair and compassionate hearing of their story and just compensation.'

Kuvin also took aim at Prince Andrew, who is accused of refusing to cooperate with US prosecutors investigating Epstein's co-conspirators.

'At the end of the day Prince Andrew is yet to step forward with an answer for why he attended events at both Mr Epstein's mansion in New York, Palm Beach and the Virgin Islands,' the attorney said.

'He is yet to explain what he was doing there, why he was there, who he was with and the circumstances under why he was attending these events.

'And we know for certain he was at Mr Epstein's mansion even after Mr Epstein had been convicted in Florida of soliciting under age girls for prostitution because there was photographs of him standing in the doorway. Those photos were taken after the conviction.

'He has failed to answer for his actions.'

Prince Andrew claims he has offered three times to be a witness in the case, but US prosecutors say he has declined their request to schedule an interview.

A source close to the Duke's working group told DailyMail.com: 'The Duke's team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month and to-date, we have had no response.'

Acting Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss urged Prince Andrew to make himself available for an interview during a Thursday press conference announcing the charges against Maxwell.

'We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement,' Strauss said.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Prince Andrew at her London townhouse in 2001. The Duke has unequivocally denied Giuffre's allegations, despite a photo )above) appearing to show the three of them together that year

Prince Andrew has previously said he became friends with Epstein in 1999 after being introduced to him through Maxwell.

Their friendship appeared to continue even after Epstein was convicted of child sex crimes in 2008 and served 13 months as part of a 'sweetheart deal' with prosecutors - as the Duke of York stayed at the financier's Manhattan home in December 2010.

Prince Andrew's relationship with Epstein was thrust into the spotlight after Epstein was hit with a slew of sex trafficking charges last July and died by apparent suicide in his New York City jail cell in August.

In a car-crash interview with BBC last November, Prince Andrew stated that he went to Epstein's home in 2010 to cut his ties with the millionaire - but said he did not regret their friendship.

During the same interview the Duke firmly rejected allegations brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of many women allegedly sex trafficked by Epstein as a teenager.

Giuffre claims that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Prince Andrew at her London townhouse when she was 17 in 2001.

The Duke has denied ever having met Giuffre - despite a photo which appeared to show the pair at a party that year.

'At no stage during the limited time I spent with [Epstein] did I see, witness or suspect any behavior of the sort that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction,' he said.

The Palace denied Giuffre's allegations in a statement last fall, which read: 'Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.

'It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.'

Maxwell has also denied any involvement in Epstein's sex crimes.

Read Kaufman's full lawsuit below:
Five people were caught at Sydney Airport arriving from 36 Victorian hotspots

They face fines of $11,000 or six months jail under a new public health order

Anyone who lives or has visited 36 hotspots in Victoria is banned from NSW

She was caught by police at Central Station in Sydney on Thursday morning

The woman was still waiting to receive the results of a coronavirus test

Police have blasted a 'silly' woman who left Victoria on a train to Sydney

Police have blasted a 'silly' woman who fled Victoria on a train to Sydney despite not knowing the results of a coronavirus test, just hours before a strict new public health order came into effect.

The woman, who was waiting to receive the results of a COVID-19 test, was intercepted by police at Central Station in Sydney on Thursday morning.

While the border remains open, anyone who lives in or has visited 36 Victorian suburbs identified as COVID-19 hotspots is banned from entering New South Wales.

Under the new public health order, they face fines of up to $11,000 or even six months jail if caught.

'This morning we found somebody with symptoms who had actually been tested in Victoria and then got on a train and came to Sydney,' NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard told reporters on Thursday.

'Now, that's about as silly as it gets.

Officials are seen screening passengers off the Melbourne to Sydney train at Central Station on Thursday (pictured) after one woman arrived while still awaiting COVID-19 test results

Five people were caught at Sydney Airport arriving from hotspots, while a woman who was awaiting COVID-19 results arrived from via train (pictured, Central Station on Thursday)

Five people were caught at Sydney Airport arriving from those hotspots (pictured, staff at the airport ready to screen passengers on Thursday)

'If you're feeling sick, and have any symptoms of a cough, cold or flu-like illness - do not go out, do not travel.'

The woman is now in self-isolation and waiting on the results of her virus test.

She wasn't fined because 'it would appear that she was on the train before the order started'.

NSW Health began testing passengers arriving into the state from Victoria from 12am on Thursday.

Five people were caught at Sydney Airport arriving from the affected hotspots, while one woman who was awaiting COVID-19 testing arrived from Melbourne via train.

Passengers arriving in Sydney from Melbourne told Daily Mail Australia of their shock at the lack of questions being asked before departure.

NSW Health began testing passengers arriving into the state from Victoria from 12am on Thursday

A large team of police officers, nurses and airport staff began greeting new arrivals to Sydney from Thursday, on the hunt for visitors from Melbourne's hotspot suburbs (pictured)

They said the first they had been quizzed about visiting a hotspot was in Sydney, by which point they could have potentially infected a plane load of people.

Mr Hazzard said passengers coming into NSW from Victoria will be 'screened' at airports and train stations.

NSW residents who return from Melbourne hotspots, meanwhile, will be required to self-isolate at home for 14 days and could face similar penalties if they skip quarantine.

The health minister also warned that Victorians from outside the Melbourne hotspots who visit NSW should brace for extra attention from police, including having their cars stopped.

Residents of 36 Melbourne suburbs have been sent back into lockdown for a month in a bid to contain a high number of new coronavirus cases detected in the past fortnight.

Victoria on Thursday reported 77 new COVID-19 cases, compared with eight in NSW, all of them returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Thursday said she couldn't confirm temperature checks at Sydney airport.

A Balmain, Sydney Woolworths (pictured) worker tested positive to COVID-19 after spending two weeks in hotel quarantine in Victoria

Ms Berejiklian said extra measures will be taken to keep high-risk visitors from Victoria out of the state.

'We're saying to those people in those hot spots, while the community transmission is where it is, you're not welcome in NSW,' she told The Today Show.

She later said checks at airports will start from Friday.

'We are looking at what we can do additionally and we understand health officials will be conducting some checks at the airport as we speak,' she said.

Ms Berejiklian said officials may check ID to determine a visitor's residence before granting entry to NSW.

Meanwhile, a Sydney supermarket worker who tested positive to COVID-19 after spending two weeks in hotel quarantine in Victoria has been deemed a low-risk by state health authorities.

A health worker is seen giving out a coronavirus test in Melbourne on Thursday (pictured) after 36 suburbs were put on lockdown

The NSW man spent two weeks in hotel quarantine in Victoria and tested positive to COVID-19 after returning to Sydney and working at Woolworths in Balmain.

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the man tested positive to the virus after his employer noticed he had minor symptoms.

He worked at the store on June 27-28 and 50 employees are now in isolation after being identified as close contacts. The store has undergone a deep clean.

The man had been in hotel quarantine in Victoria from June 11 to June 26 after flying from Bangladesh. He tested positive to COVID-19 on day four of his quarantine period.

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

Dr Chant said he was assessed as not infectious and cleared of the virus before he was discharged, but it's unclear if this assessment included another COVID-19 test.

The man travelled from Melbourne to Sydney on a Jetstar flight JQ510 on June 26 and authorities are contacting passengers who could be considered close contacts.

The man had worn a mask on his flight from Melbourne to Sydney, but there are still concerns he could have infected those sitting near him.

He reported persistent symptoms to NSW Health in Sydney and is believed to have been at the 'tail end' of the infection while he was working at the store.

'The level of virus detected is very, very low ... but because he's also got symptoms we're just treating this as the utmost of precaution that he may be infectious,' Dr Chant told said on Thursday.

'We do assess the risk as low.'

She said remnants of the virus may still exist in people for up to eight weeks, but people are deemed non-infectious if they're symptom-free for 72 hours and if at least 10 days have passed since the onset of symptoms.

One patient in NSW is currently in intensive care and 68 people are being treated by NSW Health.

The woman, who was waiting to receive the results of a COVID-19 test, was intercepted by police at Central Station in Sydney on Thursday morning (pictured, officials at the station)

Some 3211 total confirmed cases have been reported in NSW from more than 870,000 COVID-19 tests.

People trying to enter NSW stadiums from this week will also be required to show their driver's licence to prove they're not from Victoria.

But the NSW-Victoria border will not be closed.

Meanwhile, limits on attendance numbers in NSW were relaxed from Wednesday for funerals, weddings, places of worship and community sport, as long as the one-person-per-four-square-metre rule applies.
HM Cutter Seeker  one of the largest in the UK Border Force's fleet  races through the English Channel having plucked 21 migrants from their dinghy.

Hours later its detachable inflatable boat takes eight more migrants to Dover after intercepting them in the water.

Within minutes, Seeker's sister vessel Speedwell, with at least six migrants on board, is spotted tugging a white dinghy back to British shores.

In just one 24-hour period last week, the Mail captured the extraordinary farce unfolding on Britain's sea border as this apparently formidable patrol appeared powerless to prevent an escalating human catastrophe.

HM Cutter Seeker  one of the largest in the UK Border Force's fleet  races through the English Channel having plucked 21 migrants from their dinghy

Our bird's-eye view  taken from a helicopter high over the Channel  shows the desperate risks dozens of people take every day in the hope of a better life.

The people picked up by the Border Force  refugees and economic migrants  faced a perilous journey across the Channel in the dead of night.

Many of them would have launched from the new 'Jungle' camp in the Dunes area of Calais, meeting brutal people-smugglers on darkened beaches between Calais and Les Hemmes de Marck.

These professional smugglers reportedly charge up to 5,000 for a seat on an inflatable Zodiac boat, or up to 800 for a kayak.

Other smugglers have charged up to 11,000 for a place on a boat.

This summer there have been dozens of vessels launching at once.

On just one day last month, June 3, 166 migrants made the crossing aboard eight vessels  smashing the previous total of 145 on one day the previous month.

After several days of launches, the boats run out and the vessels become more desperate  two surfboards tied together and, last week, an inflatable rubber ring.

There are no official figures for the number of migrants who lose their lives in the Channel.

Last Thursday morning, on the hottest day of the year, the co-ordinated land, air and sea operation could have been mistaken for the backdrop to a war movie.

In addition to the two Border Force cutters, a French Navy warship patrolled the coast of Calais. Police vans stood guard on the Kent hills.

Our bird's-eye view  taken from a helicopter high over the Channel  shows the desperate risks dozens of people take every day in the hope of a better life. The people picked up by the Border Force  refugees and economic migrants  faced a perilous journey across the Channel in the dead of night

Below the Mail's helicopter, 1,200ft in the air, an English-French military drone scoped the horizon.

It represents the front line in a very modern battle to bring Britain's spiralling migrant crisis under control.

Yet victory is nowhere in sight.

The patrol operation starts long before dawn. By 3am last Thursday morning the drone hovered over the Channel and at 7am the cutters, French patrol boat and police vans were in place.

By 7.30am the first migrants had already landed. Eight arrived on the sandy shores of Kingsdown, east of Dover, having made the journey across the Channel overnight.

They headed to nearby woods before being found by police.

This is unusual; the vast majority of migrants are picked up on the beaches before being able to travel elsewhere.

Hours later HM Cutter Seeker's detachable inflatable boat takes eight more migrants to Dover after intercepting them in the water

Kent Police officers were seen combing country lanes  while a beach-walker stumbled across the migrants' abandoned inflatable dinghy on the shore.

Thirty minutes after this landing, the Border Force intercepted a white inflatable dinghy carrying 13 Syrian and Iraqi nationals, including one woman.

From the air the Mail watched as the 43-metre Seeker, manned by at least 12 staff and one commander, tugged this empty dinghy back to Dover while the migrants, in jeans and orange life-jackets, sheltered from the sun on the upper deck.

Just two hours later, at 9.20am, 13 male migrants and two women landed at Abbot's Cliff beach between Folkestone and Dover.

They were met by Kent Police and the CoastGuard, pulled out of the water and seen by paramedics before being handed to the Border Force.

In this single 24-hour period, 37 migrants reached Britain in illegal boats.

Taken in isolation, the figure may not sound desperately shocking.

Yet these daily landings on the south coast have now become so commonplace that the total number of migrants arriving on illegal vessels so far this year stands at 2,345  far eclipsing the entire 2019 total of 1,890. In 2018, that figure was just 297.

A beach-walker spotted the inflatable dinghy used by eight migrants to cross The Channel. The migrants headed to woods where they were found by police

A total of 702 migrants reached Britain in small boats last month alone.

Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: 'It seems all anyone without a right to come to the UK needs to do to gain permanent entry is set off in a flimsy dinghy from the other side of the Channel and claim asylum the moment they are rescued by a British vessel.

'The traffickers are making fools of us. This is a ludicrous situation which the Government must grip, as they have promised and as the public expect.'

And yet so weak is the Government's grasp on the deepening emergency that it does not even know the total number of illegal immigrants in the UK, according to a damning report by the National Audit Office last month.

The most recent Government figure of 430,000 is 15 years old.

Astonishingly, the same report found that anyone who arrives illegally and manages to evade the authorities for two years is discarded from the total figure.

Seeker's sister vessel Speedwell, with at least six migrants on board, was spotted tugging a white dinghy back to British shores

Images of the French Navy escorting boats of illegal migrants into British waters  and into the arms of the Border Force which travels to meet them  only add to the sense of chaos.

The Mail has been told that both the French Navy and British Border Force are known to switch off their AIS (Automatic Identification Systems) at the same time, rendering their locations in the Channel unidentifiable.

When questioned about this legal yet curiously coordinated Anglo-French absence from maritime radars, a Home Office spokesman declined to comment.

The vast majority of migrants who cross the Channel are male, yet traffickers are known to include at least one woman and child in each boat so authorities will take extra care to save them, according to Migrant Watch UK.

Only the day before the Kingsdown landings, a mother and four-year-old child nearly drowned as the military-style rib they were on suddenly deflated two miles south of Dungeness Point.

They were among 21 migrants on board. In a statement, the private dredging firm tasked by the Coastguard to rescue the migrants described how they pulled the woman and child to safety as the 19 others clung to the side until the RNLI Lifeboat arrived.

They waited in the water for 45 minutes and were eventually transferred to the Border Force. The RNLI declined to comment.

These migrants were among 82 who made the crossing on Wednesday, on another ordinary  yet extraordinary day on the Channel.

Later, there were even claims on maritime radio that four migrants had entered French waters in a 'blue and white inflatable children's paddling pool with oars', according to a source who reported hearing it on Channel 67, a public radio frequency.

A French Navy vessel, PSV Pluvier, is said to have carried out the rescue and discovered 'four men desperately trying to reach the coast of England using oars'.

'The safest course is for the French to stop trafficking boats leaving their shores in the first place,' said Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover.

'Any that do reach us illegally should be sent back  no ifs or buts.'

Between January 2019 and May this year, only 155 migrants were returned to France, according to the Home Office.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has said she is seeking to change the law so boats can be intercepted and turned around by the Border Force before they enter British waters.

She vowed last year to have solved the crisis by the spring, and claimed English Channel crossings from French migrant camps would become an 'infrequent phenomenon'.

Instead, numbers are soaring, and so is the human cost. 'I used to take my kids to the beach,' said a father living in Kingsdown, who asked not to be named.

The migrants wore life jackets and peered over the edge of the boat as the dinghy they had been in floated next to them

'I've found bodies there before. It's something you can't unsee once you've seen them.

'The potential for people dying [when they make the crossing] is massive. It's escalated so much. What's going to happen next?'

The Home Office has now spent almost 62million funding patrols along the French coast in five years, begging obvious and very serious questions about its value for money.

A Home Office spokesman said the French had stopped more than 1,000 migrants from making the journey this year.

Police and coastguard members also retrieved this boat from Britain's shores

Chris Philp, Minister for Immigration Compliance and the Courts, said: 'We are returning people who are arriving to our country illegally and Border Force, the National Crime Agency and French law enforcement continue to dismantle the ruthless criminal gangs who facilitate these crossings.'

A spokesman for the Maritime & Coastguard Agency said it was 'committed to safeguarding life around the seas and coastal areas of this country', adding that 'it is only concerned with preservation of life, rescuing those in trouble and bringing them safely back to shore.'

The National Audit Office concluded last month that the 392million annual budget for Immigration Enforcement did not represent good value for the British taxpayer.

With no remedy to the crisis in sight, this may come to be seen as a huge underestimate.
The Prime Minister faced a furious backlash yesterday after his father flew to his Greek villa in brazen defiance of pandemic travel warnings.

The Mail yesterday revealed that Stanley Johnson, 79, jetted to his four-bed home  ignoring Foreign Office guidance which says no one should travel unless it is essential.

The former Tory Euro-MP dodged Greeces ban on direct flights from the UK by flying from Luton to Athens via Bulgaria, sharing videos and images of his journey on Instagram.

Stanley Johnson posted a selfie on his Instagram feed during his trip to Greece on Wednesday

Mr Johnson travelled to his mountain retreat in Pelion, outside Athens, pictured, where he claimed he was making it Covid secure ahead of the letting season for holiday makers

Mr Johnson flew via Sofia, Bulgaria to avoid Greece's ban on direct flights from the UK

Speaking from his mountain-view villa in Pelion  which he lets out to tourists  Mr Johnson said Greek officials were happy to allow him in and the ban only seemed to apply to bulk arrivals of British holidaymakers. MPs said the incident stinks of one rule for them and another rule for the rest of us and claimed it echoed No 10 aide Dominic Cummings infamous lockdown trip to Barnard Castle.

More than 400,000 sunseekers are thought to have had their Greek holidays ruined by government delays in relaxing the global travel warning, along with Greeces decision to ban direct flights from the UK until July 15.

During the lockdown, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said foreign summer holidays are effectively cancelled following the Foreign Office travel warning. As a Greek news website branded Stanley Johnsons trip unbelievable, MPs urged Boris Johnson to explain why his father appears to be bound by a different set of rules to those imposed on ordinary holidaymakers.

Labours aviation spokesman Mike Kane said: The Government have been all over the place with their plans for a quarantine or air bridges, but what is clear is that the guidance is against any foreign travel at the moment.

Speaking in the Commons, Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael said: This is simply further evidence that when it comes to following the rules, it is one rule for the Conservatives and one rule for everyone else. Whilst the Prime Minister is continuing to ask people to make huge sacrifices... he must reflect on how much of a kick in the teeth these reports will be.

Labours Rosena Allin-Khan, a shadow minister and A&E doctor, wrote on Twitter: Most people have been following the guidelines and socially distancing  not everyone will get a holiday this year.

Those closest to the Prime Minister have different rules though. Fellow Labour MP Kate Osborne added: Theyre laughing directly in the face of people up and down this country. Shame.

Mr Johnson, pictured with a friend, would not comment when approached yesterday

Liberal Democrat Jamie Stone said the incident stinks of one rule for them and another rule for the rest of us.

The Foreign Office currently advises British nationals against all but essential international travel. It is up to travellers to decide whether their trip is essential.

Mr Johnson said on Wednesday night: Im in Pelion on essential business trying to Covid-proof my property in view of the upcoming letting season. I need to set up distancing measures at the property because theyre taking it very seriously here.

The Prime Ministers spokesman said: In relation to Foreign Office advice, that is what it is  it is advice. It is for individuals to make judgments themselves.

Stanley Johnson declined to comment further yesterday.
There is never a good time for the proverbial bad penny to turn up, so imagine how the Queen received news of the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell and her appearance in court on sex-trafficking charges.

Maxwell was once a welcome visitor to royal homes, an overnight guest at Sandringham as well as being invited to one of the starriest parties ever thrown at Windsor Castle, the so-called Dance of the Decades in the summer of 2000.

Nor was that her only invitation to royal glamour at Windsor. In 2006 she was a guest at Princess Beatrices lavish costume ball to mark her 18th birthday.

On another occasion the vivacious socialite was photographed at Prince Andrews side in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, where admission is at Her Majestys discretion.

Yesterday, with the Queen still in lockdown with Prince Philip at Windsor, there must have been the iciest of feelings at the news that the daughter of disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell had been taken into custody.

Queen Elizabeth II attends a military ceremony in the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle to mark her borthday on June 13, 2020 in Windsor

As a mother, Her Majesty will, of course, be anxious about what Maxwells arrest and her knowledge of the alleged activities of paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein mean for her son.

And as monarch there will be anger at the prospect of the good name of the Royal Family being dragged through the mud once again.

No family matter has concerned her more than the shadow hanging over Andrew. To her, it is infinitely more serious than the selfish trivialities of the exiled Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex.

For more than seven months it has been an ongoing crisis, with every sordid revelation lapping that bit closer to Buckingham Palace.

Ever since that Newsnight interview in which Andrew spectacularly failed to offer any sympathy for Epsteins victims and showed no remorse over his friendship with the billionaire sex offender, fears about the implications for the Prince have multiplied.

Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, aged 17 at Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse in London, Britain on March 13 2001

Maxwells arrest changes everything. She, remember, is in the famous photo of Andrew with his arm around the bare midriff of teenager Virginia Roberts  a picture of which the Duke of York has no recollection  which was taken by Epstein in Maxwells Belgravia home.

Does she really believe Andrews insinuations that the photo was doctored or manipulated?

Then there is the most damaging claim of all from Roberts, who says that, aged 17, she and Andrew had sex three times. The Prince denies it.

If anyone knows the truth it must be Maxwell, whom Andrew befriended during visits to New York after his divorce from the Duchess of York.

It was through Maxwell that Andrew was introduced to Epstein, who was found dead in his New York prison cell a year ago. And on all those social occasions  including Beatrices party  where Ghislaine was a guest of Andrew, so, too, was Epstein.

As the Royal Family and their advisers have agonised over how best to protect the integrity of the monarchy from the fall-out of the Epstein affair, there may be some slim consolation.

Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell at Ascot. With them are Edward (far left) and Caroline Stanley (far right)

The charges brought by the FBI against Maxwell relate to a period in the mid-1990s  before Prince Andrew had ever met the sleazy Epstein.

Perhaps more significantly, the decision to strip Andrew of all royal duties and force him to step down from official engagements looks even more of a wise move.

With the benefit of hindsight, the prompt action  brokered by Prince Charles and Prince William  has been the only moment when the royals have been on the front foot. Andrews stubborn failure to sever contacts with Epstein after he was first accused of under-age sex offences, was the major contributor to his own downfall.

He did, belatedly, end up cutting ties with him  but only after he was photographed walking with the financier in Central Park, New York.

Yet he continued to keep up his friendship with Ghislaine, the woman who brought them together and who was described as Jeffreys pimp.

Although the relationship between the two was said to be platonic, their lives were so intertwined that Fergie was reported to have become concerned that Maxwell was exerting an unhealthy influence on him. Even so, the two remained friends.

In the Newsnight interview, Andrew admitted he had seen Maxwell last year. The meeting, he said, was before Epsteins arrest on sex-trafficking charges last July and that they did not discuss the billionaire. He said: There wasnt anything to discuss because he wasnt in the news.

Epstein and Maxwell met in New York, where she had set up home following the death of her father, who fell from his yacht and drowned in 1991.

She was a pivotal figure on the New York social scene. Great fun, always was, still is, said a friend. Im not at all surprised that Prince Andrew likes her. She is full of energy, full of plans.

She would ring and say: Ten of us are going to a restaurant then a club. Do come, it will be fun. She was persuasive, too, and Andrew loved that.

By 2000 Maxwell and Andrew, who were introduced by the Duchess when she was a regular fixture on the New York party circuit, were very close.

But they were not a couple. She would even introduce him to future girlfriends, such as Emma Gibbs. They were often seen together in public.

The pair caused a minor stir when they made an appearance at a Ralph Lauren launch in the city. One source observed: They certainly seemed to have a good time together. Andrew was also a regular guest at the dinner parties she would hold at the home of Epstein, who was by then her ex-boyfriend, on the Upper East Side.

Such was the importance of the role Maxwell played in Andrews life that it was even claimed he once asked the Queens permission to take her on an official work trip. This was refused.

Andrew was widely criticised after he appeared with Maxwell at a pimps and prostitutes theme party thrown by the model Heidi Klum.

To his ex-wife, such behaviour was beginning to damage his reputation. She was also concerned at the effect it would have on their daughters.

In 2001, when Andrew was about to take up his role as Britains trade envoy, a friend of the Duchess told the Mail on Sunday: Fergie and a lot of other people who love Andrew believe his friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein has become really dangerous. Theyre using him just for his name and access and he is so innocent he doesnt realise.

How prophetic those words were to become. Among courtiers there is considerable anxiety about what Maxwells arrest means for the Duke of York. They believe that such is her intimate knowledge of Epstein, she could damn Andrew or clear him.

For Andrew, his reputation is gone  but for the Queen at 94, this latest twist to one of the most unpalatable episodes of her reign can only be troubling.
One of Jeffrey Epsteins victims yesterday declared his sex trafficking ring had finally been taken down.

Jennifer Araoz, who claims the financier raped her when she was 15, described Ghislaine Maxwell as the centre of that ring.

She said Epsteins victims could take a breath of relief following Maxwells dramatic arrest, adding: I know that I cant be hurt any more.

Miss Araoz claims one of Epsteins recruiters picked her up outside her school in New York in 2001 when she was just 14.

They persuaded her to come to Epsteins 65million mansion, where he later raped her.

She said yesterday: My fellow Epstein survivors and I are able to take a breath of relief, as Maxwells arrest means some justice for survivors can exist.

Jennifer Araoz (pictured centre outside a hearing into Epstein's case in August 2019, in New York) who claims the financier raped her when she was 15, described Ghislaine Maxwell as the centre of that ring

For years I feared Epstein and his ring. Maxwell was the centre of that sex trafficking ring. Now that the ring has been taken down, I know that I cant be hurt any more.

Day after day, I have waited for the news that Maxwell would be arrested and held accountable for her actions. Her arrest is a step in that direction, and it truly means that the justice system didnt forget about us.

Among those who welcomed the news was lawyer David Boies, whose clients include Prince Andrews accuser Virginia Roberts.

The 36-year-old says she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York three times when she was just 17.

Mr Boies, who also represents Epstein victims Sarah Ransome, Juliette Bryant, Teresa Helm and sisters Maria and Annie Farmer, said: This is a great day for justice. Jeffrey Epstein did not and could not have acted alone.

Our clients are very pleased, and very grateful, to the prosecutors that this important step has been taken towards bringing Jeffrey Epsteins co-conspirators to justice.

Mr Boies, who also represents Epstein victims Sarah Ransome (right), Juliette Bryant, Teresa Helm and sisters Maria (left) and Annie Farmer, welcomed the news of Maxwell's arrest

A mugshot of paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. He is thought to have attacked hundreds of victims

Gloria Allred, who represents 16 of Epsteins victims, said: I hope that finally [Maxwell] will be accountable if the evidence presented in court proves beyond a reasonable doubt that she had a role in assisting and recruiting young girls to be sex trafficked and sexually victimised.

Lisa Bloom, who represents five Epstein victims, said: Maxwells brutal, ruthless behaviour caused my clients tremendous pain. We applaud her long overdue arrest today.

'All others accused of enabling Jeffrey Epsteins predations must immediately be brought to justice as well.

Spencer Kuvin, who represents six Epstein victims, sounded a note of caution. We are very happy that the attorneys office has decided to move forward on this arrest, which is hopefully just the beginning, he said.

Were hopeful that there will continue to be additional arrests with respect to other co-conspirators.

His victims  feared to number in the hundreds  include British former Playboy model Anouska de Georgiou, (pictured) who says she was groomed as a child by Epstein after meeting him in London in the 1990s

However, he added some victims are very sceptical because there have been arrests in the past and the US government has not followed through.

Epstein struck a deal with officials in 2009 which saw him admit soliciting a minor for prostitution but receive just 18 months in jail.

He was rearrested last year but killed himself in prison while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

His victims  feared to number in the hundreds  include British former Playboy model Anouska de Georgiou, who says she was groomed as a child by Epstein after meeting him in London in the 1990s.

When Jeffrey would see me he would physically shake because he wanted to get at me, she recounted last year, telling US TV network NBC: If youre a young person walking into a mansion... and all the people who are present are acting as though this is OK and youre the only one who thinks its weird, its hard to say something.
Two men including a George Floyd protest organizer have been arrested for arson over the blaze at the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was shot dead by cops.

John Wade, 33, and Chisom Kingston, 23, were taken into custody overnight in connection with the June 13 fire at the fast food joint in Atlanta, Georgia, authorities confirmed Thursday.

This takes the arrests over the fire up to three after Brooks' girlfriend Natalie White, 29, was arrested on suspicion of setting the fire last month. White has since been released on bond.

The restaurant was burned to the ground one day after Brooks was shot dead in the drive-thru lane by Atlanta cop Garrett Rolfe during a DUI arrest back on June 12.

John Wade, 33, (left) and Chisom Kingston, 23, (right) have been arrested for arson over the blaze at the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was shot dead by cops

Atlanta Fire Investigators announced the arrests of the two new suspects in the arson attack Thursday.

Kingston and Wade were taken into custody overnight Wednesday by the fire department, in conjunction with local, state and federal authorities, Atlanta Fire Rescue said.

The two men have been charged with first degree arson and have been booked into Fulton County Jail.

Atlanta Fire and Rescue released a photo Wednesday of two men seen standing outside the nearby University Avenue restaurant about the time of the fire and said they were looking to identify and question them as part of their investigation.

The two men were taken into custody overnight in connection with the June 13 fire (pictured) at the fast food joint in Atlanta, Georgia, authorities confirmed Thursday

The restaurant was burned to the ground one day after Brooks (pictured) was shot dead in the drive-thru lane by Atlanta cop Garrett Rolfe during a DUI arrest back on June 12

It has not been confirmed whether Kingston or Wade are the individuals authorities were looking for.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Wade was one of the key organizers of protests across Atlanta demanding an end to police brutality and systemic racism following the Memorial Day 'murder' of black man George Floyd at the hands of white cop Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis.

Atlanta protests were further ignited when unarmed Brooks was shot dead just two weeks later.

The Wendys was then burned to the ground the next day during a large protest over Brooks' killing.

Atlanta Fire and Rescue released a photo Wednesday of two men seen standing outside the nearby University Avenue restaurant about the time of the fire and said they were looking to identify and question them as part of their investigation

Atlanta Fire Investigators announced the arrests of the two new suspects in the arson attack Thursday. Wendy's in flames on June 13

The above image shows an aerial shot of the Wendy's after it was destroyed

This takes the arrests over the fire up to three after Brooks' girlfriend Natalie White, 29, (pictured in her mug) was arrested on suspicion of setting the fire last month

On June 23, White was arrested on suspicion of starting the fire.

Police issued an arrest warrant for her on June 20 and shared surveillance footage of her inside a store.

Brooks was married but on the night of his death, while talking to police, he told them he was at Wendy's to pick up food for him and his 'girlfriend', 'Natalie White'.

White's attorney Drew Findling confirmed to DailyMail.com last month that White and Brooks were 'very close' but declined to share more details of their relationship out of respect to Brooks' wife Tomika Miller.

White has since been released on bond.

Brooks was killed as he ran from cops in the drive-thru of the Wendy's.

Bodycam footage of the incident shows the black man being approached by the officers after he was found asleep at the wheel of his car.

The officers tried to arrest him and he struggled, eventually reaching for and grabbing one of the officer's Tasers.

He ran away and was shot twice in the back by Rolfe when he turned to fire the Taser in Rolfe's direction.

Rolfe was fired from the police and charged with felony murder and 10 other offenses over Brooks' death.

Officials revealed Wednesday he had been released from jail on bail awaiting trial.

Devin Brosnan, the other cop, was placed on desk duty by the force and is now charged with aggravated assault and violating his oath.

Brooks pictured with his wife and three daughter in this undated photograph

Brooks' wife Tomika Miller, holding one of their children, at his funeral with the rest of their children
Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a statewide mandate requiring Texans to wear face masks in public in counties with 20 or more COVID-19 cases, as the state reels from a startling surge in infections after reopening.

On Thursday Abbott issued the mandate, which goes into effect Friday, stressing that he wants to keep businesses open but Texans have to do their 'part to protect one another'.

Those who violate the face mask ordinance will be issued a first time warning. After a second violation there will be a fine of up to $250. Abbott said that no one will be jailed for not wearing a face mask.

Its a dramatic reversal for Abbott who had been outspoken about reopening the state and previously banned local governments from penalizing people who didnt wear masks in public.

On Thursday Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statewide mandate requiring all people to wear face masks in public in counties with 20 or more COVID-19 cases

This graph shows how the number of daily new coronavirus cases in Texas has soared in June

This graph shows how the positivity rate of coronavirus cases over a seven day period in June has surpassed the previous peak in April in Texas

This graph shows how hospitalizations for COVID-19 have also spiked in late June in Texas

He warned that the spikes in cases aren't limited to just big cities saying, 'more than 91 counties have hit record-high numbers in just the past three days.'

'COVID-19 is not going away. In fact, it's getting worse.'

'We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one anotherand that means wearing a face covering in public spaces, he said in a video message shared on social media.

Abbott also urged people to stay home if they can and avoid large groups.

'Likewise, large gatherings are a clear contributor to the rise in COVID-19 cases. Restricting the size of groups gatherings will strengthen Texas ability to corral this virus and keep Texans safe,' he said.

Cezi Buntyn and Zeke Salazar give job search information to people on the sidewalk outside the Workforce Solutions Borderplex North Loop Center on Thursday in El Paso, Texas as coronavirus cases in the state rise

Melissa Flores hands out diapers during a drive through food pantry distribution by Catholic Charities during the coronavirus pandemic in Dallas on Thursday

A service technician wears a protective suit as he uses an electrostatic gun to clean Villaggio del Vino in Tyler, Texas amid worries over a spike in COVID-19 cases in the state

He announced a proclamation giving mayors and county judges the ability to impose restrictions on some outdoor gatherings of over 10 people and mandating that people must keep a social distance of six feet.

He also urged his constituents to stay home when possible, but stressed that his announcement is not a 'stay-at-home order'.

On Wednesday alone Texas reported 8,076 new cases of coronavirus. As of Thursday the total number of infections throughout the Lone Star state stood at 175,977 and the number of fatalities at 2,525.

Texas isnt the only state reeling from a startling surge in cases.

In Florida on Thursday 10,108 new cases of COVID-19 were reported, marking a new single-day record for the state. Florida now has 169,106 cases and 3,617 deaths.

Thursday is the 25th consecutive day that the state has set a record high in its seven-day rolling average.

'I think its pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction,' Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, said on the rise in cases.

Nationally, cases have passed 2,715,000 with more than 128,000 deaths as the US scrambles to control the spread of the virus.
Thousands of people tried to claim the $1,500-a-fortnight jobkeeper payment at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic despite not being eligible for the handout.

Australia's Tax Office has knocked back more than 6,500 applicants who tried to rort the benefit scheme introduced to assist those who lost work during the lockdown.

More than three million people were receiving the JobKeeper handout at the peak of the pandemic, before restrictions were gradually lifted in May.

As of last month the ATO had paid out almost $13billion in JobKeeper payments to 872,482 businesses, The ABC reports.

The ATO has warned that workers and business owners who are detected receiving the payment, despite not qualifying, could be required to pay the money back

Thousands of people not eligible for JobKeeper still tried to claim the $1,500-a-fortnight payment at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (pictured, a queue outside Centrelink in Melbourne)

Lengthy queues stretched outside Centrelink offices (pictured, in Sydney) as more than three million people tried to claim government assistance in the days after losing their jobs

'At any particular time, we are reviewing between two and three per cent of JobKeeper applications,' an ATO spokeswoman said.

'We will identify those who are intentionally defrauding the system and we will use the full force of the law [to punish them].'

Some of the rejected applications also include sacked workers who made genuine mistakes on their paperwork.

More applications could still be rejected with the ATO introducing a team designed to specifically weed out potential rorters.

The Australian Federal Police is already investigating potential fraud relating to the jobkeeper payments through the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce.

Anyone caught deliberately defrauding the scheme could face fines or jail time.

Letters were also sent to some 8,000 business across the country this week warning them that they may be asked to repay the money they received during COVID-19.

Closed shops are seen in Crowns Nest, Sydney on May 13 (pictured) with 872,482 businesses claiming JobKeeper payments

More than 8,000 businesses who were forced to shut up shop during the COVID-19 pandemic (pictured, an empty cafe in east Sydney)

Among them were a large number of soletraders who came into operation after July 1 last year and turned over less than $75,000.

As such they did not have a tax return to lodge as part of the JobKeeper application.

'If we don't hear anything within 14 days we will advise you that the entity will not receive further payments under this entitlement,' the ATO email reads, according to The Age.

'If you have made an honest mistake you may not have to repay amounts you have already received.'

Some sole traders who lost almost their entire income have been left fearful they will be financially ruined by having to repay the handout they received appropriately.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg (left) and Prime Minister Scott Morrison (right) expected that more than $130 billion would need to be handed out as part of the jobkeeper scheme, but closer to $70 billion has been required

The JobKeeper application form states that if business owners or workers are unsure if they are eligible for the entitlement they should phone the ATO.

An ATO spokesperson confirmed that after a difficult time for both businesses and workers they will work to ensure anyone who qualified for handouts receives them.

'We are unable to pay businesses that do not meet the requirements of the law,' the spokeswoman said.

'The ATO will work with business owners to avoid and overcome honest mistakes.'
China issued a chilling warning to Australia 'not to go down the wrong path' after Scott Morrison announced he was considering offering a safe haven to Hong Kong residents.

Violent protests have spread across Hong Kong after China brought in a controversial national security law.

The new laws criminalise collusion with foreign forces and acts that undermine the Chinese state, with threats of tough lifelong prison sentences.

The prime minister said the situation in Hong Kong was 'very concerning' and the government was 'very actively' considering proposals for Australia to welcome in residents.

'When we have made a final decision on those arrangements then I'll make the announcements,' Mr Morrison told reporters on Thursday.

Violent protests have spread across Hong Kong after China brought in a controversial national security law criminalising acts that undermine the Chinese state with life imprisonment

China has warned Australia 'not to go down the wrong path' after Scott Morrison announced the government was considering becoming a safe haven to Hong Kong residents

The new laws criminalise collusion with foreign forces and acts that undermine the Chinese state, with threats of tough lifelong prison sentences. Pictured: Riot police block the street and raise a warning flag during violent protests

But the Chinese government has issued a stark warning to Australia and United Kingdom - who also offered Hongkongers a safe haven.

'Compare the security of Hong Kong with our relations with other countries; it is clear at a glance which one is more important,' Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

He called on both nations to 'remedy their mistake' and said offering support to fleeing Hong Kong residents as 'the wrong path'.

The situation has further inflamed tensions with Beijing after Australia enraged the communist nation by calling for an independent investigation into the origins of coronavirus.

China has warned its students and tourists against going to Australia, slapped trade sanctions on Australian goods and sentenced an Australian citizen to death for drug trafficking.

The new laws in Hong Kong criminalise secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces.

A teenage girl waving an independence flag was among hundreds of people arrested during protests against the laws in Hong Kong this week.

China bypassed Hong Kong's Legislative Council to pass the sweeping legislation without public consultation.

Violent protests have spread across Hong Kong after China brought in a controversial national security law (pictured, a protester after being teargassed by police on July 1)

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people on Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in defiance of the sweeping security legislation introduced by China (pictured, police pin down a protester on July 1)

Foreign Minister Marise Payne expressed deep concern about the 'troubling' laws and warned the world would continue watching Hong Kong closely.

Senator Payne said the laws threatened Hong Kong's judicial independence and the rights and freedoms of its people.

The Chinese embassy in Australia condemned her remarks and accused the minister of meddling in Hong Kong's affairs.

'We strongly deplore (the) Australian foreign minister's statement,' the embassy said in a statement.

'We hope the Australian side takes an objective and rational view on the legislation, abide by international law and basic norms of international relations, and stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs.'

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people on Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in defiance of the sweeping security legislation introduced by China to snuff out dissent.
The heads of America's top business and manufacturing groups wrote a letter to President Trump Thursday asking the federal government to step in and issue guidelines on mask-wearing.

The business bosses also asked that businesses and non-profits 'not be held liable for refusing entry or services to an individual who is not complying with face covering requirements.'

They agreed with Trump that the decision to impose face-covering requirements should be left to state and local governments, but the federal government needed to inform those decison by providing 'clear and consistent guidance based on data.'

America's top business and manufacturing group leaders wrote a letter to President Trump (pictured) Thursday asking him to issue federal mask guidelines, including that businesses can't be sued for refusing service to those refusing to comply

Videos have gone viral at businesses like Walmart, where employees have tried to prevent mask-less shoppers from entering, prompting an altercation. The business leaders proposal to Trump would prevent Walmart from being sued over such incidents

'We believe that a national mask standard, implemented locally, offers the surest way to protect public health and promote economic recovery,' the letter said.

The letter was signed by U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue, Business Roundtable President & CEO Joshua Bolten, National Association of Manufacturers President & CEO Jay Timmons, National Retail Federation President & CEO Matthew Shay and American Council of Life Insurers President & CEO Susan K. Neely.

Additionally Glenn Hamer, who serves as both Arizona's Chamber of Commerce and Industry chair and the chair of the Chamber of Commerce's Committee of 100 signed on, as did Anne Forristall Luke, the president and CEO of the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association and the chair of the Council of Manufacturing Associations.

The business leaders point out in the opening of their letter that 'issuing voluntary guidance on masks is insufficient' and they fear that if the current COVID-19 outbreak isn't flattened 'communities across America risk another round of shutdowns, broad restrictions on non-essential activities, and irreparable economic harm.'

They point out that the requirements vary widely

'For example, there is variation on whether the mandate applies to all businesses, to just employees or also customers, and exemptions for age or other health conditions (e.g. asthma),' they wrote.

The business leaders also point out that there's confusion over who needs to enfore the mask-wearing policies.

'It has also contributed to confrontations between customers and employees and litigation from both direction,' they note.

Videos have gone viral that have shown these confrontations, like one shot at a Florida Walmart that shows an employee trying to block the entry of an unmasked shopper, who shoves the worker and then, himself, falls.

Western Pennsylvania grocer Giant Eagle has been sued for allegedly violating the American Disabilities Act for not accomodating people with conditions like allergies and anxiety who can't wear masks. The business leaders have asked Trump to protect businesses from suits

There have been droves of lawsuits too, like ones filed in Western Pennsylvania over grocer Giant Eagle's mask-wearing policy, alleging the supermarket is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act for not accomodating people with conditions like asthma, allergies and anxiety who can't wear masks.

The business leaders laid out three demands for the president.

The first was to establish what coronavirus metrics are needed - such as number of positive cases or hospitalizations in a municapality - for mandatory mask-wearing requirements to kick in.

They then asked Trump to develop simple, mandatory mask policies that 'do not impose the enforcement burden on organizations without such expertise, such as businesses and non-profits.'

And then the third ask would give businesses legal cover if they refuse service to customers who arrive mask-less.

In an interview with Fox Business Network Wednesday, Trump - who notoriously has been wary of mask-waring - said he was still against federalizing a mask mandate, though sounded more open to wearing a mask personally.

'I'd have no problem,' he said. 'Actually, I had a mask on, I sort of liked the way I looked, I thought it was OK. It was a dark, black mask and I thought I looked OK. It looked like the "Lone Ranger."'
When she first welcomed British 'morality' campaigner Mary Whitehouse to her home town of St Louis, Missouri, in December 1972, America's own self-appointed moral guardian, Phyllis Schlafly, might have wondered whether she was looking at a mirror image of herself.

Both favouring twin-sets, the two women also sported stiffly lacquered hairstyles  but the similarities between them went far beyond their prim appearance.

Middle-aged matrons they might have been, but both were experts at  and relished  riling their opponents.

Hugh Carleton-Greene, the BBC's director-general between 1960 and 1969, was so often provoked by Whitehouse that he bought a caricature of her, naked with six breasts, and threw darts at it in his office.

When she first welcomed British 'morality' campaigner Mary Whitehouse to her home town of St Louis, Missouri, in December 1972, America's own self-appointed moral guardian, Phyllis Schlafly, might have wondered whether she was looking at a mirror image of herself

As for Schlafly, a Roman Catholic mother of six who was the scourge of America's feminists, she would begin her speeches by first thanking her husband, Fred, for allowing her to attend whichever gathering she was addressing.

'I like to say that, because I know it irritates women's libbers more than anything else,' she admitted.

'And it certainly worked. The Feminine Mystique author and activist Betty Friedan once described Schlafly as a 'witch' whom she'd like to see 'burned at the stake'.

Back in 1972, Whitehouse was in the U.S. to discuss sex education in schools. In Schlafly's view, such classes were akin to providing 'sales parties for abortions'.

Both favouring twin-sets, the two women also sported stiffly lacquered hairstyles  but the similarities between them went far beyond their prim appearance. Middle-aged matrons they might have been, but both were experts at  and relished  riling their opponents

But at the time, the American's attention had been diverted to what was to become her most controversial fight of all  an attempt to thwart the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) legislation guaranteeing women equality under the U.S. Constitution.

That epic battle is the subject of Mrs America, a big-budget new drama series set to air on BBC2 from next week, starring Cate Blanchett  in real life a vocal feminist  as Schlafly.

'I'm never interested in portraying myself,' Blanchett has said. 'Often, the further from my own experience and my set of values, the more fascinating it is.'

By that measure, she will have greatly enjoyed the challenge. But Schlafly's family are furious that no attempt was made to consult them on the making of the drama.

Daughter Anne Schlafly Cori has dismissed the series as 'fictional'.

'Although the producers use my mother's name, characters and dialogue are made up and not historically accurate,' she said, describing the series as offering a 'horrific misrepresentation' of her mother.

'In truth, she was a role model to millions of women.'

The epic battle over Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) legislation guaranteeing women equality under the U.S. Constitution is the subject of Mrs America, a big-budget new drama series set to air on BBC2 from next week, starring Cate Blanchett (pictured) in real life a vocal feminist  as Schlafly

She was not aware of her mother's encounter with Mary Whitehouse, but it's fascinating to speculate how the two women got along.

Both were ultra-conservative Christians who were outspokenly homophobic  as were many people in that less enlightened era  as well as pro-marriage and anti-abortion.

In Schlafly's opinion, it was a legal nonsense to suggest that a husband could rape his wife.

'When you get married you have consented to sex,' she once said. 'That's what marriage is all about.'

Just six months before her death from cancer at the age of 92, she endorsed Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Indeed, Trump gave the eulogy at Schlafly's funeral, describing her as 'a true patriot' and 'hero'

Neither would she have had any truck with the #MeToo movement.

In her view, sexual harassment in the workplace was 'not a problem for virtuous women', and where it did occur it was the fault of temptresses who 'have abandoned the Commandments against adultery and fornication'.

Described by her biographer Carol Felsenthal as 'one of the most hated women of the last century', Schlafly also had critics among her political bedfellows.

One Republican neighbour described her as 'an exponent of an extreme Right-wing philosophy  a propagandist who deals with emotions and personalities where it is not necessary to establish facts or prove charges'.

If that sounds familiar, it should perhaps come as no surprise that in March 2016, just six months before her death from cancer at the age of 92, she endorsed Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Indeed, Trump gave the eulogy at Schlafly's funeral, describing her as 'a true patriot' and 'hero'.

Even those who disagreed with that assessment had to admit she had guts, as demonstrated when a male protester smashed an apple pie into her face during a lunchtime speaking engagement in New York in 1980.

Despite suffering a painfully scratched eye, she calmly wiped away the remains of his carefully chosen missile.

'I'm never interested in portraying myself,' Blanchett has said. 'Often, the further from my own experience and my set of values, the more fascinating it is'

The dish famously represents the traditional American family values Schlafly claimed to champion, and it was a symbol she happily weaponised during the anti-ERA protests she helped mount.

They often presented legislators with gifts of freshly baked bread and apple pies, reminding them of the domestic comforts that were under threat should women be encouraged away from the home.

This obsession with women being homemakers may have stemmed from the straitened circumstances of Schlafly's own childhood.

Born in St Louis in 1924, the elder of two daughters, she was only six when the Depression hit and her father, Bruce, a sales engineer, lost his job.

With her husband out of work, her mother Odile, who had been a teacher before she married, took a job in a St Louis department store and then became a librarian in a museum.

Carol Felsenthal says Schlafly's impatience with women who worked came from seeing her mother have to earn a crust when she would have rather kept house.

Born in St Louis in 1924, the elder of two daughters, Schlafly was only six when the Depression hit and her father, Bruce, a sales engineer, lost his job

Schlafly supported herself through university by working night shifts in a munitions factory and, as her critics were always quick to point out, she never settled fully into domesticity even after marrying her husband, Fred, a wealthy lawyer 15 years her senior, in 1949.

She ran for the House of Representatives, but although unsuccessful, she proved you didn't need to hold office to wield power.

The Republicans were then a predominantly moderate or liberal party. But she became part of an increasingly influential 'moral conservatives' faction that in 1960 tried unsuccessfully to stop 'aggressive action' against segregation becoming a plank of Republican policy.

Although their preferred candidate, the hard-Right Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, went on to lead the Republicans to electoral disaster against Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, she remained a powerful voice within the party, not least through the Phyllis Schlafly Report.

This was a monthly newsletter which, along with regular appearances on radio and TV, mobilised her supporters and informed them about her campaigns, including the fight with women's libbers that cemented her political reputation.

Schlafly supported herself through university by working night shifts in a munitions factory

The battle began in 1972 when Congress passed the ERA. To become law, it had to be ratified by three-quarters of the states, which seemed a formality until Schlafly got to work.

Calling the proposed amendment a 'threat to the traditional American family', she claimed that it would result in women being drafted, the spread of unisex toilets and same-sex marriage.

But her biggest objection was that it would prevent women being fulfilled as housewives  as she herself claimed to be.

With her perfect posture and proud membership of the Daughters of the American Revolution  an organisation for women descended from soldiers who fought for independence  she certainly appeared the epitome of the perfect wife and mother.

She let it be known she had breast-fed all six of her children, and taught them all to read before they started school, and had a simple explanation for how she found time to indulge her 'hobby' of politics.

'I'm organised. I've learned to budget every minute,' she told one interviewer, emphasising that she was careful not to over-do it.

'I have cancelled speeches whenever my husband thought that I had been away from home too much,' she said.

Schlafly let it be known she had breast-fed all six of her children, and taught them all to read before they started school, and had a simple explanation for how she found time to indulge her 'hobby' of politics

What she never seemed to mention was revealed in 2011 when she co-wrote a book called The Flipside Of Feminism with her niece, Suzanne Venker.

When the LA Times challenged Venker to explain her aunt's ability to juggle the demands of motherhood and activism, Venker admitted: 'She had domestic help . . . she wouldn't have called them nannies, but she had people in her home.

'Did she mention that fact? No, she did not.'

This hypocrisy of hiring staff to do the work she claimed was the preserve of a mother was frequently highlighted by Schlafly's opponents, along with other insults.

But she seemed only to relish their opprobrium, especially if her frustrated rivals resorted to attacking her, instead of her position on equal rights for women.

That's not to say Schlafly always held back, once denouncing the ERA activists as 'a bunch of anti-family radicals and lesbians'.

The problem for the feminists was they seemed to go out of their way to prove her right.

'Some of their leaders' statements might have been written by Phyllis Schlafly  so sure were they to strike fear and suspicion in the hearts of housewives (and their husbands),' Felsenthal wrote.

The biographer cited one ERA supporter informing the readers of Time magazine that 'feminism is lesbianism' and another declaring that 'the family, as that term is presently understood, must go'.

'It wasn't male chauvinist pigs who were blocking ERA,' concluded Felsenthal. 'It was women. Too many feminists had appeared on too many talk shows implying that there was something wrong with being 'just a housewife.'

Schlafly and her band of activists prevailed, helped not least by linking the ERA to a controversial 1973 Supreme Court decision legalising abortion and thus diminishing support for the amendment in God-fearing southern states.

Schlafly, pictured above with her husband Fred, ran for the House of Representatives, but although unsuccessful, she proved you didn't need to hold office to wield power

By the 1982 deadline, the amendment had received just 35 ratifications, three short of the 38 needed, and the movement to support it had lost steam.

This freed Schlafly to campaign on other causes, some too contentious even for Ronald Reagan's administration.

When attempts were made to introduce Aids awareness classes into schools in the 1980s, Schlafly decried them as 'the teaching of safe sodomy', and she remained opposed to same-sex marriage  even after her eldest son, John, was outed by a gay magazine in 1992.

Describing this as 'a deliberate strike at me', Schlafly declared that it only showed those responsible to be 'hateful' people.

That, perhaps understandably, was an accusation often levelled at Schlafly herself  but her daughter, Anne, is continuing her work chairing the Eagle Forum, the campaign group her mother founded.

Among their concerns is the impetus the Me Too movement has given to efforts to revive the ERA.

In the past two years, three more states  Nevada, Illinois and Virginia  have given belated approval to the amendment.

That brings the total number of ratifications to 38, but now the Eagle Forum and other lobby groups are insisting the 1982 deadline must be respected.

Experts suggest the issue will be tied up in the courts for years, adding an edge to the series which, for all the Seventies nostalgia it will undoubtedly offer, is far from the stuff of history yet.

MRS America, BBC2, 9pm, Wednesday, July 8.
Air bridges allowing tourists to travel to France, Italy, Spain, Germany and other countries were confirmed late last night.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will today set out exemptions from a number of countries from its 'all but essential' travel guidance from July 4.

However the measures exempting travellers from quarantine will not be in force until July 10.

The majority of passengers will still have to provide contact details when they arrive in England.

Those who have been through countries still on the quarantine list in the past 14 days will still have to self-isolate for two weeks.

The changes will be announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today following a risk assessment by the Joint Biosecurity Centre, in close consultation with Public Health England and the Chief Medical Officer.

Speaking today, Mr Shapps said travellers to England from around 60 countries and overseas territories will no longer have to quarantine when they arrive in the UK.

The government is expected to announce a list of countries that will form part of the quarantine-free air bridge to restart the tourism industry

The Transport Secretary said the Government will be publishing a full list of countries that will be exempt later today.

'There will be a list of 50-plus countries. If you add in the overseas territories (there will be) 60-something-or-other that will be announced later today,' he told Sky News.

Likely list of air bridge countries Andorra

Antigua and Barbuda

Australia

Austria

Bahamas

Barbados

Belgium

Bermuda

Brunei

Canada

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

French Polynesia

Germany

Gibraltar

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Japan

Latvia

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

Luxembourg Malaysia

Malta

Martinique

Monaco

Montenegro

Netherlands

Norway

NZ

Poland

Reunion

San Marino

Serbia

Singapore

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

St Kitts and Nevis

St Lucia

St Pierre and Miquelon

St Vincent and the Grenadines

Switzerland

Taiwan

Trinidad and Tobago

Turkey

Vietnam

Wallis and Futuna Source: The Daily Telegraph Advertisement

'France, Germany, Italy and Spain will be on that list. It is really important that we have done this in a very careful and cautious way. The most important thing is to maintain the gains that we have had.'

However, the Government said it 'expects' that countries on the list will reciprocate, but provided no guarantee of this.

The list will be published today and will be kept under review in case of spikes of the disease in other countries.

The FCO has updated its travel advice so that certain destinations that pose a low risk are no longer on its list banning 'all but essential travel' to them.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: 'Today marks the next step in carefully reopening our great nation. Whether you are a holidaymaker ready to travel abroad or a business eager to open your doors again, this is good news for British people and great news for British businesses.

'The entire nation has worked tirelessly to get to this stage, therefore safety must remain our watch word and we will not hesitate to move quickly to protect ourselves if infection rates rise in countries we are reconnecting with.'

The late announcement came after a day of shambles, the list of nations to which travel will be allowed from Monday without Britons having to quarantine here on their return was repeatedly chopped and changed.

Greece is thought to have fallen off it last night despite previous pledges it would be included.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also refused to sign up to the plan, meaning the lifting of quarantine measures will apply only to English ports and airports.

The decision to press ahead without the rest of the UK raises the prospect that Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon could follow through on her threat to impose quarantines on people arriving from England.

And last night it emerged that just three people have been fined since the controversial quarantine policy - blamed for crippling hopes of a tourism revival - was brought in last month.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News today (above) travellers to England from around 60 countries and overseas territories will no longer have to quarantine upon arrival

Ministers agreed a new 'traffic light' system last week that would pave the way for the creation of so-called 'international travel corridors' designed to allow travellers to visit certain countries this summer without the need to quarantine at either end.

Ministers had originally planned to negotiate bilateral 'air bridges' with a limited number of countries. Under pressure from the travel industry and fears of legal action, this was then widened to a larger group of almost 80 destinations.

At one point yesterday, ministers were ready to lift quarantine against countries deemed safe even if they were imposing quarantine on UK arrivals.

But amid frantic wrangling, they decided this would be politically untenable. The chaos sparked a blame game between London and Edinburgh, with Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg accusing Miss Sturgeon of acting like Donald Trump wanting to 'build a wall' after she refused to rule out 14-day quarantines on arrivals from England.

A passenger wearing a face mask arrives to to board Ryanair flight FR2190 to Malaga at London Southend Airport in Essex on Wednesday

Ministers have spent days trying to agree a UK-wide approach. Privately they accuse Miss Sturgeon of playing politics with the issue in order to fuel nationalist sentiment north of the border.

But a Scottish government source said ministers at Westminster had changed the policy three times in 24 hours, making it impossible for them to sign up. Scotland's justice secretary Humza Yousaf said the number of countries proposed by the UK Government had jumped from 42 to 73 during Wednesday.

He said the original list had 15 countries with a 'green' risk rating and 27 with an 'amber' rating - but 30 minutes before the 6pm meeting they were shown a list of 40 green and 33 amber nations.

The row came as travel agents started abandoning plans to sell holidays this summer due to the uncertainty around air bridges.

Lee Hunt, 42, owner of Deben Travel in Woodbridge, Suffolk, said: 'If customers are paying, we need to guarantee them they are getting everything they pay for. We can't do this at the moment.'

Chris Scoble, 54, of Go Scoble in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said: 'I think we have been put right at the back of the queue, despite being such a large part of this country's economy.'

Responding to the Government's decision to lift quarantine restrictions in England, a spokesman for travel trade organisation Abta said: 'The Government announcement today that lifts quarantine restrictions for returning passengers from 10 July in England will be greeted with huge relief by the travel industry, which can now plan ahead and take summer holiday bookings.

'Travel businesses have been under enormous pressure since the start of the pandemic, and the industry can now start to meet customers' pent-up appetite for travel.

Holidaymakers return to Portals Nous in Mallorca yesterday as Spain starts to return to normal

'Getting the balance of health risk and economic risk is a difficult challenge, and we strongly support the Government in taking this initiative.

'There will be some changes to people's travel experiences because of the health and safety measures in place to limit Covid-19, and it will be important going forward that customers speak to their travel provider so that they can book and travel with confidence.

'And, of course, continued access to overseas destinations depends on our keeping Covid infection and transmission rates low in this country, so everyone should continue to heed public health guidelines.'

A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'The UK Government's latest plans for air bridges, released overnight, include countries which present differing levels of risk.

Ryanair aircraft lined up at London Stansted Airport, the airline's UK base, on Wednesday

'Scottish ministers are actively considering the public health impact of these proposals, as well as the data and evidence underpinning them. Once they have done that they will announce any changes in relation to Scotland.

'The public health measures relating to international travel are an important part of the wider response to this pandemic - to protect people and ensure that we limit the introduction of new chains of transmission of the virus when our own infection rates are falling.

'We will take decisions based on scientific advice to protect communities in Scotland. Of course the prospect of cases coming in from elsewhere poses a risk, not just to health but also to our economy.

'It is important to stress that, at any point, changing prevalence of the virus could lead to quarantine requirements on travel from different countries being put in place.

'It is disappointing that the UK Government have chosen to make an announcement on the countries they intend to exempt before a four-nations agreement has been reached.

'We would still like to reach a four-nations approach if possible but that is difficult when the UK Government change proposals and give us last-minute sight of them.'

Nicola Sturgeon's foot-dragging on air bridges leaving millions in holiday limbo has been a cynical ploy - she's using Covid to try and split the Union, says STEPHEN DAISLEY

Every night at tea time, Scots switch on the TV news to a familiar sight: Nicola Sturgeon peering at them from behind her podium, giving the latest coronavirus figures and sharing her sympathy with those affected.

She is a deft communicator and peerless emoter who has convinced herself that Scotland could not get through the remainder of this crisis without her televised beneficence.

So we gather each evening to learn which of her vast array of powers the First Minister will call upon next. How far can we travel? When can our churches reopen? Where must we wear surgical masks now?

The SNP leader makes all these decisions without reference to Boris Johnson because, in Scotland, devolution takes vast swathes of the Prime Minister's powers and hands them to the occupant of Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister.

And Sturgeon revels in flexing her authority, as her refusal this week to sign up to an agreement over air bridges showed us once again.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wears a Tartan face mask as she visits New Look at Ford Kinaird Retail Park in Edinburgh

Downing Street was expected to publish a list on Monday of countries which will no longer be subject to the 14-day self-isolation rules but, thanks to Ms Sturgeon's grand-standing, the decision has repeatedly been pushed back, causing holiday chaos and stoking growing anger among businesses, such as travel companies and airlines, that have been so hard hit by Covid.

Scotland's First Minister insists she just wants to 'take a bit of time to consider the public health impact' of what is being proposed.

What planet is she on? As agreements on air bridges with other countries have to be made on a UK-wide basis, by refusing to step into line with Downing Street she is throwing the holiday plans of millions of families into chaos

It is an outrageous display of playing politics with the pandemic: holding the UK to ransom to drum up support for her dream of independence.

In response to such accusations, Ms Sturgeon primly says that the very suggestion that political considerations might be a factor in her decision-making are 'frankly disgraceful'. From the high priestess of politicisation, this is spectacular audacity.

She is even considering quarantining visitors to Scotland from south of the border. Boris Johnson's assertion in response that 'there is no such thing as a border between England and Scotland' was a silly, unforced error.

There is a legal boundary, with separate systems of law and law-making, but the nationalist leader's thundering indignation was theatre  and bad theatre, at that.

'If the Prime Minister is questioning that now,' she snipped in rejoinder, 'I'm not sure what he'd say if I pitched up in Newcastle and tried to implement Scottish Government policies there.'

The truth is that the idea of Sturgeon crossing the Tweed into England and finding herself locked in quarantine on her return would find favour with half of Scotland.

But frivolities aside, the mere suggestion that the Scottish Government even contemplates the idea of a quarantine is quite extraordinary. A Scottish quarantine would effectively suspend free movement between the two largest nations of the United Kingdom.

Passengers arrive to Palma de Mallorca airport, Spain amid the coronavirus crisis today

Scotland would be erecting a hard border in the middle of a national emergency and in the run-up to a Scottish Parliament election in which SNP demands for another referendum are certain to take centre stage.

The political symbolism of the act would overshadow any pretext of protecting public health.

Nicola Sturgeon is not naive. She knows all this. Yet she refuses to reject the idea, even though it would sharply divide Scots, trigger a territorial row between Bute House and Downing Street, and do lasting damage to Scotland's vital tourism industry.

Indeed, the Scottish Tourism Alliance warns that holidaymakers from elsewhere in the UK have already begun asking about refunds on bookings.

Meanwhile, it is not clear how such quarantine measures would work in practice. This week Police Scotland said it does not even monitor who is entering the country.

Holiday makers sunbathe on Portals Nous beach today as lockdown restriction ease in Europe

The coronavirus outbreak called for leadership and, at first, Sturgeon appeared to grasp the gravity of the moment.

She acted with caution and spoke sombrely, holding to a four-nations strategy even as the very notion that Scotland should co-ordinate its response with the rest of the UK antagonised some in the grassroots of her party.

But, soon enough, political considerations got the better of her  as they so often do with this First Minister. When she was taken into the fold via Cobra meetings, she angered No 10 by pre-empting the Prime Minister's announcement of a policy shift from containment to delay of the virus.

When Downing Street unveiled its 'Stay Alert' slogan, she refused to use it because it was 'vague and imprecise'. The following month, she announced a motto of her own: 'Stay Safe'.

There is an eye-poking quality to SNP's approach to Middle England, a compulsive need to emphasise small divergences and cast Scotland and England as naturally separate countries.

Passengers wave as they walk along a gangway as an airplane boards from Germany to Greece

Yet, when it comes to efforts to control the virus, the SNP's record is as at least as patchy as that of the Tories in England.

Passengers could face swab tests at Heathrow and other airports, says Transport Secretary An announcement on coronavirus swab tests for air passengers could be made within weeks, the Transport Secretary said yesterday. Grant Shapps said he is speaking to airport handling firm Swissport, who are preparing a trial of a scheme which will involve travellers receiving a swab test after passing through immigration and customs. The tests are similar to those issued by the NHS and can provide results in as little as seven hours. Passengers with positive swabs would be asked to contact the test-and-trace service and complete two weeks of self-isolation. Asked about airport testing for passengers in the Commons yesterday, Mr Shapps said: 'It's very important to ensure we can provide reassurance for passengers but also do something useful with the screening beyond perhaps just what asking people to take a temperature check provides. 'And so we are actively working with Heathrow and other airports to put exactly those types of schemes in place and I will be saying more about those in time for the following review of air corridors.' The Swissport trials are due to take place at an airport which has yet to be named. Asked about the scheme, Mr Shapps said: 'I am indeed in touch with Swissport and following those trials and proposals very closely indeed and as I indicated in a question or two back we do believe it is important to provide international standards and that may well include specific types of testing.' Advertisement

Both governments were sluggish in providing PPE, and both took too long to appreciate the importance of testing and tracing. On testing in particular, the Scottish Government's record has been risible. At one point, only one-third of daily capacity was put to use.

Sturgeon's Health Minister, Jeane Freeman, has also come under fire over the decision to transfer elderly patients from hospitals to care homes, some of them being moved without first being tested for coronavirus.

Back in May, Freeman told the Scottish Parliament only 300 older people had been discharged before compulsory testing was introduced. The actual figure was three times as high.

Sturgeon defended her staunch political ally, saying she might have been 'tired' when she gave the misleading number.

But no dereliction of duty has been quite as appalling as the Scottish Government's handling of the Nike conference outbreak.

The sports giant held an international gathering in an Edinburgh hotel at the end of February.

By March 3, ministers knew at least two people connected to the event had tested positive for Covid-19, but the outbreak was kept secret from the public for another 69 days  when a BBC investigation revealed all. Sturgeon's Government had slipped back into old habits of secrecy and subterfuge.

So far none of this is registering any political impact. With a Holyrood election scheduled for next May, Sturgeon is polling far ahead of the Scottish Conservatives, who have still not recovered from the loss of their former leader Ruth Davidson.

By rights, she could focus on her day job of running the country and coast to another term in Bute House, but that is not Sturgeon's way. She is a fierce ideological animal, wily and lethal, and she lives for the hunt.

This makes her a deadly enemy to her opponents, but it renders her fundamentally ill-suited to governing. The temptation to politicise everything is ever-present because, for Sturgeon, politics is all there is.

Viruses come and go but the nationalist cause endures and, as long as it does, it will always be Nicola Sturgeon's top priority.

She is leader of the SNP first, and First Minister of Scotland a distant second.
Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate general under Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War, earned his nickname because of his staunch defensive tactics.

He was a war hero from the age of 24, spent eight years as a professor known for having strange quirks and died aged 39 in a military hospital after being shot by one of his own men.

The military leader, born Thomas Jonathan Jackson on January 21, 1824, and other drivers of the Confederacy in the southern states of the US between 1961 and 1865 have proved to be controversial in recent years.

Civil rights campaigners claim the American Civil War was sparked because President Abraham Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery in the southern states, which relied heavily on slaves for cotton production. Confederate military leaders have since been viewed by some as figureheads of white supremacy.

Others think Confederate generals are a sign of southern strength at a time when the more federal north wanted more power over individual states.

Stonewall Jackson (pictured), a Confederate general under Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War, earned his nickname because of his staunch defensive tactics

Born in Clarkesburg, Virginia, Jackson's parents, Jonathan Jackson and Julia Beckwith Neale, both died while he was under the age of eight. His father and older sister Elizabeth died from typhoid fever when he was just two years old.

His mother remarried in 1830 but her new husband didn't like Jackson or his two remaining siblings, and they were sent to live with their father's uncles. Their mother died of complications in childbirth the next year.

In 1843 Jackson was enrolled in the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, after the candidate originally chosen by the congressional district dropped out the day after school started.

Three years later he graduated 17th in a class of 59 and fought with distinction in the Mexican-American War under General Winfield Scott during the:

Siege of Veracruz;

Battle of Contreras;

Battle of Chapultepec;

Battle of Mexico City.

After the war ended in 1892 he was promoted to the rank of brevet major and known as a war hero. He retired in 1851 and was offered a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington Virginia, where he taught natural and experimental philosophy.

His students vehemently disliked his cold demeanor and strange quirks - which included constantly holding one arm in the air as he taught because he thought his arms were uneven lengths.

Jackson died on May 10, 1863, eight days after he was accidentally shot by friendly fire

He married twice during his lifetime. His first wife, Elinor Junkin, died during childbirth a year after their 1853 marriage. She gave birth to a stillborn boy. His second, Mary Ann Morrison, had a daughter two years after their marriage. Born in April 1859, the newborn died a month later.

By November Jackson headed back to the army and served as a VMI officer at abolitionist John Brown's execution following Harper's Ferry - when Mr Brown tried to initiate a slave revolt in the southern states by taking over a United States arsenal in the town.

In 1862, four years after their first child died, Jackson's wife gave birth to another daughter, Julia.

At the same time several southern states had declared their independence and the American Civil War was raging between US federal forces and a Confederate army.

Jackson defended his home state of Virginia, despite originally wanting the state to stay part of the US, against the federal army.

He was put in command of the VMP Corps of Cadets on April 21, 1861, and later prepared troops for what would later be called Stonewall Bridge.

Jackson was promoted to the roles of brigadier commander and brigadier general under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston.

It was during the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, that Jackson earned his nickname. When he charged his army ahead to bridge a gap in the defensive line against a union attack, General Bernard E. Bee, impressed, said: 'There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.'

He was promoted to major general for his bravery.

After leading the Confederate army to several victories, Jackson was ordered to join General Robert E. Lee - who he had already fought alongside during the Mexican-American War - in 1862.

While there he led his soldiers through a number of unlikely victories, including:

At the Second Battle of Bull Run in August of 1862, John Pope and his Army of Virginia mistakenly thought Jackson and his soldiers were retreating. It meant General James Longstreet was able to launch a missile assault against the Union Army, ultimately forcing Popes forces to retreat.

Jackson managed to hold his Confederate troops in a defensive position during the bloody battle of Antietam, until Lee ordered his Army of Northern Virginia to withdraw back across the Potomac River.

In October of 1862, General Lee reorganized his Army of Virginia into two corps. After being promoted to lieutenant general, Jackson took command of the second corps, leading them to a decisive victory at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

At the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1863, Jackson struck General Joseph Hookers Army of the Potomac from the rear. The attack created so many casualties that, within a few days, Hooker had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

Jackson died on May 10, 1863, eight days after he was accidentally shot by friendly fire from the 18th North Carolina Infantry Regiment.

At a nearby field hospital, Jacksons arm was amputated. On May 4, Jackson was moved to a second field hospital, in Guinea Station, Virginia.

He died there of complications on May 10, 1863, at the age of 39, after uttering the last words, 'Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of trees.'
Men are more likely to be regarded as 'brilliant' than women and it is an 'innate bias' that is holding back gender equality around the world, a new study claims.

Researchers say this 'brilliance' stereotype could be linked to more men than women working in fields associated with being brilliant such as science and technology.

Male and female volunteers of all ages and from 78 countries were shown a series of images linked to men, women and the 'brilliance' trait and asked to link them.

The strength of the 'brilliant' stereotype rivalled other deep-rooted biases linking women to certain careers and the family, study authors discovered.

Researchers from New York University, the University of Denver, and Harvard University said when asked directly people didn't demonstrate this bias.

When quizzed directly the research subjects actually linked women with brilliance more often than men - but an 'indirect approach' demonstrated the opposite.

Researchers say this 'brilliance' stereotype could be linked to more men than women working in fields associated with being brilliant such as science and technology. Stock image

This suggests it is an 'implicit bias' and was demonstrated in children as young as nine - from all 78 countries involved in the research study, the authors said.

Study leader Dr Daniel Storage, of Denver University, said stereotypes that portray brilliance as a male trait are likely to hold women back in prestigious careers.

'Understanding the prevalence and magnitude of this gender-brilliance stereotype can inform future efforts to increase gender equity in career outcomes,' according to co-author Dr Andrei Cimpian, at New York University

Cimpian's previous work suggested that women are underrepresented in careers where success is thought to depend on high levels of intellectual ability, brilliance or genius - particularly in the science and technology fields.

Researchers wanted to explain the phenomena found in Cimpian's earlier work.

One of their theories is that that women are less encouraged to pursue certain fields because the qualities of genius or brilliance are associated in people's minds with men more than with women.

Alternatively, Cimpian questions whether the atmosphere in certain workplaces is less welcoming to women and so putting them off entering that field.

To find out more about gender perceptions of brilliance, the team aimed to accurately measure the stereotyping - something difficult to achieve.

Doing so accurately required overcoming a tricky challenge - in that people are often reluctant to admit they have stereotypes or any form of bias.

In order to overcome this obstacle, the researchers adopted an indirect way of measuring the stereotype - namely, a tool called the Implicit Association Test (IAT).

The long-established method is essentially a speeded sorting task.

It aims to capture the automatic associations that come to mind between certain traits and certain groups of people when exposed to stimuli.

In the study, participants saw stimuli, such as a picture of a woman or the word 'brilliant', on a computer screen.

They were then asked to sort them into two categories by pressing either the 'E' or the 'I' key on their keyboard.

For example, in some trials participants were asked to press 'E' if they saw a stimulus that is related to either the category 'male' or the trait 'brilliant.'

On other trials, the researchers switched the sorting rule such that 'E' key was related to either the female category or the trait brilliant.

If brilliant is more associated with male than with female in people's minds, then participants will be faster to sort the stimuli when brilliant and male are paired.

The stereotype makes these two concepts seem like they 'go together,' in contrast to when brilliant and female are paired.

Repeated testing revealed consistent evidence for an implicit stereotype associating brilliance with men more than with women, the team revealed.

The strength of the 'brilliant' stereotype rivalled other deep-rooted biases linking women to certain careers and the family, study authors discovered. Stock image

This was true across a series of five studies, which included women and men from the US and 78 other countries and girls and boys aged nine and 10, also from the US.

Critically, the team said the magnitude of this stereotype was striking compared to other commonly held gender stereotypes linking women to certain 'female jobs' and family environments.

The team also gauged explicit stereotypes by directly asking subjects whether they believed that men were more brilliant than women.

In marked contrast to the implicit results, subjects rejected the idea 'brilliant' is a male trait when asked directly by the researchers.

The researchers said this finding is consistent with previous findings that showed people were unlikely to admit to stereotyping groups.

They stressed that this reinforced the importance of measuring such perceptions through subtle means rather than asking directly.

Study author Tessa Charlesworth, a doctoral student at Harvard University added: 'A particularly exciting finding from this work is that, if anything, people explicitly say that they associate women with brilliance.

'Yet implicit measures reveal a different story about the more automatic gender stereotypes that come to mind when thinking about brilliance.'

The findings have been published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Facebook is planning to shut down its TikTok copycat Lasso, after the year-and-a-half-old app failed to take off with young users.

Lasso, which enables account-holders to post 15-second videos, was billed as the social media giant's answer to its China-based competitor.

But it was bogged down by problems early on, with its developer Brady Voss quitting Facebook just six days after its launch.

It was only ever rolled out in the US and across South America, with suspected plans for a Europe and India release placed on hold.

Facebook's decision comes as more than 400 advertisers including Coca-Cola, Lego and Starbucks boycott the company to demand it does more to limit hate speech on its platform.

It also comes ahead of plans to launch Reels on Instagram, which will also allow users to make 15-second videos.

Facebook has reportedly decided to shut down its social media app Lasso

Its decision comes as more than 400 companies boycott the platform. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered to meet with disgruntled advertisers

Lasso failed to take off despite being billed as Facebook's answer to TikTok

Facebook confirmed its plan to close the app to MailOnline. A spokesman said: 'We place multiple bets across our family of apps to test and learn how people want to express themselves.

'One of these tests was Lasso, our stand-alone short-form video app, which we have decided to shut down and remove from all app stores on July 10.

'We thanks everyone who shared their creativity and feedback with us, which we'll look to incorporate in our other video experiences.'

TechCrunch's former editor, Josh Constine, wrote on Twitter: 'Facebook's TikTok clone Lasso is shutting down ahead of the Instagram Reels launch.

'So basically Facebook lost two years by half-a*****. Be right back, gotta go save my zero Lassos.'

Lasso was only rolled out in the US, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador and Uruguay.

A Hindi-language feature was later added to the app, but it was never released in India.

In February last year it had achieved an estimated 70,000 US downloads, according to CNBC, compared to TikTok's 39.6 million.

Lasso was launched as a direct competitor to China-based TikTok, but failed to take off

Facebook has often crushed its rivals by imitating their features.

It did this in 2011 by copying Google+'s improved photo sharing, and in 2016 by copying Snapchat's signature Stories feature on Instagram.

The company also has a habit of buying up competition, taking over Instagram for 798 million ($1billion) in 2012, and 15 billion ($19 billion) for WhatsApp in 2014.

The platform is currently facing a boycott from advertisers in the 'Stop Hate for Profit' campaign, which is demanding the social network does more to prevent hate speech and racism on the platform.

Mark Zuckerberg has announced he will meet with angered advertisers.

Facebook executives held at least two meetings with advertisers on Tuesday, in a last-ditch attempt to halt the month-long boycott.

However, the talks broke down after the platform offered no details on how it would tackle hate speech.

Coca-Cola is one of the companies that has removed its advertisements from Facebook

The top 100 brands on the platform in 2019 are thought to have only brought in six per cent of its 56 billion ($70 billion) revenue, according to Morningstar. Facebook said last year that its top 100 advertisers accounted for less than 20 per cent of total ad revenue.

TikTok is thought to have gained more than 738 million downloads in 154 countries last year alone.

It boasts 39 languages and an estimated 800 million active daily users worldwide.
The number of fires in the Amazon reached a 13-year high in June  with scientists now fearing that flames will engulf vast areas of rainforest in the coming months.

Fire activity in the Amazon  along with much of the rest of south America  typically reaches its peak between July and October each year.

However, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research reported that it detected 2,248 individual fires in the Amazon last month.

This is the highest the figure has been for June since back in 2007  and part of an alarming trend, with experts warning last year of the climate impacts of such fires.

The number of fires in the Amazon reached a 13-year high in June  with scientists now fearing that flames will engulf vast areas of rainforest in the coming months (file photo)

From MayJune last year, researchers in Brazil detected 2,735 fires by using satellite imaging technology.

This year, however, experts are reporting an increase of around 12.5 per cent  spotting a total of 3,077 fires in the three-month period.

Environmental activists have accused illegal loggers and ranchers of taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic  Brazil being the country with the second highest numbers of cases in the world  to burn off more of the rainforest.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has also been accused of undermining efforts to protect the forest by encouraging logging and mining efforts as well as cutting the funding to the Ministry of the Environment.

'These fires are no accident. Brazils President, Jair Bolsonaro, has done nothing to discourage ranchers and land grabbers to stop deforesting the Amazon,' said Greenpeace's head of forests, Anna Jones.

'Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, deforestation has soared and now we are seeing fires deliberately lit to clear that land for agriculture.'

'Over the next few months, unless we see strong intervention, fires will be likely to increase and engulf vast areas of forest, endangering the lives of Indigenous Peoples, wildlife and worsening the climate crisis globally.'

Fire activity in the Amazon  along with much of the rest of south America  typically reaches its peak between July and October each year. Pictured, deforestation in a region of the Amazon rainforest that has been affected by fire, as seen in the August of last year

'But lets not forget  just a few weeks ago, more than 40 companies, including several British supermarkets, signed a letter to the Brazilian Congress expressing their concern about Amazon fires and deforestation,' Ms Jones added.

'Those supermarkets will be judged on how they respond to this unfolding crisis. They all sell high volumes of industrial meat, much of which is connected to deforestation in forests like the Amazon.'

'Its time supermarkets dropped forest destroyers and replaced industrial meat with plant based options  its vital if were to reduce our impact on the climate, people and wildlife.'

The letter  which was signed, among others, by Asda, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose  can be read on the Retail Soy Group website.
WhatsApp has announced a selection of fun new features including contact-adding QR codes, animated stickers and dark mode for desktops.

The Facebook-owned chat platform, which has more than 2 billion users worldwide, is making it easier than ever to add a contact with unique QR codes for each user.

Dark mode  WhatsApps most-requested feature before it was introduced to iOS and Android in March  now extends to computers.

While a new selection of animated stickers will make interacting on the chat platform even more fun and expressive.

WhatsApp is also making it easier to engage in group video calls with eight users or less by introducing a one-tap video call icon.

It's also rolling out its Status feature  which lets users share text, photo, video and GIF updates that disappear after 24 hours  to KaiOS, a Hong-Kong developed operating system.

The new features, which will appear on the platform in the next few weeks, have been previewed in a video.

Scroll down for video

WhatsApp said the new features, previewed in a video, are rolling out over the next few weeks

WhatsApp is already used and loved by more than 2 billion people around the world, the platform, which was bought by Facebook in 2014 for about $19 billion, said in a blog post.

NEW WHATSAPP FEATURES - Animated stickers - QR codes - Video maximisation - One-click calls for eight-person groups - Dark mode for the web - Status for KaiOS users Advertisement

While our focus remains on providing a simple, reliable and private way for people to chat with friends and family, we also continue to push forward our product design to make sure WhatsApp remains the most useful way for anyone, anywhere to connect.

Today, we are excited to confirm some new features that are rolling out over the next few weeks.

Of the new features, the ones that will benefit the average WhatsApp user the most will be QR codes to add contacts.

Usually, when WhatsApp users want to add new contacts they have to type out the number and save it with the contact's name.

While this is no great effort, WhatsApp is making the process even easier by distributing QR codes to each user.

When users meet someone new in person, they will be able to scan the QR code with the use of their smartphone camera.

This will automatically find the WhatsApp user's name and number, which users can tap to add to their contacts.

Quicker access to eight-person video calls will also help WhatsApp users during the coronavirus pandemic to stay connected to friends and colleagues.

In person, WhatsApp users can hold a personalised QR code up to another user's phone to add their details to the app

When the QR code registers, users just need to tap 'Add to contacts', avoiding the need to tap in digits

The app doubled the number of users that can take part in a single group video chat from four to eight back in July, in direct response to the pandemic.

But now it's introducing a new video icon in group chats of eight people or less so users can start the call with just one tap.

Users can also press and hold another participant's chat window to enlarge their video display over the others.

WhatsApp started letting eight people hold a video chat together at the same time - doubling the current limit of four - in April because of the coronavirus pandemic

WhatsApp had encouraged encourage people to keep social distancing, to check in on elderly relatives and to wash their hands with stickers released earlier this year

Animated stickers  small animations that users can send in a message thread  are one of the fastest-growing ways people communicate on WhatsApp.

Billions of animated stickers are sent on the platform every day, and as a result, the platform is rolling out new selections.

Although WhatsApp didn't go into detail about what the new animated sticker selection would include, its video preview reveals a person tapping their watch and a strawberry with arms and legs running.

The platform had previously launched a new sticker pack to help people stay connected, encourage people to keep social distancing, to check in on elderly relatives and to wash their hands.

Stickers are 'one of the fastest growing ways people communicate on WhatsApp', so the platform is rolling out new animated sticker packs

Dark mode for desktop, meanwhile, will give people who use WhatsApp on their PC the option to turn the background of their app interface from white to black to make it easier on the eye and reduce eye strain in low light environments.

Dark mode, which has become popular with late night social media users, had already been made available on Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Gmail and system-wide applications on Android and iOS.

WhatsApp was late to roll out dark mode but had said it wanted to make sure it got the feature right.

Lastly, Status for KaiOS lets users of the Linux-based operating system enjoy Status updates  a feature that's similar to Instagram Stories.

Dark mode was the most requested feature by WhatsApp users before it came to Android and iOS back in March. Now it comes to desktops

WhatsApp Status allows users to share text, photo, video and GIF updates that disappear after 24 hours.

Facebook had been planning to introduce adds to WhatsApp via the Status feature before backtracking on the idea earlier this year  for now.

Facebook's controversial plan to sell ads on WhatsApp was instrumental in the departure of WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton since 2017.

WhatsApp was created by Koum and Acton in 2009 and initially cost $0.99 per year to subscribe  although the charge was scrapped after the acquisition, in 2016, and Facebook has been looking for ways to monetise it ever since.
Facebook has again admitted to improperly sharing user data with third-party companies.

The social media giant vowed to crack down on how much information was sent to independent app developers back in 2018 but has repeatedly failed to do so.

In a blog post, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, vice-president of Platform Partnerships at Facebook, revealed a few sparse details about the latest issue.

He said around 5,000 apps had recently received data they should not have, including email addresses, birthdays, language and gender of users.

Facebook says the issue was fixed after it was discovered, but did not state when it was found, how it went undetected for two years, or how many users are impacted.

MailOnline has approached Facebook for comment.

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Facebook has again admitted to improperly sharing user data with third-party companies. The social media giant vowed to crack down on how much information was sent to independent app developers back in 2018 (file)

In 2018, the social media giant announced it would be putting in restrictions on its previously uninhibited flow of user data to app developers.

This included shutting off the data stream to an app developer if a user did not log in to their product within 90 days.

It appears this latest instalment in the ongoing saga of Facebook's privacy debacles stems from a bug which did not shut off the data when the 90-day threshold was reached.

Details of how this happened, why it was not detected earlier, and what led to its discovery now, remain unknown as Facebook will not disclose details.

Facebook would not reveal how many users were affected by this breach when asked by MailOnline.

'Recently, we discovered that in some instances apps continued to receive the data that people had previously authorized, even if it appeared they hadn't used the app in the last 90 days,' Mr Papamiltiadis said in the post.

Around 5,000 apps had recently received data they should not have, including email addresses, birthdays, language and gender of users. Facebook says the issue was fixed after it was discovered, but did not state when it was found (file photo)

'For example, this could happen if someone used a fitness app to invite their friends from their hometown to a workout, but we didn't recognize that some of their friends had been inactive for many months.

'From the last several months of data we have available, we currently estimate this issue enabled approximately 5,000 developers to continue receiving information  for example, language or gender  beyond 90 days of inactivity as recognized by our systems.

'We haven't seen evidence that this issue resulted in sharing information that was inconsistent with the permissions people gave when they logged in using Facebook.

'We fixed the issue the day after we found it. We'll keep investigating and will continue to prioritize transparency around any major updates.'

This specific issue appears to now be resolved, but the company has a track record of sub-optimal privacy protection.

And despite the latest pledge from Mr Papamiltiadis that it is continuing to investigate, the lack of details and spotted history is far from reassuring.

Late last year, the same Facebook chief issued a statement on a similar situation.

That issue was to do with groups and gave apps access to information on members, including profile pictures and names.

'We know at least 11 partners accessed group members' information in the last 60 days,' he said at the time.

And in 2018, a similar situation arose. In this instance, Mr Papamiltiadis said: 'Weve taken a number of steps this year to limit developers' access to people's Facebook information, and as part of that ongoing effort, we're in the midst of reviewing all our APIs and the partners who can access them.'
The Moon has a bonanza of metals like iron and titanium deep below its surface, according to NASA, raising questions over a long held formation theory.

The leading theory claims that the Moon formed out of the wreckage created when a Mars-sized planet called Theia collided with the young Earth 4.5 billion years ago.

If this were true then our only natural satellite would have roughly the same amount of iron as the Earth, but it actually has much more, according to the NASA team.

The findings, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, was based on data sent back by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

In some parts of the Moon, particularly the 'darker' areas of the surface, concentrations of metals in lunar rocks were higher than in some rocks on Earth.

The leading theory claims that the Moon formed out of the wreckage created when a Mars-sized planet called Theia collided with the young Earth 4.5 billion years ago

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter radar scenes (left) of four craters and their corresponding high resolution photo (right) that were used to study signs of metals in those craters

Study leader Dr Essam Heggy, of the University of Southern California, explained: 'It really raises the question of what this means for our previous formation hypotheses.'

Analysis found the Moon is more metallic below its surface than previous estimates, which were originally based on Earth's composition rather than direct study.

Dr Heggy said improving our understanding of how much metal the Moon actually has allows scientists to gain a deeper understanding of its formation.

'Scientists can constrain the ambiguities about how it has formed, how it is evolving and how it is contributing to maintaining habitability on Earth,' he said.

Life on Earth would not be possible without the Moon as it keeps our planet's axis of rotation stable, which controls seasons and regulates our climate.

Using radar images from the LRO, Dr Heggy and colleagues focused on the composition of fine dust at the bottom of the Moon's many craters.

This fine dust in the craters is the remains of ejected materials forced up from below the Lunar surface during meteor strikes, the team said.

The deeper the impact, the more metal was present - suggesting some areas are richer in metal than Earth - in particular, the darker northern hemisphere.

It challenges the notion that the Moon got its metal from portions of the Earth's mantle and crust that were shot into orbit after a massive collision with Theia.

A reason the Theia theory has been in dispute is the higher concentration of iron oxide found by NASA rovers on the Moon than in the Earth's crust.

The latest research, using radar to probe deeper into the surface of the Moon, provides details of a section of the moon that has not been frequently studied.

Researchers found that there might actually be a greater proportion of Iron on the Moon when compared to the Earth than previously assumed.

The findings, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, was based on data sent back by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)

'It really raises the question of what this means for our previous formation hypotheses,' Heggy said.

By understanding how the Moon formed, and in fact how the more than 200 other moons in the solar system formed, we can gain a deeper understanding of how planets form, according to the team.

This could include deeper insights into how and where conditions for life outside Earth might form and what it might look like, Heggy explained.

Co author Dr Wes Patterson, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Maryland, said the radar imager on the LRO made this discovery possible.

'The LRO mission and its radar imager Mini-RF are continuing to surprise us with new insights into the origins and complexity of our nearest neighbor,' he said.

Anxious to uncover more, the researchers have already started examining crater floors in the Moons southern hemisphere to see if the same trends exist there.

The findings have been published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
MIT has had to take offline a giant dataset that taught AI systems to assign 'racist and misogynistic labels' to people in images.

The database, known as '80 Million Tiny Images', is a massive collection of photos with descriptive labels, used to teach machine learning models to identify images.

But the system, developed at the US university, labelled women as 'whores' and 'bitches' and used other abhorrent terms against ethnic minorities.

It also contained close-up pictures of female genitalia labelled with the C-word and other images with the labels 'rape suspect' and 'molester'.

Images labelled with the slur 'whore' ranged from a woman in a bikini to a photo of 'a mother holding her baby with Santa', tech website the Register reported.

The respected research university in Massachusetts had to apologise for the dataset, which was removed this week after a tip, claimed by the Register and based on concerns from two academics.

MIT has also had to urge its researchers and developers to stop using the training library and to delete any copies.

Despite this, apps and websites relying on neural networks that were trained using the database may spout out these shocking terms when analysing photos and camera footage.

The Register's screenshot of the dataset before it was taken offline this week. It shows pixelated examples for the label 'whore', including 'a mother holding her baby with Santa', the Register said

'It is clear that we should have manually screened them,' said Antonio Torralba, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

'For this, we sincerely apologise  indeed, we have taken the dataset offline so that the offending images and categories can be removed.'

Torralba and fellow researchers posted an open letter on the MIT website that explains the decision to remove the dataset  and why it listed images with such language in the first place.

'The dataset is too large (80 million images) and the images are so small (32 x 32 pixels) that it can be difficult for people to visually recognise its content,' they say.

'Therefore, manual inspection, even if feasible, will not guarantee that offensive images can be completely removed.'

The dataset was created in 2006 and contains 53,464 different nouns, directly copied from WordNet  a database of English words grouped into related sets and developed by Princeton University.

This graph shows the number of images in the dataset labelled with different slurs. The dataset has been taken offline and it will not be put back onlinet, MIT said

WordNet was built in the mid-1980s, however, and contains racist slang and insults, the Register said, which now 'haunt modern machine learning'.

All the 53,000 nouns from WordNet were then used by MIT to automatically download images from internet search engines that contained the corresponding noun, in order to collect the final total of 80 million images.

The training set has been used at MIT to train machine learning models to use these terms to automatically identify people and objects in still images.

For example, a trained neural network may be able to identify a pleasant scene of a park with words such as 'picnic', 'grass' and 'trees'.

But the dataset's unpleasant side means it may also identify women in the scene as 'whores' or black and Asian minorities with racial slurs.

Therefore MIT's community have been asked to refrain from using the dataset in future and also delete any existing copies of the dataset that may have been downloaded.

'Biases, offensive and prejudicial images, and derogatory terminology alienates an important part of our community  precisely those that we are making efforts to include,' the MIT professors wrote.

'It also contributes to harmful biases in AI systems trained on such data.

'Additionally, the presence of such prejudicial images hurts efforts to foster a culture of inclusivity in the computer vision community.

Heavily pixelated image samples taken from the dataset that were labelled with a highly offensive slur described as 'probably the most offensive word in English' by Dictionary.com

'This is extremely unfortunate and runs counter to the values that we strive to uphold.'

Two researchers  Vinay Prabhu at US privacy startup UnifyID and Abeba Birhane at University College Dublin in Ireland  examined the MIT database before it was taken offline and have prepared a research paper on their findings.

The team highlight the issues of scraping thousands of words from the web that haven't been checked by a human eye and using them to train machine learning systems.

'The very aim of that [WordNet] project was to map words that are close to each other,' Birhane told the Register.

'But when you begin associating images with those words, you are putting a photograph of a real actual person and associating them with harmful words that perpetuate stereotypes.'
It may look like a TIE Fighter in a galaxy far, far away, but a NASA image is the International Space Station in transit across our nearest star.

A photographer captured the craft moving about five miles per second across the glowing sun at approximately 1:15pm ET in June 24 from Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Joel Kowsky, a NASA photographer, was able to snap the 54-second transit using a camera that shot 10 frames per second.

Although the space station resembles a fighter jet from the film Star Wars in the image, the prominent sides are the massive solar panel arrays that power the ship.

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It may look like a TIE Fighter in a galaxy far, far away, but the NASA image is the International Space Station in transit across our nearest star

The International Space Station (ISS) is currently home to Expedition 63 NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy, Douglas Hurley, Robert Behnken and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.

It orbits 250 miles above the Earth and has been permanently staffed by rotating astronauts since November 2000.

The space-fairing heroes aboard the ship spend their days conducting a range of experiments, including human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy and meteorology.

Over a 24-hour period, the crew witnesses 16 sunrises and sunsets and although the ISS passes between the Earth and sun often, capturing an image of the transit is a rare event, according to Earth Observatory.

A photographer captured the craft moving about five miles per second across the glowing sun at approximately 1:15pm ET from Fredericksburg, Virginia

But on June 24, Kowsky was able to capture the occurrence while standing in Virginia.

Kowsky says many websites help identify when the ISS will be transiting the sun, but weather and timing are usually the main issues for shooting clear photos.

'With a very limited path of visibility along the ground, having clear weather at the identified location is one of the most limiting factors in being able to capture a transit,' he wrote.

The ISS resembles Darth Vader's TIE Fighter in the Star Wars films

Last week NASA released a stunning 10-year timelapse of our sun in glorious 4K.

The video shows one photo of the sun per second for every day of the last 10 years, thereby condensing a decade of the sun into 61 minutes.

The photos come from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a spacecraft launched a decade ago from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

From its orbit around Earth, SDO has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the sun, amassing 20 million gigabytes of data.

The photos were taken at a wavelength of 17.1 nanometers  an extreme ultraviolet wavelength that shows the sun's 'corona', its outermost atmospheric layer

The video, simply titled 'A Decade of Sun' shows the corona swirling, shining and blistering in incredible detail for just over an hour.

Joel Kowsky, a NASA photographer, was able to snap the 54-second transit using a camera that shot at 10 frames per second. The image is a composite of six frames that capture the ISS moving across the face of the sun

Although the space station resembles a fighter jet from the film Star Wars, the prominent sides are the massive solar panel arrays that power the ship. The ISS orbits 250 miles above the Earth and has been permanently staffed by rotating astronauts since November 2000

SDO has documented stunning solar effects on the sun's outer surface, including giant waves, coronal holes and magnetic explosions, as shown in the video.

'As of June 2020, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory  SDO  has now been watching the sun non-stop for over a full decade,' NASA said in a blog post.

'SDO and other NASA missions will continue to watch our sun in the years to come, providing further insights about our place in space and information to keep our astronauts and assets safe.'
An apartment building in Siberia has begun to split in half as record high temperatures in the region melted the region's top layers of permafrost, leaving the building on unsteady ground.

The shocking event took place in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of Yakutsk, a city in eastern Siberia that's just 280 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Late one night in June after being awoken by a loud cracking noise, residents in three of the building's apartments noticed cracks in their walls.

They rushed outside and saw the entire building appeared to be splitting in half, with a long crack running from the roof to the ground floor, as wide as four inches in some locations.

According to one resident, the tenants left in such a hurry they didn't even have time to close the apartment doors behind them.

'The situation caught us completely off guard, none of us had time to pick up documents or to take any other of our belongings with us,' one resident told The Siberian Times.

They were relocated to other residences and the building's gas, electricity, and water were shut off while emergency workers were called in to investigate.

Many buildings in the city are constructed on concrete piles, cylindrical pier-like structures buried 20 feet or deeper into the ground.

Residents of the apartment building in Yakutsk, Siberia first noticed the cracks in the middle of the night in late June and evacuated so quickly they didn't even close their apartment doors behind them

The emergency workers found that one of the building's piles had completely broken and was surrounded by a pool of meltwater believed to have come from thawing permafrost.

A town of 285,000, Yakutsk has been described as the second coldest large city in the world, built in a part of Siberia that traditionally has had continuous permafrost with year-round average temperature of 16.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

In winter, daily temperatures drop as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, , according to a report in Newsweek.

Yakutsk, Siberia is described as the second coldest large city in the world, with average yearly temperatures of 16.2 degrees Fahrenheit, and winters that drop as low as minus 40 degrees

Over the last decade, average yearly temperatures in Yakutsk have risen four degrees Fahrenheit

In the last decade, average temperatures have risen rapidly in Yakutsk, climbing four-degrees Fahrenheit since 2010, which has caused the upper layers of permafrost in the region to melt.

These rising temperatures have coincided with extreme warming across all of Siberia, which has suffered through a heatwave with temperatures as high as 110 degrees Fahrenheit in 2020.

Wildfires have swept across more than 3.4 million acres of Siberia and crossed into the Arctic Circle in several locations.

Yakutsk is just 280 miles south of the Arctic Circle, in a region that's been hit by a wildfires and a record-breaking summer heatwave with temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit in some locations

In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the rising temperatures would pose a direct threat to the infrastructure of many cities in the region.

'Some of our cities were built north of the Arctic Circle, on the permafrost,' Putin said.

'If it begins to thaw, you can imagine what consequences it would have. It's very serious.'
A pair of intermingling exoplanets 800 light-years away from the Earth have been discovered caught up in a 'gravitational dance' in orbit around a Sun-like star.

The duo were found by using an Earth-based telescope - the first time such an event has been discovered by equipment not based in orbit around the Earth.

Astronomers that make up an international consortium of universities and groups known as the Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) found the waltzing worlds.

The planets, named WASP-148b and WASP-148c, orbit a Sun-like star in the constellation of Hercules and are between the mass of Saturn and Jupiter.

According to the scientists, these giant objects are able to 'feel each other's gravity', which causes on to speed up and slowdown as it overtakes the other world.

The planets, named WASP-148b and WASP-148c, orbit a Sun-like star in the constellation of Hercules and are between the mass of Saturn and Jupiter as seen in this artists impression

It is this close gravitational phenomenon that makes it look like the planets are dancing, according to the astronomers behind the discovery.

Professor Andrew Collier Cameron, of the University of St Andrews said this was the first time a pair of giant planets had been found interacting so closely.

'It's exciting to be able to follow their dance from the ground', he said.

Astronomers from the Open University and University of Warwick were also involved in the discovery - using instruments on Earth rather than with space telescopes.

What makes this discovery particularly exciting is the fact it was seen from ground0-based telescopes rather than orbiting satellites outside the atmosphere.

WASP-148b was identified by a range of instruments installed at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Canary Islands.

The star system was then observed with an instrument known as SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence in France.

They found WASP-148b, which is about the size and mass of Saturn, takes about 8.8 days to circle its host star.

The orbital period for WASP-148c is much longer at 34.5 days, and the team believe the planet has a mass half that of Jupiter.

Dr Guillaume Hebrard, of Institut d'astrophysique de Paris said this was an important discovery for the WASP consortium.

'WASP has discovered over a hundred transiting giant planets, but this double discovery has more than double the value because of the extra information the timing variations give us,' he said.

Before this discovery a few dozen planetary systems showed transit timing variations had been detected, but they were all found with space telescopes.

Professor Don Pollacco, of the University of Warwick, said: 'Even in this era of very expensive space telescopes, small telescopes on the ground can make vital contributions'.

The star system was then observed with an instrument known as SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence in France (pictured)

According to the researchers, this ratio between the orbital periods suggests the WASP-148 system is close to resonance, meaning there is enhanced gravitational interaction between the two planets.

The scientists also observed the planetary transit, which is when a planet crosses in front of its host star, of both WASP-148b and WASP-148c.

The found both WASP-148b and WASP-148c undergo acceleration and deceleration as they pass each other in their orbit of the star.

This is evidence of gravitational interaction between them, the astronomers say.

This gravitational dance works like pushing a child on a swing - where adding force just at the right time produces large variations in timing and movement.

Analysis revealed both WASP-148b and WASP-148c orbit in the same plane, just like the planets in the Solar System.

The mutual tilt between the orbits of WASP-148b and WASP-148c must be less than 35 degrees and so that their configuration is stable, the team found.

NASAs TESS space telescope (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) will observe nine consecutive transits of WASP-148b.

The TESS team will and perform a sensitive search for transits of WASP-148c during the observations and hunt for any additional smaller planets.

The findings are published in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal.
Pub drinkers in Sweden will soon have a new tool to help them practice social distancing while having a cold one.

A new smartphone app called Byevid will let drinkers book pub visits in advance, or scan through a list of nearby watering holes to see which are or aren't at full capacity.

Developed by Stockholm-based developer Chris Mortimer, the app will hopefully ease anxieties about COVID-19 transmission in Sweden, where pubs and restaurants have remained open for table-only service but local authorities have fretted about overcrowding.

Stockholm based developer Chris Mortimer created the smartphone app Byevid for drinkers who want to practice social distancing

In a demonstration of the app given to Reuters, Mortimer showed a partial map of Stockholm with icons for all the open bars and restaurants.

Owners who use the app can set a maximum occupation for their establishment and track how many customers they have in real-time, which will then be shown to anyone with the app to help them decide where to go.

The app will also allow owners to describe all of their COVID-19 specific cleaning practices and any particular requirements they may make of customers before letting them in.

Mortimer says the app will also be available for users in other European countries, and was designed to be flexible to accommodate the specific COVID-19 requirements in each different region.

Sweden's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell - the public face of the country's much-discussed strategy to slow the spread of the virus - is not convinced such apps will have a big effect.

But he welcomed any attempt to provide more data that authorities can use to control the spread.

Byevid will let users see nearby pubs and see how close each is to full capacity based on real time updates from pub owners, helping them avoid places that are already full

The app will also allow pub-goers to book tables in advance as well as see what kind of safety precautions the owners require for entry

The app has been popular with pub owners so far. 'Its nice to know how many people we can expect, it helps us to prepare for the day,' bartender Mawhinna Howell said

'How much [apps] add to non-digital contact tracing still remains to be proven...most virus spread is done through people youre already aware of...in your workplace, your family,' Tegnell told Reuters.

For Stockholm-based bartender Mawhinna Howell it's a welcome help in the art of managing social distancing rules.

'Its nice to know how many people we can expect, it helps us to prepare for the day,' she said.
Jurgen Klopp should sign Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to take Liverpool to the next level as they defend their Premier League crown, according to Stephen Warnock.

Klopp and Aubameyang worked together for two seasons at Borussia Dortmund between 2013 and 2015.

And with the Gabon international, who has scored 22 goals this season, stalling on a contract extension at Arsenal, Warnock believes Liverpool should pounce to provide competition to Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino in attack.

Jurgen Klopp should make a move for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang this summer as the striker stalls on a new Arsenal contract. The pair worked together at Borussia Dortmund (pictured)

Klopp has just led Liverpool to the Premier League title but will be looking to strengthen

This summer will be the last opportunity for Arsenal to cash in on their captain, 31, with his Emirates Stadium contract due to expire in 2021.

Former Liverpool defender Warnock told BBC Radio 5 Live: 'If I was Jurgen Klopp, I'd be going for him with a year left on his contract.

'You're wanting a goalscorer who can either come off the bench and play on a regular basis.

'He will challenge the front three, he doesn't need time to settle, you know he's proven, he knows the manager and the manager knows what he's about.

'Aubameyang will be on big wages, but he won't cost you big money to get him out with a year left on his contract and the age that he's at.

Aubameyang celebrates scoring one of his two goals against Norwich on Wednesday night

Former Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock believes the club should go for Aubameyang

'Would Aubameyang like to go to a club like Liverpool, Manchester City or Manchester United?

'From his point of view, being a squad player at 31, competing for the Champions League, competing for leagues, and he will win some trophies going to one of those three clubs - that's what he wants at the end of his career.

'When you retire, to have that association with one of those clubs, as well as Arsenal, as well as Borussia Dortmund, what a CV you've got then.'

Aubameyang's decision on a new Arsenal contract is likely to depend on whether they qualify for European competition next season.

Aubameyang scored 16 and 25 goals in his two seasons under Klopp when at Dortmund

Warnock believes Aubameyang would provide Klopp with another excellent option up front

They are currently seventh in the Premier League table after Wednesday night's 4-0 win over Norwich City - in which Aubameyang scored twice - but remain eight points shy of the top four.

Aubameyang is the joint-top goalscorer in the Premier League alongside Leicester City's Jamie Vardy on 19 goals.

He enjoyed two decent scoring seasons under Klopp when at Dortmund, netting 16 goals in 2013-14 and 25 the following season before hitting greater heights under Thomas Tuchel.
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Finnish photographer Konsta Punkka flew 8,000 miles to Patagonia from his home country to snap the elusive puma  and luckily, the creature played ball.

It showed up seven days into his 10-day expedition and he took some magical pictures of it, as well as some stunning images of the area's epic peaks and resident guanacos (a relative of the llama).

As you can see.

One of Konsta's shots of the elusive puma in Patagonia. It took him seven days to spot one of the creatures

Konsta captured this close-up image after stationing himself close to bushes that were supposed to be the puma's midday resting area. He says this shot is one of the highlights of his career so far

Konsta 26, travelled to the Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia as part of a team making documentary Exploring Earth for Finnish broadcaster YLE.

He told MailOnline Travel: 'When we finally found the pumas it was an incredible moment.

'We spent an afternoon and an evening following them from a safe distance.

'After so many hours of looking for them, there they finally were and I couldn't believe it.

'First, we photographed them on a hill and the plan was to try to frame them with the Torres Paine peaks.

As well as snapping images of the pumas, Konsta captured stunning photos of Patagonia's epic peaks and resident guanacos

Konsta said: 'It's definitely different to photograph the wildlife in Chile than the wildlife I am used to here in Finland'

A group of guanacos stand in the shadows of the Cordillera Paine group of mountains. The highest peak is 9,462ft (2,884m) tall

Konsta, 26, travelled to the Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia as part of a documentary-making team for Finnish TV

'It worked pretty well but after a while, we decided to station ourselves close to a few bushes that were supposed to be their midday resting area.

'With the help of the local Torres del Paine National Park rangers, who took us to an area normal park visitors are unable to go to, we were able to lay down close to the bushes.

'After waiting for a few hours I managed to capture a few close-ups of a young puma who came to the entrance of the resting area. It's definitely one of the highlights of my career.'

Guanacos, pictured, are a species native to South America and are closely related to the llama. Konsta says you can spot them all over Torres del Paine National Park and that pumas hunt them

Thanks to help from local rangers, Konsta was able to venture into parts of Torres del Paine National Park that are usually off-limits

Konsta said: 'The Torres del Paine landscape has it all. From glaciers to mountain ranges and green forests'

The professional photographer, who has 1.3million followers on Instagram, added: 'It's definitely different to photograph the wildlife in Chile than the wildlife I am used to here in Finland.

'We managed to get a beautiful mix of images of the landscape and other wildlife there such as the guanacos, which you can find all around Torres del Paine National Park.

'The Torres del Paine landscape has it all. From glaciers to mountain ranges and green forests.'
Qatar Airways has announced that economy passengers now have to wear a surgical face shield as well as a face mask throughout its flights.

The shields will be handed out to all travellers either at check-in or the boarding gate.

However, whether business-class customers wear their face shield and a mask on board is 'at their own discretion', with the Doha-based carrier saying they 'enjoy more space and privacy'.

The face shields that will be handed out to all Qatar Airways passengers. Economy passengers now have to wear one as well a face mask throughout the flight

During boarding and disembarkation, all passengers will be required to wear a face mask as well as the face shield, said Qatar Airways.

The disposable shields are available in two sizes - one for adults and one for children. The children's shields feature the airlines Oryx Kids Club mascots as part of their design.

The airline said that parents flying with children should advise them 'to keep wearing their PPE throughout the journey', although children under the age of two are not required to wear a shield or mask.

To further enhance safety on board, Qatar Airways said it is also providing all passengers with a complimentary protective kit, which includes a single-use surgical face mask, large disposable powder-free gloves and an alcohol-based hand sanitiser gel.

Those in business class will also be offered an additional 75ml sanitiser gel tube.

Meanwhile, Qatar Airways has also introduced new disposable protective gowns for cabin crew that are fitted over their uniforms, in addition to safety glasses, gloves and a mask.

Qatar Airways is providing all passengers with a complimentary protective kit, which includes a single-use surgical face mask, large disposable powder-free gloves and an alcohol-based hand sanitiser gel

The new branded gowns are an update to the full hazmat-style PPE that was given to staff in May, as we reported, and are personalised with Qatar Airways logo imprinted on the top left corner.

Qatar Airways Group chief executive, His Excellency Mr Akbar Al Baker, said: 'Throughout the Covid-19 crisis, the safety of our passengers has been our highest priority.

'By introducing these additional onboard safety and hygiene measures, our customers can rely on us and our unparalleled expertise to fly them safely to their destination.

'As the largest international airline flying consistently throughout the pandemic, we have become one of the most experienced in safety and hygiene. We will continue to lead the industry in terms of the services offered to our passengers so that they can travel with confidence.'

Qatar Airways has already made a raft changes to its onboard service in a bid to stop coronavirus spreading.

The carrier said that business class meals are now served covered on a tray instead of a table set-up, and a cutlery wrap is offered to passengers as an alternative to individual cutlery service. It has also introduced single-use menu cards and sealed wipes.

New disposable protective gowns are being given to cabin crew that are fitted over their uniforms, in addition to safety glasses, gloves and a mask

Qatar Airways has ditched its hazmat-style suits, pictured, which it introduced in May

Economy class meals and cutlery are served sealed as usual, but menu cards have been temporarily discontinued.

All social areas onboard the aircraft have been closed.

Qatar Airways also said its aircraft are regularly disinfected using cleaning products recommended by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

It added: 'Our aircraft feature the most advanced air filtration systems, equipped with industrial-size Hepa filters that remove 99.97 per cent of viral and bacterial contaminants from re-circulated air, providing the most effective protection against infection.

'All the airlines onboard linen and blankets are washed, dried and pressed at lethal microbial temperatures, while its headsets are rigorously sanitised after each flight.

'These items are then sealed into individual packaging by staff wearing hygienic disposable gloves.

Qatar Airways relaunched to 11 destinations earlier this week. By mid-July, it said its network will expand to more than 65 destinations worldwide

'Cabin crew have received training on how to minimise their chances of contracting or spreading the infection, are thermally screened before the departure of flights and after their arrival, and are quarantined and tested if any colleagues or passengers on a flight shows any symptoms of infection or test positive for the virus.'

In addition, the airline said Hamad International Airport in Doha has implemented stringent cleaning procedures and applied social distancing measures throughout its terminals.

It explained: 'All passenger touchpoints are sanitised every 10 to 15 minutes and every boarding gate and bus gate counter is cleaned after each flight. In addition, hand sanitisers are provided at immigration and security screening points.'

Qatar Airways relaunched to 11 destinations earlier this week. By mid-July, it said its network would expand to more than 65 destinations worldwide.
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Chris Lilley has gone from one of Australia's top comedians to down and out in Bondi, after Netflix removed four of his shows last month in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The 45-year-old is keeping a low profile in Sydney's eastern suburbs and has steadfastly refused to address the controversy surrounding his work.

Chris's television series Summer Heights High, Jonah from Tonga, Angry Boys and We Can be Heroes were pulled on June 11 as streaming services worldwide removed offensive content in response to George Floyd protests.

In the dumped mockumentary-style shows Chris appeared in brownface as Tongan schoolboy Jonah Takalua, in blackface as US rapper S.mouse, and mocked up as stereotypical Chinese-Australian physics student Ricky Wong.

Chris then came under fire after real-life Sydney student Filipe Mahe revealed his appearance in ABC documentary Our Boys was the inspiration for controversial Tongan character Jonah, leaving him feeling 'angry and exploited'.

On Wednesday, Chris aggressively barged into a Daily Mail Australia photographer who attempted to ask about his shows being removed from the streaming platform.

He then sprinted back to his multimillion-dollar apartment.

Down and out in Bondi: Chris Lilley's 'lonely' new life has been revealed after he emerged in Sydney's eastern suburbs on Wednesday. The once-celebrated comedian is facing a wave of backlash after Netflix removed four of his shows due to his blackface skits

On the run: Chris currently has no new projects in the pipeline, according to IMDb. Rather than filming and developing new characters, his days are filled with trips to the post office and lonely strolls along the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk

The bizarre saga had begun earlier in the day, when Chris was pictured leaving his local post office.

After noticing the photographer, he turned and fled, circling through Bondi's streets as he tried to avoid any questions about his once globally successful but now highly controversial oeuvre of television shows.

The funnyman then spent 30 minutes aimlessly walking around the beachside suburb, before making his way home.

It was at this point that he barged into the photographer and fled into his apartment building.

Spotted: The 45-year-old is keeping a low profile and steadfastly refusing to address the controversy surrounding his work

No comment! On Wednesday, Chris aggressively barged into a Daily Mail photographer who attempted to ask about his shows being removed from the streaming platform

Spotted: The bizarre saga had begun earlier in the day, when Chris was pictured leaving his local post office. Upon noticing the photographer, he turned and started running around Bondi, seemingly going to extreme measures to avoid questions about his controversial career

Chris currently has no new projects in the pipeline, according to IMDb.

Rather than filming and developing new characters, his days are filled with trips to the post office and lonely strolls along the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk. He then returns home alone.

Chris is believed to be single. His last known relationship with Milly Gattegno from British pop band The Faders ended in 2016 after two years together.

Hot shoe shuffle: The funnyman then spent 30 minutes aimlessly walking around the beachside suburb, before making his way home. It was at this point that he barged into the snapper and fled to his apartment building

Defiant: Speaking to The Weekend Australian in 2019, the actor defended his 'mockumentary'-style comedy, insisting he wouldn't give in to naysayers. 'I'm not trying to do the thing that is trendy at the moment,' he said

After Netflix Australia and New Zealand pulled four of Chris' shows last month, he was spotted looking glum while out drinking in Bondi.

In light of the Black Lives Matter reckoning, Chris' work has raised questions about racial discrimination as several of his characters were portrayed in blackface and brownface.

What is blackface? Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used by non-black performers to represent a caricature of a black person. It was prominently used in American minstrel shows in the 19th century. Minstrel shows usually featured white performers in blackface doing comic skits of black people. The performances often depicted black people in negative and stereotypical ways. Both blackface and minstrelsy are now considered outdated, offensive and racist. Advertisement

On Angry Boys in 2011, he portrayed African-American rapper S.mouse and performed a song called Squashed N****.

In Jonah from Tonga in 2014, and earlier in Summer Heights High in 2007, he painted his face brown and wore a curly wig to portray troubled teen Jonah Takalua.

In We Can Be Heroes, his first television hit in 2005, Chris played Chinese physics student Ricky Wong.

Last week, Chris faced even more controversy when Filipe Mahe, 33, came forward claiming the funnyman had based Jonah Takalua on him.

Filipe said he had felt 'absolutely embarrassed, full of hate, angry and exploited' when he recognised himself in Summer Heights High.

As a troubled teenager attending Canterbury Boys High in western Sydney, he had been featured in the 2004 ABC documentary Our Boys.

Several of his scenes from Our Boys are remarkably similar to comedy skits that went on to feature in Summer Heights High three years later.

After the documentary series aired, Lilley also went to Filipe's school, observed classes and lunchtime in the playground and watched a Tongan dance.

After Filipe revealed his 'embarrassment' to the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday, Chris seemingly responded by sharing deleted scenes from Jonah from Tonga to Facebook that showed a more sympathetic side to the character.

Chris still has two series available on Netflix, Ja'mie: Private School Girl and Lunatics, in which he darkens his skin to play 'dog whisperer' Jana Melhoopen-Jonks.

In April 2019, Chris hit back at the criticism of Lunatics - which, unlike his previous series that aired on the ABC, was made exclusively for Netflix.

Backlash: In light of the Black Lives Matter reckoning, Chris' work has raised questions about racial discrimination as several of the characters were portrayed in blackface and brownface. Pictured centre as his Tongan schoolboy character, Jonah Takalua

Controversial: In Jonah from Tonga in 2014, and earlier in Summer Heights High in 2007, he painted his face brown and wore a curly wig to portray troubled teen Jonah

Hurt: Last week, Filipe Mahe (pictured in 2004) came forward claiming Chris had based the character of Jonah on him. Filipe said he had felt 'absolutely embarrassed, full of hate, angry and exploited' when he recognised himself in Summer Heights High

Inspiration? As a troubled teenager attending Canterbury Boys High in western Sydney, he had been featured in the 2004 ABC documentary Our Boys. After the series aired, Lilley went to Filipe's school, observed classes and watched a Tongan dance

Speaking in The Weekend Australian, the actor defended his 'mockumentary'-style comedy, insisting he wouldn't give in to naysayers.

'I'm not trying to do the thing that is trendy at the moment,' Chris said.

Chris went on to say he would continue making 'clever, layered' characters - which is what he has done in the past.

Defending his portrayals, he said: 'When you meet them, you think, "I know that type of person," but then there is a twist, something crazy.

'In the end you think, "Actually, I kind of relate to this, she just did that thing that I do every day."'

He went on to say the moral of Lunatics is that 'everyone is a little bit weird', which he feels the show cleverly highlights.

One particular character, Jana, is an exotic-looking 'lesbian pet psychic to the stars', who has Afro hair, tanned skin and speaks in a South African accent.

While Chris was accused of wearing blackface for this portrayal, Jana is actually white, as demonstrated by a scene with her two Caucasian parents.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Chris' management for comment.

Portrayal: Jana Melhoopen-Jonks, a character from his latest show, Lunatics, is an exotic-looking 'lesbian pet psychic to the stars', who has Afro hair, tanned skin and speaks in a South African accent

Not blackface: While Chris was accused of wearing blackface for this portrayal, Jana is actually white, as demonstrated by a scene with her two Caucasian parents. Pictured with Paris Hilton
Dean Gaffney reportedly drove 200 miles to meet his reality star pal Joshua Ritchie for a drink - hours before the former Love Island contestant hosted a wild party.

The former Eastenders actor, 41, has denied that he attended the raucous bash which was hosted at a country hall in Essex, hours away from his Telford home.

A representative for Dean told the Sun that although the star drove to meet Joshua for a drink beforehand, he did not join the house party later on.

Meeting up: Dean Gaffney reportedly drove 200 miles to meet his reality star pal Joshua Ritchie for a drink - hours before the former Love Island contestant hosted a wild party (pictured in January 2020)

They said: 'Dean was categorically not at the house party. He was invited but just went to the hotel beforehand to meet Josh with a few other people who weren't going to the party.'

The publication reported that the Ex On The Beach stat hired a country hall for 3,000 and hosted a party which kicked off at 5pm and lasted until the early hours.

They told the news outlet: 'A few people stayed in the guest house which was planned and a few people just left when they woke up, there wasn't any trouble or anything broken or stolen, but just obviously everyone was breaking the government rules and knew they shouldn't be partying.'

Denial: A representative for Dean told the Sun that although the star drove to meet Joshua (pictured) for a drink beforehand, he did not join the house party later on (pictured January)

'But no one really seemed to care, it wasn't like people had their phones taken at the door, everything was posted to social media.'

In a clip obtained by the website, Dean could be seen chatting with pals on a sofa earlier in the evening. However he did not appear in videos of the wild bash.

The Sun have reported that in a now-deleted post, Joshua bragged to his followers about the 'mad' night he had in the country pad.

No way! The former Eastenders actor, 41, has denied that he attended the raucous bash which was hosted at a country hall in Essex, hours away from his Telford home

MailOnline have contacted Dean's representatives for comment. A rep for Joshua declined to comment on the story.

Current UK guidelines on driving state people are permitted to drive to other destinations for their daily exercise under easing of lockdown measures for England announced by Boris Johnson earlier this month.

Earlier this month, Dean was shown to have breached lockdown rules, as he joined 40 revellers to party with strippers at a fancy dress bash.

Dean was pictured among the partygoers in a number of shots shared on Instagram, where it was revealed that the revelry went on for two days.

Wild! The publication reported that the Ex On The Beach stat hired a country hall for 3,000 and hosted a party which kicked off at 5pm and lasted until the early hours (pictured earlier this year)

We like to party: Dean was recently shown to have breached lockdown rules, as he joined 40 revellers to party with strippers at a fancy dress bash

While current rules prohibit mass gatherings amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he was seen comfortably mingling with the crowd as he soaked up the festivities in Huddersfield  more than 200 miles from his Essex home.

A source told The Sun: 'It was a two-day party and day one was fancy dress. Lots of Instagram models and wannabe glamour models were invited from all over the UK.

'There was a lot going on all over the house and a lot of booze and other substances taken. The hot tub also saw a lot of action.

'Dean wants to get his TV career back on track but being associated with things like this cant help him.'

Revellers: Dean was pictured among the partygoers in a number of shots shared on Instagram, where it was revealed that the revelry went on for two days

Also among guests at the party were Josh and Marty McKenna, 25, of Geordie Shore fame.

The birthday girl, who goes by the name Donna Bee, also took to Instagram to share a collection of images from the celebrations, held to mark her turning 27.

In March, when the pandemic was at its height, Dean revealed he was convinced he had contracted novel coronavirus after losing his sense of smell and taste.

He took to Instagram after seeing updated government guidelines on symptoms of COVID-19 and declared 'oh s***'.

He wrote: 'I haven't been able to smell or taste for 5 days... oh s**t.'

He then posted on his Instagram Stories, writing: 'Boris and his conservative team... hats off to you,' alongside some heart and clapping emojis.'

Medical experts had stressed that older people and those with underlying health conditions wee at greater risk of falling seriously ill from the virus.

But it hasn't left children and younger people free to continue their lives as normal, with experts constantly reminding them that they must comply with social distancing measures.

In recent weeks, lockdown rules have been loosened, with groups of up to six being allowed to gather social outdoors.
Producers for Ellen DeGeneres said that rumors her show is being cancelled are 'untrue.'

'Telepictures can confirm its untrue,' reps for the talk show host's production company told the New York Post on Wednesday, following a report from The Sun that 'rumors are swirling that The Ellen DeGeneres show might be canceled' amid sagging ratings and multiple reports of unkind off-camera behavior the past three months.

DeGeneres, 62, has continued to broadcast her daytime show - which she's been doing since 2003 - from her living room of the Santa Barbara, California mansion she shares with wife Portia De Rossi, 47.

The latest: Producers for Ellen DeGeneres said that rumors her show is being cancelled are 'untrue' amid a report from The Sun that 'rumors are swirling that The Ellen DeGeneres show might be canceled' amid sagging ratings and reports of her unkind off-camera behavior

DeGeneres has been slammed on social media after multiple reports surfaced in April painting an uncomfortable picture of the way she treats others when the cameras aren't rolling.

A group of around 30 crew members were upset after she hired an outside company called Key Code Media to film the shows, and also rankled at what they called a lack of communication or transparency about their jobs following the March shutdown amid the coronavirus outbreak, Variety reported in April.

'Higher-ups in production would occasionally answer phone calls but reveal little' to the crew members, who had their pay slashed by 40 percent amid changes brought about by the virus, insiders told the outlet.

Sources told the outlet that this was not the case with all the shows, as crews for John Oliver, Desus and Mero and Samantha Bee were paid their full rates, while Jimmy Kimmel dipped into his own pocket for a time to keep his staff getting their regular rates.

DeGeneres has been slammed on social media after multiple reports surfaced in April painting an uncomfortable picture of the way she treats others when the cameras aren't rolling

DeGeneres, 62, has continued to broadcast her daytime show - which she's been doing since 2003 - from her living room of the Santa Barbara, California mansion she shares with wife Portia De Rossi, 47

Producers responded that 'Our executive producers and Telepictures are committed to taking care of our staff and crew and have made decisions first and foremost with them in mind.'

Her character also came under fire after a series of tweets from comic Kevin T. Porter March 20 asking his followers to post 'insane' tales of 'Ellen being mean' caught the attention of social media. (Porter's effort was linked to a charity drive for the Los Angeles Food Bank.)

Controversy: Ellen has also caught flak for tone deafness after joking that locking down in her opulent mansion was 'like being in jail'

Writer Ben Simeon said that 'a new staff member was told, "Every day she picks someone different to really hate. Its not your fault, just suck it up for the day and shell be mean to someone else the next day." They didnt believe it, but it ended up being entirely true.'

'Everyone must chew gum from a bowl outside her office before talking to her and if she thinks you smell that day you have to go home and shower.'

Ellen - who Forbes reported is worth around $330 million - has also caught flak for tone deafness after joking that locking down in her opulent mansion was 'like being in jail.'
Big Brother Australia star Daniel Gorringe professed his love for on-again-off-again girlfriend Ana Cannon in a tearful video-call reunion on Tuesday's episode.

And after reconciling with Ana in April after filming ended, the former AFL player has hinted at a surprise proposal in the near future.

Speaking to WHO magazine on Thursday, Daniel said: 'I definitely know that she's the one that I want to spend the rest of life with... I want to be with her forever.'

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Wedding bells? Big Brother star Daniel Gorringe (left) has hinted at plans to propose to his girlfriend Ana Cannon (right) after the live finale next month

The 27-year-old told Big Brother in the diary room this week that he couldn't picture a future without Ana and missed her terribly.

'We broke up because I wasn't mature enough,' Daniel said on the show. 'It's so scary to lose the thing you love the most, and not to know if it will ever come back.'

He told WHO: 'I think first and foremost we get through the Big Brother experience together and once we've come out the end of that, then we'll reassess. But for me, she's definitely the one I want to be with forever.'

'I want to be with her forever': The former AFL player, 27, told Big Brother in the diary room this week that he couldn't picture a future without Ana and missed her terribly

Gushing: 'I definitely know that she's the one that I want to spend the rest of life with,' Daniel told WHO magazine on Thursday

When he entered the Big Brother house, Daniel told host Sonia Kruger: 'I am single, but there's somebody on the outside that I want to try and get back with.'

Daily Mail Australia understands that he and Ana reunited as soon as he returned home to Victoria once filming wrapped in April.

The couple are believed to have first started dating in early 2019.

Front-runner: Daniel has long been the bookies' favourite to take out the title. The winner will be decided in a public vote during the live finale next month when there are three contestants left

There are now only nine housemates left vying for the $250,000 cash prize.

Daniel has long been the bookies' favourite to take out the title. The winner will be decided in a public vote during the live finale next month when there are three contestants left.

Big Brother Australia continues Sunday at 7pm on Channel Seven
After nine years in Kerobokan Prison, convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has become her own boss.

The former Bali jailbird, 42, has revealed her bizarre new career path as an aspiring clock artist.

Schapelle sells handmade wall clocks for $180 each to her social media followers.

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Kicking goals: After nine years in Kerobokan Prison, convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has become her own boss

She sells up to four unique designs per week, and even throws in a signed copy of her autobiography, Schapelle Corby: My Story, for good measure.

Promoting her creations weekly on Instagram, she provides a 'swipe up' link that directs fans to an eBay auction, where PayPal is her preferred method of payment.

The Block's Jess Eva recently discovered Schapelle's creative side hustle, and contacted her about purchasing a clock.

Speaking on Triple M's Moonman in the Morning on Thursday, the radio host said: 'I messaged her about the clock... then she replied - they are $180!'

Time's on her side: The former Bali jailbird, 42, has revealed her bizarre new career path as an aspiring clock artist

'They are $180!' The Block's Jess Eva (pictured with her partner, Norm Hogan) recently discovered Schapelle's creative side hustle, and contacted her about purchasing a clock

Pride and joy: Promoting her creations weekly on Instagram, she provides a 'swipe up' link that directs fans to an eBay auction, where PayPal is her preferred method of payment

Jess joked: 'I don't want to give her advice, but I just feel like she's missing a real good marketing opportunity. Why wouldn't you use the slogan "nobody knows time like I do"?'

In April, Schapelle uploaded a photo to Instagram of some of her designs, and described herself in the caption as a 'middle-aged woman with a new passion'.

It appears she launched her business in January, when she she auctioned off a handmade clock to help raise funds for the bushfire crisis.

The beach-themed quartz clock sold on eBay for more than $700, and the proceeds went to WIRES Wildlife Rescue.

New start: In April, Schapelle uploaded a photo to Instagram of some of her designs, and described herself in the caption as a 'middle-aged woman with a new passion'

Giving back: It appears she launched her business in January, when she she auctioned off a handmade clock to help raise funds for the bushfire crisis

In 2005, Schapelle was sentenced to 20 years in Bali's notorious Kerobokan Prison after 4.2kg of marijuana was found in her boogie-board bag at Ngurah Rai International Airport the previous year.

After a series of sentence reductions, she was released on parole in February 2014 after nine years behind bars.

She was deported back to Australia in May 2017 amid a media frenzy.

Corby is in a long-term relationship with Ben Panangian, 38, an Indonesian surfer she first met at a church service at Kerobokan in 2006.
Australian children's group The Wiggles have featured several black ballet dancers in their new music video, after facing backlash from American parents over the band's 'lack of diversity'.

Last Thursday, they released their new video called Le James Cafe Ballet on YouTube, and it notably includes four black dancers.

It comes after the entertainers faced criticism from parents in the U.S., who urged them to recruit a non-white member following the Black Lives Matter movement.

New music video: The Wiggles have featured four black ballet dancers in their new video, after receiving backlash from American parents for their 'lack of diversity'

The video begins with The Wiggles standing alongside the guest performers, before the dancers each start performing individually.

The Wiggles, who formed in 1991, feature an all-white lineup, including Emma Watkins, 30, Lachlan Gillespie, 34, Simon Pryce, 48, and Anthony Field, 57.

Earlier this month, the band came under scrutiny for their lack of ethnic diversity and parents urged them to set a better example by recruiting a black member.

Diversity: Last Thursday, they released their new video called Le James Cafe Ballet on YouTube, and it notably includes four black dancers

Lack of representation: It comes after The Wiggles came under scrutiny for their lack of diversity. Pictured (L-R) Lachlan Gillespie, Anthony Field, Emma Watkins and Simon Pryce

Much of the criticism on Twitter appeared to be coming from American parents, not Australians.

'We're watching the Wiggles this morning and I'm surprised by the lack of diversity and stereotypical gender roles for a current children's show. What's going on in Australia? Back to Sesame Street,' one person tweeted.

Another wrote: 'My daughter loves the Wiggles. Can yall get some black wiggles together for her?'

'What's going on?' In the wake of the Black Lives Movement, parents have urged the group to set a better example by recruiting a black member

A third commented: 'Watching the wiggles with Moo I wanna turn it off because its no black ppl on here but shes dancing so hard.'

One Twitter user said they had 'stopped watching The Wiggles as a child' because of the lack of diversity.

Jeff Fatt, an Australian of Chinese descent, was the group's only non-white performer but he retired in 2012.
Carrie Bickmore is arguably one of Australia's busiest mums.

The 39-year-old somehow juggles running her own charity with hosting The Project and her own radio show, all while parenting three children.

So the Gold Logie winner can be forgiven for suffering a hilarious cooking fail in the kitchen after attempting to bake a notoriously difficult dessert.

Oops! Carrie Bickmore (pictured) documented a hilarious home cooking fail on social media this week

In an Instagram post on Wednesday night, Carrie revealed her disastrous attempt at baking French macarons.

In an Instagram post, the media personality shows off a photo of picture perfect macarons that looked like they'd been plucked straight out of a Parisian dessert shop.

'This is what I set out to make,' she captioned the image, before writing: 'Swipe to see how it turned out.'

'This is what I set out to make': The 39-year-old media personality attempted to make French macarons, identical to the ones in the picture above

Carrie then showed off her own attempt at the macarons, which were burned, dark brown, and completely misshapen.

'This is what happens when you try and be a fun mum,' she wrote, before adding the hashtags: '#dogpoo #macaroons #fail.'

The post attracted some hilarious replies from many of Carrie's celebrity friends, including Fifi Box who wrote: 'This is AMAZING.'

'This is what happens when you try and be a fun mum': Carrie showed off her own attempt at the macarons, which were burned, dark brown, and completely misshapen

Supermodel Megan Gale simply wrote 'brilliant' followed by a crying-laughing emoji.

'Ooooo girl I did the same thing!!' commented Sharna Burgess. 'Took a whole day and still a huge fail lol.'

Other celebrities that commented on the post included actress Asher Keddie, radio host Ash London, and blogger Adele Barbaro.
He welcomed daughter Harper May with wife Jasmine Yarbrough two months ago.

And on Thursday, Today Show host Karl Stefanovic shared an adorable new image of the doting mother cradling her firstborn child.

However, in Karl's typical larrikin style sense of humour, he also used the sweet post as an opportunity to take a cheeky swipe at Channel Seven Morning Show host Larry Emdur.

How sweet: On Thursday, Today Show host Karl Stefanovic shared an adorable new photo to Instagram of his wife Jasmine Yarbrough and their 2-month-old daughter Harper May (Pictured are Jasmine and Harper)

'Two girls and a pub. Happy as Larry. And Larrys pretty happy,' Karl captioned two images.

The first picture showed Jasmine nursing Harper May as they sat at a table in the bistro area of the Beach Hotel in Byron Bay.

The new mother looked happy and relaxed as she lounged in a black hoodie over a white T-shirt.

He just can't help himself! However, with Karl's typical larrikin style sense of humour, he also used the sweet post as an opportunity to take a cheeky swipe at Channel Seven Morning Show host Larry Emdur (Pictured Karl Stefanovic)

Jasmine showed off her natural beauty, wearing minimal makeup with just a hint of foundation and a soft pink lip and wore her blonde locks in a messy high bun.

Sweet little Harper May looked adorable in pink leggings with a white knit cardigan, which was accessorised with a matching bobble hat to keep her warm from the cool midwinter air.

The second photo showed 55-year-old Larry looking dapper in a navy blue suit and a pair of reading glasses while appearing completely engrossed in a book.

Take a closer look! The second photo showed 55-year-old Larry looking dapper in a navy blue suit and a pair of reading glasses while appearing completely engrossed in a book. A closer look at the novel reveals he is reading Great Sex Starts at 50

A closer look at the novel reveals he is reading Great Sex Starts at 50.

Karl and Jasmine, who both hail from Queensland, are currently enjoying a getaway to the Sunshine State and NSW, allowing them to introduce their daughter to their extended families.

On Monday, Jasmine was spotted moving into their $3.6million beachside property in Noosa they purchased in May.

Room with a view: On Monday, Jasmine was spotted moving into their $3.6million beachside property in Noosa they purchased in May

The Today host and his shoe designer wife are planning to spend more time relaxing at their holiday home with their daughter, The Courier Mail reported.

The expansive house overlooks Sunshine Beach and has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a three-car garage and a swimming pool.

It is less than 30 minutes from Sunshine Coast Airport for when Karl needs to jet back to Sydney to film Channel Nine's Today show.

Room to move: It features a spacious living room that connects to an outdoor entertaining area with views of the beach

The Stefanovic's have strong links to Queensland and celebrated New Year's Eve with their families in Noosa.

Karl studied journalism in Queensland and started his career in Rockhampton, while, Jasmine's family still lives in Brisbane.

Karl is already a father to three children shared with Cassandra: son Jackson, 20, daughter Ava, 14, and son River, 12.
Hollyoaks star Jazmine Franks has been working for a homeless charity full-time during the coronavirus pandemic after quitting the soap.

The actress, 28, who played Ester Bloom on the show, said that preparing meals for those on the streets has helped to restore her 'faith in humanity'.

Jazmine and a team of nine other people have been making 200 meals a day to deliver to homeless people throughout the crisis.

Good hearted: Hollyoaks star Jazmine Franks has been working for a homeless charity full-time during the coronavirus pandemic after quitting the soap

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, she said: 'It's been a mammoth task but it's one of those summers that I'll look back on and remember.'

Jazmine explained that the Barnabus Manchester team hand out breakfast, lunch and dinner to people on the streets.

Jazmine - who also goes by Jazz - previously admitted she felt ready to leave the show behind during an exclusive interview with MailOnline.

Career: Jazmine played Esther Bloom on Hollyoaks for eight years before leaving the show

She said the time was right for her to depart the soap, especially following the death of her on-screen grandmother Frankie Osbourne (played by Helen Pearson).

She said: 'I've been there nearly eight years now and the cast have felt like my family. It just felt right.'

Talking about her last day on set Jazmine said: 'It was so sad, I've been there so long a lot of the cast I will still stay in touch with.

'It was weird clocking in for the last time and going into the canteen for the last time.'

Working hard: The actress, 28 said that preparing meals for those on the streets has helped to restore her 'faith in humanity'

Support: Jazmine and a team of nine other people have been making 200 meals a day to deliver to homeless people throughout the crisis

Candid: Jazmine - who also goes by Jazz - previously admitted she felt ready to leave the show behind during an exclusive interview with MailOnline

Speaking on what's next for her following her departure from the village, Jazmine added: 'I'll literally do anything! I've never been in this situation, since I actually quit university after landing the role in Hollyoaks. I would like to give theatre a go.'

When asked whether she would tread the boards in a West End, the brunette beauty added: 'I would say more plays, I would love to work with the Royal Exchange Theatre since it's my local.

'I'd like to do something more serious, where I'm not playing the same character every day.'

Jazmine's time in Hollyoaks has been nothing short of a rollercoaster, as character Esther was at the centre of plenty of hard-hitting storylines.

She's going: Fans will see Esther's exit from Hollyoaks at the end of April, as she continues to be at loggerheads with scheming Darcy Wilde (Aisling Jarrett-Gavin)

But when it came to naming her most memorable storyline, Jazmine added that it was a no-brainer as she recalled the 2013 bullying storyline.

The soap star won acclaim for the plot as Esther was the victim of horrendous bullying, eventually attempting suicide with a bottle of vodka and pills.

Speaking about the plot Jazmine said: 'That was massive for me. It was something I could really get my teeth into, plus hearing people's experiences with bullying. I had the chance to speak to a couple of girls about it.'

Terrified: Esther has been determined to stop Darcy from worming her way into the family, determined that she is up to no good

As she waves goodbye to Hollyoaks Jazmine admitted she wouldn't rule out returning to soaps, adding: 'With soapland you know you have a job, whereas with other jobs you can just dot around here and there. I wouldn't say no.'

Since leaving the soap, Jazmine has been on a health kick for over a year and the actress has shed more than a stone with her dedication to fitness and healthy living.

She regularly shares videos and photos detailing her work-out regime on social media.

Transformation: Since leaving the soap, Jazmine has been on a health kick for over a year and the actress has shed more than a stone with her dedication to fitness and healthy living

Ester previously revealed it was a photo of herself eating pizza that made her want to start going to the gym.

In one before and after photo she posted, Jazmine told how leaving Hollyoaks 'gave her the freedom' to focus on herself.

She said: 'Heres 6 months and a 8kg difference between these pictures so its been a very slow process but I wanted to make sure I still had a social life.

Motivation: She previously revealed it was a photo of herself eating pizza that made her want to start working out

'I still enjoy desserts and I still enjoy a gin. Having time on my side has played a massive part, leaving Hollyoaks gave me the freedom to focus on me.

'Im not saying I dont want to work again HA Im definitely ready for a new adventure but having the time where I'm my main priority has made me realise exactly what I want from life and who I want in it!

'I feel really good at the moment, Ive learnt to say no. To the food I dont actually need to eat, to the events I dont actually want to go to and to the things I dont actually want to do. Ive had a bit of time out and I feel wonderful for it.'

Change: Jazmine, who is now a regular gym goer, told how leaving Hollyoaks 'gave her the freedom' to focus on herself'
She has been sharing a slew of sexy snaps during the coronavirus lockdown.

And Ellie Brown was at it again as she turned up the heat with a sizzling snap on Wednesday.

The Love Island 2018 star, 22, wowed as she displayed her toned frame and pert derriere in black lingerie.

Wow; Ellie Brown was at it again as she turned up the heat with a sizzling snap on Wednesday

The star donned a black crop-top which displayed her slender midriff as she leaned on a sofa.

A pair of matching bottoms teased a glimpse of her pert derriere.

The star wore her platinum locks sleek and straight while a rich palette of make-up enhanced her pretty features.

Last month, Ellie was the picture of confidence as she posed up a storm in a racy Instagram snap taken from her bathroom.

The star showcased her killer curves as she slipped into a sheer white lingerie set by Lounge Underwear.

Working it: Last month, Ellie was the picture of confidence as she posed up a storm in a racy Instagram snap taken from her bathroom

Catching the eye, the media personality looked sensational in her tiny two-piece, which featured a bralet and a matching thong.

Fo her accessories, a selection of silver and gold rings perfectly complemented her powder pink acrylic nails.

The former business development manager dressed her tresses in a straight style, while opting for neutral-toned make-up to highlight her naturally pretty features.

In her element: The star has been keeping herself occupied with impromptu photoshoots amid the UK's coronavirus lockdown

Meanwhile, in the romance department, Ellie recently raged about her relationship with her EOTB co-star Michael Griffiths, who revealed the blonde 'hated' him for going on dates just days after their split.

The former couple lifted the lift on their failed romance while appearing on The Reality Tea podcast together.

Love Island's Michael, 28, admitted: 'Ellie hated me for a little bit. Not immediately after it happened, but it was for a while until last month. Yeah, pretty much December.

Rise to fame: The media personality has turned to social media influencing after appearing on Love Island in the summer of 2018

'So I'll explain it from my my point. So from the get go, I said to Ellie that I didn't want anything to kind of progress any way because I thought that I would hurt her.'

Interrupting, the outspoken beauty agreed: 'Yeah, when we left the villa we said we weren't in a relationship. That was always like set in stone.'

The former firefighter concluded: 'So I was like, I don't want it to go anywhere because I know I'm gonna hurt you. And I don't want to lose the friendship that I've got with you because I like, I adore Ellie, like I do.'
She's known for her roles in Watchmen and Billions.

But during the coronavirus pandemic, Malin Akerman has been enjoying spending more time with her family.

The blonde actress, 42, enjoyed a lunch outing with husband Jack Donnelly and son Sebastian on Wednesday in the celebrity enclave of Los Feliz in Los Angeles.

Fun in the sun: Watchmen and Billions star Malin Akerman enjoyed a lunch outing with husband Jack Donnelly and son Sebastian on Wednesday in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles

Akerman was dressed for the sunny day in a black tank top and black patterned cotton pants tapered at the ankle.

She sported a cream fedora over her long loose hair and added reflective sunglasses and a black cloth face mask.

British actor Donnelly, 34, also wore a face mask along with a t-shirt and shorts and a pair of Biorkenstock leather sandals.

The couple married in December 2018.

Akerman shares her son Sebastian, seven, with her ex-husband, Italian musician Roberto Zincone whom she divorced in 2014 after seven years of marriage.

Casually stylish: The blonde actress, 42, was dressed in a tank top and cotton pants. She sported a cream fedora and added reflective sunglasses and a black cloth face mask

In mid-June, it was announced that Akerman will executive produce a new horror film starring her husband.

Donnelly is joining Lydia Hearst and Kara Heywood in With Teeth that' set to shoot in New Mexico once coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

According to Deadline.com, the movie is about a group of influencers 'who are drawn to a reclusive billionaires mansion only to find themselves trapped in the lair of a horrifyingly evil vampire. The only way out is to be saved by a famous online gamer and an old school vampire hunter, who is set in his ways.'

The actress also served as a producer on the action comedy Chick Fight, now in post-production, in which she stars with Bella Thorne, Kevin Connelly and Alec Baldwin.
Tommy Manzo pleaded not guilty Wednesday in New Jersey to federal charges that he hired a Lucchese mobster to attack the current husband of ex-wife Dina Manzo.

US District Court Judge Cathy L. Waldor set bail for Manzo, 55, at $100,000 as prosecutors charged him with committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering, assault with a dangerous weapon and falsifying records.

Manzo appeared in federal court via Zoom for allegedly hiring mob soldier John Perna to attack Dave Cantin, husband of former The Real Housewives Of New Jersey star Dina, in exchange for a discount on a wedding reception at the Manzo family catering venue The Brownstone in Paterson, New Jersey, according to an article by PageSix.

Arraignment hearing: Tommy Manzo, shown in an undated file photo, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges that he hired a Lucchese mobster to attack the current husband of ex-wife Dina Manzo

Perna, 43, also was arraigned Wednesday on identical charges and pleaded not guilty.

Cantin, 40, was dating Dina, 48, at the time of the July 2015 attack and they later married in June 2017 a month after they were the victims of a home invasion robbery.

Manzo, if he makes bail, will remain under court supervision and must surrender his passports and travel documents.

Perna also was charged with a count of insurance fraud for allegedly falsely reporting the loss of a Mercedes-Benz in 2016 after setting it ablaze with other Lucchese mobsters.

Cute couple: Dina and Dave Cantin, shown in an Instagram post on Sunday, were dating at the time of the July 2015 attack

Also arraigned: John Perna, shown in a booking photo, was allegedly hired by Tommy to carry out the attack

He was given the same bail conditions, but if he makes bond also will subject to 24-hour supervision and home incarceration with electronic monitoring.

Dina's sister Caroline Manzo, who is married to Tommy's brother Albert, spoke with Extra about the developments.

'We are heartbroken. This is family on both sides. I want to know the truth and my allegiance will lie with the truth. We dont run from things like this, we address them, and I feel comfortable with that because we are being painted with a brush that does not reflect who we are as people,' said Caroline, 55.

Family affair: Caroline Manzo, shown with husband Albert Manzo in 2013 in New York City, said she was 'heartbroken' over the allegations against Tommy who is her husband's brother

Dina and Tommy married in 2007, separated in 2012 and their divorce was finalized in 2016.

They have a 24-year-old daughter Lexi together.

Dave and Dina started dating in 2015 and got hitched in June 2017, but kept it private until 2019.
Famke Janssen hasn't let the shutdown spoil her style.

The Dutch actress, 55, was gorgeous as she stepped out in a walk in New York City on Wednesday donning a silk black skirt with rose patterns adorning the bottom of the garment.

Janssen, who's portrayed Jean Grey multiple X-Men films, rounded her fashionable ensemble with red heels, dark sunglasses, a white patterned face mask and a parasol on the summer day.

Out and about: Famke Janssen, 55, was gorgeous as she stepped out in a walk in New York City on Wednesday donning a silk black skirt with rose patterns adorning the bottom of the garment

The brunette stunner, who's been seen in Nip/Tuck, GoldenEye and Hemlock Grove, had her auburn locks down and parted on side side during the daytime walk.

Janssen last month participated in a reunion of the stars of the 2000 X-Men franchise in a fundraiser for Global Citizen: Unite For Our Future.

She was on a remote stream with Halle Berry (Storm), Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Patrick Stewart (Professor Charles Xavier) and Ian McKellen (Magneto).

The call also featured a cameo from Ryan Reynolds - who was crashing the party, as he didn't appear in the film 20 years ago, but was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009.

Confident: The brunette stunner, who's been seen in Nip/Tuck, GoldenEye and Hemlock Grove, had her auburn locks down and parted on side side during the daytime walk

Together again: Janssen last month participated in a reunion of the stars of the 2000 X-Men franchise in a fundraiser for Global Citizen: Unite For Our Future

When Janssen departed the call, she joked she had a James Bond reunion to attend, referencing her role as Xenia Onatopp in the 1995 movie GoldenEye (with Pierce Brosnan playing Bond).

She was seen last fall on the BBC crime drama The Capture, playing the role of Jessica Mallory. At the time the COVID-19 pandemic shut down nearly all Hollywood productions in March, four films featuring Janssen were in the post-production process. They include the action thriller Way Down; a crime drama called The Postcard Killings, co-starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan; and the romance films Endless and Redeeming Love.

Prior to her acting career, the statuesque Janssen was a runway model for Elite Model Management, walking for high profile names such as Giorgio Armani, Chanel and Victoria's Secret.

As of Thursday, the death total in the U.S. for COVID-19 was at 128,044 deaths over 2,683,894 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. On a global level, 515,504 people have died amid 10,662,993 positive diagnoses worldwide.
Ryan Phelan's ex-girlfriend Chelsea Franklin has admitted she's had a rough week after the TV star pleaded not guilty to two charges of assaulting her on Tuesday.

The 44-year-old ballet teacher shared a photo of her passport to Instagram, and wrote: 'How nice this would be right about now. Some wanderlust and escapism.'

She added the hashtags 'tough week' and 'Hawaii' to the post.

Post: Ryan Phelan's (right) ex-girlfriend Chelsea Franklin (left) said she's had a 'tough week' after the TV star pleaded not guilty to assaulting her on Thursday

It comes two days after Phelan briefly fronted Manly Local Court morning and pleaded not guilty to two charges of assault.

Last week, Phelan was charged over an alleged domestic violence incident with his girlfriend at their home in Frenchs Forest in Sydney's northern beaches.

Chelsea broke down in tears last Tuesday when she spoke of Phelan being charged the previous day with attacking her in the couple's northern beaches home.

Difficult: Chelsea shared a photo of her passport to Instagram and added the hashtag 'tough week'

The dance teacher told Daily Mail Australia her boyfriend's alleged assault of her had been a 'horrible mistake' and repeatedly said she 'still loves him'.

She said two of the couple's daughters - both from previous relationships - were inside their home when the alleged assault occurred between 5.15pm and 5.25pm.

Hours before Phelan was charged with the alleged assault, the television presenter arrived for his final week at work as though nothing was amiss.

Phelan presented alongside co-host Sally Obermeder for The Daily Edition, before filling in for Mel McLaughlin on the 6pm sport bulletin.

Case: Her post comes two days after Phelan briefly fronted Manly Local Court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to two charges of assaulting her

The first time bosses at Channel Seven learned of the alleged altercation was when a reporter called asking for further information about Phelan's arrest, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Sally addressed Phelan's absence with viewers on Tuesday after he was axed, saying: 'Before we go on, I want to address Ryan Phelan's absence from the program.'

'The network was unaware of these allegations until notified last night... Ryan will not be returning to The Daily Edition due to the serious allegations made against him.'
Melissa George filmed herself undergoing a fat-freezing cryotherapy treatment in Paris on Thursday.

Doing her best to pass the time on Instagram Stories, the Australian actress hilariously tried (and failed) to pronounce the name of the treatment in French, Cryo'Minceur.

The 43-year-old also reminded herself to 'think bikini' as she struggled with the length and boredom of the treatment.

On social media: Melissa George filmed herself undergoing a fat-freezing cryotherapy treatment in Paris

Melissa spanned the camera around the room, which saw her cryotherapy machines on either side.

The make-up free star went on to ask 'how's my hair?' as she did her best to get comfortable on the treatment bed.

A final snap from her treatment saw Melissa flashing a smile as she told her followers she was finally done.

Back in 2012, Melissa famously told The Sydney Morning Herald that she wouldn't return to Australia because she was sick of local media being 'disrespectful' by mentioning her role on Home and Away.

Giving it her best: Doing her best to pass the time on Instagram Stories on Thursday, the Australian actress hilariously tried and failed to pronounce the name of the treatment in French [Cryo'Minceur]

Slimming down: The 43-year-old also reminded herself to 'think bikini' as she struggled with the length and boredom of the treatment

'I don't need credibility from my country any more, I just need them all to be quiet. If they have nothing intelligent to say, please don't speak to me any more,' she said.

'I'd rather be having a croissant and a little espresso in Paris or walking my French bulldog in New York City.'

However, she later changed her tune after temporarily returning Down Under to film the drama Bad Mothers for Channel Nine.

During a promotional interview for the series last year, Melissa gushed to TV Week magazine: 'Whenever I come to Australia, I feel complete.'

Mane attraction: The make-up free star went on to ask 'how's my hair?' as she did her best to get comfortable on the treatment bed.

Evidence: Melissa spanned the camera around the room, which saw her cryotherapy machines on either side

She had spent 10 days filming Bad Mothers in Melbourne in 2018, and believes the short stay helped her 'reconnect' with the Australian culture.

'This was a great opportunity to come home and be amongst Australian talent. That's why I wanted to do this,' she explained.

'I'd say a lot of Australian talent gets forced to go overseas  that's the way things work. But when we come home, it's like the last piece of the puzzle to fit.'
Former The Block stars Jess Eva and Norm Hogan have sold their block of land in Queensland's Russell Island, after seven days of listing it.

The reality television stars, who starred on the 2018 season of the renovation show, purchased the land in July 2019 for $17,000.

Jess, who is currently a co-host on Triple M's breakfast show, and her husband Norm recently sold the block for $24,000 within one week of its listing.

That was quick! Former Block stars Jess Eva and Norm Hogan (pictured) sold their $24,000 building block in Russell Island, Queensland, just SEVEN days after listing it

The radio host told The Daily Telegraph the couple had hoped to build on the land this year, rent it out and then move back in 15 years but they 'didn't have time'.

The couple rent a home in Sydney's Tennyson Point, which is 15 minutes from where Jess co-hosts Moonman in the Morning with Lawrence Mooney and Chris Page.

Jess and Norm became household names after starring in the 2018 season of The Block, and share son Fred, five, and daughter Matilda, two.

Cha-ching! The reality television stars, who starred on the 2018 season of the renovation show, purchased the land in July 2019 for $17,000

During the show's finale, the couple sold their apartment at auction for $2,859,000, making a tidy profit of $209,000.

Jess told Media Week in October last year, she couldn't watch the first few episodes of last year's The Block, due to post traumatic stress.

'I saw them (the new contestants) pulling up in their cars on the first day and I thought, "Oh God, I'm not ready". But, as time has gone on, I've really liked it and some of the contestants have reached out to chat,' she said at the time.

Rise to fame! Jess and Norm became household names after starring on the 2018 season of The Block, and share son Fred, five, and daughter Matilda, two

She also recalled telling the contestants that the 'media scrutiny doesn't last forever'.

'We're all just normal people and you get tossed into a spotlight, so at times you can feel a bit stressed,' she continued.

'You just have to think at the end of the day that 45,000 couples applied for the show and you were one of the five couples that were chosen.'
Bachelorette star Jarrod Woodgate spent 12 years in the Australian Army before he was medically discharged.

And now the reality TV star, 33, has broken his silence on suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the past six years.

Appearing on Wednesday's Studio 10, Jarrod said his experiences with medical conditions in the army made him terrified of ever visiting a doctor again.

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Speaking out: The Bachelorette's Jarrod Woodgate (pictured) has broken his silence on living with PTSD for the past six years after he was medically discharged from the Australian Army following a shock cancer misdiagnosis. Pictured on Channel 10's Studio 10 on Wednesday

Jarrod said he found it difficult to transition from defense to civilian lifestyle when he was discharged, and has only recognised, understood and come to terms with his PTSD in the past 12 months.

'People think it's [PTSD], you've gone to war-like situations, loud situations or bangs, but I've actually got mine from an experience in the army from my medical conditions,' the vineyard owner explained.

'I was diagnosed to have cancer, but it was a misdiagnosis. I was told to sit in my room at the army base without any family or friends around and I just had to think about having cancer for that night,' he recalled, as the TV hosts gasped in shock.

'Once I was medically discharged from the army, you kind of just get put aside... and to this day I'm terrified of going to the doctors.'

'I've actually got mine [PTSD] from an experience in the army from my medical conditions': Jarrod said he is terrified to visit doctors to this very day after he was misdiagnoses with cancer while serving in the Australian Army

Studio 10 host Joe Hildebrand asked Jarrod how PTSD has personally affected his everyday life or his past experiences on reality TV.

Jarrod said he has come to recognise that getting angry, second-guessing himself or being anxious were all byproducts of his PTSD.

He also claimed he only realised in hindsight that it was happening when he starred on the 2017 Bachelorette and 2018 Bachelor In Paradise seasons.

'People think I must have a good life, but to be honest the past six years my life has been nothing. It's been so scary,' Jarrod confessed.

He missed the signs: Jarrod said he came to recognise that getting angry, second-guessing himself or being anxious were all byproducts of his PTSD. Pictured on The Bachelorette with Sophie Monk in 2017

'It's taken me six years, and in the last 12 months I've been the happiest I've ever been,' he said with a smile.

Jarrod may have new girlfriend, Bachelor star Sam Royce, to thank for his renewed, upbeat attitude.

The pair went public with their relationship in November, but are believed to have begun dating months earlier in September 2019.

Sharing his televised interview to his Instagram, Jarrod wrote: 'So many people like me, silently suffer from PTSD. Im hoping that me sharing my story might empower others to find the help they need.'
Hillsong Family church wades into mask-wearing dispute in Florida after pastor, wife get coronavirus

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Grace City Church, a fast-growing Hillsong Family church in Lakeland, Florida, waded into the divisive issue of mask-wearing in Florida Sunday when it announced that it would ask members to wear masks after the churchs husband and wife team of lead pastors revealed they had been infected with the new coronavirus.

During an online service Sunday, the pastors of the church, Andrew Gard and his wife Christina, confirmed their mild infection with COVID-19. The confirmation came after they gathered for the first time in person since the lockdown began for a church prayer night on June 14.

Gard said he and his wife chose to get tested due to "some potential exposure."

In-person weekend services were scheduled to resume last weekend but as a result of their infection with the virus, the pastors said they were pausing that plan until July 12 when they would ask churchgoers to wear masks during services.

Were excited to come back and gather again and when we do come back, just want to encourage you were going to be creating as safe of an environment as possible. We probably are going to be asking people to wear masks. Were going to be encouraging that, asking people to do that so that we dont have to shut down once we open back up because three fourths of our staff get it or something like that, Gard said.

Gards comments on the masks came after he asked the church to pray for Lakelands health officials and political leaders, including founding church member Lakeland Mayor William Bill Mutz whose proposal to have residents wear masks indoors in the wake of rising coronavirus infections in Florida, did not get enough support from local politicians last week.

Lets be praying right now for our city. I know Central Florida, Polk County and Lakeland are experiencing a little bit of a surge in this regard so lets be praying for our city, lets be praying for our medical professionals, lets be praying for Mayor Mutz who goes to our church, and our city council members some of who go to our church, Gard said.

Florida reported a one-day record of 9,585 positive coronavirus cases Saturday and as of Tuesday had at least 146,333 cases, according to a New York Times database, and at least 3,446 deaths from the virus. Polk County, which includes Lakeland, reached a one-day high of 213 cases last Friday, then reported 404 new positive tests Saturday for a total of 3,182 overall cases and at least 92 deaths.

Amid rising numbers, a mandate to require face masks in Lakeland proposed by Mutz failed to make it to a vote a week ago, according to ABC Action News.

I am disappointed that we didnt even get enough interest to get a vote on the topic, Mutz opined after the vote.

"So there is no motion to accept the executive order, and we will not do a mask mandate. The result of that will be in the numbers."

The mandate was rejected despite presentations made to city commissioners by Danielle Dummond, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Lakeland Regional Health, and Dr. Steven Achinger of Watson Clinic, who both recommended the wearing of masks.

"The more masks that we have being worn in a public space, the safer that public space is. No question," Dr. Archinger said, noting that masks are the most cost-effective way of keeping the local economy open safely.

Dummond also noted to commissioners that the LRH had seen an increase in ventilator use, and of the 50 ICU beds available, 48 are currently in use and 30 are COVID-19 patients.

Two days after his mask mandate was rejected by Lakeland officials, Mutz continued to share his disapproval about the decision in a message on his Facebook page from a local pastor.

I so appreciate the POWER of balancing this perspective during life's more challenging moments: Do unto others and wearing a mask . . . Denial is one of the disastrous traits of this mess. Some believe that if you ignore it, it doesnt exist. Still, others believe that if it helps you get what you want, then any behavior is acceptable, he began.

Community is not built on self-serving attitudes, instead, on shared responsibility. I suppose the logic of someone saying, making me wear a mask is taking away my rights, is akin to saying, telling me not to drive drunk is taking away my rights. When you consider individual or collective rights, on one end is anarchy. On the other end is authoritarianism. There is a balance between these two. I happen to believe that the golden rule, which exists in virtually every culture, is what we are losing. Treat others as you would have them treat you. The modern vernacular would read, Dont infect others as you dont want them to infect you.

The issue of mask-wearing in Florida has divided Republican leaders in the state over whether it should be a choice or mandate. Some places like Tampa, St. Petersburg and Hillsborough County have passed mandates that require masks to be worn indoors. In Jacksonville, where the Republican National Convention is expected to take place in August, Republican Mayor Lenny Curry has made it mandatory to wear a mask in indoor public spaces. Gov. Ron DeSantis has said, however, that he wont stand in the way of local rules regarding masks while simultaneously suggesting that policing facial-wear would backfire.

Many Florida residents have been captured on video fiercely opposing wearing masks during the pandemic while invoking God, the devil, the U.S. Constitution and claims of communism.

"They want to throw God's wonderful breathing system out the door," Sylvia Ball said during a recent public comment session with the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners.

"All of you are practicing the devil's law," another woman identified as Cristina, who promised a citizen's arrest for those who are going against the "freedom of choice," noted. "Every single one of you that are obeying the devil's laws are going to be arrested."

Gard in his comments to his congregants Sunday urged them to pray for a sound mind to prevail as well as grace for those in leadership.

Lets be praying that God would give us all just a sound mind and that we would make the best decisions possible. I also really want to encourage us as a church, lets have grace for people that are making difficult decisions. The thing that Ive always wanted to be, I want to be the kind of person just extending grace when people are in difficult positions and high positions of leadership. And so please. Lets be Grace City, he said.
The syndicated soap opera The Young And the Restless had been eyeing a July 6 return to production, but now that has been pushed by a week.

The new tentative production start date is now July 13, though that may be pushed again as COVID-19 cases continue to spike in California, according to Deadline.

The news comes hours after California governor Gavin Newsom ordered bars, indoor dining rooms and movie theaters to shut down again.

Production pushed: The syndicated soap opera The Young And the Restless had been eyeing a July 6 return to production, but now that has been pushed by a week

The Young and the Restless and other iconic soap operas like The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital shut down production in mid-March, along with most other film and television productions.

All three of the programs ran out of episodes to air at the end of April, as all of the shows started airing repeats that became 'theme weeks.'

The Bold and the Beautiful became the first soap opera, and first television show of any kind, to resume production last month, but even they ran into a snag.

Production: The Young and the Restless and other iconic soap operas like The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital shut down production in mid-March, along with most other film and television productions

Filming started on June 17, with series creator/executive producer Brett Bell telling The Hollywood Reporter they were abiding by all production guidelines to keep cast and crew members safe, including have some of the actor's real partners serving as love scene doubles.

Shooting did resume on June 17, but it only lasted for one day, with production shutting down the rest of the week to focus on increased testing.

After switching to a new testing lab, following a slew of false positive tests, production did ultimately begin on June 24, with no interruptions thus far.

Filming: Filming started on June 17, with series creator/executive producer Brett Bell telling The Hollywood Reporter they were abiding by all production guidelines to keep cast and crew members safe, including have some of the actor's real partners serving as love scene doubles

As for General Hospital, that show is currently eyeing a production start in mid-July, though that could change as well.

The news comes just days after The Young and the Restless won Outstanding Drama Series at the Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday.

The show is currently in its 47th season, and it was renewed for four more years by CBS, taking it through the year 2024.

Outstanding: The news comes just days after The Young and the Restless won Outstanding Drama Series at the Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday

The Young and the Restless has followed the rivalry between two disparate families, originally the wealthy Brooks family and the working class Foster family.

The show has changed the names of the families several times, though the one constant is the rivalry between Jill Abbott (Jess Walton) and Katherine Chancellor (Jeanne Cooper)

It is said to be the longest rivalry on any American soap opera.
Supermodel Nicole Trunfio welcomed her third child just four months ago.

And the 34-year-old oozed sex appeal as she showcased her post-baby body while promoting her sustainable swimwear line in a daring shoot by photographer Cydney Cosette.

Nicole opted to go topless in some of the risque photos and stripped down to nothing more than just skimpy black bikini bottoms.

Eye catching! Supermodel Nicole Trunfio, 34, (pictured) went topless as she stripped down to a skimpy pair of black bikini briefs as she models her swimwear range Earth Swim

The mother-of-three looked every inch the natural beauty as she flaunted her sensational physique in the skimpy, high-cut bottoms.

Nicole allowed her brunette tresses to fall past her shoulders as she shot the camera a number of strong looks.

The Australian star then slipped into another black bikini which had an intricate design of black strings going across her belly.

The beauty showed off her washboard abs and toned arms as she struck a number of poses in the stunning swimsuit.

Nicole said that she styled the shoot herself, which occurred at her Texas ranch. She added she wasn't meant to be the model for the line but pandemic meant she had to.

Long and lean! The mother-of-three looked every inch the natural supermodel as she flaunted her sensational figure in the skimpy, high-cut bottoms

Beauty! Nicole (pictured) allowed her wavy brunette tresses to fall past her shoulders as she shot the camera a number of strong looks

Nicole recently launched Earth Swim, which she called a 'beautiful creative collaboration' backed by herself and her team of women.

'Our swimsuits are sustainable, hand made by women, UPF50 and have shape wear features. The silhouettes are made from recycled abandoned fishing nets.'

The model is currently in lockdown at her Texas ranch with her musician Gary Clark Jr. and three children: Zion, five, Gigi, two, and Ella-Wolf, four months.

Lithe: Nicole recently launched Earth Swim, with my writing on Instagram of the venture it was a 'beautiful creative collaboration' back by her team of women

Nicole recently revealed her secret to snapping back into shape, telling Australian program The Morning Show she uses a doula (waist trainer).

'I actually studied Ayurvedic medicine and I have always had an Ayurvedic post-partum doula,' Nicole explained on the program.

She went on to praise the type of ancient medicine, which originates from India.

Slender: Nicole also modelled a stunning plunging black one-piece swimsuit

'In Ayurvedic medicine they treat you with lots of herbs in the cooking to contract your uterus back and all of your organs after birth.'

She went on to praise the importance of binding a woman's stomach after birth.

'This in their ancient beliefs, they believe in binding a woman's stomach to ground them after birth as you have all that air in your being,' she explained.

'It is what they use to bind the stomach and it is really supportive.'

Bombshell: Nicole looked so toned and fit in a number of her swimsuits. The photo shoot was at the Texas ranch

The Australian catwalk star gave birth to beautiful daughter Ella Wolf back in February amid the global pandemic.

Nicole shared an intimate image of herself breast-feeding daughter Ella Wolf on Instagram earlier this week.

'I still can't believe I can keep my baby alive, happy, and growing rolls of fat by only drinking my breast milk,' she wrote underneath the photo.

'It's been 4 months, 3 babies later and I'm still amazed,' she continued.

In the image, Nicole is seen staring directly into the camera as she feeds her latest bundle of joy.

The Australian model has always been an advocate for normalising breastfeeding.
He was one of the most popular TV personalities in Australia thanks to the success of his early 2000s late night show, Rove Live.

But Rove McManus has revealed he almost took a very different career path before making it big as a comedian and presenter.

Speaking to Mamamia, the 46-year-old said he once dreamed of becoming a professional artist, and even studied fine arts at university.

'There I was with the fork in the road': Rove McManus 46, has revealed he almost decided to become a professional artist before finding success as a standup comedian while studying at university

'In the second year of [my arts course] I started doing stand up, and there I was with the fork in the road of which choice to make and off I went to perform,' he explained.

While art may not be his profession, Rove has maintained artistic pursuits as a hobby over the years.

After losing a large portion of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the funnyman even turned to drawing as a coping mechanism.

Life could have ended up very differently! Rove is a triple Gold Logie Award winner for 2003, 2004 and 2005, and has won an incredible 16 Logie Awards in total. Pictured in 2007

'It's such a great [form of] meditation. Especially with everything that's been going on the last few months, I've found it supremely beneficial,' he said.

These days, Rove has managed to incorporate his passion for art into his latest TV series, Life Drawing Live.

Airing on SBS, the show sees Australian celebrities join Rove to sketch live models as they strike various poses - often in the nude.

'I'm no stranger to life drawing!' These days, Rove has managed to incorporate his passion for art into his latest TV series, Life Drawing Live

'I've found it supremely beneficial': While art may not be his profession, Rove has maintained artistic pursuits as a hobby over the years

'I studied a fine art degree, so I am no stranger to life drawing, but that was a long time ago, so I am more than a bit rusty,' Rove said in an official press release.

The new gig comes after a string of flops for the media personality in recent years.

In 2015, he joined reality star Sam Frost for the ill-fated 2Day FM breakfast show, Sam & Rove.

Flashback: In 2015, he joined reality star Sam Frost for the ill-fated 2Day FM breakfast show, Sam & Rove

The radio show was savaged by critics and failed to attract listeners, and was eventually canned after a year and a half of Southern Cross Austereo trying to make it work.

He went back into television after that, hosting the low-rated trivia program Show Me The Movie on Channel 10 for two seasons.

When that was cancelled, he hosted the variety show Saturday Night Rove on 10. It was axed after just two episodes.

Flop: Rove's variety show Saturday Night Rove was canned after two episodes

Heyday: Rove was one of the most popular TV personalities in Australia in the 2000s thanks to his late night show, Rove Live. Pictured with Matt Damon

Rove was one of the most popular TV personalities in Australia in the 2000s thanks to his late night show, Rove Live.

He is a triple Gold Logie Award winner for 2003, 2004 and 2005, and has won an incredible 16 Logie Awards in total.

Rove has also been nominated for the Gold Logie Award on five other occasions.

However, his popularity dwindled after he left Australia in 2011 to make it in America.

Rove's Life Drawing Live premieres Saturday, July 4 on SBS.
She's a proud mother of two who recently spoke up about the importance of women's health.

Chrissy Teigen shared adorable image of her daughter Luna, four, and son Miles, two, on Wednesday, showing the pair of tots in stylish summer wear.

Luna wear a lovely sundress with ribbon straps, with a striped top and floral skirt in the picture.

Too cute: Chrissy Teigen shared an adorable image of her daughter Luna, four, and son Miles, two, on Wednesday

Summer styling: Luna wear a lovely sundress with ribbon straps, with a striped top and floral skirt in the picture, while Miles models a patterned denim set

She holds dolls in both hands, and has her hair up in a delightful half ponytail.

She stands barefoot next to her younger brother, who wears a matching denim set of buttoned down shirt and shorts decorated with a Hawaiian pattern.

The little boy has his hand up to his mouth and wears white sneakers.

The Lip Sync Battle star, 34, inexplicably captioned the sweet snap 'Goodbye!'

Parents: The Lip Sync Battle star, 34, inexplicably captioned the sweet snap 'Goodbye!'; seen here recently on Instagram

Ever the forthcoming Instagram celebrity, Teigen shared pictures from her pap smear and breast cancer screening test on Sunday.

The model posed in a medical gown after undergoing the tests, as she urged her followers to not neglect their health amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Flashing a peace sign for the camera and donning a medical mask, Chrissy still demonstrated her model prowess as she posed up a storm in her OB/GYN's office.

Ever the forthcoming Instagram celebrity: Teigen shared pictures from her pap smear and breast cancer screening test on Sunday

In the caption, Chrissy urged her 30 million followers: 'dont forget to keep up with your paps and have your boobs touched even though the world is ending!!'

Chrissy's check up comes as she recovers from surgery to remove her breast implants last month.

Since then, the TV personality shared that her recovery is going 'so well' as she gave a close-up look at her 'new' breasts.

Chrissy was just 20 when she initially went under the knife to enhance her breast size.

In the caption: Chrissy urged her 30 million followers: 'dont forget to keep up with your paps and have your boobs touched even though the world is ending!!'
Gia Gunn is apologizing after a video of her calling the novel coronavirus a hoax went viral.

The former RuPaul's Drag Race contestant posted a five minute video to Youtube on Wednesday, titled 'I'm sorry for calling COVID-19 a hoax.'

In the video, Gia apologized for the previous video and encouraged fans to practice social distancing and wear a mask as the pandemic continues.

Apologizing: Gia Gunn posted a five minute video to Youtube on Wednesday, titled 'I'm sorry for calling COVID-19 a hoax,' after her controversial statements drew criticism

'I firstly want to apologize for using the word "hoax" when it came to COVID-19,' she said.

The 30-year-old continued to say that she has since realized the comment was harmful to those who have experienced the virus first hand and with family members.

Saying: 'I realized that this was completely wrong of me and very insensitive especially to the families and people who have experienced tremendous amounts of loss and/or struggle due to this terrible virus.'

Gia went on to encourage safety measures as the coronavirus continues to see rising numbers across the U.S., and states keep limitations on gatherings and businesses.

Harmful: 'I firstly want to apologize for using the word "hoax" when it came to COVID-19,' she said. The 30-year-old continued to say that she has since realized the comment was harmful to those who have experienced the virus first hand and with family members

Be safe: Gia went on to encourage safety measures as the coronavirus continues to see rising numbers across the U.S., and states keep limitations on gatherings and businesses

'With that being said I want to ask everybody to please put your masks on when you go out in public,' she said. 'And lets continue to practice social distancing because this virus has not gone anywhere.'

There are 2.74m confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S., and over 130k deaths.

'Its up to us to look out for one another and stop the spread of this terrible, terrible virus,' she said.

In her initial video that went viral over the weekend, Gia criticized people for wearing masks amid the global health crisis and claimed everyone is being brainwashed into thinking the situation is worse than it actually is.

Misguided: In her initial video that went viral over the weekend, Gia criticized people for wearing masks amid the global health crisis and claimed everyone is being brainwashed into thinking the situation is worse than it actually is

Cute: 'I think everybody who is, you know, taking precautions is cute and its definitely the thing to do, but I also think a lot of people are brainwashed.'

'I think the whole mask thing is f**king ridiculous,' Gia said in an Instagram Live clip which was shared by Evan Ross Katz on Twitter.

'I honestly think this whole COVID-19 thing is a hoax.' she added, before continuing, 'I think everybody who is, you know, taking precautions is cute and its definitely the thing to do, but I also think a lot of people are brainwashed.

'I think the more and more that we look around and see each other with masks on, the more influenced we are going to be to also put our masks on, which then to me, insinuates that everything is not ok.

'Im here to tell you guys that I think things are more okay than the government is allowing you to think.' she added.

Reflecting: In her video posted on Wednesday, Gia said she reflected on the initial statements. 'Ive taken this weekend and some time to sit with the consequences of my actions,' she said. 'But most importantly to think and to wrap my head around this whole thing, but most importantly share with you guys what I have learned'

Gia's comments came on a day where coronavirus cases in the US rose by a record 45,242.

In her video posted on Wednesday, Gia said she reflected on the initial statements.

'Ive taken this weekend and some time to sit with the consequences of my actions,' she said. 'But most importantly to think and to wrap my head around this whole thing, but most importantly share with you guys what I have learned.'

Adding: 'As my parents always told me, its okay to make mistakes just as long as you walk away having learned something.'

Ignorant: Phi Phi O'Hara (Jaremi Carey) from season four hit back at Gia revealing that his mother has COVI-19

Several Drag Race stars slammed Gia for her misguided comments.

Phi Phi O'Hara from season four hit back at Gia's original comment, writing, 'My husband had and my mom HAS covid currently. THIS IS NO HOAX @GiaGunn. Your video and comments are honestly quite ignorant and it would behoove you to step back from Twitter and educate yourself, false information is harmful to so many.

Aquaria from season 10 wrote: 'please @GiaGunn put on your stupid mask and let it be a reminder to not open your mouth when trying to influence your followers to practice the same unsafe actions you feel entitled to. people are still dying. be grateful its not you or I right now.'

Aquaria from season 10 wrote: 'please @GiaGunn put on your stupid mask'

Apology: It seems Gia was also hitting out at restaurants that were asking to take her temperature so she could dine there as a precaution

Farrah Moan didn't beat around the bush as she hit back: 'STFU b***h and put your mask on. And stop attacking businesses on your social media for taking your temperature before entering. People are dying.'

Following the backlash Gia issued an apology.

In another video she said, 'It's time for Miss Gia to take her own advice and do better.

'Dumbest thing I've heard all week': Gia was hit with a deluge of criticism when her video went viral

'With the 6,000 cases on the rise alone here in California, it's apparent that no theories, no questions, no excuses, it's time for us to put our masks back on.

'And for those of you that never took their masks off, I thank you and I commend you so much for setting the example that I wish I would have. I thank you all so much for correcting me, educating me, and informing me.'

Gia rose to fame on Season six of RuPaul's Drag Race, Season 2 of The Switch Drag Race, and Season 4 of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars.
The 2010 season finale of Australia's Next Top Model was one for the history books.

In a painfully awkward mix-up, the show's host Sarah Murdoch wrongly announced runner-up Kelsey Martinovich as the show's winner on live TV.

As an elated Kelsey, 29, began to celebrate her supposed win, fireworks went off on the stage behind her and apparent runner-up Amanda Ware.

Epic mix-up: The 2010 season finale of Australia's Next Top Model was one for the history books. Pictured, host Sarah Murdoch

But just a few seconds after the announcement, Sarah's face turned to shock and she could be heard whispering, 'Oh my God,' as a producer fed something into her earpiece from behind the scenes.

'Oh my God. I don't know what to say right now. I'm feeling a bit sick about this. No... I'm so sorry about this. Oh my God. I don't know what to say,' the then 48-year-old began.

Noticing the change of mood, both Kelsey and Amanda, 28, fell quiet, as the show's studio audience sat in confusion.

Oops: In a painfully awkward mix-up, the show's host Sarah Murdoch wrongly announced runner-up Kelsey Martinovich (right) as the show's winner on live TV. Pictured with the show's actual winner, Amanda Ware (left)

'This was not... This was a complete accident. I'm so sorry. It's Amanda. I'm so sorry. It was fed to me wrong. Oh, God!' Sarah continued, struggling to get the words out.

'This is what happens when you have live TV, folks. I'm so sorry. This is insane! Insane, insane, insane!'

After taking a moment to let the news sink in, a stunned Kelsey and Amanda tried their best to remain gracious, despite the embarrassing mishap.

'Oh my God. I don't know what to say right now. I'm feeling a bit sick about this. No... I'm so sorry about this. Oh my God. I don't know what to say,' Sarah began after realising the mistake

Kelsey tried to reassure a devastated Sarah that it was fine, but the host seemed inconsolable: 'This is ridiculous! How could this happen?! Ohhh! My goodness.'

But almost 10 years on, everyone involved in the embarrassing incident has seemingly moved on.

Sarah now resides in Los Angeles with her husband of 21 years, Lachlan Murdoch, and the couple's three children, sons Kalan, 15, Aidan, 13, and daughter Aerin, nine.

LA lady: Sarah (pictured at a Vogue Australia event in Sydney in October 2013) now resides in Los Angeles with her husband of 21 years, Lachlan Murdoch, and the couple's three children, sons Kalan, 15, Aidan, 13, and daughter Aerin, nine

The former model seems to have largely retired from life in the public eye, with Lachlan, 48, calling her an 'amazing wife' in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald in March last year.

Meanwhile, Kelsey and Amanda have both gone on to have long and successful modelling careers.

Shortly after being crowned the actual winner of ANTM, Amanda relocated to London, but she seems to have since returned home to Australia.

London calling: Shortly after being crowned the actual winner of ANTM, Amanda relocated to London, but she seems to have since returned home to Australia. Pictured in May

She married her longtime partner, director Jack Lawrence, in an intimate ceremony in Hawaii in October last year.

Kelsey appears to be based in Australia, but frequently travels the world for her career, and she's in a relationship with photographer Avan Podhajsky.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Kelsey and Amanda for comment.
Lorraine Kelly hit out at Donald Trump's son on Twitter on Thursday, after a photo emerged of the 42-year-old holding a sawed off elephant's tail after a trophy hunt.

The daytime presenter, 60, wrote: 'what a w****r' on a Tweet which posted the picture alongside a petition to ban lion 'hunting trophies' from entering the U.K.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, 36, went on the hunt back in 2012 during a trip to Zimbabwe, where they posed with a leopard carcass, buffalo and elephant's tail.

Furious: Lorraine Kelly hit out at Donald Trump's son on Twitter on Thursday, after a photo emerged of the 42-year-old holding a sawed off elephant's tail after a trophy hunt

The post Lorraine commented on read: 'This is the coward @DonaldJTrumpJr son of@realDonaldTrump just after he'd cut off the tail of an elephant, the greatest animal on our planet.

@BorisJohnson is still allowing these people to bring trophies back into the UK please sign https://change.org/p/michael-gove-ban-lion-trophy-hunting-imports-into-the-uk #BanTrophyHunting'.

Lorraine shared the post alongside the scathing comment: 'What a w****r'.

Upsetting: The daytime presenter, 60, wrote: 'what a w****r' on a post which posted the picture alongside a petition to ban lion 'hunting trophies' from entering the U.K

Trophy hunt: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump went on the hunt back in 2012 during a trip to Zimbabwe, where they posed with a leopard carcass and elephant's tail

'I don't think I've ever known Lorraine to swear!': Some were shocked by the TV star's outburst as she is known for her friendly demeanour.

Some were shocked by the TV star's outburst as she is known for her friendly demeanour.

One wrote: 'Surprised at your language Lorraine', while another follower commented: 'Yes Lorraine. far too polite.'

A third fan typed: 'I don't think I've ever known Lorraine to swear. She's right though!'

Meanwhile, Made In Chelsea star and animal lover Ashley James was just as infuriated as she commented on the presenter's post: 'What begins with C and ends in u*t'.

Controversial: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump denied at the time any wrong doing and proudly argued that they are hunters (pictured holding a leopard carcass in 2012)

It's disgusting! Others felt just as passionately about trophy hunting

Others wrote: 'Breaks my heart why would anyone want to do this ! Only people with more money than sense would do this ! Maybe he should be hunted to feel the pain and fear he has inflicted on these poor animals!'.

Another follower typed: 'Oh my God such disrespect to such a proud animal I just despair'.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump denied at the time any wrong doing and proudly argued that they are hunters.

Don denied he leaked the photos over Twitter back in 2012: 'Not a PR move I didn't give the pics but I have no shame about them either. I HUNT & EAT game', he said.

'I am a hunter': Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump denied at the time any wrong doing and proudly argued that they are hunters (Don pictured with a buffalo)

'I AM A HUNTER I don't hide from that,' he wrote to another critic at the time.

Back in September, PM Boris Johnson vowed to ban imports of hunting trophies from endangered animals.

The Prime Minister pledged to stop callous hunters bringing the heads, skins and other parts of animals shot for pleasure into Britain, declaring: 'We must end this barbaric practice'.

Not a fan: The President previously said he does not share his sons' taste for hunting (pictured L-R : Eric, Barron, Melania, Donald Trump, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. in 2015)

It comes five months after an expose in the Mail on Sunday revealed the cruelty and horror of South Africa's lion farms.

An investigation by former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft exposed how up to 12,000 lions bred in captivity are destined to either be shot by hunters or killed in slaughterhouses.

Trophy hunters' kills are exempt from international controls supposed to stop the parts of endangered animals from being imported or exported.
Mamma Mia! actor Dominic Cooper flashed his boxers when he struggled to keep his trousers up while on a trip to the butchers in London on Tuesday.

The actor might have been wearing a belt around his chinos but that wasn't enough to stop his suffering a bit of a wardrobe malfunction.

Dominic, 42, had also tucked one trouser leg into his sock as he made his own style rules, completing his look with a denim jacket and Nike Air trainers.

Mamma Mia! Dominic Cooper struggled to keep his trousers up as he flashed his boxers while heading to the butchers in his vintage convertible in London on Tuesday

Socks appeal: The actor might have been wearing a belt around his chinos but that wasn't enough to stop his suffering a bit of a wardrobe malfunction

The star looked rather suave as he zipped around town in his classic red Austin-Healey Sprite red convertible which hailed from the 50s.

The car varies in price due to condition but tend to cost around 65,000.

Dominic was last pictured enjoying a picnic in Primrose Hill with Lily James, 31, Billie Piper, 37, and his girlfriend Gemma Chan, 37, on Saturday.

Va va voom: The star looked rather suave as he zipped around town in his classic red Austin-Healey Sprite red convertible which hailed from the 50s

Doing his own thing: Dominic tucked one trouser leg into his sock as he does his food shop

He was the designated driver on the day as the celebrities all piled into his car.

Dominic and Gemma have been putting their time to good use and have been working with the Cook-19 initiative.

They deliver freshly cooked food and supplies to NHS staff who may be struggling due to long shifts or self-isolation.

Dominic had written about the charity on social media earlier this year.

Casual: Dominic teamed his look with a denim jacket and Nike Air trainers

Classic: Dominic looked super cool as he travelled around London in his open-top car which costs around 65k

He penned: 'A wonderful lady I know has started a non-profit to provide freshly cooked food and care packages to frontline NHS staff who are having difficulty feeding themselves or their families due to isolation or long shifts.

'If you know any NHS workers in the London area who may need support please ask them to dm or email their info to donatecook19@gmail.com.'

He and Gemma confirmed their relationship in September 2018 and she was previously in a long-term relationship with Jack Whitehall.

Dominic's most high-profile romance was with his Mamma Mia! co-star Amanda Seyfried, 34.

Loving life: He had a big smile on his face as he strode around town with his bag in hand

Chatty man: Dominic put on an animated display as he took a phone call

Shady: He looked devlishly handsome in his designer sunglasses
Jacqueline Jossa hosted an agony aunt session on her Instagram stories on Thursday, during which she helped fans with their relationship woes.

The EastEnders star, 27, dished out advice to some of her 2.8million followers on the photosharing site, with queries including help with escaping an unhappy marriage and tips on catching a cheating partner.

Her Q&A session comes after Jacqueline overcame her own struggles in her marriage to Dan Osborne, after the duo were plagued with infidelity claims and rumours of a rift and subsequent split in recent months.

Helpful: Jacqueline Jossa hosted an agony aunt session on her Instagram stories on Thursday, during which she helped fans with their relationship woes

Jacqueline and Dan tied the knot in 2017 at Cheshire Manor House, two years after he proposed in Greece. They share daughters Ella, five and Mia, two.

While things appear to be going swimmingly for the pair, they have faced trauma in their love life amid claims he cheated, with the most prominent being allegations of a threesome with his CBB co-stars Natalie Nunn and Chloe Ayling last year.

The soap star did not directly reference the scandals in her latest videos, yet helped out a fan who admitted to concerns that their partner was playing away.

The fan wrote: 'What should I do if I think my partner is cheating but I have?'

A helping hand: The EastEnders star, 27, dished out advice to some of her 2.8million followers on the photosharing site, with queries including help with escaping an unhappy marriage and tips on catching a cheating partner

Jacqueline said: 'You could do some spying I suppose or could just cut to the chase and ask him. But its not I did this so you did that and tit for tat. just because you made a mistake it doesn't mean he's allowed to.'

Elsewhere, in an emotional plea, one of Jacqueline's followers penned: 'I really want to leave my partner but I have no money and we have two kids.'

The query seemed to touch Jacqueline as she said: 'This one makes me totally totally sad. I think you have to find a way to make it happen if you're not happy...

Tough: Her Q&A session comes after Jacqueline overcame her own struggles in her marriage to Dan Osborne, after the duo were plagued with infidelity claims and rumours of a rift and subsequent split in recent months

'Whether it's moving in with your parents or moving in with friends. Talk to people make sure you talk to people!

'I'm sure you have many people who love you. Open up. It won't be the end of your life. You'll be able to smile again. If you're not happy and you're in a really unhappy relationship, you shouldn't wait. Start something for you...

'It's really great either way whether you're happy or not, you have something for you so you never feel stuck, create a business or find a way to make your own money. Start a business so you're never in that position again.'

When a fan revealed she did not feel supported by her husband, Jacqueline said: 'Your husband has to support your business. Like I said, You need your own money. You need your own passion and outlet and something that makes you happy.'

When asked: 'How do I stop feeling mum guilt?', Jacqueline said: 'We all suffer with mum guilt. You have to be your best self to be the best mother you can be

Help me out! She was assisting concerned fans with her outreach

One of her fans sought Jacqueline's advice as they work with their ex. to which she offered her help saying: '[That's] super awkward. Think if you love your job and would you quit if you didn't work with him?'

Back in May, it was reported that Dan 'begged' Jacqueline to return to their marital home after she moved out amid their marriage issues. She revealed she had moved back into their abode part-time amid claims they had been 'fighting non-stop'.

It was then reported that Dan 'begged' Jacqueline to come home and she is adamant they can 'make it work' as they make a 'good team'.

The actress was said to have missed her husband and wants to take things 'really slowly' now she has returned part-time. She will split her time between their marital home and her parents' house.

Her loves: Jacqueline and Dan tied the knot in 2017 at Cheshire Manor House, two years after he proposed in Greece. They share daughters Ella, five and Mia, two

A source said: 'Dan begged her to come home and shes admitted she missed him. They had been fighting non-stop but together they make a good team. It wont be easy but Jacquelines sure they can make it work. She wants to take it slowly.'

MailOnline contacted Jacqueline and Dan's reps for comment at the time.

The couple's relationship has been plagued with cheating allegations and tensions between the pair have reportedly been taking their toll.

But Jacqueline recently took to Instagram to clear up the rumours, stating: 'I need some time. There is no split. No divorce. We are working together not against each other', before she returned to their home, where they now remain.

Great dad: Dan and Jacqueline are back living under the same roof

It has been suggested that Jacqueline and Dan will 'reassess' their relationship once the lockdown period is over and normality resumes.

The couple were thought to be giving their romance a fresh start after Dan apologised for doing things he wasn't proud of in the relationship.

Dan lamented his past behaviour, which he did not specify, in a candid post reflecting on the last decade and seemingly referencing his recent cheating scandal.

He was rocked by cheating claims after it was alleged he engaged in a threesome with his Celebrity Big Brother co-stars Natalie and Chloe last year, which he denied.
Isla Fisher is currently in self-isolation with her husband Sacha Baron Cohen and their three children.

On Thursday, the 44-year-old actress shared an exciting announcement with her 1.6million followers on Instagram

The Confessions of a Shopaholic star has welcomed a new addition to the Fisher-Baron Cohen brood - an adorable puppy named Maisy.

New arrival: On Thursday, Australian actress Isla Fisher, 44, welcomed a new addition to her family while in lockdown in Los Angeles. Her name is Maisy. Both pictured

In the image, Isla appeared over the moon with her new pet pooch, while dressed in a flowy $216 red Madewell dress and $480 matching red boots.

'Welcome to the family, Maisy,' Isla captioned the post.

It comes after her household welcomed a canine, named Busta, in 2018.

'Welcome to the family!' Isla captioned the post cradling the newest member of the Fisher-Baron Cohen brood. Pictured with husband Sacha Baron Cohen

In a recent interview, the talented star told Fitness Magazine that she prefers to exercise outdoors, rather than in a gym, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

'I'm an outdoor girl,' Isla said. 'I'm always moving. I do yoga, and I love to hike. And I swim every day with my kids.'

Isla - who was born in Oman and then later moved to Perth, Australia - is based in Los Angeles with her husband, British actor Sacha Baron Cohen, and children.

Love: Isla - who was born in Oman and then later moved to Perth, Australia - is based in LA. Pictured with her pet Busta, who they welcomed in 2018

Before California went into lockdown in March, Isla was in the middle of shooting the Disney+ comedy Godmothered in Boston.

The film follows an unskilled fairy godmother, played by Jillian Bell, who sets out to help a woman, played by Isla, whose wish was ignored as a child.

Isla also wrapped production on a new big screen adaptation of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit with Dan Stevens, Judi Dench and Leslie Mann.
Cedarville U. president reinstated amid conflict over hiring, restoration of sex abuser

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The president of a western Ohio Baptist liberal arts college has been reinstated after it emerged that he had hired someone for a faculty position with a known history of sexual abuse.

The Cedarville University Board of Trustees has reinstated Thomas White after having placed him on administrative leave since May 1 while it investigated his decision to hire Anthony Moore, who was previously ousted from his campus pastor job at The Village Church, a Fort Worth-area church led by Matt Chandler. Moore was brought on staff to be an assistant professor of theology and a special adviser to the president for Kingdom Diversity. Moore was fired from Cedarville University in April when it became known that he had engaged in sexually abusive behavior over an extended period of time.

Moore had secretly used his iPhone, which he wrapped in a towel so that the lens stuck out, and positioned it in a window well above the shower to film an adult male youth pastor showering in Moore's home, according to a Tarrant County Sheriff's Office report that was filed in October 2018. The youth pastor, whose name has not been made public, opted not to press charges against Moore.

White noted on his personal blog post earlier this year that he did not have all the information about Moore's past and was under the impression that there were at most two videos, which happened over a short period of time. He admitted that he later learned that at least five illicit videos existed and that this abuse took place over the course of five months. Initially thinking that Moore's behavior was an isolated incident, White pursued a five-year path of restoration, a decision he said he regretted when he found out his behavior patterns were more extensive and not a one-off.

"I sincerely regret that this attempt at restoration will now result in personal pain for many. I want Cedarville to be a Gospel-centered community that seeks to model grace and truth," White said at the time.

In response to the fallout, the Baptist university hired the Husch Blackwell law firm to investigate the matter after White was placed on leave, and concluded that there is no reason to question President Whites benevolent motivation in hiring Moore. However, the firm also noted it is reasonable to infer from the evidence available that President White took steps that he knew, or should have known, clouded the specific nature of Dr. Moores misconduct" and that White subsequently failed to notify the Board of the specific nature of Dr. Moores misconduct.

In response to White's reinstatement, two Cedarville University trustees  Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Mark Vroegop, who pastors College Park Church in Indianapolis  resigned in protest of the board's move.

In his resignation statement, Vroegop, who is a Cedarville graduate, said that the circumstances surrounding the hiring of Moore and the implementation of his restoration plan were "deeply troubling" and that the steps the trustees took were not sufficient given what the law firm's report found. Similarly, Akin called the hiring and restoration plan applied to Moore "deeply flawed" and the Husch Blackwell findings were "extremely troubling" and could not support the board's decision.

Cedarville University said in their statement reinstalling White that the university president would be required to complete courses on victim prevention and victim advocacy.
She's the mother-of-one who has never been shy about flaunting her incredible physique.

And Skye Wheatley was happy to show off her assets despite the wintery chill on Thursday, posing braless in a yellow ribbed mock turtleneck.

The Gold Coast-based influencer, 26, styled the form-fitting top with a matching lemon-coloured midi-skirt, with the eye-catching ensemble totalling $114.

One hot mumma! On Thursday, former Big Brother star Skye Wheatley (pictured) braved the cold as went braless on the Gold Coast

She paired the fast fashion set with a mini PVC handbag and 1990s-inspired thin sunglasses.

Skye brushed her long blonde locks behind her shoulders, accentuating her plump pout with pink lipstick.

'Hope we all had an amazing day?!' Skye captioned the post.



Enhanced: Skye has always been candid about her cosmetic surgeries on social media. Her first procedure was a breast augmentation in Bangkok in 2015, aged 22

Skye has always been candid about her cosmetic enhancements on social media. Her first procedure was a breast augmentation in Bangkok in 2015, aged 22.

She flew to Thailand to get her surgery at a lower price, however the surgeon left her with a botched 'bubble boob'.

She later told fans she spent $28,000 on corrective surgery.

Stunning: Ahead of giving birth to her first child Forest (pictured) in December 2018, Skye said she was planning on getting a 'breast lift and new implants' once he was born

Ahead of giving birth to her first child Forest in December 2018, Skye said she was planning on getting a 'breast lift and new implants' once he was born.

In 2016, the mother-of-one went under the knife again to have a nose job.

She shared a gruesome video of her painful recovery on YouTube afterwards, saying: 'I'm in so much pain, like so much pain. My face is swollen up even more.'

Despite the agony, she was 'happy to get rid of those nostrils'.
She recently let her hair down with her famous pals Billie Piper, Mamma Mia! co-star Dominic Cooper and his girlfriend Gemma Chan.

But Lily James opted for a solo outing as she was seen heading to The Dorchester in Mayfair, central London, on Tuesday.

The actress, 31, cut a typically chic figure as she wore a grey trench coat while carrying an overnight bag into the five-star hotel.

Fancy stay? Lily James opted for a solo outing as she was seen heading to The Dorchester in Mayfair, central London, on Tuesday

Nailing effortless style, the screen star teamed a black vest with denim jeans and leather loafers.

The War & Peace actress rounded things off with dark shades and a designer chain-strap bag.

Earlier this month, Lily inked deals to play the lead in two upcoming films, both of which will be offered to buyers at the upcoming virtual Cannes Market, according to Deadline.com.

Effortless style: The actress, 31, cut a typically chic figure as she wore a grey trench coat while carrying an overnight bag into the five-star hotel

In The Paris Trap, the in-demand English actress will play a victim of mistaken identity while in Peggy Jo, she'll star as a real-life bank robber who carried out her crimes dressed as a man.

In the romance department, the beauty is said to have rekindled her romance with Matt Smith, 37, during lockdown, after they were thought to have split in December.

The couple had been dating for five years but reportedly went their separate ways due to her discomfort over his 'friendship with female stars.'

Busy bee: Earlier this month, Lily inked deals to play the lead in two upcoming films (pictured in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in 2018)

A source told The Sun: 'Matt and Lily's break-up was mostly because their hectic schedules meant they could barely see each other. They kept the house together when they split because they were both barely around. But when lockdown began, they ended up isolating together.

'Being in the house and having no work and distractions has allowed them to reconnect and get back to a good place. There is such an amazing chemistry between them and they make a wonderful couple.

'It's what their friends had all hoped would happen because they do make each other so happy and their split happened because they were just too busy to see each other.'
His wife Michelle Keegan admitted she is feeling 'frustrated' by constant baby questions after five years of marriage.

And Mark Wright was ever the doting husband as he headed out to do the weekly food shop at a branch of Marks & Spencer near the couple's Essex home on Thursday morning.

The TV presenter, 33, kept casual in a grey T-shirt and black Nike joggers as he stocked up on groceries while Michelle, 33, waited in the car.

Stocking up: Mark Wright was ever the doting husband as he headed out to do the weekly food shop at a branch of Marks & Spencer near his Essex home on Thursday morning

The former TOWIE star kept comfortable in a pair of black and white Nike trainers and accessorised with an Apple watch.

Mark's low-key appearance comes after Michelle hit out at people constantly questioning why the couple don't have children, insisting 'nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors'.

The actress hit out at sexist double standards - admitting queries about when she is going to have a baby do 'bother' her now.

In an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine earlier this week, she said: 'A few years ago it didn't bother me and I answered the question, but now I think, "I don't need to answer that because nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors".

Domestic bliss: The TV presenter, 33, kept casual in a grey T-shirt and black Nike joggers as he stocked up on groceries while actress wife Michelle Keegan, 33, waited in the car

'I remember when I finished Our Girl people were like, "Is it because you're going off to have a baby?"

'I know for a fact if Mark finished a job, nobody would ask him if he was going to have a baby. It's not fair. It does make me feel frustrated.'

Michelle and husband Mark have been together since late 2012 when they met while they were both on holiday in Dubai.

The former TOWIE star popped the question nine months later and the pair married in a lavish ceremony at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk in May 2015.

'Frustrated': The Our Girl star recently hit out at sexist double standards - admitting queries about when she is going to have a baby do 'bother' her (Mark and Michelle pictured in 2019)

The couple previously had to conduct a long distance relationship while Michelle worked in South Africa for extended periods for BBC drama Our Girl, and Mark had filming commitments on EXTRA in Los Angeles.

During their time away, the pair were constantly plagued by claims of martial strife, something which Michelle has now blasted as 'ridiculous'.

Michelle explained: 'If you go away for work it's seen as a negative and not a positive. I just don't understand that and find it hard.

'You're trying to carve yourself a career and people say you shouldn't be doing it because it impacts your marriage. It's ridiculous.'

Michelle told how she and Mark actively decided to limit what they shared about their marriage on social media a couple of years ago when she felt like she had 'lost control' of the narrative about her relationship.

She said: 'What I've had to do since I got married is pull back and keep my private life for me, and I feel a lot happier and [more] settled since I made that choice.

'At the beginning people didn't understand it and were like, "You talked about it all the time four years ago".

'But I feel like I have to hold things back for me because I need to regain control. A few years ago I felt like I'd lost that control.'
Ex NRL WAG Arabella Del Busso was thrust into the spotlight again on May 31 when her messy break-up with Wests Tigers star Josh Reynolds was laid bare on 60 Minutes.

Del Busso was grilled over allegations made by Reynolds earlier this year that she conned him out of thousands of dollars and tricked him into thinking she miscarried their unborn twins. She denied faking pregnancies or miscarriages, but admitted on 60 Minutes to passing off another woman's sonogram as her own to 'spite' Josh.

But the brunette bombshell is used to turning heads, thanks to her heavily tattooed frame, and it turns out she's not done yet.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Thursday, the 30-year-old confessed there was a time when permanent ink was the last thing on her mind.

'When I was younger, I was actually against tattoos,' said Arabella, before adding that people would often warn her 'that once you get one, you'll want more'.

'They are so addictive': Ex NRL WAG Arabella Del Busso, 30, (pictured) has revealed the REAL reason she's covered in ink as she details the meaning behind them all

'Sure enough, I got my first one on my left foot (La Bella Vita, which translates to the beautiful life in Italian), and since then I haven't been able to stop.'

'They are so addictive,' she continued.

Now she can't get enough of the intricate designs and is the proud owner of seven tattoos, having spent $3,000 on ink over the years.

Arabella went on to explain that her favourite cluster of tatts is actually a tribute to her late father, who passed away when she was younger.

Obsessed: Arabella went on to explain that her favourite cluster of tatts is actually a tribute to her late father, who passed when she was young

Purpose: The series is located on her right thigh-hip region and features the words, 'Dad In God's Hands', above her father's birthdate and the day he passed away. The design also features an intricate rosary wrapped around praying hands and an Italian quote, which translates to: 'Never above you, never below you, always beside you'

The series is located on her right thigh-hip region and features the words, 'Dad In God's Hands', above her father's birthdate and the day he died.

The design also features an intricate rosary wrapped around praying hands and an Italian quote, which translates to: 'Never above you, never below you, always beside you'.

'To have him by my side each day means a lot to me,' she says.

Controversial: The ex NRL WAG was thrust into the spotlight on May 31 when Wests Tigers star Josh Reynolds accused her of Josh accused her of conning him out of thousands of dollars and tricking him into thinking she miscarried their unborn twins.was laid bare on 60 Minutes

Living art: The left side of Arabella's body is adorned with a woman in an intricate Native American headdress with piercing blue eyes, a design of the Virgin Mary, what appears to be a rose and the motivational words 'believe'

The left side of Arabella's body is adorned with a woman in an intricate Native American headdress with piercing blue eyes, a Virgin Mary, a rose and the motivational words 'believe'.

While Arabella's tattoo journey began at the tender age of 22, with the words 'La Bella Vita' inked on her left foot, it turns out it won't be long before the simple design has some company.

'I thought after having both sides of my body covered in tattoos it would be enough, but I have decided to get a full left leg sleeve,' she added.

Body art: The buxom stunner also has a portrait of a lady adorned with a rose on the back of her left thigh. Arabella said she found this design online and was immediately obsessed with it

The buxom stunner has begun with a portrait of a lady adorned with a rose on the back of her left thigh - and plans on continuing 'until the leg sleeve is complete'.

Arabella said she found this design online and was immediately obsessed with it.

She added that any time she gets the itch to get inked, she heads straight to her trusted Melbourne-based tattoo artist, Aaron Norton.

Humble beginnings: Arabella's tattoo journey begun at the tender age of 22, with the words 'La Bella Vita' inked on her left foot
She has just returned from Tenerife after drunkenly booking a long weekend away.

And Malin Andersson was quick to show off her Spanish tan as she stripped down to her lingerie for a sizzling selfie on Thursday.

The Love Island star, 26, looked phenomenal in the matching set as she snapped a selfie in her bedroom.

Stunning: She has just returned from Tenerife. And Malin Andersson was quick to show off her Spanish tan as she stripped down to her lingerie for a sizzling selfie on Thursday

Malin was a vision of beauty as she posed on a stool, angling her tanned and toned pins towards the camera.

Going makeup-free, the body confidence advocate allowed her natural beauty to shine through, with her glossy raven locks framing her pretty features.

Later in the day, Malin covered up her lingerie with a grey tracksuit as she gave her followers a look inside her fridge and looked back at how far she has come since suffering an eating disorder in her teens.

Check it out: Later in the day, Malin covered up her lingerie with a grey tracksuit as she gave her followers a look inside her fridge

Yum: Malin showed off the abundance of fruit and vegetables in her fridge, as well as soup and vegan cheese because she no longer eats meat, fish or dairy

Tasty treat: Malin looked back at how far she has come since suffering an eating disorder in her teens as she showed off her 'naughty cupboard' of snacks

Malin's posts come after she returned from a whirlwind weekend in Tenerife where she worked on de-stressing after feeling anxious amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Explaining her decision to go abroad, she wrote in a lengthy caption: 'I think being happy has always been the ultimate goal for us. When we are stripped of that we dont function how we should.

'I flew out to Tenerife because my mind needed it. I needed escapism. Living alone in lockdown was difficult, as well as moving etc..

'I kept myself busy every day with mental health lives and work but when the day would end it was just me and my own thoughts. Nothing or nobody could help that but me.'

Self care: Malin's stunning selfie comes after she returned from a weekend in Tenerife where she worked on de-stressing after feeling anxious amid the coronavirus pandemic

She continued: 'We can try and be brave, courageous and strong - but before that all we are human. I am human. I am still on this healing journey, and Im sharing it all with you guys - to help you heal too. I want you to all know that feeling sad, upset - its normal.

'We arent designed in a way where we should be positive everyday. It just doesnt work like that... If life was easy it would be boring. But I ask you to all look after number one - and thats you.

'To put yourself first more and to be easy on yourself. To do what you gotta do to be happy. Be selfish with reason and support your own healing journey. - But most of all be unapologetically you.

'Dont let anyone strip you of yourself - you deserve to be happy.'
Amanda Kloots has given an emotional update on her Broadway actor husband Nick Cordero, who is currently fighting for his life in Cedars-Sinai hospital, Los Angeles, battling coronavirus-related health issues.

In an interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning, Amanda said that the 'ultimate goal' is for Nick, 41, to have a double lung transplant to live the life he 'would want' but warned that a 'lot of things would have to line up' for him to be a candidate for that.

The Tony-nominated actor has already had his leg amputated due to his health battle against the virus, although he is no longer in a coma and has now tested negative to COVID-19.

Update: Amanda Kloots says husband Nick Cordero will likely need a double lung transplant to live the life 'he would want' in emotional Gayle King interview on Thursday

Yet, he still remains in a critical condition and Amanda gives daily, heartbreaking updates on her husband, with whom she shares a baby son, Elvis.

In an emotionally frank interview on Thursday, Gayle asked Amanda about whether or not having a lung transplant was definitely an option.

'We think that that is most likely the possibility,' she replied. 'A 99% chance that he would be needing that in order to live the kind of life that I know my husband would want to live.'

Tough questions: Gayle King asked Amanda if doctors had told her to let Nick go

Happier times: Amanda has shared many family pictures of herself and Nick on her Instagram page

Hopeful: Amanda has said that it's not up to her to 'let Nick go' saying she will leave that up to God

Father: The couple share a baby son Elvis pictured above with his daddy

'That is a long road away and a lot of things would have to line up in order for Nick to be a candidate for that.'

Gayle then asked: 'I was wondering, Amanda, if you've ever gone there... have doctors told you, "Amanda, it's time to let him go?" Have they ever said that to you?

Kloots responded: 'They told me four times that he won't survive. Sometimes even he won't survive through the night, but he has. He has.... I believe, Gayle, that God is the only person that's going to decide when and if my husband goes.'

Nightmare: Amanda's Broadway star hubby has been battling a long list of complications after coming down with COVID

'So I will never try to play that role... He's fighting. I see it every day. Nick's doctor sees it. And as long as he's in there and fighting, I'll continue to fight with him. ... I tell him every day before I leave, I say, "Okay, here's what you have to focus on. The two of us sitting in our new house,... Elvis is in bed and we're listening to 'Our House' in our, you know, home in Laurel Canyon."

Amanda's Broadway star hubby has been battling a long list of complications after coming down with COVID.

Nick was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with pneumonia in March and has been in intensive care ever since.

Long haul: Cordero was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with pneumonia in March and has been in intensive care ever since

A long fight: 'Ninety days of extraordinary care,' Amanda wrote in her caption

Be strong: She finished her caption with a strong message, saying: 'This virus is a real thing and needs to be taken seriously and stopped. We will always do what we can to support that.' Above is a photo of Amanda holding Nick's hand

Doctors had to amputate his right leg due to complications from the coronavirus and the Rock of Ages and Waitress star has lots 65lbs and suffered major lung damage during his hospitalization.

Amanda and Nick married in September 2017 and their son Elvis was born on June 10, 2019.

Amanda has been keeping fans updated on her Instagram page, and recently posted a heartwarming snap of her holding Nick's hand. Speaking about the picture to Gayle King, she said: You know, I just want to jump in his bed and hug him and grab him and squeeze him.'

'But, you know, you have to be very careful with everything that's going on, so I grab his hand  and I'm waiting for the day that he holds my hand back.'
She's the Married At First Sight star who has always had a flair for the dramatic.

And on Thursday, Martha Kalifatidis declared she was spending time in the 'outback' instead of her pre-coronavirus plans to travel to Mykonos, Greece.

But the 31-year-old failed to mention she was actually on a day trip to Wattamolla Beach, which is just over an hour from her Bondi home.

Fun in the sun! Martha Kalifatidis (pictured) revealed on Thursday she was meant to be in Greece and claimed she was in the 'outback'... despite being an hour from Sydney

In the image posted to Instagram, she posed in a white cap and a ribbed one-piece swimsuit with a bold cut out on the torso.

It appears she added an orange-toned filter to make her luscious locks appear more blonde.

'Was supposed to be in Mykonos but I'm outback,' Martha told her fans.

But her partner Michael Brunelli ruined the illusion by geotagging the location on his own Instagram post.

Is that a billabong? Martha Kalifatidis declared on Thursday she was spending time in the 'outback'. But the 31-year-old failed to mention she was actually on a day trip to Wattamolla Beach in Sydney, which is just over an hour from her Bondi home. Pictured alongside boyfriend Michael Brunelli

In a series of six photos, the 28-year-old lifted Martha into the air and threw her into the water.

'How to end a relationship in six steps,' Michael joked in the caption.

'Enjoy sleeping in your gorgeous Maserati,' Martha replied, adding a middle finger emoji.

Oops! 'Was supposed to be in Mykonos but I'm outback,' Martha told her fans. But her partner Michael Brunelli ruined the illusion by geotagging the location on his own Instagram post

Martha has established a prosperous career as an influencer since her time on Married At First Sight.

One of the only remaining couples from the show, Martha and Michael, treated themselves to oysters and Champagne last Saturday.

Perhaps what they say about oysters being aphrodisiacs is true, because the pair couldn't help but pack on the PDA between bites.

Romantic: Martha and Michael (both pictured) showed off their luxurious lifestyle as they dined on oysters and Champagne last Saturday

The makeup artist stayed warm in a large fur coat as they sat outside and enjoyed their luxurious feast.

She pulled her dyed orange locks into a low ponytail, adding a velvet headband to tie the look together.

Meanwhile, Michael looked thrilled as he tucked in to the decadent dish, while wearing a polar fleece zip-up jumper.
She has returned to Los Angeles after hunkering down with family in Idaho.

And Scout Willis could be seen enjoying the delights of the City Of Angels this week, stepping out for a green juice.

The 28-year-old daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore slipped into a fashionable pale green blouse and skintight jeans for her outing.

Legging it: Scout Willis could be seen enjoying the delights of the City Of Angels this week, stepping out for a green juice

Scout, who could be seen holding two cool beverages as she stepped out onto the street, rounded off the look with flats.

She made sure to take the precaution of wearing a face mask for her latest outing amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Bruce and Demi, who also have two other daughters called Rumer, 31, and Tallulah, 26, have been divorced since 2000.

However they have stayed friendly and in fact even turned heads by going into self-isolation together in Idaho with their daughters amid the coronavirus lockdowns.

Sleek and chic: The 28-year-old daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore slipped into a fashionable pale green blouse and skintight jeans for her outing

They were later joined by Bruce's current wife Emma Heming with whom he shares his daughters Mabel, eight, and Evelyn, six.

Scout marked Father's Day by posting an Instagram album showing Bruce posing with her, Rumer and Tallulah when they were children.

'My papa doesnt even really understand what social media is so i wont address this to him, but damn I love and appreciate this man!!' she wrote.

So sweet: Scout marked Father's Day by posting an Instagram album showing Bruce posing with her, Rumer and Tallulah when they were children

Meanwhile Demi posted an Instagram picture showing herself in Idaho with a group of loved ones including Bruce, Emma, Rumer, Tallulah, Mabel and Evelyn.

Scout appeared on the Dopey self-help podcast and late April and revealed why Emma had waited to join the rest of the group in Idaho.

'My stepmom was going to come up here too with my little sisters. [But] my younger sister [who has] never gotten a talk about not f***ing with hypodermic needles. she found [needles at a park and] she actually tried to poke her shoe with it and poked her foot,' Scout revealed.

Family matters: 'My papa doesnt even really understand what social media is so i wont address this to him, but damn I love and appreciate this man!!' she wrote

'So my stepmom had to be in LA waiting to, like, get the results for taking her to the doctor. My dad came up here early and then travel got crazy and my stepmom stayed in LA with my little sisters.'

She said during that podcast episode, according to Us Weekly: 'Its been really funny having both my parents at the this house where they, like, raised us,.'

Scout, who like her parents and sisters is sober, shared: 'Its kind of divine time to just hang out with them.  Im very grateful to be with my family.'
James Jordan has sought help from his Twitter followers over concerns about a rash on his five-month-old daughter's front and back.

The dancer, 42, and his wife Ola, 37, welcomed their first child, a daughter called Ella, in February after a painful three-year battle with infertility and have since been open about their parenting journey.

He reached out to his 269,900 followers on Thursday, as he voiced concerns over the rash which he insisted doctors had said was not a worry without a fever.

Tough times: James Jordan has sought help from his Twitter followers over concerns about a rash on his five-month-old daughter's front and back

James wrote: 'Hi Guys. My baby has a rash on her front and back. Doctor says not to worry unless accompanied with a fever...

'Its been going on for at least 4 weeks and now spots appearing all over body. Any suggestions of who we can see as I AM worried. Thank you x

Fellow Strictly star Shirley Ballas, who has a son Mark, 34, offered: 'It could be a number of things milk , detergent , food , @The_JamesJordan take her for a checkup ASAP. Take care x', while others urged him to take the tot to the doctor.

Ola recently revealed her heartache at the fact that her parents have yet to meet Ella, with COVID-19 keeping them apart.

His love: The dancer, 42, and his wife Ola, 37, welcomed their first child, a daughter called Ella, in February after a painful three-year battle with infertility and have since been open about their parenting journey

A friend in need: Fellow Strictly star Shirley Ballas, who has a son Mark, 34, offered: 'It could be a number of things milk , detergent , food , @The_JamesJordan take her for a checkup ASAP. Take care x', while others urged him to take the tot to the doctor

The couple admitted in their Hello! magazine parenting column, that it was 'heartbreaking' that Ella hasn't met her grandparents, who live in Poland, with James even predicting the tot could be 'a year old' by the time they meet.

In the publication, the couple opened up on raising their child in the pandemic, with Ola admitting she's 'over' lockdown as is desperate to interact with other people.

However, the Polish professional dancer revealed that things are more difficult in the fact that her mother and father, Janina and Dariusz Grabowska, have yet to meet their granddaughter due to being unable to fly in from Poland amid the pandemic.

Tough times: Ola recently revealed her heartache at the fact that her parents have yet to meet Ella, with COVID-19 keeping them apart

His wife agreed, adding that even if everyone began flying again tomorrow, she still wouldn't want her folks to 'risk' things and insisted that she'd still 'want them to wait.'

With things still uncertain at the moment, the couple then went on to predict that it may be a while before Ola's parents and Ella will finally meet. James said: 'I reckon she's going to be a year old when they meet Ella'.

Ola added: 'I don't know, I would like to hope that they would come for Christmas but I don't know! No one knows. I don't know when I'm going to see them and it's really heartbreaking.'

Fighting through: Earlier this year, the pair admitted that parenting for the first time during the COVID-19 lockdown has been 'surreal' and that they 'panic' about everything

Earlier this year, the pair admitted that parenting for the first time during the COVID-19 lockdown has been 'surreal' and that they 'panic' about everything.

James and Ola appeared Loose Women via video with little Ella, now three months, where they also discussed her recent hospital stint for silent reflux.

Ola said: 'It's quite surreal actually, surreal having a newborn and not knowing what you're doing right or doing wrong is really strange, you just want to ask questions to your friends or family or your sister.'
Charlize Theron is back to fighting and running, as she portrays a mercenary in Netflix's upcoming film The Old Guard.

In a new trailer for the action-packed superhero flick, the veteran 44-year-old Oscar winner sported a brunette bob and an all-black ensemble, as she held a hostage in the truck of her car.

As her character, Andy, attempts to forcibly add Nile (Kiki Layne) to their tight-knit team of fighters, the new recruit kicks her way out of the vehicle, but winds up getting the wind knocked out of her.

Action-packed trailer: Charlize Theron is back to fighting and running, as she portrays a mercenary in Netflix's upcoming film The Old Guard

'You got questions kid, I get it. I need you to get back into the car please,' Andy says with an icy tone in the middle of an isolated desert.

Nile replies in awe, 'This isn't' real.'

'You haven't figured this out yet? You can't die. Get up!' Andy yells, while pulling her off the ground.

Ouch! In a desperate attempt to flee, Nile aggressively stabs her kidnapper, but Andy looks more annoyed than physically hurt by their altercation

Impressive: As her character, Andy, attempts to forcibly add Nile (Kiki Layne) to their tight-knit team of fighters, the new recruit kicks her way out of the vehicle, but winds up getting the wind knocked out of her

In a desperate attempt to flee, Nile aggressively stabs her kidnapper, but Andy looks more annoyed than physically hurt by their altercation.

'Can you please not do that again,' Andy said, while pulling the blade out of her shoulder with a wince, prompting Nile to hurl.

While speaking on the phone with one of her superiors, Andy commends Nile's budding abilities and joked, 'She stabbed me, so I think she has potential.'

Longtime fighters: As Nile seeks answers, the covert group's members, who all have the mysterious inability to die, reveal they have been fighting to protect the mortal world for centuries

'The Crusades?' Nile asks with an astonished look, as they reveal they've fought 'thousands of battles side by side'

As Nile seeks answers, the covert group's members, who all have the mysterious inability to die, reveal they have been fighting to protect the mortal world for centuries.

'So, how old are you,' she asked over dinner.

A male solider replied, 'We met in the Crusades.'

Covert team: As Nile seeks answers, the covert group's members, who all have the mysterious inability to die, reveal they have been fighting to protect the mortal world for centuries

'The Crusades?' Nile asks with an astonished look, as they reveal they've fought 'thousands of battles side by side.'

As she processes the information, she says aloud, 'So, we really never die.'

Andy replies, 'Nothing that lives, lives forever.'

Fight of their lives: As their secret abilities are unearthed, they appear to fight to keep their freedom

'One day your wounds never heal up anymore, we don't know when,' Andy explains.

In another scene later, Nile sticks her hand in a fire and squirms in pain.

One of the soldiers reminds her, 'Just because we keep living doesn't mean we stop hurting.'

'One day your wounds never heal up anymore, we don't know when,' Andy explains

As their secret abilities are unearthed, they appear to fight to keep their freedom.

They are described as 'individuals' that are 'extremely resist to capture.'

Nile says she can't do this people she has 'people that love me,' but the others point out that everyone around her is 'going to grow old and die.'

Impossible fight: They are described as 'individuals' that are 'extremely resist to capture'

'You will lose everyone you've ever loved,' a man tells her.

To comfort Nile tells her she is 'one of us now,' as the trailer teases a number of gripping action sequences and stunts with hand guns.

Gina Prince-Bythewood directs from the comic book of the same name, which is set to be released to Netflix on July 10.

Cast: The movie also stars Marwan Kenzari as Joe (Yusuf Al-Kaysani), Matthias Schoenaerts as Booker (Sebastian le Livre), Luca Marinelli as Nicky (Nicolo di Genova), Chiwetel Ejiofor as Copley, Harry Melling and Veronica Ngo

The movie also stars Marwan Kenzari as Joe (Yusuf Al-Kaysani), Matthias Schoenaerts as Booker (Sebastian le Livre), Luca Marinelli as Nicky (Nicolo di Genova), Chiwetel Ejiofor as Copley, Harry Melling and Veronica Ngo.

Theron recently told Vanity Fair of the role: 'From the first moment I read [Greg] Ruckas graphic novel, I felt like there was great potential to make this thing feel really very relevant and have it ask some real questions about humanity.

'Is what were doing enough? Is what were doing actually changing anything? Are we making [things] better, or are we making the world worse?'

Gripping: Gina Prince-Bythewood directs from the comic book of the same name

The action star is also gearing up for upcoming roles in other franchises, including F9 and Atomic Blonde 2.

Atomic Blonde stuntman Sam Hargrave recently told The Guardian: 'Some of the stuff she did, her grit and determination, was incredible.'

Theron is also staying busy with philanthropy, recently launching Together For Her, a campaign to fight domestic violence amid COVID-19.
Egypt gives legal status to 70 more churches, but threats to Christian houses of worship remain

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As a government committee headed by Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly gave legal status to 70 churches this week, the number of Christian houses of worship that have been legalized in the country came to 1,638. However, the threat to churches in this Muslim-majority country remains.

Formed in January 2017, the Committee for the Legalization of Unlicensed Churches comprises the ministers of justice, parliamentary affairs, and local development and housing, as well as representatives of local authorities and Christian communities, according to Egypt Independent.

Since 2017, the committee has legalized 1,638 churches.

However, as recently as Wednesday, local authorities in the Koum Al-Farag area of Al-Behera governorate demolished a church building after sectarian protests, the U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported.

The church had been holding worship services in its one-story building for 15 years until local Muslims constructed a mosque next to it a few years ago. As per the countrys common law, churches cannot be formally recognized or allowed to display Christian symbols if a mosque is built next to them.

Since the church grew, it went on to add two more floors to the building, which led to sectarian tension in the area. As a result, local authorities demolished both the church building and the mosque next to it, CSW said, adding that 14 Christians, including the priest and four female members, were arrested for trying to stop the authorities from demolishing the building.

CSW welcomes the legalization of more churches in Egypt, and we encourage the administration to continue on the path of reforming legislation and addressing societal attitudes and practices that restrict the right to freedom of religion or belief, CSWs Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said. (But) we remain concerned by the destruction of both the church and mosque in Koum Al-Farag, which is not an effective way of addressing sectarian tensions. The government must work with local authorities to formulate civic interventions that address and transform the societal attitudes underpinning sectarian tensions.

Last year, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern reported the legalization of 127 congregations.

However, critics of the committee, including ICC, have argued that it's moving too slowly in its granting of approval for the church buildings still on the list awaiting legalization.

The 2016 law (based on which the committee was created) was supposed to make it easier for new churches to go through the legalization process, said ICC at the time. However, President [Abdel Fattah] Sisis government has a worse record than his predecessors when it comes to approving new church buildings.

According to the Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA, Egypt holds the rank of the 16th worst persecutor of Christians in the world.

Many Egyptian Christians encounter substantial roadblocks to living out their faith, it notes. There are violent attacks that make news headlines around the world, but there are also quieter, more subtle forms of duress that burden Egyptian believers. Particularly in rural areas in northern Egypt, Christians have been chased from villages, and subject to mob violence and intense familial and community pressure. This is even more pronounced for Christians who are converts from Islam.
Kim Kardashian's beauty brand, KKW, was reported to have been valued at a billion dollars leading Kanye West to brag about her new three comma status.

But according to the publication that striped Kylie Jenner of billionaire status, her older sister isn't one either.

The 39-year-old reality star is worth about $900million after inking a deal with Coty Inc. to sell a 20 percent stake in the company, which sells make-up and fragrances, for $200million according to Forbes.

Coty also bought a 51 percent stake in Kylie's company for $600million last year.

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Miscalculations? Kim Kardashian's beauty brand, KKW, was reported to have been valued at a billion dollars leading Kanye West to brag about her new three comma status but according to a new report from Forbes she is only worth $900million

Downgrade: Kylie Jenner, 22, had been hailed a 'self-made billionaire' by Forbes in 2019 and 2020, but in May they stripped her of the title, accusing her of inflated business figures and 'forging' tax returns and suggesting she is worth around $950million

Kylie, 22, had been hailed a 'self-made billionaire' by Forbes in 2019 and 2020, but in May they stripped her of the title, accusing her of inflated business figures and 'forging' tax returns and suggesting she is worth around $950million.

Now Forbes reports that the deal which is set to close in the third fiscal quarter of 2021 will leave majority owner Kim with a 72% stake but as her mother Kris Jenner owns 8% it has prevented her from attaining true billionaire status.

This may be interesting news to Kim's 43-year-old husband Kanye who bragged about her 'billionaire' status on Monday.

Crunching the numbers: The 39-year-old reality star (seen in October) is worth about $900million after inking a deal with Coty Inc. to sell a 20 percent stake in the company, which sells make-up and fragrances, for $200million according to Forbes

Momager in the way: Now Forbes reports that the deal which is set to close in the third fiscal quarter of 2021 will leave majority owner Kim with a 72% stake but as her mother Kris Jenner owns 8% it has prevented her from attaining true billionaire status

'I am so proud of my beautiful wife Kim Kardashian West for officially becoming a billionaire,' Kanye wrote.

'Youve weathered the craziest storms and now God is shining on you and our family. So blessed this is still life.'

The Jesus Walks rapper appeared to have created a a found-art photo featuring a green tomato, a tomatillo, a cherry tomato, some lavender and other flowers, all arranged on the ground.

'So blessed this is still life': This may be interesting news to Kim's 43-year-old husband Kanye who bragged about her 'billionaire' status on Monday

'So I made you this still life. We love you so much,' he concluded.

Kanye later faced backlash on social media as many considered it 'ill-timed' for boasting about his wife's financial high given the fraught financial state of the globe.

Regardless Kim's new deal is for a 'long-term strategic partnership to launch products in new beauty categories and expand across the globe from top to bottom'.

TMZ reports that Coty acts as a licensee for skin, hair, personal and nail products.

Interesting: TMZ reports that Coty acts as a licensee for skin, hair, personal and nail products

In control: The deal means that Kim remains very much at the helm of the business, having only given up a 20 percent stake

The deal means that Kim remains very much at the helm of the business, having only given up a 20 percent stake.

If the company have paid $200million for one fifth of the brand, that means they value the whole company at a billion dollars.

Coty bought a majority stake in Kylie's beauty company, (51 per cent) in 2019, for $600million, whereas Kim will still be in charge of her company.

Drippin': Kim (seen at the Met Gala in May 2019) said: 'This relationship will allow me to focus on the creative elements that I'm so passionate about while benefiting from the incredible resources of Coty, and launching my products around the world'

TMZ also reported that Kim and her team have been working out the deal with Coty for months.

Kim said: 'This relationship will allow me to focus on the creative elements that I'm so passionate about while benefiting from the incredible resources of Coty, and launching my products around the world.'

Kim's beauty company was recently sued by Seeds Beauty because they were reportedly worried she would spill trade secrets to Coty.

Something to say: Kylie recently hit back at Forbes after it published a report claiming that the Jenners and their PR team inflated figures for Kylie Cosmetics

Last month, Kylie slammed Forbes after the publication released a bombshell report accusing her of inflating figures and 'forging' tax returns for the makeup mogul's cosmetics company.

It appeared the reality star was taken by surprise at the article, which claims Kylie Cosmetics is not doing as well as the Jenners want people to think - and that the Lip Kit creator is not actually a billionaire.

Forbes named Kylie the world's youngest self-made billionaire in 2019 and again in 2020, and of her surprise over their latest article she wrote on Twitter: 'What am i even waking up to. i thought this was a reputable site.

'All i see are a number of inaccurate statements and unproven assumptions lol. ive never asked for any title or tried to lie my way there EVER. period'

'Inaccurate statements': Kylie appeared shocked by the Forbes article that claimed her family created a 'web of lies' so she could be crowned the youngest billionaire

She followed up with a quote from the Forbes report that accused the Jenners and their accountant of producing false tax returns.

'Even creating tax returns that were likely forged thats your proof? so you just THOUGHT they were forged? like actually what am i reading.' Kylie tweeted incredulously.

She followed up with another post focusing on the positive, 'but okay i am blessed beyond my years, i have a beautiful daughter, and a successful business and im doing perfectly fine.'

The publication accused Kylie of 'lying about company figures and forging tax returns' to be dubbed a billionaire.

Report: Kylie is not a billionaire, Forbes claimed. They accused the 'self-made' makeup mogul, 22, of spinning 'a web of lies' about company figures and 'forging tax returns'
Conan O'Brien will be the first late-night talk show host to resume filming on stage starting Monday, July 6.

The 57-year-old comedian will be moving from his home studio setup to the stage of Los Angeles' Largo at the Coronet theater, Deadline reported Thursday.

The move will be in accordance with government and industry safety rules, and the tapings will be done without an audience to decrease the likelihood of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Back at it: Conan O'Brien, 57, will become the first late-night host to leave his home studio when he resumes filming TBS' Conan at LA's Largo at the Coronet on July 6; shown in May 2019

'I got started doing improv at the Coronet in 1986 and Im glad weve figured out a way to safely keep that theater going during this lockdown,' O'Brien said in a statement.

His new filming plans seem to be a blessing for Largo, which has been dark since Los Angeles' coronavirus lockdown began in March.

'We are thrilled that Conan and his great team reached out and offered to help us through these awful times. We have a long history together and look forward to many more great years to come,' said Mark Flanagan, the theater's owner.

Coming home: 'I got started doing improv at the Coronet in 1986 and Im glad weve figured out a way to safely keep that theater going during this lockdown,' O'Brien said in a statement; Largo at the Coronet shown in 2008

Helping hand: 'We are thrilled that Conan and his great team reached out and offered to help us through these awful times,' said Mark Flanagan, the theater's owner; Conan pictured with Antonio Banderas

Since late March, O'Brien has been filming Conan from his home on an iPhone while the rest of his production team also works remotely.

He previously filmed his show at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, California.

His fellow late-night hosts will likely be keeping a close eye on the success of Conan's new move as they plan out ways to restart their own shows.

Despite O'Brien and a skeleton crew being at Largo, all of his guests will continue to be interviewed via Zoom chats.

Historic: Largo began as a nightclub and has been popular with comics and musicians since the late 1980s. It moved to the intimate Coronet Theatre in 2008; an improv show from 2017

Old home: O'Brien previously filmed his show at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, California

Largo has long been a favorite among comedians and musicians in LA since its founding in the late 1980s.

The club was later closed and moved to the intimate Coronet Theatre in 2008, at which point it became Largo at the Coronet.

In addition to moving his show, O'Brien's Team Coco plans to turn its monthly live stand-up show into a digital stream.

Team Coco Live: Moses Storm & Friends will begin streaming on Twitch, a service best known for live-streaming video games, on Thursday, July 9.

Lo-fi: Since late March, O'Brien has been filming Conan from his home on an iPhone while the rest of his production team also works remotely

Going digital: In addition to moving his show, O'Brien's Team Coco plans to turn its monthly live stand-up show into a digital stream on Twitch

California only eased restrictions on filming back in June, and so far productions have been slow to restart.

The CBS soap opera The Bold And The Beautiful was one of the first shows to begin filming again on June 17.

The Young And The Restless, also from CBS, plans to resume filming on July 6.
Bebe Rexha kicked her star power into high gear for a smoldering new Instagram ad this week.

The 30-year-old pop act was promoting her brand new nail polish collection with the brand SinfulColors owned by Revlon.

She plugged the project by posing up a storm in a car and leaving her top open to reveal a checkered bra reminiscent of a racing flag.

Looking fab: Bebe Rexha kicked her star magnetism into high gear for a smoldering new Instagram ad this week

Her race-car-themed shoot saw her holding a large helmet so that her long fingernails were thrown into relief.

She was wearing the cherry red shade from her SinfulColors collection, which also includes a lavender nail polish.

Bebe wrote in an Instagram caption that she 'created' the colors in collaboration with the brand and insisted that they 'dry in a minute.'

Her costume was fully on-theme, including a pair of black leather fingerless gloves that allowed her to show off the polish.

Sizzling sensation: The 30-year-old pop act was promoting her brand new nail polish collection with the brand SinfulColors owned by Revlon

Terrific: She plugged the project by posing up a storm in a car and leaving her top open to reveal a checkered bra reminiscent of a racing flag

Emphasis: Her race-car-themed shoot saw her holding a large helmet so that her long fingernails were thrown into relief

Wearing her platinum blonde hair in a fashionable bob, Bebe sharpened her screen siren features with makeup for her shoot.

In a video she posted to her Insta Stories she could be seen sensuously grazing her fingers against her lips and brushing her hair away from her forehead.

Bebe shot her best pensive supermodel stare at the camera as she lifted both hands up to blow a kiss at her more than 10 million Instagram followers.

Variety: She was wearing the cherry red shade from her SinfulColors collection, which also includes a lavender nail polish

When you got it: Wearing her platinum blonde hair in a fashionable bob, Bebe sharpened her screen siren features with makeup for her shoot

The songbird, who was born in Brooklyn but lives in Los Angeles, revealed last month that her parents in New York had caught COVID-19.

She told Extra they 'were very ill for three weeks, and I got very nervous' to the point she was considering driving cross-country 'to take care of them.'

Meanwhile her parents 'were so adamant about not having my brother and I there, but finally they got better.'

Exquisite: Her costume was fully on-theme, including a pair of black leather fingerless gloves that allowed her to show off the polish
Victoria Beckham asked her Instagram followers for their opinion on Thursday on what she should wear for her 21st anniversary date night with husband David.

And the fashion star, 46, seemed to settle on a bridal-inspired all-white look.

Stood in front of a mirror, Victoria snapped a selfie in a crisp white silken blouse undr a cream trouser suit.

What to wear? Victoria Beckham asked her Instagram followers for their opinion on Thursday on what she should wear for her 21st anniversary date night with husband David

She added gold accessories to it in the form to a blingy necklace and chunky belt buckle.

She looked typically flawless - no doubt sporting her newly launched golden-tinted cell rejuvenating primer - and wore her chestnut locks whipped back from her features.

'Its me and @davidbeckhams 21st wedding anniversary this weekend so Im getting ready for date night! What do you think I should wear? x vb,' she asked her fans.

The look emulated her fellow Spice Girl Geri Horner as she slipped into the all-white ensemble - a look Geri, 47, has become known for.

21 years: David and Victoria married on July 4 1999 at Ireland's Luttrellstown Castle

Creamy Spice: The look emulated her fellow Spice Girl Geri Horner as she slipped into the all-white ensemble - a look Geri, 47, has become known for

Purple daze: David and Victoria's lavish 1999 ceremony involved thrones, outfit changes and their baby son Brooklyn in a cowboy hat

David and Victoria married on July 4 1999 at Ireland's Luttrellstown Castle in a ceremony that involved thrones, outfit changes and their baby son Brooklyn in a cowboy hat.

As well as Brooklyn - who was born four months prior to the wedding and is of course now 21 too - the Beckhams share Romeo, 17, Cruz, 15, and Harper, eight.

Last week Victoria filmed herself applying her lavish new golden-tinted product, branding it her favourite product - and admitted it has particularly come in handy during lockdown, while she's been spending more time in the sunshine outside.

'So this is my new shade of cell rejuvenating priming moisturiser,' she explained, dabbing some onto her cheek. 'It has a golden tint to it which is so great. It gives the most amazing shine and glow to your face...

Golden goddess! Victoria has launched her latest beauty product - and took to Instagram on Wednesday to give her followers a demonstration

Beauty! Filming herself applying her lavish new golden-tinted cell rejuvenating primer, Victoria, 46, branded it her favourite product

Glowing! VB admitted it has particularly come in handy during lockdown, while she's been spending more time in the sunshine outside

'At the moment I have spent a little bit more time in the sun so my skin is a little bit more tanned. I just love how this feels on the skin.

'I am obsessed with the golden glow. It's everything. My favourite product!'

The Spice Girls star certainly sold the product in the tutorial, but fans will have to fork out at least 92 for their own.

All aglow! 'It has a golden tint to it which is so great. It gives the most amazing shine and glow to your face...' she said

That will only get you a 30ml bottle, however; for a longer-lasting 50ml beauty lovers will need to shell out 140.

The product launch comes after the fashion designer proudly announced her London clothing store is now reopen.

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 welcoming shoppers back to the fold.
Radio 1 DJs Yasmin Evans and Nick Grimshaw went for very casual looks as they each arrived for their respective hosting duties at the BBC in Central London on Thursday.

Yasmin, 29 - who hosts a show on 1Xtra - sported her naturally flawless complexion as she strolled into the studios in a long-fitting navy T-shirt, inky running shorts and black trainers.

She carried a plethora of items with her - including her phone, a rucksack, a book and her BBC pass.

Arrival: Radio 1 DJ Yasmin Evans went for a very casual look as she arrived for her show at the BBC in Central London on Thursday

Grinning as she arrived, Yasmin was followed in by Nick, 35, who opted for sandals, despite the imminent threat of rain.

Carrying a coffee drink and a bag of snacks he donned shades as he chatted away via a pair of AirPods.

He wore a black loose-fitting shirt with cream trim and khaki army trousers, a man bag slung across his body.

He disappeared inside to host his drivetime show.

Off to work: Nick Grimshaw followed her in, carrying a coffee drink and a bag of snacks as he chatted away via a pair of AirPods

Smiley: Yasmin, 29 - who hosts a show on 1Xtra - sported her naturally flawless complexion as she strolled into the studios in a long-fitting navy T-shirt, inky running shorts and black trainers

Smart-casual: He wore a black loose-fitting shirt with cream trim and khaki army trousers, a man bag slung across his body

Both media personalities have embarked on TV projects this year - with Nick appearing on Celenbrity Gogglebox currently with his younger neice, and Yasmin taking part in Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.

The latter filmed her show last year and revealed how she was rushed straight to hospital after being eliminated, having contracted trench foot - the condition known to plague the trenches of the First World War.

The illness is caused by prolonged exposure to damp, unsanitary, and cold conditions - with Yasmin and the likes of Anthea Turner and Katie Price taking on the brutal wilds of Scotland on the Channel 4 endurance series.

Painful: The outing comes after Yasmin was booted from Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins during Monday night's instalment, which was filmed last year, and she was rushed straight to hospital having contracted trench foot

Yasmin told The Sun: 'I ended up in hospital and couldn't walk for four days. I looked down at my feet and I just thought, 'This is not OK'. My toenails were almost hanging off.'

She elaborated further on Instagram Live following the show.

'I really suffered from having two major infections in my feet,' she explained. 'Your socks are constantly wet. It's a World War injury.

'The boots are really hard. Basically my toenail was black and one of them was split in the middle and was constantly bleeding.'

Tough: Yasmin, 29, said - 'I ended up in hospital and couldn't walk for four days. I looked down at my feet and I just thought, 'This is not OK'. My toenails were almost hanging off'

Gruelling: The illness is caused by prolonged exposure to damp, unsanitary, and cold conditions - with Yasmin and the likes of Anthea Turner and Katie Price taking on the brutal wilds of Scotland on the Channel 4 endurance series

Yasmin said she wouldn't shy away from taking part in the show again, but that she'd 'rip off' her toenails first because 'they're going to fall out anyway'.

She added that her feet were now recovered, having competed in filming at the end of last year.

She captioned a montage of images from her time on the show: 'HEAD HELD HIGH ALWAYS. Incredibly proud of myself, but unfortunately infections & trench foot got the better of me. I couldn't survive the pain, I was broken.

'Thank you for all the love. THANK YOU TO MY TEAM. I wish I could've pushed further!'
He recently shared a rare snap with his hunky boyfriend Rafa Olarra to mark Pride Month.

And Luke Evans was proudly displaying his shirtless physique as he enjoyed a relaxing yacht getaway with his pals in Ibiza.

The actor, 41, enjoyed a spot of swimming in the beautiful ocean before relaxing on the lavish liner with his friends.

Hunky: Luke Evans, 41, proudly displayed his shirtless physique on Thursday as he relaxed on a luxury yacht with a group of friends in Ibiza

Luke showed off his shirtless physique in a pair of Fendi swimming shorts as he showered off before heading into the ocean.

The Beauty and the Beast star donned a pair of goggles to swim through the waves, while his friends paddleboarded alongside him.

Luke certainly seemed to be enjoying his Ibiza break as he chatted to his friends on the luxurious yacht.

Fun: The actor donned a pair of goggles as he enjoyed a swim in the ocean during the sunny getaway

He's ripped! Luke proudly showcased his shirtless physique in a pair of Fendi swimming trunks as he relaxed on the lavish yacht

Loved up: It came after the Beauty and the Beast star shared a rare cosy snap with his boyfriend, artistic director Rafa Olarra

Wow! Luke had certainly kept himself nice and toned during the lockdown, as he showed off his shirtless torso while showering on the boat

Fun: The star was joined by a group of pals for a day of fun in the sun as they enjoyed the beautiful weather

Daring: While Luke is relatively private, he is clearly besotted - with Rafa's Instagram littered with snaps of them together

Last month he delighted fans by sharing a rare cosy snap with his boyfriend Rafa, who revealed in another post they were unable to celebrate Pride Month together.

While Luke is relatively private, the pair are clearly besotted - with Rafa's Instagram littered with snaps of the couple.

Rafa is Miami based and is the art director at Faena - a chain of luxury hotels with locations in Miami Beach & Buenos Aires. He is also an Argentinian native and studied in Madrid before relocating to America.

Hidden: In 2002, Luke insisted to The Advocate that he never 'tries to hide' his sexuality, just prefers to keep his private life private

Speaking out: 'In my life in London I never tried to hide. It's not a big issue, and it's never going to be a big issue for me,' he said

Happy: In 2014, he also said: 'It's good for people to look at me and think this guy is doing his thing and enjoying what he's doing and successful at it and living his life'

Don't fall over: As Luke enjoyed a swim in the ocean, he watched one of his friends try and stay upright on the paddleboard

It's not clear how or when the men met, but Rafa appeared in a snap on Instagram with Luke last October.

The actor previously dated Victor Turpin, but split over a year ago.

In 2002, Luke insisted to The Advocate that he never 'tries to hide' his sexuality, just prefers to keep his private life private.

'In my life in London I never tried to hide. It's not a big issue, and it's never going to be a big issue for me,' he said.

In 2014, he told Women's Wear Daily: 'It's good for people to look at me and think this guy is doing his thing and enjoying what he's doing and successful at it and living his life. And that's what I'm doing and I'm very happy.'
MasterChef Australia star Laura Sharrad married fellow chef Max in a beautiful wedding in 2018.

But their love story actually began three years earlier, thanks to judge Jock Zonfrillo.

After finishing in second place on MasterChef's sixth season, Laura, whose surname at the time was Cassai, began working as a pastry chef at Jock's Orana restaurant in Adelaide in 2015.

How they met: MasterChef star Laura Sharrad (left) married fellow chef Max (right) in 2018 - but their love story actually began three years earlier, thanks to judge Jock Zonfrillo

She found herself working in the kitchen with Max, and their romance quickly blossomed.

'I knew from day one. I could just tell, it was love at first sight,' Max told The Adelaide Advertiser in 2017, following their engagement in Tuscany.

Speaking of the romantic sunset proposal, Laura said: 'As soon as he pulled out the little box, I just started crying and blubbering... I cried the whole time. It was simply beautiful, just perfect.'

Matchmaker: After finishing in second place on MasterChef's sixth season, Laura, whose surname at the time was Cassai, began working as a pastry chef at Jock's Orana restaurant in Adelaide in 2015. She found herself working in the kitchen with Max, and their romance quickly blossomed. Pictured: Jock Zonfrillo on MasterChef: Back to Win

Perfect proposal: In 2017, Max proposed to Laura in Tuscany. She later said of the proposal, 'I cried the whole time. It was simply beautiful, just perfect'

Max added: 'Though she didn't really say yes, she was just crying and nodding. But I'm stoked. She's the woman of my dreams.'

The couple tied the knot in the Barossa Valley in 2018, surrounded by family and friends.

They are also business partners, and opened their own Italian restaurant, Nido, in Adelaide's Hyde Park last year.

Working relationship: The pair tied the knot in the Barossa Valley in 2018. They're also business partners, and opened their own Italian restaurant, Nido, in Adelaide's Hyde Park last year

Max told Adelaide Now last year that he and Laura were the perfect team.

'She has strengths where I might not have them, like making those delicate little pasta shapes and the intricacies of pastry,' he said.

'My mind goes at a million miles an hour so I might not have the patience for that. Her strengths play to my weaknesses, and vice-versa.'

Laura is currently in the running for a place in the top five on MasterChef: Back to Win, which continues Sunday at 7:30pm on Channel 10.

She previously said she had sacrificed their restaurant to take part in the show.

'Not only had I left my husband Max back at home in Adelaide, but our business too. Everyone's made sacrifices to be on the show, but I used that as fuel to push me in every cook,' she told TV Week.
With COVID-19 keeping students at home, graduation ceremonies have become a thing of the past.

But Teresa Giudice attempted to make the most of the scholarly achievement in lockdown for daughters Milania, 15, and Audriana, 10, by presenting each of them with a custom cake.

The 48-year-old Real Housewives Of New Jersey star looked all the proud parent as she posed by Milania's side in one snapshot shared with her 1.9million followers on Instagram.

Congrats: Teresa Giudice attempted to make the most of graduation in lockdown for daughters Milania, 15, and Audriana, 10, by presenting each of them with a custom cake

'Happy 8th Graduation @milania_giudice356 so proud of you keep shining and being you and shine bright like a diamond that you are,' wrote Teresa in her post's caption.

Teresa donned a bright orange off-the-shoulder romper and had her lengthy brunette hair parted down the middle as she crouched beside Milania.

Milania's cake had 'Congratulations Milania' written on it in royal blue frosting, while the rest of the cake was decorated in light blue and white icing.

For Audriana's Instagram post, Teresa allowed her daughter to pose solo with her decadent cake that was dressed in hot pink icing.

Spotlight: For Audriana's Instagram post, Teresa allowed her daughter to pose solo with her decadent cake that was dressed in hot pink icing

Resting behind her was an array of colorful graduation balloons and her home's gorgeous credenza and granite counter top.

'Congratulation my beautiful blue eyed baby Audriana for graduating 5th grade. Keep being you youre beautiful inside and out. Im so proud of you, you make me smile every time I look at you keep shining my beautiful baby doll,' wrote the reality star to her youngest daughter.

In the state of New Jersey, when a child graduates the fifth grade they move onto middle school. Whereas in some other states, middle school begins after the sixth grade.

Middle schooler: In the state of New Jersey, when a child graduates the fifth grade they move onto middle school

Though Teresa shared the photos of her girls with their cakes on Thursday, the quarantined celebration actually occurred on June 23.

Specifically, the reality star hosted a a drive-thru ceremony for her girls and conjured up a delicious homemade dinner.

That same day, Teresa uploaded a sweet snapshot of Audriana donning a bright red graduation cap to her Instagram.

Teresa shares Audriana and Milania, as well as daughters Gia, 19, and Gabriella, 16, with ex husband Joe Giudice, 48, who is currently residing in his native Italy after being deported from the United States last year.

Throwback: Though Teresa shared the photos of her girls with their cakes on Thursday, her Instagram Story suggests that the quarantine celebration occurred on June 23

Scholarly: That same day, Teresa uploaded a sweet snapshot of Audriana donning a bright red graduation cap

Shortly after sharing her daughters' darling portraits with her followers, Teresa took a moment to show off her enviably toned and tanned bod as she enjoyed a 'Beach Day.'

She slipped her frame into a plunging black one piece swimsuit and shielded herself from the sun with Louis Vuitton cap and a pair of aviator shades.

Teresa resided in a beach chair and held onto a drink in her hand as her American Express themed purse rested in the sand next to her.

The sultry snap even received a 'like' by ex husband Joe.
She was eliminated from MasterChef last month after her jungle curry failed to impress the judges during an intense pressure test.

And it appears that Sarah Tiong's run of bad luck continued outside of the competition, as the fan favourite appears to have recently suffered a mystery injury.

On Thursday, the 29-year-old lawyer posted a video to Instagram Stories of herself walking on crutches.

What happened? On Thursday, MasterChef Australia star Sarah Tiong (pictured) posted a video to Instagram Stories of herself walking on crutches

'Oh my god, guys. I have literally just had to stop and take a rest in the middle of my driveway,' Sarah said.

'I'm exhausted and it's really hard moving around on crutches,' she added.

The talented chef did not disclose how she had sustained the injury.

Mystery: 'I'm exhausted and it's really hard moving around on crutches,' Sarah said in the footage. The 29-year-old lawyer did not disclose how she had sustained the injury

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Sarah for comment.

It comes after Sarah released her new cookbook titled Sweet, Savory, Spicy: Exciting Street Market Food from Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and More.

Last week, in a clever stroke of marketing, she shared a series of videos to Instagram of herself gifting the book to her MasterChef co-stars.

What's she cooking up? It comes after Sarah released her new cookbook titled Sweet, Savory, Spicy: Exciting Street Market Food from Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and More

The thrilled foodies included Poh Ling Yeow, Callum Hann, Jess Liemantara and Amina Elshafei, who all looked delighted with the gift.

Poh, 47, beamed while clutching the hardback edition, while a dapper-looking Callum, 31, told Sarah he was 'so excited' to receive a copy.

Sarah touchingly described the contestants as 'two legends I have always admired from afar and now am so lucky to call friends'.

Thrilled! Last week, in a clever stroke of marketing, Sarah shared several videos to Instagram of herself gifting the book to her MasterChef co-stars, including Poh Ling Yeow (left) and Callum Hann (right)

Meanwhile, Jess, 22, was over the moon to receive her copy of the book.

'I'm super proud of you, darl! The happiest moment was holding the hard work you've done,' she commented on Instagram.

MasterChef continues Sunday at 7.30pm on Channel 10
She returned to the Cobbles in 2018 as Evelyn Plummer, the long-lost grandmother of Tyrone Dobbs, following a six-week stint on the soap in 2002.

And Maureen Lipman has admitted that she was 'incredibly nervous' that returning to Coronation Street would 'cheese off' some of the regular actors.

The actress, 74, told Prima magazine starting on the long-running soap was a bit like the first day back at school, while she credited her career success to her confidence.

Chatting: Maureen Lipman has admitted that she was 'incredibly nervous' that returning to Coronation Street would 'cheese off' some of the regular actors

She revealed: 'On my first day back, I was incredibly nervous. I learned my lines until I knew them by heart, but I didn't know how the rest of the cast would react to me.

'There's always that feeling when you join something new that the regulars will be slightly cheesed off that you've come.

'They have their jokes, they have their seats, then you arrive seeming a bit aloof because you're actually more nervous than they know. It was a bit like going back to school!'

Discussing her time on the street, Maureen admitted she would like to introduce more comedy, however hard-hitting storylines don't leave much room for it.

Nervy: The actress, 74, told Prima magazine starting on the long-running soap was a bit like the first day back at school, while she credited her career success to her confidence

She revealed: 'On my first day back, I was incredibly nervous. I learned my lines until I knew them by heart, but I didn't know how the rest of the cast would react to me'

However she said she does have a good time, especially with her on-screen grandson Alan Halsall, as they try to improvise together where they can.

Maureen's stage and TV career has panned five decades, however she modestly admitted it isn't her looks that have taken her so far.

She said: 'I owe a lot of my success to having the gift of the gab. I was never a pretty young thing; I got my dad's nose, slightly squinting eyes and buck teeth (I later had them fixed).

Ideal: Discussing her time on the street, Maureen admitted she would like to introduce more comedy, however hard-hitting storylines don't leave much room for it

'So, after drama school, it was a question of convincing people to give me the jobs when they were expecting a blonde with pert breasts to walk in.

I've never had that moment of: "Take your glasses off Miss Jones; you're beautiful and we're taking you to Hollywood." Instead, I've sort of doggedly worried away at things like a terrier  and here I am!'

Maureen's late husband Jack Rosenthal passed away in 2004 and she has since found love again with her partner Guido Castro.

During the interview, Maureen opened up about how she worried she was grieving 'wrong', and how she always struggles around the anniversary of Jack's death.

She explained: 'I found it almost impossible to grieve because my nature is to make people laugh. And then, I'd feel terrible about the fact I didn't look like I was grieving enough. To try to make myself feel better, I bought things.

'I bought a car, then I worried that people would think it was odd; why would she buy a car when her husband has just died? But I now know that we all grieve in our own ways; there's no right or wrong way.

'Sometimes, I still have my moments 16 years later. He died on 29 May and I always get miserable around that time of year. I think, "Oh, this thing is getting me down  it's because I have a pain in my foot," or "It's because somebody hates me." But then, I realise it's coming up to that date and that's why.'

Love: Maureen's late husband Jack Rosenthal (pictured) passed away in 2004 and she has since found love again with her partner Guido Castro

Maureen also touched on how she has enjoyed such long-lasting relationships and the secret to the success of her romance with Guido.

She said: 'I've been with Guido [Castro] for 12 years and he's a lovely man. I haven't always been the best wife, mother or lover  I think I'm a bit hit and miss  but I recognise a good man when I see him.

'The secret to maintaining things is not letting go of the basic spark that brought you together. It's like when you meet your best friends from school; you might have nothing in common now, but that essence is still there and you laugh at the same things because of it.'

Modest: Maureen's stage and TV career has panned five decades, however she modestly admitted it isn't her looks that have taken her so far

She said: 'I owe a lot of my success to having the gift of the gab. I was never a pretty young thing; I got my dad's nose, slightly squinting eyes and buck teeth (I later had them fixed)'

Out now: Read the full interview in Prima's August issue, on sale 3rd July

Although she is in a happy relationship, Maureen joked that she still catches the eye of younger men because they think she is a 'slightly older' woman in her thirties.

She said: 'I can't quite believe I'm in my 70s  I certainly don't feel it! My face might be descending slightly south, but I honestly think that all the young men around me think I'm 36  that I'm a 'slightly older' woman  because that's how I feel.

'You walk into a room and you think you're going to have the same effect you always had... or maybe never had! It's a funny thing to get your head around. Now that my hair is grey, I've never liked it better. I look back at pictures of me with brown hair and dyed red and gold bits with regret. What was I thinking?'

Read the full interview in Prima's August issue, on sale 3rd July.
Erwin Bros., Lionsgate to release film 'Jesus Revolution' based on 1970s spiritual awakening

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Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company are teaming up to make a film about a spiritual awakening in Southern California in the early 1970s known as the Jesus movement.

According to reports, actors Jim Gaffigan and Joel Courtney have been selected to play the lead roles in the faith-based film, which will be titled Jesus Revolution.

The Christian company Kingdom Story was founded alongside Kevin Downes and The Erwin Brothers are in partnership with media giant Lionsgate. The team recently released Jeremy Camps biopic I Still Believe, which was the No. 1 film in theaters on its opening night.

Jesus Revolution was written by Jon Erwin and Jon Gunn. Courtney (Super 8) will play Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, who was a counterculture teenager in the late 1960s. At the time, Laurie was seeking meaning and purpose, and it led him to join the Jesus movement in Southern California where the spiritual awakening was commonly known for being spearheaded by a community of teenaged hippies.

Gaffigan will portray Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Lauries mentor. The minister famously opened his church to all who were seeking and was instrumental in launching the most recent spiritual revival in the United States.

This is a distinctly American story of rebirth, Emmy winner Gaffigan told Deadline. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time when spirituality was on the wane, leaving a lot of people searching for answers in other places. Im excited to play a pastor who helped make a home for the people most desperate for those answers and built a congregation  a coming together of people  to make something greater than themselves.

When I read the script, I was very drawn to the idea of portraying a man who is completely lost within himself and seeks to find a path and purpose during a time of national turmoil, Courtney said.

Jon Gunn, who co-wrote the film, also serves as director of the upcoming faith feature.

I love this era, said Gunn. The defiant search for truth, the fight against oppression, the hope for a better future in the midst of social turmoil. In that way, its not unlike our world today. And I couldnt be more excited to work with Jim and Joel to tell this honest, captivating story that will serve as a powerful reminder that radical love really can change the world.

Andrew and Jon Erwin, the Erwin Brothers, said the films content is very timely today.

This is a fascinating true story about how young people gravitated toward a spiritual movement that erupted during a time that our country was being torn apart and couldnt be more divided, added the Erwin Brothers. Its themes are just as timely and topical today as they were in the late 60s.
at Least 24 people have been shot in a facility for addiction treatment in Mexico. A further seven people were injured on Wednesday in a suburb of the Central Mexican city of Irapuato, three of them seriously, the local police announced. The information was initially. Photos that have been circulated on the Internet, showed close to each other on a floor, lying on the corpses of the young men.

The region of Irapuato in the state of Guanajuato is one of the most dangerous in Mexico. It had been reported in the past few weeks, more attacks on facilities for drug addicts with the dead.

In Guanajuato, among other things, the cartel Santa Rosa de Lima is actively involved, especially in petrol theft. Cartel boss Jose Antonio Yepez Ortiz, alias "El Marro" published ten days ago a Video in which he threatens to get angry with an escalation of violence. In raids, among other things, his mother and his sister were arrested.

The group of Yepez Ortiz is also fighting with the powerful crime syndicate Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) to the territory. The CJNG was made for a failed assassination attempt on the chief of police of Mexico city last Friday in which three people were killed, is responsible. The main area of influence of the cartel is located in the West of the country. His boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho is". For information leading to his arrest, has awarded the U.S. government tens of millions of dollars, in the Northern neighboring country of Mexico, he is wanted for drug trafficking.

In the past year have been in Mexico for almost 100 homicide victims per day registered. In addition, more than 60 000 people are considered disappeared. The violence continues in this year, in spite of the Corona-crisis. The bloodshed is to a large extent on the account of cartels and gangs involved in drug trafficking, kidnappings and extortion. Often the Gangster Connections to local security forces. Most of the crimes in the North American country are never investigated, let alone punished.

Updated Date: 02 July 2020, 02:19
it Was a gigantic star spot cause of the unusual darkening of the star Betelgeuse, which had surprised the beginning of the year, astronomers and the Public? The Thavisha Dharmawardena from the Max-Planck-Institute for astronomy in Heidelberg, and her colleagues in the journal "The Astrophysical Journal Letters reports anyway". The scientists have evaluated monitoring data from the 700 light-years distant star, which were obtained with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (Apex) in Chile and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. Both telescopes register the so-called Terahertz radiation, whose wavelength is a thousand times as large as that of the visible light. It is, in particular ends of cool dust in All of it.

In February, the American astronomer Emily Levesque, Philip Massey had hypothesized that one of the old giant star ejected dust cloud was darkening the responsibility of Betelgeuse between February 2019 and February 2020, from ninth on the 25. Ranking of the brightest stars slipping left. At the time, speculation even made it to the round, the star could be on the verge of a spectacular super-Nova explosion  Betelgeuse is 20 solar masses and a far-advanced stage of development is a hot candidate for it. But by the end of February, the star was brighter again and soon reached its normal luminosity. In June, he was because of the Position of the sun from the earth unobservable, however, with the cameras of the space probe "Stereo", as well as the Mars Rover "Curiosity" were the astronomers of him still in view.

Dharmawardena and your Team to keep the dust hypothesis in the light of the new measurements for non-durable: could be the case, you would have had to be brighter the star in the Terahertz light, in fact, the astronomers noted, also in this spectral range, a decrease in the brightness by 20 percent. Only a cooling of the visible stellar atmosphere could therefore have the star eclipsed; but this is not global, but in a limited area occurred.

blackout by overlapping brightness cycles?

Thus, recordings of the Very Large Telescope of the European southern Observatory had to wait (Eso) have shown that in December 2019 is a half of the visible star surface was darker than the other. "Together with our result, this is a clear indication of huge star-spots, which cover between 50 and 70 percent of the visible surface, and a lower temperature than the brighter photosphere have," says Peter Scicluna of the Eso and Co-author of the study.

star spots in all the stars. They occur when strong magnetic fields, the hot star matter in the photosphere, so the upper stellar atmosphere, sticking and more cool than the Material in the surrounding atmosphere. However, in a size, as will now be postulated in the case of Betelgeuse, one has observed you have never been. Edward Guinan of the American Villanova University who was not involved in the study, holds a giant star patch for one possible explanation, favoured the idea of a "super granule": "super-granules are large convection cells in the turbulent outer atmosphere of the giant star. The dough granules at the end Super hot and Shine bright, if they cool down, they become darker and back will eventually sink into the star. Guinan points out that Beteigeuzes brightness is known since a long time varies: From the analysis of decades of observations he and his colleague Richard Wasatonic to derive the number of brightness cycles, one of which you suspect that some of the recurring super granules are triggered.

A Superposition of two of these cycles may have led in combination with a particularly dark Minimum of the exceptional darkening. However, an influence of the star dust was still on the table: "in the end, both could be correct: a hybrid model of dust and cooling."

Updated Date: 02 July 2020, 10:20
With a recovery rate of about 60 per cent, India has crossed 6,00,000 coronavirus cases. Close to 3,60,000 have recovered and returned home, while many have recovered sitting at home. Well, they werent just sitting. They were taking some supplements and drinking kadha  all on the doctors advice. Yes, the humble, yet bitter kadha, has helped many turn corona-negative. But if you feel symptomatic, dont just rely on the humbleness of the kadha. Rely on your doctors advice. The advice from us: prevention is the best cure. Cases are rising too, so take your preventive precautions higher, not lower.

The humble kadha could be your health certificate to immunity. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

But even as the coronavirus cases are rising, more and more places and businesses are opening up because remaining closed forever is not possible. Yesterday, we told you Europe is opening up to travellers; some, not all. Today, we must tell you Bangkoks red-light districts are opening  with masks and bikinis  after remaining shut for over three months. Thailand, with a population of nearly 7,00,00,000, has reported 58 deaths and 3,173 infections.

So the risk of contracting the virus is lower but those in the red-light districts going back to work have been told to not lower their guard. A major part of sex tourism, however, is prostitution, which has been prevalent in the country since the times of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. What time was that? 1351-1767. It was legal then. It is illegal now. When did legal become illegal? In 1960.

Prostitution was outlawed in Thailand in 1960. (Photo: Reuters)

When it was legal, it was also taxed. But what we want to delve into is how Thailand came to be the hub for those looking for tourism coupled with sex.

During the times of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, women were passed around among men as concubines. They were mere spoils of war handed over to men as rewards for their bravado on the battlefield.

This was also the time when slavery was prevalent. Things continued like that till the 20th century, when King Rama V abolished slavery. Slavery was abolished but the slaves still had no way of making ends meet. There was little choice but to go for prostitution. Then came the war. Thailand was occupied by Japanese forces through most part of World War II. The Japanese soldiers considered Thai women their chattels. When Thailand began to modernise, people moved to cities but found not enough work or work that paid too less. That again pushed people to sex work. This obviously led to exploitation and human trafficking, so came the ban on prostitution in 1960.

The ban on sex work in Thailand has been as effective as a mask-on-the-chin has been against coronavirus.

But the pandemic has been effective in getting trains to move on time. The Indian Railways has said that for the first time in its history, all trains achieved 100 per cent punctuality on July 1. One reason is of course that fewer trains are running. There is no second reason.

Trains in the Fast Lane: Enhancing services to unprecedented levels, Indian Railways made history on 1st July, 2020 by achieving 100% punctuality rate. pic.twitter.com/zqNXFNx4Z6  Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) July 2, 2020

Now, it is true that trains in India have never had a 100 per cent punctuality record, but it did reach about 90 per cent during the time of Emergency: June 1975 to March 1977. In fact, recently when the Prime Ministers Office got flooded with complaints about delayed trains, the Modi government did turn to Emergency for tips on running services on time. That was reportedly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought an explanation from former Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and asked him to look into how trains ran in 1975-1977. Dont expect Modi to mention it in any speech; but taking a good lesson even from your adversaries is a good idea.

Talking of adversaries, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has been asked to vacate her bungalow, 35 Lodhi Estate. Actually, it wasnt her bungalow. She was only staying there since she was an SPG protectee since 1997. The security cover was withdrawn from the Gandhi family troika  Sonia, Priyanka, Rahul  in November 2019. The government asked Priyanka to pay up rent for one month, for which she can stay in the bungalow. The rent amounted to Rs 3,46,677.

Priyanka Gandhi paid rent amounting to Rs 3,46,677 for the bungalow she occupied. (Photo: Reuters)

The Congress general secretary paid up the rent as soon as she got the notice. She will now be moving to a house in Lucknow because that is where she is (re)building Congresss base.

SPG, you might know, came into existence in 1985, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The Special Protection Group is special because it protects special people  the Prime Minister, former PMs, and families of the PM and former PMs.

Between 2004 and 2013, the 3,000-member SPG, saw an expenditure of Rs 1,800 crore, which works out to about Rs 200 crore per year. In 2018-19, the expenditure was about Rs 412 crore and then in 2019-20, it rose to Rs 535 crore.

If families of all former PMs and all former PMs themselves continue to enjoy a security cover for as long as they live, the budget is only going to go up needlessly. The cover is extended only up to a period of one year to former PMs and their families. After one year, an assessment of the threat against them is done. When the threat is found to be miniscule, it recommends that the cover be withdrawn. Simple. No, not so simple. SPG cant remove anyones security cover. It can only recommend. The government decides. For now, the government has decided Priyanka has to vacate her bungalow, which we told you is not hers, but public property. You are public, but you cant stay there, even if you can pay up the rent.

Why think about what we cant do and where we cant be when we can do so much where we are. For now, it means sitting at home and watching OTT content. Now, some of us seem have overdone what they can do sitting at home. The Sandeep Reddy Vanga-directed Kabir Singh's music album has been streamed over 1,00,00,00,000 - 1 billion - times on YouTube.

You can listen to the Kabir Singh Jukebox here if you haven't heard the songs yet:

The movie has become the first film to achieve that feat, thanks to its music album being completely fresh. For movies too, in the times to come, maybe the success would be judged by how many times they have been streamed than their box-office collection.

Way cheaper for us consumers to stream movies on our TVs, laptops and phones than enter cinema halls; and also safer.

Stream, our Word Of The Day, which has now come to be the way of life, in Old English meant a course of water. Around the 12 century it came to mean anything issuing from a source and flowing continuously. So how did stream becoming streaming?

The term streaming was first used for tape drives manufactured by a company called Data Electronics Inc. It was a method of transmitting or receiving data, especially video and audio material, over a computer network as a continuous flow. This allowed room for playback to start while the rest of the data is still being received.

Just how we watch movies online. A missed dialogue or a sudden urge to pee in the middle of the movie are no spoilers. You pause, go do whatever you have to do, come back and play. The stream keeps streaming smoothly.

That makes you happy, but not the Multiplex Association. The Multiplex Association Of India has written a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs saying they feel "dismayed that cinemas and multiplexes continue to remain in the list of prohibited activities under the Central Government's Unlock 2.0 Guidelines".

The Multiplex Association Of India is unhappy that cinema halls haven't been allowed to open in Unlock 2.0. (Photo: Reuters)

The challenge here is tough. If the government goes ahead to keep association happy, it may also make the virus happy. Doosron ki khushi mein apni khushi? Forget that and also whoever told you that. Do everything you must to keep the virus unhappy. Which means dont give it the room to spread. That room is your body.

Stay safe.

We will see you tomorrow.

Also Read: DailyOh! How TN boiler blast was in the making, to why China, not India, is welcome to Schengen
Art Notes

 Cville Arts Cooperative Gallery is featuring woodworking artst Alex Pettigrew during the month of July, and visitors will be able to see his work in person four days a week.

The Downtown Mall gallery will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and from noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. All staff members and customers will be required to wear masks and observe physical distancing in accordance with CDC guidelines for safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of limitations to capacity, Cville Arts will not have a First Fridays reception this time.

Julys exhibit, Useful Beauty and Beyond, gives visitors a chance to see Pettigrews functional and decorative home and office accessories. Pettigrew uses local hardwoods to create furniture, cutting and serving boards, jewelry boxes, ink pens, clocks, pepper mills and other items that help him adhere to an old Shaker dictum: Dont make something unless it is both made necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful dont hesitate to make it beautiful.

Learn more about Pettigrew, his art and the gallery at cvillearts.org and pettigrewwoodworks.com.
July is serving up opportunities to help the community while helping yourself to good food and fellowship.

Virtual dinner

Theres still time to get tickets for Building Goodness Foundations virtual dinner, which begins at 6 p.m. July 11. This years meal will offer diners a chance to hear all about upcoming local and international building projects, but itll look a different this year.

While hearing all about the foundations plans via Zoom conference, each diner will be safe at home with a two-course dinner that will be prepared and delivered by The Catering Outfit.

You have until Friday to buy your ticket and choose the meal options you want, so go online soon to buildinggoodness.org/virtual-dinner or call Sophie Parson at (434) 249-1653.

Pandemic picnics

July happens to be National Picnic Month, and the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundations new virtual fundraiser is challenging parkway fans to host virtual picnics.
 Alzheimers Foundation of America will be providing free, confidential memory screenings digitally through its National Memory Screening Program from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday, beginning Monday. Screenings will be conducted one-on-one through secure videoconference in real time. The free program is open to everyone: there are no minimum age or insurance requirements. Appointments can be made by calling AFA at (866) 232-8484.

 Jefferson-Madison Regional Library partners with the Virginia Department of Health to serve as a reusable mask distribution center. Patrons will be able to receive free masks during JMRLs curbside services from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays at all branch locations. (434) 979-7151.

 Rivanna Solid Waste Authority holds Bulky Waste Amnesty Days at the Ivy Material Utilization Center on Dick Woods Road. Tires are accepted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 3; furniture and mattresses from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 19; and appliances from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 18 and Sept. 26. Household hazardous waste will be collected from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on July 10 and 11. Electronic waste is accepted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 10. Details at rivanna.org. (434) 295-3306.

 Thomas Jefferson Health Department offers free drive-through COVID-19 testing from 8 to 10 a.m. Thursday at Fleetwood Community Center at 1357 Crabtree Falls Highway in Massies Mill. Appointments are required and available by calling (434) 972-6261. Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital will host free COVID-19 testing from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursdays in July at Booker T. Washington Park on Preston Avene. Drive-through or walk-up testing is available at no cost. Preregistration is not required. Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry at 2050 Lambs Road offers free drive-through testing by appointment from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Wednesday. Schedule an appointment from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Monday or Tuesday by calling (434) 972-6261. Additional information is at vdh.virginia.gov/thomas-jefferson/covid-19-testing-sites.

From staff reports

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The new law also gives counties the authority to hold an advisory referendum on what to do with the statue, but Supervisors Donna Price and LaPisto-Kirtley specifically said they did not support a referendum.

Now is the time to take action, Price said.

Supervisors Liz Palmer and Diantha McKeel said they would save their comments for after the public hearing.

After holding a public hearing, if the board votes to move or alter the statue, it must offer the monument or memorial for relocation and placement to any museum, historical society, government or military battlefield, and must wait 30 days before removal.

According to the new law, the board has sole authority to determine the final disposition of the monument or memorial.

If the county follows a possible timeline that was presented in June, the earliest the statue could be taken down is Sept. 5.
GUANGZHOU, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Despite the rain, customers formed a long line to buy bubble tea at Bliss Cake in Dongguan, a manufacturing hub in south China's Guangdong Province, on a weekend afternoon.

Having disappeared during the COVID-19 outbreak in the past few months, bubble tea lovers have returned to the store, which saw its 17 tables fully occupied, and a long line in its takeaway-fetching area.

"Our sales were depressed by COVID-19 for two months. But now we can see customers coming back as people gradually return to work and begin 'revenge buying' to cure the cabin fever," said Wen Shiming, marketing manager of Bliss Cake.

Surrounded by factories and office buildings, this bubble tea store has been a gathering point of young workers, and its business offers a glimpse into local work resumption.

Dubbed "world factory," the city of Dongguan features a sprawling manufacturing industry. It is a major supplier of smartphones, Barbie dolls, and pricey shoes in the global market.

In recent years, the city witnessed the rise of the high-tech industry. Bubble tea, a popular beverage among young Chinese, is testimony to that trend.

Data showed there are three bubble tea stores for every 2,000 Dongguan residents, compared with one coffee business for every 2,073 people in Berkeley, which a study ranked as the U.S. city with the most coffee shops per capita.

Jian Weizhe, manager of My Caffe Life, another bubble tea shop, was once worried that COVID-19 would deal a deadly blow to the entire bubble tea business. As one of the largest bubble tea chains in Dongguan, My Caffe Life saw its sales volume in March plummet by 40 percent year on year.

Much to Jian's relief, the chain's business rebounded in April and surpassed the year-earlier level in May, and the familiar long queues are making a comeback.

That concurs with a general economic recovery in Guangdong, China's manufacturing heartland, after the waning of the epidemic. Official data showed economic activities in the province had rebounded in April to the same level last year, as businesses reopened and factories picked up steam.

In Dongguan, retail tax invoicing increased by 10.5 percent year on year in May, indicating a smooth recovery in the retail sector hard hit by the epidemic.

Huang Yaode, operating director of bubble tea chain store Teabucks Lab, said the revival of the bubble tea business is a vote of confidence from the public for the COVID-19 containment.

"Consumers will only come out and take off their masks for a cup of tea if the epidemic has been contained. The crowded bubble tea stores are proof that everything is getting back on track," Huang said.

Xu Bo, secretary-general of Dongguan's chain restaurant development and promotion association, agreed, saying bubble tea has become a socializing tool and part of everyday life for many Chinese.

"Behind the rising sales of bubble tea stores is the rapid recovery of the society and the economy," he said. Enditem

[ Editor: ZY ]
Herman Cain hospitalized with COVID-19 after attending Trump rally, team seeks prayers

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Former Republican presidential candidate and businessman Herman Cain, 74, has been hospitalized with COVID-19, his team announced Thursday, just over a week after attending a rally for President Donald Trump in Tulsa.

We are sorry to announce that Herman Cain has tested positive for COVID-19, and is currently receiving treatment in an Atlanta-area hospital. Please keep him, and all who are battling this virus, in your prayers, a statement from Cains Twitter account said.

Cains staff further noted that they had no idea where he contracted the virus but he was notified on Monday that he tested positive for the virus and by Wednesday he had to be admitted to the hospital.

There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus, but we do know he is a fighter who has beaten Stage 4 cancer, Cains staff said. With Gods help, we are confident he will make a quick and complete recovery.

We are sorry to announce that Herman Cain has tested positive for COVID-19, and is currently receiving treatment in an Atlanta-area hospital.



Please keep him, and all who are battling this virus, in your prayers.



Our full statement appears below. Updates to follow. pic.twitter.com/lDRW7Rla4e  Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) July 2, 2020

Dan Calabrese, editor of HermanCain.com, said when he got the call on Wednesday night that his boss had tested positive for the virus it was a punch in the gut.

His executive assistant Lisa gave the news that hed been taken to the hospital and that he was having trouble breathing. We all prayed for him, right then, right there. And we continued to do so throughout the evening, Calabrese wrote in a report on HermanCain.com.

He said the team was thankful because despite being admitted to the hospital, he did not require a respirator.

That was probably the one detail we were praying about the most, and God was gracious, Calabrese said.

While he remained confident that his cancer-surviving boss will recover again, he took the time to note how serious the coronavirus can be and called for prayers for his recovery.

Lets not sugarcoat it: COVID-19 is a horrible thing to experience, and while we are sure Herman will beat it just like he beats everything, he really needs prayer right now. Hes 73 years old and just about as healthy as anyone I know, but this is really going to require all of his strength, and plenty of Gods help, he said. Herman will be fine. Were also confident of that. But please lift him up in your prayers, as well as his wife Gloria and their family for strength and encouragement in getting through this.

Cain recently attend President Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where his team tweeted a photo of him with a group of supporters inside the Tulsa Arena. No one in the photo was wearing a mask. Just hours before the event, six staff members at the site had tested positive for the virus. Two more advance staffers tested positive after returning to Washington, The Washington Post reported, and dozens of Secret Service agents on the trip were ordered to self-quarantine at home because two of the staff who tested positive in Tulsa were Secret Service employees.

Calabrese noted that even though Cain also attended the rally in Tulsa, he could have gotten the virus from other places.

By the way, since I know there will be questions: We honestly have no idea where he contracted it. I realize people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of traveling the past week, including to Arizona where cases are spiking, he said. I dont think theres any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected. Well never know.
The charitable arm of the Dave Matthews Band will join three other local philanthropic funding sources this fall to help area nonprofits recover from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Bama Works Fund, administered by the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, announced this week a $1 million commitment to a special community recovery and catalyst grant program, joining with the University of Virginia Health System, the Twice is Nice Fund and the Enriching Communities grant programs through the CACF.

In lieu of its fall grant round, Bama Works is partnering with the Community Emergency Response Fund to offer grants to help nonprofits to recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19 and to address longstanding racial inequities in the region.

The Bama Works Fund made a critical early donation to establish the Community Emergency Response Fund back in March. Since that time, the fund has raised more than $5 million from more than 800 contributors. Most of the money has gone to the COVID-19 Helpline, which has provided direct aid to more than 5,000 households across the region.

The Bama Works Fund has made grants in Central Virginia for 22 years, with the gifts totaling more than $30 million.
RICHMOND  Amid calls for racial justice, Virginia is set to consider requiring teachers to get a certificate in African American history.

The Commission on African American History Education, a group Gov. Ralph Northam assembled last year, is making the recommendation in its upcoming report, Secretary of Education Atif Qarni said in an interview. The report and landmark recommendation comes during a racial reckoning in Virginia and around the country, with protesters highlighting the disparities in education among other issues after the killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

The full story of the countrys history is not being told in Virginia classrooms, members of the commission said. Having teachers trained and studied on the subject is one way to fix that, they said.

We want to make sure that we give a full perspective of our history and thats just not been done, Qarni said. We talk about freedom and justice and spreading democracy throughout the world. I would argue that a lot of those principles came from the struggles of African Americans throughout our history and that history is not being told in our classrooms.

Qarni said he is unaware of any other states that have such a requirement, which the Northam administration is seriously considering.
We cant tell you for certain whose interests are served by President Donald Trumps latest executive order on immigration, which took effect June 24 and suspends many new work visas through the end of the year. But we can easily tell you whose arent  those of American businesses and industry, and thus, of Americans who benefit from those companies innovation and success:

 Putting up a not welcome sign for engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses and other workers wont help our country, it will hold us back. (Thats from U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue.)

 We oppose this, especially H1B visas. Those are engineering and science. The U.S. just doesnt produce enough of those people to fill those jobs. (From Shaye Mandle, CEO of Medical Alley, a trade group in Minnesota.)

 In my experience, these skill sets are net job creators. Visa reform makes sense, but this is too broad. (From Tesla CEO Elon Musk.)

Sort of sounds like they didnt want it.
A recent column about the Supreme Courts decision on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was welcome (What the Supreme Court's DACA ruling means for undocumented students and the colleges and universities they attend, June 20, The Daily Progress online only).

Over 1.2 million young people, who came to this country through no fault of their own, will continue to live with some security in the only country many of them have ever known. The Supreme Court found that the Trump administrations reasoning in seeking to end DACA was arbitrary and capricious, rejecting the administrations attempt to end the program.

This victory for our community, however, is tenuous. The young people who have fought for years are still in danger. The Trump administration rejected the Supreme Courts legal reasoning and has already said its plans for move forward with a new attempt to end the program.

We must not forget that DACA is not and was never intended to be a permanent solution; it is not legal status. Only Congress can give these people a path to legal status and citizenship, something most Americans support. The Dream Act, which protects these Americans permanently, must be passed now.

Daniel Morales

Charlottesville
Money remains a pressing issue. Young said there were layoffs at Montpelier before his arrival. He is clearly aware that raising funds will be a challenge during the pandemic. But he is quick to credit his staff and board for their role in helping him develop ambitious plans, notably the 10-year rebranding of the Center for the Constitution.

Young said he will seek funding for this major initiative, which will sponsor formal programs for teachers and other professionals and host scholars and artists in residence. It will all be in the service of addressing a significant question that will involve an understanding of the Constitution. As Young sees it, the endeavor also will provide a forum for schoolchildren, interns and pretty much anyone interested in thinking through the topic under discussion in a safe place, in a safe format.

Young said he and his staff and board will involve multiple stakeholders in the selection of the big question to be addressed each year. Among those he plans to approach are the descendant community of Montpelier and residents of Orange County. Through Montpeliers website, he said the national community also will have the opportunity to weigh in on the big questions Montpelier could and should be asking about the Constitution and the debates surrounding its meaning.
Nacogdoches, TX (75965)

Today

Thunderstorms, accompanied by locally heavy rainfall at times. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High near 90F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Ferndale police Sgt. Baron Brown was instrumental in making his department the first in Oakland County to join the Hope Not Handcuffs program. People with addiction problems can get immediate help just by walking into the police lobby and asking for help.
Museum commemorating 21 Coptic martyrs beheaded by ISIS opens in Egypt

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A Coptic martyrs museum has opened in Egypt to commemorate the 21 Christians beheaded by the Islamic State on a Libyan beach in 2015 because they refused to renounce their faith in Christ.

The world was shocked after the Islamic State released an execution video on Feb. 15, 2015, showing the decapitation of nearly two dozen migrant workers, 20 of whom were Christians from Egypt and one who was a Christian from Ghana.

The video was titled: "A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross.

On the fifth anniversary of that horror, Coptic Bishop Bevnotious of Samalout inaugurated a new museum that honors those killed.

According to the online magazine Cairo Scene, the new museum is housed in the Church of the Martyrs of Faith and Homeland.

The church, built in the poor village of Al-Aour in the Minya governate, opened in February 2018 on the third anniversary of the execution videos release. The churchs construction was funded by the Egyptian government, which is led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Al-Aour is the village where 13 of the workers killed in the video were from. The church has become a pilgrimage site for many Christians since it is the final resting place for the 21 martyrs.

The museum will include a documentary panorama that will teach viewers about how the 21 men were kidnapped and executed. The museum also features a shrine with the remains of the martyrs and the coffins that transported them from Libya to Egypt.

A Catholic press agency reports that the museum features exhibits on the victims' lives.



In addition to the museum, a memorial honoring the martyrs was also inaugurated.

The memorial features a 13-foot tall statue of Jesus Christ with His arms outstretched, open to the statues of the 21 victims kneeling before Him, seen here.

In the widely shared execution video from 2015, the victims were shown kneeling in a line before their captors right before they were beheaded. Their bodies were then thrown into a mass grave. Their bodies were later discovered by Libyas interior ministry in 2017.

As Egypt ranks as the 16th worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USAs 2020 World Watch List, Coptic Christians have on many occasions faced discrimination and persecution in the Muslim-majority country.

Several attacks against Coptic Christians over the years have gained international headlines.

In May 2017, 29 Copts were killed while traveling to a desert monastery in Minya when their bus was attacked by Islamic radicals. A similar bus attack occurred near the same monastery in November 2018 in which seven were killed and at least 20 were injured.

In recent years, Copts have also been the target of deadly church bombings as well as a string of killings believed to be carried out by militants aligned with the Islamic State in Sinai.

In Al-Aour, the deaths of the martyrs have only strengthened residents faith. Author Martin Mosebach wrote about his visit to Al-Aour in his recent book The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs.

Mosebach heard stories from family members about how the martyrs are being credited with modern-day miracles.

These communities and congregations are very educated and know the faith, Mosebach told The Christian Post last February. In the spirituality of the Copts, miracles are a very important thing.

Mosebach explained that some of the miracle stories include the martyrs being credited with saving children who fall out of windows, curing sick people and even healing a woman of infertility.

Miracles didnt save the [21] from decapitation but did prove that their sacrifices had made them Christlike and therefore accepted as such, Mosebach wrote.

Throughout his presidency beginning in 2014, Sisi has made attempts to promote religious freedom, legalize churches and denounce radical extremism. However, some Christians still face punishment for their advocacy for human rights and religious freedom.

Last November, Coptic activist Rami Kamil was arrested on accusations of terror activity. Advocates said Kamils arrest appears to be an effort to punish him for his work as a human rights defender.



In the face of huge economic, political, social and security challenges, the government of President el-Sisi seems to spare little regard for basic human rights and democratic pluralism, a fact sheet from Open Doors USA reads.

Thus, religious freedom for Christians is not fully guaranteed. Egyptian Christians are often victims of social exclusion and face constant discrimination in areas such as justice, education and basic social services. In rural areas, Christian women have been targeted for abduction and forced marriage.
Treatment of Christians in Egypt much better now than it's been for a long time: expert

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The situation for Christians in Egypt is better now than it has been for a long time, according to an evangelical Christian professor who recently visited the nation.

Darrell Bock, senior research professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, was featured on an episode of The Table podcast that was posted on YouTube Tuesday.

Bock and Mark M. Yarbrough, vice president for Academic Affairs, academic dean, and professor of Bible Exposition at DTS, said he recently visited Christian leaders in Egypt.

While there, Bock met with a group of about 60 to 70 Protestant Egyptian leaders who told him, things are much better for us as Christians now than they have been in Egypt for a long time.

Even though theres violence in some of the regions in Egypt related to the Christian Church, thats a matter of just administrative realities in different parts of Egypt, Bock said.

Some areas are inherently more violent than the other because the government doesnt have the power yet to oversee everything thats going on across the whole of the country.

Specifically, people Bock spoke with said that, overall, things had not been this good for Christians in the country since Anwar Sadat became president in the 1970s.

Yarbrough agreed with this assessment, noting that the improvement in conditions for the Christian minority was huge and probably better than its ever been for that generation.

Yarbrough also discussed how while only about 10% of the country was Christian and barely 1% were evangelical Protestant, they had made considerable social gains.

This group that we met with are very influential leaders. They're not hidden in the background. Theyre very public figures, he explained.

Many are serving in strategic positions of office that we met. And so, there is a growing, not just in regard to the role of the Church, but the positioning of evangelical leaders within governmental structures.

Yarbrough found it significant to see Christians who are in strategic positions interacting with other folks from different religious backgrounds.

Bock and Yarbrough also discussed meeting Coptic Church leader Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, who they said was interested in ecumenical cooperation and biblical education.

He talked about some things that theyre doing. He made reference to VBS. It was almost a discussion of something that many of us are familiar with. Something like Awana or something like that for kids. He talked about a process of that, recalled Yarbrough.

He showed us a curriculum that hed had a team writing on. You could tell he lit up when it came to how do we equip the next generation of believers in Jesus to know Him better and to know His Word. It was very encouraging.

A Muslim-majority nation, Egypt has a checkered history when it comes to tolerating its Christian minority, with recent upheavals leading to sporadic violent persecution.

According to the Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA, Egypt holds the dubious distinction of being the 16th worst persecutor of Christianity.

Many Egyptian Christians encounter substantial roadblocks to living out their faith, noted the organization in a recent report.

There are violent attacks that make news headlines around the world, but there are also quieter, more subtle forms of duress that burden Egyptian believers.

Nevertheless, the al-Sisi government has made some overtures, including the creation in January 2017 of a government body aimed at giving legal recognition to various churches.

Known as the Committee for the Legalization of Unlicensed Churches, it includes ministers of justice, parliamentary affairs, local officials, and representatives of Christian communities.

Headed by Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, in May, the committee gave legal recognition to 70 churches, adding up to 1,638 since its formation.
Trump supports Global Coptic Day, stresses importance of religious freedom

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President Donald Trump issued an official message in support of the second annual Global Coptic Day, expressing his support for the persecuted Christian denomination.

In a message released Monday, Trump noted that his administration called the observance an opportunity for the world to mark the contributions, legacy, and ongoing challenges facing the largest Christian group in the Middle East.

This year, as we celebrate the second annual Global Coptic Day, we recognize the vital role faith, prayer, and service have in our lives, especially as we continue to face the challenges posed by the novel coronavirus pandemic, stated Trump.

We join with people of faith from every corner of the world in asking God to place his healing hand on those fighting the virus and to comfort those who are mourning the loss of a friend or a loved one.

The president went on to focus on the importance of international religious freedom, saying that far too many people the world over face persecution on account of their faith.

We must ensure that we are using every tool at our disposal to ensure that every man, woman, and child feels safe and secure to worship according to their conscience and beliefsno matter where they live, he continued.

I hope todays observance is filled with prayer and joy, and provides those celebrating with a renewed sense of purpose and faith. May God bless each of you.

The Global Coptic Day observance was founded in part by Egyptian-born Nader Anise, who launched the Coptic American Chamber of Commerce.

A major goal of the observance is to spread awareness about the Coptic Church and contributions it has made to history and culture.

In Coptic tradition, June 1 is the Flight of the Holy Family, referencing how Jesus, along with his parents Mary and Joseph, fled to Egypt to escape King Herod.

A branch of the Orthodox Church largely based in Egypt, the Coptic Church has long experienced both state-sponsored repression and violence from Islamic extremists.

In 2015, the Islamic State released a video online showing 20 Coptic Christian men and one Ghanaian Christian being decapitated on a beach in Libya for their beliefs.

In February, a museum dedicated to that group of executed Christians was opened at the Church of the Martyrs of Faith and Homeland in the village of Al-Aour.

For its part, in recent times the Egyptian government has granted legal status to a growing number of churches that have increased, with 70 being approved in May.

Egypt was ranked number 16 on the Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors USAs list of worst persecutors of Christians in the world.

There are violent attacks that make news headlines around the world, but there are also quieter, more subtle forms of duress that burden Egyptian believers, noted the organization.

Particularly in rural areas in northern Egypt, Christians have been chased from villages, and subject to mob violence and intense familial and community pressure. This is even more pronounced for Christians who are converts from Islam.
Judge temporarily blocks Iowa law requiring 24-hour waiting period for abortion

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A judge has put a temporary block on a newly signed Iowa law that would require a woman seeking an abortion to wait at least 24 hours before undergoing the procedure.

The block on Tuesday prevents House File 594 from taking effect, which was scheduled for Wednesday. The law also also prohibited a court of law or equity from withdrawing life-sustaining procedures from a child against the wishes of a parent unless the child had died.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed it into law on Monday, saying she was proud to stand up for the sanctity of every human life.

Life is precious, life is sacred, and we can never stop fighting for it. I applaud the Iowa lawmakers who had the courage to stand strong and take action to protect the unborn child, stated the governor.

The Iowa chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and Planned Parenthood Federation of America filed a lawsuit to strike the bill down even before Reynolds signed it.

Erin Davison-Rippey, Iowa executive director of Planned Parenthood North Central States, claimed in a statement in June that the law would delay a person's ability to get an abortion by weeks.

Many of our patients must drive four or more hours one-way for abortion services, so this legislation will only create more hurdles to getting care, stated Davison-Rippey.

It's already hard enough for many Iowans to access abortion services, especially in the middle of a global pandemic. This is clearly a political ploy to create barriers to sexual and reproductive health care in Iowa.

Bob Vander Plaats of the socially conservative group The Family Leader defended the law to local news media outlet KCCI of Des Moines.

We think the 24-hour waiting period is a very reasonable waiting period to give a woman the opportunity to decide if she really wants to go through with this after taking a second look at the ultrasound, said Vander Plaats.

In June 2018, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled 5-2 to strike down a state law that required a 72-hour waiting period before allowing an abortion procedure.

In truth, the evidence conclusively demonstrates that the Act will not result in a measurable number of women choosing to continue a pregnancy they would have terminated without a mandatory 72-hour waiting period, concluded the courts majority.

Moreover, the burdens imposed on women by the waiting period are substantial, especially for women without financial means. Under the Act, patients will need to make two trips to a [Planned Parenthood of the Heartland] clinic since it is likely they would not be readily able to obtain certification from a local, non-PPH provider.
I thought this problem was only mine. Being subjected to popping, crackling, sounding almost like gun shots or explosions weeks before the Fourth of July, has become a common happening, Ive learned throughout Fairfield County and across the tri-state area. Perhaps its the blanket cancellations of fireworks displays throughout the area. Or maybe thrill seekers are just feeling the need to push that thrill to the limit, no matter how neighbors and their pets feel. But frankly, Ive had enough.

Happily, so has our first selectwoman, Brenda Kupchick. She was interviewed on WICCs Melissa in the Morning on WICC a couple of weeks ago. When Melissa expressed concern about the nights of illegal fireworks in towns like hers, Brenda said she was definitely going to do something about it.

At this point, without statistics from the Fairfield police, I dont know how many arrests have been made since the First Selectwomans assurance that she intends to curb these illegal fireworks. But I still hear complaints from former neighbors and friends that their late evenings or sleep have been disrupted and their dogs are freaking out and running for the basement or under the bed.

Hearing those complaints brought back memories of our last neighborhood on Brooklawn Avenue. We had a neighbor on the Bridgeport side who loved to go all out, especially for the Fourth of July. As I recall, the fireworks usually started days before the holiday and the noise reverberated throughout the neighborhood.

Our two dogs at the time went berserk and I had all I could do to hang on to our bigger Jack Russell Patches. Our little Jack Russell Sadie jumped out of my wifes arms and ran like crazy up Algonquin Road toward the Country Club. I ran after her, but the street was dark and Sadie had a head start. The noise continued and I thought Sadie was gone for good. Nearly a half hour passed and we had given up. Just as we were going to walk into our house, we heard Sadies familiar bark and all of a sudden, she appeared. But even inside the house, both dogs continued to bark and ran back and forth from the living room to the back end of the house.

When I called the Bridgeport Police to complain, the dispatcher said it was busy before the Fourth of July and they didnt think they could do much about the problem. I learned over the next couple of days that our neighbor may have been a retired police officer and there probably wouldnt be any changes anyway.

But the real icing on this cake was the night of the Fourth, when our neighbor footnoted the fireworks displays in Bridgeport and Fairfield by holding his own display. Again, when we walked out the front door, we saw a line of cars from Acadia Avenue down to the stoplight at Hughes Avenue. People were in or out of their cars, talking, laughing and drinking beer. The pattern continued for nearly all 14 years we lived in that house.

We have since moved to north Bridgeport and to Stratford two years ago to downsize, but this is the first year that the noise from the home-grown fireworks has really gotten unbearable. We lost Sadie about three years ago and, thankfully, Patches hearing isnt like the old days. But there have been some loud booms and our 16-year old companion has been startled.

And the fireworks, especially the firecrackers, have been an every-night happening for the past three weeks. My wife and I arent seeing any let up. But were pretty sure the police are getting plenty of complaints and we can only hope they are doing something about these illegal fireworks. So far, its still noisy.

I love fireworks as much as the next person. Over the years when our kids were growing up, we often trudged to Fairfield Beach on the Fourth or an evening before the Fourth to watch the display. But this pandemic has taken large gatherings away from our towns and canceled fireworks displays. I know how difficult that is for families.

But that situation is no reason to start building up to the holiday with illegal and dangerous fireworks. I just heard about a little girl in New York whose arm was injured by someone recklessly setting off a firecracker that came through a window in her apartment.

I can only hope that our Fairfield residents will respect the safety of their neighbors on this Fourth of July Saturday by following the law and not setting off fireworks carelessly, especially at picnics or barbecues. Happy Fourth of July to all of Fairfield.

Steven Gaynes is a Fairfield writer, and his In the Suburbs appears on Friday. He can be reached at stevengaynes44@gmail.com.
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Supreme Court strikes down state ban on public aid to religious schools

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The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that religious schools can qualify for a state tax credit program even when the state constitution explicitly bans public aid to religious entities.

In a decision released Tuesday morning, the high court ruled 5-4 in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that parents could take advantage of a public scholarship program to send their children to religious schools.

Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion of the court, being joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch.

Roberts noted that the high court has held that the Establishment Clause is not offended when religious observers and organizations benefit from neutral government programs.

Montanas no-aid provision bars religious schools from public benefits solely because of the religious character of the schools. The provision also bars parents who wish to send their children to a religious school from those same benefits, again solely because of the religious character of the school, wrote Roberts.

A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored a dissenting opinion, being joined by Justice Elena Kagan. Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor also wrote dissents.

The no-aid provision can be implemented in two ways. A State may distinguish within a benefit program between secular and sectarian schools, or it may decline to fund all private schools, wrote Ginsburg.

The Court agrees that the First Amendment permits the latter course  Because that is the path the Montana Supreme Court took in this case, there was no reason for this Court to address the alternative.

The Becket Fund, a religious liberty law firm that represented the plaintiffs, celebrated the ruling as a victory over Blaine Amendments, which prohibits funding religious institutions, including schools, and which several states have in place.

Bye-bye Blaine! #SCOTUS just ruled that anti-religious Blaine Amendments are unconstitutional, making it clear that religious organizations cannot be treated as second-class citizens when it comes to widely available public benefit programs, tweeted the group.

Rachel Laser, head of Americans United for Separation of Church & State, denounced the decision as unprecedented and said it looks like it's forcing taxpayers to fund religious education.

In 2015, Montana passed Senate Bill 410, allowing tax credits for donations of up to $150 to either private school scholarships or educational programs in public schools.

Originally, Montanas Department of Revenue barred religious schools from the program, citing Article X, Section 6 of the state constitution, which banned any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies  to aid any church, school, academy  controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.

However, three mothers filed suit against the government wanting to use the program for religious schools, getting a trial court victory which lifted the no aid ban.

In December 2018, the Montana Supreme Court opted to strike down the program due to it allowing for religious schools to be included, arguing that it violated the state constitution.

We conclude that Montanas Constitution more broadly prohibits any state aid to sectarian schools and draws a more stringent line than that drawn by its federal counterpart, concluded the states high court.

The Legislature, by enacting the Tax Credit Program, involved itself in donations to religiously-affiliated private schools  The Legislature, by enacting a statute that provides a dollar-for-dollar credit against taxes owed to the state, is the entity providing aid to sectarian schools via tax credits in violation of Article X, Section 6.

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, with Becket Senior Counsel Diana Verm telling The Christian Post at the time that she thought that the argument went well.

It was clear that at bottom, the justices realized that this case is about religious discrimination, and they grappled with the question of whether the state can take away a state benefit just because people can use that benefit at a religious school, said Verm.
Apple supplier Foxconn, others hit as India holds up imports from China. (AFP Photo)

NEW DELHI: Indias additional scrutiny of imports from China has disrupted operations at plants owned by Apple supplier Foxconn in southern India, three sources told Reuters, and other foreign firms are also facing delays as tensions between the two countries build.

Customs officers at Indian ports have held back shipments from China and sought additional clearances after deadly clashes at the disputed Himalayan border last month. The checks have been imposed without any formal order.

While several companies such as Apple and Dell have been battling to free stuck shipments, hundreds of employees at Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconns two plants in the south had no major work to do this week as shipments were delayed, sources said.

More than 150 Foxconn shipments - containing smartphone and electronic parts - were stuck at the port of Chennai, though some are being cleared slowly now, the first source said. The total number of parts in the shipments was not clear.

Foxconns two plants in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh mainly assemble Apple and Xiaomi smartphones in the country and employ thousands of workers, many of whom stay in company-provided accommodation.

Foxconn was in a very bad state lots of workers stayed at the dormitory because there was no work, said the first source.

Foxconn, Apple and Xiaomi did not respond to Reuters queries.

The finance ministry also did not respond. Two officials at the ministry, which oversees the customs department, said the inspection measures were temporary and will ease soon.

We cannot keep checking 100% of shipments forever ... Shipments of non-Chinese companies being impacted will be cleared on priority, said one official.

While the exact impact of the disruptions is not immediately clear, the delays come when companies in India had already been battling disrupted supply chains due to coronavirus shutdowns in recent months. Business activity has only just begun to pick up.

Prominent U.S.-India lobby groups and local industry bodies have urged the Indian government to intervene.

While some delayed Dell shipments have been cleared since last week, the company had roughly 130 shipments stuck this week at Indian ports, the second source said. This included around six shipping containers with parts for servers and desktop computers, the person added.

Separately, MG Motor, owned by Chinas SAIC, also has some shipments stuck at a port in southern India, a source close to the company told Reuters. MG started selling cars in India last year and has committed $650 million in investments.

The whole (auto) industry will be impacted if components are stuck, the source said.

MG Motor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chinas Commerce Ministry said on Thursday that it hoped India would correct its discriminatory actions against Chinese companies immediately, after India banned some Chinese mobile apps amid the border crisis.
A medic carries waste materials that were used during the treatment of COVID-19 patients to throw in a dustbin. (PTI)

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has directed the Maharashtra government to clarify whether it was ensuring that all coronavirus-related biomedical waste generated in the state was being disposed of in a safe manner.

The HC issued notices to the Maharashtra government, the Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) in Thane district, and the state pollution control board.

A bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta said it was an important issue, and asked the authorities to respond to a Public Interest Litigation which claimed that untreated COVID-19 biomedical waste generated by hospitals, pathology labs was being dumped at the Aadharwadi dumping ground in Kalyan, in violation of all the central waste disposal guidelines.

As per the plea, filed by Dombivali resident Kishor Sohoni through his advocate Sadhna Kumar, the Biomedical Waste Management Rules make it mandatory to treat such waste generated by a hospital before dumping it.

Besides, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has released guidelines for handling, treatment and safe disposal of biomedical waste generated during treatment diagnosis, and quarantine of patients confirmed or suspected to have the coronavirus disease, the plea said.

The CPCB rules mandate that besides hospitals following its guidelines on Covid-19 waste disposal, pathology labs, quarantine centres, and citizens following home isolation must follow its rules for such waste disposal, the petition further said.

The CPCB mandates all Covid-related biomedical waste be stored separately and it be labelled and kept in a temporary storage room before being handed over to authorised staff of the state's common biomedical waste treatment facility, it said.

We also told the court that while KDMC needed to check the disposal of biomedical waste at the Aadharwadi ground, we do not know whether the CPCB guidelines were being followed in the rest of the state, advocate Kumar said.

The plea urged the court to direct the KDMC to ensure that dumping of untreated Covid-19 biomedical waste at the Aadharwadi dumping ground was stopped immediately. It also urged the court to direct the state to make a statement regarding disposal of Covid-19 biomedical waste within Maharashtra and clarify whether the guidelines were being followed.

The court has directed the authorities to file their response before July 14, the next date of hearing in the matter.
One night, dog rescuer Aditya Venkatraman received a distress alert about a furry little dog, too weak to stand, with a face that looked all matted and bloody.

The nation-wide lockdown had just been announced. There was tension and fear in the air. Barricades were up all over the city. But Aditya managed to get to the dog. The animal turned out to be a senior Tibetan Terrier, and had obviously been abandoned by his owners.

Aditya took the dog to a veterinary clinic for treatment. He has now found a loving home, and answers to the name of Doki.

The pandemic has put a lot of pressure on people, including on living arrangements. Psyched by the fear that the coronavirus is transmitted by animals, an increasing number of people have been abandoning their long-term pet pals.

Lata Madhu, owner of luxury outlet Collage and an ardent animal-lover says, The fear of the unknown has made people behave irrationally. You know that you will stay with your family in the hardest of times. Our pets are our family, they have no one else to go to. People should love them and keep them safe.

Doki is one of the many dogs that have been rescued during the pandemic.

A chocolate coloured female Doberman was found sitting outside an upmarket mall in Chennai, looking lonely and lost, by Vani Sengupta. The dog had welts made by a whip on her back and legs.

Tail Alert, a private non-profit trust created to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome abandoned dogs, attended Vanis distress call. Aditya Venkatraman and another rescuer, Harsh Vardhan Jodha, were pressed into service.

They rescued the dog, named her Phoenix, gave her veterinary care. With time, Tail Alert helped her heal. She has now found a foster family. The happy, smiley-faced big puppy loves running around her new home and playing fetch.

Even educated, affluent professionals display such irresponsible behaviour. A well-known doctor from a super speciality hospital let his Rottweiler out in the middle of one night as he found he couldnt care for the dog without the domestic help he had been used to in pre-lockdown days.

Anxious and afraid, the dog bit a few people before someone subdued him with acid and a stick, and tied him to a pole. Chaya Devi and her volunteers rescued the maimed dog, and have, with patience and loving care, brought him back to normalcy.

Novelist and animal-lover Arya Rajam says, I was horrified to hear that many people abandoned their pet dogs during this pandemic, fearing that the dog could give them the coronavirus. This is completely false. Dogs cannot pass the virus to humans. Even otherwise, many people abandon their pets when they move to another city, or for some other reason. They should realise that they are committing a crime by abandoning their dogs.

Renuka Jaypal, founder of Tail Alert, says, When a dog comes in as an addition to the family, it should be a thought-through decision, not a commodity bought from breeders on an impulse. We tell people to pick a dog who fits into their lifestyle and tell them that they must commit to 12-15 years of care. Many have used the lockdown as an excuse or opportunity to dump the animals they have decided they dont want them as they cant manage. Its horrific.

Recently, an adorable Husky puppy appeared in a cardboard box at the gates of the Blue Cross of India, in Chennai. BCIs Arpitha Rao got a call from the staff and rushed in to work.

The two-month old pup they named Panda had a sunny nature, but her hind legs didnt function properly, which was probably the reason her owners decided to abandoned her. Arpita and the BCI volunteers fell in love with the fearless little pup.

They fostered her, and now Panda is happily settled with a new family. With love and care, an abandoned dogs personality can change. The sadness and fear can turn into hope, and then happiness.
KOCHI: Police arrested P. Haris, hairstylist in Mollywood, for allegedly threatening South Indian actress Shamna Kasim to extort money. Police took him into custody and he is being interrogated.

The police had earlier arrested a seven member gang including the main accused Mohammad Sherif in connection with the case. The gang approached Shamnas family under the pretext of marriage proposal for the actress. The con-men introduced them as members of a respected family and after visiting the actress house they demanded money.

Case has been registered after the actress family lodged a complaint with the police.

After the actress case is reported, several women approached the police complaining against blackmailing and extortion of money by the same gang, including eight models, who were called for modelling assignments and were allegedly locked up in a hotel room in Palakkad.

Meanwhile, police summoned actor Dharmajan Bolgatty on Monday, a popular comedian artist in Malayalam movies, to record his statement in connection with the case. According to regional media reports, Dharmajan has been summoned after they came to know that the accused had contacted him and he has close ties with the arrested hairstylist.

Talking to media persons Dharmajan said that the accused contacted him asking for the phone numbers of two actresses. A person introduced as Ashkar Ali called me a couple of times. He said that he is a member of the gang using celebrities for gold smuggling. Their mobile phone got switched off when I said that complaint will be lodged with the police, the actor said.

The special investigation team has extended probe to Mollywood after knowing that Haris has close ties with several actors and make-up artists, reports added. Police are likely to summon more persons from the film industry for interrogation in the coming days.

Shamna is expected to arrive in Kochi from Hyderabad today evening and the SIT is expected to take her statement online as the actress will have to go under quarantine.
CHOP gets chopped: Seattle police, FBI dismantle protest zone after 2 teens killed

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Seattle police and the FBI began the work of dismantling the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone early Wednesday morning after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an executive order calling for the immediate clearing of the occupied area after two teenagers were killed.

The mayors executive order comes a day after Horace Lorenzo Anderson, the father of one of the teenage shooting victims, demanded that the National Guard be brought in to tear down the zone. The zone and its surrounding area have been the scene of several reported robberies, rapes and shootings.

Andersons 19-year-old son was shot and killed in CHOP on June 20.

"This doesn't look like a protest to me no more," Anderson told Seattle news station KIRO. "That just looks like they just took over and said we can take over whenever we want to."

At around 3 a.m. Monday, a second teenager was killed by CHOP protesters who shot at a Jeep Cherokee as the driver attempted to drive through the protest zone.

Inside the vehicle was a 16-year-old boy who was shot and killed and a 14-year-old boy who was wounded. Detectives who were called out to the scene searched the vehicle but said in an SPD Blotter update that "it was clear the crime scene had been disturbed." They're now urging witnesses to contact the Seattle Police Department's violent crimes tipline.

Over 100 Seattle police officers entered CHOP Wednesday morning where they were met by protesters who overturned portable toilets and erected a barricade of trash bags and cans in retaliation, The Seattle Times reported.

This order, and our police response, comes after weeks of violence in and around the Capitol Hill Occupied Protests Zone, including four shootings, resulting in multiple injuries and the deaths of two teenagers, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said in a statement.

In a series of news updates released by the SPD, the department said 31 arrests had been made by 9:25 a.m. for failure to disperse, obstruction, resisting arrest, and assault."

Among those arrested was a 29-year-old man who "was in possession of a large metal pipe and kitchen knife when he was taken into custody, the department added.

The SPD released photos of the weapons and said city workers also recovered improvised spike strips  designed to puncture vehicle tires  in the area of the CHOP.

City workers have also recovered improvised spike stripsdesigned to puncture vehicle tiresin the area of the CHOP. pic.twitter.com/x4Des6hPGq  Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) July 1, 2020

Police cleared an area for people to exit CHOP through the south end of the zone and warned protesters that if they attempted to stay, they would be arrested.

A man named Harry Rick Jones, who was part of security inside CHOP, also urged protesters to leave the area and indicated that they would regroup and find another place to go, The Seattle Times reported.

Seattle's mayor has faced criticism for backing the demonstrators and defending the CHOP/CHAZ occupation as a legitimate expression of peaceful protest.

Durkan was also denounced for suggesting CHOP might turn out to be "the summer of love" in an interview with CNNs Chris Cuomo despite numerous reports of crimes that left residents and business owners fearing for their lives.

Following weeks of chaos, Durkan announced last week that police would be returning to the East Precinct and the city would begin shutting down CHOP "at night."

After Durkan said the area would be shut down she was met with protests at her home led by Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant and that's when she took action to tear down the CHOP occupation zone.

A statement released by the mayor's office on Monday called Sawants actions dangerous stunts in part because Durkan's home address was concealed from public records because of the death threats mostly related to her work as Seattles U.S. Attorney under President Obama.

On Tuesday night, Durkans office sent a letter to Seattle City Council President M. Lorena Gonzalez calling for an investigation into Sawants actions and for her dismissal from the city council.

"The letter from Durkans office levels five allegations against Sawant including 'using her official position to lead a march to the mayors home Sunday night,'" reports Capitol Hill Seattle.

Sawant has been a vocal defender of CHOP and dismissed reports of the crimes committed there as conservative propaganda perpetuated by capitalists.

In one series of tweets, she called capitalism a police state and said the crimes and killing inside CHOP underscores the urgency to Defund police by at least 50 percent.

City workers began removing barriers erected around CHOP on Tuesday, which protesters quickly replaced by moving the few remaining city trash cans and other objects around their designated parameter.

At a press briefing on Capitol Hill Monday morning, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said enough is enough.

Two African American men are dead, at a place where they claim to be working for Black Lives Matter. But theyre gone, theyre dead now, Best said, referring to the killing of the teenager killed Monday morning as well as the fatal shooting of Anderson's who was killed two Saturdays ago.

This is dangerous and unacceptable, she added.

Protesters occupied several blocks around Cal Anderson Park and the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct for about three weeks.

Chief Best currently being interviewed by @WWConverge on Facebook Live: https://t.co/OCbJut4Un4  Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) July 1, 2020
Amaravati: Chief justice J K Maheshwari of the Andhra Pradesh High Court has finally dispensed with the practice of judges and staff having to go to the court complex in the capital city of Amaravati to conduct proceedings through video conference.

Instead, judges can now function from their official residences in Vijayawada. The High Court issued a notification on Wednesday stating that until July 13 only urgent matters would be taken up through video conference.

The work-from-home option for judges comes against the backdrop of the spread of coronavirus infections among court staff, and the death of a top judicial officer due to COVID-19 a few days ago.

As the High Court complex is far from Vijayawada, there was a delay in providing emergency medical care to this senior judicial officer who died before he could reach hospital.

Sources also said the All India Backward Classes Federation, an organisation presided over by Justice (retd) V Eswaraiah, former chairman of the National Commission for BCs, has written to the president of India and the chief justice of India narrating these developments in the Andhra High Court which exposed the judges and staff to the virus.

The petition referred to the swearing-in of new judges on May 8 in a packed air- conditioned hall filled with judges, advocates, staff and family members of the new judges. This was in contrast to the simple oath-taking ceremony that took place in the Telangana High Court, the petition said.

After the summer vacation, which ended on June 15, judges have been going to court to conduct proceedings through video conferencing. We fail to understand why judges should come to court to hold video conferences, said a senior advocate.

The common practice of judges lunching together continued during the current pandemic, which means that more people gather at one point and maintaining social distancing becomes difficult. Sources also said that in a sympathetic gesture, the chief justice and several judges went to the private hospital to pay homage to the judicial officer, thus exposing themselves to the risk coronavirus infection.

When contacted, Hans Raj, working president of the All India Backward Classes Federation, said, Our intention was not to complain against anyone. But, institutions like courts which have to ensure that all others follow COVID-19 guidelines should lead by example.
(GRAPHIC CONTENT) Three-year-old Ayaad sits (left) on the body of his grandfather Bashir Ahmed Khan (65) after he died during a gunfight between security forces and militants in Sopore in Kashmir on Wednesday. The security authorities said the man was hit by a bullet fired by a militant and they rescued the child from the crossfire. But the man's family said Bashir Ahmed Khan was shot in cold blood by the security forces.

Srinagar: The death of a 65-year-old bystander in the presence of his three-year-old grandson during a gunfight between security forces and militants cast a pall of gloom over the Kashmir Valley on Wednesday.

A CRPF jawan too was killed in the gunfight and two others were injured in an attack carried out by separatist militants in Sopore town, 48 km northwest of Srinagar.

The J&K police said two Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militants  whom they named Osman and Nasir  carried out the attack on a joint patrol of the CRPF and the J&K police. Credible inputs indicate that two LeT militants, Osman, a foreigner, and Nasir were involved in the attack, a police spokesman said in a statement in Srinagar.

Images of the incident showed the civilian, identified as 65-year-old Bashir Ahmed Khan, lying dead on the ground with a bullet wound. His three-year-old grandson Ayaad sits on the man's bullet-riddled corpse, and then walks over crying to a security trooper.

While the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Jammu & Kashmir police said Bashir Ahmed Khan was hit by bullets fired by militants hiding in the attic of a mosque, the slain mans family had a different story.

Bashir Ahmed Khans son said his father was killed in cold blood by the security forces. The shootout sent pedestrians and motorists running for cover. My father couldnt take cover because my nephew was sitting in the passengers seat in the front. The CRPF guys dragged him out of his car and shot him dead in cold blood, he alleged.

His sister while calling for blood for blood to avenge her fathers cold blooded murder, said, My father has been killed and those who killed him should be killed as well.

Didnt they see a little kid with my father?

The family sources said Bashir Ahmed Khan, a contractor, was on his way to a neighbourhood in Sopore to oversee construction work there. He took his grandson along for distraction.

Questioning the veracity of the family's allegations, a senior police officer said, What they have said is totally false. How can they say that the man was shot by security forces? They were not witnesses to the incident.

Inspector-general of police Vijay Kumar said, The video message circulated on social media by the son and daughter of the slain man is totally baseless. They have levelled allegations under threat by militants.

He added, I want to ask them whether they were present at the site of the incident. Did they see themselves who fired? They circulated video messages blaming the forces. That is totally baseless.

IGP Vijay Kumar invited eyewitnesses to come forward and record their statements with the police. He insisted that there was no retaliation at all from the security forces and, therefore, the charge that the civilian was killed in reprisal was totally false.

Sopores senior superintendent of police Javaid Iqbal said Bashir Ahmed Khan was hit while trying to shield his grandson from gunfire. As the indiscriminate firing by militants caused a commotion, Khans car, like many other vehicles, got stuck in the midst of the attack. Motorists left their vehicles behind and ran for cover. Unfortunately, one of the civilians was hit by a bullet and died, he said.

The CRPF said its men had just arrived in Sopores Model Town for patrolling duty when militants hiding in the attic of a mosque sprayed gunfire upon them, resulting in injuries to four troopers.

One of them, head constable Dipchand Verma, died soon thereafter whereas the others Bhoya Rajesh, Deepak Patil and Nilesh Chawde were shifted to a military hospital in Srinagar for specialized treatment, a CRPF spokesman said.

He added, One civilian died on the spot in the militant act.

IGP Vijay Kumar told a local news agency that it was the police who rescued the slain man's grandson. Asked who took the pictures of the boy sitting on the lifeless body of his grandfather and then being rescued by policemen, he said, Going to an operations area with mobiles is wrong. I will ensure that police teams going for operations don't carry mobiles with them as that may pose a threat to their lives. In 2018, many security forces personnel were killed while using their mobiles during duty hours and in standoff attacks.
New Delhi: India and Pakistan on Wednesday exchanged, through diplomatic channels simultaneously at New Delhi and Islamabad, the customary lists on July 1 of civilian prisoners and fishermen of each others nationality in their custody.

India handed over lists of 265 Pakistan civilian prisoners and 97 fishermen in India's custody to Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistan has shared lists of 54 civilian prisoners and 270 fishermen in its custody, who are Indians or believed-to-be Indians, New Delhi said, in a statement.

India has also sought expediting of the grant of visas by Pakistan to the members of a medical experts team and facilitation of their visit to Pakistan to assess the mental condition of believed-to-be Indian prisoners of unsound mind lodged in different jails of Pakistan, to also organise an early visit of the Joint Judicial Committee to Pakistan; and to organise an early visit of a four-member team to Karachi in connection with release and repatriation of Indian fishing boats.

In a statement, the MEA said, India and Pakistan today exchanged, through diplomatic channels simultaneously at New Delhi and Islamabad, the lists of civilian prisoners and fishermen in their custody. This is in keeping with the provisions of the 2008 Agreement under which such lists are exchanged every year on 1st January and 1st July. India handed over lists of 265 Pakistan civilian prisoners and 97 fishermen in India's custody to Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistan has shared lists of 54 civilian prisoners and 270 fishermen in its custody, who are Indians or believed-to-be Indians.

The MEA added, The Government has called for early release and repatriation of civilian prisoners, missing Indian defence personnel and fishermen, along with their boats, from Pakistan's custody. In this context, Pakistan was asked to expedite the release and repatriation of 7 Indian civilian prisoners and 106 Indian fishermen to India whose nationality has been confirmed and conveyed to Pakistan.

In addition, Pakistan has been asked to provide immediate consular access to Indian Fishermen and 18 believed-to-be Indian civilian prisoners who are in Pakistan's custody.

New Delhi further said, The Government has also sought Pakistan to expedite the grant of visas to the members of the medical experts team and faciliate their visit to Pakistan to assess the mental condition of believed-to-be Indian prisoners of unsound mind, lodged in different jails of Pakistan; to organise early visit of the Joint Judicial Committee to Pakistan; and to organise early visit of the 4-member team to Karachi in connection with release and repatriation of Indian fishing boats.

The MEA pointed out, India remains committed to addressing, on priority, all humanitarian matters, including those pertaining to prisoners and fishermen in each other's country. In this context, India has also urged Pakistan to expedite necessary action at its end to confirm the nationality status of 88 Pakistan prisoners, including fishermen, whose repatriation is pending for want of nationality confirmation by Pakistan.
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has expressed dissatisfaction over a report filed by the state government on COVID-19 tests being conducted in the state.

The court hearing a batch of PILs on Wednesday also sought to know why detailed information with regard to coronavirus cases being put out by the government was not being made available to the public.

Expressing displeasure over details filed by the Telangana Public Health director, a division bench, comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, directed the state government to file a detailed report on the present COVID-19 situation in the state by July 17.

The bench also said it would summon the chief secretary and other senior officials concerned to appear before it personally if the report is not received.

The court was hearing a batch of Public Interest Litigations (PIL) filed by Professor P L Vishweshwar Rao and others on the number of coronavirus tests being conducted in the state, medical infrastructure and also a direction to the state government on a detailed COVID-19 health bulletin to the public.

The court also directed the government to furnish the report on the finding of the central committee that has visited the state capital Hyderabad recently. Telangana had yesterday reported 1,018 fresh COVID-19 cases and seven fatalities,taking the tally in the state to 17,357 and death toll to 267.
While the South Western Railway proudly boasts of running 258 Shramik trains with 3.79 lakh guest workers reaching their destination the wait for thousands of guest workers still stranded at Tripura Vasini grounds seems to have no end.

With many still continuing to lose jobs there is a spike in number of guest workers who want to return to their natives. The number of guest workers is huge from Assam and Bengal followed by Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

On Tuesday, over 600 guest workers after having lunch provided by the civic agency, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagare Palike (BBMP) were waiting for the information on the train but apart from a few clueless cops neither a registration desk nor an information board has been put up.

With no separate facility made for women at the temporary shelter house women feel uncomfortable.

One of the guest workers, Jameel (name changed) from Assam said that till yesterday the toilets were not cleaned and the garbage was strewn around.

We know complex systems dont work with piecemeal or bandaid. There is no evidence of accountability at any level, no one agrees they are in charge. Everyone passes the buck. People from several districts of the state have started coming. The migrants are dependent on volunteers like us. Moreover, there is no social distancing at the shelter camps, said Rosemary Vishwanath, a volunteer with Bangalore with Migrants that is aiding the guest workers in reaching their destinations.

On Monday, the volunteers described the situation as a chaos. With no public address system at the place a crowd of over 3,000 people pushed themselves onto the registration desk and only three people were doing data entry. The police personnel deployed at the venue are stressed as they are clueless about the information on the train and it becomes unmanageable for them to control the crowd.

Apprising N Manjunath Prasad, principal secretary, revenue department and other nodal officers through a letter about the situation the civic volunteers have written that a help desk should be set up as the available ones are either switched off or the executive directs them to find a BBMP official.

The complete lack of facilities continues and added to that is the lack of people to manage the basic functions of crowd management, registration, medical test, the lack of basic infrastructure like tables, medical staff, public address and any systems. The timings when the food will be served should be put up. The hall is like a furnace and it is suffocating. There is no electricity, only one generator is working , the other is not working , so the working generator is switched off in order that it does not get overheated, the report read.

Due to lack of lavatories the pressure on a few toilets is huge. After a long overhaul the toilets were cleaned on June 29. Covid-19 is a huge risk at the cramped facility being provided but the volunteers fear that due to lack of basic facilities diarrheal and gastrointestinal diseases will also begin with minimal hygiene.

It is ironic that while the state government is publicising steps to contain Covid it flouts every norm when it comes to coming to aid the guest workers that are being vulnerable to the pandemic.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was on Wednesday directed to vacate her 35 Lodhi Estate bungalow in the Lutyens Zone within a month as the government had withdrawn her SPG cover.

An order issued by the housing and urban affairs ministry asked Ms Vadra to vacate her bungalow on or before August 1, failing which it will attract damage charges/penal rent as per rules.

The SPG cover of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul and Priyanka had been replaced with Z-plus CRPF security in November 2019. Ms Vadra, a private citizen, was allotted the Type VI house in February 1997 for security reasons on the recommendation of the SPG, home ministry and Cabinet Secretariat as SPG protectees needed an independent bungalow of certain specifications. With her SPG cover gone, Ms Vadra was asked to vacate her house.

The Narendra Modi government changed the allotment rules in 2015 and made only SPG protectees eligible for government accommodation. Before that, even those with Z-plus security were entitled to such accommodation.

Vadra joined politics shortly before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and became AICC general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

CONGRESS FUMES

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the party does not fear from such notices and will continue to highlight the "wrong-doings of a failed Modi government".

"PM Narendra Modi and his Government are blinded by rage, hatred and revenge against the Congress leadership. Unnerved by political activism of Priyanka ji in UP, Modi Government has stooped even further by issuing house vacation notice. Such frustrated attempts will not deter us," he tweeted.

He said Priyanka Gandhi has also been highlighting the failures of the UP government.

"Priyanka Gandhi is Indira Gandhi's grand-daughter and neither she nor the Congress leadership will be cowed down by such notices," Surjewala said

The Congress had reacted sharply to the withdrawal of SPG cover to the Gandhi family and had even raised the issue in Parliament.

Senior party leader and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Wednesday that the the Union Government should withdraw the cancellation order in the interest of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's security and safety.

All India Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev said that the government, consciously, had issued the notice.

"I have to say that there was a time when the rumours were going around that Priyanka will be a Rajya Sabha MP and was one of the reasons she wanted to stay in her bungalow. But she proved all those speculations wrong, said Dev.

"Let us not forget that she did not take a bungalow with any sense of entitlement, she took it because of security reasons. I believe that she has never taken undue advantage of any situation, " Dev added.

Congress leader Rajiv Shukla said, "House was allotted to them because of security reasons, they had received massive threats."

"After Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi incident, you can see they were facing severe threats. As a result, the house was allotted to them, " Shukla added.

Another Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said in a tweet, "BJP party's priority list. Before evicting the Chinese intruders who have not only occupied strategic heights in Ladakh but also, killed our soldiers dastardly, evicting Priyanka Gandhi from her bungalow is more important."
Even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, recent political developments in Bihar suggest that the Assembly elections due in the state in November are well-placed on the radar of all political parties.

All political parties and the Election Commission of India have given enough indication of political temperature building up in the state. On one side, the BJP and the JD(U) are gearing up for the forthcoming Assembly elections, and on the other, the UPA has received a jolt with five RJD members of Legislative Council defecting to JD(U) and senior leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh resigning from party position.

Political parties have organised virtual rallies, leader have issued statements, and the ECI has also indicated how it plans to organise voter awareness and outreach programmes in the changed scenario.

The ECIs voters outreach programme may change, as could the political parties style of campaigning and there may possibly be some changes in how voting takes place, but what would decide the electoral outcome in Bihar is political alliances.

A continuation of the NDA alliance in its present form (BJP, LJP and JD(U)) would mean a certain advantage to this alliance. A united UPA like that of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections would mean it only being able to put up a contest in some regions, but remaining far behind the NDA in the race.

The recent defection in RJD has only weakened the electoral prospects of the UPA. Any further crack in the UPA, either on the issue of leadership or on any other, would mean a complete wipe-out. A possible third front would mean a massive sweep by the NDA during the forthcoming Assembly elections.

The election trumpet has been blown by all political parties. Home minister Amit Shah had already organised a virtual rally, and went on record stating NDAs commitment to contest the Bihar Assembly election under leadership of Nitish Kumar.

Chief minister Kumar has given enough indication of being in alliance with BJP. In response, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who organised the Garib Adhikaar Diwas by beating empty utensils to demonstrate lack of food on the plates of the poor, termed the BJPs virtual rally as political vulturism.

The chief election commissioner, Sunil Arora, stated, We would step up the use of digital technologies in voters awareness, outreach and training. We will make greater use of digital and media platform, including bulk SMS, social media, television advertising, FM and community radio, National Voters Service portal and the ECI app. Clearly, all stake-holders are showing preparedness.

True, rallies, meetings and speeches have their own roles but the nature of the contest would depend upon how alliances shape up before elections. The existing alliance makes the situation favourable for NDA, the Opposition seems fragmented and recent defections have added to its problem.

The UPA contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections without any hiccups as there was no issue of leadership. But the question of who should lead the UPA is not going to be easy to handle this time.

The smaller parties within the UPA, Hindustan Awam Morcha (Jitan Ram Manjhi), Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (Upendra Kushwaha) and Vikassheel Insaf Party (Mukesh Sahani), have already raised the issue of leadership of this alliance.

Even if the UPA partners are able to handle the issue of leadership, the road ahead for them of putting up a challenge for a popular leader and sitting chief minister Nitish Kumar is going to be difficult.

Though the electoral arithmetic seems favourable for the NDA, the UPA is hoping for a turnaround, looking at the performance of the BJP in Assembly elections held after 2019 Lok Sabha elections. After the thumping victory in the general elections of 2019, the BJP has failed to register a single-majority victory in all four Assembly elections held since.

Although it was successful in forming the government in Haryana, it failed to gather a majority of its own, thus seeking the help of Dushyant Chautalas Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) to cross the halfway mark. Even an aggressive campaign in Delhi could not save the BJP from a humiliating defeat.

Besides this poor performance of the BJP, the UPA is hoping to gain from anti-incumbency against four-time chief minister Nitish Kumar. The alliance is also hoping to mobilise guest workers who have recently retuned to Bihar as they seemed visibly unhappy with the BJP and JD(U) government.

But what Tejashwi Yadav does not realise is that RJD needs to instil confidence amongst voters of Bihar by promising some policies and schemes; organising the Garib Adhikaar Diwas may not be enough.

There is a possibility of shift amongst workers who have returned back to their villages, and if RJD and its alliance partners are able to capitalise on that, they could put up a contest.

The UPA also needs to guard against possible division of the Muslim votes in case AIMIM, which has some support base amongst Muslim voters in Seemanchal region, decides to contest elections alone.

Most importantly, the RJD and other UPA partners need to guard against possible defection and break-up of the alliance.

Sanjay Kumar is a professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). He is also a political commentator. Views are personal
The key takeaway of Prime Minister Narendra Modis address to the nation on Tuesday was the extension of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana that offers 5 kg grain and one kg of pulses to 80 crore people for another five months.

This is welcome. True, its an acknowledgement that the nation has a long way to go before its business as usual.

But for now, the project that Mr Modi said will cost `90,000 crores to the national exchequer will help keep the home fires burning and the poor survive the crisis created by pandemic Covid-19. It should now be a joint endeavour of the Union and state governments to implement the scheme productively.

The Prime Minister also chose the occasion to warn his fellow citizens against being lackadaisical about social distancing norms during Unlock 1.0. The warning sounded timely, and should reach the last person, should we aim at winning the fight against the virus.

The Prime Minister, however, was silent on the ground realities on the corona front and the administrative measures the government is taking to contain it. He, as usual, chose to pick the low hanging fruit, saying India is comparatively in a better position when it comes to the death rate, without mentioning the fast pace with which the number of infections is surging and the crippling impact it has on the lives and livelihoods of Indians.

While none questions the decision to impose lockdown, experts are on record saying India did not make the optimum use of the opportunity.

The Prime Ministers claim on the other decisions flies in the face of the facts that the healthcare infrastructure in the country is being overwhelmed and there are little or no national efforts to address it. The states pleas for financial assistance have never received a sympathetic hearing.

Its a paradox that as Mr Modi was explaining to his fellow citizens about the dos and donts of social life in Unlock 2.0, and the Union home ministry was issuing the guidelines to be followed across the nation, many states were busy announcing their own decisions to extend the lockdown.

National capital Delhi and several key cities that work as the engines of growth have been put under lockdown for a long period with no immediate signs of an unlock.

The impact it has on the economy has started surfacing, fast and furious. Every single indicator, be it economic growth, unemployment, foreign debt or sovereign rating offers no reason to be contented.

This would force one to think that the government has no cogent plan to take on the challenges; on the other hand, it betrays signs of a dispensation which can take only expedient and ad hoc decisions that come in bits and pieces.

There is no running away from the fact that India is now facing an internal threat posed by a virus and an external one by an aggressive neighbour. It looks like it will be a long time before the nation can celebrate its festivals with the mirth and joy they are associated with, the Prime Ministers reminder notwithstanding.
United Nations: The Director-General of UNESCO has condemned the killing of a young journalist in Uttar Pradesh last month and urged the authorities to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice to deter other criminals from practising gunpoint censorship.

Shubham Mani Tripathi was shot dead by two assailants while riding his motorbike back home in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh last month.

Director-General Audrey Azoulay called on the authorities to bring to trial those responsible for his murder.

"I condemn the murder of Shubham Mani Tripathi," said Azoulay said.

"I call on the authorities to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice, which is essential to deter other criminals from practising gunpoint censorship," she said.

UNESCO promotes the safety of journalists through global awareness-raising, capacity building and a range of actions, notably in the framework of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, the organisation said in a statement.

On Friday, the National Human Rights Commission issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and the state's police chief in connection with the murder of Tripathy over his purported coverage of the sand mafia, a senior official said.

According to reports, the journalist worked for Hindi daily Kampu Mail.

The Press Council of India (PCI) has also condemned the killing of the journalist and sought a report on it from the Uttar Pradesh government.

Tripathi was shot near Doodh Mandi in Unnao on June 19. He was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
Messianic church in Israel wins restraining order in case against anti-evangelism group

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A Messianic Jewish congregation of about 350 people in Israel has won a restraining order against members of an anti-evangelism organization that it says has for years harassed the congregation and even damaged its property.

Pastor Israel Pochtar of Congregation Beit Hallel based in Ashdod, said in a statement that the congregation has faced a targeted persecution campaign lead by the Orthodox Jewish anti-missionary organization Yad LeAchim.

The campaign, he said, began in 2011 when a mass demonstration was organized and busloads of protesters demonstrated outside the church. Pochtar said some rabbis even encouraged further actions against us.

It has been nine years of systematic oppression, harassment and outright persecutions on many levels, fuelled by a hate-campaign led by Yad Le-Achim where they have called time and time again for actions against us, declaring their goal is to stop our work completely and drive us out of the city, the pastor explained.



Their systematic and targeted harassment has filtered down to many areas affecting directly our congregation and ministry.

According to Pochtar, a judge recently determined that Yad Le-Achim and anyone on their behalf is not allowed to come within 100 meters (328 feet) of our building.

Pochtar said they've been inundated by activists who gather at churchs property on a weekly basis to intimidate worshipers. These protesters have filmed congregants as they walked into services, intimidated children and blocked the entrance, which has led confrontations.

Weve had police called many times, and it has been complicated to get them to protect our rights, until now when we finally have the course resolution, he wrote. They have vandalized our property, causing us great financial damages. They were caught on camera doing that and yet the authorities didnt do anything to protect us.

Pochtar said protesters are also now forbidden from filming or photographing people who attend services. Additionally, he said protesters are required to obtain permits from city hall and the police before they can organize a demonstration outside the church.



This is such a significant victory and breakthrough for not only Beit Hallel Congregation, but for all local believers in Israel, Pochtar wrote. It is so crucial to stand against injustice, especially when you know your rights and the law is on your side. We have to prepare our horses for battle, so we can see Gods victory in the lives of all local Israeli believers who face religious oppression every day simply for their faith in Yeshua.

Ludmila Zakharchuk, a lawyer for Congregation Beit Hallel, confirmed the court order to Kehila, a news organization that covers the Messianic Christian community.

We won the court case just a few days ago, Zakharchuk was quoted as saying. They harassed us for so long. We filed dozens of complaints with the police and nothing happened so eventually we went to court.

The court order comes as Messianic believers, those who believe in Christ as Messiah but hold to traditional Jewish traditions, have faced opposition to their outward expressions of faith from activists and groups like Yad Le-Achim.

Yad Le-Achim is said to be responsible for waging a six-month campaign urging Israeli media authorities to shut down GOD TVs new Hebrew-language channel Shelanu, which sought to broadcast Messianic Jews sharing their faith in Christ.

The Israeli government announced on Sunday that it ordered Shelanu to stop broadcasting because of allegations the network hid a missionary agenda when it applied for a television license. Yad Le-Achim praised the decision as a huge victory for Yad LAchim.

Pochtar said that Yad LAchim members have also used their influence to exert pressure on his congregation from within city hall.

[T]hey have been able to get our permit to operate our humanitarian work from our new building revoked, Pochtar said. Hundreds of families in need have suffered as a result of that, our work had to be restructured so that we are able to continue operating our humanitarian outreach despite the obstacles.

Pochtar said that Yad Le-Achim also used its influence with the local Ministry of Interior Affairs in Ashdod to question the residency and citizenship status of several of the families that attend Beit Hallel.

[O]ne of them is our Associate Pastor Eitan and his wife, Yulia, who has been denied any kind of status and almost deported, despite Eitan having citizenship, Pochtar explained. Theyve had to seek legal advice from a lawyer to help their case; something that is out of reach for most people.

All the avenues they have used in order to hurt, oppose, hinder and outright stop us and our work has been arbitrary and systematic, Pochtar added. They have not made it a secret and publicly called the entire Orthodox community to join forces with them in order to cleanse the city from our presence, using any means possible
Pressure is mounting on Michelle ONeill as the other main parties have urged her to step aside but the Deputy First Minister and her party are standing their ground.

The four main parties in the Executive, except Sinn Fein, have called on Michelle ONeill to resign or step aside while a police investigation is carried out.

People Before Profit is the only party not to call on her to resign with Gerry Carroll labelling other parties hypocrites for picking and choosing events to focus on.

Speaking at Stormont yesterday evening, First Minister Michelle O'Neill has said: "I am satisfied that my actions at Bobby Storeys funeral are in line with public health advice.

"These petty attempts to political point score must end and the Storey family giving space to grieve My thoughts are with Bobbys much loved partner Teresa and the Storey family today."

The PSNI has said it will 'review footage' from this weeks funeral of veteran republican Bobby Storey to determine whether any breaches of Coronavirus regulations occurred.

Sinn Fein politicians have faced criticism for attending the funeral.

The funeral in west Belfast attracted hundreds of mourners despite Coronavirus regulations stating that a maximum of 30 people are allowed to meet outdoors with social distancing maintained.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, former leader Gerry Adams, Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill and Derry MLA Martina Anderson were amongst those in attendance.

East Derry DUP MP Gregory Campbell said it will have felt like a 'kick in the teeth' to families who have observed the guidance in recent months.

When asked about the funeral during Monday's Coronavirus briefing at Stormont, Michelle O'Neill said: "Everyone who is attending the funeral should observe the public health advice."

Speaking after the funeral, PSNI Superintendent Melanie Jones said: "We were made aware of the plans for todays funeral and have engaged with the celebrant and service organisers to highlight both the public health advice and risks around COVID-19, and the requirement for those attending to adhere to social distancing.

"We had assurances that those attending would observe the health guidelines and that marshals would be in place to encourage those lining the cortege route to observe social distancing.

We will now review footage gathered during the funeral and will consider any suspected breaches of the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) Regulations NI 2020.

CONSISTENT

Government guidance states that funerals should be private and up to a maximum of 30 people.

This figure does not include funeral directors or other people needed to officiate at the service, such as faith/pastoral representatives, grave diggers and so on.

It can include members of the persons household, close family members, if the deceased has neither household nor family members in attendance, then it is possible for a modest number of friends to be there.

Social distancing must be practised at all times, which means numbers attending funerals may be restricted further in smaller enclosed places.

There have been a number of events which have been criticised for attracting crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last month the PSNI said there had been social-distancing breaches at funerals in both the unionist and nationalist communities.

On June 6, police handed out 57 fines to Black Lives Matter protestors in Derry and also issued fines at a BLM rally in Belfast.

No fines were handed out at Protect Our Statues protests the following weekend.

When asked about the police operation on June 6 First Minister Arlene Foster said it was proportionate and it went against Coronavirus regulations.

Michelle ONeill on June 8 said she held an online protest and in ordinary circumstances she would have been on the streets protesting.

But the regulations are in place to save lives and I think the approach at the weekend was proportionate but I do think it needs to be consistent.

If people break the rules then the policing response has to be consistent.
A County Derry campaigner for citizens rights has said she is disappointed not to have been nominated to Seanad Eireann.

Emma De Souza became embroiled in a battle over citizenship after the UK Home Office rejected a residence card application for her US-born husband Jake to live and work in Northern Ireland.

In a blog post, the Magherafelt native also expressed disappointment that there would be no northern representation in the Seanad.

I am personally disappointed to not be nominated but that personal disappointment pales in comparison to my disappointment that there is no Northern representation, she said.

The new Programme for Government is titled, A shared Island, and the document itself is ambitious with a raft of initiatives to improve North-South relations.

That message was immediately undercut by the absence of a Northern nomination yesterday. Is this a shared Island that ends at the border?

The campaigner said the absence of a nominee from Northern Ireland to the Seanad was a missed opportunity.

Increasingly people in Northern Ireland have been feeling like second-class Irish citizens, she said.

This feels like a missed opportunity to send a powerful message that the people of the North will not be left behind- again.

The nominations exclude any representation for Irish citizens outside the State which appears retrograde and insular.

Mrs De Souza also felt a nomination to the Seanad would have been recognition for her and her husbands fight for the citizenship provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

She said: Holding the line on the identity and citizenship provisions of the Good Friday Agreement was a heavy burden for us.

In essence, we fought for the Irish Governments view of the Good Friday Agreement and we did so without tangible assistance from the Irish Government.

A nomination would have been a recognition of that heavy lifting and we could certainly have used the break.
Two local representatives have condemned recent literature posted through doors in Magherafelt by Mid Ulster Christian Helpline and Publications.

A same-sex couple were left angered by the leaflets, which branded lesbianism and homosexuality detestable onto God alongside bestiality, incest and prostitution.

Mid Ulster MLA Emma Sheerin, who is also Sinn Feins equality spokesperson, said the literature was unacceptable.

It is unacceptable to see materials like this targeting the LGBT community at any time, but its particularly upsetting during Pride Month, she said.

Incidents like this, which constitute hate crimes, need to be dealt with. Such prejudice and discrimination such as this must be called out for what it is, it must not go unchallenged.

Local Mid Ulster District Councillor, Darren Totten, said homophobia had no place in society and urged anyone with information to contact the PSNI.

I hope that anyone who is struggling and received this literature understands that the majority of decent people would condemn the hatred for what it is, he said.

Magherafelt is a brilliant town, with a close-knit community who have come together during lockdown to prepare homes for healthcare workers, in clean ups and initiatives which are for the betterment of everyone.

It's devastating to see the small-minded bigotry of a few individuals who want to drag us all backwards, but the vast majority of the recipients of this letter will have seen it for what it was.

I would call on anyone with information to come forward to the PSNI.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has called on Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill to resign over the controversy surrounding the funeral of Bobby Storey.

The Sinn Fein deputy leader was among a number of leading figures from the party who attended the Belfast republican's funeral on Tuesday.

It has been claimed that the large numbers of people who gathered for the funeral broke the guidance in relation to funerals and gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a Stormont committee yesterday, Ms O'Neill defended her decision to attend the funeral.

However, there have been calls for her to step down.

Mr Eastwood today added his voice to the calls for her to resign.

Speaking on the Nolan Show on the BBC this morning, the Foyle MP said Ms O'Neill 'absolutely should go' and refer herself to the Standards Authority at the Northern Ireland Assembly.

He said that he would stand aside if he had acted in a similar way.

Mr Eastwood said many people who had been unable to attend the funerals of loved ones during the pandemic restrictions had been hurt by her actions and those of her colleagues in Sinn Fein.

Current government guidance states that funerals should be private and up to a maximum of 30 people.

This figure does not include funeral directors or other people needed to officiate at the service, such as faith/pastoral representatives, grave diggers and so on.

It can include members of the persons household, close family members.

If the deceased has neither household nor family members in attendance, then it is possible for a modest number of friends to be there.

Social distancing must be practised at all times, which means numbers attending funerals may be restricted further in smaller enclosed places.
Refugees make face masks to help American evangelical churches fight coronavirus

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Refugees in the largest refugee camp in Europe have made thousands of cotton face masks, some of which are being distributed at evangelical churches in the United States, as a way to give back to people in the West and help them battle the coronavirus.

Refugees fleeing violence and persecution from across the Middle East and Northern Africa, who are now sheltered in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, have been busy in recent months making face masks during the coronavirus pandemic as part of an effort funded by two international nongovernmental organizations.

The efforts initially began as a way to create face masks for the refugees themselves and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the extremely overcrowded camp that shelters over 15,000 people despite having an official capacity of about 2,000 people. Many people living at the camp are waiting for their asylum claims to process and are living in horrendous conditions.

The refugees began making masks for themselves to try to help with the mitigation efforts. Once they finished, they asked to continue making the masks and send them elsewhere to help, Pastor Robbie McAlister, who works with the National Immigration Forum and the Evangelical Immigration Table, told The Christian Post. This is giving them an opportunity to have a purpose.

McAlister said that these are refugees who have nothing that are giving back to people that have come and serve them with whatever they can.

Its just a beautiful story of what I would call reciprocal love and care for one another.

The mask-making effort is sponsored by the nonprofit organizations When We Band Together and Team Humanity, both of which have provided the infrastructure and materials needed to make tens of thousands of masks. From McAlisters understanding, there are between 150 to 200 refugee volunteers that have produced masks.

According to WWBT, the volunteers are working with Team Humanity, which established a mask-making center next to the refugee camp.

So far, the masks, which are 100% cotton, double-layered and washable, have been sent throughout Europe and the U.S.

McAlister, a consultant who has encouraged churches throughout South Carolina to serve in Moria, received about 2,000 of the face masks. So far, he has distributed them to seven churches in South Carolina, most of which have sent teams to Moria in the past.

About 300 volunteers from churches across South Carolina have visited the camp in the last 3 1/2 years.

The pastor also gave 750 face masks to Columbia International University, a private Christian school that has also sent volunteers to Moria.

A lot of churches are making them available to their members and tell them the story that these are made by refugees who are trying to give back to those of us who have gone and tried to help them, he said.

A lot of the pastors have used [the face masks] to share a positive message about refugees to their congregations. It is just a great opportunity for us to just show that we are all part of humanity and we need to care for one another and God loves the whole world. He certainly has a special place in His heart for the orphan or the widow or the vulnerable and those that are sojourning.

McAlister said that his church, Riverbend Church in Lexington, has encouraged members to take the face masks and pray for the refugees every time they use the masks.

It is a way for us to give even from here without actually being in the camp, he said.

Jimmy Parris, the senior pastor of River Springs Church in Irmo, told CP that he led a team of six members from his church to visit the camp in February, right before the coronavirus lockdowns began to take place. He said that his church has received about 100 of the face masks.

The masks have been made available for people at River Springs Church, which recently resumed its in-person services.

We also have a community blessing box outside of the church that we usually fill with groceries and nonperishables, diapers and things like that, Parris said. We have been able to stock that with masks as well for people in the community who might need them and not have access to them.

A lot of folks are very shocked by the fact that they are doing this for us. [But the refugees] feel it is so important to give back.

McAlister noted that many of the refugees in the camps are well educated and looking for a way to maintain their sense of self-worth.

[Some] were working jobs as professors and businessmen or whatever. A lot of them are multilingual and they find themselves in these camps with no outlet for their creativity and their work opportunity, he said. Providing these kinds of outlets gives them a sense of wellbeing and self-worth as well. They are not happy being there and not able to contribute.
Unable To Meet Expenses In Mumbai TV Actor Karan Khandelwal Returns Home, Drives 1400 Kms. To Kerala

Television actor Karan Khandelwal, who has acted in shows such as Siddhi Vinayak and Saath Nibhana Saathiya, returned to his hometown in Kerala due to the coronavirus pandemic. He was not only finding it difficult to get essentials due to the surge in cases in his area but was also struggling with bills.

In an interview with The Times of India, he said, Mumbai is one of the majorly affected cities in the country. There was a surge in Covid-19 cases around my area. I couldnt even arrange food and other necessities for myself. Plus, it was getting difficult to meet other expenses as well.

Karan chose to drive all the way to Kerala instead of taking a flight. I had been living in Mumbai for several years, but the current situation forced me to leave the city and drive back to my hometown. I drove my car for almost 1,400 kms to reach home, he said.

Also read: Varun Dhawan goes shirtless in new photo, has a funny reply when Dino Morea asked who clicked it

There is a 90-day payment clause in the contracts of most television actors, which means that cheques are cleared three months after the shoot. Karan said that he was able to get by with financial assistance from his family. He added that he would not receive immediate payment for any new project due to the 90-day system.

My family has been helping me with finances. Before the lockdown, I had shot for a web show and they immediately cleared my payment, which was helpful. But apart from that, I have many other pending dues from other projects. Now, even if I join a new show, I wont get the payment for a couple of months. So, it was a better option to return home, he said.

Recently, television actors Shardool Kunal Pandit and Rajesh Kareer left for their respective hometowns as work dried up during the lockdown and they were struggling with finances. The cast and crew of the serial Hamari Bahu Silk raised a stink over the alleged non-payment of dues for months and threatened to commit suicide.
Manoj Bajpayee Reveals He Was Suicidal After Constant Rejection, Recalls His Struggle: I Didnt Fit The Ideal Hero Face

The journey to fame and fortune in Bollywood is no doubt an uphill battle. Bollywood actor Manoj Bajpayee is the latest star to have spoken about his struggles and how rejection once brought him close to having suicidal thoughts. The actor spoke of his journey in Humans of Bombay post and revealed how he never fit the ideal hero face, was dropped off from three projects in just a day and has even been told to get out after giving just one shot.

Manoj Bajypee is known as the most versatile actors in the industry who continues to deliver prolific work one project after another. But like every outsider in Bollywood his story started with his dream. He says, Im a farmers son. I grew up in a small village in Bihar with five siblings, and we went to a hut school there. We led a simple life, but whenever we went to the city, wed go to the theatre. I was a big Amitabh Bachchan fan I wanted to be just like him. I was 9, but I knew that acting was my destiny.

The actor who has recently been earning praises for his film Bhonsle which released online says that there was time he couldnt even afford to dream. I couldnt afford to dream & continued my studies. Still, my mind refused to focus on anything else, so at 17, I left for DU. There, I did theatre but my family had no idea. Finally, I wrote a letter to dadhe wasnt angry & even sent me Rs.200 to cover my fees! People back home called me good for nothing but I turned a blind eye.

Manoj says he was close to ending his life after his three attempts to get into National School of Drama and the fact scared his friends. I was an outsider, trying to fit in. So, I taught myself English & HindiBhojpuri was a big part of how I spoke. I then applied to NSD, but was rejected thrice. I was close to committing suicide, so my friends would sleep next to me & not leave me alone. They kept me going until I was accepted.

That year, I was at a chai shop when Tigmanshu came looking for me on his khatara scooterShekhar Kapur wanted to cast me in Bandit Queen! So I felt I was ready & moved to Mumbai. Initially, it was toughI rented a chawl with 5 friends & looked for work, but got no roles. Once, an AD tore my photo & Ive lost 3 projects in a day. I was even told to get out after my 1st shot, he continued.

From not knowing next source of income Manoj reveals how he slowly found his way in the industry, I didnt fit the ideal hero faceso they thought Id never make it to the big screen. All the while, I struggled to make rent & at times even a vada pav was costly. But the hunger in my stomach couldnt dissuade my hunger to succeed. After 4 years of struggle, I got a role in Mahesh Bhatts TV series. I got Rs.1500 per episodemy first steady income.

The actor eventually understood he was here to stay after Staya happended and the fact remains true 67 films on. He concluded saying, Thats the thing about dreamswhen it comes to turning them into reality, the hardships dont matter. What matters is the belief of that 9-year-old Bihari boy & nothing else.
Manish Raisinghan Will Have A Bachelors Party Post Lockdown; Wife Sangeita Chauhaan Plans To Gatecrash

Sasural Simar Ka actor Manish Raisinghan tied the nuptial knot with his girlfriend Sangeita Chauhaan on 30th June. As the nationwide lockdown has not completely lifted yet, only a few of their relatives were present at the Gurudwara for the Anand Karaj ceremony. However, their loved ones virtually attended pre-wedding rituals such as haldi, mehendi and the cocktail party. Since their wedding took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, Manish carried a sanitizer in one hand and a sword in the other throughout the ceremony. The bride, groom and guests also covered their faces with masks to avoid any risks.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) on Jun 30, 2020 at 12:33am PDT

Speaking to Spotboye post the wedding, Sangeita said, It's finally the end of anxiety. Manish, on the other hand, revealed that his legs are still shivering! In fact, his hands started shivering when he was applying sindoor on his wifes forehead because he suddenly realized how this is the end of his bachelorhood. Well, since Manish didnt get a bachelor party to bid adieu to singlehood before his wedding, he will be taking a trip with his friends to Thailand post the lockdown.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Manish Raisinghan (@manishmischief) on Jun 28, 2020 at 5:20am PDT

The actor revealed, My father told me that you get married now. When the lockdown will be lifted, I will throw a grand reception for you. So, when all was being decided, I came to Sangieta and asked her, I have one wish that I want to have a bachelor's with my friends in Thailand after lockdown. It is something my friends are requesting, not me and she agreed. Well, Sangeita did agree but she has every intention to gatecrash her husbands bachelor party!

We are sure the newlywed couple will have a great time on their bachelor party/honeymoon once the lockdown is lifted. We wish them all the happiness in the world.
Its an unenviable record, but Indian operator Vodafone Idea has certainly achieved it with the announcement that it has reported the highest loss ever for an Indian company.

Earlier this week the company reported a staggering loss equivalent to just under $10 billion in the fiscal year 2019-20.

Not surprisingly perhaps, this sum is related to the companys adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, a long-running saga that may be coming close to some sort of conclusion after the countrys Supreme Court ordered it to make provision for AGR dues in the region of $7 billion.

Its a figure Vodafone Idea has disputed; nevertheless even its own calculations are a little over $6 billion, while its overall payments so far are only about $862 million.

The next AGR hearing is scheduled for the third week of July. Not too surprisingly, Vodafone Idea says it will continue to actively engage with the government in seeking a comprehensive relief package for the industry.

Its hard to believe Vodafone Idea can sustain a hit of this size, but there may yet be a delayed repayment plan, although theres no indication that the government or the Supreme Court will reduce the dues.

So what happens now? In the short term, analysts quoted in the Indian press have suggested the operator raise its prices, though that might hasten customer flight. Vodafone Idea apparently lost nearly 13 million customers, including one million broadband users, in the March quarter. As for investment in 5G, that seems a distant dream, even if the government finally gets round to organising the spectrum auctions.
Another long-running takeover saga, this time in Costa Rica, has seen a new development.

As regular readers will remember, Telefonica, which owns a Costa Rican mobile business, agreed to a $1.65 billion deal in February 2019 that would have seen Millicom take over several of Telefonicas Latin American operations, including units in Nicaragua and Panama. The Costa Rican business was part of that deal. Indeed Costa Rican regulator Sutel cleared Millicoms $570 million acquisition of Telefonicas local unit in September 2019.

However, Millicom terminated its share purchase agreement to acquire Telefonicas Costa Rican unit, in accordance with the terms of the original deal, when additional regulatory approvals were required but apparently not received by a deadline of 1 May 2020.

Now the regional press has suggested that Telefonica has found a new buyer for its mobile business in Costa Rica after the collapse of the deal with Millicom.

The partner remains unnamed but reports suggest that negotiations have reached the point where Telefonica has begun due diligence processes to produce necessary data for the buyer.

Names such as America Movil, AT&T and Liberty Global have been suggested as likely candidates. If America Movil turns out to be the buyer that would reduce the mobile market to two players as America Movil already owns the Claro-branded Costa Rican operator. However, there may be some way to go yet as any bid could face regulatory challenges.

Either way, state-owned operator Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), which has over 50 per cent of the market, would remain the market leader.
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SEATTLE (AP)  Alaska Airlines says its flight attendants can issue warnings to passengers who refuse to wear a mask which could lead to them being banned from future flights.

Starting in early July, the airline will hand yellow cards to noncompliant passengers, advising them that it is their final notice and that a written report about them will be made, The Seattle Times reported. If a passenger continues to refuse, it will be noted in the report and a decision could be made to ban the passenger from future flights.





. . .
Christian human rights campaigner Benedict Rogers has spoken of his heartache for the future of Hong Kong after Beijing passed the contentious national security law.

Rogers, East Asia Team Leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said the passing of the legislation was "heartbreaking" and represented a "grave threat" to the freedoms of the territory.

The development, he added, has left Hong Kongers "in fear" for their future, safety and freedoms.

"Twenty-three years ago today, Hong Kong was handed over to China with the promise that Hong Kong's way of life, basic freedoms and the high degree of autonomy would be protected under the 'One Country, Two Systems' principle ... that is valid for the first 50 years after the handover until 2047," he said.

"And yet today, less then halfway through the lifespan of that promise, the Chinese Communist Party has flagrantly broken that promise to the people of Hong Kong and breached that international treaty.

"The imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong poses a grave threat to Hong Kong's basic freedoms, which have already been seriously eroded over recent years."

Rogers criticised the way in which the legislation was passed by China's National People's Congress rather than the Hong Kong legislature, saying it "seems to bring an end" to the high degree of autonomy promised to the region.

However, he went on to share a message of hope with the people of Hong Kong as he spoke of the "unexpected" victories that he had encountered in his many years of campaigning for human rights.

"Even though you may be entering into a period of great darkness and grave danger, do not lose hope," he said.

"History shows that no dictatorship lasts forever. I've been involved in other struggles for freedom and freedom has come sometimes when we don't even expect it. Unexpected victories, unexpected dawns come.

"I've seen countries freed [where] I didn't necessarily think [that] would happen. And I believe the same can happen for the people of Hong Kong, and for all the people of China."

Reposted with permission from Christian Today
Step 3: Im approved to vote absentee, but how?The absentee ballot comes with three envelopes: one plain, for privacy, to contain the ballot, one with an affidavit printed on the outside and one pre-addressed envelope to contain the other two. Seal the marked ballot inside the plain envelope, then place it inside the envelope displaying the affidavit. Once that envelope has been sealed, complete the affidavit and sign it, then seal it inside the preaddressed envelope. The signature must be witnessed either by a notary or two witnesses over the age of 18. It cannot be counted if the signature is not witnessed or notarized.

Step 4: My vote is cast, how do I turn it in?There are three ways an absentee ballot can be submitted: in person to the Absentee Election Manager, by mail or commercial carrier. Ballots must be postmarked no later than the day prior to the election and received by the Absentee Election Manager no later than noon on Election Day. If delivered in person, the ballot must be in the office of the Absentee Election Manager no later than 5 p.m. on the day prior to the election.

The deadline to return an absentee ballot to the Absentee Election Manager for the July 14 runoff election is the close of business Monday, July 13, and the last day to postmark an absentee ballot is Monday, July 13. The deadline to submit an application is July 9. Coffee Countys Absentee Election Managers office is located in New Brockton at No 2 County Complex, and the mailing address is PO Box 427, New Brockton, AL, 36351.
Wiregrass Forge Blacksmith Club members noted when President Trump had two semi-trucks on the White House lawn he praised the truck drivers for keeping hospitals, grocery stores and other retailers resupplied. We thought that was great for drivers up in the northeast, but what about truck drivers in the Wiregrass?

In the midst of this pandemic, truck drivers dont have the choice of where they go and who they come in contact with. They just keep on trucking to keep this country running. Making steak flippers for them was a way we could show our appreciation.

Since Wiley Sanders Trucking Company has some attention-getting ads on television. We contacted their safety office to see if they would like us to make flippers for their drivers. They said this was a great idea and their drivers would greatly appreciate it. Our regular third Saturday monthly meeting had already been canceled but the idea of a special grilling tool workshop was proposed.

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Forge Master Victor Estes approved the workshop with social distancing a priority. Eleven members attended and a total of 68 steak flippers were made out of railroad spikes, square stock and 3/8 and 1/2 round rebar. Two forge members arranged with Wiley Sanders safety office to deliver the steak flippers.
Troy University will require students to wear face coverings in the fall while reconfiguring classrooms and planning instruction to allow for social distancing.

The start of a new fall semester is always an exciting time; however, we know this fall will be unlike any in the history of Troy University, as we grapple with the realities of an ongoing pandemic, Dr. Lance Tatum, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and chairman of the Coronavirus Task Force, said in a letter to students Wednesday. The safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff are our highest priorities, and the universitys Coronavirus Task Force has been working for weeks to develop safety protocols for the upcoming semester.

Today, we are releasing a set of guidelines, titled TROY Strong: Troy University Health and Safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, that we hope will allow us to learn and work together on campus safely.

The work of the task force is ongoing, and the guidelines are subject to change as the situation evolves and more information becomes available.
Duncan, OK (73533)

Today

Partly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms. Cooler. High near 70F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low near 55F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph.
South Africa: Four SAA unions accept severance packages

Four South African Airways unions and staff representatives have expressed an intention to sign voluntary severance packages (VSPs) offered as part of the airlines business rescue and restructuring process.

This was on Thursday revealed by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), which said the process was a precursor to the formation of a viable, sustainable and competitive airline.

The proposed airline is expected to provide an integrated domestic, regional and international flight services.

The unions are the National Transport Movement (NTM), South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), Aviation Union of Southern Africa (AUSA), Solidarity, and representatives of SAA non-unionised managers and ground staff.

The representatives of the said stakeholders on Wednesday met the DPE and made the commitment that they would like to sign the VSPs, the department said.

[The VSPs] can be offered to employees immediately after the creditors vote on the Business Rescue Plan on Tuesday 14 July 2020, read a DPE statement.

During the meeting, unions and staff representatives are said to have supported the VSPs. These include one week calculated per year of completed service, one-month notice pay, accumulated leave paid out, a 13th Cheque and a top-up of severance packages calculated on a back-dated 5.9% wage increase which was agreed to in November last year.

Following requests by the four unions and staff representatives to accept the VSPs, the DPE said it will inform the Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) of the development.

The SAA BRPs are next Tuesday expected to table a revised business plan, which is expected to be voted on by creditors on 14 July 2020.

A vote in favour of the plan by 75% of the voting interests and 50% of the independent voting interests would be required to carry the vote. A vote against the plan would result in protracted and costly liquidation of the airline, something representatives of NTM, SATAWU, AUSA, Solidarity, and SAA staff, said would be a long and painful ordeal.

At this stage, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), the SA Cabin Crew Association (SACCA) and the SAA Pilots Association (SAAPA), have objected to the final VSPs available to SAA employees.

The DPE has reiterated that it is not in a position to accede to any further unreasonable and greedy demands from sections of union leadership for additional benefits.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Hong Kong citizens celebrate the passage of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in Causeway Bay of south China's Hong Kong, June 30, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Shen)

"We believe that every country has the right to safeguard its national security through legislation, and commend relevant steps taken for this purpose."

GENEVA, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Speaking at the 44th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, Cuba on behalf of 52 countries welcomed the adoption of the law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by China's top legislature.

The number of countries, which signed the joint statement Cuba read at the session, is expected to rise.

"Non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states is an essential principle enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and a basic norm of international relations," a representative of Cuba read the joint statement.

"In any country, the legislative power on national security issues rests with State, which in essence is not a human rights issue and therefore not subject to discussion at the Human Rights Council," said the statement.

"We believe that every country has the right to safeguard its national security through legislation, and commend relevant steps taken for this purpose."

"In this context, we welcome the adoption of the decision by China's legislature to establish and improve a legal framework and enforcement mechanisms for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) for the purpose of safeguarding national security, as well as China's reaffirmation of adherence to 'one country, two systems' guideline," the statement said.

Photo taken on June 12, 2020 shows the night view of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, south China. (Xinhua/Wang Shen)

"We are convinced that this move is conducive to ensure 'one country, two systems' is steady and enduring, and that Hong Kong enjoys long term prosperity and stability. The legitimate rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents can also be better exercised in a safe environment," it continued.

"We reiterate that Hong Kong is an inseparable part of China, that Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs that brook no interference by foreign forces. We urge relevant sides to stop interfering in China's internal affairs by using Hong Kong related issues," it concluded.

Chinese lawmakers on Tuesday voted to adopt the law at the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

It took effect at 11:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday in Hong Kong. The promulgation of the law was signed by HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam and published in the Gazette, according to a statement of the HKSAR government.

The law that has 66 articles in six chapters clearly defines the duties and government bodies of the HKSAR for safeguarding national security; the offenses and their corresponding penalties; jurisdiction, applicable law and procedure; office of the central people's government for safeguarding national security in the HKSAR; and other contents.
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:46 pm

Its been a long time coming for the Chehalis Tribe with its latest project, the Talking Cedar Brewery and Distillery, and on Tuesday what was once a distant dream became a reality.

Chehalis Tribal members along with representatives of Heritage Distilling Co. out of Gig Harbor, who partnered with the tribe for the distilling portion of the venture, posed for pictures outside the front door of Talking Cedar prior to the ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the grand opening  a historic moment for the Chehalis tribe and tribal nations.

The opening of the distillery-brewery-restaurant was historic because when the Chehalis Tribe first had an inkling of creating such a venue, though they had not realized it yet, it was illegal for tribal nations to distill alcohol based on a federal law that stemmed back to the early 19th century.

According to Harry Pickernell Sr., chairman of the Chehalis Tribe, due to a herculean effort from Congressional District 3 House Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, the law was repealed, thus opening up distilling opportunities for all tribal nations, not just the Chehalis tribe.

I think (Talking Cedar) is going to be the model for every tribal nation out there, now that they have the ability to grow their economy with places just like this, Pickernell said.

The process of realizing Talking Cedar  from the inception of the idea to the 35,000-square-foot facility located at 19770 Sargent Road Southwest in Rochester opening its doors  took about five years, according to Chris Richardson, managing director for Chehalis Tribal Enterprises.

In between those years the tribe had to narrow down their vision of what exactly they wanted to build, find a partnership (Heritage Distilling Co.), fight for legislation that would make it all legal and construct the building, some of which was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And its not over, Richardson added, noting that the stills to make the liquor on site, which will be licensed under Heritage Distilling, are being shipped from Italy and likely wont be operational until September or October.

Talking Cedar will employ about 70 people in the restaurant and brewery areas, according to Richardson, and expects to add an additional 40 workers when the distillery is fully operational.

Inside the venue, the front door enters into a foyer where bottles of Heritage Distilling liquor can be purchased. To the right of the foyer, there is a brewery tasting room that is adjacent to the kitchen which looks out over a dining room. To the left, there is a distillery tasting room along with more indoor seating and outdoor seating on a patio.

Adam Adrian, a consultant for the Chehalis Tribe who was in charge of conceptualizing the restaurant portion of Talking Cedar, said the menu includes American fare that will hopefully appeal to a broad audience.

The idea behind the food here is that you have a distillery tasting room and a brewery tasting room and we sort of looked at that and said, how can we mesh a menu to appeal to a broad audience for both pubbish-type food and maybe more upscale liquor-type food and melt the menus into one to appeal to all the customer base that is coming in? Adrian said.

While Tuesday was intended to celebrate the opening of the physical distillery and brewery, Richardson said the Chehalis Tribe has reason to be excited because they are diversifying their revenue stream outside of casino gaming.

Right now, the marketing plan for Talking Cedar beers is to, first, outfit Chehalis Tribal Enterprises entities like the Lucky Eagle Casino and the Great Wolf Lodge with Talking Cedar taps, Richardson said. Then, they hope to move on to other tribal casinos who might be interested in serving their craft beers.

By the end of the summer we will be canning probably an IPA, Richardson said.

Heritage Distilling CEO and co-founder Justin Stiefel, who was in attendance for Talking Cedars grand opening, said once the distillery is operational, the tribe will have a bigger opportunity to capitalize on liquor because distilling is a much less saturated market than the craft brewing industry.

Wineries had their big growth phase and so did breweries, and now it is distilleries (growing) nationally, Stiefel said.
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Claremont, NH (03743)

Today

Mixed clouds and sun with scattered thunderstorms. High around 90F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
KEENE - Francis (Frank) Gitschier, age 49 of Lowell and Keene, NH, passed away June 4, 2021. He was born on July 29, 1971 in Lowell to the late Patricia Saunders and Francis Marcotte. Frank cared for everyone and everything with a huge heart and best intentions. He was an avid Bruins fan, lo
Posted Thursday, July 2, 2020 12:22 pm

OLYMPIA  Gov. Jay Inslee is preparing to announce changes to Washingtons coronavirus reopening plan early next week, as cases rise around the state and across the nation.

In the meantime, Inslees office announced a short-term extension through July 9 of the statewide emergency coronavirus restrictions, which were to expire Wednesday. The restrictions, known as the Safe Start plan, adds requirements for employers to follow the directives of public-health authorities battling the pandemic, according to a statement.

That short-term extension comes in anticipation of additional modifications that will be made early next week, according to the statement by Inslees office. The Safe Start plan was to expire Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the governors office intends to issue updated guidance on Thursday for the Safe Start plan, according to the statement.

Inslee spokesman Mike Faulk wrote in an email that he wasnt able to provide further details Wednesday about either of the impending announcements.

Faulk cited the unpaid furloughs in the governors office to save money amid the coronavirus-driven state budget shortfall.

Unfortunately the people I would pose this question to have all gone home as of 5 pm sharp because of the furlough requirements on hours, Faulk wrote.

The extension renews all parts of the existing order and adds some new requirements, according to the statement.

Those short-term additions include requiring employers to cooperate with public-health officials investigating COVID-19 outbreaks and cases, as well as cooperating with the implementation of measures to stem infections. It also requires that businesses comply with orders and directives by public-health authorities, according to the statement.

Wednesdays announcement comes as state officials grapple with an increase of COVID-19 cases across the state. State health officials Wednesday reported 611 new COVID-19 cases and seven more deaths.

In an effort to slow the spread of cases, the governor last week announced an emergency order requiring state residents to wear masks in most situations while in public.

On Saturday, Inslee announced that counties would not be allowed to move to the fourth  and least restrictive  phase in the four-part plan. Among other things, that phase would have allowed the return of nightclubs, concerts and gatherings of more than 50 people.

Announced May 29, the Safe Start plan replaced Inslees original stay-at-home order. It laid out criteria for Washingtons 39 counties to more speedily move through the four-part reopening process that had been created during the stay-at-home order.

After its announcement, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and other counties swiftly advanced to the second phase, which allows for a broad reopening to many businesses, with safety guidelines to protect against the virus.

King County quickly advanced to a modified phase one, allowing the reopening of barbershops and hair salons, along with some outdoor dining.

Even as officials chart their latest course to navigate the pandemic, Inslees office Wednesday evening suggested the governor may not ultimately call lawmakers back this year for a special legislative session.

The governor and Democratic legislative leaders had said a special session was likely to start reckoning with a projected $8.8 billion budget shortfall through 2023. Republican lawmakers had been calling for one to take place already to make adjustments to the budget.

But Inslee wont make a decision on a special session until it is known whether Congress includes financial help for state and local governments in its latest coronavirus-relief package, Faulk wrote.

The governor and staff would then determine what remains to be done and if a special session is necessary, Faulk wrote in an email. Talks with House and Senate colleagues continue.

House Minority Leader Rep. J.T. Wilcox of Yelm said he still supports having a special session, which he believed had been tentatively planned for August.
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The wild scene in downtown Mesa from past Fourth of July celebrations will be replaced this year by a more sedate fireworks show at the abandoned Fiesta Mall.


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Google is facing a class-action lawsuit for tracking people who used the Chrome browser's Incognito mode.

Law firm Boies Schiller Flexner earlier this week filed the complaint on behalf of people who used the privacy mode during the past four years.

"Google tracks and collects consumers' history and other Web activity no matter what safeguards consumers undertake to protect their data privacy," it states. "Indeed, even when Google users launch a Web browser with 'private browsing mode' activated (as Google recommends to users wishing to browse the Web privately), Google nevertheless tracks the users' browsing data and other identifying information."

Google conducts this "surreptitious tracking" through Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager, and "various application and website plug-ins, such as Google applications on mobile devices and the "Google Sign-In button" for websites," according to the complaint.

"When an Internet user visits a Webpage or opens an app that uses such services (over 70 percent of all online publishers use such a service), Google receives detailed, personal information such as the user's IP address (which may provide geographic information), what the user is viewing, what the user last viewed, and details about the user's hardware," it states. Google "takes the data regardless of whether the user actually clicks on a Google-supported advertisement -- or even knows of its existence."

Anticipating that consumers are concerned that it's tracking their personal information and browsing history, Google "promises consumers that they can 'browse the Web privately' and stay in 'control of what information [users] share with Google," it continues. Google recommends that its consumers need only launch a browser in private browsing mode to prevent information from being shared with it.

"Both statements are untrue," the complaint alleges. "When users undertake either -- or both -- of the aforementioned steps, Google continues to track, collect, and identify their browsing data in real time, in contravention of federal and state laws on wiretapping and in violation of consumers' rights to privacy."

Private, Not Private

The complaint seeks at least US$5,000 in damages for each of millions of Google users who have been browsing the Internet in private mode since June 1, 2016.

"We have nothing further to add, beyond what is in the complaint," Boies Schiller Flexner spokesperson Edward Evans told the E-Commerce Times.

The lawsuit "looks solid," remarked Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

"Large companies often find creative ways around laws and then convince themselves that they'll get away with questionable practices. That seems to be the case here," he told the E-Commerce Times.

The intent of the Incognito feature, and what Google communicated, was to provide users with privacy, Enderle said, "but they then appear to have gone around the function to take the data anyway."

Google's Defense

"Google strongly disputes these claims and will defend ourselves vigorously against them," said company spokesperson Jose Castenada.

"Incognito mode in Chrome gives you the choice to browse the Internet without your activity being saved to your browser or device," he told the E-Commerce Times.

When consumers open a new Incognito tab, a notice tells them their activity might still be visible to websites they visit, their employer or school, and their ISP.

"Google's brand mission statement is 'to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful,'" noted Liz Miller, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

"It never says, 'Our mission is to deliver the most safe, private and secure experience for any individual no matter where they are to access a democratized, even playing field while staying in control of all their data and privacy,'" she told the E-Commerce Times.

On Data Collection

Third-party websites can use Google Analytics to collect and analyze data when visitors are in Incognito mode. However, visitors can use the Google Analytics browser opt-out extension to disable this activity.

Data collected through Google Analytics belongs to the website owner, who then can decide whether to share it with Google. Passing personally identifiable information through Google Analytics is prohibited by Google's terms of service.

An open question is how important the privacy issue privacy is for consumers.

"Sharing your information with these services is how they pay the bills," Enderle pointed out. "If users don't like that, they should instead buy and use the services from more traditionally funded vendors."

The average consumer "doesn't want privacy," Miller maintained. "They want to be served up a more relevant and personalized engagement, especially when they need it most."

Google's Troubled Data Collection History

Google has been sued, and fined, for tracking consumers in the past. The Federal Trade Commission imposed a $190 million fine for tracking children, and $22.5 million for tracking users of the Safari browser.

Both Google and Amazon are under fire for using smart speakers to monitor what users are saying, an allegation tech investor John Borthwick has leveled.

Google tracks user activity on smart home devices, smart cars, and smartwatches. Tracking may occur through use of Google Voice and Google Fiber. Concerns have been raised over the tracking potential of APIs jointly developed with Apple for COVID-19 tracking.

"The systemic problem at Google is that the culture rewards all innovative new methods of collection -- including synthesis -- of actionable data," observed Steve Wilson, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

"They're instrumenting the world so as to aggregate as many signals they can to point to people's buying behaviors," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Google then takes steps to de-identify or obfuscate identities, and "to be fair, they're pretty good at that," Wilson said.

Still, "when your core mission is to find out everything you possibly can for commercial advantage about Internet users," he continued, "it's difficult, I think, to claim credibly that privacy is a top priority. Privacy is inherently a secondary consideration to the business."

Following the filing of the Incognito lawsuit, more enforcement entities could move aggressively against Google, Enderle suggested.

Fifty state attorneys general launched antitrust investigations against Google last year, and the United States government, together with several attorneys general, are expected file suit this summer alleging the company monopolized online ads.

Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology. Email Richard.


Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:35 pm

Since Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington state Secretary of Health John Wiesman announced a statewide face covering mandate on Tuesday, Lewis County public officials have publicly objected to the order, most notably Sheriff Rob Snaza and Lewis County Commissioner Bobby Jackson.

Those objections have caused some problems with mask requirements at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told the Chronicle.

Last week, regarding the requirement to wear masks in public, Snaza told a crowd in Napavine, Dont be a sheep.

Meyer said Superior Court Administrator Susie Palmateer called him last week to inform him people were showing up at the Law and Justice Center, refusing to wear masks because they believed Snaza told them they didnt have to wear one.

According to Palmateer, most people have been receptive to the mask requirements at the Law and Justice Center, even saying they were appreciative before the pushback by visitors on Thursday.

It made it difficult, not only for our bailiffs trying to explain that they need to be wearing it, but also raised some security concerns, Palmateer said. There were always a couple people that were unhappy about it, but willing to put it on to come into the building  yesterday was a different story.

She said most of the people with issues cited what Snaza had said on June 23. After the response Palmateer said Meyer was asked to draft a letter to help explain the law that requires residents to wear masks.

The Superior Court asked that I write a letter, to have posted at the front door and also be handed out to people who are refusing to wear masks, Meyer said. So, I did write that letter.

The letter, dated June 24, states that according to state law and recent court precedent, the governors mandate is lawful and violation could expose the violator to criminal sanctions.

Violations can be forwarded to the prosecutors office and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, the letter states.

Some statements, specifically those made by other elected officials, have advocated disobeying the law handed down by the governor, the letter states. By advocating unlawful behavior, those elected officials are acting outside the scope of their official duties.

Jackson also took to Facebook following the governors announcement, stating he would remove himself from meetings and work remotely due to his personal choice to not wear a mask.

I have watched many of my staff struggle to breathe in meetings because they are wearing masks, and it breaks my heart, Jackson said in his post. I cant do anything about it because the governor has been given broad powers in a state of emergency and his mandates carry the weight of law with them.

The next day, Jackson cited a conversation he had with Meyer in which he informed Jackson he would be breaking the law if he were to enter or exit the courthouse without a mask on.

He said he didnt agree with Meyers position but still agreed to adjust his stance slightly on Wednesday evening.

Beginning Friday morning, whenever I enter the county courthouse, I will do so with a face shield on until I reach my office, Jackson said in his post. I will not knowingly break the law, whether I agree with it or not. I will protect our county by doing the right thing.

In terms of the objection from Jackson, Meyer said his department offers legal interpretation and its up to the individual to utilize the feedback, or not.

His agreement or disagreement isnt really an issue for me, Meyer said. Whether he follows it or not is going to be a decision hell have to make.

On Friday, Jackson issued further explanation concerning his issue with the mask mandate and what he believes it represents.

A leader has to set the example, no doubt. At times, he has to do things that he completely disagrees with in order to accomplish a greater good, Jackson said in the post. If Ive witnessed anything this week, it has been how divided weve become over face masks and whether we should or shouldnt wear them, whether its a law or it isnt. I will not change my position on this, any more than any of you would no matter where you stand.

From Meyers perspective, its important for county officials to model the behavior that has been required by Inslee, due to his ability to control where each county moves throughout his Safe Start phased reopening plan.

During one of his press conferences, Inslee acknowledged Snazas claim and expressed his disappointment.

I think that people who are law-abiding, those who are wearing their seatbelts because its law and its safe, those who are wearing face masks because it is both the law and is safe, I just dont agree calling those folks, somehow, barnyard animals, Inslee said. Theyre protecting other people.

To Meyer, Inlees comments reinforced the notion that he continues to monitor the counties.

If he, for some reason, gets the indication that were not taking it seriously, that could weigh into whether or not hes going to allow us to stay or advance, Meyer said. What I certainly dont want, as the prosecutor and as a citizen of Lewis County, is I dont want to see our businesses, our business owners, our employees, our community, damaged any further.

He continued by saying the response of the elected officials in Lewis County could ultimately slow the county as it looks to progress through the phase reopening.

He, in essence, shut down our community for a couple of months, Meyer said. I dont want to see him say, well, the elected officials arent taking it seriously  theyre not even abiding by it, so why would they necessarily monitor other peoples compliance. I dont necessarily think that would be an accurate conclusion for him to reach, but it wouldnt surprise me if that went into his reasoning.


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One of the e-tail world's most pressing questions is: When will Amazon have its Prime Day sale this year?

Perhaps a better question is: Will Prime Day happen at all?

Amazon so far is not telling. Though usually reliable insider sources hinted that it may occur sometime in September.

Amazon canceled Prime Day, which is traditionally scheduled for July, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic -- when consumers were locked down in their homes and most stores and businesses were shuttered, or trying to function with in-person skeleton crews and support staff working from home.

If Prime Day 2020 takes place in the fall, the biggest deal days of the e-commerce industry could happen within several weeks of each other. You know the other ones: Black Friday on Nov. 27 and Cyber Monday on Nov. 30.

Amazon Sellers in a Quandary

SupplyKick provides consultation and strategy services to Amazon sellers -- and is a top 500 seller on Amazon with hundreds of category-leading brands. It posted a 170 percent growth rate over the past three years and has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list for three years running. The company recently hit a US$100M in sales milestone, Vanessa Ruminski, VP of partnerships for SupplyKick, told the E-Commerce Times.

For SupplyKick's brand partners, Prime Day uncertainty could mean they will be forced to choose between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and only participate in one or the other. That might be these sellers only way to balance deep discounts and still make sure their offers are compelling.

This means fewer opportunities for discounts for consumers. For SupplyKick's brand partners and other allied merchants, choosing the right shopping bonanza may win or lose the battle for financial recovery, according to Chris Palmer, CEO and founder of SupplyKick.

"We've seen substantial increases and decreases among brands on our platform. It all depends on the needs of the suddenly home bound workers," Palmer told the E-Commerce Times about the sales volumes they've experienced.

Sales Ebb and Flow

One of SupplyKick's partner brands makes party supplies. Right after COVID-19 accelerated in March, that partner company's sales were down by 90 percent due to the loss of large gatherings and graduations.

Other brands had product sales go through the roof. One brand sells gaming chairs that makes really comfortable seats, noted Palmer, to show the range of disparity.

"That type of product was in high demand for those consumers looking to spend time at home game playing or working from home. In this time period, the eighth most searched product on Amazon was gaming chairs. It was the most demand they had ever seen," he said about the ironies of remote selling.

What drove that particular product sale? Circumstances of being at home, or the inability to buy from a store something the buyers were going to purchase anyway?

There's no doubt that with all the shopping malls being closed at this time, traditional brick and mortar outlets were not available. So that was a factor. Another factor was the added time on their hands being stuck at home. Then there was a need to upgrade their home offices.

"So it was a combination of factors, not a one or the other," Palmer said.

How Does Prime Day Fit In?

The big Amazon sale days -- if and when they occur -- will fall in the midst of changes in consumer buying patterns and outlets now that things are opening up, noted Palmer.

Retail sales in many states went to zero for a time. So, there is definitely going to be a resurgence in purchasing locally. Still, among consumers is a growing recognition about protecting their health, according to Palmer.

That will mean a resurgence of in-person shopping will be slow and steady. But stores will be open for business, even if how business is done is not the same as it was.

Retail merchants looking to rejuvenate their sales can get a big head start by participating in the Prime Day event. They can also jeopardize gaining a stronger foothold in Amazon's marketplace if they do not sell on Prime Day, Palmer explained.

"Brick and mortar shops and mall operators that had minimal e-commerce are in overdrive now trying to figure out how to make up for all the lost revenue. How do they adapt to the times knowing there are millions of people who prefer to go to a website instead of a store first?" he reasoned.

New Marketplace Options

The digital ecosystem is now much larger than predicted several months ago. It will only continue to grow moving forward, according to Michael Lagoni, CEO of Stackline. It is more nuanced and complex with the rise of direct-to-consumer.

"The current DTC, e-commerce competitive landscape is going to be completely transformed," he told the E-Commerce Times.

The Prime Day event is not very notable from the vantage point of third-party vendors, added SupplyKick's Palmer. It comes down to people looking for deals on certain items.

"But for the normal stuff, I think Amazon is thinking volume sales," he said.

Fall Prime Day Fallout

E-commerce consumer spending is slower during the summer months compared to other seasons. Prime Day has always been a way to amplify revenue for Amazon and merchants during this slower sales period. For brands, it is a way to unload their spring and summer merchandise to prepare for the next season, according to Ben Parr, co-founder and president of Octane AI.

"Unlike previous years, the summer months have seen higher-than-average e-commerce sales. Amazon's sales are incredibly strong right now. They do not have enough people to fulfill the supply requests because their sales are so strong," Parr told the E-Commerce Times.

Amazon deciding to push Prime Day will not break their system or their sales. They already are in great shape without it. But that is not true for potential participants, he countered.

There are categories that will be adversely affected by postponing Prime Day. If you are selling essential products, then you do not need Prime Day because you are already doing well. But if you are in a category not doing well, like travel, then Prime Day may have been really important for you for your revenue, Parr explained.

"The longer Prime Day gets pushed out, the longer these categories will suffer. These non-essential categories are the ones that will continue losing during the pandemic," Parr predicted.

No Way Back

SupplyKick's Palmer sees brick and mortar sales as here to stay. But he does not see consumer behavior going back to the way people used to buy.

"The majority of the way people buy things is changing. The curve for adoption to e-commerce sales has got to be structurally altered due to COVID-19," he insisted.

Palmer also does not think the marketplace is going to go back to the normal way that people shopped before the pandemic. Instead, he sees a huge increase in remote ordering and delivery. For some industries that may become optional. For others, like restaurants, it is going to become mandatory if they want to survive.

"I think people are not that naive to think that they can rely on the same brick and mortar sales level. Take, for instance, the sporting goods stores. They are all actively pursuing an online presence or plan to do so in the short term," he cited as an example.

Not One Way for All

Not every industry can adapt to a strict following of online first, retail store later, agreed Palmer. But every industry has to adapt.

The fashion industry is a good example, he suggested. People want to see fashion and beauty products up close, and touch them, and try them on.

To that end, he thinks consumers may eventually see a growth in virtual reality apps matched to a stored user profile to assist mimicking an in-store experience.

"We are nowhere near ready for that widespread adoption yet. Before COVID-19 it was maybe five years out. But the rate of innovation now is higher than it was before the pandemic. We are seeing more acceleration taking place," Palmer said.

Thus, a fall or winter Prime Day sale event may leave too many potential vendors out in the cold. The typical products many vendors would have offered as deals are summer seasonal.

"The change in scheduling for Prime Day may be an issue for some brands who do not have a replacement product for a fall attraction," he noted. "I can see many of our brand partners not participating in Prime Day as a result. The problem brands face is how to adapt and evolve. They do not want to forget who they are as a brand," he warned.

On the other hand, the e-commerce marketplace is seeing a huge presence of vendors transitioning from physical storefronts. New entrants are going to take advantage of every chance for sales they can get.

"There are a lot of companies sitting on inventory built up over the pandemic shutdown," mused Palmer.

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open-source technologies. He is an esteemed reviewer of Linux distros and other open-source software. In addition, Jack extensively covers business technology and privacy issues, as well as developments in e-commerce and consumer electronics. Email Jack.




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This is Part 2 of a new series providing advice about website development contracts for businesses engaged in e-commerce. Part 1 covers how to avoid major disasters.

When entering into website development contracts, the more you know, the more likely you will be able to avoid common pitfalls.

It is your website, but ownership of the intellectual property on the site is not always apparent or obvious. When you engage an information technology vendor to build a new website you probably expect that you will own the IP in the end product. Unfortunately, that may not be the case.

IP laws are somewhat complicated and can vary by state, as can the type of IP involved. It's critically important to have a firm grasp of what is your IP and what is the IT vendor's IP, and whether any third-party IP licenses need to be secured on the front end.

You don't want to be surprised about who owns what after your website is delivered. To avoid finding yourself in this situation, it is critical to do your homework before you begin negotiations with an IT vendor and to make sure the rights and ownership to IP are clearly identified and delineated in the website development contract.

What Is IP?

"Intellectual property," or "IP," is a general term used to describe a variety of types of valuable, intangible and protectable interests. IP includes patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. Each of these types of IP has its own unique, distinguishable characteristics, and each is governed by its own state and federal statutes and common law.

Because of these distinctions, different types of IP require different treatment and protections in contracts, including website development contracts.

The following IP discussion and summaries are high-level descriptions, and not intended to be the specific IP law you will encounter in your website development contract since this column is written as generalized advice. You should seek specific legal advice about IP before signing any website development contract.

Patents

Patents are registered with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), or a foreign patent treaty or organization, for new original ideas that are not part of nature. The patent registration process is costly and time-consuming. While a "patent is pending" or until it is secured, its owner cannot claim a patent exists.

Copyrights

Copyrights give the author the right to restrict making copies or creating derivative works. In the U.S., copyrights are controlled by the U.S. Copyright Office. Copyrights are created at the moment the author creates the work.

Unlike patents, there is no requirement that the copyrighted work be registered. However, the copyright registration process is required in order to file a lawsuit for an infringement.

Other countries around the world have similar laws, so the application of copyright laws likely will depend on where your website transacts business.

Trademarks

Trademarks in the U.S. come in three flavors: 1) common law, 2) state registration and 3) federal registration (filed with the USPTO). Each is a little different, but for website use, you need to understand how trademarks affect you. A common law trademark is one that is not registered, either on a state or federal level.

Common law trademarks are limited to the geographic region in which they are used. The Blue Note Jazz Hall in New York City enjoyed common law trademark protection. In 1995, it unsuccessfully sued the Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri, for using the bluenote.com domain name. The court ruled there was no likelihood of confusion between the common law trademarks in New York City and Columbia, Missouri.

As a trademark owner, you can obtain a trademark registration in your state, but if your website operates across state boundaries you should consider federal registration. A federal or international trademark registration is specific to the channel of commerce, rather than the physical location of the trademark.

Given the interstate nature of most e-commerce websites, federal registration is the only logical or feasible protection.

For example, when Toyota launched its Lexus brand of vehicles, the online legal reference provider LexisNexis brought a trademark infringement claim against Toyota. Luckily for Toyota, the court determined that because of the distinct business types (automobile versus online technology company) there was no likelihood of confusion between the two.

Trade Secrets

Trade secrets typically are governed on a state-by-state basis. However, that has changed somewhat since the passing of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016. The DTSA can be invoked "if the trade secret is related to a product or service used in, or intended for use in, interstate or foreign commerce."

Violations under the DTSA can be brought conjunctively with state claims. The DTSA also can be invoked to pursue claims for misappropriation that occurs outside the U.S.

In general, the term "trade secrets" encompasses a wide range of proprietary business information. Broadly speaking, to be protectable, the information must be valuable in that it is generally unknown by competitors in the industry, and the owner or holder must take reasonable steps to ensure its secrecy.

In this sense, it is the opposite of a patent, which the owner secures by registration in the public domain. In the context of website development contracts, to the extent you are willing to share or disclose any trade secret information with your IT vendor, you will need to secure written nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements prior to any disclosures. This would include access to most software source code, for example.

IT Vendor's Pre-Existing IP

In most instances, the IT vendor will require you to agree that any IP used to create your website will continue to be the property of the IT vendor and third parties (where the IT vendor is using third-party licensed IP). It is important that you obtain a license to use that IP from the IT vendor in your new website, and for any third-party licenses for IP the IT vendor does not own.

Regardless of how the IT vendor presents the IP, it is essential that you get a license or ownership either to use the vendor IP forever (perpetual license), or for a finite period.

Alternatively, you can negotiate to own "all rights, titles, and interests in the IP," so that if you were to migrate to a new website in the future, you would own the IP you paid for to manage your website.

Review the IP provisions in the proposed contract and statements of work (SOW)

The biggest takeaway here is this: Look closely at the IT vendor website development contracts and SOWs to understand the IP involved, who owns it now, and who will own it once the website is completed.

Also, as discussed in Part 1, it would be a good idea to talk to the IT vendor's customers to learn what their experience was like -- particularly, whether any undisclosed IP ownership issues popped up.

Of course, it would not be bad idea to engage an experienced IP lawyer who has dealt with these IP issues and can lend a critical eye to drafting and negotiating website development contracts and SOWs.

Read Part 3: Important Cloud and SLA Considerations

Peter Vogel has been an ECT News Network columnist since 2010. His focus is on technology and the law. Vogel is Of Counsel at Foley & Lardner LLP, and focuses on cybersecurity, privacy and information management. He tries lawsuits and negotiates cloud contracts dealing with e-commerce, ERP and the Internet. Before practicing law, he received a master's in computer science and was a mainframe programmer. His blog covers IT and Internet topics. Email Peter.

Chelsea Hilliard has been an ECT News Network columnist since 2019. As an associate at Foley & Lardner LLP, she focuses her business litigation practice on trade secret noncompetition and securities enforcement. She also helps clients with complex electronic discovery disputes and has been recognized as Texas Rising Star attorney by Texas Monthly, and a Top Lawyer under 40 by D Magazine. Email Chelsea.


Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad Researchers are using computational methods to understand the factors and impediments in incorporating biofuels into the fuel sector in India. This work has been spurred by the increasing need to replace fossil fuels by bio-derived fuels, which, in turn, is driven by the dwindling fossil fuel reserves all over the world, and pollution issues associated with the use of fossil fuels.

The model developed by the IIT Hyderabad team has shown that in the area of bioethanol integration into mainstream fuel use, the production cost is the highest (43 per cent) followed by import (25 per cent), transport (17 per cent), infrastructure (15 per cent) and inventory (0.43 per cent) costs. The model has also shown that feed availability to the tune of at least 40 per cent of the capacity is needed to meet the projected demands.

A unique feature of this work is that the framework considers revenue generation not only as an outcome of sales of the biofuel but also in terms of carbon credits via greenhouse gas emission savings throughout the project lifecycle, a statement here said on Thursday. This research was led by Dr Kishalay Mitra, Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad with his Research Scholar Mr Kapil Gumte.

The results of this work were recently published in the prestigious peer-reviewed Journal of Cleaner Production. This Research Paper also won the 'Best Paper Award' during the Sixth International Conference on Advances in Control and Optimization of Dynamical Systems held at IIT Madras earlier this year, which was attended by large sections of the whole process systems engineering community of India.

Dr Mitra and his team analysed the bio-supply chain network through computational studies. Highlighting the need for such research, Dr. Kishalay Mitra, Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, said, "In India, biofuels generated from non-food sources is the most promising source of carbon-neutral renewable energy. These second-generation sources include agricultural waste products such as straw, hay and wood, among others, that do not intrude upon food sources.
The Minister for Education Norma Foley TD today, Wednesday 1 July, welcomed the publication of interim public health advice from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) in relation to the re-opening of schools.

The interim public health advice is being published this afternoon. In addition, a draft Covid-19 plan will be issued to primary schools that provides schools with information about the measures being progressed to support the sustainable reopening of schools. Engagement with stakeholders on the public health advice and planning process for both primary and post-primary schools will continue over the coming weeks.

Minister Foley said: I am pleased to publish this interim public health advice, which will inform the development of clear guidelines for implementation in schools. We all want to support the education system so that we can welcome our pupils and staff across our school communities back into a safe environment later in the year. We will continue to work with the public health experts over the course of the summer to update the interim advice as necessary.

This interim advice provides a platform for deep engagement with all of the school stakeholders over the coming weeks: principals, teachers and all school staff, students, parents and education partners.

I was very pleased to begin meeting a wide range of stakeholders this morning. I am struck by the commitment that everyone has towards providing the best possible experience for the whole school community to return to school as safely as possible and as fully as possible in September.

There is great willingness to work together and I am confident that with ongoing engagements with all stakeholders and work by my officials schools will be enabled to plan the safe return of their communities.

It is my utmost priority that student and staff safety and wellbeing is to the forefront in all of the planning. I will be ensuring with my officials that we have support materials available to schools that recognise the experiences of students, teachers and all school staff and of parents, and the part they will all play in returning to school safely.

I also want to acknowledge the hard work that school communities have put in over the past number of months. I hope that the planning work being done and the clarity that we provide today will enable each member of the school community to get a well-deserved break and rest during the summer.

The interimpublic health advice can be found here: https://www.education.ie/en/covid-19/interim-recommendations-for-the-reopening-of-schools-and-educational-facilities.pdf
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Balnarring Pre-school on the Mornington Peninsula has won the school and early years category of the 2020 HART Awards.

The HART Awards recognise Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people working together in Victoria to build relationships, respect and understanding while demonstrating a commitment to Aboriginal self-determination.

The kindergarten was recognised for its Living and Learning with Country pedagogy and practice.

The Victorian Local Governance Association and Reconciliation Victoria announced the seventh annual HART - Helping Achieve Reconciliation Together - Awards in a virtual ceremony in June 2020. Local Government Victoria and Bank Australia support the awards.

Balnarring Pre-school teacher and educational leader, Karen Anderson, said the honour encouraged everyone to keep learning and listening, including the broader local community, which had embraced the kindergarten's commitment to reconciliation and learning about Aboriginal cultures.

'It's really exciting to know a tiny little centre can have that impact, rippling beyond our centre, which is run by volunteers,' she said.

This is the first year the HART Awards had a category for schools and early years entrants.

'It's (the award) an affirmation that we are being respectful in our commitment to reconciliation and that the work we are doing is valuable for not only the children we are teaching but also the community,' Ms Anderson said.

Award-winning approach

It is the third honour recognising the kindergarten's commitment to reconciliation and to building relationships with the Land and Boon Wurrung Elders, N'Arwee't Carolyn Briggs and Fay Stewart-Muir.

The team took the 2020 HART Awards finalist position for the third year in a row for its Bundjil Nest Project and festival, honouring and celebrating First Peoples' cultures.

Now in its fifth year the Bundjil Nest Project also enables educators to participate in professional development opportunities to gain a greater understanding of First Peoples' history and cultures giving them the confidence to include this in their curriculum. In 2019 a waang (crow) sculpture joined the Bundjil Nest sculpture in Robertson's Park at Balnarring Beach.

In 2017 the Balnarring Pre-school team was named finalist of Reconciliation Australia's Narragunnawali Award in early learning.

The Narragunnawali Award recognises exceptional commitment to reconciliation in education across the country, and Balnarring's recognition demonstrated the importance of cultural and community connectivity.

A decade in the making

Ms Anderson said the journey began almost 10 years ago in a 'very intentional way' to incorporate the voices of First Peoples who have strong connections with Country.

The kindergarten, with 94 children enrolled, embeds the perspectives of First Peoples into everyday practice through a variety of initiatives including an annual community festival and professional development for all staff.

Boon Wurrung Elder N'Arwee't Carolyn Briggs approached the preschool to illustrate her stories.

Ms Anderson said the children's strong connection with Country influenced their illustrations featured in the two books published so far, with a third book in production.

She said in addition to the children, staff and families also learned about the First Peoples' history through engaging with each story. 'The learning goes beyond the kindergarten, through the Bundjil Nest Project,' she said.

Find out more


This Memorial Day, George Floyd died in the streets of Minneapolis. I felt enraged as a black mother, a lawyer, an educator, and a human being. The totality of my soul felt his life being stolen from this earth. Another fallen soul in the streets, his lifeless body just one more to add to the endless statistics.

Like so many others, I am home schooling two little ones attached to digital devices throughout the day, so joining an in-person protest during the pandemic was not an option for me. Social media gave me a quick outlet to share my thoughts, but I knew that I needed to do more. As the dean of legal literacy for The Little Lawyers, a P-8 curriculum geared toward building kids legal awareness and empowerment, I have spent years crafting a narrative to empower hundreds of kids to understand law, but what happens when our children see time after time that the law does not apply equally to all?

Black adults, whether on school campuses, walking down the street, shopping in the supermarket, or driving down the road, feel that injustice every waking day. How can we as educators, guides to unknown futures, not feel that urge to do more?

My Italian husband and I have lived in our own biracial bubble in Miami with our two kids. But even in such a multicultural city, our kids have experienced racism. Two years ago, my son, Santo Max, found one of his friends on the playground. It was in the evening after a full day of summer camp. The boys were happy to find a familiar playmate and went off to hunt for iguanas and anything with a pulse. Minutes later, I found Santo Max with a frown that was completely out of place on his happy-go-lucky face.

I learned that his friends 10-year-old brother had told him, You cant play with us. Youre not white.

My kids and all students of color in your care are growing up in a world that will challenge them to explain who they are."

My son was 6. He was sad and swelled with disappointment. His feeling wasnt rage. His pain wasnt fear. You seeits years of experiencing this ongoing discrimination that cements the rage. This was only his first dose of blunt racism. Acts and words of racism happen in parks, playgrounds, supermarkets, schools, and many other facets of life for children of color. Our children constantly absorb the vibrations of a world that judges who they are and what they look like.

I was lucky that I just happened to be there. I just happened to ask the right questions, and my child just happened to find the words to share his pain and sadness. Too often, most Black and brown children do not have the same opportunity to have their pain acknowledged.

Black parents have had a lifetime of the same pain and the endless fears. Racism to a Black child pours down deep into the soil of who they are and what they can be. As many parents of color have lived in the grips of that storm, it may be challenging to not dismiss their childrens experiences as just another normal part of Black life in America. Under an umbrella of trauma, it can be hard to feel the weight of the rain. This is where educators could be vital to fill that gap.

When I approach law lessons on race through my work with The Little Lawyer, I tell the students a story. I start with Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case that made systemic racism the law . Together, we learn about the struggle, the fight, and the law. I use educational games and skill-building activities to lean headfirst into addressing challenging issues of skin color and the history of Jim Crow laws. This experiential learning gives the kids a healthy outlet to share their emotional responses and seek solutions.

My son is now 8, and my daughter is 5. I recently decided to share the George Floyd video with them. I found that George Floyds frightening last moments of life to be a tragically teachable moment for my young children. If schools had still been open, I would have been eager to do the same in the classroom (albeit with parental consent).

Is it because he is Black? my son immediately asked. Can we just stop white officers from policing Black people? My daughter told me she was scared.

You have the right to feel afraid, because this is frightening, I reassured her. You have every right to seek a solution, I told my son. Lets talk about the moral and legal problem. What do you see?

It is not up to us to give kids our words or limit their vision. Anti-racism work is about providing facts and law and then empowering children to feel honestly, think critically, and act intentionally.

Teachers, principals, and superintendents: My kids and all students of color in your care are growing up in a world that will challenge them to explain who they are, why they belong, and what their value is. They needed to see that a man like George Floyd lost his life because others could not see his value. They needed to know that they define their own value.

Why did I subject my young children to this? As a Black mother, it was simple. If I dont, others will. If I fail to, others will take them off guard. In this world, they need to be prepared. As a historian, I have always drawn from lessons in history to make informed choices on how to guide my students.

I am fully aware that a day will come when neither I nor my husband will be around to protect our children. Thus, all children need the ugliness in the world to be revealed in a safe and secure setting. That is our job. I am calling on all educators to protest peacefully outside but dont forget to empower your children inside every classroomeven virtual ones.

I believe that as challenges arise, my children will remember their moms voice pushing them to be strong. They will know that they have a rightful seat at the table. All Black and brown children need to hold that intrinsic power within. Your voice, as educators, can be that voice they hear sheltering them through these surging storms. The time to have these conversations is yesterday.
June is National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month and what better way to give your body a health boost than by adding more color to your meals! Eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is the best way to get all of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients you need.
After months of closed borders due to coronavirus, a solemn ceremony was deemed necessary to reopen movement between Spain and Portugal. Spanish monarch Felipe VI and prime minister Pedro Sanchez first met with Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and PM Antonio Costa in Badajoz, before crossing over to the Portuguese city of Elvas. But despite the attempts to stage manage the occasion, the king was unable to avoid criticism from some of his Spanish subjects. Felipe and Letizia's post-coronavirus tour of the kingdom to improve their image has not papered over all of the cracks.

In the background, protesters can be heard chanting "Espana, manana, sera republicana!" - "Spain tomorrow will be republican."

It was after receiving the Portuguese authorities in Badajoz, when they strolled along the wall of the Extremaduran city. During this walk, cries such as "Spain, tomorrow, will be republican" were heard, as well as "Royal expenses [should go] to hospitals!" and "Long live the Republic!". Chants expressing an opposite point of view were also heard: "Spain, united, will never be defeated."

It was at 9:30am in La Alcazaba de Badajoz that the Spanish king and Pedro Sanchez met Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and prime minister Antonio Costa. From there they crossed to Elvas castle on the other side of the border. The Spanish government said the meeting "is in the context of the lifting of controls on the Spanish-Portuguese border", highlighting the "close collaboration" between the two countries.

"Both countries give enormous value to this joint act, which renews the close Spanish-Portuguese relationship, which contains a broad and deep agenda, with important shared challenges, such as depopulation, the cross-border relationship, the climate emergency, energy and transport interconnections and the EU agenda", said the Spanish executive's statement.

At the end of the state of alarm under which Spain's coronavirus lockdown has been managed, the country's king and queen began a tour to all of Spain's autonomous communities, which will last throughout July and has already taken them to the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and Andalusia. The royal tour comes after new revelations in the monarchy's serious corruption scandals, which have led the king to renounce his father's inheritance and take away his financial allowance.

International borders opening "within hours"

Speaking to the media, Pedro Sanchez expressed "immense happiness" to be in Portugal. "We are two fraternal peoples," he said. He also praised the agreement at European level to open borders with fifteen countries outside the Schengen area, and attributed the delay in opening the Spanish borders with these countries to a "technical issue". And he added: As soon as we can publish it in the state gazette, it will be done. It will be a matter of hours, not days."
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:30 pm

Centralia Police Department

Man Arrested On Suspicion of Obstructing a Public Servant

 At 10:28 a.m. on Monday, police arrested Patrick R. Fansler, 39, a transient, in the 1200 block of Mellen Street and booked him into the Lewis County Jail on suspicion of obstructing a public servant and for an outstanding warrant.

Display of Weapon Reported

 At 10:25 a.m. on Tuesday, police received a report in the 2300 block of North Pearl Street of a possible display of a weapon. An investigation is ongoing.

Woman Allegedly Used Another Persons Name to Avoid Arrest

 At 10:51 p.m. on Monday, police arrested Shirley S. Becker in the 500 block of Harrison Avenue and booked her into the Lewis County Jail on suspicion of criminal impersonation after she allegedly attempted to use another persons name to avoid being arrested on an outstanding warrant.

Alleged No Contact Order Violations

 At 8:27 a.m. on Tuesday, police arrested Louie P. Call, 34, of Yakima, in the 300 block of Yew Street and booked him into the Lewis County Jail on suspicion of violating a domestic violence no contact order.

 At 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, police arrested David E. Pejrano-Knutz, 31, of Centralia, in the 600 block of South King Street and booked him into the Lewis County Jail on suspicion of violating a no contact order.

Man Arrested on Suspicion of Possession of Heroin

 At 7:50 p.m. on Tuesday, police arrested Corey L. Hughes, 27, of Chehalis, in the 800 block of Harrison Avenue and booked him into the Lewis County Jail on suspicion of possession of heroin and for an outstanding warrant.

Man Arrested on Criminal Impersonation Charge

 At 11:02 p.m. on Tuesday, police arrested Jordan N. White, 24, of Chehalis, in the 2100 block of Haviland Street and booked him into the Lewis County Jail on suspicion of criminal impersonation and an outstanding warrant.

Chehalis Police Department

Woman Cited on Suspicion of Hit and Run

 At 12:32 p.m. on Monday, police cited and released Jamie D. Ayers, 21, of Chehalis in the 10 block of Southwest 12th Street on suspicion of hit and run unattended and operating a vehicle without insurance.

Man Arrested After Allegedly Attempting to Steal Radio Transmitter

 At 1:11 p.m. on Monday, police cited and released Robert T. Hendrickson, 32, of Rochester in the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue on suspicion of third-degree theft after he allegedly attempted to steal a radio transmitter.

Hit and Run Reported

 At 3:23 p.m. on Monday, police received a report in the 400 block of North Market Boulevard of a hit and run.

Man Reportedly Grabbed Ex Girlfriend By the Neck, Threatened To Damage Her Car

 At 10:11 p.m. on Tuesday, police received a report in the 500 block of Northeast Jefferson Avenue that a man grabbed his ex girlfriend by the neck and also threatened to damage her vehicle.

Lewis County Sheriffs Office

Man Allegedly Assaults Woman, Threatens To Kill Her

 At 2:14 a.m. on Wednesday, police arrested Timothy C. Clapp, 50, a transient, in the 700 block of Champion Paul Road in Glenoma and booked him into the Lewis County Jail on suspicion of second-degree assault-domestic violence, fourth-degree assault-domestic violence, unlawful imprisonment and harassment-death threat after he allegedly assaulted a female at a campground and threatened to kill her.

Lewis County Jail Statistics

As of Wednesday, the Lewis County Jail had a total system population of 144 inmates, including 116 in the general population, 27 in the work ethic and restitution center and one on work release. Of the 116 in the general population, 99 were male and 17 were female and of the 27 in WERC, 26 were male and one was female.
Athens, AL (35611)

Today

Thunderstorms with locally heavy downpours. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 87F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Showers and thundershowers early, then overcast overnight with occasional rain. A few storms may be severe. Low 63F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Apples Tim Cook, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Googles Sundar Pichai have all reportedly agreed to testify at a House antitrust hearing in late July. According to Kara Swisher (The New York Times, Recode), Rep. David Cicilline told her in an interview that the CEOs of the biggest tech companies in the world will appear in front of the Judiciary Committee. A spokesperson for the committee has also confirmed their attendance to CNBC.

Cicilline, who has become one of the biggest critics of the enormous power tech wields, said that Amazons Jeff Bezos, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Googles Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook of Apple will testify in front of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.  Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) July 1, 2020

If youll recall, the House has launched an investigation into the companies amid concerns that the tech giants are suppressing competition. Based on a previous Politico report, Cook was the last one to confirm his attendance. If Cook had declined to attend, the other executives wouldve probably declined, as well: Googles parent company Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon only agreed to make their CEOs available to testify if all four chiefs can make it to the hearing, the publication wrote.

As Axios noted, the hearing will give lawmakers a chance to question the executives before they release the results of their year-long probe and before they recommend any potential changes to the antitrust law. Its the first time all four executives are testifying in Congress with each other, though they may not be physically together in one place due to the pandemic. Axios sources said that the CEOs will appear at the hearing virtually, possibly in the last week of July.
TULSA, Okla.  Oklahoma Highway Patrol is reporting this morning that three OHP troopers were seriously injured just before 11 a.m. Thursday, July 2, 2020, in a crash while escorting fallen Tulsa Police Officer Sgt. Craig Johnson.

An investigating is ongoing into what occurred, according to OHP. Parts of the The Kilpatrick Turnpike between Broadway and Eastern were shut down until just before 3 p.m. Thursday.
The services celebrating and honoring the life of Loretta Ball, 91, of Enid are pending under the direction of Brown-Cummings Funeral Home. Condolences and special memories may be shared with the family online at WWW.Brown-Cummings.com.
Click for the latest, full-access Enid News & Eagle headlines | Text Alerts | app downloads

Ruthenberg is a multiple award-winning columnist and writer for the Enid News & Eagle. Contact him at daver@enidnews.com.

 The News & Eagle has traditionally published personal opinions of writers and readers through editorials, columns and letters to the editor on its Opinion Page. The opinions shared are those of the writers and not the newspaper.

 Submit your opinion for publication to editor@enidnews.com. Find out more about submitting letters to the editor at https://www.enidnews.com/opinion/.

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Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:44 pm

Clinicians at Cascade Mental Health Care have started an initiative called Empowered Youth of Washington (EYW) with the goal of promoting awareness about mental health and social and emotional learning among the youth living in Lewis County.

Shortly before the COVID-19 outbreak, clinicians held a few workshops at Centralia High School and the White Pass School District for middle school-aged children. Since in-person workshops havent been possible, the EYW program created a stronger presence on social media  using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, with the username empoweredyouth_of_wa, to create online communities for Lewis County youth.

The EYW community can be joined on Facebook at www.facebook.com/empoweredyouthofwa.

Weve developed social media platforms, weve reached thousands of people at this point, and we publish information about resources available in Lewis County for youth and articles about mental health wellness and awareness, said Sonya Wohletz, a grant writer at Cascade Mental Health Care and program coordinator for EYW.

The funding for the EYW comes from the Washington State Health Care Authority and their grant program called Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention. Cascade Mental Health Care was awarded $20,000 for two consecutive years. Wohletz said that after the first two years they hope to secure more funding to continue the program and expand it to more school districts.

Using a portion of the funding, Cascade Mental Health Care was able to fund suicide prevention training within the juvenile detention center in Lewis County.

Wohletz said that the benefits of the EYW program and talking with students about mental health are enormous.

In Lewis County, its more a rural area and theres kind of a stigma around behavioral health and mental health  thats something scary for people to talk about or seek treatment or to tell family and friends that they need help, theres a lot of shame around that and it shouldnt be that way, she said.

Wohletz said that in fall, she would like to get students involved in producing some of the content that gets posted to the social media account to give the youth more control over the program.

Theres a lot of things that happen around Lewis County that you dont necessarily hear about unless youre really involved in behavioral health work. Sometimes its just about getting the word out, she said.

Wohletz said that the more mental health is talked about the less stigma there is around the topic and younger people can realize that they are not alone in how they feel. The EYW aims to provide the youth with resources and mentors to provide support or more information.

We want kids to know that its OK to have certain struggles or issues, its a part of life but if you dont seek help or if you dont talk about it youre just going to bottle that up and its going to make it worse, said Wohletz. If you dont have the information then you dont get to empower yourself.

Sheryl Hill and Angelina Bowen are the two clinicians that taught the workshops at Centralia and White Pass Schools before the school closure. Bowen said that although the program was cut short she felt it was beneficial for students. She said she taught the students about mindfulness, having a wise mind which is a mix of emotional mind and logical mind.

At the high school level, Hill said she worked on empowering students by helping them identify who they want to be and breaking down the stigma around talking about mental health and asking for help.

If you empower people with knowledge and understanding there are fewer misunderstandings that lead to the bullying that happens in school and the rumor mill in highs schools which spreads like wildfire on social media, said Hill.

Hill said the program hopes to identify some student ambassadors to take on some of the responsibilities of posting on social media and to continue the in-person workshops when students return to school in the fall.
2020-07-02

Maeci

The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is pleased to advise that the Arbitral Tribunal constituted in The Hague pursuant to Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed on 10 December 1982 to resolve the dispute between Italy and India over the Enrica Lexie incident, which occurred on 15 February 2012 in the Indian Ocean, has published the dispositif of the Award. The MFA recalls that Italian Marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone returned from India to their country, respectively, on 13 September 2014 and 28 May 2016, and that the Arbitral Tribunal was called upon to rule on the allocation of criminal jurisdiction, and not on the merit of the events occurred on 15 February 2012 for purposes of ascertaining criminal responsibility. Italy and India committed themselves to exercising criminal jurisdiction, according to the allocation by the Tribunal as between the Parties.

The dispositif of the Award contains the following relevant decisions, namely:

 Italian Marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone are entitled to immunity from the jurisdiction of Indian courts in relation to the acts occurred during the incident of 15 February 2012; India is therefore precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over the Marines. The Arbitral Tribunal has therefore agreed on the Italian position that the Marines, being members of the Italian armed forces in the official exercise of their duties, cannot be tried by Indian courts.

 Taking note of the commitment expressed during the proceedings, Italy has to resume its criminal investigation into the Enrica Lexie incident, that had been opened by the Rome Public Prosecutor; India, on its part, is required to cease exercising its jurisdiction on the Marines.

 Italy breached the freedom of navigation provisions (articles 87 and 90) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. As a result of the breach, India is entitled to payment of compensation in connection with loss of life, physical harm, material damage to property and moral harm suffered by the captain and other crew members of the Indian fishing boat St. Anthony. The Arbitral Tribunal invites the two Parties to consult with a view to reaching agreement on the amount of compensation due.

Italy stands ready to fulfill the decision taken by the Arbitral Tribunal, in a spirit of cooperation.

The Ministry wishes to emphasize that the Award of the Tribunal does not make any determination of criminal responsibility in connection with the incident, which it will now be for the Italian judicial authorities alone to ascertain.

Acknowledgements are due to the legal team for the effective work performed in the protection of Italian legal interests before Indian and international courts and tribunals.
2020-07-02

Maeci

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Di Maio received today at the Farnesina Palace, seat of the Ministry of Foreign affairs, the Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization (WTO), Zurab Pololikashvili. The Secretary-General chose Italy for his first visit abroad on the launch of the United Nations #RestartTourism campaign. The campaign is a global initiative through which the WTO will promote the reopening of borders to tourism and boost economic recovery. Coordinated measures between the public and private sectors in full safeguarding the safety of citizens, will be implemented.

After thanking the Secretary-General for having chosen Italy as his first destination after the reopening of the borders, Minister Di Maio reiterated how the Italian action, even during the most acute phase of the crisis, has always been based on safeguarding the principle of freedom of movement within the European Union, compatibly with the priority need to defend public health. Italy and the European Union have worked and will work hard in recent weeks to ensure a gradual reopening of borders and international flights while increasing standards and sanitation protocols that allow tourists to enjoy Italian and European beauties in complete safety. In this regard, Minister Di Maio stressed that Italy is, today, thanks to the timely and transparent measures adopted by the government, a safe tourist destination.

Finally, Minister Di Maio and Secretary-General Pololikashvili agreed on the importance of developing a more sustainable global tourism industry which represents a further tool for the socio-economic development of the territories.
2020-07-01

Maeci

The Ministry's efforts to ensure that stranded compatriots all over the world can return home safely are not backtracked. Today alone, more than 580 people returned to Italy through air operations from Morocco, Oman, Kenya, and Niger.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 emergency, the Ministry, thanks to the incessant work of the Crisis Unit, Italian Embassies and Consulates abroad, has allowed the repatriation of about 107,200 compatriots from 121 countries, through 1,125 operations by air, land and sea.
2020-07-02

Maeci

Deputy Minister Emanuela Del Re participated, as keynote speaker, in the Crisis Governance Forum, organised by the International Development Law Organization (IDLO). The Conference focused on the role of good governance, justice and the rule of law in addressing the current health crisis and promoting a sustainable response to COVID-19.

The Deputy Minister recalled that Italy was the first European country to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. "While, hopefully, the worst phase of the crisis is now over in Italy, our experience is now available to those countries that are still struggling against the virus or are seriously affected by its socio-economic consequences" - Ms. Del Re said in her speech. The Deputy Minister also referred to the inter-institutional Committee meeting held on Tuesday at the Foreign Ministry, on Italy's contribution to the prevention of and global response to the pandemic: "a national platform comprising public and private players engaged in coordinating Italy's contribution in many sectors, with a view to building a unified and coherent response".

"This crisis poses crucial challenges for policymakers, but I believe it also offers us the opportunity to learn from this emergency, to better promote the rule of law and sustainable development and to improve local, national, international and global governance" - Ms. Del Re added - "The recovery will also be an 'opportunity' for all levels of government to rebuild more inclusive, equal, resilient and sustainable societies, enabling us to achieve the SDG 16, which is crucial for implementing the 2030 Agenda".
2020-07-02

Maeci

Yesterday a meeting was held, at the Foreign Ministry, between the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in charge of Internationalisation, the Hon. Manlio Di Stefano, and the leaders of the Italian fashion industry: the President of Confindustria Moda Claudio Marenzi, the Vice President Cirillo Marcolin, the Director General for Institutional Affairs, as well as the DG of Sistema Moda Italia Gianfranco Di Natale and the President of Sistema Moda Italia Marino Vago.

The meeting, which followed up on the signing of the "Pact for Export" by Confindustria and the launching of numerous legislative measures in favour of businesses, also as a result of the interaction developed during the most acute phase of the Covid emergency between the Foreign Ministry and the key players in the Italian fashion world, highlighted Confindustria Moda's willingness to adhere to the Pact, thus further strengthening the understanding between the Government and institutions for promoting Brand Italy the worldwide.

"Fashion - Undersecretary Di Stefano said - is a cornerstone not only of Italian manufacturing and exports, but of 'Brand Italy' as a whole. Together with the leadership of the Italian fashion industry we wanted to strengthen the strong partnership that exists between the Government and Confindustria, sealed on June 8 with the Pact for Export, by sharing the decision to extend the Pact to include Confindustria Moda. This advances the excellent collaboration established between the fashion industry and the Government, and furthers our commitment to work together over the next few months to systematically overcome the post-pandemic economic crisis".

"Confindustria Moda, with a turnover in excess of 95 billion, a membership of 67,000 businesses and over 600,000 employees, is a key pillar of Brand Italy on the international markets" - emphasised Claudio Marenzi, President of Confindustria Moda. "The dialogue with the Government enshrined in the Pact for Export, already undertaken by Confindustria, will be expressed in forms of collaboration and support for promoting exports, which is of fundamental importance for our companies, with the aim of narrowing the gap caused by the lockdown of recent months. Over the next two years, extraordinary measures will be necessary to keep the entire supply chain of the Italian fashion industry up and going, as a unique example of excellence worldwide, made up of huge brands and small businesses, all of which are essential for our social and employment fabric".
2020-07-02

Maeci

Vice Minister Marina Sereni had today a video call with the Greek Vice Foreign Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, Delegate for European Affairs. The theme of the interview was the recent assumption by Athens of the Presidency of the Council of Europe, at a particularly difficult time marked by the effects of the pandemic that poses new challenges also on the issues at the heart of the action of the Council of Europe: the strengthening and protection of democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

"Italy - said Sereni - is traditionally very committed to the Council of Europe and is one of its main subscribers. For this reason, we strongly support the commitment of the Greek Presidency focused on the consequences of the pandemic and the participation of the younger generations in European life. We will be present at the next ministerial meeting of the Council in Athens on 4A November, which, precisely because it coincides with the 70th anniversary of the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights in Rome, is particularly important. The period of the Greek Presidency also coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Venice Commission, which we hope to celebrate together as this important body deserves".

Italy will in turn take over the Presidency of the Council of Europe from November 2021.
Below please find a summary and link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. The summary below is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go. annals. org/ coronavirus . 1. How to Safely Reopen Colleges and Universities During COVID-19: Experiences From Taiwan

The safe reopening of colleges and universities this fall is an ongoing concern in many countries. Authors from several institutions, including the National Taiwan University, share the combination of strategies undertaken by universities in Taiwan to keep campuses open while maintaining the health and safety of students and faculty. They describe the plan in the backdrop of effective public health strategies undertaken in Taiwan to keep case counts of COVID-19 low. Read the full text: https:/ / www. acpjournals. org/ doi/ 10. 7326/ M20-2927 .

Editorial: Reopening Colleges and Universities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

There are important differences between Taiwan and other countries, but residential colleges and universities present similar challenges to pandemic control for all. Considering how well Taiwan has managed COVID-19 overall, the editorialists from Washington University, St. Louis believe that the plan for safely reopening colleges and universities in Taiwan offers important principles that may help to advise the United States and other countries. Read the full text: https:/ / www. acpjournals. org/ doi/ 10. 7326/ M20-4752 .

Media contacts: PDFs for these articles is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The lead author, Shan-Chwen Chang, MD, PhD, can be reached at changsc@ntu.edu.tw. The editorialist, Mark S. Wrighton, PhD, can be reached directly at wrighton@wustl.edu. 2. Urgent Issues Facing Immigrant Physicians in the U.S. in the COVID-19 Era

Physicians who received their medical training outside the United States constitute a substantial proportion of the physician workforce in states with a high burden of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Authors from HSHS St. John's Hospital in Springfield, Illinois, and Cleveland Clinic Foundation describe how immigrant physicians and their families also may be especially vulnerable because of several circumstances that relate to their visa status. Read the full text: https:/ / www. acpjournals. org/ doi/ 10. 7326/ M20-4103 .

Media contacts: PDFs for these articles is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The lead author, Vivekanand Tiwari, MD, can be reached at drtiwari2008@gmail.com.

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The bad news, not that anyone needs more of it: The dangers of COVID-19 could worsen if misinformation on social media continues to spread unchecked. Essentially, what people choose to share on social media about the pandemic could become a life-or death decision.

The good news? Though there is no practical way to fully stem the tide of harmful misinformation on social media, certain tactics could help improve the quality of information that people share online about this deadly disease.

New research reported in the journal Psychological Science finds that priming people to think about accuracy could make them more discerning in what they subsequently share on social media. In two studies that included more than 1,700 participants, researchers found that when people are asked directly about accuracy, they become more adept at recognizing truth from falsehoods than they otherwise would be.

"People often assume that misinformation and fake news is shared online because people are incapable of distinguishing between what is true and what is false," said Gordon Pennycook, with the University of Regina, Canada, and lead author on the paper. "Our research reveals that is not necessarily the case. Instead, we find that people tend to share false information about COVID-19 on social media because they simply fail to think about accuracy when making decisions about what to share with others."

This inattention to accuracy, he notes, is often compounded by what the researchers consider "lazy" thinking, at least as it pertains to considering the truth of news content on social media.

For their research, Pennycook and his team acquired a list of 15 false and 15 true headlines related to COVID-19. The veracity of the headlines was determined by using various fact-checking sites like snopes.com, health information from mayoclinic.com, and credible news sites like livescience.com. The headlines were presented to the participants in the form of Facebook posts. The participants were then asked if they thought the posts were accurate or if they would consider sharing them.

In the first of the two studies, Pennycook and his colleagues found that people often fail to consider accuracy when deciding what to share on social media, and they are more likely to believe and share falsehoods if they rely more on intuition or have less scientific knowledge than others.

In the second study, the researchers found that simply asking participants to rate the accuracy of one non-COVID-related headline at the beginning of the study-subtly nudging them to think about the concept of accuracy later in the study-more than doubled how discerning they were in sharing information.

These results, which are in line with previous studies on political fake news, suggest that a subtle mental nudge that primes the brain to consider the accuracy of information in general improves people's choices about what to share on social media.

"We need to change the way that we interact with social media," said Pennycook. "Individuals need to remember to stop and think about whether something is true before they share it with others, and social media companies should investigate potential ways to help facilitate this, possibly by providing subtle accuracy nudges on their platform."

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APS is the leading international organization dedicated to advancing scientific psychology across disciplinary and geographic borders. Our members provide a richer understanding of the world through their research, teaching, and application of psychological science. We are passionate about supporting psychological scientists in these pursuits, which we do by sharing cutting-edge research across all areas of the field through our journals and conventions; promoting the integration of scientific perspectives within psychological science and with related disciplines; fostering global connections among our members; engaging the public with our research to promote broader understanding and awareness of psychological science; and advocating for increased support for psychological science in the public policy arena.
Prospective teachers appear more likely to misperceive Black children as angry than white children, which may undermine the education of Black youth, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

While previous research has documented this effect in adults, this is the first study to show how anger bias based on race may extend to teachers and Black elementary and middle-school children, said lead researcher Amy G. Halberstadt, PhD, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. The study was published online in the APA journal Emotion.

"This anger bias can have huge consequences by increasing Black children's experience of not being 'seen' or understood by their teachers and then feeling like school is not for them," she said. "It might also lead to Black children being disciplined unfairly and suspended more often from school, which can have long-term ramifications."

In the study, 178 prospective teachers from education programs at three Southeastern universities viewed short video clips of 72 children ages 9 to 13 years old. The children's faces expressed one of six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise or disgust. The clips were evenly divided among boys or girls and Black children or white children. The sample was not large enough to determine whether the race or ethnicity of the teachers made a difference in how they perceived the children.

The prospective teachers were somewhat accurate at detecting the children's emotions, but they also made some mistakes that revealed patterns. Boys of both races were misperceived as angry more often than Black or white girls. Black boys and girls also were misperceived as angry at higher rates than white children, with Black boys eliciting the most anger bias.

Anger bias against Black children can have many negative consequences. While controlling for other factors, previous research has found that Black children are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than white children. Black children's negative experiences at school also could contribute to the disparate achievement gap between Black and white youth that has been documented across the United States, Halberstadt said.

Those in the study also completed questionnaires relating to their implicit and explicit racial bias, but their scores on those tests didn't affect the findings relating to Black children. However, those who displayed greater racial bias were less likely to misperceive white children as angry.

"Even when people are motivated to be anti-racist, we need to know the specific pathways by which racism travels, and that can include false assumptions that Black people are angry or threatening," Halberstadt said. "Those common racist misperceptions can extend from school into adulthood and potentially have fatal consequences, such as when police officers kill unarmed Black people on the street or in their own homes."

Previous research with adults in the United States has found that anger is perceived more quickly than happiness in Black faces, while the opposite effect was found for white faces. Anger also is perceived more quickly and for a longer time in young Black men's faces than young white men's faces.

"Over the last few weeks, many people are waking up to the pervasive extent of systemic racism in American culture, not just in police practices but in our health, banking and education systems," Halberstadt said. "Learning more about how these problems become embedded in our thought processes is an important first step."

Participants in the study were predominantly female (89%) and white (70%), mirroring the gender and race of most public-school teachers across the country. The study didn't include enough people of color from any single race or ethnicity (Hispanic 9%, Asian 8%, Black 6%, Biracial 5%, Native American 1%, and Middle Eastern 1%) to analyze separate findings based on the race or ethnicity of the participants.

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Article: "Racialized Emotion Recognition Accuracy and Anger Bias of Children's Faces," by Amy G. Halberstadt, PhD, Alison N. Cooke, PhD, Dejah Oertwig, MA, and Shevaun D. Neupert, PhD, North Carolina State University; Sherick Hughes, PhD, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and Pamela W. Garner, PhD, George Mason University, Emotion, published online July 2, 2020.

Full text of the article can be found online at https:/ / www. apa. org/ pubs/ journals/ releases/ emo-emo0000756. pdf .

Contact: Amy G. Halberstadt, PhD, may be contacted at Amy_Halberstadt@ncsu.edu.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 121,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
Posted Thursday, July 2, 2020 3:33 pm

A decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday opened the door for religious private schools to receive greater public assistance. While the ruling is significant, it's unlikely to have an immediate impact in Washington.

In the 5-4 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, the court ruled the Montana Supreme Court was wrong to strike down a tuition assistance program passed by the legislature. That program allowed up to $150 in tax credits for scholarships to private schools, including religious ones. The court's decision means states that provide funds to private secular schools must also provide funds to private religious schools.

Using public funds to support private religious schools has long been controversial because of the separation of church and state. There are 29 states that offer tax incentives for scholarships, or vouchers, to private schools. Under this ruling, those states might need to offer the same incentive for students who want to attend religious schools.

Washington is not one of those states. But there's a good chance that, as a result of this ruling, religious institutions might one day apply to open a publicly funded charter school, said Joel Paul, a constitutional law scholar at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

The Supreme Court's decision could be interpreted to mean the state can't deny aid to that charter school, he said. If a religious institution applied to be a public charter, Paul predicted the local school board would sue to stop it. "That would be a very big court fight," he said.

Washington entered the charter school arena in 2012, and has allowed charters to grow slowly; the Washington Charter School Association lists nine public charters, with five more set to open this fall. Last year, four charter schools in Washington closed abruptly.

The Supreme Court's decision was hailed by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has long favored government support for students who want to attend a religious school.

"This decision represents a turning point in the sad and static history of American education," she said in a statement, "and it will spark a new beginning of education that focuses first on students and their needs."

But Paul cautioned that if aid begins to flow to religious institutions, it could drain resources from public education.

While Washington doesn't provide money for scholarships to K-12 students, it does offer financial aid to college students attending many of the state's private schools -- including faith-based higher educational institutions, such as Seattle University, Pacific Lutheran University and Gonzaga University.
Parents battling their children's fussy eating have been given fresh hope thanks to an online resource proven to relieve the problem

Parents battling their children's fussy eating have been given fresh hope thanks to an online resource proven to relieve the problem.

With around half of toddlers and young children turning their noses up at certain foods - often healthy fruit and vegetables - many families face stressful mealtimes. And parents' reactions, often using unhealthy foods as a 'reward' or limiting access to them, can be counter-productive and lead to bad habits that last into adulthood.

But a new study has shown that the Child Feeding Guide, a free online resource developed by experts at Aston University and Loughborough University, not only helped mums who took part to change their approach to feeding but also reduced their own self-reported anxiety by nearly 20% in just four weeks.

In the UK, less than one in five children eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Studies show that unhealthy eating habits can persist into later life and are associated with a higher risk of health conditions such as diabetes.

From the age of about 18 months, between a third and half of children go through a period known as 'neophobia' - a fear of new things - in relation to food. This is thought to be an evolutionary development that stopped children from eating potentially poisonous food.

In the study, published in the Nutrition Bulletin journal, 25 mothers with children aged six months to four years used the Child Feeding Guide website over four weeks. Mothers provided information about their feeding practices and anxiety levels at baseline, and again four weeks later. They also answered questions on how they found using the digital resource.

Significant decreases were seen in mothers' own anxiety and in the use of 'pressure to eat' - trying to force children to eat foods they didn't want - and 'restriction of food' - hiding away unhealthy foods. Mothers reported that the guide was easy to use, that they valued its credibility and reassurances and that its content helped them to better understand their child's eating behaviour.

Amanda Alsop, 40, a charity worker from Wolverhampton and mum of two girls aged six and three, said using the Child Feeding Guide had helped her identify 'pitfalls' in how she addressed her first child's fussy eating, which she'd carried on using with her younger daughter.

"She didn't like certain textures or things mixed together on the plate," said Amanda. "I bought lots of toddler-friendly cookbooks but a lot of the recipes ended up on the floor!"

The Child Feeding Guide, she said, had helped her to stop "using food as a reward or bribe, or as a punishment", instead using stickers as rewards. "It also encouraged me not to have sweet treats in the house that the children could access," she added. "We do have sweet things but it's in moderation and it's not linked with their behaviour."

Both her daughters, Amanda said, were now willing to try a range of new foods. "I think a really important thing is that I'm more relaxed about it now. Before, I was so worried about whether I was doing the right thing I was getting stressed out and probably making things worse. It's changed my attitude."

Professor Claire Farrow, from Aston University, said:

"Many parents report that they worry about their child's health suffering from fussy eating, or that their children won't eat healthily in the future. What we're doing with the Child Feeding Guide is reassuring parents that this is very common and children do tend to grow out of fussy eating, but also that they can influence their child's eating by using an evidence-based approach."

Dr Emma Haycraft, a Reader in Psychology at Loughborough University, said the Child Feeding Guide was unique in explaining the reasons behind behaviours to parents.

"Making parents and caregivers aware of why their child might be refusing food or prefer eating pasta to carrots, and what they can do to help overcome this, is a key part of the Child Feeding Guide which users tell us they really value," she said.

More than 80,000 people have sought support from the Guide which Loughborough University's Dr Gemma Witcomb, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, described as "amazing".

She added: "It's fantastic to see how many families and professionals our support resource has been able to reach."

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Researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently developed a new platform for rapid chiral analysis, producing chromatogram-like output without the need for separation. The study was published in Cell Reports Physical Science.

Molecules not superimposable on their mirror images are chiral and play essential roles in the pharmaceutical industry, material sciences, and the origin of life. Distinguishing between mirror-image molecules is in great demand, but existing approaches usually achieve this goal with compromise in accuracy or efficiency.

Specifically, chromatographic methods resolve chiral molecules through easily interpretable chromatogram peaks, but require time-consuming separation. Chiroptical responsive systems allow in-situ chiral analysis, but are often plagued by sample interference issues.

In this study, the researchers developed a series of 19F-labeled chiral aluminum complexes that reversibly bind to various Lewis basic analytes.

The inclusion of chiral analytes to the confined binding pocket produced chromatogram-like 19F NMR signals, allowing rapid and unambiguous chiral analysis.

The method is operationally simple and effectively resolved a wide range of chiral molecules, including alcohols, ethers, amides, carbamates, oxazolidinones, sulfoxides, and sulfoximines.

The study shows that simultaneous analysis of three different classes of chiral compounds can be achieved in the absence of separation.

According to the researchers, the new method may also be used to determine the enantiopurity of crude reaction products and the assignment of absolute configurations. When used in conjunction with an autosampling NMR spectrometer, greater than 1,000 chiral analyses can be performed in a day.

"Such a method has the potential to simultaneously identify multiple analytes and existing interferences, which may eventually lead to real-time chiral analysis in complex biologically relevant systems," said ZHAO Yanchun, corresponding author of the study.

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This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the CAS Key Laboratory of Organofluorine Chemistry.
DALLAS (July 2, 2020) - Researchers at Center for BrainHealth, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, recently examined underlying brain networks in long-term cannabis users to identify patterns of brain connectivity when the users crave or have a desire to consume cannabis. While regional brain activation and static connectivity in response to cravings have been studied before, fluctuations in brain network connectivity had not yet been examined in cannabis users. The findings from this study will help support the development of better treatment strategies for cannabis dependence.

The study was published in the journal of Human Brain Mapping (May 2020) by researchers Francesca Filbey, PhD, professor and director of cognitive neuroscience research of addictive disorders at Center for BrainHealth, Hye Bin Yoo, PhD and Blake Edward Moya.

The findings add to the understanding that regions of the brain do not perform in isolation, but through connectivity of multiple brain networks that signal to each other depending on need and state. It further identifies that brain connectivity during craving is not static, but rather, has fluctuations in connection patterns between reward-related regions such as the central executive network and the nucleus accumbens, areas rich in dopamine. It also highlighted the need to better understand the impact of these dynamic patterns as it relates to cannabis use. Participants were examined with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner for these findings.

These findings further extend an earlier study published by Filbey et al in PNAS (August 2009), wherein the Filbey Lab described the first evidence of underlying neural mechanisms during cravings of cannabis users. The findings showed that chronic users not only have increased neural response in reward-related brain regions when there is a desire to consume cannabis, but that the magnitude of the response is associated with the severity of cannabis-related problems.

"Now that we have identified there are differences in large-scale brain network patterns in long-term cannabis users when there is craving, we can use these as biomarkers of cannabis use disorder to aid treatment strategies. Future studies are needed to determine how these brain network patterns might change over the course of treatment and recovery," said Dr. Filbey.

This study was helped funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Genetic and Environmental Modulators of the Brain's Response to Marijuana Cues" grant.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BRAINHEALTH

The Center for BrainHealth, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, is a research institute committed to enhancing, preserving and restoring brain health across the lifespan. Scientific exploration at the Center for BrainHealth is leading edge, improving lives today and translating groundbreaking discoveries into practical clinical application. By delivering science-based innovations that enhance how people think, work and live, the Center and its Brain Performance Institute are empowering people of all ages to unlock their brain potential. Major research areas include the use of functional and structural neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neurobiology supporting cognition and emotion in health and disease.
Russia celebrates Medical Worker Day on the third Sunday of June. This year, most holidays are being held online, and the Center for Diagnostics and Telemedicine celebrated its professional holiday online too. On June 21, Doctor's TV channel, with the support of the Center, held a virtual concert dedicated to the Medical Worker Day. Doctors, musicians, actors, TV hosts, and more than 800,000 spectators took part. The concert participants congratulated the entire medical community on their professional holiday and thanked them for the work done.

Unlike regular concerts, not only various celebrities but also members of the medical community went on air and shared their news and thoughts about recent changes. Professor Sergey Morozov, director of the Center for Diagnostics and Telemedicine, said that he was very proud of his colleagues, whose impetus to develop a COVID-19 dataset came about from working together during the pandemic. He also expressed his joy that in the last few months, new exciting collaborations and productive teams have begun. For example, just in time for this holiday, the Center for Diagnostics and Telemedicine launched a new information resource: tele-med.ai. Attractive interface, convenient navigation, and all the most relevant information are the three pillars on which the concept of this site rests. The site is intended for heads of departments of radiation diagnostics, doctors of the departments of radiology, radiology, functional diagnostics and ultrasound, and radiologists and specialists in related fields.

Tele-med.ai features thematic blocks related to the main areas of the Center: Medicine, Education, Science, and Laboratory. Also, on the start page of the site, visitors will find essential city projects. In particular, there is information about the Moscow breast cancer screening project and the artificial intelligence experiment. In addition, site users can read the latest news from the Center. Soon, the resource will offer new features. For example, an event calendar will display the announcement of all events. Also, shortly, users will have the opportunity to maintain their accounts. Registered users will be able to use these new features to:

- View their entire purchase history - Track their educational activities, as well as gain access directly to the training platform - Obtain access to selected content - Receive feedback from the Center, and much more.

Recognizing our medical heroes on the frontlines has never been more important than it is now in this critical time of COVID-19. Medical Worker Day has more poignancy and significance than ever, as is evidenced by the coming together in the virtual concert of many medical professionals across subdisciplines. The resultant tele-med.ai is an exciting new resource where doctors can get further information, improve their skills, and continue their professional development. Thanks to this website, we can now help also to increase the knowledge of medical professionals in the more rural areas, thus keeping the tradition of excellent medical practice in Russia.

Stanislav Samburskiy, CMO of the Center of Center of Diagnostics and Telemedicine, said that the site is currently available only in Russian, but an English version will be available soon.

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On May 5, 2020, news broke about a reportedly more contagious variant of SARS-CoV-2--the virus that causes COVID-19--based on a preliminary paper posted to the preprint server bioRxiv. The preprint stated that a variant of the virus with a particular mutation leading to an amino acid change, D614G, in its spike protein was "more transmissible" than other forms and represented an "urgent concern" for containment and vaccine development. But in the days that followed, criticisms of these assertions surfaced. On July 2, the journal Cell published a revised and peer-reviewed version of the paper that offers additional experimental and clinical data about the D614G variant suggesting that it may be more infectious, but concludes that we still cannot be certain about whether the variant makes SARS-CoV-2 more transmissible or leads to more severe disease.

"We could see at the time of our initial preprint submission that the G614 variant was becoming the predominant form globally, but we could not differentiate between three broad possibilities that might explain a fitness advantage," says lead author Bette Korber, a laboratory fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory whose research prior to her work on COVID-19 focused on the search for an HIV vaccine. "The added experiments in the published study point to enhanced infectivity due to the spike protein change as the favored hypothesis. But infectiousness and transmissibility are not always synonymous, and we hope others will study these viruses in greater detail with wild-type virus in natural infection settings and varied target cells."

"The Korber et al. paper has changed pretty considerably from what I saw in their preprint," says Nathan Grubaugh, a virologist at the Yale School of Public Health not affiliated with Korber's team and the lead author of a Preview contextualizing the paper, also published in Cell. "The in vitro data strengthened the clinical findings, both of which suggest that viruses containing the D614G mutation may be able to replicate to higher levels in human cells. But what we cannot say is that it is more transmissible or leads to more severe disease. Essentially, we don't know if this has had any meaningful impact on the COVID-19 pandemic."

While coronaviruses generally have low rates of mutation, Korber and her colleagues were concerned that even small mutations to SARS-CoV-2 could hinder efforts to understand and fight the virus. "We knew from our direct experience in the HIV field that in some cases, a single amino acid change can have a major phenotypic impact," she says. To that end, the team worked to develop a publicly available data-analysis pipeline that could mine SARS-CoV-2 sequences made available on the Global Initiative for Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database to help scientists explore potentially interesting mutations. They quickly identified the D614G variant as something to pay attention to: its key amino acid change from aspartic acid (D) to glycine (G) occurred on a protein that's crucial to how the virus infects human cells--and it was rapidly becoming the dominant version of the virus around the world.

The preprint of the paper focused on the development of this tool and offered an analysis of the global prevalence of the G variant of the virus. This analysis suggested that the G variant took over nearly everywhere it was introduced, which the team argued meant that it was outcompeting the D variant: it was better at jumping from human to human. Criticisms of the preprint argued that this conclusion overstated the results of the analysis, that the preprint lacked experimental evidence to show that the G variant was better at infecting human cells, and that the authors had ignored other possible explanations for its spread, such as the founder effect, where a mutation happens to land in an environment more suited to it becoming the dominant form.

To address these concerns and those of the peer reviewers, the researchers further segmented their geographic analysis in order to look at changes in the frequency of the D and G variants in all regions at country, state or province, and county or city levels. They added the dates of stay-at-home orders in various regions to their analysis to show that the G variant often continued to take over a region even after travel became restricted, limiting the possibility that it was simply being repeatedly imported. There was also more data available: approximately 30,000 global SAR-CoV-2 sequences to work with when the paper underwent revision after peer review as opposed to approximately 6,000 at the time the preprint was submitted. "The richer dataset supported our original observations and gave us more confidence in the results," Korber says. "We now show that in almost every case, G614 increased. There were very few exceptions to this pattern, and we characterize two of them, Iceland and Santa Clara county in California, in detail in the paper."

The researchers were also able to obtain additional clinical data (they looked at 999 patients from the United Kingdom as compared to 470 in the preprint) to show that patients infected with the G variant of the virus had higher levels of viral RNA, which is sometimes correlated with a higher viral load in the body. There was no difference in hospitalization outcomes for patients with one variant versus the other.

Perhaps most importantly, the revised paper now contains the results of two independently conducted sets of experimental studies to assess the infectivity of the G variant based out of the labs of Erica Ollmann Saphire at La Jolla Institute for Immunology and David Montefiori at Duke University. The researchers engineered versions of the virus with the glycine amino acid substitution and then tested how effectively they could infect human cells in a dish. "Virus particles containing the G form of spike on their surface were approximately 3-6 times more infectious," says Montefiori. "Because the only difference between the two sets of virus particles was D versus G at position 614, the increased infectivity can be directly attributed to the D614G mutation." He does note that there are limitations to these findings: the researchers weren't able to use wild-type viruses and did not study the respiratory system cells that SARS-CoV-2 naturally target. There are also other factors involved in real-life transmission of a virus from person to person that may not be accounted for. Despite the limitations, he says the findings are exciting because "they provide a possible biological explanation for the rapid spread of the G form of the virus across the globe."

"It seems likely that it's a fitter virus," agrees Saphire. Her lab was also able to show that antibodies from six people in the San Diego area who had already recovered from COVID-19 were just as effective at neutralizing both the D and G variants. She notes that the San Diegans were infected at a time when both D and G viruses circulated, so the team can't be sure which type the people were infected with, but their findings still show that a higher concentration of antibodies isn't needed to neutralize the new, apparently "fitter" variant despite the higher levels of viral RNA it produced. "That's good news," she says. "Human convalescent sera can neutralize the new virus just as well or perhaps just a bit better." This result suggests that for this particular variant, treatments and vaccines already in development--which are overwhelmingly focused on the spike protein and often based on the original version of the virus sequenced in Wuhan--could still be just as effective.

Korber and her colleagues are still glad they posted the preprint when they did. "We carefully weighed our options," Korber says. "These experimental assays were not easy to develop, and it seemed they were weeks or possibly months away at the time we published the preprint--this assessment turned out to be correct. It seemed important to get the G614 variant immediately into the queue for further study, and we feel our preprint accelerated efforts to enable comparisons of the D614 and G614 spike variants. We and others have now resolved that there is an apparent difference in infectivity between the two variants, and we were able to join in a new collaborative effort to this end that was enabled in part by the preprint."

"Computational analysis of sequence changes is always faster than wet lab experimentation," Saphire says. "Although coronaviruses have some proofreading capacity, mutations can emerge, and vigilance, surveillance, and continued study of the virus will be key to ensuring that the drugs, antibodies, and other interventions under development remain effective. This is the reason the pipeline was set up: to detect mutations that could be important in time to make the needed reagents, grow the necessary viruses, and do the experiments to understand if there is an effect."

"The global expansion of G614, whether through natural selection or chance, means that this variant now is the pandemic," notes Grubaugh in his Preview. Still, he argues that for the general public, these results don't really change much. "Mutation and evolution are natural parts of pandemics and viruses being viruses," he says. "Some of these can slightly change how a virus 'behaves,' but they are not switches that can make a virus suddenly an existential threat.

"While there are still important studies needed to determine if this will influence drug or vaccine development in any meaningful way, we don't expect that D614G will alter our control measures or make individual infections worse," he adds. "It's more of a live look into science unfolding: an interesting discovery was made that potentially touches millions of people, but we don't yet know the full scope or impact. We only just learned about this virus about six months ago, and we'll learn a lot more in the next six months."

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Funding information and acknowledgments are available in the paper.

Cell, Korber et al.: "Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: evidence that D614G increases infectivity of the COVID-19 virus" https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30820-5
Most bird species are slow to change their tune, preferring to stick with tried-and-true songs to defend territories and attract females. Now, with the help of citizen scientists, researchers have tracked how one rare sparrow song went "viral" across Canada, traveling over 3,000 kilometers between 2000 and 2019 and wiping out a historic song ending in the process. The study, publishing July 2 in the journal Current Biology, reports that white-throated sparrows from British Columbia to central Ontario have ditched their traditional three-note-ending song in favor of a unique two-note-ending variant--although researchers still don't know what made the new song so compelling.

"As far as we know, it's unprecedented," says senior author Ken Otter, a biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. "We don't know of any other study that has ever seen this sort of spread through cultural evolution of a song type." Although it's well known that some bird species change their songs over time, these cultural evolutions tend to stay in local populations, becoming regional dialects rather than the norm for the species. This is how the two-note ending got its start.

In the 1960s, white-throated sparrows across the country whistled a song that ended in a repeated three-note triplet, but by the time Otter moved to western Canada in the late 1990s and began listening to the local bird songs, the new two-note ending had already invaded local sparrow populations. "When I first moved to Prince George in British Columbia, they were singing something atypical from what was the classic white-throated sparrow song across all of eastern Canada," he says. Over the course of 40 years, songs ending in two notes, or doublet-ending songs, had become universal west of the Rocky Mountains.

Otter and his team used the large network of citizen scientist birders across North America who had uploaded recordings of white-throated sparrow songs to online databases to track the new doublet-ending song. They found that the song was not only more popular west of the Rocky Mountains, but was also spreading rapidly across Canada beyond these western populations. "Originally, we measured the dialect boundaries in 2004 and it stopped about halfway through Alberta," he says. "By 2014, every bird we recorded in Alberta was singing this western dialect, and we started to see it appearing in populations as far away as Ontario, which is 3,000 kilometers from us."

The scientists predicted that the sparrows' overwintering grounds were playing a role in the rapid spread of the two-note ending. "We know that birds sing on the wintering grounds, so juvenile males may be able to pick up new song types if they overwinter with birds from other dialect areas. This would allow males to learn new song types in the winter and take them to new locations when they return to breeding grounds, helping explain how the song type could spread," Otter says.

So the researchers harnessed sparrows with geolocators--what Otter calls "tiny backpacks"--to see if western sparrows who knew the new song might share overwintering grounds with eastern populations that would later adopt it. They found that they did. And not only did it appear that this rare song was spreading across the continent from these overwintering grounds, but it was also completely replacing the historic triple-note ending that had persisted for so many decades--something almost unheard of in male songbirds.

Otter and his team found that the new song didn't give male birds a territorial advantage over male counterparts, but still want to study whether female birds have a preference between the two songs. "In many previous studies, the females tend to prefer whatever the local song type is," says Otter. "But in white-throated sparrows, we might find a situation in which the females actually like songs that aren't typical in their environment. If that's the case, there's a big advantage to any male who can sing a new song type."

Now, another new song has appeared in a western sparrow population whose early spread may mirror that of the doublet-note ending. Otter and his team are excited to continue their work and see how this song shifts in real time with more help from citizen scientists. "By having all these people contribute their private recordings that they just make when they go bird watching, it's giving us a much more complete picture of what's going on throughout the continent," he says. "It's allowing us to do research that was never possible before."

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This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the University of Northern British Columbia, and Wilfrid Laurier University.

Current Biology, Otter et al.: "Continent-wide shifts in song dialects of white-throated sparrows" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30771-5
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 2, 2020-- Research out today in the journal Cell shows that a specific change in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus virus genome, previously associated with increased viral transmission and the spread of COVID-19, is more infectious in cell culture. The variant in question, D614G, makes a small but effective change in the virus's 'Spike' protein, which the virus uses to enter human cells.

Bette Korber, a theoretical biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study, noted, "The D614G variant first came to our attention in early April, as we had observed a strikingly repetitive pattern. All over the world, even when local epidemics had many cases of the original form circulating, soon after the D614G variant was introduced into a region it became the prevalent form."

Geographic information from samples from the GISAID COVID-19 viral sequence database enabled tracking of this highly recurrent pattern, a shift in the viral population from the original form to the D614G variant. This occurred at every geographic level: country, subcountry, county, and city.

Two independent lines of experimental evidence that support these initial results are included in today's paper. These additional experiments, led by Professor Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D., at the La Jolla Institute, and by Professor David Montefiori, Ph.D., at Duke University, showed that the D614G change increases the virus's infectivity in the laboratory. These new experiments, as well as more extensive sequence and clinical data and improved statistical models, are presented in the Cell paper. More in vivo work remains to be done to determine the full implications of the change.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has a low mutation rate overall (much lower than the viruses that cause influenza and HIV-AIDS). The D614G variant appears as part of a set of four linked mutations that appear to have arisen once and then moved together around the world as a consistent set of variations.

"It's remarkable to me," commented Will Fischer of Los Alamos, an author on the study, "both that this increase in infectivity was detected by careful observation of sequence data alone, and that our experimental colleagues could confirm it with live virus in such a short time."

Fortunately, "the clinical data in this paper from Sheffield showed that even though patients with the new G virus carried more copies of the virus than patients infected with D, there wasn't a corresponding increase in the severity of illness," said Saphire, who leads the Gates Foundation-supported Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium (CoVIC).

Korber noted, "These findings suggest that the newer form of the virus may be even more readily transmitted than the original form - whether or not that conclusion is ultimately confirmed, it highlights the value of what were already good ideas: to wear masks and to maintain social distancing."

Research partners from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Duke University, and the University of Sheffield initially published work on this analysis on the bioRxiv site in an April 2020 preprint. That work also included observations of COVID-19 patients from Sheffield that suggested an association of the D614G variant with higher viral loads in the upper respiratory tract.

"It is possible to track SARS-CoV-2 evolution globally because researchers worldwide are rapidly making their viral sequence data available through the GISAID viral sequence database", Korber said. Currently tens of thousands of sequences are available through this project, and this enabled Korber and the research team to identify the emergence of the D614G variant.

GISAID was established to encourage collaboration among influenza researchers, but early in the epidemic the consortium established a SARS-CoV-2 database, which soon became the de facto standard for sharing outbreak sequences among researchers worldwide.

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The study, "Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: evidence that D614G increases infectivity of the COVID-19 virus" (DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.06.043) was supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR); Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute; CoVIC, INV-006133 of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mastercard, Wellcome; private philanthropic support, as well as the Overton family; a FastGrant, from Emergent Ventures, in aid of COVID-19 research; and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Interagency Agreement No. AAI12007-001-00000, and the Los Alamos Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

Additional study authors included S. Gnanakaran, H. Yoon, J. Theiler, W. Abfalterer, N. Hengartner, E.E. Giorgi, T. Bhattacharya, B. Foley, K.M. Hastie, M.D. Parker, D.G. Partridge, C.M. Evans, T.M. Freeman, T.I. de Silva, C. McDanal, L.G. Perez, H. Tang, A. Moon-Walker, S.P. Whelan, C.C. LaBranche.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is managed by Triad, a public service oriented, national security science organization equally owned by its three founding members: Battelle Memorial Institute (Battelle), the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS), and the Regents of the University of California (UC) for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.
Awards come from DOE's Technology Commercialization Fund.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced more than $33 million in funding for 82 projects aimed at advancing commercialization of promising energy technologies and strengthening partnerships between DOE's National Laboratories and private-sector companies to deploy important technologies to the marketplace.

The awards are supported by the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), which is managed by DOE's Office of Technology Transitions (OTT). All the TCF awards will be matched by funds from the private-sector partners.

"When we allow the nation's entrepreneurs and creators to harness the full power of our National Lab complex, we build strong connections that energize this process and bolster American competitiveness." -- Conner Prochaska, Department of Energy's Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of DOE's Office of Technology Transitions

DOE's Argonne National Laboratory received $3.15 million to fund eight projects.

"In order to maintain America's technological leadership on the global stage, the Trump Administration has tapped an unprecedented response from government, academia, and our mission-critical, private-sector innovators to advance U.S. technology," said Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. "The Technology Commercialization Fund is a critical component of the Department's commercialization strategy, meant to provide a bridge that connects America's innovators to the research and expertise of our world-class National Lab system."

The full list of this year's TCF selections and the private-sector partners can be found on the OTT website.

"The TCF model is an important link in the U.S. energy innovation ecosystem, beginning at basic science research and development and reaching maturity in the form of commercial products and services," said DOE Chief Commercialization Officer and OTT Director Conner Prochaska. "When we allow the nation's entrepreneurs and creators to harness the full power of our National Lab complex, we build strong connections that energize this process and bolster American competitiveness."

Argonne researchers whose projects received 2020 funding are:

Moinuddin Ahmed: A comprehensive validation methodology for benchmarking wide bandgap power devices for aerospace applications and improving manufacturing processes. ($ 250 , 000 ; in partnership with Kyma Technologies, Raleigh, North Carolina)

, ; in partnership with Kyma Technologies, Raleigh, North Carolina) Essam El-Hannouny: Dual-fuel technology for diesel combustion engines. ($ 650 , 000 ; in partnership with Progress Rail, A Caterpillar company, La Grange, Illinois)

, ; in partnership with Progress Rail, A Caterpillar company, La Grange, Illinois) Aaron Greco: Advanced drivetrain lubricants for enhanced reliability in harsh conditions. ($ 1 , 000 , 000 ; in partnership with Exxon Mobil, Annondale, New Jersey; GE Renewable Energy, Schenectady, New York; National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado; Pixelligent Technologies, Baltimore, Maryland; and University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia)

, , ; in partnership with Exxon Mobil, Annondale, New Jersey; Renewable Energy, Schenectady, New York; National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado; Pixelligent Technologies, Baltimore, Maryland; and University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia) Jie Li: Preparing large area of thermochromic nanocomposite films for smart window application. ($ 250 , 000 ; Anton Moisseytsev: Extending Plant Dynamics Code ( PDC ) capabilities to TerraPower direct-cycle supercritical CO 2 ("Pascal") nuclear reactor concept. ($ 250 , 000 ; in partnership with TerraPower, Bellevue, Washington)

, ; Anton Moisseytsev: Extending Plant Dynamics Code ( ) capabilities to TerraPower direct-cycle supercritical ("Pascal") nuclear reactor concept. ($ , ; in partnership with TerraPower, Bellevue, Washington) Subramanian Sankaranarayanan: A user-friendly AI manufacturing toolkit for generation of metastable phase diagram ($ 250 , 000 ; in partnership with Sentient Science, West Lafayette, Indiana and United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, Connecticut)

manufacturing toolkit for generation of metastable phase diagram ($ , ; in partnership with Sentient Science, West Lafayette, Indiana and United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, Connecticut) Dileep Singh: Binder jet additive manufacturing of nickel-alloy-based, low-cost heat exchangers for harsh environments. ($ 250 , 000 ; in partnership with ExOne Company, St. Clairsville, Ohio) Demonstration of Ceramicrete as a robust geothermal well cement. ($ 250 , 000 )



Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https:/ / energy. gov/ science .

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Lugano, Switzerland, 2 July 2020 - Artificial intelligence (AI) holds promise for enabling earlier detection of pancreatic cancer, which is crucial to saving lives. The potential of AI is showcased in a study to be presented at the ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer, 1-4 July 2020. (1, 2)

Overall, 12 in every 100,000 people develop pancreatic cancer. This means that screening everyone would be inefficient and would expose many people to unnecessary tests and potential side-effects. Between 70-80% of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage when it is too late for curative treatment and five years after diagnosis, just 6% of patients have survived.

Screening helps identify cancer early, when treatments are most effective, thus improving survival. There are two main requirements for screening. First, a screening test that is easy to perform and has few side-effects. Second, a defined group that would benefit most from screening because they are at higher risk. For example, breast cancer screening involves mammography in women aged 50 to 71 years. AI could be the desperately needed answer to define a group of higher risk individuals that would benefit from screening, especially as recently some promising results have indicated that non-invasive tests for pancreatic cancer may soon be available.

It is known that patients who develop pancreatic cancer consult their general practitioner (GP) with non-specific symptoms such as gastrointestinal problems or back pain more frequently in the months and years prior to diagnosis compared with their peers who do not develop pancreatic cancer. Individually, these symptoms are unlikely to trigger further investigations for cancer. Researchers came up with the idea that AI could find a combination of these non-specific symptoms that is linked with higher risk of contracting the disease, which would be difficult to spot by GPs.

This preliminary study used electronic health records from GP practices in the UK. (3) The analysis included 1,378 patients aged 15-99 years diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2005 to 2010. Each patient was matched by age and sex to four people who did not get pancreatic cancer. Information on symptoms, diseases, and medications in the two years prior to diagnosis were used to create a model predicting who would develop pancreatic cancer. "We used AI to study a large volume of data and look for combinations that predict who will develop pancreatic cancer," said study author Dr. Ananya Malhotra, research fellow in statistics, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK. "It's not possible for the human eye to recognise these trends in such large amounts of data."

The pilot study found that in people under 60 years of age, the model could predict who was at higher risk of pancreatic cancer up to 20 months before diagnosis. "Our model has estimated that around 1,500 tests need to be performed to save one life from pancreatic cancer," explained Malhotra. "This is unlikely to be small enough to make screening viable just yet. However, it shows that AI holds potential to narrow down the number of people we need to screen. We should be able to reduce this quite a lot further by matching pancreatic cancer patients to controls from the general population, which is what we plan to do next (in the current study, the controls had other types of cancer)."

"Pairing this predictive model with a non-invasive screening test, followed by scans and biopsies, could lead to earlier diagnosis for a significant proportion of patients and a greater number of patients surviving this cancer," added Malhotra.

Using AI to identify people at high-risk of pancreatic cancer up to 20 months earlier could make the difference between life and death. "This should be enough time to screen for pancreatic cancer, then proceed with diagnosis and treatment in patients with a positive screening test," said Dr. Angela Lamarca, consultant in medical oncology, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK. "Early diagnosis in pancreatic cancer gives the highest chance of cure."

According to Lamarca, GPs could use this type of AI model on their medical records to highlight patients at higher risk. An alarm could be raised showing who should receive screening. She said: "We need bigger studies incorporating AI tools into daily clinical practice and exploring the benefit of screening the patients selected by AI. More research is also needed to find a good screening test for these high-risk patients."

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Notes to Editors

Please make sure to use the official name of the meeting in your reports: ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer?

Official Congress Hashtag: #WorldGI2020

Disclaimer

This press release contains information provided by the author of the highlighted abstract and reflects the content of this abstract. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of ESMO who cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the data. Commentators quoted in the press release are required to comply with the ESMO Declaration of Interests policy and the ESMO Code of Conduct.

References

1 Abstract -SO-13 'Can we screen for pancreatic cancer? Identifying a sub-population of patients at high risk of subsequent diagnosis using machine learning techniques applied to primary care data' will be presented by A. Malhotra during Session V: Molecular Screening; Imaging; Artificial Intelligence on Thursday, 2 July 2020, 18:50 to 20:21 (CEST). Annals of Oncology: doi.org/10.1016/j.annonc.2020.04.028

2 ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer https:/ / www. worldgicancer. com/

3 This study was funded by the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology. With more than 25,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 160 countries worldwide, ESMO is the society of reference for oncology education and information. ESMO is committed to offer the best care to people with cancer, through fostering integrated cancer care, supporting oncologists in their professional development, and advocating for sustainable cancer care worldwide. Visit http://www. esmo. org

About the ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer

The ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer represents the year's most important gathering designed to focus on reversing the current global statistics that rank gastrointestinal malignancies as the leading causes of cancer deaths worldwide.

SO-13 - Can we screen for pancreatic cancer? Identifying a sub-population of patients at high risk of subsequent diagnosis using machine learning techniques applied to primary care data

A. Malhotra1, B. Rachet1, A. Bonaventure2, S. Pereira3, L. Woods1

1London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom; 2CRESS, University of Paris, Paris, France; 3UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, London, United Kingdom

Background: Ninety-four percent of pancreatic cancer patients die within 5 years of their diagnosis. Most patients experience no obvious symptoms until the tumour is well advanced. It is now possible, via a blood test, to detect pancreatic cancer before symptoms of late-stage disease are evident. However, in order to be cost-effective, this test should only be applied to a limited group of individuals.

Methods: We conducted a national, population-based, case-control study to deter-mine whether it is possible to identify a sub-population of patients at high risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Our hypothesis was that patients with early malignancy share similar profiles of early, diffuse, warning signs which might be detectable through the application of machine learning approaches. We used the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), linked to the national cancer registrations. Our cases comprised of 1,378 patients, aged 15-99 years, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2010. Each case was individually age- and diagnosis time-matched to four non-pancreatic (cancer) controls. Disease, symptom and prescription codes for the 24 months prior to diagnosis were used to define 58 individual symptoms. Using a machine learning approach, we fitted logistic regression and random forest models. These models were trained on 75% of the data and tested on the remaining 25%.

Results: Preliminary results show that diagnosis could be accurately predicted for 60%of the patients below the age of 60 using their medical history recorded between 20-24 months before diagnosis with an AUC of 61%, sensitivity of 76% and a specificity of 45%.

Conclusion: A sub-population of patients later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is detectable up to 20 months before diagnosis. Further work should test the performance of the model for longer time periods as well as its effectiveness in a population-based setting. These data suggest that early detection of pancreatic cancer is possible. Pairing this predictive model with a screening test could lead to earlier diagnosis and a greater number of patients surviving this devastating disease.

Legal entity responsible for the study: The authors.

Funding: Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund.

Disclosure: The presenting author has declared no conflicts of interest.
The Earth's crust is under constant stress. Every now and then this stress is discharged in heavy earthquakes, mostly caused by the slow movement of Earth's crustal plates. There is, however, another influencing factor that has received little attention so far: intensive erosion can temporarily change the earthquake activity (seismicity) of a region significantly. This has now been shown for Taiwan by researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in cooperation with international colleagues. They report on this in the journal Scientific Reports.

The island in the western Pacific Ocean is anyway one of the most tectonically active regions in the world, as the Philippine Sea Plate collides with the edge of the Asian continent. 11 years ago, Typhoon Morakot reached the coast of Taiwan. This tropical cyclone is considered the one of the worst in Taiwan's recorded history.

Within only three days in August 2009, three thousand litres of rain fell per square metre. As a comparison, Berlin and Brandenburg receive an average of around 550 liters per square meter in one year. The water masses caused catastrophic flooding and widespread landsliding. More than 600 people died and the immediate economic damage amounted to the equivalent of around 3 billion euros.

The international team led by Philippe Steer of the University of Rennes, France, evaluated the earthquakes following this erosion event statistically. They showed that there were significantly more small-magnitude and shallow earthquakes during the 2.5 years after typhoon Morakot than before, and that this change occurred only in the area showing extensive erosion. GFZ researcher and senior author Niels Hovius says: "We explain this change in seismicity by an increase in crustal stresses at shallow depth, less than 15 kilometres, in conjunction with surface erosion". The numerous landslides have moved enormous loads, rivers transported the material from the devastated regions. "The progressive removal of these loads changes the state of the stress in the upper part of the Earth's crust to such an extent that there are more earthquakes on thrust faults," explains Hovius.

So-called active mountain ranges, such as those found in Taiwan, are characterized by "thrust faults" in the underground, where one unit of rocks moves up and over another unit. The rock breaks when the stress becomes too great. Usually it is the continuous pressure of the moving and interlocking crustal plates that causes faults to move. The resulting earthquakes in turn often cause landslides and massively increased erosion. The work of the GFZ researchers and their colleagues now shows for the first time that the reverse is also possible: massive erosion influences seismicity - and does so in a geological instant. Niels Hovius: "Surface processes and tectonics are connected in the blink of an eye." The researcher continues: "Earthquakes are among the most dangerous and destructive natural hazards. Better understanding earthquake triggering by tectonics and by external processes is crucial for a more realistic assessment of earthquake hazards, especially in densely populated regions."

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Original study: Steer, P. et al. "Earthquake statistics changed by typhoon-driven erosion"; Scientific Reports; DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67865-y

Link: http://www. nature. com/ articles/ s41598-020-67865-y

Scientific contact:

Prof. Dr. Niels Hovius

Head of Section Geomorphology

Tel:+49 331 288-28810

niels.hovius@gfz-potsdam.de
Posted Thursday, July 2, 2020 9:46 am

Joseph Bud Kerr died Sunday, June 28, 2020. He was enormously courageous. When he was tested on the battlefield in Vietnam, Bud earned many metals, some many times over. He literally went into smoke and fire to pull men out of deadly situations.

Bud saved both American and Vietnamese lives. He refused to fire on a village that was firing on him because of the civilian casualties which would have occurred.

It took a heart attack and a massive stroke to finally bring him down. The people in the Soldiers Home in Orting helped him to stay alive for the past two years.

Not without his weaknesses, he has been a man of importance and courage. Bud was a man to be reckoned with, he was a man.

A graveside service with military honors will be held Wednesday, July 8, 2020, at 11:30 a.m., at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent.

Please sign online guestbook at www.tuellmckee.com.
Hunger-Blocking Hormone Reverses Opioid Overdose In Mice

Media Contact: Vanessa McMains, vmcmain1@jhmi.edu

In 2018, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine showed that delivering the hunger-suppressing hormone leptin into the nose could ease breathing problems in sleeping obese mice. In addition to its role in metabolism, leptin stimulates breathing and combats obstructive sleep apnea -- a condition in which a person's airway collapses and blocks oxygen intake while sleeping. Apnea is more common in people who are obese.

In a new study published in the July 1, 2020, issue of the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, the researchers report that the same nasal delivery method for leptin also can stimulate respiration in obese mice that stop breathing when on morphine.

When on opioids, people with sleep apnea are likely to have more breathing pauses than those who are not medicated. This can lead to overdose and potentially, death. If someone who has sleep apnea is admitted to a hospital for trauma, the patient may be given high doses of opioids to relieve pain. This puts them at increased risk of an overdose and its complications. If this happens and the patient stops breathing, physicians can administer naloxone to negate the opioids and trigger the person to breathe again. However, the opioid's pain-relieving benefit is removed.

"We believe that if we can confirm our mouse study findings in human trials, applying leptin nasally would be highly useful in hospital trauma settings to keep patients safe while at the same time still treating their pain," says Vsevolod Polotsky, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

In their experiments, the researchers showed that obese mice on morphine given leptin nasally had more airflow and their airways opened wider than control mice not given the hormone. When a mouse was given enough morphine to stop breathing, a single injection of leptin to the nose restarted the animal's respiration. Additionally, the mice given leptin retained morphine's pain-suppressing effects as measured by a flick to the tail.

Scientists Develop Method to Reveal the Cell Types Most Affected By Genetic Variation

Media Contact: Vanessa Wasta, wasta@jhmi.edu

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine have found types of cells in the brain that are most susceptible to inherited genetic variants linked to schizophrenia. As a result, their work reveals a shortlist of the variants that most likely impact disease risk.

Details of the scientists' analysis, published April 17, 2020, in Genome Research, compared human genetic studies with data on how DNA is folded in mouse cells, including a diversity of brain cells.

"Every common disease has a major genetic component at its root," says Andrew McCallion, Ph.D., professor of genetic medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Studying genomes across human populations helps us find the genetic landmarks that are linked to disease, but these often don't give us the biological insight that pinpoints the cells in which that variation acts to impact disease risk."

For example, says McCallion, the functional region of a gene variant may act differently in the liver than in a brain cell.

For the study, McCallion and doctoral candidate Paul Hook aimed to find the specific cell types in the brain that show the most evidence of being affected by heritable variations in the genome linked with schizophrenia. To find genetic variants among human populations, scientists traditionally use data on the genetic sequence of DNA, or the chemical code that forms our DNA. However, other information about our DNA, such as which genes are turned on or off and how the DNA is folded in different cells reveals patterns that can shed light on what cell types are more likely to be affected by genetic variations in diseases. These variations could make the difference between inheriting risk for a condition such as schizophrenia or not.

One major challenge of human genetic studies is that even when scientists link a region of the genome to disease risk, there may be tens or even hundreds of variants in that location. McCallion and his lab search for ways to systematically use biological data to refine those long lists.

Information on how DNA, packaged with proteins as chromatin, is folded can tell scientists which regions of the genome may be activating genes in different cells at any point in time. Opening the tight constraints of chromatin allows critical proteins access to the DNA-encoded gene switches to start the process of making proteins. Yet, most of the data about chromatin folding in humans has come from cell samples among areas of the body that are easy to access.

For studying neurological disorders, those purified cell samples -- embedded deep in the brain -- are hard to come by, making it difficult for scientists to make progress on understanding disease origins. McCallion says scientists recently showed that cells from mouse brains often use the same gene "on-off" switches as in humans.

As a proof of principle, McCallion and Hook compared patterns among 25 sets of data on chromatin folding in a diverse range of mouse brain cells with 64 studies of human traits and their associated genetic variation. Their study of chromatin folding patterns in mice revealed a subset of cell types in which more than 170 regions of the human genome have been linked to increased risk for schizophrenia.

Then, the researchers drilled down into the 25 mouse cell datasets to find chromatin folding patterns among six types of brain cells that appear highly important to the origins of schizophrenia.

Looking layer by layer among cells in the cerebral cortex, they found the most similarities between genetic variants and chromatin folding in layers four and five.

McCallion and Hook also identified a short list of 281 variants (reduced from 62,000) that are most likely to increase schizophrenia risk and should be studied further.

The data confirm other genomic studies identifying the cerebral cortex as important for the biologic underpinnings of schizophrenia, McCallion notes, but their work goes further by implicating precise cell layers affected and predicting which variants impact risk.

"Using chromatin data from mice along with studies of human genomic variations can be an important model in identifying cell populations most impacted by genetic variation," he says.

Eventually, the findings can help scientists map precise locations for disease impact, says McCallion, and develop therapies that are targeted more specifically to cells in those locations.

Study Suggests Women Plastic Surgery Residents Rate Their Performance Harsher Than Do Men

Media Contact: Michael E. Newman, mnewma25@jhmi.edu

Recent news headlines, such as "Gender gap in self-promotion penalizes women," "Women less inclined to self-promote than men" and "Men exaggerate their importance at work while women do the exact opposite," vividly portray a long-standing problem in the working world: Women often do not evaluate their on-the-job performance accurately. This can create an undeserved gender bias that may result in severe disparities between the sexes in opportunities for leadership roles, career advancement and pay increases.

The medical community is not immune to these disparities. Research suggests that women in medical professions tend to follow the disturbing trend of not assessing their performance properly. Now, investigators at three medical institutions led by Johns Hopkins Medicine have added another group to the list: plastic surgery residents. The researchers showed in a recent study that by the second year of a residency program, self-assessment performance ratings by residents differed significantly from the evaluations by their attending physicians, but not surprisingly, in opposite directions according to gender. Male residents scored themselves much higher than did their advisers, while female residents rated themselves much lower.

"It appears based on our findings that for plastic surgery residents, it takes a year before the gender bias in performance evaluation develops," says Carisa Cooney, M.P.H., assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the study published online on April 23, 2020, in The American Journal of Surgery.

"During the first year of the residency program, we found that both male and female residents significantly underrated their performance," she explains. "However, the men moved their evaluations upward in post graduate years 2 to 6, while the women continued to significantly underrate themselves over the same period."

The study team -- including researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine, the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Texas -- examined more than 8,100 evaluations made by 64 residents (25% women) and 51 attending surgeons (29% women) during training programs at the three institutions.

Based on their findings, the researchers recommend more studies to determine the reasons for the gender differences in self-assessments and to provide guidance for developing measures to reduce or eliminate bias.

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Researchers in the ERATO Saitoh Spin Quantum Rectification Project in the JST Strategic Basic Research Programs have elucidated the mechanism of the hydrodynamic power generation using spin currents(1) in micrometer-scale channels, finding that power generation efficiency improves drastically as the size of the flow is made smaller.

In a microchannel, the flow takes on a state referred to as laminar flow (2), where a micro-vortex-like liquid motion is distributed widely and smoothly throughout the channel. This leads to properties that are more suitable to miniaturization, and an increase in power generation efficiency. Group leader Mamoru Matsuo, et al., predicted the basic theory of fluid power generation using spin currents in 2017, and in this present study, the researchers experimentally demonstrate the fluid power generation phenomenon in the laminar flow region. As a result of experiments, they confirm that in the laminar flow region, energy conversion efficiency was increased by approximately 100,000 times.

The characteristics of the spin fluid power generation phenomenon in laminar flows that they elucidate in this research are that an electromotive force proportional to flow velocity can be obtained, and that conversion efficiency increases as flow size decreases. Also, whereas hydroelectric power generation (also known as fluid power generation) and magnetohydrodynamic power generation(3) require additional equipment such as turbines and coils, the phenomenon in the research requires almost no additional equipment, both inside and outside of the flow channel. Due to these characteristics, application to spintronics-based nanofluidic devices such as liquid metal flow cooling mechanisms in fast breeder reactors or semiconductor devices, as well as application to flowmeters that electrically measure micro-flows, can be hoped for.

(1) Spin current

The flow of spin angular momentum. For example, electrons have a charge (an electrical degree of freedom) and a spin angular momentum (a magnetic degree of freedom), where the flow of the former is called an electric current and the flow of the latter is called a spin current.

(2) Laminar flow

Flow within a channel is characterized primarily by flow-velocity, size and viscosity. In a low-velocity flow in a small-sized channel, viscosity dominates, and the fluid will flow regularly, and in layers, along the channel axis. This is referred to as laminar flow.

(3) Magnetohydrodynamic power generation

When a charged particle moves in a magnetic field, it is subjected to a force (Lorentz force) that is perpendicular to both the particle's direction of motion and the direction of the magnetic field. Particles with charges of the same polarity (positive or negative) are subjected to a force in the same direction, and move in one direction. As a result, electric charge accumulates at the destination of the particles' movement. Magnetohydrodynamic power generation is a power-generation method that uses the potential difference (electromotive force) generated from this accumulation.

This research was conducted under the ERATO Saitoh Spin Quantum Rectification Project of the JST Strategic Basic Research Programs. The members of the project are as follows: Research Director, Eiji Saitoh (Professor, University of Tokyo), Group leader, Sadamichi Maekawa (senior researcher at RIKEN), Group leader, Mamoru Matsuo (former deputy chief researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, currently associate professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences), Vice Group leader, Hiroyuki Chudo (deputy chief researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency), Research Supporter, Ryo Takahashi (former postdoctoral researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, currently assistant professor at Ochanomizu University).

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Kessler Foundation and University of New Hampshire nTIDE Report -- featuring the nonprofit National Organization on Disability, which guides business in best practices for diversifying workplaces with employees with disabilities

East Hanover, NJ - July 2, 2020 - June job numbers marginally improved for Americans with and without disabilities, but the future remains uncertain as many states report recent spikes in COVID-19 cases, according to today's National Trends in Disability Employment - Monthly Update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire's Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD).

nTIDE COVID Update (month-to-month comparison)

In the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Jobs Report released Thursday, the employment-to-population ratio for working-age people with disabilities increased from 27.7 percent in May to 28.4 percent in June (up 2.5 percent or 0.7 percentage points). For working-age people without disabilities, the employment-to-population ratio also increased from 65.2 percent in May to 67.7 percent in June (up 3.8 percent or 2.5 percentage points). The employment-to-population ratio, a key indicator, reflects the percentage of people who are working relative to the total population (the number of people working divided by the number of people in the total population multiplied by 100).

"For the second consecutive month, we are seeing indications that people with and without disabilities returned to work as businesses opened up," said John O'Neill, PhD, director of employment and disability research at Kessler Foundation. "However, keep in mind, these statistics are for the week of June 7th through 13th and thus do not reflect recent re-openings and closures of businesses as COVID-19 continues to affect the U.S," he added.

The labor force participation rate for working-age people with disabilities increased from 34.2 percent in May to 34.4 percent in June (up 0.6 percent or 0.2 percentage points). For working-age people without disabilities, the labor force participation rate also increased from 74.8 percent in May to 76.2 percent in June (up 1.9 percent or 1.4 percentage points). The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the population that is (a) working, (b) not working and on temporary layoff, or (c) not working and actively looking for work.

"While these numbers are positive, there are continuing concerns that the longer closures last, the more workers will lose their jobs permanently after being on furlough, and will stop looking for work and thus exit the labor force," explained economist Andrew Houtenville, PhD, research director of the University of New Hampshire's Institute on Disability. "With the recent surge in identified COVID-19 cases, we will need to continue to monitor the employment situation of people with disabilities."

nTIDE July COVID Update - Friday, July 17 at 12:00 pm Eastern

Stay tuned for more about the employment of people with disabilities as we follow the impact of COVID-19 and look at the numbers in more detail.

Traditional nTIDE Numbers (comparison to the same time last year)

The employment-to-population ratio for working-age people with disabilities decreased from 31.0 percent in June 2019 to 28.4 percent in June 2020 (down 8.4 percent or 2.6 percentage points). For working-age people without disabilities, the employment-to-population ratio also decreased from 74.9 percent in June 2019 to 67.7 percent in June 2020 (down 9.6 percent or 7.2 percentage points).

The labor force participation rate for working-age people with disabilities increased from 33.9 percent in June 2019 to 34.4 percent in June 2020 (up 1.5 percent or 0.5 percentage points). For working-age people without disabilities, the labor force participation rate decreased from 77.8 percent in June 2019 to 76.2 percent in June 2020 (down 2.1 percent or 1.6 percentage points).

For reference, in June 2020, among workers ages 16-64, there were 4,152,000 workers with disabilities, which is 3.1 percent of the total 133,634,000 workers in the U.S.

Beyond the Numbers

The abrupt onset of the COVID economy has stressed every aspect of employment for people with disabilities - individuals striving to work, caregivers striving to provide support, businesses striving to maintain staff, and service providers striving to maintain their connections with clients and employers. To maximize the inclusion of workers with disabilities in the new economy, organizations that support disability employment are monitoring the changing landscape and resetting their priorities.

The private nonprofit National Organization on Disability (NOD) provides expert guidance to businesses seeking to meet their human resource needs with talented jobseekers with disabilities. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the U.S., NOD's Disability Employment Professional Services adapted to meet employers' needs to cope with new challenges to their inclusive workforces. Among the top priorities - the need to expand digital accessibility to accommodate remote work and collaboration. Expanding access through communications technology may benefit businesses longer term, creating new opportunities and fostering greater diversity in the workplace, according to NOD's Corporate Leadership Council. Employers also cited mental health issues and caregiver stress, both exacerbated by pandemic restrictions, among the pressing challenges they need to address with their workers with disabilities.

Through its COVID-19 Emergency grant program, Kessler Foundation also identified technology and services for remote access as a top priority among recipients of their national and community employment grants. Many grantees faced overwhelming challenges to continuing their job programs. "As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the pandemic is uncovering new disparities that hinder equal access for people with disabilities," said Elaine E. Katz, MS, CCC-SLP, senior vice president of the Center for Communications and Grantmaking at Kessler Foundation. "Focusing on technology that facilitates remote access will help people with disabilities compete effectively for jobs in the COVID era economy and connect with health care and community services," she added. "To continue to move forward, however, means prioritizing the needs of individuals with anxiety and depression, and their caregivers who provide essential support."

Ask Questions about Disability and Employment

Each nTIDE report is followed by a noon ET Lunch & Learn webinar. These live broadcasts, hosted via Zoom Webinar, offers attendees Q&A on the latest nTIDE findings, provide news and updates from the field, as well as invited panelists to discuss current disability-related findings and events. On July 2, at 12:00 pm ET. Charles Catherine, special assistant to the president of the National Organization on Disability, joins Dr. Houtenville, Dr. O'Neill, and Denise Rozell, Policy Strategist at AUCD. Join live or watch the recordings at: ResearchonDisability.org/nTIDE.

NOTE: The statistics in the nTIDE are based on Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers but are not identical. They are customized by UNH to combine the statistics for men and women of working age (16 to 64). nTIDE is funded, in part, by grants from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) (90RT5037) and Kessler Foundation.

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About Kessler Foundation

Kessler Foundation, a major nonprofit organization in the field of disability, is a global leader in rehabilitation research that seeks to improve cognition, mobility, and long-term outcomes -- including employment -- for people with neurological disabilities caused by diseases and injuries of the brain and spinal cord. Kessler Foundation leads the nation in funding innovative programs that expand opportunities for employment for people with disabilities. For more information, visit KesslerFoundation.org.

About the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire

The Institute on Disability (IOD) at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) was established in 1987 to provide a coherent university-based focus for the improvement of knowledge, policies, and practices related to the lives of persons with disabilities and their families. For information on the NIDILRR-funded Employment Policy and Measurement Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, visit ResearchonDisability.org.

For more information, or to interview an expert, contact: Carolann Murphy, 973.324.8382, CMurphy@KesslerFoundation.org.
Repeated measurements of the biomarker FIB-4 in the blood every few years can predict the risk of developing severe liver disease, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the Journal of Hepatology. The risk of liver cirrhosis increases if the levels of this biomarker rise between two testing occasions.

Fat accumulation in the liver is common and is often seen in people with obesity or diabetes. In the worst case, fatty liver can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer. It is unusual for this to occur but in those affected, symptoms often only occur at a late stage when there is no available treatment.

"It is difficult to predict the risk of cirrhosis, although you can get some guidance in using regular blood tests that measure liver damage," says lead author Hannes Hagstrom, hepatologist at the Karolinska University Hospital and docent at Karolinska Institutet. "Therefore, we wanted to investigate whether what is known as the FIB-4 score can increase the accuracy of the identification of people at high risk, in particular with information from repeated measurements."

The new study shows that repeated sampling and measurements of the FIB-4 score, rather than measuring FIB-4 on one sole occasion, can increase the prediction of future liver cirrhosis. The researchers used the AMORIS cohort that contains laboratory test data in a very large population, surveyed between 1985 and 1996. More than 40,000 people had blood test data for FIB-4 from several sampling occasions. They were followed in national registers to identify those who developed cirrhosis after up to 27 years.

The main finding was that the risk increases in people where the FIB-4 score rises between two testing occasions and decreases when it falls. In this way, almost half of those who were later affected by cirrhosis could be identified. One problem, however, was that the accuracy was relatively low, with a risk of false positive tests.

The study also established that it took a long time to develop cirrhosis, and that it may be enough to recalculate the FIB-4 score at intervals of several years.

"We show that this biomarker is useful for identifying people in primary care with an increased risk of cirrhosis who may need to be more carefully investigated and to exclude people who do not need this," says Dr Hagstrom. "But the method needs to be further developed to reduce the risk of false positive findings, which can lead to unnecessary examinations in healthy people."

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The study was funded with grants from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Region Stockholm and the Gunnar & Ingmar Jungner Foundation for Laboratory Medicine. Dr Hagstrom has received consulting fees from Novo Nordisk, Gilead Sciences Inc., IQVIA and Intercept Pharmaceuticals, and has been advisory board member of Bristol Myers-Squibb and Gilead Sciences (all unconnected to the present study). Dr Hagstrom's departments have received research grants from Gilead Sciences Inc (Department of Medicine, Huddinge) and Intercept Pharmaceuticals (Karolinska University Hospital).

Publication: "Measurements of FIB-4 can improve identification of individuals at risk of severe liver disease". Hannes Hagstrom, Mats Talback, Anna Andreasson, Goran Walldius and Niklas Hammar. Journal of Hepatology, online 1 July 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.jhep.2020.06.007.
New Orleans, LA - Bradley Spieler, MD, Vice Chairman of Radiology Research at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, is the lead author of a Radiology Research Alliance paper examining the usefulness of social media in Radiology. It is published online as an Article in Press online in Academic Radiology.

As a visual discipline, Radiology lends itself to social media. The authors examine the advantages and challenges of various social media platforms -- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and ResearchGate among others -- for different purposes in Radiology.

"Social media can be a valuable educational and communication tool that medical professionals can use to enhance career development, specifically as it relates to the dissemination of knowledge, brand development, collaboration, mentorship and recruitment," notes Dr. Spieler, who is also an Associate Professor of Radiology, Internal Medicine, Urology, & Cell Biology and Anatomy at LSU Health New Orleans.

The authors found that LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are well suited to education. They write, "Radiologists can post educational content, cases, videos, and articles for rapid dissemination to a broad audience across the globe." They cite Facebook posts of weekly case material as well as Tweet chats on Twitter. These platforms also facilitate building a global community around topics through the use of hashtags by organizing content across multiple accounts.

They highlighted YouTube as a rich platform to disseminate educational content including lecture series, case conferences, short educational videos on various imaging modalities, radiographic anatomy, and specific clinical radiology cases, among other content.

Challenges include maintaining patient privacy by de-identifying patient images and data to conform to HIPPA regulations.

The authors explore how social media can be used for professional development, from creating personal accounts with specialized content to building a profile on LinkedIn. Being recognized as a topic authority or expert can be important to promotions and academic advancement. While these powerful tools offer great opportunity, a potential downside of this professional networking and branding via social media is the potential to project oneself in an unprofessional manner, now known as e-professionalism, particularly when accounts also include personal and social activities.

Social media interaction can facilitate mentoring as well. Social media connections can serve as a possible avenue to access radiology leaders when they are not physically present within one's radiology department or professional group.

The authors also note opportunities for greater networking and collaboration. Social media can connect people who have never met but who may have a mutual interest in a project or research as a collaborator or sponsor. ResearchGate offers the ability to share information with others in the research community and easily find relevant information. Users are cautioned to check copyrights for shared material.

They advise radiologists and students to use social media with the knowledge that colleagues, mentors, current and future employers, supervised trainees, patients, and lawyers involved in litigation may view content posted on social media. They caution users to be mindful that the information disseminated is within an individual's scope of expertise and that material be verified to avoid perpetuating misinformation.

The paper contains examples of professional and non-professional posts.

"This manuscript, prepared by the Association of University Radiologists Radiology Research Alliance's 2019-2020 Social Media Task Force, including members of the rising senior medical student class and faculty from the LSU Health New Orleans Department of Radiology, concludes that the diversity of social media platforms available affords an opportunity for radiologists and radiology programs to connect with and influence a larger number of individuals than was possible with traditional methods of communication in the past," says Dr. Spieler. "Social media can be a valuable educational and communication tool that medical professionals can use to enhance career development."

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Other members of the LSU Health New Orleans research team included Raman Danrad, MD; Elizabeth Prejean, BS; and Jake Fontenot, BSN. Authors from Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Penn State Health, University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate, Eastern Virginia Medical School, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Seattle Children's Hospital, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and University of Maryland Medical Center also contributed.

The work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
MAYWOOD, IL--A new research study provides possible explanations for COVID-19 patients who present with extremely low, otherwise life-threatening levels of oxygen, but no signs of dyspnea (difficulty breathing). This new understanding of the condition, known as silent hypoxemia or "happy hypoxia," could prevent unnecessary intubation and ventilation in patients during the current and expected second wave of coronavirus.

The condition "is especially bewildering to physicians as it defies basic biology," said Martin J. Tobin, MD, Loyola Medicine and Edward J. Hines Jr. VA Hospital pulmonologist and critical care specialist, and professor, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Dr. Tobin is lead author of the study, "Why COVID-19 Silent Hypoxemia is Baffling to Physicians," appearing recently in the online American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

"In some instances, the patient is comfortable and using a phone at a point when the physician is about to insert a breathing (endotracheal) tube and connect the patient to a mechanical ventilator," said Dr. Tobin, "which while potentially lifesaving carries its own set of risks."

The study included 16 COVID-19 patients with very low levels of oxygen (as low as 50%; normal blood oxygen saturation is between 95 and 100%), without shortness of breath or dyspnea, and found that "several pathophysiological mechanisms account for most, if not all, cases of silent hypoxemia. This includes the initial assessment of a patient's oxygen level with a pulse oximeter.

"While a pulse oximeter is remarkably accurate when oxygen readings are high, it markedly exaggerates the severity of low levels of oxygen when readings are low," said Dr. Tobin. "Another factor is how the brain responds to low levels of oxygen. As oxygen levels drop in patients with COVID-19, the brain does not respond until oxygen falls to very low levels--at which point a patient typically becomes short of breath," he said.

In addition, more than half of the patients had low levels of carbon dioxide, which may diminish the impact of an extremely low oxygen level.

"It is also possible that the coronavirus is exerting a peculiar action on how the body senses low levels of oxygen," said Dr. Tobin, which could be linked to the lack of smell, experienced by two-thirds of COVID-19 patients.

While acknowledging that further research is needed, the study concludes that "features about COVID-19 that physicians find baffling become less strange when viewed in the light of long-established principles of respiratory physiology."

"This new information may help to avoid unnecessary endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation, which presents risks, when the ongoing and much anticipated second wave of COVID-19 emerges," said Dr. Tobin.

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To learn more about Loyola Medicine, visit loyolamedicine.org.
WOODS HOLE, Mass. - The offspring of older mothers don't fare as well as those of younger mothers, in humans and many other species. They aren't as healthy, or they don't live as long, or they have fewer offspring themselves. A longstanding puzzle is why evolution would maintain this maternal effect in so many species, since these late-born offspring are less fit to survive and reproduce.

In a new study in rotifers (microscopic invertebrates), scientists tested the evolutionary fitness of older-mother offspring in several real and simulated environments, including the relative luxury of laboratory culture, under threat of predation in the wild, or with reduced food supply. They confirmed that this effect of older maternal age, called maternal effect senescence, does reduce evolutionary fitness of the offspring in all environments, primarily through reduced fertility during their peak reproductive period. They also suggest an evolutionary mechanism for why this may occur.

The study, a collaboration between Kristin Gribble of the Marine Biological Laboratory, and Christina Hernandez of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Silke van Daalen and Hal Caswell of the University of Amsterdam, is published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This study is unique in that combines laboratory data from our prior work with mathematical modeling to address a longstanding question in the evolution of aging," Gribble says. "Natural selection should weed out these less-fit offspring of older mothers. So why do we see this phenomenon across so many species?"

To address this, Hernandez and collaborators built mathematical models to calculate, for the first time, the strength of natural selection pressure on the survival and fertility of offspring populations as functions of the age of their mothers. They found this pressure, called the selection gradient, declines with maternal age.

"Because the selection pressure decreases as the mothers age, it may not be strong enough to remove these less-fit [offspring] from the population," Hernandez says.

"Because of this, maternal effect senescence will persist and continue to evolve in the population, even though it results in decreased fitness," Gribble adds. They don't yet fully understand the genetic mechanisms that cause offspring quality to decrease with maternal age.

The models that the team developed can be applied to a wide range of species to evaluate the fitness consequences of maternal effect senescence. "As long as you have experimental data, as we did, on lifespan and fecundity of offspring from mothers of different ages, you can address this question in many organisms," Gribble says.

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The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery - exploring fundamental biology, understanding marine biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.
Men are more likely than are women to be seen as "brilliant," finds a new study measuring global perceptions linked to gender. The work concludes that these stereotyped views are an instance of implicit bias, revealing automatic associations that people cannot, or at least do not, report holding when asked directly.

The research, which appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, was conducted by scientists at New York University, the University of Denver, and Harvard University.

"Stereotypes that portray brilliance as a male trait are likely to hold women back across a wide range of prestigious careers," observes Daniel Storage, an assistant professor in the University of Denver's Department of Psychology and the paper's lead author.

"Understanding the prevalence and magnitude of this gender-brilliance stereotype can inform future efforts to increase gender equity in career outcomes," adds Andrei Cimpian, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Psychology and the paper's senior author.

Previous work by Cimpian and his colleagues has suggested that women are underrepresented in careers where success is perceived to depend on high levels of intellectual ability (e.g., brilliance, genius), including those in science and technology.

Less understood are the factors that explain this phenomenon. To address this, the new Journal of Experimental Social Psychology study explored the potential impact of stereotypes. For example, perhaps the qualities of genius and brilliance are associated in people's minds with men more than with women--and, as a result, women are less encouraged to pursue these fields--or the atmosphere of these fields is less welcoming to women.

However, accurately measuring stereotyping is a challenge. People are often reluctant to admit they have stereotypes, so asking directly about these beliefs is unlikely to provide an accurate measure of whether they endorse the idea that brilliance is more common among men than it is among women.

To overcome this methodological obstacle, the researchers adopted a test that is geared to measure stereotyping indirectly. Here, the aim is to capture implicit stereotypes--or the automatic associations that come to mind between certain traits (e.g., brilliance) and certain groups (e.g., men). This is in contrast to explicit stereotyping, in which we knowingly and verbally ascribe traits to groups of people.

The team employed a long-established tool, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures the degree of overlap between concepts (e.g., brilliant and male) without explicitly asking subjects whether or not they hold stereotyped views.

The IAT is essentially a speeded sorting task. In the study, participants saw a series of stimuli (such as a picture of a woman or the word "brilliant") on a computer screen and were asked to sort them into two categories by pressing either the E or the I key on their keyboard. For example, in some trials participants were asked to press E if they saw a stimulus that is related to either the category male or the trait brilliant. On other trials, the sorting rule was different. For example, the gender categories were swapped such that participants had to press E if they saw a stimulus that is related to either the category female or the trait brilliant.

The logic of the IAT, the authors explain, is as follows: If brilliant is more associated with male than with female in people's minds, then participants will be faster to sort the stimuli when brilliant and male are paired with the same response key--because the stereotype makes these two concepts seem like they "go together"--than when brilliant and female are paired.

Across a series of five studies, which included U.S. women and men, U.S. girls and boys (ages 9 and 10), and women and men from 78 other countries, the researchers consistently found evidence for an implicit stereotype associating brilliance with men more than with women. The magnitude of this stereotype was striking as well--for example, it was similar in strength to the implicit stereotype that associates men more than women with careers (and women more than men with the family), which was identified in earlier work.

The team also gauged explicit stereotypes, directly asking subjects whether they believed that men are more brilliant than women. In marked contrast to the implicit stereotyping measures, subjects reported disagreeing with this idea--and, in one study, explicitly associated the quality of being "super smart" with women more than with men. The finding is consistent with previous scholarship showing that people are unlikely admit to stereotyping, reinforcing the importance of measuring such perceptions through more subtle means.

Tessa Charlesworth, a doctoral student at Harvard University and co-author of the paper, notes that "a particularly exciting finding from this work is that, if anything, people explicitly say that they associate women with brilliance. Yet implicit measures reveal a different story about the more automatic gender stereotypes that come to mind when thinking about brilliance."

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The paper's author team also included Mahzarin Banaji, Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University.

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS-1530669, BCS-1733897).
Land and Water Revisited, a look back at a 1962 movie on the ecological impact of people in the Teotihuacan Valley outside of Mexico City, will live stream on July 24 at 7 p.m. on YouTube Live from the State Theatre. The film will be introduced by the producers and followed by a livestreamed 45 minute question and answer session with collaborators and families from the original film.

Land and Water was an ecological study of the Teotihuacan Valley of Mexico created by William T. Sanders, deceased Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology, Penn State. Land and Water Revisited, created by Kirk French, associate teaching professor of anthropology, looks back at the original film with an eye to environmental and cultural changes that occurred during the ensuing 58 years.

"It really is a rare thing to have a documentary film of a small community from the early 1960s," said French. "This provided our team with an opportunity to document the problems caused by unregulated urban growth while simultaneously collaborating with the people of the Teotihuacan Valley to record their stories of change and adaptation."

In the process of looking at the landscape, French discovered a population in the valley that had never seen the original film, so he had the film translated and shown locally. The viewings produced descendants of those filmed and in some cases adults who were small children in the original.

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Land and Water Revisited was scheduled to premiere in April during the Society of American Archaeology meeting, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Better still: living algae can be used as biocatalysts for certain substances, and they bring the co-substrate along, producing it in an environmentally friendly manner through photosynthesis. The team published its report in Algal Research on 17. June 2020.

It's a question of 3D structure

Many chemical substances in cosmetics, food or medicines can assume slightly different three-dimensional structures, with only one of them generating the desired fragrance or medical effect. The chemical production of the right substances is often not environmentally friendly, as it requires high temperatures or special solvents. In nature, however, certain proteins do exist that produce the required product at mild temperatures and in water. In the process, they often generate exactly the 3D structure of the substance that is needed by the industry.

These so-called old yellow enzymes, OYEs for short, owe their name to their naturally yellow colour. They occur in bacteria, fungi and plants, are in part well studied and offer considerable potential for a bio-based economy. However, they have one disadvantage: in order to carry out their reaction, they need the co-substrate NADPH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate). In living cells, this small molecule is generated through metabolic processes, whereas its chemical production is very expensive; as a result, the commercial use of OYEs is thwarted.

OYEs from unicellular green algae: two birds with one stone

The research team from Bochum has discovered several OYEs in unicellular green algae. "For a broad application, industry needs OYEs that can also produce unusual molecules," explains Professor Thomas Happe, Head of the Photobiotechnology research group at RUB. "Algae possess very complex metabolic pathways and are therefore ideal sources for novel biocatalysts." The researchers analysed algal OYEs in the test tube and showed that they are able to convert many commercially viable substances. "The exciting thing is that living algae can also carry out the reactions needed in the industry," points out PhD student Stefanie Bohmer, lead author of the study. "Since algae produce NADPH using photosynthesis, i.e. with sunlight, the co-substrate of the OYEs is supplied in an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way."

Promising collaboration

The authors point out that the study demonstrates the importance of the collaboration between researchers from different disciplines, and that the industry can be a valuable partner who initiates basic research. Four researches from the Research Training Group "Micon - Microbial substrate conversion", which is funded by the German Research Foundation, contributed their expertise to the study. The project was the brainchild of Solarbioproducts Ruhr, a spin-off established by Wirtschaftsforderungsgesellschaft Herne and Thomas Happe with the aim of developing concepts for environmentally friendly algae biotechnologies. "We have taken a big step towards a green industry," concludes Happe. "This would not have been possible without collaboration."

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Funding

The study was funded by the German Research Foundation in the Research Training Group GRK 2341 Microbial Substrate Conversion Micon, the Chembiocat project funded by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research NRW, and Wirtschaftsforderungsgesellschaft Herne.

Original publication

Stefanie Bohmer, Christina Marx, Alvaro Gomez-Baraibar, Marc M. Nowaczyk, Dirk Tischler, Anja Hemschemeier, Thomas Happe: Evolutionary diverse Chlamydomonas reinhardtii old yellow enzymes reveal distinctive catalytic properties and potential for whole-cell biotransformations, in: Algal Research, 2020, DOI: 10.1016/j.algal.2020.101970

Press contact

Prof. Dr. Thomas Happe

Photobiotechnologiey

Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology

Ruhr-Universitat Bochum

Germany

Phone: +49 234 32 27026

Email: thomas.happe@rub.de
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:23 pm

On July 4, 1975, America proudly celebrated its bicentennial as the worlds greatest nation, while Poland was a suppressed Soviet satellite state.

Poles had no right to free speech, were hungry and impoverished. If you wanted a job, you played ball with Communist Party bosses. If you disagreed with their ideology, you likely were imprisoned. Poland was a rather bleak land which had not recovered from the German Blitzkrieg in 1939.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Business Week program started at Central Washington University as a way for high school students to experience our nations dynamic market-based economic system. It was an idea germinated at the Association of Washington Business by Yelm grocer Hal Wolfe and Dr. Jim Brooks, CWU president. It migrated to Poland twenty years ago.

When Business Week started, Lech Waesa, founder of the Solidarity Movement, was jailed by Communist Party leaders for violating the right to organize shipyard workers in Gdansk. Karol Jozef Wojtya was Archbishop of Krakow and Ronald Reagan was Californias governor.

Walesa formed the Soviet blocs first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as Polands president from 199095. Walesa led peaceful protestsnot riots.

In 1978, Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II. In 1979, he startled the Communists by returning to his native land. His 10 days in Poland drew millions  peacefully. The embers of freedom lit by Walesa suddenly became a bonfire.

Then President Ronald Reagan sealed the deal in 1987 appearing at the Brandenburg Gate dividing east and West Berlin and challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall! Twenty-nine months later after intense East German protests, the famed gate opened and the wall started tumbling down.

This July 4 we need to remember that peaceful protests are important to bring about change, but rioting, burning and looting are impediments to progress.

People peacefully calling for reforms in policing, equality and changes to improve opportunities for everyone are needed. However, rioters taunting and threatening those attempting to maintain public safety, looting businesses, and ransacking and burning stores and offices, destroy peoples ability to carry out meaningful change.

Complicating systemic changes is the COVID-19 pandemic. It continues to hit small businesses hard, particularly those owned by minorities. For example, in mid-June, the Wall Street Journal reported the number of active black business owners fell by 41 percent.

WSJ published data from economist Robert Fairlie, University of California, Santa Cruz, who wrote the number of working business owners plummeted from 15 million in February 2020 to 11.7 million in April. That 3.3 million is a stunning 22 percent drop.

Minority business owners were hit hardest. About 441,000 black, 658,000 Latino, 1.1 million immigrant and 1.3 million women businesses disappeared. For women, one of four businesses closed.

But what seems lost is the private sector, allowed to invent, can solve problems in new ways. Poland experienced the iron-rule of government which controlled every aspect of its peoples lives. It stagnated. While America is not the Poland of 1975, it is drifting rapidly to a nation where the government becomes the employer and economic engine.

As we celebrate our independence on July 4, we ought to remember that enterprising people ultimately create a better life for all of us.

Too often, Americans forget we are fortunate to live in a governmental system which allow us to peacefully change. Occasionally, it needs a good tuning up and that time is now. It is time to build upon our strengths rather than rip America apart.

We need to push our political leaders to work together now and not await the outcome of the November elections.



Don C. Brunell is a business analyst, writer and columnist. He retired as president of the Association of Washington Business, the states oldest and largest business organization, and now lives in Vancouver. He can be contacted at theBrunells@msn.com
Incarceration and police discrimination may contribute to HIV, depression and anxiety among Black gay, bisexual and other sexual minority men, according to a Rutgers led study.

The study, funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, examined associations between incarceration, police and law enforcement discrimination and recent arrest with Black sexual minority mens' psychological distress, risk for HIV and willingness to take pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention.

"Evidence suggests Black sexual minority men in the United States may face some of the highest rates of policing and incarceration in the world," said lead author, Devin English, assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health. "Despite this, research examining the health impacts of the U.S. carceral system rarely focuses on their experiences. This study helps to address this gap."

"We examined how incarceration and police discrimination, which have roots in enforcing White supremacy and societal heterosexism, are associated with some of the most pressing health crises among Black sexual minority men like depression, anxiety, and HIV," English added.

The researchers surveyed 1,172 Black, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men over the age of 16 from across the U.S. who reported behaviors that increased their risk for HIV over the previous six months. Participants reported on their incarceration history, experiences of police and law enforcement discrimination, anxiety and depression, sexual behavior, and willingness to take PrEP.

They found that 43 percent of study participants reported police discrimination within the previous year, which was most frequent among those with a history of incarceration. Respondents who faced high levels of police discrimination within the previous year also tended to show high levels of psychological distress and HIV risk, and a low willingness to take PrEP compared with their peers. The study also found that respondents who were previously incarcerated or recently arrested had a heightened HIV risk and lower willingness to take PrEP.

"These findings transcend individual-level only explanations to offer structural-level insights about how we think about Black sexual minority men's HIV risk," says co-author Lisa Bowleg, professor of psychology at The George Washington University. "The study rightly directs attention to the structural intersectional discrimination that negatively affects Black sexual minority men's health."

The article states that the findings support the need for anti-racist and anti-heterosexist advocacy and interventions focused on reducing discrimination in U.S. society, and the carceral system specifically.

"Despite experiencing a disproportionate burden of violence and discrimination at the hands of the police, and extremely high carceral rates, Black queer men are largely invisible in discourse on anti-Black policing and incarceration," says co-author Joseph Carter, doctoral student of health psychology at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. "Our study provides empirical support for the intersectional health impacts of police and carceral discrimination that have been systemically perpetrated onto Black queer men."

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Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute is pleased to announce that the American Cancer Society (ACS) has awarded Brooke Emerling, Ph.D., a Research Scholar Grant to study a new approach to targeting tumors that have a mutation in the p53 gene--the most altered gene in human cancers. The grants are often a career-launching award for "rising stars" in the cancer research arena. The four-year grant will help advance Emerling's research toward eliminating cancer as a major health problem.

"I'm so thankful for the support of the ACS, and excited to start this project," says Emerling, an assistant professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys. "This grant will allow us to further explore a family of kinases called PI5P4K as targets for p53 mutant tumors. We are initially focused on advancing the approach for ovarian cancer, but there are other cancers that could benefit, including breast, lung, pancreatic, colorectal, lung and brain tumors."

The p53 gene is a tumor suppressor gene that normally works to stop cancer from forming. However, when mutated or inactive, it can play a role in the persistence, growth and spread of a cancer that develops. Due to the importance of p53 mutations, researchers have been looking for ways to reactivate the gene, but it's been difficult to directly target p53 with drugs.

"The American Cancer Society's Research Scholar grants are highly competitive, and the recipients represent outstanding young investigators with great potential in cancer research," says Michael Melner, Ph.D., senior scientific director of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry of Cancer at the American Cancer Society. "Dr. Emerling's award is a highly innovative project that integrates state-of-the-art biochemical, cell biology and genetic approaches to understand the role of p53 in cellular metabolism in cancer. Furthermore, the project has the potential of identifying new ways to target cancers with mutations in the p53 gene."

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About Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Research Institute

Sanford Burnham Prebys is a preeminent, independent biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding human biology and disease and advancing scientific discoveries to profoundly impact human health. For more than 40 years, our research has produced breakthroughs in cancer, neuroscience, immunology and children's diseases, and is anchored by our NCI-designated Cancer Center and advanced drug discovery capabilities. For more information, visit us at SBPdiscovery.org or on Facebook at facebook.com/SBPdiscovery and on Twitter @SBPdiscovery.
Experts release a statement on eve of UN talks that calls for the governing of the digital sector to support transformations to a climate-safe, sustainable, and equitable world

Montreal -- On the eve of UN talks to assess progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an international group of distinguished business, government, and science leaders say we cannot achieve a climate-safe, sustainable, and equitable world without ensuring a secure, safe, and trusted internet for all.

The SDGs set out a transformative agenda that aims to simultaneously end poverty, address environmental decline, and reduce inequalities, all by 2030. But it missed setting a goal for governing perhaps the most powerful force defining humanity's future: the digital age.

In a joint Montreal Statement on Sustainability in the Digital Age the experts argue that tackling the climate crisis and achieving broader sustainability goals is indivisible from creating a secure, equitable, and trusted digital world; these are all one interconnected agenda. And they outline five near-term, cross-cutting actions that can enable rapid and widespread societal transformations to a low-carbon, secure and equitable future. This lays the foundation for what could define a much needed action agenda for a new SDG on governing the digital world in support of people and planet.

Developed with the support of leading research and philanthropy organizations from four countries - Canada, the UK, France, and the USA - the statement unites voices of digital and sustainability experts working at the intersection of technology, sustainability and policy. It is released as the UN's high-level political forum prepares to meet virtually July 7-16th to launch a Decade of Action toward the 17 SGDs and assess the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The statement will be discussed during a side-event at the forum on July 9, exploring collaborative action for digital capacity building to implement the UN's 2030 SDG Agenda.

The statement calls for:

Developing a social contract for the digital age, to ensure individual rights, justice and equity, inclusive access, and environmental sustainability;

Ensuring open and transparent access to data and knowledge critical to achieving sustainability and equity;

Building public and private collaborations to develop and manage AI and other technologies in support of sustainability and equity;

Investing in research and innovation that focuses on transdisciplinary challenges and opportunities underlying the systems that are maintaining our unsustainability; and

Promoting targeted communication, engagement and education to advance the social contract.

The statement was conceived and initially formulated at a September 2019 workshop in Montreal, Canada, one of a series on AI & Society, funded by CIFAR in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), organized by Future Earth, the UK Office for AI, the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies (OBVIA), and CNRS.

The need for global cooperation in the digital realm was similarly underlined recently by the UN Secretary-General. In June, Antonio Guterres released a roadmap for filling the digital governance gap, creating a foundation to effectively leverage digital tools to achieve broad sustainability goals, including climate change mitigation.

In parallel, the Montreal Statement is part of a new international initiative - Sustainability in the Digital Age - which seeks to support and strengthen the growing diversity of actors engaging with the interconnected digital and sustainability agendas.

The statement continues to be endorsed by innovators, researchers, and decision makers working at the interface of digital and environmental sustainability, committed to collaborating to drive change.

Endorse the statement here

https:/ / sustainabilitydigitalage. org/ montreal-statement/

Approuver la declaration ici

https:/ / sustainabilitydigitalage. org/ la-declaration-de-montreal-sur-la-durabilite-a-lere-numerique/

The statement was developed with funding from:

CIFAR

Fonds de recherche du Quebec (FRQ)

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

Climateworks Foundation

Collaborators:

Future Earth

UN Environment Programme

UN Development Programme

UK Office for AI

German Environment Agency (Umwelt Bundesamt)

The Observatory of Social Impacts on AI and Digital Technology

Element AI

Mila

Barcelona Supercomputing Center

CIO Strategy Council

Endorsements:

International Science Council

DNV GL

Concordia University

Stockholm Resilience Centre

Exponential Roadmap Initiative

Axionable

Collaborators and Endorsers reflect on the Montreal Statement

"Humanity today is interconnected through, and dependent on, both the digital and natural worlds. As a result, tackling the climate crisis and the broader sustainability agenda, and working toward a just equitable digital future are increasingly intertwined agendas. It is time to recognize the need to work toward a new SDG -- SDG 18-- focused on ensuring that the Digital Age supports people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships."

- Amy Luers, Executive Director, Future Earth. Director, Sustainability in the Digital Age initiative

"We need to bet big on digital technologies, because they provide the kind of exponential transformative power needed to achieve the SDGs. We are making great progress applying digital technologies to help tackle sustainability challenges, but we are still not cooperating enough across the public and private sectors to drive the scale, speed and direction of change we need. The Montreal Statement on Sustainability in the Digital Age outlines areas where we urgently need to take more collaborative action to govern the technology sector and build a digital ecosystem for people and planet."

- David Jensen, Head of Environmental Peacebuilding, UN Environment Programme

"Digital technologies are a major force in driving the changes in both society and environment we need to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With COVID-19 disrupting economies, exacerbating inequalities and setting back developmental progress, countries with a stronger culture of innovation and more developed digital infrastructure have been able to mitigate the negative impacts of the crisis and set on the path to recovery quicker. Digital technology has shown the potential to be a development catalyst. The Montreal Statement on Sustainability in the Digital Age sets out an important framework for collaboration to enable this important work."

- Robert Opp, Chief Digital Officer, UN Development Programme (UNDP)

"As highlighted in this Montreal Statement, as the power of digital technologies such as AI increases, I believe that it becomes all the more important to set up social norms and encourage efforts towards both a wiser governance - to minimize misuse - and steering technological investments towards betterment of society - AI for social good, e.g. fighting climate change - rather than the additional concentration of wealth, power and inequity which is otherwise likely to follow, at the expense of sustainability and a just society."

- Prof. Yoshua Bengio A.M. Turing Award, 2018; Scientific Director, Mila; Full professor, University of Montreal; Co-Founder, Element AI

"As the international community reflects on how we can respond to the pandemic in a way that puts us on a sustainable recovery track, we are recognizing the central role that the digital world will play. This makes the challenges of access, equity, and trust in the digital sector urgent, if we are to be able to steer its massive potential towards a path that will accelerate SDG achievement. The Montreal Statement provides a guide for collaboration and action to steer the digital revolution in support of human-centred, sustainable development."

- Dirk Messner, President, German Environment Agency (UBA)

"The broader international science community is just beginning to explore the powerful opportunities and profound challenges of the digital age, both for science and for society. At the ISC we have adopted this as one of our four key domains of action. The Montreal Statement on Sustainability in the Digital Age, outlines important areas of work that need to be pursued through the closer engagement of science with partners from policy and wider publics."

- Heide Hackmann, CEO, International Science Council (ISC)

"Here at BSC, we are committed to working with others to respond to this call to action. We are already doing work in several areas highlighted in the Montreal Statement using high performance computing and big data infrastructures to provide reliable climate services leading to resilient societies. We create public-private partnerships to provide stakeholders open and transparent access to data and knowledge."

- Asun Lera St. Clair, Senior Advisor, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre - BSC DNVGL Digital Assurance

"Element AI firmly believes that we have a civic duty to contribute to environmental and social wellbeing, and as such we are proud to collaborate on the Montreal Statement on Sustainability in the Digital Age, and will be active in our commitment to respond to the calls for action."

- Anne Martel, Chief Administrative Officer and Co-Founder, Element AI

"I invite our leaders to take action on the Montreal Statement on Sustainability in the Digital Age, elaborated under the leadership of Future Earth and in collaboration with many international partners. The development of digital innovations such as artificial intelligence, which transform our societies and can bring growth and progress, should be done in conjunction with the achievement of UN's Sustainable Development Goals to create a climate-safe, sustainable, and equitable world."

- Remi Quirion, Chief Scientist of Quebec

"AI is transforming the way we live and work so it is critical that we act now to find solutions that promote trustworthiness, equity, inclusion and sustainability. Through CIFAR's AI & Society program, we were pleased to support the international workshop that catalyzed some of the early work in the development of the Montreal Statement."

- Rebecca Finlay, Vice President, Engagement & Public Policy, CIFAR.

"AI technologies have an unavoidable role to play in reducing global contributions to the climate crisis. By embracing the fourth industrial revolution we may consciously create a future for AI development that is fair and equitable for the planet. The Montreal Statement on Sustainability in the Digital Age outlines areas of collaboration needed to achieve this goal. The scale of disruption required to achieve net zero emissions requires a full transformation of our economies and societies, and must be embedded into national strategies if we are to match our words with actions. Having legislated for net zero, the UK is embracing the challenge and we continue on this path as a founding member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), an international and multistakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, grounded in human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth."

- Sana Khareghani, Deputy Director, Head of Office for Artificial Intelligence, UK

"As a host of Future Earth, Concordia University shares its vision through the work of researchers across a variety of fields who are driven by the conviction that technological innovation should provide opportunities for greater social respect and inclusion while lowering our ecological footprint. This work can play a key role in ensuring a digital future that is both informed by, and continuously advancing sustainable principles. The Montreal Statement is a consolidation of this vision and a welcome call for transformative action now."

- Graham Carr, President, Concordia University

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Future Earth is an international research organization, collaborating with science and society on solutions to global sustainability challenges. It encompasses nearly 30 research-to-action networks, groups of scientists and practitioners around the world, studying the environmental and human aspects of global change. We help incorporate the latest scientific knowledge into decision-making, with a mission to accelerate transformations to sustainability through research and innovation.

Future Earth is governed by the International Science Council (ISC), the Belmont Forum of funding agencies, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations University (UNU), the World Meteorological Organization, and the Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum.
Almost all land plants employ an army of molecular editors who correct errors in their genetic information. Together with colleagues from Hanover, Ulm and Kyoto (Japan), researchers from the University of Bonn have now transferred one of these proofreaders from the moss Physcomitrium patens (previously known as Physcomitrella patens) into a flowering plant. Surprisingly, it performs its work there as reliably as in the moss itself. The strategy could be suitable for investigating certain functions of the plant energy metabolism in more detail. It may also be valuable for developing more efficient crops. The study will be published in the journal The Plant Cell.

Plants differ from animals in that they are capable of photosynthesis. They do this in specialized "mini-organs" (biologists speak of organelles), the chloroplasts. Chloroplasts produce sugar with the help of sunlight, which in turn is used in other organelles, the mitochondria, to produce energy.

Both chloroplasts and mitochondria have their own genetic material. And in both of them this genome contains a lot of errors. "At least that is the case with almost all land plants," explains Dr. Mareike Schallenberg-Rudinger. The researcher heads a junior research group at the University of Bonn in the Department of Molecular Evolution under Prof. Volker Knoop. "They have to correct these errors so their power supply does not collapse."

In fact, land plants do the same, and in a very complicated way: They do not correct the errors in the genome itself. Instead, they correct the RNA copies that the cell makes of these DNA blueprints, which it then uses to produce certain enzymes, for example. So instead of correcting the original, it only irons out the inaccuracies afterwards in the copies.

Functional despite 400 million years of evolutionary history

Molecular proofreaders, the so-called PPR proteins, are responsible for this. Most of them are specialists for only one particular error in the many gene copies that the cell produces around the clock. These errors occur when, in the course of evolution, a certain chemical building block of DNA (a letter, if you like, in the genetic blueprint) is swapped for another. When the PPR proteins find such a swap, they convert the wrong letter in the RNA copy (the building block cytidine, abbreviated C) into the correct version (uridine, abbreviated U).

"We have now taken a gene for a PPR protein from the moss Physcomitrium patens and transferred it into a flowering plant, the thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana," explains Schallenberg-Rudinger. "The protein then recognized and corrected the same error there for which it was also responsible in the moss." This is astonishing, since there are more than 400 million years of evolutionary history between Physcomitrium and Arabidopsis. The PPR proteins can therefore also differ significantly in their structure.

For instance, the thale cress contains PPR proteins that can identify errors but still require a separate "white-out" enzyme to correct them. In contrast, the PPR proteins of the moss Physcomitrium perform both tasks simultaneously. "In these cases, the transfer from moss to thale cress works, but the thale cress gene remains inactive in the moss," explains Bastian Oldenkott, doctoral student and lead author of the study. The macadamia nut appeared in evolution a little earlier than Arabidopsis. Its PPR protein being investigated is more similar to that of Physcomitrium. Once introduced into the moss, it therefore performs its service there without any problems.

The study may open up a new way to modify the genetic material of chloroplasts and mitochondria. "Especially for plant mitochondria, this is not yet possible at all," emphasizes Schallenberg-Rudinger. Using special "designer" PPR genes, for example, one might specifically render certain genome transcripts unusable and test how this affects the plant. In the medium term, this may also result in new findings for breeding particularly high-yielding, high-performance varieties. First, however, the researchers hope to gain insights into the complex interaction of genes in the functioning of chloroplasts and mitochondria.

The research carried out by co-authors Prof. Hans-Peter Braun and Dr. Jennifer Senkler from the University of Hanover proves that this approach can actually work. They were able to clarify what the PPR protein from the moss is needed for: If it is missing, the plant is no longer able to correctly assemble the machinery for the so-called respiratory chain in the mitochondria, which is used to generate energy. The work in the thale cress was carried out in cooperation with Matthias Burger (University of Ulm) and Prof. Mizuki Takenaka (University of Kyoto), a fine example of successful international cooperation.

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Publication: Bastian Oldenkott, Matthias Burger, Anke-Christiane Hein, Anja Jorg, Jennifer Senkler, Hans-Peter Braun, Volker Knoop, Mizuki Takenaka and Mareike Schallenberg-Rudinger: One C-to-U RNA editing site and two independently evolved editing factors: testing reciprocal complementation with DYW-type PPR proteins from the moss Physcomitrium (Physcomitrella) patens and the flowering plants Macadamia integrifolia and Arabidopsis thaliana; The Plant Cell; DOI: https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1105/ tpc. 20. 00311

Contact:

Dr. Mareike Schallenberg-Rudinger

Institut fur Zellulare und Molekulare Botanik

Abteilung Molekulare Evolution

Universitat Bonn

Tel. +49-(0)228-736464

E-mail: mrueding@uni-bonn.de
New technologies capable of sequencing single molecules in fine detail will help scientists better understand the mechanisms of rare nucleotides thought to play an important role in the progression of some diseases.

A review paper, led by a scientist at the University of Birmingham, describes how emerging sequencing technologies will transform our understanding of these molecules, ultimately leading to new drug targets. The paper is published in the journal Trends in Biotechnology.

Expression of genes to make protein involves making a messenger RNA molecule. Although RNA, like DNA consist of the four nucleotides, some of them carry decorations called the epitranscriptome. These modified nucleotides are important additions to the genetic code whose functions are little understood, but have been linked to disease such as obesity, cancer and neurological disorders.

Although the importance of the epitranscriptome is recognized, its detection is difficult and comes with high error rates.

Scientist have been interested in these rare modified nucleotides since their discovery more than 40 years ago, but they had been very difficult to examine in specific genes due to technical difficulties. However, their importance has been recognized, because many human parasites and viruses have them. Even more, some viruses including coronavirus SARS-CoV2 have their own RNA modification enzymes, originally acquired from their hosts, but then adapted to their needs.

Until recently, the study of these modified nucleotides has been limited because they occur so rarely, and existing technologies have not been sufficiently fine-tuned to detect the modifications.

The new technology, developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies, is promising to overcome current sequencing limitations, with highly selective sequencing capabilities. By identifying specific nucleotide targets associated with particular diseases, drug developers will be able to start to investigate inhibitor drugs that can interfere with the molecules and influence the progression of the disease.

Lead author of this multinational study, Dr Matthias Soller from the University of Birmingham, UK, says: "These modified nucleotides are particularly hard to detect and previously it was impossible to examine their occurrence in the entire genome with high confidence".

First author and Schmidt Science Fellow Dr Ina Anreiter, University of Toronto, Canada, adds: "Previously, it was only possible to look at one modification at a time, but there a more than just one and they likely hiding a yet to discover code.

"This new technology will really enable a step-change in how we approach modified nucleotides, giving us a 'real-time' topographic map of where the molecules are within the genome, and how frequently they occur. This will be really important in instructing further research into their function and providing us with new insights into how these molecules lead to human disease."

Dr Soller added: "There is plenty of work still to be done to further develop these sequencing devices, including improving the machine-learning capability for interpreting the sequencing signals, but progress is happening rapidly and I think we will be seeing some very exciting results emerging from this technology."

###

Co-author, Dr. Sarath Janga from Indiana University, USA says: "SARS-CoV2 RNA virus responsible for the COVID19 pandemic has about 40 RNA modifications and it is already clear, that they are essential for the virus. Hence, understanding their function in virus replication will provide new directions for combating viral infections"

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.
FINDINGS

States with the highest level of income inequality had a larger number of COVID-19-related deaths compared with states with lower income inequality. New York state, with the highest income inequality, had a mortality rate of 51.7 deaths per 100,000. This is 125 times greater than Utah, the state with the lowest income inequality and which had a mortality of 0.41 per 100,000 at the end of the period studied. Looking at the top three in each category, New York was followed by Louisiana with 19 deaths per 100,000, and Connecticut with 16.9 deaths per 100,000. States in addition to Utah with the lowest COVID deaths that were linked to income inequality were South Dakota, with 0.7 deaths per 100,000 and North Dakota, which had one death per 100,000.

BACKGROUND

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, data from New York City and Chicago shows that African Americans and Hispanics have experienced higher rates of infection and death. These groups are largely low income, have less access to health care, hold essential jobs limiting their ability to maintain social distancing, and frequently live in extended family households where the infection risk is higher.

METHODS

The researchers limited their analysis to January 22 through April 13, 2020. They used data on cases and deaths from the COVID-19 Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. State income inequality data came from the 2018 American Community Survey as measured by the Gini index, a statistical formula used to measure income distribution.

The authors note some limitations in the findings, such as the effect of co-morbidities on death rates and weaknesses in state-level data that might have missed other associations between inequality and COVID-19 infections.

IMPACT

The findings suggest that social factors such as income inequality may explain why some states experienced more COVID-19 deaths than others. The findings could be useful in developing policies to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on socio-economically vulnerable populations.

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AUTHORS

Dr. Carlos Oronce, Dr. Christopher Scannell, and Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa of UCLA, and Dr. Ichiro Kawachi of Harvard University. Oronce and Scannell also have positions with the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

JOURNAL

The study is published by the peer-reviewed Journal of General Internal Medicine.

FUNDING

Drs. Oronce and Scannell are supported by the VA Office of Academic Affiliations through the VA/National Clinician Scholars Program.

Media Contact

Enrique Rivero

erivero@mednet.ucla.edu
The dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic share "striking similarities" with the twin environmental crises of global heating and species extinction, argue a team of scientists and policy experts from the UK and US.

They say that lessons learned the hard way in containing COVID-19 - the need for early intervention to reduce death and economic damage; the curbing of some aspects of people's lifestyles for the good of all of us - should also be at the heart of averting environmental catastrophe.

"We've seen the consequences of delayed action in the fight against COVID-19. The consequences of continued inaction in the face of catastrophic climate change and mass extinction are too grave to contemplate," said Prof Andrew Balmford, from the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, Balmford and colleagues argue that the spread of coronavirus shares common characteristics with both global heating and the impending "sixth mass extinction".

For example, each new COVID-19 case can spawn others and so lead to escalating infection rates, just as hotter climates alter ecosystems, increasing emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause warming. "Both are dangerous feedback loops," argue the scientists.

The team also draw comparisons of what they term "lagged impacts". For coronavirus, the delay - or lag - before symptoms materialise means infected people spread the disease long before they feel effects and change behaviour.

The researchers equate this with the lag between our destruction of habitat and eventual species extinction, as well as lags between the emissions we pump out and the full effects of global heating, such as sea-level rise. As with viral infection, behaviour change may come too late.

"Like the twin crises of extinction and climate, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic might have seemed like a distant problem at first, one far removed from most people's everyday lives," said coauthor Ben Balmford from the University of Exeter.

"But left unchecked for too long, the disease has forced major changes to the way we live. The same will be true of the environmental devastation we are causing, except the consequences could be truly irreversible."

The authors find parallels in the indifference that has long greeted warnings from the scientific community about both new zoonotic diseases and human-induced shifts in climate and habitat.

"The lagged impacts, feedback loops and complex dynamics of pandemics and environmental crises mean that identifying and responding to these challenges requires governments to listen to independent scientists," said Dr Brendan Fisher, a coauthor from the University of Vermont. "Such voices have been tragically ignored."

The similarities between the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and environmental disaster lie not just in their nature but also in their mitigation, say the scientists, who write that "there is no substitute for early action".

The researchers include an analysis of the timing of lockdown across OECD countries, and conclude that if it had come just a week earlier then around 17,000 lives in the UK (up to 21 May 2020) would have been saved, and nearly 45,000 in the US.

They say that, just as delayed lockdown cost thousands of lives, delayed climate action that gives us 2oC of warming rather than 1.5 will expose an estimated extra 62-457 million people - mainly the world's poorest - to "multi-sector climate risks" such as drought, flooding and famine.

Similarly, conservation programmes are less likely to succeed the longer they are delayed. "As wilderness disappears we see an accelerating feedback loop, as a given loss of habitat causes ever-greater species loss," explained Princeton Professor and co-author David Wilcove.

The scientists point out that delayed action resulting in more COVID-19 deaths will also cost those nations more in economic growth, according to IMF estimates, just as hotter and more disruptive climates will curtail economic prosperity.

Intervening to contain both the pandemic and the environmental crises requires decision-makers and citizens to act in the interests of society as a whole, argue the researchers.

"In the COVID-19 crisis we've seen young and working age people sacrificing education, income and social connection primarily for the benefit of older and more vulnerable people," said co-author Prof Dame Georgina Mace from UCL.

"To stem the impacts of climate change and address biodiversity loss, wealthier and older adults will have to forgo short-term material extravagance for the benefit of the present-day poor and future generations. It's time to keep our end of the social bargain," Mace said.

Cambridge's Andrew Balmford added: "Scientists are not inventing these environmental threats, just as they weren't inventing the threat of a pandemic such as COVID-19. They are real, and they are upon us."

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New technique in which drugs make bacteria glow could help fight antibiotic resistance

A new technique could help reduce antibiotic prescribing by predicting which drugs could be effective in fighting bacteria within minutes.

Scientists at the University of Exeter have developed the method, which allows users to see whether a bacterium is likely to respond to antibiotics. The research is currently in early stages of development, and the team hope the miniaturised devices they use for this research could one day be based in clinics, reducing the number of different antibiotics prescribed to patients.

The technique works by examining whether fluorescent qualities of the antibiotics are taken up by bacteria. If so, the bacteria glow brighter under the microscope, revealing that the antibiotic has infiltrated the membrane and could be effective. The research, published in the journal Lab on a Chip, could contribute to efforts to reduce prescribing, and also enable the development of more effective antibiotics, to help fight the global threat of antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance is recognised as a major global threat. As these drugs increasingly fail to work, around 10 million people are predicted to die annually of infections by 2050.

The new technique uses a special microscope and a miniaturised device into which a sample of the bacteria is injected, along with the antibiotic. To date, the team has used the antibiotic ofloxacin, which glows fluorescent under ultraviolet light. Bacteria also glow when the antibiotic is taken up. However, if they remain dark, the antibiotic has no chance of working and killing the bacteria.

Dr Stefano Pagliara, a biophysicist in the Living Systems Institute, leading this research at the University of Exeter, said: "We're really excited about the potential for this technique to make a meaningful reduction in prescribing, helping to fight the global threat of antibiotic resistance. At the moment, it can take days for clinicians to get a lab result, which involves growing bacteria, but there is still some guess work involved. Our technique could reduce the use of multiple antibiotics to try and fight a bacterial infection."

Dr Jehangir Cama, an industry research fellow at the Living Systems Institute, who performed the experimental work of this research, said: "Our next step is to further develop this exciting new method by combining it with more advanced microscopy techniques, to see where exactly the antibiotics go when they enter the bacteria."

The team is now working on expanding the technique, by manipulating the fluorescent qualities of other forms of antibiotics so they can work in the same way. Further research in this area has been funded by QUEX, a partnership between the University of Exeter and The University of Queensland in Australia. The Queensland team, led by Dr Mark Blaskovich, Director of the Centre for Superbug Solutions at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, is developing fluorescent versions of other antibiotics so they can be tested in a similar manner. Blaskovich adds "I am enthused about the opportunities to improve our fundamental understanding of the interactions between antibiotics and bacteria and how this leads to antimicrobial resistance, by combining our novel antibiotic-derived probes with the cutting edge single cell analysis capabilities of the Exeter group".

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This work will be carried out in collaboration with Prof Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, a mathematician at the University of Exeter. The combined teams are currently seeking a jointly-supervised PhD student, funded by a Queensland-Exeter (QUEX) PhD scholarship.

The paper is entitled 'Single-cell microfluidics facilitates the rapid quantification of antibiotic accumulation in Gramnegative bacteria'
TORONTO, ON (June 30, 2020) -- A collaboration between the University of Toronto's Faculty of Dentistry and the National Jewish Health in Denver -- the top-ranked respiratory research hospital in the U.S. -- has yielded a new drug discovery that could be useful to combat inflammation of all varieties and shows promise in fighting acute respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19.

Called TAT CARMIL1, the "drug" is actually a combination of two naturally occurring peptides that, when combined, work together to penetrate a cell's membrane in order to dampen an acute inflammatory response.

In this first ex vivo study, the peptide reduced collagen degradation by up to 43 per cent. If deployed early enough, the researchers say, the peptide could allay some of the worst damage caused by acute inflammatory responses.

DOUSING CYTOKINE STORMS

Acute infections can cause inflammatory responses known as "cytokine storms," a term that has gained in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This storm is a natural defense response to an acute infection. Cytokines are a type of immune response cell, but when the body becomes overwhelmed by infections such as those caused by influenza, H1N1 or COVID-19, it can release an unregulated flood of cytokines into the body.

In those instances, infection-busting cytokines can cause severe damage in the body -- everything from holes in the lung tissue to vascular damage and blot clots, with the most acute cases causing death.

TARTGETED PATHWAYS, PRECISION MEDICINE

Dr. Greg Downey, pulmonologist, professor and executive vice president, academic affairs in the Department of Medicine at the National Jewish Hospital, who co-authored the study, calls the peptide discovery "exciting."

Here's how it works: the peptide combines a segment of a naturally occurring protein, CARMIL1, with a peptide "vehicle," TAT, that brings the CARMIL1 directly into the cell. That enables the CARMIL1 to calm the inflammatory storm. The CARMIL peptide effectively blocks a family of cytokines, called interleukin1, from signalling and reproducing in vast quantities.

"There are a lot of people looking at these areas, but this study gives the first indication of how these CARMIL proteins are involved with this pathway," Downey adds.

But what makes the discovery so unique is how precise it is. The TAT CARMIL1 peptide targets two receptors, sticking to both the cell's surface and its cell substrate, where it adheres to other cells.

"The two receptors necessary for it to work supplies an unusual level of specificity," explains Chris McCulloch, professor at the Faculty of Dentistry and a co-lead of the study. "We think the unusual nature of this pathway might restrict its side effects."

That could make the peptide an unusually strong candidate as a potential drug. Drugs designed to work in conjunction with this peptide would need to target cells at both receptors, narrowing the potential field of candidates from tens of thousands to hundreds.

"This is a precise pathway to deal with a precise issue," says Downey.

THE FUTURE IS CARMIL

Next, the team hope to track the peptide's success in in vitro models. Given the broad applicability of the peptide, which can be combined with other drugs, such as cancer or arthritis drugs, the discovery could one day become a useful ally in the fight against all types of inflammation.

Still, Downey cautions, more work needs to be done. The initial study shows that the storm- stopping peptide is most effective when it is applied as an early intervention. That, says Downey, is impractical: "In the clinical world the reality is that you don't have that luxury."

###

The study, published in Cell Reports, was funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant.
New research from The University of Texas at Dallas suggests food deserts might be more prevalent in the U.S. than the numbers reported in government estimates.

In a feasibility study published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, scholars found that the methods used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify areas with low access to healthy food are often outdated and narrow in scope.

Their findings indicate that crowdsourced information gathered from mobile apps such as Yelp could help provide more accurate real-time representation of food deserts in impoverished communities.

"Using data from the city of Dallas, we compared our results with the 2015 USDA database and discovered the agency needs an up-to-date source of information on grocery stores," said Dr. Dohyeong Kim, associate professor of public policy and political economy and of geospatial information sciences in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at UT Dallas. "The number of food deserts may be a lot larger than what the USDA says it is."

The USDA considers three metrics when identifying "food deserts," areas where residents lack access to fresh and healthy food: income, car ownership and distance to the nearest supermarket. In an effort to improve accuracy of food desert locations, the UT Dallas researchers looked at two additional variables not included by the USDA: access to public transit and shopper-provided food pricing gathered from Yelp, an online source of business reviews by the public.

"If a community has few public transportation options nearby, that may contribute to the existence of a food desert," Kim said. "Plus, low-income households still face limited access to healthy food if prices are too high."

The researchers analyzed data from Dallas' 296 census tracts, which are neighborhood-sized geographical areas used by government agencies to collect population data. Nine census tracts were identified as food deserts based on the USDA's 2015 data only. Using 2018 Yelp data alone, the researchers identified 50 census tracts -- mostly in south Dallas -- as food deserts. Thirty-three census tracts were overlapped by both data sources.

Due to the time difference between the two data sources, Kim cautioned that their findings could not confirm which dataset -- USDA vs. Yelp -- matches the situation on the ground more accurately, and he stressed that Yelp should not be considered as a replacement for government data. The results do show, however, that crowdsourced, georeferenced data could be a good supplement to improve accuracy of official government data and help guide health policies.

"Yelp data is still incomplete in coverage and limited for wide application, although it has the potential to be improved in the future," Kim said. "This study sheds light on the need for on-the-ground, place-specific observation in the study of food deserts, and future studies should include multiple cities to gauge the quality of Yelp data across the country."

Kim added that use of such crowdsourced information also could give guidance to other public-health mapping, such as for noise or pollution.

###

Other contributors to the study included first author Thomas McKey, UT Dallas geospatial information sciences doctoral student, and Dr. SungChul Seo from Eulji University, South Korea.

The study was supported by the Environmental Health Action Program, funded by the Ministry of Environment, South Korea.
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:11 pm

Several mornings ago, I watched a video of Lewis County, Washingtons sheriff, Robert Snaza, exhorting a group of local citizens to defy Governor Jay Inslees mask wearing proclamation. I am shocked and appalled for three very basic reasons.

First, Mr. Snaza, you are a sworn officer of the State of Washington. This means you took an oath of office. What does that oath include? May I remind you the actual WSSA (Washington State Sheriffs Association) Mission Statement: To better serve and protect the people of Washington State, and to uphold the Constitution and laws of the State of Washington, and the United States, the mission of the Washington State Sheriffs Association (WSSA) is to promote ethics, professionalism, leadership development, training and dialogue among its members and the law enforcement community. Does publicly defying the Governors mandate follow your own associations guidelines? Ill leave that to your conscience to consider,

Second, you stood in front of a Christian church to make this proclamation. On a bullhorn, you exhorted the attendees to, Not to be sheep. In other words, be law breakers and dont wear masks. Did you know all Christians consider themselves to be sheep and Jesus is their shepherd? You just mocked your audience using sheep as an analogy for being a coward.

Third, you mislead the indoor mask requirement by alluding to the wearing of a mask something youd have to do in your own home. In fact the Governors proclamation reads as such: Starting Friday, every Washingtonian must wear a facial covering when in a public space, as mandated by the public health order signed by Wiesman. This includes both indoor and outdoor public spaces. Hmm, public spaces are not ones own home.

Lewis County has always been a deeply religious group of communities. How do I know? It was my home county from 1946 to 1987. I attended a local school, was a member of a local church, raised my children there, and taught in several Lewis County schools. Mr. Snaza, please rethink your comments and do what you were sworn to do, keep the citizens of Lewis County safe.

Roberta Doster

Skamania County
DALLAS - July 2, 2020 - Two new studies led by UT Southwestern scientists outline how individual cells maintain their internal clocks, driven both through heritable and random means. These findings, published online May 1 in PNAS and May 27 in eLife, help explain how organisms' circadian clocks maintain flexibility and could offer insights into aging and cancer.

Scientists have long known that organisms across the spectrum of life have internal clocks - with cycles about as long as a day - that govern behaviors including sleeping, eating, and immune response. However, individual cells also have their own clocks when removed from the organism, with periods that can vary substantially, stretching up to several hours longer or shorter. How cells maintain these different lengths of internal rhythms has been unknown given that these cells should be the same at the genetic level, explains Joseph S. Takahashi, Ph.D., chair of the department of neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center, a member of UT Southwestern's Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

To investigate this question, he and his colleagues worked with mouse cells that were genetically altered so that they glowed whenever a prominent circadian clock gene called Per2 turned on. Using this tool, they could see how long the cell's natural oscillations were - ranging from a shorter period of 21.5 hours up to a longer period of nearly 28 hours.

When they isolated cells at the extremes of this range and grew them as clones in petri dishes, the researchers found that these cells maintained their periods. The short and long period cells stayed at their extreme cycle lengths even after many cell divisions over months, suggesting that period length has a heritable component.

When the researchers compared gene expression between the two groups of cells, they found thousands of genes that were either more or less active. Many of these genes appeared to work together in large-scale networks and were associated with stress response signaling pathways and metabolic pathways, underlining the importance of these processes in the circadian cycle. Most of these genes have never been linked with circadian rhythms, says UT Southwestern's Yan Li, Ph.D., the lead author of the studies, suggesting a new pool of candidate genes that might be important in maintaining cellular periodicity.

Looking closer at what caused this differing gene expression between the short- and long-period cells, Takahashi and his colleagues traced it to epigenetic - or "above the genome" - control. Rather than differences in the DNA sequence of genes themselves that caused them to be more or less active, the researchers found that their activity hinged on chemical modifications to the DNA of the genes known as DNA methylation. When they shut down genes that placed or maintained these chemical tags, the cells' circadian cycle length changed.

Although this heritable mechanism accounts for some of the variation between cell period length, it's not responsible for all of it, Takahashi explains. Searching for other sources for cell periodicity, the researchers examined the exact length of circadian cycles in the short- and long-period groups. They found that those with longer periods had the most variability in their cycle lengths. Further tests suggest that this variance is caused by random fluctuations in gene activity. The more of this nonheritable fluctuation that cells exhibited, the longer their cycles were on average. When the researchers dosed cells with a drug that increased this fluctuation in gene activity, it increased their circadian cycles by about 1.5 hours on average.

Together, Takahashi says, these results suggest that the circadian rhythms of cells are controlled both by heritable and nonheritable components. Gaining a better understanding of these mechanisms could provide some insight on natural processes and health problems that are associated with a decline in circadian clock function, such as aging and cancer. It could also help researchers better understand how organisms maintain flexibility in situations that strain the circadian clock, such as jet lag.

"If every cell in our bodies oscillated in the same way, our bodies would act like one giant clock, inflexible and unable to adapt to a changing environment," Takahashi explains. "Having variability in the cell population makes it more flexible and increases the resilience of an organism."

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Takahashi holds the Loyd B. Sands Distinguished Chair in Neuroscience.

Other researchers who contributed to the eLife study include Yongli Shan, Gokhul Kilaru, Stefano Berto, Guang-Zhong Wang, Kimberly H. Cox, Seung-Hee Yoo, Shuzhang Yang, and Genevieve Konopka, all of UTSW.

Other researchers who contributed to the PNAS study include UTSW's Shan and Cox as well as Ravi V. Desai and Leor S. Weinberger of the University of California, San Francisco.

Both studies were supported by funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

About UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern, one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution's faculty has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 24 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 16 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 13 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 2,500 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in about 80 specialties to more than 105,000 hospitalized patients, nearly 370,000 emergency room cases, and oversee approximately 3 million outpatient visits a year.
The Global Communications Alliance (GCA), a network of 15 independent communications agencies covering four continents and 21 countries, has announced that Markus Hilse, Managing Director of navos - Public Dialogue Consultants (Germany) has been newly elected as Chair. Mavcomm Consulting Pvt. Ltd. is the only Indian member of the Global Communications Alliance.

"We look forward to taking the GCA to the next level. International know-how and transnational independent and innovative communication services are now more important than ever", Hilse said. An international Change Communications offering will be the next client service initiative of the GCA.

Hilse takes up the role in challenging times. COVID-19 is the single major challenge for all Corporate Communications and Public Affairs agencies within the GCA global

network. As a result, participating in an ongoing exchange about strategy, staff engagement and new service-offerings in these tough times is a significant value-add for

member agencies.



Commenting on Hilse being elected as Chair, Anand Mahesh Talari, Co-Founder, Mavcomm Consulting said, Hilse has played a rock-solid role in the development of

GCA and I am confident that under Hilses leadership, GCA will play a key role for corporations around the world looking for the advantage of a global strategy with native

specialists. I wish Hilse all the best for his role in the chair. We are looking forward to introduce to Indian transnational companies the international change communications

offering of GCA.

Hilse brings more than two decades of senior communications experience to the role. navos is a founding member of the Global Communications Alliance. Christian Simon,

Senior Consultant and Head of International Affairs, will support Hilse in his work at navos and takes responsibility for enlarging the group further.

The GCAs previous Chair was Susan Smith, Principal of Bluesky Strategy Group (Canada). During the last two years Smith professionalized the alliance, improving exchange between member agencies, and successfully enlarging the network. navos recently hosted the networks 5th summit as a digital event and hopes to welcome all partners to Berlin for the GCAs 6th global summit in spring 2021.

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The Pound Sterling Euro (GBP/EUR) exchange rate remained flat on Thursday morning. This left the pairing trading at around 1.1088.

The Pound struggled against the Euro, which left the pairing flat this morning. Traders nervously awaited the latest US jobless and non-farm payrolls which are expected to show the worlds largest economy added around three million jobs last month.

However, estimates vary wildly, which has left investors cautious, and riskier currencies such as the Pound under pressure.

The recent data comes as markets worry about whether the US economy can sustain its recovery after seeing a surge in coronavirus infections and some states reintroducing restrictions.

Vishnu Varathan, head of economics at Mizuho Bank in Singapore noted:

Any reasonable reaction to this number must also price in the resurgence in cases. A shortfall, particularly even one that may be mildly negative, would quickly reinforce the shadows of doubt being cast on plans for unfettered re-openings.

Upbeat US jobs data is likely to boost Sterling today, as traders wait to see whether todays data will add further fuel to the debate the US economy will be able to sustain its fragile recovery despite the rising coronavirus cases.

Commenting on this, Stephen Innes, strategist at AxiCorp noted:

A better-than-expected outcome could go some way to settling the near-term debate that the US labor market will heal relatively quickly and justify new highs in US equities.

Markets also received a boost after reports revealed signs of progress in the development of a coronavirus vaccination.

Sentiment was boosted after news that a vaccine developed by German biotech firm BioNTech and US pharmaceutical company, Pfizer had shown potential in the early stages of human trials.

This limited Euro gains against the Pound as it boosted risk appetite as a vaccine for the coronavirus crisis which has killed more than half a million people, has been long anticipated.

Meanwhile, data released this morning showed Italys unemployment rate rose to 7.7% in May. This is up from an upwardly revised 6.6% just a month before.

The countrys economy shed 84,000 jobs, and May is the third month that jobs data reflect the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

After the governments lockdown measures closed many businesses throughout March and April, the jobless rate fell as people stopped looking for work.

The increase in unemployment in May reflects Italians returning to the labour market and the gradual end of lockdown as only those actively searching for a hob count towards the Italian unemployment rate. This boosted the single currency, although the risk-off mood buoyed GBP and left the pairing flat.

Added to this, further data showed the unemployment rate for the Eurozone did not rise as high as expected in May.

As countries from within the bloc began to reopen, Eurostat showed the Eurozones unemployment rate edged up to 7.4% in May from Aprils 7.3%.

Pound Euro Outlook: Services PMI and Consumer Sentiment in Focus

Looking ahead to Friday, the Pound (GBP) could edge higher against the Euro (EUR) following the release of consumer confidence data.

If GfK reveals British consumers are increasingly upbeat in June as confidence improves more than expected, GBP will receive a boost.

Meanwhile, the single currency could receive a boost following a slew of services PMIs from the bloc.

If the Eurozones services PMI jumps higher than expected as the contraction in activity slows once again, the Euro will edge higher.

However, an upbeat services PMI from the UK could boost Sterling which would leave the Pound Euro (GBP/EUR) exchange rate flat.
The latest round of negotiations between the U.K. and European Union over their future trade relationship ended a day early on Thursday amid warnings that big differences still exist between the two sides. Sterling briefly moved lower in currency markets before regaining ground with Euro/Sterling looking to test 0.9000.

The rhetoric from both sides was little changed from the previous session with disagreement in the usual areas. At this stage, there is little evidence that the political injection of urgency by UK Prime Minister Johnson and EU Commission President Von der Leyen has had a significant impact.

A meeting between UK chief negotiator Frost and EU Chief Negotiator Barnier had been scheduled for Friday, but this will now not take place.

In a statement, Frost stated that The negotiations have been comprehensive and useful, but they have also underlined the significant differences that still remain between us on a number of important issues."

Frost again cautioned that UK sovereignty over its laws, courts, and fishing waters was not up for discussion.

Barnier stated that Our goal was to get negotiations successfully and quickly on a trajectory to reach an agreement. However, after four days of discussions, serious divergences remain.

He added that; an agreement is possible and in everyones interest.

Banier added that the EU expects its positions to be better understood and respected in order to reach an agreement. We need an equivalent engagement by the U.K.

Barnier again made reference to the UK red lines on fishing, The European Court of Justice and level playing field. He reiterated that parallel progress is needed on all areas of negotiation, again rejecting the possibility of securing separate agreements and a basic trade deal.

The next round of talks will take place in London next week with talks scheduled throughout this month. Frost added; "We remain committed to working hard to find an early understanding on the principles underlying an agreement out of the intensified talks process during July.

The deadline for requesting an extension of the transition period has now passed and it would now take a substantial legal change to prevent the UK leaving the single market at the end of this year.

EU officials played down the importance of the decision to end talks early and added; "one positive is that the UK now appears to understand our position more clearly on the areas of disagreement."

Sterling edged lower following the report, although it regained ground with markets tending to focus on the US jobs data and global risk conditions.

Pressure will, however, gradually build during the month as time pressures intensify.

Stephen Gallo, European head of FX strategy at BMO commented; The second to last week and the last week of July are going to be the extreme Brexit crunch point. If theres not movement by the week of 20th or the week of 27th, that may be the second wave of selling in Sterling.

The Pound-to-Dollar exchange rate traded just below 1.2500 from an earlier high at 1.2530 while the Euro-to-Pound exchange rate dipped to near 0.9000 as the single currency lost ground.
Thursday, July 2, 2020

Grab a cup for the next ABQ Death Cafe!

Albuquerque Death Cafes are being held online for the duration of the pandemic crisis.

The next online ABQ Death Cafe will take place on Zoom on Sunday, July 19 from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. To get the link to participate, send a note to Gail [at] AGoodGoodbye.com and let her know youd like to join in the conversation.

About Death Cafes

The objective of the Death Cafe is To increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives. Its all about an interesting, unstructured conversation  open and free-flowing with no specific agenda.

The Death Cafe concept was started in the United Kingdom by Jon Underwood. He was influenced by the ideas of Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz, who started holding Cafe Mortel events in France and Switzerland. At these events, people come together in a relaxed, confidential and safe setting to discuss death, drink tea (or your favorite beverage) and eat delicious cake or cookies.

Sadly, Jon Underwood died suddenly three years ago at the age of 44 from a brain hemorrhage. It was caused by undiagnosed acute promyelocytic leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells.

Jons mother Sue Barsky Reid and Jons sister Jools Barsky have continued his Death Cafe work, as Jon requested. To date, the Death Cafe movement has grown to more than 11,209 events in 73 countries worldwide (as of July 2, 2020). For information on how to hold a Death Cafe in your community, review the information at www.DeathCafe.com.

Albuquerque was the site of the second Death Cafe held in the United States. Gail Rubin hosted this pioneering event in September of 2012. Lizzy Miles held the first Death Cafe outside the U.K. in Columbus, Ohio in August of 2012.

Upcoming ABQ Death Cafes

Here is the schedule of upcoming Sunday afternoon Albuquerque Death Cafes, to be held online for the foreseeable future.

August 16, 2020

September 13, 2020

October 11, 2020

November 22, 2020

December 20, 2020

Join The Meetup Group

To keep in the loop on upcoming Death Cafes, join the Albuquerque Death Cafe Meetup group. Youll receive notice of upcoming events. Click here to go to the Meetup page.

Your ABQ Death Cafe Host

Gail Rubin, CT, The Doyenne of Death

Albuquerque Death Cafes are hosted by Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist, and a pioneering death educator. Rubin is a public speaker, a published author of three books, host of a TV interview series and podcast, a blogger, a funeral industry trade journalist, a Certified Funeral Celebrant, and an innovator in the funeral business.

She created a conversation-starting game called The Newly-Dead Game, introduced the Death Cafe movement in the United States, and held the first Before I Die Festival west of the Mississippi in 2017. Albuquerque Business First named her one of their 2019 Women of Influence.

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Normally, the Fourth of July is one of the biggest travel holidays of the year, but the coronavirus pandemic is putting a damper on vacation plans.

But just how much of a slowdown there will be isnt clear.

The virus effect on travel plans is considered so unpredictable that the American Automobile Association did not put out its yearly Fourth of July travel forecast.

The situation is too volatile, with factors such as the varying unemployment rate and the latest surge in COVID-19 cases leading to uncertainty as to who will be traveling, said Daniel Armbruster, senior public affairs specialist with AAA Texas.

William Luther /Staff photographer

But Armbruster said its clear more people will be staying home for the Fourth of July and for the rest of the summer.

The AAA did feel it had enough data for a three-month forecast from July 1 to Sept. 30. It predicts that 76.6 million road trips will occur during the period, down 3.6 percent from the same period a year ago. The figures are for Texas and three other states: Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Texans and their neighbors arent the only ones cutting down on travel. AAA is expecting a national average of 683 million road trips for the same three-month period, down by 3.3 percent.

On ExpressNews.com: Battered by low demand for gas, Valero expects a huge loss

The expected decline is even greater for air travel this summer.

AAA is predicting a 77.6 percent plummet in air travel, or 1.6 million passengers flying from July 1 to Sept. 30 in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Smiley N. Pool /Dallas Morning News

The national decline is expected to be nearly as bad  a drop of 73.9 percent, or 15.1 million flyers, in that three-month period.

As steep as those drops are, they actually represent an improvement from April when the passenger count was only 6 percent of the previous years number of flyers both locally and nationally.

On ExpressNews.com: Airlines halving number of flights out of San Antonio

Since then, most days have seen gradual increases as stay-at-home orders are lifted and more travelers choose to fly.

San Antonio International Airport has seen that improvement in passenger demand  even though it remains far below normal.

Airport officials estimated that 3,600 passengers flew out of San Antonio on Wednesday, 23 percent of the number of travelers a year ago.

Weve seen an increase in travel in the past month, and we are prepared for travelers that choose to fly this Fourth of July weekend, said Jesus Saenz, San Antonios airport director.

On ExpressNews.com: Amtrak to reduce Texas Eagle train service in S.A.

For those choosing to fly out of San Antonio, face masks are required to enter the airport.

In addition, airlines say they are now requiring face masks on planes and will bar travelers from future flights if do not comply.

Some passengers had been complaining that airlines were not enforcing the face mask rules once planes took off.

Another issue facing flyers: Social distancing on planes.

Some carriers, such as Southwest Airlines, are only filling planes 65 percent to capacity, keeping the middle seat empty to enforce social distancing. However other airlines, like American and United, say they will fill their planes to capacity if there is enough passenger demand.

Randy Diamond covers energy and manufacturing in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Randy, become a subscriber. randy.diamond@express-news.net
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:09 pm

Wear a mask. For yourself, your community and our economy.

As of Friday, state officials declared mask wearing mandatory in public. But it didnt take long for some elected leaders to undermine that message at the expense of public health and the states recovery.

Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza, at a rally, urged citizens not to be sheep when it came to following mask directives. Perennial initiative promoter Tim Eyman, who is running to replace Gov. Jay Inslee, urged his supporters to engage in mass mask disobedience if they dont want to wear one, whipping up outrage in a Facebook live tirade. Others have expressed similar views.

They are irresponsible and wrong  for some, sadly, dead wrong.

Washingtonians have had plenty of time to get used to the idea of wearing cloth face coverings to slow the spread of COVID-19. Masking up is a small price to pay to safeguard public health. Not to care for our communities, as some leaders suggest, is shortsighted and dangerous.

Health Secretary John Wiesmans order mandating mask wearing in public places should be no surprise to communities that have seen slipshod compliance with voluntary mask directives. The order, which took effect Friday, requires people aged 5 and older to cover mouths and noses on public transit, in indoor public spaces and crowded outdoor areas where its hard to maintain a 6-foot distance from others, unless they have a medical exemption. Children aged 2 to 5 are strongly encouraged to wear masks. Children aged 2 to 5 are strongly encouraged to wear masks.

In especially hard-hit Yakima County, which is facing an imminent explosion of COVID-19 cases that threatens health-care resources, Gov. Inslee has further ordered retailers and other business owners to turn customers away unless their faces are covered.

These are necessary steps. Widespread use of masks in crowded public spaces is essential for the safe reopening of businesses, schools, workplaces and resumption of small social gatherings. If communities wont do the right thing voluntarily, stronger steps are required.

Patience may be wearing thin after months of dealing with this health emergency, but recent increases in infection rates are clear evidence that the fight is far from over.

Over the past two weeks, there have been an average of 399 COVID-19 cases confirmed each day in Washington, according to public-health officials. Less than three weeks after applying for Phase 2 status, infection rates in Pierce County have jumped from 16 to 31.5 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, according to Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department Director Dr. Anthony Chen.

Yakima Countys infection rate is straining hospital resources. In King County, where masks have been mandatory in public for more than a month, bare faces are still common, even in densely populated areas and at events, such as recent Black Lives Matter protests.

Not everyone can safely wear a mask, but those who can should.

Cloth face coverings slow the spread of coronavirus by trapping droplets of moisture that are exhaled when talking, singing, coughing, sneezing or simply breathing. Masks best slow the spread of disease when more people  even those who feel healthy  use them regularly. Donning a bandanna every once in a while does little good.

Forgoing a mask without a medical reason is not a political statement or expression of independence. Its an act of selfishness or ignorance. Those who are deliberately spreading misinformation about masks effectiveness are cynically putting lives at risk.

Unless it is medically inadvisable, and until a vaccine is readily available, stay close to home, minimize interactions with people outside your household, wash your hands and wear a mask.
Days before what would typically be one of the biggest tourism weekends of the year, local officials in Galveston announced Wednesday they will close their beaches to the public for the July 4th holiday weekend amid an alarming rise in new coronavirus cases in the Houston area and Texas.

Galveston Mayor Jim Yarbrough said he would also consider closing certain access points for the rest of the summer.

By and large, I think local people will be supportive, Yarbrough said in a phone interview. Of course, our interest is the public health of our citizens. But I think were doing the right thing for the people who were gonna visit here who might not now. I think its in their best interest as well.

The moves to close beaches in the city of Galveston and Galveston County, issued late Wednesday, represent the most significant restrictions on outdoor activity in the Houston area since state and local governments implemented stay-home orders shutting down much of the region in the early spring. The beach closures in the popular getaway for Houston-area residents comes as the number of statewide cases climbed to 172,753, a nearly 5 percent increase, and the death toll rose to 2,509 statewide, a 2.1 percent increase, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis. Wednesday was the second straight day with a record for a single-day increase in cases to date, and the first with more than 8,000 cases.

Under Yarbroughs order, which takes effect at 5 a.m. Friday, the city will close all of the islands beach access points and beach parks and restrict parking on the north and south sides of Seawall Boulevard. Pedestrians will not be allowed on the beach, though Seawall Boulevard will remain open to pedestrians and exercise activity. Tailgating, picnicking and sitting stationery on the seawall will be prohibited. The beach closure will end at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

While Galveston County beaches will be closed for the holiday weekend, neighboring Brazoria County had no plans as of Wednesday to prohibit beach access, a county spokeswoman said.

The city of Surfside, which governs Surfside Beach, a popular coastal destination about an hours drive from Galveston, will be closing its beach to vehicle access overnight, but the beach will remain open during the day.

Galvestons beach closure comes after two months of large crowds swarming the island following Gov. Greg Abbotts May 1 executive order reopening parts of the states economy, which included encouraging outdoor activities and removing the authority of local governments to close beaches due to the coronavirus outbreak.

At the time of Abbotts executive order, coronavirus infections in Galveston County had begun to trend downward. On May 16, the county health district reported its lowest weekly coronavirus case total since the pandemic began, with 22 cases. The return of crowds, with mask use spotty at best, was punctuated by a packed Memorial Day weekend that saw thousands of visitors. Infections soared in June, even as testing for the virus in the county has decreased. On Wednesday, the county health district reported 272 positive cases, its largest single-day case total.

The move by Yarbrough, a former county judge, prompted Galveston County officials to re-evaluate its plans for Bolivar Peninsula, an unincorporated part of the county with 27 miles of beaches. Shortly after the city of Galveston released its official order closing beaches, the county released a statement declaring all beaches in unincorporated areas would be closed from 5 a.m. Friday to just after midnight on Monday, based on the recommendation of the countys local health authority.

In a shift, the county said Thursday that it will allow foot traffic on peninsula beaches from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily during the holiday weekend. The county adjusted the scheduled closures to accommodate those who have already booked vacation rentals on Bolivar Peninsula for the weekend.

Yarbroughs actions forced everyones hand due to concerns that people planning to go to Galvestons beaches over the weekend would instead flood beaches on the nearby Bolivar Peninsula, said Darrell Apffel, a Galveston County commissioner whose precinct includes the peninsula.

Beaches on Bolivar would be overcrowded and the public health authority strongly advised to shut it down because of the unsafe environment that will be created, Apffel said.

Yarbrough, who is stepping down as mayor on July 15 in part due to health concerns from the coronavirus outbreak, added that while his order restricts beach access just for the July 4th weekend, he planned to issue a separate order next week that would limit high-traffic access points on the island, such as at San Luis Pass and Diamond Beach, through Sept. 30, when the citys disaster declaration expires.

The mayor said he was initially unsure whether he had the power to close beaches, but was influenced to do so in part by an order issued Tuesday by Nueces County  which includes Corpus Christi, a coastal tourism hot spot  to prohibit vehicular access to beaches over the holiday weekend.

The city of Galveston, which initially closed its beaches to the public on March 29, had begun a partial reopening nearly a month later  open from 6 to 9 a.m. for people engaging in exercise. Abbotts executive order reopening the state superseded the citys plans for a gradual reopening. The Texas General Land Office, which governs beach access across the state, informed coastal cities like Galveston that the governors executive order stripped them of the ability to close beaches due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A spokeswoman for the General Land Office said the agency has told local governments that they may now close beach access points for emergencies related to public safety. This was news to Yarbrough until he was informed that Nueces Countys beach closure went into effect on Tuesday.

We got in touch with GLO and theyre supportive of whatever decisions we make, which has always been a concern, certainly over the last month, Yarbrough said.

hed here All beach access points and beach parks on Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula, including Crystal Beach,will be closed through the July 4 weekend. The beach closures begin on July 3 at 5 a.m., and will reopen on July 6 at 12:01 a.m. See More Collapse

Matt Dempsey contributed to this report

nick.powell@chron.com
Austin Public Health officials said in its weekly news conference Wednesday that Austin-Travis County is expected to surpass 10,000 cases on Wednesday. Austin and Travis County is currently in Stage 4 of its COVID-19 risk-based levels. Stage 5 would trigger the closing of non-essential businesses.

The risk-based levels are measured on the new cases hospitalized in a seven-day moving average. On Tuesday, there were 67 new hospitalizations. If the new hospitalizations surpass 70, Dr. Mark Escott, interim health authority for Austin Public Health, said he will advise Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe to re-enter a stay-at-home order.

READ ALSO: Austin City Limits cancels 2020 festival amid pandemic

"Right now, it does not indicate that officials need to do so at this moment," Escott said. "... but the next several weeks are critical for us to make real changes to protect ourselves, protect our families and protect our community."

Escott said he is also "concerned" about Austin's neighbors in San Antonio after Bexar County reported 1,268 new infections on Tuesday, which is the county's largest one-day increase. If cases continue to increase in Bexar County, Escott said it could result in new patients heading to Travis County due to an overflow in San Antonio's hospitals.

With the Fourth of July weekend coming up, Austin-Travis County will use the Warn Central Texas system to send an emergency alert to residents, urging them to stay home during the holiday, according to a news release issued on Wednesday.

The Austin area has seen a 400 percent increase in hospitalizations and a 370 percent increase in cases of COVID-19 since June 1, according to the news release. As of Tuesday, the county has 9,527 cases and 369 hospitalizations.

I know we want to celebrate; I know we want to get together with our families; I know we want to have firework shows and barbecue and do the things we normally do, but now is not the time for that, Escott said in the release on Wednesday. Now is the time we have to be strong together by staying home, by doing things within our own household, by watching the fireworks on TV.

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:
The coronavirus continued its unchecked spread through the San Antonio region as Bexar County reported 439 more cases of COVID-19 and the number of people hospitalized with the disease surpassed 1,000 Wednesday, further straining bed capacity.

We really have to express to you the seriousness of the situation in the hospitals and our medical community: It is dire, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said during the daily city-county coronavirus briefing.

In a bid to prevent people from gathering in large groups and slow the rise in new infections, Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff ordered all city and county parks  save for the citys trails  closed over the Fourth of July weekend, starting Friday.

Both pointed to spikes in new cases following Memorial Day weekend when people hit the beaches and held barbecues and Gov. Greg Abbott allowed some businesses to reopen.

We know there will be a lot of people that will not be happy with this, Wolff said. But its for their own protection.

Nevertheless, Nirenberg and Wolff walked back orders announced Tuesday that would have required businesses to screen customers for COVID-19 symptoms and check their temperatures before allowing them on the premises. After blowback from businesses, the two leaders merely recommended those precautions.

The total number of known coronavirus infections in Bexar County since the start of the pandemic now stands at 12,504.

One more person has died of COVID-19, an Hispanic man in his 80s, bringing the death toll to 111.

Fifty-three more people were in the hospital with the virus. The number of people now hospitalized with the virus reached 1,019, nearly a third of the countys hospital patients.

Of those, 324 people are in intensive care units, an increase of 36 from Tuesday. More patients also needed ventilators to help them breathe  175, compared with 158 the previous day.

Hospitals in the county remained under high stress Wednesday, officials reported.

They managed to add bed space, bringing the number of staffed hospital beds to 4,785 from 4,632 the day before. Of those beds, 1,285 are available.

That larger capacity comes in part from an influx of military nurses assigned to San Antonio to provide critical care for patients. About 150 nurses arrived Wednesday, Nirenberg said, and another 415 state-employed nurses will follow.

But the countys hospitals probably can handle only about two more weeks of continuous increases in the number of patients before the system is overwhelmed, officials said.

Its not sustainable, Wolff said. So weve all got to be a lot more careful. Weve all got personal responsibilities to take care ourselves and help take care of others.

The new local figures came as Texas reported a second consecutive single-day record of 8,029 new cases, pushing the statewide total to 172,753. Fifty-two more Texans have died of COVID-19 for a total of 2,509 since the pandemic started.

More than 6,900 people were in Texas hospitals as of Wednesday afternoon.

In Comal County, officials confirmed the countys eighth death Wednesday  a New Braunfels man in his 70s who had underlying health conditions.

Comal also added 124 new cases  74 of which were confirmed infections and 50 were probable. The county now has had 778 cases of the virus.

A plurality of the new Comal cases are people in their 20s, but officials also noted significant increases in infections among residents in their 40s, 60s and 70s.

Comals positive rate hit a new high Wednesday, climbing to 12.8 percent  up from 10.3 percent Tuesday and 8.7 percent a week ago.

In light of the surge, Comal County Judge Sherman Krause signed an order Wednesday compelling businesses to require employees and customers to wear masks or face coverings while on the premises or face a $1,000 fine.

The order  identical to those passed by Wolff and Nirenberg last month  takes effect Friday.

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
CNN was invited inside San Antonio's Methodist Hospital this week and what one reporter witnessed brought him to tears on air Thursday morning.

Correspondent Miguel Marquez spent time inside COVID-19 intensive care units at Methodist Hospital, speaking to staff about the overwhelming surge of patients. The result is a nearly 10-minute long package that aired on CNN's "New Day" on Thursday morning. Marquez broke down while speaking about the strain he witnessed.

In early June, a team of San Antonio Express-News journalists spent 18 hours with the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Northeast Baptist Hospital and later at Methodist Hospital. Read their account and see the stunning images they captured in our subscriber exclusive story, Night Shift.

He said the healthcare workers, who were already "pushed to limits," expect to see an even larger surge after the Fourth of July weekend. The San Antonio Express-News toured Methodist after the Memorial Day weekend, when ICU units at local hospitals went from "uneventful" to "frenetic."

"They just know more is coming," Marquez said. "The question is: how big will it be and will they be able to take it on?"

"It was an eye opener of all the eye openers I've seen," he added.

Marquez's full report, which can be viewed here, included a sobering warning from San Antonio Dr. Jeffrey Dellavolpe. The disease is not just affecting older people. Dellavolpe said he's lost track of how many patients he's treating who are in their 20s. He also said there's a "long" waiting list for rooms.

CNN also said there's an increase in infections among pregnant women, so much so Methodist Hospital has a dedicated unit in the NICU for babies who are born to mothers who are infected. The newborns are taken from their mothers soon after being born. Charge nurse Megan VanDewark told CNN she expects the specialized unit to be full soon at the rate they're seeing.

ON EXPRESSNEWS.COM: While the city sleeps, a team of nurses cares for the sickest of the sick in the COVID-19 ICU at Northeast Baptist Hospital

Back in one of Methodist's three COVID-19 units, Dellavolpe told CNN he's already having to make life or death decisions. He discussed using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment as a last-ditch effort. The treatment adds oxygen to a patient's blood in order to give damaged organs time like the lungs to rest. This treatment comes with a risk of serious complications, so younger patients are usually the best candidates, but Dellavolpe said there's not enough space in the system's large ECMO program.

"Yesterday was probably one of my worst days that I've ever had," he told Marquez. "I got 10 calls, all of whom were young people who otherwise would be excellent candidates to be able to be put on ECMO. They're sick. They're so sick that if they don't get put on, if they don't get that support, they're probably going to die. I had three beds. In making that decision, being able to figure out who is really going to benefit, it is a level of decision-making I don't think a lot of us are prepared for."

As of Wednesday, 1,019 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19. An additional 439 cases were reported as well as another death. The total COVID-19 case count in San Antonio stands at 12,504 and the death toll is 111.

READ ALSO: San Antonio drops down hot spot list, but doubling rate is the same

COVID-19 ICU Nurse Manager Adam Sahyouni told CNN he doesn't think he's ever seen a comparable situation in San Antonio. He offered grave advice for San Antonians if they want to be excluded from the post-holiday "tidal wave" local hospitals are bracing for.

"If you want to see Aug. 1, then maybe you should stay indoors and isolate on July Fourth," he said.

Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @maddyskye
After months of back-and-forth negotiations, arguments over budget projections and occasional frustration, the VIA Metropolitan Transit board decided Thursday to ask San Antonio voters in November for an additional 1/8-cent-per-dollar sales tax to support public transportation.

It was an explicit rejection of the advice and wishes of Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who said he would keep trying to talk the board out of it.

In a brief meeting and with little discussion, the board unanimously supported a resolution, ahead of Mondays required deadline, to give notice to the city of San Antonio and Bexar County of its intent to place the item on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Their action requires another board vote no later than Aug. 17.

Board Chairwoman Hope Andrade said board members tried in recent days to secure a better commitment from the city to financially support public transit. She said the timing was critical, with the community reeling from COVID-19 and its economic effects, to address a funding inequity that dates to 1977, when VIA was created to operate with a half-cent sales tax, not the full 1 cent authorized by the Legislature.

If we do not act now, we may not have the opportunity again. Not in May (2021), not in a generation, Andrade said. The choice should belong to the voters.

Nirenberg said he supports public transit, but the coronavirus has generated competing concerns. He said he will join other city officials in efforts to persuade the VIA board not to act before the August deadline.

I do not support the decision to put a transit election on this November ballot, so I hope that between now and Aug. 17 we can come to an agreement that addresses the needs of a community that has been rocked by this pandemic, Nirenberg said in a statement.

On ExpressNews.com: Auditors issue bleak forecast for VIA in pandemic

Despite having a non-binding assurance that the city would provide $10 million annually through 2025 to help keep the transit company viable, and lacking an endorsement for a referendum from Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, VIA board members said the election should proceed this year.

It was urgent, they said, to ask voters for the only feasible funding option for transportation services crucial to an economic recovery.

Wolff, who has been a strong advocate of transit, disagreed. but said he was hopeful city and VIA officials could reach a workable agreement in the coming weeks.

The timing is really, really difficult, Wolff said. I think they need to keep talking to the mayor and try to reach some kind of compromise. They still have time to reason with him and see what they can work out. But November is a pretty dicey time to try to do it. Who knows where were going to be in November?

Andrade said the transit agency needs more financial resources to serve Bexar Countys working class and address inequities that formed long before the pandemic.

They are the ones local recovery plans are designed to assist, she said. This is not about filling a budget hole created by COVID-19. It is about closing the opportunity gaps created by 40 years of chronic under-funding.

The VIA board, whose members also serve on the Advanced Transportation District board, voted via videoconference in their capacity as ATD trustees.

Nirenberg has said a decision on the referendum should be delayed until next year, when the city will have a clearer picture of the greatest unfunded needs related to jobs, education, food security and other areas in its COVID-19 response and long-term economic recovery.

San Antonio first needs to deal with a public health crisis that is pushing local hospitals to capacity, then assess where the job market is creating new opportunities, the mayor said Thursday. He noted the 1/8-cent sales tax VIA wants is currently being used for other purposes.

Right now, more than 140,000 San Antonians have applied for unemployment since mid-March and our economic recovery could be thwarted by a continued surge of COVID-19, Nirenberg said.

VIA budget projections have predicted the transit agency will incur a shortfall of about $111 million by 2025. The city last week offered an agreement to continue a $10 million-per-year contribution to support high-volume bus routes.

Nirenberg said the City Council will continue its commitment to allocate that money from the general fund to VIA in the 2021 fiscal year, and that the citys chief financial officer and city manager have agreed that VIA can continue their current operations without an election this November.

That said, the sales tax allocation in question would not even be available until next summer, the mayor added.

On ExpressNews.com: COVID-19 darkens hope for VIA transit expansion

That portion of the local sales tax, currently estimated to generate about $36 million annually, now is being used to support acquisition of easements in the Edwards Aquifer recharge and contributing zones for protection of the regions natural underground water supply, and to build and maintain hike-and-bike trails along local creeks, for recreation and environmental conservation.

Because of the pandemic-driven economic downturn and a resulting slowdown in sales tax revenues, the program to support aquifer protection and creekside trails has been extended from February to June 2021. That tax wont expire until it has generated $100 million for the aquifer and $80 million for the linear parks and creekways.

Bob Comeaux, VIA vice chairman, said he was optimistic that Nirenberg would come around to understanding why VIA needs additional sales tax revenue. Purposes such as aquifer protection, creekways and job training can be funded through alternative sources, he said.

I believe in my heart of hearts that our mayor will agree with our efforts to do what we were appointed to do, and that is to provide the best transit system that we can afford, Comeaux said.

Wolff, having served as mayor from 1991-1995, said he empathizes with Nirenberg having to negotiate with VIA on funding during uncertain times. The issue wouldnt even be up for discussion if Nirenberg had not made a hard decision and stood up to the creekways and aquifer protection advocates, who had hoped to hold an election to renew those programs for another five years, he said.

Its a really tough go for him, Wolff said. I think if they just keep talking to each other, they can work it out, hopefully.

The assurances from the city of $50 million over five years lowered VIAs projected deficit to around $60 million by 2025. VIA officials have said the remaining gap could be closed by postponing pay raises and expansion projects, and deferring pension payments for employees.

But Andrade, noting the $10 million annual payments have to be approved each year by the council, said transit needs to be a higher priority in the immediate future, with a steady, predictable revenue flow.

We cannot support a plan that takes a step backward for a service as essential as mobility and an issue as critical as equity for San Antonians, she said.

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
San Antonio event planner CRE8AD8, whose performance in delivering food boxes under a federal relief program sorely disappointed food banks, will not have its contract renewed.

The announcement Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture delighted food bank officials, who had criticized the company for failing to fill their warehouses during a pandemic that triggered the nations worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Now Playing: Vehicles start lining up before dawn for Food Bank help Video: Kin Man Hui San Antonio Express News, William Luther San Antonio Express News, Michel Fortier

The food industry is full of incredible partners and players that nourish Americans, and it is our privilege to work with them in their philanthropy and in these government programs, said Eric Cooper, president and CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank. But we have never dealt with a CRE8AD8. They were an anomaly in this program. They were the misfit in what it takes to feed people.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio event planner falls short on food deliveries

CRE8AD8 plans corporate events and weddings, according to its website. Food industry veterans were stunned when the company secured a $39 million USDA contract in May to participate in the Farmers to Families Food Box Program.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

The contract called for the firm  which had no experience in food distribution  to deliver 750,000 boxes packed with dairy, meat or produce to food banks and other nonprofits in Texas and six other states from May 15 through the end of June.

As of Tuesday, CRE8AD8 (for Create A Date) had delivered to food banks a fraction of the expected number of boxes. Some received none.

The USDA said last week it would grant extensions to well-performing contractors, and Wednesday, the department posted on its website a list of contractors approved for a second round of funding.

CRE8AD8 was not among them.

The decision followed a series of San Antonio Express-News articles documenting shortcomings in CRE8AD8s performance and dubious claims the companys owner, Gregorio Palomino, has made about his credentials, clients and business affiliations.

Palomino did not respond to a request for comment.

On ExpressNews.com: Lines stretch for miles at San Antonio Food Bank giveaway

The 750,000 boxes called for in CRE8AD8s contract  totaling 18.75 million pounds of food were intended for food banks and other nonprofits in Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah.

By the end of June, CRE8AD8 had delivered a total of about 147,000 boxes to 23 food banks, according to bills of lading and other records provided to the Express-News by officials at the organizations.

The company distributed additional boxes to nonprofits other than food banks. It is unclear how many. Palomino refused to provide details on his deliveries.

The Express-News, however, determined that CRE8AD8 delivered at least 35,100 boxes to churches and faith-based groups. That estimate is based on records provided by nonprofit administrators and one of CRE8AD8s suppliers.

Unmet needs

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

Food banks expected much more from the program. Cooper said that after CRE8AD8 was granted its contract, Palomino asked him to help develop a delivery plan.

Under that plan, two dozen food banks in the USDAs Southwestern Region were scheduled to receive a total of 469 truckloads of food from CRE8AD8.

The San Antonio Food Bank expected to receive 57 truckloads, but Cooper estimated that CRE8AD8 delivered just 22  about what the Food Bank currently distributes in a single week. During the pandemic, the organization has been serving 120,000 people per week rather than the normal 60,000.

On ExpressNews.com: Food banks disappointed by San Antonio companys performance

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

For a contractor to be paid $39 million, you have to have a lot to show for that, Cooper said. All I have to show for it is 22 truckloads and a lot of unmet needs.

Although the full value of Palominos contract is $39 million, that assumes delivery of all 750,000 food boxes. According to the USDA, payment to contractors is made upon the submission and approval of an invoice evidencing delivery.

In a statement Palomino provided to WOAI-TV, he said CRE8AD never promised any specific amount of boxes to anyone and that no promises of quantities were made to the San Antonio Food Bank.

They literally demanded quantities and demanded that we only serve the Food Bank network.  That was not going to happen on our watch, Palomino wrote.

Palomino went on to say that his contract called on CRE8AD8 to feed as many as possible and to as many areas as possible in 7 states. He said the San Antonio Food Bank was utilized to help determine the requests made. But he said the Food Bank had no intention of helping the other nonprofits and schools, so we stepped in and we did.

Cooper responded that the comments underscore what he called Palominos arrogance and ignorance.

The San Antonio Food Bank partners with more than 500 nonprofits in the 16 counties it serves, according to its website. They include churches, senior centers, group homes, shelters and soup kitchens.

Did he not listen? Cooper said. We serve over 500 nonprofits, of which 70 percent are faith-based organizations. Helping nonprofits, helping churches, helping schools  thats what the Food Bank does.

Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, a coalition of 21 food banks, said USDA contractors who distributed food boxes to nonprofits other than food banks ran the risk of duplication, because many nonprofits already receive product from food banks.

We have no visibility into who these vendors are working with outside of our network, so not knowing where they are distributing or to whom creates overlap, essentially duplication of food, and that obviously undermines the desire to have an equitable distribution, Cole said.

There is overlapping distribution in one region and nothing in another. On the accountability side of things, how do we know the product is actually getting to the intended recipient?

Zero boxes

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio event planner makes dubious claims about clients, credentials

Of the seven USDA contractors that provided boxes to the San Antonio Food Bank, CRE8AD8 distributed the most pounds of food (559,000), according to the Food Bank.

The other distributors included Borden Dairy (407,000 pounds), ES Foods (239,000), GoFresh (189,000), DiMare Fresh (183,000), Tasty Brands (67,000) and Cargill Meat Solutions (36,000).

Cooper said that if he had known he would receive fewer deliveries than expected from CRE8AD8, he would have asked the other contractors for more.

Under the delivery plan Cooper said he developed in collaboration with Palomino, the Houston Food Bank, the nations largest, was scheduled to receive 87 truckloads, the most in the USDAs Southwestern Region.

It ended up with just 15, a Houston Food Bank official said.

The North Texas Food Bank in Plano, the South East Texas Food Bank in Beaumont and the West Texas Food Bank in Odessa were among food banks in Texas that did not receive any boxes from CRE8AD8.

The Community Food Bank in Tucson, Ariz., and the Utah Food Bank in Salt Lake City also received no shipments from the company, their presidents said.

We have received zero loads, zero boxes, zero of anything from CRE8AD8, said Libby Campbell, executive director of the West Texas Food Bank, which serves 19 counties in an area reeling from the twin blows of the coronavirus and the oil slump.

To illustrate the need, Campbell said her food bank distributed more than 1 million pounds of food to families last month, compared with 560,000 pounds during the same month a year ago.

We had only one communication with the company out of San Antonio, she said, referring to CRE8AD8. They called last week, saying they were going to send us three truckloads of commodities, which are desperately needed out here. But then they called back to say, Oops. We cant bring you three trucks.

Campbell called CRE8AD8s failure to deliver heartbreaking. She said the food bank is investing $800,000 to expand its cooler/freezer in anticipation of receiving food through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program.

We were all so excited and so looking forward to this program actually reducing stress with our staff and our community, and we are not receiving these commodities, Campbell said. So, what do we do now?

Tchotchkes in a bag

The aim of the $3 billion food box program is to restore food supply chains disrupted by the pandemic and get surplus produce, meat and dairy to food banks and other nonprofits that serve the needy.

The program got off to a rocky start in May. A healthy chunk of the $1.2 billion in initial contracts went to companies with little or no experience in food distribution. CRE8AD8 received the nations seventh largest.

Palomino defended the companys selection with a comment that rankled food industry mainstays, including several San Antonio companies whose bids were rejected.

We knew that we easily could do this because instead of putting tchotchkes in a bag that is going to go to a conference attendee, this is the same exact thing except its just food going into a box, Palomino told the Express-News in May.

Tom Stenzel, president and CEO of the United Fresh Produce Association, called the comparison outrageous and ridiculous.

In early June, one of the other USDA contractors predicted CRE8AD8 would fall short of distributing 750,000 boxes.

They will never get it done, said Tony DiMare, vice president of the Fort Worth-based produce company DiMare Fresh.

DiMare Fresh received a contract extension from USDA. The company said it packed and delivered 1.4 million boxes (more than 27.2 million pounds of food) to more than 225 food banks and other nonprofits.

The next distribution period under the program began Wednesday and runs until Aug. 1.

Cooper said he looked forward to working with experienced contractors through the rest of the summer.

What food banks across the country need is more food and less drama, Cooper said. At the end of the day, federal contractors will come and go. USDA programs will conclude. But the need will still be there, and so will the food banks, doing what we can to make sure that people are nourished.
Today is the 99th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, an event that is celebrated officially all over China. The Communist Party of China, commonly known as the CPC, is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China and the largest political party in the world, with a membership of nearly 92 million.

President Xi Jinping, who is also Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission, presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Monday to review two sets of regulations on Party-building in the military and the election of primary-level Party organizations.

The meeting stressed the unswerving upholding of the absolute leadership of the CPC over the military and focused on enhancing combat capabilities, and called for efforts to ensure the effective implementation of the regulations. The meeting also emphasized the strict enforcement of the rules on the Party's electoral system, urging efforts to improve intra-party elections and safeguard Party members' rights endowed by the Party Constitution. He encouraged CPC members to build firm ideals and convictions and strive to fulfill the Party's original aspiration and mission.

One of the most significant achievements of the CPC was to unite the Chinese people on one platform. Chinese society was scattered and divided into various groups and interest-based factions before 1949. However, the CPC united the whole nation on an equal footing with equal rights, creating a classless society. It took almost three decades under Chairman Mao to rectify the community and create political awareness among the masses.

Then the economic reforms were launched under the great leader Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, which transformed China into an economic power. Today, China is the second largest economy in the world, just behind the US. Roughly 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty. This significant achievement is the only example of its kind in the modern history of the world, and no other country has ever been able to eliminate poverty to this extent. China has planned to reduce poverty absolutely in the year 2020. It is believed that the CPC has a strong will, rich experience, and sufficient resources to achieve this goal, and produce a moderately prosperous society in all aspects around China.

Since President Xi came into power after the 18th CPC national congress in 2012, China has emerged as a global player. He has improved China's international image and enhanced the countrys role in geopolitics.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, the CPC leadership made the right decisions and right policies, and strictly implemented them, which resulted in China's victory against the virus. The CPC leadership decided that human lives were their priority, and saving lives was their goal. The government pooled resources from all over the country and mobilized teams, experts, and the PLA to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Although the implementation of strict lockdowns and comprehensive isolation caused significant economic losses, the CPC preferred human life over economic benefits. It believed that financial losses could be recouped through hard work and the right policies, but the damage done to human beings is irreversible and irrecoverable.

China was the first country to become a victim of the outbreak, but due to the CPCs correct approach and the publics hard work, it became the first country to bring COVID-19 under control. Now, China is helping many countries in fighting the pandemic.

The CPC has changed the fate of the Chinese people and raised their standard of living. Today, Chinese people enjoy the highest purchasing power in the world, convenient public transport systems, advanced infrastructure, affordable and quality health care compared to the rest of world, and the best public security system in the world.

A political system or political party is considered a good one if it keeps the common man happy and satisfied. The CPC cares for its people and thinks about the welfare of the common man. It is hoped that the CPC will deliver more and continue to meet the expectations of the general public. We wish the CPC all the success in the future.

The opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to People's Daily Online.

Zamir Ahmed Awan is a senior fellow with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) and a sinologist at the National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan. E-mail: [email protected]
Jill Karnicki /Staff photographer

Congressman Joaquin Castro of San Antonio said Thursday that he is throwing his support behind state Sen. Royce West in the Democratic primary runoff for U.S. Senate.

Castro, who joins a growing list of prominent Democrats backing the candidate, said he endorsed West because of the work hes done in his more than two decades in the Legislature. Castro had endorsed Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez in February before the field in the primary slimmed down to West and former Air Force pilot MJ Hegar in the runoff. Tzintzun Ramirez has also endorsed West.
Immigration authorities have held a Haitian family at a hotel near the San Antonio airport for more than three weeks since they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.

At least one of the four family members  the 3-year-old daughter  tested positive for coronavirus, said immigration lawyer Krystle Cartagena, who is representing the family being held at Homewood Suites by Hilton.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed an unspecified number of migrants are in custody at the hotel awaiting travel, and that one recently tested positive for COVID-19.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

It appears ICE is trying to deport the family without an asylum hearing. The family feared persecution in Haiti, but they havent been granted a credible fear interview, normally the first step in the asylum process, Cartagena said.

All along the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration authorities are quickly deporting or turning away asylum seekers under the authority of a public health disaster code. The Trump administration issued the order in late March and closed the borders to reduce the risk of the coronavirus entering the U.S. from other countries. The U.S. has long had the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world.

On ExpressNews.com: Judge stays migrant teens expulsion under U.S. coronavirus policy

The whole (asylum) process is being bypassed and theyre going straight to deportation, and theyre using COVID as an excuse to do that, Cartagena said, standing in front of the hotel Wednesday, surrounded by members of the Interfaith Welcome Coalition.

Behind her, the 3-year-old Haitian girl pulled back the hotel room curtains to peer at the volunteers and activists in the parking lot below her. In her pink dress and colorful hair beads, she posed for a camera. Her mother joined her at the window and wrapped an arm around her chest, both wearing blue masks.

Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

The activists gathered at the hotel Wednesday demanding ICE let the lawyer to speak with the family. When Cartagena attempted to speak with them Tuesday, she was blocked, she said.

Not knowing what room number the family was in, when the mother and daughter looked out their window, the activists posed the question by scrawling it on the back of a protest sign. The family responded with the room number by writing it in orange crayon on the girls coloring book. The activists then asked how long the family had been detained. The family responded the same way, pressing the coloring book against the window: We have been here 22 days.

ICE has long utilized hotels to temporarily house immigrants on an as needed basis, ICE said in a statement. Everyone at the hotel is seen daily by a medical professional and has access to their legal counsel on file.

Cartagena said the family has not received medical treatment during their 22 days at the hotel.

The family was ordered deported June 23, but they were unable to fly out because Haiti had stopped incoming flights due to the pandemic, Cartagena said. Haiti reopened its passenger airlines on Wednesday, adding urgency to the lawyers attempts to speak with the family.

A global pandemic is not an excuse for automatic deportations, said U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro in a tweet on Thursday. Asylum seekers deserve a fair hearing and due process with legal counsel. Were better than this.

The migrants crossed the U.S. border June 7, where they initially tested negative for the coronavirus, Cartagena said. They were shuttled to Homewood Suites by Hilton the next day and have been held there since. The daughter later tested positive for the virus.

Its unclear why the family is being held at a hotel and not a detention center. The positive coronavirus test or Haitis closed border could have been factors.

Thats the big question, Cartagena said. My fear is its easier to deport them without attorneys finding out that they exist if theyre being held in a hotel instead of a detention center, where were able to meet with clients and see whats going on.

The father and 7-year-old son are in one room, with a guard, and the mother and toddler are in another, also with a guard.

They havent been allowed to have access to counsel this entire time, Cartagena said, calling it a violation the asylum-seekers right to due process.

The 3-year-old has been sick from coronavirus. Her mother cried as she spoke to Cartagena, the lawyer said, pleading to have her daughter taken to the hospital.

On ExpressNews.com: Immigrant families in Texas detention test positive for coronavirus

The family is allowed to make one phone call a day to a family member in Florida, who found the hotline number for RAICES, the San Antonio-based nonprofit. On Monday, Cartagena was put in touch with the sponsor, but neither the sponsor nor the family knew where they were being held.

Cartagena tried to call the number the family had been using to call the Florida sponsor, but ICE immediately disconnected that number as soon as I said who I was, she said.

The Haitian father discovered the address and name of the hotel in a trashcan when he was in the hallway as his room was being cleaned, Cartagena said. He could then tell the sponsor his address, who relayed it to Cartagena.

She wasnt allowed to speak with her new clients on Tuesday, Cartagena said, saying the hotel is very protective of the privacy of ICE.

Last year, Hilton Hotels joined other hospitality chains to come out against using its rooms to detain immigrants.

We stand by our position, the hotels in our network place a priority on hospitality and being welcoming of all, a company spokesperson said in a statement to the Express-News on Thursday. They are not designed to be used as detention centers, and we reject the idea of using them for this purpose.

But Homewood Suites is a franchise, and it could adhere to different standards. After news of the Haitian familys detainment broke on social media, RAICES began urging people to call Homewood Suites and demand the familys release.

When Homewood Suites by Hilton was contacted by an Express-News reporter Wednesday, the operator said Were looking into this matter and hung up the phone.

Cartagena said their next step is to try to get the family into an asylum process.

We had to jump through so many hoops to speak with them. The stars had to align for us to even know they existed, she said. Were going to do everything we can, but the odds are always stacked against the immigrant.

Silvia Foster-Frau covers immigration news in the San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas area. To read more from Silvia, become a subscriber. sfosterfrau@express-news.net | Twitter: @SilviaElenaFF
As the coronavirus rages out of control across much of the United States, Americans are acting curiously helpless.

If we had been this passive in 1776, we would still be part of Britain. Yet even as we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, we dont seem willing to assert independence from a virus that in four months has killed more Americans than the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq wars did over 70 years.

Heres the simplest of steps we could take: Wear a face mask.

In the United States, mask-wearing lags, particularly among men, compared with some other countries. A poll finds that many American men regard the wearing of face masks as a sign of weakness, and President Donald Trumps refusal to wear them has suggested that he perceives that masks are for wimps.

Trump may now be switching gears, for he told Fox Business on Wednesday that hes all for masks and would wear one if he were in a tight situation with people. He shouldnt waste time: He should tweet a photo of himself in a mask and call on supporters to wear masks as well. Refusing to cover ones face is reckless, selfish behavior that imperils the economy and can kill or endanger innocent people.

A review of 172 studies in The Lancet medical journal found that face mask use could result in a large reduction in risk of infection. An article in Health Affairs found that state mask mandates, which cover about half the population, may have averted more than 230,000 coronavirus infections.

For one study this year, reported in Clinical Infectious Diseases, researchers placed hamsters with the coronavirus in cages next to those without the virus, and found that when surgical masks were used as a barrier between the cages infections plunged by more than half.

Or take a lesson from East Asian countries, where mask-wearing is more common as a sign of courtesy, that have managed to contain the virus. Dr. Kwok-Yung Yuen, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Hong Kong, told me that a crucial reason for Hong Kongs success against COVID-19 (less than one death per million inhabitants, compared with 385 per million in the United States) is that 97 percent of Hong Kong residents wear masks.

Masking is a sign of responsible civility, Yuen told me.

Hong Kong, like some Asian countries, distributes masks free. The United States should do the same, for the cost is negligible compared with hospitalization.

A University of Washington computer model suggests that 33,000 American lives could be saved from COVID-19 between now and Oct. 1 if more people wore masks. The implication is that inconsiderate Americans unwilling to wear them could in the next few months kill thousands of their neighbors.

We need to do everything we can to increase mask usage, said Kate Grabowski, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University. But she added: People shouldnt see masks as a silver bullet. Theyre not going to be 100 percent effective at preventing transmission.

So even with masks, we also need distancing, hand-washing, contact tracing and bans on large assemblies.

To be sure, we need more research, and masks vary in effectiveness. N95 respirators work very well  so much so that they make breathing difficult. Disposable surgical masks are more comfortable though less protective, and cloth masks are reusable but less effective.

Masks protect your neighbors, but a new Goldman Sachs report finds that expanding mask mandates could also help the U.S. economy.

A national face-mask mandate could potentially substitute for renewed lockdowns that would otherwise subtract nearly 5 percent from GDP, Goldman Sachs said. The economic benefit from a face-mask mandate and increased face-mask usage could be sizable.

Republicans seem to be coming around. Vice President Mike Pence earlier eschewed masks but now says that wearing them is just a good idea. Sen. Marco Rubio urged, Just wear a damn mask. Rep. Liz Cheney tweeted a photo of her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, wearing one, with the hashtag #realmenwearmasks. Good for them!

But Trump has resisted. Republicans talk a good game about personal responsibility, so its time for Trump to display some  and to call on his supporters to wear masks as well. As we celebrate our independence, this is how they can show patriotism, protect the economy and save the lives of their neighbors.

Refusing to wear a mask is no more a personal choice than is drinking all evening and then stumbling into your car and heading down the road. In a time of plague, shunning a face mask is like driving drunk, putting everyone in your path in danger.
The United States will face a political crisis without significant changes to the election administration process.

Even if the presidential election is not particularly close, outcomes in close local races will cast a long shadow on political life in the United States. The makeup of the U.S. Senate will likely come down to one or two states. This will influence judicial nominations, which is especially relevant given that two Supreme Court justices are octogenarians. Control of entire legislative bodies could come down to one or two seats, which will have an enormous impact on redistricting.

Leaders of both parties are sowing the seeds of doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome of the election. Further loss of confidence in the American political system will have dramatic and unforeseen consequences.

Election administration is difficult in the best of times. More than 10,000 election administrators oversee elections using a wide variety of technologies and voting styles. This byzantine infrastructure has been further strained by cybersecurity concerns as the voting process becomes digitized. There is a reasonable fear that polling places could become COVID-19 super-spreading sites. Democrats increasingly claim that Republicans have suppressed voting rights under the color of law. Republicans lay blame on incompetent Democratic election administrators in urban counties. Simple reforms can solve the problems.

Policymakers should prioritize universal absentee voting and reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act to improve public confidence in the outcomes of American elections.

Americans have voted by mail for 150 years. Many states run their entire elections by mail. There is scant evidence to support claims that voting by mail facilitates widespread voter fraud or favors one party over the other. Voting by mail will also alleviate pressure on election administrators who are facing staffing constraints, as most poll workers are at a higher risk of contracting coronavirus. Voting by mail also dramatically increased turnout in the recent Iowa and Kentucky primaries.

An emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic calls for emergency measures. Gov. Greg Abbott should invoke all possible legal authority to make voting by mail universal and relatively effortless in the November general election.

Many voters would prefer mail ballots over long lines at the polling places. Allegations of subversive election administration practices  especially in predominantly black neighborhoods  have reignited concerns about the disenfranchisement of minority voters. MOVE Texas is a San Antonio-based grassroots advocacy organization and has gone so far as to claim the Voting Rights Act is dead and voter suppression is alive.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was perhaps the most important civil rights legislation in American history. The law gave the federal government power to ensure that fair procedures were used in jurisdictions with a history of voting rights violations. It fulfilled the central promise of the 15th Amendment  that the right to vote shall not be abridged on the basis of race. The law was last reauthorized in 2006 with unanimous support from Senate Republicans.

The Supreme Court overturned a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, effectively preventing its enforcement. Voting rights advocates claim that a series of laws and practices adopted by Southern states since 2013 have effectively disenfranchised the very voters protected by the Voting Rights Act. These practices include partisan gerrymandering, closure of polling places and voter roll purges.

Any fair examination of maps of legislative districts will lead to a conclusion that gerrymandering has run amok. More than 1,600 polling locations have closed since 2013 in the South, often with no justification given. A recent report found that jurisdictions that were previously covered by the Voting Rights Act have purged voter rolls 40 percent more than the national average. Given this troubling trend, Congress needs to reassert federal authority over election monitoring.

The House of Representatives passed a bill in late 2019 that would reinstate the Voting Rights Act, but the Senate counterpart has languished in committee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should bring a voting rights legislation bill to the floor for a vote immediately. He voted for the 2006 bill.

Efforts to maintain power by functionally infringing on access to voting through procedural gimmicks are not only morally repulsive and unconstitutional but shortsighted. Good faith claims of voter suppression threaten the legitimacy of American government. This will backfire and radicalize an entire generation of voters.

Universal voting by mail and reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act are two policies that are supported by a healthy majority of Americans and will facilitate the restoration of confidence in the outcome of U.S. democracy.

T.J. Mayes is a San Antonio-based attorney, community volunteer and host of KLRNs On the Record.
WASHINGTON  For the first seven-to-eight months U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes served as a member of Congress, one Capitol Police officer stopped her every time she tried to enter the U.S. Capitol complex, she said.

I showed my ID. I showed my pin, Hayes, D-5, said in a recent interview. It got to the point where I would turn to my staff and say Were going to get stopped.

It was a subtle and disappointing reminder of the pervasive tendrils of discriminatory policing that touch so many African Americans  including members of Congress.

Like many of her Black colleagues, Hayes, 47, has spent the past few weeks sharing personal stories as she worked closely with a group of Democrats on crafting sweeping police reforms in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

Unlike many of her colleagues, Hayes is the wife of a police officer; her husband Milford Hayes is a plainclothes detective who has worked for the Waterbury Police Department since 1997. That experience made her a key voice on proposed reforms in the caucus.

I didnt want the message to be sent that police were not an important part of our community and we did not respect the work that they do, Hayes said. Because I know, like Ive said before, my community is much better off having had my husband police in Waterbury for the last 25 years.

Hayes worked directly with the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., on the legislation at times, Hayes said. She participated in small group meetings and leadership calls on the bill. The Congressional Black Caucus hosted 14 town halls with thousands of participants to get feedback, and Hayes sought input from local community groups, religious leaders and elected officials.

Everybody that Ive talked to in the Congressional Black Caucus has enormous respect for Jahana and has enormous respect for her attitude, said Rep. John Larson, D-1. She has both the kind of personality and the kind of can-do, roll-up-your sleeves attitude that members appreciate.

The Democrats bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday but does not have the support of Senate Republicans.

Before they revealed the bill publicly, Hayes knelt with senior Democrats and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus on the stone floor of the Capitol Visitor Center with kente clothe draped over their shoulders. They remained kneeling in silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds  the length of time a Minneapolis Police Officer knelt on Floyds neck, killing him.

After their legislation, named the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, was introduced, Hayes held calls with freshman members of Congress and lawmakers reluctant to support the bill to answer their questions, she said.

It was a good opportunity for some of us as members, for me, to share my personal experiences and help my colleagues understand, she said.

In his 23 years on the force, Milford Hayes, 49, has worked for the Waterbury Police department in roles from youth squad to blight enforcement and detective, according to information shared by the department.

My husband has said to me, I was one or two years on the job and I didnt know how to have this conversation but it became very apparent that the way officers patrolled and policed in the North End was very different than the way they did in the West End of town, Hayes said.

When a police officer shot Philando Castile, a Black man who was licensed to carry a gun, at a traffic stop in Minnesota in 2016, the Hayes family had to revisit the conversation of how to stay safe at a traffic stop when Milford was armed in the car.

When Hayes and her husband are pulled over by police in a traffic stop, they know they have about five seconds to take a few steps that could save their lives, Hayes said. They turn on cars interior light. Milford Hayes put his hands on the steering wheel. Milford gets ready to immediately announce that hes carrying a firearm. As an African-American couple, their race and the presence of a weapon could mean trouble with an officer who does not know them, Hayes said.

With Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., Hayes introduced the Police Training and Accountability Act that would establish a civilian commission to set national standards for training, use of force and other practices and link federal law enforcement funds to compliance. It would also create a Civilian Law Enforcement Bill of Rights.

Focused on broad community input, Hayes urged her colleagues to question the mothers of young black men as well as police chiefs about what needs to change, she said.

Until you do those things, youre not having a full conversation on this topic, said Hayes, who is the mother of four. Ive shared with my colleagues where my sons have been pulled over walking home. I saw it from my window one night, when my son was walking home from the bus, police cars and sirens. And I knew immediately, thats my son. I couldnt see through the trees. I could see the lights. But he was getting off the city bus walking home. I got in my car, drove down to the site and theyre like, Oh we got a call that there was someone in the area.

Only 54 of 435 members of the House of Representatives are African Americans, according to the Congressional Research Service. Just three senators are Black.

I have definitely listened very closely to Congresswoman Hayes for at least two reasons, said Rep. Jim Himes, D-4. Number one, she knows what it is like to be an African American. I dont. Number two, her husband is a police officer, so shes a unique resource as someone whose life experience covers a lot of the issues that were talking about here. Weve had a few conversations that have been very helpful to me.

Hayes grew up in Waterbury in public housing and at one time experienced homelessness. She became pregnant at 17, but she continued with school and completed undergraduate, masters and advanced degrees. As a history teacher in Waterbury, she developed a standout reputation earning her the accolade of the 2016 National Teacher of the Year.

My students are running from the police where I know theyre not going to believe me if I tell them I wasnt involved, Hayes said. They dont see the police as someone if Im in trouble, Im going to go find a police officer and talk to them. Theyre trying to figure out how to solve their problems on their own.

Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., said as a former teacher, Hayes helps the caucus recognize discrimination in education, as well as the justice system.

The inequalities highlighted by the COVID-19 crisis and tragic murder of George Floyd are not unique, but rather part of a system that works against our Black and brown students and neighbors, Clark said. Rep. Hayes always helps us to connect the dots, to recognize discrimination where it exists and craft the policy solutions that will build a more equal America.

Hayes and her husband discuss police reforms and community relations all the time, Hayes said. She supports scrapping qualified immunity, which gives such police officers legal protection for actions performed on the job. The change could open cities and police departments to fault in lawsuits when police officers violate individuals constitutional rights.

No one is above the law, not a citizen, not a police officer, said Hayes. Those changes would compel other officers to no longer be silent because they know that now I could be liable.

Republicans have called changes to qualified immunity a non-starter. For the moment, the Senate and House are deadlocked over passing any policing reforms, after Senate Democrats blocked a vote on the GOP policing bill. Some politicians have suggested change wont be possible until after November, banking on the idea that Democrats might claim the White House and Senate avoiding the need for bipartisan compromise.

This idea that we want to hold this until after the election  we needed this Justice in Policing Act a long time ago, she said. I dont want to wait another day on it. I want this to happen now. ... too many people are dying and the trust between our policing officers and our communities is eroding.

emilie.munson@hearstdc.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
WASHINGTON  U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to pass legislation creating a pathway to citizenship for some 109,000 immigrants living in Texas who were brought to the U.S. as children.

Cruz called it an attempt at offering amnesty to those who entered the country illegally. He said Democrats already had a chance to write into law protections for so-called Dreamers when President Donald Trump offered to work with them on a deal.

That offer came after Trump moved to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2017  an effort the Supreme Court blocked earlier this month.

IM STILL IN AWE: Supreme Court blocks Trumps move to end DACA

Cruzs opposition puts him at odds with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, another Texas Republican, who said the Supreme Court ruling offers a unique moment and an opportunity and called for Congress to take action and pass legislation that will unequivocally allow these men and women to stay in the only home, the only country theyve known.

The estimated 643,000 Dreamers  many of whom have only known the U.S. as home  are seen as sympathetic by Democrats and Republicans alike. But Congress so far has failed to pass legislation to protect them.

Senate Democrats tried again Wednesday as U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip, asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill the House passed last year creating a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.

With Republicans in control in the Senate, it was Democrats only real route to pushing the legislation through. Its a process that takes just one objection to stop, and Cruz made it.

The block drew a rebuke from U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and who has called in recent weeks for the Senate to pass the House legislation.

Ted Cruz should be ashamed  where is the junior Texas Senators empathy for over 100,000 Dreamers working in Texas, the only place they have ever called home? Castro said. Todays obstruction is yet another example of unfounded animosity towards DACA recipients who are hardworking, outstanding members of our American family.

In his speech on the Senate floor, Cruz blasted the Supreme Court decision as a particularly disgraceful opinion. He said passing a DACA bill is the wrong priority as the coronavirus outbreak pushes unemployment to record levels.

Todays Democratic Party  their priority is on people here illegally and not on American workers. Not on keeping American workers safe, Cruz said.

DACA offers work permits to some immigrants brought to the country as children and 200,000 of them work in essential jobs across the country. In Texas, as many as 14,000 worked in fields such as health care, food service, farming and transportation in 2017, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Cruz also said DACA led to a wave of unaccompanied children arriving at the border and has encouraged human trafficking  claims that have been debunked.

Cruz in return called for unanimous consent to pass a bill named after Kate Steinle, a California woman who was killed by an immigrant who was in the country illegally and had been deported five times. The bill would boost penalties for those in the country illegally.

There was an effort two years ago to strike a deal on immigration, but Republicans also were pushing for wider reforms and funding for the border wall and Democrats objected.

ben.wermund@chron.com
GREENWICH  During the height of Connecticuts coronavirus pandemic, generous community members supported Greenwich Hospital, as residents and business owners came together to deliver 17,000 meals to healthcare workers.

Now, Greenwich Hospital leaders say, its their turn to give back.

On Wednesday, the local hospital donated thousands of pounds of food to two community food banks: Neighbor to Neighbor in Greenwich and Caritas of Port Chester, N.Y.

The food drive was organized by Greenwich Hospitals Diversity and Inclusion Council, and all the food was donated by hospital employees.

The community response to the public health crisis has been incredible and heartwarming, said Norman Roth, Greenwich Hospitals chief executive officer.

This food donation is our way of thanking the community for supporting our healthcare workers during this unprecedented time, he said. We will never forget their acts of kindness and generosity.

Margaret Goldberg, executive director of Neighbor to Neighbor, said she felt fortunate to receive the help from a vital community partner at a time where the need for human services is so great.

The record number of unemployed and underemployed  those working but barely able to make ends meet, and families facing financial crisis for the first time  all need Neighbor to Neighbor to help feed their families and maintain a basic quality of life that assures their dignity and respect, she said.

Demand for food has grown ten-fold since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Patricia Hart, treasurer of the board of directors at Caritas.

The number of unemployed, underemployed and those sheltering in place have swelled the ranks of those who were already experiencing food insecurity, she said.

Caritas typically provides 4,000 meals a month at its community dining room and supplies groceries, meat and fresh produce to nearly 400 families through its pantry. But in June, Caritas distributed 12,000 meals.

The donations will be used to fill the hundreds of grocery bags and prepared meals the organization delivers to homes each week, she said.

Community support is always essential, she continued. But during these difficult times, this donation from Greenwich Hospital employees is a visible and tangible sign of concern and care for our neighbors in need.
If you have a story or photo that tells a unique part of Carpinterias history, please contact Jim at drsjcampos@gmail.com. To learn more about Carpinterias unique and interesting past, visit the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History, open Tuesday through Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. at 956 Maple Ave.
By Darryl L. Flowers

For residents of Fairfield and Choteau, theres no reason for anyone to risk a DUI, or worse, an accident, this Friday night or early Saturday morning.

Fairfield Volunteer Firemen Robert Rhodes, Adam Schilling, Brad Evans, Ben Sullivan and Ian Goetz will be at the ready to offer partiers a safe ride home.

Rhodes and Schilling first offered the rides last year.

We only had two requests, said Rhodes of the first year. Rhodes told the Sun Times that they learned in 2019 that most of the partying occurs on the night of July 3rd.

Rhodes said that both riders in 2019 thanked the firemen for the safe transit.

This year there will be two teams from the Fairfield Fire Department giving rides in Choteau. Rhodes and Schilling will be teaming up and the other team will be made up of Brad Evans and Ben Sullivan.

In Fairfield, Ian Goetz will be giving rides home.

Every bar and gas station in Fairfield and Choteau has our posters, said Rhodes, so they know how to get in contact with us. The rides will be offered from 10:00 p.m. until 2:30 a.m.

Asked why the Fairfield firemen were offering rides in Choteau, Rhodes said the idea was that July 4th is the big event for Choteau while Swim Day is the big event in Fairfield. With the Fairfield crew helping out during the big Choteau party, the Choteau firemen are freed up to handle other needs or just enjoy the parade and rodeo, at least when theres no COVID related cancellations. On Swim Day, Rhodes hopes, the Choteau Volunteer Fire Department will be able to help with rides in Fairfield.

If you need a ride on Friday night in Choteau or Fairfield, call Robert at 590-0827 or Adam at 750-5926.

Dont risk a DUI. Or worse.
The Welsh government granted 53m of rural development funds 'without robust justification', a damning report by the Wales Audit Office has highlighted.

Farming groups have again called for a review of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) in Wales following the Wales Audit Office (WAO) report.

Released on Tuesday (30 June), it found applications for funding were invited from selected bodies 'without checks on value for money'.

RDP is a 7-year joint EU and Welsh government programme which aims to boost productivity and efficiency of farming and forestry businesses in Wales.

Welsh farmers pay the highest percentage of money possible into the RDP pot through a process called pillar transfer, totalling around 40m a year.

In most European Union countries and regions, farmers pay a much smaller fraction of this figure.

But WAO's report said key aspects of the Welsh governments RDP were not effective enough to ensure 53m of grant awards would deliver value for money.

It added that the government had adopted an approach of granting funds without competition and without taking any alternative steps to ensure the projects would deliver value for money.

WAO reviewed a sample of the largest direct applications to see if Welsh government had taken appropriate alternative measures to secure value for money. For 28m of these grant awards  Welsh government had not.

The report also found that 62m of funds had been given to existing projects. WAO examined 30m of these additional funds and for 25m they found that Welsh government could not provide any evidence that they had considered project success to date or any other measures to ensure value for money.

Responding to the report, both NFU Cymru and the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) have called for a 'full independent review' of the RDP in Wales.

NFU Cymru president, John Davies said it was the latest in a 'long line of concerns' that the union had held around the 'governance and implementation' of the RDP.

The report reinforces our view that farmers have been placed at a competitive disadvantage as a result of the Pillar Transfer decision through Welsh governments failure to implement an effective RDP programme for farmers, the slow rate of spend and now through not taking adequate steps to ensure value for money.

As a result, NFU Cymru is again calling for Welsh government to urgently commission an independent review of the RDP in Wales to include the effectiveness and value for money of RDP projects and measures."

The Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) added that Welsh farmers were 'promised' an RDP that would in return deliver 'transformational change' for the industry.

Our industry deserved far better from the RDP, and the concerns that we had raised repeatedly since 2013 over the RDP should have been acted on sooner, the union said.
A key sheep sector event originally planned to take place this month but then postponed to October has now been cancelled due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

NSA Sheep 2020 has been entirely cancelled for this year due to the ongoing restrictions and concerns surrounding the pandemic, organisers say.

The National Sheep Association (NSA) said the decision was taken after looking at the latest government and public health guidance.

Chief executive Phil Stocker said the sheep sector were 'disappointed' as the event was one of the NSA's 'most popular'.

"We recognise the event provides the opportunity for the sheep farming community to come together for a valuable day of knowledge exchange, a chance to view new and innovative products and to enjoy an opportunity to catch up with friends.

"But the ongoing Covid-10 pandemic and uncertainty surrounding it have unfortunately left us with no choice but to cancel the event this year, he said.

The show will now return to the Three Counties Showground, Malvern, Worcestershire in 2022, as a biennial event to take place on 27 July.

NSA says it is planning 'new and different ways' to deliver the seminars and workshops that visitors would have witnessed at the event.

The group's event organiser, Helen Roberts said plans were being worked on to keep the body's work with the sheep industry 'alive' until the UK entered 'normal times'.

The plans would offer opportunities for trade, breed societies and other interested organisations to be involved and to promote their products, she said.

"Thinking about this positively we may not be able to do a one-day event, but our emerging plans could be seen as a forthcoming season for sheep farming," Ms Roberts said.

The changes that sheep farming is facing will not be put on hold until we can get back together face to face, and it is crucial that we press forward.
Scientists have decoded the whole genetic make-up of pigs in a development that could facilitate the discovery of genetic variations linked to key traits.

The findings could help improve selective breeding and enable more accurate use of gene-editing technologies.

This would help breeders develop pigs with desired characteristics, such as resistance to infectious diseases, the researchers say.

Knowledge of the genome also enables identification of genetic similarities between pigs and humans, which will enhance biomedical research in which pigs are used as models to study human health.

The new reference genome, which was built using the latest cutting-edge DNA sequencing technologies, provides information on the location of more than 21,000 pig genes and is freely available online.

The improved quality of the reference allowed the researchers to identify a further 2,500 pig genes with an evolutionary link to a human gene, increasing the known number of such genes to 15,500.

The scientists characterised the genomes of two different pigs  a sow from the Duroc breed and a male crossbred white composite boar, and included detailed information of a further 11 pigs from European and Asian breeds.

The study was led by scientists at the UK's Roslin Institute and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Dr Amanda Warr, of the Roslin Institute, said it was an 'exciting time' to work in genomics following the release of the new research.

"Genomes as complete as the ones we have produced would not have been possible without recent major advances in DNA sequencing technologies," she said.

"The new reference genome provides scientists with an accurate and complete framework on which to base their pig research, whereas before they were working with a very incomplete picture."

As pork is one of the world's most popular meats, Professor Alan Archibald, of the Roslin Institute, said the industry needed to improve the sustainability of its production.

"The improved knowledge of pigs genetic make-up will help farmers breed healthier and more productive animals, he explained.
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What pops into your head when we say Hungary? Budapest? Castle? Lakes? Lets give you a list that has all these and much more if you decide to travel to Hungary in the future! The country is just a few hours by flight from major metro cities in India and has tons of smaller cities other than Budapest to explore.The biggest draw to the town of Tapolca is its extraordinary setting out by Malom Lake in Veszprem county. Once here, make sure to visit Szigliget Castle thats only about five miles away and well worth a gander. A visit to the Lake Cave would be fun, too, and, while youre at it, grab some goodies at Liliomkert Market to take back home.A town that offers the best of two wonderful worlds, Pecs is a beautiful countryside town that is situated close to the Croatian border. While during the day its nothing short of similar to an episode picked off the Malgudi Days show, as the sun dips it starts to exude a lively, magical Vegas vibe. Head to Bloff Bisztro to grab a bite before you get set to take on the town! Once youre in Pecs, dont forget to explore Szechenyi Ter and to visit the Gallery of Modern Hungarian Art, Kiraly street and Pecs Cathedral, which are three must-see spots when strolling around the city. Another museum that should be on your list is the Victor Vasarely Museum, at which you can view his computer-generated masterpieces from the 1970s.Yet another town that is sited very close to the border of another country, Sopron, located near Austrian border, is often overlooked by travellers moving towards Austria from Hungary. Dont make that mistake: heres why. Sopron is the place to visit the Fire Tower, explore Storno-haz, and take in the atmospheric Old Town. If youre looking for some great views (who isnt?), pop up to the top of the Lookout Tower (Karoly), which is a great vantage point at sunset. And if, at any point, your stomach starts rumbling, youll see theres no dearth of classy restaurants that serve comfort food that will help you venture a bit further in your explorations!
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Yesterday was World Doctors Day and currently in this state of pandemic, the doctors are the biggest frontliners and are doing their jobs out of their way to protect humanity. One of Mumbai based doctors took to her Instagram to share a video where shes seen dancing in a PPE suit. Now what makes the video perfect is her selection of song which is Garmi from Street Dancer 3D featuring Varun Dhawan and Nora Fatehi.

Our doctors running around and saving lives in PPE suits for their own safety and others too, is surely a difficult task. The suits are quite thick which makes them feel burning hot in this humid climate. No wonder this doctor chose this song Garmi and is seen dancing to the tunes of it, to explain her state. We see Varun Dhawan who originally features in this song has liked the video. Furthermore he has even dropped a comment on the video with a blue-heart emoji and a burning fire emoji. The actor is surely amazed by this new interpretation of his hot-song. Take a look at the post here.

Varun Dhawan will be next seen as a Coolie in his film Coolie No 1. His father David Dhawan yet again directs him after Main Tera Hero and Judwaa 2 and remakes his hit classic with his son. The film stars Sara Ali Khan opposite him and the makers will release the film in theatres once life returns to normalcy.
Company finalizes USD 678 million settlement relating to suit challenging speaker programs and other promotional events conducted from 2002 through 2011 in the US as well as USD 51.25 million related to the company's support of certain independent charitable co-pay foundations from 2010 to 2014

As part of these settlements, Novartis has agreed to new corporate integrity obligations in the US through 2025

Novartis embarks on new approach to meet the educational needs of physicians by setting new standard through digitally enabled education programs to support better outcomes for patients

Basel, July 2, 2020 - Novartis has finalized its previously disclosed agreement with the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the New York State Attorney General, and relator Oswald Bilotta resolving a civil suit challenging speaker programs and other promotional events conducted from 2002 through 2011 by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation in the US. As part of this settlement, Novartis will pay USD 678 million and has agreed to new corporate integrity obligations with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the US Department of Health & Human Services that will change how the company delivers peer-to-peer programs in the US. As it has done over the past several years, Novartis will continue to evolve its approach to peer-to-peer medical education. The company fully provisioned for this settlement in July 2019.

Novartis expects that its new initiatives will resonate more with the way people learn in the digital era. Consistent with its already substantial efforts to fully scale its next-generation digital engagement technologies, Novartis will transition its physician education programs predominantly to digital formats, and use paid external physicians only in limited circumstances. The use of digital tools will allow Novartis to offer rich and interactive content, in some cases including peer-to-peer instruction, which physicians can engage with at their convenience.

Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, said: "Today's settlements are consistent with Novartis commitment to resolve and learn from legacy compliance matters. We are a different company today-with new leadership, a stronger culture, and a more comprehensive commitment to ethics embedded at the heart of our company. I have been clear that I never want us to achieve commercial success at the expense of our values-our values must always come first and are the foundation of everything we do. With these agreements we mark an important milestone on our journey to build trust with society as we continue reimagining medicine to improve and extend lives all around the world."

While Novartis is moving away from the traditional speaker program model in the US, peer-to-peer medical education remains an important aspect of the Company's educational objectives as it helps physicians keep pace with medical innovation and make prescription decisions in the best interest of patients. Since 2011, Novartis has enhanced its peer-to-peer medical education programs to meet the evolving expectations of the industry and stakeholders around the world. Going forward, Novartis will set the standard by embracing new, digitally enabled education programs that will support better outcomes for patients.

Novartis will transform its sponsored peer-to-peer medical education in the US by:

Transitioning predominantly to digital/virtual formats;

Significantly limiting the instances in which it pays external healthcare professionals (HCPs) to deliver education; and

Taking additional steps to comprehensively foster compliance, including eliminating the use of restaurants as venues.

In addition, Novartis has finalized its previously disclosed agreement with the US Department of Justice and the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts to resolve an investigation related to the company's support of certain independent charitable co-pay foundations (ICCFs) from 2010 to 2014. As part of this settlement, Novartis will pay USD 51.25 million and has agreed to additional corporate integrity obligations with OIG to further enhance its controls relating to its interactions with ICCFs. The company provisioned for this settlement.

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as "continues," "positioning," "for the future," "next generation," "embarks," "will," "continue to evolve," "expects," "efforts," "commitment," "expectations," "committed," "working," "going forward," "further enhance," "potential," "transitioning," "taking additional steps," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding future changes to Novartis sponsored peer-to-peer medical education in the US, and regarding agreements by Novartis to additional corporate integrity obligations with the Office of Inspector General of the US Department of Health & Human Services. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the future changes to Novartis sponsored peer-to-peer medical education in the US will be successfully implemented in any particular time frame, or at all, or achieve any or all of their intended goals and benefits. Neither can there be any guarantee that we will successfully implement or comply with the additional corporate integrity obligations agreed to with the OIG. Nor can there be any guarantee regarding the reactions of healthcare professionals, customers, strategic partners and other stakeholders to the future changes to Novartis sponsored peer-to-peer medical education in the US or the additional corporate integrity obligations. In particular, our expectations regarding such future changes to Novartis sponsored peer-to-peer medical education in the US and additional corporate integrity obligations could be affected by, among other things, potential adverse reactions to the planned changes to Novartis sponsored peer-to-peer medical education in the US and additional corporate integrity obligations by healthcare professionals, customers, strategic partners or other stakeholders; the potential that the benefits expected from the planned changes to Novartis sponsored peer-to-peer medical education in the US may not be realized or may take longer to realize than expected; potential or actual failures to comply with the additional corporate integrity obligations; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures and requirements for increased pricing transparency; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; general political, economic and business conditions, including the effects of and efforts to mitigate pandemic diseases such as COVID-19; safety, quality, data integrity or manufacturing issues; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of our information technology systems, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Novartis

Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend people's lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the world's top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach nearly 800 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 109,000 people of more than 145 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more at https://www.novartis.com (https://www.novartis.com).

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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - PG&E Corp. (PCG) said Wednesday that it has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, after implementing its financial restructuring plan that was previously approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and state regulators. PG&E had filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2019 as it faced up to $30 billion in fire liabilities, including the 2018 Camp Fire which killed at least 86 people. The California power giant said today that it deposited about $5 billion in the Wild Fire fund. It will fund the wild fire victims trust with $5.4 billion in cash and common stock representing a 22.19% stake in the company. In addition to funding the Fire Victim Trust, PG&E has also now funded two additional wildfire settlements, paying about $1 billion to satisfy the wildfire claims of certain cities, counties, and other public entities, and paying an $11 billion settlement to insurance companies and other entities that paid claims by individuals and businesses related to wildfires in recent years. The company said its newly appointed board is now officially in place along with the company's new Interim chief executive officer, Bill Smith, who officially took over from outgoing chief executive officer, Bill Johnson, effective July 1, 2020. The new Board consists of 14 members, 11 of whom are new. PG&E said last month that it plans to sell its San Francisco headquarters and move to Oakland in the coming years, in a cost-saving effort that would result in California's largest utility leaving the city where it has been headquartered for more than a century. 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.
Technavio has been monitoring the smart carry-on bags market and it is poised to grow by USD 258.56 mn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 6% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005720/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Smart Carry-on Bags Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Andiamo Luggage, Arlo Skye Inc., Delsey Luggage Inc., FUGU Luggage Inc., Horizn Studios GmbH, Incipio LLC, JRSK Inc., LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Samsara Luggage, and Samsonite International SA are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Premiumization through product innovation has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, high cost associated with smart carry on bags might hamper market growth.

Smart Carry-on Bags Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Smart Carry-on Bags Market is segmented as below:

Technology USB Charging Others

Geography North America Europe APAC South America MEA



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR43774

Smart Carry-on Bags Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our smart carry-on bags market report covers the following areas:

Smart Carry-on Bags Market Size

Smart Carry-on Bags Market Trends

Smart Carry-on Bags Market Industry Analysis

This study identifies advent of e-commerce as one of the prime reasons driving the smart carry-on bags market growth during the next few years.

Smart Carry-on Bags Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the smart carry-on bags market, including some of the vendors such as Andiamo Luggage, Arlo Skye Inc., Delsey Luggage Inc., FUGU Luggage Inc., Horizn Studios GmbH, Incipio LLC, JRSK Inc., LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Samsara Luggage, and Samsonite International SA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the smart carry-on bags market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Smart Carry-on Bags Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist smart carry-on bags market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the smart carry-on bags market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the smart carry-on bags market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of smart carry-on bags market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Technology

Market segments

Comparison by technology

USB charging Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by technology

Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel

Market segments

Comparison by Distribution channel

Offline Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Online Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by distribution channel

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Andiamo Luggage

Arlo Skye Inc.

Delsey Luggage Inc.

FUGU Luggage Inc.

Horizn Studios GmbH

Incipio LLC

JRSK Inc.

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton

Samsara Luggage

Samsonite International SA

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005720/en/

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Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

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Email: media@technavio.com

Website: www.technavio.com/
LONDON AND ASSOCIATED PROPERTIES PLC - Annual Report and Notice of AGM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

02 July 2020

London and Associated Properties PLC

Annual Report and Notice of AGM

This is to confirm that London and Associated Properties PLC ("LAP" or "the Company") has posted its Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2019 and Notice of Annual General Meeting (to be held on Thursday, 30 July 2020).

The document is now available on the Company's website and a copy posted to all shareholders who requested a printed copy. A letter was sent to those shareholders who had consented to web publications to advise them that the document was now available on the company's website.

An RNS announcement of the text of the Annual Report excluding the Notice of AGM was made on 30 June 2020.

Copies of the Annual Report may be obtained from the Company Secretary at the Company's registered office, 24 Bruton Place, London, W1J 6NE and is available for download from www.lap.co.uk.

Copies of the above documents have been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism

Ends.

Contact:

Jonathan Mintz, Company Secretary, LAP. Tel: 020 7415 5000
LOS ANGELES, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CA Global Partners Inc. (CAGP) - A global leader in asset management and capital recovery, further expands its presence in the EMEA region with the appointment of Dan Main as Director of Business Development.

Adam Alexander, CEO of CA Global Partners Inc. commented: "The appointment of Dan Main to lead our continued expansion and development in the EMEA region marks another big milestone for CAGP, and our wider group of companies. Over the last five years we have invested heavily in finding and recruiting the right personnel, and developing the right infrastructure, to drive the significant and continued growth we have experienced. We are excited to have Dan join the team to successfully implement the next stage of our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead."

Dan brings over 15 years-experience to the CAGP team, having previously worked in senior management roles at Liquidity Services, Inc. Throughout Dan's career he has worked on a number of high-profile asset management and recovery cases including the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, ITV, Bloomberg, Richmond Film Services, Prime Equip Solutions, as well as numerous mining and construction projects across Europe and North America.

David Brindley, European Managing Partner of CA Global Partners Inc. commented: "We are delighted to welcome Dan to the EMEA team. His wealth of industry and asset experience will further strengthen our team where he will add significant value. Aside from his clear remit within the UK and Europe, Dan will be supporting some of our global initiatives by playing an active role within our technology division".

About CA Global Partners:

For 25 years CA Global Partners has been a leading asset disposition solutions provider to companies worldwide leveraging real time digital technologies and proven marketing expertise to reach a broad network of qualified buyers around the world. From Fortune 500 companies to small business organizations in a variety of industries ranging from construction manufacturing and wholesale distribution to food and beverage healthcare and consumer products CA Global has demonstrated its ability to move assets quickly and efficiently for maximum return.

For more information please visit: http://www.cagp.com.

Contact:

Adam Alexander, CEO

CA Global Partners

+1 (818) 340 3134
MADRID, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- These technological partnerships are a result of the first 5 winning teams led by Danish companies in the construction field that have been paired off with European Tech Startups by Tech Match, a collaborative program funded by Realdania in collaboration with BLOXHUB and FundingBox. This initiative has the main purpose of making the construction industry a more sustainable and efficient one.

"Tech Match aims to help attract international startups with leading technical solutions and know-how on the market and bring them into the development space of Danish companies that have exciting solutions and are committed to a digital and international vitamin injection," says Project Manager at Realdania, Simon Kofoed-Svendsen.

"When we match highly specialized European technology startups in IoT, artificial intelligence, and robotics technology with Danish SMEs, it ignites new innovation in the form of products, methods and knowledge which, through increased efficiency and sustainability, improves both profitability and competitiveness throughout the Danish construction sector," says Sanyu Karani, CEO at FundingBox.

"This shows there is a great potential in developing new solutions for the industry," says BLOXHUB's Program Manager for Tech Match, Peter Landau.

More about Tech Match and The Companies

The expectation is to establish between 12 and 15 Tech Matches from 2020-2021. Twice a year, an application deadline will be launched whereby Danish companies matched with EU startups, together will define a development project of 6 months duration. This coming September 2020, the second open call will be launched.

Each project can receive up to 100.000 Euros in funding, which can go to material procurement, expert assistance and development time.

Behind the program is Realdania with a grant of up to 2 million Euros, over the next 2 years. Realdania's investment is leveraged by EU-backed startups who have been funded with a similar amount.

The EU-backed startups are managed by Fundingbox, Europe's leading distributor of funds in the Deep Tech industry. The FundingBox platform operates with +28,000 tech start-ups and SMEs champion entrepreneurs, that access exponential funding opportunities and engage with Corporates that are in the quest for talent.

BLOXHUB, expert innovation hub in Denmark, works towards sustainable urban development and supports collaborative projects by accompanying them, sparring around challenges, ensures knowledge-sharing and disseminating to the industry during and after the projects are completed.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1199262/Tech_Match_Winners.jpg

Contact: Dushinka Karani, dushinka@fundinbox.com, +34629260991


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The NZ dollar climbed against its major counterparts in the Asian session on Thursday, as Asian stock markets rose following the mostly positive cues overnight from Wall Street on optimism about a potential coronavirus vaccine as well as on upbeat U.S. manufacturing data.



Investors now look ahead to the U.S. Labor Department's closely watched monthly employment report for June to be released later today.



The report, which is expected to show another spike in employment, is likely to overshadow data on weekly jobless claims, the trade deficit and factory orders.



Sentiment improved after a Covid-19 vaccine developed by German biotech firm BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer showed potential and was found well tolerated in early-stage human trials.



The kiwi climbed to 1.7319 against the euro, its strongest level since June 9. The kiwi is seen finding resistance around the 1.68 level.



The kiwi advanced to an 8-day high of 0.6507 against the greenback and more than a 2-week high of 69.94 against the yen, from its early lows of 0.6471 and 69.53, respectively. The next possible resistance for the kiwi is seen around 0.66 against the greenback and 0.72 against the yen.



The kiwi appreciated to a 10-day high of 1.0649 against the aussie, after falling to 1.0677 at 5:00 pm ET. On the upside, 1.045 is possibly seen as the next resistance level for the kiwi.



Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that Australia trade surplus increased moderately in May as the decline in imports exceeded the fall in exports.



The trade surplus increased to A$8.02 billion from A$7.83 billion in the previous month.



Looking ahead, Eurozone PPI and jobless rate for May are scheduled for release in the European session.



U.S. and Canadian trade data for May, U.S. jobs report for June, factory orders for May and weekly jobless claims for the week ended June 27 are due in the New York session.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
STOCKHOLM, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Intrum is today publishing a white paper* that confirms the negative financial impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the business outlook, the effects on the payment landscape, and financial behaviour. The survey was conducted among financial executives and business leaders in 9,980 companies across 29 European countries.

Sharp drops in GDP across Europe are now pushing down revenues for businesses, restricting cash flow while increasing pressure on businesses to manage their cash and liquidity more efficiently.

"Safeguarding a steady cash flow through timely payment is more important than ever. Many businesses are now operating in survival mode, as they have been forced to rapidly close down due to government lockdowns following the Covid-19 pandemic," says Mikael Ericson, President and CEO of Intrum.

The long-term economic effects of Covid-19 on European businesses are uncertain. But in the short-term, the crisis is already affecting consumers, leading to increased negative financial pressure and wellbeing. Lower disposable incomes are impacting consumers' ability to pay invoices on time.

Hospitality and leisure has taken a big hit

"Government restrictions on travel, shopping, dining out, exercise, and other leisure activities have hit Europe's hospitality and leisure industry hard, says Ericson. Lockdowns are now being lifted across Europe, but it is likely that the pandemic will have a lasting impact on businesses within these industries."

About 4 in 10 survey respondents from this sector (42 per cent) say that a recession will have a severe impact on their businesses - the highest figure of the 11 industries Intrum surveyed.

Recession is the top challenge for companies during COVID-19, with 44% citing it as having a severe impact on their business, up from 26% pre-crisis

More than half (56%) say their country is already in recession or will be within a year (2019: 28%)

COVID-19: pre: 42%, during: 64%



Italy : 83%, Belgium / Slovakia : 81%

: 83%, / : 81% 4 in 10 (38%) say that a recession will have a severe impact on their businesses

COVID-19: pre: 26%, during: 44%



Hospitality and leisure rank highest (42%)



57% rank risk of a pan-European recession in the top 3 payment challenges over the next twelve months



COVID-19: pre: 41%, during: 66%

Help to navigate a challenging environment

Against this backdrop of exceptional change and disruption, businesses are looking for extended help to navigate through the challenges. There is also a rise in the adoption of the EU Late Payment Directive**, which 23 per cent of European businesses in the survey say they always use, compared to 8 per cent in 2019.

"Half of European companies now seek initiatives to prevent late payments from corporations and new legislation to tackle the problem, which is a positive sign. These initiatives will be essential in ensuring steady cash flow for European businesses post-crisis," says Ericson.

* Intrum has gathered data from 9,980 companies across 29 European countries covering 11 industry sectors. The survey was conducted during February and May 2020 (pre and during Covid-19).

** The Late Payment Directive is a Directive of the European Union which aims to achieve a shift to a culture of prompt payment. The Late Payment Directive recommend payment periods for companies to be at most 60 days and for public authorities 30 days.

Download the report here

The full whitepaper will be available on July 2nd here: www.intrum.com/epr2020-whitepaper

For further information, please contact:

Niclas Strahner, PR & Media Relations Director

Tel: +46-73-425-88-90

Anna Fall, Chief Brand & Communication Officer

Tel: +46-70-996-98-21

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/intrum/r/the-covid-19-crisis-is-affecting-the-european-payments-landscape---businesses-facing-unparalleled-un,c3146982

The following files are available for download:
Today, the Supervisory Council of JSC Olainfarm has elected Zane Kotane as a member of the Management Board, who will oversee financial matters. She has significant professional experience in management, finance and governance processes in both listed and state and private companies.



"We are pleased that such a high-level specialist is joining the Management Board of Olainfarm. Zane Kotane has significant experience in the management of both Latvian and international companies. She has in-depth knowledge in areas important to the company, such as financial analysis and planning, attracting investments from the European Union institutions and private investors, as well as internal audits. On behalf of the entire council, we wish her success," emphasizes Gundars Berzins, Chairman of the Supervisory Council of JSC Olainfarm.

"It is with great pleasure that I join Olainfarm's international management team and extensive staff to be able to turn a new page in the growth story of Olainfarm together. Olainfarm has always been the pride of Latvia - a company that, with products produced in our country, not only improves people's lives all around the world, but also contributes to the Latvian economy and provides value for every employee of the company. I am fascinated by Olainfarm's ambitious goals to create sustainable products and grow internationally, increasing the company's value. Good governance is crucial to me. Finance is an important asset for transparency, sustainability and growth," emphasizes Zane Kotane, member of the Management Board of JSC Olainfarm.

Zane Kotane has previously held several leading positions both on the Management Board and the Supervisory Council, in such companies as JSC Conexus Baltic Grid, JSC Latvijas Gaze, JSC Latvenergo, OU Elektrum Eesti, UAB Elektrum Lietuva. From 2018 to 2020 Z. Kotane was the Chairperson of the Management Board of JSC Conexus Baltic Grid, but from 2016 to 2017 she was a member of the Management Board of this company. In addition, from 2015 to 2017, she was a member of the Management Board of JSC Latvijas Gaze.

In her professional career, she has been a sworn auditor, certified internal auditor, risk management specialist, process change, as well as financial manager, issuing corporate bonds in Latvia and implementing internationally accepted accounting principles. Currently, Z. Kotane holds positions in Children's Clinical University Hospital and the SEB Pension Fund as a member of the Supervisory Council.

Zane Kotane holds a master's degree in Business Administration from the Riga Business School and a bachelor's degree in Economics and Business science from the Riga School of Economics. She also has a head of the council certificate from the Baltic Institute of Corporate Governance. In addition, she has Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) qualification and an International Internal Auditor's Certificate (CIA), as well as a Latvian sworn auditor's license.

Z. Kotane does not own any shares of JSC Olainfarm, as well as any capital shares in other companies.

Jeroen Weites, Elena Bushberg, Raimonds Terentjevs, Signe Baldere-Sildedze, Milana Belevica and Martins Purins continue to fill their duties on the Management Board of JSC Olainfarm.

JSC Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with more than 45 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of the company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top-quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 50 countries and territories of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.


ENDEAVOUR COMPLETES SEMAFO ACQUISITION



George Town, July 2, 2020 - Endeavour Mining ("Endeavour") (TSX: EDV) (OTCQX: EDVMF) is pleased to announce the successful completion of the previously announced acquisition of SEMAFO Inc (TSX: SMF), effective July 1, 2020.

Pursuant to a court-approved plan of arrangement.

Endeavour also announces that effective July 1, 2020, Olivier Colom and Wayne McManus have retired from Endeavour's Board of Directors and Helene Cartier and Tertius Zongo, both nominees of SEMAFO, are joining the Endeavour Board of Directors. Alison Baker will succeed Mr. McManus as Chair of the Audit Committee. Following the appointments, Endeavour's Board is composed of nine members, of which eight are independent directors and non-executive directors: Chairman Michael Beckett, James Askew, Alison Baker, Sofia Bianchi, Helene Cartier, Livia Mahler, Naguib Sawiris, Tertius Zongo, and Sebastien de Montessus as executive director and CEO. To reflect SEMAFO's entitlement to nominate three directors, Endeavour anticipates that it will add an additional independent non-executive director with a technical background to further balance the current board expertise and strength.

With regard to the management team, Benoit Desormeaux has joined Endeavour as President. Martin Milette has informed the Board that for personal reasons relocating to London is not feasible and therefore he will be pursuing other opportunities and will not transition to Endeavour as its Chief Financial Officer. Henri de Joux, Executive Vice President of People and Information Technology at Endeavour, is currently acting as Interim Chief Financial Officer, leveraging his experience as Chief Financial Officer prior to joining Endeavour.

The $100 million La Mancha investment, representing 4,507,720 common shares, is expected to close on or about July 3, 2020. Following the investment, Endeavour will have 163,062,165 common shares outstanding with La Mancha holding an interest of approximately 24.1%.

Endeavour intends to update its Group 2020 production and cost guidance, incorporating the operations of SEMAFO, as part of its Q2-2020 financial and operating results press release scheduled to be published in early August.

Gleacher Shacklock LLP acted as financial advisor to Endeavour while McCarthy Tetrault LLP acted as Endeavour's legal advisor. Maxit Capital LP acted as financial advisor to SEMAFO and National Bank Financial Inc. acted as financial advisor to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of SEMAFO in connection with the Arrangement. Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP acted as legal advisor to SEMAFO.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Martino De Ciccio



VP - Strategy & Investor Relations

+44 203 640 8665

mdeciccio@endeavourmining.com (mailto:mdeciccio@endeavourmining.com) Vincic Advisors in Toronto



John Vincic, Principal

(647) 402 6375

john@vincicadvisors.com







Brunswick Group LLP in London



Carole Cable, Partner

+44 7974 982 458

ccable@brunswickgroup.com

ABOUT ENDEAVOUR MINING CORPORATION

Endeavour Mining is a multi-asset gold producer focused on West Africa, with two mines (Ity and Agbaou) in Cote d'Ivoire, four mines (Hounde, Mana, Karma and Boungou) in Burkina Faso, four potential development projects (Fetekro, Kalana, Bantou and Nabanga) and a strong portfolio of exploration assets on the highly prospective Birimian Greenstone Belt across Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali and Guinea.

As a leading gold producer, Endeavour Mining is committed to principles of responsible mining and delivering sustainable value to its employees, stakeholders and the communities where it operates. Endeavour is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, under the symbol EDV.

For more information, please visit www.endeavourmining.com .

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains statements which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of Endeavour with respect to future business activities and operating performance. Forward-looking information is often identified by the words "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" or similar expressions and includes information regarding the delisting of the common shares of SEMAFO and the application of SEMAFO to cease to be a reporting issuer.

Investors are cautioned that forward-looking information is not based on historical facts but instead reflect Endeavour management's expectations, estimates or projections concerning future results or events based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates of management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made. Although Endeavour believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking information are reasonable, such information involves risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such information, as unknown or unpredictable factors could have material adverse effects on future results, performance or achievements of the combined company.. This forward-looking information may be affected by risks and uncertainties in the combined business of Endeavour and market conditions. This information is qualified in its entirety by cautionary statements and risk factor disclosure contained in filings made by Endeavour and SEMAFO with the Canadian securities regulators, including Endeavour's and SEMAFO's respective annual information form, financial statements and related MD&A for the financial year ended December 31, 2019 filed with the securities regulatory authorities in certain provinces of Canada and available at www.sedar.com.

Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward looking information prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although Endeavour has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Endeavour does not intend, and do not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information except as otherwise required by applicable law.

Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Attachment
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SHANGHAI, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With many countries seeking ways to offset the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak and foster fresh trading momentum, the China International Import Expo will be a preferred platform to restore the world's trading strength and further open up China's procurement market, the leader of a South Korean business organization said.

The CIIE has made a great contribution to the promotion of China-South Korea trade through exhibitions and promotions of products as well as economic and trade forums, business-matching conferences and industry-specific seminars, said Kang Won Sig, Chairman of the Seoul-based Korea G-PASS Company Export Association.

The organization helps South Korean firms that are selected by the government procurement agency to effectively and strategically gain the chance for competitive exports to foreign countries.

Kang discovered that Chinese buyers showed great interest in the range of products offered by G-PASS companies in the past two expos.

Kang noted that the CIIE offered opportunities to compare its member companies' products with the goods in the same category manufactured by their global rivals for analysis of market trends.

"Many South Korean companies have not only built partnerships with Chinese businesses in the past two expos, but also entered into joint ventures via the CIIE to make forays into the local market. I believe the CIIE has proven to be an outstanding platform for the future of bilateral trade," he said, adding a number of its member companies have sealed export deals in the first two CIIEs held in Shanghai.

More than 90 percent of the planned exhibition area has been reserved by exhibitors from across the world for the third CIIE this year in Shanghai from Nov 5 to 10, as of early June, according to its organizer.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, a public health and epidemic prevention exhibition area will be introduced in this year's event, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

South Korea has been exporting products such as masks and testing kits that the world needs over the past three months.

Kang expects changes will lead to the growth of the country's export market and the global import market and activate a channel for the exchange of technologies necessary to overcome this crisis between countries in line with the founding purpose of the International Federation of Public Procurement Societies.

He also hopes that this year's CIIE will provide a vital opportunity to further open up the procurement market in China to enable a practical exchange of sustainable technologies.

Kang reiterated the Chinese market will keep growing, pointing to an easing in trade relations between China and the United States, the world's two biggest economies.

G-PASS will continue to deepen its partnership with the Beijing-based China Association for Promoting UN Procurement, he said.

The country will also further promote the expo's role as a major platform for international trade, investment promotion, cultural exchange and open cooperation.

Companies were attracted by China's big market space formed by new infrastructure, surging demand for high-tech industrial parts and services, technology upgrading of new energy vehicles and traditional manufacturers.

South Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Innovation announced that they will continue to invest in Xi'an of Shaanxi Province and Changzhou in Jiangsu Province.

Buoyed by China's growing demand for medical gloves and related materials like nitrile butadiene latex, South Korea's LG Chem Ltd invested 330 million yuan on a new manufacturing facility in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in mid-April to produce nitrile butadiene latex.

The project is expected to be operational by April 2021, with an annual output of 100,000 metric tons.

More information of CIIE is as follows: with two editions successfully held since 2018, China International Import Expo (CIIE) serves as the platform for international procurement, investment promotion, cultural exchange, as well as opening-up and cooperation. The third edition of CIIE will take place in Shanghai from November 5th to 10th. Thousands of companies, which are leading players in their industries, will gather at the expo to showcase their products and services, and seek business opportunities with global buyers.

At CIIE, participants can both purchase a wide range of products from the world and can also sell their products to the world. CIIE helps drive investment both inward and outward and contributes to maintaining a stable global supply chain.

Starting from June 24, professional visitors around the world can log into the CIIE website (www.ciie.org) and locate Business Exhibition - Buyer - Registration to sign up for the event. CIIE welcomes global buyers to join the upcoming event and to share opportunities presented by China's further opening up.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1077995/CIIE_Logo.jpg

Contact:

Ms. Nie Qingxin

Tel.: +86-21-59760717, +86-21-59761076

Email: ciie2020@ciie.org

Website: http://www.ciie.org/zbh/en/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ciieonline

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ciieonline

YouTube: https://youtu.be/7rfDOSdbAd0
SHANGHAI, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- It's more than 100 days away, but Rouen Sovannarith has been eagerly awaiting the third CIIE as he thinks CIIE will provide a powerful boost for trade and investment between China and Cambodia.

Sovannarith is the President of the Cambodian Rural Development Agency (CRDA), which was established in 2006 to organize agriculture cooperatives, provide training on leadership and farming skills to farmers, and cooperate with domestic and international partners to support Cambodian agriculture through exports.

Sovannarith was in Shanghai for the second edition of the CIIE last November, where Cambodia was one of the 15 guest-of-honor countries.

"I gained a lot of experiences at the previous editions of CIIE. It helped us to build relationships between CRDA and international agencies, companies, and government agents to promote and support economic activities between countries," said Sovannarith.

A range of agricultural products was displayed at the Palace-like pavilion of Cambodia at the expo.

"We strongly believe that trade can promote and strengthen the relationship between Chinese and Cambodian culture and traditions. So the CRDA is here to promote and support government policies for trade and investment between two countries." he said.

Sovannarith has been worried about the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak on Cambodia's exports in the past three months.

The pandemic halted the process of procurement between China and Cambodia. It struck areas such as construction, real estate and commodity import and export trading.

"I suggest that we should form or establish special permission or permits for procurements so both countries can start business exchanges, promote investment and encourage development." Sovannarith said.

"CIIE can bring China and Cambodia governments together to jointly develop policies, bylaws and other procurement plans which encourage businessmen, traders and investors to get involved in creating more benefits and economic growth for both countries," he said.

More information of CIIE is as follows: with two editions successfully held since 2018, China International Import Expo (CIIE) serves as the platform for international procurement, investment promotion, cultural exchange, as well as opening-up and cooperation. The third edition of CIIE will take place in Shanghai from November 5th to 10th. Thousands of companies, which are leading players in their industries, will gather at the expo to showcase their products and services, and seek business opportunities with global buyers.

At CIIE, participants can both purchase a wide range of products from the world and can also sell their products to the world. CIIE helps drive investment both inward and outward and contributes to maintaining a stable global supply chain.

Starting from June 24, professional visitors around the world can log into the CIIE website (www.ciie.org) and locate Business Exhibition - Buyer - Registration to sign up for the event. CIIE welcomes global buyers to join the upcoming event and to share opportunities presented by China's further opening up.

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxmDcEWmgHk

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Contact:Ms. Nie Qingxin

Tel.:+86-21-59760717 +86-21-59761076

Email:ciie2020@ciie.org

Website:http://www.ciie.org/zbh/en/

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- Investing $20 million in 2 Silicon Valley tech fundsfostering future mobility startups in the mid-to-long term

- Concentrating on R&D amid rapidly changing business environmentexpanding research areas to include next-generation sensors, biometrics and robotics

SEOUL, South Korea, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Mobis(KRX:012330), which has been devoted to securing future car technologies by developing proprietary technologies and investing directly in global leaders, is diversifying its investment strategies by investing in global venture funds, etc.

Hyundai Mobis announced on 2nd that it would invest a total of $20 million in 'ACVC Partners' and 'MOTUS Ventures,' US tech funds in Silicon Valley. This decision was made with the aim of securing future mobility technologies and growth engines in various ways to help contend with the rapidly changing business environment. By so doing, Hyundai Mobis will be able to preemptively secure global allies necessary for its strategies represented by autonomous driving, electrification and connectivity.

Until now, Hyundai Mobis has been investing KRW 1 trillion each year as R&D expenditures, and concentrating on securing proprietary technologies with the Technical Center of Korea and four global R&D centers playing the central role. The company succeeded in developing the radar sensor, which used to depend entirely on imports, with its own technology in 2018, and independently secured the camera systems for commercial vehicles and the in-cabin sensing technology.

Additionally, Hyundai Mobis has been engaging in direct investments in leading companies at home and abroad. Back in 2018, the company invested in StradVision (Korea), a deep-learning-based camera sensor maker. Last year, it invested $50 million in Velodyne, a global leader in lidar technology, and directly invested in the joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv.

Following its development of independent technologies and investments in leading companies, Hyundai Mobis invested in global startups, diversifying its investment strategies. The company is planning to foster global startups, which have strengths in future mobility technologies and leverage various collaboration opportunities as part of its mid-to-long-term R&D strategies.

Most of the startups, discovered by 'ACVC Partners' and 'MOTUS Ventures' in which Hyundai Mobis invested, are North American startups specializing in next-generation sensors, biometrics and robotics, etc. These tech funds are deemed to have a good eye for discovering the promising technologies of university research labs and research institutes in their early stages, and they provide support to create synergies with investors. Hyundai Mobis is trying to create an ecosystem for collaboration with startups from their initial stages.

This year, the company is planning to increase the number of successful case studies in investment and collaboration by discovering promising startups in other regions of the world, including Europe.

About Hyundai Mobis

Hyundai Mobis is the 7th largest leading automotive supplier. Founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, Hyundai Mobis is to become a lifelong technology partner for vehicles and people.

It is excellent in sensors, sensor fusion in controllers and software design capabilities in safety control. As Hyundai Mobis internalized all core auto component technologies, it has various product groups in ADAS based on its state-of-the-art technologies which combined sensors and these technologies. Its products also include core modules (chassis, cockpit and front-end), brakes, suspension, steering, airbags, lights and automotive electronics.

Mobis currently has more than 30,000 employees and has been manufacturing in more than 30 regions in 10 countries including South Korea, China, Germany, India and the United States. In addition to its R&D headquarters in South Korea, Mobis has 4 technology centers in Germany, China, India and the United States.

Media Contacts

Hyundai Mobis PR, Hanbyul Kim, khb@mobis.co.kr

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PARIS (dpa-AFX) - ENGIE (ENGQF.PK, ENGIY.PK) has agreed to sell 49% equity interest in a 2.3 GW US renewables portfolio to Hannon Armstrong (HASI). ENGIE will retain a controlling share in the portfolio and continue to manage the assets. Hannon Armstrong will take immediate ownership of 49% of 663 megawatts of commissioned wind projects. The remaining 1.6 GW of projects, currently under construction, will be transferred into the partnership upon commissioning. ENGIE will continue to consolidate the projects in its accounts. The portfolio comprises 13 projects (9 onshore wind projects and 4 solar), located in key markets in the United States. 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.
BUCHAREST (dpa-AFX) - Romania's producer prices declined at the fastest pace in nearly four years in May, data from the National Institute of Statistics showed on Thursday. The producer price index declined 2.01 percent year-on-year in May, following a 1.67 percent drop in April. The latest decline was the biggest since August 2016, when it was down 2.05 percent. Prices in the domestic market and non-domestic market decreased 1.67 percent and 2.58 percent, respectively in May. Among the main industrial groups, prices for energy declined by 16.53 percent annually in May and prices for intermediate goods fell by 0.32 percent. Meanwhile, prices for capital goods grew 5.26 percent. Prices for non-durable consumer goods and durable goods rose by 3.74 percent and 1.97 percent, respectively. On a month-on-month basis, producer prices declined 0.28 percent in May. 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.
MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - At its constitutive meeting, the Court-appointed preliminary creditors' committee in the preliminary insolvency proceedings relating to the assets of Wirecard AG has unanimously confirmed Dr. jur. Michael Jaffe from the law firm JAFFE Rechtsanwalte as the preliminary insolvency administrator. The preliminary insolvency administrator presented an initial report at the meeting. According to the report, numerous interested parties worldwide have expressed their interest in acquiring business units. The preliminary creditors' committee gave the go-ahead for an international investor process involving investment banks. The primary objective of the preliminary insolvency proceedings is to stabilize the business operations of the Group companies. This applies to the processing of credit card payments as well as to the other business areas, which are to be regarded independently. 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.
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - German stocks were sharply higher on Thursday, with encouraging economic data from across the globe coupled with hopes of a vaccine for Covid-19 helping boost sentiment ahead of the all-important U.S. jobs data due tonight. The benchmark DAX jumped 262 points, or 2.1 percent, to 12,523 after declining 0.4 percent in the previous session. Automakers led the surge, with BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen climbing 3-4 percent. Lender Commerzbank surged 5.4 percent and Deutsche Bank advanced 3.6 percent. Fashion house Hugo Boss rallied 3.5 percent after it appointed Tommy Hilfiger executive Oliver Timm as its chief sales officer. Scandal-hit Wirecard plunged 28 percent. Police and prosecutors have raided the headquarters of the beleaguered payments firm as part of a fraud investigation relating to its 1.7bn accounting black hole. In another development, bankruptcy administrators for the company have begun the process of selling some of its businesses. 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.
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 5.00 am ET Thursday, Eurostat is scheduled to release euro area unemployment and producer price data. Producer prices are forecast to decline 4.8 percent annually, faster than the 4.5 percent drop seen in April. Ahead of the data, the euro traded mixed against its major counterparts. While it held steady against the pound and the franc, it rose against the greenback and the yen. The euro was worth 1.1300 against the greenback, 121.31 against the yen, 1.0655 against the franc and 0.9027 against the pound as of 4:55 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Baker Hughes (NYSE: BKR) announced today that the Baker Hughes international rig count for June 2020 was 781 down 24 from the 805 counted in May 2020, and down 357 from the 1,138 counted in June 2019. The international offshore rig count for June 2020 was 194, down 1 from the 195 counted in May 2020, and down 52 from the 246 counted in June 2019.

The average U.S. rig count for June 2020 was 274, down 74 from the 348 counted in May 2020, and down 695 from the 969 counted in June 2019. The average Canadian rig count for June 2020 was 18, down 5 from the 23 counted in May 2020, and down 96 from the 114 counted in June 2019.

The worldwide rig count for June 2020 was 1,073, down 103 from the 1,176 counted in May 2020, and down 1,148 from the 2,221 counted in June 2019.

June 2020 Rig Counts

June 2020 May 2020 June 2019 Land Offshore Total Month

Variance Land Offshore Total Land Offshore Total Latin America 40 31 71 9 32 30 62 162 27 189 Europe 85 25 110 -1 85 26 111 144 49 193 Africa 57 3 60 -1 58 3 61 95 21 116 Middle East 299 44 343 -32 331 44 375 359 54 413 Asia Pacific 106 91 197 1 104 92 196 132 95 227 International 587 194 781 -24 610 195 805 892 246 1,138 United States 262 12 274 -74 335 13 348 945 24 969 Canada 16 2 18 -5 21 2 23 111 3 114 North America 278 14 292 -79 356 15 371 1,056 27 1,083 Worldwide 865 208 1,073 -103 966 210 1,176 1,948 273 2,221

Beginning September 2020, the monthly international rig count will be distributed using the same email alert-based subscription system as the weekly North America rig count. A monthly press release will no longer be distributed following the August 2020 rig count. The subscription system is available free-of-charge and is available by clicking here to join on the rig count website.

About the Baker Hughes Rig Counts

The Baker Hughes rig counts are counts of the number of drilling rigs actively exploring for or developing oil or natural gas in the U.S., Canada and international markets. The Company has issued the rig counts as a service to the petroleum industry since 1944, when Hughes Tool Company began weekly counts of the U.S. and Canadian drilling activity. The monthly international rig count was initiated in 1975.

The North American rig count is scheduled to be released at noon Central Time on the last working day of each week. The international rig count is scheduled to be released on the last working day of the first week of the month at 5:00 a.m. Central Time. Additional detailed information on the Baker Hughes rig counts is available on our rig count site.

About Baker Hughes:

Baker Hughes (NYSE: BKR) is an energy technology company that provides solutions to energy and industrial customers worldwide. Built on a century of experience and with operations in over 120 countries, our innovative technologies and services are taking energy forward making it safer, cleaner and more efficient for people and the planet. Visit us at bakerhughes.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005055/en/

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Jud Bailey

+1 281-809-9088

investor.relations@bakerhughes.com

Media Relations

Thomas Millas

+1 910-515-7873

Thomas.millas@bakerhughes.com


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks were rallying on Thursday as encouraging news on a vaccine for Covid-19 as well as upbeat manufacturing PMI data across the globe helped revive hopes for a quick economic recovery.



Investors also looked ahead to the U.S. Labor Department's closely watched monthly employment report for June due later in the day for further clues about the health of the world's largest economy.



The pan European Stoxx 600 climbed 1.3 percent to 365.69 after closing up 0.2 percent on Wednesday.



The German DAX rose about 2 percent, France's CAC 40 index gained 1.7 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was up 0.8 percent.



Travel stocks gained ground in London after reports that dozens of countries will be exempt from a travel quarantine from Monday.



British Airways-owner IAG surged 6.3 percent, while hotel group rallied 3.4 percent and Intercontinental Hotel Group added 3.3 percent.



Primark-owner Associated British Foods jumped 5.4 percent. The company said that trading in its stores that have reopened after coronavirus lockdown has been 'reassuring and encouraging'.



Low-cost airline Wizz Air Holdings rose over 2 percent and Ryanair Holdings gained 3.3 percent after unveiling their passenger traffic figures for June.



Meggitt soared 7 percent. The engineering company said that it is experiencing initial signs of recovery in commercial aerospace.



Swiss drug maker Novartis AG shed 0.6 percent after it agreed to pay $678 million to resolve a whistle-blower case in the U.S.



Fashion house Hugo Boss rallied 3 percent after it appointed Tommy Hilfiger executive Oliver Timm as its chief sales officer.



Scandal-hit Wirecard plunged 26 percent. Police and prosecutors have raided the headquarters of the beleaguered payments firm as part of a fraud investigation relating to its 1.7bn accounting black hole.



French electric utility Engie rallied nearly 4 percent. The company has agreed to sell 49 percent equity interest in a 2.3 GW US renewables portfolio to Hannon Armstrong. Engie will retain a controlling share in the portfolio and continue to manage the assets.



On the data front, the euro area unemployment rate rose marginally in May, figures from Eurostat showed.



The unemployment rate climbed to 7.4 percent in May from 7.3 percent in April. In the same period last year, the jobless rate was 7.6 percent.



The number of people out of work increased by 159,000 from April to 12.146 million in May.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
WOONSOCKET (dpa-AFX) - CVS Health Corp. (CVS) said it decided to suspend advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for at least 30 days. The company said it will not support any platform 'that isn't taking meaningful steps to put off hate speech and misinformation.' Further, CVS Health noted that while some have joined organized boycotts, 'we've chosen to act with independence to ensure that our standards are met, and values are upheld.' Other giants, including Starbucks, Verizon, Adidas, Unilever, Diageo, Ford, Hershey's, Pfizer and Coca-Cola Co. have also suspended their social media advertising in support of the StopHateForProfit campaign. According to World Federation of Advertisers, among 31% of advertisers surveyed between 25th and 26th of June, 5% have already withheld, and 26% are likely to withhold spend. Forty-one said they remain undecided. Twenty-nine percent said they were unlikely (17%) or would not (12%) reduce spend on these platforms. The responses came from senior executives at 58 companies that collectively spending $92 billion on global advertising, WFA said. Stephan Loerke, CEO of WFA, stated, 'No brand wants to be associated with hate speech and as the effective funders of the social platform ecosystem, advertisers have a voice that needs to be heard. We are willing to work with the platforms on improvements that will benefit society, advertisers and the platforms themselves. This needs to be addressed fast because hate speech has moved from a reactive media management challenge into a board room issue for many companies.' 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.
Angelo, Gordon Co., L.P. ("Angelo Gordon" or the "Firm"), a $35 billion alternative investment firm focused on credit and real estate investing, announced today that it has raised over $1.5 billion in equity commitments for its most recent European real estate fund, AG Europe Realty Fund III (the "Fund"), exceeding the Fund's $1.2 billion target and hitting the Fund's hard cap.

Consistent with Angelo Gordon's approach to global real estate investing, the Fund will seek to identify off-market investment opportunities with a focus on sub-performing assets along the entire value-add spectrum, from those with attractive in-place cash flow to distressed assets that require significant capital restructuring and asset repositioning to stabilize. AG Europe Realty Fund III will target assets, across all property types, that are located in the UK and major markets in Western Europe and the Nordics.

The Fund received strong backing from existing Angelo Gordon investors and welcomed a number of new global institutional investors.

"We'd like to thank our new and returning investors for their confidence and support of our strategy, which enabled us to hit this Fund's hard cap," said Adam Schwartz, Co-CIO and Head of Real Estate at Angelo Gordon. "Our limited partners' robust response speaks to the talent of our experienced team and depth of our industry expertise, which paired with our strong network of trusted operating partners, create a distinctive edge when it comes to deal sourcing, improving asset performance, and value creation."

Co-Portfolio Manager of European Real Estate Anuj Mittal added, "Significant levels of dislocation and distress in the real estate sector in the UK and Western Europe persist, with political uncertainty, weak banks, and sluggish economies contributing to the emergence of new pockets of stress. Additionally, we believe COVID-19 will likely lead to a new set of distress. Our focus has long been on buying transitional assets in geographies with strong fundamentals, and that strategy coupled with our network of more than 40 operating partners with deep local knowledge make us well-positioned to select and capitalize on the most compelling investment opportunities in the region."

AG Europe Realty Fund III's predecessor fund, AG Europe Realty Fund II, closed in 2018 at over $840 million. Since 2009, the Firm has purchased more than 75 real estate transactions in Europe totaling over $4 billion.

ABOUT ANGELO, GORDON CO., L.P.

Angelo, Gordon Co., L.P. ("Angelo Gordon") is a privately held limited partnership founded in November 1988. The Firm currently manages approximately $35 billion with a primary focus on credit and real estate strategies. Angelo Gordon has over 500 employees, including more than 200 investment professionals, and is headquartered in New York, with associated offices elsewhere in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.angelogordon.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005103/en/

Contacts:

Kaitlin Bilby

(212) 692-8231

Media@angelogordon.com

Nathaniel Garnick/Amanda Klein

Gasthalter Co.

(212) 257-4170
SAN FRANCISCO, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Heap Inc., the worldwide leader in product analytics and digital insights, is proud to welcome Lynn Girotto as the company's first Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With over 20 years of senior-level experience leading global marketing teams at Tableau, Starbucks, and Microsoft, Girotto will be responsible for growing brand awareness, scaling Heap's marketing function, and leveraging a data-driven approach as Heap brings digital insights to companies across the globe.

Girotto gained a deep understanding of the analytics space at Tableau, where she spent four years as Senior Vice President, Marketing, with responsibility for all customer-facing marketing initiatives, including digital media, channel, regional, and customer engagement marketing. While at Tableau, she scaled the Global Demand Generation capability to help fuel the company's growth to over $1 Billion. Most recently, Girotto was CMO at Amperity, where she dramatically increased demand while creating and executing the company's integrated marketing strategy. She has also served as Vice President of Global Product and Digital Marketing at Getty Images and as Head of Marketing and Category - NACP at Starbucks, and held several leadership roles at Microsoft.

Girotto joins a list of powerful senior executives at Heap, including Ken Fine (COO/President) and Dennis Dresser (CRO) , both of whom were appointed last year. She also joins Heap at an exciting period, as the company builds off its $55M Series C funding round in 2019 and its opening of an EMEA Headquarters in London in 2020.

"As a Marketing leader at top-tier technology and consumer brands, Lynn has lived the data-driven culture that is vital to growth and business success," said Heap CEO and co-founder Matin Movassate. "Lynn's experience and passion make her the perfect person to bring our vision of data-driven product management to the world."

Girotto's appointment will help Heap continue its ambitious scaling goals, as the company expands its international reach and grows internal functions, including engineering, sales, marketing, product, and customer success.

"As the business world is increasingly transacted through digital products, it is becoming an absolute priority for product leaders to be able to make data-informed decisions," Girotto said. "With its unique technology and its robust approach to data and insights, Heap is poised to transform the way thousands of companies create digital experiences. I am thrilled to join Heap at this pivotal time in the company's development."

About Heap

Heap's mission is to power business decisions with truth. We empower product teams to focus on what matters - building the best products - not wrestling with their analytics platform. Heap automatically collects and organizes customer behavioral data, allowing product managers to improve their products with maximum agility. Over 6,000 businesses use Heap to drive business impact by delivering better experiences and better products. For more information visit https://heap.io

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Sue Y. Nabi, global beauty industry entrepreneur, to become CEO of Coty in September

Peter Harf, founder of the modern Coty, to be elevated to Executive Chairman

Coty Inc. (NYSE: COTY) today announced that Sue Y. Nabi has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective September 1, 2020. Peter Harf will be elevated to the role of Executive Chairman and will work closely with Nabi to lead Coty's transformation.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005223/en/

Sue Y. Nabi (Photo: Business Wire)

Nabi, a recognized global innovator and beauty industry entrepreneur, is the founder and CEO of the new-age luxury skincare line, Orveda. Previously, she served as Worldwide President of both L'Oreal, and Lancome, during her 20-year tenure at L'Oreal.

Harf commented: "Sue is renowned as a visionary and ongoing game-changer whose outstanding creativity is celebrated in the beauty industry. I am proud that she now wants to bring her unique sense of inspiration to Coty."

"Peter and Coty's leadership have laid the groundwork to revitalize an iconic beauty business," said Nabi. "I've been following their progress avidly and am inspired and energized by the opportunity to proudly lead the global Coty team into the future as we build the new, more modern Coty."

After having championed the diversity of beauty and beauty marketing in L'Oreal where Nabi helped boost the growth of its makeup brands, she was then named the youngest President in the company's history. She followed that success with her revival of Lancome including breakthrough product and brand successes which resulted in double-digit growth in makeup and skincare.

Nabi also introduced revolutionary campaigns for cosmetics and skincare appealing to a wider, more global demographic. A facility to build and manage diverse, multi-functional global teams was a hallmark of Nabi's success. She resigned from L'Oreal in 2013 and began a new life in London. A shift in lifestyle and a personal health journey inspired the launch, along with co-founder Nicholas Vu in 2017, of the breakthrough clean, vegan, ultra-luxury skincare brand, Orveda.

As CEO, Nabi will spend considerable time in Coty's global business offices in Amsterdam, London, New York and Paris.

About Coty Inc.

Coty is one of the world's largest beauty companies with an iconic portfolio of brands across fragrance, color cosmetics, hair color and styling, and skin and body care. Coty is the global leader in fragrance, a strong number two in professional hair color styling, and number three in color cosmetics. Coty's products are sold in over 150 countries around the world. Coty and its brands are committed to a range of social causes as well as seeking to minimize its impact on the environment.

For additional information about Coty Inc., please visit www.coty.com

Biography

Sue Y. Nabi

Sue Y. Nabi is an Algerian-born French entrepreneur and innovator in the world of global beauty. With an Advanced Master's degree in Marketing Management from ESSEC (Paris Business School) and an engineering degree in Agronomy and Environment, Nabi's unique business perspective arises in part from this unique combination of creativity and rationality.

Nabi began her career at L'Oreal in 1993, where her passion, ambition and talent for bringing brands alive would lead to her becoming the youngest ever CEO in L'Oreal history for L'Oreal Paris. During this period, Nabi perfected her signature recipe for success of strong innovation pipeline, disruptive packaging and finally a choice of diverse muses, both women and men, that people felt close to. Evolving the slogan of L'Oreal Paris to "because we're worth it" cemented the brand's inclusivity and after four years it was thriving in double-digit growth.

In 2009, Nabi was tasked with revitalising Lancome. The same recipe for success was applied to make Lancome the brand of happiness, resulting in three years of up to double-digit growth and a record turnover of 3.2b, with the launch of the most successful fragrance of the last twenty years, 'La Vie est Belle', represented by Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts, and now the second best-selling prestige perfume in the world.

In 2014, following a ground-breaking career at L'Oreal, Nabi joined forces with co-founder and friend Nicolas Vu to create a new product range and brand. After three years of meticulous development, Orveda was launched in 2017. Green, clean, vegan and genderless, powered by actives and not by marketing, Orveda is an empowering, new-age skincare range that is based on the science of glow and working with skin, not against it.

In 2020, Orveda is sold on Orveda.com and is physically present in the most beautiful points of sale or luxury spas and medi-spas in the UK, France, USA, Switzerland, Mexico, Germany, Italy and Net-A-Porter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005223/en/

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Olga Levinzon, +1 212 389-7733

olga_levinzon@cotyinc.com

Media

Lisa Kessler, +1 917 348 3373

Lisa_Kessler@cotyinc.com

Arnaud Leblin, +33 1 58 71 72 00

Arnaud_Leblin@cotyinc.com

The One Nine Three Group

Zach Siegel: zach@the193.com
MADRID (dpa-AFX) - Spain's unemployment increased marginally in June as containment measures to curb the spread of coronavirus weighed on the labor market, data from the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Social Security revealed on Thursday. In June, the number of registered unemployed rose by 5,107 or 0.1 percent from the previous month. The unemployment had increased sharply by 26,573 in May and by 282,891 in April. This was the first increase in unemployment for June since 2008. Unemployment usually decrease in the month of June. The total number of jobseekers was 3.86 million in June, the highest since May 2016. Unemployment increased in all sectors except agriculture. In the service sector, unemployment fell 27,319 and declined 15,927 in construction. Industry reported a decrease of 7,770. Meanwhile, unemployment increased by 25,342 in agriculture. 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.
LONDON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With Track and Trace coming into effect on 4 July, every bar and restaurant should register customer details so they can be contacted in the event of a Covid-19 outbreak. Taken together with reopening after three months' closure, the hospitality sector is struggling to deal with this new challenge.

But there's also an opportunity here. As pub-goers will now be expected to provide their contact details, a loyalty program can increase revenue while collecting customer information. Pubs, in particular, have long relied on passing trade. Now is the time to consider more sustainable ways of increasing repeat visits and customer spend.

"We have a perfect example of a temporary problem creating the conditions for a longer-term solution', says Loyalzoo CEO Massimo Sirolla. 'The government has said the industry needs to monitor in order to keep people safe. So you need a way of recording names, contact details and time of visit, and it has to be contactless, easy and hygienic.

"That's what we do. Customers can check-in, either by giving their contact details at the till, registering at a tablet on the door or downloading the Loyalzoo app.

"So that covers the regulations. But the sweetener for customers is that they now get loyalty points when they buy. It makes giving contact details that bit easier. Then they're more likely to go out for an evening where they have points, less likely where they don't. That means more revenue for landlords running a loyalty program".

Loyalzoo has been offering digital loyalty programs since 2014 and its software is fully integrated with a number of popular point-of-sale systems: EposNow, Clover and Poynt. But it also runs in 'non-integrated mode' on almost any till system or on a tablet or PC. Thousands of merchants worldwide use it. It is also fully compliant with GDPR.

Loyalzoo is proven, robust and easy to use and starts at just 19/month. To register for a free trial go to www.loyalzoo.com and get set up in minutes.

About Loyalzoo

Based in West London, Loyalzoo 's mission is to help small/medium-sized businesses compete with larger retailers and hospitality by giving them the ability to set up their own, custom-made in-store loyalty program in just minutes, without the need to print cards or buy expensive hardware.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1199613/Loyalzoo_on_Epos_Now.jpg

Rhiannon Davies, Chief Growth Officer

+44 (0)20 3389 9362

rhiannon@loyalzoo.com


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. dollar lost ground against its major counterparts in the European session on Thursday, as hopes for development of a coronavirus vaccine and positive economic data world wide underpinned risk sentiment.



Sentiment improved after a Covid-19 vaccine developed by German biotech firm BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer showed potential and was found well tolerated in early-stage human trials.



The Department of Labor's June jobs report will be released at 8:30 am ET, a day earlier than usual, in observance of the Independence Day holiday.



The U.S. economy is expected to have added 3 million jobs in June, up from a gain of 2.5 million jobs in May.



While German factory sector contracted at a slower pace in June, manufacturing data from China and the U.S. topped forecasts. Wednesday's encouraging data fueled hopes of a global economic recovery from the pandemic.



The greenback fell to a 9-day low of 0.9427 against the franc, 8-day lows of 1.2527 against the pound and 1.1303 against the euro, from its early highs of 0.9464, 1.2461 and 1.1248, respectively. The next likely support for the greenback is seen around 0.92 against the franc, 1.28 against the pound and 1.14 against the euro.



The greenback dropped back to 107.34 against the yen, not far from a 3-day low of 107.33 set in the Asian session. The greenback is likely to find support around the 104.00 level.



The greenback slipped to 0.6520 against the kiwi, its lowest level since June 23. Next key support for the greenback is seen around the 0.67 region.



The greenback pulled back to 0.6937 against the aussie and 1.3576 against the loonie, from its early high of 0.6905 and a 2-day high of 1.3611, respectively. The greenback is seen finding support around 0.72 against the aussie and 1.33 against the loonie.



Looking ahead, U.S. and Canadian trade data for May, U.S. jobs report for June, factory orders for May and weekly jobless claims for the week ended June 27 are due in the New York session.



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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Canarc Resource Corp (TSX:CCM)(OTCQB:CRCUF)(Frankfurt:CAN) announces the voting results from its Annual General Meeting held on June 29, 2020 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Shareholders voted in favour of all items of business including the re-election of five existing directors.

Voting results for directors were as follows:

Directors Votes For Votes Withheld Bradford Cooke 46,904,678 (99.71%) 137,700 (0.29%) Scott Eldridge 46,914,878 (99.73%) 127,500 (0.27%) Martin Burian 46,914,878 (99.73%) 127,500 (0.27%) Deepak Malhotra 46,914,878 (99.73%) 127,500 (0.27%) Kai Hoffmann 46,914,878 (99.73%) 127,500 (0.27%)



The shareholders also voted in favour of fixing the number of directors at five and re-appointing Smythe LLP as its auditors. Stock options were granted to directors, management and consultants with an exercise price of CAD$0.10 for a period of 5 years as an incentive to build value for the Company.

"Scott Eldridge"

Scott Eldridge,

Chief Executive Officer

CANARC RESOURCE CORP.

About Canarc - Canarc Resource Corp. is a growth-oriented gold exploration company focused on generating superior shareholder returns by discovering, exploring and developing strategic gold deposits in North America. The Company is currently advancing two core assets, each with substantial gold resources, and has initiated a high impact exploration strategy to acquire and explore new properties that have district-scale gold discovery potential. Canarc shares trade on the TSX: CCM and the OTCQB: CRCUF.

For More Information - Please contact:

Scott Eldridge, CEO

Toll Free: 1-877-684-9700

Tel: (604) 685-9700

Cell: (604) 722-5381

Email: scott@canarc.net

Website: www.canarc.net

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States private securities litigation reform act of 1995 and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Statements contained in this news release that are not historic facts are forward-looking information that involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the future performance of Canarc, and the Company's plans and exploration programs for its mineral properties, including the timing of such plans and programs. In certain cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "has proven", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "potential", "appears", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "at least", "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", "should", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved".

Forward-looking statements 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 the forward-looking statements. Such risks and other factors include, among others, the Company's ongoing due diligence review in relation to the Acquisition, risks related to the uncertainties inherent in the estimation of mineral resources; commodity prices; changes in general economic conditions; market sentiment; currency exchange rates; the Company's ability to continue as a going concern; the Company's ability to raise funds through equity financings; risks inherent in mineral exploration; risks related to operations in foreign countries; future prices of metals; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals; government regulation of mining operations; environmental risks; title disputes or claims; limitations on insurance coverage and the timing and possible outcome of litigation. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could affect the Company and may cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. 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. Accordingly, do not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. All statements are made as of the date of this news release and the Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.

SOURCE: Canarc Resource Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/595833/Canarc-Announces-Results-of-Its-Annual-General-Meeting-of-Shareholders
Edinburgh-based Weather Stream will have full control for managing and marketing weather data to customers around the world

BOULDER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Orbital Micro Systems (OMS), a leader in advanced instrumentation for small satellite missions, today announced that its Board of Directors has agreed to spin out its earth observation data business. The new corporation, Weather Stream, will be responsible for managing the current data infrastructure, and for marketing analysis-ready data to enterprise, government, and institutional customers worldwide.

Weather Stream will be headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company will take over OMS' ownership stake in the International Centre for Earth Data (ICED), an industry-renowned platform for gathering, synthesizing, and delivering exceptionally precise weather data to government and enterprise customers. The company will continue to have proprietary access to the unique weather observation data collected by OMS' fleet of earth observation satellites. Weather Stream will also assume the team of scientists and engineers that currently work on the ICED platform. In addition, Weather Stream will take control of the Global Earth Observation Centre of Excellence facility OMS is developing in India.

William Hosack, former chief executive officer at Orbital Micro Systems, will serve in the same capacity with Weather Stream. Other Weather Stream executives include David Gallaher as chief operating officer and Richard McAllister as chief information officer. OMS founder and chief technology officer Michael Hurowitz has been elevated to chief executive officer of that organization.

"I am grateful to the OMS Board of Directors, and its incredibly talented staff for building a solid foundation that will allow Weather Stream to flourish in the years ahead," said Hosack. "Our company is eager to begin our journey to deliver weather information that is not just impactful and relevant, but can help improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. While we recognize that there is a lot of work ahead, we are confident that our combination of experience, ingenuity, and powerful technology will help Weather Stream fulfill its mission."

About Weather Stream

Headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, Weather Stream collects, synthesizes, and aggregates high-temporal weather data collected from both government and commercial sources. Through its state-of-the-art International Centre of Earth Data (ICED) platform, Weather Stream is able to provide innovative easy to manipulate data sets for government and business customers-including those in the agriculture, insurance, aviation, and maritime sectors-that rely on precise, temporal information to build accurate forecasts. For more information, please visit www.weatherstream.com

About Orbital Micro Systems

Orbital Micro Systems (OMS) specializes in the development and delivery of technology and data for space applications. With broad expertise in applied science, weather science and earth observation, instrumentation development, data science, space operations, and program delivery, OMS is positioned to deliver innovation to many areas of the aerospace sector. For more information about OMS, please visit www.orbitalmicro.com.

Contact:

John Stafford

Parallel Communications, Inc.

jstafford@parallelpr.com

+1 515-708-1296

SOURCE: Orbital Micro Systems Inc

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/595832/Orbital-Micro-Systems-Board-of-Directors-Approves-Spin-Out-of-Data-Services-Entity


OAK BROOK (dpa-AFX) - McDonald's Corp. is delaying the reopening of all dine-in services in its U.S. restaurants by 21 days due to the increase in coronavirus cases across the country, reports said citing an internal letter.



In the letter signed by its U.S. president Joe Erlinger and Mark Salebra, head of the National Franchisee Leadership Alliance, the burger chain said, 'Our resiliency will be tested again. COVID-19 cases are on the rise.'



The move comes ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend as many states and local governments are taking strict stand against plans to reopen bars and restaurants amid rising cases of infection.



New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently said that he won't permit to restart indoor dining in New York City as it enters the next stage of reopening. In California's 19 counties, restaurants, movie theaters, and other recreation centers are required to close indoor operations for at least three weeks.



Following months-long restrictions following the coronavirus pandemic, McDonald's in May started offering dining -in services in around 2,200 of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants. Dining-in remain closed at majority of locations, while it offers drive-through, takeaway and delivery services.



The company now said the locations that have already reopened their indoor services should consult guidance from local and state officials on whether to roll back services.



The fast-food chain continues to report sharp sales drop impacted by the pandemic. McDonald's recently said its 95 percent of restaurants around the world are open to serve customers.



In mid-June, McDonald's reported that total comparable sales for the month of May declined 20.9 percent, while U.S. comparable sales were down 5.1 percent. In April, total comparable sales were down 39.0 percent and U.S. comparable sales were down 19.2 percent. However, its comparable sales improved sequentially from late March through May.



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TORONTO, ONTARIO / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Pelangio Exploration Inc. (TSXV:PX)(OTC PINK:PGXPF)("Pelangio" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Pancontinental Resources Corporation ("Pancon") has agreed to fully exercise the option to earn a 100% interest in the Montcalm and Nova Properties. Pelangio will receive 650,000 common shares of Pancon and retain a 1.25% NSR on the properties.

The Montcalm and Nova Properties are proximal to each other and located approximately 65-70 kilometers ("km") northwest of the City of Timmins Ontario. The Montcalm Property is a nickel-copper-cobalt-prospect that is adjacent and contiguous with Glencore's former producing Montcalm Mine. The 8 km2 Nova property is located in Nova Township and is both a gold and base metal prospect.

Pelangio's CEO Ingrid Hibbard commented, "We are extremely pleased that Pancon has agreed to the full and early exercise of the Montcalm/Nova Option. As a result of this transaction, Pelangio will own a total of 1,200,000 shares of Pancon. We are looking forward to Pancon's upcoming exploration program on its recently acquired Brewer Mine gold project in South Carolina."

Pelangio acquired the Montcalm and Nova properties in 2018 as part of its acquisition of a private project generator company 5007223 Ontario Inc. (formerly 2252962 Ontario Inc.). In total, Pelangio will have received $17,500 and 1,200,000 shares of Pancon and will retain a 1.25% NSR. Pancon has agreed to sell the Montcalm and Nova properties to Tempus Resources Inc., a private Ontario company.

For further details on the Montcalm and Nova projects ("Montcalm West"), please refer to Pancon press releases dated June 23, 2020 and June 24, 2020.

Pelangio is also pleased to announce that all matters proposed by management, including the election of management's nominees for the board of directors, were approved at Pelangio's Annual General Meeting held Monday June 29, 2020 (the "Meeting"). At the Meeting, shareholders elected Ingrid Hibbard, David Mosher, Carl Nurmi, David Paxton, JC St-Amour, and Kevin Thomson to the board of directors.

Kevin Filo, P. Geo. (Ontario), is a Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Filo has approved the technical data disclosed in this release.

About Pelangio

Pelangio acquires and explores land packages in world-class gold belts in Canada and Ghana, West Africa. In Canada, the company is focusing on the 6.7 km2 Grenfell property located approximately 10 km from the Macassa Mine in Kirkland Lake, the Dome West property located 800 metres from the Dome Mine in Timmins, the 34 km2 Birch Lake and Birch Lake West properties located in the Red Lake Mining District and the Dalton Property located 1.5 km from the Hollinger Mine in Timmins. In Ghana, the Company is focusing on two 100% owned camp-sized properties: the 100 km2 Manfo Property, the site of seven recent near-surface gold discoveries, and the 284 km2 Obuasi Property, located 4 km on strike and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti's prolific high-grade Obuasi Mine. Ghana is an English speaking, common law jurisdiction that is consistently ranked amongst the most favourable mining jurisdictions in Africa.

For additional information, please visit our website at www.pelangio.com, or contact:

Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEO

Tel: 905-336-3828 / Toll-free: 1-877-746-1632 / Email: info@pelangio.com

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements herein may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements or information appear in a number of places and can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information include statements regarding the Company's ability to complete the planned work programs, the Company's strategy of acquiring large land packages in areas of sizeable gold mineralization, the Company's plans to follow-up on previous work, and the Company's exploration plans. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, we have made numerous assumptions, including assumptions about the state of the equity markets. Such forward-looking statements and information are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information. Such risks include failure of the Montcalm and Nova transaction to close, the changes in equity markets, share price volatility, volatility of global and local economic climate, gold price volatility, political developments in Ghana, and Canada, increases in costs, exchange rate fluctuations, speculative nature of gold exploration, including the risk that favourable exploration results may not be obtained, and other risks involved in the gold exploration industry. See the Company's annual and quarterly financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to the forward-looking statement and information. There can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information referenced herein will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Also, many of the factors are beyond the control of the Company. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward- looking statements or information. We undertake no obligation to reissue or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law. All forward-looking statements and information herein are qualified by this cautionary statement.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Pelangio Exploration Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596026/Pelangio-Exploration-Announces-Sale-of-Montcalm-and-Nova-Properties-and-Reports-Results-of-AGM
Forbes Business Council Is an Invitation-Only Community for Successful Business Owners and Leaders

CALIFORNIA CITY, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Fariba Rahimi model and investor, has been accepted into the Forbes Business Council, the foremost growth and networking organization for successful business owners and leaders worldwide. She is an International Business Consultant with broad interests in global affairs and fast-moving industries. She is an investor in people and an avid follower of The World Economic Forum where many of her associates participate.

Fariba Rahimi was vetted and hand selected to join Forbes Councils by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of her experience as an entrepreneur and proven industry leadership. Criteria for acceptance include a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics, as well as personal and professional achievements and honors.

Fariba Rahimi will also be invited to work with a professional editorial team to share her expert insights in original business articles on Forbes and Inc. Magazine and to contribute to published Q&A panels alongside other experts. Finally, Rahimi will benefit from exclusive access to vetted business service partners, membership-branded marketing collateral, and the high-touch support of the Forbes Councils member concierge team.

Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, said, "We are honored to welcome Fariba Rahimi to our communities. Our philosophy is that by curating the very best entrepreneurial minds around and providing them with a space to build meaningful relationships and access more opportunity, our members can further their success and the success of the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem, making an even greater impact on the business world."

"I am excited about the great opportunity that has come up in my life; they motivate me to continue working and progressing even more and more. I am deeply grateful to the team of Forbes Councils for considering me to be an official member of their organization," said Rahimi.

ABOUT FORBES COUNCILS

Forbes Councils is a collective of invitation-only communities created in partnership with Forbes and the expert community builders who founded Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). In Forbes Councils, exceptional business owners and leaders come together with the people and resources that can help them thrive.

To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.

You can contact Rahimi's team at

Number: 004747711552

info@faribarahimi.com or visit http://www.faribarahimi.com

SOURCE: Fariba Rahimi team

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596075/Fariba-Rahimi-Norwegian-Model-and-Investor-Becomes-Member-of-Forbes-Business-Council


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Boy Scouts of America recalled about 78,000 units of Cub Scout outdoor activity pins for violating the federal lead content ban, a statement by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) showed.



The company said the activity pin's face and shaft contain levels of lead that exceed the federal lead content ban. Lead is toxic if ingested by young children and can cause adverse health issues.



The recall involves Boy Scouts of America's Cub Scout outdoor activity pins. The rhomboid-shaped pin is silver with a gold animal paw painted on a blue background.



The company has not received any untoward reports involving the activity pins.



The company said customers can return the pin to any Boy Scouts of America retail store or contact Boy Scout of America's National Distribution Center for a full refund, including shipping, or for a merchandise credit.



The activity pins were made in China and imported in to the U.S. by Ogden, Utah-based Symbol Arts LLC. They were distributed across the U.S. by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Boy Scouts of America.



They were sold at Boy Scouts of America retail stores and authorized distributors across the U.S. and online at www.scoutshop.org from April 2016 through January 2020 for about $1.



In September 2018, Boy Scouts of America had recalled about 110,000 brass neckerchief slides as the colored enamel on the neckerchief slides contained levels of lead that exceed the federal lead content ban.



In March 2020, Grizzly Industrial recalled about 20,745 children's tool kits, including about 100 units sold in Canada, due to similar violation of federal lead content ban and toy safety requirements. On the same day, Kidz Concepts recalled about 3,200 units of Lilly of New York children's winter boots from similar issue.



All these products were manufactured in China, which has been supplying several products, particularly infant products and children's toys, that contain high levels of toxic lead.



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Easing lockdown measures is not enough to put the economy back on track. Instead, besting the fear of a spreading coronavirus will be crucial. This interpretation is supported by the economic developments of Nordic countries, says Sanna Kurronen, lead economist of Finnish think tank, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005282/en/

Card payments in the four Nordic countries in the first half of June, year-on.year growth (%) (Photo: Business Wire)

Despite resorting to much looser lockdown measures than its neighbours, Sweden's economy has suffered just as much. Nevertheless, through examining credit card data from Denmark and Norway, two countries that quickly implemented strict measures to fight the spread of the virus, a relatively fast recovery can be identified.

In Sweden, the initial drop in consumption according to credit card transaction data was the smallest of the four Nordic countries, with card transaction volumes falling around 15 per cent year-on-year in late-March and early-April. In the other Nordic countries, the drop was between 20 per cent and 25 per cent. However, the recovery has not been rapid in Sweden, as in mid-June credit card payments were still roughly 8 per cent below the previous year. Like elsewhere, the demand for services is far below normal levels too.

As the virus is now well contained, the recovery has been swifter in the remaining Nordic countries. Latest numbers from mid-June show that purchases in Denmark were already topping those of the previous year, and even payments in restaurant were only 10 per cent lower than in 2019.

Of the four Nordic countries, Denmark and Norway imposed the strictest measures, locking down schools and big parts of retail services, and by limiting meetings to ten people. Finland followed suit, but did not close businesses, apart from restaurants. Sweden kept schools open for children under 16, and allowed businesses to operate, settling for mere recommendations of social distancing in order to slow down the epidemic.

Denmark was among the first countries to start removing restrictions by first opening primary schools and some retail services in April. As infections were at low levels, consumers soon returned to stores and restaurants. Next came Norway, followed by Finland a few weeks later, by opening schools and services. As new infections are few in Norway, Denmark, and Finland, domestic demand is recovering rapidly.

"Growing evidence seems to favour the notion, that instead of lockdown measures, it is primarily fear that guides citizens' economic behaviour in the Covid Crisis. In the US, states that have removed lockdown measures before the virus is under control have not managed to revive their economy. Particularly high-income consumers stay at home, probably because they have the possibility. If the virus is spreading, consumers restrict their own behavior as they try to avoid getting infected or infecting others", says lead economist Sanna Kurronen

Dr. Kurronen emphasizes, that in terms of economic recovery, domestic consumption cannot win the war by itself. Countries, that heavily rely on exports for their livelihood, are crucially dependent on the rest of the world also overcoming the fear of the spread of the virus.

Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA is a pro-market think tank Aiming to promote the long-term success of the Finnish society. EVA is a non-profit association, founded in 1974.

Sanna Kurronen: Nordic Economies and the Coronavirus Crisis: Why Fear Matters More than Restrictions: www.eva.fi/en

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005282/en/

Contacts:

Additional Information:

Lead Economist

Sanna Kurronen

sanna.kurronen@eva.fi

+358 50 589 8886



Head of Communications

Heini Larros

heini.larros@eva.fi

+358 40 526 9728
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Electrovaya Inc. ("Electrovaya" or the "Company") (TSX:EFL)(OTCQB:EFLVF), a lithium-ion battery manufacturer with industry-leading performance, today announced that it has closed an agreement with a Canadian financial institution to increase its revolving credit facility from C$1.5 million to C$4.5 million. The facility will support fulfillment of purchase orders.

Electrovaya also has a C$10 million non-revolving credit facility from the same financial institution. More than C$4 million of this debt has been paid down from operating cash flow over the last four months, bringing the outstanding balance to approximately C$6 million.

The Company is also providing the following updates:

Revenue for the fiscal third quarter ended June 30, 2020 is expected to be approximately double the total reported in the fiscal second quarter, as previously disclosed, barring unforeseen circumstances.

To date, Electrovaya has shipped more than 700 lithium ion battery systems for use in material handling electric forklifts, and more than 1,000 batteries for automated guided vehicles.

The Company's products are critical to the food, grocery and other critical supply chain and Electrovaya continues to operate despite the headwinds and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For more information, please contact:

Investor Contact:

Jason Roy

Director, Investor Relations & Communications

Electrovaya Inc.

Telephone: 905-855-4618

Email: jroy@electrovaya.com

Media Contact:

Peter Koven

Bay Street Communications

Telephone: 647-496-7857

Email: peterkoven@baystreetcommunications.com

About Electrovaya Inc.

Electrovaya Inc. (TSX: EFL) (OTCQB: EFLVF) designs, develops and manufactures proprietary Lithium-Ion batteries, battery systems, and battery-related products for energy storage, clean electric transportation, and other specialized applications. Electrovaya is a technology-focused company with extensive IP. Headquartered in Ontario, Canada, Electrovaya has production facilities in Canada with customers around the globe.

To learn more about how Electrovaya is powering mobility and energy storage, please explore www.electrovaya.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements that relate to, among other things, revenue forecasts and in particular the forecast for fiscal 2020, growth in credit facilities, repayment of debt, anticipated further sequential revenue growth from Q1 to Q2 to Q3 in fiscal 2020, anticipated increased collaboration with OEMs in fiscal 2020, availability of adequate credit facilities, ability to sell and deliver lithium ion battery systems for material handling electric forklifts, ability to sell and deliver batteries for Automated Guided Vehicles, anticipated continued increase in sales momentum in fiscal 2020 through OEMs and directly to large global companies, including Fortune 500 companies, the future direction of the Company's business and products, the effect of the ongoing global COVID-19 public health emergency on the Company's operations, its employees and other stake holders, including on customer demand, supply chain, and delivery schedule, continually increasing the Company's intellectual property portfolio, the Company's ability to source supply to satisfy demand for its products and satisfy current order volume, technology development progress, pre-launch plans, plans for product development, plans to work with OEMs, plans for shipment using the Company's technology, production plans, expected productivity and efficiency gains from relocation of the Company's head office, the Company's markets, objectives, goals, strategies, intentions, beliefs, expectations and estimates, and can generally be identified by the use of words such as "may", "will", "could", "should", "would", "likely", "possible", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "objective" and "continue" (or the negative thereof) and words and expressions of similar import. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include but are not limited to: that current customers will continue to make and increase orders for the Company's products, and in accordance with communicated intentions, that the Company's alternate supply chain will be adequate to replace material supply and manufacturing, that the Company's interpretation of the effect of any comfort given to Litarion's auditors of the Company's financial support for Litarion's operations is correct, and that Litarion's insolvency process will proceed in an orderly fashion that will satisfy Litarion's debt without a significant negative effect on the Company or its assets, actions taken by creditors and remedies granted by German courts in the Litarion insolvency proceedings and their effect on the Company's business and assets, negative reactions of the Company's existing customers to Litarion's insolvency process, general business and economic conditions (including but not limited to currency rates and creditworthiness of customers), Company liquidity and capital resources, including the availability of additional capital resources to fund its activities, level of competition, changes in laws and regulations, legal and regulatory proceedings, the ability to adapt products and services to the changing market, the ability to attract and retain key executives, the granting of additional intellectual property protection, and the ability to execute strategic plans. Additional information about material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements may be found in the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended September 30, 2019, under "Risk Factors", and in the Company's most recent annual and interim Management's Discussion and Analysis under "Qualitative And Quantitative Disclosures about Risk and Uncertainties" as well as in other public disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the forward-looking statements contained in this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Revenue and EBITDA forecasts herein constitute future-oriented financial information and financial outlooks (collectively, "FOFI"), and generally, are, without limitation, based on the assumptions and subject to the risks set out above under "Forward-Looking Statements". Although management believes such assumption to be reasonable, a number of such assumptions are beyond the Company's control and there can be no assurance that the assumptions made in preparing the FOFI will prove accurate. FOFI is provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the Company's future performance, and may not be appropriate for other purposes.

The FOFI does not purport to present the Company's financial condition in accordance with IFRS, and it is expected that there may be differences between actual and forecasted results, and the differences may be material. The inclusion of the FOFI in this news release disclosure should not be regarded as an indication that the Company considers the FOFI to be a reliable prediction of future events, and the FOFI should not be relied upon as such.

SOURCE: Electrovaya, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596083/Electrovaya-Announces-Increased-Credit-Facility-and-Provides-Update
Whitefish, Montana--(Newsfile Corp. - July 2, 2020) - CFN Enterprises Inc. (OTCQB: CNFN), owner and operator of CFN Media, the leading media network dedicated to the global legal cannabis, CBD and psychedelics industries, today announces an article discussing three cannabis companies outside of North America to consider for your portfolio.





3 Ex-U.S. and Canada Cannabis Stocks to Consider for Your Portfolio



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The North American cannabis industry has captured all of the headlines, but more than 50 countries around the world have already legalized either medical or adult-use cannabis. In Europe alone, more than 30 countries have some form of legalized cannabis use, from coffee shops in the Netherlands to Germany's massive medical cannabis market.

These international markets could represent a more attractive opportunity for investors. With fewer incumbents, smaller companies may be able to establish a foothold and become tomorrow's market leaders. The smaller starting point for growth also translates into a higher compound annual growth rate than mature cannabis markets.

Let's take a look at three cannabis companies outside of North America to consider for your portfolio as a way to diversify or position for growth.

Isracann Targets European Markets



Isracann Biosciences Inc. Logo



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Israel's move to legalize cannabis exports and decriminalize domestic cannabis has created an enormous opportunity for Israel-based cannabis firms. The country's prime minister, defense minister and police minister backed the easing of enforcement of existing laws-ostensibly referring to recreational cannabis use in the country.

Isracann Biosciences Inc. (CSE: IPOT) (OTC Pink: ISCNF) plans to capitalize on both of these opportunities. As a low-cost Israeli cannabis pure-play, the company is uniquely positioned to serve an undersupplied domestic market and new international markets with its fully-funded 230,000 sq. ft. production facility that's currently wrapping up development.

Unlike Canada and most of North America, Israel has ideal humidity and temperature with approximately 300 days of high-UV sun per day. These conditions are ideal for producing cannabis at one-third of the cost of growing in colder climates, while multiple growing cycles enable higher production per square foot-creating better revenue and margins.

Yield Growth's Expanding CBD Brand





Yield Growth Corp. Logo

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Cannabidiol (CBD) has become one of the most popular health and wellness products in the world. With hemp's approval in many jurisdictions, hemp-based CBD has become more widely available. Researchers are also working to better understand the benefits of CBD for everything from skincare to managing mental health disorders.

The Yield Growth Corp. (CSE: BOSS) (OTCQB: BOSQF) (FSE: YG3) ("Yield Growth") has launched more than 200 edible, topical and wellness products across Europe, North America and South America. In particular, the company has distribution agreements in Canada, Germany, Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, Greece, Cyprus and other countries.

In addition to its wellness and CBD products, the company recently entered the nascent psychedelics industry with patented extraction methods and formulations. For example, one patent is for the use of compounds in psychedelic mushrooms to treat obesity and diabetes and to aid in weight loss-large end markets by any measure.

Flowr & Tilray Target Portugal





Tilray Inc. Logo

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Tilray Inc. may not be the most obvious candidate for an international cannabis opportunity, but with its existing growing operation in Portugal, it's one of the few companies with a commercial presence in Europe. In fact, the company already harvested cannabis at its 2.5 million sq. ft. facility in March of last year.

In addition, Flowr Corp. acquired Holigen, which controls a Portuguese cannabis farm. The farm has a footprint of up to seven million square feet with the potential to produce upwards of 500,000 kilograms per year. Portugal's proximity to key European markets suggests that the company could become a key supplier to the region.

Looking Ahead

There are many investment opportunities outside of North American for cannabis investors looking to diversify their portfolio or seek out greater growth opportunities. From Israel's unique market to Portuguese cannabis farms, investors may want to take a second look at these opportunities over the coming months.

About CFN Enterprises Inc.

CFN Enterprises Inc. (OTCQB: CNFN) is a digital media and ecommerce company focused on advancing businesses and brands in highly regulated emerging industries across the globe. CFN connects investors with new market opportunities while helping consumers find innovative products that enhance their lives. Learn more at www.cfnenterprisesinc.com.

CFN Enterprises Inc. Media Contact:

CFN Enterprises Inc.

+001 (833) 420-CNFN

investors@cfnenterprisesinc.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENT

Use of Forward-looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements from CFN Enterprises Inc. within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and federal securities laws. For example, when CFN Enterprises Inc. describes the potential acquisition of BarNone assets and the related benefits, its pursuit of M&A opportunities, growth in CBD sales and spending on affiliate marketing, and uses other statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will" and similar expressions, CFN Enterprises Inc. is using forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the current expectations of the management of CFN Enterprises Inc. only, 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. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: regulatory and licensing risks; changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; the regulatory landscape and enforcement related to cannabis, including political risks and risks relating to regulatory change; changes in applicable laws; compliance with extensive government regulation; public opinion and perception of the cannabis industry; we may be unable to retain or attract key employees whose knowledge is essential to the development of our products and services; or, loss of market share and pressure on pricing resulting from competition, which could cause the actual results or performance of CFN Enterprises Inc. to differ materially from those contemplated in such forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, CFN Enterprises Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. For a more detailed description of the risk and uncertainties affecting CFN Enterprises Inc., reference is made to CFN Enterprises Inc.'s reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/58968
WESTMINSTER, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / BioLargo, Inc. (OTCQB:BLGO), developer of sustainable technologies and a full-service environmental engineering company, announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary BioLargo Engineering, Science & Technologies (BLEST) has completed manufacturing on its first prototype unit of its patented BioLargo AECTM ("Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator"). This prototype is being tested and will be installed on-site for its first field pilot in the coming months, where the technology will be vetted in tough field conditions for its ability to effectively and affordably eliminate per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances ("PFAS") contaminants from water. The technology has already been proven in lab-scale studies to eliminate +99% of PFAS from water in continuous flow while consuming as low as $0.30 in electrical costs per 1,000 gallons treated, representing a significant potential cost savings compared to incumbent PFAS solutions like reverse osmosis and carbon sequestration technologies.

Described as "forever chemicals" by Washington DC based environmental watchdog the Environmental Working Group, PFAS contamination is estimated to affect up to 110 million people in the United States. Numerous experts have linked PFAS to detrimental effects on human health and the environment due to their tendency to accumulate and persist in the environment and human body. On January 7, 2020, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced that "aggressively addressing per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is an active and ongoing priority for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency." PFAS are found in common household and industrial products, and municipalities are struggling to find a feasible and affordable solution to remove these contaminants from their drinking water.

The BioLargo AEC is intended for two primary markets in the U.S. and abroad: 1) treatment of municipal drinking water to remove PFAS contamination, and 2) treatment and remediation of groundwater contaminated by PFAS. Recent estimates suggest that the total addressable market for PFAS water treatment within the U.S. will grow to $3.1B annually by 2030.

Once the first field pilot projects for the AEC have been successfully completed, the company intends to commence the first commercial trials for the AEC.

Speaking on the future of the BioLargo AEC, BioLargo Engineering President Randall Moore commented, "As with any new technology, the first field pilots are a critical step for the AEC. We are confident our prototype will quickly gain recognition for its unmatched cost-efficiency for removal of PFAS, a technical challenge that has not yet been solved in a broadly feasible and affordable way. The AEC was designed from the ground-up to be a low-OPEX system that consumes very little electricity, and its components are easily sourced, durable, and affordable for most prospective installations."

BioLargo, Inc. President & CEO Dennis P. Calvert commented, "Experts predict removing PFAS from groundwater and contaminated soil will takes decades to complete. Current PFAS technologies are expensive, inefficient, and cumbersome. Our engineering team are experts in this area, and this innovative AEC technology would not be possible without their extensive industry experience. We have key relationships in the water industry that can help prove out our AEC performance metrics and leverage the global opportunity through partnerships."

About BioLargo, Inc.

BioLargo, Inc. is an innovator of technology-based products and environmental engineering solutions provider driven by a mission to "make life better". We feature unique disruptive solutions to deliver clean air, clean water and a clean, safe environment (www.biolargo.com). Our engineering division features experienced professional engineers dedicated to integrity, reliability, and environmental stewardship (www.biolargoengineering.com). Our industrial odor control division, ONM Environmental, Inc. (www.onmenvironmental.com) features CupriDyne Clean Industrial Odor Eliminator (www.cupridyne.com), which eliminates the odor-causing compounds and VOCs rather than masking them, and is now winning over leading companies in the solid waste handling and wastewater industries and other industries that contend with malodors and VOCs. Our subsidiary BioLargo Water (www.biolargowater.ca) develops the Advanced Oxidation System "AOS," a disruptive industrial water treatment technology designed to eliminate waterborne pathogens and recalcitrant contaminants with better energy-efficiency and lower operational costs than incumbent technologies. We are a minority stockholder of and technology licensor to our subsidiary Clyra Medical which features its breakthrough product Clyraguard ( www.clyramedical.com/clyraguard) an FDA Registered, hospital grade disinfectant for PPE including facemasks, proven 99.999% effective and safe for skin, as well as its other products offering gentle solutions for chronic infected wounds to promote infection control and regenerative tissue therapy.

Contact Information

Dennis P. Calvert

President and CEO, BioLargo, Inc.

888-400-2863

Safe Harbor Act

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations, estimates and projections and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believes," "predicts," "potential," "continue," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results.

SOURCE: BioLargo, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596035/BioLargo-Engineering-Completes-Prototype-for-PFAS-Treatment-System-and-Prepares-for-First-Pilot-Projects
DUBLIN, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- FlowForma has launched a range of Remote Collaboration bundles to help companies rapidly digitize processes and minimize the impact of COVID-19. The company's no-code approach to business process automation provides a fast fix for 'keeping the lights on' and accelerates digital transformation projects, now seen as business critical for organizations because of the pandemic.

Olivia Bushe, CEO, FlowForma, says, "Businesses drowning in paperwork have struggled with enforced home working and need to digitize as quickly as possible. Our new bundles seamlessly connect distributed employees while paving the way for long-term digital transformation. Our new Team Apps also means these remote meetings can be much more productive. We provide process automation software that delivers time and money-saving efficiencies as well as improved governance."

The bundles combine new and familiar FlowForma features and functionality to deliver immediate business benefits:

Enhanced employee collaboration - a new FlowForma Teams App seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Teams for advanced document sharing, group decision-making, and 'live' process development. There is also the option to expand across other groups with FlowForma Collaborate.

Improved stakeholder engagement - get closer to customers, clients, and supply chain partners by giving them access to your forms through FlowForma Engage. Encourage stakeholders to seamlessly complete steps within your business processes via a unique and secure web link.

Faster decision making - use FlowForma Decision for public and private voting to make informed decisions while remote working. Authorized e-signatures and a fully traceable record ensure security and compliance.

A pioneer in automating processes for organizations without coding or technical expertise, FlowForma has grown a global customer base that is well equipped to work through the pandemic, including a UK further education institute and a community service agency in Singapore. Mark Lay, Finance Director at Abingdon & Witney College, says, "Having our processes online with FlowForma meant that when we shifted to working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the students and staff could input to vital emergency processes."

Lim Pua Meng, IT Manager at Touch Community Services, says, "COVID-19 hit us hard and all our staff have been forced to work from home. We are very glad that digitization has allowed our staff to work from home without any hindrance, thanks to FlowForma."

FlowForma's Remote Collaboration bundles feature a select set of COVID-19 themed process accelerators. These accelerators can be easily edited to suit each businesses own requirements as staff prepare to return to the workplace, including Pre-return to Work Forms, Employee Wellness Assessments, and a Contact Tracing Log. FlowForma is available for a 14-day free trial.



Supporting Resources:

To find out how FlowForma can help prepare you for the new normal visit:

www.flowforma.com/here-to-support-you

To find out more about FlowForma for Microsoft Teams visit:

www.flowforma.com/flowforma-for-microsoft-teams

To find out more about FlowForma's collaboration bundles visit:

www.flowforma.com/book-a-call-with-our-experts

T o download a free 14-day trial of FlowForma Process Automation visit:

www.flowforma.com/start-your-flowforma-trial

To learn more about FlowForma Process Automation, book a demo with one of our experts:

www.flowforma.com/book-a-demo

About FlowForma

FlowForma, the leading provider of Process Automation tools for Microsoft Office 365 has been revolutionizing the traditional BPM space with an innovative approach to developing award winning products that empower users to create and streamline processes smarter and faster, utilizing the familiar SharePoint platform, without any coding.

FlowForma is a Gold Microsoft Partner, with over 150,000 users across Europe, America and Asia. The company is headquartered in Dublin with offices in London and Boston and is motivated by its values to innovate, evolve and achieve with employees, customers and partners.

For further information or a 14-day free trial, visit www.flowforma.com

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Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/715823/FlowForma_Logo.jpg


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A report released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits fell by much less than expected in the week ended June 27th.



The Labor Department said initial jobless claims dropped to 1.427 million, a decrease of 55,000 from the previous week's revised level of 1.482 million.



Economists had expected jobless claims to tumble to 1.355 million from the 1.480 million originally reported for the previous week.



Jobless claims fell for the thirteenth straight week after reaching a record high of 6.867 million in the week ended March 28th, although the pace of decline has slowed notably in recent weeks.



The report said the less volatile four-week moving average of jobless claims slumped to 1,503,750, a decrease of 117,500 from the previous week's revised average of 1,621,250.



Meanwhile, the Labor Department said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, climbed by 59,000 to 19.290 million in the week ended June 20.



The four-week moving average of continuing claims still plunged to 19,854,000, a decrease of 494,500 from the previous week's revised average of 20,348,500.



'The number of continuing claims increased slightly, although they declined if we exclude data from California and Florida, which have been more volatile,' said a note from economists at Oxford Economics.



They added, 'While the continuing claims figures indicate that layoffs are being offset by rehiring due to reopening businesses, employees being recalled, or new occupations, at 19.3 million, the number of individuals collecting regular state benefits is more than 10 times the number prior to the pandemic.'



The Labor Department also released its more closely watched monthly employment report on Thursday due to holiday on Friday, with the report showing another record spike in employment in the month of June.



The report said non-farm payroll employment skyrocketed by 4.8 million jobs in June after soaring by an upwardly revised 2.7 million jobs in May.



Economists had expected employment to surge up by about 3.0 million jobs compared to the spike of 2.5 million jobs originally reported for the previous month.



The Labor Department also said the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 percent in June from 13.3 percent in May. The unemployment rate had been expected to dip to 12.3 percent.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
CEO asks the critical question, "Why is there such a slow march to accept Novel Covid-19 testing methodologies?"

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Decision Diagnostics Corp. (OTC PINK:DECN) through its subsidiary Pharma Tech Solutions, Inc., today produced an "Open Letter" outlining the need for greater and faster support for innovative solutions to the Covid-19 testing needs of the country. As a leading provider of diabetic testing kits for two decades and an early applicant for FDA EUA authorization of its testing kits to detect the Covid-19 virus, DECN has been continuing its testing efforts overseas while actively seeking FDA approval for testing protocols in the U.S. DECN's Pharma Tech Solutions subsidiary first submitted its proposed GenViro! professional use device to the FDA on April 3, 2020, almost three months ago in the middle of a pandemic.

"While the FDA has issued more than 100 EUA approvals for tests and products related to Covid-19, some of the most promising have been left on the sidelines, said Keith Berman CEO of DECN. "To be sure, we need our public health policy officials to be thorough and keep us all safe. At the same time, we need them to resist the urge to go through the motions. That means pushing the envelope, avoid taking the easier way out and stop being co-opted by, 'the big guys.' Lives and our economy are at stake. All experts agree it is critical to identify those who are currently infected, many of whom are presumably asymptomatic, to protect those who are not and we need to act now with safety and urgency to be successful in this battle."

The entire "Open Letter" can be viewed below.

To learn more about DECN's GenViro! Swift Kit that can detect Covid-19 in approximately :10.5 seconds and to speak with CEO Keith Berman, please contact Shep Doniger at 561-637-5750 or sdoniger@bdcginc.com.

AN OPEN LETTER -- Why Is There Still a Slow March to Widespread Covid-19 Testing

With more than one-half of US states now experiencing rising Covid-19 infection rates, and with infection rates rising again in multiple countries around the globe, it's clear the Novel Coronavirus remains a force to be reckoned with and not lightly. So why is there such a slow march to equally novel Covid-19 testing methodologies?

Public health experts seem to agree on two things, the need for a vaccine and the importance of increased, immediate and affordable testing to determine exactly who is ill and contagious. As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stated, "The more testing, the more open the economy." The President's Advisory Task Force agrees that the economy won't open completely and remain such without wide-scale testing. By wide-scale testing, The Wall Street Journal cites experts who strongly suggest numbers on the order of six million tests per week, approximately two-times what we are doing now.

But, testing is only valuable when it is accurate. In the case of a pandemic it must also be affordable and produce reliable results in minutes, even seconds. On that front there has to date been a failure to deliver. Days and weeks just won't cut it if we are to get back to anything resembling an, "old normal."

According to The New York Times, along with an inadequate number of tests, many tests are "shoddy" (with many FDA authorized test kits pulled from the market, and several, if media reports are correct, performing worse than a coin-flip), "and many do not produce definitive answers fast enough." The article referred to the FDA's quick approval of some testing as, "The Wild West" with the results too often in question. The lack of accurate test results which the public can rely on can, in many ways, be more problematic than the absence of testing itself.

Companies large and small have jumped in head first to the testing race under the FDA's guidance and with big dollars on the line. Unsurprisingly, that favors the large players to the detriment of smaller, often more nimble and innovative players. In the end, it's the public health, really all of us, who suffer. Another article points out the FDA's oversight has been inconsistent at best, stating, "The FDA must stick to its normal process for review but expedite it by giving it top priority with its clinical reviewers and bring in more reviewers if necessary."

As someone who has been deeply involved in medical technology development and research for four decades, predominantly in in-vitro diagnostics, I've seen exactly how the FDA can be easily overwhelmed and the way bureaucratic wheels grind and it's way too slow. More so, our public health administrators favor familiar technologies whose applications often don't respond to the exact urgent needs of the moment. Worse yet, they seek familiar faces, often the big pharma-med-tech players, who like an oil tanker in the open ocean, take forever to change course in the direction required. Unfortunately for us all, this frequently unfolds at the immediate expense of creative, alternative thinking, new, unknown, smaller players who may actually have the answers, but rarely get the chance and support to appropriately test their solutions. Such participants are summarily pushed into obscurity, or worse ignored, by officials in favor of large competitors simply because its easier to stick with the status quo and go with what, and who, you know. We are witnessing this happening with the well-intentioned PPP program whose original design was to help small business but initially favored the bigger players, some of whom were quickly shamed into returning the money they had received when their receipt of these funds became public. Business simply cannot be conducted the old way when so many lives are at stake.

As the world searches for testing solutions, and we need them now, some companies such as ours who have their testing foundations in long accepted technologies that are being re-thought and re-engineered for purposes beyond their original intentions, remain seated on the bench, at least in the U.S. In overseas testing, our test kit identifies the virus in seconds, while in the U.S. we are asked to jump through regulatory "hoops" seemingly made up just for us. To be sure, we need our public health policy officials to be thorough and keep us all safe. At the same time, we need them to resist the urge to go through the motions. That means pushing the envelope, avoid taking the easier way out and stop being co-opted by, "the big guys." And to stop applying pre-conceived notions of science that apply to conventional technologies and force fit their use to new technological approaches. Lives and our economy are at stake. While not the time to overhaul the system, the system must show it can be flexible and act with safety, urgency and open-mindedness to the less-familiar that could hold the key to saving lives and getting our economy, and perhaps world economies, back on track.

(Keith Berman is CEO of Decision Diagnostics Corp. a California based manufacturer of diabetic testing technologies that have been the industry standard for decades, and whose company has submitted two applications with the FDA for a Covid-19 testing technology that identify the virus in about ten (10) seconds. The company has been in discussions with the FDA on final testing protocols since mid-April.)

ABOUT DECISION DIAGNOSTICS CORP

Decision Diagnostics Corp. is the leading manufacturer and worldwide distributor of diabetic test strips engineered to operate on legacy glucose meters. DECN's products are designed to operate efficiently and less expensively on certain glucose meters already in use by almost 7.5 million diabetics worldwide. With newly inspired technology diabetic test strips already in the final stages of development, DECN products compete on a worldwide scale with legacy manufacturers currently selling to 71+ percent of a $15+ billion at-home testing market. The company's new GenViro! product designed to test for Covid-19, is not yet available in the United States or Puerto Rico, but Emergency (EUA) Waivers are in process with the U.S. FDA.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This release contains the company's forward-looking statements which are based on management's current expectations and assumptions as of July 1, 2020, regarding the company's business and performance, its prospects, current factors, the economy, and other future conditions and forecasts of future events, circumstances, and results.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Decision Diagnostics Corp.

Keith Berman (805) 446-2973

info@decisiondiagnostics.co

www.genultimate.com

www.genultimatetbg.com

www.pharmatechdirect.com

SOURCE: Decision Diagnostics Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596043/DECN-CEO-Offers-Open-Letter-on-COVID-19-Testing-Highlighting-Needed-Support-for-Innovation-in-Testing
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Seattle Police cleared out the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) as Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an executive order declaring the gathering in the police-free encampment an unlawful assembly. The Mayor issued a 48-hour public safety emergency order to vacate the East Precinct/Cal Anderson area following a deadly shooting. Police arrested dozens of protesters and took control of the East Precinct station house. Police said 44 protesters were arrested for failure to disperse, obstruction, resisting arrest, and assault. 'I support peaceful demonstrations, Black Lives Matter, and I too want to help propel this movement forward . but enough is enough,' Seattle police chief Carmen Best said at a news conference. 'Our job is to protect and to serve the community, our job is to support peaceful demonstrations, but what has happened here . is lawless, and it is brutal, and bottom line it is simply unacceptable,' he told reporters. The order and police action put to end weeks of violence in and around the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone where demonstrators gathered to protest the death of George Floyd in police custody. The Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), also known as Free Capitol Hill, was an occupation protest and self-declared autonomous zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. The zone, covering six city blocks and a park, was established on June 8 by the protesters after the Police abandoned the East Precinct station house following standoffs and clashes with demonstrators. A series of late-night shootings this week killed two teenagers and injured many others. At a White House briefing, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Seattle has been liberated. She described the bloody protest 'a failed four-week Democrat experiment by the radical left.' 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.


MOUNTAIN VIEW (dpa-AFX) - The top executives of four tech giants have agreed to testify together before the House Judiciary Committee, reports said.



The chief executives of Apple Inc., Amazon.com, Facebook Inc. and Google agreed to attend the hearing on antitrust to be held in late July. This would mark the first time the four executives testified together in front of Congress.



Whether the hearing will be in person or virtual is yet to be known.



The executives' Congressional testimony is part of the House Judiciary Committee's investigation into the four tech companies, that was announced in June 2019 and marks a final step before completing the investigation.



The House Judiciary Committee is investigating allegations that the four tech companies have unfairly stifled competition in digital markets, made too many acquisitions, and harmed consumers.



The investigation could lead to changes in antitrust laws to reform and regulate the digital market. It could also result in new laws that would make it easier to break up these companies.



While Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai have all appeared for congressional testimonies earlier, it would mark the first time for Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos.



The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission too have launched separate antitrust investigations into the four tech giants as backlash grows against them for dominating key segments of the online economy.



Last year, the Justice Department had agreed to handle potential antitrust investigations related to Apple and Google, while the FTC agreed to oversee investigations of Facebook and Amazon.



In July 2019, the Justice Department said it opened a broad antitrust review of big tech companies to examine whether they are unfairly restricting competition. The Department was to examine the practices of online platforms that dominate internet search, social media and retail services.



The Federal Trade Commission, which shares antitrust authority with the Justice Department, had previously conducted a broad investigation of Google, but closed it in 2013 without taking any action.



The Justice Department is said to be looking to file a potential antitrust lawsuit against Google this year.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

AMAZON-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de
JENA (dpa-AFX) - German optoelectronics company Jenoptik AG (JNPKF.PK) said that it agreed to buy 100 percent of the shares in Trioptics GmbH. The company did not disclose details of the purchase price. First, Jenoptik will take over 75 percent of the shares, the remaining shares after fulfilling defined success criteria by the end of 2021. Jenoptik's supervisory Board approved the acquisition and but the deal is still subject to approval by the German Bundeskartellamt. Jenoptik expects that the transaction will have a positive impact on its business development in 2020. Closing is expected in the third-quarter quarter 2020. TRIOPTICS is a supplier of test equipment and manufacturing systems for optical components and sensors in the digital world. The company, based in Wedel near Hamburg, has over 400 employees worldwide and in 2019 generated revenue of around 80 million euros. Over the last four years, the company achieved on average annual growth (CAGR) of 17 percent. The company generates more than half of its revenue in Asia. 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.


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese yen fell against its major counterparts in the New York session on Thursday, as better-than-expected U.S. jobs report lifted global stocks.



Data from the Labor Department showed that non-farm payroll employment skyrocketed by 4.8 million jobs in June after soaring by an upwardly revised 2.7 million jobs in May.



Economists had expected employment to surge up by about 3.0 million jobs compared to the spike of 2.5 million jobs originally reported for the previous month.



The Labor Department also said the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 percent in June from 13.3 percent in May. The unemployment rate had been expected to dip to 12.3 percent.



The yen weakened to 121.44 against the euro, 114.00 against the franc and 107.73 against the greenback, reversing from its early highs of 120.76 and 113.46 and a 3-day high of 107.33, respectively.



The yen dropped to a new 2-week low of 134.71 against the pound, after rising to 133.78 at 7:45 pm ET.



The yen depreciated to a new 3-week low of 70.27 against the kiwi, from a high of 69.53 seen at 8:15 pm ET.



Against the aussie and the loonie, the yen edged down to 74.70 and 79.33, from its early high of 74.18 and a 2-day high of 78.93, respectively.



Next key support for the yen is seen around 123 against the euro, 115.00 against the franc, 112.00 against the greenback, 139.00 against the pound, 73.00 against the kiwi, 76.00 against the aussie and 81.5 against the loonie.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Intellipharmaceutics International Inc. (OTCQB:IPCIF) (TSX:IPCI) ("Intellipharmaceutics" or the "Company"), a pharmaceutical company specializing in the research, development and manufacture of novel and generic controlled-release and targeted-release oral solid dosage drugs, announced today that the parties in the cases, numbers 17-cv-392-RGA, 18-cv-404-RGA and 20-cv-515-RGA (the "Litigations") between Purdue Pharma L.P. et al ("Purdue Pharma") and Intellipharmaceutics, have entered into a stipulated dismissal of the Litigations.

The stipulated dismissal, which is subject to approval by the bankruptcy court presiding over Purdue Pharma's pending chapter 11 cases, provides for the termination of patent infringement proceedings commenced by Purdue Pharma against the Company in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware in respect of the Company's New Drug Application ("NDA") filing for Aximris XR (oxycodone hydrochloride extended release tablets) with the United States Food and Drug administration ("FDA").

The stipulated dismissal also provides for a thirty (30) day period following a final approval of the Company's Aximris XR NDA during which the parties will attempt to resolve any potential asserted patent infringement claims relating to the NDA. If the parties fail to resolve all such claims during a period of thirty (30) days following such final approval, Purdue Pharma L.P. et al will have fifteen (15) days to pursue an infringement action against the Company.

There can be no assurance that the bankruptcy court will approve the stipulated dismissal as proposed, or at all. There can be no assurance that the FDA will ultimately approve the NDA for the sale of Aximris XR in the U.S. market, or that it will ever be successfully commercialized.

About Intellipharmaceutics

Intellipharmaceutics International Inc. is a pharmaceutical company specializing in the research, development and manufacture of novel and generic controlled-release and targeted-release oral solid dosage drugs. The Company's patented Hypermatrix technology is a multidimensional controlled-release drug delivery platform that can be applied to a wide range of existing and new pharmaceuticals.

Intellipharmaceutics has developed several drug delivery systems based on this technology platform, with a pipeline of products (some of which have received FDA approval) in various stages of development. The Company has ANDA and NDA 505(b)(2) drug product candidates in its development pipeline. These include the Company's abuse-deterrent oxycodone hydrochloride extended release formulation ("Oxycodone ER") based on its proprietary nPODDDS novel Point Of Divergence Drug Delivery System (for which an NDA has been filed with the FDA), and Regabatin XR (pregabalin extended-release capsules).

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements in this document constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and/or "forward-looking information" under the Securities Act (Ontario). These statements include, without limitation, statements expressed or implied regarding our expectations regarding our plans, goals and milestones, status of developments or expenditures relating to our business, plans to fund our current activities, risks associated with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), including its impact on our business and operations, and statements concerning our partnering activities, health regulatory submissions, strategy, future operations, future financial position, future sales, revenues and profitability, projected costs and market penetration and risks or uncertainties related to our ability comply with OTCQB Venture Market and TSX requirements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "appear", "unlikely", "target", "may", "will", "should", "expects", "plans", "plans to", "anticipates", "believes", "estimates", "predicts", "confident", "prospects", "potential", "continue", "intends", "look forward", "could", "would", "projected", "set to", "seeking" or the negative of such terms or other comparable terminology. We made a number of assumptions in the preparation of our forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements, which are subject to a multitude of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, future circumstances or events to differ materially from those stated in or implied by the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties relating to us and our business can be found in the "Risk Factors" section of our latest annual information form, our latest Form 20-F, and our latest Form F-1 and Form F-3 registration statements (including any documents forming a part thereof or incorporated by reference therein), as amended, as well as in our reports, public disclosure documents and other filings with the securities commissions and other regulatory bodies in Canada and the U.S., which are available on www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov . The forward-looking statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are based on what we believe are reasonable assumptions as of the date of this document and we disclaim any intention and have no obligation or responsibility, except as required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Trademarks used herein are the property of their respective holders.

Unless the context otherwise requires, all references to "we," "us," "our," Intellipharmaceutics," and the "Company" refer to Intellipharmaceutics International Inc. and its subsidiaries.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Company Contact:

Intellipharmaceutics International Inc.

Isa Odidi

Chief Executive Officer

416.798.3001 ext. 102

investors@intellipharmaceutics.com

SOURCE: Intellipharmaceutics International Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596090/Intellipharmaceutics-Announces-That-The-Company-And-Purdue-Pharma-LP-et-al-Have-Entered-Into-A-Stipulated-Dismissal-Agreement-To-Terminate-Purdue-Patent-Litigation-Subject-To-Court-Approval


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Five U.S. airlines have signed agreements with the U.S. Department of the Treasury on the loan terms under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security or CARES Act.



The Treasury Department said Thursday that American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Sky West Airlines, and Spirit Airlines have signed letters of intent for the terms of the federal loans.



'We are pleased that major air carriers intend to use this important program and for Treasury to use its authority under the CARES Act to provide much-needed financial assistance, while ensuring appropriate taxpayer compensation. Conversations with other airlines continue, and we look forward to finalizing agreements as soon as possible,' said U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.



In March, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the $2 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus bill that includes $25 billion in direct aid to the airline industry.



The CARES Act authorizes the Treasury Department to make loans to eligible businesses, including airlines, for their losses incurred as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.



Several airlines in the U.S. have cut flight schedules and fares over the past few months as the rapid spread of the coronavirus across the world sharply reduced demand for air travel. The weak demand for air travel is the worst since the last financial crisis.



The CARES Act requires the airlines participating in the program to provide warrants, equity interests, or senior debt instruments as appropriate taxpayer compensation. The airlines must also commit to maintain employment levels as well as limit employee compensation, dividends, and share repurchases.



In mid-April, major U.S. airlines agreed to general terms with the Treasury Department regarding their participation in the Payroll Support Program to prevent layoffs in the airline industry that was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.



The airlines agreed to the Treasury's conditions such as prohibitions against involuntary furloughs and reductions in employee pay rates and benefits through September 30, 2020, the elimination of share repurchases and dividends until September 30, 2021, and limits on executive compensation until March 24, 2022.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Regulatory News:

GenSight Biologics (Euronext: SIGHT, ISIN: FR0013183985, PEA-PME eligible), a biopharma company focused on discovering and developing innovative gene therapies for retinal neurodegenerative diseases and central nervous system disorders, announced that it will host a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) call on July 9, 2020 from 10:00 am to 11:00 am EST. The call will feature presentations by KOLs Nancy Newman, MD (Emory Eye Center) and Sean Donahue, MD, PhD (Vanderbilt Children's Hospital) who will discuss the current treatment landscape and unmet medical needs in Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON). Drs. Newman and Donahue will be available to answer questions at the end of the call.

This KOL call will also be an opportunity for GenSight's management to provide an update on the company and discuss the results from the REVERSE and RESCUE Phase III trials for LUMEVOQ (GS010). RESCUE and REVERSE are two separate randomized, double-masked, sham-controlled Phase III trials designed to evaluate the efficacy of a single intravitreal injection of GS010 (rAAV2/2-ND4) in subjects affected by LHON due to the G11778A mutation in the mitochondrial ND4 gene. LUMEVOQ (GS010) is expected to be submitted for European approval in September 2020.

The call will be webcast live at https://bit.ly/3dZVQlX. For those not available to attend or listen to the live broadcast, a replay will be archived and available using the same link.

About GenSight Biologics

GenSight Biologics S.A. is a clinical-stage biopharma company focused on discovering and developing innovative gene therapies for retinal neurodegenerative diseases and central nervous system disorders. GenSight Biologics' pipeline leverages two core technology platforms, the Mitochondrial Targeting Sequence (MTS) and optogenetics to help preserve or restore vision in patients suffering from blinding retinal diseases. GenSight Biologics' lead product candidate, LUMEVOQ (GS010), is in Phase III trials in Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON), a rare mitochondrial disease that leads to irreversible blindness in teens and young adults. Using its gene therapy-based approach, GenSight Biologics' product candidates are designed to be administered in a single treatment to each eye by intravitreal injection to offer patients a sustainable functional visual recovery.

About LUMEVOQ (GS010)

LUMEVOQ (GS010) targets Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) by leveraging a mitochondrial targeting sequence (MTS) proprietary technology platform, arising from research conducted at the Institut de la Vision in Paris, which, when associated with the gene of interest, allows the platform to specifically address defects inside the mitochondria using an AAV vector (Adeno-Associated Virus). The gene of interest is transferred into the cell to be expressed and produces the functional protein, which will then be shuttled to the mitochondria through specific nucleotidic sequences in order to restore the missing or deficient mitochondrial function. "LUMEVOQ" was accepted as the invented name for GS010 (lenadogene nolparvovec) by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in October 2018.

About Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON)

Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) is a rare maternally inherited mitochondrial genetic disease, characterized by the degeneration of retinal ganglion cells that results in brutal and irreversible vision loss that can lead to legal blindness, and mainly affects adolescents and young adults. LHON is associated with painless, sudden loss of central vision in the 1st eye, with the 2nd eye sequentially impaired. It is a symmetric disease with poor functional visual recovery. 97% of patients have bilateral involvement at less than one year of onset of vision loss, and in 25% of cases, vision loss occurs in both eyes simultaneously. The estimated incidence of LHON is approximately 1,200 new patients who lose their sight every year in the United States and Europe.

About RESCUE and REVERSE

RESCUE and REVERSE are two separate randomized, double-masked, sham-controlled Phase III trials designed to evaluate the efficacy of a single intravitreal injection of GS010 (rAAV2/2-ND4) in subjects affected by LHON due to the G11778A mutation in the mitochondrial ND4 gene.

The primary endpoint will measure the difference in efficacy of GS010 in treated eyes compared to sham-treated eyes based on Best-Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA), as measured with the ETDRS at 48 weeks post-injection. The patients' LogMAR (Logarithm of the Minimal Angle of Resolution) scores, which are derived from the number of letters patients read on the ETDRS chart, will be used for statistical purposes. Both trials have been adequately powered to evaluate a clinically relevant difference of at least 15 ETDRS letters between treated and untreated eyes adjusted to baseline.

The secondary endpoints will involve the application of the primary analysis to best-seeing eyes that received GS010 compared to those receiving sham, and to worse-seeing eyes that received GS010 compared to those that received sham. Additionally, a categorical evaluation with a responder analysis will be evaluated, including the proportion of patients who maintain vision (< ETDRS 15L loss), the proportion of patients who gain 15 ETDRS letters from baseline and the proportion of patients with Snellen acuity of >20/200. Complementary vision metrics will include automated visual fields, optical coherence tomography, and color and contrast sensitivity, in addition to quality of life scales, bio-dissemination and the time course of immune response. Readouts for these endpoints are at 48, 72 and 96 weeks after injection.

The trials are conducted in parallel, in 37 subjects for REVERSE and 39 subjects for RESCUE, in 7 centers across the United States, the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Week 96 results were reported in 2019 for both trials, after which patients were transferred to a long-term follow-up study that will last for three years.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifiers:

REVERSE: NCT02652780

RESCUE: NCT02652767

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005413/en/

Contacts:

GenSight Biologics

Thomas Gidoin

Chief Financial Officer

tgidoin@gensight-biologics.com

+33 (0)1 76 21 72 20

RooneyPartners

Media Relations

Marion Janic

mjanic@rooneyco.com

+1-212-223-4017

LifeSci Advisors

Investor Relations

Guillaume van Renterghem

gvanrenterghem@lifesciadvisors.com

+33 (0)6 69 99 37 83

James Palmer

Retail Investors

j.palmer@orpheonfinance.com

+33 (0)7 60 92 77 74
Helbiz is committed to investing in the growth of micro-mobility with its fleet of e-scooters and e-bikes in the UK

Company drives hiring efforts across the country

As the United Kingdom changes its e-scooter regulations and begins trials this week, Helbiz, a global leader in micro-mobility, announced its commitment to entering the market and expanding its fleet operations. The company is dedicated to partnering with local cities and municipalities within the UK to provide safe, sustainable and affordable last-mile transportation options, while creating jobs within each market it operates.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005423/en/

Helbiz is committed to investing in the growth of micro-mobility with its fleet of e-scooters and e-bikes in the UK (Photo: Business Wire)

"In these unprecedented times when social distancing is key, micro-mobility solutions, such as e-scooters and e-bikes, offer an environmentally-friendly and socially conscious travel option," said Salvatore Palella, founder and CEO of Helbiz. "The UK has always been an important market for Helbiz, and we're excited for the opportunity to partner with cities across the market to help demonstrate the economic, environmental and social benefits of our micro-mobility fleets."

Helbiz has identified more than 20 cities across the UK where its fleet of e-scooter and e-bikes would seamlessly integrate into existing transportation infrastructures or offer an alternative travel option. To highlight its dedication to the UK, Helbiz plans to hire dozens of full-time employees, including highly-skilled workers such as engineers and mechanics, in each city it enters, while building community programmes that help foster talent and develop careers. The company has an established UK-based office and a regional manager that will execute the deployment of its fleet, manage the warehouses and lead the on-the-ground operations and recruitment efforts.

Similar to all of its other markets, Helbiz will launch the Helbiz Apprenticeship Programme in the UK to provide its employees career pathway opportunities in the rapidly growing, high-demand mobility industry. The company will also offer the Helbiz Access Programme, providing unlimited free rides for up to 30 minutes for residents with an income at or below 200% of the poverty line. Additionally, Helbiz plans to launch community initiatives to engage with locals and help drive the awareness and adoption of micro-mobility solutions around the area.

"As the market leader in Italy, we partnered with the Italian government's COVID-19 Task Force last month to provide transportation guidance and support as the country gradually lifted its stay-at-home order," continued Palella. "To ease travel burdens and limit public transportation use, we offered essential workers free rides in all the cities we operated in across Italy. Just as we were able to support Italy during the pandemic, we hope that we can offer our services, experience and support to the UK during these uncertain times."

Users can download the Helbiz app on iOS and Android to instantly geolocate, rent and unlock e-bikes directly from their phones with a tap and simply park them at bike racks or at available designated parking hubs when finished with their ride. For additional information, visit www.helbiz.com.

ABOUT HELBIZ

Helbiz is a global leader in micro-mobility services. Launched in 2017 and headquartered in New York City, the company operates e-scooters and e-bicycles in over 20 cities around the world including Rome, Washington DC, Milan, Madrid, Belgrade and Miami. Helbiz utilizes a customized, proprietary fleet management platform, artificial intelligence and environmental mapping to optimize operations and business sustainability.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005423/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact

Sandy Choi

sandy (at) agentofchange.com
INVIBES ADVERTISING EXTENDS ITS EUROPEAN FOOTPRINT

TO THE BENELUX REGION

London, 2 July 2020 - INVIBES ADVERTISING, an advanced technology company specialising in digital in-feed advertising, is cementing its European footprint by entering the Benelux region.

The company is opening an office in Anvers, with two affiliated branches, in Brussels and Amsterdam.

INVIBES ADVERTISING already has positioning in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the UK, so the addition of Belgium and the Netherlands will extend its reach to a total of eight European countries.

Tim Vergouts has been appointed Chief Sales Officer of INVIBES Benelux and will be based in Anvers. His mission will be to develop partnerships with editors and promote in-feed formats to advertisers and media agencies. Before joining INVIBES ADVERTISING, Tim worked for world-leading in-store multimedia solutions provider, Mood Media, for eight years, during which time he spent nearly three years in Sales Manager roles.

Concerning his appointment, INVIBES Benelux CSO, Tim Vergouts, said: "I am extremely enthusiastic about joining and participating in the international expansion of INVIBES ADVERTISING, one of the most innovative companies in the digital advertising sector in Europe."

INVIBES ADVERTISING CEO and co-founder, Nicolas Pollet, adds: "The Benelux region is a key hub for advertising investment in Europe and, as such, gives us a new springboard for growth as part of our international expansion strategy. I am delighted that Tim is joining our team and am convinced his expertise will be a decisive asset in driving the company's rapid expansion in a key strategic region for the Group."

About INVIBES ADVERTISING

Founded in 2011, INVIBES ADVERTISING is an advanced technology company specialized in digital advertising. It has developed advertising solutions using an in-feed format built into media content. The principle is similar to social networks and it is optimized for dissemination in a closed network of media websites. Our clientele includes a large number of acclaimed companies: advertisers and media agencies.

INVIBES ADVERTISING is listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange.

Read our latest press releases at:

https://www.invibes.com/investors.html

Follow the latest news about INVIBES ADVERTISING on:

Linkedin: @Invibes advertisingTwitter: @Invibes_advFacebook: @Invibes advertising

Financial & Corporate Contacts







INVIBES ADVERTISING

Kris VLAEMYNCK, CFO

kris.vlaemynck@invibes.com



ACTIFIN, Investor Relations

Alexandre COMMEROT

acommerot@actifin.fr

+33 (0)1 56 88 11 11 ATOUT CAPITAL, Listing Sponsor

Rodolphe OSSOLA

rodolphe.ossola@atoutcapital.com

+33 (0)1 56 69 61 80 FAIR COMMUNICATIONS, Media Relations

Victoria Fairclough



victoria.fairclough@faircommunications.co.uk

+44 79 1991 3348

Attachment
Press release

Lesquin, 02 July 2020, 18:00 hrs

Bigben selected again by Euronext

to be part of its prestigious European Rising Tech label

For the second year in a row, Bigben has been selected to join the prestigious community of 98 top-performing companies selected from more than 350 small & mid cap Tech companies listed on the Euronext markets in Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon and Paris and operating in the life science, eco-industry or media and telecommunications (TMT) sectors.

Bigben is particularly proud to be recognized once again for its efforts to make the Group a European player in video game publishing, the design and distribution of mobile and gaming accessories and audio products. This recognition rewards in particular the steady growth of its business and the strong increase in its recurring operating profitability over the past several years.

Membership in the European Rising Tech label offers Bigben numerous advantages, including increased stock market visibility, more promotion from Euronext and access to a larger number of investors.

Upcoming publication:

Sales for 1st quarter of FY 2020/2021: Monday 27 July 2020, after close of business on Euronext Paris stock market





ABOUT BIGBEN INTERACTIVE







SALES 2019-2020

263.5 M















HEADCOUNT

Over 730 employees







INTERNATIONAL

21 subsidiaries and a distribution network in 100 countries

www.bigben-group.com (http://www.bigben-group.com)



Bigben Interactive is a European player in video game development and publishing, in design and distribution of smartphone and gaming accessories as well as in audio products. The Group, which is recognized for its capacities in terms of innovation and creativity, intends to become one of Europe's leaders in each of its markets







Company listed on Euronext Paris, compartment B - Index : CAC SMALL - Eligible SRD long

ISN : FR0000074072 ; Reuters : BIGPA ; Bloomberg : BIGFP







PRESS CONTACTS







CapValue - Gilles Broquelet gbroquelet@capvalue.fr (mailto:gbroquelet@capvalue.fr) - +33 1 80 81 50 01

Attachment
Claim Your Business Name on Findit Now Before Another Business Does

ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Findit, Inc. (OTC PINK:FDIT) owner of Findit.com, a full service social networking platform which provides online marketing tools to individuals and business, lets businesses and business owners claim their business name(s) on Findit to help improve tangible search results in search engines and control the content they want seen and shared online.

Findit is a full service social networking content management platform that any business can join and claim their name on Findit. Your business name on Findit could be your actual business name, such as findit.com/americancraftsmanrenovations or it could be the keyword or phrase that you wish to be found under, such as findit.com/savannahstructuralrepairs or findit.com/metal-roofing-fabrication-services-charleston. Whatever you want your name to be, once you claim it, no one else can have your name or your keyword phrase.

Clark St. Amant of Findit stated, "The exclusivity component of Findit's claim your name feature is key for business owners. There are plenty of businesses with overlapping names and overlapping services. Because Findit only allows each name to exist once on the platform, once a business has secured its name and its services, another business can't reserve that same name or service."

Claiming your name on Findit is important because it allows you to control exactly what you want your business to be known for and found under in search and throughout social media. Findit.com is an open source platform which enables search engines to crawl and index all content on Findit. This makes it incredibly easy to help control what is found about your business in search engines because you control the content that you post within your Findit Account. Moreover, the photos you post on Findit and the status updates you write on Findit can then be shared socially to other social sites, helping you tap into different networks to reach different audiences and further tell the story about your business and the products or services you offer.

Here are several businesses that have claimed their name(s) on Findit.

Titan Roofing of Charleston South Carolina

Titan Roofing of Charleston SC provides professional metal and shingle roofing services as well as metal roofing fabrication services across the Greater Charleston Area. They claimed the following Findit Names on Findit with the Claim Your Name Tool.

https://www.findit.com/charleston-roofing-contractors

https://www.findit.com/mount-pleasant-roofing-contractors

https://www.findit.com/goose-creek-roofing-contractors

Titan Roofing claimed an additional 11 names on Findit to target the roofing services they provide in the areas that they service.

American Craftsman Renovations of Savannah GA

American Craftsman Renovations of Savannah GA is a professional general contractor in Savannah GA that offers a wide range of residential remodeling, renovation, restoration and repair services as well as home improvements to homeowners and business owners across Savannah. They claimed the following Findit names on Findit.

findit.com/savannahstructuralrepairs

findit.com/generalcontractorsavannah

findit.com/home-improvements-savannah-georgia

American Craftsman Renovations claimed an additional 30 names on Findit to target the residential home improvement and general contractor services they provide in the areas that they service.

Hip Hop Bling - Online Jewelry Retailer

Hip Hop Bling is an online bling bling jewelry retailer who operates its warehouse in Columbia Maryland sells an extensive collection of hip hop jewelry including chains, watches, bracelets, earrings, rings and more. They claimed the following names on Findit.

findit.com/hiphopbling

findit.com/icedoutjewelry

findit.com/blingjewelry

Hip Hop Bling claimed an additional 3 Findit names on Findit to target the different styles of jewelry that they sell online.

Claiming your name on Findit is offered at an extremely competitive price point of $9.95 per name, per year. Businesses can claim just one name or they can claim multiple names - Findit does not limit the number of customized keyword URL extensions a business can own. This is an important distinction for business owners, who may only have one web address, but offer a variety of services in specific geographic locations.

For example, like Titan Roofing mentioned above, your business might offer roofing services in multiple towns and could then reserve findit.com/residential-roofer-city for each of the towns that you provide roofing services in. The same is true for any service provider or industry professional that offers products of services in more than one location.

While claiming your name on Findit is similar to having an Instagram account with a personalized username or a Twitter Account with a specific handle, your Findit name actually helps control what search engines display about you. Findit is an open source platform that does not limit access to people or search engines - all content is crawlable. Your Findit name that you claim is part of your digital identity on Findit and helps control how and what is seen about you on search engines.

Visit Findit today to claim your name online, call 404-443-3224 for assistance.

About Findit, Inc.

Findit.com which is a Social Media Content Management Platform that provides an interactive search engine for all content posted in Findit to appear in Findit search. The site is an open platform that provides access to Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines access to its content posted to Findit so it can be indexed in these search engines as well. Findit provides Members the ability to post, share and manage their content. Once they have posted in Findit, we ensure the content gets indexed in Findit Search results. Findit provides an option for anyone to submit URLs that they want indexed in Findit search result, along with posting status updates through Findit Right Now. Status Updates posted in Findit can be crawled by outside search engines which can result in additional organic indexing. All posts on Findit can be shared to other social and bookmarking sites by members and non-members. Findit provides Real Estate Agents the ability to create their own Findit Site where they can pull in their listing and others through their IDX account. Findit, Inc., is focused on the development of monetized Internet-based web products that can provide an increase in brand awareness of our members. Findit, Inc., trades under the stock symbol FDIT on the OTCPinksheets."

Safe Harbor:

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), including statements regarding potential sales, the success of the company's business, as well as statements that include the word believe or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Findit, Inc. to differ materially from those implied or expressed.

CONTACT:

Clark St. Amant

404-443-3224

SOURCE: Findit, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596109/Has-Your-Business-Claimed-Its-Name-on-Findit
Quantzig, a global data analytics and advisory firm, that delivers actionable analytics solutions to resolve complex business problems brings to you comprehensive insights into the factors impacting customer churn in the telecom sector in its recent article.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005518/en/

What's in it for you?

Understand the upcoming trends in the telecom industry

Gain insights into factors driving innovation in telecom sector

By leveraging advanced customer churn analytics solutions, telecom companies across the globe can improve accuracy in churn prediction. Speak to our analytics experts to get started!

The customer churn rates in the global telecom industry are constantly on the rise, mostly due to increasing competition. To drive profitability, telecom companies must go an extra mile to earn new customers and satisfy the existing customers. However, meeting the customer expectation is evidently a more cost-effective option than acquiring new customers, which is why companies are adopting advanced customer churn analytics solutions to retain profitable customers.

Request a FREE proposal to gain comprehensive insights into the role of advanced customer churn analytics.

According to Quantzig's customer analytics experts, "The shift from product-centricity to customer-centricity in the telecom sector is one of the reasons why telcos are engaging with their customers effectively and efficiently right when they sign up or even before they decide to."

Factors Affecting Customer Churn Rates in Telecom Sector

1: Customer expectations

If a telecom service company consistently loses customers due to unrealistic expectations, it's time to revise their services and marketing strategy or make service improvements.

2: Customer investment

The ecosystem in the telecom sector mainly comprises the organization, the technology, the process, and the people associated with the organization. These factors are often interconnected to form a complex structure and highly influence how your customers interact with your brand.

3: Value provided

Are your customers getting the most possible value from their existing subscription plan? If they've maxed out their benefits at their current level, telecom service providers must take the time to speak with them about upgrading to a more comprehensive and better package.

The telecom service providers in their early stage were indulged in a fierce battle of reduced call rates and promotional offers to win over new customers. A few years down the lane when the telecom industry approached its saturation point, companies realized the importance of reducing the churn rates. It costs hundreds of dollars in marketing and administrative expenses to acquire a single customer in the telecom industry. On the contrary, when a single customer leaves, the company not only loses on the future revenues but also the resources they have spent to acquire the customer in the first place. Hence, retaining the customer base also provides the company with opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell the services.

Analyze, interpret, and manage business data obtained from multiple sources across the organization under the guidance of our customer churn analytics experts. Book a FREE solution demo to gain comprehensive insights into our customer churn analytics solutions portfolio.

About Quantzig

Quantzig is a global analytics and advisory firm with offices in the US, UK, Canada, China, and India. For more than 15 years, we have assisted our clients across the globe with end-to-end data modeling capabilities to leverage analytics for prudent decision making. Today, our firm consists of 120+ clients, including 45 Fortune 500 companies. For more information on our engagement policies and pricing plans, visit: https://www.quantzig.com/request-for-proposal

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005518/en/

Contacts:

Quantzig

Anirban Choudhury

Marketing Manager

US: +1 630 538 7144

UK: +44 208 629 1455

https://www.quantzig.com/contact-us


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Switzerland stock market ended on a firm note on Thursday, in line with the trend seen across global markets, amid rising optimism about a potential vaccine to treat coronavirus infection, and on encouraging economic data from almost across the world.



The benchmark SMI ended up 97.89 points or 0.97% at 10,187.56, the day's high.



LafargeHolcim, Adecco and Swiss Re gained 3 to 3.3%. Richemont, UBS Group, Credit Suisse and Swiss Life Holding moved up 2.3 to 2.5%.



ABB, Swatch Group, Zurich Insurance Group and Sika gained 1.7 to 2%. Geberit, Lonza Group and Swisscom also closed notably higher.



Novartis edged up marginally. The company has agreed to pay more than $729 million to settle U.S. government charges it paid illegal kickbacks to doctors and patients to boost drug sales, the U.S. Department of Justice said. According to the company's spokesman, the costs of the settlement were covered by provisions it had already made.



In the midcap section, Dufry spurted nearly 7.5%. Flughafen Zurich and AMS gained 4.1% and 3.9%, respectively. Helvetia, Julius Baer, Sonova, Baloise Holding and Logitech ended higher by 1.4 to 2.3%.



Dormakaba Holdings gained 1.2% after the company said it signed an agreement to divest its project installation business in Norway.



On the economic front, Switzerland's consumer prices declined for the fifth straight month in June, data from the Federal Statistical Office showed. The consumer price index decreased 1.3% year-on-year in June, the same rate of decline as seen in May. Economists had expected a 1.2% fall.



On a monthly basis, consumer prices remained unchanged again in June, while economists forecast a 0.1% rise.



Prices for international package tours, fruits, vegetables and heating oil prices increased in June, while the prices of air transport and hotel accommodation fell from the previous month.



The core CPI fell 0.8% annually in June and declined 0.1% from the previous month. The EU measure of harmonized index of consumer prices fell 0.1% monthly in June and declined 1.3% from the previous year.



Encouraging jobs data from the U.S. that said non-farm payroll employment skyrocketed by 4.8 million jobs in June after soaring by an upwardly revised 2.7 million jobs in May further bolstered sentiment. The Labor Department also said the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% in June from 13.3% in May. The unemployment rate had been expected to dip to 12.3%.



Meanwhile, in news about coronavirus, reports say that an early-stage human trial of a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech showed creation of neutralizing antibodies.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
KILMARNOCK, VA and NEW YORK, NY / July 2, 2020 / Chesapeake Bank, a community bank serving central and eastern Virginia, has joined the RTP network developed by The Clearing House. With the RTP network, Chesapeake Bank customers can now receive payments directly into their accounts with real-time receipt confirmation and instant availability, while also providing for advanced messaging capabilities.

"We are excited to offer our customers the ability to receive payments much faster and continue to support new digital innovations," said Rick Roberts, Director of Operations at Chesapeake Bank. "The RTP network provides improved speed, reliability, and security to consumer and business payments."

"Our customers need financial technology tools that align with their personal and business needs. Supporting real-time payments through the RTP network is an important step for us, allowing us to deliver new functionality to our customers, and improve their banking experience," said DJ Seeterlin, Chief Information Officer at Chesapeake Bank. "We are proud to be an early adopter of the RTP network, which demonstrates our commitment to be at the forefront of technology and payments and allows Chesapeake Bank to continue the meet our customers' needs now and in the future."

The RTP network, provided by The Clearing House, is the first new core payments infrastructure built in the U.S. in more than 40 years and gives the banking industry a modern platform for domestic payments, complete with rich data capabilities and immediate payment confirmation. The system enables instant settlement and availability, so those funds can be used or withdrawn as cash within seconds. By implementing the RTP network, Chesapeake Bank joins a growing number of financial institutions offering advanced new capabilities to their customers. The RTP network currently reaches 53% of U.S. demand deposit accounts, offers a flat pricing structure for all depository institutions regardless of size, and does not include volume discounts or have minimum volume requirements.

"The Clearing House welcomes Chesapeake Bank to the RTP network as they bring real-time payments to their customers," said Steve Ledford, Product Executive for the RTP network at The Clearing House. "The RTP network is designed for depository institutions of all sizes and having another great financial institution like Chesapeake Bank join the RTP network is exciting as the network's reach continues to grow."

About Chesapeake Bank

Chesapeake Bank is headquartered in Kilmarnock, Virginia and operates 15 community banks in the Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, Williamsburg and Richmond region. Founded in 1900, Chesapeake Bank is primarily a lender to small businesses and is active in each of the communities it serves. Named in 2019 by American Banker as one of the Top 200 Community Banks and a Best Bank to Work For, Chesapeake Bank employs 235 associates and encourages each one to live according to the Bank's "It's All About Community" approach. For more information about Chesapeake Bank, visit chesbank.com.

About The Clearing House

The Clearing House operates U.S-based payments networks that clear and settle more than $2 trillion each day through wire, ACH, check image, and the RTP network. It is the nation's most experienced payments company, with a long track record of providing secure and reliable systems, payments innovation, and strategic thought leadership to banks and credit unions. Most recently, The Clearing House has revolutionized U.S. payments infrastructure with the RTP network, which supports the immediate clearing and settlement of payments, along with the ability to exchange related payment information across the same secure channel. These RTP capabilities enable all financial institutions to offer safer, faster, and smarter digital transaction services for their corporate and retail customers. Learn more at www.theclearinghouse.org.

Media Contacts

Paula Milsted

Chesapeake Bank

804-435-4248

pmilsted@chesbank.com

Greg MacSweeney

The Clearing House

212-612-9282

greg.macsweeney@theclearinghouse.org

SOURCE: Chesapeake Financial Shares Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596131/Chesapeake-Bank-Provides-Faster-Payments-to-Customers-on-the-RTPR-Network
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Crude oil prices climbed higher on Thursday, with stronger than expected jobs data and optimism about potential coronavirus vaccine triggered hopes that energy demand will pick up soon. Also, the recent data from the Energy Information Administration that showed a sharp decline in crude inventories in the U.S. last week, continued to support oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended up $0.83 or about 2.1% at $40.65 a barrel., the highest close for a front- month contract in four months. On Wednesday, WTI futures moved up 1.4%. For the week, crude oil futures gained about 5%. Due to Independence Day holiday, the New York Mercantile Exchange will not have a regular trading session on Friday. Brent crude futures were up $1.1 or about 2.65% at $43.14 a barrel. Data from U.S. Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment skyrocketed by 4.8 million jobs in June after soaring by an upwardly revised 2.7 million jobs in May further bolstered sentiment. Economists had expected employment to surge up by about 3.0 million jobs compared to the spike of 2.5 million jobs originally reported for the previous month. The Labor Department also said the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% in June from 13.3% in May. The unemployment rate had been expected to dip to 12.3%. Data released by U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed crude inventories in the country fell by 7.2 million barrels in the week ended June 27, compared with an increase of 1.4 million barrels a week earlier. The amount of oil stored at Cushing, Oklahoma, to settle WTI delivery fell a larger than expected 263,000 barrels and distillate stockpiles dropped by 593,000 barrels, but gasoline inventory rose 1.2 million barrels last week, the data showed. 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.
ANN ARBOR, MI / ACCESSWIRE / July 2 2020 / Jonathan Seller is an entrepreneur and business owner who has his Bachelor's degree in Theology from Moody Bible Institute and his Masters degree from Bethel College. He grew up in Canada until he went to college in Chicago. He hasn't left the United States since. Jonathan worked for over a decade in Full Time Christain Ministry as a Worship Pastor and Church Planter. While he was working full time in the Ministry, he helped plant a church, recorded Christain albums and led worship teams on the weekend. His faith has always been something that he could lean on and has given him the passion for helping others and giving back to the community.

Jonathan now runs two companies, SecondTri Media where he helps build businesses brands online. He also has a second online venture where he helps people invest into Amazon automation. The company AmazonAutoPilots, is a top producing Amazon Automation service provider, Jonathan works with the company by helping customers make a decision and answer their questions related to the service and pair them with the best provider to automate their amazon store. This past year, Jonathan realized that the best passive income is on Amazon. He also realized the value in having multiple sources of income and using his skill sets to do so. Jonathan founded Amazon Auto Pilots in February 2020 and wants people to know that having a passive income doesn't have to take up any of their free time. Jonathan documents his journey going from skeptic to investor on his website where he helps connect investors to have their very own Amazon store. His videos are authentic and have led to many investors to discuss the best possible options for their Amazon automation investment.

Jonathan's biggest accomplishments come from both his work in ministry and his digital marketing company. He has recorded a number of albums opening for Christain artists like Chris Tomlin and Matt Maher. He has also had a tremendous amount of success with his digital marketing company, SecondTri Media, which has continuously grown substantially every year. Each chapter of Jonathan's life has taught him something different and he has used all of his learned experiences to better service and make an impact for his customer and others around him.

Jonathan Seller made the leap to leave the stability of full time Ministry and entered the dangerous and unpredictable world of entrepreneurship in 2019. This only led him to the realization that a 6 figure income is just the starting point. Jonathan acknowledges the fact that leaving a 9-5 can be difficult because you are giving up the comforts of a predictable environment and income. The journey or entrepreneurship requires that one forgoes the comforts provided to you by a W-2 and enter the wild ride of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. To follow along with Jonathan Seller's journey, click here.

CONTACT:

Kiley Almy

Kiley@nextwavemktg.com

Next Wave Marketing

SOURCE: Jonathan Seller

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/596138/Jonathan-Seller-on-Going-from-Ministry-to-7-Figure-Entrepreneur
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: 2 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 40,811 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 1,920 pence 23.96 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 1,894 pence 23.64 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 1,910 pence 23.83 USD Ticker: PSHD Date of Purchase: 2 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 11,792 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 23.95 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 23.75 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 23.85 USD Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Ticker: PSH Date of Purchase: 2 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 37,412 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 24.05 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 23.70 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 23.90 USD

PSH will hold these Public Shares in Treasury. The net asset value per Public Share related to this buyback is 34.52 USD 27.86 GBP which was calculated as of 30 June 2020 (the "Relevant NAV"). After giving effect to the above buyback, PSH has 195,472,708 Public Shares outstanding, or 201,404,994 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 15,484,042 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/20200702005525/en/

Contacts:

Media

Camarco

Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
ST HELIER, Jersey, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SANNE, a leading global provider of alternative asset and corporate services, has appointed Sakuya Tajima as Head of Business Development - Japan as it continues to strengthen its Asia-Pacific business.

Working closely with Country Head - Mark Bennett, Tajima-san will be responsible for driving new and existing business development in Japan.

With more than 36 years of industry experience, Tajima-san joins SANNE after a long and distinguished career at State Street in Japan where he took a series of senior client-facing roles, taking a lead in business development with some of the most prominent asset owners and asset managers. He has successfully introduced a broad array of products and services, with particular focus on alternative asset servicing, in an effort of supporting the execution of their strategic investment initiatives.

Commenting on the appointment Mark Bennett, Country Head - Japan at SANNE, said:

"We are focused on providing the best products and services to clients in Japan. This is a market that will increase allocations to Alternative Assets over the coming years and we intend to be market leaders in servicing these assets.

"In Tajima-san we have hired someone with unparalleled market knowledge and capabilities. Throughout his career Tajima-san has demonstrated a clear commitment to providing excellent client service, we could not be more delighted to welcome Tajima-san to our growing business. We view this strategic appointment as a key component for the next stage in our growth journey within Japan."

On his appointment Tajima-san commented:

"In Japan the need for a high-quality asset service supporting the growth of alternative investment strategies has never been clearer. The capabilities that SANNE has globally in this area are industry leading and I look forward to developing new opportunities in Japan to benefit the market here. We believe that we can be an essential resource that both asset managers and asset owners can count on as the market continues to seek investment in private assets that SANNE has been so successful in servicing through its global platform.

"Our success in Japan will be best served by embracing the local culture and I am happy that we are Culturally Japanese and Authentically SANNE."

Tajima-san graduated from The University of Tokyo with a BA in Law and earned his MBA with High Honors from Boston University Questrom School of Business. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), a member of CFA Society Boston, and a Financial Risk Manager (FRM) registered by Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP).

sannegroup.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1199833/SANNE_Sakuya_Tajima.jpg
VANCOUVER, CANADA / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / First Mining Gold Corp. ("First Mining" or the "Company") (TSX:FF)(OTCQX:FFMGF)(FRA:FMG) is pleased to announce the closing of its previously announced transaction with First Majestic Silver Corp. ("First Majestic") (TSX:FR) (NYSE:AG) to advance the Company's 100%-owned Springpole Gold Project ("Springpole" or the "Project") located in Ontario, Canada. Under the terms of a silver purchase agreement (the "Agreement") that First Majestic has entered into with the Company, First Majestic has agreed to pay First Mining total consideration of US$22.5 million, over three stages, for the right to purchase 50% of the payable silver produced from Springpole for the life of the Project (the "Stream").

As initial upfront consideration, First Majestic paid US$10 million to First Mining on closing, with US$2.5 million paid in cash and the remaining US$7.5 million paid in common shares of First Majestic (the Company received 805,698 First Majestic shares) which are subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus one day from the closing date.

Additional consideration payable for the Stream includes two further payments (in cash and First Majestic shares) based on Project-related milestones. Upon completion of a positive Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") for Springpole, First Mining will receive US$7.5 million from First Majestic, with a further US$5 million payable upon First Mining receiving approval of a Federal or Provincial Environmental Assessment for the Project. Further details relating to the transaction and the terms of the Agreement with First Majestic are provided in the Company's news release dated June 11, 2020.

The proceeds received by First Mining will be used to advance Springpole through the PFS and the Environmental Assessment processes, and to fund general corporate expenses. Field personnel returned to the Project site in June 2020 to continue environmental and geotechnical data collection efforts. The Springpole camp is operating under a strict COVID-19 risk mitigation policy incorporating recommendations set by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario. All employees and contractors at Springpole are subject to heightened health and safety standards in accordance with this risk mitigation policy.

Qualified Person

Hazel Mullin, P.Geo., Director, Data Management and Technical Services of First Mining, is a "Qualified Person" for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), and she has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this news release.

Springpole Gold Project

Springpole is one of the largest undeveloped open pit gold assets in Canada, with permitting and a Pre-Feasibility Study underway. The Project covers 41,943 hectares in northwestern Ontario, located approximately 110 kilometres northeast of Red Lake. Springpole currently hosts 4.67 million ounces gold in the Indicated category and 0.23 million ounces gold in the Inferred category, and the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment study published in 2019 ("PEA") showcased the Project's size and scale. The study highlights an open pit mine and milling process with the potential to produce an average of 410,000 ounces of gold annually when in production (years two to nine). First Mining acquired the Project in November 2015 through its acquisition of Gold Canyon Resources Inc.

For additional details, including a description of data verification and QA/QC procedures, refer to the technical report titled "Preliminary Economic Assessment Update for the Springpole Gold Project, Ontario, Canada", dated November 5, 2019, which was prepared for First Mining by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. in accordance with NI 43-101, and which is available under First Mining's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. First Mining notes that the PEA is preliminary in nature, in that it includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and that there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized.

About First Mining Gold Corp.

First Mining is a Canadian gold developer focused on the development and permitting of the Springpole Gold Project in northwestern Ontario. Springpole is one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in Canada, currently hosting a mineral resource base of 4.67 million ounces of gold in the Indicated category and 0.23 million ounces of gold in the Inferred category. A Pre-Feasibility Study is underway, with completion targeted in early 2021, and permitting is on-going with submission of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) targeted for 2021. The Company is also in the process of closing its announced transaction with Treasury Metals Inc., after which it will hold a large equity position in Treasury that is advancing the Goliath-Goldlund gold project towards construction. First Mining's eastern Canadian property portfolio also includes Pickle Crow (being advanced in partnership with Auteco Minerals Ltd.), Cameron, Hope Brook, Duparquet, Duquesne, and Pitt.

First Mining was created in 2015 by Mr. Keith Neumeyer, founding President and CEO of First Majestic Silver Corp.

ON BEHALF OF FIRST MINING GOLD CORP.

Daniel W. Wilton

Chief Executive Officer and Director

For further information, please contact:

Spiros Cacos | Vice President, Investor Relations

Direct: +1 604 639 8825 | Toll Free: 1 844 306 8827 | Email: info@firstmininggold.com

www.firstmininggold.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "plans", "projects", "intends", "estimates", "envisages", "potential", "possible", "strategy", "goals", "objectives", or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions.

Forward-looking statements in this news release relate to future events or future performance and reflect current estimates, predictions, expectations or beliefs regarding future events and include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to: (i) additional consideration being received by First Mining under the terms of the Agreement upon the completion of a PFS for Springpole and upon receipt of a Federal or Provincial Environmental Assessment for the Project, and the timing of the Company receiving such additional consideration; (ii) the Company using the proceeds received under the transaction with First Majestic to advance Springpole through the PFS and the Environmental Assessment processes, and for general corporate expenses; (iii) the Company's focus on developing and permitting Springpole;(iv) the potential for Springpole to produce an average of 410,000 ounces of gold annually when in production (years two to nine); (v) timing for the completion of a PFS for Springpole; (vi) timing for the submission of an Environmental Impact Statement for Springpole; (vii) closing of the transaction with Treasury Metals Inc. and the Company holding a large equity position in Treasury Metals Inc. after closing; and (viii) realizing the value of the Company's gold projects for the Company's shareholders. All forward-looking statements are based on First Mining's or its consultants' current beliefs as well as various assumptions made by them and information currently available to them. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the respective parties, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and the parties have made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation: fluctuations in the spot and forward price of gold, silver, base metals or certain other commodities; fluctuations in the currency markets (such as the Canadian dollar versus the U.S. dollar); changes in national and local government, legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments; risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining (including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected formations, pressures, cave-ins and flooding); the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on mining; employee relations; relationships with and claims by local communities, indigenous populations and other stakeholders; availability and increasing costs associated with mining inputs and labour; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development; title to properties.; and the additional risks described in the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2019 filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, and in the Company's Annual Report on Form 40-F filed with the SEC on EDGAR.

First Mining cautions that the foregoing list of factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive. When relying on our forward-looking statements to make decisions with respect to First Mining, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. First Mining does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by the Company or on our behalf, except as required by law.

Cautionary Note to United States Investors

This news release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource and reserve estimates included in this news release have been prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum 2014 Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Canadian standards, including NI 43-101, differ significantly from the requirements of the SEC, and mineral resource and reserve information contained herein may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by U.S. companies. In particular, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the term "resource" does not equate to the term "reserves". Under U.S. standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. The SEC's disclosure standards normally do not permit the inclusion of information concerning "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" or "inferred mineral resources" or other descriptions of the amount of mineralization in mineral deposits that do not constitute "reserves" by U.S. standards in documents filed with the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into reserves. U.S. investors should also understand that "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. Under Canadian rules, estimated "inferred mineral resources" may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" exists or is economically or legally mineable. Disclosure of "contained ounces" in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations; however, the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute "reserves" by SEC standards as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. The requirements of NI 43-101 for identification of "reserves" are also not the same as those of the SEC, and reserves reported by the Company in compliance with NI 43-101 may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC standards. Accordingly, information concerning mineral deposits set forth herein may not be comparable with information made public by companies that report in accordance with U.S. standards.

SOURCE: First Mining Gold Corp.

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In a phase III study, a majority (60%) of heavily treatment-experienced adults randomized to receive Rukobia with an optimized background therapy achieved and maintained viral suppression through 96 weeks, addressing a critical unmet need

ViiV Healthcare, the global specialist HIV company majority owned by GSK, with Pfizer Inc. and Shionogi Limited as shareholders, today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Rukobia (fostemsavir), 600 mg extended-release tablets. Rukobia is a novel attachment inhibitor for the treatment of HIV-1 infection indicated for use in combination with other antiretroviral (ARV) therapies in heavily treatment-experienced (HTE) adults with multidrug-resistant HIV-1 infection, who are failing their current ARV regimen due to resistance, intolerance or safety considerations.

Significant advances over the past few decades have dramatically improved HIV treatment and for many, HIV is considered a manageable life-long condition. However, HTE adults which account for approximately 6% of adults living with HIV who are on treatment have little to no options left due to resistance, tolerability or safety considerations.1 HTE adults are at risk of progressing to AIDS and death and in great need of additional therapies.

Deborah Waterhouse, CEO of ViiV Healthcare, said: "There is a small group of heavily treatment-experienced adults living with HIV who are not able to maintain viral suppression with currently available medication and, without effective new options, are at great risk of progressing to AIDS. The approval of Rukobia is a culmination of incredibly complex research, development, and manufacturing efforts to ensure we leave no person living with HIV behind."

The approval was supported by data from the phase III BRIGHTE study, which evaluated the safety and efficacy of Rukobia in combination with optimized background therapy (OBT) in HTE adults living with multidrug-resistant HIV, many of whom had advanced HIV disease at study entry. In the randomized cohort, 60% (n=163/272) of individuals who received Rukobia in addition to an investigator-selected OBT achieved undetectable HIV viral load and clinically meaningful improvements to CD4+ T-cell count through Week 96.

The proportion of participants who discontinued treatment with Rukobia due to an adverse event was 7% at Week 96 (randomized: 5% and nonrandomized: 12%). The most common adverse reactions (all grades) observed in =5% of randomized and nonrandomized participants were nausea, fatigue and diarrhea. The most common adverse events leading to discontinuation were related to infections (3%). Serious drug reactions occurred in 3% of people taking Rukobia and included three cases of severe immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome.2

Jacob P. Lalezari, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Director of Quest Clinical Research, said: "As a novel HIV attachment inhibitor, fostemsavir targets the first step of the viral lifecycle offering a new mechanism of action to treat people living with HIV. In the BRIGHTE study, fostemsavir in combination with other ARVs effectively achieved and maintained long-term viral suppression and demonstrated clinically meaningful rise in CD4+ T-cell count even among heavily immunocompromised patients. These are exciting advances for the HTE population and an advancement the HIV community has long been waiting for. As an activist as well as researcher, I am very grateful to ViiV Healthcare for their commitment to heavily-treatment experienced people living with HIV."

Rukobia was reviewed and approved under the FDA's Fast Track and Breakthrough Therapy Designations which are intended to facilitate and expedite the development and review of new drugs to address unmet medical need in the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition.

Gabriel Maldonado, Founder and CEO, TruEvolution, Inc., said: "Some members of the HIV community face very challenging treatment journeys and do not respond to available therapies for a variety of reasons. The approval of fostemsavir provides a sense of renewed hope for these adults who have few or no viable treatment options left and have been awaiting alternative medicines to control the virus."

Fostemsavir is currently under review by the European Medicines Agency and additional submissions to regulatory authorities around the world are planned throughout 2020 and 2021.

About BRIGHTE

The BRIGHTE trial is an international, phase III, partially-randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study conducted in 371 HTE adults living with HIV-1 infection with multidrug resistance. All trial participants were required to have a viral load =400 copies/mL and =2 classes of antiretroviral medications remaining at baseline due to resistance, intolerability, contraindication, or other safety considerations. Trial participants were enrolled in either a randomized or nonrandomized cohort defined as follows:

Within the randomized cohort (n 272), participants had 1, but no more than 2, fully active and available antiretroviral agent(s) at screening which could be combined as part of an efficacious background regimen. Randomized participants received either blinded fostemsavir 600 mg twice daily (n 203) or placebo (n 69) in addition to their current failing regimen for 8 days of functional monotherapy. Beyond Day 8, randomized participants received open-label fostemsavir 600 mg twice daily plus an investigator-selected optimized background therapy (OBT).

Within the nonrandomized cohort (n 99), participants had no fully active and approved antiretroviral agent(s) available at screening. Nonrandomized participants were treated with open-label fostemsavir 600 mg twice daily plus OBT from Day 1 onward. The use of an investigational drug(s) as a component of the optimised background therapy was permitted in the nonrandomized cohort.

The primary endpoint analysis, based on the adjusted mean decline in HIV-1 RNA from Day 1 at Day 8 in the randomized cohort, demonstrated superiority of fostemsavir to placebo (0.79 vs. 0.17 log10 copies/mL decline, respectively; P<0.0001, Intent-to-Treat-Exposed [ITT-E] population). In the randomized cohort, HIV-1 RNA <40 copies/mL was achieved in 53% and 60% of subjects at Weeks 24 and 96, respectively (ITT-E, Snapshot algorithm). Mean changes in CD4+ cell count from baseline continued to increase over time (i.e., 90 cells/mm3 at Week 24 and 205 cells/mm3 at Week 96). The most common adverse reaction (all grades) observed in =5% of participants were nausea. The proportion of participants who discontinued treatment with fostemsavir due to an adverse event was 7% at Week 96 (randomized: 5% and nonrandomized: 12%). In the nonrandomized cohort, HIV-1 RNA <40 copies/mL was achieved in 37% of subjects at Weeks 24 and 96. At these timepoints, the proportion of subjects with HIV-1 RNA <200 copies/mL was 42% and 39%, respectively (ITT-E, Snapshot algorithm). Mean changes in CD4+ cell count from baseline increased over time: 41 cells/mm3 at Week 24 and 119 cells/mm3 at Week 96. The most common adverse reactions reported in nonrandomized subjects were fatigue (7%), nausea (6%), and diarrhea (6%).

About Rukobia

The active ingredient in Rukobia is fostemsavir. Fostemsavir is a first-in-class HIV-1 attachment inhibitor. After oral administration, fostemsavir is converted to temsavir, which is then absorbed and exerts antiviral activity by attaching directly to the glycoprotein 120 (gp120) subunit on the surface of the virus, thereby blocking HIV from attaching to host immune system CD4+ T-cells and preventing the virus from infecting those cells and multiplying. As Rukobia is the first antiretroviral therapy to target this step of the viral cycle, there is no demonstrated resistance to other classes of antiretrovirals, which may help patients who have become resistant to most other medicines.

Important Safety Information (ISI)

The following ISI is based on the Highlights section of the Prescribing Information for RUKOBIA. Please consult the full Prescribing Information for all the labeled safety information for RUKOBIA.

INDICATIONS AND USAGE

RUKOBIA, a human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) gp120-directed attachment inhibitor, in combination with other antiretroviral(s), is indicated for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in heavily treatment-experienced adults with multidrug-resistant HIV-1 infection failing their current antiretroviral regimen due to resistance, intolerance, or safety considerations.

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

One tablet taken twice daily with or without food.

DOSAGE FORMS AND STRENGTHS

Extended-release tablets: 600 mg

CONTRAINDICATIONS

Hypersensitivity to fostemsavir or any of the components of the formulation.

Coadministration with strong cytochrome P450 (CYP)3A inducers as significant decreases in temsavir plasma concentrations may occur, which may result in loss of virologic response.

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS

Immune reconstitution syndrome has been reported in patients treated with combination antiretroviral therapies.

QTc prolongation: Use RUKOBIA with caution in patients with a history of QTc prolongation or with relevant pre-existing cardiac disease or who are taking drugs with a known risk of Torsade de Pointes.

Elevations in hepatic transaminases in patients with hepatitis B or C virus co-infection: Elevations in hepatic transaminases were observed in a greater proportion of subjects with HBV and/or HCV co-infection compared with those with HIV mono-infection.

Risk of Adverse Reactions or Loss of Virologic Response Due to Drug Interactions: The concomitant use of RUKOBIA and certain other drugs may result in known or potentially significant drug interactions, some of which may lead to 1) Loss of therapeutic effect of RUKOBIA and possible development of resistance due to reduced exposure of temsavir 2) Possible prolongation of QTc interval from increased exposure to temsavir.

ADVERSE REACTIONS

The most common adverse reactions (all grades) observed in =5% of randomized and non-randomized participants were nausea, fatigue and diarrhea.

DRUG INTERACTIONS

See full prescribing information for complete list of significant drug interactions.

Doses of oral contraceptives should not contain more than 30 mcg of ethinyl estradiol per day.

USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS

Lactation: Breastfeeding is not recommended due to the potential for HIV-1 transmission.

About ViiV Healthcare

ViiV Healthcare is a global specialist HIV company established in November 2009 by GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) dedicated to delivering advances in treatment and care for people living with HIV and for people who are at risk of becoming infected with HIV. Shionogi joined in October 2012. The company's aim is to take a deeper and broader interest in HIV/AIDS than any company has done before and take a new approach to deliver effective and innovative medicines for HIV treatment and prevention, as well as support communities affected by HIV. For more information on the company, its management, portfolio, pipeline and commitment, please visit www.viivhealthcare.com.

About ViiV Healthcare's Patient Support Program

ViiV Healthcare is committed to providing assistance to eligible people living with HIV who need our medicines. ViiV Healthcare's centralised service, ViiV Connect, provides comprehensive information on access and coverage to help patients get their prescribed ViiV Healthcare medicines whether they are insured, underinsured or uninsured. ViiV Connect provides one-on-one support from dedicated access coordinators, as well as having an integrated website, one site with many resources, including a portal. For more information on ViiV Connect, visit www.viivconnect.com.

About GSK

GSK is a science-led global healthcare company with a special purpose: to help people do more, feel better, live longer. For further information please visit www.gsk.com/about-us.

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements

GSK cautions investors that any forward-looking statements or projections made by GSK, including those made in this announcement, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Such factors include, but are not limited to, those described under Item 3.D "Risk Factors" in the company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2019 and any impacts of the COVID19 pandemic.

_________________________

1 Hsu R, et al. Identifying Heavily Treatment-Experienced Patients in the OPERA Cohort. 22nd International AIDS Conference; July 23-27, 2018; Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Poster THPEB044.

2 Rukobia (fostemsavir) Prescribing Information. US Approval 2020.

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 2, 2020) - TNR Gold Corp. (TSXV: TNR) ("TNR", "TNR Gold" or the "Company") is responding to a request from the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada ("IIROC"), following recent trading activity in its common shares. The Company is not aware of any corporate developments or other reason for the recent increase in market activity, and there has been no material change or information to report under applicable securities laws that would account for recent unusual trading activity in its common shares.

"The times in which we find ourselves bring the mining industry face to face with some particular challenges, but it is within which lies the opportunity of embracing gold's unique value through which it reminds us of its ultimate purpose; its solid, dependable reliability throughout uncertain times that makes it such an ultimate hedge. TNR Gold's strategy with the Shotgun Gold Project is to attract a partnership with one of the major gold mining companies. The Company is actively introducing the project to interested parties," commented Kirill Klip, Executive Chairman of TNR. "We may be at the beginning of a great discovery. There is a clear path on how to move this project forward using the geological and geophysical research currently available to target drilling to expand the resource and form the basis of a preliminary economic analysis. The next step is to acquire a partner that shares our vision and recognizes the growth potential and value to be added to the Shotgun project over time."

Kirill Klip continued, "We are building the green energy metals and gold company. Energy rEVolution requires secure supply lines of the critical strategic metals like copper and lithium. Our forward-thinking approach allows us to integrate our company into the international capital markets and mining industry in order to accelerate the development of Shotgun Gold Project and extend our royalty portfolio in Green Energy Metals, potentially adding to our core royalty holdings on the Los Azules Copper Project with McEwen Mining and the Mariana Lithium Project under the management of Ganfeng Lithium."

ABOUT TNR GOLD CORP.

TNR Gold Corp. is working to become the green energy metals royalty and gold company.

Over the past twenty-four years, TNR, through its lead generator business model, has been successful in generating high-quality exploration projects around the globe. With the Company's expertise, resources and industry network, it identified the potential of the Los Azules Copper Project in Argentina and now holds a 0.36% NSR Royalty on the entire project, which is being developed by McEwen Mining Inc.

In 2009, TNR founded International Lithium Corp. ("ILC"), a green energy metals company that was made public through the spin-out of TNR's energy metals portfolio in 2011. ILC holds interests in lithium projects in Argentina, Ireland and Canada.

TNR retains a 1.8% NSR Royalty on the Mariana Lithium Project in Argentina. ILC has a right to repurchase 1.0% of the NSR Royalty on the Mariana Lithium Project, of which 0.9% relates to the Company's NSR Royalty interest. The Company would receive $900,000 on the completion of the repurchase. The project is currently being advanced in a joint venture between ILC and Ganfeng Lithium International Co. Ltd.

TNR provides significant exposure to gold through its 90% holding in the Shotgun Gold porphyry project in Alaska. The project is located in Southwestern Alaska near the Donlin Gold project, which is being developed by Barrick Gold and Novagold Resources Inc.

The Company's strategy with Shotgun Gold Project is to attract a joint venture partnership with one of the gold major mining companies. The Company is actively introducing the project to interested parties.

At its core, TNR provides significant exposure to gold, copper and lithium through its holdings in Alaska (the Shotgun Gold porphyry project) and Argentina (the Los Azules Copper and the Mariana Lithium projects) and is committed to the continued generation of in-demand projects, while diversifying its markets and building shareholder value.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Kirill Klip

Executive Chairman

www.tnrgoldcorp.com

For further information concerning this news release please contact +1 604-229-8129

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "will", "could" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "could" occur, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Specifically, forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements made in relation to: TNR's corporate objectives, changes in share capital, market conditions for energy commodities, the results of McEwen Mining's and ILC's PEAs, and improvements in the financial performance of the Company. Such forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those discussed in the sections entitled "Risks" and "Forward-Looking Statements" in the Company's interim and annual Management's Discussion and Analysis which are available under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. While management believes that the assumptions made and reflected in this news release are reasonable, 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 information. In particular, there can be no assurance that: TNR will be able to repay its loans or complete any further royalty acquisitions or sales; debt or other financing will be available to TNR; or that TNR will be able to achieve any of its corporate objectives. TNR relies on the confirmation of its ownership for mining claims from the appropriate government agencies when paying rental payments for such mining claims requested by these agencies. There could be a risk in the future of the changing internal policies of such government agencies or risk related to the third parties challenging in the future the ownership of such mining claims. Given these uncertainties, readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements included herein are not guarantees of future performance, and such forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied on.

In formulating the forward-looking statements contained herein, management has assumed that business and economic conditions affecting TNR and its royalty partners, McEwen Mining Inc. and International Lithium Corp. will continue substantially in the ordinary course, including without limitation with respect to general industry conditions, general levels of economic activity and regulations. These assumptions, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect.

Forward-looking information herein and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking information should circumstances or management's estimates or opinions change.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/59074
The global ballistic composites market size is expected to grow by USD 375.23 million during 2020-2024. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect the impact to be significant in the first quarter but gradually lessen in subsequent quarters with a limited impact on the full-year economic growth.

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Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Ballistic Composites Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

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The major driving force for the growth of the ballistic composites market is the increased demand from the aerospace and defense industry. Ballistic composites are widely used in vehicle armor and body and engines of aircraft due to their superior properties over metals and alloys. Furthermore, these materials can withstand higher temperatures and are lighter than metals and alloys. Therefore, they are used for manufacturing advanced ballistic protection equipment and high-pressure turbines. This helps reduce fuel burn and emissions and increases the overall energy efficiency of the engines.

To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44123

As per Technavio, the growing demand for lightweight and high-performance materials will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will influence market growth over 2020-2024.

Ballistic Composites Market: Growing Demand for Lightweight and High-Performance Materials

There is an increased demand for lightweight materials from various end-user industries. In the automotive industry, the use of lightweight materials has emerged as an essential way to combat CO2 emissions. Moreover, many countries are enforcing regulations to improve efficiency and reduce carbon emissions of vehicles. Ballistic composites are used in high-performance engines that are used in industries such as aerospace and marine and in ballistic protection equipment applications in defense. Ballistic composites are used to provide high-temperature resistance, increased strength, and increased fuel efficiency. Therefore, the growing preference of consumers for lightweight and high-performance materials has increased the demand for ballistic composites globally.

"Factors such as the increasing use of nano-composites, and the growing demand from transmission and distribution industry will further boost ballistic composites market growth during the forecast period," says a senior analyst at Technavio.

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Ballistic Composites Market: Segmentation Analysis

This market research report segments the ballistic composites market by type (polymer matrix composites, ceramic matrix composites, and metal matrix composites) and geography (North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and MEA).

The North American region led the ballistic composites market share in 2019, followed by Europe, APAC, South America, and MEA respectively. During the forecast period, the North American region is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to the extensive use of CMCs in the aerospace and defense sector.

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report, such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Request a free sample report

Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Oyu Tolgoi LLC has completed an updated feasibility study (OTFS20) and is in the process of submitting this to the Government of Mongolia. The OTFS20 has been prepared in accordance with Mongolian regulations and standards which require mining companies to submit updated feasibility studies every five years. The updated study incorporates a new mine design for Panel 0 of the Hugo Dummett North underground mine at Oyu Tolgoi. The new design also confirms that the caving method of mining remains valid and that the underground schedule and costs remain within the ranges previously disclosed.

These ranges include a delay of 21 to 29 months for first sustainable production compared to the original feasibility study guidance in 2016 and an increase of $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion from the original $5.3 billion development capital. Detailed study, design, engineering and optimisation work is ongoing to support the definitive estimate of Panel 0 for the development of this world-class orebody, which remains due in the second half of 2020. These estimates are subject to any additional scheduling delays or increases in capital costs arising from the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Arnaud Soirat, chief executive of Copper Diamonds said "This amended mine design is another positive step in the development of the underground mine which will unlock the most valuable part of Oyu Tolgoi. We remain focused on delivering the underground project safely and within the guidance ranges we have announced on both cost and schedule."

The updated mine design is the result of the review announced by Rio Tinto in July 2019 when enhanced geotechnical and geological information obtained from drilling and mapping at depth suggested there may be some stability risks associated with the original mine design. The updated design retains two in-situ rock pillars on either side of Panel 0 for geotechnical stability. In the original mine design, these pillars were within the mining area. The updated design is supported by extensive geotechnical modelling and industry leading technical assurance.

As a consequence of leaving the pillars in place, the material contained in the pillars has been reclassified from Ore Reserves to Mineral Resources. It is expected that part of the material contained in these pillars will be recoverable at a later stage following additional studies which are currently underway.

Ore handling infrastructure will be relocated to the pillars, located immediately north and south of the current Panel 0 boundaries. Panels 1 and 2 will now be initiated as independent panels or mine blocks.

Optimisation of mine designs for Panels 1 and 2 is ongoing and it is anticipated that this next phase of study may result in further movements in classifications of Ore Reserves and Mineral Resources. Any such movements will be reported following completion of the studies.

On 3 July 2020 Rio Tinto released to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) updated Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves for the Oyu Tolgoi mine.

A copy of the full announcement to the ASX is available on Rio Tinto's website at riotinto.com/invest/financial-news-performance/resources-and-reserves.

This announcement is authorised for release to the market by Rio Tinto's Group Company Secretary.

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riotinto.com

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Category: Oyu Tolgoi
With the changing face of educational systems and processes, it is important to acknowledge the systemic and structural underpinnings of teacher and educator stress that are very unique to this time period.

Note: This piece was collated through interviews with teachers from SSC, ICSE and IGCSE schools in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata. Names marked with * are pseudonyms in order to ensure teacher anonymity. The narratives and experiences of these teachers are only a glimpse into the stressors experienced by teachers across the country and are in no way representative of experiences of all teachers.

The recent suicide of a student from Kerala drew attention to the socio-economic disparity in accessibility to education and while student mental health is on the decline, its crucial to see its interconnectedness with teacher mental health. Several studies have highlighted the stress and burnout teachers and educators experience. One such example is the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) report that found teachers experiencing an immense amount of occupational stress in comparison to other professionals.

The trajectory of an academic calendar is something we all are extremely familiar with, even if we are not part of the system as employees. With COVID-19 in our lives, the beginning of this academic year looks a whole lot different for those involved in school systems  from teachers, parents, students as well as school administrators. With the changing face of educational systems and processes, it is important to acknowledge the systemic and structural underpinnings of teacher and educator stress that are very unique to this time period.

The shift to online modalities of learning has seen an increase in documentation, a restructuring in the way content is curated and delivered, and a rapid change in the job roles and expectations of teachers. For Roshni, a school administrator in Chennai, revisiting the idea of routine that a school structure is assumed to provide was extremely stressful. Sometimes, there are siblings using the same device, or we need to pace the amount of screen time for the kids, the very idea of school as an institution that provides, a shared sense of familiar routine is being challenged in these times, she says.

For teachers of low-income schools whose students have either gone to their native villages during the lockdown or are deprived of basic necessities like food, reaching out to them is a main area of concern; padhana toh door ki baat hain," (teaching is the last of their priorities) asserts Mayuri, Sr Program Manager, Apnishala, a foundation working on socio-emotional learning in municipal schools and organisations in the M-west ward and L-ward in Mumbai.

While the socio-economic disparity in accessibility to technology has forced low-income schools to rethink how they prioritise otherwise unquestioned beliefs of completing syllabi, it was interesting to note how net connectivity, absence of home laptops and negotiating ones ease with technology is a source of immense distress even to teachers of middle-income and high-income schools. Lalita, a 54-year-old teacher of a government-aided school in Mumbai, narrates how stressful her experience has been while working with technology to support her students learning, I had a few classes on Zoom and now Google Meet, I was struggling to send invites... even now I am scared, anxious and get disturbed sleep... I struggle to make my PPT."

Even with experience and familiarity of content, some teachers feel pressured and individually accountable to think out of the box and create new ways to deliver their content within the scope of online platforms. For instance, video sessions have forced Natasha*, a music teacher from Mumbai to rethink her lesson plan and the way she accommodates her classes to meet the limitations imposed by video sessions. She explains, I used to play the video and kids used to sing... I could make them sing together, right now I can't make them sing together; because of individual net connection, voices lag and it's a big mess. In addition to these limitations, teachers express a sense of dissatisfaction at not being able to pick up on non-verbal cues, get timely feedback and responses from students that are vital in giving them an idea about students level of comprehension. That being said, an overall supportive school management can go a long way in easing these stressors, as many teachers also point to how peer learning, technology training, and supportive supervisors have helped them cope with this transition better.

As in most work-from-home cultures, the blurred line between work and life has been a source of distress and anxiety for many professionals during the lockdown. For instance, Daniel, a teacher in a low-income school, says, Just because everything is happening online it is assumed that everyone is checking their phone all the time... things are informed at odd hours of the night and at short notice. As teachers make themselves available to answer calls from students, parents and school management, the assumption that teachers can go about their workday as usual, in the absence of the physical environment of the school, doesnt hold true in reality. While for many teachers, an increase in caregiving load and related chores is an added burden, a lack of physical workspace conducive to attend video calls or record instructional videos is also a pressing issue.

To add to these pressures, there remains a looming sense of uncertainty about the way forward in the academic year  for how long can we carry out online classrooms? How and when will schools function as normal and what will normal look like in the classroom? These are questions set in a sense of panic, especially for those involved in school systems that in a country like ours, thrive on learning through classroom engagement with technology used merely as an assistive modality, if at all. There is no denying that these stressors that have an impact on teacher mental health are environmental and structural, and emanate from a system that is further draining teachers sense of autonomy and empowerment. While the uncertainty of the pandemic takes on a life of its own in the months to come, it becomes crucial to foster mechanisms that support, allow room for error, peer-learning and reframe the narrative that romanticises the emotional labour teachers and educators put into their jobs.
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The world's No. 3 planemaker Embraer SA said on Thursday it was negotiating buyouts, signaling likely cuts in its workforce due to the coronavirus pandemic that has hammered the travel industry.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The world's No. 3 planemaker Embraer SA said on Thursday it was negotiating buyouts, signaling likely cuts in its workforce due to the coronavirus pandemic that has hammered the travel industry.

Larger rivals Boeing Co and Airbus have each announced plans to cut over 10,000 jobs, although the French planemaker is still negotiating due to government pressure.

Embraer said it is discussing with some of its unions the possibility of offering buyouts for workers who are currently furloughed.

Embraer reached an agreement for a government loan from Brazil state bank BNDES last month, which among the conditions requires the planemaker to maintain an undisclosed minimum level of employees.

The planemaker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Tom Brown)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
San Francisco, June 24 (Peoples Daily Online) -- Closing the door to talent will cost jobs and hurt US competitiveness, Sean Randolph, Senior Director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, said on Tuesday.

Sean Randolph

In an exclusive interview with Peoples Daily Online west USA, Randolph warned that the Trump administrations plan to suspend the issuance of H-1B and other temporary visas through the end of 2020 is a direct challenge to the business model that has made Silicon Valley and other U.S. technology centers successful, a model that underpins Americas economic and technological leadership.

Randolph said that Silicon Valley is built on talent, much of it coming from around the world. The ability to attract the best trained and most creative people is a large part of the explanation for why its economy has excelled. While the short-term impacts of this new policy will be limited (the executive order does not apply to visa holders already in the country), restricting flows of talent to the U.S. will come at significant long term cost to competitiveness and to Americans whether or not they work in tech.

The National Foundation for American Policy, after examining data for 91 unicorns (new companies valued at $1 billion or more), found that 50 of them have at least one immigrant founder (the many Bay Area examples include Tesla, Slack and Uber). Their collective value at the time the research was conducted was $248 billion, and on average they had created 1,200 jobs per company, the vast majority in the U.S. Tellingly, 33 of those companies are headquartered in California.

The contributions of innovative immigrants extend beyond founders: 75 of the 91 companies surveyed (82%) had at least one immigrant filling key management or product development roles, the most common being CEO, CTO of Vice President for Engineering.

The Bay Area

Other research carried out by the Marion Ewing Kauffman Foundation finds that immigrants are twice as likely as native born citizens to become entrepreneurs. We see this in the Bay Area every day, where 40-45% of startups are led by entrepreneurs who came from other countries, said Randolph.

The implication is clear, Randolph said, pointing out that fewer immigrants means fewer startups, and losing those startups means fewer new companies and fewer jobs.

According to Randolph, H-1Bs are used by both tech and non-tech companies to fill jobs where the needed skills are unique or not available locally. The numbers arent large but are strategic, he stressed, adding that in many cases, visa holders go on to win green cards or permanent residency, which enables them to contribute to the U.S. economy in the long term.

So this isnt just about temporary workers  its about innovation and long-term talent flows.

Randolph listed several other implications for shutting the door: educated immigrants who are denied entry to the U.S. are welcomed by countries with which we compete and may choose to go there instead, or they may choose to stay home to start their own companies. If Silicon Valley or other companies cant find the skills they need when they need them, he said, the odds increase that more high-skilled jobs and functions will leave the U.S. for other countries such as Canada, which welcomes immigrants and where educated workers with advanced skills are readily available.

Universities that rely heavily on foreign students to fill their graduate departments in fields such as engineering and computer science are also vulnerable if potential applicants believe they have no opportunity to work in the U.S. following graduation.

It has been reported that other visas will also be suspended  H-2Bs for seasonal workers (for example at summer resorts where local workers are in short supply), L visas that apply to intra-company transfers, and J visas that enable work-study summer programs for students. All are forms of legal immigration that fill unmet needs and create opportunity.

Using the coronavirus as an excuse to pull up the drawbridge will not fill critical needs or create new jobs. It will, on the other hand, undercut the flow of talent that has made America truly great. Businesses and citizens groups should push back, Randolph noted.
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By Rod Nickel and Steve Scherer WINNIPEG, Manitoba/OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's Supreme Court removed an obstacle to expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline on Thursday, dismissing an appeal of a lower court decision that had backed Ottawa's approval of the project. The top court posted the decision online without elaborating

By Rod Nickel and Steve Scherer

WINNIPEG, Manitoba/OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's Supreme Court removed an obstacle to expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline on Thursday, dismissing an appeal of a lower court decision that had backed Ottawa's approval of the project.

The top court posted the decision online without elaborating.

The pipeline has put Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, which bought it in 2018 to ensure the expansion overcame legal and regulatory hurdles, in a political quandary. He has promised to reduce Canadian emissions and improve indigenous relations, but faced pressure to help the slumping oil industry critical to the national economy.

The ruling ends seven years of legal challenges, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said, adding that most Canadians, including many indigenous communities, want to share Trans Mountain's economic benefits.

The corporation that runs the pipeline is still finalizing the route with landowners and needs permits, however.

Expansion of the 67-year-old pipeline, which runs from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, is underway. It would nearly triple capacity to 890,000 barrels per day.

The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed challenges in February to Ottawa's second project approval. They were based on concerns from British Columbia indigenous groups that Ottawa had not meaningfully consulted them.

The groups who sought to appeal are "extremely disappointed," said Tsleil-Waututh Nation Chief Leah George-Wilson.

"This case is about more than a risky pipeline and tanker project; it is a major setback for reconciliation," she said, referring to indigenous relations with the rest of Canada.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan welcomed the ruling, saying expansion would allow Canadian oil to reach new markets.

Most Canadian crude moves to U.S. refineries and expanding Trans Mountain may allow more to go to Asia.

Expansion is scheduled for completion in late 2022.

Canadian pipelines have long been congested, but this year, space opened up as producers curtailed production.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Steve Scherer in Ottawa; additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bernadette Baum and Tom Brown)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
There have been growing calls from India for a boycott of Chinese products after a border clash between the neighbours last month killed 20 Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley.

German logistics company DHL said on Wednesday it had temporarily suspended picking up import shipments from China to India, after border tensions between the countries led to clearance delays.

Another prominent freight transporter FedEx Corp said it was facing backlogs beyond its control, leading to congestion at facilities.

"We will continue to monitor the situation and will resume our normal operations as the circumstances allow," a FedEx spokeswoman told Reuters.

There have been growing calls from India for a boycott of Chinese products, after a border clash between the neighbors, last month killed 20 Indian soldiers.

Customs officials at the key port of Chennai, which handles various cargo including automobiles, fertilisers and petroleum products, have held shipments originating from China for extra checks.

A DHL representative confirmed to Reuters that the recent delay in customs clearance of cargo into India caused the shipment company's DHL Express India unit to temporarily suspend pickups from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. DHL did not elaborate on the nature of consignments that were delayed.

Reuters reported last week that goods, including products from U.S. companies Apple, Cisco, and Dell were caught up in the border tensions, as Indian ports held up imports from China.

Pharmaceutical consignments are also stuck at Chennai and other ports and at an airport, and drug companies have been told their shipments will be released after rigorous scrutiny of each container, down to every drum, a senior industry executive told Reuters last month.

United Parcel Service and Amazon India did not respond to requests for comment regarding possible shipment delays
Alia Bhatt, Hrithik Roshan, casting director Nandini Shrikent among others from India were invited to join The Academy

Alia Bhatt says she's 'honoured and humbled' to receive an invite from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

This year apart from Bhatt, actor Hrithik Roshan, casting director Nandini Shrikent, documentary filmmakers Nishtha Jain and Amit Madheshiya, visual effects supervisors Vishal Anand and Sandeep Kamal, were among the Indian artistes who received an invitation from the Academy.

The Gully Boy actor took to social media to express her gratitude to the organisation. Bhatt said that she feels 'deep satisfaction' to see voices from Indian cinema find the 'well-deserved platform' on the global stage.

She adds, "Every year, more actors, filmmakers and technicians from India are recognised by the Academy and Indian cinema continues to reach the hearts and homes of people all over the world (sic)."

Read the statement here



View this post on Instagram  #wearetheacademy A post shared by Alia Bhatt  (@aliaabhatt) on Jul 2, 2020 at 3:53am PDT

Bhatt further compared cinema to water and said that just like the latter, cinema doesn't know race, class, border or geography. She writes, "It takes everything in its course: audiences who passionately love or hate it, critics who dissect it, students who immerse themselves in it. Our opinions about films may be divided, but cinema as a whole is a powerful binding and unifying force."

Bhatt's last movie, Zoya Akhtar-directed Gully Boy was India's official entry for best international feature category at the 2019 Oscars. However, the film had failed to make it to the final five.

In a statement, the Academy said the new invitees include 36 per cent of people of colour and 45 per cent women. Artistes from 68 countries have been invited as members.

Those who accept the invitation will have voting rights at the 93rd Academy Awards, scheduled to be held on 25 April, 2021.

The 2020 batch also boasts of major Hollywood names like Cynthia Erivo, John David Washington, Constance Wu, Zazie Beetz, Florence Pugh, Zendaya, Awkwafina, Yalitza Aparicio, Mackenzie Davis, Ana de Armas, Adele Haenel, Thomasin McKenzie, Olivia Wilde and others.

The stars of multiple Oscar-winning South Korean movie Parasite  Jang Hye-Jin, Jo Yeo-Jeong, Park So-Dam and Lee Jung-Eun  have also been invited to join the Academy.

Directors Lulu Wang, Ari Aster, Terence Davies, Matthew Vaughn, Robert Eggers, Matt Reeves, Alma Harel are on the list as well.

(With inputs from Press Trust of India)
Charlize Theron says she carries a 'tremendous amount of guilt' for being a part of a system that benefited her as a white person in South Africa.

Charlize Theron says shes making choices as a producer and actor to ensure her two small, beautiful African American daughters will feel represented on-screen.

The Oscar winner said it can be hard for Black children to kind of imagine the possibilities when so few films and television series are centered on characters that look like them.

I was raised during the Apartheid era in South Africa. So, I come with a lot of that baggage already, Theron said. I was part of a system that I, as a white person, benefited from in South Africa. And thats a tremendous amount of guilt that I carried, and still carry my entire life. Im in therapy over it, Theron said in an interview promoting her action thriller The Old Guard, which hits Netflix on 10 July.

It would be impossible for me to not have that somehow be rectified in what I can do in my job as a producer, as an actor  and the responsibility that I take, the accountability that I take of what I put out there for not only my two young girls, but for young girls out there in general.

Theron says shes been watching recent protests around racial injustice in the US through the lens of her home countrys history. She hopes the current movement leads to lasting change, particularly in promoting diversity within Hollywood.

We move five steps forward and we pat ourselves on the back, and then we just stop. And thats been the danger, a dangerous place that weve lived in, in my industry, she said.
As much cautionary tale as public service, Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone In the Dark  on the hunt for the Golden State Killer  gets the docuseries treatment courtesy HBO

"There's more than one way to lose your life to a serial killer."

In a 2013 article for Los Angeles Magazine, the writer Michelle McNamara recounts the tag line for the movie Zodiac (about the Zodiac killer). McNamara's story was about a different serial killer  a man believed responsible for over 50 rapes and at least 10 murders in California, in the 1970s and '80s. The police called him the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker (to distinguish him from the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez), or the rather prosaic acronym EAR-ONS. McNamara dubbed him the Golden State Killer.

In her LA Mag story, she used the Zodiac tagline to describe how law enforcement officials assigned to the now long cold case continued to be consumed by the hunt for the perpetrator. But it was equally  if not more  apt for McNamara, who followed the story obsessively for years, seeking clues on message boards and in old case files, in conversations with police officers and survivors and other "citizen detectives" who were equally invested in tracking down the Golden State Killer.

In 2016, about 90 percent through her book about the case  I'll Be Gone In the Dark, titled so for the threat the Golden State Killer would whisper to his victims ("Make a sound, and I'll put my knife through your throat and I'll be gone in the dark")  McNamara, 46, died of an accidental drug overdose. She had an undiagnosed heart condition, and had also been using prescription medication to fuel her late-night online crime-fighting forays.

Her husband, the comedian Patton Oswalt, sought the help of McNamara's researcher and fellow "citizen detective" Paul Haynes to finish the book. A few months after I'll Be Gone In the Dark was published in 2018, the police arrested Joseph James DeAngelo, 73, and named him the Golden State Killer. DeAngelo had been found via a DNA ancestry database. And while he hadn't featured on McNamara's list of suspects, the attention she brought to the case, via her popular blog True Crime Detective, her LA Mag article and I'll Be Gone In the Dark, certainly helped put it in the public consciousness.

If the launch of the book turned out to be inadvertently timely, so too was the start of the screen adaptation of the same  a six-part HBO docuseries directed by Liz Garbus. A day after work began on the docuseries was when DeAngelo was apprehended, and the release of the first episode (on 29 July in India, on Disney+Hotstar) coincided with his appearance in court, where he pled guilty to 13 counts of murder, in exchange for a life sentence. (The statute of limitations on the rape cases had passed.)

The first episode lays out McNamara's meeting with an editor at Los Angeles Magazine (Nancy Miller), and her correspondence with several citizen detectives on a message board dedicated to solving the EAR-ONS case. A survivor who was only 15 when she was raped describes in matter of fact tones how she stayed home from a school dance at the last minute because of a cold, while her parents were at a party, stuck a frozen pizza in the oven and was playing the piano in the living room when she sensed a presence next to her. It was the East Area Rapist. She gave up playing the piano after the rape; the feeling that someone was standing behind her was difficult to overcome.

Also covered in this first episode is the blossoming of the relationship between McNamara and Patton Oswalt, their marriage and family life, what she was like as an individual and how her fascination with true crime developed. Oswalt talks about how they went to their respective homes after a movie date when they'd just begun to see each other, and realised they were both watching Creature from the Black Lagoon on television that night. A video clip from the 1950s horror classic shows the female protagonist diving into the lagoon and enjoying a swim, unaware that the creature, Gill-man, is stalking her underwater all the time. The clip is used to depict McNamara and Oswalt's shared interests, but is also a stand-in for the ways in which his victims' lives would come up against the Golden State Killer's, known for lurking and observing his prey for months together before attacking them. Ultimately, it serves as a metaphor for McNamara's obsession with the case too  so close on his trail, but never quite being able to reach him.

A Guardian review for What Happened, Miss Simone?, her biopic on the legendary Nina Simone, describes director Liz Garbus' style of filmmaking as "Wikipedia-entry-as-cinema", and having seen Lost Girls, her Netflix movie on the 2010 disappearance of 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert, I can see why this is an accurate description. Garbus' forte seems to be in picking really great stories to tell, but the execution itself isn't groundbreaking or memorable. Having seen only the one episode released so far, perhaps it would be best to reserve judgement on how I'll Be Gone In the Dark will play out. A Salon review (where the journalist seems to have had access to a few more episodes) says Garbus does for true crime docuseries what In Cold Blood did for true crime non fiction books, so maybe I'll Be Gone In the Dark gets better as it proceeds. Some elements in this first episode certainly work better than others: for instance, Amy Ryan's voiceover, reading McNamara's writings on the case, strikes an off note; the best parts are when Garbus lets McNamara's story do its talking.

It's not comfortable viewing  McNamara's blog post describes her obsession with the case (and other true crime cases) as "having a (lifelong) murder habit". A reason she offered in her previous interviews and the LA Mag article and in her book was her proximity to a violent crime in her growing up years: a young woman, out on her nightly run in McNamara's neighbourhood, was murdered in an alley. McNamara found pieces of the woman's Walkman while passing by some days later; boys she knew from school discovered the woman's body minutes after the crime and called the police. It's a story she's told often, and for some reason, it reminds me of Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides: about a group of boys who are fascinated by five sisters who live on their street, all of whom die within a short span of time by suicide. The boys collect whatever stray possessions of the sisters they can find, carefully guarding their collection of macabre memorabilia, trying to piece together a story of the girls that doesn't exist outside of their minds.

Those of us who consume true crime  especially cases where someone was murdered or raped or otherwise assaulted  are aware of the essentially ghoulish nature of what we're doing. There's been comment aplenty on the industry that's sprung up around true crime  not only the news articles, but the podcasts and documentaries and series and books and message boards and forums and even conventions, all of which feed off these cases. (Gillian Flynn's Dark Places delves on this industry; her protagonist, the sole survivor of a massacred family, makes money off her appearances at true crime aficionado meet-ups. So does the podcast The Clearing, where a woman who turned in her father for a string of violent crimes reexamines the accepted narratives about him.)

The best true crime chronicles seek in some way to redress past wrongs: find justice for survivors or those wrongly incarcerated, tell the stories of victims sidelined by their "celebrity" murderers/rapists, to show up all the ways in which justice and law enforcement systems routinely fail the most vulnerable, or the bunkum pseudoscience and legal loopholes that sometimes allow criminals to evade consequences. It has to go beyond being a real-life version of a horror story manipulating the audience's emotions.

McNamara's writings shone light on a case and on a perpetrator who not many seemed to be paying attention to, or whose crimes hadn't incited the level of public outrage and pushback that there should have been. The people whose lives had been impacted by his violence deserved to be seen and heard and counted. But McNamara's was also a cautionary tale. How HBO's retelling of I'll Be Gone In the Dark balances these aspects will determine its value as an addition to the conversation on true crime.

I'll Be Gone In the Dark is currently streaming on Disney + Hotstar. Watch the trailer here 
Hamilton is a Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which talks about American history and identity, slavery and immigration.

Lin-Manuel Miranda likes to picture the millionaire, Mr Howell, from Gilligans Island, saying the brag. You know the one. Well, I saw it with the original cast.

On Friday, Miranda will steal that boast from anyone who ever saw Hamilton in its blistering first year and a half on Broadway. A live capture taken from two of the last performances with most of the original cast in June 2016 will premiere on Disney+, opening a new (and far less expensive) chapter in Mirandas ever-evolving pop-culture phenomenon. In just a weekend, over the American Independence Day (4 July), more people will see Hamilton than ever before.

Theres a part of me that just likes taking the brag away from people, says Miranda, speaking from his home in Manhattans Washington Heights. I wanted the world to have that brag.

Hamilfilm, as its been nicknamed, will land in homes just days after Broadway announced that its shutdown will continue through at least the end of the year due to the pandemic. Disney, which acquired the film for $75 million, will sacrifice whatever the box-office returns might have come for a major boost to its streaming service and a rush of virtual togetherness. With the stage all to itself, Hamilton arrives as a godsend to theatregoers.

Here's a clip from Hamilton

That was a big reason we pushed up the release, says Miranda of the film originally set to open in theatre in October 2021. We need a reminder of how magical live theatre is.

One of the first things that hits you watching Hamilton is the sensation of being in the midst of applause, with a full house all around. Director Thomas Kail, who also shepherded the stage show, dispersed nine cameras and some 100 microphones around the Richard Rodgers Theatre to document two performances: a Sunday matinee and a Tuesday night show. Tracking and close-up shots were done in between.

For Kail, who spoke by Zoom alongside Miranda, it means giving everyone the same seat  and a chance to dig even deeper into Hamilton.

Theres a level of inspection of the show that can be quite different than the endorphin rush of watching it knowing that might be your one chance, says Kail. In some ways, this will allow it to settle because now its yours.

Since Hamilton was first performed at the Public Theater in January 2015 and moved to Broadway that August, the words mostly havent changed (though two expletives have been scrubbed to make the film PG-13). But as a rhyming, hip-hop omnibus of American history and identity, slavery and immigration, its power has resonated differently at different times.

Now, the 'Rise up!' verses of 'My Shot' will sound to many like theyre channelling the protest spirit that has swept across the country since the death of George Floyd. Hamilton remains a story of revolution  a triumphant and tragic one told passionately by performers of colour. Everyone who perishes in Hamilton, Miranda points out, dies from gun violence.

Everything present at the founding is still present, says Miranda. When I am sitting still and listening right now, its to the young people who are leading these protests who are saying: This is what we stand for and this is what we wont stand for. Im struck by a section that was always treated as comic relief when the show first came out where theres Samuel Seabury and hes telling everyone to remain calm. And theres Hamilton saying theres nothing calm about whats happening.

The revolution is coming, Hamilton says.

Hamilton has already been woven into contemporary history. Mirandas first performance of a song from it came at Barack Obamas White House. Ever since the history-making musical been indelibly linked to the Obama era. Michelle Obama called it the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.

But after the election of Donald Trump, Hamilton took on a more magnified aura of resistance. Just days after polls closed, Mike Pence, then the vice-president elect, attended a show. The cast, doubting Trump and Pences support for minorities, read a letter from the stage asking him to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.

Trumps angry response in a series of tweets, Miranda considers a very early glimpse of the Trump playbook. Soon, the line Immigrants, they get the job done became a more pronounced rallying cry.

I wrote it as kind of a throwaway line and in the Trump administration it gets this roar of approval, says Miranda. You almost feel the audience trying to say, This anti-immigrant sentiment embodied by the current administration is not who we in the audience are. Things hit differently than they did in the Obama administration. And theyll hit differently next year.

Kail cant sit in the back of a theatre to see how this version of Hamilton plays. There were no test screenings except for one a few weeks ago for the cast, including original members Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr, Jonathan Groff and Renee Elise Goldsberry. But through Disneys subscription streaming service, it will be out there  somewhere, everywhere  to meet another moment in American history.

Maybe it can be of use and of service in a way that was totally different than when we played our last performance two months ago or opened four months ago, says Kail. Access was always a challenge for us. Access is always the challenge for theatre. Here was a chance for us to make the door wider and lower the barrier.

For Miranda, it couldnt come soon enough. He wanted the movie out, he says, as soon as he saw Kails first cut in late 2016.

The conversation has always been: Have we played enough cities? Have we given enough people a chance to see the show live before releasing this? says Miranda. In a lot of ways, the question was answered for us.

Hamilton will stream on Disney+Hotstar from 3 July.

(With inputs from The Associated Press)
Allergies share many symptoms with other respiratory diseases like the flu, common cold, cough, and COVID-19, since they all impact the respiratory system.

In India, 1 in 3 people suffer from allergies. However, only 35 percent of the sufferers are treating them, while 50 percent of them are unaware that they have a problem. Allergies are not taken seriously and are treated as trivial and unimportant, or something that might come and go as it pleases. The reasons for this reaction to allergy could vary, right from being unaware, the lack of information, to misinformation.

Despite allergies being so prevalent in India, the condition isn't given its due importance  they are both, underdiagnosed and undertreated. A negligent attitude towards allergies can cause the symptoms to aggravate, and manifest into diseases that could impair one's quality of life and invite serious, preventable consequences.

Causes of respiratory allergies

With the onset of COVID-19 , a pandemic that has the world shaken to its roots, it has become imperative to give extra attention and care to our respiratory health. A large section of India struggles with chronic respiratory issues such as respiratory allergies including allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, etc., which when left untreated can lead to various respiratory health conditions.

Allergic rhinitis is a major chronic respiratory disease that is caused by irritation and inflammation of the membranes lining the nose. It may be passed off as trivial, even though it has seen rampant growth in the past years, particularly in India. Allergic Rhinitis is characterized by nasal congestion, sneezing, itching of the nose and post-nasal discharge (secretions from the nose that drain down into the throat, causing congestion and cough). It can also significantly impair one's quality of life by causing fatigue, headache and sleep disturbances.

This respiratory disease, which seems harmless in the initial stages, has immense potential for more serious problems like asthma, persistent uncontrolled allergies and sinusitis. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that around 400 million people worldwide suffer from allergic rhinitis. It affects all age groups, between 10 to 30 percent of adults. It continues to see a rapid increase among children and young adults, who are bearing the brunt of this neglected issue.

With the onset of the monsoons, seasonal allergies are inevitable, leading to a rise in allergic rhinitis cases. With the larger part of the population confined indoors due to COVID-19 , indoor pollution has become an increasing concern. A single exposure to indoor air pollutants can also have adverse effects on an individuals respiratory health.

Diagnosing and treating allergies

Allergies can be managed and treated with the right approach and early response. A recent study revealed that allergies affect 33% of Indians but most dont even get the right treatment. Majority of Indians believe that respiratory allergies are inconsequential and neglect it until the condition gets aggravated.

When one experiences symptoms, one must not brush them under the carpet. It is crucial to visit a doctor or consult a specialist. There are several tests available to diagnose an allergy. Skin tests, for instance, are fairly simple and non-invasive tests for allergies. they often also go by 'scratch tests', where an allergen is laid on your skin to check your response to it. Other options include a blood test, which is simple and quick.

No matter which method is used to test for them, allergies can be treated and effectively controlled if diagnosed in time. There are several treatment options available, however the first step is medical intervention. Doctors will prescribe over-the-counter medications on a case-to-case basis depending on the severity of the allergy.

Drugs such as antihistamines and decongestants may make it easier to breathe, while accessory medications such as inhaled steroids could also be of help. These drugs reduce inflammation in your airways. Oral and topical H1-antihistamines, intranasal glucocorticosteroids (INCs), mast cell stabilizers, decongestants, anticholinergic agents, and leukotriene inhibitors are prescribed by doctors depending on the case.

Immunotherapy, frequently referred to as an 'allergy shot', is a great option for patients with chronic allergic rhinitis.

Risks of neglecting an allergy in the long-term

Allergies, if left untreated, have the potential to develop into chronic respiratory issues such as asthma, sinus infections, upper respiratory infections, etc.

Allergic reactions lead to weakening of the immune system, making it easy for bacteria to find their way into the sinuses, causing infections. Allergies can impair cognition & psychomotor development in children as well. The most susceptible section of the population are children, pregnant mothers and senior citizens. Age-related health issues can often lead to co-morbidities as well, thus making senior citizens the most vulnerable to these diseases.

Untreated allergies have a significant impact on quality of life. Allergic rhinitis results in poor sleep quality, fatigue, irritability, low attention span and daytime sleepiness as well. If allergies are not addressed on time often becomes chronic and may lead to complications such as chronic nasal inflammation and obstruction, acute or chronic sinusitis, otitis media, or ear infection, sleep apnea or other sleep disturbances, upper respiratory tract infection etc.

Misconceptions about allergies amidst COVID-19

Needless to say, the coronavirus infection has created panic worldwide. People spend sleepless nights due to fear even if contracted with a common cold or flu due to the similar symptoms associated with the virus. Instead of falling prey to myths, one needs to refer to reliable sources for their information to steer clear of confusion and make informed decisions.

Allergies share a lot of symptoms with other respiratory diseases such as flu, common cold, cough, and the most recent and highly-contagious COVID-19 , since they all impact the respiratory system. It is necessary to be well-informed on the distinguishing factors of different respiratory issues so that timely medical help can be sought.

If one experiences bouts of sneezing, a runny and stuffed nose with watery and itchy eyes, then they are more likely to be suffering from an allergy, whereas symptoms such as fever, tiredness, sudden loss of smell and taste and shortness of breath are indicative of COVID-19 . In both cases, sore throat, fatigue and headaches are commonly observed. With access to the right information, timely action is the key to managing allergies and avoiding any long-term impacts.

The author is the current President of Association of Otolaryngologists of India (AOI) and a consulting doctor at Hinduja Healthcare Hospital and Dr. R. N. Cooper Hospital, Mumbai.
Coronavirus Updates: Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Friday announced that the JEE and NEET exams have been postponed to September in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

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So far, as many as 71 COVID-19 patients have been cured of the infectious disease while toll stood at one.

Arunchal Pradesh registered a total 232 coronavirus cases on Friday after 37 fresh infections were reported in a single day, said chief minister Pema Khandu. The figure also included 160 active cases.

The MLA tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. Her husband tested positive for the infection on Thursday and both of them have been home quarantined, the official said.

A woman MLA has tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Thane district of Maharashtra, becoming the fourth legislator from the area to contract the disease, a senior civic official said on Thursday.

Writing to Bharat Biotech and principal investigators of medical colleges, ICMR D-G Balram Bhargava asked to step up the trial procedure of indigenous COVID-19 vaccine so that results clinical trial can be launched by 15 August.

The global tally of coronavirus cases stood at 10,836,500 with as many as 5,20,634 people succumbing to the viral infection, according to the John Hopkins University tracker on Friday.

Over 92 lakh COVID-19 samples have been tested so far, said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), adding that of the total 2,41,576 samples were tested on Thursday alone.

India registered over 6.25 lakh COVID-19 infections on Friday after 20,903 new cases were reported for the first time in single day. With 379 more fatalities, the COVID-19 toll across the nation stood at 18,213.

There are 2,27,439 active cases of the total 6,25,544 COVID-19 infections across the nation, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Of the total 6,25,544 coronavirus cases, as many as 3,79,892 patients have been cured of the viral disease as on Friday, taking the COVID-19 recovery rate to 60.73 percent.

With the death of 359 more people after contracting the novel coronavirus, the COVID-19 toll in India rose to 18,213 on Friday. This takes the mortality rate to 2.91 percent.

The approval process was fast-tracked following recommendation by the subject expert committee on COVID-19, considering the emergency and unmet medical need during the pandemic.

After Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, another potential COVID-19 vaccine indigenously developed by the Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila Healthcare Ltd has got nod from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for human clinical trials, government sources said.

"Plague from China, that is what it is, should have never happened but they did allow it to happen. We had just signed a brand new trade deal and the ink wasn't even dry when it came over," Trump said at during the "Spirit of America Showcase" in the Grand Foyer of the White House.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday once again attacked Beijing over the outbreak of coronavirus infection, saying the "plague from China" should have never happened but it did especially when the United States had just signed a brand new trade deal with the Asian giant.

After 123 more individuals test positive for COVID-19 in Rajasthan, the total number of positive cases in the state climbed to 18,785 on Friday. The state health department said that of the total, there are 3,307 active cases.

The COVID-19 toll in Rajasthan climbed to 435 after five more fatalities were registered as on Friday by 10.30 am, said the state health department.

Till now, 7.81 lakh PPEs and 12.76 lakh N-95 masks have been supplied in Delhi, 11.78 lakh PPEs and 20.64 N95 masks in Maharashtra, and 5.39 lakh PPEs and 9.81 lakh N95 masks in Tamil Nadu by Union Health Ministry, states the government of India.

Patients under home isolation will stand discharged after 10 days of onset of symptoms and no fever for three days, the guidelines stated. "Thereafter, the patient will be advised to isolate at home and self-monitor their health for further seven days. There is no need for testing after the home isolation period is over," the 'Revised Guidelines for Home Isolation of Very mild/pre-symptomatic/asymptomatic COVID-19 cases' stated.

Elderly patients aged above 60 years and those with co-morbid conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, chronic lung/liver/kidney disease and cerebro-vascular disease among others shall only be allowed home isolation after proper evaluation by the treating medical officer.

However, immuno compromised patients (included HIV, transplant recipients, cancer therapy) are not eligible for home isolation, state the revised guidelines released on Thursday.

For a large number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 but showed no symptoms, the Union Health ministry has revised home isolation guidelines to include asymptomatic positive patients in the list of mild or pre-symptomatic coronavirus infection cases.

As per the guidelines, upon arrival travellers have been asked to go to the tourism kiosk at the respective entry point. "All tourists will undergo a basic screening through a thermal gun. Get your mandatory documents checked at the tourism kiosk. Your swab sample will be collected at the state entry point," the guidelines read.

Goa has re-opened its doors for domestic tourists amidst the coronavirus pandemic, ANI reported. People from across the country can now visit the coastal state though there are several restrictions still in place.

Bihar reported 10,914 COVID-19 infections on Friday after 231 more people tested positive for the novel coronavirus, said the state health department.

With this, the total number of positive cases in the state has now reached 16,934. Of the total, there are 9,096 active cases. The COVID-19 toll in the state climbed to 206, said the health department.

Andhra Pradesh reported 837 fresh COVID-19 infections and eight deaths in the past 24 hours, said the State Health Department.

The amount has been sanctioned from the State Disaster Response Fund and can be used to purchase the necessary machines and equipment for increasing the testing capacity of COVID-19.

Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has sanctioned Rs 11.25 crore on Friday to increase the state's COVID-19 testing capacity. Of the total amount, Rs 3.75 crores has been approved for government medical colleges in Haldwani, Doon and Srinagar.

State General Secretary, BJP West Bengal, MP from Hooghly, Locket Chatterjee has tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Friday. The former actress took to Twitter to say, "I have tested positive for COVID-19 this morning, having mild fever and was in self-isolation for the past one week. I will keep everyone posted. All is well."

Locket Chatterjee, BJP MP from West Bengal, said that she has been in home quarantine for the past week and had mild fever. The West Bengal MP tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Friday.

"The international scheduled flights may be allowed on select routes on case-to-case basis," said the aviation regulator on Friday.

Earlier, the aviation regulator had cancelled the international flights till 15 July. However, the DGCA may permit international flights on some selected routes during this period.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) decided to suspend all the international flight operations in the country till 31 July.

India will operate nine more flights on Friday to evacuate its citizens stranded in the UAE due to the travel restrictions imposed in view of the coronavirus pandemic. Air India Express will operate these flights as part of the Vande Bharat Mission to south Indian cities from Sharjah, according to the Indian Consulate in Dubai. All Indian nationals are advised to take note of direct sale of Air India Express flights from Sharjah. Following flights will be opened for sale effective 4pm UAE Time on July 3. Make sure to book your tickets once the sale is live, the mission announced on Twitter

The Union health ministry on Friday said that the the recovery rate among COVID-19 patients in India has crossed 60 percent, and stands at 60.73 percent today.

Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday said that he had tested positive for coronavirus.

Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Friday announced that the JEE and NEET exams have been postponed to September in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

A total of 6,364 new coronavirus cases were reported in Maharashtra on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 1,92,990. The toll rose to 8,376 after 198 deaths were reported. Of the total new cases 1,338 cases and 73 deaths were from Mumbai alone," News18 reported.

"However, they will be home quarantined, notwithstanding the Centres revised guidelines replacing home quarantine for domestic travellers with self-monitoring," the report quoted him as saying.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday said people arriving in Punjab by road "will have to get registered either on the state governments portal or the COVA app," The Indian Express reported.

Delhi government officials were quoted by News18 as saying that authorities had "started the process of conducting rapid antigen tests outside the coronavirus containment zones, a move that will scale up the city's capacity to check the spread of coronavirus in the National Capital."

"The international scheduled flights may be allowed on select routes on case-to-case basis," said the aviation regulator on Friday.

Earlier, the aviation regulator had cancelled the international flights till 15 July. However, the DGCA may permit international flights on some selected routes during this period.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) decided to suspend all the international flight operations in the country till 31 July.

India will operate nine more flights on Friday to evacuate its citizens stranded in the UAE due to the travel restrictions imposed in view of the coronavirus pandemic. Air India Express will operate these flights as part of the Vande Bharat Mission to south Indian cities from Sharjah, according to the Indian Consulate in Dubai. All Indian nationals are advised to take note of direct sale of Air India Express flights from Sharjah. Following flights will be opened for sale effective 4pm UAE Time on July 3. Make sure to book your tickets once the sale is live, the mission announced on Twitter

Hero Indian Open, the biggest golf tournament the country hosts, was on Friday cancelled owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament, co-sanctioned by the European Tour, was earlier scheduled to be held from 19 to 22 March in Gurugram but was postponed

Several other health experts also questioned the launch date proposed in the letter, which was widely shared on social media.

Even with accelerated timelines, this seems really rushed, and hence with potential risks, inadequate attention to process.

To my knowledge, such an accelerated development pathway has not been done EVER for any kind of vaccine, even for the ones being tried out in other countries, Anant Bhan, a doctor and public health researcher, said on Twitter.

The chief of Indias top clinical research agency said in a leaked letter circulated on Friday it envisaged launching a novel coronavirus vaccine by 15 August, prompting scepticism from some health experts who questioned the short timeline.

The Union health ministry on Friday said that the the recovery rate among COVID-19 patients in India has crossed 60 percent, and stands at 60.73 percent today.

This afternoon I felt a slight fever and immediately quarantined myself at home. I have now tested positive for Covid 19. By the grace of Allah, I feel strong and energetic. I will continue to carry on my duties from home. Please keep me in your prayers.

Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday said that he had tested positive for coronavirus.

Keeping in mind the safety of students and to ensure quality education we have decided to postpone #JEE & #NEET examinations. JEE Main examination will be held between 1st-6th Sept, JEE advanced exam will be held on 27th Sept & NEET examination will be held on 13th Sept. pic.twitter.com/klTjtBxvuw

Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Friday announced that the JEE and NEET exams have been postponed to September in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

A total of 6,364 new coronavirus cases were reported in Maharashtra on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 1,92,990. The toll rose to 8,376 after 198 deaths were reported. Of the total new cases 1,338 cases and 73 deaths were from Mumbai alone," News18 reported.

"However, they will be home quarantined, notwithstanding the Centres revised guidelines replacing home quarantine for domestic travellers with self-monitoring," the report quoted him as saying.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday said people arriving in Punjab by road "will have to get registered either on the state governments portal or the COVA app," The Indian Express reported.

Delhi government officials were quoted by News18 as saying that authorities had "started the process of conducting rapid antigen tests outside the coronavirus containment zones, a move that will scale up the city's capacity to check the spread of coronavirus in the National Capital."

Coronavirus LATEST Updates: Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Friday announced that the JEE and NEET exams have been postponed to September in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) decided to suspend all the international flight operations in the country till 31 July.

Earlier, the aviation regulator had cancelled the international flights till 15 July. However, the DGCA may permit international flights on some selected routes during this period.

"The international scheduled flights may be allowed on select routes on case-to-case basis," said the aviation regulator on Friday.

Locket Chatterjee, BJP MP from West Bengal, said that she has been in home quarantine for the past week and complained of mild fever. The West Bengal MP tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Friday.

The former actress took to Twitter to say, "I have tested positive for COVID-19 this morning, having mild fever and was in self-isolation for the past one week. I will keep everyone posted. All is well."

Andhra Pradesh reported 837 fresh COVID-19 infections and eight deaths in the past 24 hours, said the State Health Department.

With this, the total number of positive cases in the state has now reached 16,934. Of the total, there are 9,096 active cases. The COVID-19 toll in the state climbed to 206, said the health department.

Goa has re-opened its doors for domestic tourists amidst the coronavirus pandemic, ANI reported. This, a day after it reported its highest single- day spike of 95 COVID-19 cases.

People from across the country can now visit the coastal state though there are several restrictions still in place.

With the death of 359 more people after contracting the novel coronavirus , the COVID-19 toll in India rose to 18,213 on Friday. This takes the mortality rate to 2.91 percent.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday said that it aims to launch the COVID-19 vaccine being developed in partnership with Hyderebad-based Bharat Biotech for public health use by 15 August.

India registered over 6.25 lakh COVID-19 infections on Friday after 20,903 new cases were reported for the first time in single day. With 379 more fatalities, the COVID-19 toll across the nation stood at 18,213.

A woman MLA has tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Thane district of Maharashtra, becoming the fourth legislator from the area to contract the disease, a senior civic official said on Thursday.

The MLA tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. Her husband tested positive for the infection on Thursday and both of them have been home quarantined, the official said.

India's COVID-19 tally went past six lakh on Thursday with a single-day increase of 19,148 cases, just five days after it crossed the five-lakh mark, while the toll rose to 17,834, according to the Union health ministry's data.

It took 110 days for coronavirus infections in the country to reach one lakh, while it took just 44 days more to go past the six lakh mark.

The country's COVID-19 caseload increased to 6,04,641 on Thursday, while 434 persons have succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

This is the sixth consecutive day when coronavirus infections increased by more than 18,000. There has been a surge of 4,14,106 COVID-19 cases from 1 June till date.

Meanwhile, the country has also crossed the nine-million mark in conducting COVID-19 tests, with 90,56,173 samples having been examined till 1 July, officials said on Thursday.

Number of people tested to touch 1 crore soon

The Union Health Ministry said the total number of people being tested for COVID-19 in the country will soon touch one crore.

"This has been (made) possible due to the removal of all bottlenecks by the government of India. Various steps taken by the Central government have paved the way for enhanced testing for COVID-19 ," the ministry said.

Coronavirus Updates Centre postpones JEE NEET to September due to COVID19 pandemic Pakistan foreign minister tests positive" width="640" height="362" />

Through a significant step announced by the Central government on Wednesday, COVID-19 testing can now be done on the prescription of any registered practitioner, and not exclusively of a government doctor.

The Centre has strongly advised states and Union Territories to take immediate steps to facilitate testing at the earliest by enabling all qualified medical practitioners, including private ones, to prescribe COVID-19 test to any individual fulfilling the criteria for testing as per ICMR guidelines.

Officials of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) also said there are now 1,065 testing labs in the country  768 in the public sector and 297 in private.

The daily testing capacity is also growing fast, they said, adding it was around 1.5 lakh per day on May 25 and is more than three lakh per day now.

As many as 2,29,588 samples were tested on Wednesday, which took the cumulative number to 90,56,173, the country's apex health research body said.

Starting with just one laboratory, the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune, and having 100 in the beginning of the lockdown, the ICMR on June 23 validated 1000th testing lab, it said.

Amit Shah holds meet with CMs of Delhi, UP and Haryana

Amit Shah held a meeting with the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi to discuss the COVID-19 situation in the national capital and its adjoining areas, located in the two neighbouring states.

Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) have seen a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, leading to the home minister stepping in to handle the situation and improve the health infrastructure.

Shah reviewed the COVID-19 situation in Delhi-NCR with the three chief ministers, a home ministry official said.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was also present in the meeting.

The NCR comprises districts belonging to Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The prominent ones being Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida) and Ghaziabad (both Uttar Pradesh) and Gurgaon, Faridabad (both in Haryana).

Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi  Yogi Adityanath, Manohar Lal Khattar and Arvind Kejriwal respectively  attended the meeting through video-conference.

The novel coronavirus has infected 89,000 people in Delhi and killed 2,803 as on Wednesday.

In Uttar Pradesh, the coronavirus tally has reached 24,056 cases and 718 deaths.

In the NCR district of Gautam Buddh Nagar, 2,362 COVID-19 cases have been detected positive and 22 people have lost their lives so far.

In Ghaziabad, so far 851 people have been infected by the coronavirus and 56 have died.

State-wise cases and deaths

Of the 434 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 198 are from Maharashtra, 63 from Tamil Nadu, 61 from Delhi, 21 each from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, 15 from West Bengal, nine from Madhya Pradesh, eight from Rajasthan, seven each from Telangana and Karnataka, six from Andhra Pradesh, five from Punjab, four each from Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, three from Bihar and one each from Chhattisgarh and Goa.

Of the total 17,834 deaths reported so far, Maharashtra accounted for the highest 8,053 fatalities followed by Delhi with 2,803 deaths, Gujarat with 1,867,Tamil Nadu with 1,264, Uttar Pradesh with 718, West Bengal with 683, Madhya Pradesh with 581, Rajasthan with 421 and Telangana with 267 deaths.

The COVID-19 death toll reached 253 in Karnataka, 240 in Haryana, 193 in Andhra Pradesh, 149 in Punjab, 105 in Jammu and Kashmir, 70 in Bihar, 41 in Uttarakhand, 25 in Odisha and 24 in Kerala.

Jharkhand has registered 15 deaths, Chhattisgarh 14, Assam and Puducherry 12 each, Himachal Pradesh 10, Chandigarh six, Goa four and Meghalaya, Tripura, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh have reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases at 1,80,298, followed by Tamil Nadu at 94,049, Delhi at 89,802, Gujarat at 33,232, Uttar Pradesh at 24,056, West Bengal at 19,170 and Rajasthan at 18,312 according to the ministry data.

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 17,357 in Telangana, 16,514 in Karnataka, 15,252 in Andhra Pradesh, 14,941 in Haryana, and 13,861 in Madhya Pradesh.

It has risen to 10,249 in Bihar, 8,582 in Assam, 7,695 in Jammu and Kashmir and 7,316 in Odisha. Punjab has reported 5,668 novel coronavirus infections so far, while Kerala has 4,593 cases.

A total of 2,947 people have been infected by the virus in Uttarakhand, 2,940 in Chhattisgarh, 2,521 in Jharkhand, 1,396 in Tripura, 1,387 in Goa, 1,260 in Manipur, 990 in Ladakh and 979 in Himachal Pradesh. Puducherry has recorded 714 COVID-19 cases, Nagaland 459, Chandigarh 446 and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu together have reported 215 COVID-19 cases.

Arunachal Pradesh reported 195 cases, Mizoram has 160 cases, Sikkim has 101, Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 100 infections so far, while Meghalaya has recorded 52 cases.

Odisha to start plasma therapy

The Odisha government decided to start plasma therapy for treatment of critically-ill COVID-19 patients in the state, official sources told PTI.

According to the sources, the decision was taken at a meeting chaired by the state''s Health and Family Welfare Minister NK Das, who asked the department officials to constitute a technical team to prepare a line of treatment for critically-ill COVID-19 patients through plasma therapy.

The minister also asked the officials to set up a plasma bank to facilitate the treatment, they said. The state took the decision keeping in view the high rate of recovery of patients.

With inputs from PTI
By opting against representing ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Mukul Rohatgi have set the legal profession and the rule of law in India on a slippery slope

After its app TikTok got "banned" by the Indian government, ByteDance suffered another blow when two eminent senior advocates, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Mukul Rohatgi, confirmed that they would not appear on behalf of ByteDance in any litigation. As with the governments 'ban', the refusal to appear for TikTok will affect Indians far, far more than the Chinese company, let alone the Chinese government. While the former ban devastated the livelihoods of thousands of 'TikTok stars', the latter will jeopardise the rights of many innocent Indians getting crushed by the criminal justice system.

This is no exaggeration. We have seen that in cases concerning terrorism and sexual assault, district bar associations have passed grandiose proclamations that they will not appear for the accused in the case. Not only that, they have also tried to intimidate and browbeat lawyers who appear for the accused from outside the district for the accused.

Usually such "resolutions" are passed in the context of accused who cant afford lawyers in the first place  a move that brings superficial publicity with zero risk for such district bar associations. Courts have condemned such resolutions repeatedly as being against the rights of accused and the rule of law, but to little avail. Courts task in ensuring fair representation has become much harder now in light of the endorsement of such practices by the elite of the Bar.

The requirement to represent everyone is not an airy-fairy convention or hoary tradition of the legal profession  it is the law. The Bar Council of India, the statutory authority to regulate the legal profession has framed the Rules on Professional Standards in accordance with its powers under the Advocates Act. The Rules could not be more clear and say very clearly that an advocate is bound to accept any brief in the courts or tribunals or before any other authority in or before which he proposes to practise. Certain special circumstances may allow an advocate not to accept a brief but these do not relate to the identity of the client.

Whatever Rohatgi, Singhvi and others like them may do, I have no fear that ByteDance will go unrepresented in Indian courts  there are any number of lawyers who will be happy to adhere to both the highest standards of the legal profession and make a solid pay packet in appearing for a large multinational in a high profile case. More power to them.

That said, there are deeper and more serious implications for the legal profession and the rule of law in India from such statements by senior lawyers.

One, it affirms the false belief that the lawyer is nothing but a mouthpiece for the client  as though the lawyer exercises no independent judgement, impartiality or detachment in handling a case. This is a charge that is not hurled only at lawyers for those accused in heinous crimes, but also those who appear for corporates, human rights organisations  pretty much anyone appearing for an unpopular client. Its a phenomenon thats not limited to the general public - lawyers indulge in this kind of petty point scoring on social media when they see fit.

Two, it undermines Indias claims to being a rule of law country. The rule of law is about applying the law equally to all and creating spaces where the law is applied to all without fear or favour. It is about the right to being represented by a lawyer and to have judgement in accordance with the law. If the efforts of governments to undermine the rule of law were not bad enough, lawyers adding to it by debasing their own profession make it worse. If litigants and accused are to be prejudged by lawyers before theyre judged by judges, why do we need courts and trials?

Theres also a possibility that such behaviour by lawyers may make it harder to bring the likes of Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya to justice in India. If a fair trial in India is deemed sufficiently unlikely given the conduct and unprofessionalism of the Bar, foreign courts are unlikely to turn over suspects to Indian authorities in accordance with international law.

Three, it makes it much more difficult for accused in high profile criminal cases to find lawyers to defend them. This is irrespective of whether the person accused of the offence by the police is guilty or otherwise. Recall that in the infamous Ryan International School murder, the local district bar association refused to represent a school bus driver sought to be made a scapegoat for the murder. Were it not for the CBI probing a little further and finding the perpetrator, a terrible and grave injustice would have been perpetrated with the collusion of the local Bar.

If the principle  that no one will stand condemned without being heard  is not upheld, it doesnt quite matter who pays the price today. Eventually, we will all pay the price.
Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare issues show-cause notice to hospitals under the Karnataka Private Medical Establishment (KPME) Act, 2007.

Bengaluru: Eighteen private hospitals have been slapped with a show-cause notice after a 52-year-old patient with influenza-like illness symptoms died after being allegedly denied admission due to "non-availability" of beds.

Health minister B Sriramulu on Wednesday said refusal to provide treatment was not only inhuman but also illegal as he tagged a copy of the notice in a tweet. "Notice has been served to the hospitals taking cognisance of the (media) reports about the denial of admission to a patient in emergency. Denying medical assistance during emergency is not only inhuman but also illegal," he tweeted.

According to a report, the son and nephew of the patient took him to the 18 hospitals on Saturday and Sunday but he was not admitted on the pretext of non-availability of beds or ventilators. The man died later.

The Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare issued the show-cause notice to the hospital authorities under the Karnataka Private Medical Establishment (KPME) Act, 2007.

"By denying admission to the patient, your hospitals have violated the provisions of the KPME Act. You are liable for legal action," the notice said, seeking replies within 24 hours as to why action should not be against the hospitals.

This was a "clear violation" of providing medical assistance and admission necessitated under the agreed provision of the KPME registration. Private medical establishments cannot refuse or avoid treatment to patients suffering from COVID-19 or having symptoms, the common notice added.

The incident comes in the backdop of repeated instructions by the government that hospitals cannot deny admission to the patients suffering from coronavirus or having symptoms.
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Mamata Banerjee had on Tuesday threatened to take action under the Disaster Management Act if the buses continue to stay off the roads.

Kolkata: Transportation woes of commuters in West Bengal were mitigated to a considerable extent on Thursday with large fleets of both government and private buses hitting the streets in Kolkata and its adjoining areas, state Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikary said.

Around 1,800 government buses and 3,800 private buses are plying the Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA), comprising the city and its neighbouring districts, he said.

"Bus availability is absolutely normal today," the minister asserted.

Several commuters heaved a sigh of relief after normal services resumed on Thursday, with buses found waiting for passengers at many places, a departure from what has been the norm since early June as scores of people ran helter-skelter to find a vehicle to reach their destinations.

Private bus operators had been demanding a fare hike, claiming that they were facing insurmountable losses owing to high fuel prices and Covid-related curbs on passenger load

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on Tuesday threatened to take action under the Disaster Management Act if the buses continue to stay off the roads.

With only around 25 percent of private buses plying across the city and beyond till earlier this week, people were having a harrowing time commuting to their offices and back.

The absence of suburban trains and Metro Railway services, amid the Covid-induced lockdown restrictions, further added to their woes.

A section of bus operators, following a meeting with the transport secretary on Wednesday, had given assurances that more vehicles will be pressed into service from Thursday.
The task force of nine senior doctors was formed on 13 April in view of increasing number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the state, especially in Mumbai.

Mumbai: A senior member of the Maharashtra government's COVID-19 task force has tested positive for coronavirus , a health official said on Thursday.

He had been admitted to hospital last week.

The task force of nine senior doctors was formed on 13 April in view of increasing number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the state, especially in Mumbai.

It was asked to monitor the treatment protocol for COVID-19 patients and ICU procedures and help streamline the health services in the state in the face of the pandemic.
Justice Suresh Kait said the controversy between the Centre and AAP govt over who will represent Delhi Police has been going on since 22 June, and if the stay remained in force it will prejudice the accused.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday vacated its interim stay on the bail granted to a private school owner in a north-east Delhi riots case as the counsels for the Centre and the AAP government could not agree on who was representing the police.

Justice Suresh Kait said the controversy over who will represent Delhi Police in the matter has been going on since 22 June, the first day of hearing, and was likely to continue and if the stay remained in force, it will prejudice the accused.

"This cannot continue like this," the judge said and vacated the interim order of 22 June which had directed not to release the school owner Faisal Farooq.

The high court also directed all counsels to give their written arguments on the issue of who will represent Delhi Police in the matter and listed it for hearing on 22 July.

The 22 June order had come on the police plea challenging a 20 June order of a trial court granting bail to Farooq.

The controversy over who will represent the police in the instant case continued to plague the matter with lawyers of the Centre and AAP government continuing to oppose each other's claims regarding representing the probe agency.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aman Lekhi contended that he has a letter from the Lieutenant Governor authorising him to appear in the matter and placed the communication before the court.

The contention was vehemently opposed by Delhi government standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra, who said the 1 July letter was issued illegally as the LG took the decision without aid and advise of the Council of Ministers.

Mehra said there were judgments of the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court which clearly said that LG cannot appoint special prosecutors without aid and advise of the Council of Ministers.

Opposing Mehra's arguments, Lekhi said that the apex court and HC judgements he was referring to did not pertain to appointment of a law officer of the Attorney General's office to appear in a criminal matter as a prosecutor.

The judgements pertained to appointment of private lawyers as special prosecutors, Lekhi said.

He said Mehra's reliance on those judgments were "utterly and totally misconceived" as facts in those decisions were totally different from the instant case.

The ASG further argued that it was "outrageous" to say that central government needs to take the state government's permission to appoint a law officer as a special prosecutor in matters in which the Centre is "interested".

He also said that a client has the right to decide whom to appoint to represent it.

Countering the ASG's arguments, Mehra said these were "diversionary tactics" of the central government law officer.

"They are impersonating the state. Under which provision of law is it permitted? If this is allowed, it will happen in Bengal, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh..," he said.

Mehra further argued that Delhi Police was not like an ordinary client and it cannot choose whom to hire to represent it.

"If police starts to choose its lawyers, then investigation and prosecution would be hand-in-glove. Prosecutors would become mouth piece of the investigation," he said and added that this was not permitted under the criminal procedure law.

After hearing their arguments, Justice Kait said that this controversy first cropped up on 22 June, when the matter was first heard, and "the said issue continued till date".

The judge further said that apart from the instant case, Farooq was also arrested in another FIR and if he seeks bail in that matter and is granted the relief, the 22 June order would prejudice him.

Justice Kait, thereafter, proceeded to vacate the 22 June order.

The ASG urged the judge not to do so, saying it would have serious consequences, but Justice Kait did not agree with him.

On Wednesday, the high court had directed the central government counsel, Amit Mahajan, to show that he was appointed by the Lieutenant Governor to represent the probe agency in the matter.

The 1 July letter placed before the court on Thursday indicated that apart from Mahajan and Lekhi, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and other law officers were also appointed by LG to represent the police in the instant matter.

In the instant case, Farooq, owner of the Rajdhani School in Shiv Vihar locality, was among the 18 arrested for alleged involvement in burning and damaging property of the adjacent DRP Convent School.

The Delhi Police had on 3 June filed a charge sheet before a trial court against Farooq and 17 others in the incident in which the building of a private school was burnt down in North East Delhi.

The trial court, in its bail order, had noted that the charge sheet filed against him in the case was bereft of material showing his alleged links with the Popular Front of India, Pinjra Tod group and Muslim clerics.

It had directed Farooq to surrender his passport and not leave the National Capital Region without permission of the court. He should mark his attendance on every alternate Wednesday at the police station concerned. It also asked him not to tamper with evidence or influence the witnesses.

The Crime Branch of the Delhi Police had filed the charge sheet against the accused for allegedly conspiring with the Popular Front of India, Pinjra Tod group, Jamia Coordination Committee and Hazrat Nizamuddin Markaz for creating riots, in and around his school.

It has also been alleged that protestors against the CAA had received funds from the PFI, formed in 2006 in Kerala as a successor to the National Democratic Front (NDF).
Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said that tourism sector in the state will have to strictly abide by social distancing and strict standard operating procedures (SOPs). Actions will be taken against violators, Rane said.

Goa, one of the main tourist destinations in the country, will start opening hotels from Thursday, 2 June. The announcement was made by Goa Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar on Wednesday.

The state has been closed as part of the nationwide lockdown imposed by the Government of India to impede the spread of COVID-19 . However, the lockdown period and the pandemic have especially spelled doom for the hospitality and travel industries. And Goa's economy relies heavily on tourism, apart from mining and pharmaceutical sectors.

According to a report by The Indian Express, the state tourism minister said, Economically, we are in a bad shape."

Ajgaonkar said that tourists who wish to enter Goa will have to pre-book themselves and should be tested for COVID-19 at most 48 hours prior to their arrival in the state.

A report by The Times of India says that the Goa government has said it will permit around 250 hotels in the state to begin operations. Only those establishments which had applied to the government, signaling their readiness to operate, will be permitted to accept guests with prior bookings.

"Hotels will be allowed to take bookings from Thursday. Lets see how many bookings are received. People are fed up sitting at home. There is a demand to restart tourism," the daily quoted Ajgaonkar as saying.

Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said that tourism sector in the state will have to strictly abide by social distancing and strict standard operating procedures (SOPs). Actions will be taken against violators, Rane said.

Guests, who have not got tested for COVID-19 48 hours before their visit to Goa, will have to pay Rs 2,000 and get a test done in the state.

Hotels which have been allowed to operate will have an isolation facility where guests can wait till they get their COVID-19 test results, the report added.

A report by Times Now mentions that the decision to open Goa for tourists was taken during a state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.

The report also quotes the state tourism minister as saying that strict action would be taken against hotels and guest houses which are not registered with the tourism department but are offering stay facilities via app-based room aggregators.

Goa has so far reported more than 1,385 COVID-19 cases. The deadly virus has claimed lives of five people in the state.
Earlier on 25 June, HUL had announced dropping the word 'fair' from its popular skincare brand 'Fair & Lovely', citing its vision to adopt a holistic approach to beauty.

New Delhi: FMCG major HUL on Thursday said it has rebranded its popular skincare brand 'Fair & Lovely' as 'Glow & Lovely' after dropping the word 'fair' in its name.

According to the company, it is taking a more inclusive vision of positive beauty while introducing 'Glow & Lovely'  the new name for the brand.

Meanwhile, the men's range of its products will be called 'Glow & Handsome', Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) said in a statement.

"Over the next few months, Glow & Lovely will be on the shelves, and future innovations will deliver on this new proposition," said HUL in a statement.

Earlier on 25 June, HUL had announced dropping the word 'fair' from its popular skincare brand 'Fair & Lovely', citing its vision to adopt a holistic approach to beauty. The company had attributed the move to its rebranding exercise and said it would seek regulatory approvals.

As part of the rebranding, HUL will also be announcing a new name for the 'Fair & Lovely Foundation', set up in 2003 to offer scholarships to women to help them pursue their education, the statement had said.

HUL, a subsidiary of British-Dutch multinational company Unilever PLC, had approached the Controller General of Patent Design and Trademark to get the name 'Glow & Lovely'' registered.

Several cosmetic brands have been under the scanner over their products that promote skin fairness for stereotyping racial types, which intensified further in the wake of 'Black Lives Matter' movement in the US.

Recently the US healthcare and FMCG giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has stopped the sale of its skin-whitening creams globally, including India.

French personal care maker the L'Oreal Group also last week said it will drop words such as "white/whitening, fair/fairness, light/lightening" from all its skincare products.
Candidates who have been either allotted the admit card and/or appeared in one or more papers in February or March in Class 12 exams may provisionally register in the course.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has pushed back the registration date for the CA Foundation Course to 31 August. The decision has been taken in view of the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier, the last date for registration was 30 June.

The ICAI has also relaxed the eligibility criteria to register in Foundation Course as a one-time measure.

Candidates who have been either allotted the admit card and/or appeared in one or more papers in February or March in Class 12 exams may provisionally register in the course.

Those who have registered may appear in November 2020 Foundation examination after passing Class 12.

The ICAI informed the Supreme Court today that it would assess the feasibility of conducting CA exams, slated to be held from 29 July to 16 August, reported PTI.

The apex court was hearing through video conferencing a plea challenging the 'opt out' option provided by the ICAI to the candidates due to the COVID-19 . The petitioners alleged that it "arbitrarily" discriminates between the aspirants in the May cycle of CA examination.

The council for the ICAI sought time from the SC for contacting examination centres to access the ground situation and explore the feasibility of conducting the exams.

The SC on Monday asked the institute to extend its opt-out facility for candidates who are unable to appear for the July-August exams, reported The Indian Express.

Suppose a candidate has not chosen the opt-out option but suddenly comes under a containment zone. What will you do? You should treat candidates who do not appear as opt-out cases, the court had said.
The defence minister's visit to the region comes in the midst of India significantly ramping up the number of troops and weaponry along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the eastern Ladakh region.

New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is scheduled to visit Ladakh on Friday to take stock of India's military preparedness in the wake of a bitter border standoff with the Chinese troops in the region, government sources said.

To be accompanied by Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane, it will be the defence minister's first visit to Ladakh after the standoff between the two armies began on 5 May.

During his visit, Singh will carry out a comprehensive review of the security situation in the region with Gen Naravane, Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Yogesh Kumar Joshi, Commander of the 14 Corps Lt Gen Harinder Singh and other senior Army officials, sources said.

The visit is also aimed at boosting the morale of the army personnel engaged in the seven-week bitter border faceoff with the Chinese troops in the region, sources added.

The Army Chief visited Ladakh on 23 and 24 June during which he held a series of meetings with senior army officials and visited various forward areas in eastern Ladakh. Gen Naravane earlier visited Leh on 22 May.

The Indian and Chinese armies are locked in a standoff position at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh for the last seven weeks. The tension escalated manifold after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on 15 June.

The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details.

The defence minister's visit to the region comes in the midst of India significantly ramping up the number of troops and weaponry along the Line of Actual Control(LAC) in the eastern Ladakh region.

Following the Galwan Valley clashes, the army has sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border besides moving in heavy weapons.

The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key airbases.

On Tuesday, the Indian and Chinese armies held the third round of Lt general-level talks during which both sides agreed on the need for an "expeditious, phased and stepwise" de-escalation as a "priority" to end the standoff.

However, military sources did not give any indications of early resolution of the standoff and said it may continue till winters.

The process of disengagement along the LAC is "complex", sources said but added that the 12-hour discussions on Tuesday reflected the commitment of both sides to reduce tensions in the region.

The Tuesday talks took place on the Indian side of the LAC in the Chushul sector in eastern Ladakh.

The Indian delegation at the meeting was headed by 14 Corps Commander Lt Gen Singh while the Chinese side was led by the Commander of the Tibet Military District Major General Liu Lin.

It was the third senior military commander level engagement to discuss issues related to disengagement at the faceoff sites along the LAC and de-escalation in the border areas.

In the previous two rounds of talks, the Indian side demanded immediate withdrawal of Chinese troops from various areas in the region.

Following the Galwan Valley incident, the government has given the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC, the 3,500-km de-facto border, sources said.

The first round of the Lt General talks was held on 6 June during which both sides finalised an agreement to disengage gradually from all the standoff points beginning with Galwan Valley.

However, the situation deteriorated following the Galwan Valley clashes as the two sides significantly bolstered their deployments in most areas along the LAC.

The situation in eastern Ladakh deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on May 5 and 6. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in North Sikkim on 9 May.
The draft of the bill, which seeks life in jail for public servants convicted of torture, was prepared by the Law Commission to implement the UN Convention against Torture.

In wake of the alleged custodial death of a father-son duo in Tamil Nadu, DMK MP A Raja on Thursday wrote a letter to Union Home minister Amit Shah requesting the introduction of Prevention of Torture Bill, 2017 in the forthcoming session of parliament.

The draft of the bill which seeks life in jail for public servants convicted of torture was prepared by the Law Commission to implement the United Nations Convention against torture.

P Jayaraj and his son Bennicks, arrested for allegedly violating lockdown norms over the business hours of their cellphone shop in Tuticorin district, died at a hospital on 23 June, with the relatives alleging that they were severely thrashed at the Sathankulam Police Station by the personnel earlier.

The incident triggered a nationwide furore leading to the suspension of five policemen including an inspector and two sub-inspectors. The Superintendent of Police of Tuticorin was shunted out of the district and placed under "compulsory wait".

Deploring the incident, the DMK MP in the letter said the custodial death has raised "eyebrows due to the sheer scale of torture and violence perpetrated by the Tamil Nadu Police."

Underlining that custodial death is one of the worst crimes in civilised society, Raja requested Shah to make sure that the bill is enacted in parliament in the forthcoming session.

"In these circumstances, on behalf of the DMK, it is prayed that the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2017 may be processed judiciously and enacted in the parliament with additional provisions (if necessary) to address the issues emerged in the Santhankulam, incident in the forthcoming session itself or promulgate an ordinance through presidential route," Raja said in the letter.

Raja, a lawyer himself, said the Supreme Court had also issued detailed guidelines to safeguard the rights of an arrestee as well as to curb the unauthorised arrests or tortures by the police officers.

Arrests should be made to secure the orchestration of law, but the safeguarding of human rights -- be it an innocent or an accused -- is paramount, he added.
The media is that solitary institution of democracies across the world that has just one, and one single, function and that is to tell the truth as best it can

Political speech, George Orwell observed, "is largely the defence of the indefensible". "Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness".

Even as the armies of two nuclear States have sought, these past weeks, to stare each other down across the Line of Actual Control, the institutions of these nation-states have been engaged in a virtuoso performance designed to ensure we understand as little as possible about what is going on.

Is the People's Liberation Army in Indian territory, and where? We do not have an authoritative statement. How, if so, did it succeed in evading India's defences? No-one has bothered explaining How did Indian troops stationed along the Galwan river end up being ambushed?

That most critical institution of nation-states, the official spokesperson has engaged a virtuoso performance to silence these lines of inquiry. The weapons used to impede efforts to determine the truth  legal, financial, plain-vanilla patriotic demagoguery  are neither new, nor uniquely Indian: Every war in human history has, among other things, involved an assault on truth.

But in democracies  unlike Orwellian dystopias  there is one institution whose raison detre is truth-telling. The silence should make us ask serious questions whether it can be said to still, meaningfully, exist.

***

Last week, the official spokesperson's gloves came off. In a letter to the Press Trust of India, the Prasar Bharati Corporation  custodian of broadcasting in the public interest  charged that the wire service's recent coverage "was detrimental to national interest while undermining Indias territorial integrity". There is, notably, not a single specific PTI story cited in support of this claim. From this claim, however, the letter proceeds to conclude that "PTI has conducted itself in a manner contrary to the values that the public broadcaster has been mandated to uphold".

The official spokesperson is, of course, guilty of a particularly crude form of that most glaring of logical fallacies, petitio principii, or circular reasoning, for which students since at least the times of Aristotle have been roundly chastised.

For the official spokesperson, though, petitio principii is no vice: It is, instead, a critical discursive stock in trade. Like the inquisitors of Pope Urban VIII, the unhappy task of the official spokesperson is to insist, in the face of all evidence, that the sun revolves around the earth.

Media accounts tell us that Prasar Bharati was angered by PTI's decision to publish an interview with China's Ambassador to India Sun Weidong. In the absence of a denial by the official spokesperson, we must conclude that this claim is in fact correct. PTI, by some accounts, compounded this crime by interviewing India's Ambassador to China, who appeared to refute Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claims that there were no PLA troops on Indian soil.

To state this argument in cold text would set the official spokesperson up to be mocked. After all, if interviewing Beijing's ambassador to New Delhi is an act detrimental to India's national interests, then publishing the statements of his masters, China's foreign ministry, must also be so. Publishing the speeches of the ministry's master, President Xi Jinping, would also qualify as treasonous.

For obvious reasons  most important being that Prasar Bharati has itself done these things  this argument cannot be made. PTI must, however, have committed a crime against the people, or chastisement cannot be threatened. Private-sector firms are accountable only to their proprietors, or shareholders, for what they choose to spend money on. Public-sector entities do not have that luxury.

And, thus, the threat is made: "PTI is substantially supported by the public broadcaster through huge annual fees towards subscriptions," the official spokesperson's letter reads, "Prasar Bharati is reviewing the need for continued relationship with PTI".

***

"The appropriate noises," Orwell wrote of the official spokesperson, "are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself." Orwell proceeds to add, "If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity."

Every word Orwell wrote is also true of the media, whose conduct during the LAC crisis shows a dramatically diminished ability to ask questions, let alone seek answers. Though there has been pushbacknotably, through the publication of satellite images which show inconvenient truths about the locations of PLA troops  but little pressure has been mounted on the government in terms of more substantial questions of how this crisis emerged, and where it is headed.

Instead of official briefings, where questions can be asked  and answered  we have a culture of official WhatsApp groups, where information of dubious provenance is routinely disseminated, and published, without so much as a demand that the assertion be at least be attributable to the official spokesperson.

Even in the Kargil war in 1999, where a great tide of mindless patriotism led the media to collude in errors that sent hundreds of soldiers to their death, honourable reportage did surface, questioning official incompetence and venality. Newspaper reporters were even issued notices under the Official Secrets Act  mea culpa, I was one of them  but editors and managements defended their employees.

Leaders of the media, of course, share more than a small part of the blame. In the 1990s, as newspapers searched for greater readership, they became essentially free: Pages that cost between Rs 13 and Rs 17 to publish were sold, in some cases, for as little as a solitary rupee. The idea was that advertising  around a third of it from government  would compensate for the losses.

For two decades, this worked. Then, the rise of competing digital advertising platforms and shrinking revenues made newspapers ever more dependent on handouts from the government, much of it in the form of events graced by ministers and subsidised by industry.

In the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru's government  the author of the highly repressive legal regime that today chokes free speech and the media  birthed a generation of journalists whose highest ambition it was to suckle at the teats of the State. For decades, editors wafted in and out of government office; newsrooms were content to take dictation from government.

Today, too many journalists are content to claim they are reporting from Ground Zero  another masterful example of Orwellian political cliche  when they visited Leh  a convenient 250 kilometres from the nearest frontline  are heirs to this tradition. They have given up on even seeking information, realising that all that they are called on to provide is spectacle.

***

The cult of the official spokesman diminishes our security: this we should be clear on. There are some countries which realise this. Following Israel's crushing victory in the war of 1973, a commission led by Supreme Court chief justice Shimon Agranat recommended the sacking of the Israeli Defence Forces' chief of staff, Lieutenant-General David Elazar, and intelligence chief Eliahu Zeira, for missteps and errors of judgment that exposed the country to unnecessary losses in the battlefield.

Israel's leadership understood that the costs of these admissions  among them, the collapse of then-prime minister Golda Meir's government  were outweighed by the long-term danger posed by failure to hold the leadership accountable for their errors. Great nation-states are not built on foundations of hot air.

Governments are great things: Their responsibilities span everything from ensuring the health and economic welfare of citizens, and guarding the nation-states security. Even the local fire brigade is responsible not just for putting out fires, but rescuing children who have the misfortune of falling into drains,

The media is the only institution of democracies that has just one, and one single, function: To tell the truth as best it can.

Like the slaves who stand behind parading Roman generals in Hollywood films, it is the media's task to caution against hubris, constantly whispering, "Memento mori (remember you are mortal),".

It's improbable this has ever been a welcome message: There is likely a reason, after all, that we have no evidence an actual Roman slave ever whispered these words in his emperor's ears.
The news comes after prominent lawyers like Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Mukul Rohtagi said they will not defend TikTok in court.

TikTok India issued a statement on Wednesday denying rumours that the company was seeking to drag the Centre to court over the ban imposed on its app, which had millions of Indians as its users.

The company said, "We have no such plans. We are committed to working with the government to address its concerns," Bar and bench quoted the TikTok India spokesperson as saying.

Tiktok issues a statement on rumours about Legal Action - @TikTok_IN: "We have no plans to pursue such action. We are committed to working with the government to address its concerns." #tiktokbanned #TikTok pic.twitter.com/wFeF200saU  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) July 2, 2020

The news comes after prominent lawyers like Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Mukul Rohtagi said they will not defend the company in court.

"I won a case for them in the Supreme Court a year ago, but don't intend to appear in this one," Singhvi was quoted as saying by NDTV.

Reports said that Rohtagi, who served as the country's Attorney General till 2017, had also reportedly turned down an offer from the Chinese app to appear on its behalf in court.

This comes days after India blocked 59 apps including TikTok, SHAREit and UC Browser. The government had on Monday banned 59 Chinese applications saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity, and security of the country. A day later popular short video app TikTok was taken down from Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The other 58 Chinese apps have now been removed.

"The apps engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India and the security of state and public order," the government said on the ban.

Soon after the ban, TikTok stopped showing up in search results on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Some users searching for TikTok on Google Play ended up seeing some clone apps. The Apple App Store showed 'helper apps' like VideoSplit for TikTok, but not the TikTok app itself.

After the ban was announced on Monday night, TikTok India head Nikhil Gandhi said the company is in the process of complying with the order and has been invited to meet with concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications.

With inputs from PTI
Reuters

India has ordered telecom companies and other internet providers to stop access to 59 banned Chinese-origin apps, according to notices seen by Reuters, intensifying efforts to crack down on such businesses following a border clash between the nations.

The Department of Telecommunications (DOT) said internet operators should immediately block access to such apps and their websites, warning of legal action if they fail to do so, according to notices issued late on Tuesday.

The departments order came after Indias government this week banned several Chinese apps including ByteDances TikTok, Alibabas UC News and Tencents WeChat citing threat to sovereignty and integrity, a move seen as Indias push back against Chinese firms following a border clash with the neighbour.

The websites of some of the banned apps  such as Alibabas UC News  were no longer accessible from some internet networks in India. While Bytedance moved to block TikTok in India soon after the governments announcement, several other banned apps were still available for download.

The Indian government has separately reached out to Google and Apple formally and asked them to remove the apps from their app stores so that new downloads can be restricted, two sources told Reuters.
tech2 News Staff

OnePlus is all set to launch its affordable smart TV models in India today. The company has previously confirmed that it will launch three models in today's lineup with different screen sizes and the starting price of these models will be under Rs 20,000 and will go up to Rs 50,000.

The pre-bookings of the OnePlus TV lineup has also begun on Amazon India website. All you need to do is pay Rs 1,000 now for pre-booking that will be returned when you buy the TV. In addition to this, you will also get an extended warranty of 2 years with your OnePlus TV purchase.

OnePlus TV launch event: How to watch it live

The smart TV launch event will kick off at 7 pm IST today in India. You can head to the company's YouTube channel or Twitter to catch the livestream. You can also catch the live updates by tapping on the webcast link embedded below:

Watch the launch of #SmarterTV and introduce yourself to a great viewing experience. https://t.co/tvFF1cUHWl  OnePlus India (@OnePlus_IN) July 1, 2020

OnePlus TV expected specifications

The upcoming smart TV models are expected to come in three screen sizes: 32-inch, 43-inch and 55-inch. Company CEO Pete Lau had also confirmed that the upcoming OnePlus TV will be thinner than OnePlus 8 smartphone.

In an interview with Android Central, Lau revealed that OnePlus' upcoming TVs will have an ultra-thin design that comes in at just 6.9 mm. He also added that the bottom portion of the television, however, will be wider as it houses all the components of the TV and will house the built-in speakers.

Lau has also revealed that the TVs will feature an innovation where the speakers are rotated by 90 degrees. According to Lau, this allowed the company to fit two large full-range speakers that resulted in "50 percent deeper bass."

According to the report, OnePlus is trimming the bezels of the upcoming television series as well.

The Android Central report also mentions Lau as saying that the upcoming OnePlus TVs will also sport a carbon fiber pattern at the back that is similar to the Q1 series.

In addition to this, the Amazon teaser reveals that the TV will come with Dolby Vision Atmos. The company had previously confirmed that the smart TVs will come with a 95 percent screen-to-body ratio and will be capable of connecting with 5 devices at a time.

Up to 5 devices can be connected to the upcoming series of the #OnePlusTV

Set reminder for the #SmarterTV's launch event here: https://t.co/T9cKFlEigf https://t.co/zJT7u0u3er  OnePlus India (@OnePlus_IN) June 29, 2020



To bring you up to speed, OnePlus is also expected to launch its affordable smartphone called OnePlus Nord that will be priced under $500.
FP Trending

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 series is expected to be unveiled at Galaxy Unpacked event on 5 August.

With just a little over a month left for the event, a new leak has emerged, revealing the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

According to tipster Ishan Agarwal, Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra was leaked on the company's official Russian website. The listing was pulled down. However, the tipster took screenshots of the device and shared them on Twitter.

Something weird!

Might just be our first look at the #Samsung #GalaxyNote20Ultra smartphone. This picture of the Bronze/Copper Galaxy Note 20 Ultra was found on the official Russian website of Samsung. Do you think it's the actual render or concept used by a Samsung team? pic.twitter.com/bkZsD6MeJM  Ishan Agarwal (@ishanagarwal24) July 1, 2020

According to a GSM Arena report, the leaked images of the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra was first spotted by a Russian YouTuber. The pictures were spotted at the bottom of the website's Galaxy Note 8 page.

From the images, it appears that the smartphone will sport the "Mystic Bronze" colour and will come with a triple camera setup in the rear which will be neatly placed on the left side of the phone.

Sensors and an LED flash can also be seen in the leaked images.

As per the report, the camera rectangle is a bit raised, but the design behind the glass is different. Each camera has its own accent ring.

The images also show the S Pen which has got the bronze colour and the appearance of it has not changed much.

As per the report by The Verge, the leaked images suggest that the phone is the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Noted Samsung tipster Ice Universe has earlier tweeted that the Galaxy Note20 will be released in a copper color, and the design of the smartphone on Samsungs site matches the Note 20 Ultra case tweeted recently.

Phone Arena reports that the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is expected to come powered with the Snapdragon 865 chipset in North America, China, and South Korea, and the unreleased Exynos 992 in Europe and other international markets.

The smartphone is also expected to be 12 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage as standard.
FP Trending

In order for people to make a smooth shift from animal-based protein to veganism easier, an Israeli firm has manufactured a 3D printed steak but with vegan alternatives.

Redefine Meat is a startup based in Rehovot and has unveiled the Alt-Steak. The startup claims that this steak replicates the texture, taste, and look of real meat using 3D technology. The vegan steak is made with plant-based products like soy, sunflower oil, coconut fat, pea proteins along with natural flavouring and colours.

The USP of the vegan steak is supposed to be similar to original meat but has no cholesterol. More than 70 different sensory characteristics of steak have been replicated carefully with informed advice and suggestion from chefs, butchers, and food technologists.

The firm is looking forward to sending its meat to popular Israeli restaurants by next month. Redefine Meat has aspirations of exporting vegan steak to European hotels by next year and supermarkets can expect to get them by 2022.

In a conversation with Medialine, Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, CEO and co-founder of Redefine Meat, talked about the vegan meat. He said, This is the worlds first 3D-printed steak that can really pass the test of what is a steak.

Weve reached a milestone because we can print steaks on a large scale and the taste and texture are amazing, he added.

The CEO also said that initially it will be set at the same price range as that of normal meat equivalents.

According to a report in the Times of Israel, the firm had invited Israeli star chef Assaf Granit at its offices for a taste of the steak. The chef said, in a video for The Great Big Jewish Food Festival, that eight out of ten people wouldnt know the difference between real meat and the alt-meat produced by Redefine Meat.
Chinese commerce ministry Spokesman Gao Feng said that China has not taken any restrictive measures against Indian products and services.

Beijing: Days after India banned 59 Chinese apps for engaging in activities "prejudicial" to the sovereignty and integrity of the country, Beijing on Thursday issued a predictable reaction, describing New Delhi's actions as "discriminatory" while calling for the reversal of the ban.

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including the hugely popular TikTok and UC Browser, for engaging in "activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order". The ban also comes in the backdrop of the current stand-off along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh with Chinese troops.

Responding to reports that both countries are strengthening import regulations and suppressing each other's export goods amid the tense border situation and its impact on China's foreign trade enterprises exports to India, Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng said that China has not taken any restrictive measures against Indian products and services.

"First of all, I want to clarify that China has not taken any restrictive and discriminatory measures against Indian products and services, he said, according to the transcript posted on the ministry's website.

India's practices violate relevant World Trade Organization rules," Gao said.

The spokesman also expressed hope that India would immediately correct the discriminatory practices against China and Chinese enterprises.

Announcing its decision to ban 59 apps in view of information available that they are "engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order", India's Information Technology Ministry said the move will "safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users. This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace."

The IT ministry statement also said that it has received many complaints from various sources, including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India".

"The success of China-India economic and trade cooperation is the result of the joint efforts of the governments and enterprises of the two sides and serves the fundamental interests of the two people, he said.

Gao said, China attaches great importance to strengthening practical cooperation with India in all fields and hopes that the two sides will meet each other halfway, earnestly implement the economic and trade consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries."

He said the two sides should promote the sound and stable development of bilateral economic and trade cooperation and make efforts for the common prosperity of the two countries and the region at large.

On Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that it was strongly concerned over India's move banning 59 Chinese apps.
The US secretary of state said these are the sort of actions that the authoritarian regimes take, and they have a real impact not only on people in Hong Kong, but a real impact on people all around the world

Washington: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that China's actions, be it on the India border, or in Hong Kong or in the South China Sea, have been part of the behaviour of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing in the recent past.

Indian and Chinese troops were engaged in a bitter standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in mountainous eastern Ladakh for close to four weeks. Both the countries are holding talks at military and diplomatic levels to resolve the dispute.

"We see even today increasing forces of China moved up to the north of India on the Line of Actual Control there on the Indian border," Pompeo told Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka of AEIs ''What The Hell Is Going On'' Podcast on Monday.

The Communist Party of China continues to hide and obfuscate and delay the global response to the coronavirus pandemic that began in Wuhan. It has taken actions destroying the amazing freedoms of the people of Hong Kong, he said, referring to a controversial law under which China can establish the presence of its security forces in Hong Kong.

"Those are just two pieces of the behaviour of this regime of the Chinese Communist Party. The nature and the activity that they're undertaking, the continued efforts to steal intellectual property, to advance in the South China Sea," he said.

Globally more than 375,000 people have died and over 6.2 million tested positive. In the United States, more than 100,000 Americans have died due to COVID 19. The pandemic further fuelled tensions between China and the US, which claims the virus came from a bio-lab in Wuhan.

China has been fast expanding military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region, triggering concern in various countries of the region and beyond.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. Both areas are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources and are vital to global trade.

Pompeo said that these are the kinds of actions that the authoritarian regimes take, and they have a real impact not only on the Chinese people there in China and Hong Kongers in Hong Kong, but a real impact on people all around the world.

"The United States has a responsibility and the capability to push back against that, ensure that the American people are properly served by a foreign policy that recognises the threats that emanate from China today," he said.

Responding to a question, Pompeo said that the recent Chinese actions, be it on the India border, or Hong Kong or the South China Sea, have been part of the Chinese behaviour in the recent past.

"It''s not just over the past six months. We've seen over the past number of years continued Chinese build-out of their military capabilities, and then continually more aggressive action. I mentioned India. You've mentioned the South China Sea.

"We see these same kinds of things with them attempting to build ports around the world as part of their Belt and Road Initiative, places where they can move the People's Liberation Army Navy. We've seen their continued efforts to expand militarily," Pompeo said.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the area.

The Belt and Road Initiative is a multi-billion-dollar initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea route.

For the past 20 years, the US has not responded to these things in a real way, Pompeo said.

"We've viewed the 1.5 billion people in the Chinese market as so important to the American economy, and the risk that the Chinese would respond by closing us out for the favour of some other nation - I think people have just been too worried about that to actually take the responses that we take to every other country that behaves in the way that China has done," Pompeo said.

President Donald Trump has not done that, he asserted.

"Trump's made it very clear whether it's the signature issue on trade... reciprocal trade... and now beginning to move to all the other elements of power that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to expand," he added.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi has accused the US of pushing the bilateral ties to the brink of a "new Cold War" by spreading "lies" about the coronavirus and said it was open to international efforts to identify the source of the deadly virus.

It is the most regrettable that while the coronavirus is still out there, a ''political virus'' is also spreading in the US and jumping at any opportunity to attack and slander China," Wang said during his annual press conference on the sidelines of Chinas annual session of the National Peoples Conference last week.

Wang has defended Beijing's move to bring new security law to firm up its control over the former British colony, saying Hong Kong affairs are China's internal matter, and "no external interference" will be tolerated.
US lawmakers on Tuesday emerged from closed briefings to challenge why Donald Trump and his advisors failed to recognise the seriousness of the intelligence assessment.

The intelligence finding that Russia was most likely paying a bounty for the lives of US soldiers in Afghanistan has evoked a strange silence from President Donald Trump and his top national security officials on the question of what to do about the Kremlins wave of aggression.

Trump insists he never saw the intelligence, although it was part of the Presidents Daily Brief just days before a peace deal was signed with the Taliban in February.

The White House says it was not even appropriate for him to be briefed because the president only sees verified intelligence  prompting derision from officials who have spent years working on the daily brief and say it is most valuable when filled with dissenting interpretations and alternative explanations.

The administrations defences took a new turn Wednesday, when national security advisor Robert C OBrien told Fox News that the CIA officer who delivered in-person intelligence summaries to the president had not flagged it for his attention.

But it does not require a top-secret clearance and access to the governments most classified information to see that the list of Russian aggressions in recent weeks rivals some of the worst days of the Cold War.

There have been new cyber attacks on Americans working from home to exploit vulnerabilities in their corporate systems and continued concern about new playbooks for Russian actors seeking to influence the November election. Off the coast of Alaska, Russian jets have been testing US air defences, sending US warplanes scrambling to intercept them.

It is all part of what Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, the majority leader, said Monday was the latest in a series of escalations from [Vladimir] Putins regime.

Yet missing from all this is a strategy for pushing back  old-fashioned deterrence, to pluck a phrase from the depths of the Cold War  that could be employed from Afghanistan to Ukraine, from the deserts of Libya to the vulnerable voter registration rolls in battleground states.

Officially, in Trumps national security strategy, Russia is described as a revisionist power whose efforts to peel away NATO allies and push the United States out of West Asia have to be countered. But the paper strategy differs significantly from the reality.

There are at least two Russia strategies in this divided administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, usually so attuned to Trump, speaks for the hawkish wing: He came to the Department of State podium a few weeks ago to declare that Crimea, annexed by Russia six years ago, will never be recognised as Russian territory.

Then there is the president, who repeatedly objected to criticising Russia and pressed us not to be so critical of Russia publicly, his former national security advisor, John Bolton, notes in his recent memoir. A parade of other former national security aides have emerged, bruised, with similar reports.

Yet the nature of intelligence  always incomplete and not always definitive  gives Trump an opening to dismiss anything that challenges his worldview.

By definition, intelligence means looking at pieces of a puzzle, said Glenn S Gerstell, who retired this year as general counsel of the National Security Agency, before the Russian bounty issue was front and centre. Its not unusual to have inconsistencies. And the Presidents Daily Brief, not infrequently, would say that there is no unanimity in the intelligence community, and would explain the dissenting views or the lack of corroboration.

That absence of clarity has not slowed Trump when it comes to placing new sanctions on China and Iran, who pose very different kinds of challenges to US power.

Yet the president made no apparent effort to sort through evidence on Russia, even before his most recent call with President Vladimir Putin, when he invited the Russian leader to a Group of Seven meeting planned for September in Washington. Russia has been banned from the group since the Crimea invasion, and Trump was essentially restoring it to the G-8 over the objection of many of Americas closest allies.

The White House will not say whether he would have acted differently had he been aware of the Russian bounty for American lives.

If youre going to be on the phone with Putin, this is something you ought to know, said Representative Adam Schiff, D-California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who managed the impeachment trial against Trump. This is something you ought to know if youre inviting Russia back into the G-8.

It is just the latest example of how, in Trumps America First approach, he rarely talks about Russia strategy other than to say it would be good to be friends. He relies on his gut and talks about his good relationship with Putin, echoing a line he often uses about Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator.

So it is little surprise that after three-and-a-half years, there is often hesitation to bring Trump damning intelligence about Russia.

And in this case, there was another element: concern inside the White House about any intelligence findings that might interfere with the administrations announcement of a peace deal with the Taliban.

After months of broken-off negotiations, Trump was intent on announcing the accord in February, as a prelude to declaring that he was getting Americans out of Afghanistan. As one senior official described it, the evidence about Russia could have threatened that deal because it suggested that after 18 years of war, Trump was letting Russia chase the last U.S. troops out of the country.

The warning to Trump appeared in the presidents briefing book  which Bolton said almost always went unread  in late February. On 28 February, the president issued a statement that a signing ceremony for the Afghan deal was imminent.

When I ran for office, Trump said in the statement, I promised the American people I would begin to bring our troops home and see to end this war. We are making substantial progress on that promise.

He dispatched Pompeo to witness the signing with the Taliban. And as Trump noted in a tweet over the weekend, there have been no major attacks on US troops since. (Instead, the attacks have focused on Afghan troops and civilians.)

Russias complicity in the bounty plot came into sharper focus Tuesday as The New York Times reported that US officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russias military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account, according to officials familiar with the intelligence.

The United States has accused Russia of providing general support to the Taliban before. But the newly-revealed information about financial transfers bolstered other evidence of the plot, including detainee interrogations, and helped reduce an earlier disagreement among intelligence analysts and agencies over the reliability of the detainees.

Lawmakers on Tuesday emerged from closed briefings on the matter to challenge why Trump and his advisors failed to recognise the seriousness of the intelligence assessment.

I am concerned that they did not pursue it as aggressively or comprehensively as perhaps they should have, said Representative Adam Smith, D-Washington, who heads the House Armed Services Committee. There was clearly evidence that the Russians were paying the bounties.

The oddity, of course, is that despite Trumps deference to the Russians, relations between Moscow and Washington under the Trump administration have nose-dived.

That was clear in the stiff sentence handed down recently in Moscow against Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, after his conviction on espionage charges in what the US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan called a mockery of justice.

Even Russian State television now regularly mocks Trump as a buffoon, very different from its gushing tone during the 2016 presidential election.

David E Sanger and Eric Schmitt c.2020 The New York Times Company
A former British colony, Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy when it returned to Chinese control in 1997. The reality, however, is somewhat different

Hong Kong: Hong Kong Police moved swiftly on Wednesday to enforce Chinas new national security rules with the first arrests under the law, as the city immediately felt the chilling effect of Beijings offensive to quash dissent in the semi-autonomous territory.

The law was proving effective in tamping down the anti-government demonstrations that have wracked Hong Kong for more than a year. On Wednesday, the anniversary of Hong Kongs return to Chinese control  usually observed by huge pro-democracy marches  a scattered crowd of thousands protested, only to be corralled by police and risk arrest for crimes that did not exist a day earlier.

Deploying pepper spray and water cannons to force protesters off the streets, the police arrested around 370 people, including 10 over new offences created by the security law that takes aim at political activity challenging Beijing. One of the 10 was a 15-year-old girl waving a Hong Kong independence flag, police said.

Far-reaching and punitive, the law threatens the freewheeling cultural scene and civil society that make the fabric of life in Hong Kong so distinct from the rest of China. While officials insist that the law will affect only a small group of offenders, many fear the government could use the laws expansive definitions to target a wide array of people and organisations, prompting many to take defensive action.

A museum that commemorates the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre is rushing to digitise its archives, afraid its artifacts could be seized. Booksellers are nervously eyeing customers, worried they could be government spies. Writers have asked a news site to delete more than 100 articles, anxious that old posts could be used against them.

You can say this law is just targeting protesters and anti-Chinese politicians, but it could be anyone, said Isabella Ng, a professor at the Education University of Hong Kong who founded a charity that helps refugees in the city.

Where is the line to draw? said Ng, who worries that her charity could one day come under scrutiny. Everything becomes very uncertain.

The law, which went into effect as soon as it was released Tuesday night, confirmed many residents fears that a range of actions that they had previously engaged in had become hazardous. Though the law specifically bans subversion, sedition, terrorism and collusion, its definitions of those crimes could be interpreted broadly to include various forms of speech or organising.

Lobbying foreign governments or publishing anti-Beijing viewpoints could be punished by life imprisonment in serious cases. So could saying anything seen as undermining the ruling Communist Partys authority. In the mainland, the party has virtually eliminated independent journalism and imposed onerous restrictions on non-governmental organisations.

Citing the new law and other factors, the Donald Trump administration is rolling back Hong Kongs trade privileges with the United States.

Free Hong Kong was one of the worlds most stable, prosperous and dynamic cities, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a news conference Wednesday. Now itll be just another communist-run city where its people will be subject to the party elites whims.

Even before the law was passed, activists, journalists, bookshop owners and professors said they had begun second-guessing any speech that could be labeled political. Human rights group Amnesty International said it had drawn up a contingency plan.

Many Hong Kongers have expressed interest in emigration, a task that Britain has promised to make easier. The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said Wednesday that some Hong Kong residents would be allowed to live in Britain for five years  up from six months previously  and then apply for citizenship.

A former British colony, Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy when it returned to Chinese control in 1997. It found success as a bridge between the mainland and the rest of the world, serving as a haven for Chinese dissidents and a base for academics, journalists and researchers to chronicle, unfettered, the countrys modernisation.

But reminders of Chinese control were never far away. The abductions of five Hong Kong booksellers in 2015 by mainland authorities rattled others who had openly marketed salacious Chinese political thrillers or modern historical volumes. Though Hong Kong was long a sanctuary for books banned in the mainland, tighter border checks have recently choked the flow of books between Hong Kong and the mainland.

Now the security push has accelerated panic and a sense of foreboding.

If you havent tasted what tyranny is, be prepared, because tyranny is not comfortable, said Bao Pu, founder of New Century Press, one of the citys few surviving independent publishers.

Albert Wan, co-owner of Bleak House Books, an independent bookstore, said that he closely tracked all his book shipments, regardless of whether they could be considered political, watching for any sign of delay.

He said that he had also grown wary of unfamiliar customers and tries to decide if they are browsing for books or seemingly building a profile of him and his employees.

We are being paranoid, Wan said. I dont know how else to put it.

For those who built their lives and livelihoods around Hong Kongs unique freedoms, the security law has forced them to balance two seemingly irreconcilable goals: preserving their own safety, without giving in to fear.

The June 4th Museum, which chronicles Beijings bloody military crackdown on student protesters in 1989, has not made plans to move its artifacts overseas for safekeeping. The Chinese government has tried to quash any memory of the massacre, so to hide the archives would be to admit premature defeat, said Lee Cheuk-yan, of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which runs the museum.

But reality has also forced the alliance to start an online fundraiser in support of digitising the museums archives, which include video footage of the protests and letters that protesters wrote to their families.

We of course are racing with time, Lee said.

The chill is not limited to local groups. Large international organisations are also evaluating their future in the city. The new law specifically said that the government would strengthen the management of foreign non-governmental organisations and news agencies.

The rule of law is going to come under very severe stress in Hong Kong, said Nicholas Bequelin, director for Amnestys East and Southeast Asia operations.

Concerns about the security laws reach have also forced many writers and protesters to scrutinise their digital footprints for anything that might now be deemed subversive. Activists deleted their accounts on Twitter and on Telegram, a messaging app popular with protesters.

In recent weeks, around a dozen writers asked the editors of InMedia HK, a site that posts articles supporting democracy, to take down some or all of their archives, said Betty Lau, the sites editor. Editors deleted more than 100 articles, Lau said.

Hong Kongs reputation for press freedom has long stood in contrast with the mainlands censorship regime and routine harassment of journalists. But the new security law has thrown the future of the citys lively news media into question.

The Hong Kong News Executives Association, a group representing the top editors of the citys major news outlets, expressed concern about the far-reaching effects of the security law before its release. The Foreign Correspondents Club urged the government last week to guarantee that authorities would not seek to interfere with the work of reporters. The government has not responded, but officials have sought to reassure the public that the citys civil liberties will be protected.

During a recent end-of-semester meeting at Hong Kong Universitys Journalism and Media Studies Centre, staff members wondered aloud where the red line would be and whether certain topics would be off-limits, said the centres director, Keith Richburg.

Id be lying if I said I dont think twice about posting something on Twitter before pushing the button, said Richburg, a former foreign correspondent with The Washington Post.

One of the starkest indicators that the national security law was already having its intended effect came on Tuesday, directly after lawmakers in Beijing unanimously approved it.

Joshua Wong, the 23-year-old who is perhaps Hong Kongs best-known activist, announced on social media that he would withdraw from Demosisto, the youth political group that he founded in 2016, citing fears for his safety. Demosisto, which has called for greater autonomy for Hong Kong, was for many the face of the protest movements future.

Soon after, three other leading members of Demosisto also resigned. A few hours later, the group announced it was disbanding altogether.

In a note explaining his decision, Wong wrote, Nobody can be sure of their tomorrow.

The crowds of protesters were small on Wednesday, relative to the hundreds of thousands that regularly took to the streets last year. But swarms of riot officers quickly surrounded them.

For some protesters, its a fight they are willing to continue, even if it means going up against Beijing. We have to show the people of Hong Kong that we cannot be afraid or deterred by the national security law, Avery Ng, a leader of the League of Social Democrats, a political party. We are taking a certain level of risk, being that one of our demands is the end of one-party dictatorship.

Vivian Wang and Alexandra Stevenson c.2020 The New York Times Company
Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein, allegedly facilitated his crimes by helping him 'recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse' girls as young as 14.

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested by the FBI on Thursday on charges she helped procure underage sex partners for financier Jeffrey Epstein.

An indictment made public Thursday said Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent travel companion on trips around the world, facilitated Epsteins crimes by "helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse " girls as young as 14. It also said she participated in the sexual abuse.

Epstein killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell has, for years, been accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.

The indictment included counts of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury.

Messages were sent Thursday to several of Maxwells attorneys seeking comment. She has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some of the claims against her absolute rubbish."

Among the most sensational accusations was a claim by one Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew at her London townhouse. Giuffre bolstered her allegations with a picture of her, Andrew and Giuffre that she said was taken at the time.

Andrew denied her story. He was not mentioned by name in the indictment.

The court papers said Epstein's abuse of girls occurred at his Manhattan mansion and other residences in Palm Beach, Florida; Sante Fe, New Mexico and London.

Maxwell was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the highest-ranking employee of Epsteins alleged sex trafficking enterprise. She oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal the activity from law enforcement, the lawsuit alleged.

The indictment mirrored many of the claims previously made in civil lawsuits against Maxwell.

It said that as early as 1994, Maxwell would entice and groom minor girls by asking them about their lives, their schools and their families.

Through this process, Maxwell and Epstein enticed victims to engage in sexual activity with Epstein. In some instances, Maxwell was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims, the indictment said.

The indictment said Maxwell repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct.

At the time the crimes occurred, Maxwell was in an intimate relationship with Epstein and also was paid by him to manage his various properties, according to the indictment, which included a photograph of Epstein with his arm around Maxwell and his head nuzzling hers.

Epstein was initially investigated in Florida and pleaded guilty to state charges in 2008 that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. He was free a little after a year in prison.

At the time, a federal prosecutor in Florida signed off on an agreement, initially filed in secret, that barred the federal government from charging any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.

Federal prosecutors in New York have argued that they are not bound by that agreement.

Maxwell's indictment was celebrated by lawyers for some of Epstein's accusers. Spencer T. Kuvin, who represents some of the women, said Maxwell was hopefully be the first of many co-conspirators to face the consequences of this horrific crimes.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch sex workers welcomed customers back on Wednesday as the Netherlands further eased coronavirus measures, but they were advised to avoid heavy breathing and kissing to help reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19. Erotic dancers and prostitutes lost their main source of income for three-and-a-half months and generally did not have access to state support during lockdown. They were surprised when the government brought forward the date they could reopen from a tentative Sept

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch sex workers welcomed customers back on Wednesday as the Netherlands further eased coronavirus measures, but they were advised to avoid heavy breathing and kissing to help reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19 .

Erotic dancers and prostitutes lost their main source of income for three-and-a-half months and generally did not have access to state support during lockdown.

They were surprised when the government brought forward the date they could reopen from a tentative Sept. 1 to July 1.

Amsterdam's "Red Light" district, where thousands of tourists generally crowd the canals to see sex shows, erotic gift shops and prostitutes, has been deserted.

Red Light United, which represents Amsterdam's window prostitutes, had campaigned to get back to work as soon as possible, noting some sex workers still had to pay rent on their premises and lockdown was forcing them to work illegally, exposing them to greater risks.

"I am really looking forward to going back to work," said Moira Mona, a 29-year-old sex worker who will perform at an S&M club this week. "The extra income is going to be welcome, so in that sense I am hoping for a busy day... although I don't expect it to be as busy as before the corona crisis."

Sex workers already adhere to strict health safety regulations in the Netherlands, but the industry has compiled a list of recommendations, including sexual positions to avoid.

Even with new guidelines, sex workers will be more exposed to the dangers of CODVID-19 than other professions, said Debbie Mensink, a public health advisor in Amsterdam.

"There is a heightened risk. Sex workers already have a heightened health risk due to their line of work... because people get so close to each other."

Mona, however, said she is not worried and will take precautions.

She added a few new items to her collection of latex outfits, stiletto heels and tasseled whips to adhere to the protocol: a leather face cover with metal studs, black gloves and surgical face masks.

"I don't get unemployment benefits if I get sick, so if someone shows up and starts coughing or sneezing in my hallway I'll say 'Can you come back another time?' because if I am ill for a week that means a week without income."

Mona made some income during lockdown by doing webcam shows, but said that if the government-imposed measures had remained in place much longer she would have spent her entire savings.

As the number of new infections and COVID-19 deaths fell fast in recent weeks, the Netherlands lifted most lockdown measures. The country has recorded more than 50,000 infections and over 6,000 deaths since mid-March.

Despite the improved COVID-19 statistics, people are advised to keep 1.5 meters (nearly 5 feet) apart and must wear face masks while riding public transportation.

Those rules won't apply to sex workers and health authorities recommend avoiding face-to-face encounters.

"We advise against literally getting in each others' faces, where you can breathe in each others' warm breath," said Mensink, the health worker. "We also advise against kissing because saliva carries the virus and you could transfer it that way."

(Reporting by Esther Verkaik; writing by Anthony Deutsch; editing by John Stonestreet and Alexandra Hudson)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Alexander Marrow MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said Russians had shown how much they trusted President Vladimir Putin with a nationwide vote that gave him the right to run for two more terms, while people wondered on Thursday whether he really would stay on another 16 years. Announcing final results of the week-long vote, officials said nearly 78% of voters had backed changes to the constitution allowing Putin, whose fourth term as president ends in 2024, to run for two more, back-to-back six-year terms.

By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Alexander Marrow

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said Russians had shown how much they trusted President Vladimir Putin with a nationwide vote that gave him the right to run for two more terms, while people wondered on Thursday whether he really would stay on another 16 years.

Announcing final results of the week-long vote, officials said nearly 78% of voters had backed changes to the constitution allowing Putin, whose fourth term as president ends in 2024, to run for two more, back-to-back six-year terms.

This means the 67-year-old former KGB officer, who has ruled Russia for over two decades as either president or prime minister, could be in power until he is 83.

An independent monitoring group said the vote was deeply flawed. But Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said the emphatic nature of the result was a measure of how deeply Russians trusted Putin to run the country.

"It's definitely considered a triumph. What took place was in effect a de facto triumphant referendum on trust in Putin," said Peskov.

Putin thanked voters for their support and trust. "We need stability and time to strengthen the country," he said.

Golos, a non-governmental organisation that monitors elections, said it had recorded numerous irregularities during the vote, including ballot stuffing and widespread cases of employers forcing staff to cast a ballot.

Already the longest-serving leader in modern Russian history since Josef Stalin, Putin has said he has yet to decide on his political future, but wanted officials to avoid getting distracted by the question of who one day might succeed him.

NO WORTHY SUCCESSOR?

Public opinion on his intentions was divided on Thursday.

Some people said they were sure he would try to stay in the Kremlin for as long as he could while others predicted he would step down in 2024 but thought he wanted to keep his options open so as not to become a lame duck before then.

Evgeniy Somov, member of a patriotic organisation in the central Russian republic of Udmurtia, said Putin would not necessarily stay in power until 2036, describing the vote as a "safety net" in case no one emerges who could replace him.

"Running such a country is very difficult and apparently there is no worthy successor yet, or they are just not ready, he said.

Others said they had no doubts at all that Putin would be staying in the Kremlin for many years to come.

It is clear to everyone that Putin will run again until 2036. It was a scam as always," said Vyacheslav, a 61-year-old pensioner in the town of Belgorod.

Andrei Kolesnikov, an expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center think tank, said Putin had been unable to find a successor because he only trusted himself. "Democracy is somewhere far ahead, after the next two terms," Kolesnikov told Reuters.

Putin's approval rating stood at 60% last month, still high but hovering around just above a two-decade low after slipping in April amid the coronavirus crisis and related economic pain, a poll by the Levada Center showed.

Opposition activists have called the vote illegitimate and said it was designed to legalise a Putin presidency-for-life.

Moscow resident Ksenia was one of several people who told Reuters she did not believe the official results. "I think none of my friends took part in the vote, I think it is all a fake (the result). No one voted."

Others were more upbeat.

"My attitude to the vote is very positive," said Yevgeny, a Moscow resident who said he had voted in favour of changing the constitution.

Only one of Russia's 85 regions, remote Nenets, was recorded as having voted against the constitutional changes amid discontent there over a plan to merge it with another region.

(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova, Dmitry Madorsky and Anton Kolodazhnyy, Anton Derbenev; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Brendan O'Brien (Reuters) - Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill into law on Tuesday that replaces the current state flag bearing a Confederate emblem, a gesture triggered by support across the United States to dismantle symbols of slavery and racism. The removal of the flag, a long-simmering source of controversy in one of the breakaway Southern states that fought in the American Civil War of the 1860s, follows the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed in police custody in Minnesota.

By Brendan O'Brien

(Reuters) - Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill into law on Tuesday that replaces the current state flag bearing a Confederate emblem, a gesture triggered by support across the United States to dismantle symbols of slavery and racism.

The removal of the flag, a long-simmering source of controversy in one of the breakaway Southern states that fought in the American Civil War of the 1860s, follows the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed in police custody in Minnesota.

His death has sparked nationwide protests against racial injustice and police brutality, and revived demands for the removal of statues of Confederate leaders, Christopher Columbus and others considered symbols of racism and colonial oppression.

"I understand the need to commit the 1894 flag to history and find a banner that is a better emblem for all Mississippi," Reeves said in a televised speech. "We must understand that all who want change are not attempting to erase history."

The measure signed by Mississippi's first-term Republican governor also created a commission to design a new state flag. Voters will have the chance to approve the design in November, Reeves' office said in a statement.

After the signing of the bill, a Mississippi state flag was removed from an array of flags of all states in the Dirksen tunnel at the U.S. Capitol, NBC said, citing a video.

The emblem was replaced with the Great Seal of Mississippi, portraying an eagle with spread wings and a shield with stars and stripes centered on its chest.

The state flag, which prominently features the so-called Confederate battle flag, had flown above the state Capitol building in Jackson for 126 years. It was taken down this weekend after state lawmakers approved the bill, media said.

In the 19th century, southern states faced with the prospect of having to give up slavery formed the Confederacy and broke away from the United States, leading to the Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865.

Symbols of the failed rebellion were erected throughout the South during the years of racial segregation and violence known as the Jim Crow era. Despite years of progress and civil rights for Black Americans, many states resisted removing them.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Additional reporting by Maria Ponnezhath; Editing by Grant McCool and Clarence Fernandez)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Lindsey Wasson SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle authorities moved on Wednesday to dismantle a protest zone that the city's police chief derided as 'lawless and brutal' and which had prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to call for action against demonstrators.

By Lindsey Wasson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle authorities moved on Wednesday to dismantle a protest zone that the city's police chief derided as "lawless and brutal" and which had prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to call for action against demonstrators.

Officers, clad in helmets and extra protective gear, entered the "autonomous zone" early and by mid-morning had arrested 31 people for failure to disperse, assault and other alleged crimes. One man was detained with a metal pipe and kitchen knife, according to the police department's Twitter feed.

Police moved to retake the zone after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan declared the gathering in and around the police department's East Precinct and Cal Anderson Park an "unlawful assembly," the police chief, Carmen Best, said in a statement that highlighted a recent spate of shootings.

Harry "Rick" Hearns, a protester who said he volunteered to provide armed security at CHOP for 24 straight days, told Reuters he supported the police crackdown "1,000 percent." He said he blamed the violence on outsiders who had marred an otherwise successful month-long occupation.

"The outsiders come in with guns, violence, rocks, sticks," said Hearns, 59. "We don't represent violence. People brought that to us."

Police were walking in and out of the precinct on Wednesday, re-establishing control. Weeks earlier, they abandoned the building following clashes with protesters in the wake of the May 25 killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of that city's police.

Floyd's death triggered a nationwide wave of largelly peaceful demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality, giving rise in Seattle to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone east of downtown.

"The CHOP has become lawless and brutal. Four shootings -- two fatal -- robberies, assaults, violence and countless property crimes have occurred in this several-block area," Best said in a statement.

Trump has been demanding that local authorities eject the protesters which he labeled "domestic terrorists". Conservative pundits have pointed to the zone in Seattle to support an argument that protests across the country were less peaceful than they were generally being portrayed.

Seattle police officers in black armored vehicles and officers in helmets carrying batons patrolled the perimeter of the area that was barricaded with spraypainted plywood, some marked with phrases like "All Lives Don't Matter Until Black Lives Matter" and "RIP E Precinct."

Bicycle police employed three dozen bikes to create a barricade at East Pike and 12th Avenue, allowing city crews to take down protesters' tents. Some officers sipped Starbucks' coffee, evidence the operation had so far met no serious resistance.

"Officers continue to give dispersal orders and are checking Cal Anderson restrooms," the police department said. "Thank you to the individuals affiliated with the CHOP who have assisted officers in encouraging people to safely leave the area."

The zone has become less crowded and active over the past several days. Crowds that came by the thousands to listen to speeches about police brutality and marvel at street art commemorating black lives have disappeared, as have medic stations and multiple free food tents.

Businesses in the area, a trendy neighborhood of hipster bars and boutiques, have been pushing for a tougher stance by authorities. Attorneys have filed two class action lawsuits against the City of Seattle, including one aimed at preventing city and state leaders from allowing establishment of "lawless autonomous zones" in the future.

(Reporting by Lindsey Wasson in Seattle, Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bernadette Baum and David Gregorio)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Jan Wolfe (Reuters) - Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of the late accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested in the United States on Thursday on charges of helping to lure underage girls who were then sexually abused by Epstein. Maxwell has kept a low profile since the death in August of Epstein, a financier who was accused of raping and trafficking underage girls over nearly two decades

By Jan Wolfe

(Reuters) - Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of the late accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested in the United States on Thursday on charges of helping to lure underage girls who were then sexually abused by Epstein.

Maxwell has kept a low profile since the death in August of Epstein, a financier who was accused of raping and trafficking underage girls over nearly two decades. Some of Epsteins alleged victims have said Maxwell lured them into his circle, where they were sexually abused by him and powerful friends.

Here are some facts about her.

- Maxwell, 58, has been accused in court filings of facilitating a sex-trafficking operation that brought girls to Epstein's opulent Manhattan home, but she had not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. Her lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

- Maxwell was an ex-girlfriend of Epstein who became a longtime member of his inner circle. In a 2003 Vanity Fair article, Epstein was quoted as saying Maxwell was his best friend.

- She is the daughter of late British media magnate Robert Maxwell, who founded a publishing house and owned tabloids including the Daily Mirror. It emerged after Robert Maxwell's mysterious death in 1991 that he had looted hundreds of millions of dollars from employee pension funds to prop up his crumbling business empire.

- In the early 1990s, Ghislaine Maxwell moved to New York, where she worked selling real estate. Around that time she began her romantic relationship with Epstein, a financier who lived in a lavish style and attended high society parties.

- Some of Epstein's alleged victims have said Maxwell lured them into his circle, where they were sexually abused by him and powerful friends.

- In 2013 and 2014, Maxwell spoke at the United Nations in her capacity as the founder of the TerraMar Project, an oceanic conservation group.

- Maxwell largely disappeared from public view in 2016 and was particularly elusive after Epstein was charged with sex trafficking.

- The Washington Post reported in August that neighbors said Maxwell had been living in a secluded oceanfront mansion in Massachusetts owned by a technology entrepreneur, Scott Borgerson, who declined to tell the newspaper whether Maxwell had lived there with him.

- A British tabloid, The Sun, said in November that it was offering a 10,000 pounds reward for information on Maxwell's whereabouts.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Alistair Bell and Nick Macfie)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound financial impact on nearly every industry in the global economy.

Restaurants and food service companies, in particular, have been deeply affected by stay-at-home and quarantine orders. Research from the US-based National Restaurant Association found that US restaurants alone lost an estimated $120 billion in sales from March through May. The restaurant industry lost more in sales and employees than any other US industry, and 75% of restaurants surveyed do not expect to be profitable this year without government help, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Kathy Lockhart, CPA, CGMA, is dealing with that devastation every day. In her role as controller and vice-president of Noodles & Company, a publicly traded Colorado-based fast casual restaurant chain, shes responsible for loss prevention, risk management, US Securities and Exchange Commission reporting, tax and payroll, and restaurant accounting. She is also an executive committee member of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants Americas Regional Advisory Panel.

But perhaps her most significant role in light of the pandemic is as head of the companys crisis management team.

The beginning of 2020 looked as if it would be Noodles best year yet. Sales and revenue were up, and the company was growing. Then the coronavirus hit. In the last three months, Lockhart has dealt with the closing of all the dining rooms at Noodles 458 US locations, the rapid development and roll-out of a new sales app, the furloughing of employees, and a significant drop in first-quarter sales and revenue. Noodles & Company is now in the process of reopening many locations dining rooms.

FM spoke to Lockhart recently about how finance helped the organisation respond to the crisis, why collaboration was so important, and what the future holds for finance at Noodles & Company.

(This interview has been lightly edited and sequenced for clarity.)

What were the first signs you noticed that COVID-19 might be a problem for your organisation?

We saw some of the closures happening in restaurant companies internationally, and it was moving fast. I just wanted to learn more about it. Weve had H1N1, SARS, MERS, and the bird flu come to the United States, but they definitely didnt have a significant impact on the restaurant business. And this one felt like we saw our comrades closing their international locations for long periods of time. That was happening with Starbucks specifically about that time. And we were like, Oh, we should probably pay attention to this and at least be ready. That was our thing. Lets just be ready for this. Well, we didnt even have a chance to get ready, and it was there.

What immediate actions did the finance department take in the beginning of the crisis?

It was a stomach-drop moment. In the midst of all those things that were going on, were sitting in the background and were like, We have just lost a tremendous amount of sales in two short weeks, and with closing our dining rooms, we knew we needed to immediately address our cash burn. In the first two periods of the second quarter, our sales plummeted by 47% and 29%.

So, in that time frame we were looking at, how could we save money? What we could do on the cash burn and modelling every scenario under the sun. The hardest thing I think is, what were our sales going to be? Once 13 March hit and our sales just started to tank. How do you figure out what your cash burn is? Because thats what the investors wanted to know.

The other thing we did was we moved all of our vendors immediately to 60 days, and we didnt pay rent that first weekend of April. That was standard. You saw everybody across industry do that.

And like many others, we drew down on our line. We have to be able to say that were going to be solvent for 12 months, which, luckily for us, we are. And weve communicated that by working with the banks and working with the auditors. EY asked us for the normal assurances that we would meet our bank covenants for the next 12 months, and that means we have to have a cash forecast. We need to know whether theyre going to give us leeway on our covenants or not. So its just modelling, modelling, modelling.

At the board level, they started having a meeting every week where they were looking at cash and looking at forecasts, and we were updating the forecast daily and trying to figure it out however we could.

What did that crisis response and the constant need for real-time scenario planning and forecasting teach you?

When you think about it, thats the difference between accounting and finance. Finance really understands the P&L. What they dont understand is the balance sheet. And so it was a good exercise. We spent a couple really long weekends working on how we could all collaborate and ensure the balance sheets impact on cash was properly reflected. Its amazing how companies dont really care about the balance sheet as long as theyre generating cash. We hadnt paid attention to the balance sheet for a while, so we really had to partner together and look at the balance sheet to see how that was going to impact everything.

The hardest thing about that was where we ended up with our base case. What does that base case look like? Our goal, after we had done all our borrowings from the bank, was to make sure that we still had cash in 12 to 18 months. Youre trying to turn those numbers out as fast as possible and as accurate as possible to show these worst-case scenarios to the board.

The nice thing about my role is I worked closely with the CFO and the folks in finance, and Im not that far away from that kind of modelling. Im the one that does all the relationships with the banking and the debt. Im involved in whats being presented to them and all the modelling that goes along with that.

How does this crisis change finances role in your organisation moving forward?

Heres whats interesting about that. I worked for a couple of bankrupt companies, and when you go bankrupt, it feels almost the same as this. You have to manage cash every day. Youre managing your vendors, and everythings kind of funnelling through our department.

I dont think thats healthy for the business because I think our role should be a support role. We should know whats going on and be able to give you an accurate estimate of whats going to happen. From a finance side, like forecasts, and then from an accounting side, this is what its going to look like on your P&L, so we dont have any surprises.

So that means we have to continue to just be partners. But I want to be partners as a business partner, not front and centre. So, I hope that we go back to more of a role where we were before because it worked well for us at Noodles. People respect our roles and come to us a lot.

What are your priorities moving forward?

Ive been in charge of the crisis team for a while, and I think people get complacent about the crisis team. I think that is going to change. I want to plan in advance in the hopes that I can keep my team members safe  thats our number one goal  and protect our property and protect our business, and try not to be devastated by the next thing that comes along.

I think we can also refocus on important things. How can we streamline to make things better? I asked my team to look at every process [and] tell me what we need to do to make them better. We put together a whole list of those projects. My team has a big focus on really looking at automation now.

[We are] really also trying to get more normalised. We still have a lot of pressure on us to produce the results and talk about that. But somehow I need to get my team back to normal. Normal schedules, normal vacations, [and] even if theyre staying home, just take a break.

 Drew Adamek is an FM magazine senior editor. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact him at Andrew.Adamek@aicpa-cima.com.
Xiaomi just announced its flagship Mi TV Lux series 65-inch 4K OLED TV with ultra narrow bezels, 4.6mm sleek metal frame and 98.8% screen-to-body ratio, as it had promised. It has industry-leading screen self-luminous technology that does not require the backlight of traditional LCD screens, and has precise light control capabilities. It offers 1000 nits peak brightness and close to 0 nits for black areas, shows 1.07 billion primary colours that is far more rich than recognizable by the human eye. The TV offers 98.5% DCI-P3 wide colour gamut, 120Hz high refresh rate, MEMC motion compensation and response time of just 1ms along with gaming mode, offering the best gaming experience.

The AI master engine offers pixel-level dynamic picture quality adjustment, which is achieved by independent APU neural network computing unit for intelligent analysis, identification, and optimization of the picture. It has 20+ image quality algorithms and 5 major scene synchronization adjustment done frame by frame. The screen can also be used as a message board. It supports one-touch screen mirroring from the phone with NFC metal Bluetooth voice remote control. The TV has transparent glass base and breathing light.

It offers 3D panoramic sound system and ultra-wide frequency range is as low as 50Hz and as high as 20kHz. It comes with Dolby Atmos 2.1.2 theater-level sound arrangement structure with 9-unit speaker offering 65W total output power. The TV has built-in super-submersible subwoofer with 1.9L large sound cavity that brings excellent 50Hz low frequency performance and reverb atmosphere. There is dome reflection technology that is achieved using two 10w surround sound speakers by reflecting the sound to the ceiling to form a 3D space surround sound.

Mi TV Lux (65) specifications

65-inch (3840  2160 pixels) 4K OLED display with 178-degree viewing angle, 98.5% DCI-P3 Color Gamut, 1000 nits peak brightness, 1000000:1 contrast ratio, HDR 10+, MEMC, Dolby Vision, 1ms response time

Quad-Core Cortex A73 MediaTek MT9650 processor with Mali-G52 MC1 GPU

Professional game mode, Automatic low latency mode (ALLM),1ms instantaneous response, DC dimming, variable refresh rate (VRR) avoid s picture delays, tears, and freezes

3GB RAM,32GB storage

Patchwall

WiFi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, 3 x HDMI 2.1 (including HDMI eARC), 2 x USB, S/PDIF, Ethernet

MPEG1/2/4, H.264, H.265, etc.

65W speakers (212.5W left and right channels, 210W surround channels, 20W 50Hz ultra-low frequency subwoofer, 2.1.2 Dolby Atmos, DTS audio, Dolby Audio, 4-mic array for Xiao AI

The Mi TV Lux 65-inch OLED TV is priced at 12999 yuan (US$ 1840 / Rs. 1,38,830 approx.) and will go on sale in China from tomorrow, July 3rd.

Source
As promised a few days back, the bubble support is rolling out on Google Messages beta in Android 11 through a server-side update. Similar to Facebook Messenger, a bubble will appear on the screen if the message comes up with a photo of the person or the first letter if there is no photo.

This was initially reported by user u/blackops01 on the Android Beta subreddit, whereas another Reddit u/fg2srt4 confirmed that the feature has started working for them.

This feature helps you respond and engage with important conversations without switching back and forth between your current task and the messaging app.

Tapping the bubble will reveal the messages and other features including calling, messaging, and video calling (Google Duo) options. Also, options to turn off bubbles from this app as well. Furthermore, theres also a search and an overflow menu for Details, Archive, and Delete.

You can sign-up for the Google Messages beta (version 6.3+) here or directly on the Play Store listing to access bubbles today.

Source | Via
Dominion Energy (NYSE:D) hit a major legal wall as it sought to complete a big capital project. It was a long, drawn-out fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court, but the battle is now over. Here's what happened and what it means for Dominion's multibillion-dollar Atlantic Coast Pipeline project.

The project and the fight

To simplify things a bit, natural gas has increasingly been used to replace coal in the nation's electric power grid. It's a cleaner-burning fuel, and considered a transition energy source as the world shifts toward less carbon-intensive power. But the real push was economic, since building and operating a natural gas power plant has been very cheap lately because of low fuel costs.

The problem is that you can easily put coal on a truck or boat, you need pipelines to transport natural gas from where it's dug up to where it gets used. Building a pipeline is not an easy thing. That's been a problem for Dominion, which has material operations on the East Coast -- an area of the country with limited access to natural gas. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a project it is working on with similarly situated utility peer Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK), was meant to fix that. It's a 600 mile underground pipeline running from West Virginia, through Virginia, and ending finally in North Carolina. That's a lot of ground to cover, especially since environmentalists were searching every inch for a reason to stop the project.

An opportunity to stymie the pipeline arose because it was scheduled to pass beneath the Appalachian Trail. The dispute, which was a bit arcane, traveled all the way to the Supreme Court. The question was what legal entity got to decide whether the crossing, which represents just about 1/10th of a mile, was approved. Dominion said the U.S. Forest Service had the right to make the call, and the court agreed. This was the biggest obstacle facing the project, and now it's gone.

Now what happens

The easy next step is that Dominion puts a pipe under the Appalachian Trail. However, there's still a lot more work to be done. To put a timeline on it, the company expects to have the pipeline completed by the first half of 2022. That means there's roughly two years to go before the project is in service.

Along the way it needs to get additional approvals. It should get news from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service any day now. Note that the goal was a first half of 2020 approval, which appears to have been missed. In the second half of the year, Dominion is expecting key approvals from the Virginia Air Control Board. And it's also working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on additional permits. There will be environmental groups at every step of the way fighting against the pipeline. The pushback isn't expected to be as big an issue on any of these approvals.

Although the delays related to the Supreme Court case increased costs about 17% (roughly $1 billion), the company's most recent update on the project held the final tally steady at $8 billion. Still, there are some time-sensitive issues involved. For example, the permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will dictate whether Dominion can remove trees during a multimonth window that starts in November 2020, or if it will have to wait until, perhaps, November 2021 to begin the process. Obviously, if that approval is delayed, the project's completion date could get pushed back and costs will go up.

A big win, but not done yet

Dominion's Supreme Court win was a huge relief. If it had lost the case, there were other avenues to travel down, but they would have been even more complicated and time-consuming. For now, however, this multibillion-dollar project is back on track, which is very good news for Dominion and its shareholders. That said, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is far from complete. With that giant hurdle behind it, investors can breathe easier, but it's still important to keep an eye on the project's progress even as the company's newer, clean-power capital investments start to grab headlines.
SoftBank Group (OTC:SFTB.Y), a Japanese telecom company that expanded into a diversified conglomerate with investments across the technology, energy, and financial sectors, has been a volatile stock in recent years.

The bulls were impressed by its $100 billion tech-focused Vision Fund, which it co-owns with other major investors. SoftBank also acquired chip designer ARM Holdings in 2016, and merged its subsidiary Sprint with T-Mobile earlier this year.

The bears often highlight the messy performance of SoftBank's investments, including Uber's disappointing IPO and WeWork's failed IPO, the slow growth of its domestic telecom business, and the potential impact of the new Japanese recession.

Nonetheless, investors who stuck with SoftBank through all the peaks and troughs are sitting on a 70% gain over the past five years. Does this divisive stock still have room to run?

Simplifying SoftBank's sprawling business

SoftBank Group generates most of its revenue from five core segments: (1) the SoftBank Vision Fund and other SBIA (SoftBank Investment Advisers) managed funds; (2) SoftBank's core telecom business, which also trades separately as SoftBank Corp.; (3) chip designer ARM; (4) the cellular distribution service Brightstar; and (5) its other businesses. The group's total revenue rose 1.5% to 6.19 trillion yen ($56.8 billion) last year.

It generated 79% of its revenue from SoftBank Corp. The segment's revenue and net income grew 4% and 2.5%, respectively, fueled by the steady growth of its wireless, broadband, and internet-related businesses. The unit also streamlined its telco business by consolidating Yahoo Japan into a new company called Z Holdings, then merging it with messaging company LINE.

Unfortunately, the Vision Fund and SBIA unit racked up big losses due to misguided investments in Uber and WeWork, while lower licensing fees and royalty payments eroded ARM's profitability. Those headwinds resulted in a full-year net loss of 962 billion yen ($8.8 billion) -- compared to a profit of 1.4 trillion yen in 2018.

The road ahead

SoftBank Group didn't provide any guidance for the current year, but SoftBank Corp. expects its revenue to rise 1%, with 2.5% earnings growth -- which could ramp up the pressure on the group's weaker segments to pick up the slack.

SoftBank Group notably launched three 500 billion-yen ($4.6 billion) buybacks over the past three months to offset its losses from WeWork and Uber. Each of those aggressive buybacks could reduce its outstanding shares by nearly 5%.

However, it would have been wiser for SoftBank to conserve its cash to reduce the 13.1 trillion yen ($120 billion) in short- and long-term debt it was still shouldering at the end of March.

SoftBank also pays a dividend, but its low 0.8% yield won't win over income investors, and its high debt and lack of near-term profits could throttle its ability to raise its dividend.

SoftBank's stock is cheap for obvious reasons

SoftBank Group's stock looks cheap at just over 10 times forward earnings. However, it's cheap for two simple reasons: Its core Japanese market just entered a recession and other comparable stocks offer more value.

Investors looking for a better telecom stock should arguably stick with SoftBank Corp, which generates stronger stand-alone growth with a forward yield of 6%, or Verizon, which pays a 4.5% yield. Meanwhile, investors seeking a stronger portfolio of investments should take a closer look at Chinese tech giant Tencent instead.

SoftBank Group's growth might stabilize in the future, but its tepid growth, tiny dividend, high debt, and messy streak of investments don't make it a compelling buy right now.
A flurry of legal challenges is always a good reason for investors to be wary of a company. Even if the business is not in danger today, things could get worse down the road.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) falls into that category. Lawsuits related to its talc-based products and the company's role in the opioid crisis present some of the biggest risks to long-term investors. Although J&J may be able to manage those legal challenges today, that doesn't mean it always will. There's a real risk that as these fines pile up, they could end up bankrupting the company.

Company to pay $2.1 billion for talc-based products

Last month, J&J learned that it would have to pay $2.1 billion to women who said they contracted ovarian cancer as a result of using the company's talc-based products. There are two things to concern investors here. The first is that this relates to a verdict from 2018 that involved just 22 women. The second is that the amount was reduced upon appeal -- the initial verdict was for J&J to pay a staggering $4.7 billion. The $2.1 billion charge is less than half of that total, partly because the Missouri court did not include some out-of-state plaintiffs.

Of the total fine, $1.6 billion is related to punitive charges. The appeals court had a scathing opinion of the company, stating that "viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we find plaintiffs proved with convincing clarity that defendants engaged in outrageous conduct because of an evil motive or reckless indifference."

J&J can handle these fines, for now

As bad as a $2.1 billion fine sounds, it's going to have a limited effect on a company that in 2019 recorded a profit of $15.1 billion and had $19.9 billion in free cash flow.

But that can change in a hurry, especially if the courts aren't convinced that J&J has been doing a good job of protecting its customers, as the recent Missouri ruling suggests. And there are many more cases that are likely to come forward, with more than 19,000 current lawsuits related to its talc products and their role in causing cancer. The legal issues have even been impacting demand for the company's products.

In May, the company announced that it would no longer sell its talc-based baby powder in Canada and the U.S., saying that demand "has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising."

Management says that this would affect just 0.5% of its U.S. Consumer Health segment. In 2019, that segment contributed $5.8 billion in sales -- a little more than 7% of J&J's total revenue of $82.1 billion.

Why J&J will see larger fines in the future

The bigger blow could come in the way of larger penalties and awards to plaintiffs. Last month, drug company Bayer settled lawsuits related to its weed-killing product Roundup, which is made by the company's subsidiary, Monsanto. The settlement could result in Bayer paying as much as $10.9 billion. Consumers have claimed that Roundup causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In that settlement, there were about 125,000 claims; the settlement even included a $1.25 billion penalty for possible future litigation. If J&J looks to settle the thousands of claims it's facing, it'll also pay a hefty price.

J&J could also see larger fines related to its involvement in the opioid crisis. In November, an Oklahoma judge ordered the company to pay $465 million related to the state's opioid problem. In January, the state of Washington state also filed a lawsuit against J&J related to opioids. According to the Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2018, opioid-related overdose deaths in Oklahoma were among the lowest in the country, at 7.8 per 100,000 people. Washington's death rate of 9.4 was higher, but still nowhere near West Virginia's. That state had the highest rate at 42.4. If states with more devastating opioid problems follow suit and go after J&J, the fines could get a whole lot more expensive for the New Jersey-based company.

Should investors be worried?

It's still far too early to know how all of these lawsuits will play out. It's unlikely they will entirely bankrupt the company, simply given its size and how profitable it is. Even though Bayer was facing hundreds of thousands of lawsuits, it came away with a relatively modest penalty.

There's no formula or multiple that can help predict how much J&J will have to pay out over the years due to the lawsuits it's facing. But one thing's for sure: The more lawsuits the company faces, the more likely its financials will take a big hit sooner or later. And that could impact the stock price and potentially even J&J's dividend, which the Dividend King's hiked for 58 years in a row.

J&J's still a safe stock for now, but I'd be wary of buying and forgetting about this one. There are better yields out there that aren't as risky for dividend investors to hold on to.
DAPHNE, Ala. (WALA)  For months, Baldwin County was a strange anomaly when it came to the novel coronavirus, but the days of single-digit daily increases are over.

That Baldwin long avoided a major outbreak puzzled public health experts given that neighboring Mobile County led the state in COVID-19 cases for several weeks.

At 194.9 cases per 100,000 residents, Baldwin still ranks among the least-infected counties in the state on per capita basis. But when the Alabama Department of Public Health unveiled its new color-coded risk indicator dashboard this week, Baldwin was red. That represents a very high risk, the most severe of the four colors.

Zach Hood, Baldwins Emergency Management Agency director, told FOX10 News on Wednesday that the new rating merits attention from local residents.

Everyone should understand what that graphic means, he said. What does it mean? Learn how to interpret these graphics.

The reason why Baldwin appears in red is the spike that has occurred in the last two weeks. In that time, Baldwin added 309 new cases, about 45 percent of its total coming in just the last 14 days. It has recorded a double-digit increase nine days in a row after having fewer than 10 new cases a day all but four days through mid-June.

By contrast, Mobile County  where new cases have slowed  is one level down in orange.

Hood said the trend is concerning as the Independence Day holiday approaches.

As far as case counts go, being high and Fourth of July, we are concerned with the fact that those numbers are high going into a busy  if not the busiest  time of year for Baldwin, he said. And what we want to make sure is that individuals are aware of the higher risk category that public health has put us in for the time being.

Hood, whose agency helps coordinate the distribution of masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment from a national stockpile, said some area health care facilities still face a shortage of those items.

Included in the Health Departments new risk assessment is a long list of recommendations for each color rating. For instance, the department recommends for counties labeled red:

That children not be allowed on public playgrounds and to limit other interactions between children.

That adults work from home, if possible.

That people wear face coverings when six feet of separation is not possible  even when visiting friends and family.

That groups be limited to no more than 20 people.

That people consider ordering takeout or delivery instead of dining in restaurants.

Hood said the holiday presents special challenges.

Obviously, tourism is huge here, he said. And what we know, based on whats set up this weekend is that we are set to have a very busy weekend.

Beyond the holiday, Hood noted, the Blue Angels recently announced that to ensure social distancing, it will spread crowds out between Pensacola and Orange Beach for its annual show this summer.

And because of that, theres more interest in Alabama beaches, he said. I mean, you know, people want to go catch a glimpse of the, not only enjoy the Fourth of July weekend but also the Blue Angels in town coming up next week.

Hood, who has regular conversations with administrators of the countys three hospitals, said current capacity is in pretty good shape. He said that early in the pandemic, when Baldwin had few cases and emergency room visits for other reasons were way down, there was more empty space than normal.

Now, Hood said, occupancy has risen to typical levels. But he said officials are mindful of the potential.

We see that the numbers are rising, he said. We see that weve had a spike. Its there. The evidence is there.
GULF SHORES, ALA. (WALA)- Every Fourth of July, people rush to Alabama beaches. This year, theres an added threat coming with the crowds: coronavirus.

Gulf Shores and Orange Beach officials said they will continue to do what they've done since beaches reopened, make sure small groups stay 6-feet apart, the best they can.

Vacationers and locals FOX10 News spoke to, said they're not worried about the virus, holiday crowd or not.

Savanna Brown, who works in Gulf Shores said, Were just beaching. Having a good time.

Tony Davis, from Georgia said, Im hanging Out with family. Some of my former coworkers and were just having fun.

Alabama cases hit more than 38,000.

Jamee Hall said, Im not worried at all."

Local Cade McCauley said, You can see were spaced out correctly.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey kept the safer at home order in place, meaning limited capacity at bars and restaurants and people should stay 6-feet away from others on the beach.

A Gulf Shores spokesperson said they will patrol the beaches to make sure people stay apart but if they run into any problems, theyll call the police department.

If a group or person doesn't obey the authorities, a citation with a fine of up to $500 could be given. Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon and a Gulf Shores spokesperson said, since beaches opened back up in May, they havent had to give anyone more than a warning to keep their distance.

COVID-19 impacted the city of Gulf Shores, canceling their fireworks show.

A city spokesperson said a lifeguard has the virus and city hall is shut down as two city employees also tested positive. A warning that the virus is still here, holiday weekend or not.
(CNN) -- Greg Glassman is selling CrossFit, following intense backlash over his response to the death of George Floyd and the anti-racism movement sweeping the country.

The move, which comes just two weeks after resigning from his post as chief executive, marks a more complete departure for Glassman from CrossFit. Glassman founded the company two decades ago, and it has since grown into one of the world's most recognizable chain of gyms (or "boxes" as they're called in the CrossFit community).

"It did so well and became so popular that it has become a thing far larger than I could have hoped," Glassman said in a statement on Twitter Wednesday. "The world has changed, but the magnificent human machine, the proven benefits of CrossFit, and its market opportunity remain unchanged. It is time for the founder to bid adieu and find other creative outlets."

Glassman is selling the privately-held company to Eric Roza, the owner of CrossFit Sanitas gym in Boulder, Colorado. Roza will also become CrossFit's CEO, taking over from Dave Castro, who was named chief executive in the wake of Glassman's resignation earlier this month.

The financial terms of the sale were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close next month.

The sale comes after weeks of controversy for CrossFit and Glassman.

Gyms  which pay an annual fee to CrossFit to use the brand -- saidthey began dropping their affiliations after requests for the company to speak up in support of the Black Lives Matter movement went unanswered.

On a June 6 call with gym owners, Glassman said CrossFit leadership was "not mourning for George Floyd," according to a recording of the call obtained by CNN Business. Several hours later, Glassman posted a string of controversial tweets referencing Floyd's death and the coronavirus pandemic, sparking online outrage.

In the following days, hundreds more gyms dropped their affiliation with the company, and CrossFit lost major corporate sponsors including Reebok and Rogue Fitness.

Some in the CrossFit community have also claimed the company was rife with sexism, according to reporting by the New York Times.

Roza addressed the issues in a statement posted to Twitter Wednesday announcing his acquisition of the company.

"In the past weeks, divisive statements and allegations have left many members of our community struggling to reconcile our transformative experiences in the local box with what we've been reading online," Roza said. "My view is simple: Racism and sexism are abhorrent and will not be tolerated in CrossFit. We open our arms to everyone, and I will be working hard to rebuild bridges with those whose trust we have lost."
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) -- More federal money is coming to Nevada to help address the coronavirus pandemic.

Nevada U.S. Attorney Nicholas A. Trutanich announced Thursday that the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs awarded the state nearly $11.6 million in grant funding.

This funding will help Nevada respond to public safety challenges posed by COVID-19, including assisting agencies with meeting the needs of their officers and communities, Trutanich said in a statement. We appreciate OJPs support in making these resources available to our state.

FEMA approves $1.1M grant for PPE in Nevada The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced Thursday the approval of $1.1 million to reimburse Nevada for the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE).

FEMA also announced Thursday the approval of $1.1 million to purchase personal protective equipment for Nevada agencies.

The money will go to various cities, police departments and public safety agencies around the state. The grant was part of the Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding program, recently signed by President Donald Trump. State, local and tribal governments were eligible to apply.

Recipient Award Amount
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GREENVILLE, SC (FOX Carolina)- The Greenville City Police Department says they arrested a suspect after one person was killed during a fatal shooting on Saturday on Jenkins Street.
Keep the conversation about local news & events going by joining us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Recent updates from The News-Post and also from News-Post staff members are compiled below.
San Diego resident Chris Chapman, a white woman and a Democrat, said witnessing George Floyds death was particularly jarring for her.

I think the brutality of that event, it really raised the consciousness, at least for me, Chapman, 68, said. It shocked people who really hadnt yet gotten to the place where they thought that could happen.Most white Democrats say that they disapprove of President Donald Trumps handling of racial issues and that he has only sowed further division at a time of immense unrest. Trump on Sunday tweeted and later deleted a video showing one of his supporters chanting white power, a racist slogan associated with white supremacists.

But the big question is whether this racial awakening among white Democrats translates into increased turnout at the polls favoring presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, said Ashley Jardina, assistant professor of political science at Duke University and author of the book White Identity Politics.

Are they going to take the time to actually show up and vote? Jardina said. Thats what we dont know,and thats whats really important.
We are cautiously optimistic that we may be seeing lower rates of new cases, as our case counts for the last several days have been low and our hospitalization numbers have also seen a decrease, said Allison BalmesJohn, spokesperson for the local district.

She emphasized her optimism was tempered with caution, particularly given the dramatic rise in cases that has been seen in other parts of the country. Case numbers are surging in states such as Florida and North Carolina, Texas and Arizona, where many restrictions have been lifted, and people have returned to gatherings in levels not seen before the global pandemic.

With the upcoming Fourth of July holiday, local health officials encourage people to enjoy the break, but to remain careful.

When people are together in close proximity, we know it can cause a surge in positive cases, said David McKnight, CEO of Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center. I know everybody, myself included, wants to be with family and friends, but we have to keep it as small as possible. We can have fun and still be cautious.

BalmesJohn stressed the continued need for social distancing, wearing a mask and washing hands frequently. If you are feeling sick, please stay home, she said.
Crawford suffered cuts and minor injuries from the car crash, but he remained calm as he was pulled from the car, Cicero said. It was only when he was placed in the back of a cruiser before he was evaluated by paramedics that he became agitated and kicked at the window cage and roof liner of the car, damaging the cruiser.
The Rappahannock United Way expects its ALICE Assistance Fund to be depleted by the fall, RUW president Janel Donohue said this week.

ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. It refers to individuals and families who are working but are unable to save and are often just one emergency away from a financial crisis.

For many in the Fredericksburg-area ALICE population, COVID-19 has been that one emergency.

Over the past three months alone, Rappahannock United Ways ALICE Assistance Program has provided $30,398 in financial aid to struggling households, a press release from the organization states. The funds have been given to help with rent and mortgage payments, utility bills and transportation costs.

About two-thirds of the funds have been provided to families in Spotsylvania and Stafford counties, according to the press release. Twenty-two percent of the money has been used in the city of Fredericksburg, 8 percent in Caroline County and 6 percent in King George County.

Donohue said calls for assistance increase every day and are only expected to grow. RUW is asking the community to help support these families by contributing to the ALICE Assistance Fund.
Diana Madison was on northbound I-95 heading home to Orange County from Virginia Beach when she pulled up to the strange scene, where she saw a towel covering an animal and thought someones dog might have been hit. The incident happened in the southbound lanes, but impacted traffic in each direction.

Then it turned its face and I saw it and said, What the hell? You dont expect to see a pig, she said. After I saw the first one, I didnt know if it was a wild hog or if somebodys pet got lose.

Madison also saw more hogs, four in all. And they werent little potbellied pigs, but instead the kind of hulking swine that turn up at fairs.

Madison said about 10 people, including several motorists who had pulled over to help as well as Animal Control deputies, were giving aid to the hogs.

Some people were with the hog on the ground, which looked to be covered with a wet towel. Others had put a leash around one of the hogs to keep it from running onto the interstate. Another hog looked seriously injured and couldnt get up, she said, while a fourth had what she described as road rash.

From the back seat, her 2-year-old daughter, Bella, said: Poor piggy, piggy crying.
BLACKSBURG  Virginia Tech is seeking a refund for more than $60,000 worth of COVID-19 antibody tests it purchased from Chembio Diagnostic Systems in late April.

The Food and Drug Administration recalled the test on June 16 due to performance concerns with the accuracy of the test, according to a release put out by the agency. The tests were designed to detect antibodies indicating a persons exposure to the coronavirus.

Chembios product was one of the first antibody tests authorized by the FDA, but further testing conducted on the kits found they generated a higher than expected rate of false results. The FDA website lists more than 40 COVID-related tests that should be removed from the market.

The Schiffert Health Center purchased 100 kits from the New York-based Chembio  each kit included 20 individual tests  at $600 apiece. It also purchased two micro readers to process the tests at $799 each.

Mark Owczarski, Virginia Techs assistant vice president of university relations, declined to say if the tests were intended for faculty, staff or students  Tech wanted to have them on hand should the need arise  but he did confirm that none were used before being recalled.
The double standard here is unfortunate: protesters want to raise awareness of historically oppressed populations while simultaneously green-lighting that it is still OK to marginalize Italian Americans as symbolized through their statue to the great Italian explorer.

Archaeologists say context is everything, but for woke activists, any suggestion that a statue somehow represents a racist past alone is enough to prompt vandalism.

Educatorsincluding law professorshave an obligation to teach our youth that our history and the contributions of those who have merited statues is far more complicated, rich and meaningful than assessments based solely on views about race. America did not become a great nation in spite of Columbus, but rather because he took high risks to introduce to the Americas positive aspects of Western civilization, the rule of law and the Gospel.

Of course, America has a racist past, and much has yet to be done, but statues of Columbus should also remind us of how the struggles of our historical heroes also helped make much of what is good in America today. Their memory should be treasured and respected, or at least placed in the proper context of the times in which they lived, not reviled and desecrated.
On June 1, the City of Fredericksburg received a $2.5 million CARES Act grant. On June 23, the City Council agreed to distribute a portion of the grant money to small businesses in the city during three random public drawings, based on their annual gross revenue in 2019 (less than $100K; between $100K and $350K; and over $350K but less than $2.5 million). A total of $250,000 was distributed to 107 small businesses in the first round.

To qualify, eligible businesses must be current on their city taxes, have documented expenses associated with the provision of economic support in connection with the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Getting federal aid to small businesses as quickly as possible is a good thing. However, the deadline for applications is July 6 at 5 p.m. (no exceptions)which is less than two weeks after the council meeting. Its a small quibble, but it would have been preferable to give business owners a little more time to apply.

The larger question is exactly how much of that $2.5 million federal grant will actually go to small businesses in Fredericksburg. The city has yet to release this information. Hopefully, mostif not allof the funds will be spent to help these struggling concerns get back on their feet.




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The couple soon did come toward the front desk but were intercepted by a pair of white employees, including the hotel general manager, who tried to talk to the couple before they pushed by to hit Caldwell and called her monkey, Strafaci said. Caldwell and a coworker tried to hide in a breakroom but were spotted by the couple while getting ice for Caldwells swollen eye and they attacked her again.
A celebration of life for Barabra Zackery, 79, of Gainesville, will be held at a later date. A full obituary will be published when service times have been scheduled. Barbara passed away on June 15, 2021 in Gainesville. You may sign the online registry at www.geojcarroll.com.
OneGuyGames is releasing #Funtime July 16, 2020 in partnership with The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild to Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam.





[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OneGuyGames is releasing #Funtime July 16, 2020 in partnership with The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild to Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam. SEATTLE, WA - July 1, 2020 - The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild announces collaborative release with OneGuyGames publishing '#Funtime' a neon twin-stick action shooter to all available platforms. Bright lights and space fights! Blast your way through grids of multicolored madness while changing color to adapt to your environment and overcome the digital hordes. Persistent ship upgrades will keep you going further and longer into the great unknown. OneGuyGames' singular employee Brandon Robinson describes #Funtime as "all about action. It's a high-score chasing twin-stick shooter with a color swapping mechanic thrown in to keep things fresh. Match the color of lasers or fire to avoid taking damage; color background tiles to destroy similarly colored enemies and receive triple the points. Take cover in safe zones of the same color. Each of these simple color interactions stack together to create a unique yet familiar arcade shooter experience." #Funtime is releasing internationally on July 16, 2020 on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam for $14.99USD. #Funtime is rated ESRB E/PEGI 3. This is the developer's first release and project collaboration with The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild. KEY FEATURES 100% Original Soundtrack with beat-synced levels

Color swapping mechanics

Deep scoring system and persistent upgrades

8 Distinct battle modes

Over 50 challenging levels with live leaderboards Can you survive the full spectrum of challenges, claim the high score, and show your dominance on the leaderboard? Find out today in #Funtime! Review tokens available upon request. Trailer: https://youtu.be/iKGJn_9q17U Nintendo America Store: https://www.nintendo.com/en_CA/games/detail/funtime-switch Xbox Store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/funtime/9pbw0rspj1kn Steam Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1100350/Funtime Look for #Funtime on the PlayStation store on July 16! OneGuyGames Twitter: https://twitter.com/_OneGuyGames Quantum Website: https://www.qag.io Quantum Twitter: https://twitter.com/QuantumApG Quantum Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuantumApG Press Contact: Cassie Hoglund Email: [email protected]; [email protected] Press Kit: https://www.qag.io/ft About The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild: The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild was founded in 2011 and received global critical acclaim for their early titles, 'The Bridge' and 'Tumblestone.' In 2019, the company broadened its focus to collaborating with indie developers publishing on PC and consoles. Given Quantum's experience as an indie dev, they strive never to offer deals they wouldn't accept themselves before becoming a publisher. The studio recently published 'Roundguard,' making it the fifth game in their library. You can look forward to award-winning games 'Sail Forth,' and 'Deleveled' among the many games releasing from Quantum this year. ####
Sellers offer their homes at below-market prices for any number of reasons. They may want to sell quickly. They may owe little or nothing on a property that has increased in value over the time theyve owned it, so undercutting the market isnt so painful. But they also may be unemployed and no longer able to handle their house payments.
Mark Buchfuhrer finally got his wish when his daughter decided to go to medical school and become a doctor, but that wasnt the end of the story.
The gate will open at 7 p.m. with movies showing at 9 or 9:30 p.m. The screen will be set up on the berm, which will provide plenty of elevation for the movies to be viewed from cars parked around it. They expect to be able to admit about 180 vehicles for each showing.

Its an LED screen so we dont have to wait until pitch dark to begin playing, Latimer said, adding that there will likely be advertisements for the sponsors before the movies begin.

Profits from the seven showings will be split equally between the two non-profit organizations.

Udell Engineering is helping plan the layout and handle some of the technical details. The organizations hired Swank Motion Pictures to coordinate the licensing process and help with the selection of the films.

It was not possible to pick films from the Disney catalog because of their proximity to theaters which are in business and they were also unable to select new releases.

We tried to stick with a blend of kids and family friendly movies, Grizzle said.
We will develop plans by program with flexibility built in, Mattingly said in his Q&A. Then IEP teams will make individual decisions based on the unique circumstances of that particular student and family.

Speaking particularly to therapies included in IEPs, Mattingly said, Speech services will be provided in a variety of ways from traditional, in person to full tele-therapy. We are still developing our plan for the fall but we know for sure that parents will not be expected to provide the service themselves and we will have options for kids to get services in person as well as options for families that prefer everything virtually.

The Corvallis School District is also bringing families into the fold concerning decisions about the fall for students who have special needs.

Special education coordinator Sabrina Alexander said the district regularly communicates with parents and will continue to do so throughout the planning process for fall.
Oregon State University has put the brakes on its plan to install its own armed campus security force.

OSU, which cut ties with the Oregon State Police last year in the wake of the controversial Genesis Hansen arrest, says it needs more time to set up its own security. Thus, the OSP will be retained through the end of the year. Wednesday was originally set as the transition day. The OSP is supported by unarmed OSU Department of Public Safety personnel.

We put on hold the development of OSUs law enforcement program and related hiring of personnel until we fully engage the community in dialogue and public safety design programs, said outgoing President Ed Ray in a university-wide email. At the same time, we must continue to protect the university community and provide emergency response to reported incidents on the Corvallis campus.

(New) President King Alexander and I agree it will take each member of the university community to achieve transformational reform, support Black Lives Matter and end systemic inequality and discrimination against the Black community and other communities of color. We ask that you join us in committing to action and persistence to provide equal opportunity and success for all faculty, staff and students.
Public health officials shut down indoor service for bars in Madison following surge of cases

MADISON

Public health officials overseeing the states largest college town issued an order shutting down indoor service in bars in Dane County ahead of the Fourth of July weekend after a surge of new cases of the coronavirus.

The new restrictions backtrack on plans to gradually reopen businesses in the area amid the pandemic and could trigger a legal challenge from bar owners.

At risk is UW-Madisons plan to welcome students back to campus this fall.

Jeff Pothof, UW Health chief quality and safety officer, said if local health officials dont try to stop the spread of the virus in Dane County, in-person instruction could be called off.

If were unable to get on top of this current spike and it continues to accelerate, we may be in a position where it wont make sense to be holding in-person classes, he said. It becomes a risk that most of us shouldnt be taking with our child care.

The new order closes indoor service in bars beginning today and limits the number of people who may eat inside restaurants to 25% capacity. Under the order, bars may keep their patios open if they have them.

For the past week, Dane County has seen a sustained, high number of cases. After consultation with our contact tracing team, gatherings and visits to bars and restaurants continue to be implicated in interviews with cases, Janel Heinrich, Director of Public Health Madison & Dane County, said in a statement.

We are acting now to immediately curb this increase in cases and protect the health and safety of our community.

Public health officials said since June 13, 614 people tested positive for coronavirus and half of them were between the ages of 18 and 29.

Multiple cases of the virus have been linked to businesses near the UW-Madison campus, local health officials said Thursday.

Jessie Steckling, a junior at UW-Madison, said some of her friends are frequenting bars near campus and that theres essentially no social distancing and that people walk around and mingle almost as normal.

Steckling said shes very worried about the current spike in cases and relieved by Wednesdays order. Two of her grandparents live in the area and go to grocery stores on a regular basis.

People have somehow not realized that this is a very real problem, and I think its easy to block out if you only socialize with other young people, she said.

But Scott Stenger, lobbyist for the Tavern League of Wisconsin, said public health officials are unfairly punishing bar owners and not taking into account the responsibility recent protests over police brutality might have in the surge.

To make out bars to be a scapegoat of an increase when youve had historic protests for three weeks straightit seems a bit irresponsible to not factor that in, Stenger said.

Heinrich said Wednesday only 12 people who tested positive reported having an association with a protest.

Its unclear whether contact tracers ask people who test positive whether they have attended a protest specifically.

Stenger said Monday bar owners might consider filing a lawsuit over the new shutdown but made the comments before outdoor seating was known to be allowed.

He said the Tavern League is open to any suggestions on how to keep businesses alive, including focusing on outdoor seating.

We lobbied to focus more on outdoor seating early on and we were not successful in that. But lets focus outside, Stenger said. That apparently is a better environment for costumers and employees to be in.

Dane Countys new limits on its bars comes the same day as Milwaukee increased capacity in theirs.

Bars were shuttered by Gov. Tony Evers in March as the virus began to spread in Wisconsin. They were able to reopen after a May Supreme Court ruling tossed out much of the governors orders.

But Dane County kept in place a local order to keep bars closed and just recently allowed the establishments to reopen at a reduced capacity. Stenger said bar owners and their employees cant continue without business.

We just cant survive any longer, he said.

Public health officials say bars are particularly problematic during the pandemic because patrons dont know with whom they are gathering closely.

Groups of people mix, bars are often loud spaces that require loud talking to communicate (which can spread infectious droplets farther), the officials said in a news release. Alcohol impairs the judgment of patrons, and people often are not able to identify or provide contact information for the people they were in close contact with.

The first case of the virus in Wisconsin was found in Madison in February, but the spread of the virus was controlled better in Dane County than all other counties with large populations.

Dane County was also the last county to begin to reopen its businesses after closures in March.

Wisconsin has seen 29,199 reported cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 786 deaths as of Wednesday, according to state health officials. The state had 6,110 active cases as of Monday, with 835 in Dane County. The number of infections is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected with the virus without feeling sick.

Madison Alderman Mike Verveer, who represents the downtown area, said he supports the order despite it likely harming businesses in his district.

He hasnt received any complaints from establishmentsyet. He said he expects some to be disappointed because they dont have the option for outdoor service and will be shuttered.

But he has heard from patrons who are worried about the campus area.

I think we need to follow the science, Verveer said. To state the obvious, the order would not have been issued but for the fact that weve seen clusters of positive cases in Dane County taverns.

Verveer helped launch the citys streatery program, where public and private property outside restaurants can be converted into dining space.

Put forward at the end of May through a mayoral emergency order, the program allows restaurants to expand outdoor dining onto the public sidewalks, on-street parking areas or in privately owned parking lots.

Verveer said it has been a lifeline to a lot of businesses that would otherwise be shuttered. And it could expand to bars, too.

The most densely populated student housing has seen the highest among the very highest of cases in last several days, according to Verveer.

Both the city and UW-Madison have similar orders in place to ensure people are distancing properly, which will be especially important come late August when the universitys 30,000 students return to campus.

We have been and will be working to ensure people are abiding by the campus order when they are on campus property, Marc Lovicott of UW-Madisons Police Department said. We have and will issue citations for blatant and/or multiple violations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The agriculture community is rallying to help kids who wont be able to show and sell their animals in a summer without the Rock County 4-H Fair.

The fair was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the meat animal sale for swine, sheep and steers will happen online thanks to Rock County Agriculture Youth Supporters and Badger State Auction.

Some kids already have sold their animals and arranged for butchering, so the virtual event will be only to raise money for youth exhibitors. No meat will be sold.

The sale is not to purchase the animal but to donate to the kids future education funds or to reinvest in animals for next year, said Leanne Hoffman with Rock County Agriculture Youth Supporters.

Kids who wish to participate can sign up at gazettextra .com/sale. Registration has been extended through 6 p.m. Monday.

Organizers are asking for one submission per child, not per animal, and hoping 150 to 200 youth participate.

Invitations were sent to 400 area buyers who typically frequent the sale, including longtime supporters such as Seneca Foods, Jakes Electric, E&D Waterworks and Woodmans Food Market.

Buyers can view auction items starting Wednesday, July 15, and bidding will be open from 8 a.m. Monday, July 27, through noon Friday, July 31.

In a normal year, about 500 animals are sold at the meat animal sale, Hoffman said. When COVID-19 hit, many farm families debated whether to take on the risk of raising animals.

After it was announced the fair was canceled, many youth rushed to get slaughter times booked. Some youth had trouble finding slots and had to book as far out as January, meaning they will have to keep their ever-growing meat animals longer, resulting in extra work and expense.

Some farm families might not be well-equipped for keeping their animals into the winter. With so many challenges, area farmers wanted to help.

The kids put a lot of hard work, passion and money into raising these animals every year. A fair share of the kids come from small family farms. It was definitely a risk that families took to purchase animals but worth the responsibility and work. As a community, so many have come together to provide other opportunities for these kids, which is outstanding, Hoffman said.

Although the event is not for buying meat, organizers have committed to helping youth find buyers and butchers if they need assistance.

Leanne Hoffmans daughtersAbbey Hoffman, 11, and Hailey Hoffman, 13each raised two pigs they had planned to show at the fair.

When the girls heard the fair was canceled, they were heartbroken. Hailey Hoffman had walked her pigs twice a day, getting up as early as 5 a.m. to tend to them.

These animals are like your best friend all summer long, Hailey Hoffman said.

In addition to the online sale to drum up funds, Jayson and Courtney Butts are planning a swine exposition; Rock County Beef Producers, a beef exposition; and Rock County Sheep Producers, a sheep exposition. The private shows, which will run July 28-30 on the fairgrounds, will be designed primarily for kids and their families to give youth the chance to get their animals judged.

Attendees will adhere to social-distancing requirements, and the hogs, for example, will be moved from the hog barn to stock pavilion for more space.

We are doing all we can to create an opportunity for those kids. This is one year theyll never get back, Jayson Butts said. When there are struggles, farmers rally together and the best happens.
BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The jurisdiction of the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) only targets the very few criminal cases that severely endanger national security, said a senior Chinese lawmaker on Wednesday.

Shen Chunyao, head of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, made the remarks at a press conference on the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which came into force Tuesday.

Under the law, the office shall exercise jurisdiction over a case concerning offence endangering national security, if: the case is complex due to the involvement of a foreign country or external elements, thus making it difficult for the HKSAR to exercise jurisdiction over the case; a serious situation occurs where the HKSAR government is unable to effectively enforce this law; or a major and imminent threat to national security has occurred.

"We are unwilling to see Hong Kong facing difficulties and major and imminent threats to national security, but institutional building must take all risks and factors into consideration," Shen said.

The initiating procedure of the jurisdiction of the office over cases that severely endanger national security in the HKSAR has very strict and specific stipulations, which are stipulated in Articles 55, 56 and 57 of the law, he said.

Such stipulations are a significant demonstration of the central government's overall governance over the HKSAR according to China's Constitution and the HKSAR Basic Law, and will better support the HKSAR's effective law enforcement and jurisdiction, according to Shen.
My reaction is that the president has made very clear he wants everybody to understand, and I think many Americans do understand the virus originated in China, said Conway on June 24 during a press conference covered by C-SPAN. And had China been more transparent and honest with the United States and the world, we wouldnt have all the death and destruction that unfortunately weve suffered.
Gillette, WY (82718)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. High 78F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 50F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
The public has been scrutinizing police responses since then. In Buffalo, dozens of officers in riot gear were widely condemned after a protesters was shoved to the ground so violently that he bled out the ears; lines of officers marched around and over him, offering no aid. But in Fort Lauderdale, Officer Krystle Smith won public praise for chasing away Officer Steven Pohorence after he pushed a kneeling protester to the ground.
Under state law, the General Assembly decides who can exercise absentee ballots. But Gov. Ned Lamont issued an emergency order on May 20 allowing anyone to vote absentee for the August 11, 2020 primary election if he or she is unable to appear at his or her polling place during the hours of voting because of the sickness of COVID-19. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, Connecticuts chief election officer, interpreted the order to mean that everyone can vote absentee in the primary.
Advocates rallied outside the Supreme Court in October, as justices considered whether protections against workplace sex discrimination covered LGBTQ workers. The court ruled June 22 that they do.
Glendale voters will be asked to approve a franchise agreement with EPCOR, which operates in the west part of Glendale.
Defeating Daesh Highlights of the Week July 1, 2020

U.S. Central Command

CJTFOIR

SOUTHWEST ASIA, July 1, 2020 -- Our partners in Iraq and Syria are leading the way to find and eliminate Daesh fighters and their finance, logistics, and media networks.

"The pace of operations to defeat Daesh remnants remains steady across Iraq and eastern Syria," said Col. Myles B. Caggins III, Coalition military spokesman. "The Coalition's security partners are making 'house calls' at the caves and wadis where ISIS terrorist hide. And, at the request of the Government of Iraq, the Coalition blasted ISIS bed down locations with F-15E, F-16, AC-130 aircraft, and drones."

During the week of June 24 - 30, 2020, the following actions happened in Iraq:

June 24: Iraqi Security Forces have concluded "Heroes of Iraq - Phase III", which was launched on June 22. The operation aimed at purging Daesh remnants over an area of (4,853) km2 to help secure and stabilize Salah Ad-Din province and adjacent geographic areas within Diyala, Samarra, and Kirkuk provinces. As a result of the operation: 89 villages were searched and cleared, 76 explosive devices were found and disposed of, and 11 tunnels, a boat and two vehicles were destroyed. Additionally, six explosive-manufacturing sites, 29 hideouts, two weapons caches, a trailer, one mortar round, four parachutes, 11 rockets, seven plastic containers filled with C4 explosives, six guns and three vehicles were found and seized. https://www.facebook.com/SecMedCell/posts/683015475814196

June 24: Under the guidance of the Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Mr. al-Kazemi, the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) with the support of the Iraqi Army Aviation and Coalition aircraft, launched an operation against terrorists' stronghold in the Qara Chokh Mountains near Makhmour district. The Iraqi Army Aviation and Coalition aircraft conducted a series of airstrikes to aid and support ICTS troops on the ground and contributed to the elimination of 12 enemy terrorists and the destruction of a number of Daesh caves and hideouts in the austere terrain area.

June 24: At the request of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command - Iraq, Coalition aircraft conducted airstrikes in support of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) ground operations. The airstrikes blasted Daesh hideouts in Makhmur Mountains, Ninawa province and in al-Kashafah village, Erbil Province. The Coalition will continue to help Iraqi Security Forces in the fight against Daesh.

https://www.inherentresolve.mil/Releases/News-Releases/Article/2234568/iraqi-security-forces-demolish-daesh-safe-havens-during-heroes-of-iraq-iii/

June 24: Based on intelligence, a force from the 20th Division carried out a search operation in Tal Nabat village, al-Qairawan sub-district, Sinjar district. A weapons cache containing 25 homemade explosive devices, remnants from the Daesh occupation, were found and subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Detachment.

June 24: Based on intelligence, troops from the 75th Brigade, 16th Division, in cooperation with the Military Intelligence Detachment, captured a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi judiciary in Hammam al-Alil district, south of Mosul. The captured terrorist had worked as a member of the so-called Daesh security group during Daesh occupation of the city.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1610740775767603

June 24: The 5th Infantry Division, Diyala Operations Command, in cooperation with the Diyala Police Directorate and Popular Mobilization Forces, conducted a search and clearance operation in the al-Sad line area along the Hawi al-Uzaim River to pursue terrorists, destroy their hideouts and impose security and stability in the area. Two safe houses containing a number of explosive devices were found and subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Detachment.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2886231671606319

June 24: The 16th Infantry Division, Ninawa Operations Command, in cooperation with the Ninawa Police Directorate and Popular Mobilization Forces conducted a search and clearance operation for areas between the crude oil line and the road linking Baghdad - Mosul - Atashana Mountains and west of Mosul. The operation aimed to dry up the sources of terrorism, arrest wanted criminals and improve stability in the area. As a result, a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary was captured, a Daesh safe house was found in the Sheikh Yunis mountain range and a number of mortar rounds were seized in the village of Tash. The safe house and the seized mortar rounds were subsequently destroyed.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2886226051606881

June 24: A force from the 2nd Regiment, 38th Infantry Brigade, 10th Division, Anbar Operations Command, captured a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary in 105Kilo area. Meanwhile, a force from the 2nd Regiment, Anbar Commando Brigade, found and seized a weapon cache, remnants from Daesh, in the al-Jeraeshi area during a search operation.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2886223138273839

June 25: In a continuation of counterterrorism efforts to dismantle terrorist networks, a joint force from the 1st and 2nd Special Operations Command, Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) carried out two intelligence-led operations in Anbar and Salah Ad-Din provinces. Six terrorists wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary were captured during the operations.

June 25 - 26: The Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) with the support of Iraqi Army Aviation and Coalition aircraft, conducted a special operation for two consecutive days in Khanuka Mountains area, north Salah Ad-Din province. The airstrikes supported the ICTS on the ground and contributed to the elimination of 24 terrorists and the destruction of a number of Daesh caves and tunnels.

June 25: Based on intelligence, 2nd Regiment, 8th Infantry Brigade, 7th Division, seized a cache of explosive devices and detonators, remnants from Daesh, during a search operation in the al-Askari neighborhood, Anah district, Anbar province.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1611704342337913

June 25: Based on intelligence, a force from the 3rd Regiment, 41st Brigade, 10th Division, in cooperation with the Military Intelligence unit, located a Daesh hideout containing a weapons cache in Ermila area, Saqlawiyah District, Anbar province.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1611702232338124

June 26: Based on intelligence, the 3rd Regiment, 29th Infantry Brigade, 7th Division, in coordination with a detachment from the National Security Office in Hit district, captured a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary. The captured terrorist committed a crime involving bombing a house belonging to tribesmen in the Hit district.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1612605248914489

June 26: A force from the 1st Regiment, 21st Infantry Brigade, 20th Division, conducted a search and clearance operation in the villages of Sheikh Ibrahim and Ain al-Waha, al-Mahalabiyah sub-district, southwest of Ninawa province. A Daesh weapons cache was found and subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Detachment. https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2888208554741964

June 26: Based on intelligence, Military Intelligence Detachments, in coordination with the 4th Regiment, 19th Infantry Brigade, 5th Division, raided a Daesh hideout in the Jamil Khudair neighborhood, Canaan sub-district, Baquba district, Diyala province. A number of mortar rounds, ammunition, detonators, a solar reflector and a night vision scope case were seized and subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Detachment.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2888530531376433

June 26: Military Intelligence Detachments, Ninawa Operations Command, in cooperation with the Intelligence Unit of the Command Protection Regiment, located a Daesh hideout containing explosive belts and ammunition in the Wadi EKab area, west of Mosul.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1612738168901197

June 26: A joint force from the Intelligence Units of the Jazeera Operations Command and the Haditha Counter-Terrorism Directorate, captured a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary in the Haditha sub-district, Anbar province. The terrorist was captured while attempting to infiltrate into Iraq after returning from al-Hol IDP camp in Syria after he had fled the country during the liberation operations. https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1612746882233659

June 26: Based on intelligence, a joint force from Military Intelligence Detachments and the 16th Division captured two Daesh terrorists wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary, in Hammam al-Alil district, south of Mosul.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1612742402234107

June 27: A force from the 7th Division conducted an extensive search operation in the western desert of Kubaiseh city, Wadi al-Halba, and Taweiba forest, toward Saad Base. A Daesh tunnel and a cave that had been used by Daesh terrorists, were found and subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Detachment.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2889139544648865

June 28: The 74th Brigade, 5th Division, in coordination with the 24th Brigade of Popular Mobilization Forces, launched a major clearing operations to find and dismantle Daesh sleeper cells, and strengthen security in north al-Muqdadiya and al-Mansuriyah, Diyala province. Several orchards and villages were searched and cleared. Two Daesh hideouts containing a number of newly planted explosive devices were found and subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Detachment. https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2890113001218186

June 28: The Field Engineering Battalion, 4th Division, Iraqi Federal Police, Samarra Operations Command, carried out a clearance operation on West Samarra Island. A cache of explosive devices was found and seized. Meanwhile, the al-Ishaqi Police Department and a detachment from the al-Ishaqi Counter-Terrorism Directorate captured three Daesh terrorists wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary. https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2890184534544366

June 28: Detachments from the Intelligence unit, 1st Division and the Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Surveillance Regiment, affiliated with the Military Intelligence Directorate, captured a Daesh terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary during an ambush in al-Rutba district, Anbar province. The terrorist was detained while attempting to infiltrate into al-Rutba after returning from Turkey.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1614244732083874

June 28: Based on intelligence, a force from the 32nd Infantry Brigade, 8th Division, in cooperation with the Military Intelligence unit, captured a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary in the al-Karabla area, Qaim district, Anbar province. https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1614491788725835

June 28: The 16th Infantry Division commenced an operation to clear war remnants from an area of 3 km2 in al-Shahwani neighborhood in old Mosul area, Ninawa province. The operation aimed to mitigate the risks to the health and livelihoods of affected communities and reduce the threat on peace and security. A number of explosive devices, explosive belts, hand grenades, rockets, launchers, a drone, an artillery round, damaged detonators, a damaged wireless radio, two rifles, and decomposing corpses were found. The seized materials were removed from the site and subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Battalion.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2890190071210479

June 28: Based on intelligence, a force from the Reconnaissance Platoon, Ninawa Operations Command and detachments from the Military Intelligence unit captured a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary in the al-Bakr neighborhood, east of Mosul. The captured terrorist had worked with the so-called Diwan al-Askar for Daesh in Ali al-Ansari neighborhood during Daesh occupation of the city.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1614493918725622

June 28: Based on intelligence, a force from the 75th Infantry Brigade, 16th Division, and detachments from the Military Intelligence unit captured a terrorist wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary in Hammam al-Alil camp, Ninawa province. The captured terrorist had been involved in intelligence-gathering to support Daesh activities.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1614494782058869

June 28: A joint force from the Commando Brigade and the Military Intelligence unit, Diyala Operations Command, in coordination with the 23rd Brigade from Popular Mobilization Forces, raided a Deash hideout in the Zor Mardan area, Khanaqin district, Diyala province. The joint force clashed with a group of Daesh militants killing one of the terrorists while the rest fled the area. The search for the remaining terrorists is ongoing.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1614496668725347

June 28: Based on intelligence, Field Detachments from Salah Ad-Din Intelligence and Security Directorate found a weapons cache containing 180 artillery projectiles, remnants from Daesh, in al-Sharqat district, Salah Ad-Din province. The seized cache was subsequently destroyed by the Field Engineering Detachment.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2890600967836056

June 28: Field Detachments from Baghdad Intelligence and Security Directorate, in coordination with the 25th Brigade, 17th Division, found a weapons cache in the al-Mikaitimat area, al-Yusifiyah sub-district.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2890608791168607

June 29: Based on intelligence, a force from the 3rd Regiment, 60th Infantry Brigade, 20th Division with the support of Military Intelligence Detachments seized a weapons cache in Tal Thabat village, Kairawan sub-district, west of Ninawa province.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1615359395305741

June 29: Troops from the 51st Infantry Brigade, 14th Division, carried out an extensive search operation in the area of Sarkran Junction sub-district. The operation aimed to detect, disrupt and dismantle terrorist

networks, and deny their ability to mobilize and travel through rugged terrain areas. These operations help to disrupt Daesh capabilities and foil their attacks.

https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.iq/posts/2891183857777767

June 30: Based on intelligence, a force from the 1st Regiment, 30th Infantry Brigade, with the support of Military Intelligence Detachments, captured two terrorists wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary in al-Ashe sub-district, al-Rummana district, al-Qaim, Anbar province. Meanwhile, a force from the 1st Battalion, 39th Infantry Brigade, 10th Division, with the support of Military Intelligence Detachment, captured two terrorists wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary in Albo Dhiab, Ramadi Island, Anbar province.

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1615868025254878

https://www.facebook.com/lntelligence153/posts/1615864558588558

During the week of June 24 - 30, 2020, the following actions happened in Syria:

June 28: The elite Counter-Terrorism Unit within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the support of the International Coalition, successfully carried out a security operation against a Daesh cell in al-Shadadi countryside, south of Hasaka. The cell members were arrested and transferred for investigation.

Removing Daesh fighters, weapons and explosive material remains a top priority as Daesh continues to plot attacks against innocent civilians and our partners throughout Iraq and northeast Syria.
'Fully Briefed' Trump Calls Russia Bounty Report 'Fake News Media Hoax'

By Jeff Seldin July 01, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump is dismissing intelligence reports suggesting Russia may have offered a bounty to Taliban-linked militants for attacks on U.S. forces after top aides said he was fully briefed on the matter.

In a series of early morning tweets Wednesday, the president called media reports about the intelligence "just another HOAX!" and said the source for the original report in The New York Times "probably does not even exist."

Trump also cited a statement from the Pentagon that military officials have "no corroborating evidence."

"Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party" the president wrote on Twitter. "I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level."

The comments came as National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien told White House reporters Wednesday, "The president's been fully briefed" on the alleged Russian plot.

White House officials initially said that Trump had not been verbally briefed on the intelligence because of an inability to confirm its accuracy.

O'Brien said Wednesday responsibility for that decision ultimately rests with the president's CIA briefer.

"The person who decided early on whether the president should be briefed on this in the Oval, in the Oval intelligence briefing, was a senior career civil servant," he told reporters. "And she made that decision because she didn't have confidence in the intelligence that came out."

However, media outlets, including The New York Times and CNN, reported some of the information on the alleged Russian plot had been included in the Presidential Daily Brief, a daily summary of the top intelligence issues, in late February. Other reports suggest Trump was given written information about the matter in 2019.

The Times has also reported, citing three officials familiar with the intelligence, that some of the intelligence about the alleged bounty plot is based on intercepted data that shows large financial transactions from an account controlled by the Russian military intelligence agency to an account linked to the Taliban.

Frustration from Democrats

Democratic lawmakers Wednesday continued to express dissatisfaction and frustration with the White House's handling of the intelligence, some going as far as to call the president's behavior treasonous.

""If this does not count as treason, I don't know what does," Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton said during a call with reporters Wednesday. "If the most junior officer in the United States military ignores an intelligence report delivered to him or her, as we know this intelligence report was delivered to the commander-in-chief, then that junior officer would absolutely be in prison."

"This is undebatable dereliction of duty," he added.

Also Wednesday, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, called for sanctions on top Russian officials if they are found to have been involved in the alleged bounty program.

"Congress must again step up and defend our people and institutions from Kremlin aggression," Menendez said in a statement, suggesting a sanctions requirement be included as part of the annual defense spending bill.

Officials push back

But Trump administration officials pushed back, accusing Democrats and the media of politicizing the reports.

"I don't want to comment on the intelligence," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters. "But I can tell you the Intelligence Community handled this incredibly well."

"The fact that the Russians are engaged in Afghanistan in a way that's adverse to the United States is nothing new," he added. "The Russians have been selling small arms that have put Americans at risk there for 10 years. We have objected to it."

A new Pentagon report released Wednesday, also warned of Russian involvement in Afghanistan.

"Russia has politically supported the Taliban to cultivate influence with the group, limit the Western military presence, and encourage counter ISIS [Islamic State terror group] operations, although Russia publicly denies their involvement," the report said.

The report, though, made no mention of the alleged Russian bounties. And top Republican lawmakers continue to defend the White House's handling of the initial intelligence reports.

"There's some confusion as far as our own intelligence, and it just didn't rise to the level of the president at that time," Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in comments on the Senate floor Tuesday. "Our intelligence agencies aren't in complete agreement on this, even now."

Despite the lack of agreement on the intelligence about the alleged Russian plot to pay Taliban-linked fighters to attack and kill U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, U.S. officials insist the threat was not taken lightly, and that precautions were put in place.

Officials have also said the intelligence was shared across the U.S. intelligence community and with allies whose troops were potentially at risk.

On Tuesday, the White House blamed intelligence officials who leaked information about the alleged bounty program in Afghanistan for potentially blowing almost any chance of coming to a consensus on whether the threat was real.

Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany criticized "rogue intelligence officers" for putting the lives of U.S. troops in danger, saying the leaks, and the attention being given to the unproven allegations, is weakening the country.

"There is no good scenario as a result of this," she told reporters. "Who's going to want to cooperate with the United States intelligence community? Who's going to want to be a source or an asset if they know that their identity could be disclosed?"

"This level of controversy and discord plays directly into the hands of Russia, and unfortunately, serves their interests," she added.

Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson and White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this report.
UN Urges End To 'Crackdown' On Civil Society In Belarus Ahead Of Presidential Vote

By RFE/RL July 01, 2020

United Nations experts are urging the Belarusian government to abandon its "policy of arbitrary arrests, violence, and intimidation" against political activists, rights defenders, journalists, and bloggers ahead of a presidential election on August 9.

In a statement on July 1, the independent experts said that at least 200 representatives of civil society have been arrested during demonstrations across Belarus since June 18.

The peaceful rallies aimed at showing solidarity with "nearly 500 other activists detained since May while exercising their right to give and gather signatures" for nominating candidates for the upcoming vote, the statement said.

The same day, the media-freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement urging Minsk to release all the journalists currently being held and to "allow the press to cover the country's upcoming elections without fear of prosecution." At least six bloggers have been detained since June 15, the group said.

In their statement, the UN experts said they "strongly condemn the government's continuous policy of mass arrests of members of the civil society who are peacefully exercising their fundamental rights," including the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of opinion and expression.

In particular, they urged the Belarusian authorities to "immediately stop cracking down" on peaceful protesters, as well as journalists covering the rallies.

"We are concerned that the approach of the government towards peaceful protesters and journalists trying to perform their work is becoming more and more violent and abusive," the statement said.

The latest protests followed the arrest on June 18 of Viktar Babaryka, a potential opponent of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in the presidential election who is under investigation for alleged financial crimes.

It was reported to the UN experts that "unidentified men in plainclothes began to arbitrarily arrest journalists and passersby in several towns of Belarus, while anti-riot police used excessive force against peaceful protesters."

Many of those detained were "beaten, intimidated, ill-treated and either received fines or sentences of up to 15 days of administrative detention on charges of violating the procedure for holding mass events," the statement read.

The UN experts include Anais Marin, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus; Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, special rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association; Mary Lawlor, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; David Kaye, special rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression; and Diego Garcia-Sayan, special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/un-urge-end-to- crackdown-on-civil-society-in-belarus-ahead-of- presidential-vote/30701223.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.
Ten arrested under national security law for HK

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing and Cao Siqi Source:Global Times Published: 2020/7/1 12:41:41 Last Updated: 2020/7/1 14:41:41

Police form unit to enforce law

The Hong Kong Police Force - the major frontline law enforcement agency in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region - has been adjusting its action guidelines to the newly enacted National Security Law for Hong Kong, and its newly formed special unit to safeguard national security began functioning decisively to end riots in the city on Wednesday.

Around 370 arrests, including 10 for breaching the National Security Law for Hong Kong, have been made as of press time on Wednesday. A total of 7 officers were injured on duty. Among the serious injuries, one was stabbed by a rioter with a dagger and three were hit by a rioter driving a motorcycle, police said.

Three women were arrested for showing materials with slogans highlighting "Hong Kong independence" in Causeway Bay, violating the newly enacted national security law, police said at around 6:30 pm.

Anyone who organizes, plans, commits or participates in secession activities or undermines national unification shall be arrested, it said.

Earlier on Wednesday, a man was detained for holding a "Hong Kong independence" flag in Causeway Bay. The police said it was the first arrest made since the law was enforced.

The police explained that the flag was in his possession, which was the reason for the arrest.

Under the newly enacted law, the Hong Kong Police Force is adjusting its internal guidelines to suit law enforcement requirements, and sources close to the matter told the Global Times that police may use new warning flags at future demonstrations to warn against "pro-independence" activities.

New flags in purple, written in both Chinese and English, send out police warnings to protesters who display flags or banners or chant slogans in support of secession or subversion, "which may constitute offenses under the National Security Law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region," according to documents sent by the HKPF to the Global Times on Wednesday. Offenders could be arrested and prosecuted. This was the first time the police used the new flags amid the illegal assembly, as the National Security Law for Hong Kong was enforced. In addition to the new purple warning flag,police wearing jackets with "N", representing the new special unit under Hong Kong Police Force to enforce law for national security cases, appeared in public for the first time.

Anyone who organizes, plans, commits or participates in any of the acts by force or threat of force, or other unlawful means with a view to subverting state power, shall be arrested, according to the law, which was passed on Tuesday.

Anyone who is a principal offender or commits an offense of a grave nature-- and is found guilty--shall be sentenced to life imprisonment or a jail term of at least 10 years, the law states.

A person who actively participates in the offense shall be sentenced to three to 10 years in jail, and other participants shall be sentenced to no more than three years in prison, short-term detention or restriction.

The police confirmed that "it's more like internal guidelines" rather than a new protocol for law enforcement, a source said.

During public processions and rallies, flags or banners like "Hong Kong Independence Flag," "Hong Kong State Flag," "Hong Kong Independence Only Way Out," "Hong Kong People's Founding Country," "Hong Kong Independent National Self-Awakening" and others that express or imply "Hong Kong Independence" are illegal, the police said in a document sent to the Global Times.

For inciting or abetting secession, the police will record videos and search for evidence on the spot, issue a warning if feasible, and decide whether to make an arrest immediately at the scene, the document showed.

The police have the power to make arrests, and emphasized that before an arrest, they do not necessarily need to give an advanced warning.

Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, Hong Kong secretary for justice, said at a press conference on Wednesday that for those arrested, the Department of Justice will decide whether to prosecute or not on the basis of the relevant evidence, the law and the Prosecutions Code in accordance with the normal mechanism.

It's not just the slogan that determines whether or not a crime has been committed, Cheng said. Cheng noted that whether or not a crime has been committed depends on the context, the whole background, and whether the evidence can prove the relevant conduct and criminal intent.

Some opposition groups and anti-government forces are mulling holding new protests on Wednesday afternoon, starting from Victoria Park in Hong Kong Island, to voice their opposition to the new law, some posts on social networking platform Telegram showed. However, the internal adjustment of law enforcement protocols inside the HKPF has begun to show a deterrent effect, as some in the opposition groups raised concerns over whether they would shout slogans such as "HK independence" or "Hongkongers, revolt!"

Don't underestimate the power of the law. "Chanting pro-independence slogans such as 'liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times' or singing songs like 'Glory to Hong Kong' or waving foreign flags to beg for interference from other countries during protests, would be considered acts of secessionism, which would be punished if they ignore police warnings," Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, the solicitor of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, told the Global Times in an earlier interview.
China announces reciprocal restrictions on US media bureaus

Global Times

Source:Global Times Published: 2020/7/1 15:34:53

China demands that the China-based branches of Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), CBS and NPR declare in written form the information about their staff, finance, operation and real estate in China within 7 days starting from Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry announced.

The countermeasures China was forced to take in response to #US' upgraded discrimination and restrictions on Chinese media in the US are purely self-defense, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
National security law helps HK walk out of dilemma: Carrie Lam

Global Times

Source:Global Times Published: 2020/7/1 10:21:16

The national security law for Hong Kong is an opportunity for the city to exit its dilemma, and Hong Kong will cooperate with the national security committee as soon as possible to improve national security mechanisms, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Wednesday, one day after the law took effect.

The national anthem bill and the national security law further improve "one country, two systems," and brings it back to the normal track, Lam said.

Formulating the national security law is the most important step forward since Hong Kong returned to the motherland, signaling that the country is taking a historic step in cementing national security and underscoring the central government's determination to handle the riots since last year, Lam said.

Lam made the remarks after attending the flag-raising ceremony for the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland at Golden Bauhinia Square.

As part of the celebrations, some fishing boats were seen sailing with Chinese national flags on Wednesday near local harbors in Hong Kong, and local residents cheered for the passage of the national security law, which marks a fresh start for the city.
Natl security law for HK deters foreign troublemakers

Global Times

By GT staff reporters Source:Global Times Published: 2020/7/1 1:36:07

External 'black hands' withdraw support for secessionists, rioters

The highly anticipated national security law for Hong Kong has begun to have a powerful deterrent effect on foreign forces involved in meddling in Hong Kong affairs, and they would become the prime targets of the law for endangering China's national security. The law goes after acts of secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.

According to newly released details of the law, those who endanger national security by colluding with foreign or external forces, such as stealing, spying, buying up, or illegally providing state secrets or intelligence related to national security for foreign or overseas institutions, shall be sentenced to at least 3 years but not more than 10 years in jail. If the crimes are serious, they shall be sentenced to life imprisonment or a fixed-term imprisonment of at least 10 years.

Foreign organizations, institutes and personnel who violate the term will receive the same punishment, according to the law.

The central government's national security office has the jurisdiction over complicated cases in which foreign forces' interference makes it difficult for the Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR) to excise its jurisdiction.

When the central government's national security office investigates the cases that threaten national security, the Supreme People's Procuratorate will appoint procuratorial organs to exercise procuratorial authority, and the Supreme People's Court will appoint relevant courts to exercise judicial authority, according to the law.

Observers also said foreign forces behind months-long riots triggered by anti-government protests in Hong Kong since June 2019 have begun to waver, given that offenders could face severe sentences  as high as a life imprisonment. The new law would also cut off "the black hands" behind the chaos caused by foreign troublemakers.

Foreign forces, including countries and authorities as well as relevant non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which collude with anti-government rioters in Hong Kong by supporting their illegal activities and providing "protective umbrellas" for the rioters, severely meddle in Hong Kong affairs, the observers said. Those forces are mainly based in the HKSAR, and also in the island of Taiwan and other places.

On Tuesday, Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen told reporters that she was "very disappointed" by Chinese central government's imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong. She claimed this proves the "one country, two systems" principle which could be a basis for reunification "was not feasible," Reuters reported.

The Taiwan separatist authority, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), made ridiculous criticisms of the national security law for HKSAR, and this has revealed its toxic purpose - to make trouble in Hong Kong and realize its separatist goal, noted a spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, China's cabinet.

"Any attempt to harm Hong Kong's stability will fail, and the new national security law for Hong Kong will cut off 'the black hands' of the Taiwan DPP that make trouble in Hong Kong," the spokesperson said.

A large amount of materials show that "black hands" from Taiwan have helped exacerbate the public outcry in Hong Kong and have led the city into chaos, violence and recession in 2019.

Meanwhile, foreign politicians and anti-China forces have been seeking to destroy relations between Hong Kong and the mainland, with the ultimate purpose of making Hong Kong a battleground for international games, a base against the Chinese central government, and a pawn to contain China, experts said.

"Western countries fear that after the national security law takes effect, the sources of funds for the riots will be traced. Their intervention in Hong Kong affairs will be exposed, and they would be held accountable," Lau Siu-kai, a vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

When both internal and external forces endangering national secuirty are contained, the possibility of large-scale political turmoil under the banner of "Hong Kong's independence" and "separatism" will be slim, he said, noting that the room for spying and color revolution-linked activities would quickly shrink.

Days before the law was passed, some foreign groups began cutting ties with Hong Kong rioters. For example, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) reportedly froze $2 million that was meant to be used to support the protests in Hong Kong, which analysts said further proved the legitimacy and urgency of the law.

On Tuesday, the EU and Japan also expressed their so-called regrets and anger over China's new legislation. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called it "regrettable" at a news conference. And EU Council President Charles Michel told a news conference that "we deplore the decision."

Unlike the US, which would take concrete countermeasures to pressure the Chinese government over Hong Kong affairs, countries and regions like Japan and the EU are unlikely to take any further steps beyond objecting in a diplomatic manner. They won't collude with Washington to impose sanctions on Beijing, Tian Feilong, a Hong Kong affairs and legal expert at Beihang University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

While opposition groups in Hong Kong are considering protests in the coming days, experts believe there won't be large-scale protests in the future as the "black hands" behind Hong Kong riots have backed off, thanks to deterrence effect of the national security law.

The law seeks to effectively prevent, curb and punish four types of crimes endangering national security: acts of secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.


U.S. politicians must stop smearing China: spokesperson

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:07, July 01, 2020

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday urged some U.S. politicians to immediately stop smearing China and interfering in China's internal affairs by creating rumors under the pretext of Xinjiang.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks in response to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement over China's Xinjiang policy.

The Chinese government equally protects the legitimate rights and interests of people of all ethnic groups, including ethnic minorities, Zhao said.

From 1978 to 2018, the population of Uygurs in Xinjiang grew from 5.55 million to 11.68 million, registering a 2.1 times increase and accounting for about 46.8 percent of the total population of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the spokesperson said.

Zhao said ethnic minorities in the United States have long been suffering from bullying, exclusion and wide, systemic discrimination in economic, cultural, social and other aspects, citing examples from the killing of Indians through the Westward Expansion to the death of African American George Floyd.

"We urge U.S. politicians like Pompeo to reject bias and double standards, face up to the issue of racial discrimination at home, spend more time and energy on improving human rights conditions at home, and immediately stop smearing China and interfering in China's internal affairs by creating rumors under the pretext of Xinjiang," Zhao added.
At Brookdale, the independent hospital, three doctors said that many patients on ventilators had to remain for days or weeks in understaffed wards because the intensive-care unit was full. Amid shortages in sedatives, some patients awoke from comas alone and, in a reflexive response, removed the tubes in their airways that were keeping them breathing. Alarms rang, and staff rushed to reintubate the patients. But they all eventually died, the doctors said.
Mainland warns Taiwan against undermining stability of Hong Kong

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:53, July 01, 2020

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Tuesday warned the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority in Taiwan not to undermine the prosperity and stability of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

Any person or force that attempts to undermine China's national sovereignty, security, development interests, and the prosperity and stability of the HKSAR will end in vain and suffer the consequences, said Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

She made the comments in response to a media question about the DPP authority's smearing of the top legislature adopting a national security law in the HKSAR.

The DPP authority's undisguised distortion of facts fully revealed its vicious intentions to meddle in Hong Kong affairs, mess Hong Kong up, and seek "Taiwan independence," Zhu said.

The law on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR explicitly stipulates the four categories of offences endangering national security, and their corresponding penalties, which will surely cut off the DPP authority's meddling in Hong Kong affairs, said Zhu.

"We firmly uphold and support the implementation of the law on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR," Zhu added.
HKSAR LegCo president, members support passage of law on safeguarding national security in HK

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:53, July 01, 2020

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Tuesday warned the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority in Taiwan not to undermine the prosperity and stability of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

Any person or force that attempts to undermine China's national sovereignty, security, development interests, and the prosperity and stability of the HKSAR will end in vain and suffer the consequences, said Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

She made the comments in response to a media question about the DPP authority's smearing of the top legislature adopting a national security law in the HKSAR.

The DPP authority's undisguised distortion of facts fully revealed its vicious intentions to meddle in Hong Kong affairs, mess Hong Kong up, and seek "Taiwan independence," Zhu said.

The law on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR explicitly stipulates the four categories of offences endangering national security, and their corresponding penalties, which will surely cut off the DPP authority's meddling in Hong Kong affairs, said Zhu.

"We firmly uphold and support the implementation of the law on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR," Zhu added.
Liaison office of China's central gov't in HKSAR supports national security law in HKSAR

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:49, July 01, 2020

HONG KONG, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Tuesday voiced firm support for the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the HKSAR.

The office said in a statement it will fully support the HKSAR government and the central government's office for safeguarding national security in the HKSAR on the work related to the implementation of the law.

The law was adopted Tuesday at the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress, and listed in Annex III to the HKSAR Basic Law for its promulgation and implementation in the HKSAR.

The promulgation and implementation of this important law at a time of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland is an event worth celebrating for all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots, the statement stressed, saying it will ensure the lasting peace, stability and prosperity in Hong Kong and the steady and sustained implementation of "one country, two systems."

The law plugs the legal and institutional loopholes in safeguarding national security in Hong Kong, the statement noted.

According to the law, the central and HKSAR governments will both establish institutions to jointly form the enforcement mechanisms for safeguarding national security in the HKSAR, said the statement.

The liaison office will firmly support the HKSAR government in performing its constitutional duties and primary responsibility on safeguarding national security, as well as other related institutions in fulfilling their legal duties to prevent, stop and punish the acts of an extremely small number of criminals who endanger national security, thereby protecting the lawful rights and freedoms of the vast majority of citizens in the region.

The central authorities have carefully assessed and fully prepared for possible contingencies while implementing the law, the statement stressed.

"No one shall ever underestimate the firm determination of the central authorities to safeguard national security in Hong Kong, or underestimate the binding restrictions of the law and the capability of related institutions of the central authorities and the HKSAR to seriously and strictly implement the law," said the statement.

The implementation of the law will definitely help Hong Kong end chaos and start afresh, the statement noted.
Law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong takes effect

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:07, July 01, 2020

HONG KONG, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) took effect at 11:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday.

The promulgation of the law was signed by HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam and published in the Gazette, according to a statement of the HKSAR government.

The law was passed at the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC). The NPC Standing Committee consulted the HKSAR Basic Law Committee and the HKSAR government and listed the law in Annex III to the HKSAR Basic Law.

The law was formulated according to the Constitution, the Basic Law and an NPC decision on establishing and improving the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the HKSAR to safeguard national security.

The national security law seeks to prevent, curb and punish crimes seriously endangering national security, namely secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security, an HKSAR government spokesman said.

The spokesman said the law only targets an extremely small group of offenders while the life and property as well as various legitimate basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong residents will be protected.

There is nothing for Hong Kong residents to worry about in exercising these legitimate rights, the spokesman said.

In order to effectively discharge their duties, the police and the Department of Justice of the HKSAR government have earlier made preparations for the establishment of dedicated units, the spokesman said, adding that the police will establish a dedicated National Security Department on July 1 to handle the relevant work.

The Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the HKSAR chaired by the Chief Executive will be set up as soon as possible to take up the major responsibility of safeguarding national security in the HKSAR, the spokesman said.
Macao SAR gov't firmly supports law on safeguarding national security in HK

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:09, July 01, 2020

MACAO, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government said Tuesday that it firmly supports the passage of the law on safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong SAR.

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was passed earlier Tuesday at the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

The Macao SAR government said in a statement that the law, formulated according to the specific situation in the HKSAR, has given full respect to the high degree of autonomy of the HKSAR and the basic rights and freedoms of its residents.

The law will improve the legal system, management and enforcement mechanisms for the HKSAR to safeguard national security, and ensure the steady and sustained development of the "one country, two systems," it said.

It said safeguarding national security is the necessary requirement for the long-term stability and prosperity of China as well as the Hong Kong and Macao SARs, and is the common obligation of all the Chinese people including Hong Kong and Macao compatriots.

It added that the Macao SAR government will strengthen communication with the HKSAR government so as to better fulfill the constitutional obligation of safeguarding national security.

Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Ho Hau Wah on Tuesday also expressed strong support for the passage of the law, saying this is a fundamental step to end the chaos in Hong Kong and achieve long-term stability and prosperity.

The passage of the law is a landmark in the development of the "one country, two systems" and a major measure to uphold and improve the "one country, two systems," Ho said.

Ho added that the law plugged loopholes in the HKSAR's legal system and enforcement mechanisms for safeguarding national security. By drawing a clear bottom line of national security, the law will act as a powerful deterrent against crimes endangering national security, he added.
China adopts law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong

PLA Daily

Source: Xinhuanet

Editor: Chen Lufan

2020-07-01 23:05:52



China's top legislature unanimously adopted the "landmark" law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong.

People convicted of the national security crimes could face up to life imprisonment.

The law is a "sword" deterring people who endanger national security and a "guardian" protecting Hong Kong residents.

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers Tuesday voted to adopt the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

The law was passed unanimously at the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

President Xi Jinping signed a presidential order to promulgate the law, which goes into effect on the date of promulgation.

With 66 articles in six chapters, the law clearly defines the duties and government bodies of the HKSAR for safeguarding national security and four categories of offences -- secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security -- and their corresponding penalties.

According to the law, the central government will set up an office in the HKSAR for safeguarding national security.

The HKSAR will establish a committee for safeguarding national security, which is under the supervision of and accountable to the central government. To be chaired by the HKSAR chief executive, the committee shall have a national security adviser designated by the central government. The Hong Kong police force will also set up a department for safeguarding national security, according to the law.

After the law was passed, the NPC Standing Committee consulted its HKSAR Basic Law Committee and the HKSAR government, and adopted on Tuesday afternoon, by a unanimous vote, a decision to list the law in Annex III to the HKSAR Basic Law.

The newly-adopted decision stipulates that the law shall be applied locally in the HKSAR by way of promulgation by the region.

The law came into force in Hong Kong at 11:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday upon its promulgation by the HKSAR government in the gazette.

HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in a statement that the HKSAR government welcomes the passage of the law.

"I am confident that after the implementation of the national security law, the social unrest which has troubled Hong Kong people for nearly a year will be eased and stability will be restored, thereby enabling Hong Kong to start anew, focus on economic development and improve people's livelihood," she said.

WIDE SUPPORT

The law came after prolonged social unrest and escalating street violence had plunged Hong Kong into the gravest situation since its return to the motherland in 1997. Rampant activities of "Hong Kong independence" organizations and violent radicals as well as blatant interference by external forces have disrupted Hong Kong residents' daily life and threatened their safety.

Addressing the closing meeting of the NPC Standing Committee session, Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said the unanimous passage of the law and the decision has reflected the common will of the Chinese people including Hong Kong compatriots.

Stressing that national security, social stability and the order of rule of law are the premises of the development of Hong Kong, Li said the legislation represents the aspirations of the people and an irresistible trend of the times.

In a statement, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council voiced firm support for the law, calling it a "milestone" event that will usher in a turning point for Hong Kong to end chaos and bring back order.

In a separate statement, the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR said the promulgation and implementation of the law at the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland is an event worth celebrating for all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots.

Nearly 2.93 million Hong Kong residents earlier signed a petition in support of the national security legislation during an eight-day campaign starting May 24.

"SWORD" AND "GUARDIAN"

The Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council said in its statement that for a tiny number of people endangering national security, the law will be a "sharp sword" hanging over their heads.

But for the vast majority of Hong Kong residents including foreigners in Hong Kong, the law will be a "guardian" that protects their rights, freedoms and peaceful life, said the office.

According to the law, people convicted of the national security crimes could face up to life imprisonment.

Convicted criminals will be disqualified from running for public office, and people in public office who are found guilty of the crimes will be removed from their posts.

The law shall apply to acts committed after its entry into force for the purpose of conviction and imposition of punishment, according to its provision.

Upon promulgation, the law will resolutely and effectively safeguard national security and ensure that the "one country, two systems" cause is steered toward the right direction, said top legislator Li Zhanshu.

The law will vigorously uphold the constitutional order and the order of rule of law in the HKSAR, forestall and deter external interference, and safeguard Hong Kong's fundamental, long-term and current interests, he said.
China unveils details of national security law for Hong Kong

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 01 July 2020 6:35 AM

China has unveiled the details of the new national security law for Hong Kong, which has taken effect in the semi-autonomous city amid Western criticism.

The law will punish crimes of secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces with sentences of up to life in prison in Hong Kong.

Mainland security agencies will also be officially based in Hong Kong for the first time, with powers that go beyond the city's local laws.

Among other details is a ban on violators of the law standing for elections and greater oversight of non-governmental organizations and news groups.

The law further specifies that those who destroy government facilities and utilities would be considered subversive. Damaging public transportation facilities and arson would constitute acts of terrorism.

Under the law, Hong Kong's leader will appoint judges for national security cases. Mainland authorities will exercise jurisdiction in "complex" cases such as those involving a foreign country, or serious situations that pose a major or imminent threat to national security.

Critics of the law view it as a blow to the region's autonomy and civil liberties. Protests erupted in Hong Kong after the law was proposed on May 22.

China says the law is necessary to tackle secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces following violent anti-government protests that escalated in June last year.

Hong Kong's leader praises law

Speaking at a flag-raising ceremony, Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam praised the new law as "the most important development" since the city's return from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

"It is a historical step to perfect Hong Kong safeguarding national security, territorial integrity, and a secure system," she said, adding that the law was "constitutional, lawful, sensible, and reasonable."

Particular arrestees to be tried in mainland

In a press briefing following the ceremony, Zhang Xiaoming, the executive deputy director of China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, told reporters that suspects arrested by the mainland's new office in Hong Kong on charges of violating the new national security law for the city would be tried in the mainland.

He said the mainland's national security office abided by Chinese law, and that Hong Kong's legal system could not be expected to implement the laws of the mainland.

On Wednesday, protesters gathered near the venue of the ceremony, carrying banners and shouting slogans in opposition to the new law.

Earlier, Hong Kong authorities barred an annual march for Wednesday, citing a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people in a bid to curb the coronavirus epidemic.

Hong Kong police make first arrest

Police in Hong Kong have fired water cannon to disperse protesters who gathered in the city's downtown for the annual rally marking 23 years since British rule ended.

Riot police also used pepper spray and warned that certain slogans and banners might constitute serious crimes under the new national security law.

"You are displaying flags or banners/chanting slogans/or conducting yourselves with an intent such as secession or subversion, which may constitute offences under the national security law," police said.

Police later said they made their first arrest under the new law, detaining a protester for carrying a flag calling for Hong Kong's independence. The man was arrested after police issued multiple warnings to the crowd at a protest in the city's Causeway Bay shopping district that they might be in violation of the law.

'What's this got to do with you?'

Meanwhile, China has slammed foreign criticism of the new national security law for Hong Kong, urging Western countries not to interfere in its internal affairs.

"What's this got to do with you?" said, Xiaoming, the official in the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, addressing Western governments. "It's none of your business."

Zhang's comments came after the United States, Britain, and some two dozen other Western countries urged China to reconsider the national security law and preserve the right to assembly and free press in Hong Kong.

Zhang said the "two countries, one system" principle meant a uniform national security law for Chinese territories.

"We are completely able to impose the criminal law, the criminal procedure, and the national security law and other national laws on Hong Kong. Why would we need to put so much effort into formulating a national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong?" he said.

Taiwan opens office for those fleeing Hong Kong

Separately on Wednesday, Taiwan said it had opened an office to help people fleeing Hong Kong after the enactment of the new national security law in the semi-autonomous city.

Chen Ming-tong, of Taiwan's mainland affairs council, said that the self-ruled island had opened the office in downtown Taipei hoping to seize the opportunity to attract professionals and capital from Hong Kong.

He said multinational companies were also welcome to move their headquarters to Taiwan.

Chen declined to say how many people were expected, or the number of the applications received.

China has condemned Taiwan's plans to help rioters flee Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was rocked by violent protests over a bill that would have reformed its extradition law last year. Rioters vandalized the city, destroying public and private property and attacking anyone deemed to be pro-government. Hong Kong dropped that bill, but the acts of violence continued.

The Chinese government says the United States and Britain fanned the flames of the unrest in Hong Kong by supporting the protesters.
Beijing Retaliates Against US, Orders Four American News Outlets to Provide Info on China Operations

Sputnik News

20:30 GMT 01.07.2020

In response to the US listing of four Chinese news agencies as "foreign missions" last month, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has demanded paperwork from four American media outlets on their operations in China: CBS, National Public Radio (NPR), the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI).

On June 22, the US State Department declared that four Chinese news agencies - China Central Television (CCTV), China News Service, People's Daily and Global Times - are "foreign missions," requiring them to behave as if they were diplomatic consulates representing the People's Republic of China and not news agencies like any other outlet. They were required to present the State Department with their personnel rosters and real estate holdings as a consequence.

In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has now said it will require four US news agencies to do the same.

"I need to point out that the above-mentioned measures are entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the US," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a Wednesday news release.

"They are legitimate and justified self-defense in every sense," Zhao added.

"What the US has done is driven by a Cold War mentality and ideological bias. It has seriously tarnished the reputation and image of Chinese media organizations, seriously affected their normal operation in the US, and seriously disrupted people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries. It has therefore exposed the hypocrisy of the self-styled advocate of press freedom," the spokesperson continued.

"China urges the US to immediately change course, undo the damage, and stop its political oppression and arbitrary restrictions on Chinese media organizations," Zhao said.

The tit-for-tat started in February, when the US State Department listed five Chinese news agencies - Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television (CGTN), China Radio International, China Daily and Hai Tian Development USA - as foreign missions, requiring them to divulge their personnel and real estate records. In response, China demanded the China-based branches of Voice of America, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time and the Washington Post provide Beijing with the same information.

In March, the State Department limited the staff of Chinese news agency bureaus in the US to 100 persons, and in May, it limited visas for Chinese journalists in the US to a renewable 90-day period, after Beijing expelled 13 American journalists from three US papers in response to a Wall Street Journal op-ed which called China the "sick man of Asia" and claimed it had tried to hide the scale of its initial COVID-19 outbreak. Chinese officials denounced the use of the "sick man" phrase as racist.

Chinese news outlets are just the latest target for the US government, which has claimed for years that the Chinese Communist Party also exerts controlling influence over some of the country's largest tech companies, including Huawei, ZTE, Dr. Peng, Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) and more. As a consequence, US companies and government agencies now face extensive legal and regulatory barriers to buying or using equipment from those companies, and Washington has pressured some of its allies to enact similar policies.

A Sputnik
New National Security Office in Hong Kong to Target Foreign Forces

Sputnik News

10:39 GMT 01.07.2020

With the passage of the law on safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), several new departments and units will be established to handle national security cases.

Experts said these arrangements showed the spirit of the "one country, two systems" and the cooperation between the central government and the HKSAR government for better law enforcement.

The law clearly defines the duties and government bodies of the HKSAR in safeguarding national security; the four categories of offences - the act of secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security - and their corresponding penalties; jurisdiction, applicable law and procedures; office of the central people's government for safeguarding national security in the HKSAR; and other contents, according to Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday.

The HKSAR government will, in accordance with the requirements of the National Security Law, establish the Committee for Safeguarding National Security to be chaired by the chief executive as soon as possible, said Chief Executive Carrie Lam in a statement to usher in the passage of the law by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) on Tuesday.

"Dedicated units in the Hong Kong Police Force and the Department of Justice will be responsible for implementing relevant legal provisions stated by the National Security Law," Lam said. According to the law, the new committee includes a national security advisor that will be designated by the central government to assist, advise and supervise the chief executive to handle national security affairs in Hong Kong. This arrangement is different from the national security committee in Macao, another SAR of China that is also implementing the "one country, two systems."

Li Xiaobing, an expert on Hong Kong affairs at Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times the national security threat that Hong Kong faces is much more serious and complicated than Macao does, especially the unprecedented turmoil and a series of violent riots in 2019 which have horribly damaged China's national security in Hong Kong and the city's public order, and the interferences in Hong Kong affairs by the foreign forces led by the US are also getting extremely rampant.

Therefore Hong Kong needs a specially designed system to safeguard national security, he said.

"Hong Kong has been used as a centre for international intelligence exchanges since long ago, but unfortunately, whether before or after 1997, officials in Hong Kong have not been trained to handle national security affairs in a very long time, so they need special assistance from the central government," Li noted.

The advisor's role will be significant as he/she will provide unique support to the HKSAR government's decision-making on anything related to national security, and "to some extent, just like the National Security Advisor to the US President," Li said.

Powerful Office

According to the law, the central government office for safeguarding national security has the power of jurisdiction in the HKSAR, and the office is beyond the administration of the HKSAR government.

The HKSAR must provide the necessary convenience and coordination to the office while the office executes its duties. Observers said this makes the central government the ultimate authority in the SAR when handling national security cases, and such authority has been forced upon by foreign forces and local separatists due to last year's massive turmoil.

Li said now the central government believes "there is no need to be gentle anymore."

The central government office, rather than Hong Kong law enforcement departments, will handle cases under the following three conditions: involvement from foreign forces with the HKSAR government being deemed unable to handle the case the HKSAR government failing to properly enforce the law, and the national security is seriously threatened, the law stipulates.

Tian Feilong, a legal expert on Hong Kong affairs at Beihang University in Bejing, said that the Committee for Safeguarding National Security will verify the cases to see whether the HKSAR government or the central government office in Hong Kong should handle the case, the advisor will help the chairman and the whole committee to make a decision, and if they can't come to a conclusion, the central government office for safeguarding national security would make the final call.

"Once a decision has been made, if the case goes to the central government office, from the first page of the case file, it would be irrelevant to the HKSAR government and jurisdiction organs, so there will be no extradition," Tian noted.

According to the law, when the central government's national security office in Hong Kong investigates cases, the Supreme People's Procuratorate will appoint procuratorial organs to exercise authority, and the Supreme People's Court will appoint relevant courts to exercise judicial authority.

Observers said this kind of situation is unusual and would occur only under special circumstances; and if it does happen frequently, then it means national security issues in Hong Kong are extremely serious.

Lau Siu-kai, a vice president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, said national security cases are not normal criminal cases, because they are closely related to the security and development of the country, so it's an international norm in most countries around the world that agencies responsible for national security affairs have special and even ultimate authority.

Filling the Gap

As the law has come into effect, the Hong Kong Police Force will set up a national security branch on Wednesday to handle related work, according to Xinhua.

And the law states that the new branch can recruit special professionals and technical personnel from regions outside Hong Kong. Observers said this means those police officers from the mainland can also join this branch and serve as Hong Kong police, which is a significant breakthrough for filling in the gap of talent regarding the Hong Kong Police handling national security cases.

Tang King-shing, a former commissioner of the Hong Kong Police Force (2007-11), told the Global Times on Tuesday that there is no denying that, over a very long period, Hong Kong has had a shortage of talents handling cases regarding national security, and Hong Kong police and officials have not been trained for this and have no vision on national security, so it's essential for the new branch to recruit talent from outside.

The duties of the new branch include intelligence gathering and analysis, investigation, and other missions from the Committee for Safeguarding National Security.

The branch and the central government office are law enforcement agencies handling similar cases but observers said they would cooperate with each other rather than conflicting with one another.

The ties between the two will be cooperative and complementary because the Hong Kong Police are more professional regarding law enforcement in Hong Kong, and more familiar with the local situation, while the central government office is able to handle foreign forces and capable of gathering intelligence and even executing operations outside Hong Kong, said Tang.

"Hong Kong police can only enforce the law in the SAR, but sometimes, a national security threat from outside may emerge, so in order to detect and eliminate the threat, the central government office's role is essential. The coexistence and cooperation of the two law enforcement agencies show the spirit of the 'one country, two systems'," Tang noted.

A Sputnik
Why China Is Sure to Match US Aircraft Carriers in Disputed Asian Sea

By Ralph Jennings July 01, 2020

Three aircraft carriers have sailed the South China Sea this week, an unusually big show of force in the disputed Asian waterway and likely a warning to Beijing. China is all but sure to respond with its own show of force, yet neither side is expected to fire a shot.

China hopes to answer each U.S. military action in at least matching form to prove extra strength in a U.S. election year, impress smaller countries in Asia and jazz up its own population, political analysts say.

"The current Chinese policy is if (the) U.S. does something, we need to respond in proportion at the same level of intensity and at the same level of seriousness," said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center research organization in Washington.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt, USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier groups had entered the South China Sea in late June, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command says.

The Nimitz and Ronald Reagan groups were to hold "integrated exercises and operations that maintain responsive, flexible, and enduring commitments to mutual defense agreements with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific," U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a June 29 statement.

China will answer in kind  militarily, politically or diplomatically  in part because it knows U.S. President Donald Trump might leave office after elections in November, Sun said.

More than two years of trade disputes, differences over the future of the Chinese territory Hong Kong and growing U.S. support for Taiwan have put China on guard against Trump. Taiwan is self-ruled, but China calls the island its own.

"China might believe that it has nothing to lose during the rest of the Trump Administration and may as well use this opportunity to resolve all the difficult issues Beijing had always wanted to do but were not able to do (and) now is a good time," Sun said.

Officials in Beijing last month passed a security law aimed at stopping protests in Hong Kong, to Washington's chagrin, and battled Indian troops over a separate territorial dispute with Washington's ally New Delhi.

The Communist leadership in Beijing would respond to the U.S. aircraft carriers to remind the world of its influence in Asia, especially the South China Sea, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. He likened that ambition to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, a U.S. policy saying European powers should keep out of the Americas and vice versa.

"China would consider this part of the world, the regions around South China Sea, to be its sphere of influence," Oh said. "This is perhaps akin to the Monroe Doctrine, that European powers should not interfere in the Americas, and so on."

Beijing is the militarily strongest claimant to the South China Sea, a 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway prized for fish and energy reserves. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam vie with China over all or part of its claim to about 90% of the sea.

Washington says the sea should stay open internationally. Under Trump, the U.S. government has helped Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines buck up their armed forces.

Chinese officials "obviously don't welcome all these U.S. warships to pass by," Oh said.

Chinese military experts believe U.S. aircraft carrier movement reveals "hegemonic politics in the region", Beijing-based, state-controlled news outlet Global Times reported June 14. "China could counter it by holding military drills and showing its ability and determination to safeguard its territorial integrity," the news website said.

China has shown this resolve to match U.S. naval activity in Asia already. Previous exchanges chilled Sino-U.S. relations and deterred smaller Asian countries from taking sides but never sparked conflict.

U.S. warship passages through a strait separating Taiwan from China have met since 2017 with frequent Chinese air force flights into Taiwanese airspace, for example. After the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry passed near Chinese holdings in the South China Sea in April, Beijing renamed 80 islets and submerged features in its favor.

China expects its responses against the United States to raise Chinese people's confidence in the People's Liberation Army, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. The government hopes to show its people it can meet the United States "eye to eye", he said.

The 100th anniversary of the Communist Party's founding next year will strengthen its urge to resist U.S. influence, Huang said. The single-party government normally tries to appear strong ahead of major events.

"I think in the coming months, they will probably have to show their strength," he said. "There is no way to back off at this moment."
The Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972, arguing that the laws violated the Constitutions prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. But amid rising rates of violent crime, the court reinstated the policy just four years later. Since then, a number of states have regularly carried out executions but the federal government has executed only three men as public support for it has fallen. The most recent execution, of Louis Jones Jr. for the rape and murder of a female soldier, was in 2003.
Hong Kong Police Make First Arrests Under New Beijing-Imposed Security Law

By VOA News July 01, 2020

Hong Kong police made their first arrests Wednesday under a new national security law imposed by China's central government.

A man and a woman holding Hong Kong independence signs were arrested in two separate incidents hours after the new law took effect.

And at least 70 people who were part of a large protest group that had gathered in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay were arrested after riot police fired water cannon and pepper spray to break up the crowd. Police said the participants were charged with unlawful assembly to violation of the new national security law.

The law took effect on the 23rd anniversary of Britain's handover of Hong Kong to Beijing. City authorities had banned the annual rally marking the anniversary of the handover, citing risks of the coronavirus pandemic.

The new law, approved Tuesday in Beijing by the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress and signed into law by President Xi Jinping, calls for the central government to establish a national security office in Hong Kong aimed at confronting subversion of state power, terrorism, separatism and collusion with foreign forces.

Anyone convicted under the law could face anywhere from a few years to life in prison, and could be extradited to mainland China to stand trial.

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said the law's enactment was the most important development for the financial hub at a ceremony marking the anniversary.

Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, as well as the United States and other Western nations, say the law undermines the "one country, two systems" concept that was part of the 1997 handover deal, which guaranteed the city a high degree of autonomy and civil liberties for 50 years.

The new law caps President Xi's aggressive efforts to tighten control over the financial hub over the past few years, which has led to massive street protests by pro-democracy activists seeking greater freedoms for Hong Kong. The city was rocked during the second half of 2019 by angry and often violent demonstrations sparked by a controversial extradition bill that was eventually withdrawn.

The action by the Chinese legislature bypasses Hong Kong's legislature, which has the authority to pass any security laws under the Basic Law, the city's constitution. Hong Kong lawmakers have been pressured by Beijing in the past to approve a national security law, but were met by heavy protests.
China's Long-Term Plan to Shape the Future of Technology

By John Xie July 01, 2020

In a rare twist to Washington's long-standing restrictions on the Chinese tech giant Huawei, the Commerce Department recently reversed its ban preventing U.S. firms from working with Huawei on developing new technical standards.

The move was seen by many in China as an admission by President Donald Trump's administration that it cannot ignore Huawei's influential role in developing the technical standards critical for future technologies.

"America finally bowed its head" read a headline by Chinese network Phoenix TV.

The new rule, announced by the Commerce Department on June 15, amends the Huawei "entity listing" to allow American companies to collaborate with Huawei on setting standards that will determine the technical rules of the road for 5G and other emerging technologies.

"This action is meant to ensure Huawei's placement on the entity list in May 2019 does not prevent American companies from contributing to important standards-developing activities despite Huawei's pervasive participation in standards-development organizations," the department said.

The Commerce Department said the move "promotes U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by facilitating U.S. leadership in standards-development bodies."

The situation with Huawei is no accident. For years, Beijing has focused on joining international standard-setting bodies, such as 3GPP and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which are little-known among the public, but make some of the most consequential decisions in modern telecommunications.

3GPP and the future of your smartphone

Nestled in a quiet industrial park in southern France, a technology consortium with esoteric name, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP, sets the technical standards behind the world's communication platforms, the fundamental building blocks for product development. As the primary global standard setting organization for the last 20 years, 3GPP helped create technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as today's 5G high-speed networks.

"Standards are not very sexy but extremely important," Andrew Polk, partner at Beijing-based research and consultancy firm Trivium China, told VOA. "And it takes sustained long-term effort and attention. While Western companies try to set standards, China has a long-term coordinated game plan to influence standards," he said.

China's leaders have long seen technology as a key to the country's economic and military might, and the country has financially backed companies such as Huawei to become powerful global competitors that will help the country's political and military goals. Critics say Beijing takes the same approach to setting technical standards.

"Beijing views standards as foundational to its goals to reshaping global governance and expand geostrategic power," said Dr. J. Ray Bowen, analyst of Pointe Bello, a Washington, D.C.-based strategic intelligence firm.

Even though U.S. companies remain world leaders in most areas of technology, observers such as Dustin Daugherty, head of North America Business Development at Dezan Shira & Associates, a pan-Asia business consulting firm, say China's strategy means "in the future the U.S. could fall behind a coordinated government effort in standard setting (such as from China)."

China's long-term plan

As of May, Chinese firms and government research institutes have accounted for the largest number of chairs or vice chairs in 3GPP, holding 16 of the 45 available leadership positions, according to VOA's count based on data release by 3GPP. By comparison, U.S. companies hold nine such leadership positions.

A year ago, representatives from Chinese and U.S. companies each held 12 chair and vice chair positions, according to data 3GPP sent to VOA.

While the 3GPP is the primary global group setting 5G standards, another major global organization, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is now led by a former Chinese government official, Zhao Houlin.

Zhao, who began his career in China's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, was first elected as the secretary-general of ITU in 2014. He was reinstated in November 2018 for second four-year term.

Established in 1865, ITU is one of the oldest international organizations in the world and has historically avoided politics. However, Zhao publicly criticized Washington in its dispute with Huawei, the Chinese communications giant that U.S. officials say has deep links to the military.

"I would encourage Huawei to be given equal opportunities to bid for business," Zhao told reporters in Geneva earlier this year. "But if we don't have anything then to put them on the blacklist  I think this is not fair."

Under Zhao's leadership, another Chinese national, Richard Li, serves as the chairman of a critical group with the ITU called Focus Group Technologies for Network 2030. Li, according to his LinkedIn Page, is employed by Huawei as Chief Scientist and Vice-President of Network Technologies and is in charge of examining the world's emerging technologies and 5G.

Doug Barry, the spokesperson for The US-China Business Council (USCBC), a private organization with the mission of promoting trade between the two countries, said there are companies that are concerned about the abuse of leadership positions by China, but so far he has not heard any examples of this happening.

"Most international standards-setting bodies have strong due process, which makes it difficult for stakeholders to abuse leadership positions to force proposals through or block proposals," Barry said.

Daugherty said that because Chinese companies are among the most important international players in a variety of industries, including telecommunications, their presence in industry groups and standard-setting bodies is logical. But he said there is an important difference between them and their counterparts from democratic countries.

"Chinese companies (and by extension possibly their individual representatives on such bodies) may ultimately need to answer to Beijing's priorities for strategically important issues," Daugherty said.

In an interview with VOA, he said the politicization of such international bodies could conceivably lead to a decrease in legitimacy in international standard setting. "The damage could be immense," he said.

Flooded with proposals

Holding leadership positions is one part of Beijing's strategy. Another part involves massive investments in submitting technical proposals to the international groups.

In a rare disclosure last September, Huawei said for one particular technical area alone, the company submitted 18,000 5G New Radio proposals. "If printed on A4 paper and piled up high, would stand a staggering 10 meters tall," it said proudly on its official twitter account.

The U.S.-China Business Council said last February this is an issue of concern.

"Some companies and experts complained that Chinese stakeholders submit large numbers of proposals that are low-quality or irrelevant to market needs in some industries, including for products that China does not actually produce."

The report titled "China in International Standards Setting" said this takes valuable time and resources away from considering serious proposals.

China also sends more people to attend international meetings that discuss, vote and make decisions on standards.

According to a report release last November by German intellectual property research firm Iplytics, Huawei dispatched more than 3,000 engineers to participate in the 5G standard-setting process. American chipmaker Qualcomm sent 1,701 engineers to attend 3GPP meetings.

Dr. Melanie Hart, director for China Policy Center for American Progress, said the Chinese government is channeling state financial support to help Huawei and other Chinese firms send personnel to attend 3GPP meetings and flood the process with Chinese technical contributions.

"It is difficult for private companies from other nations to match that level of activity because sending engineers overseas to participate in 3GPP meetings and devoting R&D resources to develop 3GPP technical contributions are costly activities," she testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last March.
Dispelling Western lies about national security law for HK

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing, Zhang Hui and Wang Wenwen Source:Global Times Published: 2020/7/2 0:53:40

Freedoms of press, speech enjoyed with limits: expert

How the West depicts and interprets the national security law for Hong Kong, which was enacted on Tuesday, fully underscores the bias and double standards of some Western politicians and media on Hong Kong affairs.

The US media outlet Foreign Policy alleged that the law would end freedom in the city, which in reality has been enjoying a high degree of autonomy under the principle of "one country, two systems."

CNN also noted that the law would change Hong Kong forever, with potentially massive ramifications for the city's political freedoms.

Reuters said in a headline on Wednesday that "China passes sweeping HK security law, heralding authoritarian era" while western officials like US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo harshly criticized the move of enacting the law, claiming that "the US would not stand idly by while Beijing places Hong Kong into its 'authoritarian maw.'"

Should the majority of Hongkongers be worried that their individual rights and freedom might be eroded by the law? Is it really the death sentence to Hong Kong and would it risk turning the city into a police state? Would the law really deprive Hong Kong people's rights under the Basic Law, including the right of assembly and strikes? Would the law really change the way Hong Kong people live? Here are some false claims and solid facts.

Is the law ending the broader freedoms of a majority of Hongkongers?

Human rights shall be respected and protected while safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the majority of Hong Kong people enjoy a number of rights and freedoms, including the freedoms of speech, of the press, of publication, of association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration, according to the national security law for Hong Kong, which are all in line with the Basic Law and provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as applied to Hong Kong.

Any legitimate right is clearly defined by the law, which has certain boundaries and scopes. Beyond such bottom lines and scopes, it should bear equivalent legal responsibilities, Shen Chunyao, director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, told a press conference on Wednesday.

The law has clearly identified four types of offenses: secession, subversion, terrorist activities and collusion with a foreign country or with external forces to endanger national security. When it comes to subversion, in addition to those who organize, plan, commit or participate in any subversive act with or without force, those who incite and provide assistance to those acts shall be tried.

Lawrence Ma, a barrister and chairman of the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the national security law for Hong Kong is in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The law won't affect the freedom of speech or other individual rights of the Hong Kong majority as long as they are not involved in those four types of illegal acts, Ma noted.

In many Western countries, including the US, France and Japan, lawmakers have been carefully seeking a balance between freedom of speech and national security or public order-relevant matters, some prohibiting extremist claims or speech with terrorism tendencies. Under the national security law for Hong Kong, as long as the ordinary residents' claims do not carry on the intention of subversion, terrorism, secession and collusion with foreign forces, some general criticism of the government or officials won't be affected, legal experts said.

Freedom of speech has never been absolute. For instance, the Catalonia separatists in Spain have been harshly punished for instigating riots and chaos, which has also earned support from the international community.

Is it the end to the high degree of autonomy the HKSAR has been enjoying?

Some Western media claim the law could undermine Hong Kong's judicial independence. CNN reported on Wednesday that the law allows the government to pick judges that are potentially sympathetic to particular issues, and could undermine judicial independence.

AFP noted that the law would give the central government unprecedented judicial powers in the HKSAR, with jurisdiction over cases, secret trials without jury and a national security agency.

"There is no jury in national security-related trials in many countries, including Singapore. The members of the jury in Hong Kong are ordinary citizens selected by lottery from the jury pool, and the jury is necessary when they can consider a verdict based on common sense. But when it comes to national security-related knowledge, the jury may not provide any additional value," Witman Hung Wai-man, a Hong Kong deputy to the NPC, told the Global Times.

National security affairs are essentially the duty of the central government toward which the HKSAR should fulfill its constitutional responsibilities, while the central government always enjoys fundamental rights, several legal experts told the Global Times. And the law states that "one country" always comes before "two systems."

The law would allow the central government to set up a commissioner's office to safeguard national security in the HKSAR, which would only exercise jurisdiction if the case is complex, involves foreign forces, or if the HKSAR authorities are unable to effectively enforce the national security law, or an imminent threat to national security.

It does not mean an "erosion" of Hong Kong authority. It can be interpreted as a division of responsibilities between central and local authorities to safeguard national security, Lau Siu-kai, a vice president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, told the Global Times.

Has Hong Kong entered into an authoritarian era?

Some media have also speculated that the law may threaten personal privacy. The Diplomat magazine reported in June that Chinese lawmakers will speed up drafting an amendment to the national security law for Hong Kong, which would facilitate wider law enforcement access to personal data in Hong Kong. It would have an immediate impact on internet companies and financial services providers in Hong Kong.

Many Western countries have their own intelligence agencies and national security laws when it comes to riots and violence. They enforce the laws in a much more intense manner compared to what authorities have done in Hong Kong, Lau told the Global Times. "I think such a claim is double standard, which deliberately slanders the legislature," Lau said.

They themselves know that every government has the power and the responsibility to safeguard its national security. Why can't the Chinese central government exercise such power over Hong Kong, which is part of China? Lau asked.

Will "unjustified" law enforcement and the "secret police" turn HK into a police state?

Extremists and pro-independence forces, including Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Nathan Law, announced their withdrawal from anti-government groups hours before the law took effect, with Wong saying that "with sweeping powers and an ill-defined law, the city will turn into a secret police state," media reported.

Such claims were later referred to the special unit set up under the Hong Kong Police Force, upon approval of the Chief Executive of HKASR, carrying out interception of communications and conducting covert surveillance on a person who is suspected, on reasonable grounds, of having been involved in the commission of an offense which endangers national security, according to the law.

There have been similar legal arrangements and means in other countries when it comes to national security-related matters. For example, in the US, the 9/11 attacks in 2001 brought the US government's fear of terrorism to a boiling point, leading to the Patriot Act. The law expanded the powers of US law enforcement agencies in monitoring citizens' information and in detaining and expelling expatriates suspected of having links to terrorism.

The essence of the national security law is to use severe punishment as a deterrent to eliminate the crimes that might have occurred, Lau said, noting that it is not a truly effective national security law if raids and frequent prosecutions are needed.
National security law 'makes HK people more secure'

Global Times

By Yang Sheng Source:Global Times Published: 2020/7/1 22:23:40 Last Updated: 2020/7/2 0:45:08

Endless nightmare for rioters, separatists in HK has just begun: expert

Hong Kong celebrated the 23rd anniversary of the return to the motherland on Wednesday, and with the enactment of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, Hong Kong residents and analysts said the people of the city will be more secure and free from harm by rioters and separatists who gang up with foreign forces, and the law is a gift that the motherland presented to the SAR.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam and senior SAR government officials attended a flag-raising ceremony to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Wednesday. The ceremony was held at Golden Bauhinia Square in Wan Chai, according to the HKSAR government website.

Lam said at the ceremony that the enactment of the law is regarded as "the most significant development in the relationship between the central authorities and the Hong Kong SAR since Hong Kong's return to the motherland."

"It is a historical step to improve the system for Hong Kong to safeguard our country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and security. It is also an essential and timely decision for restoring stability in Hong Kong. The significance of this decision is multifaceted," she said.

Many of Hong Kong's patriotic social groups and residents also shared the encouraging sentiment. They organized a series of assemblies across the city to celebrate the anniversary, as well as the passage of the national security law for Hong Kong. Hong Kong residents said that the city on Wednesday was turned into "a sea of national flags."

More secure

Angus Ng Hok Ming, executive president of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Youth Association, told the Global Times on Wednesday the biggest difference that he felt on July 1st this year is that "the residents and young people who are patriotic don't have to feel worried anymore."

What Ng was worried about was that in July 2019, the turmoil sparked by the amendment of the extradition bill became increasingly violent with separatist rioters storming the Legislative Council of the HKSAR on July 1. In the following months, a series of massive violent incidents occurred one by one and continued to damage the public order and the city's economic activity.

During the 2019 turmoil, people who held differing opinions, especially those who supported the Hong Kong police and other patriotic residents , were attacked. For instance, a 70-year-old elderly person was killed by rioters in a conflict in November 2019, and another elderly person was set on fire by radical protesters and rioters at a subway station in the same month.

Angus Ng, also an organizer for patriotic events in Hong Kong, said that "last year, the atmosphere in the city was extremely intense, making normal people unable to breathe. Now we are not afraid anymore, and rioters are now scared due to the enactment of the law."

Andy Lee, a businessman who owned a store at Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong, said that just like other small businesses, his business was seriously impacted by a series of protests and violent incidents last year.

Lee told the Global Times on Wednesday that "I was witness to all those horrible things last year and it was scary Thanks to the great efforts made by the police, our businesses could return to normal. After the enactment of the law, I am much more relaxed now."

"Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, we have very few tourists and my business is still not very good, but at least, we feel safe and relieved," he noted, "You can see [Chinese] national flags everywhere in the city today."

The change that the law has brought to ordinary people's lives are very few because it targets very specific cases that are related to national security affairs, but it acts as a very powerful deterrent against illegal activities and help the city to restore public order.

In 2019, branches of many Chinese mainland firms, banks and stores in Hong Kong that sold mainland products got attacked and even burned by separatists and rioters, but now they also return to normal, according to Hong Kong residents.

The enactment of the law is a turning point to bring Hong Kong out of its current impasse and restore stability and order from the chaos, Lam remarked at the ceremony. She said that "the HKSAR government will do its utmost and remain steadfast in its duties to fulfill the primary responsibility of implementing the law," and "I will soon set up a committee on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR."

Nightmares for the bad guys

Although some Western and Hong Kong media outlets have heavily criticized the national security law by saying that the law is damaging the autonomy of the HKSAR and will harm human rights, observers noted that the most serious threat to Hong Kong's economy and human rights at the moment is not the law, but the chaotic situation created by rioters, separatists, radical protesters and foreign forces who stand behind them.

So the urgent mission for the central government to help the HKSAR at the moment is to stop the chaos and violence, and create a stable and peaceful environment for the city, as this is the precondition for the city to resolve its deep-rooted economic problems.

Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, solicitor of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, told the Global Times on Wednesday that "the law is a huge gift that the central government has presented to the HKSAR on the day of the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. But for rioters, separatists and foreign forces, the endless nightmare has just begun."

"I hope those infamous anti-government activists who colluded with foreign forces get punished by the law as soon as possible and the public should be allowed to watch the whole process," Wong noted.
Another Trump-Kim Meeting Before November? South Korea Hopes So

By William Gallo July 01, 2020

South Korean President Moon Jae-in says he hopes U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will hold another summit before the U.S. presidential election in November.

A South Korean official said Wednesday Moon recently relayed the request to the White House. The U.S. side "understands" Moon's position and is "working on it, as far as I know," the South Korean official added.

U.S. officials have not publicly responded to Moon's comments, which were initially expressed in a conversation Tuesday between the South Korean president and European Union officials.

Steve Biegun, the deputy U.S. secretary of state, said earlier this week another Trump-Kim summit was unlikely before November, in part because of coronavirus concerns.

"In the time remaining and with the wet blanket COVID-19 has put over the entire world, it's hard to envision circumstances where we could do an in-person international summit," Biegun said during an online forum organized by the German Marshall Fund research organization.

But Biegun, the lead U.S. negotiator on North Korea, said Washington remains open to engagement with Pyongyang, adding that the U.S. goal continues to be the "final and complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Biegun is planning to visit South Korea sometime in July, according to South Korean media reports.

Talks stalled

It has been just over a year since Trump and Kim's last meeting  a hastily organized, brief encounter at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.

North Korea has since walked away from the talks, conducted frequent missile tests, and lobbed more threats and insults, mainly at its neighbors in South Korea.

Despite the tensions, Trump has frequently insisted his relationship with Kim remains strong, sometimes even hinting he is open to another summit. But with the U.S. election just over four months away and Trump trailing in opinion polls, analysts say North Korea may not be his top priority.

It's also not clear whether North Korea would agree to hold another summit. Officials in Pyongyang have repeatedly warned it will take more than good Trump-Kim relations to drive progress in the nuclear talks.

North Korea is angry at the U.S. refusal to relax sanctions and provide security guarantees as part of a step-by-step denuclearization process. The Trump administration wants Pyongyang to first agree to give up its entire nuclear weapons program.

North Korea is also upset at the South for failing to implement a series of 2018 agreements related to economic cooperation and reducing military tensions. The sanctions have prevented South Korea from moving ahead with the deals.

Pressure campaign halted

Last month, North Korea escalated tensions against the South, blowing up the de facto inter-Korean embassy just north of the border and cutting off communications channels with Seoul.

The moves were seen partly as an attempt to get Seoul to pressure Washington in the nuclear talks. However, the North's motives became muddied after Kim last week abruptly suspended the pressure campaign without explanation.

The situation has been awkward for South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally that is currently led by a left-leaning administration that desperately wants to improve ties with the North.

Moon, whose 2018 meetings with Kim helped pave the way for the U.S.-North Korea diplomacy, is expected to prioritize the revitalization of inter-Korean ties during the final two years of his presidential term.
OPERATION SAMUDRA SETU

India - Press Information Bureau

Ministry of Defence

Posted On: 01 JUL 2020 9:08PM by PIB Delhi

INS Jalashwa, deployed by the Indian Navy for "Operation Samudra Setu", entered Tuticorin harbour early morning today, 01 Jul 2020 with 687 Indian nationals embarked from Bandar Abbas, Iran. Thus far Indian Navy ships have brought back 920 Indian citizens from Iran.

The embarkation of Indian nationals was facilitated by the Indian Mission in Iran. Personnel were embarked onboard after carrying out requisite medical screening. COVID related safety protocols were also strictly adhered to during the sea-passage.

The evacuees were received by local authorities at Tuticorin and arrangements were in place for speedy disembarkation, health screening, immigration and transportation of the evacuees.

With this evacuation, the Indian Navy has now repatriated 3992 Indian nationals from Maldives, Sri Lanka and Iran during the ongoing pandemic.

________________________________

VM/ MS

(Release ID: 1635766)
Iran resumes gas exports to Turkey after pipeline fixed

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 01 July 2020 1:01 PM

The Iranian Oil Ministry says it has resumed exports of natural gas to Turkey despite reports in the media suggesting that exports could stop for good because of price disputes.

A spokesman of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) said on Wednesday that Turkey had finished repair work on a pipeline that came out of service after an explosion on March 31, allowing Iran to resume exports.

"Exports have resumed now that repairs on gas export pipeline in the Turkish territory have finished," said Mohammad Asgari, adding, "Iran's gas exports to Turkey is going on as before."

The announcement puts an end to weeks of speculations about a potential decision by Turkey to halt imports of natural gas from Iran.

Reports in April had suggested that Turkey was unwilling to repair the damaged pipeline because it was unhappy with the price of gas supplied from Iran.

Those reports said a sudden fall in international oil prices, which are used as a benchmark to determine gas prices, had caused Turkey to press Iran for a fresh negotiation on gas prices.

Authorities in Turkey had denied there was a major issue with the price, insisting that repair work on the pipeline had been delayed because of the spread of the new coronavirus in the region.

That comes as oil prices have rebounded in recent weeks mainly because of an international agreement to cut the output.

Turkey is entitled to receive around 8.5 billion cubic meters of gas from Iran each year under a 25-year contract which began in 2001.

Based on the agreement, any change in oil prices would take at least six months to have an effect on the price of gas delivered by Iran to Turkey.
Pompeo Defends Arms Embargo, Says Iran 'Cannot Be Trusted'

Radio Farda July 01, 2020

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intensified his efforts on Wednesday, July 1, to defend Washington's position against lifting the international arms embargo on Iran.

"The Iranian regime doesn't deserve to have its arms embargo lifted," Pompeo tweeted, adding, the Islamic Republic "has not abided by current restrictions and continues to commit violations."

Furthermore, Pompeo asserted, "Iran cannot be trusted to act as a responsible nation when it continues threatening other nations and supporting terrorist activity."

In a video clip from his June 30 address to the UN Security Council attached to the tweet, Pompeo has insisted, "Iran is not a responsible democracy like Australia or India. We already know what Tehran will do, given the ability to buy more weaponry. Just consider the Secretary-General's UNSCR 2231 report... The report confirmed that weapons used to attack Saudi Arabia in September 2019 were of Iranian origin. The report has also confirmed the weapons interdicted off the coast of Yemen in November of 2019 and February 2020 were of Iranian origin."

Based on a UN resolution endorsing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Britain, China, France, Russia, the USA, and Germany, the international arms embargo against the Islamic Republic will expire on October 18.

Iran argues that the sunset clause for the arms embargo is part of an international agreement and must be honored.

"Nearly all countries have arms. Mature nations use them for defensive purposes and to promote stability. But not the Islamic Republic of Iran," Secretary Pompeo asserted.

Calling on the U.N. Security Council to listen to Iran's neighbors "who are most exposed to Iran's predations," and demanding with a single voice the extension of the arms embargo" Pompeo has concluded, The United States' overwhelming preference is to work with this Council to extend the arms embargo to protect human life, to protect our national security, and to protect yours."

U.S. special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, after visiting United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Israel, met with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director in the Austrian capital city, Vienna.

In a tweet on Wednesday, IAEA Director General, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said he had had discussions with Brian Hook over Iran's implementation of its safeguard obligations.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/pompeo- defends-arms-embargo-says-iran-cannot- be-trusted-/30701194.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.
Arms Embargo Extension For Tehran Takes Center Stage In U.S.-Iranian Tensions

By Golnaz Esfandiari July 01, 2020

A confrontation is heating up between Tehran and Washington over the possible extension of a five-year arms embargo against Iran that is due to expire in four months.

The United States wants to extend the ban -- which was part of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers -- indefinitely through a UN Security Council resolution that Tehran is vehemently against.

Washington is facing expected resistance from Russia and China, which as permanent UN Security Council members have the power of veto, while European allies have suggested they're likely to come up with their own compromise resolution amid concerns over the complete collapse of the nuclear accord signed five years ago.

The U.S. withdrew from that deal -- which limited Tehran's sensitive nuclear work in exchange for relief from sanctions -- in May 2018 and reimposed harsh measures that have crippled Iran's economy.

Tehran has reacted by gradually reducing its commitments to the deal curbing its nuclear program and has exceeded prescribed limits on enriched uranium.

Virtual UN

The clash between the two sides was on display at a June 30 virtual United Nations Security Council meeting addressed by both U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Pompeo, who left the meeting before Zarif spoke, warned that lifting the ban on the arms embargo would turn the Islamic republic into a "rogue weapons' dealer" that would supply arms to conflicts "from Venezuela to Syria [and] to the far reaches of Afghanistan."

"Iran will hold a sword of Damocles over the economic stability of the Middle East, endangering nations like Russia and China that rely on stable energy prices," Pompeo said while calling Iran "the world's most heinous terrorist regime."

Zarif began and ended his video statement by quoting former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who was overthrown in a 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup.

Accusing the United States of undermining "global peace and security," Zarif said the removal of the arms embargo in October is "an inseparable part" of the nuclear deal.

The end of the embargo would allow Iran to buy conventional weapons, potentially from Russia and China, who have consistently supported Tehran politically, financially, and militarily.

Washington has argued that while the ban has not prevented all weapon smuggling by Tehran, including to Yemen's Huthi rebels, it has limited such behavior by Iran.

Nearly all UN ambassadors speaking at the June 30 meeting expressed support for the nuclear accord while criticizing Iran for violating the terms of the deal and for its missile activities.

Yet, European countries suggested that they're not likely to support new restrictions on Iran as sought by the United States.

French Ambassador to the UN Nicolas de la Riviere said his country along with Germany and Britain share the concern over the implications of the expiration of the arms embargo while adding that the three countries oppose unilateral proposals leading to the return of sanctions.

"They would only deepen divisions in the Security Council and beyond and would not be likely to improve the situation on the ground of nuclear nonproliferation," said de la Riviere.

Some analysts said the Security Council meeting highlighted U.S. isolation in its attempt to extend the arms ban.

Oliver Meier, a senior researcher at the Berlin office of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, told RFE/RL that the next course of action by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is difficult to predict.

"But it seems clear from yesterday's discussions that Europeans have found their voice on the JCPOA and are willing to prevent a misuse of UN procedures by the Trump administration," he added, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal by its abbreviated name.

'Snapback Process'

Opponents of the nuclear deal suggested Washington was likely to resort to the so-called snapback of all UN sanctions against Iran, which the United States has threatened to use under a process outlined in the nuclear deal.

"Thereby making unilateral snapback inevitable; if no fix [for an extension of the weapons ban], it will be nix," Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense Of Democracies (FDD) and a staunch critic of the nuclear accord, tweeted on June 30.

Washington has argued that it has the right to trigger the snapback process under UN Resolution 2231 that enshrined the nuclear deal.

"If American diplomacy is frustrated by a veto, however, the U.S. retains the right to renew the arms embargo by other means," Brian Hook, U.S. special representative for Iran, wrote in The Wall Street Journal in May.

"Security Council Resolution 2231 (from 2015) lifted most UN sanctions but also created a legal mechanism for exclusive use by certain nations to snap sanctions back. The arms embargo is one of these sanctions," Hook added.

The EU countries party to the accord have warned that they would not support such a decision, which could kill the nuclear deal.

"Triggering snapback in defiance of the shared calls of other council members to relent would, however, damage the legitimacy of the UNSC. Such a course of action would be a clear indication that the Trump administration's approach is not about limiting arms transfers on Iran but about destroying the JCPOA for good," Meier said.

Speaking on June 30, Pompeo said the "overwhelming preference" for the United States was to work with the Security Council to extend the arms ban. He did not say whether Washington was open to a compromise solution, which Western media have reported European countries are seeking.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month, quoting diplomats, that EU countries are pursuing a compromise resolution to constrain the arms trade with Iran to satisfy Washington while preventing a veto by Russia and China.

For its part, Iran has warned that it would leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if its nuclear file was referred to the UN Security Council. The landmark treaty, which came into force in 1970, prevents the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/arms-embargo -extension-for-tehran-takes-center-stage- in-u-s--iranian-tensions/30701054.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.
Iran's Rough Road In Iraq

Mani Parsa July 01, 2020

Iran's influence in Iraq through proxy groups appears to be facing serious challenges as the new Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazemi is trying to control pro-Iranian Shiite militia groups, while some shift their loyalty from Iran to Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Until a few months ago, Iranian military officials including former and current Qods Force commanders Qassem Soleimani and Esmail Qaani used to fly to Iraq whenever they wanted and nothing could stop them as they landed in Baghdad's Green Zone to take part in security meetings with Iraqi officials.

But all this has changed as Qaani was told in June to request a visa before travelling to Baghdad as Iraq's new prime minister al-Kazemi refused to receive Qaani and the rest of the Iranian delegation without an entry visa.

Kazemi, the former intelligence chief of Iraq took office as Prime Minster several months after widespread violent protests in Iraq led to the ouster of his predecessor Adil al-Mahi.

Even Iran-backed groups in Iraq supported al-Kazemi as Prime Minister although they were not particularly enthusiastic, hoping that he would end the country's economic crisis exacerbated due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Nonetheless, Kazemi's power is limited, among other things by his meager 10 percent share in choosing his cabinet ministers, although he enjoys the backing of a sizeable contingent of Iraqi politicians.

Kurdish and Sunni parties back his measures to limit the influence of Iran-backed Shiite groups. Other Shiite groups outside the realm of Iran's influence also call for government control over pro-Iran militia.

Last September, in a development characterized as a pro-Iranian conspiracy, the ouster of Counter-Terrorism Commander General Abd al-Wahab al-Sa'edi elicited a wave of protests in Iraq. He was a Shiite officer who was against Iran's intervention in Iraq. He was the champion of anti-ISIS campaign in Iraq and his forces were trained by the United States. Pro-Iranian politicians obviously feared al-Sa'edi's rising power.

In one of his first measures as Prime Minister, al-Kazemi reinstated al-Sa'edi as the counter-terrorism commander. Subsequently, Sa'edi's forces attacked the pro-Iranian Hashd al-Shaabi (a Kata'ib Hizballah affiliate) in southern Baghdad and arrested 14 Hashd members.

The Iraqi government announced later that the arrests were linked to rocket attacks against government targets and bases hosting U.S. forces. Qais Khazali, the leader of Iranian proxy group Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq warned the Prime Minister to make sure there would be no attacks on pro-Iranian militia.

He warned Kazemi that "Your government is a provisional government tasked with only two missions: Holding an early election and tackling economic and health challenges." He also warned that the Prime Minister might "lose everything" if he created another problem.

In a rare comment, Khazali said that Kazemi would never be able to stop the resistance forces' operations against U.S. troops stationed in the country. This was one of the clearest threats by the leader of pro-Iranian militia.

The pro-Iranian militia subsequently displayed their might in the streets of Baghdad and in the Green Zone. Enraged by the manoeuvres, al-Kazemi reshuffled his security officers.

However, both levers of Iran's influence in Iraq - the militia and the politicians in Shiite parties - are facing serious challenges. Some of the militia have distanced themselves from Hashd al-Shaabi and declared their loyalty to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Experts now say that with the establishment of a stable government in Baghdad six months after the collapse of the previous government and following the elimination of Qassem Soleimani the position of Iran's proxy groups has been weakened.

Sources in Iraq say there has been a reduction in the militia's attacks on U.S. forces during the past weeks and that the militia have welcomed merging into the Iraqi army as new Qods Force Commander Esmail Qaani's popularity is nothing to be compared with Soleimani's influence. Meanwhile, the leadership of Hashd al-Shaabi after the death of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who was killed alongside Soleimani remains undecided.

In the meantime, U.S. and Iraqi sides have started strategic talks that would determine U.S. forces' future role in Iraq's security and diversify the United States political and economic ties with Baghdad.

Iran's parliament speaker Baqer Qalibaf, a former IRGC commander, has branded the strategic talks as "useless." Nevertheless, Iran appears to be consolidating its position in Iraq in other areas. Two weeks ago, the Iranian Minister of Energy visited Baghdad to forge a two-year contract to export electricity to Iraq.

Iran is said to have told its proxy groups in Iraq to stop obstructing al-Kazemi's talks with the United States while Iran sells electricity and natural gas to Iraq as long as Iraq guarantees the repayment of its debts to Iran.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a /iran-influence-waning- in-iraq/30700857.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.
I dont know that they are going to be able to do anything to get me back, he said. Its really hard to trust them. In two or three years will my position change? Maybe. But when we got off ship, my wife said, Yeah, Im not doing that again. "
Turkey accuses France of 'bias' toward UAE, Egypt in Libya

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 01 July 2020 1:13 PM

Turkey's Ambassador to Paris has accused France of being "biased" toward the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, saying the French government is ignoring violations of a Libyan arms embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council to the benefit of renegade General Khalifa Haftar.

Ties between NATO allies France and Turkey have strained in recent weeks over Libya as France is accused of politically supporting Haftar, who is fighting against the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which is backed by Turkey.

"When one supports the legitimate government we're accused of playing a dangerous game but when some countries like Egypt and the UAE support Haftar, then they are deemed legitimate and it's not dangerous. I'd call that biased, no?" Ismail Hakki Musa told a hearing of French senators on Wednesday.

President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday said Turkish intervention in Libya was "criminal."

"The embargo is violated every day from the Egyptian border ... and every day there are flights from the UAE to Libya. Why are questions not being asked?" the Turkish Ambassador said.

"We think they are proceeding by selection, which strengths the support of Mr Haftar in the east."

Since 2014, two rival seats of power have emerged in Libya: the internationally-recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli, and another group based in the eastern city of Tobruk, supported militarily by Haftar's rebels.

The rebels are backed by the UAE and France, besides Russia and Egypt.

Turkey has extended significant help to the government, helping it thwart a rebel offensive against the capital Tripoli.

On Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said all bilateral relations between Turkey and Libya were "within the framework of transparent agreements," but warned that the presence of France posed a "risk" to the North African country.

Cavusoglu said France is supporting a "pirate" in Libya, a reference to Haftar.
Russia denies its power plants responsible for heightened radiation levels

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 01 July 2020 5:54 AM

Russia has denied that its nuclear power plants were responsible for the leak of harmless levels of radioactivity that were detected over northern Europe last week.

Nuclear safety watchdogs in Scandinavia said on Friday that they had found higher-than-usual amounts of radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere. A Dutch public health body later claimed that the material "came from the direction of western Russia," and that it could indicate "damage to a fuel element."

On Tuesday evening, however, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a statement, saying Moscow had notified it that there had been no nuclear incidents on its territory that could explain the elevated levels of radioactivity detected over the Baltic Sea.

"Apart from Estonia, Finland, and Sweden, none of the other countries which have so far provided information and data to the IAEA said they had detected elevated radioisotope levels," said the IAEA.

Russia had already earlier dismissed the allegation, saying that its two power plant stations in the northwest were working normally, with no leaks being reported.

"We have an absolutely advanced radiation levels safety monitoring system and there are no emergency alarms [that went off]," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week.

The latest incident was first reported last week by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which watches for nuclear weapon tests. It said on Friday that a monitoring station in Sweden had found higher-than-usual levels of caesium-134, caesium-137, and ruthenium-103.

According to the CTBTO, they were produced by nuclear fission.

CTBTO chief Lassina Zerbo posted a border-less map on Twitter that showed where the particles might have come from in the 72 hours before they were detected. It showed an area covering the tips of Denmark and Norway as well as southern Sweden, much of Finland, the Baltic countries, and parts of western Russia, including St. Petersburg.
Inside The 'Nyet' Campaign: Russia's Divided Opposition And The Doomed Battle To Scupper Putin's Vote

By Matthew Luxmoore July 01, 2020

MOSCOW -- The office of the NO campaign is on the fifth floor of a building on Petrovka Street, up the road from Moscow's police headquarters and across from the Prosecutor-General's Office. A guard manning a turnstile in the lobby notes down the passport details of each visitor.

On the morning of July 1, volunteers milled around its sunlit rooms preparing to inspect Moscow's polling stations on the final day of a weeklong vote on constitutional changes that will give President Vladimir Putin a chance to rule until 2036, resetting the term limits that previously obliged him to step down in 2024.

Along one wall were piles of posters and stickers calling on Russian voters to deprive Putin, who has been president or prime minister since 1999, of that opportunity. "Eternal Putin?" one read. "No. Don't let yourself be deceived."

Putin's government seemingly pulled out all the stops to get out the vote, revving its vast bureaucracy into high gear to boost turnout and ensure a veneer of legitimacy for a quasi-referendum few saw as free and fair. In Moscow, against a bureaucratic machine with unlimited resources, the small group manning the Petrovka office represents almost the extent of the opposition campaign.

The group is affiliated with Open Russia, an organization founded by exiled Kremlin foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose prosecution, and decade in prison on financial-crimes charges he denies, are among the hallmarks of Putin's long rule. Russian authorities blacklisted it as an "undesirable organization" in 2017. On June 25, when voting began, its branches in St. Petersburg and Moscow began handing out the campaign paraphernalia to like-minded visitors, who plastered it around town.

Other members of the group have travelled across both cities interviewing people at polling stations and working to compile accurate statistics on turnout and voter preference, distrusting official results in a plebiscite shorn of many of the rules that would normally govern such a vote.

"There's an aggressive campaign for the changes, and an unofficial clampdown on any campaign against them," Sergei Vlasov, a campaign coordinator and a legislator for Moscow's Pechatniki district.

But Vlasov and his fellow activists cannot claim to represent all of Russia's opposition, which for years has been divided over key issues, squabbling sometimes bitterly over strategy, tactics, and other matters as the government it seeks to replace works relentlessly to discredit it.

Yabloko, a small liberal party, has urged its supporters to vote against Putin's constitutional changes, and the Communist Party, which usually toes the Kremlin line, has staged an anodyne campaign against them. But opposition forces that have organized anti-government protests in the past have sent out mixed messages. And the main point of contention is whether people should take part in the vote, or whether it's best to dismiss the whole thing as a farce.

Aleksei Navalny, Putin's most vocal and influential critic in Russia, voiced preference for a boycott of the vote but did not come down hard on either side. In a Twitter post on June 13, he said a messy public discussion of the opposition's strategy ahead of the vote is exactly "what the Kremlin wants."

Navalny's message was simple. The constitutional changes would pass regardless, and the opposition's main task was to enlighten others about what he and other critics contend was Putin's only real goal: adoption of the amendment allowing him to run for two more six-year terms.

"Explain patiently to everyone around you that the changes have already been approved and their aim is to reset Putin's term limits. That destroys the [approval] rating of the usurper and undermines the foundations of his rule," he wrote.

Many in the opposition have been unimpressed by Navalny's stance, not least members of the NO campaign, who sought to ensure the highest possible turnout among Russians who are opposed to the changes.

"It's a question of tactics," said Tatyana Usmanova, a NO campaign coordinator who is employed by Open Russia. "I'm disappointed that Aleksei [Navalny] has chosen the boycott, because he has a major support base and if they all went and voted "no," then that vote would score even higher."

Vlasov agrees. He cast it as a moral choice between speaking out by voting against and making a stand by ignoring all political initiatives endorsed by Putin. But he lamented the fact that his opponents had not united around a single course of action.

"Everyone's against the changes, the constitutional overhaul, and most certainly against Putin's eternal rule. But there's no consensus over how to act," he said.

By the afternoon of July 1, as the vote was drawing to a close, the NO campaign said it had recorded clear majorities among the people it interviewed in Russia's two biggest cities against the constitutional overhaul: 51.3 percent in Moscow and 61.3 percent in St. Petersburg. That suggested a stark contrast with partial, preliminary official results pointing to a resounding victory for Putin's political project.

But many of those volunteers had been emphatically urged by police to vacate the vicinity of polling stations, Vlasov said, and others met indifference or even hostility from voters they approached.

NO campaign activists also gathered on Moscow's central Pushkin Square in the evening, pressing their case as the hours and minutes ticked toward the end of a vote that has been marred by multiple claims of fraud.

In the end, with no illusions about the vote's ultimate official outcome, Vlasov said the NO campaign is gearing up to fight another day -- and gradually gathering new supporters disenchanted with Putin's rule.

"I think we win every time we're joined by new people who have made conclusions about this system. The size of the political force capable of uniting and working together is constantly growing," he said. "A defeat now may well be victory in the long run."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/inside-the-nyet-campaign -russia-s-divided-opposition-and-the-doomed-battle -to-scupper-putin-s-vote/30701128.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.
Apparent Ballot Stuffer Is Caught Red-Handed (And Blue-Gloved) At Russian Polling Station

By Michael Scollon July 01, 2020

An election observer declared that "all is very good" when it came to voting at polling station No. 568 in the Russian city of Saransk, with everything well-organized and no violations seen.

But eagle-eyed viewers of Mordovian Public Television noticed something amiss while watching the state channel's coverage of the nationwide vote on constitutional amendments that open the door to President Vladimir Putin remaining in office until 2036.

Ten seconds into a clip of the June 29 news segment posted on the VK page Saransk Wall Of Shame, and just as a correspondent's voice-over talks about the fairness of the process, a blue-gloved hand is seen stuffing multiple ballots into a sealed ballot box.

Evidence of the apparent manipulation -- one of numerous incidents in the weeklong nationwide vote that wrapped up on July 1 and was marred by allegations of fraud -- was reportedly quickly removed from the television station's website, but was preserved for posterity on social media.

"The Internet remembers everything," Telegram channel Lepra said in posting an edited version of the clip.

Analysts said that Putin was eager for a high turnout and a strong "yes" vote in hopes that it would boost the legitimacy of the constitutional change allowing him to seek reelection in 2024 and 2030. Partial returns reported by the Central Election Commission on July 1 showed that the amendments would pass by a large margin according to official results, which Kremlin critics say are suspect.

Helping Hand?

The Public Chamber of Mordovia, a quasi-government body in the central Russian region 500 kilometers southeast of Moscow where the incident was captured by TV cameras on film, commented on the situation on June 30.

The chamber looked into the incident, it wrote, after receiving a citizen's complaint on its hotline. However, it determined that concerns that the video may have shown electoral interference were "unfounded."

Based on what it called an analysis by its Situation Center, including a conversation with the woman whose hands were seen putting multiple ballots into the ballot box, the chamber said "it turns out that there was no stuffing, the conclusions were premature."

It said that the woman had simply been helping her sick sister, who could not place her ballot in the ballot box on her own, and had requested permission to do so from members of the voting precinct's Election Commission.

That explanation suggested that the gloved woman cast two votes -- her own and her sister's -- but the footage appears to show a larger number of ballots being stuffed into the box.

All in all, the chamber said, no violations had been detected during the weeklong vote as of June 29.

"Let's proceed from the reality that neither on camera, nor off, there can be no ballot stuffing," state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Situation Center member Aleksei Tyurkin as saying on June 30.

The Saransk Wall Of Shame, following up on the regional Public Chamber's conclusion, was unconvinced, asking: "If it is not ballot stuffing, then why the hell was the segment urgently removed from the channel's website?"

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/apparent-ballot-box- stuffer-is-caught-red-handed----and-blue-gloved---- at-russian-polling-station/30700701.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.
Russia's president says US after 'economically suffocating' Syria

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 01 July 2020 5:03 PM

President Vladimir Putin of Russia says the United States seeks to 'economically suffocate' Syria by adopting new sanctions against the country.

"Despite the call from the UN Secretary General for easing the pressure of sanctions under pandemic conditions, Washington like Brussels decided to prolong measures against Syria," the Russian President said during a video conference with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts on Syria on Wednesday.

"In addition, new sanctions presumably aimed at economically suffocating Syria have been adopted."

The White House imposed new sanctions on Syria under a new law known as the 'Caesar Act,' which came into force in mid-June, in a bid to increase pressure on Damascus.

The act comes at a time that Syrian government forces have been scoring victories against foreign-backed militants.

The sanctions target 39 companies and individuals, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife, Asma.

The US and European Union had already imposed sanctions on Syria, freezing the assets of the state and hundreds of firms and individuals.

But the new measures can freeze the assets of anyone dealing with Damascus, regardless of nationality, and target many more sectors.

Some say the sanctions would deny the Syrian people access to key medicine and other vital goods and services.

Iran, Russia, and Turkey have been leading a peace process for Syria known as the Astana process. Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan, was formerly called Astana, and the city originally hosted the meetings.

The government gains in Syria have enraged Washington, which has long been collaborating with anti-Damascus militants and stealing Syria's crude resources.
Iran's president denounces US sanctions against Syria, pledges support for Damascus

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 01 July 2020 2:44 PM

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has denounced as inhumane the US sanctions against Syria amid the war-torn country's battle against the coronavirus pandemic, while pledging Tehran's unwavering support for Damascus.

"In line with the previous sanctions and its desperate efforts to put pressure on the Syrian people, the US regime has imposed new unilateral and inhumane sanctions, known as the Caesar sanctions, [on Syria] with the aim of achieving its illegitimate political aspirations," Rouhani said while speaking at a virtual conference with his Russian and Turkish counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Wednesday as part of the Astana meeting on the situation in Syria, IRNA reported.

Rouhani said the sanctions came as the Syrian people like the rest of the world were facing the coronavirus pandemic, which has created widespread health and economic problems in the country, and thus necessitated access to medical and pharmaceutical items to counter the virus and alleviate the sufferings of the Syrian people.

"The US regime's move amounts to economic terrorism that violates international law, human rights, international humanitarian law and the sovereignty of nations," he added.

He said that while condemning any sanctions against any nations in the world, especially Syria, the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes that it will continue to support the Syrian people and its legitimate government with greater force, and that the illegal and inhumane actions by the US regime will not undermine the will of Syria's friendly and allied countries to back Damascus.

"The United States must be assured that what it has not achieved through military pressure and resorting to terrorist groups cannot be attained through the tools of economic pressure and punishment of the Syrian people," he added.

The Iranian president also underlined the need for the American forces to end their "illegal" presence in Syria and the entire region.

"The illegitimate presence of the occupying forces of the US regime on Syrian soil has become a destabilizing factor for Syria and the entire region," Rouhani said, adding that the American forces were "plundering the natural resources" of the country by increasing illegal military bases in the oil-rich areas east of the Euphrates.

"It is imperative that American terrorist forces withdraw from the entire region, especially Syria, as soon as possible, and that the Syrian government's rule prevail throughout the territory," he added.

Describing the Astana process as the only viable means to help resolve the Syrian crisis peacefully, Rouhani said that Iran, Russia and Turkey, as the guarantor countries of the Astana process, always supported the Syrian-Syrian dialogue in the framework of the agreements reached in the Astana process, and emphasized their determination to fight Daesh and al-Qaeda terrorism and all their affiliates throughout the region, including Syria.

He also ridiculed the claim of advocating anti-terrorism efforts by the US, which assassinated Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, one of the leading commanders on the frontline of combating terrorism.

"The one who claims to be fighting terrorism martyrs the hero of the fight against terrorism in the region, along with his comrades  this is indicative of the false claim of the US regime about fighting terrorism," he said.

General Soleimani, who was the former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and his companions were killed in an attack near Baghdad International Airport on January 3.

The airstrike that killed the top general was ordered by US President Donald Trump.

Putin stresses need for peaceful dialogue in Syria

Th Russian president, for his part, told his counterparts from Turkey and Iran that there was a need for peaceful dialogue between warring sides in Syria.

"An inclusive inter-Syrian dialogue should be actively promoted within the framework of the constitutional committee in Geneva. I propose to support this process, to help the participants  meet and start a direct dialogue," Reuters quoted Putin as saying.

He also said that hot spots of terrorism still remain in Syria's Idlib and other regions.

Erdogan stresses lasting solution to Syria crisis

Erdogan also told the video conference that the priority for Syria is a lasting solution to the conflict, "achievement of calm in the field and the protection of Syria's political unity and territorial integrity."

"We will continue to do all we can so that our neighbor Syria finds peace, security and stability soon," Reuters quoted the Turkish president as saying.

Joint statement stresses peaceful solution to Syria issue

At the end of the conference, the three heads of state also issues a joint statement, in which they reiterated that Syria's war had "no military solution" and had to be settled only via a political process.

They also agreed to hold the next trilateral summit on Syria in Iran, but gave no date.

The three countries also agreed to promote their economic cooperation, the statement said.

Iran's FM hails talks as 'very constructive'

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also tweeted at the end of the conference, describing the talks as "very constructive."

"Just concluded very constructive (virtual) summit of the Astana Process, hosted by Pres.@HassanRouhani," said part of his tweet, adding, "Parties agreed to continue coordination among the three guarantors, focusing on tension reduction, political process & humanitarian relief."

"Peace in Syria will be achieved," the tweet concluded.

Iran, Russia, and Turkey have been leading a peace process for Syria known as the Astana process, because Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan, formerly called Astana, originally hosted the meetings.

The Astana talks resulted in two agreements.

A first deal was signed in Kazakhstan's capital, arranging for the creation of de-escalation zones across Syria, including in parts of Idlib. The second one that came about in the Russian resort city of Sochi allowed Ankara to bring in a small number of forces to man the observation posts to reinforce de-escalation.

While the two deals have helped significantly reduce fighting in Syria, the conflict has not entirely ended, due in large part to Turkish failure to separate terrorists from what it calls "moderate" opposition groups in Idlib and Ankara's dispatch of thousands of troops and heavy military hardware into the Syrian province to back the militants.
In Call With Erdogan And Putin, Iran's Rohani Calls For End Of 'Illegitimate' U.S. Presence In Syria

By RFE/RL July 01, 2020

The "illegitimate" presence of U.S. forces in Syria should end immediately, Iranian President Hassan Rohani told Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in a video conference on July 1 on the situation in the war-torn country.

The talks are the first since September in the so-called Astana format, in which the three countries discuss developments in Syria, where the conflict has entered its 10th year.

Iran and Russia have been staunch supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey has called for his ouster and backed opposition fighters. All three countries have also been fighting against remnants of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Following U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement in December 2018 that he ordered the pullout of all 2,000-2,500 U.S. troops operating in Syria, the United States plans to finalize the withdrawal of most of its troops later this year.

Rohani insisted there is "no military solution" for Syria but reiterated its "determination" to root out IS remnants.

"We continue to support the inter-Syrian dialogue and underline our determination to fight the terrorism of Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State), Al-Qaeda, and other related groups."

"The Islamic republic believes the only solution to the Syrian crisis is political and not a military solution," Rohani said in a televised opening address.

Putin told his counterparts that there was a need for peaceful dialogue between warring sides in Syria, where the conflict has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions.

Putin also said that hot spots of terrorism still remain in Syria's Idlib and other regions.

"I emphasize that the fight against terrorism will continue until it is completely eradicated in Syria and the region in general," he added.

After delivering opening statements, the three presidents are expected to discuss Syria in private.

Turkey and Russia brokered a March cease-fire in rebel-controlled Idlib Province following a monthslong Russia-backed offensive by Syrian forces that displaced nearly 1 million people and threatened to send a flood of refugees into Turkey.

As part of the cease-fire deal, Turkish and Russian troops conduct joint patrols in a buffer zone between rebel fighters and Syrian government forces along a section of the strategic M4 highway, which connects Aleppo to Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/in-call-with-erdogan- putin-iran-s-rohani-calls-for-end-of-illegitimate-u-s -presence-in-syria/30700697.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.
Navy holds live-fire bombing drill off eastern Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

07/01/2020 06:46 PM

Taipei, July 1 (CNA) A fleet of F-16 fighter jets, carrying live MK-84 general purpose bombs, departed from Hualien Jiashan Air Base on Wednesday in a drill that simulated bombing enemy ships.

The bombs were dropped in the sea off the eastern coast of Taiwan in a simulated attack on enemy ships seeking to reach the shore.

The MK-84, an American general-purpose bomb, is the most powerful in the MK-80 series and is highly destructive. With a nominal weight of 907.2 kilograms, it is nicknamed the hammer because of its considerable power.

On impact, the MK-84 can blow apart buildings and other structures. It can penetrate metal up to 38 centimeters and concrete up to 3.4 meters, depending on the height from which it is dropped, and it causes lethal fragmentation across a radius of 370m.

Also Wednesday, the Taiwan Navy conducted a torpedo exercise, but no torpedoes were actually fired, a military source told CNA.

On July 15, the Navy is scheduled to hold its first live-fire torpedo drill in 13 years, off Taiwan's coast, said the military source, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the subject.

During the live-fire exercise, a German-made SUT heavyweight torpedo is expected to be fired from the Navy's two Chien Lung class diesel-electric submarines, according to the military source.

The last time Taiwan's Navy carried out a live-fire torpedo exercise was in 2007.

Wednesday's drills were conducted ahead of the annual Han Kuang military exercises, which are scheduled for July 13-17.

On July 16, military forces will conduct a live-fire anti-landing exercise at a Taichung beach and drills at Taichung Port and Ching Chuan Kang Air Base simultaneously.

(By Matt You and Evelyn Kao)

Enditem/pc


No Legal Ground For Re-Selling Russian S-400 to US, Turkey Says

Sputnik News

01:20 GMT 01.07.2020

Earlier, the US Senate introduced an amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow the United States to purchase Russian-made S-400 defence systems from Turkey to resolve issues over the missile's alleged incompatibility with the US F-35 fighter jet program.

There are no legal grounds for Turkey to sell the S-400 defence systems purchased from Russia, the press secretary of the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP), Omer Celik, said at a Tuesday press briefing. He also noted that Ankara initially intended to buy US-made Patriot systems, but received no answer from Washington.

Celik stated that Turkey was the "final user" of the defence system, and therefore there are no grounds for the country to re-sell it.

His remarks come as Russia's Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation noted that Ankara would not be able to re-sell S-400 systems to the United States without the agreement of Moscow.

"To export military products, a buyer of our weapons must present an end-user declaration to the Russian side. That is why transfer or re-export of such products to third countries is impossible without an official permit from the Russian side", a Federal Service spokesperson said.

Earlier, US Senate Majority Whip John Thune introduced legislation that would allow the United States to buy Turkey's Russian-made S-400 defence system, the purchase of which by Ankara in 2019 caused Washington to expel the nation from its F-35 jet fighter program and threaten to impose sanctions on the country. According to the White House, S-400 systems may allegedly compromise F-35 jet operations and fail to meet NATO standards.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his intention to continue cooperation with Russia on defence gear, although progress has been slowed by the coronavirus pandemic.

A Sputnik
Still, with four months to go until Election Day, Trump could well become competitive again. Leaders of his campaign in Pennsylvania, seizing on Bidens failure to shine as a favorite son, have sketched out a comeback path for Trump. Its steps include the Republican Partys advantage in new voter registrations; a return to in-person organizing while Bidens ground game remains virtual; and a range of issues  including energy policy, reopening the economy and defunding the police  that Republicans believe will peel away swing voters in a state Trump narrowly won in 2016.
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Representatives from Black Lives Matter 860, Break the Cycle 860, Why I Matter CT and the The Ally Collective said the visit with New Britain police on Wednesday, and earlier visits with Hartford police and Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, are the first steps in what they hope is a multi-city effort to press law enforcement and political leaders to take seriously the concerns of the Black and brown communities. Eventually, they want to take their concerns to state government.
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The iPhone has a back door that allows Apple to remotely delete apps which Apple considers inappropriate. Jobs said it's OK for Apple to have this power because of course we can trust Apple.

The iPhone has a back door for remote wipe . It's not always enabled, but users are led into enabling it without understanding.

Mac OS X had an intentional local back door for 4 years , which could be exploited by attackers to gain root privileges.

The Dropbox app for Macintosh takes control of user interface items after luring the user into entering an admin password .

The specific change described in the article was not maliciousit protected users from surveillance by third partiesbut that is a separate question.

Apple appears to say that there is a back door in MacOS for automatically updating some (all?) apps.

Apple mainly uses iOS, which is a typical jail, to impose censorship through the Apple Store. Please refer to the Apple Jails section for more information.

Digital restrictions management, or DRM, refers to functionalities designed to restrict what users can do with the data in their computers.

iTunes videos have DRM, which allows Apple to dictate where its customers can watch the videos they purchased .

DRM that caters to Bluray disks . (The article focused on Windows and said that MacOS would do the same thing subsequently.)

DRM (digital restrictions mechanisms) in MacOS . This article focuses on the fact that a new model of Macbook introduced a requirement for monitors to have malicious hardware, but DRM software in MacOS is involved in activating the hardware. The software for accessing iTunes is also responsible.

DRM makes the iPhone 7 nearly unrepairable by anyone else but Apple.

Apple is putting DRM on iPhone batteries, and the system proprietary software turns off certain features when batteries are replaced other than by Apple.

In this section, we list characteristics of Apple programs that block or hinder users from switching to any alternative programand, in particular, from switching to free software which can liberate the device the software runs on.

iWork (office software that runs on MacOS, iOS and iCloud) uses secret formats and provides no means of converting them to or from Open Document Formats . iWork formats have changed several times since they were first introduced. This may have had the effect of thwarting reverse engineering efforts , thus preventing free software from fully supporting them.

Apple devices lock users in solely to Apple services by being designed to be incompatible with all other options, ethical or unethical.

In MacOS and iOS, the procedure for converting images from the Photos format to a free format is so tedious and time-consuming that users just give up if they have a lot of them.

These bugs are/were not intentional, so unlike the rest of the file they do not count as malware. We mention them to refute the supposition that prestigious proprietary software doesn't have grave bugs.

The NSA can tap data in smart phones, including iPhones, Android, and BlackBerry . While there is not much detail here, it seems that this does not operate via the universal back door that we know nearly all portable phones have. It may involve exploiting various bugs. There are lots of bugs in the phones' radio software .

A bug in the iThings Messages app allowed a malicious web site to extract all the user's messaging history .

A vulnerability in Apple's Image I/O API allowed an attacker to execute malicious code from any application which uses this API to render a certain kind of image file .

The deep insecurity of iMonsters is even more pertinent given that Apple's proprietary software makes users totally dependent on Apple for even a modicum of security. It also means that the devices do not even try to offer security against Apple itself.

A series of vulnerabilities found in iOS allowed attackers to gain access to sensitive information including private messages, passwords, photos and contacts stored on the user's iMonster .

The reports are even unencrypted and they've been leaking this data for two years already. This malware is reporting to Apple what user opens what program at what time. It also gives Apple power to sabotage users' computing.

Apple has implemented a malware in its computers that imposes surveillance on users and reports users' computing to Apple.

Commercial crackware can get passwords out of an iMonster , use the microphone and camera, and other things.

Various proprietary programs often mess up the user's system. They are like sabotage, but they are not grave enough to qualify for the word sabotage. Nonetheless, they are nasty and wrong. This section describes examples of Apple committing interference.

Apple is putting DRM on iPhone batteries, and the system proprietary software turns off certain features when batteries are replaced other than by Apple.

Apple is systematically undermining interoperability . At the hardware level, it does this via nonstandard plugs, buses and networks. At the software level, it does this by not letting the user have any data except within one app.

Jails are systems that impose censorship on application programs.

Curiously, Apple is beginning to allow limited passage through the walls of the iThing jail: users can now install apps built from source code, provided the source code is written in Swift. Users cannot do this freely because they are required to identify themselves. Here are details . While this is a crack in the prison walls, it is not big enough to mean that the iThings are no longer jails.

Here is an article about the code signing that the iThings use to lock up the user.

iOS, the operating system of the Apple iThings, is the prototype of a jail . It was Apple that introduced the practice of designing general purpose computers with censorship of application programs.

For free software, this means users will need to get Apple's approval after compilation. This amounts to a system of surveilling the use of free programs.

Offering a checking service as an option could be useful and would not be wrong. Requiring users to get Apple's approval is tyranny. Apple says the check will only look for malware (not counting the malware that is part of the operating system ), but Apple could change that policy step by step. Or perhaps Apple will define malware to include any app that China does not like.

Apple plans to require that all application software for MacOS be approved by Apple first .

Apple rejected an app that displayed the locations of US drone assassinations, giving various excuses. Each time the developers fixed one problem, Apple complained about another. After the fifth rejection, Apple admitted it was censoring the app based on the subject matter .

Apple used this censorship power in 2014 to ban all bitcoin apps for the iThings for a time. It also banned a game about growing marijuana , while permitting games about other crimes such as killing people. Perhaps Apple considers killing more acceptable than marijuana.

This ludicrous rigidity illustrates the point that Apple should not be allowed to censor apps. Even if Apple carried out this act of censorship with some care, it would still be wrong. Whether racism is bad, whether educating people about drone attacks is bad, are not the real issue. Apple should not have the power to impose its views about either of these questions, or any other.

Apple has banned iThing applications that show the confederate flag. Not only those that use it as a symbol of racism , but even strategic games that use it to represent confederate army units fighting in the Civil War.

As of 2015, Apple systematically bans apps that endorse abortion rights or would help women find abortions .

Apple banned a program from the App Store because its developers committed the enormity of disassembling some iThings.

Apple censors games, banning some games from the crapp store because of which political points they suggest. Some political points are apparently considered acceptable.

Apple used its censorship system to enforce China's censorship by blocking distribution of the New York Times app .

However, the point here is the wrong of Apple's censorship of apps.

This is ironic because LinkedIn is a surveillance system itself. While subjecting its users to its own surveillance, it tries to protect its users from Russian surveillance, and is therefore subject to Russian censorship.

Apple used its censorship system to enforce Russian surveillance by blocking distribution of the LinkedIn app in Russia .

Apple deleted several VPNs from its app store for China , thus using its own censorship power to strengthen that of the Chinese government.

The root of these wrongs is in Apple. If Apple had not designed the iMonsters to let Apple censor applications, Apple would not have had the power to stop users from installing whatever kind of apps.

Apple is censoring apps for the US government too . Specifically, it is deleting apps developed by Iranians.

Apple's censorship of apps is fundamentally unjust, and would be inexcusable even if it didn't lead to security threats as well.

Users caught in the jail of an iMonster are sitting ducks for other attackers , and the app censorship prevents security companies from figuring out how those attacks work.

Thus, not only does Apple use the App Store as an instrument of censorship, it also uses the iThing operating system for that purpose.

Apple censors the Taiwan flag in iOS on behalf of the Chinese government. When the region is set to Hong Kong, this flag is not visible in the emoji selection widget but is still accessible. When the region is set to mainland China, all attempts to display it will result in the empty emoji icon as if the flag never existed.

Obeying the local laws about what people can do with software is no excuse for censoring what software people can use.

Apple has banned the app that Hong Kong protesters use to communicate .

This is a symptom of a very big injustice: that Apple has the power to decide what software can be installed on an iMonster. That it is a jail.

Apple is putting the squeeze on all business conducted through apps for iMonsters.

This allows a company such as Apple to say, We allow users to turn this off while ensuring that few will understand how to actually turn it off.

Proprietary companies can take advantage of their customers by imposing arbitrary limits to their use of the software. This section reports examples of hard sell and other unjust commercial tactics by Apple.

Apple Siri refuses to give you information about music charts if you're not an Apple Music subscriber.

These are situations in which Apple employs its power over users to directly intervene in ways that harm them or block their work.

Apple deleted from iPods the music that users had got from internet music stores that competed with iTunes .

Apple forced millions of iThings to download a system upgrade without asking the users . Apple did not forcibly install the upgrade but the downloading alone caused lots of trouble.

iOS version 9 for iThings sabotages them irreparably if they were repaired by someone other than Apple . Apple eventually backed off from this policy under criticism from the users. However, it has not acknowledged that this was wrong.

The Apple Music client program scans the user's file system for music files, copies them to an Apple server, and deletes them .

Apple stops users from fixing the security bugs in Quicktime for Windows , while refusing to fix them itself.

(The article uses the term lock to describe the DRM, but we prefer to use the term digital handcuffs .)

The iPhone 7 contains DRM specifically designed to brick it if an unauthorized repair shop fixes it . Unauthorized essentially means anyone besides Apple.

Meanwhile, Apple stops people from fixing problems themselves; that's the nature of proprietary software.

MacOS High Sierra forcibly reformats SSD boot drives, and changes the file system from HFS+ to APFS , which cannot be accessed from GNU/Linux, Windows or even older versions of MacOS.

The Telegram client is free software on other platforms, but not on iThings. Since they are jails , they don't permit any app to be free software.

This evidently has to do with Russia's command to Apple to block Telegram in Russia.

Apple and Samsung deliberately degrade the performance of older phones to force users to buy their newer phones .

When Apple suspects a user of fraud, it judges the case secretly and presents the verdict as a fait accompli. The punishment to a user found guilty is being cut off for life, which more-or-less cripples the user's Apple devices forever . There is no appeal.

Epic (Apple's target in this example) makes nonfree games which have their own malicious features , but that doesn't make it acceptable for Apple to have this sort of power.

Apple can remotely cut off any developer's access to the tools for developing software for iOS or MacOS.

Apple is moving its Chinese customers' iCloud data to a datacenter controlled by the Chinese government. Apple is already storing the encryption keys on these servers, obeying Chinese authority, making all Chinese user data available to the government.

Apple whistleblower Thomas Le Bonniec reports that Apple made a practice of surreptitiously activating the Siri software to record users' conversations when they had not activated Siri. This was not just occasional, it was systematic practice. His job was to listen to these recordings, in a group that made transcripts of them. He does not believes that Apple has ceased this practice. The only reliable way to prevent this is, for the program that controls access to the microphone to decide when the user has activated any service, to be free software, and the operating system under it free as well. This way, users could make sure Apple can't listen to them.

Google, Apple, and Microsoft (and probably some other companies) are collecting people's access points and GPS coordinates (which can identify people's precise location) even if their GPS is turned off, without the person's consent, using proprietary software implemented in person's smartphone. Though merely asking for permission would not necessarily legitimize this.

Safari occasionally sends browsing data from Apple devices in China to the Tencent Safe Browsing service, to check URLs that possibly correspond to fraudulent websites. Since Tencent collaborates with the Chinese government, its Safe Browsing black list most certainly contains the websites of political opponents. By linking the requests originating from single IP addresses, the government can identify dissenters in China and Hong Kong, thus endangering their lives.

The Chinese Communist Party's Study the Great Nation app requires users to grant it access to the phone's microphone, photos, text messages, contacts, and internet history, and the Android version was found to contain a back-door allowing developers to run any code they wish in the users' phone, as superusers. Downloading and using this app is mandatory at some workplaces. Note: The Washington Post version of the article (partly obfuscated, but readable after copy-pasting in a text editor) includes a clarification saying that the tests were only performed on the Android version of the app, and that, according to Apple, this kind of superuser surveillance could not be conducted on Apple's operating system.

In spite of Apple's supposed commitment to privacy, iPhone apps contain trackers that are busy at night sending users' personal information to third parties. The article mentions specific examples: Microsoft OneDrive, Intuit's Mint, Nike, Spotify, The Washington Post, The Weather Channel (owned by IBM), the crime-alert service Citizen, Yelp and DoorDash. But it is likely that most nonfree apps contain trackers. Some of these send personally identifying data such as phone fingerprint, exact location, email address, phone number or even delivery address (in the case of DoorDash). Once this information is collected by the company, there is no telling what it will be used for.

Adware Doctor, an ad blocker for MacOS, reports the user's browsing history.

The DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive make it illegal to study how iOS crapps spy on users, because this would require circumventing the iOS DRM.

In the latest iThings system, turning off WiFi and Bluetooth the obvious way doesn't really turn them off. A more advanced way really does turn them offonly until 5am. That's Apple for youWe know you want to be spied on.

Apple proposes a fingerprint-scanning touch screenwhich would mean no way to use it without having your fingerprints taken. Users would have no way to tell whether the phone is snooping on them.

iPhones send lots of personal data to Apple's servers. Big Brother can get them from there.

The iMessage app on iThings tells a server every phone number that the user types into it; the server records these numbers for at least 30 days.

iThings automatically upload to Apple's servers all the photos and videos they make. iCloud Photo Library stores every photo and video you take, and keeps them up to date on all your devices. Any edits you make are automatically updated everywhere. [] (From Apple's iCloud information as accessed on 24 Sep 2015.) The iCloud feature is activated by the startup of iOS. The term cloud means please don't ask where. There is a way to deactivate iCloud, but it's active by default so it still counts as a surveillance functionality. Unknown people apparently took advantage of this to get nude photos of many celebrities. They needed to break Apple's security to get at them, but NSA can access any of them through PRISM.

Apple has made various MacOS programs send files to Apple servers without asking permission. This exposes the files to Big Brother and perhaps to other snoops. It also demonstrates how you can't trust proprietary software, because even if today's version doesn't have a malicious functionality, tomorrow's version might add it. The developer won't remove the malfeature unless many users push back hard, and the users can't remove it themselves.

MacOS automatically sends to Apple servers unsaved documents being edited. The things you have not decided to save are even more sensitive than the things you have stored in files.

Various operations in the latest MacOS send reports to Apple servers.

Spotlight search sends users' search terms to Apple.

The iBeacon lets stores determine exactly where the iThing is, and get other info too.

The iThing also tells Apple its geolocation by default, though that can be turned off.

There is also a feature for web sites to track users, which is enabled by default. (That article talks about iOS 6, but it is still true in iOS 7.)
Aimee Ambrose can be reached at aimee.ambrose@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 240316. Follow her on Twitter at @aambrose_TGN .

Aimee Ambrose can be reached at aimee.ambrose@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 240316. Follow her on Twitter at @aambrose_TGN .
TOPEKA [mdash] Edna E. Yoder, 75, of Topeka, died at 1 a.m. Saturday, June 19, 2021, at her residence. She was born Oct. 3, 1945, in LaGrange, to Emmery and Mary (Chupp) Miller. On Oct. 15, 1964, in Topeka, she married Raymond M. Yoder. He survives. Survivors in addition to her husband are t
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(TNS)  Cities and public agencies throughout California's Bay Area are rushing to slash their police budgets, an idea that would have seemed radical only six weeks ago.Early Wednesday morning, the Berkeley City Council approved a budget with $9.2 million in police cuts, much of it redirected to social programs. Oakland stripped $14.3 million from its police budget last week, but city officials vowed to go further in response to protests.San Francisco city leaders  with backing from Police Chief Bill Scott  said weeks ago they are looking to move funding away from policing and into other city services.Last month, the Oakland Unified School District board voted to purge officers from school campuses. And BART, the Bay Areas sprawling transit agency, recently diverted $2 million from police and fare inspectors toward unarmed ambassadors. Its board also plans to shift some duties  including mental health calls  away from law enforcement this fall.The future of policing is coming dramatically into focus, in a region that could become a laboratory for reform. Local governments have lots details to figure out, such as how to redirect the money to keep communities safe, while spending it on things that matter. Cities are laying out plans to audit their 911 call systems and review how police officers use overtime. The future excites some people but seems complex and precarious to others.In the past couple weeks some Bay Area politicians began pushing harder for this new vision of public safety, following threats they might not be re-elected.We havent had this kind of reckoning since 1963, said BART Board President Lateefah Simon, referring to the year that newspapers published front-page photos of police dogs attacking civil rights protesters  images that convulsed the nation.Yet for many activists, the changes arent coming fast enough. Emotions are raw over the killing of George Floyd, the Black man who died in a roadway in Minneapolis after police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for longer than eight minutes. Protesters who chanted Defund the police after Floyds death are growing impatient as the message grinds through local governments.Frustration over the slow pace of change boiled to the surface Tuesday night in Berkeley. Scores of people called into a City Council meeting that dragged on for six hours, as officials balanced the political demands of the moment against the urgency of an economic crisis.The overwhelming majority of callers supported a last-minute proposal from Councilwoman Cheryl Davila, who wanted to to slice the police budget in half, though she didnt present a plan for the funds. Many exhorted the council to delay passing a city budget until its July 14 meeting, when Davilas proposal comes up for discussion.At quarter to midnight, Mayor Jesse Arreguin sternly addressed his constituents.There have been a lot of comments saying, Lets delay the budget, he said. Our fiscal year begins in 15 minutes, technically. We need an operating budget.Arreguin described the initial $9 million police cut as a down payment that opened the door for larger discussions, some of which may have to involve the police union, he said. Berkeley would freeze vacancies and shave overtime to extract the money, then spend it on new programs, such as an African American Holistic Resource Center. Already, council members had pitched strategies to rethink public safety. In addition to Davilas item, Councilman Rigel Robinson had floated a measure to eliminate police from traffic stops.The philosophy, while new, has at least one precedent: In 2013, county officials took over the police department in Camden, New Jersey, installing surveillance equipment  such as license plate readers  to do the work of officers. Camden saw a significant drop in violent crime, yet the overhaul remains controversial, in part because it broke up the police union.Oakland civil rights attorney James Chanin toldhe can imagine plenty of scenarios in which police currently respond, but that dont necessarily need to involve law enforcement  such as sending mental health professionals to defuse domestic disputes. Chanin represented plaintiffs in a famous 2000 police beating and corruption case that later placed Oakland under a federal court monitor.There are ways to trim the tree without chopping it down, he said.Many view the fervor to transform the police as a logical extension of Black Lives Matter, and activists are ramping up pressure to lacerate police budgets further, or disband departments altogether. At City Council meetings, callers threaten to vote out or run challengers against politicians who dont meet their demands.Thats led some observers to wonder if the swift, widespread embrace of these reforms in the Bay Area could be a political calculus.Were in this heightened situation where people are falling all over themselves to prove theyre part of the program, said Greg McConnell, CEO of the Jobs and Housing Coalition, a group that represents major employers and building trades in Oakland.McConnell, who is Black, empathizes with the protests. Yet hes somewhat surprised by Oaklands determination to erode law enforcement, when residents of Chinatown and some of the flatland neighborhoods are clamoring for protection.Mayor Libby Schaaf took office five years ago on promises to boost the police force to 800 officers  a goal she nearly met last year, when the city funded 792 sworn positions.As the politics heat up, officials are also struggling to keep a civil tone in discussions that dredge up the countrys long history of racial oppression. At least five people called the Oakland City Councils public comment line Tuesday to unleash violent racial slurs. In Berkeley, a caller attacked Arreguin for not slicing more of the police budget, saying the mayor wasnt Latinx enough. At a recent BART meeting, one board director praised Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.Simon compared these outbursts to a person confronting all his demons in therapy. Racism is in the nations bone marrow, she said, and policing has become the space where many of those issues play out.Cat Brooks, an outspoken activist in Oakland and co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, said shes optimistic about the current string of reforms. While federal leaders spar over law enforcement policy, California and the Bay Area are pushing forward, stretching to see whats economically feasible and politically palatable.Brooks cited a bill by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley to strike police from social service calls, and similar legislation by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, to classify racially motivated 911 calls as hate crimes. Additionally, Brooks group is sponsoring a bill by Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager, D-Los Angeles that would delegate community organizations to respond to homelessness issues, domestic conflicts and mental health emergencies.When Brooks helped create the Anti Police-Terror Project five years ago, with a platform that anticipated todays defund the police campaigns, people dismissed her as an outlier.This movement was born out of Oakland from a grassroots organization that people used to look at as crazy fringe radical people, she said. And now it has national traction.
Insolvency of Alabama Unemployment Fund

An 'Unfriendly System' for Alabama Unemployment

(TNS)  The Montgomery sky over the Alabama State University campus was rapidly developing from twilight blue to dusky navy when the rain began to fall on the two women.The two pulled tote bags from their sedan before one shrugged into a yellow rain coat, stuffing her pockets with last-minute essentials. After one woman slung a folding chair over her shoulder, the two began their way toward the ASU Acadome, their heads bowed against a now-driving rain.It was 8:30 p.m., and they were preparing to set up camp outside of Alabama's makeshift unemployment claims help center. It would be 12 hours until doors opened, and the two women weren't even the first in line when they arrived on the rainy Wednesday evening.A line of unemployed or underemployed Alabamians has formed in Montgomery parking lots for weeks, first at the Cramton Bowl and later at the ASU Acadome, with thousands of people huddling through the night in hopes of receiving their version of a Golden Ticket: a numbered spot in line to speak to one of a handful of Alabama Department of Labor employees in person.For many, its a last-ditch to receive unemployment benefits when phone call lines remain jammed, benefits are frozen for obscure reason and savings run out, if they existed in the first place. Amid an unprecedented global pandemic, many Alabamians can't afford to lose the maximum $275 Alabama unemployment weekly benefit, or the $600 CARES federal subsidy that will end next month.The Alabama Department of Labor has been, by all accounts, overwhelmed. The department has received 576,314 unemployment claims to date. The department is staffed enough to field less than 4 percent of the calls it receives per day, according to department estimates, and staff trained to legally handle unemployment claim issues are only based in Montgomery."Unfortunately, we urge patience. I know everyone has very little of it at this point," spokesperson Tara Hutchinson said. "We understand the frustration, the anger. We understand the questions."The state unemployment fund is also on track for insolvency by the end of the summer. A department spokesperson confirmed to the Montgomeryon Thursday that, if trends continue, it will follow other states in borrowing from federal funds to stay afloat in one to two months.Desperation in Montgomery is so high a black market system has emerged: A security guard on Thursday morning, shouting to the crowd, said anyone caught selling a ticket would be "prosecuted." One woman, who declined to give her name to the Montgomery, confirmed she had been present on Tuesday and saw people bartering over ticket slots, asking $100 to $200 for the brightly colored rectangle that can get you through the Acadome doors.Ten hours after the first people set up camp in a pouring rain, chaos descended on the steaming asphalt in front of the Acadome. Hundreds of people were awaiting in a long, quasi-socially distanced line when conflicting instructions from a security guard and staff caused a rush to a single file line in front of the door.Shouting broke out among groups afraid people had cut in the line, a critical issue if there were more people than tickets that day. One man shouted at people to distance themselves due to coronavirus concerns, while another woman stood off to the side, nervously eyeing the line her husband, a kidney transplant recipient, was standing in."Let's get some respect and order," one staff member yelled over the crowd. "If there's going to be any sign of disorder, my order will be for everyone to go home." The security guard told people they had to raise their hand if they wanted to leave the line to go to the restroom."Please don't cut the line off," one woman pleaded. "We've been here since 3 this morning."Victor Hogans, a former poultry plant worker who drove through the night from Dothan, tried to number people off in the line, in the hopes it would quell people's nerves. He was shouted down, but wasn't angry at the people around him."They're frustrated with their bills, caring for their kids. The coronavirus has gotten people messed up. People have to pay for medicine, they have to pay for food. They can't pay for their car bills, their cars are being repossessed. People can't get no help," Hogans said. "People have been let down and disappointed for so long. The people are frustrated. Many people had already had financial issues and problems, and now they really have problems. It's tearing families apart. People have been out here a long time. It causes your cup to runneth over, and it causes a domino effect."On March 18, days after the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in Alabama, Alabama's unemployment fund  funded through employer taxes paid in the first fiscal quarter  had a little over $704 million. By mid-May, an historic rush of unemployment claims had depleted its coffers to $490 million.In the next four weeks, the fund paid out another $149 million. As of Friday, June 19, $341 million was left in the fund.We expect this trust fund to remain solvent for anywhere for a month to two months, said Tara Hutchinson, communications director at the Department of Labor. Basically, every two weeks were paying a regular years worth of benefits.If current trends continue, the department does expect the trust fund to become insolvent if that happens.The situation isnt without precedent. California, Ohio and other states have already informed the federal government they will need to borrow to keep state funds afloat. Alabama did the same during the Great Recession, Hutchinson said.Hutchinson said the department is receiving an "overwhelming" amount of calls per day, up to 210,000 a day with 300 people available to answer them. She said they can typically process 6,000 to 7,000 calls per day.But nearly every person thespoke to about their claims issue said it was impossible to get through on the phone system.Harold, who formerly worked in transportation in Huntsville before work dried up in March, arrived at the Acadome around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Montgomery. He was one of the few who had been able to get through the phones to someone, but they said they couldn't find his claim, his name or social security number in the system."Which means when I applied, the system threw it out. I didn't know what to do," he said, when his wife looked online and decided they needed to travel to the department's Montgomery headquarters to get answers."I came up here this afternoon. And then they told me we'd have to stay the night," Harold said. He and his wife hadn't prepared for an overnight stay, but he got a hotel room for her and brought a chair out into the rain. "Sometimes we have no choice."One of the earliest to arrive on Wednesday night, he got a coveted spot under a door covering."I had no idea I would be here. We were going to go back to Huntsville today, but I said no, we have to stay here," Harold said. "They made us stop working. And then people are saying we shouldn't get money because we're lazy. There's a disconnect there."Sarah, a young hospitality worker from Birmingham, hesitated to give her last name to a reporter. "You already have to swallow your pride to sit out here," she said, sitting next to Harold. "I'm just a private person.""You get on social media and people are bashing it. But they're only seeing one side of it. People who are seeking unemployment are not people who don't want to work."Sarah wasn't new to the process on Wednesday. It was her third time waiting overnight to see a DOL worker.The first time, she was No. 58 in line. There was a problem with her employer's filing that needed to be fixed.The second time, she was No. 92. Something was wrong with her direct deposit, and she wasn't receiving her benefits.The second time Sarah came, a worker inside the Acadome temporarily lost her paperwork, an experience Sarah found stressful and upsetting as a form with her social security and bank account information was floating around the room."I get that government workers are under a lot of stress," she said. "But these are people's livelihoods. That was my identity. There were only five workers inside."On Wednesday, she was among the first 10 people waiting to get in."They don't keep the air on inside," she said of the process inside the Acadome. "It feels barbaric.""So they're taking the pain, too?" Harold, overhearing, asks her of the workers."I hate it for them," Sarah said. "But at the same time, I hate it more for the people out here.""They're paid to be in that unbearable situation," Harold said. "And we're trying to get the money that we're owed. It's more unbearable for us.""You've been here three times?" Harold asked Sarah, who nodded. "Now I'm scared."Hutchinson said Thursday 7 to 10 people are working the Acadome, and the department can't set up similar sites anywhere else because the staff, trained in certain unemployment law and procedures, are based in Montgomery.The department has recently staffed up two additional call centers through a contractor, pulling back Alabama Department of Labor retirees and people from other states who have similar job training."The issue with increasing staffing is it's not as simple as going off the street and hiring someone," Hutchinson said. "If it was, I promise we would do it."More than three months into the pandemic that brought the economy to a grinding halt, Hutchinson said the nature of the unemployment claims issues now are drastically different from initial problems.There is a significant decline in new claims, she said, but the backlog of existing claims that have been tied up, for whatever reason, require a higher skillset to deal with. It's not a simple data entry problem. Much of their call volume is repeated calls over a single issue."Repeatedly calling all day long, it ties up the system," Hutchinson said. "Once people are able to get their information into the call back system, they need to stop calling us. We will return the call."But thehas spoken to multiple people who have never received a call back or have found the system of online forms and confusing questions nearly impossible to navigate. Caine Clayton, who was laid off from a Birmingham-based marketing job in March, said he expected his claims to take a few weeks to process, given the volume of people flooding the system.He immediately filed for unemployment, in what was initially a pain-free process online. As the current system works, Alabama requires you to file a claim, which must be approved, and then go back and file each individual week to receive benefits."After that, I still consistently logged online to check the status and there were no updates. I also called the 1-800 number on their site numerous times, but each time I never got a dial tone and was immediately met with an automated message indicating that they were essentially busy and for me to try back. A few weeks ago, a chat box appeared and I was able to submit a general email asking the status  never heard back," Clayton said.Clayton found another job weeks after he was unemployed, but still hadn't received back pay. On June 20, he received a letter telling him he had a 10-day window to reply to an inquiry about his new employer. The letter provided him a number to call.But Clayton said the letter was dated June 3, and he had missed the 10-day window to respond before the letter even got to him.He's tried to call in anyway."Zero luck getting through," Clayton said. Due to his current schedule, driving to Montgomery in hopes of securing an in-person consult is out of the question.Michael Forton, a lawyer and director of advocacy for Legal Services of Alabama (LSA), said navigating Alabama's unemployment system can be an "insurmountable task."Theyve set the system up as much as possible to be difficult," Forton said. "I think the system is designed to be unfriendly, and now they realize it should have been set up to be more friendly."Forton said communications between LSA attorneys and others around the case well-versed in unemployment claims have stalled, and LSA has seen its unemployment claims caseload increase seven-fold year-over-year.It's hit-and-miss whether you will or can file a claim, Forton said. A recent client "pushed the wrong button or key" on a filing and her claim was frozen. She drove several hours to Montgomery for help, but "she got there too late.""If there is any sort of thing, the smallest problem, you can't get through," Forton said.The Alabama Department of Labor maintains no one is required to travel to Montgomery to address their unemployment claims and it will honor backdated claims. But for many, driving to Montgomery seems to be the only option."Staff and people are sending mixed communications. It's in disarray," said Hogans, the Dothan poultry worker. "They're just sending people here, not communicating with each other.On Wednesday night, facing 12 hours in a folding chair for the third time, Sarah tried to steel herself with perspective."I keep telling myself to be grateful during this process," Sarah said. "There are people who won't receive any benefits, for whatever reason, or they don't have as good of help (as I do.) Third time, whatever, people have it a lot harder. I try not to have a pity party."The next morning, a group of women in ASU alumni shirts unloaded cases of water and packs of snacks into rolling wagons. They walked down the line, handing out oranges and drinks to people shaking off a few hours of damp sleep in the morning light. A handful of people had brought tents or chairs with head coverings, but many sat out in the elements all night with folding chairs. Some sat on the pavement. One woman appeared to have brought a step ladder to lean on until doors opened.The group of women handing out breakfast shrugged off gratitude. They didn't want recognition, they'd just seen photos of the lines on social media and wanted to do what little they could for people in "impossible" circumstances.As they packed up to leave, one woman surveyed the line, her brows knitted above a face mask."This is not how we are called to serve people," she said, shaking her head sadly.
Human-Centered Design Helped Seattle Increase Testing for COVID-19

U.S. Senate Introduces New $100 Billion Broadband Infrastructure Bill

A new program dubbed Accelerate: Atlanta aims to help underserved communities in that city learn digital skills that can boost regional economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.The program is a cross-sector effort between Atlanta, Microsoft and list of other partners such as Accenture, as well as the education organizations, General Assembly, OpenClassrooms and Tech Bridge. Microsoft announced the Atlanta effort this week with a press release , billing it as the first of many city-focused digital skills and employment partnerships designed to upskill and increase employability.When it comes to closing the nations digital divide  which is the term used to describe a situation in which portions of the population are being left out of technological advancement in society  there are often three main areas: access to devices, Internet connectivity and digital skills training. Digital skills training, essentially, means possessing the knowledge to use devices and connectivity in a meaningful way that benefits one's life, be it from increasing employment opportunities, accessing healthcare or bolstering education.The new Accelerate: Atlanta program is intended to be the first of a global digital skills initiative from Microsoft, which has stated intentions to help as many as 25 million people globally acquire digital skills by the end of this year. Areas of focus in the effort include helping with digital fluency when it comes to keeping up with newer tech work such as AI and machine learning.To do so, Microsoft is investing more than $1 million in Accelerate: Atlanta , going toward cash grants to Atlanta-based nonprofits that are led by or actively serving Black communities.Through Accelerate: Atlanta, Microsoft and its partners will help close the digital divide and ensure there is a place for everyone in our shared future, said Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in the press release. The road to economic recovery must begin with pathways to opportunity that are inclusionary and accessible to all. This is more than an initiative  this is an investment in underserved and underrepresented communities that will equip our residents with skills to compete in a modern workforce, while at the same time grow our middle class.Deploying human-centered design approaches  the type that have taken hold rapidly within government agencies in recent years  was key in Seattle increasing its testing for COVID-19, according to a new blog The effort was led in part by Leah Tivoli, who is a manager with Seattle city halls innovation team, which is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Bloomberg authored the blog detailing the effort, noting that in that capacity Tivoli had been trained in human-centered design, which means in the most basic sense, designing processes that have in mind the needs of the humans who use them. In this case, that meant considering the experience of the people being tested for COVID-19.A team in Seattle worked with public- and private-sector partners to double the citys capacity in a span of two weeks, creating two new locations for tests that are able to test as many as 700 people each day spread across a six-day week.There were several things stemming from customer feedback inherent to human-centered design that made this increase possible, and the list includes choosing locations wisely, starting small and scaling up, making sign-up easy via a page on the citys website , and continuing to collect customer feedback in a way that supported improvements to the testing process.Another vital component was partnerships, which is a trend for local governments trying to respond to and recover from the COVID-19 crisis. The Seattle testing effort saw the city working with the University of Washington, a U.S. Digital Response team and a software company called Solv, among others.The U.S. Senate has introduced new legislation that would invest $100 billion in broadband infrastructure with an emphasis on helping to fund added connectivity for health-care providers.The bill  dubbed the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act  is a companion to a bill introduced recently in the U.S House of Representatives. The new bill calls specifically for encouraging universal broadband access by investing $80 billion in deploying high-speed broadband infrastructure, spending an addition $5 billion in low-interest financing for deployment through a loan program and creating a new office within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration that would oversee the use of the money.Another component of the bill is ensuring affordable Internet by requiring affordable options for Internet service within all newly built infrastructure, offering a $50 monthly discount for low-income residents and directing the Federal Communications Commission to publicize data on price changes throughout the nation.Finally, there are also provisions in the bill aimed at promoting Internet adoption, and these include investing $1 billion in grant programs at the state level, spending $5 billion to help students without Internet at home get access in order to benefit from remote learning, and funding Wi-Fi on school buses, with an emphasis on rural areas where longer bus rides are common.
(TNS)  A nonprofit in South Texas wants to make sure that children living in some of the poorest areas of the country have access to affordable internet in the wake of an educational revolution that has made the service a necessity.La Union Del Pueblo Entero launched a virtual campaign Tuesday, calling for signatures in support of bringing internet services to rural residents across South Texas, specifically focusing on Starr, Hidalgo and Cameron counties, where organizers say one third of the population lacks connectivity.The internet is not a luxury. Unfortunately, right now its something necessary so that our children can continue their education, Alberta Ramirez, a LUPE member and volunteer said during a Zoom meeting Tuesday. Our worry, as parents, is that they have a (quality) education and that they are well-prepared.Ramirez was one of a handful of members that gave testimonies about their virtual woes, calling for accessibility and affordability.Olivia Castro, who lives in Bentsen Palm near Bentsen Road and Mile 9 , said she cant afford the service.Theres only one company that will come in here, but its very expensive, she said about her neighborhood. And work has been reduced a lot. We dont have the means to pay for expensive internet, and that also affects our children, our youth, because without internet they cant complete their homework. We have phones, but the phones signal is not always good, and so were asking that the counties help us with signatures.Eleven-year-old Maria Arias, who lives in a colonia north of Edinburg, was the case in point. She joined the Zoom meeting through her phones internet capabilities to talk about her struggles, but it was difficult to understand what she was trying to convey because her signal was weak.Its just, I cant hear the question, she said at one point.Through a choppy connection, Arias explained she has to do her homework by hand and has trouble keeping up with lessons.I have to do it on paper because I cant go to the library because my parents are afraid Ill contract COVID-19. They tell me to do what I can, but I dont think its fair, she said. But, I understand because they work in the fields, picking fruits and vegetables, and its not enough to pay for internet or Wi-Fi, and that makes me sad.Many of her peers are in the same situation, she said.We know the schools are making big efforts, said Martha Sanchez, LUPE community organizing coordinator. PSJA is putting Wi-Fi in each bus and then theyre going to go park them in specific areas, but theyre areas. Not every child goes to PSJA. We have many school districts that dont have the ability that PSJA has.And while there are some programs offered via individual internet service providers, the need is too great and there are just not enough resources, Sanchez said, also noting there was a program under the Obama administration that gave qualifying families small subsidies to pay for internet services, but that program is no longer in place, she said.We dont want a small solution. We dont want to patch it up or use a Band-Aid for this big problem, she said. We wanted to look at something that is bigger, a solution that covers everybody and a solution that doesnt continue to be a problem every time the administration changes.And in order to do that, the nonprofit is going to need to get a lot of people on board, specifically county judges, state representatives and local congressmen, Sanchez said.We know its going to require a lot of people to address this issue, and we just wanted to make sure that everybody is aware of how these problems affect our families in the Rio Grande Valley, she said. Thats why were pushing the Census. So we can bring more money and we want some of that money to be invested in (finding solutions for this).Hidalgo County commissioners are already studying the issue. Theyve recently allocated $20 million to the Internet Connectivity Committee, which will look at expanding Wi-Fi services in rural areas. Those funds are part of the $151 million the county received in CARES Act funding earlier this year.
(TNS)  After mounting pressure from politicians and thousands of law students, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Wednesday afternoon that the Florida bar exam will shift to an online format due to rising COVID-19 cases.The move online is a first for the exam, well known for its extreme difficulty.In addition, the July exam, which was to be taken in either Orlandos Orange County Convention Center or the Tampa Convention Center, will now be administered on Aug. 18, according to the Florida Supreme Court.Over 1,200 law students from all over Florida were expected to take the exam at the end of the month at one of the two test sites, despite COVID-19 cases skyrocketing in the Sunshine State.On May 5, the Florida Board of Bar Examiners declared that the July test would carry on as scheduled; the plan for which was based on available information from the Florida Department of Health. That press release was sent at a time when coronavirus cases were decreasing. According to the release, the test would be administered with safety protocols such as social distancing, the mandatory use of face masks, and a questionnaire and temperature checks upon arrival.Many students online felt the doards measures werent enough to keep them safe and that the board was not seriously considering the risks immune-system-compromised students faced. However, the board apparently took the crisis seriously enough in regards to its administrative staff. A visit to the boards website shows a red bulletin at the top of its homepage features a message to visitors: Based on the latest COVID-19 status, the boards office, but not the lobby of the boards office, is open on a limited basis.A month after the board declared the test was still on, June case numbers in Florida began not only increasing but also breaking records. Last week, the Florida Department of Health reported 9,585 new coronavirus cases Saturday, shattering the previous daily high for positive COVID-19 infections made just the day before.As of Wednesday, Florida has registered 158,997 positive cases and 3,550 deaths.Orlando Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith wrote a letter Tuesday to the Florida Supreme Court seeking a change to the July test amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Urban centers in Florida such as Tampa and Orlando have also experienced a recent jump in new cases, Smith said. CNN recently reported that Florida is showing signs of becoming the next epicenter of the national health crisis.' Now is not the time to convene thousands of Floridians and out-of-state examinees in two indoor locations for several days of in-person examinations.Law students also voiced their concerns in online threads and even started dozens of petitions on Change.org pleading with the board to seek alternative options.Among the suggestions was to move the test onto an online format. However the paradigm shift poses its own problems as the Aug. 18 date approaches, according to a published work by Ohio State University Public Law students, who examined the multiple options exam administrators had available on the table when considering how to administer the test.The feasibility of this option would rest largely on the National Conference of Bar Examinerss ability to move the Uniform Bar Exam and each of its components online, according to the document. A sudden move to online exams could also raise questions about equating scores to previous written exams. Given the need to make decisions quickly it would be very risky to rely on this alternative.One such risk or complication is whether or not test-takers could even access the exam from home computers.The boards recent decision is welcome news to many students who felt the board was ignoring their pleas, such as Florida International University law graduate Brian Heckmann. Heckmann was scheduled to take the test at the Orange County Convention Center, but started a petition to seek an alternative when it became clear that COVID-19 cases were increasing.This certainly is a welcome change, especially for somebody like me who is immunocompromised and at high risk for serious illness or death if infected, Heckmann said. However my only apprehension with the current solution is that it may be too little, too late.Heckmanns online petition called for the board to waive the exam for this generation of law students, arguing that moving the test online creates logistical difficulties. His petition has a goal 5,000 signatures and so far is at 3,300.These are extraordinary times which present extraordinary challenges, Heckmann wrote. We, the law school class of 2020 ask that the Florida Board of Bar Examiners rise to these challenges with an extraordinary solution to prevent any further undue hardship to our professional careers.Waiving the exam is a process known as emergency diploma privileges; a practice seen out of Wisconsin, which has made long use of licensing graduates of state schools without the need to take a bar exam.Diploma Privileges would be the ideal option because it would be the only one that both takes into account the uniquely difficult position applicants this year had and would not materially prejudice those applicants, Heckmann said. No group of applicants ever before had to prepare for the test with a significant risk of serious illness or death to themselves or their families based on exposure caused by this test.The bar exam will consist of 100 multiple-choice questions and three essay questions and may cover any subject that is traditionally tested, according to the Florida Supreme Court. Applicants must also have access to a computer with a webcam and internet to allow for proctoring.The board will not provide this technology to any applicant, the Florida Supreme Court stated.The board will extend the deadline for the applying for test accommodations relating to the online format to July 10.
(TNS)  The Central California Alliance for Health (the Alliance) announced Tuesday it recently become aware of a data security breach that may have resulted in the unintentional disclosure of member health information.The Alliance is the Medi-Cal managed health care plan for Merced County, in addition to Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.In a release, the Alliance says there is no evidence that member information was accessed or misused. The company has notified members who may have been affected, according to a news release.According to the release, an unknown, unauthorized third party accessed three employees email accounts to obtain the credentials of several individuals during a brief period on May, 7, 2020.After the potentially suspicious activity, Alliance staff immediately began an investigation to determine what information was potentially accessed. The company determined that limited member health information may have been accessed, however, the information would not have included financial information or social security numbers.The Alliance remains committed to protecting member information and has taken steps to prevent a similar event from occurring in the future, the company said in the release.The email accounts of the employees involved were shut down and all Alliance employees were required to change their system password information. All employees were also required to complete a training course on preventing these type of data security breaches.Letters were sent out to potentially impacted members, which included additional information what occurred. If members have questions, they can email listprivacyofficer@ccah-alliance.org.The Alliance has over 330,000 members in Monterey, Merced and Santa Cruz counties.
In destroying these statues, do we really succeed in exacting revenge for the subsequent horrendous ravaging of our native populations and exploitation of their lands? Is there a way to honor the courage and skill of Columbus as an explorer and put him into a more proper and less dignified place in history? After all, many of our founding fathers were slave owners yet we have not totally disavowed their valuable contributions toward the establishment of our republic. To be sure, they were flawed, and their deficiencies need to be recognized. Yet we still try to understand why they took the actions they did in the historical context of the times in which they lived.
(TNS)  Malware attacks on prominent businesses and institutions are nothing new. But experts say the shift to working from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic may be making it easier for hackers to find a way in.The University of California, San Francisco paid a ransom of $1.14 million to hackers in June to recover data from its School of Medicine that had been encrypted in a cyberattack, the university announced Friday. The attack marked the third in a string of recent cyberattacks carried out against universities.The prestigious medical school is among several universities to have been targeted by ransomware in recent months. Netwalker, the ransomware software responsible for the UCSF hack, was used to carry out similar attacks against Michigan State University and Columbia College, Chicago in late May and early June. Michigan State opted not to pay its ransom at the advice of law enforcement, which resulted in financial documents and personal information from the university being published online Carolyn Crandall, Chief Deception Officer at computer security service Attivo Networks, said the shift to remote work amid COVID-19 has made companies more vulnerable to cyberattacks  new weaknesses like the use of personal computers at home and the cost of guarding remote connections to sensitive corporate servers have only made it easier for hackers to infiltrate targets. A search on Twitter reveals numerous additional organizations that have purportedly been targeted by Netwalker, from a Long Beach country club to a healthcare provider in Philadelphia.Crandall said that Attivo has observed an uptick in ransomware attacks in recent months among its clients that she fears could eventually lead to further high-profile breaches.I hope Im wrong, that the shoes not about to drop, but I fear given what we know as security professionals that there is definitely an increased risk, she said.The hackers struck UCSF on June 1 with malware that encrypted data on some of the School of Medicines servers, rendering them inaccessible. The hackers demanded a ransom payment to release the data  a demand that UCSF begrudgingly met on June 6 after a day of negotiation on a dark-web website.The data that was encrypted is important to some of the academic work we pursue as a university serving the public good, the university wrote in a press release. We therefore made the difficult decision to pay some portion of the ransom, approximately $1.14 million, to the individuals behind the malware attack in exchange for a tool to unlock the encrypted data and the return of the data they obtained.According to UCSF, the incident did not affect patient care delivery operations or research on COVID-19. The university is working with a leading cybersecurity expert to investigate the attack and expects to be able to restore the affected data soon.Crandall said that companies are generally advised not to pay ransoms if targeted by ransomware attacks.Inherently, (paying) doesnt guarantee the return of the data or that the decrypter (to recover files) is going to work, Crandall said. And theres always a chance that even if you pay the first time, they may come back and hit you again.
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Cyril Abiteboul is playing down hopes that Fernando Alonso might return to Formula 1 with Renault in 2021.

The team boss issued a firm "no" when asked by France's L'Equipe about the Spaniard's candidature for the seat set to be vacated by Daniel Ricciardo.

Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel, however, are still options.

"The team needs an experienced driver who is capable of carrying out the project and above all with great motivation," Abiteboul said. "We want someone to commit to us."

Also speaking with the broadcaster Canal Plus, the Frenchman was presented with a list of other potential candidates, including Alonso, Vettel, Bottas, and Renault juniors Christian Lundgaard and Guanyu Zhou.

"It is a good list, with some difficulties particularly for our young drivers," he said, explaining that the corona crisis has badly affected Lundgaard and Zhou's junior categories.

"To obtain their super licence, they must be in the top four and the top four will probably be decided very late. It could be Abu Dhabi, and we don't know yet when Abu Dhabi will be," said Abiteboul.

Told that a driver like Alonso may not wait until December, Abiteboul insisted: "It's not just Fernando on that list."

Indeed, quadruple world champion Vettel is there as well, but Abiteboul suggested that how much Renault is willing to pay for its next driver is another important factor.

"I'm not going into economic aspects, although our priority is to invest in the team's infrastructure," he said.

"Vettel will be a free agent in 2021 and if he is highly motivated to continue in Formula 1 then he may also be of interest to us.

"We don't want to put pressure on Esteban (Ocon) - obviously we count on him for the future. He has to show that he deserves his place and for the next seasons, we have our academy which has young talents that we trust."

When asked about Bottas, who may be ousted by Mercedes at the end of the year, Abiteboul said: "He has given Hamilton some difficulties, which not everyone has been able to do. Nico Rosberg was champion, but at what cost? He then stopped in F1.

"Bottas has not won yet but he still has a lot to give and he wants to show it."

(GMM)
Organisers in Rio de Janeiro are still pushing to have the Brazilian GP relocated from its current venue in Sao Paulo.

According to O Estado de S.Paulo, JR Pereira - the boss of a consortium (Rio Motorsports) that won a bid to build a Formula 1 circuit in Rio - met with Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday.

The report, which was later confirmed by the president's office, said an update about negotiations to secure a F1 race deal for 2021 and beyond was on the agenda.

Other government officials were also in attendance, and O Estado de S.Paulo said an announcement could be made within the next few weeks.

The newspaper also said Bolsonaro supports the project, but there remain key legal and environmental hurdles to clear before construction can begin at the military base in Deodoro, in Rio's North Zone.

(GMM)
But colleges can set up arguments from consent without ever asking anybody to sign anything. They can claim that attendance itself proves consent. To pave the way, colleges and universities will try to make it seem as though those physically returning to the school grounds are being given meaningful options other than coming to campus  and that those who do come are well-informed of the dangers of doing so.
BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- An online exhibition, featuring about 230 fine artworks, was launched by the National Art Museum of China on Wednesday to mark the 99th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Divided into four parts in chronological order, the exhibition offers people a glance at the achievements accomplished by the country under the CPC leadership over the periods of the people's liberation, national construction, reform and opening up, and national rejuvenation.

The 229 works on display, mainly collected by the museum, include traditional Chinese paintings, oil paintings, sculptures, and other fine arts.
Across the nation, groups opposing the Columbus Day holiday are exploiting the racial unrest to tear down or deface statues of Columbus in the name of social justice. Political leaders have caved in to the pressure, oblivious to the history of the Columbus holiday and the meaning it holds for many Italian Americans. With little opportunity for discussion, towns throughout America have simply removed the statues of the Italian explorer, as if removing parts of our history is a solution rather than a diversion to true action.
NEVS has presented its new mobility ecosystem: PONSthe first generation of autonomous vehicles with a connected user interface. The self-driving vehicle Sango is the centerpiece of the system.





The self-driving vehicle Sango

NEVS developed PONS because cities all over the world, clogged by pollution and traffic, want to do whatever they can to reduce the use of cars. There are 1.3 billion cars in the world today, but they are used only 5% of the time.

In parallel with the problem of pollution and traffic increasing, the development of technology for self-driving vehicles is being pushed forward by niche software companies aiming to create more sustainable and traffic-optimized cities while the car industry has yet to come up with vehicles adapted to the new conditions and opportunities that a self-driving world creates. This is probably because a world with less traffic means fewer cars, NEVS notes.

NEVS believes there is no reason to own an autonomous vehicle because it can pick the passengers up from wherever they are and take them wherever they want to go in the city, at a fair price. At the same time, they dont have to worry about parking, refuelling, service or running costs.

We started by looking at why urban citizens have such strong desire to use their own cars rather than public transport, even if it means sitting in traffic jams for hours each day. The reason is privacyin your own car you feel safe, secure, relaxed and free. Anna Haupt, VP Mobility Solutions at NEVS

With that as a starting point, NEVS began to develop a completely new vehicle: Sango, which is ready to be integrated with any of the self-driving software systems available. For the launch in Sweden, NEVS has partnered with AutoX, a leading L4 autonomous driving technology company based in Silicon Valley and Shenzhen. The AutoX AI Driver will be driving the Sango. AutoX was chosen for its software-hardware integrated approach, safety and scalability, and ability to navigate in dense urban environments.

We realized that, to be able to really benefit from autonomous technology, we had to design a vehicle that would not only be an enabler for shared vehicles, but also for shared rides. How do you combine privacy with sharing? That was one of the main challenges to overcome. Anna Haupt

One solution is Sangos flexible interior which meets differing travel needs with three settings: private, social and family. Depending on which setting is selected, up to six people can travel in the vehicle.

Sango has six movable seats in three rows and is fitted with privacy walls that can be raised and lowered. When raised, the vehicle is divided into four smaller areas for private journeys for up to four people. In social setting, the dividing walls are lowered to allow four people to travel together facing each other. In family setting, up to six people, seated in three rows, can travel comfortable together.

As well as the Sango vehicle, the PONS mobility system also comprises a user interface in the form of an app and a fleet management system which monitors and optimizes the fleet of vehicles when it is operating throughout the city.

Getting from A to B with self-driving electric vehicles is not as far off as perhaps the car industry is implying. The era of one person per car and the era of owning a car, are soon things of the past. A new era is coming, where cars are optimized for city mobility and better quality of life for the individual. Anna Haupt

The next step for NEVS is a pilot in Stockholm where a fleet of around ten autonomous robotaxis will be used by the public.

The first built version of Sango is currently being test-driven at the NEVS site in Trollhattan together with functional tests of the PONS mobility ecosystem.
Volkswagen Group of America (VWGoA) welcomed its first overseas liquid natural gas (LNG) transport ship to the VWGoA port in Davisville, RI. The LNG-powered car carrier ship, named Siem Confucius, left Emden, Germany on 16 June 2020 on its first voyage, which includes one stop in the US before heading to the Gulf of Mexico. (Earlier post.) This is the companys first in-service overseas carrier to operate on LNG.





The Siem Confucius is one in a pair of first-time trans-Atlantic LNG-fueled car carriers that Volkswagen Group and Siem Car Carriers AS unveiled in November 2019. Powered by LNG, the new carriers help reduce CO 2 emissions. This is an important piece of the Groups global decarbonization strategy.

Both ships have 13 car decks and the capacity to carry up to 4,800 Volkswagen Group vehicles at a time. The ships liquified gas tanks have a capacity of approximately 475,000 gallons each, which is enough for a complete round trip of the companys standard 12,000-nautical mile America Round Tour shipping route.

The new carriers will replace two of the original nine in the current fleet.
There was something Colangelo described Tuesday as a job interview for the position without a description, though hes the only one who would describe it that way. He said Tuesday, From the whole time Ive known [Hardy] Ive been interviewing her. They have known each other for 22 years, according to Colangelo, who won the top job in January, not long after Hardy withdrew from contention. That 22 years long interview must have come as a surprise to Hardy as her record was about to cause her removal. Colangelo said Tuesday he spoke to his one and only candidate for the job without a description for the first time on.yes, thats right, Monday, the day he offered the pension protecting lair to her.
The Green River Chamber of Commerce is honoring people who have served in the armed forces this week through its first Flags of Honor event.

The event takes place July 3-5 and can be viewed at Thomas Moran Park, near the Green River Visitors Center.

Lisa Herrera, CEO of the chamber, said a small ceremony with the Green River Fire Department will take place at 9 a.m. Friday, but due to coronavirus health orders, cannot host a large grand opening ceremony.

We would have loved to have had a proper ceremony, but we cant, she said.

Residents can walk through the area and view the flags at their own leasure throughout the weekend.

Herrera said 150 flags will be flown at the park.

The event is a fundraiser for the chamber, with Herrera saying as of Tuesday they sold 72 sponsored flags. Herrera said the chamber hoped to sell 50 for its first event.

Each flag will be 10 feet apart and will measure 3 feet by 5 feet and be displayed from an 8-foot pole.
More than a century ago, Wyoming residents lived through a flu pandemic much the same way people deal with the coronavirus today: restricting business activity and keeping their distance from others.

However, there is one notable difference: Wyomingites in 1918 reportedly didnt protest the state or countys efforts to keep them alive or grouse about their constitutional rights being violated. Survival mode had kicked in.

I wish the Equality State had more of that spirit in 2020 and fewer amateur legal experts refusing to wear masks. Its a simple, inexpensive, painless and exceedingly small personal sacrifice everyone can make to help keep others healthy.

I also cant abide armchair constitutionalists  especially if theyre legislators  whining that we must rein in out-of-control state and county public health officers. Give these health experts a break, please. Theyve been doing a good job since COVID-19 struck in early March and dont deserve guff from anybody.

Ill pick up this controversy in a few moments. But first, lets take a trip back in time to an even deadlier pandemic, through the research of University of Wyoming history professor emeritus Phil Roberts.

Worldwide there had already been two waves of the Spanish influenza  which despite its name originated in Kansas  by the time the third one killed its first Wyoming residents in October 1918. The first wave was relatively mild, but the second was intense. By the end of the pandemic a year later at least 50 million died worldwide, and some estimates place the death toll twice as high.

The first thing Wyoming health officials did, according to Roberts WyoHistory.org centennial account in 2018, was close all schools, the University of Wyoming and all places of amusement until further notice.

Since the soda fountains and picture shows are also closed, observed UWs student newspaper, there is not a great deal of inducement to loiter on the street. Statewide many businesses temporarily shuttered on their own as the disease spread. Those that remained open often limited the number of customers allowed at one time.

Like COVID-19, the flu killed many over 65 years old. But it also struck two other populations with equal fury: children under 5 and previously healthy adults between 20 and 40. Perhaps the wide age range of victims made the citizenry less likely to feel put out by taking precautions to protect an entire communitys health.

Some health officers were hailed as heroes, including those who convinced the Kemmerer town council to impose a quarantine in early October after the flu erupted in nearby Evanston. The Kemmerer newspapers editor opined that there can be little doubt that our good fortune is due to [their] prompt and wise action, even though businesses suffered for a short spell due to the shutdown.

Cokevilles health officer imposed a quarantine later that month and warned visitors from other towns to stay away. Again, there was praise from the local press when the shutdown order was lifted.

[L]ast Wednesday saw smiles on the faces of all, with no new cases for a full week, reported the Cokeville Register. During the quarantine, business has practically been at a standstill.  The merchants are to be thanked for the generous manner which they have observed the regulations.

The Registers editor also thanked townsfolk: The men have done their part freely, and the ladies have spent long hours nursing and caring for the invalids.

Notice the lack of calls by state lawmakers to immediately re-open the economy, such as one issued in late March by Rep. Scott Clem (R-Gillette).

Less than two weeks earlier, Gov. Mark Gordon had declared a state of emergency, and State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist ordered the closure of schools and some non-essential businesses, including restaurants, bars, gyms, hair salons and barbershops. The governor and Harrist encouraged people to stay at home, wear masks, wash their hands and keep a safe distance away from others. Gatherings were limited to no more than 10 people.

Wyoming was one of only eight states that didnt issue mandatory stay-at-home orders, but its relatively mild government intrusion was far too much for Clem. The damage to the economy, the state and society may be worse than the disease, all while people get the disease anyway, he wrote to Gordon. We must prepare to live with this disease while maximizing economic activity.

Other legislators entered the fray. During a special session in April, Sen. Cheri Steinmetz (R-Lingle) sponsored an amendment requiring the state to make whole all businesses kept from operating due to Harrists limited closure order. Fortunately, since the move would have bankrupted the state, the effort was overwhelmingly killed by the Senate.

Meanwhile, a different kind of hissy fit was thrown by two prominent Jackson conservatives who wanted U.S. Attorney Mark Klaassen to bring the mighty hammer of the federal government down on Teton County District Health Officer Dr. Travis Riddell.

Wait a minute  dont Wyoming conservatives hate the feds? I guess not if, as Maurice Jonesy Jones hysterically wrote to Klaassen, Riddells order basically puts us under house arrest.

Dan Brophy wrote on The Wyoming Net, The decisions of one official, backed by the power of [the county attorneys] office, deprived an entire county of its citizens ability to live their lives. No avenues or counterargument, protest, challenge, appeal exist.

Riddell raised the ire of Jones and Brophy, but his orders were in line with Harrists statewide directives. Klaassen diplomatically told the pair his office was actively monitoring the situation for constitutional violations, but he didnt see any yet. I would have told them to go pound sand and get over themselves. Which is the same message I have for Clem, who earlier this month brought a stunningly bad idea to a legislative committee. His measure would have required state or county public health officers who issue emergency orders to justify extending them past 21 days by offering scientific evidence in court that they were necessary.

It was defeated 8-4 by the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee. The panel drafted another inane bill to require the state public health officer to have any quarantines, travel restrictions or other orders renewed by the Legislature after 15 days. Few of the current crop of lawmakers are qualified to hand out cough drops, much less make life-or-death medical decisions.

Lets be clear: Health officers dont want to ruin the economy. But its their job to respond to life and death public health threats.

And for that, they are being targeted across the nation. In recent weeks 20 were fired, resigned or retired because of political pressure. Their national association said many have been physically threatened and politically scapegoated.

We are losing expertise, experience, and most importantly, leadership, at a time when we need it the most, the group stated in a news release.

Why are we failing to face this challenge with the nobility and unity of Wyomingites a century ago? Im sure not everyone was thrilled by the closures, but historian Roberts found no evidence of rebellion. People followed the rules because they cared about their neighbors. They saw 780 people lose their lives before the disease suddenly vanished from the state in January 1919.

The death toll was even greater than the 500 Wyoming soldiers who were killed in World War I. But considering 675,000 Americans died during the flu pandemic, the state could have fared far worse.

Wyomingites resilience and their shared faith in fighting the viral enemy together kept our ancestors from scapegoating health officers for temporary economic sacrifices or choosing political tribalism over common-sense hygiene practices.

I hope its not too late to learn from their century-old wisdom.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
The Community Fine Arts Center will be changing exhibits late July welcoming Arizona artist Katie Woods. Woods is sharing her gourd art for the first time in Wyoming and is excited to teach her method of painting on this natural canvas. Registrations are being taking now for the class which will be held Aug. 8 at 9 a.m. at White Mountain Library.

Woods runs Kates Kreations in Arizona where she lives with her husband of 52 years, Jerry Woods. She has worked in a variety of art work over the years, including drawing, sewing, quilting, doll making, crocheting, toll painting and stained glass. Winning a blue ribbon in the County Fair at around age 10 for a charcoal drawing, set her on a path that leads to her current work. Twelve years ago she picked up her first gourd and hasnt tired of them yet.

Gourds have kept my interest for so long because you can create so many different things with them. Gourds come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from tiny little jewelry gourds that look like a peanut, to huge bushel gourds, Woods said.

She uses several techniques in her gourd designs from carving and wood burning, to painting with inks and acrylic paint.

The four-hour class will include demonstrations of wood burning and carving along with a step-by-step instruction for painting a gourd.

The CFAC is covering most of the normal class fee to encourage community members to participate. All supplies are included and participants will leave with a completed gourd.

This is a wonderful introduction to gourd art that anyone can enjoy, said Debora Soule, CFAC director. Bringing in new artists with art styles we havent exhibited before is one of the reasons I love working for the CFAC. Especially at this time, we need art and culture to lift us up.

The class will practice social distancing and masks are requested especially when distance cannot be maintained during the class. The CFAC and Sweetwater County Library System are following CDC and county health department guidelines to ensure a safe environment.
GREENSBORO  Gil Fray needed a new piano so he could practice his artistry at home while he recovered from back surgery.

Fray had played professionally off and on for 50 of his 64 years.

He wanted to be ready to return to his job as accompanist at the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem when it reopens in mid-August.

Fray had arranged to pay Moore Music Company for the digital piano in installments.

His friends came to the rescue.

They donated $2,600  enough to pay for the Roland FP-30 Digital Piano with 88 keys, wood frame and three pedals.

They even had $1,700 left to help cover surgery-related expenses.

On Tuesday at Fray's home, Dave Doyle and Al Stephens presented him with the gifts from 30-plus friends. Doyle's daughter, Iva Hicks, filmed the moment.

"I'm about to cry," an overwhelmed Fray said.

So were fellow musician Doyle and Stephens, the latter owner of Moore Music.

"A lot of people love you, dude," Doyle said.

Doyle, who plays French horn with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, long has performed with Fray in the local F-Art Ensemble.

Others have known Fray as past composer-in-residence for software company Notion Music and as accompanist for the Greensboro Ballet.

Doyle said he had noticed that Fray's ability to walk had deteriorated over the last few years. Doctors scheduled surgery for June 18.

Fray had a piano at home. He didnt have money to fix it, and it had become unplayable in recent years, he said.

He also had a small keyboard without a pedal. It wasn't what he needed.

Fray's friend Randy Riddle heard about Fray's arrangement with Moore Music. Riddle wanted to put money down to help pay for the new instrument.

Doyle wanted to help, too. He then posted a plea on Facebook, asking if others would contribute.

The donations kept coming  $2,600 in all.

"That is so very, very kind," Fray said when Doyle and Stephens told him of friends' generosity.

"In this terrible time, there is something really good," Doyle added.

Fray soon sat at the new keyboard, and practiced for more than three hours.

He said he is pleased with the way it sounds and the way it plays.

"Its quite wonderful to have such a community of artists and people who appreciate the arts come together," Fray said later.

He looks forward to returning to work at UNCSA, although the drive and sitting to play piano will take stamina.

"Hopefully Im capable of the commute," Fray said later. "Thats the hard part. The playing is a joy."

Amid his tears on Tuesday, Fray added a touch of levity as he looked at the list of contributing friends.

"Well," Fray said, "I owe everybody a beer."

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 336-373-5204 and follow @dawndkaneNR on Twitter.

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Its the most successful Broadway musical of the modern era, a blockbuster phenomenon written by Lin-Manuel Miranda that tells the story of the Founding Fathers of the United States by focusing on Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury and an influential economic thinker and a leading promoter of the Constitution of the United Sates. The score is hip-hop influenced but varied in style.

This is the stage show, shrewdly filmed on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in 2016, mostly for documentary purposes and then hidden away for potential future use. It is directed by Thomas Kail, the director of the show (no one else has yet directed any other production of Hamilton). There are also plans for a movie but that is likely years away and it will be a very different animal when it arrives. Kail, a skilled director of both stage and screen, was able to edit the work of multiple cameras, but the performers are doing exactly what they did every night on stage.
North State's contract called for 13 people to work security at the depot  11 armed guards and two sworn officers who have the right to make arrests like police.

A new contract from the Winston-Salem company, which was rejected, would have paid North State $1.8 million over three years.

In an interview Wednesday, Hightower said she supports having armed guards at the depot because the presence of cash and mass transit can attract crime. But she believes other companies could do the same job using a lighter touch.

It's the use of North State's two sworn officers that especially concerns Hightower and the possibility they could be making questionable arrests.

She said she's heard complaints that North State personnel have been too aggressive when trying to prevent loitering. Others have complained to her that security guards seem "militaristic" and that they are out to strike fear into passengers.

"They shouldn't feel intimidation as they try to access the system," she said.
RALEIGH  Another two dozen bills were signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper, including one with money to help build a long-planned park to honor the contributions of African Americans in North Carolina.

The $1.5 million in matching funds for a North Carolina Freedom Park in downtown Raleigh was included in a measure that allocated money for building repair and renovations for state agencies and the University of North Carolina system.

Another measure, signed on Wednesday along with the other bills, distributes hundreds of millions of dollars more from North Carolina's $3.5 billion share of federal coronavirus relief funds. A law finalized in May already had distributed $1.6 billion.

In a statement, Cooper highlighted an additional $7 million allocated in the new law for personal protective equipment for the public schools but said "we need to work together to do more."

Other bills he signed locates funds to teach anticipated student enrollment increases at UNC system schools this fall; provides UNC schools, private colleges and community colleges immunity from lawsuits seeking financial damages on tuition and fees for the spring semester; and builds a new effort to renovate aging local water and wastewater treatment systems.

Cooper has 15 bills left on his desk from the General Assembly before it went home last week.
Greensboro and our region have had a long and fruitful relationship with Guilford College. Its not hard to find an alum today making significant contributions to the Triads cultural, business or political life, nor is it difficult to recall others who enriched our region before leaving the planet.

As your recent article (Jane Fernandes will step down as Guilford Colleges president next summer) states, enrollment and tuition challenge many small private colleges like Guilford, Bennett and Greensboro.

The ever-shrinking pool of high school candidates, the losses of the middle class, Trumps anti-education positions, COVID, economic ruin and the pro-democracy BLM protests directly affect them. Each college has its special qualities; Guilfords storied reputation as a social justice advocate has always complemented the missions and performance of its neighbors.

Greensboros future rests on the survival and thriving of Guilford and other colleges who, as stewards of place, constitute essential parts of our regions infrastructure and talent development. Most readers understand the value of buying and supporting local.
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Even though regulations allowed more businesses to reopen their doors, it didnt guarantee they would. Movie theaters, for one, are almost all waiting a few more weeks until the movie studios debut their first new, wide-release movies since March. For the past few weeks, the Commodore in Portsmouth has been the only big screen open in the region, by virtue of its other business as a sit-down restaurant.
WASHINGTON - Republican leaders stood by the upset winner of the GOP primary in a competitive House seat despite the gun rights activist's openness to the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, overseen by top GOP leaders, embraced Lauren Boebert as their nominee Wednesday following her defeat of five-term Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., whom she characterized during the campaign as insufficiently supportive of President Trump.

"Lauren won her primary fair and square and has our support. This is a Republican seat and will remain a Republican seat as Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats continue to peddle their radical conspiracy theories and pushing their radical cancel culture," Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.

Boebert is the ninth individual to win the Republican nomination for a seat in the House or Senate who is either a full supporter of the QAnon movement or has voiced support for some of its tenets, none of which have a foundation in truth. Conspiracy theory experts consider it a webbed network filled with activists who wrongly believe a secret group of elites inside of and outside of government is working against Trump, as well as other false allegations of pedophilia among top Democratic officials.

"Everything I've heard of Q - I hope this is real," Boebert told the QAnon-aligned Web interview show "Steel Truth" last month. "Because it only means America is getting stronger and better and people are returning to conservative values."

Q is how the conspiracy theorists refer to the leader of their movement, although they do not know who it is or even if Q is one person or many people.

For weeks, as these fringe candidates won nominations, Republicans tried to dodge the issue, believing most of these candidates would not raise much money and lose in heavily liberal districts.

But Boebert's victory comes in a district Tipton won with just 52% of the vote in 2018. Democrats, who renominated former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush, held the seat as recently as 2010 and have signaled new interest in competing against the inexperienced GOP nominee.

"Not even multiple endorsements from President Trump could save Congressman Scott R. Tipton from his extreme, QAnon caucus challenger. Washington Republicans should immediately disavow Lauren Boebert and her extremist, dangerous conspiracy theories," Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., chairwoman of the House Democrats campaign arm, said in a statement Tuesday night.

Most prominent Republicans stayed silent on the trend of conspiracy theory-supporting nominees running under the GOP's banner, but the 2012 Republican presidential nominee expressed concern that the party's voters were swimming in these political waters.

"I'm worried about people falling for unsubstantiated, uncorroborated conspiracy theories that frankly have no basis in fact that we know of," Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said. "And of course it's a big party with a lot of people who have different points of views, but I'm convinced that Republican principle will remain steady even though we've taken a departure from time to time."

A few weeks ago, Emmer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other leaders stayed silent for a week after Marjorie Taylor Greene, a professed believer in QAnon, emerged first in the Georgia primary for the seat of a retiring incumbent.

After a few days, when Politico unearthed her racist and anti-Semitic social media posts, the leaders condemned those remarks. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., went further and publicly endorsed Greene's GOP opponent in a runoff election next month, the winner of which is all but certain to join Congress because of the very conservative tilt of that district.

Boebert owns Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo., where the staff carries their weapons as they serve customers, who can order a "Guac 9" burger or a "Turkey Ham Uzi Melt."

She received a boost in recognition in Colorado after defying the pandemic-driven economic shutdown. She refused to close her restaurant to dine-in patrons, forcing county officials to use the courts to shut it down - helping make her a presence on conservative talk radio.

If she wins, Boebert will take a seat that Tipton won in 2010 when Republicans were swept up in a different movement, the anti-spending tea party rebellion, which grew out of the Wall Street bailout of 2008, opposition to the Affordable Care Act and the early big-ticket initiatives of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president.

At this point 10 years ago, GOP leaders such as Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, and McCarthy had fully embraced the tea party ethos, riding it to a 63-seat pickup that gave Republicans a majority that they held for eight years.

Now, McCarthy's leadership team, struggling to reclaim the majority, has tried to deflect QAnon questions by pointing to controversial statements about Israel made by liberal Democrats such as Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Trump has retweeted Q followers and Q signs have been prevalent at some of his political rallies, although staff appeared to be working to prevent those signs from being present inside at his June 20 rally in Tulsa.

Some conspiracy theory experts believe that Trump, who repeatedly peddled the debunked theory that Obama wasn't born in the United States, has given this crowd a platform, leading to their embrace of his platform.

"We have a current president who uses conspiracy rhetoric arguably more than any other president in modern history," said Joanne Miller, who studies the political psychology of conspiracy theories at the University of Delaware.

Media Matters, a liberal research group, has estimated that almost 60 candidates for Congress have embraced some of the QAnon ethos.

Some level of these candidates' success is they tend to be the most fierce defenders of Trump in a party whose ranks have been historically shrinking, leaving behind the most die-hard supporters.

In July 2004, as President George W. Bush was poised to win reelection, Republicans represented 37 percent of the electorate, according to voters' own identifications in Gallup polling, while 34 percent were Democrats and 28 percent were independents.

Last month, just 25 percent of voters identified as Republicans, while 31 percent said they were Democrats and the rest were independents.

With fewer Republicans, Trump has fewer internal antagonists, creating openings for candidates who tout the loudest support for the president.

"I stand with President Trump. I stand with Q and the team. Thank you Anons, and thank you patriots. And together, we can save our republic," Jo Rae Perkins said in a video after he won the GOP nomination in May to challenge Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

Like most of the QAnon-leaning nominees in House races, Perkins stands little chance of defeating Merkley in a state where Trump is very unpopular.

Boebert's and Greene's candidacies have forced Republican leaders to, at least minimally, address the conspiracy theory movement. Greene, if she wins the Georgia runoff, will be heavily favored in November and join the GOP caucus.

By Tuesday night, Trump, who had endorsed Tipton, had seen enough to give Boebert his support.

"Congratulations," he tweeted, "on a really great win!"

- - -

The Washington Post's Amber Phillips and David Weigel contributed to this report.
GREENWICH  A former Greenwich police officer, who spent more than 20 years with the towns police force, died earlier this week, according to Chief James Heavey.

Retired Officer Joseph Gavin died Monday at the age of 75, the chief said.

Gavin joined the Greenwich Police Department on July 6, 1970. He first served on the Patrol Division, where he was assigned to the Accident Car. He was appointed as youth officer in the Detective Division on Dec. 31, 1987.

Gavin retired on March 1, 1993.

Heavey said Gavin was the recipient of the 1975 John A. Clarke Award for taking a bank robbery suspect into custody within minutes of the crime.

Another career highlight the chief mentioned was Gavins arrest of three suspects  wanted felons  who had just committed a burglary. He was off duty at the time of these arrests.

Officer Gavins file contains numerous letters from citizens and departmental commendations signifying his dedication and many services to the town, Heavey said.

Gavin also received the Silver Shield Association Ribbon of Commendation and the Silver Shield Association Meritorious Police Duty Medal.

We join all members of the department in extending our sincere sympathy to the Gavin family, Heavey said.
Last week Asus said it will unveil the ROG Phone 3 in July and today the Taiwanese technology company announced the gaming smartphone will arrive on July 22.

Asus made this announcement on its official site with a countdown timer that ends on July 22. The launch event will be streamed online starting at 11PM local time (UTC+8).

Asus hasn't divulged any details of the ROG Phone 3 yet, but a hands-on video that surfaced last month revealed the phone's design. You can watch it below.

The ROG Phone 3 was also spotted on TENAA with its full specs, which include a 6.59" FullHD+ AMOLED screen with an in-display fingerprint scanner, up to 12GB RAM and up to 256GB storage, Android 10, and a 5,800 mAh battery.



Asus ROG Phone 3 images shared on TENAA

The ROG Phone 3 will support dual-mode 5G (SA/NSA) and pack an octa-core processor clocked at 3.09GHZ which could be a part of the yet unannounced Snapdragon 865+ SoC.

For photography, the ROG Phone 3 will feature a total of four cameras but TENAA only tells us about two - the 64MP main camera and the 13MP secondary module.

However, the listing reveals the smartphone will come with 8x optical zoom so it's safe to say that one of the three rear cameras will have a telephoto lens, with the last one likely having an ultrawide lens.

Source
The U.S. recorded 50,700 new cases, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. That represents a doubling of the daily total over the past month and is higher even than what the country witnessed during the most lethal phase of the crisis in April and May, when the New York metropolitan area was easily the worst hot spot in the U.S.
Say hello to the Motorola Moto G Pro - the Europe-bound counterpart to the US Moto G Stylus. The pair is basically indistinguishable, specs-wise.

So let's see what's in the box. Motorola has provided all you need to get started - an 18W charger, a USB-C cable and a complimentary silicone case.

Unlike the Moto G Stylus, the G Pro's name doesn't tease the built-in accessory, but it's there - tucked into the right bottom corner of the phone. You need to pry it out with a fingernail - there's no push-to-pull-out mechanism like on the Galaxy Note10 series. Unlike the Note10's S Pen, Motorola's stylus also doesn't insert back into the phone any which way - you need to put it in just the way you took it out.

The stylus is made of metal and feels sturdy and a bit heavy. You can draw and take notes, even when the phone is locked, like Samsung's screen-off memo.



Using the stylus

Camera setup includes a 48MP main unit, a macro snapper, as well as an ultrawide shooter that can record action-cam-style video in landscape, while you're holding the phone vertically. We've seen this from the Moto One Action before - instead of a conventional ultrawide camera you get one that's rotated 90 degrees.

We'll test the action camera in detail in our full review.

The display of the Moto G Power is a 6.4-inch IPS LCD of 720x1560px resolution. The panel isn't special in terms of brightness or sharpness, but it's good overall and is big enough for multimedia enjoyment.

That multimedia enjoyment is augmented on the Moto G Power thanks to its Dolby Atmos-certified stereo speakers. They're very loud indeed and offer deep bass. Our new loudspeaker test will be a better judge of the pair of speakers in detail, but for now we can say that they're are more powerful than those of most flagships.

So, you have a good set of cameras with an unique action-cam ultrawide unit, a built-in stylus, good display and great speakers. And all of that for just under 300, which isn't quite the same as the $180 Motorola charges for the indetical Moto G Stylus overseas, but good nonetheless.

And while Motorola's clean take on Android might be an added benefit for some, we're yet to see if the price is justified by the overall package. Stay tuned for our full review, coming soon.
Close to a year after the launch of its first ever TV launch, OnePlus has unveiled three more televisions in the Indian market. Part of the new U-series and Y-series, these new models join the two Q-series models from last year.

As the name suggests the OnePlus 55U1 is a 55-inch model. It features a 4K LCD panel with 93% DCI-P3 coverage along with support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Sound is courtesy a 30W audio system with 4 speaker units and support for Dolby Atmos.

On the software side, the TV features Android TV 9 with the assortment of media apps, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and more. There's also built-in Chromecast with Miracast and DLNA. The TV also supports Google Assistant and works with Amazon Alexa.

The design features 95% screen to body ratio, 6.9mm thickness at its thinnest point on the back, carbon fiber pattern over the speaker system and a metal body. The stand is now a two-piece metal design that extends to the edges.

Next are the 43Y1 and the 32Y1 models. The 43-inch model has a 1920x1080 resolution LCD panel while the 32-inch model has a 1366x768 resolution LCD panel. OnePlus claims both of them support 93% DCI-P3 color coverage. The two sets also feature 20W speaker system with Dolby Audio, Android TV 9, built-in Netflix and Prime Video apps, and Chromecast.

OnePlus has continued to focus on design for even the budget models, with thin bezels all-around.

All three new televisions support the OnePlus Connect app, which can now be used with multiple devices at the same time, including iPhones, with the same TV. The TVs also feature a new data saver mode, which lets you reduce data consumption and give warning when you exceed your preset limit. A new Kids mode also lets you set restrictions on what can be accessed and also control viewing time.

The OnePlus 55U1 is priced at INR 49,999 ($668), the 43Y1 is priced at INR 22,999 ($307) and the 32Y1 is priced at INR 12,999 ($174). They will be available starting July 5 on Amazon India and later through OnePlus retail stores.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Three Jackson County students are among nine in south Mississippi to earn appointments to U.S. military academies, U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) announced this week.

In my time serving the people of South Mississippi, I have been continually amazed at how smart and talented the upcoming generation is, said Palazzo, who placed the students names into nomination. This year, we have nine young students who are taking the first step toward their military service careers and that is incredible.

I wish all of these impressive individuals the best of luck as they embark on this next chapter in life.

Among the tens of thousands of students who apply to the academies each year, an average of less than 10 percent are ultimately selected. Those selected have an average ACT score of 29-31 and graduated within the top 10 percent of their high school class, among other requirements.

Members of Congress account for 75 percent of each years nominations to the academies. Once nominated, the academies make the final decisions on appointments.

Those graduating from the academies have a five-year active duty requirement to fulfill, with the exception of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, which offers a choice between five years active duty or a combination of five years in the maritime industry while serving eight years in the Merchant Marine reserve.

The nine south Mississippi students earning appointments are (Jackson County students in bold):

U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY

Alondra Reyes -- Pascagoula High School

Corban OBannon -- St. Stanislaus High School

Joshua Grumme -- St. Stanislaus High School

Chelsey Washington -- St. Martin High School

Mason Halsey -- West Harrison High School

U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY (West Point)

Brianna Henderson -- Harrison Central High School

U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY

Alise Crabtree -- Ocean Springs High School

Mark Diers -- South Jones High School

U.S. MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY

Ethan Hunt -- Biloxi High School

Rising seniors interesting in applying to one of the military academies can attend Palazzos annual Academy Day, set this year for Sept. 12 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Hospitality Resort Management Center of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, 420 DeBuys Rd. in Biloxi.

More information on the process can be found at Palazzos website.




Haiti - FLASH : The country crosses the bar of 6,000 cases





The Ministry of Public Health informs that 65 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Haiti (the day before : +42), for a total of 6,040 cases throughout the national territory (40.80% women and 59.20% 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 ).



Deaths : 2 new deaths in the West, for a national total of 107 deaths.



Healings : 1,032 people (+101), the day before (+92)



Active cases : (less death and recovery) 4,901 cases (-38), the day before (-50)



Number of suspected cases investigated since March 19 : 12,566 cases (+378 in 24 hours), the day before (+89)



All the details by department and comune , plus diaspora: USA, Quebec, Dominican Republic, France, Caribbean and Latin America, in our daily report of 11:00 a.m.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31172-haiti-covid-19-daily-report-july-1-2020.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31165-haiti-flash-5-975-cases-931-healings-and-105-deaths.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html



COVID-19, new definitions in Haiti : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31110-haiti-covid-19-daily-report-june-24-2020.html



S/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - NOTICE : Closure of the Consulate of Haiti in Orlando





The Consulate of the Republic of Haiti in Orlando informs the Haitian Community of Central Florida that given the resurgence of cases of Covid-19, the Consular Post will be closed on Thursday, July 2, 2020 to make certain adjustments.



From July 7, 2020, the Consulate will be open to the Public on Tuesday and Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. to receive, by appointment, urgent requests for passports and legal documents.



The emergency lines, 407-300-2839 and 407-558-7732 have been set up for the Haitian community to request an appointment for urgent requests.



The Consular Post recalls the following measures:



It is mandatory that users are provided with a mask (personal protection mask) in accordance with the recommendations of the Health Authorities;





The social distancing instructions will be observed in order to prevent the risks of contamination of staff and the public;





Access to the public attention space will be strictly reserved for those affected by the service to be requested and limited to the reception capacity adjusted to the reopening plan.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Education : Delivery of keys to 12 new fundamental schools built by Japan





As part of Haitian-Japanese cooperation in school infrastructure, the project to build 12 basic schools including 10 in the Central Plateau and 2 in Artibonite is completed.



Seven (7) of these schools are located in the central Upper Plateau (National Schools Henry Christophe, Immaculate Conception, Toussaint Louverture, Guy Malary; National Schools of Marmont, Colladere and Los Palis). Three (3) others are located in the central Lower Plateau (National Schools of Crete-Brulee, Triannon and Destaingville) and the last two (2) are located in Artibonite in the commune of Verrettes (National Schools of Charles Belair and Desarmes).



After 22 months of construction by the Japanese firm Tokura Corporation responsible for the works, handed over the keys of 16 buildings and 90 classrooms to the authorities of the Ministry of National Education.



Meniol Jeune, the Director General of the Ministry, received, from Hiroshi Okuda hands, Project Manager at Tokura Corporation, the keys to ten brand new fundamental schools.



Note that these schools were built according to the prescriptions of the Ministry in terms of school buildings and meet earthquake and para-cyclonic standards. They are also fully equipped with all appropriate school materials and a solar energy system. They can serve as an evacuation point in the event of disasters. This work was funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to the tune of $ 21.5 million.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : Haitians returning from the USA do not need (temporarily) Covid-19 test





For this first day, 4 flights were scheduled, 3 from the United States and 1 from the Dominican Republic, according to the airport authorities said Prime Minister Jouthe who wanted to emphasize that for the next 15 days the Haitians of returning from the United States "will not have to submit a test for Covid-19," adding "after these 15 days, a circular will request the test of the Covid-19 [...]"



For her part Marie Greta Roy Clement, the Minister of Public Health clarified "All the people who have to return home will have to undergo a quarantine at home. The epidemiology service will keep in touch with these people to monitor them."



Responding to the media about fears of introduction of imported Covid-19 cases, Jouthe replied, "[...] Of course, the fears are there and are for all countries [...] we are even more afraid of the situation in Florida where the cases explode and where a large Haitian community lives [...] This is why we ask the passengers to go into home quarantine. If the person shows symptoms, he will be taken in charge by the Ministry of Public Health [...]"



The arrival of the first flights caused a lot of joy in Haiti after the interruption of commercial flights for 3 months, just like with our Dominican neighbors where 15 airlines have already scheduled 600 flights for the month of July alone.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31171-haiti-flash-confusion-over-the-possession-of-a-covid-19-screening-test-for-passengers.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31073-haiti-flash-new-protocol-for-the-return-of-stranded-haitians-to-the-usa.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31081-haiti-flash-return-of-haitians-to-the-country-new-changes.html



S/ HaitiLibre


















Down on the Southwest border, business is booming  criminal business, that is.
by Chris Aadland

Montana Free Press

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday Montana incorrectly excluded religious schools when it created a 2015 tax incentive program to help families pay for private school tuition.

In a 5 to 4 decision split between the courts liberal and conservative justices, the court discarded a 2018 Montana Supreme Court ruling that had killed a private education tuition assistance initiative, setting the stage for lawmakers to potentially expand or create new programs to benefit private schools using state resources.

Read the Supreme Court decision at https://montanafreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/18-1195_g314.pdf .

The challenge arrived in the courts thanks to a lawsuit brought by the Institute for Justice, a national school choice advocacy nonprofit, on behalf of Kalispell resident Kendra Espinoza and two other Montana mothers who hoped to send their children to a private school in Flathead County on the tuition assistance.

At least one conservative Montana organization said after the decision it believes pro-school choice proposals from state legislators will follow.

While the U.S. Supreme Court in previous rulings has upheld school voucher programs and said states could include religious schools in such programs, it hadnt determined whether states were required to include religious schools in assistance programs.

The state argued that it wasnt actively discriminating based on religion by not including religious schools in the tuition tax credit program. A majority of private schools in the state are religious.

According to the Montana Supreme Court, using state dollars  even indirectly  to support religious schools would violate the state Constitutions ban on state aid to religious organizations. Montana is among 38 states with similar prohibitions against public support of religious organizations. Because of that, the court overturned the entire program including for non-religious schools.

The high courts majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, said that while states arent required to subsidize private schools, once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.

Roberts added that the Montana Supreme Courts decision should have recognized that the states exclusion of religious schools from the program wasnt a neutral policy decision, violated the U.S. Constitutions Free Exercise clause.

The justices opposing the decision in their dissenting opinions write that the majority is addressing an issue that didnt exist  was the state prohibiting free exercise of religion by prohibiting the tax credit for scholarship contributions to all private schools.

Because the state court treated all private schools the same, without singling out religious schools, its decision was neutral and did not infringe on peoples exercise of religion, the dissenters wrote.

The dissenters also noted that the majority decision implies that Montanas constitutional exclusion of public funding for religion violates the federal constitution, although that claim was not made in the lawsuit, which only addressed the Montana Supreme Court decision.

The case highlighted the divide between private school and public school advocates. Those who cheered the decision said it will give families greater flexibility in choosing how to educate their children.

Those who wanted the Montana Supreme Courts decision overturned include current Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte. Both signed on to briefs supporting the Espinoza lawsuit.

Daines is seeking to keep his seat in a race with current Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, who said Tuesday he is disappointed with the decision, but will continue to support public education. Gianforte is running to succeed Bullock as governor.

While school-choice advocates praised the decision, others said it could have negative effects on public schools and lead to taxpayer dollars supporting private educational institutions.

The Supreme Court of the United States decision  undermines the State of Montanas ability to provide a quality public education for every student, Montana AFL-CIO Executive Secretary Al Ekblad said. When funded appropriately public schools are the great equalizer in our society. Private, religious schools that discriminate against students and bleed funding away from public education should not receive tax dollars.

Before the 2018 state court ruling, the Montana Legislature had created a $150 personal income tax credit for donations to nonprofit scholarship organizations, which could provide money to families and students to help pay for private school tuition, religious or non-religious. But state officials, using the Montana Constitution as a guide, prohibited religiously affiliated schools from participating in the program.

The Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based law firm that has litigated similar school choice cases, then sued on behalf of the three Montana mothers who wanted to use the scholarship program to help pay for their children to attend Stillwater Christian School in Kalispell.

The families argued that the state, by excluding religious schools from the program, violated the Free Exercise, Equal Protection and Establishment clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court delivered a major victory to parents who want to choose the best school for their children, including religious schools, said Institute for Justice senior attorney Erica Smith, co-counsel on the case. This is a landmark case in education that will allow states across the country to enact educational choice programs that give parents maximum educational options.

The law firm called the case one of the most important education reform cases in the past half century, adding that it will free up lawmakers and officials to expand or start school choice programs in their states.

Montana Federation of Public Employees President Amanda Curtis said the decision would result in billions of taxpayer dollars being siphoned off by private, religious and for-profit schools with no governmental oversight. MFPE represents thousands of Montana teachers and school employees.

This decision is a slap in the face to our members and the Montana communities they serve, Curtis said. Public dollars should support public institutions that benefit all of us, not private, religious institutions that benefit a select few.

Montana Attorney General candidate Raph Graybill, Bullocks chief legal counsel and the attorney who argued the case for Montana before the Supreme Court, said he would always fight to defend our state Constitution and for public education.

This is hardly the last chapter in a concerted effort to undermine public education, he said.

With the ruling, the Montana Family Foundation  to which Gianforte is a significant financial contributor through a charitable trust run by him and his wife, Susan  said Tuesday it expects legislators to introduce bills that will appeal to school choice advocates in the state Legislature when it meets early next year.

`This decision was a huge victory for Montana kids, and clears the way for Montana to join 42 other states that allow students the freedom to choose a school that fits them best, said Jeff Laszloffy, president of the foundation.



Havre Daily News staff contributed to this report.
Emissions also fell during the financial crisis but bounced back. The question is whether the pattern will repeat itself. There is reason to calculate that the world economy that emerges from a deep recession could differ in terms of how it uses energy, the main source of emissions, from the pre-pandemic version. Working at home may prove to be a lasting habit for many, cutting down on the use of gasoline-burning cars for commuting. And international travel may have lost its appeal for years.
Last week, SYKES representatives delivered hundreds of donated books to each Free Little Library location in Perry County. The donated books, said SYKES officials, were obtained through an employee book drive.

When we got Intuit as a client at SYKES, one of the things they're really big on is small businesses, said Jenna Stacy, a quality analyst at SYKES. The company, she said, wanted to think of ways and events to help some locally owned small businesses, and one of the ideas was to have a book drive.

This book drive, she said, started in March and was only supposed to last a month, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company decided they would hold the drive a little longer. During that time, Stacy said, employees donated books, and whoever donated the most books will receive a gift card to the Read Spotted Newt bookstore. The book drive ended June 25 and the books were delivered to the Free Little Library locations on Saturday, June 27. Each of the books were sanitized and cleaned all the books before donating them, Stacy said.

Stacy said the book drive turned out really well, and that they were not expecting to collect that many books.

We actually filled up all of them (Free Little Library locations), said Stacy. Even after filling up each location, she said, the company still has a few books left, so they will add them to the Free Little Library locations once some are emptied.

We could not fit any more books in there at all, she said. We had hundreds and hundreds of books.

Due to the success of the book drive, Stacy said, the company does plan to hold the event again next year.

For me, it's really important to have access to books. Not everybody can make it to the library, said Stacy. Reading, she said, is very important for children for many reasons.

When I was little, that's what I depended on, she said. It's really important for early childhood development and we wanted the kids to have something to do, initially during the summer and then through COVID-19.

The Free Little Libraries can be found at East Perry Elementary School, Kentucky State Police Post 13, the Perry County Health Department, the Bobby Davis Park, the Hazard Vendors Mall and the Perry County Park.




We're a family of seven living in Georgia where Andrew's working as a professor at GSU. You can read more about us here
N.C. Apple Festival announces 2020 ambassador

Emma Elizabeth Gilliam was named NC Apple Festival Ambassador for 2020.

Emma Elizabeth Gilliam, a rising senior at East Henderson High School and the daughter of Maggie and Bruce Gilliam, has been named the Apple Ambassador for 2020, the North Carolina Apple Festival announced.

The Apple Ambassador represents the Festival and at other events across the state and receives a $2,000 scholarship. Each year, the Festival selects the ambassador from local rising high school seniors.

Students are required to submit academic transcripts, list of activities, provide letters of recommendation and write an essay on the Apple Festival and the importance of the apple industry to this area. The Apple Ambassador is selected based on this information and through an interview process.

The runner-up is Haley Nicole Hargus, who is also a rising senior at East Henderson High School. Her parents are Beverly and Greg Hargus. She will receive a $1,000 college scholarship.

The Apple Ambassador and runner-up receive the Evelyn Lutz Hill Memorial Scholarship, which honors the longtime secretary of the North Carolina Apple Growers for many years. She was serving as the President of the North Carolina Apple Festival when she passed away in 2004.

Other applicants were:

Samantha Ruth Matteson - Hendersonville High School

Hannah Rebecca King - West Henderson High School

Laurel Ashlyn Welch - West Henderson High School

Halli Brynna Laughter - North Henderson High School

Kimberly Chen Holden - North Henderson High School

Although the festival board announced last week that it had called off the N.C. Apple Festival street fair and parade because of the pandemic, it said promotions of apple sales, apple standa and U-pick orchards would go on.
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Huntington, WV (25701)

Today

Strong thunderstorms likely. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 88F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Showers and thundershowers this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low near 60F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
A: When Dr. Rogers told me he was interested in the piece, he came down to Atlanta and met with me over tea. We went through the score together. He shared how moved he was, as a Black male, studying the score, and seeing what I was saying, and what I was feeling. I saw the emotional effect that the piece had on him. We had frank conversations about our experiences as Black people in classical music.
The beginning of the new 202-registration car-buying season is under way, bringing hope for fresh sales to the motor industry.

The Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) yesterday released its official new vehicle statistics, which revealed new car registrations for the month of June declined 28pc to 1,011 when compared to June last year (1,408).

New car registrations in the year to date are down 34pc to 52,891, compared to 80,758 in the same period last year.

Light Commercial Vehicles were down 24pc to 568, compared to 748 in June last year. In the year to date registrations are down nearly 31pc to 10,579.

Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) registrations are down nearly 68pc to 101, in comparison to 315 in June 2019.

Year to date HGV registrations are down 32pc at 1,224.

Meanwhile, used car imports for June (4,264) have seen a decrease of 47pc on June 2019 (8,060).

Year to date imports are down 57pc (22,789) on 2019 (53,126).

"Clearly 2020 has been a very difficult year to date, with new car registrations down 34pc year on year," said SIMI director general Brian Cooke.

He said that the new 202-registration period began yesterday, which brings some hope for the industry.

Pressure

"Consumers can see already the hugely varied and attractive new car offers," Mr Cooke said.

"While pre-orders and enquiries are showing some positive signs, the lack of car hire and the ongoing concerns surrounding Covid-19 will see continuing downward pressure on new car demand.

"Going forward, recovery for the sector will be extremely challenging, with both new car and commercial vehicle registrations at recession levels.

"Extension of Government supports beyond the current expiry dates will play an important role... while changes in VRT that encourage motorists to trade up to a lower emitting car have the potential not only to protect local employment, but can also encourage renewal of the national vehicle fleet."
Graffiti on a shop window in Dublin city centre in March urging the public to wash their hands. Photo: Brian Lawless

Almost 20 members of one family have tested positive for coronavirus after gathering to mark the one-month anniversary of a relative who died from the illness.

The family, who live in small border village, lost an elderly relative four weeks ago and some of the extended family got together recently to commemorate her passing.

The virus is believed to have spread among those gathered, who returned to their respective households and passed it to other family members, including several young children.

It comes as figures show the number of clusters being detected in private households is rapidly rising.

Figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HSPC) show an 87pc increase in the number of clusters in private dwellings in the last week.

There were 390 outbreaks attributed to private households on June 21, compared to 728 cases one week later on June 28. A cluster is defined as two or more people being infected with the disease in one location.

Prof Jack Lambert, Specialist in Infectious Diseases at the Mater Hospital, said we need to "get back to basics" when it comes to preventing infection.

"There is a lot of talk about bringing Covid in from other countries but there is still Covid in Ireland," he said.

"But there are still infections among people who haven't travelled and that continues to be a risk.

"As soon as we let down our guard, be it with social distancing, or hand washing, or wearing masks, then it's a no-brainer that the infections will flare up again. We need to get back to basics.

Complacency

"If you are in a family gathering all of the basics apply.

"If you are congregating and not socially distancing and there is one person in the room who has Covid and doesn't know it, then everyone in the room is going to get it. That's what's happening already."

As the country reopens, Prof Lambert warned that public complacency could lead to further spikes.

"This is a new virus that we don't know exactly how contagious it is," he said.

"One person can spread it to three others. One person with no symptoms can spread it to 10 other people.

"They are considered super transmitters, but we don't know how common that is. They may not be super-spreaders because it's happening more frequently than we know.

"The point is that we don't know, and everyone has a personal responsibility.

"As we open up, we need to re-enforce the basics, hand-washing, covering the mouth, wearing masks - because the flare-ups are going to happen and we need to keep them to a minimum."

Public health officials have warned that though the overall number of cases continues to drop, the virus is moving into household settings.

"We know from experience internationally again, that as you drive down the spread of the virus you're going to see more in private households," said deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn when increasing clusters began to appear in households last month.

Dr Glynn called for people to isolate themselves and contact their GP if suspected Covid-19 symptoms are present in their households.

At a recent briefing, HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said that the increase in the number of household coronavirus clusters was "a worry".

He said that even though the rate of transmission of the virus was low in the community, there were still outbreaks of the virus and it can cause harm particularly to vulnerable people.
A taxi driver has been charged with murdering his wife in a samurai sword attack at their Dublin home.

William Eagers (60) appeared in Dublin District Court charged with producing the sword and murdering his wife Jean (57), who died following an alleged assault last month.

Judge Michael Walsh remanded him in custody after hearing Mr Eagers made no reply when the charge was put to him.

Jean Eagers, a mother-of-two, suffered fatal injuries inside her home at Willow Wood Grove, Hartstown on June 21 and died at the scene.

Mr Eagers was arrested at the house on the day of the alleged murder.

Weapons

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However, he suffered injuries and was treated in hospital, before he was discharged on Tuesday and detained by gardai for questioning.

The weapons charge alleges that, while committing the offence of murder, in the course of a dispute, Mr Eagers produced an article capable of inflicting serious injury - a samurai sword - in a manner likely to intimidate another.

Yesterday, Detective Sergeant Shane McCartan told Judge Walsh he arrested the accused at 3.21pm at Blanchardstown Garda Station on foot of the directions of the DPP in respect of the murder of Jean Eagers.

The accused was charged in his presence, made no reply after caution and was handed a copy of the charge sheets.

No bail application was made on his behalf as bail can only be granted in the High Court on a murder charge.

Defence solicitor Fiona Brennan sought an adjournment to Cloverhill District Court on July 7 and said there was consent to this.

Judge Walsh asked if this was to be by video link, but Ms Brennan asked for her client to be produced on the day.

Applying for free legal aid, she said the accused was in receipt of the Covid-19 payment but when he was working, he was a part-time taxi driver.

The judge granted legal aid after there was no garda objection. Ms Brennan also asked the judge to direct all appropriate medical attention and supervision for Mr Eagers.

There was no garda objection to this and the judge made a recommendation that the accused is medically assessed and provided with such medical treatment as deemed appropriate by a medical officer and the prison governor.

Judge Walsh remanded Mr Eagers in custody for the preparation of a book of evidence.

The accused, dressed in a dark grey jumper and blue jeans and wearing a blue surgical mask looked around as he sat in court but remained silent throughout the brief hearing. He has not yet indicated how he intends to plead to the charges.

Alarm

The charge of murder is contrary to Common Law, while the other count is under the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act.

A number of family members sat in the public gallery and one man approached the accused at the end of the proceedings.

According to gardai, a member of the accused's family raised the alarm on the day of the alleged murder and neighbours called emergency services.

Gardai called to the scene and forced their way into the house before the accused was arrested. Ms Eagers's body was removed and a post-mortem examination was carried out by the Deputy State Pathologist Dr Kathleen Han.

After treatment at James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, the accused was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 before he was charged.

Since Ms Eagers' death, gardai have been carrying out forensic tests on items recovered from the house and made a detailed examination of the scene. They have also interviewed possible witnesses.

The couple are understood to have lived at Willow Wood Grove for around 20 years and Ms Eagers, a native of Ringsend, had worked at Marks & Spencer in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.
Chan Teng Wang (54) has been sent for trial accused of killing of his 10-month-old grandson Sean. Photo: Collins Courts

A 54-year-old man accused of killing his infant grandson, who allegedly suffered a fatal injury while he was babysitting, has been sent for trial.

Sean Wang, who was 10 months old, died at Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin on August 15, 2019 after two days in intensive care.

His grandfather Chan Teng Wang, a Chinese national living at Melville Rise, Finglas, Dublin 11, was charged on May 8 with manslaughter.

Bail was set in his own bond of 100, with an independent surety of 5,000.

He appeared at Blanchardstown District Court yesterday, when he was served with a book of evidence.

Hearing

The Director of Public Prosecutions had directed trial on indictment.

Judge Gerard Jones agreed to make a return for trial order, sending Mr Wang's case forward to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where he will face his next hearing on July 24.

The accused came to Ireland last year to live with his son and his family.

His solicitor Tracy Horan has said Mr Wang denies the charge.

Ms Horan told an earlier bail hearing that her client had said from the start the child died from a fall and his family accepted that.

The defence case is that it was an accident and a UK-based pathologist's report had been obtained, she said.

Detective Garda Siobhan Tolan had told the district court Sean Wang was 10 months old and the grandson of the accused.

Friends

She said the baby boy was in the care of his grandfather at his home in Finglas.

The baby's parents were out with friends at the time.

It was alleged at 00.38 on the morning of August 13, 2019 "baby Sean arrived at Temple Street Children's Hospital in cardiac arrest".

He was accompanied by his parents. Medical staff performed CPR 40 times, after which a heartbeat was detected.

He was transferred to the intensive-care unit where he lost his fight for life two days later, Detective Garda Tolan had said.
New guidance on physical distancing in schools presents serious challenges for a full return by all pupils.

Newly appointed Education Minister Norma Foley has published interim public health advice underpinning reopening schools.

It says there is no need for physical distancing for pupils up to and including second class in primary schools.

However, for older pupils, including post-primary, a separation of at least one metre is recommended.

The advice was prepared by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

Strict

It remains to be seen how individual schools will be able to meet the requirements, although the advice may change between now, the end of August and start of September.

Ms Foley, who has taken on the top job in education from her previous role as a teacher of English in Co Kerry, said the call from Taoiseach Micheal Martin was utterly unexpected.

Ms Foley published the health advice along with a Covid-19 plan for primary schools about how to prepare for the strict health and safety regime that will apply from September. A similar plan will now be developed for post-primary schools.

She said while "you can never be definitive" she was working toward an optimum return.

The interim public health advice covers a range of areas from drop-off and pick-up to handwashing, staggering break times and the use of classroom equipment.

The level of detail covered includes the use of play dough and, while there is no distancing requirement for junior classes, there is a very strict no-sharing rule around the use of the classroom staple.

Its guidance around physical distancing is underpinned by the twin principles of increasing separation and decreasing interaction.

For primary schools, it suggests two possible approaches to meeting the separation requirement.

In a traditional classroom with standard desks, it would mean a distance of one metre between students.

The alternative is to maintain separate "pods" - a small number of pupils working within groups.

While one pod would maintain a distance of one metre from another pod, there would be no requirement for minimum distance between individual pupils in the pod.

A pod refers to a small group within a class but it also recommends classes themselves be regarded as "bubbles", which stay apart from other classes as much as possible.

Specific advice for post-primary schools includes, as far as possible, students remaining in the classroom and teachers moving between rooms.

Other issues covered include face coverings, which, in general, should not be required for school staff if physical distancing is possible, it states.

It adds that wearing a visor as an alternative may be considered where there is a concern there will be prolonged close contact and that exposure to fluid/respiratory droplets is likely.

For pupils, the advice states that face coverings are not suitable for children under the age of 13.
Another group the restriction affects is doctors. About 127,000 doctors, nearly a quarter of the physicians in the United States, are immigrants. Many of them are now caring for coronavirus patients in communities without enough health care professionals. All the while, immigrant doctors have had to worry not only that they might die of the virus while taking care of Americans, but also that if they do, their families could be deported.
More than half the people coming to Ireland from abroad who should be self-quarantining for two weeks to avoid passing on Covid-19 are not answering phone calls checking on their whereabouts.

Figures reveal that from the end of May to the middle of June, as overseas holiday traffic increased, officials rang 684 new arrivals who had come here from abroad by plane or boat.

However, just 308 of the calls were answered - a mere 45pc, the figures obtained by the Herald reveal.

The worrying pattern of many overseas arrivals here going missing has been repeated over several weeks, the Department of Justice data revealed.

The self-quarantine is strongly advised but not mandatory

It comes as public health doctors reveal a resurgence in cases of the virus linked to foreign travel.

During June, a total of 31 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland were associated with travel from abroad after months when it posed a low risk of virus spread.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan repeated the advice which has been in place since the start of the pandemic to avoid all non-essential travel abroad.

"The World Health Organisation has warned that the global pandemic is accelerating," Dr Holohan said.

"In the past week, over 160,000 cases have been reported each day."

Cancel

Earlier this week, Dr Holohan advised people who had booked foreign holidays to cancel them to reduce the risk of picking up the virus abroad and spreading it on their return home.

The Government is set to publish a list of countries next week which Ireland could set up air bridges with, allowing people from both countries to travel to each destination without quarantine restrictions.

Greece and Finland are expected to be among the countries included.

The advice will still be not to travel but if people want to go overseas they should restrict themselves to these countries.

However, it is highly unlikely there will be any mechanism for a refund for people who cancel holidays because the guideline throughout has been not to book non-essential trips overseas.

Dermott Jewell, of the Consumers' Association, said the Government needs to offer guidance to airlines and provide a fund so that holidaymakers who choose not to travel can get their money back.

Dr Holohan yesterday announced another three people had died from the virus, bringing the toll death toll here to 1,738.

Another six cases of Covid-19 were confirmed, which continues to be low despite the opening up of businesses during the exit from lockdown.

It brings to 25,477 the number of cases of the virus here so far.

The National Public Health Emergency Team will meet today to review the latest trends in the disease in advance of the list of air bridge countries being announced next week.

Meanwhile , the vast majority of adults believe that holidays to countries with high rates of Covid-19 should not be allowed, a survey has found.

Market research carried out by iReach found that nine out of 10 adults believe holidays to countries with high rates of Covid-19 should not be permitted.

The survey found those aged 55-plus feel even stronger about this, with 96pc of this age group believing holidays to these countries should not be permitted.
Opponents of a controversial visitor centre proposed for the Dublin Mountains believe approval for the project may be overturned after An Bord Pleanala rejected a key finding of its own inspector.

Save the Hellfire Club, an umbrella organisation of resident and community groups opposed to the development at Dublin's Hellfire Club in Rathfarnham, said the rejection of the inspector's recommendation provides grounds for a judicial review of the board's ruling.

Gateway

Plans for the visitor centre - designed as a gateway to the mountains - include a 75-seat cafe, shop, toilets, changing facilities, a walkers' lounge, exhibition space and education centre along with a 50-seat auditorium.

Another feature is a treetop canopy walk over the Killakee Road connecting the centre with Massy's Wood - another popular walking area.

The development is a joint project between South Dublin County Council, Coillte and the Dublin Mountain Partnership.

Most objectors dispute claims by the council that a threefold increase in visitor numbers to the Hellfire Club would not result in significantly more numbers accessing other nearby protected habitats with a negative impact on local wildlife and fauna.

An inspector with An Bord Pleanala said the board could not be satisfied in the absence of a Natural Impact Statement that the centre would not lead to adverse indirect effects on the conservation interests of protected habitats, including the Wicklow Mountain Special Protection Area in relation to merlin, a bird of prey.

"There remains scientific doubt there would be no adverse effects," the inspector said.

As a consequence, she claimed the board was precluded from granting planning permission for the centre.

The inspector said she had "significant concerns with the impact of the project on biodiversity" in relation to habitats and species.

However, she supported the principle of a flagship visitor centre as it complied with the area's development plan.

The project would also address serious parking issues, while a "do nothing" approach was "untenable".

The board said it was satisfied the impact of the project on biodiversity had been "adequately assessed".

Frank Doyle, for Save the Hellfire group, said it was hard to understand why the board ignored the recommendation of its own inspector.

"It seems they are trying to overrule science and ignore their own adviser who had looked at all the details," he said.

The board also decided not to accept the inspector's recommendation to omit the proposed treetop canopy.
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Shane Ragsdale, formerly of Greenville, beloved son of Sheila June Winters and father Sariah Vanderwal-Ragsdale, passed away May 31, 2021 in the ICU of Hilo Hawaii hospital of pneumonia. Hi memorial service was held June 12, in Makapala, Hawaii. His fellowship on Earth will be missed; antici
Judge Keli Aiken with the 354th District Court joined with other members of the Hunt County Bar Association to join in the local reading of the Declaration of Independence. This years event will not be conducted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The residents of Hunt County have slacked off a bit when it comes to responding to the United States Census and the county has fallen down the list of Texas counties in terms of completing the forms on their own.
Anderson, IN (46016)

Today

Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 75F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low around 50F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.
Gibsons attorney had asked the judge to consider a sentence of no more than 60 months and requested some of it be served on home detention because of the risks of COVID-19. In his filing, attorney Nicholas Renninger called Gibsons conduct an anomaly in her life and behavior and characterized her role as simply assisting Bank.
A Clintwood, Virginia, man convicted of fatally shooting a Bristol man in 2018 will serve a life sentence in prison.

Roger Tackett, 45, pleaded guilty earlier to first-degree murder in the death of Douglas Ferguson.

Washington County Commonwealths Attorney Josh Cumbow said Tackett was also sentenced to three years on a use of a firearm in the commission of a felony charge. He will also serve 15 years of probation on a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

I am satisfied by the active sentence of life in prison plus three years, Cumbow said. We do not tolerate violent crime in Washington County and seek these sentences when the facts and evidence justify them. I am happy to help get justice for the family of Doug Ferguson.

In May 2018, Tackett walked into a home on Lime Hill Road in the Benhams community of the county and shot Ferguson, 46, three times, walked out and then fled, authorities previously said. Ferguson died later that day.

Tackett was then the target of a multiagency manhunt, and he was captured the following night.
MARION, Va.  A popular Smyth County eatery was notified Wednesday it will receive a $3,000 grant from a Northern Virginia nonprofit organization.

The Virginia 30 Day Fund will provide $3,000 to the Dip Dog Stand, a locally owned fast-food eatery on Lee Highway in Marion, according to co-founder and technology entrepreneur Pete Snyder.

Weve been providing $3,000 totally forgivable loans to small businesses to serve as a lifeline, Snyder said in a phone interview. This is our 500th small business across the commonwealth.  Well raise over $3 million, and at the end of this, well fund 1,000 small businesses.

Thus far, the organization has provided funds to about 50 Southwest Virginia businesses. Businesses apply and undergo a basic review, Snyder said. Businesses must operate for a year, be based in Virginia and employ between three and 30 people. Funds should be used for payroll, business expenses or to preserve employee health care coverage. More than 3,000 businesses have applied so far.
Hartley said a key for the city is the upcoming Nov. 3 referendum that could allow a casino to operate here. The Hard Rock Bristol Casino Resort is forecast to generate between 1,000 and 2,000 immediate jobs and millions in annual tax revenue for the city, if voters approve its planned location at the Bristol Mall.

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I think one of the biggest things that is coming will be the referendum in November on the casino. That has a lot of potential long-term [effects] in terms of jobs, economic development, quality of life. Depending on how it goes, that referendum can change the discussion as well. Right now, there is a lot of uncertainty, Hartley said.

The council approved two separate one-time appropriations during the called session that followed the reorganizational meeting. One, for $54,840 from federal CARES Act funding, will pay the salaries and benefits of one police officer and one firefighter until it expires Dec. 30.

The council also approved moving $115,435 from its capital projects budget to fund salaries and benefits of five other positions, including codes enforcement, the economic development director and two in parks and recreation. Both votes were 3-1.
Basic guidelines including social distancing, hand washing and face coverings apply while traveling as well as close to home, Swift said.

We fully support reopening the economy but, where I think we got lost, was reopening was supposed to be with these measures in place, Swift said. It wasnt supposed to be everyone acting like the pandemic is over because its not. I think we can keep the economy open, personally, if we social distance and wear a mask every time were out. The CDC still says travel should be limited.

Ballad treated 11 COVID positive patients in its hospitals Wednesday, which is more than twice its average in recent weeks. One Ballad health care worker is quarantined at home with an active case.

Hospitalizations are going to lag behind the cases, Swift said. Some people may be diagnosed but they show up a week or two after their initial diagnosis because their symptoms progress. We know those hospitalization numbers are always going to be behind an increase in new cases.

Officials of the Mount Rogers Health District have also documented some travel-related community spread and urge anyone planning to travel to exercise caution.
The Goodson Kinderhook Fire Department responded and extinguished the flames. They returned Sunday when the fire rekindled.

Then, on Monday, a neighbor, who went to the home to check on some electrical wiring, spotted the body.

Andis said that due to extensive damage, high heat and remote location, no one saw the body until Monday.

It was vacant and for sale, Andis said of the property, which had not been maintained.

On Wednesday, Andis said he believes the pair may be driving a silver Subaru belonging to Jones mother.

Andis said a number of agencies are working with the Sheriffs Office to locate the pair, including the Sullivan County Sheriffs Office, Washington County Sheriffs Office in Tennessee, Bristol Virginia Sheriffs Office and U.S. Marshals Service.

We are on a manhunt now for these individuals, Andis said.

Authorities previously located Hammonds vehicle, which had been taken by the pair, in Bristol, Virginia, after police pursued it earlier this week, Andis said.
Organizers have coordinated each event with police. Until Sunday, those participating in the BLM protest were on track to march the same route through Main Street as they did during the June 13 rally. Over the weekend, however, organizers announced a route change that will lead marchers onto residential and secondary roads, Clair said. The start time for the event has also been pushed back to 4 p.m.

We fundamentally believe that it is inherently unsafe for large amounts of pedestrians to be on secondary roads, the police chief said, later adding, We feel like the previous agreed upon perimeters allowed us the greatest ability to keep everyone safe.

During the previous march on Main Street, police performed whats called a rolling roadblock, a traffic control technique in which police pace ahead and behind participants to keep them safe from traffic. Clair explained that police were able to do this because Main Street is a four-lane road, and so it did not block the entire street and still allowed traffic to flow.

The secondary and residential roads on the new route are two lanes, which would require the shutdown of streets and disruption of traffic. That poses a significant risk to marchers, Clair said. He pointed out that parades are not permitted on secondary streets within the town for this reason.
MOUNTAIN CITY, Tenn.  The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is investigating after a man said a bear swatted him at his home in Johnson County on Tuesday.

Wildlife officers said the alleged incident occurred outside a home on Eastridge Lane in Mountain City. A 47-year-old man claims he exited a woodshed and was confronted by a black bear that swatted at him, the TWRA said in a news release.

The man said he fired a shot in the bears direction believing he may have hit it and it left the area, the release states. The victims fiance called 911 and Johnson County EMS examined the victim documenting very fine scratches to the victims lower right arm but he refused medical treatment.

The TWRA said officers could not locate an injured bear or any indication that the bear had been shot. A trap has been set for precautionary measures, the release states.

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BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- China's e-commerce industry continued to thrive last year despite mounting downward economic pressures and lingering trade tensions, according to a report from the Ministry of Commerce.

China led the world in e-commerce, with about 51.26 million people employed in the sector in 2019.

The country's e-commerce transactions hit 34.81 trillion yuan (about 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, with online retail sales reaching 10.63 trillion yuan, up 16.5 percent year on year.

E-commerce has contributed a great deal in terms of "promoting consumption, stabilizing foreign trade, alleviating poverty, and boosting employment," playing a key role in ensuring the country's steady and high-quality development, the report said.

In 2019, online retail contributed 45.6 percent of the growth in the country's total retail sales.

The report also said that China has established bilateral e-commerce cooperation mechanisms with 22 countries.

In addition, China approved 24 cross-border e-commerce pilot zones in 2019, bringing the total number to 59. These pilot zones provide a streamlined system with simplified regulations for faster examination and approval, customs clearance, and easier information sharing for cross-border e-commerce imports and exports.

Since the start of the year, the e-commerce industry has played a prominent role in guaranteeing supplies, facilitating work resumption and stimulating consumption amid the COVID-19 epidemic, said the report.

The ministry pledged more measures to promote the digitalization of traditional industries and ensure the high-quality growth of the e-commerce sector.

China had more than 900 million internet users at the end of last year, with an internet penetration rate of 64.5 percent, according to the report.
Anyone who has been in a large gathering or other setting where social distancing and face covering were not being practiced should contact their healthcare provider or seek testing, the department said in its announcement. This is especially urged for persons who become symptomatic. There is no safe place. There is only safe behavior.
Hagerstown, MD (21740)

Today

Strong thunderstorms likely. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 92F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low around 65F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
Julie E. Greene

jgreene@herald-mail.com

Washington County Health Department officials are "highly" recommending that anyone attending the mile-long yard sale Saturday north of Hagerstown wear a face mask to help prevent the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

The massive neighborhood yard sale that stretches down Longmeadow Road and nearby streets has grown to be well over a mile and traditionally attracts thousands of people every Fourth of July as folks come and go throughout the day.

There is no longer an official organizer for the event as local residents just know to show up because it's the Fourth of July, long-time participants said.

But from talking to some neighbors and organizations that usually participate, Drista Stultz and Justin Mayhue said they are expecting fewer people and vendors setting up items for sale.

"I think people certainly continue to have fears of the virus and, as a result, will not sell things," said Mayhue, who has lived in the neighborhood for 54 years. "Because inviting folks you don't know onto your property, you don't know who's got what. It's just not worth it to do a yard sale."

Mayhue said he typically has a yard sale during the event, but he won't this year because of the pandemic.

Drista Stultz's late mother, Marie Dahlhamer, founded the yard sale in 1980 when it began along Paradise Church Road.

Stultz texted that her mother would be "thrilled" with how the yard sale has become so self-sustaining. But Stultz said she believes her mom also would want people to "use caution and wisdom this year."

Stultz said she's talked to several neighbors, some of whom plan to set up yard sales and some who don't.

"The main concern is about the coronavirus and its spread," she wrote.

Stultz said she and her husband will not set up a yard sale this year. They are older and in a high-risk group so if they visit others' yard sales, they will take precautions such as wearing masks and practicing social distancing, she said in a phone interview.

While yard sales are permitted under Gov. Larry Hogan's current executive order, county health department officials "strongly urge those attending to practice social distancing," to maintain six feet of distance from others, to bring and often use hand sanitizer, and to stay home if they are sick, according to an email from health department spokeswoman Danielle Stahl.

"We highly recommend all attendees to wear face masks at this event," the email states.

The Longmeadow Volunteer Fire Co. announced on Facebook recently that it has modified its participation in the yard sale this year because of the pandemic. Fire company officials received guidance from the county's Emergency Operations Center when determining activities for the yard sale, fire officials said.

The public will not be allowed into the fire hall, President Pete Lyons said. The fire company is renting outdoor spaces for the yard sale and will provide portable toilets. It also will raise money by providing parking spaces across the street at Blind Industries, Lyons said.

The yard sale is typically the fire company's largest fundraising event of the year, raising $8,000 to $10,000, Lyons said. Thinking the yard sale won't be as large as normal, fire officials only budgeted for $1,500 in revenue because they don't know what to expect, he said.

The fire company is financially stable, Lyons said, but there is concern if the economic situation gets worse in the future, affecting fundraising. The fire company is sending out its first mailers for its annual fund drive, which is a large part of its budget, he said.

Paramount Brethren in Christ Church, at the corner of Longmeadow Road and Corello Drive, is not participating in the yard sale at all this year, Pastor Jacob Harrison said. In the past the church's restrooms and fellowship hall were available to the public; the church sold food and provided parking. Donations for parking and using restrooms were given to active ministries in the community.

The church hasn't resumed indoor worship services yet, Harrison said. Outdoor services, transmitted via an FM transmitter and streamed on Facebook, will continue potentially through the end of July, when church officials will re-evaluate the situation, he said.

But church officials don't think they can provide indoor space in a manner that feels safe and comfortable given the high volume of traffic the yard sale attracts and the sanitation guidelines provided via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Harrison said.

The Washington County Health Department provided the following recommendations for people holding yard sales.

Practice social distancing by:

 Placing posters encouraging social distancing for customers so they can see the posters when they arrive and while shopping.

 Setting up tables and chairs 6 feet apart.

 Using heavy-duty tape to form a flow for customers to follow throughout the sale.

 Asking customers to stand in a line, while spread apart, during high-traffic times.

Clean all tables and chairs several times throughout the day.

 Make sure all merchandise is washed and dried and/or wiped down with a disinfectant product before placing it on a table or chair for sale.

 Wipe down all tables and chairs using disinfectant at the end of the day or in the morning before the next day of the sale starts.
Alexis Fitzpatrick

afitzpatrick@herald-mail.com

Washington County's $5.7 million disparity grant increase is safe for the time being, but as the state continues its COVID-19 related budget cuts, that might change.

The money, which is given to less affluent jurisdictions, was included in more than $205 million of proposed reductions removed from theMaryland Board of Public Works' agenda prior to Wednesday morning's meeting.

The last-minute removal came after state Comptroller Peter Franchot, a Democrat, publicly stated he would oppose a portion of the$672 million budget cuts proposed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.

State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, a Democrat and the board's third member,suggested waiting until after the revenue for fiscal year 2020 comes in on July 15 to evaluate all of Hogan's proposed cuts with more information.

The removed items included the elimination of a cost-of-living increase for state employees and reductions in the states contributions to workers health insurance and retirement plans, among other things, and will be reviewed at next month's meeting.

Washington County Commissioner Cort Meinelschmidt said the delay was good news as such a large cut "doesn't make sense," especially considering the General Assembly voted during the last session to approve the increase.

"They've done a complete 180," he said.

He said the board of commissioners hoped for the state to reconsider the cuts entirely, or at least reduce the amount more fairly between the jurisdictions.

Washington County's budgeted addition is the largest in a collective $12.4 million planned increase in disparity grants to nine counties and Baltimore City. If Hogan's proposed cuts are eventually approved, the grants will stay at the same level as the fiscal year that ended Tuesday  a total of more than $146 million for all jurisdictions.

For Washington County, that would be just under $2.1 million as opposed to the budgeted $7.8 million.The extra money was expected because a majority of county commissioners agreed last year to max out the county's income-tax rate at 3.2%, in part so the county could receive a larger disparity grant.

The grant amount is determined through a fairly complicated formula that takes into account whether those counties have maxed out their income-tax rates.

The Washington County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 in June 2019 to raise the income-tax rate from 2.8% to 3.2%, the highest county income-tax rate the state allows. Commissioners Vice President Terry Baker and Commissioner Wayne Keefer voted against the increase, both expressing concerns that disparity grants are not guaranteed in the long run.

Meinelschmidt said the commissioners had spoken to members of the county's delegation and sent a letter to the governor's office opposing the cuts.

Commissioners President Jeff Cline said with the next budget cycle only a few months away already, the disparity grant was especially important with items such as fire department fundraisers canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We're a low-wealth county and there is a lot of uncertainty now," he said.

Approved budget cuts

In a 2-1 vote with Treasurer Kopp voting no, the Board of Public Works approved the remaining $413 million in budget cuts.

Hogan said he did not like suggesting or voting for the cuts, but they were necessary to spare state employee layoffs. He said more cuts will be required to avoid them without more aid to states from the federal government. As chairman of the National Governors Association, Hogan is leading a push for more federal help.

Prior to the vote, Hogan's Budget Chief David Brinkley said the state is facing a projected loss of roughly $2 billion in state revenues for the fiscal year that began Wednesday. That balloons to more than $4 billion in the next fiscal year.

A significant portion of the cuts affect higher education. A total of $131.5 million in spending reductions were approved, including $117 million to the University System of Maryland, which could include employee furloughs.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Staff reports

The Herald-Mail

Dont forget, if you want to join a gang know the name: Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force. Be proud to be free, not one trying to take it down. Support our great police too.

 Joe Saunders, Hagerstown

I took an emergency trip to the hospital on the morning of June 20. The EMTs who transported me in the ambulance were very soothing and caring in my anxiousness. The emergency room caregivers were very calm and efficient. I was admitted to the hospital, where many tests were done, including an MRI. My day-and-a-half stay found me being the most thankful person. The staff and all their care kept me comfortable and relaxed. Many thanks to all of you who took such good care of this 77-year-old patient. Again, I offer my heartfelt thanks to all of you.

 Virginia Walton, Maugansville

Im calling in regards to the Associated Press article on page A11 of the Sunday, June 28, Herald-Mail. Its amazing, although I expected it from AP. Again, they dont tell the whole truth. Regarding the headline: Princeton to remove Wilson's name from public policy school," nowhere in the article does it mention that he is a Democrat  absolutely nowhere. The bottom line is most people are automatically going to assume hes a Republican. Thats totally improper. This should be noted: Wilson is a racist, segregationist Democrat. AP, as usual, covers for the Democrats. They usually do. This is a truly great example of it. 

 Tom Mooningham, Maugansville

If you have any respect for your flag and your country, please don't go to any games or watch games on TV, or purchase any of their merchandise. That will hit them where it hurts  money.

 Pam Stottlemyer and Ken Demosky, Hagerstown

I don't understand why stores that have signs on their doors saying, No shoes. No shirts. No service, that nobody has an issue with this infringing on our constitutional rights. However, if these same stores have signs saying, No masks. No service, all of a sudden there is an issue with constitutional rights. Someone without shoes or a shirt is not going to share COVID-19 with me, but someone positive for COVID-19 without a mask will share the disease with me. I'm sorry, but this just doesn't make sense to me.

 Margie Wight, Hagerstown

I heard that longtime Herald-Mail carrier Judy Burtman has retired. She has been a mainstay of delivery in the Waynesboro area for as long as I can remember. Through rain, sleet, hail and snow, Judy and her driver got the paper to my front porch every morning on time! She will be missed."

 Susann Posey, Waynesboro, Pa.
The next day, the group discovered someone had removed the coverings, so Boyd climbed over the fence again to put them back up. He was arrested and charged with trespassing, along with chapter Vice President Louie Gibbs. Later, after they were released, Lucas arrived to scold a group of officers for taking them into custody. She also approached a Virginian-Pilot reporter to tell her and the group that no one would be arrested for demonstrating peacefully.
Uniontown, PA (15401)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High near 80F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Showers and thundershowers this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 59F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
A doctored picture of Hollywood actors Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson from "Back to the Future," which a Facebook pranker claimed was of an unidentified couple from 1950s Tel Aviv.

(JTA) - Last week, thousands of Jews in Israel and beyond responded to a plea for help in identifying a couple pictured in a yellowing photograph from 1955.

"Everyone, I need help. I found this picture on a Tel Aviv street," Ariel Plavnik, a 43-year-old tourism salesperson from Kfar Saba, Israel, wrote in Hebrew and Spanish in a Facebook post with the photograph. "I want to return this old, beautiful photograph. If you share it, maybe we can find the owners! Thanks to all."

More than 7,000 people shared the photograph, a portrait whose many blemishes do little to dim the radiant smile and b...
When will it end?...

I read this in "Facts and Logic About the Middle East" written by President JAMES SINKINSON, and pass it on to you:

"The coronavirus has unleashed a torrent of hate directed at Israel... creating just one more excuse for the anti-Semites to pile on.

If it's not the Palestinians and Iran trying to convince the world that Israel invented Covid-19 to murder its enemies... it's misguided politicians telling Israelis they must make peace with terrorists.

While we pro-Israel advocates have won great victories over the past several years, the Jewish state is still in mortal da...
(JNS) - For the last several weeks, habitual critics of Israeli policies, dubious self-described Israel supporters and even some longtime friends have come out against Israeli plans to "annex" parts of the West Bank.

Here are their arguments: The Palestinian Authority will collapse; Israel will effectively kill the two-state solution and eventually become a minority within its own bi-national state; the peace treaty with Jordan will be rescinded; normalization with Arab Gulf states will halt; European nations will apply sanctions on Israel; Democrats will distance themselves even further; a...
Robert (Bob) Saffer passed away peacefully early in the morning on Fathers Day, June 21, 2020. He was born Oct. 14, 1924. He loved nothing more than being with family and friends, as long as food was involved. He never met a stranger and was loved by everyone who knew him. He was generous and kind and always had a joke to tell (sometimes clean, sometimes not).

Bob was ready to join his beloved wife, Fea, of 71 years, who passed away on Feb. 1, 2020. He is survived by his daughter, Gayle Steinhart; son-in-law, Barry; daughters Jaci and Danielle; and his grandson-in-law, Lenny, and many friends whom he also considered family.

Burial, with full military honors, was held June 30, 2020, at the South Florida National Cemetery.

Donations can be made in Bobs memory to Camps Airy and Louise at http://www.airylouise.org/donate.

Arrangements entrusted to Beth Shalom Memorial Chapel, 640 Lee Road, Orlando 32810, 407-599-1180, http://www.bethshalommemorialchapel.com.
(JTA)  More than 8,000 students at Florida State University have signed an online petition to remove the student Senate president over social media posts described as anti-Semitic.

The Change.org petition against Ahmad Daraldik was launched two weeks ago and garnered over 3,000 signatures in the first three days, FSUNews.com reported.

Daraldik survived a vote of no confidence during a Senate Zoom meeting on June 17.

He became the Student Government Associations leader earlier this month when his predecessor was removed over derogatory comments against the LGBTAQ community,

In 2013, Da...
Townsend told police a Black man and woman assaulted her on the street. She said she didn't know who her assailants were but gave deputies a description of the couple and their car.
(JNS)  The social-media platform TikTok is a growing hotbed of extreme anti-Semitism, according to a new report.

Led by researchers Gabriel Weimann, a professor of communication at the University of Haifa and senior researcher at the Institute for Counter Terrorism, and Natalie Masri, a research assistant and graduate student at ICT, the Spreading Hate on TikTok report scanned the platform for far-right contents by applying a systematic content analysis.

This scan of TikTok videos, conducted from February through May of 2020, revealed 196 postings related to far-right extremism. Th...
WASHINGTON (JTA)  In 2015, the Zionist Organization of America gave John Bolton a standing ovation when he said he wanted to be U.S. president. In 2018, the ZOA gave him its Defender of Israel Award.

This week, Bolton is about as far away from the presidency as hes been in his life, and the ZOA doesnt appear interested in defending him. Nor does the broader centrist and right-wing pro-Israel community, which lobbied for Bolton just 3 1/2 years ago to be secretary of state.

Bolton is dominating headlines this week with his new tell-all book, The Room Where It Happened, in whic...
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, at mic, speaks at a news briefing at the Capitol, July 17, 2018. Left to right in the background are Sens. Ben Cardin, Jeanne Shaheen and Robert Menendez.

WASHINGTON (JTA) - Three of Israel's most stalwart boosters among Democrats in Congress are warning the country against annexing parts of the West Bank.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and Sens. Ben Cardin of Maryland and Robert Menendez of New Jersey released a statement Friday saying they were "compelled to express opposition to the proposed unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank."

The three senators are only the latest Democrats in Congress to warn Israel against the proposed annexation, but they may be the most significant, not only because Schumer lead...
On Wednesday, July 1, the day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought to a cabinet vote the extension of Israeli sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, demonstrations by Pro-Palestinian and BDS groups against the annexation, as they call it, were held in Chicago, San Diego, Brooklyn, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Among the groups were Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and American Muslims for Palestine.

Another organization, Al-Awda  The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition  accused Israel of 72 years of genocide, ethnic cleansing and disposses...
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio attends a press conference with Satmar Jewish community leaders after an attack on a kosher market in Jersey City in December 2019.

(JTA) - A top Justice Department official sent a letter to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last week that claims the mayor has enforced uneven social distancing rules that "favor certain secular gatherings and disfavor religious gatherings."

The letter, which was shared Tuesday by Agudath Israel, an organization representing haredi Orthodox Jews, specifically cited the mayor's focus on dispersing Jewish community gatherings.

"During the period in which all gatherings were banned, you reportedly sent police officers to break up numerous gatherings of the Jewish community in New York, incl...
The Jewish Pavilion is thrilled to plan four special Shabbat services/programs with Cantor Non Fine on Zoom in July, beginning this evening. The following services will be held on the 10th, 17th and 24th.

Each service will be at 4 p.m. She will do one as a Jewish Composers concert with her son, Dylan Caio, on piano. Another will be a concert featuring young artists. Another will be a talent show from children in the community, and one will be a Shabbat spiritual service with a contemporary reform feel. These are open to all participants with the code and password and is not limited to just...
(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA)  The school board in Oakland, California, has unanimously voted to abolish the districts police force in the wake of the nationwide protests against police brutality  with some urging by teens at a city synagogue.

A large contingent of young people from Temple Beth Abraham, a Conservative congregation, was involved in pushing the board to adopt what was called the George Floyd Resolution, named for the Black man whose death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer sparked the demonstrations.

The resolution, which was passed...
(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA)  The bad news for Jewish community centers in the wake of the coronavirus crisis continues: One in Palo Alto has laid off about 20 percent of its staff and cut its budget by a third, while one in Foster City, located between Palo Alto and San Francisco, has cut its budget by 45 percent.

Sitting on more than 8 acres in Palo Alto, the Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life  which includes the Oshman Family JCC and the Moldaw Residences for retirees  has been described as a modern eco-oasis and a hub for the regions grow...
(JNS)  The anti-Israel movement in Ireland has suffered a major defeat. Earlier this month, the political parties working on forming the next government in Ireland eliminated a key bill that would have placed a boycott on products produced in Israeli settlements.

Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, told JNS that the bill was carefully drafted so as to pretend to be about occupied territories generally, but in fact would apply to just one disputed territory in the world, which happens to be the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland.

The bill, he said, was...
(JNS)  The Republican Jewish Coalition launched a $50,000 ad buy in battleground states on Sunday, pushing out a video celebrating how the U.S.-Israel relationship has strengthened under U.S. President Donald Trump.

The eight-minute documentary, called Sunrise, praises Trump for strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance to a level never seen before and for being the most pro-Israel American president in history.

It touts Trumps pro-Israel achievements, including moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018; recognizing Israels sovereignty...
She lost all joy of beekeeping and her livelihood from beekeeping because shes in a residential zone. Bees have been in America since 1622 and they originated in Jamestown, Virginia, Garvin said. He said honeybees are not aggressive and do not go out and sting people.
By Steve Riback

Aish Hatorah Resources

I will never stand for or justify racism, illegal acts, brutality, or excessive force by police officers. Those who operate in that fashion have no business working as police officers and deserve to be held accountable for their actions.

We need to set the record straight. Change can be challenging. I know because it happened to me over 17 years ago. At the time, I was living my passion as a crime-fighting police officer, yet struggling internally to find purpose. One Shabbat, the realization of how uneducated I was about Judaism engulfed me. The sp...
DALLAS (JTA)  Before COVID-19, when my community convened every Shabbat at our synagogue, two men stood at opposite ends of the property wearing Kevlar vests and holding makeshift nylon shields. These shields covered the mens long automatic rifles so that our communitys children wouldnt face heavy firearms every time they ambled into services.

How should I feel about those police officers standing tall in the Texas heat, and the protection they afford me, when they wear the same badge as the officer who murdered Botham Jean in his apartment? How should we religious Jews feel a...
By Mike Leven

ATLANTA (JTA)  My library has the popular book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, in which Yuval Harari  a Jew, an Israeli and an acclaimed author  states that the Jewish people dont have a reason to exist anymore. Theyve finished what they had come here to do by contributing to a range of fields, from philosophy and ethics to science and the arts.

Harari consistently downplays the role that Jews have had in shaping the world.

Jews may be a very interesting people, he writes, but when you look at the big picture, you must realize that they have had...
I dont know how many times Ive told my children (or tried to tell them) how their mom and dad met, how we sent each other signals from a distance for months until the opportunity arose for us to introduce ourselves to each other. I was working in the back of the original Borders Book Store in Ann Arbor and saw her and thought she was really cute, but before I could make my way up to her she was gone, and then all the students left for winter break and I had to wait weeks before another sighting. Late one night as I was walking home I saw her walking with friends into her dormitory,...
(JNS)  Angry mobs of activists are roaming American streets pulling down or defacing statues of historical figures. In some cases, governments and private institutions are joining their efforts by agreeing to take down examples of public art that reflect worldviews that are either now considered offensive or long gone out of fashion. Some are doing so because theyve been intimidated by the 21st-century Jacobins who march under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement. Others are acting out of genuine conviction that they must join in the purging of the public square in order to v...
Stow - Passed away suddenly on Friday, June 4, 2021. Mary was the loving wife of Donald R. LeBlanc. Born in Haverhill, on May 3, 1942, Mary was the daughter of the late Joseph and Helen (Levis) Bresnahan. Mary was raised and educated in Haverhill, graduating from Saint James High School, Cla
All public buildings and facilities will be available on a limited basis using a service queue. Patrons will have their temperature taken on-site prior to entry, and they will also be asked to wear a facial covering while indoors. There will be disposable masks available. Patrons will need to check in at the lobby of each public facility to request a service. They will then be alerted when they may proceed to the requested department, either by the lobby phone or via text messaging.
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The Gauhati high courts ruling, granting a man a divorce on the grounds that his wife refused to wear a shaka (conch shell bangle) and sindoor as per Hindu custom amounted to her refusal to accept the marriage, is a huge step backwards for womens rights.

By wearing these accoutrements of matrimony, a woman is expected to show her devotion to her husband while nothing of this sort is expected from the man. In fact, the sindoor takes on a significant role in a marriage that neither a single woman nor a widow can wear it. It is seen as a mark of respectability.

In the Gauhati case, the court went further and ruled that the woman in question was guilty of cruelty under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, as she did not want to live with her in-laws, and, hence, tried to prevent her husband from looking after his aged mother. The ruling suggests an inbuilt bias in the judiciary, particularly at the lower levels. It deprives the woman of her freedom of choice as to whether she wishes to wear symbols of marriage.

This sort of misogyny is insidious as it tends to appropriate and control the womans wishes. The ruling  like many others in the past  deny the woman autonomy, and makes her subservient to a pre-defined patriarchal notion of what a good wife ought to be like. At a time when more women are entering the workforce and becoming economically independent, it seems misplaced to constrain their behaviour, whether it is within a marriage or otherwise.

Unfortunately, many of Indias popular television serials and films also glorify the importance of marriage symbols such as sindoor and bangles. A marriage is a union of equals and should not be contingent on one partner being viewed as being subservient to the other. Equality under the law should be upheld in letter and spirit and the Gauhati ruling seems to go against this.

But this is not the first instance of judicial bias against women and their right to autonomy and choice. On June 22, the Karnataka high court ruling on bail in a rape case made an odd comment on the behaviour of the woman. In Rakesh B vs State of Karnataka, the judge said that the fact that victim fell asleep after the crime was unbecoming of an Indian woman, adding that this was not the way our women react when ravished. The allusion was that the woman had willingly had drinks with the man in question. No adverse remarks were made about the mans conduct. Of course, this invited a furious flurry of opposition from civil rights groups and concerned individuals lamenting the deeply entrenched patriarchy at all levels of society including the judiciary.

The notion that a married woman is the property of her husband or that a rape victims honour is besmirched, rather than the fact that her personal autonomy is violated, has guided several court rulings. The misogyny seen in the judiciary often makes it incumbent on the victim to explain her conduct. For example, why she doesnt want to wear sindoor; why she was dressed in a particular way; or, where she was when she was assaulted. The absence of injuries on the victim, whether in domestic violence or sexual assault, is often cited as a reason to disbelieve the woman.

The law does not discriminate against a woman making choices in a marriage, nor does it lay down any code of conduct for women through which they can protect themselves from sexual violence. The interpretations made by some judicial functionaries are unnecessary when the law itself is clear.

lalita.panicker@hindustantimes.com

The views expressed are personal
Revered and idolised around the world, spiritual leader HH the Dalai Lama transcends all barriers of religion, language. On July 6, the esteemed leader is turning 85 and his followers have lined up global celebrations. His followers shall be dedicating him the Year of Gratitude where His Holiness teachings and lifework will be promoted and celebrated. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, however, these celebrations will be held virtually.

His Holiness Dalai Lama XIV, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. At the age of two, the child named Lhamo Dhondup, was recognised as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. The Dalai Lamas are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are realised beings inspired by a wish to attain Buddhahood and serve the greater good.

Dalai Lama XIV began his religious education at age 6, and by age 16 assumed his role as the political leader of Tibet. In 1950, after Chinas invasion of Tibet and the subsequent uprising against Beijings rule in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to the Himalayan town of Dharamshala, India, where he has lived in exile ever since. The 14th Dalai Lama has been the spiritual leader of Tibet for more than 75 years.

The Dalai Lama has devoted his life towards the pursuit of humanitarian and environmental causes, global peace, and a lot more. He has authored many bestselling books including The Art of Happiness, The Book of Joy and many others, and has been felicitated with numerous honours including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can, HH says in one of his teachings.

In conversation with acclaimed writer Pico Iyer as part of the Jaipur Literature Festivals Brave New World series, His Holiness highlighted the importance of investigating the source of positive and negative emotions, and transform the human mind through reasoning.

On finding inner strength, the Dalai Lama says, When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways--either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.

Read on for more quotes by His Holiness ahead of his 85th birthday and feel inspired as you make an honest effort of getting through every day.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Love is the absence of judgment.

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.

Silence is sometimes the best answer

Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.

Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because theyre not on your road doesnt mean theyve gotten lost.

The Dalai Lama shall be releasing an album of mantras set to music to mark his 85th birthday. Titled Inner World, the album consists of 11 tracks that will have the Dalai Lama recite sacred mantras and teachings along with accompanying music performed on over 30 instruments. This release also coincides with the 7-day global meditation week.

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More than three months after he was declared as president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee and three failed attempts to hold an event for swearing-in ceremony, Vokkaliga strongman DK Shivakumar on Thursday formally took as the state unit president.

In a massive show of strength, lakhs of Congress workers across 15,000 locations in the state took part in a Pratijna Divas (oath-taking ceremony) over Zoom video app. Incumbent Dinesh Gundu Rao formally handed over the party flag to the new president.

Addressing party workers as their state president for the first time, Shivakumar said: Joining together is the beginning, thinking together is progress, working together is success.

Fifty eight-year-old DKShi (as he is known within the party) has been intensely loyal to Congress. A six-term MLA, Shivakumar has been a minister in four different cabinets in the state.

His first stint as a minister came when he was all of 28 in the S Bangarappa-led government. But it was his tenure as the urban development minister in the SM Krishna government where he emerged as the right-hand man of the then CM that catapulted him into the spotlight. Incidentally, his daughter recently got engaged to Krishnas grandson though the former CM is now with the ruling BJP. Shivakumars brother DK Suresh is an MP from Bangalore rural.

Shivakumar is one of Karnatakas richest politicians who during the 2018 assembly polls declared a wealth of Rs 840 crore. He has been accused of involvement in illegal mining, and a housing society scam. Last year, the Enforcement Directorate arrested him in a money laundering case and he was jailed in Tihar. The Congress leader has rejected these charges as political vendetta.

What has endeared Shivakumar to the party high command is his troubleshooting skills. Shivakumar, who has never hid his ambition to become the CM, is hoping that helping the Congress come back to power in the 2023 assembly polls would help him realise that dream.

L Manjunath, a political analyst, noted how Shivakumar sustains his momentum over the next three years and builds relations with other aspiring leaders within his own party will determine how far he goes.

Nobody can deny his political acumen or dynamism. But he has accumulated a number of enemies both within and outside the party over the years. For now though Congress which had become moribund in the state after the fall of the coalition government has become very active taking on the government and this has been primarily due to Shivakumars leadership, said Manjunath.
The Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court has asked two bail applicants, both accused of attempt to murder in the same case, to donate an LED television set worth no less than ~25,000 to a night shelter, specifying that the TV should not be a made-in-China brand, as border tensions simmer between India and the neighbour.

The court passed the order on June 26, but it came to light only on Tuesday through Ankur Modi, the additional advocate general (AAG) in Gwalior. The ruling came in the backdrop of a violent brawl between troops of the two countries in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and calls to boycott Chinese products.

The bench of justice Sheel Nagu granted bail to petitioner Arvind Patel, a resident of Datia district, with several conditions, one of which was to donate a TV set to the shelter home and that is not made in China. The bench also granted bail to co-accused Kamlesh Pal, a resident of the same district, with the same condition.

Accordingly, without expressing any opinion on merits of the case, this application is allowed and it is directed that the petitioner be released on bail on furnishing a personal bond in the sum of ~25,000 with one solvent surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the concerned magistrate...The petitioner along with petitioner in McrC No.11789/20 undertake to purchase and install a black coloured LED TV at Renbasera, district hospital, Morar worth at least ~25,000 manufactured in India or abroad except China, said the order of the court on Patels bail plea.

Arvind Patel and Kamlesh Pal, residents of Aurina village in Datia district, and two others from the same village allegedly opened fire at another villager in February over a dispute.

The other conditions for the bail set by the court were for both accused to cooperate in the trial, not to extend inducements, threats or promises to any person acquainted with the facts of the case to dissuade him/her from disclosing facts related to the case to the court or to the police officer.

The court ordered that a compliance report pertaining to the condition it specified on the TV set be submitted along with photographs to the registry of this court. The registry shall supply a copy of its order to the legal aid officer of the state legal service authority, Gwalior, who shall in turn depute a para-legal volunteer to verify compliance with the condition and submit a report to the registry within two weeks of the verdict.

The accused themselves had offered to install the LED TV set in Renbasera. On this, court allowed this and also said that it will be a part of conditions for release of the accused on bail. However, the court also said that the TV set should not be manufactured in China, AAG Ankur Modi said.

Pawan Pathak, the secretary of High Court Bar Association, Gwalior, said, Its a unique order of the court. It has further infused a sense of patriotism in all of us...This order will have a wide psychological impact on the minds of people across the country who are boycotting Chinese products...
Actor Priyanka Chopra has signed a multimillion dollar deal with Amazon for television content and filmmaker Anubhav Sinha is proud. On Tuesday, he shared a tweet about how she managed great success in her career despite others attempt to pull her down. Priyanka has thanked him for his support.

I am so reminded of a Bombay Time front page article that wrote her off saying how NO ONE would touch her from a barge pole. Yeah... No one can, Anubhav wrote in a tweet. Priyanka replied, Thappad nahi.. kaam se maaro(Hit them with you work, not with slaps).. lol. Thank you @anubhavsinha for the support.

Priyankas fans also showed their support for the actor and her hard work through the years. Cant imagine what it must feel like to become a trailblazer against all the odds. You have no idea how much hope you give us. Honestly, your success feels personal for some unknown reason. It makes me so so happy, read a comment by a fan. Actor Adhyayan Suman wrote, Keeep inspiring us !!

Thappad nahi.. kaam se maaro..  lol. Thank you @anubhavsinha for the support.. https://t.co/IkfzZcKCko  PRIYANKA (@priyankachopra) July 1, 2020

As per Variety, a general meeting with Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke was what led to the first-look deal. Priyanka expressed her excitement over the deal with a post on Instagram. Looking ahead, we already have so much on our slate! Big thank you to @jsalke (Jennifer Salke) and her team at Amazon for being such great partners, and for sharing in the belief that talent and good content knows no boundaries, the actor wrote in the caption.

Also read | Sushant Singh Rajputs last co-star Sanjana Sanghi hints at quitting Bollywood in cryptic post: Milte hain? Ya shayad, nahi

She explained how being both an actor, and producer, she always dreamt of an open platform, where talent from across the globe comes together to create great content, irrespective of language and geography.

Priyanka already has two television projects lined up with Amazon. One is Sangeet, an unscripted series co-produced with husband Nick Jonas. It is based on the Indian pre-wedding tradition, and how families of the bride and groom compete against each other in singing and dancing. The second project is Anthony and Joe Russos spy series - Citadel, that will have Priyanka in lead along with Richard Madden.

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On the occasion of National Doctors Day, actor couple Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia Deshmukh pledged to donate their organs. Both Genelia and Riteish shared their noble decision through a video that they posted on Instagram.

In the video, the two are seen talking about how they have been thinking about organ donation and how they believe that the gift of life is the greatest.

Aaj 1st July ko hum ye kehna chahte hain aur aapko ye batana chaahte hain ki hum dono ne ek pledge liya hai (Today, on July 1 we want to tell you about something that we have pledged), we have decided to donate our organs, said Riteish Deshmukh.

Yes, we pledge have pledged to donate our organs and for us theres no better gift than the gift of life, Genelia added to Riteishs statement.

The couple later in the video also urged people to take the route of organ donation as it is a suitable form of charity for them.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan lauded the couple for the decision. The Union Minister took to Twitter to share the video of the actors where they are seen taking the pledge to donate their organs and encouraging others to do so. It feels so good when I see young actors like dynamic @Riteishd & beautiful @geneliad endorsing #organdonation, tweeted Harsh Vardhan.

Also read: Sara Ali Khan takes fans inside her colourful home, shows her happy place. See pics

Im sure their involvement will reap rich dividends in sensitising the public towards this noble cause. @IMAIndiaOrg @FOGSIHQ @MoHFW_INDIA, his tweet further read.

The lawmaker earlier in the day lauded the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Society of India for launching a mass campaign to spread awareness of organ donation.

(With HT inputs)

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Actor Saif Ali Khan has said that he cannot endorse Kangana Ranauts remarks about Karan Johar being the flag-bearer of nepotism, which she made during an appearance on Koffee with Karan. Saif was witness to the origins of a debate that continues to this day, and has only intensified in recent weeks.

He told The New Indian Express, I have no idea what Kangana was saying on Koffee with Karan because I dont think like that. I mean if you come on to a show and if youve got an agenda prepared to take the host down, my mind doesnt work like that. I dont understand. So I was a little surprised obviously. But these issues have absolutely nothing to do with me and I tend to find myself in the middle of them. Maybe I should think sometimes before commenting.

Also read: Saif Ali Khan feels Sushant Singh Rajput was brighter than he was: He wanted to talk of astronomy, philosophy

He added, As far as Karan is concerned, he has made himself a large symbol and because he has put on so many different hats. It seems like hes attracting a lot of flak for it. Im sure its not all deserved. The truth is always complicated. Theres much more to it but unfortunately people arent interested in that. They are just interested in symbols. He just happens to be a symbol for something at the moment that is not very popular. I hope the tide is over and better things that he is known for like a filmmaker and producer shines through.

Kangana has ramped up her attack on the Bollywood establishment in the wake of actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death. Saif continued, There is inequality in India that needs to be explored. Nepotism, favouritism and camps are different subjects. Even I have been a victim of nepotism but nobody speaks of that. Im happy to see more people from film institutes come to the forefront.

Saif has often spoken about nepotism in the film industry. He was once involved in a controversy after he yelled nepotism rocks at an awards show along with Karan Johar, perhaps in response to Kanganas original comments. He apologised for the incident.

In a recent interview to journalist Anupama Chopra, he said, Being the kind of person I am, the films that I have done, there has also been as sense of privilege and lack of privilege, and people coming up the hard way and people coming up the easy way, thats always been the undercurrent, especially in an ensemble like this, with some of these NSD guys and film institute chaps.

Also read: Saif Ali Khan admits to being privileged, says its common in India for good actors to not get opportunities

He added, Theyve come up purely through talent, while some of us, frankly, have had doors opened for us by privilege of our birth and the parents weve had.

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Actor Saif Ali Khan thought that late actor Sushant Singh Rajput had a bright future. In a recent interaction with The New Indian Express, Saif spoke about working with Sushant on their upcoming film Dil Bechara. Saif has a special appearance in the film.

Calling Sushant a talented actor and a good looking guy, Saif talked about how he wanted to discuss different things. I thought he had a bright future. He was polite to me and appreciated my guest appearance in the film. He wanted to talk about many topics like astronomy and philosophy. I got the feeling he was brighter than I was, he said. Sushant died by suicide on June 14.

Earlier, Saif told The Times of India that his daughter, actor Sara Ali Khan talked highly of him. I knew him. I shot with him... When Sara described him, she always described him as being a really remarkable person. And I thought if this guy really understands Sartre, the way he says, and he is as intelligent as shes making him out to be, then hes obviously more intelligent than I am, he had said. Sara worked with Sushant in her debut film, Kedarnath. Saif said that Sara was very upset upon learning of Sushants death.

Also read: Dabangg 3 actor Javed Hyder clarifies not selling vegetables for a living: I made the video to keep busy during lockdown

When I did my guest appearance in his Dil Bechara, I think he was quite happy with that. He was very nice to me and he said he wanted to come and have a drink and talk about various things, which never happened, which I feel bad about. Maybe I could have, you know, helped in some way or not I dont know. But after working with him, I quite liked him because he was nice. And then he told me he danced behind me as Shiamaks dancer during the Melbourne Commonwealth Games (in 2006). And so I was congratulating him on how far hed come, you know, Saif had added. Saif and his actor wife Kareena had expressed grief on Sushants death through an Instagram post.

Dil Bechara is set to release on Disney+ Hotstar on July 24. It is directed by Mukesh Chhabra and also stars newcomer Sanjana Sanghi. The film is based on the hit novel by John Green, The Fault in Our Stars.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Television host and actor Shekhar Suman travelled to Patna earlier this week to meet late actor Sushant Singh Rajputs family. Shekhar said that Sushants father KK Singh is in a state of shock and his grief is made worse by the constant talk about his sons death.

Sushants father is in a state of shock, hes grieving obviously. He is not speaking anything and is absolutely reticent, silent. I just wanted to kind of share his grief through silence. So we just sat there for about five minutes, not saying anything or exchanging anything. His sister said that everybody has been talking about it repeatedly, that has caused more grief and harm to him. So its best to keep quiet, he told The Times of India in an interview.

Sushant died by suicide on June 14. Even as the Mumbai Police are investigating all angles, Shekhar has been vocal in the demand for an enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He even started a Justice for Sushant Forum, which has been seeking a CBI probe into the actors death.

When asked if Sushants family is keen on a CBI enquiry, Shekhar said, I think it is something very personal to the family and whatever they decide, whether they want an inquiry, they dont want is their choice. And I am not fighting on their behalf, Im doing so as an individual. Sushant was also in public domain, he was an actor and he was part of the film fraternity and something that happened to him may happen to me or anybody else.

Also read | Himanshi Khurana doesnt want to be addressed as Asim Riazs girlfriend: Why is it always about a man?

Shekhar said that Sushants family must not be pressurised into asking for a CBI probe. This is a moment of grief, everything should settle down in the family and then its their call completely, he said. On being asked if he felt that they wanted a CBI investigation into Sushants death, Shekhar said, They are grieving. Theyre in a state of shock. Its a huge tragedy and one should not interfere with their emotions at all right now. So, no, I never tried to find out.

In a series of tweets, Shekhar said that he will go to the end of the world to get justice for Sushant and will seek support from all political parties as well. He tweeted on Thursday that he was not a Twitter warrior and wrote, im doing my best to take this up with the Home minister of our country to speed up the process.

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 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends providing assistance for people to use air conditioning at home, such as a temporary ban on utility shut-offs during heat waves. To reduce coronavirus spread, cooling centers should allow staff and volunteers to stay at home if theyre sick or caring for family members; separate people with mild illnesses from others; maintain distance between people and use air exchange systems.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was passed in a joint session of parliament on 1 July, 2017. It is the biggest tax reform in the history of the country. GSTs rollout abolished a plethora of regional taxes and ushered in a unified indirect tax regime across the country. This change was expected to cut red tape, facilitate movement of goods and services across state borders and widen the tax base by bringing erstwhile evaders into the system via the input tax credit radar. It was a radical reform.

Reforms of the scale of GST require a political compromise in our federal structure. This was especially true for state governments, which were surrendering most of their fiscal autonomy. To compensate for this sacrifice, the centre guaranteed 14% annual growth in taxes collected by the states in 2015-16 for a period of five years, ending in 2022.

As it turns three (on July 1), GST faces many challenges. The most important of these is its ability to meet expectations of higher revenues. GST collections have failed to meet budget targets in 2018-19 and 2019-20. The Centres GST collections in 2018-19 and 2019-20 were only 78% and 90% of budgeted targets. Budget Estimate (BE) figures were revised downwards from Rs 7,43,900 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 6,63,343 crore in 2019-20. Even the 2020-21 BE figure is Rs 6,90,500 crore. This suggests that the centre initially overestimated GSTs revenue generation capacity. To be sure, some of this was also on account of a slowing of economic growth (but more on this shortly).

GST rates have been changed many times in the GST Council. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman herself termed this as a big problem while speaking at the HT Leadership Summit in December 2019. I am not saying that people did it (reduced rates) thoughtlessly, but in the enthusiasm to reduce taxes, that framework which was originally agreed at stage one of GST was distorted, Sitharaman said, explaining that lowering the tax rate impacted the input tax credit and transferred more taxes to the buyer. A Reserve Bank of India report on state finances corroborated Sitharamans point. Against revenue neutral rate of 15.3% which was recommended by the Arvind Subramanian Committee, weighted average GST rate has been falling continuously and was just 11.6% in July and September 2019.

Receipts are bound to suffer in this context.

Finally, the Indian economy has also been caught in a slowdown in the post-GST period. The Covid-19 disruption to the economy will only complicate these challenges. The adverse effect on GST collections due to the slowdown and Covid-19 inflicted lockdown and subsequent economic contraction will create a big problem as far as fulfilling the Centres guarantee of ensuring 14% growth in state taxes is concerned. Constitutionally, the centre is committed to providing for this shortfall. This has triggered discussions on market borrowing to make these payments.

States have been expressing their concerns about timely settlement of GST claims even before the Covid-19 disruption. HT reported in January this year that certain states demanded real-time access to GST data to help compensate for their revenue shortfall. After settlement of all claims, IGST should be equally distributed between the Centre and states.

With difficulties on the revenue front likely to increase, Centre-state tensions may get worse. This could trigger a discussion on inclusion of one important tax head which has been kept out of GST, namely petrol and diesel. Currently, petrol and diesel are outside the ambit of the GST and both the Centre and states levy their own taxes.

While states are entitled to a share in basic excise revenues, the centre has been keeping back windfall gains from lower crude prices by increasing taxes under special excise duties and cess, which is not to be shared with states. For example, out of the Rs 32.98 per litre of excise duty on petrol in Delhi, only Rs 2.98 per litre was basic excise duty. State VAT was Rs 18.56 per litre.

If crude oil prices continue to be low for a long period, which is likely given the global economic situation, we might see a demand for inclusion of petrol-diesel prices under GST, although this could mean states give up their rights to levy their own Value Added Tax on fuel, an equal distribution of petroleum revenues could help state finances.
The central governments move asking state-owned BSNL and MTNL not to purchase Chinese-made equipment to upgrade their mobile networks has triggered fear among private firms that they may have to follow suit.

Telecom operators Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd may be hit hard if they have to substitute Chinese 5G equipment that provide significant cost advantage. Only a handful of companiesEricsson, Nokia Networks, Samsung, Huawei and ZTEmanufacture 5G equipment. The last two are Chinese.

Industry estimates peg the market for Indian telecom equipment to be around 12,000 crore annually, of which Chinese vendors account for roughly a fourth. The rest of the market comprises Swedens Ericsson, Finlands Nokia and Koreas Samsung. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea work with both Huawei and ZTE, besides the European vendors, while Reliance Jio works with Samsung.

Reuters reported the government instruction on June 18 saying it was aimed at keeping Chinese telecom gear out of an almost $8 billion plan to help loss-making operators BSNL and MTNL. Since that plan will be funded by public money, they (BSNL, MTNL) should try to ensure they buy made in India equipment, the news agency quoted an unnamed person in the government as saying.

Though private telcos have not received official direction to steer clear of Chinese equipment, speculation is rife that they may soon be asked to do so, considering the ratcheting up of measures by India in business and commerce.

On Tuesday, the US formally labelled Huawei and ZTE as threat to national security, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Jio Infocomm a clean telco for rejecting Huawei.

Telecom sector analysts said the cost of shifting from Chinese telecom equipment is likely to be significant for telcos although not unaffordable.

Mahesh Uppal, a consultant on telecom regulation, said from a 5G perspective, the upfront cost will be a concern if some of the vendors are not given access.

It is in the best interest of telecom operators to have a vibrant market to choose from, said Uppal.

Transitioning to a new provider is not a trivial process for telcos, he added.
Even as the Chandigarh administration had banned 18 categories of single-use plastic in September 2019, it has now passed a notification classifying three of these categories as extended producer responsibility.

These plastics include refill pouch with 500ml capacity, straws attached with tetrapacks and multilayered packaging used for foods/snacks packing.

UT director of environment, Debendra Dalai, said, The decision was taken after receiving representations from industries saying that there were no other viable alternatives available.

Now, the producers themselves will be responsible for ensuring they are disposed of properly. However, Dalai said that the move is only temporary and if they find a viable alternative, they may ban the three categories again.
Ludhiana The Punjab unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday hit out at the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for criticising the Central governments ordinances on agricultural reforms, saying they were misleading the farmers.

All the ordinances were formulated in cognizance of the Swaminathan committee report, said former Punjab Cabinet minister and BJP leader Madan Mohan Mittal.

Terming the recent statements of Congress state president Sunil Jhakhar and AAPs Bhagwant Mann as totally fabricated and malicious, Mittal said the Central government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was committed to uplifting the economic status of the agriculture sector.

Mittal was visiting the BJP office near the Clock Tower to address a conference on the ordinance.

We want to remind the Congress party that it was in power for 10 long years and Manmohan Singh did not bother to implement the Swaminathan report on agriculture, he said.

The BJP had taken into consideration the long forgotten report and tried to come up with plans to address the plight of the agrarian sector. It was the protectionist ordinance of the Modi-led BJP government which would ensure that a farmer did not lose his  rights of ownership even if he had leased his land for long periods.

The National Commission on Farmers (NCF) was set up on November 18, 2004 under the chairmanship of Professor MS Swaminathan to address the nationwide calamity of farmer suicides in India.

It has submitted a number of reports with suggestions to achieve the goal of faster and more inclusive growth.

The government had given the farmers the right to sell their produce to the highest bidder in the market after 73 years of Indias independence. The Union agriculture minister had repeatedly gone on record to say that MSP would not be discontinued and the farmers would not have to worry that their crops would not get buyers, he said.

Unfortunately the Congress and APP have nothing to demonstrate what they have done for the agriculture sector. They have found themselves in a desperate situation and are misleading the farmers, Mittal added.

Giving the assurance that marketing committees would also function as before, he said: We promise to the farmers of Punjab that BJP will stand committed to protect the agriculture of this state which has made the country food surplus.

The state BJP would be launching an awareness drive and go to each village in the state and inform the farmers about the newly introduced farmers ordinance, he said.
Online educational competitions will be organised for students of Ludhiana government schools from July 6 to commemorate the 400th birth anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur.

Students will participate in competitions including poem recitation, debate, painting, slogan-writing, poster-making, handwriting, Power Point presentation and will make videos of the activity and send it on the class WhatsApp group.

The topics of the competitions will be based on the life, teachings and achievements of the guru. The aim is to make students aware of the teachings and life of Guru Tegh Bahadur.

A letter has been issued by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) to district education officers (secondary), elementary and school heads to make maximum students participate in these competitions. It is the responsibility of principals to make students register online for the competition.

The competitions will be held at school, block, district levels and then state level. The winners will be issued certificates online by SCERT.

A six-member committee will be formed and competitions will be conducted under their supervision. The district education officer will be the chairman of the committee.

DEO (secondary), Swaranjit Kaur, said, Participating in these competitions will make students aware of the teachings and life of the ninth guru. The school principals have been informed so that maximum students can participate.

The shabad gayan competition will be conducted at school level and video will be uploaded for tehsil and block level competitions between July 6 to July 12. The selected students will participate at district level between July 20 to July 26.

At state level, the school heads will get the videos uploaded on the winners of the district level between July 27 to August 2. The final results will be announced by the head office on August 3.
Union food processing industry minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Thursday appealed the Punjab government to reduce value added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel.

The minister said Punjabs taxation of petroleum products was the highest in the country. She urged the Congress government to reduce the VAT on fuel and provide relief to the common man.

Harsimrat said the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) wanted fuel prices reduced and party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal had publicly cleared his stance on the issue.

She said chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh had politicised the three farm central ordinances.

The central ordinances are similar to the act passed by the Congress-led Punjab government in 2017. Minimum support price (MSP) on key crops was an outcome of SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badals efforts and the party will be the first oppose any attempt made to dilute the provision, she said.

Criticising farmers organisations, she said, The BKU leaders did not raise issues such as kurki or attachment of a farmers land in the event of non-payment of loan and non-deliverance of food grain supply during the pandemic with the CM.

She also said, The SAD government opposes the state governments decision to close down a now defunct thermal plant in Bathinda that was named after the first Sikh master Guru Nanak Dev.
A mob of around 30 people were booked by the Uttan coastal police for allegedly obstructing a medical team of the Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC) who had visited the Navi Khadi village to shift three members of a Covid positive family to a Covid Care hospital on Tuesday.

The mob tried to prevent the team from taking the three patients and alleged that the lab which tested them had provided fake reports, assistant police inspector Satish Nikam of Uttan police station said.

The accused were not wearing face masks and did not practice social distancing norms either, said Nikam. Cases against the locals were filed under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Act and the Maharashtra Covid-19 Rules. No arrests have been made yet. In Uttan, around 30 people had been tested positive for Covid-19.
PATNA:

At least 26 people, including women and children, were killed as lightning struck again in Bihar on Thursday, the third time in a week, taking the toll to 134.

Earlier, on June 26, lightning struck 24 districts and left 96 people dead. On June 30, it killed 11 people.

A majority of the deaths on Thursday were of farmers working in their fields.

While the maximum number of deaths (seven) was reported from Samastipur district, six casualties were reported from Patna, four from East Champaran, two each from Sheohar and Madhubani districts, three from Katihar and one each from Purnea and West Champaran districts.

In Patna, five persons, including three women, were killed and three others injured at Dulhin Bazar locality when all of them were working in paddy fields.

In East Champaran, officials said a 27-year-old woman and three others were injured at Parsauni village under Patahi police station while a 17-year-old boy,from Ajagarwa village was killed in the lightning strikes.

Expressing his condolences, chief minister Nitish Kumar directed the district magistrates (DMs) concerned to immediately provide financial assistance of Rs 4 lakh each to the bereaved families in accordance with the relief norms. He also directed to ensure medical treatment of the injured.

Officials of the states disaster management department say advance warnings are sent out through text messages, television channels or through posters or pamphlets. The farmers did not get the warning sent across, and the only way they can be protected is by tackling things at the panchayat level and educating farmers. The majority of the deaths took place due to people seeking shelter under trees, said an official.

The official said that during a storm, people should seek shelter in brick houses. if possible. People should avoid boating, fishing or being in open water during thunderstorms, as water bodies are vulnerable to lightning strikes, and water is a good conductor.

(With inputs from Sandeep Bhaskar)

Headline: Strikes from sky

Intro: Despite govt claims of an early warning system, lightning continues to kill people in alarming numbers

Date: Fatalities

April 19: 5

April 23: 6

April 26: 12

May 1: 7

May 6: 12

May 7: 2

May 19: 5

June 26: 96

June 30: 11

July 2: 26
A 43-year-old labourer, Sanjay Sri Rang Tupe, was surprised when he received a call from the Amritsar police commissionerate on Thursday informing him that his stolen smartphone has been recovered.

Police asked Sanjay to collect his phone from the office of deputy commissioner of police (DCP, detective) Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar.

I was out running an errand in April when two unidentified bike-borne men had stolen my phone. It has been more than two months and I had purchased a new phone as my hope of getting back the stolen one was dashed. But when I was informed that my phone was recovered, I was elated, said Sanjay.

Similarly, 65-year-old Tarlok Singh was going to take medicine on May 15 when two unidentified persons stole his phone. I had no hope of getting back my phone but I appreciate the police and am thankful to them. This drive of returning stolen mobile phones of citizens should be continued besides taking strict action against the miscreants, he said.

DCP Bhullar returned the recovered phones to the rightful owners. He said that sometimes victims of mobile snatching and theft think that they will not get back their phones. We have decided to return the recovered phones to their owners. We are taking strict action against the miscreants, he said.

He added that the recovered phones market value is Rs 1.30 lakh. He said that these phones were snatched or stolen from Sharifpura, Sultanwind road, Bhagtanwala, and the area around the Golden Temple.

Police verified the IMEI numbers of some of the phones to locate the owners and called them to the police station.

Some phone owners were those who had not lodged police complaint. We traced the owners by using IMEI numbers, said inspector Sukhwinder Singh Randhawa, in-charge of the CIA wing of Amritsar police.
New Delhi: Deportation of foreign nationals against whom criminal proceedings have been initiated for attending the Tablighi Jamaat congregation during mid-March in Delhi will be at the discretion of the central government, the Supreme Court orally observed on Thursday while granting liberty to such foreigners to make representation before the Centre to send them back to their home countries.

The bench headed by justice AM Khanwilkar made the observation during the hearing of a plea by 34 foreign nationals from various countries, who have challenged revocation of their visas, stating they had not indulged in any serious offence and had attended the gathering before lockdown restrictions were put in place. The petitioners made a vehement appeal for their deportation.

They cannot be deported if there are criminal cases pending (against them). It will be the central governments discretion, the bench, which also comprised justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna, orally remarked.

In an affidavit submitted before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the central government said that deportation and grant of visas cannot be claimed as a right and foreign nationals can be let go only after legal process under the criminal laws is completed. The Centre also pointed out that individual orders have been issued cancelling the visas of the foreign Tablighi Jamaat members.

It was submitted by the Centre that 205 FIRs have been filed against foreign Tablighi Jamaat members in 11 states and 2,765 foreigners have been blacklisted.

Grant of visa is a sovereign function of the centre. There is no right to be deported. Deportation can be allowed if there is no criminal case. There are criminal charges pending against them, solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the central government, told the court.

The apex court eventually adjourned the matter for July 10 to enable the petitioners to file a rejoinder to the Centres affidavit.

The pendency of these writ petitions will be no impediment for the concerned petitioners to make representation to the department/competent authority for deporting/sending them back to their respective countries. That representation may be considered by the authority on its own merits and in accordance with law, the court said in its order.

Delhis Nizamuddin was sealed on March 30 after it came to light that several people, who had attended a religious event held in March in the area by a Muslim organisation called Tablighi Jamaat, were found to be infected with coronavirus. At least 16,500 people had visited Tablighi Jamaats headquarters in Nizamuddin between March 13 and 24.

The Union Home Ministry (MHA) had initially, in April, blacklisted 960 foreign nationals who had attended the religious event.

The Centre, in its affidavit, claimed the foreign nationals who participated in the Tablighi Jamaat event violated provisions of visa rules and the Foreigners Act since they had arrived in India on limited tourist visas and Tablighi Jamaat activities were not covered by tourist visas.

The petitioners did not seek any specific permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs for engaging in activities in the nature of Tablighi activities. Therefore, it is a clear case of violation of visa conditions, the affidavit said.

The Centre specifically highlighted the provisions of visa manuals that have been updated from time to time, the latest being in 2019.

According to para 1.25 of the visa manual of 2019, foreign nationals granted any type of visa shall not be permitted to engage themselves in Tablighi work unless they are granted specific permissions for the same by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the affidavit highlighted.

Further, the Foreigners Act criminalises violation of visa conditions. Section 14 of the Foreigners Act makes provision for a jail term of upto 5 years if a person does any act in violation of the conditions of visa issued to him for entry and stay in India.

Apart from that, these foreigners might have violated the provisions of National Disaster Management Act (NDMA) and the Epidemic Diseases Act (EDA), the affidavit added.

The central and state governments had imposed lockdown and other restrictions to check the spread of Covid-19, invoking the power granted under the NDMA and EDA.

Deportation of foreign Tablighi Jamaat members have not been done till date to ensure completion of legal process going on against them. All such foreign nationals against whom cases have been registered will be deported as soon as the legal processes are completed, the affidavit said.

Please deport us

The petitioners through their counsel CU Singh made a vehement appeal for their deportation, stating that the attendees had not committed any grave offence.

Please deport us to our home countries. We came here before any restrictions (imposed due to Covid-19). If we have not committed anything grave, the Centre can consider deporting us, they said through Singh.

The bench observed that the proper course of action for the petitioners would be to challenge the central governments orders individually before the high court concerned.

This is not something which affects national security. These people came here much before (the Covid-19 restrictions and lockdown). Blacklisting would mean we should not be allowed to return to India but we can be deported, Singh added.

205 FIRs against foreign Tablighi Jamaat members, 2,679 visas cancelled

According to the affidavit, a total of 205 FIRs have been filed in 11 states against foreign Tablighi members. 2,765 foreigners have been blacklisted so far and visas of 2,679 foreign nationals have been cancelled, it was stated.

It was also submitted that 227 foreign nationals left India before a lookout notice could be issued against them.

47 foreigners who attended the Jamaat event are Nepal nationals who are not holding any visa. Visas of remaining 39 cases are under the process of cancellation, the affidavit said.

The orders cancelling visas were intimated to 1,502 foreigners by email. However, 1,168 foreigners on regular visas could not be intimated regarding cancellation of visas as their email ids are not available with the immigration bureau, the central government submitted.
With residents and councillors raising a hue and cry over the delay in taking up development projects, Punjab food, civil supplies and consumer affairs minister and Ludhiana (west) MLA Bharat Bhushan Ashu announced that the contractors who have either delayed such works or failed to start them despite orders being issued to them would be blacklisted.

Ashu conducted a meeting with municipal commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal and other officials at Zone D office on Thursday and reviewed different development projects being taken up in the city. Mayor Balkar Sandhu and councillor Mamta Ashu were also present in the meeting.

During the meeting, Ashu reviewed the development projects related to Ludhiana Smart City Ltd, operations and maintenance cell, horticulture branch, health branch, recoveries etc. He also inspected the ongoing work of water front development alongside Sidhwan canal and leisure valley in BRS Nagar.

Speaking on the working of Tata Company, which is taking up LED streetlights project in the city, Ashu said the next payment for the project would be made only after the contractor explains the energy saving process in detail. He directed the MC officials to impose a penalty to Tata Sons (contractor) for all non-functional streetlights.

He also appreciated the civic officials for getting GPS installed in all of its vehicles through CSR, as this would help in better monitoring.

Ashu said, Due to the delay in execution of projects, residents are a harried lot and no laxity would be tolerated in terms of quality or speed of the development works. Contractors are taking the MC for granted and strict action would be taken against them.

MC commissioner Pardeep Kumar Sabharwal said, The MC is also working to expedite recovery of dues from the residents and the amount recovered would also be spent for the development of the city. A monitoring cell has also been set up in the civic body that is taking samples of all ongoing projects and getting them tested from the laboratory at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College.
The Delhi government on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that a prior Covid-19 test was not mandatory for admitting pregnant women in hospitals for in-patient intervention, including surgery and deliveries, and in emergency situations, treatment would not be denied for want of test results.

It told a bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan that the test can be conducted simultaneously with the treatment and if the result is positive, the pregnant woman would ideally be transferred to a dedicated Covid-19 hospital for further management.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The government said it had expanded the use of rapid antigen testing at hospitals to ensure the availability of results in a short time and this will address difficulties being faced by people/patients, including pregnant women.

.prior Covid-19 test is not mandatory and in emergent situations, treatment must not be denied for want of Covid-19 test results. However, a pregnant woman if found positive on testing is ideally to be transferred to dedicated Covid-19 hospitals for further management, the Delhi government told the court while hearing a plea by lawyer who said test results of pregnant women should be given priority.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), in its response filed through central governments standing counsel Vivek Goyal, said it had issued guidelines for the management of pregnant women during the pandemic and there were no restrictions for testing pregnant women for Covid-l9 symptoms.

Goyal, during the hearing, said ICMR cannot decide which category of patients should be given priority in testing.

The Delhi government, in its response, said it was trying its best to make available Covid-19 testing across all sections of the population with possible and justified prioritisation.

The lawyer representing the Delhi government sought more time to file an affidavit on giving priority to tests of pregnant women. The bench listed the matter for further hearing on July 8.
New Delhi: More than 1,000 sewadars of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) will be involved in cooking and packing meals on a daily basis when the temporary Covid care facility set up in the organisations Chhatarpur branch is occupied to its capacity of 10,200 patients.

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The meals will be cooked at the institutions in-house mess  a short walk from the facility  and the costs will be borne entirely by the RSSB, said Sonalika Jiwani, Mehrauli sub-divisional magistrate (SDM).

The meals will be spread over five courses  tea, breakfast, lunch, evening tea and snacks, and dinner.

Over 3,000 beds have been set up, as of Wednesday afternoon. However, the first batch of patients are yet to be sent to the facility.

But the preparations at the RSSB continued unabated. On Wednesday, doctors of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)  tasked with managing the facility  considered patients nutritional requirements and submitted a menu to district authorities.

The proposed menu had different breakfast and vegetable options for all seven days of the week. The morning tea will be accompanied by kadha. The patients will also be served a spoon of chayavanprash and giloy juice everyday, Jiwani said.

Since June 14, when work first began at the facility, the RSSB has been preparing meals for workers employed here, the volunteering sewadars and ITBP personnel. As of Wednesday, meals for more than 2,000 such staffers, including 900 workers and 700 ITBP personnel, were being prepared in the ashram mess.

The food is simple, but is timely and served to us with dignity, said Vijay Kumar Yadav, an electrician hired to fix wiring at this facility.

CAPABLE OF COOKING LARGE QUANTITIES

According to officials as well as RSSB office bearers, the mess can fix up meals for around 300,000 persons every day.

While previously we cooked meals for large number of people for a few days three times every year, we can also cook meals for an extended period of time if needed, said an RSSB office-bearer, who asked not to be named.

For 70 days during the lockdown, staff at the institution cooked and packed 275,000 meals to be distributed to people in Delhi.

When the facility is occupied at its maximum capacity, it will be preparing food not just for patients, but also ITBP personnel, including doctors, nurses, volunteers and other workers.

RSSB office bearers said that a relatively small number of sewadars will be involved in cooking, and most of the 1,000 volunteers in the mess will be involved in packing. Well be packing the food in disposable packets to be distributed to each patient, an office bearer said.

Outside the mess, meal packets will be handed over to government volunteers and workers.

From there, the food packets will be wheeled to each of the 116 sections where the patients will be housed. Each section will have at least two volunteers. The patients who are able to walk and help themselves can collect the meals when it arrives in their sections. For those who cant make it to that point, volunteers will serve them in bed, Jiwani said.

Once patients are done with their meals, they can either leave their used disposable utensils at a single point in their section, or volunteers will collect them from their beds.
Five new Covid-19 testing labs will be set up in Thane district in the next 10 days, state health minister Rajesh Tope said on Thursday during a review meeting of the Covid-19 outbreak in Ambernath, Badlapur and Bhiwandi cities. Expressing his dissatisfaction over the contact tracing in Ambernath and Badlapur, Tope pointed out that 1,500 new cases are being added to the districts numbers every day.

A two-hour-long meeting was held at the Kulgaon Badlapur Municipal Council, with health department officials, medical association members and elected representatives.

In the coming 10 days total five testing labs will be set up to cater to places like Badlapur, Ulhasnagar- Ambernath, Bhiwandi, Mira Bhayader and rural parts of Thane district. This will speed up the testing and these cities will not have to depend on Mumbai testing labs, said Tope.

In Ambernath and Badlapur, contact tracing of Covid patients is not satisfactory. The authorities are tracing with the ratio of 1:6 (six contacts per one patient) which should increase to 1:15. I have asked them to follow up on this and isolate at least 15 contacts for one infected person so that there is a better chance of breaking the chain, he said.r

The health minister pressed for the need to increase the number of ventilators and oxygen beds in these cities, and directed the civic bodies to take help from the doctors of Indian Medical Association (IMA). A 50-bed intensive care unit will be set up at Harne Ayurvedic college in Badlapur soon, he informed. Tope asked officials to prepare a dashboard for the entire district to check the availability of beds.

He also urged the local civic bodies to admit patients on first-come-first basis, instead of sending them back to their residential city. Patients should Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) should get treatment anywhere in the area, he said.
Four persons, including two doctors at separate private hospitals, tested positive for Covid-19 in Mohali on Thursday, taking the district count to 280.

The doctors include a 41-year-old man, who works at the Alchemist Hospital in Sector 21, Panchkula, and a 43-year-old man who works at a private hospital in Sohana. They live in Dhakoli and Phase 10, respectively.

A 33-year-old man, a resident of Sector 91, who had recently returned from Spain, was also found infected. The fourth patient, a 43-year-old man from Kurali, also has a travel history to Delhi.

Civil surgeon Dr Manjit Singh said the family contacts of these patients will be tested.

Of the 280 cases in the district, 198 have recovered and four have died. There are now 78 active patients.
Two siblings have murdered their mothers former husband in Talwara village here, police said on Thursday.

A murder case has been registered against the accused.

The victim, identified as Gurmel Singh (57), was a priest at a shrine in Talwara. He and the accuseds mother, Shindar Kaur, had rekindled their relationship and were living together. However, the two brothers were against this and ended up murdering Gurmel, police said.

Gurmels sister Dharamjit Kaur told police that her brother and Shindar had married 35 years ago, but due to strained relations, the two had divorced. Following this, Shindar married her second husband with whom she had sons Jaspreet Singh (25) and Jasdeep Singh (23).

However, Shindars second husband died three years ago and she started living with Gurmel, the complainant said. As her sons were against their live-in relationship, on June 27 they barged into the shrine and assaulted Gurmel with sticks while he was asleep and fled, the victims sister added.

An injured Gurmel was taken to a local hospital from where he was referred to PGIMER Chandigarh. He, however, succumbed to his injuries there on Thursday.

PAU police station house officer, inspector Paramdeep Singh, said a case under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC has been registered against the accused who are at large. A hunt is on for their arrest, he added.
In the nasty and cruel world of social media, even the second most powerful man in the country is not spared. When Union home minister Amit Shah was conspicuous by his absence in the first two months of the Covid-19 lockdown, there were even distressing questions raised about his health, eventually forcing the home minister to issue a clarification that all was well. In the last month, as the country slowly unlocks, all doubts have been put to rest: Shah is well and truly back.

He has given a slew of well-choreographed interviews on the first anniversary of Modi 2.0. He has addressed virtual rallies in Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal. He has closely monitored the Rajya Sabha elections, especially in his home state of Gujarat and staved off a crisis in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Manipur. Most significantly, he has virtually taken over as the Big Boss of the Covid-19-hit national capital.

In a sense, the return of Shah marks the unlocking of politics. For almost three months during the lockdown, it wasnt just the countrys economy that was in a lockdown; it was also its politics. With the mostly-timid Opposition reduced to expressing its angst on Twitter, there seemed little space for raising issues of vital public interest. Neither Parliament nor scarcely a select or standing committee has met to address urgent matters. Yes, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi has held half-a-dozen meetings over video-conference with chief ministers but these cyber-engagements cannot be a substitute for the cut-and-thrust of public debate. Where other coronavirus-affected democracies, most notably the United Kingdom, have ensured that open parliamentary debate is encouraged, India has chosen to impose a moratorium on its politics.

This willful disregard for any form of democratic dissent and discussion is dangerous. It allows a dominant party government to impose its will on the people, behind a veil of non-transparency and non-accountability. A serious national security challenge on the Sino-Indian border in Ladakh has been wrapped up in secrecy and disingenuous wordplay. The tragedy of the dislocation of millions of migrant workers is blamed on state governments. The failure to prepare for a pandemic by boosting health infrastructure is again blamed on states. A faltering economy is put on pause mode but no industrialists (with one or two notable exceptions) can raise their voice. No details are provided to a Right to Information petition filed seeking information about the PM Cares Fund. Petrol and diesel prices are hiked 22 times in two months with no explanation. A 27-year-old Jamia Millia Islamia student activist is named as a prime conspirator in the Delhi riots but local political leaders linked to the ruling party are given a clean chit. A police officer arrested for allegedly helping terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir is granted bail because no charge-sheet is filed, but bail to human rights activists is furiously opposed.

In this ominous scenario of unbridled State power, re-enters Amit Shah. No other minister in Modi 2.0 has invested as much time and equity in keeping the political pot boiling as the home minister. From nullifying Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, pushing ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, driving the Ram Mandir agenda forward, Shah has provided the ideological muscle to the BJPs Hindutva juggernaut. Not to forget his sharp and ruthless political instincts that have seen the BJP displace the Janata Dal-Secular-Congress government in Karnataka, engineer mass defections in Goa, topple the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, and now gradually break the Congress in Gujarat.

With Shahs return to centre-stage, it would seem that the Modi government is preparing to shift gears once again and focus on the political management of a Covid-19-struck nation. There is, for example, an election to be won in Bihar at the year-end and Shahs poll organisation skills will be required to ensure what seems a near-inevitable triumph. There is an even bigger prize that awaits in West Bengal next year, the conquest of which Shah has made a personal mission of sorts. That in the midst of the pandemic and in a cyclone-ravaged state, Shah chose to launch a scathing attack on his great rival, Mamata Banerjee, is a sign that the gloves are now off once again.

Ironically, the home minister is expected to work closely with state governments during a national disaster, provide support and guidance to them, and ensure harmonious Centre-state relations. Shahs personality trait is instinctively combative but a pandemic calls for a change in style, for co-operation and not confrontation. This is not a moment for further dividing a hyper-polarised society or seeking to rule by fear and intimidation. Whether a leader like Shah can reinvent himself is uncertain. The rules for good governance are very different from those for winning elections.

Already, in Delhi, there are suggestions that Shah is overseeing the Covid-19 fight by diktat with little consultation with the state government. Which might partly explain why so many unilateral decisions taken one day are hastily abandoned the very next. The home minister may have no love lost for Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal but this is a moment to set aside personal differences and work as a team. So far, in his political career, Shah has been a divisive figure; now he needs to become a unifying force by providing a healing touch to a traumatised citizenry.

Post-script: The only thing certain about Indian politics is that the future is uncertain. At the beginning of 2020, Shah and Kejriwal were engaged in one of the most acrimonious and polarised election campaigns the country has seen. Now, a virus has forced them to jointly inaugurate Covid-19 care centres as grim-faced, masked men!

Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author of 2019: How Modi won India

The views expressed are personal
A section of final-year undergraduate students of Delhi University (DU) colleges Thursday raised concerns over a possible breach of privacy on the varsitys online portal for issuing admit cards for the upcoming online exams, which are scheduled to start on July 10.

Students alleged that anyone can access a students admit card that carries personal details such as their mobile phone number, address, date of birth and email id.

DU had earlier announced that it would conduct open book online exams for final-year students as a one-time measure in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to ensure social distancing. The university is issuing admit cards online through a link available on its website. To access the admit card, students are provided a gateway password that is unique to each college. Students can enter this password along with their roll numbers and names to access the admit card.

Vivek Prasad, a final-year LLB student at DUs Campus Law Centre, said the gateway passwords are being circulated on WhatsApp groups, thereby posing a threat to the privacy of thousands of students. If anyone gets hold of this gateway password, (s)he can easily access the roll number and names of students, which are available on the college websites, and then access their admit cards. There is a real risk of potential stalkers getting hold of phone numbers, email ids and home addresses of girls using the admit card portal, he said.

Other students, too, raised similar concerns. Suruchi, a final-year BA (Hons) student at Rajdhani College, said, Its scary for a student to know that her details can be accessed by anyone online. Our privacy has been openly violated by the university, she said.

Vinay Gupta, dean of examinations, said the university has given a unique password to each of the 60 colleges. We cannot distribute the admit card in person this year, given the circumstances, and we had to switch to the online mode. We do not expect our students to search for the roll numbers of other students and pull out their personal details. Students should have a moral responsibility to not indulge in something like that, considering the prevailing situation. Some students are trying to create a fuss over nothing, he said.

Later in the evening, Gupta said the administration has fixed the issue faced by law students. We added an option of one time password (OTP) on the admit card portal of law students since their roll numbers were easily accessible on the website. No other college student should face any such issue since their details are not available online, he said.

However, students of other colleges said their roll numbers are also easily available on websites. Amreen, a student of BA (Hons) English at Gargi College, said, Some of the colleges have also uploaded a notification mentioning the gateway password on their websites. The college websites also have the names and roll numbers of students. This will lead to cases of online harassment and stalking. Who will take responsibility if something untoward happens?

A group of DU teachers, who are also members of the Indian National Teachers Congress, has written to vice-chancellor Yogesh Tyagi on Thursday saying, The university administration has uploaded the admit cards on its website which can be accessed by anyone. Examination roll number and names can be accessed from the college websites. Surprisingly, gateway passwords are common for all students. Even an outsider can access the phone numbers, email addresses and home addresses of students which are mentioned on their admit cards. Therefore, the university administration must take notice of this breach of confidentiality and privacy.

Despite several attempts, Tyagi did not respond to calls and texts sent to him seeking his comment

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Addressing concerns over the digital divide in the education sector, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia Thursday announced that students of 1,030 government schools in the national capital will engage in learning with a human feel and have increased interactions with their teachers over phone.

Beginning Monday, government schools will resume online classes with three different strategies for class groups between kindergarten and class 8, class 9 and 10, and class 11 and 12.

According to the Union ministry of home affairs and the Delhi government directives, all schools in Delhi will remain closed till July 31 in view of the Covid-19 crisis. The government had announced that schools and educational institutions can opt for online or distance learning. However, several stakeholders have pointed out that many students could not attend these classes owing to lack of internet access and/or smartphones and computers.

The digital divide should not come in the way of childrens access to learning opportunities. We have formulated a plan wherein the focus will be on learning with a human feel. This si to ensure that students and teachers stay connected directly, Sisodia said during a press conference Thursday.

Before the summer vacation for government schools began on May 11, students up to class 8 were receiving text messages from schools with learning activities. For students slated to appear for their board examination next year, the directorate of education had organised online classes with two or three sessions a day.

From Monday, students from kindergarten to class 8 will receive one worksheet each with questions, tasks or activities on basic reading, writing, understanding, basic numeracy, and happiness curriculum via WhatsApp. Class 9 and 10 students will each receive two or three subject-specific worksheets a day, while those in class 11 and 12 will have online classes.

We have learnt that around 10-20% students do not have access to WhatsApp. For such students, parents can come to the school on a designated day and collect the learning material and worksheets for their wards. Teachers can offer guidance to these students over phone, Sisodia said.

Heads of schools have been asked to ensure class teachers have updated WhatsApp groups and lists of parents whose children are not available on these groups. Students of classes 11 and 12 will attend live online classes in 12 subjects. Teachers will follow up students over phone or WhatsApp to clear any doubts. However, those students who dont have access to online classes can contact their teachers and they will facilitate offline learning through parents and school management committee (SMC) members, Sisodia said.

On July 1, the department also issued a circular over reconstitution of SMCs  comprising parents, school officials, and area residents since the existing term is over. An active SMC is most essential to take remote learning initiatives of DOE to the community, the circular read.

Emphasising that the role of teachers will be crucial in this plan, Sisodia said, Regular teachers, guest teachers, and contractual teachers will be engaged for this plan.

The announcement is significant as over 20,000 guest teachers were rendered jobless after their contracts lapsed in May. The All India Guest Teachers Association welcomed the move and requested the government to pay them salaries for the months of May and June.

School principals will now be working to track students who have been inactive on WhatsApp class groups. Most of our students are active but a few may have difficulty in accessing the app. We will call such students over phone, check if they need any help and then work out a plan accordingly, Rakesh Semalty, principal of a government school in Nand Nagri, said.

With the education department focusing on a one-to-one interaction with students over phone or WhatsApp, the teaching community has a monumental task ahead of them.

Most students have smartphones and those who dont have are often stressed and feel inferior. It will be difficult to counsel such children and ensure that their learning continues. Also, the department should ensure that proper sanitization facilities are provided in schools when parents visit to collect learning aids, Pankaj Kumar, who teaches science and computer science at a government school in Shalimar Bagh, said.

Private schools in the capital are also continuing with online lessons. While most students in such schools have access to online classes. But students from economically weaker sections have difficulty in attending these classes as they have no smartphones or internet. NGO Justice For All has filed a petition in this regard before the Delhi high court and the case is currently being heard.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday stated that private labs halting rapid antigen testing was not acceptable... at such a critical juncture when the number of Covid-19 cases was shooting up phenomenally, on a day by day basis. The court was responding to the Delhi governments statement that private labs had stopped collecting samples for rapid antigen testing.

Satyakam, the additional standing counsel (ASC) for the Delhi government told a bench comprising justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad that the Delhi government had written to all private labs individually seeking clarification as to whether they were continuing with the collection of samples for testing after it found that the number of tests had reduced.

He said that most laboratories had denied halting rapid antigen testing and added that they had several grievances against the Delhi government, that had largely been resolved by the expert committee constituted by the Lieutenant Governor, Delhi.

The court then said if any of the private labs had stopped sending phlebotomists to collect samples for testing for any reason, they must immediately respond to the Delhi government.

The bench also said that the private labs should convey to the Delhi government if the expenses incurred by them are not covered by the rate fixed for the test by the Delhi government (2,400).

ASC Satyakam told the court that a total of 68,041 tests have been conducted via the rapid antigen method from June 18 to June 23 at an average of about 11,350 per day. He said that the initial target of 20,000 per district daily was quite ambitious considering that the RT-PCR tests were also being conducted at the sample collection facility simultaneously.

He told the court that 41,155 samples were collected within this period (Jun 18-23) through the RT-PCR method and hence a total of 1,09,196 samples had been collected in six days. He submitted that sero-surveillance had been started in Delhi on June 27 with a revised target of 21,793 rapid random samples to be collected across the state.

He clarified that the sero-surveillance data will be collected up to July 5 and the results will be made public within one week thereafter.

about 30 government hospitals have been provided user credentials in the past 24 hours to undertake the rapid antigen test, of which 20 government hospitals have started the process, he said while proposing that the rapid antigen test be conducted for free at all government dispensaries.

The court was hearing a plea by Sanjeev Sharma, through his counsel Rakesh Malhotra, who contended that there have been several instances wherein non-Covid patients needing surgery or other procedures were asked to undergo Covid-19 testing before that, but the hospital concerned did not do so stating they did not have the governments permission.

ASC Satyakam responded that a June 23 circular by ICMR stated that any private lab or hospital would have to approach the ICMR for obtaining authorisation to administer the rapid antigen test.

The court asked ICMR to file a status report while also clarifying its stand on the grievance by the Delhi government that some tests undertaken by the private laboratories were not specific to Delhi but were from satellite cities and therefore, there was no clarity about the actual number of tests that were undertaken for residents of Delhi daily, for analysis.

The court also asked the Delhi government to file a status report indicating the number of rapid antigen tests conducted from June 27 to July 5. The report has to be filed on or before July 13. The matter will be heard on July 14.
The Aryabhatta Knowledge University (AKU) will defer the second professional 2019 and the third professional part-I 2019 (II) examinations in Bihar in view of coronavirus (Covid-19).

In a notification issued Monday, the AKU deferred these examinations till further orders. The exams were earlier scheduled to commence from July 28.

The decision to defer the MBBS exams was taken by chairman of the examination board, who is also AKU vice-chancellor, after discussion with other members, including external members from the department of science and technology, government of Bihar, said AKU examination controller Rajeev Ranjan.

New dates for conducting these examinations would now be issued after receiving suggestions by the state or central government or necessary directives by the regulator, the Medical Council of India, Ranjan added.

The decision to defer the examinations was taken based on suggestion by medicos, many of whom were stranded outside the state. The medicos had expressed apprehensions of contracting Covid-19 if they were to travel back to appear for the exams, added Ranjan.

The Hindustan Times had on June 28 carried a news report titled Medicos irked as AKU announces exam dates amid rising Covid cases.

Medicos of intermediate semesters, however, are not satisfied by the AKU decision. They want the university to promote them to the next semester based on marks obtained in previous semesters and are bracing up to seek legal remedy.

Barring MBBS and dental, the AKU has already postponed examinations and decided to promote to the next semester all students of B.Tech, B.Pharma, BBA, B.Com and BMC among other courses.

As per the AKU itinerary, our MBBS second professional exams were scheduled in January, this year. However, they got delayed till July because of Covid-19. If the university defers the exams further, we will continue in the MBBS second year for more than two years, whereas the curriculum is of one-and-a-half year only, said Kritika Singh, a second year MBBS student of the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH), stuck in Delhi at present.

Deferring the exams further will not only hold us back in the same class, but also leave us with little time to attend classes and prepare for third professional exams. As such, we are demanding that the students be promoted internally, she said.

Besides, those whose previous grades are not good and they want to improve should be allowed to do so when the pandemic eases, said Kritika, who has taken it upon herself to fight on behalf of the medicos.

Ranjan, however, said any decision to promote the medicos without conducting exams would have to be taken by the MCI.
Months after the foundation stone was laid for a permanent campus for National Institute of Technology Uttarakhand in Pauri Garhwal district, the state government has now received over Rs 900 crores for building the campus.

Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Wednesday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank for approving Rs 909.85 crore for construction of a permanent campus of NIT in Sumari village.

Rawat said that the state government will arrange electricity and water for the institute at its own expense and will construct roads.

A long standing demand of the people of the state has been fulfilled finally. Quality education will be promoted in the state by the construction of the permanent campus of NIT. At the same time, the construction of the campus will also give a boost to the local economy, said the chief minister.

Dhan Singh Rawat, minister for higher education in the state said, Now, with the approval of funds for the institute, a big demand of the state has been fulfilled. Out of a total of Rs 909.85 crores, Rs 78.81 crores has been approved for strengthening the existing temporary campus.

In October last year, Governor Baby Rani Maurya along with chief minister Rawat and Nishank laid the foundation stone of the campus. The foundation stone for the campus was laid ten years after the institution came into existence.

The foundation stone for the permanent campus was laid after rigorous protests by students. In October 2018, students started their protest, after two B.Tech students met with an accident on National Highway 58 while they were on their way to the college laboratory. The highway divides the temporary campus of the college and hostel premises in Srinagar town of Pauri Garhwal district. Over 900 students from the college had gone back to their homes boycotting classes as a sign of protest.

Under the Centres 11th five-year plan, in 2009 Uttarakhand got one of the National Institute of Technology of the ten notified. Since then, the college had been taking in students in a makeshift campus the Government Polytechnic College in Srinagar in Pauri district.

In December 2018, students of NIT Uttarakhand, after over two months of protest demanding a safe campus, went back to classes at the satellite campus at Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur.
Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday said that though the schools in the state are closed, learning will continue for the students. Learning with human feel is the mantra of Delhi Governments teaching and learning approach, Sisodia said and added that digital technology will complement the efforts of teachers in reaching out to every child and assist them in learning.

Explaining the method to be followed for teaching, the education minister said that the teachers will reach out to the students through WhatsApp or regular phone calls and will give them light assignments and take regular feedback.

Schools are closed but learning will continue.



'Learning with human feel' is the mantra of Delhi Governments teaching learning approach.



Digital technology to complement the efforts of teachers in reaching out to every child and assist them in learning.



1/N  Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) July 2, 2020

Students from KG to Class 10 will receive daily exercise and feedback from class teachers through Whatsapp. Students of classes 11 and 12 will attend live online classes to be conducted by Delhi Govt. teachers in 12 subjects, said the minister. Follow up will be done by the teacher through phone call or WhatsApp to clear their doubts, the minister added.

He further said that the government is following a principle that a Digital Divide should not come in the way of childrens access to learning opportunities.

Earlier on June 26, Sisodia had said that the Schools in Delhi will continue to remain closed till July 31 in view of the coronavirus situation.
Haryana Education Minister Kanwar Pal informed that schools will reopen for teachers and non-academic staff in Haryana from July 27.

From July 27, schools will reopen for teachers and non-academic staff only in Haryana and students will not attend schools, Kanwar Pal said.

The Directorate School Education has stated that summer vacations are declared from July 1 to July 26 in all schools of the state.

Haryanas COVID-19 count rose to 14,941 on Wednesday with 393 new positive cases reported in the last 24 hours.

According to the state Health Department, there are 4,202 active cases in the state and the number of patients who have recovered/discharged stands at 10,499. The recovery rate in the state is 70.27 per cent while the fatality rate stands at 1.61 per cent.
Due to spike in COVID-19 cases, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is having second thoughts on conducting the May cycle of chartered accountants (CA) examination in 500 examination centres across the country beginning July 29.

The ICAI had last month allowed an opt out scheme enabling candidates who are unable to give the examination to appear in the November 2020 examination cycle. This scheme was challenged before the Supreme Court, which had asked the ICAI to be flexible in order to accommodate opt out requests till a week before commencement of examinations. Last week, the Court permitted the ICAI to come out with a draft notification spelling out that any student unable to give the complete set of exams would be entitled to a second chance in November, irrespective of whether they chose the opt out scheme.

On Thursday, ICAI informed the Court that the Institute was reassessing the feasibility of holding the examination in the wake of spike of COVID-19 cases across many states. Senior advocate Ramji Srinivas appearing for ICAI said, There are some operational problems at certain centres where examinations are scheduled. We need time to contact examination centres in order to assess the ground situation.

The Vacation Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna accepted the request and adjourned the matter for July 10.

Nearly 3.46 lakh students have registered to take the CA examinations. The ICAI informed the Court that less than 60,000 students had applied for opt-out scheme and thus opposed the petition filed by one Anubha Shrivastava Sahai challenging the scheme. The ICAI was also not agreeable to petitioners demand for increasing the examination centres.

On the last date, the bench had observed, The present situation is dynamic. You have to be flexible to change according to requirement of each area and concerns of students in that area.
The Indian Institutes of Technology, Roorkee has signed an agreement with the University of Alberta in Canada to provide Joint Doctoral Degree Programs.

The JDPs create a two-way flow for academic exchange between the two institutions, a press statement by IIT-Roorkee said.

The collaboration will give students of the two institutes a chance to undertake research for six months or one year and providing them international exposure and special certification upon graduation. IIT-Roorkee is one of the three IITs partnering with an external university to provide Indian and Canadian students with JDPs.

This agreement begins a new chapter in strengthening India-Canada ties in the education sector. IIT Roorkee looks forward to bolster and formalise our long-standing research collaboration with UAlberta since the 1980s, IIT-Roorkee director Ajit Chaturvedi said.

Apart from improving the quality of exposure of our students, the JDP agreement will hopefully catapult our research collaboration to greater heights, he said.
Union human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Thursday launched a Drug Discovery Hackathon through video conferencing. He invited students, researchers and professionals to participate in the Hackathon and work towards developing anti-Covid drugs. Union minister for health and family welfare, Dr Harshvardhan, Minister of state for HRD, Sanjay Dhotre and AICTE Chairman Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Dr Shekhar Mande, director general of CSIR were also present during the launch.

The Hackathon is a joint initiative of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). The hackathon is conceptualised under guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Participants will submit their ideas online in the Hackathon after which the CSIR laboratories, privates labs and startups will work towards executing them.

Interested students, researchers can visit the official website at https://innovateindia.mygov.in/ddh2020/ for full details.

Who can participate:

Researchers -- The hackathon is an international initiative and all researchers/faculty across the world are eligible to participate.

Students-- All students studying in India and all Indian students (holding Indian Passport) studying abroad are eligible to participate in this competition.

A large number of participants including students, researchers and professionals from various sectors/ fields of computer science, pharmacy, bio-tech, chemistry, medical science, basic science are invited to come together and compete in form of teams. It will also be open for internal participants making it as an international initiative, said Union health minister Dr. Harshvardhan.

HRD minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said, I am confident that this Hackathon will make our country proud. I am sure that the young minds of India will take our country forward in developing the drugs to fight against Coronavirus. Our nation has the best talent and resources to fight any challenge.

The Hackathon will be completely free of cost. Participants will focus generating ideas and identifying the molecules for anti- Covid drugs. CSIR will then focus on executing the idea and testing the molecules in their labs.

We invite people from all streams to participate in it. The students, academicians and professionals from diverse fields such as computer science and molecular biology could take part in it to assist in developing drugs to fight the Coronavirus pandemic, the AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe said.

Click here for full details
With uncertainty looming on favourable time to hold end semester exams, Patna Womens College (PWC) on Wednesday decided to promote students to the next semester without conducting examination in a view to compensate academic loss and prevent delayed academic session.

Principal of PWC Sister M Rashmi AC said, Considering the existing situation in the country, the examination and academic council of college has decided that all the students who have been allowed to fill the examination forms to appear in semester II and semester IV have been promoted to the next semester. Online classes for new semester examination will begin from July 6.

She said, Students are instructed to connect with online learning management system of college to continue their study.

Those students who are unable to attend online classes due to poor internet connectivity, they can download offline lectures from colleges website, she added.

Earlier in June, PWC had notified that end-semester examination for all undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) courses will be held from August 24 to September 9.

A senior college official said, Examinations are not cancelled yet. Date of exams may be revised depending upon pandemic situation. Students are promoted to next semester to prevent loss of time. Promoting students without examination are followed in odd-semesters but considering the abnormal situation we have decided to promote students for their welfare.

A student appearing in semester II, said, It will be difficult to remember the content of previous and next semester simultaneously. I keep on revising notes on semester II as exam is pending. I am worried that I may mix up all chapters in the examination.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) is expected to release the revised guidelines on examinations and admissions soon as universities across the county are waiting for a final call from the commission before deciding on their future course.

However, UGC is expected to take a final decision in this matter only after it receives a report from the Kuhad panel, headed by the central varsity of Haryana, which had earlier too given its recommendations on shaping the academic session in the pandemic hit year.

A govt official, who did not want to be named, told HT, the Kuhad panel is looking into all aspects and will submit its suggestions on exams. Once the report is received, the UGC will take a final call.

Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal had on June 24 asked the UGC to revisit its guidelines for the intermediate, Terminal Semester examinations and academic calendar. The request was made, keeping in mind, the increasing numbers of coronavirus cases in the country.

Earlier on June 23, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) released a circular stating that the medical and dental exams remain postponed until further notice. Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had also requested PM Narendra Modis intervention for the postponement of PG examination for medical students enrolled in MD (Doctor of Medicine) and MS (Master of Surgery) courses in the state till December 2020. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had on June 28 announced the postponement of final semester exams in all the universities and colleges of the state till July 15.
Sanjay Yadav, Principal, Ahlcon International School, Mayur Vihar

A school is an educational institution, designed to provide safe and well-integrated space, a conducive learning environment for children under the guidance of teachers. Grouping of students together in a centralized location for learning has existed since ancient times. Beyond just teaching academics, schools play a significant role of fostering students development in their relationships, identity, emotional skills, and overall well-being. When caught unawares in the disruptions led by the Covid-19 pandemic, the response of the teaching community has been phenomenal in establishing a parallel schooling system on a digital platform. They connected with children and took care of their academic needs as well as life skills education, through virtual schooling. The closure of schools has far reaching economic and social consequences globally. The outreach has been limited and the impact has been more severe for the disadvantaged children and families. Distance learning programmes, open educational applications and platforms are being developed and offered to reach learners remotely and limit the disruption of education. In these times of crisis, the need is to build an educational system, integrating the strengths of physical and virtual schooling for all to pave the way for a blended schooling in future.

Priti Ojha, Principal, Delhi International School, Sector 23, Dwarka

The teachers have to learn various types of tech applications to make the classes exciting and learner-centric, says Priti Ojha, Principal, Delhi International School, Sector 23, Dwarka

During the lockdown, the teacher-student relationship has taken a somersault, and now it is like learning together. The medium of teaching no more exists in the teachers comfort zone. They have to upgrade and update themselves to connect with the students. Students are natives of technology and are well versed with most of its attributes and are now waiting for teachers to engage them in an online class. Its not easy to teach remotely if teachers are not well-versed in using tech tools. The biggest challenge is to make children sit in front of the screen. Long lectures may deter them (students) from attending class. To ensure their attendance, teachers need to do a lot of thinking and planning. The teachers have to learn various types of tech applications to make the classes exciting and learner-centric. Every class is unique and if a teacher gets in advance the feedback on what style of teaching engrosses students more, the teaching technique of that teacher will become effective. Teachers should spend less time on speaking and give more time to the students. When children are given roles to play during the teaching, they develop a sense of ownership and take the class forward under the guidance of their teachers. Teachers have to be aware of cybercrime laws too. Parents have to play the most vital role. They should not only supervise their wards learning but also make them understand that during this trying time remote learning is the best option to acquire knowledge. Parents also must ensure that children follow the schedule prepared by the school.

Jyotsna Varma, PGT English, Mayoor School, Noida

Life has completely changed even as the basics remain unchanged during this period. I am still an educator but now my workspace is different. It amuses me no end that all the sermons I delivered to students to steer clear of screens have suddenly lost relevance. Children  rather than questioning my sermons  help me navigate technology. God finally answered our prayers and granted us those precious moments to pursue our passions. But did we really want leisure at this cost? Yes, we can chase our pursuits from the comfort of our homes. But an invisible enemy lurks at the doorstep. Nature seems to have unleashed its fury on us in return for severe damage we inflicted on it. I hope weve learnt our lesson. We pledge to script a new chapter devoid of exploitative elements as life limps back to normalcy.

Anushka Raheja, Class 12, GD Goenka Public School, Model Town

Anushka Raheja believes in the ideal of making something beautiful out of a miserable situation

Our lives might have been perforated by the needle-like proteins of a viral strain but, fortunately, we have not ceased. I believe firmly in the ideal of making something beautiful out of a miserable situation, and have worked to achieve that throughout the lockdown period. Apart from attending daily online classes, I have worked on my baking skills. The culinary craft has always evaded me but now I have honed my baking prowess. Baking is an incredibly soothing activity. Measuring ingredients and following a time-honed recipe has furnished my life with a structure that cannot be found elsewhere in these times of unprecedented chaos. Apart from the obvious delicious products of the activity, it has also been a bonding experience for me and my family. Food is inherently and historically connective, and in the era of social distancing, connection with each other is what we crave. I have fulfilled and enjoyed my quarantine- induced culinary fantasies thoroughly!

Vasudha Nagpal, Class 6-A, The HDFC School, Gurugram

Vasudha Nagpal likes to spend her time with cute pet bunny

There are many activities I enjoy doing during this lockdown period -- dancing, yoga, drawing, making crafts, playing with my young and cute pet bunny, taking care of plants and reading books. But what I enjoyed the most is playing my bunny. It is active and energetic and has added zest to my life . It keeps my family engaged. When it first arrived here , it sniffed everything to recognise it. It became used to its new home and started to lick and love us. It likes many things but its favourites are grass and cilantro. It has dispelled all boredom during this period and always keeps me happy. I love to take care of it by cleaning it and giving it healthy food. I am amazed that in such a short time, it became my darling and made me forget the lockdown blues.

Garvit Verma, Class 12, St Marks Sr Sec Public School, Paschim Vihar

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic is all set to change everything . Will it for better or worse? We have to wait for it. It has made us realise the ambiguity of times and how volatile the sand under our feet is. It has also made us realise how precious is this life were living.While things seem to get back on track again and possibility of vaccines being found and restrictions being lifted give us hope. This pause we all experienced has definitely given us some time to revisit and ponder upon many untold things. So, when we are back to normal, maybe we will spread a little more joy and less hate, and cherish each moment. Maybe we will chase dreams and passions instead of materialistic possessions. Maybe we will decide to reserve less and pour out more.

Anvi Aryan, Class 3, Kamal Public School, Vikaspuri

Anvi Aryan spending her lockdown time with family. She also likes doing painting, gardening and poetry.

The pandemic has given us a chance to do many things that we were not able to do earlier due to our busy schedules. Now we can spend a lot of time with my family. The physical exercise has become a need to keep ourselves fit and we all do it in the morning. After online classes, I watch TV. In the evening. I water the plants with my Mom. I enjoy playing chess and badminton with my Dad. I also like poetry and painting.








But it now looks like filming will resume at the end of this month, according to Deadline , who reports:





SHANG-CHI is slated for release on May 7, 2021.





When the pandemic hit and shutdowns rolled out, Marvel Studios was in the middle of filmingin Australia.
With 66 fresh Covid-19 cases reported in the state on Wednesday, the Covid-19 tally in Uttarakhand jumped to 2,947. The recovery rate also crossed 78 percent with 86 fresh recoveries reported on Wednesday.

The 66 fresh cases were reported from districts like Almora (5), Haridwar (2), Champawat (2), Dehradun (20), Nainital (22), Tehri Garhwal (4), Udham Singh Nagar (2) and Uttarkashi (9).

Of the 66 patients, one case was a healthcare worker from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), eight cases were of army personnel with travel history to Chennai, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Jabalpur and West Bengal. Nine were those with no travel history, 18 cases were of people who were found as contacts of earlier detected Covid-19 positive patients.

The others had returned to the state from places like Afghanistan, Maharashtra, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.

Also read: Nearly 2 lakh new cases in past 12 days in India

A total of 86 patients were discharged from hospitals in the state on Wednesday. The patients recovered from districts like Almora (5), Bageshwar (1), Dehradun (4), Haridwar (5), Nainital (5), Pauri Garhwal (2), Pithoragarh (8), Uttarkashi (13) and Udham Singh Nagar (43)

The rate of doubling of cases based on the last seven days stands at 46.72 days in the state with a recovery rate of 78.62 percent.

Districts like Dehradun with 712 cases, Nainital with 496 cases, Tehri Garhwal with 420 cases and Haridwar (315 cases), have the highest number of cases in the state. Champawat district with 57 cases has the lowest number of Covid-19 cases in the state.

Uttarakhand has so far tested over 70,000 samples of which results of over 5,100 are awaited.

The state has 93 containment zones reported from five districts with 68 such zones from Haridwar district, 15 from Dehradun, two from Udham Singh Nagar, five in Tehri Garhwal district and three in Uttarkashi district.

Meanwhile, as Char Dham shrines opened for pilgrims from Uttarakhand on Wednesday, 422 online registrations were made on the first day.

Pilgrims can register themselves on the website www.badrinath-kedarnath.gov.in for obtaining the e-pass required for visiting the shrines. For Kedarnath shrine, 165 bookings were made - 154 for Badrinath, 55 for Gangotri and 48 for Yamunotri.

Ravinathan Raman, chief executive officer of Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board said that arrangements for thermal screening, sanitization, masks have been made at Badrinath and Kedarnath shrines.

Touching of idols in the temple, distribution of offerings is prohibited and the bells are also covered. Passenger rest houses at Guptkashi and Sonprayag on Badrinath and Kedarnath yatra route have been opened for the pilgrims, said Raman.
Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday stressed on the extensive use of Aarogya Setu and Itihaas App to help map Covid-19 in the National Capital Region (NCR) during a meeting to review the management of the pandemic in NCR and discuss a unified strategy to tackle it.

The high-level meeting chaired by Shah was attended by the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi -- Yogi Adityanath, Manohar Lal Khattar and Arvind Kejriwal and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, besides others.

Shah favoured the use of Rapid Antigen Test kits to help reduce Covid-19 transmission rate, the MHA said.

Adoption of more testing using Rapid Antigen Test Kits to help reduce infection transmission rate. These kits can be provided by GoI to UP and Haryana, the MHA spokesperson said in a tweet.

Shah also underlined early hospitalisation to reduce mortality rate.

Focus on early hospitalization to reduce mortality rates. Extensive use of Aarogya Setu & Itihaas App to help mapping of COVID in NCR, the spokesperson said in another tweet.

In the NCR which contains parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, Delhis Covid-19 tally is the highest at over 92,000. Haryanas overall tally is almost 15,000 while Uttar Pradesh has over 24,000 cases of the infection.

At the review meeting, Shah also underlined that UP and Haryana can bank on the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the battle against Covid-19.

UP & Haryana can avail AIIMS-Telemedicine consultation through which patients will get advice from experts. Small hospitals in both states can take guidance from AIIMS thru Tele-videography, the spokesperson said in another tweet.
Karnataka on Wednesday witnessed yet another spike in Covid-19 cases with 1,272 new infections being recorded in the last 24 hours. More worryingly for the state, the number of active cases at 8,194 was higher than the 8,063 cured ones bringing the recovery rate to less than 50 per cent. Bangalore Urban with 4,649 active cases account now for more than half of all the active cases across the other 29 districts in the state. In just the last week, Bangalore Urban has seen its active cases quadrauple.

To address the continued spurt in cases, the state government has announced a slew of measures over the past few days including complete lockdown on Sundays starting July 5. It also has advanced curfew by one hour with no movement of traffic - except for essential services - permitted between 8 pm to 5 am.

The government had drawn considerable flak after numerous videos appeared on social media of the cavalier manner in which the Covid-19 dead patients were seen unceremoniously being dumped by sanitation workers in mass graves - in some instances using earthmovers.

While initially such acts were reported from Ballari, it has now emerged that similar incidents have been recorded in Davangare and Yadgir too. Addressing a press conference in Bangalore, chief minister B S Yediyurappa condemned the manner in which the dead bodies of Covid-19 victims were handled by authorities and said the government would ensure that such acts would not be repeated.

Health and family welfare minister B Sriramulu too condemned handling of the bodies of Covid-19 patients. I have ordered the suspension of eight workers involved in this act (in Ballari). I have sought a detailed enquiry into the whole incident and we will take action against those responsible, he said on Wednesday. The DC of Ballari on Tuesday had expressed his regrets and apologised for the manner in which the bodies were handled.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka commissioner of health and family welfare services Pankaj Kumar Pandey on Wednesday issued a notice to nine leading private hospitals seeking their explanation after a Covid-19 positive patient named Bhawarlal Sujani was turned away by them without providing any medical assistance. Sujani later died due to lack of medical attention.

The hospitals have been asked to reply to the show-cause notice within 24 hours as to why action should not be initiated against them under provisions of Karnataka Private Medical Establishments act as well as State Disaster Management Act.
China said on Thursday it hopes India would correct its discriminatory actions against Chinese companies, three days after the latter banned 59 mobile applications, mostly Chinese, amid border tensions between the two countries.

At an online briefing, Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson Gao Feng said Indias actions violated World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, according to agency reports. Gao underlined China has not adopted any restrictive or discriminatory measures against Indian products and services.

India banned the mobile applications on Monday, saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order. HT has reported the ban was under discussion since early last month and the June 15 face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakhs Galwan Valley hastened it.

A Chinese economist with a leading Beijing-based think-tank also said that Indias decision violates WTO rules. Hi-tech FDI from China legally flew into India, and was welcomed by the Indian government. But now, without going through any legal process or necessary warning, the Chinese FDI has been blocked overnight.

Asked if the ban on Chinese apps will impact foreign investments to India, the foreign ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, software and internet application firms in India have to abide by rules and regulations issued by the relevant ministries and departments, including those pertaining to data security and privacy of individual data. India welcomes foreign investments and has one of the most open FDI regimes, but this will have to be in accordance with the rules and regulatory framework established by the government, he added.

But Biswajit Dhar, a professor of economics at Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University, said there is no obvious ground for the Chinese to sue India in WTO over banning of these apps. The apps are not likely to be protected by any forms of IPRs. Chinese firms could have claimed the apps as their assets, but we dont have an investment treaty with China & investments are not under the WTOs purview. Had we joined RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), which includes an investment agreement, things would have been different, he added.

Gaos remarks came two days after the Chinese government said it was strongly concerned about the ban and added the move was against Indias interests.

China is strongly concerned about the relevant notice issued by the Indian side. We are checking on and verifying the situation, foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at the regular ministry briefing on Tuesday.

Zhao reminded New Delhi of its responsibilities towards foreign companies. The Indian government has the responsibility to uphold the legitimate and legal rights of the international investors, including the Chinese ones, he said. He added China has always asked Chinese companies to obey international rules and local laws.

The ban is expected to pose a big stumbling block for Chinese internet powerhouses, which bank on sheer user numbers and online traffic to gain a market position overseas, Raymond Wang, a global partner at consultancy Roland Berger, told state-controlled newspaper China Daily.

India, the market with the second-largest population worldwide, is definitely lucrative for sectors that compete for market scale and share, Wang said. That advantage could be wiped out in the foreseeable period of time.

A China Daily report said India accounted for roughly 30% of TikToks 611 million downloads, citing analytics firm Sensor Tower in April.

Counterpoint, another technology research house, said Chinese smartphone makers, currently claim more than half of Indias smartphone market.

(with inputs from HTC in New Delhi)
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said New Delhis decision to ban 59 China-linked apps days after violent brawl between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Ladakhs Galwan Valley was a digital strike.

We banned Chinese apps to protect data of countrymen; it was a digital strike, the telecom and IT minister was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India.

This is the first time a minister has described the ban as a strike against China. On social media, many drew a comparison with Indias air strike, carried out in response to the Uri attack, against Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camps in Pakistans Balakot.

The minister also underlined, much like PM Modi did, that India is for peace but if somebody casts an evil eye we will give a befitting reply.

Some of the banned apps are TikTok, UC Browser, CamScanner, WeChat, Weibo, Baidu Map, Xender, among others.

Indian intelligence agencies had been pushing for restrictions on the mobile applications on grounds that the apps were designed to extract data and park them outside the country where they could be used to intrude into the privacy of citizens.

Chinese companies have long been suspected of building backdoors in their hardware and software, one reason why many governments across the world have been uneasy at the prospect of deploying Chinese-made 5G networking equipment.

On Wednesday, Prasad said the ban on Chinese mobile apps is a great opportunity to help Indians come up with good apps of their own and end foreign dependence for such things.

In the wake of the ban which we have imposed...I think it is a great opportunity. Can we come up with good apps made by Indians? Let the dependence on foreign apps, with their own agenda for a variety of reasons, stop, the minister said yesterday.

A statement from the information technology ministry said the decision was taken as these applications were engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.

Beijing on Tuesday said it was strongly concerned about New Delhis decision to ban Chinese mobile applications. It stressed on cooperation between the two countries and underlined that the ban would go against Indias interests.
Four employees, including a senior section engineer, were injured in a blast at Bela rail factory in Bihars Saran district on Wednesday evening. Harkishore Rai, superintendent of police (SP), Saran, said preliminary investigation has revealed that the blast occurred after a hot chemical liquid fell from a crane on a spot that was waterlogged.

The powerful blast damaged the factory shed and the glass front of the crane.Locals said two women from nearby villages fainted because of the deafening blast and window panes of some houses in the vicinity were also shattered.

Uttam Kumar, chief administrative officer of the factory, said four persons have sustained burn injuries due to the blast. Senior section engineer Pramod Kumar and crane operator Amit Kumars injuries are critical and they have been shifted to a private hospital in Patna.The other two injured persons have been admitted to a hospital in Saran, Kumar said.

An investigation is underway to ascertain the cause of the explosion, said DK Mishra, assistant security commissioner of the factory.

The Bela rail factory manufactures rail wheels and was established when Lalu Prasad was the railway minister. The foundation stone of this factory was laid on July 29, 2008, and the construction work was completed three years later at an estimated cost of Rs 1,450 crore.Production started in 2013 and the factory has an annual target of manufacturing one lakh rail wheels.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against the GVK Group - the company that runs the Mumbai airport - its chairman Dr GVK Reddy, his son GV Sanjay Reddy and several other companies for alleged irregularities worth over Rs 705 crore in the development of Mumbai airport, officials familiar with the developments said.

The agency has named 13 persons including GVK Reddy and his son GV Sanjay Reddy who is the managing director of joint venture company  MIAL (Mumbai International Airport Limited). The agency has registered a case against them for criminal conspiracy, cheating under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

Officials familiar with the development said the CBI even carried out searches after registering the FIR.

The MIAL is a PPP (public-private partnership) between the AAI (Airports Authority of India), the GVK and foreign entities in the name of MIAL. The GVK has a shareholding of 50.5%, the AAI holds 26% while the remaining shareholding rests with foreign companies.

The AAI entered an OMDA (operation, management and development agreement) in April 2006 for the modernization and up-gradation, operation and maintenance of the Mumbai airport as part of the joint venture called the MIAL. As per the agreement, it was decided that the MIAL will share 38.7% of their revenue as annual fee with the AAI and that the government authority will have the first right on the revenue.

The essence of agreement was to create a world-class facility and at the same time protecting the interests of the government of India, promoters and passengers, the CBI stated in its FIR.

Despite there being a clear cut understanding in the OMDA, the promoters of the GVK group in the MIAL, in connivance with their executives and the unknown officials of the AAI, resorted to siphoning of funds fraudulently adopting various modus operandi, the CBI said.

For the project, around 200 acres of an undeveloped parcel of land was given to the MIAL around the airport so that it can develop the area and generate revenues.

The MIAL entered into fake work contracts during 2017-18 with at least nine companies on the pretext of real estate development. the MIAL transferred the funds to them but these projects have never been executed on the ground and the transactions were only on papers. Using this modus operandi, Rs 310 crore have been fraudulently siphoned off which resulted in a wrongful loss to the AAI and corresponding gain to themselves, the FIR stated.

These nine companies, CBI added, have also availed fake credit Input Tax Credit (ITC) and cause further revenue loss to the government exchequer based on these fake invoices.

Source information has also revealed that there are many more such fake contracts which the MIAL has fraudulently entered into with non-existing/non-functional entities and have embezzled the funds of the MIAL, the CBI added.

In another modus operandi, from 2012 onwards, the GVK used the surplus of the MIAL to the tune of Rs 395 crore to finance their other group companies. They fraudulently created forged Board Meeting Resolutions of the MIAL, authorizing to keep the reserve/surplus funds of the MIAL as FDRs with public sector banks at Hyderabad, the CBI stated.

Interestingly, the MIAL is a Mumbai based company but they chose to deposit the FDRs in Hyderabad branch of Bank of Baroda, the agency added.

The GVK Group raised loans/overdraft facilities against these FDRs and used these funds for the benefit of their Hyderabad-based company at the expense of the MIAL, it added.

It said that surplus funds have been deposited to other bank branches as well in Hyderabad.

The CBI said that the promoters of the GVK also embezzled funds by resorting to inflating the expenditure of the MIAL. For example, they shifted the staff of their head office in Hyderabad and the employees of their group companies on the payrolls of the MIAL. So, in contravention of the agreement, employees who were not part of the MIAL were being paid for all these years, the CBI stated.

Subsequently, the CBI FIR alleges that the GVK group connived with their family members, relatives and employees. They assigned the premium retail areas of Mumbai airport to their family members at exorbitantly low rates thereby reducing the revenue of the MIAL on account of rentals and sales.

The GVK group even used funds of the MIAL by entering into agreements with a company owned by family members, relatives, employees to book train, air travel tickets and hotel booking for personal interest as well as for group employees of the GVK who were not connected to the MIAL, it added.

The CBI further said that the AAI officials were aware of all the irregularities but turned a blind eye and let these practices of siphoning, diverting and misusing of funds of the MIAL to continue.

For now, the agency has estimated the loss to be around Rs 705 crore but officials - who didnt wish to be named - said the figure could be much higher and may go over a few more hundred crores.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra planned to move to Lucknow in February, said an aide of hers, to provide more ballast to the Congress unit in Uttar Pradesh. The notice yesterday to vacate her Lutyens Bungalow may work as a catalyst for the Congress general secretary to decide on her future course of action.

According to sources, a house too has been identified for the Congress leader.

She has readied a home (late Congress leader Sheila Kauls house) there, and if it wasnt for the pandemic, she would have moved there already. Now, we dont know whether she will move there, but it was the plan before coronavirus struck, a party aide said on the condition of anonymity.

The ministry of housing and urban affairs on Wednesday cancelled the government accommodation provided to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra at Lodhi Estate, on the grounds that she is no longer protected by the Special Protection Group (SPG) and so was not eligible for living in the bungalow in the elite Lutyens Delhi . The Congress leader was also asked to clear her dues, which she did immediately online.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala termed the move to evict her frustrated decisions of the authoritarian government.

Priyanka Gandhi has been active on the ground in Uttar Pradesh. Just recently, she had a run-in with the local administration over organising buses to transport migrant workers stranded in other states back to Uttar Pradesh. She is a general secretary of the party in charge of the state.

If the shift does come about, it will see Priyanka Gandhi, Samajwadi Partys Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Partys Mayawati, and the state chief minister Yogi Adityanath all in the same city. Firebrand Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad, who launched his Azad Samaj Party in March, adds to the mix.

The Congress general secretary, who is yet to contest an election, has been regularly highlighting the state of affairs in Uttar Pradesh: from Coronavirus to job losses, teacher scam to migrant crisis to even wishing state students on their board results.

The Congress leaders last visit to Lucknow was in December 2019, in the aftermath of violent protests over the anti-Citizenship Act. She alleged that the police caught her by the neck and pushed to the ground as they tried to stop her from meeting a retired IPS officer who was arrested for opposing the citizenship law.

Just recently, Priyanka Gandhi took a swipe at Mayawati, who said she stands by the BJP on China, saying some opposition leaders were the undeclared spokespersons of the BJP.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Gandhi campaigned for her brother Rahul and mother Sonia, but the results were nothing to talk about. Rahul Gandhi lost her seat to BJPs Smirti Irani. Congress has just one MP from Uttar Pradesh: Sonia Gandhi.
New Delhi: The Union home ministry has sought views of central paramilitary forces (CAPF) for recruiting transgenders as assistant commandants, according to a letter written to in this regard on Wednesday, months after Parliament in December passed a law for protecting the communitys rights.

In the letter, the ministry asked for Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Border Security Force (BSF) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF)s comments for adding transgender as the third gender category to recruitment rules ahead of the annual examination for recruiting assistant commandants in December. HT has seen a copy of the letter.

The comments will be shared with the Union Public Service Commission, which conducts the exams, for incorporating the third gender category in the relevant application forms, if the ministry gets a positive response, officials aware of the matter said. The government first wants to recruitment officers under the third gender category before hiring transgender troopers and sub-inspectors, they added.

The officials said there is currently no provision for hiring transgenders for the central paramilitary forces.

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, which Parliament passed in December, says no establishment shall discriminate against transgender persons in matters relating to employment, recruitment, promotion, and other related issues.

In view of the law, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in April asked all central government departments to include transgender as a separate category for recruitment for all posts, including civil services. A DoPT order said the matter was under the governments consideration for some time.

The Civil Services Examination Rules, 2020, notified in February included transgender as a separate category.

K Durga Prasad, a former CRPF chief, welcomed the home ministrys move. This is the time to give equal opportunities. The only thing we have to take care of is setting different parameters like training, job profile, etc, he added.

Chayanika Shah, an activist, said, By doing this, we are creating a category and you remain in a certain category forever. But the question is that once people come in, how do you deal with it? Why recruit only assistant commandants and not other categories?

The one-million strong central paramilitary forces are deployed for securing Indias borders with Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Nepal as well as for counter-insurgency operations in Jammu & Kashmir and Maoist insurgency-hit areas.

According to home ministry data, these forces have 7,859 assistant commandants in their ranks. CRPF has the maximum assistant commandants (3,054), followed by BSF (1,888), ITBP (716), CISF (725), and SSB (542).
The Chinese propaganda that Indias ban on Chinese apps is selective and discriminatory is completely misplaced, on the contrary, New Delhi has a long list of Chinese discrimination against trade and investments with certain countries, including India, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said requesting anonymity.

India has shown caution so far even as it has a long list of Beijing indulging in restrictive trade and investment practices such as the imposition of internet censorship through Great Firewall, restrictions on long-term visa and non-tariff barriers on investments, two officials working in two different ministries said requesting anonymity.

According to a PTI report on Thursday, the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has slammed Chinas action of restricting access to Indian newspapers and media websites and urged the Indian government to expeditiously take steps to ban access to Chinese media in the country.

Chinese mouthpiece Global Times on Thursday tweeted quoting Chinas commerce ministry spokesperson Gao Feng, To date, China has not adopted any restrictive or discriminatory measures targeting Indias products and services.

The officials brushed aside Beijings contentions and its veiled threat to drag India to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over New Delhis Mondays (June 29) decision to ban 59 mostly Chinese mobile applications such as TikTok, UC Browser and WeChat, citing concerns that these are prejudicial to sovereignty of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.

One of the officials, who is the governments legal expert on strategic matters said, Beijing has no basis to challenge New Delhis June 29 decision. Is there any agreement on this matter with China? No, not to my knowledge. India can defend [it] easily under the clause of national security interest and sovereignty of the country.

Therefore, the official Chinese reaction on June 30 was subdued and did not mention any bilateral or multilateral [WTO] agreement, he added.

Sino-Indian tensions have shot up after a violent brawl between Chinese and Indian soldiers on June 15 along the Line of Actual Control in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in which 20 Indian army personnel were killed.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on June 30 said, The Indian government has the responsibility to protect the legitimate rights and interests of international investors in India, including Chinese businesses, in accordance with market principles. Practical cooperation between China and India is mutually beneficial. Deliberate interference in such cooperation will not serve the interests of the Indian side.

TS Vishwanath, principal advisor at law firm APJ-SLG Law offices said, This decision is taken based on national security concerns, therefore, India is very much within its right in the WTO agreement to take any action to protect its national security interest.

The second official, who works in the economic ministry, said China is indulging in illegal and unfair trade practices as such routing its goods through a third country with which India has preferential trade arrangements to avoid paying higher duty, and dumping of cheaper Chinese products in India to harm Indian industries.

The government is aware and agencies have been told to take action against such violations, the official said. HT reported it on July 1.

Data suggests significant indirect inflow of Chinese goods and investments through locations with which India has free trade agreements (FTAs), preferential trade agreements (PTAs) or other bilateral commercial arrangements. It shows that total foreign direct investment (FDI) from China is minuscule, but many Indian firms have received Chinese investments. Similarly, imports from China have registered a minor decline recently, but at the same time imports from Hong Kong and Singapore have surged, officials said.

The latest official data shows foreign direct investment from China between April 2000 and March 2020 was $2.378.71 billion, which is 0.51% of the total FDI inflow into the country in the two decades.

According to the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), while Indias trade deficit with China narrowed by $6.05 billion to $51.25 billion in 2019, the gap with Hong Kong widened sharply by $5.8 billion in 2019, nullifying almost all the gains. Similarly, India trade deficit with Singapore was $5.82 billion in the previous financial year.
Neel Bhatt, a UW assistant professor of otolaryngology, specializes in treating patients with voice problems. Through his work, he began to realize people did not like the sound of their own voices. With the transition to school over Zoom, many students can relate to the discomfort of hearin
Mumbai: The Bombay high court (HC) has directed Maharashtra government and state prison authorities to conduct random coronavirus disease (Covid-19) tests of inmates and also scrupulously comply with the guidelines issued by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) while disposing of a clutch of public interest litigations (PILs)

The PILs were filed expressing concerns about the health condition of prison inmates after four undertrials had tested Covid-19 positive after their death a few weeks ago.

The HC on Thursday directed the prison authorities to deploy additional forces at jails and 36 makeshift jails in 27 districts in Maharashtra, where inmates have been kept under quarantine and also undergoing treatment for the viral infection.

The court also directed the Maharashtra government to implement all the measures that it had earlier formulated in the modified draft guidelines based on the suggestions of the petitioner, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), for containing the pandemic in prisons and other correctional homes.

It stressed on the need to share regular health updates of inmates with their family members while adhering to ICMR guidelines and other standard operating procedures (SOPs), which are being issued periodically.

A two-member division bench, comprising Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik, pronounced its judgement on the PILs filed by PUCL, through senior counsel Mihir Desai along with advocates Isha Khandelwal and Kritika Agarwal; Geeta Bharat Jain, a politician represented by advocate Sunny Punamiya; Archana Rupawate also represented by senior counsel Mihir Desai and advocate Afreen Khan; and Devmani Shukla represented by advocate Bhavesh Parmar.

The bench read out the operative part of the judgement and accepted the assurances given by the state government regarding the precautionary measures that have been taken for the well-being of the inmates and prison staff.
The number of coronavirus disease cases in India reached 6,04,641 on Thursday after 19,148 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. Four hundred thirty four people died in the last 24 hours, pushing the death toll up to 17,834, the Union health ministry data showed at 8 am.

The number of active cases in the country are 2,26,947, while 3,59,859 patients have been cured or discharged, the health ministry data showed.

This comes a day after the country recorded its biggest single-day spike of 18,653 new infections. It also registered the highest single-day Covid-19 deaths at 507 on Wednesday.

Also Read: What you need to know today

The recovery rate from the coronavirus disease in India, the fourth worst-hit country in the world, has improved to 59.43 per cent. There are 347,978 people who have been discharged from hospitals across the country.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday reviewed the Covid-19 situation in the country with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and senior officials of their ministries, officials said.

Apart from Vardhan, others who attended the meeting included top officials of the health and home ministries.

India has added nearly two lakh cases to its Covid-19 tally in the last 12 days. Maharashtra and Delhi have been the worst-hit, though Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Wednesday that the Covid-19 situation in the national capital was on a worrying trajectory until a few weeks ago but a concerted effort helped turn the situation around.

He, however, cautioned people that the outbreak could spike again if they become complacent.

India reported its first case of Covid-19 on January 30 from Kerala when a student who had returned from Wuhan, China tested positive.

In a bid to halt the rapid surge in new infections, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Manipur and Nagaland are among the states which have extended the lockdown beyond June 30 for varying periods up to July 31 without any more relaxations.

The second phase of Unlock  also came into force from Wednesday after the month-long Unlock 1, a graded exit from the national lockdown imposed on March 25, ended on Tuesday. Though there will be phased re-opening of activities that had been barred to contain the spread of coronavirus, educational institutions, Metro rail services, cinema halls and gyms will continue to remain shut.
New Delhi: The ministry of law and justice amended the rules to allow those over the age of 65 and Covid positive patients, under home quarantine or hospitalized, to use the postal ballot to exercise their right to vote.

The move comes ahead of Bihar elections, which are slated to take place in October this year.

In the Rajya Sabha polls held last month, the election commission had allowed a Covid-19 positive legislator in Madhya Pradesh to vote at the polling booth. All the officials, and the legislator, were clad in PPE suits to reduce any chance of transmission of the virus.

Earlier, casting votes through postal ballots was available only to armed forces and officials assigned poll duties. Those over the age of 65 years and people infected with coronavirus or suspected of having contracted the infection will be allowed to vote by postal ballot after the government amended the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.

Those who have mild symptoms and are not in any medical facility but in home quarantine can also vote through postal ballot

In several health advisories, people over the age of 65 have been asked not to venture out as they are particularly vulnerable to catching the highly contagious virus.

In February, Delhi became the first state to experiment with postal ballots, extending the facilities to those with severe disabilities or above the age of 80 years.

The elections to fill 19 vacancies in the Rajya Sabha in nine states were originally to take place in March but were deferred after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. They were then held in June and arrangements were made to allow members who are unwell to vote through postal ballot.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal opened on Thursday the countrys first plasma bank at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in south Delhis Vasant Kunj. The bank has been set up to pool in plasma from people who recovered from Covid-19 so that moderately ill patients can have better access to therapy using it.

The CM laid out the criteria for donors and said the plan will be a success only if people who have recovered from Covid-19 turn up in big numbers to donate plasma since the rules possibly leave only a small proportion eligible.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

We have not got a vaccine for Corona yet. Till the time we do not get a vaccine, plasma therapy will prove to be helpful for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. People were finding it difficult to get plasma and the situation got quite chaotic in Delhi. We hope the situation will improve with the opening of this plasma bank, he said.

Blood and plasma donations require specific matching of blood groups, which often makes the sourcing of plasma difficult at short notice. Plasma therapy, a technique that essentially involves delivering virus-fighting antibodies to a person fighting the infection to bolster their immune response, has been on at select hospitals in the capital since April 22.

The chief minister said the rules for donors is strict. So, even as 59,992 people have recovered in Delhi from Covid-19 so far, the number of people who will actually be eligible to donate their plasma will be far lower. I request those who fit the required parameters to come and donate their plasma. Those who donate blood often face weakness, but no such signs are seen in those who donate plasma. So, people should not fear anything as there are no complications involved in this, Kejriwal said.

The conditions include the following: The donor should be a person who tested positive for Covid-19 through a swab test; the person should not have had any Covid-19 symptoms for 14 days; and a donor will need to be between the age of 18 and 60.

You cannot donate plasma if - your weight is less than 50 kg. Women who have ever been pregnant; you are diabetic on insulin; your blood pressure is more than 140 and diastolic less than 60 or more than 90. You cannot donate plasma if you have uncontrolled diabetes or hypertension with a change in medication in last 28 days, if you are a cancer survivor, or if you have chronic kidney/heart/lung or liver disease, Kejriwal said.

The chief minister launched the helpline 1031 where people can call to get registered for plasma donation. Registration can also be done by sending a message on the WhatsApp number 8800007722 or through the governments delhifightscorona.in website.

As per the CM, Covid patients in need of plasma should not register through these channels. For those seeking the therapy, no personal calls by the patients or his family to ILBS or the helpline number will be accepted, he said. According to protocol, the hospital that prescribed plasma therapy for a patient will have to contact ILBS hospital for plasma on behalf of the patient.

For recovered Covid-19 patients wanting to donate their plasma, the registration form has been kept simple where the age, gender, address and blood group of the person is asked for. Prospective donors are also asked to state when they tested positive.

People who register to be donors will be reached out to by doctors authorised by the Delhi government who will assess the person for whether they meet the conditions. Once cleared, they will need to come into ILBS for which the government will arrange transportation or reimburse costs if needed.

A confirmatory negative test, in case the donor never had a second test, will be carried out and the process at ILBS is expected to last 45 minutes to an hour.

When asked by reporters about opening more such banks, Kejriwal, during his visit to ILBS in the afternoon, said it would depend on the success of the first.

Dr Puneet Mishra, professor of community medicine at AIIMS said having a plasma bank would streamline the entire process of getting plasma for hospitals and families of patients. Opening one centralised plasma bank is a good idea, but before opening more plasma banks, the government should wait till the ICMR comes out with its final result of their plasma trials, he said
Delhis Covid-19 tally reached 92,175 on Thursday with the addition of 2,373 new cases while the death toll climbed to 2,864, the state health department said.

A total of 3,016 patients were discharged during the day taking the number of recoveries to 63,007. The national capital now has 26,304 active cases.

There were 61 casualties on Thursday that took the death toll to 2,864.

A total of 20, 822 tests were conducted including 10,978 RT-PCR tests and 9,844 rapid antigen tests.

Shortly before the Delhi health department released Thursdays figures, Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the Covid-19 pandemic in the National Capital Region (NCR) in a high-level meeting that chief ministers of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana besides the Union Health minister attended.

Shah emphasised on carrying out more Covid-19 tests using rapid antigen kits and suggested that focus should be on reducing mortality rate by ensuring early hospitalisation of patients.

Earlier in the day, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated the capitals first plasma bank at the at state-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) for treatment of Covid-19 patients.

Kejriwal said Covid-19 patients can donate their plasma 14 days after recovery and hoped that plasma therapy will help in reducing Covid-19 casualties.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday inaugurated the national capitals first plasma bank at state-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) for treatment of Covid-19 patients.

Kejriwal said Covid-19 patients can donate their plasma 14 days after recovery. He expressed hope that plasma therapy will help in reducing Covid-19 casualties.

The plasma bank has begun operations at Delhi govts ILBS Hospital and will provide plasma to Delhis Covid hospitals, the CM tweeted.

He said those aged between 18 and 60 and weighing not less than 50 kg can donate their plasma for COVID-19 patients, according to PTI.

Delhis Covid-19 tally stands at close to 90,000 and over 2,000 people have died of the disease.

Under plasma therapy, antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from Covid-19 are taken and transfused into a coronavirus infected patient to boost the immune system to fight the infection.

Plasma is the almost-clear liquid left behind after red and white blood cells and platelets are removed from the blood.

Earlier this week, the Delhi government had announced that it will set up a plasma bank to help Covid-19 patients in the city.

The services of the plasma bank can be availed by patients admitted in both government and private hospitals, but it has to be recommended by a doctor, Kejriwal had said.

Last week, the chief minister had said that plasma therapy in Lok Nayak Hospital has helped reduce death rate by around 50%.
Her Instagram handle (@spicespori), that she launched at the beginning of the coronavirus-triggered lockdown, is nothing but emotional atyachaar (torture). It is filled with pictures of yummy dishes that seem particularly unattainable in these times of the pandemic, when eating out is a dream. If only it were possible to feed our poor stomach on Nafisa Adirajus Insta feed! It is a dizzying exhibit of regional delicacies from across the countryKothimbir Vadi, Koki, Amritsari Chhole, Kutchi Biryani, Vada Sambhar... Bharta with Ghee Roti.

Im completely cosmo, declares Ms Adiraju, 36. The ladys a practising Muslim married to a practising Hindu. Shes from Gujarat, hes from Andhra Pradesh. They both live in Gurugram, in a lovely sunlit third-floor apartment on Sohna Road, with their two young daughters.

My lifes a mix of many cultures, traditions and yes, cuisines, states Ms Adiraju. Speaking on WhatsApp video, she has sportingly agreed to cook a dish from her native Kutch region. You wont find Kutchi Dabeli in Delhi-Gurgaon, she informs.

This sandwich-like dish is one of Ms Adirajus few links to her ancestral land. She no longer has close relatives in Kutch, and hasnt visited her village, Mandavi in Bhuj, for the past six years.

Her true homeland actually is her birthplace, Mumbai. There she spent the first 25 years of her life. A dweller in the Delhi region for three years, Ms Adiraju has by now gained enough experience of both the cities to conclude that Bombay is far more cosmopolitan than Delhi. Looking back at her childhood spent with parents and siblings, she recalls the cosmo character of her Navi Mumbai neighbourhood. One friend was from Bhav Nagar in Gujarat, one was from Kasaragod in Kerala, and one was from Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh. Neighbours included a Sindhi as well as a Punjabi family. My Muslim parents are very liberal and we would celebrate both Muslim and Hindu festivals.

Indeed, some of the go-to places Ms Adiraju visits every time she is in Mumbai include the trio of Haji Ali Sufi shrine in Worli, Siddhivinayak Mandir in Prabha Devi, and Mahalakshmi Temple on Bhulabai Desai Road.

Sadly, Ms Adirajus dining table has strayed far from her origins. The Kutchi cuisine has a negligible presence in her present. One of the reasons is that Kutch is an arid region, and its cuisine consists of a great variety of grains and less of vegetables. In Gurugram, Ms Adiraju can get all the veggies, but she rarely gets access to the diversity of grains. In fact, she was originally planning to cook Khichdaa kind of Kutchi Khichdi made with six kinds of grainsbut couldnt get hold of Ghau Na Fada (broken wheat).

Following her marriage to a Telugu man in 2008, whom she first met in her then office in Mumbai (I was in logistics and he was in products), she swiftly expanded her cooking cosmopolitanism, and learnt vegetarian Andhra cuisine from mother-in-law, Nagaratnam, in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. In fact, the lunch she rustles out every day at her home is essentially an assortment of spicy Andhra Pachadis and Kuras. Just last week one of her typical meals consisted of Palak Pappu (arhar dal cooked with spinach), Potlakaya (fried snakegourd) and Annam (white rice)you can see it on her Insta.

Though this food instagrammar has never posted anything (yet) on the Kutch dish she is cooking today, it is very close to her heart. During her childhood, Ms Adirajus mother, Saira Mukadam, would make Kutchi Dabeli as an evening snack on Saturday evenings. The family would sit around the dining table, and Mummy would give each of us three kids a bowl of Doodhchai with a plate of Dabeli.

This afternoon, however, Ms Adiraju is serving this snack as part of lunch to husband, Venkat, and girls, Anitra and Aahana. The photos were taken through the phone screen that connected her to this reporter. Here is the recipe.
President Donald Trump on Thursday waded right in the middle of Indias dispute with China, asserting that Beijings aggressive stance in Ladakh fits with the larger pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world. President Trumps office did not elaborate on Chinas aggression elsewhere but is seen as a clear reference to Beijings efforts to enlarge its position on border disputes. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had recently called it Chinas rogue attitude as he announced the movement of US supercarriers in the Indo Pacific region to counter Chinas aggressive posture.

According to Beijing watchers, China has traditionally suffered from xenophobia against foreigners. The Middle Kingdoms fears were exacerbated in the past two centuries as a result of which China believes that it is the only civilizational power in the world and the rest are either tributary states or barbarians.

China has had territorial disputes with 21 neighbours including India over its claims on land and sea. Here is a complete list of its disputes.

Brunei

China claims the southern part of the Spratly Islands chain. Brunei, on the other hand, claims part of South China Sea nearest to it as part of its continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone

Philippines

China and Philippines disagree over parts of the South China Sea including the Spratly Islands. Philippines took the dispute to the International Court of Justice where they won the case but the Chinese side did not abide by the order of the ICJ. Tensions have continued between the two countries despite economic incentives offered by China.

Indonesia

Chinas nine-dash line overlaps the Natuna Sea/Exclusive Economic Zone of Indonesia leading to disputes. China claims fishing rights in waters near the islands. Indonesia government argues that Chinas claims are not recognised under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Indonesia irked China in July 2017 when it renamed parts of the South China Sea as North Natuna Sea to underscore its claim.

Malaysia

Chinas dispute with Malaysia also revolves around parts of the South China Sea, particularly the Spratly Islands. Its claims cover only islands included in its Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 miles as defined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Malaysia has a military presence on three such islands that it considers to be part of the continental shelf.

Singapore

Singapore is not a claimant state in the South China Sea disputes but is closely aligned to the United States and allows the presence of US naval forces in Singaporean waters. It does not want to antagonise China by openly taking sides though it does advocate freedom of navigation and resolution of all disputes in line with the UN Convention of Law of the Seas.

Laos

China claims large areas of Laos on historical precedent of Chinas Yuan Dynasty during 1271-1368

Cambodia

China has, on occasions, claimed part of the country on historical precedent (Chinas Ming dynasty 1368-1644)

Thailand

Thailand opposes Chinas dredging on the Mekong River since 2001 for large ships to carry goods from its landlocked Yunnan province to ports in Thailand, Laos and remaining southeast Asia. China has also built hydropower dams on the main stream of the Mekong River, altering the natural flood-drought cycle, affecting ecosystems as well as economies of countries on the lower Mekong River.

The Thai Cabinet scrapped a Chinese-led dredging project in February 2020 to blast rapids on the Mekong river. This had already led to fall in water levels and fers that it would lead to drought and affect 6 million people in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam

Japan

Japans dispute with China centers around South China Sea, particularly Senkaku Islands, Ryukyu Islands and the overlapping Air Defence Identification Zone and Exclusive Economic Zone in the East China Sea

Vietnam

Vietnam, which fought a bloody war with China in 1979 when Beijing tried to teach its former ally a lesson, has stood its ground on its territorial claims over parts of the South China Sea, and the Macclesfield Bank, Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands. Last month, a Chinese ship rammed a Vietnamese fishing boat operating in the Paracel Islands that was seen as an effort by Beijing to flex muscles to enforce a unilateral fishing ban in parts of the South China Sea against vessels from another nation.

India

China occupies 38,000 sq km Indian territory in the Aksai Chin region apart from staking claim on Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh. It was this expansionist policy that led to the ongoing standoff between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA that escalated into a violent scrap in Ladakhs Galwan valley. Another 5,163 sq km of Shaksgam valley was illegally ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963. Hence, the total Indian territory occupied by China is over 43 ,000 sq km.

Nepal

Nepal and China have pending border issues over three boundary pillars in Dolakha and two in the vicinity of Mt Everest. There have, however, been reports that China has illegally occupied strategic land at 12 places across Nepal. China has also claimed part of Nepal dating back to the Sino-Nepalese war in 1788-1792, claiming that some parts of Nepal are part of Tibet and therefore, part of China.

Taiwan

China claims all of Taiwan but particular disputes are Macclesfield Bank, Paracel Islands Scarborough Shoal, part of South China Sea and the Spratly Islands. The Paracel Islands, also called Xisha Islands in zvietnamese, is a group of islands in the South China Sea whose sovereignty is disputed.

North Korea

The two countries have a continuing dispute over Mount Paektu and Yalu and Tuman rivers. China has also claimed Baekhu Mountain and Jiandao. Beijing has, on occasions, claimed all of North Korea on historical grounds (Yuan Dynasty 1271-1368)

South Korea

South Korea and China have an overlapping Air Defence Identification Zone and a continuing Exclusive Economic Zone dispute over Leodo (Socotra Rock) in the East China Sea. China has also, on occasions, claimed entire South Korea on historical grounds (Yuan Dynasty 1271-1368)

Mongolia

China and Mongolia have settled their boundary dispute but China has claimed all of Mongolia on historical precedent (Yuan Dynasty 1271-1368).

Bhutan

Bhutanese enclaves in Tibet, namely Cherkip, Gompa, Dho, Dungmar, Gesur, Gezon, Itse Gompa, Khochar, Nyanri, Ringung, Sanmar, Tarchen and Zuthulphuk. Bhutan has lost a substantial chunk of area under dispute including the Kula Kangri peak to slow encroachments by China. Beijing claims Kula Kangri and mountainous areas to the west of this peak in addition to the western Haa district of Bhutan.

Tajikistan

The two sides have a bilateral dispute dating back to 1884 when a border demarcation agreement between the Qing Dynasty and Tsarist Russia left large segments of the frontier in the sparsely-populated eastern Pamirs without a clear definition.

The Chinese claims are based on historical precedent (Qing Dynasty 1644-1912).

In 1991, Tajikistan inherited from the Soviet Union three disputed border segments constituting about 28,000 sq km which China and the Soviet Union had been unable to resolve.

In 1999, Tajikistan and China signed a border demarcation agreement defining the border in two of the three segments. Under this deal, Tajikistan ceded about 200 sw km lands to China. In 2002, Tajikistan agreed to cede 1,122 sq km or about four percent of the territory that Beijing had claimed. China has, in all, settled for 3.5 per cent of the claimed territory.

Kazakhstan

China has laid claim to a territory in Kazakhstan stretching from Semirechie to Lake Balkhash covering 34,000 sq km. In May 2020, a Chinese website Sohu.com published an article claiming that Kazakhstan is located on territories that historically belong to China.

China has settled for 22 per cent of its claim over Kazakh territory. Despite a border demarcation treaty with China in 1994 and claim by Kazakh state media that the Kazakhstan government had succeeded in retaining 56.9 percent of the disputed territory, critics had opined that the remaining 43.1 per cent of the land also belonged to Kazakhstan for which a new deal should be signed.

Kyrgyzstan

China lays claim to the whole of Kyrgyz territory. In May 2020, Chinese website tutiao.com published an article on such a claim and argued that under the Han Dynasty, the entire Kyrgyz territory was part of the Chinese mainland before the Russian empire captured it.

Chia has settled for 32 percent of its claim over Kyrgyz territory. Under the 1999 agreement, Kyrgyzstan handed over 1,250 sq km to China.

Russia

Despite signing bilateral agreements in 1991 and 1994 to delimit the estern and wester section of the Russia-China border, a few sectors remain unresolved. There are 160,000 sq km still unilaterally claimed by China despite signing several agreements.

In October 2004, the 4,300 sq border was finally demarcated in its entirety, thus resolving a 300-year-old territorial dispute.

In 2005, the Russian Parliament ratified the agreement in 2008, a part of the Abagaitu Islet, the entire Tarabarov Bolshoi Ussuriysk Island and some adjacent river islets were handed over to China.dusta
New Delhi: A team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers on Thursday questioned Congress leader Ahmed Patel for the third time in connection with its money laundering probe into the Sterling Biotech group, officials familiar with development said.

Patel was questioned for alleged links with the firms owners, the Sandesara brothers, who fled the country in 2017 after allegedly swindling several banks of several thousand crore rupees.

The agency has questioned the senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP twice already after coming across new facts in the case, the officials cited above said on condition of anonymity. They added that Patels statement was being recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The Sandesaras are being probed by multiple agencies including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax department. The money laundering case is connected to an alleged Rs 14,500 crore bank loan fraud perpetrated by the Vadodara-based pharma firm and its main promoters.

The Congress contended the probe into Patel was an attempt to browbeat the Opposition.

Frustration and political vendetta is writ large. It is traceable direct link from the Prime Minister and the home minister and the Gujarat connection to the Congress and Mr Ahmed Patel. It is clear that a slap in the face of illegal, reprehensible, manipulative activities in Gujarat elections has not yet been digested by BJP national and Gujarat leadership, party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.
A CRPF trooper and a terrorist were killed in an encounter at Srinagars Malabagh locality that began late Thursday evening, police said.

Two to three terrorists are believed to be trapped in the congested locality.

A a cordon and search operation was launched in the area, near Habak Crossing, after a tip-off about presence of militants there, a police official said. The operation turned into an encounter after terrorists opened fire towards the security personnel, the official added.

More details are awaited.

(with inputs from PTI)

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A flag-raising ceremony is held by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland at the Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong, south China, July 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

HONG KONG, July 1 (Xinhua) -- China's Hong Kong celebrated Wednesday the 23rd anniversary of its return to the motherland, after a law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong came into force Tuesday night.

China's national flag and the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) were hoisted and the national anthem was played at a ceremony at the Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong Island at about 8:00 a.m. local time Wednesday in celebration of the anniversary.

Helicopters flew over Victoria Harbor, displaying the national and regional flags, and a fireboat sprayed a water-column salute.

At a reception following the flag-raising ceremony, Chief Executive of the HKSAR Carrie Lam stressed the significance of the return anniversary and said the new national security law will help restore stability in the HKSAR.

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the HKSAR was passed unanimously on Tuesday at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and took effect at 11:00 p.m. local time the same day upon its promulgation by the HKSAR government in the gazette.

The legislation came as Hong Kong had been gripped by prolonged social disturbances since June of last year. Intensified violent incidents and riots trampled order and the rule of law, threatened people's safety, and endangered national security.

Lam called the enactment of the law a turning point to take Hong Kong out of the current impasse and restore stability and order from the chaos.

The HKSAR government will do its utmost and remain steadfast in its duties to fulfill the primary responsibility of implementing the law in Hong Kong, Lam said, saying a committee on safeguarding national security in the HKSAR will be established.

A series of celebrations were held on Wednesday for the anniversary, including parades of floats and fishing vessels and residents singing the national anthem in chorus.

At the opening ceremony of celebrating activities, Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, highlighted the successful practice of "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong over the past 23 years.

The social unrest arising from the now-withdrawn ordinance amendments concerning fugitive transfers since last year has exposed the tremendous risks Hong Kong is facing in safeguarding national security and posed a grave challenge to "one country, two systems," Luo said.

"With the elapse of time, we will get a good view that the promulgation of the law marks a significant turning point for Hong Kong to move from turmoil to stability, and a major milestone for the practice of 'one country, two systems' in Hong Kong," he said.

Celebrations can be spotted across Hong Kong. Residents sang the national anthem in the chorus at multiple landmarks, including Victoria Peak and the Hong Kong Observation Wheel.

In Victoria Harbor, 150 fishing vessels, decorated with the national flag and banners, sailed in a procession to celebrate the anniversary and the passage of the new law, which were warmly greeted by joyful Hong Kong residents on the harbor front.

The captain of the pilot boat, surnamed Leung, participated in every parade since 1997. The man, 68, said the lives of fishermen have become better and better since Hong Kong's return to the motherland. "Only when our country is prosperous, can Hong Kong be prosperous," he said.

Cally Kwong, an NPC deputy from the HKSAR, participated in the parade of floats and said she felt "very special" today as the new law took effect.

The law came at the right timing as after a turbulent year, Hong Kong residents long for a peaceful life, she said, stressing that the legal mechanism on safeguarding national security will guarantee Hong Kong's future.

"Hong Kong is our home and we must cherish our home," she said.
India on Thursday again urged China to ensure expeditious restoration of peace and tranquility in the border areas and honour bilateral agreements in a bid to ease the border standoff in Ladakh sector, where 20 Indian soldiers died in a violent brawl with the Chinese troops on June 15. An unconfirmed number of Chinese soldiers also died in the incident.

We expect the Chinese side to sincerely follow up and ensure expeditious restoration of peace and tranquillity in border areas as per bilateral agreements and protocols, Anurag Srivastava, ministry of external affairs spokesperson, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Watch | India urges China to ensure expeditious restoration of peace in border areas

New Delhi underscored that discussions at latest meeting of senior commanders reflected commitment of both sides to reduce tension along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Senior Indian and Chinese commanders on Tuesday held a long meeting at Chushul in Ladakh as part of ongoing efforts at the military level to cool heightened border tensions that have soured bilateral ties between the two neighbours, even as the military build-up on both sides of the contested LAC continues unabated, said people familiar with developments.

Tuesdays meeting took place on the Indian side of the LAC, while the previous two meetings were held at Moldo on the Chinese side.

China has not halted  and instead ramped up  its military activity in Finger Area near Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley and Depsang Plains since the senior officers last met on June 22

On Monday, the Centre banned 59 Chinese-linked apps, saying they were engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.

While operating in India one has to abide by our rules and regulations issued by relevant ministries and departments, including those pertaining to data security and privacy of individual data, said the spokesperson on the ban on China apps.

Earlier in the day Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad termed Indias move to ban the China apps a digital strike.

We banned Chinese apps to protect data of countrymen; it was a digital strike, the telecom and IT minister was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India.

The minister also underlined, much like PM Modi did, that India is for peace but if somebody casts an evil eye we will give a befitting reply.

Some of the banned apps are TikTok, UC Browser, CamScanner, WeChat, Weibo, Baidu Map, Xender, among others.

Indian intelligence agencies had been pushing for restrictions on the mobile applications on grounds that the apps were designed to extract data and park them outside the country where they could be used to intrude into the privacy of citizens.
The Indian Railways on Thursday achieved 100 per cent punctuality of trains - the first time that this milestone has been achieved.

News agency ANI quoted the railways ministry to say that all the trains were on time. The previous best was 99.54 per cent on June 23 with one train getting delayed, the railways further said.

Last month, the railways had sent a missive to its zones to ensure 100 per cent punctuality in the running of 230 special trains, which is less than two per cent of the 13,000 trains that normally run on the entire network.

According to news agency PTI, Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav told all general managers and divisional railway managers to ensure that the 15 pairs of Rajdhani special trains and 100 pairs of passenger trains maintain their schedule without any delays.

He said that since the number of trains being run on the network is currently small, the punctuality has to be 100 per cent, PTI further reported.

The milestone was achieved a day after the railways formally kickstarted its plans to allow private entities to operate passenger trains on its network. On Wednesday, it invited request for qualifications (RFQ) for participation on 109 pairs of routes through 151 modern trains.

The project would entail a private sector investment of about Rs 30,000 crore, it said. This is the first initiative for private investment for running passenger trains on the Indian Railways network. It began last year with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) introducing the Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express.

Currently, the IRCTC operates three trains - the Kashi Mahakal Express on the Varanasi-Indore route, the Lucknow-New Delhi Tejas and the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Tejas.

According to Wednesdays statement, the private entity shall pay to Indian Railways fixed haulage charges, energy charges as per actual consumption and a share in gross revenue determined through a transparent bidding process.

The operation will have to conform to key performance indicators like punctuality, reliability, upkeep of trains etc, the ministry said.
Former chief minister of Uttarakhand and senior Congress leader Harish Rawat has been holding protests against the ruling BJP on various issues. His protests in the last three days have stirred the state politics, forcing the ruling BJP to come up with a counter as well as leaving his party opponents uneasy.

Rawat was in quarantine as per Covid-19 norms after returning from Delhi. He launched the protests after finishing his 14-day home quarantine.

On Monday, Rawat held a bullock cart rally in Dehradun on the issue of fuel price hike followed by a sit-in protest on Tuesday near Governor house against the state government for booking Congress leaders on false cases.

On Wednesday again, the Congress leader held an agitation against the BJP-led NDA government on fuel price hike in Dehradun.

During the protest, he attacked chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat by accusing him of doing politics through BJPs virtual rallies across the state but asking him (Rawat) to stop doing politics in the pandemic.

The CM had said today that I should stop doing politics in the pandemic through my various events which is just ridiculous. It is actually he and other BJP leaders who have been doing politics through their virtual rallies across the state in which they have been attacking Congress. I want to ask, if that is not politics in then is it Gita Paath or Ramayans Choupai? said Rawat.

However, paying heed to his request of postponing my protest events amid pandemic, I have decided to do the same for my upcoming events. But we will keep raising the issues of the public against the government, he said.

His protests have rattled the ruling BJP with its senior leaders coming out to counter him.

Former BJP state president and present MP from Nainital-US Nagar, Ajay Bhatt, termed these protests a drama.

The protests of Harish Rawat are just show-offs and mere drama. It would have no effect on us because Rawat knows that Congress is under attack for taking money from China as well as misusing the PM Relief Fund during their rule. He and other Congress leaders have no answer to them, hence this drama, said Bhatt.

Not only the BJP, Rawats opponents within the party have also become uneasy with his protests which have been grabbing all the attention.

A senior party leader who didnt wish to be named said, Of course Rawat has made his opponents in the party uneasy because they cannot tolerate that he alone with his protests have been grabbing the eyeballs. These antics actually dampen their efforts to sideline him in the party and Rawat being a highly seasoned politician knows that very well.

The political experts also believe that its very difficult to keep Rawat out of the political picture of Uttarakhand.

MM Semwal, political expert and professor of political science in Garhwal Central University in Srinagar, Pauri Garhwal, said, Rawat has got his reach to every corner of the state as he has worked on grassroots. He knows how to shake the government as well as his opponents within the party and that is exactly what he is doing.

Apart from that, Rawat is doing what an actual Opposition should do - to not let the government sit in its comfort zone. If the government and his opponents think that they can silence him, they are totally wrong, said Semwal.
Four persons, who were travelling by car, were killed when a container truck had a head-on collision with their vehicle near Thimmapuram village in Andhra Pradeshs Guntur district on National Highway (NH) 16 on Thursday early morning, the police said.While two of them died on the spot, the two others passed away at Guntur General Hospital.

The deceased were identified as Athuluri Balaram (26), a resident of Inumetla village of Rajupalem block in Guntur district, and Sheik Feroz Ahmed (35), Vinjamoori Harikrishna (27) and Medasani Venkata Sri Chandu (25) of Narsaraopet town.

The police said the accident victims were travelling from Narasaraopet to Vijayawada late on Wednesday night. The car had a head-on collision with a Guntur-bound truck near Thimmapuram village on NH-16 on Thursday early morning, the police said.

Two persons on the front seat were crushed to death, as the car was smashed by the impact of the collision, and the two on the rear seat suffered grievous injuries.Local villagers came to the accident victims rescue. Though the injured were shifted to Guntur General Hospital, they succumbed to their injuries later on Thursday morning, the police said.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the driver of the container truck lost control over the steering wheel, which led to the accident.The driver has been taken to custody for questioning. An investigation is on, the police added.

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Government accommodation allotted to officials under the General Pool Residential Accommodation (GPRA) category is set to get costlier starting in July. The Centre has issued an order to increase the flat rate of license fee recoverable for the accommodation throughout the country.

The ministry of housing and urban affairs has issued an order, a copy of which has been reviewed by Hindustan Times, increasing the license fee rates for all types of government accommodations -- from type I to type VIII-- based on the level of pay matrix under the 7th Pay Commission.

A vast majority of government officials live in accommodation allowed by the Central government.

To be clear, license fee is deducted monthly from the salaries of officials who are allotted government accommodation. it is deducted from the gross salary of central government employees. Nearly 80-90% of officers and staff occupy government quarters. A nominal rent is fixed for the sake of upkeep and that will increase, an official said, requesting anonymity.

In terms of the provisions of the Rule 74 of the central Government General pool Residential Accommodation Rules. 2017, the Government has decided to revise the flat rates of licence fee recoverable for the residential accommodation available in General Pool and also in Departmental Pools of Ministries/Departments of the Government of India throughout the-country, the order said.

The revised rates of licence fee would be effective from 1st July, 2020. Al ministries/departments are requested to take action to recover the revised license fee in accordance with these orders in respect of accommodation under their control all over the country, it added.

To be clear, the order exempts accommodations provided to serving personnel of the ministry of defence and accommodation under the control of ministry of railways.

According to the order, the revised flat rates of license applicable for GPRA from July 1 for type VIII accommodation, allotted to officials from level 17 and 18 of the pay matrix of the 7th Pay Commission has been increased from Rs 3,890 to Rs 4,610. Type I accommodations for level 1 of the pay matrix under the 7th Pay Commission have been revised from Rs 150 to Rs 180.

Charges for servant quarters and garages has also been nominally increased from Rs 70 to Rs 80 and Rs 40 to Rs 50, respectively. The Centre has also increased the cost of hostel accommodation.

To put things in perspective, for a government official to get government accommodation, House rent allowance (HRA) of the basic salary has to be forgone and upon that a nominal rent (license fee) is deducted from the gross salary. The HRA accounts for nearly 27% of the salary and one also has to pay the nominal rent amount, another official said.

At present, a secretary level officer residing in a type VII accommodation in New Moti Bagh in New Delhi pays Rs 70,000 as HRA plus the license fee (Rs 2180) for the accommodation. A joint secretary level officer living in a type VI A flat at East Kidwai Nagar pays around Rs 50,000 HRA and Rs 1550 license fee.

The allotment of central government bungalows is done through the GPRA Act under the administrative control of the directorate of estates.

There is a shortage of accommodation provided to government officials in the country, especially in Delhi and Chandigarh, union minister for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Puri informed Parliament in February. There is a total shortfall of 20,054 houses in Delhi with only 61,291 available against demand for 81,345 houses. In Chandigarh the shortfall is of 207 houses with 2,521 available against a demand for 2,728 houses, he said.

Puri said the shortage of General Pool Residential Accommodation (GPRA) is due to non-availability of land at central locations in Metropolitan Cities and the fact that House Rent Allowance (HRA) admissible at the Metropolitan Cities is not commensurate with the actual rent in these cities.
New Delhi: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is having second thoughts on conducting the May cycle of chartered accountants (CA) examinations in 500 centres across the country, beginning July 29, owing to a spike in the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in several states.

In June, ICAI had allowed an opt-out scheme enabling candidates, who are unable to sit for the examinations, to appear in the November examination cycle.

The scheme was challenged before the Supreme Court (SC), which had asked ICAI to be flexible in a bid to accommodate opt-out requests until a week before commencement of examinations.

Last week, the apex court had permitted ICAI to come out with a draft notification spelling out that if a student is unable to appear for the complete set of examinations, then the candidate would be entitled to a second chance in November, irrespective of whether the candidate chose the opt-out scheme.

On Thursday, ICAI informed the SC that it was reassessing the feasibility of holding examinations in the wake of a spike of Covid-19 cases across many states.

Senior advocate Ramji Srinivas, who represented ICAI, said: There are some operational problems at certain centres, where examinations are scheduled to be held. We need time to contact examination centres in a bid to assess the ground situation.

The three-member Vacation Bench, comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna, accepted the plea and adjourned the matter for July 10.

Nearly 3.46 lakh students have registered to take the CA examinations.

ICAI informed the SC that less than 60,000 students had applied for the opt-out scheme and also opposed the petition filed by Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, who had challenged the option.

ICAI was also not agreeable to petitioners demand for increasing the examination centres.

Earlier the bench had observed, The present situation is dynamic. You have to be flexible to change according to the requirement of each area and concerns of students in that area.
A UN court ruled on Thursday that India is entitled to compensation in connection with the 2012 killing of two crew members of a fishing boat off the coast of Kerala by Italian marines guarding an oil tanker, an incident that had taken bilateral ties to an all-time low.

The five-member arbitral tribunal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), however, decided by three votes to two that the marines are entitled to immunity in relation to their acts during the incident and that India is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over them.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a weekly media briefing: India has taken note of the [tribunals] award and will be in touch with relevant entities on the matter.

The tribunal began hearing the case after Italy contended in December 2015 that India had violated the rights and immunity of the marines  Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone  by detaining them. Italy also argued that India had violated its exclusive right to institute penal proceedings against the marines under UNCLOS.

The two marines, accused of killing fishermen Ajesh Binki and Valentine Jalastine, crew members of the fishing boat St Anthony, were granted conditional bail by Indias Supreme Court and allowed to return to Italy in 2014 and 2016.

The tribunal upheld the conduct of Indian authorities during the incident under the provisions of UNCLOS and held that the actions of the Italian marines breached Indias freedom of navigation under the convention.

The tribunal unanimously ruled that India is entitled to payment of compensation in connection with loss of life, physical harm, material damage to property...and moral harm suffered by the captain and other crew members of the St. Antony, which by its nature cannot be made good through restitution.

It said the two sides should hold consultations to reach agreement on the amount of compensation. It added the tribunal would retain jurisdiction if either side or both sides wished to apply for a ruling from the court regarding the quantum of compensation. However, if no application is received within a year after the date of the ruling, the proceedings will be closed.

The tribunal unanimously ruled set aside Italys contention that India had breached provisions of UNCLOS, but decided by three votes to two that the Italian marines were entitled to immunity in relation to the acts that they committed during the incident of 15 February 2012, and that India is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over them.

The tribunal also decided by three votes to two that India must take necessary steps to cease to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over the Marines in view of Italys commitment to resume its criminal investigation into the events of 15 February 2012.

Italys foreign ministry contended in a statement the tribunal had agreed on its position that the marines, being members of the Italian armed forces engaged in the official exercise of their duties, cannot be tried by Indian courts. It also said Romes public prosecutor had already opened an investigation into the incident.

The ministry wishes to emphasise that the award of the tribunal does not make any determination of criminal responsibility in connection with the incident, which it will now be for the Italian judicial authorities alone to ascertain, it added.

The tribunal rejected Italys claim for compensation for the detention of the marines , who were part of an anti-piracy deployment on board the Italian tanker.

The row over the killing of the fishermen had disrupted bilateral ties for several years, though people familiar with developments said the two sides have now decided to move on from the incident in view of their growing convergence on both bilateral and multilateral issues.

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A UN court ruled on Thursday that India is entitled to compensation in connection with the 2012 killing of two crew members of a fishing boat off the coast of Kerala by Italian marines guarding an oil tanker, an incident that had taken bilateral ties to an all-time low.

But, at the same time, the five-member arbitral tribunal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) decided by three votes to two that the marines are entitled to immunity in relation to their acts during the incident and that India is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over them.

India has taken note of the [tribunals] award and will be in touch with relevant entities on the matter, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a weekly media briefing.

The tribunal began hearing the case after Italy contended in December 2015 that India violated the rights and immunity of the marines  Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone  by detaining them. Italy also argued that India violated its exclusive right to institute penal proceedings against the marines under UNCLOS.

The two marines, accused of killing fishermen Ajesh Binki and Valentine Jalastine, crew members of the fishing boat St Anthony, were granted conditional bail by Indias Supreme Court and allowed to return to Italy in 2014 and 2016.

The tribunal upheld the conduct of Indian authorities during the incident under the provisions of UNCLOS and held that the actions of the Italian marines breached Indias freedom of navigation under the convention.

The tribunal unanimously ruled that India is entitled to payment of compensation in connection with loss of life, physical harm, material damage to property...and moral harm suffered by the captain and other crew members of the St. Antony, which by its nature cannot be made good through restitution.

It said the two sides should hold consultations to reach an agreement on the amount of compensation. It added the tribunal would retain jurisdiction if either side or both sides wished to apply for a ruling from the court regarding the quantum of compensation. However, if no application is received within a year after the date of the ruling, the proceedings will be closed.

The tribunal set aside Italys contention that India breached provisions of UNCLOS, but decided by three votes to two that the Italian marines were entitled to immunity in relation to the acts that they committed during the incident of 15 February 2012, and that India is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over them.

It also decided by three votes to two that India must take necessary steps to cease to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over the Marines in view of Italys commitment to resume its criminal investigation into the events of 15 February 2012.

Originally, the legal challenge before the Permanent Court of Arbitration was over Indias jurisdiction to try the marines and to that extent the tribunal has held in favour of Italy, Supreme Court advocate Ishaan George, who was part of Indias legal team in the initial stages of the case, told HT. But the tribunal has held that Indias action of confiscating their vessel, arresting the marines and other actions are not in violation of UNCLOS...a limited success..., he said.

Italys foreign ministry contended in a statement the tribunal had agreed on its position that the marines, being members of the Italian armed forces engaged in the official exercise of their duties, cannot be tried by Indian courts. It also said Romes public prosecutor had already opened an investigation into the incident.

The ministry wishes to emphasise that the award of the tribunal does not make any determination of criminal responsibility in connection with the incident, which it will now be for the Italian judicial authorities alone to ascertain, it added.

The tribunal rejected Italys claim for compensation for the detention of the marines, who were part of an anti-piracy deployment on board the Italian tanker.

At his online briefing, Srivastava said the tribunal observed that India and Italy had concurrent jurisdiction over the incident and a valid legal basis to institute criminal proceedings against the marines.

The tribunal rejected Italys claim of compensation for the detention of the marines. However, it found that the immunities enjoyed by the marines as state officials operate as an exception to the jurisdiction of the Indian courts and, hence, preclude them to judge the marines, he added.

The row over the killing of the fishermen had disrupted bilateral ties for several years, though people familiar with developments said the two sides have now decided to move on from the incident in view of their growing convergence on both bilateral and multilateral issues. The judgment largely brings down the curtain on the February 2012 incident.
India is in talks with the US and Canada and the countries in European and Gulf regions on establishing individual bilateral bubbles which will allow airlines of each country in the pact to operate international flights, said Arvind Singh, Chairman, Airports Authority of India (AAI), on Thursday.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) had on June 23 said India is considering establishing individual bilateral bubbles with the US, the UK, Germany and France.

Singh said, This morning, I took a brief from the key point person (from the MOCA) who is negotiating with the countries, and he said that we are in constant touch. We are working on a consensus to restart the international flights. This is going to be through air bubbles.

Talks are mainly going on between India and the US, India and Canada, India and Europe and India and the Gulf countries to start flights in these bubbles, he said at a webinar called Reposing the faith in flying organised by the GMR group.

Scheduled international passenger flights remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Singh said the MOCA official has informed him that the discussion with the countries is at a very advanced level and the effort is to restart international flights at the earliest.

I am sure there would be a positive outcome of the talks with the US, Canada and with the Gulf countries and the negotiations are going on, he noted.

The EU has presently banned the flights from India as the number of coronavirus cases are rising in the country, Singh said. Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on June 20 said the government will start thinking on the resumption of scheduled international passenger flights in mid-July, when it expects the domestic air traffic to reach 50-55 per cent of the levels before the coronavirus.

After nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak, the government resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25. However, it had then allowed the airlines to operate the maximum 33 per cent of their pre-COVID flights. The MOCA increased the limits on June 26 from 33 per cent to 45 per cent.

The MOCA on June 23 had said, As we contemplate further opening up in response to demands, we are looking at the prospect of establishing individual bilateral bubbles, India-US, India-France, India-Germany, India-UK. These are all destinations where demand for travel has not diminished. Final decisions pursuant to negotiations are expected to be taken soon.

We have received requests from authorities in several countries including the US, France, Germany among others requesting that their air carriers be allowed to participate in the transportation of passengers along the line being conducted by Air India under Vande Bharat Mission. These requests are being examined, it added.

Air India started international chartered flights under the Vande Bharat Mission from May 6 to help people stranded due to the pandemic reach their destinations.

The MOCAs June 23 statement had come after the US Department of Transport (DOT) said on June 22 that it appears that Air India may be using its passenger repatriation charter flights as a way of circumventing the government of India-imposed prohibition of all scheduled international services.

We are taking this action (of allowing only those Air India flights from July 22 that have DOTs approval) because the Government of India has impaired the operating rights of the US carriers and has engaged in discriminatory and restrictive practices with respect to the US carrier services to and from India, the DOT had said.
India on Thursday rejected Pakistans allegation that the June 29 terrorist attack on Karachi stock exchange was New Delhis response to 2008 Mumbai terror attacks as absurd and chided Islamabad for attempting to shift the blame for its own domestic problems.

The external affairs ministry added that Pakistan needed to reflect on its governments attitude towards terrorism in the light of their Prime Minister Imran Khans recent comments describing slain al-Qaeda leader and global terrorist Osama Bin Laden as a martyr.

A day after the terror attack on Karachi stock exchange, Imran Khan had claimed in Pakistans national assembly that the attacks had been planned by our neighbouring country India. Soon after, China circulated a draft of a press statement for the UN Security Council to issue, condemning the Karachi attacks. However, interventions by countries friendly to India such as Germany and the United States led to more than 24-hours delay in its release on Wednesday.

India rejects these absurd comments on terrorist attacks in Karachi. Pakistan cannot shift the blame on India for its domestic problems, Anurag Srivastava, the official spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs was quoted by news agency ANI as having said.

The delay in passing the statement at the UN security council is being seen as a message disapproving Pakistans continued support for terrorism in the south Asia region.

How UN Security Council condemned Karachi attack, and Pakistan

The UN statement had been written by China on Pakistans behalf and it was expected to be timed for release with Pakistan governments efforts to blame the attack on India, without explicitly saying so in the statement. It was also noted by UN diplomats closely associated with the process, that the statement could have also been an attempt by Pakistan to portray itself as a victim of terrorism instead of being the leading sponsor of terrorism in the region.

On Thursday, the Indian government added that Pakistan needed to revisit its position towards terrorists following Imran Khans description of Osama bin Laden as a martyr, during an address in the parliament on June 25.

We would ask Pakistan that they may wish to reflect on this and on their own governments position including their PMs description of a global terrorist as a martyr, Anurag Srivastava was quoted as saying by ANI.

Imran Khans gratuitous reference to the former chief of Al-Qaeda, the global terrorist organization behind 26/11 attacks on the US soil, was widely criticized even in his own country.

They came into our country and killed Osama Bin Laden, martyred him, all the world criticised us instead. Imran Khan had said while claiming that despite Pakistans cooperation US held it responsible for abetting terrorism.

UN experts appalled by enforced disappearance of Pakistani human rights activist Idris Khattak, call for impartial probe

Laden was killed in a military operation by US Navy Seals in 2011 in Abbottabad in Pakistan.

The last US state departments annual report on terrorism has accused Pakistan of continuing to be a safe haven for terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad.
New Delhi: Chinas assertion that Indias ban on Chinese mobile applications is selective and discriminatory is completely misplaced and New Delhi has a long list of Beijings discriminations with countries, including India, related to trade and investments, officials aware of the matter said.

India also has a long list of Beijings restrictive trade and investment practices such as the imposition of internet censorship through Great firewall, restrictions on long-term visa and non-tariff barriers on investments, two officials working in separate ministries, who did not want to be named, said.

News agency Press Trust of India on Thursday reported the Indian Newspaper Society has slammed China for restricting access to Indian newspapers and media websites and urged the government to expeditiously take steps to ban access to Chinese media in the country.

Chinese state-controlled Global Times on Thursday tweeted quoting Chinas commerce ministry spokesperson Gao Feng as saying: To date, China has not adopted any restrictive or discriminatory measures targeting #Indias products and services.

The officials brushed aside Beijings contentions and its veiled threat to drag India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over the decision on Monday to ban 59, mostly Chinese, mobile applications such as Tik-Tok, citing concerns that these are prejudicial to sovereignty of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.

One of the officials cited above, who is also the governments legal expert on the strategic matters, said, Beijing has no basis to challenge New Delhis June 29 decision [to ban the applications]. Is there any agreement on this matter with China? No. Not to my knowledge. India can defend [it] easily under the clause of national security interest and sovereignty of the country.

Therefore, the official Chinese reaction on June 30 was subdued and did not mention any bilateral or multilateral [WTO] agreement, he added.

Tensions between India and China escalated after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese troops in Ladakhs Galwan Valley on June 15.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Tuesday said the Indian government has the responsibility to protect legitimate rights and interests of international investors in India, including Chinese businesses, in accordance with market principles. Practical cooperation between China and India is mutually beneficial. Deliberate interference in such cooperation will not serve the interests of the Indian side.

TS Vishwanath, the principal advisor at law firm APJ-SLG Law offices, said, This decision [on banning the applications has been] taken based on national security concerns.  He said India can take any action to protect its national security interest as per the WTO agreement.

The second official cited above, who works in an economic ministry, said China is indulging in illegal and unfair practices such as routing its goods through third countries with which India has preferential trade arrangements (PTAs) to avoid paying higher duty. China is dumping cheaper products in India to harm Indian industries, the official added.

The government is aware and agencies have been told to take action against such violations, the official said. HT reported it on July 1.

Data suggests a significant indirect inflow of Chinese goods and investments through countries with which India has free trade agreements (FTAs), PTAs, or other bilateral commercial arrangements. It shows that total foreign direct investment (FDI) from China is minuscule, but many Indian firms have received Chinese investments. Similarly, imports from China have registered a minor decline recently, but at the same time imports from Hong Kong and Singapore have surged, officials said.

The latest official data shows FDI from China between April 2000 and March 2020 was $2.378.71 billion, which is 0.51% of the total such inflow into the country over the two decades.

According to the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, while Indias trade deficit with China narrowed by $6.05 billion to $51.25 billion in 2019, the gap with Hong Kong widened sharply by $5.8 billion in 2019, nullifying almost all the gains.
Chinese companies will no longer be allowed to participate in Indian highway projects, including through the joint venture route; China will not be allowed to invest in Indias micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector; and imports from China will be discouraged, Union minister for road transport, highways and MSME, Nitin Gadkari, has said.

The ministers statement, in an interview with the news agency Press Trust of India, is part of Indias efforts to impose economic costs on China in the wake of continued Chinese aggression at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and a part of Indias signalling to China that this aggression cannot coexist with preferential economic ties, according to two officials familiar with the decision-making process in government.

Gadkaris comments come in the backdrop of Indias ban on 59 Chinese apps earlier this week, decisions by various government departments to cancel contracts with Chinese firms, reports of imports from China getting stuck at ports, and an earlier decision, in April, to tighten foreign direct investment inflows from neighbouring countries  with an eye on China  by requiring them to go through a more rigorous government approval process.

On Wednesday, Gadkari said, We will not give permission to joint ventures that have Chinese partners for road construction. We have taken a firm stand that if they (Chinese companies) come via joint venture in our country, we will not allow it. He added that a policy will be out soon banning Chinese firms, and relaxing norms for Indian companies to expand their eligibility criteria for participation in highway projects.

To be sure, according to both industry stakeholders and sectoral experts, there are a limited number of highway projects which have Chinese involvement at the moment. But Gadkari said rebidding will be done if there are any Chinese joint ventures, even as the decision will be implemented for current and future tenders. The minister also said that a process to relax financial and technical norms has been set in motion to ensure that Indian companies can qualify for larger projects and do not need foreign partners.

Even if we have to go for foreign joint venture in the areas of technology, consultancy or design, we will not allow Chinese, he said.

Industry stakeholders pointed out that the significance of the decision lies in the relaxation of norms to encourage Indian firms. There have not been many highway projects with Chinese investment either in the past or at present. Only a couple of projects are awarded in which joint ventures exist with Chinese as the minority partners with their Indian counterparts, mainly present for technical expertise. It is more like a technical collaboration than on ground work. This is also the reason the minister has mentioned that there is a need to revisit the technical qualification on the bidding process, said Rajeshwar Burla, vice president, corporate ratings, ICRA Limited.

But officials pointed to the larger message behind the decisions. An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: Aggression at the border and preferential treatment on cross-border trade, commerce and investment cannot go hand-in-hand. He said China had chosen the wrong time and the wrong country to antagonise. It will be foolish on part of any country to enrich an aggressor by allowing preferential trade and commerce while the aggressor country is threatening its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The second official, who represents an economic ministry and did not want to be named either, said that China had surplus capacity which its domestic economy cannot consume, making it largely dependent on exports for growth and survival. India was its large and growing market and China has hurt the entire nation. It is the duty of all citizens, businessmen, government agencies and public sector companies to rely more and more on Made in India products than goods from an enemy country. This is the national sentiment that is getting reflected everywhere in the country now.

This larger message assumes significance in the wake of a drastic increase in Chinese economic engagement in India over the past decade, particularly after 2014. A monograph by journalist Ananth Krishnan for Brookings India in March 2020, titled Following the Money: China Incs Growing stake in India-China relations, pointed to the difficulties in estimating the exact quantum of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) for various reasons  there is no exhaustive list of Chinese companies operating in India with either government because of the routing of investment through various countries; the presence of different FDI routes to India, which means a single government agency does not have all the data; and the fact that the Chinese government is not forthcoming with the information it has, among other reasons.

But with these caveats, the report suggested that while in 2014, net Chinese investment across sectors was $1.6 billion, and by 2017, it rose to $8 billion, the total investment exceeds official figures by at least 25%. If announced projects and planned investments are taken into account, it crosses, according to the paper, at least $26 billion.

The government is applying the same broader principle  of discouraging Chinese investment and encouraging Indian capacity  to MSMEs, widely considered the backbone of the Indian economy in terms of employment generation and contribution to the GDP. While Gadkari said the idea was to encourage both local capacity and foreign investment, this will not include the Chinese. For upgradation of technology, research, consultancy and other works, we will encourage foreign investment and joint ventures in MSMEs, but in case of Chinese we will not entertain them, he said.

On reports of the stopping of consignments of imports from China, the minister said there is no arbitrary stopping of goods at Indian ports and that he had urged departments concerned to expedite clearance of consignments which were booked two to three months before the current situation took shape, according to PTI. But the minister added that government was initiating path-breaking reforms to help MSMEs and businesses in a bid to make the country self-reliant. It is a good step. The imports from China will be discouraged and the country will take large strides towards self-reliance.

Analysts see the governments decision as a willingness to use Indias economic strength for strategic ends, but also offer a note of caution.

Manoj Kewalramani, a fellow of Chinese studies at the Takshashila Institution, said, Unfortunately, given the nature of the Sino-Indian economic relationship, leverage is limited. First, its not like the Chinese are heavily invested in Indian MSMEs or highway projects. Moreover, targeting investments in infrastructure only hurts Indias development with little strategic gain. Second, targeting joint ventures might further cut off capital flows into India, something India needs more of instead to deal with the pandemic triggered slowdown. Third, restricting imports can be a double-edged sward. Chinese imports are critical to Indian exports. So the government needs to be careful in doing this, lest it hurt Indian exporters.
The Centre has set up an inter-ministerial empowered group led by the agriculture ministry to intensify measures to deal with crop-devastating locusts in six most at-risk states, including through the use of helicopters and more advanced drones, Union agriculture minister Narendra Tomar has said.

On recommendations of the group, the civil aviation ministry has relaxed conditions for the operation of civilian drones for locust operations, Tomar said. It has allowed the use of engine-powered drones of up to 50kg and use of drones at night for the locust control.

The empowered group, set up on Tuesday, which has representatives from helicopter operator Pawan Hans, Directorate General of Civil aviation and Air India, will serve as a command-and-control centre for decisions to control the pest that has now become endemic in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh are the most threatened states as the country heads into its summer-sown kharif crop season.

Swarms of locusts on Sunday moved further from Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahr to Kasganj, Oraiyya, Farrukhabad, and Hathras after the operation to control them a day earlier when they flew over parts of the National Capital Region were ineffective

The agriculture ministry has hired five technology firms to provide advanced drones. Each firm will provide five large drones. So far, 12 drones have been deployed in Rajasthans Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner and Nagaur. Drones are effective for covering tall trees and inaccessible areas. One drone can douse crops with pesticides in 16-17 hectare area in one hour. One hectare equals 2.5 acres.

According to the UN, locusts pose a serious threat to the countrys agriculture this year.

Desert locusts can fly hundreds of kilometres a day and one square-km swarm can eat as much crop food as 35,000 people in terms of weight in a single day, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)s Desert Locust Information Service manual. If unchecked, locust infestations can cause a considerable drop in food output.

In its latest update on June 28, FAO said breeding in Pakistans Sindh near the Indian border, the Indus Valley and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region poses a fresh threat of locust invasions into India.

On Tuesday, the agriculture minister gave the go-ahead for a Bell helicopter with spray equipment from a helipad in Greater Noida. The helicopter will be based at the air force station at Uttarlai from where it will be deployed for locust control in Barmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Nagaur.

The government is in full preparedness. The Centre is working in full coordination with states on locust control operations, Tomar said.

The Horn of Africa has been witnessing large breading by locusts since 2019 due to frequent cyclones possibly linked to climate change and swarms have invaded several regions from there, according to FAO.

Currently, 60 specialised teams with spray equipment-mounted vehicles and more than 200 federal personnel are engaged in locust control operations in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday arrested a member of Jaish-e-Mohammads (JeM) transportation module _ that ferries infiltrating terrorists from border to Kashmir _ for allegedly facilitating the movement of one of the terrorists who helped making the bomb in February 2019 Pulwama attack, officials said.

The accused has been identified as Budgam resident Mohammad Iqbal Rather (25).

NIA spokesperson Sonia Narang said in a statement that Rather had facilitated the movement of Muhammad Umar Farooq, JeM terrorist and a key conspirator in this case, after he infiltrated into the Indian territory in Jammu region in April, 2018, from the national highway near international border.

Farooq, along with others, had assembled the bomb used in the February 14, 2019 attack (in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed). Rather had been in judicial custody since September, 2018 in another JeM- related case investigated by NIA, Narang said.

 As such, he was produced by the jail authorities before the NIA special court, Jammu, on Thursday and was taken into seven days custody for interrogation. Initial examination has revealed that Rather was in constant touch with Pakistan-based leadership of JeM over secure messaging applications. He was part of the JeMs transportation module, Narang added.

Before Rather, NIA arrested five persons in Pulwama attack  including Shakir Bashir Magrey, Mohammad Abbas Rather, Waiz-ul-Islam, a girl, Insha Jan, and her father Tariq Ahmad Shah. They were nabbed in the last week of February and first week of March this year, over a year after the terror strike.
Washington: Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has said the US and India are natural partners and if elected, the relationship will be a high priority for his administration. He promised to end the temporary suspension of H-1B visas that President Donald Trump ordered last week ostensibly to ensure American have the first crack at jobs as the US reopens after Covid-19 lockdown. The visa programme, of which Indians are the largest beneficiaries, has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administrations immigration hawks.

That partnership [with India], a strategic partnership, is necessary and important in our security, said Biden at a virtual fund-raiser on Wednesday. He gave an account of his role in promoting the relationship and securing the US-India civil nuclear deal.

I was proud to play a role more than a decade ago in securing congressional approval for the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, he said. He added it was a big deal.

The deal set a high bar for everything that has followed in the relationship.

Helping open the door to great progress in our relationship and strengthening our strategic partnership with India was a high priority in the Obama-Biden administration and will be a high priority if I am elected president, Biden, a former vice-president, said. India needs to be a partner in the region for our safety sake and quite frankly for theirs.

Late former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee first used the phrase natural allies to describe the US-India relationship. Former US president George W Bush switched in partners for allies.

At a virtual town-hall with Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Biden opposed Trumps suspension of H-1B visas. He [Trump] just ended H-1B visas for the rest of this year. That will not be in my administration, he said in response to a question. People on this visa have built this country, said Biden, who visited India as vice-president in July 2013 with his wife, Jill Biden.

The US issues 85,000 of temporary non-immigrant H-1B visas for high-skill jobs annually. Over 70% of them go to Indians. The programme critics argue H-1B visas are used to bring cheaper labour from abroad to displace Americans. The Trump administration stepped up scrutiny of the programme after taking office in January 2017. It issued an executive order titled Buy American, Hire American.

The administration announced a reform of the programme along with the suspension last week and it would include doing away with the electronic lottery system to pick successful H-1B applications from among the thousands that are filed. The selection will be based on those getting the highest salary. Other changes are also in the offing, but there is no timeline for it yet.

Biden also spoke about other immigration issues like the plight of undocumented immigrants brought as children, called Dreamers, to the US. Many of them are of Indian origin. On day one [of his presidency], I am going to send a legislative immigration reform bill to the Congress to provide a road map to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants who contribute so much to this country.
The police in Chhattisgarhs Rajnandgaon nabbed a Maoist commander on Wednesday after an encounter in which he was injured. The encounter took place in the forest of Rajnandgaon on Tuesday night.

Police said that David alias Umesh, a native of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, was one of most wanted Maoists of newly formed MMC (Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh) of CPI (Maoist).

We detained him on Wednesday morning and admitted to a hospital. His arrest will be made after his recovery, Rajnandgaon Superintendent of Police (SP) Jitendra Shukla told Hindustan Times.

An AK-47 rifle, three magazines, 54 live cartridges, one pistol, one walkie-talkie set, medical items and other stuffs of daily use and Rs 772 cash was also recovered from Davids procession.

Shukla further said that encounter took place when a police team was out of an anti-Maoist operation.

The team laid an ambush on Katenga-Pendridih road and sensing presence of security personnel the Maoists opened fire. The encounter lasted for about 30 minutes after which the Maoists fled from the spot. A search operation started after the encounter and we nabbed David in the Khobha village, the SP said.

The total reward on his head is of Rs 29 lakh in three states including Maharashatra, MP and Chhattisgarh.

David was one core member of Maoists team engaged in the expansion of new zone MMC in three states. His arrest is very important development for the police, said a senior police officer posted in Raipur.

It is worth mentioning that the Maoists have built a new red corridor in the tri-junction of three states - Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh - in 2016-17. Many documents recovered suggest they are continuously moving in that area to strengthen the new zone and recruit some cadres.

Senior police officers of Chhattisgarh believe that that now there about 200 armed Maoists in the Vistaar Dalam of the MMC zone, who are trying to established their grip. The new zone is said to be a refuge of hardcore Maoists of Bastar and other regions. Most of the cadres in this region were recruited from South Bastar.
The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) rebels killed an assistant constable of Chhattisgarh Police and also grievously injured his parents in Bastar divisions Bijapur district late at night on Wednesday.

The parents are undergoing treatment at a district hospital.

The deceased assistant constable, Somaru Poyam, was posted at Farsegarh police station. He was on medical leave for the past 20 days because he was suffering from some abdomen-related ailment, said Sunderaj P, Inspector-general of police (IGP), Bastar range, Chhattisgarh.

The incident occurred at Maatwada village under the jurisdiction of Jangla police station limits late at night on Wednesday night when about a dozen Maoists killed the assistant constable with sharp-edged weapons in front of his parents, the IGP said.

His parents sustained serious injuries while trying to save their son. They have been admitted to a district hospital and are stated to be out of danger, he added.

Police have launched a combing operation in the area after the incident.
The Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) has broken the glass ceiling in the 10-lakh-strong central paramilitary forces and asked the authorities concerned to share their views for recruiting transgender people in the rank of the assistant commandants (ACs).

In a letter to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the MHA on Wednesday asked the forces to send their comments for incorporating the issues on transgender as third gender along with male/female in the rules of CAPF (central armed police forces) AC Examination, 2020.

The annual examination for recruiting ACs, who are Grade A officers, for this year, is scheduled to be held in December and if the MHA gets a positive response from the paramilitary forces, their comments will be shared with the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which will then incorporate transgender people as the third gender in the application forms.

MHA data showed 7,859 ACs are currently employed with all the paramilitary forces. The CRPF has maximum ACs in its ranks at 3,054, followed by BSF (1,888), ITBP (716) ITBP, CISF (725) and SSB (542).

The paramilitary forces, which have a combined strength of around 10 lakh, are deployed in securing the countrys borders with Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Nepal, anti-Naxal operations, counter-insurgency operations in Jammu & Kashmir as well as law and order duties in various states.

Officials familiar with the development said the government first wants to start with the officers rank through the Staff Service Commission (SSC).

At present, there is no provision of hiring transgender people in the central paramilitary forces or even in the Indian Army.

The development comes after Parliament passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019 last December.

The law states that no establishment shall discriminate against transgender persons in matters relating to employment, recruitment, promotion, and other related issues. It also provides for grievance redressal mechanism in each establishment and the establishment of a National Council for Transgender Persons.

Based on the new Act, on April 20, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had asked all central government departments to include transgender as a separate category of gender for recruitment in civil services and other posts.

The DoPT order said that the matter regarding the inclusion of Third Gender/any Other Category in the application forms in recruitment to various posts under the central government was under consideration of the government for quite some time.

The Civil services examination rules, 2020, have already been notified on February 5, providing for inclusion of Transgender as a separate category of gender for the said examination.

All ministries/departments of the government of India are requested to modify the relevant examination rules providing for inclusion of Transgender as a separate category of gender, so as to make the said Rules in conformity with the provisions of The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019, DoPT order had said.

K Durga Prasad, former director-general (D-G), CRPF, said: This is the time of giving equal opportunities. We have to take care of is setting different parameters like training, job profile, etc.

Chayanika Shah, a queer rights activist, asked: We are creating a category and you remain in that category forever. But, the big question is: how do you deal with the situation? Why recruit only for the post of ACs and not other categories?
Oxford University professor Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist, has been tagged Professor Reopen for her argument against lockdowns as a countermeasure against the Covid-19 pandemic. In a conversation with Hindustan Times, professor Gupta explained why most people wont need a Covid-19 vaccine and how lockdowns are not a long-term solution to contain the spread of coronavirus.

What weve seen is that in normal, healthy people, who are not elderly or frail or dont have comorbidities, this virus is not something to worry about no more than how we worry about flu, professor Gupta told HT.

Watch | Why most of us wont need Covid vaccine: Oxford prof explains | On The Record

She said that the vaccine, when it will come into existence, will be used to support the vulnerable, most of us dont need to worry about coronavirus, she said.

Also read: Lockdown a drastic strategy to eliminate coronavirus, says Oxford University don

Gupta said that she thinks the coronavirus pandemic will end naturally and will become part of our lives just like influenza.

Hopefully with a lower death toll than influenza. I think it is fairly easy to make a vaccine for coronavirus. By the end of this summer, we should have proof that the vaccine works, she added.

The professor described the lockdown as a sensible measure but not enough to keep the virus out for long.

A lockdown is a noble and a sensible idea to keep the virus out but is very difficult to put in place without non-pharmaceutical interventions, she stated.

Also watch: Why most of us wont need Covid-19 vaccine: Oxford prof explains | On The Record

Gupta said what has been described as the second wave of the virus outbreak is essentially the first wave reaching a different geographical region.

However, there have been countries that have successfully managed to implement the lockdown and are now facing a resurgence of the virus, she noted.
Myanmar, Chinas closest ally in southeast Asia, has pointed fingers at Beijing for arming insurgent groups with sophisticated weapons and sought international cooperation to suppress rebel groups. In a recent interview to Russian state-run TV channel Zvezda, Myanmars Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said terrorist organisations active in Myanmar are backed by strong forces and sought international cooperation to suppress rebel groups.

The reference to strong forces was widely seen to be a reference to Myanmars neighbour in the north, China.

Myanmar military spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun later elaborated on the comment made by the Commander-in-Chief of Myanmars armed forces. The spokesperson said the army chief was referring to Arakan Army (AA) and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), terrorist organisations active in the Rakhine State in western Myanmar that borders China.

A foreign country is behind the Arakan Army (AA), he said, citing China-made weapons that terror group used in mine attacks on the military in 2019.

It is unusual for the Myanmar leadership to point fingers at China. But this isnt the first time that Naypyitaw had alluded to the Chinese connection.

When the Myanmar military busted a huge cache of weapons including surface-to-air missiles - each costing between USD 70,000 and 90,000 - from the banned Taang National Liberation Army in November 2019, the military had underlined the Chinese connection to the weapons. Most of the weapons seized by the force are Chinese weapons, military spokesperson Major General Tun Tun Nyi had declared.

The Myanmarese ethnic rebel groups operating along the Chinese border mostly use Chinese weapons, prompting suspicions about Beijings role as part of an effort to keep Myanmar under control

China, for the record, denies that it supplies weapons to armed rebel groups in Myanmar but such denials are often treated with scepticism in Myanmar.

Senior General Hlaing had flagged Myanmars concerns around these weapons when he hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in January this year. Xi then promised that China would carefully scrutinise matters and solve the problem, pointing that there were other ways for the rebels to acquire Chinese weapons.

Xis suggestion was seen in Myanmar as part of an elaborate exercise by China to keep its smaller neighbour unstable. There has been a view in Naypyitaw that China was using its influence with the terror groups as a bargaining chip for smooth implementation of Belt and Road Initiative projects.

Officials say Beijing has been desperate to push the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor that seeks to give China a strategic opening on to the Bay of Bengal and eastern part of Indian Ocean Region. There has also been some concern around the Chinese loans extended to execute these projects that led to worries that Myanmar shouldnt land in Chinas debt trap.
Coronavirus cases across the globe have crossed the 10 million mark and are rising unabated. The viral disease has claimed over 5 lakh lives across the world till date. Amid the pandemic, many countries are have been trying to lift the lockdown restrictions in a staggered manner, including India. Although the number of coronavirus cases in the country inch toward a grim milestone and has already crossed the 6 lakh mark, the Ministry of Health says that a low death rate and an improving rate of recovery, presently nearly 60 percent, are positive indicators.

Heres a list of Covid-19 developments from India and across the globe:

 With 604,993 cases, Indias Covid-19 tally has crossed the 6-lakh mark while the death toll stands at 17,847.

 Delhi chief minister said that the Covid-19 outbreak in the national capital is now under control but there is a need to stave-off complacency as the virus is unpredictable.

 Patanjali Ayurveds Coronil drug is an immunity booster and not a cure for coronavirus, says AYUSH ministry. The company has been allowed to market and sell the drug for Covid-19 management and immunity-boosting but not as a cure.

 Decorated Delhi police inspector dies of Covid-19, 2,000 police personnel have been infected so far.

 The Centre has asked state governments to step up rapid antigen tests in fight against Covid-19.

 Bengaluru continues to battles a surge in Covid-19 cases, ICUs in government hospitals are full of patients. Of Karnatakas 16,000 Covid-19 patients, nearly 5,300 come from Bengaluru.

 India added nearly 2 lakh cases to its Covid-19 tally in the last 12 days.

 As the number of coronavirus cases rise to 10,653,987 across the globe, Greece witnesses a wave of first tourists. Global Covid-19 death toll stands at 515,504.

 In Brazil, the number of coronavirus deaths have crossed the 60,000-mark.

 California in the United States has rolled back reopening of bars, restaurants amid a surge in cases.

 A high number of cases are being reported in US meat processing units.

US President Donald Trump has said that the he is all for masks but believes that the virus will disappear.
An overarching law to protect the countrys data and a detailed investigation into all Chinese investments in the country, particularly in start-ups, are some of the demands being made by the Rashtriya Swayamseval Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates such as the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) amid a growing strain in India-China ties.

KN Govindacharya, the former general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and an ideologue of the RSS, wants the government to bring a law to secure the countrys data and sovereignty.

Govindacharya, who has been seeking regulation of social media platforms and has filed a petition in the Delhi high court (HC) for rules to make companies such as Facebook and Google establish their servers in India, has also been urging the government to refrain from using social media platforms and Google mail for official purposes.

He welcomed the Union governments decision to ban 59 Chinese applications. This is the first step. What we need is a proper law, which needs to cover an entire gamut of aspects. This needs to be well thought out, he said.

This week, the Centre has banned Chinese applications, including popular platforms such as Tik Tok and Camscanner, citing emergent threats to the countrys sovereignty and national security. The ban comes on the back of violent hand-to-hand combat between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakhs Galwan Valley on June 15 that had left 20 Indian soldiers dead.

However, the opposition has questioned the government, asking the reasons for not banning these Chinese applications, if they were perceived to be a threat to national security.

China has said Indias decision could be in contravention of the legitimate rights of international investors.

Govindacharya, however, said the countrys national interests override trade obligations.

There are many aspects that need to be examined such as tax evasion and other security-related details. While taking steps to protect the national security if that means withdrawing from trade obligations that can be done. What is important is to first state intent and determination, he said.

SJM, which has been vocal about a blanket ban on Chinese goods and applications, has also welcomed the governments move but wants a scan of all Chinese investments in India.

Ashwani Mahajan, national co-convenor, SJM, said, the government is free to rethink trade agreements. The WTO (World Trade Organisation) is clear that when it a matter of national security or in the case of a pandemic, a countrys interests prevail. The government is rightly concerned about the security and the onus is on the applications to prove they did not share data with the Chinese government, he said.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday arrested a member of Jaish-e-Mohammads transportation module in connection with the Pulwama terror attack of February 2109 that killed 40 CRPF troopers, an official said.

The accused, Mohammad Iqbal Rather (25), a resident of Budgam, allegedly ferried a terrorist who helped in making bomb that was used by a suicide car bomber to attack the CRPF convoy.

NIA Spokesperson Sonia Narang said in a statement that Rather had facilitated the movement of Muhammad Umar Farooq, a JeM terrorist and a key conspirator in the case, to south Kashmir after he infiltrated into the Indian territory in Jammu region in April, 2018, from the national highway near international border.

Farooq, along with others, had assembled the bomb used in the February 14, 2019 attack (in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed). Rather had been undergoing judicial custody since September, 2018 in another Jaish-e-Mohammed related case investigated by NIA, Narang said.

As such, he was produced by the jail authorities before the NIA Special Court, Jammu on Thursday and was taken into seven days custody for his interrogation. Initial examination has revealed that Rather was in constant touch with Pakistan-based leadership of Jaish-e-Mohammed and was in communication with them over secure messaging applications. He was part of the transportation module of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Narang added.

The NIA had earlier arrested five persons in the course of the probe into the bombing in Pulwama. Shakir Bashir Magrey, Mohammad Abbas Rather, Waiz-ul-Islam, a young girl  Insha Jan and her father Tariq Ahmad Shah were nabbed in last week of February and first week of March this year, over a year after the terror strike.
Against the backdrop of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra being asked to vacate her government accommodation, HT learns that there are only two people who have been given government accommodation for life despite not holding a government post: former deputy prime minister LK Advani and former Youth Congress president MS Bitta.

In Advanis case, this is a function of the significant positions he has held in government as well as an assessment of the security threats he faces, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity. In Bittas case, added this person who is involved in the decision-making process, it is just the threat factor.

LK Advani stays at an allotted bungalow on Prithviraj Road while Bitta, who has been targeted by terrorists in the past, stays on Talkatora Road.

As per extant policy, private persons other than SPG (Special Protection Group) protectees are not entitled to be allotted government accommodation on security ground. However, CCA (Cabinet Committee on Accommodation) makes certain exceptions based on threat perceptions to individuals, said an internal government note which has been reviewed by HT. In Priyanka Gandhis case, the indications are that the threat perception wasnt significant enough.

In November, the government decided that the SPG would only protect the current Prime Minister and his family and the former PM and their family for five years . The change meant that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi would be protected by the Central Reserve Police Force. And under government policy, only those individuals not holding a government post who are under SPG cover are entitled to government accommodation.

Responding to the charges of revenge politics driving the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs notice to Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday, the official also clarified that former Union minister Murli Manohar Joshi has his government accommodation for two more years, till 2022. Joshi continues to stay in the Raisina Road house he used to occupy as a senior minister and a member of Parliament. Priyanka Gandhi has never been a MP, nor held any government post.

These decisions are taken by the CCA with inputs given by the ministry of home affairs. In Advanijis case, his threat perception continues due to the ongoing Babri Masjid demolition case. He was also the deputy prime minister, and so the decision was taken last year that he would be given the accommodation for his life, said the official . In Joshis case, it was again his involvement in the Babri Masjid case but that cannot be endless and thats why it was decided to grant him accommodation till June 2022.

The official pointed out that Bittas security threat was assessed as high because of the continuing threat from Khalistani forces to his life. He was severely injured and 13 others were killed in an attack in Amritsar in 1992.

I dont know the details of Priyanka Gandhis case but my case is not political, said Bitta.I neither request for security, nor is there any lobbying. They automatically clear my case because of security threats.

The opposition on Thursday kept up its attack on the government. Deputy chief minsiter of Rajasthan Sachin Pilot tweeted: Many leaders are provided govt accommodation on security grounds despite not holding any office.Targeting Priyanka Gandhi is clearly political.Removing SPG &serving eviction notice esp during an endemic,cant be the priority when so many burning issues are confronting the country.

HT has learnt that Wednesdays order for Priyanka Gandhis eviction from 35, Lodhi Estate, came after a flurry of exchanges between the Urban development ministry and the home ministry over the past seven months. It started when the government removed SPG cover from the Gandhis in November last year, giving them Z-plus CRPF cover instead. The final MHA letter this week clarified that such protectees do not get government accommodation if they dont hold public office.

While the Congress has accused the government of pettiness , the official cited in the first instance said that they expected Priyanka Gandhi to have moved out of her own. When Vajpayeeji died in 2018, Hardeep Puri (minister of housing) met his daughter and son-in-law Namita and Ranjan Bhattacharya and offered them alternative accommodation as they were SPG protectees but they refused, said the official.

Namita Bhattacharya declined comment on the matter.

This is just like the time when Indira Gandhi was evicted from her house after she lost the election in 1977, said Aradhna Mishra, the Congress legislative party leader in Uttar Pradesh. Priyanka has been raising issues that matter to people and they want to suppress her voice.

BJP leader Gopal Agarwal tweeted, Who is @priyankagandhi Priyanka Vadra? Is she holding a constitutional seat? Why does your party promote a culture where the hard earned public money is thrown away for the comforts of One Family?
New Delhi

India on Thursday dismissed as absurd Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khans allegation that New Delhi was behind a terror attack on the Karachi stock exchange, saying Islamabad cannot shift the blame for its domestic problems.

Khan had told Pakistans Parliament on Tuesday that he had no doubt that India was behind Mondays terror attack on the stock exchange building that left four security personnel dead. All four attackers were also killed.

The premier didnt give any evidence to back up his claim, and his remarks were a reiteration of allegations made earlier by foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. The attack was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army.

Asked about Khans allegations during a weekly media briefing, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said: India rejects these absurd comments on the terrorist attack in Karachi and Pakistan cannot shift the blame on India for its domestic problems.

Referring to Khans recent description of former al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden as a martyr, Srivastava added: We would ask Pakistan that they may wish to reflect on this and on their own governments position, including their prime ministers description of a global terrorist as a martyr.

Bin Laden was killed in the northwestern Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad during a raid by US commandoes in 2011.

In response to another question on the Indian governments decision to ask Pakistan to reduce the strength of its high commission in New Delhi by 50% because of the alleged involvement of Pakistani officials in espionage and terror activities, Srivastava said personnel from the Indian mission in Islamabad and the Pakistani mission in New Delhi had returned home on June 30.

A total of 38 Indian officials and family members had returned via the Wagah-Attari land border crossing while 143 Pakistani officials and family members had also crossed over, he said.

Srivastava also said a total of 627 Indians stranded in Pakistan because of Covid-19-related travel restrictions had returned via the Wagah-Attari crossing. A total of 204 Indians returned on June 25, 215 on June 26 and 208 on June 27.

Another 100 Indians were still in Pakistan and authorities are awaiting clearances to facilitate their return, he said.
Foreign nationals who attended the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhis Nizamuddin area in March have requested the Supreme Court that they should be deported to their home countries.

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court by 34 foreign nationals who have challenged revocation of their visas and blacklisting by the central government. The attendees, through their counsel CU Singh, said that normal course of action for visa violation is deportation.

Please deport us to our home countries. We came here before any restrictions (imposed due to Covid-19). If we have not committed anything grave, the Centre can consider deporting us, the foreign nationals argued.

Blacklisting would mean we should not be allowed to return to India but we can be deported, the petitioners further said.

Also Read: 12 more charge sheets against foreigners in Tablihi Jamaat case

The central government submitted an affidavit stating that individual orders have been issued against each of the foreign nationals cancelling their visas.

As per the affidavit, visas of 2,679 foreign nationals have been cancelled and they will be allowed to go home only when legal process under Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) are complete.

The affidavit also said that 227 foreign nationals left India before a lookout notice could be issued against them.

47 foreigners who attended the Jamaat event are Nepal nationals who are not holding any visa. Visas of remaining 39 cases are under the process of cancellation, the affidavit said.

The bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar observed that the proper course of action for the petitioners would be to challenge the central governments orders individually before the concerned high court.

The matter was adjourned till July 10 to allow the petitioners to file rejoinder affidavit in response to Centres affidavit.

The Centre, in its affidavit, claimed that the foreign nationals by attending the Jamaat event violated the provisions of visa rules and provisions of Foreigners Act. Besides, they might also have violated the provisions of National Disaster Management Act and the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Centre further said in its affidavit. These laws were invoked by central and state governments to impose lockdown and other restrictions to check the spread of Covid-19.

Appearing for Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that deportation and grant of visa cannot be claimed as a right.

Grant of visas is a sovereign function of central government. There is no right to be deported. Deporting can be allowed if there is no criminal case. Once a foreign national enters the country and a criminal charge is brought against the person, he cannot be deported, Mehta said.

The bench seemed to agree with the Centre. There cannot be deportation if there is criminal case. It will be the central governments discretion, it remarked.

However, their lawyer said that these people have not committed a grave mistake affecting the security of the state. The lawyers CU Singh also said that the Centre should consider deporting them as these people came much before the lockdown restrictions were announced.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the coronavirus crisis on Thursday and resolved to strengthen the Indo-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-Covid world.

During a telephonic conversation, the two leaders agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral summit to be held in India later this year. The prime minister conveyed his keenness to welcome Putin in India for the bilateral summit.

The leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-Covid world, a statement from the Prime Ministers Office said.

Putin thanked Modi for the phone call and reiterated his commitment to further strengthening the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries in all spheres.

During their conversation, Modi congratulated Putin on the success of the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the victory of the Allied Forces in the World War 2, and also for the successful completion of the vote on constitutional amendments in Russia, the statement said.

The prime minister noted the participation of an Indian contingent in the military parade held in Moscow on June 24 as a symbol of the abiding friendship between the people of India and Russia.

An official statement issued by the Russian side said the two leaders discussed topical issues on the Russian-Indian agenda and confirmed their mutual commitment to further strengthening the privileged bilateral strategic partnership and close cooperation both in the bilateral format and within international organisations and associations.
The Punjab Police on Thursday registered two separate cases against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun of the banned outfit Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) and his associates on charges of sedition and secessionism. The two cases were registered at Amritsar and Kapurthala.

An active Sikhs for Justice member, Joginder Singh Gujjar, was also booked on similar charges.

US-based Pannun was among nine wanted men who were designated as terrorists under the provisions of the anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) by the Centre on Wednesday.

ALSO READ | 9 wanted men designated as terrorists under anti-terror law, includes Pannun, Khalistani forces

The Ministry of Home Affairs designated Pannun a terrorist for actively running a secessionist campaign against India and motivating Sikh young men from his home state Punjab to revive militancy in the state.

The others designated as individual terrorists under UAPA include - Paramjit Singh of Babbar Khalsa International, Hardeep Singh Nijjar of Khalistan Tiger Force, Gurmit Singh Bagga of Khalistan Zindabad Force and Ranjeet Singh from the same outfit, among others.

The Dalit Suraksha Sena (DSS) had filed a complaint against Pannun and his associates, and a case was registered against him at a police station in Amritsar for allegedly burning the Indian Constitution and the National Flag besides instigating others to do something similar.

In its complaint, the Dalit Suraksha Sena said Pannun, the self-styled legal advisor of the US-based the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), and his accomplices were seen dishonouring the Indian Constitution and the National Flag in a video. They were seen setting a copy of the Constitution and the flag on fire, while shouting slogans of Khalistan Zindabad, they said.

Pannun was also seen inciting the entire Sikh community against the Indian Constitution and in favour of the Referendum 2020, according to the complaint.

The second FIR registered at Bhulath in Kapurthala is based on inputs of the entry of Joginder Singh Gujjar, alias Goga, into the country in February 2020, a police spokesperson said, adding that Pannun and his associates had been charged with seditious and secessionist activities in the case.

The spokesperson said that Joginder Singh is a prominent and active member of the banned SFJ.

Joginder Singh in collaboration with Pannun, with whom he is in regular contact for promoting the activities of the SFJ, was reportedly providing financial help to the organization and to members based in Punjab and abroad, the spokesperson said.
The railway ministry on Wednesday began the formal process to allow a private company to run trains on 109 routes -- a process that aims to, for the first time, open up one of the governments most prominent enterprises that has in recent decades been outpaced by the demands of a rapidly growing economy.

The ministry issued what is known as a request for qualification (RFQ) for a private company to run 151 trains spread over these routes, laying down specific conditions that will need to be met in a move that is meant to introduce modern technologies and world class services for one of Indias most popular modes of transport.

This is the first initiative of private investment for running passenger trains over Indian Railways network, the ministry said on Wednesday. The objective of this initiative is to introduce modern technology rolling stock with reduced maintenance, reduced transit time, boost job creation, provide enhanced safety, provide world class travel experience to passengers, it said.

The ministry said the planned investment will come to around 30,000 crore, the rakes will need to be manufactured in India, and the private entity shall be responsible for financing, procuring, operation and maintenance of the trains.

Trains shall be designed for a maximum speed of 160 kmph. There would be a substantial reduction in journey time. The running time taken by a train shall be comparable to or faster than the fastest train of Indian Railways operating in the respective route, the ministrys release said.

The initiative for private investment for running passenger trains began in a limited way last year with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) -- a Railways subsidiary -- introducing the Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express. Currently, IRCTC operates three trains -- the Kashi Mahakal Express on the Varanasi-Indore route, the Lucknow-New Delhi Tejas and the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Tejas. These are the only ones not run by the Indian Railways itself, as has been the practice in its 167-year history.

Opposition leaders criticised the move. Now the govt is in a desperate mood to sell a great chunk of one of our largest national asset #IndianRailways, privatization cannot be construed as a panacea of railways malady, it is the inefficiency of the railways itself, said Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who was the junior railway minister in the United Progressive Alliance - 2 government.

Hindustan Times reported in September that the national carrier is considering the idea of handing over operations of more trains to private players on several important routes with improved services and amenities for passengers.

It proposed the following routes for long distance travel: Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Lucknow, Delhi-Jammu/Katra, Delhi-Howrah, Secunderabad-Hyderabad, Secunderabad-Delhi, Delhi- Chennai, Mumbai-Chennai, Howrah-Chennai and Howrah-Mumbai.

In October, the Union government and the think-tank Niti Aayog decided to set up a task force drive the process. On January 7, the ministry and the governments think-tank Niti Aayog uploaded a draft RFQ, expanding the number of routes to 100 from the previously planned 50 routes.

According to Wednesdays statement, the private entity shall pay to Indian Railways fixed haulage charges, energy charges as per actual consumption and a share in gross revenue determined through a transparent bidding process.

The operation will have to conform to key performance indicators like punctuality, reliability, upkeep of trains etc, the ministry said.
A team of Enforcement Directorate reached the residence of Congress leader Ahmed Patel to question him in connection with bank fraud and money laundering cases.

Patel is being questioned for his purported links with the Sandesara brothers of the Sterling Biotech group, who fled the country in 2017 after allegedly swindling several banks of several thousand crore rupees

The Sandesaras are being probed by multiple agencies including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the income tax department as well.

This is Patels third round of questioning. The first round of questioning had lasted for eight hours on June 27. He was again questioned on June 30.

He was allowed questioning at home by the agency after the Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat refused to visit the ED office citing prevailing Covid-19 guidelines that discourage senior citizens from going out.

Officials said that Patels statement is being recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Patel, also the Congress party treasurer, has earlier served as the political secretary to UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and was considered one of the most powerful persons in the party.

The money laundering case is connected to an alleged Rs 14,500 crore bank loan fraud that is said to have been perpetrated by the Vadodara-based pharma firm Sterling Biotech and its main promoters and directors - Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, Chetankumar Jayantilal Sandesara and Deepti Sandesara - all of whom are absconding. Nitin and Chetankumar are brothers.

They are said to be hiding in Nigeria. An Interpol red corner notice request is pending against the Sandesara brothers and efforts to extradite them are on.

In June 2019, the ED attached moveable and immovable properties worth Rs 9,778 crores belonging to the Sandesaras including four oil rigs and oil fields in Nigeria and several ships apart from a Gulfstream aircraft and flat in London.

Ahmed Patels son Faisal Patel and son-in-law Irfan Siddiqui were questioned by ED in this case last year.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday came out with a set of guidelines for Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad for the second phase of Unlock, billed as Unlock-2 amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As per the guidelines, the district magistrates have been directed to take a call on restrictions on commute and traffic. However, the situation regarding the Delhi border has not been clarified.

While the ban has been removed from the borders across all states, as per the guidelines, the district magistrates of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad can consult district authorities, the police and the health department and take a call on imposing a separate ban on the border areas.

Also read: India crosses 6 lakh mark with over 19,000 cases; 434 fatalities in last 24 hours

The guidelines, issued by the state chief secretary on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government, stated that night curfew will be in place from 10 pm to 5 am across the state except for the Meerut division and Gautam Buddh Nagar.

Movement of people and vehicles, except for essential services, has been banned from 8 pm to 6 am till July 10 in Gautam Buddh Nagar, an official order stated.

For the districts falling in the Meerut division, the night curfew will be from 8 pm to 6 am till July 10. Night curfews are not applicable to those working in multiple shifts in industrial units.

Section 144 in Gautam Buddh Nagar

In the view of Covid-19 crisis, Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code - which bans unlawful assembly of people - was extended in Gautam Buddh Nagar district till July 31 on Wednesday.

Fifty-eight more people tested positive for coronavirus here on Wednesday, pushing the tally of cases to 2,362, the highest for any district in Uttar Pradesh, official data showed on Wednesday.

Restrictions under CrPC section 144 will remain in force in Gautam Buddh Nagar till July 31, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, Law and Order, Ashutosh Dwivedi said.

Political, social, sporting or religious congregations, protest rallies or processions will remain banned across Noida and Greater Noida during the period, the Gautam Nagar district police said, adding that nobody would be allowed to move in or out of containment zones in Gautam Buddh Nagar except for medical personnel and essential service providers.

(With inputs from PTI)
The Shiv Sena mocked at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government (NDA) on Thursday, a few days after the Centre banned 59 Chinese applications (apps), citing threat to national security, and called the move a digital revenge for the violent hand-to-hand combat between Indian and Chinese troops along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) on June 15.

The clash that had occurred in eastern Ladakhs Galwan Valley along the LAC had left 20 Indian soldiers dead. The Sena in a scathing editorial in the partys Marathi mouthpiece, Saamana, questioned the timing of the ban and asked the reason for the Centres delay if the intelligence agencies knew the apps posed a threat to national security.

It also contrasted the decision to ban Chinese apps with the surgical strike at Balakot in Pakistan after terror attacks in Uri and Pulwama in September 2016 and February 2019, respectively. On Monday, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok and SHAREit.

The Centre stated that it has received many complaints from various sources, including several reports about the misuse of these apps for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users data in an unauthorised manner to servers, which are based out of India.

The ban is being projected as a bid to protect the sovereignty of Indian cyberspace and to ensure the interests of crores of Indian mobile phone users and also a major blow to Chinas Digital Silk Route ambitions.The editorial said that banning apps would not impact the Chinese economy, as the Asian powerhouses businesses and investments in India are huge.

It cited the permission given to Chinese telecom giant Huawei to start fifth-generation (5G) trials in India, which is akin to handing over the keys of Indias future economy to Beijing. It also reminded the government to persist with its digital awakening programme.The Centre, according to the editorial, claimed that users data was used by the Chinese intelligence agencies and the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

If there was a threat to national security, then why were these apps allowed to function and their businesses thrive for all these years? it asked.The editorial said there has been no change in the ground realities, despite the ban on these applications.The Chinese troops are still in Galwan Valley and are refusing to withdraw from there.

In a sarcastic remark, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party alleged that apps such as TikTok encouraged vulgarity and took a dig at some TikTok stars, who have recently joined the BJP.The Sena asked rival BJP to answer about the future of these Tik Tok stars-turned-saffron party leaders amid the ban on the Chinese app.
The Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh cabinet will be expanded on Thursday with some of the former Congress MLAs who joined the BJP in March expected to get ministerial berths.

While the names were yet to be announced, BJP sources claimed that about two dozen new ministers will be inducted.

The oath of office will be administered by Governor Anandiben Patel at Raj Bhawan at 11 am, officials said.

Patel, who is Uttar Pradesh governor, has been given additional charge as Madhya Pradesh governor in view of incumbent Lalji Tandons hospitalisation. Patel took oath as MP governor earlier in the day.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan confirmed that the cabinet expansion will take place on Thursday.

Asked about the delay in cabinet expansion, Chouhan avoided a direct reply and turned to mythology.

Only amrit (elixir) comes out of manthan (churning), vish (poison) is consumed by (Lord) Shiva, the 61-year-old BJP leader said without elaborating but indicating the difficult task before him.

BJP national vice president Vinay Sahastrabuddhe arrived here on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the expansion, BJP sources said.

A BJP leader said that Sahastrabuddhe, Chouhan and state BJP chief V D Sharma were holding meetings on Wednesday night with party legislators at the CMs house to give final touches to the list of new ministers.

They were also trying to mollify some senior BJP legislators who would not get a cabinet berth, he said.

Former Union minister and BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia will arrive on Thursday morning to participate in the oath-taking ceremony.

Around two dozen new ministers including some former Congress MLAs (who joined the BJP in March alongwith their leader Scindia) are likely to be inducted into the cabinet, BJP sources said.

The initial mini expansion of the Chouhan cabinet took place on April 21 with the induction of five ministers, including two former Congress MLAs close to Scindia -- Tulsi Silawat and Govind Singh Rajput.

Chouhan took oath as chief minister for a record fourth term on March 23 this year, after Kamal Nath resigned from the post following rebellion by 22 MLAs of the Congress.

Sources close to Scindia said that besides the remainingfour ministers who had quit the Kamal Nath government, six others from his camp are likely to be inducted into the cabinet.
The Crime Branch-CID (CB-CID) on Thursday arrested four people in connection with the deaths of two people in police custody in Tamil Nadus Tuticorin. Those arrested include Inspector Sridhar, who reportedly asked other policemen to thrash the father-son duo after their arrest.

Sub-inspector Raghu Ganesh was arrested on Wednesday. Total five policemen - one inspector, one sub-inspector and three constables - have so far been arrested in the case.

People came out in large numbers and burst crackers to celebrate the arrests in Sathankulam, where the incident took place.

P Jayaraj (59) and his son J Bennicks (31) were arrested on June 19 and lodged in Kovilpatti sub-jail for keeping their mobile phone shop in the main market of Sathankulam town open during a curfew imposed during coronavirus lockdown.

Jayaraju and Benicks were allegedly tortured during the police custody after which they were admitted to the Kovilpatti government hospital on June 22. While the son died on the same night, the father breathed his last on the morning of June 23.

A policewoman is the only eyewitness in the case, and she told Judicial magistrate M S Barathidasan, who investigated the incident, that both Jayaraj and Bennicks were beaten through the night on June 19.

There were blood stains on the lathis and a table, she said and asked the magistrate to obtain them immediately.

The state government has decided to give full protection to the woman head constable.

On Tuesday, the Madras High Court directed the CB-CIDs Tirunelveli Deputy Superintendent of Police Anil Kumar to probe the death of the two traders. Though the Tamil Nadu government has already handed over the cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the court directed a CB-CID probe into the matter saying it feared that evidence could disappear by the time CBI took over the probe.

The probe team conducted enquiries with the family members of the deceased and also in the market where the two men ran their mobile phone shop.

Investigators also visited the Sathankulam police station which has since been brought under the Revenue department under the high courts direction.
Coal production in 18 open cast and 27 underground mines of Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) in northern Telangana came to a halt on Thursday with nearly 48,000-odd coal mine workers commencing their 72-hour strike in protest against the Centres decision to auction 41 coal blocks for commercial mining.

The strike was called by six coal mine workers unions affiliated to national unions: All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), Hindustan Mazdoor Sangh (HMS), Confederation of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).

The Telangana Boggu Gani Karmika Sangham (TBGKS), affiliated to ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the state, also lent support to the strike, but announced that it would take part in the agitation only for one day.

The coal mine workers belonging to the Singareni Collieries in four erstwhile combined districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam, along Godavari river belt, abstained from work and raised slogans against the Central governments decision.

The police made elaborate security arrangements at all mines to ensure that the workers would not resort to violent agitations. However, the strike went off peacefully as the workers did not assemble in huge gatherings due to Covid-19 restrictions.

AITUC leader of Singareni Collieries Vasireddy Seetharamaiah told reporters at Kothagudem that the Centre was trying to weaken the coal industry by permitting discriminative outsourcing in the Coal India Limited and SCCL.

He also demanded increased wages for all contract workers and immediate payment of 50 per cent wages to employees as per National Coal Wage Agreement, which was deferred in March.

Former Nizamabad MP and former honorary president of TBGKS Kalvakuntla Kavitha demanded that the Centre roll back its decision to privatise coal mines.

Today, across the Nation, thousands of coal mine workers are on strike demanding that the central government roll back the decision to auction coal blocks to private companies. We demand that this privatization move be rolled back, she tweeted.

TBGKS general secretary Miriyal Raji Reddy said the workers were worried about their future as the public undertaking company might not face the competition from private companies.

It will adversely impact Singareni coal mines in Telangana. How can it create an atmanirbhar Bharat? he asked.
In two separate incidents, four persons drowned to death in Godavari river on Wednesday in Telanganas Jayashankar Bhupalpally district, the police said.The accident victims had gone to the river for taking a holy dip on Wednesday on the auspicious occasion of Tholi Ekadasi, a Hindu ritual.

The police recovered two bodies at two different places on Wednesday night and two more on Thursday morning.Panthangi Pradeep (20), Akula Karthik (22), and Thota Ravinder (13), who lived in Lenkalgadda village under Palimela Mandal, went for a holy dip in the river on Wednesday afternoon.

However, all three were washed away by the rivers strong water current, said an official from Bhupalpally police station.Expert swimmers were pressed into the rescue operation.Pradeeps body was fished out late at night on Wednesday and the other two were recovered on Thursday morning, the police said.

On Wednesday night, the body of Tungala Srisailam (21) of Pothavada in Mahadevapur was also recovered.We have sent the bodies for post-mortem examination and registered a case of accidental death. Investigations are on, the police added.
A five-year old girl from Telanganas Yadadri Bhongir district was killed on Thursday by a man who had allegedly been stalking her mother, over suspicion that she had an affair with another man, the police said.

The incident happened at around 12.30 pm at Vihari Homes Colony at Pocharam village of Ghatkesar block, about 20 km from Hyderabad. Karunakar (35), who killed the girl by slitting her throat with a sharp knife, also attempted suicide by slashing his own throat, but the police arrived in time and shifted him to a local hospital.

The Ghatkesar police said they were investigating all angles including an alleged affair between the girls mother and Karunakar, who had been her Facebook friend for the last two years.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the woman, who has been staying at Pocharam along with her husband and their five-year old daughter, had also been in friendship with another man Rajasekhar from Siricilla on Facebook.

A day after Kurukshetra man kills himself, his girlfriend also ends life in Mohali

Karunakar had been regularly visiting her house and suspected her to have developed intimacy with Rajasekhar of late. On Thursday, he found her talking to Rajasekhar at her house. On seeing Karunakar, Rajasekhar went into a bathroom and locked himself.

An agitated Karunakar threatened to kill the womans daughter if Rajasekhar did not come out. Later, in a fit of rage, he slit the throat of the girl with a knife. When her mother raised an alarm, Rajasekhar came out of the bathroom and fled the house. On hearing the noise, the neighbours rushed there only to find the girl in a pool of blood and her mother in an unconscious state. Karunakar came out shouting and tried to cut his own throat, but the neighbours prevented him, the police said.

The police soon rushed to the spot and took Karunakar into custody. They shifted him and the woman into the hospital. The girls body was also shifted to Hyderabad for post mortem.

Telangana private school teachers hold demo seeking wages, govt help

Malkajgiri deputy commissioner of police Rakshita K Murthy, ACP Narasimha Reddy and Ghatkesar inspector P Raghuveer Reddy went to the colony and made enquiries with the neighbours.

The DCP, who is supervising the investigation, said the facts of the case were still being ascertained. The woman is under treatment and is not in a position to talk. Her husband is also in a state of shock. Unless they speak out, we cannot disclose what exactly happened and the reasons behind such gruesome killing, she said.
BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday hit out at Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders for levelling charges against him and sought to silence his critics by saying Tiger abhi zinda hai.

The Rajya Sabha member was in Bhopal to attend the expansion of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan Cabinet and other programmes.

Addressing BJP workers at the state party office, Scindia said, Congress leaders have been levelling charges against me for 90 days but I didnt say anything. Today, I wish to tell people that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his ministerial colleagues, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state BJP president VD Sharma and lakhs of BJP workers were in service of people, the Congress leaders were only hurling accusations while confined in air conditioned rooms. These leaders are not concerned about Madhya Pradesh and its 7.5 crore people but their own business.

I wish to tell both of them. Kamal Nath ji and Digvijay Singh ji! Please listen, both of you- Tiger abhi zinda hai, he said, lashing out at the Congress, the party he was associated with for many years before quitting it in March this year.

Continuing his attack against the previous Congress government, Scindia added, Service to people can be rendered with the feeling of service only. It cant be done merely through speeches. But the Congress government lacked this feeling. Congress has been hurling accusations for a long time but now we will give a befitting reply to it. Ninety days have passed. Now, its time of war.

He said, I will work for the party workers as a shield and a sword both.The Scindia family has always stood by the truth. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not working as a Prime Minister but a pradhan sevak. Our ministers too are a team of sevak for people. This is not a time of celebration but to work to ensure justice to people after the injustice meted out to them in the Congress 15 months rule.

Reacting to Scindias remarks, state Congress spokesperson JP Dhanopia said, The same remark- Tiger abhi zinda hai - had earlier come from chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Its just to motivate the party workers as both of them know that BJP is going to lose all the 24 assembly seats in the bypolls and Congress will form its government again.

-Ends
Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi should coordinate their response to the Covid-19 outbreak by focussing on timely hospital access and using available tools for contact tracing, Union home minister Amit Shah advised its chief ministers on Thursday, stepping up efforts to contain the epidemic in the National Capital Region (NCR).

The matter was discussed at a meeting called by Shah to form a unified strategy in region that is home to close to 30 million people and has some of the countrys biggest industrial clusters, but is splintered into several cities and towns with distinct administrative structures.

Together, the four key cities  Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Ghaziabad -- account for over 100,000 infections till now, with the Capital alone recording close to 90% of it. Delhi, however, also has close to 67% of the NCR population and the highest per capita testing in the country, which means it is likely to detect more of the outbreak.

The states must focus on saving lives by ensuring Covid-19 infected people who need to get to a hospital are able to do so on time, and that the administrations use platforms such as Aarogya Setu and ITIHAAS, the home minister told the three CMs: Delhis Arvind Kejriwal, Haryanas Manohar Lal Khattar and Uttar Pradeshs Yogi Adityanath.

Separately, the Union minister suggested that UP and Haryana ramp up tests using rapid antigen kits to help reduce infection transmission rate, a statement by a spokesperson quoted Shah as telling these leaders. These kits can be provided by the Union government to UP and Haryana, the minister added, according to tweets by a home ministry spokesperson.

Aarogya Setu logs close contacts and location histories of people using smartphones, ITIHAAS is a location tracking system based on mobile network data  this can identify people who have basic phones as well.

Antigen tests  they take 30 minutes for a result while lab tests can take at least a day  have helped Delhi double the number of daily tests in the span of a month, helping bolster the tracing and treatment process. The turnaround came in mid-June after a slew of meetings between central and state government officials who gathered after cases in the Capital recorded a sharp, sustained spike.

Officials in the Delhi government did not respond to requests for a comment on the meeting.

The challenges of the divided administrative nature of NCR  where millions of people move between these cities for work and study  came to fore when Delhi decided to reserve its hospital beds for people who live in the city, a move that was later overturned; Haryana virtually sealed its border with Delhi on several occasions, blaming infections contracted in Delhi for fuelling their outbreak; and Noida and Ghaziabad have not opened the border for all commuters yet.

According to a home ministry spokesperson, the meeting lasted over an hour and included health minister Harsh Vardhan, Niti Aayog member VK Paul and several other senior officials through video-conferencing.

A Haryana government official, asking not to be named, said the Union government nudged the state government to increase testing and bring down the positivity rate  the proportion of positive cases per sample  in order to better detect the outbreak.
While Tripura was observing World Doctors Day on Wednesday, nearly 90 intern doctors of Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC) protested over non-payment of their stipends for the past two months.

The protest ended in the evening after medical superintendent Dr Debasish Roy, including other medical officials, assured to solve the issue within a week.

The interns are given a stipend of nearly Rs. 18,000 as per the regulations.

Also read: Nearly 2 lakh new cases in past 12 days in India

This is unfortunate that we were not paid our stipend even after working for 16 hours or beyond in the hospital. After we protested, we have been assured redressal to our problem, said a medical intern.

Dr Roy said,  It takes time to process the first stipends and they have joined as interns recently. We have talked to them and assured that their stipends would be credited to their bank accounts within a week. The health services are also normal now.
A 50-year-old farmer allegedly died by suicide following an argument with his daughter over his failure to buy a smartphone at a village in Sepahijala District of Tripura.

The incident came to notice on Wednesday, police said.

Police said that the deceaseds daughter, a Class 10 student, demanded a smartphone for herself so that she could continue her online classes. But her father managed to buy an ordinary phone on Tuesday which she didnt like and smashed the phone. This led to an argument between them after which he was last seen moving to his room. The next day, he was found dead in his room.

 We inquired some locals and his family about the matter. During our investigation, we got to know that there was an argument in his house over his failure to buy a smartphone for his daughter. We conducted post mortem and handed over the body to them. We took an unnatural death case, said officer in-charge of Madhupur police station Tapas Das.
United States president Donald Trump has blamed Chinese aggression for the stand-off at the India-China border and suggested this fits in with a broader pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world, unequivocally spelling out Washingtons position on the tensions in the region.

Quoting Trump from her notes at briefing, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany late on Wednesday said: Chinas aggressive stance along the India-China border fits with a larger a pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world and these actions only confirm the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party.

The remarks went much further than the studied neutral tone the White House had maintained thus far on the dispute, according to close observers of India-US relations, who added that they reflected a growing strategic convergence between the countries.

Trumps remarks come in the backdrop of both an escalation in US-China tensions, as well as Chinese actions both internally as well as across the Asian geopolitical theatre in the past few months. The US in general, and Trump in particular, was engaged in a trade war with China before the coronavirus pandemic. Since the pandemic, even as trade tensions have deepened, the US president has categorically blamed the Chinese virus and omissions by Chinas regime for its spread.

For its part, in the past two months, China has passed what is widely considered a repressive national security legislation regarding Hong Kong, eroding its autonomy; it has stepped up its offensive in the South China Sea against countries such as Vietnam, while projecting power against islands in the East China Sea which Japan considers its own. And China has attempted to change the status quo at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India, which resulted in a brutal clash on June 15 in the Galwan Valley, leaving 20 Indian soldiers and an unconfirmed number of Chinese troops dead.

On Wednesday, the Trump White House said the President is closely monitoring the situation and expressed hopes of a peaceful resolution. Both India and China have expressed a desire to de-escalate, and we support a peaceful resolution of the current situation, McEnany said before rolling out the new and more aggressive White House line.

The White House statement reflected a shaper position that had been evolving in the administration, especially by secretary of state Mike Pompeo. Earlier on Wednesday, Pompeo offered full-throated support for the Indian ban on Chinese apps, which, he said, can serve as appendages of the CCPs (Chinese Communist Party) surveillance state. He added, Indias Clean App approach will boost Indias sovereignty.

There is also bipartisan purchase in the US Congress of Chinas responsibility in triggering the border clashes. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator and close ally of the president, has said that China has essentially invaded India, an ally of ours. Marco Rubio, another Republican senator, has called Chinese actions at the border unwarranted and lawless armed aggression. Brad Sherman, a senior Democratic member of the House of Representatives, has slammed Chinese aggression for the June 15 clashes. Sherman is also the co-chair of House India caucus.

Commenting on the White House statement, Arun Singh, former Indian ambassador to the US, said that the Trump administration, more than any administration since 1990, has been far more upfront in being critical of practices of the CCP for both its own domestic political purposes and to meet the economic, technological and military challenge from China.

Of late, administration officials  including national security adviser Robert OBrien and Pompeo  have repeatedly criticised Chinas strategies in the East China Sea, South China Sea, and now, its action across the LAC. The US strategy certainly coincides with Indias position, he added.

Singh said that the US had been careful in showing support to the extent that India found helpful and was comfortable with, except for Trumps offer of mediation (which was rejected by India).

But offering a note of caution, he said, One must keep in mind that the US will determine its China policy based on its own interests. One cant rule out the possibility that Trump may still try to strike a trade deal with China before the November elections because it may help him domestically. The underlying tensions in the relationship, however, he said, will continue, giving India enhanced space.

Vipin Narang, associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that one of the Trump administrations foreign policy bright spots have been its relationship with India, and his personal bonhomie with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

That does not mean that the relationship is all roses, but there is a lot of sympathy and friendship toward India, across both parties and especially the Trump administration which has remained silent on domestic issues that some members of the Democratic Party have expressed concern about. Paired with a lot of anger toward China, particularly for its handling of the pandemic and on trade, it is unsurprising to hear secretary Pompeo and the White House express sympathy toward India for what is perceived as Chinas aggression  not just West, but also East in Hong Kong and the South China Seas.

On how this will get reflected in tangible ways, Narang said, Beyond expressions of sympathy, it is possible that the US is providing India with intelligence and imagery on the border, though that is publicly unknown. Beyond that, however, in an election year and with the pandemic, I would not expect much more overt from the US  there may be a lot going on behind the scenes, but publicly Washington is happy to let Delhi set the pace of the relationship.

But Narang added that if Delhi wanted something, it will, in all likelihood, have a willing administration in Washington right now.
The Madurai bench of the Madras high court (HC) on Thursday ordered the police to send a lady police official, who is the key eyewitness in the alleged Tuticorin custodial father-son death case, on a months paid leave from July 1 and deputed four police constables outside her house for protection.

The HC bench spoke to the eyewitness, a head constable of Sathankulam police station, which had arrested the slain father Jayaraj (59), and his son J Bennicks (31), on June 19. She testified on record that the father and son were beaten through the night on June 19. However, she sought anonymity as she was concerned about the repercussions she may face due to her testimony.

The court has assured me with all possible help, the lady head constable told HT. Police have been stationed in front of my house. My family and I are safe for now, she added.Tamil Nadus Crime Branch, Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID), which is in-charge of the investigation, arrested inspector Sridhar, sub-inspector Balakrishnan and constable Murugan on Thursday in connection with the alleged custodial deaths of the father and son.

So far, five policemen have been charged under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in connection with the alleged custodial deaths based on the key eyewitnesss statement and preliminary post-mortem reports.

Sub-inspector Raghu Ganesh, who was under suspension, was arrested on Wednesday.On June 30, the court had observed that there will be an attempt to intimidate her and make her resile her version and directed the Thoothukudi district collector (DC) to immediately ensure safety for her and her family members. The CB CID is on the lookout for the fifth policeman, a constable.

DC Sandeep Nanduri had told HT that the eyewitness would go on a paid leave for a month, starting July 1. The district authorities would deploy four police constables -- two men and two women  in front of her house, he had said.It is not yet clear whether her parents home will receive any police protection.

The court hasnt given any specific direction [on Thursday regarding the security arrangements] and they seem to be satisfied with the arrangements, Nanduri said.On June 28, the lady head constable had given her testimony to judicial magistrate of Kovilpatti, MS Barathidasan. She had recounted that Jayaraj and Bennicks were beaten from the night of their arrest on June 19 into the morning. Lathis and a table that were stained with blood should be seized, she had told the magistrate.

In its June 30 order, the court asked Barathidasan to hand over the lady head constables original statement to the investigating officer (IO) Anil Kumar, deputy superintendent of police, CB-CID, Tirunelveli, who will probe the case until the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) takes over.

Earlier, Jayaraj and his son J Bennicks were arrested by Sathankulam police station authorities on June 19 and lodged in Kovilpatti sub-jail for keeping their mobile phone shop in the Sathankulam main bazaar area open during a curfew imposed because of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) lockdown.

Initially, they were admitted to the Kovilpatti government hospital on June 22. While the son died on the same night, the father passed away the following morning.

The court also looked into the 10-crore three-year Police Wellbeing Programme which the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (Nimhans) Bengaluru was assigned to conduct for the Tamil Nadu state police starting 2018. The court on Thursday held a video conference with Dr Sekar, Nimhans registrar, Dr C Ramasubramaniam, nodal officer and Thamarai Kannan, ADGP- Welfare to study the progress of the programme. Only through such wellbeing programmes can violent propensities in individuals be stymied, the court said, urging the government to continue with it. On the one hand, those responsible for the death of Bennicks and Jayaraj should not go scot-free and on the other hand, we cannot afford to lose any more Bennicks and Jayarajs to violence.

The court further spoke to experts that Covid-19 pandemic is likely to increase mental illness amongst the society at large.
The Uttarakhand tourism department has decided to reconsider all its contracts with Chinese companies, if any, across tourism development projects amid calls to boycott China. This comes in the backdrop of the brutal Ladakh face-off with China wherein 20 Indian soldiers were killed last month.

The development came after state tourism minister Satpal Maharaj on Tuesday evening asked the tourism secretary to make a list of all the projects in which China is involved in any manner.

Maharaj, while informing about the move said, After what happened in Galwan Valley and amid the efforts of our country to decrease our dependency on China, I have directed the tourism secretary to make a list of all the projects in which China is involved. Once it is done, we will reconsider all contracts or agreements with them.

Also read: Banning Chinese apps a digital strike - Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

Maharaj said that the projects may include the ropeway development ones, developing any tourist destination or any other project where the raw material is to be bought from China.

The minister, however, refused to say whether the department will cancel all such agreements with the Chinese companies.

We will reconsider all of them and take necessary action after discussing the move with other officials of the government, said Maharaj.

The tourism minister said that gradually the state would move towards disengaging all projects with China to lessen dependency on it. He also hailed Centres recent move of banning 59 Chinese mobile applications.

Recently, PM Narendra Modi banned one of the popular apps called TikTok which is a significant move considering the fact that it was spying upon the data of its user. This cannot be ruled out for the Chinese companies involved in tourism projects also, said Maharaj.
Forty-four years ago, Israeli commandos carried out what is rated as the most incredible military operations in history: the Entebbe Raid. On the anniversary of the raid, two of its participants, Mossad agent Avner Avraham and special forces officer Rami Sherman, spoke about what they experienced.

A nurse from Manchester began the intelligence process. As the hijacked Air France flight was en route to Entebbe in Uganda, a British-Israeli nurse Patricia Martel deliberately cut herself and, bleeding profusely, claimed she was having a miscarriage. The four hijackers, two German and two Arab, let her off when the plane stopped in Benghazi in Libya to refuel.

Said Rami Sherman, a member of the crack Israeli Sayeret Matkal and veteran of the Entebbe raid, She flew back to London from Benghazi and was immediately met by agents of MI6 and Mossad. They gave her thousands of photographs. She identified the terrorists, told how many there were and what kind of weapons they had.

In theory, there had been advance information. One old lady passenger, when the four hijackers boarded the flight in Athens with large bags, had called out, Theyre terrorists!

Sherman said, Of course, no one paid attention. Hijacking in those days was common. In 1972 there was a hijack every month. It was Sunday, June 27, 1976.

One of the photographs of the airport taken by a civilian Israeli pilot and brought back to Israel. (Pic: Sourced)

The plane flew to Entebbe. There the passengers were separated, Israelis and other Jews on one side, everyone else on the other. Said Sherman, himself a concentration camp survivor, This news: Germans with guns selecting Jews from a captive group. It evoked the Holocaust. But the Israeli government still this as something best left to France to handle.

Over a hundred non-Jewish passengers were released and sent to Paris. Mossad agents met them and interrogated them.

Avner Abraham, a former Mossad agent who served on the operations room, describes how information was collected. Ugandas brutal ruler, Idi Amin, had received Israeli military training when he was a soldier. One of his former trainers got on the line and spoke with him on the telephone five times to glean what was on his mind. An Israeli engineer showed up with blueprints of the airport terminal where the hostages were being held. His company had won the tender to construct the building. Another enterprising Israeli, using a small Cessna propeller plane, flew repeatedly over the airport taking photographs and flew back home to deliver the photographs to the then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.

The Israeli government was divided over the raid. The army chief of staff felt the raid was too risky, an operation from a James Bond movie. Israel had no intelligence assets in Uganda, though they had plenty in neighbouring Kenya. Even while this was going on, says Sherman, Defence minister Shimon Peres insisted we should go ahead, prepare and plan.

The terrorists announced that after Thursday noon they said would shoot two hostages every hour. Playing for time and in violation of Israeli policy, Rabin announced his government would concede to the terrorists demand to release over 50 Arab prisoners. But the Israeli government now accepted that this was now their responsibility.

From morning until 6 pm on Friday the plan was finalised, said Sherman. The intelligence operations were over and it was now left to us to rehearse. The commando debated what they would do on the ground. We concluded there was one important question. How do we ensure we surprise the terrorists? How do we ensure we are the ones to shoot first? This was a key question.

Nurse Patricia Martel who was the first intelligence source on the hijacking (Pic: Sourced)

As is well-known, Mossad procured a Mercedes Benz limousine of the variety used by Idi Amin. Avraham says, When we brought the Benz, it was grey. It had to be black. It was Saturday and the shops were closed but we tracked down the owner of one shop in a synagogue and got black spray paint from him. In total, four C-130 Hercules and two Boeing 707s would go on the 4000 km trip, carrying a total of 180 soldiers, 40 aircrew and 21 doctors and other staff. The single Hercules that would land at Entebbe would carry the Benz, a jeep and 33 soldiers.

Sherman says that even as they were rehearsing the attack and learning to land the C-130 on runways without lights, We all though the government wouldnt make the decision to let us go. It was simply too risky.

On Saturday 230 pm, he was in the main C-130 among the assault team lead by Yoni Netanyahu, brother of the present Israeli prime minister, as it left Sharm el Sheikh. Even then, the government had yet to give a green light. We flew for three hours, most of the time at 30 meters above the ground. There was so much turbulence some of us were throwing up.

At 6:30 pm, when the plane was over Ethiopia, they received the go ahead. Operation Thunderbolt was on. We flew three more hours, part of it through a terrible thunderstorm, before we found ourselves approaching the airport. We arrived at 23:01 hours, just one minute behind our scheduled time.

The plane landed, 33 soldiers disembarked with a Benz and a Landrover jeep. It was a beautiful night, sky was full of stars. What I remember the most was the quietness, especially after a very noisy flight, says Sherman. The soldiers, dressed in Ugandan uniforms but wearing white hats to avoid friendly fire, headed to the terminal building.

Two Ugandan soldiers waved them down. We had too little time to talk our way through. Yoni Netanyahu and another soldier shot them.

The element of surprise, however, was now lost. The Israelis began exchanging fire with the terrorists and Ugandan soldiers in the control tower. Netanyahu was hit and died soon afterwards, the only Israeli soldier to die. I fought with the people in the control tower, says Sherman. The battle was over in seven minutes. Other soldiers ran into the terminal to the hostages. My last duty was to lead the hostages from the terminal building to the waiting airplane, says Sherman. They had been awoken from sleep by the shooting, some had no shoes while others had babies, they were in shock.

Another commando detachment raided a nearby Ugandan airbase and destroyed 11 MiG fighters parked there to

they would not be scrambled in pursuit. It was also a favour to the Kenyans who were helping us, says Sherman.

Between the C-130 landing with the commandos and then taking off with the hostages, 52 minutes had elapsed. The plane flew to Nairobi for refuelling. Says Avraham, The local Mossad cell head was waiting at the airport with some local Israeli businessmen. The businessmen took the injured to local hospitals, others were taken to the Boeing 707 field hospital.

Sherman said his heroes in the operation were the Israeli pilots who stretched everything to the limit, Air France captain Michel Bacos who refused to leave his passengers even when given an opportunity, and Prime Minister Rabin for taking the decision. Rabin had dictated a resignation letter to his secretary in the eventuality of the mission failing. The prime minister, himself a former chief of staff, had decided that over 30 casualties would constitute failure.

It was a mission that ended up defining modern Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, then a businessman in the United States, would receive a phone call informing him of his brothers death and decide to enter Israeli politics. Operation Thunderbolt was renamed Operation Yonatan in his brothers honour. One of the military intelligence officers handling the operation, Ehud Barak, was to become a future prime minister. And Israels present foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, was among those on the C-130s that flew to Entebbe.
Mumbai: The special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai on Thursday granted protection to Rana Kapoor, YES Banks co-founder, former managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), from arrest by CBI until July 11 in two cases registered against him in connection with the banks fraud case.

Earlier in March, CBI had registered two cases against Kapoor.

One first information report (FIR) had alleged that the bankrupt YES Bank had invested Rs 3,700 crore in short-term debentures of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) between April and June, 2018.

In lieu, Kapoor was allegedly paid kickbacks to the tune of Rs 600 crore by DHFL promoter, Kapil Wadhawan.

DHFL had sanctioned a loan to DoIT Urban Ventures (India) Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RAB Enterprises in which Kapoors wife Bindu is a director and 100% shareholder, the CBI had stated in its FIR.

Kapoors three daughters -- Rakhee Kapoor Tandon, Roshni Kapoor and Radha Kapoor -- are also 100% shareholders in DoIT Urban Ventures (India) Pvt Ltd.

It is on the basis of the CBI case that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) began its probe into allegations of money laundering by Kapoor and subsequently arrested him in early March.

In the second case, CBI alleged that Kapoor and his wife bought a bungalow from Avantha Group promoter Gautam Thapar at a much lower price than its market valuation.

In the past, Thapar had mortgaged the bungalow for a corporate loan of Rs 600 crore, but he sold it for Rs 380 crore to Bliss Abode Pvt Ltd, when Kapoors wife was a director of the company.

On March 20, CBI had obtained production warrant to arrest Kapoor after he was remanded to judicial custody by the Prevention of the Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court.

The agency, however, had not executed the warrant.

Kapoor had moved special CBI court last month for anticipatory bail.

The special CBI court had directed the agency to file a reply on Kapoors plea.

On Thursday, when the plea came up for hearing, Kapoors lawyers, Abad Ponda and Subhash Jadhav, sought for interim protection against the arrest.

The central agency is yet to submit its reply on the plea.
Two renowned Indian-Americans who have contributed towards the efforts in mitigating the Covid-19 health crisis are among the 38 immigrants honoured by a prestigious American foundation ahead of US Independence Day commemoration this year.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Professor of Economics at Harvard University Raj Chetty have been named by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as 2020 Great Immigrants honourees, the Corporation said in a statement on Wednesday.

Born in New Delhi, Mukherjee is a noted biologist, oncologist and the author of several acclaimed books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

Since 2009, he has served on the faculty of Columbia University, where he is associate professor of medicine and a practising physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. In 2014, Mukherjee was awarded the Padma Shri, one of Indias highest civilian honours.

The Carnegie Corporation said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, Mukherjee has used his gifts as a science communicator to educate the public about the virus through essays, in media interviews, at public forums, as well as through his social media accounts.

Mukherjee has stressed the importance of following guidelines to social distance, wear masks and to self-isolate when necessary, it said.

In May, he was selected by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to serve on a 15-member Blue-Ribbon Commission focusing on improving telehealth and broadband access in response to the Covid-19 health crisis.

Raj Chetty, who was born in New Delhi, has been one of the youngest professors to be granted tenure in Harvards history.

In addition to his position as the William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Chetty directs Opportunity Insights, a research lab that aims to identify barriers to economic and social mobility and develop scalable policy solutions to overcome them, the Corporation said.

He helped launch a resource to monitor the real-time economic impact of Covid-19 on people, businesses and communities across the United States. This tool enables policy makers to make evidence-based decisions that balance vital public health priorities with the economic needs of their communities, it said.

Chetty is optimistic about the potential of big data to inform policy and revive the American dream for the next generation, including immigrants -- like his own family -- who have long pinned their hopes on its promise, the corporation said. For us and many immigrants, thats what Americas all about. If you work hard, you can move up, you can do whatever you want. The skys the limit, the Corporation quoted Chetty as telling the Harvard Gazette.

Every July 4, when America celebrates its Independence Day, the Carnegie Corporation honours the legacy of its founder Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant who rose from poverty to become a leading industrialist, by recognizing an eminent group of immigrants who have made notable contributions to the progress of the American society.

In 2020, the corporation honours 38 naturalized citizens who have enriched and strengthened our nation and our democracy through their contributions and actions, it said.

Great immigrants have come from different backgrounds and have pursued different worthwhile goals. But collectively, they have shared a desire to become citizens and have made our democratic society stronger. For all of their efforts, we salute them, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York Vartan Gregorian said.

The corporation said a third of this years honorees are helping the global health crisis recovery efforts by serving as nurses and doctors, as well as scientists who are striving to find effective treatments and a vaccine for Covid-19.

Clergy and community leaders who are providing food and vital services to those in need are also among those being honoured. Overall, the 2020 Great Immigrants represent 35 countries of origin and a wide range of contributions to American life, from human rights and computer science to art, business, education, health care, journalism, music, politics, religion, research, and sports.

The 2020 honorees, who join more than 600 outstanding immigrants honoured by the Corporation since 2006, are recognized with a full-page public service announcement in the New York Times and a social media tribute on the Fourth of July.
Amartya Sen is a world renowned Nobel Laureate who was awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics. However, did you know that his name was given by another Nobel Laureate who received the award 85 years ago for his contributions to the world of literature? There may be some who must be knowingly nodding their heads as they may have guessed the answer. If not, chances are youre eager to know the answer  its Literature Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

The Nobel Prize Committee took to their official Instagram account to share this bit *trivia*and now it has sparked tons of comments among people.

In the caption, they mentioned that Tagore suggested the name to Sens mother when he was born. The word Amartya means immortal in Bengali. The post further reveals that Sen also attended Tagores experimental school at Santiniketan, West Bengal.

They also shared an image of Sen clicked at his home in Cambridge. What makes the picture even more interesting is that Sen is standing in front of two photographs. One picture shows Rabindranath Tagore sitting in from of a window on a lounge chair. The other image shows Sens grandfather Kshitimohan Sen with Mahatma Gandhi. The post also mentions that the image was taken by Stephanie Mitchell of Harvard University.

Since being shared some 22 hours ago, the post has already gathered over 4,400 likes and also several comments from people. While some wrote about Sen, others were amazed to know that Tagore named him.

I love this brilliant economist, wrote an Instagram user. I had no idea Tagore named him. What an honour, expressed another. He is very admirable and unique, wrote a third.
Mumbai Police has done it again. They have used a reference from a popular web series to put forth an essential advisory message. It is such a note of caution that everyone should follow to stay safe in these perilous times.

In the posts caption, they asked a very simple question - Is it okay to share masks? Then they added the answer, Absolutely not. Its a #Dark habit. It indeed is, and that is why we should never share the mask we are wearing with someone else or use theirs.

Its the image they shared with the post which contains a reference from the German science fiction thriller Dark. What did they share? Take a look at it yourself:

Since being shared just two hours ago, people flooded the post with appreciative comments. There were several who were simply mesmerised by their creativity. A few also shared references from other TV series.

Mumbai Police, you are just awesome to send the messages in your own unique way. We just love it. This is the other side of yours, wrote an Instagram user. What do we say to the God of death? Not today, wrote another drawing a reference from the show Game of Thrones. This is lit, expressed a third. Haha, why are you so cool, wrote a fourth.

What do you think of the post?
Paintings by a Canadian artist who killed himself at age 35 in October are setting records this auction season. At his New York solo debut two years ago, Matthew Wongs new works sold for $22,000. When one of those canvases returned to the market Monday at Sothebys, it fetched $1.5 million excluding fees, with 59 registered bidders from 16 countries in pursuit.

More works are hitting the block: Phillips will offer a painting and a watercolour by Wong on Thursday at its marquee auctions in New York, and another painting next week in Hong Kong.

Wongs career was just taking off at the time of his death, with another solo show a month away and the billionaire Lauder family among his burgeoning collector base. The demand for his melancholy landscapes, often with a tiny, solitary human figure, has only grown since. While his show at Karma in New York proceeded as planned in November, no works were released for sale, according to Brendan Dugan, the owner of the gallery that represents the Wong estate.

I had been hunting for a painting, said David Galperin, head of Sothebys contemporary art evening sales in New York, who secured The Realm of Appearances for the auction. At least on the primary market, Wongs have been nearly impossible to obtain.

Collectors have been fielding offers to sell for as much as $300,000, according to Lisa Schiff, an art adviser who placed 11 pieces with five clients early on. In May, a 2018 watercolour fetched $62,500 at Sothebys, up from less than $5,000 two year ago.

Remarkable things have been happening around his work, Dugan said. Universal yet personal and evocative of traditional styles such as Chinese ink painting and Impressionism, his pieces have drawn strong reactions from the start. There was the urgency for him to create, he said. Thats where the power comes from.

Prolific Painter

Born in Canada, Wong grew up in Hong Kong, studied photography and began painting in his late 20s, without formal training. In recent years he lived with his parents in Edmonton, Alberta, corresponding with critics and dealers on Facebook and visiting fairs in Basel and Los Angeles.

His mother, Monita Wong, told the New York Times in October that her son was on the autism spectrum, had Tourette syndrome and had grappled with depression since childhood.

Wong was prolific, completing paintings in two or three days, said Dugan, whos working on Wongs catalogue raisonne. There were about 1,000 works in the estate at the time of his death.

Dugan met the artist in 2016 through curator Matthew Higgs, who included Wong in a group exhibition -- Outside -- of landscape paintings by outsider artists at Karma in the Hamptons. Two years later, the gallery gave Wong a solo show in New York. Jerry Saltz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for New York magazine, called it one of the most impressive solo New York debuts Ive seen in a while.

The Realm of Appearances, which depicts a richly patterned, jewel-toned meadow beneath a steel-gray night sky, was a centerpiece of the exhibition. In its auction catalog, Sothebys drew parallels between the landscape and works of Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch.

Estimated at $60,000 to $80,000, the lot drew frenzied bidding from collectors in the U.S., Europe and Asia. All of the phone lines were jammed. Bids climbed to $500,000 within seconds -- and kept going until the hammer fell at $1.5 million, resulting in a return of about 6,700% for the anonymous seller.

(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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Indian students are among the biggest group of international students set to benefit from an extended post-study work visa offer for PhD students as well as a more streamlined visa process, announced by the UK government on Wednesday.

As part of a wider Research and Development Roadmap, the British government has pledged to make it easier for international graduates to secure skilled jobs in the UK and contribute to its economic growth.

As part of the new graduate route, international students who complete a PhD from Summer 2021 can stay in the UK for three years after study to live and work, notes a UK government statement.

As previously announced, students who have successfully completed undergraduate and masters degrees will be able to stay two years after study. This will make it easier for some of the best, young international graduates to secure skilled jobs in the UK and contribute to economic growth, it said.

In addition, there are plans to ensure that when the Student Route opens in a few months as part of the UKs new points-based immigration system, there will be a number of improvements which will further streamline the immigration process.

These include extending the window in which prospective students can make visa applications, removing study time limits at postgraduate level and allowing all students to switch to another type of visa from within the UK, the statement notes.

British Council described the new announcements as exciting news, which would help strengthen the talent and research pipeline between India and the UK, leading to greater research innovation and stronger education systems.

Indian PhD students, who have chosen the UK education and work experience route to develop their careers will experience three years in an international context that will benefit these professionals immensely, said Barbara Wickham, Director India, British Council.

This also strengthens our existing programmes such as UKIERI [UK-India Education and Research Initiative] and Newton Bhabha that aim to drive academic links and research collaboration between our two countries, she said.

While the details and fineprint of the changes will become clear over the course of the next few months, the announcement has been widely welcomed as a positive step in attracting talented international students to study and research in the UK. Indian students, seen as particularly sensitive to friendly visa policies, drive the UKs overseas student growth as the second-largest category after China and recently registering a 32.9 per cent rise in applications for 2020 over the previous year.

The post-study work visa will be of particular appeal to students from India, who are very sensitive to whether or not they have an ability to stay on in the country after they graduate to put to use the skills they have acquired in higher education and earn a bit of money to help them pay the pretty considerable fees that our universities charge them, says former UK Universities minister Jo Johnson, who had pushed for an extended post-study visa offer in a recent report.

Universities UK International (UUKi), which represents all major UK universities and has been campaigning for a credible post-study work visa offer  or Graduate Route, welcomed the latest government announcements.

UUKi Director Vivienne Stern said: News that the Graduate Route, announced in September last year, is to be extended to allow PhD students to stay in the UK for three years rather than two is a fantastic development.

The UK is a great place to do a PhD  and we will be fortunate to retain more Indian PhD graduates to contribute to our research system and our economy after they complete their studies. The changes form part of a wider British government strategy to enhance the UKs role as a science and research superpower.

It includes the creation of a new Office for Talent to be based at No. 10 Downing Street with delivery teams across government departments with the aim of making the immigration of scientists, researchers and innovators simple, easy and quick from countries around the world, including India.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)

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With Maharashtra extending the lockdown, numerous restaurants that were ready to reopen, will have to comply a bit longer. However, many of them feel that they are ready and well equipped to handle customers. It is a no brainer that popular joints that have been the lifeline of the city, will have to modify their approach and come out as a safe and secure dining option. But with heavy losses inflicted, it is to be seen if all will be the same.

We were essentially a dine-in brand as we provide a unique experience of making your own pizza using the wood-fired ovens, says Krishna Gupta from Lloyds group that owns the popular Pizza Joint 1441 Pizzeria. With the government imposed restrictions, business has been impacted in a large way. For May, our sales have dropped by 80% & for June the figure was 70-75%. We had to draw loans to keep the stores afloat. We have paid salaries according to company policies and are negotiating with landlords to mitigate the damage and losses in order for us to sustain our business, he adds.

It is the same for Monaz Irani, Founder and Chef at Plate & Pint, Kemps Corner. The hospitality industry was completely crippled by the pandemic. Our restaurant was shut for the first two months, she says. Inspite of that, salaries were paid to the team, after which takeaways and deliveries are gradually resuming, she adds.

The owners are confident that once the lockdown is lifted, they will have every precaution in place for the safety of their customers. Along with the incorporation of mask & gloves in our daily routine, weve regularised hand sanitization & temperature monitoring, says Gupta. Irani adds that they ensure safety by the use of disposable gloves and masks by all our team members and the temperature is checked regularly, too.

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In a meeting with state energy minister Nitin Raut on Thursday, citizen representatives from Mumbai and Thane along with political leaders from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) demanded discounts on power bills, quick redressal on complaints and transparency in the billing system. Citizens across Maharashtra have expressed grief over exorbitant bills issued by utility firms in June 2020.

MNS also submitted a letter demanding a 50% discount on bills as well as direction to not disconnect power supply in case of non-payment. The party also asked the minister to undertake a common meeting with all utility firms to address the issues.

Rahul Daga, resident and chairman of Dosti Lily in Wadala who attended the meeting in Mahavitaran office at Fort, said, Almost every other household has got bills ranging between 25,000 to 35,000. Yesterday, a household complained of getting a 64,000 bill. We need more transparency and quick redressal on these complaints.

Nandakumar Chile from MNS said the minister was positive on the demands. There are cases in the city where people whose houses have been vacant since two months receiving exorbitant bills. The minister accepted that there have been some errors and said it would be inspected soon.

Following thousands of complaints from citizens, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) on Monday has issued directives to utility firms to allow consumers to pay their bills in three easy monthly instalments and not disconnect power until disputes have been resolved. Despite several attempts, Raut was not available for a comment.

Meanwhile, a Mumbai-based NGO, Watchdog Foundation, on Thursday also asked citizens to switch off their electrical appliances as a mark of protest against the bills. The foundation asked citizens to switch off the appliances between 8pm and 8.30pm on Thursday night.

Taapsee Pannu meets Adani officials

Actor Taapsee Pannu, who took to Twitter to complain about the high bill, said she had an hour-long meeting with representatives from the Adani Electricity Mumbai Limited (AEML) on Thursday to understand the issue. Pannu tweeted, So after an hour long meeting, crazy amount of numbers n calculations floating around, realised the approximate reading wasnt really THAT approximate. In fact far from it (sic). She also said, Glad @Adani_Elec_Mum had the patience to clarify every detail and hoping in the future we all will be better prepared and given a better approximate jerk to deal with the reality later.

Energy minister seeks 10,000 crore for Maha discom

State energy minister Nitin Raut on Thursday wrote a letter to the Central government seeking immediate assistance of 10,000 crore for the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL).

Raut said the discom is facing a financial crisis owing to the lockdown as most industries and businesses were shut. Around 60% of MSEDCLs revenue is earned via industrial and commercial sectors.

The adverse effects of lockdown are expected to continue for the next few months. The low revenue will make it difficult to carry out day-to-day operations of MSEDCL, a statement released by Raut stated.

The minister further said the states distribution arm has a total debt of 38,282 crore as of March 2020.
A first information report (FIR), based on a complaint from the civic body, has been filed against Nanavati hospital, one of the major hospitals dedicated to Covid-19 treatment in the city, for allegedly overcharging a patient. The 62-year-old patient, who was in hospital for 47 days, was charged 17 lakh, according to the complaint.

The chairman, top management executives of hospital and other trustees have been booked by the police and summoned for recording their statements. Hindustan Times has a copy of the FIR, in which the names of the individuals have not been mentioned.

The hospital management, in a statement, said, We have learnt from media reports that an FIR has been filed owing to some alleged discrepancy in a bill. We are awaiting the copy of the complaint to scrutinise the bill and will fully cooperate with the authorities concerned to redress the issue. We have registered an offence against chairman and trustees of Nanavati hospital for overcharging a Covid patient, after receiving a complaint from [Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation] BMC officials. Investigation is on, said Abhishek Trimukhe, deputy commissioner of police, zone 9.

We have received a complaint from BMC official on June 30 and on the basis of it, an FIR under section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code has been registered against the executives of the Nanavati hospital, said Suhas Raikar, assistant commissioner of police.

According to the complaint, the victim is a woman from Santacruz. Her son said she was kept in a quarantine facility for two-three days in Lokhandwala. She was in a serious condition when she was taken to the institutional quarantine facility and then on May 9, she was admitted to Nanavati hospital.

She was in the hospital till June 24. She was kept in a non-ICU Covid ward for two days and later, was shifted to a Covid ICU ward. She was on a ventilator for at least 25 days, the son said.

At the time of the admission, her son deposited 90,000. After some days , he was asked to pay an additional amount. After 10-12 days, the family was told that the bill was 9 lakh and after deducting 5 lakh insurance cover and the 90,000 deposit, the family was to pay 3 lakh.

The family approached Shiv Sena leader Nitin Nangaonkar, who spoke to the hospitals management.

As the time of discharge, the family was told that the total bill was 17 lakh and that the family has to pay 11 lakh after deducting insurance cover and deposit

The family said that they were unable to pay the amount and the patients son said that no break-up of the bill was given. The son with the help of Sena leader approached BMC and civic officials began an inquiry.

During the inquiry, civic officials found that the hospital did not follow the governments order with respect to billing and charged the patient exorbitantly, the police said.

Ramchandra Khobrekar, junior auditor of BMCs K/W ward, then filed the police complaint on behalf of BMC. The patient was made witness in the complaint. Khobrekar was unable for comment.

In May, Maharashtra imposed a price cap on private hospitals treating Covid-19 patients after allegations that many of these healthcare facilities were charging exorbitant fees in a bid to compensate for a 90% dip in the admission of non-Covid-19 patients. Restrictions had also been imposed on the billing of medicines in private hospitals.

Private hospitals are allowed to charge up to 4,000 daily for the treatment of Covid-19 patients on a general bed, Rs7,000 for intensive care unit (ICU) and 9,000 for a ventilator, according to the new guidelines issued by the state health department.

All private hospitals come under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, and are liable to follow the rules of the state government amid the pandemic.

The state government offers three kinds of facilities to treat Covid-19 patients.

Government-run hospitals are offering treatment for free, while 1,000 hospitals are covered under the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana, which provides insurance coverage of 1.5 lakh. Private hospitals have to provide treatment as per the concessional rate decided by the state government.
Maharashtra on Thursday recorded its highest single-day spike of 6,330 Covid-19 cases, first in excess of 6,000, as the tally rose to 1,86,626. Of them, 77,260 are active cases, according to data released by the state health department.

In a relief, the number of recovered patients crossed the 1 lakh mark. In the past 24 hours, 8,018 patients had recovered or got discharged from hospitals, after which the tally of recovered patients reached 1,01,172. This also pushed the recovery rate of the state to 54.21%.

Besides, the state has also conducted over 10 lakh Covid-19 tests. On Thursday, the health department said the number of tests conducted at various public and private laboratories stood at 10,20,368. Of them, 8,33,742 people tested negative. It means 18.29% of the total samples tested positive, said an official. Maharashtra has conducted 11.26% of the total tests in the country, as of July 1, with 90,56,173 samples tested across the country.

As there was a projection that the peak is likely to come this month, the number of fresh cases is likely to further rise and the situation may become more challenging in the coming days.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had on Sunday confirmed that there will be a spike in infections in the next few weeks as they have opened up activities and are giving further relaxations from lockdown to ensure revival of the economy. But following the surge in infections, the state has put on hold its plans to provide more relaxations.

Meanwhile, state health minister Rajesh Tope clarified that there is no community transmission in the state. The number of fresh cases is increasing, but it cannot be termed as community transmission as most cases are coming either from containment zones or institutional quarantine facilities. There is no community spread in the state yet, Tope said.

The state on Thursday recorded 125 deaths, taking the toll to 8,178. Of them, 110 deaths were from past 48 hours, while the rest were from past few days, the health officials said.

Mumbai crossed the 80,000 mark after recording 1,554 cases in the past 24 hours. The citys case count stands at 80,699, of which, 25,311 are active cases.

Mumbais toll stands at 4,689 after 58 deaths were reported.

Following the spike in cases, many cities and districts have re-imposed lockdown, although for a brief period, to break the chain of the viruss spread.

Cities in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) such as Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Mira-Bhayandar, Ulhasnagar have imposed lockdown in their jurisdiction for ten days, while in Navi Mumbai and Panvel, it will be enforced from Friday for the next ten days. In Mira Bhayander, it was imposed from July 1.

In MMR, cases have increased to 1,24,597 from 55,086 on June 3, when the state decided to provide relaxations in red zones, including MMR.

In Mumbai, police has restricted the travel up to 2-km for residents, except for office-goers and essential services.

The health minister said that they have found people stepping out of their homes unnecessarily and if that is resulting in rise in cases then curbs will have to be brought back. The state has empowered all municipal commissioners and district collectors to impose necessary restrictions in their jurisdiction to contain spread of the pandemic, whenever required, Tope said.

Lockdown will also be imposed for 12 days in Panvel, which comes under Raigad district, due to spike in cases, from July 3. Aditi Tatkare, guardian minister of the district, said the Raigad is facing different situation as it was also affected by Cyclone Nisarga. There was movement in the district because of different priorities as it was also affected due to cyclone. People from Mumbai have also come in the district as they have their home here too. More importantly, 85-90% of the daily cases are found among people related to essential services or their close contacts, Tatkare said.

Panvel has 2,652 cases at present.

In a meeting chaired by the chief minister to review the pandemic crisis in MMR last week, more stress was given on building jumbo hospitals in the satellite cities, because they dont have enough health infrastructure to cope with the crisis in case of a peak. The CM instructed local authorities to focus on augmenting health infrastructure as we have to be prepared in advance, said an official, privy to the development.

In other cities such as Aurangabad, lockdown will be imposed in Walunj industrial area between July 4-12. In Nashik city, night curfew has been imposed from 7pm to 5am to curb the pandemics spread.

Aurangabad and Nashik have 4,688 and 2,491 cases respectively.

Districts such as Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg and Beed too have imposed lockdown in their jurisdiction following surge in cases. In Ratnagiri, it was enforced from July 1 for eight days, Sindhudurg and Beed imposed it for seven days from July 2.

Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg and Beed have 630, 221 and 121 cases respectively.

Along with surge in cases, the state is also facing a rise in the number of deaths. To control the situation, the state on Thursday declared to start a task force of expert doctors in all districts. State medical education minister Amit Deshmukh said that the task force will work on the lines of the one made in Mumbai. The task force will decide treatment for all types of Covid-19 patients. They will also coordinate among all local authorities in a district. This will help in reducing mortalities as well as control the spread, Deshmukh said.

With 8,053 deaths on Wednesday, the case fatality rate (CFR) of the state was recorded on 4.47%. It is the second-highest in the country after Gujarat, where CFR is 5.62% with 1,867 deaths (33,232 cases) till Wednesday, according to the statistics shared by the state medical education department.

Maharashtra still has highest number of deaths across states in the country.

By the end of May, the state had successfully brought down the CFR to 3.26% (on May 26) from 7.41% (with 148 deaths) on April 13.

So far, 41,741 people have been kept in institutional quarantine in the state and over 5,72,032 people have been put under home quarantine.

The health minister said they will be starting use of plasma therapy in all the districts as it is found as an effective way of treatment. Nine of ten patients are responding well to the therapy, he said.

Tope also said that they will be allowing relatives of the patients to enter Covid hospitals. They will also be directing the hospitals to install CCTV cameras in intensive care units (ICU) so that relatives can see patients from outside.
Mumbai Police have seized 5,877 vehicles in the last two days for violation of its guideline prohibiting citizens from travelling beyond two-km radius of their homes, an official said on Thursday.

In a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19, the city police issued new guidelines on Sunday, stipulating that citizens cannot travel beyond two-km radius of their residences, except for attending office or in the event of medical emergencies.

Accordingly, the police seized 3,508 vehicles on Tuesday and 2,369 vehicles till Wednesday evening for violating the norm, the official said.

Out of these, maximum 1,784 vehicles were seized in the western suburbs in last two days, he said.

Since the lockdown was enforced in March, the city police have registered 12,251 offences against 25,276 people under Indian Penal Code Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), the official said.

More than 14,500 people have been arrested till now in the city for violation of the lockdown orders, he said.
Days after the Centre decided to ban 59 Chinese applications, the Shiv Sena mocked the move, calling it digital revenge for the violent standoff with Chinese troops in Galwan Valley, Ladakh, in which 20 Indian soldiers were martyred.

In an editorial in its party mouthpiece Saamana, Sena asked that if the intelligence apparatus knew the apps posed a security risk, why were they allowed to function all these years. It also contrasted the decision to ban Chinese apps with the surgical strike in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) after terror attacks in Uri and Pulwama.

On Monday, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok and ShareIt. The Centre stated that it has received many complaints from various sources, including several reports, about the misuse of these apps for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users data in an unauthorised manner to servers located outside India. It claimed the move was meant to protect the sovereignty of Indian cyberspace and ensure the interests of crores of Indian mobile users.

The editorial said that merely banning apps would not impact the Chinese economy. After there was a demand to teach China a lesson like Pakistan, India launched an online attack or a digital strike on China and created a stir... But merely banning apps will not break the back of China. Chinese businesses have invested heavily in India. Gujarat has the majority of these investments. Chinese company Huawei has been given the contract to erect a 5G network in India. This company having the keys to Indias digital economy is like giving [China] the keys to the future economy of the country. This contract is going to be the biggest threat to India in the future. Is the government not aware of this? the editorial mentioned.

The Centre, according to the editorial, claimed that Chinese intelligence agencies and Peoples Liberation Army was using app data of Indian users. If there was a threat to national security, then why were these apps allowed to function and their businesses [allowed to] thrive all these years? the editorial questioned. It added that there has been no change after banning these apps. The Chinese troops are still in Galwan Valley and are refusing to withdraw.
The special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Thursday granted protection from arrest to Yes Banks co-founder, former managing director and CEO Rana Kapoor in two cases registered against him in connection with the Yes Bank fraud case.

In March, CBI had registered two first information reports (FIR) against Kapoor. The first FIR had alleged that Yes Bank had invested 3,700 crore in short-term debentures of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) between April and June 2018, in return for which Kapoor was allegedly paid kickbacks amounting to 600 crore by DHFL promoter Kapil Wadhawan.

DHFL sanctioned a loan to DoIT Urban Ventures (India) Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RAB Enterprises in which Kapoors wife Bindu is a director and 100% shareholder, alleged CBI. Kapoors daughters, Rakhee Kapoor Tandon, Roshni Kapoor, and Radha Kapoor, are also 100% shareholders in DoIT Urban Ventures.

Based on the case registered by CBI, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) began its probe into allegations of money laundering by the accused. Kapoor is presently in judicial custody in connection with the ED case

In the second case, CBI alleged that Kapoor and his wife bought a bungalow from Avantha Group promoter Gautam Thapar at a much lower price than its valuation. In the past, Thapar had mortgaged the bungalow for a corporate loan of 600 crore, but he sold it for 380 crore to Bliss Abode Pvt Ltd, in which Kapoors wife was a director at the time.

The investigative agency had on March 20 obtained a production warrant to arrest Kapoor after he was remanded in judicial custody by the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court. The agency, however, had not executed the warrant.

Fearing arrest by CBI, Kapoor had approached the special CBI court for pre-arrest bail last month, following which the court had directed the agency to file a reply on Kapoors plea. On Thursday, when the plea came up for hearing, Kapoors lawyers Abad Ponda and Subhash Jadhav sought interim protection from arrest.

The central agency had not submitted its reply on the plea due to which the special court granted protection from arrest to Kapoor till July 11.
More than 100 people have tested positive for coronavirus in India after attending the wedding -- and then funeral -- of the groom, who reportedly tied the knot while ill with the disease.

Officials in Bihar state said Wednesday the 26-year-old groom had symptoms of the deadly virus when he got married on June 15.

He died two days later.

So far 111 people who either attended the wedding or the funeral have tested positive, said Raj Kishor Chaudhary, chief medical officer in Patna, the state capital.

All others have been identified and isolated.

Doctors are not certain the unnamed groom was the source of the infection as he was cremated before tests could be carried out.

But Chaudhary said around 400 people who attended the wedding or funeral would be isolated following a spurt in infections.

The groom, a software engineer who returned home from near New Delhi only a week before the wedding, had shown symptoms before the nuptials.

He was briefly admitted to hospital, but his family had him discharged and hosted the wedding with over 300 guests.

He died at his home two days later, with nearly 200 people attending the funeral. Some had attended both.

None of the grooms relatives -- including his bride -- tested positive, officials said.

Authorities have launched an investigation into possible violations of social distancing regulations on the number of guests at both the wedding and funeral.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage

No more than 50 guests are allowed at Indias famously lavish and colourful weddings -- and just 20 people at funerals -- to limit the risk of spreading coronavirus.

The epidemic is raging across the South Asian country of 1.3 billion people, with almost 600,000 infections and 17,000 deaths reported so far.

Bihar, one of the countrys poorest regions and home to 120 million people, has recorded nearly 10,000 cases, with 62 deaths.

Experts believe a lack of testing is hiding the true figures and that the nationwide toll is far higher than reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modis government has eased lockdown restrictions despite a surge in cases.

But on Tuesday he warned the nation to be more cautious.

We have become lackadaisical, he said.

I again want you all to observe precautions in the same way as under lockdown.

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The district administration on Thursday decided to seal a major part of Patna City, a bustling part of the state capital, after 63 positive Covid-19 cases were reported from the area on Wednesday night.Patna City houses big markets like Maroofganj and Khajekalan.

Citys sub-divisional officer (SDO) Rajesh Roshan said, Following a spurt in Covid cases in the city area, the administration has decided to seal the areas from Paschim Darwaza to City Chowk, Chamdoria, Chowkshikarpur to prevent spread of the contagion. The 63 cases reported have been narrowed down to a tea and fruit seller in Patna City via contact tracing. All the shops will be closed except the ones providing essential services. The traffic movement will also be restricted. 

The areas will be sealed for the next 14 days and will be divided into 18 containment zones.Though Maroofganj does not fall in containment zone, no vehicle will be able to reach the place due to ban on plying of vehicles in the containment zones.

The SDO said, If the disease spread is not contained during the time the areas are sealed, the places will be closed for 14 more days. Over 100 Covid cases have been reported in the City areas so far. The administration has decided to put up barricades and banners to declare the restricted areas. The medical team will be active in the areas for contact tracing. The officials have been directed to sanitise the containment zones and prevent traffic movement, the SDO said.

Patna district magistrate Kumar Ravi said, As many as 50 Covid cases were reported in Khejakalan, 10 in City Chowk and 3 in Alamganj.Meanwhile, Maroofganj traders complained about business being affected. Very few traders are coming here from other districts. The business has been badly affected, said Basant Lal Golbare, convener of Maroofganj Traders Association.
The Pune Municipal Corporations (PMC) plan to upgrade its health infrastructure to combat Covid-19 has hit a roadblock at Dalvi hospital due to absence of an intensivist and trained faculty for running the advanced ICU facility. The lack of trained personnel has forced the ICU facility, estimated to be worth Rs 1 crore, to remain shut for the past two months since its inauguration.

The ICU at Dalvi Maternity hospital was formally started on April 28 when Credai (Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India) donated 10 ventilators to the PMC. According to additional commissioner Rubal Agarwal, the delay in strating the ICU unit at Dalvi hospital has been because of the installation work and non-availability of intensivist.

It takes time for installation of the ventilators. We had requested Credai for the ICU ventilators. Its not that we dont want to use them, we had even issued an advertisement to hire an intensivist. However, nobody came forward. We published an advertisement again and this week we will complete the recruitment process and start the facility. We have requested Sassoon General Hospital to conduct training for 15 days for our doctors and other medical professionals regarding the Covid-19 situation. The advertisement was issued in March and this is a permanent post, but still nobody came forward, said Agarwal, who heads the health department.

It was after an appeal by PMC commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad for assistance from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds that Credai Pune chapter helped build an ICU facility within eight days for which it allocated Rs 1 crore at PMC-run Dalvi Hospital in Shivajinagar.

The PMC has dedicated the hospital as a Covid-19 centre and all maternity operations have been stopped post the declaration.

The advanced ICU includes 40 state-of-the-art equipment such as beds, ventilators, defibrillators, suction machines, ECG machines among other equipment.

Vivek Velankar, an RTI activist who has been vocal about the civic bodys poor expenditure on health infrastructure, said, The PMC should have honoured its commitment. When things are done for free, it is natural that things are taken for granted. In this case, at least the ICU should have been operational during this time of acute crisis. Its operations have been inordinately delayed.

Suhas Merchant, president, Credai- Pune Metro said, Considering the current situation, the municipal commissioner had appealed to Credai Pune Metro to set up an advanced ICU at Dalvi Hospital. At that time, we promised to set up a unit at the hospital in the next 15 days. But nonetheless, our office-bearers worked tirelessly to set up the ICU in a record time of just eight days.

PMC has projected that if the Covid-19 cases continue to surge, the city will face shortage of ICU beds by July end. As on July 1, Punes Covid-19 tally had reached 18,105.

We responded fast to address the needs of the local administration in its fight against Covid-19, said Merchant.

Nasal Cannula Oxygen Therapy devices

As per the instruction of Dr Sanjay Oak, chairman Covid-19 task force and Dr Shashank Joshi, dean, Indian Medical College, the PMC under the directions of additional commissioner Rubal Agarwal installed 20 nasal cannula oxygen therapy devices at Naidu Hospital, each worth Rs 4 lakh. These machines are very important as it helps in the fast recovery of patients. We have installed them at Naidu Hospital, said Agarwal.
Pune municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad on Wednesday said that the civic administration will increase its ventilator beds capacity to deal with critical patients. A total of 450 ventilator beds would be available within the next two-three weeks. Private hospitals have enough ventilator beds which have not been acquired as of yet, however, the civic body will acquire them in a phased manner, said Gaikwad.

Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited and Pune Municipal Corporation published their report for Covid-19 data between June 19 and June 30 and projected a shortage of ventilators and ICU beds by the end of July. As per the report, Pune will face a shortage of 202 ventilator beds and 400 ICU beds.

The report also projected the Covid-19 cases for July and the civic infrastructure readiness to handle the situation. Pune is projected to have 47,796 Covid-19 positive cases by the end of July, of which 19,596 will be active cases. Currently, Pune has a total bed capacity of 18,556, which includes private bed acquired or reserved by PMC. Hence, there will be an acute shortage of beds.

The number of ventilators is also a concern for the civic body as currently there are only 288 and by the end of July, the number would be in the negative zone.

Considering the report, mayor Murlidhar Mohol held a meeting with the civic chief, IAS officer Saurabh Rao and additional commissioners on Wednesday evening. The situation will become critical for us by July-end, however, we have time to boost our infrastructure, said Mohol.

I have instructed the civic administration to acquire maximum beds from private hospitals and the commissioner will soon issue an order for it, he added.

The civic chief said, We got 21 ventilators from the PM Cares fund. As the PMC did not have enough medical staff, we handed over these 21 ventilators to the Sassoon General Hospital. I am planning to increase ventilators at Sassoon to 50 by this week. I will issue the order to acquire more private hospitals bed soon.

Commissioner said that the civic body was preparing for a critical situation and plan to increase the infrastructure as per requirement.

The doubling rate of total positive cases in the city is 17.98 and PMC has already crossed the 18,000 positive numbers. The cases were expected to rise with the unlocking process. For symptomatic patients, we have enough infrastructure. We need to care mainly for critical patients and mainly, the patients who require ventilator support, added Gaikwad.

Advocate Vijaysinh Thomare said, My personal experience is that patients are not allotted beds easily in private hospitals. One of our colleagues tested Covid-19 positive and she had to go through two-three hospitals in order to finally get admitted.
The Kothrud police on Wednesday booked a woman who returned to Pune from Muscat for violating quarantine norms. This is the second such case within month as authorities face resistance for institutional quarantine from those arriving in India under the Vande Bharat mission.

The 24-year-old resident of Kothrud returned to Pune from Oman on June 30, but did not follow mandatory protocol of quarantine, officials said. When authorities found that the woman went home, PMC officials filed a complaint with the police.

Later, the police filed a first information report (FIR) against the woman based on the PMC complaint under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 188 (disobedience to duly promulgated by public servant), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection and disease dangerous to life) and Section 51 (b) (refuses to comply with any direction given by or on behalf of Central Government or the State Government) of the Disaster Management Act and relevant sections of the of Maharashtra Covid-19 Regulations Act and Epidemic Diseases Act.

The woman who returned from Muscat to Pune on June 30 was asked to be quarantined at a hotel for seven days, however, she violated the rules and went to her house in Kothrud even after a prior warning. The FIR was filed against her, said Yuvraj Deshmukh, PMC executive engineer and incharge for coordinating quarantine facilities of travellers.

As per government orders, everyone returning to the country has to mandatorily spend seven days either at a government quarantine facility or hotel. Following the FIR, the woman was shifted to a hotel. Till now, 3,000 travellers have returned to Pune under the Centres Vande Bharat mission, a programme devised to bring back Indians from other nations amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

I have already lost my job and was stuck in Muscat since the past three months due to Covid-19. After returning here, nobody informed me about how I should go for institutional quarantine. I told the officials to allow me to stay at home only for the night as it was difficult for me being a woman, but the police filed an FIR against me. I am already running out of money and now at the hotel, I have to pay Rs 2,000 per day during my quarantine, said the woman booked by the police.

The woman claimed that on June 30, PMC officials contacted her and asked her to go to the hotel . I requested them on WhatsApp that I wish to be quarantined at the hotel the next day. The official responded saying that it is fine to get quarantined on July 1, when I actually checked in there. Despite this, the FIR was lodged against me. Neither the nodal officers from the PMC, nor the officers from the police station have visited the hotel for confirmation of check-in or for medical checkup, she added.
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has signed a letter of intent to sell properties in Los Angeles to Ardie Tavangarian, the developer said in a statement.

Musk, who tweeted in May that he planned to unload almost all physical possessions, had listed several homes for sale in California. That includes four properties on Chalon Road in Bel-Air that were listed on Zillows website for $62.5 million.

Tavangarian, known for high-end homes, plans to combine the four properties into a single project, according to the statement. A spokesman for the developer declined to comment on the price.

Musks fortune has swelled by $24.4 billion this year to $51.7 billion as of Tuesday, making him the worlds 17th-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Shares of Musks company, which have more than doubled since the start of the year, climbed as much as 3.5% in intra day trading, giving it a market capitalization of $207.2 billion.

Luxury Demand

Demand for Los Angeles luxury housing recovered in June after sales froze because of the pandemic. The average time on the market for homes with price tags higher than $1.5 million fell to 138 days in the week ended June 25 from 469 days in mid-April, according to housing economist Steven Thomas.

After grinding to a complete halt, the luxury market is pumping on all cylinders, Thomas wrote in a recent report.

The Bel-Air district of Los Angeles is part of whats called the Platinum Triangle, an area that includes Holmby Hills and Beverly Hills, where some of the worlds the priciest homes have sold -- often below asking prices.

Lachlan Murdoch, the oldest son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, agreed in December to pay a record $150 million for Chartwell, the Bel-Air estate featured in the 1960s TV series The Beverly Hillbillies originally listed for $350 million.

Last June, a Holmby Hills estate built by TV producer Aaron Spelling, sold for $120 million. Another Bel-Air spec home dubbed Billionaire, developed by handbag designer Bruce Makowsky, sold for $94 million in November, down from an original $250 million.
Deepika Padukone has always been a strong advocate of mental health awareness, and has done extensive work towards the same with The Live Love Laugh foundation, the mental health organisation she has founded. The 34-year-old actor has now launched a powerful campaign: #DobaraPoocho, urging people to pay more attention to their loved ones, and constantly keep in touch with them, asking about their struggles and mental health issues.

The Padmaavat actor took to her instagram account and posted a short video that delivers the message of how one should care more for their loved ones and constantly check up on them. The video captioned, Now more than ever we need to be sensitive and support the emotional needs of those around us..., follows four stories of friends, brothers, a couple and a father and son, and in every instant everything seems to be okay, until the other person asks if everything is okay, and that they want to know if something is bothering the other. After some convincing, the other person (who is going through some issue) speaks up and lets the tears flow. The four-minute video is a tear-jerker for sure, and more and more celebrities are coming forward to speak about the importance of mental health especially after actor Sushant Singh Rajputs sudden death by suicide that not only shook Bollywood, but all of India.

Through the campaign, Dobara Poocho, Deepika seems to be urging people to keep checking up on their loved once even if they assure you that they are okay, and also sheds light on the fact that mental health issues and illnesses are still taboo topics in our society, and people shy away from talking about such subjects. Last week, Deepika had also released a video along with Dr Shyam Bhatt and Dr Soumitra Pathare about suicide prevention, talking about why people may do it when they do. The caption to the video read, #SuicidePrevention. While I embarked on this journey more than 5 years ago, recent tragic events have made us all realise that now more than ever, we need to prioritise mental health and intensify our focus on #SuicidePrevention.

Deepikas extensive work towards the spread of awareness regarding mental health has also gotten her the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum for spreading awareness about the importance of mental health.

Through her foundation, that she started in June 2015 after going through depression herself, Deepika has launched several nationwide awareness campaigns in the hopes of reducing the stigma of talking about mental health.

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New York City will delay the return of indoor dining, which had been planned for July 6, as other states experience a spike in Covid-19 cases after reopening their restaurants and bars, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday. The decision was made with the state, he said.

It is not the time to forge ahead with indoor dining, de Blasio said, citing surging outbreaks in Florida, California and Texas. The news weve gotten around the country gets worse and worse all the time.

Instead, de Blasio said the city would help restaurants expand their operations outdoors on sidewalks and curbside parking spaces.

Im very convinced we can help restaurants survive, but we have to do it safely and do it outdoors, he said.

The citys second phase of reopening, which started June 22, has permitted more than 5,000 restaurants to set up outdoors, but the limited seating comes nowhere close to returning the beleaguered industry to where it stood before the pandemic forced a citywide shutdown in March.

Studies have found the virus spreads more easily indoors and particularly among diners in restaurants. Epidemiologists have said that in some restaurants, the virus has been transmitted as it moves through an interior space via air conditioning or cooling fans. This factor, combined with New York Citys population density and its status as an international and domestic gateway, heightens the risks of viral spread.

The mayors news for the city, reeling after months of a virus-imposed lockdown, wasnt all bad, though. He said the citys beaches in the Rockaways, Coney Island, Staten Island and the Bronx will open today, and that 15 of the largest public pools will be opened by August.

Three pools -- in the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens -- will open July 24, and the other 12 on Aug. 1, de Blasio said.

(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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Television actor Saumya Tandon has said that she and other actors have been asked to take a pay cut in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. She said that the altered fee would apply to work that will be done in the future, not the payments for earlier work that are yet to be cleared.

In an interview with The Times of India, Saumya said about the pay cuts, Its not just me, it has happened with everybody. Its not in just our industry, it is happening everywhere. It is for the work that is to be done for the future, it is not for the work which we have already done for which the payments are pending.

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But whatever we shoot in the future because the entire TV industry has to go through some cuts, seeing the economy has been shaken up not just in our country, but across the globe. Unfortunately, this disease has been unkind to everyone in many ways. So, it is not just me, but all my friends in the television industry. I am not talking about only the people who are working with me in this show, but everybody around me has been asked to take a pay cut. All the production houses have informed their artists that going forward in future they will have to cooperate, she added.

The television industry suffered a major setback due to the coronavirus pandemic, with all shoots halted from mid-March. The shoots were only allowed to resume last month, after the Maharashtra government came out with a list of guidelines to be followed by the cast and crew.

Saumya is currently seen in the popular show Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain!. The team recently restarted shooting, and is taking measures such as sanitising the set and wearing protective masks and gloves.

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Telugu television actor Navya Swamy, who has worked in popular soaps such as Naa Peru Meenakshi and Aame Katha, has tested positive for Covid-19. Upon getting her test results, she immediately stopped shooting for her show.

After experiencing a mild headache for 3-4 days, Navya got herself tested following the advice from a doctor. While she has quarantined herself, the cast and crew of the show have also undergone tests and have reportedly quarantined themselves.

Last night, I cried a lot while going home and even until early in the morning. I couldnt sleep. My mom is still crying. My phone was busy; I was talking to a lot of people. My Whatsapp was flooded with messages about the symptoms, treatment, and much more. It was chaotic. I was even feeling guilty that I put my co-stars and crew in trouble too, Navya was quoted in a report by Times of India.

Also read: Anushka Sharma on Virat Kohli: During the first six months of our marriage, we spent 21 days together

Navya also took to Instagram to share a video about her testing positive for Covid-19. She revealed that shes been eating healthy and taking care of herself to build immunity.

Meanwhile, another television actor Boddu Prabhakar was recently tested positive and is currently under treatment.

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Lucknow: Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti Thursday appeared in person before a special court here conducting trial in the 1992 Babri mosque demolition case.

The special CBI court is currently recording the statements of 32 accused under CrPC section 313 (court's power to examine the accused), a stage in the trial that follows the examination of prosecution witnesses.

The 61-year-old saffron clad BJP leader is the 19th accused to depose before the court in the over 27-year-old case. Thirteen other alleged accused, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani and senior BJP leaders MM Joshi and Kalyan Singh are yet to be examined at this stage. Their lawyers have indicated to the CBI court that they prefer to appear through video conferencing.

The mosque in Ayodhya was demolished in December 1992 by 'kar sevaks' who claimed that an ancient Ram temple had stood on the same site. The CBI court is conducting day-to-day hearings to complete the trial by August 31, as directed by the Supreme Court.
Almost 78% of voters in Russia have approved amendments to the countrys constitution that will allow President Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036, Russian election officials said on Thursday after all the votes were counted. Kremlin critics said the vote was rigged.

In the week-long balloting that concluded on Wednesday, 77.9% voted for the changes, and 21.3% voted against, with 100% of the precincts counted by Thursday morning, Russias Central Election Commission said. The turnout exceeded 64%, according to officials.

The reported numbers reflect the highest level of voter support for Putin in 10 years. In the 2018 presidential election, 76.7% of voters supported his candidacy, while in the 2012 election only 63.6% did.

But Kremlin critics say the numbers alone show they are false, with an unrealistic approval rating for the Russian leader amid wide frustration in the country over declining living standards.

A record in falsifying votes has been set in Russia, opposition politician Alexei Navalny said in a Facebook post on Thursday. The announced result has nothing whatsoever to do with the peoples opinion. Putins approval rating was at 59% in May, according to the Levada Center, Russias top independent pollster. That was the lowest in two decades.

The week-long plebiscite was tarnished by widespread reports of pressure on voters and other irregularities, with independent election observers criticising the voting procedure as having a complete lack of transparency and independent control.

For the first time in Russia, polls were kept open for an entire week to bolster turnout and avoid election-day crowds amid the coronavirus pandemic -- a provision that Kremlin critics denounced as an extra tool to manipulate the outcome, as ballot boxes remained unattended for days at night.

Observers also pointed to the relentless pressure that state and private employers put on their staff to vote, monitoring that was hindered by bureaucratic hurdles and virus-related restrictions, and the dubious legal standing of the early voting.
While the fireworks displays in cities and communities across the nation took place, the 2020 edition of Canada Day was celebrated without the large gatherings due to restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Government organized a slew of virtual events to keep Canadians engaged with the anniversary of the formation of the dominion in 1867.

In a message issued to mark the Day, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited Canadians to join the virtual celebrations and join the conversation online. The last few months have been difficult for all Canadians, but throughout this pandemic, we have been there for one another. We are neighbours helping neighbours, small businesses being there for their communities and their staff, Armed Forces answering the call to help protect our most vulnerable, and doctors and nurses keeping our families healthy, his statement said.

The department responsible for the festivities, Canadian Heritage, streamed shows featuring artists along with virtual fireworks that could be accessed on devices.

Canadas Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marco Mendicino held a virtual citizenship ceremony for 18 healthcare workers, including one with roots in Goa. The pandemic has changed the way that we celebrate today, and this includes being able to physically join in citizenship ceremonies to welcome our newest Canadians, Mendocino said in a statement.

The countrys chief public health officer Dr Theresa Tam also thanked citizens for their hard work to keep the coronavirus infection curve down.

Our data show that your efforts are making a difference and that is reason to celebrate.

Right now, it is our actions, and our actions only, that will reduce the spread. While COVID-19 is still active in our communities, I want to remind Canadians to celebrate Canada Day safely, she said, with a series of instructions to keep it virtual.

But the day was also marked with a series of protests across major Canadian cities, including by Black Lives Matter, by those protesting lockdown norms and by Indigenous groups who also used the hashtag #CancelCanadaDay as a reminder of how the confederation came into being through exploitation of the natives.
China has demanded staff and business information from four U.S. media companies including The Associated Press in what it called a necessary response to similar demands by Washington on Chinese state-controlled news outlets.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian announced Wednesday that the AP, United Press International, CBS and National Public Radio had seven days to file declarations regarding their staff, financial operations, real estate ownership and other matters.

It should be pointed out that the above-mentioned measures by China are completely necessary countermeasures and are completely legitimate defenses compelled by unreasonable suppression of the U.S. side on Chinese media agencies in the United States, Zhao said at a daily briefing.

The Trump administration last month added four Chinese media outlets to a list of organizations that should be considered foreign missions because of their ties to the government and the ruling Communist Party. That move could force them to cut staff in the U.S. and adds to a long list of frictions in economic and political relations between the two countries.

Zhao said recent U.S. policies damage the reputation and image of Chinese media, impact their operations and seriously interfere with the normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the U.S.

The Trump administrations moves are rooted in Cold War thinking and go against the freedom of the press long espoused by Washington, he said.

China urges the U.S. to immediately change its course and correct its mistakes and stop the political suppression and unreasonable restrictions of the Chinese media, Zhao said.

State Department officials said at the time that the four organizations, including state-run CCTV, would be required to submit a list of everyone who works for them in the U.S. and any real estate holdings, the same as is required of foreign embassies or consulates.

None is being ordered to leave the U.S. and no limits on their activities were announced. But a visa cap was put on five other Chinese media organizations in March, forcing them to reduce their Chinese staff two weeks after they were designated as foreign missions.

Chinese media including the official Xinhua News Agency and the international arm of state broadcaster CCTV are now restricted to a total of 100 visas. Collectively, they employed about 160 Chinese in the U.S., meaning about 60 had to leave.

China retaliated by ordering more than a dozen reporters from The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to hand in their press credentials, forcing them to leave the country because their visas were tied to their work status.
US president Donald Trump is tremendously grateful to all the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals, including Indian-Americans, who have selflessly risen to the occasion to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the White House has said.

More than 100,000 Indian-American doctors have contributed to the fight against the coronavirus and the president thanks them for their tireless, life-saving work, White House Assistant Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told PTI on Wednesday.

Many Indian-Americans have laid down their lives in the fight against the Covid-19.

This is the first time that the White House has recognised the selfless contribution of the Indian-American doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals.

President Trump is tremendously grateful for all of the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals who have selflessly risen to the occasion to combat the coronavirus pandemic on the frontline, Leavitt said.

According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the contagion has infected over 10 million people and killed more than 516,000 across the world.

The US is the worst affected country with over 2.6 million cases and more than 1,28,000 deaths.

The Covid-19, which originated in Chinas Wuhan city in December last year, has also battered the world economy with the International Monetary Fund saying that the global economy is bound to suffer a severe recession.

Scientists are racing against time to find a vaccine or medicine for its treatment.

Eminent Indian-American doctors from across the country thanked Trump for recognising their efforts.

We are going through one of the most unprecedented crises of our lifetime. The leadership of President Trump has helped to reduce the economic damage to the country, Dr Raj Bhayani, president of New York chapter of American Association of Physicians of India-origin (AAPI), said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his recent first-ever address to an AAPI summit through video conferencing, said that he was proud of the achievements and contribution of the Indian-origin physicians in the battle against the Covid-19.

Hundreds of Indian physicians in the US have fought this global war as frontline physicians/soldiers, said AAPI president Dr Suresh Reddy, adding that the organisation has honored more than 10,000 nurses in over 100 hospitals in over 40 states.

Welcoming Trumps praise for the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals, Dr Naresh Parikh, former AAPI president from Atlanta, said that as compared to other countries, American citizens have done better due to the brilliant economic stimulus for businesses, physicians and direct payment to taxpayers who are in employment.

We believe that under the leadership of Trump, America will come out even stronger once this crisis is over, Dr Parikh said.

Responding to a question, Dr Bhayani said that he and a group of eminent Indian-American doctors are planning to campaign for Trump in the key battleground states of Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Virginia.

They are working with Al Mason, co-chair of the Trump Victory Indian American Finance Committee.

There is tremendous enthusiasm among Indians in the US to support Trump as Democrats are lining up against Modi and India as well as the Kashmir issue, he said, adding that one should not get surprised if people of Indian-origin play a major role in the 2020 elections.

Dr Humberto Nunez, a physician from Texas, said that healthcare professionals have been hit hard.

Our hospitals are almost in full capacity, fortunately we have the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and resources to treat those patients properly in our hospitals, and my business got the financial support from the government through the care programme, he said.

Noting that the COVID-19 has taken a tremendous toll; mentally, physically and financially, not only on his patients but also on him and his family, neurologist Dr Vithalbhai D Dhaduk said that Trump has done an outstanding job to help people with PPP and loans, assisting healthcare workers with special federal funding and stabilising the financial and job market.

We as an Indian community and US citizens are very proud of President Trump, said Dr Dhaduk, who is also the chairman of the Saurastra Patel Cultural Samaj.

Over the weekend, addressing the virtual AAPI summit, Indias Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu described Indian-American doctors as real heroes warriors in this fight against Covid-19.
Calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, ambassadors of the European Union in Kabul said they were deeply concerned about the marked escalation of violence throughout Afghanistan.

The EU Delegation in agreement with EU Heads of Mission based in Kabul said in a statement on Tuesday that the situation has further deteriorated since May 29 when the EU Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers declared the level of violence as unacceptable.

The attacks by the Taliban against Afghan National Defence and Security Forces are undermining the prospect for intra-Afghan Negotiations; this must end and a full-fledged ceasefire enter into force. Violence against civilians has also continued. It is a violation of international humanitarian law, which profoundly undermines the confidence and trust necessary for peace negotiations, read the statement posted on the official twitter page of EU in Afghanistan on June 30.

The European mission heads said the targeted killings against clergy, journalists, human rights defenders, among others, have increased in the recent weeks.

It appears to be a deliberate attempt to stifle debate in advance of peace negotiations. These crimes need to be investigated and the responsible brought to justice, said the statement.

One such attack is the cowardly assassination of two staff members of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission on June 27.

The violence must stop now and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire put in place. A permanent and comprehensive ceasefire is a subsequent step that needs to accompany the Intra-Afghan Negotiations, the statement added.

US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is in Asia these days, travelling over to Islamabad, Tashkent and Doha to garner support to meet the remaining commitments ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations which were initially set to commence on March 10, under the US-Taliban peace deal, but were pushed back due to disagreements over the mutual release of prisoners.

Last week, Khalilzad said that intra-Afghan talks are closer than ever, praising Kabul for freeing over 3,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban for releasing more than 500 government prisoners.

(With agency inputs)
The UN Security Council on Wednesday condemned the terrorist attack on the Karachi Stock Exchange in a move initiated by China, but it is understood to have slow-walked the process enough to also deliver Pakistan its quiet but clear disapproval of its continued support for terrorism.

The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack that took place in Karachi, Pakistan, on 29 June 2020, which resulted in several people killed, it said in a statement, more than 24 hours after the first draft was circulated on Tuesday.

Written by China, an all-weather friend and benefactor of Pakistan, the statement was expected to be timed for release with Pakistan governments efforts to blame the attack on India, without explicitly saying so in the statement, which would have never passed the crazy test of the full council.

Our security forces fought and thwarted a huge tragedy which was planned by our neighbouring country India, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told the countrys National Assembly. He offered no evidence, because he did not have any and he, probably, believed he did not need any to just smear India.

Shortly after or before in New York city, where the UN is headquartered, China circulated a draft of a press statement for the UN Security Council to issue condemning the terrorist attack in Karachi. Any member of the Security Council can start this process and in case of China it was for all the obvious reasons.

UN secretary general Antonio Gueterres had already condemned the attack the same day on Monday. UN diplomats closely associated with the process said the purpose of the Chinese draft statement could have been, one, to provide Pakistan an opportunity to portray itself as a victim of terrorism and not the leading state-sponsor of terrorism it was. And, two, to allow it the perverse opportunity to slur India, timed with claims made in Islamabad.

But it did not quite work out that way. Germany, which holds the rotational presidency of the council for July, put up the first obstacle. It used the period until 4:00 pm (US eastern time, 1:30 am in India), set aside as a part of the practice and tradition at the UN body for member countries to read the draft, consider their position and dissent, it they wanted, breaking the silence.

Germany asked for, and got, an extension until 10:00 am Wednesday (US eastern, 7:30 pm India), saying it needed to consult the capital, for consultations with the home government in UN parlance. It can be genuinely a consultation or a ruse to slow down the process. It was the latter in this instance, according to UN diplomats who followed the process closely, because Germany did not return with objections.

Germany simply passed on the baton of disapproval to the United States, which sought an extension, and got one till 1:00 pm (US eastern, 10:30 pm India).

Americas reasons could not be ascertained immediately but UN diplomats wondered if it was a subtle way for the Americans to convey their displeasure with the Pakistani prime minister for his remarks recently that the US martyred Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who was killed by US navy SEALs in Abbottabad in Pakistan in 2011.

Khans gratuitous remarks on bin Laden could not have been more badly timed. I wont be surprised if that was indeed a consideration for the Americans, said a diplomat, pointing to the fact that New York was Ground Zero of the 9/11 attacks masterminded by bin Laden.

The US mission just let the 1:00 pm deadline lapse.

The UNSC statement was released shortly, condemning the Karachi attack. But it was perfunctory, styled to fit a template.

It did not even specify the number of victims, said the UN diplomat cited above. Eight people died in the attack, including all the four terrorists. But the UNSC report said, perhaps suspicious of Pakistans account of the attack, several people killed
Democratic presidential candidate and former vice-president Joe Biden said that if he wins the November elections, strengthening relationship with India which is the US natural partner, will be a high priority for his administration.

India needs to be a partner in the region for our safetys sake, and quite frankly for theirs, he said in response to a question on India-US relationship during a virtual fund raiser event.

At the fund raiser hosted by Chairman and CEO of Beacon Capital Partners Alan Leventhal, the former vice president said that India and the United States were natural partners.

That partnership, a strategic partnership, is necessary and important in our security, Biden said when asked by an attendee whether India is critical to US national security.

Referring to his eight years as the vice president, he said, In our administration I was proud to play a role more than a decade ago in securing Congressional approval for the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, which is a big deal..

Helping open the door to great progress in our relationship and strengthening our strategic partnership with India was a high priority in the Obama-Biden administration and will be a high priority if Im elected president, Biden said.

Both as the vice president and a senator from Delaware, he was a big supporter of India-US relationship.

About the November polls, Biden said that the character of the country is on the ballot. The upcoming election is the most important poll of a lifetime and that the country is currently engaged in a battle for its soul, he claimed.

Biden also slammed President Donald Trump and his administration over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump ignored warnings from the very beginning, refused to prepare and failed to protect the country. Not just now but throughout his presidency, undermining the very core pillars of our, what I would argue, moral and economic strength, the Democratic presidential candidate said.

I really do believe that our country is crying out for leadership and maybe even more important, some healing. Today, we have an enormous opportunity not only to rebuild but to build back better than before. To build a better future. Thats what America does, he said.
A couple of days after New Delhi banned apps with Chinese links, Republican leader and Indian American Nikki Haley said that India was continuing to show that it wont back down from a Chinese aggression.

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including the hugely popular TikTok and UC Browser, for engaging in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.

The ban came against the backdrop of the current stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual control in eastern Ladakh. The tension escalated manifold after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on June 15. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details.

Good to see India ban 59 popular apps owned by Chinese firms, including TikTok, which counts India as one of its largest markets, Haley tweeted on Wednesday.

India is continuing to show it wont back down from Chinas aggression, the former US Ambassador to the UN said in a tweet hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed Indias decision in this regard.

Pompeo on Wednesday welcomed New Delhis decision to ban dozens of apps with Chinese links, saying it will boost Indias integrity and national security. We welcome Indias ban on certain mobile apps that serves as an appendage of the CCPs (Chinese Communist Party) surveillance State, Pompeo told reporters at a news conference held at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.

Indias clean app approach will boost Indias sovereignty. It will also boost Indias integrity and national security, he said.

In an interview to Fox News, Republican Senator Marco Rubio supported Indias move to ban Chinese apps.

Yes, theyre not only appropriate, theyre long overdue, he said when asked about steps like banning Chinese apps by India and the US taking action against Huawei and ZTE.

According to MIT Technology Review India has a huge smartphone user base and English-speaking population, which make it the worlds largest social media market. India is also TikToks biggest market, with nearly 191 million downloads at the end of 2019; the US is at a distant second with nearly 41 million, it stated.

Indias Chinese app ban is a new diplomatic maneuver. India and China have opened a new front in their ongoing skirmish. Both countries are nuclear powers and economic giants, but Indias ban is notable for using social media as a tool to exert political pressure on its rival, MIT Technology Review said.

Forbes magazine said that the ban on TikTok has left many influencers and influencer managers bereft of work and in shock.
Mexicos Covid-19 deaths rose by 741 to reach 28,510, leading the country to overtake Spain and have the worlds sixth deadliest outbreak, according to data released by the Health Ministry Wednesday night.

Confirmed cases rose by 5,681 to 231,770. Deaths and cases in Mexico have increased steadily in recent weeks as Latin America has emerged as a hot spot for the pandemic. The country is also likely to soon overtake France, which has 29,864 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Mexico, like other Latin American countries has vulnerable populations living in tight quarters where work is essential to meet daily basic needs. That makes social distancing to slow the pandemic nearly impossible while President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been criticized by some health experts for downplaying the viruss risks.

Lopez Obrador has focused largely on reopening the economy, rather than enforcing strict lockdowns. He continued to travel through the country amid record rises in cases. Mexico City began reopening businesses and restarting economic activity this week based on government data showing a decrease of hospital occupancy.

At his nightly press conferences Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell has repeatedly implored people to stay home, while Lopez Obrador has said the worst is likely past. In a recent morning press conference, the president thanked the Mexican people for helping avoid an even more troubling outcome.

Despite the terrible nature of this pandemic, we have avoided more suffering, Lopez Obrador said.

The numbers from Mexicos Health Ministry dont reflect data from only the previous 24 hours, as it takes longer for it to gather information from hospitals on coronavirus patients. Experts have questioned the governments tracking of the virus, as even the ministry has acknowledged actual cases are much higher.
The Trump White House on Wednesday blamed Chinese aggression unequivocally in the sharpest remarks yet over the ongoing border confrontation with India.

President Donald Trump has said that Chinas aggressive stance along the India-China border fits with a larger a pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world and these action only confirm the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said quoting the president from her notes at the daily briefing.

This was much further than the studied neutral tone the White House had maintained thus far on the dispute, according to close observers of India-US relations in Washington.

It was closely monitoring the situation, the White House had said after the deadly clashes of June 15. And the press secretary and then noted and condoled the death of Indian soldiers, and had gone on to say, deploying standard diplomatese, the US hoped for a peaceful resolution of the situation.

The Trump White House had not given up on all of that still. Were closely monitoring the situation; he is as well. Both India and China have expressed a desire to deescalate, and we support a peaceful resolution of the current situation, McEnany said before rolling out the new and more aggressive White House line.

It reflected a shaper position that had been evolving around the White house, and outside, specially as laid out by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It puts the India-China border issue in the larger context of Chinese aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the world, the internment of its own Uighur muslims at home and changing its relationship with Hong Kong in violation of its international commitments.

On Wednesday, Pompeo offered full-throated support for the Indian ban on Chinese apps, which, he said can serve as appendages of the CCPs surveillance state. Indias Clean App approach will boost Indias sovereignty.

There is bipartisan purchase in US Congress of Chinas responsibility in triggering the border clashes. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator and close ally of the president, has said that China has essentially invaded India, an ally of ours. Marco Rubio, another Republican senator, has called Chinese actions at the border unwarranted & lawless armed aggression.

Brad Sherman, a senior Democratic member of the House of Representatives, has slammed Chinese aggression for the June 15 clashes. Sherman is also the co-chair of House India caucus.

The growing chorus of US support for India in this confrontation with China is unlikely to lead to any tangible action on the ground; both parties have already turned down a mediation offer from President Trump, which he made on May 27 and has not mentioned it again since.

But Beijing, which, observers said, has made no secret of its mounting worries about India getting closer to the United States, will feel pressured to consider if it had, in fact, succeeded in pushing India further towards the US with the Galwan Valley over-reach. And that, for the moment, is all that the New Delhi in understood to be seeking as part of its larger effort to resolve the situation.
Earth movers lie idle at a coal mine in Dhanbad as India's coal workers began a strike on July 2, 2020, to oppose the central government's decision to open up the country's coal sector to privatisation. Prime minister Narendra Modi recently launched the auction process to hawk 41 coal mines for commercial mining. (PTI)

Dhanbad/Ramgarh (Jharkhand): Away from the notice of middle class India, more than half a million coal workers began their three-day strike from the 6 am shift Thursday. They will stay away from work for three days.

They are opposed to privatization of the coal sector, which the Union government threw open last month with a decision to auction 41 coal blocks, mainly in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Maharashtra.

Eleventh hour talks were held, by way of a video conference, on Wednesday between coal worker unions and coal minister Pralhad Joshi. Both sides stuck to their position, and the strike went through.

At the end of the first day of the strike, state-run coal companies said there was minimal impact, and the unions said the strike was total and its impact substantial.

Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) put out a communique in the evening stating that all its miners marked their attendance and worked as usual. Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) said mining work outsourced to private contractors was not unaffected.

From regional centres, however, it could be learnt that there was impact. The general manager of CCL's Barka-Sayal command area, Amresh Singh, was quoted by PTI as saying "dispatch of coal has been affected due to the strike, but coal mining via outsourcing private companies remained unaffected".

In Madhya Pradesh, the local arm of Coal India, SECL, hired temp miners, which union leaders said was an "extraordinary situation" that had never happened before.

Union leaders said around 5.3 lakh permanent and contract employees are participating in the strike. The Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Sanghs (RCMSs) general secretary A K Jha said workers turned up at work as usual at dawn but did not pick up their tools.

"Production has been hampered in all collieries of BCCL and the Eastern Coalfields Limited," he claimed. Other union sources told PTI that work in all the mines of Coal India and Singareni Collieries (part owned by the government of Telangana) has been suspended.

"The strike is total," B K Rai, a union leader affiliated to Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) was quoted as saying.

The All India Coal Workers Federations general secretary B B Ramanandan said all coal mining, dispatch, transport everything are totally stopped in the first shift.

No violence has been reported from anywhere. Colliery managements have deployed CISF personnel in large numbers. Paramilitary troopers are patrolling to deter any attempt by union leaders to stop miners from joining duty.

About 4 million tonnes of coal output could be lost due to the three-day strike, according to Nathulal Pandey, president of HMS-affiliated Hind Khadan Mazdoor Federation. Coal India, an umbrella entity that holds together all coal fields, produces 1.3 MT of coal every day; so loss due to a three-day strike would be around 4 MT. Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of Indias coal output.
Democratic presidential candidate and former US vice-president Joe Biden will have India on a high priority for his administration if he wins the November elections. Biden said that his administration will work toward strengthening ties with New Delhi which is a natural partner of the United States. Bidens comments came during a virtual fundraiser event hosted by Chairman and CEO of Beacon Capital Partners Alan Leventhal.

During the event, Biden described the strengthening of US-India ties as a necessary and important move for US security.

Here are Bidens top comments:

1) India needs to be a partner in the region for our safetys sake, and quite frankly for theirs.

2) That partnership, a strategic partnership, is necessary and important in our security.

3) In our administration, I was proud to play a role more than a decade ago in securing Congressional approval for the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, which is a big deal.

4) Helping open the door to great progress in our relationship and strengthening our strategic partnership with India was a high priority in the Obama-Biden administration.

5) Strengthening our strategic ties with India will be a high priority if Im elected president.

Biden also slammed US President Donald Trump for the handling of the Covid-19 crisis in the country and stated that Trump had ignored many warnings. He said that more than an apt leadership, the country is need of healing.

He refused to prepare and failed to protect the country. Not just now but throughout his presidency, undermining the very core pillars of our, what I would argue, moral and economic strength, Biden said.

US President Donald Trump recently ordered to extend the suspension of immigration and expand it to cover H-1B, most sought-after visa programme among the Indians. Trump described the move as a step toward bolstering job opportunities and employment for Americans amid the Covid-19 crisis.

The move has a souring effect on the Indians workforce in the US. As a result, some 3,75,000 temporary visaholders and green card applicants will now be banned from entering the US until next year, Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, told Bloomberg.
UN human rights experts have condemned the enforced disappearance of Idris Khattak, a Pakistani human rights defender, calling it an intolerable attack on his legitimate work against a range of human rights and minority violations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, nine UN human rights experts called for a prompt and impartial investigation into the abduction and incommunicado detention of Khattak and said that they are extremely concerned by the authorities continued practice of enforced disappearances, leaving thousands of cases unresolved in the country.

Khattak was last seen on November 13 last year after security agents stopped his car near the Swabi interchange in the northernmost province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On June 16, the Pakistani authorities acknowledged for the first time that he has been in the custody of law enforcement authorities and detained incommunicado since then.

The enforced disappearance of Khattak, which began over seven months ago, is an intolerable attack on his legitimate work of monitoring, documenting and advocating against a range of human rights and minority violations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, the independent experts said.

The experts are Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Luciano Hazan (Chair-Rapporteur), Tae-Ung Baik (Vice-Chair), Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Bernard Duhaime, Houria Es-Slami, and Henrikas Mickevicius; Mary Lawlor; Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Fernand de Varennes RP, Special Rapporteur on minority issues.

We are extremely concerned by the authorities continued practice of enforced disappearance, leaving thousands of cases unresolved in the country. We call for a prompt and impartial investigation into the abduction and incommunicado detention of Khattak, and for the prosecution of those responsible, the experts said.

They condemned the widespread silencing of human rights defenders through intimidation, secret detention, torture and enforced disappearance, whether with the direct involvement of the Pakistani government or with its complicity or complacency.

Even today, Khattak remains deprived of the most basic protections of the law and his enforced disappearance subjected him and his family to severe and prolonged suffering, that could amount to torture, the experts said.

Given the arbitrariness of Khattaks arrest and detention and the very serious violations of his integrity and procedural rights, we call on the Government of Pakistan to immediately release Khattak and to provide him and his family with adequate redress and rehabilitation, they added.

Pakistan has a long history of enforced disappearances, many of which have targetted human rights and minority defenders critical of the government and the military, as well as persons suspected or accused of involvement in the opposition.

While successive governments have promised to criminalise enforced disappearance, none has taken concrete steps and the practice continues with impunity.

The experts stressed that there can be no justification for the Pakistan governments failure to end enforced disappearances and that any such violation must be investigated, prosecuted and punished.

Truth and justice must be served, both in the case of Idris Khattak and for countless other victims and their families in Pakistan. State-sponsored disappearances and related impunity may amount to a crime against humanity and must end now, they said.

The experts have taken note that Pakistans Commission on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has been seized of the case and called on the commission to ensure accountability.

The experts will continue to engage with the Pakistani authorities to assist them in eradicating the horrendous practice and to closely monitor the situation.

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The US Senate gave final approval to legislation that would impose sanctions on Chinese officials cracking down on dissent in Hong Kong. The bill heads to President Donald Trump for his signature or veto.

The House and Senate moved quickly to enact the legislation after the Chinese government imposed a new national security law in the territory that critics say is aimed at squashing protests against the government and could lead to, in some cases, life imprisonment.

The legislation has been a top priority for some of the highest profile members of Congress, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi giving it her full endorsement Wednesday and praising its swift passage.

Pelosi, in a statement Wednesday, called the legislation an urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese governments passage of its so-called national security law, which threatens the end of the one country, two systems promised exactly 23 years ago today.

The legislation was originally introduced in the Senate by Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat. After the Senate passed it by voice vote last week, the bill was modified slightly in the House and had to be passed again by the Senate.

It provides for sanctions against financial institutions that are determined by the U.S. to be interfering in Hong Kong affairs. It requires the State Department to report to Congress every year about officials who seek to undermine the one country, two systems model that applies to Hong Kong. It gives the president the power to seize the assets of those individuals and block their entry to the U.S.
An influential US senator has sought to strengthen Americas strategic partnership with India and promote regional stability.

Senator Tammy Duckworths remarks came after he spoke to Indias Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu on Wednesday.

Duckworth, a member of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said that he discussed the partnership between the two countries and opportunities to cooperate in the Indo-Pacific region as the world recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ambassador Sandhu and I had a positive discussion today about the relationship between our two nations and opportunities to work together in the future, Duckworth said.

I look forward to working with Ambassador Sandhu to strengthen our strategic partnership and promote regional stability, he said in response to a question.

The Indo-Pacific is a key priority area for the US armed forces falling under the authority of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), unified combatant command responsible for enhancing stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

Duckworth discussed the national security value of diplomacy and American alliances in this region at a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing in February, according to a statement.
A review of studies has found major weaknesses in the evidence base for diagnostic accuracy of Covid-19 antibody tests, particularly for point-of-care tests performed directly with a patient, outside a laboratory, and does not support their continued use.

Serological tests to detect antibodies against Covid-19 could improve diagnosis and may be useful tools for monitoring levels of infection in a population, but it is important to formally evaluate whether there is sufficient evidence that they are accurate, the researchers said.

The study, published in The BMJ, set out to determine the diagnostic accuracy of antibody tests for Covid-19.

The researchers, including those from Harvard Medical School in the US and University of British Columbia, Canada, searched medical databases and preprint servers from January 1 to April 30, for studies measuring sensitivity and specificity of a Covid-19 antibody test compared with a control test.

Sensitivity measures the percentage of people who are correctly identified as having a disease, while specificity measures the percentage of people who are correctly identified as not having a disease, they said.

Of 40 eligible studies, most (70 per cent) were from China and the rest were from the UK, US, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Japan and Germany.

The researchers noted that half of the studies were not peer reviewed and most were found to have a high or unclear risk of bias -- problems in study design that can influence results.

Only four studies included outpatients and only two evaluated tests at the point of care, they said.

When sensitivity results for each study were pooled together, they ranged from 66 per cent to 97.8 per cent depending on the type of test method used, meaning that between 2.2 per cent and 34 per cent of patients with Covid-19 would be missed, according to the researchers.

Pooled specificities ranged from 96.6 to 99.7 per cent, depending on the test method used, meaning that between 3.4 per cent and 0.3 per cent of patients would be wrongly identified as having Covid-19, they said.

The study found that pooled sensitivities were consistently lower for the lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) test compared with other test methods.

The LFIA test is the potential point-of-care method that is being considered for immunity passports. The researchers explained that, if an LFIA test is applied to a population with a Covid-19 prevalence of 10 per cent, for every 1,000 people tested, 31 who never had Covid-19 will be incorrectly told they are immune, and 34 people who had the disease will be incorrectly told that they were never infected.

Pooled sensitivities were also lower with commercial test kits (65 per cent) compared with non-commercial kits (88.2 per cent) and in the first and second week after symptom onset compared with after the second week, they said.

The researchers point to some limitations, such as differences in study populations and the potential for missing studies.

However, study strengths include thorough search strategies and assessment of bias, they said.

These observations indicate important weaknesses in the evidence on Covid-19 serological tests, particularly those being marketed as point-of-care tests, the researchers said.

While the scientific community should be lauded for the pace at which novel serological tests have been developed, this review underscores the need for high quality clinical studies to evaluate these tools, they added.
The House on Wednesday joined the Senate in approving a bill to rebuke China over its crackdown in Hong Kong by imposing sanctions on groups that undermine the citys autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to its residents.

The bill targets police units that have cracked down on Hong Kong protesters, as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing a strict national security law on Hong Kong, which is considered a special administrative region within China and maintains its own governing and economic systems. The measure also would impose sanctions on banks that do business with entities found to violate the law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the unanimous House vote an urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese governments passage of its so-called national security law, which threatens the end of the one country, two systems promised exactly 23 years ago today.

Pelosi, a fierce critic of Chinese human rights violations, said, All freedom-loving people must condemn this horrific law imposed by China, adding that it is specifically intended to dismantle democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.

The House bill is similar to a measure approved last week in the Senate, but makes some minor changes. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said senators will vote as soon as Thursday to give final legislative approval, sending it to the White House.

Lawmakers from both parties have urged the Trump administration to take strong action in response to the crackdown by China against the former British territory, which was granted partial sovereignty under a treaty that took effect July 1, 1997.

China has said it will impose visa restrictions on Americans it sees as interfering over Hong Kong.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the threat of a visa ban as a sign of how Beijing refuses to take responsibility for its own choices and said adoption of the security law destroys the territorys autonomy and one of Chinas greatest achievements.

Beijings paranoia and fear of its own peoples aspirations have led it to eviscerate the very foundation of the territorys success, Pompeo said in a statement.
The draconian new security law that was brought into force in Hong Kong on Wednesday makes mincemeat of the solemn commitment that the Peoples Republic of China had made under the 1997 Sino-British agreement to ensure the former crown colonys autonomy after the handover.

Under that, for the next 50 years, till 2047, Hong Kong was to be a part of China, true, but to be governed under separate laws that did not apply to the mainland, under the so-called one country, two systems formula.

The new measure, most details of which are yet to be revealed to Hong Kongs people, was approved just a day earlier by the standing committee of Chinas National Peoples Congress and signed by President Xi Jinping, and will become a part of the Basic Law, Hong Kongs constitution, and carry penalties up to life in prison.

It comes a year after widespread protests had erupted in the territory in June-July last year, and continued for over six months, before the rising Covid-19 cases took the protesters off the streets.

With the worlds attention focused on tackling the coronavirus pandemic, Beijing thought the time was ripe to crack the whip in Hong Kong, just as it took advantage of the situation to make incursions across the Indian border, and to act against Taiwan, Japan and several countries around the South China Sea.

Hong Kongs Beijing-appointed leader Carrie Lam, who was forced to withdraw a controversial bill enabling the extradition of suspects in some criminal cases to the mainland after months of protests last year, admitted Wednesday that past failures had led to the 2019 outbreak, and said the new law would impact only a few troublemakers, but there were few takers.

Despite the harsh punishments, thousands took to the streets in Causeway Bay and elsewhere (the scene of last years protests), with many waving independence flags and some the Stars and Stripes, leading to at least 180 arrests and hundreds more detained.

Chinas real fear, of course, is that unless harshly stamped out, these voices of dissent will spread and encourage others in other outlying areas like Tibet and Xinjiang, and of course on the mainland itself.
Processing delays and the fact that many on the coast pay their rent under the table have pl
BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- China's civil aviation regulator said on Wednesday that a Sichuan Airlines flight from Cairo, Egypt, to Chengdu would be suspended after six passengers tested positive for COVID-19 on a June 27 flight.

The suspension of flight 3U8392, with a duration of one week, starting July 6, was the second of its kind ever imposed following the introduction of a reward and suspension mechanism by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) on June 4.

Previously, China Southern Airlines' flight from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Guangzhou was suspended for four weeks, starting June 22, after 17 passengers tested positive for COVID-19 on a June 11 flight.

According to the CAAC policy, if all inbound passengers of an airline test negative for novel coronavirus for three weeks in a row, the operating airline will be allowed to increase its number of flights to two per week.

If the number of passengers testing positive reaches five, the airline's flights will be suspended for a week. The suspension will last for four weeks if the number of passengers testing positive reaches 10.

The CAAC also said that Sichuan Airlines is not allowed to transfer the original quota of flight 3U8392 to other routes.
Hyderabad: Doctors are warning parents of the dangers of increased screen-time on their childrens eyes due to online classes. Children are, according to them, at risk of myopia (near-sightedness), dryness of the eyes and disrupted sleep patterns. Damage to the ocular surface due to dryness, one expert said, could even make patients more susceptible to contracting COVID-19.

Dr Deepti Mehta, ophthalmologist and retina specialist at CARE Hospital, Hi-Tec City said increased screen time could lead to damage to the ocular surface. This could, in fact, lead to patients being more susceptible to contracting Covid-19. She explained that when children, or even adults, use computer screens, they blink less than usual. When a person blinks, tears are liberated through tiny pores which lubricate the eye. When the blink-rate is low, there is more friction on the ocular surface, leading to damage. It presents itself in the form of red eyes, allergies and so on, she said.

Dr Mehta said conjunctivitis is a common presentation among Covid-19 patients, indicating that people with dryness issues in their eyes are at risk of contracting the infection. The patient can become vulnerable to catching an infection when his ocular defence mechanisms are down. There is a real likelihood of them contracting conjunctivitis through ocular secretions, she explained.

Experts advise parents to exercise caution by limiting screen time for children and incorporate regular breaks during class work. Dr Ramesh Kekunnaya, head of the Child Sight Institute at L V Prasad Eye Institute said children who arent getting enough sunlight or change of scenery were at high risk of developing myopia or progression of myopia (worsening of nearsightedness). Increased screen time will also lead to disruptions in their sleep patterns, he added.

Dr Kekunnaya suggests an age-bracket approach to limiting screen time for children. It is important that the number of teaching hours be reduced greatly. If a child used to have eight hours of lessons at school, the number of online hours cannot be of the same length, he said.

Children below three years should not have any online classes; children between four and six could have 90 minutes of teaching, with one break in between and children between seven and 12 could have up to four hours of lessons with two or three breaks. Lastly, children up to the age of 16 could have up to eight hours of lessons, if required, but with several breaks and a long lunch break, Dr Kekunnaya said.

At least one of the online sessions should be a physical activity  yoga, dance etc. Additionally, we suggest children are taught the 20-20-20 rule. They should take a 20 second-long break after every 20 minutes of screen time, and look at something located 20 feet away, he said.

Dr Mehta added that children could be administered tear drops at the end of the day during the lockdown to facilitate moisture on the eye surface. Meanwhile, children should be taught to take breaks and remember to blink in between. The screen itself should be located preferably at a one-hands distance from the eyes, and lower than the eye level to reduce risk of damage, she said.

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The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it was concerned that Google and Facebook have developed such unassailable market positions that rivals cant compete on equal terms.

London: British regulators want new rules to foster competition in digital advertising markets and rein in the industrys dominant players, Google and Facebook.

The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at the U.S. tech giants in a report Wednesday that recommends the British government adopt a new regulatory approach to governing big digital platforms making money from online ads.

The authority said it was concerned that the two companies have developed such unassailable market positions that rivals cant compete on equal terms, resulting in higher prices for hotels, flights, electronics, insurance and other goods and services that are heavily advertised online.

Google and Facebook accounted for about 80% of the 14 billions pounds ($17 billion) earned by the U.K.s digital ad industry last year, the authority said. Google controls more than 90% of the U.K.s 7.3 billion pound search advertising market while Facebook has more than half of its 5.5 billion pound display ad market.

After a yearlong review, regulators found that existing laws arent up to the job of effectively regulating the countrys digital ad markets.

If the market power of these firms goes unchecked, people and businesses will lose out, said, Andrea Coscelli, the CMAs chief executive. People will carry on handing over more of their personal data than necessary, a lack of competition could mean higher prices for goods and services bought online and we could all miss out on the benefits of the next innovative digital platform.

The watchdog proposes a new digital markets unit with powers that would include ordering Google to share its data with rival search engines so they can improve their algorithms and limiting the search giants ability to secure the default search engine position on mobile phones and browsers.

Under the new rules, Facebook could also be ordered to increase its ability to operate with other social media platforms and to let consumers choose whether to receive personalised ads.

Google supports regulation that benefits people, businesses and society, said the companys vice president for U.K. & Ireland, Ronan Harris. Well continue to work constructively with regulatory authorities and Government on these important areas so that everyone can make the most of the web.

Facebook noted it faced significant competition from Google, Apple, Snap, Twitter, Amazon, and newer players like TikTok, and looked forward to engaging with U.K. government bodies on rules that protect consumers.

Google and Facebook are already facing increased scrutiny of their ad businesses in the U.S. after two groups of state attorneys general launched separate investigations last year. One probe is examining whether Googles ad business is engaging in monopolistic behavior while the other is looking into Facebook for alleged antitrust issues, including whether its actions increased the price of advertising.

Some privacy advocates looked askance at the reviews other proposals.

An idea for a secure common digital ID for the ad tracking industry wouldnt be workable under the European Unions world-leading privacy standards, said Johnny Ryan, chief policy officer at Brave, an ad-blocking web browser. Another idea to let people sell their data to digital platforms or ad brokers is dangerous, he said.

For much the same reason why you cannot sell your kidney in this jurisdiction, you also cannot transact away your fundamental right to the protection of your data, he said.

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Lima, OH (45805)

Today

Mostly cloudy. Isolated shower possible. High around 77F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become mostly clear late. Low 49F. Winds NW at 5 to 15 mph.
Industry Update

Appointment

2 July 2020

Christian Kaschner

Appointed Managing Director IntercityHotel GmbH

At Deutsche Hospitality in Frankfurt/Main, Germany

45-year old Christian Kaschner will take over the management of IntercityHotel GmbH on 14 September 2020. Since 2017, Mr. Kaschner has been Commercial Director and member of the Management Board of NH Hotel Group Central, Northern & Eastern Europe, UK & Africa. Earlier in his career, he was Managing Director at CHECK24 Reise GmbH and held senior positions at Holiday Autos, Allhotels.com and Lastminute.com, as brands of Sabre Holdings Corporation, as well as management positions at well-known premium hotel brands.

Deutsche Hospitality Deutsche Hospitality brings together five separate hotel brands under a single umbrella. Steigenberger Hotels & Resorts has 60 hotels housed in historic traditional buildings and lively city residences and also offers health and beauty oases set at the very heart of nature. more information

Recent Appointments at Deutsche Hospitality Ahmed Mahmoud - General Manager 28 May 2021  Steigenberger Hotels & Resorts made a series of leadership changes at its hotels on the Red Sea coast of Egypt between November 2020 and May 2021. Ahmed Mahmoud will embarked upon new general management role at the adults-only five-star Steigenberger Coraya Beach in Marsa Alam. read more

Mohamed Elsayed - General Manager 28 May 2021  Steigenberger Hotels & Resorts made a series of leadership changes at its hotels on the Red Sea coast of Egypt between November 2020 and May 2021. Mohamed Elsayed will embarked upon new general management role at the five-star Steigenberger Alcazar Resort on the Sinai Peninsula. read more
External Article

2 July 2020

Will the world start traveling again at the same pace, or will businesses discover the merits of virtual convening? Will the sharing economy ever fully recover? How does the cruise industry and low-cost leisure travel rebound in a world that demands social distance? Brian Chesky, Co-founder, CEO and Head of Community, Airbnb; Arnold W. Donald, President and CEO, Carnival Corporation & plc; Paul Griffiths, CEO, Dubai Airports and Shannon Knapp, President and CEO, The Leading Hotels of the World spoke about what's next for their industry in a post-covid world with Andy Browne, the editorial director of Bloomberg New Economy on this episode of New Economy Conversations, Grounded: The Future of Travel. (Source: Bloomberg)
Press Release

2 July 2020

Frankfurt am Main, Joachim Marusczyk will hand over executive responsibility for IntercityHotel GmbH to Christian Kaschner with effect from 14 September. Mr. Marusczyk, who is stepping down of his own accord, has turned IntercityHotel GmbH into one of Germany's most successful hotel brands since its formation in 1987. He expanded upon the original design concept to develop a company which now operates over 40 hotels across three continents and introduced numerous innovations which continue to leave their mark on the sector. IntercityHotel is, for example, the first hotel company to have adopted a robust approach to sustainability from the very outset. It has achieved seamless integration into local public transport systems (thanks to the invention of the "Free City Ticket" scheme) and has been pursuing a policy of complete digitalisation of all services for a number of years. Today's guests can use the IntercityHotel app to enjoy an entirely contactless stay. Joachim Marusczyk has reshaped the modern city hotel segment during his 33 years in charge. The outstanding value for money and pioneering services the brand is able to offer has brought it regular recognition in the form of awards and prizes for innovation and quality.



45-year old Christian Kaschner will take over the management of IntercityHotel GmbH on 14 September 2020. Since 2017, Mr. Kaschner has been Commercial Director and member of the Management Board of NH Hotel Group Central, Northern & Eastern Europe, UK & Africa. Earlier in his career, he was Managing Director at CHECK24 Reise GmbH and held senior positions at Holiday Autos, Allhotels.com and Lastminute.com, as brands of Sabre Holdings Corporation, as well as management positions at well-known premium hotel brands.



"The success story of IntercityHotel GmbH is intrinsically linked with Joachim Marusczyk," said Thomas Willms, CEO, Deutsche Hospitality. It is hard to think of anyone else who has generated such a wealth of ideas and passion and exerted such an influence on the German hotel landscape over the past few decades. He will depart to begin a well-deserved retirement in September, and in saying farewell we pay tribute to his life's work and express a great sense of gratitude. Christian Kaschner is an exceptional leadership personality, and we are delighted to have acquired his services as the new Managing Director of IntercityHotel GmbH. We will work with him to add many more chapters to the success story of IntercityHotel both in Germany and abroad."



Matthias Heck, CFO and Director of Human Resources at Deutsche Hospitality, added: "As well as establishing a successful hotel brand, Joachim Marusczyk has left a lasting stamp on the company as a whole over the years thanks to his personality, loyalty, inventiveness and capacity for innovation. He has been a professional companion and friend to many colleagues who have gone on to achieve considerable success today. He took on the task of acting as a role model and of discovering and fostering new generations. Christian Kaschner is a young and innovative managerial talent, and it is only right and proper that he should now be entrusted with the ongoing development of IntercityHotel. We will work together to expand growth even further."



IntercityHotel was established as a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn in 1987 on the basis of a concept drawn up in conjunction with Steigenberger Hotels AG. IntercityHotel GmbH now forms part of Deutsche Hospitality and can look back over a period of three decades during which the brand has undergone a continuous and successful process of further development and internationalisation.
Press Release

2 July 2020

Paris -- D-EDGE circulated a White Paper in 2017 that revealed the significance and importance of Metasearch in the hotel room sales. Today, D-EDGE publishes a new report that analyses, not only the canonical metasearch platforms, but also all those advertising channels that contribute to hotels' direct revenue.

In this study , based on a fixed pool of 954 properties worldwide using D-EDGE Digital media solutions over the last eight years (2012 - 2019), some major trends and patterns appear clearly as indicated below:

Bookings generated by ad-driven campaigns increased by 200% from 2013 to 2019.

Google Hotel Ads is now the largest metasearch channel in terms of the number of clicks and number of hotel bookings; it earns 57% of all metasearch bookings.

Bookings from metasearch remain the largest ad-driven booking channel.

But the most striking result is by Display Advertising, one of the latest digital media techniques: it now generates 31% of ad-based bookings, overtaking branded search as illustrated in the gif below.

As hoteliers are, more than ever, looking at optimising their digital marketing campaigns, it is crucial that they base their strategy on facts rather than on popular belief or past best practices. In this report, they will find a complete, up-to-date analysis on the performance of the different Digital Media used by hotels (display advertising, Metasearch, Search) in terms of Volume of reservations generated, acquisition costs and return on ad spend.

The report is available on D-EDGE Website in English https://www.d-edge.com/the-state-of-hotel-advertisingthe-rise-of-display-in-the-world-of-meta/, Czech French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

About D-EDGE

D-EDGE is a SaaS company offering leading-edge cloud-based e-commerce solutions to more than 12,000 hotels in over 100 countries.

Combining technical excellence with digital marketing expertise, D-EDGE brings a holistic hospitality technology infrastructure under one roof. The integrated range of solutions covers all stages of hotel distribution which encompasses Central Reservation System, Guest Management, Data Intelligence, Connectivity Hub, Digital Media and Website Creation.

With a team of 350 experts located in over 20 countries, D-EDGE provides localised support, services and tools. With its global network of 500+partners, D-EDGE's ever-expanding ecosystem is a positive place to do business and grow.

More information on https://www.d-edge.com/fr/
Opinion Article

2 July 2020

For everyone whose lifeblood is the hotel industry, the last few months have been heartbreaking. Of course, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc and unimaginable pain and hardship for countless people around the world, but we could never have imagined seeing the entire world stop traveling completely.

I experienced this disruption firsthand while on vacation in New Zealand, having to scramble to find a safe place to "shelter" for an extended period of time, with travel restrictions and flights changing literally by the hour. Despite being trapped Down Undermind you, I can think of far worse places to be stuck in limbomy IDeaS colleagues and I held a few virtual brainstorming sessions to determine how we could best help the industry we love so much during this crisis.

One result was the quick development of a new podcast format for my Unconstrained Conversations video series. Spinning up a new podcast in a matter of days can be challenging, but by turning it into a weekly series, we felt we would be better able to provide easy, ongoing access to conversations for hoteliers, by hoteliers. This forum allows them to share what they are doing, how they are coping and create an understanding that we are all in this together.

Following my first several conversations with hotel leaders from around the world, I wanted to compile some of their unique insights. I am so impressed by the capacity for guidance, caring, empathy and stellar communication these leaders have demonstrated during this time. I think you may agree.

A Tremendous Learning Curve

Like so many hoteliers over the past few months, Robert Herr, the general manager of the Burgenstock Hotels & Resort in Switzerland, had to make extremely difficult decisions for his business. In our interview, he spoke about his team's decision to close two of their properties prior to government mandates and the necessary discussions with owners and investors. Herr explained how this fully integrated, multi-purpose resort saw an early impact to their business. Fortunately, no employees lost their positions, but were put on "short-time" work status, similar to unemployment in the U.S.

His team realized fairly quickly that in two of the three sections of the resort, business would need to be suspended. The third section, which is dedicated to medical and rehab patients, would need to remain open, but was kept at a low occupancy level.

"This has been a tremendous learning curve for me and the entire team," Herr said. "Obviously, our human resources team has been busy dealing with so many employees being converted to short-time workers. Additionally, we needed to update our cancellation policy and terms and conditions and as guests began cancelling, we needed to ensure they understood these new policies. Then there was the issue of the security and safety of not only our guests, but our working employees. Providing a security tour was beneficial to all involved.

"We implemented strategies for communicating with guests and potential guests, but also communication with working and short-time staff at every level. I think one of the important factors in all of this was communication, because the worst thing you can do is leave your employees in the dark. Even though we didn't know all the answers, we still kept the lines of communication open to help them understand the process and updates as they happen."

The results speak for themselves. Herr commented that employees have been supportive and understood fairly early on that it was important to take a step-by-step, day-by-day philosophy. As for what happens next, Herr said, "There is no point speculating now. I believe that health and safety will be the topmost priority. Disinfectants will be here to stay, and we will be taking measures to ensure the safety of our employees and our guests."

Finally, they are focusing on the future. Herr believes getting back to normal in a three to six-month time period is optimistic with a ramp up period in the summertime. "70 percent of our guests have typically come from China and abroad. We will be placing a bigger focus on domestic tourism and we believe that there will be more opportunities as the Swiss population are closer and have strong purchasing power. I truly believe many will want to rediscover their own country, since they won't be eager, or able, to travel beyond our borders. We must have tactics and strategies in place to address this customer segment."

A New York City Perspective

Derek Brewster, director of revenue management for the Lotte New York Palace, took time out of his busy schedule to speak to me from the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, New York City, where everyone was still on high alert. At the time of our interview, Brewster conveyed the need to stay inside and adhere to CDC guidelines with regard to face masks and social distancing.

With hotel operations temporarily suspended, Brewster spoke about the importance of staying flexible, using the time to expand professional and personal skills, and staying positive during times of crisis.

Brewster said learning how to work from home has been a new experience, and he appreciates the fact that he is still able to work. "Working from home is sometimes more productive, but it is a different type of busy," Brewster said. "The day-to-day demands have completely changed, and I find myself looking for a pulse anywhere to gauge movement in the market. It has forced many of us to learn new lessons as we push through this."

While the hotel suspended regular operations, the Lotte has a unique situation in that it also hosts permanent residents. This has resulted in the need to maintain reduced staff to support those residents; however, sales had been suspended at the time this podcast was recorded.

For those still working, Brewster said the focus has been on cleaning and developing protocols for future health and safety issues. "It has been heartwarming to see the dedication of those who are still working at the hotel."

In addition to the necessary physical cleaning of the hotel itself, he noted that spring cleaning of their technology systems has also been in full force. "We have been able to catch up on projects that we were never able to get to in the past," Brewster noted. He also stated that vendors and service providers have been more able to update their systems during this time.

He went on to say that many data points he would normally take into consideration, such as pace, are irrelevant. "My focus has been more about making sense of the lack of data," Brewster said. "Pickup is more important, and the rate of cancellations. The flattening of the virus curve is similar to the curve we are seeing in our data. Distribution partners are more important than ever, as are comp sets from the rest of the country and STR data has been invaluable. Our weekly calls have had to incorporate the definition of 'What does the new normal look like?' and 'What will our guests be looking for?' or 'What will the new consumer behavior patterns and needs look like in the coming months, and likely years, as they evaluate where they want to stay?'"

Focus groups of top clients have been helpful in determining what this new normal will look like. Once the safety and security of employees and guests has been established, the hotel will need to take cues from the city and local hotel organizations to inform next actions.

From the hotel perspective, with regard to being fluid, Brewster noted that making decisions as a team on a day-to-day basis has been helpful. "Revenue and sales must be the most informed and that hasn't changed. Different data sources and different information has been important, as opposed to yielding and demand data.

"From a personal and professional level, I have found that I wasn't as sharp as I should be with regards to digital marketing, so online classes have helped me to better understand what it should look like at our property. But the biggest opportunity for us is revenue generation, as opposed to revenue yielding, and looking at it as we are in this pause situation. Expanding out from revenue management to generate and drive demand is critical.

"Trying to stay as positive as possible during this time is one of the most important aspects, from both a personal and professional level. Our mental state is key. Keeping your mind active and finding ways to engage to grow and develop will be essential in staying connected and maintaining balance."

A New Mindset to a Solid Recovery Strategy

"America loves a comeback story, but few are in love with the process and perseverance required for it to become reality," Sloan Dean, CEO and president of Remington Hotels, said. "What the world looked like yesterday does not matter. If your question is 'When do we get back to February 2020?' then you are not armed for success in these times."

Remington Hotels is currently rated as the top hotel management company on Glassdoor. Founded in 1968, the hospitality group has grown into a strong, industry-leading service provider and today manages 86 hotels in 26 states across 17 brands, including 12 independent and boutique properties.

With 90 percent of their associate workforce currently furloughed, taking care of employees in these trying times is a priority and Mr. Dean, who is of a like mind to Mr. Herr, highlighted the fact that during the worst of times, clear, frequent and open communication is key. This includes telling people the truth about how bad things will get.

As Dean expressed it, there is nothing worse than coming back every week telling people it is actually worse than previously thought. He made a point of stressing to his teams throughout the crisis that things will get worse before they get better. To accommodate this thinking, Dean has made it a point of holding online meetings twice a week with his teams.

With webcasts every Tuesday and Friday, Dean noticed moral was slipping. Many thought it would be a sharp V-shaped recovery. But as time went on, it was obvious it would be more of an L-shaped recovery. Dean said, "If you deliver even bad news in a candid and transparent fashion, people take it better."

To provide his team with insight, he likened the situation to a reverse hotel opening. "We are effectively back at day zero for at least 90 days," Dean said. "Having that mindset and analogy of a reverse-engineered hotel opening arms people with new expectations. When you can frame a situation as a worst-case scenario, and then the situation becomes even worse, it creates stress, emotion and sends most people into a dark place. If we can empower them to be more motivated, that today can be better than yesterday, we can provide them with a sense of motivation.

"The 'day zero' scenario seems to help them manage the crisis as we move forward with daily efforts to gain ground from low occupancy to when business will begin to come back. Reverse engineering the hotel opening has been a saving grace for many of our employees struggling with the bad news. Lead with the bad and you can only go up from there."

Dean created a list of things he thought he could learn as a leader during this crisis. Then he created a separate list on how his team could be strategic and make this a long-term, beneficial event for Remington itself.

"This allowed me to think in a positive fashion," Dean said. "What can I personally learn and what can the organization learn during this time? Make sure you are staying emotionally connected. As social distancing has taken away from our normal day-to-day activities, small things matter the most. Whether its employees who remain working or are on furlough, Remington and its executive team have maintained balance and communication with all staff and will continue to do so."

Turning Adversity into Opportunity

At the end of February, New Zealand noted the first case of COVID. Accor had recently stepped up to help during the brush fires in the region. This inadvertently helped the company prepare for the crisis as the pandemic moved across the country, leaving 200,000 tourists stranded. To make matters worse, citizens of New Zealand trying to return were told they would need to quarantine at a hotel for two weeks before returning to their homes.

Iain Ganner, regional director of sales and marketing for Accor New Zealand, Fiji and French Polynesia, shared how his team managed to partner with the New Zealand government in their fight against the coronavirus.

Through foresight, teamwork and perseverance, Accor lined up all stakeholders, including hotel owners, general managers and the corporate teams. When the call for assistance came from the New Zealand government, Accor was ready to jump in and provide much needed aid to quarantine the many New Zealanders returning from overseas and shelter tourists waiting for repatriation flights home. This amazing story is not necessarily unique to Accor New Zealand; however, it demonstrates that even in the face of the worst global health crisis in 100 years, opportunities exist.

"Executives at Accor began having discussions about how to not only help the stranded, but also to help the government in crisis response," Ganner said. "Then we asked the general managers and the sales and marketing teams to report about any interaction from the government and what they may need.

"This intelligence gathering helped us assemble the signals coming in and respond as a unit. We were then able to better communicate with district health boards and other agencies to understand where the needs were and how big the response from the government would be."

Ramp up came fairly quickly, and the insight into how the government was thinking allowed Ganner and the executive and management teams to come together to develop a coordinated response. The swift response among the Accor teams gave a signal that they were ready to assist, buy-in was complete and they were willing to go the distance in assisting in the efforts.

From there, each hotel had to make a decision about their willingness to take in COVID-positive patients, self-isolation guests, as well as healthcare and government employees who needed a port in the storm.

Clear commitment, even without knowing the need, was key, as well as ongoing communication. Ganner noted, "The general managers of the individual properties went above and beyond in this effort, sharing empathy, care and love that helped Accor gain the respect of not only returning citizens, but also outside tourists."

As a result, Accor was an integral part, along with other hotel chains, in helping the country manage, mitigate and quickly overcome the pandemic.

Future Conversations

The Unconstrained Conversations podcast continues as the industry and the world slowly recovers, with plans to check in on some of my earlier guests for an update on their progress. Future episodes will continue to feature real-world stories and actionable advice in revenue management, total profit optimization and driving a connected commercial organization from some of the world's most creative hotel industry thought leaders. Stay tuned.
Opinion Article

2 July 2020

The first thing that came to mind when Marriott International furloughed two-thirds of its corporate and property staff was - Is this going to severely impact the Marriott brand and the relationship with their most important asset: PEOPLE. Many blue-chip companies in hospitality, gaming and travel followed suit. These same companies have spent untold millions over the past decade building both a customer and an employment brand. Would their reputation be severely impacted in ninety days? I sought the expertise of my friend Anshuma Lal, founder of branding agency Human Made NY, to weigh in on the issue. Here is what she had to say:

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"Maybe it's best to start with what brand integrity is not. It is not muddling the truth. And it certainly is not communicating one thing and doing another. People do not expect companies to be perfect. In fact, you may be surprised to know that it is not your low pricing or superior product that keeps your customers coming back. Or the perks you provide as an employer that keep your staff from jumping ship. It's your ability to maintain authenticity, transparency, and sincerity that elicits loyalty. During these unprecedented times, a company's effectiveness in exercising these values will directly determine how well they weather the storm."

Anshuma's comments hit home as some hospitality leaders such as Arne Sorenson at Marriott, Danny Meyer at Union Square Hospitality, Chris Nasetta at Hilton and Matt Maddox at Wynn have done an admirable job of staying true to their brands in the face of the pandemic. Below are more specific examples of how they have been maintaining brand integrity and consequently customer and employee loyalty.

Be Informed

Marriott put CEO Arne Sorenson front and centre in a corporate video where he laid out the facts about the COVID-19 impact on his company and the industry. Furloughing two-thirds of Marriott's workforce was a painful decision but he was honest and decisive. He also shared how he sought the advice of numerous experts and shared timely facts about the industry-wide shut down. It was difficult but heartfelt.

During a time of great uncertainty, employees and customers do not need opinions; they need accurate and up-to-date information. Hire or seek the advice of experts in the relevant areas of concern. In this case, infectious disease specialists, labour relations/law experts, communications professionals, virus disinfection & sanitation services. Like Arne, gather a well-rounded group of advisors.

Tell the Truth

When Danny Meyer at Union Square Hospitality laid off 2,000 associates, he said it was a tough but straightforward decision. In his interview on the Masters of Scale Podcast he laid out his thoughts in greater detail. He brought his team together via technology and told them the following hard truths about closing his restaurants:

It could be dangerous for them to come to work. There was no work. The only way there would be work for them in the future was to keep the business alive and kicking. There were programs in place such as unemployment that his team could tap into and that he would help them access these programs.

It may not be easy, but telling the truth is always better than communicating a misinformed and unrealistic picture. This is what plagues President Trump as he is constantly backtracking on pandemic comments that prove to be erroneous.

Show Compassion

For example, Hilton donated rooms to help healthcare and essential workers have a comfortable place to stay. They also provided free vacations to workers after the pandemic subsides. Many other hotel companies followed suit. Las Vegas Sands has been at the forefront of keeping employees on staff and paid.

There is no better way to support your staff than to keep them paid and engaged. If you can't, donate what you can. This will be over at some point and people will remember how leadership acted during the crisis. Remember that you are part of a community and both friends and foes are watching. The pandemic has inflicted a great deal of pain world-over with people losing livelihoods and loved-ones. Speak and act with acute sensitivity that empathizes and resonates. The key is to keep your humanity.

Deliver

Matt Maddox at Wynn Resorts put out a 36-page how-to strategy for re-opening a casino resort. He has shared that strategy with everyone to replicate and refine.

Take authentic action to help and execute. Everyone is better off when you deliver on your promises. This is a precarious time to be a leader and a business owner, so even small wins are better than loses. Collaboration is also critical. Support the AHLA, NRA and AGA and their efforts to help the entire industry recover.

Thoughtfully Innovate

Hilton created CleanStay in collaboration with the maker of Lysol and the Mayo Clinic. They are developing processes and training to make rooms cleaner and safer when the economy reopens. Numerous other companies and the AHLA has developed similar protocols.

Safety is too important to the entire world and these companies are sharing their programs for the betterment of all people. The world has changed, and we need to change with it. As always, innovations will be the key to progress. Let the past be a reference but not an impediment to advancement.

Brands are a fragile balance of many inputs and they need constant reinforcement. More so during difficult times. Use your brand pillars to guide your decision making and you stand a better chance of coming out on the other side with your brand integrity intact.
Opinion Article

2 July 2020

Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky talked about the future of travel in a CNBC interview last week. He stated: "Travel, as we knew it, is over. It doesn't mean travel is over, just the travel we knew is over, and it's never coming back. It's just not." His statement made headlines last week, but he also suggested in the same interview: " travel is going to come back. It's just going to take a lot longer than, you know, we would have thought, and it's going to be different."

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What do you think? Will people travel again?

The glass is half empty

Some places saw a spark of confirmed infected cases of COVID-19 in just a few weeks after the local governments lifted the coronavirus restrictions. Florida, for example, reported that its daily case count had increased fivefold in just two weeks. Moreover, the median age of the new patients dropped to 36, indicating the coronavirus is now spreading among the younger age group.

Along with Florida, Texas and Arizona also reported record numbers of confirmed infected cases and emerged as the new epicenters. Arizona and Georgia recorded the highest number of new cases on Sunday. Texas just reimposed the COVID-19 restrictions by closing the bars.

California was the first state that paused non-essential businesses and urged residents to stay at home in March. Gov. Gavin Newsom made plans for reopening restaurants, malls, and offices in California on May 12. In the last few weeks, however, the state reported the highest number of new cases and had more infected patients who needed to stay in hospitals. Counties with a high positivity rate of COVID-19 are urged to shut down again.

Other states, such as New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, are imposing 14-day self-quarantine for travelers coming from the states with a "high-infection rate." That is 10 infections per 100,000 people or 10% or higher positively rate over a seven-day rolling average. Currently, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington met such criteria.

Internationally, the European Union will soon decide if the U.S. can be included in the "safe list" of countries where residents can travel to the bloc without self-quarantine. The outlook now is not looking positive when many states still reported a high infected rate of COVID-19.

The glass is half full

On the flip side, there are hopes. First and for most, people want to travel. Key indicators are showing some signs of recovery.

More people are flying now than they were in April, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), although the number of travelers could only account for one-fourth of the 2019 level. Airlines are also adding more domestic and international flights.

The hotel industry saw improvement as well, particularly in drive-to destinations and in the economy class hotels. Likewise, Airbnb observed a dramatic turnaround in June. Over the weekend of June 5 - June 7, Airbnb reported a first-time year-to-year growth since February.

The restaurant industry bounced back from the bottom, with better performance data in May. Sales in food services and drinking places increased by 29% to $38.6 billion.

Will the vaccine be the solution?

Countries are racing for a remedy of COVID-19. Many are hoping the vaccine will become available by the end of this year.

Until then, some places are doing just fine without the vaccine. Taiwan, for example, relies on case tracing to bring down the infection rate. This year, Taiwan was one of the few places on this planet that could celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride with a public parade. Over 200 people gathered in the Liberty Square in Taipei this Sunday for the event.

Will travel be forever changed after the COVID-19 pandemic?

Without a doubt, travel will not be the same in the next few years. Travel companies are adapting to the new changes with enhanced cleaning standards and likely, with linear operations.

Nevertheless, when the pandemic is over and becomes history (let's hope that will be the case very soon), will people still restrict themselves from going out? Will they want to wear masks in public? Will they practice social distancing?

What are your thoughts?
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Protesters chant slogans and gesture during a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. (AFP)

Sydney: Australia is actively considering providing safe haven to Hong Kong residents in response to China's sweeping new security law, it said Thursday, a move likely to further inflame tensions with Beijing.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the situation in Hong Kong was "very concerning" and his government was "very actively" considering proposals to welcome in residents of the former British territory.

Asked by a reporter whether Australia could extend an offer of safe haven, Morrison responded "yes."

He said the measures would soon be considered by his Cabinet, hinting strongly that it would be approved.

"We think that's important and very consistent with who we are as a people."

It comes a day after the United Kingdom announced a new route for those with British National Overseas status and their families to move there and eventually apply for citizenship.

Hong Kong was under UK jurisdiction until Britain handed it back to China in 1997 with a guarantee that Beijing would preserve the city's judicial and legislative autonomy for 50 years.

But critics say the new law -- passed by Beijing's rubber-stamp parliament this week without its text being released to the public -- breaches the "One Country, Two Systems" principle that formally entered international law in 1984.

Morrison said no final decision had been made on how Australia's arrangements would be structured but the country was "prepared to step up and provide support" to Hong Kong residents.

Any offer is sure to further strain Canberra's relationship with Beijing, coming after repeated clashes between the two sides.

Most recently, Australia enraged China by calling for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Canberra has also pushed back against what it describes as China's economic "coercion", covert influence campaigns and the use of technology companies like Huawei as a tool for intelligence-gathering and geopolitical leverage.

China has warned its students and tourists against going to Australia, slapped trade sanctions on Australian goods and sentenced an Australian citizen to death for drug trafficking.
Brident Dental, a dentistry chain headquartered in Orange, Calif., will furlough 56 employees in Texas as a result of unforeseen business circumstances resulting from the sudden and unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, the company told state officials.

The layoffs affect workers at 18 Brident offices in Texas, a dozen of which are located in Harris County. Furloughs are expected to last through July 31.
Employees are back in full force at the Hong Kong office of the commercial real estate firm JLL, wearing masks and working side by side. The architecture firm Gensler and Houston-based real estate company Hines have also had most of their workers return to their China locations.

Executives from those companies were preparing their Houston offices to take the first step toward doing the same in June or July. Then the number of COVID cases spiked.

Obviously, that has been delayed with recent events, said John Mooz, senior managing director at Hines, said of plans to return to the office.

Mooz was among leaders from Houstons commercial real estate industry who gathered June 30 for a virtual panel to talk about how returning to the office has looked around the world, and what it might look like in Houston. He was joined by Dan Bellow, president of commercial real estate brokerage JLL-Houston, and Stephanie Burritt, a principal at architecture firm Gensler.

The panel was hosted by the Houston Chronicle and moderated by real estate reporter Nancy Sarnoff. Nearly 300 people attended the virtual event.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Key Houston workforce prepares to bring energy back to offices

The participants argued that while new work-from-home habits represent a radical shift, the need for an office environment separate from the home where people can have face-to-face interactions remains. There is, they believe, a future for central business districts.

Whats more, the experiences workplaces around the world have had reintroducing employees to offices suggest it can be done in a safe manner.

Shortly after the first cases of community spread were detected in Houston, businesses began sending workers home. A new cohort of remote workers suddenly had the opportunity to weigh the pros and cons, based on of first-hand experience, of working remotely. Headlines wondered whether it was the end of the office as we know it.

Thats been an early debate from Day One when COVID reared its head, Mooz said. But he said that, as working from home has stretched on, hes noticed a lot of people are not enjoying it.

For some families, juggling the needs of children who are out of school or other at-home relatives has made home offices less than ideal. But Bellow said that even with a peaceful at-home office, the working remotely has its drawbacks.

Video conference fatigue is worse than meeting fatigue, he said flatly. COVID has stolen our mojo The interaction, the collaboration, the serendipity of being in an office has been stolen from us, and I think thats the thing that disappoints us all.

In a Houston Chronicle poll of whether people viewing the webinar would prefer to work from home, work in the office or have a hybrid of the two, the overwhelming majority chose the hybrid option. Only 8 percent said they would prefer to work from home all of the time.

That, Mooz said, means the downtown business district will continue to retain its importance despite increased comfort with telecommuting from the suburbs.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Phillips 66 confirms coronavirus cases at company's headquarters

At the same time, returning to the office is a complicated process. Three quarters of the respondents to the Chronicle poll said they had postponed plans to return to the office. Even when new cases of the coronavirus subside, each step of the return, including how to use public transportation, how to enter an office building and how to ride the elevator will have new safety measures.

In the beginning, there was a return fatigue, Burritt said of how employees responded to coming back to the office. At first, the health checkpoints and layers of precautions made what had once been simple tasks  such as running out for lunch  extended rigmaroles. And meetings in which participants wore masks felt self-defeating.

The very reason you wanted to have an in-person conversation, you feel like youre missing because youre missing a portion of that facial expression, that body language, she said.

But with time, Burritt found, feedback from Genslers offices that have returned to work has changed as people adjusted. It has shifted from something that sounded very tiring to something thats much more normal for them  and much more comfortable, she said. So were anticipating similar behaviors as we try to re-enter.

The panel was optimistic about how changes during the pandemic could improve Houstonians lives  imagine if people started their days from home, reducing the morning rush hour logjam, or if touchless door and elevator technologies helped prevent the spread of other illnesses, such as the flu and common cold.

When it came to how the pandemic could change demand for office space  whether workplaces are asking for different floorplans or more or less space, answers turned vague.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston office leasing market is showing signs of life

I think the key right now is flexibility, Burritt said. Clients planning to deliver projects before a vaccine is developed are looking for ways to create spaces that can meet current safety precautions, then be adjusted to fit the needs of the new normal after a vaccine without costly modifications to the space.

As for leasing, Bellow said, hes urging clients to consider the long term.

I think its short-sighted to make your decision based on a point in time, he said. You dont make it because of where we are today  you make it about how life is going to be in 12 months, or 24 months. Were going to get over this virus.

rebecca.schuetz@chron.com

twitter.com/raschuetz
Nearly two-thirds of Texans think that people in the state would be healthier if government officials spent more money improving social issues such as education, unemployment and pollution, a new study found.

A study released Thursday by the Episcopal Health Foundation, a Houston community health advocacy nonprofit, found that a majority of adults surveyed want the state legislature to address social determinants of health, such as access to health insurance, food insecurity, reliable transportation, and jobs that pay living wages.

Six in 10 respondents said state government should focus on improving the economy, reducing unemployment, lowering crime rates, improving K-12 education and reducing pollution if they wanted to improve Texans' health.

The survey also found that 93 percent of Texans believed it was "somewhat important for doctors to ask patients about non-medical factors that might affect their health."

MORE FUNDING: Episcopal Health Foundation awards $1.3 million in COVID-19 relief grants

The report comes as low-income communities and communities of color in Texas' largest cities are hit hardest by COVID-19. A Houston Chronicle analysis in April found that coronavirus cases sickened Houston's poorest communities at rates two to three times of wealthier ZIP codes.

"All of that goes back to social, community, and economic conditions," Elena Marks, EHF's president, said in a statement, "not medical care.

Researchers said disparities in infection rates in part reflect that many minority and low-income workers hold essential service jobs that can't be done from home. In addition, minority and low-income households also face greater challenges in finding and affording healthy foods and gaining access to adequate, and affordable health care.

According to the survey, women, people with lower incomes and those between the ages of 18 to 29 were more likely to support spending on non-medical factors would positively affect health. Episcopal Health Foundation researchers found that half of Texans supported state lawmakers pushing to spend more on health care.

But 49 percent of survey respondents said they were hesitant to divert state health care funding toward addressing social determinants. On the other hand, nearly six in 10 Texans said health insurers should cover non-medical factors that could affect people's health.

gwendolyn.wu@chron.com

twitter.com/gwendolynawu
Were entering month four of the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders, and judging from the spike in COVID-19 cases in Houston, things arent letting up any time soon.

Thousands of Houstonians are trying to figure out when they can go to DPS for license renewals, complete an expedited security clearance for international flights, see their accountants for taxes and renew car registrations. Every entity is different, and trying to figure out whos doing what is confusing.

Heres a round-up reminder of whats been postponed, whats reopening and how to get those errands done.

The drivers license

You can still renew your drivers license online and have the updated card mailed back. If you need to go in-person to renew your license, dont fret. State officials have extended a waiver for people whose licenses expired on or after March 13, 2020. The licenses remain valid for 60 days after the Texas Department of Public Safety lifts the extension waiver.

In May, TxDPS began reopening driver license offices and admitting people by appointment. (Long DPS lines are a thing of the past, it seems.)

Some offices are expected to extend their hours in July, TxDPS spokesperson Ericka Miller said.

More Information What is this? I'm Gwendolyn Wu, and I'm writing "Houston How To," a series on how to navigate the city and its complexities. Humans have an innate drive to improve themselves, and we're always striving to live better, smarter and more efficiently by throwing countless dollars and hours at our problems. The Houston Chronicle wants to simplify that for you. As a reporter, I usually ask the questions, but I can't be the only one wondering how something works. What are things you need to know how to do, Houston? You can find me on Twitter at @gwendolynawu or by email at gwendolyn.wu@chron.com. See More Collapse

We are finalizing details related to expanded services offerings, as well as plans for appointment availability on Saturdays at select DL offices, she said.

MORE HOW TO: Coronavirus changed summer vacations. Heres how to plan ahead.

State troopers should be aware of the waiver, so you can contest any citations related to an invalid license if it expired after March 13. But youre still responsible for any tickets issued before that date.

Car registrations

If your car is already registered in Texas, you can renew your vehicle registration online or by mail. But vehicle title and registration requirements are still waived, said Adam Shaivitz, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Similar to TxDPS, the department will give notice when those waivers lift, and from that point, people will have 60 days to complete any overdue registrations or renewals.

Drivers renewing electronically can check the status of their blue-and-white stickers online at https://www.txdmv.gov/track.

The online renewal processing time has not changed during the pandemic, Shaivitz said.

To renew your car, youll first need to take your vehicle in for an inspection test, provide your renewal notice, proof of insurance and pay the fees.

Auto mechanics are an essential service, according to the countys public health guidelines, and you should be able get a car inspection. You may have to wait in a socially distant waiting room, or if youre not comfortable with that, drop off your vehicle and come back later. Youre welcome to take an antibacterial wipe with you to clean any high-touch surfaces, such as a steering wheel, if youre worried technicians could transfer germs to your car.

But if youve recently moved to Texas (welcome!), you might not be able to register your car here until the pandemics stay-at-home orders lift. Each county determined whether it would keep its tax office open, Shaivitz said.

Like the other waivers, however, you dont need to register your car in the state within 30 days of moving during the pandemic. The 60-day period after the waivers lift for drivers licences is also applicable to new registrations.

At the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collectors Office, staff are still making appointments for those with extenuating circumstances, such as paying an extra fee to their previous state or an upcoming Department of Public Safety appointment, said tax office spokesperson Laura Smith. Otherwise, the Harris County office remains closed.

TSA Pre-Check, Global Entry and other travel services

Reader Helen Schutz had a scheduled appointment in April at San Antonio International Airport for a Global Entry interview after she was unable to get one at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

As the pandemic dragged on, federal officials canceled her appointment. She, among thousands more, got emails from federal officials advising them to do the enrollment interview upon arriving into the U.S. on an international flight.

But thats not gonna happen, Schutz said by email. At least not anytime soon.

Customs and Border Protection originally planned to reopen enrollment centers for travelers like Schutz to come in for their interviews beginning July 6, but postponed to Aug. 10 after cases rose across the U.S. Global Entry applicants have 485 days from the date of application, due to an extension, to schedule and attend an appointment.

We do expect there to be a high demand for appointments with enrollment centers closed for three months, said CBP spokesperson Nate Peeters.

NEXUS and U.S.-Canada FAST interviews are still suspended through August.

Most enrollment centers for the Transportation Security Administrations Pre-Check, which speeds up domestic security checkpoints, remain open, said TSA spokesperson Patricia Mancha.

PAYING RENT: How do you apartment hunt in a pandemic?

Travelers going in for those interviews should make an appointment online, although walk-ins are still accepted.

This will ensure that they receive a notification if their appointment is canceled, Mancha said in an email, and will allow the center to manage/limit the number of people arriving at one time to help ensure proper social distancing.

Taxes

The Internal Revenue Service will not be extending Tax Day again. July 15 remains the last day to file on-time for 2020, federal officials said Tuesday.

Several free tax preparing groups in Houston reopened their services at the end of May. BakerRipley, for instance, is still preparing tax years 2016 and 2019, and allowing people to drop-off their taxes to reduce the amount of time spent waiting.

If you havent yet done your taxes yet, youre coming up on deadline. Either file it yourself (check if you qualify for one of the IRS Free File programs) or prepare to stand in a socially distant line at your tax preparers office.

Property taxes must be mailed, paid online or via phone, according to the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collectors office. In late March, the office announced that property owners who have 12-month installment collection plans were not required to make payments in March, April and May but would face late fees. Those payments were due before June 30.

gwendolyn.wu@chron.com

twitter.com/gwendolynawu
When Margo and Maddie Whitley first booked flights to Paris in February, the identical twins thought theyd be in France for two quick weeks  just long enough to take the fashion industry by storm. The plan was to attend a few model castings, and with a little luck, walk the runway during Paris Fashion Week.

Then COVID-19 hit Europe, and flights out of Charles de Gaulle Airport were hard to come by. The sisters have been abroad ever since.

Their predicament reads like a storyline plucked from Americas Next Top Model. At 19, both young women are signed with agencies in their native Houston and Los Angeles, plus the big four: New York, London, Milan and Paris. With two major contracts inked during quarantine alone, by all accounts, the Whitley twins are on the cusp of making it. As transgender women, theyre also redefining conventional standards of gender and femininity as their careers gain traction.

What better place for two model talents to land their big breaks than Paris?

It became really expensive to leave, like 1,800 euros, Maddie said. The day everything got serious, we moved into the model apartment. Everyone else left Paris and fled to the countryside. We were the only two people in our building, and that was really intense  even just trying to go grocery shopping, because we dont speak French.

Like many Texas students, the Whitley twins studied Spanish in high school. That feels like a lifetime ago  when Maddie and Margo were both enrolled at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, an all-boys Catholic School, and identified as male.

The sisters were born and raised in Houston. They have four younger brothers.

Two of them dont have any memories of us before Maddie and Margo, Margo said. The ones closest (to us) in age were accepting.

The summer after eighth grade, Maddie told their mom she wanted to talk about something important. She was like, Sweetie, are you gay? Maddie recalled. And I said, No, Im actually your daughter.

TK

Her mom was supportive, which alleviated a lot of fear and pressure, though freshman year at Strake Jesuit still proved challenging. Maddie says that she was bullied regularly, and the situation at school only worsened once she started taking hormones. My body was changing and not in the way everyone elses was. I knew from my first day that it was going to be a long year.

Tuition was expensive, so Maddie tried to make the most of the private education. She registered at Carnegie Vanguard High School the following year.

At first, Margo didnt think she would ever come out. Or follow in her sisters footsteps.

It was a part of myself that I repressed a lot, but then it felt like living a pretend life, said Margo, who came out to their mom during sophomore year and later graduated from Lamar High School. She was immediately on board and ready to help me out.

The twins admit their father took a while to come around. Because Maddie and Margos transitions were roughly 18 months apart, their parents already had the blueprint for how to proceed.

Maddie started taking prescribed hormone medication at age 14, wearing a really big sweatshirt all the time to hide my new boobs. It was around that time that her striking new features caught the eye of a legendary Houston talent scout.

I saw a unicorn, it was just the most magical thing ever, said Page Parkes, owner and founder of the eponymous Center of Modeling & Acting. The Saturday that Maddie came in I was training someone, and when I turned the corner and saw those long legs stretched across the lobby  she was in the process of transitioning and could not have been more beautiful.

Parkes says that at the time, shed been aiming to sign a transgender client. But not everyone has long legs, a 24-inch waist and 34-inch hips, Parkes said. And, theres two of them.

TK

The first step in the twins training was modeling camp. Thats where the Whitley sisters say they really learned how to be girls.

Maddie booked her first paying gig  a test shoot for Outsmart magazine that became the April 2018 cover story  soon after. Local jobs with Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Tootsies followed.

The rest is history in the making. They just tore right through this industry and went straight to the top, Parkes said. It just doesnt happen like that.

Chiugo Akujuobi, an aspiring model who self-identifies as a nonbinary woman and uses they/them pronouns, hopes to have a career that emulates the Whitelys. Akujuobis strategy for breaking into the industry is a decidedly more Generation Z approach: social media.

Ive always wanted to create in that way and show off my outfits online, they said. It started in high school, when my friends would go to Sesquicentennial Park in Buffalo Bayou or some abandoned lot to take pictures and post them on Instagram. Thats how I got my first job.

Akujuobi began modeling luxury scarves and accessories for Jil Dever while they were still a senior at Westside High School. Now a senior at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., Akujuobi is looking to the future and how to incorporate modeling and fashion into a full-fledged career. As an organizational studies major with a concentration in economics and an Africana studies minor, their dream job would be to work in social-media strategy.

I want to plan social-media calendars, photo shoots and creative direction, Akujuobi, 21, said. I would also love to work as a solo model, photographer and travel around the world and have brands pick up the costs. Financially, thats good for them, because Im just one person instead of paying five people.

Until Akujuobi started school at Scripps and was introduced to a friend who identifies as nonbinary, they didnt realize the term existed.

I wish gender defined less of person. Life is so nuanced, they said. Ive always felt like I wasnt just a woman in the way that society defines womanhood. Nonbinary to me means that your gender identity isnt restricted to one gender. It can be androgynous, though nonbinary people dont owe the world androgyny.

Akujuobi describes their style as alte. Its basically alternative, think Nigerian youth who dress outside the box, they explained. Piercings, baggy clothes, fun prints and just experiment with style.

TK

They often slide pitches to collaborate and submit their portfolio for modeling work into the direct messages of top fashion editors and brands, hoping someone will take their colorful, nonconventional bait.

Its honestly so hard, getting your foot in the door, Akujuobi said.

The Whitley twins know theyre lucky. Getting stranded in Paris felt like kismet.

In Houston, you dont meet the same people. People here have really dedicated themselves to making art, Margo said. Its nice to be fully accepted. Everyone is so open-minded.

They have a major campaign (thats still hush-hush) set to launch in October. Hopefully, theyll be back in their New York apartment by then, too.

For now, the Whitley sisters are content being together in France and on the same trajectory.

I get to be my own boss, which is really cool. Essentially we are independent contractors, Maddie said. Everyone loves the twin factor, so I get to work with Margo, traveling and meeting people together. Weve always been attached at the hip.

amber.elliott@chron.com
DANBURY  Employees will return to City Hall in shifts beginning Monday, with plans to allow the public into the building toward the end of the month.

Staff will be separated into two groups, with one group working in the office Monday through Thursday while the other group is at home. The next week, the groups will switch.

This model can potentially keep infectious employees out of the workplace while reducing occupancy by 50% as indicated in the State guidelines, Mayor Mark Boughton wrote in a letter to City Council.

Shifts will be staggered between 7:30 a.m. to 6 or 6:30 p.m. Employees over the age of 65 or employees with high-risk health conditions may continue to work from home if possible.

Offices outside of City Hall may or may not follow the alternating week or staggered schedule based on the employee and visitor occupancy of the department, Boughton said.

Staff members had been working from home throughout the pandemic, although some employees still came into City Hall.

Beginning the week of July 27, visitors will be allowed back by appointment only from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. Visitors must wear masks and will be signed in by the security guard in the lobby.

No more than two to three visitors will be permitted in a department at one time, depending on the space available.

Mail, deliveries and packages will be left with the security guard.

The city is also taking precautions such as masks and sanitation.

As we are all aware, these are unprecedented times that are continually evolving and changing, Boughton wrote. Therefore, as any local, state and/or federal guidance, laws, regulations, executive orders, policies, emergency health plans and/or guidelines are updated, discontinued and/or modified, the City reserves the right to update, discontinue, and/or modify its guidance, policies and practices.
WASHINGTON - Boeing repeatedly downplayed to federal regulators the importance of a flight control system that would later be implicated in the fatal crashes of two 737 Max jets, according to an inspector general's report released Wednesday.

The watchdog's review concluded that Boeing decided as early as 2013 to portray the new automated feature as simply a modification of the plane's existing controls - a decision in keeping with the company's goal of minimizing the new training pilots would need on the aircraft, saving its customers money.

But the feature, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), continued to evolve during the plane's development, becoming more powerful, and staff members with the Federal Aviation Administration told auditors that they made key decisions about the feature without knowing that it had been altered. What's more, the final flight tests of the Max's control systems in late 2016, just a few months before the FAA granted the plane its final blessing, included some tests using the old, less powerful, version of the feature because Boeing was continuing to update it.

The result of those and other decisions meant FAA officials signed off on a system without a clear sense of how it worked and instead chose to focus on other areas regulators deemed high risk during the certification process, including the aircraft's larger engines and changes to its landing gear, the inspector general wrote.

The core of the inspector general's interim report was a detailed timeline that reads like a compendium of missed opportunities that resulted in tragedy.

In response, the FAA pointed to a letter from the Department of Transportation outlining several improvements that are being made in the agency's policies and procedures.

Boeing, in a statement, said: "We appreciate the Inspector General's efforts in reviewing the 737 MAX design and certification process, with which we have cooperated fully and extensively."

"Since the accidents, multiple committees and governmental authorities have examined issues related to the MAX, and in response to their findings and our own internal reviews, we have made substantial changes within our company to further enhance our commitment to safety. We are committed to transparency with the FAA during all aspects of the airplane certification process, and have made significant changes to improve our support to that regulatory process," the company said.

The release of the report comes the same week that FAA pilots and staff from Boeing completed a series of test flights on the Max, which has been grounded worldwide since March 2019 following the two crashes. The flights are seen as a key step for Boeing to win certification of the aircraft, but a number of other requirements must be met, including the evaluation of data gathered from the three days of testing.

The inspector general offered no recommendations, saying those may be included in future reviews of pilot training requirements, the FAA's oversight of the certification process and other related matters.

The inspector general reviews also chronicled the FAA's oversight of Boeing under a system known as Organization Designation Authorization, which gives manufacturers such as Boeing broad powers to perform much of the certification work for their own aircraft. The inspector general had, before the two Max crashes, identified deficiencies in the FAA's oversight of its delegation system, and the details outlined in its latest report point to additional shortcomings. For example, the report notes that the FAA's Boeing Aviation Safety Oversight Office has just 42 employees to oversee Boeing's 1,500 representatives.

The two fatal 737 Max crashes happened less than five months apart - the first on Oct. 29, 2018, off the coast of Indonesia, and the second March 10, 2019, in Ethiopia - killing a total of 346 passengers and crew members. Crash investigators say a faulty reading from one of the planes' sensors caused the MCAS to repeatedly activate, pushing the planes' noses down and making it virtually impossible for the pilots in both incidents to regain control.

The tragedies damaged the reputation of one of the United States' leading manufacturers and led to the ouster of its chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, in December, as well as several other key company officials. It also led to scrutiny of the relationship between the FAA and the companies it is supposed to regulate.

Company emails uncovered as part of a separate congressional investigation showed several instances in which employees bragged about "Jedi mind tricking" regulators and showed contempt for their own internal process. In one 2017 exchange, a Boeing employee wrote, "this airplane is designed by clowns who are in turn supervised by monkeys."

Boeing's new leader, Dave Calhoun, has pledged to rebuild trust in the company, which has lost billions in revenue because of the Max crisis.

Some of the concerns raised by the nonpartisan inspector general have been raised in other reports, but this latest examination offers the clearest summary of the actions taken by Boeing and the FAA throughout the certification process and in the aftermath of the two crashes.

"I commend the DOT Office of the Inspector General for agreeing to take on this critically important examination of the FAA's certification of the Boeing 737 MAX," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has conducted five hearings on the Max. "This IG report reinforces some of the findings of our Committee's ongoing investigation, which has revealed a number of disturbing patterns, including Boeing's efforts to conceal critical information from regulators in its rush to get the MAX to market."

DeFazio said his committee will release additional findings from its investigation.

In a joint statement, Reps. Sam Graves, R-Mo., and Garret Graves, R- La., minority leaders on the committee, said it is critical that lawmakers use the inspector general's work and findings from other groups as Congress moves forward on possible changes.

"This is just the first step in the OIG's process, but this report shows the FAA's certification process at the time was followed and decisions made were based upon certain assumptions that we now know must be reevaluated by the FAA and Boeing," the lawmakers said. "In particular, we are very interested in the OIG's continuing review of FAA's processes for determining the certification basis, assessing pilot training needs, and conducting risk analyses."

The inspector general's report showed that the FAA did not sufficiently require complete, timely and trustworthy information from Boeing.

Boeing did not communicate its own formal risk assessment to the FAA regarding the automated feature until a few months before the FAA certified the Max, the report found.

"According to FAA management, it is not unusual for manufacturers to complete and submit the safety assessments toward the end of the certification process," according to the report.

And even then, the FAA relied on flawed Boeing findings. The company did not anticipate "catastrophic" results from a failure of the automated feature, the report said. As a consequence, neither Boeing nor the FAA called for installing key safety redundancies, which experts say could have saved the planes.

An FAA spokesman declined to respond directly, referring instead to a response from a deputy to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

The report points to "some strengths in FAA's aircraft certification process, as well as areas for improvement," General Counsel Steven Bradbury told the inspector general in a letter last month.

Bradbury said the "FAA anticipates strengthening coordination" among agency officials responsible for certification, "as well as enhancing its human factors, flight controls, and system safety expertise to address weaknesses that led to an incomplete understanding of MCAS prior to certification."

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees aviation, and ranking Democrat Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, have jointly introduced legislation that would strengthen the FAA's oversight of Boeing employees who conduct safety work on behalf of the agency and ensure that government and company employees are free to communicate with one another. The bill would also require the FAA to rethink its approach to evaluating the risks posed when automated flight systems and human pilots have to work together.

Previous reviews of the Max crashes have concluded that the agency and Boeing did not anticipate the difficulty some pilots would have overriding the MCAS if it failed.

House Democrats also are expected to introduce legislation following an extensive investigation into Boeing and the FAA. An interim report they released branded the agency as "grossly insufficient" in its initial review of the Max and blamed Boeing for having a "culture of concealment."

Meanwhile, the FAA continues to move forward with test flights in the Seattle area. The flights are an important step toward approving the Max to resume flying. The planes are being put through a set of maneuvers and emergency procedures to test whether changes Boeing made after the crashes meet the FAA's standards.

FAA Administrator Steve Dickson has said that the coronavirus pandemic has not slowed the agency's work in reviewing the Max. But he told members of Congress recently that convening a panel involving pilots from around the world, another important step in the process, could be challenging. Dickson has said he will personally fly a Max before signing off on ungrounding it.

"The report reinforces concerns that have been raised by the Commerce Committee, including Boeing's lack of candor during the certification process, FAA's questionable oversight of critical safety systems, and the FAA's response after the Lion Air crash," Wicker said. "Although the IG report does not include recommendations, it does provide a factual basis for further consideration of bipartisan aviation safety legislation that Senator Cantwell and I have introduced."
If a world leader in science and technology can't convince its citizenry to wear face masks amid a raging pandemic, that's a problem.

Such is the reality that America faces as a highly transmissible virus runs riot ahead of Independence Day celebrations. With the nation setting ever higher one-day records for infections, which topped 50,000 for the first time on Wednesday, public health experts worry that not enough Americans grasp the risks - or worse, view the crisis through a political lens in an election cycle.

"What type of dystopian situation are we in, when a face mask is a political statement," said Cameron Wolfe, an infectious-disease doctor and associate professor of medicine at Duke University. "We have got to get woken up to the fact that this isn't going away."

A country that's turned out more Nobel laureates than any other, led development of the first polio vaccine and, yes, put a man on the moon is now a coronavirus superpower. The U.S. is home to the highest number of Covid-19 cases - 2.6 million and counting - and most deaths, at more than 127,000.

The floundering U.S. response has caused a heat blast of criticism directed at the Trump administration. Yet the pandemic also casts an unflattering light on deeper American maladies - politicized science, information bubbles and inequality - decades in the making that have made the country especially vulnerable.

Worldwide, the reopening of major economies in recent weeks has relied on an honor system. There's a built-in assumption that enough citizens will be well-informed and take precautions - wearing masks, washing hands, social distancing - to prevent community spread of the virus. No country has been perfect. But the U.S. has been off-the-charts bad by any reasonable reading of the data.

While Covid-19 cases have plateaued and sloped downward in industrialized economies in Europe and Asia, the U.S. is still clocking in at record levels of new infections and accounts for 25% of global fatalities. Promising treatments are emerging, yet an effective vaccine is still months away, if not longer.

If the virus is not contained soon, a new surge of infections in Sun Belt states like Florida, Texas, Arizona and California could push up the daily tally to as high as 100,000, warned Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease fighter, in a Senate hearing this week.

"What we're seeing over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that we've seen," said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a BBC radio interview Thursday. "That is not good news. We've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States."

Fauci Says U.S. Risks 100,000 Daily Cases in Dire Warning

Videos of jam-packed bars and nightclubs from Arizona to Michigan and political rallies in Oklahoma have alarmed public health experts. Respiratory droplets traveling into the air after a person sneezes, talks or raises their voice are considered a primary transmission route.

Because U.S. lockdowns were less consistently applied than those in Europe, they were also less effective, Fauci told the BBC. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, renewed his call for masks and social distancing at the Senate hearing.

The pandemic has been a moving target for states facing different degrees of vulnerability and reopening strategies. This July 4th will be more subdued in some places, with beaches closed in Miami and events like Chicago's lake-front fireworks display and a Beach Boys concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles canceled.

America's moment of ineptitude has placed President Donald Trump, whose poll numbers have crumbled in recent weeks, in serious political peril. Some 72% of Americans said the administration wasn't prepared to deal with the novel coronavirus that emerged in China late last year, according to a CBS News survey released this week.

Nor has there been unified messaging from top science advisers and the president, who has predicted the virus would vanish without a vaccine and mused about questionable treatments, ranging from the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to bleach.

Ordinary Americans aren't laggards when it comes to basic scientific knowledge, with U.S. high-school students scoring above the average of counterparts in other advanced industrial nations, according to the latest Program for International Student Assessment, a survey of academic achievement internationally. A majority of Americans have confidence in the expertise of U.S. scientists, according to a Pew Research study.

However, party affiliation does matter when it comes to science and public policy debates. Some 73% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents think scientists should inform science policymaking, while only 43% of Republicans and those leaning toward the GOP do, the Pew data show.

The pandemic is far from the first time science has been politicized in the U.S. Over the years, debates have raged over the veracity of evidence-based claims about the risks from cigarettes, climate change and vaccines. Last year, Congress approved spending for scientific research into gun violence, after a more than two-decade ban on funding such studies.

Then there's the rise of media information bubbles offering contrasting narratives about the pandemic. A peer-reviewed national study in March showed consumers of conservative media were more likely to believe that public health officials were exaggerating the seriousness of the pandemic to undermine Trump and cast doubt on promising treatments.

Social-media platforms, with billions of followers, have become super-spreaders of misinformation about the virus's origins and treatments.

"The bots and the social media forces can be easily leveraged," said Holden Thorp, a chemist and editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals. "You see these extraordinary things take off, where people begin to believe what can't possibly be true."

The strong emotions stoked by the crisis have added to the pressure on public health officials rushing to contain the outbreak while answering to the local and federal politicians who control their budgets.

By mid-June, at least two dozen local or state public health officers had resigned or been fired during the pandemic, according to a tally by the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The departures often followed disagreements with political leaders, angry protests or outright threats.

The deep divisions are reflected in the disparities in the pandemic's impact by race and income levels. The Covid-19 mortality rate for Black Americans is about 2.3 times as high as the rate for Whites and Asians, according to the latest data compiled by APM Research Lab.

The U.S. devotes about 18% of its gross domestic product to health care, more than any other large country, but spending is overwhelmingly skewed toward medical treatment rather than public health or prevention.

Many households with income below $40,000, which the Federal Reserve says have been hit the hardest by pandemic-related layoffs and furloughs, have lost their job-based health insurance. While the government is covering the costs of Covid-19 tests and many newly unemployed will qualify for subsidized insurance. But with 27 million uninsured before the pandemic, many Americans face financial hardship if they become seriously ill or experience long-term problems after recovery.

"This virus exposes weaknesses and inequalities in any system," said Annelies Wilder-Smith, a professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "The U.S. has a system that doesn't allow the vulnerable or marginalized to fall into an insurance network."

As Americans gather for picnics, barbecues and beach-side parties, the destructive force of the pandemic will loom in the background regardless of their opinion on what it all means. Yet as the data show to an alarming degree, a divided America is an ideal environment for an opportunistic virus.
NEW HAVEN  City police were called to the area of the 50 on Fitch nightclub fewer than 60 times in the last two-plus years, mostly for a series of false alarms and incidents that did not require a report.

The Register submitted a Freedom of Information request on June 24 for body camera footage and police reports connected to the June 20 gathering at the still-closed nightclub, which allegedly brought more than 1,000 people to the Westville location.

Capt. Anthony Duff this week provided a spreadsheet of calls to the location known as 50 Fitch St., as part of the departments response to the FOI request. Body camera footage from the night of June 20 has not been released.

According to the spreadsheet police provided, 14 of the 56 calls to the address since June 2018 required an incident report. Co-owner Joy Monsanto said Thursday that the business opened that month.

Three of the calls were canceled before officers arrived on scene; 12 of the calls were deemed false alarms. Five, including the incident on June 20, were connected to noise complaints.

Other calls have been made about a suspicious car or motor vehicle crash or issue, trespassing, disputes, and disorderly conduct. None of the calls to that address in May 2020 required an incident report, the police record shows.

The volume of calls increased more recently, with 12 coming since the beginning of April.

While the request was made for a specific address, the information police released noted the calls recorded could have come from an area near or adjacent to 50 Fitch as the location of this request has multiple entities at the location and those entities have multiple variations of the addressing style and/or format.

Police said, the requested location is a named business establishment (50 Fitch) and addresses that do not appear to match the requested location were removed. Furthermore, the incidents without a commonplace name may not have any connection to the requested business establishment.

However, police said, the incidents listed for 50 Fitch may not have occurred at or within the physical address. The incident may have occurred in an area near or adjacent to the physical address, i.e. in the street or on the sidewalk, but for recording purposes the address is used.

The entire spreadsheet shows calls to the 50 Fitch St. address from June 28, 2017, to May 30, 2020. There were 65 in total during that period.

Monsanto said Thursday that, while there may have been a couple of tickets or bar scuffles, she had fundamentally cleaned up the place.

Most of the calls were false or fraudulent, she said, placed by a few local residents. Monsanto said she had been harassed since the day I opened.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

Its the American Dream to run my business in peace. The day they wrongfully shut me down was a Juneteenth celebration, Monsanto said in a statement.

In her order closing the business, Health Director Maritza Bond stated she inspected 50 Fitch at 9:50 p.m. Saturday night, June 20, finding people allegedly failing to maintain social distancing and individuals creating a condition specifically declared to be a public nuisance, among other violations of state and city regulations.

Further, city Building Official Jim Turcio said in a statement that he witnessed over (1,000) patrons at this establishment in violation of the outdoor dining capacity guidelines, state rules for outdoor events, and various health codes.

Both Monsanto and her sister, Dorothy, disputed the size of the gathering in the days after and said many of the people were outside the confines of the club.

Carlton Staggers, Monsantos brother-in-law, said theyve had no reported issues in the three years the club has been open, yet police consistently are called on them without those calls resulting in incident reports.

The order closing the business noted Monsanto and Amato had the right to appeal the decision to close the club to the state Department of Public Health within three business days.

Attorney Kevin Smith of the Pattis & Smith law firm said June 23 that the clubs owners, Monsanto and Michael Amato, planned to appeal the decision, but had not yet done so.

He did not respond to messages Thursday about the status of the appeal. Monsanto did not respond to a question about the appeal.

The press office with the state Department of Public Health also did not respond to a message seeking information about a possible appeal.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
Groton, CT (06349)

Today

Overcast. High 74F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low 67F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Unauthorized informant payments. Missing case review sheets. Incomplete offense reports. Hundreds of other administrative errors by undercover Houston Police narcotics officers.

When internal auditors probed the Narcotics Divisions street level drug-suppression squads, they found widespread sloppiness and lax supervision.

The document  which the Houston Police Department released in a post on Twitter after a series of stories in the Chronicle about the departments lack of transparency and after District Attorney Kim Ogg announced new charges against six former police officers tied to the Harding Street raid  is the widest internal examination, to date, of problems within the police departments embattled narcotics division.

But critics said the audit suffered from shortcomings and failed to thoroughly probe failures that led to problems.

Chief Art Acevedo ordered the investigative audit after last years Harding Street drug raid, which ended with the deaths of homeowners Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle. Four officers were shot, including Gerald Goines, the officer who led the operation. Goines was later accused of lying about the drug buy he based the operation on and is charged with felony murder and other crimes. His former partner, Steven Bryant, faces charges of tampering with a government record.

Acevedo repeatedly declined to release the document publicly, despite calls to do so, until Wednesday night. He said in a later tweet Wednesday night that Oggs office had ask that he withhold the audit as recently as last week.

Most of the information authorities have released previously centered on misconduct by Goines and Bryant, but auditors took a wider approach in their review. They examined three years of casework of the two former Squad 15 officers, and probed casework of approximately 70 other undercover officers in squads 9, 10, 14 and 15. There are approximately 175 officers in the Narcotics Division.

Wrong Door: Chronicle investigation shows misconduct in narcotics division beyond cops at center of botched raid

The auditors  former Assistant Chief Pete Lopez, seven sergeants and one police officer  found policy violations due to administrative errors committed by Narcotics case agents and supervisors, and found that officers didnt follow policies related to warrant services, operations planning, and handling of confidential informants.

The authors found numerous errors related to confidential informant payments, but said they could not make conclusions about illegal activity without the ability to interview confidential informants or witnesses.

In February, Acevedo released  in a tweet  a list of reforms to the Narcotics Division, but blocked requests to release the audit, saying he did not want to jeopardize the criminal cases against Goines or Bryant.

After several Chronicle stories raised questions about Acevedos commitment to transparency, Mayor Sylvester Turner agreed last week to release the audit to state lawmakers to review confidentially.

After Ogg on Wednesday unveiled new charges against former officers Goines and Bryant  as well as one of Goines old partners and three former narcotics supervisors  the police department released the audit online in a tweet.

Related: As police chief urges 'meaningful reform,' critics wonder why it's missing in Houston

Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

The operational review

The document shows auditors reviewed the divisions policies related to warrant services, operations planning, handling of confidential informants, improper handling of evidence, and found a half-dozen standard operating procedures lacked sufficient supervisory oversight.

They also found hundreds of administrative errors, including unauthorized informant payments; sloppy investigations; cases without tactical plans or with missing documentation. They found dozens of cases which supervisors did not appear to have reviewed, and others where officers submitted evidence late, or failed to fill out basic offense reports properly, as well as discrepancies in warrants, evidence and expenses.

The audit also found overwhelmingly the need to improve administrative procedures, specifically, supervisory review of case files and case tracking. About 25 percent of the time, supervisors failed to sign case file review sheets, and auditors found many cases were turned in six months to a year late -- far longer than the 10 working days allotted by policy.

The Chronicle shared the findings of portions of a draft of the audit that duplicated what was in the final report with several policing experts, community leaders and former law enforcement officers.

Patrick OBurke, a former deputy commander at the Texas Department of Public Safety who oversaw drug law enforcement, said the audit is a significant effort but fails to identify the reasons for the sloppiness it uncovered.

This report does not provide key findings that show how such problems will be limited or reduced in the future, said OBurke, tasked with overhauling Texas drug task forces after a racist drug arrest scandal in the 1990s in Tulia, Texas.

Overturned: Conviction for $10 crack buy, based on casework of disgraced ex-HPD cop Goines, is overturned

Goines, Bryant work

The reports authors wrote that while reviewing Goines and Bryants casework from 2016 to 2019, they found 404 errors and a high level of administrative errors and overall lack of attention to detail while completing required paperwork.

Auditors found that in the 84 casefiles they reviewed, Goines submitted evidence late 48 percent of the time (40 times) and made unauthorized informant payments 18 times. A quarter of the cases he filed -- 21 -- did not have tactical plans, the critical documents that officers create showing how they plan to carry out a search warrant raid.

Four times, investigators found cases with no search warrant on file. Three cases included problems where there was inadequate documentation about the cases informant. Two dozen cases lacked case review sheets. Auditors found discrepancies in Goines expenses 23 times. In two cases, there were discrepancies in evidence, and another two cases, evidence submission slips were missing.

Other problems included incomplete offense reports, inadequate offense reports, case tracking errors, and more than a half dozen cases where the audit team noted problems with the thoroughness of investigation.

Numerous times, Goines paid confidential informants without getting necessary approvals from supervisors, the document shows.

QUESTIONABLE CASES: Key Houston police narcotics officers at center of fatal Harding Street drug raid tallied few arrests, low-level busts

Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

The audit captured numerous other errors in Goines casework, including informant receipts with dates that didnt match controlled buys; dates that conflict with expense reports or offense reports or other basic case facts.

Still other times, auditors found Goines informant payments reveal potential overpayment of informants for miniscule amounts of narcotics, including paying $100 for eight grams of marijuana when the department normally authorized officers to spend $40 per pound.

Bryants casework showed other problems. A review of 147 cases found that more than 30 percent of the time, he did not include a required case review sheet. In 18 percent of the cases, he failed to turn case files in after the investigation was complete. Auditors also found problems with thoroughness of his investigations, discrepancies with evidence and expenses; and inadequate or incomplete offense reports.

Other times, they found hed listed incorrect addresses, and one incident where he appeared to have paid a CI twice in order to avoid a sergeants approval.

FEDERAL CASE: Former Houston cop Gerald Goines pleads not guilty as federal prosecutors allege vast and growing evidence of misconduct

Work of other members of the squads

Auditors then looked at the other members of Squad 14 and Squad 15, the two general enforcement squads covering south Houston. The review of 173 cases found 306 errors. The most common problem they discovered was that officers failed to include a case review sheet with their investigative packets, but they also found incomplete offense reports, discrepancies in evidence, expenses and warrants, and sloppily conducted investigations.

Auditors looked at 77 cases from Squad 14. They found the widest problems were missing case review sheets. The second worst problem was Thoroughness of Investigation.

When auditors looked at the rest of Goines squad, they examined 57 cases (separate from their review of Goines/Bryants cases) and found discrepancies in evidence, expenses, missing case review sheets and other problems.

Auditors found many similar errors with the casework of the officers who worked in the two squads handling drug enforcement on the north side of the city, Squads 9 and 10. The document shows that auditors reviewed 252 cases and found more than 400 errors.

Auditors also found that almost 40 percent of the time, case agents failed to document pertinent details in the offense report, such as who was present, location of the evidence, and other information that would aid the prosecution.

Marie D. De Jesus, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Disturbing lack of oversight

Houston NAACP President James Douglas said: I wouldnt have confidence in anything that came from this division, he said. This calls into questions other divisions, if its this lax in Narcotics, what happens in other divisions in the police department?

One expert on police procedure said the apparent failure to enforce basic policies could lead to an atmosphere where officers didnt think they had to follow the rules.

The number and variety of errors looks like an operation completely out of control, said Sam Walker, a criminologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. One thats continued for some time.

Related: Forensic review raises more questions about Houston Polices Harding Street drug raid

The Chronicle shared the findings with three former Houston police narcotics supervisors, who declined to speak on the record because they said they were concerned about retaliation from their former colleagues.

They said that while many of the problems were administrative, the lack of attention to detail sends the message that officers think they can act with impunity.

The sergeants and lieutenants weren't holding their feet to the fire, one said. You think if Gerald had a lieutenant with him, or a sergeant with him, that he would have come out there with no dope, or said he sent in an informant when he didnt? he asked.

Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Aftermath

The audit does not comment specifically about the supervisors who oversaw Goines and Bryant, including those who were charged Wednesday.

In the months after the raid, Goines retired from HPD. Bryant also retired, along with Goines other former partner, Hodgie Armstrong. Three supervisors  Sgt. Clemente Reyna, Sgt. Tommy Woods and Lt. Robert Gonzales also retired. Former Narcotics Commander Paul Follis was transferred to a different post, the Hobby Airport Division.

Prosecutors later accused Goines of having a sexual relationship with one of his informants and believe more than 150 convictions won on his casework are suspect. Three defendants have seen their cases overturned.

The reforms Acevedo announced in his tweet earlier this year included requirements that lieutenants be present when officers serve warrants and that more supervisors review tactical plans, barred the use of no-knock warrants without his express permission or that of his designee, banned officers from obtaining search warrants from municipal court judges, and created a tactical team to execute high-risk warrants.

He also ordered narcotics officers to wear bodycameras while performing drug raids, electronic case management, and mandated officers provide document all interactions with confidential informants. Finally, he added requirements to perform yearly background checks on confidential informants and random face-to-face reviews of officers informants.
Standing outside the small house where Houston police officers conducted a raid that killed two and grievously wounded their departments reputation, Gene Wu clasped the audit hed been asking about for months and labeled it a scam.

Wu and other state lawmakers on Thursday criticized the internal audit of the Narcotics Division, calling it a whitewash and vowing to propose legislation to prevent government agencies from blocking the release of internal audits or similar documents in the future.

Also at the news conference were lawyers representing relatives of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, the couple who lived at 7815 Harding St. and were killed in the raid. Gerald Goines, the officer who led the operation, was later accused of lying about the drug buy that led to the operation and is charged with felony murder and other crimes. His former partner, Steven Bryant, faces charges of tampering with a government record.

The raid could have happened only in an environment of pervasive, longstanding custom and practice of illegal activity that was known and condoned at the highest level, said Boyd Smith, one of the attorneys. And this report doesnt address that critical issue.

But Mayor Sylvester Turner, who agreed last week to release the audit to state lawmakers to review confidentially, said the review took a very critical eye.

And it was an audit that HPD itself did. They didnt wait for somebody to say, Do it. They did it. No. 2, theyve already made changes. No. 3, youre always looking through your system to see what additional changes need to take place. Its never one and done; its a constant review.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo ordered the investigative audit after the Harding Street drug raid. After repeatedly refusing to make it public, he released the document in a tweet late Wednesday night after Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced additional charges against Goines, Bryant and four other former officers and supervisors.

Acevedo could not immediately be reached for comment.

The auditors  former Assistant Chief Pete Lopez, seven sergeants and one police officer  looked at the Narcotics Divisions street-level drug suppression squads. They found widespread sloppiness and lax supervision: unauthorized informant payments. Missing case review sheets. Incomplete offense reports. Hundreds of other administrative errors by undercover narcotics officers.

Most of the information authorities released previously centered on misconduct by Goines and Bryant, but auditors examined three years of casework of the two former Squad 15 officers, and probed casework of approximately 70 other undercover officers in squads 9, 10, 14 and 15. There are approximately 175 officers in the Narcotics Division.

Wrong Door: Chronicle investigation shows misconduct in narcotics division beyond cops at center of botched raid

Though they found policy violations and numerous errors related to confidential informant payments, they said they could not make conclusions about illegal activity without the ability to interview confidential informants or witnesses.

In February, Acevedo released  in a tweet  a list of reforms to the Narcotics Division but blocked requests to release the audit, saying he did not want to jeopardize the criminal cases against Goines or Bryant.

Related: As police chief urges meaningful reform, critics wonder why its missing in Houston

The operational review

The document shows auditors reviewed the divisions policies and found a half-dozen standard operating procedures lacked sufficient supervisory oversight.

They also found hundreds of administrative errors, including unauthorized informant payments; sloppy investigations; and cases without tactical plans or with missing documentation. They found dozens of cases that supervisors did not appear to have reviewed, and others where officers submitted evidence late or failed to fill out basic offense reports properly, as well as discrepancies in warrants, evidence and expenses.

The audit also found overwhelmingly the need to improve administrative procedures, specifically, supervisory review of case files and case tracking.

Patrick OBurke, a former deputy commander at the Texas Department of Public Safety who oversaw drug law enforcement, said the audit is a significant effort but fails to identify the reasons for the sloppiness it uncovered.

This report does not provide key findings that show how such problems will be limited or reduced in the future, said OBurke, tasked with overhauling Texas drug task forces after a racist drug arrest scandal in the 1990s in Tulia.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Conviction for $10 crack buy, based on casework of disgraced ex-HPD cop Goines, is overturned

The squads

The reports authors wrote that while reviewing Goines and Bryants casework from 2016 to 2019, they found 404 errors and a high level of administrative errors and overall lack of attention to detail.

Auditors found that in the 84 case files they reviewed, Goines submitted evidence late almost half the time and made unauthorized informant payments 18 times.

Numerous times, Goines paid confidential informants without getting necessary approvals from supervisors, the document shows.

QUESTIONABLE CASES: Key Houston police narcotics officers at center of fatal Harding Street drug raid tallied few arrests, low-level busts

FEDERAL CASE: Former Houston cop Gerald Goines pleads not guilty as federal prosecutors allege vast and growing evidence of misconduct

Auditors then looked at the other members of Squad 14 and Squad 15, the two general enforcement squads covering south Houston. They found incomplete offense reports, discrepancies in evidence, expenses and warrants, and sloppily conducted investigations.

Auditors found many similar errors with the casework of the officers who worked in the two squads handling drug enforcement on the north side of the city, squads 9 and 10. The document shows that auditors reviewed 252 cases and found more than 400 errors.

Out of control

Houston NAACP President James Douglas said: I wouldnt have confidence in anything that came from this division, he said. This calls into question other divisions. If its this lax in narcotics, what happens in other divisions in the police department?

One expert on police procedure said the apparent failure to enforce basic policies could lead to an atmosphere where officers didnt think they had to follow the rules.

The number and variety of errors looks like an operation completely out of control, said Sam Walker, a criminologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. One thats continued for some time.

Related: Forensic review raises more questions about Houston Polices Harding Street drug raid

Aftermath

The audit does not comment specifically about the supervisors who oversaw Goines and Bryant, including those who were charged Wednesday.

In the months after the raid, Goines retired from HPD. Bryant also retired, along with Goines other former partner, Hodgie Armstrong. The three supervisors charged  Sgt. Clemente Reyna, Sgt. Tommy Wood and Lt. Robert Gonzales  also retired. Former Narcotics Commander Paul Follis was transferred to a different post, the Hobby Airport Division.

Prosecutors later accused Goines of having a sexual relationship with one of his informants and believe more than 150 convictions won on his casework are suspect. Three defendants have seen their cases overturned.

The reforms Acevedo announced in his tweet earlier this year included requirements that lieutenants be present when officers serve warrants and that more supervisors review tactical plans; barred the use of no-knock warrants without his express permission or that of his designee; banned officers from obtaining search warrants from municipal court judges; and created a tactical team to execute high-risk warrants.

He also ordered narcotics officers to wear body cameras while performing drug raids, created electronic case management and mandated officers document all interactions with confidential informants. Finally, he added requirements to perform yearly background checks on confidential informants and random face-to-face reviews of officers informants.

At the news conference Thursday, the state representatives said they were disappointed in the departments long fight against disclosing the audit.

Im disappointed it took so long to coax even this tiny bit of transparency (from HPD), said state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston. What we see in this internal audit  performed by the department, investigating itself  is that we just get a tiny peek into the systemic issues that this department has. It really points to the need for external oversight.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, posted a video Wednesday shortly before the audit was released saying hed seen the audit and that it should be made public.

Attorneys for the relatives of the slain couple contended the audit didnt probe deeply enough into the undercover division.

As bad as the audit is, it still avoids addressing the cover-up of the origin of and the top-brass response to the raid, said Mike Doyle, attorney for Nicholas relatives. The big questions are why did this happen? and why is the city still fighting our access to the evidence?

State Rep. Christina Morales said she hoped HPDs decision to release the audit was an important step in bridging trust with the public it serves.

Without continued transparency previously promised, it will be difficult for the HPD to rebuild faith in our city, she warned.
Prosecutors probing a Houston police narcotics unit announced charges against six former officers tied to a fatal 2019 drug raid. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg accused the former officers of lying on police reports and other documents as part of a scheme to enrich themselves.

The charges are the latest development following the January 2019 raid of 7815 Harding St., which led to the deaths of homeowners Dennis Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58. Five HPD officers were injured in the incident as well.

Ogg announced new criminal charges against former police officers Gerald Goines, Steven Bryant  already indicted in connection with the raid  and four other former officers, for a total of 15 new felony charges in the case.

Besides the new charges Goines and Bryant face, Ogg announced charges against former HPD Lt. Robert Gonzales, Sgts. Clemente Reyna and Thomas Wood and Goines old partner.

She accused the sergeants of lying in documents by stating falsely that they witnessed the undercover officers handle drug transactions, Ogg said. She also accused the officers of lying in government documents to enrich themselves by boosting each others overtime hours  a move Ogg called straight-up graft.

To say these officers abused the public trust is a gross understatement, she said.

PAST ALLEGATIONS: Houston police officer Gerald Goines had previous allegations against him

Criminal complaints filed in the case show investigators found that multiple times, Gonzales acted contrary to the police departments general orders, resulting in thousands of dollars of HPD funds being dispersed without proper authorization or verification.

Some will say that this scheme is just mismanagement, Ogg said. It is not. It is long-running evidence of graft and corruption than can literally rot an institution from the inside out.

Other court documents show that investigators used cell phone records to try to show that officers and their supervisors were lying when they said they were together for operations such as confidential informant payments  but were in fact dozens of miles away.

The documents also allege that Goines listed himself as present while executing search warrants  when he was miles away  and then requesting overtime. Goines routinely inflated his overtime records, the documents allege, wrongly claiming thousands of dollars he did not work.

The charges come as the Houston department is responding to calls for more transparency in the wake of a spate of officer-involved shootings and an audit of the narcotics department that Houston Chief Art Acevedo refused for months to release.

Ogg said these charges came after officers lied repeatedly and that rules were intentionally cast aside.

Goines and others could never have preyed on our community the way they did without the participation of their supervisors; every check and balance in place to stop this type of behavior was circumvented, Ogg said. This was graft and greed at every step in the process, and prosecutors are making their way through the evidence one incident at a time.

The charges the officers are accused of include tampering with a government record (search warrants, confidential informant forms, and offense reports), theft by a public servant between $2,500 and $30,000, and misapplication of fiduciary property.

The announcement marks the latest development in the Harding Street drug raid, which ended with the homeowners deaths and four officers being shot, including Goines, the officer who led the operation.

RELATED: Judge declares Houston man innocent after prosecutors argue that his drug case was based on lies by former officer Goines

Goines was later accused of lying about a drug buy he said he conducted and later used as the basis for a the search warrant that led to the raid. He retired from the department and was later charged with felony murder in state court and other crimes in federal court. His former partner, Steven Bryant, faces charges of tampering with a government record.

In a statement released on Twitter, Acevedo said he had not been briefed on the charges and said his department would continue to cooperate with the investigation.

Goines attorney, Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube, said that Ogg had not given her client any warning about the charges, which she suggested followed a week of damaging news stories about internal drama within her office.

This looks like another opportunistic way to poison the jury pool and damage any ability for Mr. Goines and Mr. Bryant to get a fair trial in this community any time soon, she said, promising that Goines would immediately make himself available to law enforcement.

Reached late Wednesday, Bryants attorney, Andy Drumheller, said he was still trying to sort through charges.

The DAs Office didnt notify the attorney for the accused until 45 minutes after she held a press conference, he said. Im very frustrated by the complete absence of notice.

He said his client would promptly surrender himself to authorities.

Attorneys for the former officers are not yet listed online.

In a statement, Houston Police Officers Union President Joe Gamaldi said his organization would be representing the officers to ensure they are not victims of what is clearly a political ploy by Ogg, whom he labeled the most corrupt District Attorney in the history of Harris County. Ogg is seeking reelection this fall.

Gamaldi called the charges a distraction from the repeated failures of her office, and accused the district attorney of trying to capitalize on the political climate following George Floyds death in police custody in Minneapolis to charge more officers.

Kim Ogg has become a rogue DA, he said. We look forward to our officers day in court.

Mike Doyle, the attorney representing Rhogena Nicholas family, said his clients welcomed the new charges.

The more investigating, the more misconduct is finally revealed, he said. The questions of who shot blindly into the house and likelihood of friendly fire remain unanswered.

WRONG DOOR: Chronicle investigation shows misconduct in narcotics division beyond cops at center of botched raid

When Ogg initially announced charges against Goines and Bryant, she said the case was unlike any she had previously seen in Houston.

On Jan. 28, 2019, Houston narcotics officers burst into the house at 7815 Harding St. looking for heroin.

The raid went awry almost immediately, with gunfire erupting moments after an undercover narcotics team broke down the door. Tuttle and Nicholas were killed and five officers were injured. Four of the five were shot, including Goines. One officer remains paralyzed from the waist down.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Acevedo said police had been investigating a den of heroin dealers, but crime scene investigators only discovered small, user-level amounts of cocaine and marijuana in Tuttles home.

In the days that followed, an internal investigation sparked questions about the officers justification for the search warrant. Though a sworn affidavit  signed by Goines  recounted a controlled buy made by a confidential informant, police quickly realized they could not verify that claim or find the alleged informant.

The officer also was accused of lying by a man convicted on his casework.

QUESTIONABLE CASES: Key Houston police narcotics officers at center of fatal Harding Street drug raid tallied few arrests, low-level busts

Two months after the raid, Goines and Bryant both retired under investigation.

As the investigation progressed quietly, attorneys for the slain couple started raising more questions about what happened. They disputed allegations Nicholas and Tuttle had dealt drugs.

An independent forensics expert combed through the couples home in May 2019 and found no evidence that theyd fired toward police, but noted the presence of two bullet holes inside the home and claimed evidence showed officers fired fatal shots from outside the home and through a wall.

Ogg subsequently announced that her office was reviewing thousands of Goines and Bryants old cases. In February, she announced that prosecutors believed that two men convicted on Goines casework were actually innocent. A third conviction was overturned in April.

The DA said her prosecutors have identified approximately 150 other cases they believe should be overturned, and are reviewing all of Goines casework dating back to at least 2008  the year he was accused of lying in the arrest of two brothers, Otis and Steven Mallet.

The two brothers cases were among those who were found actually innocent.

On Wednesday, Ogg announced that the states highest criminal court had agreed with District Judge Ramona Franklins recommendation to declare Otis Mallet actually innocent.

St.John.Smith@chron.com
In the wake of Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillens disappearance, her family looked to her Army superiors for answers.

During one of the familys trips to the Killeen base to find the Houston native, Mayra Guillen said she spoke with her 20-year-old sisters supervisor, who was identified Wednesday as having a role in the disappearance. He laughed at her and gave her a bad feeling, she recalled.

I met him  not knowing that he had something to do with it, she said Wednesday. I felt something was telling me that he did something and I wasn't wrong apparently.

Military officials said he shot and killed himself along a Killeen road as law enforcement confronted him, hours after the discovery Tuesday of human remains believed to be those of the missing 3rd Cavalry Regiment soldier. Texas authorities had issued a be-on-the-lookout notice for him and Army officials said he fled his base post as investigators eyed him as a suspect in Guillens disappearance.

He still had the nerve  that same day  to laugh to my face and apparently now he kills himself, the sister said of her encounter. Why? I dont know. Whoever is responsible has to pay.

The mans death raises more questions for the family whose grief and rage over Fort Hoods handling of Guillens April 22 disappearance has only intensified. The base has not been transparent in the investigation, the family contends. They also believe that her commanding officer sexually harassed Guillen, whose case sparked nationwide urgency from celebrities to find her and and outcry from other soldiers who say they, too, have been harassed and ignored.

This shouldnt have happened

The emotional two-month search for Guillen  a Cesar E. Chavez High School graduate  laid bare accusations of pervasive sexual harassment.

Amid the allegations, the U.S. Army Forces Command has sent an Inspector General team to inspect Fort Hoods sexual harassment and assault response program for compliance. A statement does not reference Guillen but states Fort Hood requested the inspection, which is slated to last through Friday.

A Tampa-based attorney for the Guillen family, Natalie Khawam, said Guillen told friends, family and fellow soldiers about the sexual harassment, identifying her abuser, but she feared retaliation. The man who killed himself was Guillens superior, she said, adding that she had given his name to investigators. She said he had been harassing the soldier since at least October, when he entered the locker room as she showered and watched her.

He walked in and sat there and she was very creeped out, as one would be, Khawam said Wednesday. This shouldnt have happened and now shes not with us.

Khawan shared that encounter at a news conference in Washington, D.C., where she and the family traveled to meet with lawmakers about opening a congressional inquiry about whether Fort Hood command staff covered up details of the investigation and other possible crimes .

Guillens family was joined by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, an Army National Guard Member and former Democratic presidential candidate, who said she will push the legislation. .

We need to know why she didnt get the help she needed when she needed it, Gabbard said.

Guillens mother, Gloria Guillen, who fell ill Monday at her Washington D.C. hotel, had previously said her daughter identified her harasser as an Army sergeant.

Khawam said she wants legislation that would help soldiers report sexual harassment and assault through a system similar to how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission independently investigates complaints.

Sexual harassment and assaults go under reported among military members, according to Protect Our Defenders, a nonprofit that advocates for military assault and sexual assault victims. A 2018 Department of Defense report found that about 24 percent of female service members have reported having been harassed.

The groups president, former Air Force judge Don Christensen, estimates that number is much higher. One in every five of those women have also said they were sexually assaulted, he said. Most do not lodge formal complaints with their commanders.

"We know with sexual assault, somewhere around 75 to 80 percent of the victims arent going to come forward," Christensen said.

Relatives of Guillen expressed a mixture of hope but also helplessness as investigators identified at least two suspects in her disappearance. The soldiers aunt, Alma Garcia, in Houston said she was not ready to accept the possibility that her niece was killed. In Zacatecas, Mexico, a cousin expressed helplessness.

We couldnt say goodbye to her, Sandy Guillen said. If we have any consolation in her absence, its that she fought for her country and is becoming the voice of military people who have suffered the same abuses.

Search is over

Investigators linked the supervisor to Guillens disappearance soon after human remains in a shallow grave were found along the Leon River, near where unspecified evidence linked to her case was found, Texas Equusearch founder Tim Miller said.

The remains have not been officially identified as that of Guillen but Miller has said that the search for Guillen was over.

At some point after the find, the supervisor left the base and the Killeen Police Department was alerted that he was in their jurisdiction. A be-on-the-lookout notice was issued for him, Khawam said, who shared a copy of the notice. Police Chief Charles Kimble said his officers found him walking along a nearby road. When they confronted him, he pulled out a gun and took his own life, Kimble continued.

The Army said his name would be withheld pending a death notification to his family.

The Texas Rangers also apprehended a yet-to-be identified civilian in connection to Guillens case, military investigators said. The second suspect, the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier, is being held at the Bell County jail on unspecified charges, officials said.

My other half

After serving in the military, Guillen had planned to pursue kinesiology, her best friend Jocelyn Sierra said.

She was very cheerful and a very strong person, always the strongest among us, Sierra said. She was kind to everyone and very noble.

Sierra, who is studying veterinary medicine, said Guillen frequently visited her at Texas A&M University in College Station. The soldier drove hours to bring her to Houston because she didnt have a car.

Vanessa is my other half, and I cannot describe with words what I feel right now, she said.

Sierra and Guillen became friends on the high school track team. She said Guillen was not only a good student but very persistent and disciplined.

She was very tenacious and would not stop working on her goals until she got it, Sierra said.

Staff writers Benjamin Wermund, Olivia P. Tallet, Sig Christenson and Jay R. Jordan contributed to this report.

nicole.hensley@chron.com
With COVID-19 infections soaring and hospital ICU capacity reaching critical levels, Gov. Greg Abbott finally did the right thing Thursday and ordered everyone in most Texas counties to wear a mask in public.

The order requires those in counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases to wear a covering over the nose and mouth whenever social distancing is not possible. That includes inside businesses or other buildings open to the public as well as outdoor public spaces.

The order takes effect at noon Friday. It is expected to impact almost 200 of Texas 254 counties.

First-time offenders of the order will receive a warning. Second and subsequent violations are punishable with a fine of up to $250, but no jail time will be meted out.

This editorial board and many local officials across Texas, including Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, have urged Abbott to mandate masks for months. His only concession had come recently, when he allowed local governments to require businesses to mandate masks.

That changed Thursday.

Wearing a face covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways we have to slow the spread of COVID-19, the governor said in a statement. We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one another  and that means wearing a face-covering in public spaces.

His about-face came as Texas recorded 8,029 new positive coronavirus cases in a 24-hour window from Tuesday to Wednesday, the first time single-day cases have eclipsed the 8,000 case mark, and its the second record-setting day in a row for Texas single-day case counts.

On Thursday, Dallas County officials announced they expected for the first time 1,000 new cases in a single day on Friday.

Texas Medical Center hospitals exceeded their normal ICU capacity this week and began implementing COVID-19 surge plans by opening additional beds  both intensive care and regular floor beds  to accommodate a surge in COVID-19 patients that has grown exponentially in the past two weeks.

Despite all this, there will be many who fault Abbott for his order. The pandemic response has unfortunately been tangled in petty partisan politics, with President Trump and other Republicans decrying the mask requirements as an infringement on personal liberties.

We see it this way: In a pandemic, your right to spew germs ends where another persons nose begins.

Abbott did the right thing. Moving to save lives and protect the public health is especially urgent as Texans head into the Fourth of July holiday weekend when large public gatherings have been the norm for celebrations.

We commend Abbotts leadership on Thursday. We can only hope its not too late.
Nearly 18 months after the Houston Police Departments botched raid on Harding Street left two residents dead and five police officers injured, Chief Art Acevedo finally released late Wednesday night the report into his departments narcotics division.

Its about time.

That 66-page report is the first opportunity for the public to begin answering whether the corruption that led to the tragic raid in the service of a no-knock warrant went beyond the outrageous conduct of a few officers, including Gerald Goines, who has since retired, been indicted for murder and faces federal civil rights charges.

Acevedo has said repeatedly that the problems were not systemic and did not speak to a broader culture of wrongdoing in his department.

Until he released the audit, he was essentially asking Houston taxpayers to trust him on that.

RELEASED: 'An operation completely out of control': Damning HPD narcotics audit reveals hundreds of errors

No dice.

Houstonians needed the details to begin making judgments about whether they can believe in their police department again.

Wednesdays release of the report is a badly needed next step. It wont alone restore confidence in the department, however.

Acevedo, who along with his boss Mayor Sylvester Turner had been under increasing criticism for not releasing the audit, has said his primary reason for not doing so was to avoid any complication it might create for prosecutors building their cases against Goines and others.

If DA authorizes release we will release, he tweeted this week, insisting hed been asked to keep it secret. When the Houston Chronicle editorial board reached out Wednesday to verify Ogg was the hold up, her office said she wasnt. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg does not oppose the Houston Police Department releasing its audit, spokesman Dane Schiller said.

That apparently angered Acevedo, who tweeted a statement late Wednesday saying it was news to him that Ogg had no objection. Attached was a somewhat redacted version of the report. He told the editorial board late Wednesday that Ogg had been disingenuous Wednesday because just last week the DA herself asked me to drag my feet for 10 more days.

FALLOUT: Ogg announces charges against former HPD narcotics supervisors in connection with fatal drug raid

The DAs spokesman stood by his earlier statement and added: This discussion should really be about the systemic corruption in the narcotics division at HPD.

Our take? We applaud Acevedo for finally releasing the report. If Ogg lifted any objection she may have had, were glad for that, too.

But to both the chief and the prosecutor, wed add: It should never have taken this long.

The people deserve to know whats in the audit, and over the next few days they can now, as we will, examine it in detail to see what the department has learned about itself in reviewing the conditions that made the disastrous raid possible. Its not likely to make for pleasant reading.
The ongoing calls for police reform and Black Lives Matter protests about the killings of black men and women in cities across the world have caused a long-awaited social reckoning with the role of policing and prisons in our society.

Yet while graphic videos of police brutality are widely accessible, another cruel result from over-policing is not as highly visible, but one that destroys families as well. Mass incarceration in the U.S. prison system separates families.

As a court appointed special advocate for children in foster care in Texas, I volunteer and provide representation for children in 219 Texas counties. In my role as advocate, I have seen how the criminal justice program can separate and hurt families.

When children are first removed from their parents, they are assigned an advocate. In my role, I visit with the child and everyone who has a significant role in the childs life and then make recommendations to the court about what is in the childs best interest. I can advocate for children to receive extra services like therapy, special education classes or for a social worker to arrange visits with a separated sibling.

On one of my visits, the children I worked with started reminiscing about a favorite aunt and cousins they missed. I was able to locate the aunt and cousins, so that the childrens social worker could arrange visits with their extended family members.

However, as powerful as the role can be, advocates cannot use their voices in family court to call for one of the assurances children need most  for police to stop arresting their parents for petty crimes.

While there is no reliable nationwide data on how many active Child Protective Services cases involve an incarcerated parent, a University of Wisconsin study found that in Milwaukee over 8 percent of CPS involved children had at least one parent in state prison while over 23 percent of CPS involved children had a parent in county jail.

A 2017 study of Texass 10 largest counties revealed that of the collective 226,037 jail bookings made in those counties in one year, over half were for misdemeanors  as opposed to felony offenses. The study also noted that among the top 10 reasons for jail bookings were driving while intoxicated, possession of marijuana, trespassing, violation of probation and traffic violations.

Due to Texass reliance on cash bail, an appalling 74 percent of those serving in county jails have not even been convicted of a crime but are detained while awaiting trial.

To be sure, when parents are arrested for possession of a controlled substance or driving while intoxicated, there are likely larger safety issues in the home that need to be addressed. However, it is a highly disproportionate response to revoke parental rights for the possession of 4 ounces of marijuana  to say nothing of the trauma inflicted on the children of these parents.

Further compounding the situation is the fact that black and Latino residents are still disproportionately arrested for drug possession, meaning that their families are more likely to face separation.

When a parent is incarcerated, it negatively affects their Child Protective Services case. In Texas, parents typically have one year after their child was removed from the home to resolve their case.

Parents are often required to demonstrate that they can provide a safe and stable living environment for their children. This can be next to impossible if a parent spends the first three months in county jail on a minor drug charge, rather than out in the community looking for or maintaining employment.

A national study in 2018 by The Marshall Project revealed the impossible barriers to success incarcerated parents face. Researchers discovered that parents who had a child placed in foster care for the sole reason that they were incarcerated  in other words, they had not been accused of child abuse or endangerment  were more likely to have their parental rights terminated than parents who had sexually assaulted their children.

Sometimes parents are  for whatever reason  unable to care for their children and CPS steps in. But expanding the social safety net to provide more resources for parents living in poverty or facing drug addiction would allow state authorities to shift their attention from punishment to family reunification.

It might be tempting for judges, social workers or citizens to write off incarcerated parents as fundamentally unfit to take care of their children.

However, when working with these families, I know it is important not to lose sight of the truth that most parents love their children, and most children want to live with their parents.

The policing system needs additional reforms to keep families together.

Scofield has a Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University, with a focus on comparative constitutional law. She teaches government at Blinn College in Texas.
AUSTIN  Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday ordered nearly all Texans to begin wearing face masks in public, a measure meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 that is hotly contested among conservatives and has been resisted by the governor himself for months.

The reversal comes as the state enters the Fourth of July weekend amid a dire stretch, with new infections and hospitalizations surging and deaths beginning to mount. Abbott has already closed bars, halted further reopenings and delayed elective surgeries in eight of the states hardest hit counties, to make way for COVID-19 patients.

The governor has been hounded by Democrats and some health officials over his reluctance to require masks statewide. He previously stripped local officials of the ability to enforce their own mandates and has rebuffed calls for wider orders, falsely asserting that county judges jailed people in the past for not wearing face coverings.

BEACH IS CLOSED: Galveston beaches to close for July 4th weekend

On Thursday, though, he was emphatic that the mandate would help prevent the state from having to lock down again, as it did in April under his emergency order.

Wearing a face covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways we have to slow the spread of COVID-19, the governor said in a statement. We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one another  and that means wearing a face covering in public spaces.

Abbott said first-time offenders will receive a warning and be subject to fines of no more than $250 for subsequent violations. The order does not apply to Texas counties that have fewer than 20 coronavirus cases or to children under 10 or anyone out exercising. Most enforcement will likely be up to local police, sheriffs deputies and state troopers; the order does not specify.

Masks will not be required at voting booths or religious gatherings, though they are encouraged, according to the order. Texas is one of four states that have declined to expand mail-in voting amid the pandemic, despite legal pleas from Democrats.

People are going to be scared to vote, state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said in a virtual town hall Thursday night, expressing disappointment at the voting exclusion.

VOTING IN THE PANDEMIC: Abbott leaves Texas polling places out of mask mandate

Republicans remain intensely divided over the issue. Some openly criticized the governor last month when he allowed county judges to begin fining businesses that dont require masks, saying the move would unfairly punish employers who have already been financially pummeled by the crisis.

State Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, blasted Abbott on Twitter, saying he is trampling on the Constitution.

Abbotts mask order Requires Texans in counties with 20 or more COVID-19 cases to wear masks in public Includes fines of up to $250 for noncompliance Prohibits jail as a penalty for violations Applies to those attending a protest or demonstration Does not apply to children under the age of 10 Does not apply to those traveling in a vehicle with members of their family Does not apply to those attending a worship service Does not apply to those dining at a restaurant Does not apply to those exercising or swimming Does not apply to those voting, observing or administering elections Does not apply to those with a medical condition that prevents mask use See More Collapse

Want a mask mandate? See if the people who were elected to write laws will pass one, he wrote, calling for a special session. I say let Texans decide for themselves.

A spokesman for the Texas GOP did not respond to a request for comment.

Health experts have said masking will help slow infections but may not go far enough to slow the spread now sweeping across Texas. More than 91 counties recorded their highest case counts in the past three days, Abbott said in a pre-recorded video from his office in Austin.

On Thursday, the state reported nearly 7,700 new infections, according to a Houston Chronicle data analysis, and 7,382 people hospitalized with COVID-19.

These numbers reveal a very stark reality, Abbott said. COVID-19 is not going away. In fact, it is getting worse.

WERE NOT OUT OF ICU BEDS: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Dr. Fauci doesnt know what hes talking about

Democrats welcomed the move, saying it was long overdue. The Texas Democratic Party called on the governor and state Republicans to go further by canceling their annual convention, slated to be in person later this month in Houston. Masks had not previously been required.

It took Texas Democrats demanding that he issue this common-sense policy and record-breaking cases and hospitalizations to get Gov. Abbott to finally act, Democratic party spokesman Abhi Rahman said. This is unacceptable.

Outgoing House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, an ally of the governor, dismissed the criticism in a Twitter post.

Abbott continues to demonstrate fortitude and flexibility as he monitors and responds to an extremely dynamic situation based on fact-based data and scientific evidence, he said. I am grateful for his efforts to keep Texas unified and moving forward.

Also on Thursday, Abbott restored the ability of mayors and county judges to restrict some outdoor gatherings of more than 10 people and mandated that most people gathered in groups larger than that maintain at least 6 feet between them.

jeremy.blackman@chron.com
Most Texans will now have to wear a mask to the grocery store, hair salon and bus stop  but not to the voting booth during ongoing primary runoff elections.

Gov. Greg Abbotts mask order exempts any person who is voting, assisting a voter, serving as a poll watcher, or actively administering an election, but he adds that wearing a face covering is strongly encouraged.

The order appears to make Texas the only state in the country that exempts voting from a mask mandate. Twenty-one states require masks statewide, according to Masks4All, a volunteer organization that advocates for more mask-wearing.

Abbotts spokesman did not immediately respond to a question about why polling places were not included. The only other locations exempt from the mandate are houses of worship.

The issue of whether voters will feel safe enough to cast their ballots in person in the midst of the pandemic has been the subject of a monthslong legal battle that is before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Texas is one of just four states that declined to drop restrictions on voting by mail during the pandemic. Elections officials across the state have instead spent the last three months buying personal protective equipment, disinfectants, hand sanitizer and other supplies to try to make voting in person as safe as possible.

More Information Gov. Abbott's mask order Requires Texans in counties with 20 or more COVID-19 cases to wear masks in public Includes fines of up to $250 for noncompliance Prohibits jail as a penalty for violations Applies to those attending a protest or demonstration Does not apply to children under the age of 10 Does not apply to those traveling in a vehicle with members of their family Does not apply to those attending a worship service Does not apply to those dining at a restaurant Does not apply to those exercising or swimming Does not apply to those voting, observing or administering elections Does not apply to those with a medical condition that prevents mask use See More Collapse

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: A Texas guide to voting during the pandemic: BYO hand sanitizer. Masks optional, but appreciated

Early voting in the primary runoffs is underway; election day is July 14.

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that voters can cast ballots by mail if they decide that they qualify as disabled based on their risk of contracting the virus in combination with other aspects of their health history. For the primary runoff at least, its too late for voters to make that call. Thursday is the deadline for applications for mail-in ballots to be received.

Democrats and voting rights groups on Thursday condemned the mask exemption for polling places.

Issuing the mandatory mask order and encouraging everyone to stay home is the right thing to do right now, considering the mess were in, said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the nonprofit Common Cause Texas. But the right thing to do months ago to avoid this very easily foreseeable mess was to allow all Texans to vote by mail so that no one would now find themselves having to choose between voting and endangering their health.

Guiterrez added that its not too late for the governor to take actions to expand mail-in voting in November.

Texas Democratic Party spokesman Abhi Rahman characterized the exemption as an act of voter suppression, intended to instill fear in voters.

It shows exactly where his priorities lie, Rahman said. Abbott knows exactly what hes doing, and the fact of the matter is its going backfire on him. Texas Democrats are fired up and energized, and they know exactly whos trying to stop them from voting. And it isnt going to work.

One possible explanation for the exemption could be a constitutional concern, said Scott Keller, former Texas Solicitor General and attorney at international law firm Baker Botts. In the same way that masks arent required while giving a speech for a broadcast or to an audience or while taking part in a religious service because the constitution protects the right to free speech and religion, a legal argument could be made that forcing voters to wear a mask would be a burden on the right to vote, he said.

I think the governors order is trying to balance the exigencies of the COVID emergency with constitutional rights and also taking very seriously the COVID spike in Texas, Keller said. The idea that the order excepting out polling places would be something like voter suppression, I think, is completely off base.

On the other hand, the executive order says that people are not exempt if they are attending a protest or demonstration involving more than 10 people and not practicing safe social distancing of six feet from others who are not in the same household.

Trying to think and balance every single possible situation out in the world, thats just not something that is going to be expected of any official, and the courts dont expect that of any official, Keller said, adding that during an emergency, potentially, government officials are going to have a little more leeway than they otherwise would.
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QUICK HITS: Strictly Confidential Royalty Network  Concord  Ingrooves

Brussels-based independent music publisher Strictly Confidential has announced some key renewal deals.

Balthazar, Soap&Skin and Nada Surf have extended their long-term music publishing deals, while Sohnarr, the new project from former Balthazar violin player Patricia Vanneste, who recently released her debut album Coral Dusk on [PIAS], has also joined the roster. Strictly Confidential recently announced the signings of Zwangere Guy, blackwave and Glints

 The Royalty Network has launched the Black Empowerment Thru Music initiative, a new program focused on empowering Black communities by connecting emerging musicians, producers and songwriters with leaders across all aspects of the music industry.

 Concord Music Publishing inked a new publishing deal with Boz Scaggs. The new deal covers his full catalog from 1968 to the present, as well as his future works.

Indie distribution service Ingrooves has promoted Gabriella Ianni to the post of Vice President, Commercial Strategy. She will oversee Ingrooves relationship with DSPs including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and TIDAL.

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Stage 1 fire restrictions will go into effect Friday for the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland.

Heading into the Fourth of July holiday, forest users are reminded that under no circumstances are fireworks allowed on federally-managed lands.

This includes National Forest system lands located in Albany, Campbell, Carbon, Converse, Crook, Natrona, Niobrara, Platte and Weston counties in Wyoming, and Garfield, Grand, Jackson, Moffat, Rio Blanco and Routt counties in northwest Colorado.

Restrictions are necessary due to the danger of human-caused wildfires from increased recreation usage across the Forests and Grassland. Recent dry, windy and warm weather conditions have resulted in an elevated potential for wildfires.

Fire restrictions will help protect public health and safety, as well as natural resources during persistent fire weather conditions. The USDA Forest Service has coordinated with all affected counties and state agencies on the timing of the restrictions.

The following prohibitions are in effect until further notice:

1. Building, maintaining, attending or using a fire, campfire or stove fire. This includes barbecues, grills, and portable braziers.

Exceptions are as follows:

1. Building, maintaining, attending or using a fire in constructed, permanent fire pits or fire grates within developed recreation sites and the use of portable stoves, lanterns using gas, jellied petroleum, pressurized liquid fuel or a fully enclosed (sheepherder type) stove with a  spark arrester type screen is permitted.

2. Smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle or building, a developed recreation site, or while stopped in an area at least three feet in diameter that is barren or cleared of all flammable material.

3. Operating a chainsaw without a USDA or SAE approved spark arrester properly installed and in effective working order, a chemical pressurized fire extinguisher with a minimum rating of 2A kept with the operator, and one round point shovel with an overall length of at least 35 inches readily available for use.

4. Welding or operating acetylene or other torch with open flame except in cleared areas of at least 10 feet in diameter and in possession of a chemical pressurized fire extinguisher with a minimum rating of at least 2A.

5. Using an explosive.

Violation of these regulations is punishable as a class B misdemeanor, by a fine of not more than $5,000 for an individual or $10,000 for an organization, or imprisonment of not more than six months, or both. Anyone negligently or willfully starting a wildland fire could also be held responsible for the costs of that fire.

Forest staff will continue to monitor conditions to assess the need for further action, including additional restrictions if weather remains warm and dry and lessening restrictions if a wetter weather pattern develops.

Our offices are serving the public remotely and are available by phone. Call your local office for site-specific information.
Holiday Hours: Independence Day



Above, the famous John Trumbull painting depicting the presentation of the Declaration to John Hancock. John Adams is standing on the right of the Committee of Five. Right, the Bill of Rights currently on display at Williams College.

Independence Day will be celebrated Saturday, July 4. It is a federal holiday marking the ratification of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Because it falls on a Saturday this year, Friday is considered the federal holiday for purposes of employment and some closures. Call ahead if unsure of your destination's holiday schedule.



Representatives from 13 original colonies, of which Massachusetts was a leader, actually voted on July 2 at the Second Continental Congress to declare their independence from Great Britain. The Declaration formalizing the decision  and giving the reasons for doing so  was written by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as the principal author. The others were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert Livingston of New York.



Adams, author of the Massachusetts Constitution, would write to his wife, Abigail: "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."



But it would be the adoption two days later that would live in the minds of his countrymen, helped by that large date inscribed at the top of the document. It would be signed the following month. One of the signers was Samuel Adams, for whom the town of Adams (and by extension, North Adams) is named.



Williams College holds one of the few original copies in existence and hosts a reading of the Declaration each Fourth of July, although not this year.



Massachusetts would become the first state to recognize the day as a state celebration, in 1781. The Congress made it an unpaid holiday in 1870 and a paid federal holiday in 1938.



Both Presidents Jefferson and Adams, friends and political foes, would die on the 50th anniversary of the signing. In another bit of trivia, Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president and former governor of Massachusetts, is the only president to have been born on the Fourth of July.



Closed:

Federal, state and local offices; no mail delivery.

Banks

Public colleges and schools, most private schools

Public libraries

Most offices and businesses

BRTA is running Friday; no bus service on Saturday.

Open:

Most retail outlets, groceries

Restaurants and bars, by choice

Convenience stores



Most fireworks, parades, and other celebratory events have been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the BSO's annual event on the esplanade. Pittsfield Community Television is broadcasting a special show in place of the canceled Pittsfield Fourth of July Parade.

On July 4, beginning at 9:30 a.m., PCTV will air "Fighting for Independence: The History of the Pittsfield Fourth of July Parade." This will be followed at 10 with a retrospective of the parade from PCTV's live coverage of the parade over the past three decades.

The state Department of Transportation is advising the public for this Fourth of July to consider staying a home because of the pandemic, but if making travel arrangements, to check destinations for the health protocols which are in place and, if driving, plan for trips utilizing MassDOT's many "real time" travel tools, and if taking public transportation, to check schedules.

"The best advice we can give anyone traveling for the Fourth is to plan ahead," said Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver. "With the Fourth falling on the weekend, travelers should expect higher volumes on Friday and Monday. We urge everyone to slow down and make smart decisions before getting behind a wheel this weekend."
Williams Geosciences Professor Awarded NSF Grant to Study Boulder Beach Response to Storms

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Ronadh Cox, the Edward Brust professor of geology and mineralogy at Williams College, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The three-year, $340,000 grant will support her research on how boulder beaches respond to storms and how they change over time.

Boulder beaches record wave action on stormy coastlines, but surprisingly little is known about them. Cox's NSF-funded project, titled "Boulder Beaches: The Understudied Archive on High-Energy Coasts," aims to increase understanding of their dynamic evolution. The study focuses on 22 sites in Ireland, which has a wide range of boulder-beach settings, so that the results will be applicable to other locations world-wide.

Using a combination of state-of-the-art aerial photogrammetry and hands-on field measurements, she will determine how factors such as wave energy, coastal geometry, topography, geology and boulder sizes control beach morphologies. As the first multi-parametric study of boulder beaches and how it responds to storms, Cox's project, which will engage students in every phase of the work, will be the most comprehensive examination yet undertaken of this dynamic and long-ignored environment.

"The moment is ripe, because as sea level rises and high-energy wave attack on coastal infrastructure becomes more frequent, there is a growing need for studies of high-energy coasts, both to understand coastal response to storms and coastal hazards, and also as a resource for engineers as they work to improve coastal protection approaches," Cox said. "As the main depositional record of wave action on rocky coasts, boulder beaches should be playing a central part in this conversation, but the lack of data and understanding have prevented their integration into coastal geomorphologic thinking. Im particularly excited to involve Williams students in this work, and I have an excellent rising senior, Aria Mason, who has already begun research on the project."

Cox's research interests include sedimentology, sedimentary petrology, geochronology and planetary geomorphology. At Williams since 1996, she has taught courses on oceanography, geochemistry, planetary geology, and earth resources, among other subjects. Her work has been widely published and cited. She received her B.Sc. from University College Dublin, Ireland, and her Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Mass MoCA will be the first Berkshire museum to reopen, opening its doors on July 11, followed by the Clark Art Institute and Norman Rockwell Museum on July 12.

Three Berkshire Museums Set to Reopen July 11-12

Three of the largest museums in the Berkshires plan to reopen to visitors over the July 11-12 weekend, following Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Bakers announcement permitting museums and other cultural organizations to resume operations.

The reopening schedule is as follows:

 Mass MoCA will reopen on Saturday, July 11, with operating hours from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days per week, closed on Tuesdays. The Mass MoCA Store and Lickety Split cafe will be open during museum hours. Museum campus amenities, including a brewery, restaurants, take-out, and shopping are also available. Museum admission tickets are available on sale now. Performance tickets go on sale July 6. Visit the website to purchase tickets.

 Norman Rockwell Museum will reopen on Sunday, July 12, with operating hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days per week, closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The Museum Store and Runaway Cafe will be open. Museum admission tickets go on sale July 7 at noon. Visit the website to purchase tickets.

 The Clark Art Institute will reopen its galleries on Sunday, July 12, with operating hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., six days per week, closed on Mondays. The Clark's grounds have been open throughout the shutdown period and remain open at all times. The Museum Store will be open, but food service is temporarily suspended. Museum admission tickets go on sale July 7. Visit the website to purchase tickets.

In a joint statement, the directors of the three museums  Laurie Norton Moffatt from Norman Rockwell Museum, Olivier Meslay from the Clark Art Institute and Joseph Thompson from Mass MoCA  wrote: "We are delighted to be able to reopen our doors and to welcome back our friends, neighbors, and new visitors. We strongly believe in the restorative power of art and cannot wait to share our galleries and grounds with our guests. We are committed to providing the safest experiences possible and have been working hard to ensure that our visitors will be comfortable in returning under new norms. Our visitors will be our partners in the shared responsibility to follow best practices to protect one another."

Advance ticket reservations will be required at each museum. Admission will be allocated on a timed basis to provide staggered entry, consistent with the state's reduced capacity guidelines.

The Clark's grounds remain open at no charge on a 24-hour basis; the grounds of the Norman Rockwell Museum are available to the public during operating hours, with no charge. Visitors may explore the Mass MoCA campus, including businesses housed within the former factory complex. Check individual websites for further details.

Programming at all three institutions will take new shapes and form, following Massachusetts guidelines. Live performances and events will resume at each venue on a rolling schedule and in new socially distant formats, while virtual programs will continue online to provide other opportunities for deeper engagement. The first live performance at Mass MoCA for the general public is scheduled for July 18. Events at Norman Rockwell Museum and the Clark will be announced at a later date.

Following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and recommendations from the Massachusetts Reopening Task Force, the three museums have all adopted the following protocols:

 Visitors must always wear face coverings when indoors and must use face coverings outdoors when unable to maintain at least six feet of social distancing space.

 Social distancing must be practiced in all indoor spaces. Security personnel and/or gallery guides will assist visitors in ensuring safe social distancing practices.

 Signage and/or other directional indicators will be in place to guide visitors through galleries and retail facilities. Visitors should expect new circulation patterns.

 Rigorous cleaning and sanitization practices of all public areas will occur throughout the day.

 Hand sanitizing stations will be provided to assist visitors in maintaining hand hygiene throughout their visit.

Each museum will comply with contact tracing protocols and will collect visitor information for this purpose.

Additional information is featured on each museums website regarding health and safety protocols to assist in planning a visit. All reopening dates are subject to change, pending further guidance from state or federal officials.

The Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield has not announced its reopening plans as of Thursday afternoon. The county's other major museum, the Williams College Museum of Art, will be closed to the public throughout the remainder of 2020. In nearby Bennington, Vt., the Bennington Museum is opening this Friday, July 3.
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POCATELLO  The Fort Hall man armed with two large kitchen knives who Pocatello police fatally shot in February was shot five times, including twice to the head, according to his autopsy report.

The Idaho State Journal on Monday obtained the autopsy report of Neal Stuart Nevada, 23, of Fort Hall, from Bannock County Coroner Ely Taysom.

Neal Nevada Autopsy Report The Feb. 27 autopsy report of Neal Nevada.



Story continues below video

Nevada died in February as a result of an officer-involved shooting near the intersection of Stansbury Street and South Second Avenue in south Pocatello after aggressively charging police officers while armed with what authorities described as two butcher style knives.

Though the autopsy report denotes the number and location of Nevadas bullet wounds, of which one struck him in his lower back, it does not indicate the order of or lethality of the individual bullet wounds. Moreover, Idaho State Police, the agency tasked with investigating whether the officers who shot Nevada were justified in using lethal force, told the Journal on Tuesday that it did not investigate the sequential order of the bullet wounds and typically relies on the autopsy report for making such determinations.

While he was not present for the autopsy, which the Ada County Coroner's Office completed on Feb. 27, Taysom said determining the sequential order of Nevadas bullet wounds is highly difficult if not impossible because the wounds occurred at or near the time of Nevadas death and no bullets intersected one another.

All of the wounds in this case occurred perimortem, which means at or near the time of death, Taysom said. If the trajectories of these wounds were intersecting then it could have been possible to determine which bullets entered first by looking for transecting bullet paths, which requires examining injuries to the skeleton. But with soft tissue it is really difficult to determine chronological order of bullet wounds.

The autopsy report found the cause of Nevadas death was gunshot wounds to the head and torso. In addition to the gunshot wound to his lower left back area, police shot Nevada twice in the head and twice in the right hip, the autopsy report says.

Taysom said he ruled the manner of Nevadas death to be a homicide, which by definition is the action of one person directly causing the death of another regardless of whether the act was criminal or not. The Journal reported on Sunday that the two officers who shot Nevada were cleared of all wrongdoing in May.

The toxicology section of the autopsy report indicates Nevada was under the influence of alcohol and marijuana at the time of his death, with a blood-alcohol concentration of .218. The legal limit to operate a motor vehicle in the state of Idaho is .08.

Of the two bullet wounds to Nevadas head, one entered and exited on the left side of his scalp above the ear and the other wound entered the left side of his head behind the ear and exited the right side of the head behind the ear. Both bullets penetrated Nevadas skull and struck his brain, the autopsy report says.

The autopsy report says the bullet wound to Nevadas back entered the left side of his lower back and exited through the left side of his body. One of the gunshot wounds that entered Nevadas right hip perforated his pelvis and heart before becoming lodged in his colon., according to the autopsy. The other bullet that struck Nevadas hip exited through his lower middle back.

None of Nevada's bullet wounds left behind any soot or gunpowder residue. If such residue were present it could suggest Nevada was shot at very close range.

In addition to articles of clothing, the autopsy report indicates that Nevada arrived at the Ada County Coroner's Office still wearing handcuffs.

Other than saying Nevada likely remained handcuffed after his death as a manner of evidence preservation, Pocatello Police Chief Roger Schei declined to comment about specifics of the autopsy report, referring all comments to the Idaho State Police.
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A Turkish court has requested on 9 March the extradition of a Turkish journalist who is living in exile in Sweden for allegedly insulting two officers of the court in 2018. The news of the request to extradite Levent Kenez from Sweden was reported by nordicmonitor.com on 28 June . International and European Federations of journalists (IFJ/EFJ) join their the Swedish Union of Journalists (SJ) in calling on Swedish authorities to deny the extradition request.

Levent Kenez is accused of defaming a prosecutor and a judge in an article published on the Turkish-language news website TR724 on 17 February 2018, following the court's decision to hand down aggravated life sentences to six journalists and media workers on trumped-up charges of attempting "to destroy the constitutional order."

Kenez works as an editor for the Nordic Monitor, a website that provides news on security, diplomacy, intelligence and military matters with a special focus on religious, ideological and ethnic extremist movements in Turkey. He also works as a columnist at tr724.com, a Turkish news site based in Brussels. He is the former editor-in-chief of the Meydan daily, which was shut down by the government in 2016.

The journalist fled Turkey in 2016 to escape persecution. He has been living in Sweden with his family ever since and was granted a refugee status that will expire in November 2020.

On 12 December 2019, the Istanbul Criminal Court filed an extradition request for Kenez . According to the Nordic Monitor, the documents for the extradition request were prepared on 9 March 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Kenez recently found out about the extradition demand when he obtained a copy of the Turkish demand to Sweden.

Ulrika Hyllert, President of the Swedish Union of Journalists said: "It is not the first time Turkey has asked Sweden to extradite a journalist. Sweden must defend press freedom in these cases. If Sweden agreed to these kinds of demands, it would be a shame for Sweden and our tradition of defending freedom of expression."

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: "Turkey's tracking down dissidents all over Europe must cease immediately. By asking Sweden to extradite Leven Kenez, Turkey is again trying to silence critical voices abroad. We urge Sweden to ignore this extradition demand and provide Levent Kenez with all the necessary security so that he and his family can live safely in Sweden without fear of being persecuted by Turkish authorities. "
Following China passing the controversial National Security Law for Hong Kong, a number of reporters were struck by police with tear gas and water cannons as the city erupted in protest. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) condemns the systematic suppression of freedom of expression in Hong Kong and the arbitrary use of force against journalists.

Riot police deploy tear gas to clear protesters from a road during a rally against the new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020. Credit: DALE DE LA REY / AFP

The day after Beijings National Peoples Congress unanimously passed the law criminalising separatism, subversion of state power, terrorism and interference, bypassing the British legislation that allowed Hong Kong to operate semi-autonomously, police targeted reporters in Hennessy Road in Wan Chai on June 1 with tear gas and water cannons. In Causeway Bay, a large number of journalists were also repeatedly pepper sprayed by police.

Ever since Hong Kong protests intensified in June 2019, police violence against journalists has become commonplace. A survey conducting by HKJA earlier this year found 63 per cent of surveyed journalists found themselves on the receiving end of police violence at public order events. Prior to Beijing passing the National Security Law, in a separate survey, 91 per cent of journalists expressed concern for their safety if the law was passed.

HKJA strongly condemned the police attacks against journalists with water cannons and tear gas, emphasising the importance of allowing front-line journalists to monitor the situation effectively.

The IFJ said: With the erosion of democracy in Hong Kong through Beijings National Security Law, it is critical for the media to freely inform the public of the current state of Hong Kong. The IFJ calls on the police to take meaningful action that will end the intimidation and attacks on journalists covering public order events.
Contempt proceedings against Malaysiakini, a leading Malaysian independent media outlet, and its editor-in-chief Steven Gan will be heard today at the Federal Court in Putrajaya. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) says the contempt of court case sets a dangerous precedent and urges authorities not to undermine press freedom.

Attorney-General Idrus Harun initiated contempt proceedings against Malaysiakini and Gan on June 16 over several readers comments. Harun said the accused had facilitated the publication of readers' comments, which were demeaning attacks on the judiciary. The five allegedly offending comments appeared in a June 9 article, 'CJ orders all courts to be fully operational from July 1'.

At todays proceedings, the Federal Court is expected to hear an application filed by Malaysiakini to set aside the court ruling granting leave to the attorney-general to commence contempt proceedings against the online news portal. If this application is denied, then the court will hear the contempt case and a sentence may be handed down later in the day.

The offending reader comments were removed by Malaysiakini once the editors were made aware of them. Gan rightly points out that the case will have a disturbing and lasting impact, not just on Malaysiakini but also on other media organisations, tech companies and millions of Malaysians who use social media.

Malaysiakini is an IFJ and National Union of Journalists Malaysia (NUJM) project partner on a major European Union-funded Malaysian media reform project, Strengthening Malaysias Media for Change. The IFJ is one of a number of media rights organisations watching the hearing, with Malaysian lawyer New Sin Yew acting as the IFJs independent observer. Malaysiakini is represented by lawyers Malik Imtiaz Sarwar and Surendra Ananth.

The IFJ said: The IFJ is deeply disappointed by the contempt case against Malaysiakini and Steven Gan over readers comments published on the online news website. Malaysiakini promptly removed the offending comments once it was brought to their attention in an entirely reasonable and proportionate response and the news outlet should not be penalised. The Federal Court proceedings will set a dangerous precedent stifling press freedom if the case is not set aside.

Update on July 2, 2020: The court dismissed Malaysiakini's application to set aside the order granting leave to commence contempt proceedings. On July 13, the court will hear the substantive arguments in the contempt case against Malaysiakini.
In separate incidents on June 25 and June 26, police deliberately obstructed two journalists in Manila as the anti-terror bill enters its final stages of review. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) urges the Philippine National Police to act without prejudice and allow journalists to report uninterrupted.

On June 26 police attempted to arrest Habagat Ferrales, an intern for Manila Today, an independent online news outlet, who was covering the Pride March in Mendiola, Manila. Police continued attempting to arrest Habagat Ferrales despite his colleagues vouching for him as a journalist. Police arrested more than 20 activists at the march who were protesting the anti-terror bill that will allow police to label members of the public, including journalists, terrorists and detain them for up to 24 days without a warrant before they have to face a court. A report from ABS-CBN on July 2 states the anti-terror bill is in the final stages of review before it will become law.

The day before on June 25, four policemen stopped and intimidated Mark Makalalad, a reporter for GMAs radio station dzBB after reporting live on Markos Highway in Marikina City, Metro Manila. In a Facebook post, Makalalad recounts the police approaching him and requesting his journalist identification which he did not have with him at the time. In response, police claimed he was required to ask permission to film before going live in case he was an enemy. According to the online news website, Rappler, there is no requirement for reporters to ask permission from the Philippine National Police before going live.

NUJP said: We urge the PNP leadership to investigate these incidents and caution all their officers to exercise prudence in the performance of their duties to ensure they do not violate the civil rights of citizens.

The IFJ said: The IFJ demands police conduct an investigation and immediately review their existing procedures in light of the recent obstruction of media workers.
Russian journalist and photographer David Frenkel was assaulted and seriously injured by a policeman at a polling station in St. Petersburg on 2 July during voting on a constitutional amendment which would potentially allow President Putin to stay in power. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins the Russsian Union of Journalists (RUJ) in condemning the incident and urges the authorities to hold the police officers accountable.

Screenshot of the aggression of two police officers against journalist David Frenkel

Video footage shows two police officers assaulting David Frenkel and knocking him to the floor after a brief discussion. Doctors diagnosed Frenkel with a fractured arm after the incident.

Mediazona, the media for which Frenkel works, said the officers tried to kick him out of the venue. The journalist had arrived after an election monitor complained that they were being forced out.

RUJ President, Vladimir Solovyov, condemned the attack against the journalist and said such actions are "unacceptable." The union also offered Frenkel legal assistance.

According to media reports, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov said the attack should be "thoroughly checked and investigated." Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia Tatyana Moskalkova also demanded an investigation of the incident.

IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: "Police brutality against journalists who are merely doing their job is unacceptable. We stand in solidarity with David and urge the authorities to investigate the incident. Attacks on journalists can't go unpunished".
"Through it all, we must remember that Walter is also an ordained Baptist minister with the call to preach the fullness of the gospel of life. This book is a journal of Walter's journey. This is a testimony to read and be inspired by."

Alveda King, Pro-Life Activist; Niece of Martin Luther King Jr., from the Foreword

"Few people are willing to suffer targeting and deprivation of freedom for the sake of justice. Walter Hoye is one such hero. Anyone who looks for inspiration to do what is right no matter the cost or doubts the logical and moral coherence of being black and pro-life needs to read this book."

 Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco

"Walter Hoye went to jail and did hard time for violating a law that even the judge didn't understand. All pro-lifers should thank Walter for his sacrifice and help. I do."

 Joe Scheidler, Founder, Pro-Life Action League; Author, Racketeer for Life

"Our walk on eggshells, politically correct approach to race has led many to be silent about the devastating impact abortion is having on the black community. Walter is anything but silent. Walter's courage and passion are gifts from God and a light in troubled times."

 Shawn Carney, C.E.O. and President, 40 Days for Life

"A book every pro-lifer needs to study. We are not just to 'involve' the black community in the pro-life movement, but rather to encourage them to embrace this movement as their own."

 Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life

"This is rich reading quietly riveting and audaciously inspiring. When a law is made to jail a non-violent, peaceful man, it reveals the true strength of his humble character."

 Johnny Hunter, D.D., National Director of Life Education and Resource Network

"Black And Pro-Life in America is a remarkable and riveting account of the extraordinary pro-life witness of Pastor Walter Hoye, whose dauntless defense of the sanctity of human life and commitment to helping women in crisis pregnancy situations came at a great cost imprisonment."

 Obianuju Ekeocha, Author, Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism in the Twenty-First Century
Online users are well aware that kids can be naughty and hide their online activities from their parents. Previous studies by Kaspersky have since revealed that children have a lot of secret activities online unknown to their moms and dads. However, the latest survey by the global cybersecurity company has unmasked that parents in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region do the same with their kids.

Singapore-based psychologist suggests collectivistic attitude of moms and dads in the region makes them keep confidential matters to their kids for the sake of respect and reputation

Conducted between the first two months of 2020, the fresh report titled Defending digital privacy: taking personal protection to the next level, asked respondents: Whom are you afraid of seeing or having access to your private information? Surprisingly, the highest percent (10.3%) was given for children, followed by partner or spouse (9.9%), and parents (9.1%).

Ironically, online users in APAC are more concerned of having their blood relatives or relationship partners seeing or accessing their private data online way more than malicious actors. In fact, our survey showed cybercriminals is their least concern with only 3.1%, comments Stephan Neumeier, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky. This truth is really alarming in the sense that these virtual criminals are actively riding the current chaos, urgently looking for new preys to loot money or information. The lack of awareness and the needed fear to keep their hands off our data can put our online assets and reputation at risk.

To better understand the psychology behind the survey results, Dr. Joel Yang, Clinical Psychologist of Mind what Matters in Singapore noted that the statistics can be viewed through a cultural lens given that the region is largely constituted with more collectivistic societies.

Collectivistic attitudes typically encourage the correctness of social relationships and such ideals emphasize hierarchy in family structure. It is key to the social harmony that each member understands and plays their role. In the family unit, this means that children are expected to show respect to their parents without question. This perpetuates the behavior of parents not disclosing any private matters to children which may bring any question to the authority of the parent, notes Yang.

Another interesting finding in this survey is that parents in APAC are not as worried about cybercriminals accessing their private information as others globally are. Through the same cultural lens, people place more trust in the governing bodies and believe that their interests will generally be taken care of, he adds.

Another research from Kaspersky unmasked that parents care about their kids online safety but spend less time to educate their kids about online security. More than half (58%) of the surveyed respondents admitted speaking to their children about the subject for less than 30 minutes.

Trust is important to keep the familial bond intact. Parents should establish openness through constant communication, discuss both the physical and online lives of their children. As guardians, moms and dads should show their kids that they are allies on the internet and their mutual enemy are cybercriminals. From there, they can build on educating the young and themselves about the best online habits, adds Neumeier.

To help families protect children from various internet threats, Kaspersky recommends:


Willie Nelson  First Rose of Spring



Willie Nelsons 70th solo studio album, released in his 88th year, is a reflection on life experience, love and mortality. If that sounds morbid, its not: theres catharsis in the country legends beguiling delivery.

The slow-paced title-track opener sets the tone with plaintive harmonica, pedal-steel guitar and tender, but weary, vocals. Its followed by Nelson and his long-term friend and producer Buddy Cannons atmospheric Blue Star, which reassures a younger lover that they will meet once again beyond the pearly gates (And when we reach the heavens bright/ Ill be the blue star on your right). Subtle harmonising backing vocals, sliding guitar and organ combine beautifully.

Though Nelson laments failed relationships in Love Just Laughed (We can look back and smile and say/ Whatever happened brought us down to today), its not all downbeat. Listen to his cover of the hammond-driven Just Bummin Around (by Pete Graves) and youll feel a surge of jauntiness.

Nelsons first release since winning a 2020 Grammy for Best Country Solo Performance with last years Ride Me Back Home features just two new songs  Blue Star and Love Just Laughed. On First Rose of Spring, Nelson is more interested in paying tribute to the artists he admires, imbuing their songs with his gravelly emotion. In this time that Ive been given/ To fill my life with livin/ I hope Ive done the best that I can do, he sings on Our Song. That this is a cover of Chris Stapleton  who has hailed Nelson one of my biggest influences  acknowledges his mutual respect for the younger star and suggests he could be ready to hand over the mantle to his successor. But First Rose of Spring is the work of an artist who will never grow old. EB

Denai Moore  Modern Dread



Is there a single quiet place? Denai Moore asks on her third album, the immersive and deeply resonant Modern Dread. Whether the British-Jamaican artist found her answer remains to be seen, but she has certainly found clarity. Over 13 tracks, the 27-year-old explores matters of the heart with a confidence she has seldom shown before.

Moore, who now lives with her girlfriend in the coastal town of Margate, is as settled in life as shes ever been. This perhaps explains why shes able to look back with such clear vision, heard on Fake Sorry (strongly redolent of MIAs equally liberating Bad Girls), which shows a joyful Moore shaking off negative relationships. On Slate, too, she allows herself to start anew, bouncing along a jubilant synth line.

Modern Dread is the product of Moores successful partnership with Everything Everythings Alex Robertshaw (band members Jeremy Pritchard and Mike Spearman contribute bass and drums), and glimmers with fantastic, layered production. Instead of merging sounds so they become indistinguishable, each chime, each clatter of percussion, is given its space  as a result the whole album feels remarkably fresh. Its in the low buzz and hum on opener Too Close, developing an almost claustrophobic sense of intimacy, and in the rawness of Moores vocal takes.

Shut me up, Im oversharing, she pleads in crystalline tones on Offer Me. With a record this good, shell be lucky if she finds a volunteer. RO
Elon Musk has attempted to explain to a virologist why his own opinions on the coronavirus pandemic are more accurate.

On Saturday, the Tesla CEO tweeted about the ridiculous number of false positive C19 tests, which he claimed are a big part of why C19 positive tests are going up while hospitalisations and mortality are declining.

In the tweet, Musk also encouraged anyone that tested positive for coronavirus to get retested.

On Monday, Musks claim attracted the attention of Dr Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and associate research scientist at the Center of Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University School of Public Health, who disputed the SpaceX founders claim and suggested he not make epidemiological pronouncements about why hospitalisations are increasing if he does not understand the difference between PCR (false negatives are bad) and serology tests (false positives are bad).

According to Dr Rasmussen, she was compelled to respond to Musks tweet to correct the false and dangerous misinformation that he is spreading.

Hospitalisations are not decreasing, she tweeted. Deaths are beginning to increase in the most heavily affected states.

When multiple people with infectious disease/epidemiology/virology experience point out that a billionaire celebrity CEO with zero knowledge of any of the above fundamentally doesn't understand how tests work, I'd defer to those with actual expertise, she continued, adding that if she was asked to comment on the intricacies of the luxury electric car market or how to secure Nasa contracts, she would defer to Musk.

No one benefits if people with platforms allowing them to reach millions are spreading demonstrably false information and public health guidance, she responded to one person who argued that the advice of non-experts should also be taken into account.

On Thursday, rather than acknowledge that his knowledge on the subject may be lacking or factually incorrect, especially in comparison to Dr Rasmussens, Musk asked the expert to prove her point using graphs and data.

Yes, Angela, please show us the graphs/data that prove your point, the 49-year-old tweeted.

In a series of tweets, the virologist proceeded to explain why Musks original claim was incorrect, before using a graph portraying the latest ICU occupancy from Arizona's Department of Health to prove her point.

Furthermore, hospitalisations are not decreasing. They are a lagging indicator and patients testing positive take time to progress to severe disease after diagnosis, she wrote. Here's today's latest ICU occupancy from Arizona's DOH. ICU bed usage has been steadily increasing.

In response, Musk criticised Dr Rasmussens explanation, instructing her to show the whole country.

You cherry-picked one state out of 50, which saw a minor up-tick, he wrote - a method that Dr Rasmussen said is not a useful way to look at data.

The pandemic impacts different states in different ways and necessitates different public health responses, which occur at the state and local level. That is not a useful way to look at the data, she explained.

The interaction has amused people on social media, where many accused Musk of attempting to mansplain to a virologist about the pandemic.

Elon mansplaining infectious disease to the world renowned virologist. Breathtaking, one person tweeted.

Another responded to Musk and others questioning Dr Rasmussens expertise, writing: Wow. She is an actual expert, you don't just become an infectious disease doctor or epidemiologist because you are an entrepreneur. This is the epitome of mansplaining. Neither of you are experts, but she is. Is that clear?

Others pointed out that Musk has previously made incorrect assumptions regarding the coronavirus, including that there would be close to zero new cases by the end of April in the US.

Elon Musk is attempting to mansplain the pandemic to a LITERAL virologist & associate research scientist at the Center of Infection & Immunity at Columbia University, someone else tweeted. Reminder that @elonmusk ALSO claimed there would be close to zero new cases by the end of April.
Bernie Ecclestone has become a father for the fourth time aged 89.

On Wednesday, the former chief executive of Formula 1 announced that his wife Fabiana Flosi, 44, had given birth to a baby boy.

Speaking to Swiss-German newspaper, Blick, Ecclestone also revealed his sons name, saying: We have a son named Ace. I am so proud.

Meanwhile, Flosi stated that the birth was all so easy, adding: The birth was over after 25 minutes. I thank god.

The couple first announced the pregnancy back in April, when they spoke candidly about their hopes for their childs future.

Yes, it is due in the summer, Ecclestone said at the time. Hopefully hell learn to play backgammon soon!

Flosi, a marketing director from Brazil, added: Like all parents, we have only one wish: the child must be born healthy.

Hopefully he will never express the intention to do something with Formula 1.

Bernie Ecclestone with his daughters Tamara Ecclestone and Petra Ecclestone (Getty)

Ecclestone also responded to comments from people criticising him of having another child later in life, telling the PA news agency: I don't see there's any difference between being 89 and 29.

You've got the same problems I suppose. It's alright.

Recommended Prince Harry addresses Black Lives Matter during Diana Awards speech

Ecclestone already has three daughters with his previous partners.

His eldest, Deborah, was born in 1955 from his first marriage to Ivy Bamford.

The businessman married his second wife, Slavica Radic, in 1985, with whom he had his daughters, Tamara and Petra Ecclestone.

The couple separated in 2009, three years before he tied the knot with Flosi in 2012. Ecclestone will turn 90 on 28 October 2020.
More than 12,000 jobs are set to be lost after a stream of high-street retailers and aviation companies announced cuts over the last two days due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In retail, the John Lewis Partnership warned of store closures and job cuts, while luxury department store Harrods was reportedly set to lose about 700 staff members.

John Lewis said in a statement it was highly unlikely that the company would reopen all its stores as it had too much store space for the way people want to shop now.

Earlier on Tuesday, Upper Crust owner SSP announced up to 5,000 roles could go following a sharp reduction in trade from passengers at railway stations and airports.

Meanwhile, the plane-maker Airbus said it was letting 1,700 employees in the UK go and EasyJet announced job cuts for 1,300 crew and 727 pilots.

The so-called retail bloodbath also saw Sir Philip Greens Arcadia group blame very challenging times in the industry as it revealed plans to trim its head office operations.

Due to the impact of Covid-19 on our business including the closure for over three months of all our stores and head offices, we have today informed staff of the need to restructure our head offices, the group, which owns Burton, Topshop and other high street brands, said.

This restructuring is essential to ensure that we operate as efficiently as possible during these very challenging times.

The wave of job cuts came as Labour called for the governments furlough scheme to be extended for workers most at risk of losing their jobs during the Covid-19 crisis.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer warns the last chance to save millions of jobs was fast approaching after Boris Johnson launched his economic recovery plan on Tuesday.

There was nothing in the prime ministers speech for the 3.2 million people in hospitality, or the 2.9 million in retail, Sir Keir told the prime minister.

The furlough scheme, which has been paying 80 per cent of the wages of 9.3 million workers, is set to be wound down from the end of July and closed in October, prompting fears of mass unemployment later in the year.

Mr Johnson has so far refused to put a number on what level of unemployment is expected during the crisis but warned on Tuesday that many jobs from before the pandemic would not be coming back.

Milan Pandya, a partner at the tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, called for a clear and comprehensive plan from the government to support cash-strapped non-essential retailers.

The fashion industry alone employs in excess of 900,000 people, many being in retail stores, Mr Pandya said.

If the recent spate of closures and redundancies continue the government has a real long-term problem of unemployment as many jobs will be relatively low-skilled.

Additional reporting by agencies
Unemployment is set to surge to 3.5 million this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to British business executives.

A poll by the Bank of England found that, despite the opening up of shops and the easing of lockdown measures that has allowed millions of people to return to work, companiess financial officers were more pessimistic in June about the outlook for jobs than than they were a month ago.

On average, the 2,776 people surveyed predicted that 11 per cent of the workforce will be out of a job before the end of this year, up sharply from Aprils official unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent.

A string of businesses including Airbus, TM Lewin, and Upper Crust have announced job cuts this week while John Lewiss chairman wrote to staff telling them it was highly unlikely that all of its stores would reopen after shutting their doors in March.

Businesses expected sales to be 38 per cent lower than they otherwise would have been without Covid-19 and forecast a slow recovery. Respondents pointed to a 26 per cent hit in the third quarter of the year, 16 per cent in Q4 and 10 per cent in the first three months of 2021.

There were some positive signs on jobs. Businesses reported that 30 per cent of employees had been furloughed in June, down from 36 per cent in May. This figure is expected to drop to 18 per cent in the third quarter and 5 per cent between October and December.

The job retention scheme, which has paid the wages of more than 9 million workers, begins to wind down next month when employers will have to start contributing to furloughed workers wages.

A number of analysts expect unemployment to surge as companies make decisions on whether to keep staff on as the government withdraws support while the economy remains subdued because of concerns about the virus.

Over the next three months, firms also expect their costs to be 7 per cent higher, on average, than they would have been as a result of implementing measures to contain coronavirus, such as social distancing.

Cyrille Lenoel, senior economist at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, said: There are tentative signs, based on surveys and universal credit claims, that the rapid deterioration in the job market may be slowing down in some sectors of the job market.

Labour market data suggest the unemployment rate may have reached 8.5 per cent in May and we forecast it to peak at around 11 per cent in July-September 2020.

The current reopening of the economy will allow some of the people in furlough  currently amounting to a quarter of the workforce  to go back to full time work.

While most businesses have so far welcomed the furlough scheme, it is a very costly programme for the government and there is little evidence that it is the best possible scheme to help companies and workers after the lockdown is lifted.

When and how the furlough scheme will be ended is going to be key to how the labour market adjusts to the post-lockdown economy.
Historian David Starkey has been condemned for his truly disgusting claim that slavery was not genocide because so many damn blacks survived.

The 75-year-old, who is best known for his programmes about Henry VIII, made the racist comment while discussing Black Lives Matter protests on a Youtube show hosted by Brexit campaigner Darren Grimes.

He said: Slavery was not genocide otherwise there wouldnt be so many damn blacks in Africa or Britain would there? An awful lot of them survived...

His comments prompted widespread criticism on social media. Former chancellor Sajid Javid wrote: We are the most successful multi-racial democracy in the world and have much to be proud of. But David Starkeys racist comments (so many damn blacks) are a reminder of the appalling views that still exist.

David Olusoga, who was described by Dr Starkey as an interesting and quite able historian on the show, reacted by saying: This is truly disgusting. And by the same ridiculous, twisted logic the Holocaust would not be counted as a genocide.

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

The Mary Rose Trust, which is responsible for Henry VIIIs favourite warship, said was appalled and had accepted the historians resignation from the board of trustees.

Mary Rose Trust is a charity that exists for the benefit of everyone and we have zero tolerance for such comments, it added.

During the show, Dr Starkey also suggested that people should not go on about slavery because it has been abolished in 1833.

Theres no point in arguing against globalisation or Western civilisation  they are all products of it. We are all products of it, he said.

The honest teaching of the British empire is to say it was the first key stage of world globalisation. It was probably the most important moment in human history and it is still with us.

As for the idea that slavery is this terrible disease that dare not speak its name. It only dare not speak its name because we settled it 200 years ago...

Do you know what, we had Catholic emancipation at pretty much the exact same time we got rid of slavery  in the 1830s - we dont go on about that.

Dr Starkey also caused outrage in the wake of the London riots in 2011 when he said that Enoch Powells rivers of blood speech was right in once sense and added: The whites have become black; a particular sort of violent destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion. And in 2015 students and staff at Cambridge University campaigned for his removal from a major promotional campaign.
The DUP has called on the vice president of Sinn Fein to stand down from her role as deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, as police investigate allegations that she and other politicians broke social distancing guidance during the funeral of an IRA veteran earlier this week.

Michelle O'Neill and other senior Sinn Fein politicians attended the funeral of Bobby Storey in west Belfast on Tuesday, which appeared to breach a lockdown rule limiting outdoor public gatherings to a maximum of 30 people.

Jeffrey Donaldson, a DUP MP, said on Thursday that Ms O'Neill should step aside pending an investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) into her actions.

Mr Donaldson added that Arlene Foster, the DUP leader who is first minister of Northern Ireland, had written a letter to Ms O'Neill laying out the party's position.

He said: "The law on these matters is clear and what happened at that funeral has sent out a very, very bad message to people in Northern Ireland."

"In light of the failure of Sinn Fein yesterday to grasp the opportunity to apologise, it is our view that the deputy first minister must now step back from her role while these matters are investigated by the PSNI," Mr Donaldson added.

As well as the police investigation, the DUP will be asking the standards authorities at Stormont to look into whether the politicians who attended the funeral breached the Northern Ireland Assembly's code of conduct.

Colum Eastwood, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), has also called on the deputy first minister to quit, saying his party would not have allowed him to remain in charge if he had broken the coronavirus regulations.

Mr Eastwood told the BBC: "The point isn't that she accidentally broke some obscure piece of guidance - she broke the guidance that she set out, that she argued for, that she stood over and made the case for, rightly and sensibly, but then decided to set that all aside because, I think, for Sinn Fein, they believe that there is one rule for them and one rule for everyone else."

During a committee evidence session on Wednesday, Ms O'Neill defended most of her actions.

The deputy first minister said: "I can stand over my actions. I have led through this pandemic from the front, I will continue to lead from the front and I continue to work within the regulations and encourage everybody to stick within the regulations and the guidance as we have set out."

"I do think it's unfortunate that a lot of the charges that are being levelled towards me are political points scoring, as opposed to actually being about the rules," she added.

However, Ms O'Neill did admit that a photo of her posing near two men, one with his arm on her shoulder, happened in a "blink of an eye" and "should not have happened".

Making it clear she would not be quitting her role because of the controversy, she added that the funeral's cortege was limited to 30 people and that social distancing was "exemplary" inside the church.

Other prominent Sinn Fein members who were at the funeral include its president Mary Lou McDonald and former leader Gerry Adams.

Speaking about the mass gathering, Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, told BBC Radio Ulster: "I can understand people's frustrations. It's not something I would have done."

Northern Ireland has so far recorded 5,761 infections and 551 deaths caused by the virus.

Additional reporting from PA
A bid to stop destitute migrant women being charged for NHS maternity care has been rejected by the High Court.

Maternity Action, a leading maternity rights charity which launched a legal challenge, voiced anger at the governments decision not to overhaul the punitive charging regime.

The High Court denied Maternity Action authorisation to go ahead with the judicial review after an oral hearing on Wednesday morning.

A woman, who faces decades of paying back charges to the NHS for maternity care, joined forces with the charity after running up charges of 10,636 for maternity care.

The female genital mutilation (FGM) survivor, whose identity has not been revealed, maintained the current charging system leads to delays in pregnant women accessing maternity care.

Rules specify overseas women from outside the European Union who are expecting a baby must be charged for NHS care  with debt from maternity care affecting future immigration applications.

Charges start at around 7,000 but potentially double if there are complications with the pregnancy.

The deaths of three pregnant women were directly linked to the Conservative governments charging system in a major report that came out in December. The women died after delays in seeking help due to wrongly thinking they would have to pay for care.

Ros Bragg, director of Maternity Action, told The Independent she was highly concerned about the governments failure to act on solid evidence of the harm that charging causes pregnant women and new mothers.

She said: For more than ten years, we have been asking the government to stop putting the health of destitute pregnant women at risk by charging them for essential NHS care, and we will not stop campaigning on this. We know from our research that charging deters vulnerable women from attending for maternity care, putting the lives of women and their babies at risk. These are women who struggle to afford food and shelter. They are in no position to pay for healthcare.

The pandemic creates new dangers for pregnant women, and particularly for black, Asian, and minority ethnic women who are at greater risk of hospitalisation and death. It is of enormous concern to us that the government is still resisting our calls for suspension of maternity charging. We know from our advice service that there are women with high-risk pregnancies who are avoiding maternity care out of fear of incurring a debt they cannot pay.

The government claims that it is conducting an internal review of the impact of charging on pregnant women, however, this only came to light in the week before the court hearing. Whether the government is genuinely committed to explore this question remains to be seen. This is a complex case based on equality and human rights law. Every judicial review based on equality and human rights law faces challenges.

Ms Bragg said the charity was very disappointed their legal challenge did not succeed and they are currently considering whether or not to appeal the High Court decision.

The campaigner noted an early day motion calling for the suspension of charging for NHS maternity care has collected more than 100 signatories. This indicates a high level of interest in the issue which will hopefully result in greater scrutiny of the charging system and consequently improve the lives of vulnerable women, she said.

Justice Philippa Whipple, who rejected the legal challenge, has yet to release a judgement explaining her reasoning for throwing the case out.

Doctors and campaigners previously told The Independent migrant women who have miscarriages are being wrongly charged 7,000 for antenatal care despite never going into labour.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: We have always been clear that urgent treatment, including all maternity services, should never be withheld.

We are supporting Trusts to ensure these rules are fully understood and no chargeable woman is discouraged from receiving maternity care.
Plans to lift quarantine restrictions for travellers have become the focus of a blame game between the governments of Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, suggested in the Commons that the Scottish government was delaying an announcement on air bridges between the UK and countries which will be exempt from the 14-day isolation period.

But the Holyrood administration said the claim was completely unfounded and accused the UK government of failing to keep Scottish ministers fully updated on the plans.

First minister Ms Sturgeon said Mr Shapps had misrepresented the situation which is disappointing but sadly not surprising.

People arriving in the UK  including returning Britons  are currently required to self-isolate for a fortnight to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

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The UK government is expected to announce a list of countries which will be exempt from the restrictions this week, but so far details have not been published.

With the proposals expected to be set out on Friday, Mr Shapps clashed with a senior member of Ms Sturgeons Scottish National Party in the Commons.

Mr Shapps told SNP transport spokesman Gavin Newlands: Id appreciate his help in ensuring that air bridges can get going as quickly as possible.

Im very keen to get the devolved administrations, including the Scottish government, on board so we can get this thing announced.

He urged another SNP MP, Philippa Whitford, to ask the Scottish government to join with us in ensuring we can have these air bridges in place nationwide as quickly as possible.

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Humza Yousaf, Scotlands justice secretary, hit back at Mr Shapps comments and claimed the UK government had repeatedly redrawn the list of countries under consideration without consulting the devolved administrations.

This suggestion is completely unfounded, he said.

We have sought, as far as possible, a four-nations approach to this issue, but such a policy requires meaningful consultation by the UK government  something which has so far been lacking.

In talks with Matt Hancock, the health secretary, on Wednesday night, the devolved administrations were presented with the latest proposed list of air bridge countries which had been significantly changed from previous versions, he said.

Wales minister for international relations, Eluned Morgan, said Welsh government ministers would continue to review the list of countries presented to them, but that an all-UK approach was preferred to the lifting of restrictions in an ideal world.

The prime ministers official spokesman said the government had been working closely with the devolved administrations to take a four-nations approach to quarantining so far and our intention is to publish more details of the plan this week.

As many as 75 countries could be exempted from the quarantine restrictions when the list is finally published, reports have suggested.

The list will lift the Foreign Office ban on non-essential travel to nearly all EU destinations, the British territories including Bermuda and Gibraltar, as well as Turkey, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Downing Street played down the reports ahead of the official announcement.

But Mr Yousaf said 73 countries had been included in lists presented by the UK government on Wednesday night.

He said the original list had 15 countries with a green risk rating and 27 with an amber rating  but then 30 minutes before the 6pm meeting they were shown a list of 40 green and 33 amber-risk nations.

Mr Yousaf said he could not agree with the list until Scotlands chief medical officer had examined it.

There was also an agreement between all four nations that we should revisit the date of any announcement to take into account route map milestones of each nation, he said.

The prospect of change was welcomed by transport industry figures who have campaigned for the quarantine restrictions to be lifted.

Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency and member of the Quash Quarantine campaign group, said: Its to be welcomed that the government is effectively abandoning travel corridors and blanket quarantine measures, and enabling travel again to such a wide group of countries from Monday 6 July.

When confirmed, we will get certainty again in our sector, which is badly needed.

Each day that goes by without confirmation means fewer bookings and more job losses.

Its time the government levelled with the British people on its travel policy, instead of going round and round in circles before making any decision.

Meanwhile, Mr Shapps hinted that an enhanced testing regime at airports could help unlock travel.

Swissport, the ground handling company, and Collinson, a medical assistance provider, have been working on an airport-based testing system.

Mr Shapps said he is in touch with Swissport and following those trials and proposals very carefully.

He added: We do believe its important to be able to provide international standards, and that may well include specific types of testing.

Press Association
No retraining is available to give workers facing unemployment because of the pandemic a lifeline back into new jobs, a study warns today.

A 3bn government pot for skills announced last year has yet to be allocated  even as the UK faces a feared jobless count of 4.5 million by the end of the year, it says.

Now Boris Johnson is urged to release the funds as his number one priority, amid fears the Treasury could try to claw it back as coronavirus opens up a huge budget black hole.

The call comes as a new analysis reveals the jobs shakeout is punishing lower-skilled staff the hardest, those in accommodation, food services, wholesale and retail  where postings have plunged by almost half.

Meanwhile, a third of workers from the poorest backgrounds say they cannot afford any training courses on offer, rising to 59 per cent among those already without jobs.

Recommended Starmer calls for furlough scheme extension for workers at risk

The City & Guilds Group, a not-for profit group providing skills training, said it would be impossible to meet the huge need without the promised 3bn.

Kirstie Donnelly, its chief executive, told The Independent: We dont know what has happened to it.

It was hailed by the government as evidence that it did care about skills, even with the problems we had pre-Covid, but there has been no talk of it since it was announced last year.

In a week of the announcement of huge job losses, she warned that mass unemployment will scar the futures of a generation if left unchecked.

Coronavirus: The global gap in education Show all 12 1 /12 Coronavirus: The global gap in education Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Paddy Dowling/EAA Coronavirus: The global gap in education Photos Paddy Dowling/EAA

We couldnt even deliver what was needed before Covid. We have got no chance with the scale of need that is now going to hit us, Ms Donnelly added.

There is no more time to consult. We have both the means to make this happen and the evidence to prove how much it is needed. This is our Act Now moment.

And Robert Halfon, the Conservative chair of the Commons education committee said: The correct allocation of funds and investment in apprenticeships, further education and skills must be the number one priority.

The warnings come amid criticism of the prime minister for failing to explain a pledge of an apprenticeship for all young people affected by coronavirus.

College leaders have already warned they face a disastrous 2bn income loss next year and that some will go bust unless the government delivers emergency help.

In its report, the City & Guilds Group calls on ministers to:

* Urgently release the 3bn unspent from the National Skills Fund for retraining  as well as create bite-sized courses and pay apprentices wages in the short term.

* Help fund online learning opportunities with employers and education providers.

* Use some of the NSF to create lifelong learning and employment hubs in the worst-hit regions, to support reskilling back into jobs.

FE colleges have been left out of the 1bn for student catch-up programmes, a decision branded indefensible by David Hughes, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges.
Peers have sounded the alarm over Boris Johnson's decision to appoint his top Brexit aide as the national security adviser while vital EU trade talks are ongoing.

Members of the Lords EU committee wrote the prime minister to warn that securing a trade deal must remain the "only priority" for David Frost, the UK's chief Brexit negotiator, after he was handed another top government job.

Mr Frost's surprise appointment following the departure of UK's top civil servant Sir Mark Sedwill sparked outrage over his lack of experience in national security matters and his political background.

Sir Mark will stand down as both national security adviser and as cabinet secretary in September following weeks of hostile newspaper briefings, widely believed to originate from Downing Street.

Mr Frost, an ally of the prime minister, will replace him in the national security role while continuing as the UK's chief Brexit negotiator - in a clear signal that No 10's focus is shifting away from the EU talks.

In a letter to the prime minister, committee chairman Lord Kinnoull said: "The EU is our closest neighbour and ally, and our biggest trading partnerit is difficult to over-state the importance of the UK-EU negotiations.

"It is thus critical that the negotiations should indeed remain Mr Frosts top priorityin fact his only priorityuntil they are concluded, one way or another.

"Can you therefore confirm that Mr Frost will remain in post as the UKs chief negotiator until the negotiations are completed and a final legal text is ready for ratification?"

Lord Kinnoull pointed to EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier's insistence that negotiations must continue into the autumn and questioned how Mr Frost would balance the heavy demands of both roles.

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Saemann, left, and her seven-year old sister Katie hold a placard during a rally by anti-Brexit protesters outside the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh AP Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro Europe supporters gather on Brexit day near the British embassy in Berlin, Germany EPA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Anti-Brexit protester hugs a man while holding a placard REUTERS Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A decorated, old fashioned fire pump in Parliament Square PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro Brexit Elvis impersonator performs at Parliament Square Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU An anti-Brexiteers stands with his dog in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Paddy from Bournemouth wears Union colours as he sits next to an EU flag decorated bag in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A pro-EU activist plays a guitar decorated with the EU flag during a protest organised by civil rights 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goodbye to EU Pro-EU protesters hold placards in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU French newspapers PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald with a Border Communities Against Brexit poster before its unveiling in Carrickcarnon on the Irish border PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU National growers organisation British Apples & Pears has renamed a British apple to EOS, the Greek goddess of dawn, to commemorate Brexit day AP Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-EU protesters hold placards in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Britain's departure from the European Union was set in law on January 29, amid emotional scenes, as the bloc's parliament voted to ratify the divorce papers. After half a century of membership and three years of tense withdrawal talks, the UK will leave the EU at midnight Brussels time (23.00 GMT) on January 31 Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A man poses with paintings on Parliament Square Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU People sporting Union Flags gather in Parliament Square Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A man walks with a St. George's flag at Westminster bridge on Brexit day Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A British bulldog toy and other souvenirs at a souvenir store Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU British pro-brexit Members of the European Parliament leave the EU Parliament for the last time Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Jonathan Bullock waves the Union Jack as he leaves the European Parliament EPA

It comes as the first face-to-face trade talks with Brussels ended a day early, with the British team saying "significant differences" remain between both sides.

Both sides will meet again next week in London but clear divisions remain over issues such as fishing rights and EU regulations.

If a deal cannot be struck before the end of the transition period in December, the UK will crash out of the EU's single market and the customs union without any agreement on future access.
Boris Johnsons father has travelled to Greece to prepare his second home as a holiday let despite strict Foreign Office advice against all but essential international travel.

Stanley Johnson posted on his public Instagram page on Wednesday evening wearing a face mask in an airport queue and boasted of arriving in Athens in a separate post to his 140,000 followers.

Due to to Greece extending its ban on flights arriving in the country from the UK until the middle of July, the prime ministers father was reported to have travelled to the countrys capital via Bulgaria.

The Foreign Office still advises British citizens against all but essential international travel due to the pandemic and under current quarantine rules, anyone arriving in the UK must also self-isolate for 14 days.

Attempting to explain his trip, Mr Johnson told the Daily Mail: Im in Pelion on essential business trying to Covid-proof my property in view of the upcoming letting season. I need to set up distancing measures at the property because theyre taking it very seriously here.

He continued: The Greeks are trying to stop bulk arrivals from the UK but they were quite happy to have me coming in. All they wanted to know where I was coming from and what I was doing. Then I had my temperature taken and was swabbed twice.

We must get these air bridges set up as soon as possible. From what Ive seen the arrival of the British will not be a danger to the Greeks because theyre so careful here.

His trip, however, drew criticism from MPs, including Labours Rosena Allin-Khan, who said: Most people have been following the guidelines and socially distancing  not everyone will get a holiday this year.Those closest to the prime minister have different rules though.

The Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael added: The Foreign Office currently advises British nationals against all but essential international travel  yet here we see the prime ministers father flouting these very rules. This is simply further evidence that when it comes to following the rules, it is one rule for the Conservatives and one rule for everyone else.

The prime minister's official spokesman declined to comment on Mr Johnson Senior's trip, but said: "In relation to Foreign Office advice, it is advice and it's for individuals ot make judgements themselves."

Mr Johnsons comments on air bridges also come as the government prepares to reverse the contentious blanket quarantine on arrivals to the UK from 6 July after sustained criticism from both Conservative MPs and the tourism industry.

Ministers had been expected to announce a list of countries that would be exempt from the quarantine this week, but details have not been been published.

Appearing in the Commons on Thursday, the transport secretary Grant Shapps indicated plans to exempt certain countries from travel restrictions have been delayed by Scotlands first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Shapps told the SNP transport spokesperson Gavin Newlands: Id appreciate his help in ensuring that air bridges can get going as quickly as possible. Im very keen to get the devolved administrations, including the Scottish government, on board so we can get this thing announced.
Its been more than 60 years. But the scene is seared still into Kawthar Alis mind. The women pinned her down on a bed. She was maybe 5-and-a-half or 6 years old. Holding her knees, they spread her legs open, her genitals exposed.

At the time, she didnt fully understand what followed. But that day Kawthar joined the many Sudanese girls who had undergone female genital mutilation, a practice that involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons.

Its the one incident that has affected my life the most, said Kawthar. It feels shameful for people to expose your body and do this to you, like a rape.

The anguish unleashed that day led to an unwavering conviction: no daughter of hers should ever endure that pain. That decision pitted Kawthar against her own mother and a society where nearly 87 per cent of women between 15 and 49 years old are estimated to have undergone a form of FGM, according to a UN-backed 2014 survey.

Soon, Kawthar and others like her might have the law on their side. Sudans transitional authorities are expected to outlaw the procedure and set punishments of up to three years in prison and fines for those who carry out FGM, according to a draft bill obtained by the AP. The Cabinet has approved a set of amendments that includes criminalising FGM. Procedures to pass the law are expected to be completed by the sovereign council and council of ministers in the coming few days, minister of justice NasrEdeen Abdulbari said in a statement sent in response to AP questions.

In this 2007 photo, a Masai girl holds a protest sign during the anti-FGM protest in Kilgoris, Kenya. Nearly always carried out on minors, it can result in excessive bleeding and death or cause problems including infections, complications in childbirth and depression (AP/Sayyid Azim)

Im very excited, very proud, said Nimco Ali, co-founder of The Five Foundation, which works to end FGM. Those are the kind of things that we need to be celebrating because that was a part of democracy coming to Sudan.

Although she lauds the move, Kawthar is not celebrating yet. This thing will die very slowly, she said of FGM. Its an issue related to our traditions and the Sudanese culture.

Like many in Sudan, Kawthar was subjected to an extreme form of FGM known as infibulation, which involves the cutting and repositioning of the labia, sometimes through stitching, to narrow the vaginal opening.

The World Health Organisation says FGM constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. Nearly always carried out on minors, it can result in excessive bleeding and death or cause problems including infections, complications in childbirth and depression.

Millions of girls and women have been cut in countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Reasons differ. Many believe it keeps women clean and protects their chastity by controlling sexual desire. The opinions of religious leaders run the spectrum. Some condone the practice, others work to eliminate it and others consider it irrelevant to religion.

Mohammed Hashim al-Hakim, a Sudanese Muslim cleric who opposes FGM, said religious leaders must confront attempts to put a veneer of religion on a custom largely rooted in culture.

The practice, he said, predates Islam and crosses religious lines. No one in their right mind can say that a harmful practice ... belongs to religion.

Under the rule of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted in April last year, some Sudanese clerics said forms of FGM were religiously allowed, arguing that the only debate was over whether it was required or not.

 FGM survivor recounts her traumatic experience from her childhood

It was fear of what people would say, rather than religious beliefs, that led Kawthars mother to fight her decision not to subject her own daughter to FGM. Kawthar even feared her mother would have someone commit it on her daughter while she was at work. She armed her child with a plan: run to a nearby police station.

Now 35, the daughter wonders if the police would have helped. She said she is grateful for her mothers battle. Among high school classmates, she was the abnormal one for not getting cut. A rights defender, she spoke on condition she not be identified by name because of the sensitivity of her work.

The practice of FGM, she argued, is interwoven with a patriarchal mentality that connects a mans sexual pleasure to a womans pain and exerts control over women.

In this 2015 photo, women from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi participate in the world march of women in Nairobi, Kenya. The World Health Organization says FGM constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women (AP/Khalil Senosi)

Customs, traditions and culture are much stronger than written laws, she said, adding that anti-FGM campaigners need to engage men more.

Neighbouring Egypt shows how difficult it is to end the practice. Egypt banned FGM in 2008 and elevated it to a felony in 2016, allowing tougher penalties. Some of Egypts top Islamic authorities have said FGM is forbidden.

Still, a 2015 government survey found that 87 per cent of Egyptian women between the ages of 15 and 49 had undergone FGM, though the rate among teens did fall 11 percentage points from a 2008 survey.

Reda el-Danbouki, executive director of the Womens Centre for Guidance and Legal Awareness, said there have been cases where judges handed down minimum sentences on doctors who broke the law, giving the impression doctors can keep doing so with impunity.

As Sudans law is implemented, there is the risk that FGM will go underground, said Othman Sheiba, secretary general of Sudans National Council for Child Welfare. But criminalisation sends a strong message, he said: The government of the revolution will not accept this harm to girls.

Women were at the forefront of the protests against Mr al-Bashir. Transitional authorities have since taken steps to roll back his legacy, which activists say disenfranchised women in particular.

For FGM truly to end, women must be empowered, Nimco said. You bring in the legislation and then you start having the conversation and then real change happens. A more awoken generation of young Sudanese rejects the practice and wants equality, she said.

A British activist of Somali origin, 37-year-old Nimco underwent FGM in Djibouti at age 7. She remembers feeling angry. A severe kidney infection  a complication from the procedure  almost killed her at 11, she said.

I lost the concept of innocence, she said. I felt so broken and so alone.

For her own procedure, Kawthar was dolled up like a bride. Her body was rubbed with oil and she wore a new dress and gold bracelets.

Although she had anaesthesia, she remembers the cries of a relative who did not.

Physical pain lasted about a month, but the psychological pain has endured a lifetime, she said.

Its like something getting ripped from inside of me, she said. Something was forcefully taken from me.

AP
The US saw 4.8 million jobs added to its economy in June, bringing down the country's stark unemployment rate to 11.1 per cent as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grip the nation.

Data released on Thursday by the Bureau of Labour Statistics signals that the hard-hit US job market may be slowly beginning to recover from the abrupt losses caused by the pandemic.

Donald Trump held a hastily organised statement following the news to boast of the "historic numbers"  although critics pointed out that the rise was from a historically low base and that unemployment is still at worse levels than during the depression of 2007/2008.

The historical surge in new jobs has been facilitated by the re-opening of economies across a number of states as they begin phased re-openings, and the decrease in the unemployment rate marks an improvement for the US job market for the second month running.

However, the new figures may not account for the delayed impact of the severe spike in cases recorded across the country in the last few weeks, particularly on the south and west coast.

Governors in California, Texas and Florida are being forced to roll back their re-openings as cases of the respiratory disease continue to rise incrementally, which could once again put jobs at stake.

Initial unemployment claims also remain at high levels, having fallen only slightly last week with 1.4 million workers filing for first-time benefits.

Additionally, the 11.1 per cent unemployment figure still remains more than three times higher than the 3.5 percent unemployment rate in February before the Covid-19 outbreak gripped the US.

Weve seen that curve going down but were still at previously astronomical levels, Dan North, senior economist at Euler Hermes North America told NBC News.

The long-term average before this crisis was around 350,000, so were at four times the long-term average and more importantly, its flattening out.

Over 19 million people across the country continue to rely on unemployment aid.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday morning at a quickly organised press briefing, Mr Trump said: "Our economy is roaring back."

He added: "These are historic numbers."

"The United States economy added almost five million jobs in the month of June, shattering all expectations. The stock market is doing extremely well ... this is the largest monthly jobs gain in the history of our country."

The president declined to take questions from the press.
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Jeffrey Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell has been charged by the FBI with multiple counts of sex exploitation and abuse of minor girls.

The British socialite and heiress was a confidante to the disgraced financier. She later faced accusations of her own involvement in his sex crimes.

Her arrest comes just a few days before the anniversary of Epstein's arrest last year on sex-trafficking charges, which alleged he exploited and transferred underage girls between New York and Florida. Epstein, 66, later killed himself in federal prison, according to the medical examiner.

His case triggered a series of sensational allegations against Epstein's friends, including Prince Andrew, who was accused in 2015 of sleeping with a then 17-year-old girl. The prince has repeatedly denied the accusations.

Attorneys for the Southern District of New York, which is prosecuting the case against Ms Maxwell, said on Thursday that they are still keen to speak to him. The previous prosecutor on the case, Geoffrey Berman -- who was controversially fired by Donald Trump last month -- claimed the Duke of York had refused to answer questions. Prince Andrew's lawyers hit back, insisting the duke had agreed no fewer than three times to cooperate.

Ms Maxwell, who has kept a low-profile since 2016, was arrested in New Hampshire on Epstein-related charges and is expected to appear in federal court later today, News 4 New York first reported.

At one point Ms Maxwell, the daughter of media baron Robert Maxwell, was Epstein's girlfriend and then became a close friend to him. But she also allegedly helped Epstein groom and procure young girls to the wealthy elite.

The indictment against Ms Maxwell, passed up by a grand jury in Manhattan, stated that she "assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse the victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18."

It added some of the victims were as young as 14, with the abuse starting from "at least in or about" 1994 to about 1997.

"In some instances, Ms Maxwell was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims," the indictment added.

Six counts are listed in the indictment, including conspiracy to to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and perjury.

Despite Epstein's death, prosecutors continue to investigate his sex crimes, leaving open the possibility for associates involved to be charged with crimes.

One day before his suicide, on 10 August 2019, federal prosecutors released a transcript of a 2016 deposition where Epstein refused to say if Ms Maxwell was involved in procuring young girls.

The indictment released on Thursday cited Ms Maxwell for "knowingly" making false declarations in 2016 after taking an oath to testify truthfully.

The 58-year-old was previously accused in multiple civil suits by Epstein's victims of helping procure young girls for the financier. One of the victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, made the accusation in a 2015 defamation suit.

Ms Giuffre claimed in her since-settled suit that she was forced to have sex with Epstein and Prince Andrew. Both Ms Maxwell and Prince Andrew have denied the allegations.
Ghislaine Maxwell helped billionaire Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and ultimately abuse victims that both knew to be under the age of 18, according to charges filed in a federal court in Manhattan.

Ms Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the late accused sex offender, was arrested on Thursday on a charge of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts. She was due to make a virtual court appearance later today.

The indictment accuses the British socialite of being a knowing and willing facilitator of Epsteins abuse over a number of years, and of lying to about her actions under oath.

Maxwell assisted, facilitated and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18, the indictment reads.

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It says that in an effort to conceal her crimes, Ms Maxwell "repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct, including in relation to some of the minor victims described herein, when providing testimony under oath in 2016.

It further adds that she "enticed and groomed multiple minor girls to engage in sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein.

According to the indictment, which focuses on the years between 1994 and 1997, Maxwell facilitated Epsteins access to underage girls by inducing and enticing them for grooming and abuse at multiple lavish properties owned by Epstein.

These included his Upper East Side townhouse on East 66th Street, where he was known to throw lavish parties; his Palm Beach estate in Florida and his Zorro ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Victims were also groomed and abused at Ms Maxwells personal residence in London, according to the indictment.

Three minors, unnamed in the indictment, were allegedly induced and enticed by Ms Maxwell.

The court papers state that she met Minor Victim-1 when she was 14 and interacted with her at Epsteins residences in the knowledge that she was a minor.

Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Show all 9 1 /9 Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in court Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein attends court as he pleads guilty to solicitation and procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution, 2008 Zuma/Rex Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in court Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to felony solicitation and procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Epstein, allegedly paid several girls under the age of 18 in return for naked massages at his Palm Beach, Florida estate Zuma/Rex Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's car Jeffrey Epstein is whisked away from the Palm Beach County jail in a black car shortly after 6am on 22 July 2009. Epstein left the jail through the sally port, where prisoners are brought in, rather than through the main doors where prisoners are routinely released Zuma/Rex Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's mugshot Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's mugshot, taken after he was indicted for soliciting a prostitute on 26 July 2006. Beginning in mid-March 2005, Epstein became the target of a sexual battery probe conducted by the Palm Beach Police Department, according to the affidavit, which alleges that Epstein paid a series of underage girls to engage in sexual activity with him. In a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein, Donald Trump called the moneyman a 'terrific guy' who 'likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.' Epstein, who reportedly runs a multibillion-dollar investment fund, travels in his own Boeing 727 (upon which he has transported Bill Clinton to Africa) and owns a 45,000-square-foot mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jack Goldberger, Jeffrey Epstein's attorney Jeffrey Epstein's attorney, Jack Goldberger, talks with reporters gathered outside the Palm Beach County jail on 22 July 2009 after Epstein was whisked away from the jail in a black car Zuma/Rex Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein Florida Police department sexual offenders database picture of Jeffrey Epstein taken in 2013 Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's mansion His Palm Beach mansion in Florida Google Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's island The private Caribbean island, Little St James is part of the US Virgin Islands NBC News Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's island The private Caribbean island, Little St James is part of the US Virgin Islands NBC News

Over the three years, Maxwell groomed Minor Victim-1 to engage in sexual acts with Epstein through multiple means.

Along with Epstein, she befriended the victim, taking her to movies and on shopping trips. Ms Maxwell also allegedly asked the girl about her life - school, classes and her family.

Ms Maxwell sought to normalize inappropriate and abusive conduct to the victim, the indictment reads, undressing in front of her and being present when the victim undressed for Epstein. Within a year of meeting, Epstein was abusing the victim.

Maxwell was present for and involved in some of this abuse, according to the court papers, in particular, in group sexualized massages of Epstein where the victim would engage in sex acts with Epstein.

Ms Maxwell, along with Epstein, encouraged the victim to travel to his homes in New York and Florida.

Minor Victim-1 was enticed to travel across state lines for the purpose of sexual encounters with Epstein, and Ms Maxwell was aware of the activity, prosecutors state.

In 1996, she had at least one interaction with Minor Victim-2 at the Zorro ranch.

The victim had flown into New Mexico from out of state at Epsteins invitation for the purpose of being groomed for and/or subjected to acts of sexual abuse, the indictment states.

While in New Mexico, Ms Maxwell and Esptein took the victim to a movie, while she took the girl shopping.

In New Mexico, Maxwell began her efforts to groom Minor Victim-2 for abuse by Epstein by, among other things, providing an unsolicited massage to [the victim] during which Minor Victim-2 was topless and encouraged her to massage Epstein.

The third victim was groomed and befriended in London between 1994 and 1995, according to the indictment, with Ms Maxwell again aware that the girl was under 18, chatting with her about her life and family.

She introduced the third victim to Epstein and arranged for multiple interactions.

Maxwell encouraged Minor Victim-3 to massage Epstein, knowing that Epstein would engage in sex acts with [the victim] during those massages.

The indictment also details the lengths that Ms Maxwell allegedly went to in order to conceal her conduct.

Around 2016, while being deposed as part of civil litigation, she repeatedly provided false and perjurious statements, under oath, regarding her role in facilitating the abuse of minor victims by Jeffrey Epstein

During the deposition, she was asked: Did Jeffrey Epstein have a scheme to recruit underage girls for sexual massages?

She replied: I dont know what youre talking about.

She was also asked to list all the people under the age of 18 that you interacted with at any of Jeffreys properties. She responded: Im not aware of anybody that I interacted with, other than obviously [the plaintiff] who was 17 at this point.

Recommended Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell charged by FBI

She was asked if she was aware of the presence of sex toys or devices used in sexual activities in Mr Epsteins Palm Beach house?

No, not that I recall Ms Maxwell said.

Other than yourself and the blond and brunette that you have identified as having been involved in three-way sexual activities, with whom did Mr Epstein have sexual activities? she was asked.

She replied: I wasnt aware that he was having sexual activities with anyone when I was with him other than myself.

Ms Maxwell also denied giving the second victim a massage or giving Epstein a massage.

The indictment is signed by acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss who has stepped in to head up the Manhattan office following the firing of her boss, Geoffrey S Berman, last month by Donald Trump.

Read the full indictment here.
A new anti-Donald Trump ad by a Republican super PAC has hit out against the president over reports he was briefed about Russia putting bounties on US troops in Afghanistan.

The Lincoln Project's latest ad, entitled "Fellow Traveller", is filmed with a Russian voiceover and English subtitles.

"The most important endorsement Donald Trump received in 2016 was not from your Senate leader," the ad stated while showing a picture of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

It continued: "Not from your Congressman Paul Ryan. And not from any of your Republican senators, representatives, or governors." A series of pictures of prominent Republican politicians are shown across the screen amid the voiceover.

"No, Donald Trump's received the most important endorsement in 2016 from our great leader, Vladimir Putin."

References to Russia's involvement were then listed out in the ad, with it stating special services worked "overtime" to help manipulate voters, spread propaganda, and discredit Hillary Clinton as she ran against Mr Trump.

All of this, the ad stated, was to elect "Comrade Trump".

"Congratulations, Comrade Trump. Russia thanks you for your loyalty and friendship," the ad ended.

The Lincoln Project was formed last year by a group of anti-Trump conservatives, and was even co-founded by attorney George Conway, who is notably married to White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway.

The group has released a series of ads in 2020 to criticise the president, including the most recent one slamming his relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin.

An ad released earlier this week further slammed reports that Mr Trump was briefed about bounties being put on US soldiers while they were in Afghanistan.

Former U.S. Navy Seal Dan Barkhuff was featured in the ad, and he said he felt "betrayed" by the president about the Russian bounty reports.

"Any commander-in-chief with a spine would be stomping the living sh** out of Russians right now, diplomatically, economically or if necessary with the sort of asymmetric warfare they're using to send our kids home in body bags," Mr Barkhuff said in the ad.

He added the president was either a "coward" against Russia or "complicit".

Mr Trump and his administration has denied the president knew about intelligence reports of Russia allegedly putting bounties on soldiers while abroad.

On Wednesday, the president addressed the reports, first revealed by The New York Times, by calling it all a "hoax". He has since been briefed about the intelligence reports but has not indicated what he will do with the information.
Ex-European Council president Donald Tusk says he wants Joe Biden to be elected US president in November - after he got to know Donald Trump very well.

Mr Tusk used Twitter on Thursday to back the Democratic presidential nominee, Mr Biden, and mock US president Donald Trump.

That endorsement came despite Mr Tusk saying that he always believed in the Republican ideals and greatness of America.

Mr Tusk, who served as European Council president between 2014 and 2019, said on Thursday that he got to know @realDonaldTrump really well whilst president.

These are the reasons why I pray for Joe Bidens success, wrote Mr Tusk, who added that US president Ronald Reagan had been his hero.

Thursdays statement comes some months after Mr Tusk, who now leads the centre-right European Peoples Party, last criticised the US president in public.

In a speech last September, Mr Tusk told the UN General Assembly that To protect the truth, it is not enough to accuse others of promoting fake news. Frankly speaking, it would be enough to simply stop lying.

That statement, whilst not naming Mr Trump, alluded to the US presidents unsubstantiated complaints about American media.

Mr Tusk also appeared to condemn Americas turn towards isolationism, and said: The patriotism of the 21st century must also have a global dimension, if it is not to become, as has many times been the case, a common national egoism.

Some weeks later, Mr Tusk tweeted a picture in which he held two fingers against president Trumps back at a NATO summit in London.

Mr Tusk commented that Despite seasonal turbulences our transatlantic friendship must last.
Donald Trump has maintained that Covid-19  or the plague  could disappear within days, sometimes within one month, and now at some point.

The US president, on more than 20 occasions since February, said coronavirus would soon vanish and the United States could soon claim victory.

Instead, the US has seen the worlds worst death toll with some 130,000 American lives lost and 2.74 million infected.

Still, Mr Trump  whose presidential re-election bid hinges on an economic revival that could see even more Covid-19 fatalities, told Fox Business on Wednesday that the country was going to very good with the coronavirus.

He added: I think that, at some point, thats going to sort of disappear, I hope.

February: One day  its like a miracle  it will disappear

As the pandemic began to spread in places such as New York, Seattle, and San Diego  where an early-February death could have been Covid-19 related  president Trump continued to praise China, who he said was getting it more and more under control.

On Chinese president Xi Jinping, Mr Trump wrote on Twitter on 7 February that He is strong, sharp and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the Coronavirus.

He will be successful, especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone.

China was praised again on 25 February, when Mr Trump said [China is] getting it more and more under control. So I think thats a problem thats going to go away.

Whilst the virus continued to spread in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic started, president Trumps other theory  based on warm weather destroying the coronavirus  has also proven to be not true.

When he met with state governors on 10 February, president Trump had told them a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat  as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April.

Instead, the last week in April saw some 14,000 Americans deaths with Covid-19 since the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started to track cases.

In contrast to comments this month  which said the virus would disappear at some point  president Trump claimed on February 26 that the virus could vanish within a couple of days.

That has also proven not to be true.

We have done an incredible job. Were going to continue. Its going to disappear, said Mr Trump again on 27 February. One day  its like a miracle  it will disappear.

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March: Its going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month

As US coronavirus cases neared 300 on 6 March, with 14 reported deaths, president Trump said again that the virus will go away.

That same statement was heard again and again throughout the month, which ended with some 188,172 cases and 3,873 deaths across the US.

Were prepared, and were doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away, said Mr Trump on 10 March.

He added two days later: ts going away. We want it to go away with very, very few deaths.

It will go away. You know it  you know it is going away, and it will go away, said the president on 30 March. And were going to have a great victory.  I want to have our country be calm and strong, and fight and win, and it will go away.

Then on 31 March, after states across the US sheltered-in-place, Mr Trump claimed that Its going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month. And, if not, hopefully it will be soon after that.

April: It might take longer [to go away]

As cases neared 300,000 on 3 April, with more than 7,000 deaths, president Trump again said It is going to go away. It is going away.I said its going away, and it is going away.

Four days later, as cases accelerated towards the 400,00 mark, with almost 13,000 deaths, he complained that It will go away, but that the cases really didnt build up for a while.

You have to understand, Im a cheerleader for this country. I dont want to create havoc and shock and everything else, said Mr Trump, who argued two days later that: I think what happens is its going to go away. This is going to go away.

Then on 29 April, as Covid-19 continued to spread, he appeared to admit that Its gonna go. Its gonna leave. Its gonna be gone. Its going to be eradicated and  uh  it might take longer. It might be in smaller sections. It wont be what we had

May: Itll go away at some point

After US coronavirus cases surpassed the one million mark in April  rather than going away  the US president began to compare Covid-19 to other viruses that he claimed never show up again.

Theyve never shown up again. They die, too. Like everything else, they die, he said on 8 May. Its going to go away. And were not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time.

He added: You might have some flare-ups and you know I guess I would expect that.

Around one week later, he commented that Itll go away at some point, Itll go away. It may flare up and it may not flare up. Well have to see what happens, but if it does flare up were going to put out the fire.

June: We did so well before the plague

In the month when US states started to lift lockdown measures and ease some social distancing, Mr Trump claimed in 16 June that: I always say, even without it [a vaccine], it goes away.

He added: But if we had the vaccine  and we will  if we had therapeutic or cure, one thing sort of blends into the other  it will be a fantastic day, and I think thats gonna happen and its gonna happen very soon.

Then, in an appearance on Fox News on 17 June, he commented that he did not want to talk about really good therapeutics because coronavirus was going to fade away.

Less than a week later, he complained to an audience in Phoenix, Arizona, that We did so well before the plague and were doing so well after the plague. Its going away.

On Tuesday, and in contrast to those comments in June, the US reported more than 48,000 new coronavirus cases in one day  the highest 24-hour count since the pandemic started.

Eight states - Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas  all reported all-time highs for new daily cases.

Diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci warned on the same day that Covid-19 was not vanishing anytime soon.

Instead, the US could soon witness 100,000 new cases a day.

I cant make an accurate prediction but its going to be very disturbing, said Dr. Fauci.
Herman Cain, a Republican politician and 2011 primary candidate for the party's presidential nominee, has been hospitalised after testing positive for Covid-19.

Mr Cain, a conservative columnist and former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, is currently being treated in an Atlanta-area hospital.

A spokesman for the 74-year-old released a statement on Twitter on Thursday saying: "On Monday June 29, Herman Cain was informed that he had tested positive for Covid-19. By Wednesday, July 1, Mr Cain had developed symptoms serious enough that he requires hospitalizations."

Mr Cain is not on a respirator and is "awake and alert" according to the statement.

He is an ally of President Donald Trump  he serves as co-chair of Black Voices for Trump  and attended the president's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 20 June. At least two of the president's staffers at that event tested positive for the coronavirus in the days following the rally.

Video from the rally shows Mr Cain with other supporters sitting in the crowd while not wearing a mask.

"There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr Cain contracted the coronavirus, but we do know he is a fighter who has beaten Stage 4 cancer," the statement said.

Dan Calabrese, the editor of HermanCain.com, addressed speculation that Mr Cain contracted the virus while attending the rally in a blog post on Thursday.

"We honestly have no idea where he contracted it. I realise people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of travelling the past week, including to Arizona where cases are spiking. I don't think there's any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected," Mr Calabrese wrote. "We'll never know."

Mr Cain is a contributor to the conservative news outlet Newsmax and hosts two political discussion shows, The Herman Cain Show and Herman Cain's America.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has split with Donald Trump over the president's threat to veto the annual defence spending bill if it includes a provision to rename military bases named for Confederate figureheads.

Well, I would hope the president really wouldn't veto the bill over this issue. ... I hope the president will reconsider vetoing the entire defence bill, which includes pay raises for our troops, over a provision in there that could lead to changing the names, Mr McConnell said in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday.

The president had indicated in a tweet earlier in the day that he would veto the $740bn bill if it includes an amendment from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to rename some US military bases.

I will Veto the Defence Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill! Mr Trump tweeted.

The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously agreed this week to add a provision to the bill to "remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honour or commemorate the Confederate States of America ... or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America from all assets of the Department of Defence" within three years of enactment.

Several GOP senators have filed an amendment to remove the language forcing the Defence Department to purge itself of Confederate paraphernalia and nomenclature, but the measure is unlikely to make its way to the Senate floor for a vote.

Negotiators on the annual National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) have struck mostly bipartisan chords so far, with Senate leaders expressing confidence they can strike a deal with House Democrats at a conference between the two chambers.

The Senate is also ironing out the wrinkles on a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday on a par with Martin Luther King Jr Day, Memorial Day, and other days of US historical and cultural significance.

Juneteenth, celebrated annually on 19 June, is a holiday for the emancipation of enslaved people in the US.

Senate Republicans are hung up on whether to move forward with a bipartisan bill from Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Ed Markey of Massachusetts or whether they should strike another federal holiday  namely, Columbus Day  to balance out the calendar, The Hill has reported.

Im just saying, lets replace it with something. I chose Columbus Day just because its probably the most lightly celebrated and less disruptive to anybodys schedule Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said, according to The Hill.

Johnson is happy to celebrate the emancipation with a national holiday", he said.

"But I just dont think we should be, when were already blowing a hole in the budget right now, offering another paid day off for federal employees, he said.
The Supreme Court will keep secret grand jury testimony collected by former special counsel Robert Mueller out of House Democrats' hands until after the November presidential election.

The high court on Thursday agreed to hear a Trump administration appeal of a lower court decision ordering the testimony to be handed over to the House of Representatives, which Democrats control. With the matter now headed to the highest court in the land, the process ton decide the fate of the testimony will stretch into next year.

Even though Mr Mueller's final report stated his team found no evidence of a coordinated collusion effort between Trump 2016 campaign officials and Russians, it did not exonerate the president on the question of whether he obstructed justice by trying to interfere with or slow-roll the probe. House and Senate Democrats had hoped Mr Mueller would find evidence of collusion and state clear that the sitting president of the United States obstructed a federal investigation. But he did neither.

Mr Mueller's findings were not even a major part of House Democrats' impeachment case against Mr Trump, which some legal experts have said was a mistake even though GOP sources doubt it would have caused enough Senate Republicans to turn their backs on Mr Trump by voting for his removal.

As for the high court's Thursday decision: It amounts to a major court win for the president.

That's because arguments may not happen before the Supreme Court's nine justices before Election Day (3 November). That could prevent his lawyers from arguing in court, which would be played over and over on cable news shows, to keep potentially damning grand jury testimony about his actions as commander in chief sealed and out of view for Americans deciding whether to give him a second term or elect former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

What's more, the Supreme Court's decision to take the case shows again its longtime deference to the Office of the President. Mr Trump also is arguing at the high court that Congress has no right to his bank and financial records, cases that could be decided this month.

The announcement came after the president had just concluded brief remarks in the White House briefing room about the latet jobs numbers, which showed a declining unemployment rate as states re-open their economies amid the spreading-again coronavirus.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Democrats must now focus on defeating the president in November.

"I am disappointed by the Court's decision to prolong this case further, but I am confident we will prevail. In every administration before this one, [the Department of Justice] has cooperated with the Judiciary Committee's requests for grand jury materials relating to investigations of impeachable offenses. Attorney General Barr broke from that practice, and DOJ's newly invented arguments against disclosure have failed at every level," the New York Democrat said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, President Trump and Attorney General Barr are continuing to try to run out the clock on any and all accountability. While I am confident their legal arguments will fail," he added, "it is now all the more important for the American people to hold the President accountable at the ballot box in November."
The Senate has unanimously passed a punitive sanctions bill against Chinese officials after the government there passed a national security law that experts say erodes Hong Kong's autonomy.

The sanctions bill, which passed with unanimous approval in the House on Wednesday, now heads to Donald Trump's desk, forcing the president to possibly offend his self-described "friend," Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom he hopes to craft a second trade pact should he win re-election in the fall.

Specifically, the bill would impose sanctions on Chinese officials and any Hong Kong police units clashing with protesters by penalising banks that do business with them.

It would also require the US State Department to produce an annual report for Congress on Chinese officials who have subverted Hong Kong and China's one country, two systems governing structure.

It also would empower the president to seize assets of those people and turn them away from US shores.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a rare appearance at a House Armed Services Committee hearing this week urging members to vote for the sanctions and condemn the communist Chinese government's latest action in Hong Kong.

The sanctions are an "urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese governments passage of its so-called national security law, which threatens the end of the one country, two systems promised exactly 23 years ago today," Ms Pelosi later said in a statement.

"All freedom-loving people must condemn this horrific law, which is purpose-built to dismantle democratic freedoms in Hong Kong," she said.

Vice President Mike Pence echoed Ms Pelosi's concerns in an interview with CNBC on Thursday, saying the new law in Hong Kong is "a betrayal of the international agreement that they signed" in 1984 with the United Kingdom that grants Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy from the Chinese mainland government.

The White House has, however, signalled its aversion recently to further upsetting the US's already fraught relationship with China ahead of the 2020 presidential election, fearing China could pull out of key trade agreements that have provided a boost to the US economy, especially farmers. That group is part of the voting coalition that pushed Mr Trump to victory in swing states with big agriculture sectors, like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Mr Trump has not indicated whether he will sign the bill, though with the sanctions passing both chambers of Congress unanimously this week, the measure appears veto-proof. (Both chambers could simply vote to override Mr Trump's veto.)

Chinas foreign ministry has warned of strong countermeasures against the US if the bill passed by the House and Senate this week becomes law.

The US is far from the only country that has taken punitive measures against China.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the new Chinese law was a clear and serious breach of the handover agreement through which the city was returned to China in 1997 after 150 years of British colonial rule.

In response, he said, the UK will now open up visa restrictions for all Hong Kong citizens born before the 1997 handover, potentially offering a route to citizenship for up to 2.9m people.
Lawyers have expressed outrage at reports the White House withheld evidence of Russian bounties on American soldiers from Republican lawmakers.

The president and his administration have faced scathing comments from a number of law experts following days of controversy surrounding a report by The New York Times which alleged that Russia put bounties on US troops in Afghanistan.

Contention in Washington has emerged throughout the week around allegations that Mr Trump and his aides were briefed on the intelligence and did not take action.

Top White House officials briefed senior Republicans on Monday about the situation following the reports.

The White House stated on Monday that Mr Trump had not been informed about the intelligence as there was no consensus about the veracity of the information.

However, a report from The New York Times on Tuesday alleged that American officials had intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from Russia's military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account that corroborated the initial bounty intelligence.

The New York Times report also alleged that politicians in the Republican House briefing were not informed about the intercepted data tracking financial transfers.

Lawyers have hit out at the administration in light of these allegations suggesting that if this data was withheld from politicians it would undermine the White House's position of denial.

On Monday the Pentagon told Fox News that there was no corroborating evidence to support The New York Times' reporting.

Its almost impressive how the Trump White House keeps making this series of scandals *worse*, Steve Vladeck, an expert in national security law and military justice posted on Twitter.

Its bad enough that they lied all weekend about what they knew and when; now it turns out that they even misled the hand-picked congressional Republicans who they briefed yesterday.

The New York Times report also alleged that the information was provided to Mr Trump in his daily written brief in late February, according to two officials.

Beginning of trail was intercept of bank data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russias military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account. Two officials confirm Trump was briefed. In a different time, wed be talking impeachment, Los Angeles Times legal affairs columnist, attorney and law professor Harry Litman said.

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe called the Trump administrations reported actions stupefyingly stupid.

Looks like Trump administration kept this corroborating intel even from the Republican lawmakers briefed yesterday, New York University law Professor Ryan Goodman commented, linking to The New YorkTimes report.

Republicans on the other hand have repeatedly accused Democrats of politicising" the reports of the intelligence.

Donald Trump and the White House have repeatedly denied that the president was briefed on the intelligence.

This was not briefed up to the president because, in fact, it was not verified, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Monday.

Other reports by the Associated Press and later The Washington Post have claimed that top White House officials were aware of the intelligence in early 2019, a full year earlier than has been previously reported.

Several US military sources told The Washington Post that Taliban-linked militants were believed to have killed several Americans and other coalition force members with the Russian deal in mind. It is unclear exactly how many Americans or coalition troops from other countries may have been targeted under the programme.

Russia and the Taliban have denied the existence of the programme.

The White House did not respond to questions about Mr Trump or other officials awareness of Russias provocations in 2019 when contacted by the AP.
Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, speaks during a press conference held by the State Council Information Office about the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in Beijing, capital of China, July 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai)

BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The law on safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) marks a turning point and will bring the region back on track of its development, an official said Wednesday.

The law is designed to bring tranquility to Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks at a press conference in Beijing.

The law targets only a tiny group of criminals who endanger national security and will be a "sharp sword" hanging over their heads, Zhang said, adding that it will also serve as a deterrent to external forces who interfere in Hong Kong affairs.

Zhang also noted that the law will fully protect the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the vast majority of Hong Kong residents, and the legitimate rights and interests of overseas investors in Hong Kong.

It will be the bedrock underpinning the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, Zhang said.

Chinese lawmakers on Tuesday voted to adopt the 66-article law and later passed a decision to list the law in Annex III to the HKSAR Basic Law.

The law on safeguarding national security in HKSAR came into force in Hong Kong at 11:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday upon its promulgation by the HKSAR government in the gazette. Enditem
This week, Boris Johnson offered Hong Kong residents who hold British National Overseas (BNO) passports the chance to settle in the UK and eventually seek citizenship following the passing of a new security law in the country.

Beijing on Tuesday imposed the controversial national security law in Hong Kong, which increases Chinas powers and police presence in the city state and represents the biggest shift in Hong Kongs autonomous status since 1997.

The UK government has confirmed arrangements to allow BNOs to come to the UK will go ahead on Wednesday and said details of the new bespoke route will be announced in due course.

What does the new route entail and how will it be implemented?

How big is the population of Hong Kong and how many will be eligible to come to the UK?

As of 2018, there were more than 7.5 million people in Hong Kong. Around 350,000 are UK passport holders and 2.6 million more are eligible, amounting to around three million Hong Kong residents who will be able to come under the new residence rights extended by the UK government.

Most of the additional 2.5 million are people who held a BNO passport in the past but did not renew it.

BNO passports were issued to Hong Kong residents born before the handover of the territory from the UK to China in 1997. Previously, BNO citizens were only entitled to visa-free access to the UK for six months.

What are the extended rights for BNOs?

The new rules will allow BNO citizens from Hong Kong to live and work in the UK for five years. After that, they will be able to apply for settled status and after a further year, seek citizenship.

The exact date and details of when the new route will be implemented is expected in the coming months, but the Home Office said in the meantime, BNO citizens who wish to come to the UK will be able to do so, subject to standard immigration checks.

What has the UK government said?

The prime minister accused China of breaching its obligations to Britains former colony and denounced the legislation, saying it threatened the freedoms and rights of the people of Hong Kong.

Mr Johnson said Chinas actions were also a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration agreed in advance of the handover of Hong Kong in 1997.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said there would be no limit on numbers or quotas, and promised the application process would be simple.

He said in a statement: We will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people.

We will honour our commitment to change the arrangements for those holding BNO status and continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong.

He has however acknowledged there would be little we could do to cohesively force China to allow BNO citizens to come to the UK.

Mr Raab told ITVs Peston programme: I wouldnt want to be naive about this: I think we need to be realistic. But I do think that China as a rising, leading member of the international community is sensitive to the repetitional risk in all of this but clearly not sufficiently that it hasnt proceeded anyway.

There is diplomatic leverage, there are other ways that we can persuade China not to fully implement either the national security law or some of the reprisals you talk about.

But ultimately we need to be honest that we wouldnt be able to force China to allow BNOs to come to the UK.

How has China reacted?

China has warned Britain would bear all consequences for any move it took to offer HK citizens a path to settlement in the UK.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a daily briefing that China reserved the right to act against Britain over the issue without specifying what countermeasures Beijing might take.

The Chinese Embassy in the UK said the offer to BNOs would be in breach of international law and basic norms governing international relations.

It said in a statement: We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures. We urge the British side to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respect Chinas position and concerns, refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any way.

Additional reporting by agencies
Australia has announced A$270bn (151.2bn) in additional defence spending over the next decade as its prime minister warned of a dangerous new world following the coronavirus pandemic.

The sharp funding boost will see the country invest in more lethal and long-range capabilities to hold enemies further from its shores, including longer-range strike weapons and offensive cyber capabilities.

Prime minister Scott Morrison said Australia had not seen such economic and strategic uncertainty in its region since the Second World War, with tensions over territorial claims rising between India and China and in the South China Sea.

The simple truth is this: even as we stare down the Covid pandemic at home, we need to also prepare for a post-Covid world that is poorer, that is more dangerous and that is more disorderly, Mr Morrison said.

He said the spending would come alongside a renewed focus on Australias immediate region, although the countrys military would be open to joining US-led coalitions in campaigns which are in the national interest.

The risk of miscalculation and even conflict is heightened, Mr Morrison said.

Regional military modernisation is at an unprecedented rate.

He added: Relations between China and the United States are fractious at best as they compete for political, economic and technological supremacy.

The move followed deteriorating relations between Australia and China, which are now seen to be at their worst level in decades.

Last month, Mr Morrison said Australias government and institutions were being targeted by a sophisticated state-based cyber actor, with anonymous government sources telling Reuters that China was considered to be the chief suspect.

However, Beijing has denied it was behind the attacks

China is the unspoken elephant in the room, Sam Roggeveen, director of the Sydney-based Lowy Institutes International Security Programme, said in response to the defence spending boost.

While its absolutely right that we focus on our region, buying long-range missiles  particularly ones for land targets  could invite a response from Beijing.

Mr Morrison said Australia would buy 200 long-range anti-ship missiles from the US Navy for A$800 million and would consider developing hypersonic missiles.

Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National Universitys National Security College, said the announcement showed the country was getting serious about deterrence and the prospect of armed conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.

It was only a matter of time before the Australian government made a choice about the kind of defence force that were going to have in the 21st century with the rapid deterioration in the strategic environment in recent years, Mr Medcalf said.

The government has accepted that the Australian military needs to be able to attempt to deter armed conflict through its capabilities and to be able to fight in our region if we have to.

The countrys relationship with China, its most important trading partner, has also been strained by Australian calls for an independent investigation of the coronavirus pandemic.

Additional reporting by agencies
The Kremlin has claimed an unambiguous triumph in its constitutional vote that paves the way for Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036.

Speaking with journalists on Thursday, spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the yes vote amounted to a triumphal referendum of trust in the president.

It was easy to predict the great interest given the way the constitutional amendments were formulated, he said. But no one could predict the highest of turnouts and support.

With all votes counted, authorities claimed a 77.92 per cent to 21.27 per cent victory on a turn out of 67.97 per cent. The yes vote was even greater than the 76.7 per cent secured by the president at the last elections.

The results apparently exceeded the Kremlins own predictions, with reports suggesting internal targets aimed for a turnout above 55 per cent, and yes vote above 60 per cent. Just one of 85 subjects  the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russias far north  registered a no result.

But the vote was marred with evidence of vote rigging and unfair process. Opposition groups claimed their own exit polls showed the reverse result.

According to the Nyet! movement, 54.9 per cent of voters voted against (official numbers: 34 per cent). The difference was even starker in St Petersburg, Russias northern capital, with 63.07 per cent projected as no-voters versus the official figure of 21.63 per cent.)

The Golos election monitoring group, which registered more than 1500 reports of manipulations in a week of voting, described the process as an attack on the sovereignty of the people. The so-called plebiscite was no more than a PR act, the organisation claimed, designed not to reflect the will of the nation, but to create an impression of that will that best suits the authorities.

Russia is, of course, well versed in the practice of dark election arts. But alongside these dark practices, a whole ecosystem of effective unofficial monitoring has emerged.

The statistician Sergei Shpilkin has traditionally played a leading role in these efforts, dissecting publicly available data in all kinds of imaginative ways to look for evidence of irregularities.

A member of election commission checks the temperature of a voter (AP)

Speaking to The Independent on Thursday, Mr Shpilkin said modelling the numbers left him in no doubt the vote was the most falsified nationwide election in Russias post-Soviet history. According to the maths, he says, at least 22 million of the 74 million recorded ballots were suspicious.

Graphs consistently showed an obvious cluster skew in favour of yes voting in areas with above average turnouts. This would be entirely consistent with ballot boxes being stuffed, or individual polling results being arbitrarily fixed on a directive from above.

National republics, dominated by authoritarian local leaders keen to please the Kremlin, as expected, returned implausibly high results. In the case of Chechnya, for example, 97.92 per cent supposedly voted for on a turnout of 95 per cent.

But there were strange figures coming from the usually more circumspect regions like Volgograd (83 per cent for on turnout of 80 per cent) and Moscow region (79 per cent for a turnout of 76 per cent).

The level of fabrication is some way ahead of any nationwide election we have seen, Mr Shpilkin said. Using the same methodology, you find something in the range of 14-15 million stolen votes during the discredited Duma elections of 2011.

The vote was not a referendum in any strict sense. It was presented as an all-nation vote and conducted in a legally grey area that some argue was geared to ambiguity.

Polling was stretched over an unprecedented seven days, and advanced home voting was allowed without the need to prove a valid reason. Independent party observers were not allowed at polling stations. Agitation for or against was not allowed.

The Kremlin insisted the measures were introduced to ensure safe voting, but critics believe the aim was boosting support for their proposals.

On the day of polling, election authorities shocked observers by publishing preliminary results a full five hours before voting ended.

As remarkable was the absence of Vladimir Putin or any mention of his term limits from the electoral campaign. Official election literature and state media concentrated on 205 of the 206 proposed amendments  these promised everything from increased pensions and improved healthcare to traditional family values and good governance. The one key clause proposing allowing the president to continue in power routinely ignored.

Konstantin Kalachyov, a leading Russian political analyst, said the president still retained the backing of a majority of Russians. But the Kremlins over-exuberance in securing high numbers was likely to create problems down the line.

The issue isnt the numbers theyve presented but the promises of fairness and good living they made, he said.
At his first press conference in weeks Joe Biden briefly lost his patience with a reporter and threw out a signature insult he first lobbed at a student back in February.

Apparently irritated by the reporters questioning as he tried to leave the podium at a school in Wilmington, Delaware, Mr Biden snappily called him a lying dog face before answering a question on his cognitive health.

It was during the run-up to the New Hampshire primary that Mr Biden called 21-year-old Madison Moore a lying, dog-faced pony soldier  an epithet that Mr Bidens campaign said was a John Wayne reference, though its true provenance (if any) is somewhat unclear.

While the exchange with Ms Moore was clearly amicable enough, Mr Biden has had sharp words for voters on the campaign trail before, on one occasion last year calling an 83-year-old man in Iowa a damn liar.

The question that the reporter managed to get in as Mr Bidens patience wore thin was on whats become Donald Trumps main theme of the campaign, namely that Mr Biden is suffering visible symptoms of cognitive decline and is almost at the point of senility.

Some have speculated that you are subject to some degree of cognitive decline, the journalist asked. Im 65, I dont have word recollection like I used to have, I forget my train of thought from time to time. You got 12 years on me, sir. Have you been tested for some degree of cognitive decline?

Mr Biden grinned. Ive been tested, Im constantly tested.

Look, all you gotta do is watch me, and I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man Im running against. Thank you so much.
Its a favourite tradition of political scientists, pollsters, and presidential historians every four years around this time to remind journalists that the major parties vice presidential selections dont really matter all that much  electorally speaking, at least.

Study after study continues to show its the top of the ticket that ultimately motivates voters to walk, drive, or otherwise locomote to the polls on Election Day.

This November, its Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, not Mike Pence versus Mr-Bidens-yet-to-be-named-running-mate.

But the academic clique of wet blankets who quadrennially tell us to settle down over the running mate selection process is a measure more enthusiastic this year about the consequence of Mr Bidens choice, which he plans to announce in early August, for both the election and the internal politics of the Democratic party moving forward.

Mr Biden told an Arizona news outlet recently that he intends to pick a running mate around 1 August.

His campaign is conducting background checks of the shortlist candidates, a crucial steps towards identifying potentially disqualifying parts of their histories or other red flags. Presidential campaigns always conduct those checks, as well as inches-thick question sheets of all potential VP candidates to ID weak spots, security risks and potentially lethal political anchors that could cost the presidential nominee the election  if damning enough.

Mr Biden has said recently he intends to interview the candidates  reportedly all black women  left on his shortlist.



"I am not committed to naming any (of the potential running mates)," he told MSNBC this week. "Among them there are four black women."

Though selecting a black woman would be an American first, that is not Mr Biden's top requirement. VP to a president who kept him involved in almost every big decision, the 77-year-old Biden says he will seriously consider whether he feels each of the remaining candidates would be able to take over as president, should something happen to him.

"First thing I want to make sure is I have somebody, and I think they all are, capable of being president of the United States if something happens," he told a Phoenix television station recently



The longtime Delaware senator recently provided a peak inside his own thinking about his coming pick.



The country's ongoing moment of racial tensions has only put a "greater focus and urgency on the need to get someone who is totally simpatico with where I am," Mr Biden told CBS News earlier this month.

But, he added in a comment clearly shaped by his own time as the VP: "I want someone strong, and someone who is ready to be president on Day 1."

Bridging the progressive gap?

For one, the last two primary cycles have exposed a clear cleavage within the party between a more and a less progressive wing, said Meredith Conroy, a professor of political science at California State University in San Bernardino who specialises in the presidency and gender in politics.

Data suggests that extending an olive branch to the more progressive wing of the party vis-a-vis the vice presidential slot by picking, say, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is unlikely to produce any immediate bump to Mr Bidens polling numbers among young leftists who have spearheaded the progressive surge.

Potential voters in a study in May were no more or less likely to say theyd vote for a Biden-Warren ticket over Mr Trump and Mr Pence than a hypothetical Democratic ticket with California Senator Kamala Harris, who is less progressive than Ms Warren, as Mr Bidens running mate.

But choosing a progressive like Ms Warren could, over time, help Mr Biden evolve his own ideological image as someone whos more appealing  or, at least, more tolerable  to that portion of the electorate, political scientists Christopher J Devine of the University of Dayton and Kyle C Kopko of Elizabethtown College have said. But the former VP is under pressure to select a woman of colour, which could eliminate Ms Warren. She is a former federal agency head, and could land a high-profile position in his Cabinet, sources say  perhaps even Treasury secretary.

Future face of the party

More importantly, gender and political scholars have said Mr Bidens commitment to picking a woman as his running mate likely means a woman would be in pole position for the Democratic nomination in subsequent presidential elections.

Thats, of course, contingent upon two things: 1) Mr Biden winning this year, and 2) retiring from office on his own terms after 2024, or on the 22nd Amendments terms after 2028.

You have somebody running for president who's at least alluded to the fact that he may be a one-term president, for age reasons or for any other dynamics, but particularly, I think, age, said Kelly Dittmar, a professor at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

If Mr Biden indeed retires after 2024 (which he has not committed to do), the Democratic party could lose the White House by ceding all the advantages of incumbency and risk a contentious, drawn-out primary period.

In the event of his retirement, it may be more likely that somebody steps in and runs for what would effectively be a second term for him [from the position of] vice president, Ms Dittmar said.

Women in the White House

Women are still chronically underrepresented in the US federal government, which lags far behind most other developed democracies in that area.

Just one in every four senators or House members is a woman.

Every president in US history has been a man, and while Mr Bidens running mate will be the third woman on a major-party presidential ticket in US history, the previous two (Democrat Geraldine Ferraro and Republican Sarah Palin) failed to make it to the White House.

And while political scientists and pollsters generally agree it is impossible to definitively attribute the failure of female presidential candidates and tickets with women VP hopefuls to any sexism within the US electorate, experts say gender is certainly a cause for hesitation for many voters.

That makes it doubly incumbent on Mr Biden, should he win, to reflect gender diversity in his chosen cabinet, activists have argued, because the nature of appointments to such influential seats of power neutralises the sexist biases of many voters.

Liberal womens groups are hopeful that the presence of several women in prominent positions in a Biden White House would further normalise the idea of a woman president, and help dispel lingering concerns for some voters that they cannot perform the necessary duties of the executive branch.

Appointments, like a VP, take sexist voters out the equation. And once in that position, the VP pick can alleviate any concern that women can't govern at that level, Ms Conroy said.

Its not just politics

Beyond electoral politics, Mr Bidens vice president would likely play a critical advisory role in his administration, should he defeat Mr Trump in November.

While the American vice presidency was a largely ceremonial role throughout most of the countrys history, that has not been the case in recent decades.

In the last administration, Barack Obama largely viewed Mr Biden more as a partner and less as a subordinate, former aides have said.

And while Mr Obama made all final decisions, Mr Biden was consulted on virtually every one of them, and his input was well-regarded.

Modern presidents have chosen running mates not only for their political capital, but for who they think best enhances and complements their policy strengths and helps fill in their weaknesses.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who historians often cite as the most powerful man who has held that office in US history, was tapped by George W Bush, a Texas governor, largely for his expertise in international affairs.

Mr Biden, who served as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for eight years before moving to the White House with Mr Obama, was chosen for similar reasons, Mr Obama has said.

As race relations and protests against police brutality in minority communities have become defining political issues this summer after the deaths in police custody of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others, calls have increased for Mr Biden to choose a woman of colour to be his running mate.

In addition to Ms Harris, who is black, Mr Biden is also reportedly considering Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who is Asian-American, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass, 2019 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, Florida Congressman Val Demings, and several others.

Ms Bass has years of experience crafting legislation and policies that particularly affect black Americans. Ms Demings, a former Orlando Police Department chief, and Ms Abrams, who has become a leading black enfranchisement advocate, each have extensive experience on issues important to communities of colour.

Some insiders suggest Ms Harris and Ms Demings have surged to the top of Mr Biden's shortlist.

Ms Harris, Las Vegas odds-on favourite to be Mr Bidens selection, has her share of left-wing skeptics. That's largely due to her record as the California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, with critics saying she was too tough on blacks who committed crimes.

Who can help him in uniting this nation? said Moe Vela, Mr Bidens director of administration when he was vice president, indicating that such a question will be near the forefront of Mr Bidens mind when he makes his selection later this summer. We are the most divided probably we've ever been since the Civil War. We're probably more at odds than since those times."

The momentum for Mr Biden to choose a woman of colour as his running mate had been building for some time before Mr Floyd and Ms Taylors deaths.

Some of the most prominent outside womens and progressive groups  She the People, Democracy in Color, Indivisible  signed onto a letter earlier this year urging him to do so, citing the reliability of minority women, particularly black women, in turning out at the polls for Democrats.

Seventy-seven per cent of Democratic voters in the last two presidential elections were women, people of colour  or both.

This choice is a first indication of how you will govern, and we want to know it will be in partnership with the constituencies that comprise the vast majority of Democratic voters, the groups wrote in the letter

Is America ready?

Its a question the Democratic party confronted head-on in 2016: Is America ready for a woman in the White House?

In the ancillary position of vice president, the answer is probably yes, several scholars told The Independent.

Just look at the disparity between the relatively small number of women who have served as governor and women who have served as lieutenant governor, said Ms Dittmar, the Rutgers professor.

There's a whole literature behind that which is about [voters] being most comfortable with men being at the head of the ticket or the head of the household [and how that] aligns with patriarchal values, Ms Dittmar said.

The 2018 midterm elections were another data point that suggested voters are more prepared to cast ballots for women.

Democrats won back the House majority on the backs of 34 freshman women, many of whom carried districts that previously broke for Mr Trump.

But sexism is still rampant in American politics (and society), Ms Conroy suggested in an email, despite the the enormous gains made by women in Congress in 2018.

Those gains didn't appear to chip away at those sexist beliefs about whether women are viable presidential candidates, she said, noting that out of the historically diverse field of Democratic primary candidates in 2020, the top two contenders ended up being straight white men in their late 70s.

Its not just sexism in the voting populace that women candidates confront  its also how many voters perceive the sexism of others, Ms Conroy said.

If someone who isnt sexist thinks their neighbour is sexist, the non-sexist person is less likely to vote for a woman on account of her supposed unelectability.

Several studies support this theory of voter behaviour.

The progressive think tank Data for Progress found in a July 2019 survey that more people said they would make Ms Warren president if they could wave a magic wand than who said they would actually vote for her.

Thats likely due to perceived sexism from others, Ms Conroy said.

A heartbeat away

Its an inconvenient truth for the Biden campaign  yet an undeniable biological fact  that the older you get, the more susceptible you become to life-threatening health issues.

And while Mr Bidens campaign has swatted away concerns about his health, at 78 on Inauguration Day, he would be the oldest president to take office by eight years.

No matter their age, every presidential nominee in history has recognised his running mate is a heartbeat away from the presidency.

When choosing a vice president, candidates are also choosing someone who they believe could step in as president immediately.

The number one question  I can assure you  that Joe Biden will have in his mind making a selection," said Mr Vela, the former Biden aide, "will be: Who is prepared and equipped to be president of the United States at any given moment?"
Imagine you were a journalist covering last years report by the WHO that warned about the shocking consequences of a coronavirus hitting humanity, but you knew nobody would pay any attention? This is how I felt at last weeks press conference launching the annual report of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to the UK parliament.

Buried in the report was the advice that the government needed to start preparing for a 4C temperature rise. This is a terrifying change from the previous advice to prepare for a 2C rise.

Why terrifying? As Professor Kevin Anderson, a leading climate scientist at the University of Manchester, said: There is a widespread view that a 4C future is incompatible with an organised global community, is likely to be beyond adaptation and be devastating to the majority of ecosystems. In other words, a world where food crops would collapse, billions could starve, governments collapse and coastal cities flood, making hundreds of millions homeless.

The committee did not set out how any government could prepare for such a catastrophe; it just warned that it needed to. What it did do, however, was report on the actions taken  or not taken  to date as part of the UK governments contribution to holding the rise in temperatures under 2C, the absolute limit beyond which it would be insanity to pass.

On the positive side, reductions in UK domestic emissions since 2008 are the best among member countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Domestic emissions, which are the carbon emissions emitted in the UK itself, are down 28 per cent. However, domestic emissions exclude UK international aviation and shipping emissions, or those from the goods we import. The jargon for UK emissions that includes these figures is consumption emissions, and these are 18 per cent down since 2008.

In total, 54 per cent of UK consumption emissions are emitted inside UK borders, while a surprising 46 per cent are emitted in the countries that we import food and goods from. The large amount of emissions from new oil, gas and coalfields that UK banks and the government fund in other countries around the world are not included in either statistic  and it is estimated that 15 per cent of global fossil fuel financing comes from the UK. Yet these huge UK emissions were entirely missing from the committees report.

The committee attributed the positive decline in domestic emissions to the rapid phasing out of coal and the switch to renewables for electricity. However, the report was blunt on the failure of Boris Johnsons government to implement almost any of its recommendations made last year on how to get to zero carbon. Of the 31 recommendations, only two were implemented in full. And let us be honest: the zero carbon 2050 target set by the government, with the CCC advising on how to achieve it, is far too late if humanity is to avoid a 4C rise in temperatures.

We are in the invidious position of having a report that is far too reticent in the actions it recommends to protect Britain, and says that the vast majority of even these actions are being ignored by the government. On the climate threat, we are exactly where we were last winter in relation to the impending pandemic: woefully unprepared and with a government refusing to implement the advice being given to protect us.

The committees report has many major gaps. There is no mention of the role that the Bank of England should play in halting the billions pouring from UK banks into fossil fuel corporations in loans, or any advice on how the Banks 300bn quantitative easing programme could green the economy. The carbon emissions reported for road vehicles excluded the large embedded carbon used in manufacturing them. There are an estimated 2.3 million new cars bought in the UK each year. If the average embedded carbon emissions were 5 tonnes per vehicle, this would add another 11.5 million tonnes to the annual 113 million tonnes of emissions for surface transport.

The report also failed to urge the government to reach the UN target of 20 per cent of the transport budget for cycling, which the new government in Ireland has just adopted, and made no mention of how e-bikes could eliminate the need for car ownership for millions of commuters. It carried no comparative carbon or cost-benefit analysis for the different forms of zero-carbon heating, whether hydrogen, infrared, electric boilers or heat pumps. It relied heavily on the introduction of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to trap industrial and biomass emissions, but admitted that they do not know if it can be done economically.

The focus on carbon capture is hardly surprising given the influence of carbon-based industries. They are promoting this economically unproven technology, as it would theoretically allow them to continue burning biomass and fossil fuels. It is unconscionable that the committee should be betting the UKs future on an unproven technology, when so many proven methods already exist.

What also jumps out from the report is that just like the prime minister failing to attend almost all of the Cobra emergency committee meetings as the Covid-19 emergency began in the UK, the committee reports that Johnson has only convened one meeting of the cabinet committee on climate change  a group that experts agree needs to meet monthly if the government is to succeed in hitting zero-carbon targets.

When I reported back to one of my friends on the substance of the report and press conference, his visceral response was, We are f*****. I am inclined to agree  which is why mass peaceful direct actions by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and the student climate strikers are a duty, not a luxury.

That is, if we want a government that actually acts on the experts warnings, rather than ignoring them as Johnson did so disastrously over Covid-19.

Donnachadh McCarthy is an environmental auditor, campaigner and is the author of The Prostitute State  How Britains Democracy was Hijacked
Leo Varadkar said he had chosen the best people for junior ministerial roles (PA)

Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar has insisted the best people were chosen to become junior ministers, and he added there are no hard feelings between himself and TDs who were not promoted.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin announced 17 new junior ministers on Wednesday night  seven each from Fine Gael and Fianna Fail and three from the Green Party.

Mr Martin had been expected to address the geographical imbalance after the Government was criticised for not appointing any senior ministers from a constituency in the west of Ireland.

While recently demoted ministers are usually given a junior minister role, there were more deputies seeking to be appointed than there were seats available so disappointment for some was inevitable.

Thank-you @LeoVaradkar for the opportunity to serve in Cabinet.



We achieved a lot.



I wish the new Government every success.



An rud is annamh is iontach.  Joe McHugh (@McHughJoeTD) June 27, 2020

Mr Varadkar said the new Government found itself in a difficult position as there were not as many roles to go around as usual due to the make-up of the three-party coalition.

He said: In terms of the appointments, as leader of Fine Gael I had to go through 28 different TDs to come up with a final seven  you would usually have double the number.

We had to take into account who the best people for the job would be  issues like geography and gender and so on. However, the overriding consideration was to pick the best people for the job.

Former education minister Joe McHugh refused to take a junior position, while ex-housing minister Eoghan Murphy was not reappointed by Mr Varadkar.

Mr McHugh was offered his choice of a range junior ministries but turned them down when it became clear he could not have a post in European affairs or tourism.

Mr Varadkar said: Joe and I are good friends, we go back a long way. He was keen to have a bigger role but the role he wanted as minister for European affairs was not available  that had to go to someone in Fianna Fail.

The very best of luck to Housing Minister @DarraghOBrienTD



It was a privilege to serve in that position and I know he will have the best interests of all at heart. Good progress has been made but there is much more to do.  Eoghan Murphy (@MurphyEoghan) June 28, 2020

I would have liked him to have served as a minister of state again but he made his decision and I totally respect that.

On Mr Murphy, the party leader said: Eoghan had asked not to be considered for a ministry. I met Eoghan for a few drinks last night and were still very good friends and he is full of ideas and thoughts for the future.

The 17 junior ministers, combined with the 15 Cabinet ministers and three super junior ministers, make the Government one of the largest in history.
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has said he would like to see a return to international travel as soon as it is safe to do so, adding that Ireland cannot close itself off indefinitely.

Current advice says to avoid non-essential travel and Mr Varadkar stressed that those guidelines were still in place.

The current travel advice, however, has not changed and that is to avoid non-essential travel, he said.

A green list of countries is still set to be published by Government next week in coordination with the European Union, but Mr Varadkar cautioned that it will be subject to change and updated every two weeks.

For people who travel to the countries that are on the green list, the 14-day quarantine will not apply.

Speaking as Minister for Employment and Trade, I would certainly like to see a return to international travel as soon as that is safe, he told reporters in Dublin on Thursday. I am also conscious of the fact that thousands of people work in the domestic tourism sector and in our airports and airlines.

TAnaiste and Enterprise Minister Leo Varadkar gets measured up for a new suit in Best Menswear in Dublin - his first outing in the new brief. pic.twitter.com/fOinuAXeeF  Aine McMahon (@AineMcMahon) July 2, 2020

Im also conscious that people have worked very hard over the past few months and are looking forward to a break but it has to be done safely.

Ireland has been very successful in getting the number of new coronavirus cases down to less than 20  not that many countries around the world have done that.

We have to be smart about the fact that if we open our country to areas where the virus is still circulating and virulent, then that does run the risk of re-importation.

At the same time we all know we cant cut off the country forever. We cant stop people from visiting their friends and families. We cant stop business executives coming into Ireland to create jobs so we need to get that balance right.

Mr Varakdar said a Cabinet sub-committee will take place in the next few days on the issue of travel.

A recommendation on the issue will be brought to the Cabinet this coming Monday to give clarity to people who want to book holidays.

Earlier this week, chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said people should cancel their foreign holidays as it risks importing cases of coronavirus to Ireland.

Mr Varadkar said people should listen to Government advice and reiterated that people should avoid non-essential travel.

We still plan on publishing a green list of countries where it is safe to travel to. We have a new Government and the new Taoiseach and Minister for Health are going to want to study matters, he said.

Mr Varadkar talked the down likelihood of mandatory quarantine for travellers being introduced.

It is very onerous on people and very difficult to enforce, he said. We have seen countries like New Zealand where the health minister just resigned. It is very difficult to enforce so hopefully it is not going to be a long-term requirement.

Meanwhile, the Dail Covid-19 committee heard the 14-day self-isolation requirement effectively closes Ireland to all overseas visitors.

Chief executive of Failte Ireland Paul Kelly called on the Government to find a way to reopen for overseas tourism as soon as it is safe to do so.

He said: Covid has been catastrophic for tourism. It dwarfs any previous crisis. Economically, tourism was hit hardest and will take the longest to recover. The sector has had four months of revenue and while revenue has stopped, the costs did not.

Mr Kelly called for the VAT rate to be changed to 5% to help the tourism sector.

He said at 13.5% Ireland had one of the highest VAT rates in the EU where the average was 10-11%.
Cuisine de France owner Aryzta needs to sell at least 600m worth of assets in order to cut its debt to more manageable levels, activist shareholders have insisted.

In a scathing assessment this morning of the Swiss-Irish group's performance in the past few years, the shareholders  Switzerlands Veraison and Spains Cobas - claimed the group has failed to deliver on promises.

They also revealed that they now own more than 20pc of Aryztas shares between them, up from 17.8pc.

They also claimed the bakery group  whose customers include McDonalds, Subway, Walmart, Dunnes Stores and Lidl - has not even sought to interview three board candidates proposed by the investors, or sought other information regarding them, despite an extraordinary general meeting due to take place next month where the activists will attempt to have the candidates elected to the Aryzta board.

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The activists are also plotting to oust Aryzta chairman Gary McGann and four other board members. While the shareholders said they plan to remove Kevin Toland from the board, they would retain him as chief executive. However, its believed they would also be open to Mr Toland remaining on the board.

During a presentation this morning, Veraison chief executive Andreas Weigelt said Aryzta needs to do more to cut debt. The shareholders propose that a fresh look at Aryztas options will be undertaken if their candidates are elected once they have better visibility on the nuts and bolts of the baking groups operations, including its granular financial performance.

Investment bank Rothschild is already undertaking a separate strategic review of Aryzta on behalf of the baked goods giant.

Mr Weigelt said hes fully aligned with what Kevin Toland said in late 2018 that the groups net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) ratio needs to be between 2.5 and 3 times.

Mr Weigelt said for the first half of this financial year, Aryztas net debt  including 906m of so-called hybrid debt  totals 1.47bn, giving it a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 7.3 times.

He insisted that even taking Aryztas EBITDA last year, before Covid hit, Aryztas net debt to EBITDA would still be at a ratio of five times.

If your debt level is higher [than 2.5 to 3 times], you are constantly focused on delivering liquidity, he said. You dont have the flexibility, you dont have the room for manoeuvre that you need to really develop the business further.

Total debt would have to be reduced by 600m, he added. If we look at the amount of cash Aryzta generated over the past few years, there has not been a positive cash generation in the last two years to repay debt. On average, over the last five years, it has been limited to 80m. So it becomes very clear that also before corona hit, it was never possible to bring the financial leverage back to a normal basis with the cash generation that Aryzta achieved.

The shareholders and their board candidates have insisted that they wont undertake a fire-sale of Aryzta assets. Aryzta generated revenue of just under 3.4bn in its last financial year.

Aryzta has been asked for comment.
Phew! At last, we have a new Government and congratulations to Darragh O'Brien on his appointment as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

The brief appears simple enough: build 50,000 "social houses", ignite an "affordable housing" sector that makes sense but isn't happening, and unlock the "private sector" to ramp up supply and reduce prices and rents.

Mr O'Brien must shun the illusions of action, like rent controls and banning bedsits. To avoid joining the ranks of well-meaning failures, he is going to have to ruffle feathers and simplify matters.

My advice is to borrow, demolish and build.

Ireland Inc must take a more radical approach to borrowing, and practise what larger economies do, and not what they preach. The US and the UK can borrow massive amounts of money, because as reserve currencies they can generally print money when needed.

Italy can't do that, but it gets away with perpetual over-borrowing because of its size, and even Germany gets away with breaking EU borrowing rules.

Despite the pandemic, Ireland can afford to borrow 12.5bn at 1.5pc over 20 years to fund 50,000 social houses costing 250,000 each.

Each house has a life of at least 50 years, and will produce some income. The State already has the surplus land available.

The other brake to development is usually infrastructure, such as sewers, roads and railways. It's hard to believe that, in 21st century Ireland, 36 towns still discharge raw sewage into the sea. Just borrow the money and sort out our infrastructural deficit. Fast.

And this is all borrowing for capital, and not current expenditure, which is a point that has been lost in the EU focus on total borrowings as a percentage of GDP. No countries ever repay this borrowing, by the way; it gets "re-financed" and rolls on forever.

Now that we have the money, the minister needs to demolish all of the 'can't do' blockages in the system.

Building houses is not all that difficult. He should summon the local authority managers to produce a list of sites they are going to develop, with timescales.

I suggest circulating a monthly league table, ranked by progress. The local authorities have all the powers they need. They are the planning authority. They know the land in their area. They can zone land. They grant the planning permissions.

The local authorities also have compulsory purchase powers for assembling sites, but traditionally use them only for road schemes. Tell them to start using these powers as needed.

Swiftly issue design briefs to private-sector planners, architects and engineers to design the developments. If there are examples of existing good schemes, buy the copyright to the designs and repeat them; most professionals will want to co-operate with their local authority. Then tender the construction work to private contractors.

Demolish the labyrinthine procurement processes that waste so much time and resources.

Find out why the local authorities complain about the slow transfer of funds from the Department of Finance, and demolish those blockages too.

In the private sector, reduce vat by 6pc for schemes that are completed within an agreed timescale. The prices must be 'pre-set' to ensure that the saving doesn't go straight to the developer. On a 500,000 house, that 30,000 saving then would go to the buyer, who could use it for their deposit.

Irish society can be radically improved over five years. Borrow. Demolish. Build.
Port bosses have given evidence to MLAs on plans to expand their SPS checking facilities (PA)

The flow of certain food products into Northern Ireland could be halted if expanded Irish Sea check points are not ready for the end of the Brexit transition period, MLAs have been warned.

Members of the Stormont Assemblys Infrastructure Committee heard evidence from representatives of the four main ports in the region  Belfast, Larne, Londonderry and Warrenpoint  about their plans to implement post-Brexit trading arrangements.

The Northern Ireland Protocol contained in the Brexit Withdrawal Treaty is the arrangement by which the region continues to follow single market rules for goods and administers the EUs customs code at its ports.

The Government has acknowledged more regulatory checks will be needed on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, with the expansion of infrastructure to carry out sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) screening of animals and food products.

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But the Government has insisted there will be no new physical customs infrastructure in Northern Ireland.

On Wednesday, port bosses gave evidence to MLAs on plans to expand their SPS checking facilities ahead of the end of the transition period at the end of the year.

They voiced concerns about an ongoing lack of certainty about what will be required come January 2021, as proposals contained in the UK Governments command paper on the issue had not yet been agreed by the EU.

MLAs heard that planning permission for new facilities is still required, while there had not yet been detailed discussions with the Treasury on funding the expansions.

David Holmes, CEO of Warrenpoint Port, was asked by Sinn Fein MLA Liz Kimmins what would happen if the facilities were not ready by the end of the year.

As it stands, assuming the joint committees (UK-EU) dont move the goalposts and declare that there are less checks required, then there is a potential scenario across Northern Ireland that the food products that require SPS checks wont be able to come in, he said.

Thats in a worst-case scenario.

Instead of being congested, itll be tumbleweeds well be dealing with Brian McGrath, CEO of Foyle Port, on a hard Brexit

The ports are working in conjunction with Stormonts Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and HMRC on the requirements for the new check points.

Brian McGrath, CEO of Foyle Port, said a hard Brexit could be devastating, with the loss of 40% of trade.

Instead of being congested, itll be tumbleweeds well be dealing with, he said.

Maurice Bullick, finance and compliance director at the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, said: We are, I would suggest, very well advanced with DAERA in terms of an in-principle agreement as to how that point-of-entry facility will be structured and how it will operate.

Larne Port boss Roger Armson said it was also very close to an agreement to get a spade in the ground to be ready for the first of January.

However, he warned that anything that slows the exit of each vehicle from a ferry, even by a number of seconds, could have a disruptive impact on business.
A farmer in Carlow was today fined 1,500 and prosecution costs of 1,500 for breaches of health and safety legislation.

The prosecution arose after an accident that occurred on the 23rd November 2018 on a farm building under construction near Tullow, Co. Carlow.

A self-employed roofing contractor suffered personal injuries when he fell approximately 22 feet while installing roof sheets on the agricultural building under construction without any fall protection or fall prevention measures in place. The farmer pleaded guilty to the charge, in that he failed to appoint a Project Supervisor Construction Stage.

The role of a Project Supervisor Construction Stage is to coordinate the various construction work activities in such a way as to ensure the safety of all persons on site and compliance with the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Construction) Regulations 2013. A particular requirement is to develop the Construction Stage Safety and Health Plan with specific measures concerning work that involves particular risk such as working at a height/roof work.

Additional requirements include the coordination of contractors safe working procedures and ensuring all persons on site are in possession of a valid Construction Safety Awareness Registration Card (Safe Pass) and, where required, a Construction Skills Registration Card Scheme Card (CSCS).

Mark Cullen, Assistant Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Authority, said that this particular case highlighted the importance of taking the appropriate safety measures.

The self-employed roofing contractor suffered very serious injuries following an incident which could have been prevented if the appropriate steps were taken by the client. I strongly urge all clients and duty holders to prioritise safety on-site and ensure the necessary planning is undertaken and the required precautions are in place. Failure to do so in this situation led to very serious consequences for the worker concerned.
Euronext wheat rose to a two-week high on Wednesday after an unexpectedly low estimate of U.S. corn planting sparked a broad rally in grains and took attention away from a small wheat purchase by Algeria.

Front-month September milling wheat on the Paris-based Euronext exchange settled up 1.00 euro, or 0.6%, at 181.50 euros ($204.33) a tonne.

In late trading it rose to 182.25 euros, its highest since June 15.

Chicago grain futures added to sharp gains from Tuesday when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) surprised the market with a steep cut to its estimate of this years U.S. corn area.

The U.S. corn planting figure has changed the shape of the market, which has gone from extremely heavy to just heavy, a futures dealer said.

Gains on Euronext were capped by technical resistance, caution ahead of the European harvest and reports Algeria made a relatively small purchase in a tender.

Algeria is believed to have bought about 300,000 tonnes of milling wheat in a tender which closed on Tuesday, traders estimated on Wednesday.

That was more than initial talk on Tuesday of a 240,000 tonne purchase, but still below Algerias typical monthly demand while prices were seen as aggressive.

The price looks low and would be tough to source in France unless sellers are hoping French prices will fall as the harvest starts, one German trader said.

I think the Baltic Sea region may well be used to supply a good volume of the tender purchase.

In Germany, rainfall was continuing to ease concerns about the impact of a dry spring, although it may delay the start of wheat harvesting, traders said.

Standard bread wheat with 12% protein for September delivery in Hamburg was offered for sale little changed at around 1 euro under the Paris December contract.
The Covid-19 crisis could rock Nama's profits this year and complicate full delivery of a further 2bn payment to the State as pledged.

The National Asset Management Agency said in its annual report that Covid-19 disruption could shave more than 100m off its previous expected revenues for this year.

This could include a 32m charge to Nama income if the nearly 200 debtors still on its books delay loan repayments by an average of three months.

A further 72m charge would hit profits, the agency hypothesised, if the underlying value of assets on Nama's books fell by 5pc from previous assumptions.

A Nama spokesman stressed this was only "a hypothetical scenario". The report itself said the virus would "have a material impact on Nama's 2020 cash generation and, consequently, profitability".

Nama said it also has begun enforcement actions against 74 of its remaining 198 debtors.

It confirmed paying its first 2bn to the Exchequer, a development reported earlier this week by the Irish Independent.

The Programme for Government allows these funds to be used in an emergency stimulus package due this month.

"This repayment will materially reduce the level of borrowing needed to get us through this crisis," said Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, who attended the report launch.

"The money has been earmarked for spending and will greatly assist the Government in delivering appropriate supports for individuals and businesses impacted by Covid-19."

Nama executives said they remain confident of making a further 2bn in payments to the State in two instalments by 2022.

"Notwithstanding our progress, we are alert to the economic risks created by Covid-19 and will be vigilant in the way we seek to mitigate these risks and maximise our lifetime surplus for the Exchequer," said Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh.

He said Nama expects to deliver the full additional 2bn surplus and hoped to exceed this "if things go right".

The Covid-19 hit to asset values underpinning loans would have posed a far greater risk in years past, he said, given that Nama's original 32bn exposure has been pared to barely 1.2bn.

"Entering the current crisis, Nama is far less vulnerable to any potential fall in asset values than it would have been just a few years ago," he said.

Nama booked a net profit of 265m last year, down 67pc from 2018. Its operating costs totalled 82m, down 9pc.
The new president of Engineers Ireland, OPW executive chairman Maurice Buckley, says the Government's plans for housing, transport and energy represent an exceptional opportunity for engineering firms.

"The new Programme for Government is a clarion call for engineering solutions from start to finish," Mr Buckley said at his inauguration as the 128th president of Engineers Ireland. It represents 25,000 engineers nationwide. Its AGM was held virtually because of Covid-19 risks.

Since joining the Office of Public Works in 2017, Mr Buckley has directed capital investment and maintenance programmes to improve Ireland's flood defences and public buildings.

Mr Buckley previously was chief executive of the National Standards Authority of Ireland and a Munich-based strategist for Boston Consulting.

He said engineers should expect more opportunities because of "the high level of capital investment already planned in Project Ireland 2040 and the National Development Plan".

"The policy changes foreseen in transport, housing, building retrofit, energy, broadband and communications, and in regionalisation are all changes that require engineers and sustainable engineering solutions.

"Engineers Ireland and our community will be the conduit through which that work can be done," he said.

Nearly two in five new members of Engineering Ireland last year were immigrants. This followed the Government's April 2019 decision to extend 'critical skills' work visas for non-European Economic Area nationals to engineers.
Dundrum Town Centre co-owner Hammerson collected just 47pc of the rent from its Irish operations in the second quarter of this year.

The company, which also co-owns the Swords Pavilion and Ilac centre in Dublin said the balance for the outstanding rent was "in negotiation".

This comes as thousands of shops across the country were forced to close temporarily due to restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of Covid-19.

Hammerson's Irish assets represent 10pc of the group's portfolio by value. Dundrum, in turn, accounts for two-thirds of the Irish arm's value.

Overall, the company collected 72pc of its rent here for the first half of this year. As of June 29, it had collected 73pc of its half-year rent in the UK and 53pc from the retail outlets it operates in France.

Meanwhile, Hammerson has collected just 16pc of rents due in the UK during the third quarter at June-end, as retailers reeled under pressure with the lockdown denting sales.

Hammerson said it is "too early" to comment on third-quarter rent collection figures for Ireland and France.

The British company said it has received approval for issuance of up to 300m (330m) under the UK government's Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF), raising its maximum liquidity to 1.5bn. "The company is confident that collection rates will continue to improve materially in all regions as agreements are progressed with brands."

Rival Intu Properties was forced to bring in administrators last week after failing to secure a deal with creditors, news that sent Hammerson's stock price up to 15pc lower. Intu, the UK's biggest shopping centre operator, was already struggling with a hefty debt load, but the Covid-19 crisis ravaged rent payments and proved the final straw.

Colm Lauder, an analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers, said the Hammerson trading update "reads positively".

"The Q3 rent performance (in the UK) was expected to be weak, but Q2 was better than expected," Mr Lauder said.

"The increased liquidity provided by the CCFF plus the headroom secured by the renegotiation of Hammerson's most restrictive covenant is a welcome boost. Proof of flexibility being offered from Hammerson's lenders is a strong signal in the wake of Intu's failure last week."

Shares gained 7.3pc in London trade yesterday to close at 86 pence (0.95).

Additional reporting Reuters
The entrance has just opened for the first time in four months - and Patrick Greene beams a smile of relief as a mother and two children walk through the door to buy tickets.

"My fear for weeks has been that we would open the doors and nobody comes," says Greene, CEO of Epic, the Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin's Docklands. "There was every prospect of opening up and no one turning up - a party with no guests."

It's a bit odd to hear this from the director of what is the World Travel Awards' reigning title holder as 'Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction'. The museum, which explores the impact that Irish emigration has made on the world, beat the Acropolis, Colosseum and Eiffel Tower for the honour.

But these are odd days in Ireland - a nation without overseas tourists.

Epic, a 15m digital interactive museum opened in 2016 by former Coca-Cola CEO Neville Isdell, is among scores of tourist attractions that opened their doors on Monday for the first time since March. Most heavily rely on strong flows of visitors from Britain, continental Europe and North America.

In Epic's case, 2020 was supposed to be the year when it finally broke even after four years of visitor growth but net losses. Last year's 256,000 visitors paid somewhere between 8 and 16.50 per visit. Traffic this year was projected to top 300,000, three-quarters from overseas - until Covid-19 turned off the tap of tourism.

Expand Close Excited: Saoirse (5) and Cuan Scott (3), from Dublin, at the museums reopening. Photo: Photocall Ireland / Facebook

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Whatsapp Excited: Saoirse (5) and Cuan Scott (3), from Dublin, at the museums reopening. Photo: Photocall Ireland

"If you were standing here before this happened, we would already have a queue of Americans right there," he says, gesturing across the Epic lobby in the landmark CHQ Building to where tour buses normally disgorge customers. Those buses aren't even operating currently because of the lack of potential passengers.

Epic, like visitor attractions nationwide, is banking on building the flow of domestic customers to minimise losses until air links start to deliver tourists again. For now, 55 full-time staff remain on the State's Covid-19 pay subsidy. But he's unsure what may happen in September if that subsidy isn't extended beyond its current end-of-August cutoff.

"Every tourist attraction is asking the same question. It's a major question mark over the future," Greene says.

"But I'm a born optimist, I think we will be fine. We will build our visitation and, when things improve overseas, we can welcome people back. All the research by Failte Ireland and Tourism Ireland shows there's a huge market of people who want to come here. That buoys my optimism."

That optimism is combined with an archaeologist's patience for discovery - qualities honed since his Devon childhood.

His Co Clare-born father, John, had emigrated to England in the 1930s to work as a psychiatric nurse and, when war came, joined the navy. While ashore in Chatham Dockyards in Kent, he attended a night course taught by an Imperial College London-educated biologist named Betty. After three years of wartime separation, John and Betty wed. Two sons followed, Patrick and Kevin. Both became archaeologists.

"I got involved in archaeology simply by going on to Dartmoor and down to the coast and finding interesting things," Patrick Greene says.

Although he studied food science at Leeds University, Greene joined archaeological digs during school holidays.

"Soon I was given positions of responsibility on the digs. By the time I left university I'd become absolutely enthralled by archaeology," he recalls.

A University of Southampton archaeologist made Greene his deputy, sending him on digs including to Portchester Castle, the Roman fort at the head of Portsmouth Harbour.

In 1971, aged 25, he received a six-month contract from a state developer looking to build a New Town in Runcorn, southwest of Liverpool. The site included a crumbling structure hidden by trees and ferns.

"I went for six months and stayed for 12 years," he says with a laugh. "There was one completely derelict building surrounded by a jungle of vegetation. When you got inside the building, you discovered it was medieval, a 12th century priory. It had been incorporated after the dissolutions of the monasteries into a Tudor house, then a Georgian house."

He led a team in resurrecting Norton Priory, a monastery founded in 1134 and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536. Discoveries filled a museum that opened on the site in 1982.

His achievements gained the attention of the nearby Manchester council, which was opposing British Rail plans to bulldoze a key but neglected cornerstone of its industrial history. The council appointed him to develop of what would become the city's Museum of Science and Industry.

"At first sight it was not very promising, a group of derelict buildings. But as soon as you scraped below the surface, they were fascinating - because this was the world's oldest railway station," he says.

The site was the terminus for the world's first commercial railway opened in 1830, delivering cotton from Liverpool's docks to Manchester's textile mills. The very first building completed on the site was a cotton warehouse that today forms the heart of the sprawling museum complex.

"It was very dangerous. The beams going into the walls were rotten, and it would be easy to fall through the floor. So we set about restoring it very carefully to preserve as much as possible of the original fabric of the building.

"It's timber on the inside and brick on the outside. When you're inside, it feels as though you're on board a ship, because of all the timber. I just love it. It's a magnificent building."

Greene spent 19 years in Manchester as museum director, overseeing more than 150m in investment and expansion to cover every element of the city's industrial and engineering heritage.

Then, in 2002, a phone call came from Australia. Recently opened Melbourne Museum was facing low attendance and lacklustre content. It was supposed to be the centrepiece of Museums Victoria, a family of attractions including an Immigration Museum in Melbourne's former Custom House; a Scienceworks museum and planetarium, and an Aboriginal Culture Centre.

"My task was specifically set by the government to turn it round and make a success of it," says Greene, who recalls his discovery of "a gaping hole" in finances that risked bankruptcy within the year.

As CEO of Museums Victoria for 15 years, he oversaw 400 staff and two million annual visitors while driving revenue above 40m a year, always ending the year in surplus.

"The museum had missed the trick, really," he recalls. "Australia and Victoria have fascinating histories and the indigenous story is amazing. We needed to bring all this together, plus the scientific expertise within the museum doing ground-breaking research. We put this all together and made something special."

Greene led exhibitions on contemporary issues, including a First Peoples exhibition with stories of the indigenous experience of colonialism and marginalisation.

When the Black Saturday bushfires ravaged Victoria in 2009, the museum "worked with communities to rescue what we could of cultural value, especially to rescue their stories of this disaster".

"There was a strong feeling in the communities: don't let this be forgotten. We built exhibitions around that," he says. "Museums can play an important role in helping communities understand their roots, but also the challenges they face and the magnificent things they can create."

Once Isdell bought the CHQ Building in Dublin and put his stepbrother and entrepreneur Mervyn Greene in charge of developing it and Epic, they started picking the brains of Patrick Greene from 17,200km away, partly because of his oversight of Australia's Immigration Museum - the flip side of the story Epic was starting to tell.

Epic stands for 'every person is connected'. That emigrant's adage is demonstrated well by Mervyn and Patrick Greene - cousins with links back to that same Clare farm.

In the Epic CEO's chair since September, Patrick Greene feels liberated by Epic's focus on digital interactive displays, which tell stories of Irish triumph and tragedy spanning centuries and the globe.

"We had 17 million objects in the museum I ran in Melbourne. This is a museum of ideas and of stories. It doesn't have physical objects," he says.

"We want to make interactive content with such richness and depth that you could visit many times and you still will find more stories."

Epic's next plans include a new gallery due to open in December focusing on how technology has transformed emigration. It's being made possible by a 200,000 grant from Failte Ireland.

Noting the replica Famine ship Jeanie Johnston docked next door on the Liffey, Greene says: "If you got on that ship in the 1850s, and went to Canada or the United States, you wouldn't be coming back. Whereas when the Celtic Tiger died, the Irish again emigrated in their tens of thousands. But unlike in the 19th century, many have come back again. Migration is far more flexible. That coming and going will be the theme of the new gallery."

For now, Epic's goal is to woo as many domestic visitors as possible under strict social distancing and hygiene rules.

This means a maximum 15 visitors in 15-minute blocks, or 420 visitors in a seven-hour day. They're given their own stylus pens to operate touch-screens throughout the museum's 20 exhibition rooms.

So far, with 87 visitors the first day, social distancing has hardly been an issue.

He's confident they can stay open - unless the pandemic forces another national lockdown.

"You can't take anything for granted. Who knows what the trajectory of the disease is going to be. We all hope that Ireland will eliminate it. It would be really dreadful if we found ourselves having to close again and lock down. That would be disastrous, quite frankly."

When asked to identify his fondest accomplishment, the 73-year-old Greene says he can't pick one from a 50-year career involving four distinct chapters.

He simply describes the good feeling each time he walks through any of the museums he helped shape at Norton Priory in Cheshire, Manchester, Melbourne and Dublin.

"There's lots of jobs where nobody sees what you've done, where your work is not tangibly appreciated," he says. "In a museum, you can see people all the time taking pleasure in what you've created. That gives me a heck of a kick."
The shareholder group represented by Veraison has increased its stake in Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta to over 20pc.

In a statement this morning, the activist investors said they expect the board of Aryzta to hold its extraordinary general meeting (EGM) without further delay.

The EGM is due to take place next month.

The group are trying to oust chairman Gary McGann and have previously said that it wants to remove Mr Toland from the Aryzta board so he can concentrate on his CEO role.

The activists have proposed that Urs Jordi should be appointed chairman.

He's the former boss of Swiss baker Hiestand International -the company that was originally acquired by Irish group IAWS to create Aryzta.

Last month Aryzta said organic revenue was heading for a 23pc decline for the month to date in June, compared to a 36pc fall in May and 49pc in April.

It said it had 370m of liquidity as of June 25, compared to385m at the end of March. Aryzta said the figure is stable compared to three months ago.
The Exchequer deficit reached 5.3bn in June despite a surprise surge in the collection of corporation taxes from multinational firms based here.

The Department of Finance said corporation tax in June - typically the second-largest month for such receipts - topped 2.4bn. That is 62m higher than in the same month last year and nearly 1bn more than Revenue had expected.

It said this year's corporation tax haul was now running 41.2pc ahead of the first six months of 2019.

The significant over-performance suggests that corporation tax may be somewhat insulated from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to other revenue streams, although it remains a highly volatile tax head, the department said in a statement.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said the State remains on course to record a 2020 deficit of anywhere from 23bn to 30bn  in part because it soon will boost Covid-19 supports by potentially billions more.

A deficit of this scale is extraordinary, but we should continue on to the next phase of our response to this crisis, he said.

The Government is currently working on a fiscal stimulus plan that will, first and foremost, get people back to work. A package of measures will be introduced that will build on existing measures to help kick-start the economy, safeguard jobs and protect peoples livelihoods.

The June deficit was driven almost entirely by higher spending to support Irelands virus-battered economy. However, it was 800m smaller than the deficit for May and more than 2bn lower than that recorded in April, when the surge in Government spending to combat Covid-19 disruption turned a planned 2020 surplus on its head.

The States total voted expenditure in the first half of this year reached 31.9bn, 27pc higher than in January-June 2019.

We will continue to provide the funding needed to protect our public services, said Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath.

Further resources will be needed in the period ahead to fund the essential stimulus measures as we work to repair and rebuild the Irish economy, he said. The challenge ahead is immense, but I have no doubt our economy can and will recover.

Income tax in June also came in nearly 400m ahead of target at 1.4bn. Nonetheless, this was 21pc lower than a year ago.

While income tax is experiencing a steep decline in annual terms, the drop in receipts has not been as severe as anticipated. This is an encouraging sign for future revenues as economic and social restrictions continue to be gradually loosened, the Department of Finance said.

The State also received an exceptional windfall this month in non-tax revenue  a 2bn payment from the National Asset Management Agency. This sum is not set off against deficit spending but is expected to be tapped as part of the Governments promised July stimulus.

Peter Vale, tax partner at Grant Thornton Ireland, said the unexpectedly mild drop off in income tax may "reflect the fact that lower-paid workers have suffered most as a result of Covid-19, with tax payments from higher earners propping up receipts".

While the fall in income is "less than expected", Mr Vale said, next month's Exchequer figures were expected to show a sharp drop in Vat receipts given the widespread closure of shops and hospitality firms since March.

While Vat collections were already down 20pc versus a year ago, he said, "worse is likely ahead".
Companies need to prepare for a "tsunami" of impacts from climate change that will have drastic consequences on supply chains, sustainability and how they do business, according to Donna Marshall, a UCD professor and its vice-principal for research and innovation.

She said companies were already experiencing "huge uncertainty" before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Marshall told a PwC webcast on supply chain strategies yesterday that sustainability is the "key" for the next decade.

"Some of the research coming out of universities in terms of the modelling for climate change has shown that our worst-case scenarios are much worse than we could possibly have imagined," she said.

Some of those models predict global mean temperatures rising by as much as 7C by the end of the century.

"At that stage, the consequences are unfathomable," Ms Marshall said.

"We've got to, at a very deep and embedded level, be putting in ideas around environmental decision making and social decision making into every procurement decision within the organisation.

"These things have to be front and centre of every single decision, every behaviour and every action within our supply chains," she said.

Fergus Rigley, the executive director of global supply chain at US drug company Alexion Pharmaceuticals, told the webcast that while cost advantages are one reason for offshoring, other factors are important.

"Cost is one factor, but typically it's access to capability and also to scale," he said. "Moving that back to an onshore scenario sometimes will require time and investment. It doesn't mean that it can't be done, but elements can be brought back."

Alexion has significant facilities in Dublin and Athlone.

Ireland is a European base for most of the world's top pharmaceutical firms. During the height of the lockdown, these firms still were exporting a substantial volume of products by air to the United States and other export markets.

US President Donald Trump was asked in May on Fox News why "all of the antibiotics are made in China" and when the US will be "self-sufficient in antibiotics". Mr Trump claimed that "stupid" people had "allowed this to happen".

"It's not only China," said Mr Trump. "You look at Ireland, they make our drugs. Everybody makes our drugs except us." He claimed that antibiotic production could be moved to America within two years.
Almost two years ago a teenage girl, Greta Thunberg, started her climate protest outside the Swedish parliament, spawning a movement that captured the world's attention. Over the same period, what was less apparent was the shift in capital markets to place greater emphasis on environmental, social and governance or 'ESG' issues at companies worldwide.

In 2019, an incremental $70bn (62bn) is estimated to have been invested in ESG funds while traditional equity funds suffered almost $200bn of outflows. What was once a marginal consideration for investors is now front and centre.

Since Enron's collapse in 2001, and subsequent failings that led to the financial crisis in 2008, governance has been high on the corporate agenda.

Recently as investors, regulators and activists have pressurised companies, environmental issues also have come to the fore.

ESG factors are increasingly relevant in the cost of debt. S&P Global and Moody's acquired ESG ratings agencies in the past year and now include those ratings within their overall credit criteria.

Despite all this, as a measure, the 'S' in ESG - the 'social' - has been somewhat left behind and remains the hardest to define. 'S' factors affect businesses every day - customer or product quality issues, data security, industrial relations or supply-chain difficulties - and often cause significant reputational damage. Think of the perceptions of how some retailers have treated workers; the damage to consumer brands linked with child labour; and the loss of confidence in banks when IT systems fail and customer transactions can't be honoured.

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We now see companies withdrawing their advertising from social media platforms in a response to a lack of oversight and 'policing' of hate speech. These are all factors which fall within the 'S'.

A 2017 study by the NYU Stern Centre for Business & Human Rights looked at more than 1,750 'S' measures from different ESG rating frameworks - and found those measures were often "vague".

Covid-19 has demonstrated that factors relating to 'S' are among the most pressing issues for companies globally. Many employees transitioned almost overnight out of strong businesses to effective unemployment. Entire sectors of the economy, and not just the weakest players, are facing a stark and uncertain future. Now, more than ever, a company's reputation - its 'licence to operate' - will be a function of how it engages and manages its stakeholders through this crisis.

Where there was a lack of focus and reporting on 'S' in the past, it now will clearly be an element of the corporate story and a prominent pillar of a company's ESG credentials.

It is incumbent on companies to grasp the meaning and implications of a strong 'S' and to communicate activity and progress to all stakeholders.

The environment we now find ourselves in has also affirmed that we would be better served dropping the 'social' from ESG and replacing it with a more appropriate 'S': stakeholder.

In the early part of the Covid-19 crisis, many companies were immediately in the spotlight for what were perceived to be poor 'S' practices. In the UK, Frasers Group sought to keep its SportsDirect retail outlets open in the face of a government lockdown of all but essential services. Pub group JD Wetherspoon was criticised for claiming that staff should not be paid after its pubs closed and that they should seek alternative work at supermarkets.

Scrutiny of companies will rise when they are in receipt of government support.

As EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager noted: "Support comes with strings attached, including a ban on dividends, bonus payments as well as further measures to limit distortions of competition."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo went a step farther, demanding that any corporate bailouts are repaid in full in the event that employees are not rehired after the crisis. A new form of social contract is being moulded between industry, employees, government and society.

Investors also have clearly articulated the importance of 'S' in this new world. Legal & General encourages companies "not to focus solely on their shareholders but to focus on stakeholder primacy".

Schroders has echoed this, stating that "in the short term companies need to prioritise their key stakeholders, in particular employees but also customers and suppliers".

Investment in those stakeholders may be a short-term cost, but it will benefit companies in the long term.

In seeking to protect and enhance corporate reputation - through good and bad times - a powerful guiding principle is to 'do the right thing'. Simple as it sounds, this reflects the adage that 'good PR starts with good behaviour'.

This guiding principle also translates to building strong 'S' credentials. A company's objective should be to take the steps it genuinely believes are in the best interest of the company and its wider stakeholders.

Not every decision will meet the expectations of every stakeholder. But it's a good place to start.

ESG will never replace financial performance as the primary driver of company valuations. Increasingly, however, it will influence the cost of capital, play an important role in risk management and, critically, protect and enhance corporate reputation.

Companies need to get a firm handle on how comprehensive their policies, procedures and data are in key areas through a candid ESG audit. Companies then should build a disclosure strategy for communicating with stakeholders.

What has become clear over the past three months is that a host of stakeholders, including many investors, will expect a sea-change in their access to information. While there is no requirement to be the first mover, those that are laggards will face avoidable challenges and a rising threat to their 'licence to operate'.
The broadcaster said that BBC England must save 25 million by April 2022 (Aaron Chown/PA)

The BBC has announced a shake-up of regional TV news and local radio in England, leading to 450 job cuts.

Changes will see one instead of two presenters fronting 6.30pm regional TV news bulletins.

Inside Out, the regional current affairs magazine show made in 11 different regions, will be axed and replaced with a new investigative journalism programme from six hubs.

#NUJ 450 job cuts in #BBC England will have a serious impact on its ability to represent all parts of the country and produce high-quality local news and investigative journalism https://t.co/Z0C1UU63s7  NUJ (@NUJofficial) July 2, 2020

A simplified schedule introduced on local radio during the pandemic, with single instead of double presenters and a reduction in the number of shows, will become permanent.

The broadcaster said that BBC England  which currently has more than 3,000 staff  must save 25 million by April 2022.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the cuts  which will affect presenters, journalists, technical and operation staff  could have a serious impact on the BBCs ability to represent all parts of the country.

Helen Thomas, director of BBC England, said difficult decisions had to be made on local and regional services created more than 50 years ago.

She said: We are in the age of the Facebook community group and the WhatsApp neighbourhood chat. We must adapt to better reflect how people live their lives, how they get their news and what content they want.

Were going to modernise our offer to audiences in England by making digital a central part of everything we do.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: These are huge cuts which will inevitably have an impact on the BBCs ability to sustain the breadth and depth of news coverage throughout England which truly reflects the diversity of the nation.

The Covid-19 crisis has shown more than ever the need for an effective public service broadcaster and for trusted, quality journalism in an era of disinformation and fake news.

We cannot allow the BBC to sleepwalk into a death by a thousand cuts, which will inevitably see people switch-off because they arent getting the service they want.

The BBC has already announced plans to cut around 450 jobs in BBC News, to take place at a later date.

And last month it said it was axing more than 150 roles in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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The broadcaster has also launched a programme of voluntary redundancy as it attempts to make 125 million in savings this year  on top of the previous 800 million savings target  due to the pandemic.

Last month, Sir Lenny Henry and Stephen Fry were among the stars who signed a letter to the BBC urging the corporation not to cut regional current affairs programmes.

The BBC said that changes would put digital storytelling at its core and it will commission a broader range of TV programming reflecting life across England especially in the North and Midlands.

The changes mean weekly current affairs programmes on Inside Out will no longer be made in Plymouth, Southampton, Tunbridge Wells, Nottingham and Salford.

The regional editions of Politics England on Sunday mornings will return in the autumn but undergo a creative review.

Labours shadow minister for media Chris Matheson said the root cause of cuts remains the Governments decision to slash BBC funding.

Conservative MP Julian Knight, who is chairman of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said: Just two weeks ago BBC executive James Purnell told us that the broadcaster was strongly committed to local and regional journalism. This decision is a strange way of demonstrating that commitment.

It is also at odds with what he told us about plans for the BBC to do more outside London and the south-east on local and regional services with journalism and political programmes singled out.

As a public service broadcaster the corporation has a clear mandate to serve audiences in our regions and meet their expectations for a licence fee funded quality regional news service. Todays announcement appears to put that expectation in some doubt.

Head of union Bectu Philippa Childs said: The additional liability of funding the over-75s licence fee and the challenges of collecting fees in a pandemic have cost the BBC 125 million on top of the savings that are already scheduled.

The Government must take back responsibility for the cost of free licence fees for over-75s to ensure that it (the BBC) is able to continue to fulfil its role as the UKs leading public service broadcaster.
A new Channel 4 documentary will detail the conversation many black parents have with their children to explain that their skin colour will mark them out for prejudice and challenges not faced by white people.

The film, provisionally titled The Talk, will feature leading black public figures sharing memories of the talks they have given or received, contextualised by family archives or an event that triggered the talk, such as a prominent death in police custody.

It will be part of a series of programmes exploring different aspects of the black experience in modern Britain.

Black children often receive their first talk between the ages of four and seven and it is described as the day a child loses their innocence.

We are co-funding The Talk - a new commission for @Channel4 weare producing with Cardiff Productions. A one-off doc revealing a part of black British life little known about outside the black community. We want to make a difference

More:A https://t.co/tDPxwmJNYT A A #MakeItHappen pic.twitter.com/TQ787P94H1  Whisper (@WeAreWhisperTV) July 2, 2020

Channel 4 said: Parents have to explain that, because of the colour of their skin, some people think they are less worthy of respect.

Children are taught what to expect and how to react; advice based on experiences suffered by family, friends and neighbours.

The film will be directed by Geoff Small and executive produced by Maxine Watson with Patrick Younge, the managing director of Cardiff Productions, and Sunil Patel, chief executive of production company Whisper.

Mr Patel said: We approached Channel 4 with the idea to co-fund an important film that could help raise awareness of racism and generate change.

The Talk (working title) is set to be a compelling watch on a subject matter that we, as a company, are very passionate about.

We have always been committed to creating a company that reflects the diverse society we live and work in  be that BAME, disability, gender or age  but we can always do more.

We want to help educate, in this case with a thought-provoking, engaging production, and to celebrate the work of black directors, producers, writers and DOPs (directors of photography), such as Patrick, Geoff and Maxine. This film felt like absolutely the right thing to do and its good to make it happen.

Fatima Salaria, head of the specialist factual at Channel 4, said: After George Floyds death Sunil and Patrick both independently got in touch with me and I asked them to work together on this brilliant idea of Pats.

Together they have recruited leading black talent to make what promises to be really authentic television that will reflect the reality of black British lives and raise questions about race in modern Britain.

Im grateful to Whisper for helping make this work financially and their real commitment to telling these stories and supporting black filmmakers.
The National Gallery in London will be the first of the big institutions to get back to business (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

Gallery bosses are preparing to welcome visitors to a more contemplative experience when they reopen this month.

The National Gallery will be the first of the big institutions to get back to business, on July 8, with the Royal Academy Of Arts and Tate following later.

But gallery chiefs do not expect the usual crowds.

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National Gallery director Gabriele Finaldi said it will be pleasant to have the galleries to (almost) yourselves  initially, while Royal Academy Of Arts chief executive Axel Ruger said visits will be an opportunity for a quieter, more contemplative experience.

Flagship institutions such as the British Museum and Natural History Museum are yet to signal when they will reopen their doors.

But for museums, welcoming back visitors tends to be more complex than it is for art galleries.

The fragile nature of their collections means that they are affected by the absence and then the return of visitors.

Temperature and humidity will change with the return of visitors, which has an impact on objects made from a variety of materials.

We're reopening our doors on 9 July!



We believe galleries and museums should be places for inspiration, escape and, above all, community a something we all need right now. We can't wait to welcome you back!



Hereas how it will work: https://t.co/ZtCKaXWBqr  Royal Academy (@royalacademy) June 30, 2020

And their many artefacts are usually dotted around rooms and not just on walls, as they are in galleries, meaning social distancing requires more planning.

Galleries to announce reopening dates include the Ashmolean Museum, Nottingham Contemporary, Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art, and The Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery.

In London, they include The Barbican, Royal Academy of Arts, Whitechapel Gallery and Serpentine Galleries.

Tate plans to reopen all four of its galleries  Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives  later in the month, on July 27.

Many of the big galleries say entry must be booked online in advance.

At the almost 200-year-old National Gallery, visitors will follow art routes.

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There will be a separate entrance and exit at the National Gallery and two-metre social distancing measures in place throughout, and visitors are recommended to wear a face covering.

An enhanced cleaning regime will be in operation and higher efficiency filters in the air-conditioning system have been installed.

But the absence of crowds means difficulties ahead for many institutions.

I have to stress, its not just difficulty for this year  the year of the pandemic itself  but looking ahead, particularly as visitor numbers drop I imagine quite dramatically, we will be in difficulties further ahead, Mr Finaldi has said.

The exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death will reopen at the National Gallery after it previously closed three days into its run, while visitors at the Royal Academy of Arts can see its Picasso And Paper exhibition.

Tate Modern will reopen with its Andy Warhol show and Kara Walkers Hyundai Commission Fons Americanus, a 13 metre-high fountain and counter-memorial exploring the interconnected histories of Africa, the US and Europe.
Penny Dreadful has turned its back on Victorian England. This, frankly, is an awful pity.

It would be nice to be back with Timothy Dalton, Eva Green, Josh Hartnett and the gallery of monsters and demons that populated John Logans rich and satisfying Gothic horror mash-up. Alas, Logan decided that three seasons was enough to tell that story.

So now hes decided to tell a different, unrelated one in the spin-off Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. If you get your telly from Sky, all 10 episodes are available immediately. This is probably just as well. Were the series being shown weekly, as it was on Showtime in the US, Im not sure the tame, leaden opening chapter would be enough to lure me back for more.

Logan has whisked us 50 years forward and more than 5,000 miles across the Atlantic to Los Angeles in 1938, on the eve of WWII.

Its a very convincing Los Angeles, sun-baked yet morally murky, and absolutely riddled with corruption, just like the LA of Roman Polanskis Chinatown or James Ellroys novels.

Theres racism, too, and not just the everyday kind that festers inside the LAPD; the greedy white business establishment and the bent, power-hungry local politicians willing to do their bidding.

The Nazis are lurking, not in the shadows but in plain sight, feeding off and manipulating the America First crowd in order to keep the USA out of the war thats definitely coming.

Even though the Nazis dont know it yet, they have a supernatural ally in the shape of a demon called Magda, played by Natalie Dormer, whos intent on sparking a war in America that wont just set race against race, but turn brother against brother and rip entire families and communities apart.

Actually, Magda comes in a variety of shapes. Shes a shape-shifter, you see. She can turn herself into anybody  although they all end up looking like Natalie Dormer trying on different clothes and accents.

One minute, Magda is a German mother, neglected by her uncaring (and non-existent) American husband and making big, sexy eyes at the kindly paediatrician, Dr Peter Craft (Rory Kinnear), who is treating her son (whos really another manifestation of Magda and is absorbed back into her when hes no longer needed). As it happens, Craft is also German  and a member of the Nazi Party.

The next minute, Magda is the tweedy, bespectacled secretary to an ambitious city councilman (Michael Gladis), who she manipulates, Lady Macbeth-like, into awarding a contract to a German architect (Thomas Kretschmann), whos really an agent of the Third Reich.

While Magda hovers around the edge of things, poisoning minds and spreading chaos, Tiago Vega (Danile Zovatto), the first Mexican-American detective in the LAPD, and his older partner Lewis Michener (a grievously miscast Nathan Lane) are investigating a grisly case.

Four members of a rich business family, responsible for building a new freeway, are found murdered, their hearts removed and their faces painted as Day of the Dead masks.

Could the killer(s) come from Tiagos own community, which is about to be bulldozed to make room for the road?

Inevitably, when violence erupts between the community and the police, Tiago is caught in the middle. Just as inevitably, Magda is there, wafting among the crowd, whispering into ears and urging both sides to attack the other, which they duly do.

Theres an awful lot of plot here  yet another strand reveals that Michener is running his own private investigation into the Nazis  and an awful lot of characters to juggle. Nothing hangs together, though, not even the title.

The name Penny Dreadful comes from the cheap, lurid 19th-century publications, a tradition the original honoured. This is more like American Horror Story without the camp  or the chills.
Glow Up: Britains Next Make-Up Star is a BBC Three show (BBC Three/Wall To Wall/PA)

Ophelia Liu has been named as the winner of a BBC Three make-up competition.

The retail make-up artist, 26, was crowned the winner of Glow Up: Britains Next Make-Up Star, which is presented by Stacey Dooley, on Thursday.

As well as being named the victor, she has also won a contract to assist leading figures in the make-up industry.

Liu said: Being on Glow Up and having the opportunity to work with some amazing, like-minded, boundary pushing creatives has been eye-opening.

The chance to show my work to some of the biggest influential artists and creatives doesnt come around every day, this journey will always be remembered and I cannot wait for whats to come next.

Hong Kong-born Liu impressed the judges with her creativity in the final round, when she created a look inspired by the formation of diamonds.

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Series judge Dominic Skinner said: Ophelia is without doubt a true artist.

She showed us from the very start that she had the creativity and the skill set but her journey throughout this season was really one within herself.

The challenges both at Glow Up HQ and out on a job pushed her to do things that she had never done or even thought about doing, and it was this inner conflict that made her a stronger and more confident artist.
THE SENIOR detective who oversaw the Adrian Donohoe murder investigation has described the accused's account of his movements on the night of the murder as "bunkum and lies", the Central Criminal Court heard.

Retired detective inspector Pat Marry, who was the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) until 2018, was giving evidence in the trial of Aaron Brady who denies capital murder.

Mr Marry told the jury that he did not ask the PSNI to search a diesel laundering yard where the accused said he was on the night of the robbery.

He said had no confidence in what Mr Brady "was telling gardai because I believe he was involved in the murder of Adrian Donohoe and was in the carpark of Lordship Credit Union".

Aaron Brady has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Adrian Donohoe (41), who was then a member of An Garda Siochana acting in the course of his duty, at Lordship Credit Union in Bellurgan, Co Louth, on January 25, 2013.

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Mr Brady (29), of New Road in Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, also denies the robbery of approximately 7,000 in cash and assorted cheques from Mr Pat Bellew at the same location on the same date.

This morning Pat Marry was being cross-examined in relation to a yard on the Concession Road in Cullaville, where Aaron Brady said he arrived shortly after 8pm on the night of the murder before leaving 15 minutes later after failing to start a forklift. The court previously heard that he told two detectives this in an off-the-record account 10 days after the robbery, and that last December a formal alibi was served on the prosecution saying this was incorrect and that he was moving laundered diesel cubes at the yard for between 90 minutes and two hours.

Mr Marry told defence counsel Michael O'Higgins SC that CCTV footage from Concession Road was viewed and that a car belonging to Suspect A, who Mr Brady said he was with that night, did not show up. Mr Marry said that the CCTV reviewed "not great" footage. The court heard that cars were identified outside the store on eight occasions but none could be identified.

"So that was very evident to me that the story told by Aaron Brady was bunkum and lies," the retired detective inspector added.

Pat Marry told counsel that the PSNI were not asked to go to this site and that a sergeant was liaising with them in relation to this matter.

He agreed that he had previously received permission from the PSNI to send gardai across the Border to examine a particular site in another case.

Asked what was different about a diesel laundering site, Mr Marry said: "Because as I said that site had no relevance to me as SIO because I believe Aaron Brady was not there."

He said they had no "clear address" for this yard but identified one which matched the description given by Mr Brady.

The retired detective said that he first ascertained the address when the accused produced his alibi at the beginning of the trial, adding: "Why hasn't he mentioned it before then."

Asked if this was the first time he knew where the yard was, Mr Marry said: "No, it was the first time I heard Aaron Brady stating the address."

Mr Marry said that four tasks were undertaken in relation to Concession Road which included requesting CCTV from the PSNI, interviewing witnesses, analysing phones and consulting the Crime and Security section for intelligence on yards on that road in respect of diesel laundering.

The retired detective inspector was also cross-examined in relation to a book he had written, asking Mr O'Higgins if he had read it and if he wanted him to sign it for him.

A number of passages from the book were put to the witness. One, the court heard, related to a case where the author noted that boundaries hadn't been widened enough and that as a result evidence was missed, while promising to avoid that mistake himself.

Pat Marry agreed that the initial decisions regarding an incident are absolutely critical, adding: "but I can't elaborate on that in the way I'd like to in respect of this case, I can't answer the question the way I'd like to."

It was also put to him that phone traffic between Mr Brady and a number of other people, including a known fuel launderer, in and around the week of the murder would appear to relate to fuel laundering.

Mr Marry said that this was the account given by one of the known fuel launderers to gardai, adding: "But do we believe him."

The cross-examination continues before the jury of six men and seven women tomorrow morning.
A bank worker deactivated a security feature on 26 customers accounts which resulted in fraudulent transactions of over 20,000 taking place, a court has heard.

Tomi Jinad (24) was working in customer services in KBC bank in Dublin city centre in December 2018. He deactivated the feature which meant the customers would receive a text message to allow them to authorise online transactions with an authorisation code.

Detective Garda James O'Meara told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that the deactivation allowed fraudulent transactions to be carried out. Jinad was passing on the account details to others who have not yet being identified.

Around 100 transactions were carried out with the amounts being stolen ranging from 100 to approximately 500. A total of 21,460 was taken and KBC reimbursed all customers.

Jinad of Grange Park View, Raheny, Dublin pleaded guilty to a number of sample counts of unlawfully operating a computer to make a gain or cause a loss to others. All of the offending took place at the bank between December 22 and December 30 2018.

Jinad has a previous conviction for drug dealing. He told gardai that somebody had approached him in work and told him what to do.

Cathal McGreal BL, defending, said that his client was prevailed on by others to carry out the offending and was told he would get money. Ultimately, he didn't receive any money, counsel said.

Jinad is now working for a company doing accounts for a legal firm and earning 450 a week. Mr McGreal told the court that he had brought 3,500 to court and was willing to pay the rest of the money taken to reimburse the bank.

Judge Patricia Ryan noted garda evidence that Jinad wasn't in the upper echelons of large criminal organisation and that his motive was to get money for an operation that meant a lot to him at the time.

She noted his apology, and the fact that he had stopped the offending before the investigation began. She noted in particular his youth.

Judge Ryan suspended a prison sentence of two and a half years for four years on condition he keep the peace. She ordered that he pay sums of 5,200 each year until the balance of the money stolen was repaid.
A woman who coughed in the direction of two paramedics in the back of an ambulance, telling them "I have the virus", has been jailed for six months for assault.

Judge Patrick Durcan, sitting in Ennis District Court yesterday, said Rebecca Blunnie's behaviour on April 10 last "was of an absolutely appalling nature".

Blunnie (30), of Pella Road, Kilrush, Co Clare, pleaded guilty to the assault of paramedics David Meaney and Frank Greaney at Dunogrogue, Killimer, on April 10.

Sgt Aiden Lonergan said the two paramedics were within one metre of Blunnie when she coughed in the confined space of an ambulance and stated that she had the virus.

Judge Durcan said: "On that date, this country was in a maelstrom in the middle of the worst public health crisis that has ever been experienced here."

He said the country was in virtual lockdown, business had ground to a halt and citizens were in fear; and, despite all of that, Blunnie gave appalling abuse to "these two decent men" of the ambulance service.

Judge Durcan added that, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, "ambulance service personnel were laying their lives on the line day in and day out to assist people who were genuinely ill".

He said that in her drunken, selfish stupor, Blunnie had an ambulance sent for her.

Judge Durcan said Blunnie - who has 43 previous convictions - "has an appalling record".

Sgt Lonergan told the court Blunnie "smirked" after coughing in the direction of the two paramedics.

Blunnie denied this in court.

She previously told the court: "It was just a joke. I didn't mean to do it", and later added "I don't have the virus".

Monica Roche, solicitor for Blunnie, told the court that her client sincerely apologises to the paramedics and the gardai for her actions.

She said her client was highly intoxicated on the night.

Blunnie was sentenced to six months.
It will be a holiday like no other for Irish people who take a summer trip abroad this year. Despite the advice to holiday at home because of Covid-19 risks, many are clearly determined to travel.

There is a lot they can do to reduce the chances of picking up the virus.

Advance planning

If you are staying in a hotel check out in advance what kind of precautions it is taking for guests and staff.

Are they regularly disinfecting high-touch surfaces and are they cleaning public spaces?

Check to see if staff wear protective face coverings and ask what are the protocols around the bar and dining areas.

Bring your own disinfectant

It might seem extreme but putting a bottle of regular household disinfectant in your luggage means you can do your own clean-up.

Concentrate on light switches, sinks, door knobs and the remote control.

Wash plates, cups or cutlery, other than pre-wrapped plastic, before using any. Good handwashing is always advised.

Avoid taking lifts

If you can take the stairs instead of the lift it is good advice.

You won't find yourself crammed in with a group of people, some of whom may not be wearing face masks. If you must use the button in the lift, infectious disease experts suggest using a toothpick which you throw away.

Always carry your essentials

It's not just sunscreen lotion you need in your bag any more - always have your face masks and bottle of sanitiser at the ready.

Be ready for temperature checks and questionnaires at airports

Check in online to minimise face-to-face contact.

Not all airports have temperature checks but some have set up thermal scanners manned by military officials in a bid to spot those who might have the virus.

It could mean you are not allowed to fly on a particular day.

Wear a face covering on board a flight and remain seated as much as possible.

Be wary of using the seat pocket in front of you as previous passengers may have put infected tissues there.

Most airlines require people to ask in advance to use the toilet to avoid queues.

Using ATMs

Clean the ATM keyboard with a disinfecting wipe before using it. When you are finished, apply hand sanitiser. Wash your hands if you can.

Crowded beaches

Some beaches in Spain are marked for distancing.

A number are closing half-day because they are already packed by lunchtime. Police have also had to block roads, and Benidorm is due a pre-booking system. You could find yourself in a roped-off area on the better-run beaches.

Beaches in Greece have umbrella poles set four metres apart.

Feeling unwell

If you think you are developing symptoms of the virus you should not ignore them. Ask to contact a doctor and they may arrange a test for Covid-19.

If this proves positive then you are obliged to self-isolate. This is where it can become complicated and risky.

All EU countries have systems in place to allow for tourists who become ill with the virus and it may mean you going to an isolation facility or if it is more serious being hospitalised until you are deemed well enough to home. Don't try to hide symptoms for your own sake and the health of others you might pass on the virus to.

Health cover

The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) should cover you for short-term healthcare in another EU country or European Economic Area (EEA) state for free, or at a reduced cost.

You can apply for an EHIC in person at your local health office, except in Dublin north- west which operates by post.

Check with your health insurer also before leaving.
There are doubts about the hoped for a full-return to schools in late August/September. Stock picture

Post-primary teacher union leaders said they could not put a date on when all schools will be able to open fully to all pupils.

Their comments at a meeting of the Oireachtas Covid- 19 committee strengthens doubts about the hopes for a full-return to schools in late August/September.

The key issue will be the social distancing requirements forced by Covid-19 that are in place at the time and how they impact on the day-to-day school operations.

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Health Protection Surveillance Centre ( HPSC) guidance for schools published yesterday said there was no need for distancing for pupils up to and including those in second class primary, and that a minimum one metre should apply in classes where pupils are over that stage.

The Government is hoping for a full return for all schools at the start of the new academic year, but applying a one metre rule would make it difficult for some to have all their pupils back in the classroom together.

The general standard in society at the moment is a two metre separation although that has been reduced to one metre for the hospitality industry.

Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) general secretary John McGabhann told Sinn Feins Donnchadh OLaoghaire that he could not answer as to when a full return would happen.

Mr MacGabhann said they would engage with the Department of Educaton and other education partners  to ensure it can happen as safely as possible but it has to be done in a manner that guarantees safety for children, for parents and , I say without apology, for our members.

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) general secretary Kieran Christie said he could not predict when a full return would be possible because there were too many variables that they did not control, the key one of which was social distancing.

He said the ASTI view was that the public health advice published yesterday was such that many schools will not be fit to go back on full time basis for all students. He said they would be back on a restricted basis.

The recommendation that no social distancing is needed for half of primary classes - up to second class- supports a fuller return at the normal time in that sector, but the one metre rule for older pupils may present challenges in some schools.

Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) general secretary John Boyle said they had particular issue for third to sixth classes, and  no matter what way you do maths it can be difficult to accommodate large classes.

Mr Boyle said he was worried about what would happen after schools re-opened in situations such as where a teacher was absent and , where in other circumstances pupils would be split into other classes

Supports to schools must ensure that no class needs to be divided in circumstances of teacher absence, he said.
Parents are seeking cuts to the curriculum for next years State exam students and changes in how they are assessed because of the disruption to education being caused by Covid-19.

This year, the coronavirus pandemic saw the Junior Cycle written tests cancelled and the Leaving Cert replaced with a system of calculated grades.

Instead of the Junior Cycle June exams, teachers prepared their own assessments for pupils, while teachers also predicted Leaving Cert grades, based on what they believed a pupil would have achieved if they had sat the exams in June.

Now there is growing concern about what lies ahead for students who are entering sixth year and third year, who have been preparing for State exams in 2021 but who have missed months of face-to-face teaching and may only be returning to the class room part-time from September.

It was among the issues raised by National Parents Council Post Primary (NPCPP) president Mai Fanning during an address to the Oireachtas Covid-19 committee, which was discussing school re-opening.

She said the learnings and opportunities presented by the changes enforced by Covid-19 should be utilised fully to assist towards adjusted method of learning and final assessment that can fairly and properly reflect the talents, achievements and abilities of each student.

The NPCPP president said all students had already lost more than three months classroom and school time and much would need to be done to get these students back up to speed.

She said by the time the pandemic hit and schools closed many exam year students would have substantially completed their curriculums and courses, but those facing State exams in 2021 have lost crucial mid-stream classroom learning and interaction time.

This will potentially have an even greater stressful effect than closure had on 2020 exam students with disruption mid-cycle. This must be taken into account when looking towards assessment and 2021 state examinations.

While she did not spell out the exact changes the NPCPP would like to see, in one example, she said students entering sixth and third years could not cover the entire curriculum and adjustments would have to be made.

Ms Fanning also noted that the council had emphatically supported reforms in the structures and processes around both Junior Cycle and Senior Cycle and adjustments to traditional practices and exam method.

Covid-19 restrictions have led us, by default, to a point where alternative final assessment methods have had to be explored and weaknesses in IT and Broadband access, to facilitate on-line study have been identified.

The learnings and opportunities presented by these enforced changes should be utilised fully to assist towards adjusted method of learning and final assessment that can fairly and properly reflect the talents, achievements and abilities of each student.

Teachers Union of Ireland(TUI) general secretary John MacGabhann told the committee that a consequence of the move from on-site to online teaching and learning was that certain elements of the curriculum have not been and cannot for the foreseeable future be completed.

Especially affected have been practical subjects and it is entirely possible that those same subjects will be the ones most difficult to deliver for as long as restrictions have to apply.

Even at this remove from next summer, it would seem harsh and unreasonable to expect students to face examinations that assume completion of the syllabi.

Therefore, adjustments will have to be made and they are probably best made by using the assessment instruments rather than by specific curtailment of syllabi.
There are fears foreign travel could lead to a 'very serious spike' of Covid-19 in Ireland, new Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said - as he admits clarification on advice must be clarified quickly.

A recommendation on the advice will be brought before Cabinet on Monday following a discussion by Nphet today and at a Cabinet sub-committee meeting tomorrow.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Mr Donnelly said that the government is working very urgently to clarify travel advice.

We are looking at this very carefully and very urgently, he said.

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Nphet are discussing it today, Ill be sitting down with the chief medical officer after that and theres a Cabinet sub committee on tomorrow and a recommendation will be brought for discussion at Cabinet on Monday.

We are taking it very, very seriously and if there is confusion it needs to be cleared up."

He said that a surge in travel abroad would lead to a second wave and additionally put pressure on healthcare spending.

What the CMO has continuously expressed and reiterated again this week is a very serious concern for a second wave of Covid if there is a big increase in foreign travel.

The public health advice has remained absolutely steady on this.

The current advice is against all non essential overseas travel.

The CMO is concerned that a lot of foreign travel could lead to a very serious spike and potentially a big second wave. Were that to happen, it would have huge consequences for spending in healthcare obviously, he added.

Speaking on legalised quarantines, which have been suggested by Roisin Shorthall TD and would apply to people who travel outside of approved green routes. Per Deputy Shorthalls suggestion, those people will be mandated to quarantine in hotels nearby airports upon their return.

Lets not jump the gun, no decision has been made on what restrictions may or may not be relaxed, said Mr Donnelly.

I dont believe that would be necessary, I dont believe it would be likely.
More than half of people coming to Ireland from abroad, who should be self-quarantining for two weeks to avoid possibly passing on Covid-19, are not answering phone calls checking on their whereabouts.

Figures reveal that from the end of May to the middle of June, as overseas holiday traffic increased, officials rang 684 new arrivals who had come here from abroad by plane or boat.

But just 308 of the calls were answered - 45pc, the figures obtained by the Irish Independent reveal.

The worrying pattern of many overseas arrivals here going missing has been repeated over several weeks, the Department of Justice data revealed.

The self-quarantine is strongly advised but not mandatory.

It comes as public health doctors reveal a resurgence in cases of the virus linked to foreign travel.

During June, a total 31 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland were associated with travel from abroad after months when it posed a low risk of virus spread.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan repeated the advice which has been in place since the start of the pandemic to avoid all non-essential travel abroad.

"The World Health Organisation has warned that the global pandemic is accelerating.

"In the past week, over 160,000 cases have been reported each day," he said.

Earlier this week he advised people who had booked foreign holidays to cancel them to reduce the risk of picking up the virus abroad and spreading it on their return home.

Next week, the Government is set to publish a list of countries, including Greece and Finland, which Ireland could set up air bridges with, allowing people from both countries to travel to each destination without quarantine restrictions.

The advice will still be not to travel but if people want to go overseas they should restrict themselves to these countries.

However, it is highly unlikely there will be any mechanism for a refund for people who cancel holidays because the guidance throughout has been not to book non-essential trips overseas.

Dermott Jewell of the Consumers' Association said the Government needs to offer guidance to airlines and provide a fund so that holidaymakers who choose not to travel can get their money back.

Dr Holohan yesterday announced another three people have died from the virus, brining the death toll to 1,738.

Another six cases of the virus were confirmed and numbers continue to be low despite the opening-up of businesses after the lockdown.

It brings to 25,477 the number of cases of the virus here so far.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) will meet today to review the latest trends in the disease in advance of the list of air bridge countries being announced next week.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of adults believe that holidays to countries with high rates of Covid-19 should not be allowed, a survey has found.

Market research carried out by iReach found that nine out of 10 adults believe that holidays to countries with high rates of Covid-19 should not be permitted. The US has seen a huge number of virus cases and deaths.

The survey found those aged 55-plus feel even stronger on this, with 96pc of this age group believing holidays to these countries should not be permitted.

The research was carried out between June 25 and 30.

Some 60pc would still not travel abroad to countries we have air bridges with.
Roads in the Grafton Street area of Dublin are to be closed off to cars on a trial basis, which the Green Party say will "hopefully" lead to perminant pedestrianisation.

For four weekends, beginning on July 25, five streets in the Dublin 2 area will trial pedestrianisation between the hours of 11am and 7pm.

The plan, which was backed by the ruling coalition of the Dublin City Council (DCC) in the Dublin Agreement and enforced by the Traffic Department of the DCC was distributed by the City Executive today amid an ongoing agreement on the pedestrianisation particularly of South William Street.

The trial comes almost exactly since that street was pedestrianised by activists last year. One such activist, Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon, said that the area "is crying out for it."

"I think we've already seen some of these streets are pedestrianised by the sheer number of people walking down them so this would formalise that and make it much more safe for pedestrians," he said.

Expand Close The green areas in the map will trial pedestrianisation for four weekends beginning July 25 between the hours of 11am and 7pm (Graphic: DCC Covid Mobility Report) / Facebook

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Whatsapp The green areas in the map will trial pedestrianisation for four weekends beginning July 25 between the hours of 11am and 7pm (Graphic: DCC Covid Mobility Report)

"I think it's good news for the businesses on that street as well. I know on South William Street nearly all of the businesses have signed a petition for their street to be pedestrianised.

"Anyone who knows particularly South William Street know it's crying out for it. One or two cars disrupt the flow of the entire street there and what this plan does is it still preserves car park access but it just gives more of the street around there to people who are there to shop eat and just hang out."

The plan will see the trial pedestrianisation of Anne Street South from the junction of Dawson Street, Duke Street from the junction of Dawson Street, South William St from the BT car park exit to Chatham Row, Drury Street from Fade Street to the Drury Street car park and Dame Court from Exchequer Street.

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The trial comes as part of the DCC Covid Mobility Programme which aims to ensure the city can return to work safely - giving more space to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport rather than individual cars, in order to get as many people moving through he city as possible.

The programme has already seen changes on the quays like bike lane protection, and a one way contraflow bike lane on Nassau street.

Expand Close Pedal power: newly elected Green Party councillor Michael Pidgeon. Picture by Frank Mc Grath / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pedal power: newly elected Green Party councillor Michael Pidgeon. Picture by Frank Mc Grath

Mr Pidgeon, who has campaigned for cars to be removed from some of Dublin's streets since being elected in May of last year, said that the plan would encourage more people to visit Dublin.

"It has been a very long standing view among Councillors and something that was agreed between the Dublin agreement -which is the ruling coalition of the Dublin City Council - to permanently pedestrianise South William Street, so it's a trial, hopefully, before the perminant pedestrianisation of that road," he said.

"Basically the idea is that these are long standing routes that people are talking about pedestrianising so the idea is just to test out any practical issues with that. It's about making sure that the city is a safe and nice place to be in, and ultimately, that's what is going to draw people into the city, not that you can drive through it quickly, more so that it's a nice place to visit without the roar of traffic all around you.

"The only downside I see to this is that I would have liked to see it run a little bit longer and not just limited to weekends but it's a good step forward."
The plight of patients with mental illness who are being treated in public psychiatric units which are dirty, rundown, urine-soaked and surrounded by offensive odours is revealed in a damning report by a watchdog today.

The annual report of the Mental Health Commission warns that too many patients with psychiatric illnesses are being treated like second-class citizens.

It reveals a litany of neglect in many units including dirty seclusion rooms, unclean bathroom facilities, discarded cigarette butts, litter in outdoor areas, kitchen areas that appeared contaminated, urine-soaked panels and floors, and bad odours.

Inspectors found patients who were trying to recover from mental illness were living in units with chipped floor coverings and damaged ceilings, broken showers, cigarette burn marks and holes in the walls. Ten centres were not adequately lit, heated or ventilated.

Chief inspector Susan Finnerty warned: "It is simply not good enough that people who are extremely unwell are forced to reside or recover in wards or rooms that are unclean, malodorous or poorly maintained."

The commission's chief executive John Farrelly said: "Too many mental health residents in Ireland are still being treated like second-class citizens whose fundamental human rights continue to be overlooked."

While average national compliance with regulations was recorded at 78pc, many mental health residents are still being admitted to outdated and unclean premises without a meaningful care plan essential to their recovery.

Commission chairman John Saunders called on the new government to pledge the necessary resources to implement the new blueprint for the mental health services.

There were 54 children and adolescents who ended up in 15 adult units.

Dr Finnerty said: "Children and young people should not be admitted to adult units except in exceptional circumstances. There are just six child and adult mental health units in the country, located in just three counties nationally, and apart from two of these, they do not take out-of-hours admissions.

"Children and young people in crisis are left with the unacceptable choice between an emergency department, general hospital, children's hospital, or an adult inpatient unit."

The report also highlights concerns about the seclusion of patients, with some seclusion rooms deemed hazardous. Just 21pc of centres were compliant.
New guidance on physical distancing rules for schools presents serious challenges in achieving a full return by all pupils in all classrooms.

Newly appointed Education Minister Norma Foley yesterday published interim public health advice underpinning the re-opening of schools.

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It says there is no need for physical distancing for pupils up to and including second class in primary schools.

However, for older pupils, including at post-primary, a separation of at least one metre is recommended.

It remains to be seen how individual schools will be able to meet the requirements, although the advice may change between now and the start of the new school year.

The minister said while you can never be definitive, she was working towards a full return of all pupils in September.

Only days into the role and Norma Foley is now overseeing the unprecedented task of reopening 4,000 schools while Covid-19 remains a public health threat.

"The key objective is to safely reopen schools and I can say from the discussions this morning that that is very much the collective agenda," she said. She was speaking after meeting education stakeholders, including teacher unions and school management bodies.

Following that meeting, she published the interim advice from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre and also issued a detailed Covid-19 plan for primary schools. A separate plan is being developed for post-primary schools.

Ms Foley said the health advice was interim, and what was current now would not be current in two or three weeks' time, but it provided a "significant platform for discussion and engagement as to how we will collectively do that".

The advice crosses a spectrum from school drop-off and pick-up to handwashing, cleaning, staggering break times, and the use of classroom equipment.

The level of detail covered includes the use of play dough and, while there is no distancing requirement for junior classes, there is a very strict no-sharing rule around this classroom staple.

The guidance around physical distancing is underpinned by the twin principles of increasing separation and decreasing interaction.

For primary schools, it points to two possible approaches.

In a traditional classroom with standard desks, it would mean a distance of one metre between students, and the alternative is to maintain separate 'pods' - a small number of pupils working within groups.

While one pod would maintain a distance of one metre from another pod, there would be no requirement for minimum distance between individual pupils in a pod.

A 'pod' refers to a small group within a class, but it also recommended that classes themselves be regarded as 'bubbles', which stay apart from other classes as much as possible. Specific advice for post-primary schools includes, as far as possible, students remaining in the classroom and teachers moving between rooms.

Handwashing and/or sanitising would be required when moving between classes by both teachers and students.

It recommends that teachers maintain a minimum of one metre distance and, if possible, two, and that they should avoid close contact as much as possible by remaining standing rather than sitting beside or crouching beside pupils.

The guidance also envisages big changes for staff outside the classroom, with a recommendation for staggered breaks and, at post-primary level, the formation of staff 'pods' who work together and take breaks together.

Among the other issues is face coverings and the guidance says, in general, they should not be required for school staff if physical distancing is possible.

It adds that the wearing of a visor as an alternative to a face covering may be considered where there is a concern that there will be prolonged close contact and exposure to fluid/respiratory droplets.

In relation to pupils, the advice states that coverings are not suitable for children under the age of 13 and anyone who, for instance, has trouble breathing.

Older students should not have to wear a face covering but those who may wish to wear one where physical distancing is difficult to maintain should not be discouraged.

Meanwhile Ms Foley, who was previously a teacher of English in Co Kerry, said the call from Taoiseach Micheal Martin to offer her the top job in education was "utterly unexpected".
Stormonts First Minister has vowed not to collapse the devolved executive if the Deputy First Minister refuses to stand down over her attendance at an IRA veterans funeral.

Sinn Fein has rejected the DUPs call for Michelle ONeill to step aside amid a fierce political row about her actions at Bobby Storeys funeral.

The event in west Belfast on Tuesday drew hundreds of people on to the streets when coronavirus restriction are in place.

First Minister Arlene Foster has written to her partner-in-government asking her to stand down pending police and Assembly standards investigations into the scenes at the funeral.

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The move has plunged the recently restored powersharing institutions into crisis again, with four of the parties in the five-party coalition Executive calling for Ms ONeill to stand down.

The events have some echoes of the cash-for-ash furore that toppled the devolved government in 2017 when Mrs Foster refused to accede to a Sinn Fein call for her to temporarily stand down pending an investigation into a botched green energy scheme.

However, Mrs Foster has said she will not collapse the institutions in the way the late Martin McGuinness did when he quit as a joint head of government in January 2017.

She said it was vital Northern Ireland had a government amid the coronavirus emergency.

Why would I punish the people of Northern Ireland for the bad behaviour of Sinn Fein? she said.

People expect me to lead, I will lead and I am not going to walk away from the government of Northern Ireland at a time when we are having severe challenges ahead of us. I think that that would be a dereliction of my leadership and Im not prepared to do that.

Thursdays scheduled Stormont press conference on the coronavirus emergency with Mrs Foster and Ms ONeill was cancelled due to the row.

Mrs Foster confirmed she was not prepared to appear on a joint platform with Ms ONeill until the row over her attendance at the funeral was resolved.

Expand Close Funeral: Senior members of Sinn Fein including Mary Lou McDonald, Gerry Adams, and Michelle ONeill at the funeral. Photo: Liam McBurney / Facebook

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There is a credibility issue now and we have to deal with that, she told UTV.

What we need to do is to find a way to build the credibility back.

The leaders of the five main Stormont parties are due to meet on Friday to attempt to defuse the escalating row.

Earlier on Thursday, Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald said Ms ONeill would not be stepping aside. She said no one should be punished for attending the funeral of a friend.

Under Stormont regulations and guidance, friends of a deceased person should only attend the funeral if none of the bereaved family members are attending. Mr Storeys family did attend Tuesdays funeral.

Mrs McDonald said the Stormont Executive should keep focused on work to tackle the Covid-19 emergency.

That work is under way but it is not finished yet, so, no, I dont think anybody should be punished or asked to step aside or step down because they attended the funeral of a friend. No, I dont, she said.

On Wednesday, Mrs Foster urged Ms ONeill to apologise and make amends for what happened at Tuesdays funeral in west Belfast.

The Deputy First Minister declined and defended her actions, insisting she acted within Covid-19 rules and guidance.

She differentiated between the management of the funeral cortege and service and scenes along the route when hundreds gathered to watch the procession pass. Ms ONeill insisted that was outside of her control.

The DUP called for Ms ONeill to step down following her refusal to apologise.

Updated Stormont lockdown measures currently limit funerals to a maximum of 30 people  having previously been 10.

Friends should only attend when there are no family members of the deceased in attendance, according to the rules and guidance.

The Diocese of Down and Connor has said St Agnes Church should still have been applying the 10-person limit to funerals on Tuesday morning.

The diocese said it was only informed by Stormont officials on Tuesday evening that more numbers could be accommodated.

It is understood that more than 100 people were inside St Agnes for Mr Storeys funeral.

While Stormont is anticipated to sign off guidance that would allow more people to attend a funeral, depending on the size of the church, that move has not yet been announced.

Police have said they are investigating whether there were any breaches of lockdown rules during Tuesdays events.

Ms ONeill has insisted the funeral cortege was limited to 30, while social distancing inside the church was exemplary.

However, she has acknowledged that a selfie taken at the cemetery of her posing close to two men, one of whom had his arm on her shoulder, should not have happened.

She said the photo happened in a blink of an eye as she was leaving the graveside.

On Thursday the SDLP also called for Ms ONeill to step aside and allow her actions to be examined by Assembly standards authorities.

SDLP deputy leader and Stormont infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon said: We always have to show leadership even in the midst of our grief and a lot of hurt has been caused, and I think an apology earlier on would have helped this situation.

The Ulster Unionist Party and Alliance Party have also called for Ms ONeill to stand down.

There was one further coronavirus-linked death reported in Northern Ireland on Thursday, taking the total recorded by the Department of Health to 552.

There were seven new cases of the virus confirmed, bringing the total in the region to 5,768.
Climate Action Minister Eamon Ryan's use of the N-word in the Dail prompted complaints against a new Green Party senator after she used a word that rhymes with the offensive term.

Roisin Garvey used the word 'bigger' while discussing Mr Ryan's gaffe in a Green Party WhatsApp group which led to two complaints against her, a party spokesman confirmed.

Mr Ryan sparked anger among some Green members last month when he uttered the N-word during a debate in the Dail on racism. The Green Party leader later apologised.

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Defending Mr Ryan in a WhatsApp group, Ms Garvey wrote: "My overall take from it was that its [sic] not acceptable to use the word bigger towards black children or adults because it's deeply offensive. I also hear that ye think he should have used the word to highlight this. He has definately [sic] highlighted the use of the word being offensive and an apology will only highlight that further so that's good."

Ms Garvey, a former Clare county councillor who was appointed to the Seanad on Saturday, said yesterday that she used the word 'bigger' as it rhymes with the N-word. She said the complaints were an "over-reaction" and added: "It's young people being enthusiastic and passionate and very PC and that's the way it is. It's not even a story."

However, one of the complainants, Niamh O'Reilly, a party member in East Cork, said the intention to use the word was "wholly unacceptable" and asked the party to reprimand Ms Garvey. The party's general secretary, Maura McMahon, wrote to Ms O'Reilly last month asking if she would be available to speak about the matter by phone.

However, Ms O'Reilly said she decided not to pursue the complaint because "it felt like the burden was on me to justify my issue rather than for the party to respond to it" and feared she could be suspended from the Greens. She said she made the complaint because "using that slur is wrong and it was unacceptable to me".

A party spokesman said last night that there had been two complaints against Ms Garvey, with one resolved after the complainant was put in touch with the senator.

"On the other one, there was no engagement from the complainant and it didn't get resolved," he added.

Ms O'Reilly rejected Ms Garvey's comments about political correctness. "It's not about PC gone mad. It's about people lacking awareness on these issues, and how to respond when they come up," she said.
Queen Elizabeth II does not usually spare her time to call the U.S. President before the Independence Day in the country on July 4.

However, this year marked one of her firsts, as Her Majesty phoned Trump from Windsor Castle where she has been isolating herself since the lockdown.

Through the royal family's Twitter account, it was confirmed that the Queen indeed had a conversation with the U.S. President on Tuesday.

"Today, The Queen spoke to President Trump by telephone from Windsor Castle ahead of Independence Day in the United States on the July 4," the tweet stated.

Furthermore, the account explained that the recent telephone call was the latest in the series of phone calls that Queen Elizabeth II made with several world leaders, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

What's surprising, however, is the fact that Trump has not tweeted about the call yet since he is famous for being his Twitter antics. He also tends to boast about his relationship with Her Majesty, so people found it shocking not to see him share the story on his social media account.

The subject of their conversation has not been shared publicly, but this pre-Independence day call came after controversial reports of Trump's alleged remarks about female leaders.

Trump vs. Female Leaders

According to CNN's Carl Bernstein, one of his sources revealed that Trump called German Chancellor Angela Merkel "stupid."

Bernstein added that the information came straight from the administration members, and the press continuously leaked it.

"Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable," the source said. "He called her 'stupid' and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians."

The insider added that Trump even pointed out how "weak" then-UK prime minister Theresa May was. He also allegedly said that the leader "lacked courage."

The same members of the administration commented on Trump's tone when he discussed several topics with the former British Prime Minister, calling it "humiliating and bullying." Per the source, Trump got upset about something with the PM before he also turned nasty with her during the phone call.

"It's the same interaction in every setting - coronavirus or Brexit - with just no filter applied," the source disclosed.

However, another source then told Sky News that the claims about May's calls with Trump were "patently untrue."

"The conversations weren't always easy because she would disagree with him, but the characterisation of his attitude to her or her response to him is just nonsense, it's patently untrue," the news outlet disclosed.

While it is unknown whether the accusations against Trump are true or not, it is pretty much clear that Queen Elizabeth II is doing her best to maintain good relations with the U.S. Moreover, it is worth noting that the Queen herself has proven that women are great leaders.

READ MORE: Prince Charles Sorrow: The TRUTH Why Camilla Will NEVER Be Queen

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After he was not reappointed as a senior or junior minister, Mr Ring criticised the two Fine Gael politicians for the vote they received.

Speaking to MidWest Radio, the Mayo TD said he received 15,000 first preference votes in Mayo and was the only Fine Gael TD to be elected on the first count .

Leo Varadkar himself only got 8,000 votes and it took him five counts to get elected and Paschal Donohoe and himself between the two of them got 12,000 votes and I beat the two of them together, he said.

There is a new breed of Fine Gael TDs  they come in fast and they go out fast and they dont look after their constituents, he added.

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Mr Ring said he was "born into Fine Gael" and accused unnamed people of using the organisation as a party of convenience.

The long serving TD said he was very disappointed not to be reappointed to Cabinet after his election result.

I felt I had done a very good job, set up a new department, it was a department that was doing very well and it at least showed that the government cared about rural Ireland. What happened last Saturday and again yesterday, this government certainly, certainly doesnt think much of rural Ireland, he said.

I have to be honest, having no senior minister in Connacht, having no senior minister in Clare, having no senior minister in Donegal, it doesnt send out a good message for Fine Gael or Fianna Fail, he added.

He said Fianna Fail has delivered nothing for Mayo and said he was on a lonely road at Cabinet fighting for Rural Ireland.

There were a lot of decisions that wouldnt have been taken if I wasnt there. I worry about the future, he said.

I would just say to the people of Mayo, and to the people of rural Ireland, I will be a voice for them. Im not going away. Im going to be there to express my views and if the Green Party thinks that theyre going to come along and destroy rural Ireland and that Im going to stand idly by, that wont happen.

He said the Greens will need the approval of the Dail to enact policies and said he and other like minded TDs will monitor whats going on.
Chief Whip Dara Calleary arrives for the first Cabinet meeting at Dublin Castle. Photo: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

Fianna Fail deputy Dara Calleary has been given a ministerial boost by being handed responsibility for Sport and the Gaeltacht.

Mr Calleary said he was left disappointed after he was given the junior Cabinet position of Government Chief Whip by Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin.

However, he will also oversee the sport and Gaeltacht elements of Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martins department.

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Ms Martin was appointed as Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht.

The decision to give the extra responsibilities to Mr Calleary follows backlash over his appointment as Chief Whip.

The previous chief whip Sean Kyne was also minister for the Gaeltacht. Mr Calleary who is a gaeilgeoir, will have the added bonus being involved in allocating the Governments sport budget.

Earlier today, John Paul Phelan turned down an offer from Mr Varadkar to serve as deputy Chief Whip.

Mr Phelan served as minister of state in the last government and was close personal ally of Mr Varadkar during the leadership campaign.

It comes as Fianna Fail TD Jim O'Callaghan turned down a role as a junior minister.

Mr O'Callaghan was offered a role as a minister of state with responsibility for law reform in the Department of Justice by the Taoiseach Micheal Martin - but declined the position.

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He said today he believes his energy and abilities will be better used as a backbench TD rather than as a junior member of the government.

In a statement to Independent.ie, the Dublin Bay South TD said: "I was asked this afternoon by an Taoiseach, Micheal Martin TD, to accept an appointment as minister of state in the government. Having thought carefully about this offer I have decided not to accept.

"The reason I am not accepting is because I believe my energy and abilities will be better used as a backbench Fianna Fail TD rather than as a junior member of government.

"At a time when many of our partys senior members will be preoccupied with their ministerial duties, I want to devote more time to strengthening our great party by making it a more attractive option for young voters.

"I also believe Fianna Fail needs strong voices outside government who can ensure that our partys identity can be protected during the term of this coalition government.

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"I wish Micheal and his government every success in the years ahead."

Micheal Martins appointments sparked fury in Fianna Fail on Wednesday night with one of his close allies Michael Moynihan heavily criticising the decision to exclude him.

Mr Moynihan, who has served as Fianna Fail party whip for the last decade, told the Irish Independent: We got two seats in the constituency of Cork North-West in the last election and I did everything humanly possible for the party over the last nine years.

Of course I am disappointed. Not alone has he insulted me, he has insulted the entire community of northwest Cork.

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Meanwhile, former Education Minister Joe McHugh turned down a junior ministry after was told he could not have the European Affairs or Tourism role.

Mr McHugh, who served in Cabinet for three years, was offered his choice of ministries by Tanaiste Leo Varadkar.

The Donegal TD asked for the European Affairs role so he could be involved in addressing the impact of Brexit on his constituency.

However, he was told this portfolio was going to Fianna Fail because Fine Gael has been allocated the senior Foreign Affairs role through Simon Coveney.

Mr McHugh also sought to be appointed as the Minister of State for Sport and Tourism which has been a ministry since 2011. But he was told these functions will not be delegated to a junior minister.

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Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin is the Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht.

Mr McHugh decided not to take any of the other roles and will be remain a backbench TD. Mr Varadkar appointed him as Chief Whip when he was elected Taoiseach before being promoted to the Education Department following a Cabinet reshuffle.

Mr McHugh was told he will be appointed as chair of the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs

In a surprise development Tourism and Sport Minister Brendan Griffin is to be dropped from the ministerial ranks altogether. The Kerry Fine Gael TD was told of his fate by the Tanaiste on Wednesday.

Mr Griffin tweeted: "It has been an honour to serve as Minister of State for Tourism & Sport. I always did my best for everyone & enjoyed working with so many great people. I wish my successor the very best in the difficult times ahead for both sectors & for our country as a whole. Thank you all."

Junior foreign affairs minister Ciaran Cannon has also been told he will not be retained. On Twitter, the Galway East TD said has been a truly life affirming experience" to work in the Department of Foreign Affairs over the last three years.

"Together we made a difference. I wish my former colleagues and now lifelong friends every success in the valuable work that they do," he wrote.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan's choice of his three junior ministers created new anger among some sections of the Green Party.

Two people who played a leading role in the coalition negotiations, Brian Leddin of Limerick and Marc O Cathasaigh of Waterford, had been tipped for junior ministries and were overlooked in favour of appointees who have more elected political experience.

"The problem is that both Leddin and O Cathasaigh were led to believe they were 'in' - when they were not. That is not good," one source said.

Speaking this evening An Taoiseach Micheal Martin said,

I want to take this opportunity to wish the newly appointed Ministers of State well in their various portfolios. They bring a range of talent and ability to their Ministries and will act with determination and passion.

Ireland faces great challenges as we emerge from the Covid-19 crisis. A difficult path lies ahead but the government will work collectively to engineer an economic and social recovery.

This government reflects the shared future that each party has signed up for. We are ambitious in our plans and the appointment of the Ministers of State reflects our priorities for the five years.

The Ministers of State will play a key role in the delivery of the Programme for Government, and will ensure that no sector is left behind.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to progress our common goal of a fairer, more equal Ireland.

Full list of appointments made:

Fine Gael Ministers of State

Colm Brophy - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Overseas Development Aid and Diaspora)

Josepha Madigan - Department of Education and Skills (Special Education and Inclusion)

Peter Burke - Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government (Local Government and Planning)

Frank Feighan - Department of Health (Public Health, Well Being and National Drugs Strategy)

Martin Heydon - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Research & Development/ Farm Safety/ New Market Development)

Damien English - Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (Employment Affairs); and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation (Retail Businesses). Following the formal reconfiguration of Departments, Minister of State English will be assigned to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Patrick ODonovan - Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (OPW)

Fianna Fail Ministers of State

Anne Rabbitte - Department of Health and the Department of Justice and Equality (Disability). Following the formal reconfiguration of Departments, Minister of State Rabbitte will be assigned to the Department of Children, Disability, Equality and Integration.

Niall Collins - Department of Education and Skills (Skills and Further Education). Following the formal reconfiguration of Departments, Minister of State Collins will be assigned to the Department of Higher Education, Innovation and Science.

Robert Troy - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Trade Promotion). Following the formal reconfiguration of Departments, Minister of State Troy will be assigned to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Mary Butler - Department of Health (Mental Health and Older People)

Jack Chambers - Department of Finance (Financial Services, Credit Unions and Insurance)

Charlie McConalogue - Department of Justice and Equality (Law Reform)

Thomas Byrne - Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (EU Affairs)

Green Party Ministers of State

Malcolm Noonan - Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (Heritage); and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government (Electoral Reform). Following the formal reconfiguration of Departments, Minister of State Noonan will be assigned to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

Ossian Smyth - Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (Public Procurement and eGovernment)

Joe O'Brien - Department of Rural and Community Development (Community Development and Charities)

The Government previously appointed Senator Pippa Hackett to be Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Hildegarde Naughton, TD to be Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.
Mary Lou McDonald and Sinn Fein TDs and officials are facing calls to stay away from the Dail for two weeks after they attended former IRA member Bobby Storey's funeral.

Ms McDonald, her predecessor Gerry Adams, deputy leader Michelle O'Neill and a number of Sinn Fein TDs and MLAs, including Pearse Doherty, attended the funeral of Mr Storey, a senior figure in the republican movement, in west Belfast which drew a reported crowd of around 1,800 people on Tuesday.

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The large attendance came despite official guidance in the North restricting the numbers who can attend funerals to 30 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The PSNI is reviewing footage of the funeral for any suspected breaches of regulations.

Sinn Fein mounted a robust defence of its actions yesterday amid mounting criticism.

The North's First Minister, Arlene Foster, called on Deputy First Minister Ms O'Neill to apologise. However, Ms O'Neill told MLAs she stood by her actions.

Mr Doherty said he would not advise anyone attending the funeral to quarantine. "Neither would I encourage people who went to Tesco yesterday to quarantine either," he added.

However, Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail has been asked to request that anyone who attended the funeral in west Belfast stays away from Leinster House for the next 14 days in line with public health advice.

Fine Gael senator Garret Ahearn has written to the Dail chairman saying such a request is "in the interest of everybody's health and safety". He wrote: "It would be extremely regrettable if a cluster of Covid-19 cases was created in Leinster House because some members travelled to Belfast."

Prior to the letter being sent, Mr O Fearghail told the Irish Independent: "It would be inappropriate for me to comment on something of this nature beyond saying I would expect all members of the Oireachtas to adhere in full to the Nphet guidelines."

Ms O'Neill told MLAs she stands by her actions and made it clear she would not be quitting over the controversy. She also declined to apologise to anyone who might have contracted Covid-19 as a result of being among the crowds.

She told members of Stormont's Executive Committee that the things the organisers could control - such as the size of the cortege and the numbers inside the church - were observed.

Ms O'Neill, who described much of the criticism aimed at her as "political point-scoring", said she would continue in her role as joint head of the devolved administration.

However, she said a selfie photograph that was taken of her and two other attendees at the funeral "should not have happened". She said it happened in the "blink of an eye" at the close of the commemoration at Milltown Cemetery.

Ms Foster, the DUP leader, said the executive's public health message had been damaged by what unfolded at the funeral.

A Sinn Fein spokesman said last night that Ms McDonald would not be commenting on the controversy.

Mr Doherty told RTE's 'SixOne News' there had been engagement with the PSNI and the church to comply with social-distancing guidelines, with numbers restricted inside the church and in the funeral cortege. "I believe the family and the local organisers did everything in their power to abide by the restrictions in place," he said.

The North's Health Minister, Robin Swann, has said he believes Mr Storey's funeral breached Covid-19 restrictions around mass gatherings.
Long serving Fianna Fail TD Willie ODea has launched a scathing attack on newly elected Taoiseach Micheal Martin for failing to appoint a minister from Limerick City.

Mr ODea said he is "bitterly disappointed" for the residents of Limerick City who "feel let down and grossly insulted" that neither a senior nor junior minister was appointed from the area.

Writing on Twitter on the Limerick TD said: "The third city of the Republic and economic driver of the Mid-West has been completely overlooked for either senior or Junior Ministerial appointments."

"I have been inundated with messages from people who feel let down and grossly insulted. There are three Government TDs out of four in Limerick City, yet Micheal Martin has felt it appropriate to insult all the people of Limerick City with this decision. It's strange if he thinks that we can deliver three out of four after this," he added.

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Speaking to Independent.ie, Mr ODea said his family asked him not to run in the last election but he put his name forward for an eleventh general election to ensure Fianna Fail held a seat in the city.

The former Cabinet minister also said Mr Martins treatment of Jim OCallaghan was "despicable".

He said both Dara Calleary and Michael Moynihan were "treated shabbily" by the Fianna Fail leader.

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"Anyone who casually discards their friends and supporters so easily will find that one day when they look behind for support there will be no one there," Mr ODea said.

Mr OCallaghan was offered the role of Minister of State for Law Reform but turned down the offer.

Mr Calleary has spoken out about his disappointment of not being appointed a full ministry despite being the partys leader.

Mr Moynihan, who has served as Fianna Fail whip under Mr Martins tenure, also said he felt insulted by Mr Martin after he was offered no role in the new government.

Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath rejected Mr O'Dea's claim that the treatment of some Fianna Fail TDs in the allocation of ministries was "despicable" and "shabby".

He said Mr Martin and the other leaders had "incredibly difficult decisions to make" particularly as it was three parties appointing ministers and there are a limited number of positions available. He said he didn't envy the choices they had to make.

Mr McGrath said:: "There is great talent across all three parties and there are a lot of disappointed people.

"That is the reality of politics. It's a tough business."

He added: "Some people have spoken out, others havent.

"We all just have to get on with the job that we have ahead of us and I'm sure everybody will put their shoulder to the wheel because whether they be serving on an Oireachtas committee, be a chairperson of a committee or indeed be a back bench TD, everybody will have a role to play."

"We have a huge job of work ahead in trying to rebuild the Irish economy."

Fianna Fail TD James Lawless also expressed disappointment that he was not given a junior ministerial role in the new Department of Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science having been an opposition spokesman on the issue and campaigned for the creation of the new department for the last four years.

Mr Lawless was overlooked as Limerick TD Niall Collins was given the role of junior minister in the Department that his headed by Fine Gael's Simon Harris.

The Kildare North TD told Independent.ie: "I was surprised not to receive a call. I am concerned from the science, technology and research sector's point of view. I've been getting calls all morning from senior stakeholders expressing surprise that I didn't receive an appointment and having advocated for the sector to have a new department, it does grate with me not to have been assigned responsibilities in it.

"Higher education has been neglected over many years and is in dire-straits and really needs a strong champions. I wish the two ministers well but on a personal level I am disappointed not to be part of that team given I advocated for that sector for four years and would have a strong understanding of it."
(left to right) Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill arrive at St Agnes' Church in west Belfast for the funeral of senior Irish Republican and former leading IRA figure Bobby Storey : Liam McBurney/PA Wire

SINN Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has said no one should be punished for attending the funeral of former leading IRA figure Bobby Storey.

Ms McDonald said Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill would not be stepping aside while the PSNI investigates suspected breaches of Covid-19 social distancing rules at the funeral of Mr Storey.

The Dublin Central TD said she did not have any regrets or feel the need to apologise for her actions on Tuesday and that she was pleased to have the opportunity to say goodbye to a friend of mine.

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It comes amid growing pressure at Stormont with all four parties in the Northern Ireland Executive aside from Sinn Fein - the DUP, the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists and Alliance - calling for Ms O'Neill to step aside temporarily.

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Ms McDonald, her predecessor Gerry Adams, Ms O'Neill and a number of Sinn Fein TDs and MLAs, including Pearse Doherty, attended the funeral of Mr Storey in west Belfast which drew a reported crowd of around 1,800 people on Tuesday.

Ms McDonald defended her partys actions at Leinster House on Thursday. I am very clear that everybody in politics, particularly in the North, those leading the executive, still have a very considerable job to do.

We need to get our children back to school. We need to get people back to college and university. We need to get people back to work safely and that work is underway, but it's not finished yet.

And no, I don't think anybody should be punished or asked to step aside or step down because they attended the funeral of their friend.

Ms McDonald said she was very honoured to be asked to attend the funeral mass and she was one of a very small number who did a reading.

She added: There was a limited cortege. There were numbers lining the streets, this is the problem when somebody is a public figure or where somebody dies in very tragic circumstances and very difficult circumstances, people will come out to pay their respects.

I believe those organising the funeral did their very best to maintain social distancing, but I also know that public sentiment when it's somebody whose known and admired and loved, or somebody who loses their life in very tragic circumstances, people will come out to pay their respects.

So I think there needs to be, above all else in this circumstance, absolute thoughts and sensitivity to the families in question.

She said she would not have been in a position to do that had the funeral been a week earlier due to travel restrictions Ms McDonald said that if she were Taoiseach she would of course still go to the funerals of people who were friends of hers. She said thousands of people didnt travel to the funeral and watched it online.

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Responding to earlier criticism from Tanaiste Leo Varadkar of Ms ONeills attendance at Saturdays sitting of the Dail, Ms McDonald said it was entirely appropriate for her to be there as the leader of a national party.

She said that others from other political parties travelled to Dublin at the weekend from beyond the island of Ireland.

Ms McDonald was speaking as she unveiled Sinn Feins frontbench team with the most notable change seeing Waterford TD David Cullinane replacing Louise OReilly as health spokesperson. Ms OReilly becomes enterprise spokesperson, shadowing Mr Varadkar.

The party has also promoted a number of first-time TDs including Mairead Farrell who becomes public expenditure spokesperson; Matt Carthy, who takes the agriculture brief; Rose Conway Walsh, who will shadow Simon Harris in higher education; and Darren ORourke, who will mark Climate Action Minister Eamon Ryan.

Ms McDonald has made popular Donegal TD Padraig Mac Lochlainn the new Sinn Fein chief whip.
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has criticised Sinn Fein leader in the North Michelle ONeill for travelling from Belfast to Dublin for the vote on the Taoiseach last weekend.

Mr Varadkar said he did not want to comment directly on the controversy surrounding the funeral of Republican Bobby Storey.

However, the Tanaiste said politicians should lead by example and adhere to the rules and regulations they expect the public follow.

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I do think there was a huge contrast in what we saw last Saturday, where the Taoiseach Micheal Martin became Taoiseach and his family could not travel from cork to be with him, he said.

In contrast, Michelle ONeill turned up for the photo-op. It does show a different attitude to public health. Sinn Fein are different to other parties but not in a good way, he said.

The PSNI are currently investigating whether any rules were broken by those involved in Mr Storeys funeral.

Meanwhile, the DUP has also called for Ms O'Neill to stand down as Stormont deputy first minister while the police investigate alleged social distancing breaches at Mr Storey's funeral.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson claimed that Sinn Fein has "failed to read the public mood on this."

"I think now is the time to step up and demonstrate respect and integrity," he told the BBC.

"The law on these matters is clear and what happened at that funeral has sent out a very, very bad message to people in Northern Ireland.

"In light of the failure of Sinn Fein yesterday to grasp the opportunity to apologise, it is our view that the deputy first minister must now step back from her role while these matters are investigated by the PSNI.

"We will be asking the standards authorities in the Assembly to examine whether those MLAs who attended the funeral broke the code of conduct for MLAs, and we will also be asking the PSNI to specifically investigate any potential regulatory breaches by executive ministers including the deputy first minister.

"Given the seriousness of this situation, given the need to rebuild public confidence, given the need to have clarity in the Executive message on Covid-19 and the risk to the public, then yes that's what we believe should now happen."

A Sinn Fein spokesperson said: "Michelle O'Neill will not be stepping aside as deputy First Minister under any circumstances.

"The funeral of Bobby Storey was organised in accordance with his grieving family's wishes.

"The organisers did everything they could to ensure regulations were met and if it was not for the plan that organisers put in place with the PSNI to limit numbers then there would have been even bigger numbers in attendance."

Separately, Mr Varadkar defended his decision to overlook some of his key allies when allocating ministries of State.

He his authority has absolutely not being damaged by appointing TDs above people who were central to his leadership campaign.

In terms of the appointments that I made as leader of Fine Gael, we had to go from something like 28 ministers, a very unusual situation, down to what would be more normal in a coalition something like 14, he said.

I picked the best people for the job, obviously you have to take into account issues like geography and gender and so on but the overriding consideration was the best people for the job, he added.

The Taoiseach said former Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy asked not to appointed as a minister.

I had a few drinks with Eoghan last night. We're still very good friends and he's full of ideas and thoughts for the future, he added.

Mr Varadkar said he and former Education Minister Joe McHugh are good friends who go a long way back.

He said Mr McHugh wanted a European Affairs role but this was not possible as the position was allocated to Fianna Fail.

Instead, the Donegal TD will be appointed chair of the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs.

Mr Varadkar said Wexford senator Michael DArcy would have been a minister but unfortunately he didn't hold a seat.
TOURISTS may feel like they're on the set of Darby O'Gill and the Little People when they encounter coronavirus pub rules that mean they must buy a substantial meal for at least 9, the Dail has been told.

The chairman of the Dail's Special Committee on Covid-19 Michael McNamara made the remarks as he branded the rules as "farcical" in an exchange with Failte Ireland boss Paul Kelly.

Independent Clare TD Mr McNamara asked: "Do you think it will come as a surprise to tourists from abroad  the few that do make it here  that a substantial meal will somehow protect them from Covid-19?

"Or do you think theres a risk that they might think theyre coming onto the set of Darby OGill and the Little People or something like that?," a reference to a 1950s Disney film featuring Leprechauns.

Mr Kelly said that the the pubs that are currently able to open are only allowed to do so because of the "blurred distinction" between restaurants and pubs that serve food.

He said: "The substantial meal of 9 which was set in legislation  per person  is basically an indicator that that is a pub acting like a restaurant and serving food like a restaurant and that is in in place until 20th of July."

Mr McNamara asked if Failte Ireland is policing this.

He was told that premises are being assessed by the Health and Safety Authority, the HSE and Failte Ireland to ensure compliance with health and safety guidelines.

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Mr McNamara said: "Its a bit farcical. I know that we specialise in farce and theatre and that sort of stuff but I wouldnt like my livelihood determined by such farce".

Mr Kelly said there has been "high compliance" with public health rules as the economy reopens but if a pub is serving a packet of crisps for 9 they're not compliant with the regulations.

"This is about creating a safe environment for people to be able to go out," he added.

Mr McNamara asked about whether musicians are allowed and how they would make a pub less safe if they're not.

Mr Kelly said "it is not the presence of the musicians or any other profession its about how does the crowd react and how do you draw the line around that... and how do you manage the situation."

Earlier, Mr Kelly told the Dail's Covid-19 probe that the pandemic has had a "catastrophic" effect on the tourism sector.

He said that it "dwarfs any previous crises".

The sector has been shut down since March and has suffered four months with no revenue in that time.

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Meanwhile, he said businesses in tourism and hospitality have incurred estimated costs of 1bn.

He said the agency is "delighted" the industry is reopening but warned of the loss of revenue from overseas visitors.

Mr Kelly said the blanket 14 day self-isolation requirement effectively writes off over 70pc of revenue.

He said: "We simply must find a way to facilitate the planning for and the re-opening of access for overseas tourism as soon and as fast as public health considerations can allow."

Mr Kelly added: "In addition to the lack of overseas revenue, the capacity restrictions imposed by social distancing measures and the challenges to domestic demand created by health and economic concerns will depress revenue levels."

He outlined supports Failte Ireland has put in place and how an advertising campaign has been launched to encourage Irish people to holiday at home.

In response to questions from Fine Gael's Jennifer Carroll MacNeill he said the Ireland, Make a Break for It campaign has cost around 1.5m.

He said it's difficult to predict the expected return to the tourism sector but in general such campaigns see 10 spent by tourists for every 1 spent on the advertising.
Almost 20 members of one family have tested positive for coronavirus after a gathering to mark the one-month anniversary of a relative who died from the illness.

The family, who live in a small Border village, lost an elderly relative four weeks ago and some of the extended family recently got together to commemorate her passing.

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The virus is believed to have spread among those who gathered, who returned to their respective households and passed it on to other family members, including several young children.

It comes as figures show the number of clusters being detected in private households is rising rapidly.

Figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HSPC) show an 87pc increase in the number of clusters in private dwellings in the last week.

There were 390 outbreaks attributed to private households on June 21, compared to 728 cases one week later on June 28.

A cluster is defined as two or more people being infected with the disease in one location.

Dr Jack Lambert, a specialist in infectious diseases at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, said the public needs to "get back to basics" when it comes to preventing infection.

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"There is a lot of talk about bringing Covid in from other countries but there is still Covid in Ireland," he said.

"But there are still infections among people who haven't travelled and that continues to be a risk.

"As soon as we let down our guard, be it with social distancing, or handwashing, or wearing masks, then it's a no-brainer that the infections will flare up again.

"We need to get back to basics. If you are in a family gathering all of the basics apply.

"If you are congregating and not socially distancing and there is one person in the room who has Covid and doesn't know it then everyone in the room is going to get it. That's what's happening already."

As the country reopens, Dr Lambert warned that public complacency could lead to further spikes.

"This is a new virus that we don't know exactly how contagious it is," he said.

"One person can spread it to three others. One person with no symptoms can spread it to 10 other people.

"They are considered super transmitters, but we don't know how common that is.

"They may not be super-spreaders because it's happening more frequently than we know.

"The point is that we don't know, and everyone has a personal responsibility.

"As we open up, we need to re-enforce the basics, hand-washing, covering the mouth, wearing masks, because the flare-ups are going to happen and we need to keep them to a minimum," he added.

Public health officials have warned that though the overall number of cases continues to fall, the virus is moving into household settings.

Speaking when an increasing number of clusters began to appear in households last month, deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said: "We know from experience internationally again, that as you drive down the spread of the virus you're going to see more in private households."

Dr Glynn called for people to isolate themselves and contact their GP if suspected Covid-19 symptoms are present in their households.

At a recent briefing, HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said that the increase in the number of household coronavirus clusters was "a worry".

He said that even though the rate of transmission of the virus was low in the community, there were still outbreaks of the virus and it can cause harm particularly to vulnerable people.

Dr Henry urged people to continue to follow public health guidance on social distancing and the need to avoid congregated settings as the country reopens from lockdown restrictions.
It does not take long for someone to come out and say Kim Kardashian has questionable ethics after she reached her billionaire status.

Kardashian's billionaire status received flak after Kanye West bragged about it and claimed she is blessed by God with this new wealth. Some report that it is not true that she's a billionaire already.

This time, the backlash comes from Kim Kardashian's alleged ex-employee. According to Jessica DeFino, she did not get a dime richer working for the mogul. In fact, she's worse off than many, having to scrape together her money just to buy food. Even if she attempts to get other jobs or freelancing work on the side, Kim Kardashian and her family made sure that was impossible.

Very few women would say not to working with a mogul, more so if it is someone as popular as Kim Kardashian. The chance to work closely with her, and even probably sight the rest of the Kardashian-Jenner family is certainly a perk. but that does not mean she should be paid less than what is reasonable.

According to DeFino, she was paid so badly that she cannot even provide for her own needs! Instead of complaining about it, she tried to be wise about it and pick up extra work to support her income. But the beauty reporter found it shocking that she was even reprimanded by the Kardashian family for doing that.

Jessica took to Twitter on Tuesday, just hours when it was reported by Kim Kardashian is the newest billionaire after 20% of her makeup company was sold to cosmetics giant Coty.

The former employee is not grouching at Kim Kardashian's success at becoming a billionaire though. Instead, she hit out at the reality star for even bragging about all the horses she possesses, which are all over her massive Wyoming ranch. Kim wrote, "Meet North's Freesian horse. We have 14 gorgeous Freesians on the ranch.

DeFino retweeted this and added a scathing caption of her own. Although she did put a lot of heart emojis on her tweet, which made the complaint appear more sarcastic. She said she had to buy her groceries at the 99 Cents Only Store, during her stint as an editor of Kardashian-Jenner Official Apps. She then said she was given a reprimand for trying to freelance on the side.

Someone supported her claim and added her own Kardashian family horror story. Elizabeth Denton replied to Jessica's tweet and said she was asked to do a 10-page edit test, on Christmas Eve no less, and then just ghosted her. This means she did not get paid for her efforts on that special night.

It does not appear that Jessica is making this app just to ride on all the hype surrounding Kardashian's new billionaire status. She did not suddenly project herself as Kim's ex-employee out of the blue. Her Linkedin page claims between May 2015 and July 2016, she was the assistant editor of Khloe Kardashian Official App. But still, her work revolved around all 5 Kardashian Official apps.

Her work details reveal she was the one who created and ghostwrote all the content found in Khloe Kardashian + Kendall Jenner Apps across sites and social media. With her talent at email and newsletter marketing, all 5 apps were monetarily successful!

If this is truly the case, the Kardashian-Jenner family certainly did her wrong. More so considering their wealth, even before Kim Kardashian became an official millionaire.

Now that a Californian manufacturer of beauty products has filed two lawsuits against Coty and Kim Kardashian-West and Kylie Jenner, who became billionaires because of their tie-ups, it remains to be seen if Kim's billionaire status will hold for so long. According to the manufacturer, their recent tie-ups tantamount to a theft of its trade secrets.

READ MORE: Kanye West 'Disgusting,' Singer 'Idiot' For Supportingt Kim Kardashian?

See Now: Famous Actors Who Turned Down Iconic Movie Roles
Warm feelings that retailers and small businesses had about finally getting the economy reopened again are starting to turn decidedly cool.

Hairdressers and other businesses are only getting to reopen this week but there will be little real euphoria.

I walked around Dublin city centre last Saturday for the first time since mid-March. Admittedly it was a wet day, but the place had an eerie emptiness.

Shops were open but not only was there virtually nobody in them, there were only a handful of people on the streets as potential candidates to go in. They were all losing money last Saturday.

No tourists. No events. Few buses.

On a wider macro-level, many small businesses are realising fully how close to the brink many of them are.

The tourism and hospitality sector, working hard to prepare for reopening, knows only too well just how tough the road ahead is.

Coronavirus cases are on the rise in 29 US states. Leicester city in England prepares for a new lockdown. China is seeing its case load rise again.

Banks are tightening their lending criteria for mortgage applicants, which will consign many people to overpriced rents for years to come. Banks also want a government credit guarantee scheme in place quickly, because they know they cannot lend into the current SME market unassisted in absorbing risk.

So, everybody is looking for something. Only this time, they aren't just crying about looking for more. They really need help.

Against this backdrop we have a new Government, a new Cabinet and a newly configured set of departments.

The re-jigging of departments is designed more to facilitate personnel in an awkward three-party consensus than the best way to organise the machinery of government.

Public Expenditure and Reform is stripped out from Finance again. Why, other than to facilitate a rotating finance minister position?

Tourism, our largest indigenous employer, has been shunted away from an economic portfolio and in with Sport again.

The last time this happened, during the boom-era Fianna Fail/Green coalition, tourism failed to get the attention it deserved. Tourism at this time, employing hundreds of thousands of people, needs enormous attention as an industry, not a pastime.

Community and Rural Development is in with Social Welfare, in what looks like another bizarre shunting at a time when rural Ireland faces fresh challenges from Brexit, a recession, a collapsed tourism industry and likely cutbacks in expenditure on key programmes.

A lot has been made of the absence of a full Cabinet minister for the entire province of Connacht, along with Clare and Donegal. This is a massive, albeit accidental snub to a huge portion of the population. It is an early blunder by the party leaders of the new Government.

Of course ministers should be chosen on talent and of course not every county can have a minister. However, this is a loss for a large swathe of the population which does share common challenges - such as infrastructure deficits, broadband, unique challenges around the collapse of tourism, and a tougher impact from a hard Brexit.

It is interesting that the city and county of Cork has 18 elected TDs and the entire province of Connacht has just 19.

It is patronising to suggest that this shortfall can be covered by junior ministers. It is ridiculous to think that junior ministers have any real power compared to Cabinet ministers running budgeted departments and sitting at the top table.

Among the three Government parties are 84 TDs to appease with a total of 35 ministerial jobs (20 juniors and 15 seniors). That is not far off one in two.

Yet no big job went west from Clare to Donegal.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to examine so much, but specific costed policies are thinner on the ground.

The first big challenge for the Government will be deciding whether to proceed with direct financial supports for SMEs.

SME groups believe that firms need a 15bn bailout, not 15bn of loans. The tourism sector alone believes it needs at least 1.5bn of direct supports, including 1bn in grants. If these are not found, many businesses will go to the wall.

This will have a direct impact on liquidations, bank defaults, jobs and a lack of corporate infrastructure to try to generate economic recovery.

The Government knows it could end up providing financial support to businesses which will go bust anyway.

Governments like to exaggerate their role in bringing about economic growth and job creation. The last Programme for Government had a huge emphasis on rebalancing urban/rural divides. This one is off to a shaky start.
There were more refusals for a jig than you'd get at a ceili.

Jim O'Callaghan, Joe McHugh and John-Paul Phelan all turned down offers of roles in government in the junior ministerial jaunt. The appointments of the second string followed the bungled Cabinet selection, where the new government forgot to include the west of Ireland. Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Tanaiste Leo Varadkar have sought to compensate with several junior ministers down the Atlantic seaboard. Here are the topics to emerge:

Fianna Fail dissidents have been holding out for a hero to stand up to Micheal Martin for years, with nobody coming along. Now Big Jim O'Callaghan appears to have stepped forth. The Dublin Bay South Senior Counsel and TD has turned down a gig as the junior minister for justice in charge of law reform saying his energy and abilities will be better used on the backbenches.

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Notably, O'Callaghan believes the party needs strong voices outside government "to ensure that our partys identity can be protected". The grapevine has caught fire as the Mr Big of the party in Dublin has marked his leader's card. The first shots of the next leadership battle have been fired. Danger here. O'Callaghan now looks set to hit the chicken 'n' chips circuit of party gatherings. Coincidentally, not taking the junior ministry also allows Big Jim to continue his work as a Senior Counsel in the courts.

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All noisy on the Western front

After the ri ra and ruaille buaille around the Cabinet minister appointments, there was plenty of attention on who would be appointed from the west of Ireland to join Dara Calleary of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael's Hildegarde Naughton. Fianna Fail's Anne Rabbitte from Galway East finally got a call up, along with Fianna Fail colleague Charlie McConalogue in Donegal and Niall Collins in Limerick County.

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Fine Gael's Frank Feighan in Sligo-Leitrim, joined Fine Gael's Patrick O'Donovan in Limerick County. The stretch from Limerick to Letterkenny has the same number as ministers as the last time with seven. However, none of then hold full Cabinet portfolios as the last government had Michael Ring in Rural Affairs and Joe McHugh in Education.

Fianna Fail's abandoned soldiers

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How appropriate Dunkirk is on the telly tonight. Like the troops left behind on the beaches, those Fianna Fail Soldiers of Destiny who fought hard in the trenches for the last decade now find themselves abandoned to their fate. There were no jobs for the old guard of Eamon O Cuiv, Brendan Smith and Willie O'Dea. But likewise, Marc MacSharry, Michael Moynihan, Sean Fleming, Niamh Smyth and Sean Haughey are among the established names left out, while James Lawless, James Browne and Jackie Cahill had reason to fancy their chances.

Feighan finally

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Frank Feighan's political career appeared to be over after he endured a torrid time over the downgrading of Roscommon Hospital. After conceding his seat in Roscommon, he went back into the Seanad and then moved to the new constituency of Sligo-Leitrim, where his wife, Elaine, hails from and the couple now live with their two children. Feighan was the last of Enda Kenny's final frontbench from the days in opposition to be made a minister - a point he has made to his colleagues. He now gets his chance as Minister of State.

Choir Boys final chorus

Leo Varadkar showed any remaining debts from his leadership campaign were long paid off last week and this week he has ditched several key supporters. Former Fine Gael TD Kate O'Connell described those backing Varadkar as "choirboys that are singing for their supper". She didn't name anyone, in particular, but Eoghan Murphy, Brendan Griffin and John-Paul Phelan were surely in the pews, but are now all gone as ministers.

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The Tanaiste has also sent a message to ministers that airtime does matter. Fine Gael had over 30 ministers in the last Dail, yet all too often it fell to backbenchers Martin Heydon, Peter Burke and Colm Brophy to go out to bat for the party when there was trouble. All three are now junior ministers. New TDs will get the hint fast.

Mullingar bares its teeth

Dustin the Turkey offended Niall Horan fans on RTE Comic Relief by declaring: "We wanted Harry Styles! You're only getting a minute-and-a-half! I didn't realise people from Mullingar had teeth!" Not only do they have teeth in the Westmeath town, but they now have two junior ministers.

Fine Gael's Peter Burke is the Minister of State in the Department of Housing with responsibility for Planning and Local Government and Fianna Fail's Robert Troy is the Minister of State in the Department of Business, Enterprise & Innovation. Mullingar now rivals Greystones with Cabinet ministers Stephen Donnelly and Simon Harris and Carrigaline with Michael McGrath and Simon Coveney.

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Mind the gender gap

Added to Super Junior Ministers, Hildegarde Naughton and Pippa Hackett, there were another three women appointed today: Fianna Fail's Mary Butler and Anne Rabbitte and Fine Gael's Josepha Madigan. It means just five of the 20 junior ministers are women.

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However, there was no place for Greens finance spokesperson Neasa Hourigan. The Green rebels immediately poured scorn on the move. Green councillor Lorna Bogue said it was "actually pretty sexist" that a finance position didn't go to the female finance spokesperson and was given to a man with a completely unrelated portfolio - a reference to Ossian Smyth becoming the junior at public expenditure. Cllr Bogue said she was very disappointed to see such "overt sexism" against women in politics from the Green Party - "for all our talk of equality".

Kingdom come

With Fine Gael's Brendan Griffin discarded as a junior minister, Education Minister Norma Foley is the undisputed leader of the Kingdom. The Fianna Fail TD declared to 'The Kerryman': "Well I'm a Minister from Kerry, and I was elected by the people of Kerry. I will always work to make sure the interests of Kerry and Tralee are heard at cabinet." Out the window goes the Government message about leading for all the people.

Expand Close Minister Foley settles into her new office on her first full day as Minister for Education. Photo Twitter / Facebook

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Meanwhile, in the minister's national role, the Department of Education published its health advice for schools, recommending a 1m social distance for pupils at both primary and post-primary. It's likely to mean not every pupil attending on every day. The minister might be better off hiding out in Tralee, away from angry parents across the country.
ALONG with every parent I know, my blood ran cold reading the latest public health guidance on reopening schools because, instead of a sense of urgency and determination, zero reassurance was offered.

At primary level, the new guidance produced by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre says a distance of one metre should be maintained. At secondary, distancing of at least one metre - two metres, if possible - should be allowed.

To me, this represents 99 problems and not a can-do attitude. Under these rules, clearly not all students will be able to return.

Children are supposed to be going back to school in eight weeks' time, and anxiety is rising.

Parents are at the end of their rope after what has been the ultimate juggle over the past four months. The only announcements we want right now are positive ones.

Last month, the Department of Education cautioned in a report that any form of physical distancing would lead to many students being forced to attend school on a part-time basis.

Parents took this warning in good faith, as a statement of what the Government absolutely does not want to happen and now this interim report has blasted any hope into smithereens.

Other countries, such as Germany and France, plan to abandon social distancing at the start of the new school year and we had been led to believe that this would be the case here.

There are reasons why I find the latest guidance absurd. Here are the ones that jump out.

Teacher vulnerability

There will be very few vulnerable adult teachers. Views on asthma have changed in that only those at the very severe end are at risk. Pregnancy is only an issue if you have heart disease - again, very rare. Most teachers are female (85pc at primary) who carry half the risk that men do, and all under-45s are very low-risk anyway. Of course, everybody is at some degree of risk from Covid-19 until a vaccine is found. However, providing they have no underlying health issues, the risk to the majority of the workforce is pretty small. Absolute clarity will be needed regarding identification of vulnerable teachers, with the necessary arrangements made for them. Otherwise the unions may start making general directives to protect members that will act against the best interests of the wider community - kids and parents.

Stating the obvious

This guidance admits small children are unlikely to keep their distance from anyone, so has recommended no social distancing for second class and under. Apart from stating the obvious, its also an observation that exists in a strange, alternate reality where social distancing is actually happening with other kids. My children have been at parties, in playgrounds, on playdates and from next week will be at camps and there is zero social distancing going on. For teenagers, ditto. I see my nephews spending all day in their friends' homes and hanging out in parks.

Parents are running on empty

Parents have been unbelievably stretched and are exhausted. I know two mothers who will have to give up part-time work for the simple reason that our school wont be running after-school clubs. Throw in the possibility of blended learning and this is going to seal the deal for many others, because what we have learned is that online learning is a disaster. It does not lend itself to socialisation and meaningful assessment and requires full-time parental supervision.

Where technology is required, there will often be problems

There are technology issues - we had one Zoom call a week for my fifth-class child during lockdown, but three times his teacher was unable to deliver this due to broadband issues.

Teachers are parents too, you know

Many teachers have children of primary-school age, so who is going to look after them when they are at home engaging in so-called blended learning?

Children and parents deserve clear guidelines, not vague whisperings. This is supposed to be interim guidance and our new Minister for Education, Norma Foley, has said it is not definitive. With Ms Foley's comment in mind, there remains hope that all kids will go back to school full-time. The alternative is too hard to accept and wont be taken lying down.

Expect protests in the streets if there is a hint that a full return is not happening.

All I am hearing from teacher friends is growling in the manger. For instance, over the Easter holidays a school in Dublin tried to run training for teachers that focused on delivering remote learning. However, the unions said no can do.

This is not good enough. Anything less than a full return for all children would be unconscionable. Its time the teaching unions accepted that there is a greater good and its not time for nitpicking.
THE decision by Mary Lou McDonald and senior Sinn Fein figures to attend the funeral of former IRA man Bobby Storey earlier this week has sparked a political crisis at Stormont and no shortage of anger across the island.

This story has resonance with the wider public because so many people have been forced to endure the pain of being unable to attend loved ones funerals in recent months as a result of the severe, unprecedented but necessary public health restrictions.

McDonald and others in Sinn Fein argue that because restrictions are being relaxed and certain protocols were followed, there was no issue with the scenes in West Belfast on Tuesday where hundreds and perhaps thousands lined the streets to pay their respects to Mr Storey.

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Michelle ONeill, the Norths Deputy First Minister, posed for selfies, Ms McDonald was snapped in some pictures too, while Pearse Doherty made the bizarre claim yesterday that the reported 1,800 people who attended engaged in social distancing.

The PSNI is taking it seriously enough to have launched an investigation into suspected breaches of Covid-19 social-distancing rules.

Ms ONeill has been asked to stand aside by the Norths First Minister, DUP leader Arlene Foster, while this happens, but the Sinn Fein deputy leader has so far refused. A motion of no confidence has been tabled in the Assembly.

This is not dividing along nationalist and unionist lines. The SDLP and the Alliance Party have also called for Ms ONeill to step aside.

It has marred McDonalds first few days as leader of the main opposition party in the Dail. Yesterday she announced her new frontbench team amid questions over this controversy. She did not apologise, nor did she express any regrets or feel the need to.

This is familiar territory for Sinn Fein, which once again finds itself strenuously defending its position, not willing to consider that it might have made a major error and throwing in a bit of whataboutery for good measure.

Some of the partys TDs are privately pointing out that Government ministers attended the funeral of Detective Garda Colm Horkan last month - an example trotted out by an army of Sinn Fein activists on social media in recent days. .

Ms McDonald herself made reference to the late Mr Horkans funeral on RTE Radio last night. Earlier, she told reporters: This is the problem when somebody is a public figure or where somebody dies in very tragic circumstances and very difficult circumstances - people will come out to pay their respects.

She has described Mr Storey as a friend and a great republican whom she was pleased to have the opportunity to say goodbye to. She said she would do the same if she became Taoiseach.

The Sinn Fein leaders friend was also named as the IRAs director of intelligence in the House of Commons. He spent 20 years in jail, including for possession of a rifle following an attack on the British Army.

He was involved in masterminding the Maze prison escape in 1983 where one prison officer died from a heart attack and 20 others were injured. He was also said to have been involved in planning a number of robberies, including the notorious Northern Bank raid in 2004.

After his release from prison, he was a pivotal figure in selling the peace process to hardline republicans. In 2014, he was questioned over the disappearance of mother-of-10 Jean McConville. The following year he was detained over the murder of Belfast republican Kevin McGuigan. On both occasions he was released without charge.

Comparisons between the mourning of Mr Storey and a Detective Garda shot multiple times in the line of duty are questionable to say the least. Quite apart from that, Sinn Fein should have known that showing up en masse for the funeral of a controversial figure amid an ongoing pandemic would attract criticism.

Its refusal to countenance that it might have got things wrong has only compounded matters. It was the reason why the DUP escalated the crisis yesterday.

They were given an out by Arlene and their whole performance was a near total rejection of it, a DUP source said. The anger is palpable and widespread everywhere. We had to move after they decided to brazen it out.

There was an illuminating insight into Sinn Fein thinking yesterday when MLA Martina Anderson told ONeill at a Stormont committee hearing: The republican family needed you there yesterday because you give us comfort and guidance.

But why should the republican family take precedence over families across the island who have not been able to say goodbye to those they have lost since March? Its a question Sinn Fein appears happy to brush off - but it will not be forgotten by some voters.
Crackdown: Police in Hong Kong try to quell the unrest sparked by laws that limit expression. Photo: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

They had been warned that merely chanting a slogan could risk prosecution under Hong Kong's brutal new security law. But still the protesters came, first in their hundreds, then in their thousands.

"One Hong Kong, one nation!" they shouted in unison outside the high-end malls of the city's Causeway Bay, waving now-outlawed Hong Kong independence flags.

As riot police gathered, they raised their hands with their palms held high - a common symbol of year-long pro-democracy protests that Beijing now intends to crush.

One group tore down a banner announcing the new law.

Police officers in riot gear and armed with rubber bullets were stationed on the corners of the city's major streets, with instructions to immediately disperse any demonstrators, who had been forbidden from attending the usual pro-democracy march on the anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China.

The force moved swiftly to break up gatherings, targeting protesters and journalists with a water cannon firing bursts of liquid laced with a stinging pepper solution.

Expand Close Chilling threat: Head of Chinas top executive body Zhang Xiaoming. Photo: Reuters / Facebook

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Shortly before 2pm, a man wearing a 'Free Hong Kong' shirt became the first person to be arrested under the sweeping new law enacted late on Tuesday. A search yielded an independence flag, the police said in a statement, confirming that certain political views and symbols had become illegal.

By early evening, eight more people had been arrested on suspicion of breaking the new law, which threatens life sentences for a range of ill-defined crimes including terrorism, subversion, secession and collusion with foreign forces.

"Anyone who organises, plans, commits or participants in committing secession or undermining national unification shall be guilty of an offence," clarified the Hong Kong Police.

Protesters built barricades out of poles and traffic cones and dug up paving stones.

Some 370 were arrested - though most not under the new legislation - while the police said seven officers had been injured, including one who was stabbed.

Early yesterday, Zhang Xiaoming, the executive deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council, China's top executive body, warned that suspects would be tried in the mainland.

The threat of being extradited and disappeared into China's opaque justice system is chilling to Hong Kong's protesters, but many remained undeterred.

Beijing's swift and secretive enactment of the law came into force on the 23rd anniversary of Britain's handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

Carrie Lam, the city's chief executive, defended it as "constitutional, lawful, sensible and reasonable".

The law allows Beijing to establish a security office in Hong Kong, with its own law enforcement personnel, and to take over prosecution in "very serious" cases.

"The new law might be fairly described as an ideological and legal takeover," said Schona Jolly, chairman of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.

The British government reiterated its objections to the law yesterday, with Boris Johnson, the prime minister, saying "the enactment and imposition of this law constitute a clear and serious breach" of the handover agreement that had guaranteed Hong Kong's way of life until 2047.

The UK promised to open the path to citizenship for up to three million Hong Kong residents eligible for a British National Overseas passport. The concerns have been echoed around the globe. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has accused Beijing of a grave and deeply disturbing breach of the treaty.

China has said it reserves the right to take corresponding measures if the UK pushes forward with its plan to give three million Hong Kong residents the right to settle in the country.

Boris Johnson accused Beijing of a clear and serious breach of its treaty with Britain by imposing a much-criticised national security law on the territory.

The Prime Minister said he would introduce a route for people with British National (Overseas) (BNO) status to apply for visas to live and work in the UK and apply for citizenship.

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In response, the Chinese Embassy in the UK said such a move would be in breach of international law and basic norms governing international relations.

A statement said: We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures.

We urge the British side to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respect Chinas position and concerns, refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any way.

On Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused Beijing of a grave and deeply disturbing breach of the treaty which threatens the strangulation of Hong Kongs freedoms.

He told MPs the bespoke new arrangement to be implemented in the coming months would grant BNOs five years limited leave to remain in the UK with the ability to live and work.

They would then be eligible to apply for settled status and would be able to apply for citizenship after 12 months with that status.

As of February, there were nearly 350,000 BNO passport holders, while the Government estimates there are around 2.9 million BNOs living in Hong Kong.
Screen time: Sam Khok school pupils wearing face masks and shields are seen inside old ballot boxes repurposed into partitions as they attend class after the Thai government eased restrictions. Photo: Athit Perawong

The Trump administration's move to purchase virtually all stocks of remdesivir for the next three months has set a "dangerous precedent" and will undermine global efforts to tackle the pandemic, experts have warned.

The drug, produced by Gilead Sciences, has been shown to cut recovery time for Covid-19 patients by four days and, at present, is one of only two that is proven to work against the virus.

However, the US has purchased more than 500,000 doses, which equates to all of Gilead's projected production for July and 90pc of the capacity for August and September.

Alex Azar, Mr Trump's health secretary, said the US had "struck an amazing deal". Each treatment of six doses will cost around $3,200 according to a statement.

The announcement has brought into sharper focus the Trump administration's "America first" attitude to the pandemic, but is not unexpected - the US president has already attempted to skip the line on medical supplies.

Earlier this year, the administration put pressure on Sanofi, the French manufacturer, and the CureVac, the German biotech firm, to prioritise the US for any potential vaccine. But the latest developments have strengthened concerns about potential bidding wars for supplies.

"This definitely sets a dangerous precedent," said Prof Devi Sridhar, the chairman of global public health at Edinburgh University and an adviser to the Scottish government. "It sends a sign about solidarity and that, actually, the US is going to go it alone."

It would make it harder for other nations to commit to global agreements to ensure vaccines and drugs were distributed equitably, she added.

Nadhim Zahawi, the UK business minister, said competition for medical supplies served to "undermine all of our strategies".

Supplies of dexamethasone, a steroid that has been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of death among the most severely ill patients, are unlikely to run short because it is cheap, easy to manufacture and widely available.

Gilead has signed deals with drug companies in India and Pakistan, which allow them to manufacture a non-branded version of remdesivir and distribute it to low and middle-income countries, while in Bangladesh, a generic version is sold under a provision allowing the least developed countries to issue compulsory licences.

Dr Penny Ward, a visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King's College London, said Gilead had been clear that "manufacturing capacity is limited" and laid out the steps it had taken to meet demand. "It would be unfair... to blame Gilead for President Trump's actions," she said.

Meanwhile, the number of new coronavirus cases being registered in America each day has increased by around 80pc over the last fortnight, according to a 'New York Times' tally.

The paper has been tracking case numbers from across the country and found some 48,000 new cases were registered on Tuesday, approaching double what it was two weeks ago. The surge is being driven in the South and West of America, with Arizona, California, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas all seeing sharp rises in numbers.

The outbreaks have forced some places to reverse reopenings, with 19 states either pausing their staged moves to loosen rules, or making them more restrictive.

In total, 37 of America's 50 states are seeing a rise in daily case numbers, according to a CNN tally. ( Daily Telegraph, London)
Gunmen burst into a rehabilitation centre in Mexico and opened fire, killing at least 24 people (Mario Armas/AP)

At least 24 people have been killed and seven others wounded after gunmen burst into an unregistered drug rehabilitation centre in central Mexico and opened fire, authorities said.

Police in the north-central state of Guanajuato said the attack occurred in the city of Irapuato, with three of the seven wounded in serious condition.

It appears the attackers shot every person inside the rehab centre, with state police saying nobody was abducted in the attack.

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Whatsapp Gunmen burst into a rehabilitation centre in Mexico and opened fire, killing at least 24 people (Mario Armas/AP)

Guanajuato is the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco cartel and a local gang, and the state has become the most violent in Mexico.

No motive was given in the attack, but governor Diego Sinhue said drug gangs appeared to have been involved.

Mr Sinhue said: I deeply regret and condemn the events in Irapuato this afternoon. The violence generated by organised crime not only takes the lives of the young, but it takes the peace from families in Guanajuato.

Expand Close The governor of the state where the attack took place has decried the influence of drugs in Mexico (Mario Armas/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp The governor of the state where the attack took place has decried the influence of drugs in Mexico (Mario Armas/AP)

Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at such facilities in the past.

But the latest assault was one of the deadliest attacks on a rehab centre since 19 people were killed in 2010 in Chihuahua city in northern Mexico.

Mexico has long had problems with rehab centres because most are privately run, underfunded and often commit abuses against recovering addicts.

The government spends relatively little money on rehabilitation, often making the unregistered centres the only option available for poor families.

And addicts and dealers who face attacks from rivals on the streets sometimes take refuge at the rehab clinics, making the centres themselves targets for attack.
Left the picture: The Sussexes, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, now live in the US and say their wedding generated 1bn for the UK. Photo: PA

Meghan Markle was left "undefended by the institution" while pregnant and a member of the royal family, her legal team have said, as they claim her wedding brought 1bn (1.1bn) in tourism to the UK.

The Duchessof Sussex is suing British newspaper 'The Mail on Sunday' over the publication of parts of a letter she wrote to her father. She said she was "prohibited from defending herself" against false stories while at the Palace, with her friends left frustrated and "silenced".

Lawyers for Ms Markle, who have submitted new paperwork to support her privacy claim against the newspaper, have laid out her version of events surrounding an interview given by five of her close friends to 'People' magazine in 2019 in an attempt to defend her.

In doing so, they spell out her frustrations with the Palace's approach to the media, as well as correcting what they claim are inaccuracies in reporting about the Sussexes' lives.

The extraordinary submissions confirm the conflict between the Palace and Ms Markle's approach to the press on record for the first time, stating the institution's policy of "no comment" to media stories was deployed "without any discussion with or approval by the claimant".

In one section, about the level of "wealth and privilege" the couple enjoyed in Britain, Ms Markle's team say their public funding was "relatively nominal", with costs for the May 2018 wedding met by the prince of Wales and security paid only for the protection of crowds. "This contribution of public funds towards crowd security was far outweighed by the tourism revenue of over one billion pounds sterling that was generated from the royal wedding... which went directly into the public purse," they say.

They did not quote a source for the 1bn figure.

The documents also detail the precise plans for bringing Ms Markle's father to the UK for the wedding.

Future court submissions will share even more personal detail, papers promise, saying: "The intention of the letter was to make him [Mr Markle] stop his actions; it was not an attempt at reconciliation. This will be amplified in the claimant's witness statement."

The court case, in which 'The Mail on Sunday' is accused of breaching Ms Markle's privacy, copyright and data protection, sees her deny that she authorised her friends to speak to 'People' magazine or reveal the existence of the letter she wrote to Thomas Markle.

Associated Newspapers wholly denies the allegations, particularly a claim that the letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning.

Claiming Ms Markle had endured "hundreds of thousands of inaccurate articles about her", her legal team say she was left with "tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health".

At the time of the article in 2019, papers state, there was a "shared frustration" among her friends at Kensington Palace's "no comment" response.

As a result, they say, five friends - named in confidential paperwork and referred to only as "A, B, C, D and E" - gave details of Ms Markle's life, feelings and letter to her father to the American celebrity magazine without her knowledge. 'The Mail on Sunday' subsequently printed parts of the letter, given to them by Thomas Markle.

Ms Markle said she did not know about the 'People' article until Prince Harry told her - having heard from the Palace press team - on the day of publication, and only found out which friends participated later.

"However, it was mandated by the KP [Kensington Palace] communications team that all friends and family of the claimant should say 'no comment' when approached by any media outlet, despite misinformation being provided to UK tabloids about the claimant.

"This shared frustration amongst the claimant's friends left everyone feeling silenced, as it appeared that other so-called sources were able to disseminate false statements about the claimant, while the people who knew her best were told they needed to remain silent.

"The claimant believes that it is probably because of this reason, as well as concerns about the press intrusion by the UK tabloids, that a few friends chose to participate and they did so anonymously."

In further criticism of the Palace approach to communications, they state that following the article: "The stance of 'no comment' was taken by the KP communications team without any discussion with or approval by the claimant, as is standard practice for royal communications.

"Had the claimant been asked or been given the opportunity to participate, she would have asked the KP communications team to say on the record that she had not been involved with the 'People' magazine article, as she had not been."

Two friends had been aware of the letter, the duchess admits.

She filed a claim against 'The Mail on Sunday' in October.

She lost the first strike-out hearing, in which the judge ruled she would not be allowed to argue in court that the newspaper acted dishonestly, "stirred up" issues with her father, and had an "agenda" against her. No date has been set for the full trial yet. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Aerospace part manufacturer Meggitt said the grounding of places has hit revenues (Steve Parsons/PA)

Engineering giant Meggitt said it expects revenue for the past quarter to fall sharply after the mass grounding of planes during the coronavirus pandemic hit its civil aerospace business.

The UK firm, which supplies components for the aerospace and defence market, said it expects civil aerospace revenues to have halved over the past three months due to travel restrictions.

It projected that group organic revenues will have tumbled by 30% for the period, amid a solid performance by its defence arm.

The defence business is expected to deliver revenue growth in the mid-single digits, while Meggitt said it continues to see good order flow and believes demand in the division will remain robust through 2020.

The group said it made it good progress in executing plans to cut costs and cash expenditure, amid the significant slowdown in the aerospace sector.

During the second quarter, the majority of its manufacturing facilities were open with around two-thirds of global employees working at sites, with the rest either working from home or furloughed.

Meggitt said energy revenues are also expected to be somewhat softer for the past quarter due to declines in the power generation and oil sectors.

The London-listed group added that it is experiencing initial signs of recovery in commercial aerospace, but that uncertainty and risk related to the pandemic remains for the second half of the year.

In April, Meggitt announced that it will cut around 1,800 jobs from its global workforce as part of its plans to slash costs.

It said it now expects to secure higher savings than originally planned from its efforts to reduce costs.

The company added that it is on track to reduce cash outflows by around 400 million to 450 million for the year.

Shares in Meggitt moved 8% higher to 329.6p in early trading.
The battle of Meghan Markle versus the Associated Newspapers Limited continues, but down on the stands, one person is extremely disturbed by all of the bombshell legal documents being thrown in the way.

Meghan Markle 'Unprotected' During Pregnant

Meghan Markle had claimed that she felt unprotected by the royal family when she was pregnant.

Because she was also unable to defend herself, her five friends, who are said to be concerned for her welfare, did much of the fighting for her.

The Duchess of Sussex claimed that she had felt some "tremendous emotional distress" by the media coverage, and Kensington Palace and the rest of the royal family were mum about the entire thing.

Meghan Markle is set to see her dad, Thomas Markle, in court in the next few weeks.

Dad Not Manipulated After All?

Documents that were released yesterday, obtained by The Sun, revealed that the 38-year-old's case would no longer allege that the press manipulated Thomas Markle.

Meghan Markle's lawyers have deleted the allegation that the Mail On Sunday and MailOnline have "harassed and humiliated" her dad into giving interviews.

Claims that the media has started a dispute between the father-daughter duo, which resulted in him missing the royal wedding, have also been axed from the document.

The legal documents will only show that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have shared several texts with her dad, just before the ceremony at Windsor Castle.

Meghan Markle Made Britain 'Richer'

Unfortunately, Markle suffered a heart attack and wasn't able to attend the wedding, and since then, he and her daughter haven't spoken since.

The former "Suits" star claimed that her royal wedding to Prince Harry made Britain $1.25 billion in tourism cash.

Meghan Markle believed that the money raised from the royal wedding in May 2018 "far outweighed" the contribution stumped up by the taxpayer towards security.

The Duchess of Sussex's legal team has also stated that their wedding was not publicly funded, but instead, "personally financed by HRH The Prince of Wales."

In the documents submitted by her team, they said that the public costs incurred for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's wedding were for security and crowd control purposes so that they can protect the British people.

Queen Elizabeth II Distressed

Meghan Markle's shocking court claims about feeling unprotected by the British royal family is said to be a "disturbing reading" for Queen Elizabeth II.

Along with Prince Charles, Prince William and Kate Middleton may also be extremely distressed by the Duchess of Sussex's new information.

Archie Harrison's mom has made several claims about her time in the royal family, that according to an editor, "it's unfortunate."

The Mirror's editor, Russell, told Good Morning Britain, "These are a part of a lot of claims that Meghan wants to air in public as part of her spectacular fallout with the royals since they've left for the US."

With the host thinking that now with bridges seemed to be rebuilt between the Sussexes and the royal family, she wonders if this new information will destroy it all over again.

"They are disturbing reading for the royal family, and they will be very distressed."

"Certainly, these claims that she felt unprotected, especially when pregnant, will be very distressing indeed for the Queen," Russell revealed.

READ MORE: After Megxit, Royal Family Should Prepare for Another Exit! Who's Leaving?

See Now: Famous Actors Who Turned Down Iconic Movie Roles
Court: Robert Trump, left, with his brother Donald. Robert claims his niece Mary is precluded from publishing her book under a settlement of an inheritance case. Photo: Diane Bonadreff/AP

A New York judge has temporarily blocked the publication of Mary Trump's scathing book about her uncle, President Donald Trump, which describes him as the "world's most dangerous man", saying no copies can be distributed until he hears arguments in the case.

The order leaves it uncertain whether the book will be published as scheduled on July 28.

Judge Hal Greenwald ordered a hearing next month on a request for an injunction by Mr Trump's brother Robert, who has argued that Mary Trump is not allowed to publish anything about her family as part of a settlement in an inheritance case.

His attorney, Charles Harder, said in a statement on Tuesday that he would seek the "maximum remedies available" for the "truly reprehensible" actions of Mary Trump and her publisher, which he said have caused "enormous damages" to his client.

"Short of corrective action to immediately cease their egregious conduct, we will pursue this case to the very end," Mr Harder said.

Mary Trump's attorney, Theodore Boutrous Jr, said in a statement that while the judge's order is temporary, "it still is a prior restraint on core political speech that flatly violates the First Amendment".

"We will immediately appeal. This book, which addresses matters of great public concern and importance about a sitting president in an election year, should not be suppressed even for one day."

Simon & Schuster said it also plans to appeal, adding in a statement that it looks forward "to prevailing in this case based on well-established precedents regarding prior restraint".

The book, titled 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man', has already ascended to the top of bestseller lists based on pre-sales, underscoring the intense interest in a rare insider account by a member of the Trump family.

In promotional material for the book, the publisher said Mary Trump "shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world's health, economic security, and social fabric."

Simon & Schuster said in a filing late on Tuesday night that it had already printed 75,000 copies and argued that it would be unconstitutional to stop it from distributing the book.

At the same time, the publisher for the first time said that it did not know until recently that Mary Trump had signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of the inheritance settlement.

"We did not learn anything about Ms Trump signing any agreement concerning her ability to speak about her litigation with her family until shortly after press broke concerning Ms Trump's book about two weeks ago, well after the book had been accepted, put into production, and printing had begun," Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp said in an affidavit filed on Tuesday night.

"And we never saw any purported agreement until this action was filed against Ms Trump and Simon & Schuster."

While it has long been known that the inheritance case was settled confidentially, the terms of that agreement were not made public until Robert Trump filed his petition last week to stop publication the book.

Mr Karp in his affidavit also confirmed that Mary Trump was the "primary source" for an investigation by the 'New York Times' into the Trump family finances, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize, as the 'Daily Beast' first reported.

Mr Karp said that "knowing that no litigation resulted from the 'Times' article, we were entirely confident in Ms Trump's ability to tell her story regarding her own family".

Mr Karp said that even though the publication date is set for July 28, it may be too late to stop revelations in the book from being reported.

He said that "thousands" of the printed copies "have already been shipped".

Using her background as a clinical psychologist, Mary Trump explores the "nightmare of traumas" within the Trump family in the book, according to the publisher. ( Washington Post)
Convicted: Harvey Weinstein at his trial in New York in January. Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Harvey Weinstein and his former studio's board have reached a nearly $19m (17m) settlement with dozens of his sexual misconduct accusers, New York state's attorney general and lawyers in a class-action lawsuit said on Tuesday.

The agreement was announced by New York Attorney General Letitia James and Chicago attorney Elizabeth A Fegan.

The deal, if approved by judges in federal courts, would permit accusers to claim from $7,500 to $750,000 from the $18.8m settlement.

The former Hollywood producer was convicted earlier this year of rape and sexual assault against two women.

Accusations by dozens of women in 2017 destroyed his career and gave rise to #MeToo, the global movement to hold powerful men accountable for their sexual misconduct.

The 68-year-old former film producer was diagnosed in March with the coronavirus just days after he was moved to the state's maximum security Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo to begin serving his 23-year prison sentence.

"This settlement is the culmination of several years of hard work by survivors who not only initiated the #MeToo movement around Weinstein, but also used their platforms to seek justice for all of those who were afraid to come forward for fear of retaliation in Hollywood," Ms Fegan said.

Included in the news release was a statement by plaintiff Caitlin Dulany, who said Weinstein isolated and assaulted her after they met in 1996 at the Cannes Film Festival.

"When I came forward and shared my story about the assault, I knew there wouldn't be a straight path to justice," Ms Dulany said.

"Harvey avoided accountability for decades, leveraging his power to hide behind a web of deceit.

"I was determined to join the class action to ensure meaningful change for all survivors.

"I am proud that this settlement will help so many women who are long overdue for justice and relief."

Ms James said in a release that the deal would resolve claims in a New York state lawsuit and in a class-action lawsuit that was pending in federal court.

"After all the harassment, threats, and discrimination, these survivors are finally receiving some justice," Ms James said.

She called it "a win for every woman who has experienced sexual harassment, discrimination, intimidation, or retaliation by her employer."

Gerald Maatman, lead counsel for the Weinstein Companies, declined to comment. Messages seeking comment were left for Weinstein and individuals on his former studio's board.

Attorneys Douglas H Wigdor and Kevin Mintzer, who represent some of Weinstein's accusers in lawsuits, said in a statement that the proposed settlement was "a complete sellout of the Weinstein survivors".

They called it "deeply unfair", saying it does not require Weinstein to accept responsibility and doesn't require him to pay any money toward it.

They also said the director defendants would receive millions of dollars to reimburse their defence costs.

The lawyers said the deal would also harm women who did not join the settlement because then they would be unable to pursue large amounts of money from insurance companies which would receive protection from the deal.

"We are completely astounded that the Attorney General is taking a victory lap for this unfair and inequitable proposal," they said.

"And on behalf of our clients, we will be vigorously objecting in court," the lawyers added.
The accepted wisdom among dog owners is that if you want to know how old your pet is in human terms, you simply multiply its age by seven.

It can then be decided whether man's best friend is acting up because it is a naughty teenager or simply owing to poor training.

However, research has found that this method is not based on science, and our pets may be far "older" than we previously believed.

As people and animals age, the number and placement of methyl groups in the genome change. By mapping these, scientists can tell the age of an organism.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine used blood samples from 105 Labrador retrievers to accurately determine how quickly the breed ages.

The study, published in the 'Cell Systems' journal, found the human/dog age comparison does not follow the 1:7 ratio over time. Especially when dogs are young, the researchers found that they age rapidly compared to humans.

A one-year-old dog is similar to a 30-year-old human. A four-year-old dog is similar to a 52-year-old human. Then by seven years old, dog ageing slows, and a 12-year-old dog is about 70 in human years.

"This makes sense when you think about it - after all, a nine-month-old dog can have puppies, so we already knew that the 1:7 ratio wasn't an accurate measure of age," said senior author Dr Trey Ideker of the UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Scientists argue that this new comparison between dog ageing and humans could be helpful for vets, so they are able to determine whether illnesses in dogs are age-related.

The formula provides a new "epigenetic clock", a method for determining the age of a cell, tissue or organism based on a readout of its epigenetics, which are chemical modifications like methylation that influence which genes are "off" or "on" without altering the inherited genetic code.

Previous studies have found epigenetic clocks for humans, but these do not translate to other species and may not even be the same for other humans.

One limitation of this clock is that researchers only used blood from Labradors, while different breeds have different life expectancies.

Dr Ideker plans to test more breeds, but said that since it is accurate for humans and mice as well as Labrador retrievers, he predicts the clock will apply to all dog breeds. "I have a six-year-old dog - she still runs with me, but I'm now realising that she's not as 'young' as I thought she was," said Dr Ideker.

He said dogs were interesting to study because they live so closely with humans, perhaps more than any other animal, so a dog's environmental and chemical exposures are very similar to humans, and they receive nearly the same levels of healthcare.

The research could be useful for humans, not just their pets.

The scientists believe the epigenetic clock could be used to test anti-ageing treatments, to see if they had made any difference to the methylation patterns in the genome and therefore altered the "age" of human cells.

"There are a lot of anti-ageing products out there these days - with wildly varying degrees of scientific support," Dr Ideker said. "But how do you know if a product will truly extend your life without waiting 40 years or so?"
US authorities have once again said they would welcome the chance to speak to Prince Andrew over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal after arresting the disgraced financiers ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell in connection with his crimes.

Acting US attorney for the district Audrey Strauss told reporters she would welcome a statement from the Queens son at a press conference announcing charges against Maxwell, including allegations she participated in the abuse of young girls by Epstein.

Im not going to comment on anyones status in this investigation but I will say that we would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement, she said.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of Epstein, was arrested in New Hampshire on Thursday on US charges of luring underage girls so that Epstein could sexually abuse them.

Maxwell, 58, was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire. She is charged with four counts related to procuring and transporting minors for illegal sex acts and two counts of perjury, according to the indictment by federal prosecutors in New York.

The indictment accuses Maxwell of luring the girls by asking them about their lives, schools and families and taking them shopping or to movies.

Epstein was awaiting trial on federal charges of trafficking minors when he was found hanged in an apparent suicide while in a New York City jail in August. Previously, he pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor in a 2008 deal with prosecutors that was widely criticised as too lenient.

Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, also alleges that the Duke of York had sex with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17, still a minor under US law.

The duke categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested in New Hampshire on Thursday on US charges of luring underage girls so that Epstein could sexually abuse them.

The arrest of the British socialite adds another twist in the mystery of Epstein, whose high-flying lifestyle included private Caribbean islands and powerful connections that his victims say allowed him to abuse minors with impunity.

Maxwell, 58, was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire. She is charged with four counts related to procuring and transporting minors for illegal sex acts and two counts of perjury, according to the indictment by federal prosecutors in New York.

Epstein was awaiting trial on federal charges of trafficking minors when he was found hanged in an apparent suicide while in a New York City jail in August. Previously, he pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor in a 2008 deal with prosecutors that was widely criticised as too lenient.

The indictment accuses Maxwell of luring the girls by asking them about their lives, schools and families and taking them shopping or to movies.

After Maxwell won the girls' trust, the indictment alleges, she would try to "normalise sexual abuse" by discussing sexual topics or by undressing in front of them or being present when they were undressed.

The indictment alleges that Maxwell was well aware of Epstein's preference for minor girls and that he intended to sexually abuse them.

Maxwell also encouraged the young girls to massage Epstein, and in some cases, the victims were partially or fully nude during the massages, according to the indictment.

"For years, I feared Epstein and his ring," Jennifer Araoz, who has accused Maxwell of trafficking her for Epstein, said in a statement. "Today, my fellow Epstein survivors and I are able to take a breath of relief, as Maxwells arrest means some justice for survivors can exist."

Maxwell was expected to appear in federal court in New Hampshire on Thursday to discuss her bail or continued detention, according to a law enforcement official.

A lawyer who represented Maxwell in civil litigation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Maxwell, the daughter of late British media magnate Robert Maxwell, has kept a low profile since the death of Epstein.

Maxwell was an ex-girlfriend of Epstein who became a longtime member of his inner circle. In a 2003 Vanity Fair article, Epstein was quoted as saying Maxwell was his best friend.

Epstein has been linked socially to numerous powerful figures, from President Donald Trump to former President Bill Clinton and Britain's Prince Andrew.

In June, US prosecutors accused the prince of evading their efforts to question him about his contacts with Epstein. Andrew has publicly stated he will cooperate with any appropriate law enforcement agency. US Attorney General William Barr said in June there were no plans to extradite Andrew.

Since Epstein's arrest and death last year, questions have arisen how he built his vast wealth, which included two privately owned Caribbean islands, multiple homes and one of the largest mansions in Manhattan.
UK historian David Starkey is facing a backlash after he said slavery was not genocide because there are so many damn blacks still around.

Mr Starkey made the comments during an online interview with Brexit campaigner Darren Grimes for YouTube channel Reasoned UK.

Former Chancellor Sajid Javid has criticised him over his remarks.

We are the most successful multi-racial democracy in the world and have much to be proud of. But David Starkey's racist comments ("so many damn blacks") are a reminder of the appalling views that still exist.  Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) July 2, 2020

Mr Javid said: We are the most successful multi-racial democracy in the world and have much to be proud of.

But David Starkeys racist comments (so many damn blacks) are a reminder of the appalling views that still exist.

Fitzwilliam College at Cambridge University said they would be considering Starkeys position as an honorary fellow as a result of his comments.

In a statement, the college said they will not tolerate racism, adding that his comments are indefensible.

Starkey has also resigned from the board of the Mary Rose Trust, which oversees the Tudor Mary Rose ship, according to the organisation.

The trust said in a statement that they were appalled by his comments, adding: Mary Rose Trust is a charity that exists for the benefit of everyone and we have zero tolerance for such comments.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trusts chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman also criticised his comments.

She said: To suggest a genocide did not take place because some of those who were persecuted survived is dangerous, damaging and completely reprehensible.

His words are abhorrent and as a historian with a considerable platform and following, David Starkeys irresponsible and racist views should be widely condemned.

Expand Close He made the comments during an interview with Darren Grimes (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp He made the comments during an interview with Darren Grimes (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

During the interview, Starkey said: Slavery was not genocide otherwise there wouldnt be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there?

An awful lot of them survived and again theres no point in arguing against globalisation or western civilisation. They are all products of it, we are all products of it.

The honest teaching of the British Empire is to say quite simply, it is the first key stage of our globalisation.

It is probably the most important moment in human history and it is still with us.

Grimes later released a statement about his interview, saying he wasnt engaged enough in the conversation.

He added: It goes without saying that Reasoned UK does not support or condone Dr David Starkeys words.

I am very new to being the interviewer rather than the interviewee and I should have robustly questioned Dr Starkey about his comments.

However, whether its on the BBC, ITV, Sky News or on YouTube, no interviewer is responsible for the views expressed by their guests.

Starkey has been contacted for comment.
Since 1963, The Independent has helped create a great community!

Since our founding in September of 1963, The Independent has been dedicated to giving Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Sunol readers the news they need to be in-the-know about what's going on in the Tri-Valley region.
South Kingstown Superintendent of Schools Linda Savastano admitted this week that she was responsible for giving a political group student directory information that led to the names of South Kingstown students appearing on mailers sent to local households urging voters to support a now failed $85 million school facilities bond referendum held on May 4. In a statement released last Friday, Savastano denied any wrongdoing and said she followed department policy after received a request for the information on behalf of Friends of South Kingstown Schools. . The request was not different in kind from requests I had received previously for directory information, Savastano said in a June 11 statement. Consistent with our prior practice and informed by SK policy, I provided directory information to Stacey Bodziony, the Friends of South Kingstown Schools contact. That ended my involvement with the disclosure of student information. During Monday's Town Council Meeting, council president Abel Collins said addressed the matter and said the council's investigation will continue. This is a good start to knowing how this all unfolded, Collins said. I think this whole thing could have been over a lot sooner if people had just come forward originally with this information. That being said, were not entirely satisfied we have all the information related to how this happened. The council instructed solicitor Mike Ursillo to continue his investigation, and Collins said the council would share its subsequent findings with the community. With all that being said, do you believe Savastano should face discipline for her role in the mailer controversy? Let us know in this week's poll question below.

You voted:
AKWESASNE. Bayer AG, the German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company, announced on Wednesday, Ohiari:ha/June 24, 2020 that it has entered into settlement agreements totaling $820 million to resolve most of the polychlorinated bi...
When COVID-19 claimed its first victim in India's largest slum Dharavi in April 2020, many feared the disease would turn its narrow, congested streets into a graveyard, with social distancing or contact tracing all but impossible in Asia's largest slum. But three months on, Mumbai's Dharavi offers a rare glimmer of hope with new infections shrinking, thanks to an aggressive strategy of the state government and healthcare workers that focussed on "chasing the virus, instead of waiting for disaster," according to city official Kiran Dighavkar.


India's step to impose a ban on 59 Chinese apps, including the popular TikTok app, seems to have found support among US lawmakers.

The ban, which comes in the backdrop of India's current stand-off against Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh has turned into a topic of massive international debate.

Image For Representation/Reuters

The Indian central government banned on 59 Chinese apps under Section 69A of Information Technology Act for engaging in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order.



According to reports, some US officials are rooting for a similar ban and have given some strong reasons for the same.

India bans TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps in wake of deadly clash https://t.co/kRHp6hSpQ9  Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) June 30, 2020

India bans TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps in the wake of deadly clash, Republican Senator, John Cornyn, said in a tweet as he tagged a news report in The Washington Post.



TikTok must go and it should have been gone yesterday. #China #Interference https://t.co/dZPlUWW3ah  Rep Rick Crawford (@RepRickCrawford) June 29, 2020

Republican Congressman Rick Crawford tweeted, TikTok must go and it should have been gone yesterday.



US National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien had said that the Chinese Government is using TikTok for its own purposes.

"On TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media platform with over 40 million American users, probably a lot of your kids, and younger colleagues, accounts criticising the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and Beijing's policies are routinely removed or deleted," Mr O'Brien said in his public remarks.





At least two bills are pending in the US Congress to ban federal government officials from using TikTok on their cell phones, reflecting such a sentiment can gain momentum in the US after India's decision.

Republican Senator, Joshua David Hawley, introduced legislation in April prohibiting federal employees from using the social media video application TikTok on government-issued devices.



During a Congressional hearing, Senator Hawley pointed out that TikTok poses a major security risk for American people.

The app, as he says, is under the leadership of Communist Party members and 'Chinese law makes data sharing compulsory with Beijing'.

Image For Representation

He claimed that TikTok breaches personal security to an alarming extent, saying, "It collects the sites that you visit. It collects your search history. It collects your keystrokes. It collects your location data. It stores all of this and maybe lots, lots more. And I can tell you, as the father of two small children who already have many of their friends on social media even though they're quite young, I find this absolutely horrifying. And we know that it's a national security risk, Hawley said..

On the heels of India's ban on Chinese app, the US has also taken a groundbreaking step. The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated two Chinese telecom giants as national security threats.



US FCCs Public Security and Homeland Security Bureau designated Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp as posing threats to US national security. The declaration bars US companies from accessing an $8.3 billion US government fund to purchase equipment from companies.

The US communications and telecom regulator described the move as a major step in its ongoing efforts to protect the country's communications network from outside threats.

"We cannot and will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to exploit network vulnerabilities and compromise our critical communications infrastructure," FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, said in a statement Tuesday.

BREAKING NEWS: The @FCC has designated #Huawei and #ZTE as companies posing a national security threat to the United States. As a result, telecom companies cannot use money from our $8.3B Universal Service Fund on equipment or services produced or provided by these suppliers. 1/5 pic.twitter.com/dH6QK4jbd4  Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) June 30, 2020

Both Huawei and ZTE have close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and Chinas military apparatus. The companies are allegedly subject to Chinese law, which obligates them to cooperate with the countrys intelligence services.



All Inputs: PTI
In the ongoing human trials for COVID-19 vaccine, the Oxford University team says they have seen have right sort of immune response.

According to Reuters, Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the university, said 8,000 volunteers had been enrolled for the Phase III of the trial, AZD1222, which was licensed to AstraZeneca.

AP

Also Read: AstraZeneca Expects Covid-19 Vaccine By September As Pharma Firms Ramp Up Efforts For Vaccine



In positive feedback of Oxfords trials, Prof Gilbert told the Metro UK, "Vaccines have a different way of engaging with the immune system, and we follow people in our studies using the same type of technology to make the vaccines for several years, and we still see strong immune responses."



"Its something we have to test and follow over time  we cant know until we actually have the data  but were optimistic based on earlier studies that we will see a good duration of immunity, for several years at least, and probably better than naturally-acquired immunity.

The project has started Phase III of the human trials to assess how the vaccine works in a large number of people over the age of 18, and how well the vaccine works to prevent people from becoming infected and unwell with COVID-19.

Also Read: All Of UK Could Be Vaccinated For COVID-19 By Christmas, Claims Oxford Professor

The race is on to develop a working COVID-19 vaccine, with fears that the pandemic could re-intensify towards the end of the year.

Image For Representation

Kate Bingham, chair of the UK Government Vaccine Taskforce, said that, excluding the Oxford vaccine programme, she hoped there would be a breakthrough by early 2021.

Gilbert said she hoped that her Oxford vaccine would make progress earlier, but was not more specific as she said the timeline for when the vaccine might be ready depends on the results of the trial.

John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, said that Britain should prepare for not having a COVID-19 vaccine for the winter and encourage people to get their flu vaccinations to avoid pandemonium in hospitals.

This whole epidemic has relied too heavily on assumptions that have turned out not to be true, he said

In an interview with Hindustan Times. Oxford University professor Sunetra Gupta explained lockdowns are not a long-term solution and that they are only a 'sensible idea' to keep the virus at bay.

Professor Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, says #lockdown is a drastic measure and may not be a long-term solutionhttps://t.co/WSabdel2gM  Hindustan Times (@htTweets) July 1, 2020





A professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford University, Sunetra Gupta made headlines with research on the best-case scenario for the outbreak, reports Guardian. Professor Gupta told HT that "The vaccine, when it will come into existence, will be used to support the vulnerable" and that "most of us dont need to worry about coronavirus.
As different countries are starting to lift lockdowns, services that were not considered essential are slowly coming back to life albeit with strict guidelines in place.

In Netherlands, sex workers can resume work and sex districts have reopened in Thailand as well. However, the workers have to adhere to certain guidelines, some of which are stricter than normal social distancing rules.

Reuters

Bangkoks red-light districts opened on July 1 after three months of lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Reuters reports that bars, karaoke venues and massage parlours were in the latest category of businesses allowed to reopen with conditions - now that Thailand has gone 37 days since recording any local transmission of the virus. Thousands of sex workers who had been rendered jobless and were struggling to survive can now return to work.

"I'm glad that I can come back to work in a job that I'm good at. I'm OK with the mask because it's one of the precautions, Reuters quoted a 27-year-old dancer Bee as saying.

Reuters

All customers attending bars have their temperature taken, they have to give their name and phone number. Everybody has to sit at least one metre (yard) apart and two metres from the stage.

Dutch sex workers too went back to work on July 1 as Netherlands eased measures. However, the workers have been advised to avoid heavy breathing and kissing to help reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19, Reuters reports.

Also Read: Attacks On Sex Workers In Africa Rise Amid Lockdown Poverty, People Think They Spread Covid-19

Reuters

Sex workers are already adhering to strict health regulations, however, the industry has reportedly compiled a list of recommendations, including sexual positions to avoid.

Debbie Mensink, a public health advisor in Amsterdam said that even with new guidelines sex workers will be more exposed to dangers of COVID-19 than most other professions. "There is a heightened risk. Sex workers already have a heightened health risk due to their line of work... because people get so close to each other, she reportedly said.

Reuters

She further said, "We advise against literally getting in each others' faces, where you can breathe in each others' warm breath. We also advise against kissing because saliva carries the virus and you could transfer it that way.

Moira Mona, a worker however said that she is not worried as shell be taking precautions. She added a few new items to her collection of latex outfits, stiletto heels and tasseled whips to adhere to the protocol: a leather face cover with metal studs, black gloves and surgical face masks, Reuters reports.

Until a vaccine for the virus is created, masks and distance will remain the new normal.
It's back to class for millions of Thai kids after three months spent under lockdown. They should have resumed in mid-May, but the government kept them shuttered for fear of spreading the virus.

Not surprisingly, kids have returned to a very different set-up. Samkhok School in Pathum Thani, outside Bangkok has a fleet of private buses bringing the children in to avoid the use of public transport.

Reuters

Sam Khok school, about 50 km (31 miles) north of Bangkok, nearly 5,000 students were told to self-quarantine at home for 15 days prior to the reopening as added precaution, reports Reuters.

Also Read: With Schools Shut & No Salary For Two Months, Delhi Teacher Forced To Sell Vegetables

"Once students arrive at school, teachers hand face masks to them because its mandatory to wear them," said Chuchart, adding that face shields were also provided to pupils for additional safety during some activities.

Reuters

Samkhok School has installed screens around every desk, isolating each pupil and making the classroom look more like a polling station.



Also Read: Beijing Reportedly Shuts Schools As City Grapples With New Wave Of COVID-19 Outbreak



Students also get their temperatures checked and a facial recognition scanner automatically sends a message to parents, adds the report.

In the classroom, desks look like ballot boxes used in elections given the placement of partitions to ensure social distancing.

Reuters

"I feel good studying behind the box because it makes me feel safer returning to school," said student Kanlaya Srimongkhol.

However, 17-year-old Soponwich Thianthong said while he felt more secure the partitions could be irritating because it limited his field of vision.

Source: Reuters
President Trumps suspension of foreign worker visas will only prolong the recession, writes Indian American commentator Vivek Wadhwa, and suggests how to reform them instead. Seen above: Google's main campus in Mountain View, California, in a photo taken May 1, 2019. (Amy Osborne/AFP via Getty Images)
Letters

Vikings Championship Editor, Oakland Independent:Each week I enjoy reading the Oakland Independent and all the news and features that are included.In the A Visit with Yesteryear section items in the March 4, 2021 issue 

The current environment calls for new considerations for living The failure of Texas infrastructure has been in the news of late and our hearts go out to our fellow Americans who suffered because of these impacts. While we felt secondary impacts here, I 

Rolling pipeline continued safety concerns I was disappointed that President Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline. The crude oil usage is not the issue, but whether the crude oil goes to the refinery by rail or pipeline. The existing 

Dont buy the wind sales pitch According to the county zoning the setbacks to your homes will be 3.5 times the height of the point of the highest blade. A 600 ft. turbine x 3.5 would be 2100 foot from your home. That is just 

Sassy or Slimy? I was surprised that our Senator from Nebraska Ben Sasse waited such a short time before rejoining the Never Trump chorus and talking trash about our President. Despite his 

Read more letters
Members of the Gujarat Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena organization stamp upon a Chinese TV screen during a protest against vendors selling Chinese products at a market in Ahmedabad on July 1, 2020. In the U.S. Indian American former diplomat Nikki Haley praised India's decision to ban 59 Chinese apps, saying New Delhi "is continuing to show it wont back down from Chinas aggression. (Sam Panthaky/AFP via Getty Images)
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden holds up a mask during a campaign event June 30, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Responding to a question on the India-U.S. relationship at a July 1 virtual fundraiser hosted by CEO of Beacon Capital Partners Alan Leventhal, Biden said: India needs to be a partner in the region for our safetys sake and quite frankly for theirs. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Microsoft has pulled back the drapes on Pylance, a Visual Studio Code extension for faster and more complete Python language support in that popular code editor.

Pylance doesn't replace the existing Microsoft-authored Python extension for Visual Studio Code, which has some 21 million installations to its name. Instead, Pylance expands on the existing Python extension to provide fast, static type checking (using Microsoft's Pyright project), live type information about symbols, autocomplete, auto-imports, code outlining and navigation, and other tools for Python development.

Pylance works with Jupyter notebooks, when those are in use in a project. It can also use custom type stubs from a project directory with the python.analysis.stubPaths option. It's also possible for workspaces, users, or projects to customize which errors get flagged on a codebase and what level of severity to assign them. For instance, if you have a lot of code that creates variables conditionally, and which you know doesn't create issues, you can disable the reportUnboundVariable option to avoid flagging such code.

When the auto-imports feature is enabled, it automatically inserts appropriate imports for libraries recognized in Pylance's search path. If you type gc.disable() for instance, Pylance will infer that you are referring to the gc module in the standard library, and automatically add import gc as needed at the top of your project.
In recent days, with cases of the potentially deadly coronavirus spiking across much of the United States and the jobless rate still foundering above 11%, the president was obsessed with what a Washington Post front-page story described as an urgent task for Trump and his team. That would be coming up with a new nickname for the political foe Trump had dubbed Sleepy Joe Biden  even as he watched Biden sprint past him in many polls by double digits.

In the Oval Office where his predecessors had made life-or-death decisions on dropping the atomic bomb on Japan or how far to push Moscow in the Cuban missile crisis, the 45th president and his top political advisers discussed whether a moniker like Creepy Joe or Swampy Joe might be just the thing to get voters to forget about their grandma on a ventilator and pull the level for Trump on November 3. POTUS, according to the Post, was leaning toward Corrupt Joe  with the details about what makes the former vice president so corrupt presumably to be invented later.

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Donald Trumps June was probably the worst month that any U.S. president has experienced since 1974, maybe since 1861 ... and yet that doesnt really bother him. What does bother him is that his poll numbers look exactly like what youd expect theyd resemble for a commander-in-chief whod had such a lousy 30 days. Currently 56% of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing, according to the Real Clear Politics average. Hes losing to Biden in every major battleground state. Voting blocs that went for him in 2016, like non-college white women, are heading for the hills. And Trump really thinks he can turn it around by pinning a scary nickname around Bidens neck?

Its funny. Trump once knew exactly how to rise from the morass of business failures and shady scams like Trump U. to leading White House contender, simply by insisting that Americas first Black president must have been born in Kenya. Next, he built a GOP primary lead that he never surrendered after coming down an escalator to call Mexican migrants murderers and rapists. And then fate intervened to offer him a 2016 opponent whom he could brand as a nasty woman, while packed arenas chanted Lock her up! in an incantation worthy of the Salem witch trials.

Hillary Clinton? Trump could work with that! But an avuncular 77-year-old white-haired straight white dude? Trump and hapless campaign team refuse to admit the reason they cant come up with a nickname for Joe Biden  let alone a rationale to prevent him from becoming the next president  is because a presidency powered by hate doesnt exactly know how to hate someone like that. Even worse for the GOP, neither does Trumps fan base.

Remember Trumps disastrous attempt at a campaign rally in Tulsa, at the arena that was only one-third full? Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel went there and  while some Trump stans were wearing their crude anti-Hillary T-shirts from 2016  he found few voters who were particularly terrified by Biden, few vendors who were selling anti-Biden gear, and little evidence that folks were buying any of it. He [Biden] doesnt stand out as a strong candidate, one vendor told Weigel.

In 2016, some Republicans had ambivalent feelings about Trump but felt so strongly about keeping Clinton out of the White House that one right-wing pundit called it a Flight 93 election, that GOP voters had to rush the cockpit and maybe crash the plane to prevent what they saw as looming disaster if shed succeeded in her quest to become Americas first woman president.

Trump stoked the anti-woman theme with relish, Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia historian and veteran observer of presidential politics, told me via email, adding: Things couldnt be more different with Biden. Trump will viciously attack him, naturally, but he simply doesnt hate Biden like he did and does Hillary. Trump has even said some good things about him.

Its just different in 2020. This week, the New York Times drilled deep into the sliver of Trump-to-Biden voters who appear to be responsible from turning what was supposed to be a nail-biter into a solid lead for the Democrat. It wasnt hard to find those who could not abide Hillary Clinton but were OK with the man from Delaware.

John Crilly, 55, a retired commercial diver in Reeders, Pa., told the Times hed pulled the lever for Trump because the other option was Hillary Clinton. Flash forward four years, and this Pennsylvania voter who rejected a former U.S. senator and secretary of state seems shocked, shocked that the narcissistic neophyte that he preferred is overwhelmed by COVID-19.

With Americans assaulted this year by crisis after crisis, its hard not to live in the moment. The realization that half the country is ready to replace Trump with a man who, for all his imperfections, has the experience and the empathy that the Current Occupant lacks, is something of a feel-good story for many. But theres a flip side that we need to have a national conversation about.

America is having a long-overdue moment of reckoning around race  and clearly white supremacy is a driving force behind Trumpism. But so is misogyny. Unlike so many other developed nations, the United States has never elected a woman president, and when a super-qualified (but, yes, also imperfect) one was finally nominated by a major party, millions flocked instead to a buffoonish TV-reality star who was incapable of saying no to adult film stars or Vladimir Putin ... but who had a Y chromosome.

Not only was that lock her up toxic masculinity Trumps secret sauce on November 8, 2016, but its poisoned the way that this president has governed for the last 41 months. CNNs Carl Bernstein reports that Donald Trumps dripping contempt for strong women has ruined our relations with key allies such as Germany  he lashed out at Angela Merkel as stupid and, ironically, in the pocket of Russia  and the United Kingdom, at least when Theresa May, with whom Trump was aggressive and bullying, was its prime minister. Of course, POTUS fawned over strongmen like Putin and Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Closer to home, the president has the bare minimum of female cabinet members, no close women advisors (other than his daughter), and has embarked on a project to stock the federal judiciary for the rest of our lifetimes with right-wing zealots who are predominantly white but also predominantly men  76% male, in an era when a majority of law-school graduates are women. These young white dudes in their black robes will still be placing undue restrictions on womens reproductive rights on the day that your unborn granddaughter is commuting to her job designing robots, in her flying car.

 READ MORE: Let's be honest about something else with Trump: He's a male supremacist | Will Bunch

Biden seems to understand that on some level he owes his easy nomination to the fears of rank-and-file Democrats that dynamic and highly qualified women like Sen. Elizabeth Warren would have been Hillaryed by Trump in the general election. Hes promised a female running mate and that his first appointment to the Supreme Court will be a Black woman. Both moves are praiseworthy, but a Biden presidency must do much more to fight systemic sexism in America.

The lack of affordable daycare options, stone-age policies around sick leave or consistent working hours, the insanely low minimum wage, and the lack of universal health care  Americas lack of leadership in these areas has made it easy for vulture capitalism to put millions of women in low-wage jobs and untenable situations. This summers seeming political shift toward the Democrats doesnt only signal an end to Trumpism but a shot at the most progressive Congress since the 1930s. Whether a President Biden can seize that moment  much more than his vice presidential pick  will determine his legacy.

Yes, the odds are better than ever (if everyone keeps their guard up and votes, no matter what obstacles are thrown up by the GOP) that Sleepy Joe Biden will wake up in the White House on January 21, 2021, and not Donald Trump. But we need to stay woke to the fact that tiki-torch-lit mobs chanting Lock her up! and the inherent sexist bias that fuels them will still be with us.

The fact that only another white man could dislodge Trump and his woman-hatred from the presidency isnt so much a cause for celebration as a reminder that removing the twin towers of racism and misogyny from their concrete foundation in American society is the great challenge of our 21st century, and there is so much more work to be done.

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A 57-year-old Villanova man was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for financial fraud and making a false oath or statement, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Scott Korn and several of his companies were sued in 2009 for breach of contract and other issues, and a jury in 2014 returned a verdict against him and the companies for approximately $2.4 million, prosecutors said.

In the days following the verdict, Korn purchased a BMW X3, a Porsche 911, and a Porsche Cayman using an American Express card. He also purchased a cashiers check for $200,000 payable to himself, drawn from his personal bank account. He cashed the check and received $196,000 after paying a check-cashing fee.

He then filed for bankruptcy.

In his bankruptcy filings, he did not list the luxury cars he bought, but did report the amount he owed American Express. And he reported that he only had $9,300 in the bank without reporting the amount he cashed. He also failed to report other assets. He swore under penalty of perjury that he did not own cars and only had a motorcycle and a leased Honda.

Besides prison, U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno sentenced Korn, who pleaded guilty last August, to three years of supervised release and a $50,000 fine.
Barely three months ago, the anti-malarial drug that President Donald Trump touted seemed like such a sure bet against COVID-19 that Susanna Naggie had a tough time setting up a national clinical trial comparing it with a placebo. Colleagues said giving a fake pill would be unethical, since the real thing might save lives.

Now, hydroxychloroquine, or HCQ, has fallen into such disfavor that health-care workers are leery of Naggies trial. Called HERO-HCQ (Health-care Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes of Hydroxychloroquine) it is designed to see if the drug can protect them from infection.

Our original recruitment goal was 15,000, said Naggie, vice dean for clinical research at the Duke University School of Medicine. We are reevaluating that because, with everything thats happened, it has certainly decreased interest among health-care workers in participating.

Of the hundreds of existing drugs being tested against the coronavirus, it is safe to say HCQ and its cousin chloroquine have been the most contentious. HCQ was rushed into clinical use based mostly on desperation and Trumps endorsement of what he called a game-changer. So much was diverted that people who use the drug for its proved uses feared shortages and escalating prices.

Then rigorous studies showed it didnt help treat or prevent COVID-19. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency use authorization and warned of potentially deadly side effects. Soon after that, the World Health Organization stopped an international treatment trial of HCQ, and the National Institutes of Health pulled the plug on two big studies  one that appeared to be futile, and another that couldnt recruit enough participants.

Yet researchers are not giving up on HCQ. Far from it. Hundreds of studies around the world  including dozens in the United States and some in Philadelphia  are continuing, according to clinicaltrials.gov, the U.S. government website that lists trials. (The FDA now says the drug shouldnt be prescribed for treating or preventing the coronavirus except in a trial.)

Why keep investing in a seeming loser? The most common answers: Studies to date have not been definitive. Results need to be confirmed, or reproduced, by different research groups. And finding even a glimmer of benefit would be valuable against a virus that has so far been unstoppable.

But pride, prejudice, and protocols may also be driving hope against hope.

 READ MORE: Hydroxychloroquine is not proven to work against the coronavirus. Experts explain why.

The University of Pennsylvania is continuing two trials  at least until the independent board that monitors safety analyzes the latest data. One is testing HCQ as a treatment for COVID-19 patients quarantined at home. The other is testing HCQ to prevent infection in health-care workers who are at high risk because of their jobs.

The overall enrollment rate into research studies has decreased, primarily because the number of COVID cases has decreased locally, Emma Meagher, chief clinical research officer for Penns Perelman School of Medicine, said in a email. COVID-positive patients and health-care workers continue to be enrolled in the two trials.

Hints of effectiveness

HCQ has long been used to treat malaria and rheumatoid conditions such as arthritis and lupus.

In theory, HCQ could curb the coronavirus by reducing inflammation, inhibiting viral replication, and blocking enzymes that the virus uses to break into lung cells. Scientists in China, where the virus emerged in December, found HCQ kept the coronavirus from infecting monkey cells in lab dishes. Circumstantial evidence from small studies of hospitalized patients also hinted at effectiveness.

But gold-standard studies  which compare a drug to a placebo or usual care to see whether changes in the test group result from the treatment  have repeatedly dashed hopes.

 READ MORE: British researchers say a cheap steroid is a COVID-19 lifesaver, but experts want to see their data

Last month, British researchers abruptly stopped a large trial of HCQ because it did not help hospitalized patients. After 28 days, 25.7% of patients on the drug had died, compared with 23.5% who received usual care  a difference that was not statistically significant, meaning it could be by chance. There was no beneficial effect on length of hospital stay or other outcomes.

Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have been used very widely to treat COVID patients despite the absence of any good evidence, said study leader Peter Horby, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Oxford. Although it is disappointing that this treatment has been shown to be ineffective, it does allow us to focus care and research on more promising drugs.

The potential of HCQ has been dimmed not just by bad results, but suspected fraud. In early June, the Lancet retracted a headline-making study that concluded HCQ might actually increase the risk of death. We can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources, the journal said.

A matter of timing

The hope that HCQ might work to prevent disease was undermined by a University of Minnesota study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drug or a placebo were given to 821 people who had recent close contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19. About 12% of those on the drug got sick, compared with 14% on placebo  again, a difference that could have been by chance.

However, the study had a big limitation: Most people who got sick did not have a diagnostic molecular test to confirm COVID-19.

Testing was in very short supply at that time, explained Radha Rajasingham, an infectious disease specialist and co-leader of the study.

The Minnesota trial also could not rule out the possibility that HCQ can decrease the chance of infection if taken before exposure to the virus.

Minnesota is now doing a study of pre-exposure prophylaxsis, or PreP.

I think for something to be used across the country, it would be nice to see a strong reduction in infections  50%, said Rajasingham. If its something more modest, it would be hard to say whether the side effects are worth it. The drug can cause diarrhea, nausea, drug interactions, and heart arrhythmias.

The HERO study, led by Naggie at Duke, is also testing pre-exposure prevention. But Naggie thinks even a 20% reduction in infection risk would be a win. And she stresses that HCQ is generally well tolerated.

As long as there is no evidence of harm and there is potential benefit, we should complete the study to get a definitive answer, Naggie said. We need definitive answers so we dont continue to rehash these questions.
TL;DR: The same day Pennsylvania reported 636 new coronavirus cases, the largest one-day increase since the beginning of June, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced that masks are now required whenever anyone leaves home and cant maintain a proper social distance from others. Psychologists explain why its hard to get young people to stop socializing, despite coronavirus risks.

 Ellie Silverman (@esilverman11, health@inquirer.com)

What you need to know:

 The Philadelphia region today surpassed 5,000 reported deaths related to COVID-19.

 The coronavirus and school shutdown means thousands of kids have no camp this summer. For the fall, Philly parents and staff favor a return to schools on alternate days.

 Philadelphia museums are starting to announce reopening dates.

 New Jersey will allow a swath of activities to reopen Thursday. At Jersey Shore restaurants, the path to reopening may come down to masks.

 Jay-Zs Made In America is canceled for this year because of coronavirus pandemic.

 The weekly $600 unemployment assistance ends this month, but Pennsylvania is offering programs to help.

 Whats going on in your county? We organized recent coverage of the coronavirus pandemic by local counties mentioned in the stories to make it easier for you to find the info you care about.

Local coronavirus cases

The coronavirus has swept across the Philadelphia region and cases continue to mount. The Inquirer and Spotlight PA are compiling geographic data on tests conducted, cases confirmed, and deaths caused by the virus. Track the spread here.

The same day Pennsylvania reported 636 new coronavirus cases, the largest one-day increase since the beginning of June, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced that masks are now required whenever anyone leaves home and cant maintain a proper social distance from others. Daily case counts are also increasing in Philadelphia, causing the city to pause some of its reopening plans.

Philadelphia Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said the surge in coronavirus cases among young Philadelphians is partly from teens traveling to the Jersey Shore and socializing. But psychologists said it is challenging to get teenagers to avoid seeing their friends. At this age, said Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University who studies adolescence, individuals are especially responsive to social rewards, and their ability to control their impulses is not as good as it will be when theyre older. Read more here.

Helpful resources

You got this: Is your COVID-19 mask working?

A new study, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, includes how far simulated saliva droplets traveled through various types of face coverings like a single-layer bandanna from T-shirt material, folded cotton handkerchief, stitched mask made of cotton quilting fabric, commercial cone-style mask (not hospital-grade), and no mask. The results, my colleague Tom Avril writes, show not all masks are created equal.

 Fireworks: How to handle your freaked out dog and cat.

 Easy frozen cocktails and mocktails youll want to make this summer, from frose to slushies to icy spritzes.

 Ice pops and cream pops make an easy, cool summer snack.

Have a social distancing tip or question to share? Let us know at health@inquirer.com and your input might be featured in a future edition of this newsletter.

What were paying attention to

Workers filed more than 4,100 coronavirus-related complaints regarding their health care facilities. Kaiser Health News reports that some workers died, even after there were safety complaints about their workplaces.

Some Philadelphia Police officers arent wearing masks, and BillyPenn reports that the city wont enforce its mask-wearing rule.

The demand for coronavirus tests is outpacing supplies, again, test providers warn, according to The Atlantic.

Enjoy getting our journalism through email? You can also sign up for The Inquirer Morning Newsletter to get the latest news, features, investigations and more sent straight to your inbox each morning Sunday-Friday. Sign up here.
A gun that linked a South Jersey man to the death of the Camden City Council presidents grandson one year ago should be suppressed as evidence because it was found during an illegal search, the mans lawyer said during a court hearing Wednesday.

When detectives entered the Woodbury apartment of Brandon Beverly last July 1, they were not looking for a gun but for Curtis Jenkins III, 20, grandson of Council President Curtis Jenkins Sr., who had gone missing the day before, defense attorney Timothy Farrow said during the hearing in Superior Court in Camden.

While the gun recovered during the search was not used to kill Jenkins, who died of asphyxiation, authorities said, it was used in an armed robbery earlier that day. A cell phone stolen from the robbery victim was later used to call Jenkins family to demand a ransom of 10 to 15 pounds of marijuana, and to text them a photograph of Jenkins bound and blindfolded, authorities contend.

Farrow argued that if the gun was in plain sight, it could be used as evidence, but if the detective who found the weapon on the top level of a bunk bed did so after lifting a sheet, that would make the search illegal.

If youre looking for a body and you pull back something that you dont need to pull back to locate a body, then youre going beyond your body search, and that would no longer be a legal plain view search, said Farrow, who believes the gun was not visible to the detective.

Whether the gun was in plain view or under a sheet was not cleared up during the hearing because the Camden County Police detective who found the weapon, Baruch Zepeda, is on military leave and was not in court to testify.

Stephen Bezich, a detective with the Camden County Prosecutors Office, could not say during his testimony if the gun was in plain sight, because he was in an adjacent room when Zepeda shouted, Gun. He said it took him two seconds to get to the room where the gun was found and he saw it in plain view on top of the sheet.

Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Spittal contended that the search was legal.

Judge Edward McBride scheduled a hearing in the case for July 27, but said he may issue a written decision before then.

Beverly, 33, the accused mastermind of the kidnap scheme, and Jalen Carr, 22, of Sicklerville, are both charged with murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery in the death of Jenkins.

Jenkins body was found on the night of July 2, 2019, in an abandoned garage on the 1100 block of Liberty Street in Camden, a block from the home where he lived with his father. His body was wrapped in a sheet, his hands and feet were bound, and a plastic bag covered his head.

Authorities have said Beverly and several other men lured Jenkins, who operated a food-delivery business, to take a platter of food to a house on Congress Road in Camdens Fairview section, where he was abducted about 11 p.m. June 30. Jenkins was forced into Beverlys blue Chevrolet Uplander van and driven around Camden, authorities said.

Beverlys girlfriend, Jessica Stokes, with whom he lived in Woodbury, led investigators to the garage. She had told them Beverly came to her crying and told her that things got messed up, court records show. He confessed to her that he grew frustrated when Jenkins family did not meet his ransom demands, so he took Jenkins to the garage, she told investigators.
Joint Eurojust-Europol press release FR | NL

At a joint press conference today, French and Dutch law enforcement and judicial authorities, Europol and Eurojust presented the impressive results of a joint investigation team to dismantle EncroChat, an encrypted phone network widely used by criminal networks.

Over the last months, the joint investigation made it possible to intercept, share and analyse millions of messages that were exchanged between criminals to plan serious crimes. For an important part, these messages were read by law enforcement in real time, over the shoulder of the unsuspecting senders.

The information has already been relevant in a large number of ongoing criminal investigations, resulting in the disruption of criminal activities including violent attacks, corruption, attempted murders and large-scale drug transports. Certain messages indicated plans to commit imminent violent crimes and triggered immediate action. The information will be further analysed as a source of unique insight, giving access to unprecedented volumes of new evidence to profoundly tackle organised criminal networks.

In recent years, European countries have been increasingly affected by organised crime groups who are pervasive and highly adaptive, posing one of the most pressing security challenges faced by law enforcement and judicial authorities. In this regard, the abuse of the encrypted communication technologies is a key facilitator of their criminal activities.

Since 2017, the French Gendarmerie and judicial authorities have been investigating phones that used the secured communication tool EncroChat, after discovering that the phones were regularly found in operations against organised crime groups and that the company was operating from servers in France. Eventually, it was possible to put a technical device in place to go beyond the encryption technique and have access to the users' correspondence.

In early 2020, EncroChat was one of the largest providers of encrypted digital communication with a very high share of users presumably engaged in criminal activity. User hotspots were particularly present in source and destination countries for cocaine and cannabis trade, as well as in money laundering centres.

Given the widespread use of the encrypted telephone solution by EncroChat among international criminal networks around the world, French authorities decided to open a case at Eurojust, the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, towards the Netherlands in 2019. Further developments in the investigations led to organising the processing of the data, which was captured on the basis of the provisions of French law and with judicial authorisation, through the frameworks for international judicial and law enforcement cooperation. [Click on image to enlarge].

The data was in first instance shared with the Netherlands. Eurojust facilitated the creation of a joint investigation team (JIT) between the two countries and with the participation of Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, in April 2020.

Europol has been actively involved in the investigations led by France and the Netherlands since 2018, relating to the provision and use of encrypted communication services by organised crime groups. Through its role as an information hub and its extensive analytical and technical support system, Europol was able to create and provide a unique and global insight on the scale and functioning of organised crime, as a result of this investigation. This will help law enforcement to combat organised crime in the future more successfully. Europol's support from the early stages of this JIT included: promoting and arranging international cooperation, providing extensive analytical and financial support, technical expertise and a secured platform for the exchange of information between the countries involved. A large dedicated team at Europol investigated in real time millions of messages and data that it received from the JIT partners during the investigation, cross-checked and analysed the data, and provided and coordinated with the JIT partners the information exchange to concerned countries.

A large number of suspects have also been arrested in several countries which were not participating in the JIT but particularly affected by the illegal use of these phones by individuals active in organised crime, including in the UK, Sweden and Norway. Many of these investigations were connected with international drug trafficking and violent criminal activities.

At the same time, numerous operational meetings for the daily coordination between the law enforcement entities of the JIT partners and other countries took place at Europol, partly during COVID-19.

Eurojust intensively facilitated the judicial cooperation, during the extensive use of European judicial cooperation instruments such as European Investigation Orders. Throughout the investigation, the JIT members organised five coordination meetings at Eurojust to bring all involved parties together in a secure environment, identify parallel or linked investigations, decide on the most suitable framework for cooperation and solve potential conflicts of jurisdiction.

In France, where the operation takes place under the code name "Emma 95", the Gendarmerie has set-up a Taskforce since March 2020. With more than 60 officers, the Gendarmerie leads the investigations targeting the EncroChat encrypted telephone solution under the supervision of the magistrates of the JIRS of Lille. The Taskforce has been monitoring the communications of thousands of criminals, leading to the opening of a wide range of incidental proceedings. France does not wish to communicate further on these on-going investigations nor on the results obtained. The considerable resources deployed demonstrate the importance of these investigations and the importance attached to their success in France.

In the Netherlands, where the operation went under the code name Lemont, hundreds of investigators have, with authorisation of the examining magistrate, followed the communications of thousands of criminals day and night since the operation began to unravel and act on the intercepted data stream. The criminal investigation has been led by prosecutors from the Dutch National Public Prosecution Service and the information has been made available to about a hundred ongoing criminal investigations. The investigation has so far led to the arrest of 60 suspects, the seizure of drugs (more than 10 000 kilo cocaine, 70 kilo heroin, 12 000 kilo cannabis, 1 500 kilo crystal meth and 160 000 liter of a substance used to produce synthetic drugs), the dismantling of 19 synthetic drugs labs, the seizure of dozens of (automatic) fire weapons, expensive watches and 25 cars, including vehicles with hidden compartments, and almost EUR 20 million in cash. The expectation is that information will be made available in more than 300 investigations. In a number of cases, more arrests are very likely to follow in the coming period.

The interception of EncroChat messages came to an end on 13 June 2020, when the company realised that a public authority had penetrated the platform. EncroChat then sent a warning to all its users with the advice to immediately throw away the phones.

While the activities on EncroChat have been stopped, this complex operation shows the global scope of serious and organised crime and the connectivity of criminal networks who use advanced technologies to cooperate on a national and international level. The effects of the operation will continue to echo in criminal circles for many years to come, as the information has been provided to hundreds of ongoing investigations and, at the same time, is triggering a very large number of new criminal investigations of organised crime across the European continent and beyond.

What is EncroChat? EncroChat phones were presented to 's as guaranteeing perfect anonymity (no device or SIM card association on the ''s account, acquisition under conditions guaranteeing the absence of traceability) and perfect discretion both of the encrypted interface (dual operating system, the encrypted interface being hidden so as not to be detectable) and the terminal itself (removal of the camera, microphone, GPS and USB port). It also had functions intended to ensure the 'impunity' of users (automatic deletion of messages on the terminals of their recipients, specific PIN code intended for the immediate deletion of all data on the device, deletion of all data in the event of consecutive entries of a wrong password), functions that apparently were specially developed to make it possible to quickly erase compromising messages, for example at the time of arrest by the police. In addition, the device could be erased from a distance by the reseller/helpdesk. EncroChat sold the cryptotelephones (at a cost of around EUR 1 000 each) at international scale and offered subscriptions with a worldwide coverage, at a cost of 1 500 EUR for a six-month period, with 24/7 support.

See also :

For questions following the press conference, please contact Cedric LEUX , Public Prosecution Office Lille, 0033 618 178 158, cedric.leux@justice.fr

, Public Prosecution Office Lille, 0033 618 178 158, cedric.leux@justice.fr Ludovic Dantec , Captain French Gendarmerie National, 0033 6 31254927, ludovic.dantec@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr

, Captain French Gendarmerie National, 0033 6 31254927, ludovic.dantec@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr Wim de Bruin , spokesperson Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office, 0031 6 533 613 97, w.j.de.bruin@om.nl

, spokesperson Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office, 0031 6 533 613 97, w.j.de.bruin@om.nl Thomas Aling , spokesperson Dutch National Police, 0031 6 53435752, thomas.aling@politie.nl

, spokesperson Dutch National Police, 0031 6 53435752, thomas.aling@politie.nl Therese Ariaans , spokesperson Dutch National Police, +31 6 1866 1976, therese.ariaans@politie.nl

, spokesperson Dutch National Police, +31 6 1866 1976, therese.ariaans@politie.nl Europol : Tine Hollevoet, 0031 (0)6 460 567 35, tine.hollevoet@europol.europa.eu

: Tine Hollevoet, 0031 (0)6 460 567 35, tine.hollevoet@europol.europa.eu Eurojust Media Team, 0031 (0)70 412 55 80, media@eurojust.europa.eu

Photo  Gendarmerie Nationale (FR)
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested Thursday on charges she helped recruit three girls  one as young as 14  to be sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of assaulting dozens of girls and women over many years.

According to the indictment, Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent companion on trips around the world, facilitated his crimes by "helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse" girls.

Epstein, 66, killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell has, for years, been accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges. The 58-year-old was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, where the FBI said it had been keeping tabs on her.

More recently we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago, William Sweeney, head of the FBIs New York office, told a news conference Thursday.

The indictment, which was unsealed Thursday, included counts of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and perjury.

Maxwell lied because the truth, as alleged, was almost unspeakable, Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said.

She called the charges against Maxwell a prequel to charges prosecutors brought against Epstein a year ago.

Messages were sent Thursday to several of Maxwells attorneys seeking comment. She has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some claims against her absolute rubbish.

Among the most sensational accusations was a claim by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew at her London townhouse. Giuffre bolstered her allegations with a picture of her, Andrew and Maxwell that she said was taken at the time.

Andrew denied her story and Maxwell said in a deposition that Giuffre was totally lying.

He was not mentioned by name in the indictment, and the charges covered Maxwell's dealings with Epstein only from 1994 through 1997, a period well before his alleged encounters with Giuffre in 2001.

Strauss said she would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, but did not answer further questions pertaining to these charges and Andrew.

Brad Edwards, an attorney representing Giuffre and several other Epstein victims said his clients were relieved by the charges. Today is a very good day, he said.

The indictment focused on Epstein's alleged abuse of three specific girls at his Manhattan mansion and other residences in Palm Beach, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico, and London. Their names were not revealed in court filings.

The allegations in the indictment mirrored many claims from civil lawsuits against Maxwell, saying she would entice and groom minor girls by asking them about their lives, their schools and their families.

Through this process, Maxwell and Epstein enticed victims to engage in sexual activity with Epstein. In some instances, Maxwell was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims, according to the indictment.

Maxwell repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct, it went on. She was accused of committing perjury in 2016 in a deposition in a civil lawsuit, in part by denying knowledge of Epstein's scheme to recruit underage girls.

At the time the alleged crimes, Maxwell was in an intimate relationship with Epstein and also was paid by him to manage his various properties, according to the indictment, which included a photograph of Epstein with his arm around Maxwell and his head nuzzling hers. Strauss, at the news conference, stood silent, pointing at the picture as film crews and photographers captured the moment.

Strauss promised the investigation was continuing and urged other victims to come forward. She said prosecutors would seek the detention of Maxwell.

Epstein was initially investigated in Florida and pleaded guilty to state charges in 2008 that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. He was free a little after a year in prison.

At the time, a federal prosecutor in Florida signed off on an agreement, initially filed in secret, that barred the federal government from charging any potential co-conspirators of Epstein. Alexander Acosta, President Donald Trumps former labor secretary, resigned last year after coming under fire for overseeing that deal when he was U.S. attorney in Miami.

Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan until he was fired last month, argued that federal prosecutors in New York were not bound by that agreement and brought a sweeping indictment against Epstein. Berman vowed to continue seeking justice for Epstein's victims even after the financier's death.

Maxwell's indictment was celebrated by lawyers for some Epstein accusers.

Jennifer Araoz, a woman who says Epstein raped her in his New York mansion in 2002 when she was 15, said she feared the financiers ring of conspirators for years.

Now that the ring has been taken down, I know that I cant be hurt anymore, Araoz, now 33, said in a statement. Day after day, I have waited for the news that Maxwell would be arrested and held accountable for her actions. Her arrest is a step in that direction, and it truly means that the justice system didnt forget about us.

Spencer T. Kuvin, who represents some of the women, said Maxwell was hopefully ... the first of many co-conspirators to face the consequences of this horrific crimes.

Maxwell was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the highest-ranking employee of Epsteins alleged sex trafficking enterprise. She oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal the activity from law enforcement, the lawsuit alleged.
The University of Pennsylvania on Thursday announced that it would remove the statue of a supporter of slavery from its quad and form a group to review all campus iconography.

This group will engage in broad outreach across our community and advise us on further steps to ensure that the placement and presence of statues and other prominent iconography better reflects our achievements and aspirations to increase the diversity of the Penn community, Penn president Amy Gutmann, provost Wendell Pritchett, and executive vice president Craig Carnaroli said in a campus message.

 READ MORE: Princeton strips Woodrow Wilsons name from school, citing his racist past

Colleges across the country are reviewing campus symbolism in the wake of George Floyds killing at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Princeton University on Saturday announced that it would remove President Woodrow Wilsons name from its public policy school and one of its residential colleges. Monmouth University, also in New Jersey, last month announced that it would take Wilsons name off a prominent building. Hofstra University on Long Island last month moved a statue of President Thomas Jefferson to a less prominent place. And some Southern colleges are relocating or removing statues of Confederates.

At Penn, the statue of George Whitefield, a mid-18th century preacher who led the campaign to allow slavery in Georgia, will be removed. It was erected in the early 20th-century, Penn said. Whitefields connection to Penn stems from the universitys earliest days. He owned a meetinghouse at Fourth and Arch Streets that was purchased by Benjamin Franklin, Penns founder, to house the Academy of Philadelphia, a predecessor of Penn.

 READ MORE: Penns profoundly painful past: At least 75 of the schools earliest trustees owned slaves

Like other universities around the country dating from the colonial era, Penn has been examining its ties to slavery for several years. In 2018, a committee found that at least 75 of Penns earliest trustees had owned enslaved people. The work of the enslaved was used to support Penn faculty and students, and some of its faculty and alumni advocated for slavery and supported the Confederacy, the committee found. The work was rooted in research by a Penn professor and undergraduate students.

Franklin also owned enslaved people. A statue of Franklin stands outside College Hall, Penns main administration building. Penns leaders noted Franklins slavery tie in their message but said, Importantly, Franklin changed course in his life and went on to become a leading abolitionist.

The university said it plans to enact recommendations from the committee later this year.
It just got easier for the system overseeing Pennsylvanias 14 state universities to make substantial changes, including consolidating, expanding, or affiliating its schools.

Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday signed legislation that gives the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Educations leadership and governing board the decision over such changes, instead of requiring a vote by the General Assembly.

Its perhaps the most substantial change in the 1982 law that established the system. But the law does not allow the system to close a university.

The changes come as the 95,000-student system, which has seen its enrollment drop more than 20% since 2010, grapples with fallout and uncertainty from the coronavirus pandemic. The legislation was introduced in January before the pandemic, said system spokesperson Dave Pidgeon.

 READ MORE: Pennsylvania state universities move toward more shared services, cost savings

This bill represents some of the most significant improvements to how the state system operates in our 38-year history, Chancellor Dan Greenstein said before Wolf signed the package.

Any plan to change the system would be subject to a lot of feedback before implementation, including public hearings and review by the legislature. And at least two-thirds of the systems governing board would have to approve the changes.

The legislation provides a three-year window for changes to be implemented before the authority would revert back to the legislature.

 READ MORE: Pennsylvania state universities freeze tuition, plan for uncertain fall

This gives us some pretty commonsense tools for us to be able to adjust and pivot based on what the market conditions are, Pidgeon said.

State system officials declined to say how they planned to use the legislation. The system was struggling before COVID-19 and now, like other colleges around the country, it has lost millions in revenue and faces additional expenses because of the virus.

Greenstein told the board in April that the system anticipates a $52 million revenue shortfall through the summer. Nine of the universities in the system anticipate they will have to dip into their reserves to cover $146 million in operating costs through 2023-24.

Campuses plan to reopen in the fall, though plans vary by campus. The system also has frozen tuition.

 READ MORE: Reopening of Pennsylvania state universities will vary by campus

Pidgeon said universities are individually and collectively looking at their financial sustainability. Decisions will come as that process continues, he said. The new legislation also provides for more sharing of services and collaboration.

The legislation exempts the two largest schools in the system, West Chester and Indiana, from affiliation, consolidation or shared services, because each enrolls more than 10,000 students, Pidgeon said. West Chesters enrollment exceeds 17,000. State Sen. Andy Dinniman, a Chester County Democrat, said some members of the Senate pushed for IUP and West Chester to be exempt.

We succeeded in strengthening the role of local councils of trustees and increasing legislative oversight of the reorganizational process that will be initiated by the PASSHE chancellor and board of governors, Dinniman said in a statement. The amendment also protects any weakening of academic quality and strength of West Chester University by exempting it from shared service and affiliations.

The other universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, and Slippery Rock.
Supporters of the controversial statue of Frank L. Rizzo on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the city and Mayor Jim Kenney, demanding to be allowed to take possession of the 2,000-pound bronze sculpture that was removed last month from Thomas Paine Plaza amid nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The complaint, filed by lawyer George Bochetto in Common Pleas Court on behalf of the Frank L. Rizzo Monument Committee, has been moved at the citys request to federal court, since it raises constitutional due process issues. It is now pending before Judge Darnell Jones, according to Bochetto. (Update July 2)

The committee requests an order that the statue of the former mayor and police commissioner be preserved and turned over to the committee, which is represented in the lawsuit by Jody Della Barba, a South Philadelphia community activist and former secretary to Rizzo.

The lawsuit includes affidavits from Della Barba and from Rizzos son, former City Councilmember Frank S. Rizzo, who states that he will suffer immediate and irreparable harm if the statue of my beloved father is discarded or destroyed by the city.

The statue is a unique piece of art with immense sentimental value that cannot be properly compensated by money damages, the complaint says.

 READ MORE: The Rizzo statue is gone. Philadelphia is still unpacking its legacy.

Mike Dunn, a spokesperson for Kenney, said the statue is in storage until the city decides what to do with it, and that is what the people behind the lawsuit were told before they went to court.

They are bitter and disgruntled because we took it down and the statue will never stand on city property again, Dunn said in an email. This emergency lawsuit is a frivolous cry for public attention. The city has more pressing things to worry about  like dismantling the structural racism that the statue stood for.

Rizzo embraced his reputation as a law-and-order mayor, and was long decried for his aggressive tactics policing the Black and gay communities.

 READ MORE: Frank Rizzo leaves a legacy of unchecked police brutality and division in Philadelphia

The lawsuit claims that the city violated the terms of a 1998 agreement with the committee when it removed the statue from in front of the Municipal Services Building early June 3.

The lawsuit includes a photo, which has been circulating on social media, by an unknown person of the statue on the back of a flatbed truck at an undisclosed city facility.

After the statue was removed, the city said that once a plan for what to do with it was developed, it will be presented to the Philadelphia Art Commission for approval.

Rizzo was police commissioner from 1968 to 1971, when he resigned to run for mayor. He won that election and served from January 1972 to January 1980.

The statue, by sculptor Zenos Frudakis, was unveiled in 1999.

 READ MORE: How Mayor Jim Kenney abruptly ended years of delays to remove the Frank Rizzo statue
Lets focus on one big thing to kick off todays newsletter: masks. In short, wear them. Lets not become Florida, writes columnist Jenice Armstrong. With new daily case counts rising again in places throughout the region, Philly and Pennsylvania have made masks mandatory. But not all masks help limit the spread of the virus equally. For example, pulling up your shirt over your nose or quickly tying on a bandanna isnt the same as using an actual mask.

Some housekeeping notes: Im taking a couple of days off from the newsletter. So, youll see me back in your inbox bright and early on Monday. Until then, be well and stay safe.

 Josh Rosenblat (@joshrosenblat, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

Every July Fourth, fireworks become the main event. And even this year, when official displays are canceled, theyre still managing to take center stage, a year after Mayor Jim Kenney amended the citys fire code to allow people to purchase consumer-grade fireworks.

The rumble and pop of fireworks have helped mark Phillys transition from spring to summer for years. But with an eye-popping number of complaints in the last month, something is different. Police data shared with my colleagues show that there have been 8,526 complaints about fireworks since late May.

But that figure means different things to different people. The booms can be scary and frightening. Some see fireworks as a way to have fun when so many other things have been shut down.

In a few years, store cashiers could be as rare as blacksmiths  with the coronavirus accelerating the process of automation. Its a scenario playing out for not only cashiers but other professions as companies look for ways to reduce interactions between customers and employees and because technology can be cheaper. Simply put, robots dont get sick, explained one supply-chain consultant who advises companies like Amazon and Walmart.

With the pandemics impact on the economy already costing 40 million Americans their jobs, automation could continue to make worse the countrys already severe inequality issues.

A recent surge in Philadelphia coronavirus cases in people between the ages of 16 and 19 is partly due to teens traveling to the Shore and socializing, city Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said. And that mirrors whats going on in the South and West, as cases have surged in young people.

So, why is getting young people, particularly teens, to stop being with their friends because of the risk of spreading the coronavirus so challenging? Its about immediate rewards vs. long-term consequences and costs, according to a Temple psych professor.

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The American public is catching on to how police officers can use small offenses to justify disproportionate or deadly responses against people of color, and what happens behind bars is no different. The racial disparities in our jails and prisons only worsen this problem. ... Brutal, racial injustice pervades our correctional institutions  but we have an opportunity to change that.  write Amy Fettig and David C. Fathi of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project about ending solitary confinement.

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Your Daily Dose of | Ice and cream pops

Whos ready for an easy, breezy summer snack? Food editor Jamila Robinson shares some recipes for making your own ice pops and cream pops. How does a blueberry-coconut Greek yogurt pop sound? What about lemon ice or strawberry cream?
There is something especially grotesque about the timing of President Donald Trumps pledge to veto a $740 billion defense bill if military bases named for Confederate military leaders are renamed.

He made this pledge during the July 4th holiday week.

This is a moment when Americans are roiling over issues of racial intolerance that date back to Americas founding, including whether and what historic statues deserve to be toppled because of racist taint, even if they represent some Founding Fathers.

The presidents signature divisiveness comes at a moment when much of the country is also reeling from a coronavirus resurgence, even as he refuses to mask in public. And during a week when he sloughed off revelations that Russia may have paid bounties to Taliban-linked Afghans to kill U.S. soldiers.

Yet Trumps Independence Day timing is fortunate. It symbolizes his total uninterest in pulling this country together. And it forces all Americans to confront the urgent need for new leadership that will finally put Americans first.

 READ MORE: Europe bans U.S. travelers because we can't control COVID-19 I Trudy Rubin

No trip to Mount Rushmore can change this fact: In endorsing Confederate traitors and racists, Trump is totally out of tune with the historical moment.

These bases were named for war criminals such as Confederate general George Pickett, a man accused of cowardice at Gettysburg, who bragged about executing Union prisoners. Or Henry Lewis Benning, who advocated that African Americans werent really human.

The purpose of these base names was to embrace white supremacy within the military during the first half of the 20th century, a time when Black servicemen and -women were treated with brutal discrimination.

The Pentagon supports these name changes. Prominent U.S. military leaders, active and retired, support them. Even senior Republican leaders support them. For heavens sake, the state of Mississippi has joined the Navy, Marine Corps, and NASCAR in recently removing displays of the Confederate flag.

July 4th would have been the perfect moment for a president of all Americans to throw his support behind this healing gesture. Instead, intent on solidifying his shrinking base, the president put Trump first.

Of course, beyond changing base names and removing statues of Confederate leaders, the broader issue of what historic statues are offensive is conflicting the country.

I would prefer to draw limits, considering the intent of the historical figure, however flawed some of their actions.

Confederate generals fought to maintain slavery. George Washington owned slaves but was the father of this nation and ensured that it did not become a new monarchy. Thomas Jefferson drafted an independence declaration that introduced Enlightenment principles of freedom and equality that changed the world, even if Americans still struggle to implement them fully. It is those very principles that define the racial equality protesters seek today.

I have spent so much time in dictatorships and authoritarian nations that wholly lacked those freedoms that I remain in awe of the achievement of those founding fathers. As Joe Biden put it this past week, there is a distinction between whether or not George Washington or Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and somebody who was  committing treason  to keep slavery.

With a leader of all Americans in the White House, the statue debate could be a teachable moment, and this holiday the time for national introspection. Instead the country gets a tweet-slammer-in-chief in search of 2020 votes. Instead of Americans first it gets Trump first.

And when it comes to putting Americans last during the holiday, Trumps attitude toward new allegations about Russia is particularly illuminating. Whether or not Russia actually paid bounties to kill Americans, its no secret that Russia has been cultivating the Taliban.

As told to me by Tina Kaidanow, a former top State Department official who served as the number two at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2012 and 2013: Everyone knew that the Russians had been mucking around in Afghanistan for a long time. Of course the Russians and the Taliban want us gone and are making common cause.

The real issue here is Trumps unwillingness to confront Vladimir Putin on Russias malignant behavior toward America. And his refusal to listen to or read intelligence briefings.

 READ MORE: Trump joins ostrich alliance of leaders who fail on confronting COVID-19 I Trudy Rubin

Trump has said publicly he believes the Russian leader over U.S. intelligence agencies. This delusion  born of a consistent unwillingness to critique Putin  puts American soldiers at risk not only in Afghanistan, but elsewhere. For example, in Syria, Russian mercenaries have attacked U.S. troops in the past.

So instead of pulling the country together during multiple crises, Trump turned the July 4th week into a new display of divisiveness. Instead of defending the safety of U.S. soldiers, Trump chose to attack journalists and stay silent on the substance of Russian aggression. During the holiday, Trump still refused to wear a mask in public, even as a COVID-19 resurgence led to cancellation of fireworks and closing of beaches.

This divisiveness is becoming so obvious  never more clearly than the presidents embrace of racist base names  that a majority of Americans may finally be awakening. We need a president who will pull the country together and put Americans First, not Trump First.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Norway is facing demands that he abandon his pursuit of the diplomatic post after the unearthing of a 1994 court filing indicating his involvement in the production of a racist campaign flier against an African American politician in Georgia.

According to the filing, Mark Burkhalter helped create the a flier that distorted and exaggerated the features of Gordon Joyner, a candidate for county commissioner in north-central Georgia. Joyner was pictured with some features darkened, a large Afro, enlarged eyebrows and a warped eye.

Joyner accused the group involved of libel and sued, resulting in an out-of-court settlement, an apology signed by Burkhalter and three other men, and payment of an undisclosed sum.

Burkhalter did not disclose his involvement in the controversy to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to a letter by Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the panel's ranking Democrat, that was obtained by The Washington Post. The committee's discovery of his role has not previously been reported.

Burkhalter, a real estate developer and former Georgia state representative, did not respond to requests for comment. The State Department and the National Security Council referred questions about Burkhalter to the White House, which did not respond to requests for comment.

"These actions should disqualify anyone from Senate confirmation," Menendez wrote in a letter sent to White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows on Thursday. "During this time of national trauma and reckoning over violence and racist actions against African-Americans, however, it is unthinkable to nominate for a position of public trust an individual who participated in such a despicable, racist scheme. I therefore urge you to immediately withdraw his nomination."

Burkhalter became a target of the lawsuit during his role as campaign chairman for Mitch Skandalakis, who was at the time chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. The signed apology says the flier "contained a distorted photograph of you and inaccurate statements regarding you and attributed to you."

Burkhalter approved the flier's release, authorized payment for some of the printing costs and directed that it be attributed to a fake Political Action Committee with a fake P.O. Box address, according to court filings citing his and other depositions.

The flier sparked a controversy when it was released, with a 1995 editorial in the Atlanta Journal Constitution calling it a "racist hit piece." The filing says that during a meeting Burkhalter attended before the flier was created, attendees discussed that "white voters in North Fulton County were unaware that Gordon Joyner is black."

During a deposition, Burkhalter said the doctoring of Joyner's photo was discussed and joked about because "the face looked a little funny."

"People laughed about it at the meeting?" Burkhalter was asked.

"Yeah," he said, according to the deposition.

During the campaign, Skandalakis admitted responsibility for another flier with a photograph of Joyner next to his white opponent. "The Issue Isn't Black or White," read the flier with the word "Black" above Joyner and "White" above his opponent.

Burkhalter's nomination battle comes as Trump has attempted to fend off criticism of his response to nationwide protests demanding an end to police brutality against black people after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

Last weekend, the president shared a tweet that included a Trump supporter shouting "white power" at counterprotesters in central Florida, and called his supporters there "great people." After facing a wave of criticism, including from Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chamber's only black Republican, Trump deleted the tweet in a moment that underscored his bombastic and improvisational handling of the national tumult.

Joyner, who narrowly won reelection in the 1994 race and is now a private lawyer, said that when he learned that Trump had nominated Burkhalter "to be an Ambassador representing America on foreign shores, I immediately was stunned, shocked, dismayed, saddened, and very, very hurt."

Joyner told The Post that Burkhalter was a "leader in a notoriously despicable, mean, hateful, nasty, racist political campaign targeted, directed, and financed against me as a black elected official serving in office."

"The picture on the flier portrayed me as having a bigger Afro; my right eye was made to appear lower than my left eye; my eyebrows, mustache and beard were made darker; and my lower lip was made to appear thicker," he said.

The State Department declined to respond to a question about whether Burkhalter's nomination undermines its campaign to promote the department's diversity. Last month, the department's only African American assistant secretary resigned over Trump's handling of the Black Lives Matter protests.

"The president's comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions," Mary Elizabeth Taylor, who managed the State Department's relationship with Congress, wrote in her resignation letter.

Menendez letter urged Meadows to "ensure that the President immediately withdraws [Burkhalter's] nomination."

He added: At a minimum, advice and consent means that we ensure that the individuals we confirm are not only experienced and qualified, but suitable for public service.
Philadelphias landlord-tenant court, which has been closed since mid-March to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, was scheduled to reopen Monday.

But the court will remain closed to nonemergency business at least through Sept. 2 because of the increasing number of new infections in the city and limitations in accessing court facilities, according to a district court order issued Thursday. The order averts what tenant advocates expected would be a disaster of confused renters unaware of new pandemic-related protections and renters who would automatically lose their cases by not showing up to court out of fear of contracting COVID-19.

But the order came the day before a long holiday weekend that ends Monday, when four dozen hearings were scheduled to be held. Advocates worry that tenants wont get the news of the closed court and show up unnecessarily.

Mayor Jim Kenney on Wednesday signed a package of City Council bills that extends the eviction moratorium in Philadelphia through Aug. 31 and otherwise makes allowances for tenants during the pandemic.

City officials and advocates say mass evictions could follow the end of the moratorium because tenants continue to struggle with lost wages in the economic fallout of the pandemic. A surge in people who are homeless would threaten public health and strain resources already pulled tight by a projected $749 million revenue shortfall in the city budget.

Typically, landlords disproportionately evict mothers and their children and Black people, a community at higher than average risk of complications from COVID-19. Daily case counts are trending up in the city.

Stable housing remains our strongest and most reliable means of prevention, said Rachel Garland, a managing attorney in the housing unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.

Rental assistance programs are just now ramping up, and tenants need time to access that aid to pay their landlords, advocates said. Property owners can then avoid vacancies they may have trouble filling.

 READ MORE: Pennsylvanians struggling with housing costs due to pandemic can apply for aid

It doesnt benefit either tenants or landlords right now to go forward with evictions, Garland said.

But some landlords disagree. Those with pending evictions have been frustrated by the court delays and want to be able to evict tenants for nonpayment as quickly as possible to try to turn over units and bring in revenue. A lot of landlords dont want to take money through city and state rental assistance programs because of the strings attached, including bans on evictions for months after assistance ends.

Challenges facing the court

Roughly 1,800 landlord-tenant cases had been scheduled for March before most were rescheduled for July and August. The court planned to attempt to get through the backlog by cutting down to 48 cases a day, scheduled six at a time in 45-minute increments to prevent a crowded courtroom. In a typical day before the pandemic, the court scheduled more than three times as many cases.

 READ MORE: Advocates, officials try to prevent Phillys coming wave of coronavirus evictions

The court would have required face masks, provided hand sanitizer throughout the building, and encouraged anyone who felt unwell to leave. The court planned to install partitions where social distancing was not possible.

Many tenants have to take several forms of transportation to get to Center City. Those concerned about contracting COVID-19 on public transportation or at court  especially people in vulnerable populations or with vulnerable family members  might not have attended their hearings. Community Legal Services estimated that more than half of tenants wouldnt have come to court because of the coronavirus, up from the typical 30% to 40%. Those who dont show up lose their cases.

Its just not practical to open within a global health emergency, Garland said.

Community Legal Services was advising tenants who did not feel safe going in person to call the court to ask for reasonable accommodations, such as a continuance of a case or the ability to participate by phone or video call.

The court planned to temporarily suspend the lawyer of the day program that provides free representation to low-income tenants and keep out courtroom navigators, advocates at the Philadelphia Eviction Prevention Project who guide tenants, until the court could ensure that the programs could continue safely. Tenant advocates had planned to set up on the sidewalk outside municipal court to distribute information about tenant protections and rental assistance programs.

 READ MORE: 13,000 Philadelphians applied for pandemic rental assistance. Funds ran out after 4,000.

Phil Lord, executive director of the Tenant Union Representative Network, said that as coronavirus cases rise, limiting the number of hearings would not have been enough to ensure safety.

It is less risky than it would be routinely. The question is, is it safe? And that should be the standard, he said. The pandemic has not changed. Theres no vaccine.

The confusion of reopening

Days before landlord-tenant court was to reopen Monday, advocates were scrambling to figure out how best to advise tenants. Confused renters have been calling tenant hotlines for clarity that advocates could not always provide, given the speed with which information has changed.

Lord, of the Tenant Union Representative Network, said the uncertainty was a serious undermining of due process and left people guessing about their safety and rights.

You should be clear with people who are about to lose their homes, he said.

Many landlords, too, dont understand their responsibilities under new federal, state, and local protections for tenants, Garland of Community Legal Services said.

The eviction moratorium

The closure of landlord-tenant court worked in tandem with the eviction moratorium, which has kept Pennsylvanians who lost income because of the coronavirus in their homes. The soonest an eviction can happen is 21 days after a court judgment.

On Monday, the landlord association HAPCO Philadelphia plans to file a challenge in federal court to the bills City Council passed to extend the eviction moratorium, waive rent fees, create an eviction diversion program, give tenants nine months to pay back rent, and allow tenants who have been illegally locked out of their homes to recover damages.

Victor Pinckney, a vice president at HAPCO, had been looking forward to the courts reopening and had faith in the courts safety precautions inside.

 READ MORE: Phillys small landlords can apply for loans to offset missed rent during the pandemic

Ive got several tenants I know have money that have not paid rent, he said. One of his tenants has not paid since February, before state and city officials closed businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus and before the mass layoffs that followed. He said he had a court hearing with the tenant scheduled for July 14 that will now be rescheduled.

Even if court had reopened Monday, the case backlog and court rules limiting the number of hearings a day would have meant there was a good chance he wouldnt have reclaimed his units until November or December and wouldnt have been able to collect rent until he could lease units again in January or February, Pinckney said.

He said one HAPCO member who owns several properties told him one of his tenants has not been paying rent but has several cars and bought a new one. The property owner feels stuck without the option to evict.
You cant make a trip to the supermarket these days without donning modern-day armor  masks, gloves, hand sanitizer. But in late May, the Whole Foods store on South Street added another line of defense in the battle against the coronavirus: It replaced a row of employee-powered cash registers with nine self-checkout stations.

Masks and gloves are a cheap safeguard against the contagion, and will probably be discarded once the pandemic subsides. But the self-checkout machines are an investment that is likely to stick around, at least until the next generation of technology takes their place. According to a store employee, the South Street supermarket can now function with just three human cashiers on a typical shift, down from a high of 15. If you choose self-checkout, you can easily complete your shopping without encountering a single Whole Foods team member at close range.

Even before the pandemic reconfigured every aspect of our daily lives, it was clear that the cash register  the kind with a drawer that pops out after your groceries are tallied  was headed for the dust heap of technology, joining fax machines and CD players. Many convenience stores, like CVS, Rite Aid and Target, started installing self-checkout stations a decade ago. When Giants Heirloom Market, one of the more tech-savvy combatants in Philadelphias grocery wars, opened its first city store last year, self-checkout was the only option.

Give it a few more years and store cashiers will be as rare as blacksmiths. The coronavirus has simply accelerated the process of automation.

Its not just cashiers. The same scenario is playing out in a dozen other low-wage, low-skill professions. Because of the need for social distancing, companies have been looking for ways to reduce interactions between customers and employees. That increasingly means replacing people with machines. Policy experts worry that whole categories of jobs could be phased out at the exact moment when the world economy is imploding.

Put simply, any coronavirus-related recession is likely to bring about a spike in labor-replacing automation, Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Center, wrote in a prescient essay published just after the first cases of the virus appeared in the United States in March.

 READ MORE: The open office floor plan has to change  at least during the coronavirus pandemic

Businesses have always turned to automation when times are tough. Weve seen that in the last three recessions. More automation, more replacement of lower-skilled people, Muro said in an interview. But given that the pandemic-induced upheavals have already cost 40 million Americans their jobs, more automation could widen the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, increasing the countrys already severe inequality.

While it feels as if the pace of automation has picked up in recent years, history can be viewed as a series of technological advances that have made work more efficient and freed people to do more complex and interesting tasks. Automation also has played a role in making workplaces safer. Thanks to robotic paint sprayers, for instance, people who assemble cars and appliances no longer have to risk exposure to noxious chemical fumes.

Still, the pain of automation is real and has wiped out once-common occupations. When was the last time anybody bothered with a travel agent to book a flight? Executives no longer call on typists to transcribe their letters. An app can do that. Movie projectionists exist only in, well, the movies. Before the pandemic added an extra wrinkle to the situation, Brookings was already warning that a quarter of the jobs in office administration, transportation, and food preparation were vulnerable.

In normal times, automation can lead to the creation of new kinds of jobs because it makes businesses more productive and spurs innovation, says Omer Faruk Koru, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania studying the effects of automation on inequality.

But these are anything but normal times.

Typically, companies decide to introduce new technology when the machines become cheaper than employees. Because of the virus, they now have a second, powerful motivation.

Robots dont get sick, explains Brittain Ladd, a supply-chain consultant who advises companies like Amazon and Walmart. Over the last few weeks, he has been bombarded with inquiries from retailers looking for robotic solutions to the pandemic.

 READ MORE: Coronavirus has kicked off a massive economic shift and no one knows where its going

Ladd does most of his consulting for grocery chains, one of the few sectors that have prospered during the pandemic. Many supermarkets have seen their delivery business triple, to 15% of sales. But, Ladd says, taking groceries to customers doorsteps isnt profitable in the long term, especially when youre promising two-hour delivery. The stores have to pay pickers to roam the aisles, assembling orders. Then drivers have to deliver each order, sometimes at a destination miles from the store. Its the worst business model ever created, Ladd argues.

So its not surprising that big supermarket chains are now exploring ways to automate the process. Ladd believes the solution lies in micro-fulfillment centers  mini-versions of Amazon-style warehouses  set up inside existing supermarkets.

A micro-fulfillment center is essentially a large box that houses tightly packed storage bins that move along a steel track. Once an online order is received, the items are plucked by a robot from the bins and sent speeding along the track, in much the same way that books are distributed by the book bot at Temple Universitys new Charles Library. Instead of a dozen pickers roaming the store and selecting items, just one or two employees would be needed to operate a micro-fulfillment center. After everything is packed up, customers retrieve their groceries from a pickup window  or perhaps the nearest Amazon locker.

Besides a few people to operate the micro-fulfillment center, the only employees a store would need are category specialists, in meat or vegetables, Ladd says. They would become more like knowledge workers.

Its one thing to retrofit stores with self-checkout stations and quite another to plan and install such complex robotic technology. Thats why online retailers have been on a hiring binge since the pandemic began. Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, says it plans to add 175,000 employees, many to work in its fulfillment warehouses. Walmart will hire nearly a quarter-million new workers. Jobs for sanitation specialists are also booming.

But an employee who works at Whole Foods South Street store fears the hiring will be only temporary. After the self-checkout stations were installed at her store, she noticed that the company cut the hours of part-time workers, putting an increased burden on the existing full-time staff. The employee, who asked not to be identified because of fear of losing her job, is also worried about the stores remaining full-time cashiers. They were here before Amazon bought the company. Theyre older people who cant transition easily. What happens if Whole Foods follows Heirlooms lead and eliminates cashiers? The company did not respond to a written request for comment.

 READ MORE: Will we ever work in the company office again? | Inga Saffron

Traditionally, such low-wage jobs have not been worth automating because paying workers minimum wage was cheaper than buying new machines. Thats why most of the investment in robotics over the last several decades has been concentrated in high-value manufacturing sectors, like automobiles and appliances. Despite everything weve heard about manufacturing going overseas, the surviving American factories are now some of the most sophisticated operations in the world, according to the Brookings study.

That study also noted that the intensity of robot use in textiles, apparel, and leather products remains the most limited. The pandemic could put those industries in automations crosshairs.

The early data from Philadelphia suggest that low-skill workers have already suffered the biggest job losses. According to a recent report by Philadelphia Works, the agency that oversees workforce development for the city, 68% of the people who have filed for unemployment since March dont have a high-school diploma. The pandemic has disproportionately affected Blacks, Latinos and women, and they could be vulnerable to increased automation.

Before the pandemic hit, Philadelphia was experiencing its best job growth in years. The city was adding jobs at a faster rate than either the nation or the suburbs, says Meg Shope Koppel, Philadelphia Works chief research officer. At the same time, the citys economy  like everywhere else  was undergoing major changes. Entry-level jobs in fin-tech  financial services  were declining. So was the retail sector, which has shrunk by a thousand jobs since 2014.

Ive heard there is real trouble placing entry-level accountants, Koppel said, partly because computer programs make their skills less necessary. If youre a scheduler or someone moving paper, your job wont exist in five years.

Sylvie Gallier Howard, the citys acting commerce director, says she is now focused on setting up training programs to help unemployed city residents adjust their skills to the available jobs. The city managed to include an additional $1 million for training in this years austerity budget.

Such programs in the U.S. have been notoriously ineffective because they are usually run by governments, not businesses. The emphasis is always on teaching people how to interview or search for a job, complains Susan Houseman, director of research for the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, an independent nonprofit think tank in Michigan. We dont offer good career-oriented technical education, post-high school.

But Philadelphias Howard recently spent some time in Germany, which she believes runs one of the worlds best retraining programs. She wants to emulate their practices here. Were looking to build more partnerships between employers and Community College, she says. The city also wants employers to help the School District shape its offerings, to create a direct school-to-jobs pipeline. But she acknowledes, it takes time to scale up.

Automation will affect white- and blue-collar workers very differently. Houseman says office workers could actually benefit from the pandemic because working from home allows them to live where they like. Certain low-wage workers, like janitors and health aides, will also get through the crisis because they cant easily be replaced by machines.

That doesnt mean they will be paid any better. Four economists from the International Monetary Fund recently wrote an article predicting that the pandemic will widen the U.S. wage gap. Previous epidemics have always hurt the employment prospects of people with low educational attainment, while scarcely affecting those with advanced degrees.

Despite all the emergency federal aid being dumped into the economy, low-wage workers remain the group most likely to suffer the economic side effects of the coronavirus.
The Barchart Chart of the Day belongs to the plastic products company Deswell (NASDAQ: DSWL ). Readers are always asking me how to find stocks that are just beginning to trend before everyone else discovers them. One of the best ways is to look at Barchart's Strong Volume Gains preformatted screener. It identifies stocks...

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BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Wednesday marks the 99th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). After weathering the COVID-19 epidemic, the Chinese people believe more firmly that the CPC leadership is the most reliable shelter against storms. The slander game, played by some U.S. politicians, will never manage to hide this fact, and whitewash their own incompetence.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and other like-minded American politicians, recently kept uttering slanderous remarks about China's response to COVID-19, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong policies. With a deep-seated Cold-War mindset and ideological bias, they turn a blind eye to China's stunning development achievements, while ignoring their severe problems at home.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people have created economic miracles and long-term social stability. The CPC and the country's political system have withstood the test of time, and won more trust and support from the people in the process of fighting the epidemic.

The Singapore-based insights agency, Blackbox Research, in a recent survey found that 85 percent of Chinese people believe China will emerge stronger from this crisis, ranking the highest, compared with 41 percent of Americans. It is fair to say that Pompeo's slander peddling will only bury Washington's already shaky credibility.

An unexpected crisis is a litmus test of a ruling party's governance. In China, within little more than a single month, the rising spread of the virus was contained; in around two months, the daily increase in domestic cases had fallen to single digits; and in approximately three months, a decisive victory was secured in the battle to defend hard-hit Hubei Province and its capital city of Wuhan. The achievements were made thanks to the strong leadership of the CPC, which made correct and effective decisions rapidly in response to the crisis.

According to a white paper released by the State Council Information Office of China, more than 39 million CPC members fought the virus at the front lines, and more than 13 million members volunteered their services. Nearly 400 CPC members have defended others' lives and safety at the cost of their own.

In stark contrast, the number of confirmed cases, deaths, and deaths per million people in the United States is respectively 30, 27, and 129 times higher than that of China. It is puzzling to understand how a country, boasting the world's most advanced and sophisticated medical technology, has topped pandemic infections and deaths globally. It is even more puzzling to understand how that government, responding so poorly to a crisis, has kept shifting blame to another country.

Smearing the CPC will only make the U.S. politicians' dereliction more obvious. Struggling with the twin predicaments of a ravaging pandemic and widespread protests against racial discrimination at home, Pompeo and other like-minded American politicians have put political expediency above people's lives.

Undoubtedly, the CPC governance legitimacy shines even brighter amid global uncertainty. When domestic tensions continue to wreak havoc across the United States, saving and respecting lives at home should be given top priority. The U.S. politicians had better stop talking nonsense and deceiving the world, otherwise, they will only continue to disgrace themselves.
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We will now focus our entire business under a new strategic direction, said Joachim Mueller, who was named CEO of AGCS in December. We will put technical excellence in underwriting before growth, simplify and strengthen our global model to ensure that we think and act as one team, and become more efficient, leaner and faster  benefitting us and our clients. Our joint ambition is set high: The New AGCS will be the market leader in our target segments. We expect to see significant profitability improvements of our underwriting results from 2021 onwards and aim to achieve full turnaround and transformation of our company by 2024.

Regional units reduced

During 2020, AGCS will reduce its number of regional units from seven to six and move from a country-centric model to a more global one with regional delivery, the current regions of North America, Asia Pacific, Central & Eastern Europe, Regional Unit London (including the Nordics) will remain unchanged. AGCS will form a Mediterranean & Africa region that will consist of France, Benelux, Italy and Africa, bringing the whole of Africa under one AGCS unit. Spain, Portugal and South America will be merged into a new Ibero/LatAm unit.

As previously announced, there will now be only two chief regions and markets officers on the AGCS board of management: Bill Scaldaferri for North America and Henning Haagen for all other AGCS regions and markets.

Leadership for each of the six regional units will be consolidated under one regional managing director. Underwriting, claims and other market-facing teams will be managed across regions by regional heads who will steer each function across all countries in the region and report to the regional managing director, AGCS said.

AGCS also plans some regional leadership changes. Pending regulatory approval, Nuno Antunes will join AGCS from AIG to head up the Ibero/LatAm region, and Alfredo Alonso, previously with Argo Global, will lead Regional Unit London. Corinne Cipiere, currently country CEO for France, will be the regional managing director for the Mediterranean and Africa region. Regional leadership for the other regions will remain unchanged.

Focus on large corporate risks, MidCorp

The company will continue to focus on specialist property and casualty insurance that targets complex risks for large multinational corporations.

This should be our core stronghold and key differentiator, Mueller said. Here we win on deep risk expertise, outstanding claims management, and a strong relationship model that creates value and solutions for customers, bringing together all of AGCS and also Allianz Group worldwide.

AGCS will also continue to serve mid-sized companies through its MidCorp line of business, which generated 965 billion in gross net written premium last year.

With dedicated turnaround measures and selected segment exits, such as agribusiness in the US or MidCorp in Canada, we have repositioned our portfolio and achieved real progress in this part of our business, Mueller said. We will now focus on securing the benefits of the profitability and expense improvements in the current hardening market environment.

Investments in tech

The company also plans to invest significantly in expanding its technical capabilities. This includes strengthening its capabilities and tools in pricing, portfolio management, loss-trend analysis, volatility management and actuarial modelling. More than 30 new roles have been identified for this effort, AGCS said.

We have already significantly reduced our exposures in our portfolio and will continue to apply corrective actions and adjustments where needed, Mueller said. Underwriting is the engine of profitability, and we must truly regain our position as a technical underwriting company leveraging our talents as well as new technology and analytic tools.

New functions and teams

As part of its transformation, AGCS aims to provide brokers and clients with improved service delivery and strengthen its own business-development approach by establishing a dedicated global sales and distribution function, which will consist of about 35 employees. The new team will be led by Patrick Thiels, who currently serves as regional CEO for the Mediterranean region.

AGCS will also form a number of specialist industry teams under the leadership of industry solution directors. These teams will serve customers in targeted industry segments, starting with financial institutions, telecoms and IT, construction, and aviation and aerospace. The company plans to expand the approach to other sectors in the future.

To oversee AGCSs global insurance program offering for multinational companies and expand digital customer services, the company has appointed Nigel Leppitt as global head of multinational. Leppitt was previously AGCS chief transformation officer.

The company is also introducing other new functions to reduce cost and complexity. Global product management, led by Guy Money, previously of AXA Group, will oversee product harmonisation and simplification. Global process management will be responsible for improving process efficiency and customer service. That function will be led by Erika Cubova, who will move from her current position as global head of claims portfolio intelligence and coordination.

Building the New AGCS is not business as usual, but the opportunity has never been greater, Mueller said. It means a big leap forward through the comprehensive transformation of our company. With the new leadership team and a clear focus on our target clients in the right segments and markets, we will drive for market leadership, putting AGCS back on top of our industry for our customers, employees and Allianz Group.
We have a brilliant Indigenous population who managed to survive in this country for 60,000-years, Cooper said.

It is still in their DNA, in many lessons passed down from generation to generation, to know how to survive on this land. Local tribes often managed their local environments with fires to improve accessibility, allowing time for animals to escape and to allow for repopulation to maintain a continual source of food and water for their people.

Despite the extreme nature of our weather events now, Cooper says Australias First Nations people still have a lot to offer with valuable knowledge that should be respected and sought in risk mitigation processes.

First Nations people are still quite likely to have the skills needed to better manage the land than us, majority Anglo-Europeans, he continued. There are many experts among these tribes who can guide us on managing our lands more effectively and they should be consulted for advice.

Cooper also believes that improvements to building codes and resilience measures will help, despite the challenges they bring to insurance.

I totally agree that building codes need to be strengthened to be able to handle the new normal but this can cause many policyholders to be even more underinsured than before because the replacement cost to their buildings will increase to cater for this, he explained.

However, for brand new houses, to not meet a building code that can cope with the current environment we live in puts an unfair onus back on insurers who will load premiums according to the building code currently applying to someones property.

This, Cooper says, is the reason why insurers are so interested in knowing when their clients homes were built. But now, he says there are lots of new fire risk quirks insurers are looking out for.

The interesting thing with bushfires is that we used to promote no trees within a certain distance from a home as an adequate fire break, but the much more intense bushfires just fly over these now, he admitted. Sprinkler systems are out because there is not enough water in these regions and water pressure can be very low anyway.

Cooper says the increased fire risk facing Australians will mean an increase in fire resistant materials being used in house construction  meaning prices may soar.

Fire resistant materials will be used more frequently in houses, Cooper explained. Glass that will not melt at extreme temperatures; concrete that will not crack at high temperatures; support structures that are stronger. All this will add great expense to building a home.

Will the government contribute to these costs? Will they increase research funding for Universities and the CSIRO to come up with solutions? After all, it is the decisions of the government made over the last 20-years that have contributed to this increased risk.
As the COVID-19 lockdowns lift, many restaurants and hospitality businesses are struggling to resume operations due to limited capacity, restrictions from health authorities, and low customer traffic caused by eroded consumer trust.

According to Omar Ali-Shamaa (pictured above), lawyer at Wolfe Pincavage in Miami and an experienced restaurateur, the two biggest concerns in reopening are customer and employee safety.

From an employer perspective, employee safety is top of mind as businesses reopen, Ali-Shamaa told Corporate Risk and Insurance. However, there is a delicate balance between making sure employees are safe but also doing their job. Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), certain employers must provide up to 80 hours of paid sick leave to employees if the employee has been advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine or is experiencing COVID-19-19 related symptoms. As such, if an employee contracts the virus, an employer covered under the FFCRA will have to provide paid sick leave to the employee infected with the virus, as well as the employee covering for said employee, resulting in additional operational costs.

He added that operators are also facing additional charges of up to US$1,000 per day in labor or materials to ensure proper sanitation measures are taken to restore customer confidence. To recoup these costs, some establishments have added a COVID surcharge to customers bills.

Operating in this new normal leaves businesses in the hospitality space with increased costs up to 20% while operating at only 50% capacity, therefore affecting their daily bottom line, Ali-Shamaa said.

Ali-Shamaa also pointed out another important component in restaurant reopening strategies  visibility.

To instill confidence, customers must physically see a restaurant is taking the proper precautions in their sanitation process, such as hand sanitizer dispensers, wiping down tables, barriers, and disposable menus, he said.

Establishments must also follow CDC, state, county, and local guidelines, including no tables within six feet of each other (measured from the back of one chair to the back of another), and employees sporting the proper PPE equipment.

Failure to do so will result in potential litigation, fines, or shutdowns, he added.

Continuing on the topic of visibility, Ali-Shamaa said that restaurants are also rebranding their businesses and marketing to conform to the new normal. These include branded PPE equipment, social distance signage, and updating their website and social media platforms to add new policies.

While some restaurants are finding ways to create a safe dining experience reminiscent of pre-pandemic times, others are adapting and implementing creative tactics, he said. Out-of-the-box creative tactics include virtual cooking classes and pre-packed kits with raw and semi-raw ingredients.

Risk management and litigation

With the unprecedented scale and effects of COVID-19, the hospitality industry has seen some unique cases in previously uncharted territory. Danya Pincavage (pictured above), co-founder and partner at Wolfe Pincavage, said that several restaurants have filed class-action lawsuits against their commercial property insurers, seeking business interruption coverage. However, business interruption coverage usually requires proof of physical damage to the insured premises.

Insurers are denying coverage because viruses allegedly cannot physically damage real property, she said. Even if insureds can demonstrate that the virus caused physical damage to their property, they may also need to prove that COVID-19 was present on their premises around or during the time of closure.

Pincavage added that many insurance policies expressly exclude coverage for business interruption caused by viruses. She said that these lawsuits are being closely watched, and if courts find that COVID-19 physically damaged insured premises, it will pave the way for other hospitality businesses to seek coverage.

A major concern on the horizon is lawsuits filed by employees alleging that they contracted COVID-19 at work, she said. These will probably be brought as workers compensation claims and should be covered under most workers compensation policies. The employees will have to prove that they contracted COVID-19 at work, which will be challenging given the widespread nature of the disease.

Another possible source of lawsuits are customers that allege that they contracted COVID-19 while patronizing a business.

Many businesses have commercial general liability insurance, which covers bodily injury sustained by a non-employee at the insured premises, Pincavage said. But most commercial general liability insurance requires that the bodily injury be caused by an occurrence  usually defined as an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to the same harmful conditions. The term accident is not defined in these policies, and litigation will likely arise regarding whether exposure to COVID-19 is an accident under a commercial general liability policy.

With the uncertain situation insurance is currently in against COVID-19, Pincavage advised risk managers to be vigilant and use best practices. If possible, risk managers should also document what procedures are in place to protect their employees and customers.

Should a situation arise where COVID-19 is discovered on the premises, a business can point to its documentation to demonstrate that it complied with the guidelines and procedures, she said. As we learn more about COVID-19 transmission methods every day, businesses can only adhere to the current guidelines to protect themselves.
A 2018 jury verdict and pretrial rulings by a Missouri federal judge ruled against State Farm in the case. The insurer later appealed to the 8th US Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling.

But last week, the federal court ruled that the insurers policy language was ambiguous, adding that Missouri law requires ambiguous statements to be construed in favor of customers. The court also rejected State Farms argument that the cases class certification was inappropriate because the class included members who did not suffer damages, Bloomberg Law reported.

Kansas City Business Journal said that State Farm could still appeal to the overall 8th Circuit and ask for the US Supreme Court to review the case, but the company has yet to reveal its intentions.
Since 2005, K-12 school districts, colleges and universities across the country have experienced more than 1,300 data breaches affecting more than 24.5 million records, according to a new study by Comparitech.

The study analyzed 15 years worth of data to find data-breach hot spots, the biggest causes of the breaches, and how many students were affected by each breach. Major findings included:
Maryland Insurance Commissioner Kathleen Birrane has been in her new role for nearly two months, and she already has big plans for the state to establish itself as a leader in the tech space.

Id like to see Maryland at the forefront of technological innovation, Birrane told Insurance Journal.

The fact that her sights are set on tech and innovation may come as no surprise, as her plans for the state will capitalize on her background as a former partner in the Insurance Sector and Litigation and Regulatory Practice Group at global law firm DLA Piper LLP. In this role, her practice focused on insurance and reinsurance transactions, regulatory compliance and related litigation, representing clients with respect to, among other things, analysis of issues related to the use of technology, predictive modeling/big data, and artificial intelligence in the insurance sector.

I am well versed in the ways in which the [insurance] industry is driving change through innovations that have been enabled by the convergence of big data, machine learning and computing power that is commonly referred to under the rubric of artificial intelligence,' Birrane said. My mantra to my own clients was  high tech equals high touch. And that is still my approach.

Birrane was originally appointed as Maryland Insurance Commissioner by Governor Larry Hogan on May 1, 2020, succeeding Al Redmer who in May assumed the role of Executive Director of the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund. Birrane took office on May 18, 2020, for a term ending on May 30, 2023.

Governor Larry Hogan and my predecessor, Al Redmer, were instrumental in reestablishing a regulatory environment that is fair, practical and cooperative without sacrificing any consumer protection, she said. Thats why a growing number of insurers have chosen to do business in Maryland, creating a very competitive marketplace that benefits consumers.

Birrane said she hopes to continue expanding the insurance marketplace in Maryland and protecting consumers, all while boosting the insurance industrys tech capabilities in the state.

She said she sees the Maryland Insurance Administration (MIA) as being part of the drive within the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to use technologies such as blockchain to improve regulatory speed and efficiency. The MIA will also seek ways to use technology to deliver better and faster results for consumers, including through product and pricing innovation and fully digital purchasing and claims experiences under her leadership, she added.

We can deliver the kinds of innovation that modern consumers expect, while protecting data and consumers and guarding against unfair trade practices, she said.

Additionally, Birrane said she will work to attract more InsurTech innovators to Maryland.

Maryland is home to world class educational institutions and is already a leader in tech related degrees and business incubators, she said. the MIA has continued to act as a catalyst in building an educational pipeline from high school through graduate schools to assure a well prepared, educated work force across the insurance sector. To that, I hope to add an emphasis on degrees and opportunities in the technological and data sciences. I see Maryland as the East Coast leader in this area.

With this in mind, Birrane said the state has already seen a push in the direction of embracing more technology due to the current COVID-19 crisis.

I do think the industry has learned from the pandemic and if there is one common theme, it is the power and value of digital capabilities, she said, pointing to telemedicine as one example.

This emergency has led providers and insurers to make wider use of virtual consultations in ways that many resisted from skepticism. And yet, patients have been well served through these modalities she said. Indeed, what we find is that opening up virtual methods of interaction removes barriers for some people and in the long run improves outcomes and leads to better, more effective and efficient care.

Likewise, regulators and many companies were forced to transition to telework and virtual operations almost overnight, she added.

This has underscored for all of us how much we can accomplish without travel and off-site, and I expect that we will see changes in what we require from very simple things like changing statutes that still require companies to file paper forms in triplicate to conducting more oversight functions remotely, she said.

While Maryland has so far seen 68,423 confirmed cases and 3,086 confirmed deaths due to the COVID-19 virus, key statewide health metrics have continued to trend in a positive direction recently, according to Hogan, who announced the Maryland Strong: Roadmap to Recovery on April 24 regarding the states phased reopening plans.

In early June, the state moved into phase two of its reopening roadmap, which was developed based on recovery plans issued by the federal government, the National Governors Association, and institutions such as Johns Hopkins and the American Enterprise Institute, according to The Office of Governor Larry Hogans website.

Frequent communication has been key for the MIA to understand how the pandemic is impacting insurance companies, coverages and claims in particular, Birrane said.

The credit for that goes to Governor Hogan, Commissioner Redmer and the MIAs seasoned and capable staff, she said.

In the long term, Birrane said, the MIA needs to keep a close eye on its markets to monitor capacity and availability of coverages as the pandemic continues to unfold.

My job is to keep the communications and, where appropriate, requests for accommodations, going in the near term, she said. We dont know what all of the long term implications of the pandemic are in any line of insurance, but we can expect that the appetite for risk associated with certain losses will be very small.

Although much of the virus impact has been unpredictable, one thing is for sure, Birrane said.

The world has changed, she said.

Despite ongoing transformation presented by the COVID-19 crisis, Birrane said she believes Maryland has a solid, well-regulated insurance market. She credits Hogan and Redmer for expanding the market and giving consumers more choices, adding that her goal is to continue this work to attract strong and solvent companies to the state in the future.

I was not planning to step away from my partnership at DLA Piper, where I was very happy, she said. But I have tremendous regard for Governor Hogan, and I am honored to be a member of his cabinet.

Stepping into the role of Maryland Insurance Commissioner also has personal significance for Birrane, she said, as she will not only be furthering the legacy of Redmer  Marylands longest serving insurance commissioner  but also of her father, Former Maryland Insurance Commissioner Edward J. Birrane Jr.

I have a personal affection for this position, as my father served as the Maryland Insurance Commissioner from 1977 until 1982, she said. Im very excited to be in this role.

Topics Legislation InsurTech Tech Leadership Data Driven Maryland
Virus-related claims from just over 500 small South African firms battling insurers who have rejected them are worth up to 4 billion rand ($232 million), the firm representing the businesses has calculated.

Loss adjustment firm Insurance Claims Africa (ICA) is pushing a host of big South African insurers including Santam , Old Mutual, Hollard and HIC Underwriting Managers to make payouts under business interruption policies sold to its clients.

They are firms in the hospitality and tourism industry now on the cusp of closure after virus restrictions brought their businesses to a standstill.

Faced with national lockdowns, unprecedented during peacetime, small businesses around the world have turned to their insurers hoping such business interruption policies will cover losses and help them survive the crisis.

But in countries including Britain and the United States some of these claims have been rejected, prompting lawsuits or forcing regulators to step in to the fray.

Ryan Woolley, ICA CEO, told journalists on Wednesday that its calculations showed the claims by the firms ICA is representing amounted to between 3.5 billion rand and 4 billion rand, though it had offered the relevant insurers reduced amounts to settle the matter.

We will continue to discuss it with all the insurers, he continued, though he said ICA would launch legal action against Santam and HIC and could do the same against several others.

Santam and Old Mutual said that even where a client has taken out protection against contagious or infectious diseases, these do not cover the impact of national lockdowns.

The insurers added that they cannot consider a settlement for a select group of clients that would not equally apply to all impacted policyholders.

It is important that we obtain legal certainty as quickly as possible on the policy interpretation applied by Santam and other insurers, Santam added.

Guardrisk, a subsidiary of Momentum Metropolitan that underwrites HICs insurance business, also said it could only consider claims on a case-by-case basis and that it was in the process of arranging a meeting with ICA.

Hollard did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.

($1 = 17.2575 rand) (Reporting by Emma Rumney; editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Photograph: Empty streets with lonely figure and stay home sign in Cape Town on April 6, 2020 during the Coronavirus lockdown.

Topics COVID-19 Carriers Claims Business Interruption
Two decades of financial disasters from Enron Inc.s collapse in 2001 to Wirecard AGs meltdown have left the Big Four accounting firms facing a major cultural problem that regulators may struggle to resolve.

The 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) missing from Wirecards balance sheet brought the chief executive officers arrest, the German payments firms insolvency filing and a lot of finger-pointing. Some have blamed German regulator BaFin for its oversight failures. Wirecards auditor, Ernst & Young, called it an elaborate fraud that even a very rigorous probe may not have discovered.

But EY is also on the hot seat. It was added to a class-action style lawsuit against Wirecard on Tuesday, and stands accused of failing in its most fundamental duty. Its a systemic problem facing not just EY, but also the other members of the Big Four: KPMG, Deloitte and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, according to Atul Shah, an accounting and finance professor at City University of London.

After the 2008 crash, hardly any auditor was fined or went to jail over their failure to warn society, Shah said. After that it got worse  the common factor is the cultural problem.

The Big Four have each developed lucrative advisory arms to compete with McKinsey & Co. and other firms to provide the opportunity for revenue growth and brand building that accounting doesnt. However, regulators say that creates an inherent conflict of interest and encourages the auditors to be restrained in their audits to protect consulting opportunities.

Now EYs role as Wirecards accountant has prompted German politicians to blast their countrys regulators and to join their British counterparts in calling for the Big Four to be broken up.

EY is committed to a multidisciplinary model because it provides the technical skills and industry expertise necessary to deliver high-quality audits, as well as the resources to invest in technology, the firm said in a statement. Quality audits depend on a broad team with diverse skills, delivered with a culture based on shared values, it said.

Deloitte has been consistent in our support for reform, the firms deputy CEO, Stephen Griggs, said. We remain committed to playing our role in delivering change that embraces audit quality, improves choice and restores trust.

KPMG and PwC declined to comment.

BaFin has already come under fire after it took more than a year to report Wirecard for suspected market manipulation following a tip-off from a whistle-blower about irregularities at the payments company. BaFin chief Felix Hufeld issued an apology, saying that it shared responsibility for the complete disaster at Wirecard because it didnt do a good enough job as a regulator.

Fabio de Masi, a leader of Die Linke party in the German Bundestag, has demanded a comprehensive reassessment of BaFins role.

Sven Giegold, a German member of the European Parliament, has called for the legislative body to open an investigation into Wirecard. Hes also asking the European Commission, the EUs executive arm, to review its rules on auditing.

We have to end the wrong incentives for statutory audits, Giegold said, adding that audit firms have to be fully separated from advisory business.

Even if the Wirecard scandal has shaken Germanys financial sector, critics in the U.K., where the Big Four have a big presence, have been calling for reform for nearly a decade to little effect. That may be because the companies influence with regulators is too strong to allow a breakup.

Political Clout

The audit regulatory landscape has few neutral voices, said Karthik Ramanna, a professor of public policy at the University of Oxford, pointing to former Big Four accountants who take roles with the regulatory bodies. Alumni abound.

A number of former partners at the Big Four firms sit on committees at the Financial Reporting Council, the U.K.s industry watchdog.

Anne Whitaker, former head of audit and risk partner for EYs U.K. financial services practice, chairs the FRCs Audit Quality Review committee. John Hitchins, who spent 26 years as a partner at PwC, mostly specializing in bank audit and advisory services, and former KPMG partner Sean Collins, also sit on the conduct committee with her.

Paul George, who up until this year was the FRCs executive director for corporate governance for 16 years, had previously been a partner at KPMG for 17 years, according to his LinkedIn entry.

The FRC said it has strict rules about members or former members of the profession sitting on its committees and is transparent on such matters. The law requires that no accountant or auditor can sit on a regulatory board within three years of leaving the profession, it said via email.

Michael-John Albert, who works on the delivery of audits at EY, and Veronica Poole, a senior partner at Deloitte, are members of the FRCs corporate reporting council, an advisory panel without decision-making power. Councils include current professionals to give up-to-date insights, and are subject to the same conflict of interest rules, the FRC said.

Still, the influence of industry members is a force, experts say.

They have become very big political operators and have captured the regulatory process, City Universitys Shah said.

EYs German unit said that Wirecard provided false confirmations and statements about escrow accounts and that even the most robust and extended audit procedures may not uncover a collusive fraud.

All of the firms have grappled with their own scandals in the last decade, many of which remain under investigation.

Last month, the FRC reprimanded KPMG after the firm admitted shortcomings in three years of work for a client, which had to restate its distributable reserves twice. The U.K. watchdog last week ordered a probe into PwC and EYs work for defunct London Capital & Finance Plc.

Last year, Deloitte was fined 4.3 million pounds ($5.3 million) for its failure to properly audit the accounts of a unit of Serco Group Plc.

The FRC already said in April that its plans to force a split of the Big Fours accounting and advisory units had been put on hold because of the coronavirus outbreak. Last week it said its now going to move forward with the plan to achieve operational separation of audit practices, and would implement that plan as soon as next year.

Accounting experts are skeptical.

Virus Impact

A few months ago the threat of seismic government action seemed more credible but COVID has put a pause to that for now, said Michael Willis, director of the University of Cambridges master of accounting degree program. I dont think well see a lot of regulatory change in the short run because of the COVID volatility.

There is precedent. When Enron, the worlds largest energy trader, collapsed in a fraud of as much as $40 billion in 2001, Arthur Andersen was convicted for obstruction of justice for its role in destroying documents that were part of its audit. It became the first large global accounting firm to be shut down and the Big Five became the Big Four.

Post-COVID, if the world settles down to a world of tranquility, then its doable, said John Gilligan, director of the Said Finance Lab in Oxford, and a former partner at Deloitte.

But if youre sailing a ship in a storm, you need to bring it into anchor in harbor before you can do any repairs.

With assistance from Karin Matussek.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
Using a handheld cellphone while driving is now illegal on Indiana roads under a new state law that took effect this week.

The move aimed at combating distracted driving went onto the books on July 1 after being approved by the state Legislature this year.

Indiana is joining more than 20 other states in prohibiting drivers from holding or using a handheld mobile device while operating a moving vehicle.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb encouraged legislators to approve the ban, arguing that distracted driving increases the risk of a crash by more than 31/2 times. It was to blame in at least 860 injury crashes and 48 crashes with deaths across Indiana last year, according to state police.

The new law allows cellphone use by drivers only with hands-free or voice-operated technology, except in emergencies. It broadens a previous state ban on texting while driving that officials found unenforceable and didnt ban actions such as emailing or using Snapchat, Twitter and other apps.

Violators can be fined up to $500 and they could lose their drivers license for repeat violations. But motorists who are ticketed before July 1, 2021, will not receive points on their license, which can lead to license suspension.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Personal Auto Indiana
Brightway Insurance, a nationwide personal lines insurance agency system, has enhanced its franchise model with an option to join with a $5,000 franchise fee and the right to open an additional location at no additional cost.

Individuals that would like to operate a Brightway Agency in a professional office space can join the companys Office Agency model in two ways. With the new $5,000 franchise fee option, a franchise owner can receive a commission split of 60% on new business and 50% on renewals. The second option offers a higher commission rate on new business at an additional $25,000 that will earn franchisees 80% on new business.

According to Brightway President and CEO, Michael Miller, the company evaluated its franchise options and how it could make it easier for people who want to open a Brightway franchise.

We believe this new option with a lower franchise fee will open the door for many more people who wish to go into business for themselves, Miller said.

In addition to the two levels of the Office Agency model in which franchisees can work from a professional office space, the company continues to offer their flagship Retail Agency franchise model. The franchise fee for the Retail Agency model is $60,000, and franchisees earn up to 100% new business commission and 55% commission on renewals.

Regardless of which model the franchisee chooses, Brightway said individuals can open their first two locations for the same franchise fee and hire remote workers in their market.

The company said that the timing of stay at home orders and mass unemployment have many people reconsidering their job paths right now and for many, owning a recession-proof business they have control over is ideal.

Because of the pandemic, the company is also offering a stay-at-home option that allows new franchisees to start from home with the deferment of start-up costs for up to 90 days. That option applies to anyone opening a new franchise, regardless of the model in which they choose to invest. However, franchisees who buy into the Office Agency model will eventually need to work from a professional location, such as a space in a real estate or mortgage brokers office or in any professional office space, the company said. All franchisees may hire an unlimited number of remote employees should they wish to so long as at least one person is working out of their physical office or retail space.

Brightway does review and approve all office and retail spaces and locations. The requirement for an Office Agency location is that the space is in a professional setting and not at home and that it has reliable internet access.

Brightway currently operates in 22 states, including Ala., Ariz., Calif., Colo., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ks., La., Mich., Mo., N.J., N.Y., N.C, Okla., S.C., Tenn., Wash., and Wisc. The company said it is interested in finding partners in all contiguous 48 states and is currently working to aggressively expand in Ohio, Va., Ky., Utah, Ore., Md., Pa., Nev., and Conn. It offers a centralized team that provides training and support in areas including customer service, accounting, marketing, distribution, business analytics, carrier appointments, licensing, onboarding, training, hiring and retaining personnel.

Brightway also has relationships with hundreds of insurance companies.

Brightways models include:

Related:
Lloyds of London is proposing solutions that could provide customers with greater protection against a future wave of the COVID-19 virus or future systemic  black swan  catastrophes, such as another pandemic, a global cyber attack or a solar storm that shuts down electrical grids across the globe.

Lloyds framework proposals include Recover Re (a government-backed vehicle offering long-term, after-the-event cover that could insure against COVID-19 as well as future pandemic risks), Black Swan Re (a government-backed vehicle to insure against future systemic risks) and ReStart, a pooled non-damage business interruption product that would cover clients against future waves of COVID-19.

Lloyds acknowledged that customer attitudes to insurance have deteriorated as a result of the COVID-19 crisis because some business interruption policies have not performed as expected. The insurance industry must develop new products and structures in those areas where protection gaps exist today to support business recovery over the short-term post lockdown, and provide greater resilience over the medium to longer term, said the Lloyds report.

These three proposals are discussed in a white paper published this week by Lloyds, titled Supporting global recovery and resilience for customers and economies: the insurance response to COVID-19. (See below for details of the proposed solutions).

While the insurance industry has been and will continue to pay hefty claims during the current black swan event  the coronavirus crisis  it has come under fire because of pandemic exclusions in property business interruption policies. Many insurers, including Lloyds insurers, are facing litigation in the U.S., Canada and Europe as a result of these pandemic exclusions.

Lloyds has estimated that the industrys overall losses from the COVID-19 pandemic will be $203 billion, which will include underwriting losses of approximately $107 billion and decreases in investment portfolios of an estimated $96 billion.

In its report, Lloyds acknowledged that customer attitudes to insurance have deteriorated as a result of the COVID-19 crisis because some business interruption policies have not performed as expected. To identify customer priorities, Lloyds said it interviewed executives and experts across key global industries including travel and hospitality, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, retail, automotive, supply chain and transportation, energy, and construction.

Lloyds found during its research that companies were increasing the amount of risk they self-insure through captives, while others said they were taking the first steps in this direction. (Editors note: This could indicate a worrying trend, because many buyers view insurance as being unresponsive to their needs, even before the COVID-19 crisis).

COVID-19 has demonstrated that there is much more we can do to support our customers by providing protection for the changing risks they face, said Lloyds Chairman, Bruce Carnegie-Brown, in a statement. Some of these risks are of a scale that require partnership with governments globally and this report identifies ways in which the insurance industry could work with governments to share risk and create a braver, more resilient world.

[T]he insurance industry must develop new products and structures in those areas where protection gaps exist today to support business recovery over the short-term post lockdown, and provide greater resilience over the medium to longer term, the report continued.

But how can the industry insure systemic risks that are difficult to predict and model? The report noted that these risks are so large in scale they render traditional risk mitigation and transfer methods unfeasible, requiring financial resources far in excess of the global non-life re/insurance industrys $2 trillion asset pool.

As thoughts turn to restart and recovery, society needs solutions that can offer protection in the new risk landscape and, in the short term, from a second wave of the pandemic, Lloyds said.

To illustrate the scale of the current crisis, the report pointed to the fact that global government fiscal support packages in response to the pandemic totaled $9 trillion as of May 2020 but could reach up to $15 trillion by the end of 2020. Both these figures came from International Monetary Fund reports, said a Lloyds representative.*

(Editors note: In a worst-case scenario, the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, has estimated the global economy could take a hit of some $82 trillion over the next five years, or $16.4 trillion per year.)

The current pandemic has exposed the limitations of existing risk transfer structures for systemic risks of this scale, said the report. As thoughts turn to restart and recovery, society needs solutions that can offer protection in the new risk landscape and, in the short term, from a second wave of the pandemic.

Lloyds emphasized that close collaboration among insurers, brokers and customers, and between the global insurance industry and governments, is necessary to create new vehicles that combine insurance capital with sovereign capacity to develop protection against systemic risks.

To accelerate this process, Lloyds is suggesting three framework solutions, which could provide protection for customers shorter-to-longer-term needs. (These are open source frameworks, and therefore are freely available to use around the world). Lloyds describes the solutions as follows:

Recover Re would be a government-backed vehicle offering after-the-event cover, which could provide small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) with immediate relief for non-damage business interruption losses, including the current COVID-19 pandemic. Premiums would be charged over the long term to recoup costs. This could be an efficient way to inject commercial and government funds into the economy, providing relief to customers with limited borrowing capacity. This framework could be implemented in any country where the government has the resources and industry commitment to support it.

Black Swan Re would provide reinsurance for commercial non-damage business interruption cover for future systemic events through industry pooled capital, backed by a government guarantee to pay out if ever the pool had insufficient funds.

ReStart is a commercial structure for pooling risk capacity between insurers to support SMEs with their return to work. A short-term response to the current pandemic, ReStart would offer non-damage business interruption cover for future waves of COVID-19. This solution is currently being developed by several Lloyds market participants to pilot with UK SMEs.

Delivering these initiatives at the pace and scale needed to help customers and wider society will require close collaboration between the insurance industry, governments, customers, and, in some cases, the capital markets and non-governmental organizations, said the report.

Lloyds said these frameworks will take time to develop: ReStart will take two to three months; Recover Re will take three to six months, while Black Swan Re will take six to 12 months.

(Editors Note: Several countries, such as the U.S., UK, France and Germany, are currently in the process of developing government-backed industry pools to protect commercial customers from future pandemic non-damage business interruption risks).

For its part, Lloyds said it will provide seed funding of up to 15 million to support the development of its suggested frameworks. Further, Lloyds will use its marketplace to act as a convenor and incubator to develop some of these initiatives.

* The two IMF reports cited by Lloyds are:

Related:

Topics Excess Surplus Market Lloyd's Business Interruption
A Congressional action plan for a clean energy economy is garnering a bit of praise from a few important names in the insurance industry.

The House of Representatives in 2019 established the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis to make climate policy recommendations to Congress to achieve reductions in activities that contribute to the climate crisis.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Kathy Castor, D-FL, which includes experts in climate change, clean energy and environmental justice, delivered its final report to Congress on June 30.

The report, Solving the Climate Crisis: The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy and Just America, is designed to provide a roadmap for policymakers to deal with climate change.

It calls for:

Reaching 100% clean, net-zero emissions economy-wide in the U.S. by no later than 2050.

Establishing ambitious interim targets to assess progress and reduce pollution in environmental justice communities.

Achieving net-negative emissions during the 2nd half of the century.

Some of they ways to achieve these goals outlined in the plan include supporting rapid deployment and build up of green energy resources, incentivizing green energy and launching new green economic sectors.

Ben Harper, Zurich North America head of corporate sustainability, applauded the plan.

We believe the global impact of climate change is one of the most complex issues facing todays society, Harper said. The Congressional Action Plan is a positive and significant step towards addressing how the government should work with the private sector to help tackle these issues.

He added: We look forward to working with Congress as they work to turn the Action Plan into legislation.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety also had positive things to say about the report.

Crucial to the long-term need to adapt, the Committees report demands a focus now on serving minority and low-income communities to strengthen homes and better prepare for climate change. We are not powerless against severe weather, Roy Wright, president and CEO of IBHS, said in a statement. Adaptation is a sound fiscal strategy, public health objective and humanitarian obligation to prepare today for tomorrows disasters.

New Jersey

As levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere, New Jersey will experience significant direct and secondary changes in its environment, including increases in temperature, frequency and intensity of storms, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, as well as impacts on human health and the economy.

Thats according to a new report from New Jerseys Department of Environmental Protection. The report is part of the states strategy to reduce emissions that fuel global warming as well as plan for climate change impacts that New Jersey is expected to experience.

Many of the impacts of climate change are already familiar to New Jerseys residents, including increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more frequent and intense storms, the report states. New Jersey has seen the evidence of climate change in our increasingly mild winters, more frequent heavy rains, flooding along inland streams and rivers, and more sunny day tidal flooding along areas of the coast. These events can threaten public health and safety, destroy property, undermine critical infrastructure, and damage New Jerseys economy, including the vibrant tourism industry supported by our beloved shore and lake communities.

Key findings in the report include:

New Jersey is warming faster than the rest of the Northeast region and the world (since 1895, New Jerseys annual temperature has increased by 3.5F).

Climate change could result in a 55% increase in summer heat-related mortalities.

Annual precipitation in New Jersey is expected to increase by 4% to 11% by 2050, while the size and frequency of floods will increase as annual precipitation increases.

By 2050, there is a 50% chance that sea-level rise will meet or exceed 1.4 feet.

The effects of climate change are likely to contribute to an increase in air pollution, lead to increased respiratory and cardiovascular health problems, like asthma and hay fever, and a greater number of premature deaths.

New Jersey may become unsuitable for specialty crops like blueberries and cranberries in the future as higher temperatures reduce necessary winterchills.

Bank of England

Banks and insurers in Britain must implement plans they have drawn up to deal with risks to their businesses from climate change by the end of 2021, the Bank of England said.

The BoE previously told firms to establish a plan by October 2019 to mitigate climate-related risks, such as rising flood claims, or risks caused by a shift to net-zero emissions that will hit investments in activities with heavy emissions.

However, the bank did not previously give a deadline for implementing those plans, according to a Reuters article appearing this week in Insurance Journal.

Deputy Governor Sam Woods, who has set the end of 2021 as the date to fully embed plans to deal with climate risks, told heads of banks and insurers that it regulates in a letter: There are some areas of our expectations where few barriers exist to full implementation, but we recognize that challenges remain in others.

He acknowledged that limited data meant firms might not be able to calculate in full the impact on capital by the end of 2021.

However, you should be able to explain what steps your firm has taken to ensure that, where appropriate, capital levels adequately cover the risks to which your firm is, or might be, exposed, Woods said.

BoE-backed industry guidance on mitigating climate risks was published this week. Woods said the central bank, which also acts as a regulator, would offer further guidance.

Miami Heat

Miami just experienced its hottest week on record, which rounds out its warmest first half of the year ever, with two out of every three days this year having featured a broken record of some sort somewhere in South Florida, the Washington Post is reporting.

The unrelenting, punishing heat  even in a place known for its tropical climate  fits into the pattern of rising temperatures from climate warming. This latest burst of heat was further intensified by a plume of dry, dusty air carried into the region from the Sahara desert, a Post story published this week states.

According to the article, the record-setting heat has been exacerbated by a layer of arid desert air coming westward from Africa, which has acted to suppress Floridas characteristic thunderstorm activity.

Without that activity, theres been nothing to stop South Florida from baking beneath the summer sun.

The heat is unprecedented  in terms of prolonged extreme warm temperatures, daily average temperatures, and one week and counting with a 90-degree-plus heat index, wrote Brian McNoldy, CWGs tropical weather expert, in an email to the Post.

The article offers a breakdown of hot days:

Over the past week, the mean temperature in Miami was 88.1 degrees, the warmest week in the citys recorded history. That comes as nine of Miamis 10 hottest days since 1937 have occurred in the past three years, according to the Post.

Past columns:

Topics Florida Flood Pollution Climate Change New Jersey Politics
Online insurance marketplace Policygenius has made its first executive hire for its North Carolina headquarters.

Erik Garr, who established Google Fibers operation in Durham, N.C, and was the director of strategy and operations at Google Cloud, will oversee property and casualty operations from Policygenius North Carolina headquarters.

Garr brings more than 25 years of experience to Policygenius, where he will be working to advance the companys property and casualty insurance division. Policygenius has grown by 200% every year since launching in 2014 and just surpassed the 400 employee mark. In 2019, Policygenius launched its property and casualty insurance offering, which scaled to more than $10 million in revenue in less than 12 months, the company said.

Earlier this year, Policygenius announced $100 million in Series D funding as well as an exclusive accelerated underwriting life insurance product in collaboration with Brighthouse Financial.

Garr spent five years at Google, as the general manager for Google Fiber in North Carolina and was one of the first senior leaders Google Fiber hired in its eastern branch, establishing sales and business operations across several markets. Before his time at Google, Garr was a partner at consulting firm PwC, and prior to that helped scale Diamond Management and Technology Consultants from a small VC-funded company to a global publicly traded firm with more than 600 employees.

Policygenius announced its second headquarters in North Carolina in September 2019, where the company plans to bring more than 370 jobs. Policygenius worked with ON Partners executive search consultants to help make this hire.

Garr also previously worked for the Obama administration as general manager of the National Broadband Plan at the Federal Communications Commission. He spent an extended period of time as a technology and operations consultant to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Topics Property Casualty North Carolina
All North Carolinians living and working in nursing homes will soon receive a one-time coronavirus test, the state announced Tuesday.

Mandy Cohen, the states top public health official, said the states effort to boost testing will be underway from July through the middle of August.

We know this virus is more vicious to those that are over the age of 75, Cohen said in a news conference. I was looking at studies today that show, unfortunately, the mortality rate in folks over the age of 75 is between 15% and 17%, so we know how important it is to protect our older folks here in North Carolina when theyre in a nursing home or not.

She said her department will partner with CVS Omnicare to test an estimated 36,000 nursing home residents and 25,000 workers in more than 400 sites throughout the state.

When possible, CVS Health will bill insurance companies. North Carolinas Department of Health and Human Services will cover any additional testing costs. No total cost estimate was immediately provided.

Recent statewide data recorded by the public health agency shows 4,440 of the states 64,670 laboratory-confirmed coronavirus cases occurred in nursing homes, as of Tuesday morning. Data on congregate living is missing in 24,730 cases.

While nursing homes account for just 7% of COVID-19 cases in North Carolina, they represent nearly half of total statewide deaths. Of the 1,343 deaths, 660 came from nursing homes, or 49%.

North Carolina on Tuesday had 908 people currently hospitalized, which is just short of the high mark of 915 hit exactly one week ago. While Cohen remains concerns about the steady rise in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, she is confident the state is doing better than some of its neighbors.

What we are seeing is cautionary tales from other states around us, Cohen said. Where theyre seeing surges of cases, were seeing increases, and that is concerning to me, but were not seeing surges.

___

Anderson 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 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics North Carolina Senior Care
Republican Florida Ron DeSantis signed a slew of environmental bills in less than 24 hours that address issues ranging from sea level rise to blue-green algae blooms  and even given the state authority to use drones to fight invasive Burmese pythons.

DeSantis signed a 77-page bill Tuesday that will addresses leaky septic tanks, municipal wastewater treatment, stormwater runoff, farm fertilizers and more, as well as a companion measure that will better track sources of pollutants that are blamed for mucking up the states waterways.

That comes after he signed a bill late Monday night requiring public coastal construction projects to first be reviewed for impacts on the states fragile seashore because of rising sea levels. Among other bills signed Monday is a measure that will ban the sale, trading, bartering, possession or breeding of iguanas, which have become a common sight and scourge in the southern part of Florida.

A huge component of this is dealing with these wastewater discharges, DeSantis said of the bill signed Tuesday that was based on recommendations of a task force he formed to address algae blooms.

Algae blooms in Florida rivers and other waterways have killed fish, irritated eyes and have shut down fishing, swimming, boating and other activities in a state where water resources are a huge tourist draw.

The new law seeks to better regulate onsite sewage treatment, upgrade leaky utility water lines and better manage farm fertilizers that wash into state waterways. It also gives the Department of Environmental Protection more authority in managing the issues.

Fines against municipalities for sewage discharges will also be increased.

Many wastewater treatment systems in Florida are poorly maintained and the network of pipes supporting them have fallen into disrepair, DeSantis said. Even relatively moderate rain events can cause a system to be flooded, forcing a discharge of raw sewage into waterways and estuaries.

Still, some environmentalists think the legislation didnt go far enough.

Sierra Club lobbyist said in a statement emailed to media that the law is all promise and no delivery. It preserves the Florida status quo: pretend that the requirements in law are working when theyre not.

One of the bills DeSantis signed Monday acknowledges that climate change is a growing concern. The new law will require public coastal construction projects to first be reviewed for impacts on the states fragile seashore because of rising sea levels.

The signing was hailed by environmentalists as a step in addressing the encroaching ocean in a state with more than 1,300 miles of shoreline and where two-thirds of the 22 million residents live along the coast.

The bipartisan bill DeSantis signed on coastal construction is limited to public projects that rely on state money.

Public construction projects will have to take into account rising sea levels, flooding and the potential for damage to increasingly fragile coasts.

The delicate relationship between our coastal communities and the environment requires that our Legislature take meaningful steps to ensure that coastal construction be completed with an understanding of sea level rise, said state Rep. Vance Aloupis, a Miami Republican.

Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Miami Democrat who has been wearing rain boots during recent legislative sessions to bring attention to climate change, carried the legislation in the Senate.

Requiring planning when state taxpayer dollars are spent on infrastructure in the coastal zone is a necessary and long overdue initial step in addressing the impacts of climate, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez has said the measure is another baby step in a political climate that has made it challenging to take quick action on climate change.

A legislative analysis estimated that property values in Florida could sink by more than $300 billion by the end of this century because of rising sea levels.

DeSantis also signed a bill that will allow allow the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Forest Service to fly drones to manage and eradicate invasive species on public lands. Part of the goal is to use new technology to identify pythons from the sky in hopes of helping the fight to hunt them down in the Everglades.

Another new law makes it illegal to possess, import, barter, trade, sell or breed green iguanas and tegu lizards. People who currently have a license to breed the reptiles would be grandfathered in under the bill but could only sell the lizards to customers in other states.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Legislation Florida Construction
Peter Gitau, who holds a doctorate in higher education policy and administration, is currently the vice president for student affairs at Dixie State University and the first of four finalists. Gitau will participate in virtual interviews June 29 and July 1.
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Read our full Opinion Policies here. Updated on 10/7/2020
Interview Beijings Long Game: Where is China Headed in 2020?

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (R) with Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) during their meeting at the President House in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on January 17, 2020. / President Office

Chinas trajectory in Myanmar and Asia as a whole is developing fast this year, from border clashes with India and confrontations in the South China Sea, to the Belt and Road Initiative and COVID-19. The Irrawaddy recently asked veteran Swedish journalist and Myanmar analyst Bertil Lintner, author of several books on Myanmar, for his perspective on Beijings ambitions and what they mean for conflict and development in the region.

The lack of global leadership on the COVID-19 pandemic and the chaotic domestic situation in the US seem to provide an advantage for China. In Asia, China is flexing its muscle, becoming more aggressive and assertive with Taiwan, the South China Sea and India. What are your thoughts on Chinas recent moves?

It is obvious that China is taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the rest of the world is preoccupied with its own, internal problems, China is flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific region with a new security law in Hong Kong, Chinese fighter jets entering Taiwans airspace, the ramming of Vietnamese and Philippine fishing boats in the disputed South China Sea, a month-long standoff between a Malaysian oil exploration vessel and a Chinese survey ship in the same watersand open confrontation with the Indians along the Line of Actual Control [LAC] that separates the two countries in the western Himalayas. China wants to become the worlds leading superpower, and those aggressive posturesand the more benign Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are part of that long-term strategy.

The clashes between China and India in Ladakh raised concerns among governments in the region. Everyone was trying to see how far China wanted to go and what the motive was behind it. In the conflict with India, what do you think China wanted to achieve?

First of all, the confrontation along the Line of Actual Control between India and China has nothing to do with the border as such, if it should be on this or that barren rock in an uninhabited area. Its a question of strategic rivalries between Asias two giants and, more specifically, Chinas wanting to punish India for rejecting its multinational infrastructure program, the BRI, and show the neighbors who rules the roost in the region.

In your book Chinas India War, you mentioned that Maos China had a fundamentally different worldview from Nehrus ideals of non-alignment and non-interference, and that China aspired to become the leader of the Third World by dethroning India from the position it held throughout the 1950s as the main voice of the newly-independent Asian and African nations.

Do you believe that the ongoing clashes and military movement in Ladakh by China and India is an open and final act, displacing India from that position after the 1962 war, as well as a signal to Asian countries to bow down to the Middle Kingdom and Emperor Xi? Has Indias nationalist leader, Modi, been blinded by his so-called-friendship and long-term dealings with the Chinese leader? Has India been beaten into submission?

You could put it that way, yes. In the 1950s, so before the 1962 war, Indias then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru thought China was a friend and a partner. It was India that brought the summit in Bandung which, in 1955, gave birth to the Non-aligned Movement. 1962 came as a shock to Nehru: he never recovered from it and died in 1964. Likewise, the present Indian leadership may have thought it would be possible to revive that old friendship, but the recent clash on the LAC may have prompted them to reevaluate that friendship and take a closer look at Chinas ambitions.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship of the BRI and India is openly opposed to the BRI in Kashmir. Do you feel that China is acting out of concerns that India may threaten both the BRI and Beijings access to the Arabian Sea and Central Asia, especially if Indias nationalist government moves to physically claim Kashmir as a whole in the near future?

CPEC is an important part of BRI, but we have to remember that the Karakoram Highway is one of the worlds most dangerous high-altitude roads. And south of it is Pakistan, where domestic politics are volatile and a number of extremist groups are active. CPEC is also located in westernmost China, far from the countrys industrial centers. Therefore, the Myanmar-China Economic Corridor (MCEC) is far more important to China. There, they can control the insurgents as well as playing a role in domestic politics. And the Ruili-Muse border crossing is much closer to Chinas industrial centers and major cities than CPEC.

What can Myanmar expect from the recent clashes and confrontation between two giants in Asia, as the country sits in the middle? The Myanmar military has forged closer military ties with India and top army leaders in Naypyidaw are upset with Chinas support for some insurgent groups in Myanmar and Chinas meddling in the peace process. We have seen more and more Chinese-made weapons seized in Myanmar. On the one hand, we also see active insurgents along the India-Myanmar border, where Indian insurgents are operating inside Myanmar. On the other, some insurgents have steady ties with Chinese.

Sure, and that is what I would argue is part and parcel of Chinas carrot-and-stick policy towards Myanmar. The carrot consists of loans, credits, investment and tradeand a friendly face in Yangon and Naypyitaw. But if China doesnt get what it wants, it has a heavy stick too.

Its worth remembering what then-Presidents Office Minister U Aung Min said when he visited Monywa in November 2012 to meet local people protesting a controversial Chinese-backed copper mining project: We are afraid of China we dont dare to have a row with [them]. If they feel annoyed with the shutdown of their projects and resume their support for the communists, the economy in border areas would backslide. By the communists he clearly meant the United Wa State Army and its allies. And he was right.

Can Myanmars military expect an unstable and violent conflict situation to continue along its borders with Bangladesh and India, as it confronts armed groups from Myanmar and India? The situation favors Chinas increased role as mediator and negotiator for peace, as well as for commercial development on its own terms. Do these border conflicts give Beijing more political and economic control over Myanmar and an opportunity to insert itself firmly between Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, fulfilling its long-term objective of encircling India? Will we see an active China in Rakhine State?

Sure, we have to remember that China is the only foreign country that has any substantial links with Myanmars various ethnic armed organizations and is in a position to influence them. Forget the Western peacemakers, they just dont get it. They and their so-called peace programs are utterly irrelevant. It is difficult to say what kind of games China is playing on the borders with Bangladesh and India, but those conflicts provide China with an opportunity to say to Myanmar authorities, we will sort this out for you, and we are the only ones who can do that.

What should ASEAN and other Asian countries expect from China in the next few months, especially as we see open confrontations and contested territorial claims pushed aggressively against Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia? Is it time to acknowledge that aggressive China is now the superpower? It disregards all established international norms and pushes its own version of history and historical claimsis it the new sheriff in town, who every country now has to listen to and follow?

The problem with ASEAN is that it is not a Southeast Asian EU. It has no common policies and there is actually minimal cooperation between its member states. ASEAN has two guiding principles: non-interference and consensus, and that makes it totally impotent as a bloc. ASEAN never interfered in East Timor (it was considered an internal affair for Indonesia), it never tried to solve border disputes between Laos and Thailand, Thailand and Cambodia, Cambodia and Vietnam, and the Philippines and Malaysia (Sabah). It has considered the Pattani insurgency in southern Thailand an internal Thai affair, so it never got involved as a bloc (only Mahathir Mohamad did, and then in a private initiative). Myanmars civil wars are considered an internal affair so ASEAN is not even trying to get involved as a mediator. Some ASEAN countries, like Laos and Cambodia, are one-party states: Cambodia is ruled by a strongman who has been in power for decades, Brunei is an absolute monarchy, Malaysia and Singapore are semi-democracies, in Thailand the military remains a very powerful institution behind the elected government and thats also the case in Myanmar. The Philippines and Indonesia are probably the most democratic countries in ASEAN. This divergence of political systems and views makes it impossible for ASEAN to agree on its most fundamental principle: consensus.

This is also reflected in the way the different member states view China, and I cant see any coherent policy there either. Cambodia and Laos are very close to China and never criticize it while Vietnam has been involved in several, serious conflicts with China (a border war in 1979 and clashes in the disputed South China Sea). The other ASEAN members have their own policies towards China, which overlap and contradict each other. China, of course, is aware of this and deals with ASEAN members bilaterallya kind of divide-and-rule policy, one might say.

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Election 2020 Myanmar to Go to the Polls on Nov. 8, Election Commission Announces

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi casts her vote in Bahan Township, Yangon, during the November 2015 general election. / The Irrawaddy

YANGONMyanmars Union Election Commission (UEC) has fixed Nov. 8 as the date for the general election, which will be the first held under a civilian government in six decades.

The last time Myanmar (then known as Burma) had a poll supervised by a civilian government was in 1960. The quasi-civilian government led by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which governed the country from 2011 to 2015, held the last general election on Nov. 8, 2015.

After announcing the election date on Wednesday, the UEC said potential candidates for the election would be invited to submit their registrations to the commission from July 20 to Aug. 7. The commission will scrutinize the parliamentary hopefuls submissions from Aug. 11 to 17 to determine whether they meet the qualifications to serve as elected representatives.

Myanmar currently has 94 registered political parties. They will vie for a total of 1,171 seats that are up for grabs in both Houses of the Union Parliament and in the state and regional legislatures.

President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, both of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), will also contest the nationwide poll. The NLD took office in 2016 after beating the then-ruling USDP, formed by ex-generals, in an electoral landslide in 2015. The current NLD-led governments tenure ends on March 31.

Constitutionally, those serving in the executive branch of the Union government are barred from engaging in party activities. The UEC announced on Wednesday that Union-level ministers and deputy ministers could resume engaging in party activities from July 1 if they are running in the election, citing the Constitutions Article 38(a), which states that every citizen shall have the right to elect and be elected.

A constitutional provision barring Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming President remains in place, after a parliamentary push by the NLD and ethnic parties to amend the charter failed in March in the face of opposition from military-appointed lawmakers and their allies in the USDP.

The UEC said on Wednesday it would announce the dates of the election campaign period after the candidacy screening is complete. In the 2015 general election, the campaign period was set for 60 days ahead of the election.

According to the UEC, over 37 million people in Myanmar will be eligible to vote. The voter list doesnt yet include soldiers and their families.

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Burma Myanmar Military Faulted for Information Blackout on Massacre Prosecutions

Myanmar army troops patrol near the Bangladeshi border in Rakhine States Maungdaw Township on Oct. 16, 2016. / The Irrawaddy

YANGONThe Myanmar military has drawn criticism from local and international rights activists and legal experts for declining to reveal any details of its recent prosecution of three army personnel for the killing of 19 Rohingya in Gutar Pyin Village in northern Rakhine State in August 2017. The killings occurred during clearance operations by the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) against the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

On Tuesday, the militarys Tatmadaw Information Team said a senior army official, an army officer and a soldier had been tried in military court proceedings for not following the rules of engagement in the village in northern Rakhines Buthidaung Township. However, the military revealed neither what kind of punishments the three earned, nor the length of their sentences.

More than 60 incidents of fighting broke out between government troops and ARSA fighters in 12 villages, including Gutar Pyin, as the government launched operations to wipe out Rohingya insurgents in northern Rakhine following a series of attacks by ARSA on police outposts in the area.

According to the Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE), a Myanmar government-backed investigation commission set up to probe alleged human rights violations in Rakhine State, nearly 1,000 people were killed at four massacre sites, including Gutar Pyin, during the clearance operations.

The operations prompted an exodus of more than 700,000 Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh. Those who fled said they suffered or witnessed gang rapes, extrajudicial killings, lootings or torching of property by security forces, leading UN investigators to conclude that the operations had genocidal intent, as well as paving the way for the filing of a case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year. Both the Myanmar government and military have denied the accusations and denounced ARSA as a terrorist organization.

The Myanmar military, which is in charge of all security forces, including those accused of committing atrocities against the Rohingya, said it had been investigating and preparing to open court martial proceedings against soldiers accused of mass killings of Rohingya insurgents in 2017. The investigations were recommended by the ICOE.

The military set up a court martial to prosecute the Gutar Pyin case in November last year, and the trial ended in April.

Military spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told The Irrawaddy that the security forces were under siege by ARSA members and villagers in Gutar Pyin on Aug. 28, 2017.

There was some weakness in following the rules of engagement when they [the security forces] returned fire. But you cant say it was done intentionally, he said.

Asked why the military had not made public the details of the punishments, the spokesperson said the incident occurred while the security forces were in the process of defending the state and preserving regional stability.

Thats one reason. The other is esprit de corps, he said.

However, this reasoning failed to impress human rights lawyers like U Thein Than Oo.

Nonsense! he boomed.

The lawyer said the trio were punished due to their failure to observe army discipline, something that had damaged the militarys reputation; he suspected there must be other reasons for not revealing the details of the punishments.

The punishments were probably unfit to be made public, he added.

Of the four massacres identified as having occurred during the clearance operations, the Gutar Pyin case is the first to be tried at a court martial. The military said it had established courts of enquiry for two others and investigations are under way.

The court martial for the Gutar Pyin case was established in November, shortly before State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi appeared at the ICJ in December, after Gambia filed a lawsuit with the court accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya.

At the court, Myanmars de facto leader didnt dispute that amid the armed conflict in Rakhine there may have been violations of human rights and infringements of universally accepted norms of justice and the rule of law during the military response to ARSAs attacks on security outposts. But she declared firmly that those crimes didnt amount to genocide and that those involved in war crimes would be tried by local military courts, as Myanmars Constitution requires.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi even told the court she was pleased by the formation of a court martial for the Gutar Pyin case and hoped justice would be done. Six months later, in June, the military announced that the three military personnel had been prosecuted, but did not release any further details.

Kingsley Abbott, coordinator of the International Commission of Jurists Global Accountability Initiative, told The Irrawaddy that the absence of public knowledge about the court martial is concerning on many levels. He said soldiers accused of serious human rights violations should be prosecuted in civilian courts, not military courts.

The reference by the military to esprit de corps only underscores how the whole process lacked the required independence and impartiality, he said.

The fact that Myanmar had dealt with these serious human rights violations in a manner that falls far short of international law and standards, he warned, is likely to be relevant when the ICJ goes on to consider whether Myanmar is fulfilling its obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent and punish genocide.

Its not the first time international skepticism has been voiced about military justice in Myanmar. In 2019, the untimely pardon of the perpetrators of a separate mass killing at Inn Din Village in Rakhines Maungdaw Township cast serious doubt on the credibility of military trials among the international community. Even Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told the ICJ that, Many of us in Myanmar were unhappy with this pardon.

U Aung Myo Min, a human rights defender and the executive director of Equality Myanmar, said Myanmar should be careful in handling the issue, as it has attracted serious international attention.

Only when we know how they were punished will we see whether justice has been done, as it is a crime committed by soldiers against civilians, he said.

The human rights defender suggested the military should place more value on the dignity of the institution as a whole, rather than esprit de corps, saying the 2019 pardon damaged the militarys reputation.

The institutions dignity should be the first priority. So, itd be better if they made public how the three were punished, he said.

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Burma Myanmar Pastor Charged with Breaching COVID-19 Rules with Religious Services

Saw David Lah during a court hearing in May. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

Yangon  A court in Yangons Mayangone Township has charged a pastor and one of his followers under the Natural Disaster Management Law for religious gatherings that were linked to at least 80 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Yangon, including two deaths.

Saw David Lah, a Burmese pastor with Canadian citizenship, was arrested in late May after he organized gatherings in defiance of the governments ban aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus.

Plaintiff U Ye Win Aung, an administrator in Mayangone Township where the gatherings were held, said Saw David Lah and his followers met for nearly a whole week in early April and broadcast the events live.

The Yangon regional COVID-19 Control and Emergency Response Committee filed lawsuits against four people, including pastors Saw David Lah, Saw Kwe Wah, U Saw Ray Gandi and U Wai Tun.

The gatherings they organized allegedly helped spread coronavirus to around 80 people, making it the largest cluster found so far in Myanmar.

Saw David Lah tested COVID-19 positive and has been detained in prison after being discharged from hospital.

The pastor and U Wai Tun face up to three years in prison if convicted under Article 25 of the Disaster Management Law.

Twelve witnesses for the plaintiff testified. Some of them will testify again at the next hearing on July 7.

As of Thursday morning, Myanmar has reported 304 COVID-19 cases with 222 recoveries and six deaths.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

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Myanmar & COVID-19 Recovered COVID-19 Patient in Myanmar Tests Positive Again

Myanmar medical staff in Yangon take swab samples from returnees for COVID-19 tests on June 7. / Htet Wai

YANGONA recovered COVID-19 patient from Myanmars Shan State tested positive for the coronavirus again on Tuesday, becoming the first reported case of COVID-19 in a recovered patient, according to the Ministry of Health and Sports.

The 43-year-old patient, a surgeon from Yangon General Hospital who had tested negative for COVID-19 twice, tested positive for the coronavirus again as he was planning to return to Yangon from Shan States Tachileik Township, according to Dr. Shwe Win, medical superintendent of Tachileik Hospital.

According to the research, there is less chance to be infected with the virus from those who have tested negative for COVID-19 twice. But, people should not be careless, Dr. Shwe Win told The Irrawaddy.

The patient first tested positive for COVID-19 on April 19 when he arrived back to Tachileik from Yangon after coming into contact with someone in Yangon who had the disease.

According to the Health Ministry, the patient was allowed by the Keng Tung Hospital to go home on May 20 after he was treated and tested negative twice.

Dr. Shwe Win added that the patients wife has not contracted the virus and has tested negative for COVID-19 four times.

However, the patients wife will be tested again along with six other people, including Dr. Shwe Win, who had close contact with the patient.

The patient is now in isolation at the Tachileik Hospital and in good health without any symptoms of COVID-19, according to the medical superintendent of the hospital.

Asked for his comment on the issue of a recovered patient tested positive again, Health Ministry spokesperson Dr. Than Naing Soe said, I dont see this finding as a new challenge. This kind of case has occurred internationally too. They also dont regard it as a new challenge. But, we have to keep watching. We cant be careless.

As of Thursday, Myanmar has reported 304 COVID-19 cases, including six deaths and 222 recoveries, according to the Health Ministry.

According to ministry statistics from Wednesday, 26,777 people in Myanmar are in quarantine based on their travel histories and 6,037 people are in isolation after showing COVID-19 symptoms.

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Thursday, July 2nd, 2020 (11:56 am) - Score 1,379

The Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro) council in South West Wales has today announced that Broadway Partners (UK ISP Broadway Broadband) have been chosen to build two new pilot networks in rural parts of the county, which will aim to deliver gigabit-capable broadband speeds to local premises. More pilots are expected to follow.

According to the Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC), some 88% of Pembrokeshire can already access a fixed superfast broadband (30Mbps+) network, but this drops to 6.6% for ultrafast (100Mbps+) speeds and 2.5% are said to be still stuck with less than 2Mbps.

Suffice to say that theres a fair gap left to be filled and a recent update from the Welsh Government (WG) noted that 6,366 premises in the county were not currently planned to benefit from any future upgrades (here). In response the PCC has been busy working on a new strategy to tackle that (here).

At present the PCC has already committed around 2m from its own budget to improve local digital connectivity and on top of that theyve secured 4m as part of a bid to the UK Governments Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme.

The first fruits of this appear to centre around two pilot project communities under the PCCs new Digital Connectivity Programme. Unfortunately todays announcement doesnt tell us precisely where these locations are or what technology they will receive, although Broadway Partners and the wider scheme seem to be focused upon Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP).

Cllr Paul Miller, PCC Cabinet Member for Economy, said: We have an enormous task ahead of us but were beginning to make real strides forward. While technically not an issue for Local Authorities, Ive been clear since my appointment in 2017 that improving the countys digital connectivity is key to our future economic prosperity. That makes it our issue. With the first two pilot communities taking their first steps and two more hot on their heels, we are, as promised, ready to see fibre cables being laid across Pembrokeshire. Cabinet has allocated more than 2m of Capital Funding to support the delivery of fibre, in addition to the significant grant award announced earlier this year. On top of that, we estimate these pilot projects will draw down a further 810,000 of UK and Welsh Government Funding, investment which will be spent directly connecting Pembrokeshire Households to the UK Fibre Network.

Michael Armitage, CEO of Broadway Partners, added: Our ambition is to ensure everyone is able to access fast, affordable and reliable broadband coverage, regardless of where they choose to live or set up business. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought attention to the digital divide and the increasing need for connectivity to keep the public informed, businesses running, employees productive and school children connected. Broadway is playing its part by working with Pembrokeshire County Council on its Digital Connectivity Programme, bringing fibre to New Moat, Ambleston and the wider area.

By the sounds of it a lot of the funding for these pilots will be coming from the Governments rural broadband voucher scheme (RGC), which has recently been topped-up by the WG and now offers up to 3,000 for homes and 7,000 for businesses to help them gain access to a faster gigabit style broadband network.

A further two pilots are due to be announced in the very near future (hopefully theyll actually name the areas) and as many as 75 project areas are ultimately planned to benefit. Cllr Miller will be bringing a related digital infrastructure strategy to Cabinet in September 2020 for consideration and approval.

UPDATE 12:12pm

Thanks to one of our readers, Steve, for spotting  hidden under the FAQ section of their broadband website  that the current plan is to start with the following broad project areas: Crymych, New Moat, Ambleston and Dale. Why they couldnt just put that in the press release, we dont know. Out of those four weve told that New Moat and Ambleston will be the first to benefit.

UPDATE 8th July 2020

Added a late comment from Broadway Partners.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2020 (12:01 am) - Score 4,691

Broadband ISP Virgin Media (Liberty Global) will today announce that over 600,000 premises across the cities of Edinburgh and Liverpool are the next ones to get their latest DOCSIS 3.1 network upgrade, which makes 1Gbps broadband speeds available to local homes and businesses (i.e. average downloads of 1104Mbps and 52Mbps upload).

At present nearly all of Virgin Medias customers can already access top ultrafast speeds of 516Mbps via the operators existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based network using the old EuroDOCSIS 3.0 standard. Meanwhile the boost to Gigabit speeds is all thanks to the latest DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade.

NOTE: D3.1 boosts performance by utilising things like Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), which can encode data by using multiple carrier frequencies, and quadrupling the amount of radio spectrum (up to 200MHz).

So far more than 2 million premises are already in the process of gaining access to this upgrade across big parts of Berkshire, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire (e.g. Greater Manchester, Southampton, Reading and many surrounding areas) and the West Midlands (i.e. Birmingham, Coventry and surrounding areas), while the rest of their network  15 million+ premises in total  are planned to follow by the end of 2021.

Otherwise we understand that the exact number of premises expected to benefit from this latest upgrade includes c.250,000 in Edinburgh and c.380,000 in Liverpool. In short, todays announcement takes the aforementioned total to 2.7 million premises with D3.1 capability (nearly 20% of their UK network) and its worth noting that Edinburgh is also the first city in Scotland to benefit from it.

Jeff Dodds, COO at Virgin Media, said: Whether people are working from home, learning or gaming online, video calling friends and family or binging on a box set in 4K, with Gig1s hyperfast speeds, more than 17 times faster than UKs average, busy households can do everything they want online, at the same time, without delay. Through continued investment, well be bringing this next-generation connectivity to many more cities this year as we rollout gigabit broadband across our entire network at a speed and scale unmatched by anyone else. Whatever the future holds, were connecting our customers to whats next.

Customers who take out the related Gig1Fibre package will be sent a new HUB 4.0 (TG3492LG-VMB / Gigabit Connect Box) router and you can see the specification for that at the bottom of this article from last year. The HUB 4.0 is VMs only router with DOCSIS 3.1 support, although they have made the device available on some slower packages in certain areas so as to help tackle issues of high utilisation (here).

Prices for the new 1Gbps broadband package typically start at 62 per month (standalone broadband) on an 18 month term and come attached to a guaranteed price freeze for at least 24 months. Customers can also take this alongside Virgin Medias various Pay TV packages, albeit at extra cost.

As before we should point out that the operators D3.1 upgrade currently only fully applies to their downstream connectivity, while the upstream side is still delivered using the old D3.0 network. As a result some of the latency improvements that come with the D3.1 upgrades wont be introduced and upload speeds continue to be restricted to the same level as their 516Mbps plan.

More areas will be announced later in the year.
July 2, 2020

2020 is not the first time public gatherings in Idaho have been shut down by a pandemic.

POCATELLO  As Idaho State University history students pored over digital databases of newspapers this summer, they found that, while some things change, some parts of societies stay the same.

During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920, schools were closed in communities throughout Idaho, parties were postponed, and community members fought over the importance of quarantine. Students taking Idaho History from professor Kevin Marsh had the task of telling the story of Idaho communities during the Spanish flu pandemic on an interactive, ArcGIS StoryMap for the public.

"Influenza in Idaho: How the World's Deadliest Pandemic Shaped the Gem State" is available to view at https://arcg.is/0r4qzn. Fourteen undergraduates and one graduate student teamed together to create this StoryMap using Ersi proprietary software.

The students dug into records of Idaho newspapers published in the years of 1918-1920 during Spanish Flu pandemic, said Marsh, who taught the six-week summer class, Idaho History, 4423. It gave the students experience doing research and they all published something, putting together search terms and procedures to come up with information to tell their stories.

It was a great research and teaching experience for the students looking at Idaho history in the early 20th century through the lens of an all too familiar experience for us today as we are dealing with this coronavirus pandemic, Marsh said. So there are a lot of similarities, but it was also very different as well. For the students, it was a great experience in learning about that pandemic, but it was also a great research experience.

For example, this isnt the first time large gatherings in Pocatello and other Idaho cities have been prohibited during a pandemic. The same thing happened in the 1918-20 Spanish Flu pandemic, as noted in one of the newspaper clipping images included in the StoryMap created by the class. The image is of a proclamation by the Bannock County Health Board and the Pocatello Health Board published in the Oct. 26, 1918 Pocatello Tribune stating: Owning to the prevalence of influenza, and acting upon instructions of the state board of health, it is further ordered that all outdoor as well as indoor gatherings be prohibited. This includes gatherings of any nature whatsoever.

The StoryMap documents that during this period Idaho newspapers had headlines such as City Closed Against Outside World and Young Folks Enjoy Lifting of Quarantine and public notices saying Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases and Use the Handkerchief and Do Your Bit to Protect Me.

This is a small example of the active, engaged research program by students across all degree programs in the ISU Department of History.

Students in their classwork put together something that is a resource for the general public, which is just a win for both sides, Marsh said. It gets student work outside of just the classroom, giving students not just the opportunity to develop skills, but to contribute to the larger community.

Lower image information: "Cover Your Cough" image that appeared in the Paris (Idaho) Post on Dec. 13, 1918 that ran with a story titled "U.S. Health Service Issues Warning."
On Friday, officials with the Walker County Hospital District board announced that they have finalized a $7.8 million purchase of Huntsville Memorial Hospital. Do you feel like this is a good use of tax dollars, and is this the right direction for the struggling health care facility?

You voted:
Ithaca, NY (14850)

Today

A chance of some strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 89F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Cloudy this evening with showers after midnight. Low 56F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
Paul Kelly, CEO Failte Ireland

Opening Statement

COVID-19 Response Dail Committee

July 2nd 2020



Cathaoirleach,



Thank you for the invitation, I am joined by Jenny De Saulles, our Director of Sector Development and Caeman Wall, Head of Economic Research and Analysis. Firstly, may I congratulate Minister Catherine Martin on her appointment.



I'm going to talk briefly about the tourism impact of Covid19, the industry supports that have already been put in place by Failte Ireland and the challenges that lie ahead, but first, it is worth reminding ourselves of the vital importance of tourism to Ireland.



Tourism accounts for 260,000 or 1 in 9 jobs and was worth almost 8billion to the economy. In some counties along the Wild Atlantic Way tourism now accounts for over 1 in 5 jobs. But tourism is not just about jobs and money, it sustains infrastructure and businesses that are vital to the wellbeing of local communities, culture and environment.



Covid19 has been catastrophic for tourism. Economically tourism was hit first, hit hardest and will take the longest to recover. The sector has now had four months of no revenue. While revenue stopped the costs did not. Despite the supports the Government put in place, our initial ballpark estimate is that tourism businesses have incurred well over 1billion in unavoidable costs while closed.



Before we look at the future challenges it is important to look at some of the supports we have put in place to help the industry navigate the huge challenges over the last 4 months.



Failte Irelands response was immediate, constructive and comprehensive. In late February we established a Covid19 Advisory Group comprising of industry associations, agencies and department officials. This group has met 15 times.



We refunded 3 million to businesses in fees paid and set up an internal Covid19 Taskforce. We created 14 separate suites of new online business supports and training tools to help businesses manage their people, their operations, and their finances during closing down, surviving while closed and reopening. These supports have been highly valued and have been accessed over 300,000 times by industry on our online Hub.



We developed 8 new sets of Safe Reopening Guidelines for specific tourism sectors - these have been viewed and downloaded over 40,000 times.



Our response has been informed by extensive research, we have had over 5000 direct industry engagements and spoken to 21,000 domestic holiday makers.



We developed and submitted 2 separate grant proposal schemes, one to help cover costs incurred while closed and another to help businesses meet the costs of adapting their premises to operate safely. We also developed and submitted a proposal on tourism specific working capital loans to help get much needed liquidity into the sector.



Last weekend we launched a new heavy weight domestic marketing campaign Make a Break for It. We also briefed industry on the Failte Ireland Covid Safety Charter designed to instil public confidence in the safety of tourism businesses. We already have over 700 businesses signed up to this and we will be launching this to consumers this weekend. We have established 23 local Destination Recovery teams all around the country and we have created a new discoverireland.ie website.



I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge all involved for their incredible work over recent months.



Looking to the future, while we are delighted that tourism is beginning to reopen, the path ahead will be extremely challenging due to a number of factors.



Firstly, businesses are now carrying a high level of unplanned debt accumulated over the last 4 months which will make survival extremely challenging if not addressed.



Secondly revenue will be a lot lower due to a number of factors. The complete absence and slow rebuild of revenue from overseas visitors. The blanket 14-day self-isolation writes off over 70% of the sectors revenue. We simply must find a way to facilitate the re-opening for overseas tourism as fast as public health considerations can allow. In addition to this, the capacity restrictions of social distancing measures and the challenges to domestic demand created by health and economic concerns will also depress revenue levels.



And thirdly, business operating costs will be higher in the Covid19 world with increased cleaning, screens, signage, PPE etc.



The range of intervention supports and actions urgently required are in the interim report of the Tourism Recovery Taskforce and we believe these need to be implemented in full immediately.



It will be a long hard road to recovery, but we must not shy away from providing tourism the support required to recover. To do so would be to abandon balanced regional development and self-sustaining rural communities.



Following the financial crisis, tourism got more people back to work faster than any other sector and tourism will recover again but to do so it needs significant Government support now and for the next few years.



Thank you.





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Hand Me Down Zoo is a sanctuary for exotic animals located in Winder that also offers an educational program developed to teach children to em

If You Go

What: Hand Me Down Zoo

Where: Winder

Cost: $8 for adults, $5 for children 13 years and younger, and free for children 3 and under.

More info: Go to @HandMeDownZoo on Facebook
Jacksonville, TX (75766)

Today

Mixed clouds and sun with scattered thunderstorms. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 92F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 68F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Tom Hallberg covers a little bit of everything, from skiing to long-form feature stories. A Teton Valley, Idaho, transplant by way of Portland and Bend, Oregon, he spends his time outside work writing fiction, splitboarding and climbing.
Mike has reported on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's wildlife, wildlands and the agencies that manage them since 2012. A native Minnesotan, he arrived in the West to study environmental journalism at the University of Colorado.
Sterling, VA (20165)

Today

Partly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms. High 93F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Cloudy with occasional showers overnight. Low 66F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
David Abel, 72, died June 18th, 2021, at his home in El Dorado, AR, surrounded by his family after a short battle with cancer. David was born November 26, 1948, in Sacramento, CA, to Earnest "Bood" Abel and Peggy Downing Abel. David attended school in Miami, OK, and graduated in 1967. He joi
George Mason University President Gregory Washington (center) talks with Vice President and Chief of Staff Ken Walsh before a live chat with students on his first official day. President Washington conducted live conversations with students, faculty, staff and alumni from the GMU-TV studio.
The law, however, does not address plant- and worker-safety conditions after several outbreaks at meat-processing facilities in the state, including at least 570 Tyson Foods workers testing positive at the companys Wilkesboro facilities.

HB1023 cleared the House by a 114-0 vote at 3:26 a.m. Friday  one of the last bills acted upon before the latest phase of the session was adjourned a few minutes later.

HB1023 provides funding for expansion of an existing eligible facility and for fixtures or equipment at an existing eligible facility that will expand animal throughput, processing capacity, the amount or type of products produced, or processing speed.

It also provides workforce development funding for educational and workforce training provided either by the facility or by an institution of higher education.

There are also grant funds available to a nonprofit entity or institution of higher education to conduct feasibility or siting studies for a new eligible meat processing facility.

One principal goal is getting new equipment in place to make plants more efficient, and perhaps need fewer workers. Large producers such as Tyson would not be eligible for the grants.
However, House Bill 808, which would reopen fitness centers and gyms without adding the Council of State requirement, passed the legislature last week. There was more than enough bipartisan support to override a veto  35-11 late on June 25 in the Senate and 75-31 early on June 26 in the House.

At full attendance, overriding the governors veto would require at least 72 votes in the House and at least 30 votes in the Senate. The current breakdown is 65-55 Republican in the House and 29-21 Republican in the Senate.

Some political analysts pondered whether Cooper might sign HB808 or let it become law without his signature because of that level of bipartisan support.

Republican legislative leaders have planned to have skeleton floor sessions for the week of July 6 with the option of conducting veto override votes.

House speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said in a statement that Gov. Coopers scattershot executive orders are picking winners and losers instead of delivering real results for the people of North Carolina.
Centene pledges 6,000 jobs for East Coast hub in Charlotte

Centene Corp. said Wednesday it plans to create an East Coast regional headquarters and technology hub in Charlotte with an estimated 6,000 jobs and $1.03 billion capital investment

The N.C. Commerce Department said that creating at least 3,237 jobs over 12 years in the first phase of the project alone makes it the largest job creation project in the 18-year history of the states Job Development Investment Grant program.

Centene said it plans to begin construction in August on the first phase with a completion date in the second half of 2022. The second phase would begin in 2024 and feature another 3,000 jobs. The overall investment will feature more than 1 million square feet of office and meeting space.

The company has been made eligible for up to $387.9 million in performance-based incentives over a 39-year period as part of the first JDIG transformative economic project in state history.

The transformative incentive program became available in 2017.
Jack agrees to run for mayor, but insists Gary run the campaign. Soon, the race attracts the attention of Garys aforementioned nemesis, Faith Brewster (Byrne), who enters the fray to quash Garys new media star before he can rise any further. So Gary has to bring in the big guns. Whisked by private jet to an Upper West Side living room, Jack tells the rich Manhattanites how silly it feels to be asking for money when they know nothing about his town. But the checks come flowing in.

As things heat up, Gary and Faith get nasty, despite or because of their obvious sexual tension, and wouldnt you know, therell be some dirty tricks thrown into the mix, to the horror of Diana, Jacks daughter. Shes the conscience of the film, especially when she asks: Is this politics?

A last-minute shocker of a plot twist provides a deft and satisfying ending, we dont see it coming. But as things close, we realize we never once really learned, well, what people believe and want in this town, besides simply loving it.

There is one moment that feels particularly current. Faith lies on live TV, preposterously, leaving Gary sputtering with anger on the other side of the split screen. But he also knows it was a genius move. She said it, and now its the truth, he mutters.

Faith has already walked away. But what if these two had actually hashed it out, maybe over a burger and a Bud, this whole alternative facts thing? With Carell and Byrne, that would have been an argument worth hearing. Maybe even irresistible.
Earshot Music, another Winston-Salem record store, said they were not currently looking to take in such albums. McKays, at 745 Jonestown Road, also buys some vinyl but is unable to give estimates over the phone due to the volume of items they process.

Other record stores you may want to check with include Hippo Records in Greensboro and King Records in High Point.

Q: What does the doodle mean in Yankee Doodle Dandy and why is he calling a feather in his hat macaroni in the first place?

D.D.

Answer: To understand the song, you first must know that it didnt start out as a positive depiction of an American; according to the Library of Congress, it was originally a song that ridiculed Americans as backwoods yokels.

The song told the story of a poorly dressed Yankee simpleton, or doodle, according to the site, and was so popular with British troops that they played it as they marched to battle on the first day of the Revolutionary War.

The rebels quickly claimed the song as their own, though, and created dozens of new verses that mocked the British, praised the new Continental Army, and hailed its commander, George Washington.

The word macaroni in the song doesnt refer to pasta, but is derived from slang used in England to describe young men of the late 18th century who were fixated on being fashionable. One interpretation of the song, therefore, is that it mocks an American rube who thinks that sticking a feather in his hat would make him appear trendy.

Email: AskSAM@wsjournal.com Online: journalnow.com/asksam Write: Ask SAM, 418 N. Marshall St., Winston-Salem, NC 27101

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Pat Ryan, a spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said that its puzzling that Sen. Chaudhuri would introduce legislation on the last day of session changing the process he himself voted for just two years ago.

In any event, filing a bill on the last day of session is not a good way to get it passed, so this appears to be more about publicity than substance.

Senate financial-disclosure documents show Burr and his wife, Brooke, sold between $628,000 and $1.72 million of their stock holdings in 33 separate transactions on Feb. 13.

Burr resigned as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on May 14, a day after FBI agents seized his cellphone from his home.

Burr also is facing pressure following disclosures that he gave a stark warning about COVID-19 at a Feb. 27 private event that he has not repeated publicly. Burrs comments carry significant weight in part because he is author of the federal Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006.

Burr told McClatchy News Service on May 14 that he plans to serve the remaining 2 years of his term. During his 2016 campaign, he said he wouldnt run for reelection in 2022.
Weve heard comment from the sheriff himself as well as purported leaders in the Black community that essentially ratified the physical violence in light of not one inkling of physical force shown by Mr. Moody as well as him being unarmed, Quander said, as more than 20 supporters watched. The issue is that, on the heels of what weve been ... protesting for for the last five to six weeks and what should have been protested for for the last 30, 40, 50, 100, 200 years, is the carte blanche authority that police officers have to resort to physical violence early in encounters with Black males, to end every police encounter with physical dominance of Black males and that is simply unacceptable in this day and age.

Quander said that the hold he saw Curry place on Moody in the video is unauthorized and makes the arrest unlawful. He said in a news release Tuesday that Moody was injured and got treatment at Forsyth Medical Center.

Moody said he did nothing wrong. As he told the Winston-Salem Journal Sunday, he said he was never asked to leave and he never refused to wear a mask. He said he was trying to get money out of an ATM machine to pay for used tires for his car and told employees that he would be willing to buy a mask once he got the money.
At least 3,132 people have tested positive for the virus in Forsyth County, and 1,982 of those people are considered recovered. As of Monday, the most recent day data was made available on a county level, more than 11% of all COVID-19 tests conducted in Forsyth County came back positive.

The Forsyth County Department of Public Health, in partnership with StarMed, will hold free COVID-19 testing from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Friday at Union Baptist Church on Trade Street. Health officials ask people who want a test to register online at www.StarMed.care because limited tests are available.

Nationwide, virus cases are surging, especially in the southern United States. States such as Texas, Arizona and Florida have all recently reported new daily highs for new cases. North Carolina reported its own new daily high Tuesday, with 1,843 cases.

Despite the record high in new cases, Ohl said North Carolina does not make for fair comparison to the surges in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona. The reopening process here has been more cautious.

They did it with gusto, they opened up everything, Ohl said. To compare it to North Carolina, we opened up but there are still some things were hesitant about.
Veracity Industrial Networks, an Aliso Viejo, CA-based developer of Industrial Software Defined Network (SDN)-based technology for operational networks, raised a seed round of funding of undisclosed amount.

Backers included existing investors Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) and Option3Ventures, with new strategic investments from DYNICS, Inc. and Interstates, Inc. As part of their investment, Interstates, Inc. and DYNICS, Inc. will join SEL and Option3Ventures on the Veracity board of directors. Jeff Smith, Chief Technology Officer of DYNICS, and Jerry Steenhoek, Chief Technologist at Interstates, will join the team as Senior Technology Advisors, leading the companys early Proof of Concept (POC) efforts with customers.

The company intends to use the funds to introduce its Industrial Network Controller to their customers in the Automotive, Manufacturing and Process Automation markets.

Led by Paul Myer, Veracity, CEO, Veracity delivers a secure industrial network that provides an on-premises, centralized configuration, control, and monitoring solution that tracks all connected devices and their communications. The platform moves beyond the detection and alerting of cyber events into a resilient network that reduces the attack surface by design. The company will offer the software as a complimentary platform to the DYNICS ICS-Defender industrial control system (ICS) security appliance, joining the SEL 2740 substation-hardened Industrial SDN switch, to provide a comprehensive ICS network security and reliability solution. DYNICS and Interstates will integrate and deliver the combined offerings to their customers in North America.

FinSMEs

02/07/2020
We will remain open to conversation and committed to being transparent in what we do, the agency said.

Calvin Pena of Winston-Salem has participated in many protests including Wednesdays demonstration in Hanes Mall. Pena criticized the police department for adopting its latest policy.

Its a very, very, very bad move, Pena said. It seems like the WSPD is following the status quo and its counter to its previous statement about listening to the voices of the protesters.

Pena said hes willing to be arrested at future protests, if necessary.

The WSPD is going to have arrest all of us, Pena said.

Inside of Hanes Mall on Wednesday, the protesters loudly chanted, No justice, no peace  no racist police, Black lives matter and No cops, no KKK and no racist U.S.A. Their chants reverberated throughout the mall. Many customers and mall employees looked at the demonstrators as they walked through the mall.

Two mall security guards followed the protesters.
After a delayed start because of COVID-19, the Blue Ridge Music Center will present a shortened Roots of American Music Concert Series on Saturdays in August, starting Aug. 1 with High Fidelity.

The performances will include bluegrass, blues, Americana and old-time vaudeville at the outdoor amphitheater at milepost 213 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Featured performers include Amythyst Kiah, Chatham Rabbits, Becky Buller Band, and Bill and the Belles.

Some of the bigger acts, such as Steep Canyon Rangers and Old Crow Medicine Show, halted their tours because of the coronavirus, but the more regional and smaller groups, which are scheduled for August, are continuing to work.

Richard Emmett, program director for the center, said that the decision to reopen was made carefully, looking at both North Carolina and Virginia COVID-19 safety guidelines. The music center is in Galax, Va., just over the N.C. line.

As long as things dont get worse in Virginia, I think well be OK, Emmett said. Given that the music center is set to open in July, we think that we can have concerts safely, since we have such a big space.
As the coronavirus spreads, soaring demand for oxygen is bringing out a stark global truth: Even the right to breathe depends on money. In much of the world, oxygen is expensive and hard to get  a basic marker of inequality both between and within countries.

In wealthy Europe and North America, hospitals treat oxygen as a fundamental need, much like water or electricity. It is delivered in liquid form by tanker truck and piped directly to the beds of coronavirus patients. Running short is all but unthinkable for a resource that literally can be pulled from the air.

But in poor countries, from Peru to Bangladesh, it is in lethally short supply. The result is that the poor and the unlucky are left gasping for air.

Read the full story:

Here's an update on all developments. Scroll or swipe further for in-depth coverage.
Denying culpability

The Kernersville YMCA, YMCA of Northwest North Carolina and the National Council of the YMCA are denying culpability for sexual abuse by a counselor at the Kernersville YMCA, saying its constitutional rights are being violated because victims have the right to report abuse up to the age of 28 (YMCA tried to have case dismissed, June 21). That age was raised at the end of 2019 and since then, nine courageous men have come forward. The damage done by this abuse, PTSD, is not time-limited. It requires a lifetime of suffering to survive.

How convenient to have a female spokesperson insert some snark about how saddened the YMCA is to learn more about what these victims experienced more than 20 years ago like these victims can let it go after 20 years of permanent damage. By using the constitutional rights defense, the YMCA is trying to set a precedent that would nullify claims by future plaintiffs in similar lawsuits.
Classes in the Wilkes County Schools will start on Aug. 23 and end on May 25 in 2021-22 as a result of a calendar approved by the Wilkes Board of Education on Feb. 1.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Thursday said France will return the remains of 24 resistance fighters who were killed during its colonisation of the North African country.

Within a few hours Algerian military planes will fly in from France and land at the Houari Boumediene international airport with the remains of 24 (members) of the popular resistance, Tebboune said during a military ceremony.

Tebboune said some of the remains belonged to leaders of the resistance movement who were killed in the 19th century fighting against France which occupied and ruled Algeria for 132 years.

In his speech, Tebboune said these resistance fighters had been deprived of their natural and human right to be buried for more than 170 years.

One of the leaders whose remains are to be returned is Sheikh Bouzian, who was captured in 1849 by the French, shot and decapitated.

The remains of two other key figures of the resistance  Bou Amar Ben Kedida and Si Mokhtar Ben Kouider Al Titraoui  are also among those expected back in Algeria.

The country won independence from France in 1962 after eight years of bitter war that left some 1.5 million Algerians dead.

Emmanuel Macron, the first French president to be born after the war, made his first official visit to Algeria in December 2017, announcing that he came as a friend despite Frances historically prickly ties with its former colony.

At the time he told news website Tout sur lAlgerie that he was ready to see his country hand back the skulls of Algerian resistance fighters.

Algerian and French academics have long campaigned for the return of 37 skulls held at the Musee de lHomme in Paris.

In December 2019, Macron said that colonialism was a grave mistake and called for turning the page on the past.

During his presidential election campaign Macron had created a storm by calling Frances colonisation of Algeria a crime against humanity.
Algeria will receive from France on Friday the remains of 24 resistance fighters killed during French colonisation of the North African country, the Algerian presidency said.

President Abdelmedjid Tebboune told a military ceremony on Thursday that the skulls in question belong to resistance fighters killed in the 19th century fighting against France.

France occupied and ruled Algeria for 132 years until the North African country won independence in 1962 after an eight-year war that left some 1.5 million Algerians dead.

Within a few hours Algerian military planes will fly in from France and land at the Houari Boumediene international airport with the remains of 24 (members) of the popular resistance, Tebboune said.

Tebboune said some of the remains belonged to resistance leaders and others to their comrades.

They are due to arrive in Algiers on Friday at 10:30 am (0930 GMT) from the Musee de lHomme in Paris, where they had been kept.

Their arrival comes days before Algeria on Sunday celebrates the 58th anniversary of its independence.

In his speech, Tebboune said these resistance fighters had been deprived of their natural and human right to be buried for more than 170 years.

He paid tribute to these heroes who confronted the brutal French occupation between 1838 and 1865.

The savage enemy decapitated them in reprisals before transferring their skulls overseas so that their graves would not become a symbol of the resistance, Tebboune added.

One of the leaders whose remains are to be returned is Sheikh Bouzian, a revolt leader who was captured in 1849 by the French, shot and decapitated.

The skull of prominent resistance leader Mohammed Lamjad ben Abdelmalek, also known as Cherif Boubaghla (or the man with the mule), is among those expected back in Algeria.

Malika Rahal, a historian and expert on the country, welcomed the news.

The martyrs are returning home, she said in a tweet.

The body parts of those who fought the conquest of their country are returning home after a very long stay in cardboard boxes at the Musee de lHomme in Paris.

The return of the remains comes after the murder of African American George Floyd in police custody in the United States sparked a worldwide debate on race relations and history.

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has urged countries to confront the legacy of slavery and colonialism and make amends for centuries of violence and discrimination through reparations.

 War trophies 

Emmanuel Macron, the first French president to be born after Algerias independence war, made his first official visit to he country in December 2017, announcing that he came as a friend despite Frances historically prickly ties with its former colony.

At the time he told news website Tout sur lAlgerie that he was ready to see his country hand back the skulls of Algerian resistance fighters.

The same year, the Musee de lHommes anthropology director Bruno David said the remains were part of anthropological collections dating from the 19th century and linked to the French conquest of Algeria.

The remains had long been seen as war trophies by French colonial officers.

Algeria had officially asked for their return in 2018, as well as requesting the handover of colonial archives.

Algerian and French academics have long campaigned for the return of the skulls.

Algerian historian Ali-Farid Belkadi was the first to call for their return in 2011 after undertaking research work at the French museum.

At the time, he said the skulls were kept in vulgar cardboard boxes that resemble shoe boxes.

In December 2019, Macron said that colonialism was a grave mistake and called for turning the page on the past.

During his presidential election campaign, he had created a storm by calling Frances colonisation of Algeria a crime against humanity.
CNIO team develop a technology to improve effectiveness of stem cells in regenerative medicine

Stem cells have been holding great promise for regenerative medicine for years. In the last decade, several studies have shown that this type of cell, which in Spanish is called "mother cell" because of its ability to give rise to a variety of different cell types, can be applied in regenerative medicine for diseases such as muscular and nervous system disorders, among others. Researchers and stem cell pioneers Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2012 for this idea. However, one of the main limitations in the application of these cell therapies is the quality of the stem cells that can be generated in the laboratory, which impedes their use for therapeutic purposes.

Now, a team from the Cell Division and Cancer Group of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), led by researcher Marcos Malumbres, has developed a new, simple and fast technology that enhances in vitro and in vivo the potential of stem cells to differentiate into adult cells. The research results will be published this week in The EMBO Journal.

"In recent years, several protocols have been proposed to obtain reprogrammed stem cells in the laboratory from adult cells, but very few to improve the cells we already have. The method we developed is able to significantly increase the quality of stem cells obtained by any other protocol, thus favouring the efficiency of the production of specialised cell types," says Maria Salazar-Roa, researcher at the CNIO, first author of the article and co-corresponding author.

In this study, the researchers identified an RNA sequence, called microRNA 203, which is found in the earliest embryonic stages - before the embryo implants in the womb and when stem cells still have their maximum capacity to generate all the different tissues. When they added this molecule to stem cells in the laboratory, they discovered that the cells' ability to convert to other cell types improved significantly.

To corroborate this, they used stem cells of human and murine origin, and of genetically modified mice. "The results were spectacular, both in mouse cells and in human cells. Application of this microRNA for just 5 days boosts the potential of stem cells in all scenarios we tested and improves their ability to become other specialised cells, even months after having been in contact with the microRNA," says Salazar-Roa.

According to the study, cells modified by this new protocol are more efficient in generating functional cardiac cells, opening the door to an improved generation of different cell types necessary for the treatment of degenerative diseases.

Malumbres, head of the CNIO Cell and Cancer Division Group, says: "To bring this asset to the clinic, collaboration with laboratories or companies that want to exploit this technology is now necessary in each specific case." In this context, Salazar-Roa recently participated, in close collaboration with the CNIO's Innovation team, in prestigious innovation programs such as IDEA2 Global of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and CaixaImpulse of the "La Caixa" Foundation, from which they also obtained funding to start the development of this technology.

###

The study was carried out in collaboration with the groups of Sagrario Ortega, Maria Blasco and the Biotechnology units of the CNIO, Manuel Serrano of the IRB Barcelona, Jose Fernandez-Piqueras of the Centre for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa (CBMSO-CSIC), FatimaValdes-Mora and Susan J. Clark of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney (Australia), Juan Carlos Izpisua-Belmonte of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla (USA), and Da-Zhi Wang of Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA).

The study was funded by various national entities such as the Spanish Association against Cancer, the "La Caixa" Foundation, the Community of Madrid, the Fundacion Botin and Banco Santander, and the Ministry of Science and Innovation. International entities such as the National Breast Cancer Foundation/Cure Cancer Australia Foundation, the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia), the Worldwide Cancer Research (UK) and the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation also participated.

Reference Article: Transient exposure to miR-203 enhances the differentiation capacity of established pluripotent stem cells. Maria Salazar-Roa, Marianna Trakala, Monica Alvarez-Fernandez, Fatima Valdes-Mora, Cuiqing Zhong, Jaime Munoz, Yang Yu, Timothy Peters, Osvaldo Grana-Castro, Rosa Serrano, Elisabet Zapatero-Solana, Maria Abad, Maria J. Bueno, Marta Gomez de Cedron, Jose Fernandez-Piqueras, Manuel Serrano, Maria Blasco, Da-Zhi Wang, Susan Clark, Juan Carlos Izpisua-Belmonte, Sagrario Ortega and Marcos Malumbres (EMBO J, 2020). DOI: 10.15252/embj.2019104324

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
In 2020, the demand for face masks has been put under the spotlight because of the coronavirus pandemic.

In March, the WHO estimated that 89 million medical masks would be needed monthly, calling on industry and governments to increase manufacturing by 40 percent to meet that demand.

By May 2020, China's production capacity for masks exceeded 200 million a day, more than 30 times of its capacity prior to the outbreak.

From March 1 to May 31, China exported more than 70 billion masks to about 200 countries and regions.

How did this happen?

To find out, a People's Daily's team went to Fuzhou in East China's Fujian Province, a city recognized as the gateway to the Maritime Silk Road, where connectivity has become an important asset amid the pandemic.

The team talked with DaddyBaby, which originally made maternal products, and E&D Group Corp, which originally made apparel, and switched their production lines to make masks because of the pandemic.

The team also talked with Zhongjing Petrochemical, which purchased equipment to make melt-blown material, a key component for masks, to fill a supply shortage.

Working day in and day out, they share one goal  to ensure a steady supply of face masks and protect people from the coronavirus.

Click the video to find out how ordinary Chinese people from various industries have come together, forming a complete supply chain for making masks, despite encountering difficulties including resource and equipment shortages and tight deadlines.
High school graduations have again been cancelled due to the pandemic.

It is with great disappointment that we announce the cancellation of our in-person graduations, a release from the School District of Lee County states. The decision was made with the Florida Department of Health-Lee County and Hertz Arena. This was an incredibly hard decision but following the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases in our community and the health risk associated with large events, we believe this is in the best interest of our graduates and families.

We are working on developing a drive-thru ceremony at each high school where the Class of 2020 can wear their cap and gown pick up their diplomas. More details will be forthcoming.
On 30 June, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) celebrated 60 years of independence. But the surprise event did not come from Kinshasa. It happened in Brussels, in the former colonial power. On that day, in a letter to the president of the DRC, King Philippe expressed his deep regret for the suffering inflicted on the Congolese people during the time when this huge central African country was under Belgian rule. He is the first reigning sovereign to express such regrets for the colonial violence, far from the condescending speech made by his uncle, King Baudouin, on 30 June 1960, when he declared in an official speech to the representatives of the Congolese nation: In the face of the unanimous desire of your people, we have not hesitated to recognize, from now on, this independence. It is now up to you, gentlemen, to show that we were right to place our trust in you.

Truth commission or parliamentary commission?

The speech of the King of the Belgians is not an isolated sign of acknowledgment. It comes at a time when the Belgian state has decided to open a deep and complete reflection on its colonial past, in the DRC as well as in Rwanda and Burundi. On 17 June, an agreement in principle was reached at the Conference of Presidents of the Chamber (the Belgian Parliament) to set up a committee to work on Belgiums colonial past. And on 24 June, this process was truly set in motion by the Chambers Committee on External Relations.

The initiative, born out of the worldwide movement triggered by the murder of Georges Floyd in the United States, could inspire other former colonial powers. The aim is to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission by September, the outline of which must be defined by 21 July, the Belgian national holiday, at the latest. The future commission will take the form of a sub-commission, or a special commission or a commission of inquiry.

According to the Belga press agency, MP Els Van Hoof, chairwoman of the external relations commission, announced that the preparatory work for the future commission will be entrusted to two federal scientific institutions, the AfricaMuseum in Tervueren (formerly the Royal Museum for Central Africa) and the Kingdoms General Archives. The working group will already meet next week for the first time with the first opinions of these two institutions, she said on June 24. And this week, you [members of the Foreign Relations Committee] will also be able to give us the name of an expert you have in mind. We need to be able to get off to a fast start in order to define the mission to be entrusted to these experts, she added.

Two more limited precedents

The initiative is a landmark but it is not the first attempt in Belgium to look into its colonial past. Previous parliamentary work has addressed the responsibility of the Belgian state in two criminal cases committed in its former colonies. In 2000, a parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up to determine Belgiums role in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Prime Minister elected in the aftermath of Congos independence in 1960. The commission was set up following the publication of the book De moord op Patrice Lumumba, by sociologist Ludo De Witte, which recounts how the famous Congolese politician undermined the ambitions of the Belgian state in the Congo after independence. As recalled in the motion tabled by the green parliamentarians in Parliament (which will serve as a basis for the creation of the future commission), this parliamentary inquiry had only led to the recognition of the moral responsibility of the Belgian state in this assassination. On 1 July, the Belgian public prosecutors office announced that it was studying the possibility of prosecuting the two Belgian suspects still alive for war crimes, adding that judges have requested access to the closed-door testimony gathered by the parliamentary commission, according to The Guardian.

Then, in 2018, the House passed a resolution acknowledging the responsibility of the Belgian state in another grim case of colonization, that of the segregation of Metis children in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Once again, it was the publication of a thorough investigation on the subject that prompted the state to react. Black-White, Metis: Belgium and the Segregation of Metis in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (1908-1960), written by Assumani Budagwa, recounts, among other things, how children born to a Belgian and a Congolese woman were abandoned in orphanages. Shortly before the proclamation of Congos independence, many of them were rushed to Belgium.

In 2018, then Prime Minister Charles Michel apologized on behalf of the Belgian state to these mixed-race children and their mothers (see below).

The outline of the future commission should be much broader, shedding light on all aspects of Belgiums colonial history. The cautious nature of King Philips speech  regrets, not apologies  could be explained so as not to encroach on the investigative work to be carried out by the future commission. It is, however, a further symbolic gesture in favour of in-depth work on colonial history, and a sign that the Belgian state now intends to tackle this.
Deciding on a cruise around the Mediterranean is one of the best vacation arrangements you can make. Cruising is a fantastic way to discover this magnificent region full of culture, art, and delicious cuisine. From visiting famous ports like the one in Barcelona, Spain, or the pastel-painted villages of Cinque Terre, Italy, to exploring ancient cities on picturesque Greek islands Rhodes and Mykonos, and hiking on Lycian Way, between Oludeniz and Geyikbayiri on Turkey's coast, the Mediterranean has a lot to offer! Yet, it is not only the enjoyment of the region that is offered when choosing a cruise. Being on a cruiser often means that you will be treated to all of the luxuries that come with it - days by the pool, summer tan, lavish dinners, and abundant culinary choices, extravagant spas, live music, themed parties, and more.

With so much going on, packing for a Mediterranean cruise can be quite a challenge. It requires proper planning and forward-thinking. From a balance of beach attire, comfortable clothing for exploring cities, and some additional wear for those memorable cruise formal nights, to gadgets designed to make your life easy on the go. To help you out, we have compiled a list of the top things you can't leave home without before you hop on a cruise this summer. Get your coffee and read on!

Proper Attire and Accessories

Selecting clothes and accessories for your Mediterranian cruise will probably be the most exhausting part of the packing process. The easiest way to do it, though, is to make a list. That way, you can be sure that you have packed appropriate clothing for the activities you plan on doing on formal nights, at the ports, and on days on the deck.

Formal dinner night onboard and onshore

Though cruising has become more casual these days, people tend to move beyond jeans for cruise nights. That is why we advise you to have a few formal attire outfits, such as an evening gown, cocktail dresses, or elegant pantsuits, matched with sleek jewelry for the onboard evenings. These outfits can do double duty throughout your vacation since many Europeans like to dress up for dinner, not to mention if you plan on exploring Monte Carlo's famous casinos. When it comes to styling your formal attire with jewelry, if you don't feel comfortable bringing many pieces with you, we suggest you opt for pearls. Pearl jewelry is classy, feminine, and versatile, and can be easily matched with every outfit. We mean literally, nothing has stood the test of time more than them, plus the white pearlescence is so flattering against sun tanned skin, you will look absolutely stunning! If you still do not own a piece of perfect pearl jewelry that would fit your style, you can visit: https://www.pearlsofjoy.com to look for more options. Ultimately, do not forget to pack fancy shoes that will complement your glam attire.

Hanging out on the deck

Spending time on the ship's deck while sailing between ports is the most relaxing time on a cruise journey for many. Naturally, you may think that sunbathing and chilling by the pool, does not require more than a swimming suit, though we'll argue that it does. You see, most staterooms are not right next to the pool or sun deck. Reaching them might mean moving through dining areas or lounges. For this reason, you need to bring a coverup in which you feel comfortable walking around the ship. Think of light, cotton, or linen summer dresses in bright colors or floral designs. Or if you are more of a t-shirt and summer shorts person, why not wear whats on your mind this summer? Opt for unique t-shirts with slogans or encouraging words, like this grace wins t-shirt. They are so easy to style with jeans, cotton, or linen shorts.

Same as for every summer vacation, do not forget to pack a sun hat, a few lightweight scarves for further sun protection, sunglasses and beach sandals or flipflops. If you want to feel like a glamorous movie star, pack a wide-brimmed straw hat. It looks fantastic with almost every beach outfit and will provide you with extra protection. To shield your eyes from the sun and avoid squinting in all of your pictures, make sure you pack at least one pair of sunglasses. Moving around the ship (and the beautiful beaches for that matter) requires comfy beach sandals and a pair of flipflops, so make sure you pack them both.

Onshore experiences

Strolling around the coastal cities and visiting their beautiful beaches will require a light and comfortable outfits, such as linen pants and shirts, cotton sundresses, tank tops paired with skirts, espadrilles, straw hats, and leather sandals. Many historical sites in Europe, particularly those with churches, have strict dress codes. So, it is good also to add shawls, pashminas, light sweaters, or below-the-knee skirts for visits to these kinds of places.

When it comes to shoes for strolling onshore, leave fashion behind. You will be doing a lot of walking and being on your feet, over cobblestone streets and uneven trails, so make sure you take comfortable hard-soled footwear, so you can make the most of your day by not being in agony. Importantly, bring a lightweight sweater or a stylish jacket, a rain jacket or a hoodie to wear when you are spending time at ports or any of the ship's outdoor areas. They are all great options for that 'just in case' weather.

Aside from all of your clothes, it is important to pack one good backpack or handbag for your Mediterranean cruise. This accessory is essential for days at the port when you'll be exploring European sightseeing places. Having enough space to carry things like your wallet, passport, phone, clothing items, a bottle of water, camera, and souvenirs is a priority.

Other travel gadgets and essentials

Passport, money, and medicine

We are sure you are quite aware of the importance of packing your passport, yet we also advise you to pack two copies of it, in case it is misplaced or stolen. Keep one copy in your suitcase, and give the other one to your travel companion. Since you will need to carry your passport with you, primarily when onshore, make sure it is always stored securely.

A credit card that charges low, or preferably no fees for overseas use, is always the best idea for bringing money to your travel. However, we do advise you to have a small amount of local currency for taxis, souvenirs, etc. If you can not get cash upfront, use an onshore ATM. Nevertheless, do not forget ahead of your travel to alert your bank or credit card company. That will avoid having your card shut down due to foreign charges. Naturally, the same as with your passport, store your credit cards and money in a safe travel wallet.

One vital thing to bring on your cruise travel is a sufficient amount of your medications for the length of your cruise. Make sure you also pack first aid essentials such as bandaids, anti-nausea medicine, upset stomach relief, and pain relief medications.

Sunscreen

Nothing can ruin a cruise like an ugly sunburn. For this reason, make sure you've got a bottle or two of sunscreen with you everywhere you go.

Phone and phone charger

Today, it's difficult to imagine traveling without our phones, chargers, and power banks. Yet, for this trip, we do suggest that you buy an extra phone charger and pack it in your suitcase for just in case.

Plug adapter

To safely use chargers or small appliances, remember to take along a plug adapter. Ships usually have the right plugs, but pre- or post-cruise hotels might not. You can always ask the reception to provide you with one, but its better to come prepared.

Travel apps

With so many things to see in Europe, having travel books with you is helpful. However, instead of piling them in your suitcase, we suggest you download travel apps ahead of time to use offline while you are away.

Camera

Last but not least, pack an excellent camera. Sure, your phone can do the trick, but you might want to get even better quality pictures of the beauty of the Mediterranean coast and all of its picturesque sights. If you are planning on purchasing one before your travel, make sure it is of good quality and lightweight so you can take it with you every time exploring the Mediterranean shores without thinking whether or not it will add weight in your backpack.

In the end, there is really no reason to overpack clothes for your Mediterranean cruise since many cruisers offer convenient laundry services. What is essential to bring with yourself on this trip is a smile and an adventurous spirit. Enjoy it!
Clay County is the latest county to move to require face coverings for those in public in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 as both reopenings and cases continue to grow.
TOPEKA, KS (AP) -- Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly issued an order Thursday directing Kansas residents to wear masks in public places and their workplaces, likely provoking a backlash from the Republican-controlled Legislature even though enforcement is expected to be lax.

Kelly issued the order after the state saw a surge in reported coronavirus cases following her decision to lift statewide restrictions on businesses and public gatherings May 26. She left the rules to the state's 105 counties after weeks of complaints from Republican lawmakers that she was moving too slowly to reopen the economy. The new mask requirement will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

Metro businesses react to new mask requirements People around the Kansas City metro are grappling with new mask ordinances on the city, county and state level, leaving many business owners to carry out the orders for employees and customers.

The governor's order says Kansas residents must wear masks in indoor public spaces, while seeking health care or using public transportation. It also says people must wear them outdoors in public when they can't remain at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) from others. Businesses must require their employees to wear masks in places frequented by the public, even if members of the public are not present, or if they prepare food.

The requirement would not apply to children under 6, the deaf, or people with medical conditions that make breathing through a mask difficult or that would prevent them from removing a mask without assistance. The rule also doesn't apply to the Legislature's meetings or to court proceedings.

"All of us want to return to our normal lives and routines," Kelly said in a statement. "Unfortunately, we have seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths across our state and our country. We must act."

Kansas has reported nearly 15,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus since the pandemic started in early March and had reported 272 COVID-19-related deaths as of Wednesday. Since Kelly lifted statewide restrictions on businesses and public gatherings immediately after Memorial Day, Kansas has had 5,653 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, which amounted to a 61% increase, and 84 deaths - a 45% jump.

Republicans already have been critical of Kelly's plans to issue the order, arguing that it will sow confusion. A new pandemic law that took effect in June, resulting from a compromise between her and lawmakers, allows counties to opt out of the governor's health orders, and even if they don't, local officials in many places are not expected to vigorously enforce a mask requirement.

Kelly planned to meet with legislative leaders Thursday afternoon to review the order. They don't have the power to block it.

Wyandotte County in the Kansas City area and Douglas County in northeastern Kansas, which is home to the main University of Kansas campus, already require masks. Wyandotte County had nearly 2,400 reported coronavirus cases as of Wednesday, the most of any county in the state.

The health officer in Douglas County also ordered bars there closed for two weeks, starting Friday, after reported COVID-19 cases more than doubled in the last two weeks, from 85 to 188 as of Wednesday.

Kelly's health secretary, Dr. Lee Norman, predicted Wednesday that the state will face steeper increases in coronavirus cases and suggested that it blew its chance for a summer respite from the pandemic by reopening its economy too quickly. He also said Kansas is not "anywhere close" to the end of the first wave of the pandemic.
After hours of searching, rescuers were not able to find a person who went missing at Smithville Lake. The Missouri State Highway Patrol says they started looking about 4 p.m. but couldn't find them
LAWRENCE, KS (KCTV) - It's a case that's led to days of protests in Lawrence, and now a man who's been behind bars for more than five years has walked out of jail.

Rontarus Washington Jr has not been cleared in a murder case, but a judge reduced his bond on Wednesday. He has been in custody in Douglas County since 2014.

Washington is originally from Mississippi, and many of his family members drove through the night to be here for the moment he was released.

He is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery in connection with the November 2014 death of 19-year-old Justina Altamirano Mosso. His 2019 trial ended in a hung jury, and many of his supporters say if he hasnt been found guilty, then he shouldnt be in jail.

A bond hearing took place Wednesday morning to reduce his $750,000 bond. Washingtons family and attorneys were hoping itd be dropped to $20,000, but it was lessened to $500,000.

In order to make bail, his supporters needed 10 percent of that amount, $50,000, in cash. Through an online fundraiser, they were able to raise that money and more in less than an hour.

They also needed half a million dollars in collateral. Several people, some of whom have never even met Washington, put up their businesses and homes just so they could meet that amount.

Many supporters out Wednesday, including Washingtons mother Kenisha Clark, are calling this a monumental movement.

I am elated right now. I just cannot wait for him to come out of the doors so that I can hug him for the first time, she told KCTV5 shortly before Washingtons release.

Washington left the jail shortly after 6:30 p.m. There is still no set date when his next trial will take place and he is required to wear an ankle monitor while out on bail.
KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV)  A Kansas City man and a Grandview man have been charged in connection with the shootings that injured one and took the life of a 15-year-old in Raytown on Tuesday night.

18-year-old Michael F. Richardson faces unlawful use of a weapon, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm.

21-year-old Sean Hill Jr. faces unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action.

According to court records, Raytown police responded on June 30, to the 6200 block of Blue Ridge Boulevard on a reported shooting and found a deceased 15-year-old victim in the parking lot.

A second person nearby was wounded by gunfire. Seven people were soon found in a nearby vacant building. Video surveillance showed that three of them had tampered with evidence at the scene prior to Raytown police arriving there.

Richardson, who was among those in the vacant building, told police detectives that he discharged a weapon.

Hill also acknowledged he had a gun and when asked about the shooting stated, "Dont yall shoot at ...when they shoot at yall? Aint that how its supposed to go?"

The fatal shooting of the 15-year-old victim and the wounding of another victim Tuesday night remain under investigation.

Prosecutors requested $100,000 bonds.
Fort Hood, TX (76544)

Today

Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon. High 93F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 67F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Nathan Law, a former lawmaker and prominent pro-democracy activist, has fled Hong Kong, he announced Thursday on Facebook. The news comes days after China's central government imposed a controversial national security law in the territory.

Law said he left the city because he wanted to continue the protest movement's advocacy work on the international stage.

He did not say where he had gone, noting only that he would not reveal too much about his personal whereabouts and situation, and does not know when he will return to Hong Kong.

Law is one of the most famous protest leaders to come out of Hong Kong's 2014 demonstrations, which shut down parts of central Hong Kong for more than two months.

He was elected as a lawmaker in 2016, but was disqualified from office by Hong Kong courts after Beijing enacted a rarely-used power to "reinterpret" the city's constitution, putting more stringent requirements on how legislators took their oaths of office.

Law's oath was deemed "insincere," ending his term in parliament.

The new security law dramatically broadens the powers of local and mainland authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish dissenters.

Critics say the law has stripped Hong Kong of its autonomy and precious civil and social freedoms. The Chinese and local governments argue it's necessary to curb unrest and uphold mainland sovereignty.

Prominent activist Joshua Wong announced soon after the bill's reported passage that he was leaving Demosisto, the political party he co-founded in 2016. Law and activist Agnes Chow, who were leading figures in the party, soon followed suit.

Wong and other activists have met with foreign diplomats and testified before the US Congress since large-scale pro-democracy protests broke out in vast numbers last summer.

After the new law went in effect on Tuesday night, Law testified via video conference before a US congressional committee hearing.
Covid-19 cases have recently spiked across the southern half of the United States. Given the reopening of states that exposed more individuals to contagion, this trend is not surprising. What is surprising is that the case fatality rate is so low, at least for now.

The hallmark of the spring Covid-19 debacle was the startling number of deaths in places as far apart as New York, Detroit and New Orleans. Morgues and funeral homes were overwhelmed by the volume; some New York hospitals required refrigerated trucks to store the bodies.

Not now, though. The surge in cases has not been accompanied by a surge in deaths. There are many theories as to why: Given a two-week or longer lag period from infection to death, it may be too soon into the new wave for deaths to have spiked (probably); more young people could be infected this time around and they have a much lower risk of death (definitely); the current patients may have fewer co-morbid conditions than those in March and April (not so sure); initially, because of limited resources, tests were done only in the very sick whereas now we can test broadly, diagnosing thousands of otherwise healthy people at little risk of severe outcome (for sure).

Or maybe medical care has improved (not untrue).

Or perhaps the virus has weakened (not likely).

The list goes on and on.

Recent work -- done not by the federal government but rather by reporters at The New York Times -- has pulled together data that could show a cogent single "reason" for the change: nursing homes.

Using old school shoe-leather information-gathering, the Times journalists identified 54,000 Covid-19 deaths in long-term care facilities among patients and staff (the breakdown between the two groups is not given). This represents a staggering 43% of all Covid-19 deaths in the US, a proportion similar to what was previously reported from France.

Furthermore, the Times constructed a state-by-state table that demonstrates that almost half of these deaths (26,331) occurred in just five states that were part of the devastating March and April wave in the Northern US: New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Illinois. (Florida sits in 10th place, with 1,748 nursing home deaths).

Which means that a crucial issue affecting mortality is whether the raging epidemic in Southern states will result in the virus further spreading into nursing homes.

Because there is no mandatory reporting of cases by nursing homes, as well as the suggestion that some states have not been forthcoming about their nursing home cases, the only way to estimate what's ahead is to examine cases and rates among persons 65 years old and older. Of course, most of the approximately 50 million people in the US in this age group are not in chronic care facilities, which provide care to about 1.3 million Americans, but most who are in chronic care facilities are in this age group.

Overall, looking at the 65+-year-old group is extremely important when examining Covid-19 mortality: Though they make up only 16% of the US population, more than 80% of the US Covid-19 deaths have occurred in this group.

Fortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides age-specific information on Covid-19 testing by geographic region. Each week, they update COVIDView which includes both a high-level summary as well as a no-frills series of tables. Access to interactive information also is provided.

One caveat: The presented data is a sample, not wall-to-wall surveillance. The data collection sites are strategically selected to provide a representative sample, as CDC does for all disease tracking. With Covid-19, information for about 17 million tests (out of more than 35 million completed in the US as of Thursday) is available while hospitalization data from Covid-Net includes information from over 250 hospitals in 14 states.

The pdf tells the story best. On page 20, a week-by-week summary of testing results for just under 12.4 million tests done by commercial labs is shown, categorized by age. Data from any additional tests do not provide age-specific information and are not included.

The US testing data was recorded starting on March 29 (week 14 or 202014 in the table), when testing finally became easily available in the US and jumps up in early May (week 20, 202020 in table), when commercial tests also became widely available. About 2.2 million tests have been done in persons 65+ years of age, about 649,000 early, when only the sick and dying were tested, and the remaining 1.5 million in the six ensuing weeks.

In this latter interval, testing has slowly increased in the age group to about 300,000 weekly (note that the most recent week's information always lags so numbers currently appear). Nationally there has been a decrease each week in the proportion of seniors who are positive. Most recently, the positive rate is 4.0% in this group versus 7.9% (and rising) for the country overall.

This report then breaks the data into 10 geographic regions. This perspective demonstrates that the decreasing national positive rate in seniors is due to Northern states with profoundly sinking positive test rates; in contrast, the positive rate in the Southern states actually is going up.

The CDC document reports that in the last six weeks, in Region 4 -- with Florida, Alabama, Georgia and five other Southern states -- test positivity among seniors has risen from 3.6% to 5.7%, while the rate in Region 5 (Illinois, Michigan and 4 Northern states) from 5.2% down to 1.9%, each commensurate with the overall regional trend.

In other words, the Southern US is only now seeing a rise in those at highest risk for severe outcomes. Early on, some areas, particularly in Florida (with the 10th most Covid-19 nursing home deaths) experienced devastating nursing home outbreaks of Covid-19 but this did not occur broadly in the Southern US.

Though Southern test positivity rates among seniors are rising, there is one maybe-promising trend: a still-low hospitalization rate. For example, Arizona is currently in the throes of a weekslong surge now over 84,000 cases and has a clear, reliable Covid-19 dashboard.

Overall, only 6% of the Arizona cases have required hospitalization as of Tuesday, but among people 65+ years, the hospitalization rate is 20%. Seniors, who account for about 16% of the Arizona population, contribute 40% of Covid-19 related hospitalizations.

Alarmingly, the case fatality rate is 13% for persons 65+ years old, similar to that seen in other states and countries. The Times' article identified 541 nursing home deaths in Arizona, accounting for about a third of the state's total.

Protecting nursing home residents is critical to preventing the high case fatality rate seen in the earlier outbreak occurring in Northern states. Unfortunately, as the CDC data shows, more infections are occurring in persons 65 and over in the affected regions -- just as hospitals already are full and health care workers are spent and demoralized.

Though a repeat of the devastation seen in the spring is unlikely, we should again prepare ourselves for scenes of overwhelmed emergency rooms, morgues and funeral homes -- and a federal government that cannot be bothered to develop a meaningful strategy to protect our most vulnerable citizens.
MEDFORD, Ore. -- Officials with Jackson County Public Health reported 15 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest single-day increase in the county since the outbreak reached southern Oregon.

A statement from the County did not provide many specific details surrounding the new cases, but did stress the importance of wearing face coverings and observing social distancing and sanitation requirements ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.

In a joint press conference on Monday, health officials from both Jackson and Josephine counties said that a number of the new cases have been among younger people and identified through contact tracing. Many of the most recent cases had been linked to just a handful of social gatherings.

NewsWatch 12 will be contacting the County for more information on the new cases.

JACKSON:

Jackson County Public Health reported 15 new cases on Tuesday  and one case transferred to a different county  bringing the total to 131. As of Thursday, at least 65 people were considered recovered from the virus.

"Oregonians statewide are now required to wear face coverings in indoor public spaces," the agency said. "The guidance applies to businesses and members of the public visiting indoor public spaces. Jackson County Public Health also recommends that face coverings made from cloth or paper be worn in social settings that consist of people outside the immediate household."

"Face coverings are an additional step to help slow the spread of COVID-19 when combined with every day preventive actions and social distancing in public and social settings," officials continued. "Because travel increases your chances of getting infected and spreading COVID-19, staying close to home is the best way to protect yourself and others from getting sick, especially during the 4th of July holiday weekend."

At least 12,222 people have been tested for the virus in Jackson County. So far 13 people have been hospitalized for the virus, most of them in older age groups. Three of those hospitalizations were added on Thursday.

KLAMATH:

Klamath County Public Health reported one new confirmed case on Wednesday, bringing the County total to 123. County officials say that at least 52 of those cases have recovered and are no longer active.

Officials also said that one person has died due to COVID-19, the first known fatality in Klamath County and the second in southern Oregon.

"Effective today, Governor Kate Brown has indicated that fabric masks be worn in public settings," officials said. "It is vital that members of our community continue to practice all recommended personal actions at work, in public, and in social circles. It can be easy to feel more secure and protected when with family and friends, but we all must be mindful about developing a false sense of security in these settings."

"Now, more than ever, it is critically important for everyone to protect themselves and others through personal actions," Klamath County continued. "It is also important to remember that each action alone does not provide total protection, and that all recommendations must be followed to best reduce risk of exposure."

As of Wednesday, Klamath County said that it had processed 5,143 tests.

JOSEPHINE:

Josephine County Public Health reported one new positive cases on Thursday, bringing the county total to 42 total cases.

Public Health officials said they were notified of the case by the official medical record system provided by the Oregon Health Authority.

"Josephine County Public Health is investigating all cases to identify contacts and exposures and to isolate and monitor all individuals relevant to the cases," the agency said. "Public Health will reach out to anyone suspected of exposure to COVID-19."

Of the 42 total cases, 26 people have recovered and one person died from complications relating to a COVID-19 infection. The county marked the first death attributed to the virus in southern Oregon on April 11, an 81-year-old man.

LAKE:

Lake County last reported 19 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

"Continue to use face coverings and practice social distancing if you are in public," Lake Health District. "Practice regular handwashing and sanitize frequently used items. If you are sick, stay home."

CURRY:

Curry County last reported a total of 7 cases, all considered recovered. 627 people had tested negative for the virus as of the last report.

SISKIYOU:

Siskiyou County officials last reported 31 total confirmed cases in the county. 24 of those cases have since recovered.

Officials say that Siskiyou County has tested 3,491people. 3,352 tests have been negative. There are 108 tests currently awaiting results.

Total number of cases (presumptive and confirmed) by county for the southern Oregon and Siskiyou County region:

Jackson: 131 (65 recovered)

Klamath: 123 (52 recovered)

Josephine: 42 (26 recovered, 1 death)

Lake: 19

Curry: 7 (7 recovered)

Siskiyou: 31 (24 recovered)

Tune into NewsWatch 12 at 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. tonight for the most up to date Coronavirus numbers and information.
REEDSPORT, Ore.  A driver who fled from deputies is dead following a crash along Highway 101 near Reedsport, according to Oregon State Police. Officers are also investigating possible explosive devices found at the scene.

OSP said that a Douglas County deputy tried to stop the driver of a vehicle south of Reedsport on Highway 101 just before 11 a.m. on Wednesday. The driver sped away, eventually crashing on the highway near Umpqua Lighthouse State Park.

The driver did not survive the crash, OSP said.

At the scene, officers discovered "what appeared to be explosive devices"  prompting them to call in the Oregon State Police Explosives Unit.

OSP is still investigating the crash. The agency said that Highway 101 will be closed for several hours with no detour in place.

This is a developing story and will be updated with more details as they emerge.
We play cover songs because we want people to understand and recognize the music we play, he said in a Hub interview in 2019. We like to get people to reminisce about the old and the new. I like to mix some of the old music with new music. I like audiences to remember where they were when they heard a song. I like to have a conversation with the audience as we go along  and then well drop some country music coming out of Texas, that whole Texas scene, which is more country than what we normally hear on the radio.
KEARNEY  Cindy Zurns leg was caked in mud and her clothes were soaked with water Wednesday afternoon as her 10-year-old grandson described how he flagged down a motorcyclist to get help for his grandmother, who had overturned her kayak in Turkey Creek near The Archway.

"It was on my bucket list to paddle on this canal," said Zurn, who enjoys kayaking with her husband, Don. The couple from Alliance are camping at Fort Kearny State Recreation Area along with their grandsons Gavin and Coy List of Lincoln.

Gavin is 10 and Coy is 4, and the two boys were paddling with their grandmother on the Turkey Creek water trail, that runs from the put-in at Yanney Heritage Park in southwest Kearney and under the citys main street, Second Avenue, near the Cinemna 8 movie theater.

Zurn and her grandsons had paddled beyond the landing near the theater and entered an undeveloped area of the water trail when Coy jumped off the kayak he was sharing with his brother and Gavin and his grandmother continued down the stream.

Zurn said her paddle got tangled in a low-hanging tree limb. She was knocked over, and her 10-year-old grandson continued downstream on his kayak until he could get off and find help.
LINCOLN  Gov. Pete Ricketts and the Nebraska Department of Education hosted a ceremony Tuesday at the State Capitol Rotunda to recognize graduates from the class of 2020 who achieved a 36 on the ACT or a 1600 on the SAT, including two students from Kearney.

Benjamin Soria and Tyler Wong, both of Kearney, earned top scores on their college entrance exams.

Achieving a top score on the ACT or SAT is extremely hard to do, said Ricketts. In Nebraska, 44 graduates in the class of 2020 have accomplished this remarkable feat. Their top scores reflect years of hard work and academic discipline, as well as the contributions of their teachers and parents.

The same number of graduating seniors, 44, met the high marks last year. The class of 2018 had 22 Nebraskan students who were honored.
A woman who answered a phone number associated with Greg and Lisa Jourdan declined to comment.

According to what Kathleen Jourdan told authorities after the shooting:

Josh Jourdan was driving on I-80 when the couple got into an argument. He called a friend from Georgia to serve as a mediator, and both spoke with the friend as Josh drove.

Josh then pulled over to the side of the road, gave Kathleen a look and raised his arm at her like he was going to strike her, according to an affidavit.

Kathleen, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, grabbed a handgun from the center console, removed it from its holster, pointed it at Josh and fired twice, the affidavit states.

As Kathleen held the gun, Josh told the friend, who apparently was still on the phone, She has a gun. She has a gun.

Kathleen stated she does not know if her response to Joshua was justified, but ... she did not know what else to do, the affidavit reads. Kathleen advised she felt she was protecting herself and her two sons who were located in the back seat of the vehicle.
The last of 15 defendants to stand trial for a scheme to harbor and exploit undocumented workers in ONeill, Nebraska, was sentenced in federal court Tuesday.

Antonio de Jesus Castro, the stepson of the man who organized the scheme, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge John M. Gerrard to four months in prison and one year of probation, according to a press release from U.S. Attorney Joe Kelly.

Castro was shown leniency because of the fact that his stepfather, Juan Carlos Sanchez-Delgado, put him in the position of running the conspiracy when Sanchez-Delgado fled to Las Vegas to hide from authorities, according to Kelly.

In a federal courtroom in November, Castro said his stepfather and mother listed his name  rather than theirs  as the owner of property or as the signature on banking accounts.

All 15 defendants were initially taken into custody on Aug. 8, 2018, following the simultaneous execution of dozens of search warrants at work site locations across Nebraska and Minnesota, and at Sanchez-Delgados personal residences in Las Vegas.

Sanchez-Delgado defrauded federal and state governments, as well as his workforce of undocumented workers, out of millions of dollars in a conspiracy that ran for years out of ONeill.
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Long before COVID-19 plagued our nation and world, physicians in the United States found themselves facing their own epidemic within the profession  occupational burnout. Associated with depression and suicidal ideation as well as potential risks to patient safety, physician burnout has uniquely profound and possibly deadly implications in this field, unlike in other professions. Likewise, doctors have been consistently found to report higher rates of burnout than other members of the U.S. workforce, with an estimate by Medscape earlier this year finding 42 percent of physicians experiencing burnout in a sample of over 15,000. Anxieties had already been building for the last decade within the zeitgeist of medical professional organizations regarding how to best promote the well-being of physicians and other health care providers, with scarce tried and true results.

In what now feels like the early days of medicine in the times of coronavirus, the inadequate national supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) left health care workers across the country to fend for themselves. Many took to Twitter pleading for support and documenting the frontline trauma of treating patients without proper supplies alongside the vicarious trauma of watching colleagues die without necessary PPE. Others utilized online platforms like this to share emerging trends in case reports at a rate even faster than the torrential output of clinical research on coronavirus treatment protocols. Coinciding with the growing politicization of public health measures like wearing masks and social distancing to contain the spread of the virus in states facing economic turmoil, health care workers pleas to the public to abide by CDC guidelines fell on deaf ears by many. Yet, despite the growing examples of countries around the world that had been able to balance the forces of economics and public safety, a uniquely American, false dichotomy was established between the two, coded in the language of politics. Under circumstances like this, how would it be possible not to feel cynical as a health care provider? In the militarized language used by many when discussing the fight against this virus, our frontline soldiers had been sent off to war with no equipment, only to watch each other be possibly killed while growing swaths of the country they serve every day began denying the existence of the very enemy inciting the battle.

In the short term, prognosticators are already commenting on the abysmal future of physician burnout. And indeed, emerging research does seem to corroborate these claims. At the end of March, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a paper assessing mental health measures among over 1,000 health care workers in Chinese hospitals that had been hit particularly hard by coronavirus cases. Half of the respondents (50.4 percent) screened positively for symptoms of depression, and just under half (44.6 percent) screened with anxiety symptoms. Unsurprisingly, in the weeks to follow, academic journals like JAMA, national professional specialty organizations, and even regional health systems began publishing resource guides and establishing task forces addressing how physicians in the U.S. could better ensure their own mental and physical health needs and mitigate burnout while on the frontline of the pandemic. And with a large body of literature on the post-traumatic stress experienced by first responders and health care providers in the context of disaster relief, the worst is surely yet to come.

But then you have students like me. Equal parts cynically disillusioned and resiliently hopeful, we will inherit a profession that has already been irrevocably and rapidly altered by a vilely fickle and unforgiving strand of coated RNA. Weve been privileged to observe from afar the cataclysmic impact that the initial phases of the outbreak had in places like New York, knowing just enough to make sense of emerging scientific literature about vaccines and treatments, yet not quite enough to be useful in the hospital. From our vantage points, many of us sent home both from class and clinical rotations to study remotely for board exams ad nauseum, weve been given the chance to introspect collectively, likely more so than any other cohort of medical students.

In this introspection, the entanglement of recent events continually reveals additional layers to the flaws within the U.S. medical system. As many of us marched with Black Lives Matter demonstrations (masked, of course) and witnessed communities of color disproportionately killed by police brutality and coronavirus alike, student committees at medical schools across the country have led the charge to reassess the systematized racism existing within our profession and systems of medical education. As we too joined in with K-pop fans and Tik-Tok activists and contributed our part to viral sensations and protests from quarantine, weve learned that our generation of physicians has the unprecedented means to support one another remotely and instantaneously in ways previously untapped. And as well soon be left with a vaccine produced at a record speed for all of human history, well know that this was only achieved through global collaboration.

Todays medical students, that is, tomorrows physicians, were raised by the internet. Were members of the generation sandwiched by millennials and Gen Z, sharing a common second nature of activism and instantaneous globetrotting communication. And this has already given us novel tools for resilience unknown to our predecessors. As the scheduling for many of our national medical board exams were disrupted with test site closures, we too took to Twitter and Reddit, eliciting signatures for circulating petitions and letters asking for improved communications with our campuses and testing procedures. With support from many of our deans, the result was measurable national action within weeks. As residency programs in all specialties began adopting rapidly changing adjustments to their match process for the coming year, medical students and recent graduates began coordinating with program directors to create transparency and connection at institutions nationwide as policies are established for the months to come. In these instances and others, weve been able to quickly adapt to this newfound world of necessary physical distance, and I venture to say that medical students have never before created such a strong social solidarity.

This poses a far better alternative to the future of burnout already described to us, and I choose to be hopeful. Simply, my generation of physicians will have no other option. Even if we should find ourselves again in crisis and unable to rely on the very organizations designed to protect us, this episode in history will have taught us that the only way to protect ourselves is to protect each other.

Auston Stiefer is a medical student.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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When I was in Sweden, I heard this phrase several times: There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad preparation. They said this when we asked them what they did with their children in dead of winter. The proud parents made it very clear that no matter what the weather, when it is time to go outside for recess at school, or to get out of the house on the weekends, everyone bundles up and out they go.

For Americans who worry about the lazying effect of socialism, or at least the effect of the democratic social welfare state Scandinavian countries, the Swedes gave a great example of other ways they can encourage resilience in challenging times.

It was no real surprise to me the findings of a study looking at opioid use in Sweden vs. the U.S. (and Canada) following four common surgical procedures: lap choles, lap appys, arthroscopic meniscal repairs, and breast lump excisions. I wont report all of the findings here, but the bottom line is that Swedish patients received opioids 11 percent of the time, Americans 76 percent of the time (and we were a bad influence on the Canadians at 79 percent).

Do Swedes have fewer nerve endings? Of course not. Did they drink themselves numb? No, their alcoholic drinks are crazy expensive. Is it so cold they just cant feel anything? Doubt it. Their heaters worked really well.

One of my chronic frustrations with the business/pundit class of critics, when they complain about the overuse of anything in the U.S. health care system, is they blame the doctors/hospitals 99 percent of the time. This Swedish case study is a great example that for less inappropriate use to occur, patients have to be bought in.

I guarantee you the post-op Swedes hurt after the surgeries, just like Americans. The difference is they didnt expect a pain-free experience the way many American patients do. Just like it is important to them as a point of pride that they are tough enough to defeat bad weather, one can read between the lines that many of them are just as determined to defeat post-op pain with grit and resilience. It takes both the patients and the system to achieve this laudable non-opioid outcome.

Besides, why treat pain with opioids, when it could be treated with a cozy blanket, a fire, and a cup of coffee. Its Fika time!

Richard Young is a family physician who blogs at American Health Scare.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the health inequities many Americans face because of where they live and the air they breathe. We are seeing what I have long seen in my allergy practicemany of my patients live in communities with unhealthy air.

Patients like James, a 50-year-old African American bus driver who lives in Maryland. He sees me for asthma and pollen allergies, which are difficult to manage during the spring season; however, nothing prepared him for his COVID-19 infection in early April. The next two weeks, he says, were the worst in my life. James fights so many days to breathe because the air can get so bad. On top of that, this thing knocked me out. Although he has since recovered, he has lost three family members to the pandemic.

James is not my only patient who contracted COVID-19. Many have a number of underlying health issues that make them more susceptible to the virus and its effects. Combined with high levels of air pollution where many of them live, the risk is magnified.

A nationwide study found that people with COVID-19 who live in highly polluted areas are more likely to die from the disease than people who live in less polluted places. Another analysis from Europe seems to support this finding: 78 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany occurred in five regions with the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant that is harmful to the human respiratory system.

In James and patients like him, I see the disturbing health disparities that affect so many communities of color. The Union of Concerned Scientists found that over 6 million African American and Latino people live in communities with higher air pollution levels than their state average, increasing their risk of cardiovascular and respiratory illness. The higher rates of these types of underlying conditions also coincide with the alarmingly high COVID-19 death rate in African Americans.

In Washington, D.C., African Americans make up 46 percent of the population but account for 74 percent of COVID-related deaths. African Americans have higher rates of asthma and asthma-related deaths. Wards 5, 7, and 8, which are predominantly African American, have D.C.s highest asthma rates.

Relief does not come for patients like James. Climate change has brought an increase in extreme heat days, which can be disastrous for those with chronic respiratory issues. According to a new report, 2020 is shaping up to be one of the hottest years on recordif not the hottest-on the tail of the hottest decade on record. Extreme heat exacerbates the harmful health effects of air pollution, which tend to be felt most by those with respiratory diseases.

The irony is that the pollution is making it harder for patients with respiratory disease to breathepatients who are more likely to die from COVID-19is also fueling the climate change that will make it harder for everyone to breathe in years to come.

The good news is that efforts to improve air quality can now improve health immediately and far into the future. In fact, stronger standards could save over 12,000 lives per year.

Thats why one would think that, in the midst of all this, the Environmental Protection Agency would ramp up its efforts to safeguard the publics health. Instead, at the outset of the pandemic, the EPA rolled back key regulations that reduce air pollution from the fossil fuel industry. As health care workers struggled to mitigate the terrible effects of COVID-19 on patients, the EPA potentially compounded the crisis.

The science is clear that long-term exposure to air pollution can damage the lungs and worsen respiratory diseases like asthma, and that higher levels of pollution are associated with increased hospital admissions, ER visits, and death from respiratory illnesses. Last year, EPA staff scientists called for reducing allowable levels of particulate air pollution. Instead, the agency disregarded its own staff scientists, choosing to maintain current air quality standards.

It is time to hold the EPA accountable for protecting the health of all Americans. Physicians and other health care workers must advocate for more stringent air quality standards. COVID-19 has shown us why the status quoor worse, a rollbackis dangerous. As our patients and frontline health care workers respond to this pandemic, we need to speak out on their behalf.

Christine James is an allergy-immunology physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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First and foremost, a mental health crisis is a medical emergency well within the sector of public health. Therefore, the question of who should respond to mental health emergencies is one in which physicians and all medical providers should have a say. Medical providers should not only be aware of the systems in place to respond to mental health crisis but must advocate for patient safety as a measurable outcome of such systems.

With police brutality against Black bodies becoming an increasingly evolving conversation following the brutal murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks (just to name a few), it is vital to speak about a particularly vulnerable population: those with mental health disorders. African-American populations are disproportionally affected by severe mental illness, creating an increased risk of undue police force.

On June 2nd, 2019, Miles Hall was fatally shot by Walnut Creek police at the age of twenty-three. Hall had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and was experiencing a psychiatric emergency at the time of this death. The police called to the scene were unable to de-escalate Halls distressing behaviors, despite being made aware of this mental health needs. As a Black young man with a severe mental illness, Hall represents two minority populations subjected to undue police force. In 2018, of the approximately 1,000 citizens fatally shot by police, 23 percent were Black, and 22 percent had diagnosed mental illness.

There have been multiple programs to address the issue of police response to mental health crises. Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model was developed in Memphis, TN, in response to the tragic death of twenty-seven-year-old Joseph Dewayne Robinson, who was shot multiple times by police during a mental health emergency in 1988. The CIT model includes collaboration between police and mental health professionals through specific training of police officers to decrease risk towards civilians with mental illnesses. Nevertheless, an in-depth study published in 2019 found little empirical evidence to suggest CIT benefits in regards to number and measures of arrests, harm to citizens, or use of force against citizens.

The co-response model, more commonly used in the U.K., uses mental health professionals assistance in real-time during a police response to a mental health crisis. A systematic review concluded that the co-response model decreased police detentions, more-so in cases in which a mental health professional paired with frontline police and were on the sight of the crisis versus those who consulted frontline police remotely. Subjectively, multiple studies reported civilians found the co-response model was better at de-escalating, less threatening, and less stigmatizing. Additionally, in a co-response model study in Australia, civilians specifically suggested reducing visible attention of police during emergency encounters as an area of improvement.

Overall the literature suggests that increased training of police was not sufficient to reduce violence against civilians with mental illness in the setting of a psychiatric emergency, but that the presence of on-sight mental health professionals produced better outcomes. Furthermore, the suggestion that police be less visible during such encounters offers the possibility that it is the swift response of a mental health professional during a psychiatric emergency, which is more needed than law enforcement.

Given the ongoing conversation to defund the police, it is imperative that greater funding is provided not simply to retrain police in regards to their response to mental health crises, but to create significant allocations towards increasing availability of mental health professionals, including by not limited to trained therapists, counselors, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. While the peer-reviewed literature is not robust, the studies suggest it is mental health professionals who should be the first responders to a mental health crisis.

Perhaps police remain within their vehicle, allowing for mental health professionals to interact with the civilian in a non-threatening manner; perhaps the police vehicle is unmarked, further creating decriminalized space for de-escalation; perhaps police arrive unarmed; or perhaps police are never called to the scene, given the fact that the vast majority of people with mental illness are nonviolent. The possibilities are many, but the literature is clear: efforts must be reallocated towards mental health professionals to be first responders to mental-health crises. Sounds redundant and obvious, no? The suggestion echos ongoing policy changes towards a three-digit suicide hotline, in addition to 911. Furthermore, the nationwide shortage of mental health professionals will stand as a barrier.

The intersection of mental health, criminal justice, and Black bodies has been far too large, and the racial underpinnings continue to be unearthed. Honestly confronting who is best able to respond to mental health crises with the safest outcomes is one way to bring about real change in the face of a multidimensional and historically unjust system.

Amira Athanasios is a physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
LANE COUNTY-- Community members are speaking about about the statewide mask mandate that went into effect today.

This mandate requires individuals to wear a face covering in indoor public spaces. The announcement from Gov. Kate Brown has been met with mixed reactions among the community.

RELATED: FACE MASKS REQUIRED STATEWIDE STARTING SOON

I think its a great idea, Springfield resident Marlene Aden said. People need to wear masks, or otherwise germs. Youre going to get COVID if you don't.

Another resident agreed that this new requirement allows everyone to do their part in the community to help prevent the spread.

I don't have a problem with it, Springfield resident Allen Feistner said. Weve got plenty of woods and trees out here. You can go outside and take your mask off. I don't think it's too much to ask to put a mask on to go into a place of business if its going to keep you and others safe.

Others told KEZI they do not feel Brown can force an individual to wear a mask and said they will not be wearing one indoors.

There are other measures being taken by Oregon businesses to help keep the virus out.

Liz Tippett, an associate professor at the UO School of Law, weighed in on how various businesses across Oregon are asking clients to sign liability waivers to prevent lawsuits if an individual contracts COVID-19.

I do think one of the issues, legally, is going to be whether someone can prove that they got COVID from the business, Tippett said. I actually think it's going to be easier than people think, if contact tracing works well in Oregon. I think there's also going to be a question of whether courts in Oregon are going to be willing to enforce these waivers and under what circumstances they may enforce them in some but not others.

Tippett said that one may want to think twice before signing a waiver, especially if your health is at risk.

"I think COVID is a risk that we share," Tippett said. "It's a risk that businesses have a responsibility to address through their own social distancing practices, and it's a risk that we in the public have to help mitigate through mask-wearing and abiding by social distancing. I think if everyone cooperates that will reduce the risks to everyone in the community."

Click here for more information from the Oregon Health Authority about the mask requirement, including what counts as a public indoor space.
EUGENE, Ore.  The Eugene Police Department unveiled its first steps toward police reform in the wake of George Floyds death in Minneapolis and the protests that followed.

In a statement, the department said they are evaluating their policies, and these first steps will build on our foundation of the past 15 years of systemic reform.

In addition to adopting recent Oregon legislative changes, the department is also taking initiative on the following:

Chokeholds are no longer allowed and will no longer be included in training.

The Policy and Accreditation Office is identifying policies for the Police Commission to review, including: Policy 808: Handcuffing, control holds and impact weapons Policy 316: Public assemblies and demonstrations Policy 317: Civil disturbance Policy 318: Field force and policy Policy 809: PepperBall projectiles.

Soon, pointing a firearm or Taser at a person with the intent of gaining compliance will be required to be reported and tracked as uses of force.

A planned Early Intervention System will work within the current complaint and use of force reporting system to help the department intervene at the early stages of problematic behavior.

The department will continue to review training and education as policies are updated and look for improvements by reviewing recent incident response and best practices.

We will continue to look at what we need to do with the culture of the police department and how we can move down a path of listening to our community, the department said in the statement.

Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner said these changes should be an indication to the community that the department is listening to their concerns.

"The community should take away that we are not going to drag our feet on being introspective and taking a look at things that we should be doing as we move down a path of reforming our police department," Skinner said. "Thats why we communicate these things to the public so that they know were not operating in a vacuum."

For information about past reforms the department has made, click here.
DIAMOND LAKE, Ore. -- A man is missing after kayaking on Diamond Lake late Tuesday night.

Authorities received reports of a man in distress at 10:20 p.m. Witnesses say he was yelling for help from the water though no one was able to see him.

Jared Bruce Boria, 37, of Vancouver, Washington, was camping at Diamond Lake Campground and started kayaking shortly before the 911 calls came in, authorities said. They say he was not was not wearing a life jacket at the time.

First responders conducted an initial search of the area but did not find him. Multiple agencies resumed the search Wednesday and were able to locate Boria's kayak, paddle and shoes. The search for Boria will resume Thursday.

Anyone recreating in the area is asked to be aware of the missing person report and call 911 with any information which may help the search effort.

The initial search for Boria was conducted by marine and timber deputies, Douglas County Fire District #2 and Diamond Lake first responders.

On Wednesday marine deputies, sheriff's office divers, search and rescue personnel from Douglas, Josephine and Coos counties and Oregon State Police Fish and Game Troopers conducted an exhaustive search of the lake.
In the last year we've lost thousands of family members, friends and co-workers to COVID-19. We'd like to give you a chance to honor their memory.

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Idaho State Police wants to remind you to not drive impaired this Fourth of July weekend
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Gardai are appealing to all dog owners to ensure their dogs are kept under control as Gardai have received nearly 50 reports of livestock being attacked since March 2020.

In one incident in Leitrim a dog attacked seven sheep on a farm. The owner was identified and had to pay damages to the farmer and the dog then had to be put down.

In another incident in Meath, a farmer shot two dogs as the dogs had killed six sheep and injured two more.

Inspector James White said "If your dog goes and attacks animals on someones land, you could be held liable for the damages and face prosecution. The farmer is also within their right to shoot any animal that is worrying their livestock.

"Whilst you might think your dog is friendly and placid at home, they can cause horrific injuries to other animal. We would ask that everyone ensures their dog is kept under control as nobody wants to see animals being harmed.

The following is a breakdown of incidents in Garda Divisions. Statistics are from 01/03/20 to 29/06/20 and are subject to change.

Sligo/Leitrim - 7

Galway - 6

Tipperary - 5

Roscommon/Longford - 4

Kildare - 4

Meath - 3

Cork West - 3

Donegal - 3

Wexford - 3

Cavan/Monaghan - 2

Cork North - 1

Westmeath - 1

Mayo - 1

Limerick - 1

Kerry - 1

Kilkenny/Carlow - 1

Laois/Offaly - 1

Total - 47

Prosecution under Section 9 of Control of Dogs Act 1986 could result in one month in prison and/or 600 fine.
Kilkenny County Council is working with Transport Infrastructure Ireland on new safety measures from the garda station on the N78 in Castlecomer extending to a section of the Dublin Road.

The proposed scheme will be funded 100% by TII and will include several improvements for pedestrians. Local councillors Denis Hynes and Pat Fitzpatrick have welcomed the proposals.

Cllr Hynes said he was particularly glad to see those he has been working on in collaboration with Michelle Weldon and staff of the SOS. Deenview Centre, Castlecomer provides a day service for adults with an intellectual disability from the locality. Cllr Hynes has facilitated several meetings with staff of the SOS and area engineer Philippe Beubry, and says hes delighted to see the provision of a signalised pedestrian crossing for this location.

The new crossing will facilitate safe access to local amenities such as the library, Community Hall, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Discovery Park, GP services, local professionals and all local shops, particularly the Texaco garage on the opposite side of the road, said Cllr Hynes.

The placement of a controlled pedestrian crossing close to the entrance to Deenview Centre will prove invaluable in assisting with the life skills programme that are run there and would also provide a safer experience for those who are independent and using the service when they are crossing the road.

Also included is a signalised pedestrian crossing at the Presentation Convent Primary School, improved crossing facilities at the Maryville junction, and improvements to the existing uncontrolled crossing serving the Community Hall. The safety measures will include refreshed road markings and a high friction surface.
A Kilkenny man's company has been selected for a UK government innovation fund set up to find innovative ways to make public interest journalism more financially sustainable.

Enda Leahy, who is from Kilkenny is the CEO of the legaltech firm Courtsdesk whose project, is to build a national data feed of information from across the criminal courts of England and Wales for news outlets, was selected and grant funded by the Future of News Pilot Fund (FNF) and was showcased recently in London.

Following its selection by the fund, the company has reached a data-sharing agreement with HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to facilitate a pilot of the service.

Courtsdesks work on creating a digital news feed of legal data was one of 20 projects selected out of almost 200 applicants for funding by the FNF Fund, a 2m innovation grant fund set up in response to the Cairncross Review, which examined the crisis in the financial sustainability of high-quality journalism in the UK.

In the UK there are now some 6,000 fewer journalists than a decade ago, and print circulation of national and local newspapers has halved. The review, by Dame Frances Cairncross reviewed threats to the media sector, and made recommendations about ways to improve the operation of the news market or support the production of public interest news.

Arising from the review, the UK department of Digital Media Culture and Sport allocated 2m to be administered by NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, which created the Future of News Fund to find innovation projects to support.

Courtsdesk was one of the grant-funded projects picked by the fund and was one of just four which were picked for the highest grant funding available of 70,000.

The funding was awarded to validate Courtsdesks proposal to build a service which would supply listings and outcomes of all criminal court cases in the Magistrates Court of England and Wales to news outlets - some 1.5m prosecutions per year.

Following its selection, the company went on to agree a data sharing licence with HM Courts and Tribunals Service granting digital access to every criminal case to facilitate the build of the platform in the interests of open justice and improving media coverage.

The project has also garnered the support of the two largest news industry representative bodies, the Society of Editors and the News Media Association, who work with the courts service to ensure media access to the courts,

In recent weeks the two largest regional newspaper groups in the UK, Newsquest and Reach PLC, which between them publish over 400 newspapers and websites, and employ over 3,000 journalists, have signed up to trial the platform when it goes live later this year, while talks on collaboration with other media outlets including the BBC and UK national newspapers are also underway.

Enda Leahy CEO of Courtsdesk, said:

"This is a really exciting project, and is really the first of its kind for the media and the courts, and its worth noting the really broad support it has received from all representatives of the news industry, HM Courts and Tribunals Service, and from Nesta on behalf of the government.

Our platform will help news organisations radically improve the amount and the usefulness of information available to them from the courts."

In Ireland Courtsdesks clients include most national newspapers, almost every one of the top 10 law firms, and a range of corporate clients such as An Post, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, and others.

A number of UK regional news organisations and the Society of Editors and the News Media Association, have been involved in the early product development research for the Courtsdesk News Wire.

The Future of News Fund was created as a response to the Cairncross Review, a state inquiry into the threats facing the financial sustainability of high quality journalism, which recommended investing grant finance into innovative news solutions.

The fund is administered by NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, which manages the 2m allocated, on behalf of the UK department of Digital Media Culture and Sport.

Courtsdesk is run by former Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday journalist and editor Enda Leahy and his co-founder and CTO, Alan Larkin.

Formerly a foreign affairs writer and legal affairs correspondent at the Sunday Times, Leahy went on to be Deputy Editor of the Mail on Sunday in Ireland. He left that role to set up Courtsdesk to solve the problem of poor access to court case information.

For more see www.courtsdesk.com
Sinn Fein TD for Carlow-Kilkenny Kathleen Funchion has been appointed Sinn Fein's frontbench spokesperson on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration.



Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald TD announced the party's new frontbench team today. Deputy Funchion, who topped the poll in this constituency in February's general election, is now a frontbench spokesperson, having previously served in the junior spokesperson role for the Children and Youth affairs office.

"New government ministers will have to be on their toes and on top of their briefs because they will be matched by a very energetic, very determined Sinn Fein leading the opposition," said Deputy McDonald.

"We will hold the government to account, bring forward solutions and continue championing the change that so many people want. I am very proud of our new frontbench team and the fact that we have strong representation from rural Ireland, as well as our cities.

"Sinn Fein will provide constructive and critical opposition to this government. We will hold them to account, working with other parties in the opposition to do so. An effective opposition can achieve change by engaging constructively to bring forward solutions and force the government to act. The strong and competent team that I lead is committed to doing this at every opportunity.

"We will stand up for workers and families on the issues that matter. This means rebuilding the economy with decent work for decent pay at its core, as well as delivering affordable housing, a single-tier health system, public childcare and restoring the pension age to 65."

"We will work for a United Ireland; as the health and economic challenges posed by Covid-19 and Brexit have starkly exposed that an all-island approach is simply common sense.

"Ireland faces big challenges in the months ahead and we will be playing our part in delivering the change that is needed."
The final rotation of 170 Irish troops from the 115th Infantry Battalion, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) returned home this afternoon (Thursday) to Dublin Airport following an eight month deployment which was extended due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Among the 338 members of the Defence Forces are 135 based at James Stephen's Barracks in Kilkenny, 50 of whom live in Kilkenny.

The personnel were transported from Dublin Airport to McKee Barracks for a medical screening before travelling home, where they will undergo a 14 day isolation period. The 115th Infantry Battalion are drawn primarily from 1 Brigade with personnel mainly from the South East and South of Ireland.

A total of 338 Defence Forces personnel deployed with the 115th Infantry Battalion.

The 115th Inf Bn have been replaced by the 116 inf Bn who will undergo a 14 day isolation period on arrival in theatre.

1 Brigade was the lead Formation for this deployment and contributed the main body of troops. The Defence Forces Training Centre, the Air Corps and Naval Service are also well represented. The regular unit of the Defence Forces which provided the greatest contribution of personnel, totaling 135, is the 3rd Infantry Battalion which is based in James Stephens Barracks, Co Kilkenny.

Personnel who served with the 115th Inf Bn represented twenty-four counties across Ireland:

Armagh 1, Donegal 1, Limerick 10, Roscommon 6, Carlow 13, Galway 13, Longford 3, Tipperary 18, Cavan 1, Kerry 2, Louth 5, Waterford 13, Clare 5, Kildare 33, Meath 2, Westmeath 9,Cork 64, Kilkenny 50, Offaly 7, Wexford 17, Down 1, Laois 7, Wicklow 4, Dublin 19.
Road workers in Laois were surprised to find a massive boulder in the ground during recent works in Mountmellick.

They were digging to improve drainage on the Acragar road past the GAA grounds.

"We expected to only find gravel," an engineer told the Leinster Express.

Instead their digger found a boulder measuring about a metre wide.

The area is near the Ridge road, which travels on top of an esker, an ice age ridge formed as a glacier slowly moved across the land, scraping the land flat and pushing rocks aside. The rock would have lain in the ground for over 10,000 years since the last ice age.

Michele Castiaux is President of the Irish Geological Association and lives in Portlaoise.

"It looks like a glacial boulder which would have been left behind when the local glacier melted. If the rock type is found out not to be the same as the local bedrock, it could then be called an "erratic", which is a boulder brought from a distance by the glacier.

"On close inspection, you may be able to observe glacial striations which are long parallel grooves scratched on the boulder surface by other rock fragments as the glacier was moving on the landscape. Not to be confused with damage from the excavator!," she said.

Michele Castieux who regular gives school workshops and field trips on Geology and Environmental, said that if the rock is not local it is "brilliant".

"I can't really see the rock type from the photo, but it's likely to be limestone, which is the local bedrock type. It would be brilliant if it was a different rock type, then we would definitely have an erratic," Ms Castiaux said.

The council is undecided what to do with the rock. It has been rolled up to the grounds of the GAA pitch for now.

See her Facebook page here.
It is notoriously difficult being president.

But no series of events has better illustrated the divergence between President Donald Trump's view of the job and the way his predecessors approached it than the health, intelligence and civic crises now engulfing the nation.

If his predecessors described the presidency as comprised mainly of impossible problems rooted in inconclusive facts, Trump has chosen this week to shrug off or deny the problems altogether. He insisted coronavirus will eventually "disappear," declared intelligence about Russian bounties a "hoax" and retrenched in old racial divisions the rest of the country appears ready to finally reckon with and resolve.

People who know and speak to Trump have always been somewhat mixed on whether he actually enjoys being President. His days in the Oval Office begin notoriously late, sometimes not until noon, after a morning in front of cable news. He has expressed boredom with the extensive briefings and decision-making sessions that have formed most presidents' days, according to several former administration officials. Issues that once would have been the subject of intensive presidential introspection are left to others, while matters that used to fall to underlings are elevated to the President's desk.

In the past, Trump's fixation with superficial or arcane pursuits -- such as purchasing Greenland, delivering an Elton John album to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un or adjusting the lighting during his televised appearances -- consume staff for weeks or months, even as he ignores more substantive problems.

While it is clear he values the attention, respect and gilded trappings that come with the post -- including his visit Friday to Mount Rushmore for a fireworks display -- Trump has often seemed less passionate about confronting the problems he, as commander in chief, is expected to help solve. Instead he has described his style as "modern day presidential," an ill-defined amalgamation of showman, provocateur and cheerleader that seems to generally mean whatever Trump wants it to but does not include the unpleasant or tiresome tasks undertaken by the men who preceded him.

"It's much easier being presidential, it's easy," he told a rollicking pre-Covid campaign rally in Dallas last October. "All you have to do is act like a stiff."

In private, Trump has led many aides to believe he has lost interest in combating the health crisis, finding few political upsides to a pandemic that has not been contained. Multiple former administration officials say Trump has an aversion in intelligence briefings to hearing warnings about Russia, which he associates with attempts to remove him from office. And in discussions about race, Trump has brushed off efforts to address historic racial inequality as something "his people" won't care about, according to three people familiar with his comments.

It's a new take on presidential leadership, one out of step with how most of his predecessors have approached the position and how many of his own aides wish he would govern. As he ventures this week to the mountainside monument to American presidents -- and the American presidency -- Trump continues to insist, both in public and in heated discussions with his advisers, that his way of doing the job is the only way he knows how.

That has steered him into dangerous political terrain, with most Americans now disapproving of how he's doing his job and a majority saying they would vote for his rival in November. At the same time, Trump is struggling to explain his rationale for serving a second term; asked twice by friendly interviewers to describe his agenda for another four years in office, Trump named no problem he hopes to solve or issue he hopes to advance once he's run his last presidential campaign.

"We're going to make America great again," he told Sinclair's Eric Bolling on Wednesday. "We're doing things that nobody could have done."

The pandemic

On coronavirus, Trump has delegated to others -- principally his vice president -- the difficult job of bearing bad news, though his aides are now debating whether Trump should focus more of his attention on combating a disease that has left 130,000 Americans dead, caused other countries to bar entry to US citizens and left millions unemployed.

This week, as Trump's loyal vice president darted from hotspot to hotspot with members of the White House coronavirus task force, Trump hardly mentioned the virus in public. When he emerged to tout new jobs numbers on Thursday, Trump offered no updated plan to confront a virus that has set daily case-count records five times in the past week. Instead he offered only vague projections of optimism.

"It's a life, it's got a life, and we're putting out that life, cause that's a bad life that we're talking about," he said.

Trump himself has not attended a coronavirus task force meeting since April, and two people close to the President describe him as having lost interest in the virus long ago.

That is not how the last Republican president has described confronting inconvenient, uninteresting or difficult problems when he was in office.

"The nature of the presidency is that sometimes you don't choose which challenges come to your desk. You do decide how to respond," President George W. Bush wrote in his post-White House memoir, "Decision Points."

Trump would hardly adopt Bush's views on how to do the job seriously; former aides have said he "despises" both Bush presidents and he regularly questions the decision George W. Bush made to invade Iraq. Nor is he likely to pay much mind to how President Barack Obama -- who he also despises and whom he has accused of treason -- described the job.

"By definition, if it was an easily solvable problem, or even a modestly difficult but solvable problem, it would not reach me, because, by definition, somebody else would have solved it," Obama said in 2018, a sentiment he voiced frequently while in office. "So, the only decisions that came were the ones that were horrible and that didn't have a good solution. They said, 'Let's send this to Obama, I don't know what to do.' "

Almost all past presidents have said the job exists in gray areas -- where decisions aren't clear-cut, intelligence is open to debate and easy problems are solved by others, leaving only the hard ones for them to sort out -- a view Trump and his team have characterized the position as almost entirely the opposite.

The Russia problem

This week, instead of developing a plan to combat Russia's attempts to pay Taliban fighters to kill American troops, Trump has discounted the intelligence, railed against those who leaked it and said little about how he might punish Moscow were the details to be confirmed.

"I think it's a hoax," he said in an interview with Fox Business Network on Wednesday. "I think it's a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats."

The White House has decried reports about the bounties as based on "unverified" information that was not uniformly agreed upon by the American intelligence community, though successive leaks in The New York Times, CNN and elsewhere have provided an extraordinarily detailed view of the scheme.

Still, in the White House's own telling, Trump only sees intelligence only when it is "verified" and has "consensus" -- a description former administration officials have said bears little resemblance to how intelligence was delivered to presidents in the past. Even then, the White House says information only rises to Trump's level when there is a "strategic decision" to be made.

The overall portrait provided by current and former officials has been a president generally uninterested in the vast secrets compiled by the US government that only he and a select number of aides are allowed to see. John Bolton, his onetime national security adviser, said this week that Trump was generally uninterested in hearing inconvenient or contradictory information.

"It's not that the intelligence community is failing," Bolton told CBS News. "It's that the President doesn't value this information as highly as his predecessors have, and as highly as he should."

Other officials involved in briefing the President have offered similar assessments.

All leaders find that "intelligence is massively inconvenient," Sue Gordon, the former top intelligence official who provided intelligence briefings to Trump, said during public remarks at the end of last year. "So you are walking in there making things difficult because of what you are presenting. And you are limiting the choices because once it's heard it is heard and it exists."

One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations, said Trump was "typically frustrated with intelligence because it shows a problem but doesn't provide an answer."

Robert O'Brien, the President's current national security adviser, told reporters this week that information was never withheld from the President because it seemed inconvenient.

"I almost never go into the President with good news, unfortunately, because of my job," he said. "We brief him on everything he needs to know to keep the country safe."

Race-based culture war

O'Brien is among several administration officials who has recently denied systemic racism continues to plague the nation after a series of police killings of unarmed Black men and women. Even as entities such as NASCAR and the GOP-held Mississippi Legislature begin confronting the symbols long associated with the country's racist past, Trump has refused to engage in the discussion, deeming Confederate emblems an irreplaceable part of the country's "heritage."

That's a position that polls show is out of step with an increasing number of Americans -- a Quinnipiac University survey last month showed 52% of voters support removing Confederate statues from public spaces -- though Trump has been adamant that the people who voted for him are swayed by his argument.

Instead of seeking to bridge the cultural and racial divide, Trump has spent this week stoking the fractures: he has complained that the names of racists are being removed from buildings, vowed to reexamine a federal rule meant to combat segregation, and deemed to words "Black Lives Matter" a "symbol of hate" that would ruin the "luxury avenue" he once called home.

That Trump is not a unifying president is hardly new. Yet presented with the opportunity to address some of the problems associated with systemic bias in policing, Trump has largely turned his back, believe there is little political benefit.

After signing an modest executive order earlier this month, Trump has declined to throw his support behind GOP legislation that would go further, fearing it could alienate police and turn off the voters he claims are looking for a "law-and-order" president. Without Trump's backing, the police reform package being negotiated on Capitol Hill has an uncertain future.

Instead of reforms, Trump has focused squarely on going after violent protesters after he was warned in early June that he looked weak while fires burned outside the White House as he fled to an underground bunker. Yet protests since then have been mostly peaceful.

The focus on "looters" illustrates Trump's desire to solve only the problems he deems politically helpful, even as less convenient -- and often more substantive -- issues rage unchecked. During a string of combating press briefings this week, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has opened with long speeches about restoring "law-and-order" to the country without mention of the virus ravaging communities across the Sun Belt.

For Trump, solving self-created or self-inflated problems has always seemed more palatable than confronting the challenges no one else can solve. He admitted early in his presidency that fixing health care -- an issue he vowed to overhaul as a candidate -- was a lot more complicated than he expected.

Arriving at a moment where the hard parts of running the country are piling up even as he shows little enthusiasm for solving them, many around him believe his own 100-day assessment of the job has changed little.

"I loved my previous life. I had so many things going," Trump told Reuters in April 2017. "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier."
MASON CITY, Iowa  Jail time and fines are handed to two men arrested after an early morning car chase.

The Cerro Gordo County Sheriffs Office says a deputy tried to pull over Eugene Alan Sikora, 24 of Sheffield, for an equipment violation on February 3. Sikora sped off and led law enforcement on a pursuit lasting several minutes until a deputy used a pursuit intervention technique to stop the chase.



Eugene Sikora Eugene Sikora

Deputies said a search of the vehicle turned up methamphetamine, marijuana, and psilocybin mushrooms.

Sikora pleaded guilty to eluding and received 90 days in jail and a 315 fine.

A passenger, Cody Dead Dakin, 25 of Mason City, pleaded guilty to possession of meth-1st offense and possession of psilocybin mushrooms-1st offense. He has been sentenced to 120 days in jail and $630 in fines.
DES MOINES, Iowa. (AP)  Police used tear gas and arrested people at the Iowa Capitol during a protest to persuade Gov. Kim Reynolds to restore voting rights to felons.

The police said protesters started the confrontation on Wednesday but protesters accused law enforcement of mishandling the arrests. Videos from the scene show Iowa State Patrol troopers taking some protesters to the ground while others tried to pull authorities away.

Des Moines police arrived and more arrests were made. Police say at least 15 people were arrested. Two juveniles also were taken into custody

On Thursday morning, Speaker of the House Pat Grassley (R-New Hartford) and Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver (R-Ankeny) issued the following statement about the incident:

"House and Senate leadership strongly support the actions taken by law enforcement at the Capitol yesterday to end a violent confrontation with a disorderly group of protestors. We respect any Iowans exercising their constitutionally protected right to peacefully assemble. The legislature took swift action this year in an effort to improve law enforcement in Iowa.

Assaulting, disarming, and spitting on law enforcement is never acceptable and will not be tolerated by any group on the Capitol grounds. The Iowa Capitol is a public building supported by every Iowan and any member of the public choosing to come to this building should feel welcome. It is not, nor will it become, an area of lawlessness.

House and Senate leadership are in strong support of Iowas men and women in law enforcement who put their lives on the line every day to keep our communities safe. We thank them for their service and truly appreciate the job they do."
MASON CITY, Iowa - The pork industry is keeping an eye out for a strain of Swine Flu, nicknamed G4.

While some are calling the strain new, it was actually discovered by Chinese scientists as early as 2016.

On Wednesday afternoon, KIMT News 3 spoke with Dr. Dave Pyburn with the National Pork Board. He says the G4 virus has been largely contained to China and there is only a slight threat of it spreading to the United States.

The Swine Flu is easily transmitted between pigs and people. Dr. Pyburn says pork farmers are asking their workers to take precautions.

"They also talk to their workers about when your sick, don't come to work. They don't want them potentially bringing something into our barns when they're sick," he said.

Other ways to keep Swine Flu from spreading are to wear a mask while in the hog barns and make sure to keep washing and sanitizing hands.
ST. PAUL, Minn.  A federal judge makes pointed comments about race as he refused to dismiss a lawsuit against a Rochester police officer.

Michael Vernio and Kelli Gendron are suing Officer Samuel Higgins over an incident on August 19, 2019, that was captured on Officer Higgins body camera. In court filings, both sides almost entirely agree on what happened.

Officer Higgins was investigating a complaint about barking dogs when he walked up the driveway of Vernio and Gendrons home, around a parked truck, and to the garage where Gendron was sitting. Officer Higgins asked Gendron if the dogs belonged to her. As they talked, Vernio came out of the home and joined the conversation.

At one point, according to court documents filed by both sides, Vernio wondered aloud why his neighbors had called police about the dogs barking instead of just talking to him and Officer Higgins responded with, you have to understand, youre a very loud boisterous black man.

Vernio then said Officer Higgins was a white man with a gun, and Im afraid, to which Higgins replied and you havent been shot yet. Officer Higgins says Vernio then replied in a joking manner Ive got a witness, thats why, began to laugh and said Im just givin youIm just playin.

In December 2019, Vernio and Gendron filed a lawsuit accusing Officer Higgins of violating their 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and claimed to have suffered mental and emotional pain, short- and long-term emotional injury, unlawful search, dignitary harm, discomfort, embarrassment, humiliation, fear, anxiety, apprehension, sleeplessness, a generally diminished sense of personal and family safety, increased fear of law enforcement and more.

Officer Higgins filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank has now denied that motion and allowed the lawsuit to proceed. In his denial, Judge Frank citied the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and George Floyd in Minneapolis and stated that Officer Higgins comments were in the worst-case scenario, outright racist remarks and are entirely contrary to the constitutional promise of equal justice under law in the United States of America to which every citizen is entitled.
CERRO GORDO COUNTY, Iowa - A Manly man is facing seven felony charges after a traffic stop by Clear Lake police.

Armondo Grays, 28, was arrested Wednesday after a K9 alerted on a vehicle.

After a probable cause search, 3 automatic pistols (2 were loaded) were located within reach of Grays.

In addition to controlled substance charges due to ecstasy being found, hes also facing charges after he fled upon the K9 alerting on the vehicle.

Once arrested, Grays caused damage to the patrol vehicle by kicking it.
MASON CITY, Iowa  Masks are going to be required to enter city buildings in Mason City.

Mayor Bill Schickel made that announcement Wednesday, stating that all city employees will also wear masks whenever they interact with the public. Mayor Schickel says signs on the new policy will be posted in city buildings.

The Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors is also scheduled to consider requiring masks in all county facilities during a special meeting on Thursday.

The Mason City mask mandate comes as the number of coronavirus cases in Cerro Gordo County has increased to 105, with 48 people having recovered and one death. CG Public Health Director Brian Hanft says the county currently has 101 people in quarantine because of COVID-19.
CERRO GORDO COUNTY, Iowa - A man wanted for several burglaries over the course of multiple months in late 2019 has been arrested for ongoing criminal conduct.

Mitch Buesing, of Mason City, was arrested on a warrant Wednesday and is facing multiple charges, including theft, burglary and larceny.

According to court documents, a large number of stolen SnapOn tools, including socket sets and wrenches were found in a garage. The tools were stolen from Mason City in October of 2019. A laptop and burglar tools were also found.

Documents also state Buesing was unlawfully committing several car burglaries, taking property from vehicles, and selling the stolen property for financial gain.
MASON CITY, Iowa  Trial is set for a man accused of meth possession in North Iowa.

Nathan Wade Medlin, 28 of Mason City, was pulled over on June 7 and law enforcement says it found him in possession of seven grams of methamphetamine and $541 in cash.

Medlin has pleaded not guilty to methamphetamine, second offense-enhanced penalties or possession with intent to deliver. His trial is scheduled to being on September 15.
KIMT NEWS 3 - Farmers have been financially strapped for months now, but there could be some light at the end of the tunne.

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement took effect Wednesday. The deal opens up additional markets for American food and agricultural products, improve transparency, reduce trade distorting policies, eliminating two Canadian milk classes that allowed low priced dairy ingredients to undersell U.S. dairy sales in Canada, to name a few.

"It is an improvement over the old NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)."

Minnesota Senator Tina Smith expects the act to provide much-needed trade uncertainty for Minnesota farmers, businesses and consumers.

"It's been a really, really tough road to hoe for the last several years, and the COVID emergency has really hit agriculture hard from the food processing side to the production side. This is a bit of good news. While no trade deal is perfect, this trade deal is really moving us forward."

Senator Smith says she will push the Trump administration to monitor dairy provisions in the agreement to ensure Canada follows through.

"I think especially about the dairy farmers that have had such a hard time. Knowing that we are taking steps towards opening up Canadian markets to dairy products and stopping some of these unfair barriers that have existed for American dairy products in Canada is a good thing."

Senator Smith has had conversations with negotiators and the Secretary of the Treasury to ensure that farmers would be protected. In addition, there are plans to strengthen and create other deals.

"We continue to have issues negotiating with China, and we need to make sure the things that got negotiated last year really happening. For example, China agreed to make massive purchases of agricultural products, and they're already backing away from that, so we have to pursue that."

Also included in the deal are protections for workers; for example, Mexican workers must be paid a fair wage, as well as clarifying the percentage of what exactly is American made in a product, and also strips out anti-competitive provisions in order to lower prescription drug prices.
ROCHESTER, Minn.- An area nonprofit is working to help a Rochester veteran repair the roof of his home.

Two Rivers Habitat for Humanity is hoping to raise $8,500 after 70-year-old Duane Hart applied for the Critical Home Repair program.

Executive director Kevin Worden says the organization has currently raised a little more than $1,000.

Worden says having a decent place to live improves all aspects of a persons life.

He explained, Whether you're concerned about, for all families, education, health, career, income - having a decent place to live in the foundation that underscores all of that because it's hard to expect someone having a stable life if they don't have a stable home.

Worden also says the past few months dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic have proven how valuable having a reliable shelter is for everyone.

We've seen, if nothing else in the past few months, how important shelter really is. When you have a shelter-in-place that doesn't mean a lot of if you don't have a decent shelter. So, we're trying to help as many families as we can including Duane and so many others.

Theres a 2020 at-home virtual bike ride in support of Habitat for Humanity of Minnesota on July 12th.

Worden says 100% of the donations will go directly towards the habitats mission. If youre interested in donating click here.
ROCHESTER, Minn.  A man with a history of assault is going to prison for illegal gun possession.

Deanton Parish McReynolds, 32 of Rochester, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm after being convicted for a crime of violence for an incident on March 6. Rochester police say McReynolds was pulled over for two brake lights out and after detecting a strong smell of marijuana, officers said they found 85 grams of pot, a digital scale, a .38 revolver, and ammunition in McReynolds vehicle.

Hes been sentenced to five years in prison, with credit for 70 days already served. Charges of 5th degree drug possession and illegal possession of ammunition were dismissed.

According to court records, McReynolds was convicted on two counts of 3rd degree assault in Olmsted County in 2018.
ROCHESTER, Minn.  A woman charged with trying to kill her children has been found competent and pleaded not guilty.

Farhiyo Mohamed Abdullahi, 33 of Rochester, is facing five counts of 1st degree attempted murder and five counts of child endangerment. She was arrested in October 2019 after Rochester police said Abdullahi took her five children ranging in age from four to 11 years old and put them in a vehicle parked in a garage with the engine running.

Abdullahi was ruled incompetent to stand trial in December 2019 but that ruling has been reversed and Abdullahi has entered not guilty pleas to all charges. No trial date has been set.
AUSTIN, Minn. - We're several months into the coronavirus pandemic now and it seems like more and more people are starting to adapt to this new normal. That includes SMART Transit in Southern Minnesota, which is getting back to its usual duties after taking a different route.

Through a partnership between United Way, Mower County Senior Center and Hormel, over 62,000 meals were delivered to folks in the community struggling with food insecurity.

Some of the meals were from area restaurants that Hormel bought to support them in the process as well. SMART Transit had to make changes to it's usual services of transporting people, but the manager, Kirk Kuchera, told KIMT News 3 delivering these meals aligns with their mission. "Transporting people to appointments, pick up prescriptions or go to work or school, that's always our goal is to help those people in need," explained Kuchera. "It just looked different this time around."

Chris Thompson is the operational manager for SMART Transit and she said it was eye opening to see how many people struggle with having enough food on the table. "Sometimes this was the only person that some of these elderly people got to see. A lot of them weren't able to see their family because of the COVID," explained Thompson. "It was just really nice for them to have someone even to wave at or say hello to."

Beginning next week, SMART Transit will continue delivering meals twice a week to vulnerable adults in the area.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stated earlier this week he will close bars and restaurants if they're not following the new safety guidelines. This comes after a nationwide spike of COVID-19 cases.

Restaurants have only been open for a few weeks, giving some places a chance to get back on their feet. But for one in Rochester, when they reopened, they opened as a brand new restaurant. Bar manager of Nellie's on 3rd, Rick McCoy, said it would be a huge set back to close again. "I think it'll impact a lot of businesses around here if we have to shut down again," explained McCoy. "We could end up doing take out again or completely shut down. We'll have to wait and see what he decides I guess."

McCoy is remaining hopeful and the restaurant is taking the safety measures seriously. Some of those specific policies they're following are employees need to wear face masks, only 50 percent capacity indoors and tables must be 6 feet apart. McCoy said Nellie's on 3rd is doing what it can in hopes of not having to close its doors again. "We had a whole training day with the staff before we opened," McCoy explained. "We went through the whole packet and they know all the steps. We keep everything sanitized, all the hot spots every half an hour."

Governor Walz has not made any final decisions on closing restaurants again. KIMT News 3 will bring you the latest information if that does happen.
January 2016 saw the worst start of the year for Standard & Poor's 500-stock index in history beginning with a collapse in the Chinese equity market, and the continued decline can be attributed to sustained market volatility and the decline in oil prices. These events provide an opportunity to examine several questions important to investors and revisit some fundamental principles of investing in capital markets. First, it's important to remember how well-functioning capital markets work and what prices reflect; prices reflect the aggregate expectations of market participants. Risk aversion, investors' tastes and preferences, and expectations about future profits are among the many inputs that affect aggregate expectations. We should expect these inputs to vary day-to-day. Markets adapt to changing expectations and new information, and as a result, we should expect prices, as well as the level of volatility, to fluctuate. If markets never adjusted and always remained constant, the market would not be functioning properly. The news from China as we entered 2016 spooked the market. The re-emergence of China as a major force in the global economy has been one of the most significant drivers of markets in the past 15 years. China's rapid industrialization, as the population urbanized, drove strong demand for commodities and other materials. Now China is entering a new phase of modernization, and the government and regulators are seeking to rebalance growth and bring to maturity the country's still relatively undeveloped capital markets.

The reasons for China's stock market troubles are many, but most analysts point to a move by the central bank to weaken China's currency, the renminbi (also referred to as its biggest denomination, the yuan), as the primary cause for the decline. In January, China's central bank lowered the renminbi's so-called reference rate, its trading peg to the U.S. dollar, by the largest margin since August, which created fear that China's leaders are using a weaker currency to spark growth for an economy that is struggling more than expected. Over the years, China has allowed its currency to appreciate in efforts to rebalance its economy away from relying on investment and exports to one reliant more on domestic consumption. However, the sharp slowdown in the Chinese economy this year, paired with big losses in its equity markets, has derailed things. Currency devaluation is a means of subsidizing its manufacturing and export industry to boost growth, something that they were trying to steer away from. The message that currency devaluation sends is one of a troubled domestic Chinese economy. At that time, when China was leading the headlines, I was frequently asked if the environment in China really warrants a global sell-off. My answer for the short-term, up to one year, was "yes" because the market's mood and daily direction is headline-driven and our instant access to information moves markets. My longer-term answer was "no," even though the Chinese economy is now the largest in the world (measured in terms of purchasing power parity, which takes into account the relative cost of local goods), ranking ahead of the U.S., India, Japan, Germany and Russia. Some of the reasons that happenings in China shouldn't determine the longer-term value of our market or most others are listed below.

China is classified by some index providers as an emerging market, which are markets that fall short of the definition of developed markets on a number of measures, such as economic development, size, liquidity, transparency and property rights. (Others consider it a developed international market.) China's stock market is still relatively young. The two major exchanges, Shanghai and the southern city of Shenzhen, were established in 1990. With foreign participation in mainland Chinese markets still heavily restricted, many foreign investors have sought exposure to China through Hong Kong or China shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange. As a consequence, domestic investors account for about 90% of the activity on the Chinese mainland market, and the participation is quite narrow. According to a Chinese household finance survey, only about 8% of Chinese families held shares. By comparison, just over half of all Americans own stock, according to Gallup. Another point of perspective is that while the Chinese economy has been slowing, it is still expanding at around 7% per year, which is more than twice the rate of most developed economies. China and the rest of the world were used to its growth rate being in the low double digits, so although 7% is still operating at a clip well above most other countries, it's a sign of a slowdown. Even though China has become a dominant economic force with large expectations, its market share is still relatively small in global terms. It makes up just 2.6% of the MSCI All Country World index, which takes into account the proportion of a company's shares that are available to be traded by the public. To put this in context, Apple alone has a market share of 1.3%, which is half as big as China's total market share. Not surprisingly, the U.S. has the largest global market share at 52%.

The Chinese market is also not a large part of the local economy. According to Bloomberg, it is capitalized at less than 60% of the country's gross domestic product. By comparison, the U.S. total equity market is capitalized at more than 100% of U.S. GDP. To state the obvious, the U.S. economic and political landscape is extremely different from China's; therefore it should be viewed and measured differently. I understand the impact of headlines and rapidly available information on market sentiment, but China's market volatility should not be a global concern, especially when taking all of the aforementioned into consideration. It's important to understand that the stock market is not the economy and to remember that China's market is only about 2.6% of global market capitalization. What the Chinese market collapse did was spook global markets and expose other areas of economic uncertainty and concern, namely oil and quantitative easing. In fact, we are now in a period where the decline in oil prices has stolen headlines, and negative interest rates and deflation has crept into conversation. The point is: There has always been and there will always be reasons to worry about the economy and market. Volatility is part of the market's DNA, and without it the equity markets would not have the risk premiums that they do. The market minus its volatility would offer returns similar to government bonds. The risk premium for equities is a form of compensation above and beyond the risk-free rate of return that investors expect to earn for tolerating extra risk. Periods of heightened concern and uncertainty are actually the most opportune times for savvy investors because they generate the largest returns (risk premiums) for investors.

Investing during times when the media has you believing that things are different "this time," and not in a good way, are emotionally the most difficult. That's why it's important to keep emotions and media noise in check, and to buy the market during periods of weakness, if it makes sense for your objectives. It's important to remember that there is ample evidence that suggest prices adjust in such a way that every day there is a positive expected return on our invested capital. While the actual return over any period may be positive or negative, in expectation we believe markets will go up. As investors, we should remain disciplined through all periods in order to capture the expected returns that the market offers. Capitalism is resilient and will continue to reward disciplined investors who exercise prudent asset class diversification and focus on keeping costs low and on the dimensions of the market that compensate investors for taking additional risks. China created the market slide, but it's not the reason for its continued weakness. Woodring is founding partner of San Francisco Bay area Cypress Partners, a fee-only wealth consulting practice that provides personalized, comprehensive services that help retirees and busy professionals to enjoy life free of financial concern.
Those who are worried about a market correction should keep in mind that over the last 30 years Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has only been negative in five out of 30 years. That means the market has been positive 83% of the time. This is a glaring fact that investors find surprising. Most of us are emotional investors and dramatize the loss because it hurts more than the gains. The S&P 500 has gained more than 17% annually over the last 6.5 years, so it comes as no surprise that investors might want to think about getting out now.

Some may say now is the time to get out of the market. This summer, the market hit an all-time high and continues to rise. It seems as though the Brexit never even happened; however, it was as recent as June 2016 that it cost the market a 5% one-day loss. Many would say that the market is over inflated, Wall Street has been on a vacation and a turbulent election will influence a correction in the market.

As a long-term investor, you owe it to yourself to take the emotion out of the process. Don't guess your way in and out of the market. For example, I had a client in 2012 tell me that they felt the market was flying too high and wanted to take the gains and go to cash. At that point, they had recovered all their loss from the 2008 financial crisis. They were long-term investors, and I recommended they stay the course. Since that point, they gained an additional 54%. I could have easily agreed with them that going to cash made sense because they were above the pre-financial crisis balance. But I knew, because they were long-term investors, they would benefit over time by staying invested.

As a cash investor, it is best to put your money to work for you over a period of time. This is called dollar-cost averaging, which spaces out the same investment purchase over several months. This results in buying your investments at the average price over the period decided upon. Below is an example of how dollar-cost averaging can benefit an investor.

In this example, if the client invested the full $4,000 on January 1st, they would have bought all the shares at the highest price. By using dollar-cost averaging, you have reduced the risk of purchasing all funds at the possible highest price.

If retirement is on the horizon, and you are within five years of using your funds, consider this a good time to possibly move to a more conservative allocation. Due to this short time horizon, you have very little time left to make changes to your allocation. Because the market has done so well recently, you may want to consider this an opportunity to move a portion of your assets from equity to fixed income.

Does the Election Make a Difference to Investors?

This election is different from any other. But the fact is all elections are different from any other. Many people believe each election will affect the economy and even change the course of history. In a day and age in which media is abundant and influential, certain stories are bound to effect the stock market for some periods of time. Still, the approach that is outlined above stays sound whether the market is too high, the election changes everything or some other headline shakes the economy. To give you some extra confidence, here are some statistics on market performance from 1945 through 2015, according to Russell Investments:

In the 36 years that we had a Republican president, the S&P 500 returned 10.0%;

during the 35 years in which a Democrat served as president, the S&P 500 gained 15.2%;

and in 17 presidential election years, the index returned 9.9%.

Final Thoughts for Year-End Investing

Long-term investors and cash investors need to stay the course, focus on longer-term averages and realize it is difficult or impossible to time shorter-term impacts. Make a plan and stick to it. Also, consider rebalancing your accounts. Investors that are close to retirement may want to consider a move to a more balanced portfolio. All investors need to keep their risk tolerance and timeframes in check and understand that markets will correct, but the odds are in your favor when you stay invested.

Robert Auclair is an independent registered investment adviser in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. He combines his financial-knowledge base with a unique ability to match clients' emotions and goals to their balance sheets. He grew up with two teachers as parents and believes that clients need to understand to succeed.
Ask any political junkie, and they'll tell you that the 2016 presidential campaign has been one of the strangest they've ever experienced. The rise of billionaire/reality TV star Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the wild and woolly TV debates, and how wrong the pundits have been at predicting anything has been unprecedented. But if we set aside the drama, we may discover that the most important thing we can learn from this election has nothing to do with the candidates. Instead, the most important takeaways are how the two mega-forces of globalization and demographics have changed our country and the influence they will have for years to come. Investors would be wise to pay attention. We're Living In A Global Village First let's look at globalization. We've heard a lot of talk about trade, trade agreements and jobs from the candidates, but unless you've been personally affected, much of it seems more abstract than real. So let's make it real. There's no question that we have reaped the economic benefits of globalization. Trade liberalization alone increases our annual output by $300 billion to $500 billion, according to the Peterson Institute. Trade creates new jobs as well as destroying old ones. In 1992, 14.5 million or 10.4% of all jobs were tied to trade. By 2014, that number had grown to 41 million or 21.7% of all jobs, according to Business Roundtable.

But many of us missed the fact that globalization also gave us the benefit of lower prices on personal goods. The following chart gives you an idea of what happened to the prices of some commonly purchased goods between 2002 and 2012. Yes, there have been downsides to these consumer benefits. The first trade-off of globalization has been domestic jobs. You can't miss that on the campaign trail. But it's important to understand that while not all of the job losses are a result of globalization, many are. The chart below shows manufacturing job losses by sector between 2000 and 2015. As you can see, while a number of sectors have been hit, a few have been decimated. When you see that 31% of all automobile workers have lost their jobs since 2000, it's easy to understand why voters in Michigan and Ohio are frustrated and angry. And when you see that 71% of all textile and apparel jobs have been lost, it's easy to relate to concerns expressed by voters in the Carolinas. The second trade-off has been lower wages. The next chart shows the change in real wages by sector between January 2009 and December 2015. While wages haven't grown dramatically for any sector (except financial services), it's clear that individuals in the services sectors (financial services, information, education/health and leisure/hospitality) have fared much better than individuals in the construction, manufacturing and auto sectors. So we've learned that globalization is a double-edged sword. Many individual companies and investors have benefitted from rising stock prices tied to increased corporate sales and profits. But it has been devastating for a number of U.S. cities, workers and their families. During this election cycle, we've heard the voices of many of those affected individuals. Changing Demographics For the first time, the Millennial generation (individuals between 18 and 43) will match up with the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) in population size. And as the Baby Boomer population decreases, the Millennials will take their place in history as the largest generation of Americans. What many don't understand is that we're just beginning to see what happens when the Millennials flex their cultural and political muscles.

Looking back, it's easy to see how the Baby Boomer generation dramatically affected our country and the economy. According to a 2008 McKinsey and Company study, Baby Boomers broke all of the previous generations' records for attaining the highest levels of education. During their working years, they have seen their incomes rise to the highest level of all generations. As consumers, Baby Boomers have been the dominant spenders for two decades, and they have spent more at every age than prior generations. They have driven the growth of industries such as personal electronics, recreation and health care. As investors, Baby Boomers have prospered from unprecedented increases in the stock and real estate markets. As the value of their assets rose, their spending increased, and the generation's saving rate fell to all-time lows. Now, as they look ahead to the end of their careers and retirement, they will change the face of retirement in America. Like Baby Boomers, the Millennial generation will make its mark on the country by influencing our culture and the economy. Millennials have been particularly visible in their support for Democrat Sanders and his message. In the Michigan primary in early March, exit polling found that 81% of Democratic voters age 18 to 29 cast their ballots for Senator Sanders. In New Hampshire, 83% of Democratic voters chose Senator Sanders. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center study, they also look different than the generations that preceded them. For example, Millennials are: more ethnically diverse with 43% them being nonwhite compared with 28% of Baby Boomers;

less religious with 35% having no religious affiliation compared with 17% of Baby Boomers;

and they marry later with just 26% of the Millennials between 18 and 33 years old being married versus 48% of individuals the same age in 1980. These results shouldn't be surprising. This generation was shaped by the shock of 9/11. Yet, they are more supportive on issues such as gay marriage and are more open to different ways of life than previous generations. This election, the Millennial generation is making itself heard, and this is just the beginning. While we don't know where they will take us, we do know that they will be a social and economic force for many years to come. Globalization and demographics, two mega-forces and hot topics this election, will continue to influence the markets in the future. The best advice to investors: Keep your eyes and ears open to sectors and companies that develop the best ways to capitalize upon these forces, and invest accordingly. Jan Blakeley Holman, CFP, CIMA, ChFC, CDFA, CFS, GFS, is Director of Advisor Education at Thornburg Investment Management, a global investment management firm.
Lately, Ive been watching my stocks and stock funds -- as well as those of my clients -- fall because of an arcane political and economic crisis in far-away Greece, a country that hasnt much mattered in world affairs since its golden age ended around 300 BC. I know Greece as a small, island-flecked Mediterranean country where people like to sit around and drink coffee. Greeks have a reputation for not working very hard and rarely paying taxes. I took a wonderful vacation there ten years ago. Why does Greece matter to U.S. investors? The standard answer is because the world is now so interconnected. If Greece experiences a hard default on its bonds (it has already reneged on a large portion of its debt in a deal blessed by euro-zone officials), or, worse still, if it leaves the euro zone, fears could well spiral out of control in Spain and Italy. Then the selloff in Spanish and Italian bonds would almost certainly accelerate. Depositors of Spanish and Italian banks would likely increase their withdrawals, in what could well become a panic over whether those countries, too, might exit the euro zone. Whats more, much of the euro zone is already mired in deep recession.

But the usual explanation for why Greece matters to the U.S. misses the mark. Countries like Greece had financial meltdowns, and Europe experienced recessions, for many decades without such events having much effect on the U.S. economy. And vice versa. In 2001, the U.S. fell into recession after the tech-stock bubble burst, but Europe remained healthy. In 1991, the U.S. had a recession, but Europe didnt. U.S. exports to Europe amount to a mere 1.7% of our gross domestic product. Trade between the U.S. and Europe has increased. But even, say, a 25% plunge in our exports to Europe would nibble less than one-half of one percentage point from our GDP. Economically speaking, thats a gnat bite. No, when we talk about global interconnectedness -- as far as the economy and markets are concerned -- were talking about the interconnectedness of big banks. If Spains Banco Santander collapses, the immediate question here will be: What connections do our too-big-to-fail Wall Street financial institutions have with Santander? And the next question will be: What connections do these big banks have with other European banks that have connections with Santander? At this point, surely Wall Street bankers know better than to invest in the financial houses and government bonds of the weak countries in Europe, right? Surely they know better than to invest in complex securities guaranteed by those banks? Surely they know to avoid counterparty risk with these banks? Apparently not. In their infinite wisdom, JPMorgan traders took huge positions in complex derivatives that plummeted in value as Europes economy showed increasing signs of weakness. Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon correctly calls those trades stupid and egregious mistakes -- although he also insists he didnt know about them earlier, even though the Wall Street Journal had been writing about them since early April.
Don't worry about Europe collapsing -- neither Spain nor Italy will default on its debt obligations. The global economy is growing, albeit at a moderate clip. And all over the world, blue chip stocks are "really, really cheap." So says David Herro, one of the nation's most experienced and successful pickers of foreign stocks. Herro launched Oakmark International Fund (symbol OAKIX) in September 1992 and continues as its co-manager with Robert Taylor, who joined the fund in late 2008. Over the past 15 years through April 30, Oakmark returned an annualized 7.6%. That beat the MSCI EAFE index, a measure of large-company foreign stocks, by an average of 3.6 percentage points a year and the average large-company overseas stock fund by an average of 2.6 points per year. Herro is a bargain-hunter, so he is thrilled to have plenty of opportunities today. How cheap is his playground? The EAFE index trades at just 11.3 estimated analysts' earnings for the coming 12 months. Shares of European companies in particular are cheap, Herro says, because many investors have concluded that all of Europe is crumbling. True, some parts of Europe are in trouble -- Greece is the most obvious example. But northern Europe is doing just fine, Herro says.

Moreover, says Herro, investors are getting too hung up on where a company is headquartered. "Don't look at where a company is located," he says. "Look at where it makes its money." Many foreign behemoths are generating an increasing portion of their sales and profits in fast-growing emerging markets. Herro lists automakers Toyota Motor (TM) and Daimler (DDAIY), both large Oakmark holdings, as two examples. (All symbols for foreign stocks in this article are for their American depositary receipts). At the same time, Herro owns virtually no emerging markets stocks. It's not that he sees a bubble in developing markets or that he thinks China will suffer a hard landing as its economy slows. It's just that he is finding better deals in the developed markets. Many of these stocks, he says, are going begging. Consider two banks, Spain's Banco Santander (STD) and Brazil's Itau Unibanco Holdings (ITUB). At $6.33, Santander trades at 0.6 times book value (assets minus liabilities) and yields 14.5% (all share prices and related data are as of April 30). Santander derives more than half of its profits from Brazil and Mexico, with less than 20% coming from Spain. Investors have fled Santander for fear that Spain will ultimately default on its government bonds, as Greece did. Meanwhile, Unibanco, at $15.69, yields 0.6% and trades at 1.8 times book value. Herro has nothing against the fast-growing Brazilian bank. He'd be a buyer at a lower price. But assuming that Spain does not default and that Santander eventually recovers, Herro says, the Spanish bank looks like the better deal.
Hot IPOs can get pulses racing -- even those of people who normally dont give a fig about stocks. The initial public offerings of Carbonite (symbol CARB), Groupon (GRPN), LinkedIn (LNKD) and Pandora Media (P), all of which debuted in the past 12 months, caused quite a stir. Just one thing: All except LinkedIn are now trading below their IPO prices.

These four IPOs are minnows compared with Facebooks whale of an IPO, set for May. But before you decide to join in the Facebook excitement, remember: IPOs are usually bad investments.

Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, examined all IPOs from 1970 through 1993. In the first five years after they went public, IPOs returned, on average, 5.6 percentage points per year less than stocks of established companies with similar market values (share price times number of shares outstanding).

Another study, by CommScan LLC, an investment-banking research firm, found that the average IPO issued from 1990 to 1998 lagged Standard & Poors 500-stock index by 7.9 percentage points in its first year of trading.

That IPOs tend to go sour shouldnt be a surprise. The owners of a company going public seek to sell at the highest price possible. So they try to put the brightest possible sheen on a company just as they sell shares. Plus, less information is available about companies going public than about established companies. And unseasoned companies make up most IPOs.

The Misnamed JOBS Act

Given these facts, investors ought to worry about the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which President Obama signed into law on April 5. The new law has numerous provisions -- but all are designed to allow companies to sell stock to the public with less regulatory oversight.
When Ed Owens launched Vanguard Health Care Fund (symbol VGHCX), Ronald Reagan was president, the Soviet Union had just announced plans to boycott the summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and you had to go to a ticker tape to get real-time stock quotes. The world has changed considerably since 1984, but through it all Owens has steered his fund to a fabulous long-term record. In fact, Health Cares 16% annualized return from its May 1984 inception through October 4 bests every other mutual fund and crushes Standard & Poors 500-stock index by an average of 5.7 percentage points per year. Now, more change is afoot: At the end of 2012, Owens, 66, will retire from Wellington Management, the Boston-based company that runs Vanguard Health. Jean Hynes, 43, who has been a member of the $23.5 billion funds team for almost 20 years and associate manager since 2008, will take over as sole manager. We recently chatted with Owens and Hynes about the state of health care, their approach to investing and what to expect with the changing of the guard. Here is an edited version of the conversation. Kiplinger's: How has the Affordable Care Act, the big reform law, changed the landscape for health care investors?

Owens: We havent made many changes to our investment process based on the Affordable Care Act. We are selectors of securities, and in most cases the ACA doesnt affect the relative valuation of a company. It can affect the amount of concentration we want to make in one sector or anotherit probably affects our call among health services, pharmaceuticals and medical products more than it affects other things. But in general, its business as usual for us. Our strategy continues to be to observe individual companies and their fundamentals over the next year or two. How do you approach the $2.7 trillion health care sector and its many subcategories? Owens: Theres a problem with definitions and dividing subsectors within health care. The distinction between biotech and pharmaceuticals, for instance, is quite artificial. We look at three big bucketsbio-pharma, medical products and devices, and health services. We are overweighted in managed care and health services and slightly underweighted in pharmaceuticals and biotech. But our portfolio is well diversified, so we dont really diverge widely from our benchmark. How do you come up with ideas and determine whether a stock is worth buying? Owens: Were value investors, so we tend to look for stocks that have lower price-earnings ratios. We are also fundamental investors, so we spend the great bulk of our time trying to determine the best new products in different categories. And in assessing companies, we try to find a balance between the value of existing products and new products that are in the pipeline. Its a laborious but simple process.

Will the process change with the change in management? Hynes: It should be a seamless transition. Ed and I have similar investment styles, and the members of the research team who have helped Ed since the late 1990s will still be in place. I share the same view of value as Ed does and also believe, as he does, that health care should be a low-turnover sector. The fundamentals of health care change less dramatically than other sectors of the market. Youve been adding biotech stocks. Will the funds exposure to biotech eventually eclipse that of traditional drug companies? Owens: Biotech companies and pharmaceutical companies are one and the same. I see no distinction between Merck [a pharmaceutical firm] and Amgen [a biotechnology company]. When you look at how oncology is unfolding, advances are coming from both types of companies. Many biotechnology companies are not yet profitable. As a value investor, how do you analyze them? Hynes: We identify value not necessarily by focusing on near-term earnings, but by determining how much a company could possibly earn. Figuring out what a company could earn four or five years outby evaluating new products and by estimating peak sales for products and how long it takes to reach peak saleshelps us determine a companys value. Does your fund currently own any unprofitable companies? Owens: Yes. One company that is unprofitable now yet looks inexpensive to us is Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (IRWD). It has a product that was just approved for irritable bowel syndrome and chronic constipation. We think it will be a large seller over the next ten to 15 years and that the earnings Ironwood should generate five years out make the stock a great value today.

Merck, the funds biggest holding at last report, is decidedly profitable. What do you like about the company? Hynes: We added it to the fund a few years ago when it was obvious to us that its new diabetes drug, Januvia, was performing much better than expected. It generates $6 billion in revenue a year, and its category of diabetes drug is still growing fast; Merck has about a 75% share of the market in that category. Like many of the big pharmaceutical companies, Merck has drugs going through patent expirations. In August, it lost the patent on one of its large-selling asthma drugs, Singulair. But Merck also has many important products in the late stage of drug trials [for more on the drug-testing process, see STOCK WATCH: 8 Stock Picks to Bet on Beating Cancer]. The fund has 22% of its assets in foreign stocks. Does location enter into your investment process? Owens: We examine each company individually, but we want to run a diversified portfolio, so were constantly looking globally. We look at companies in Europe, Japan and emerging markets, as well as in the U.S. Take us through a stock that you bought in the past year and how you analyzed it. Hynes: Ill talk about UCB, which stands for United Chemicals of Belgium. Like most of the companies we invest in, it is a global company. It used to be a chemical company, but those businesses were spun off over the past ten to 15 years. In 2004, UCB bought a U.K. company called Celltech and began its transformation into a pure biotech company. UCB went through a major patent expiration in 2009, for an epilepsy drug called Keppra. But because UCB is on the smaller side, the expiration affected the stocks valuation more than some of the larger companies valuations have been affected by expiring patents. Were attracted to two aspects of UCBs business. The company has three existing drugs that are in the early stages of their life cycle and are generating growing sales: Cimzia, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis; Vimpat, another drug for epilepsy; and Neupro, a treatment for Parkinsons disease. And UCB has a really interesting pipeline. It is developing an osteoporosis drug with Amgen. Many osteoporosis drugs prevent bone loss, but this would be only the second drug that would help build bone. Thats about to enter Phase Three clinical trials.
The sun was setting on a warm fall evening when the guests sat down for dinner in the boardroom of the Vanguard Groups Malvern, Pa., campus. The attendees, executives and board members of the giant fund complex and the principals of Primecap Management Co., visiting from Pasadena, Calif., were celebrating the 30th anniversary of Vanguard Primecap Fund. And what a fund worth toasting: A $10,000 investment in Primecap three decades ago would be worth nearly $500,000 today, more than double what you would have earned in an index fund that tracks the overall stock market. Thats stunning wealth accumulation for investors, says Dan Newhall, a Vanguard principal who attended the dinner. Tool: Our Mutual Fund Finder And yet Primecap Management, the adviser behind the fund, is hardly a household name. Thats partly by design; the firm rarely, if ever, talks to the press. We cant say it declined our request for an interview because we never got far enough to ask. The firms receptionist said she had been instructed not to pass along any calls or messages from reporters. Photos of the managers seem to be nonexistent; a Google search for images turns up zilch. Its as if the firms leaders were hiding under Harry Potters invisibility cloak.

The mystery grows when you learn that the four men who run Vanguard PrimecapTheo Kolokotrones, Joel Fried, Alfred Mordecai and M. Mohsin Ansarialso manage five other top-notch funds. But only two, Primecap Odyssey Growth (POGRX) and Primecap Odyssey Stock (POSKX), are open to new investors, though the well-heeled clients of Vanguard Flagship and Vanguard Asset Management Services can open accounts in the three Vanguard-labeled Primecap funds: Primecap, Primecap Core and Capital Opportunity. All told, Primecap manages $77 billion in mutual funds, plus $17 billion more in pension and endowment money for big outfits such as General Motors and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it isnt gunning for more assets. The firm has 25 clients, and it is not eager to acquire more. The managers want to limit the number of clients they have to a manageable number so they dont have to deal with a lot of client interaction and sales-type stuff, because that would be a distraction, says David Kathman, a Morningstar analyst who has followed the firm and its funds since 2006. How they do it. And thats just as well. Instead of building an empire, Primecaps leaders focus on building wealth for their clients. They do this by applying the same strategy to all of their funds: Invest in growing companies that trade at bargain prices. And they look for a catalystsay, the introduction of a new product, arrival of new executives or a restructuringthat they think will push a stock higher over the next three to five years. The managers are buying stocks that other people are selling, says Dan Wiener, editor of the Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors newsletter and a longtime Primecap fan (see Why Vanguard's Actively Managed Funds Are a Better Bet).

Primecaps founders learned the process at Capital Group, the publicity-shy firm behind the American Funds. The trioHoward Schow (who died in 2012), Mitch Milias (who stepped down from day-to-day management duties in 2014) and Kolokotronesleft Capital Group in 1983 to start Primecap Management. Their strategy has produced strong long-term results. Thanks largely to health care stocks bought on the cheap in the mid 2000s, every Primecap-managed fund landed in the top 20% of its peer group over the past five years through November 4. Vanguard Primecap was in the top 9% of funds that focus on large, growing firms; Primecap Odyssey Aggressive Growth, which is closed to new clients, landed in the top 1% of funds that concentrate on growing midsize companies. The firms 2014 results have been especially impressive. In a year when most actively run funds have lagged the broad market, Primecaps managers have shone. Five of the firms six funds beat Standard & Poors 500-stock index year-to-date through November 4. A hefty weighting in the stock markets top-performing sectors in 2014health care and technologyboosted results. So did some smart bets on airline stocks. Odyssey Growth lagged by a smidge, and thats because it skews more toward small and midsize companies, which trailed their big-company brethren in 2014. [page break] In the end, patience may be the key to Primecaps success. The firms biggest fund, Vanguard Primecap, with $45 billion in assets, has a turnover ratio of 5%, which means stocks stay in the fund for 20 years, on average. By contrast, the typical large-company fund has a turnover ratio of 62%, suggesting an average holding period of 19 months.

Big winner. The Primecap team first invested in Biogen, a biotech firm, in 2003. (Biogen would soon merge with Idec Pharmaceuticals.) The stock was down 50% from its all-time high at that time of about $70. Thanks to its effective treatments for multiple sclerosis, Biogen Idec (BIIB) has prospered, and its stock has climbed 850%, to $322. It is now one of the five biggest holdings in four of the funds. Another long-term holding, BlackBerry (BBRY), hasnt been as successful. Odyssey Aggressive Growth invested in the phone maker in 2005, when it was known as Research in Motion. The shares performed well for a few years but have been awful since 2008, plunging 96% from peak to trough. Manager Fried was beside himself for having so much money in the stock when it was in the toilet, says Wiener. But Frieds bet that text messaging in the developing world would revive BlackBerry has begun to pay off, and the stock soared 41% in the first 10 months of 2014. In addition to low turnover, all Primecap-managed funds share some other traits. Annual expense ratios of between 0.45% and 0.65% are well below average. Each fund holds 130-odd stocks, and at least half of each funds assets are currently invested in a combination of health care and technology companies. But the funds have slightly different flavors, says Vanguards Newhall. Of the two Odyssey funds still open to new investors, Growth is more aggressive than Stock. One-third of Growths assets are in small and midsize companies, compared with 20% in Stock. Growths holdings are expected to generate slightly faster earnings growth than Stocks.
In my last two columns, we've discussed the outsized role that luck plays in the world of investing, how to go about establishing our overall asset allocation, determining our risk tolerance and projecting our expected returns. Now we need to know what variables to look for to select better-than-index returnsor how to identify skill in the marketplace. To do this, we're going to need the following tools: The right benchmark for each of our asset classes Reliable data sources An understanding of the following metrics: Alpha

Tracking Error

Manager experience and tenure

Consistency of excess returns

Costs A way to manage a potentially limited selection (i.e. inside of a 401(k) plan) Let's start with selecting the appropriate benchmark for the hypothetical four-asset portfolio we developed in my last article. If you are going to evaluate skill, you have to have a consistent, reliable comparison. This isn't always as easy as it sounds, as two funds with similar sounding names can use very different comparison benchmarks and possibly even have two very different objectives. In our case, we will use the following asset classes and recommended benchmarks: U.S. Stocks  Standard & Poor's 500-stock index

International  MSCI EAFE (Morgan Stanley Capital International Europe Australasia and Far East) index

U.S. Small Cap  Russell 2000

Bonds  Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond index

(You may note that I am using the Russell 2000 index for small cap U.S. stocks. This is because the tools we will be using may not have access to the Dimensional U.S. Small Cap index that I used in my last article.) Now we need some good data sources. The tools I use are Morningstar, Fiduciary Analytics (from the Center for Fiduciary Studies), Evestment, TD Ameritrade's fund and ETF research and information from the mutual fund's own sites. When evaluating skill, and the potential for persistently better results than the index, there are a few statistics that can help us. The first is alpha, which measures the active return on an investment, or the return that is in excess of the comparison benchmark. We may be interested in average alpha, over a period of time, such as three years, five years or 10 years, but I recommend looking also at this metric on an annual basis, to get a sense of consistency. Averages, whether they are performance averages or other statistical measures, tend to get corrupted easily by big differences in select periods, so look at each year. When you hear the term "tracking error," I want you to think of "error" as "deviation" or difference" as this measurement is focusing on the degree of differential in returns of the investment over its benchmark. If you see that the fund is exhibiting a significant tracking error, but the returns are consistently under the benchmark, you should look closely at replacing the fund or not selecting it in the first place. What we are looking for is significant tracking error and returns that are consistently better than the fund's benchmark.

If our screening is progressing well at this point, we want to look into the experience of the manager, or team, and their years of running this particular investment. I'd like to see 10 years of overall experience and at least 3 years with the fund. This is where we will go to the fund website and look at annual reports, fact sheets, manager commentary, etc. You want to get a sense of the character and competence of the management team. I'd also like to know if the fund family has a record of being good fiduciaries and whether the corporate culture represents those values. Costs are no small factor, and I am very sensitive to the management costs involved in the funds we use. If we are successful in finding skill and therefore an advantage in terms of performance, we may be willing to pay a little more for it. But you also have to take into consideration the type of fund or asset class you are investing in. If I were to rank the typical asset classes in terms of paying up for skill, I'd rank them as follows (from lowest fee expectation to highest): U.S. Money Market/Short-Term Bonds U.S. Government Bonds U.S. Corporate Bonds U.S. Large-Cap Stocks U.S. Mid-Cap Stocks International Large-Cap Stocks U.S. Real Estate U.S. Small-Cap Stocks International Bonds International Small-Cap Stocks Emerging-Market Stocks So if you have a promising U.S. government bond fund that is charging a higher fee than the average U.S. large-cap stock fund, you may have a problem. Take for example the institutional shares of PIMCO Long-Term U.S. Government Income Fund versus the R5 shares of American Funds Growth Fund of America. The PIMCO bond fund has an expense ratio of 0.48%; the American Funds stock fund of 0.38%. Yes, this does happen in the real world! Finally, having a limited universe of investments to choose from, as is common in a company 401(k) or on many broker-dealer platforms, can complicate our task. In this event, you will have to combine these principles with a ranking process and make the best choice you can within the universe available to you. If the choices are too limited, you might consider requesting that your employer review the plan and make changes. That sounds radical, but you are within your rights to do so if you have a sound basis. Doug Kinsey is a partner in Artifex Financial Group, a fee-only financial planning and investment management firm based in Dayton, Ohio.
Each election year, myths of all kinds are presented as gospel to investors. This year, investors might be especially at risk since this presidential election is, well, pretty crazy. Unfortunately, many of the myths are spun by people with an agenda. They are thinking about themselves or their political party, not investing for real returns. Here are a few of the more common myths in presidential election years. 1. The stock market always goes up in presidential election years. The reasoning behind this myth is that the politicians don't want investors upset going to the polls in November. Sounds plausibleif you believe presidential administrations have some sort of control over the markets. Actually, this myth may have a kernel of truth because of two things: the Federal Reserve has shown it is not shy about influencing, some might say supporting or interfering with, the markets; and yes, each administration would love to have its party win the White House. The problem is that the numbers just don't support the myth. Looking at Standard and Poor's Composite Stock Price index dating back to 1872, as reported Robert Shiller's Irrational Exuberance, presidential election years have the lowest median annual rate of return of all four years of a presidency. The third year is typically the best year for market performance, returning a little more than double the fourth year's median return.

2. If the current administration is Republican/Democrat (take your pick) during the Presidential election year, the market will go up. This may be more about political leanings than actual data. The S&P Composite index shows a slight advantage with Republican presidents sitting in the Oval Office in election years. Since 1872, there have been market gains in presidential election years for 11 sitting GOP presidents and seven for Democrats. But when the Republicans were in the White House, the market dropped five times during the election yearand two of the worst plummets were under Herbert Hoover in 1932 and George W. Bush in 2008. The market dropped four times when Democrats were in office. Bottom line: Its statistically a draw. Republicans might have a slight advantage, but not by much. 3. The market predicts who will win the presidency. Again, the S&P data doesn't support the myth. The market has been up during the election year a net 10 times before Republicans won the Presidency. It has been up a net eight times before Democrats won. However, it was down five times when Republicans won and four times when Democrats won. Again, statistically, not enough to say with any confidence that a rising or declining market favors either party. 4. Republican/Democratic administrations are better for the market. This is more about the whole term. So I measured how much the market gained or lost during various stretches of one or the other party in office (meaning the Kennedy/Johnson administrations counted as one term and the Reagan/Bush administrations also count as one).

Democrats can rejoice since the median average annual return during their tenure since 1872 was more than double the return during Republican administrations. Then again, here's something Republicans can cheer: Since 1872, during Republican administrations, the market was up 50 of those years. It was up only 41 times for the Democrats. Now, before everybody drops their political affiliations to join the party with an elephant or a donkey as its mascot, there are a few things to consider. In order to believe that this is anything more than a statistical anomaly, one would have to believe that the party of the commander-in-chief makes a difference to the stock market. Frankly, I prefer to focus on economic and market data. Market valuation and economic activity might have a stronger impact on the markets than which political party is in office. The statistical term "correlation without causation" comes into play here. The economy has a direct impact on the market. That is causation. Valuations have a direct impact on the market's performance. That is causation. Many college professors have eaten carrots. But eating carrots did not cause the person to become a college professor. That is a correlation without causation. Fast Company has published some funny correlations with no causation. For instance, the divorce rate in Maine has a high correlation with the number of people that eat margarine. Or the consumption of mozzarella cheese correlates with the number of civil engineering doctorates awarded. None of these caused the other, but the correlations were high.

Truth is, these correlations are coincidence. There are too many other influences that have a much more direct impact on the market. Conclusion Believing in myths will not help your investment portfolio. Understanding your own portfolio's risks and your own risk tolerance is more important. In the current environmentwith domestic civil unrest, global terrorism, a crazy presidential election, a slowing economy and a high market valuationrisks are high and could be getting higher. Investors should be thinking more about protecting themselves from macro-economic dynamics than listening to narrow, self-serving political myths. John Riley, registered Research Analyst and the Chief Investment Strategist at CIS, has been defending his clients from the surprises Wall Street misses since 1999. Disclosure: Third party posts do not reflect the views of Cantella & Co Inc. or Cornerstone Investment Services, LLC. Any links to third party sites are believed to be reliable but have not been independently reviewed by Cantella & Co. Inc or Cornerstone Investment Services, LLC. Securities offered through Cantella & Co., Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory Services offered through Cornerstone Investment Services, LLC's RIA. Please refer to my website for states in which I am registered.
The Next Move is to $1,831

Wall Streets precious metal manipulators aren't GOING DOWN EASILY!

Gold's price means a lot for central bankers. It is a sign of how much TRUST the general population has in the system at any given point. Therefore, the rationale is to make sure that gold does not pierce through $1,800 like a knife through hot butter all of a sudden and that it doesn't quickly disappear off the radar and move into the $2,000/ounce land.

It provides a FALSE SENSE of SECURITY.

The same year that the Great Depression in America began, halfway around the world, in WW1-victorious France, one of the ministers wanted to make sure the country was COMPLETELY FORTIFIED at the border in order to ensure the Germans could never invade again.

On its borders with Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Luxembourg, it built numerous weapon installations, bunkers, and other land obstacles. They were so confident of this that they were EUPHORIC about putting an end to the German threat for good. This was called The Maginot Line. The French could not envision that the Germans would attempt to invade through other areas based on their WW1 knowledge and conclusions. They were DEAD WRONG!

The Germans surprised the French altogether.

The next bit of information is not WIDELY KNOWN, but the French did know the Germans were coming from another front. A French pilot had gotten lost on a routine mission and ended up being many miles from his original course when he spotted what he described as the largest line of tanks ready for invasion that he'd ever seen. He reported this to his direct commanders, which relayed the news to the generals, but they COULDN'T ACCEPT such a "weird" fact and they dismissed it. The high command couldn't grasp the Germans were preparing the most extensive envasion ever, since the terrain was so difficult, where the pilot reported he saw them.

Had they acted on this VALUABLE INTELLIGENCE, their bombers could have ELIMINATED the German army and forced Hitler to the bargaining table back in 1940.

Courtesy: Zerohedge.com

I tell you this because this generation's Maginot Line is the FED's balance sheet. The whole world assumes that when the FED prints currency, the economy is a fortress, and they buy stocks.

I submit to you that when gold attacks, the Federal Reserve WON'T SEE it coming!

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet can only work until it DOESN'T ANYMORE.

Do you realize the global economy has not hedged for THIS POSSIBILITY in the least?

Courtesy: Zerohedge.com

You can readily see gold's Maginot Line, and it is RIGHT THERE, ready to pierce through it.

There is NO MANIA in gold right now.

Most of the world's largest banks and most sophisticated investors believe that gold is going towards $3,000/ounce.

The economy hasn't even started to feel the REAL PAIN of the unemployment nightmare.

The greatest historical lesson in geopolitics for the past 5,000 years has been this: IN GOLD WE TRUST!
Japan Gold's executive team touring Japanese mining operations.

By: Peter Krauth

Body

Boosted by historic money-printing levels, gold is on a path to significantly higher prices

As the first foreign mining company to receive exploration licenses, Japan Golds position is unmatched in the industry

A strategic alliance with Barrick Gold and 13 per cent owned by Newmont Corp. reflect top-tier projects and management

If youre thinking, Theres gold in Japan? rest assured, youre not alone.

Unlike Nevada, Australia, or Canada, Japan is certainly not top-of-mind for gold investors. But, thats all about to change.

Japan is part of the Ring of Fire, a path along the Pacific Ocean where tectonic plates meet, hosting 75 per cent of the planets volcanoes and 90 per cent of its earthquakes.

This overabundance of seismic activity has led to a rich supply of valuable metal deposits, making Japan well-endowed and relatively under the radar.

Despite being one of the most politically stable, corruption-free first-world jurisdictions, Japan has had little gold exploration since 1943. Thats when the government placed a moratorium on gold mining, focusing resources on the war effort instead.

But in 2012, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and a devastating earthquake and tsunami, Japan decided to open up its mining industry to foreign companies. With a history of mining metals dating back over 2,000 years, Japans exploration potential is incredibly vast.

Establishing and maintaining great relationships is vital in the Japanese market.

And the timing could hardly be better. Governments and central banks around the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with massive economic stimulus programs, which has involved printing more currency. Additionally, the U.S. unemployment rate has reached its highest levels since the 1930s.

As a result, immense, coordinated currency printing has boosted gold by 17 per cent since its March lows to over $1,700 per ounce, a price last seen almost eight years ago.

This confluence of factors combines to make one outstanding junior gold explorer dramatically stand out amongst its peers.

An alliance built for success

Japan Gold Corp. (TSXV: JG | OTCQB: JGLDF) is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused solely on Japan, specifically across its three largest islands. The company is a virtual diamond in the rough, that is now in the process of emerging.

Apart from a pedigree to be envied by most exploration companies, Japan Gold already boasts some major accomplishments. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these is its strategic alliance with Barrick Gold Corp.

"Japan Gold is delighted to welcome Barrick Gold to Japan. As Barrick is one of the pre-eminent gold producers in the world, we look forward to a very positive partnership.  John Proust, Chairman and CEO, Japan Gold Corp.

Together, Japan Gold and Barrick will explore, develop, and mine certain gold mineral properties and mining projects in Japan. The agreement is a country-wide alliance and includes 28 of 30 projects currently held by Japan Gold.

When news of the alliance was released, Barricks CEO, Mark Bristow, commented,"We are pleased to partner with Japan Gold, a company that has assembled an impressive portfolio of exploration tenements within the renowned epithermal gold provinces of Japan. We look forward to advancing our partnership by combining Barrick's technical and financial resources with Japan Gold's first-mover advantage to deliver new world-class gold discoveries."

Japan Gold's Chairman and CEO, John Proust, also commented,"Japan Gold is delighted to welcome Barrick Gold to Japan. As Barrick is one of the pre-eminent gold producers in the world we look forward to a very positive partnership.

He added, Every great new frontier starts with geology. Japan is an ideal, underexplored setting to make new large low sulphidation epithermal gold discoveries, building on the great success of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. Ltd.'s Hishikari Gold Mine.

Barrick's global experience of operating 15 mines on four continents combined with Japan Gold's in-country knowledge and operational expertise makes for an ideal partnership to advance the gold mining industry in Japan."

A regional exploration program will help the alliance evaluate the overall project portfolio. From there, both companies will determine which areas have anomalous gold showings and potentially fertile large structures.

An Initial Evaluation Phase will see Barrick solely fund each project for two years, with Japan Gold acting as the manager, subject to Barricks right to become manager at any time. A Second Evaluation Phase will see Barrick solely-fund the next three years of projects which meet its criteria. At any time during the Initial or Second Evaluation Phase, Barrick can identify a project as a Designated Project, electing to solely fund to complete a pre-feasibility study (PFS).

Once Barrick completes the PFS it will earn a 51 per cent interest and may elect to solely fund a Designated Project to a bankable feasibility study (BFS). Barricks completion of a BFS will fully carry Japan Gold and earn Barrick a 75 per cent interest in the Designated Project after which Japan Gold will retain a 25% interest.

Projects near some of the richest gold mines

Japan Gold has recently expanded its portfolio to reach a total of 30 projects. These cover more than 40 historic gold mines over an area of approximately 1,900 square km, spread across Japans three largest islands: Hokkaido, Honshu and Kyushu.

The companys southernmost projects are found on Kyushu Island, where it has 16 gold projects in the area of the Hishikari Mine. Significantly, Hishikari has been producing since 1985, generating a spectacular 7.9 million oz so far at average grades of 30-40 g/t making it one of the highest-grade deposits under active mining globally.

The Kyushu Epithermal Gold Province, where over 11 million oz of gold have been produced. Sourced from the companys corporate presentation.

Just one of Japan Golds gems is its Ohra-Takamine Project, which is outside of the strategic alliance with Barrick Gold. Its located roughly 7.5 km southwest of the historic Yamagano Mine, which produced 910,000 gold oz at a 17.4 g/t grade between 1640 to 1953.

The most recent addition, in May this year, was the expansion of the Sanru Project located on Hokkaido Island in the countrys north which covered five known mine workings. New prospecting rights were accepted by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Whats more, the Sanru Project is adjacent to the Sanru Mine, the second largest historical gold producer in North Hokkaido, having produced 225,000 gold oz at an average 7.4 g/t and 1.4 million silver oz.

Proust notes, This new acquisition continues our ongoing evaluation of the prospective geology in Japan. The decision to further extend the Sanru Project was based upon the favourable structural controls on mineralization, host rock geology, and the proximity of the Omui mine close by to the north.

Hokkaido portfolio, Kitami Metallogenic Gold Province.

The other project excluded from the Barrick Gold strategic alliance is the Ikutahara Project, located southeast of Sanru. Ikutahara is Japan Golds most advanced project, comprising of 60 accepted prospecting rights applications, 38 of which have so far been converted to Prospecting Rights, allowing for more advanced exploration, including drilling.

Applications to drill the Ryuo and Kitano-o prospects within the Ikutahara project are underway. The most significant historical production on Ikutahara came from the Kitano-o mine which, between 1924 and 1943 reportedly produced 96,450 oz at a gold grade of 5.9 g/t.

Just 20 km northwest of Ikutahara lies Japans third-largest gold mine, Konomai, along the same geological trend. It operated between 1917-1974, producing 2.3 million gold oz averaging 6.4 g/t.

Advancing a highly prospective gold frontier

Not only is Japan Golds strategic alliance with Barrick impressive, 13 per cent of the companys shares are owned by Newmont.

This investment came via a strategic financing by Goldcorp before it was acquired by Newmont. Under its terms, Goldcorp (now Newmont) was granted a joint venture right of first refusal on two projects, the Ohra-Takamine Project and the Ikutahara Project.

To help support these projects, Newmont has facilitated the formation and participation of a technical committee, introduced third-party contractors, and helps to interpret and analyze Japan Golds data on the Ikutahara and Ohra-Takamine projects.

Heading into the second half of 2020, Japan Gold continues to advance its systematic exploration of Ohra-Takamine through mapping, geophysical surveys, extensive soil and rock chip sampling, Bouguer gravity surveys, drill target generation/confirmation, and a drill program. At Ikutahara, Japan Gold will also complete drill permitting and commence drilling on Ryuo and advance drill permitting on the Kitano Prospect.

Crystalline quartz sealed vein in altered rhyolite volcaniclastic sediment from east Kitano mine dump at the Ikutahara project.

Proust summarises the companys investment proposition best, saying, "Japan Gold has attracted the attention of the two largest public gold producers, validating the prospective potential of all of Japan Golds projects, which include more than 40 formerly producing gold mines.

Whats more, the company boasts significant industry and institutional shareholders, as well as a management team with a proven track record of identifying mineral deposits and advancing them to production, including a proven ability to finance, build, and operate resource companies.

Remember, gold is in a firm uptrend, underpinned by money-printing unlike anything seen before.

View of Ohra-Takamine.

Japan Gold has assembled all the right elements, at the most opportune moment, to become a

standout gold explorer. Investors should be excited about whats to come.

Learn more about the company by visiting their website here.

Make sure to follow Japan Gold on social media:

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn
Getting deals done has been slowed by COVID-19, said Daniel Rickleman, VP at Zhaojin International Mining.

Rickleman spoke to Kitco last week. He was a speaker at Mines and Money APAC conference in June.

Zhaojin Mining is one of China's largest gold miners. The company has a 9.9% stake in Sabina Gold and Silver. Last year Zhaojin told Reuters it was looking to double output from its current 650,000 ounces output by mid-2020 through overseas acquisitions.

But the pandemic has made due diligence more difficult, said Rickleman.

"We do site visits and spend a lot of time with management. That's something we can't do at the moment," said Rickelman.

"There are opportunities coming in now that we really have to think seriously about: how can we get involved because we just don't know the timing of when we can travel."

When evaluating projects Rickleman said local community support is top of mind.

"I think technical risk is manageable, to a degree, but community risk can be incredibly complex, and that is something we don't feel comfortable taking on."

Asked one thing Western companies should keep in mind when working with Chinses firms, Rickleman said it is an error to view Chinese companies as all the same.

"The common perception of Chinese companies is that they are a singular thing, but I feel that is the first mistake when thinking about working with Chinese groups. They all have very different histories and, and management cultures and internal capacity."
By Eileen Soreng

July 1 (Reuters) - The Perth Mint's sales of gold products fell 30% to its lowest in four months in June as the coronavirus crisis weakened demand for jewellery, coins and minted bars, even though investors in international commodity markets sent the gold price higher.

Compounding factors such as drop in footfall through jewellery stores in India, China and other markets caused by the coronavirus crisis, the mint has faced criticism over how it sources its metal.

Perth Mint said in June it would stop processing metal from artisanal and small-scale miners after allegations it took gold dug in Papua New Guinea using child labour and toxic mercury. The mint said it was confident it acted ethically but was reviewing suppliers. The mint's sales of gold coins and minted bars in June fell to 44,371 ounces from 63,393 ounces in May, which was itself half the level of April's sales, it said on Wednesday. "Adding to the sales slump is still lacklustre demand from China and India, as jewellery demand still struggles to bounce anywhere back from pre-pandemic levels," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at broker OANDA.

Lockdowns to curb the coronavirus outbreak have hammered physical gold demand, although the international gold price has climbed as investors turn to the metal on the paper market as a safe haven. The price was up 3% in June. The Perth Mint, owned by the government of Western Australia state, refines more than 90% of newly mined gold in Australia, one of the world's top gold producers.

Sales of silver coins in June surged nearly 58% to 1,573,752 ounces, up from 997,171 in May and more than triple the amount a year ago.

"Silver is in demand for both safe-haven and industrial requirements," said Stephen Innes, chief market strategist at financial services firm AxiCorp.

On the international markets, demand for silver is tracking base industrial commodities like copper "as global industrial engines rev up while catching a tailwind from all the policy stimulus," he said.

The silver price was up 1.6% in June on international markets.

(Additional reporting by Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char)

8780, Outside U.S. +91 80 6749 6131; Reuters Messaging: eileen.soreng.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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(Kitco News) - Barrick Gold said the first 12 months of joint operations in Nevada with Newmont was a success due to better co-operation between the two senior gold miners.

Barrick operates NGM, the worlds largest gold mining complex. Barrick owns 61.5% of the business with Newmont Corporation holding the rest.

"In its first year of combined operation, NGM not only met the production and cost targets set out at the start of the joint venture, but did so despite the past few months of stress experienced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic," said Barrick Gold in a news release.

Barrick's CEO Mark Bristow said the improved organizational structure helped.

By removing the fences that had previously separated geologically connected assets, mines and projects that clearly belonged together could be combined into larger and more efficient operations, with substantial savings as an immediate benefit. Even more important, this joint venture has created a platform from where we can see a bright new future for NGM as the leader of its industry in every respect: truly a case of the best assets and the best people delivering the best returns.

In 2019 an agreement on a joint venture was reached when Newmont Mining rejected a takeover bid by Barrick, with the two companies instead deciding to form a joint venture for their Nevada properties in order to capture expected synergies, which officials are estimating at up to $500 million per year during the first five years.

The joint venture is the worlds largest gold-producing complex with three of the worlds top 10 Tier One gold assets: Goldstrike/Carlin, Cortez and Turquoise Ridge/Twin Creeks.
JOHANNESBURG, July 2 (Reuters) - Activity at Societe Miniere de Bisunzu's (SMB) coltan mine in Congo's North Kivu province is continuing as normal and supply chains were not disrupted despite violent clashes last week, the region's mines minister said on Thursday.

SMB has some of Africa's biggest deposits of coltan, an ore rich in tantalum, which is used widely in smartphones

An attack took place in the evening of June 23 in Kisura village within an unmined part of SMB's site near Bibatama, David Kamuha Musubaho said in a letter dated June 27 and seen by Reuters on Thursday.

Three people died in the incident and two were injured, the minister said. A judicial enquiry to establish the circumstances of and responsibility for the attack has begun. A commission overseeing North Kivu mining activities met on Wednesday with those involved in the mining sector to protect SMB's mineral supply chain, the minister said.

"The provincial minister of mines and finance calls on all actors in the mineral supply chains of Masisi territory to find calm and appeasement while we await the outcome of the enquiry," Kamuha Musubaho wrote.

INSIGHT-Congo mine deploys digital weapons in fight against conflict minerals

(Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Jan Harvey)
Jasper, TX (75951)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 88F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. Low 71F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. Cooler. High around 75F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low 56F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Jonathan Irons was released Wednesday after he was convicted to 50 years for a 1997 home invasion and shooting in O'Fallon, Missouri.
Activists are condemning what they view as far too light of a sentence for Cameron Swoboda, the St. Peters man who pleaded guilty to assembling explosives meant to target protesters.
WATCH: Daughter accused of sending thieves to rob her own father, police say (KDKA, PSP via CNN)
Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich
On June 29, a Yiwu-Madrid express train carrying 70 TEU containers of pandemic prevention materials arrived in Madrid, Spain. The goods, including 25.05 million masks and 400,000 sets of protective clothing, weighed 257 tons.

(Photo/Xinhua)

"These materials are very valuable. They support us in strengthening epidemic prevention and control and create a safe environment for resumption of production," said the Spanish manager of DSV, a Danish transport and logistics company.

Spain has a rising demand for pandemic prevention materials, and the China-Europe freight train service has obvious advantages in material transportation. It is reliable and convenient, he added.

Wu Haitao, the Chinese ambassador to Spain, said the Yiwu-Madrid express train carrying medical materials is a living proof of international anti-coronavirus cooperation.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the freight trains have been playing a crucial role in supporting Europe's anti-pandemic fight by opening "green passages" for the transport of important supplies and raw materials.

Over the course of the first six months of the year, freight trains have made a total of 294 trips along the Yiwu-Madrid line, carrying 24,466 TEU containers, up 117.1 percent year-on-year.

Carlos Santana, who is responsible for the company operating the Yiwu-Madrid line in Spain, said that railway transport has been proven to be a bridge of strengthening anti-pandemic cooperation, while deepening friendship between the two countries.
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Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha speaks during a press briefing at Government Complex Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap



By Kim Rahn



Korea and Japan are still at loggerheads over reparations for wartime forced labor and Japan's restrictions on certain materials exported to Korean companies, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Thursday.



Her remarks indicated the soured relations between the two nations are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon; rather, the tension is likely to grow along with Korea's complaint filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Japan over the export curbs.



"The gap between Korea and Japan is wide. Basically the biggest problem is Japan's export curbs that were implemented unfairly out of discontent with the Korean Supreme Court ruling on the forced labor issue," Kang said in a media briefing at the Government Complex in Seoul.



"We have a consistent position that the export restrictions should be withdrawn and the trade situation should be restored to the level before July 1 last year."



In an October 2018 ruling, Korea's top court ordered Japanese companies, which benefitted from the use of forced labor during World War II, to compensate Korean victims. In retaliation over the ruling, the Shinzo Abe administration imposed restrictions on the export of three key materials critical for Korea's chip and display industries, in July last year.



As the Japanese firms have refused to pay the compensation, Korean local courts are set to liquidate assets seized from them  over which the Japanese government is warning of further economic retaliation.



"The stance between the two nations over the forced labor issue is very different from each other. The Korean government's main position is: the Supreme Court ruling should be respected and the victims' rights should be guaranteed while bilateral relations should, at the same time, be maintained," she said.



"We've been talking with Japan to narrow the gap, but the different is still big and the export curbs have not been lifted," Kang said, adding that's why Korea brought the issue to the WTO.



Another contentious issue between Korea and Japan is the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), which Korea had planned to terminate, in August last year, following Japan's export restrictions. But in November, Korea temporarily suspended ending the agreement, with the hope of reconciliation. It has to notify Japan whether it will keep the GSOMIA, which is renewed annually, by Aug. 23.



"We suspended the termination of the GSOMIA under the premise that we still have the right to end it anytime we want to," Kang said. "The government will decide whether to continue the agreement after reviewing how the export restrictions and other issues develop."



Over the issue of former sex slaves, another conflicting issue with Japan, Kang reaffirmed that Korea would not seek a renegotiation with Japan. While the two nations announced a deal over compensation for the sexual slavery victims in 2015 under the former Park Geun-hye administration, the victims allegedly opposed it for not reflecting their opinion, and the current Moon Jae-in administration said in 2018 the deal could not solve the problem  virtually nullifying it  but added it would not seek renegotiations.



Kang said the so-called "comfort women" issue is about wartime sexual crimes against women. "What the victims want the most is a sincere apology, and such a thing cannot be attained through diplomatic negotiations," she said. "That's why we don't request a renegotiation, but we clearly say such an apology is a must."



The foreign minister also said that Korea and the United States have a wide gap over defense cost-sharing for the United States Forces Korea (USFK), adding it was hard to forecast when a deal would be made.



For this year's Special Measures Agreement (SMA) that decides on the share for each country, the Trump administration demanded Korea increase its share by nearly fivefold the amount of last year, while Korea is maintaining its proposal of a 13-percent rise.



"We've increased our share for a decade, and we were ready to increase it this time. But the amount of increase should be reasonable and fair," she said.



Kang added the U.S. side has not mentioned reducing the size of the USFK, dismissing speculation that Washington may use a reduction in American troops here as a bargaining chip in the SMA talks.






Latvian and EU flags fly side by side at the Latvian Embassy in Korea. / Courtesy of Embassy of Latvia



By Kate Kalinova



Located in northeastern Europe, Latvia is the only Baltic nation to have an embassy in Korea. Although the two democratic nations formalized ties in 1991, the Latvian Embassy was established more recently, in late 2015, reflecting the deepening cooperation between the two countries.



"When we first set up the Embassy, very few Koreans had much knowledge of Latvia. Over the last few years, we've put a lot of emphasis on increasing mutual awareness of our two countries, while continuing to pursue trade initiatives and economic cooperation," said Latvian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea Peteris Vaivars.





A bird walks in summer grass field in Latvia. / Courtesy of Peteris Vaivars



With close to half of its territory covered by forest, boasting over 12,000 rivers and more than 2,000 small lakes, Latvia is well-known as a haven for wildlife. Although tourism is largely on hold this year, there are still opportunities to catch a glimpse of Latvia in Korea's own lush, green region.



Hosted as a collaboration between the Latvia Embassy in Seoul, Suncheon Picture Book Library and Latvia Literature, "The Horse" is a unique exhibition that showcases the stories and art of Latvian authors united by a common theme. Between May 19 and July 12, visitors can experience the stories of Latvia in this special exhibition in Suncheon, a city in South Jeolla Province that is well-known as the "ecological capital" of Korea.



"When the Suncheon Picture Book Library reached out to us about this project, we were thrilled to support the initiative. After some discussions, we settled on the theme of horses as a well-loved symbol in Latvian stories  which is easily carried across to the Korean context," Ambassador Vaivars commented.



In addition to the exhibition itself, visitors can experience how one story, "Listen to Your Heart, Little Wooden Horse," comes to life in a special puppet show performance directed by Paul Matthews.



An expert storyteller, theater-maker and radio broadcaster with over 20 years of experience in Korea, Matthews felt honored to bring the Latvian story to life for Korean children.



"Creating Listen to Your Heart, Little Wooden Horse for the Suncheon Picture Book Library has been an amazing experienceThe dedicated team of performers have been creating shows for children in Suncheon for almost a decade and it was a lot of fun to challenge them with a new kind of show," he said.



"In this time of COVID-19 it feels strange that Korea is not on lockdown and that children have the opportunity to go and see live performances. I'm very grateful for that and I hope this little puppet show about a little Latvian wooden horse will entertain, educate and bring a little hope and joy into the world."





The "Listen to Your Heart, Little Wooden Horse" cast gathers in front of their theater stage at the Suncheon Picture Book Library / Courtesy of Paul Matthews





Although COVID-19 has made travel between Latvia and Korea impossible for the time being, the Latvian Embassy is looking forward to continuing to develop tourism links between the two countries once the pandemic is overcome. Last year, the Latvian Embassy, Latvian Investment and Development Agency, Riga Airport and Riga Tourism Development Bureau collaborated with Hanjin Travel to launch inaugural direct flights connecting the capital cities of the two nations, Riga and Seoul. Operated by Korean Air, the three 2019 flights were all close to sold out as Korean tourists flocked to enjoy the Latvian summer season.



Due to the success of last year's initiative, there were plans to further expand the number of flights again this year. However, the pandemic has put a temporary halt on further developing tourism links for the time being. Ambassador Vaivars expressed his optimism in seeing the cooperation deepen over the coming years, while cultural diplomacy and trade continues to bring a greater awareness of Latvia to Korea.

Kate Kalinova is a project officer at the Australian Chamber of Commerce (AustCham) in Korea.
By Chris Reed



The emergence of a bipartisan consensus following weeks of protests about racial injustice  that police departments need either complete overhauls or major reforms  is a big moment years in the making for the progressive movement.



Many Republican conservatives who once reflexively called the killing of unarmed blacks "isolated acts" are now suddenly backing law enforcement reforms in reaction to a never-ending series of cellphone videos showing callous or deadly police misconduct  as well as fresh examples of police brutality at recent protests against, yes, police brutality.



George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police on May 25 will be seen as a turning point in American history. Perhaps a major one.



Many activists sense a desire for societal change to address inequities that go far beyond police behavior. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is one of many politicians who agrees, vowing "to rebuild a fairer city that profoundly addresses injustice and disparity."



And high-profile Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, is renewing her push for a Green New Deal to transform the economy in a way that helps the environment and lifts up underprivileged minorities. She just won a primary with 72 percent of the vote and has emerged as a fundraising juggernaut who can help like-minded candidates win office.



In California, a ballot measure asking voters to reconsider affirmative action  which Proposition 209 banned in 1996 for state contracts, hiring and college admissions  won swift and overwhelming approval in both the Assembly and Senate, supercharged by recent anti-racism protests.



And the state Assembly had another historic moment last month when it approved a measure to study how to provide reparations to African Americans.



So could this national mood translate into vast change beyond police reform if Joe Biden defeats President Donald Trump and Democrats control the Senate and House in 2021?



Here are three reasons to be skeptical about that  and none involve Republican lawmakers' opposition.



The first is that progressives' current detente with the conventionally liberal Biden-Barack Obama-Nancy Pelosi-Chuck Schumer wing of the Democratic Party is a fig leaf covering up the fact that the groups have huge differences. The anger of the progressive left toward the last two Democratic Party presidents and Democratic congressional leadership is hard to exaggerate.



It's not just over old-school Democrats' insufficiently aggressive agenda  shorthanded as noisome "neoliberalism." It's that many longtime party members say American democracy is flawed but still good while many progressives call the U.S. a "failed state" or "failed experiment."



It was then-President Barack Obama who pointed out the party's disconnect in 2015 when he said many on college campuses "don't want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African Americans, or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women."



Obama said that he doesn't agree that students "have to be coddled and protected from different points of views," breaking with progressives on the fundamental issue of speech.



The second reason to doubt a series of dramatic overhauls is that millions of registered American independents  a group that in February for the first time outnumbered registered Republicans  are by and large mushy moderates who support incremental change.



A 2019 NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll showed that 62 percent of independents wanted a third political party because of their unhappiness with Democrats and Republicans alike.



But the third reason to doubt we will see a societal transformation has to do with the cynical version of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. You don't have to be a Marxist member of the Occupy movement to realize how much government functions in a fundamental way to protect the super-rich.



You just need to contemplate an absurdly complex U.S. tax code in which the amount of taxes the very wealthy pay are a function of the skill of their tax attorneys  and neither Democratic nor GOP presidents have a problem with this.



If tech billionaires in Silicon Valley, finance billionaires on Wall Street and energy billionaires in Texas think there's a real chance that the progressive movement will come for their wealth  and that a post-Trump Republican Party is a wrecked brand that is too weak with young voters and minorities to regain its past clout  they will act on their fear.



And every four years, we'll see tycoon presidential candidates in the vein of Michael Bloomberg or Ross Perot who run ridiculously well-funded independent campaign against what they will depict as Democratic extremists on the left and GOP extremists on the right.



If America's billionaires think the Republican Party is permanently diminished by Trump and the Democratic Party is ready to abandon capitalism, they will be even more blatant in trying to buy power. And they'll have the resources to make their campaign seem like it's about empowering cautious moderates  not preserving their fortunes.



So, yes, progressives are having a moment. But there is a ceiling on what they can achieve because large swaths of the public don't share their agenda  and the nation's most powerful people hate it.





Chris Reed (reed@sduniontribune.com) is deputy editor of the Union-Tribune editorial and opinion section. His article was distributed by Tribune Content Agency.




Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing overnight. Low 44F. NNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing overnight. Low 44F. NNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
The World Bank has classified Mauritius as a high-income country for the first time, joining Seychelles as the second high-income economy in Africa. The institution classifies the worlds economies into four income groups- high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low. This is based on Gross National Income (GNI) per capita (current US$), calculated using the Atlas method. The classification is updated each year on the first of July based on the previous years national account information and using data provided by Statistics Mauritius for 2019.

Mr Erik von Uexkull, World Bank Country Representative for Mauritius underlined that it is important to note that this classification is done over 2019 data and thus does not yet reflect the economic impact of Covid-19 .

He further pointed out that i t is possible that a strong recession this year due to Covid-19 would cause Mauritius to temporarily return to upper-middle income level next year once the 2020 data is considered.

He underpinned that in a longer-term perspective, this is a great achievement that reflects the efforts and dedication of generations of Mauritians to build a better future for their children. He also congratulated the people of Mauritius for reaching this milestone.

According to the figures released by the World Bank, Mauritius GNI per capita for 2019 is US$ 12,740, a 3.5 percent increase over the 2018 figure. The annually adjusted high-income threshold is now at US$ 12,535.
Man and woman arrested in connection with thefts, burglaries, property crimes in Marion and Linn counties
State trooper on leave after Corvallis coffee shop says he refused to wear a mask
Description

GIS  02 July 2020 : A wreath-laying ceremony to mark the International Day of Cooperatives 2020 was held, this morning, at the Cooperative Monument in the Jardin de la Compagnie, Port Louis. The Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, and the Chairman of the Mauritius Cooperative Alliance, Mr Kona Daramraj, were present. : A wreath-laying ceremony to mark the International Day of Cooperatives 2020 was held, this morning, at the Cooperative Monument in the, Port Louis. The Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, and the Chairman of the Mauritius Cooperative Alliance, Mr Kona Daramraj, were present.

In a statement, Minister Bholah said that the ceremony lies in the context of the International Day of Cooperatives which will be celebrated on 4 July 2020 at the National Cooperative College, Terre Rouge. He acknowledged the significant role played by cooperatives in ensuring food security especially in the wake of Covid-19 while adding that the sector is called upon to have a bright future.

For his part, Mr Daramraj highlighted that the wreath-laying ceremony is a symbolical gesture towards former cooperators. Speaking about the advantages of cooperatives, he underlined that they exist and operate for the benefit of their patron members. Cooperative members, he said, also have a voice in the management of the organisation, and, therefore offer the kind of service they want.

International Day of Cooperatives 2020

The International Day of Cooperatives is an annual celebration of the cooperative movement observed on the first Saturday of July.

The theme this year as proclaimed by the International Cooperative Alliance is  Cooperatives for climate action . The theme was chosen to support Sustainable Development Goal 13 on Climate Action. The focus will be on the contribution of cooperatives to combating climate change, which is one of the most severe challenges facing our planet during the 21st century.
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UPDATE: DOC Inmate Merciline Gray Hawk, who was reported as a walk-away from Passages on 7/1/2020 was apprehended/self-surrendered on 7/2/2020 and is currently in custody.

BILLINGS- Alternatives, Inc. and the Montana Department of Corrections are looking for an offender who walked away from the Passages Womens Program.

Merciline Gray Hawk walked away on Wednesday, July 1, at 8:45 p.m.

Gray Hawk is 5'3 and 120 pounds. She is Native American with brown hair and brown eyes.

The Department of Corrections said she should not be approached as she is facing a 10 year sentence for felony escape.

If you have any information on Gray Hawk's whereabouts contact law enforcement immediately.
BILLINGS, Mont. -- With many 4th of July celebrations and firework displays being cancelled across the area, folks are turning to consumer fireworks to celebrate Independence Day.

The National Fireworks Association has a number of safety tips, so Americans can celebrate the 4th of July with consumer fireworks, while also keeping their social distance.

The NFA says to know the firework rules and what's permissible in your jurisdiction. Consumer fireworks are considered illegal at some county parks and recreation areas across Montana. For example, fireworks are allowed in Yellowstone County, even with Stage 1 fire restrictions currently in effect, but fireworks are not allowed within Billings city limits.

They also say to read, understand, and follow directions on the packaging. The NFA says to always keep a water source nearby, whether it's a hose or a bucket. The water is used to dispose your spent devices, especially sparklers, to make sure nothing else ignites.

The NFA says to block and brace your fireworks with bricks or cinder blocks to keep the device from tipping over. They say to never relight a dud, you should spray it down with water and set it aside before throwing it away. You should never stand over a lit firework, or hold one in your hand, and fireworks should not be pointed at anyone. The NFA also strongly encourages designating one person to light the fireworks, because alcohol and fireworks do not mix well.

The NFA says if you follow these safety tips, you should be on your way to having a fun and safe 4th of July.
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One of the problems of the US Navy subhunters are their slower planes which are regularly harassed by flyers trying to scare them with unsafe flying.

It is not uncommon for US military aircraft to get unsafe welcomes from Chinese or Russian fighters. This is common in international airspace which is a bit unsettling, when aircrews aren't ready for it, reported Business Insider.

According to US Navy Capt. Erin Osborne, Wing Ten commodore, told Insider that there are only a small number of incidences of these unsafe and unprofessional flying when on a mission. Most US and NATO flyer are used to this behavior by adversarial pilots.

One example is the encounter with Russian Su-35 superiority fighters that interdicted a US Navy P-8A Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft unsafely. The modified airframe of the P-8A makes it slow, so the Su-35 can run after it easily.

During the intercept, the Su-35 made a fast acceleration inverted maneuver about 25 ft. of the front of the slower sub hunter. It was a dead ringer for top gun flying.

Another incident is when two planes, sandwiched a larger P-8 nearly wingtip to wingtip that limited its evasive options, cited in Task and Purpose.

Boeing P-8A Poseidon has a crew of nine controlling torpedoes and superior sensors to kill enemy subs. Another job is maritime surveillance that brings it to such instances a lot.

They are the replacements to the older Lockheed's P-3 Orion, the P-8A Poseidon has upgrades in advanced maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities as the best sub hunters. Missions of the P-8As are sea recon, anti-drug operation, collecting intel, last is search and rescue.

It cannot be avoided when a military plane of other nations checks upon them.

Also check: China Thinks US Navy's Three Aircraft Carriers Are Merely for Show, Although It Threatens Them

Osborne said that getting intercepted is normal, usually checking what a US plane is up to. Overseeing all the training, putting crews, and arming the P-8 is part of the job.

She added that encounters with other flyers from rival air forces are mostly professional, all the P-8 personnel always think unsafe encounters will not happen. Though most are trained for situations too.

Osborne stress that getting intercepted is stressful, especially of another plane is too close for comfort. To have the P-8 personnel ready, training is done to temper the crews and keep their composure on mission.

To simulate such unsafe contact, the US Navy will conduct similar actions with EA-18G Growler. The Growler will teach the crews how to survive and get used to similar stressful conditions.

When on training, the tactical aircraft will do what is needed to demo all unsafe moves a pilot can commit. Osborne punctuated that all crews must know everything about unsafe interception when flying.

Such maneuvers are under run when a plane positions on the P-8, but goes under the plane. She said that all crews must understand what these planes do. Adding that a P-8 can do little against unsafe flying, because of low maneuverability.

When intercepts with the P-8 happens it is quiet, but some silent and or nonverbal communication can be done. The duration of intercepts vary but most go separate ways in the majority of cases.

Accidents have happened like the collision of one J-8 collided with an EP-3E Ares II signals intelligence aircraft, 70 miles from Hainan. It forces the damaged plane to land in China.

Unsafe flying is rare with US Navy sub hunters when most are professional and safe too.

Related article: Three US Navy Aircraft Carriers Dispatched in the Pacific Causing Chaos in Beijing

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Now that things have loosened up with regard to the pandemic, are there precautions you are still practicing? Which have you relaxed?
LA GRANDE  Union County on Wednesday added only two new cases of COVID-19 to its total, but the 242 still is good enough for the fifth most i
An 11-month-old baby girl in Virginia died on June 26 after her father left her in a hot SUV for hours. The police in Fairfax County said in a statement that the police and the Fire and Rescue Department of Fairfax County responded to a call from Springfield after reports of an unresponsive child in a vehicle.

Child neglect

The 11-month-old infant was immediately rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. According to the police, the father left his daughter in the backseat of the SUV parked at his Springfield home. The authorities said that his father forgot his baby inside the car and used another car to run errands.

After the father returned home, he drove the SUV to an in-home daycare to pick up another child. That was when he realized that the 11-month-old baby was still in the back seat of the SUV. The police have not named the father and it is still not clear how long the infant was left inside the SUV.

The medical examiner is still in the process of confirming a cause of death. Fairfax County police said that they do not expect to file criminal charges in this case.

According to No Heat Stroke, the infant is the sixth child to die in a hot car in 2020. In 2019, 52 children died of heatstroke after being left inside the car.

Also Read: Mother Indicted of Felony Charges for Missing Kids Helped Hide Away Their Bodies, Police Claim

Deadly statistics

Since 1990, more than 900 children have died in hot cars in the United States. Every year, an average of 38 children die, that is one in every nine days, according to KidsAndCars.org, a website that tracks deaths in hot cars.

As the statistics increase every year, parents, organizations, experts, and government officials have been searching for ways to stop the deaths of children. KidsAndCars.org is now working to pass bipartisan legislation in Congress that would require all new passenger cars to include a child safety alarm.

The founder of KidsAndCars.org, Janette Fennell, told USA TODAY that the organization has been looking for ways to resolve this ongoing issue in the United States. The organization is trying to get alert systems added to vehicles since 2003 to help remind parents to check the car before leaving.

The organization included language in other bills but it was stripped. The Hot Cars Act of 2017, another bill developed by the organization, was attached to another bill.

Unfortunately, both of the bills did not pass. The safety bill would require that all cars add both visual and audio alert that sends out a vibration warning. It will automatically activate when the engine of the car is turned off.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal is a co-sponsor of the bill. He told USA TODAY back in 2014, a 15-month-old toddler died because the child was left in a hot car. The incident happened in his state, Connecticut, and that was when he decided to get involved.

Sen. Blumenthal said that a father forgot that his child was in the back seat of the car, which is the most common reason behind this tragedy.

Sen. Blumenthal added that these deaths can be prevented if there are alert systems in the car that remind parents to look at the back seat before locking the car. Some car manufacturers, like Hyundai and GM, are already making alert systems and will be adding them to the new car models.

Related Article: Sleeping 4-Year-Old Boy Fatally Shot in the Face by Unknown Assailant

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
OK Theatre one of 8 to get preservation grant
Letter: Be aware of what your political party leaders are saying
LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo.  The Missouri State Highway Patrol just made a large stretch of Lake of the Ozarks idle-only for big boats. A brand-new limitation beginning at the 9.5 Mile Marker of the Big Niangua Arm prohibits boats 40 feet and longer from creating a wake anywhere upstream of the 9.5 Mile Marker (the Big Niangua Arm turns to the Niangua River around the 16 Mile Marker).

That means Class 3 boats (40 feet and longer) will be required to navigate at idle speedgenerally a max of about 4 or 5 mphin that area, which includes access to the popular Ha Ha Tonka Cove (15 Mile Marker). The request by a homeowner to adopt the Limited No-Wake designation for this 6.5-mile stretch of the Lake was approved at a June 15 public hearing held by the Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP).

Many in the boating community have responded to the news with shock and outrage. A Facebook thread discussing the issue brought a few praises for the move, but plenty more voices of frustration. Brian Jeffrey lives with his family on the Big Niangua Arm, near Bridal Cave. They have a 19-foot ski boat and a 29-foot performance boat, so Jeffrey says the new wake regulation wont directly affect his boating habits. But thats not the biggest issue, he said. There are thousands of boaters and lakefront residents in the newly-designated Limited No-Wake area, and Jeffrey points out the Patrols decision was made essentially without their input.

No-Wake coves are not new to Lake of the Ozarks, but Limited No-Wake coves are. The concept was introduced with a bill sponsored by then-state representative David Wood. After a series of compromises between the many interested parties, the idea of Limited No-Wake coves was created, which carved out a middle-way for the Patrol: some coves can be designated No-Wake for big boats but not all boats. (Read the full text of the new law at the end of this article.)

For a cove to go No-Wake completely, residents could already petition the Patrol; in that case, 75 percent of the property owners in the cove have to agree to it and sign a petition. Once thats done, and the buoys are placed, no boats are allowed to create a wake in that cove.

For the Limited No-Wake designation, however, only one person has to bring the request to the Patrol. Then the agency will consider the issue at a public hearing and make a decision based on whether it would enhance public safety and based on testimony at the hearing. On June 15, 2020 the Patrol made the determination about the new, lengthy Limited No-Wake designation on the Niangua Arm.

However, many boaters say they never knew about that hearing, and stakeholders in the Lake of the Ozarks marine industry, who worked with Wood on the bill, said their understanding was all the affected property owners in the area would be consulted for any new Limited No-Wake designation. One guy snuck it in at a meeting and got it approved, and affected thousands upon thousands of residents not to mention potential economic impact, Jeffery said.

The difference lies in how the law was written, versus how the Patrol wrote rules for its enforcement. (The text of the Patrol's rules for Limited No-Wake coves can be viewed at the end of this article.) MSHP Water Patrol Division Captain Matt Walz explained the Patrol has statutory authority to write rules consistent with their internal practices and guidelines, based on the laws that are passed. In the case of Limited No-Wake areas, the Patrol takes several factors into consideration before making a determination, including boating traffic in that area, overall safety, and property damage concerns. Walz says the highest number of complaints about boat wakes come to the Patrol from homeowners on the Niangua Arm. We routinely get complaints about large boats, particularly cruisers, that are going up to Ha Ha Tonka, and theyre plowing through these narrow areas, Walz said.

A silver lining for some boaters: the restriction, Walz said, is really focused on cruisers. He emphasized the Patrol would not be stopping large (Class 3) performance/offshore boats for going above idle-speed in the area as long as those boats are on plane and not plowing.

Making A Wake

Large cruisers are infamous on Lake of the Ozarks for the damage they can wreak on docks, due to the especially large wakes they leave behind. Boats essentially have three types of speed: idle, plowing, and on-plane. At idle speed, boats leave a negligible wake, and at on-plane speeds, the wake is more substantial but still not very large. However, at plowing speeds, the boat is pushing through the water rather than riding on top of it, so the large amount of displacement results in potentially massive waves heading to the shoreline on either side. In wider channels, those waves have time to mostly dissipate before hitting the shore, but in narrow channels or coves, things can get rough when cruisers are plowing through.

For the most part on Lake of the Ozarks, boats 40 feet and longer tend to fall into two categories: yachts/cruisers and performance/offshore. Walz said the Limited No-Wake restriction is really targeted at yachts/cruisers, not at performance/offshore boats. If theres an offshore boat thats traveling 30mph, barely on plane, causing very little wake, I dont anticipate were going to stop that boat, he clarified, pointing out, Boating laws are not as cut and dry as traffic laws on the highway. There are a lot of grey areas. He pointed out most cruisers 40 feet and longer are unable to get on plane in a way that would significantly cut back on their intrinsic large wakes.

Walz says when cruiser captains plow through narrow areas, Its just not courteous boating. And had boaters been courteous, he says, there may not have been need for these new restrictions.

Cruising Elsewhere

The new rule will make cruiser captains count the cost before heading toward the popular Ha Ha Tonka cove, since they will now be required to idle for nearly an hour to reach the cove once they hit the Limited No Wake area. Jeffrey says that could have a ripple-effect on the Big Niangua: within the new Limited No-Wake area are multiple large condo complexes, and those will no longer appeal to potential buyers who own a 40+ foot boat, once they learn they may have to idle for the better part of an hour just to get halfway out of the Niangua Arm.

He acknowledges there are discourteous boaters out there who cause real problems and whose wakes do damage docks. I get it, he said. I get frustrated with people that are coming through, 15 miles an hour with their bow straight up in the air I spent six hours the other day welding my dock. But he points out most boaters already self-regulate on the narrow bend where the new Limited No-Wake begins. A more limited approach, perhaps a quarter-mile No-Wake designation in that narrow area of the channel, might have solved the problem without shutting down big boats on a six-mile stretch of the Lake. I would have zero issue with that, he said. My biggest concern about the whole thing in general is that one guy can in effect shut off an entire arm to a large consumer base, and nobody else can do anything about it.

Current Limited No-Wake Coves On The Lake

Main Channel:

-Jennings Branch Cove

-Lynch Hollow

Gravois Arm:

-Much of Indian Creek Cove

-Back half of Mill Creek Cove

Glaize Arm:

-Watson Hollow Cove (Girl Scout Cove)

Niangua Arm:

-9.5 Mile Marker and up to the Niangua River

Whats Downstream?

Currently, Lake of the Ozarks has six Limited No-Wake coves, and more are likely on the horizon. But none will be added this year. The Patrol holds hearings in November, January, March, and May, and Walz said they have decided not even to consider Limited No-Wake requests in November, since there are plenty of buoy requests at that time. In addition to coves, could more navigable channels be on the docket? Two coves on the Gravois Arm have already received the Limited No-Wake designation. And if the same thing were to happen on the increasingly busy Gravois Arm, it could potentially crush several waterfront businesses that depend on cruiser traffic. Walz said the Patrol does hear complaints about wakes from the Gravois Arm, but he said for the most part the Gravois is significantly wider than the Niangua Arm.

Jeffrey worries about the precedent this could set for the future. David Woods bill specified coves, but when the Patrol wrote their rules based on the bill, they also allowed for channels to be designated as Limited No-Wake. This could kill Warsaw, he said, referencing the city at the most upstream and narrowest portion of Lake of the Ozarks. They have been working so hard to build up that end of their arm, to get people to come there. What if the Patrol shut down a 10+ mile stretch of the Lake in the narrow areas leading to Warsaw, Jeffrey mused. It would essentially prevent any big boats (read: big money) from coming even close to Warsaw.

Whatevers next, Walz acknowledges these decisions tend to leave some people happy and others upset.

The Patrol has the authority to create a marking system, which includes regulating waterways, but Walz points out that until last year, the agency had not made any changes since 2004. So its not something we take lightly or that we do on a whim, he said. We had a mandate from the legislature to do something about class 3 boats. We adopted that mandate to fit within our uniform marking system that is already in place.

We are very cautious about not overstepping our authority, he said.

-

RSMo 306.125.4

The department of public safety shall promulgate all necessary rules and regulations for the implementation and administration of a no-wake cove for class 3 vessels in a cove with its main juncture less than 800 feet, measured from shore to shore, at the main channel. Any rule or portion of a rule, as that term is defined in section 536.010, that is created under the authority delegated in this section shall become effective only if it complies with and is subject to all of the provisions of chapter 536 and, if applicable, section 536.028. This section and chapter 536 are nonseverable, and if any of the powers vested with the general assembly pursuant to chapter 536 to review, to delay the effective date, or to disapprove and annul a rule are subsequently held unconstitutional, then the grant of rulemaking authority and any rule proposed or adopted after August 28, 2018, shall be invalid and void.

State Rule - 11 CSR 50-3.010 (3) O

Applications may be submitted by property owners located on a waterway narrowing to less than eight hundred feet (800) in width to restrict vessels forty feet (40) in length or greater to no wake. To ensure uniformity, the eight hundred feet (800) width eligibility applies to coves or main channel areas. Waterways eight hundred feet (800) or greater in width will not be considered for this restriction unless the volume of boating traffic is significantly disproportionate to similar areas on the same body of water, or boating traffic accident data support the need for the restriction. This restriction may be indicated by buoy markers, signage on docks, or signage on the shoreline, as specified in the permit by the Water Patrol Division. Applications where signage is a requirement on docks or shoreline property, are to include proof of ownership and written consent from each owner where signs will be posted. Applications under this clause will be heard by the Water Patrol Division at a public hearing. Petitions from property owners in the affected area are unnecessary for this limited no wake restriction. Approval is based on the enhancement of public safety in the proposed area and testimony provided at the hearing. If approved, the permit holder is responsible for maintaining the buoys and/or signage as indicated in the permit.
Olivia Luschei  who works as an assistant helping the disabled employees  said she has enjoyed working alongside her fellow employees.

Its just been awesome to be a part of something so much bigger than myself, Luschei said, and getting to work with great individuals who have such great potential.

The employees with disabilities will work at the coffee shop for at least a year, then Inspiration Ministries will help them use their new job skills to find employment opportunities elsewhere.

Bongiorno said the employees seem to be hard working and willing to develop skills.

A lot of them have shown me that they are willing to take an initiative, she said.

Besides job skills, the employees will learn how to interact with customers and how to work with other people.

Luschei said customers seem to be interacting well with the employees and have been supportive of them.

All of our customers come in with a smile, she said.

Inspired Coffee sells hot and cold coffee drinks, iced tea, frappes and bakery items such as scones, muffins and cookies.
WILLIAMS BAY  Historical markers outlining important moments in Williams Bay history are coming soon to prominent locations in the village.

The village board has approved installation of three plaques, each detailing a different historical aspect of Williams Bay in relation to the location of the sign.

Former village trustee and amateur historian Jim Killian drafted messages that will be placed on the plaques, with help from local historian Deb Soplanda. The text has been reviewed and approved by the Williams Bay Historical Society as well as the village board.

One plaque will be installed near the Kishwauketoe Nature Conservancy arboretum, off Harris Road, and will detail information about early occupants of the area, including the Potawatomi tribe of native Americans.

Another will be installed near the parking lot of the Williams Bay Beach and provide information about the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad station, a former transportation hub that was located north of the current village boat launch.

The third plaque will be located inside Kishwauketoe along a trail that sits above the villages former railroad track, and will provide additional information on the villages past train service.
In the midst of the issue about Russia secretly offering bounties to the Taliban back in 2019, top officials in the White House said that they are aware about the matter. However, President Donald Tump was not informed.

Bounty on the American troops

According to the officials who knew about the intelligence, the assessment was included in President Donald Trump's daily intelligence briefings. The former national security adviser, John Bolton, allegedly told President Trump about the matter back in March of 2019.

However, the White House did not respond to this claim and refused to answer questions regarding Trump's awareness of Russia's bounties. The White House insisted that President Trump was not informed of the matter and that he still has no idea about it.

On June 29, Bolton refused to comment on the issue when he was asked by the Associated Press if he had briefed Trump about the intelligence last year.

On June 28, he told NBC's "Meet the Press" that President Trump was claiming ignorance of Russia's provocations just to justify the lack of response of his administration. The revelations cast doubt on the efforts of the White House to distance President Trump's name from the Russian intelligence assessments.

The Associated Press reported on June 28 that concerns about the bounties that Russian implemented were included in a written presidential daily briefing a few months ago and that Robert O'Brien, the current national security adviser, had told Trump about it. But O'Brien denied that he did.

Also Read: US Government Says Iran's Arrest Warrant for Trump is Propaganda Stunt

On the evening of June 29, O'Brien said that while the intelligence assessments have not been verified, the Trump administration has been preparing to act in case it does happen.

The Trump administration and Russia

Questions were raised when the public found out that the Trump administration was aware of the bounties that Russian has set for the killing of American soldiers. People on social media are now asking why the president did not take any swift action against Russia since the matter is putting the lives of American soldiers at risk.

Trump has tried for the past three years as president to improve the US relations to Russia and to befriend Russian President Vladimir Putin. One example is him insisting that Russia should be put back in the G7 after being kicked out.

Officials also said that they did not consider the intelligence assessments last year to be urgent, given that Russian meddling in Afghanistan is not new. The officials who said that Bolton did brief Trump about the matter said that Bolton's briefing did not contain any actionable intelligence.

This means that the information was not enough for the intelligence community to form a strategic plan or response. But the classified assessment of Russian bounties was the main purpose of the meeting.

The intelligence that surfaced indicated that Russian operatives had become more aggressive in their desire to contract with the members of the Haggani Network and the Taliban.

The National Security Council and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence held meetings regarding the issue. The Pentagon did not comment on the matter and the NSC did not respond to the questions bout the meetings.

Related Article: Iran Issues Arrest Warrant for Donald Trump for Terrorism, Asked Help from Interpol

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Phil Gruber is the news editor at Lancaster Farming. He can be reached at 717-721-4427 or pgruber@lancasterfarming.com. Follow him @PhilLancFarming on Twitter.
Hana Newcomb and Stephen Bradford of Potomac Vegetable Farms sells their produce to customers at the Takoma Park Farmers Market in Takoma Park, Md.
Patrick Van Negri is one of the most searched personalities of Miami. Being energetic, enthusiastic, and motivator, Patrick's life is full of his passion for work. He is one of the top social media influencers and content creators with his own blogging platform. For Patrick, life is work, work, and more engagement with blogging. He always says that even twenty-four hours are not enough in the day. His views about his work always remain under par as he thinks there is something which always pinches him to progress further with maximum efforts. Every time he feels that he can do better for his content creation for the blog or social media or meaningful discussions.

Patrick always keeps his morale high with a passion for achieving excellence in his work to grow further and become prominent. His story of blogging and social media influential begins with his girlfriend. He wanted to assist and boost her fashion blog with a more influx of traffic and clientele. During this process, he opened up his mindset by turning his social media profiles from private to public for personal exposure while assisting her girlfriend. This turned the table for the Patrick towards fortune. With this initiative, he abled to get plenty of followers on Instagram, and this was just the beginning. After receiving an excellent response from followers, he became more enthusiastic in this field and now devoting full time to his social media following and content creation for his blog.

This all did not happen haphazardly. Like many successful bloggers and influencers, Patrick says that he also has inspirations from multiple personalities from different sources such as friends and family. But for him, inspiration is not the physical existence but their gratitude, motivation, and hardship to succeed in life. He believes that failure is a way to learn from mistakes and get better direction. He says that fear and failure should be part and parcel like your best friends. He stresses that great things never come from the comfort zone. For this, you have to strive till death. Being a content creator and GQ insider, he advocates that hard work sets the legacy for other dreamers and achievers. This advocacy one day acknowledges by others when they align their journey on your struggles and path. Social media is a great platform to showcase yourself with your achievements and sagas. He says that it is an excellent way to quickly get attention, convey your thoughts and experiences, which ultimately creates a long-lasting relationship with your followers.

Patrick articulates that the world has become so smart and actively responsive. The days are gone when we need physical interaction to leave the impression on and influence others. With the advent of WWW and the internet, the world already broke the geographical boundaries among nations in the mid-90s. For him, the world is not only a global village; instead, it is continuously transforming towards smart relationships due to rapid progress in the fields of computing, electronics, and telecom engineering. He raises his voice in favor of such technological advancements, which has changed our life pattern and the way we get things done in life. Patrick points out that we should adopt new technologies and skills such as AI, VR, AR, chatbots, etc. if we want to remain in the top of the list with social media marketing influencer industry, as well as creative content creator and blogger.
The U.S. public health system may face more budget cuts despite being starved of resources for decades. The news comes amid shortages of necessary medical equipment needed to confront the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a report by the Associated Press, state and local healthcare workers receive very little pay despite fighting on the frontlines against a virus that has infected more than 2.7 million and killed over 130,000 people in the United States alone. Employees of the public health system are also responsible for tracking the virus using paper records. They work seven-day weeks with little time to rest for months.

Since 2010, budgets allocated for state public health departments dropped by 16 percent per capita. Local health departments also faced an 18 percent cut on spending. The country's health system operates on a skeletal workforce after the 2008 recession saw the loss of at least 38,000 jobs in state and local public health sectors.

An analysis conducted by Kaiser Health News (KHN) and AP revealed the system is underfunded on every level. The hollowed-out health departments led to an ill-equipped and slow response to the virus.

Budget Cuts

More than half of all Americans live in states that spend less than $100 per person on public health-including Louisiana, which spends $32 per resident annually, according to the analysis. Other starved states include:

Indiana ($37)

Maine ($41)

Missouri ($50)

Nevada ($36)

New Mexico ($36)

Ohio ($43)

Pennsylvania ($39)

South Dakota ($33)

Tennessee ($37)

The study also showed states like Florida only allocates 2 percent of state spending to public health. In North Carolina, Wake County's public health system only has 614 people on its workforce despite a 30 percent increase in its population.

In Detroit, the city's bankruptcy proceedings led to the disbandment of the health department. Today, only 200 workers are left to serve over 670,000 residents.

Low Wages

A 2019 report from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the de Beaumont Foundation showed more than a fifth of all public health workers earn only $35,000 or less a year.

The published report also revealed half of U.S. public health workers spoke of plans to retire or resign from their positions within the next five years. Most listed poor pay as the top reason.

Most people with training, a bachelor's or master's degree, choose to work in the private health care sector where wages are higher, effectively sapping the public health system of promising recruits.

In Alaska, the public health's spending dropped by 9 percent, with staffing falling to just 426. A state health official said declines in oil prices forced the state to scale back on public health services. The cuts affected reproductive health services, and well-child exams for children over 6.

Since the start of the pandemic, Michigan cut most of its healthcare workers' hours by a fifth. In Pennsylvania, the local government required dozens of its 1,200 public health employees to take a temporary leave. In Knox County, Tennessee, over 26 of its 260-strong workforce were furloughed for two months.

Want to read more?
U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced his support for another round of COVID-19 stimulus checks on Wednesday.

During Trump's conversation with Fox Business' Blake Burman, the right-wing leader said he wanted an amount more massive than the $1,200 proposed by Democrats.

"I want the money getting to people to be larger so they can spend it. I want the money to get there quickly and in a non-complicated fashion," Trump said.

The president also mentioned his hopes to include a $600 bump in unemployment benefits in the next round of relief checks. The measure has since been criticized by Republicans who believe the amount of payment would deter unemployed Americans to seek out jobs.

Weekly Coronavirus Benefits

Trump's statement came after Democrats in the Senate proposed an extension to the temporary aid given to U.S. residents who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The $600 weekly payments, which began late-March and are set to expire on July 31, would be extended until jobless rates fall below 11 percent. As of June 5, the unemployment rate was at 13.3 percent.

Many workers have begun returning to their jobs after numerous states started lifting their coronavirus restrictions. However, the recent surges and emerging hot spots in the South and West caused some governors to suspend the phased reopenings.

The Democrats also passed the Heroes Act bill that included an expanded stimulus payment package. If signed into law, families would receive up to $6,000. Dependents would also be eligible to receive over $1,200, as reported by CNBC.

It is expected adult dependents and undocumented immigrants would also be included in the next relief payments.

Receiving Benefits

In May, it was revealed the Heroes Act proposal included broad financial benefits to individuals, families, and categories that were left out in the first coronavirus relief package. While details have yet to be confirmed, Senator McConnell said the Senate might start work on the next package this month, as reported by Cnet.

Who could potentially qualify for the second payments?

Individuals who earned less than $99,000 according to their 2018 or 2019 taxes

College students, disabled relatives, and a taxpayer's parents

Families of up to five people

Recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

Non-Americans who file tax returns or pay taxes

Who would be skipped by the second check?

It is possible the new stimulus package could only go towards giving tax credits and other incentives to businesses instead of distributing direct payments to individuals.

The next round of payments might also exclude people who make more than a certain amount. The bill could carryover exclusion from the first stimulus payments: people between the ages of 18 and 24, non-Americans who pay taxes, and people who are incarcerated.

Want to read more?
On June 18, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter that the U.S. certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. U.S. media remarked that it was Trumps most forceful statement yet on the souring ties with China.

However, the attitudes of U.S. enterprises show just how difficult it will be for the U.S. to exercise this option.

Politics cannot change Chinas important role in global supply chain

About 80 percent of the worlds traded goods are transported through ports. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, many American enterprises are hoping to receive goods from China quickly.

While Donald Trump urges American companies to ditch China, many of them cant get their goods fast enough, according to a Bloomberg report on June 28.

The articles cited the example of the container ship Melina, which set sail on June 24 from a Chinese port near Shenzhen with products bound for U.S. households, and will dock in Los Angeles on July 6 after a 12-day nonstop journey  a week ahead of a larger ship doing the same route.

Melina is operated by Israel-based Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., one of the largest container shipping companies in the world. Zim, Honolulu-based Matson Inc. and CMA CGM SA of France are among those offering the express service between China and the U.S.

The Bloomberg article also pointed out that links like this show the difficulty President Trump faces if he tries to achieve a complete decoupling of the worlds largest economies.

The article also mentioned Rural King Farm & Home Stores, which has about 120 stores across the U.S.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rural King was no different to other traditional retailers, experiencing shortages of toilet paper, paper towels and hand sanitizer.

But thanks to a flexible supply chain and close relationships with vendors in China and elsewhere in Asia, it managed to keep most items stocked.

Rural King stores sold 300 trampolines in one day recently, according to Heath Pittman, international logistics manager at the Illinois-based retailer, who added that luckily for him, he has 100 to 200 suppliers in China.

He Weiwen, executive council member of the China Association of International Trade, said that in economic terms, there is no second China, and it will be impossible for the world to decouple from China, and politically, the global industrial chain wont change in the way the U.S. wants it to. In the end, it will be the U.S. which will suffer the most, including its high-tech sector.

Neither COVID-19 nor trade war can stop American enterprises from entering Chinese market

For the U.S., China is irreplaceable.

Last August, Trump ordered American enterprises to withdraw their businesses from China. Days later, Costco, the second largest retailer in the U.S. opened its first Chinese store in Shanghai. On April 22, 2020, multinational oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil launched a chemical complex in Huizhou, southern Chinas Guangdong province, with a total investment of about $10 billion. On May 19, U.S. industrial conglomerate Honeywells emerging market headquarters and innovation center opened in central China's Wuhan city.

According to a white paper published by the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) on May 30, one-third of U.S. companies in China plan to expand their investment by more than 10 percent. According to a poll conducted by AmCham China and AmCham Shanghai published in April, about 70 percent of the 25 American companies in China with global revenues of more than $500 million did not plan to relocate from China, even amid COVID-19.

In the post-pandemic era, Chinas economic recovery has been faster than the U.S. market expected, which will give confidence to American companies looking to expand their investment in China.

Yahoo Finance said in a June 27 article titled Why China will emerge from COVID-19 stronger than the US that like the U.S., China is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into fast-tracking medical research for vaccines and therapeutics, but it is also spending more on contact tracing, hospitals and equipment. That spend could be considered an investment for when the next epidemic comes along.

Morgan Stanley economists expect China to be the only major economy to grow its GDP in 2020, and the middle and upper middle classes are expected to continue to grow very strongly over the next decade.

China will recover faster than the U.S., said the Yahoo article, adding that the U.S. should get its own house in order.
As Beijing starts to tighten leadership over Hong Kong, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States will no longer export defense equipment which originated from the US to the city.

According to Pompeo, since mainland China decided to draw a line on Hong Kong's freedom, it has prompted the US to rethink its policies on exporting defense equipment to the territory. He also added that the US will also be taking steps in imposing and applying the same restrictions and policies regarding the use of US defense and technologies of dual-use to Hong Kong, the same way it does with China.

A report by the New York Post stated that Pompeo defended the US's decision to do so as a necessary action in order to protect the national security of the country. He also noted that this is also because the US can no longer identify the difference if the controlled items are exported to Hong Kong or if the exports will also be controlled by mainland China.

The decision of the US followed the approval of the national security law in the Communist nation. The said law gives Chinese authorities to crack down on activities in Hong Kong, South China Morning Post reported.

Read also: US Government Says Iran's Arrest Warrant for Trump is Propaganda Stunt

Meanwhile, many had negative reactions toward the decision and said that it has become part of the bold efforts of the Communist Party of China to crack down on the semi-autonomous territory that has functioned separately from the mainland.

It can be recalled that in the past year, democratic protests have erupted all over Hong Kong against China's plans to tighten its grip on the former British colony, according to The New York Times.

In light of this, the State Department has expressed its opposition to the bill and said that it will place restrictions on the visa of officials from the CCP who are involved in the efforts in restricting the autonomy of Hong Kong.

China retaliates by banning the visa of Americans interfering with its affairs with Hong Kong.

According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, China has decided a tit-for-tat response on the visa ban imposed by the US with their own visa ban by banning US citizens who interfere with the matters relating to its relationship with Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Pompeo retaliated by calling out the CCP on Twitter by saying that the Communist government of China has refused to take responsibility for breaking a commitment that they have made with Hong Kong's people and has shown this through threatening the US with visa restrictions.

President @realDonaldTrump promised to punish the CCP officials responsible for eviscerating Hong Kongs freedoms. Today, we are taking action to do just that we've announced visa restrictions on CCP officials responsible for undermining Hong Kongs autonomy and human rights.  Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) June 26, 2020

The continuous word war between the two countries has affected their relationship which has already been badly strained by the issues surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. This started after Trump, Pompeo and many prominent figures in the international community has called out the Communist Party's actions in handling the then coronavirus outbreak which later on became the pandemic that caused the global health crisis.

Related article: China's New Law Allows Life Imprisonment in Hong Kong, Multiple Protesters Arrested on First Day of Passing

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Qualified individuals will no longer receive $600 federal unemployment aid at the end of the month. This means that an average American financial aid will decrease by 61 percent.

Over 31 million filed unemployment in the country. This enables them to receive a weekly $600 through the CARES Act signed by U.S. President Donald Trump last March. The said coronavirus relief law increased unemployment benefits by $600 a week.

But once the extension of the $600 unemployment benefit ends this July, the amount an unemployed citizen will receive will depend on the state where they were employed. Some may receive less than $300, while others may receive over $500.

The extra $600 a week is a big help for unemployed individuals most especially in this time of the global pandemic. However, many were also not able to receive this stimulus due to their immigration status in the country.

According to a published report in CNBC News, there will be no more extension for the stimulus check. The Republican lawmakers believe that a back-to-work bonus will be given instead of an aid.

With the help of the federal unemployment aid, an unemployed American normally received an amount of $980. But starting in August, the amount that each American will receive will depend on their geography or state. There is no uniform amount for all states. They give a different amount to their people.

In Mississippi, the least generous state, the unemployment benefit is only around $213 without the federal aid. However, Massachusetts gives its people a weekly amount of $552.

It is also important to note that each state sets caps and minimum benefit amounts for weekly jobless aid. These are categorized as lower and upper bounds that an unemployed individual should expect to receive.

Most of the states set a minimum cap of $100. Of all the states, Hawaii has the lowest cap, where they only give $5 a week without the federal aid.

In contrast, Massachusetts pays the highest maximum cap of all states in the country that could amount to $1,234 a week. Economists noted that other states have a lesser amount of aid due to looser eligibility rules.

Moreover, Mississippi also has the maximum lowest bail out every week. They only give an amount of $235 a week.

There was a proposal from the Democrats to extend the unemployment aid. However, the Republican lawmakers opposed the idea and offered instead a back-to-work bonus.

The rationale of the Republicans behind their proposal is to make sure that the economy is working, while the country is still in the process of recovery.

However, many criticized this because the number of infections in the country has significantly increased to 2.6 million due to economic reopening.

Despite all these odds, the Trump administration is weighing everything to balance health and economy.

How much do you think will you receive from your state?

Check these out!
The extra $600 federal unemployment benefit will end this month and once it ends, the amount of unemployment compensation and the number of weeks would once again be decided by the state.

Each state in the country has set a minimum and maximum cap for unemployment compensation. States also set as to how long or weeks a person can receive the compensation.

As the unemployment benefit passed in the CARES Act in March won't likely be in the next phase of coronavirus relief, most of the states in the country will no longer receive the federal aid of $600 by the third week of July, while others at the end of the month.

This means that unemployed individuals will depend on the unemployment compensation given by their state. However, this compensation will not last a lifetime.

Some states give unemployment compensation for 30 weeks, while others only give for 14 weeks. Moreover, the amount also varies.

According to a published report in Fox News, one of the advantages of federal aid is that almost everyone in the country is qualified, except if you are an undocumented immigrant or if you quit or was terminated from your job.

Each state has set their own guidelines as to who qualifies or not for their unemployment compensation. Also, states have their own unemployment laws to know and determine how much a person can receive based on his or her previous weekly earnings.

In most states in the country, the unemployment compensation is worth half of a person's earnings up to a certain threshold. There are high and low paying states.

Others also pay for a long and short period. This means that the unemployment compensation varies by state, according to the website fileunemployment.org.

Here are the states that pay the highest unemployment compensation without the $600 federal aid:

Massachusetts - $1,220

Ohio - $802

Washington - $790

Rhode Island - $730

Connecticut - $724

Take note that the unemployment compensation in Massachusetts ranges from $769 to $1,220, depending on your eligibility.

Here are the states that pay the lowest unemployment compensation without the $600 federal aid:

Mississippi - $235

Arizona - $240

Louisiana - $247

Alabama - $275

Florida - $275

Here are the states that provide unemployment compensation for a longer duration:

Massachusetts - 30 Weeks

Montana - 28 Weeks

Here are the states that provide unemployment compensation for a shorter duration:

Florida - 12 Weeks

North Carolina - 12 Weeks

Missouri - 13 Weeks

Georgia - 14 Weeks

Kansas - 16 Weeks

It is not surprising that those states that pay the lowest compensation are also the states that offer the shortest duration.

If you want to apply for unemployment compensation and avail the aid set by your state, you have to contact your state's unemployment office.

Moreover, you can also file your claim through an online application or via phone because most offices today are close due to the global pandemic.

Legal immigrants in the country, who still remained jobless even the country has slowly reopened the economy, should apply for this while waiting for a job.

Check these out!
Portland, TN (37148)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. High 76F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Rain. Low 58F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
China has allegedly been monitoring Uighurs, a Muslim-centered ethnic minority in the country, since as early as 2013 using hackers to build malware to invade the citizens' smartphones.

Global surveillance

The claim states the observation was done before Chinese police officers set up surveillance cameras and sent the Uighurs to detention camps in the western region of Xinjiang, as reported by The New York Times.

The practice persists until today and is part of a broader but hidden attempt to gather personal data from devices that contain their information.

Lookout, a mobile security firm, discovered ties between eight different type of malware, some of which were previously known. The company reveals how certain groups affiliated with the Chinese government infiltrated Android phones that the majority of the Muslim Uighur society use on a much larger scale than previously thought.

The findings suggest that the hacking campaign was China's frontline effort on monitoring the Uighurs, which later evolved to taking blood samples and other personal information to essentially turn the region into a virtual police state. The attempts also revealed how far China went to observing Uighurs who have fled internationally to as many as 15 countries.

The perpetrators of the data-gathering hid their tools inside special keyboards that Uighurs later used-the hidden equipment disguised themselves as third-party website apps to avoid detection from their victims.

Also Read: China Allegedly Forces Birth Control and Sterilization in an Attempt to Supprress Their Population

Some of the high-advanced technology could remotely control a mobile device and turn its features on to record calls or steal photos, phone locations and several other private data. Others were placed in Uighur-related apps and texts to hide their presence.

A threat intelligence engineer at Lookout, Apurva Kumar, said China followed Uighurs wherever they went, no matter which country they fled to. Kumar assisted in discovering the hidden campaign and likened China to a predator silently stalking its prey across the globe.

Revealing the abuse

According to Business Insider, a member of the Uighur Muslim community, Rushan Abbas, felt obligated to be public regarding the alleged violations to human rights, mass surveillance, and locking up of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.

Opening up about the campaign, however, has its consequences, said the US resident who founded and is now the executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, dedicated to calling for the preservation of Uighur rights and freedom.

After a week from speaking out about the abuses against her people in 2018, her sister, who lived in Xinjiang, disappeared without a trace. Abbas believes the Chinese government took her sibling away as punishment for her actions.

Abbas revealed that she still has not heard from her missing sister and in February, revealed concerns for her sister's life who was suffering from high blood pressure and several other health concerns.

In early June, Abbas' sister was confirmed to have been detained by the Chinese government. Still, little information was announced on her whereabouts and health conditions, as reported by Radio Free Asia.

It is believed that Abbas' sister is part of at least one million Uighurs that the Chinese government locked up in re-education camps located inside Xinjiang.

Related Article: China's New Law Allows Life Imprisonment in Hong Kong, Multiple Protesters Arrested on First Day of Passing

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
As a resurgence in coronavirus cases forces governors to dial back plans for reopening their economies, Americans placed the blame on their neighbors.

In a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday, 59% of respondents said their fellow Americans were doing a bad job dealing with the pandemic, while just 28% said they were doing a good job. In May, the numbers were reversed, with 51% saying they were doing a good job and 33% said they were doing a bad job.

Some governors have dialed back their states reopening plans because of images of large groups showing a blatant disregard for social distancing, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. These poll results suggest that most people look at their fellow Americans behavior and say This is why we cant have nice things.

Thats what led to N.J. Gov. Phil Murphys announcement earlier this week that the state would not reopen indoor dining as originally planned.

On Wednesday, Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf reissued guidance for bars and restaurants to prevent the spread of the pandemic virus and he and Health Secretary Rachel Levine expanded an earlier order that had only applied to businesses and required masks be worn in all public spaces in Pennsylvania.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Just 37% of those polled said they were confident that the pandemic would be brought under control within weeks, down from 62% in March. The percentage of those with little or no confidence rose to 61% from 36% in March.

And twice as many Americans said they were more concerned that governors were moving too fast rather than too slow to reopen their economies, 64% to 27%.

Many states loosened restrictions a few weeks ago, Murray said. Both the epidemiological data and the public opinion data suggest it may have been too soon.

The poll also found Americans continue to have a negative view of how President Donald Trump is handling the coronavirus crisis, with 40% saying hes doing a good job and 54% giving him a bad job rating. State governors get a 65% good job rating, while 28% said they are doing a bad job.

The poll of 867 adults was conducted June 26-30 with a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.
Coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania soared to 88,000 with 832 new cases reported Thursday, the most in one day since May.

The states COVID-19 case count now stands at 88,074, according to the daily report from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Twenty-five more deaths were reported, raising the death toll to 6,712.

The health department is considering steps to mitigate the steep rise in cases, which it blames not on increases in testing but on community spread and localized outbreaks.

(Cant see the map? Click here.)

Locally, the Lehigh Valleys coronavirus case rate has remained fairly steady over the last month, but the Wolf administration is encouraging all residents to wear masks in public places to slow the pandemics spread, especially going into the July 4th holiday weekend.

These are your Pennsylvania coronavirus updates for July 2, 2020.

Pa. coronavirus outbreak

The 832 new cases are Pennsylvanias most in one day since May 22.

So far, the outbreak appears mainly focused in the southwest region  Pittsburghs Allegheny County alone had 233 new cases in the last day, according to the states figures.

(Cant see the chart? Click here.)

For comparison, Philadelphia had 138 new cases. The Lehigh Valley  Lehigh and Northampton counties combined  had 38 new cases and seven deaths in the last day, bringing the local total to 7,721 cases and 575 deaths. Average Lehigh Valley case rates have been in the teens or 20s for more than a month.

The health department estimates that 78% of Pennsylvania coronavirus patients have recovered. To date, 702,199 tests have come back negative.

Testing has increased statewide. Thursdays 13,469 reported tests is Pennsylvanias second highest one-day total. Pennsylvania is now averaging about 12,200 a day statewide, about double the test rate when daily case counts peaked in April, as tests are conducted on people without symptoms and those in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, where residents account for about 20% of Pennsylvanias cases and 68% of COVID-19 deaths.

But the health department told lehighvalleylive.com that the most recent spike in cases is not just from testing.

There are only about 50 new cases in long-term care facilities among the ones reported today. This is primarily from community spread and outbreaks occurring, most noticeably in the (southwest) part of the state, said health department spokesman Nate Wardle. Wolf himself in a news release said evidence indicates the outbreaks can be traced to settings where masks werent worn or people were not practicing social distancing.

(Cant see this chart? Click here)

Does that mean a return to the yellow phase? No, but something will have to be done.

We are not looking to return regions to the phased mitigation, but are working to determine what steps are needed to protect public health in Pennsylvania, Wardle said. The most important thing we can stress is that people wear a mask.

Masks required across Pa.

Masks are now required in all public places in Pennsylvania, under an order expanded Wednesday by Gov. Tom Wolf and Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. That includes:

When outdoors and unable to consistently maintain six feet from anyone who is not an immediate member of the household.

Any indoor location that is generally accessible to the public.

While waiting for or using any public transportation or ride-sharing service.

When being served at a healthcare facility like a hospital, pharmacy, doctors office, veterinarians office or blood bank.

While at work when engaging with customers or coworkers, preparing food, in common areas or any space where people are unable to distance themselves.

There are some exceptions, like for those whose have medical conditions or whose work would be hindered by wearing a mask. But the governors office says that anyone unsure if their situation requires a mask should err on the side of caution and wear one.

We are relying on the good sense and cooperative spirit of Pennsylvanians to follow the Sec. of Healths mask-wearing requirement order, a spokesperson from Wolfs office told lehighvalleylive.com.

(Cant see the chart? Click here.)

Cloth face coverings may not protect the person wearing them but they will protect others by catching droplets potentially carrying the coronavirus, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also says a significant portion of individuals with COVID-19 lack symptoms.

Wolf on Thursday reiterated the importance of the order:

As we approach the Fourth of July holiday weekend and we see another spike in cases today in Pennsylvania, its critical that Pennsylvanians take the mandate to wear masks seriously, the governor said in a news release. This virus is not gone and mask-wearing is a required mitigation effort that we know works to stop its spread.  We all must do one simple thing to stop the spread of COVID-19: Wear a mask, Pennsylvania.

(Cant see the table? Click here.)

How to safely celebrate Independence Day 2020 in the age of COVID-19

The Independence Day weekend is here, and coronavirus cases are rising. How can you celebrate safely?

First, remember social distancing and  again  masks. The Wolf administration says to avoid large gatherings (in the green phase, crowds of more than 250 people are prohibited).

Locally, the Lehigh County Office of Emergency Management says to maintain a six-foot distance from others, wash your hands often, use hand sanitizer and wear a mask. Stay home if you dont feel well.

And with public pools closed for the pandemic, some are looking to rivers and lakes for recreation, which the county says has led to more 911 calls. If going swimming, know CPR and basic water rescue skills, watch for uneven ground or currents, teach children how to swim before you go, and use a life jacket in open water. Do not swim in quarries.

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Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.
Pennsylvanians are gingerly stepping back into old routines now that the majority of the state is under Gov. Tom Wolfs least restrictive phase of reopening from the coronavirus lockdown.

Were getting haircuts, hitting the gym and dining outdoors, even indoors. Many are back at work and sending their kids to daycare and summer camp.

You can even gamble at Wind Creek Bethlehem again.

Its just that a lot of things look different. Masks are now mandatory any time you leave your home and cant stay six-feet away from others. Many places, like doctor offices, scan your temperature before letting you in the door.

Reopening comes with risk and new types of uncertainty. This is unfolding in states across the nation that opened earlier than Pennsylvania.

Amid rising COVID-19 cases, California, Florida and Texas have all scaled back plans to revive their economies, closing bars and some halted indoor dining.

Weve created charts tracking the metrics health experts worldwide study to gauge how the United States is doing in the fight against the coronavirus. Well update them regularly as the Pennsylvania Department of Health releases new data.

The 832 new cases reported Thursday mark the highest spike the states seen since May, something the health department says can be traced to an outbreak in Allegheny County. Another 667 were seen on Friday with the largest chunk coming from the Pittsburgh area.

Pennsylvanias COVID-19 cases now total 88,741 and 6,746 deaths. The majority of those whove died were 65 or older, with 68% living in long-term care facilities.

Its expected that cases will rise as lockdowns lift and the state rolls out its universal nursing home testing program. Currently, the department says the spike in new cases can be linked to the virus spreading in the community, not increased testing.

One key metric to follow as testing capacity ramps up is the positive rate. Thats the number of tests that come back positive out of all the tests conducted.

The lower the rate, the more likely that testing is capturing the full spread of the virus in a community. High positivity rates, like we saw at the start of the pandemic in Pennsylvania, show that only the sickest people are being tested.

The World Health Organization recommends a rate of 5% or less when considering reopening. Pennsylvania hovers at 5%.

How has the positivity rate changed since the first case?

(Cant see this chart? Click here)

The first positive COVID-19 test in Pennsylvania was announced March 6. The states gone from processing a handful of tests a day to 10,000 or more daily tests at the end of June. Friday marked a-second all time high with 13,871 tests .

This chart allows you to track the daily number of positive tests, negative tests and the seven-day positivity rate. Looking at the number of positive tests and total tests conducted over a week smooths out daily testing swings to give a more accurate picture over time. Click on the map legend to isolate different data.

How is Pennsylvania doing statewide with new cases?

https://rstudio-pubs-static.s3.amazonaws.com/636918_cfa7baa4ab6c435dac0e17e21d3e3938.html

(Cant see the chart? Click here.)

There are daily swings in the number of new cases reported due to testing lags. Thats why case counts often drop on the weekends. The seven-day average of new cases smooths out those daily variations.

Pennsylvanias steeply flattened its curve, but as the state reopens and universal testing ramps up in nursing homes the rate of new cases is climbing again.

Pittsburghs Allegheny County is halting on-site consumption of alcohol in bars due to a spike in cases. Allegheny had 399 new cases on Thursday and Friday alone.

And even in the Lehigh Valley, where case rates have remained largely flat for weeks, Eastons mayor warned that some bars could be closed if they cant control patrons after a raucous and violent first weekend in the green phase.

Coronavirus testing has increased in Pennsylvania, and so has the rate of new cases. Six hundred or more new cases have been reported statewide five days in the last week.

The health department estimates 78% of Pennsylvanians have so far recovered from the coronavirus. To date, 715,403 tests have come back negative and the state is currently conducting about 12,000 tests a day, roughly double the test rate when daily case counts peaked in April.

How is it going in the Lehigh Valley?

(Cant see this chart? Click here)

With limited testing availability in the early days of the pandemic, it is hard to know how widespread COVID-19 was in the Lehigh Valley. Northampton and Lehigh counties have had one of the states highest per capita infection rates throughout.

Combined, the Lehigh Valley now totals 7,750 coronavirus cases and 579 deaths.

Where did this data come from?

The data is current as of noon July 3.

The data comes from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Lehigh and Northampton County Coroners Offices. The department releases updated figures at noon each day. The coroners typically release data once a week.

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.
Legendary broadcaster Hugh Downs  a longtime fixture of network news who found his greatest successes as co-host of NBCs Today Show and ABCs 20/20  has died at the age of 99, according to a statement issued by his family.

The statement said that Downs died at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. on Wednesday evening surrounded by his family.

Born in Akron, Ohio in 1921, Downs had a varied broadcasting career, beginning in radio and then continuing in television as an announcer for the soap opera Hawkins Falls, the childrens show Kukla, Fran and Ollie and later The Tonight Show during Jack Paars run as host. He was also well-known as a game show host, hosting Concentration, which was inspired by the childrens matching card game.

Yet it was in his runs on The Today Show from 1962 to 1971 and 20/20, from 1979 to 1998 that he became a household name, celebrated for a manner that was at once welcoming and stentorian. For most of the time during both gigs, his co-anchor was Barbara Walters. His famous sign-off was Were in touch, so you be in touch.

Downs, whose 1986 memoir was titled On Camera My 10,000 Hours on Television, twice won Daytime Emmy Awards as host of the talk show Over Easy in 1981 and as producer of Live From Lincoln Center in 1991. He retired from television in 1998. His last book was Letter to a Great Grandson: A Message of Love, Advice, and Hopes for the Future, published in 2004.

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Christopher Kelly is Director, News Innovation, Topics and Features for NJ.com. He may be reached at ckelly@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chriskelly74.
The rate at which coronavirus is spreading has increased in Ireland according to the expert time fighting the disease.

As a result the doctor leading the fight against its spread to now make the battle against the disease an individual mission.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HSPC) has today, July 2, been informed that a total of five people with Covid-19 have died.

There has now been a total of 1,738* COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Wednesday 1st July, the HPSC has been notified of 15 confirmed cases of Covid-19. There is now a total of 25,489** confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread.

The National Public Health Emergency Team met today (Thursday 2nd July) to review Irelands ongoing response and preparedness to COVID-19.

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, urged people to take individual responsibility in the battle against Covid-19.

What has been a collective and effective national effort to suppress COVID-19 in Ireland, now also becomes an individual mission. Every person must risk assess their own environments, make appropriate decisions about where they will go and who they will meet, and how they can ensure their safety and the safety of those around them.

Continue to follow public health advice, understand the risks of your actions and environments and stay safe, he said.

Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said the spread of the disease is not slowing around th world.

60% of all COVID-19 cases have been reported in the past month. The transmission of the virus is accelerating globally. In order to limit the potential for a resurgence of the disease in Ireland, we all must continue to follow public health advice and take responsibility for our individual actions, he said.

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group. He leads a group of experts that have crunched the numbers. They have noticed and warned of a change in the reproduction number or r number.

If the reproduction number is higher than one, then the number of cases can snowball.

The reproductive number is now estimated to be closer to 1 than it has been in recent weeks. The R number is easily influenced by small changes to the transmission of the virus.

We have noticed an increase in the number of cases towards the end of last week. It is a trend that NPHET will continue to monitor closely, he said.

Dr Vida Hamilton, National Clinical Advisor and Group Lead, Acute Operations, HSE, warned that the health system needs people to stay the course.

Due to the good practices of the public our ICUs were not overwhelmed. Although they were busy, every patient got the care they deserved. Some of us may have witnessed the reality of the frontlines in our hospitals on recent television documentaries. We should not lose sight of what is at risk and how fragile our systems are in the face of this pandemic. Please continue to follow public health advice, she said.

The Covid-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of Covid-19 in the community.

*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 5 deaths. The figure of 1,738 deaths reflects this.

**Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 3 confirmed cases. The figure of 25,489 confirmed cases reflects this.
The doctor who has led Ireland's fight against Covid-19 is to step away from his role to spend time with his family and care for his wife who has cancer and is receiving palliative care.

Dr Tony Holohan, Ireland's Chief Medical Officer, made a personal statement at the end the media briefing at the Department of Health where he urged every Irish person to make the fight against Covid-19 an individual mission.

"From today I'll be taking time out from all of my work commitments to be with my family. My wife Emer was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, in 2012. She's had a number of difficult years with her disease and was admitted for palliative care last Saturday and I now want to give my energy and attention and all of my time to Emer and to our two teenage children Clodagh and Ronan," he said.

He urged everyone in Ireland to make the fight against the virus an individual challenge.

What has been a collective and effective national effort to suppress COVID-19 in Ireland, now also becomes an individual mission. Every person must risk assess their own environments, make appropriate decisions about where they will go and who they will meet, and how they can ensure their safety and the safety of those around them.

Continue to follow public health advice, understand the risks of your actions and environments and stay safe, he said.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan says he is taking time out from work commitments to be with his family. A plan has been put in place for others to take over responsibility for different aspects of his role. Dr Ronan Glynn will take over as acting Chief Medical Officer pic.twitter.com/XBthm9ll9f July 2, 2020

An Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, thanked Dr Holohan for helping to guide this country through the Covid-19 emergency.

"His work, experience and briefings helped people to understand the gravity of the situation facing us, while his calmness reassured us that if we followed the guidelines and advice we would overcome these great challenges together.

Every home in Ireland has come to know Dr Tony Holohan. His leadership during the pandemic has given us all confidence that the decisions being made are based on solid public health advice. As a country we owe him and his family a great debt of gratitude," he said.

Dr Ronan Glynn, who has been at Dr Holohan's side, has been appointed acting chief medical officer.
A six month prison sentence has been handed down to a man for possession of heroin in his cell at the Midlands Prison Portlaoise.

At Portlaoise District Court last Thursday, Jeffery Morrow (38) of 20 Hazel Croft Road, Finglas South, Dublin 11 pleaded guilty to possession of heroin valued at 2,310, and a mobile phone and charger at the Midlands Prison Portlaoise.

Garda JJ Kirby outlined to the court that a search of Mr Morrow's cell was conducted on October 16, 2019, during which the items in question were found. Garda Kirby noted that Mr Morrow had over 100 previous convictions.

Counsel for Mr Morrow said that he did co-operate with the Gardai and noted that he had not been involved with drugs before prison. He was very remorseful.

Mr Morrow was serving an 11-year sentence relating to organised crime offences handed down from the Central Criminal Court on July 31 2019.

Judge Catherine Staines noted it was a very substantial amount of heroin, and there was a mobile phone.

Every week I am coming across people who are being threatened to bring drugs into prison. It is causing havoc in the prisons. There has to be some deterrent, she said.

For possession of heroin she imposed a six month consecutive prison sentence to the sentence of July 2019.

The other charges were taken into account. A destruction order was granted for the items in question.
This Saturday, July 4, at 1pm, at the Spire in Dublin, people are being urged to join a protest to assist the Palestinian people whose houses and land are being destroyed by the Israeli military.

There are also protests in Derry and Limerick.



Dublin woman and long-time activist, Betty Purcell, of Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: Since 1948 there has been increasing pressures on Palestinian people, who were forced out of their own homes. Israeli people took over those homes, that was the start of what happened, and since then, there has been increasing encroachment. At the moment the main problems are the building of the illegal settlements, being threatened by military, and being forced to leave. There is a plan is to legitimise and standarise this, with the Israeli and U.S. backed annexation plan of the West Bank area of Palestine, but it is against international law. Israel will go and take over the West Bank, an area delineated by the UN to be part of the Palestinian state for Palestinian people.

Ms Purcell, who spent time in Beith Sahour and Bethlehem, in 2014, is appealing for the Irish Government to support the Occupied Territories Bill, which essentially bans Ireland trading with illegal settlements. Since 2014, Ms Purcell has been passionate about getting rights for Palestinians.



Ms Purcell said: What they are basically saying is that Israel is going to take over nearly half of the West Bank.

I was always involved in human rights. In more recent years, my daughter Clara came back from Palestine, she came back, and said to me, Mum you have got to go out and see what they are doing to Palestinian people. I went over in 2014, and ever since then I have been involved."



She said: I saw with my own eyes, with what I would call apartheid.

Ms Purcell said: The Palestinians live under separate laws, they have to go through checkpoints, they have no freedom of movement, even those who work in Israel and Jerusalem go through three to four hours of checkpoints, only allowed on Palestinian roads. The best roads are for the Israelis. They have separate registration plates on their cars. If I got a taxi being driven by an Israeli, it would be 20 minutes to get there, though by a Palestinian, it would be a few hours more. If you are sick, the there are separate hospitals, and Palestinians don't get as good hospitals as the Israelis."

She said:"In Gaza, electricity is rationed. They only get electricity for three to four hours per day. The teenagers are constantly being goaded and harassed by the military, it reminded me of the worst of the days in Northern Ireland, they are running a military regime over the Palestinian people totally.

Ms Purcell spent three weeks in Palestine, and said: I was working with YMCA, running olive planting and picking, working with Palestinian farmers. It was an intensive immersion, seeing on one side the hospitality and kindness, from Palestinian farmers who gave us lovely lunches, in afternoons and speaking to various interest groups about what was going on.



She said:It is so sad, we were made to feel so welcome, people were coming to shake our hands, and saying thank you for being a witness to what is happening here, they need international support. Ireland needs to support the Occupied Territories Bill. It is becoming more of a situation of apartheid, and Senator Frances Black has looked at the law, they got top international experts on trade, it is legally watertight, it is saying that any products from illegally occupied settlements in the world should not be bought.



Ms Purcell is calling for the Government to take action in supporting Palestine, by making sure that the Occupied Territories Bill becomes law. She said; What they can do is that they can immediately bring in the Occupied Territories Bill, and make sure that it is brought into law, and argue that illegal Israeli settlements should not get preferential treatment. Ireland should stop all trade with illegal settlements.



Ms Purcell said: We need to pressurise the new Government, which is why we are holding the protests, Ireland should be taking a leadership position in this.



Ms Purcell said: What is the point of Ireland being on the security council if it is not going to use it's position to stand up for human rights. Palestinians have been refugees since 1948, people living there under military law, what is the point of having titles, unless we use it to support human rights and equality, we are looking for equal rights for Palestinians, it is apartheid.

She said: Where I was staying was in Bethlehem, a lot of people work across the Israeli border, so that means getting up 4am or 5am in the morning, to be at work at 8am. The two sons of the family left the house before 4am in morning, if they got in an Israeli car, they would be there in about 20 minutes, but they have to go through a Palestinian checkpoint, so it takes hours. It is a deliberate humiliation. They queue there for hours on end, and then they arrive and do their days work. It is so horrific, they have people who work in local industry, ceramics and glass, but because so much of the tourism trade is being controlled by Tel Aviv, tourists are told, do not spend any money with Palestinian people, and a lot of them are children.

She said: The Palestinians are very big in education, sometimes they get out for education, universities in West Bank, all going on to third level, they are ambitious people, all talking about being doctors and lawyers. People in the West Bank have enough to eat, in Gaza, they don't have enough to eat, the Israeli control all the electricity and water going into the Gaza strip, they stop fishing men from using the area, if they go beyond two miles, they get shot, only allowed two miles, in shallow waters.



Ms Purcell said:  This is all their land originally, it has been called an open prison by the UN, the Israelis count the calories of Gaza, to keep them alive but hungry. There are pictures of children in Gaza queuing after school to get water, to bring home for the evening There is the demolition of Palestian houses and burning of Palestinian olive trees, most of them just want to make a living, or travel to Israel and work in industries there, make a living, they didn't want a fight.



She said: Not enough Israeli people are opposing the racist policy of the Government. The Israeli people will use Palestinian labour, some of them are living in actual Palestinian homes.



She says that it would be 'embarrassing' if the Irish does not support Palestine.

She said: I think that the Irish people have been very supportive of Palestine.

I think that Ireland's reputation as a fair minded country and one that supports human rights is at stake here, we have always had a reputation, we always tried to do what we could, what we could do for freedom and justice, Ireland has to take a stand.



Ms Purcell said: The Trump plan allows them to take over another 30% of the West Bank, and to give the people of settlements all the rights of Israeli citizens, what is left of Palestine is 15% of original land of Palestine.



She said: On Saturday, the protest is 1pm, at the Spire in O'Connell St, we will be socially distant, we will be spread out along O'Connell St. We will be doing the protests in Derry and Limerick too.

I hope that what it will show is that Irish people want change, want action, and the Israelis are grabbing more land, and to make even more Palestinians a subject population."

She said: The number of TDs who are supporting the Frances Black bill shows there is a lot of support, there is no doubt that Irish people care, but it is a question of our political class supporting that. 



She said: I worked in Central America, El Savador and Nicaragua, a lot of really good people working with poor communities, it made me feel that I wanted to do more. I think that all lives matter and Palestinian lives matter. The whole push is to get rid of the Palestinians out of the territory, the Palestinians did not do anything to them.



Ms Purcell hopes to see Ireland being in leadership again in the struggle against apartheid.
33 Co Kildare troops returned to their families from Lebanon this afternoon.

The final rotation of 170 Irish troops from the 115th Infantry Battalion, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) returned home this afternoon to Dublin Airport following an eight month deployment which was extended due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

General Secretary of the PDFORRA, Ger Guinan, said: "They are usually in Lebanon for six months, due to restrictions for Covid, they had to stay longer. It was particularly difficult for family members. They are all back safe and well."

The personnel were transported to McKee Barracks for a medical screening before travelling home where they will undergo a 14 day isolation period. The 115th Infantry Battalion are drawn primarily from one brigade with personnel mainly from the South East and South of Ireland.

A total of 338 Defence Forces personnel deployed with the 115th Infantry Battalion.

Personnel who served with the 115th Infantry Batallion represented 24 counties across Ireland, with the majority from Cork and Kildare.

The representation around the country is Armagh 1, Donegal 1, Limerick 10, Roscommon 6, Carlow 13, Galway 13, Longford 3, Tipperary 18, Cavan 1, Kerry 2, Louth 5, Waterford 13, Clare 5, Kildare 33, Meath 2, Westmeath 9,Cork 64, Kilkenny 50, Offaly 7, Wexford 17, Down 1, Laois 7, Wicklow 4, and Dublin 19.
Planned exercises by the PLA Navy has prompted a warning to American ships to steer away from the Paracel Islands, with four days of exercises. Just after the US Navy sent two carriers in the Philippine Sea and other governments deplore China's purloining of the Spratlys and Paracels illegally, reported Breaking Defense.

According to the US government, there is no indication of what forces will be deployed in the Paracel Islands from July 1 to 5. Beijing has threatened the two-carrier group indirectly, but not allowing any ships near the Paracel. They even added to follow any PLA Navy ship acting as command.

Despite China's occupation, they have no legal claim as they are warning vessels of other nations to stay away. A UN tribunal ruling has call China's claim false and defies international law, and has attacked other vessels.

Since occupying the Paracels off the Vietnam coast, they have fortified and militarized it with harbors and helicopter pads. On Woody Island, they made aircraft facilities like hangars and airstrips, adding HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries, cited CSIS.

China lambasted by Southeast Asian leaders

Beijing flexes its military dominance by claiming sectors of the South China Sea that violates international law and a ruling against them in The Hague. China has a habit of pulling its weight when weaker nations avoid getting China's wrath, and more than willing to gouge smaller nations economically.

Last Sunday, a protest by leaders affected by China's encroachment with Vietnam's claim that China has illegally purloined parts of Vietnamese territory. A statement says that the 1982 UNCLOS is the determinant for designating the national rights and control with legal interests over parts of the sea, confirmed Japan Times.

Also read: US Navy Ship Spent 161 Days at Sea, Navy Creates Bubble to Lessen COVID-19 Transmission

No action was included in the issuance of the statement, though by giving this statement that is usually silent and would not mess with China. It can be seen that these nations are starting to speak up against them.

The PLA Navy has been bullying other nations located on the other side of the Luzon Strait. The arrival of the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz in the Philippine Sea signaled the first dual-carrier exercises for some time since 2018.

These American supercarriers the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan with Carrier Strike Groups (CSGS) trained over the weekend, display American naval prowess that is a warning to China. Added to that are FONOPs and more American naval ships that give a stern message to China to back off. More demonstrative is the charging in of US Navy destroyers close to the Yellow Sea.

According to Rear Adm. George Wikoff, of the Carrier Strike Group 5, who said the dual-carrier ops show that America will support its allies by bringing in massive combat strength to protect American interests. Another is to maintain regional stability against any nation or entity, that threatens it. Since the pandemic, China has built up new areas and has threatened an oil exploration ship, rammed a Vietnamese fishing vessel, and pointed its guns at Ph Frigate, mention in USNI.

China has been threatening Taiwan by sending planes several times recently, and two bombers as well.

The PLA Navy is not pleased and wants to show the world it can match the US Navy. The US carriers, for no, are keeping the PLA Navy holed up.

Related article: Japan Newest Aircraft Carrier Nearly Done, China Threatened and May Want to Sink Them?

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Dr Lydia Foy from Athy will be a guest panellist on a live-streamed broadcast to mark five years since Ireland passed groundbreaking gender recognition legislation.

The Road To Recognition, which will be co-presented by the Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) and Gay Community News (GCN), will be broadcast on GCNs YouTube channel and Facebook page on Saturday, July 11 from 7.30pm to 9pm.

Ireland became, in July 2015, the fourth country in the world to specifically introduce gender recognition legislation based on self-determination, removing all medical criteria from the legal recognition process for those over 18.

Dr Foy, a retired dentist and transgender woman, lead legal challenges regarding gender recognition in Ireland over the past number of decades. Her battles to have her birth cert reflect her gender identity were important in putting gender recognition legislation on the agenda in Ireland. In 2016, Dr Foy received an Athy Municipal District Community Award for her work.

The Road to Recognition evening will feature a host of trans activists and allies, and performances from Irish LGBT+ artists.

Respect and recognition are important for all of us, not just for the trans community. We are all the arbiters of our own identity and being recognised for who you are is fundamental to our very being. Five years after the enactment of the Gender Recognition Act 2015, Ireland is a beacon of hope for trans people around the world," said TENI chair Sara R Phillips.

"In the run-up to the broadcast on Saturday, July 11, were asking our community to share their own #GenderRec5YearsOn on social media; their recollections from that time, photographs, videos, and the moments that made an impact. It wasnt all rosy, but our resilience got us through it, and we need to draw from that well now, not just for our LGBT+ community, but for our society as a whole."
A man who was allegedly found with cannabis plants and cannabis herb appeared at Naas District Court on July 2.

Mariusz Kolatka, 34, whose address was given as 2 Rochford Rise, Kilcock, faces allegations of possessing cannabis at Rathsillagh Upper, Fontstown, Athy.

Read more County Kildare news

Det Gda Seamus Doyle told the court of finding plants worth 64,000, cannabis herb worth 3,900 and 2,400 in cash.

He said the search took place on foot of a warrant and he found a fully functioning growhouse.

He said the defendant was not initially present and was contacted by his partner.

Det Gda Doyle opposed a bail application, saying he believed the defendant is a flight risk.

He said the defendant had no identification on him.

He said he stopped him in Suncroft on June 27 and he gave a different name using a Polish identification card. Det Gda Doyle said he believed the defendant was neither the man on the identification card nor Marius Kolatka.

He said the gardai would send his fingerprints to Interpol in an effort to establish the mans identity. He added he had no trace of any identification.

Det Gda Doyle said he believed the cannabis would be sold in Newbridge.

The defendant told the court that he voluntarily presented himself to gardai and he would turn up to answer charges.

He also said he could raise 2,000-3,000 for bail.

He further said he did not talk to a garda on June 27. He said he lost his identification card and had made contact with the Polish Embassy about a replacement but this could not be done immediately because of the coronavirus.

Solicitor Tim Kennelly said the defendant had never been charged or summonsed and had no previous convictions. He also said the evidence is circumstantial and the defendant has been in Ireland for seven years. He said there was no evidence that he would not turn up if granted bail and he had presented himself to the garda.

Sgt Brian Jacob said that if the defendant did not submit himself to the gardai, his partner would have been arrested.

Judge Desmond Zaidan declined to grant bail and adjourned the case until July 9, remanding the defendant in custody. The defendant will appear on that date via video link.
Over 130,000 people across Ireland received support through the Covid-19 Community Outreach (CCO) programme over the last three months.

Today, Wednesday, marks the end of the joint initiative by The Wheel, the national association of charities, and Irish Rural Link, the national network representing the interest of rural communities and funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development,

Since the Government announced the programme on March 27, 34 Local Community Champions across the country have worked tirelessly to link and support the work of community and voluntary organisations responding to meet the needs of those who were cocooning. The aim of the programme was to ensure no person would be left behind during the pandemic.

The Community Champions have provided ongoing support to 134,811 people, 14,877 community and voluntary organisations and mobilised 36,821 volunteers and made the programme the success it was.

Speaking of the work done both Deirdre Garvey, CEO of the Wheel and Seamus Boland, CEO Irish Rural Link said, We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all the Champions for their tremendous work and commitment over the last few months in providing ongoing support to the people, community & voluntary organisations and volunteers in their communities and made the programme the success it was.

They showed great leadership in their communities and by working together with their local authority, agencies and with community and voluntary organisations they ensured that the needs of every person were met.

Over the last three months, the Community Champions helped to join the dots and link thousands of people who were cocooning into local services so their needs were fully met, linked volunteers to hundreds of community and voluntary organisations and vice versa and identified gaps in services and reported these back to their local authority forum meeting.

They also dealt with a lot of social issues, such as loneliness among those cocooning, delivery of school meals and food parcels to families in need as well as helping people celebrate their birthdays when family were unable to celebrate with them.

Speaking about the ending of the CCO Programme, the Department of Rural and Community Development said, The Department was delighted to provide funding towards the COVID-19 Community Outreach Project. The Community Champions appointed across the country really sprang into action, helping to coordinate the local community response to the crisis. The DRCD works closely with the Community and Voluntary Sector and this project served to embed that relationship further. We look forward to continuing to work with the sector into the future to help our communities face the challenges of recovery.

The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on peoples mental health and wellbeing will be felt for some time and people affected by Covid-19 will continue to receive support through the governments Community Call initiative.

More information on your local Community Call Helpline is available here and the helpline is available from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Sunday.
Judge Kevin Kilrane said he was not too impressed with the actions of Leitrim County Council when he was told that a caravan had been taken from two brothers thus depriving them of somewhere to live.

Appearing before Carrick-on-Shannon District Court last Friday were brothers Bernard and Thomas McDonagh, no fixed abode, Carrick-on-Shannon.

The men were each charged with being intoxicated in public on June 14 last at Drumsna, Co Leitrim and June 17 last at Main St, Carrick-on- Shannon, Co Leitrim.

Thomas McDonagh was further charged with being intoxicated in public on June 25 last at Bridge St, Carrick-on-Shannon.

Thomas McDonagh said he didn't know why he was arrested.

Sgt Gallagher said the Gardai responded to a call at 4.45pm and had no option but to arrest him for his own safety.

Judge Kilrane said Thomas McDonagh and two others were residing in the Carrick-on-Shannon area at Annaduff.

He said they moved from a perfectly good house in Kiltyclogher because they said that in the space of a month they saw only one sheep and one person and were bored.

He said they bought a caravan and were set up on the slip road near Masonite.

Judge Kilrane said that during the winter they were living in appalling conditions with no heat or light and it was like something from 50 years ago in Ireland.

Gerry McGovern, solicitor representing Thomas McDonagh, said his client has a problem with drink.

Mr McDonagh told the judge he was going to pack it in, he'd no other choice.

He said in court that Leitrim County Council had taken away the caravan and they were homeless now. He said he stayed the night in his father's place but could not stay there as there was no space.

Judge Kilrane said he was a bit concerned with the County Council moving the caravan. He said the men didn't appear to be harming anyone or obstructing anyone and he would have thought that no evictions could take place during the Covid-19 restrictions.

I'm not too impressed with the actions of the County Council by depriving them of somewhere to live until there was something better, he said.

Bernard McDonagh told the court, we are destitute now, we have nowhere to live and he asked for the court's help in getting them a solicitor to deal with Leitrim County Council on their behalf.

Judge Kilrane said he didn't have the authority to assign a solicitor to them and advised them to go through the legal aid system or engage a private solicitor.

Mr McGovern told the judge he will point the men in the right direction.

The defendants were convicted and fined 50 each in respect of each charge and give three months to pay.
A MAN who was arrested during a garda operation targeting the activities of dissident republicans was granted bail after he appeared in court charged with firearms offences.

Robert Gardiner, 54, who has an address at Enaghroe, Fedamore was arrested last Friday during an operation which was led by members of the Special Detective Unit who were assisted by gardai from the Limerick division.

During the course of the searches two handguns, documentation and a significant amount of cash was seized, said a garda spokesperson.

Mr Gardiner, who was detained and questioned over the weekend, was brought before Limerick District Court on Monday after he was charged with suspicious possession of a .38inch special calibre revolver.

It is further alleged the serial number of the firearm was removed when it was recovered by garda.

There was no objection to bail subject to the defendant complying with certain conditions.

He must sign-on at a garda station in the city and he was ordered to surrender his passport to gardai.

The defendant was ordered to supply with a mobile phone number and he must keep the phone charged and turned on at all times.

Investigations are continuing following the operation and a file is to be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The case was adjourned to early September for DPPs directions.
FORMER Minister for Defence and current TD Willie ODea has launched a blistering attack on Taoiseach Micheal Martin for letting down and insulting the people of Limerick city over his ministerial choices.

The Fianna Fail TD took to Twitter this Thursday where, in two tweets, he lambasted his partys leader for his decision not to include any representation from Limerick city in either a senior or junior ministry.

Mr ODeas comments are the latest in what is now an escalating backlash against the Taoiseach for his Cabinet table choices.

I am bitterly disappointed for the people of Limerick that the 3rd city of the Republic and economic driver of the Mid-West has been completely overlooked for either senior or Junior Ministerial appointments. I have been inundated with messages from people who feel let down and grossly insulted, he said.

"There are 3 Government TDs out of four in Limerick City, yet Micheal Martin has felt it appropriate to insult all the people of Limerick City with this decision.



"It's strange if he thinks that we can deliver three out of four after this, he vented.

Mr ODea served in Cabinet with Mr Martin but has made known his unhappiness to colleagues about his exclusion from consideration.

Both Niall Collins, Fianna Fail, and Patrick O'Donovan, Fine Gael, who are in the Limerick County constituency got junior posts in the new government, but no one in the city, including Deputy O'Dea and the Green's Brian Leddin, received any position.

Mr O'Dea's comments have received a mixed response on Twitter with some people echoing his sentiments while others are stoutly opposed to his views.

"In government a wet weekend and FF already complaining they can't immediately resort to parish pump politics," tweeted one.

"Corkman in charge so no surprise," tweeted another.
SINN Fein TD Maurice Quinlivan is calling on the government to address the rising trolley numbers at University Hospital Limerick as an urgent priority.

The Limerick city TDs comments come as figures show the number of patients on trolleys at UHL had increased dramatically in the last week in June with 54 on trolleys this Thursday morning.

The INMOs statistics show the overcrowding crisis at University Hospital Limerick continues unabated.

The INMO figures for today, July 2, are the highest numbers we have witnessed since March 2020. There were 54 people on trolleys today at UHL. These are not just statistics, they are people who deserve better, said Mr Quinlivan.

Its disgraceful that this situation continues month on month, year on year. Our doctors and nurses have been doing an incredible job, particularly during these challenging times. They, and their patients, deserve better than to be working in such overcrowded conditions.

Mr Quinlivan is calling for a meeting with the newly appointed Minister of Health Stephen Donnelly.

The Minister needs to engage with the hospital stakeholders at a regional and national level and deliver for our patients. We hope that the new Minister is up for the challenge.

"Sinn Fein have a plan for our health service and I would like to invite the new Minister for Health to meet with myself in Limerick to discuss the changes needed that will allow patients to be treated with the dignity they deserve.

As the only opposition TD in Limerick, I will be holding the Minister to account so that we can achieve a health service and hospital with the quality of care that the people of Limerick deserve.
THE lure of Ireland under lockdown was too much for former LIT president and current vice-chancellor of a Welsh university, Maria Hinfelaar.

In a statement to the BBC, Dr Hinfelaar apologised "unreservedly" for making a trip to her holiday home in Clare in early April. She admitted the six-day sojourn was an "error of judgement".

The trip came to light when BBC Wales was contacted by someone from Shannon who saw Dr Hinfelaar's car in the town.

Dr Hinfelaar became vice-chancellor of Glyndwr University in Wrexham in 2016. When she stepped down as LIT president after 11 years in 2015, the Netherlands native said leaving Limerick has been her "toughest decision".

This is her third statement to the BBC on her lockdown trip. It was taken two-and-a-half weeks after people in Wales were told to stay at home to stop the spread of coronavirus. At the time, people in Wales could be fined 60 for breaking lockdown rules.

"I thought the trip was within the rules at the time but on reflection I accept it was an error of judgement and I apologise unreservedly," said Dr Hinfelaar in a statement to the BBC.

Dr Hinfelaar had previously said she "judged" the trip "to be essential and permissible within the guidance at the time."

Now after her apology, a spokesperson for Glyndwr University said: "Any further discussions regarding this matter will be conducted internally."

In an interview with the Limerick Leader in December 2015, Dr Hinfelaar said she feels she has "really become part of the city and region".

"Anyone who says anything unpleasant about Limerick, I take it to heart," she said.
Gardai are appealing to all dog owners to ensure their dogs are kept under control as Gardai have received nearly 50 reports, one in Limerick, of livestock being attacked since March 2020. Prosecution under Section 9 of Control of Dogs Act 1986 could result in one month in prison and/or 600 fine.

In one incident in Leitrim a dog attacked seven sheep on a farm. The owner was identified and had to pay damages to the farmer and the dog then had to be put down.

In another incident in Meath, a farmer shot two dogs as the dogs had killed six sheep and injured two more.

Inspector James White said "If your dog goes and attacks animals on someones land, you could be held liable for the damages and face prosecution. The farmer is also within their right to shoot any animal that is worrying their livestock.

"Whilst you might think your dog is friendly and placid at home, they can cause horrific injuries to other animal. We would ask that everyone ensures their dog is kept under control as nobody wants to see animals being harmed.

The following is a breakdown of incidents in Garda Divisions. Statistics are from 01/03/20 to 29/06/20 and are subject to change.

Sligo/Leitrim - 7

Galway - 6

Tipperary - 5

Roscommon/Longford - 4

Kildare - 4

Meath - 3

Cork West - 3

Donegal - 3

Wexford - 3

Cavan/Monaghan - 2

Cork North - 1

Westmeath - 1

Mayo - 1

Limerick - 1

Kerry - 1

Kilkenny/Carlow - 1

Laois/Offaly - 1

Total - 47

Prosecution under Section 9 of Control of Dogs Act 1986 could result in one month in prison and/or 600 fine.
Kanwariyas who enter Uttarakahnd's Haridwar defying the ban on the annual Kanwar Yatra will have to serve a 14-day quarantine here at their own expenses.

The decision was taken at a coordination meeting held on Wednesday with the DMs and SPs of neighbouring districts of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Haridwar District Magistrate C Ravishankar told reporters.

The meeting was held to devise a strategy in consultation with top officials of neighbouring districts for a strict implementation of the ban in view of public safety, he said.

The annual yatra which sees a huge congregation of kanwariyas in Haridwar to collect the holy Ganga water was cancelled this year in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

"It was decided to maintain a strict vigil and not allow any kanwariya to enter the city. In case they sneak in by train, they will be quarantined for 14 days at their own cost," the DM said.

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In June, an image filled with text circulated on social media that wrote Elijah McClain's rumored last words in the wake of his death in a police encounter.

A man's suspicious death

In August of last year, Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old black man, was on his way home after buying from a store when police officers blocked his path in Aurora, Colorado. The officers were responding to a report that there was a suspicious person with a ski mask.

According to Snopes, the encounter between police and McClain escalated, resulting in officers placing the black man in a chokehold and after a few days, resulted in McClain's death.

McClain occasionally wore masks whenever he went outside as he was suffering from a blood condition called anemia, leading him to get cold very quickly, as his family revealed.

After some struggle In the encounter, McClain was handcuffed, and officers immediately requested for paramedics on the scene. Respondents from the Aurora Fire Rescue injected McClain with ketamine, later on, to try and sedate him.

During McClain's transfer to a nearby hospital, he suffered cardiac arrest and later on Friday was declared "brain dead." His family expected him to be taken off of life support that afternoon and was later pronounced dead.

Also Read: President Donald Trump Signs Executive Order on Police Reform

Medical experts are unclear of the exact cause of McClain's cardiac arrest as an autopsy report by the Adams County coroner stated that the victim's cause of death was still undetermined.

The report added the cardiac arrest could have been caused by several options including natural, the police's chokehold, and could have been an accident.

"I'm sorry"

However, during his detention, McClain was seen to be in a state of distress, vomiting multiple times after police officers retrained him and pinned him to the ground. He then apologized to the officers for the incident and said it was an accident that resulted because he could not breathe properly, as reported by The New York Times.

It can be seen in the footage of the police officers' body camera that they had knocked him out with a chokehold two times and can be heard saying "at least once successfully," suggesting McClain had lost consciousness.

One report wrote that McClain was struggling violently against officers who were trying to hold him down. It also claimed that the victim's physical exertion could have resulted in his death and said it was unclear if the actions of the officers had any effect on him.

The lawyer who is representing McClain's family, Mari Newman, said that in response to the autopsy report, McClain would still be alive if police officers did not attack him during the encounter.

During the encounter, police officers threw McClain to the ground after they pushed him against a wall when he allegedly tried to grab one of their guns. The officers said the attempt was not seen in the footage because their body cameras had fallen off into the grass nearby.

According to The Sun, McClain's mother demanded the cops involved in her son's death be held responsible for their horrifying actions as the governor of Colorado reopens an investigation looking into the 23-year-old black man's death.

Related Article: George Floyd Criminal Record: Minneapolis Police Says He Was Charged With Armed Robbery

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has condemned in the strongest terms the "heinous and cowardly terrorist attack" that took place at Pakistan stock exchange building in Pakistan's Karachi, killing 11 people. But the UNSC's statement has come after much delay due to US and Germany's reluctance to sign the draft press statement prepared by China.

China introduced the statement on Tuesday but Germany stepped in to put a delay in issuing the statement at the last moment. Then, the US intervened also at the last moment.

The move to delay the statement by US and Germany is being read as silent solidarity with India, after the Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and PM Imran Khan blamed India for the attack.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack that took place in Karachi, Pakistan, on June 29, which resulted in several people killed," read the statement.

The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, according to the statement.

Four terrorists attacked the Pakistan stock exchange building. Two security guards and a police officer were killed in the attack, along with all the four terrorists. Several people, including three police officials, have been injured, the police said in a statement cited by Dawn.

The Baloch Liberation Army claimed the responsibility of the attack.

In the statement, the members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice and urged all states, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with the Government of Pakistan and all other relevant authorities in this regard.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed," it read.

"They reaffirmed the need for all states to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts," the statement said.

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Boris Johnsons government will allow almost 3 million Hong Kong citizens to move to the U.K., risking a further escalation of tensions with China after it enforced a sweeping security law on the former British colony.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the British prime minister said the new legislation contravenes the 1984 treaty between London and Beijing, which set out the one country, two systems" approach to protect Hong Kongs autonomy when it returned to Chinese control in 1997.

Under the U.K. plan, the status of British National (Overseas) passport holders will be upgraded to offer them a path to U.K. citizenship. BNO passports are held by 350,000 people in Hong Kong, with a further 2.5 million eligible for them. China accused the U.K. of meddling in its internal affairs after the proposal was first put forward in May.

The enactment and the imposition of this national security law constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British joint declaration," Johnson said. It violates Hong Kongs high degree of autonomy and is in conflict with Hong Kongs Basic Law."

Johnson said hed made clear that if China continued down this path, we would introduce a new route for those with British National Overseas status to enter the U.K., granting them limited leave to remain, with the ability to live and work in the U.K. and thereafter to apply for citizenship -- and that is is precisely what we will do now."

The British Passport Stoking Controversy in Hong Kong: QuickTake

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the new bespoke immigration route" will allow holders of BNO status to come to the U.K. without the current six month limit, granting them five years limited leave to remain, with the ability to live and work in the U.K. After these five years, they will be able to apply for settled status and, after a further twelve months with that status, for citizenship.

Family dependents will also be allowed into the U.K. and there will be no limit on the numbers allowed to apply, he said. However, Raab made clear he expects a large number" of those who are eligible to remain in Hong Kong or move elsewhere in the region.

On Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his cabinet was very actively" considering offering Hong Kong citizens safe haven. He didnt provide details on how that would be arranged.

We think thats important and very consistent with who we are as a people," said Morrison, whose government has had its own clashes with China this year that have soured relations with its largest trading partner.

In the U.K., Raab also restated his criticism of HSBC for backing the new law at the expense of Hong Kong citizens rights. I have been very clear in relation to HSBC and to all the banks -- the rights and freedoms and our responsibilities in this country to the people of Hong Kong should not be sacrificed on the altar of bankers bonuses," he said.

Speaking later on ITVs Peston" program, Raab acknowledged that the U.K. cant stop China blocking Hong Kong residents from leaving, but that he hoped that would not happen.

Reputational Risk

I wouldnt want to be naive about this, I think we need to be realistic," he said. But I do think China as a rising leading member of the international community is sensitive to the reputational risk in all of this."

The Chinese Embassy in London hit back in a statement, saying that the U.K. had indicated that the new policy would not apply to Chinese citizens in Hong Kong who hold BNO passports.

If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms guiding international relations," the Chinese Embassy said. We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures."

The spat over passports is one of a series of flash-points in U.K.-China relations, which have deteriorated on issues ranging from the British response to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong to the ongoing debate over whether Huawei Technologies Co. can retain a role in building the U.K.s next-generation 5G telecommunications networks.

In an interview with Sky News in June, Raab said the U.K. would be prepared to sacrifice a post-Brexit free trade deal with China to protect Hong Kong citizens.

International Responsibilities

We want a positive relationship with China," Raab told Parliament on Wednesday. It is precisely because we respect China as a leading member of the international community that we expect the Chinese government to meet its international obligations to live up to its international responsibilities."

The U.K. is not alone in criticizing Chinas new national security law, which came into force just ahead of the July 1 anniversary of Hong Kongs return to Chinese rule, a symbolic occasion usually marked by mass protests against Beijing. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said Hong Kong can no longer be considered sufficiently autonomous, and President Donald Trump is considering revoking some or all of its special trade privileges.

Meanwhile the G-7 group of nations has said the law would jeopardize a system which has allowed Hong Kong to become one of the worlds most prosperous regions."

The national security law is aimed at punishing acts of secession, subversion of state power, terrorism and collusion" with foreign and external forces. Separately, Hong Kong lawmakers passed legislation on June 4 that would punish anyone who shows disrespect for Chinas national anthem -- something that is already a crime in the mainland.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who is supported by Beijing, has defended the plan, insisting it has wide public support and the citys freedoms would be preserved.

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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Pakistan has banned popular battle royale game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, known also as PUBG . The country has temporarily banned the game after raised complaints against it being addictive and detrimental to players' health, according to a notification issued by PTA, the country's telecommunications regulatory body.

"PTA has received numerous complaints against PUBG wherein it is stated that the game is addictive, wastage of time and poses a serious negative impact on the physical and psychological health of the children," Pakistan Telecommunication Authority stated in a Twitter post.

The Telecom authority claimed that this new step was taken after they received numerous complaints from concerned people. This was also pushed by PTA due to certain media reports which attributed cases of suicide to PUBG.

"Honorable Lahore High court has also directed PTA to look into the issue and decide the matter after hearing the complainants. In this regard, a hearing is being conducted on 9th of July 2020," PTA said in a statement.

On June 24, a 16-year-old boy had committed suicide in Hanjarwal area by hanging himself from a ceiling fan of his house when he "missed his mission" in PUBG, dawn.com had reported. The police also confirmed that the boy named Mohammad Zakarya took the extreme step for not completing his task while playing the battle royale game.

"We found his mobile phone on the bed with the PUBG game on at that time near his body. We immediately called the Punjab Forensic Science Agency for further investigation into the incident," Dawn.com quoted Saddar Division SP Operations Ghazanfar Syed as saying.

PUBG has been a concern in India as well with a few reports that have linked the online game with serious addiction and in some cases, suicide.

In the battle royale game, the character is dropped in their choice of map, which is usually a restricted piece of land with other players and/or a team. They are then pushed into restricted circles in order to survive the game by beating other players in the game. This carries on till the play zone is small and the gamers are pushed to be the last team/player standing.

Depending on the skillset, the player is also ranked in a system that starts from Bronze and goes up to Conqueror. The game is available in different versions for different formats including mobile, PC and consoles.

(with inputs from ANI)

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The 2020 Independence Day holiday weekend looks a lot different from previous years in the Bay Area. Fireworks shows are cancelled, and face-mask wearing and social distancing while outside is still mandatory across the state.

The region's state parks and beaches, which normally see one of their busiest weekends of year, have instituted varying restrictions on visitors to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus over the holiday.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation states that "it is important for visitors to continue to practice physical distancing and avoid congregating with people outside their immediate household. Everyone has the responsibility to mitigate the spread of COVID-19."

More for you News What am I allowed to do outside this Fourth of July?

Here's a run down what is and isn't open over the July 4th weekend:

Ano Nuevo State Park: The beach is temporarily closed to vehicular access to reduce the density of visitors from July 3-5. This means there are no public parking facilities, and parking on roadways is prohibited. Beaches are open to local residents that can walk or bike into the public outdoor spaces.

Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve: The park is open but visitors are being asked to leave if there are too many people to allow for the required physical distance.

Bean Hollow State Beach: The beach is temporarily closed to vehicular access to reduce the density of visitors from July 3-5. This means there are no public parking facilities, and parking on roadways is prohibited. Beaches are open to local residents that can walk or bike into the public outdoor spaces.

Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach: The beach is open, although the McKay parking lot and the Crab Cove visitor center are closed.

Mount Diablo State Park: The park is open, although the Summit parking area is closed, along with the barbecue areas and campgrounds.

China Camp State Park: The beach is open but visitors are being asked to leave if there are too many people to allow for the required physical distance.

Mount Tamalpais State Park: The park is open, including all parking lots, restrooms and trails.

Samuel P. Taylor State Park: The park is open, including all parking lots, restrooms and trails.

Tomales Bay State Park: The park is open, including all parking lots, restrooms and trails.

Angel Island State Park: The park is open, including the boat docks, vessel mooring area, restrooms and kiosks. All other buildings, tours and camping areas are closed.

Robert Louis Stevenson State Park: Although it is open, the Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District is asking all visitors to avoid the area, as they do not have enough parking for the volume of visitors theyve been receiving lately.

Half Moon Bay State Beach: Walk or bike-in access for locals only from July 3-5 to avoid overcrowding on the holiday weekend. Parking lots will be closed and parking on roadways is banned.

Montara State Beach: Walk or bike-in access for locals only from July 3-5 to avoid overcrowding on the holiday weekend. Parking lots will be closed and parking on roadways is banned.

Pacifica State Beach: Walk or bike-in access for locals only from July 3-5 to avoid overcrowding on the holiday weekend. Parking lots will be closed and parking on roadways is banned.

Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park: Walk or bike-in access for locals only from July 3-5 to avoid overcrowding on the holiday weekend. Parking lots will be closed and parking on roadways is banned.

San Gregorio State Beach: Walk or bike-in access for locals only from July 3-5 to avoid overcrowding on the holiday weekend. Parking lots will be closed and parking on roadways is banned.

Henry W. Coe State Park: The park is open but with very limited public parking available. Once lots fill, the park will close to additional vehicles.

Sonoma Coast State Park: Walk or bike-in access for locals only from July 3-5 to avoid overcrowding on the holiday weekend. Parking lots will be closed and parking on roadways is banned.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area: Parks and beaches are open except for:

All picnic areas in Marin and San Francisco counties

Kirby Cove Day Use Area

Bicentennial Campground, Haypress Campground and Hawk Camp

Muir Beach fire pits

Marin Headlands Visitor Center

Nike Missile Site

Point Bonita Lighthouse

Alcatraz Island

Ocean Beach fire pits

Presidio Visitor Center

Fort Point National Historic Site

Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center

Lands End Lookout Visitor Center

San Francisco beaches: All San Francisco beach parking lots are closed through the Fourth of July weekend. Closures include:

Baker Beach

China Beach

Crissy Field (West Bluff and East Beach)

Fort Funston

Fort Point (Parking Lot and Long Avenue)

Golden Gate Bridge (Langdon Court and Battery East)

Lands End (Merrie Way and Navy Memorial parking)

Marina Green

Ocean Beach

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

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Despite Texas surge of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday evening that he doesnt need the advice of the nations top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci.

Fauci said today hes concerned about states like Texas that skipped over certain things. He doesnt know what hes talking about, Patrick told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview. We havent skipped over anything. The only thing Im skipping over is listening to him.

Patrick also said Fauci has been wrong every time on every issue, but did not elaborate on specifics.

RECORD NUMBERS: Texas COVID-19 cases jump 7K in one day, highest increase yet

During a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, Fauci said the nation is going in the wrong direction with coronavirus cases.

It could get very bad, Fauci said, warning that new cases could go up to 100,000 a day if people continue to defy advice on social distancing and face masks. He said states like Arizona, California, Florida and Texas have each had to roll back reopening plans as cases in those states climb, noting that half of the new cases nationwide have been reported in those states. The sharp increase of new infections and hospitalizations rates, he said, have also jeopardized reopening plans throughout the country.

Weve got to make sure that when states start to try and open again, they need to follow the guidelines that have been very carefully laid out, with regard to checkpoints, Fauci said. What weve seen in several states are different iterations of that, perhaps maybe in some, going too quickly and skipping over some of the checkpoints.

Those checkpoints have been outlined by the White House; before proceeding with a phased economic comeback, states are encouraged to satisfy criteria related to case numbers, testing and hospital capacity.

Fauci is not the only expert sounding the alarm on case numbers in Texas. Earlier this week, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, included Austin in a group of metro areas she categorized as concerning given the citys positivity rate over the past seven days.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott shut down bars across the state for a second time as part of a series of moves to contain a coronavirus spike in Texas. He also scaled back restaurant capacity to 50%, shut down rafting and tubing businesses, and banned outdoor gatherings of over 100 people unless approved by local officials.

On Thursday, Patrick said closing bars was the right decision.

In my view, the worst thing we can do is to lock down Texas again. Thats not what Gov. Abbott wants. Thats not what I want, he said. But we need help from the young people out there to help bring these number of cases down and free up hospital beds.

Patrick previously sparked a firestorm for saying in an earlier Fox News appearance he would rather perish from the new coronavirus than see the economy destroyed for his grandchildren by overreaction to the disease.

HOT SPOTS: Texas counties with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases

No one reached out to me and said, As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if that's the exchange, Im all in, he said at the time.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors.

Statewide, more than 6,500 patients in Texas were hospitalized with the coronavirus Tuesday, a record-breaking number and a figure that has gone up nearly every day since June 1. According to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services, there were 1,405 available staffed intensive care unit beds statewide and 13,711 available hospital beds, but with regional disparities.

The increase in infections here came as the local leaders have pleaded with Abbott to allow them to issue stay-at-home orders or mandate face coverings. We are having an experiment, a gamble, in the hopes that we can be the first community that suddenly flattens the curve without a stay-at-home order, said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo who represents parts of Houston, one of the countrys fastest growing coronavirus hot spots.

In his interview, Patrick told Ingraham that the state will make further decisions based on the listening to a lot of science and a lot of doctors. Then, he said, Gov. Abbott, and myself and other state leaders will make the decision. No thank you, Dr. Fauci.
If you were attempting to tell a story in these dreary days about the rewards of believing in the best of people, you could do no better than the smart, affirmative joy that's found in Netflix's fresh take on "The Baby-Sitters Club," a 10-episode drama aimed squarely at the tweenage-girl set, but willing to share its goodwill with anyone who needs a lift.

I'm about as far from the show's intended demographic as a person can get, but "The Baby-Sitters Club" is yet another reminder of the lucky life of a critic, who gets to watch everything and discover the unexpected trove of kindness and spirit seen here. The women in my life - especially those friends who grew up in the 1980s and '90s reading the 2oo-plus novels in the original book series conceived by Ann M. Martin - are way, way ahead of me on this: "The Baby-Sitters Club," which has sold more than 180 million paperbacks and was previously adapted into a short-lived TV series and a 1995 movie, was never only about babysitting.

It's an entire ethic, impressively built on the tenet that we are each of us becoming a better and more responsible person every day. How the books and now this series are able to do this without seeming saccharine, preachy or otherwise Disneyfied is part of why "The Baby-Sitters Club" is such a watchable treat. Not only do things generally work out for these girls, it works out because they work at it.

Within its opening minutes, one cannot help but groove on the show's welcoming nature, as a seventh-grader named Kristy Thomas (Sophie Grace) sees how desperate her single mom (Alicia Silverstone) is to find a last-minute sitter for her little brother. Kristy hatches a plan to start a full-service babysitting partnership in idyllic Stoneybrook, Conn. She recruits her best friend Mary Anne Spier (Malia Baker), their budding-artist friend, Claudia Kishi (Momona Tanada), and the new girl at school, Stacey McGill (Shay Rudolph). Later they are joined by another new girl, Dawn Schafer (Xochitl Gomez).

The characters all hew to the archetypes Martin originally set forth, in that Kristy is bossy and sometimes impetuous. Mary Ann is shy but wise. Claudia's creativity is at odds with her parents' expectations. And Stacey just wants a fresh start after a disastrous viral video incident at her old school in Manhattan.

Showrunner Rachel Shukert (whose TV work includes "GLOW") and executive producer Lucia Aniello ("Broad City") clearly want nothing more than to do right by the books they loved as girls, while carefully steering "Baby-Sitters Club" toward a thoughtfully conceived Gen-Z upgrade.

That naturally means a stronger emphasis on the club's diversity - as well as that of their Stoneybrook universe - not just in terms of color or ethnicity, but a broader sense of community and dignity. These babysitters, as well as the tykes they care for, are a new breed. When one client's son prefers dresses over jeans, plays princess and refers to herself as a girl, this Baby-Sitters Club is not only equipped to relate to her, they are also more chill. That old "BSC" magic kicks in, as a viewer of any age finds characters to emulate.

And although they're as wired and Instagram-dependent as their peers, these girls honor their predecessors by choosing an analog approach to business, circulating paper fliers in the neighborhood and directing all calls from clients to a landline phone in Claudia's bedroom (it came free with the family's internet service, she explains).

It isn't long before a rival group of high-schoolers try to steal the club's idea, availing themselves of social networks and online advertising campaigns. The show's unambiguous response to this is also its only slightly-off note, conveying that these savvy teens are somehow more shallow - so tech-obsessed that they don't pay enough attention to the children they're supposed to be watching.

The neighbors eventually come to prefer Kristy's club, but the show never quite reconciles its place in 2020. Is it just pure fantasy to imagine that 12- and 13-year-old girls are still available to babysit? That they so easily come and go between houses? And that today's hypervigilant parents will hire them? Or has this notion lapsed into a fantasy that still includes paper routes and boys who mow lawns?

As their business takes off and expands, the girls are launched on the real objective here, which is to introduce them to life's many lessons. Though they strive to be mature, they are as susceptible as anyone to hormonal crushes, rejection and tween angst. Their parents are entering relationships (in Kristy's mother's case, headed toward marrying a wealthy neighbor, to her daughter's chagrin) or grieving divorces and other losses. Peers at school can sometimes be mean; and often there are conflicts within the Baby-Sitters Club itself.

None of this would be effective - or as worth watching - without the show's remarkably talented cast of young actresses, all of whom either never learned the kidz-show style of overacting ("schmacting," we sometimes call it), or were never afflicted with it to begin with. They are wholly believable in the roles of these idealized youths, with especially good performances from Tanada and Baker.

Shukert's desire to both preserve and update the franchise's original appeal pays off with an appropriate zing or two in the dialogue. ("I didn't know you were such a wilderness expert," one girl says to another during a long-anticipated summer getaway at Camp Moosehead. "Well, I identify more as a horse girl," the other replies, "but there's a lot of overlap.")

At camp, there's a full-on revolt over socioeconomics, as Dawn and Claudia discover that the poorer kids aren't allowed to participate in art lessons, which cost extra. As they barricade their cabins and demand equality, some viewers might bristle at the notion that "The Baby-Sitters Club" has gone political. To those fussy few, I'd offer this challenge: Just try to find a show that better promotes that most sacred of conservative American values - free enterprise.

- - -

"The Baby-Sitters Club" (10 episodes) is available for streaming Friday on Netflix.
Donkeeboy, aka, Alex Roman, Jr. and his mother Sylvia, known as Donkeemom, collaborated once again creating a mural in honor of Pfc. Vanessa Guillen.

20-year-old Guillen, who is from Houston and graduated from Cesar Chavez High School, was last seen on April 22 in the parking lot of her Regimental Engineer Squadron Headquarters, 3rd Cavalry Regiment on Fort Hood.

MAN LINKED TO GUILLEN'S CASE TAKES HIS OWN LIFE:Equusearch: Man linked to Vanessa Guillen's disappearance takes own life amid Fort Hood probe

"We were asked quite a bit via Instagram if we were going to do a mural," said Roman. "We knew we were going to do a mural, but it was important to find the right location."

The mural is located at Taqueria Del Sol at 8114 Park Pl Blvd, Houston, TX 77017.

"Del Sol has been here 35 years, and it's in the same neighborhood she was from," said Roman "She went to high school here. I grew up in this neighborhood for the majority of my life, and we felt this would be a good location for it. It's high traffic, so a lot of people will see it. We wanted visibility as well."

Roman said he began sketching the mural on Tuesday night, alongside his mom and his art students from Break Free Hip-Hop School in Houston. "It was amazing to watch them work on the mural," said Roman.

A candlelight vigil was held at the site on Wednesday, July 1, once the mural was complete.

On Tuesday, June 30, human remains believed to be Guillen were discovered along the Leon River. Texas Equusearch founder Tim Miller stated in a press conference that he was "optimistic" the remains belonged to Guillen. A medical examiner is working to identify the remains.

Guillen's family held a press conference in Washington D.C. on Wednesday morning, demanding a congressional investigation into the case.

According to the U.S. Army, "One military suspect is deceased after taking his own life yesterday in Killeen, Texas, and a civilian suspect has been arrested by the Texas Rangers in connection with the disappearance of Pfc. Vanessa Guillen."

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If you're a traveler for whom the close quarters of a cruise ship dining room, swimming pool or casino are the stuff of pandemic nightmares, it might be time to consider a micro cruise. Voyages on these extremely small ships - as few as four passengers and often no more than 20 - offer many of the joys of traditional cruising but with virtually no risk of exposure to crowded ports, tour buses or lido decks.

Besides the sense of security they offer travelers, these small-ship experiences offer perks the big ships don't, including access to small towns and secluded natural areas and the chance to travel at a slower pace. So whether it's searching for polar bears amid a field of Nordic sea ice, discovering storybook villages in England or France, or snorkeling in a remote cove in Croatia, a micro cruise can take you right there - and you'll never have to jockey for position at the buffet table.

There's no universal industry definition for micro cruises. The term can be used to describe any standard cruises of four days or fewer, or it can describe a boat with a capacity of anywhere from four to 100 passengers. "I prefer to think of ours as 'nano-cruises,' " says Stephanie Sack, who handles marketing for Barge Lady, which sells trips on leisure canalboats in France. She offers boats that hold between four and 12 passengers.

Barge and micro cruises, she adds, "were social distancing before it was a thing."

Nicola Caygill, managing director of Micro-Cruising, which brokers mostly seagoing motor yachts and sailboats, has two definitions for what makes - or doesn't make - a cruise ship micro. "Is there a line for the buffet, and can I dive off the side of the boat?" If the answer is no to the former and yes to the latter, then it's a micro cruise.

Micro cruises typically cover a limited distance, allowing guests to explore one region in depth. Barge Lady cruises may chug along just 50 miles of the idyllic canals in Gascony, France, in the space of a week, while expedition micro cruises with Secret Atlas explore a few hundred miles of coastal Svalbard - the wild, remote Norwegian archipelago that's halfway to the North Pole - in eight days. Travelers aboard a self-guided narrow boat in the canals of Britain might navigate just a few dozen miles in a week's time.

A boat that sleeps 12 guests may have a staff of anywhere from two to six, depending on how high-touch the level of service. These will include the captain (who is often the boat owner), a cook, and sometimes a steward or a naturalist/guide. Comfort levels vary vessel to vessel, ranging from the equivalent of a perfectly acceptable guest room at your in-laws' to a floating five-star hotel suite. Bathrooms are usually en suite, except on some budget-priced cruises. Onboard amenities are limited and typically include a dining room, a lounge, an observation deck and, with any luck, a hot tub.

Depending on the type of boat and itinerary, a day on board may start with a few hours of cruising through canals, tributaries and locks, where passengers have the option of biking or walking alongside the boat - whose top speed maxes out at 4 mph. On Secret Atlas expeditions, a morning excursion in a Zodiac raft may take guests up close to glaciers or seabird rookeries or to explore the remains of early human settlements. Plus, co-founder Andy Marsh says they've never run a Svalbard cruise where they haven't spotted polar bears.

Passengers are back on board for lunch, then off for an afternoon excursion - more nature or anthropological outings for Secret Atlas guests, and visits to castles, villages and wineries for barge-goers. Evenings are spent stargazing on deck or gathered in the passenger lounge to share stories and photos from the day.

Meals aboard range from simple and satisfying to full-on decadent - like grand cru wines and four-course meals on Barge Lady's upper-end cruises, with ingredients guests sourced that day as the barge passed a market town or an artisanal cheesemaker. Not to be outdone, luxury brand Belmond offers a seven-day Burgundy, France, cruise with daily pit stops at Michelin-starred restaurants.

As the level of poshness and individualized service might suggest, a hosted barge or expedition micro cruise does not come cheap. Secret Atlas's Svalbard voyages start at $6,000 per person for an eight-day expedition. Barge Lady offers sailings on three-star barges from $4,000 per person per week, while six-star barges begin at $6,500 per person. A six-night Belmond cruise through the Rhone Valley with 11 other guests is priced at $7,900 per person. Most vessels are available for exclusive buyout, though that doesn't result in much cost savings.

But micro cruises aren't just the dream of the wealthy or aspirational. Caygill, whose offerings can top out at $250,000 aboard a luxury yacht, also offers a handful of relatively inexpensive sailings in Croatia and Greece aboard a 22- to 28-person gulet, a traditional wooden sailboat. These week-long cruises are for the "young and fun" crowd, whom Caygill describes as mostly "18- to 30-year-olds who party all night, sleep late and swim all day." A bare-bones private cabin for two or three, with no air conditioning and shared bathrooms, starts around $800 per person. For more comfort and social distancing, and maybe a less raucous party, the company also offers similar itineraries on modern, 36-person motor yachts that are quite a few steps up from a gulet. Double cabins with air conditioning and en suite bathrooms start at $1,400 per person per week.

Other less costly micro cruise options are of the DIY variety. British-based Drifters Waterway Holidays rents self-piloted narrowboats - traditional crafts that are no more than 7 feet wide and 70 feet long - the maximum dimensions that can navigate Britain's bucolic network of canals, locks and low bridges. A week-long offseason rental of a four-person narrow boat starts at $900, while the same week for a 12-person boat - the largest available - runs from $1,700 and up. All boats are self-catering, and most small towns along the canals have at least one grocery store and pub.

Hopping off narrowboats, bouncing along in Zodiac rafts, jumping into the Mediterranean Sea and biking along French canals - it all requires a moderate level of fitness, though Nigel Stevens, director of Drifters, says that "most people who think they can do it find they can do it." What micro cruises might demand more than physical fitness is a sense of adventure, flexibility, and a willingness to slow down, open up and step away from the constant stimulation of a traditional big-boat cruise.

In fact, all the micro cruise and self-piloted boat purveyors interviewed for this article agreed that the kind of travelers drawn to micro cruises probably wouldn't set foot on a mega-cruise ship even if the novel coronavirus never existed. Caygill says her clients wouldn't consider the big ships, where, she says, "the ship is the destination." With the cruises she sells, "the destination is the destination. They just happen to have a nice ship to go back to."

Secret Atlas's trips are "designed for people who really want to explore Svalbard, learn about the natural environment and climate change, and travel in a sustainable way," says Marsh, whose clientele ranges from millennials to baby boomers. "They might be from completely different walks of life, but they're united because of the experience they have on board." And while micro cruises often attract solo travelers, they're probably not well suited to loners, or to those who prefer to blend in anonymously with 3,000 of their fellow passengers. The journeys are about forming new friendships and sharing moments. "You get on the barge as strangers on Sunday," as Sack puts it. "And by Tuesday, you're blood brothers."
Millions of Americans are waiting for news on the second stimulus check, and United States President Donald Trump has announced his support for the second set of payments.

A larger second stimulus check

On Wednesday, Trump said on Fox Business that he actively supports a second stimulus check to be distributed to citizens of the United States. The US president also supports a larger amount to be given out.

According to Forbes, Trump noted, however, that they have to do it properly despite his open support. The president also said he supported a larger number than the Democrats suggested. The statement is by far the clearest indication of Trump's position on the second stimulus check.

Last month, Trump said there would be another stimulus package that would be released shortly. However, there have been multiple stimulus package proposals being thrown into the discussion, ranging from one-time $1,200 checks to monthly $2,000 payments.

Trump, however, did not further detail which plan or package he was referring to when he expressed his support of a second stimulus check, but some claim it was most likely the $1,200 single payment check that Democrats proposed.

If the US president gets his way in Congress, his plans for a second stimulus check will entail a much larger payout than the previous $1,200 payments given to individuals. The second stimulus would then come from the HEROES Act, which is given a total of $3 trillion in funds to be distributed as stimulus payments.

Also Read: Second Stimulus Check Release For Announcement Soon With $6,000 Max Per Family?

The new act, if passed, would give each individual $1,200 along with another $1,200 for each dependent to a maximum of three, which, unlike the CARES Act, would include high school and college students.

Trump's statements suggest he would be supporting a stimulus check that would distribute more than just the $1,200 the HEROES Act would give, as reported by English AS. Despite his support of the payments, however, Trump would still have to hope that Congress passes the proposal for it to actually be given a chance of supporting the millions of Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Opposing the payments

Republicans, on the other hand, oppose the potential of a second stimulus check including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who previously stated that the HEROES Act would be "dead on arrival" when it gets to the senate.

Democrats have given the act its approval and are only waiting for the Republicans to make their final decision.

Although Trump showed his support for the second set of direct payments, he also favored a return-to-work bonus that would encourage citizens to get back to their jobs to start the revival of the economy.

It is unclear, however, if a return-to-work bonus would go along with a second stimulus check. Still, Senator Rob Portman proposed the benefit which would result in an individual getting money if they go back to work or a worker going back to their job if they were furloughed.

The proposal is meant to be an alternative to officials extending unemployment benefits past July 31. With that, however, the unemployment benefits that gave $600 per week and was set to end by the end of July, will be expiring one week early, enabling states to stop giving payments to unemployed individuals as early as July 25 or July 26.

Related Article: Second Stimulus Check: Is It Coming to Americans With an Increase to $2,000

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We arrived at the Old Faithful Lodge 10 minutes too early. As the front desk scrambled June 8 to open for Yellowstone National Park's 2020 summer season, the list of predictable geyser eruptions wasn't quite ready.

In this summer of covid-19, not much is running as usual. Yellowstone closed in response to the pandemic March 24 and began reopening under a plan May 18. All entrances opened June 1, and visitor numbers stood at just over half of normal in the nine days that followed.

How many visitors will hit the road to the United States' sixth-most-visited national park is anyone's guess, a National Park Service spokesman said.

Perched over a hot spot in the Earth's crust (mostly in Wyoming), Yellowstone is the product of three mammoth volcanic eruptions. It was established as the first U.S. national park in 1872 because of its unique geothermal activity, and still contains the world's highest concentration of geysers and hot springs - more than 10,000 in all.

The park's natural beauty is complemented by an abundance of wildlife - free-ranging bison, trumpeter swans, elk, bears and (since their reintroduction to the park 25 years ago) even wolves.

Some of the West's early frontiersmen, among them John Colter and Jim Bridger, first passed here in the early 1800s. Colter's descriptions of "hidden fires, smoking pits" and a pervasive sulfur smell along the Shoshone River near Cody, Wyo., were later broadly applied to Yellowstone, leading early historians to mistakenly label it "Colter's Hell."

Closer to heaven, it turns out. We stopped in Cody this June and the summer before to experience the Old West's flavor before joining Yellowstone's annual stream of 4 million visitors.

It's wild, unpredictable country. Turn a corner, and a new surprise reveals itself: bison stopping traffic, plumes of steam, the inescapable smell of sulfur.

The Crow, long before the fur trappers came along, simply referred to the Shoshone River as "Stinking Water."

Rounding a turn last June at Mammoth Hot Springs, one of the park's myriad bubbling wonders, I found myself wondering how to corral the words to describe it.

Luckily, two youngsters bailed me out, distilling the mild sulfur smell and a gleaming staircase of pinks, oranges and browns into a two-word debate.

"Stinky," said the boy, Nate Rauenhorst, 9, of Incline Village, Nev.

"Purty," countered his sister, Sophia, 12. This continued for some time until the boy yielded.

"It is stinky, but it sure is purty," Nate conceded.

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody died over a century ago, but his influence looms large in the city that bears his name. For starters, there's chuck wagon cook Ron Reed tending to biscuits in front of the city's biggest tourist attraction.

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is actually five museums wrapped into one. Get there about noon, as we did, and you can munch on a golden-brown biscuit and listen to Reed recite cowboy poetry around his fire.

"This is a taste of the past," he told us.

Inside the museum, exhibits trace the story of Buffalo Bill himself, from chief of scouts for the Army's Fifth Cavalry to a legendary Western showman, from making millions to bankruptcy. The Plains Indian Museum holds artifacts of breathtaking beauty, as well as telling the recent Native American history of betrayal and renewal. Other center museums feature Western art, a renovated firearms collection that reopened in 2019 and a kid-friendly look at natural history. On our most recent visit we saw masked staff members and plentiful sanitizing stations; it was a weekday afternoon, and sparse crowds made distancing easy.

Cody (population 10,000) was designed as a way station for tourists to and from Yellowstone, just over 50 miles east. Its compact downtown of Western storefronts can be explored in a leisurely afternoon.

We found only slight changes this June from our visit the summer before. Few people were using face coverings. Social distancing measures were in place at restaurants and attractions. Two major attractions - a mock street gunfight and the Cody Nite Rodeo - delayed their seasonal openings to June 15 and June 20, respectively.

Business owners are anxious to see what the next few months will bring.

"Cody relies on summer tourism to Yellowstone to get us through the winter," said Rodney Miears, co-owner of the Station by Cody Coffee Roaster. "What will happen this summer? That's a big question mark."

Cody's townspeople are friendly. They ask how you are doing and wait for a reply. Sidewalk rows of U.S. flags snap in the breeze, and the smell of leather drifts from Wayne's Boot Shop. You can grab a cup of coffee and curl up with a book at Legends Bookstore.

Window displays at the Custom Cowboy Shop whispered to me of distant days when I had my own horse and saddle. I listened, walking out with a bagful of goodies and a new Stetson on my head.

We stayed at the comfortable Western-themed Cody Hotel, where employees were masked and behind plexiglass, and we ran into no other guests on the elevators or in common areas. It's near the weathered boardwalks of Old Trail Town, a collection of historical cabins and artifacts, from arrowheads to barbed wire to furnishings.

We rode bikes along the green, frothy Shoshone River to near the base of the Buffalo Bill Dam one afternoon. Last year we rafted the river through red-rock canyons with Wyoming River Trips; this year they are using new hygiene protocols, including limiting rafts to six participants.

One evening in Cody found us listening to fiddles and guitars at Dan Miller's Cowboy Music Revue, a tribute to a time when, as Miller sang, "a hoss and a rope and a gun ... tamed the West."

Yellowstone is gigantic, more than 3,400 square miles of mountains, rivers and meadows, and just a half-hour north of another majestic national park, Grand Teton.

Yet Yellowstone is not so big that you can't enjoy the range of its beauty, and not so busy that you can't experience nature in peace - provided you're willing and able to hike away from the crowds.

This summer, social distancing signs have joined the standard warnings against wandering into dangerous geothermal areas. Rangers and concessions staff donned face coverings, but most visitors we saw did not.

Everyone huddles around Old Faithful - the fairly predictable, world-renowned geyser near the west entrance.

Last summer we joined that thousands-strong throng, which stood at a mere 200 or so during our most recent visit in early June. Truth be told, we prefer the leisurely drives past meadows and streams and the plentiful hiking opportunities.

The drives took us past Mount Washburn, where snowbanks held stubborn reminders of winter, but wildflowers valiantly pushed their purples and yellows toward the June sun. We saw a black bear cub rolling in a meadow, a bald eagle angrily chasing an osprey in flight, elk in bunches, bighorn sheep clinging to a slope and too many shaggy bison to count.

Last year in Hayden Valley, one of the park's best wildlife-viewing spots, we stopped near twilight and joined a knot of visitors excitedly whispering, hunched over their spotting scopes.

"There he is."

"There's two - no, three."

And so on, but despite my best efforts and a huge telephoto lens, I saw only shadows, not the elusive wolves flitting in the distance.

We also fished for cutthroat trout last summer on Yellowstone Lake and this year took a five-mile round-trip hike to ethereal Fairy Falls. That hike also offers the best views of the Grand Prismatic Spring, the otherworldly hot spring that is among the park's biggest draws.

Such a hike is the perfect way to escape the park's more-crowded areas.

We took the guidebooks' warnings on grizzlies seriously, toting a canister of bear spray on a six-mile round-trip hike from Artist Point, with its sublime view of the 308-foot Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, along the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to secluded Ribbon Lake. There, we shared the lovely view of pond lilies and meadows with only some curious gray jays.

Park accommodations run the gamut from tent camping to historic hotels such as the Old Faithful Inn and the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. At this time it is unclear when those landmarks will reopen.

"We're hoping for sometime in July," said Mike Keller, general manager of Yellowstone National Park Lodges, operated by the Xanterra Travel Collection, the park's concessionaire. "We're answering to seven different health agencies, and obviously safety is our foremost consideration."

A phased campground reopening began June 15, but already two-thirds of summer campground reservations are taken.

Yellowstone's potential is constantly waiting below the surface, revealing itself in colorful pools, bubbling mud pots and angry torrents of heated water.

Last summer we saw dozens of people waiting for unpredictable Steamboat Geyser to erupt, and I listened as one man asked seasonal park ranger Laura Bueter when it might blow.

"I don't know," she answered. "If I knew for sure, I would probably be God."

For predictable, you park the car at the Old Faithful visitor center, bike the Upper Geyser Basin's paved trail and take in the majestic beauty of Castle Geyser, colorful Morning Glory Pool and more. Then join the crowds at Old Faithful, which spouts every hour or two within time windows predicted by naturalists.

Among the Old Faithful morning crowd this June were Orion Strimenos and Natalee Green of Boulder, Colo., and their sons Wyatt, 6, and Grant, 3. All were wearing face coverings, and Green said avoiding covid-19 risks had played into the family's decision to visit Yellowstone.

"With a national park, you don't have to interact with a lot of people - you are in your car a lot," she said.

As they waited for the geyser, Wyatt rapid-fired questions about the nature of steam and how high the fountain was likely to reach. The answers arrived on schedule.

Old Faithful starts with a fitful series of hiccups, then shoots water up to 180 feet high. At this unpredictable time and in this wildly unpredictable place, it's comforting to have something to count on.

- - -

IF YOU GO:

WHERE TO STAY

- Old Faithful Lodge Cabins

725 Old Faithful Lodge Rd., Yellowstone National Park

307-344-7311

yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/lodgings/cabin/old-faithful-lodge-cabins

Cabins are cozy, no-frills and ideally located. Note: Very limited capacity; most summer dates are sold out. Open June 8 to Oct. 4. Rooms from $174.

- Lake Yellowstone Hotel

235 Yellowstone Lake Rd., Yellowstone National Park

307-344-7311

yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/lodgings/cabin/lake-yellowstone-hotel-cabins

Built in 1891, this National Historic Landmark has been extensively renovated. With its period furnishings, gleaming wood floors and lakeside setting, it is simply fantastic. Open June 17 to Oct. 4. Rooms from $220.

- The Cody Hotel

232 W. Yellowstone Ave., Cody, Wyo.

307-587-5915

thecody.com

Very pleasant hotel mixes lots of Western touches in the rooms and public spaces with all the modern conveniences and comforts; rooms include a refrigerator and microwave. Friendly staff. Rooms from $119.

WHERE TO EAT

- Lake Hotel Dining Room

235 Yellowstone Lake Rd.

307-344-7311

yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/restaurant/lake-hotel-dining-room

An elegant, white-linen setting with lake views and a menu featuring fresh fish and wild game at the Lake Hotel. Dinner entrees from $17.

- Trailhead

1326 Beck Ave., Cody, Wyo.

307-578-8510

trailheadcody.com

Wood-fired pizza, handmade pasta and more in a casual setting. Dinner entrees from $12.

- The Station by Cody Coffee Roaster

919 16th St., Cody, Wyo.

307-578-6661

codycoffee.com/the-station

Stylishly converted gas station is worth a breakfast or lunch stop for coffee, a crepe, sandwich or salad. Entrees from $8.

WHAT TO DO

- Guided Fishing Charter - Yellowstone Lake

307-344-7311

yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/adventure/water-adventures/guided-fishingsightseeing-charter-boats

Troll for native cutthroat trout and invasive lake trout on the picturesque expanse of Yellowstone Lake. Guided boat $100 per hour, minimum two hours, for up to six people.

- Buffalo Bill Center of the West

720 Sheridan Ave., Cody, Wyo.

307-587-4771

centerofthewest.org

Five museums in one, this spectacular collection covers the area's natural history, Native American experience, Western art, more than 10,000 historical firearms, and of course the story of Cody's namesake, Buffalo Bill Cody. Entry is $19.75 for adults, $18.75 for seniors and $13.25 for ages 6 to 17.

- Heart Mountain Interpretive Center

1539 Road 19, Powell, Wyo.

307-754-8000

heartmountain.org

The modern interpretive center offers a moving tribute to the Japanese Americans relocated to and confined on this site during World War II. Because of covid-19 restrictions, appointments are required to visit. Adults $9; seniors and students $7; under 12 free.

- Old Trail Town

1831 Demaris Dr., Cody, Wyo.

307-587-5302

oldtrailtown.org

Walk the weathered boardwalk connecting this unusual collection of Old West structures and relive the history of Butch Cassidy's Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and many others. Adults $10, seniors $9, ages 6 to 12 $5.

- Dan Miller's Cowboy Music Revue

1131 12th St., Cody, Wyo.

307-899-2799

cowboymusicrevue.com

Country and Western ballads and a sprinkling of humor have made Dan Miller a local favorite for years. Now his daughter Hannah, on vocals and the fiddle, is casting her own long shadow. Reservations required; seating adapted to social distancing. Show $20 or $40 including a prime-rib buffet.

- Wyoming River Trips

233 Yellowstone Highway, Cody, Wyo.

800-587-6661

wyomingrivertrips.com

Explore Class II and Class III rapids and see wildlife such as osprey and peregrine falcons while rafting the Red Rock Canyon area of the Shoshone River. New covid-19 protocols are in place, including limiting raft capacity to six participants. Round trip with shuttle from $38 for adults.

INFORMATION

- nps.gov/yell/index.htm
Google Maps/Street View

Local news station KGNS has confirmed three cases of the novel coronavirus within their workforce during Wednesday's newscast.

The report follows news anchor and news director Jerry Garza announcing his own positive test result on social media Monday.
The City of Laredo reported Thursday an outbreak of the novel coronavirus at a local nursing home while stating that the area's hospital capacity has been reached.

READ MORE: Abbott issues statewide mask order to fight COVID-19

At the impacted nursing home, one death and 43 positive infections have been reported. One nursing home resident has been transferred out of the facility, though the COVID status of the patient is not yet known.

Of the 43 positives, four are staff members and 39 are residents. A contact tracing investigation is underway into the source of the outbreak, but city officials report that it is currently suspected to have originated from an outside source.

The identity of the nursing home will be withheld until families of the residents at the nursing are contacted and in order to help facilitate contact tracing by the City of Laredo Health Department.

As a further precautionary measure, access will be further restricted to all Laredo nursing homes.

Throughout this pandemic, Laredo nursing homes had been surprisingly resilient against the virus, despite outbreaks reported in nursing homes throughout the state.

From March to May, no cases at all were reported in Laredo nursing homes. In June, two positive cases were reported. One was a healthcare worker who was screened pre-employment and had yet to begin working at the nursing home. According to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, this person applied to work at Laredo Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

The second was reported on June 11 in a local healthcare worker. According to the data, this positive case was confirmed at Retama Manor Nursing Center.

According to an update issued by the City of Laredo, the health care worker in question had been sent home for a low-grade fever and then was quarantined before returning to work on June 8 when they were tested the same day. Results from that test returned positive on June 9. The health care worker was re-tested again that same day and results returned negative on June 10.

City officials also reported in the Thursday meeting that local hospitals are currently at peak capacity for COVID patients. As of noon, 100 coronavirus patients were hospitalized in Laredo hospitals. Of the 100, 30 were under intensive care.

Laredo Health Authority Dr. Victor Trevino said an overflow plan created by the city emergency team will be enacted in order to solve the capacity shortage in Laredo.

As part of the overflow plan, additional medical staff and reenforcements have been requested from state officials and are set to arrive soon, according to Trevino. Previously, city officials reported that though beds are available, a staffing shortage has limited COVID capacity at the hospital.

The overflow plan, which is currently in the first stage, also tasks local hospitals with finding ways of expanding capacity in their hospital by redistributing beds for COVID patients and moving staff from other roles to serve them.

According to Trevino, the latter stages of the plan calls for investigation into alternate medical buildings that could house patients and also temporary tented clinics to serve COVID patients.

Free coronavirus testing continues throughout Webb County in cooperation with the Texas National Guard.

According to Webb County Emergency Management Coordinator Steve Landin, testing capacity has shrunk at the the clinics and has been lessened to 250 tests, as opposed to the 400 originally announced at Wednesday's media briefing.

Landin said that lessened capacity is due to a change in how the tests are administered. Rather than using a nasal swab, testing at the clinics conducted this week are being conducted through a oral swab. He reported that the testing capacity at the Bruni clinic hosted Thursday had been reached within hours of the clinic's opening.

Free testing continues Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Santa Teresita Community Center at 15014 U.S. Hwy 59. A clinic will also be hosted on July 4 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Larga Vista Community Center at 5401 Cisneros. Finally, El Cenizo Community Center will host a clinic on July 5 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 3519 Cecilia Lane in El Cenizo.

READ MORE: 99 coronavirus cases, 27th death confirmed by Laredo officials

Though registration is not required, interested parties can register for the testing clinic at Webb County's website, according to Landin.
For local restaurants in the Lake Houston area, the novel coronavirus has taken its toll.

As coronavirus cases began to rise again in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that he would be scaling back his initial reopening phases, including lowering restaurants to 50% capacity and closing down bars completely. In the Houston region, the hospital system in the medical center has exceeded full capacity for intensive care units as some floors are being converted into additional ICUs.

LOCAL SUPPORT: Harris County launches $30M grant program for small, local businesses

Craig Brown, co-owner of Three Bs Grill in Kingwood with Robert Jones, said the news of the coronavirus caused them to completely shut down for a few days to readjust amid uncertainty.

Three Bs Grill continues to offer to-go, which supported them enough to keep the lights on, and delivery through third party apps. Hours were cut and sales were lower than normal as it was with so many restaurants.

There was a huge financial burden initially, there was also, you know, a worry. We didnt know if people were going to come out. We didnt know if people were going to buy. We didnt know how people were going to react to this, Brown said. You know, people were looking out for their families and themselves at that point, and their job."

Brown said that as they have followed the states protocols for reopening, he could tell people were very cautious of dining in.

A lot of our regulars that we havent seen have said hey, well support you two. Well support your delivery  were just not comfortable coming in, Brown said. Its been a huge eye-opener. Its been an education, and I think my partner Robert and I both, its opened our eyes to what we can do better as a company, as a restaurant just having to adapt on the fly and utilize certain tools we didnt take advantage of as much before.

Three Bs Grill passed their 10th anniversary in the first week of June. They have lived through Hurricane Harvey, Tropical Storm Imelda, and are now working to survive through a global pandemic. Brown said his concern is that things will go backward before they go forward in regards to the coronavirus with current infection rates.

If we can weather this, then it proves just how strong our business model is that we can get through this, Brown said. But its definitely been a lot to do with our friends and the community, and weve been a lot luckier than most.

COVID-19: Tuesday sets new record at 7,000 new COVID-19 cases in Texas

Humble City Cafe, the classic small-town restaurant on Main Street in Downtown Humble, has struggled through the closures and confusion of the coronavirus.

Manager Benny Vancia said their busiest days, Saturday and Sunday, are probably 60% down. The rest of the week is about 40-50% down in sales. Although he said they never got to 50% capacity because it would be about 100 people at a time, they have not had to fire anyone but are limiting hours for employees as they continue with to-go and dine-in options.

Vancia is unsure of what might happen in the future with the cafe. For now, it is simply a stressful time.

I never want to think about it, its hard for me to think about it, Vancia said.

Mary Huynh, owner of Bibos Bistro and Bar at Redemption Square in Generation Park, said when she received the alert about the changes in requirements for restaurants and bars she understood the reasoning. She believes everyone should be working to stay safe during this time as the global pandemic worsens.

Although Abbott had allowed restaurants to open to at 75% capacity on June 12, Huynh said she didnt even know they were able to open past 50% so the new restrictions are not affecting her.

Bibos has been sanitizing completely and continues to set tables at social distancing guidelines while also following mask protocols. She said its not about being political, but about following the law and protocols to stay safe.

Were at a place right now where everyone should be trying to stay healthy, try and avoid crowds, and making sure the public is aware of that, Huynh said. Were kind of in a really tough position now as coronavirus cases are increasing. I think that theres a fact of, you know, people wanting to go out, but I feel its my duty to be part of that solution as well as everyone elses in keeping those numbers down.

COVID-19: Humble, Kingwood leaders take steps to slow growing coronavirus cases in Lake Houston area

When changes began due to the coronavirus, Huynh said they believed it was going to be a short period of time, maybe a week or two. Now months later, she remains grateful for being able to continue to do what she enjoys doing by opening her business. She has changed her hours temporarily to 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday to Saturday, and continues to offer to-go, curbside check out, and delivery. The team of employees are working together to trade hours while some of had to change job titles although some had to file for unemployment.

Were really just kind of like doing everything necessary to ensure our cash flow is not abruptly stopping, Huynh said. Making sure that everyone that doesnt have that flexibility to cook at home that still wants take out, that they can still order from us and enjoy their meal, whether it be on our patio, or dine-in, or whether they pick it up to go.

savannah.mehrtens@chron.com
Tony Gutierrez, STF / Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday ordered that face coverings must be worn in public across most of the state, a dramatic ramp up of the Republican's efforts to control spiking numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

Abbott, who had pushed Texas' aggressive reopening of the state economy in May, had previously said the government could not order individuals to wear masks. His prior virus-related orders had undercut efforts by local governments to enforce mask requirements.
TAIPEI, Taiwan - A day after China began to enforce a sweeping national security law over Hong Kong, several governments are moving to offer the territory's residents the opportunity to resettle abroad as they grapple with the new reality of a city fundamentally transformed by the legislation.

Britain, Taiwan, Australia and the United States are among those that have proposed special measures that would absorb Hong Kongers as refugees. The immigration proposals remain tentative in some cases, but they are already opening a fresh rift with Beijing, which has lashed out at the prospect of other jurisdictions helping Hong Kong citizens to flee in droves.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the broadest offer on Wednesday to Britain's former colonial subjects as he announced a "bespoke" legal waiver to allow up to 3 million Hong Kongers to enter Britain and eventually apply for full citizenship. On Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters he was "prepared to step up" and offer a "similar" deal, although he said he was still formulating the terms.

In Taiwan, which does not have a refugee law and has historically treated mainland Chinese asylum seekers carefully and on a case-by-case basis, President Tsai Ing-wen's administration opened a new government office Wednesday to provide aid to dissidents and businesspeople in Hong Kong looking to emigrate. The office received 180 inquiries on its first day from Hong Kong, including many who were interested in an investment immigration program, said Chiu Chui-Cheng, the deputy head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council.

Hong Kong police made 370 arrests on Wednesday as thousands of people poured onto its streets to protest the law that had come into effect at midnight. Some radical protesters fought police, blocked traffic, vandalized stores and chanted independence slogans - behavior that have all been newly defined as terrorism and separatism.

Police said they arrested 10 people on the first day under the new law, including a 15-year old girl who waved a pro-independence flag and a 24-year-old man who was accused of stabbing a police officer. Police said the man was escorted off a flight on Thursday moments before it took off for London, where he presumably sought to flee.

Under the new legislation, Chinese prosecutors could try suspects on the mainland - where they are nearly guaranteed to win in Communist Party-controlled courts - or before special Hong Kong tribunals without juries. Hong Kong's Bar Association said Wednesday it was "gravely concerned" by the contents of the new law - including the extradition provisions in particular - as well as its passage, which came after the measures were drafted in secret in Beijing.

China's Foreign Ministry responded angrily on Thursday to Johnson's proposal to welcome Hong Kongers and warned Australia against moving down a "wrong path." Britain had explicitly promised it would not offer such a deal to the city's inhabitants - and would recognize them solely as Chinese subjects - as part of the agreement to hand over the territory in 1997, said ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

The offer would be a "breach of international law and basic norms governing international relations," Zhao said, while also warning that China could take "countermeasures." "Now is not the time" to announce China's response, Zhao told reporters. "Please wait patiently."

It was not immediately clear whether China was threatening punitive visa measures against British citizens currently living in Hong Kong or mulling a ban on Hong Kongers seeking to move to Britain. The Hong Kong government issued a statement dismissing rumors that it would restrict outbound travel as "fake news."

British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab acknowledged in an interview with ITV on Wednesday there was little his government could do if China tried to bar Hong Kongers from flying out.

"Ultimately we need to be honest that we wouldn't be able to force China to allow BNOs to come to the U.K.," Raab said, referring to the British National (Overseas) passport that roughly 350,000 Hong Kong residents obtained before 1997 when they were still colonial subjects.

In Washington, meanwhile, lawmakers from both parties and chambers launched "safe harbor" legislation that would require the State Department to designate as humanitarian refugees Hong Kongers who organized the protests or provided volunteer medical aid or media coverage at the events. Those people could arrive in the United States under the legislation and also seek permanent residency or citizenship.

The immigration proposals amount to the first major point of contention to arise in the wake of the national security legislation's rollout with foreign governments, particularly Washington, poised to make more moves in response.

As early as this week, Congress could seek President Trump's signature on a "Hong Kong Autonomy" bill that would enforce sanctions on banks that do business with certain Chinese government entities, dramatically raising the stakes in the fight over the city.

In Hong Kong, thousands continue to await trial for offenses committed during the pro-democracy protests, including for rioting, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years under the new legislation.

Pro-bono groups who facilitate departures of arrested protesters by sponsoring airfares or setting them up with jobs overseas say they have been inundated with requests.

A volunteer from one of these groups said arrested protesters are now concerned that judges will be under pressure to hand down the highest sentence possible, even if the national security law is not retroactive.

"They feel very negative about their situation," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity over the sensitivity of his work. "Suddenly, it is like all the rules have changed."

Most of these people, he added, were born after 1997, and therefore do not possess British National (Overseas) passports and will not be able to seek citizenship in Britain under Johnson's proposal.

While Taiwan was a popular option for fleeing protesters last year, the volunteer said this group is looking farther afield to Europe and Australia, concerned that the Chinese Communist Party could still reach into Taiwan, a self-governed democracy that Beijing claims as its territory, and find ways to punish them there.

"Even when we ask for legal help, our lawyers say that they have never seen a law like this, and cannot judge its implications," he said. "So, our advice is that if you are arrested under a serious charge, it is best to just leave if you can."

- - -

Mahtani reported from Hong Kong.
According to New York Post, two teenaged felons have been caught for cruelly beating a homeless old man to death. Both are charged for murder in the first degree, as irrefuitable evidence was found proving they committed the heinous crime in a New Jersey alley.

Was it a random act of violence, or was it personally-motivated? As of now, the investigators working on the case are yet to discover the motive for this crime.

When the suspects were apprehended, the authorities discovered that the perpetrators were still minors. Since they were underage, the police could not give their names to the public.

Only the ages of the teenage felons were released. One was a fifteen-year-old while the other was a seventeen-year-old who committed the unprovoked murder. One of the teen felons is male and another is female, according to the police department.

The victim's horrific end

Last June 25, the police were alerted to the presence of someone found in a New Jersey alleyway in Camden. The victim was unresponsive when found by the officers on the scene.

Police found the body of Bobby J. Hill Jr., 63, in an alleyway near the 1100 block of Kaighn Ave. shortly after midnight. The medical examiner said Hill died of blunt force trauma after being beaten to death, as mentioned in Camden County Pros.

Also read: Badly Decomposed Corpse of Missing Mom Found in Garage, Cause of Death Still a Mystery

Due to the horrific condition of his body, authorities have determined that the several strikes to the head was the victim's cause of death. The multiple injuries he sustained were further aggraved by his old age.

This was the statement from the Camden County Prosecutor Jill S. Mayer and Camden County Police Chief Joseph Wysocki who are overseeing the investigation.

Upon discovering his state, the police immediately sent the victim to the hospital to receive medical treatment. However, later on, he died in the hospital due to his injuries.

The surveillance video, which was later used as evidence, showed the two teenagers walking into the alley before he the old man. Later in the video, they were captured leaving the scene of the crime, according to Mayer and Wysocki in a statement. The video evidence was all the police needed to bring them in.

It got worse for one of the murderous teens when a video of them beating up the old man was found to be recorded. There were images of Hill who appeared disoriented due to the blows he sustained while lying helplessly on the ground.

Similar incident reported

The murder of Bobby J. Hill Jr., 63, is only one of the many incidences of random attacks and violence committed.

A similar unprovoked attack happened in New York when a 40-year old victim was attacked randomly at 418 Sterling St. in Crown Heights. Her attacker punched her face at 7:45 am according to News Break.

Just like in Hill's case, a surveillance video caught everything, showing how the assailant struck the old woman in the fact. The victim got away with minor injuries.

Related article: Heated Argument Turns Deadly as Woman Shot in the Head Inside her Car

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NEW YORK - Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime confidante of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday in New Hampshire on charges she recruited and groomed underage girls for abuse by her then-boyfriend, officials said.

A grand jury indictment unsealed Thursday charged Maxwell, daughter of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, with conspiring to entice minors to travel to engage in sex acts, and perjury.

Maxwell has been under investigation for months as a possible accomplice to Epstein's history of sexual abuse of underage girls. Epstein, who committed suicide while in federal custody last summer, dated Maxwell for years, and the indictment charges she played a key role in grooming girls for him to abuse.

Beginning in at least 1994, the indictment alleges, Maxwell "enticed and groomed multiple minor girls to engage in sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein, through a variety of means and methods."

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss called the sex abuse described in the Maxwell case "the prequel" to the charges they lodged last year against Epstein covering alleged acts of abuse in the early 2000s.

"Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify, befriend, and groom minor victims for abuse," said Strauss, who oversees the federal prosecutors office in the Southern District of New York. "In some cases, Maxwell participated in the abuse herself."

A lawyer for Maxwell, Jeff Pagliuca, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Johnstone ordered Maxwell to remain in custody at a brief hearing via videoconference in federal court in New Hampshire, where another of her attorneys, Lawrence Vogelman, did not seek an immediate bail hearing because her lawyers plan to make those arguments after she is transferred to New York.

In a court filing, prosecutors said Maxwell should stay behind bars pending trial because she might flee given her "extensive international ties," noting she has citizenship in two countries and three passports in her name. Maxwell, 58, faces the possibility of 35 years in prison if convicted, and has "absolutely no reason to stay in the United States," prosecutors argued in the filing.

Prosecutors also said the Epstein investigation is not over, and asked any victims or witnesses to Epstein's abuse of minors to contact the FBI.

William Sweeney, head of the FBI's New York office, called Maxwell "one of the villains" of the Epstein saga and said that agents kept close tabs on her after she "slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire."

The indictment charged that Maxwell "would try to normalize sexual abuse for a minor victim by, among other things, discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein."

One of the victims was 14 years old when Epstein and Maxwell began grooming her for sex acts with Epstein, according to the indictment.

The victims were groomed or abused at a number of Epstein's luxurious homes, including his sprawling Upper East Side townhouse in Manhattan, an estate in Palm Beach, Fla., a ranch in Santa Fe, N.M., and Maxwell's home in London, according to the charges.

"Minor Victim-2," according to the indictment, was under 18 when she was flown to New Mexico at Epstein's invitation. "In New Mexico, Maxwell began her efforts to groom Minor Victim-2 for abuse by Epstein by, among other things, providing an unsolicited massage to Minor Victim-2, during which Minor Victim-2 was topless," the indictment charged.

Maxwell is also accused of grooming and befriending a third victim, whom she met in London between 1994 and 1995. She allegedly encouraged that victim to give Epstein massages "knowing that Epstein would engage in sex acts with Minor Victim-3 during those massages."

The indictment also accuses Maxwell of lying in a deposition in 2016 when asked about these activities by a lawyer for one of Epstein's alleged victims, when she denied any knowledge of him engaging in sex acts with minors. When asked if Epstein had a scheme to recruit underage girls for sexual massages, Maxwell replied, "I don't know what you're talking about," the indictment says.

Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said the socialite told that lie and others in the deposition because the truth "was almost unspeakable - Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, then delivered them into the trap that she and Epstein had set for them. She pretended to be a woman they could trust, all the while she was setting them up to be sexually abused by Epstein."

Maxwell's arrest was first reported Thursday by NBC News.

Epstein, 66, was a registered sex offender who was arrested last year on federal sex trafficking charges for alleged abuses of underage girls in New York and Florida. His suicide in a Manhattan federal detention center led to charges against two of his guards who were accused of failing to check on him in his cell in the hours before he was found hanging from a bedsheet.

Epstein's ability to avoid a lengthy prison sentence has raised questions about whether the wealthy, politically connected sex offender - with ties to both President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton - was able to manipulate state and federal officials to go easy on him.

Years before his 2019 arrest, Epstein had resolved similar allegations with a plea deal involving state charges in Florida that allowed him to spend a little more than a year in jail and leave daily for work - an arrangement widely criticized as too lenient. As part of that deal, prosecutors agreed not to pursue cases against Epstein's associates who might have recruited girls for him.

Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing more than a dozen of Epstein's alleged victims, said her clients hope Maxwell "will be accountable if the evidence presented in court proves beyond a reasonable doubt that she had a role in assisting and recruiting young girls to be sex trafficked and sexually victimized by Jeffrey Epstein."

The investigation into Epstein's conduct continued after his jailhouse death, and has ensnared Britain's Prince Andrew, another old friend of the late financier.

Federal prosecutors complained earlier this year that Andrew has provided "zero cooperation" to authorities.

One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, claims she was paid by Epstein for sexual encounters with the prince when she was 17 years old. The prince has denied any wrongdoing.

On Thursday, Strauss made clear prosecutors still want to talk to him.

"We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us," she said. "We would like to have the benefit of his statement."

Epstein's alleged victims continue to pursue lawsuits against his estate, which is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.
A man was left with an agonizing four-hour erection after being infected with coronavirus. According to The Sun, the 62-year-old patient suffered from a four-hour penile erection which left him agonizingly stiff after contracting the highly-communicable COVID-19.

The man was hospitalized in France for a case of severe COVID-19 that had an effect called priapism. This unexpected condition from a COVID-19 patient has baffled medical experts.

According to doctors, Priapism occurs when blood gets trapped in the male genitals, causing it to be stiffer for hours. But this can be a dangerous medical condition which may require to drain blood from a stiff male member. During draining, the doctors saw penile tissue full of blood clots.

In a study, there is a third of male COVID patients that have stiff male organs that stay hard for hours. Symptoms of clotting or thrombosis happens after contracting the virus.

This rare condition may disrupt the blood flow, which can aggravate the condition of patients who are having breathing problems caused by COVID-19.

Most blood clots could start cardiac arrest and strokes. Another concern is getting an overly stiff male member is not expected too, and doctors are still trying to find the link between this condition and COVID-19 infection.

Cases of men getting raging erections

In the case of the French patient getting a long-lasting erection, this was reported in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. His doctors say that he's in intensive care with a ventilator in the Centre Hospitalier de Versailles in Le Chesnay near Paris for two weeks already, according to Daily Mail.

The patient told his doctor that he might have the coronavirus. He experienced the tell-tale symptoms, as well as the breathing difficulties

Before going to the hospital, he also suffered from diarrhea and was later hospitalized for two days. Later tests results eventually revealed that he was positive for coronavirus.

Also read: Coronavirus Cases All Over the Globe Reaches Over 10 Million Cases

One of the doctors told him that he will need a ventilator since the virus has already invaded his lungs, rendering them almost useless. Next step, a physical checkup was done. This is when doctors discovered that he's also experience priapism.

Before the procedure to fix the priapism, the patient was sedated but he can still experience pain . The doctors working on his stiffened male member knew it will not be easy.

The tissue of the chamber of the shaft, the corpora cavernosa, was very stiff, alhough the tip for of the penis was soft. An ice pack was placed on the stiff parts, but four hours later the stiffness is still there.

The doctors used needle to remove the blood clots in his genitals. According to doctors, coronavirus created thrombosis in the penile tissue.

Another conclusion is high blood flow is might be causing injuries, according to Financial Press. If anyone suffers from sickle-cell disease, leukemia, or malaria, the same condition can also be observed.

Doctors think in this case that the stiff penis was caused by the priapism which is triggered by COVID-19. The doctors wrote:

"Although the arguments supporting a causal link between Covid-19 and priapism are very strong in our case, reports of further cases would strengthen the evidence." After leaving the hospital, the patient says he has no more priapism.

Related article: Shocking Images Show Tentacles Growing Out of Cells Infected By Coronavirus

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
WASHINGTON - A Democratic senator is blocking promotions for 1,123 senior members of the military until she gets assurances from Defense Secretary Mark Esper that he will not retaliate against an Army officer for his role in the past year's impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said Thursday that she wants confirmation in writing from Esper that he did not or will not block the promotion of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Until she gets that assurance, she will maintain a hold on Senate confirmation of the hundreds of promotions.

Duckworth is a Purple Heart recipient and a former Army helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in the Iraq War.

Vindman, who received a Purple Heart for his actions in Iraq and later served as a White House aide on European affairs, is among hundreds of officers selected to be promoted to colonel this year.

In February, the White House ousted Vindman from his post on the National Security Council. He had testified to Congress in November that he was disturbed by Trump's call for Ukraine to investigate the president's political rivals.

"Our military is supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy," Duckworth said in a statement. "It is simply unprecedented and wrong for any Commander in Chief to meddle in routine military matters at all, whether or not he has a personal vendetta against a Soldier who did his patriotic duty and told the truth - a Soldier who has been recommended for promotion by his superiors because of his performance. . . . This goes far beyond any single military officer, it is about protecting a merit-based system from political corruption and unlawful retaliation."

Duckworth's office described her move as "unprecedented in modern times" and said it was a response to "numerous efforts by Donald Trump to politicize the nation's Armed Forces." In recent weeks, the president has threatened to send active-duty troops to quell protests against police brutality and has used top military officials "as props for a photo op," Duckworth's office said.

The president posed for a photo with Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others near the White House in June after authorities forcibly removed peaceful protesters from the area - an appearance for which Milley was roundly criticized and later apologized.

Trump's ouster of Vindman from the National Security Council in February was condemned as vindictive and an attempt to intimidate government officials who speak out against Trump. Asked at the time about Vindman's future, the president said only that he was "not happy with him."

"You think I'm supposed to be happy with him?" Trump said. "I'm not."

Duckworth is the latest senator to seek to hold the president accountable by blocking promotions or the consideration of Trump nominees.

In June, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime advocate for federal watchdogs, announced that he will block two of Trump's nominees until the White House provides an explanation for the recent firings of intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson and State Department inspector general Steve Linick.

Grassley dropped his hold on the two nominees after receiving additional letters from the administration explaining the firing of Atkinson and Linick.

- - -

The Washington Post's Shane Harris and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.
The Italian police have confiscated a massive shipment of 14 metric tonnes or 15.4 US tons of amphetamines, which they claim was produced by ISIS in Syria.

Confiscated drugs

In a statement on July 1, the Guardia di Finanza financial police reported that three containers were tracked down at the port of Salerno, located in southwest Italy. The police found around 84 million pills in the containers, that costs around $1.12 billion.

The pills were placed inside paper cylinders for industrial use. The investigators stated that the drug bust in Italy is the largest drug haul in the whole world, and it is massive in terms of value and quantity. Commander Domenico Napolitano, the head of the financial police for the city of Naples, said that the pills were hidden well so the scanners that they normally use at the port were not able to detect them.

The pills were discovered inside paper cylinders at the port of Salerno. Napolitano said that they were not able to see them but they knew that it was arriving because they have ongoing investigations on the Italian organized crime group named Camorra. He added that the crime group brings the drugs to the country and they take a cut for helping to distribute them.

According to the police statement, the pills had the Captagon logo, which means "drug of Jihad". The police also said that ISIS used the profits that they get through drug trafficking to finance their terrorist activities, according to Forbes.

Also Read: Fact Check: Donald Trump Not Informed About the Russian Bounties on US Troops?

Most drugs are produced in Syria, which has now become the producer of amphetamines in the past few years. ISIS can produce massive quantities of drugs and they sell on global markets. The police said that is how the terrorist group raise massive amounts of money to fund their activities.

The drug bust and the investigation were carried out on a decree from the Naples public prosecutor. The police also believe that the drugs were supposed to be distributed in Europe through different crime groups.

Because of the coronavirus lockdown, the production and the distribution of drugs in Europe has stopped.This is why a lot of traffickers with different organized crime groups have turned to Syria.

Drug distribution

The drug is common in the Middle East and it is also used in some countries in the European Union. The EMCDDA stated that some recent media reports have connected the drug to those who are responsible for the terrorist acts in Europe or groups based in the Middle East.

The militants in Syria also take drugs. The police said that both the Syrian militants and ISIS are fighting on which group should get the most profit from the distribution of the drugs.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime or UNODC, the Jihadist fighters also use Captagon as it gives a certain high and a sudden increase of energy.

Back in 2015, UNODC chief Yury Fedotov said at a press conference that the Islamic State and al Nusra Front are believed to be the ones to facilitate the distribution of the chemicals used for the production of the pills. The pills contain amphetamine and other strong chemicals. The Italian police have not made any arrest yet.

Related Article: Salad Mixes in Walmart Caused Illness Outbreak Affecting More Than 200 People

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Washington

First President Donald Trump denied knowing about it. Then he called it a possible "hoax." Next, the White House attacked the news media. And now an unnamed intelligence official is to blame.

The one thing Trump and his top officials have not done is to address the substance of intelligence reports that Russia paid bounties to Taliban-affiliated fighters to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan or what they might do in response.

On Wednesday, Trump repeated his claim that he was "never briefed" about the intelligence, which his aides called unverified but which many U.S. intelligence officials deemed credible. Officials say it appeared in the president's daily written intelligence briefing in late February. Writing on Twitter, Trump called stories about the bounties "a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party."

His national security adviser, Robert C. O'Brien, said on Fox News that Trump's CIA briefer, the person who delivers an in-person briefing to him every few days, had not brought it to his attention.

"The president was not briefed, because at the time of these allegations, they were uncorroborated," O'Brien said. "And as a result, the president's career CIA briefer decided not to brief him."

The administration has not publicly acknowledged that the information was provided to Trump in his written briefing and has not responded to questions about whether they were saying he chose not to read it.

But it would be unusual for intelligence with grave implications to be withheld from the president on the grounds that it lacked definitive consensus. Former Obama administration officials have said that even the intelligence that formed the basis of the May 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden was inconclusive and disputed among national security officials.

O'Brien did not name the CIA briefer but said she was "an outstanding officer." He added, "I certainly support her decision."

The person who usually handles that job is Beth Sanner, a CIA analyst with three decades of experience. Sanner is said to have a good relationship with Trump, but the White House has cited her briefings before when deflecting responsibility for a crisis.

Former officials say Trump often does not read the President's Daily Brief, the summary prepared for him by the intelligence agencies. And he registers only information relayed to him orally, a fact that administration officials acknowledged in a briefing for lawmakers this week.

Even then, officials have said, Trump is often unfocused and easily distracted during his briefing. Sanner, who began briefing the president last year, has acquired a reputation for effectively presenting information to Trump in ways that engage him.

Wednesday, O'Brien repeated White House assertions that intelligence officials lacked "consensus" about the bounties, which was based on intelligence that included intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from Russia's military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account.

O'Brien said that public disclosure of the matter by leakers would make it more difficult to reach a definitive conclusion about the reports.

Like other officials, including White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has criticized The New York Times and other outlets for reporting on the matter, and the president himself, O'Brien did not raise the issue of Russian behavior, including what officials believed to be its longtime support for the Taliban. Nor did he suggest how the United States might respond if Trump accepted the intelligence as accurate.

The Times has reported that investigators are said to be focused on at least two attacks on American troops in Afghanistan, including one bombing and a firefight in April 2019 near Bagram Air Base that killed three Marines.

O'Brien was among several senior Trump officials at a White House briefing on Tuesday for House Democrats, which lawmakers complained was hampered by the absence of any intelligence professionals who could walk them through the nuances of the competing strands of intelligence.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, did most of the talking in the nearly two-hour session. But Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman, did not seem to understand the nuances of intelligence and so could not clearly explain some of the more complicated issues that lawmakers raised, according to people briefed on the meeting.

The director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, repeatedly told lawmakers the events in question happened well before he took over his post in late May.

The lawmakers pushed back and asked why, after the assessment was included in the President's Daily Brief in February, Trump was not given a heads-up before any of the five or six phone calls he subsequently had with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including one call in which Trump invited the Russian leader to a Group of Seven meeting.

White House officials acknowledged that the CIA had concluded that a Russian bounty plot existed but did not explain the supporting evidence behind the assessment.

That evidence, The Times has reported, included detainee interrogations, the recovery of about $500,000 from a Taliban-related target and intercepts of electronic communications showing financial transfers between the Russian military intelligence unit and Afghan intermediaries.

Instead, the White House officials focused on a strong written dissent by the National Security Agency, which assessed that it did not have information to corroborate the CIA's conclusion.

But the House Democrats were not briefed in detail on the intercepts of the electronic communications showing the financial transfers, which other U.S. officials say have reconciled many of the differences between the CIA and NSA assessments.

Gina Haspel, the CIA director, and Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the head of the National Security Agency, along with Ratcliffe, were scheduled to deliver Thursday the highest-level briefing yet about the U.S. intelligence to a select group of bipartisan House and Senate leaders, known as the Gang of Eight.
A convicted sex offender was arrested at a south Laredo ranch as he tried to enter the country illegally, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

On Tuesday morning, agents encountered Salvador Avila-Rodriguez, 48, at a local ranch off of U.S. 83. Authorities said Avila-Rodriguez, a Mexican national, had crossed the border illegally.
Fourteen H-E-B employees in San Antonio have tested positive for COVID-19 since Monday, according to the grocery chain's website.

In June, more than 120 H-E-B employees working at grocery stores in San Antonio have been infected with COVID-19, including the 24 cases this past weekend.

Since March, the grocery store chain has regularly announced on its website when one of its employees test positive and has done so because it believes "transparency is important," according to an email response. H-E-B does not reveal the employee's identity and only lets the public know at what stores there was a positive case. Walmart and Target have both told mySA.com it will not release that information to the public.

READ ALSO: H-E-B to require customers to wear masks at all stores

If an employee is feeling ill or are is waiting on results, H-E-B requires them to stay home, according to its website. When an employee is confirmed to be positive for COVID-19, H-E-B notifies its staff members at the store via text, H-E-B said.

Here are 14 H-E-B stores with COVID-19 cases that were announced since Monday:

- West Ave. and Jackson Keller H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 6000 West Avenue on Saturday, June 27.

- Marketplace H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 5601 Bandera Rd. on Friday, June 26.

- New Braunfels and Houston H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 415 N. New Braunfels Ave. on Sunday, June 28.

- Babcock H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 5910 Babcock Rd. on Wednesday, June 24.

- McCreless Market H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 4100 South New Braunfels Ave. on Saturday, June 27.

- Zarzamora and Military H-E-B plus!: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 6818 South Zarzamora St. on Friday, June 26.

- Loop 1604 and Blanco Rd H-E-B plus!: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 1150 NW Loop 1604 on Saturday, June 27.

- Bandera and 1604 H-E-B plus!: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 9238 N Loop 1604 W. on Monday, June 29.

- Olmos Park H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 300 Olmos Drive on Tuesday, June 30.

- Las Palmas H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 721 Castroville Rd. on Friday, June 26.

- Lincoln Heights Market H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 999 East Basse Rd. on Tuesday, June 23.

- Potranco and 1604 H-E-B plus!: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 10718 Potranco Rd. on Friday, June 26.

- Nacogdoches and O'Connor H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 14087 O'Connor Rd. on Monday, June 22.

- The Market at Stone Oak H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 last worked in the store on 23635 Wilderness Oak on Wednesday, June 24.

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre
The Auckland property market did the opposite to economic forecasts, and June sales numbers returned to normal trading levels with prices remaining stable.

It was a remarkably solid months trading with no signs of market fragility, managing director of Barfoot & Thompson Peter Thompson says.

Sales for the month at 820 were around where we would expect them to be at this time of the year and were 4.3% higher than at the same time last year.

The average price at $953,417 was more than $5000 higher than last month and 1.4% higher than in June last year while the median price at $910,000 was $4000 lower than Mays and 7.7% higher than last Junes.

Taken in isolation, the months trading was very much business as usual.

What contributed to the robustness of the market in June was solid new listings at 1582, 56.3% higher than in the same month last year; an influx of first time buyers; and undoubtedly some catch up business from the slow sales in May.

It is far too early to see this result as an indicator that the property market will defy forecasts and ride out the Covid-19 pandemic unaffected.

It does suggest that over a three to five year time horizon buyers have confidence in property at todays prevailing prices and that they are not holding back in the hope of a major decline in values.

Property which sold at values above $1 million was in demand, with 366 sales, or 44.6% of all sales being in this price segment. You have to go back more than two years (May 2018) to find a month when more $1 million plus sales were made.

Within this number 46 sales, or 5.6% of all sales, were for properties that sold for $2 million or more.

At month end, we had 4001 properties on our books, giving buyers their greatest choice of property for 12 months.

Lifestyle property sales numbers also rebounded during the month, particularly to the south of Auckland in Pukekohe, Tuakau, Pukekawa and Te Kauwhata.

Vendors have been satisfied with prices achieved and sales have reduced listing numbers to the point we are experiencing short term pressure on stock.
Pupils at Tomarata School had an exciting start to their morning today when an electrical fire started in one of the classrooms.

Principal Cherylene Neels says the alarm was raised by students who noticed a strong smell in Room 7.

They looked up and saw a burning circle on the ceiling, Ms Neels says. It was before school started so we gathered all the students together in the hall as they arrived, well away from the fire.

The Wellsford Volunteer Fire Brigade responded, and the situation was soon under control.

Normal classes resumed shortly after 9am, but all heating at the school has been turned off until the entire system has been checked.

Thankfully, the fire was isolated to just one heating panel in one classroom, but safety is paramount, and we wont be turning the heating back on until all checks have been done.

Ms Neels says she was impressed by the childrens behavior during the incident.

They were very calm.

Were very grateful to the volunteer firefighters who turned out  they did a great job.
The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks!

Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics.

The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc.

The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics.

The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates.

Access to college recruiters and advisors  its harder to line up higher education.

Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family.

Vote

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AIB branches in Longford have come together to support local charities and help provide direct funds to local community efforts.

Approximately 200,000 has been made available to branches across the country (1,000 per branch) as part of AIB Together, the banks community investment programme.

The Longford charities which received support from this fund in include;

St Vincent De Paul, Longford Simon Community, Longford Hospice and ISPCA - Longford Branch.

Speaking about the donations, Paddy Whyte, Head of AIB North East said: Covid-19 has presented many challenges and impacted every part of our society.

"We are all acutely aware of the impact on most charities fundraising efforts as they had to postpone many arranged events which left a big gap in their financial ability to continue the fantastic work they do.

"We in AIB North East covering Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Meath Westmeath and Longford through the AIB Together Programme are delighted to have given support totalling 14,000 to 38 charities within our communities. We are delighted to have been part of this community effort.

Separately, AIB has also launched a fundraising initiative to further support communities impacted by the Covid-19 crisis. As part of the AIB Together programme, partnering with AIBs long-standing Community partners FoodCloud and Soar, in addition to Alone & Pieta House, staff can fundraise or donate directly into a dedicated AIB Together Fund. AIB will then match the fund for final disbursement to the chosen charity.

AIB has set itself a target of raising 1million from colleagues which will be matched by 1million from the business  creating an overall ambition of giving 2million to communities most in need right now. Over 337,000 has been raised so far, including the matched funding.

The bank has also recently made a donation of 2.4million to help with the research for a Covid-19 vaccine in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin, as well as entering a partnership with Trinity to ensure that 450 laptop devices were delivered to second level students who were unable to attend school due to the Covid-19 crisis. The Tech2Students initiative was begun by Trinitys Access Programme in association with the charity Camara Education Ireland.

Founded in 2018, AIB Together provides a platform for staff to support charities and causes across Ireland. Each AIB employee is entitled to two volunteering days per year to support their chosen cause as part of the programme and can volunteer or fundraise for a charity of their choice or one of our core community partners
(Alliance News) - Britain's High Court on Thursday denied Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's central bank access to gold worth a reported USD1 billion.

Maduro's Banco Central de Venezuela petitioned the court after the Bank of England, which holds the gold, refused to release it because of a competing claim by officials working for opposition leader Juan Guaido.

The court ruled that the British government had "unequivocally recognized" Guaido as president.

Lawyers for the BCV said they planned to appeal the ruling, the BBC reported.

The British central bank has held the gold since Britain and the US imposed sanctions on Maduro's government.

Britain and other Western nations have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's interim president since January 2019, when he declared himself the legitimate head of government and began trying to oust Maduro.

After meeting Guaido in London in January, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab backed his efforts to bring a "peaceful and democratic resolution" to Venezuela's political crisis.

The US sanctions have isolated Venezuela's economy, which was already battered by years of mismanagement and corruption.

source: dpa

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Oncimmune Holdings PLC - Nottingham, England-based cancer detection company - Says its distributor in Brazil, Valentech International LLC, has obtained marketing authorisation for the EarlyCDT Lung blood test. EarlyCDT Lung is used for the early detection of lung cancer, with the marketing authorisation obtained from Agencia Nacional de Vigilancia Sanitaria. The marketing authorisation is effective immediately. Oncimmune signed a distribution agreement with Valentech for Brazil and Colombia in 2018.

Current stock price: 133.95 pence

Year-to-date change: almost tripled

By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Verditek PLC - London-headquartered solar panel developer - Secured its first orders in "very profitable" marine market, selling panels in Thailand to be used on yachts. In the UK, the company has secured its first orders in the agriculture, to install panels on barn roofs in the "near future". Verditek noted it has also secured another order in the oil & gas sector in Libya, which will be the first sale to an African state for Verditek.

Current stock price: 9.27 pence

Year-to-date change: more than tripled

By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Thursday.







FTSE 100 - WINNERS







Associated British Foods, up 4.4%. AB Foods reported a double-digit revenue fall for the past nine months and said it expects profit at low-cost fashion retailer Primark to be a third of what was achieved a year ago. However, nearly all Primark stores have now reopened and early sales have been strong. AB Foods group revenue for the 40 weeks to June 20 was down 13% on a year ago at constant currency, with sales down 39% in the third quarter alone. Among divisions in the third quarter, grocery was the stand-out performer, with revenue up 9%, while retail sales at Primark slumped a sharp 75%. Primark stores were closed for most of the third quarter, with revenue recorded in the period relating to two short periods of trading before stores closed in mid-March and after they started to reopen at the end of the quarter. AB Foods said Primark stores have reopened more quickly than expected, particularly in Ireland, since its June 1 trading update. A total of 367 stores now have reopened, with the remain 8 expected to follow in the near future, it said.







FTSE 100 - LOSERS







DS Smith, down 6.9%. The packaging firm reported a rise annual profit - with box volumes ahead of internal targets - but has opted against a shareholder payout. For the 12 months to April 30, the London-headquartered packaging firm's pretax profit improved 5.1% to GBP368 million from GBP350 million. Revenue, however, slipped 2.1% to GBP6.04 billion from GBP6.17 billion. Profit grew despite a drop in revenue, DS Smith said, as it recorded GBP237 million in profit from discontinued operations, compared to GBP12 million the year before. The packaging firm has already declared it would not issue an interim dividend, but has now also decided against a final dividend too - as its short term outlook "remains too uncertain". DS Smith added, however, it "will actively consider the resumption of dividend payments", when it has "greater clarity" over its outlook.







National Grid, down 5.8%. The power transmission and distribution went ex-dividend on Thursday, meaning new buyers no longer qualify for the latest payout.







FTSE 250 - WINNERS







Meggitt, up 7.9%. The aerospace and defence contractor said it expects a sharp drop in revenue in the first half of 2020, with falling revenue in its Civil Aerospace and Energy offsetting any growth in Defence. Coventry-based Meggitt said Civil Aerospace organic revenue in the six months that ended on Tuesday is expected to be about 30% lower, with its Jets business struggling. Its Energy unit expects to see revenue down 10% year on year, reflecting weaker market conditions in oil and gas and power generation sectors. Meggitt's Defence unit, however, is expected to deliver organic revenue growth of mid-single digits. "We continue to see good order flow and expect demand in this part of the business to remain robust throughout 2020," Meggitt added. Meggitt said it made "good progress" in its plan to reduce cost base, preserve cash and resize its business.







Mitchells & Butlers, up 4.9%. Said it is looking forward to reopening of its pub estate as lockdown, caused by Covid-19, hurt its performance in the first half of its current financial year. Revenue for the 28 weeks to April 11 was GBP1.04 billion, down from GBP1.19 billion recorded a year prior, resulting in a pretax loss of GBP121 million versus a GBP75 million profit. "The business was performing very well before the enforced closure in response to Covid-19, building on the strengths of our estate of mainly freehold properties, our diversified and well-loved brands and our team's industry leading operational skills," explained Chief Executive Phil Urban. Prior to the lockdown, like-for-like sales growth was 2.6% in the first quarter, which was followed by a period of softer sales due to the stormy weather, but Mitchells & Butlers said it remained 1% ahead of the market.







FTSE 250 - LOSERS







LXI REIT, down 1.2%. The real estate investment trust said it has to date collected 84% of rent for the June to September quarter, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. A further 6% has been subject to an agreed deferral, of which the majority is due to be received within three months. Another 6% is subject to ongoing negotiations with tenants. The remaining 6% has been granted as temporary concessions.







OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS







Ryanair, up 3.2%. The budget airline saw a dramatic drop in passenger numbers in June as a result of air travel restrictions imposed by governments across Europe to contain the spread of Covid-19. Ryanair's traffic in June dropped by 97% to 400,000 passengers versus the 14.2 million passengers it carried a year earlier. The airline's subsidiary Lauda flew no passengers in June compared to 600,000 the year before. In early June, Ryanair announced Lauda's fleet was grounded because of the coronavirus pandemic, but will gradually start flying again on July 1. Ryanair had planned to shutter the loss-making arm but employees agreed to a last-minute wage deal. Ryanair said it operated just 2,800 scheduled flights in June versus its budgeted schedule of 79,600. The airline noted 95% of its flights arrived on-time. Ryanair's figures do, though, mark an improvement on May. The Irish budget airline reported a 99.5% dive in May traffic to just 70,000 passengers.







By Lucy Heming;A lucyheming@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
* Euro zone periphery govt bond yields http://tmsnrt.rs/2ii2Bqr

(Updates with data releases, Portuguese bond, comments)

By Yoruk Bahceli

AMSTERDAM, July 1 (Reuters) - Germany's 10-year yield rose

to a one-week high on Wednesday, with data releases supporting

optimism as economies emerge from lockdown, while Portugal

received record demand for a 15-year bond sale.

Markets have been balancing risk aversion from rising

coronavirus cases with optimism over the bounce-back in economic

data in the past few sessions.

German retail sales rose in May by 13.9% compared to a

Reuters forecast of 3.9%, reflecting a rebound in private

consumption as Germany lifted its coronavirus lockdown.

The number of people out of work in Germany rose far less

than expected in June, while the euro zone's manufacturing

sector contracted at a much slower pace than an earlier "flash"

estimate showed, adding to signs of recovery.

Rainer Guntermann, a strategist at Commerzbank, said he

struggled to see German 10-year yields falling below -0.50%, the

level they approached going into last weekend, noting the

lifting of European lockdowns.

"For Europe... the data is looking fairly okay. At the same

time, we would warn that the sentiment numbers are overstating

the underlying trend," he said.

"What looks more like a v-shaped (recovery) in sentiment may

not turn out as strongly in the real economic data."

Germany's 10-year yield rose to a one-week high, up 5 basis

points on the day to -0.41%, after hitting one-month

lows in recent sessions when focus was on rising coronavirus

cases.

Italy's 10-year yield was up 3 bps to 1.36% after hitting

its lowest since March on Tuesday.

Analysts said the recent rise in safe-haven yields are

likely more flow-driven, with Commerzbank citing waning

month-end support from index-tracking funds.

An outage at German electronic trading platform Xetra that

affected some bond futures would have also made trading more

challenging on Wednesday, said Mizuho strategist Peter McCallum.

U.S. data is also in focus with employment figures due at

1215 GMT and manufacturing activity data at 1400 GMT. Fed

meeting minutes are also due.

In the primary market, Portugal received record demand of

over 41 billion euros for a 15-year bond it is selling via a

syndicate of banks. It will raise 4 billion euros.

"The record (order) book is promising because the pricing

wasn't too generous in our assessment," said Mizuho's McCallum.

Italy will raise its 2020 budget deficit to around 11.6%

from the current 10.4% goal, a senior government official told

Reuters on Tuesday, as it will approve a new 20 billion euro

spending package in July.

(Reporting by Yoruk Bahceli; Editing by Jane Merriman and Jan

Harvey)
* Airbus plans to cut 15,000 jobs in Europe

* Air France plans to shed about 7,600 employees

* Unions say they will fight compulsory layoffs

(Recasts, adds Spanish and German government reaction)

By Johanna Decorse and Christian Kraemer

TOULOUSE/BERLIN, July 1 (Reuters) - Europe's Airbus

left the door open on Wednesday to scaling back its planned

15,000 job cuts in exchange for government-funded labour schemes

and research, as its coronavirus restructuring stoked political

and union alarm.

Europe's largest aerospace group plans to cut 11% of its

global workforce, after a 40% slump in its 55 billion euro

($61.8 billion) jet business, sparking anxiety about compulsory

redundancies in France, Germany, Spain and Britain.

France urged Airbus to make as few forced layoffs

as possible, while French and German unions said compulsory cuts

at the European planemaker were a "red line".

"The state urges Airbus to ensure that there are as few

forced redundancies as possible," French Junior Transport

Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari told BFM TV.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier urged Airbus to

spread the burden in a fair way.

"We of course assume this restructuring will take place in

such a way that neither favours nor disadvantages any country,"

he said in a clear reference to maintaining balance with France.

Chief Executive Guillaume Faury has warned staff against

reverting to national or regional agendas that plagued the

Franco-German-led firm in the past as workers battle for jobs.

"We are successful because we have a European and global DNA

and because of this partnership spirit which is very unique to

Airbus," Faury told Reuters late on Tuesday.

More than two thirds of the cuts are in France and Germany

where Airbus sites are running 40% below pre-crisis levels.

In a finely balanced presentation, Airbus announced plans to

cut 5,000 posts in France, 5,100 in Germany, 900 in Spain, 1,700

in the UK, and 1,300 elsewhere by mid-2021.

The total includes another 900 non-Covid cuts that Airbus

says it already planned at its Premium AEROTEC unit, meaning a

total of 6,000 posts are targeted in Germany by the scheme.

CONCESSIONS

Veteran human resources chief Thierry Baril told reporters

on Wednesday that a fifth of the 5,000 job cuts targeted in

France could be saved once the French government formalises a

new reduced-work scheme, a move expected next week.

Another 500 engineering posts could be saved with the help

of promised state investment in next-generation green jets.

Airbus has outlined the possibility of saving another 1,500

jobs in Germany through similar support.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said it is working with

Airbus to find ways to keep jobs in the country.

France and Germany own 11% each of Airbus and Spain 4%,

though their power to intervene directly is limited.

Aircraft industry sources said horse-trading over jobs and

government aid is common and concessions are expected. But

Airbus's stated target for cutting full-time jobs is three times

bigger than its previous 2008 shake-up which included cutting

5,000 full-time posts, plus 5,000 temporary ones.

In its 51 years, Airbus has so far avoided significant

forced redundancies as it challenged Boeing for a space in the

global aircraft market and then enjoyed years of record demand.

France's Force Ouvriere union said preventing such cuts was

a "red line".

Germany's IG Metall union said Airbus must not hide behind

the coronavirus crisis to implement earlier aims to downsize.

Djebbari, the French minister, meanwhile confirmed Air

France planned to shed nearly 7,600 jobs this week

Djebbari urged Air France to minimise compulsory

redundancies, after the government agreed state aid for the

carrier worth 7 billion euros ($7.9 billion).

"It's not 7 billion euros to pay for redundancy programmes.

It's 7 billion for survival, to pay salaries at the end of the

month," the minister said.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Richard Lough, Myriam

Rivet, Sarah White, Alexander Huebner and Julie Rimbert; Writing

by Richard Lough and Tim Hepher; Editing by Louise Heavens,

Edmund Blair and Alexandra Hudson)
* API data shows bigger U.S. crude stock drop than expected

* Official EIA data due later on Wednesday

* China's June factory activity rises to 6-month high

(Updates prices, adds India fuel data, Iraq production)

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Wednesday on a

string of positive manufacturing data and a drawdown in U.S.

crude inventories, both indicating an economic recovery and rise

in energy demand despite surging coronavirus infections around

the world.

Brent crude was up 59 cents, or 1.4%, to $41.86 a

barrel at 1107 GMT, and U.S. crude was up 64 cents, or 1.6%, at

$39.91 a barrel.

U.S. crude and gasoline stocks fell more than expected last

week, while distillate inventories rose, data released by the

American Petroleum Institute (API) late on Tuesday showed.

"The markets main concern is demand and how COVID-19

affects it, so any hint that demand is recovering is welcomed

with a price boost," said Rystad Energy analyst Louise Dickson.

Official inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information

Administration (EIA) is due out later on Wednesday.

Sentiment was also boosted by improving economic data around

the world. In China, the manufacturing purchasing managers'

index (PMI) showed factories slowly gathered steam in June after

the government eased lockdowns.

Germany's manufacturing sector contracted at a slower pace

in June, while French factory activity rebounded into growth.

A surge in new infections in the United States has worried

some investors, but most are betting this will not be enough to

derail a broader rebound in the global economy.

The U.S. PMI, due later on Wednesday, is forecast to show

that activity in June continued to recover from an 11-year low

in April, while the non-farm payrolls report on Thursday is

expected to show the economy added 3 million jobs in June.

Also supporting prices was a drop in output from the

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its

allies, known as OPEC+, following an agreement to curb supplies.

"Although there is still the danger of demand outages in

view of increased new cases of COVID-19, OPEC+ seems to have the

market under control at the moment," said Commerzbank analyst

Eugen Weinberg.

OPEC produced an average of 22.62 million barrels per day

(bpd) in June, a Reuters survey found, down 1.92 million bpd

from May's revised figure.

Iraq's oil exports in June fell to 2.8 million bpd from 3.21

million bpd in May, the oil ministry said.

Indian state-refiners' gasoline and gasoil sales rose in

June compared with May, continuing with a gradual recovery as

the nation relaxed lockdown.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London, additional

reporting by Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo, editing by Mark Potter

and Elaine Hardcastle)
Here are some of the local news and sports stories you may have missed this past week.
featured

MOUNT CLEMENS

The five-minute time limit for the public to speak at a Macomb County Board of Commissioners meeting was upheld with the dismissal of a lawsuit over the issue. U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland recently dismissed a 2019 lawsuit filed by activist Robert Davis after both Davis and the county agreed it should be thrown out. Davis, a Highland Park resident, sued the board over its time limit for public participation, which is allowed at board meetings at two agenda items. A public-inclusion agenda item is required by law. The law is very clear, i allows for a reasonable time limit. Even 3 minutes is OK, said chief county attorney John Schapka. The case was dismissed in late May. Davis spoke in June 2019 at the county board Records and Public Safety Committee meeting on issues surrounding former county prosecutor Eric Smith and his request for independent counsel. Davis contended meeting chairman, Commissioner Robert Leonetti, violated his Constitutional rights by preventing him from speaking longer than five minutes. Davis said Leonetti had discretion to let him speak longer but contended Leonettis animus and disdain toward Davis prompted him to limit his time. Davis contends Leonetti cut him off because he was criticizing Smith for his lack of response to a Freedom of Information Act request FOIA and attempts to secure outside legal representation. Schapka, however, noted that Leonetti was polite to Davis, who actually quit before the five minutes were over, although Davis claimed he stopped because he knew Leonetti would not let him continue. Davis attorney, Andrew Paterson, said he agrees the five minute restriction is allowed so didnt object to the dismissal. They (time limits) have been sustained in court, he said. However, he said in other instances problems arise when a meeting chairman allows one speaker to exceed the limit but holds another speaker to the limit. There have been cases when the time limit is ignored for some and not others, he said. Paterson said he understands the need for time limits but sometimes they get in the way. The time limit is good when you have someone who is talking for 20 minutes and saying the same thing over and over again, he said. On the other hand, when you have people with a legitimate issue, can they properly address it within the time limit? The county board has two public-participation agenda items at each meeting, with one early in the meeting limited to agenda items, and as the last agenda item in which there is no restriction. At the June 25 board meeting, at the start of the second public-participation itme, county resident Mike Zubas Jr. asked for extra time to speak from something he wrote. I actually have a lot to say, he told board Chairman Bob Smith. Its really long, 3,200 words. Smith responded that he couldnt add extra time but said he would stop him at five minutes and they would talk about it. After five minutes and 20 seconds, Smith said, Youre already over your five minutes. Smith noted that Zubas, who ran for Mount Clemens mayor in 2017, could complete his diatribe on law enforcement issues by speaking at multiple meetings of the board or board committee, all of which including all 13 board members. Theres been three other meetings this week and an opportunity to do this, Smith said. We can do this at the end of every meeting we have. Smith granted Zubas request to finish this paragraph, and spoke for about 30 seconds longer. Davis, meanwhile, also sued the county and state over release of documents in Michigan State Polices search of Smiths office and Macomb Township home last year. The documents were subsequently released upon order of Macomb Circuit Court Judge Edward Servitto.
@MarkCavitt on Twitter

Mark Cavitt is a multimedia journalist at The Oakland Press and MediaNews Group in Michigan. His beat includes all Oakland County government offices, departments, boards, commissions and committees.
The COVID-19 crisis may have dampened Fourth of July fireworks and parades, but in at least two Mount Clemens neighborhoods the traditional re
Hong Kong, the popular Asian city, returned to its motherland China after a century of British colonial rule on this very day 23 years ago, on July 1, 1997. Hong Kong was an inseparable part of China, but became a British colony after the Qing dynasty ceded it to the British Empire in 1842 through the Treaty of Nanjing, ending the First Opium War.

Hong Kong citizens celebrate the passage of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in Causeway Bay of south China's Hong Kong, June 30, 2020. The law was passed at the 20th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC). (Xinhua/Wang Shen)

To commemorate its return to the motherland, Hongkongers are celebrating the historic occasion in a befitting manner today. The central government of China made the celebrations very special by passing the National Security Law for Hong Kong on June 30. Hongkongers have warmly welcomed and expressed unconditional support for the security law by singing patriotic songs and waving the national flag.

Analysts are of the view that the law will help Hong Kong embrace a brighter future. Through enacting the long-overdue legislation, as required under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the long-awaited decolonization has finally been started in the former British colony. Though the global economic hub is an integral part of China, as a colonial legacy, Hong Kong retains its own currency, passport and immigration channels, and legal system.

China has regained sovereignty over Hong Kong. The flag has changed, a tiny People's Liberation Army contingent has replaced its British counterpart, and the National Peoples Congress has interpreted the local Basic Law a few times. But, thanks to 150 years of British colonialism, the educational and judicial systems, as well as the civil service and mass media in Hong Kong, are still dominated by those who subscribe to the viewpoints and values of the Western imperium. They never think of the welfare and development of Hongkongers, and would rather help their colonial masters perpetuate their dominance around the world.

As a sign of respect for the autonomy guaranteed under 'one country, two systems', the central government of China has always stuck to its non-interference policy when it comes to the citys local government work. But the local government has constantly failed to undertake any initiative to decolonize Hong Kong in the face of riots, sabotage, violence, anarchy, and vandalism caused by the agents, pawns, and proteges of the Western imperium, especially the United States (US).

Ironically, they do everything in the name of protecting autonomy, human rights, freedoms, and democracy. These agents love to be called 'democratic forces'. These so-called democrats are always seeking excuses to wreak havoc and destabilize this global economic hub. If we look back at the past, we can see that they created anarchy and sabotage every year under the cover of democratic movements.

The pawns of the US broke their all-time records of violence and vandalism in their opposition to the anti-extradition bill last year. The world witnessed how valuable assets were burnt, police being assaulted every day and the national emblem and flag of China being insulted. Ironically, this sabotage took place under the pretext of peaceful demonstrations.

The violent demonstrators made it crystal clear that they did everything under the auspices of the so-called savior of democracy, the US, as they were seen carrying the US flag in different parts of the city during the demonstrations. Though the US has no right to meddle in the internal affairs of any country in the world, it has reportedly long been instigating violence brazenly in Hong Kong.

In an act of sheer interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country, the US enacted the so-called Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 last November. The US Senate also passed the so-called Hong Kong Autonomy Act on June 25. The act was designed to obstruct China's national security legislation for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by imposing sanctions.

To my eyes, making any kind of analysis of the US legislation is unnecessary, as the wording and content of the law made it clear that the US has directly attacked the sovereign power of China by breaching all international laws, regulations, agreements, and conventions including the charter of the United Nations.

Finally, I would like to conclude that the national security legislation will bring about a brighter future for Hongkongers, as it will effectively make the city stable and peaceful by foiling all the conspiracies and attempts to destabilize it from the US and its local proteges. Thanks to the security law, which will only target acts such as secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security, and fix the loopholes in the judiciary, the world will be able to see a more prosperous Hong Kong in the coming years.

The opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to People's Daily Online.

The author is the China Correspondent of the Bangladesh Post.
Exton, PA (19341)

Today

Thunderstorms, some locally heavy early, then mainly cloudy after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some locally heavy early, then mainly cloudy after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
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Majorca is under the impression that hundreds of thousands of British tourists will soon be on their way to the island. There is only one problem; the UK Foreign Office is warning against all but essential travel to Spain...in otherwords dont go unless it is vital. Is a holiday vital? Well to some people perhaps so...but to others not.

The British government has said that they will be changing the travel advice shortly...but you do feel rather sorry for the British travel industry which is desperately trying to get going but are being effectively grounded by the British government.

The travel advice should be removed early next week by which time July will be into full swing. So if you hurry you still might be able to enjoy a summer break in Spain but ofcourse this all depends on the fact that you have the necessary flexibility in both your workplace and family life. And also remember that schools go back in Britain in August so it is a relatively short holiday window.

Matt Hancock, the British Minister for Health, rather controversially said that Britons would probably not be going on a summer holiday abroad this year. At the time he was slammed by the British travel industry but it now appears that he was right...well almost. Yes, the British will be able to go on holiday abroad this year but many have already booked their stay vacation. Could all this have been avoided? Yes, if there was a single common European Union directive...but that is another story.
An old friend of mine sent me an email the other day in which he said that the lockdown in the UK had exposed the dangers of too much devolution. All UK countries, he noted, have different lockdown rules. Apart from confusion that has arisen during the lockdown, there is a more general point to be made, and it relates to the costs of duplication - more civil servants, more parliamentary authorities, more ministers, more legislators and more advisors in each of the UK countries.

I have to say this made me chuckle. I responded by pointing out that Spain is something of a world beater in the devolution stakes. Seventeen regions with their individual governments, plus provincial administrations, the large cities and all the municipalities, most of them far from large - 62% of Spain's 8,131 municipalities have populations of under 1,000 inhabitants.

Of the provincial administrations (or akin to provincial), there is the Council of Majorca, its own quasi-government and for which, when he was president, Miquel Ensenyat had ambitions of furthering this quasi-governmental status. Ensenyat would always offer a rider about ensuring that there wasn't duplication (and therefore the additional costs), but I doubt that many could have believed that there wouldn't be - the Council has form in this regard.

Javier Mato, a journalist who is typically good value, recently wrote a stinging criticism of the Council. This was apropos a suggestion from the Council's president, Catalina Cladera, for a kind of "twinning" arrangement with the UN's World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), whereby Majorca would play host to events held by the Madrid-based UNWTO. He didn't think much of the UNWTO, and he isn't alone in this regard, or the Council. "Two institutions which speak the same language ... and make as many speeches as necessary, all of them empty."

The suggestion was thus one for an alliance between "nothingness and the absurd". Seldom has there been a proposal for "a more useless marriage". Why hasn't the Council been dissolved? The reason why not is in order to "feed hundreds of members of political parties".

The role of the Council and the need for the Council is an old theme. Part of this role is to ensure that autonomy in the Balearics is "closer to the citizens", yet if one takes recent experience (lockdown, aka the state of alarm), was it the Council that was close to the citizens? I would suggest that this closeness was from the Balearic government but more so from the town halls. The Council, while not redundant, wasn't a focal point.

While accepting the argument about the costs of duplication that stem from devolution, it seems to me that rather than the lockdown (in Spain) having exposed the dangers of too much devolution, it in fact highlighted the advantages of certain tiers of administration, especially given the context of what the state of alarm actually entailed. A difference with the UK was the very clear assumption of central government powers and the equally clear (for the most part anyway) communications.

All the regions, all provinces, all municipalities were governed from the centre. Some didn't like this, but the Constitution allowed for the fact that at a time of great crisis, the Spanish government had the legal means to step in, take control and issue the rules.

While Madrid was calling the shots, the regional governments were of course responsible for some of the key responses to the crisis - the health services, most obviously. The messaging was coming from the Balearic government as much as it was from Madrid, while it was the town halls which really got close. They did this in a variety of ways, e.g. the constant updates through social media, local police doing cheer-up drive-pasts, collaborating on supplies of basic needs.

It might seem nonsensical that there are as many municipalities as there are, but this number did provide one very good means of applying control. You could be stopped within your municipality, but if you crossed the municipal border, you really did need to have a very good reason for doing so. The municipalities thus acted as an in-built mechanism to limit the spread of the virus.

This isn't to say that the Council didn't play its role, but it hadn't, for example, been the Council which had called on the Spanish government to treat the island (and the other three) as if they were provinces and therefore further limit mobility. The Balearic government had wanted this, and Madrid agreed. The Balearic government is Madrid's "interlocutor", not the Council.

The costs of devolution aside, the state of alarm in Spain did actually show how devolution can function very effectively. The circumstances were admittedly very unusual, but this devolution did offer a convenient and effective mechanism. Where the Council is concerned, perhaps one might conclude that there is good and there is less good devolution.
Theres no doubt about it: what we eat on a summers day makes all the difference to our enjoyment of a meal. When the temperature is over the 30C mark, certain ingredients, certain dishes, certain cooking methods are needed to jolt our jaded palates and get us interested in eating.

Selecting the ideal dishes for a summers day lunch is no easy matter and we frequently make bad choices. But that didnt happen at Munay: the Peruvian head cook made the choices for us and both starters and mains on the menu del dia were perfect for a summers day.

The first starter was called tiradito de vieiras: slivers of scallops, yellow peppers called aji amarillo, glace sweet potatoes, crunchy fried sweetcorn corn called choclo and chifles  thin slices of banana fried until they have the texture of potato crisps. This dish had lovely contrasts of textures and tartish tastes that really got the tastebuds sitting up and asking for more. I even enjoyed the taste of fresh cilantro (which I dont care for) because it spiked the other flavours even although it was well in the background. What a superb way to start a summer lunch.

The other starter was on a lower key but was also most refreshing. They called it solterito arquipeno (the bachelor from Arequipa, a Peruvian city) and it was a salad with Peruvian fresh cheese, fresh broad beans (very few), olives and sweetcorn dressed with cream of rocoto (a Peruvian yellow pepper) and olive oil. A lovely cool mixture and ideal for sharing.

Peru has one of the first great fusion cuisines and in it you see influences from all over the world: ancient Incan, Spanish, Italian, African, Japanese and Chinese. The Japanese and Chinese traits are very strong and in any Peruvian restaurant or home you will always come across stir-fried noodles and rice dishes.

On last weeks menu del dia it was arroz chaufa, a famous dish in the countrys long list of Oriental style dishes. In this case it was stir-fried rice with veggies with a little soy sauce and also tamarind flavours.

It came with pieces of breadcrumbed chicken plus two slices of wanton pasta deep-fried to a golden crispness for more contrasts of textures. They used round rice for this dish, which is notoriously difficult to get right. But the Peruvian cook did a beautiful job, so he obviously has had lots of practice  which is what one needs for all successful rice dishes.

There is no printed menu because of the virus crisis so you download the details on your smartphone. We dont have smartphones so the waitress recited the four dishes. We had one of each and shared everything.



The verdict

This is the third time Ive had the menu del dia at Munay and on each occasion we had a splendid meal. It is one of Palmas best value-for-money deals. The dishes are always so different from what is on offer at other places and, most important of all, cooking standards are extremely high. I know nothing at all about the head cook (not even his name) but I can see him at work in the semi-open kitchen. He is obviously a consummate professional with a great deal of experience. As you can see from what I have written in the review, he takes great care to balance textures and flavours and his cooking times are spot on. Two of the dishes were worth a 10, but instead of giving it to them, he gets the 10-rating. He deserves it.



The place

Restaurante Munay, Carrer Arxiduc Lluis Salvador 4, Palma. Open for lunch and dinner every day except Sundays. The menu del dia costs 15.50 for starter, mains, and a choice of dessert or coffee, plus mineral water or a cana. A half menu costs 9.50 and includes one of the dishes, dessert or water or cana. When you make the booking let them know if you want vegetarian or vegan options.



The bill

Our two menus del dia cost 31 and we had an extra cana at 2 (a good price in a restaurant of this category) so the total cost with VAT was 33. After we had eaten I noticed they have Peruvian beers at 3.20. Ive never tasted a Peruvian beer, so next time Ill try one.

A delish escabeche

When early humans stopped being nomads and became settlers living in a chosen area, one of the many problems they immediately encountered was the conservation of food.

They were extremely clever and found many ways of delaying the putrefaction of fish and meat. Salting was one and smoking was another. The use of strong vinegars was also a most efficient way of keeping fish edible for weeks or even months.

This was especially useful when fishermen came back with a huge catch of sardines, mackerel or other fish that were in season and abundant.

Spaniards invented a recipe for cooking fish that was also a method of conserving it for weeks. It is called escabeche and it was such a successful way of dealing with a large haul of fish that it travelled the world.

You find the recipe in Sicily with the name schivecch and on the Italian mainland it is called schiabezia and scabeccio. There is even an English version called caveach and the recipe appeared in three 18th century cookbooks by well known English writers.

Columbus took escabeche to the New World and it is used in the Caribbean and all over South America. A feature of all the different versions of the original escabeche is that local ingredients are used.

Peru has many variations on the escabeche theme and we had one of them as a mains at Munay. It was done with a Mediterranean fish I have never had before. Its called cabrilla in Spanish and comber in English, and it is one of the Serranidae family that includes, sea bass, grouper and sea perch.

The fish was floured and fried in the escabeche manner and the flesh was white, soft and tasty  and there wasnt a single bone. An escabeche always has a pronounced taste of vinegar  more often than not too much, for my liking.

This version had a sharp vinegar touch but it wasnt overpowering and it had more of a hot spicy taste than you find in European escabeches. It contained glace sweet potato  a most Peruvian variation.
The Spanish population of Palma has fallen for the first time in history, according to the last Municipal Census on January 1, 2020, which was presented by Alberto Jarabo, Citizenship Participation on Thursday.

In the last year, 513 people left the Balearic capital and the number of foreigners in the city increased by 23.1%.

Palmas population increased by 1.59% over the last 12 months to 456,088 compared to 349,691 in 2000, an increase of 30%.

The city has continued to grow in recent years due to an increasing number of inhabitants from the European Union and the reactivation of Immigration from South American countries.

Councillor Jarabo says most of the Spaniards who left Palma moved to other towns in Majorca, Ibiza and Minorca because of soaring housing costs.

The number of foreigners from the EU increased from 6.6% in 2006 to 10% in 2014 and the number from non-EU countries during the same period, decreased from 13.2% to 9.4%.

In 2014 there were 42,635 EU citizens in Palma compared to 40,287 from outside Europe, although the latter began to rise again in 2017.

In the last three years, both groups have grown and there are now 53,378 foreigners from the EU and 52,010 from outside the EU living in the Balearic capital.

17,958 foreigners came to Palma in the last 12 months, 6,000 left and 14,261 Spaniards also moved out of the city.

By nationality, 1,578 of foreigners came from Colombia, 919 from Italy, 469 from Argentina and 363 from Venezuela.

531 Spaniards left the city along with 7 people from Mauritania and 5 from Egypt.

On January 1, 2020, there were 350,700 Spaniards living in Palma - 170,334 men and 180,366 women; 53,378 EU foreigners - 26,217 men and 27,161 women and 52,010 non-EU citizens - 27,056 men and 24,954 women. In the last 15 years, 25,742 non-EU residents have registered in Palma, which is an increase of 165%.

By continent, the number of Europeans in Palma has gone up by 0.5% to 40,799 year-on-year; Americans have increased by 15.8% to 26,776; Africans are up 6.1% to 11,800, Asians increased by 9.8% to 9,304, and the number of foreigners from Oceania is up by 12% to 158.

The highest percentage of educated foreigners, ranges from 57% from the United States to 43% from Russia, 36% from Venezuela, 34% from France and 33% from Belgium.

The highest percentage of uneducated or illiterate foreigners range from 67% from Mali to 63% from Senegal, 54% from Nigeria, 44% from Morocco and 43% from Pakistan.

There was an increase in non-EU citizens in Pere Garau, Foners and particularly in Son Gotleu, which grew by 33% compared to 11.4% in the entire city.

In the Old Town districts of Monti-sion, Sindicat and La Missio the European population increased by 21%-23% compared to last year, and by 30% in Son Vida.

The size of families also varies by neighbourhood.

In Son Banya most families consist of more than 6 members compared to 3 family members in La Teulera, Son Pereto, Son Gotleu or Son Rapinya and 1-2 family members in Sindicat, Es LLonquet, Cala Major and Sant Jaume.

In Sant Jaume, Cort, Sindicat and Monti-sion around 15% of families have 3-4 members.
Who is Karen? And why are people constantly dropping her name?
Masks were distributed by Marysville Police Department Thursday to help businesses make them available. Assistant police chief Matt Simpson gives packets of masks to Marysville Health & Fitness owner Pam Schroller. The county's Board of Commissioners passed a resolution on Friday strongly recommending the public wear them to protect others from COVID-19. Photo by Sally Gray
Police in Boston continue to investigate a fatal shooting in Dorchester early Thursday morning that left a man dead.

Officers from the Boston Police Department responded to a radio call for a shot spotter activation near 109 Norfolk St. in Dorchester just after midnight Thursday morning, police said.

While in the area, officers found a man suffering from a gunshot wound near Armandine and Milton Streets, police said. The man was taken to a local hospital where he later died, police said.

An initial investigation reveal ballistic evidence in the area, according to police.

Police didnt publicly reveal any more information about the shooting or the mans identity.

Police are investigating the incident and are asking anyone with information to contact Boston Police Homicide detectives at (617) 343-4470.

Tips can be provided anonymously by calling the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1 (800) 494-TIPS or by texting the word TIP to CRIME (27463).

Anyone in need of emotional support or simply needing to talk to someone about distressing events in our community, the Boston Neighborhood Trauma Team (NTT) provides free, private support 24/7 at (617) 431-0125 or by visiting BPHC.org/trauma.
Encore Boston Harbor announced Thursday that the Everett casino intends to reopen to the public on Sunday, July 12.

The reopening date comes after Gov. Charlie Baker announced that casinos will be allowed to reopen as early as Monday as part of Phase 3 of the Massachusetts reopening plan.

Encore Boston Harbor will open its doors at 9 a.m. July 12, pending approval from state gaming officials.

The decision comes after the Massachusetts Gaming Commission approved a slew of reopening requirements last week.

The new guidelines include rules and recommendations for screening guests, including a requirement to make hand sanitizer available and a suggestion to conduct temperature checks. Social distancing guidelines for slots include a requirement that casinos turn off every other slot machine and remove chairs, and to either ensure a minimum of 6 feet between slot positions or install 6-foot-tall plexiglass dividers.

There are also reduced occupancy limits based on a formula for total patrons and employees. Commissioners believe the formula will reduce each facilitys capacity to about 25%.

Other requirements for reopening guests at Encore Boston Harbor include:

Thermal temperature scans at all guest and employee entrances. Anyone, guest or employee, with a temperature of 100.4 or more will not be allowed inside.

Face coverings are mandatory for all employees and guests. Face masks will be available for guests as needed.

Enhanced cleaning and disinfecting of public spaces throughout the day.

Hand sanitizer stations and disinfecting wipes available throughout the property.

Signage at each point of entry and at prominent locations throughout the gaming area to remind guests of safe practices including frequent hand washing, use of hand sanitizer, proper wearing of masks, and to go home if sick.

Encore Boston Harbor, MGM Springfield and Plainridge Park were ordered to shutdown in mid-March. Casino operators previously said they will need 10 to 14 days notice in order to ramp back up.

Following the shutdowns, thousands of casino workers were furloughed.

Wynn Resorts, the casinos parent company, put off furloughs after closing on March 15 in light of the coronavirus pandemic, paying the roughly 4,200 employees who work at the $2.6 billion Everett casino. The company spent $3 million a day, or roughly $220 million between mid-March and May, to continue paying its employees, the company said.

MGM Springfield told state labor officials in May that it will lay off as many as 1,887 employees at the end of August.

The Springfield casino had just over 2,000 employees earlier this year.

39 MGM Springfield ready to celebrate one-year anniversary

In a letter obtained by MassLive in May, Acting Chief Executive Bill Hornbuckle said the company is in the midst of the most challenging period ever faced by the company.

Hornbuckle said when employees were first furloughed in March, MGM hoped a significant portion of its operations would bounce back by the summer.

However, we are realistic in our understanding that domestic and international travel will remain limited for some time, Hornbuckle said. We believe that demand for travel will be significantly decreased for the remainder of 2020 and could continue through the early part of next year.

Amid operational shutdowns, MGM furloughed nearly 63,000 workers, leaving the company with a skeleton crew of its roughly 70,000-person staff in the United States.

Employees will remain furloughed through the end of August, when their employment will be end if they are not rehired by Aug. 31. Hornbuckle did not specify how many of its furloughed workers would be laid off.

We now believe that some of our colleagues may not return to work this year, Hornbuckle wrote. And, given the continued uncertainty facing our industry, we simply dont know just how many employees will return to work within the coming months.

All furloughed employees enrolled in the company health plan will have their benefits extended through August 31 with no employee contributions for premiums.

Massachusetts casinos will be among the final in the nation to reopen following coronavirus shutdowns.

In neighboring Connecticut, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Mohegan Tribe reopened Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun at the beginning of June. Twin River Casino in Lincoln, Rhode Island opened on Tuesday. Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady, New York, remains closed.

Casinos in Las Vegas were allowed to reopen as early as June 4.

MGM reopened Mandalay Bay and Aria on Wednesday. The company requires all employees and guests to wear masks inside public spaces at every MGM property across the U.S.

As part of our work to continually update and evolve our health and safety policies, we are now requiring masks for all guests and visitors inside public spaces, the company said in a statement released last week. If a guest is in need of a mask, we will provide one. We hope that our guests will do their part to help the collective efforts to curtail the spread of the virus. Guests who do not wish to comply will be asked to leave the property.
Its not a title many in Massachusetts would expect, but drivers in the state were named the best in the country on Thursday, according to a study done by SmartAsset.

The financial advising company looked at four metrics to determine which drivers were the best in the United States. When examining fatalities per 100 million miles driven, driving under the influence arrests per 1,000 drivers, percentage of insured drivers and Google trends, Massachusetts came out on top.

It was the second consecutive year the Bay State finished atop the rankings, while Mississippi finished at the bottom for the second straight year.

In the 2020, rankings, 93.8% of Massachusetts drivers were insured, the same number as last year. Drivers saw a decline in DUI arrests per 1,000 this year. In last years rankings, the number was 1.76 while this year it dipped to 1.67. Massachusetts also improved upon deaths per 100 million miles driven. Last year, the rate was .63 while this year it was .54.

More than 30 states had a fatality rate of higher than 1.0. Massachusetts .54 rate was the best in the country. Its rate of DUIs ranked fifth. In terms of insured drivers, only New York (93.9%) and Maine (95.5) ranked better.

Data for fatality rate per 100 million miles driven come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and is from 2018. DUI arrests were based on FBI data, while the number of drivers was based on information from the Department of Transportation in 2018.

Figurers regarding percentage of insured drives comes from the Insurance Research Council and is from 2017.

Regarding Google trends, SmartAsset examined often residents in each state searched terms speeding ticket and traffic ticket. The data is from May 2019 and May 2020.

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Revere police have arrested a 38-year-old Revere man and charged him with painting swastikas on a Muslim womans car in Revere just over a week ago, they wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

Jason Pagliuca was charged with defacement of real or personal property and assault, and assault and battery or property damage for the purpose of intimidation, police said.

In addition to the graffiti, police also found the words white power spray painted on the street.

The Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic announced on June 22 that they will offer a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the graffiti.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo said this crime is an example of the racism many of our residents experience on an ongoing basis.

I want to thank our detectives for their hard work and diligence in identifying the perpetrator of this hate crime, our partners in the District Attorneys office for their continued support throughout the investigation, and the community leaders who continue to call attention to the injustices that exist in our city, Arrigo said.

-Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Somerville City Council has passed an ordinance recognizing polyamorous domestic partnerships, making it one of the first cities in the country to do so, according to the Somerville Journal.

The measure tweaks existing language in Somerville law, changing, among other things, the part referring to partnerships as entities formed by two persons to entities formed by people, the Journal reports.

On June 29, Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone signed the councils ordinance into law, which they passed on June 25, according to the newspaper.

In Massachusetts, domestic partnerships provide some of the legal benefits married couples enjoy, including hospital visitation rights, shared health care coverage and sick or bereavement leave for a partner, according to the Miller Law Group.

Like marriage, domestic partnerships require shared living expenses and shared responsibility for the well-being of each other and any dependents, among other things. The rights of domestic partners vary from state to state.

The city of Somerville is in the process of amending its application paperwork to include space for more than two partners, and polyamorous partners will be able to file soon, the Journal reports.
Officials charged with overseeing the reopening of Cape Cod are confident that despite a spike in coronavirus cases in other parts of the country, data shows that traditionally seasonal Cape visitors tend to come from others parts of Massachusetts or neighboring states.

The Cape & Islands Reopening Task Force convened earlier in May in an effort to create a unified vision for what life would look like after the coronavirus pandemic. The group launched a website to help inform businesses, residents and visitors about its reopening strategy.

In 2018, 92% of visitors to Cape Cod were domestic, according to Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, serving as the groups spokesperson. About 60% traveled from other New England states, and roughly 29% came from Mid-Atlantic states.

Thee vast majority of those folks are coming from states that have similar trends that are showing a decreased rate of COVID, Cyr said, referring to those who visited the Cape in 2018. That is good news.

Additionally, Massachusetts residents account for the highest number of tourist trips to Cape Cod, Cyr said.

Sean OBrien, emergency preparedness coordinator for the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment, said that new cases on Cape Cod are in the very low single-digits. He said there are only three people hospitalized with the virus across the Cape.

That is very encouraging, and has been encouraging for the last few weeks, OBrien said.

Cyr said that while officials expected a relatively quiet summer season, the low number of infections on the Cape has shown that people have been complying with rules for social distancing and wearing face-coverings.

We are in a better place than I expected we would be, Cyr said.

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Following months of waiting, fitness centers and health clubs received approval from Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday to open their doors on Monday.

Baker announced the state would move forward into the third phase of its reopening strategy on Monday. Gyms are included in Phase 3.

More specifically, the third phase goes beyond gyms to includes cardio, weight rooms, locker rooms, fitness studios (yoga, barre, cross-fit, spin classes, general fitness studios), shower rooms, indoor common areas, indoor swimming pools, indoor racquet courts and gymnasiums.

The guidance provided by the state require fitness centers to limits its capacity to 40% while also requiring sanitization of equipment after use and face coverings for users.

Phase 3, however does not include saunas, hot-tubs or steam rooms.

Going to the gym may not look the same the way it did before the pandemic, but we hope that these new protocols will allow more residents to return to exercise and fitness and get back into those routines that they were accustomed to, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said.

Prior to Baker releasing specifics regarding the states reopening strategy, many gym owners believed they would be slotted into Phase 2. Instead, Baker placed them in Phase 3.

We think that we have the ability to open in a safe way especially relative to all the other types of facilities that are out there and are able to open prior to us, said Bill Najam, the general manager and founder of Lynx Fitness in Boston.

Under the original path laid out in the reopening strategy, the earliest gyms could have opened was June 29. Instead, Baker wanted to have indoor dining open for two weeks prior to proceeding to Phase 3.

A handful of facilities in Massachusetts opened despite Bakers orders.

Bodystrong Fitness in Cape Cod and Prime Fitness in Oxford remained open into June. Bodystrong Fitness faced fines of up to$300 per day. Officials in Oxford shut off the power and water at Prime Fitness.

On Monday, gym owners prepare to reopen legally for the first time in months in a new landscape.

I think one-on-one training and that high-end training is really going to grow, said Michael Covino who owns True North Performance Training in Worcester. I think it was already growing, but I think its going to grow even more.

During the period of time gyms were ordered to be closed, business owners highlighted the the cleanliness of their facilities. The size of the gyms, owners said, also allowed for a simple transition into social distancing. Most gyms also have a finite amount of members, something different than restaurants, big box stores and breweries, which all opened prior to gyms.

Worcester Fitness even examined the tiniest details including how members should handle pens and pencils when they sign in. The gym also has discussed the possibility of having an employee constantly walk through the workout areas to ensure equipment is properly sanitized.

Fitness centers will be allowed to open in Massachusetts next week amid states across the country pausing or rolling back reopening plans.

Earlier this week, at least 16 states delayed reopening strategies due to spikes in coronavirus. While Massachusetts remains on track to contain the virus, it appears to be an outlier from a national perspective. However, Massachusetts reopening plan allows for phases to be paused or rolled back to previous steps depending on public health data.

The pandemic continues to grow with new cases across the U.S., with the Sun Belt being hit particularly hard. The U.S. reported on Wednesday 50,655 new cases in a single day. Daily coronavirus case records were reported on Wednesday in Texas, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Across the U.S., almost 2.7 million people had tested positive for COVID-19 according to Johns Hopkins. Over 128,000 Americans have died from the virus.

I just have to focus on whats happening in my own backyard. I want to play by the rules that are set by our state, Covino said. Its almost too disheartening to read about that, or speculate that that might be next for us. If all of a sudden they say, Its too soon, we have to close,' I wouldnt be shocked at all. But I dont know. I cant live my life worrying about Texas and Florida.

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Former House Speaker Sal DiMasi was cleared on Thursday to register as a lobbyist by a Superior Court judge who overturned Secretary of State William Galvins decision to reject DiMasis application based on his past convictions on federal corruption and extortion charges.

The ruling could return to the State House a man who once wielded tremendous power on Beacon Hill until he was caught and convicted of accepting kickbacks in exchange for steering lucrative state contracts to a Burlington-based software firm.

Superior Court Judge Robert Gordon ruled that if the Legislature had intended to make a conviction on federal criminal charges grounds for automatic disqualification from lobbying in Massachusetts it should have explicitly listed those crimes as triggers for the legal action.Instead, the 2009 state law cited by Galvin to deny DiMasis application to lobby only calls for anyone found to be in violation of state ethics, lobbying or campaign finance laws to be automatically disqualified from lobbying for 10 years.

Judge Gordons decision to side with DiMasis narrow interpretation of the state lobbying laws means that the former North End Democrat may soon be allowed to join the list of former speakers who have gone on to lobbying careers after their years as an elected official were ended by legal trouble.

We are gratified by todays decision, which adopts our common-sense construction of the Lobbying Law. As we have said from the beginning, the Secretary did not have authority to disqualify Mr. DiMasi from registering as a lobbyist. Mr. DiMasi looks forward to using his knowledge and experience to advocate for important causes such as healthcare for the homeless and prison reform, said Meredith Fierro, DiMasis attorney.

Galvin, however, said he intends to appeal. This decision sets a very bad precedent and I will be appealing it, the secretary said in a short statement.

DiMasi, who led the House from 2004 to 2009, served five years in federal prison until his compassionate release in 2016 to battle cancer. He made a public appeal last year for a second chance after his health improved and he sought to restart a career advocating for issues like prison reform.

Whatever you think I did, I think Ive paid my debt to society and I think I can get a second chance to be a contributing citizen so that I can benefit the citizens of Massachusetts, DiMasi told reporters in November.

The former North End Democrats attempt to resurrect his career in politics, however, was greeted with a closed door by Galvin, who in March 2019 rejected his application to register as a lobbyist.

DiMasi appealed the denial, but an administrative hearing officer from Galvins office upheld the secretarys decision in December, prompting DiMasi to seek relief from the courts.

Gordon wrote in his ruling that the narrow construction of the law argued by DiMasi is no more absurd than the broad interpretation sought by Galvin.

The judge cited a Supreme Judicial Court precedent from a 1986 case involving the Boston Retirement Board in which the states highest court recognized as significant the Legislatures failure to reference federal crimes in state statute as a trigger for legal consequences.

In fact, Gordon wrote that one might fairly deride as absurd the notion that a law intended to create guidelines for an automatic denial, which would remove discretion from the process, should be interpreted to also give the secretary the freedom to decide which federal and non-Massachusetts crimes were analogous to the ones enumerated in the statute.

The judge also suggested that based on DiMasis federal convictions he could have been prosecuted under state statutes by the attorney general, but wasnt, and cast doubt on the prospects for Galvins alternate theory for denial should he pursue it.

Galvins office has suggested that DiMasi also could have been denied based on his failure to register as a lobbyist while also serving as speaker and advocating for the software firm, Cognos -- the same action for which he was convicted of corruption.

Gordon was appointed to the Superior Court bench in 2013 by former Gov. Deval Patrick. Prior to that, he worked at the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray for more than two decades, with a focus on labor and employment law.

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Is it safe to form a COVID-19 support bubble with friends?

Yes, if done correctly.

Support bubbles, also known as quarantine pods, may help fend off loneliness and anxiety after months of social distancing. The idea, which originated in New Zealand, calls for two people or households to agree to socialize in person only with each other to limit the risk of infection.

Experts say dont do it unless everyone agrees to follow social distancing guidelines while outside the bubble.

You are now swimming in the same pool with not just that person, but all the people those people are interacting with, said Dr. Aaron Milstone at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Support bubbles are already catching on in the U.S. with reopenings underway. And earlier this month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that adults living alone or single parents can form support bubbles with another household. Members of a bubble can meet, indoors or out, without remaining two meters (6  feet) apart.

Its too soon to know whether the strategy will work on a broad scale. But a recent study indicated that bubbles with more limited contacts worked better to flatten the curve of infection compared with other strategies, such as limiting contact to ones neighborhood.

I dont think we can promise people complete safety when they have face-to-face contact with others outside their household, said study co-author Per Block of Oxford University.

But he said limiting interactions to one other family poses a much smaller risk than resuming previous socializing habits.
Hugh Downs, former host of the ABC news program 20/20 and earlier NBCs Today show died Wednesday in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 99.

He was a Todayco-host on NBC from 1962 to 1971, and anchor of the ABC News magazine 20/20 from 1978 to 1999. Prior to Today, Downs was the host of the popular quiz show Concentration and sidekick to Jack Paar on the Tonight Show.

His death was reported by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Downs served in the U.S. Army during World War II and got his start on Midwest radio stations before being hired as the announcer on the childrens puppet series Kukla, Fran and Ollie and the Sid Caesars variety show Caesars Hour.

He was a special consultant to the United Nations for refugee problems between 1961 and 1964 and served as chair of the United States Committee for UNICEF.

In 1998, Arizona State named its communications school The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication.

He retired from broadcasting in 1999 after spending a career total of 15,188 hours on television  second only to Regis Philbin, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Downs had been living in Arizona with his wife, Ruth, whom he married in 1944. She died in 2017, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Survivors include his children Hugh and Deirdre; his brother, Wallace; and two grandchildren.
SPRINGFIELD  The U.S. House and Senate are likely to pass another stimulus payment program and the federal government might extend a $600-a-week enhancement for unemployment insurance recipients, payments meant to soften the blow the coronavirus dealt to the economy, said U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield.

Neal spoke Thursday to reporters gathered outside his office in the federal courthouse on State Street.

The Labor Department said Thursday record job gains in June showed the economy has recovered roughly one-third of the 22 million jobs it lost in the pandemic recession.

But Neal said infection rates are still climbing elsewhere around the country and 17.8 million Americans remain out of work four months after sweeping business shutdowns meant to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The worst attitude we can adopt right now is one of complacency, Neal said. No one is saying that this is over.

The $600 addition to unemployment checks is set to expire at the end of July. Employers, and some lawmakers, have blamed it for giving workers an incentive to stay home and not look for jobs.

I suspect that is going to be a point of battle, Neal said.

But he said that in order to qualify for unemployment, a worker must have lost a job, not quit.

These are people who have been laid off, he said.

Hes unable to provide details at this point, but Neal said there possibly will be a system where workers can return to work and retain a portion of the $600.

Both houses and President Donald Trump have spoken about another stimulus payment. Most Americans could receive $1,200 while many married couples who file their tax returns jointly get $2,400, and those with children are allocated $500 for dependents under the age of 17.

Neal, chairman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, said this was a busy week in Washington, with significant progress made on the Moving Forward Act, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act, and the Emergency Housing Protections & Relief Act, as well as the introduction of the GREEN Act.

The Moving Forward Act is a a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan that could provide $19 billion in federal grants for transportation projects, including east-west rail in Massachusetts enhancing passenger service from Boston through Worcester and Springfield and onto Pittsfield.

Neal detailed tax credit provisions in the bill to aid in the purchase of electric vehicles, including tax benefits for the first time to those who buy a used electric vehicle.

The bill could provide $1.4 billion in alternative fuel charging infrastructure and $25 billion to modernize the U.S. Postal Service, which could include an all-electric, zero-emissions fleet of delivery vehicles.

Neal said he signed on Wednesday as a supporter of U.S. Rep. Katherine Clarks Child Care is Infrastructure Act, which would pump billions into the child care and early education systems and help parents get back to work.

He said all this legislation passed by the House with its Democratic majority is not necessarily dead on arrival in the GOP-led Senate. Every conversation with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky starts at no, Neal said, but the Senate has passed significant coronavirus relief legislation with commanding majorities.

Neal reacted to ongoing revelations that Russian operatives placed bounties on the heads of U.S. service members in Afghanistan, and that the Trump administration was informed but did nothing. Neal said the evidence is compelling and that further sanctions against Russia are warranted.

The administration has not been forthcoming, he said.

Asked how to hold Trump accountable, Neal said there is an election in November.

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After the lockdown, Boll Weevil reopened May 21 with take-out service. After a week, it offered indoor dining, following government guidelines. Tables have been removed to allow 6 feet distance and partitions have been installed between booths. A change at the restaurant because of the pandemic is that the pool tables and video games are off limits.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime partner of Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday morning in New Hampshire by federal law enforcement officials, FBI spokesman Marty Feely confirmed.

Maxwell has been publicly accused by multiple women of assisting Epstein in recruiting girls and young women.

Epstein was charged in July with sexually abusing dozens of underage girls as young as 14 years old in New York and Florida that date to the early 2000s. Some girls were allegedly brought to his homes in New York, Florida and a private island in the Caribbean, prosecutors said.

He faced up to 45 years on the charges. He was denied bail on July 18 as the billionaire was deemed a flight risk. A month later he was found dead in his prison cell by apparent suicide.

Epstein was a wealthy hedge fund manager who once counted as friends President Donald Trump, former former President Bill Clinton and Great Britains Prince Andrew.

He previously pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution - a plea dead that ended a federal investigation against him and overseen by former Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who - until he resigned last year - was appointed labor secretary by Trump.
Massachusetts courthouses are scheduled to begin a gradual reopening July 13, although much court business will continue to be done remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cellphones will now be allowed into courthouses when the limited opening begins.

Another target date for the trial court will come on Aug. 10, with potentially increased in-person access to the courthouses.

Jury trials are not expected to resume any earlier than Sept. 8, with no final decision yet on when those may begin.

In a message posted Tuesday on the state website, Massachusetts Trial Court Chief Justice Paula M. Carey said: Social distancing signage will encourage everyone to maintain six-foot distances. Judges, clerks, staff and court users will wear masks in the presence of others. Plexiglass sneeze guards will be in place on public counters.

She wrote: Security is gearing up to provide entry screening and coordinating protocols with Sheriffs and other law enforcement partners.

Court personnel will provide face coverings to those without them.

Carey said the Court Operations Committee is also coordinating the expansion of capacity for virtual, remote operations, since most hearings will continue to be held by videoconference and phone.

Gov. Charlie Bakers declaration of a state of emergency back in March resulted in closing the courts to the public because of health concerns. The state is set to begin Phase 3 of Bakers reopening plan next week.

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SOUTH HADLEY  Town Administrator Michael Sullivan apologized Tuesday for an apparent Open Meeting Law violation related to a statement the Selectboard issued denouncing racism following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The writing of the one-page statement, and the decision to release it publicly, all occurred outside of any posted Selectboard meeting. The towns lawyer said it likely was a violation of state law requiring official notice of public board deliberations, Sullivan said.

Four of the five Selectboard members signed the statement, which was posted on the municipal website June 24. A press release was also issued by the town administrators office.

Selectman Bruce Forcier, who did not sign the statement, said he supported the sentiments expressed in it, but said it was wrong for the board to have taken those actions outside of a publicly posted meeting.

He filed an Open Meeting Law complaint that said the matter had not been on the agenda for any board meeting.

Forcier said in his complaint and at Tuesdays meeting that he had been ridiculed by some in the community for not signing.

Selectboard member Sarah Etelman said Tuesday she did not think the board violated the Open Meeting Law.

The matter was resolved when the board unanimously voted to issue the statement, after the fact, Tuesday night.

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In anticipation of a heavy travel weekend due to the July 4 holiday, the state Department of Transportation is putting road construction on hiatus and urging residents to plan ahead if they expect to travel especially because of the coronavirus pandemic.

State officials are advising people to stay home during the holiday to prevent spreading COVID-19. If people decide to travel, they should learn any health protocols in place at their destination. In Massachusetts people should maintain a minimum distance of 6 feet from other people and wear a mask inside and where social distancing is impossible, officials said.

The state is in Phase 2 of reopenings so travelers should check to find out what is open and closed before they head to any location, officials said.

The best advice we can give anyone traveling for the Fourth is to plan ahead, Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver said in writing. With the Fourth falling on the weekend, travelers should expect higher volumes on Friday and Monday. We urge everyone to slow down and make smart decisions before getting behind a wheel this weekend.

Any planned roadway construction will be put on hold between 5 a.m., Friday and will resume on Monday morning to help prevent traffic congestion during the holiday weekend. The High Occupancy Lane on Interstate-93 between Boston and Quincy will also open early, at 2 p.m. on Thursday and 1 p.m. on Friday, for the afternoon commute, police said.

The July 4 holiday falls on a Saturday so many people are given Friday off from work for a three-day weekend, officials said.

People should also check hours of subways and ferries for Friday and Saturday since schedules may change.

For updated information about traffic conditions, motorists can download the Department of Transportations GoTime mobile app, dial 511 and select a route to hear real-time conditions or visit www.mass511.com to see where there are traffic delays or detours.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused people to isolate to protect one another, but with the country reopening, Walmart has decided to open its parking lots to host drive-in movies in 160 locations across the U.S.

Walmart has partnered with Tribeca Enterprises to transform 160 of its store parking lots into contact-free drive-in movie theaters where customers can safely gather to watch movies programmed by the Tribeca Drive-in team which begins this Thursday, July 2.

Throughout July, families in; Arlington, Texas., Pasadena, Calif., Nassau County, and New York City, N.Y., will be treated to Tribeca Drive-In screenings of modern classics and family favorites, like Wonder Woman and Space Jam, with a mix of ticketed and free events honoring frontline workers. The full schedule and tickets can be found at TribecaFilm.com.

Drive-Ins have been a signature program for Tribeca since we started the Tribeca Film Festival 19 years ago after 9/11, said Jane Rosenthal, CEO and co-founder of Tribeca Enterprises and Tribeca Film Festival. But now, the Tribeca Drive-In is much more than a fun, retro way to see movies, its one of the safest ways for communities to gather. We are thrilled to partner with Walmart to bring more people together around the shared cinematic experiences that Tribeca is known for.

Before each movie screening, Walmart will sell families picnic baskets. Each moviegoer orders their drive-in essentials online and can pick up curbside on the way to their movie.

In Aug., Walmart will roll out more drive-ins that are still to be confirmed in towns across the country for a combined 320 showings including Wonder Woman and Space Jam. The showings will be a mixture of ticketed and free events honoring frontline workers.

The movies will include, special appearances from filmmakers and celebrities as well as concessions delivered right to customer vehicles.

Walmarts drive-in tour will run through October. Additional details will be announced closer to the start of each event.

Summer hasnt really felt like summer yet, and I know I hear every day, Mom, Im bored! said Janey Whiteside, chief customer officer of Walmart. Through our digital means and vast footprint of stores, were hoping to bring some summer fun to families across the country. We know Walmart plays a role in our communities that extends far beyond getting them necessary supplies and we see that now more than ever.
Now, if only some of the current Republican members of Congress would get on board, we'd really be getting somewhere.

On Wednesday, a group of some 200 who'd worked for President George W. Bush's campaign or administration announced that they'd formed a political action committee to help elect presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Most remain members of the Republican Party, but understand well that some things are beyond knee-jerk partisanship. And they know that President Donald Trump is no conservative. And no true Republican.

The formation of the PAC, called 43 Alumni for Biden, is great news, and it adds to the rush of opposition to the current president from those who still remember what it once meant to be a Republican. (The new groups name, of course, reflects the second President Bushs standing as our nations 43rd chief executive.)

One member, Kristopher Purcell, who served in the White House communications office under Bush, said: "This November, we are choosing country over party. We believe that a Biden administration will adhere to the rule of law ... and restore dignity and integrity to the White House."

Imagine that. Dignity and integrity. It's been awhile.

Some other old-school conservatives have also formed groups to help defeat Trump. Theres the Lincoln Project, co-founded by George Conway, a conservative Washington lawyer who is the husband of current White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. The group has been producing a series of fabulous ads that belittle the president and portray him as completely unfit for the job.

There have also been advertisements produced by a group called Republican Voters Against Trump, while Right Side PAC, formed by a number of Republican operatives, plans an effort to get Republicans whove lost faith in the president to vote in November.

This is all good.

But how about, say, Sen. Ben Sasse, of Nebraska? Or Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida? Each had been well positioned to serve as an independent voice in today's Republican Party. But both they, and so many others in the once-Grand Old Party, have repeatedly failed to answer the bell when it has mattered most.

At least Rep. Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, the third-ranking member in GOP House leadership and a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, hasn't remained silent at every turn.

Others in Congress need to follow her lead.
I was raped.

The claim by a Berkshire County man that he had been repeatedly raped and molested as altar boy by one of the most revered figures in the history of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield presented the Most Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski with a most unenviable task.

Rozanski did not turn away. Instead, he turned to a respected retired Superior Court judge, Peter A. Velis, who last week delivered a report bearing uncomfortable news for Rozanski and the entire diocese of Western Massachusetts, from the ranks of its clergy to its devoted parishioners. Rozanski asked for the truth, and he got it.

Velis found unequivocally credible the claims made that Bishop Christopher J. Weldon had not only raped and molested this victim but others as well. Weldon led the diocese from 1950 to 1977. His name has long been attached to many places of honor, and his gravesite at Gate of Heaven cemetery is particularly reverential.

The Velis investigation came after allegations were brought to the Diocesan Review Board two years ago by a victim who alleged molestation by the former bishop. In the report, Velis said diocesan leaders made substantial errors. And the report found The unsavory and heinous nature of the offensive behavior attributed to the late bishop is clearly shocking.

Shocking is an accurate word. For nearly four hours, according to the report, the victim bared his soul to Velis, sharing in graphic and disturbing detail how Weldon raped him, in some cases assisted by other priests.

Velis concluded the Diocesan Review Board, which first heard the mans claims in 2018, had failed in its work. It was clear in my examination the process included an inexplicable modification and manipulation of the reports received by and acted on by the Diocesan Review Board. The complaint process was compromised in that mandatory reporters failed in their duties to report the allegations to prosecutorial authorities.

Even before the report was presented, in May, along with regional district attorneys, Rozanski signed an memo of understanding that says the diocese will notify law enforcement once it learns of any allegations of clergy sexually assaulting minors or any other vulnerable persons at Western Massachusetts parishes. It was a step that was commendable, but long overdue. Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan, who represents Hampshire and Franklin counties, said that while Bishop Rozanski has made great strides to be transparent and accountable, (it) still had to take four to five decades for this to happen.

While it is difficult to comprehend that such an agreement is even necessary, the measure seems oddly rational given the decades of abuse and cover-up by the church.

Law enforcement must use every method available to them to pursue those who abuse children and hold those who cover up these crimes accountable. Over a year ago, Hampden County District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni established a dedicated hotline in his office for reporting clergy abuse.

For the diocese to move forward, it will be in the hands of a task force, headed by retired Judge Daniel Ford, to review the recommendations for changes included in the Velis report and make proposals for implementing them.

Rozanski has set in motion a path for change that is a departure from decades of the clergy acting as its own judge and jury. It will likely take decades, if ever, for victims to heal and get a sense of justice.

In this case, the victim was finally heard. His claims were validated. We hope this will be the pattern moving forward.

Rozanski will depart Springfield in August to become archbishop of St. Louis, Missouri. The lessons learned from this case will no doubt travel with him.

Rozanski asked and Trinity Health Of New England swiftly removed Weldons name from its rehabilitation center. He will ensure the Weldon name as well as his portraits are removed from all diocesan facilities and Weldons remains will be moved to a less prominent place of burial.

While it is a most public response of dishonoring Weldon, it likely wont give solace to the victim nor to other victims who either have already or are yet to share their stories of abuse.

Said Jeffrey J. Trant, director of the Diocese Office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance, in a letter to the community released on Friday, I acknowledge that many survivors are likely mistrustful of the diocese, perhaps even more so now more than ever due to what we have learned from the report issued by Judge Velis. Further, I also recognize that survivors, family members, and other members of the diocesan community have good reason to be suspicious of rhetoric about change as we have failed to live up to these promises time and time again.

That statement is more candid than what we have heard in the past. We hope it indicates the church may be turning a corner toward an understanding what these crimes have done to victims and to the perception of the church in the eyes of the public. It will take years for victims to heal, and it will also take years to develop confidence that the church will take appropriate action to respond to clergy abuse moving forward.

We commend Bishop Rozanski for taking profound steps forward in the process. By doing so, he has left what will be a lasting legacy for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
SPRINGFIELD  A 69-year-old South End resident was arrested and charged with drug trafficking after undercover narcotics detectives reportedly watched him involved in a drug transaction at the end of his Marble Street driveway, police said.

Henry Lockett is charged with trafficking 18-36 grams of crack cocaine and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.

It is the fourth trafficking arrest for Lockett in the past four years, most recently in November. He is awaiting trial for trafficking 36-100 grams of cocaine and possession with the intent to distribute heroin in connection with the Nov. 21 arrest.

Police spokesman Ryan Walsh said narcotics detectives over the past few weeks investigated reports that Lockett was selling drugs from his home. On Wednesday morning, detectives witnessed him making a sale to two people in a truck that pulled up to his driveway, Walsh said.

When the vehicle was stopped, officers arrested the occupants on a charge of possession of crack cocaine. The driver, Jammie Morgan of Pinevale Street, was also charged with driving with a suspended license and a parole violation. Police found he was wearing a court-ordered electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.

Police said they seized 15 grams of crack cocaine and $1,700 found in the vehicle and another 32.5 grams inside Locketts house.
Massachusetts State Police have added 20-year-old Xavier DeJesus, who is wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Deija Mendez in Lowell, to the departments most wanted list, they said Thursday.

Police said DeJesus is actively avoiding law enforcement and should be considered armed and dangerous.

He is described as being roughly 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing about 120 pounds. Police said Blessed is tattooed on his outer right forearm and R.I.P. Chi Chi on his inner right forearm.

On June 23, at roughly 3:30 p.m., DeJesus allegedly shot Mendez outside a home on Coral Street in Lowell while she was in the drivers seat of a black Chevrolet Tahoe, according to authorities.

Lowell police found Mendez suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. She was pronounced dead on the scene, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.

DeJesus is being charged with murder, discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling, carrying a firearm without a license and possession of ammunition without an FID card in connection with the fatal shooting of Mendez, authorities said.

Police said DeJesus has ties throughout the greater Lowell area, and is also the subject of an arrest warrant for different charges out of Nashua, New Hampshire.

Anyone who has information about DeJesus whereabouts, or who believes they have seen him, is urged to call the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section at 1-800-KAPTURE (1-800-527-8873).
SPRINGFIELD  Police arrested a 40-year-old city man and confiscated several cases of heavy-duty, illegal fireworks Wednesday night near Belmont Avenue and Oakland Street.

Orlando Iturrino of Wayne Street was taken into custody after he agreed to sell some fireworks to an undercover narcotics detective, according to police spokesman Ryan Walsh.

He was charged with unlawful sale of fireworks. Under Massachusetts law, the charge carries a fine of between $100 and $1,000, and a possible sentence of up to a year in jail.

But the bigger penalty may be that police get to confiscate the several hundred dollars worth of fireworks allegedly found in his car. A photo released by police show 23 cases of assorted high-grade, multiple-shot fireworks, with names like Breathing Fire, Oh Hell No, Widow Maker and Future Warrior.

The fireworks are illegal to own or sell in Massachusetts, but residents here commonly travel to other states, such as New Hampshire, where they can be legally purchased. A review of websites of dealers in other states showed the fireworks found in Iturrinos car sell for between $45 and $65 per case.

The city has been cracking down on illegal fireworks possession lately amid several dozen complaints nightly about people firing them off throughout Springfield. Officials have complained that fireworks disturb the peace, bother pets, traumatize combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, and have even started house fires.

The City Council is considering increasing the minimum fine for possession to $300, while Mayor Domenic Sarno said he is interested in filing home rule legislation that would allow the city to link payment of fines to the renewal of a persons drivers license or car registration.

Walsh said police also seized a large amount of fireworks Wednesday night in Marshall Roy Field on Carew Street.
With just two months until voters go to the polls to decide the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey and his rival U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III have almost identically sized bank accounts after similar fundraising quarters that were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Markey's campaign said Wednesday that the Malden Democrat raised over $1.9 million over the past three months, and will enter the home stretch of the primary campaign with $4.8 million in cash at his disposal.

Meanwhile, Kennedy's campaign said the congressman also pulled in $1.9 million in the second quarter of the year, despite suspending all fundraising activities for over a month in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Unlike Markey, Kennedy has also been on television with advertising for almost two months, spending over $2.4 million in May and June to reach voters from the Berkshires to southeastern Massachusetts.

Kennedy's campaign said it had slightly less than Markey -- $4.7 million -- in the bank at the end of the second fundraising quarter of the year, but raised over $1 million in June alone.

Both campaigns on Wednesday claimed to have the momentum.

"These strong fundraising numbers reflect the energy for Joe and the momentum behind our efforts to bring Massachusetts stronger leadership to the United State Senate," said Nick Clemons, campaign manager for Kennedy.

Clemons pointed out that from mid-March to late-April the campaign used its fundraising list to instead solicit donations for organizations and workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 response.

Markey campaign manager John Walsh said the senator's fundraising support also shows momentum with eight weeks to go, and the campaign said its second quarter fundraising came from 33,707 donations, averaging $56.37.

"These donations are indicative of the momentum of this campaign. From Pittsfield to Provincetown, from Springfield to Somerville, and from Newburyport to Northampton, we are witnessing a surge of enthusiasm. Our supporters are organized, they are activated, and they know that we need to send Ed Markey back to the United States Senate," Walsh said in a statement.

While polls have remained tight, the Markey campaign has been trailing Kennedy for much of the campaign in the money race, which can be a significant indicator of support as well as important to a campaign's ability to spread its message to voters.

At the time of the last reporting deadline in April, Kennedy outraised Markey by about $750,000 over the first quarter of the year, and the congressman had about $2 million more in the bank than Markey.

But the senator's campaign said Markey raised $500,000 in the days after the June 23 primaries in states like New York and Kentucky when progressive candidates, both winners and losers, fared well. Markey has spent much of the campaign highlighting his support for liberal policies like the Green New Deal and his allegiance with progressive leaders like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

In addition to relying on personalized fundraising pages set up so supporters could help raise money from friends and family, Walsh said the online sale of Markey merchandise has also "soared."

In two debates earlier this month, the two Democrats quarreled over each other's progressive bonafides and whether it was time to turn the page on Markey's generation of political leaders.

While Kennedy pitched himself as someone who would build the Democratic Party nationwide and do more than file and votes on bills, Markey said his record of passing laws for the people of Massachusetts speaks for itself.
The Urban League of Springfield, Inc, in collaboration with the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, saluted senior volunteers from the Urban Leagues Foster Grandparent Program with a Drive-by Car Parade on Wednesday..

The Senior Drive-by Car Parade was held in the parking lot of Technology Park, 1 Federal Street, Springfield.

Seniors were acknowledged for their volunteer work with children with exceptional needs. The volunteers are placed in head start centers, after school programs, school systems, clinics, day care and community centers throughout Hamden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties.

The Urban League was awarded a $40,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Western Mass. to provide seniors with support for transportation, food, PPE equipment, (protective masks, sanitizer, disposable gloves) an insulated bag for keeping food fresh and specialized computer training.

The grant will support computer literacy training for seniors who are without adequate computer skills.

Seniors will be trained to complete and submit the 2020 census form, smart phone utilization and navigation of the Internet.
SPRINGIELD  With volunteer readers in schools across Western Massachusetts Link to Libraries makes an effort to provide children with books featuring story lines and characters that mirror their own lives.

The non-profit organization has provided 650,000 new books to students at 77 schools over the course of 10 years and has just partnered with MGM Springfield to donate 1,000 new books to Springfield children with themes focusing on diversity and social justice.

We have always been very committed to having a wide range of multicultural books to try and reflect what the students in the classroom look like and what their experiences are,said Laurie Flynn, president and CEO of Link to Libraries.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Lydia Martinez said the books will be distributed to students so they can be used towards the district wide summer school program launched this summer.

For the first time ever, we are providing every single student an opportunity to explore the notion of who they are and who they want to become, said Martinez. Were very excited and grateful for these books that Im sure will inspire students as they think about these ideas and their potential for the future.

Flynn said while the organization mainly focuses on elementary schools, the MGM Springfield donation made it possible for them to purchase books for students up to eighth grade.

We made a real effort to seek out books that have to do with issues of racism, equality and social justice and we went a little bit older because there are so many amazing books being published right now, she said.

Located right in the heart of downtown MGM Springfield has a diverse staff and chose to partner with Link to Libraries to promote literacy and diverse authors and illustrators.

MGM Springfield prides itself on the diversity of our employees, which reflects the Greater Springfield community,said Chris Kelley, President of MGM Springfield. Our hope is that these books, whose main characters are all persons of color, will help children to see themselves and their place in the world with pride and confidence.

Some of the books students will receive include Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpre by Anika Aldamuy Denise, illustrated by Paola Escobar; Sulwe by Lupita Nyongo, illustrated by Vashti Harrison and What if... by Samantha Berger, illustrated by Mike Curato.

Related content:
Viola Caudill, 85, a resident of the Gowen Community passed away Thursday June 10, 2021 at home. A Graveside service will be held a 11:00 AM Monday June 14, 2021 in the Pavilion at Bache-Red Oak Cemetery. There will be a family and friends visitation on Sunday June 13, 2021 from 5:00pm to 7:
Jammu/UNI/IBNS: Pakistan troops on Thursday yet again violated the ceasefire by firing unprovoked along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Defence spokesperson here said that at about 9:30 am, Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violations by firing with small arms along LoC in Shahpur and Kirni sectors in District Poonch (J&K).

"Indian Army retaliated befittingly," he further said, adding that no major loss or injury has been reported so far on his own side.

A recent The Indian Express report said there have been 382 ceasefire violations along LoC in May and 302 in June registering a sharp rise from the figures recorded in the similar months last year.

As per the official data, 119 militants were killed till June this year including 41 in the current month.

The number of ceasefire violations has sharply increased after Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre took a bold step on Aug 5, 2019 to abrogate Articles 370 and 35A to strip the valley of its special powers.

"On the LoC, the number of CFVs had gone up last year and has remained high since. It is unlikely that it will come down anytime soon. The Pakistan army is keen on sending militants across as its aim is to make this summer in Kashmir hot. We are responding in good measure to its actions on the LoC," an official told the daily.

In similar words, Lt General BS Raju, Chinar Corps Commander told the newspaper, "There is only one reason for the near constant ceasefire violation: Pakistans attempt to assist more terrorists to infiltrate into India in order to disrupt normalcy in the Kashmir valley. Pakistan Army facilitates these infiltration attempts.

"Pakistans persistence in infiltrating terrorists, proliferating false propaganda are intended to disturb peace and its actions are unlikely to change anytime soon," he added.
New Delhi/UNI: Amid ongoing border tension between two Himalayan giants in Eastern Ladakh, Chinas People Liberation Army (PLA) wants to revive Pakistan-based terror outfit Al Badr to carry out violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

The terror organisation had a history of perpetrating violence in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

Recently, the cadres of Al Badr have met the Chinese officials in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), according to sources in the security establishment.

The sources also added that China was providing all sorts of support to revive this outfit.

As per the reports, Pakistan has moved around 20,000 troops along the Gilgit-Baltistan area in PoK, aiming to gain from India-China border tussle.

Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan adjoins the Union Territory of Ladakh, in whose eastern part, the LAC standoff between India and China is ongoing.
Marietta, GA (30060)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. Low near 70F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. Low near 70F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan/ Xinhua: Two people were killed and eight others injured as two blasts rocked Mazar-i-Sharif city in the capital of the northern Balkh province on Wednesday, provincial police spokesman Adil Shah Adil said Thursday.

"Two blasts in a span of few minutes rocked PD 3 of Mazar-e-Sharif city at 9:30 p.m. local time Wednesday, killing one civilian on the spot," Adil told Xinhua, and one police officer succumbed to his injury in the hospital.

The first blast injured a taxi driver, while the second one killed a civilian and injured eight others including five policemen, according to the official, adding that the deputy to the police station of PD 3 is among the injured.

The second blast occurred after police and locals rushed to the site of the first blast to rescue the victims, and the investigation is underway, according to the official.

Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province 305 km north of Kabul, had been regarded as the safest city in the conflict-battered Afghanistan.
FREDERICK, Md.

July 2, 2020

Christian Kaltschmidt

Gert de Vos

USA

Europe

Middle East

Africa

Netherlands

/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Dutch biotechnology company, Molecular Biology Systems, B.V. (MBS) has announced a publication detailing the use of its revolutionary NEXTGENPCR endpoint thermocycler to test for SARS-CoV-2 with a one-step reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in 16 minutes. The article, titled "Ultra-fast one-step RT-PCR protocol for the detection of SARS-CoV-2," has been submitted as a preprint is available here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.25.20137398v1"We immediately started with a COVID-19 diagnostic project, since we already got a NEXTGENPCR thermocycler for sepsis diagnostics. Using this technology, we demonstrated with clinical RNA isolates, the ability to dramatically increase SARS-CoV-2 testing throughput without a loss in sensitivity," says Prof. Dr., Cell Biology of the University of Bielefeld, the senior author of the publication.MBS has developed and released two software packages that result in a streamlined workflow from isolated nucleic acid sample to result. First, the machine's operating system has been updated with two enabling features, onboard reverse transcription and 2-step PCR. These features decrease the number of handling steps, and plate shuttling time which together result in an improved, shorter protocol. The second software package automates the measurement and analysis of endpoint fluorescence, allowing users to automate calls based on predetermined thresholds."After accelerating the CDC assay, we received a lot of positive feedback," says MBS CEO and founder,. "We added software, tested more WHO-recommended protocols and have collaborated with labs to deliver a demonstration of ultrafast RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2."To support companies responding to COVID-19, the Dutch government has awarded funds to MBS. Rosco Ephraim, Project Manager Impuls Zeeland, stated, "MBS demonstrated a clear contribution to the advancement of SARS-CoV-2 testing both locally and globally, so the government awarded these funds to ensure this innovative company executes its mission."With a single NEXTGENPCR system delivering over 570 test results per hour, MBS is now collaborating with government and private testing laboratories in the, theandto implement this method.Find out more at http://www.nextgenpcr.comAbout Molecular Biology Systems Molecular Biology Systems, B.V., founded in 2015, is a molecular biology solutions company based in. Their NEXTGENPCR thermocycler uses patented heating and cooling technology to reduce PCR amplification cycles from hours to minutes. These technological advances are intended to support laboratorians across the life sciences market reduce costs and accelerate results.SOURCE Molecular Biology Systems B.V.
By 17 June 2020, South Africa (population: 59 million) contributed to 30% of all diagnosed Covid-19 cases and 23% of all Covid-19 deaths on the African continent (population: 1.34 billion). These statistics emphasise the urgent need for prevention of Covid-19 on the continent.Shabir Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology at Wits University and Director of the South Africa Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA), leads the South African Ox1Cov-19 Vaccine VIDA-Trial.Wits University is collaborating with the University of Oxford and the Oxford Jenner Institute on the South African trial."This is a landmark moment for South Africa and Africa at this stage of the Covid-19 pandemic. As we enter winter in South Africa and pressure increases on public hospitals, now more than ever we need a vaccine to prevent infection by Covid-19," said Madhi at the launch of the South African Ox1Cov-19 Vaccine VIDA-Trial, which is being run at multiple sites in South Africa."We began screening participants for the South African Oxford 1 Covid-19 vaccine trial last week and the first participants will be vaccinated this week," says Madhi, who is also the National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Innovation SARChI (South African Research Chairs Initiative) Chair in Vaccine Preventable Diseases, based at the University of the Witwatersrand.Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Vice Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Postgraduate Affairs at the Wits University, who facilitated the virtual press conference, said: "Wits University identified vaccinology as a key institutional flagship project in 2016.Vaccines are amongst the most powerful tools to mitigate life-threatening diseases. Without a vaccine against Covid-19, there will likely be ongoing contagion, causing severe illness and death. Wits is committed to developing a vaccine to save lives in collaboration with the University of Oxford."Prior to launch, the South African study was subject to rigorous review and has been approved by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) and the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand.Furthermore, after eliciting and considering public comment, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) approved import of the investigational vaccine for use in the trial.The vaccine is already being evaluated in a large clinical trial in the UK where more than 4,000 participants have already been enrolled. In addition to the South African study, similar and related studies are about to start in Brazil. An even larger study of the same vaccine of up to 30,000 participants is planned in the USA."It is essential that vaccine studies are performed in southern hemisphere countries, including in the African region, concurrently with studies in northern hemisphere countries," says Professor Helen Rees, Chair of SAHPRA and Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI)."This allows evaluation of the efficacy and safety of candidate vaccines to be assessed in a global context, failing which the introduction of many life-saving vaccines into public immunization programmes for low-middle income countries frequently lags behind those in high-income countries."Rees also co-directs the Wits African Leadership in Vaccinology Excellence (ALIVE) flagship programme and is engaged in global discussions with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization to ensure equitable access for all countries, including those in Africa, should a successful vaccine be developed.The technical name of the vaccine is ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, as it is made from a virus called ChAdOx1, which is a weakened and non-replicating version of a common cold virus (adenovirus). The vaccine has been engineered to express the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.The vaccine was developed at the Oxford Jenner Institute and is currently on trial in the UK, where over 4,000 participants are already enrolled into the clinical trial and enrolment of an additional 10, 000 participants is planned.The vaccine being used in the South African trial is the same as that being used in the UK and Brazil.The vaccine was made by adding genetic material - called spike glycoprotein - that is expressed on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 to the ChAdOx1 virus.This spike glycoprotein is usually found on the surface of the novel coronavirus and is what gives the coronavirus its distinct spiky appearance.These spikes play an essential role in laying a path for infection by the coronavirus. The virus that causes Covid-19 uses this spike protein to bind to ACE2 receptors on human cells.ACE2 is a protein on the surface of many cell types. It is an enzyme that generates small proteins that then go on to regulate functions in the cell. In this way, the virus gains entry to the cells in the human body and causes Covid-19 infection.Researchers have shown that antibodies produced against sections of the spike protein after natural infection are able to neutralize (kill) the virus when tested in the laboratory.By vaccinating volunteers with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, scientists hope to make the human body recognise and develop an immune response (i.e., develop antibodies) to the spike glycoprotein that will help stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering human cells and causing COVID-19.In addition to the more than 4,000 people already vaccinated in the UK with the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine, other vaccines made from the ChAdOx1 virus have also been given to more than 320 people to date. These vaccines have been shown to be safe and well-tolerated, although they can cause temporary side effects, such as a temperature, headache or a sore arm.There are currently over 100 candidate COVID vaccines in development around the world and many of South Africa's best vaccine research institutions will soon be involved in a range of vaccine studies evaluating other types of potential COVID vaccines."As the world rallies to find health solutions, a South African endeavour for the development of an effective Covid-19 vaccine is testament to our commitment of supporting healthcare innovation to save lives," says Professor Glenda Gray, President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council.Dr Sandile Buthelezi, the Director General of Health in the National Department of Health, said: "The National Department of Health is excited at the launch of this vaccine trial, which will go a long way to cement South Africa's leadership in the scientific space. With Covid-19 infections increasing every day, the development of the vaccine will be the last solution in the long term, and we are fully behind the team leading this trial."Source: Eurekalert
The NUS team was led by Professor Freddy Boey, NUS Deputy President (Innovation & Enterprise), and Associate Professor Yen Ching-Chiuan, Co-Director of the Keio-NUS CUTE Center.The team comprises Dr Alfred Chia from NUS Department of Biomedical Engineering, Mr Eason Chow from Keio-NUS CUTE Center, doctoral student Mr Raymond Hon from the NUS Division of Industrial Design as well as researchers from the NUS Faculty of Engineering.The NUS team worked with Dr Deborah Khoo, Dr Wong Weng Hoa, Associate Professor Ti Lian Kah and Associate Professor Sophia Ang from the NUH Department of Anaesthesia. The multi-disciplinary team took less than two months to develop DART and validate its performance."The quick invention and deployment of DART was made possible through a close collaboration between the NUS and NUH teams, which allowed multiple refinements to be made to the prototypes within a very short time.The NUS team was able to come up with the various designs while adhering to the restrictions of the circuit breaker period, and found different ways to address design and performance related challenges when many resources were not available.The NUH team was instrumental in testing our prototypes in a clinical setting, allowing us to interactively and rapidly refine the performance of the device," shared Prof Boey.The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased the need for infection control when intubating patients. Intubation is the placement of a flexible plastic tube into the windpipe to maintain an open airway or to serve as a conduit through which to administer certain drugs.The removal of this plastic tube is known as extubation. These are risky procedures that may put healthcare workers in danger of becoming infected.Evidence from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 showed that healthcare workers involved in intubation were more likely to contract the disease compared with those who did not.This risk has similar implications for the current coronavirus outbreak, affecting anaesthesiologists, operating theatre staff, intensive care unit staff, and even first responders who are required to intubate collapsed patients in the COVID-19 general ward.Dr Khoo, a Consultant at the NUH Department of Anaesthesia, said, "Healthcare workers caring for patients run the risk of being exposed to known, suspected, or even asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. The DART serves as an additional physical barrier to infection and provides enhanced protection for healthcare staff at a time when they need it the most, giving us greater peace of mind and enabling care to continue safely for both patients and healthcare workers in the hospitals."The DART is a portable, tent-like structure that that can be placed around the patient's head when intubating or extubating. It weighs three kilograms, and can be folded into a flat structure measuring around 51 centimetres by 55 centimetres, with a thickness of three centimetres, making it easy to transport, store and sterilise. It is also simple and fast to set up.The device features transparent polycarbonate panels, 3D printed nylon joints and Delrin inserts. These durable materials were chosen by the NUS team to enable the device to be sterilised by all standard forms of decontamination used in hospitals, such as elevated temperature autoclaving, and using alcohol of 70 per cent concentration.This facilitates the reusability of the device, and eliminates the risk of cross-contamination.Arm access ports are situated on the back and side panels of the device. The snap-on flanges allow the attachment of disposable sleeves or diaphragms.This addresses the concern of the arm ports being high risk areas of contamination, and gives the healthcare workers the option to use either sleeved or diaphragm seals - materials easily available in hospitals - according to their preference.The elliptical shape of the access ports gives the user more leeway for arm movements and to manoeuvre, which are important in handling the patient.A key feature of the DART is its ability to direct air within itself through a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter. It has a set of connectors that enables suction from a central vacuum system, or by a battery-operated fan attached to a HEPA filter. The negative pressure generated reduces leakage of exhaled aerosols or droplets from the patient out of the confines of the DART.Preliminary findings by the research team showed that the DART performs its barrier function as designed, and the exhaust function via the HEPA filter gives additional assurance to the user.The research team has produced 25 prototypes which are being tested in different departments and hospitals of the National University Health System (namely NUH, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and Alexandra Hospital), Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Changi General Hospital, Thomson Medical Centre, and several private hospitals operated by Parkway Hospitals Singapore.The team is looking to swiftly refine the DART based on the feedback provided by different medical departments, and hopes to provide the device as a form of medical aid to Singapore hospitals as well as hospitals in the region. The team will be partnering Temasek Foundation to distribute the DART, complementing its donation of ventilators to the region.The DART is one of the innovations developed by NUS and NUH to tackle pressing issues that healthcare workers face in the current global pandemic.Since the start of the crisis, NUS has been proactively participating in the fight against COVID-19 on different fronts, with research ranging from rapid diagnostics to case connections and vaccine development, as well as harnessing information and technology solutions to explore everything from modelling public health to fighting false rumours online.NUH has also been on the front line of the battle against COVID-19, as a tertiary hospital that has treated more than 900 COVID-19 patients to date.Source: Eurekalert
When there is a bevy of talented actors in a movie, you are bound to praise it and somewhere, you are also sure of the content thats coming your way. As audience and media, we have earlier lacked appreciating the true form of cinema but now the wave is changing as we have started to notice the real talents at last. Yes, Kunal Kemmus tweet got us thinking about the fact why such talented actors are not given equal opportunities for the promotion of their movies. In a recently held press conference Kunals Lootcase was completely ignored , and surely it has the potential to connect with the audience because of the sheer simplicity in the subject. So, the trailer was released last year but the movie couldnt make it to the theatres and now, its releasing on HotStar along with a few other projects.

Before it releases on the OTT platform, we are here to tell why it deserves an equal opportunity to shine like other mainstream releases.

1. Relatable Content And An Interesting Storyline

If you have seen the trailer, you might agree to the fact that it's a story that will connect to the audience because of its relatable content. The trailer accurately depicts the struggles of the middle class. So, the story revolves around Nandan Kumar played by Kunal who finds an unattended suitcase full of money and that completely changes the course of his life because soon after that, gangsters and politicians leave no stone unturned to make Nandans life a mess.

2. Witty Dialogues And Brilliant Writing

The trailer is packed with witty dialogues and we are sure that the movie has a lot more to offer in terms of its writing. It should surely be a much-needed break as we all are battling this negativity. There are a few comic liners that surely are a breather.

3. Kunal Kemmus Performance

Kunal Kemmu is one underrated actor that we havent celebrated enough. From being a child actor to playing leads, Kunal has always aced his acting game. If you have watched his last outing Malang, Kunal showed his acting prowess and what he is capable of. It will be interesting to see how he pulls off his character and what he brings to the table.

 PVR Cinemas

4. Gajraj Rao And Vijay Raaz: The Men Who Are Masters Of Their Craft

Gajraj Rao and Vijay Raaz need an introduction as they have never disappointed us with their craft. Whenever they take up a role, you can be sure that it will be a perfect display of their talent. In this movie, Gajraj plays the role of a politician and we really want to see how he adds his charm to the character written for him. Vijay will be seen playing the role of a gangster and it will be interesting to see such men in one frame.

 PVR Cinemas

 PVR Cinemas

5. Ranvir Shorey and Rasika Dugals Not To Be Missed Acts

When you have actors like Ranvir and Rasika backing the script, you know the end product is going to be equally good. Ranvir as an actor is also someone whos underrated and we all need to start promoting the talents that deserve to be appreciated. Rasika, too, puts in her 100% to her character to make it look convincing and as realistic as it can be.

 PVR Cinemas

 PVR Cinemas

We are excited for Lootcase! What about you?


It's almost been three weeks since we got the news of Sushant Singh Rajput's tragic death and it's still hard to believe a brilliant actor and person like him is gone forever.

 Twitter

For weeks, people have been paying him tributes and celebrating his work. Now, the latest person to pay his respects to the late actor is PewDiePie. Recently, in a video, he talked about the #Unsubscribe hashtag along with Sushant Singh Rajput. Not wanting to get into the entire thing with T-Series, he just remembered seeing a video of Sushant addressing students at a university.



He said, "I have seen people talk about it and there was something about Sushant Singh Rajput. It was a university talk about this guy. He seemed like such a good dude, like a genuinely good dude. So people were pointing to nepotism in the industry and then it somehow got in a clash with T-Series and that is why Unsub T-Series got trending. Its such a shame he decided to end his life. I dont know everything about him but from what I saw he seemed a really good dude and someone the industry needs. So its a huge loss. Rest in peace."

Someone's first impression of Sushant is so pure just because of how genuinely great he actually was. PewDiePie is also seeking advice on whether he should make a video on him or not.

love you pewdiepie



Sushant Singh Rajput was an amazing Bollywood actor. pic.twitter.com/m38vIzfFwC  Dan (@Danmurai) July 1, 2020

A great gesture!

Whn @pewdiepie talked abt #SushantSinghRajput, it made me so happy to see a big prsn like him talk abt him whereas big people here r pressing it.

Also when he said its universally talked about means voices are reaching, so keep SPEAKING



Thanks @pewdiepie #CBIMustForSushant pic.twitter.com/1FQ14SlreX  #SushantInOurHeartsForever (@AnjaliT41374448) July 1, 2020

Hmm.

Pewdiepie payed his respects to Sushant  pic.twitter.com/nFnS4I6LRm  Luqman bhana (@luqman_bhana) July 1, 2020

That's great.

Sushant Singh Rajput follows PewDiePie on Instagram. Sushant was a floor gang....aawoo pic.twitter.com/15tGgUJWhh  Ajit Ningombam (@ajitning) June 28, 2020

Okay then.

Pewdipie is an absolute gem of of a person. I didn't think he would truly talk about Sushant other than the brief mention in his Cancel Pewdiepie video.

Where the Indian industry itself is trying to cover it under mud, it'd be so huge if Felix talked about it pic.twitter.com/WKK06g2HGr  rev (@revTrelos) June 30, 2020

He was a great person.

#UnsubscribeTSeries pewdiepie in his latest video addressed sushant and said that it was a shame that he had to end his life that way..he seemed like a good dude in the interviews and from what he has read about him.. someone the industry needed.....andhbhakts where are you now?  Derek TJ (@derek_tj) June 29, 2020

Maybe he will.

@pewdiepie please make a video on Sushant singh rajput..I am an Indian and I will love to see it  JacksonYT (@JacksonYT15) June 30, 2020

If only.

For an influencer of PewDiePie's stature to appreciate the work of Sushant and even delve into his death, it shows what HUGE uproar this man's demise has created.



And for the right reasons. If only the people had shown this much support when he was alive..   S A D I A  (@livenletlive25) June 30, 2020

Great guy.
The Indian government's decision to ban the use of 59 Chinese apps in India is still making headlines across the globe. This is indeed a huge and unprecedented move by our government that is going to do a great deal of damage to TikTok, in particular.

TikTok has a huge user-base in India with millions of daily active users. And since the app is completely unusable right now, TikTok's parent company is facing a huge loss of up to $6 billion. The same has been confirmed by China's state-run media The Global Times.

Here, check it out -

The loss of Chinese internet company ByteDance  mother company of Tik Tok  could be as high as $6 billion after Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps including Tik Tok, following deadly border clash between Indian and Chinese troops last month: source pic.twitter.com/wGvnqVO7mR  Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 1, 2020

Bytedance could lose up to Rs 45 thousand crore given now that the app has been taken down from both the Google Play Store as well as the App Store. The report further noted that TikTok was downloaded 112 million times in May alone, a lot of those downloads came from India. Now, you can imagine the extent of damage we're talking about.

Global Times also noted that the move has dealt a severe blow to the confidence of Chinese investors and traders. Not to mention, this decision comes just as China is yet to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

For safety, security, defence, sovereignty & integrity of India and to protect data & privacy of people of India the Government has banned 59 mobile apps.

Jai Hind!   Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 29, 2020

As far as India is concerned, we already have a ton of TikTok alternatives on the market. From Mitron to Chingari, we already have a lot of apps up and running.

It's time for Indian developers to step in and come up with more innovative apps.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suspended his official account on the Chinese social media website Weibo. The account was set up five years ago when the Prime Minister visited China for the first time.

PM Modi had a total of 115 posts that had to be removed manually since Weibo implements a complicated process for VIP accounts.

Weibo is Chinas biggest microblogging website, similar to Twitter, and was amongst the 59 apps that were banned by the Indian Government.

 Reuters

Since most of the posts were deleted manually, two particular posts were not allowed to be removed by the micro-blogging website. The two posts feature images of PM Modi along with Chinese President Xi Jinping.



Turns out, the app does not let users delete pictures of the Chinese President easily, which may be the case here as well.

Weibo has come under scrutiny before as well for following strict censorship policies imposed by the Chinese Government. It has led to certain trends being removed from the website altogether and even made Winnie The pooh unsearchable on the micro-blogging website, as it was used a meme to compare the cartoon bear with the Chinese President.

 MensXP

Weibo was banned by The Ministry of Information Technology as it had received many complaints of data break and misuse of some mobile apps on "Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users''



After the Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps, China claimed "Indias measure, selectively and discriminatory aims at certain Chinese apps on ambiguous and far-fetched grounds, runs against fair and transparent procedure requirements, abuses national security exceptions & suspects of violating WTO rules," said Ji Rong, spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India.

 Twitter_Narendra Modi

It is worthy to point out that many of our readers found the statement to be hypocritical since China does not allow any of the major social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube amongst many others.



These websites and apps are banned in China as a part of the Great Firewall China initiative that strictly regulates the internet domestically. Many of these websites have been banned in China as China feels it can hurt its national security.
Logistics Investment | Indonesia's Most Funded Logistic Startup Companies Reporter : Zaki

Logistics Investment. 2020 Merdeka.com

Merdeka.com - Were here with our mid-year 2020 ranking for logistics investment in Indonesias red hot venture funding scene for trucking and cargo logistic startup companies. Despite the Coronavirus pandemic and the world grinding to a halt, this has not stopped venture capital flows into the logistics investment space in the worlds third most populous country. The first half of this year has already seen several sizable growth stage funding announcements into disruptive startups. In light of this, we sense a battle of epic proportions brewing amongst Indonesian logistic startup companies eager to spend this cash to gain market dominance in search of the ultimate goal: the solution to my epically named 30% problem. If you havent heard of the 30% problem, keep reading after the ranking table, Ill explain it below.

Indonesias Most Funded Cargo Logistic Startup Companies Source: Crunchbase and other publicly news sources up till June 1, 2020 Havent heard of the 30% problem that every startup logistics company is tryng to solve? Ive written about this before in other articles about logistics disruptive startups. Indonesian businesses generally spend about 30% of the sales price their goods on logistics. Most of this logistics investment is spent on road transport which relies on Indonesias rather traditional trucking network made up of some company fleets but mostly hundreds of thousands of small trucking outfits and individually owned trucks spread throughout the archipelago (but with a heavy concentration in Java). What is the benchmark Indonesia should be striving to achieve? North America and Western Europe has achieved an average spend rate of 8-10% of sales price on logistics costs. Using Indonesias expected 2020 GDP of USD 1.16 trillion (according to the ADBs April 2020 forecast factoring in the impact of Covid-19), this equates to a sizable savings of USD 232 billion annually for Indonesian businesses if they can reduce their transportation costs from 30% to 10% of sales price. This is where each startup logistics company on our list comes into the picture. Not surprisingly, the race to solve the 30% problem has become the ultimate goal of the disruptive startups on this leader board. Mind you, each of the logistic startup companies are approaching the problem differently with their own tailored logistics solutions. In fact of all five names on this most funded list, none of these disruptive startups are pursuing the same strategy (each is deploying their fundraised logistics investment capital differently). Lets take a deeper dive and have a look at Indonesias top 3 most funded trucking and cargo logistic startup companies on this list, shall we? In order of appearance, we have...

DELIVEREE LOGISTICS First Most Funded Indonesias most funded startup logistics company is Deliveree. Their app powered marketplace available on Android, Apple, or web. Their app instantly assigns truckers to customers for FTL bookings and manages the booking process through to completion. To customers, Deliveree is a full service trucking solution while behind the scenes, its actually a large vendor marketplace with protocols to provide services according to strict standards. Source: News sources, Google Analytics, Google Play, Crunchbase Deliverees prices are set internally and are not negotiable. To check their price, click cek ongkir. From their website, we could see that there is a fixed price per vehicle to start and then a price per KM thereafter. When we asked their CS how they set these prices, their CS informed us that Deliveree regularly rebids its prices out to its tens of thousands of vendors and adopts the lowest bid prices as the official prices on its platform. The prices we saw on their price calculator were very competitive to price checks we ran on other apps. When we booked Deliveree, we first noticed the large selection and numerous logistics service options and driver preferences. We were assigned a truck driver quite quickly by the app. The driver texted us to confirm and he arrived in less than an hour to load a full truck worth of things. The app had signatures, photos, live tracking, live chat with driver, customer support options, and the ability for me to amend my booking. How good is their solution? Deliveree efficiently covered the customer experience from assignment through to booking completion. It was ideal for us because we were looking for a full service solution rather than just a sourcing broker. We especially liked Deliverees app that monitors and manages the booking through to completion with digital signatures, photos, and regular monitoring by their CS who called us to inform us that the driver was arriving early and again when the driver needed help finding the delivery recipient at the destination. What we think of the service? They have built a comprehensive and fully realized service. Solid tech and customer experience from matching all the way through to delivery completion. As a customer, we rate it 9 out of 10. Their traction? They are big. Although the company doesnt formally disclose it, our sources tell us daily volumes are 3,000-4,000 trucks a day and growing. Their Android mobile app has half a million downloads with a 4.8 score out of almost 12,000 reviews. Traction score is 9 out of 10.

KARGO TECHNOLOGIES Second Most Funded Our second startup logistics company is Kargo Technologies who operates a classic web load board (they also have a new Android app). Customers can post shipments on their load board and trucking vendors bid on those shipments. Source: News sources, Google Analytics, Google Play, Crunchbase What makes Kargo pleasantly different than many other disruptive startups is that its load board is responsive. Our own testing showed there are numerous vendors who bid quite quickly. Our test load received 7 bids from vendors within just a few hours (3 prices were competitive and 4 were on the high side). The vendors ranged in sized but can be generally described as small trucking companies. In addition, Kargos user interface is modern and great to use. Kargo primarily serves a front end matching engine. After you choose a trucking vendor, youre mostly on your own to work things out with them in a bespoke manner that works for both parties. How good is their solution? Kargo uses an open bidding system to bring customers the lowest possible price for their shipment. Their model sacrifices some degree of speed and convenience compared with other disruptive startups (the process of negotiating and coming to terms with the vendors does take time) but it should reliably produce the lowest competitively possible price. In other words, good things come to those who wait. Moreover, Kargo is primarily a front-end solution and does little to manage the ultimate outcome of the cargo delivery. That will be attractive to businesses with team who can manage the process and less attractive to small businesses who dont have the oversight staff or infrastructure. What we think of the service? We love it but its primarily a match making service for customers and truckers with very little support or protocol after that. So as a customer, we rate it 8 out of 10. Their traction? Amongst the playing field of most funded logistic startup companies, its early days for Kargo. Their load board is active but we cant quantify their daily posting volume. Their Android mobile app has just 1,000+ downloads and it seems they dont yet have an Apple app. So while we wait for more good things from this startup logistics company, their traction score is a 8 out of 10.

WARESIX Third Most Funded Of all the logistic startup companies on this list, Waresix is the most mysterious of the most funded disruptive startups weve looked at in Indonesia. Launched in 2017, Waresix was founded by Andre Susanto, a young chemical engineer from attended UC Berkeley. With early logistics investment support from Indonesian VC East Ventures, they launched Indonesias first warehousing platform to make it easier for companies to book warehouse space. By bringing together buyers of logistics storage space with warehouse owners with excess capacity, this startup logistics company was able to initially focus on deals with short lead times, fast setup requirements, and short term leases. Since then, their model has grown to include enterprise software that provides both warehouse management solutions (WMS) and fleet management solutions (FMS) to their enterprise clients. Sources: News sources, Google Analytics, Crunchbase Because the paperwork and registration process to gain access to their solutions is quite extensive, we werent personally able to demo their sourcing platform, WMS, or FMS solutions. However, we were able to interview one of their customers to better understand the company. Their customer was primarily a user of their warehousing management system so well focus on this. Their warehouse sourcing platform includes listings of warehousing space available with details, prices, features, and services. Some examples of features that some of the spaces includes were security, sprinklers, temperature controls, cold storage, and HAZMAT. They even had some foreign trade zone licensed spaces. Some examples of warehouse services were palletization, pallet rebuilding, carton picking, and cross docking. Once booked, the full functionality of their WMS comes to bear including warehouse distribution, inventory, cross-docking, consolidation and deconsolidation, customer orders, and billing cycle solutions. Customers use their cloud solutions to manage reservations and monitor operations such as inventory management and shipment, as well as managing contracts and billing across different warehouses. What we think of the service? We cant personally testify but, among our most funded logistic startup companies, its clearly a unique platform that brings together the end-to-end logistics needs of businesses by combining warehousing with transportation. Their customer declined to give a firm rating because they are still quite new to the service. However, they did say they were impressed with the level of detail disclosure provided on many of the warehouse listings provided by this startup logistics company. Their traction? There are more than 400 total warehouse listings on their platform. Businesses who use their WMS or FMS total approximately 200, mostly from industrial sectors. From this, they reportedly store and move about 200,000 metric tons per month. Not bad for a company who just closed the second part of its Series A logistics investment in January of this year. Were excited to see more from Waresix, a very promising contender amongst our most funded logistic startup companies.

FAQ Who has received the most venture capital logistics investment in Indonesia? Our leader table of Indonesias most funded logistic startup companies is Deliveree, Kargo Technologies, Waresix, Ritase, TheLorry, and Shipper. Read this article to view the fundraising table of logistics investment and a detailed description of the top three names on our leaderboard of disruptive startups. Which startup logistics company is the winner of Indonesias most disruptive startups? Each of the disruptive startups on our list has pursued their own unique model to solving the logistics challenges in Indonesia, the world third most populous country. Its early days and we are not declaring any winner just yet amongst Indonesias most funded startups, but each startup logistics company has different levels of proven traction as we discuss in this article. July 2, 2020 by Stella Maris, Contributor (*) [aki]

Baca Selanjutnya: Indonesias Most Funded Cargo Logistic...
Media has a hold on the way history has been written and how herstory will be written and whether memorializes or massacres, commemorates or crucifies, it has long lasting impacts on how communities understand themselves. A lack of access to particular media channels also means lack of access to particular messaging, and lack of access to messaging and information can lead to a life of indignation. This reality is a truth that, as Black folks in this country, has rang through our herstory and continues to impact our future.

Imagine if Black folks in Galveston, Texas, in the 1860s, never got notified (media) of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865, two years after the proclamation was actually signed, Juneteenth would be nonexistent. If Juneteenth was nonexistent, campaigns like #myblackreceipt and local, grassroots movements like All Black Indy wouldnt exist. If Juneteenth was nonexistent, our world as we know and experience it today, would be much different. And while different doesnt necessarily mean bad, it does mean different. This being said, I must ask: Had as many Black folks that participated in the Juneteenth 2020 sales, launches and festivities, known about the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, would integration still have been the fourth degree burn, or would white supremacy have been a weapon of historys past, not a battle to fight in herstorys future?

While I cannot answer that question with certainty because integration is still the fourth degree burn and white supremacy is both a weapon of historys past and battle to fight in herstorys future, I choose to illuminate the presents in our past so we might better appreciate the presence of opportunities to write a better future. Indys tech community continues to grow as a result of the radical and innovative leadership of young, black entrepreneurs, and with that leadership have come conversations about rebuilding Black Wall Street. Context must accompany these conversations!

There could be no Black Wall Street without Radical Reconstruction: an incredible response by Black folks, the Freedmens Bureau, carpetbaggers and scalawags to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the ending of the Civil War, and most importantly, the codification of the 13th Amendment. These events framed and formulated the foundation upon which Black Wall Street could be built in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With this context, I think that if there were ever a time to invest in the building of the New Black Wall Street, the time is now. I will stand on the facts of my foremothers stories, the predictions of my powerful peer mentors and convictions of my Christ-fueled calling and make a daring declaration: we are in the midst of the Second Reconstruction. Just as the first Reconstruction produced the original Black Wall Street, I suggest this Second Reconstruction can produce the New Black Wall Street, and more than a single street, a series of streets with intersectional intersections that highlight new opportunities for the growth and gathering of Black spending power and political fortitude thats greater than our wildest dreams.

We are sitting in the Second Reconstruction and Black Indianapolis is contributing to this moment in herstory in wonderful ways. However, we must not allow the mainstream, white-washed media to control the narrative during the Second Reconstruction. When white supremacists and the federal government physically decimated Black Wall Street in Tulsa in 1921, the media allowed that terrorist attack to erase the story of Black Wall Street from this nations story, as well.

For every corporation that matches their employees contributions to organizations dedicated to social justice, but wont increase the wage of their Black employees to be equal with that of their white counterparts in the same position: remember how the media told their story.

For every company that makes a statement in support of #BlackLivesMatter, but still has board rooms that are as white as the paper upon which they wrote that statement: remember how the media told their story.

For every community that has a peaceful demonstration in response to whats going on, but does not organize with that same passion against gerrymandering and redlining: remember how the media told the story.

The messaging of the media has an incredible impact on how we understand our stories, and too often the mainstream media will show the statements and the contributions and the demonstrations, but not the unfair wages and lily white boardrooms and de jure segregation. Our story, right now, is defined by the beautiful, bold and Black Second Construction; we must not allow the media to melt away the truth of our moment, a truth filled with gun shots from white supremacists in police uniforms and the galvanizing of sociopolitical power from Black women in #BlackLivesMatter t-shirts. This is our moment; lets make sure its remembered the right way.

Murdock is the owner of Murdock LLC, a company thats empowering communities to leverage their influence and fuel efforts toward Black liberation. Contact him at anthonymurdockii@gmail.com or visit his website at www.murdockllc.org.
On Saturday, June 19, 2021, Emmett Colon Mitcham Jr. died at Rush Foundation Hospital. He was a true gentleman; He loved God, his family, his church, and his work. Emmett was kind-hearted and quick-witted, often making up songs to describe his current situation. To him, work was the joy of a
DECATUR  Brent Gregory has a lot on his mind as the new president of East Central Community College. The veteran educator is succeeding Billy Stewart, who led the college for eight years before announcing his retirement earlier this year.

As he settles in as ECCCs new president, Gregory sat down this week with The Meridian Star to offer his thoughts on the future of the school. What follows is part of that conversation, edited for clarity and space limitations.

QUESTION: You graduated from ECCC in 1996. Whats it like to return to lead the college?

ANSWER: East Central has been a part of my life now since being in a student in 1994A lot of my life events revolve around this institution. I met my wife, we were married, we both worked here.

So being able to come back here and take the experiences I gathered working for two institutions and apply them to East Central, in working to move the college forward, its a dream come true.

Q: You have a variety of community college administrative experience. What do you bring to the table as president of ECCC?

A: I feel like those experiences have let me see the cohesiveness of the institution and how decisions affect the various aspects of the college.

If you work in one area of the institution, you are going to make decisions based upon that area  that is your knowledge base. Ive worked in career technical education, the academic education side, in all aspects of student affairs, to distance learning.

So when I make a decision, I have to make the decision based on what is best for all areas of the institution as a whole. That has helped me tremendously and will help me as I go forward, because these decisions are affecting everyone.

Q: You are taking over as ECCC president during a challenging time. Describe the transition process and your immediate plans for reopening.

A: Ive been working closely with Dr. Stewart over the past two months, and weve started the transition. Weve been meeting with different individuals on campus, the administrative staff, looking at plans. Weve created a reopening committee that Dr. Stewart formed.

We are working on three aspects as an institution: the academics, student affairs and health standards. We are working on a plan as we speak and will be releasing that information as we move forward.

Its a very fluid situation. There are different ways to do so with hybrid classes, student affairs in how we will make sure our students have the financial aid, admissions and resources that they need.

Pull quote "Putting people to work is critical during this period. We know that with the recession that is currently going on, retraining individuals is going to be a huge part of what we do here at East Central. Meeting the workforce needs of the five counties is going to at the forefront of what we are doing." Brent Gregory, president of East Central Community College

For health standards, the college presidents are discussing this on a weekly matter, trying to make it is cohesive as possible in how we can do this. I think we have a good plan of how we are going to start school, but those items will be released as we move forward

Q: What are your short-term goals and long-term goals for ECCC?

A: In the short term, we will have an extremely busy semester coming up; not only are we combating COVID-19, as everyone else. I will be extremely busy with or reaccreditation status, we will also be moving forward with a new strategic plan that will encompass not only our faculty and staff, but our community and stakeholders.

Dr. Stewart had a vision for 2020 for the institution and did a fantastic job with that. Now we are charged with creating the next vision for this institution. So those are things were are going to be working diligently during this upcoming year.

As far as a long term goal, we will take the items we have gathered this year and apply them to our plans. We will looking at being a little more involved in our local communities from the standpoint of providing services.

We are a five-county district that is spread out, so making sure we are providing workforce services in Louisville, Winston, Neshoba, Scott, Leake and Newton counties.

Q: Community colleges focus on both academic needs and workforce development programs. Is one more important than the other? What ECCC programs would you like to expand?

A: One is no more important than the other. That goes with the cohesive nature of a community college, we work on academics, career tech and workforce options.

Academically, East Central has been the premier community college in the state of Mississippi in the terms of transfer GPA.

The Brent Gregory File Education: Doctor of Philosophy in Community College Leadership, Mississippi State University; Master of ScienceWorkforce Training and Development, University of Southern Mississippi; Bachelor of SciencePhysical Education, University of Southern Mississippi; Associate of ArtsPhysical Education, East Central Community College. Family: Married to Christi Lee Gregory, a 1995 ECCC graduate and counselor at Newton County Elementary School. Children: McKinley and Mary Lee Hobbies: Tennis and spending time with my children and their activities. Reading: A wide variety of historical literature. Currently reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Favorite movies: My favorite movie is "The Princess Bride" as my girls always seem happy to watch with me.

Workforce-wise, we have to work diligently with economic development areas within our counties. Part of the process we will be going through for the upcoming year is determining what programs we have that are viable. That comes from those conversations were going to be having with local industry, determining what their needs are.

Putting people to work is critical during this period. We know that with the recession that is currently going on, retraining individuals is going to be a huge part of what we do here at East Central. Meeting the workforce needs of the five counties is going to at the forefront of what we are doing.

Q: ECCC expects a reduction of about $550,000 in state appropriations this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. To offset the cuts, the school is planning on raising tuition and fees.

Are the increases expected to be a one-time thing, or do you worry the pandemic will affect the colleges long-term financial future? If so, how do you plan to address any future state cuts?

A: East Central Community College has traditionally been very financially stable and conservative in its processes. We have raised tuition for this upcoming year, which put us in line with our sister community colleges around the state.

I feel that we are financially stable at this point and will be in the future based on the information we have gathered at this time.

Our goal as we set forth these items, is to make sure that our education is affordable for our students and we still believe we are.

If you were to look at our community college tuition and fees compared to other institutions around the state, we are very affordable compared to our sisters (colleges) around the state.

Q: What is the right size for ECCC? Is it about right now or should it grow?

A: We are always looking for growth because the more students that we have means, the more students we are serving in this district. I would like to see our numbers grow on workforce training and career and technical side because there it means we are helping to create jobs and fill jobs within our district.

Billy Stewart reflects on tenure as ECCC president DECATUR  After spending 30 years as an educator, Billy Stewart said he is waiting for God 

Q: How will you connect and interact with students and staff?

A: Meeting our community is a big part of what I feel like is important. It is extremely important to let individuals know that were care about them...We are here as an institution to get people where they need to be. I wont be able to do this job by sitting behind my desk and waiting for individuals to come to me, I have to go out and look for those answers.

Brent Gregory named president of East Central Community College DECATUR  Brent Gregory was named the new president of East Central Community College on Tue

I have to look for the questions and then try to look to find the answers to those as well. I will be out on campus, within our community. There is a good chance you could see me at any type of activity within in this district at any time, because I feel like it is my job is to get out.

Depending upon how we can safely set things up through COVID-19, we will be having meetings with students and different student groups on campus.

I think it is important for myself to go out to our different organizations at times, to specific groups of students, to find out where they are, what their feeling are and ideas they would like to have brought forward.
The negotiations were led by Tongling Nonferrous and final treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) were settled at $60.8 per tonne/6.08 cents per lb, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.The figure was then followed by Jiangxi Copper, the source added.A third major Chinese smelter, Jinchuan, which has 750,000 tonnes per year of smelting capacity, was also said to be involved in negotiations, but a source from the company told Fastmarkets that we have not signed as yet.

The...
When Mayor Joe Hogsett announced a partnership between the city and New York University to study crime trends in Indianapolis, truancy and graduation rates were cited as metrics for the study.

The link is clear: a 2018 study found 80% of men in state or federal prisons didnt have a high school diploma.

But, is there something that could be done to prevent this  the school-to-prison pipeline  from happening in the first place?

According to Breanca Merritt, director of the Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy at IUPUI, the cycle must be addressed and broken long before children begin thinking about college.

Decades of research show the earlier you start kids on a particular path, the more likely it is that they go to college, Merritt said. We need to have conversations about alternatives, though.

Merritt said if it is unlikely a student will go to college, there needs to be realistic discussions about alternatives, as well as careers and professions which dont require a college degree.

Our current infrastructure doesnt allow kids on the pipeline to get off that track, Merritt said. We need to adequately prepare kids for alternative options.

The school-to-prison pipeline is a term describing a system that sees students from marginalized groups disproportionately become incarcerated as young adults. Often, the outcome of the pipeline, incarceration, is discussed more than the causes. Current school policies and practices set up children for trouble long before any crimes are committed.

According to a study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, Black students around the country are four times more likely than their white peers to be suspended. According to the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights, roughly 7% of Black students dropped out of high school in 2017, as opposed to 4% of white students.

Colleen Curtin, the youth program coordinator for the Domestic Violence Network, said disproportionately punishing students of color perpetuates cycles of disenfranchisement.

It used to be that when you got in trouble at school, you went to the office or saw the dean, Curtin said in a previous interview with the Recorder. Now, students are meeting with disciplinary officers. Those officers often feel compelled to treat these students like they were breaking the law on the street.

This disparity can ultimately lead to students getting expelled or feeling disconnected from an academic setting. This ultimately leads to not only a lack of education, but idle time for high-risk activities and limited job opportunities, all of which are known causes of crime.

Merritt noted Black students are affected by racism and a lack of opportunity regardless of their socioeconomic status. Further, students are often affected by events out of their control, including school and neighborhood policy decisions.

A lack of cultural understanding and biases held by teachers and school staff also play a large role in disproportionate disciplining and the pipeline, Merrit said.

There are a lot of cultural disconnects between Black students and white teachers, Merritt said.  Black students tend to be a little more expressive, and a white teacher may look at that and say, Youre out of line. Youre not behaving. The lack of awareness [among teachers] and a lack of opportunity are the roots of why the pipeline occurs.

Contact staff writer Breanna Cooper at 317-762-7848. Follow her on Twitter @BreannaNCooper.
KABUL  Acting Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar held a telephone conversation with Mr Rasit Meredov, Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan.

At the onset, Minister Atmar expressed appreciation for the humanitarian assistance provided by Turkmenistan to Afghanistan during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The discussions then focussed on the videoconference call between the Presidents of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan and both sides exchanged views on the best means of implementing the decisions made during the call.

The Ministers also discussed ways to further strengthen bilateral relations, the Afghan peace process - focusing on the role of the region and importance of regional consensus for the process, and exchanged views with regard to preparatory meetings for the implementation of the TAPI Project.
Come hell or high water, Anthony Gerald shows up. Be it with a cane, a walker or simply limping; he rarely misses a community event because he knows how important it is to be a shining example to his children, often seeks out every opportunity he can to serve as a blessing to someone else.
In this Saturday, June 6, 2020 photo provided by The Record, Black Catholics walk from the federal courthouse building in downtown Louisville, Ky., to 12th and Broadway, in the "Black Catholics Unite: Stand For Justice March" which was organized by young adults. Black Catholics across the U.S. hear their churchs leaders once again calling for racial justice, but at this volatile moment they want action as well as words.
Attorney General Nessel Urges Senate to Pass Law to Fight Shell Companies Concealing Illegal Activity

Attorney General Nessel Urges Senate to Pass Law to Fight Shell Companies Concealing Illegal Activity

July 2, 2020 LANSING  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recently joined a bipartisan coalition with 41 other attorneys general urging the U.S. Senate to pass S. 2563, the Improving Laundering Laws and Increasing Comprehensive Information Tracking of Criminal Activity in Shell Holdings (ILLICIT CASH) Act.

The letter was sent Tuesday to Sens. Mike Crapo and Sherrod Brown, chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. The ILLICIT CASH Act updates the federal framework for fighting money laundering and terrorism financing, which has not been comprehensively reassessed since its inception in the 1970s. The act creates new tools for information sharing between financial institutions and law enforcement. In addition, it requires a covered entity to report its beneficial owners, the actual people who benefit from or control the entity.

There is no place in Michigan for criminals  especially those who engage in money laundering and terrorism financing, said Nessel. The ILLICIT Cash Act is commonsense reform and will be a useful tool for law enforcement in our state to further hold those who hide their criminal acts behind shell companies accountable.

Currently, most states do not collect information that identifies who owns or benefits from corporations and other legal entities. Without this information, states are handicapped in efforts to detect shell companies that are concealing illegal activities. Shell companies often have no physical presence and generate little to no activity, which allows criminals  such as drug traffickers, human traffickers, terrorist financiers, tax evaders and corrupt government officials  to anonymously shelter and transfer the proceeds of their crimes.

Under the ILLICIT CASH Act, certain business entities will have to disclose a beneficial owner to the federal government. A beneficial owner is a natural person who controls an entity, owns at least 25% of it or receives economic benefits from it. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of Treasury will then keep all the disclosed beneficial ownership information in a federal registry. The act requires FinCEN to release beneficial ownership information to law enforcement agencies, including at the local and state levels.

In sending this letter, Attorney General Nessel joins the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, N. Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

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Courtney Covington 517-335-7666 Attorney General
More than 20 grassroots members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Hongxingqiao town, Changxing county of Huzhou city, east Chinas Zhejiang province, took part in commemorative activities held at a local New Fourth Army memorial on June 30, one day ahead of the 99th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, in a bid to better carry forward the revolutionary spirit of their predecessors.

Liu Yuxi, a 91-year-old veteran who fought in the Chinese Peoples War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, shared the Partys extraordinary journey and stories with these young CPC members, and repeated the CPCs admission oath along with them.

Dubbed the small Yanan in the south of the Yangtze River, Changxing county was one of the 19 bases of the CPC in the Chinese Peoples War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Ive been thinking about Pecola Breedlove, the emotionally tormented character from Toni Morrisons incomparable debut novel, The Bluest Eye. Published the year in which I was born, The Bluest Eye is notable in part because it is a story of racism that is set in Morrisons native Ohio  as opposed to some stereotypical Southern state.

Pecola is poor. She is Black. She is female. And she is constantly belittled by others  Black and white  for being ugly. She tries valiantly to navigate a world that unapologetically tries to negate her very existence. She asks God to give her the quintessential mark of whiteness  blue eyes. Pecolas ill-fated quest for validation of her humanity is excruciatingly painful (for her and for the reader). That quest is all too familiar for far too many African Americans.

Morrison wrote this book during a period of substantial shifts in American society and politics. The Civil Rights Movement was giving way to the Black Power Movement. Also, the U.S. had recently transitioned from having a president who recognized that racism was a major problem to selecting one who fanned the flames of that very racism for his own political gain.

Morrison, who died almost a year ago at age 88, was so deliberate, so exacting, so flawless in her mastery of language. She spoke eloquently about laboring to find precisely the right concoction of words to do justice to the stories that dwelled inside her. In so doing, Morrison deftly elucidates the depths of the psycho-social trauma that attends Blackness in America. For example, she lays out how Pecolas mere presence is an affront  even an unforgivable offense  to whiteness. This leads to Pecola losing her sanity.

While I have never desired to be white, I have long envied the multiplicity of advantages  explicit and implicit  that collectively have come to be known as white privilege. (It is fascinating to watch so many whites deny the existence of the last thing that most of them would ever voluntarily forego.) Arguably, the most important aspect of white privilege is not having to endure the longing to be acknowledged as fully human. Ultimately, white privilege is not about dollars; it is about dignity.

Recently Ive seen an increasing number of stories in the media regarding white people who didnt get it until they became parents of Black children. Yet, even well-meaning white people  whom we call allies  cannot fathom the extraordinary energy that it takes to simply exist in the world that Black women, men, girls and boys traverse every single day.

As a Black man I have to figure out how not to appear threatening to whites (especially women) when Im shopping. I have to go through a mental checklist of dos and donts if Im pulled over by the police. I have to have the talk with my son at least quarterly so that he can avoid being harassed  or even killed  by the police. I have to be prepared for Karen to challenge my right to be in a certain neighborhood, restaurant, hotel, or store. This is exceedingly draining. As Fannie Lou Hamer decreed, Were sick and tired of being sick and tired.

People long ago discovered that the constant dripping of water onto even the hardest surface would eventually cause an indentation. Though it probably was not invented by the Chinese, water torture is infamous as a method of interrogation. And it is an appropriate analogy for what it is like to be Black in America. We endure the drip-drip-dripping of racial insults (including the repeated denials that were actually experiencing them) until many of us eventually crack. If Black life had a soundtrack, it would shift back and forth between Fight the Power and The Message.

I know that a growing number of whites argue that their race has become a hindrance in modern America. They display their laments and grievances in everyday conversations and across social media: Why does white automatically mean racist? Why dont we have White History Month? Im not racist, but  Those expressions of frustration, while heartfelt, pale in comparison to the effects of 400 years of racial oppression  a reality in which negative consequences have compounded like interest.

Similarly, I know that all people  including white people  have problems.

While there are no actual winners in the oppression games, as the title of the late Bebe Moore Campbells book testifies, Your Blues Aint Like Mine.

Larry Smith is a community leader. Contact him at larry@leaf-llc.com.
European Union governments remain deeply divided over a proposed 750 billion-euro ($847 billion) plan aimed at jointly financing an economic recovery, and the prospects for a deal at a key summit later this month are uncertain, according to a senior official.

European Council president Charles Michel will unveil a compromise proposal next week in an effort to bridge divisions, said the official, who asked not to be named, in line with policy. Michel, who chairs the summits of EU leaders, will propose keeping the overall size the same, but the official declined to say if the current balance of grants to loans -- 500 billion versus 250 billion, respectively -- would change.

A bloc of richer member states, led by the Netherlands, wants to substantially reduce or eliminate the amount distributed in the form of grants that will be collectively repaid as of 2027 from the joint EU budget. Michel will propose offering the wealthier nations rebates that would limit the amount they contribute to the EU budget in an effort to win over their approval for the deal.

The proposed package, backed by Germany and France, could mark a giant leap in the European unification process, as it would see the EU's executive arm issue billions of euros in debt on behalf of the entire bloc. While European markets have rallied on the expectation that the plan will eventually be approved, the proposal is mired in controversy, with nations at loggerheads over the size, the allocation and the conditions attached to the disbursement of funds.

Under the original proposal by the European Commission, Italy would get almost 82 billion euros in grants, making it the single largest beneficiary of the package, followed by Spain with 77.3 billion euros. In contrast, Northern countries, which are also projected to suffer from a record recession, would get a much smaller share of the pot, with the proposed allocation for Belgium set at 5.5 billion euros.

Following the pushback, Michel will instead propose next week that 70% of the total package is distributed in line with the commission's proposal, while 30% will be distributed from 2023, depending on the depth of the recession in each country over the next 2 years. Overall, Michel will propose that countries have a total of 3 years to commit the funds to projects and another 3 years to spend it, according to the official.

The conditions attached to the disbursement of the money will also be strengthened, so as to make sure it's used to help Europe's climate and digital transition, the official said. There will also be safeguards against sliding democratic standards in member states such as Poland and Hungary, though the official declined to elaborate on the specifics of the mechanism that will be proposed for discontinuing disbursements in such cases.

In another concession to Europe's rich North, Michel will propose modest cuts to the regular EU budget which runs at over 1 trillion euros over the next 7 years. The proposal is likely to trigger a pushback from Eastern EU members, which benefit the most in agricultural subsidies from the budget.

Michel's proposal will form the basis for negotiations between leaders in a summit scheduled for July 17 and 18 in Brussels. The official didn't exclude that another summit may be needed this month to bridge divisions, though he insisted that no such meeting is planned at this stage.
MIDDLETOWN  A local cafe known for its coffee sourced from one of the worlds finest manufacturers has expanded to an innovative menu offering customers the chance to try exotic cuisines from around the globe.

Inspired by travel bans resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, Qawa Coffee Co. in Metro Square has created food tours of countries such as Yemen and Morocco. These complement the 170 Main St. restaurants homemade pastries and brunch menu.

Through its Qawa Kitchen Initiative, husband-and-wife owners Abdul Alhadheri and Amirah Ailaqi are selling meals that feed four to five people. Some of the proceeds are aiding local families in need. So far, 30 have used the service, Alhadheri said.

The cafe, which sources its coffee from Intelligencia, the best specialty coffee manufacturer in the world, Ailaqi said, opened in March 2019. Shortly afterward, and just before the pandemic hit, they added a kitchen to serve breakfast items, as well as pastries such as baklava and pistachio Halvah.

Everything is prepared from scratch daily. Its really successful, Ailaqi said. We want to serve the best kind of food in Connecticut.

There are numerous toppings that can be added to breakfast sandwiches, including on The Works, consisting of an egg, cheese, avocado and tomato butter on a croissant.

Toasts, served with a side of greens, include avocado, protein, fig and ricotta. There also are Mediterranean bowls and Belgian waffles.

When they post pictures of the food on the Qawa Instagram page, Ailaqi, said, people are just blown away by it.

As a result of the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent closings of restaurants, the couple was forced to lay off all nine of its staff. Qawa has since opened for outdoor dining and curbside pickup.

Members of their family have health issues, so the couple is not presently open for indoor service.

Theyre back on their feet now with the unique food program which began in May. If youre in a place of privilege and have the resources, people should go for it, Ailaqi said.

With the coronavirus, even in dark times, youre able to see the light. It was an opportunity to say things have slowed down a lot, and now its time for us to come up with something better, she said.

It has been very well-received, Alhadheri said. A few days a week, customers can order a meal from the cuisine of the month priced at $85 and up. A portion of the proceeds contribute to First Church and St. Vincent De Paul Middletown, which partner on food programs.

June featured Yemen, where both husband and wife are from, and this month its Morocco.

Yemen is being hard hit by famine. We wanted to help the poorest people in the world at the moment, Ailaqi said.

The first day they sold out in less than 10 hours. Three subsequent food tour nights did equally well, according to Ailaqi. Portions are very generous.

Qawa is the original word for coffee. The Arabic word translates to the wine of the being, she said.

When monks living in the 15th century first discovered the coffee bean, it was in Yemen. A lot of people dont know that, she said. In fact, her husbands great-great-grandfather was one of the first people to export coffee beans into the world from the port of Mocha.

Qawa has an array of tea and coffee drinks, including the Dirty Chai, a double espresso with Maya chai syrup, steamed and frothed milk, which is very popular. They also have Spanish, Yemeni, matcha and honey-cinnamon lattes.

Those who live farther away have the option of making a donation to feed Middlesex Hospital staff, as do others who simply want to give for that purpose, Alhadheri said. Theyve raised $300 for that effort, which enabled them to deliver eight lunches. They can feed at least double that amount of workers, Ailaqi said.

Were here to educate people and allow them to experience the other side of the world, which they wouldnt have the opportunity to do, Ailiqi said. Its hard for people to connect with each other if they dont learn about the beautiful heritages and cultures of the other person.

For information, call 860-788-6540 or visit the Facebook page, the website at qawacoffee.com or Instagram.
Were living in a modern-day Civil Rights Movement.

I recently read that statement, and it gave me chills. The movement happened well before I was born, and Ive always thought of it in historical terms: It happened long ago, is done and wont occur again.

How wrong I was. Just as those who came before us, we are fighting for a better life  right now and for future generations. While we were added into the system, the gains we made in the 1950s and 60s didnt change the system, which was the desired outcome. Systemic racism still persists as does white hate.

Unfortunately, todays movement is eerily similar to the Civil Rights Movement of the past. Black Lives Matters demonstrators today encounter the same rage and hate as those who marched decades before them. Look at the pictures from now and then. If not for the clothes, you wouldnt know theres about a 50-year difference.

Its amazing to me that people havent learned from the past and are happy to be on the wrong side of history. Todays Civil Rights Movement recognizes entire systems must be dismantled and rebuilt in order for real change to occur. Thats a lofty goal, and theres no easy way to start since we cant just stop everything and start anew. But there is recognition from leaders in our community that more has to be done to effect real change.

For this reason, its heartening to see the 11 superintendents from Marion County join forces to create the Anti-Racism Initiative.

The initial efforts include:

 No Racism Zone signs at high schools.

 Disseminating information to parents to educate themselves and their children about why racial equality and equity is important.

 Working with the Indiana State Teachers Association to support the efforts of their Minority Affairs Committee.

 Superintendents will make a video emphasizing their commitment to racial equality and equity.

 Superintendents will encourage their boards to adopt policies that address equality and equity.

This is a noble start, and Im encouraged to see what more will be done in schools, especially since Indianapolis Public Schools and many of our township schools populations are majority Black and their teaching staff is majority white. Take the Metropolitan School District of Pike Township for example. Black students comprise 60.5% of the population while Black teachers account for 25.3%. White students make up 8% of the population; white teachers are 71.2% of educators in the district.

I knew this anecdotally, but to see the numbers makes one realize how important this initiative is and how it must delve deeper than signage and videos.

The education system  from teaching colleges to textbooks to hiring to professional development  must ensure schools not only more closely reflect their student population, but teachers in those systems understand systemic racism and their role in dismantling it. We cant afford to keep teachers who refuse to teach the truth.

What do I mean by that? We need teachers to take their blinders off and have a long look at what theyre teaching students. Are you teaching students a whitewashed version of historical events, only looking through the lens of white people, or are you looking at the totality of the event. For instance, do you understand why Nat Turner led a revolt, or do you think he was wrong and side with the slave owners? Do you think of Native Americans as savages because they killed white people, but dont recognize the savage acts of the colonists toward Native Americans?

One of the biggest complaints about our education system is Black people (or any minority group) arent taught about their role in American history other than a footnote or a sanitized version of events filtered through a white prism. I cant count the number of times Ive heard people say they didnt know about Juneteenth until recently. Why isnt that taught? When did you first learn the true story of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation? Some still teach Christopher Columbus found America.

Yes, its uncomfortable. Some teachers will have to come to terms with everything theyve been taught and everything they are teaching is wrong. But thats what dismantling a system looks like. No one said this would be easy.
MILFORD  With phase two of the COVID-19 reopening now in its second week, Milford Health Director Deepa Joseph has made her recommendations on how city residents should proceed.

With the opening of phase two, which is very exciting, we probably have 95 percent of our businesses and activities reopening with things like youth sports, pools, and indoor dining plus a variety of other businesses, Joseph said in a Minute with the Mayor video. The key to keeping these things open is to make sure as customers that we are wearing our facemasks and social distancing.

According to COVID-19 Data Resources, a Connecticut data portal that provides centralized access to data on the COVID-19 emergency and response, Milford has had 672 confirmed cases, with 85 deaths, as of June 29. The state has had 46,572 cases, 4,324 deaths, with 100 hospitalized as of Wednesday.

As many of you have heard, over the past week we are seeing increases in COVID cases across the country, Joseph said. One of the reasons that Connecticut is a handful of states in the country that is still on the decreasing trend is because we are really particular that everyone is wearing their facemasks and social distancing.

The New York Times reported that the virus outlook in the United States is bad and getting worse. With more than 48,000 new cases on Tuesday, the country set a daily record for the fourth time in a week.

The record came as Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, told Congress on Tuesday that the rate of new infections could more than double to 100,000 a day if current outbreaks were not contained. He warned that the viruss march across the South and the West puts the entire country at risk.

If you are in that high-risk category, we hope you try to still limit your activities for Phase 2 to make sure that you stay safe, Joseph said.

Mayor Ben Blake said, As we start to ease into summer, as things start to open up, I know our community has a lot of questions about Phase 2 and what we have to do to all remain healthy.

Connecticut added eight states Tuesday to its travel advisory suggesting that travelers quarantine for two weeks after coming here. Gov. Ned Lamont added California, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, and Tennessee to the list of states that fall under the tri-state travel advisory with New York and New Jersey.

The governors of the three northeast states said last week that people coming from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah are urged to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in the region.

Joseph said: When you see businesses and sponsor organizations taking precautions like having hand sanitizer stations available, and their employees and staff wearing facemasks and following all the rules, we encourage all of you to make sure you are wearing your facemask and that you are socially distant.

For information about Phase 2 reopening rules, visit: https://bit.ly/2Vyr1hC.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. william.bloxsom@hearstmediact.com Twitter: @blox354
The same day that one suspect in the disappearance of Army Pfc. Vanessa Guillen was arrested, and another suspect took his own life, the service announced a probe into the local program intended to respond to and prevent sexual assault.

U.S. Army Forces Command dispatched a seven-member inspector general team to Fort Hood, Texas earlier this week at the request of III Corps officials to determine that the base Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program, or SHARP, was working effectively and properly offering support to soldiers.

Read Next: General, Colonel Rebuked After Marine Corps Finds Serious Flaws in Fatal Crash Investigation

The team, which will be at Hood until July 3, will focus on three objectives, Hood officials said. Those include assessing how the SHARP program is implemented on the base; investigating whether the base command climate supports soldiers who report sexual harassment or assault; and identifying any systemic issues with the program, or any places where resources are inadequate.

"The inspection team will brief Fort Hood and Army Forces Command leaders upon completion of the inspection," officials said.

Guillen, a 20-year-old small arms repairer with the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, was last seen April 22. Her prolonged disappearance has provoked criticisms that the Army did not do enough to find her.

An attorney for Guillen's family, Natalie Khawam, said the soldier had reported being sexually harassed by a superior before she disappeared.

On Tuesday, local law enforcement officials and investigators acknowledged they had found unidentified human remains near Fort Hood. And on Wednesday, Army Criminal Investigative Division officials said a "junior soldier" from the base had fled Tuesday evening, when approached by law enforcement, had taken his own life. A second suspect, the estranged wife of a former soldier, was arrested and awaits charges in the Bell County Jail, officials said.

At a Wednesday press conference, Khawam called the Army's system for caring for those like Guillen "broken," and said the family wanted reform, and a system in which military sexual assault and harassment victims can report these offenses outside their chain of command.

Fort Hood officials plan to hold a press conference with updates on Guillen's case Thursday morning.

The base also announced Wednesday that the soldier had been promoted to the rank of specialist "due to time in grade."

-- Gina Harkins contributed to this report.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

Related: 1 Suspect Dead, 1 in Custody in Connection with Pfc. Vanessa Guillen's Disappearance
Sen. Tammy Duckworth said Thursday she was prepared to put a hold on more than 1,100 normally routine military promotions unless Trump impeachment witness Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman gets fair consideration.

In a statement, Duckworth, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who lost both legs in Iraq, said she would block a promotions list with 1,123 names on it until she had confirmation from Defense Secretary Mark Esper that he would not scuttle "the expected and deserved promotion" of Vindman to colonel.

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As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, has the authority to put a hold on nominations without stating a reason, but her statement made clear that she feared President Donald Trump would attempt to use his influence to block Vindman's promotion.

Vindman, a former Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who received a Purple Heart for service in Iraq, testified last November at the House impeachment hearings that he had knowledge of a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

During the call, Trump allegedly warned that military aid to Ukraine would be held up unless Zelensky agreed to launch an investigation of the dealings in Ukraine of Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president Joe Biden.

Vindman testified that he came forward "out of a sense of duty" and the belief that it was "improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent."

Shortly after Trump was acquitted by the Senate of impeachment charges in February, Vindman was fired at the National Security Council and escorted from the White House.

His twin brother, Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, a lawyer on the National Security Council staff, was also escorted from the White House.

In a series of tweets on Feb. 8, Trump said he didn't know Vindman but "he was very insubordinate, reported contents of my 'perfect' calls incorrectly, & was given a horrendous report by his superior, the man he reported to, who publicly stated that Vindman had problems with judgement, adhering to the chain of command and leaking information. In other words, 'OUT.'"

In her statement, Duckworth said it would be "simply unprecedented and wrong for any commander-in-chief to meddle in routine military matters at all, whether or not he has a personal vendetta against a soldier who did his patriotic duty and told the truth -- a soldier who has been recommended for promotion by his superiors because of his performance."

She said her hold on the promotions would not include Army Gen. Gus Perna, commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command, who has been nominated by Trump to help lead the development of a vaccine for COVID-19.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: 'No Investigations' Into Lt. Col. Vindman's Conduct, Army Secretary Says
One of the common ways scammers get people to fall for their tricks is by stirring up emotions  anger, panic, excitement, anything to make unsuspecting victims venture away from rational thought.

What a gift, then, COVID-19 has been to scammers because there are new realities  a global pandemic and resulting financial collapse  to take advantage of.

The fraudsters follow the headlines, Todd Kossow, director of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Midwest Region, said during a recent virtual conference about scams that target diverse communities.

Whats been in the headlines lately? Skyrocketing unemployment, constant updates about a potential treatment or vaccine for COVID-19, stories of people struggling to make ends meet.

One scam related to COVID-19 is people who pretend to be contact tracers. They ask for money, financial information, a Social Security number and immigration status. They might contact people with fraudulent links or downloads.

A real contact tracer will only ask for your name, address, health information and places youve visited recently.

Another scam involves individual people or companies trying to sell treatments for COVID-19 with no proof that they really work. If there is actually a medical breakthrough, its very unlikely you will hear about it for the first time from an ad or sales pitch.

Yet another scam involves sending fake stimulus checks to people for more than $1,200 (the amount determined by Congress) and then ask for money back.

The impact is huge because most of the time its low-income people who are exploited by this, Rev. David Greene, pastor at Purpose of Life Ministries, said at the conference.

An FTC database has received more than 1,000 reports of scams related to COVID-19 in Indiana, resulting in more than $100,000 lost, Kossow said.

One way to figure out if youre dealing with a scammer is to consider how they want to be paid. If they want you to wire money, get a gift card or use a crypto currency such as Bitcoin, it could be because those methods of payment are difficult to track.

Whether youve caught on to a scam before it took your money or youre thousands of dollars in the hole, its important to report scams. Not only does it give government agencies and other watchdogs a better idea of what the trends in scamming are, but if theres ever money to distribute from that case, the FTC will use its database to figure out who gets that money, according to Andrew Johnson, a consumer education specialist with the FTC.

File a complaint to the FTC by visiting ftc.gov/complaint. You can also file a complaint to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) at bbb.org/scamtracker/reportscam.

Data suggest African American and Hispanic communities are underreporting fraud, even though those same communities experience fraud at a higher rate than whites.

A 2016 report from the FTC showed there are fewer complaints per 100,000 people in areas that are predominantly African American, compared to areas that are predominantly white, though the rates are about the same for areas that are almost all African American or white.

The rates are worse in areas that are predominantly or almost all Hispanic.

Part of the reason for low complaint rates could be simple mistrust in government. The FTC and BBB know this (although the BBB is not a government agency) and have tried building relationships with organizations and faith leaders who have more credibility in the community.

The BBB doesnt take anonymous complaints, but the FTC does.

Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.

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An amendment to the House and Senate defense policy bills would require the Pentagon to provide blood tests for any service member suspected to have been exposed to chemicals used in most firefighting foams, as well as non-stick industrial coatings and stain repellent.

But the Department of Defense has yet to begin testing firefighters for these substances, which fall under the class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. They are required to do so by Oct. 1 under last year's National Defense Authorization Act.

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Military firefighters say they are glad lawmakers are now considering the dangers of the chemicals, which have been linked to certain types of cancer, birth defects and other health issues. But they don't feel that the Pentagon is moving fast enough to monitor their exposure levels.

"Being a DoD firefighter for 14 years, I know I've been covered in that stuff ... what has been done for all us firefighters?" said a service member, who requested that his name not be used because he remains on active duty and fears retaliation.

The fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act called for DoD to begin blood testing on military firefighters to determine their exposure levels to PFOS and PFOA.

A Defense Health Agency spokesman said DoD is currently developing the procedures for testing the thousands of current firefighters serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

"We are actively developing policy and procedures to provide blood testing to determine and document potential occupational exposure to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances for each firefighter of the Department of Defense during the annual occupational medical examination conducted by the department for each firefighter," a DHA official said on background, because he was not authorized to speak for the agency.

The House and Senate versions of the national defense policy bill contain at least 10 different measures to regulate PFAS, from providing funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improving research on the chemicals and prohibiting DoD from buying certain products containing PFAS, and barring DoD from incinerating PFAS products.

The amendment, proposed by Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., would ensure that periodic health assessments on service members include an evaluation of potential exposure to PFAS as well as blood tests for those potentially exposed and inclusion in medical records.

Haaland told Military.com that testing would help DoD understand the extent of PFAS chemicals' impact on service members.

"The health and safety of our military families is important, but harmful chemicals put them at risk. I've seen what happens to the health of family and friends when toxic sites are not cleaned up, and it's not something we should risk," Haaland said.

In the Senate, several provisions also have been introduced as part of the chamber's version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization bill, including one from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., that support testing and Tricare coverage for PFAS exposure among service members and families.

Shaheen also has proposed that DoD and VA develop a national database, or registry, of service members and veterans with PFAS-related health conditions.

An amendment from Shaheen also would designate the key PFAS chemicals in firefighting foams hazardous by law. Amendments from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who proposes prohibiting DoD from incinerating PFAS chemicals, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who wants to bar the Defense Logistics Agency from buying certain products containing PFAS, both have similar measures in the House bill, increasing the likelihood that they will be in the final version of the bill.

Advocacy groups praised the lawmakers for supporting the measures but some members of Congress said some proposals go too far.

Scott Faber, vice president of the Environmental Working Group, which tracks contamination across the country, said the proposals build on progress from last year.

"Our military service members risk everything to keep us safe," Faber said. "We should do everything we can to protect service members from toxic chemicals like PFAS, which contaminate the groundwater of hundreds of DOD installations."

"Our best strategy is to stop the use of PFAS at its source -- in products. This legislation does exactly that by instructing the military to stop purchasing products -- furniture, carpeting, and even dental floss--containing these harmful chemicals," said Arlene Blum, executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute.

During debate in the House, however, some members of Congress took issue with an amendment by Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., to force DoD to clean up contamination to standards set by state or federal governments, whichever is strictest.

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, called the measure "a bridge too far."

"I appreciate the intention behind this amendment ... but EPA is taking steps. I think they are taking rational and major steps according to science. Measures like this go beyond what science has determined," Lamborn said.

According to the Environmental Working Group, 678 active and former defense sites are contaminated or have had suspect discharges of PFAS compounds.

Many non-military communities are also contaminated from PFAS from industrial use and production. The chemicals, which are referred to as "forever chemicals" because they don't break down and currently can't be destroyed, have been used for decades in military training and emergencies.

Congress has called for DoD to limit its use of aqueous film forming foams containing PFAS and phase them out within five years. According to DoD, the military services now only use the foam on land during actual emergencies, but they remain the most effective tool for fighting fires on ships.

DoD officials have been working with private industry and conducting research on potential replacements for the PFAS foam, but a solution remains elusive.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Related: New Pentagon Task Force to Address Cleanup of PFAS-Contaminated Bases
The Air Force Knew It Had an Ejection Seat Problem, But Didn't Speed Up a Fix. Then a Pilot Died

And his widow fears that another pilot may suffer the same fate.
U.S. Army officials at Fort Hood today said that there is no evidence that a male soldier who killed himself this week to avoid police capture sexually assaulted 20-year-old Spc. Vanessa Guillen, who has been missing from the Texas post since April.

During a news conference, Army Criminal Investigation Command Special Agent Damon Phelps named the now-deceased soldier as Spc. Aaron David Robinson, who was assigned to A. Company, 3rd Cavalry Regiment at the time Guillen, a fellow 3rd Cavalry soldier, disappeared April 22.

Read Next: Military COVID-19 Cases Spike 41% in June, With Upticks in Hotspot States

Before the event, Natalie Khawam, an attorney representing Guillen's family, announced that CID officials told her that Robinson had murdered her in the unit armory on the day of her disappearance.

"The murderer sexually harassed her and then killed her," the Whistleblower Law Firm attorney, told Military.com in a statement. "We believe he murdered her because he was going to report him.

"This gruesome murder should never have happened."

Law enforcement officials attempted to make contact with Robinson, 20, on Tuesday in Killeen, Texas, but he displayed a weapon and took his own life, Phelps said during the news conference.

"We are still investigating their interactions, but at this point, there is no credible information of reports that Spc. Robinson sexually harassed Spc. Guillen," Phelps said.

Phelps would not comment on the allegations made by Khawam that Robinson murdered her because it is still an ongoing investigation.

Officials did not identify a civilian woman they arrested Tuesday in connection with Guillen's disappearance, described earlier as the estranged wife of a former soldier. She remains in custody in the Bell County Jail awaiting charges by civilian authorities.

Fort Hood officials said that the human remains discovered recently have not been identified. They did not confirm details cited by Khawam about where specifically remains were found and what condition they were in.

Army officials said on Tuesday that they found partial human remains near the Leon River about 30 miles outside Fort Hood. The remains have been sent to a forensic anthropologist for analysis, though no official confirmation on the identity of the remains has been completed.

"Our agents are working very closely with the Armed Forces Medical Examiner to expedite identification of the remains," Phelps said. "We will release information on those remains as soon as we can and after notification is made with the next of kin."

Army officials also stressed repeatedly at the news conference that there is "no credible information" that Guillen was the victim of sexual harassment or assault.

"The criminal investigation has not found any connection between sexual harassment and Vanessa's disappearance," Maj. Scott Efflandt, deputy commanding general of III Corps and Fort Hood, said. "However, all sexual harassment allegations are being investigated, as they are in every other instance."

At Efflandt's request, Army Forces Command ordered a seven-member inspector general team to Fort Hood to review the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program, (SHARP). The inspection will assess whether the command climate at Hood is supportive of soldiers reporting sexual harassment and seek to identify any potential systemic issues within the program at Hood, Efflandt said.

Phelps said investigators are aware Guillen's family members made statements early on to the media concerning sexual harassment allegations.

He acknowledged that agents uncovered statements on May 7 that could be considered sexual harassment.

"After subsequent investigation, another allegation of verbal harassment involving the same individual was discovered. However subsequent interviews have failed to [confirm] this allegation," Phelps said. "Nevertheless, we are still investigating."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Related: Army Investigating Fort Hood Sexual Assault Program After Soldier's Disappearance
Recruiters and hiring managers are looking for a lot more than just a resume thats clean and well-written.

To be clear, they still want it to be clean and well-written, so dont skip out on transition assistance class just yet, , but there are other things components of a resume they look for first.

Those are the things you should spend time updating now, says Ambra Benjamin, a technical recruiting manager at Facebook and a prolific writer on the subject of recruiting and talent acquisition. She wrote her tips on Quora, the digital Q&A forum.

It all starts with a digital resume, because no one looks at paper anymore -- at least not in the HR department, she says. And while some of these things, like whether your past experience is with a recognizable company, are not things you can go back in time and change, you can tailor your resume to highlight the things she says are important in a recent list of tips on Quora, the digital Q&A forum.

Here are her nine highlights, shared with her permission.

Ambra Benjamin is a Technical Recruiter for Facebook and shares her experience writing articles about her work. (Ambra Benjamin)

1. Your Most Recent Role

If theres a glaring omission like where you currently work its going to puzzle a recruiter. They basically want to know why youre looking for a new position right now. So be sure to include your current job and tailor the experience to be relevant to the job you want.

Are they laid off? Benjamin asks. Did they get fired? Have they only been in their role for a few months and they're possibly hating it? But most importantly, is their most recent experience relevant to the position for which I'm hiring?

2. Recognizable Companies

When trying for a job in a competitive environment, Benjamin says recruiters do look for easily recognizable companies and brands. This is not to say that you have to work at Toyota or Proctor and Gamble, but the name recognition helps identify the corporate culture you might be used to. She says when she sees unfamiliar companies, she has to read the resume a little deeper.

Oh you worked at Amazon? Then you're probably accustomed to working on projects at scale, she says. You're at a well known crash and burn start-up? You have probably worn many hats and have been running at a sprinter's pace. There are some pretty blatant if/then associations I can make simply by recognizing a company name.

3. Overall Experience

Recruiters, especially at higher levels, are looking for career progression in a resume. They want to see increasing levels of responsibility and titles that match the candidates work. Most importantly, the responsibilities should match the job to which the candidate is applying.

4. Keywords

If youre familiar with the find function of a word document or PDF, you can rest assured that someone whos looking to fill a job and has 100-plus candidates to sift through is too. This means that critical skills necessary for the role are going to be the first thing they look for. Benjamin says if she hits ctrl+F and none of her keywords appear, its a bad sign for the candidate.

But just throwing in keywords wont do the trick either.

Now if you're thinking you should key word it up on your resume, think again, she says. Keep it authentic. And don't you dare think of putting your resume on the Internet and embedding 250 completely irrelevant to your skill set key words at the bottom in 5pt white text so no one can see. I'm on to you.

Your keywords should be in the meat of your experience on your resume, she continued.

5. Gaps In Employment

Benjamin says gaps in employment arent necessarily disqualifiers, but they should be explained. The absence of an explanation is worse than a bad one, even if you feel uncomfortable saying it in your resume.

Oh you took three years off to raise your children? Fine by me, and might I add: #respect, she writes. You tried your hand at starting your own company and failed miserably? Very impressive! Gap sufficiently explained. Whatever it is, just say it.

6. Your Online Footprint

If you have any kind of online presence, include it on your resume. You dont have to be an influencer with a half-million followers, but Benjamin says that this part can be the best part of recruiting. This includes Twitter accounts, personal websites or anything else you might want to list to show a little personality.

7. Location

If the job is in Charleston, South Carolina and you live in Charleston, West Virginia (and its not a remote position), this could be a disqualifier. But a recruiter looking up certain baseline criteria is common. The easiest way to DQ someone is finding out they dont have the right immgration paperwork.

Location, eligibility to work in the US -- I try to make some raw guesses here, but this is not a place of weeding someone out, more just trying to figure out their story, she writes.

8. Organization

This is where your Transition Assistance Program training is helpful. This is also where you show you can clearly communicate your thoughts and experience. Spelling, grammar and usage all count here. Most importantly in this step is making your resume reflect the career field youre in (or entering).

If you're in marketing and you've lost me in the first three bullets, I have concerns, Benjamin writes.

9. First Person

Though it may be tempting, your resume is not a narrative. Its not a book about your employment life. For recruiters, it reads oddly. So when writing, keep everything in one tense -- as if it were an enlisted performance report.

Pick a voice, pick a tense and stick with it, she writes. Id suggest third person and past tense. If I were you, Id eliminate pronouns altogether (My, I, She, He)... Go through your resume and remove all the pronouns and rewrite the sentence to make it sound like a bullet point.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

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How to use the mindat.org media viewer

Click/touch this help panel to close it.

Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image)

Controls - all media types

Zoom in and out of media using your mousewheel or with a two-finger 'resize' action on a touch device.

Use the mouse or your finger to drag the image or the view area of the image around the screen.

< and > at the left and right hand side of the screen move forwards and backwards for the other images associated with the media you selected. Usually this is used for previous/next photo in a gallery, in an article or in search results. Keyboard shortcuts: use shift + the left and right arrow keys.

< and > in the bottom center are used for switching between the photos of the same specimen. Keyboard shortcuts: use the left and right arrow keys.

> in the bottom center, raises the information box giving details and further options for the media, < at the top of this box then hides it. Keyboard shortcuts: use the up and down arrow keys.

? opens this help window. Keyboard shortcuts: use the H key or the ? key.

Other keyboard shortcuts:

1 Fit image to screen 2 Fill screen with image 5 Display at full resolution < Make background darker > Make background lighter space Hide/dim titles and buttons

Scalebar

If the field of view (FOV) is specified for the photo, the scalebar appears in the left bottom corner of the viewer. The scalebar is draggable and resizeable. Drag the right edge to resize it. Double click will reset the scalebar to it's default size and position. If the scalebar is in default position, double click will make it circular.

Controls - Video

Video files have a standard set of video controls: - Reset to start, - Skip back, - Play, - Pause, - Skip forwards. Keyboard shortcuts: You can stop/start video play with the P key.

Controls - Animation (Spin Rotation)

Animation (usually 360 degree spin rotations) have their own controls: - enable spin mode. Note that while images are loading this option will not be available but will be automatically activated when the animation has loaded. Once active you can spin the image/change the animation by moving your mouse or finger on the image left/right or by pressing the [ or ] keys.

The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types.

The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control.

Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images

If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways:

- without any special equipment using cross-eyed or parallel-eyed method

- with stereoscope

- with anaglyph glasses.

- on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system)

For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D

To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them.

Controls - photo comparison mode

If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu.

Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder.

Summary of all keyboard shortcuts
ANN ARBOR, MI  Gov. Gretchen Whitmers announcement of plans for reopening Michigan schools might make some people optimistic about in-person classes this fall, but Ann Arbor parent Angel Garzas approach is more clear cut.

As long as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers, his children wont attend Ann Arbor Public Schools in-person.

I may be a gambling man when it comes to sports, but not when it comes to the lives of the folks in my household, said Garza, who has three children in the district. Under no circumstances will I allow my children to break quarantine until the pandemic ends or until there is a vaccine that proves to be effective.

Michigan schools will have to come up with three individual plans for reopening this fall, according to the states Return to School Roadmap released Tuesday, June 30.

The guide details what should go into each of three individual plans -- a remote learning plan if the state is in phase 3 of the Michigan Safe Start Plan, as well as an in-person plan with strict protocols if the state is in phase 4, and a more flexible plan if the state is in phase 5.

Masks, class sizes and busing: 10 ways Michigan schools could look different this fall

While the guide gives parents a better idea of what school might look like in the fall, some are hesitant to send their children back to school buildings until they can see for themselves how their plans are executed.

I dont really feel comfortable at this point sending my kid back, said Akin Oluwadare, who has a child enrolled in Lincoln Consolidated Schools. No matter how badly you want them to social distance, kids are always going to be kids.

School districts across Washtenaw County have been collaborating with teachers, staff and parents since the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic to formulate plans for remote learning. They have now shifted their focus to how to hold in-person classes by surveying parents and other key stakeholders.

While the 63-page roadmap offers guidance for schools on things like personal protective equipment, good hygiene, cleaning and disinfecting, spacing in classrooms and screening for symptoms, Washtenaw Intermediate School District Interim Superintendent Naomi Norman said debates over what will be required or recommended can end and the focus can shift to what teaching and learning will look like in the fall.

Thats the gift that this plan gives us - its defining some of these very basic ways of how we keep our kids safe at these different phases so that we can focus on all the other things that are about bringing people together to do learning, Norman said.

While some aspects of the plan  like who wears masks and when  get more immediate attention, Norman said its more important to focus on all the different types of controls put in place to ensure a safe learning environment.

At the WISD that means a variety of safety measures like installing plexiglass for employees in customer-focused positions, limiting entry points in buildings with one-way movement through spaces, doing temperature testing, increasing surface cleaning for high-touch surfaces and increasing air flow in buildings.

Because some of our students are medically fragile and have very unique needs, we are taking extraordinary care to ensure that we are making sure our students are well protected, probably more so than you would see in most environments, Norman said.

With an understanding that some parents wont feel comfortable immediately sending their children back to school in-person, Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said the district is banking on parents taking advantage of its online learning program for K-12 students.

Zachery-Ross expects there will be some growing pains for teachers monitoring if students are wearing masks in the hallway or away from the classroom.

We have so many staff and students who have medical issues that will require them to not be able to wear that mask the entire day. That is one of the reasons why we have the fully online model option, she said. To teach (younger) students how to have on the mask and use it when theyre going into the hallway - we anticipate that will be quite a challenge for our teachers to integrate into a classroom routine.

Another major challenge for district leaders is determining how to properly social distance in the classroom. The reopening guide strongly recommends desks be spaced six feet apart in classrooms, and class sizes should be kept to the level afforded by necessary spacing requirements.

If all students cannot fit safely in a classroom, its recommended that schools consider implementing a staggered school schedule that incorporates alternative dates of attendance or use of virtual teaching.

Obviously (social distancing) six feet is a challenge, Lincoln Consolidated Schools Superintendent Robert Jansen said.

Jansen sees logistical challenges across the board in daily in-person education, from serving lunches and holding art, music and other special activities in individual classrooms, to consistently having recess and gym classes outdoors.

Obviously on a beautiful day, thats very doable, but we do live in Michigan, Jansen said. Those are some of the things we need to think through with all of the different variables that are out there. What do you do in inclement weather when its raining or cold?

While districts are just now diving into implementing plans for in-person learning, Norman said shes most concerned about having a plan in place that is equitable for all students and parents.

For instance, larger school districts might have the ability to purchase large quantities of personal protective equipment, Norman said, while smaller districts might have to purchase in smaller quantities, leaving them more susceptible to potential shortages.

We want to make sure were working together with vendors and groups to make sure everybody gets what they need, when they need it, at a fair price, Norman said. I think the question is, Are we going to be able to meet the learning needs of every single student? Thats the place where weve got a lot of work to do this summer.

Parent Fayiza Nabilsi is hopeful for in-person classes in the fall, but said she still has mixed emotions.

Shes skeptical schools will be able to control learning environments enough to prevent another spike in COVID-19 cases that could once again shift learning back to a remote setting. After observing Ann Arbor Public Schools successfully adapt to online learning when in-person classes were shut down in March, she wonders if plans to bring students back in September are rushed.

We keep hearing theres another wave coming in October, said Nabilsi, who has a child entering seventh grade at Ann Arbor Public Schools. I wish they would stay doing online stuff until after winter break, and maybe the pandemic will be gone and we could start in-person classes after that.

READ MORE:

Masks, class sizes and busing: 10 ways Michigan schools could look different this fall

AAPS announces new start date, what instruction might look like for 2020-21

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer unveils guide on reopening Michigan schools this fall
ANN ARBOR, MI  Howard Lazarus, who was fired as Ann Arbors city administrator in February, is leaving town to take a new job in the Philadelphia metro area.

The five-member Delaware County Council voted Wednesday night, July 1, to hire Lazarus as the Pennsylvania countys next executive director.

Lazarus said hes excited to start the new job July 15, but sad to be leaving Ann Arbor.

In the end, Im proud of the things we accomplished as a team, he said of his work here.

Theres always a sense of loss when you dont get to finish the things you started, he added, but he said he has confidence in the citys staff to do great things.

Theres a wonderful group of people who work for the city from top to bottom and Im proud that I was able to work with them for a period of time and push things in the right direction.

Lazarus is returning to the county where he grew up and where he graduated high school. He has visited periodically and still has friends and family there, he said.

Hell manage a county government with about 2,300 employees in a county with just under 600,000 residents, bordering Philadelphia.

Its a great place to go at this stage in my career, he said, calling it a chance to give back to the place that helped launch what he considers a successful career and life.

Consisting of over 184 square miles divided into 49 municipalities, Delaware County hails as the oldest settled section of Pennsylvania. In the November 2019 election, the Democratic Party took total control of the county council for the first time since the Civil War, Lazarus noted.

Ahead of a 5-0 vote to appoint Lazarus to a two-year term Wednesday night, Delaware County officials expressed excitement about his arrival and hopes that he can be a change agent to revamp county government, drawing on his many years of experience.

Nobody will be happier than I am for Mr. Lazarus to arrive, said Council Member Christine Reuther, who said the county needs to address systemic underinvestment in its infrastructure. When I saw Howard Lazarus resume, it pretty much blew me away.

Im really excited for us to take the next steps in where he is going to take us to as a county, added Vice Chair Monica Taylor.

The county conducted a national search that attracted more than 140 applicants and Lazarus had some tough competition, Delaware County officials said.

What stood out with Mr. Lazarus for me is hes an incredibly thoughtful person, said Council Member Kevin Madden.

I really think he brings a steady hand to a significantly important position, and I think we are extremely, extremely lucky and grateful to have a leader of his sort coming back to Delaware County to make this a real important part of his career.

Council Member Elaine Paul Schaefer said shes impressed by Lazarus positive energy and passion, while Chairman Brian Zidek said its evident Lazarus really loves public service and wants to make a difference.

Zidek said they tried scaring Lazarus and other candidates by letting them know what theyd be in for, telling them the county has a $500 million budget and only two people in the budget office and no health department.

Profound changes are needed, including new county hiring processes, ethics reforms and a cultural shift to give employees opinions more weight, Zidek said.

We laid all this out at the feet of Mr. Lazarus and he didnt blink an eye, he said, adding Lazarus is ready to roll up his sleeves and try to improve Delaware County government for the betterment of all its employees and residents.

Salary information wasnt immediately available.

A retired military man and professional engineer who has worked all across the country, Lazarus was public works director in Austin, Texas, before coming to Ann Arbor in 2016.

Lazarus said he developed a passion for Ann Arbor and grew fond of its people, and he still appreciates council giving him the opportunity to serve for nearly four years.

He butted heads with a new council majority that gained power in the November 2018 election, leading to his eventual firing in a controversial 7-4 vote.

Related: Why was Ann Arbor City Administrator Howard Lazarus fired? Emails shed some light

Theres a lot of really good things to take pleasure in, he said of his tenure in Ann Arbor, mentioning improvements to the Border-to-Border Trail, including a new tunnel connection to the riverfront currently being built, the citys first protected bicycle lanes, work on water quality issues, maintaining a great park system and getting the ball rolling on aggressive carbon-neutrality efforts to confront climate change.

Its been difficult to be on the sidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lazarus said, but the city was prepared, having gone through emergency management training and certification with the Federal Emergency Management Agency last June.

The city also had already been transitioning away from stationary work and getting staff more mobile devices, so staff was prepared to work remotely, he said.

Lazarus was terminated without cause, meaning no misconduct was cited, and he was given over $223,000 in severance pay plus about $50,000 for unused leave time.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

Emails show blowback against Ann Arbor council after firing administrator

Ann Arbor officials wont release fired city administrators performance evaluation

Please wear masks, Ann Arbor mayor says in new COVID-19 video message

Ann Arbor launches search for new city administrator with ability to be apolitical

Ann Arbor unveils plan for citys first solar-powered, climate resilience hub
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI -- Racism is a public health crisis in Washtenaw County, according to a new resolution by the countys Board of Commissioners.

The resolution passed Wednesday, July 1, lays out at least eight ways the county can address racism.

The board said the symbolic declaration was unanimously passed to address the health disparities that arise more often in residents of color, a day after the Washtenaw County Board of Health did the same. The statement joins a growing number of Michigan communities that have made similar declarations, including Ypsilanti and Jackson.

Racism named a public health crisis by Washtenaw County Board of Health

The resolution calls for commissioners to enact policy to increase the budgets for the health department and racial equity office and review the countys budget through a frame of racial equity. Paid parental leave for employees can also address racial equity, according to the resolution.

Officials also call for more members to join the Community Advisory Board for Law Enforcement, a community board that acts as a liaison to the sheriffs office and for the sheriffs office to continually review use of force policies and to ensure an anti-racist and holistic approach to public safety, according to the resolution.

Officials noted the inequity in infant mortality and life expectancy. Overall infant mortality in Washtenaw County is 5.2 deaths per 1,000 live births but increases to 16.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in Black county residents, according to state statistics. There is a 10-year difference in life expectancy between Black and white residents and a 17-year difference between Latino and white residents.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected Black residents in Washtenaw County. As of July 1, 33% of Washtenaws total cases and 41% of hospitalizations have been in Black residents, though they make up 12% of Washtenaws population, according to the health department.

Racism is a public health crisis, Ypsilanti leaders declare in resolution that must be more than symbolic

Commissioner Katie Scott, D-Ann Arbor, said as chair of the countys ways and means committee, she wants to keep the action items in mind when implementing budget policy.

Public health is not just about vaccines and water quality -- Its about how we can create sustainable change to improve the lives of many, Commissioner Katie Scott said in a statement. Racism has had and continues to have a verifiable impact on the social determinants of health here in Washtenaw County. Its time for Washtenaw County to grapple with our equity issues, and this resolution is just the starting point.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

Ann Arbor police oversight commission seeks stronger role in overseeing AAPD

Fired Ann Arbor administrator lands new job in Philadelphia metro area

Eastern Michigan University was on the rise. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit

Heres what to expect before an Ann Arbor-area hospital or clinic visit
FLINT, MI -- Mayor Sheldon Neeley says pop-up parties have been drawing sometimes hundreds of young people in recent weeks and says additional police officers will be on duty during the Independence Day weekend.

Neeley said in a news release Thursday, July 2, that gatherings of more than 100 people are not allowed to prevent the spread of coronavirus under Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive order and said no festivals or other large gatherings will be permitted in the city while the order is in place.

We remain in a pandemic, Neeley said in a statement issued by the city. We want everyone to enjoy the summer safely and we need everyones help and cooperation to limit the spread of COVID-19.

The city release says there have been a series of pop-up parties in parking lots, parks, and streets, prompting several actions, including increased patrols this weekend. Michigan State Police and the University of Michigan-Flint are also working in conjunction with the city to increase police presence when and where needed, the statement says.

Enforcement will be targeted toward parties with a focus on open intoxicants in public spaces and gatherings of more than 100 people, especially late at night and early in the morning.

Flint is a welcoming community and we appreciate becoming a destination for young people. Someday we will welcome these crowds to our great city. Now is not the time, Neeley said.

The citys release says Flint will support all peoples ability to peacefully gather, including to protest. It says closing hours for city parks -- 10 p.m. -- will be posted and enforced.

Thursday July 2: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Whitmer shuts down indoor bar service in most of Michigan

3 coronavirus exposure sites identified in Northern Michigan
In a viral post making its rounds on social media, Black people are urged to wear all black on July 4, as opposed to red, white and blue outfits. The post reads, Independence Day is another BLACK OUT day so they know were still in this together. Pass this on so the whole world knows BLACK LIVES MATTER.

This post is just one example of the changing perceptions surrounding July 4.

Farida Falke, who was born in Niger and immigrated to the United States as a toddler, remembers a different upbringing than some children of immigrants.

There are definitely immigrants who are raised to be super patriotic, pro America, fireworks and bald eagles screeching in the background, Falke said. I wasnt raised like that. My parents, to this day, remind me to never forget my heritage, culture and what had to be done just for us to be here. So I still have that instilled in me in conjunction with basically being an American kid for most of my life.

Despite not believing in blind allegiance and patriotism, Falke said she didnt notice a change in her perception of July 4 until recently.

I think my perception of July 4 hadnt really changed until about a year or so ago, Falke said. As a kid and teen, I didnt think too much about the deeper meaning behind the day. I just always liked it because of the positive associations, like summertime, fireworks  a good time and celebrating America. It wasnt until recently that I started feeling less of those overwhelming-mandatory-patriotic-all-American feelings, especially in the wake of the BLM [Black Lives Matter] movement.

Throughout the protests and demonstrations which have been taking place throughout the city for a month, organizers and leaders are calling on those in the crowds to understand the history of the United States and the systemic racism that many say still permeates modern society.

At a demonstration at Military Park and IUPUI June 19, Mat Davis, an organizer from the Indiana Racial Justice Alliance, told the crowd about this history of Juneteenth  when individuals enslaved in Texas two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation learned they had been freed. Davis told the group of roughly 45 people that they were fighting for the same thing as enslaved individuals and those who fought during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s were fighting for: freedom.

So, lets get free! he exclaimed at the end of his address.

Falke wishes Juneteenth was just as widely known as the Fourth of July.

I think celebrating the nations independence is fine and I have no problems with people finding joy or excitement in the Fourth, Falke said. Its an excuse to have fun, get a day off from work and watch fireworks. That being said, I wish we all kept the same energy for Juneteenth. A select few were really free on July 4, so its not my day of independence or any other Black persons, really. The Fourth is fine, but there needs to be more education and visibility for Juneteenth.

NiSean Jones, a local activist and co-founder of the group Black Out for Black Lives, also believes Juneteenth ought to be acknowledged as an important moment in American history.

I shouldnt have had to find out about Juneteenth at 18, Jones said. We all know about the Fourth of July and its European influence  and by European, of course, I mean white. Juneteenth is an important day, and young Black kids should learn about it in school just like white kids learn about the Fourth of July.

Contact staff writer Breanna Cooper at 317-762-7848. Follow her on Twitter @BreannaNCooper.

Fists raised with flagDilok Klaisataporn
GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP, MI -- Five of seven Grand Blanc Township trustees did not show up to a special board meeting Wednesday, July 1. The meeting was scheduled to discuss township management after the sudden termination of superintendent Dennis Liimatta.

The board voted to terminate Superintendent Dennis Liimattas contract without cause Tuesday, June 23. The action was not an agenda item for the meeting but passed 5-2. Supervisor Scott Bennett and Treasurer Earl Guzak cast the dissenting votes.

Bennett and Al Mansour were at the Wednesday meeting.

Mansour made the motion to exercise the termination clause of Liimattas employment agreement. The other four members who voted for termination were not in attendance: Clerk Cathy Lane, Trustee Lonnie Adkins, Trustee Joe Massey and Trustee Ken Thomas. Guzak, who voted against the move, also was not there.

Trustee says a number of issues led to Grand Blanc Township superintendents dismissal

Mansour made no comment to the public Wednesday.

However, Bennett said, while he does not usually address attendees at meetings, he wanted to thank the crowd for being there. Bennett has been vocally opposed to the termination of Liimatta.

We do not have quorum for an official meeting, however, because we have residents and business owners here for the meeting, Im going to allow everyone who would like to make public comment to comment, Bennett said.

Many community members during public comment pointed out this was not the first time the board made a controversial move that was not first on a meeting agenda. Back in December, the board voted to give itself a $4,000 raise in a similar manor to the termination of Liimatta because a motion was made without it being first on the agenda. Bennett, Guzak and Lane voted against the bonuses, with the rest of the trustees voting in favor.

Grand Blanc Township trustees gave themselves a $4,000 bonus

Larry Anderson said he was on the board when Liimatta was hired. He said the township was lucky to have a superintendent with his skills.

Never should you add an agenda item and just drop it on the table in the middle of a meeting like they did with their $4,000 pay bonus and like they did with the firing of Mr. Liimatta, Anderson said. That is a terrible, unethical thing to do. I would also like to mention that the four people, in one case five of those board members, sat there after that motion was made, stone faced, motionless, like they completely and totally expected that to be coming when we had no idea it was going to happen. Well if three board members get together and discuss a topic before a meeting, that is a breach of the Open Meetings Act. That is against the law.

Grand Blanc township and city splitting up again -- this time parks and rec department

It was disappointing to see the other four board members didnt have the guts to show up, he said.

They fired him behind a computer screen where the public couldnt get to him and now they have to postpone the discussion until the next type of board meeting where once again they get to hide behind a computer screen, Anderson said.

Jude Rariden could not attend the meeting, but wrote a letter to the board, stating profound disappointment in the trustees.

Shame on the board for firing Dennis Liimatta, a true public servant who has demonstrated his commitment to our community, Rariden states.

He also called it shameful that the board give itself a $4,000 raise back in December.

I am calling on those members who voted to fire Mr. Liimatta and to line their pockets with bonus money to immediately resign their positions, Raridens letter reads.

President of Grand Blanc Township Chamber of Commerce, Jet Kilmer, said she was sorry to hear of the decision to terminate Liimatta.

His ability to attract new business manufacturers and retail to the area and to be able to make process(es) seamless for them is what is needed to make this community grow, Kilmer said. Hes always been professional in his demeanor and his workings with the chamber.

She said he was key in changing certain township mailing addressed to reflect the municipalitys boundaries and praised his work with community leaders.

Township wants to change its Flint mailing address to Grand Blanc, 48507

What I would ask of the board is a little more transparency so that we are not caught off guard and totally surprised in an action as serious as firing our superintendent, Kilmer said.

Meetings are scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 7 and Thursday July 8. Bennett said he would like to have the meetings at Bicentennial Park North Pavilion again to allow the community to attend.

Special Grand Blanc Township Board of Trustees Meeting | July 1, 2020 Posted by Grand Blanc Township, Michigan on Wednesday, July 1, 2020

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GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- The Michigan Office of Secretary of State has filed a notice of appeal in a Michigan Court of Claims case that put Flint attorney Chris Christenson back on the August ballot in the race for Genesee Circuit Court.

The filing with the Michigan Courts of Appeals did not include briefs indicating what the state is requesting from the court, and a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State did not immediately comment on the appeal notice.

Christenson is on the ballot approved by the Genesee County Election Commission on June 17 and ballots for that election have already been printed and distributed to local clerks, county Clerk-Register John Gleason said Thursday, July 2.

The Secretary of State had initially disqualified Christenson from the ballot because he used the address of his law office in Flint rather than the address where he is registered to vote in Grand Blanc on nominating petitions.

On June 10, that decision was invalidated when Court of Claims Judge Michael J. Kelly ordered the Secretary of State to accept the petitions.

MLive-The Flint Journal could not immediately reach Tim Knecht, an attorney for Christenson, for comment on Thursday.

Kellys opinion appeared to set up a three-way August election in the race to replace retiring Judge Michael J. Theile, including Christenson, Genesee District Court Judge Herman Marable Jr. and Stephanie Witucki, an attorney from the Grand Blanc area.

Gleason said Thursday that its unclear what the notice of appeal will mean to the election.

I dont expect it to change (the ballot), the clerk-register said. The Secretary of State knows these ballots are gone.

The Election Commission approved the ballot, including Christenson as a candidate, following Kellys ruling.

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OTTAWA COUNTY, MI -- A 50-year-old Crockery Township man surrendered peacefully after a 10-hours standoff that started when the man allegedly threatened police with a firearm.

Ottawa County sheriffs deputies said the standoff, at an address in the 10500 block of Walnut Drive, began about 10 a.m. and ended about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 1.

The man allegedly threatened sheriffs deputies with a firearm while police were investigating a report of a disorderly incident at the nearby Crockery Township Hall.

He then refused to leave his residence.

He is expected to be charged with felonious assault and felony firearm.

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GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Calvin University has received an $11 million gift that will provide its faculty an opportunity to deepen and strengthen their understanding of Reformed Christian thinking, officials say.

This significant gift will enable every faculty member at Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary to be trained to think deeply about the integration of faith and learning from a Reformed perspective and help our faculty implement the best practices in doing this important work, President Michael Le Roy said in a July 1 press release statement.

The gift is from the estates of the late Rimmer and Ruth de Vries. The couple funded the establishment of the universitys Global Faculty Development Institute in 2018. Le Roy said the university is grateful for their generosity.

The de Vries latest gift will enable faculty to have release time from teaching responsibility so they can take courses that will advance Christian understanding, provide time for faculty to develop curriculum and scholarship to enable Christian thought leadership.

It will also offer opportunities for faculty members to receive mentoring from experienced faculty peers.

No other Christian college or university in the world has a resource like this institute, said Le Roy, who said the institute will be renamed The de Vries Institute for Global Faculty Development after the donors.

Their gift will assure that Calvin remains a leader in providing the finest Reformed Christian education, and their legacy will extend far beyond the Calvin community. This is a value that Ruth and Rimmer and our Calvin community share, the idea that there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence of which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry mine.

Le Roy says the institute will serve Christian faculty in higher education institutions around the world through seminars, conferences, independent projects, and through shared access to digital teaching and scholarly resources.

Jul Medenblik, president of Calvin Theological Seminary, said the university and seminarys ability to share a Reformed vision depends on the extent to which the faculty embrace a deeply Reformed Christian mission and vision, are themselves shaped and formed by it, and are able to translate this vision into every part of their teaching, scholarship, service, and global outreach.

During their lives, the de Vries also endowed Calvins annual Kuyper Conference and the Kuyper Prize, both named after 19th-century Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper.

The de Vries Institute for Global Faculty Development is the latest of 12 centers and institutes at Calvin University. The centers and institutes help Calvin promote Christian thought and action in key areas of education and culture.

Le Roy said the university feels a sense of calling to become a leading source for Reformed Christian thinking in the world.

We have a strong Christian liberal arts foundation for all learning, breadth and depth of program offerings that are among the widest in Christian higher education, and a rootedness in a Reformed Christian tradition that confesses that Jesus is Lord and seeks understanding in every field of knowledge,' he said.

Most importantly, we have an enduring mission of equipping students to think deeply, to act justly, and to live wholeheartedly as Christs agents of renewal in the world, that compels us to do this work well.

This is the second major gift the university has received this year. In May, Calvin announced it received $22.5 million to launch a business school.

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GRAND RAPIDS, MI  Two Democrats are competing in the Aug. 4 primary election to challenge state Rep. Steven Johnson, R-Wayland, for Michigans 72nd District House of Representatives seat.

Lily Cheng-Schulting, 55, and Cade Wilson, 30, both Kentwood residents, are seeking the Democratic Party nomination.

Johnson, 29, who is seeking a third two-year term, is running opposed in the primary for the Republican Party nomination.

The 72nd District includes Gaines Township and Kentwood in Kent County and Wayland in Allegan County.

MLive Media Group is partnering with the League of Women Voters of Michigan to provide readers with information about political candidates. Information on state and federal races as well as many county and local races will be available at Vote411.org, an online voter guide created by the League of Women Voters.

Here is a look at the candidates in the contested primary race, followed by their responses to public policy issues:

Cheng-Schulting is a disability advocate and founder and president of Disability A-TEAM of West Michigan. Under qualifications and experience, she shared that as a community, education, and disability advocate, she has created major education reform for both students and teachers. She said she also led campaigns to help those who are vulnerable or marginalized. Her degrees are from Syracuse University College of Law and University of California At Berkeley.

Wilson is an educator/program director in Kentwood. He said he has worked with hundreds of families. Under qualifications and experience, he shared on the guide that he has seen, heard, and felt the issues that matter to the community and is ready to lead in Lansing. He has degrees from Grand Valley State University and Wayne State University where he earned a masters degree on ethnic and immigration studies, with emphasis on Arab and Islamic studies.

Each candidate was asked to outline their stances on a variety of public policy issues.

All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for a necessary cut if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

EDUCATION: What is your position on the role of public funding of education in Michigan? What measures do you support/propose to improve educational outcomes and accessibility for all Michigan students?

Cheng-Schulting: I would advocate fiercely for better funding for public education in Michigan, since public education is still very underfunded according to State Superintendent Michael Rice. I would support and advocate for improving support services for all students, including therapists (including speech, occupational, physical), social workers, psychologists, tutors, and any services for helping students to succeed.

Wilson: As a public school educator in our district, I understand how critical it is that our educational system properly cares for our teachers, students, and families. Taxes need to be reserved for our public institutions, but especially for our public schools. We can improve student outcomes by increasing per pupil funding, investing in Michigan teachers by providing competitive salaries, securing pensions, and using reality-based evaluations, expanding state-wide preschool services to support early childhood growth, reducing classroom sizes, and supporting after school and trade skills programs.

ECONOMIC SECURITY: What policies do you support to increase jobs and help Michigan residents improve their economic positions, in general and given the pandemic?

Cheng-Schulting: I strongly support and will advocate for apprenticeship and vocational programs for people of all ages. I also support raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Wilson: This pandemic highlights many of the inefficiencies, inequities, and workforce challenges that we face in Michigan. We need to support state-level research to understand how automation and clean energy initiatives impact workers and how we develop appropriate and measurable trainings for them. With this in mind, students and adults that want to be a part of the workforce ought to have these critical trainings subsidized. This is an investment with net benefits for all. Finally, we must end discrimination in all forms, and remove these barriers, so that Michiganders feel welcomed and empowered in our state.

ELECTIONS: What state policies do you support regarding Michigan elections, voting and campaign funding? Do you support mailing ballots to all eligible voters?

Cheng-Schulting: I support mailing ballots to all eligible voters who would like to vote absentee. I will also support legislation which will overturn the Citizens United decision, which has led to unlimited spending by corporations and Super PACs.

Wilson: Our team has made it clear that we value everyone being a part of the electoral process in meaningful ways. This means we support redrawing districts to end gerrymandering, mailing ballots to all eligible voters, and streamlining absentee voting. These easy mechanisms make democracy and voting better for everyone. Similarly, candidacy should not be relegated to the wealthy. I support limits on both individual and corporate donations for candidates and ending self-financed campaigns. These positions create equal and equitable opportunities for community leaders to better serve as elected officials.

ENVIRONMENT/ENERGY: What actions or policies do you support to protect Michigans water, air and land for current and future generations? What is your position on energy efficiency and renewable energy?

Cheng-Schulting: Since I believe that every person deserves clean and safe water, I will advocate for legislation for highly qualified environmental regulators. The legislation should also hold the regulators accountable for ensuring environmentally friendly social justice goals for water, air, and land.

I will also support and advocate for legislation which prevents the shutoff of water to residents. For instance, in Detroit, not only was the shutoff to many residents a hardship and denial of a human right, but this horrific action also made it difficult for people to wash their hands or bathe during our Coronavirus pandemic.

Wilson: Environmental policy is something we cannot get wrong. We need accountability for those that contaminate water sources, stronger regulations on PFAS and other harmful chemicals in our air and water, a plan to completely transition to clean energy by 2050, to end the privatization of our natural resources by companies such as Nestle, curtail our dependence on fossil fuels, and a drive to invest in renewable energy infrastructure now.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: How would you address the racial, economic, health, education, etc. inequities, including Michigans 20% of children and 17% of seniors living in poverty?

Cheng-Schulting: As a longtime community advocate for people who are vulnerable, disadvantaged, disabled, or marginalized, I would advocate for legislation that requires that billionaires, multi-millionaires, and large corporations should pay their fair share and lessen the huge wealth and income disparity.

Our society also faces tremendous systematic and structural racism and racial injustice. I will advocate for legislation which ensures better police-community relations and criminal justice reform.

Wilson: Any conversation about inequity must inherently be one of resources and resource allocation. Right now we function in a society that privileges those with wealth while stigmatizing those without it. We need to remove all barriers to healthcare access, reduce prescription drug prices, support medicare and medicaid, allocate funds and resources to low-income school districts, enact true criminal justice reform, and invest in the professional growth of our citizens. We do not live in a just society but we can and will change that.

GUNS: Do you believe that Michigan has a gun violence problem? If so, what measures would you support to alleviate this problem?

Cheng-Schulting: Since Michigan does have a gun violence problem, I will advocate for commonsense gun laws, which includes better background checks and the prevention of the private ownership of military style weapons.

Wilson: Just this week, a young lady was shot and killed in our district. We have a gun problem. We need to enhance red flag laws, ban domestic abusers from purchasing guns, fund research that seeks to understand gun violence, require responsible gun storage, end permitless carry, disallow guns being carried on campuses across our state, oppose stand your ground laws, and require universal background checks on all gun sales. These measures are a good start, but one thing we know without a doubt is that gun violence is preventable when we have leadership that takes this issue seriously.

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LOWELL, MI -- Lowell city leaders have named a longtime officer to lead the police department, replacing former chief Steven Bukala after he recently was forced out.

Christopher Hurst was named to the post Wednesday, July 1.

Hurst has been a Lowell employee for more than 25 years and was a sergeant before being appointed chief.

According to city officials, Hurst has served in nearly every position of the police department, including patrol, DARE, detective, firearms instructor, training coordinator and sergeant.

He also served in leadership roles with the U.S. Army and Michigan Army National Guard during over 20 years.

Hurst replaces Bukala, who resigned early last month amid controversy over a Facebook post.

The controversy stemmed from the wording of a post to alert that public about some young men who planned to open carry weapons in downtown Lowell.

Bukala later complained that was forced out, essentially for upholding the Constitution.

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KALAMAZOO, MI -- Students questioned Western Michigan University administrators about plans to return to school in the fall during a virtual town hall Wednesday.

The town hall held Wednesday, July 1, was hosted by student government leaders, who said the opportunity to talk directly to their university leaders about COVID aftershocks was long overdo.

Since March, students have been left in the dark when it comes COVID related issues, the Western Student Association said in a Facebook post advertising the town hall. From classes down to housing, students are so uninformed that they have submitted transfer applications or have decided to take a gap year.

Related: Kalamazoo County surpasses 1,000 coronavirus cases

The university closed in March to stop the spread of COVID-10, and opted to offer instruction during the spring and summer semesters via online classes.

In recent weeks, the university has announced plans to reopen Sept. 2 for the fall semester and outlined guidelines for students. Many of those guidelines were the subject of questions posed by students at Wednesdays town hall.

Taylor West, student body president, led the discussion and relayed questions submitted by students to a panel of administrators that included President Edward Montgomery, Provost Jennifer Bott, university vice presidents and Dr. Gayle Ruggiero, interim medical director at Sindecuse Health Center.

The coronavirus has sent the university leaders and students on a terrible roller coaster, Montgomery said.

Related: No increase to tuition, room and board at Western Michigan University

The president said constantly changing information and challenging circumstances have been hard on the entire WMU community, and said he empathized with students.

This is a great opportunity to talk directly to our most important constituents -- our students, Montgomery said.

Here are some of the key questions posed by students during the forum, and the answers they received from university officials:

1. Will students be required to wear masks?

Students, staff and faculty will be required to wear a mask when indoors on campus, said Diane Anderson, vice president of student affairs.

University leaders are hopeful people understand the reasoning behind the masks and plan to launch an educational campaign, Anderson said. Masks are not only about taking care of yourself but of others too, she said.

Students should self-monitor and help educate their peers, she said. The university will provide two masks per student and plenty of disposable masks throughout campus and in classrooms, Anderson said.

Students who refuse to comply will be referred to the conduct office, she said.

If someone refuses to wear a mask and that compromises the health of others, were going to get involved, Anderson said. Were going to take action on that because its important that were all being responsible, not only for ourselves but for others.

2. What happens if there is a confirmed case on campus?

Sindecuse Health Center would work with the Kalamazoo County Health Department on contact tracing to inform others who may need to self-isolate, Ruggiero said. The health center also provides testing to students and employees, and has funding available for uninsured students, she said.

Anderson said the university will leave one residence hall open so that any students who become ill can quarantine away from others.

If the university were to experience a large spike in cases, leaders are prepared to pivot back to distance learning, Bott said  similar to what happened in March after the original outbreak.

It is important that students practice grace and flexibility, both for themselves and others, she said.

Well see some incredible creativity from our faculty, Bott said.

3. Are students going to be required to be tested before returning to campus?

Students will not be required to be tested before returning to campus, Ruggiero said. Students are encouraged to get tested if they are exposed to the virus, but mandatory testing is not recommended by health officials, she said.

A COVID-19 test result is only a snapshot in time, Ruggiero said. Students could unknowingly be exposed a day later, and a negative test result could lead to a false sense of security, she said.

4. How will classes be taught?

Classes will be taught in a variety of ways, Bott said. Some will be online only, in-person or a hybrid of the two options, she said.

Students will find out in the next couple of weeks about their specific class schedule and what types of instruction they can expect. Whether for those students needing online-only classes, for health reasons, or for those who would prefer to be on campus, Bott said the university will work to accommodate everyone.

The university can safely teach a class size of up to 70 students, she said. For classes larger than that, Bott said individual professors can customize their approach, including group work or staggered in-person class time.

Montgomery said previously that the fall semester will follow a new academic calendar to limit students travel. Students will work through the fall semester without the usual October break, and in-person instruction for most classes will end on Nov. 20, about a week ahead of Thanksgiving, Montgomery said.

The last weeks of classes and final exams will be conducted remotely and the semester will end on Dec. 19, he said.

5. Will student employees have their jobs when they return to campus?

Students employed by the university before the coronavirus pandemic felt let down by Western, West said.

Anderson said a lot of departments that frequently employ students, like the dining halls, were completely closed when the campus shut down. When reopening, the university hopes to keep as many student jobs available as possible, she said.

The number of student positions on campus will not be the same as before coronavirus, to be honest with you, Anderson said.

But, especially for international students, who are not allowed to work off campus while studying in the U.S., having jobs available is important, she said. In the meantime, all students are eligible for help through the universitys Student Emergency Relief Fund.

The university hopes to have dining halls and recreation centers open in the fall, but it will look different, Anderson said. In the dining halls for example, tables will have to be spaced farther apart to allow for social distancing, she said.

Watch and listen Wednesdays full town hall forum at this link.

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MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI  Although West Michigan has seen a recent uptick in new coronavirus cases, in Muskegon County the number of new cases has steadily declined.

There are currently fewer than 150 active COVID-19 cases in Muskegon County, said Kathy Moore, director of the Muskegon County health department.

Health officials have reported a total of 810 confirmed coronavirus cases as of Thursday, July 2, Moore said.

Of that total, 617 residents have recovered from the virus and 50 have died with COVID-19. Moore clarified that three of those 50 people tested positive for the virus, but died for unrelated reasons.

Our numbers are looking good, Moore told MLive Thursday. Our positivity rate is looking good. We are still seeing cases every day, but were managing under 200 positive cases right now, which is good, which is very manageable for us.

There have been 19,035 tests administered, making the positive test rate 4.2% as of Thursday, according to the health department.

Health officials reported a total of 24 new cases over the past seven days, compared to 45 new cases reported the week before, according to data on the county health department website.

Muskegon County has seen a downward trajectory of positive cases since the county reported its highest daily number of new cases, which totaled 29, on May 17.

RELATED: Coronavirus cases continue month-long downward trend in Muskegon County

But across West Michigan, coronavirus cases have been on the rise. Health officials this week heightened the Grand Rapids region  a 13-county West Michigan region including Muskegon County  to a risk phase of medium-high after a modest rise in new cases last week.

The risk phases are simply an indication of where regions stand in battling COVID-19, but have no direct effect on their status under Gov. Gretchen Whitmers economic reopening plan.

The Lansing region was also moved to a risk phase of high, in part due to a recent outbreak of COVID-19 cases related to exposures at an East Lansing bar.

RELATED: Coronavirus risk phase heightened for Grand Rapids, Lansing regions after increase in cases

Despite geographically being part of the Grand Rapids region, Muskegon County has not played a role in those rising numbers, Moore said.

It just seems like the bigger incidences were Kent County, and we were lumped into that, she said. It is our guilt by association, I would say. The thing Im cautious about, though, is weve got the Fourth of July weekend coming up and it is so possible that our cases could increase.

There have not been any major outbreaks linked to bars or restaurants in Muskegon County, as has been the case in Grand Rapids and East Lansing, Moore said. But the health director said she is still concerned about younger residents who may be easing up on social distancing and other safety precautions.

If I went by age group, I would have to say that the 20-29 age group and the 30-39 age group has started relaxing and not doing as many safety measures as they may have done in the past, Moore said.

Residents ages 29 and under make up 167 of the countys total coronavirus cases, while residents in their 30s make up 124 cases, data shows.

I think residents in their 60s, 70s and 80s are still very, very cautious and theyre still amazingly responsible, and then we have residents in their 40s and 50s, and they are working, theyre still very busy, theyre still going everywhere, Moore said.

There are 254 cases in adults in their 40s and 50s, while adults older than 60 make up 257 cases, according to county data.

Moore said the positive cases in residents over the age of 40 are primarily attributed to responsibilities  whether it be work or taking care of kids or parents  while for younger adults, their exposure to the virus is due to socializing.

Just as agricultural counties across the state have seen an uptick in coronavirus cases due to outbreaks at farms and factories, Muskegon County also has reported one farm outbreak, Moore said.

A farm in Ravenna reported six migrant workers who tested positive for COVID-19 out of 46 total employees, as well as three family members who were exposed to the virus through the workers.

Muskegon Countys farm outbreak was not as large as has been reported in its neighboring county, Oceana County, which last week reported at least 127 positive cases to outbreaks among workers at five farms or manufacturing facilities in the rural county.

RELATED: Majority of Oceana County coronavirus cases linked to outbreaks at 5 farms, factories

Health officials also reported a very small outbreak at a funeral event in North Muskegon. Moore said four positive cases have been linked to the funeral out of 130 people that were present.

Moore said the cases linked to the funeral were mostly due to individual behavior  lack of social distancing among family and friends  rather than as a result of the funeral homes safety procedures.

The funeral directors have been proactive with personal protective equipment and safety precautions, and they seem to really do a good job, so I dont think its reflective of the funeral homes at all, she 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.

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ESSEXVILLE, MI  Five people and a dog were rescued by U.S. Coast Guard personnel as their boat sank in Saginaw Bay.

About 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 1, the Coast Guard Station Saginaw River in Essexville was notified by Bay County Central Dispatch that a 52-foot Chris-Craft boat was sinking about a mile and a half northwest of Spark Plug Light. Dispatch had been called by the owner of the boat.

The Coast Guard deployed a 45-foot response boat. As it was on its way, another person aboard the Christ-Craft called the Coast Guard directly, said BM2 Adam Voigt.

When we arrived on scene, there was already (a woman) in the water getting smashed against the boat from the waves, Voigt said. When we got there, we quickly realized there was no saving the boat and we had to get (the woman) out of the water and the rest of the people off of the boat before it went down.

Coast Guard personnel rescued the woman from the water, as well as four others who had managed to stay on the Chris-Craft. They also saved a German shepherd dog, Voigt said.

A lot of them were in shock, Voigt said. They were very nervous. It was difficult to get them to calm down and help themselves. One individual was in and out of consciousness.

Coast Guard personnel brought the five people back to shore and they did not request medical attention, he said.

What caused the boat to take on water remains undetermined.

The owner said the water was coming in from the bow in the lower decks, Voigt said. The bow started getting lower and lower in the water before they noticed.

The boat is currently resting in about 30 feet of water, listing on its starboard side. Only a foot or two of it remains showing above the waterline, Voight said.

A salvage crew is working to raise the sunken boat.

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Michigan health officials announced 543 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Thursday, July 2, the highest amount of new cases in one day since the states stay-at-home order was lifted.

The number of new cases is up from 262 reported on Wednesday and is a 60 percent increase over the 7-day average of 338. Its the highest number of new cases in a day since May 20, when 659 new cases were recorded.

The states stay-at-order was lifted Monday, June 1, and bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen June 8 at limited capacity. Some businesses, including gyms and movie theaters, have remained closed, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced this week that bars in most of Michigan making more than 70 percent of their money on alcohol would be limited to outdoor dining only.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also reported 15 more deaths -- although 13 of those additional deaths were identified retroactively via a vital records search.

Since mid-March, Michigan has recorded 64,675 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 5,966 known deaths linked to the infectious respiratory illness.

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The new cases per day average had dropped below 300 on June 2 and dipped as low as 150 cases per day on June 10 before trending back up over the last two weeks.

Michigans case fatality rate is currently at 9.2 percent, based on known cases and known deaths.

The states seven-day average of daily tests reached a new height earlier this week -- 14,470 tests per day. Previously, state health officials said they hoped to be testing 30,000 people per day by mid-June.

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At the county level, Ingham County - where the outbreak at the East Lansing bar Harpers started - now has more than 1,000 cases. In Wayne County, 116 new cases were reported Thursday, followed by 107 new cases in Kent County, 58 new cases in Oakland County and 34 in Macomb County.

Heres a look at the five Michigan counties with the most confirmed cases.

1. Wayne County: 22,047 cases (2,608 deaths)

2. County: 8,980 cases (1,049 deaths)

3. Macomb County: 7,228 cases (880 deaths)

4. Kent County: 4,640 cases (132 deaths)

5. Genesee County 2,210 cases (263 deaths)

To find a testing site near you, check out the states online test finder, here, send an email to COVID19@michigan.gov, or call 888-535-6136 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

For more statewide data, visit MLives coronavirus data page, here.

This article was updated to reflect that Genesee County has the fifth-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Read more on MLive:

If only there was an easy, cheap way to limit COVID-19. Oh, wait ...

Website allows residents to find free COVID-19 test sites

Journey of a coronavirus lab specimen

Detroit begins using 15-minute tests

Masks, class sizes and busing: 10 ways Michigan schools could look different this fall

July 4th in age of COVID: Expert tips for safe holiday travels and celebrations

Michigan enacts travel restrictions
The title of this article is borrowed from a book by George Grant. Micah is the prophet who boldly proclaimed the mandate. Micah lived from about 735 B.C. to 690 B.C. He prophesied primarily to the southern kingdom. Moresheth, his hometown, was about 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem near the Philistine city of Gath.

Scholars note that Micahs identification by his town rather than his fathers name may be an indication of his humble beginnings. He was a prophet who spoke for the exploited poor. Micah lived in a time when wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of the few. Greed and corruption were rampant and false prophets flourished. Sound familiar?

Like Isaiah, Hosea and Amos, Micah insists that genuine faith produces social justice and practical holiness. From Micahs perspective one cannot claim to be a person of faith and not engage in social activism. You cannot have one without the other. We who profess faith in God must put feet to our faith and we must live a life exemplary of Gods nature and character, which is holiness.

In this sixth chapter, Micah speaks as if he is attending a court case. God is the plaintiff, the prosecutor and the judge. Israel is the defendant. The ancient hills and mountains are called to serve as witnesses. God files a case against Israel. The charge: the people promised to obey Gods law but have repeatedly broken their promise.

God was outraged because the people had forgotten him and broken their covenant. But Gods rage does not end Gods love. The people recognize that God is displeased but claim they do not know what God really wants from them. They believe they can make up for their sins with sacrifices. But Micah points out that there is no need for sacrifices.

Micah frames Gods mandate by charging the people to repent of their unbelief and injustice and obey Gods covenant laws. And then, Micah poses a question: What does the Lord require?

The answer: do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. Justice is just treatment or behavior. It is a concept that means people behave in a way that is fair, equal and balanced for everyone. It means to make right.

Justice must be coupled with mercy. Mercy is compassion for the least of these in our society. Mercy displayed practically means there are no haves and have nots. The 1% do not control 99% of the wealth and resources. Equal distribution assures that everyone has their basic needs met with some measure of comfort associated as well.

How do we accomplish Micahs mandate? We walk humbly with our God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are called to do justice and live in love. God is a just and loving God. As Gods children, we must strive daily to emulate Gods character.

The Prophet Micah issued a mandate in the sixth century that is still relevant today. Micahs call for justice, mercy, and humility are essential to returning our homes, communities and nation back toward God. When we follow Micahs mandate peace on Earth will reign and goodwill toward all humankind will prevail.

Dr. Preston T. Adams III is senior pastor at Amazing Grace Christian Church in Indianapolis. Contact Pastor Adams via email at seniorpastor@agccindy.org or via Twitter @DrPrestonTAdams. For more information, visit agccindy.org.
Whitmer closes most indoor bars

As the number of coronavirus cases in Michigan and across the nation trend upward, Michigan bars in most of the Lower Peninsula are once again prohibited from serving alcohol indoors under a new executive order from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

After months of closure under the COVID-19 stay-at-home order, Michigan bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen with limited capacity and additional safety measures on June 8.

Under the new order issued Wednesday, bars can serve patrons outdoors, but not inside their establishment. The order applies to establishments that earn more than 70 percent of their gross receipts from alcohol sales.

Ohio lawmakers heard testimony Thursday to make to-go cocktails permanent.AP

To-go cocktails allowed

Michigan residents might not be able to sit inside their favorite bar for a while, but they can order their favorite cocktails to-go.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday signed a trio of bills that will let Michigan bars and restaurants sell sealed cocktails and mixed drinks as a carryout or delivery option.

She announced the news at the same time as a new executive order prohibiting indoor bar service for establishments that make more than 70 percent of their money on alcohol sales. Bars in the Upper Peninsula and the Northwestern Lower Peninsula are not impacted.

Military travel restricted to Michigan

Michigan is one of three states in which U.S. servicemen and women are barred from traveling to and from at this time due to increases in COVID-19 cases and/or positive tests.

The Midwest state joins California and Florida as the only other states that havent been given green status for personnel travel, according to a June 29 memo from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Nursing home employees learn of closure from MLive

Alicia Whitwam was stunned when she clicked on an MLive article about a nursing home in Muskegon that is closing due to coronavirus.

The MLive article, with a headline that read Muskegon nursing home closing due to coronavirus-related revenue decline, announced the impending closure of Sanctuary at the Park  where Whitwam works as a nurse.

An unused testing swab for COVID-19 is shown at Helix Diagnostics in Waterford in Oakland County on Wednesday, April 8, 2020. The lab has started running COVID-19 tests.J. Scott Park | MLive.com

Results in 45 minutes with new COVID-19 test

An adapted testing method could eliminate the need for uncomfortable nasal passage swabs, reduce costs and increase mobility of testing used to detect the coronavirus, says Metro Detroits Beaumont Health, whose researchers developed the testing methods.

Beaumont Health researchers Dr. Laura Lamb and Dr. Michael Chancellor developed a testing technique to detect COVID-19 in under 45 minutes using urine, blood, saliva or mouth-swab samples, Royal Oaks Beaumont Health said in a statement issued Wednesday, July 1.

3 coronavirus exposure sites in northern Michigan

A restaurant, a grocery store and an auto parts store in Northern Michigan were identified as COVID-19 coronavirus exposure sites this week.

Health officials are asking people who were at the sites to self-monitor for symptoms of the respiratory virus, according to news releases from District Health Department No. 2, Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department and Chippewa County Health Department.

Muskegon County reported its fourth coronavirus-related death Saturday, April 4. (MLive file photo)Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com

Positive hair stylists exposes 75

BAY CITY, MI - A Bay City hairstylist has tested positive for COVID-19 and may have exposed as many as 75 others to the novel coronavirus, according to a news release from the Bay County Health Department.

The hairstylist worked at Great American Man Cave, located at 1900 S. Wenona Ave. in Bay City, for five days in June while experiencing mild symptoms. The stylist worked Tuesday, June 23; Wednesday, June 24; Friday, June 26; Monday, June 29 and Tuesday, June 30, according to the release. As many as 75 clients could have been in direct contact with the stylist. Its unclear if the stylist or customers consistently wore masks, according to the release.

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262 new cases, 4 new deaths

Michigan health officials announced 262 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, July 1, which is fewer than the recent seven-day moving average of about 311 cases per day.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also reported four more deaths -- fewer than the seven-day average of 12 per day.

Since mid-March, Michigan has recorded 64,132 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 5,951 known deaths linked to the infectious respiratory illness.

More Grand Rapids eateries close

Two more Grand Rapids area restaurants are closing temporarily because workers tested positive for coronavirus.

Both Osteria Rossa in downtown Grand Rapids and Olives Restaurant & Bar in East Grand Rapids announced closures in Facebook posts.

The two eateries are the latest of an increasing list of places that have shut down temporarily because of links to COVID-19.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced agency changes to public access made in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. March 13, 2020, by Gus Burns

ID expiration dates extended

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday, July 1, signed a series of laws that extend the expiration dates of drivers licenses, state IDs and vehicle registrations that originally would have expired after March 1 until Sept. 30.

The laws will grant necessary relief to Michiganders who are otherwise unable to timely renew their operators licenses, chauffeurs licenses, state identification cards and vehicle registrations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Whitmer wrote in a letter to the state House of Representatives.

The Michigan Theater displays a sign for upcoming film festival Cinetopia, Thursday, May 9, 2019 in Ann Arbor. (Ben Allan Smith | MLive.com)Ben Allan Smith | MLive.com

Cinetopia 2020 canceled

The 2020 Ann Arbor Cinetopia Film Festival has been cancelled.

The festival was originally set to take place in May, but moved to Aug. 21-30 in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said Fionn Pooler, communications coordinator for the festival. Organizers hope to bring the festival back in 2021, May 14-23.

Festival organizers said the decision to cancel this years event was not an easy one, but was necessary during the pandemic, because of the nature of the festival, bringing people together in enclosed spaces.

A surprise display of fireworks sponsored by Macy's explode over the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan as seen from a pier in Hoboken, N.J., late Tuesday, June 30, 2020. The fireworks were not announced until an hour or so before to avoid attracting large crowds during the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) APAP

Expert tips for a safe 4th of July

July Fourth is the first holiday weekend since Michigan lifted its stay-at-home order, which means state residents can travel, hold parties and otherwise celebrate in ways banned throughout the spring.

But surging coronavirus numbers in the nations South and West, as well as more localized outbreaks in Michigan, serve as a caution about the lurking health risks.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.
Note: The headline of this story has been edited for clarity.

A slideshow hovered over Gov. Gretchen Whitmers shoulder during her Tuesday, June 30 news briefing, displaying a Michigan map that highlighted the Lansing area in red and the Grand Rapids region in orange.

It was intended to warn of the increased COVID-19 risk in those areas. But for some, it spurred confusion about whether those regions would be forced to close down restaurants and other businesses again.

Some news outlets interpreted the map as such and announced the regions would be forced to close. Business owners in Lansing called President and CEO of the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce Tim Daman, asking for clarification on the alleged closures.

But this map wasnt signaling new closures, the governors office clarified.

The culprit for the confusion? Two nearly identical state mechanisms  both of which are used to indicate the prevalence of the coronavirus, but with very different impacts on the rules.

MI Safe Start Map vs. MI Safe Start Plan

At first glance, the MI Safe Start Map and MI Safe Start Plan seem to be one in the same.

Both have six phases assessing the severity of the pandemic  starting with uncontrolled growth and ending with the post-pandemic phase. Both use the same color codes for each phase. Both evaluate COVID-19 risk for each of the eight Michigan Economic Recovery Council regions. And their names are nearly identical.

The MI Safe Start Plan was introduced to outline how Michigan would phase its economy back in.

Entering Tuesday, Michigan Regions 1-5 and 7 were in Phase 4 and Regions 6 and 8 were in Phase 5. But the map behind Whitmer on Tuesday afternoon showed a different picture.

The map showed Lansing in Phase 2 and Grand Rapids in Phase 3 after a recent uptick in COVID-19 numbers in the areas. But this was risk phases based on the Mi Safe Start Map, not the MI Safe Start Plan  meaning it had no bearing on whether sectors of the economy would need to close again.

The risk levels and the phases are two different things, said Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail. Those phases are different from these phases.

The plan phases that impact closings and openings remain unchanged  all of Michigan is still in Phases 4 and 5. But unlike the MI Safe Start Map, theres nowhere online alerting the public about which MI Safe Start Plan phase each region is in.

"(This caused) unnecessary confusion for business owners who are trying to pick up the pieces and determine how they can reopen and stay open," Daman said, saying he was "blindsided" by the map in Tuesday's media briefing.

Why does Michigan have two similar platforms with occasionally conflicting phases? The map is based on data, while the plan takes additional factors into account.

The original idea was to tie the two together, showing that the map helps inform decision making on the official plan phases, said Lynn Sutfin, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman.

The state plans to add some language to the online MI Safe Start Map to clarify that the risk levels do not reflect which official plan phase a region is in, Sutfin said  adding she sees how it can be confusing.

How the map informs decisions on the plan

The MI Safe Start Map shows various data points, broken down by region and by county.

Data comes from the MDHHS, showing information like the percent of positive cases, the number of new cases per million residents and the number of tests. The University of Michigan collaborated with the state to build the dashboard with a map to help the public better understand areas of risk.

The idea was to provide people with a risk assessment for areas theyre considering traveling to, Sutfin said.

The program is mostly automated, said project lead and UM professor of epidemiology Sharon Kardia. Goalposts were programmed for each statistic to assign a risk level.

For example, Lansings 2.7% of positive cases on Wednesday, July 1, registers as low risk. But its 44.6 daily new cases per million residents registers as a Phase 2 high risk.

The only part of the map relying on human input is the overall risk level for each region.

That is something the (MDHHS) manually tells us what they want to show, Kardia said, saying the state takes each data point into account.

Despite Lansing becoming a Phase 2 high risk area, that doesnt mean the state will move it into the Phase 2 persistent spread category on the MI Safe Start Plan. Its just one factor taken into account, Kardia said.

A spokesperson for the governors office did not respond to a request for comment and more insight on the decision-making process. A member of the states economic recovery council declined to comment for this story.

While the MI Safe Start Plan formula isnt completely clear, economic factors are part of the equation for plan phase changes, Kardia said. It also depends on if COVID-19 spread is due to a single outbreak or community spread  something the map doesnt differentiate.

In the Lansing area, much of the recent spread has been linked to Harpers Restaurant and Brew Pub, with more than 100 cases tied to the bar. Its easier to trace spreading events like this and tell those involved to isolate, rather than addressing the spread of the virus at numerous locations.

Why would you shut down all activities if you know that the outbreak was localized  for instance in Lansing, to Harpers? Kardia said.

Whitmer ordered bars to close throughout southern Michigan on Wednesday. But its unknown if more restrictions are coming for hot spots like Lansing.

While other states have clear goalposts guiding such decisions, its ultimately up to Whitmer and her team for openings and closings in Michigan.

In the meantime, Ingham County announced its own restrictions  forcing bars and restaurants to limit their capacity to 75, even if they could stay under the 50% capacity threshold with more than 75 patrons.

The mandate goes through July 16 for now. Ingham County is unique in adding its own restrictions, but Vail said other Michigan county health officials are considering following their lead and doing the same.

Its not safe to have 300 people in the same building, Vail said  especially since many businesses arent being strict about rule-following with masks and distancing.

"As long as we're in this place where people are not willing to deny entry or tell people, 'Nope, you're supposed to be 6 feet apart, go back to your table, you need to wear a mask,' then I've got to keep numbers down."

What does each phase mean?

The MI Safe Start Plan was drawn up to outline how Michigan would re-engage its economy, phase by phase. But it lacks details on specific sectors  forcing people to decipher the 143 executive orders and counting for answers.

Whitmers announcements have also contradicted some of the details laid out in the plan. For example, restaurants arent supposed to be open until Phase 5 of the plan, but Whitmer announced all Michigan restaurants could reopen their dining rooms earlier this month while still keeping most of Michigan in Phase 4.

The phases will also be important come fall, as restrictions for school reopenings are contingent on which phase a region is in.

Heres a look at the six phases of the MI Safe Start Plan, with examples of what each phase is supposed to indicate.

Phase 1: Uncontrolled Growth

What it looks like: This is the phase where the case curve accelerates more each day. At this rate, hospitals are overwhelmed quickly.

Retail: Only critical retailers are allowed to be open, like grocery stores and pharmacies

Restaurants and bars: Takeout, delivery and drive-thru only

Manufacturing: Only critical manufacturing is allowed

Offices: Closed to all non-critical workers

Schools: Schools are closed for in-person learning, must be done remotely

Phase 2: Persistent Spread

What it looks like: In this phase, daily case numbers are still getting larger, but the rate of acceleration is leveling off. High volumes of infected people during this phase could mean hospitals are overwhelmed.

Retail: Only critical retailers are allowed to open, but nonessential retailers can offer curbside and delivery services

Restaurants and bars: Takeout, delivery and drive-thru only

Manufacturing: Only critical manufacturing is allowed

Offices: Closed to all non-critical workers

Schools: Schools are closed for in-person learning, must be done remotely

Phase 3: Flattening

What it looks like: Daily new cases and deaths are remaining relatively constant in this phase. This allows time for hospitals to better manage its load and expand capacity if needed.

Retail: Only critical retailers are allowed to open, but nonessential retailers can offer curbside and delivery services

Restaurants and bars: Takeout, delivery and drive-thru only

Manufacturing: Allowed, but only with additional safety measures and guidelines

Offices: Closed to all non-critical workers

Schools: Schools are closed for in-person learning, must be done remotely

Phase 4: Improving

What it looks like: The number of new daily cases and deaths is falling, but the overall total is still high in this phase. Contact tracing becomes more important here to stop outbreaks from leading to community spread.

Retail: Allowed with additional safety measures and guidelines, like limiting capacity

Restaurants and bars: Takeout, delivery and drive-thru only

Manufacturing: Allowed, but only with additional safety measures and guidelines

Offices: Open, but remote work is still required when feasible

Schools: Open for in-person learning, but with strict safety requirements like requiring masks for students in sixth through 12 grades in classrooms, hallways and on buses

Phase 5: Containing

What it looks like: The number of new daily cases and deaths continue to fall in this phase. While the virus is becoming less prevalent, there's still no permanent solution in Phase 5  a vaccine.

Retail: Allowed with additional safety measures and guidelines

Restaurants and bars: Dining rooms can reopen with additional safety measures and guidelines

Manufacturing: Allowed, but only with additional safety measures and guidelines

Offices: Open with additional safety measures and guidelines

Schools: Open inside with moderate safety requirements, for example masks are still strongly recommended but no longer required

Phase 6: Post-Pandemic

What it looks like: A vaccine has arrived and community spread of the virus is not expected to return, in this phase. Once Michigan reaches Phase 6, all activities can reopen and resume without limitation.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

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Chief Executive Officer of Event It Ghana, Ricky Anokye has opined that people within the Ghanaian Creative Arts industry are not wise and that they always allow people in government to deceive them.

Ricky who is currently the Director for Class TV said that if the industry does not begin to tell the government the truth, its stakeholders will surely regret it because it will go a long way to affect them.

Speaking about the New Patriotic Partys failed promises to the creative arts monitored by Journalist and Blogger Attractive Mustapha , he said that to him it is not just about NPP government but all successive government.

He noted that the creative industry is the development vehicle that can enhance the Ghanaian economy, education system, and society.

What I fault Akufo-Addo on is the fact that when he is going outside the country he wears a suit but he wears kente and African prints whiles in Ghana.

He advised people within the art to start holding governments accountable and stop allowing themselves to be deceived all the time
Lawyers of social media influencer, Mona Faiz Montrage aka Hajia4Real, says she is not in any romantic relationship with businessman Ibrahim Mahama.

Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi Boasiako popularly known as Chairman Wontumi,

alleged that the brother of former President John Mahama, Ibrahim Mahama, was the person behind the expensive Range Rover gift Hajia4Real, received on her birthday over the weekend.

Hajia4Real, an alleged entrepreneur and social media influencer on her birthday was gifted with a sleek Range Rover and a mansion at Trasacco Valley Estate after she threw a lavish party.

Ibrahim Mahama accordingly was present at the birthday party.

In an interview on Wontumi TV, Chairman Wontumi accused Ibrahim Mahama of buying expensive gifts to lure and snatch Hajia4Real from her then-boyfriend, CEO of Kenpong Group of Companies, Kennedy Agyepong, popularly known as Kenpong.

But her lawyers from Dwumfour & Dwumfour, dismissed the claims, saying our client is not the girlfriend or a paramour of Mr. Ibrahim Mahama.

Our client has not received any vehicle and/or a house as her birthday gift or present from the said Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, the lawyers said.

The lawyers noted in a statement that Mr. Ibrahim Mahama has not snatched our client from any other person as was portrayed in the said video.

---Daily Guide
Listen to article

Ghanas celebrated radio talk show host, Kwaku Owusu Adjei, affectionately called Patoo is now the host of Kingdom FMs late afternoon political programme, Pae Mu Ka.

Pae Mu Ka is Ghanas leading local-language political talk show programme on Kingdom FM 107.7 and airs from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm every weekday.

Kwaku Owusu Adjei, popularly known as Patoo, comes to the job with a repertoire of experiences as a broadcaster and a corporate communicator.

The witty Broadcaster disclosed that he will be hosting a very hot four-hour afternoon show between 2pm and 6pm every week starting Monday 6th July,2020. Patoo, who is known for his pushy style of questioning said he has done morning radio for a long time, so he wants to take on new challenges to change the face of radio in Ghana.

This is a compact show where every point will be raised and whatever that has to be said, will be said within that time-frame This is a programme that will afford listeners an opportunity to be told to say the truth about what exactly is happening in the country and the way forward.

The aim is for us to have an understanding of the society in which we live. The most important thing is for us to be as truthful as we can and deal with the relevant and timely issues of our everyday lives, Kwaku Owusu Adjei told Kingdomfmonline.com

He said Unique Kingdom Communication Limited has shown that they are a truly Ghanaian media entity who is taking radio and television to the ordinary Ghanaian which is one of the main reasons why he decided to move from EIB Network to Unique Kingdom Communication Limited.

Kwaku Owusu Adjei started off as a Dj at Dormaa Fm in the Brong Ahafo Region and later moved to join the then growing sky Fm also in the same Region. At Sky Fm, he hosted the morning show for a short period. Indeed, he has worked with a number of radio stations in the country which includes Space Fm; Classic Fm, Boss Fm (Kumasi), Storm Fm (Sunyani), Moonlight Fm (Sunyani); he also worked with Multimedia for about four (4) months and later left to join EIB Network.

Kwaku Owusu Adjei, born Patrick Owusu Adjei on 8th June 1977 to Mr. Jones Owusu and Mrs Felicia Owusu (COCOBOD, Cocoa services division) hails from Japekrom in the Brong Ahafo Region. He had his primary and junior secondary Education in Jinijini also in the Brong Ahafo region; from there, he moved to Wesley College where he studied to become a professional teacher. His moniker Patoo evolved out of the name Patrick.

---KingdomfmOnline
An urban police unit north of Paris is to be partially dismantled after a string of high-level investigations found officers had been systematically extorting money from drug traffickers and planting narcotics on suspects.

Six police officers from the Security and Intervention Unit in the underprivileged Seine-Saint-Denis, known as CSI 93, were taken into custody on Monday, while a day later the rest of the 150-strong squad were told they would be reassigned to new positions within days.

The officers face charges of possession and transport of narcotics, theft, forgery, extortion of funds and voluntary violence by a person holding public authority.

A report in the French daily Le Monde said those charges were just the tip of the iceberg, with dozens more police from the same unit having been fingered in some 20 investigations carried out by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN).

Police premises bugged, phones tapped

CSI are urban police units  set up in various French departments between 2003 and 2008  aimed at strengthening security and providing support to national and municipal police during episodes of urban violence and other high-risk criminal activity.

As part of a year-long series of probes seeking to uncover a suspected system of organised crime within the CSI 93 ranks, police cars and premises were bugged and the phones of suspected rogue officers tapped.

While some of those inquiries were closed due to lack of evidence, others are expected to come to fruition within the coming days, after the six officers in custody are interrogated and their apartments searched.

Sniffer dogs have also been sent in to search for drugs in police locker rooms  including IGPN premises.

Made up of both uniformed and plain-clothes officers, CSI 93  established by then interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008  has played a major role in enforcing security in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, which experiences high levels of crime.

Year-long series of probes

Suspicions of corruption within the unit gathered pace in June 2019, when the IGPN received complaints from two young men from the city of Cordon, known to police as a drug hotspot, who said they had been illegally arrested and beaten.

One of the men accused police of throwing a bag of cannabis at his feet before placing him under arrest, Le Monde reported. The men also allege the police destroyed a smartphone that had been used to film the incident. Video surveillance footage reportedly corroborated the accusations of the victims.

As part of numerous other allegations levelled against CSI 93 officers, another police officer is to stand trial in Bobigny in November for alleged violence against a drug dealer, Le Parisien reported.

The victim says he was "kicked in the head and tasered on the genitals at least three times" while he was taken to the police station by van.

Overhaul of urban police units

Paris police chief Didier Lallement has already announced plans to overhaul CSI 93, while a territorial division of the various CSI departmental units operating in the Ile-de-France region surrounding Paris is also on the cards.

It's understood the CSI 75 police unit in Paris will expand its jurisdiction, at least in the short term, to include Seine-Saint-Denis.

The CSI 93 scandal comes as French police face widespread backlash over alleged brutality and racism, which has drawn thousands of people onto the streets for sometimes violent protests.

While these latest accusations reflect poorly on police authorities, French media reports say this week's developments show a strong commitment to drive out police corruption.
The opposition National Democratic Congress Executives in the Ashanti Region have called on the Ashanti Regional Police Command to call to order its officers deployed to provide security in the ongoing voters registration exercise in the Sekyere Afram Plains constituency.

The executives have alleged that the District Chief Executive for the area is using state security to intimidate their members at some registration centres.

NDCs Ashanti Regional Executives made the call after one of their members was allegedly assaulted by a police officer at a registration centre.

There is some exceptional determination by the ruling government to use every means possible to annex the seat from us, Kwame Zu, the Ashanti Regional Secretary of the NDC, said in a Citi News interview.

To use your state authority and seize the entire state security architecture and deploy same to one constituency, intimidate the people and bully the people is rather regrettable and unfortunate.

Although the executives are calling for calm amongst party supporters in the area, they have warned their reaction cannot be guaranteed if such development persists.

We are not violent people, but we want to advise our colleagues to desist from pushing us to the wall. When we are pushed to the wall, we may be forced to respond, Kwame Zu said.

In the meantime, he said the party would give the state the benefit of the doubt following the alleged assault and exhibit restraint.

The Sekyere Afram Plains constituency is largely considered a safe seat from the NDC in its short existence.

It won the last parliamentary election with 60.85 percent of the vote.

--citinewsroom
Prince Essel Ferguson, a 32-year-old businessman accused of conspiring with two others now at large to defraud three nurses the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital of GH6,400.00 has appeared before an Accra Circuit Court.

Ferguson and his accomplices allegedly took the money under the pretext of enlisting the nurses into the Ghana Armed Forces.

The accused is said to have committed the act with one Colonel Samba and Majed and are jointly charged with conspiracy to commit crime and three counts of defrauding by false pretences.

Ferguson has however denied the offence and is on GH20,000.00 bail with two sureties to reappear on August 5th before the court presided over by Mrs. Afua Owusuwaa Appiah.

Prosecuting, Inspector Samuel Ahiabor, said the complainants are Daniel Tetteh, Philemon Gazari, and Theophilus Nyamadi nurses working at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

According to prosecution, Ferguson reside at Kasoa in the Central Region.

Inspector Ahiabor said in August last year, Ferguson met one Leticia Lewah, a senior nurse and a witness in the case and asked her for assistance.

Prosecution said during the interaction between Ferguson and Ms. Lewah, the accused introduced himself as an Army Captain by name Captain Dankwah attached to the Military Intelligence Unit, currently on Secondment in Sudan.

Prosecution said Ferguson further told Ms Lewah that he was at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital to investigate the background of a newly recruited Medical Doctor who had been recruited into the Ghana Armed Force.

He said Ferguson exchanged his contact with Ms Lewah and two days later, called and asked Ms Lewah if she had relatives who were interested in being enlisted into the army.

Prosecution said Ferguson went on to tell her that he has three slots for people who are to be enlisted into the army and could assist those people to be enlisted.

Inspector Ahiabor said later Ms Lewah informed the complainants about the opportunity at hand of which they also expressed interest, so she introduced them to Ferguson.

Prosecution said the accused then asked each of the complainants to pay GH300.00 for the purchase of the recruitment forms through mobile money contact number 055364457.

The prosecution said after the payment Ferguson met the complainants at different suburbs in Accra and assisted them to fill the recruitment forms.

He said Ferguson on that score also collected GH150.00 each from the complainants as fuel fees

The Prosecution said Ferguson collected additional GH1,500.00 from Gazari, GH1,800.00 from Tetteh, and GH1,700.00 from Nyamadi. Prosecution said Ferguson in total collected GH6,400.00 from the three complainants.

Mr Ahiabor said Ferguson later asked the three complainants to pay an additional GH8,000.00 each to settle some Army Commanders, so the complainants became suspicious and informed Ms Lewah who alerted the Military Police at the 37 Military Hospital.

Prosecution said when Ferguson was called to come for the monies, he was arrested and handed over to the Police.

He said during investigations Ferguson mentioned one Colonel Samba and Majed, a soldier as officers who were behind the deal.

GNA
Ashanti Regional Office of the Electoral Commission (EC) has deployed its mobile team to support the ongoing voter registration exercise.

This is to help facilitate work at centres having challenges with their registration machines.

The EC is undertaking the exercise in a total of 1,196 designated centres across the Region to compile a new voters' register for the December General Election.

Mr Benjamin Bano-Bio, the Regional Director of the EC, told the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi that the Commission had put in place the necessary measures to overcome expected challenges in the course of the registration.

He said the mobile team was on standby to attend to emergencies, noting that the EC was committed to conducting a smooth exercise.

The officials would be at work throughout the five-phased exercise as they mount regular patrols until the programme ends in August.

A visit by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to the State Experimental Primary Registration Centre saw the mobile team at work, assisting with the processes as applicants queued in groups to be registered.

The Centre had faced challenges on the first day of work as the EC's registration devices slowed down occasionally, thereby delaying the processes.

Mr Addo Benson, the Registration Officer, in an interview with the GNA, said in spite of those challenges, the exercise had so far been conducted peacefully with strict adherence to the COVID-19 safety protocols.

At Bantama, Subin, Asokore-Mampong and other areas visited the GNA visited, registration was on course with most centres registering an average of 70-90 people as at 1600 hours on the second day.

The various political parties had their agents at the centres monitoring the registration processes.

GNA
Coronavirus infections hit their highest level worldwide in the past week, WHO data showed Wednesday, as the worsening pandemic in the United States held out the prospect of a grim Independence Day.

In the worst seven days since the start of the crisis, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of new cases had topped "160,000 on every single day".

The milestone came as the European Union left Russia, Brazil and the US off its final list of nations safe enough to allow residents to enter its borders. The US's daily death toll passed 1,000 on Tuesday for the first time since June 10.

US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci said the United States was heading in the "wrong direction" and warned it could soon see 100,000 cases a day.

Several US states imposed 14-day quarantines on travellers from other states ahead of the annual July 4 festivities on Saturday while California suspended indoor dining at restaurants in Los Angeles.

EU travel ban eased

The EU hopes relaxing restrictions on countries from Algeria to Uruguay will breathe life into its tourism sector, choked by a ban on non-essential travel since mid-March.

Chart highlighting six countries with most new cases in the past week.. By John SAEKI (AFP)

Travellers from China, where the virus first emerged late last year, will be allowed to enter the bloc only if Beijing reciprocates.

However, with over 10 million known infections worldwide and more than 500,000 deaths, the pandemic is "not even close to being over", the World Health Organization has warned.

Data provided by the UN health agency for the seven days from June 25-July 1 showed the highest number of new daily cases ever recorded came on June 28, when over 189,500 new cases were registered worldwide.

'The first tourist'

According to the United Nations, the coronavirus crisis could cost global tourism and related sectors from $1.2 to $3.3 trillion in lost revenue.

Greece, which has suffered fewer than 200 virus deaths, has seen its economy hit hard by lockdowns and travel restrictions -- all but ending its lucrative tourism season before it began.

Passengers from Hungary were among the first to arrive in Corfu after several months of restrictions. By ANGELOS TZORTZINIS (AFP)

Romanian Cojan Dragos was "the first tourist" in one Corfu hotel after driving with his wife and daughter.

"We have the whole hotel just for us," he told AFP.

Separately, Spain and Portugal held a ceremony as they reopened their land border.

The Netherlands also confirmed the reopening Wednesday of another tourist draw -- its brothels and red-light districts.

"I'm totally booked," said sex worker Foxxy, adding that she had held a "little party" when she heard restrictions would be lifted.

Clusters spur new lockdowns

Russia did not make the EU's list of approved countries so its citizens will be absent from the bloc's tourist hot-spots.

Russia did not make the EU's list as it voted on constitutional changes that will hand Putin power for another 16 years. By Alexei Druzhinin (SPUTNIK/AFP)

The country was, however, enjoying a public holiday Wednesday as it voted in a referendum to approve constitutional changes allowing President Vladimir Putin to stay in power for another 16 years.

Putin was forced to postpone the vote in April as his government tackled an outbreak that has infected almost 650,000 people -- the third-highest in the world.

In other countries, clusters are still causing problems.

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has extended a lockdown on a district hit by an outbreak at a slaughterhouse.

Around 300,000 people in Melbourne are preparing to return to lockdown. By William WEST (AFP)

Parts of the Australian city of Melbourne suffered sharp rises in infections, spurring new stay-at-home measures.

The Palestinian Authority also announced a five-day lockdown across the West Bank after a surge in confirmed cases.

And textile factories in the central British city of Leicester were suggested as the reason for a spike in infections that has prompted the reimposition of local restrictions.

Spiking in Americas

In the US, Fauci, a member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, warned Congress Tuesday that officials were "not in total control right now".

Government workers are handing out free masks and protective advice in Miami amid a surge in cases in Florida. By CHANDAN KHANNA (AFP)

Spikes in Texas and Florida are driving the national increase, Fauci said.

The Pan American Health Organization warned, meanwhile, that the death toll in Latin America and the Caribbean could quadruple to more than 400,000 by October without stricter public health measures.

The US government announced this week it had bought 92 percent of all remdesivir production -- the first drug to be shown to be relatively effective in treating COVID-19.

Britain and Germany, however, said Wednesday they had sufficient stocks of the drug.

'Infrastructure revolution'

The financial world continues to reel from the disease's impact, with travel restrictions tearing through the aviation industry in particular.

European aircraft maker Airbus said it was planning to cut around 15,000 jobs worldwide.

Around the world, sporting events also continued to fall off the calendar, including the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations and the remainder of this year's World Rugby Sevens Series.

And while lockdown measures have been a disaster for many, some have welcomed the chance to spend more quality time with hard-working partners.

"Maybe it was because we were healthier and not exhausted anymore, and we had lots of quality time together at home," said Indonesian Novarina, pregnant with her first child after two years of trying.

"My husband and I joke that this is a corona baby."

burs-nl-har/spm
Jesus is My Vaccine.

By Lawrence Davidson

July 02, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - If I told you that Covid-19 was sparking recently reported episodes of madness here in the U.S., what do you imagine would be the reason? Maybe it would be the consequences of isolation. If you are alone and have few resources, lockdown might send you over the edge. Maybe it would be the pandemics impact on those with chronic hypochondria. This is obviously not an easy time to be stuck with an irrational fear of disease. Or maybe it is coming from the fundamentalist crowd (both Christian and Jewish) who believe that Covid-19 is the wrath of God yet cant figure out why it is being visited upon their congregations. If you guessed any of these possible etiologies, you would missing the main cause.

So what is mainly causing the present outbursts of madness? It turns out to be a perverted concept of freedom. It is an insistence that, in the midst of a pandemic, temporarily closing down businesses, mandating the wearing of masks, and maintaining social distancing is an intolerable infringement on individual rights. If you would like a visual snapshot of the emotion behind this belief, just take a look at the gun-toting, maskless protesters at the Michigan state legislative building in early May. They are shouting irately about state tyranny, into the faces of masked guards. Other anti-mask protesters around the country revealed a similar off-the-wall attitude, with signs and banners ranging from the nonsensical to the scary: Give me Liberty or Give me Covid-19, and in contradiction, Covid-19 is a Lie, Sacrifice the WeakReopen, and Jesus is My Vaccine. There is one other rightwing anti-Covid protest sign that must be noted. This one showed up both at the Michigan rally and one in Chicago: Arbeit Macht Frei, or Work will make you free. It is the slogan that stood at the entrance to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

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Part IIA Perverse Notion of Freedom

This perverse notion of freedom is wholly individualistic. That is, it makes no reference to community rights or needs. This point of view is not restricted to armed anarchists or disgruntled religious fundamentalists. Some quite prominent and successful proponents of this view go so far as to deny the reality of society, per se. Such a denial makes government, particularly in the form of the welfare state, a freedom-denying effort at social control. Also, if society is an illusion, then an institution that taxes the individual for its upkeep is little more than a con artist.

The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was an advocate of this outlook. Here is how she put it: I think we have gone through a period when too many people  understand that if they have a problem, it is the governments job to cope with it! If I am homeless, the government must house me! and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. There is no such thing as society. This is faulty logic. Some problems, like poverty and homelessness, can only be understood and dealt with within a societal context. Thatcher would have none of that. Since society does not really exist, problems with societal roots cant be real either. If Thatcher were alive today, she would probably admit that the Covid-19 pandemic was very real, but otherwise would be reluctant to deal with it in any collective mannerjust as are our perverse defenders of freedom.

Part IIIBeyond Sloganeering

The madness of these rightwing provocateurs is largely ideological in the Thatcher sense. It is also underlaid with a strong selfishness that really has nothing to do with economic hardships of lockdown. What they are saying is that I dont care about other people. I dont want to wear a mask and social distance, and you cant make me. It is the ideology of selfish children and this attitude can drive people to act out in the same way it drives five-year-olds to have temper tantrums. Unfortunately, these protesters are not just children and their acting out goes beyond sloganeering.

Since April 2020, numerous public health workers, particularly those with policy-making input, have faced threats and intimidation. Sometimes this is through e-mail or Facebook or over the phone. Sometimes it is having to face an armed mob at your front door. Here are a few recent examples:

Lauri Jones, director of public health in a county in western Washington state, followed up on someone breaking a Covid-19 quarantine. Immediately she faced a barrage of threatening calls and e-mails from not just her home area but from around the country. Her address was posted on Facebook. She called the police and had to set up surveillance cameras at her home.

Amy Acton, Ohios public health director endured months of anger against the states preventive measures, including armed protests at her home. One Republican legislator called her a Nazi (Acton is Jewish) and another labeled her a dictator. She has since quit her job and now consults for the states health department.

Georgias public health director has been assigned an armed guard.

Pennsylvanias secretary of health, who is transgender, has been publicly harassed for her role in fighting the pandemic. One Republican county official said that he was tired of listening to a guy dressed up as a woman.

Then there is the emotion expressed following a recent Palm Beach county commissioners meeting. The commissioners had voted unanimously to make masks mandatory in the county. Those in the audience denounced the commissioners and threatened them with citizens arrest. They made the following accusations: masks are killing people, masks toss Gods wonderful breathing system out the window, and to mandate masks is to follow the devils laws.

Perhaps the best summing up of this demoralizing nationwide situation comes from Theresa Anselmo, executive director of the Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officialseighty percent of whose members have been threatened with dismissal or were outright fired from their jobs. Weve seen from the top down that the federal government is pitting public health against freedom, and to set up that false dichotomy is really a disservice to the men and women who have dedicated their lives . . . to helping people.

Part IVLethal Consequences

Ideally, we are supposed to teach our kids that freedom comes with responsibility. Take away a sense of responsibility to others and what you are left with the perverted freedom to be selfish. And, often that selfishness is blind to its own lethal consequences.

There is a precedent for this sort of selfishness tied to a perverse claim of freedomit is the American insistence that gun ownership is a right and a primary symbol of freedom. Here in the U.S., an average of 109 people a day are killed with guns, sometimes in quite spectacular fashion, as in the case of mass shootings. We endure it, or perhaps more accurately we choose to ignore it, because an influential, militant and bullying minority has stymied the political will to reign it in. This is a situation that is suggestive of willful madness. The same appears to be happening in the case of Covid-19.

In the last six months over 2 million Americans have fallen ill with Covid-19 and the death toll stands at around 130,000. The present infection and fatality rates are climbing. It seems that after several months of lockdown, which had hurt the economy and increased unemployment while simultaneously bringing the pandemic under control, the will to continue restrictions has largely broken down. Both politicians and the populace appeared to have given up and, as one of those sloganeering signs put it, silently agreed to sacrifice the weak and reopen. And almost everywhere they did reopen, the Covid-19 virus returned with a vengeance. It was when a moderate state counter-response, mandating masks and social distancing in public and business environments, was attempted that the militant bullying by Republican politicians, armed patriots, and disgruntled religious fundamentalists picked up steam. What now is likely to follow?

Future prospects are described by Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and Brown University professor who promotes gun violence prevention. She explains that the dynamics of the lockdown protesters are similar to those of the gun rights advocates. Both groups of militants moved the  debate from a conversation about, first an epidemic of gun injuries, and now the wisdom of health and science in the face of a pandemic, to a conversation about liberty. Thus we are no longer talking about weighing risks and benefits and are instead involved in a politicized narrative about alleged individual rights. This is also a zero-sum narrative because this claim of prioritized rights is, for its advocates, not negotiable.

So there we have it. It is a fight between a perverse notion of freedom and a collective sense of social responsibility. The interests of societywhich are real despite the rhetoric of the late Margret Thatcheralready lost out once in the struggle with gun rights advocates. Will it lose out again to mad opponents of masking and social distancing? The chances are good that it will. Sickness and death may well be our fate until science, in the form of an adequate vaccine, saves us from ourselves.

Lawrence Davidson is a retired professor of history from West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Islamic Fundamentalism, Cultural Genocide and has focused his academic research on American foreign relations with the Middle East. Source

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

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President Akufo-Addo, has presented GH1 million to 20 young entrepreneurs under Season 3 of the Presidential Pitch, an initiative of the Ministry for Business Development.

Addressing the programme on Wednesday, President Akufo-Addo stated Government understands the importance of the initiative, because entrepreneurship is a vital component of economic growth and development, and has been globally embraced as an important driver of economic transformation.

That is why I am happy that, under Seasons One and Two of the Presidential Pitch, 460 direct and many more indirect jobs have been created with majority of these jobs in rural communities. In particular, I want to single out the Chief Executive Officer of Kawa Moka, Ms. Emi-beth Quantson, and the CEO of Everyday Chicken, Ms. Yaa Asare, who have together created, in all, 232 jobs, the President said.

These two young entrepreneurs, who were among the winners of Season One and Season Two of the Presidential Pitch, according to President Akufo-Addo, have, just like their counterparts, found creative ways of investing their cash prizes to scale-up their businesses, and created jobs.

Clearly, our young men and women can be a positive force for development, when provided with the knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to contribute to the growth of a productive economy, he added.

The overall winner of this year's Presidential Pitch received GH70,000 as prize money, and a fully funded work-study programme outside Ghana, with President Akufo-Addo, this year, making a personal donation of GH30,000 to the winner.

The winner is going to be attached to a reputable company in Europe to experience, at firsthand, good work practices, and build the needed network, as well as access to funding sources and market. The other nine winners will receive between GH30,000 and GH45,000 each. They will also have the opportunity to be attached to reputable Ghanaian businesses on a work-study programme, he said.

The President indicated that cash prizes awarded are grants, not loans.

With the ceremony taking place against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, the President added that rebuilding the Ghanaian economy is going to put an even greater premium on entrepreneurship, which underlines the exceptional significance of the Presidential Pitch.

He assured that Government will continue to help fashion a supportive environment to enhance entrepreneurship and enterprise development.

My confidence in the sheer energy and can-do spirit of the Ghanaian makes me believe that, in you, the contestants I have met today, the future of the Ghanaian private sector is extremely promising, he stressed.

Under another flagship initiative of the Ministry of Business Development, the Presidential Business Support Programme (PBSP) Window (3), 26,000 young entrepreneurs are currently being trained across the country to build their capacity, and enhance their competitiveness.

The number of persons in start-ups and small businesses that have been trained, since 2018, under the Presidential Business Support Programme, is 45,000. Five thousand of those trained this year will be funded to scale-up their businesses, thereby bringing the total of start-ups and small businesses, which have been provided with funding since 2018, to 9,350.

The National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), President Akufo-Addo assured, will continue to serve as the primary vehicle for providing integrated national support for start-ups and small business, focusing on the provision of business development services, business incubators and funding for youth-owned businesses.
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Information reaching DGN Online indicates that one Abdul- Halim has been shot to death by an unknown gunman at Nyanshegu in the Northern region on July 1.

The deceased met his untimely death when he attempted to rescue a girl from the gunman who wanted to forcibly have sexual intercourse with her.

The body of the deceased has been deposited at the Tamale Teaching Hospital's mortuary for autopsy.

Meanwhile, the girl, who was shot in the leg is in a stable condition responding to treatment at the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

She told journalists at the Tamale Teaching Hospital that she and her little sister were sleeping in the room when the gunman entered.

According to her, the gunman told her that he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her and threatened to kill them both if she refuses but she pleaded with him and told him that because of her little sister they could go outside with the intention that when they go outside she could cry for help.

She narrated that the gunman agreed and that when they got outside she shouted which prompted the gunman to shoot her in the leg.

The victim said Abdul- Halim heard the gunshot and rushed to the scene which resulted in he being shot by the gunman who then escaped.

The Northern Regional Crime Officer, Supt. Otuo Acheampong who confirmed the incident to DGN Online said police have visited the scene adding that investigations have commenced to apprehend the suspect.

He, however, called on residents to volunteer information to assist the police apprehend the suspect.

Daily Guide
The Ghana Police Service (GPS) in collaboration with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and other key stakeholders, has officially launched the Framework on Police-Media Relations and Safety of Journalists in Ghana.

Work on the framework was started in 2018 during the tenure of ACP David Asante-Apeatu as the Inspector General of Police (IGP) on the back of numerous incidences where media personnel were brutalized, manhandled in one way or the other.

Following several discussions in the past two years, the GPS, MFWA, as well as National Media Commission, Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, Editors Forum, Ghana, PRINPRAG, Ghana Community Radio Network, and Ghana Institute of Journalism have finally completed the framework with funding support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The Framework is aimed at strengthening the relations between the media and the Police while providing modalities for promoting and protecting the safety of journalists as well as addressing violations against journalists.

Launching the framework at the Police Headquarters on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, Chief Director at the Ministry of Interior, Mrs. Adelaide Anno-Kumi shared that she is confident it will achieve its aim to ensure there is a better working relationship between the Police and the Media in order to address violations against journalists.

I hope that this framework will help address all the concerns of the media reports causing either heightening tension among the general public.

I believe also that this initiative is a boost to foster a good working relationship between all the institutions, she said.

Giving an address as a representative of the IGP, COP Dr. George Akuffo Dampare commended all stakeholders for the role played in putting together the Policy Framework. According to him, he wants to see the framework being put into use for the benefit of the two institutions in particular to promote good governance in general.

Taking his turn to give his address, the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Mr. Sulemana Braimah stressed the need for the Police and the journalists to have good relations.

He explains that both parties play the important functions of protection of democracy and the rule of law, as well as upholding the rights of the citizenry.

He adds that ahead of the 2020 General Elections and the in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis, this is the perfect time to launch the framework.

In furtherance, Mr. Sulemana Braimah called for a strong corporation between the Police and the Journalist going forward. While urging the media to provide the Police with key information when needed, he also charges the Police to protect the journalist in the discharge of their duties.

Other key figures who graced the launch of the Framework on Police-Media Relations and Safety of Journalists in Ghana today include the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Ghana, H.E Ron Strikker, Professor Kwame Karikari (a lead consultant on the framework), COP Nathan Kofi Boakye and other Commissioners from the Ghana Police Service, together with representatives from the NMC, GIBA, GJA, GCRN, EFG, PRINPAG, as well as GIJ.
New daily coronavirus cases in the United States soared past 50,000 for the first time Wednesday, as the World Health Organization delivered a grave warning that the global pandemic is accelerating.

Restaurants, bars and beaches in the world's worst-hit nation closed from California to Florida, as states reeling from yet another surge in the deadly virus braced for Independence Day festivities.

Global infections have hit their highest level in the past week, WHO data showed, with chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying new cases topped "160,000 on every single day."

The grim milestone came as the European Union left the United States, Brazil and Russia off its final list of nations safe enough to allow residents to enter its borders.

With more than 52,000 new COVID-19 cases in the United States alone in the past 24 hours, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally, several US states imposed 14-day quarantines on visitors in the buildup to the long weekend's July 4 celebrations.

People enjoy a day at El Bogatell Beach in Barcelona on July 1, 2020, as European countries reopen their borders to some nations. By Josep LAGO (AFP)

California suspended indoor dining at restaurants in Los Angeles and several counties, while New York scrapped plans to allow restaurants to seat customers inside from next week.

President Donald Trump reiterated his belief that the contagion will "at some point... sort of just disappear, I hope."

But the US leader who has yet to be seen in public wearing a face mask during the pandemic added he would have "no problem" doing so.

EU travel ban eased

The rollbacks came as the European Union reopened its borders to visitors from 15 countries.

The bloc hopes relaxing restrictions on countries from Algeria to Uruguay will breathe life into its tourism sector, choked by a ban on non-essential travel since mid-March.

World map showing official number of coronavirus deaths per country, as of July 1 at 1900 GMT. By Simon MALFATTO (AFP)

Travelers from China, where the virus first emerged late last year, will be allowed to enter the EU only if Beijing reciprocates.

And Brazil -- which has suffered the most deaths globally for the last week, and is the second-worst affected country overall -- was excluded entirely.

It topped 60,000 total fatalities Wednesday, after suffering 1,000 deaths in just 24 hours.

However, with over 10 million known infections worldwide and more than 500,000 deaths, the pandemic is "not even close to being over", the WHO warned.

Data provided by the UN health agency for the seven days from June 25-July 1 showed the highest number of new daily cases ever recorded came on June 28, when over 189,500 new cases were registered worldwide.

'Dutch brothels reopen'

According to the United Nations, the coronavirus crisis could cost global tourism and related sectors from $1.2 to $3.3 trillion in lost revenue.

Greece, which has suffered fewer than 200 virus deaths, has seen its economy hit hard by lockdowns and travel restrictions -- all but ending its lucrative tourism season before it began.

Romanian Cojan Dragos was "the first tourist" in one Corfu hotel after driving there with his wife and daughter.

The red lights are back on in Amsterdam after Dutch brothels were allowed to reopen on July 1, 2020. By Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD (AFP)

"We have the whole hotel just for us," he told AFP.

Separately, Spain and Portugal held a ceremony as they reopened their land border.

The Netherlands also confirmed the reopening Wednesday of another tourist draw -- its brothels and red-light districts.

"I'm totally booked," said sex worker Foxxy, adding that she had held a "little party" when she heard restrictions would be lifted.

Clusters spur new lockdowns

Russia did not make the EU's list of approved countries so its citizens will be absent from the bloc's tourist hot-spots.

Russia did not make the EU's list as it voted on constitutional changes that will hand Putin power for another 16 years. By Alexei Druzhinin (SPUTNIK/AFP)

The country, however, enjoyed a public holiday Wednesday as it voted in a referendum to approve constitutional changes allowing President Vladimir Putin to stay in power for another 16 years.

Putin was forced to postpone the vote in April as his government tackled an outbreak that has infected almost 650,000 people -- the third-highest in the world.

In other countries, clusters are still causing problems.

Parts of the Australian city of Melbourne suffered sharp rises in infections, spurring new stay-at-home measures.

The Palestinian Authority announced a five-day lockdown across the West Bank after a surge in confirmed cases.

And textile factories in the central British city of Leicester were suggested as the reason for a spike in infections that has prompted the reimposition of local restrictions.

Americas spike

In the United States, spikes across southern and western states are driving a surge in national infections.

Texas, which again smashed its daily COVID-19 record with over 8,000 new cases, joined Florida and California in closing some beaches for the upcoming holiday weekend.

Apple announced it would close another 30 US stores on Thursday, half of them in California.

A further 700 deaths nationwide took the US past 128,000 deaths in total.

City workers are handing out free masks and protective advice in Miami amid a surge in cases in Florida. By CHANDAN KHANNA (AFP)

The Pan American Health Organization warned that the death toll in Latin America and the Caribbean could quadruple to more than 400,000 by October without stricter public health measures.

The US government announced this week it had bought 92 percent of all remdesivir production -- the first drug to be shown to be relatively effective in treating COVID-19.

Britain and Germany, however, said Wednesday they had sufficient stocks of the drug.

'Corona baby'

In Britain, some 1,500 acts from Ed Sheeran and Coldplay to Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones urged the county's government to save the live music industry, which has been collapsing because of the coronavirus.

But while lockdown measures have been a disaster for many, some have welcomed the chance to spend more quality time with hard-working partners.

burs-amz/ch
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Some 13 Ghanaians who were evacuated by government from Cote dIvoire and are currently under mandatory quarantine at a Hotel in Takoradi are complaining of deceit and extortions by their handlers.

The evacuees who returned on June 25, 2020, say results of their test samples have not been released after more than six days now.

Some of them have told Citi News on condition of anonymity that they have been deceived by their handlers who have taken them to a dilapidated facility other than what was promised them.

On top of this, they claimed their handlers demanded US$150 per a day stay  far more than what they were told; a situation which has led to protests.

They are therefore calling on government to investigate the matter.

We are 13 Ghanaians evacuated from Cote dIvoire, as part of government-led arrangement to stranded citizens. Before departing Cote dIvoire those who showed interest to return to Ghana were told of a possible payment (of about $100) to a hotel in Accra for quarantine. Majority of the Ghanaians who showed interest rejected this offer because it was expensive and most people didnt have money and were also stranded. So, continuous deliberation kept going on regarding the evacuation arrangements until eventually, the Embassy of Ghana in Cote dIvoire secured an STC bus to bring us to Ghana to a correspondent here in Ghana whom we are to report to. Now the Embassy made us aware that a payment plan of Gh300 (per day) has been made for us to be quarantined at Boyiosson Hotel or African Beach Hotel in Takoradi.

With this payment arrangement, however, most Ghanaians expressed concerns of the inability to pay because most have lost jobs, others are also returning due to emergencies. Nevertheless, we were still encouraged to return to Ghana because the government is making the necessary arrangements and, when we get to Ghana we can negotiate with the correspondent in Ghana and the Hotel about our financial difficulties. By this understanding, most people agreed to return to Ghana believing that a gesture of humanitarian empathy will be shown to us. Even with this, a lot of people didnt come because they were sceptical. Strangely, we arrive in Takoradi without being taken to either of these Embassy arranged hotels, but instead, we were led by a military vehicle to an isolation centre (Takoradi Beach Hotel). Majority of us were quite surprised because we were never told we will be in an isolation centre with other infectious persons. Although we understood that we will be quarantined, one of them said.

The evacuees who are sure they do not have the disease told Citi News they do not understand why they have even been made to pay for their stay when government has received so much donations

 Now what is strangely happening here at the isolation centre by certain people managing the place is that; they are demanding that we pay between $100  $150 per day for our stay at the isolation centre. They initially requested for $150 and we protested. So indirectly what we see is if we will not pay over 100 USD per day for 7 day they will keep us here for two weeks even if our results are ready.. so we would pay 4200 ghc each. We have been here eight days without any update from any Doctor. Meanwhile while among us are students who need to prepare for exams but staying in this abandoned hotel which has been turned into an isolation centre. How much does the average Ghanaian earn in the first place before such demands?

They also raised suspicion with the whole arrangement as government has a fund to such isolation.

Our concern is that, if this is an isolation centre and we know that government has been given COVID-19 relief funds and, with other donor agencies providing some of relief to government and centres;

1. Why are certain scrupulous managers of these isolation centres trying to take money from people who have been evacuated?

2. These same management people called us individually for a meeting now demanding that we should pay Gh450 per day instead of the $150. We have told them that we cannot afford such an amount. Moreover, the Embassy of Ghana did not inform us about this Gh450 per day so where is it coming from?

3. Now we asked these isolation centre managers that in case anyone tests positive to covid, who will pay the rest of the isolation bill? Then they tell us government will do that. So if government will pay the bill for tested positive persons, then why is government not equally taking care of our bill at the isolation centre? No response to this.

4. Our samples have been taken for more than six days now without anyone bringing us results nor updating us on our results.

5. We seem to be suspicious that these isolation centre managers are syndicate working together  be it the police here at post, the security coordinator, the correspondent and some health persons. This is our believe and suspicion.

---citinewsroom
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The Institute of Public Relations, Ghana (IPR), has appointed, Peter Martey Agbeko, head of Public Relations at the Ghana Standards Authority to serve on its Governing Council, as a member without portfolio.

The Council is the highest decision-making unit of the Institute, which is the sole professional body for Public Relations practitioners in the country.

IPR primarily exists to provide a professional governing structure for the public relations practice. It is headed by a President and team for a period of two years.

Other practitioners appointed in the same category are, Donald Gwira, Solace Akomeah, Esi Hammond, William Boateng, Kwame Gyan and Ernest Asare.

They will join the other council members to push the Institutes agenda.

Mawuko Afadzinu, President of IPR said: The Governing Board and Institute members are enthusiastic about having these experienced practitioners on board, as we believe that their extensive cross-cutting work experience in the field of communications and management will be very useful in their new role.

He added: "I am confident that their collective skill sets and experience will add value and enhance our operational efforts

They have demonstrated over the years that they will do a great job and we thus look forward to working with them to execute on our mandate.

Being invited to serve on the Governing Council is a privilege and an honor of a lifetime, said Agbeko.

I thank the Institute sincerely for this opportunity to serve and wish to assure everyone that I will work tirelessly to justify the trust placed in me.

Mr Agbeko began his career with the Marketing and Social Research Institute (MSRI), which was then part of the Advantage Group in 1989.

He was also the first Director of the Ghana International Press Centre, serving successfully in that position from 1992-1995.

Since 2005, he has been primarily engaged in independent communications consultancy with various organisations.

Over the last decade, he has been engaged as an external PR consultant by C&F Porter Novelli, Nigeria.

Over the same period, he also worked as an external PR consultant for STB McCANN Accra, a full-service agency, and affiliate of the McCann World Group.

In the 2016/2017 academic year, he was an adjunct lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, teaching news & feature writing in the Bachelor of Arts degree Program.

He was a member of the 2017 Ghana Journalists Association Awards Committee and has been retained as a member to date.

He was also a member of the GIJ 60th Anniversary Planning Committee and is a member of the recently constituted GJA Social Affairs Committee.

He is an alumnus of GIJ and Swansea University, UK, where he obtained an MSc (Econ) in Social Development Planning & Management.

Agbeko is an accredited member of the Institute with over two decades of experience in strategic communications.

He is also a member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the leading professional organization serving the communications community in the USA with over 30,000 professional and student members.

IPR, formerly known as the Public Relations Association of Ghana (PRAG), is registered as a professional body under the Professional Bodies Registration Decree, (NRCD 143) of 1973.
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Ghana attained republican status 60yrs ago on 1st July 1960. By Republican status, Ghana was totally liberated. OMG, I can't believe I forgot to celebrate such an august event. Well, I dont know if its worth celebrating taking into account that most Ghanaians are not mentally or psychologically free and independent.

To attain Freedom and or Liberty, integrity is key to harnessing the freedom to promote critical thinking, creativity, and development.

Politics is a way of life that everyone must embrace. We are affected directly or indirectly by politics. Therefore, we are all supposed to engage and contribute independently to the political discussion without selling our conscience to political parties.

However, most Ghanaians are enslaved by politics and political parties. Instead of being supporters/citizens that applauds when things go well and criticise when things go wrong.

Unfortunately, most individuals: Chiefs, health workers, Security personnels, Academics, Media personnels, CSO, heads of so-called independent institutions, lawyers, Judges, students, to mention but few have been enslaved.

The cause of this enslavement is simply for money, power and fame (MPF). To attain MPF one must trade Integrity, Conscience, Hard work, Personal liberties and Truth.

No wonder you listen to interview or comments from people who should be role models that should have known better. You are left speechless and only to bury your head in shame. Clearly, some individuals have lost their free universal sense (Common sense).

I do panic, fear and often get scared for the future. Well, there seems to be no future. The very foundation to development Education has received it share of politicization. Students are trained to be job seekers (dependent) rather than job creators (independent).

Tertiary institutions have become the hunting grounds for the political parties to get the new batch of well-armed political slaves. Something the youth should trend cautiously with. A call to serve is a must and must be done with dignity and integrity. However, a call to loot must be called out and shamed. Don't eat your future now and suffer when they are RIP after looting everything.

I stand for Truth Not Trends; I speak for Liberty not Lies

Just for the records, as an academic, scientist, and citizen, I did not support the continuation of NIA registration in the midst of Covid-19. Sadly, people risked their lives for nothing because they have to risk their lives again for voters ID. My thoughts were that if we have to protect our citizens, we should have done the NIA properly so the EC can extract their data for election. That is if the new register is necessary. In the midst of Covid-19, I don't think is necessary.

If indeed democracy is the government of the people, for the people by the people. I don't remember when Ghanaians made a call for a new voters register. Personally, is a waste of resources (Finance, Time, Human).

Sadly, I don't think Health is a priority for the people of Ghana. Otherwise, we will never trade Health for Power. Considering that Health is Wealth.

However, to be able to decide our future and the future of our unborn generations, we must continue to be citizens and sacrifice. I will urge us all to go about our civic duties to register whilst adhering to the required safety protocol. Don't get the Voter ID and lose your vote to Covid-19. Stay safe. #everylifematters

All we have is Ghana, Political parties will come and go but the common denominator is Ghana. So, let's protect Ghana not our political parties.

May God bless our homeland Ghana, and make our nation great and strong.

Dr. O. Dufailu

HERPol-Africa

.
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Dear Sir,

I have tried harder, over the past three years, to keep my thoughts mute. But my heart is growing heavier, while my mind is getting more saturated. I just wish you could take a few minutes of your time to read through this piece, so you could appreciate the frustration I go through any time you set our profession in the spotlight.

Sir, I have learned that data analysis is a complex science that defies self-styled approaches without theoretical anchors. You can't choose to calculate currency depreciation using rates of change. There is a standard formula. In fact, data analysis is a factual exercise, explaining why it is so easy to identify and dispute spurious inferences. I have encountered many researchers with unique talents but your bravery is second to none. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, you feel so comfortable speaking to data, at the least opportunity. You dont care if you are using rates of change to calculate cedi depreciation. So, it is only natural that your speeches will attract the greatest controversies.

I have been analysing your recent speech about the efficient management of the economy under your watch. I have been thinking about the structural changes that have occurred since you took over as the head of the economic management team. I have been wondering about the strong fundamentals you keep touting. I have been struggling to appreciate what it takes for an economy to pass the tests of robustness and resilience.

In the short speech, you sought to suggest that you have delivered unprecedented macro-economic outcomes. I have a few questions regarding this claim. But before I do, let me underscore the fact that the economy has indeed witnessed strong growth over the last three years. But I will also prove that you have done very little to contribute to that. I admit that the overall economic growth rate (measured as percentage change in real GDP) increased from 3.4 per cent in 2016 to 8.1 per cent in 2017 (using rebased series), later reducing to 6.3 per cent in 2018. The 2019 growth rate was reported at 6.5 per cent. Dr., you can see that the growth rate itself has been volatile in the reference period (2017-2019), suggesting that you have not been able to sustain the 8.1 per cent growth that was recorded in 2017.

Besides, if the growth rate is decomposed into oil and non-oil, you find that the non-oil growth rates for 2016 and 2018 are 4.6 and 6.5, respectively, which are higher than the overall growth rates of 3.4 and 6.3, respectively. Clearly, the data show that overall growth reduces anytime oil sector growth dips. This suggests increased susceptibility of the economy (whether under Amissah or Bawumia) to real exogenous shocks. Besides, the high real non-oil GDP growth relative to overall GDP growth (for some of the years) also suggests limited diversification opportunities in the economy. It does seem to suggest that the same structural bottlenecks that prevailed in the 1980s still persist. So, what significant changes have accompanied the "strong" growth?

The other argument that arises is that the so-called "strong" growth is neither sustainable nor inclusive. In fact, the economic growth is largely driven by the oil sector, which is an enclave. This explains the inability of the high growth to deliver decent and secure jobs, leaving over 90 per cent of the population engaged in low paid jobs in the informal sector. Of what consequence is "strong" economic growth if it does not translate into real jobs?

At the heart of these arguments is the increasing risk of the resource-curse phenomenon. As recent as this evening, my checks revealed that Ghana still falls under the category of resource-rich countries. In fact, available data shows that the share of natural resource rents in total merchandise export receipts is about 70 per cent per annum. In 2019, Ghana leapfrogged South Africa as the leading producer of gold in the world, due to supply driven shocks in the latter, accounting for nearly 37 per cent of the total gold produced in the world. We are still the second largest producer of cocoa in the world, only behind Ivory Coast. Petroleum revenue, on the average, accounts for 6-8 per cent of total public revenue. Given the vast natural resource capital, the statement "we are sitting on money" is as relevant today as it was when the then flag bearer of the NPP, now predident Nana Akufo Addo, said it.

Indeed, Ghana has received unprecedented levels of natural resource revenues over the past three years. Besides, Ghana has never borrowed as much funds as we have over the past three years. Yet, you never talk about the resources you have received relative to the improved social and economic indicators that you tout. How do we measure efficiency in terms of utilisation of the resources that you have received?

Despite the large resource revenues, one thing that is clear is that inequalities and regional imbalances have widened, undermining poverty alleviation and social justice. To be precise, over 20 per cent of the population still lives below the poverty line. Moreover, education and health inequalities have deepened. This is evident in the recent challenges imposed by COVID-19. While urban kids have had the benefit to partake in virtual learning platforms, rural kids don't even have electricity let alone owning computers, TV sets or other gadgets that can support virtual learning. I pray this deadly virus never visits the rural folks because, they lack the requisite health infrastructure and personnel to help contain the illness. So Dr., what unprecedented economic management are you referring to?

As for the exchange rate and economic resilience, the least reference made to them the better. The so-called resilient economy could not even sustain a three-week lockdown. So, please, when you speak, be mindful of the audience. You may think nobody analyses your lines, but people really do. The unlettered are even beginning to ask questions now.

Cheers.

Yours Sincerely,

Mohammed Alhassan Abango

(Research Economist)
I lost my dearest relationship to faith. We are both into each other but faith divides us. Were both Christians but the beliefs of churches separate us. The other family wouldnt accept me because Im not a member of their church.

Its an obligation for me, to first, be a part of them before acceptance into the family then marriage commences. If their relative decides to go ahead with the marriage without their approval, their hands will be forever washed off us.

I live a life of love where nothing compromises the feeling I have for something, frankly, it was the strangest decision I had ever come across from a family. Yes, I cried, but to what extent, I just had to let it go. Cant love simply be enjoyed?

The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. A specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects is faith.

It is the complete trust in someone or something, a strong belief in the doctrines of a religion based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

It is in itself difficult and complicated to define as its leaders disagree with its definition given by any dictionary. Faith to me is simply believing in an object of worship.

This is the case then; if we all believe in one object of worship, but find ourselves worshiping in different buildings, what then separates us from being together. The good books say, above all these things faith, hope, and love but love exceeds them all.

Now Im in love, but the inscription on the wall of a building determines who I need to be with. But if a member of this church goes on a journey, and on his way gets a drink from a person from another church, it is allowed. Hypocrisy at its highest peak.

When a person is able to feed, shelter, and clothe another he doesnt know, then why will the church become their stumbling block. It takes love first even before contacts are exchanged, family members are known than the church.

Most people in their quest for love and life partners, unfortunately, do not find what they want in the women or men in their churches thus they look elsewhere. But when they are to find them, the church says no.

Why wont the rate of divorce cases rise when men and women end up with people they dont want? Hundreds are enduring marriages due to this situation, its simply unfair and a disgrace to our object of worship.

Religion also poses a hindrance to love and interpersonal relationships. In Ghana, we have the Christian and Islamic religions well dominating the country. With both running their companies aside that of government, many have lost their jobs and sense of happiness.

Religion is a socio-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, world views, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics or organizations that relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental or spiritual elements.

Some Muslims dont want Christians at their workplaces, and vice versa, irrespective of your educational heights, your religious background declares your stands.

If they dont want you in their workplaces, who says they want you in their homes? Immediately the introduction is done and its made known the other is a Muslim or Christian, then after the marriage, youre not welcome in this house. In some specs, there will be no marriage at all.

What are you people doing to love? In a Christian family, when a member finds the interest of joining the Islamic community then pack bag and baggage and enjoy your life, the same as the Muslims.

It baffles my mind when all of a sudden parents forget the joy they felt at the birth of their young ones that, they are quick to relinquish them for the sake of beliefs and love. Its pathetic.

Faith and religion becoming the backbone of many fallen homes, relationships work and livelihood, stemmed out of tribalism. An Akan wont want his child married to a particular tribe with reasons best known to him.

Two kids appeared on Steve Harveys show, a white boy and a black boy. They attend the same school and in the same class. Their school has this day they term as tweenie day.

The white boy told his mother he wanted to look exactly as his friend in the school on that day for he believes both have the same eyes and hair and that to him, makes them twins.

His mother, therefore, bought him two shirts and called his teacher to make the black boy change into that same shirt so they look alike. In the video, one could see the happiness of these boys as they run around having fun.

They had since been seen in the same outfits telling the world they are twins. Steve said something really profound about the show. He said, kids know nothing about differences until they are told.

Until parents stop telling their kids to stop hanging out with kids from other tribes, they will never know how to segregate among themselves. They will grow to understand each other more and will embrace each others culture.

Tribalism is the consciousness and loyalty, especially exaltation of a tribe above other tribes based on stereotypes relating to competition, conflict, disunity, and violence.

Dangers of tribalism affect the way, we think and behave toward one another. It affects the way we feel and make a judgement. People from my tribe are good, right, true, worthy, rational whilst my neighbors tribe is bad, wrong, unworthy, irrational, and false.

These affect our behaviors, how we act and what we say, even how we respond. Our moral psychology now falls into groups, it follows the contours of our group affiliations and not just about our moral psychology but our judgmental psychology; what arguments are supportive and what sources are trustworthy.

Polarization is how strong or large the difference between people. There is a common ground where we can all reach to settle our differences but the greater polarization the greater segregation.

This is where peaceful co-existence between tribes becomes very difficult. Our instincts are to adapt by segregation, carving out social and political spaces where we dont have to interact with the other group.

Where we can enjoy the comforts of social interaction with our own kind and the very real psychological benefits of unity, solidarity, and the feeling of part of a collective identity.

This could lead to the worst behaviors people can ever display, prejudice, discrimination, violence, genocides, atrocities. If we dont get to the point of violence, and if our laws and institutions arent strong enough to prevent that, we will be left with the public culture where tribal relationships are dominated by suspicion, hostility, and fear.

This leads to the epistemic point, where we cut ourselves from different points of view and rely on our tribes for what to believe and who to trust. We run the risk of erecting a system of beliefs that is increasingly different from reality.

We tend to build a moral and political bubble around us where everybody on the outside the bubble is irrational, biased, untrustworthy. This is obviously a disaster for critical thinking.

It is also obvious that our public culture is equally drifting in this direction. And in some areas like in our political discourse, it has become toxic. Orchestrated persuasion campaign, credit by government, and cooperation that are designed to help people are all based on tribalism.

To overcome tribalism, we need to get interested in identity. As stakeholders in a conflict come together to better appreciate each others story of grievance, the forces of tribalism start to fade.

People need to see each other as human beings with complex motivations and morals and identity which source of division could be turned into a basis of unity. Learning about the other side takes courage but when its done, human existence on earth will be meaningful.

Until we are able to put tribalism aside, which existed before faith and religion came through, we cant raise placards and protest as Africans over the death of a black who doesnt respect our continent.

We are our own people, nobody will fight for us and we can do this when love lead. Love has no place for division, enviness, superiority, pain, or class.
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A view of downtown Hargeisa, Somaliland as seen on May 16, 2016. Two television stations in the city were recently shut down by police. (AFP/Mohamed Abdiwahab)

Nairobi, July 1, 2020  Authorities in Somaliland should immediately withdraw security personnel from the studios of the privately owned Universal TV and Star TV stations, and allow the stations to reopen and the journalists return to work without interference, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On June 25, police officers ordered journalists to leave the Star TV offices in the Somaliland capital, Hargeisa, according to a post on Twitter by the station. They were still occupying the premises this afternoon local time, the stations owner, Mohamed Hassan, told CPJ via messaging app. The officers did not provide a warrant to the journalists, according to Mohamed and as well as two separate statements posted on Facebook by local rights organizations, the Human Rights Centre Somaliland and the Somaliland Journalists Association.

In a statement provided to CPJ on July 1, the Somaliland Ministry of Information said that Star TV is under investigation, and the ministry will provide further details once the investigation is complete. The statement was sent to CPJ via messaging app by Suad Dahir, an advisor at the Ministry of Information, on behalf of the minister, Suelyman Yusuf Ali, also known as Koore.

In a separate case, the Universal TV studio in Hargeisa has also been closed since June 27, when police officers raided it and ordered journalists to leave, claiming to be implementing orders from the Ministry of Information, according to Ahmed Abubakar, Universal TVs chief executive who spoke to CPJ via messaging app from the United Kingdom.

The ministrys July 1 statement to CPJ said that Universal TV was suspended for its unwillingness to cooperate with the governments request for coverage on Somalilands Independence Day, which is June 26. It said the station had violated Somalilands constitution and independence, echoing Suleymans June 27 interview with BBC Somali.

The arbitrary nature of these closures, without even the pretense of following due process, is an unfortunate symptom of how hostile Somaliland is becoming for the media, said CPJ sub-Saharan Africa representative Muthoki Mumo. We call on authorities to respect the press freedoms enshrined in Somalilands constitution by allowing journalists from Star TV and Universal TV to continue their work without interference.

Ahmed told CPJ that he had received a call on June 26 from someone who identified himself as Mohamed Ali Bile, director general of Somalilands Office of the President, asking Universal TV to cover Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdis speech later that day on the commemoration of Somalilands 1960 independence from the British. Universal TV alternated coverage between the Somaliland president and another speech by the president of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Faarmajo, commemorating the same event, according to Ahmed. Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991, has not yet gained international recognition, and has a tense relationship with the government in Mogadishu, according to reports.

In a phone call with CPJ on June 30, Mohamed, the director general of Somalilands Office of the President, said Universal TV had deliberately reneged on a commercial agreement to air Muses speech and claimed that the stations programming displayed an agenda against Somaliland sovereignty. Ahmed denied that there had been any agreement between Universal TV and the government to air Muses speech live.

Universal TV and Star TV continued to broadcast from other studios, including in Mogadishu and in London, according to Ahmed and Mohamed. However, in a letter dated June 29 that was shared by the state-owned Somaliland News Agency, Suleyman said that the licenses of the two stations had been revoked. He ordered local cable companies not to carry Universal TV or Star TV and directed businesses to pull their advertising from the two stations, according to the letter. It was not immediately clear to CPJ if these orders had been implemented.

On June 29 the Somaliland Journalists Association wrote a complaint to the Hargeisa regional court, raising concerns about the lack of explanation given for the shutdown of the two stations and saying that the closure of the stations contravened Somalilands constitution, according to a copy of the letter that was seen by CPJ.

CPJ has documented the use of media shutdowns, studio raids, the blocking of news sites, as well as arrests, to crack down on independent media in Somaliland.
A Bridge To Far By Paul Edwards July 02, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The murder of black people has been a constant in American barbarity since Colonial times. Persistent white murder has caused black agony to erupt in spasms of despair that have only altered its methods, not ended it. White racism, officially supported, has suppressed black outrage but not stifled it. Whites continue to murder blacks but cannot murder black spirit.



After a long, grisly sequence of vicious and legally inexcusable murders by various vile, sociopathic, pseudo-military police forces, the Floyd murder inflamed it again, this time with complex differences. Unlike the national fury after the murder of Dr. King or the storm of rage over Rodney Kings abuse, this explosion can not be described as a race riot. Though the murder of a black man triggered it, and though his murder is the central theme around which the phenomenon has coalesced, the great majority of active participants have been white. This is unprecedented.



The question then is whether a small but not negligible minority of white Americans has, in a historically brief time, so developed ethically that it now embraces the deeply humanist creed of the moral giants, Einstein and Schweizer, Eugene Debs and Desmond Tutu. The answer is that it has.



Clearly, many whites have made that ethical climb, or they wouldnt be in the streets in great numbers over what has been traditionally a black issue. This raises questions. Has definition of a traditionally racist issue morphed from what it historically has been? And is there, in fact, any issue that is strictly racial any more, at least among relatively enlightened whites? No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Newsletter

If not, then it follows that for them an existential issue for one race is an issue for all races. This is a huge stretch for the propagandized, deformed American psyche even to grasp, let alone fully to embrace. Stuffed with the poisonous philosophical styrofoam of American Exceptionalism, brains and souls befouled and infused with the shallowest, stupidest, cruelest, latter-day Nazi Ubermensch tripe, Americans are ill-equipped to understand and accept even themselves, much less those were schooled by The Empire to regard, around the world, as our subhuman underlings.



Powerful unanimity of purpose between elements of historically alienated races--the term is no longer validated by science, btw--not only seriously threatens racism and white dominion, it mortally menaces hegemonist dogma across the board, which makes it deeply terrifying to the American Capitalist Tyranny, its .0001% owner class and its purchased government. Passionate demand for an end to police murder of blacks, for defunding or eliminating these brutal, dishonest gestapos of state-directed terror, is just the most openly hideous crime our diseased system inflicts on all of us.



General awareness of this--taking nothing away from enlightened white empathy with blacks over serial murder-by-cop--is the far broader, denser background reality--as dark matter in the universe is the field and matrix of all that is visible--that with its tremendous gravity has drawn moral whites into genuine brotherhood of purpose with violently traumatized blacks in their frustrated and unending quest for justice in America.



Tragically, as acute observers see, though there is broad and growing comprehension by Americans of the deep falsity and brutal exploitation the State inflicts on the great mass of them, there is neither a committed cadre of inspiring leaders, nor a coherently formulated creed around which a potent public uprising against injustice can coalesce. In place of fused, mobilized, revolutionary unity, we have chaotic, unfocussed desperation.



This will not win. Historically, it never has. The long, sad unwinding of the beautifully, humanely motivated Occupy adventure is the latest case in point. Based on the widely shared conviction of the deeply evil, biocidal character of cheating, lying, obscene, violent, tottering Capitalism, having definite aims and goals, worthy despite the anxious ridicule of the besieged oligarchic state, it lacked the effectual warhead of a committed, passionate leadership with a defined program for elimination and replacement of the gangrenous piratical corpse it courageously opposed. And so, rudderless and internally confused, adrift, subject to attrition and relentless abuse at the hands of the Systems police, it broke, dissolved and faded away.



The reason no such cell of visionary leaders of a potent revolutionary creed exists here is neither single nor simple. Capitalist America--the monstrous corporate combine that owns and controls the State--has waged ruthless war against any politics intended to benefit the people, but repression alone has never eliminated determined political opposition anywhere. Decades of highly sophisticated propaganda has debased and lobotomized a victimized electorate but cannot eradicate intelligences that rise above it. A rebel group can be bought off if traitors run it but never from principled leaders and weve had public men who have not sold out and given their all to oppose our vicious system in years gone by, though we have none now. The best of them were undermined and sabotaged by the very organs of law so falsely celebrated as incorruptible and independent of co-optation.



The fact is that the combination of repression, propaganda, and legal malfeasance, have so thoroughly strangled truth in America that coalescence of a core team of the best minds and hearts is impossible. And even if it were not, absolute control of all organs and platforms of communication with American citizens belongs to the criminal State.



Does the lack of guiding hardcore cadre mean that this broad, inspired effort will come to nothing? Well, no, in the sense that Occupy didnt come to nothing, and its effects outlived its endeavors, still reaching hearts and opening minds. It has already, in its main intent--demand for an end to police murder, for defunding, dissolution, and repurposing of the hideous Waffen SS ethic it has come to embody--made waves of progress that, regardless of success or failure, will never completely subside.



That said, the fantasy of a revolutionary transformation of the Capitalist Tyranny is just that. The movement, embodying in an inchoate way so much that is profoundly just and fervently desired by the most aware and enlightened Americans, lacks the social power it would need to break and replace our dirty, dying Empire and its antibiotic system.



A wise man observed that human history is a race between education and disaster. The great hope of the moment is that sheer fear of the people will bring to an end the sick Nazification of American police systems, for blacks above all, but in reality for all of us.



Overthrow of the Capitalist Tyranny depends, though, on irresistible citizen action based on a deeply informed conviction of its irremediable evil, and unshakable resolve to destroy it. The furious drive of the Capitalist Tyranny toward ecocide and our own extinction may not give us time to get there.


Reports that China forced women from its Uighur ethnic minority to be sterilised or have an abortion, demand a strong government response, French senator Esther Benbassa has said. Her comments add to global calls for a UN probe into what experts describe as "demographic genocide".

"The crackdown of minorities by Chinese officials is not new but this is really persecution," commented senator Esther Benbassa.

The French-Turkish-Israeli historian was reacting to reports claiming the Chinese government is slashing birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities in its Xinjiang province, while loosening restrictions on Han Chinese - who represent 92 percent of the Chinese population.

The newly published research revealed this week sheds further light into Beijing's Xinjiang crackdown.

"We saw this coming a long time ago in university circles," Benbassa told RFI.

"We saw it in the news we used to receive about the fate of our colleagues working in this region. We warned the authorities, but France does not always react clearly, but there is no doubt there is a genocide," she said.

Her fears were echoed in a statement on Monday by a new global caucus of politicians called the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

Fears of genocide

"The world cannot remain silent in the face of unfolding atrocities," the group, made up of senior legislators from around the world, said in its statement.

"Our countries are bound by solemn obligations to prevent and punish any effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group," it added, citing fears of a hidden "genocide."

According to the findings, published by leading China scholar Adrian Zenz, birth rates in Xinjiang, an autonomous region on the north-west border of China, "fell by 84 percent in the two largest Uighur prefectures between 2015 and 2018, and declined further in 2019. For 2020, one Uighur region set an unprecedented near-zero population growth target".

Under China's now-abandoned 'one child' policy, women had been encouraged and often forced to take contraceptives to limit the number of children they had.

Forced birth control

For Zenz, whose research is based on government data, policy documents and interviews of ethnic women, those birth-control measures are nothing compared to what is happening in Xinjiang right now.

Uighur and other minority women have reported forced sterilisations and intrauterine device insertions (IUD), and officials have threatened to detain anyone who has too many children.

China's birth control campaign has been fuelled by a policy of mass internment initiated in early 2017 for anyone showing signs of religious extremism".

In reality, detainees were frequently women who violated birth control quotas.

A woman who fled Xinjiang last year told the Associated Press that they would chant the following lines during daily flag-raising events: If we have too many children, we're religious extremists.  That means we have to go to the training centres.

Being fair

The Chinese government has dismissed the reports as "fake news," insisting that it treats all ethnicities equally.

It said that the new birth-control measures are simply meant to be fair, allowing both Han Chinese and ethnic minorities the same number of children.

However, while fair on paper, research shows that in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilisations, IUD insertions and detentions imposed on minority women for having too many children.

German researcher Zenz added that the findings raise concerns about whether China's forced suppression of its minority population can be characterised as a demographic campaign of genocide under United Nations' definitions.

UN inquiry

The report, published at a time when Beijing is facing a global backlash for its treatment of minority groups, has triggered calls for a UN investigation into human rights violations by the Chinese government.

"We hope to be able to make positive law, that is to say: coordinate between countries," said French senator Andre Gattolin, one of the members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China pushing for the UN inquiry, quoted in the daily Le Monde.

Gattolin, who has long campaigned against human rights abuses in China, said the aim was to achieve similar legislation to the Magnitsky Act, which "already exists in several European countries and punishes the perpetrators of political persecution in Russia".

Recent legislation by the Trump administration would point in that direction. The new US law imposes sanctions on those responsible for oppressing China's Uighurs, a majority Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority.

The UN estimates that more than one million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang which China says are vocational skills training centres and necessary to tackle extremism.

No time to wait

Benbassa disagrees. "They put them in camps, Uighur children cannot study in their own language, we're talking about a lost generation," she said.

Benbassa, who is also an author, began documenting Beijing's repression of the Uighur community after doing research on Turkey's Ottoman empire. Uighurs, like Turks, are considered ethnically Turkic.

In 2018, she wrote an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron alerting him to the repression of China's Muslim minority and the plight of a teacher named Tiyip Taspholat who went missing.

"We were expecting a clear position from the government, for it to defend the Uighur community, its culture, and for it to ask China to put an end to its anti-ethnic policy against the Uighurs."

But the response she received several months later was disappointing. While the letter by the president's office stated its concern about the "situation in Xinjiang" and called on Beijing to "respect the rights of individuals" living there, it made no mention whatsoever of the Uighur population.

"I don't think the French government is willing to put its relations with China in jeopardy to protect the Uighurs," Benbassa said, while insisting a strong response is needed.

As for a potential UN probe, she argues that time is of the essence. "People die during investigations. We must take a clear policy."
The Bureau of Public Safety (BPS) wants President Akufo Addo to order the Electoral Commission (EC) and the police service to execute their duties effectively during the ongoing new voters' registration exercise.

BPS said the non-compliance to social distancing and other COVID-19 preventive measures are as a result of the failure of the EC and the Police service to act.

The Executive Director for BPS, Nana Yaw Akwadaa in a Citi News interview said the two institutions must be called out for neglecting their duty of ensuring that the registration process is not chaotic.

He said the lives of citizens must be protected hence their call.

The Institutions are pretending that everything is alright when they know actually that everything is not alright and I think this is where we want to call out so that we can protect the citizens. The institutional ostrichism is what we need to call it. We need to call out the EC, the IGP and his officers. We need to call on the Commander-in-Chief to summon these two institutions to his office and ensure that they discharge themselves responsibly, he said.

The registration process has been chaotic at some polling stations as the hundreds of registrants fail to observe social distancing.

Other centres do not mandatorily ask registrants to wash their hands or properly wear their face mask.

Observe COVID-19 protocols

Meanwhile, the National Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Freddie Blay is urging Ghanaians queuing at various registrations centres for their voter ID cards to strictly observe the COVID-19 safety protocols.

He reports that registrants are flouting the safety protocols adding that registrants must consciously ensure that they strictly observe the preventive guidelines.

There is a little problem over the COVID-19 and observance of the social distancing. Sometimes there is a rush and that is not the best thing to do and we are urging all to keep or observe the protocols and stick to it.

---citinewsroom
Some 50 Ghanaians who were evacuated from the United Kingdom (UK) and placed in quarantine have checked out of their hotel rooms without knowing their COVID-19 status.

This was done following what they describe as abandonment by the state.

After arriving at the airport, their samples were taken and were told to expect the results after three days.

But after two weeks after, they are yet to receive the results of their COVID-19 test.

A gentleman who spoke to Umaru Sanda Amadu on Eyewitness News slammed Ghana Health Service for having to keep them at the various hotels for two weeks without any communication on their results.

Although he acknowledged that the bills for the hotel services were agreed to be covered by them even before coming down, he lamented that not getting access to their test results mean they have wasted money and time.

The minimum was GHS500 for Airport View Hotel. Alisa and Mariott hotels were charging GHS600 per night. With Airport View Hotel, youll be spending about GHS7,000 for the two weeks and about GHS8,400 at Alisa and Mariott.

The challenge is who is going to pay for the bills because we were not ready to pay for extra money. Why would you be kept at a place to be paying so much and still not know your results? To me, it doesnt make sense, he stressed.

After agitations from them, the officials from the health service gave them clearance to go to their homes on Wednesday to continue the quarantine from there.

He said the health officials explained that they had not received their results because the COVID-19 testing centres were overwhelmed.

The returnee further advised that if this is how the situation is going to be for the next batches of evacuees from other countries, then it was better off they went straight home to self-quarantine once they touched down to save their money.

My point is why do you keep someone for this number of weeks without any results? We agreed to the whole process before coming down. We knew were going to go through quarantine. But if we have done our part and the government is not doing its part, then it doesnt make sense keeping the people. But if youre going to keep them there and you can be sure that the results will be out and you let them know their status before you release them, that makes sense. Because someone may be infected and they might not know. Its a good exercise, but it doesnt make sense to keep them, while they are not getting results, he remarked.

---citinewsroom
Britain is to offer up to three million Hong Kongers residency in the UK with the chance to apply for citizenship, after China imposed its new security law, which activists say erodes freedoms. Beijing is facing a groundswell of criticism after hundreds of protesters were arrested at a rally to mark 23 years since the end of British rule on Wednesday.

Thousands gathered for the annual pro-democracy rally to mark the handover anniversary, defying a ban by authorities who cited restrictions on gatherings of more than 50 people because of Covid-19.

Residents blocked roads and brandished banners to voice their opposition to the the new security bill introduced by China on Tuesday.

Hong Kong police used water cannon, tear gas and pepper spray on demonstrators and arrested nearly 400 people.

Ten people were accused of violating the new security law. About 360 others were detained.

Seven officers were injured, including one officer who was stabbed in the arm by "rioters holding sharp objects", police said.

China's new law targets secession, subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces with punishments up to life in prison.

Acts including damaging public transport facilities can be considered terrorism.

Beijing said the security law was necessary to stop the type of protests seen in Hong Kong throughout much of 2019.

United Kingdom, Australia to offer safe haven

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the passing of the law was a "clear and serious breach" of the 1985 Sino-British joint declaration.

Under this declaration, Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997 with certain freedoms guaranteed for at least 50 years under the "one country, two systems" agreement.

Johnson said the UK would offer up to three million Hong Kong residents the chance to settle there and ultimately apply for full British citizenship.

China reacted angrily, threatening "corresponding measures" to block the citizenship plan.

An offer of safe haven was also forthcoming from Australia where Prime Minister Scott Morrison said there were proposals that will "soon be considered by cabinet".

A proposed bill from US lawmakers offering sanctuary to Hong Kong residents has received widespread bipartisan support.

Taiwan has opened an office to help Hong Kongers wanting to leave.

International condemnation

Following the approval of the security law, the US House of Representatives unanimously approved new sanctions penalising banks that do business with Chinese officials. It will have to be approved by the Senate before going to President Donald Trump.

The European Union Council President Charles Michel said it "deplored" the law - adding that it had a "detrimental effect on the independence of the judiciary and rule of law".

"It will undermine trust for the principle of 'one country, two systems'" said Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said.

Despite the widespread condemnation, more than 50 countries, led by Cuba, supported China at the UN this week.
An oil spill is when any form of oil is released into the environment. An oil spill is deemed to occur when crude oil is illegally deposited into the ocean waters, thereby avoiding proper decomposition cost. Also, natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes can damage oil containing rigs. Furthermore, toxic oil can be leaked into the environment when operations go wrong due to drilling using oil rigs. Oil spillage in Ghana can have an adverse effect on the marine environment with dire consequences for the survival of marine flora and fauna.

Oil spillage can severely cause distress to ecosystems and may affect the livelihood of citizens living near contaminated coastline, thereby impairing their quality of life. With the hope of bringing to attention the need for quality of life, it is essential to understand the oil spill to its core. Understanding oil spill to its core necessitates a comprehensive understanding that the nature and duration of the consequence of an oil spill depend on numerous factors.

According to literature as well as findings from the Center for International Maritime Affairs (CIMAG), such numerous factors include gaining in-depth knowledge in marine environment features; physical characteristics and ambient conditions in relation to the location of the spill; prevalent weather conditions; the quantity and type of oil spill coupled with the biological composition of the affected environment.

CIMAG asserts that the key factor in understanding the nature and duration of the consequence of an oil spill hinges on the speed of dissipation of pollutants due to natural processes. The speed of dissipation helps determine whether or not environmental resources may have been exposed to toxic components.

With the looming understanding of how oil spill does endanger the marine environment, many countries have decided to reduce to an appreciable level the impact of greenhouse gases (GHG) on the environment. Minimizing GHG emission with which oil spill forms an integral component requires setting mitigation targets. However, in an oil-reliant country where proceeds from the sale of oil and gas serve as an add-in effect on economic development, setting mitigation targets are becoming increasingly complex.

Due to the pivotal role of oil production in daily routine activities, the questions that come to mind are; Is there really a need for policies required to mitigate oil spillage? Does the production of energy from conventional and exhaustible resources boost Ghana's economic growth? Should there be frequent monitoring, evaluation, and adjustment of energy policies? Is Ghana's Internationally National Determined Contributions (INDCs) sufficient in achieving the energy-induced share of the 1.5 C global warming target?

Arguably, it is always dicey to conclude whether or not the production of oil is a mixed blessing. On one hand, its proceeds are used to fund the economy. On the other hand, it endangers human and ecological safety. However, although Ghana is not a top emitter of GHG emissions, Ghana's GHG data from the World Development Indicators (WDI) is sharply rising. Taking a clue from the top five heavily polluting countries (China, the United States, India, Russia Federation, and Japan), these countries have a roadmap of going 100% renewables by the year 2050. One may ask: Should Ghana emulate the target of going 100% renewable by 2050? If Ghana is to forego energy produced from conventional and exhaustible resources, what is the future of Ghana's oil industry?

These questions can only be answered if there are massive investments in energy produced from inexhaustible resources (sun, wind, etc.). As investments in such inexhaustible resources in Ghana seems blurry, it is fair to argue that the production of oil cannot be relinquished in the Ghanaian case. Yet, it is worth noting that oil spills are of great concern due to the enormous economic loss and the long-term, significant harm to marine ecosystems, local economy, and coastal society and community. Against this backdrop, Ghana needs to be wary of the seemingly forgotten nexus between the oil spill and the marine environment. Herein, we ask: Are the companies engaged in the production of oil under an obligation to ensure the safety of the marine environment? Currently, is there a fine similar to the one imposed on the Mediterranean Shipping Company for polluting the Tema Port environment with heavy fuel oil discharged from MSC Alexa on May 10, 2016?

In conclusion, it is a truism that where there is oil there is a spill. Therefore, CIMAG calls for a coastal water management tool for oil spill simulation to predict the movement of oil in case of a spill. The oil spill simulation tool requires investments in technologies such as Geographic Information System Mapping, Remote Sensing, and Relief Wells. Finally, mass education is needed for people living closer to the coastal areas where oil is drilled to understand the effect of oil spill on their health.

is the Executive Director at the Centre for International Maritime Affairs (CIMAG). He holds a bachelor degree in Integrated Development Studies from the University of Development Studies. He holds an LLB (Law) from the Mountcrest University College and a postgraduate certificate in Health Safety & Environment.

He holds a certificate of proficiency in customs procedures & port operations. Currently, Albert is a Director in charge of Business Development at the Logical Maritime Services Limited, a privately held global logistics company. With extensive research, policy and advocacy backgrounds', Albert serves on numerous boards within the maritime industry. E-mail: [email protected] .

BISMARK AMEYAW (Ph.D.) is the director of research and advocacy at the Centre for International Maritime Affairs (CIMAG). He is a director of international relations and research development at the African Center for Strategic Business and Entrepreneurship Development (ACSBED).
The Daily Guide has been observing with some bemusement the theatre that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been deploying since the Electoral Commission (EC) decided it was going to compile a new voters' register.

Perhaps the alleged tape which was clandestinely recorded at a Black Operations (Black Ops) meeting of the party, now a subject of court case, was the plan for the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The STUNTS have been unleashed in various forms ranging from rally ground activities, the law courts, the streets all over the country, press conferences to the use of the EC premises as a platform for launching all kinds of offensive missions.

One of the obsolete political tactics through surrogates has been reactivated in the Concerned grouping approach. A while ago, a number of NDC stalwarts from the universities and technical universities were railroaded into appending their signatures to a petition to the EC when this failed another group of NDC medical practitioners or doctors strived to reactivate the STUNT, which had failed abysmally in the first instance.

The Daily Guide is patiently waiting for more Concerned groupings: lawyers, NAGRAT, GNAT, fishermen, parliamentarians, engineers, charismatic pastors, freight forwarders, Abossey Okai Spare Parts Dealers etc to join the NDC directed project.

The STUNTS at the law courts from the High Court to the Supreme Court have produced their own drama or side attractions. The long and short of this unfolding theatrical performance is the exposure of the calibre of legal expertise and experience in the fold of the party. And to crown all this mischief is the attempt to protect their normal border strongholds through the importation of other ECOWAS citizens.

Of all the positive things that a modern IT-driven voters' register will achieve one stands prominent ready to be exploited by cynics. For the first time in the annals of local politics or election management, Ghanaians will know the real 'World Banks'. It is one of the reasons the NDC undertook the various STUNTS to thwart the compilation of a new voters' roll.

So which parts of the country will show the real 'World Banks'? We just have to wait and see. When the lady the NDC loves to hate finally completes her project, the knowledge will be available for us all to see.

The wasted investment in a project to make it impossible to compile a new register appears to indicate that the NDC's took its decision on the hoof. Little wonder the party failed but the EC triumphed in its resolve to do what in its estimation is better for the country's democracy.

We pray that these STUNTS will be curtailed so that the NDC will start really working for the elections. For now, the party is not showing any effective strategy towards that direction.
Illegal fishing is considered globally as a fundamental driver of overfishing threatening marine ecosystems. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing puts food security and regional stability at risk. On a broader perspective, West Africas IUU accounts for approximately 40% of fish-caught.

This estimated percentage is considered the highest worldwide. With such a catastrophe hitting the coast of West Africa, some IUU vessels still fish directly off the coast. Most often, IUU fishing focuses on high-value dimensional species Saiko like cod, salmon, trout, lobster, and prawns among others. These high-value dimensional species are mostly subject to restrictions form fisheries management purposes.

The economic catch here is that these fish species are traded in small quantities with high demand, thereby making IUU fishing a lucrative business for IUU fishermen. IUU fishing on a fisherman perspective is deemed highly attractive because no taxes or duties are paid on the fish caught. The lucrative nature of IUU fishing is due to the absence of effective fisheries control structures.

The fisheries sector of Ghana is beset with overfishing with a dramatic depletion of fish stocks in our oceans. Illegal fishing by foreign trawlers is decimating Ghana's fish population by causing the country millions of dollars in revenue. A 2018 report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) indicated that foreign interest is known to be extensive within Ghana's trawl fleet. This foreign interest particularly from China is harming Ghana's fish stocks and local economies. In Ghana, there are over eighty (80) industrial trawlers operating.

These trawlers are not only competing with the estimated twelve thousand (12,000) artisanal canoes supporting the livelihood of approximately three (3) million Ghanaians. Such overfishing, which is the combination of both the trawlers and artisanal canoe fishing pose a detrimental effect on marine ecosystems. With such a looming rippling effect, high-value dimensional fish species are not left to replenish for sustainable marine ecosystems.

Against this backdrop, the Center for International Maritime Affairs Ghana (CIMAG) argues that the existence of IUU in our coastal areas does not only threaten the collapse of small scale fisheries, rather affects the source of living of people engaged in small-scale fisheries.

The challenge with IUU fishing in Ghana is exacerbated because small fishing vessels load their catch onto reefers while at sea. During this transshipment, fishermen on board are also supplied with food or fuel to enable them to remain at sea for months. The transshipment of Ghana's pelagic fisheries put fish stocks under severe pressure.

Based on the aforementioned challenges of Saiko fishing, CIMAG asserts that combating IUU fishing is very complex and expensive. Taking a clue from affluent countries, there exist the enforcement of stringent ocean control systems by deploying large fleets of vessels and trained personnel to minimize IUU fishing to an appreciable level. The European Union (EU) enforced IUU directives since 2008 contains uniform directives for all EU ports to curb IUU fishing. The EU directives have rendered IUU vessels unable to land their catches in the EU ports. Irrespective of the EU directives on IUU fishing, research postulates that there are still ports in other EU regions where IUU fishermen land their illegally caught fish with absolutely zero repercussions.

Due to the complexities in combating IUU fishing even for the more affluent countries, putting in stringent measures does not only help minimize IUU fishing at our ports, rather it helps save the livelihood of people engaged in small-scale fisheries. To tackle IUU fishing in a less costly manner, there should be rigorous checks at our ports. However, the rigorous checks will be very effective if all ports cooperate with IUU fishing directives. Additionally, there should be inter-coastal fisheries regulatory frameworks that give guidance on protecting "Saiko fishing in our coastal areas. Furthermore, there should be scrutiny of the ownership arrangements of all foreign industrial trawl vessels operating to ensure its compliance with set-up laws and regulations.

Finally, the closed fishing season commitment in the National Fisheries Management Plan should be enforced yearly to help minimize IUU fishing.

is the Executive Director at the Centre for International Maritime Affairs (CIMAG). He holds a bachelor degree in Integrated Development Studies from the University of Development Studies. He holds an LLB (Law) from the Mountcrest University College and a postgraduate certificate in Health Safety & Environment.

He holds a certificate of proficiency in customs procedures & port operations. Currently, Albert is a Director in charge of Business Development at the Logical Maritime Services Limited, a privately held global logistics company. With extensive research, policy and advocacy backgrounds, Albert serves on numerous boards within the maritime industry. E-mail: [email protected] .

BISMARK AMEYAW (Ph.D.) is the director of research and advocacy at the Centre for International Maritime Affairs (CIMAG). He is a director of international relations and research development at the African Center for Strategic Business and Entrepreneurship Development (ACSBED).
A key figure belonging to Algeria's protest movement, Karim Tabbou, is to be freed provisionally from prison, his lawyer said Wednesday.

"The request for his provisional release has been accepted. He will be released on Thursday," Abdelghani Badi told AFP.

Amnesty International, which lobbied for his release, welcomed the news.

Tabbou, 47, is one of the most prominent if not the best-known figure of "Hirak" -- a protest movement that forced the downfall last April of longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Sosiane Djilali, head of an opposition party, said a month ago that President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had told him in a meeting he would "ensure that Karim Tabbou and Samir Benlarbi regain their freedom".

Benlarbi, a media personality, has been held in preventive detention, while Tabbou is serving a one-year term for an "attack on the integrity of national territory".

Tabbou also faces a charge of "damaging the morale of the army", in a trial which has been postponed to September 14.

Weekly anti-government protests rocked Algeria for more than a year and only came to a halt in March due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, with the authorities banning marches -- although the opposition had already stopped gathering, due to concerns about the virus.

But the Algerian government continues to target opponents, journalists, independent media and internet users.

According to the National Committee for the Release of Detainees, almost 70 people are currently detained on charges linked to the protest movement, mostly over Facebook posts.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye says it is unethical to make public names of government officials who have contracted the novel Coronavirus in the country.

Dr. Kuma-Aboagye made the remark today, Thursday, July 2, 2020, at a press briefing organised by the Ministry of Information to update Ghanaians on the countrys COVID-19 case management.

While answering questions at the event, Dr. Kuma-Aboagye said it was not ethically right to put out such names.

As I mentioned, I cannot really ethically, tell you all these numbers and mention names and their status. It cannot be done. Im sure there are media men who have also been exposed and we dont have their numbers and names [in the public domain] but those who came out and did that voluntarily, thats what we encourage. We are not going to be able to mention anybodys name and there is no need, he said.

This development comes on the back of reports that a number of government officials have tested positive of COVID-19.

Government officials vs COVID-19

Former General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie and Mayor of the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, K.K. Sam are known government appointees to have died after contracting COVID-19 in Ghana.

Currently, the New Patriotic Party's campaign manager for the 2020 general elections, Peter Mac Manu and Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Carlos Ahenkorah are receiving treatment at the Intensive Care Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital after both tested positive for COVID-19.

Ghana's Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu also tested positive for COVID-19.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby, also tested positive for the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

---citinewsroom
A Cape Coast Circuit Court has granted Stanley Akoto, a 27-year old Public Relations Officer bail in the sum of GH30,000.00 with two sureties for allegedly defiling a 13-year old girl.

Both sureties should be government workers not earning less than GH2,000.00.

Akoto, who works at a Herbal Clinic in Cape Coast, pleaded not guilty to the charge of defilement and the Court presided over by Mrs Dorinda Arthur Smith adjourned the case to Tuesday, July 21.

Prosecuting, Chief Inspector John Asare Bediako told the Court that the complainant, Mr. Alfred Hanson, a welder lives at Akotokyir, a surbub of Cape Coast, with the girl, who is his wife's younger sister.

The accused lives in the same vicinity as the Complainant.

According to the Prosecutor, during the month of April, Akoto proposed love to the girl and entered into a sexual relationship with her.

On Monday, June 1 this year, the accused after having sexual intercourse with her, gave her a medicine to prevent pregnancy.

Chief Inspector Bediako said, three days after, the girl started experiencing stomach ache and later bled profusely but failed to tell the complainant.

On Friday, June 5, she could no longer endure the pain and revealed her ordeal to the elder sister, who is the wife of the complainant and mentioned Akoto as her sexual partner.

She said Akoto gave her medicine to prevent pregnancy.

A report was made to the Cape Coast Office of Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) the next day and Akoto was arrested.

A Police medical form was issued for the complainant to send the girl to the Hospital for medical examination and treatment.

---GNA
By Matt Naham

July 02, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Dead pedophile Jeffrey Epsteins former girlfriend and alleged partner-in-crime was arrested on Thursday morning in New Hampshire. Now we know why. According to the indictment out of the Southern District of New York, Ghislaine Maxwell faces six federal charges related to the sexual exploitation of and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein.

The indictment was signed by Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, Geoffrey Bermans replacement in the Southern District of New York. Under Bermans leadership in July 2019, the SDNY hit Epstein with sex trafficking charges. Epstein died by suicide in Aug. 2o19. Heres what you need to know about the newly released charges against Maxwell.

1. The criminal counts.

Maxwell was indicted on the following charges: two counts of Conspiracy to Entice Minors to Travel to Engage in Illegal Sex Acts; Conspiracy to Transport Minors with Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity; Transportation of a Minor with Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity; two counts of Perjury.

2. The charges focus on the years 1994-1997.

According to federal prosecutors, Maxwell assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epsteins abuse, by among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to MAXWELL and Epstein. The victims were people Epstein and Maxwell both knew were minors and who were as young as 14 years old, the documents state.

Maxwell allegedly enticed minors to travel to Epsteins palatial residences in various U.S. states with the knowledge that those minors would be sexually abused.

During the aforementioned span of years in the 90s, Maxwell and Epstein were in an intimate relationship; Epstein paid Maxwell to manage the very properties she allegedly enticed minors to visit. The indictment included the image of Epstein and Maxwell that you see at the top of this story.

3. How Maxwell allegedly groomed minors for sexual abuse.

The indictment repeated a lot of details that match what has already been alleged or reported about Maxwell and Epsteins grooming methods. For instance, it was alleged that Maxwell would try to befriend would-be victims by asking them about their lives, their schools, and their families. This opened the door to serial manipulation of vulnerable young girls. According to the indictment, once a so-called friendly rapport was established, discussions about the victims childhoods turned into discussions about sex; discussions about sex turned into sexual abuse.

Having developed a rapport with a victim MAXWELL would try to normalize sexual abuse for a minor victim by, among other things, discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts between the minor victim of Epstein, the indictment said.

Prosecutors allege that Maxwells criminal voyeurism helped put the victims at ease because an adult woman was present as Epstein sexually abused the victims.

Having established this rapport, per the indictment, Maxwell [i]n other instances . . . encouraged minor victims to provide massages to Epstein, including sexualized massages during which a minor would be fully or partially nude.

Many of those massages resulted in Epstein sexually abusing the minor victims, the indictment said.

Authorities say that money and opportunity were prominent features of Maxwells alleged grooming tactics.

Maxwell encouraged certain victims to accept Epsteins assistance and, as a result, were made to feel indebted to both Epstein and Maxwell, the indictment said.

Through this process, MAXWELL and Epstein enticed victims to engage in sexual activity with Epstein which in some instances also included Maxwells participation in sexual abuse, the indictment reads.

Prosecutors said Maxwell knew Epstein was attracted to young girls and recruited them knowing that they would be sexually abused. Whats more, authorities say Maxwell direct[ed] a victim to touch Epstein while he masturbated, and direct[ed] a victim to touch Epsteins genitals.

4. Where Maxwell enticed victims to travel.

According to the indictment, Maxwell groomed and enticed victims to travel to Epsteins Manhattan townhouse, his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, and his ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Epsteins illicit activities at these locations are well documented. But the indictment also focused on Maxwells residence in London, England.

Minor Victim-1, Minor Victim-2, and Minor Victim-3 were each minors when Maxwell first came into contact with them; Maxwell was aware of their age, the indictment alleged. According to the SDNY, Minor Victim-1 was around 14 years old.

Maxwell is accused of grooming Minor Victim-1 by taking her shopping and to the movies and by inquiring about the childs family and school life. Illicit sexual abuse soon followed across the Atlantic and in two states:

In particular, MAXWELL involved Minor Victim-1 in group sexualized massages of Epstein. During those group sexualize massages, MAXWELL and/or Minor Victim-1 would engage in sex acts with Epstein. Epstein and MAXWELL both encouraged Minor Victim-1 to travel to Epsteins residences in both New York and Florida. As a result, Minor Victim-1 was sexually abused in both New York and Florida .

Maxwell allegedly interacted with Minor Victim-2 around 1996 at Epsteins New Mexico ranch. The minor was allegedly flown to New Mexico from out of state. Authorities say the same shopping, movies, and small talk routine led Maxwell providing an unsolicited topless massage to a person she knew was a minor.

Maxwell allegedly groomed Minor Victim-3 in London between 1994 and 1995 and was aware the victim was a minor. Epstein went on to sexually abuse Minor Victim-3 on multiple occasions, the indictment said.

5. Prosecutors said that on two occasions in 2016 Maxwell lied under oath during depositions in a civil case.

On or around April 22, 2016, Maxwell said I dont know what youre talking about when asked if Epstein had a scheme to recruit young girls for sexual massages.

Maxwell also said she wasnt aware that she interacted at Epsteins properties with anyone who was a minorexcerpt for the plaintiff in the civil case who was 17 at the time of the interaction.

On or around July 22, 2016, Maxwell said that she did not recall sex toys being present at Epsteins Palm Beach home. (There were sex toys there.)

Maxwell admitted to having threesomes with a blond and brunette but said she wasnt aware that [Epstein] was having sexual activities with anyone when I was with him other than myself.

Maxwell was asked if she had ever given someone a massage.

I have never given anyone a massage, she answered.

Read the indictment below:

Copy of Ghislaine Maxwell Indictment by Law&Crime on Scribd

[Image via DOJ]

Matt Naham is managing editor of Law&Crime. He formerly worked as news editor and weekend editor at Rare. - - " Source " -

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

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The management of Yinson Production West Africa Limited (YPWAL) has donated a Biological Safety Cabinet worth US$4,600 to the National Public Health Reference Laboratory at Korle-Bu to help fight against the deadly COVID-19.

The company, in the same vein would supply the laboratory for three continuous months with US$4,500 worth of consumables for COVID-19 testing.

Mr Edward Mensah, Corporate Social Responsibility Coordinator of Yinson Ghana explained to the Ghana News Agency that, like a built ventilated enclosure, the Biological Safety Cabinet enabled laboratories to carry out more COVID-19 tests in a faster rate, with the capacity to protect the user, the specimen and the environment from any potential hazardous microorganisms.

This contribution is our humble way of giving back to our host community by doing our part to help our frontliners save more lives. With this donation, we hope to shorten the amount of time it takes for laboratories to conduct large numbers of Covid-19 tests, thus expediting patients' access to life-saving treatments Mr. Mensah added.

The Yinson Group has contributed in several ways including; the donation of 6,000 surgical face masks to Ghana's National Commission for Civic Education to keep their staff protected, while they travelled all over the country to educate the Ghanaian citizenry on all matters related to the pandemic.

"As a Group, Yinson has contributed over $240,000 in medical protective equipment and other needed supplies to support the ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic."

The Company, recently procured infrared thermometers, blood pressure monitors, laptops and printers for the use of the Ayawaso West Municipal Health Directorate in Accra to streamline its COVID-19 relief efforts.

The Yinson Productions West Africa Limited, is a joint venture between the Group's Singapore-based Yinson Production Ltd and Ghana's Oil and Marine Agencies (Ghana) Limited (OMA).

The Company is also the operations base for one of the Group's key assets, FPSO John Agyekum Kufuor, currently moored at Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) in Ghana.

---GNA
Colonel Eric Aggrey Quarshie

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The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has denied claims by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that civilians were being molested by soldiers deployed to Aflao and its environs.

A statement signed by colonel Eric Aggrey Quarshie, director in charge of the Public Relations Directorate of GAF, said the issue has been investigated and their findings show that no soldier has been involved in such an act.

He said the Ghana Armed Forces deployment of troops in conjunction with other security agencies, is to ensure the protection of the citizenry and not to intimidate them.

We wish to assure all and sundry that troops will uphold the high standards of professionalism in the performance of their duties.

He urged residents to go about their normal duties without any fear or anxiety.

It is therefore stated that any incident of the law, involving any service person, will be thoroughly investigated and the case dealt with in accordance with GAF regulations.

---Daily Guide
Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has visited the site of Ghanas first infectious diseases treatment centre and lauded the Ghana Covid-19 Private Sector Fund, for initiating the project and raising the needed funds to bring it to fruition in record time.

Mr. Agyeman-Manu was particularly impressed when he was told that the 100-bed facility, located at the Ga East Municipal Hospital in Accra, could be ready to admit its first patients by the middle of July.

The Ghana Covid-19 Private Sector Fund has been spearheading the construction of the facility in response to the national call for all to join in the national battle bring the Covid-19 crisis under control.

Several organisations and well-meaning individuals have contributed in cash and in kind to the fund since ground was broken for the project to start in the middle of April.

After being briefed on the progress of work so far, the Health Minister said he was proud to have been involved in making land available for the facility.

The whole thing started from my office, when the private sector people came with what their dream was and their vision and how they wanted to support us, he said. I quickly informed the president and he asked me to bring them to see him. We sat down with him and they told the president what they wanted to do. Together we identified this place (the Ga East Hospital) where we can have land without litigation and that already belonged to us. They moved in and this is what Ive come to see.

Impressed by the progress of work, the minister said he was looking forward to the facility being put to use soon in the national fight against Covid-19.

[From] the way they are talking, maybe before the middle of July we may start putting patients here, he said. And that is part of the effort to expand capacity for treatment in the country. If its adding 100 beds to what we already have, at least we are moving somewhere.

The Minister was accompanied to the project site by the Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye and the Chief Medical Officer of the Ga East Hospital, Dr Oduro Mensah, among others.

Watch video here:
Security officers in the Upper East region have arrested a Togolese man for attempting to register and acquire the voters ID card.

According to the Ghana Immigration Service, their officers at the Pulimakom Border Post joined the police for the operation which was based upon a tip-off.

The suspect, who was identified as Bouguiligue Kouassi Kampe, was picked up at the Bimpelle Primary School registration centre at Woriyanga at the Tempane District upon a tip-off.

Mr. Kampe, who used the name 'Yaro Kosi' for the registration exercise, was waiting in a queue for his photograph to be taken when he was arrested.

He reportedly admitted in an interrogation that he entered the country illegally through an unapproved route.

It was also revealed during the interrogation that he did not have the Ghana card or a Ghana passport since he wasnt a Ghanaian and so had two persons serve as his guarantors to get his name on the electoral roll.

Mr. Kampe is currently in police custody and assisting in investigations.

Meanwhile, security personnel say they are working to arrest the two guarantors to also help in the probe.

Voter registration

The Electoral Commission is currently registering voters ahead of the 2020 polls.

The exercise started on Tuesday, June 30, 2020. The first day of the voter registration exercise ongoing nationwide was marked by the anticipated concerns of faulty machines, long queues and a lack of social distancing amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Across Ghana's 16 regions, there are 6,788 clusters made up of five registration centres each.

---citinewsroom
Ivory Coast on Thursday paid tribute to soldiers killed in a jihadist attack last month that has shaken the country, as the brazen assault's death toll rose to 14.

It was the first attack by Islamist extremists in the West African country in more than four years and has sparked fears that the jihadist violence plaguing its northern neighbours is moving southward.

Dozens of gunmen targeted a frontier post at Kafolo, on the border with Burkina Faso, in the June 11 pre-dawn attack.

The official death toll is 13, but the military told AFP that a 14th person had succumbed to his injuries.

Fourteen coffins were covered with Ivorian flags during a televised ceremony at a military camp in the capital Abidjan on Thursday.

The soldiers were posthumously made knights of the national order at the emotional ceremony attended by family members of the victims, President Alassane Ouattara and political and military figures.

"They made the supreme sacrifice to protect Ivory Coast from the barbarism of those who like vampires only aspire to drink blood," army chief of staff Aly Justin Dem said at the ceremony.

Salimata Doumbia, the widow of marshal Lansine Bamba who died in the attack, said her "husband sacrified himself for the fatherland".

"There is nothing we can do, it is God who willed it. We will try to overcome it."

About 30 people in total, including the jihadist commando leader, who was from Burkina Faso, were arrested following the attack, according to authorities.

The attack was attributed to the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), an organisation linked to Al-Qaeda.

It was thought to be retribution for a joint operation launched by Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso last month aimed at flushing out jihadists near their shared border.

It was the country's first attack by Islamist extremists since March 2016, when a raid on hotel terraces in the southeastern beach resort of Grand-Bassam left 19 people dead.

The country fears that a jihadist revolt which began in Mali in 2012 will cross into Ivory Coast, which has only recently returned to stability after a decade-long period of turbulence.
Unfortunately, and despite promises from the European Commission to put an end to the diversion of humanitarian aid in the Tindouf camps in Algeria, this diversion continues ... overwhelming new evidence comes to support this thesis.

In 1975, following a mass demonstration known as The Green March, Spain relinquished its control over the territory then known as Spanish Sahara handing it over to joint administration by Morocco and Mauritania.

A war quickly broke out between the two countries and the Polisario Front, a communistic styled national liberation movement which proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) with a government in exile in Tindouf, Algeria.

Mauritania formally withdrew its claims over the territory in 1979, and Morocco retains control over the territory known as the Western Sahara to this day.

During the conflict, numbers of people fled the area, crossing the border into Algeria before settling in refugee camps at Tindouf, the headquarters of Polisario. Today the camps still exist, their populations now political pawns, exploited by Polisario for the humanitarian aid their presence attracts: aid which is too often stolen, and sold to support Polisarios military and political aims.

EU today spoke with Mohamed Cherif Larossi Ahmed Salem, a former Polisario activist and an experienced human rights campaigner. Having personally witnessed EU food aid on sale in markets in Mauritania, he explained how this vitally needed food aid is diverted to build personal fortunes, and to maintain a military arsenal that includes heavy tanks and surface to air missiles (note: the Soviet Union was an early supplier of arms to Polisario, and a redacted CIA report from 1983 confirms the group has also received Cuban military aid).

He also explained that Algeria itself is complicit in the fraud, as it taxes the aid. This was confirmed in a hearing in the European Parliaments budgetary control committee in July 2015, an official mentioned that Algeria imposes taxes of 5% of the then annual 10 million in humanitarian aid to the Tindouf Camps

Key to the diversion of the aid in food and everyday consumer goods is the deliberate confusion over the numbers of refugees in the camps of Tindouf.

Polisario has reported the presence of 155,000 to 170,000 refugees in the area of Tindouf, but independent organisations and neutral observers estimate that, in their view, the real number of refugees is likely to be somewhere around 70,000 - 90,000 people. The resultant surplus in supplies, funded by hard-pressed European taxpayers, represents Polisarios profit margin. The refugees themselves pay their own price in lack of adequate sustenance: according to the UN 40% of the children suffer from lack of iron, and 10% of the children below five years of age suffer from acute lack of nutrition. 32% are suffering from chronic lack of nutrition.

As well as being a source of funding, the residents of the Tindouf camps also serve another purpose: male refugees perform military service in the armed forces of the SADR, and many are required to perform work in return for the food aid that should be theirs by right.

Bjorn Hultin, vice president of the Brussels-based NGO Comite Europeen de Soutien au Plan D'autonomie au Sahara Occidental (CESPASO) told EUToday: Our objective is to contribute to establishing peace in this region of the world by supporting the autonomy plan for Western Sahara proposed by Morocco as a just logical, rational and equitable solution to end a conflict that has lasted over 43 years, and to put an end to the suffering of the populations in the Tindouf camps in Algeria.

Regarding the recent diversion of European humanitarian aid that is sold in Mauritania supported with clear and sharp photos of the European flag as well as eyewitness reports, I can confirm that this is not the first time. I followed with attention and amazement as a consultant to the European Parliament the outcry aroused in parliament by the OLAF report which was made public in 2015.

This report clearly states that the Polisario leaders systematically and methodically adopt misappropriation of humanitarian aid and accumulate colossal fortunes and they all have luxury real estate in Spain. It is tragic to be enriched on the back of the suffering of the sequestered populations.

In 2015 Agence France-Presse (AFP) first reported that it had obtained the above-mentioned report which covered a four-year investigation (2003-2007) by the European Union's Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) documenting "well-organised, years-long" embezzlement by the Polisario Front of humanitarian aid designated for Sahrawi refugees in the Tindouf camps.

According to AFP, the report was "forgotten" until a 2014 intervention by the European Ombudsman, Emily OReilly.

The report confirms the evidence of Cherif, and explains the process by which the misappropriations take place: EU food aid arrives in the Algerian port of Oran, where the sorting between 'what should arrive and what can be diverted' takes place.

OLAF reported, for example, that Canadian wheat intended for the camps is replaced by lower quality grain, and the higher quality wheat is sold. Products for raising poultry are also sold rather than being provided to the refugees.

During all my activity in Germany, I was brought to note that an important quantity of the humanitarian aid sent to the populations of the camps of Tindouf by the German donors was systematically diverted by the members of will of the Polisario, who proceed to sell it in the south of Algeria and the north of Mauritania.

Ghoulam Najem Mouichame, former representative of the Polisario in Bremen

OLAF also reported, disturbingly, that prisoners are used for the handling of food aid, as well as for construction projects funded by aid organisations.

On June 1st of this year, Bulgarian Member of the European Parliament Ilhan Kyuchyuk formally raised the issue with the European Commission. In a written question he touches on the issue of the numbers of refugees in the camps.

Both Algeria and Polisario have consistently opposed any census in the Tindouf camps despite formal requests by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in 1977, 2003, 2005 and 2015.

Previously, in December 2015 an international group of MEPs, which included German MEP Ingbor Grassle, Chair of the European Parliaments Committee on Budgetary Control, wrote to Federica Mogherini, then High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, drawing her attention to allegations that the diversion and sale of aid was being used to raise funds for terrorist activities. Given today's situation regarding terrorism, such activities so close from EU borders are even more unacceptable, the MEPs wrote.

Conditions in the refugee camps are harsh: a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) (2014) described most living without running water in their homes, and claims of SADR security forces in the Tindouf camps torturing or physically mistreating people in their custody.

HRW also reported on the use of military courts to try civilians: a highly irregular and disturbing state of affairs.

EUToday interlocutor, Mohamed Cherif Larossi Ahmed Salem, himself spent five years in a Polisario prison for his counter-revolutionary criticisms of the organisation.

Here he gives a harrowing account of his imprisonment in inhumane conditions, and his subsequent escape from the clutches of Polisario.

The European NGOs interviewed here, and Mr Cherif, ask the European Commission and the European Parliament to shed light on this recent umpteenth misappropriation of European humanitarian aid in the Tindouf camps in Algeria and to give clear answers to European taxpayers against any squandering of European public funds just to please the false propaganda of the representatives of the Polisario Front in Europe.

Source:Gary Cartwright

Gary Cartwright is publishing editor of EU Today.

An experienced journalist and published author, he specialises in environment, energy, and defence.

He also has more than 10 years experience of working as a staff member in the EU institutions, working with political groups and MEPs in various policy areas.
IMANI President Franklin Cudjoe has urged the Education Minister to cancel the academic calendar for the year following the rise in coronavirus fatalities.

The outspoken IMANI boss in a Facebook post said it is prudent to close schools now.

I think its now not a good decision to open schools. I strongly urge the Minister of Education to recall all students and cancel the academic year.

His remark comes after the sudden death of the Forestry Commission Boss, Kweku Owusu Afriyie, alias Sir John.

Reports say the former NPP General Secretary succumbed to the deadly covid-19 virus at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

Meanwhile, the campaign manager for the New Patriotic Party for the 2020 elections Peter Mac Manu and Deputy Trade Minister Carlos Ahenkorah are also on admission at the Intensive Care Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra after contracting COVID-19.

Education and Regional Integration ministers, Mathew Opoku Prempeh and Dan Botwe are awaiting their results at the UGMC after running tests for the virus. Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman Manu is recuperating after being hit by the virus.

Ghanas COVID-19 deaths in Ghana now stand at 117 with 4,467 active cases and 13,550 recoveries, the Ghana Health Service has announced on its website.
The Social Workers Association of Ghana (SWAG) has called for immediate removal of Akuapem Poloos seven-year-old son from her custody to safeguard the child from further danger.

The workers association pleaded with its mother agency, the Department of Social Welfare, to as a matter of urgency, find an alternative care and protection for the boy.

In a press release issued by the association on Thursday, July 2, 2020, it further suggested that Akuapem Poloo should be compelled by law to undergo Psychological Diagnosis and Treatment. And also be made to undergo Training in Parenting for her own good and in the interest of her son and society.

The press release is in reaction to a publication of a photograph in the social media on Tuesday, June 30, 2020, by Miss Rosemond Brown, popularly known as Akuapem Poloo, in which she was seen completely nude in a pose with her seven (7) year old son; the publication which was supposed to mark the boys birthday.

The Childrens Act 560 of 1998 provides for maximum protection of children in need of care and protection. Akuapem Poloos behaviour is unwarranted and infringes on the rights of all children. Her illicit and indecent exposure in front of her own son is a clear sexual, moral and emotional abuse of the childs right which may remain in the mind of the child for a long time; if not treated, can haunt the child for the rest of his life. Such irresponsible behaviour on her part contravenes the rights of the child and puts not only her child but other children into psychological and sexual abuse, the association emphasized.

One cannot tell for how long such irresponsible behaviour is being meted out to her child, it further added.

SWAG also called on all stakeholders to not only condemn the act but also be involved in the protection and promotion of the rights of the vulnerable, especially children who are in need of care and protection.
The strong belief in superstitions and myths among many residents in the North East Region is a major challenge to fighting the spread of COVID-19.

The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) said the belief systems and conspiracy theories among residents in the region with regard to the disease led to grave disregard for the precautionary and safety protocols prescribed to curb the spread of the canker.

The NCCE, therefore, expressed worry and called for collective efforts from all stakeholders to demystify the misconceptions surrounding the virus to ensure that people, especially the residents of the North East Region adhere strictly to the COVID-19 protocols.

Mr Wilberforce Zangina, the Acting Regional Director, NCCE, who was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Nalerigu, said many people in the region did not believe the virus was in Ghana while others were of the view that people from the North East Region could not be infected with the virus.

These are not making residents to adhere to the safety measures put in place to fight the disease.

Some inhabitants are of the impression that COVID-19 does not exist but the elite want to create fear and panic to enable them spend state money. They also believe that the disease cannot affect people of North East Region because the Overlord of the Mamprugu Kingdom has said so even though this assertion is not true, he said.

Mr Zangina disclosed that as every region was fighting to stop the spread of the disease by suspending all social functions and gathering, funerals, naming ceremonies, weddings among others were still being performed with total disregard and non-compliance with the social distancing protocols and other preventive measures such as wearing of nose masks.

He said the empty Veronica buckets stationed at vantage points to encourage regular hand washing did not encourage people to take the disease preventive measures serious and it was rare to see anyone wearing a nose mask.

Mr Zangina indicated that the virus was real and had no cure, adding that the restrictions and protocols prescribed by the government, the Ghana Health Service and the World Health Organization were to prevent people from being infected and called for efforts to ensure compliance.

He noted that the NCCE with its mandated obligation had intensified education across many communities in all the six districts in the region and had so far carried out 280 outreach programmes as against the initial target of 204.

The Acting Regional Director indicated apart from the NCCE taking COVID-19 education to market places, street announcements and other public places, it had also engaged the security services, religious and traditional authorities, faith based organizations, youth groups among other identifiable groups on the virus and the need to avoid stigmatizing infected and recovered persons.

While expressing gratitude to some stakeholders for their support to the NCCE, Mr Zangina urged all stakeholders to join hands with NCCE to cause attitudinal change among the people towards the fight against the spread of the virus.

---GNA
Beggars at the Bolgatanga lorry station continue to ask for alms at the gates of the market without recourse to the protocols of social distancing and wearing of face masks.

The beggars, including; children, lactating mothers and the aged, said they could not afford to buy sanitizers and the face masks.

Mr Apania Kadire Issah, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the Ghana Federation of the Physically Disabled, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Bolgatanga, said arrangements and sensitization programmes to convince the beggars to join any of the Disabled Associations, to be trained in vocational skills to improve their lives had fallen on deaf ears.

Speaking on procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect members during the COVID- 19 period, the Chairman indicated that there were no funds to purchase the items and called on government to support the Federation to acquire PPE for members.

He said five groups of the disabled, including; the Ghana Association for the Blind, Ghana Society for the Physically Disabled, the hearing impaired and members of the mentally ill Association in the Upper East Region, were unhappy that they did not receive any support from government.

In spite of the challenge, the Federation, through the Department of Social Welfare was able to mobilize some money from the Assembly Common fund to sensitize its members on the pandemic and purchase PPE for those who were present at the programmes in the various communities in the Bolgatanga Municipality, he said.

Ms Mercy Pwavra, the Bolgatanga Municipal Director of the Department of Social Welfare, said though the outfit had not procured any PPE for persons with disability, it was out of place for them to go on the streets begging and urged them to link up with their leadership for support.

Meanwhile, Mr Samuel Sabuli, the Programmes Officer of the Christian Children of Canada (CCFC), in an earlier interview during a donation of PPE to various health institutions in the region, indicated that people living with disability were more vulnerable to the disease and needed special attention.

He, therefore, called for collaborative efforts by all to fight the Coronavirus pandemic.

---GNA
When Apple announced iOS 14 at WWDC 2020 last month, it boasted about some notable improvements to Siri including being more aware of the on-screen content thereby making it smarter than before. Despite the improvements though, Siri is still nowhere near as good as Google Assistant. A video by In-Depth Tech Reviews has compared Siri in iOS 14 to Google Assistant in Android 11 which shows the former lagging behind in almost all areas.

At least one of the useful improvements with Siri in iOS 14 is that it now has a new compact UI that does not take over the entire display. The comparison starts with the YouTuber opening an image in the gallery app on his Pixel 4 XL and iPhone 11 Pro and then asking the respective virtual assistants to send it to a contact on WhatsApp. The Pixel 4 XL was able to do this relatively mundane task in just one simple voice command, while Siri on the iPhone 11 Pro running iOS 14 ended up asking multiple questions and still could not send the photo. Even in other scenarios where Siri worked, it required more interactions than Google Assistant to work properly.

One can use Siri to send voice messages in iOS 14, a feature thats currently not available on Google Assistant. However, while one can ask Google Assistant to help them sleep or relax and get it to play relaxing sounds, Siri does not do anything similar. One can also use Google Assistant to get remember birthdays of their loved ones, set various reminders, etc. where Siri in iOS 14 terribly fails. In all the different comparison rounds, Google Assistant managed to easily beat Siri which clearly shows despite the improvements in iOS 14, Apple still has a lot of work to do to improve its voice assistant.

We Want to Hear From You

Has your Siri experienced improved over the years? Or have you given up on it and stopped using it completely? Do you think Apple has made some meaningful improvements to Siri in iOS 14?
President Akufo-Addo has granted amnesty to 794 prisoners in Ghana as part of efforts to decongest the prisons in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

A statement signed by the Director General of Prisons, Patrick Darko Missah, on Thursday, 2 July 2020, said: The President of the Republic, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in consultation with the Council of State, in commemoration of Workers Day, 1 May 2020, and in a bid to mitigate the dangers posed by congestion in the prisons, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, has, in accordance with Article 72 (1) of the 1992 Constitution, granted amnesty to 794 deserving prisoners.

The categories of the beneficiary convicts are as follows: first offenders, 772; very old prisoners (70 years and above) 16; seriously ill 4; death sentence commuted to life imprisonment 2.

The first offenders, totaling 772, who have served, at least, half of their sentences,16 very old prisoners and five seriously ill inmates, are to be released outright.

However, two prisoners on death row will have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

---classfmonline
President Akufo-Addo, on Thursday, 2nd July paid unannounced visits to five voter registration centres in the Greater Accra Region.

The tour took him to the Kanda Cluster of Schools Registration Centre in Ayawaso East; Abossey Okai Presby Registration Centre in Ablekuma Central; Ebenezer Funeral Parlour (1&2) Registration Centres in Weija-Gbawe; Teshie Aboma Presby Church Registration Centre in Ledzokuku; and the Super Service Registration Centre in Klottey Korle.

Accompanied by the Director of Operations at the Presidency, Lord Commey, and the Director of Communications, Eugene Arhin, President Akufo-Addo interacted with the registration officials at each of the five centres, who walked him through the processes of registering an eligible voter.

The President was told that, upon entering a registration centre, all persons are required to wear a nose mask, after which their temperatures are taken by nurses stationed at each centre.

Indeed, the Ghana Health Service has released some 7,000 community health nurses to the various registration centres.

Eligible persons are then required to wash their hands with soap under running water, before being allowed to join the queue.

At each of the centres, there was a strict adherence to social distancing, with eligible voters maintaining a one (1) metre gap, after which the voters go through the process to be registered.

President Akufo-Addo was told that the majority of persons who had turned up to be registered were in possession of the Ghana Card and passports.

A small number of persons without any of these valid ID cards submitted one completed Identification Guarantee Form, endorsed by two registered voters, to be registered and issued with a voter ID card.

After the completion of the registration process and leaving the centres, the registration officials told him that hand sanitizers had been provided for the mandatory sanitizing of hands by the eligible voters.

Visibly encouraged by the processes, the President urged the registration officials to continue to adhere to the safety protocols outlined to ensure the safety of all persons who visit the registration centres.

Interacting with some of the persons waiting in queue to be registered, the President urged them to continue to observe the COVID-19 safety protocols, whilst going through the process to be registered.

It will be recalled that during his recent broadcast to the nation, ahead of the commencement of the registration exercise, President Akufo-Addo noted that if an eligible citizen's name is not on the register, that citizen cannot exercise the right to vote, and cannot, therefore, participate in the determination of the choice of the government of the day.

It is, thus, vitally important that all eligible voters register, so, on the designated day of 7th December, they can vote to choose the President of the nation, and the Member of Parliament of their area. In effect, our vote, our thumb, is the expression of our individual sovereign power as a citizen, which we should cherish and guard at all times, he said.
Minister of Works and Housing, Samuel Atta Akyea, has indicated government's intent to prosecute persons involved in the inflated Conti project.

In response to a question in Parliament on the project, which is also known as the Accra Sewer and Storm Drainage Alleviation works, the Sector Minister said the difference in the contract sum approved between government and Conti and that approved by Parliament amounts to $55 million.

The difference, he says, cannot be traced to any justifiable expenditure.

Speaking on the intent of the Ministry, the Minister said plans in place involved a two-pronged solution tackling the criminal and civil dimensions of the handling of the project.

We intend engaging the Attorney General to do the civil [part] and then the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police Service will look at the criminal dimension, Mr. Atta Akyea said.

About the Conti Project

The CONTI project was expected to bring an end to the perennial flooding of Accra during the rainy season.

Despite being approved by Parliament on October 25, 2012, the project did not proceed as planned.

In 2013, the government of Ghana and the Conti Group of Companies of the United States of America signed a US$660 million agreement for the drainage and sewage project.

Known as the Accra Sanitation, Sewer and Storm-Water Drainage Alleviation Project, authorities said the development will control the perennial flooding as well as the sanitation challenges facing Ghana's capital, Accra.

The project was aimed at improving stormwater flow, drainage and sewer systems in the Accra Metropolitan Area with a primary focus on works within the designated flood zones in the Odaw Basin and the Korle Lagoon to alleviate the frequent flooding and improve sanitary conditions.

The focus was to tackle priority drains needing construction and upgrade drains in the following areas: Odaw Upstream, Mataheko, South Kaneshie, South Awudome, Onyasia Tributaries, Nima Main and Nima Tributaries, Sukura/Mampon Drain and the Industrial area drain.

The contract sum was in two folds; a loan agreement of US$538,299,497 between the Government of the Republic of Ghana and the United States of America for the construction of the Accra Sanitary Sewer and Storm Water Drainage Alleviation Works project; and a loan agreement of US$125,000,000 between the Government of the Republic of Ghana and Standard Chartered Bank for the construction of the Accra Sewer and Storm Water Drainage Alleviation Works project.

---citinewsroom
India's additional scrutiny of imports from China has disrupted operations at plants owned by Apple supplier Foxconn in southern India, three sources told Reuters, and other foreign firms are also facing delays as tensions between the two countries build.

Customs officers at Indian ports have held back shipments from China and sought additional clearances after deadly clashes at the disputed Himalayan border last month. The checks have been imposed without any formal order.

While several companies such as Apple and Dell have been battling to free stuck shipments, hundreds of employees at Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn's two plants in the south had no major work to do this week as shipments were delayed, sources said.

More than 150 Foxconn shipments - containing smartphone and electronic parts - were stuck at the port of Chennai, though some are being cleared slowly now, the first source said. The total number of parts in the shipments was not clear.

Foxconn's two plants in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh mainly assemble Apple and Xiaomi smartphones in the country and employ thousands of workers, many of whom stay in company-provided accommodation.

"Foxconn was in a very bad state ... lots of workers stayed at the dormitory because there was no work," said the first source.

Foxconn, Apple and Xiaomi did not respond to Reuters queries.

The finance ministry also did not respond. Two officials at the ministry, which oversees the customs department, said the inspection measures were temporary and will ease soon.

"We cannot keep checking 100% of shipments forever ... Shipments of non-Chinese companies being impacted will be cleared on priority," said one official.

While the exact impact of the disruptions is not immediately clear, the delays come when companies in India had already been battling disrupted supply chains due to coronavirus shutdowns in recent months. Business activity has only just begun to pick up.

Prominent U.S.-India lobby groups and local industry bodies have urged the Indian government to intervene.

While some delayed Dell shipments have been cleared since last week, the company had roughly 130 shipments stuck this week at Indian ports, the second source said. This included around six shipping containers with parts for servers and desktop computers, the person added.

Dell did not respond to a request for comment.

Separately, MG Motor, owned by China's SAIC, also has some shipments stuck at a port in southern India, a source close to the company told Reuters. MG started selling cars in India last year and has committed $650 million in investments.

"The whole (auto) industry will be impacted if components are stuck," the source said.

MG Motor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China's Commerce Ministry said on Thursday that it hoped India would correct its discriminatory actions against Chinese companies immediately, after India banned some Chinese mobile apps amid the border crisis.
Crude oil futures were trading flat at Rs 3,022 per barrel on July 2 as participants increased their long positions. Prices rose following a sharp fall in US crude inventory, but was weighed down by rising coronavirus cases in the US as some states tightened restrictions on businesses.

The US Energy Information Agency reported that US crude inventories declined by 7.2 million barrels for the week-ended June 26.

"Although the general bias may be on the upside, as sharp drop in US crude stocks may continue to support, persisting worries about rising virus cases worldwide might cap gains on demand recovery fears, said Ravindra Rao, VP- Head Commodity Research at Kotak Securities.

In the futures market, crude oil for July delivery touched an intraday high of Rs 3,051 and an intraday low of Rs 2,983 per barrel on MCX. So far in the current series, black gold has touched a low of Rs 1,655 and a high of Rs 3,153.

Crude oil futures for July delivery eased Rs 1, or 0.03 percent, to Rs 3,002 per barrel at 15:19 hours IST on a business turnover of 3,936 lots.

The same for August delivery slipped by Rs 1, or 0.03 percent, to Rs 3,025 per barrel on a business volume of 126 lots.

The value of July and August contracts traded so far is Rs 1,163.54 crore and Rs 3.19 crore, respectively.

Tapan Patel, Senior Analyst (Commodities), HDFC Securities, expects oil prices to trade sideways to up for the day with support at $38 and resistance at $42. "MCX July Crude Oil futures has support at Rs 2,920, with resistance at Rs 3,080."

West Texas Intermediate crude gained 0.71 percent at $40.10 per barrel, while Brent crude, the London-based international benchmark, was up 0.70 percent to $42.33 per barrel.
Ajitesh Mullick

Agri markets recovered from the early fall in prices as the IMD declared Monsoon to have covered the entire country on June 26. The normal date for Southwest Monsoon to cover the entire country is July 8  as per its statement. Therefore, the Southwest Monsoon this year has covered the entire country 12 days prior to the normal date.

This news was bearish for the agri commodity prices. Kharif crop sowing generally starts after the initial showers. Any early arrival of Monsoon rains is good for the crop sowing, its sowing area, the overall productivity and ultimately, generally leads to better production prospects. Though the overall crop production would depend on the rains during the entire Monsoon season.

Prices, however, started recovering from the middle of the week. As mentioned in our earlier report that any bearish news would have limited impact on the prices. Most agri prices have already fallen a lot over the last few months since the COVID-19 season started. Further major fall in prices may be unsustainable. Finally, as of now, even as Monsoon covers the entire Indian sub-continent, the overall rains in the critical areas of North-West and Central India still show some deficiency in many areas.

As the lockdown phase gradually gets over, the trading activities are expected to pick up in the coming weeks and months. Traders expect the exports could gradually recover. Aided by a firmness in Dollar versus Rupee, this could lend further support to the export front  and hence the prices.

Oil complex: Trend look up for the sector as fundamentals remain strong.

Refined Soybean Oil:

Strong global cues helped entire oil complex futures reverse last few days' losses. CBOT soya complex was up significantly and its impact was observed in domestic market also. Import prospects of Malaysian palm oil remain better from India while soyabean fundamentals are positive. Therefore soya oil may see more or less firm trend this week, although with capped upside.

The trade relation between India and Malaysia has improved of late, and Indian importers have resumed purchases of Malaysian palm oil last month onwards. Media reports said that large importers have finalized contract worth 2 lakh tonne of crude palm oil from Malaysia, during first fortnight of May. As per MPOA (Malaysian Palm Oil Association), production in May month can be lower versus previous month. Production losses in recent months has been mainly due to labour shortage problems due to the lockdown.

Therefore, palm oil is expected to trade with positive tone this month and shall be a positive price driver for soya oil also. Also, soybean downward trend may cease in next few days and will be positive for soya oil as well. Lowering trade war issues between US and China will be another supportive factor moving forward. July contract likely to touch Rs 820-825 per 10 kg mark by end of this week.

Soybean

CBOT soya complex was up significantly and its impact was observed in domestic market also. But near term upside will be limited as buying amongst poultry units is poor due to nominal query for the processed poultry products. It is worth noting that speculators at CBOT are expecting a recovery soon on improved prospects for US trade with China.

The money managers are maintaining a bullish stance from longer perspective. In the week ended June 23, they have increased long positions in CBOT soybean futures and options to 44,285 contracts from 21,183 a week earlier. Traders have been increasingly enthusiastic about US soybean exports to China as purchases have been relatively strong this month, and unlike corn, US soybean supplies are not expected to explode over the next year.

On the domestic front, limited arrivals in mandis and lower deposits in the exchange warehouses shall be responsible for keeping speculative buyers active in futures markets during this month also. Soybean July contract likely to touch Rs 3,850 per quintal on the upper side by end of this week.

Markets remain Bullish for the agri sector prices with intermittent profit booking noted at the higher levels. Good monsoon reports are limiting the recovery in prices as of now, but we expect that to be for the short term only. Long term trend remains Bullish.

The author is VP - Retail Research at Religare Broking.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Calls to boycott Chinese goods are intensifying every day in India after a gory border clash between the two countries. Chinese apps have been banned. Chinese businesses have been told they are not welcome.

In such an unforgiving environment, how would a brand named Chings Secret fare?

The name is as Chinese as it gets. And the packaged foods brand draws inspiration from Chinese flavours.

Hindi-Chini Tasty Tasty

To be sure, Chings Secret describes itself as a desi Chinese brand. It is owned by Capital Foods, which looked to cash in on the popularity of Chinese food in India. The company launched Chingss Secret in 1996 and the brands USP was its mixture of Indian masalas with Chinese spices.

Navin Tewari, CEO, Capital Foods, is not worried by the potential impact of the growing anti-China sentiment on his companys flagship brand. Boycott Chinese will not have any impact on our products because the Desi Chinese cuisine under Chings Secret is 100 percent created by Indians, for Indians, he said.

Chings Secret, whose brand ambassador is actor Ranveer Singh, is one of the many brands that benefitted from the demand uptick for convenience foods during the coronavirus lockdown. Sales grew in excess of 25 percent during the lockdown, according to the company.

The company focused on two aspects to capitalise on the demand for convenience food. One, it expanded production capacities. Two, it ensured seamless last-mile delivery.

Also Read | The China presence in Indian aviation that few know about

Tewari said the company, which also sells a band named Smith & Jones under product categories such as instant noodles, spices and sauces, is steadily growing across various segments.

As it happened with most FMCG players, Capital Foods too faced distribution challenges, but the spike in demand during the lockdown offset the logistics troubles.

This was largely because people were experimenting with multiple food options while at home. Restaurant visits have stopped or substantially reduced since the lockdown, said Tewari.

Capital Foods has three broad categories of noodles  Chings Secrets Hakka Noodles (veg and egg), Chings Secret Instant flavoured noodles (Schezwan, Manchurian, Hot Garlic, Singapore Curry) and Smith & Jones masala noodles.

Also Read | India-China border standoff: Another setback for IT firms looking to expand in the region?

Tewari said he expects home cooking and preference for branded alternatives to rise further. Large swathes of people are still working from home and brands like Capital Foods expect to make the most of this consumer behaviour.

During the lockdown, Capital Foods saw a greater demand for large pack sizes. This was because consumers want to reduce multiple purchases and contact especially for food articles.

In-home consumption and home-cooking rose as consumers preferred to stay indoors. The demand for bringing excitement to their regular dishes by way of easy-to-cook meals and condiments has been steadily rising, Tewari said.

Strong Anti-China Fervour

But all this happened before anti-China sentiment grew into a frenzy.

Tewari said products such as Schezwan Chutney and Desi Chinese masalas are specially curated keeping Indian cooking preferences in mind. Chings Secret has been a favourite among Indian consumers for decades together now and continues to be so. In fact, over the years India has adopted numerous international dishes and incorporated them into local tastes to such an extent, that today we are not even aware of a food items true origin, said Tewari.

To buttress his argument, Tewari pointed to samosas, biryani and halwa  food items that are originally from Persia but have become household dishes in India.

Even within India, Poha is not just a Maharashtrian dish, but a breakfast favourite everywhere. Similarly, Dosas, Pav Bhaji and Rasgulla are eaten in all states with equal enthusiasm.

Tewaris optimism notwithstanding, there seems to be no letup in the fervour against Chinese goods.

The Confederation of All India Traders, which represents brick-and-mortar retailers, has said boycott imported Chinese goods despite the loss their businesses will suffer. On Twitter, a video of people throwing a Chinese TV from a high-storey building in Gujarat went viral.

Chandramouli, CEO of TRA Research, a consumer analytics and brand insights company, saidwith the height of emotions, there might be a temporary impact on lets say Chinese restaurants may be shut for few days with political pressure but no body is going to stop making noodles or for that matter stop eating Chinese. So Chings as a brand may not see any impact of the Chinese boycott.

Tewari is sanguine. Desi Chinese from the house of Ching's Secret is an Indian cuisine is loved by Indians. So, it will continue to be favoured by Indians.

Check our coverage on India-China tensions
For public sector banks (PSBs) wanting to sell stakes in their insurance ventures, COVID-19 is giving valuation nightmares.

Consider this. In November 2019, a public sector bank was looking to sell stake in its insurance venture, with a valuation of Rs 4,700 crore. In March 2020, three investors were short-listed. But their quotes were almost 20 percent lower than the valuation because of the Coronavirus-led financial stress. The bank had to finally shelve its plan.

With PSB consolidation, banks will have to exit non-core businesses like insurance. In fact, the government, in its PSB Reforms Agenda, has suggested that banks should focus on core businesses.

But the COVID-19 outbreak has put them in a dilemma. Potential investors are either demanding a reduction in valuation or a higher stake.

Insurers, especially, life insurers, are slowly losing their bargaining power as the business itself has seen a slump. In such a scenario, investors may not want to pay the valuation demanded, said a banker specialising in insurance deals.

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

Life insurers have been facing a significant decrease in premium collection since the nationwide lockdown on March 25. Their new premium collection fell 32.2 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 25,409.30 crore in March 2020 after the lockdown. In the next two months, collections declined by 32.6 percent and 25.4 percent, respectively.

So, deals are either seeing a slump in valuation or investors are seeking more time. Sources said that private equity firms, in particular, are demanding higher stake for the same cash offer or refusing to sign deals.

Considering the low penetration of insurance (3.7 percent of the GDP) in India, marquee investment firms are now eager to invest in the sector.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), had, in 2018, allowed private equity and venture capital firms to become insurance company promoters on the condition of a minimum lock-in period of five years in investee insurers.

With the PSB Reforms Agenda in place, it is likely that several PSBs will have to pare down their stake in insurance joint ventures in the next 10-18 months. While a few private equity players have expressed interest, they are not willing to give an assurance to stay invested for more than 3-4 years.

Bank consolidation to set the ball rolling for new deals

In August 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the merger of 10 PSBs -- Punjab National Bank (PNB), Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and United Bank of India; Union Bank, Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank; Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank; Indian Bank and Allahabad Bank; under four separate entities. This has come into effect from April 1, 2020.

PSBs which have stakes in two life insurers have to bring them down over the next 10-12 months.

OBC, PNB, Canara Bank, Union Bank and Andhra Bank are promoters in life insurance companies. OBC and Canara Bank are promoters in Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance, PNB is a promoter in PNB MetLife Insurance, Union Bank is a promoter in Star Union Dai-ichi Life, and Andhra Bank is a promoter in IndiaFirst Life Insurance.

Union Bank has said that it will reduce the stake of Andhra Bank, which has now been merged with itself, in IndiaFirst Life Insurance to below 10 percent.

A similar decision to reduce stake in Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance by PNB (which now owns OBCs 23 percent stake) will be taken. PNB already holds 30 percent stake in PNB MetLife. It is likely that this transaction will be completed in FY21.

Investment bankers told Moneycontrol that banks dont want to sell at a lower-than-premium valuation while PE/VC players are quoting at least 20-25 percent lower.

Even regular stake sale deals initiated after PSB mergers are getting stuck. Investors seem to be using the COVID clause to seek deep discounts. Banks, of course, are not agreeing to this idea, said a consultant.

He added that by Q3FY21, if the lockdown is completely lifted ahead of the festive season, PE/VC investors could rethink the deal price. However, banks mandated to sell stakes to comply with regulations, will have to accept a lower price, he said.
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More than three years after he nearly bought the UK-based Port Talbot plant from Tata Steel, Indian-origin metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has repeated his offer.

"If we are offered, we are ready to look at it. We have a strong relationship with the Tata Group, and are ready to explore any kind of partnership with them," Gupta told Moneycontrol in an interview.

"The question is of Tata's drive. Am always ready," the billionaire owner of Liberty Steel Group, added. Liberty Steel is part of the $20 billion GFG Alliance, owned by the Gupta family, and operates across steel, aluminium and energy sectors.

The offer comes at a time when Tata Steel's European unit continues to struggle but could be close to clinching a life-saving deal with the UK government to get financial aid to revive the Port Talbot plant, which is located in Wales. While the company had asked for a 500-million pound aid, it is not clear yet how much the final assistance would be.

Also, a senior executive points out that the UK government will only provide assistance over a business plan that envisions the facility making money. "Right now that looks difficult," says the senior executive. There are reports that the UK government may take equity in the plant, in return for the financial assistance.

Tata Steel Europe is also facing problems in its Netherlands unit, where workers have gone on a strike.

In 2017, Gupta had taken over the speciality steel businesses of Tata Steel UK, in a deal worth about 100 million pounds. These included facilities in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth. The deal had also initially included the Port Talbot facility.

"We were one hair's breadth away from doing it," is how Gupta described the moment in an interview with BBC in 2017.

The entrepreneur continues to rue the missed opportunity. "We were ready to take over all of Tata Steel's operations in the UK. But then changes happened," he says.

Though Gupta didn't elaborate on the 'changes,' industry executives point at the developments at Bombay House, the headquarters of the Tata Group. In 2016, the then chairman Cyrus Mistry was ousted in a board room tussle. "While Mistry was keen to exit the UK steel businesses, the view changed later on," is how a senior industry executive explains it.

That Gupta continues to have an eye on Port Talbot is clear in the way he talks about the unit. "It's just a 20-minute drive from my home, where am presently residing," he says over a Microsoft Teams call.

Close to Tata Steel UK's facility is Liberty's Newport unit, which is investing on a new electric arc furnace that will use scrap to make steel, a process that now Gupta champions and calls 'GREENSTEEL.'

The turnaround

From the time he acquired units from Tata Steel, Gupta invested in the facilities, and even turned them around.

"If you look at other sales of Tata Steel UK units, including those in Teeside and Scunthorpe, neither worked out. But we have turned around Rotherham, and all the other facilities were ramped up and were making money before COVID-19 struck," says Gupta.

The Rotherham unit was producing 2.25 lakh tons of steel a year, when Gupta bought it. The businessman has already doubled the capacity and now wants to further expand it to over a million tons a year.

While the expansion plan is on, Gupta has streamlined production at all his units across Europe, to adjust to the demand slump post-COVID-19.
Parth Jindal on July 1 said the JSW Group, which includes the flagship steel business, will bring down its annual net import from China to zero, from the present $400 million, over the next two years, as a response to the violent stand-off between the two countries.

Jindal, Managing Director of JSW Cement, took to social media platform Twitter to show solidarity with the 20 Indian Army men who died in the Chinese attack.



The unprovoked attack by the Chinese on Indian soil on our brave jawaans has been a huge wake up call and a clarion call for action - we @TheJSWGroup have a net import of $400mn from China annually and we pledge to bring this down to zero in the next 24 months #BoycottChina

 Parth Jindal (@ParthJindal11) July 2, 2020

He said:

While Jindal, whose father Sajjan Jindal chairs the Group, didn't provide further details, the conglomerate makes steel, cement, runs power plants, operates ports and also sells paints.

Jindal's comments come days after the Government banned 59 Chinese apps. Shipments from China are also being closely monitored and there are reports that many tenders, including those for infrastructure projects, will be re-visited to minimise Chinese participation.
The recent order of US President Donald Trump to temporarily suspend certain categories of work visas could open a new route for remote projects, freelance gigs and offshore work for Indians.

While the order might have made it difficult for Indian engineers to immigrate to the US, the same level of work could still find its way into India.

Industry insiders who help Indian techies get placed in American and European companies told Moneycontrol that there is a rise in inquiries among companies from the US, the UK and Germany for hiring opportunities in India.

Some companies are looking to set up development centres here, while others are looking for techies who can take up freelance gigs from India.

While this trend was becoming popular because of COVID-19, the recent order on suspension of H-1B visas till December could speed up the process. H-1B visas are coveted by Indians who want to take up software and electronics engineering work in the US and chase the American dream. But restrictions on work permits and now a global pandemic has forced both companies and Indian engineers to look for those opportunities remotely.

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

We have already seen large American companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon setting up offices in countries like India. This way they attract major technology talent from the country and also manage visa and government restrictions on travel better, said Vikram Ahuja, co-founder, Talent 500, which helps global companies to source highly skilled talent from across the world.

These centres are popularly referred to as GCC or Global Capability Centres, which started as cheap resource points, but are now transforming into centres for excellence for large multinational companies.

Ahuja said that while large companies have started the trend, now even mid-tier software start-ups are looking to set up centres here. Previously, there used to be a small team here and there, but now players like AirBnB, Twitter and many series B or C funded start-ups are setting up offices, he added.

Billionaire banker Uday Kotak, in a recent tweet, highlighted this. He tweeted that it will make more sense for American companies to hire talent in India for much cheaper rates than employing someone for working remotely in the US.

Neha Bagaria who founded Jobs for Her, an employment portal specifically designed for women, however, feels it is still early days. American companies hired Indian talent since they got good quality engineers at cheaper rates, but now with the restrictions in place, whether it will push companies to go remote or push them to set up larger offshore centres here is not clear yet.

Indian start-ups are not ready to let this moment go. They are looking at this as a fresh opportunity. Global companies need talent and they need to scale up the tech teams quickly. Indian entrepreneurs are playing the role of a facilitator, where they can source tech talent from across the country and get them to work for these projects, either like a temporary gig or as a permanent employment.

Raghu Bharat, who co-founded GoScale, is positioning his platform to help global companies hire freelancers and remote gig techies. Bharat has a simple theory: not all American companies can invest in setting up a GCC; for them GoScale can manage the pay roll, hiring and compliance. This way they can get the work done and at avoid legal hassles.

To hire someone in India, you need an entire stack, a registered office, tax compliance system, hiring capabilities, and companies also need data protection, IP protection and more. We can manage all that, he said.

The bootstrapped Bengaluru-based GoScale has facilitated around 180 engineers to work on projects remotely. Itcomp has a base of over 2 lakh engineers on the platform already.

Moneycontrol had written on February 26, 2020, about how many Indian techies prefer to work remotely from their hometowns and also participate in cutting-edge technology projects.

Highlighting the reasons for this move by companies, Aditya Nagpal, who recently started Wisemonk, said that COVID-19 has anyway caused business uncertainty, which is forcing companies to hire talent for short-duration projects rather than permanent employment.

Secondly, in this era of technology innovation, companies need to hire talent quickly and the regular hiring system is time-consuming.

Platforms like Wisemonk help speed up the process, he said. Started earlier this year, the start-up has created a base of 2,000 engineers and marketers who can be hired by global companies.

Now work from home has anyway pushed companies to rethink their internal processes and remote teams make more sense in this situation, Nagpal said.

While the H-1B visa ban might be a political move, American companies need Indian tech talent. No wonder more than 70 percent H-1B visa holders are from India. After all, India is one of the few countries which can supply these companies with English-speaking tech talent at such volumes.

There is a similar talent in Poland, Canada and a bit from Mexico, but India stands unique because of its massive technology talent base which can speak English, said Ahuja of Talent100.
eye-on-india Business Insight | Double-digit growth in tractor sales: Green shoots or scattered weeds? In this edition of Business Insight, find out what is driving demand in the domestic tractor segment despite a weak auto industry
Brexit

In a bid to diversify post-Brexit trade away from the usual suspects  Europe and China, Brexit chiefs have urged the United Kingdom to instead forge a special relationship with India.

In its recent study, pro-Brexit think tank, the Foundation for Independence, urged the British Government to diversify Britains trade away from a stagnating Eurozone and a Chinese economy controlled by an increasingly belligerent government and instead forge a special relationship with India.















Economically, the report urged the government to reduce the countrys dependency on China in key areas, including the import of pharmaceuticals and Chinese direct investment in infrastructure, which pose national security threats to the UK. The study is highly critical of the Governments decision to grant Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, inclusion in the delivery of the UKs 5G network. To minimise infrastructure dependency, it calls on the Treasury to be more forthcoming in the provision of finance to meet the country's infrastructure investment needs itself.















Our exit from the European Union holds great promise for Britains underdeveloped trade relationship with India. At 17th, the UK is languishing far outside the ranks of Indias key trading partners with bilateral trade worth a modest 20.5 billion. This must be addressed, said John Longworth, Foundation Chairman and former Director-General of the British Chambers of Commerce.

Adding that there is a wealth of untapped opportunity, Longworth said the two countries could build trade relations in key areas such as business services, travel, telecommunications, IT and others.

"The drive to strengthen our already special relationship  steeped in centuries of cultural and historic ties - extends beyond simple trade ... It is our firm belief that post-Brexit Britain has both a moral and a vested interest in supporting India ... enhancing bi-lateral trade relations between the UK and India represents part of the wealth of opportunity only available to the UK and India now that Britain has left the European Union," he said.

The report released this week offers a radical new vision for an independent Britain capable of unlocking new potential and forging a bold new foreign and trade strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, as per a statement from the think tank.

The report also called upon the government to shift focus to stable, reliable, fast-growing partners, around the Pacific rim and those with similar economic development profiles to the UKs, such as South Korea and Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Commonwealth friends: Australia, Canada and New Zealand and in particular, India. The study is the first in a series of papers encouraging the UK to embrace Brexit by forging new trade relations.

Forging a UK-India Special Relationship

As per the report, Indias rapidly expanding demand in sectors central to the UK economy, such as financial services  matched with its expanding middle or consumer class  makes the country a key priority for trade development post-transition.

With Indian Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) tipped to surge in the coming years, encouraging bilateral trade should be a core focus for the Department for International Trade and on a par with the allocation of resources to EU and US trade development, it said.

Indias recent recommitment to the Commonwealth as a vehicle for economic collaboration offers an effective stage through which to cultivate improved trade links, it added, outlining measures for collaboration in commerce, education and research forums.

It also urged the government to make it easier for Indian students to study in the UK by relaxing student visa restrictions for the estimated 130 million Indian students who, by 2030, will be of a university-age; besides also having mutual recognition of masters degrees, online education, and establishing overseas university branches can further enhance these cultural links.
While the list of brands pulling advertisements off Facebook and Instagram continues to grow, a market analysis has found that the majority of the social media sites biggest advertisers are still on board. Data from Pathmatics showed most of Facebooks top ad contributors are yet to join the boycott. This means that those with the power to actually dent ad revenues are yet to pull weight.

From among Facebooks top-100 advertisers, only three companies  Pfizer, Microsoft and Starbucks, have publicly announced plans to pull advertisements off the site. Big names that are at least publicly still on board include American Express, Dominos, AT&T, Walmart, Netflix, Uber and WarnerMedia, as per a CNN Business analysis report.

Also Read: Facebook frustrates advertisers as boycott over hate speech kicks off

There are also those among the top 25 that are on the fence.

Home Depot for example issued a statement that is evaluating Facebooks future moves based on founder Mark Zuckerbergs announcements in response to the backlash. Home Depot was the social media sites biggest advertisers in 2019, alone contributing $178.5 million in ad revenues.

Procter & Gamble  the sites seventh biggest advertiser with $92.3 million spend in 2019 - said a comprehensive review was on and action will be taken if it is determined that standards are not met. A similar evaluation statement was also made by Wells Fargo spokesperson, who added they were pleased with Facebooks additional steps to stop hate speech.

Notably, all mentioned companies are among the top 25 advertisers on the platform and together contributed close to $2 billion or 3 percent of Facebooks ad revenues in FY19.

But, data further suggests that even if all 100 companies join in the boycott ad revenues may only be limited to as much as 6 percent, the report said. The company generated $70 billion in ads last year  most of which was drawn from small and medium businesses.

Aldo Read: Why have so many companies decided against advertising on Facebook?

While brand names pulling public support is a cause for concern, reports quoted Zuckerberg tell employees via email that these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.

Facebook spokesperson Tom Channick confirmed this to CNN Business: "We're making real progress keeping hate speech off our platform, and we don't benefit from this kind of content. We make policy changes based on principles, not revenue pressures.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case of cheating and forgery against GVK Group, chairman GVK Reddy, his son, GV Sanjay Reddy, Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) and nine other companies for allegedly siphoning off Rs 705 crore from the airport.

The FIR was registered on June 27 after the agency searched six locations in Mumbai and Hyderabad, including offices of GVK group and MIAL. CBI officers also visited the residences of GVK Reddy in the two cities and that of Sanjay Reddy, who is the managing director of MIAL.

MIAL is a joint venture between Hyderabad-based GVK Groups GVK Airports Holdings Limited, Airports Authority of India (AAI) and some foreign companies. GVK Group has a 50.05 percent stake while that of AAI is 26 percent.

AAI had in 2006 signed an agreement with MIAL for modernisation, operation and maintenance of the Mumbai airport. MIAL was to share 38.7 percent of its revenue with the AAI as an annual fee, the agreement said.

The CBIs charges against the GVK group can be broadly divided into four categoriessiphoning off money through bogus work contracts, diversion of funds to group companies, inflated expenditure and underreporting of airport earnings to meet personal expenses of promoters and their families. The alleged irregularities were spread over a six-year period, from 2012 to 2018

'Bogus' work contract

The AAI gave a 200-acre land parcel near the Mumbai airport to MIAL for development and generative revenue, the CBI said. But MIAL in 2017 allegedly entered into a bogus contract with Aishwaryagiri Construction Pvt Ltd, Kotia Enterprises Ltd, SBK Trade & Infrastructure, Subhash Infra, Aqua Tech Solutions, MV Omni Projects, Richa Industries, Nice Projects and Aditi Infrabuild for real estate development, the agency said.

MIAL transferred around Rs 310 crore to these nine companies but no work was carried out, causing a loss to the Airport Authority of India, it said.

The nine companies also took fake input credit, which resulted in a loss to the exchequer.

Misuse and diversion of funds

GVK group allegedly misused Rs 395 crore reserved funds of MIAL to finance its other companies. As per source information from 2012 onwards, the promoter of GVK used surplus funds of MIAL (to the) tune of Rs 395 crore to finance their own other group companies, the CBI said in the FIR.

The promoters created forged MIAL board resolutions authorising them to keep the reserve in the form of a fixed deposit with a public sector bank in Hyderabad though MIAL is a Mumbai-based company, the FIR said.

GVK used overdraft facilities and loans on this FDR. They have given benefits to other companies at the expense of MIAL. Similarly, the company has used surplus funds of MIAL in Hyderabad in other nationalised banks and availed loans and overdraft facility, it said.

Inflated expenditure

The CBI has accused the GVK group of inflating expenditure of MIAL. It said employees of other GVK group companies who had nothing to do with the airport were shown on the payrolls of MIAL, causing a loss to the AAI.

Revenue loss

The GVK group connived with the family members and employees to give undue monetary advantage to it and to cause loss to AAI, the CBI said. As part of the conspiracy, they assigned the premium retail areas of Mumbai airport to their family members at exorbitantly low rates, thereby reducing the revenue of MIAL," the CBI said.

The GVK promoters also used MIAL funds for booking air tickets and hotel stay of family members.

This the second time in as many years that GVK group is facing scrutiny over Mumbai airport. Last year, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs conducted an inspection of the group companies on a whistleblowers complaint that also included MIAL.

The CBI is likely to share information with income tax authorities as companies used fake input credits, sources said. The agency is expected to call in company officials for questioning during the week.
The US administration might have banned the H1-B visas till year-end, but the grand American dream is far from over for Indians.

Now, US investor visa EB-5 is getting its mojo back. The demand is driven by current H-1B and H4 visa holders in the US and India as uncertainty around immigration mounts, say experts.

What is more important is that this increased interest is coming after a steep hike in the investment amount for the visa from $500,000 to $900,000, and at a time when the global economy is witnessing a slowdown.

Abhinav Lohia, Director, South Asia and the Middle East, CanAm Investor Services, an immigration services firm, said: What we are seeing is a sudden surge in EB-5 since the first proclamation in April, after a steep slump between December and March.

A majority of the enquiries are from the current Indian H-1B and H4 visa holders, who are worried about their status in the US after living and working there for decades. As uncertainty mounts, those who can afford it are looking at EB-5 visas that could guarantee a Green Card that H-1B could not, he added.

Surge in demand

The demand for EB-5 visas saw a steep decline between December 2019 and March 2020 after the minimum investment criteria was hiked from $500,000 to $900,000 from November 2019.

Earlier also, when H1-B visa rules were tightened in 2017, there was a sudden attraction for the EB-5 route.

However, it stopped after the investment amount was hiked. Pankaj Joshi, Managing Director, Nysa Global, said that there were zero queries for EB-5 till March 2020, and his company even shifted focus to other geographies such as Canada and Europe.

The COVID-19 pandemic did not help either as capital-raising proved tough, Lohia pointed out. However, the proclamation banning immigration at the back of COVID-19 has changed the situation.

What is happening now?

After zero business for close to five months, the first surge of queries emerged after April 22, when the first US executive order banning immigration for 60 days was issued. The second wave of queries, this time more than double, started after June 22 when visas such as H-1B were banned till the end of the year.

From zero or maybe one or two to 15-20 queries per month is huge. We are also seeing actual business conversion rate of 20-30 percent, Lohia said.

Why this mad rush again?

For one, Indians continue to aspire to work and live in the US. Also, recent times have seen a huge backlash against H-1B visa holders in the US.

Take, for instance, the issues they faced since the Trump administration took over in 2017. In the last three years, thousands of techies have returned home and we are looking at another exodus at the back of the pandemic and stringent visa regulations that continue around H-1B visas.

In addition, there are over 5 lakh Indians waiting for Green Cards. A report estimated that it would take up to 150 years before these Indians get their GC, which translates to never. That is why Indians who can afford it are looking at fast-tracking their Green Card through the EB-5 route, so that it could benefit their children.

Unlike H-1B visa holders, getting your hands on a Green Card through EB-5 takes only 3-5 years. There is a country cap of 700 per year for EB-5 visas, which India reached in July 2019.

The H-1B visa is granted by the US to 85,000 highly -skilled workers every year, mostly in the technology industry. H1-B visa means work permit validity in the US for up to 6 years. H-4 visas are for the dependents of H-1B visa holders.
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Among all the sectors that lost the most in the first half of the calendar year 2020, banks emerged at the top.

Sensex and Nifty50 fell 15 percent each so far in the year 2020, compared to 13 percent fall seen in the S&P BSE Midcap index, and 10 percent decline seen in the S&P BSE Smallcap index.

Among the sectoral losers, banks lost the most, falling 34 percent, followed by realty and metal that lost 31 percent each.

A slowing economy and impact of the COVID-19 outbreak have severely affected bank credit growth.

On a year-on-year basis, the non-food credit growth slowed to just 6.8 percent as of May 22, 2020 compared to 11.4 percent in the previous year. So far in this fiscal year, growth has actually contracted by 2 percent.

In Q4FY20, the Indian banking system witnessed a significant correction amid fears of the emergence of COVID-19 and its impact on business growth and asset quality.

With lenders preparing for an unforeseen rise in NPA, provisioning remained elevated impacting the profitability of many players, brokerage firm ICICI Direct pointed out.

"The economic slowdown kept business growth in single digits, which further got accentuated by lockdown amid COVID-19. Moratorium by the RBI kept asset quality stable though a revival in repayment (post end of the moratorium in August) remains uncertain," ICICI Direct said.

The proportion of moratorium varied vastly with large private banks at 20-30% book in moratorium while mid-sized banks reported nearly 35-70 percent based on the composition of the book (higher for microfinance, CV, LAP, etc).

NBFCs have 50-70 percent book under moratorium and are trying to manage liquidity as the majority did not receive moratorium from banks, said ICICI Direct.

Five public sector banks (PSBs)  State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India (BOI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), Canara Bank and Bank of Baroda (BoB)  have at least Rs 7.9 lakh crore worth of loans under moratorium.

This amount, which is nearly 20 percent of all local advances, includes loans that were stressed even before the coronavirus pandemic affected the economy, Mint reported.

ICICI Direct expects the advance growth to remain muted in FY21E. MSME segment may witness traction as banks are disbursing loans under credit guarantee schemes, while traction in the retail segment is likely to remain more stringent due to risk averseness.

"As ambiguity remains on the assessment of moratorium by each lender, it is difficult to ascertain faith in asset quality. However, exposure to smaller ticket size loans in rural areas and essential services (for example MFI loans) along with home loans in retail space are expected to revive faster," said ICICI Direct.

A gradual slowdown in the economy has been leading to a deceleration in credit growth since April 2019. As per ICICI Direct, growth in advances was reported in single digits at 6.7 percent in FY20 to Rs 92.1 lakh crore.

The slowdown in economic activity has been further accentuated by the emergence of COVID-19. Lockdown and falling confidence level of consumers is expected to lead to a contraction in GDP in FY21E.

These factors may keep the advances growth moderate in bare minimum positive territory.

Moreover, a lockdown in the first two months of the fiscal and a gradual recovery in CAPEX, discretionary spending in the unlock period are seen impacting fresh disbursements; lower repayment amid moratorium is likely to keep credit growth at multi-year low.

ICICI Direct points out that the corporate segment is expected to bear the brunt led by a gradual uptick in capacity utilisation and the absence of large CAPEX plans.

Job losses, pay cuts, reduction in discretionary spending and increasing caution of lenders on unsecured lending are seen impacting growth in the retail segment ahead.

Global brokerage firm CLSA is of the view that the growth of banks continues to moderate.

The brokerage expects the overall loan growth and retail segment to moderate to 0-2 percent and 5 percent in FY21.

For the top four private banks, CLSA expects loan growth to moderate to 4-8 percent in FY21. The market share gains will drive loan growth to 15 percent for the top four private banks by the end of the year 2022, CLSA said.

Financial firm UBS believes FY21 pre-provision operating profit (PPOP) is also at risk due to narrowing margins and reduced fee income.

"We expect gross NPL formation (slippage) ratios of 7 percent/5 percent in FY21/FY22 (against 8 percent/6 percent earlier) in our base case and 10 percent/7.5 percent in our downside scenario. We cut our FY21-22 earnings estimates for large private banks 2-31 percent," UBS said.

UBS said it is cautious on banks asset quality, given the weak macro backdrop.

"NPL risks from SME and self-employed remain high, and we fear a portion of corporate loans is also vulnerable," UBS said.

"We use UBS Evidence Lab data on more than 13,000 companies to assess the relative asset quality risks. As per our analysis, IndusInd has a relatively higher exposure to vulnerable corporates, at 24.7 percent of total loans. Kotak also has greater-than-expected exposure to vulnerable corporates, at 13.4 percent of total loans. The recent data on collection and activity has improved from a low base and we would watch this trend to calibrate our asset quality views," said UBS.

The least-preferred stocks by UBS are IndusInd, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. It said it prefers ICICI Bank and Axis Bank due to their retail liability franchises and inexpensive valuations.

The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
The first half of the eventful calendar year 2020 is over now.

Even as the year saw market benchmarks hitting all-time highs in the first month, there is hardly anything that investors will cherish about the year, thanks to the unprecedented disruption caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

After the all-time high of January, markets embarked on a bumpy journey in the subsequent months due to lacklustre Budget 2020, COVID-19, global cues and weak macroeconomic indicators.

Both Sensex and Nifty50 were down by 15 percent each in the first half of 2020, compared to 13 percent fall seen in the S&P BSE Midcap index, and 10 percent decline seen in the S&P BSE Smallcap index.

Most sectoral indices have suffered losses in the year so far, barring BSE Healthcare, which surged 21 percent, and BSE Telecom, which jumped 17 percent.

Among the sectoral losers, banks, realty and metal lost most, falling 34 percent, 31 percent and 31 percent, respectively. BSE FMCG lost the least, just 1 percent.

Uncertainty looms but hope prevails

As long as the issue of COVID-19 does not come under control, the cloud of uncertainty will continue to loom.

"At the end of the result season and after a number of management commentaries, the crux is that everyone is trying to be hopeful but the cloud of uncertainty still looms. Most industries are still dangling on the hopes of a revival in demand and the lockdown opening completely with free movement of trade, travel, labour and no bottlenecks in supply chains," said Nirali Shah, Senior Research Analyst, Samco Securities.

Markets are facing massive divergence as the macroeconomic situation is completely different from the movement of indices.

Investors are looking for avenues to invest and are inadvertently inching towards the already strong performing large-caps. But analysts are of the view that prices will soon align with the economy and markets will correct.

"It is better to be patient and invest selectively only in companies that have high cash, robust books with minimal to zero debt, high return ratios, strong management and a smooth working capital cycle. Allocate capital in various asset classes to remain diversified," advises Shah.

However, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services believes in terms of business, the second half of the year will be much better.

"If the virus threat reduces, the economy will be opened completely improving the business outlook. Otherwise too, the economy will be gradually opened leading to quarter on quarter rise in business. During the last 6 months, some sectors have not experienced losses given the stability in its type of business, while in the stock market they have outperformed," Nair said.

How are sectors likely to perform

Shah of Samco Securities believes that telecom is comparatively well-placed given that there are mere 3 players and it seems that for now the ARPUs have bottomed out, while pharma will be event-driven.

"There is a lot of potential to capture given the rising need for broadband and data amidst social distancing and other restrictions," Shah said.

"Pharma is expected to be extremely event-driven as any news related to a vaccine or cure will spike up sales. Volatility will be extremely high in the pharma space."

Auto and metals are likely to see some recovery.

"Autos and metals have experienced a lot of pain in the past few years and are expected to witness recovery in growth on a year-on-year basis. Also, as the manufacturing cycle begins both these sectors will experience a pick-up in demand," Shah said.

As far as private banks are concerned, despite the moratorium, they could witness less pain than their public counterparts as they have sufficient liquidity and several banks are in the process of raising excess capital to safeguard their books, Shah said.

This can cushion the pain to a sizeable extent, however, NPA deterioration is still expected.

NBFCs will undergo a re-rating as the pain from the MSME and SME segment will be huge while realty is expected to remain slow as the need for savings will overpower the need for big purchases, Shah said.

Rusmik Oza, Executive Vice President and Head of Fundamental Research at Kotak Securities believes telecom could still continue to outperform because of improved business outlook on the back of rising tariffs.

On the other hand, he sees limited upside in pharma, IT and FMCG as the recent run-up has led their valuations to go closer to the higher end.

From the still beaten down sectors like oil & gas, capital goods, consumer durables and realty, Oza expects oil & gas to outperform meaningfully in the medium-term.

"Capital goods sector will take some time to recovery as orders could be delayed to the second half of this fiscal year. After a quick jump due to pent up demand we expect the consumer durable demand to get impacted due to delay in discretionary spending," Oza said.

"Realty will also take some time to recover because of social distancing and very high ticket spending," Oza added.

Nair of Geojit Financial Services believes pharma, chemicals, FMCG and export-oriented business may emerge as the outperformers while infrastructure, capital goods, consumer durables and auto will be the underperformers.

Jyoti Roy, DVP Equity Strategist, Angel Broking has a positive stance on sectors like agrochemicals, chemicals, FMCG, pharma and telecom.

Roy said select consumer discretionary like auto, especially two-wheelers and tractors, given strong demand in rural India, are also looking attractive.

The analyst expects that sectors like aviation, travel, hotels, retail and real estate are likely to underperform the markets going forward given that they will be adversely impacted for a longer period, given the nature of their business.

The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
The Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) on July 2 said it is surprised by the case registered against it by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

MIAL said it would have provided all assistance to the agency had a preliminary inquiry been initiated or any explanation or document was sought.

"MIAL is surprised to note the registration of case by CBI against MIAL and others. MIAL would have provided every assistance had the agency sought explanation or any document even if a preliminary enquiry had been initiated. MIAL is a transparent and responsible corporate entity which is committed to co-operate with the agency in its investigation to arrive at the truth," spokesperson for MIAL said.

The CBI has registered a case of cheating and forgery against GVK Group chairman GVK Reddy, his son, GV Sanjay Reddy, MIAL and nine other companies for allegedly siphoning off Rs 705 crore from the airport.

MIAL is a joint venture between Hyderabad-based GVK Groups GVK Airports Holdings Limited, Airports Authority of India (AAI) and some foreign companies. GVK Group has a 50.05 percent stake while that of AAI is 26 percent.

Read More | In CBIs case against GVK: Bogus work contract, inflated expenses, fund diversion and hotel stays

An FIR was registered on June 27 after the agency searched six locations in Mumbai and Hyderabad, including offices of GVK group and MIAL. CBI officers also visited the residences of GVK Reddy in the two cities and that of Sanjay Reddy, who is the managing director of MIAL.

Promoters of GVK group in MIAL in connivance with their executives and unidentified officials of AAI siphoned off the funds using various means, the FIR said. It also alleges that the funds were siphoned off using bogus work contracts, misusing surplus funds of MIAL, inflating the company's expenses, and under-reporting revenue.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to speed up automated teller machine (ATM ) upgrades in accordance with the norms issued by the central bank over the last two years. These include installing digital locks, new cassette-swapping system, ATM operating system upgrade, and stepping up of electronic surveillance at ATMs. The deadline for implementing these norms is drawing close.

Banks have, however, said they did not have sufficient remuneration for the upgrades and that their cost analysis found that expenses would be higher than the RBIs estimate, sources told The Economic Times.

For example, RBI puts cassette swap estimates at Rs 160 crore but industry pegs it at Rs 3,000 crore.

The cassette swap could raise banks expenses and indirectly hit interchange and customer fees by 15 percent, a report by an RBI-appointed panel led by VG Kannan, who is the head of the Indian Banks Association, has said.

The central bank, which expected the upgrade to be done in a phased manner, and was asking banks for updates, sources added.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

At present less than 5 percent of ATMs have been upgraded, a source told the paper, adding, Most acquirer banks who operate ATMs are waiting for a hike in interchange rates or some compensation mechanism to cover for these costs.

A banker told the paper that ATM providers are bearing the cost of upgrades and that they have taken up the process on priority following communication from the regulator.

ATM operators confirmed that ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank have completed e-surveillance compliance, while J&K Bank, Punjab and Sindh Bank, Uco Bank, Cosmos Bank and Federal Bank have now started the upgrade process.

RBI did not respond to queries, as per the report.
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One particular billionaire by the name of Jeff Bezos is having his net worth skyrocket through its previous known peak, even after he has recently relinquished a quarter of his own stake in Amazon.com Inc. due to his recent divorce settlement that took place last year.

The shares of this Seattle-based retailer surged a whopping 4.4% to a new record of $2,878.70 on Wednesday. This boosted the billionaire's world-leading fortune to an amazing $171.6 billion! This definitely tops his well-known previous wealth of $167.7 billion that was set up on September 4, 2018, according to the previous Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Jeff Bezos' biggest gains so far

His gains were recorded as $56.7 billion for this year along which is an underscore in the widening wealth gap that exists in the United States during the current worst economic downturn ever since the Great Depression. Initial public offerings, otherwise known as IPOs, and their buoyant equity markets have already bolstered mega-fortunes and all of these happened while tens of millions of individuals have lost their only jobs.

Just this week, after receiving several complaints about ending the pandemic hazard pay, Amazon noted that it would spend just about $500 million in order to give one-time $500 bonuses to almost all of their front-line workers. The company has also declined to comment on its founder's own wealth.

Amazon has definitely been on a tear, with the global pandemic accelerating and the consumers shift towards e-commerce from the usual brick-and-mortar retail, Bezos owns a solid 11% of the entire stock, which compromises the huge bulk of his personal fortune.

Read Also: Elon Musk Congratulates Staff in His Letter: Was Tesla Able to Make a Profit Despite the Coronavirus?

New billionaires including the Amazon divorcee

Most of those billionaires with the biggest wealth gains have been hailing from the tech sector. These include companies like Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk who had another $25.8 billion added to his net worth since January 1, Zoom founder Eric Yuan who has just about quadrupled his net worth to $13.1 billion.

Other people who have gained from these companies are Mackenzie Bezos who then acquired a 4% stake in the whole Amazon company after the couple had split, shooting her net worth up to %56.9 billion and has even climbed all the way to number 12 on Bloomberg's own ranking. She recently was seen leapfrogging Alice Walton along with Julia Flesher Koch to finally become the world's own second-wealthiest woman and even now trails only L'Oreal heiress known as Francoise Bettencourt Meyers.

The shocking losers

Not every billionaire has been able to come out ahead this current year. Spain's own Amancio Ortega, the powerful titan behind the known Zara fast-fashion brand, has already lost $19.2 billion, which is the most out of anyone on the existing Bloomberg Index. Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s very own Warren Buffet has had his wealth drop by $19 billion!

Read Also: How Elon Musk Celebrated His 49th Birthday: Here's What You May Not Know About the Guy
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The relaxation on ATM withdrawal given to customers by the banks for three months has ended on June 30 and it has not been extended further. As there is no further relaxation given, State Bank of India (SBI) has revised its ATM withdrawal rules.

In the last three months, SBI waived service charges for all ATM transactions made on SBI ATMs, as well as other bank ATMs, on exceeding free number of transactions. This decision was taken after Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman's announcement on March 24.

Also read: ATM cash withdrawal rules: Current relaxations may go from July 1

SBI new ATM withdrawal rules - All you need to know

- SBI will give eight free transactions, including five transactions at SBI ATMs and three transactions at other bank ATMs in six metro centres (Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad) to account holders with up to Rs 25,000 Average Monthly Balance in their savings bank account.

- SBI account holders with Average Monthly Balance above Rs 25,000 and up to 50,000 will get 8 free transactions at other bank ATMs ( 3 in metros, 5 non-metros).

- An unlimited transaction at State Bank Group (SBG) ATMs will be allowed by SBI to its customers maintaining an average balance of more than Rs 25,000 in their savings accounts.

- Customers maintaining an average balance of above Rs 50,000 and up to Rs 1,00,000 in their savings account will get eight free transactions at other bank ATMs (three in metros, five non-metros).

Also read: Unlock 2.0: Banks will charge for these services from July 1

- Maintaining an average balance of more than Rs 1,00,000 in the savings account, then that customers will get unlimited transactions at SBG ATMs as well as other banks ATMs.

- For any additional financial transactions beyond the set limit, SBI will levy a fee ranging from Rs 10 plus GST to Rs 20 plus GST.

- For any additional non- financial transactions beyond the set limit, SBI will charge a fee ranging from Rs 5 plus GST to Rs 8 plus GST.

- For transaction decline due to insufficient balance, the bank will charge a fee of Rs 20 plus GST.

- SBI will allow one way interchangeability for branch transactions on ATM transactions. It means a customer will be allowed a maximum of 10 free debit transactions at 6 Metro centres at SBI ATMs and maximum 12 free debit transactions at other centre ATMs (If no transaction at other Bank ATM and no transaction at the branch).

- SBI will offer free unlimited transactions at SBG ATMs and other bank ATMs for all salary accounts at all locations.
The Indian stock market continues trading in the green as investors clung on to hopes of a vaccine for COVID-19. Sensex is up 360.82 points or 1.02 percent at 35775.27, and the Nifty up 101.00 points or 0.97 percent at 10531.

Among the sectors, the IT index gained 2 percent led by gains from Infosys which jumped over 3 percent. It was one of the top index gainers. It was also one of the most active stocks on NSE in terms of value with 88,31,546 shares being traded at 11:45 hours.

The other gainers included NIIT Tech, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Mindtree which gained 2 percent each.

Global research firm CLSA is of the view that investors should focus on outlook rather than results. It sees limited relevance of headline financials in Q1FY21 results adding that investors focus should be on order booking andrevenue decline, according to a report by CNBC-TV18.

The research firm further said that cost-structure deflation would be a long-term positive adding that Infosys and HCL Tech being the key picks. It expects 5-8 percent QoQ decline in dollar revenue for larger players in Q1.

S&P BSE IT gained over 2 percent. The top gainers included AXISCADES Engineering, Infibeam Avenue, eClerx Services, Mphasis, Ramco System, Zensar Tech and Zen Technologies among others.

Ashish Chaturmohta, Head of Technical and Derivatives, Sanctum Wealth Management has a buy recommendation on Tata Consultancy Services with target at Rs 2410. The stock has been correcting in narrow range for last few weeks. MACD line on the weekly chart has moved above the equilibrium level of zero on the weekly charts as well which indicates positive bias, he added.

: 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.
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Eveready Industries share price jumped over 3 percent in the morning trade on July 2 after the company reported three-fold jump in its net profit at Rs 179.57 crore for the financial year 2019-20.

Eveready Industries India Ltd on July 1 reported over three-fold jump in its net profit at Rs 179.57 crore for FY2019-20, compared to Rs 47.26 crore in the last fiscal. Net profit surged multi fold to Rs 63.73 crore as against Rs 4.04 crore in Q4 FY19 in the January-March quarter of FY20.

The stock price surged over 78 percent in the last 3 months and was trading at Rs 89.65, up Rs 2.80, or 3.22 percent at 09:34 hours. It has touched a 52-week high of Rs 94.80. The scrip also witnessed spurt in volume by more than 1.62 times and was trading with volumes of 32,578 shares, compared to its five day average of 22,245 shares, an increase of 46.45 percent.

The company in a filing to the exchanges said that at the Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company held on July 1, Aditya Khaitan, Vice Chairman, has been designated as the Chairman of t he Company.

EBITDA was down 1 percent YoY to Rs 121.13 crore in FY20 while EBITDA margin stood at 10 percent in FY20 against 8.4 percent in FY19.

According to Moneycontrol SWOT Analysis powered by Trendlyne, Eveready Industries has decreasing promoter pledge while the stock is showing strong momentum with price above short, medium and long term moving averages.

Moneycontrol technical rating is very bullish with moving averages and technical indicators being bullish.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
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The government is considering placing restrictions on companies based in countries "illegally occupying Indian territory", amid rising border tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), according to a report in The Economic Times.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

The Centre's plan also comes at a time when the government has announced a push for locally manufactured goods to make the economy self-reliant.

Also read: A trade war with China would hurt India more

High-level discussions have begun to evaluate the proposal and its business impact, and assess its implementation, The Economic Times reported.

The new rules will be enforced through changes in the Public Procurement (Preference to 'Make in India') Order of 2017, sources told the publication. Changes will also be made to the General Financial Rules.

The proposal is being evaluated carefully due to its 'high sensitivity' and consequences on diplomatic ties with China, the report added.

The government had in April modified foreign direct investment (FDI) norms, allowing companies from neighbouring countries to invest through the approval route only.

Check our coverage on India-China tension
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Moody's Investors Service on Thursday said the amendments to India's bank resolution framework are credit positive as they will help preserve depositor confidence.

On June 26 the government amended the Banking Regulation Act, 1948, allowing the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to initiate the resolution of a weak bank by reconstructing its capital or merging it with another bank without the prior requirement of imposing a moratorium on its depositors or creditors.

The amended resolution process is credit positive because it will help preserve depositor confidence and avoid deposit flight from a weak bank as the risk of a moratorium is reduced, Moody's said in a statement.

The amendments are also credit positive for the bank's depositors and creditors because their ability to obtain full and timely repayments during the resolution process are unaffected, it afford.

Moody's said before the amendments, the RBI could only initiate the resolution process of a weak bank after seeking approval from the government to impose a moratorium on the bank's assets and liabilities for up to six months.

In March, RBI had imposed a moratorium on Yes Bank because of its weakening solvency and liquidity. Although the moratorium was lifted after 14 days, the bank saw a significant outflow of deposits in the run up to the moratorium and after it was lifted, the rating agency said.

Between December 2019 and March 2020, the bank's deposits fell 36 percent leading to sharp deterioration in its liquidity.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Assam governments decision to allow conversion of land without clearances for setting up industries has stirred a hornets nest, with the Opposition and civil society organisations calling the move anti-indigenous people.

The latest move marks a complete U-turn from the governments earlier stand, as in December last year, it had promised to bring a law to protect land rights for indigenous people in its bid to quell the protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). The CAA grants citizenship to religious minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Organisations representing the states indigenous people have been opposing the controversial legislation, fearing that it would encourage more immigration to the resource-starved state, resulting in the eventual loss of their land.

The new ordinance

In a historic and far-reaching decision to ease out the process of setting up industries in Assam, State Cabinet has approved an ordinance today. Now any one will be able to set up industry in Assam just by submitting one self-declaration, Assam industries and commerce minister Chandra Mohan Patowary announced on Twitter on Monday.

The minister further said, no permission will be required for three years, and the land will be deemed converted for industrial purpose. The government is believed to have sent the ordinance, which is not available in public domain yet, to Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi for approval.

Perhaps the harshest criticism for the state governments latest move came from Niloy Dutta, senior lawyer and member of the high-powered committee constituted by the Union home ministry for the implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. Most anti indigenous decision by the Assam Cabinet today to allow indiscriminate conversion of agricultural land for non agricultural purposes without permission of Revenue authorities. Land speculators will benefit. Non locals will take over all rural land of indigenous people, Dutta tweeted.

Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, which was signed by the Centre, the Assam government, the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) in 1985, states, Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguardsshall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.

The panel, which submitted its report to the Centre earlier this year, is believed to have recommended land rights, introduction of Inner Line Permit to restrict the entry of outsiders to Assam, as well as cultural and linguistic demands, among others.

BJPs twin failures?

In 2016, the BJP-led coalition came to power in Assam on the planks of Jati, Mati, Bheti (community, land and base), promising to make the state free of illegal immigrants and protect the rights of the states indigenous population. And it seems to have failed on both these counts.

First -- the process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, aimed at weeding out illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, was a complete mess as it left out only 1.9 million people from the list while including more than 31.1 million names. The state government is now exploring legal options for re-verification of names in the final list released in August last year following fears that a large number of suspected people made it to the list.

The second setback was the CAA, as it defeated the very purpose of updating the NRC in Assam, which set March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for entry of people into India, irrespective of their religions. The amended citizenship law has shifted this date to December 31, 2014, and grants citizenship to immigrants on the basis of their religions.

In December last year, Assam had witnessed violent protests against CAA as indigenous groups in the state saw this move as a betrayal by the BJP-led central government. Not only in Assam, but the CAA had sparked off nation-wide outrage with opposition parties and rights groups dubbing it anti-Constitutional.

Land a sensitive issue

In January this year, the Sarbananda Sonowal government had set a target of giving 1 lakh land deeds to the states landless people in a bid to quell fears that CAA would encourage entry of Bangladeshi Hindu migrants, thereby threatening the land, language and culture of indigenous people of Assam. The chief minister also claimed that his government had already distributed 50,000 land deeds among sons of the soil since it came to power.

However, the latest ordinance is likely to pose a challenge in protecting the land rights of indigenous people. Allowing industries to set up without any clearance from the revenue department solely on the basis of a self-declaration form will hit the land rights of Assamese people and make the state a playground for industrialists from outside. We want this ordinance revoked at the earliest, said Lurinjyoti Gogoi, general secretary of the AASU, which was at the forefront of the anti-CAA stir in Assam.

Needless to say that land is a sensitive issue in Assam and the rest of the Northeast, one of the most ethnically diverse regions in India. In Assam, land rights are protected in tribal areas, but there have been demands to create similar provisions in the rest of the state as well to protect the land of non-tribal indigenous population.

Interestingly, the latest ordinance comes at a time when the state government is supposed to submit its recommendation to the Centre on the granting of scheduled tribe status to six communities in the state -- Chutias, Motoks, Morans, Koch-Rajbongshis, Tai-Ahoms and tea tribes. Last year, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) had cleared the proposal on this matter . It is yet to be seen how the Centre and the state move forward in view of challenges posed by this new ordinance.

Jayanta Kalita is a senior journalist and author based in Delhi. He writes on issues related to Indias Northeast. The views are personal.
For over three months now, Bhawna Sharma Ningthoujam has been working double shifts, working her day job as well as doing the daily household chores. What has come handy for the Noida-based communication professional in balancing her home, work and 10-year-old daughter, Gema, is churning out a hassle-free breakfast, using a variety of ready-to-eat variants.

"Its quick, convenient and tasty," says Ningthoujam, alluding to Maggi noodles, upma and poha, which she makes in the morning on alternate days. Her routine, though, has become stretched by a few minutes. "Earlier it was two-minute Maggi, now its four-minute poha and upma," she smiles. "But I am not complaining," she retorts quickly.

Nestle, the maker of Maggi noodles, doesnt have any reasons to complain either. The demand for noodles reportedly surged over 20 to 25 percent over the pre-lockdown period. In fact, nobody knows the nirvana of instant food, and magic of branding minutes better than Maggi, the two-minute meal.

"Maggi," reckons Nikhil Chand, director (foods and confectionery) at Nestle India, "provides convenience to lives, and brings taste and goodness in minutes. Just add hot water, and in four minutes, a steaming bowl of upma or poha can be served."

Yes, its not noodles. This time, its upma and pohatraditional Indian breakfast foodin ready-to-eat and cook formats.

After cementing its place in households across the countryaided amply by aggressive marketing and branding of Maggi noodlesNestle is now trying to go deeper into the kitchen. Though both the products (poha and upma) were rolled out last December in portable cupstargeting out-of-home consumptionthe company has recently launched flexible packs. The target now is in-house consumption.

With work-from-home becoming the new normal, and likely to continue over the next few months, there has been a spike in home indulgence. Consumers, Chand says, are finding different platforms of engagement, whether it is convenience of getting brands that they would have otherwise not consumed, or experimenting with new forms of cuisine and cooking. In-home consumption and seeking essential products on the table has become an important behaviour, he maintains. The response to upma and poha, he adds, has been positive.

Analysts are not surprised with Nestles bullishness. The ready-to-eat (RTE) market, which was worth around Rs 2,800 crore last year, has been growing at 17 to 18 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past four years. While factors such as increased distribution, urbanisation, nuclear families and double-income households with busy lifestyles have been driving growth, COVID-19 and the resultant lockdown has acted as a catalyst for the segment.

People are still sceptical about the safety of ordering cooked food, says Rohan Agarwal, director at RedSeer, a marketing research firm. In fact, the volumes on food delivery platforms are down by about 65 percent.

Consumers, Agarwal says, are likely to adopt RTE products even for occasions when they were ordering cooked food from outside. The RTE market is expected to grow sharply, he adds.

Nestle, reckon industry experts, is well poised to make most of this inflection point in the RTE category. The reasons are not hard to fathom: extensive distribution reach, the brand pull of Maggi, and a deeper understanding of the Indian palate.

This is what has helped Nestle crack the noodles market with Maggi, points Abneesh Roy, executive vice president at Edelweiss Securities. And this is what gives Nestle an edge over rivals like MTR, who have been in this space for long, he says. Maggi and Nestle, Roy stresses, understands Indian taste better than most. So they stand a good chance to take a stab at the RTE space with poha and upma, he says.

Can Nestle find its next Maggi moment in upma and poha? Well, this might turn out to be their best chance to add more successful products under the Maggi stable, and live up to its instant billing, say branding experts.

Nestle, by and large, is an instant foods company, says Harish Bijoor, who runs an eponymous consulting firm. The company, he explains, makes instant milk (Milkmaid), instant coffee (Nescafe,) and instant noodles (Maggi). The new quest for success may well lie in creating instant quintessential Indian foods, for the future. The time is surely right, he says, adding that time is a valued currency. Thats why two-minute Maggi, four-minute Poha and 30-minute Dominos, he smiles.

The going, though, might not be easy. The biggest challenge starts at cracking the product, Bijoor explains. There are eight primary types of poha in the breakfast and snack mix of India. The poha at Indore, he points out, is very different form the batata poha in Mumbai. Arriving at the right poha for India is certainly a challenge, he adds.

Chand, for his part, reckons that Nestle India has always played to its intrinsic strength. Brand Maggi has always stood for taste, goodness and convenience, he says.

Back in Noida, Gema and her mother are busy savouring the new products from the Maggi stable. Tastes good, looks promising, says Ningthoujam. Ask her if upma and poha can be the next Maggi, and she laughs at the comparison. Noodles is two minutes, others are four minutes, she says.

"There lies the difference."

(This story was first published at Forbes India)
Representative image

India has recorded over 6.04 lakh cases of the novel coronavirus and 17,834 deaths, according to the Union Health Ministry's latest update.

Of these, 2,26,947 are active cases while 3,59,859 have recovered.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of infections, followed by Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Gujarat.

Globally, more than 1.06 crore infections and over 5.1 lakh deaths have been reported due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Here are all the latest updates:

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 total number of recoveries has fast outgrown the number of active COVID-19 cases, with the difference between the two being 1.32 lakh at present, the Union health ministry said.

>> Chennai is currently the Indian city that is worst affected by the novel coronavirus, reporting over 2000 infections almost every day. Chennai recorded 2,393 new cases on June 30, charting the maximum number of new cases reported from a city in India and the second-highest in the world, after Los Angeles.

>> The Centre said that Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) monuments including Taj Mahal, Red Fort etc can open from July 6.

>> The United States reported yet another record daily number of new coronavirus infections  over 50,700 cases  according to a tally being kept by Johns Hopkins University.

>> Goa opened its borders to domestic tourists as hotels in the popular tourism destination opened for bookings.

>> Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope ruled out community transmission of COVID-19 in the worst-affected state in India.

>> India crossed the nine million-mark with respect to COVID-19 testing.

>> Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated Delhi's first plasma bank. He appealed to people to donate their plasma to treat novel coronavirus patients.
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A Kerala state-run company is preparing for commercial production of India's most inexpensive emergency ventilator. The ventilator produced by Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceuticals (KSDP) could cost Rs 7,500-8,000, according to a report by The Financial Express.

Follow our LIVE blog for updates on the COVID-19 pandemic

The portable ventilator to be manufactured by KSDP is based on a model developed by NIT-Calicut. At present, the lowest-priced non-invasive ventilator used to treat COVID-19 patients costs around Rs 15,000.

"We expect to go into production by July-end, provided we get go-ahead from Kerala Government and from ICMR. The prototype by NIT researchers had been vetted and validated by doctors at Calicut Medical College," CM Chandrababu, Chairman, KSDP told the publication.

KSDP has already set up a manufacturing plant, which has the capacity to produce 200 ventilators in a month.

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

Approvals are unlikely to be delayed since there is a short-supply of ventilators in the country during the COVID-19 outbreak, the report said.

"We could cut the costs of production because except for its German imported top quality air vacuum system, all components are indigenous," Chandrababu told Financial Express.

Though KSDP usually manufactures medicines, it has been preparing to manufacture medical devices since March, at the request of the Kerala government.

Follow our full coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here
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The government of India has sought to expedite the process of granting of visas to medical experts for their visit to Pakistan in an effort to assess the mental condition of believed-to-be Indian prisoners of unsound mind, said the Ministry of External Affairs.

In a statement issued on July 1, the MEA further said that India has also asked the neighbouring country to organise a visit of the Joint Judicial Committee to Pakistan and to organise an early visit of the four-member team to Karachi with regard to release and repatriation of Indian fishing boats.

India put the demand in front of Pakistan during the biannual exchange of lists of civilian prisoners and fishermen in each other's custody.

Both the countries exchange the list of prisoners in keeping with the provisions of the 2008 Agreement under which such lists are exchanged every year on January 1 and July 1.

India handed over lists of 265 Pakistani civilian prisoners and 97 fishermen in its custody to Pakistan, the ministry said.

Similarly, Pakistan has shared lists of 54 civilian prisoners and 270 fishermen in its custody, who are Indians or believed-to-be Indians, the MEA said.

The Indian government has called for early release and repatriation of civilian prisoners, missing Indian defence personnel and fishermen, along with their boats, from Pakistan's custody, it said.

In this context, Pakistan was asked to expedite the release and repatriation of seven Indian civilian prisoners and 106 Indian fishermen to India whose nationality has been confirmed and conveyed to Pakistan, the MEA said.

Pakistan has also been asked to provide immediate consular access to Indian fishermen and 18 believed-to-be Indian civilian prisoners who are in Pakistan's custody, it said.

Further, India has urged Pakistan to expedite necessary action at its end to confirm the nationality status of 88 Pakistani prisoners, including fishermen, whose repatriation is pending for want of nationality confirmation by Pakistan, said the ministry.

(With inputs from PTI)
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A couple of days after New Delhi banned apps with Chinese links, Republican leader and Indian American Nikki Haley said that India was continuing to show that it won't back down from a Chinese aggression.

India, on June 29, banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including the hugely popular TikTok and UC Browser, for engaging in "activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".

The ban came against the backdrop of the current stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual control in eastern Ladakh. The tension escalated manifold after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on June 15. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details.

"Good to see India ban 59 popular apps owned by Chinese firms, including TikTok, which counts India as one of its largest markets," Haley tweeted on July 1.

"India is continuing to show it won't back down from China's aggression," the former US Ambassador to the UN said in a tweet hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed India's decision in this regard.

Pompeo, on July 1, welcomed New Delhi's decision to ban dozens of apps with Chinese links, saying it will "boost India's integrity and national security."

"We welcome India's ban on certain mobile apps that serves as an appendage of the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) surveillance State," Pompeo told reporters at a news conference held at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.

"India's clean app approach will boost India's sovereignty. It will also boost India's integrity and national security," he said.

In an interview to Fox News, Republican Senator Marco Rubio supported India's move to ban Chinese apps.

"Yes, they're not only appropriate, they're long overdue," he said when asked about steps like banning Chinese apps by India and the US taking action against Huawei and ZTE.

According to MIT Technology Review India has a huge smartphone user base and English-speaking population, which make it the world's largest social media market. India is also TikTok's biggest market, with nearly 191 million downloads at the end of 2019; the US is at a distant second with nearly 41 million, it stated.

"India's Chinese app ban is a new diplomatic maneuver. India and China have opened a new front in their ongoing skirmish. Both countries are nuclear powers and economic giants, but India's ban is notable for using social media as a tool to exert political pressure on its rival," MIT Technology Review said.

Forbes magazine said that the ban on TikTok has left many influencers and influencer managers bereft of work and in shock.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on July 2 said it will suspend court work till July 10 after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

As per the NCLAT statement, another staff member tested positive for the virus on June 26 and work was suspended until July 3.

"... The Hon'ble Acting Chairperson, Honorable Members, Officers of the Registry and the staff of this Appellate Tribunal coming in contact with the affected official, directly or otherwise, were subjected to COVID-19 test after collection of their nasal swabs by a team of doctors from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on June 29 and 30," NCLAT said, adding that one of them tested positive for the virus.

"... For ensuring personal safety of all concerned and to prevent any peril or hazard to human life it has been decided to extend the suspension of court work to enable all concerned to observe home quarantine," NCLAT said.
JEE Main 2020 and NEET 2020 exam dates have been postponed to September, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokriyal announced. The JEE Main 2020 will be held between September 1 to 6, JEE Advanced will be held on September 27 and NEET 2020 exam date is now September 13, Pokhriyal said.

Pokhriyal had set up a committee on July 2 to review the situation for conducting the examinations which recommended the postponement. Parents and students had begun rallying against the National Testing Academy to clarify on NEET exam date 2020 and for JEE Main 2020 news.

Read: JEE Main 2020 postponed to September 1-6, NEET 2020 on September 13

FitIndiaTalks

. However, he only announced during the talk that a decision on the exam dates will be made in the next few hours and appealed to the students to be patient.

Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' said on Thursday that a panel will review the situation for conducting medical and engineering entrance exams NEET 2020 and JEE Main 2020 exams.



Looking at the prevailing circumstances & requests received from students & parents appearing for #JEE & #NEET examinations, a committee consisting of @DG_NTA & other experts has been advised to review the situation & submit its recommendations to @HRDMinistry latest by tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/xByKLUqAIc

 Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) July 2, 2020

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

Students were particularly seeking a decision after the Telangana government postponed all the Common Entrance Tests (CETs) in the state. The medical entrance exam NEET 2020 was scheduled for July 26 and engineering entrance exam JEE Main 2020 was slated to be held from July 18 to 23.

Reports suggest several parents of aspiring doctors and engineers have also begun writing to the examination council seeking postponement of NEET 2020 and JEE Mains 2020 in the wake of lockdown extension in several states. A letter was said to be written by India Wide Parents Association to the HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank citing reasons why they believe the examinations should be postponed. This doesnt affect the lives of only students, it will have a direct impact on the health and safety of the whole nation considering the nature of the Coronavirus, the letter reportedly read.

Meanwhile, the NTA has also reportedly received requests from parents of students in the Gulf countries to either postpone NEET 2020 or set up international test centres there. Given the international travel restrictions, they argued that their children will have to travel in an evacuation flight or in a chartered flight arranged by authorities to appear for the exams.

A TNN report suggests nearly 4,000 such Indian students from the Gulf with a majority hailing from Kerala have moved the Supreme Court on July 2 with the appeal to get the NEET 2020 exam postponed or direct NTA to set up centres there.

Over 15 lakh applications are reportedly received for NEET 2020 examinations held to shortlist undergraduate medical and BDS courses.

A similar plea has reportedly also been filed before the Kerala High Court but was denied by the bench.

Another report though suggests some Indian students are in favour of retaining the original NEET 2020 UG exam date of July 26.



Ignorance leads to blunders!

If the gov is not learning from this then it's really matter of concern that they don't care anymore!

Please go and prepare your fake sympathetic speeches that you will give on news channel after our exam ! #RIPNTA @drharshvardhan @DrRPNishank https://t.co/KrLphJsLia

 Gauri (@Gauriiiiiii10) July 2, 2020



Why the goverment is creating so kuch confusion.? Why don't they say once that neet will be conducted on 26july surely? They are playing with future ofmore than 30 lakh students #PostponeNEETandJEE #RIPNTA @drharshvardhan @DrRPNishank https://t.co/FnyAlhuert

 Nidhi pratihast (@PratihastNidhi) July 2, 2020



#RIPNTA @DG_NTA #FitIndiaTalks

You are wasting our several crucial hours indirectly on keeping quiet over queries regarding news exam dates.

Why dont you think about our compaign. Remember " Smart professionals like docs & ER's are key asset of Developing nation" Save student! pic.twitter.com/jRc6zErZ9w

 ANANT KUMAR SINGH (@anantjnv2515) July 2, 2020

Twitter is currently flooded with posts containing the hashtag #RIPNTA.

ICAI CA exam July 2020 is another major exam that students are awaiting clarity on. As per the latest development, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) told the Supreme Court (SC). The institute sought time till July 10 to contact the centres and assess if the ICAI exam July 2020 can be conducted.

After the Central Board of Secondary Education had cancelled the pending the CBSE Class 10 and Class 12 board exams and the ICSE had followed suit, the Centre had urged the NTA to consider modifying the academic calendar for JEE and NEET too.

The CBSE and ICSE boards will now evaluate students based on exams conducted earlier in February and March, and as per the internal assessments. CBSE 10th and 12th board exam results are likely to be declared around July 15.

Meanwhile, as per the new guidelines issued by the government, all schools and colleges have been ordered to remain shut till July 31.
Akshay Munjal.

From selling bicycles to having dozens of business ventures, the Hero Group has come a long way. And after watching the business acumen of their fathers and forefathers, the third generation entrepreneurs are all set to write their own destiny.

In an exclusive telephonic interaction with Moneycontrol's Priyanka Sahay, Akshay Munjal, Partner, Survam Partners, President, BML Munjal University and son of Suman Kant Munjal, Brijmohan Lall Munjal's second son, talks about the investment strategy of his family office fund, Survam Capital.

He explains why he would not get swayed away by startups witnessing positive trends just because of COVID-19 and his decision to not invest in businesses that deal with alcohol. Survam invests in startups as well as venture capital funds. Startups such as BharatPe and Bellatrix Aerospace have raised money from Survam while VCs including Fireside Ventures and Sixth Sense Ventures have it as their limited partners.

Edited excerpts:

Q. You are investing in startups through Survam Partners. What are the criteria you are looking at before making investments, especially at a time when COVID-19 has brought in so much uncertainly in the market?

Akshay Munjal: Post-COVID, a lot of trends have accelerated but we look at businesses without a trend because trends come and go. We invest our own money. It is not third-party money. We look at the uniqueness of a business, founder's background, the ability to execute and their ability to create long term value because we don't come in and move out in a couple of years. We like to stay for the long run. At times we see great founders but not a great idea; however, they have managed to pivot. On the other hand, there are great ideas but founders are not very motivated and there things don't work. At the end of the day we are betting on people and human dynamics.

What sort of infrastructure have you put in place in terms of people? Who are your guiding forces when you close a deal?

A: We have two levels. First, there is an internal filtration and then it goes to the investment committee. And in that, we try and involve all the people who are part of the Survam family office. We ask them if it is actually making sense. What is the thesis? Why do we believe what we believe in? And once that's cleared, it goes to the formal investment committee.

I actually work with the team. My father and other members don't get involved at that level. They only come when we have a formal investment committee.

A:

That typically is around half a million dollars.We have done two or three up rounds. But those are the rounds we don't lead because we normally come in pre-Series A and after that, somebody does a Series A or a Series B then we try and protect our equity percentage. For example, if we have taken 10 percent earlier and now the company is raising a Series A we will try and ensure that we remain at 10 percent and don't get diluted.

Q. How many startups have you already invested in through Survam?

A: 18.

Q. Are you a board member across any of these startups?

A: We don't take board seats. We are board observers. In fact, in the earlier ones we were not but in the last two years, what we have done is that we have taken a lot of rights and we have become board observers.

Q. Why is that important?

A: We also had experiences. I do not want to name but there were one or two companies where it didn't play out as expected and without having any rights, it was becoming sort of a black box. We had no idea what was happening on the board. We were not getting enough information or update.

Q. What are the rights we are talking about here?

A: Essentially information rights, board observer, affirmative voting rights, etc.

Q. So, fair to say it took you some time to realise how important it was for investors to keep their rights robust so that they are not taken lightly?

Q. Are you looking at fresh investments in India right now? And across which all sectors?

A: Correct, because at the end of the day if you look at a pre-Series A, investors are investing behind the founders. Unlike the public markets where you can take an exit and walk off, here your say is very limited. If a thing is going well, everybody is happy; when things go bad that's when the problem starts. That is the time when you really want to know what happened, is there any way you can help out. Otherwise when things are well then it is all fun and game.

A: We are, actually. We have been looking at gaming not just because of COVID but because so far we have not been able to close any opportunity. Then ed-tech is something I am very close to because of the background and the university. So we are closely looking at things there. Because we think ed-tech, gaming and cybersecurity, right now they are hot but these are the trends that are not going to go away.

Q. How many deals are currently active on your table?

A: Around 6-7. These are across sectors such as educational toys, drones, fin-tech, etc.

Q. This is a time when a lot of investors are actually backing out from their prior commitments. A lot of term sheets have been pulled back. While investors are interested in deals, these are for very selective sectors. What do you have to say to this?

A: We have also seen that and have come across many instances where the term sheets have been pulled back. There are certain sectors that are working and others are not. But if you have to take a longer-term horizon, which is if this company will survive and create value for the next 10 years, then these current trends don't become that important. So the things (startups) we liked even before COVID, we are still talking to them on the same terms.

Q. Have you also kept any of your term sheets on hold?

A: There were one or two term sheets where the company only collapsed because of COVID. But others are continuing.

Q. So, according to you, COVID is a problem but you cannot be making all your investments given the requirements of COVID.

A: Correct. So at the end of the day, we will find a vaccine. These are painful times. It will take us six months, a year or two years to be better from where we are. Given the technology we have today and given the recourse that everybody is working on it 24 hours, I am sure we will find a vaccine sooner than later and at that time recovery would happen and we want to be there.

Q. There are a bunch of young generation entrepreneurs including that your large business family has. How often are you guys taken for grooming sessions by your uncles Pawan Kant Munjal, Sunil Kant Munjal or your father Suman Kant Munjal. What sort of dos and don'ts do you have to abide by?

A: In our family, for us, it is very clear that we got to protect our family name and its reputation. So there are some sectors that we don't invest in. We don't go into alcohol, etc. And we also give a lot of premium to what's the value system of the founders because at the end of the day what we have learned from our elders is that values are more important than short term gain or loss. So that is one thing we are very careful about.
The governments interim order banning 59 mobile applications (apps) of Chinese origin citing a potential threat to national security and sovereignty was almost surely prompted by the tensions with China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the nationalist sentiments against all things from the Middle Kingdom. But the decision, hasty as it is, should be utilised to examine carefully our policies and protocols to prevent malicious apps from any state or non-state player being distributed in the country.

The knee-jerk order has provoked the usual responses. One set of people are happy because they feel that it is the first step towards a complete economic boycott of Chinese goods, however outlandish the idea may seem. The other set of people see it as nothing more than a ridiculous distraction because it does nothing to substantially reduce our dependence on Chinese goods or hurt Chinas economy. They also worry that TikTok, Bigo Live and other apps have set up operations in the country providing employment to hundreds of people apart from giving a chance to ordinary Indians to become social media influencers.

Those views have merit but neither set of people are discussing one crucial issue  does India have robust protocols to check the spread of malicious apps in the country? What is the guarantee that malicious, data stealing apps from one country will not be replaced by another one from another country? It is an issue that goes far beyond the current spat with China. While Chinese apps have long been under the scanner in multiple countries, some apps from other countries such as Russia and Pakistan have also come under suspicion from time to time.

Chinese apps  and especially TikTok from ByteDance  have been under scrutiny in both the US and EU. The worries about TikTok and other Chinese apps stem from a few things. Most apps, Chinese or otherwise, seek permission to capture far more data than is actually required. This data is often stored in servers in China. The US and EU have expressed worries about this data being accessed by the Chinese government despite the apps saying that no such sharing takes place.

The other worry is that these apps have built-in backdoors that can be used to spread malicious digital viruses or take control of the users handset and crucial financial and other data. The last apprehension specifically about TikTok is that as a highly popular social media platform it can be used by the Chinese to spread the kind of messages it wants to its viewers.

The fact that TikTok and BigoLive and others are wildly popular apps often downloaded by even government employees only raises the worries about potential risks. The issue had also been flagged by the RSS affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch for a couple of years now though the government always dismissed it as unfounded. In fact, as late as mid-March this year, Union Minister of State for Home, G Kishan Reddy had told the Lok Sabha that the government had received no inputs suggesting a counter-intelligence threat to the country.

Reports suggest that the government has offered the opportunity to TikTok and the others to meet government stakeholders and submit their clarifications to allay the governments concerns. But before the meeting, the government itself needs to be clear as to what its stance on security, data integrity and data privacy is. This is where not enough work has been done despite the Data Privacy Bill that was introduced in Parliament in December 2019.

Much of the debate around the Data Protection Bill focused around the Indian governments ability to access data of individuals and of course the worries about whether Aadhaar would provide too much data on individuals to the government. It also put a lot of emphasis on data privacy of individuals, especially financial data, that was being captured by companies ranging from Google to financial intermediaries such as Mastercard and Visa.

What has not been discussed or examined in detail has been whether there is a robust enough process to vet and examine apps being allowed to be displayed in Google Playstore or Apple Appstore in India for threats to capturing and stealing data or monitoring vital information.

It is time to revisit the Bill to see if these concerns have been taken care of and to ensure that we have not only the right clauses but also build up the right capabilities to ensure that some rogue player does not threaten national security by introducing a malicious app.

Once this framework has been decided, it also needs to implement it strictly and ensure that the monitoring is done properly. And that would mean working closely with both hardware and software players to ensure that norms are formed. For example, it could mean ensuring that Google and Apple have clear instructions about the vetting that an app needs to go through before being introduced for the Indian market. Both Google and Apple, the dominant players with app ecosystems have their own protocols before they give permission for an app to be introduced and they take into account national laws before introducing them. The government also needs to ensure that players like Xiaomi who have been allowed to manufacture and sell handsets in the country do not pre-load apps (like the UC Browser or DU battery saver) without permission from authorities when they sell their devices.

But the allowing or banning of apps should be done based on a proper set of data protection and national security rules  and not as a knee-jerk response. That would be a mature response from a mature government.
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No sooner the attacks, then the accusations followed. The operation to clear the Karachi Stock Exchange from the attack by four terrorists had hardly ended when Pakistani officials were on Twitter blaming fascist India for the attack. That included Prime Ministers Special Assistant Moeed Yusuf, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quershi and most recently, Prime Minister Khan himself. Its a strange turn of events. For months, Khan has been warning of a false flag operation from India, which implies that India would stage a terrorist attack on its own soil and blame Pakistan. Now it appears that the reverse has happened.

Consider a few details. Three of the attackers were identified as being from Kech, Balochistan, with officials citing a claim on Twitter by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). The Sindh Rangers Director General proudly told journalists that the whole operation had been finished in eight minutes from start to finish. That is a world record, and raises the possibility as to whether the whole terrorist plan was known from the start. The BLA has some of the most hardened fighters within its ranks. In 2018, it had the nerve to attack the Chinese consulate in Karachi, in one of the most secure zones in the country. The leaders of that attack were killed in Kandahar within a month.

Clearly, Chinese pressure matters. With Chinese companies owning a forty per cent stake in the KSE, Beijing is likely to buy Islamabads story of Indian involvement, hook line and sinker. Suitable evidence will be produced, with the Foreign Minister laying the ground in mid-June on Indian sleeper cells active in the country. That suits Islamabads playbook, given the glee with which Pakistanis have watched the India-China conflict at the border. It seems Pakistan is involved in its own false flag operation, the alternative being that it is a genuine BLA operation, staggeringly poorly done. That doesnt seem to indicate much training.

Indias sympathy for the Baloch cause, hasnt done them much good. They have been betrayed time and again, from Indira Gandhi  who promised assistance and then cried off - to the present leadership. In August 2016 PM Modi spoke of the Baloch cause from the ramparts of Red Fort, with nothing heard since. A bitter Baloch migrant once told this author, that India should not talk of assistance if it doesnt mean to carry it through. The charge of Indian assistance has led to Pakistans agencies wreaking havoc on the people, lifting youth from their homes in a strategy of Enforced disappearances and mutilated bodies found later. One assessment is that some 45,000 men, women and children have gone missing. A Baloch journalist covering the issue, was recently killed in Sweden, where he had fled to, indicating the reach of the ISI. The brutality has gone up since the advent of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which Baloch bitterly call the China Punjab Corridor.

Home to the gas fields that power Pakistan, Balochistan has always been something of a colony. With the CPEC, that has worsened. Its not just the Gwadar Deep Sea Port, now under lease to China for 99 years and which provide no jobs for locals. There is the HUBCO Coal power project carried out by the China Power Hub Generation Company ( Private) Limited. Government reports exposed inflated costs by Chinese IPPs in the power sector with excess payments to the tune of PKR 291 billion that also involved officials close to the Prime Minister. Projects like the Gwadar Nawabshah LNG terminal are yet to see the light of day. The Bostan Industrial Zone spread over a thousand acres, was notified as a CPEC project only in March 2020, after Baloch parliamentarians protested that they had no benefits from CPEC despite giving their land and resources for the grand project. To the insurgents, the CPEC is a sign of yet another foreign occupation. To the state government, it is another sign of Punjabi dominance.

That the Baloch hate the Chinese almost as much as they hate Pakistan is therefore evident. But the KSE attack seems far too amateurish, for the BLA. Imran Khan on the other hand, may find this a reprieve from the several scandals that have dogged him over the last two weeks; his own comment on the martyrdom of Bin Laden, the suspension of Pakistani pilots by various airlines as it emerged that one in three pilots had fake licenses, and the open rift between his party and allies apparent during the budget session. Theres little to cheer. Happily, the traditional enemy is always available for an outraged blame game. Hating India has always been an escape route for a regime under stress. Thats a falsity thats more than the flag.
Who would have imagined that a pandemic would lead to a push for central bank innovations? But this is indeed happening in the space of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The spread of the virus has led to concerns over using physical cash for payments despite limited evidence of the cash being a carrier. This has propelled central banks into thinking of rolling a CBDC quicker than thought initially.

In an earlier piece, I had highlighted how the central banks of China and France are racing ahead in CBDCs largely to counter the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar. It is interesting to note that both these central banks have taken immediate steps to get their CBDCs rolling post the outbreak of the pandemic.

First, on March 27, 2020, Banque De France (BDF) released a call for applications to experiment with a CBDC for interbank settlements. The term interbank settlements is important here. There are two categories of payment and settlement systems: retail and wholesale/interbank. Retail payment systems involve individuals and households making payments for goods and services. They pay using either cash -- which is central bank money -- or deposit -- which is commercial bank money. In the wholesale, or interbank, payment system, banks and financial entities pay and settle transactions among themselves. These payments could be to enable households/firms to pay/transfer funds from one bank to other or for banks to pay other banks for borrowing funds.

BDF clearly is targeting a CBDC for the interbank/wholesale market. This market is anyway largely digitised across the world. The question is how the existing network will transfer e-dollars or e-euros seamlessly. Once successful here, it can transition to a retail version as well. It is interesting to note that BDF is a member of the European Monetary Union with the ECB as the main player. There are 18 other central banks of the Union and their views differ with respect to digital currencies. Hence, it is unclear how this CBDC project will evolve as France implementing it alone may not work.

Second, on April 28, 2020, the Peoples Bank of China in a release announced that the PBC will explore modern information technologies to empower finance for the benefits of the public and enterprises, help solve the problems of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and private enterprises, such as the difficulties in and high costs of financing, and the last-mile problem of financial inclusion, support pandemic containment and resumption of work and production, and improve the quality of financial services for the real economy.

The PBC had run a pilot project in Beijing in December 2019, and in April 2020 announced that it supports the expansion of the same pilot to cover the six cities of Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Suzhou, as well as Xiongan New Area of Hebei.

The central bank watchers (such as central banking.com) attributed this pilot project to Chinese testing their CBDC in the six new cities. Thus, in China, CBDC is no more at an experiment stage and is actually being tested for usage. Unlike France, China's CBDC is broader in scope and is being tested for multiple purposes such as financing of MSE and public enterprises and for last-mile financial inclusion.

Apart from China and France, let us look at other countries. Sweden was the first to start a CBDC project for a very different reason of people not using cash. The project started in 2017 and the central bank has already released two reports evaluating CBDC prospects. The reports have suggested that Sweden should offer CBDC as a valued-based system compared to account-based system. In the former, the CBDC will be issued in digital wallets whereas in the latter, one can open an account at the central bank.

As per latest news in February 2020, Swedens Riksbank was partnering with Accenture to construct a technical platform for CBDC. The project aims to allow CBDC to be stored in a digital wallet and make payments via wearables such as smart watches, and cards. The project also aims to make payments when in offline mode. The network will be managed by the central bank alone, but open to expansion. It will also be less energy intensive compared to say, a bitcoin network.

Riksbank has also been releasing highly readable research papers to understand various dimensions of issuing a CBDC. For instance, one research paper analysed the impact of CBDC on seignorage. The research presented several scenarios under which seignorage can rise, decline or stay constant.

The Bank of Canada is another central bank which has been releasing interesting research papers on CBDC. The broad idea is that CBDC should mimic the features of the physical cash while giving benefits of technology and looks at issues such as security and privacy in depth. One research proposes that CBDC should be universally accessible and be available in a standalone device which will enable payments even in offline mode.

To sum up, the pandemic has not just quickened the pace for digital payments, but also for CBDCs. The pandemics lead to centralization of forces and one sees this in the space of digital currencies too with private digital currency players (earlier piece) more or less fading away and CBDC taking the centre-stage. The Chinese have emerged as the frontrunners in the CBDC race with some European central banks not really far behind. The RBI also has to quickly get into the race and figure whether and how they would approach this area of CBDCs.
Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti Thursday appeared in person before a special CBI court here conducting trial in the 1992 Babri mosque demolition case.

The CBI court is currently recording the statements of 32 accused under CrPC section 313 (court's power to examine the accused), a stage in the trial that follows the examination of prosecution witnesses.

She is the 19th accused to depose before the court in the over 27-year-old case.
File image of Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi (left) and CM Nitish Kumar

The Election Commission (EC) recently sent a letter to 150 registered political parties in Bihar directing them to disclose reasons for giving poll tickets to candidates with criminal records. This has led to jitters within political parties in the state.

This comes as the political activity in Patna picks up ahead of the Legislative Assembly election scheduled for October-November. The term of the incumbent Bihar Legislative Assembly ends on November 29.

While this directive was sent in tandem with the Supreme Courts February ruling, it has returned undelivered from addresses of 20 party headquarters, The New Indian Express has reported. The report adds that the poll body has taken serious note of the matter.

In a key order, the apex court directed in February that political parties must inform voters why they had picked candidates with criminal cases pending against them. Political parties will also have to publish details of criminal records of their candidates in newspapers and on social media platforms within 48 hours.

Earlier, a candidates criminal record would only be declared in his or her election affidavit.

SC also pointed out that the "ability to win by a candidate with criminal antecedents" could not be the only justification furnished by the parties.

The election in Bihar would be the first since the top courts ruling.

The newspaper has quoted Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari as saying that the SC should clarify what kind of cases should be pending against the candidates and then take a stand.

However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that it will abide by the directive.

Meanwhile, Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra has said that COVID-19 patients in Bihar would be allowed to vote through postal ballot. Chandra said the Law Ministry had accepted the poll panels proposal and a new category of "COVID-19 suspect or affected persons" has been added under Rule 27A of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.

Bihar will be the first state in the country that will go to polls since the COVID-19 outbreak. So far, the poll panel has not indicated the election being postponed.

To ensure that voters practice social distancing, EC is likely to cap the number of voters at each polling booth to 1,000, instead of 1,600.
(Image courtesy: Embassy Industrial Parks)

The demand for warehouses is expected to fall in the short term and rents, too, will be under pressure due to the coronavirus pandemic but the segment has overall seen healthy growth in the last three years, a report has said.

On the institutional investment side, the sector has seen investment volume going from 125 million dollars in 2016 to 2.3 billion dollars in 2017. In 2018 and 2019, it was recorded at 2.2 billion dollars and 1.8 billion dollars, respectively, India Warehousing Market Report2020 by property consultants Knight Frank India has said.

In 2020, the investor activity was subdued on account of the pandemic, it said.

Despite the economic slowdown and the pandemic, warehousing market has remained largely resilient, recording a growth of 44 percent CAGR in the last three years, said Shishir Baijal, chairman and managing director, Knight Frank India.

The viral outbreak led to large-scale supply chain disruptions. Automobile, consumer durables, engineering were some segments that would experience a slowdown thus impacting warehousing demand, whereas e-commerce, FMCG and third-party logistics (3PL) were likely to enhance their footprint, the report 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 land committed to warehousing in the top eight cities of the country could add 193 million square feet of new warehousing supply, the report has said.

The currently committed land is estimated at 21,163 acres, which has the potential of adding 63 percent more supply to already existing 307 mn sq ft of warehousing stock, the report has said.

Warehousing demand has seen a strong growth in the last few years and recorded a significant rise of 44 percent CAGR since 2017, mostly after the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Three of the eight markets --Hyderabad (2.19), Ahmedabad (2.09) and Chennai (2.02)--rank high on Knight Franks Development Potential Multiple.

Despite a slowdown, warehousing leasing activity saw healthy demand in Mumbai (8% YoY), Pune (42% YoY) and Ahmedabad (5% YoY) in FY2020.

Rents in Grade A properties for FY2020 remained stable ranging from Rs 13-32 per sq ft per month for FY 2020. Cap rates saw a significant decline in the previous decade from 12-15 percent in 2011 to 8.5-9.5 percent in 2019.

GST led to a transformative shift to efficiency-based location and size strategy rather than the erstwhile tax- saving focused objective.

The real-estate asset class has seen a robust compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for the period FY2017-2020. Post GST, the asset class has received institutional investment commitments of 6.5 billion dollars.

As per the report, warehousing demand in secondary markets has seen a growth of 20 percent in FY 2020. Secondary market is still at a nascent stage, contributing around 13 percent to overall demand. Out of 11 cities, Patna and Jaipur noted more than 3X growth of 200 percent and 223 percent respectively in FY2020

Demand has especially been strong from industries such as 3PL, E-commerce, FMCG and pharmaceutical, which is expected to continue in FY 2021," Baijal said.

The warehousing segment was gaining traction with investors due to the potential of Indias domestic consumption and overall GDP growth, he said.
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Karan Bajaj

The government banned 59 smartphone apps a few days ago, including popular ones such as TikTok, WeChat, ShareIt and so on. The reason for calling a ban on these apps was primarily on the grounds of security.

There were complaints about data of India users being transferred abroad sans authorisation by these apps as well, which means that your privacy was put at risk. In case you are wondering if your personal information has been compromised, here is a quick guide to help you.

1. Has your email been compromised?

Our email id is not only used for emails but also as a login credential for various sites and services. Your email id is the first thing that gets leaked out and available to spammers and hackers in case of a data breach. Every year we hear about several data breaches from various sites and services.

Unless we lose access to our email, most of us tend to ignore these data breaches and believe we are safe. However, that is not the case. To check if your email has been compromised, head to https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and input your email in the search bar. The site will show which all breaches your email id was leaked in along with which other information. You can then choose to change your passwords on the compromised sites or delete your account altogether for safety.

2. Are your passwords secure?

For users who have an Android smartphone or use the Chrome browser on a desktop/mobile, Google offers a password manager to make it easier to log in for sites and services. If you want to access it, you can go to https://passwords.google.com/ and login to your Google account. On the top, you will see a large box for Password Checkup  this is where Google will check all of your stored passwords and inform you which of them are compromised, and you should change them right away. The page gives you direct links for each website's password change page to make things easy. It also shows on which sites you have reused passwords and which ones have a weak password.

3. Is your browser tracking you?

Most of us do not realize this, but our browser is one of the most prominent invaders of privacy. It tracks you for browsing history, activity, location, advertising and analytics, which is data you would not like to share with random websites without your permission.

We recommend that you start using privacy focussed browsers such as Brave Browser or Tor for desktop and Firefox Focus on mobile. However, if you prefer to use Chrome, we recommend installing a few privacy plug-ins such as Adblocker, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, or Disconnect. With the help of these, you can identify which websites are asking for what kind of information and block them.

4. Check what Apps are accessing on smartphones  Smartphones today have become the center of our universe, and they come with multiple apps pre-installed, plus we install several apps for various purposes. Trouble is most users don't look at the kind of information and data access these apps require on your smartphone and agree to everything. This makes you susceptible to privacy leaks, and to avoid that, its recommended to manage app permissions on your device. Android users can install the Permission Manager app by Vnova Mobile to easily view and manage permissions. For iOS users, head to Settings > Privacy, and you will be able to see which apps have access to various kinds of permissions. You can revoke permission for an app from the settings for security.

5. Identify Spam/Fake emails, SMS and calls

Thanks to various apps and tools available now, its relatively easy to identify fake or spam notifications. For incoming calls and messages, install Truecaller on your smartphone. It identifies incoming call numbers and shows a warning if its spam or a fraud caller. Truecaller also sorts out your SMS inbox, but there are other alternatives like Microsoft SMS Organizer and Mezo that do a great job in detecting spam SMS. For email, your mailbox has a junk folder where most of the spam goes automatically.

However, some emails reach your inbox and the general rule of thumb to identify spam is to look at the sender email id  if it's not from someone you recognize, then avoid opening it. Even for emails from banks or subscription services, always check the sender to see if it's from an official address. Other easy to identify traits of spam email include misspelt domain/company name, poorly written message and offering something too good to be true.

Also, never click on any links or download any email attachments from unknown senders, as this can lead to the installation of virus/spyware. Once you identify a spam email, report it as spam as well as delete it immediately for your security.
Chinese app TikTok is reportedly considering legal options against the ban imposed upon by the Government of India under the Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.

The video-sharing platform is said to be in talks with a Mumbai-based law firm on how the ban could be challenged in court.

The company will approach the government next week to clarify the allegations of misuse of data, one of the lawyers associated with the matter said as per a report by The Economic Times. Based on the response received from the government, TikTok will initiate the course of legal action.

During the meeting with the law firm, it was discussed whether the government followed the due procedure and gave enough time for TikTok to respond to the allegations. Another discussion was if the government had conducted an investigation before imposing the ban.

An argument can be made on the grounds of principles of natural justice, as the company was not even given a hearing before the ban was imposed, said the lawyer.

However, the allegations against them are very serious since they pertain to national security. In the past, courts have declined interfering against government action in such national security matters.

Another lawyer said that TikTok and its lawyers were trying to figure out if an appeal can be made directly in the Supreme Court.

TikTok was one of the 59 Chinese apps banned by the government over data-security issues.

Also Read: Homegrown startups like Mitron and Chingari to benefit from TikTok ban

The IT Ministry banned these apps based on many complaints it had received from various sources including several reports about the misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India.

Soon after the ban was announced, TikTok went offline and completely stopped working on Android and iOS devices.
Europe's Airbus left the door open on Wednesday to scaling back its planned 15,000 job cuts in exchange for government-funded labour schemes and research, as its coronavirus restructuring stoked political and union alarm.

Europe's largest aerospace group plans to cut 11% of its global workforce, after a 40% slump in its 55 billion euro ($61.8 billion) jet business, sparking anxiety about compulsory redundancies in France, Germany, Spain and Britain.

France urged Airbus to make as few forced layoffs as possible, while French and German unions said compulsory cuts at the European planemaker were a "red line".

"The state urges Airbus to ensure that there are as few forced redundancies as possible," French Junior Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari told BFM TV.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier urged Airbus to spread the burden in a fair way.

"We of course assume this restructuring will take place in such a way that neither favours nor disadvantages any country," he said in a clear reference to maintaining balance with France.

Chief Executive Guillaume Faury has warned staff against reverting to national or regional agendas that plagued the Franco-German-led firm in the past as workers battle for jobs.

"We are successful because we have a European and global DNA and because of this partnership spirit which is very unique to Airbus," Faury told Reuters late on Tuesday.

More than two thirds of the cuts are in France and Germany where Airbus sites are running 40% below pre-crisis levels.

In a finely balanced presentation, Airbus announced plans to cut 5,000 posts in France, 5,100 in Germany, 900 in Spain, 1,700 in the UK, and 1,300 elsewhere by mid-2021.

The total includes another 900 non-Covid cuts that Airbus says it already planned at its Premium AEROTEC unit, meaning a total of 6,000 posts are targeted in Germany by the scheme.

Faury later said in an interview published by Les Echos newspaper on Wednesday no plant closure "was in the pipeline".

CONCESSIONS

Veteran human resources chief Thierry Baril told reporters on Wednesday that a fifth of the 5,000 job cuts targeted in France could be saved once the French government formalises a new reduced-work scheme, a move expected next week.

Another 500 engineering posts could be saved with the help of promised state investment in next-generation green jets.

Airbus has outlined the possibility of saving another 1,500 jobs in Germany through similar support.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said it is working with Airbus to find ways to keep jobs in the country.

France and Germany own 11% each of Airbus and Spain 4%, though their power to intervene directly is limited.

Aircraft industry sources said horse-trading over jobs and government aid is common and concessions are expected. But Airbus's stated target for cutting full-time jobs is three times bigger than its previous 2008 shake-up which included cutting 5,000 full-time posts, plus 5,000 temporary ones.

In its 51 years, Airbus has so far avoided significant forced redundancies as it challenged Boeing for a space in the global aircraft market and then enjoyed years of record demand.

France's Force Ouvriere union said preventing such cuts was a "red line".

Germany's IG Metall union said Airbus must not hide behind the coronavirus crisis to implement earlier aims to downsize.

Djebbari, the French minister, meanwhile confirmed Air France planned to shed nearly 7,600 jobs this week

Djebbari urged Air France to minimise compulsory redundancies, after the government agreed state aid for the carrier worth 7 billion euros ($7.9 billion).

"It's not 7 billion euros to pay for redundancy programmes. It's 7 billion for survival, to pay salaries at the end of the month," the minister said.
A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuelas Nicolas Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

Maduro has demanded the gold to help his cash-starved nation fight the coronavirus pandemic. But the central bank for the United Kingdom, whose government recognizes Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaido as his countrys legitimate leader, had refused to hand it over to Maduros administration.

The ruling clarifies the question of who is Venezuelas legitimate leader  at least in the eyes of one world power.

This is very much showing the isolation of the Maduro government, said Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think tank in London.

Guaido has sought to preserve the gold stash at the Bank of England to keep it out of the hands of the Maduro government, which it contends is illegitimate and corrupt. His lawyers reiterated during a recent four-day hearing their stance that the National Assembly leader became Venezuelas rightful president under provisions of the countrys constitution.

Guaido, who holds no practical power within Venezuela, called the ruling a great victory for his interim governments international recognition and the anti-Maduro coalitions fight to protect the countrys wealth and assets held abroad, which includes an ongoing battle over its Citgo refineries in the United States.

The first thing is that its protected from the clutches of the dictatorship, Guaido said of the gold, adding that for now it will remain in the banks vaults.

Venezuela sits atop the worlds largest crude reserves, but that source of cash has dried up under years of mismanagement and more recently stiff US sanctions aimed at forcing Maduro out.

Venezuela holds a total of about $1.8 billion worth of gold at the Bank of England, and Maduro was asking for $1 billion of it.

The dispute hinged on the British stance toward Venezuela, a country in economic and political crisis where both Maduro and Guaido have been claiming presidential powers for more than a year.

Venezuelas Central Bank, controlled by Maduro, sought to release the gold, which it says now that it wants to sell for food and medical equipment that is desperately needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. But it had also sought the gold before the pandemic began.

The British government has unequivocally recognized Mr. Guaido as President of Venezuela, the court ruling said. It necessarily follows that (it) no longer recognizes Mr. Maduro as President of Venezuela.

A lawyer representing Maduros side promised to appeal. Sarosh Zaiwalla said in a statement that the judgment entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground in Venezuela.

Mr. Maduros government is in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions, and only it can ensure the distribution of the humanitarian relief and medical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic, he said. This outcome will now delay matters further, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people whose lives are at risk.

The UK recognizes the claim of Guaido, who heads Venezuelas congress, as do the United States and about five dozen other governments. Guaido proclaimed himself the interim president in early 2019, months after Maduro declared victory in an election that his critics say was rigged in his favor.

Maduro maintains the support of key allies, including Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and Cuba.

Despite its support for Guaido, the UK continues to have diplomatic ties with Maduros government. The British have not granted diplomatic credentials to the envoy that Guaido has named ambassador to the UK.
China's government and pro-Beijing activists in Hong Kong condemned what they called foreign meddling in the territory's affairs on Thursday, as countries moved to offer Hong Kongers refuge and impose sanctions on China over a new security law.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said no amount of pressure from external forces could shake China's determination and will to safeguard national sovereignty and Hong Kong's prosperity and stability.

He urged the US to abide by international law and stop interfering in Hong Kong's affairs, and not sign a sanction bill into law.

His comments came after the US House of Representatives on Wednesday joined the Senate in approving a bill to rebuke China over its crackdown in Hong Kong by imposing sanctions on groups that undermine the city's autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to its residents.

If the bill becomes law, China will definitely take strong countermeasures, and all consequences will be borne by the US side, Zhao said at a daily briefing.

Meanwhile, dozens of pro-Beijing activists and lawmakers protested outside the US Consulate in Hong Kong to demand that the US stop meddling. The group said it gathered 1.6 million signatures online in support of its call.

Tam Yiu-Chung, Hong Kong's sole delegate to the National People's Congress Standing Committee, said on public broadcaster RTHK on Thursday that the new security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong was not harsh. If it were, no one would dare violate the law, he said.

His comments came a day after thousands of protesters marched against the security law, which took effect in Hong Kong late Tuesday.

The security law outlaws secessionist, subversive and terrorist acts, as well as any collusion with foreign forces in intervening in the city's affairs.

Critics say the law effectively ends the one country, two systems framework under which the city was promised a high degree of autonomy when it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

The maximum punishment for serious offenses under the legislation is life imprisonment, and suspects in certain cases may be sent to stand trial on the mainland if Beijing deems that it has jurisdiction.

The law takes aim at actions that occurred during anti-government protests last year. It says destruction of government facilities and utilities would be considered subversive, while damaging public transportation facilities and arson would constitute acts of terrorism.

About 370 people were arrested during and after Wednesday's protests, including 10 on suspicion of violating the new security law. Some of those arrested allegedly possessed materials that advocated Hong Kong's independence.

Hong Kong police arrested a man on a London-bound flight early Thursday on suspicion of having stabbed a police officer in the arm during Wednesday's protests.

The 24-year-old man, surnamed Wong, was arrested on a Cathay Pacific flight after police received an anonymous tip-off about his travel plans, police said.

Wong had purchased a ticket on Wednesday and boarded the flight with no check-in luggage, police said. He did not respond to the crew when they called him by name, and was not in his designated seat. Police identified him after conducting a sweep of the plane.

Meanwhile, two protesters were sentenced to four weeks in jail on Thursday for vandalizing a ticketing machine at a rail station in September last year.

They were among nearly 9,000 arrests by police in connection with the anti-government protests between last June and May this year. The central government's passage of the security law for Hong Kong has triggered concern from the territory's former colonial ruler, Britain, and other countries.

Britain announced Wednesday that it is extending residency rights for up to 3 million Hong Kongers eligible for British National Overseas passports, stressing that it would uphold its historic duty to its former colony. Those eligible will be able to live and work in the UK for five years before applying for settled status and then again for citizenship.

Zhao, the foreign ministry spokesman, condemned the move, saying that before the return of Hong Kong to China, Britain had made a commitment not to grant BNO holders the right of abode in the UK.

All Hong Kong compatriots, including those holding British National Overseas passports, are Chinese citizens, Zhao said.

The British have violated their own commitment by now allowing BNO passport holders the option of staying and naturalizing in the UK.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday his government is considering a similar move to provide a safe haven to Hong Kongers, and Taiwan opened an office to help Hong Kongers move to Taiwan for employment and other purposes.
China said on Thursday that Britain would bear all consequences for any move it took to offer Hong Kong citizens a path to settlement in the UK.

China reserved the right to act against Britain over the issue, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily briefing, without specifying what countermeasures Beijing might take.
Some Tesla workers and labour activists say the company is threatening to fire employees who haven't returned to the company's California factory since it reopened because they're afraid of catching the coronavirus.

The group wants the practice to stop, and it also wants state and county officials to do a better job making sure proper safety procedures are followed at the factory in Fremont, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"There are people we are paying to keep us safe, and they're just turning the other cheek," said Tesla worker Carlos Gabriel, who is among the organizers of a rally scheduled for Thursday at the Alameda County Public Health Department in Oakland.

"They should be holding (Tesla CEO) Elon Musk accountable."

A Tesla spokesperson wouldn't immediately comment on Wednesday, but company officials said at a public hearing on tax incentives in Texas last week that claims of Fremont workers being fired are untrue.

Tesla has released plans to maintain worker safety including temperature checks, the wearing of gloves and masks, installing barriers between workers and maintaining social distancing. In early May, Musk told workers that they didn't have to return to the plant if they weren't comfortable with it.

A message was left on Wednesday seeking comment from the health department.

Problems at the factory are among several that have flared up in the auto industry in recent weeks. Assembly lines at two Fiat Chrysler plants in the Detroit area were briefly shut down this week due to fears over viral spread, and local union officials want General Motors to close and clean an SUV factory in Arlington, Texas.

Gabriel and another Tesla worker say they have heard of COVID-19 cases among workers at the Fremont factory, but don't know numbers because the company won't tell them. They want the health department to release numbers and to trace whoever came in contact with sick workers rather than letting Tesla do it.

Branton Phillips, a towmotor operator who has returned to work, says many workers don't wear masks covering their nose and mouth in the plant, and they remove them and don't keep proper social distance when they go outside. He's worried about getting sick and spreading it to his longtime girlfriend who is vulnerable to the virus, he said.

"I had to go back. I need the (medical) insurance," Phillips said, adding that Tesla is trying to enforce mask requirements inside the factory. He says employees have been threatened with being fired, but then told they won't be fired, creating confusion.

Musk reopened the Fremont plant May 11 in defiance of Alameda County orders to stay closed. The county health department had deemed the factory a nonessential business that can't fully open under virus restrictions, but Tesla contended it was essential under federal guidelines.

The next day, however, the health department announced that the plant could return to manufacturing as long as it delivers on worker safety precautions that it agreed to.

Earlier this week, the United Auto Workers union sent teams to the two Fiat Chrysler plants and the Texas factory to investigate employee fears about other workers being infected, spokesman Brian Rothenberg said. He didn't know how many coronavirus cases there were at each of the plants.

GM says its safety protocols in Arlington are working and it has not changed production plans. It says in a statement that some workers have tested positive at the plant because there is no vaccine or cure.
Silicon Valley, the global IT hub, does not feel sorry for TikTok, which has been banned in India, and in fact wants the US to take a similar step against the popular Chinese app, according to a prominent Indian-American venture capitalist.

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including the hugely popular TikTok and UC Browser, for engaging in "activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".

The ban came against the backdrop of the current stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual control in eastern Ladakh.

Former president of TiE Silicon Valley Venkatesh Shukla said TikTok is fast becoming one of the most influential social media platforms, joining the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in terms of audience size, demographic engagement and advertising dollars.

TiE is a non-profit organisation for entrepreneurial networking.

Given this competition for advertising dollars, Silicon Valley does not feel sorry for TikTok, said Shukla, the Indian-American venture capitalist. Advertising dollars refers to promotional expenditure against the expected revenue to be generated.

In fact, the sentiment here seems to be that the US should follow suit and ban it (TikTok) in the US as well. After all, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are not allowed to operate in China, so why should TikTok be allowed here? Shukla asked.

Cuban-American music video director and producer Robby Starbuck said the US should ban the Chinese video-sharing application.

Ban all apps controlled by China. They're a national security risk that we can't afford to take, Starbuck tweeted.

Business magazine Forbes said TikTok will be adversely hit by these new restrictions on its largest market.

There was a storm of publicity last week, when TikTok was found by Apple AAPL to be secretly accessing users' clipboards. TikTok claims that this was an inadvertent technical bug caused by an anti-spam filter, but the backlash was fast and furious, Forbes wrote.

Last December, the US Army banned the use of TikTok by its soldiers. It called the app a security threat. The US navy has enforced similar restrictions.

In February, TikTok had agreed to pay USD 5.7 million to the US Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations that it illegally collected personal information from children under the age of 13, such as names, email addresses and their location.
With the aim to remove all impediments in testing, the Central government has asked states and Union territories (UTs) to immediately take steps to facilitate and ramp up testing. In a note, Preeti Sudan, secretary for health department, and Dr Balram Bhargava, director general of ICMR reiterated that test-track-treat is the key strategy for early detection and containment of the pandemic.

The note says, "States and UTs have been advised to facilitate testing at the earliest by enabling all qualified medical practitioners, including private practitioners, to prescribe COVID test to any individual fulfilling the criteria for testing as per ICMR guidelines."

ICMR says it has strongly recommended that laboratories should be free to test any individual in accordance to the ICMR guidelines and state authorities must not restrict an individual from getting tested, as early testing will help in containing the virus and saving lives.

Pointing out that in some states and UTs, the capacity utilisation of the testing labs, particularly the ones in private sector, is grossly sub-optimal, they advised states and UTs to take all possible steps to ensure full capacity utilisation of all COVID-19 testing laboratories.

The note says, "While reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the gold standard for diagnosis of COVlD-19, ICMR has recently approved the use of a point-of-care rapid antigen test for early detection of COVID-19. The test is quick, simple, safe and can be used as a point-of-care test in containment zones as well as hospitals, as per criteria specified by ICMR for testing. More such kits are being validated by ICMR to increase the available options to the citizens. ICMR has so far approved a total of 1,056 laboratories for COVID-19 testing. Of this, 764 labs are in public sector and 292 are in the private sector."

In order to facilitate testing, states and UTs have also been advised to make efforts in 'campaign mode' by setting up camps and using mobiles vans in high incidence areas to collect samples of all symptomatic individuals as well as their contacts and get those samples tested by using rapid antigen tests.

"The positive individuals should be treated according to the treatment protocol and the negative ones should be tested for RT-PCR. Also, the rate for RT-PCR test by private labs should be finalized by the states and UTs. They have been further advised to make it mandatory for all labs to upload the testing data on the ICMR database as well as report to state, district and city authorities for surveillance and contact tracing," the note says.

In addition, the note from the health department and ICMR asks to ramp up and facilitate testing and pay attention to 'contact tracing' as it holds the key to containing the virus. States have also been asked to maintain strict vigil and continue to make all possible efforts for effective management of COVID-19.
We had mentioned in Wednesdays closing report that Nifty, Sensex are turning up again. On Thursday, the major indices continued to rally. On the NSE, there were 1,090 advances, 720 declines and 312 unchanged.

The trends of the major indices in the course of Thursdays trading are given in the table below:

Mahindra and Mahindra sales numbers for June showed an uptick in tractor demand. The auto company reported a 10% growth in total tractor sales at 36,544 units in June. The company sold 33,094 tractors in the same month of 2019.

Dilip Buildcon emerged as L-1 bidder through JV for an EPC project for the tender floated by the Narmada Water Resources, Water Supply and Kalpsar Departnent (Water Resources) on EPC basis in the state of Gujarat. The Rs 4,167.70 project is an EPC contract for construction of Bhadbhut barrage, flood protection embankments and associated works across river Narmada near village Bhadbhut of Bharuch district.

Axis Bank is planning to raise up to Rs 15,000 crore through the issue of equity shares/depository receipts and/or any other instruments or securities, the bank said in an exchange communication.

The US FDA has removed exemption given to IPCA Laboratories after the shortage implications for Hydroxychloroquine Sulphate changed and now it has been removed from list of drug products in shortage.

ONGC stock price gained after a media report said that India's latest oil and gas block bid round attracted only 12 bids for the 11 areas on offer, with 10 of them getting single bids from state-owned ONGC and Oil India Ltd, upstream regulator DGH said. According to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the 11 blocks on offer got a total of 12 bids - seven bids by Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and four by Oil India Ltd (OIL). Invenire Petrodyne Ltd was the only private bidder.

Tata Power board approved issuance of up to 49,05,66,037 equity shares of face value of Re 1 to Tata Sons, the promoter of the company, on a preferential basis at a price of Rs 53 per equity share aggregating to Rs 2,600 crore. The board also gave in-principle approval for setting up of an Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) for the companys renewables business.

MOIL has fixed/revised prices of different grades of manganese ore and other products, effective from July 1 while that of the prices of all Ferro grades and Fines have been reduced by about 15% with effect from July 1 on the prices prevailing since June 1.

The CBI has booked Venkata Krishna Reddy Gunupati, chairman of the GVK Group of Companies, and his son GV Sanjay Reddy, managing director of Mumbai International Airport Ltd, among others, for alleged irregularities to the tune of Rs705 crore in running of the airport.

IDBI Bank has said it will sell part of its stake in IDBI Federal Life Insurance to Belgian multinational insurance company Ageas Insurance and Federal Bank. Ageas will acquire 23 percent stake, while Federal Bank will buy 4 percent.

The top gainers and top losers of the major indices are given in the table below:

The closing values of the major Asian indices are given in the table below:
Commerce Bank will close its location in the Kansas Memorial Union in August, the University of Kansas Student Involvement and Leadership Center announced June 12.

Assistant Director of Student Engagement & Development Sarah Bowman said in an email to student organization leaders that Commerce Bank will permanently close its location in the Kansas Union, Retail Group Manager Cindy Ford told the SILC.

The closure was attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, but SILC did not include other details. It will officially close at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 28.

Please be assured this change will not affect your Commerce Bank account(s) in any way, Ford said in the email sent to SILC.

Ford said there are four other branch locations and eight ATMs in Lawrence. The two closest to campus are at 955 Iowa St. and the 23rd Street Dillons.

KU Memorial Union Director David Mucci said in an email that Commerce Bank initially closed when KU's campus closed in the spring semester. Commerce Bank decided not to extend its lease, which is set to end Aug. 31.

+3 KU rolls out plan for social distancing measures in fall 2020 The University of Kansas released its latest campus reopening plan Monday, which includes reduced lecture sizes, extended passing periods and mandatory masks for all persons on campus.

Commerce determined not to reopen the branch and will serve its campus clientele through the Union ATM presence, its local branches and the banks online resources, Mucci said.

Mucci said the Union is having conversations with other banks so they can possibly open a branch in the Union for the fall semester.

SILC said this may affect some students and student organizations. While they can still use their accounts with Commerce Bank, SILC offered the Student Organization Financial Accounting System (SOFAS) as an alternative.

SOFAS is overseen by the University Procurement Services Office. It is meant to be used by student organizations looking to maintain a cash flow rather than a bank account, providing them with auditing services.

SOFAS currently works with over 200 active student organizations. Hamm said organizations should always choose only one person to manage their financials, even if they work with SOFAS or an outside bank.

Having their money going through SOFAS ensures that there is someone always here to help them obtain their account information and balance amounts and maintain their information so it doesnt get lost somewhere, said SOFAS Coordinator Jessie Hamm in an email to the Kansan.

Bowman said questions about SOFAS or the closure of the Commerce Bank Union location can be directed to silcfront@ku.edu.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Wednesday extended the deadline for regulatory filing and compliances for investment vehicles - REITs and InvITs -- for the period ended 31 March 2020 by another month over and above the extension given in March.

The temporary relaxations come in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

In March, the regulator had announced the extension in the due date for regulatory filings and compliances for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvIT) for the period ending March 31, 2020 was extended by one month over and above the timelines prescribed under the regulations.

"It has been decided to further extend the due date for regulatory filings and compliances for REIT and InvIT for the period ending March 31, 2020 by a month over and above the extended timelines specified vide the aforementioned circular," a SEBI circular said.

Sonam Chandwani, Managing Partner at KS Legal & Associates, noted that the relaxations in compliance rules in the wake of the pandemic are much required, keeping in mind the worsening situation.

"The trusts are yet not in a position to comply with the regulatory requirements with only staggered operations for businesses currently. With increased encumbrances on entities, the portfolio managers are in a threatened position with the sword of the regulatory filings hanging overhead," she said.

The relaxation shall provide respite in terms of compliance of norms as well as provide more room to the trusts to reach a settled position for filings in the extended time period, Chandwani added.

Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS and do not reflect views of Moneylife and hence Moneylife is not responsible or liable for the same. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.
Considering the large number of pending second appeals in the Maharashtra State Information Commission, the Supreme Court (SC) in its 15 February 2019 order had observed that the SIC (state information commission) should function at its full strength of 11 commissioners (chief and 10 information commissioners). However, one of the petitioners Anjali Bharadwaj had pointed out to the SC that the state government had failed to make appointments.

Over a year after SC slammed the Maharashtra government, currently the SIC is functioning with only five commissioners even as more than 50,000 appeals or complaints are still pending. This, despite the state government having assured the SC that it would take necessary action.

Speaking to Moneylife last fortnight, Sumit Mullick, state chief information commissioner (SCIC) of Maharashtra, has stated that he is rigorously pursuing with the state government to fill up information commissioners vacancies and create three additional ones. Although, the SIC has begun online second appeal hearings from the first week of June, thanks to citizens online campaign, he had stated that the need to augment the number of information commissioners is very critical for disposing of second appeals.

Unlike in other states, the posts of information commissioners in Maharashtra have been created as per geographical zones. Thus, IC posts have been created for Mumbai, Brihanmumbai, Konkan, Nashik, Amaravati, Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad. Of these, the posts of Pune, Nashik and Aurangabad are pending for the past many months. All the present ICs would be retiring between 11 and 21 months time and as we all know time runs fast.

Last week, a group of RTI activists and prominent citizens, including former CIC Shailesh Gandhi, former bureaucrats Mahesh Zagade and Pralhad Kachare, RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar who steered this campaign through the online RTI Katta and several other activists of Maharashtra, took up this issue seriously and dashed off a letter to Maharashtras chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, urging him to fill up the vacancies and create additional posts with utmost urgency.

Their contention is that, "in the State of Maharashtra this sunshine law has been losing its shine day by day, at an alarming rate and it is imperative that it be corrected immediately as it is due to a huge number of 2nd appeals and complaints, pending before the Maharashtra State Information Commission (MSIC)."

The letter states: "Unlike the Central (Governments) Information Commission and any of the state (governments) information commissions across all the other states in India, the state of Maharashtra has adopted a unique geographical bench-wise allocation system whereby the position of an individual information commissioner has been dedicatedly allocated with respect to each revenue division namely, Mumbai, Brihanmumbai, Konkan, Nashik, Amaravati, Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad. And presently, for a long time now, out of these aforesaid eight constituted information commission benches, the position of three benches namely, Pune, Nashik and Aurangabad bench are vacant.

"The following table summarises the present grim situation:

"The following table depicts the geographical bench-wise pendency of second appeals and complaints before the MSIC:

(Source: MSIC Website Period: As on February 2020)

"The following table depicts the present status of the existing Maharashtra State Information Commissioners including their being saddled with the burden of an additional charge:

(N.B: In the following table the Acronym CIC stands for Chief Information Commissioner and IC stands for Information Commissioner)

Sr. Name of the Commissioner Position Present Charge Additional Charge About to Retire in Months

The letter also reminds the CM that delivery of services to citizens cannot be compromised due to the COVID-19 crisis. They write: "Also, the Honble Supreme Court in suo motu writ (Civil) No. 5/2020 vide its order dated: 6 April, 2020 has expressed that The challenges occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19 have to be addressed while preserving the constitutional commitment to ensuring the delivery of and access to justice to those who seek it.
BOZEMAN, Mont. - A top health official addressed the public in Gallatin County - which is now home to more than a quarter of the state's COVID-19 cases - on Wednesday. Gallatin City-County Health Department health officer Matt Kelley urged residents over a Facebook Live to take the matter seriously and be safe over the holiday weekend.

Kelley did not mince words in his address to the public. Perhaps the most important message from Wednesday's video was that residents must take the virus seriously if they have a desire to get life back to "normal" and protect others.

"While it is true that many who contract the disease suffer mild symptoms," said Kelley, "it is also true that 125,000 Americans have died from the virus in four months - a number that's likely a significant undercount of cases."

When Kelley was asked what he was most concerned about seeing in the community, he didn't hesitate to answer: "Crowds... My strong advice is that if you find yourself in a crowded setting, do everything you can to remove yourself from that situation."

He says the disease is spreading "widely" and "readily" and he has major concerns about how the Fourth of July could only make that worse.

Kelley also emphasized that - despite how social media might make it appear - face coverings are not political, and that both sides of the aisle have supported Americans wearing them in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.

"Unfortunately, the issue at times it's been polarizing and partisan. And that's unfortunate and frankly unhelpful... We must have no stigma  none  about wearing masks when we leave our homes and come near other people," said Kelley.

And while research is still answering questions on the extent of their effectiveness, Kelley pointed out that we do know masks and face coverings can help to slow the spread.

Kelley urges everyone to wear a mask, and sent a message directly to young people.

"We need your help," he urged. "We are seeing more young people diagnosed. During the month of March, the median age of people diagnosed with the disease in Gallatin County was 44 years of age. That median age in May and June has dropped to just over 28 years of age."

Kelley adds that younger people need to limit contact with others, even if they feel healthy.
Oak Hill, WV (25901)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Lansdale, PA (19446)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall may reach one inch..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall may reach one inch.
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Hollywood heartthrob Zac Efron has got fans excited with his latest venture!

The former 'High School Musical' actor is launching a new travel documentary series on Netflix next week.

'Down to Earth with Zac Efron' will see the star travel the world in search of 'healthy, sustainable ways to live'.

Fans are already eager to watch the show, many taking to the internet to share their excitement.

"This show looks promising. Zac, just by being himself, not trying hard and acting up makes this show beautiful. Looking forward to it." one wrote.

Check out the trailer above, the show premieres on Netflix July 10th.
In her 27 years of being an athletic trainer, Elyria High School athletic trainer Ann Hamker has never dealt with anything like this.
Independence Day is a great American holiday -- but it does not offer special protection against the novel coronavirus, said the physician at 
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As banks, lenders, and governments offer more homebuying incentives during the ongoing difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic, one top broker says that if brokers learn the details of these offers and can avoid their pitfalls, they can become a key part of their client strategy.

Luisa Hough, a B.C. based broker with Xeva Mortgage, says that she focuses on bank and lender incentives for her clients. In past months major banks have been offering cash-back incentives and lenders have been given breaks on legal fees and appraisal costs. She says that while these incentives can help with prospecting, theyre most useful as a closing bonus, something that helps a client choose a mortgage. Though they do come with potential pitfalls, in these uncertain times, Hough says that incentives provide her with a competitive edge.

I've noticed that my clients seem to like when there is an incentive. It's like they're getting a deal. It's like they're getting something for buying something even though there's no cost to them, Hough says. It's an added bonus, especially because buying a place is one of the largest decisions they make. So any little incentive seems really make a difference for themSome lenders don't have any incentive and homebuyers are getting very savvy so they're aware and are asking us for those incentives. If I can't get an incentive from the bank, then I will sometimes give them something to help towards their legal fees or to help towards their appraisal. I try not to. I try to focus more on my value. But if that comes up, then I will definitely help them with it.

Hough says her decision to step up and provide an incentive herself is determined by the specific client and the sort of help they need. She says that while clients are more educated than ever about incentives, they can often come with misconceptions around what, exactly theyre entitled to.

Cash back incentives are particularly popular, Hough says, but many banks and lenders wont allow that cash back to make up part of the down payment. As well, she says that clients often dont hear the words up to when an ad on the radio says they could get up to $5,000. Its her job to play educator, then, and show the clients that while the incentive can still benefit them, they may need to adjust their expectations.

Hough says that cash back incentives are particularly popular now as so many Canadians savings, or lack thereof, were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many now are trying to build emergency funds that can weather any future shock. The cash injection of an incentive, Hough says, is often going to form the basis of a clients new emergency fund, making the incentive even more popular.

Brokers need to be judicious about when they play the incentive card, Hough says. Depending on the client, incentives can act as a lure or a key part of closing. Hough says shell rarely start a conversation with incentives, and normally only does it in a situation where shes competing directly with another broker. She says she prefers to establish a relationship and trust with the client around what she can provide through the life of their mortgage. With that established she can offer the lenders incentive as a bonus.

Leading with incentives, Hough says, can encourage rate-shopping among clients and result in escalation as brokers cut deeper and deeper into their own commissions to meet client demands. She says that if brokers use incentives as the core of their client strategy rather than focusing on the relationship and service through the life of a mortgage they set a transactional tone in which its very hard for brokers to win. She says that brokers need to educate themselves fully on these incentives and apply them judiciously on a case-by-case basis.

First I establish the relationships, establish the trust, get to know clients on a personal level with what they're looking for, Hough says. Then I add incentives saying, on top of what I just did for you this is what I was able to get for you. I'll also offer options if there's a lower rate with no incentive. I look at a lot of the products, and Im not always looking at the incentives. But if I feel that that's what they're looking for, if they're looking for treats, then we'll talk about the incentives and put them into that product.
Scotiabank has announced that it will begin accepting applications for the next phase of the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA), in which the federal government is now requiring Export Development Canada (EDC) to approve eligibility before funding is released.

While small business and business banking clients will still be required to provide an attestation to Scotiabank as part of the application process, EDC will also request additional documentation before a loan can be approved, the bank said in a statement.

Scotiabank provided assurances that the expanded eligibility will help a broader group of businesses benefit from the financial assistance program.

Were pleased to see the government introduce phase three of the CEBA program and open eligibility up to more businesses in need of support during this challenging time, said Dan Rees, group head of Canadian banking for Scotiabank. Were excited to help even more small businesses gain access to relief funds and continue providing advice and solutions to help them come out of this even stronger.

With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking unprecedented economic havoc, the commercial segment must brace itself for significant shifts as many businesses will be forced to move their operations online, according to a recent analysis by RBC Economics.

The market will likely endure these conditions for the long haul, as there is no way to tell when the fiscal turmoil would abate.

This could be a nine-month thing or it could be a two-year thing, said Dawn Desjardins, deputy chief economist at RBC.
In May, Canadian mortgage credit reached a new record high of approximately $1.68 trillion, accompanying a spike in deferrals.

Data from the Bank of Canada showed that the outstanding balance of mortgage debt grew by 0.6% from April and 6% from May 2019, the highest annual increase since July 2017.

Growth over the past few months has been soaring, almost making a vertical print, Better Dwelling said in an analysis of the BoC figures. The annualized 3-month rate of growth reached 8.2% in May, the highest level since 2010.

The total number of deferrals exceeded 743,000 in May, which might lead to rough going for major lenders in the near and medium term, marked observers said recently.

Theres going to be limited earnings growth coming through, if any, said Sadiq Adatia, chief investment officer at Sun Life Global Investments.

Adatia estimated that bank earnings will begin showing signs of recovery only when national employment reaches 80% to 90% of pre-outbreak levels.

Lenders operating under the assumption that recovery will be rapid are in for a less-than-pleasant surprise, said Greg Taylor, chief investment officer of Purpose Investments.

If the banks are forced to extend deferrals, theyd have no choice but to increase provisions, Taylor said, ultimately leading to lower earnings in an already troubled year.
The University of Kansas Honors Program plans to take steps toward a more just and equal community, following recent protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, according to an email sent to students June 18.

The steps include a revision of Honors admissions, the continuity of the Living in Color program, investment in anti-racist programming and a revision of the Cultural Literacy & Social Justice Enhanced Learning Experience.

Universities and honors programs have long been spaces of privilege, Honors program leadership said in the email to students. Each of us who work in a university is complicit in this harm and is responsible for changing it.

Honors Program Director Sarah Crawford-Parker said the anti-racism programming will take place in an online format during winter break. It will consist of a reading experience allowing students to discuss racial inequalities in a community.

The first step is to acquire knowledge, but then you have to do something with that knowledge, Crawford-Parker said in an email.

KU honors Universities and honors programs have long been spaces of privilege... Each of us who work in a university is complicit in this harm and is responsible for changing it. The University of Kansas Honors Program

A revision to Honors Program admissions started last year, Crawford-Parker said. The new focus will not emphasize standardized test scores, but rather the candidates personal experiences and extracurriculars.

Crawford-Parker acknowledged the importance of the peer-to-peer component, saying Honors will work on its recruitment for incoming students and on its resources for current ones.

What we are trying to do is think about some of those process pieces like admissions, Crawford-Parker said. But also how do our programs support students in meaningful ways and foster connections for them.

Crawford-Parker said they are also restructuring student involvement. The Honors ambassadors and seminar assistants of next year will receive training in August on social justice, which has not been taught in previous years.

The Living in Color program originally started when Kathy Burton, a junior from Manhattan, suggested the Honors Program expand the Templin Honors Living Learning Community into a bigger program.

+2 Demonstrators continue to occupy 1100 block of Massachusetts Street, 6 arrested Demonstrators have been occupying the 1100 block of Massachusetts Street since Saturday after a letter comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to a lynch mob and a poster depicting the lynching of George Floyd was found in South Park Saturday morning.

Walking away from that temporary community was difficult as, without it, I was once again alone on a campus filled with people that did not look like me," Burton said. "College is terrifying and it can make islands out of people, so I wanted to bring back Living in Color to help build bridges for students of color."

The program began in the 2020 spring semester and consisted of 4 sessions where students of color could share their experiences and ideas.

Living in Color coordinator and graduate student Amanda Limon said next semester the program will include five sessions, including a professionalism discussion with Office of Multicultural Affairs Director Precious Porras, a talk on stereotypes and a student panel for graduate students.

Our vision is just essentially to develop a community in which students of color have a place to feel welcomed and connected with each other and the university as a whole, Limon said.

Crawford-Parker said these are just first steps to find a sustained approach for the Honors Program to be a diverse and equal community in long term.

We need to be persistent, we need to get feedback from students and we need to show the work, Crawford-Parker said.
MOULTRIE [mdash] Gary Ray Riggins, age 67 of Colquitt County died Monday June 14, 2021 at his home surrounded by family Celebrations of Life Services are being planned and will be announced later Gary was born September 17, 1953 in Moultrie Ga. to the late Curtis R. and Martha Latrail Holmes
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, right, prepares to sign Mike Fuches' tribute car while visiting Moultrie for the ribbon cutting of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine's South Georgia campus in August 2019. Fuches, standing beside him, has presented the car for the last 14 years at a variety of events as a way to honor first responders.
Mayra Beltran/Houston Chronicle

(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. incurred an unprecedented second straight quarterly loss as almost every facet of the oil giants business slumped amid Covid-19 lockdowns that stunted economic activity.

The explorers oil and natural gas unit took a hit of as much as $3.1 billion as prices for those commodities slumped, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. Margins in Exxons refining business contracted by almost $1 billion while the chemical unit teetered on the edge of a loss.
All bars and nightclubs in Lawrence will close Friday for at least two week after an increase in COVID-19 cases. The Hawk was previously confirmed to be the site of an outbreak.
Big Bend National Park has closed again to visitors until further notice, according to the National Park Service.

The closure is in response to a positive case of COVID-19 in the park residential community, according to the NPS.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The Ector County Health Department reported the ninth death of an Ector County resident from coronavirus, according to a press release. The patient was a 57-year-old man who died Tuesday night at a Fort Worth hospital.

Medical Center Health System CEO and president Russell Tippin said the eighth floor of MCH will be converted to treat coronavirus patients. MCH will be going on a diversion status for out-of-county transfers, he said. Any elective surgeries that require an overnights stay will be suspended during this time. The government has mandated that hospitals keep 15 percent of their occupancy available, he said.
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Jamison Jaron Weeden, 28, Okmulgee resident, left us June 5, 2021. Service of Remembrance will be Friday, 11:00 AM, The Chapel of Peace of the Keith D. Biglow Funeral Directors, Inc., of Okmulgee. biglowfunerals.com
Opinion

As other states have begun to pause and revert their reopening plans, Kansas is faced with an uncomfortable possibility. The Kansas Department of Health may need to backtrack on its phased reopening and regress into elimination of nonessential business. While this may be the safest course of action to undertake in the name of public health, it will be considerably more difficult this time around due to virus fatigue and lack of income.

Cases of COVID-19 are growing at an unprecedented rate. Data shows 49,932 new cases were reported on July 1, a major uptick from the April high of 36,738 confirmed cases. This represents a trend that could continue to grow if left unchecked. Dr. Anthony Fauci recently predicted the daily totals could balloon to the amount of 100,000 new cases every single day. This is a massive number that exacerbates one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history.

Many of the on-campus plans that have been developed by University of Kansas administrators will be rendered useless if the curve continues to rise. Many of the on-campus plans that have been developed by University of Kansas administrators will be rendered useless if the curve continues to rise.

Governments are starting to ease their citizens back into socially distanced restrictions across the nation. Douglas County and Kansas have already begun to fall back and place holds on some of their restrictions. Following a COVID-19 outbreak at The Hawk, county health authorities mandated that all bars in their jurisdiction be shuttered due to the high risk of infection.

This announcement is troubling news to students that expect an on-schedule return to in-person classes. What happens when there is an outbreak on campus? Many of the on-campus plans that have been developed by University of Kansas administrators will be rendered useless if the curve continues to rise.

Going back into lockdown is a drastic measure and not an easy choice. Historically, the Spanish Flu had three distinct waves that defined the pandemic. The second wave was, by far, the most deadly.

Business reopenings and public safety can coexist despite polarized debate Opinion columnist Elijah Southwick argues for safe business reopenings and adapting amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

Convincing the general public to accept more restrictions is a daunting task. People have grown restless after the cancellation of most facets of everyday society in March, April and May. Americans have been yearning for an end to self-isolation and a return to summer activities. Some have reported symptoms of quarantine fatigue, which refers to the emotions of restlessness and anxiety that many feel while sheltering-in-place.

A renewed lockdown could have devastating effects on the financial situations of non-essential workers. Since March, most American taxpayers have received only one $1,200 stimulus check. Many college students whose parents have remained claiming them as dependents have not received any financial relief. If a lockdown were to occur, it is necessary that a succeeding bill to the CARES Act be passed promptly. If this does not happen, it is likely that our nation would plunge further into an economic crisis.

While a new lockdown is not likely to occur soon, it may be on the horizon in the near future. We have witnessed reopening efforts fail and need to be retracted. However, we must keep in mind the devastating effects that a shelter-in-place order have had on our mental health and personal finances. A plan needs to be put into place to ensure that Americans are protected.

John Harris is a sophomore from Shawnee studying political science.
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During a speech to U.S. Air Force personnel station in the United Kingdom recently, President Joe Biden warned that global warming is the greatest physical theat to the nations security. Biden has suggested that climate change poses a threat to U.S. military security on multiple occasions. In February, he noted that he had directed the Pentagon to reimagine the countrys strategy for dealing with the impact of climate change. Do you agree with the President that climate change is the great physical threat to the United States? Choices are:

You voted:
State health officials on Thursday announced 179 new cases of COVID-19 in Horry County and a total of 1,629 new cases statewide.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) also announced 19 additional COVID-19 patient deaths. Out of those 19 patients, two of them were elderly people from Horry County. Across South Carolina, 39,587 people have tested positive for the disease and 777 have died.

In Horry County, 3,727 people have tested positive for the disease and 49 of those people have died. As of Wednesday, DHEC is reporting 86.6% of Horry County's hospital beds are occupied.

Myrtle Beach calls off Fourth of July fireworks show The city of Myrtle Beach will not hold a Fourth of July fireworks show this weekend because 

As the Fourth of July weekend approaches, DHEC is recommending residents make safe, responsible plans for celebrating that include precautions for protecting against the spread of COVID-19.

More and more of the states positive cases are individuals who participated in group gatherings without wearing masks or keeping a safe distance from others, according to the agency.

The department said a lack of social distancing and mask-wearing is contributing to the states escalating numbers.

Young people are increasingly testing positive for the virus, with South Carolina seeing a surge in newly reported cases among ages 11-30.

DHEC officials have said they support local governments and event organizers who have chosen to cancel group activities across the state in order to protect their communities from the virus.

The agency recommends families instead celebrate the holiday by planning home-based festivities and watching fireworks shows while remaining in their vehicles or tuning into celebrations virtually.

Multiple communities in the state, including North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach, have passed face mask mandates.

Myrtle Beach leaders approve face mask mandate Myrtle Beach became the second coastal community in Horry County this week to approve a mandate that directs people in the city to wear face masks in certain settings.

DHEC's public lab is testing specimens every day and is operating seven days per week, according to a news release.

"The total number of individuals tested yesterday statewide was 9,634 (not including antibody tests) and the percent positive was 16.9% the release said.

State health officials have scheduled 50 mobile testing clinics across South Carolina through Aug. 1 as part of an effort to reach rural and underserved communities. To find a mobile testing clinic, click here.

There are also 172 permanent COVID-19 testing facilities. To find one of those, click here.

As of Thursday morning, the statewide hospital bed utilization rate is 73.41%, officials said. Of the 7,830 inpatient beds being used, 1,125 hold people who have either tested positive for COVID-19 or are being examined for the disease.

Health officials are urging state residents to practice social distancing, wear a mask in public, avoid group gatherings, regularly wash hands and stay home if they are sick.
South Jacksonville trustees are scheduled to meet in regular session at 7 p.m. today in Village Hall at 301 Dewey Drive.

The meeting is limited to 50 people in the building because of state pandemic restrictions and those who attend in person will have to wear a face covering. The meeting is also available through Zoom with meeting ID 982 1284 3382 or by phone at 312-626-6799 .
VIRGINIA  Three COVID-19-related deaths were reported Wednesday in Cass County, all associated with an outbreak at a Virginia nursing home.

The deaths of a man in his 80s, a woman in her 80s and a man in his 90s were part of a long-term care facility outbreak at Walker Nursing Home, according to Cass County Health Department.

Two other coronavirus disease deaths previously were reported in Cass County.

The countys overall COVID-19 case count remains at 131. Of those, 90 people have recovered.

The Cass County Health Department urges our residents to be mindful of the devastating effects COVID has had on our communities, the department said in a statement. Making choices that fail to protect yourself puts you, your loved ones and all of our Cass County communities at risk.

No new cases were reported Wednesday in Morgan County. The total case count is at 132, of which 119 have been released from restrictions and three have died.

Total cases in other west-central Illinois counties as of Wednesday were: 10 in Brown County; nine in Greene County; 35 in Jersey County; 52 in Macoupin County; two in Pike County; 431 in Sangamon County; 13 in Schuyler County; and none in Scott County, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Statewide, 828 new cases of coronavirus disease and 30 deaths were reported Wednesday, according to the state health department.

There have been 144,013 cases in 101 counties in Illinois and 6,951 deaths.
The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan discussed means to respond to the planned unilateral measures by Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, Egypt's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi tackled ways to "protect peace efforts from the ramifications" of the Israeli plan in a phone conversation on Wednesday.

Israel announced in May that it will launch a cabinet debate on annexing parts of the occupied West Bank under a US-plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace as of 1 July, but no discussions were scheduled for Wednesday in the absence of an agreement with Washington on the modalities of the move.

Shoukry and Safadi reaffirmed continued coordination with all parties and partners to create "a real opportunity to reach fair and comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution and the Arab peace initiative and in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions."

The two ministers also discussed the latest developments on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Ethiopia is building on the Blue Nile, which has been a source of years-long dispute that landed in the UN Security Council earlier this week based on Egypt's request.

The Jordanian minister affirmed his support to Egypt to reach an accord that preserves its water rights and end the dispute over the dam through a solution based on negotiations, the Egyptian foreign ministry said.

It quoted the Jordonian minister as saying that "no unilateral action, including the filling of the dam, should be taken before an agreement is reached."

The phone call came hours after Israeli officials said a plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, which has drawn global condemnation, was delayed on Wednesday.

Israeli cabinet minister Ofir Akunis said the annexation process would not begin on Wednesday, adding that officials were still working on the final details with their US counterparts.

Akunis said he expected the annexation to take place later in July, according to AP.

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SPD Chief Turu VanderWiel View Photo

Sonora, CA  As local cases continue to spike, Sonoras police chief says he is relying on the community more than ever to help protect each other.

Wednesday night Chief Turu VanderWiel released a communication to residents noting that as the community opens back up, creating more opportunity for transmitting the highly contagious, sometimes deadly virus, law enforcement continues to work closely with county health officials, and there is great concern about the current spread rate.

The rest of his letter reads as follows

I understand that everyone has their own opinion. Still, I am asking everyone to respect the state guidelines and the orders of the local Health Officer. These directives are in place to help slow the spread of this disease. Most importantly, we should be mindful of the overall welfare of our community and the health concerns of our families, friends, and neighbors.

As a community, I believe it is all of our responsibility to do everything we can to get through this pandemic as smoothly as possible. We started off setting the standard by keeping our numbers down, and we have come too far to regress.

Although many activities are now permitted, it doesnt mean that they are risk-free. I encourage everyone to wear face coverings when inside publicly accessed buildings or anytime you are within close proximity to others. Avoid large gatherings, sanitize surfaces, wash your hands regularly, and practice social distancing.

Also, to respond to recent questions regarding the enforcement of the Governors guidance on face coverings, I see law enforcements position now as I did when the original Executive Order was issued. We will do our part to educate and to encourage compliance through nontraditional enforcement methods to the extent possible, as I dont believe this should be a criminal enforcement matter. The City of Sonora still has an ordinance in place that provides an administrative, non-criminal option for regulating compliance when needed.

Our communitys freedom to thrive, along with the ability of schools and community organizations to return to a state of normalcy, relies heavily on us as a community to work together as a team  thank you for doing your part!
In many disciplines of science, digital change is making it increasingly necessary to collect, store, and process large amounts of data. (Photo: Markus Breig, KIT)

Due to digital change, research data is assuming a more and more important role in sciences. In Germany, the Federal Government and the Lander therefore decided in November 2018 to establish a National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The purpose of the NFDI is to systematically exploit sets of data, secure them in the long term, and make them accessible. The key driver will be consortia in which users and providers of research data interact with institutions providing the information infrastructure. Today, the Joint Science Conference (GWK) announced the first nine consortia to receive funding from NFDI. Scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are involved in three of these consortia.

The three consortia in which the KIT participates, focus on chemistry (NFDI4Chem), engineering sciences (NFDI4Ing), and catalysis-related sciences (NFDI4Cat).

The NFDI4Cat consortium is committed to redefining catalysis research in the digital age and adding new facets to it. The main challenge is to achieve a fundamentally improved understanding of catalysis-related sciences and to create workflows that build a bridge between theory and simulation and experimental studies on catalysts and the related technical aspects. Key elements of this strategy are the standardization of data formats and an understanding of the requirements for creating high-performance information architectures. These enable the storage, exchange, and analysis of data using the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tools. KIT participates in NFDI4Cat with a co-spokesperson from the Institute for Chemical Technology and Polymer Chemistry (ITCP). DECHEMA in Frankfurt was responsible for the application.

The vision of NFDI4Chem is the digitization of all important steps in chemical research. It aims to support researchers in their efforts to collect, store, process, analyze, publish, and reuse research data. NFDI4Chem will represent all disciplines of chemistry in the academic field. In the initial phase, it focuses on data related to molecules and reactions, including data for their experimental and theoretical characterization. The KIT participates with two co-spokespersons, the Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC) is responsible for the design, together with the Institute of Organic Chemistry (IOC) and the Institute of Biological and Chemical Systems (IBCS). The Friedrich Schiller University of Jena was responsible for the NFDI4Chem application.

NFDI4Ing brings together the engineering research communities and promotes the management of their research data. NFDI4Ing was founded in 2017 and is in close contact with researchers from all engineering disciplines. One of the main objectives is to define and articulate the needs and interests of the engineering community in terms of data use and accessibility. An important challenge here is the large number of sub-disciplines in the engineering sciences and their specific characteristics. KIT participates with two co-spokespersons from the Institute of Applied Materials (IAM) and the Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC). The RWTH Aachen was responsible for the NFDI4Ing application.

The Federal Government and the state governments intend to fund up to 30 consortia within the framework of the NFDI. Up to 85 million euros per year will be available for this purpose in the final stage. Three rounds of calls are planned for 2019, 2020, and 2021. In the first round of calls, 22 applications for funding of NFDI consortia were submitted, 9 of which have now been selected. A total of 142 different institutions were involved in the applications, either as applicants or co-applicants. For 2020 and 2021, further rounds of calls are planned. The directorate of the NFDI is located in Karlsruhe by decision of the GWK.

Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,600 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 23,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
This article will be updated throughout the week with coronavirus case counts and other need-to-know information about the pandemic in San Antonio.

Highest single day death count since pandemic began: The coronavirus continued its unabated spread through the area Sunday as Bexar County reported 198 new cases and eight new deaths.

July 4

High death count on Fourth of July: The coronavirus continued to exact a deadly toll in San Antonio on the Fourth of July as city official reported five new deaths and 341 new cases of COVID-19.

Saturdays death count was the highest for a single day in Bexar County since mid-April. In all, 122 people have died of COVID-19 in Bexar County since the start of the pandemic in March.

July 3

San Antonio reported another record-high number of new coronavirus cases Friday  a 1,334-case increase  after sending an emergency alert to area residents cellphones, urging them heed the state's new face covering mandate.

It was a 4,000-case jump since Sunday, bringing the total number of cases in Bexar County to 14,212.

July 2

Gov. Greg Abbott issues new order: On Thursday, the governor issued an executive order requiring Texans to wear a face mask in public spaces in counties with more 20 or more positive cases.

The order also gives mayors and county judges the ability to impose restrictions on some outdoor gatherings of over 10 people. With certain exceptions, people cannot be in groups larger than 10 and must maintain 6 feet of social distancing from others.

The face mask requirement comes during a statewide rise in COVID-19 cases.

Big Bend closes: The Big Bend National Park was ordered closed again Thursday after a park resident turned up positive for COVID-19. After being largely spared during the early stages of the pandemic, the Big Bend area is now being hit with a wave of positive COVID-19 cases.

July 1

Coronavirus cases: The novel coronavirus continued its unchecked spread through the San Antonio region as Bexar County reported 439 more cases of COVID-19 and 53 new hospitalized patients Wednesday. One more person has died of COVID-19, an Hispanic man in his 80s, bringing the toll to 111. The number of people are now hospitalized with the virus stands at 1,019.

UTSA laying off more than 300 employees: The University of Texas at San Antonio is notifying 312 employees today that their positions are being eliminated to help close a $36 million shortfall caused by COVID-19. Laid-off employees will be released from their responsibilities immediately but will maintain their pay and benefits through August.

JUNE 30

Coronavirus updates: San Antonio reported its largest one-day increase in coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, reporting 1,268 new infections. That represent a 60 percent increase from the previous one-day high of 795, which was set Saturday.

CPS employees: As the coronavirus races through San Antonio, 32 CPS Energy employees have tested positive for COVID-19 and an additional 246 workers are quarantined at home, utility officials said Monday. In other words, 8 percent of CPS Energys 3,083 employees are under quarantine.

JUNE 29

Coronavirus updates: San Antonio officials reported 650 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday as the virus rapid spread continued to put pressure on area hospitals. The confirmed new cases brought the countys total to 10,797. San Antonio-area hospitals were treating 881 COVID-19 patients, an increase of 79 since Sunday.

Half of S.A.'s COVID-19 cases confirmed in June: "Good Morning America" pointed out that more than half of the city's cases were reported in June. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the current situation is a "stark difference" from previous months, when he said the city had one of the lowest infection rates per capita.

USAA delaying office reopening: The San Antonio insurance and financial services company informed employees last week that the bulk of its 35,000-person workforce will continue to work from home through Dec. 31, instead of Sept. 1 as originally planned. USAA employs 19,000 people in San Antonio.

H-E-B employees positive: Twenty-four H-E-B employees in San Antonio tested positive for COVID-19 last weekend. In June alone, more than 100 S.A. grocery employees had been infected with COVID-19, including the 24 cases this past weekend.

Cases surpass 10,000: San Antonio coronavirus cases continued to rise exponentially Sunday, topping 10,000 as local hospitals scramble to find enough hospital beds and nurses to care for the wave of new patients in the last two weeks.

JUNE 28

Pence in Dallas: This is all hands on deck, Vice President Mike Pence said during a June 28 meeting with Abbott and White House coronavirus expert Dr. Deborah Birx at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. President Trump wanted us to be here today with the developments over the last two weeks  with the rising positivity and the rising number of cases  with a very simple message that is to you and the people of Texas: Were with you and were going to stay with you.

TRACKING COVID-19: Maps and graphics show the spread of the virus through San Antonio and Texas.
San Antonio's bronzer-streaked TikTok star Adam Martinez, known by his more than 6 million fans as "Rosa," was recognized nationally twice this week.

Martinez, or @adamrayokay across social media, was featured by Cosmopolitan on Wednesday alongside fellow TikTok personality Marlene Mendez for "giving other underrepresented cultures on the platform permission to be themselves."

RELATED: San Antonio's TikTok star 'Rosa' returns with H-E-B cashier challenge video

The magazine dedicated a full spread to the rise of the two internet stars and how they managed to amass their respective legion of fans with quick clips filmed in their homes. Martinez's fame is fairly new, he's been a viral TikTok persona for less than a year. He told Cosmopolitan "Rosa" helped him find his true self.

"It kind of teaches me that I can do whatever I want," he told the magazine. "It just makes me feel powerful because Rosa is literally a part of me. I didn't make this character up. She's literally inside of me, and she is a part of my everyday life. If it brings people this joy, then that just makes me 10 times happier."

Martinez also shared his plans for the future, like touring with other TikTok celebs whenever the coronavirus pandemic allows. He also wants to use his platform for advocacy.

"I just want to be an advocate for so many things," he told Cosmo. Whether it's being plus-sized, being a gay man  I just want to be able to let people know that it's okay to be yourself."

Fashion icon Alexander Wang is already seeing him as such. The official Instagram account for the designer shared a photo of Martinez on its grid earlier in the week, recognizing him as the embodiment of "Pride in one post."

Martinez marked the banner week for his TikTok influence by posting the photos from his Cosmopolitan shoot on Instagram.

"Never give up on yourself and always remember you get what you put out in the world," he captioned the glam photos. "LONG LIVE ROSA."

Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @maddyskye
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The government will start full-scale negotiations as early as this month with Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries, where novel coronavirus infections are in a stable situation, to ease entry restrictions.

Following Vietnam and Thailand, both with which the government already began similar negotiations, Japan hopes to at first resume business travel.

In Taiwan, other than for travelers who brought in the infection from abroad, no new infections have been reported for more than two months.

Because of its strong economic ties with Japan, business circles and the Liberal Democratic Party have been calling for the resumption of exchange with Taiwan. Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, who are members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as well as Myanmar, which agreed to try to resume telephone conferencing among foreign ministers of the two countries, are on the list of candidates to start full-scale negotiations.

"Considering the overall circumstances with infections in Japan and overseas, we are considering expanding the target countries and regions," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a Wednesday press conference.

On the other hand, the government is cautious about easing entry restrictions on China and South Korea. If the number of travelers between Japan and the two countries increases, it will be necessary to step up the PCR testing system after entry.

Regarding diplomacy, easing restrictions on other countries before doing so for the United States takes some consideration.

The European Union has announced plans to lift its ban on entry from Japan on Wednesday, but Japan plans to continue to restrict entry from the EU.
A scene from the film "Gwangju Video: The Missing" / Courtesy of FEEL&PLAN



By Kwak Yeon-soo



"Gwangju Video: The Missing" is an archival film that retraces the Gwangju Democratization Movement in 1980, and the brutal government response, through national and international video footage and interviews of foreign correspondents and domestic witnesses.



This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, during which hundreds of unarmed civilians in Gwangju, at the time the provincial capital of South Jeolla Province, were killed in a deadly military crackdown.



While the first half of the film focuses on events leading up to the Gwangju Uprising, the latter part follows what happened in front of the Provincial Hall of South Jeolla Province on May 21, the fifth day of the protest, when soldiers opened fire on citizens, leaving hundreds injured or dead. The military force then faced massive resistance from the protesters.



There are no documents, photos, videos or audio recordings providing evidence of the mass shooting that took place between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. in front of the Provincial Hall on May 21. Reporters, photojournalists and civilians were unable to collect evidence because their own lives were at risk.



"The photos of the military crackdown, which were made public in Gwangju this year, were sold by airborne troops to collectors," director Lee Jo-hoon said during a press conference for the film, Wednesday. "I hope someone familiar with the matter makes a disclosure in the public interest."





A poster for the film "Gwangju Video: The Missing" / Courtesy of FEEL&PLAN
Bob Owen /Staff photographer

San Antonio dropped a spot to No 5 in CNBC's tracking of U.S. cities with the fastest COVID-19 growth, but the time it takes for the total cases to double in the city remains the same.

San Antonio is the only Texas city in the leading five. The list has been rearranged multiple times in recent weeks. San Antonio first entered the list at No. 4 on June 19, then rose to No.3 before returning to No. 4. Since CNBC has been monitoring the list, which is sourced from Evercore ISI and the John Hopkins School of Public Health, different states have dominated the top 5. At one point Texas cities filled the ranks, now Florida cities Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa take the top three spots, respectively. Charleston, South Carolina leads is at No. 4.
Bexar County Sheriff's Office

The Bexar County Sheriff's Office is asking the public for help in locating a man accused of crashing into another vehicle before shooting at its occupants last week.

Officials say 29-year-old Keith Joseph Vaughn was driving in an area in East Bexar County on June 22 when he crashed into a vehicle head-on. He also hit two other vehicles as he jump out of his moving car.
Free speech rights are under fire. Police lob rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters. The Trump administration and Congress are moving to hold Internet companies liable for user content.Court battles rage over the publication of books criticizing the president. Individuals are shunned or forced out of their jobs for racist social media posts. While many people know that free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment, there's a lot about it that many still misunderstand.

Myth No. 1: Speech cannot cause harm by itself.

The schoolyard chant "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me" reflects an ingrained belief that words do not inflict lasting harm. In "The Coddling of the American Mind," Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff dispute the notion that speech can "trigger" students or make them feel "unsafe." The head of a leading British girls school recently dismissed, in the Sunday Times, students concerned about objectionable speech as "victims of a mad health and safety culture that has made them unable to deal with anything difficult."

While they are categorically different from bodily harms, the hazards of speech are real; words can inflict genuine and lasting wounds. Online speech, including harassment and cyberbullying, can drive individuals to self-harm or suicide. Microaggressions - fleeting, often unintentional insults or slurs based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion - can, over time, have effects similar to those of serious trauma. Speech should not be equated with physical violence, but at its most extreme, hateful speech can be an instigating prelude to violence, riling people up to commit crimes.

Myth No. 2: Government prohibitions can suppress hateful ideologies.

With rising incidences of hate-motivated crimes in the United States and hateful speech proliferating online, there are increasing calls for the government to tamp down on bigoted expression. In a Washington Post op-ed, Richard Stengel pushed for state governments to adopt hate speech statutes to "curb the incitement of racial and religious hatred." Critical race theorists have long argued that reinterpreting the First Amendment to allow for more robust regulation of hateful speech would help ensure a more tolerant and equal society.

But recent history indicates that such legal prohibitions are ineffective in stamping out bigotry. In the United States,Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic vitriol, among other categories of hateful expression, are protected speech; Germany bans such sentiments. The Anti-Defamation League reported a disturbing 12 percent rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the United States from 2018 to 2019, and Germany's Interior Ministry recorded an almost identical jump of 13 percent in the same time frame. Meanwhile, the European Union's efforts to expunge hateful speech from online platforms have driven its purveyors underground, to shadowy niche sites and networks where they can recruit while shielded from the prying eyes of law enforcement.

There is also evidence that authorities can use hate speech laws not to silence prejudice but rather to suppress dissenting views, such as support for Palestinian rights or antiwar activism. At a moment when democratic governments - including in India, the Philippines and Hungary - are showing increasing hostility to dissent, expanding state leeway to suppress speech is risky.

Myth No. 3: The best remedy for disfavored speech is more speech.

The notion that the ideal antidote to menacing or harmful arguments is better arguments was set forth by Justice Louis Brandeis in his concurrence in the 1927 case Whitney v. California,where he argued that the best response to communist propaganda was "more speech, not enforced silence." More recently, in her 2018 book, "Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, not Censorship," law professor Nadine Strossen made a forceful case that hateful and "extremist" speech is "most effectively 'undermined' by counterspeech."

Debate, rebuttals and denunciations are almost always preferable to government prohibitions on offending speech. But the Internet age has demonstrated that fighting speech with speech has its own perils. Research shows that efforts to refute conspiracy theories and disinformation can end up amplifying the original falsehoods. In other instances, counterspeech can itself veer into hatred, or incur such high costs that it mutes speakers: When, in 2014,women criticized sexism in the video-game industry, the avalanche of hostile and menacing retorts, including threats of physical harm, forced some to flee their homes and intimidated others into silence. Offline, demonstrations that drown out a speaker become a heckler's veto, depriving audiences of a chance to listen - and sometimes prompting authorities to shut down the exchange for fear of a melee.

Myth No. 4: We all enjoy the same speech rights.

The combination of the First Amendment's protections for free speech and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under law would seem to ensure that, in the United States, everyone's speech is equivalently free and safeguarded. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes this explicit, guaranteeing that "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds." In a series of decisions fortifying the speech rights of corporations, the Supreme Court has "repeatedly assured the nation that the First Amendment protects everyone, regardless of popularity and regardless of viewpoint," Garret Epps wrote in the Atlantic in 2019.

While universal and equal free speech rights may be an ideal to which we aspire, the reality is different. Socioeconomic status, race, gender identity, ideological proclivities and other factors shape whether individuals have the means to express themselves. Creative industries including journalism, book publishing and filmmaking are rife with disparities in terms of who gets the opportunity to create and share their work, and how much they are paid to so do.

Despite the First Amendment's legal protections, social norms and taboos dictate the parameters of acceptable discourse, and can shunt unorthodox views out of the public sphere. After Wanna Thompson tweeted criticism of rapper Nicki Minaj in 2018, fans barraged the culture writer with hateful messages over Instagram, email and the phone; Thompson ultimately lost a writing job. This spring, University of Chicago economist Harald Uhlig was subject to calls for removal from his role as a journal editor, after he compared advocates of defunding the police to flat earthers. Social barriers and ideological deterrents shape the landscape for speech, so that liberties that may be equal in theory may be difficult to exercise in practice.

Myth No. 5: Social media restrictions are forms of censorship.

When social media companies demote or delete posts or disable accounts that violate their usage rules, those targeted and their allies, including President Trump, are often quick to cry censorship. Right-wing commentators are urging a shift from Twitter to Parler to escape what they call censorship. Aggressive content-moderation efforts aimed to stanch the spread of conspiracy theories and quackery amid the coronavirus pandemic have sparked accusations that social media platforms are engaging in Orwellian tactics of information suppression.

But Twitter, Facebook and other online platforms are private companies, which have their own free speech rights - including the right to elevate or take down content as they see fit. Courts have not adopted arguments that private businesses should be subject to the speech-protective constraints that prevent the government from suppressing viewpoints. The major platforms all have community standards and guidelines that allow for far more aggressive policing of speech - including disinformation about voting, impostor profiles and the glorification of self-harm - than the government could constitutionally carry out.

This does not mean people have no recourse if they believe that an online platform is muzzling a particular viewpoint. Consumers and clients are free to put pressure on the platforms and to stop using services that they think are overly restrictive.

- - -

Nossel is the chief executive of PEN America and the author of "Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All."
Cloud cuckoo land? How one birds epic migration stunned scientists Guardian

Feds Bullard says risk of financial crisis remain FT

Russian Arctic sets fantastical heat records: weather chief Agence France Presse

House Democrats Climate Plan Embraces Much of Green New Deal, but Not a Ban on Fracking Inside Climate News

Guest post: How climate change misinformation spreads online Carbon Brief

#COVID-19

Revealed: Covid-19 outbreaks at meat-processing plants in US being kept quiet Guardian

More than 40 Bay Area school principals in quarantine after in-person meeting San Francisco Chronicle

Hundreds of teens at pong fest party exposed to coronavirus, officials say CNN

Newsom orders new shutdown of restaurants, other indoor business in 19 California counties Los Angeles Times

Ex-FDA Chief: U.S. May Actually Have Over 400,000 New Coronavirus Cases Per Day, But Not Testing Enough To Show It Forbes

Trump maintains coronavirus will just disappear at some point The Hill

* * *

Early Herd Immunity against COVID-19: A Dangerous Misconception Johns Hopkins

Cost Benefit Analysis of Limited Reopening Relative to a Herd Immunity Strategy or Shelter in Place for SARS-CoV-2 in the United States medRvix. From the abstract: A limited reopening to achieve partial mitigation of COVID-19 is cost effective relative to a full reopening if an effective therapeutic or vaccine can be deployed within 11.1 months of late May 2020. One additional month of shelter-in-place restrictions should only be imposed if it saves at least 154,586 lives per month before the development of an effective therapeutic or vaccine relative to limited reopening. Taleb would argue that since the downside of betting on herd immunity is ruin, we should not make it; more, we should not be applying so-called cost-benefit analysis in the first place. I agree with Taleb. Note the spurious precision of 11.1 months.

* * *

Large SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak Caused by Asymptomatic Traveler, China Emerging Infectious Diseases. Commentary:

Looks almost identical to the South Korea fitness class one (pictured left) in terms of transmission route (new one from China on right)  both figures from CDC. 112 cases and 71+ cases respectively. pic.twitter.com/AXw9F96u3v  Bryan P. White, MS, MPH* (@bpwhite_bio) July 2, 2020

Suppression of a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the Italian municipality of Vo Nature. From the abstract: Notably, 42.5% (95% CI 31.5-54.6%) of the confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections detected across the two surveys were asymptomatic (i.e. did not have symptoms at the time of swab testing and did not develop symptoms afterwards). The mean serial interval was 7.2 days (95% CI 5.9-9.6). We found no statistically significant difference in the viral load of symptomatic versus asymptomatic infections.

Finding Antibodies that Neutralize SARS-CoV-2 NIH Directors Blog

Will COVID-19 be evidence-based medicines nemesis? Trisha Greenhalh, PLOS One

* * *

Life, Liberty and Face Masks: A Virus Preys On a Divided America Bloomberg

Ensuring Uptake of Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 NEJM
A protester is detained by police during a rally against the national security law in Hong Kong, Wednesday. EPA-Yonhap



Hong Kong unrest to have limited impact on Korean stock market



By Lee Min-hyung



Korea's commercial and state-run lenders are keeping a close eye on a possible mass capital outflow from Hong Kong, as political and trade disputes between the United States and China appear to be worsening.



With China's top legislature imposing a national security law on Hong Kong, tensions between the world's top two economies are showing signs of developing into a full-blown financial war. The law took effect Wednesday.



Korean banks operating in Hong Kong are expressing concerns over the conflict.



However, they said they have no choice but to maintain a "wait and see" mode for now, as it is hard to predict how the ongoing situations will deepen down the road. They also said all available options are under review for a worst-case scenario.



"Our view is that Hong Kong's financial status in Asia will not change in the short term, but disputes are expected to weaken the city-state's medium- to long-term competitiveness," a spokesman at KB Kookmin Bank said. "Social unrest and unceasing reports over disputes taking place there will be negative economic factors."



The main fear has already been reflected in the region's capital market, and Hong Kong's stock and currency markets are showing no signs of fluctuation now, he said.






Yves here. Readers may be surprised to learn that independent science groups review major climate models on a regular basis. Nevertheless, and I hate to seem like such a naysayer, but between Covid-19 and greater social divisions, the ability of many advanced economies to change course on climate change seems very much diminished.

By Jeff Berardelli, a meteorologist and climate contributor to CBS News in New York City, and a regular contributor to Yale Climate Connections. Originally published at Yale Climate Connections

For the past year, some of the most up-to-date computer models from the worlds top climate modeling groups have been running hot  projecting that global warming may be even more extreme than earlier thought. Data from some of the model runs has been confounding scientists because it challenges decades of consistent projections.

It is concerning, as it increases the risk of more severe climate change impacts, explains Dr. Andrew Gettelman, a cloud microphysics scientist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado.

As a result, theres been a real urgency to answer this important question in climate science: Are there processes in some new models that need correcting, or is this enhanced warming a real threat?

After months of contemplation and study after study, the picture is becoming much more clear, and providing something of a breather. Along with those studies, an unprecedented international research mission, led by NOAA and named ATOMIC, aims to provide climate science with the most sophisticated insights yet into why some models point to more warming.

International Effort To Evaluate Climate Models

For the past 25 years the international community has been evaluating and comparing the worlds most sophisticated climate models produced by various teams at universities, research centers, and government agencies. The effort is organized by the World Climate Research Programme under the United Nations World Meteorological Organization.

Climate models are complicated computer programs composed of millions of lines of code that calculate the physical properties and interactions between the main climate forces like the atmosphere, oceans, and solar input. But models also go a lot further, incorporating other systems like ice sheets, forests, and the biosphere, to name a few. The models are then used to simulate the real-world climate system and project how certain changes, like added pollution or land-use changes, will alter the climate.

Every few years there is a new comprehensive international evaluation called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). In the sixth such effort, known as CMIP6 and now under way, experts are reviewing about 100 models.

Information gleaned from this effort will act as a scientific foundation for the U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) next major assessment report, scheduled for release in 2021. The goal of the report  the sixth in 30 years  is to inform the international community about how much the climate has changed, and, importantly, how much change can be expected in coming decades.

A Conundrum Emerges

Over the past year, the CMIP6 collection of models being reviewed threw researchers an unexpected curveball: a significant number of the climate model runs showed substantially more global warming than previous model versions had projected. If accurate, the international climate goals would be nearly impossible to achieve, and there would be significantly more extreme impacts worldwide.

A foundational experiment in every report addresses sensitivity: If you double levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) that were in the air before the Industrial Revolution, how much warming do the models show? This doubling is not expected for a few more decades, but it is a quick way to communicate the critical role of greenhouse gases in changing the climate.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 35% since the 1800s because of the burning of fossil fuels. As a result, global temperatures have already increased by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the first IPCC assessment report, published in 1990, the answer to that question about the impact of doubling carbon dioxide gave a fairly wide range of results  between 2.7-8 degrees F of global warming. Since then, four more assessments issued six to seven years apart reached nearly the exact same conclusion on sensitivity.

But that sensitivity may, for the first time, change significantly in next years assessment. Why? Because starting last year, numerous models in the CMIP6 collection displayed even bigger spikes in temperature upon doubling of CO2 concentrations. Were in serious trouble if the climate sensitivity falls in the mid or upper range of the previous assessments. But if the new, higher estimates are correct, the impacts on civilization would be catastrophic.

According to the highly regarded climate site Carbon Brief, which did an independent evaluation of the model suite, 30% of models showed a significant increase in their sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric CO2.



In the above CarbonBrief interactive visualization, the bars offer a comparison in the range of sensitivity in the CMIP5 models (gray) and CMIP6 models (blue).

New and Encouraging Evidence Is Emerging

At first, scientists were uncertain whether the new model runs were on to something, so the international modeling community dug in to produce multiple studies. The results are not yet conclusive, but a gradual collective sigh of relief seems to be materializing.

Evidence is emerging from multiple directions that the models which show the greatest warming in the CMIP6 ensemble are likely too warm, explains Dr. Gavin Schmidt, director of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

For example, a study released April 28 evaluated the past performance of the models making up the CMIP6 ensemble. The team assigned weights to each model based upon historical performance of their warming projections, weighing the poorer performing models less. By doing so, both the mean warming and the range of warming scenarios in the CMIP6 ensemble decreased, meaning the warmest models were the ones with weaker historical performance. This result supports a finding that a subset of the models are too warm.

That conclusion is supported by another new study evaluating one particular model  the Community Earth System Model (CESM2)  that showed greater warming. Using that model, the researchers simulated the climate in the early Eocene era, about 50 million years ago, when rainforests thrived in the Arctic and Antarctic. The CESM2 simulated a historical climate that seems way too warm compared with what is known about that era from geological data, indicating that the model is likely also too warm in its future projections.

Two other recent studies of the CMIP6 models being evaluated use clever analysis methods to narrow the range of future warming projections and also reduce the projected warming of the CMIP6 models by 10 to 15%.

Through the intensive research spurred by the CMIP6 climate-sensitivity curveball, scientists have been able to turn a confounding challenge into a confidence builder, providing even greater certainty than they had before in both the abilities of the climate science community and in the computer models used. Moreover, the experience has helped unearth uncertainties remaining in the modeling process.

Experts conclude much of this uncertainty probably lies in the complexity of clouds. We have been looking as a community at why the models with greater warming are doing what they are doing  and its tied to cloud feedbacks in the southern mid-latitudes mostly, explains Schmidt.

In fact, a new study addressing the increased sensitivity was published in Science Advances stating, Cloud feedbacks and cloud-aerosol interactions are the most likely contributors to the high values and increased range of ECS [sensitivity] in CMIP6.

Understanding the Complexity of Clouds

Its long been known in climate modeling circles that cloud processes and interactions are a potential weak link for climate modeling. That reality has been brought front and center by the urgent challenges posed during this CMIP6 evaluation period, but the current evaluation of models also provides an opportunity for discovery and improvement.

Cloud complexity comes from the reality that clouds have a multitude of sizes, altitudes, and textures. Some clouds cool Earth by providing shade, reflecting sunlight back into space. Others act like a blanket, trapping heat and warming the world.

Given that about 70% of the globe is covered by clouds at any given time, its no surprise that they play an integral role in regulating the climate. The challenge is to figure out which types of clouds will increase, which will decrease, and what the net effect will be on cooling or warming as the climate changes.

One study last year reached an alarming conclusion: Left unchecked, the release of CO2 into the atmosphere may lead to a tipping point where shallow low clouds disappear  leading to runaway, catastrophic warming of nearly 15 degrees F. While scientists see that outcome as only a remote possibility, it drives home the urgent need to better understand clouds.

We have a saying at NOAA: It isnt rocket science  its much, much harder than that, quips Dr. Chris Fairall, ATOMICs lead investigator. One of the major problems for modeling is there is not clean separation of scales. The photo below is one that Fairall took from the NOAA P-3 aircraft.

Think about trying to code up a model that can produce this, Fairall muses. Huge cloud systems are made up of a spectrum of clouds from the size of Kansas to ones that fit in the trunk of your Volkswagen.

In the real world and the simulated model world, cloud formation depends partially on how moisture interacts with aerosols, tiny floating particles in the air. Aerosols are fine particles like smoke, sea spray, and pollutants. These tiny dust-like particles act as condensation nuclei, allowing gaseous water vapor to turn into cloud droplets.

The interplay between clouds, aerosols, and a warming climate in a model affects how much of a cooling or warming influence that model calculates.

Recently a new international dataset of emissions  including changes in the concentrations of aerosols  has been introduced into some climate models with improved cloud physics. As a result, some scientists conclude, the changes have affected cloud dynamics in these models, leading to additional warming.

But despite the increased confidence that a subset of the CMIP6 models are likely overdoing warming projections, Gettelman believes there is at least some merit to the warmer projections because this generation of models has more sophisticated cloud physics.

So in order to get to the bottom of cloud complexity and improve these vital model projections, the international community is collaborating on a massive research project.

Investigating the Secrets of Clouds

To address the urgent question about the dynamics and role of clouds in a warming world, NOAA and European partners launched their ongoing research effort unprecedented in scale. The U.S. contribution, ATOMIC  short for Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign  is an international science mission that was featured recently on CBS This Morning: Saturday.

The research that originally motivated this project was an analysis that showed that the single biggest factor that separated the CMIP models into big warming and not so big warming was treatment of shallow convective clouds, Fairall explains.

The best places to find shallow convective clouds are tropical waters. So in February, a group of scientists from more than 40 partner institutions from countries including the U.S., Germany, France, and the U.K. painstakingly probed hundreds of miles of tropical air and sea near the island of Barbados. They used every tool in their arsenals: five research aircraft, four large fact-finding vessels, buoys, radar and futuristic air and ocean drones to examine the makeup of these complicated and crucial clouds.

Scientists expect that the vast, concurrent and diverse types of observations captured in ATOMIC will allow them to improve how clouds are represented in climate models, enabling them to make more precise predictions of future climate and impacts.

Fairall says the data from ATOMIC is ideal for such assessments, and he expects the findings will inform the upcoming 2021 comprehensive IPCC report. With the data from ATOMIC still being analyzed, scientists have not yet reached conclusions.

On the whole, however, these unprecedented research efforts to troubleshoot discrepancies in the latest models have already borne critical fruit. They are providing scientists with more insights, illustrating the crucial value of the scientific method, lending credibility to the capability of climate models, and helping build more confidence within the climate science community.
(Natural News) A social and cultural analyst says that America must begin to use just and necessary force if we are to stop the totalitarianism driving Antifa and Black Lives Matter ideology.

Writing at WorldNetDaily, author Joe Keysor, who has taught English in Oman, mainland China and at his current post at Prince Sultan University in Saudi Arabia, praised President Donald Trumps America First policies and his attempts to roll back the federal bureaucracy and its creeping tyranny, but nonetheless believes that unless he confronts the rising militant, chaotic, revolutionary violence of BLM and Antifa, all that he has accomplished will be lost.

And that will be catastrophic for generations of Americans to come.

Keysor notes that the death of George Floyd galvanized and unified most of the country to seek justice in ways that had not been seen since the beginning of Trumps presidency.

But the legitimate pursuit of justice for Floyd has since been hijacked by Leftists and anarchists who seek nothing less than a full-fledged cultural revolution of the kind Vladimir Lenin led in Russia after World War I.

Floyds death has triggered a nationwide outbreak of looting, rioting and social chaos that goes far beyond mere protesting against injustice, and is becoming a threat to the very existence of civilized society. If unopposed, it has the potential to become a threat to the existence of our nation itself, Keysor writes.

The BLM people and their white leftist allies want to do more than just remove statues or loot some stores. They are aiming at a Marxist transformation of the United States. This has been done elsewhere: in China by Mao, in Russia by Lenin, by Castro in Cuba and in Cambodia by Pol Pot, the author and analyst continues.

He notes further that its become clear that these forces of Marxism have seized upon the death of Floyd and other incidents to galvanize a segment of society that has been indoctrinated to hate our country and believe that no matter what reforms are discussed or implemented, they will never be enough to rid our country of our original sins like slavery.

But really, thats not even the point. This group seeks a revolution of the type that will usher in the kind of authoritarian government our founders risked everything, including their lives, to fight against and eventually defeat.

These people couldnt care less about George Floyd or slavery or anything at all to do with Americas history: They just want to tear it all down for the sake of destroying it and then rebuilding society in their intolerant, tyrannical worldview.

Keysor further notes:

It seems hard to believe that people can be so cunning and devious with their long-range schemes for power, but that is what extreme leftists have done before and are doing now. What is really surprising, though, is the complete weakness of the response. Allowing people to rampage freely and then trying to arrest some of them after the fact will not restore the order this country so badly needs, nor will it prevent further mobs from indulging their criminal impulses at the slightest provocation, anywhere, any time.

If this is not stopped by force, by lethal force if necessary, it will go on and on. There is no appeasing the violent revolutionaries and criminals who exploit real problems for their own selfish advantage, he added. (Related: A civil war has begun, but only one side is fighting: Soon, normal people across America will pick up rifles and defend this nation against Black Lives TERRORISTS.)

We know that to be true because in case after case, instance after instance, even uber-liberal, uber-woke Democrat leaders of deep-blue cities and states cannot appease these perpetually outraged Leftist mobs of BLM and Antifa adherents.

They cant defund police enough. They cant shift enough money to social welfare programs. They cant pander to, or virtue signal to the Leftist mobs enough.

For the rioting and destruction of society continues. And it will unless force, in the appropriate amount, is used to counter their force.

Should some rioting and looting anarchists and criminals  not honest protesters  be shot in the line of duty, the media would scream bloody murder, and more violence would result  but have we reached the point where we as a society cannot even defend ourselves from the lawless? Keysor asks.

Lets hope not.

Sources include:

WND.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Medicinal plants are still widely used today in many parts of the world. In some developing countries, more than half of the population relies on these plants and consider them their primary source of health care. Despite the dependence of many people on these medicinal plants, however, researchers estimate that only about 15 percent of the total number of medicinal plant species on the planet have been scientifically studied.

According to researchers at Raya University in Ethiopia, people in their country still use traditional medicines to treat various diseases. Of the 7,000 different medicinal plants in Ethiopia, about 12 percent are native to the country. These plants are used in 95 percent of the preparations Ethiopians use to address human and animal diseases, especially those caused by pathogenic bacteria and fungi.

In a recent study, the researchers investigated the antibacterial and antifungal activities of two Ethiopian plants, namely, Vernonia amygdalina (bitter leaf) and Croton macrostachyus (broad-leaved croton). Their aim was to find alternative solutions to the growing problem of drug-resistant microorganisms.

They reported their findings in an article published in The Journal of Phytopharmacology.

Ethiopian plants show promise as antimicrobials against antibiotic-resistant microbial pathogens

Recently, the resistance shown by some microorganisms toward antibiotics has become a global health problem. So far, no reliable solution has been found for this issue. Scientists continue to study natural sources in hopes of finding powerful antimicrobial agents, which they believe will prove more effective than synthetic agents against microbial pathogens.

According to scientific investigations conducted in west Ethiopia, bitter leaf and broad-leaved croton are promising medicinal plants with beneficial properties. These two share a long history of use in Ethiopian folk medicine as treatments for malaria, gastrointestinal infections, wounds, dermatitis, chigger bites, toothache, ringworm, cardiovascular disease, dandruff and other ailments caused by microbes.

To evaluate the antimicrobial properties of bitter leaf and broad-leaved croton, the researchers used four bacteria, namely, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Salmonella typhi and Escherichia coli, and two fungi, Aspergillus flavus and A. niger, for their experiment. They measured the zones of inhibition and minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of bitter leaf and broad-leaved croton extracts against these six pathogens.

The researchers reported the highest percentage yield for bitter leaf methanol extract and the lowest for bitter leaf water extract. The methanolic and ethanolic extracts of both plants showed higher growth inhibitory effects on bacterial pathogens than aqueous extracts.

The methanolic crude extract of broad-leaved croton had the largest zone of inhibition against S. aureus, with a MIC of 25 mg/mL. Meanwhile, against A. niger, the ethanolic crude extract of broad-leaved croton showed the highest antifungal activity.

Based on these results, the researchers concluded that bitter leaf and broad-leaved croton are potent medicinal plants that can be used to treat infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria and fungi.

Other plants with antimicrobial properties

Plants are great sources of biologically active compounds that can stop or prevent the growth of microorganisms. Here are some examples of plants with antibacterial and anti-fungal properties: (Related: Review looks at antimicrobial properties of plants of the genus Etlingera.)

Raspberry  In Australia, raspberry juice and leaf extracts have long been used to prevent or treat gastroenteritis in humans and animals.

 In Australia, raspberry juice and leaf extracts have long been used to prevent or treat gastroenteritis in humans and animals. Lavender  Essential oils extracted from several species of lavender have been used as topical antibacterial and anti-fungal medicines for centuries.

 Essential oils extracted from several species of lavender have been used as topical antibacterial and anti-fungal medicines for centuries. Coffee  According to studies, coffee contains antibacterial compounds, such as protocatechuic acid, chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid.

 According to studies, coffee contains antibacterial compounds, such as protocatechuic acid, chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid. Licorice  This medicinal herb is said to have strong antibacterial activity against bacteria that commonly infect the upper respiratory tract. Licorice owes its effectiveness to its active components, namely, licoricidin and coumarin derivatives.

 This medicinal herb is said to have strong antibacterial activity against bacteria that commonly infect the upper respiratory tract. Licorice owes its effectiveness to its active components, namely, licoricidin and coumarin derivatives. Japanese camellia  A member of the tea family, this flowering plant has been found to be effective against food-borne pathogens.

 A member of the tea family, this flowering plant has been found to be effective against food-borne pathogens. Turmeric  One of the most well-known herbs today, the oil extracted from turmeric root is potent against fungal pathogens that cause candidiasis.

 One of the most well-known herbs today, the oil extracted from turmeric root is potent against fungal pathogens that cause candidiasis. Ginger  A widely used medicinal and edible herb, ginger is known for its antimicrobial properties, especially against common pathogens like S. aureus and Candida albicans.

Plants and their products are reliable natural medicines, especially for infections caused by bacterial and fungal pathogens. Read more about edible herbs you can use to treat microbial infections at Herbs.news.

Sources include:

Science.news

PhytopharmaJournal.com [PDF]

SAPS.org.uk

IntechOpen.com
(Natural News) Plants from the genus Ajuga are clump-forming, flowering herbs that are widely distributed around the world. They are commonly referred to as simply bugle, carpet bugle, ground pine or bugleweed. According to studies, at least 301 species are known to be members of the genus Ajuga. The genus is one of the 266 genera that belong to the mint (Lamiaceae) family of medicinal plants.

Many Ajuga plants have been used in traditional medicine. In fact, these plants are considered effective remedies for a wide variety of ailments, such as diabetes, dysentery, fever, gastrointestinal disorders, high blood pressure, malaria and toothache.

Researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia have also found evidence of the use of Ajuga plants as anthelmintic (anti-parasitic drugs), diuretic, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory and anti-myocobacterial agents.

In a recent study, Chinese researchers presented a more comprehensive summary of the botanical characteristics, ethnomedical uses and phytochemical, pharmacological and toxicological analyses of plants from the genus Ajuga. Published in The American Journal of Chinese Medicine, their review focused on the medicinal benefits of these plants and their potential applications in clinical settings.

Adding to what Emory researchers had previously reported, the authors said that Ajuga plants can also be used to treat rheumatism, gout, sclerosis, analgesia, inflammation, joint pain, palsy and amenorrhea. More than 280 active compounds have been isolated and characterized from these plants. However, only a few reports discuss the clinical uses and toxicity of Ajuga plants.

The researchers identified neo-clerodane diterpenes and diterpenoids, phytoecdysteroids, flavonoids and iridoids as the major compounds present in Ajuga plants. These compounds are scientifically proven to have numerous beneficial properties.

These properties include anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive (pain-blocking), anti-tumor, antioxidant, anti-diabetic, antimicrobial, antifeedant, anti-diarrheal, hypolipidemic (cholesterol-lowering), diuretic, hypoglycemic (blood sugar-lowering), immunomodulatory, vasorelaxant, larvicidal, anti-mutagenic and neuroprotective activities.

The researchers believe that Ajuga plants possess huge therapeutic potential, and more studies should explore their toxicity and clinical applications, especially the biological activities of their active components.

The health benefits of bugleweed

The name bugleweed is often associated with Ajuga reptans, a perennial flowering plant native to Europe thats used for different medicinal purposes. Despite belonging to the mint family, this bugleweed lacks the characteristic odor of real mint. Besides producing bright, violet-blue flowers that appear from May to July, A. reptans also produces fruits from July to September.

In traditional Austrian medicine, bugleweed is used to make tea and consumed to treat disorders related to the respiratory tract. It is also said to be good for healing wounds and treating throat irritations, mouth ulcers and excessive alcohol intake. Traditional healers use bugleweed to make preparations for coughs, sleeplessness, anxiety, tuberculosis and heart palpitations. But the best-known use for bugleweed is (in combination with lemon balm) as a natural treatment for Graves disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes hyperthyroidism.

Here are some other health benefits associated with the use of bugleweed: (Related: A member of the mint family, the bugleweed is a powerful medicinal herb you should be stocking up on.)

Helps normalize heart rate

Reduces blood pressure

Protects against atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke

Prevents wound infections

Promotes wound healing

Improves sleep quality

Decreases food cravings

Helps regulate estrogen levels

Helps reduce chronic stress

Rich in antioxidants that fight free radicals

Relieves menstrual cramps

Soothes digestive disorders

Treats diarrhea, enteritis and gastritis

Bugleweed is an herb with a wide variety of medicinal applications. However, like most plants that are rich in bioactive compounds, bugleweed may react unfavorably with certain medications, such those prescribed to cancer patients or people suffering from hormone-related disorders. Pregnant or breastfeeding mothers are also advised to avoid using bugleweed. To ensure your safety, consult a trusted natural health practitioner before using this herb.

Sources include:

Science.news

PubMed.NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov

WorldScientific.com

HealthBenefitsTimes.com

NIDDK.NIH.gov
(Natural News) One of the biggest propaganda outlets in China has paid American newspapers almost $19 million for advertising over the past few years, according to documents that were filed with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Much of this advertising comes in the form of paid supplements produced by China Daily called China Watch. China Daily is a newspaper printed in English that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, and its China Watch supplements have appeared in several American newspapers masquerading as legitimate news.

The documents reveal that China Daily has paid out nearly $6 million to the Wall Street Journal and more than $4.6 million to The Washington Post since November of 2016. Both papers printed the paid China Watch that are designed to appear as though they are actual news articles. These propaganda pieces typically put a positive spin on life in China and the policies of its government in order to enhance the image of the CCP.

Researchers who looked into activities carried out by the Chinese to influence Americans said in a report that its hard to tell that China Watchs material is an ad.

Theyve also paid the New York Times $50,000, The Des Moines Register $34,600 and more than $260,000 to Twitter during the same time period. Other clients of China Daily that were listed in the breakdown include The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Houston Chronicle, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Chicago Times.

CCP attempted to influence midterm elections via China Watch insert

The Des Moines Register expense was related to a four-page China Watch insert they placed in Iowas leading newspaper ahead of the 2018 midterm elections in the U.S. In that edition, the paper criticized the tariff measures put in place by President Donald Trump and emphasized how free trade would benefit Iowa farmers. Trump, in response, accused Beijing of trying to interfere in the American elections.

He tweeted at the time: China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers made to look like news. Thats because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!

Experts from the state agreed that the insert could be considered meddling in the election to an extent. The insert also highlighted the relationship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and the state, including its former governor Terry Branstad.

The China Watch effort has had incredible reach overall, with China Daily reporting that the monthly publication boasts a global circulation of 4 million.

Although China Daily has posted figures in the past, it came under scrutiny from a group of 35 Republican lawmakers for not detailing its U.S. operations, which they say is a violation of Foreign Agents Registration Act requirements. Their most recent filing, from June 1, is the first one to list detailed breakdowns of its expenditures and payments to American news outlets.

The New York Times has said that it is no longer accepting branded content ads that come from state-run media and that the advertising has never influenced the papers coverage of China.

Twitter echoed this sentiment, stating that an August 2019 policy change means it, too, will no longer will accept state media buys.

However, at the end of the filing period in question, April 2020, The Wall Street Journal and the Foreign Policy online publication were still accepting the Chinese money.

Their propaganda campaign in American newspapers may not be having the desired effect, however, as a poll carried out in March just as the coronavirus pandemic was hitting the U.S. revealed that two thirds of Americans had a negative view of China. Moreover, the most recent survey indicated that 90 percent of Americans view the power and influence of China as a threat.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

DesMoinesRegister.com
(Natural News) According to far-leftists, the only people who are capable of racism are those with lighter skin. And a recent college graduate from Drake University in Iowa has successfully petitioned Merriam-Webster Dictionary to redefine the word as such.

Kennedy Mitchum, a 22-year-old black woman, says that racism is a phenomenon exclusive to white people. She majored in law, politics and society, after all, so she would know, she claims.

Black people are always and only victims of racism, while white people are always and only perpetrators of it. It is really this black and white, according to Mitchum, who became triggered upon the realization that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary seems to imply that anyone can be racist.

With everything going on, I think its really important that everyone is on the same page, Mitchum told a local news station in her home state of Missouri about the systemic racism that she believes undergirds the very definition of the word racism.

Currently, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities. It adds that racism also includes the belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

Because the white race is inherently racist against the black race, according to Mitchum, this generic definition of racism has got to go. Instead, it will be redefined to target specifically white people, whom Mitchum believes are oppressors in American society.

As you may recall, this is the same thing that racist Sarah Jeong from The New York Times also believes.

I basically told them that they need to include that theres a systematic oppression upon a group of people, Mitchum is quoted as saying. Its not just, Oh, I dont like someone.'

Dear, Kennedy Mitchum: Youre a racist

Initially, Merriam-Webster told Mitchum to pretty much hit the road. But something changed, presumably due to outside black supremacist pressure, that caused Merriam-Webster to change its mind and agree to include Mitchums opinions as part of the official definition for the word racism.

They were basically like, Yeah, were not gonna change it because  we focus on literature, Mitchum says about the first response she received to her petition. The dictionary definitions have to come from literature, and they focus on the majority and the way they write and see racism.

And so I was just like, It doesnt make sense because the majority arent the people who are experiencing racism.'

The idea that the majority, aka white people in Mitchums view, do not ever experience racism is both false and racist, which makes Mitchums claim ironic and hypocritical. But Merriam-Webster was apparently strong-armed into accepting it as part of the official lexicon.

A revision to the entry for racism is now being drafted to be added to the dictionary soon, and we are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations, tweeted Drake in response to the news.

Merriam-Webster itself also admitted that this revision would not have been made without the persistence of Mitchum, who has single-handedly redefined the word racism to exempt everyone except for white people  which in and of itself is racist.

Since the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is only updated twice or maybe three times a year, Mitchums new definition will not appear until the next revision. In the meantime, every major news outlet is praising her for her stunning bravery in sticking it to the white man with her new definition.

I think everyone really needs to realize what their strengths are and how they can contribute to the movement, Mitchum added with pride. And once they do that, I think were really going to be able to get some places.

Sources for this article include:

KCRA.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Voting by mail might be convenient, especially in the social distancing era, but it could also open the U.S. up to extensive voter fraud. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick recently shared his concerns about allowing people to vote by mail in the upcoming election on SiriusXMs Breitbart News Daily.

Speaking to host Alex Marlow, he said that the vulnerability created by allowing people to vote by mail could give Democrats the advantage in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

In Patricks view, voting by mail would be absolute pandemonium. He added: Its wide open for fraud, and the left will take advantage of that and they will steal every election until the end of time.

He pointed out that the life circumstances of many Americans can change between elections, with people possibly moving, getting divorced or even dying. He wondered what would stop someone from voting on behalf of a person who used to live at their address should their ballot be mailed there. This is something that he feels could tip the scale in favor of those looking to steal the election.

Patrick mentioned Greater New York Black Lives Matter President Hawk Newsome stating on Fox News that if this country doesnt give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.

If people say theyre willing to burn down the country or tear down statues, Patrick feels its not a stretch to think that they would have no qualms about stealing some ballots from a mailbox.

Moreover, he pointed out that if Americans are going out in public already to restaurants or even protests, its really not that unreasonable to expect people to vote in person.

In addition, Patrick said that counties and cities have been using money that they received from the federal government for coronavirus relief in order to advance their vote-by-mail efforts  which is something that he said seems to be a priority for Democrat-run cities.

For example, in Michigan, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson used $4.5 million in CARES Act funds to send applications for absentee ballots to all registered voters, leading to chaos for the local clerks who are normally in charge of this.

Michigan State Senator Ruth Johnson found that the applications had been mailed to hundreds of residents who are not eligible to vote, including deceased and underage voters as well as non-citizens.

There are so many ways mail-in voting can go wrong

Patrick is far from the only person to express concerns about mail-in voting. Even President Trump has taken to Twitter to voice his reservations about the system. Its not a new issue, either; the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform that was co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter stated absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.

One of the biggest problems with mail-in ballots is that there is no accountability. There is no Social Security number, green card number, license number or any other identifier printed on the official ballot. That makes it impossible to verify just how many of these ballots are actually mailed to each person or residence.

In the mid-term elections of 2018, a North Carolina congressional election had to be overturned and then re-held after a Republican operative was caught using mail-in ballots to scam the system. In addition, data from the Public Interest Legal Foundation shows that more than 28 million mail-in ballots went unaccounted for between 2012 and 2018; more than 1 million of those went to an incorrect address in 2018 alone.

According to The Hill, around 1,600 ballots were found the morning after election day sitting in a mail processing facility in Chicago, while the State Board of Elections reports that hundreds more people who had applied for absentee ballots didnt receive them in time. The potential for votes being accidentally uncounted may be great, but the ease with which voter fraud can be carried out when mail-in ballots are used widely should make all Americans extremely uneasy, regardless of their party affiliation.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

TheHill.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) The U.S. government will ship more doses of the antiviral drug remdesivir to states experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases including California, Texas, Florida and Arizona, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week.

White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx confirmed the report, which was first posted on the agencys website, during Fridays press briefing. The treatments, which are expected to ship this week, will expend the governments stockpile, which amounts to 120,647 treatment courses in total.

The health department noted that it will work with Gilead Sciences, the drugmaker behind the experimental drug, to determine how future donations will be allocated. Gilead Sciences has said that it expects an inventory of at least 2 million doses by the end of the year.

Right now, were waiting to hear from Gilead what is their expected delivery availability of the drug as we go from June to July, said Dr. Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary for preparedness and response, in a CNN interview in early June. Were kind of not in negotiations, but in discussions with Gilead as they project what the availability of their product will be.

Meeting demand is a challenge

From its start as a failed drug for treating Ebola and hepatitis, many countries  including the U.K., Singapore and South Korea  have approved the use of remdesivir for treating severe COVID-19.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the emergency use of remdesivir for hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19. In a press briefing in May, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said that the drugs approval was an important clinical advance[ment] in the fight against COVID-19.

Early studies on remdesivir have shown that it can reduce a patients recovery by five days and that a five-day course of the treatment is optimal. A recent animal study also showed that remdesivir prevented lung disease in macaque monkeys, suggesting that the drug could be used in early treatment to prevent severe cases. However, clinical trials for remdesivir have shown mixed results, at best.

The initial findings of its first large-scale clinical trial revealed a modest improvement in their symptoms. The study did not include patients with severe symptoms, however, the main target of the FDA approval. In addition, an earlier study involving fewer participants, showed that the drug did nothing to reduce the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen behind COVID-19, in the bloodstream.

Yet, even if remdesivir makes good on its promise of treating COVID-19, producing enough for everyone who needs the drug is nothing short of challenging. The HHS said that it has been working to help Gilead with some of their supply chain challenges in terms of raw materials and being able to accelerate the process. The company has released a statement that it is currently working with governments and healthcare systems to provide remdesivir for patients who need it the most. (Related: US taxpayers paid for remdesivirs development, so why will Gilead get all the profit?)

With the global caseload pushing toward 10 million, there may not be enough remdesivir to meet demand.

A nationwide shortage can trigger hoarding

Running out of remdesivir can lead to people  in particular, doctors  to stockpile on the drug, like what some had done in the earlier stages of the pandemic. A ProPublica report in March revealed that doctors prescribed chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, two drugs that gained national attention after President Donald Trump promoted them as possible treatments for COVID-19, to family members, friends and even themselves. In some states, the practice became so rampant that some state pharmacy boards issued emergency restrictions on how the drugs were dispensed.

As the federal stockpile for the FDAs wonder drug is finally used up and new cases continue to rapidly increase  how the U.S. government will manage the next few months is anybodys guess.

The U.S. currently has over 2.5 million coronavirus cases and more than 125,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Pandemic.news has more stories on the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

Sources include:

Reuters.com 1

CBSNews.com

NYTimes.com

Drugs.com

Reuters.com 2

BGR.com

Coronavirus.JHU.edu

ProPublica.com
(Natural News) Here it comes. The questions are mounting again against a false narrative spewed by the mass media all over the country and the world. Intelligent people are figuring this one out. Let the questions fly. Lets start with the two cops and the one paramedic who literally drop Floyd on the ground while trying to place him on the gurney. That could have broken his neck right there if his spine was already compromised. How did they know he even needed a stretcher? If they knew he needed a stretcher, why was the EMT worker still setting up the stretcher while the cop had his knee pressed on Floyds neck?

If the paramedic was so sure they needed a stretcher, who told him that? The cops had simply walked Floyd across the street, then pinned him to the ground, cuffed him, and were keeping him from fighting back, right?

So then, who called for the ambulance and knew Floyd was already so dead that he wouldnt require any search by EMS staff for signs of life, breathing, broken neck, anything, before flopping him and twisting him onto a stretcher?

Did someone tell the paramedics ahead of time that Floyd was already unconscious and would need to be thrown into the ambulance as fast as possible? Watch the embedded video below and notice how the EMT is taking his sweet time getting the stretcher off the ambulance, not in any rush whatsoever.

The EMT/Paramedic knows something we dont when he pulls up to the scene

First, the EMT pulls up and pulls out the stretcher, then 3 cops help him toss Floyd onto the gurney. But wait, does the EMT already know something about Floyds condition? If a guy being arrested is simply pinned on the ground by a cop, why did this EMT unload a stretcher? Its not like Chauvin got off Floyd at a midway point and noticed his neck was broken or that he had no pulse and wasnt breathing. How does the EMT know he needs a stretcher, and why doesnt he check Floyds vital signs first?

Theres a big hole in this narrative, and its all hinged on how Floyd was treated AFTER the 9 minute infamous Derek Chauvin neck kneel.

The EMT/paramedic didnt even check first to see if George Floyd was breathing. Then they might have saved his life by performing CPR. The EMT didnt even properly stabilize Floyds neck. The EMT didnt check for a pulse either.

Next, why is there only ONE paramedic? Nothing else important seemed to be going on in the immediate area that would require other attention. There we no riots or multiple injuries from the arrest situation, so wheres the driver or the partner EMT? The other cops who watched Chauvin kill Floyd are literally helping the solo EMT set up the stretcher, and then they all just drag Floyd across the street unconscious, like they ALL already knew the next steps to getting his body out of the video camera shots. Straight to the morgue with you buddy (or witness protection).

Huge holes in Floyd death narrative suggest weve all been manipulated, again

Its time to investigate ALL the wholes in the George Floyd narrative. No disrespect to this man who apparently died at the knee of a criminal cop, but just like 9/11, Sandy Hook, the Pulse Night Club, and so many more mass media narratives, this ones got more holes than a jumbo slice of Swiss cheese.

Here are 70 more unanswered questions about George Floyds death and the riots that ensued after. Watch and be shocked. This is mind-blowing. Always question the mass media narrative, and this is exactly why you should:

Was the death of George Floyd faked? Are we, as intelligent humans, allowed to question the narrative, when its so sensitive and supposedly racial? Are you a racist for asking questions? No, youre not.

Everybody take one more minute and use your brain to think about this: How does the EMT already know he needs a stretcher when he arrives, and why doesnt he check Floyds vital signs first?

Tune your internet dial to NewsTarget.com for news about crisis actors who get caught at every mass media event acting badly on camera. This has been a public service announcement for people who still have a brain.

Sources for this article include:

HealthLine.com

NewsTarget.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) In November 2019, the Washington Post and other major news media accused Childrens Health Defense (CHD) of using Facebook advertisements to spread misinformation about vaccines. The basis for these accusations, which have since continued, is a study published in the prestigious medical journal Vaccine that named CHD as a top buyer of vaccine-related Facebook ads. What the media failed to inform the public, however, is that the government-funded authors of this study failed to identify even a single example of a Facebook ad from CHD that contained any misinformation.

(Article by Jeremy R. Hammond republished from ChildrensHealthDefense.org)

CHD has now published a detailed response to this baseless accusation showing that the real story here is how inconveniently truthful information about vaccines is being censored and how our right to informed consent is under assault.

even the simple act of advocating the right to informed consent constituted anti-vaccine behavior.

The authors of the study did not trouble themselves to determine the truthfulness of vaccine-related Facebook advertisements. Instead, they simply categorized any ads that did not conform with the public policy goal of sustaining or increasing vaccination rates as anti-vaccine. Under their adopted criteria, even the simple act of advocating the right to informed consent constituted anti-vaccine behavior.

Then the authors lazily and dogmatically equated anything anti-vaccine with misinformation, which label they used euphemistically to mean any information, no matter how factual and well-grounded in science, that might cause people to question the wisdom of strictly complying with the vaccine recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

By this means, the study authors ludicrously equated advocacy of the right to informed consent with the propagation of misinformation about vaccines.

Ironically, while failing to provide any evidence to support their accusation against Childrens Health Defense, the study authors presented an example of an ad categorized as pro-vaccine that did misinform Facebook users. That ad promoted the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine as proven to prevent cancer even thoughas the authors of a study published in January 2020 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine pointed outnone of the clinical trials used by the manufacturers to obtain licensure were designed to determine the vaccines effectiveness against cervical cancer, and whether the vaccine prevents cancer remains unknown.

The authors of the Vaccine study, however, failed to identify that ad as having misled Facebook userswhich is unsurprising since their effective definition of misinformation precluded them from doing so.

They also declared no conflicts of interest despite their study having been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which itself develops vaccine technology and licenses it for use by pharmaceutical corporations. For example, the NIH patented technology that was sold under a co-exclusive license to Merck and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for use in the development of their respective HPV vaccines.

 the existence of pervasive corruption and conflicts of interest within the scientific community and the medical establishment is recognized in the medical literature as an uncontroversial fact.

While media reports about the Vaccine study characterized any discussion of corruption within the government and medical establishment as conspiracy theory, in fact, even the US Congress has acknowledged this problem within agencies like the CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the existence of pervasive corruption and conflicts of interest within the scientific community and the medical establishment is recognized in the medical literature as an uncontroversial fact.

Even more preposterously, media reports characterized so-called anti-vaccine groups as part of an industry that has more resources than public vaccine policy proponents. While one of the studys authors acknowledged in an interview that these groups reached relatively large Facebook audiences in terms of just a few thousand dollars in ad spend, their own data showed that pro-vaccine ad buyers both bought more ads and collectively had higher budgets. A top pro-vaccine buyer, for example, appeared to have been the CDC, which ran HPV Vaccine is Cancer Prevention ads with budgets of up to $50,000.

Childrens Health Defense, in its efforts to combat government and media misinformation about vaccines and the erosion of our fundamental human rights, is standing up against the trillion-dollar global pharmaceutical industry, including a global vaccine market thats estimated in the tens of billions of dollars.

In 2016, Big Pharma is estimated to have spent nearly $30 billion in marketing in the US, primarily targeting medical professionals, including through ads in peer-reviewed journals and direct-to-physician payments. Approximately $6 billion was spent on direct-to-consumer advertising, with pharmaceutical ads representing an estimated 8 percent of total ad revenue for major news networks like CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN.

Additionally, the industry has been shifting its focus from television and print ads to online ads. Top beneficiaries of this shift include WebMD and Medscape, which Google often features in its answer box for health-related search queries. Facebook, too, has been competing for pharma ad dollars, by rolling out a new feature enabling pharmaceutical companies to promote their products with Facebook ads while remaining in compliance with regulations that require the disclosure of important safety information, which is accomplished by having the safety information appear in a scrolling section featured below the ad.

And, of course, with Big Pharma spending tens of millions of dollars lobbying Congress each year, its little wonder that weve seen efforts to censor information and eliminate choice. For example, Congressman Adam Schiff last year sent letters to the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Amazon calling on these companies to do more to stop the spread of what he euphemistically called vaccine misinformation, by which he simply meant any information, no matter how factual, that could cause parents to disregard the advice of their childrens physician and public health experts and decline to follow the recommended vaccination schedule.

In adopting the same euphemistic use of language, the authors of the Vaccine study were simply following Congressman Schiffs examplejust as when the major media misinform the public about what the science tells us about vaccines, they are simply following the example set by the CDC.

In the face of efforts to manufacture consent for government policies through deceitful propaganda, censor truthful information about vaccines, and eliminate parents ability to meaningfully exercise their right to informed consent, Childrens Health Defense is on the front lines, speaking out and standing up for health freedom, including through litigation.

Unlike the authors of the Vaccine study, CHD is not funded by taxpayers dollars. Unlike the major media, it is also not funded by pharmaceutical ad dollars. Far from being backed by some powerful industry, CHDs grassroots efforts would not be possible without the voluntary financial contributions of readers like you.

To read CHDs detailed and fully referenced rebuttal to the Vaccine study and associated media coverage, download a copy of our latest eBook: How Censorship is Redefining Informed Consent as Misinformation.

Read more at: ChildrensHealthDefense.org and Disinfo.news.
Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Governor Yoon Suk-heun, right, speaks during a morning meeting with CEOs of eight major banks at the Korea Federation of Banks in central Seoul, Thursday. The FSS governor asked the bank chiefs to continue to provide various types of financial support to small business owners amid the COVID-19 economic downturn. / Courtesy of FSS
(Natural News) It took nearly a month  which was nearly a month too long  but the Democrat mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkan, was finally pressured to order her neutered police department to break up the CHOP autonomous zone that had stood as a giant smack in the face to law an order since it was established in early June.

As reported by One America News Jack Prosobiec, heavy-geared squads of Seattle police officers burst into the CHOP zone early Wednesday, dismantling barriers and seeking to reclaim lost territory  namely, the departments East Precinct building, which had been abandoned and boarded up at the citys instructions.

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1278339062915641346

The Seattle Times adds:

The Seattle Police Department, with help from Bellevue police and the FBI, swept into the CHOP early Wednesday with heavily equipped officers and tactical vehicles to clear out the Capitol Hill protest zone and arrest people who remained there.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an executive order at 9:28 p.m. Tuesday, declaring gathering in this area an unlawful assembly requiring immediate action from city agencies, including the Police Department.

The paper said that cops moved in around 5 a.m. and issued dispersal orders for anyone who remains in the area or returns to the area.

Dozens of people didnt get the message, however, as police reported 32 arrests by around 9:30 a.m.

Officers enforcing todays order are wearing a higher-level of protective gear, said Seattle PD in a statement. Police are utilizing this equipment because individuals associated w/the CHOP are known to be armed and dangerous/may be associated with shootings, homicides, robberies, assaults & other violent crimes.

The Times said that at least 100 officers, all of whom were equipped with body armor, helmets, batons, and weapons moved into the zone, which was formally renamed the Capitol Hill Organized Protest.

Some of the prior occupants backed off slowly, with a few of them yelling defiantly Well be back. (Related: If you are SHOT inside a left-wing autonomous zone, no police will come to help you.)

Police officers are filling Cal Anderson Park and issuing a dispersal order. pic.twitter.com/SDRCIc0gOO  brendankiley (@brendankiley) July 1, 2020

Well see how that works out. The city is already facing a lawsuit from disgruntled and angry residents and business owners who were either terrorized by the CHOP occupants or were otherwise impeded from accessing their own property.

Also, there were at least six shootings inside the zone over the past few weeks alone, including two deaths  all after Durkan initially predicted a summer of love atmosphere.

But Durkan was obviously getting fed up. One of the city councils most militant Leftists, Kshama Sawant, led a Black Lives Matter protest to Durkans home, whipping up the crowd into a threatening frenzy while railing against police and anything resembling law and order.

In response to that stunt, Durkan penned an angry letter in which she called for Sawant to be removed from office (and rightly so).

Also, Durkans multimillion dollar home was being threatened with invasion, proving yet again that you can never mollify the Left-wing mobs enough, even with Left-wing policies and Leftist leaders.

Let's see: six shootings, two teenage deaths, and @MayorJenny still says "it's an arts festival". THEN, the CHAZ threatens to take over her 5,000 sq ft house worth $7.6 million after her new addition. A DAY LATER, she brings in the police, "end the chaos!" #Leadership #Comedy  James Altucher (@jaltucher) July 1, 2020

So  what can we reasonably deduce here?

First, that socialism has failed again. Also, when there is no leadership or governing hierarchy, such as a proven social construct like policing and normative political processes, the result is chaos and death.

Also, weve seen once more how, without the rule of law, there really is nothing left except survival of the fittest at its most base existence.

Weve also learned this: Left-wing Democrats in these blue states and cities are massive hypocrites who use events like the legitimately horrible death of George Floyd for nothing more than opportunities to virtue signal and exploit for political gain.

As long as the CHOPsters remained within their zone, all was well with Durkan. But the moment she, herself, was threatened, that was it. The fun and games were over.

The never-satisfied woke Left wont forget that, either.

Sources include:

SeattleTimes.com

CapitolHillSeattle.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) The United States daily count of new coronavirus cases surpassed 50,000 for the first time ever on Wednesday. The surge was driven by record increases in some of the most populous states, such as California and Texas.

Data from the COVID Tracking Project shows that a further 52,982 people tested positive for the coronavirus over the past 24 hours. This tops the previous record increase from June 26 by over 8,600. Meanwhile, the U.S.s daily case rate also rose by 105 percent throughout the month of June.

The increase in the number of new cases is fueling concerns about the speed at which the outbreak is spreading in U.S. hotspots.

States reporting increased number of new cases

Texas reported 8,076 cases Wednesday, bringing the states total to 168,062. This increase topped a record set the previous day by more than 1,100 with 57 deaths and represented the states biggest single-day increase since May.

Hospitals in Texas, which was one of the first states to reopen, have been overwhelmed by the increase in cases, leading to a shortage of intensive-care beds. In Houston, the fourth most populous city in America, hospital systems are now rushing to convert regular hospital beds into surge beds  regular hospital beds converted to handle intensive-care patients. Despite this effort, estimates still show that the number of patients needing intensive-care will reach unsustainable levels in less than a week.

Florida saw a jump of 6,563 cases Wednesday, bringing its caseload up to 138,997. The state first hit 100,000 cases last June 24. Since then, the numbers have risen exponentially, with the state recording another 50,000 in a little over a week.

The increase in cases has led some counties  specifically Miami-Dade and Broward  to issue orders requiring the wearing of masks in public. This is despite Gov. Ron DeSantiss earlier dismissal of such measures.

Californias states health department reported 9,740 cases Wednesday, taking its total close to 233,000. The state, which saw some of the earliest cases of COVID-19 in America, largely escaped the initial wave of the disease that hit states such as New York. The trend has reversed in recent weeks, however, after the state began loosening restrictions.

In an effort to curb a further spread of the disease, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered businesses with indoor operations in some of the states most populous and hardest-hit cities to close. In addition, Newsom said that parking facilities at beaches in southern California and the San Francisco bay area would be closed for the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Arizona also saw record numbers Wednesday, with 4,878 people testing positive for the coronavirus, according to state health officials. Vice-president Mike Pence visited the state capital Phoenix on Wednesday, where he discussed the situation with state and local officials.

The state has since also ordered bars statewide to close, effectively reversing their reopening plans.

Increases arent due to more testing

As states have reopened, most have also increased the amount of testing being done to detect the coronavirus. As such, some have attributed the rising number of cases to the increased testing.

In early June, a number of local health officials said that Texass rising numbers could partly be due efforts to test all nursing home residents and staffers in the state.

Not all leaders agree. In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards has stated that the rise in cases is more than can be fairly attributed to the growth in testing. He pointed to the accompanying rise in hospitalizations as an indicator of this.

In addition, the percentage of coronavirus tests that are coming back positive is now increasing in many of the states experiencing record surges. This is seen as another sign that rising infection rates are driving the surge, not an increase in testing.

When you see percent positivity rising, that usually means that not every case is being captured by this system, Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider. It really underscores the need for states to get robust case contact tracing teams in place because thats the way you keep those chains of transmission from spilling into your hospital.

Follow Pandemic.news to learn more about the Wuhan coronavirus.

Sources include:

FT.com 1

COVIDTracking.com

HeraldTribune.com

FT.com 2

DallasNews.com

BusinessInsider.com
(Natural News) The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other government agencies were conned out of large sums of money by an ex-DEA agent posing as an undercover CIA operative. The integrity of the NIH is already in question after President Trump halted the agencys funding of a Wuhan China lab that was studying gain-of-function properties of coronaviruses in bats in the years leading up to the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

Garrison Courtney, the former head of public affairs for the Drug Enforcement Administration, who later became a producer for TMZ, pled guilty to felony wire fraud charges in Alexandria, Virginia. Courtney posed as a CIA operative, used the NIH, and conned government contractors out of $4 million over a four-year period, spanning from 2012 to 2016. The elaborate scam was made public in a guilty plea handed down by District Judge Liam OGrady.

Former DEA agent uses NIH as a gateway to fraud government agencies

Courtney used the National Institutes for Healths Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center to get sensitive non-public information that served as a gateway to exploit various government agencies and private companies.

Courtney posed as a CIA agent and landed a private contractor job at the NIH, where he sabotaged various government contracts; redirecting the funds to companies he was working with. An independent audit of the NIH and a federal investigation is now necessary to understand the agencys inner workings and to hold accountable those who continue to funnel away taxpayer funds to illegal and unethical operations.

Courtney got inside the NIH and told these companies that he was a CIA agent and needed to put individuals on the companys payroll to conduct an undercover operation. Courtney faced little opposition at first and convinced companies that he was working on a task force set up by the President, the attorney general, and the director of national intelligence. Courtney created fake letters that appeared to come from the attorney generals office. He told companies that he had legal immunity from prosecution, and they easily complied. Courtney even corrupted some government officials and convinced them to take part in the program, and they actively participated in the plot.

When officials became suspicious of his Courtneys dealings, Courtney threatened them for trying to leak classified information. If officials pressed too hard, Courtney threatened to revoke their contracts, cancel their security clearances, and refer the case for criminal prosecution.

Courtney is a former TV reporter and helped produce celebrity news outlet TMZ. He worked with several defense contractors including Aderas and Blue Canopy. He has ties to Congress, was a congressional liaison for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and even worked as a communication director on Capitol Hill. As a former DEA chief spokesman, he played a leading role in law enforcement operations. But now he faces a twenty year prison sentence for an elaborate money-laundering scam he set up inside the NIH. He is also facing felony wire fraud charges and his sentencing begins October 23.

The bigger question now: How else might the NIH be used to launder money and fund illegal or unethical operations around the world? (Related: Taxpayer-funded NIH funneled $3.7 million to Wuhan virus research lab believed to have engineered the coronavirus bio weapon.)

For similar stories, visit Corruption.news.

Sources include:

Politico.com

TheScientist.com

Politico.com
(Natural News) While Marxist authoritarians and speech Nazis at Twitter, Google, YouTube and Facebook have been censoring and silencing conservatives and pro-Trump voices for the past few years, the Left-wing mainstream media has been cheering the effort.

And now, theyre going after another rival.

Fake news leader CNN is now pressuring Telegram to begin widespread censorship of its dissident culture  users who have flocked to the platform (like Parler) after being kicked off the others for daring to express a different (right-leaning) opinion, Big League Politics reports.

Essentially, CNN is using a Left-wing think tank (which it probably conspired with to come up with new research) to complain about how white supremacist groups are using Telegram to (egads!) engage in constitutionally protected speech (yes, even speech thats deplorable).

Meanwhile, CNN doesnt bother calling out Twitter or Facebook or any of the other Lefty platforms as being havens for fascists like Antifa who claim to be anti-fascists, or Marxists and socialists who want to destroy America as founded. (Related: Politico blames white supremacists for violent rioting, but even SPLC says theres no evidence.)

The network noted in its Five Things column Friday:

5. White supremacy

White supremacist groups have become much more active on the social media network Telegram as protests over racism and police brutality sweep the US. Thats according to a new report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank. More than 200 channels, many with thousands of members, include frequent and explicit threats of violence against minority communities and Black Lives Matter protesters, researchers said. White supremacists have made their way over to Telegram because its less active in moderating content than other social media networks, the report said.

White supremacists are everywhere, dont you know, but there are no anti-government Marxists, communists or socialists anywhere in America that CNN can find, dont you know.

In any event, the implication appears to be that CNN is okay colluding with the big tech behemoths to target smaller platforms that actually promote and enable constitutionally-protected speech, even vile and abhorrent ideologies that few Americans agree with.

Kind of like the speech our founding fathers used when they were fomenting independence back in the day. Were pretty sure King George wasnt a fan of it.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue partners with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, the Soros-backed Open Society Foundations and many different government bureaucracies to lobby for Draconian censorship on social media platforms, Big League Politics reported, noting the connection between Left-wing media and Left-wing social media.

So far, Telegram is not buckling. The platform told CNN it is a neutral platform used both by Black Lives Matter and their opponents and that calls to violence (which are generally illegal anyway) are not welcome there.

This attack on Telegram makes perfect sense because it follows a pattern of Left-wing bullying of anyone and any platform that dares to cater to conservatives by simply failing to persecute them for what they say and what they believe.

Twitter and Facebook and YouTube have all claimed at various points during their existence that they are free speech platforms designed to provide users with a voice and a forum all their own.

But of course, thats not really true. Since these platforms got big and extremely wealthy, they became powers unto themselves, free (so far) of regulation by federal and state entities because they throw around a lot of lobbying money.

And along the way, the like-minded Marxist ideologies in newsrooms and editorial boards around the country have rushed to their aid  so they can get featured on their well-trafficked Internet real estate (eyeballs equal revenue).

Anyone who doesnt toe the progressive line, meanwhile, gets cast aside and deplatformed.

As other free-speech sites like Gab and Parler begin to grow in the wake of Left-wing social media purges, expect lapdogs like CNN to take up the cause against them, as well.

Because free speech to a Leftist ideologue means youre free to repeat the narrative I give you.

Sources include:

NaturalNews.com

CNN.com

BigLeaguePolitics.com
(Natural News) Two popular independent news outlets have been banned by Google after NBC News launched an inquiry into their alleged policy violations.

Thanks to NBC News, both Zero Hedge and The Federalist are now barred from Googles advertising platform for allowing inappropriate user comments that were deemed to be racist.

Immediately following the George Floyd incident, Black Lives Matter (BLM) sprung into action with violent riots and looting, sparking plenty of criticism. However, this criticism is apparently not allowed because BLM is exempt from scrutiny.

We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can (sic) run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing, a spokesperson from Google indicated.

When a page or site violates our policies, we take action, this spokesperson added. In this case, weve removed both sites ability to monetize with Google.

However, not long after NBC News declared its work to have been effective in stamping out hate, Google backtracked its decision by clarifying that The Federalist had merely been warned about its alleged policy violations, and told to address them within three days.

One day later, The Federalist announced that it had removed the offensive comments from its articles and would be taking no further action. Zero Hedge, on the other hand, was immediately banned from the Google platform when notified about its offensive comments.

In the following episode of The Health Ranger Report  be sure to listen!  Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks with Zach Vorhies about the extreme bias governing Googles so-called machine learning fairness system:

Free speech is not to be tolerated, say civil rights activists

Machine learning fairness, by the way, is a dystopian censorship tool implemented by Google that automatically tags content deemed to be hateful for rapid removal from the Google platform.

It does not, however, tag pedophile content, and actually encourages people to watch the channels of pedophiles by steering viewers on the Google-owned YouTube platform to pedophile-created videos  but we digress.

Instead of trying to protect innocent children, Google is more concerned with eliminating independent news outlets that tell different stories from the ones coming out of the mainstream media. Politically driven censorship, in other words, is Googles primary motivation.

If you question the official narrative surrounding George Floyd, for instance, then Google deems this to be an act of hate that is worthy of a ban. The same is true of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which wants to see all platforms that allow free speech to be demonetized.

We found that lots of those companies are inadvertently funding through their advertising content that (sic) is outright racist in defense of white supremacism and contains conspiracy theories about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, says CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed about Google and other platforms that allow third-party advertising.

According to NBC News, both Zero Hedge and The Federalist publish far-right articles on a variety of subjects, which means they have to be banned from Google. Furthermore, neither Zero Hedge nor The Federalist supports BLM financially, which also means they have to go.

The pressure on the tech companies is only going to come from dollars actually, literally getting pulled, says Caroline McCarthy, vice president of communications and content at TrueX, a digital advertising company that supports banning online voices that are deemed to be offensive.

Ironically, so-called civil rights activists are leading the way in depriving publishers with which they disagree of their civil rights. These speech tyrants insist that only approved forms of speech should be allowed online, and the rest stamped out through blacklisting and bans on revenue generation.

More of the latest news about Big Tech censorship is available at Censorship.news.

Sources for this article include:

NBCNews.com

NaturalNews.com
The Indonesian Ministry of Defense has signed a preliminary contract with the representative of Danish Odense Maritime Technology to supply two Iver Huitfeldt class frigates within five years at a total cost of $ 720 million.

The Indonesian Ministry of Defense has signed a preliminary contract with the representative of Danish Odense Maritime Technology to supply two Iver Huitfeldt class frigates within five years at a total cost of $ 720 million.

Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link

An Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate of the Royal Danish Navy. (Picture source: Royal Danish Navy)

OMT has promoted their Ivan Huitfeldt-class frigate as the basis for Indonesians new large frigate requirements, with the Indonesian MOD agreeing it to be the best solution among several choices considered.

The Indonesian variant is expected to have a different exterior design, subsystem layout and sensor and weapon systems fit, the basic design features are expected to be similar to the Royal Danish Navys variant.

The frigates are being acquired as part of the second phase of the Minimum Essential Force (MEF) modernisation blueprint, which runs from 2015 to 2019. Once built, it would become the largest surface combatant in Southeast Asia, not counting Thailand's aircraft carrier.

For the record, Indonesia acquired two SIGMA 10514 vessels from Damen that now serve as the Martadinata class as part of this programme, but the country has a requirement for at least four more hulls in the longer term as part of wider MEF requirements.

About the Iver Huitfeldt-Class Frigates:

The Iver Huitfeldt-class displaces at 6,500 tons full load and is propelled by four MTU 20V 8000 M70 diesel engines in Combined Diesel and Diesel (CODAD) configuration, allowing a maximum speed of 28 knots, and a maximum range of 9,300 nautical miles at 18 knots.

The Iver Huitfeldt class frigates are equipped with four Mk. 41 8-cell VLS, two Mk. 56 12-cell VLS, up to 16 Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles, 2 OTO Melara 76mm guns, a 35mm Oerlikon Millenium naval gun, and two triple lightweight torpedo launchers.

It also has a hangar and helicopter deck for medium-sized military helicopters.
Weather Alert

...HEAT ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 9 PM PDT THIS EVENING... * WHAT...High Temperatures of 97 to 101. * WHERE...In Washington, Lower Columbia Basin of Washington and Eastern Columbia River Gorge of Washington. In Oregon, Lower Columbia Basin of Oregon and Eastern Columbia River Gorge of Oregon. * WHEN...From noon today to 9 PM PDT this evening. * IMPACTS...Hot temperatures may cause heat illnesses to occur. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Temperatures will be slightly cooler Tuesday through Thursday before very hot temperatures return at the end of the week. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances. Take extra precautions if you work or spend time outside. When possible reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Know the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Wear lightweight and loose fitting clothing when possible. To reduce risk during outdoor work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends scheduling frequent rest breaks in shaded or air conditioned environments. Anyone overcome by heat should be moved to a cool and shaded location. Heat stroke is an emergency! Call 9 1 1. &&
SK Biopharmaceuticals celebrates the first day of its listing on the KOSPI with a ceremony held at the headquarters of the nation's bourse operator Korea Exchange (KRX) in Seoul, Thursday morning. SK Biopharmaceuticals' CEO Cho Jeong-woo, fifth from left, and KRX CEO Jung Ji-won, fourth from left, attended the event along with other key figures of the securities sectors, including NH Investment & Securities CEO Chung Young-chae, third from right, and Korea Investment & Securities CEO Jung Il-moon, second from right. / Courtesy of Korea Exchange (KRX)



By Anna J. Park



On the first day of SK Biopharmaceuticals' trading on the nation's benchmark KOSPI, the biopharma company's stock price reached a daily price limit soon after the stock market opened Thursday.



Upon the opening of Thursday's trading session, the firm's stock price started at 98,000 won ($81.64), and immediately hit the stock's daily increase limit of 127,000 won. Under the KOSPI market, a stock price cannot be raised by more than 30 percent a day.



Out of the entire 19.57 million shares offered, about 10.2 million were able to be traded on the first-day session, yet only about 638,000 were traded during the trading session, and most sell orders came from foreign investors. This means only about six percent of the entirety of the shares were circulated, and most investors decided to keep the stocks for a while given the confidence in the bio industry.



SK Biopharmaceuticals' market capitalization reached up to 9.8 trillion won, a higher level than 5 trillion won to 9 trillion won previously assessed by market analysts. The company previously set its initial public offering (IPO) price at 49,000 won ($40.82). During a two-day retail investor subscription period on June 23 and 24, the firm attracted over 30 trillion won of deposits, with a subscription competition rate of 323.02:1, a record-high figure in the history of IPOs in Korea.



"The company will continue to go on treading an untrodden path," the pharmaceutical firm's CEO Cho Jeong-woo said during Thursday's listing ceremony held at the nation's bourse operator Korea Exchange (KRX).



"SK Biopharmaceuticals' efforts to build its own solid system of conducting clinical trials, earning approvals and selling directly in the U.S. market has borne fruit."



He added that the firm will accelerate its development as an innovative global pharmaceutical company.



Last November, the firm's XCOPRI, an anti-epileptic drug, received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for partial-onset seizures in adult patients. The company has developed another drug named SUNOSI, which is a sleep disorder drug, approved by the FDA back in March 2019. It was the first time that a Korean company received the two FDA approvals with an independently developed new drug.



In an apparent move to keep the momentum of its stock value alive, the SK affiliate is expected to strengthen its marketing moves in the U.S. market with capital inflows through the successful IPO. The firm is also expected to intensify its direct sales strategy in the U.S. market, using its U.S. subsidiary SK Life Science.





Bubble or boon?





KTB Investment & Securities estimated its appropriate market cap at around 6.4 trillion won, while DB Financial Investment gave the lowest number of about 5 trillion won. Eugene Investment & Securities analyst Han Byung-hwa assessed the firm's market cap to be 9 trillion won.



"As the company is expected to report an annual revenue of at least 1.8 trillion won by 2030, the stock's appropriate market cap is estimated to be around 9 trillion won, with 110,000 won per share," the analyst said. "The company's revenue is expected to grow about 45 percent a year, on average. The annual revenue is estimated to stand at 46 billion won in 2020, 629 billion won in 2024 and 1.8 trillion won in 2030. Its operating profit is expected to turn black in 2023 with 18.5 billion won, from this year's 197 billion won worth of deficit. Its profit is expected to hit 838 billion won by 2030," he added.



Another biopharma analyst stressed that the company provides a good diversification to institutional investors in their investment portfolio.



"SK Biopharmaceuticals is gaining much attention as the next blue-chip stock of KOSPI's healthcare sector, along with Celltrion and Samsung Biologics," said Seo Keun-hee, an analyst at Samsung Securities.



However, some other market analysts warned of a possible bubble in the stock price. On condition of anonymity, a market insider told The Korea Times that he feels the current fever around the stock is excessively overheated with investors' speculative moves.



The market watcher said the stock price could go up much higher within a few months from now, yet no one can be sure of the stock price's fate after that period as the market could face a great level of uncertainty from major events like a U.S. presidential election in November.



Other market watchers also pointed out the stock's price will be largely dependent on the firm's long-term success in the overseas market.



Interestingly, SK Holdings, a holding company of SK Biopharmaceuticals, didn't seem to benefit much from the frenzy around its affiliate. SK Group's stock price has seen an upward trend for the past few days, and started strong with 308,500 won on Thursday morning. Yet its price fell gradually during the day, ending at 278,500 won, down 6.23 percent from the previous session.



Other SK affiliates, such as SK Discovery, SK Securities, SK Chemicals, all logged bearish moves during the day. Investors sold the shares as they sought to actualize short-term profits gained through the past few days, as the SK-affiliated shares rose amid a frenzy around the listing of the biopharma company.


3 1 of 3 Hulu / Contributed photo / Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Hulu / Contributed photo / Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Padma Lakshmi tours the country in her new Hulu series Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi where she examines different cultures and its culinary influences on American or Americanized fare. Lakshmi opens each of the 10 episodes by reminding viewers that she immigrated to the United States from India as a child before talking about the individual episodes cultural focus.

As the food-revering host savors different dishes she speaks with people from different cultures to share their immigration story or about how a dish connects them with their culture. Lakshmi experiences authentic (pre-Spanish colonization) Mexican food, Navajo dishes, Gullah cuisine and more as she tries to identify what American food actually consists of. Instead of finding a particular dish, Lakshmi shatters the idea that any one food is distinctly American as all of the recipes are rooted in other cultures.
The United States shipped billions of dollars in weapons to the holy warriors in Afghanistan via the CIA in the 1980s. Those guerrillas used them to kill thousands of Soviet soldiers occupying their country. Back then, jihad was cool; Ronald Reagan was all for it. It was the last great battle of the Cold War.

Now, Russia's military intelligence service is shipping small fortunes in cash to the Taliban in Afghanistan - bounty, apparently, for killing American soldiers occupying their country.

This dirty business may seem like a taste of revenge for a Russian intelligence veteran of the Cold War like Vladimir Putin. But it's also part of a grander strategy. Russia and its intelligence services have been at war with the United States, almost ceaselessly, since 1945. Putin, who plans to remain in power until 2036, seeks to weaken the United States through any means short of open warfare.

His goal is to make the United States look like "a pitiful, helpless giant," to quote Richard Nixon in the depths of the Vietnam War. He wants to watch American forces beat an ignoble retreat from Afghanistan, following in the footsteps of the vanquished Soviet army three decades ago. He clearly swears by a maxim attributed to Lenin: "Probe with bayonets. If you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, withdraw."

He has met his enemy and encountered mush, and so he strives to advance his authoritarian agenda throughout the world, in every nation where President Donald Trump no longer cares to defend American interests - including, ultimately, America.

The Russians have a name for the dark arts they employ to achieve their goals: "active measures." They encompass espionage and sabotage, deception and disinformation, attacking our elections by backing their chosen candidate - and using proxy armies against us. Let others do the fighting and dying, goes the thinking. Our enemy pays the price in blood and treasure. We reap the rewards of his losses.

The United States calls these stratagems by another name - political warfare. In the Cold War, we threw almost everything we had against Moscow short of launching nuclear weapons or sending in the Marines to breach the Iron Curtain, using the full spectrum of our intelligence and diplomacy to project our power and foil their imperial ambitions. Political warfare helped America speed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Both superpowers used stealthy weapons in sneak attacks. The United States secretly backed ragtag armies in Central America to undermine the pro-Soviet government of Nicaragua. The Kremlin armed Wadi Haddad, the most militant and merciless Palestinian terrorist of the era. The FBI recruited a top American Communist Party official; he spied on the leaders of the Soviet Union. The Soviets suborned turncoats inside the FBI and the CIA; their treachery wiped out a legion of recruited foreign agents working against Moscow. The CIA covertly supported the Polish labor movement Solidarity, whose underground battles against the Kremlin-backed regime in Warsaw set off a chain reaction of resistance in Eastern Europe. And those uprisings led directly to the downfall of the Soviet empire.

America's multibillion-dollar Afghan operation served as payback for the Soviets' arming of North Vietnam. I traveled through Afghanistan as a newspaper reporter every few years from September 1987 to December 2001, as misfortune's wheel slowly turned from the Soviet occupation to the American occupation. I came to know some of the Afghan fighters and more than a few of the CIA officers who armed and supported them. The goal of giving the Afghans AK-47s and artillery and Stinger antiaircraft missiles wasn't simply to bleed the Russian bear. It was to damage, irreparably, the image of the Soviet Union as a superpower. And when the Red Army left Afghanistan in February 1989, defeated by a rabble of jihadist guerrillas, that mission was accomplished.

Now that those roles are reversed, Russia won't stop at killing American soldiers if it will serve Putin's strategic aims.

The bounty program, according to the New York Times, the first to report on it, was run by Unit 29155, one of Putin's favorite political-warfare weapons, a team inside the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service. Its members have included Afghan war veterans. It has tried to assassinate Putin's enemies abroad, notably executing a nerve-agent attack on a GRU defector in Britain. Another GRU team ran the 2016 election hack designed to put Trump in the White House. Two years before, in a brazen assault on Ukraine, the GRU's cyberattacks allowed Putin to annex the Crimean Peninsula without firing a shot. As you read this, the GRU and its sister intelligence services in Russia are seeking ways to disrupt the 2020 election, to pour salt into the wounds of American society, to deepen our divisions, all in the hope that the United States might come apart.

Putin already sees an America whose place in the world has been undermined by Trump's presidency. Trump says he wants out of Afghanistan, but he has no plan for a strategic withdrawal, a dangerous maneuver even when you have a plan. He wants out of the Middle East, again without a germ of an idea as to why or how. He has inexplicably ordered thousands of American troops out of Germany, soldiers whose role is to deter the Kremlin and project global power in a crisis. He wants out of America's alliances, created after World War II to guard against a revanchist Russia.

This all makes life easier for Putin, who has practiced political warfare in one form or another since he joined the KGB in 1975. The United States, on the other hand, is all but out of that game nowadays. It isn't playing much offense. It's barely playing defense. And Putin knows that.

On the day of the 9/11 attacks, and for many years thereafter, counterterrorism consumed almost everything in the realm of national security for the United States. American intelligence services lost their once-fierce focus on the Kremlin. They slowly abandoned the art of political warfare against the Russians. Meanwhile Putin "turned significantly back towards what was essentially Russian behavior during the Cold War, which is challenge the United States everywhere you can in the world, and do whatever you can to undermine what they're trying to accomplish. Do whatever you can to weaken them," in the words of former acting CIA director Mike Morell.

Russia's "active measures" don't threaten only American soldiers. They threaten American democracy. That mortal threat will remain unless this administration, or the next, awakens to the danger.

- - -

Weiner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has written histories of the FBI and the CIA, is the author of the forthcoming "The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare, 1945-2020."
A visitation and memorial service will be held for Donald Hawk Sr., who passed away on Nov. 16, 2020, and his beloved wife, JoAnne C. Hawk, who passed away on Jan. 17, 2021.
Jordan Brown, charged at age 11 with killing his father's pregnant fiancee, is now fighting back against the legal system that jailed him.

Brown, who initially was charged as an adult in the Feb. 20, 2009, shooting in New Beaver Borough of 26-year-old Kenzie Houk, had been in custody since the day after incident until he was released in June 2016 on probation. Brown ultimately was tried as a juvenile and found delinquent, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned that ruling in July 2018.

Brown, now nearly 23, is alleging in a federal court complaint filed Wednesday that state police investigators manipulated interviews, evidence and procedures to support his conviction.

"Jordan was exonerated from the crimes he was accused of committing," Alec B. Wright, an attorney with the Pittsburgh-based Timothy P. O'Brien law firm representing Brown, told The News. "Once that exoneration occurs, he had the ability based on the exoneration to see if there were civil rights violations."

The lawsuit alleges now-retired Pennsylvania State Police troopers Janice Wilson, Jeffrey Martin, Robert McGraw, Troy Steinhauser and commissioner Frank Pawlowski failed to investigate Houk's former boyfriend. The lawsuit paints that man as an abusive ex who moved to within 10 miles of the rental house Houk was staying at with her fiance Chris Brown  Jordan's father  and two daughters.

Houk, who died of a 20-gauge gunshot wound from point-blank range to the back of the head, was just weeks away from giving birth to a baby fathered by Chris Brown. The lawsuit notes Chris Brown was at work around 7 a.m. at Steelite while Jordan Brown and Houk's oldest daughter left the house to wait for the school bus around 8:12 a.m. A tree service crew finishing up a job from the previous day was on the property and one worker was alerted to Houk's youngest daughter, then four years old, crying at the front door sometime after 9:30 a.m.

First responders were on scene just after 10 a.m. and then-Lawrence County Coroner Russell S. Noga and deputy coroner Rich "R.J." Johnson pronounced Houk dead around 10:30 a.m. Hours later, Jordan Brown was taken into police custody and charged at that time as an adult for two counts of homicide. His case garnered national and worldwide headlines.

"I know every word on every page of every document that was ever used in Jordan's criminal proceedings," Wright said. "When we first learned about Jordan's case and his exoneration, what I remember that never left my mind was the mugshot  the innocent look of a mugshot of a crying 11-year-old child."

Wright continued, "We were just privileged enough to get the phone call to represent Jordan in this case."

According to the lawsuit, Houk and her former boyfriend had lived together in North Carolina. Houk had court-issued protection from abuse orders against the man after he threatened to kill her in 2006, the lawsuit claims, adding that the ex had learned seven days before Houk's death that he was not the father of Houk's youngest daughter.

Story continues below video

On Feb. 19, 2009, the former boyfriend had a run-in with Houk's parents at a community club where he went to pick up food, resulting in his ejection from the club, according to the lawsuit. When he was questioned by state police about his whereabouts the next day, he provided an alibi but interviews were not recorded, the lawsuit says.

Wright, in the lawsuit, alleges that state police investigators failed to follow established protocols when interviewing children, including recording interviews. Investigators interviewed Houk's oldest daughter, the court papers say, but only recorded the fourth interview. In her first interview, the girl said she did not hear or see anything unusual, according to the lawsuit. In a later interview, after investigators told her grandparents they believed Jordan Brown killed Kenzie Houk, the girl said she saw him with guns that morning and heard a bang.

In another allegation, the lawsuit claims mischaracterizations in police interviews.

The lawsuit requests compensatory damages for emotional and mental harm; lost wages and income, as well as loss of future wages and income; the value of the legal services; punitive damages and attorney's fees and costs.

Jordan Brown told the Associated Press on Wednesday he hopes a court victory would provide compensation for his father for having to pay child support, taxes, lawyer fees and expenses to travel more than 100 miles round-trip when he was held in an Erie County facility.

I feel if we win the lawsuit it'll shed a light of (my) innocence on people that they can't really ignore, Brown said. You don't just win a lawsuit over injustice for no reason."

This was the second time Brown has spoken publicly, the first coming in Oct. 2018 on ABC's "20/20." He and his father both have maintained Jordans' innocence throughout the last 11 years.

Jordan Brown, who was studying computer science at an Ohio college, is now also studying criminal justice. He could pursue a career in civil rights or criminal justice defense, Wright said.

"Jordan doesn't want those same systems to do to others what it did to him," Wright said.

psirianni@ncnewsonline.com

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Busan International Financial Promotion Agency President Kim Jong-hwa

By Park Jae-hyuk



A former Bank of Korea deputy governor started leading Busan's efforts to become Asia's next premier financial hub by attracting global financial firms leaving Hong Kong.



Kim Jong-hwa, who had also served as the president of the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, was appointed the first president of the Busan International Financial Promotion Agency which began its operation Wednesday.



Refusing to hold an inaugural ceremony or an interview to concentrate on his tasks, the 60-year-old will be in charge of attracting global financial institutions and international organizations, and devising mid- to long-term strategies to boost the city's financial industry for the next three years.



"Based on his experience and capability, he is expected to foster Busan's financial industry," Busan Vice Mayor for Economic Affairs Park Sung-hoon said.



According to the Busan Metropolitan Government, the agency will serve as the control tower for the city's financial hub vision in collaboration with the Korea Exchange, the Korea Securities Depository, the Korea Asset Management Corporation, the Korea Housing Finance Corporation, the Korea Ocean Business Corporation, BNK Busan Bank and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation.



For the establishment of the think tank costing 2.2 billion won ($1.8 million), Busan paid 700 million won, while the institutions collectively paid 1.5 billion won.



"With the opening of the agency, Busan's efforts to attract foreign financial institutions will likely gain momentum," Busan Acting Mayor Byeon Sung-wan said.



In June, the nation's second-largest city declared it will seek to attract multinational banks, asset management companies and venture capital firms leaving Hong Kong, saying that its move comes as Asia's leading financial hub has demonstrated instability amid the COVID-19 pandemic and Beijing tightening its grip over the "special administrative region."



In this regard, Busan plans to hold a web conference this month to introduce itself to financial firms in Hong Kong. It will also conduct an on-site investor roadshow there and visit companies there in collaboration with the Financial Supervisory Service, when Hong Kong's travel restrictions are lifted.


Byfield - David Jackson, age 62, of Byfield, formerly of Amesbury, passed peacefully at Penacook Place Nursing Home in Haverhill on Monday evening June 14, 2021. Born in Winthrop, Decermber 20, 1958, he was one of seven children of the late Austin and Marie (Redman) Jackson. Among the variou
First Vice Minister of Economy and Finance Kim Yong-beom, center, presides a briefing following a meeting on the economy with related ministries, at the Seoul Government Complex, Thursday. / Yonhap



By Kim Bo-eun



The vice finance minister on Thursday defended the government's plan to introduce a capital gains tax following a strong backlash from investors.



"Only the top five percent of all investors of stocks which totals about 300,000 will become subject to the capital gains tax and the remaining 95 percent of investors will see their tax burden alleviated due to the lowering of the stock transaction tax," First Vice Minister of Economy and Finance Kim Yong-beom said in a briefing following a meeting on the economy with related ministries at the Seoul Government Complex.



His remarks come after the government's plan announced last week faces opposition from investors, and raising speculations that heavier tax burdens would lead to a flight of funds to offshore investment options.



The government stated it is planning to subject investors earning over 20 million in gains from transactions of listed shares to a 20 percent tax. If their earnings are over 300 million won, the taxation rate rises to 25 percent. The plan allows retail investors to be exempted from the tax when gains from stocks fall below 20 million won.



The official said capital gains will come under taxation starting in 2023.



The finance ministry's revisions to existing regulations also include levying a tax on gains from all investments in financial products.



"There were various opinions and criticism against the current system of taxation on financial gains over the principle of fairness," Kim said. "A lot of gains were not subject to taxation, the system was complicated and in some cases investors had to pay more taxes than gains reaped from investments."



At the same time, the official stressed that the stock transaction tax rate will be lowered by 0.02 percentage points in 2022 and by 0.08 percentage points in 2023, bringing down the current stock transaction tax to 0.15 percent from 0.25 percent.



The current 0.25 percent was reduced 0.05 percentage points from 0.3 percent in June last year, but there had been complaints that investors who saw losses from stock trading still had to pay tax.



Investors have opposed the government's revision, stating they will become subject to "double taxation," as some will be subject to both the capital gains tax and stock transaction tax. The debate is ongoing.



Lawmakers of both the ruling and opposition parties have pointed out that the imposition of both would pose an excessive burden on investors.



They state that if the government's logic is that taxes need to be levied according to gains, the stock transaction tax must be abolished as this is imposed according to the amount traded, regardless of whether or not any gains are made.



The finance ministry, however, contends that abolishing the stock transaction tax will lead to a huge fallout in tax revenue coming from foreign investors, which accounted for about a third of market trading volume in 2019. They paid about 1 trillion won in taxes last year.



The government has also said a transaction tax is needed to prevent excessive market volatility that would arise from greater volumes of high-frequency trading if the transaction tax were to be abolished.


Sesa Sen By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Indias largest fast-moving consumer goods brand Hindustan Unilever (HUL) on Thursday announced that its iconic skincare brand Fair and Lovely has been rebranded as Glow and Lovely. On the other hand, the men's range of the product will be called Glow and Handsome.

Over the next few months, Glow & Lovely will be on the shelves and future innovations will deliver on this new proposition, the company said in a statement.

ALSO READ: Dropping fair is lovely! Rising outcry forces brands to fix discriminatory offerings

Last week, the company said it will no longer woo consumers by playing up its skin-lightening properties and is dropping the word 'fair' to make way for a new name for its Rs 3,000 crore brand, as it strives to be inclusive.

India is the largest market for fairness products and for HUL, too, the country contributes the most to its revenues even as the flagship product is sold in more than a dozen markets, primarily in Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Pakistan.

The move comes in the wake of mounting global outrage worldwide after an African-American George Floyd was killed by police officers while unarmed.

HULs move to drop the word fair from its popular product came after activists campaigning on Change.org called for the company to drop the brand or its name.

Nida Hasan, Country Director, Change.org India, said, "It is hard to ignore the role of Fair and Lovely advertisements in shaping colourism in India. The decision by HUL is a much needed acknowledgment of Indias diversity. Just recently, Johnson & Johnson announced a similar move based on a citizen driven petition."

Chairman Sanjiv Mehta, however, says, the timing of the rebranding was purely coincidental.

Earlier, Johnson & Johnson had decided to stop selling skin-whitening creams popular in Asia and the Middle East. Other brands operating in the segment include LOreal and Procter & Gamble Co, Dabur and Emami.

While L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetic and beauty company, also said it will stop using words like "whitening" and "fair" in describing its products, domestic peers such as Dabur and Emami are yet to take a call on rebranding their respective products -- Fem Fairness bleach and Fair & Handsome cream.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: India needs foreign direct investments worth Rs 50 to 60 lakh crore and the money can be tapped mainly through infrastructure projects as well as MSME sector to accelerate the wheels of coronavirus-hit economy, according to Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

Emphasising that at this juncture Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is the need of the hour, the senior minister said such funds would benefit the country as there is a need for pumping in liquidity into the market.

Economic activities have been significantly disrupted in the wake of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns that were in place to curb spreading of infections.

"Country at this juncture needs liquidity. Without liquidity our economy's wheel will not accelerate. Rs 50-60 lakh crore foreign investment is needed in the country under present circumstances to boost the economy," the Road Transport, Highways and MSME Minister told PTI in an interview.

Infrastructure sector including highways, airports, inland waterways, railways, logistic parks, broad gauge and metro, apart from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) can attract large scale foreign investment, he noted.

"FDI in MSME, Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) and banks are needed in the highways sector, we are trying to bring foreign investment," he said.

Gadkari further said that talks are on with investors from Dubai and the US for various sectors, including MSMEs.

"Some MSMEs are already listed on the BSE. I have talked to investors in Dubai and the US to come and invest in such MSMEs based on their three-year turnover, GST track record, IT record and good rating. Investing in these can result in rich dividends as these do exports also," he said.

"We need to boost our technology for increasing growth and need to focus on enhancing exports. The Prime Minister's thrust is also on reducing dependence on imports and boosting exports. In this infrastructure can play a crucial role," he said.

While noting that the present situation is very serious as the entire world is facing problems, Gadkari stressed on the need to work on a war-footing basis on infrastructure front.

Further, the minister noted that public private partnerships can help harness huge funds and would have a cascading impact by generating more employment and boosting the economy.

Besides, the minister said that 22 green highways were being build, including the Rs 1 lakh crore Delhi-Mumbai Expressway on a new alignment.

Citing the example of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, he said talks were on with the Maharashtra government to shift about 1.

5 lakh leather workers to Thane in a proposed leather cluster along the highway which will have the most modern facilities including schools and hospitals besides affordable housing under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

"The development of backward area will alleviate poverty and accelerate development. Socio-economic thought is behind this," he said.

The Centre has announced Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus package, including Rs 8.01 lakh crore of liquidity measures announced by the Reserve Bank since March.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY), a free ration scheme, would be extended for 80 crore people till the November end.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: JSW Cement Managing Director Parth Jindal on Thursday said its family-owned Group will bring down USD 400 million worth of imports from China to zero in the next 24 months.

Referring to the recent clash between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley, he said the "action" is a result of what the latter did on Indian soil.

The USD 14-billion JSW Group, owned by Parth's father Sajjan Jindal, has presence in core sectors of steel, energy, cement and infrastructure.

The group will boycott goods worth USD 400 million, which it imports from China annually, Parth said in a tweet.

The unprovoked attack by the Chinese on Indian soil on our brave jawaans has been a huge wake up call and a clarion call for action - we @TheJSWGroup have a net import of $400mn from China annually and we pledge to bring this down to zero in the next 24 months #BoycottChina  Parth Jindal (@ParthJindal11) July 2, 2020

"The unprovoked attack by the Chinese on Indian soil on our brave jawaans has been a huge wake up call and a clarion call for action -- we @TheJSWGroup have a net import of USD 400 mn from China annually and we pledge to bring this down to zero in the next 24 months #BoycottChina," he said.

A company official estimated 70-80 per cent of imports take place for the company's steel and energy business which includes machinery and maintenance equipment.

The Indian and Chinese armies are locked in a bitter stand-off at multiple locations in the eastern Ladakh for the past seven weeks, and the tension escalated manifold after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on June 15. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details.
Bismah Malik By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: State IT employee unions in Karnataka and Chennai have alleged that US tech firm, Cognizant, is executing mass layoffs after benching nearly 18,000 employees across India.

Cognizant has allegedly asked the employees to resign as they are unable to secure projects. Karnataka State IT employee Union (KITU) spokesperson told The New Indian Express that they have started a drive calling all Cognizant employees to not tender their resignations under management pressure.

The mass retrenchments are happening in violation of the labour laws. We will register a complaint with the State Labour department, he added.

The reports on large scale layoffs are coming from Cognizant in the name of effectively managing workforce utilisation. Thousands of employees all over India are going to be victims of this. Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union (#KITU) strongly condemns this illegal and inhuman decision taken by the management of Cognizant, according to the KITU statement.

Employees told The New Indian Express wishing anonymity that those who have been benched are being asked to resign due to their inability to secure a new project. They are benching employees for 30-45 days and forcing them to resign blaming them for finding no work, one of the affected employees said.

A KITU spokesperson said that as per the Labour Laws, companies that employ more than 100 employees need to obtain approval from the Labour department in order to execute layoffs. Rebranding a layoff by arguing that employees voluntarily resigned when they were, in fact, forced to resign, is also against the law. KITU urges all the affected employees to refuse to resign if asked to do so by the company, he said.

Amidst the COVID pandemic, the reports of Layoffs in the IT/ IT services industry has impacted thousands of employees across the country with the various IT/ IT employee unions approaching the state labour departments , accusing the companies of violating the labour laws.

An emailed query sent to Cognizant didnt elicit any response at the time of publishing this article.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The city corporations burial ground records show that deaths in the city for the months of April and May in the last two years were higher than the deaths in 2020, Corporation Commissioner G Prakash told reporters in a press meet on Wednesday.

For instance, in April 2018, the city recorded 4,789 deaths, in April 2019 4,888. But it is only 3,754 in April 2020. Similarly for the month of May, 5,146 deaths were recorded in 2018, 5,738 in 2019 and 4,532 in 2020, he said.

This may be due to various reasons but the bottom line is that deaths might be 10 times more if not for the various ground-level interventions undertaken, he said.

Prakash was inspecting community intervention activities in the Tondiarpet zone. He also said that the usage of masks in the city was at 65-70%.

After various community interventions targeted at creating awareness among slum dwellers, the rate of infection in slums in Tondiarpet and Royapuram has gone down, he said. Now, in Tondiarpet, only 10% of the positive cases are from slums and in Royapuram only 8% cases come from slums, he added.

In Tondiarpet, 363 streets of the total 2995 streets, which earlier recorded cases has been having no cases for the last 14 days, he said.

He said that as on Tuesday, the city tested 10,300 samples and is set to increase in the coming days. Although the testing has doubled, the number of positive cases have not increased equivalently but only slightly, he said. So far, 3.65 lakh people have been placed under quarantine.
Sinduja Jane By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Doctor, I am sure you will save me. It has been a few days now, but Dr KV Raja Lakshmi remains haunted by the words uttered by Kiran (name changed) minutes before he succumbed to COVID-19.

As Tamil Nadus caseload inches towards the 1-lakh figure, over 1,300 people have been killed by the viral infection.

Doctors in Chennai, which has seen close to 1000 deaths, say they are weary and traumatised from seeing patients, especially young ones, dying alone. With no drug of choice or targeted treatment available, doctors say they feel helpless.

For Dr Raja Lakshmi, head of General Medicine Department at Kilpauk Government Medical College Hospital, the death of Kiran, a man in his 30s, is the most unforgettable and traumatic incident of her career.

She recalls him greeting her with that same phrase each time she approached him during treatment. Even as his condition deteriorated, he was confident we would save him, she says. "Those words still flash through my mind.

I couldn't guarantee him anything and I knew his chances of survival were slim," adds Dr Raja Lakshmi.

"Everyday I declare at least six deaths at my hospital, says one anaesthesiologist posted in the ICU of a private hospital in the city. I cannot bear to see the emotional trauma that the patients families undergo, the doctor says.

The doctor, like others, admits to allowing family members into the ward so the patient can see their loved ones at least once before they die.

Recently I allowed a young son to see his critically ill father. The son stood beside his father's bed and cried inconsolably for a long time. Then he quietly walked out, the doctor recalls. That moment reduced me to tears."

In another instance, the doctor says a husband and wife were admitted in the same ICU.

"The husband started struggling a lot in his last moments. We were around him, desperately trying to save him but couldnt and the man died, the doctor says. When I turned around, I realised the curtains had not been drawn.

The patients wife had witnessed the distressing last moments of her husbands death. I immediately drew the curtains around her husband, but I was disturbed. The next day, the wife died," the anesthesiologist says.

A senior doctor involved in the critical care of Covid patients, at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, says the most distressing fact is that even in the ICU, the patients are conscious and aware of their surroundings.

"Unlike other patients, Covid-19 patients are able to converse coherently even when their oxygen saturation levels fall below 60. They know they are going to die. Their only request is to be sent home," the doctor says. According to this doctor, at any point of time, there are at least 80 seriously ill patients at the RGGGH Covid-19 ICU.

"With no attenders allowed, these patients die alone, says Dr K E Govindarajulu, professor of Medicine at Government Kilpauk Medical College Hospital.

Declaring the death of young patients is so much more difficult for us, he says.

With relatives often afraid to come and visit the patients, even if called by phone to do so, doctors find the deaths painful to witness.

Unless it is the patients parent or wife, relatives rarely come, Govindarajulu notes. So doctors try to make video calls and connect the patient and their family.

But with Covid-19 even healthy patients suddenly collapse due to the lung infection. Their loved ones are unable to understand how they have suddenly died and we are unable to explain it either, Govindarajulu says. It is very painful.
Somrita Ghosh By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Many of the small private hospitals which were offering around 10 beds for coronavirus patients have withdrawn their services.

But their names continue on the Delhi Corona App showing zero occupancy.

In an earlier order by the Delhi government, private hospitals with more than 50 beds were told to allot 20 per cent of their capacity to COVID-19 wards.

Many such small hospitals provided around 10 beds to corona positive patients.

This reporter called up some of these hospitals based on the app, which showed all beds out of the 10-12 hospitals allotted for coronavirus being available.

Of these, many said they have shut services to admit the COVID-19 patients.

As per the app, there are 31 hospitals with a bed capacity of 10 for patients. Of these, eight hospitals showed all beds were vacant.

When contacted, three said they have stopped services and one said the patients are being admitted in another branch of the hospital and not as mentioned on the app.

We are facing a huge financial loss since we converted our facilities into COVID beds. The non-COVID patients had stopped coming and we were unable to manage it. We dont have any idea why the hospitals name continues on the app despite the nodal officer having already been alerted, said an HR representative from one of the hospital.

However, these hospitals said that they are not admitting critical patients or those whose condition can worsen.

It wont be our responsibility to provide transport to a patient whose condition worsens and he needs to be shifted to another hospital. If the patient needs ventilator or oxygen or ICU care, the relatives will have to make arrangements and get him admitted in a different facility, said one hospital.

Another hospital, which also cited the same reason, said it is not very keen on admitting patients and is mostly turning down such requests, depending on the patients condition.

We suggest either staying at home or getting admitted to a bigger hospital. There has been an incident where we had to transfer a patient to another facility which turned down admission and the patient succumbed. We were blamed, said the head of a hospital.

Other hospitals said they are providing the services out of fear of cancellation of their registration.

We have no other option, but to run it. Most of us are facing huge financial losses, besides staff are not willing to work, said the owner of one such private hospital."
By PTI

NEW DELHI: A 500-bed COVID-19 care facility is being readied by the Delhi government at the Commonwealth Games (CWG) village here, and it is likely to accept patients from Monday, officials said on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia visited the newly-built facility on Wednesday to review preparations.

"Around 500 beds have been installed at this COVID-19 care centre here. It will be attached to the LNJP Hospital," the CM said.

The facility will have separate wards for men and women, and stay-in facilities will be provided to doctors and nurses, he said.

"A massive expansion of the number of COVID-19 beds is underway in Delhi. The number of cases in Delhi is now decreasing (comparatively) and the situation seems to be getting under control," Kejriwal told the media after the visit.

"I hope and pray that the facilities created and the beds installed across the city are not required, but even if they are, we are not lacking in our efforts.

In case there is a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, we are ready to deal with it," he said.

Doctors For You, a non-profit organisation, is supporting the Delhi government in setting up the facility, and it will start taking patients from Monday, East Delhi District Magistrate Arun Mishra said.

Many banquet halls are being acquired in Delhi and more centres like the one at CWG village will be established in the coming days, said the chief minister.

He also said that the plasma bank set up at the ILBS Hospital in Delhi will be inaugurated on Thursday.

"The increase in testing and the low positivity rate are both good signs. The recovery rate has also increased. Out of 87,000 coronavirus cases, around 58,000 have recovered. The death rate has considerably reduced in the last few days," he said.

Still, the Delhi government is preparing for all possible situations considering the unpredictability of the novel coronavirus as no one can say when the cases might increase or decrease, he added.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: With the Delhi government operationalising the "country's first plasma bank" for COVID-19 patients on Thursday, experts have spelt out the protocol and screening guidelines that will come with the process.

Amid rising coronavirus cases, the bank has been established in the premises of the Delhi government-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), which will operate from 8 am to 8 pm, a senior official of the facility said.

"While the plasma donation area has been set up on the second floor of the hospital building, the plasma drawn from donors will be cryogenically stored in the blood bank facility in the ILBS campus," the official said.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited ILBS and reviewed the plasma bank facility, and interacted with donors.

"Just reviewed Delhi govt's new Plasma Bank. It is world class and modern. Donors are being taken care of very well by staff. I urge recovered Corona patients to come forward and donate their plasma," he tweeted after the visit.

Plasma is separated from the blood of donors using a plasmapheresis machine.

ILBS has 10 of these machines at present, and two more are expected to arrive soon, the senior doctor at ILBS said.

"This machine separates plasma and RBC, and the plasma is then stored in a bank at sub-zero temperature. In our bank, we can store it from -30 degrees C to - 80 degrees C. The plasma drawn from a donor is kept in a special bag which should not be opened until needed," the doctor told PTI.

The drawn plasma is kept in a bag and is then stored in frozen form.

And when needed, Plasma Thaw is used on it for thawing at 37 degrees Celsius, she said.

"Once we receive a request from a hospital or a family member of the patient for plasma requirement, we ask for the authorisation letter from the hospital where the patient is admitted. After that we give the required plasma in an insulation box, which can easily be carried, and no special transportation is required," the doctor said.

On the first day, many patients came from outside and also ILBS staffers who have recovered from COVID-19 donated plasma.

Sources said about 90 staffers at ILBS have tested positive for the virus till date.

Kejriwal urged those who have recovered from this disease to donate plasma to other patients.

For donors, there are some strict criteria and counselling and screening is done for them before the actual donation process begins so about two to two-and-a-half hours is the total time per donor, the senior doctor said.

"Also, we do TTI (transfusion transmissible infections) tests. So, the donor should not have HIV, hepatitis B or C, syphilis among other ailments. The donor also should not have any co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension or renal problems," she said.

Each donor, a person who has recently recovered from COVID-19, develops antibodies which are transferred to the recipient through plasma.

"Each person can donate 250-500 ml of plasma. We give the first dosage of 250 ml to the recipient, and if needed a second dosage of 250 ml after 24 hours," a senior doctor at LNJP hospital said.

The Chief Minister's Office said people aged 18-60 who have fully recovered from COVID-19 and showed no symptoms for 14 days can go for donation, subject to strict guidelines for eligible donors.

So, someone weighing less than 50 kg; women who have ever been pregnant, cancer survivors, and those with kidney, heart, lung or liver diseases are not eligible to donate plasma, it said.

If a donor has given only 250 ml of plasma once, he or she can donate it again, another 250 ml of it after a few days, the LNJP Hospital doctor said.

Kejriwal after reviewing the new facility told reporters, "As we all know there is no vaccine for novel coronavirus yet, but plasma therapy seems to be quite helpful for COVID patients, and could help in saving lives. But it will be successful only if people come forward and donate plasma."
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender visited different hospitals attached to private medical colleges in and around Hyderabad, to inspect the facilities available for treating COVID-19 patients. He told all the identified private medical colleges on Wednesday, to start admitting COVID-19 patients and help the government in tackling the crisis.

The government had taken a decision earlier in April, of providing treatment to COVID-19 patients in private medical colleges free of cost. For this, around 22 private medical colleges having 10,000 beds, have been identified across the State.

Health Department officials told Express that in some of these medical colleges in the districts, patients have already been admitted. The admission to these colleges will be based on reference by government healthcare centres. On Wednesday, Eatala inspected facilities at Kamineni Hospital, Owaisi Hospital, Mallareddy Hospital and ESIC Hospital Nacharam.

Telangana crosses 17000-mark with 1,018 COVID-19 cases, 7 deaths

Telangana recorded its highest single-day spike of 1,018 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, when seven patients succumbed to the virus, taking the total toll to 267 in the State. Wednesdays steep spike took the total number of positive cases in the State to 17,357 cases, of which 9,008 are active cases.

With 4,234 tests done on the day, which is one of the highest in the last fortnight, the positivity rate was at 24.04 per cent. As in the past, the highest number of cases were reported from the Greater Hyderabad limits (881), followed by Medchal and Rangareddy with 36 cases and 33 cases.

Among those who tested positive for the virus were senior doctors, including a senior faculty of ESIC Medical College. The day also saw 788 patients being discharged, taking cumulative discharges to 8,082 patients in the State.

Free of cost testing centres

Meanwhile, Eatala, in a bid to motivate people to undergo tests, tweeted a list of centres where free tests are being conducted.

The list includes King Koti Hopspital, Fever Hospital in Nallakunta, Chest Hospital in Erragadda, Nature Cure Hospital in Ameerpet, Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital in Mehdipatnam, Ayurveda Hospital in Erragadda, Homeopathy Hospital in Ramanthapur, Nizamiya TB Hospital in Charminar, Area Hospital in Kondapur, Area Hospital in Vanasthalipuram and ESI Hospital in Nacharam.
"Rank Badge with a Haechi" from 16th-17th century Joseon Kingdom / Courtesy of Sim Yeon-ok and Seo Heun-kang



Sim Yeon-ok traces 2,000-year history of Korean textile craft



By Kwon Mee-yoo





Sim Yeon-ok, professor at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage

Embroidery has a long history. The craft in Korea has evolved alongside textiles for over 2,000 years, reflecting cultural identity across historical eras and blurring the boundaries between art and technique.



Sim Yeon-ok, a professor at the Department of Traditional Arts and Crafts at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage, published her third book "2,000 Years of Korean Embroidery" last month to shed light on the lesser-known mastery of Korean embroidery.



While previous research on Korean embroidery focused on aesthetics, Sim, as a textile engineer, looked at embroidered works through a microscope to examine their details and structure. Sim said her former professor Min Gil-ja, a pioneer in Korean textile research, inspired her to delve into the field.



"Fiber and textiles should be understood and researched from an engineering perspective, as structural design is inseparable from the creation of fabric. Most of Korea's clothing history was studied by historians and domestic science majors, who did not have much knowledge of engineering," Sim said. "Professor Min encouraged me to study in China as understanding Chinese textiles was essential for studying Korean textiles considering the exchange between the East Asian countries."



Sim went to the China Textile University in Shanghai, now Donghua University, in 1992, right after diplomatic ties between China and Korea were established. "I am one of the first South Korean doctoral students in China," Sim said.





"Ornamental Pendant" from Goryeo Kingdom using split and blanket stitches / Courtesy of Sim Yeon-ok and Seo Heun-kang



Sim's devotion to Korean textiles is represented in her previous books "5,000 Years of Korean Textiles" (2002) and "2,000 Years of Korean Textile Design" (2006).



"My first book was inspired by Jennifer Harris' book 5,000 Years of Textiles. This book encompasses the history of textiles worldwide, but Korea is not even mentioned. So I researched the history of Korean textiles extensively, finding its place in the overall history of textiles," Sim explained.



"The history of textiles in Korea is 5,000 years old because the oldest spindle whorls, which signal the beginning of weaving and textiles, found on the Korean Peninsula are 5,000 years old. Most significant relics related to the history of textiles exist in Korea and I was able to tie Korean textiles in with world history."



Her interest shifted to embroidery, a field that has not been studied deeply in Korea's textile history.



"When Sudeok Museum of Sudeok Temple in Yesan, South Chungcheong Province, held an exhibition on embroidered Buddhist treasures, I was asked to write a piece for its catalogue. Despite the amount of embroidered relics, there was barely any research on it and almost none in English. As I studied embroidery further, I made many fascinating discoveries including the way our ancestors saved expensive silk threads for satin stitches and used different stitching techniques," Sim said.



The book features 48 Korean embroidery works from the Ancient Kingdoms era dating back as far as the 1st century A.D. to the relatively recent Korean Empire of the early 20th century. Sim collaborated with one of her students, Keum Da-woon, to write this comprehensive book on the history of Korean embroidery.

"Korea's climate and soil are not suitable for preserving organic matter, including fabric and thread. Most of Korea's intact embroidered works are from after the 14th century and earlier works are in fragments," Sim said. "However, documents exist on weaving fabric and embroidering on it, giving a glimpse into ancient embroidery. We also can reference Chinese documents on patterns since East Asian countries exchanged influences."



The oldest embroidery found on the Korean Peninsula is the "Fragments Embroidered with Swirling Cloud," dating back to the 1st or 2nd century A.D. Excavated from Seokam-ri Tomb no. 9 in Pyongyang, the remnants show how ancient Koreans used chain stitching to portray lines and planes.



"The tombs were excavated by the Japanese in the early 20th century and only photographs of these embroidered fragments exist now. I tried to trace and research actual objects as much as possible, but was not able to find this one except for the photos," Sim explained. "Back then, chain stitching was popular throughout Asia and the ancient people embroidered with extremely fine threads."



Another notable discovery for ancient Korean embroidery is the "Embroidered Lining of Gilt-Bronze Shoes" from the Tomb of King Muryeong, who ruled Baekje Kingdom from 501 to 523, in Gongju.



"There were more embroidered works remaining than expected as some of them are not categorized as embroidery," Sim said. "For this pair of gilt-bronze shoes, braid and loop stitches were used on gold. Though it is now discolored, it used at least two colors of dyed yarns, which would have been very vivid originally."



The "Tenjukoku Mandala," currently in the collection of the Chuguji in Nara, Japan, is believed to be created by Korean embroiderers.



"This shows that Korean embroidery was highly advanced and its influence reached overseas," Sim said.



Sim also found the use of split stitching in ancient Korea through the "Banner from Silla," featuring a dragon with palmette pattern. "The split stitch is similar to the chain stitch and often mistaken for it, but it was widely used in East Asia," she said.



Sim and her team also analyzed all stitches used in the "Fragrance Pouch" from the 10th century Goryeo Kingdom (918-1392), which was found in the Nine-Story Octagonal Stone Stupa at Woljeong Temple.



"It was embroidered on a complex gauze fabric named ra, which no longer exists. However, there are records of embroidering on ra fabric, so understanding the ground fabric was the first step," she said. "The pouch employed multiple stitch techniques including straight, satin, split, couching and applique. The chain couching technique, now discontinued, is only found in this embroidered work, while the applique stitch was popular in China as well."





"Seat Cushion with Landscape of Lotus Pond and Phoenixes" from 17th century Joseon Kingdom / Courtesy of Sim Yeon-ok and Seo Heun-kang



Embroidered Buddhas demonstrate another important use of embroidery. "Amitabha Buddha" from the late 14th century used counted stitches to portray skin texture.



"Kasaya Attributed to the Monk Bojoguksa" of Songgwang Temple was lost during the 1950-53 Korean War and only a glass dry-plate photo of it is in the collection of the National Museum of Korea. Sim discovered a twin of the kasaya in Japan  "Folding Screen with an Embroidered Kasaya Composed of Nine Strips of Patchwork."



"Though the Korean one only exists in photographs, it seems that both kasaya were used the same fabric, motifs and details, hinting that they were made by the same craftsperson around the same time. Using the knot stitch to depict the body of a dragon is a unique use of the technique and found in both kasaya," Sim explained.



Embroidered relics from Joseon era remain in more intact and original form.



Sim picked the "Rank Badge with a Haechi" from 16th-17th century Joseon as one of the most charming objects in the book. A haechi is a mythical creature resembling a horned lion, often considered a protector of the capital.



"This is embroidered on sa fabric, or simple gauze. Since the simple gauze is sparsely woven fabric, it is highly transparent and you can see through it. It best represents the beauty of space in Korean embroidery," Sim said. "Though now the threads are discolored mostly to brownish, imagining it in its original color is just fascinating."



The "Rank Badge with Clouds and a Pair of Geese" from the Seok Juseon Memorial Museum of Dankook University is a well-known embroidery piece and Sim at first thought of skipping it for this book.



"However, when I looked at it using a microscope, I was amazed by luxurious details of the piece. Its background is tabby silk with gold thread wefts and it featured over 20 kinds of colored threads, mixing horizontal and vertical stitches to give a 3D effect," Sim said. "Embroidering on gold fabric could change the textile history of Korea and this is why microscopic study is important in textiles."





Detail of "Rank Badge with Cranes" from 17th century Joseon Kingdom / Courtesy of Sim Yeon-ok and Seo Heun-kang
Ramu R By

Express News Service

KOCHI: As tension mounts on the India-China border and the possibility of a direct conflict is discussed and debated widely, various views are emerging on the issues involving narratives from a history that spans many decades. Interestingly, a seven-page article was written by an undergraduate student about this 53 years ago. R K Vijaykrishnan, who was then doing his BA in Economics at Government Victoria College (Palakkad), wrote the predictive piece titled Collective security for Southeast Asia for his college magazine.

The threat that India faced due to Chinas aggressive expansionist policies since the 60s, the failure of then Jawaharlal Nehru-led government to recognise the threat posed by China, and the consequential Sino-Indian war (1962), and the 1965 war with Pakistan were mentioned by Vijaykrishnan, former senior executive with Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd (FACT), in his paper.

The steps that our country should have taken to curb the territorial ambitions of China in Southeast Asia is also discussed in detail. India could not stand alone and needed to look for alignment with other neighbouring countries like Vietnam which was not under Chinese influence back then, says the 72-year-old. With the direct or indirect support of a major military power such as the US, India should then take the initiative to form an alliance with bordering countries under the Chinese rule to combat its aggression, Vijaykrishnan opines. The governments mistake in declining the offer of US president John F Kennedy who offered air support which could have halted the Chinese advance and territorial gains also finds a special mention.

According to him, strengthening the countrys defence and foreign policies is of utmost importance to stop a possible invasion of the country by China. Even though there is economic cooperation between the two countries, they still see us as an enemy, Vijaykrishnan says. Interested in the field of international relations from his high school days, Vijaykrishnan has been closely observing the ongoing tensions between the two countries.

The issue of aligning with other countries has become more delicate and complex as countries like Nepal have turned against us by adopting a pro-China stand, while they were an ally of us back then. Hence , the situation has become extremely delicate and we should be careful in our dialogues with our neighbours and should not alienate them at aNYcost, he said. After serving in FACT for more than 30 years and then working at a Media organisation, Vijayakrishnan is currently based in Kochi, working as a corporate trainer.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Compensation for farmers who suffered crop loss in the 2019 flood will be sent directly to their bank accounts from the Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund, the state cabinet decided on Wednesday. It also decided to provide a solatium of `5 lakh to Balakrishnan, the father of Devika, a student of Irumbiliyam GHSS Malappuram who committed suicide due to lack of facilities to pursue online classes. Meanwhile additional posts, including 15 teaching posts and one head nurse post, will be created for the smooth functioning of the multi-specialty block in Government Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram.

The director of medical education has also been directed to create 86 non-teaching posts on daily wage or contract basis. Around 102 government pleaders in the High Court, whose term of office has expired, will be reappointed till June 21, 2021.

New postings

Cooperation department secretary Mini Antony will hold additional charge as managing director of Kerala State Cooperative Agricultrual and Rural Development Bank. Labour Commissioner Pranab Jyothinath will be given additional charge as special secretary of water resources department.

KSFE to distribute laptops to students

TPuram: The cabinet has approved a project to distribute laptops to students through Kerala State Financial Enterprises (KSFE). The devices will be distributed under KSFEs Vidyashree project. Students who buy laptops through this project will be entitled to subsidies offered by various voluntary organisations and government agencies.
By IANS

AHMEDABAD: Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, students joining Ahmedabad University can opt to attend classes online till December this year, even if the campus is reopened earlier, the University announced on Thursday.

This decision comes as the University puts in place stringent plans and operating procedures to ensure student safety during the new academic year.

The date to reach the campus during the Monsoon Semester is uncertain and the University will ask students to report to the campus only when it is safe for them to do so.

"We have decided that if any student feels uncomfortable to come to campus even when the campus has been opened, we will provide the facility for them to study online till the time they feel they are ready to be on campus," Professor Pankaj Chandra, Vice-Chancellor, Ahmedabad University, said in a statement.

Ahmedabad University will start its monsoon semester online in August and has made detailed plans on how to open campus, as and when the situation allows.

However, all students will have the flexibility to decide if they want to attend classes online or on-campus. This will allow students to start the academic year on schedule, and from the safety of their homes, if necessary.

"We will see when the situation is safe to bring our students to campus. We are not bringing anybody on to the campus, until and unless we are very sure that everybody is safe," Professor Chandra said.

"Whenever the pandemic situation improves and we bring our students on to the campus," he informed.
Saima Afreen By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Learning digitally has become the new normal now as even calligraphy and prosody are being taught online which requires a lot of patience. In the pandemic-struck world, teaching has become online in schools and colleges and students have learnt to adapt the same.

At the same time, with work from home facilities with extra time in hand people are investing in learning anything which is constructive especially new languages or an art form. Thats how shyderacademy.com run by city-based author Syed Tamjeed Hyder is offering courses on learning languages like Urdu, Persian, and Arabic along with elementary courses on calligraphy and prosody.

He shares, "We started on June 1 and by now we have more than 40 students from the US, Middle East, Pakistan and parts of India. We have appointed skilled professionals and seasoned professors to teach the courses"

Its a registered organisation which runs four classes every week comprising 1.5 hours each. For prosody classes, city-based renowned Urdu poet Sardar Saleem has been appointed as the teacher.

So which digital channel do they use to conduct the classes? "We have the Learning Management System (LMS) on our website through which we have already held 10 classes," informs Tamjeed. And what about calligraphy classes?

"Within a fortnight we are going to start this. A senior calligrapher is going to teach it online. Its a challenge but very much possible in these times of social distancing," he signs off.


By PTI

LONDON: Hollywood star Pierce Brosnan says even though playing the role of iconic British spy James Bond "allowed" him to have a wonderful career in cinema, he doesn't regret exiting the film franchise.

The 67-year-old actor played Agent 007 in four films, the last being "Die Another Day" which released in 2002. He wanted to continue playing the character but producers decided to recast the role, with Daniel Craig as Bond.

Now Brosnan said "there's no regret" over parting ways. "I do not let regret come into my world...It just leads to more misery and more regrets. Bond is the gift that keeps giving and has allowed me to have a wonderful career. Once you're branded as a Bond, it's with you for ever, so you better make peace with it and understand that when you walk through those doors and pick up the mantle of playing James Bond," he told The Guardian.

In his post-Bond career, Brosnan starred in diverse roles in films including "Mamma Mia!" series, "Laws of Attraction", "The Matador", "The Ghost Writer".

He will next be seen in Disney's live-action remake of "Cinderella". Meanwhile, Craig will star in his fifth and final outing as Bond in "No Time To Die", which is slated to be released in November after being delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Pronab Mandal By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: A 99-year-old man, with cataract on both eyes and suffering from hypertension, stepped out of a private health care unit in Kolkata on Wednesday after winning a week-long battle against Covid-19 infection. He is said to be the oldest Covid-19 patient in the state who returned home after recovery.

Last week, an 84-year-old man fought a 16-day successful battle at Kolkata Medical College and Hospital and returned home.

Nonagenarian Sripati Nayaban, the father of 10 children residing at Diamond Harbour in South 24-Parganas district, was admitted to the nursing home on June 24. On June 11, one of Sripatis sons, who is 53-year-old, tested positive for Covid-19 and was admitted to a private hospital. After 10 days, the test report of the familys eldest son, who is 72, came positive and he was admitted to a state-run hospital.

"My father was quarantined at home. When he fell ill with respiratory problem, he underwent tests and the report came positive on June 24. We took him to the nursing home at Kankurgachi," said Kanak Nayaban.

Kanak said his father served in the Indian Army and his strong will-power helped him to win the battle against the coronavirus infection.

Soumyadip Chakrabarty, the doctor of the nursing home, said when Sripati was brought to the healthcare unit, the oxygen level in his blood was below 90mmHg, which was a matter of concern. He was given two litres of oxygen to stabilise his condition.

"Other than an individuals immunity power, bringing a patient infected by Covid-19 is a crucial factor behind recovery. If a patient is brought at the last minute, saving his life becomes difficult. Sripatis family members did not waste time and their decision helped us to treat him," said Chakrabarty.

Sripatis son Kanak urged neighbours of any Covid-19 patient to stand beside the family members and relatives of the infected person. "At many places, the people are avoiding and ostracising the families of a Covid-19 patient which is creating a mental pressure on the patients and their family members. Everyone should treat Covid-19 patients and their families with sympathy," he added.
By Express News Service

KOLKATA: In a unique move to beat the fear of coronavirus infection, the West Bengal government has decided to set up Covid-19 Warriors Club in every district involving those successfully won the battle against the disease. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee instructed home secretary Alapan Banerjee to set up such units across the state and offer the "warriors" monthly financial grant and their free food and accommodation.

The initiative, said to be first of its kind in India, was taken in the wake of a series of complaints of social ostracism and non-cooperation by the neighbours of Covid-19 patients.

"The survivors of the disease will be the face of the administration. They will share their experience of survival of the infection physically and psychologically to win the battle. We will use them to boost up the confidence of both the patients and their families. Besides, they will also aware the neighbours of a patient that Covid-19 is like any other disease and winning battle against it is not a tough one," said an official of the state home department.

In Murshidabad district, a warriors club has already been set up comprising 60 persons, who won the battle against the virus infection. Among them, 10 will work at Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital, 10 in Malda Medical College and Hospitals and rest 40 will be working in hospitals in Kolkata, said the official. The district has 176 survivors.

In West Bengal, a total of 12,528 persons recovered and returned home from hospitals till date after they successfully won the battle against Covid-19. "We interacted with a section of the survivors and all of them narrated how did they and their family members suffer the most traumatic experience in the society during the treatment period. Their neighbours either tried to or ostracised their families. So we want to use them to overcome the Covid-19 phobia among the people because they were directly hit by the pandemic," said an official of the state health department, adding, "The survivors also narrated us how did their will-power help them to recover. We will also engage them to interact with Covid-19 patients under treatment."

Sources in the state home department said many of the survivors agreed to join us. "They told us that if their experience will put a smile on the faces of Covid-19 patients and their family members, they will come forward. We are shortlisting the names of survivors district wise to set up the WarriorsClubs," the official said.
Anuraag Singh By

Express News Service

BHOPAL: With 13 out of the 34 ministers in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government being from among the 22 former Congress MLAs who scripted the fall of Kamal Nath government in March, the ruling BJP made it amply clear on Thursday about the 24 bulk assembly by-polls being first on its mind.

Importantly, 22 of the 24 assembly by-polls whose dates are yet to be announced have been necessitated by the resignation of the 22 MLAs in March, most of who will be BJP candidates in the by-elections.

Making 13 of them ministers is a clear cut signal to the people in their constituencies that they are being empowered to work for their people ahead of the by-polls, a BJP leader told The New Indian Express.

Enthused by the BJP meeting its commitment of making his loyalists ministers, the newly-elected Rajya Sabha member and former union minister threw an open challenge to his former party Congress. For the last two months sustained character assassination efforts are going on, let me tell them, its time for them to get what they deserve. Tiger Abhi Zinda Hai, said Scindia after the swearing-in ceremony on Thursday.

With 16 out of the 24 bulk assembly by-polls to be held in seats of Gwalior-Chambal region, the BJP sent a clear-cut message of empowerment to the region, by inducting 13 ministers from that region  despite the party having performed the worst in that region in 2018 assembly polls.

Inducting nine ministers (including many fresh faces) from Malwa-Nimar region too was another clarion message that BJP wanted to regain its lost ground in the belt which has long been BJP-RSS nucleus, particularly when five out of the 24 assembly by-polls are to be held in that region only.

Uma Bharti not happy with cabinet expansion

Former CM and ex-union minister Uma Bharti (who is among one of the senior-most BJP leaders from MP), meanwhile, reportedly isnt happy with the cabinet expansion, particularly as it has not addressed her suggestions to include MLAs from Bundelkhand region and legislators from her Lodhi OBC caste, which is a sizeable vote bank in Bundelkhand and Central MP.

According to key sources in the BJP, Bharti has reportedly written about it to the BJP national vice president in-charge of Madhya Pradesh Vinay Sahastrabudhe and state BJP president VD Sharma.

Bharti, who is UP presently, when quizzed by journalists over the issue on Thursday, said whatever Ive to say, Ill say in Bhopal.

In Indore, meanwhile, supporters of the three-time BJP MLA from Indore-II seat Ramesh Mendola have started expressing resentment in social media against Mendola not being included in the expanded council of ministers. Mendola is seen as a close confidant of BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, but despite all efforts by Vijayvargiya, Mendola couldnt make it to the council of ministers. Instead Mhow legislator Usha Thakur got cabinet berth, particularly due to blessings of the RSS and party organization.

Party insiders also fear future resentment in the Vindhya region, which was swept by the BJP in 2018 polls, but still has got just one minister of state berth in form of Ram Khelawan Patel, the MLA from Amarpatan in Satna district.
Vineet Upadhyay By

Express News Service

DEHRADUN: After government of India banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including TikTok which have platform to commoners to showcase their talent, many in Uttarakhand are in sombre mood. Apart from gaining popularity as a 'Tiktok Star', the short video application also enabled to generate money.

Priyanka Kandwal (23), a Dehradun based Tiktoker who had over a million followers and rose to fame give her striking resemblance to yesteryear actress Madhubala said, "Tiktok provided scores of oppurtuties to the common people. Now that it is banned, we all are shocked and shattered. We stand with the government in the decision of banning Chinese applications."

After Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the application which has Chinese origins garnered over 12 crore users across the country.

Mukesh Khan (24) another Tiktok star from Rudrapur town of Uttarakhand who had over two million followers said, "The ban came as shock and ended everything we had. I hope it would not have been like this. But we all stand with our country."

Khan was also invited by Tiktok laat year to Mumbai in a meet called 'Creators Lab'.

Following the trend, state police department also opened its account on Tiktok had already banned the usage earlier this month only before the government of India ban.

Earlier this month, Uttarakhand police banned Tiktok account.

Ashok Kumar, director general, law and order said, "We have already banned Tiktok and we're milking to ban 52 other applications. The government of India banned 59 apps including these 52. We have abided by the ban and orders jave been issue dyo not use any of these mobile applications."
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Union Health Ministry has asked all states and UTs to hand over bodies of suspected COVID-19 cases to their relatives without waiting for laboratory confirmation of the infection but said the mortal remains should be disposed of as per government guidelines.

A letter on the matter was sent to all states and UTs on Wednesday in the wake of issues raised regarding death of suspected COVID-19 patients and bodies not being handed over to relatives pending confirmation of test report by hospitals.

I would like to clarify that the dead bodies of such suspected COVID cases should be handed over to their relatives immediately and laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 should not be awaited, the letter written by Director General of Health Services (DGHS), Health Ministry, Dr Rajiv Garg said.

These bodies can as a matter of abundant precaution be disposed as per the 'Guidelines on Dead Body Management' available on the website of Union Health Ministry which directs that handlers in PPE accompany the body for final rites, the letter stated.

If such death cases test positive eventually, then the requisite action for contact listing, tracking etc. should be carried out subsequently. Further, necessary action may be taken as per the clarification given above," the letter said.

India's COVID-19 tally zoomed past six lakh on Thursday, with a single-day increase of 19,148 cases while the death toll rose to 17,834 with 434 persons succumbing to the disease in the last 24 hours, according to Health Ministry data updated at 8 am.
Egypt's National Committee for Elections said in a statement on Thursday that its board will meet in the next few hours to settle on the measures necessary for holding the Senate elections.

The committee said the meeting comes after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ratified on Thursday four election laws that were finally approved by parliament on 17 June.

The laws are on the election and formation of the 300-seat Senate, the 596-seat House of Representatives, the Exercise of Political Rights, and the National Committee for Elections.

The statement said the committee's executive body is currently preparing for holding the Senate election. "This will include preparations related to the voting stations, judges supervising the elections and voter lists," said the statement.

It added that the committee's chairman Lasheen Ibrahim will hold a press conference to announce the date of opening the door for candidate registration and the days of voting in Egypt and abroad.

The statement indicated that the committee will make sure that all anti-coronavirus precautionary measures will be adopted during the voting process to prevent overcrowdedness.

A number of press reports said the Senate election will be held in August.

The Senate will include 300 seats, one-third of which will be elected via the individual candidacy system, another third to be elected through the closed party list system, and a third to be named by the president.

The Senate election will be followed by House election.

Short link:


U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands at Panmunjeom in this June 2019 photo. They are not expected to meet each other ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, according to diplomatic experts. / Korea Times file



By Kang Seung-woo



Despite President Moon Jae-in's publicized wishes and an envisaged visit by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun to Seoul, another summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump is not on the cards, as there is little to motivate the North toward resuming their denuclearization talks, diplomatic experts said Thursday.



Trump and Kim have had three meetings  in Singapore in June 2018, in Vietnam in February 2019 and at Panmunjeom in June 2019.



According to Cheong Wa Dae, Moon recently relayed his wishful message about a summit to the White House in a bid to reactivate his "Korea peace initiative" amid the stalled diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington following the collapse of the Hanoi summit. An official added the U.S. side was "making efforts for that."



In addition, Biegun, who is in charge of the U.S. government's negotiations with the North, is expected to arrive here next week, sparking speculation that he may deliver a message to Kim from Trump, including possibly offering another meeting ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election in the United States.



An Associated Press report also said the Trump administration was anticipating the possibility of an "October surprise" before the election.



"Though there is always a chance, I am highly doubtful that there will be another Kim-Trump summit before the election," U.S. Naval War College professor Terence Roehrig told The Korea Times.



"As the U.S. gets closer to November, the administration will become ever more focused on the campaign, particularly if President Trump's standing in the polls continues to slip. Leaders have often undertaken a foreign policy initiative to distract from trouble at home, but I doubt this would make much difference in the election and would carry tremendous risk."



Daniel Sneider, an expert on Korean and Japanese foreign policy at Stanford University, expressed a similar view.



"I have seen the various reports, including Biegun's remarks in Washington, which seemed to me to clearly rule out a summit ahead of the election. Given the pandemic situation in the U.S., which is increasingly severe, and Trump's declining political fortunes, it is difficult to see what benefit he could derive from another summit," Sneider told The Korea Times.





Moon hopes another Trump-Kim summit leader before November election: Cheong Wa Dae Brinkmanship unlikely to save North Korea from sanctions Trump-Kim summit unlikely before US presidential election: US envoy "Everything that Trump does is focused on his re-election and a summit with Kim Jong-un is a highly risky venture from an electoral point of view."



Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst and North Korea watcher at the Heritage Foundation, told The Korea Times, "President Moon's advocacy for another U.S.-North Korean summit is based more on wishful thinking than on any expectation of success on achieving North Korean denuclearization."



Diplomatic experts have reached a consensus that there are few things that will bring the North back to negotiations.



"The chief item that North Korea would be interested in is some element of sanctions relief, but Washington is unlikely to alter its current position on sanctions. Regardless of the details on where this denuclearization process goes next, there must be an understanding that it is a long term effort that will need to be a series of many incremental steps if it has any chance of succeeding," Roehrig said, adding that there must be lower expectations of what "success" looks like  complete denuclearization is unlikely but continued dialogue can achieve some positive results.



Sneider said, "Given what we have seen in the previous summits, the North Korean regime is not interested in a serious denuclearization deal  the best that come would be a partial step in exchange for effectively lifting sanctions."



Van Jackson, a professor of Victoria University of Wellington and former Pentagon official, told The Korea Times that nobody thinks the summits are serious and even mainstream media recognize that Trump was just doing the summits for publicity, which former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton's book confirmed.



"But the bigger problem is that Kim Jong-un would only do the summits if he got some sanctions relief," Jackson added.



They expressed concerns that Trump's idiosyncrasy may motivate him to unexpectedly meet Kim, but any results from a possible yet ill-advised summit would be a failure



"So maybe Trump wants a summit so bad that he'd give Kim sanctions relief without restraining its nuclear capabilities. But that would be insane. And I actually support the idea of sanctions relief for North Korea, but only as part of a larger strategy, not as a one-off decision to score a photo op with Kim," Jackson said.



"A simple and simplistic agreement such as a terse peace agreement that doesn't address North Korea's conventional force threat could have dangerous ramifications for allied deterrence and defense capabilities. A comprehensive, well-crafted denuclearization agreement that carefully delineates all parties' responsibilities would take far longer than four months to craft," Klingner said.



Due to a deadlock in the North Korea-U.S. nuclear talks, inter-Korean relations has also been back to square one  despite three South-North summits. In that respect, it is doubtful that Moon's push for independent inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation will gain momentum, according to the pundits.



"I understand why Cheong Wa Dae is promoting this idea. President Moon is clearly desperate to resurrect his engagement strategy with North Korea. As far as I can see, the North Korean regime is only seeking a full break by Seoul with the United Nations sanctions regime," Sneider said.




By PTI

NEW DELHI: Union Power Minister RK Singh will discuss with his state counterparts a range of issues, including Chinese imports and UDAY scheme, during a meeting called on Friday.

The meeting, which is organised almost every year to discuss key issues pertaining to the power sector, will take stock of the progress made by states on central schemes.

The meeting, to be held virtually this year, assumes more significance as it is being organised at a time when there is a growing clamour for boycott of Chinese goods.

It must be noted that there is a significant volume of imports of power sector equipment from China.

"Import of power and renewable energy equipment particularly solar is a key issue which is listed on the agenda for discussion in the energy ministers meet on Friday," a source said.

Last week, Power Minister Singh in an interview to PTI had raised concerns about security threat from Chinese equipment.

Singh said that India will check all power equipment bought from China for malware and Trojan horses that can be potentially used to trigger electricity grid failures to cripple economic activity in the country.

India has put in place stringent quality control measures and planned higher tariffs on goods from China to boost domestic manufacturing, the minister said.

"We have reports that malware and Trojan horse can be installed which can be activated remotely to bring down the power sector and the economy," he said.

"So we have decided, because it is a sensitive sector, whatever equipment are made in India, we will purchase them.

And those that are not made in India, we will import but check thoroughly to rule out the presence of any malware or Trojan horse," Singh had said.

India's power sector had faced cyberattacks, a majority of which reportedly originated from China, Singapore, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.

Singh had also said that a committee was set up under the Central Electricity Authority to examine the cyber threat and the panel had said "it is a real live threat".

During Friday meeting, the new version of UDAY scheme for revival of discoms would also be discussed.

The Centre had launched Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) in November, 2015.

The scheme envisaged financial turnaround, operational improvement, reduction of cost of generation of power, development of renewable energy and energy efficiency and conservation.

The other issue to come up for discussion on Friday is Electricity Amendment Bill, 2020 which was circulated for feedback in April this year.

It drew flak from some corners with claims that it would infringe upon the rights of states, encourage privatisation and would not be in interest of consumers.

However dismissing these claims, Singh had said last week that these are canards and reforms in power sector is the last challenge left.

The meeting would also discuss about the Renwable Purchase Obligation (RPO) for clean energy.

The performance of Rs 90,000 crore liquidity infusion package would also be taken up in the meeting.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday emphasised on carrying out more COVID-19 tests in the NCR cities of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana using Rapid Antigen kits, and suggested that focus should be on reducing mortality rate by ensuring early hospitalisation of patients.

The suggestions were made at a high-level meeting chaired by Shah, and attended by the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi -- Yogi Adityanath, Manohar Lal Khattar and Arvind Kejriwal, respectively -- and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, besides others.

The Home Ministry said in a statement that Shah held the meeting with the three chief ministers for formulating a unified strategy for fighting COVID-19 in the National Capital Region (NCR).

The home minister emphasised on the need to focus on more testing of those suspected of COVID-19 so that the infection rate in the NCR region can be reduced, according to the statement.

He said the adoption of more testing via Rapid Antigen Test Kits will help reduce infection transmission rate below 10 per cent as suggested by the World Health Organization.

Shah said nearly 90 per cent of screening is possible through these kits.

These kits can be provided by the Centre to Uttar Pradesh and Haryana governments in numbers desired by them, the statement said.

Emphasising on the importance of the humanitarian perspective to save lives of the poor and the needy, the home minister said the focus should be on early hospitalisation of patients so that the mortality rate can also be reduced, it said.

He emphasised on extensive use of Aarogya Setu and Itihas Apps to help COVID-19 mapping in the NCR.

Shah said the AIIMS, Delhi, telemedicine consultation model being used in the national capital for COVID-19 patients should be replicated in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

He suggested that UP and Haryana can join AIIMS-Telemedicine COVID consultation through which patients can get advice by expert doctors.

The training for doctors in small hospitals in UP and Haryana can be provided by the AIIMS with the help of tele-videography, the statement said.

Member NITI Ayog, VK Paul, gave a presentation on the strategy of tackling COVID-19 in NCR and provided details of best practices adopted in Delhi-NCR and the way ahead.

Delhi and the NCR have seen a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, leading to the Home Minister stepping in to handle the situation and improve the health infrastructure.

The NCR comprises districts belonging to Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The prominent ones being Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida) and Ghaziabad (both Uttar Pradesh) and Gurgaon, Faridabad (both in Haryana).

The three chief ministers attended the meeting through video conference.

The novel coronavirus has infected 89,000 people in Delhi and killed 2,803 as on Wednesday.

In Uttar Pradesh, the coronavirus tally has reached 24,056 cases and 718 deaths.

In the NCR district of Gautam Buddh Nagar, 2,362 COVID-19 cases have been detected positive and 22 people have lost their lives so far.

In Ghaziabad, so far 851 people have been infected by the coronavirus and 56 have died.

A total of 14,941 COVID-19 cases were detected in Haryana and the virus so far has claimed 240 lives in the state.

Gurgaon and Faridabad have reported 92 and 80 fatalities, respectively.

The two districts put together account for over 9,300 infections.

Restrictions imposed earlier on the free movement of people between Delhi and NCR became a major issue during the coronavirus lockdown.

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister on Thursday asked officials to stay alert on the movement of people in NCR districts to check the spread of COVID-19.

"By remaining alert in NCR districts (of UP), the spread of COVID-19 can be checked.

There should be alertness on movement in these districts," a statement quoted the CM as telling senior officials during a meeting with them.

On June 18, at a meeting, the home minister had said a common strategy should be framed for Delhi and NCR to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and added that the suburbs like Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad can't be separated from the national capital in this battle.

The home minister swung into action to handle the coronavirus situation in the national capital since early last month after criticism in different quarters of the Delhi government's handling of the COVID-19 situation, with complaints of non-availability of beds in hospitals for patients and difficulty in getting the tests done in laboratories.

The home minister has been leading from the front after taking charge of Delhi's fight against the coronavirus.

PTI ACB TIR TIR 07022132 NNNN
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Google on Thursday said it has temporarily blocked access to those apps that were still available on the Play Store in India even after the government banned on 59 apps this week.

"While we continue to review the interim orders from the Government of India, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India," a Google spokesperson said.

However, the spokesperson did not disclose details of the apps that Google had blocked.

According to sources, developers of many of the 59 banned apps had taken down their apps from Google Play Store voluntarily.

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, UC Browser, SHAREit and WeChat, saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: The Itanagar Bench OF Gauhati High Court has directed former Arunachal Pradesh MLA, Thangwang Wangham, to surrender/appear before the judicial magistrate of Longding for regular bail.

A non-bailable arrest warrant against him was issued by the judicial magistrate as his name got entangled in a case of abduction of two BJP workers in April.

It appears that a serious crime has been committed with the motive of extortion and which could have led to further commission of other offences if it had not been intervened at the right time. It also appears that at least, at this stage; all fingers are pointed towards the accused-applicant, herein. Therefore, this court is of the view that the accused applicant should immediately surrender before the Judicial Magistrate first class, Longdingand apply for regular bail on the day of his appearance itself, the court ordered.

The court directed the police not to arrest the former MLA till such time. It directed him not to indulge in any activity that could influence the probe or tamper with evidence.

The BJPs Longding district unit demanded the case be handed over to a Special Investigation Team or the National Investigation Agency.

Allegedly, militants belonging to the National Socialist Council of Nagalim or NSCN-IM had abducted the duo and demanded Rs 4 crore. They were released two days later.

Earlier, the police had arrested seven people in connection to the incident. Some of them told their interrogators that the abduction was carried out at the direction of Wangham. He was not available for comments.

The 50-year-old was elected from Longding-Pumao seat in the 2014 Arunachal election which he had contested on the ticket of Peoples Party of Arunachal. He contested the 2019 election as a candidate of National Peoples Party but lost.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Amid rising demands that the nationwide entrance examinations for engineering and medical colleges scheduled later this month be further postponed, the Union Human Resources Development Ministry has asked a panel under the National Testing Agency director general to submit its recommendations by Friday.

As per an announcement made in May, the Centre had said that Joint Entrance Examination (Main) that acts as a gateway to engineering colleges across India, including the IITs, will be held between July 18 and July 23.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission to medical and dental colleges had been shifted to July 26. Both these tests are conducted by the NTA under the HRD ministry.

Given the unabated rise in the Covid-19 cases in most parts of the country, thousands of students, parents and student groups have expressed concerns over the risk factor if the candidates are forced to appear in the exams.

We have received a number of requests saying the test dates be deferred further. We understand the concern students and parents have, said HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank on Thursday.

He added that the committee under the NTA DG has been deliberating over the issue and will submit the final suggestions by Friday. Sources in the ministry said Nishank had also met Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan over the issue last week.

Both these examinations are likely to be deferred again as it looks difficult to manage and ensure adequate physical distance when lakhs of students across thousands of examination centres will write the tests, said an official.

These delays in examinations will badly derail admission processes but that looks inevitable in the current scenario. Due to delay in JEE (Main), the schedule for JEE (Advanced) organised by the IITs has also not been planned yet.

Last week, the Centre had announced that the pending CBSE Class X and XII exams were being cancelled and an alternative scoring system was adopted. It, however, said optional exams for class XII could be held later, when conducive.
Mayank Singh By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The disengagement of Indian and Chinese troops in Eastern Ladakh is a complex process, government sources said  indicating the difficulties in easing the stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)  even as they announced that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Army chief Gen M M Naravane will visit Ladakh on Friday.

The third meeting of the Corps Commanders of India and China on Tuesday did not lead to any immediate change in the stand-off situation, but both sides agreed to meet in future to restore peace and tranquility on the border. Sources said the process of disengagement along the LAC is complex.

More meetings are expected both at the military and at the diplomatic level in future to arrive at mutually agreeable solution and to ensure peace and tranquility along the LAC as per bilateral agreements and protocols.

Both sides, sources said, agreed to strive for speedy resolution of the stand-off. The meeting was long and held in a businesslike manner keeping in view the Covid-19 protocols.

The discussions reflected the commitment of both sides to reduce the tensions along the LAC. The Corps Commanders had earlier met on June 6 and 22 and agreed on a phase wise de-escalation, which was seen as long drawn, stretching up to winter.

In Ladakh, Rajnath Singh is expected to meet commanders and jawans and visit the Leh hospital, sources said.

This will be the first visit by a political leader to Ladakh after the situation became tense.

The LAC situation got aggravated when Chinese and Indian troops clashed at Finger-4 on the intervening night of May 5 and 6 along the northern flank of the Pangong Tso.

Chinese troops began their stand-off there and gradually expanded it to Gogra Post in Hot Spring sector, Patrolling Points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and at Y-Junction of Depsang Bulge.
Sushmitha Ramakrishnan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities has proposed to decriminalise certain offences in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, in a bid to 'improve business sentiment and unclog court proceedings'. Stakeholders however feel that making these amendments would significantly deny rights of the disabled and make public spaces unsafe for them.

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, on Wednesday, put out the proposal for the amendment on www.disabilityaffairs.gov.in and has sought public feedback by July 10.

The amendment aims to mellow the penalty under Sections 89, 92 (a) and 93 of the RPwD Act by making certain offenses compoundable. The penalties correspond to contravening its provisions, intentionally insulting or intimidating a disabled person or failing to provide documents under the pursuance of this Act, respectively. The maximum penalties range from fine up to Rs 5 lakh for contravention of the Act and imprisonment up to five years for intimidation or public insult.

Disability rights activists emphasised that the Act and these Sections defends the rights of the disabled, and softening the penalties would make public and work spaces unsafe for them. "The Act protects disabled people only if they are humiliated in public or intimidated. So if someone is humiliated in private, a person with disability cannot use this Act. Its use is already limited, and this amendment may weaken the rights of disabled even more," said Vaishnavi Jayakumar from the Disability Rights Alliance.

Section 92 (a) of the Act which provides a penalty of imprisonment when a person 'intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a person with disability in any place within public view'.

"This section offers protection in a way similar to The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Would the government be able to do away with that?" she asked.

Jayakumar said that when a legislation concerns the right of an individual, the proposal should ideally be published in several regional languages widely and people should be given enough time to comment and provide feedback. The proposal has been published in English and ten days have been given for public feedback.

Murganantham Linguswamy, an advocate at the Madras High Court and a disability rights activist argued, "The government is trying to create a conducive business environment at the cost of an individual's dignity - which is a fundamental right," he said. He further said that the National Crime Record Bureau has not published any statistics regarding offences against the disabled. "Therefore changing legislation without reliable data is arbitrary," he said.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: With UP health authorities prepared to launch a special door-to-door campaign to survey the spread of COVID-19 across six districts including Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida) and Ghaziabad  of Meerut division from Thursday, Noida district administration has set a target to collect 4,000 samples per day to test for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh breached the 25,000-mark by testing 26,489 samples during the last 24 hours.

According to Gautam Buddh Nagar DM Suhas LY, the samples would be tested using different techniques.

While 1,000 samples would be tested through lab-based reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method, 3,000 shall be conducted through rapid antigen method daily.

The district administration would focus on samples collection from high-risk containment areas.

As per the Noida DM, over 20,000 samples were collected and tested by different labs in the district so far.

The DM claimed that the special drive, beginning Thursday, would not only help identify more positive cases but would also facilitate the speedy recovery.

Gautam Buddh Nagar districts sampling rate is around 10,000 per million, which is around five times the national sampling rate of less than 2,000 per million, he said.

Suhas also claimed that in the wake of a surge of cases in the district, leaves of all the government employees were cancelled until further notice. Even annual Mudiya Poono fair, scheduled to begin from July 1, stood cancelled due to the COVID-19 scare.

The district administration has decided to restrict the movement of people to Govardhan in Mathura district, said the District Magistrate.

At the same time, while the state attained the target of 25,000-mark by testing 26489 daily sample testing on Tuesday, over 6,500 Covid help desks were created at different hospitals and departments.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The NIA arrested one more accused on Thursday in connection with last year's Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed, an official said.

Mohammad Iqbal Rather (25), a resident of Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam, had allegedly facilitated the movement of Muhammad Umar Farooq -- a member of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the key conspirator in the case -- after he infiltrated into the Indian territory in the Jammu region in April 2018, a spokesperson of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said.

Farooq, along with others, had assembled the improvised explosive device (IED) used in the Pulwama attack, he said.

Rather was in constant touch with the Pakistan-based leadership of JeM over secure messaging applications, the official said.

This was the sixth arrest made by the NIA in the case, he added.

Rather, a part of the JeM's "transportation module", was in judicial custody since September, 2018 in another case related to the terror outfit and being probed by the premier investigation agency, the official said.

He was produced by the jail authorities before a Special NIA Court in Jammu on Thursday and sent to a seven-day custody of the agency for interrogation, he said.

In March, two persons, including the one who procured chemicals online for making the IED used in the Pulwama attack, were arrested by the NIA.

A man and his daughter, who were allegedly witnesses to the conspiracy behind the audacious attack, were also arrested in March by the NIA, the anti-terror probe agency formed in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Forty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed in the deadly terror attack in south Kashmir's Pulwama district last year, after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a convoy of the paramilitary force.

The NIA took over the case to probe the conspiracy behind the February 14, 2019 attack.

On February 28 this year, the agency achieved a major breakthrough in the case when it arrested 22-year-old Shakir Bashir Magrey, a furniture shop owner and resident of Hajibal in Pulwama's Kakapora.

Magrey had allegedly provided shelter and other logistical assistance to suicide bomber Adil Ahmad Dar.

The explosives used in the attack were determined through a forensic probe to be ammonium nitrate, nitroglycerin and RDX.

During investigation, the identity of the suicide bomber -- Adil Ahmad Dar -- was confirmed through matching of his DNA with that of his father.

The other key terrorists involved in the attack have been found to be JeM's south Kashmir divisional commander Muddasir Ahmad Khan, killed in an operation by security forces on March 11 last year, Pakistani terrorists Muhammad Umar Farooq and IED expert Kamran, both killed on March 29 last year, Sajjad Ahmad Bhat, the owner of the car and a resident of Anantnag who was killed on June 16 last year, and Qari Yassir, JeM's commander for Kashmir who was killed on January 25 this year.
By PTI

AURANGABAD: The Aurangabad police's crime branch seized over Rs 98 lakh in demonetised currency notes during a raid at a hotel in the city, an official said on Thursday.

Acting on a tip-off, the crime branch raided a hotel in Sindhi colony on Wednesday and recovered over Rs 98 lakh in old notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations, the official said.

Four persons who were at the scene could not give any satisfactory explanation for the possession and source of the currency, he said.

An offence was registered under the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act 2017 and notices have been served to the four persons, crime branch spokesperson Anil Gaikwad said.
National Medical Center in Seoul / Korea Times file



By Kim Se-jeong



The Seoul Metropolitan Government is moving to relocate the National Medical Center (NMC) to make room for a new infectious disease treatment center, in an effort to cope with any new outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic here.



Mayor Park Won-soon and Welfare Minister Park Neung-hoo signed a document Wednesday vowing to cooperate in the NMC relocation project.



"I hope today's move will pave the way for the opening of the new medical center specialized in infectious diseases," Mayor Park said. "Also, I hope this will also put an end to the 17-year-long debate over the relocation of the NMC."



"I hope this move will make the NMC the main pillar of public healthcare facilities in Korea and that the new infectious disease center will enhance Korea's response to infectious diseases in the future," Minister Park said.



The NMC will move to the former site of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Far East District which is close to the current location. The 42,096 square meters of land is currently owned by the defense ministry. A city official said negotiations are currently underway about the land purchase.



Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, Mayor Park argued Korea needs a new medical center specialized in infectious diseases and the NMC can be a good candidate site for it.



Park's idea is in line with his vision to create a new international organization to assist the world's cities in responding to infectious disease. He proposed his idea at the Cities Against COVID-19 Global Summit which Seoul hosted. Amid the pandemic, many cities around the world reached out to Seoul to learn from its experience.



The need for medical centers specialized in infectious diseases has been around since the MERS outbreak in 2014 but it hasn't been realized yet due to lack of resources and conflicts of interest. The government's response has been, so far, selecting existing medical institutions and offering additional support so that they can offer specialized treatment to patients.



The NMC opened in 1958 with the assistance of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Its relocation to Seocho District in southern Seoul has been pushed since 2007 but the plan went nowhere because of opposition from Seocho residents and criticism of the location's poor accessibility.


Mayank Singh By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The standoff at the LAC has pushed the Defence Acqusition Council (DAC) to approve on Thursday high valued capital acquisition of various platforms and equipment required by the Indian Armed Forces. The cost of approvals granted amounted to Rs 38,900 crore with acquisitions to be made from the Indian industry totalling to Rs 31,130 crore.

The Ministry of Defence informed, DAC under the chairmanship of Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh accorded approval for capital acquisition of various platforms and equipment required by the Indian Armed Forces. Proposals for an approximate cost of Rs 38,900 crore were approved.

The first beneficiary of DAC's decisions will be the Indian Air Force which has been calling attention to its depleting combat squadrons - it has come down to 30 now. The IAF is sanctioned to get 42 combat squadrons.

Addressing the long felt need of the IAF to increase its fighter squadrons, the DAC also approved the proposal for procurement of 21 MIG-29 along with up-gradation of existing 59 MIG-29 aircraft and procurement of 12 Su-30 MKI aircraft. MoD communicated in its official release.

ALSO READ | Eastern Ladakh standoff: India expects China to ensure expeditious restoration of peace

The MIG 29 procurement and up-gradation from Russia is estimated to cost Rs 7,418 crore whereas the Su-30 MKI which will be procured from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) at an estimated cost of Rs 10,730 crore.

"The new acquisitions will add to the combat capabilities of the Air Force," said Air Vice-Marshal Manmohan Bahadur, Additional Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies, Delhi.

These are to make up for the depleted squadrons of combat aircrafts. The standoff with China might have expedited the decisions to accept the necessity but what is important is that the finances need to be made available now, he said.

Although, even after the DAC approvals, these projects will take another two-three years to materialise.

The DAC approvals are focused on indigenous design and development including acquisitions from the Indian industry. The equipment will be manufactured in India involving the Indian defence industry with the participation of several MSMEs as prime tier vendors. The indigenous content in some of these projects take up as much as 80 per cent of the total project cost.

A large number of these projects have been made possible due to the Transfer of Technology (ToT) by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the indigenous industry.

These include Pinaka ammunitions, BMP armament upgrades and software defined radios for the Indian Army, Long Range Land Attack Cruise Missile Systems and Astra Missiles for the Indian Navy and Indian Air Force. The cost of these design and development proposals is in the range of Rs 20,400 crore.

Acquisition of new/additional missile systems will add to the fire power of the three Services. The acquisition of the Pinaka missile systems will enable raising additional regiments over and above the ones already inducted.

Meanwhile, the addition of the 'Long Range Land Attack Missile Systems' which has a firing range of 1,000 kilometres, to the existing arsenal will bolster the attack capabilities of the Navy and the Air Force.

Similarly, induction of Astra Missiles which has 'Beyond Visual Range' capability will serve as a force multiplier and immensely add to the strike capability of the Navy and Air Force.
Sumi Sukanya dutta By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Doctors offering teleconsultation to patients across India will soon need to pursue a course with the countrys medical education regulator in order to provide the services. A committee set up by the Medical Council of India-Board of Governors in May to develop the outline of the course is set to submit its report to the government.

We had been asked to prepare the structured course for certification in telemedicine and we will soon hand it over to the MCI-BOG, said Dr B N Gangadhar, director of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences in Bengaluru, who headed a six-member steering committee on the subject.

This course, to be offered online, is likely to be a short-term course that will teach medical professionals the nuances of interacting with patients when not consulting them in person.

The medical education regulator had also formed a panel of experts in telemedicine to assist the Gangadhar panel.

As of now, any doctor without any special degree in telemedicine can guide patients over email, phone, app, chat or video.

On March 25, the Centre had hurriedly published guidelines on the practice of telemedicine to guide doctors offer consultation to patients through video, phone and internet based platforms in a standardised manner.

These guidelines, prepared in consultation with Niti Aayog, had been in the making for long but had been notified due to the COVID-19.

The government had been urging people to limit out-patient consultation unless essential and use telemedicine services by doctors instead.

A telemedicine visit can be conducted without exposing staff to viruses or infections in the times of such outbreaks, the guidelines said.
By PTI

CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government on Wednesday ordered that colleges and universities in the state will continue to remain closed till July 31 as per Unlock 2.0 guidelines issued by the Centre.

It also announced summer vacation in all government and private schools from July 1 to July 26 for teaching and administrative staff who had been attending schools, even though no regular classes were being held in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Subsequently, from July 27, 2020, the school will reopen for teachers and non-academic staff only, and students will not attend schools," Education Minister Kanwar Pal said.

The Union Home Ministry will issue necessary guidelines on allowing students to attend schools after reopening as per the circumstances prevailing then, he said.

Meanwhile, in an order issued to vice chancellors of government and private universities, and college principals, the Higher Education Principal Secretary said, "Following Centre's guidelines, the state government has decided that all universities and colleges shall remain closed till July 31."

"However, online learning for students will continue."

"The administrative staff in the universities and colleges will be coming as per the usual protocol for completion of administrative works. However, all precautionary measures as notified by the MHA, Government of India, and by the state government shall be adhered to meticulously at the institutional level," said the order.

All vice-chancellors have been asked to hold consultations with various stakeholders regarding reopening of higher educational institutions and submit their recommendations to the government within the next 10 days, as per the order.

All colleges, universities and schools in Haryana have remained shut after a coronavirus lockdown was imposed in March.

Education Minister Pal also said that during the summer vacation in schools, the Chief Minister's Distance Education Programme' will continue to function.

He said that all school heads and other officers appointed for supervision will prepare a report and present to the directorate.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that it would assess the feasibility of conducting CA exams, scheduled between July 29 and August 16, in view of the spike in number of COVID-19 cases across the country and consult states and examination centres on this issue.

The ICAI's counsel told a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar that cases of coronavirus have increased and some of the states have extended the restrictions imposed amid the spike in the number of infection.

He sought time from the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna, for contacting examination centres to access the ground situation and explore the feasibility of conducting the exams.

The top court was hearing through video conferencing a plea which has challenged the 'opt out' option provided by the ICAI to the candidates alleging that it "arbitrarily" discriminates between the aspirants in the May cycle of CA examination.

The apex court, after hearing the submissions, said it would hear the matter on July 10.

On June 29, the apex court had observed that ICAI should be flexible in conducting exams amid the COVID-19 pandemic and take care of candidates' concerns.

It had suggested that option for change in examination centre should be made available to the candidates till the last week before the scheduled exams considering the fact that an area may become a containment zone due to the coronavirus situation.

The apex court had said that ICAI should be flexible on the issues of 'opt out' and change of examination centre as the situation prevailing due to the pandemic was not static and continuously changing.

Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, appearing for the petitioner, had earlier told the bench that number of examination centres should be increased and there should be one centre per district.

The ICAI had expressed difficulty on this and told the court that over 500 examination centres have been identified and sanitized properly.

The ICAI's counsel had earlier said that out of around 3,46,000 registered aspirants, only 53,000 have taken the 'opt out' option.

The petitioner, president of 'India Wide Parents Association', has claimed in the plea that ICAI has stated that students, who have already submitted online examination application for May examination cycle, shall be allowed to 'opt out' and carry forward their candidature to November 2020 examination cycle.

"It is respectfully submitted that Respondent No.1 ICAI has notified that for the students who choose opt-out option, this attempt (May 2020) will be treated as cancelled/not counted. Thus, such student will be deprived of the May, 2020, attempt, as compared to other group of students, who choose opt-in option," the plea said, while seeking quashing of the announcement made in this regard on June 15.

"The said 'opt-out' option discriminates between those underprivileged group of CA students/ aspirants, who are living in remote areas of the country or living in the containment zones and thus are slated to lose one precious 'examination attempt' by choosing 'opt-out' option amidst ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as compared to that privileged group of students/ aspirants, who are living in big cities/ green zones and thus they have no problem in appearing in the said examination," it said.

It has said that free transportation and accommodation should be provided to the aspirants near their respective examination centres.

It has further sought directions to the authorities to conduct mandatory free COVID-19 test of all aspirants and teachers and staffs deployed at the examination centres.
By PTI

SRINAGAR: A CRPF head constable and a militant were killed in an encounter that broke out late on Thursday night on the outskirts of Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar city, officials said.

The encounter took place at Malbagh, a locality near Hazratbal shrine, when security forces, acting on an intelligence input, started a cordon and search operation, they said.

As the search was continuing, the holed-up militants opened fire at the approaching security forces, resulting in an encounter, the officials said.

Three CRPF men initially received injuries and were shifted to 92-base Army hospital.

One of them, identified as Head Constable Kuldeep Urawan, succumbed to the injuries, they said.

In the ensuing encounter, one militant, whose identity was yet to be ascertained, was also killed, the officials said.

The security forces were looking for more and the area has been cordoned off as the intelligence inputs suggested presence of three militants, they said.
Sugata Srinivasaraju By

Anniversaries come and go. Most often, they are about nostalgia getting an update with bug fixes to accommodate noises of the present. The commemoration of the Emergency, a few days ago, on June 25, was similarly predictable. However, there is an aspect of the Emergency story that has never been advertised, but has the potential to add new shine and perspective to history. It is about a forgotten group of Indians in the US who fought and built international opinion against the dismantling of democracy in India 45 years ago.

If one looks at this bunch of people after our loud exposure to the Howdy, Modi diaspora, they appear to be from another universe. Their ideals, value system, intellectual bandwidth, organisational skills, progressiveness and power of personal sacrifice appear starkly different. It was not that there was no Heil Indira diaspora or a silent-with-self-interest diaspora at the time in the US, but it is these people who stood up, spoke out, and got counted.

According to an immigration report, there were 95,000 citizens of India with a permanent-resident status in the US at the time. The numbers are far higher today, and of course, there is a newly galvanised group of people with an Indian origin status. The political leverage of Indians back then was limited compared to what it is today, but it was not size that mattered, but commitment and moral currency.

A few weeks before the Emergency, when the dark clouds were gathering, a group of 8-10 people got together in Chicago to form an organisation called Indians for Democracy (IFD), and quickly spread the network across the US. Prominent IFD members were S R Hiremath, a top management consultant in Chicago, Anand Kumar, a PhD student in sociology, Ravi Chopra, an engineering student, Dr Faruk B Presswalla, a medical examiner, Dr Hasmukh Shah, a New York psychiatrist, Jitendra Kumar, an engineering consultant, Sharan Nandi of Alexandria, Va., S K Poddar of Michigan, Ram Gehani of Maryland, and Dr K V S Raju of Illinois among others.

S R Hiremath was appointed convenor. It took nearly a year for the group to acquire some notoriety, but by March 1976, they were making headlines in prominent newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, and were giving interviews on the PBS network. They had also started a bimonthly newsletter called the Indian Opinion, clearly inspired by Gandhis South Africa venture.

One of the first major events the IFD held was a march to the Indian ambassadors residence in Washington DC, on 15 August 1975. A poster they made for the event had a circle, covered half in black. The other half said: DONT LET THE LIGHT GO OUT ON INDIAN DEMOCRACY. The Washington Post report on the morning of the event said: Members of Indians for Democracy have organised to counter what they say is the suppression of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens and throttling of the Indian democracy. The group is seeking new members among the estimated 100,000 Indians who live in the United States.

One representative has been in at least 25 major cities in the United States and has spoken to audiences of between 50 and 100 persons in each city. S K Poddar was quoted in the story and was described as a person who had amassed a fortune through a magazine subscription service operated from East Lansing in Michigan. The representative who had travelled across US cities was Anand Kumar. As they organised more events over the next few months, prominent Indians visiting the US, like Rajni Kothari, Ram Jethmalani, Subramanian Swamy and U R Ananthamurthy took part in them.

S R Hiremath did not confine himself to organising resistance in the US alone, but also travelled to nine European cities, including Geneva, and submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council. In London, he met economist E F Schumacher, whom he knew since 1973, and enlisted his support for the cause. This led to the establishment of a European network of not just Indians, but of all those who valued democracy. After his tour across the Atlantic, when he returned to the US, the very next day, that is 8 July 1976, his passport, along with that of S K Poddar, Sharan Nandi and Ram Gehani, was impounded by Indian authorities.

In an interview given to the Chicago Sun-Times, an unperturbed Hiremath had said: It makes me happy to know that a few committed people like me can have this kind of impact on the national government in India. The headline called him a [Indira] Gandhi foe. A leaflet that was distributed in New York to protest the punitive action, said: IFD members have voiced their dissent according to the dictates of their consciences. Earlier, Anand Kumars merit scholarship given by the Indian government had been terminated too.

The New York Times had pegged a long piece around this on 8 March 1976: Mr. Kumar, described by Americans in Chicago as a brilliant candidate for a doctorate in Sociology, is a former president of the student body at Jawaharlal Nehru University.



After the Emergency was lifted, Hiremath gave up his lucrative job in the US, returned to India, and got involved in rural development and various environmental causes. In the last decade, he has been credited with campaigning, litigating and ending illegal mining in Karnatakas Bellary. Incidentally, he now heads Citizens for Democracy, an organisation started by Jayaprakash Narayan in 1974. Anand Kumar returned to be a professor at JNU, his alma mater. His papers from the turbulent 70s may soon be available at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.

Sugata Srinivasaraju

Senior journalist and author (sugataraju@gmail.com)
Ramesh Chennamaneni By

In a letter to Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore compared his educational experiment at Shantiniketan to a vessel carrying his lifes best treasure.

He spent 40 years of his life establishing Vishwa-Bharati, which had wide influence in Europe, Japan and the US.

It was a unique educational institution, and emphasised education as holistic. Sadly, in todays India, his ideas do not find an appropriate place.

Education is one of the vital services that a modern state is expected to provide to its people. It is a service that every welfare democracy is obliged to give in the most accessible form.

Democratic values and virtues can be acquired only through good education. Privatised education cannot teach us this because it is entirely dependent on market rules.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had realised the value of university education long ago. He said, A university stands for humanism. For tolerance, for reason, for adventure of ideas and for the search of truth. It stands for the onward march of the human race towards ever higher objectives.

"If the universities discharge their duties adequately, then it is well with the nation and the people. Norway, Estonia, Brazil, Iran, Cuba, Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and a number of other countriesnot just economies where development policies are inclined explicitly to welfare, but developed market economies as wellprovide free and quality education at all levels for their citizens.

However, the commoditisation of higher education has gained acceptance in recent decades. In India, there has been a paradigm shift in the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012- 2017) of higher education for For-Profit Institutions. It has favoured an approach endorsing private capital in higher education with an eye on profit generation.

Many states including Telangana have endorsed it and have even granted permissions for private universities. It is astonishing to see today an array of individuals and societies such as corporate companies, religious organisations, hoteliers and liquor barons offering private higher education in the country. The so-called meritorious students endowed with cultural capital are admitted to subsidised public institutions of learning, which are of relatively higher quality, while the rest join low-quality mass private institutions that charge huge fees. Unfortunately, the development of differentiated or stratified higher education is not challenged at a significant level. Instead, the government is encouraging and partly supporting, through affirmative action policies of entry, the market in higher education.

The user pay principle, which has led to the dominance of the freedom to choose the product over the freedom to choose the provider, partly explains the mushrooming of private institutions offering market-oriented professional courses. How come that we have presently excellent long-term strategic programs such as Mission Kakatiya (Resource Economics), Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Samanvaya Samiti (Political and Social Science), Mission Bhageeratha and irrigating one crore acres through Kaleshwaram (Sustainability) that are neither integrated in education nor in research programs at our colleges and universities?

Homogeneity of disciplines/curriculum: Studying the conflicting interest of state and market in higher education is essential to understand the functioning of a university. The motive of the former is to serve society while the objective of the latter is to serve the private interests of students/consumers/clients. Earlier, in the sphere of teaching, learning used to be across a spectrum of disciplines without perfect symmetry or homogeneity. In todays situation, people show strong favouritism for a profit-oriented homogenous curriculum, which will make their children employable. In this way, the market shapes the popularity and availability of courses to students, such as short-term vocational and specialised courses that draw lucrative fees.

Likewise, the market drives the research agenda of universities as resources for research in life sciences, medicine, engineering or economics are abundant while resources for research in philosophy, linguistics, history, sociology, environment and literature are scarce. The current international debate on 21st-century skills, also in the backdrop of the current pandemic, is between (a) purely knowledge-oriented view of education, and (b) competency-based approaches in education gaining high importance. In solving problems that are usually complex, humans have to apply knowledgeoften incomplete knowledge in contexts where the conditions are often uncertain in order to offer a practical solution to a real-world challenge.

For example, today an engineer is trained to make and innovate for a demanding economy without fully understanding the social processes that create certain demands in the first place or knowing whether manufactured goods are distributed fairly in an unequal society like India. The deeper social goals of education, recognised as democracy of education, have largely been undermined in the market-driven system. Democracy of education allows public campuses to become a place of dissent, debates and security for the aspirations of marginalised sections. No wonder why Osmania University was a watershed, creating pioneering leaders for the liberation of the erstwhile Hyderabad state as well as for the separate Telangana movement for several decades.

The new trends of neo-philanthropy: The new trends of philanthropic consultants and volunteerism fit into the neo-liberal economic system. New ways of organising the gifting of time and money are growing at an extraordinary rate. These legitimise the neo-liberal economic and political system by providing the human face of the market. Philanthropic involvement appears as voicing the aspiration to cut state involvement from welfare, whether education or health. This allows the state to step away from providing basic services as private agents would take care of them. In this era, philanthropy has become a part of market activities, thus leading to a partial withdrawal of the state in education or health legitimate. But experiences from all over the world convincingly show that education as well as health should be considered as public goods, not private ones, and the vital services arising out of them have to be provided by a modern welfare state in the most accessible form to all its people.

Ramesh Chennamaneni

Telangana MLA, Humboldt Expert in Agriculture, Environment and Cooperation

(chennamaneniramesh@gmail.com)
DONITAJOSE By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Owing to utter confusion and lack of transparency on availability of beds in hospitals, many suspected Covid-19 patients, especially those who suffer from breathlessness, are left to die at the gates of hospitals or in ambulances when they are being shifted from one facility to another.

Some are even breathing their last within hours of being admitted in the hospitals. Quite a number of cases have come to light of families taking their end-stage respiratory distressed kin from one private hospital to another for medical intervention only to be denied admission.

The moment it is known that the case is of breathlessness, the patient is being informed of non-availability of beds as a result of which the patient is losing precious time. Express has learnt of at least three to four such cases where people took patients to multiple hospitals only to see their loved ones die in transit. His death was so unfair, said grief stricken Rohit Krishna, son of a patient who passed away at the entrance of a private hospital in Ameerpet.

We went to four private hospitals hoping someone would admit him. But the moment they saw it was a case of breathlessness, they refused entry and asked us to go to another hospital as the condition is serious, Krishna, a resident of Banjara Hills, added. Their ordeal lasted from 10 pm on June 25 till 2 am the next day, when his father passed away due to breathlessness. During that span of time, they changed three oxygen cylinders inside the ambulance without any expert support.

When one hospital refuses, the fear kicks in and when all of them reject, you are left searching the internet which also is of no use, he said. In a similar case, a family from Attapur lost their father after six hospitals rejected to admit him. The victim, who was a manager in a famous theatre in the city, first complained of breathlessness on June 26. He was admitted in a private hospital and was put on a ventilator, but he passed away the next day.

On Monday, the family was informed that he was a Covid-19 positive. In another case, as many as eight hospitals refused to admit a 51-year-old blood cancer patient with Covid-19. The patient passed away after about 14 days of severe progression in cancer. Though the government has on multiple occasions maintained that they have beds in government hospitals, the patients and their attendants are not aware as to where they should go, when the need arises.
By Express News Service

ATHANI: The police in Athani were in for a shock on Wednesday when they had to shutdown Athani police station. A 32-year-old resident of Athani who died of COVID-19 on Tuesday had visited Athani police station in connection with a family dispute case, for which he had filed with the police before he tested positive.

A resident of Sankanatti village in Athani, he had returned from the United Kingdom in January and was stranded in his village since then due to the outbreak of COVID-19. He complained of breathlessness on Tuesday and died soon after he was shifted to Belagavi Institute of Medical Sciences (BIMS) the same day.

However, it came to light late that he was positive for COVID-19, after he passed away.

According to sources, he had not only visited Athani police station regularly but also had snacks and tea with officials of the station on several occasions, at a restaurant located in front of the station.

After the news of his death spread in Athani, the police station was immediately shutdown and the station employees started working from a community hall located in the city.

Meanwhile, another 74-year-old resident of Belagavi died of COVID-19 on Wednesday, which took the total tally of deaths due to coronavirus in Belagavi district to three.

The deceased was a resident of Shastri Nagar in Belagavi. Several of his primary contacts have been quarantined by the local authorities and search is on for other of his possible contacts.
Amiya Meethal By

Express News Service

KOZHIKODE: If common people are shocked by the ban on TikTok, thousands of medical students from Kerala pursuing education in China are concerned over the ban on WeChat as it was the major app used in e-learning since the outbreak of Covid-19. Around 5,000 Keralites are pursuing MBBS in various universities in China.As WhatsApp is banned in China, WeChat is the popular app of the same genre used in that country for communication. A few of the Chinese universities have now started to communicate via new apps and email since the ban was announced.

Study materials, audio and video sessions had been sent and received via WeChat since February since the commencement of e-learning. Our virtual class is being carried out through apps like Tencent Meeting and Tencent Classroom. But WeChat was the major supplementary app used till now, says Nidha Fathima P, a second-year medical student of Sichuan University from Wayanad.

Covid has not made these students lose a single day of class. Classes are on from 5.30am to 3.30pm five days a week, added Nidha. Malappuram native Husna Pallikkunnan, a third-year student of Yangzhou University, said university officials have told her to communicate through email as WeChat has been banned. There are other apps such as QQ and a university-exclusive app called Tang. Hopefully, study materials will be transferred via these, she said.

DingTalk to replace WeChat

Hanan Hamza, a third-year medical student of Kunming Medical University, said the university has asked the Indian students to download a new app, DingTalk. We had been largely dependent on WeChat and software like WeChat Work and Rain Classroom available on the platform. Some of my friends have not been able to download DingTalk, he said.

Some universities are holding practical sessions through the virtual classroom with teachers pretending as patients and students as doctors sitting at home. Though the students cannot directly diagnose patients physically, the diagnosis is being done through the virtual classroom. Language exams have already been held online, but not practical exams in core subjects, said Kozhikode native Revathi A Menon, a medical student of Sichuan University.
South Korea reported more than 50 new virus cases for the second day in a row on Thursday as cluster infections piled up outside the Seoul metropolitan area.



- S. Korea reports 54 more cases of new coronavirus, total now at 12,904

- No additional coronavirus death, total death toll at 282

- 71 more people released after full recoveries from coronavirus, total cured patients at 11,684



South Korea reported more than 50 new virus cases for the second day in a row on Thursday as cluster infections piled up outside the Seoul metropolitan area.



The country added 54 cases, including 44 local infections, raising the total caseload to 12,904, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).



The tally marked a slight rise from 51 reported a day earlier. South Korea added 43 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and 42 cases on Monday.



Of the locally transmitted infections, 22 cases were newly identified in Gwangju, 330 kilometers southwest of Seoul. The city also reported double digits of virus cases for the first time a day earlier.



Those linked to a Buddhist temple in Gwangju rose by five to 19 as of the previous day.



The greater Seoul area reported new 18 cases. Daejeon, a central city, reported just one more infection.



Over the past two months, the densely populated Seoul and the surrounding area, which house around half of the country's 51-million population, took up most of the newly added cases here.













South Korea, which relaxed strict social distancing in early May on the back of a flattened virus curve, decided last month to indefinitely apply toughened infection preventive measures in the greater Seoul area due to a continued rise in cluster infections tied to religious gatherings, warehouses and door-to-door businesses.



But the latest uptick in the number of cases from other areas outside the metropolitan area, including Gwangju, may prod health authorities to consider readopting the scheme elsewhere.



Earlier this week, two elementary students in Daejeon also tested positive after coming in contact with a peer, in what could be the first spread of the virus at a school in the country.



As part of eased social distancing, school reopenings began in mid-May.



To prevent possible spread of the virus among students, Gwangju decided to shut down all of its schools through Friday. Students will take online classes instead.



Cases traced to a major church in Seoul's southwestern ward of Gwanak reached 32 as of Wednesday. Cases tied to church gatherings in Suwon, south of Seoul, came to nine. At least six residents at an apartment building north of Seoul, have tested positive as well.



The country reported no additional deaths, with the death toll staying at 282. The fatality rate was 2.19 percent.



The number of new imported cases reached 10, marking a double-digit rise for the seventh consecutive day.



The total number of people released from quarantine after full recoveries stood at 11,684, up 71 from the previous day.



The country has carried out 1,295,962 tests since Jan. 3. (Yonhap)
Shibu B S By

Express News Service

KOCHI: When the first case of local transmission of COVID-19 in the state was reported at Ranni here during March first week, it had prompted some serious soul searching in the state government, health department and the district administration.

The impact of the virus and the need for social distancing and breaking the chain was not a common norm then.

However, the people of Pathanamthitta, who were the first to realise the gravity of the situation, cooperated wholeheartedly with the officials concerned, thereby helping the authorities bring down the number of cases to zero by April.

However, though the districts clean slate was upset by May second week when Malayalis from other states and the Keralite diaspora from abroad started to arrive.

Of the total cases recorded in the district, 247 were reported between June 1 and July 1.

Significantly, among the total cases reported since June, there is not even a single case of local transmission.

Hailing the health department, the district administration and the public for preventing local transmission, Minister K Raju, who is coordinating the COVID-19 preventive measures in the distriict, said more steps are needed in the coming days to flatten the curve.

With more and more Malayalis expected to return from the US, the UK, Germany and rest of Europe in the coming months, Raju warned against lowering the guard.

When the first case of community transmission was reported here after the three-member family returned from Italy and the six others who had been in contact with them tested positive in March, it required some ultra-careful steps from officials concerned to check the outbreak. The people were asked to strictly adhere to health department protocols. Thus we were able to prevent local transmission, said Raju.

So far a total of 294 cases were reported in Pathanamthitta, with 247 cases reported last month. The last case of local transmission in the district was reported in April.

Of the total cases, 285 are imported. As on July 1, there are no hotspots in the district.

The minister said nearly 4,000 migrant workers are also expected to return to the district in the coming month.

Pathanamthitta Stats

Total cases 294*

Active 189

Recovered 104

Death 1

*LT: 09 | Imported: 285
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Wary of the spread of COVID-19, the Odisha government has restricted the entry of visitors to the State Secretariat at Bhubaneswar till July 31. The decision was taken following a steady rise in cases in different parts of the city.

Additional Secretary of the home department Saroj Kumar Mishra has urged all departments to keep in abeyance all passes issued to visitors for their respective offices in Lok Seva Bhawan, Kharavel Bhawan, Krushi Bhawan and Rajib Bhawan till the end of this month.

Any request for entry of outsiders and pass holders will only be entertained on the request from the office of the Secretaries of department concerned to the Special Secretary of the home department.

The restriction on entry of visitors to these offices has been imposed to minimise the number of people in offices and prevent spread of the infection.

With 13 fresh cases on Wednesday, the tally in the city has risen to 345 so far. While 201 have recovered, four persons succumbed to the disease.

Earlier, the General Administration and Public Grievances department had directed all departments and subordinate offices to function with 50 per cent of employees, including Group-A officers, in July.

The government has also issued guidelines for both government and private offices across the state to prevent COVID-19 infection in workplace settings and respond in a timely and effective manner in case any suspected case is detected.

The state has recorded 229 new cases and two deaths in the last 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 7545 and the death toll to 27.
Express News Service

THOOOTUKUDI/MADURAI: The CB-CID has arrested four policemen in connection with the deaths of Sathankulam traders P Jeyaraj and his son J Beniks while in custody last week, officials involved in the investigation said. While suspended inspector Srithar and sub-inspector Balakrishnan were arrested early Thursday morning, SI Raghu Ganesh and head constable Murugan were arrested late Wednesday night. Meanwhile, constable Muthuraj has been detained for questioning.

Srithar was in charge of the Sathankulam police station at the time of the incident.

The CB-CID, which took over the investigation on Wednesday also altered the FIR registered in the case to Section 302 of the IPC (murder), CB-CID inspector general K Shankar said in a media briefing late Wednesday night.

Ganesh was produced before Thoothukudi Chief Judicial Magistrate S Hema in the early hours of Thursday after doctors at the Thoothukudi Government Hospital certified him fit. The CJM remanded him to the Perurani district jail till July 16.

Former Sub-Inspector of #Sathankulam police station Ragu Ganesh, the key accused in the custodial killing of father and son - P Jeyaraj and Beniks - taken to #Thoothukudi medical college hospital for medical check up. #JusticeforJeyarajandBeniks@xpresstn @VinodhArulappan pic.twitter.com/28JaNqpErl  Godson Wisely Dass (@tnie_godson) July 1, 2020

Advocate Manimaran, Beniks' friend, who was witness to the alleged assault of the victims, reacted to news of the arrests stating that the victims would "rest in peace only after all the police officers and others involved in the deaths are arrested".

The arrests come just a day after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court directed the CB-CID to begin an investigation into the deaths. The State government had transferred the case to the CBI but the HC feared that evidence might be lost or tampered with by the time the central agency took on the probe. The CB-CID was, therefore, ordered to begin its probe in the interim. The case is scheduled to come up for hearing before the Madurai Bench on Thursday.

Nedungulam villagers celebrate the arrest of custodial death accused Ragu Ganesh in #Thoothukudi.#SathankulamCase#justiceforjeyarajandbeniks pic.twitter.com/Txgk5aNCwv  Godson Wisely Dass (@tnie_godson) July 1, 2020

ALSO READ: Spoke about Jeyaraj and Beniks' custodial torture as I wanted to be honest in my duty, says Sathankulam policewoman

Shankar had arrived in Thoothukudi on Wednesday and, with his team, visited the mobile accessories shop owned by Beniks at Sathankulam. The sleuths also questioned a trader in the adjacent shop. Then the team visited the house of the victims and conducted a preliminary inquiry with Jeyarajs three daughters and their husbands, and Jeyarajs widow Selvarani.

At that time, Shankar told reporters that the investigation had just begun and the decision to invoke murder charges would be taken based on the progress of the investigation. Twelve special teams had been formed to probe the case, and they had started their investigation, he had said.

Shankar later conducted inquiries at the Sathankulam police station, where the victims were held and allegedly thrashed through the night of June 19. Friends and eyewitnesses who met the duo the next day when they were produced before a magistrate said they were both grievously injured and bleeding profusely. Father and son were remanded at Kovilpatti sub-jail on June 20. Beniks died shortly after being brought to Kovilpatti Government Hospital on the night of June 22 while Jeyaraj died at the hospital the next morning.

(The story has been updated with the latest information)
By Express News Service

PUDUCHERRY: A COVID-19 testing laboratory will soon be set up in Karaikal region of the Union territory, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said on Thursday.

In an audio clip sent to newsmen from Karaikal shortly after a COVID containment review meeting, the Chief Minister said that presently throat and nasal swabs from people suspected to have the virus are sent to Government Medical College at Thiruvarur in Tamil Nadu which is leading to a delay in getting the results.

Hence, it was decided to start a COVID testing centre in Karaikal which would be set up within a fortnight, he said, adding that it would facilitate a higher number of tests.

He said there are 27 active cases in Karaikal and 27 containment zones have been announced. Though it is not a large number for a population of 2.5 lakh in Karaikal, there is need for caution to contain it, said the Chief Minister.

The required essential commodities to people in containment zones would be provided with funds from the Chief Ministers COVID relief fund like in Puducherry region, he said.

Due to the coordinated efforts of the district administration, it managed to contain the spread of the virus to some extent, he said, adding that this needs to be reduced further and officials were asked to make Karaikal COVID free.
Sowmya Mani By

Express News Service

TIRUCHY: Four people died in 24 hours in Tiruchy due to COVID-19. While three of the deceased were being treated at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH), the fourth patient was being treated at a private hospital.

On Wednesday, an 81-year-old man who ran a hotel in Tiruchy died in a private hospital. On Thursday afternoon, farmer leader Puliyur Nagarajan died at MGMGH of COVID with the co-morbid condition of renal failure. He was admitted on Wednesday and tested positive for COVID. A lady from Chennai, who was admitted in the MGMGH, also died on Wednesday. She had undergone a kidney transplant recently. The fourth patient was a 57 year old male who died in the MGMGH on Thursday evening.

With this, Tiruchy has registered ten deaths at MGMGH and at least 5 deaths at private hospitals. Of the ten deaths at MGMGH, seven are from Tiruchy and one each from Chennai, Dindigul and Thiruvallur.

However, of the total deaths only four have been accounted for in the bulletin. Not a single death at a private hospital has been published in the bulletin.

There are six private hospitals in Tiruchy treating COVID patients. All these hospitals have been asked by the authorities to report deaths only to them, and not reveal it outside.

"We have been dutifully reporting deaths to the authorities as it happens. We don't know why it is not being reported. We have strict instructions to not report the deaths directly, hence our hands are tied," said a Chairman of a private hospital.

Sources at a private hospital confirmed with The New Indian Express that four patients had died of COVID-19 in their hospital.

In another private hospital, one patient succumbed to the viral infection - the video of the burial had gone viral on social media.

Senior officials in the health department said that all the deaths will be recorded in the bulletin.

"There is no question of hiding deaths. We report all the deaths to the concerned authorities in Chennai. They have a process, and all the deaths will be reported. We are not hiding anything," said the official in the health department.

The same official confirmed to TNIE that the five deaths at private hospitals had not been recorded in the bulletin yet. He said that three of them were from other districts and two from Tiruchy, and are yet to be published.

The death of a 25-year-old man from Pullambadi in Tiruchy after a road accident on June 13 who also tested positive for the virus, has also not been published in the bulletin. The Collector S Sivarasu said that since it was a road accident, it would not be recorded in the bulletin.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The DMK has urged that the names of all those involved in the Sathankulam custodial deaths be included in the FIR and that they should be arrested immediately.

In a press statement, DMK president MK Stalin on Thursday welcomed the efforts of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court due to which the accused were facing the full force of the law.

He said that some members of the Friends of Police volunteers were reportedly involved in the incident and hence they should also be investigated.

He condemned the threats to the Kovilpatti magistrate Bharathidasan, when he went to the Sathankulam police state to conduct a preliminary inquiry following the order of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, as well as the deletion of CCTV footage at the Sathankulam police station

He also slammed the efforts to threaten the woman police constable who testified before the Kovilpatti magistrate and urged that proper protection be given to her and the magistrate.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Tamil Nadu government moved the Supreme Court Thursday seeking a direction to the Madras High Court to expeditiously decide the pleas challenging the Centre's decision not to grant 50 per cent quota to OBCs in medical seats surrendered by the state in all India quota for undergraduate, postgraduate and dental courses in 2020-21.

It has assailed the June 22 high court order which refused to grant any interim order on the OBC quota row and adjourned the hearing till July 9 saying that a similar petition was already scheduled to be heard on July 8 by the Supreme Court.

"The Supreme Court is already seized of the matter and let us wait and see what transpires (on July 8)," the high court had said.

The state government and some political parties such as DMK, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), CPI (M), Tamil Nadu Congress Committee and CPI had moved the high court after the Supreme Court, on June 11, refused to entertain their petitions and asked them to approach the high court.

"Direct the High Court to expeditiously hear and dispose of the writ petitions...," the state government said in its plea before the top court.

"The High Court has in effect declined to take up the writ petitions in spite of the fact that the Respondents (Centre, MCI and others) had virtually conceded to the prayer sought for in the writ petition.

"The High Court has failed to appreciate that the respondents are stalling adjudication of the issue. The (High) Court has been misled by the Respondents' contentions and has unjustifiably kept the Petitioner's writ petition in abeyance till this court issues orders in an ostensibly identical matter...which is tentatively listed for July 08," it said.

The high court had refused to pass any interim order on the pleas after taking note of the Centre's submission that since 1986 no reservation has been provided in the AIQ (All-India quota) seats for medical admission as per the apex court directive.

"The same was modified after 10 years, providing reservation for SC/ST. In 2015, pleas were moved seeking OBC reservation, which is still pending before the apex court, which has to take a call and modify the order," the counsel for the Centre had told the High Court.

The state government and various political parties have challenged the Centre's decision not to grant 50 per cent reservation to OBCs as per Tamil Nadu law.

Some of the petitioners, in their interim prayers before the High Court, had sought to stall the ongoing admissions for PG medical courses.

The pleas had alleged that the Centre also did not follow its own policy of 27 per cent reserved seats for OBCs under the 2006 Act.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Two more AIADMK MLAs -- N Sathan Prabhakar representing the Paramakudi Assembly constituency and R Kumaraguru representing the Ulundurpet Assembly constituency -- tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.

Two legislators from the ruling party -- Higher Education Minister KP Anbazhagan and Sriperumbudur MLA K Palani -- had already tested positive for COVID-19 and are undergoing treatment.

In the opposition DMK, three MLAs have tested positive for COVID-19 and are being treated. One MLA, K Anbalagan, had succumbed last month.

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, in his social media posts, said that he had telephoned both the party MLAs who tested positive on Thursday and enquired about their health. He wished them a speedy recovery.

Kumaraguru's family members told The New Indian Express that the MLA is being treated at a private hospital in Chennai.
Oishani Mojumder By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Catching a Vande Bharat flight to the US with a valid H1B visa has become quite troublesome for many Telanganites hoping to return to the promised land to resume work. Many people who are heading to the US on repatriation flights from Hyderabad had to face a volley of questions from immigration officials at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad and Indira Gandhi International Airport at Delhi despite having valid H1B visa status.

A couple from Hyderabad who work in Seattle told Express, Immigration officers told us that people with H1B visas will not be allowed to fly as it had been suspended by the US administration. We had to update them that only the renewal and application of new visas have been suspended and that ours was an active H1B visa. We had to face the same issue in Indira Gandhi International Airport at New Delhi.

However, the immigration process in New York went smoothly without any hitch. They were also told that post July 1, people will not be allowed to board Vande Bharat flights even if they have an active H1B visa. While sources from the US Consulate said that anyone having a valid H1B Visa will not be stopped, reliable sources from Air India said, One of the issues for such resistance could be that many people who may be in-between jobs or without a permanent employment status are being questioned or disallowed, even if they have an active H1B visa.
Donita Jose By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Over 5,600 COVID-19 patients are under home quarantine but many of them are not receiving even the basic medication from the government.

The first set of home isolation patients, who stayed in Gandhi Hospital for at least four to five days and were then discharged, received medicines for a week.

These medicine kits included vitamin C, zinc and paracetamol for fever, which are basic treatment protocol and immunity boosters as no vaccine has been found so far to treat COVID-19.

Now, as more and more positive cases are piling up for telemedicine treatment, the last-mile delivery of medicines has stopped.

These new cases are neither being admitted even for a single day to any hospital nor getting support in terms of medicine.

As per the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), the medical officer along with Asha workers and ANMs, must visit the patient, prescribe medicine on a daily basis for a 14-day period. However, it is not happening at many places.

My mother tested positive on June 24 and since then no one has given us any medication. Since we had a doctor in the family, we got some paracetamol and other flu medicines. However, the call centre and the doctors who called us promised that the medicines will be sent, but they never did, said a resident of Ram Nagar.

The call centre is now asking patients to drink warm water, warm milk with turmeric and other immunity-boosting food.

They, in fact, gave me a number which doesnt work, said the patients son.

In another case, the patient was told that an Asha worker would come, but she did not turn up even a week after the patient tested positive.

Another patient from Padma Rao Nagar also faced a similar situation and his family, who are the primary contacts, were forced to meet a family doctor, exposing multiple others to the virus.

Shortage of Asha workers

The Express had earlier reported how the shortage of Asha workers will burden the system as there are just 3,500-odd Asha workers for over 5,600 patients and counting.

We have a system in place, and every patient visit has to be updated. However, some areas are seeing large number of cases, leading to the delay, said an official from DMHO.
gettyimagesbank



By Jun Ji-hye



Doctors at Hallym University Medical Center successfully carried out a lung transplant on a COVID-19 patient last month, the first such operation in Korea and the ninth in the world, according to the hospital, Thursday.



A female patient in her 50s whose lungs had collapsed due to the new coronavirus received the transplanted organs, June 21.



Hospitalized on Feb. 29, the patient was immediately put on a respirator as she was experiencing difficulty breathing. She was then placed on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for 112 days from March 1 to the day before her surgery.



The hospital said she has been recovering well, noting that she is now able to breathe unassisted.



"She had one of the most serious cases among the critically ill patients in Korea," said Kim Hyung-soo, a cardiothoracic surgeon who heads the ECMO center at the hospital. "Young patients should not let their guard down as COVID-19 could require a lung transplant. We ask people to continue to comply with social distancing guidelines and wear face masks."



The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 54 new infections Wednesday  44 local and 10 imported cases  bringing the nation's total to 12,904. The death toll remained unchanged at 282.



Among the 44 local cases, 22 were from the southwestern city of Gwangju, 18 were from Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, two were from South Chungcheong Province, while Daegu and Daejeon reported one each.



Gwangju officials are on high alert as the city saw more than 20 virus cases in a day, part of an infection cluster traced to a Buddhist temple.



The KCDC said a total of 49 patients have been traced to the temple as of noon Thursday, noting that infections at the temple have spread to a number of other places, including a church and a nursing home.



Amid growing fears over further community transmission, the Gwangju Metropolitan Government raised its social distancing guidelines from Level 1 to Level 2, Wednesday, which prohibits indoor gatherings of 50 or more and outdoor meetings of over 100.



"If this situation continues, we will face a lack of hospital beds and medical personnel soon," Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-sub said during a media briefing, noting that the city will enhance disinfection activities in places where many people gather.



Meanwhile, the Seoul Metropolitan Government issued an administrative order, Thursday, banning the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions from staging a massive rally scheduled for Saturday on Yeouido.



The order came after the umbrella labor group signaled its determination to push ahead with the rally, in which some 50,000 members are expected to participate, despite the continuous spread of the contagious disease in the capital area.


By AFP

HPAKANT: The battered bodies of more than 120 jade miners were pulled from a sea of mud after a landslide in northern Myanmar on Thursday after one of the worst-ever accidents to hit the treacherous industry.

Scores die each year while working in the country's lucrative but poorly regulated jade industry, which uses low-paid migrant workers to scrape out a gem highly coveted in China.

The disaster struck after heavy rainfall pounded the open-cast mines, close to the Chinese border in Kachin state, where billions of dollars of jade is believed to be scoured each year from bare hillsides.

Scores "were smothered by a wave of mud," the Myanmar Fire Services Department said in a Facebook post.

Working throughout the day to pull bodies out, "the total death toll so far is 126," it said.

"Search and rescue process is still ongoing."

Photos shared by the Myanmar military news site showed mud-slaked and bloodied bodies of miners laid out in grim rows under tarpaulins, some missing shoes as a result of the force of the wall of mud which hit them.

They had apparently defied a warning not to work the mines during the monsoon rains, local police told AFP.

Kyaw Min, a village leader, told AFP some survivors were pulled from the treacly mud before rescue efforts were suspended because of more rain.

The workers were scavenging for gemstones on the sharp mountainous terrain in Hpakant township, where furrows from earlier excavations had already loosened the earth.

Chinese demand

Myanmar is one of the world's biggest sources of jadeite and the industry is largely driven by insatiable demand for the translucent green gem from neighbouring China.

The mines are mired in secrecy, although environmental watchdog Global Witness allegeso perators are linked to former junta figures, the military elite, and their cronies.

"Powerful crony and military-linked companies have evaded responsibility for social and environmental abuses in Hpakant," said Global Witness' Hanna Hindstrom, calling the disaster "avoidable".

The watchdog estimated that the industry was worth some $31 billion in 2014, although very little reaches state coffers.

The mine where Thursday's accident happened belongs to the Yadanar Kyay company, according to the military's official news site.

Police said the death toll could have been even higher if authorities had not warned people to stay away from the mining pits the day before.

Landslides in the area are common, especially during Myanmar's notoriously severe monsoon season, and a major slip in November 2015 left more than 100 dead.

Another buried more than 50 workers last year.

The workers combing through the earth are often from impoverished ethnic minority communities who are looking for scraps left behind by big firms.

Low-quality stones can be exchanged for food or sold for $20 to waiting brokers.

But workers to risk their lives daily in the hope of hitting the jackpot -- a good quality jadeite that could fetch tens of thousands of dollars, changing their lives.

Northern Myanmar's abundant natural resources -- including jade, timber, gold and amber -- help finance both sides of a decades-long civil war between ethnic Kachin insurgents and the military.

The fight to control the mines and the revenues frequently traps local civilians in the middle.
By ANI

NAYPYITAW: China is supplying funds and sophisticated weaponry to armed groups in Myanmar and the Naypyitaw-designated terrorist group, the Arakan Army, to have leverage over Myanmar and India, Licas News reported.

A military source with experience in South-East Asia confirmed that China is providing approximately 95 per cent of Arakan Army funding. He further revealed that the Arakan Army has approximately 50 of the MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems) surface-to-air missiles.

"An object lesson in diplo-terrorism is the leverage over Myanmar and India that China gained by arming the Arakan Army, operating in the corridor from North-East India over Myanmar's Chin and Rakhine states to the Indian Ocean," according to Licas News reported.

According to a source, China's strategy as one to push its influence well south of its own border. "This strategy of supporting the Arakan Army has enabled the Chinese to expand its area of influence towards western Myanmar that is, the India-Myanmar border," the source said.

"China is playing a multi-dimensional game in South Asia. China wants to weaken India. India is in a war with Pakistan and does not want to make a new enemy of Myanmar," said an Australian academic.

"China does not want Indian influence to increase in Myanmar," according to an Indian source. "They want a monopoly."

China's support of the Arakan Army against India's construction in Myanmar has been apparently quite effective.

The USD 220 million road contract was awarded to the Delhi-based contractor, C&C Constructions, in June 2017. The Myanmar government then delayed the requisite clearances until January 2018. Once construction was underway, the Arakan Army kidnapped crews including Indian citizens, firefighters, a Myanmar member of parliament and sabotaged a vehicle and building materials.

According to an Eastern Link article by Subir Bhaumik, the more recently uncovered arms delivery from China was a "consignment containing 500 assault rifles, 30 universal machine guns, 70,000 rounds of ammunition and a huge stock of grenades ... brought in by sea and offloaded at the Monakhali beach not far from the coastal junction of Myanmar and Bangladesh in the third week of February."

A Rakhine source close to the Arakan Army claimed that the shipment included FN-6 Chinese MANPADS, according to the article.

A diplomat in the region said that "seven different groups (including Arakan Army) in Myanmar received Chinese arms and support." He said that the "Chinese object has always been to keep the West away from Myanmar by keeping Myanmar (a) weak and closed state with a poor humanitarian record."

Arakan Army is the largest insurgent group in the Rakhine state of Myanmar and is the armed wing of the political party, United League of Arakan (ULA).

On March 23, the Myanmar government designated the Arakan Army and ULA as terrorist organisations for "inciting fear" and disrupting the stability of the country by attacking government and civilian targets.

In 2019, the group allegedly attacked four police stations, causing 20 casualties among police. Some of the police died from their wounds.

China did not condemn the attack but gave a very bland statement saying "China supports all parties in Myanmar to promote reconciliation and peace talks and strongly opposes any form of violent attacks".

China does not supply weapons for free but earns money from inciting violence in Myanmar.

The Arakan Army pays China's front organisations in South-East Asia for weapons, and Thai arms smugglers front for the Chinese, according to sources.

According to Bhaumik, a former BBC reporter in Myanmar, anti-Tatmadaw sentiment in Rakhine State has been galvanised and quickly expanded through the influx of Chinese money and arms.

China is blatant in using its support for ethnic militia groups to threaten the government. When addressing local concerns about a Chinese-backed copper mine, according to Swedish journalist Bertil Lintner, a Myanmar government minister feared that Beijing could retaliate against any trouble to the mine by supporting ethnic violence that would harm Myanmar's economy.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the US to stem the surge of COVID-19 infections, a move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks.

In the words of one study, it comes down to the danger of "heavy breathing in close proximity."

Crowded indoor spaces filled with people yelling, leaning close to hear one another and touching the same sticky surfaces are "the opposite of social distancing," said Dr. David Hamer of the Boston University School of Medicine.

"Can you do social distancing at a bar? Can you wear a mask while drinking?" Hamer said.

"Bars are the perfect place to break all those rules."

The rapid spread of a bar outbreak can swamp public health workers.

In East Lansing, Michigan, an outbreak tied to a large brewpub near Michigan State University has spread to nearly 140 people in 12 counties, causing authorities to recruit nursing students and retirees to help with contact tracing.

ALSO READ | Trump plans huge July 4 fireworks show despite US COVID-19 cases crossing 2.68 million

"In 12 days, we went from two identified cases to 128, and, honestly, I don't have today's numbers yet," Ingham County health officer Linda Vail said Wednesday before cases shot up again.

She described her outlook as "shocked and overwhelmed."

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer responded by closing indoor seating in bars in parts of the state.

Taverns will not have to close completely.

They can sell to-go cocktails and keep outdoor patios open.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom took similar action, ordering bars and indoor restaurant dining to close again for the next three weeks in most of the state.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio delayed the city's resumption of indoor dining.

Two other factors at play in bars make them potential virus flashpoints.

Alcohol lowers inhibitions, so people forget precautions, said Natalie Dean, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Florida.

Plus, the attractive, healthy person buying you a drink could be a silent carrier, shedding contagious virus with each breath.

"Young people have less severe illness, so they may be infected and able to infect others inadvertently," Dean said, noting outbreaks in Japan and South Korea associated with restaurants, bars and karaoke parties.

In recent weeks, college towns across America have seen clusters of cases that have been traced back to bars.

Bars and restaurants near the University of Iowa and Iowa State University closed only weeks after the governor allowed them to reopen.

As of last week, 90% of cases in the county that is home to Kansas State University involved people ages 18 to 24.

Health officials said most of them spent time in a bar and restaurant district known as "Aggieville."

Citing a similar spike, the Kansas county that includes the city of Lawrence and the University of Kansas also ordered bars and nightclubs to close beginning Friday for the next two weeks.

"Congregation at a bar, inside, is bad news," Dr. Anthony Fauci told a Senate panel Tuesday.

"We really have got to stop that."

Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles and some Pennsylvania counties are closing bars to slow the spread of the virus.

Florida and Colorado have told bars they cannot serve alcohol on site.

Most bar owners and employees feel that they have been unfairly singled out, particularly because restaurants are still open and serving alcohol.

In Texas, bar owners said that on Friday after they were forced to close their doors, they noticed restaurants were still packed.

"You can go into a restaurant and they have bars, and you can have as many drinks as you want," said Nikki Forsberg, owner of the Old Ironhorse Saloon in Blanco, Texas.

"It doesn't seem fair. Restaurants get this pass and the bars don't."

The bar's manager, Tami Cooley, said although she did not wear a mask at work, she felt the tavern was taking every precaution to safely stay open.

No one was allowed to drink or order at the bar, and tables were limited to six people.

They closed for a few days after finding out one of the bartenders had been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.

"We were cautious at our bar. We social-distanced, sanitized the tables, chairs, bathrooms, doorknobs," she said.

"We did everything right."

In the Michigan bar outbreak investigation, "huge concern" now centers on the parents and grandparents exposed to the virus by their offspring who partied at the brewpub, Vail said.

She worries about "a climb in secondary cases if the people we asked to self-quarantine didn't do that.

"Where is this secondary transmission going to land?" Saskia Popescu, an infectious diseases expert in Phoenix, said it's difficult to disinfect surfaces at a bar enough to make a difference.

Even sitting at a table with friends at a bar involves loud talking and laughing that could spread virus.

It's not worth it, she concludes.

"You can make a cocktail at home," Popescu said.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: The first of four experimental COVID-19 vaccines being tested by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech showed encouraging results in very early testing of 45 people, the companies said Wednesday.

Study volunteers given either a low or medium dose, in two shots about a month apart, had immune responses in the range expected to be protective, when compared to some COVID-19 survivors, according to the preliminary results.

Side effects were typical for vaccines, mostly pain at the injection site and fever.

The report has been submitted for publication in a scientific journal but not yet reviewed.

With its other potential candidates still in the earliest stage of testing, Pfizer aims to open a large-scale study this summer but can't yet say which shot is best to include.

But researchers didn't administer a second shot of the highest dose initially tested, sticking with the low and medium doses.

The higher-dose shot caused more injection reactions without apparent added benefit.

About 15 different COVID-19 vaccine candidates are in human testing worldwide, with several poised to begin huge, last-stage studies to prove if they really work.

Different companies are pursuing different types of vaccines, boosting the odds that at least one approach might work, although there's no guarantee.

The Pfizer and BioNTech candidates use a piece of the coronavirus genetic code to prime the body to recognize and attack the virus.

Earlier this week, Inovio Pharmaceuticals issued a news release saying its gene-based vaccine candidate showed encouraging results in similar early testing in 40 volunteers.
By AFP

GABORONE: Hundreds of elephants have died mysteriously in Botswana's famed Okavango Delta, the wildlife department said Thursday, ruling out poaching as the tusks were found intact.

The landlocked southern African country has the world's largest elephant population, estimated to be around 130,000.

"We have had a report of 356 dead elephants in the area north of the Okavango Delta and we have confirmed 275 so far," Cyril Taolo, the acting director of the department of Wildlife and National Parks, told AFP in a text message.

He said the cause of the deaths was yet to be established with anthrax having been ruled out.

"We do not suspect poaching since (the) animals were found with tusks," he said.

Samples have been collected and sent to specialised laboratories in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Canada for testing.

Similar deaths were first reported in May when authorities found 12 carcasses in just a week in two villages in the northwest of the country.

"It seems they were dying very suddenly in some cases," conservation biologist, Keith Lindsay told AFP, adding that the deaths were sudden.

"The carcases were animals that had fallen down while walking... right on their sternum which is very unusual," said Lindsay.

"Up to now there doesn't seem to be any clear sign of the reason for it. When something like this happens it is alarming."

"All ages and sex"

The latest discoveries were flagged by a wildlife conservation charity, Elephants Without Borders (EWB), whose confidential report referring to the 356 dead elephants, was leaked to the media on Wednesday.

EWB suspects the elephants have been dying in the area for about three months.

According to the report dated June 19, 2020, "70 percent of elephant carcasses were considered recent, having died about a month ago, and 30 percent of the carcasses appeared fresh, ranging from one day to two weeks old".

"There was good evidence to show elephants of all ages and sex appear to be dying," said the report penned by EWB director Mike Chase.

Several live elephants appeared to have been weak, lethargic and emaciated, with some showing signs of disorientation, difficulty in walking or limping, EWB said.

"One elephant was observed walking in circles, unable to change direction although being encouraged by other herd members," said the report.

For conservationist Neil Fritt the strange phenomenon is "tragic" but appears to be "more like a natural occurrence as opposed to direct human cause," he told AFP.

Botswana has an overpopulation of elephants which President Mokgweetsi Masisi has flagged as the source for much of the human-animal conflict in the country.

In February the southern African country held its first major auction for trophy elephant hunting quotas since controversially scrapping a hunting ban last year. But the hunting season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic
By ANI

GENEVA: UN human rights experts have condemned the enforced disappearance of Idris Khattak, a Pakistani human rights defender, calling it an "intolerable attack" on his legitimate work against a range of human rights and minority violations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, nine UN human rights experts called for a prompt and impartial investigation into the abduction and incommunicado detention of Khattak and said that they are extremely concerned by the authorities' continued practice of enforced disappearances, leaving thousands of cases unresolved in the country.

Khattak was last seen on November 13 last year after security agents stopped his car near the Swabi interchange in the northernmost province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

On June 16, the Pakistani authorities acknowledged for the first time that he has been in the custody of law enforcement authorities and detained incommunicado since then.

Human rights experts welcome the disclosure by #Pakistan Government of the whereabouts of Idris #Khattak, a leading human rights defender gone missing last year. "We call for a prompt & impartial investigation into his abduction & incommunicado detention." https://t.co/879Ek9hDzk pic.twitter.com/lzyIhaJWRo  UN Geneva (@UNGeneva) June 29, 2020

"The enforced disappearance of Khattak, which began over seven months ago, is an intolerable attack on his legitimate work of monitoring, documenting and advocating against a range of human rights and minority violations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan," the independent experts said.

The experts are Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Luciano Hazan (Chair-Rapporteur), Tae-Ung Baik (Vice-Chair), Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Bernard Duhaime, Houria Es-Slami, and Henrikas Mickevicius; Mary Lawlor; Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Fernand de Varennes RP, Special Rapporteur on minority issues.

"We are extremely concerned by the authorities' continued practice of enforced disappearance, leaving thousands of cases unresolved in the country. We call for a prompt and impartial investigation into the abduction and incommunicado detention of Khattak, and for the prosecution of those responsible," the experts said.

They condemned the widespread silencing of human rights defenders through intimidation, secret detention, torture and enforced disappearance, whether with the direct involvement of the Pakistani government or with its complicity or complacency.

"Even today, Khattak remains deprived of the most basic protections of the law and his enforced disappearance subjected him and his family to severe and prolonged suffering, that could amount to torture," the experts said.

"Given the arbitrariness of Khattak's arrest and detention and the very serious violations of his integrity and procedural rights, we call on the Government of Pakistan to immediately release Khattak and to provide him and his family with adequate redress and rehabilitation," they added.

Pakistan has a long history of enforced disappearances, many of which have targetted human rights and minority defenders critical of the government and the military, as well as persons suspected or accused of involvement in the opposition.

While successive governments have promised to criminalise enforced disappearance, none has taken concrete steps and the practice continues with impunity.

The experts stressed that there can be no justification for the Pakistan government's failure to end enforced disappearances and that any such violation must be investigated, prosecuted and punished.

"Truth and justice must be served, both in the case of Idris Khattak and for countless other victims and their families in Pakistan. State-sponsored disappearances and related impunity may amount to a crime against humanity and must end now," they said.

The experts have taken note that Pakistan's Commission on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has been seized of the case and called on the commission to ensure accountability.

The experts will continue to engage with the Pakistani authorities to assist them in eradicating the "horrendous practice" and to closely monitor the situation.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday voiced concern over Russia's constitutional referendum, pointing to reports of voter coercion and reiterating alarm that President Vladimir Putin will be able to extend his rule.

"We are troubled by reports of Russian government efforts to manipulate the result of the recent votes on constitutional amendments, including reports of voter coercion, pressure on opponents of the amendments and restrictions of independent observers of the vote," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

The European Union also Thursday called on Russia to investigate reported vote irregularities.

Russia's Central Elections Commission announced that 77.92 percent of voters backed the constitutional reforms that would let Putin, already Russia's paramount leader for two decades, run for additional terms after his mandate ends in 2024.

"We are especially concerned with a provision in the amendments that would potentially allow President Putin to remain in power until 2036," Ortagus said.

"Around the world, as a matter of principle, the United States opposes constitutional amendments that favor incumbents or extend their terms in office, particularly in contexts where necessary conditions for free and fair democratic processes are lacking," she said.

Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun said on the eve of the vote that Putin, along with Chinese President Xi Jinping, "seem intent on putting themselves into office for life."
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Whippany, NJ (07981)

Today

Thunderstorms likely, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 67F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 67F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae answers questions raised by lawmakers at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee session at the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday. /Yonhap



By Bahk Eun-ji



Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae wielded her authority Thursday over a high-profile investigation into the alleged collusion between a senior prosecutor and cable TV news outlet, ordering Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl to halt the creation of an expert advisory panel.



This was the first time in 15 years that a justice minister has ordered an investigation by a prosecutor general since Chun Jung-bae did so in 2005.



Choo sent an official document to the prosecution, saying rushing to reach a conclusion through a controversial review by a professional advisory group could interfere with the investigation.



The minister also ordered the investigation team of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to independently probe the case without being commanded or supervised by senior prosecutors, including the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, and then report the results of the investigation to the prosecutor general, in order to ensure a fair and stringent investigation.



Choo judged that Yoon pushed ahead with the formation of the advisory group, despite the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's failure to reach a conclusion.



"The Supreme Prosecutors' Office delivered the prosecutor general's order to investigate the case without reporting to senior prosecutors last month," Choo said.



"As a result, even senior prosecutors of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office didn't reach a conclusion whether to seek an arrest warrant for Lee Dong-jae, a Channel A reporter, June 19; Yoon decided to convene an investigation advisory group against his own order, and even completed the process of selecting the nine members for the advisory group."



Seoul district prosecutors have been investigating allegations that the Channel A reporter had plotted with Han Dong-hoon, a senior prosecutor and a close ally of Yoon, to blackmail a businessman over his accusations against Rhyu Si-min, a liberal pundit with close ties to the Moon Jae-in administration.



Han, who previously served as the head of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's anti-corruption department, is also undergoing a separate internal investigation by the justice ministry. Han has consistently denied his involvement.



Last month, the reporter filed a petition to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to convene an advisory panel to review his case, insisting that the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office's investigation was unfair, and the state agency accepted the petition. The prosecutor general has the authority to call for formation of an advisory panel to review the validity of an investigation.



Earlier this week, Choo criticized Yoon for refusing to follow her recommendation regarding two cases  the TV reporter, and a separate bribery case involving Han Myeong-sook, who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 under President Roh Moo-hyun.


Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury will open an exhibit, Seeking Serenity: A Tribute to Healing and Change, July 11 and continue through Sept. 5.

The show will feature works by Dr. Ruth Jaffe, a neuroscientist/psychoanalyst practicing in Washington Depot who has shown her work in several venues throughout Connecticut and New York.
President Moon Jae-in / Yonhap



President Moon Jae-in instructed his land minister Thursday to push for ways to raise tax burdens on owners of two or more houses, as he received an emergency report on South Korea's real estate market viewed by many as being overheated.



He called in Kim Hyun-mee, minister of land, infrastructure and transport, for the debriefing, with his government confronted with fierce public criticism over its unsuccessful policies in tackling skyrocketing home prices especially in Seoul and adjacent cities.



Moon told Kim to "strengthen the burden" of those who possess houses apparently for speculative investments, including multi-house owners, according to Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kang Min-seok.



The president was quoted as pointing out the public consensus on the need to "regulate speculative purchases."



Moon also urged the authorities to increase the supply of houses and ease the tax burden of people who buy houses for the first time, mostly young people and newlywed couples.



He called for policy measures to help such people acquire houses more easily.



The president emphasized the importance of the government's resolve to bring housing prices under control and demanded that it draw up additional policy steps anytime without hesitation, if necessary, Kang said.



The land ministry will soon map out concrete plans in consultation with other relevant government offices to follow up on the president's instructions, he added.



Hours earlier, Cheong Wa Dae announced that it has "strongly advised" its officials with the rank of secretary to sell any additional homes they own and to keep just one.



The presidential chief of staff, Noh Young-min, has already put a house in his hometown Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, up for sale, a Cheong Wa Dae official told reporters on the condition of anonymity. Noh has an apartment in a wealthy neighborhood in southern Seoul as well.



Last December, the Moon administration announced a set of tough measures aimed at cooling the real estate market, including the introduction of legislation on imposing more taxes on property owners, mainly those with high-priced or multiple apartments largely in the densely populated Seoul capital area.



The bill, however, failed to get approval from the previous parliament amid a protest by the conservative opposition United Future Party.



The government is expected to submit a similar bill again to the current National Assembly, a move to be supported by the ruling Democratic Party with 176 seats in the 300-member chamber.



Apartment prices have continued to surge mainly in Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi Province in spite of the government's tightening of mortgage restrictions and other frequent policy steps. Most recently, the government rolled out a package of further measures on June 17.



Earlier in the day, a poll result showed that Moon's approval rating has dropped 3.9 percentage points from last week to 49.4 percent. It marked the first time in more than three months that his approval has dipped below 50 percent.



Realmeter pointed to major news reports on such issues as continued hikes in housing prices and the Incheon International Airport Corp.'s plan to grant regular employment status to more than 1,902 contract and part-time security officers working at its facilities in line with the liberal-leaning Moon government's campaign to enhance the job security of irregular workers. Many young job seekers regard the airport's plan as unfair and are worried that it could lead to fewer job opportunities for themselves. (Yonhap)


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A banner hangs in the street near the office of the Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC), Thursday, calling on IIAC President and CEO Koo Bon-hwan to step down over the recent controversy surrounding the company's decision to directly hire subcontracted security workers. / Courtesy of union of Incheon International Airport Corp.



By Jun Ji-hye



Employees of state-owned companies are keeping a close watch on their employers' hiring plans, due to concerns that their companies could be the next to directly hire subcontracted workers after Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC) announced its decision to do so.



On June 21, the IIAC announced it would grant regular employment status to 1,902 subcontracted security workers in accordance with President Moon Jae-in's election pledge of "zero irregular jobs" in the public sector.



But the decision has since provoked criticism especially from existing regular workers and young jobseekers who have raised questions of fairness in the hiring process at state-run companies at a time when the nation is experiencing a serious unemployment crisis.



In online communities such as Blind, employees of state-run companies as well as others interested in the issue are voicing a variety of opinions on which firms will be next, and what would be the most appropriate ways to increase regular positions in the public sector.



Blind is a service that enables employees of a company or people working in the same industry to upload instant messages and communicate anonymously.



Blind users mostly mentioned the Korea Airports Corp., which operates 14 airports nationwide except for Incheon, and the Busan Transportation Corp. as possible candidates to follow in the footsteps of the IIAC.



Those who are opposed to the move to grant regular employment status to contract workers wrote messages supporting the union of the IIAC that has staged protests and held news conferences condemning the decision.



"The move is provoking a backlash as it is granting regular employment status to contract workers without fair and proper hiring procedures," one Blind user wrote.



Another user wrote, "We studied so hard to take the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) and the National Competency Standards (NCS) test, and obtain various certificates of qualification to get our jobs. I wonder what contract workers have done."



The NCS test is a standardized written test administered by the government.



The Moon Jae-in administration announced guidelines for the zero irregular jobs initiative in July 2017, presenting a goal to upgrade the employment status of 205,000 irregular workers in the public sector by the end of this year.



Hwang Deok-soon, senior secretary to the President for employment, said the move was aimed at enhancing fairness in the labor market and better protecting irregular workers, noting that it was not about fairness in the hiring process of state-run companies.



Meanwhile, the IIAC's union called on IIAC President and CEO Koo Bon-hwan to step down, Thursday, claiming the company's argument that the union had already agreed with the hiring plan was a lie.



"Koo should take responsibility for spreading false information," the union said in a statement.


Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Mainly cloudy. A few peeks of sunshine possible. Cooler. High 71F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 51F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph.
A fully grown spotted lanternfly. Korea Times file



By Ko Dong-hwan





Mucor cheongyangensis' sporangium spore seen through an electron microscope. Courtesy of National Institute of Biological Resources

Korean university and national laboratory researchers have discovered a fungus that advances the country's research into plastic-decomposing biotechnology.



Chonnam National University professor Lee Hyang-burm's team and the National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR) under the Ministry of Environment discovered the mucor last year.



After publishing their findings in the peer-reviewed international scientific journal Phytotaxa in May, the novel fungus was scientifically named "mucor cheongyangensis."



It has the potential to decompose polycarbonate-based microplastics because of its unique strain, according to the NIBR. Polycarbonate is widely used for mechanical parts, electronics and construction materials because of its high density and thermal resistance.



If the potential is confirmed, the mucor could usher in new biotechnology to grind down the rising amount of plastic waste globally in an environmentally harmless way.






Perry Township trustees came up with a bright idea to help motorists see a relatively new road when driving at night.
A new report from cardiologists at UT Southwestern raises the hope that doctors will be able to visually check the jugular venous pressure of heart failure patients remotely, using the camera on a smartphone. The finding is especially timely as telemedicine expands during the pandemic.

The jugular venous pressure assessment, which provides insight into fluid retention and increased pressure inside a heart, usually requires a trip to the doctor's office for a visual check of the jugular vein in the neck.

"It is one of the most important and common approaches to assess the fluid status of such patients," says Mark Drazner, M.D., clinical chief of cardiology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the research letter published today in JAMA Cardiology.

The ability to perform this test using telemedicine could mean fewer trips to the physician for sometimes frail heart failure patients, Dr. Drazner says, and could allow doctors to perform more frequent checks.

In addition, with some patients delaying in-person doctor visits because of COVID-19, the ability to perform the test via telemedicine could be a lifesaver, says Jennifer Thibodeau, M.D., interim section chief of Advanced Heart Failure, Transplant, and LVAD. "Patients who are not evaluated because of fears of COVID-19 may be putting themselves at risk. Being able to evaluate a patient with heart failure effectively and virtually allows us to seamlessly continue the care of patients with heart failure during this pandemic."

I think the heart failure community is going to be quite interested in this." Mark Drazner, M.D., Clinical Chief of Cardiology, UT Southwestern

During a jugular venous pressure assessment, a physician or other health care provider checks the distention of the jugular veins in the neck to determine how high blood is rising within the veins.

As pressure inside an unhealthy heart's right atrium increases, the height of the jugular venous distention will rise, Dr. Drazner explains. That level can be checked by looking at the patient's neck, "much like checking the oil dipstick in a car," he says.

A reading at or above 10 millimeters Hg of jugular venous pressure is considered cause for concern, Dr. Drazner says, and may indicate too much fluid buildup in the body.

For the study, advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologists performed jugular venous pressure assessments both in person and remotely via smartphone video apps on 28 heart failure patients, with an on-site assistant helping position the smartphones for patients.

The study found that the in-person and remote assessments often agreed and that they also correlated to the right atrial pressure when measured invasively.

Specifically, the remote and bedside estimates on whether the level was less than, at, or above 14 centimeters (considered to correspond to 10 millimeters Hg pressure within the heart) agreed 95 percent of the time, according to the report.

The investigators also compared their assessments to the actual right atrial pressure as measured by invasive heart catheterization. The in-person assessments and catheter readings agreed 93 percent of the time when the results were at the concerning level, while the remote assessments and invasive measurements agreed a slightly lower 89 percent of the time, according to the report.

The study was started before the emergence of COVID-19, Dr. Drazner says, but the results have become more timely given current concerns over the deadly virus and the rapid shift to telehealth.

The next step will be to see if similar results are possible using computer screens, which doctors often use in telemedicine visits, and whether the remote tests can be performed successfully without an on-site assistant, Dr. Drazner says, adding that he hopes there will be additional testing of this method in a multi-institutional study.
Leaving hospital can be a confusing and sometimes risky time for patients who take medication, with an estimated 44% experiencing medicine-related problems once they get home. New research from the University of Bath suggests the most helpful and timely medicine-related support is provided by hospital pharmacists, yet few patients are aware that they can turn to their NHS Trust to allay confusion and stay safe.

The Bath study explored the experiences of 40 patients or their carers using various hospital-based telephone medicines information services. It found that patients who have called a service regard it as uniquely placed to answer medication queries arising after hospital discharge. After using the service, patients said the helpline service was quicker to access than their GP and often more helpful.

But although 52% of NHS Trusts currently provide a medicines helpline, few discharged patients seem to know of their existence, resulting in extremely low usage.

Matt Williams, the Bath PhD student who led the research said: "A typical hospital that discharges over 100 patients every day will have 30 to 40 patients with a potential need to call the helpline, yet they might get just one call a day.

"If people don't know the service exists, they either do nothing when problems arise or they go to their GP, use the emergency services or turn to the people around them or Google for non-expert and potentially unreliable advice. Yet they could resolve their problem with a simple phone call, which is quicker and easier for both the person and the NHS."

Dr Matthew Jones, lecturer in pharmacy practice at the university, explained that patients often experience big changes to their medicine regimen when they are discharged from hospitals, and it's common for them to find there are gaps in their knowledge.

They might have questions about side effects, correct dosage or potential interactions between medications. Getting the right information can help them avoid harm. It can also draw attention to mistakes that have been made with their medicines." Dr. Matthew Jones, Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice at University of Bath

Helplines have been established to help meet the NHS's priority to improve patients' transitions of care, so people can better manage their own health. Study participants called for their local helpline to be extended to cover evenings and weekends.

A second study from the Bath team finds that hospital pharmacists who provide a hospital medicines helpline service are aware that it is a valuable resource for patients but regard it as under-resourced.

"There is concern among pharmacists that if they advertise the service more widely, they will not be able to cope with the influx of enquiries. This is completely understandable at a time when NHS staff are so stretched. To benefit as many patients as possible, pharmacists need guarantees they will be given time to help everyone who calls" said Dr Jones.

According to the results of research commissioned in 2018 by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, 237 million medication errors occur in the NHS in England every year. Of these, 66 million are of potential clinical significance. Avoidable adverse drug reactions cause around 700 deaths per year and cost the NHS an estimated 98.5-million per year.

A study in 2017 found that discharged patients were not reliably warned of possible problems that could arise from their medications. Of the people involved in the NHS Patient Survey Programme, 43% said a member of staff did not tell them about any side effects to look out for.

Some discharged patients also experience medicines-related errors, such as prescribing mistakes and incorrect or missing information on discharge summary documents. As a result, 26% of discharged patients seek help relating to their medication, mainly from their GP.

Dr Jones said: "It's important that all patients discharged from hospital can easily get timely and expert advice about their medicines. Different areas currently do this in different ways, which is one reason why the public doesn't know about the services that are there to help them. In addition, the government recently announced a new Discharge Medicines Service, which will allow people to seek help from their community pharmacy. The NHS should decide what is the best way to help discharged patients and then ensure that this is provided and advertised by every hospital."
By Song Sang-yep





Foreign friends doing business in Korea often ask me "Can I trust Korean Courts?" When we go to a foreign country for the first time and wonder whether we can drink tap water, the best answer is to see whether the local people drink tap water.



Then, let's see how trustworthy the Koreans find the courts here. Last year, the OECD surveyed 37 member countries by asking how many of every 1,000 people trust their own court systems. The result shows Korea had the lowest numbers of all countries surveyed. Various surveys in Korea also show that two out of three Koreans do not trust the courts.



But when we ask "Can I trust your country's judges?" it has two aspects. One is fair trial between the local people, and the other is whether there is a bias against foreigners in favor of Korean nationals in the court room. It is an interesting phenomenon that the level of legal protection for foreign companies often depends on the extent of the country's economic development.



In general, it is easy to think that the more advanced a country, the more it protects foreign companies. That's only half true. The U.N. has found in its report that a country with low GNP per capita protects foreign companies strongly to guarantee direct investment by foreign companies.



As domestic companies grow to a certain extent, the country weakens the protection of foreign companies in order to protect the domestic economy. However, when a country's economic development peaks, it strengthens the protection of foreign companies again to ensure fair competition. Now let's see where Korea places in this respect. As the 10th largest economy in the world, the highest level of legal protection for the foreign party in the Korean courtroom is expected and it should be so for the sustainable economic growth of Korea.



However it is still often seen that Korean small and medium-sized enterprises often appeal to patriotism in the courtroom against large foreign companies, saying "Your honor, if a giant foreign company wins this case, it will ruin the roots of the Korean economy."

Fortunately, I have not seen many cases in which such emotional arguments have had an effect in the Korean courtroom. Rather, I saw a real case of a foreign conglomerate place high trust in the Korean judicial system.



A foreign conglomerate has been fined a large amount by the Korea Fair Trade Commission; it received similar fines in other countries on similar issues. But the foreign company filed a lawsuit only in the Seoul Central Court to determine the legality of the commission's fine and not in other countries. Why? The foreign conglomerate believed that the Korean court would make a fair ruling without discriminating against a foreign company while they were afraid that they may not be able to expect a fair trial in other countries.



In this regard, I think the international trust in the Korean judiciary is largely admirable. Here I would like to share lessons of the past. I have seen cases where a judge's patriotism today hurts tomorrow's national interests. A long time ago, a judge in Korea nullified the letter of credit issued by a Korean bank to protect a Korean company. The judge presumably thought it was a patriotic ruling that saved Korean companies.



Since that ruling, the letter of credit issued by a Korean bank became unreliable and rejected in export transactions by foreign companies. I believe most Korean judges now know his or her patriotism today could hurt tomorrow's national interests, and trusted that the judicial service of a country is most beneficial to national interests. Therefore, I have trust in Korean judges.





Song Sang-yep (attorney at law,) us licensed at Korea and US Illinois bars.




Why do we age? What exactly is happening in our bodies? And can we do anything about it? Mankind has sought answers to these questions since time immemorial. While the pharmaceutical scientists Alexandra K. Kiemer and Jessica Hoppstadter from Saarland University are not claiming to have solved this ancient problem, they have uncovered processes within our immune system that contribute to aging. Kiemer and Hoppstadter have shown that low levels of the hormone cortisol and the protein known as GILZ can trigger chronic inflammatory responses in the body. The results have been published in the journal Aging Cell, doi: https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1111/ acel. 13156

The phenomenon of human aging is the result of a complex interaction between numerous factors, with our own immune system playing a critical role. As we get older, our body's own defense mechanisms age, too. The adaptive or specific immune system that each of us acquires over the course of our lives and that protects us from the pathogens that we came into contact with gradually deteriorates as we age. In contrast, however, our innate or non-specific immune system, which is the first line of defense towards a wide variety of pathogens, becomes overactive. The result is chronic inflammation.

A persistent state of inflammation can cause serious damage to our bodies. One consequence is that chronic inflammatory diseases, such as atherosclerosis or arthritis, are far more prevalent in older patients.

This has been well-known for a long time. In fact, the scientific community refers to this phenomenon as "inflamm-aging" - a portmanteau word that combines the two inseparably linked processes of inflammation and aging." Alexandra K. Kiemer, Professor of Pharmaceutical Biology, Saarland University

What was uncertain up until now was what actually caused these inflammatory responses to flare up. Kiemer and her research group have now provided some important insight. According to research results from Jessica Hoppstadter, a lead researcher in Kiemer's team, the inflammatory process is linked to the fact that the amount of cortisol generated in the body decreases as we get older.

Cortisol and its inactive form cortisone, commonly referred to as stress hormones, are released by the adrenal gland. The hormone cortisol acts as a biochemical signaling molecule and is involved in numerous metabolic processes in the body. Cortisol deficiency in the body leads to an inflammatory response.

The serum level of cortisol in the body is lower in the elderly. Moreover, macrophages, an important type of immune cells, can convert inactive cortisone to active cortisol, but this ability declines with increasing age. What we observe is what we could call "macroph-aging" - the age-induced disruption of macrophage functions." Dr. Jessica Hoppstadter, Lead Researcher

Macrophages are important cells within the immune system that use signaling molecules to control other immune cells. They play a critical role in determining the extent of our body's inflammatory response. However, macrophage function becomes impaired with increasing age. This can lead to an increase in the quantities of pro-inflammatory signaling molecules, which in turn drives the activity of other inflammatory cells of the body's immune system.

The studies conducted by the pharmaceutical research team in Saarbrucken indicate that one particular protein is implicated in the malfunctioning of macrophages in the elderly. The protein is known as GILZ and its levels are regulated in part by cortisol. 'The acronym GILZ stands for glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper,' explains Professor Kiemer. Kiemer's research group has been conducting experimental studies on the GILZ protein for many years and has discovered that it plays a critical role in many important processes in the human body. But GILZ can have a beneficial or a detrimental effect depending on the specific metabolic conditions.

'We know that GILZ plays a key role in our immune system, for example it's involved in switching off the macrophage inflammatory response. So we put forward the hypothesis that loss of GILZ contributes to macrophage-mediated inflammation in older individuals,' explains Jessica Hoppstadter. Her data shows that a lower cortisol level causes macrophages to produce less GILZ, which in turn means that the macrophages simply continue to release inflammatory signaling molecules. The team found that GILZ levels are indeed lower in older subjects. To find out whether that in itself was enough to cause an inflammatory response, Hoppstadter genetically deactivated the GILZ protein. The data confirmed Hoppstadter's conjecture: the macrophages were activated and there was a resulting increase in chronic inflammatory processes.

Professor Kiemer's research group is involved in a number of studies examining the activity of the GILZ protein, including the search for new active compounds that are capable of boosting GILZ levels in the human body. However, a substance able to arrest the progress of age-related inflammatory processes or impede macrophage aging is still a long way off. 'All of these projects are still very much in the realm of basic research. The GILZ protein operates within an extensive network of complex biochemical interrelationships and it can have both beneficial and deleterious effects. A huge amount of work still needs to be done before we have a medically effective drug,' says Alexandra K. Kiemer. The phenomenon of human aging remains immensely complex, but the work of the Saarbrucken scientists has moved us one small step further to a better understanding of why and how we age.
The University of Memphis (UofM) and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) are teaming up in a venture to secure a portion of federal funding allocated for COVID-19 research. The two universities issued a call for collaborative research proposals, which has yielded 23 projects addressing the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its related disease, COVID-19.

The awards at stake are part of UTHSC's Collaborative Research Network (CORNET) program, a seed funding initiative designed to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration on novel and innovative research that will lead to larger, national grants. The UofM/UTHSC SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Research CORNET is a grant competition specifically geared to facilitate new collaborations between UTHSC and UofM faculty on projects designed to better understand the disease and find therapies to end the pandemic. Funding is available for up to five teams, each of which must have at least one principal investigator from each of the partner institutions. Each funded project will receive $50,000, with the UofM and UTHSC contributing equally to the award.

"It is critical that the medical and scientific aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic be addressed first," said Jasbir Dhaliwal, PhD, executive vice president for research and innovation at the UofM. "The social and economic consequences can be mitigated if the scientific problem is resolved quickly."

UTHSC research faculty are working diligently to find efficacious treatments for COVID-19. These studies range from basic and translational research being performed by Dr. Colleen Jonsson in the Regional Biocontainment Laboratory to clinical trials brought in through CTN2 and our UTHSC clinical trial offices. Dr. Jasbir Dhaliwal and I are now using the powerful CORNET Award platform to bring together researchers from UofM and UTHSC to collaborate on research projects that take advantage of the synergistic expertise at both institutions. The level of interest by faculty at both campuses, exemplified by 23 joint applications, is gratifying. Most importantly, the funded applications will address the health of all Tennesseans and people around the globe being impacted by this pandemic." Steven Goodman, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Research, UTHSC

The submitted proposals run the translational science spectrum from T0, or basic science research conducted in laboratories (such as the study of multi-organ tissue injury resulting from COVID-19 infection), to T4, or community-based research. Examples include a look at how the COVID-19 epidemic is affecting vulnerable populations in Shelby County; or examining how COVID-19 is impacting school services for children with disabilities and their families.

The goal of these team-based projects is to generate data that will lead to larger, national grants. The CORNETs have a strong track record in generating subsequent federal funding. Since the creation of the awards in 2016, $1.8 million in CORNETs have been awarded; extramurally funded grants stemming from CORNET stimulated research totals over $19 million - an 11-fold return on investment.
A new study shows how wearing masks can prevent the spread of droplet borne infections and is an excellent preventive measure to stop the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The study titled, "Visualizing the effectiveness of face masks in obstructing respiratory jets," is published in the latest issue of the journal Physics of Fluids.

The smallest respiratory droplets leak through a face mask constructed using a folded handkerchief. Despite the leakage, the spread of the droplets is impeded considerably compared to no mask use. Image Credit: Siddhartha Verma, Manhar R. Dhanak and John Frankenfield

The COVID-19 pandemic and its spread

The novel coronavirus made its first appearance late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and it was on the 30th of January that it was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). Owing to the rapid spread from person to person via droplets, the infection spread rapidly across the world and was finally declared a pandemic on the 11th of March 2020.

As of today, 10,662,993 persons have been infected across the world, and it has killed 515,504 individuals, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

According to the health organization, the virus mostly spreads from an infected person to another when they cough or sneeze and the virus is released in droplets released from the mouth and nose. To break the chain of transmission, it has been recommended that all individuals wear face masks.

What was this study about?

The researchers explain that "there are no specific guidelines on mask materials and designs that are most effective in minimizing droplet dispersal." There are several types of masks available, including "cloth-based coverings" to "medical-grade masks" they write. The former is widely distributed to the public.

The team explains that around 35 percent of the COVID-19 cases are unaware of their infection because of no symptoms. These individuals are capable of spreading the infection to others via respiratory droplets if they move around with their faces uncovered and are within range of other non-infected persons.

Not just COVID-19, these respiratory droplets are also capable of spreading other viral and bacterial infections such as "common cold, influenza, tuberculosis, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)," wrote the researchers.

What was done?

For this study, the team used "qualitative visualizations" of simulated coughs and sneezes and looked at the impact of the different types of masks on the extent of droplet filled respiratory secretions.

For simulating the cough, they used a mannequin's head attached to a fog machine. The fog machine is capable of creating a vapor from glycerine and water. A pump was used to expel the vapor from the nose and mouth of the mannequin. These vapor droplets were visualized using a laser sheet by passing green laser pointer rays through a cylindrical rod. The team photographed the green vapors coming out of the mouth of the mannequin wearing the different types of masks.

The comparisons of the average jet distance of these coughed or sneezed were checked when the simulators wore no masks, bandanas made of elastic t-shirt material, folded handkerchiefs made of cotton, stitched masks made of quilted cotton and commercial masks of unknown material. The threads per inches in the masks tested were 85 in bandanas, 55 in folded handkerchiefs, 70 in stitched masks, and randomly assorted fibers in commercial masks.

Mask type Material Threads/in. Average jet distance Uncovered ~8 ft Bandana Elastic T-shirt material 85 ~3 ft 7 in. Folded handkerchief Cotton 55 1 ft 3 in. Stitched mask Quilting cotton 70 2.5 in. Commercial mask Unknown Randomly assorted fibers 8 in.

Lead study researcher Siddhartha Verma, an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science, in his statement, said, "The visuals used in our study can help convey to the general public the rationale behind social-distancing guidelines and recommendations for using face masks."

Speaking about how they devised a method to simulate the coughs and sneezes, he said, "The main challenge is to represent a cough and sneeze faithfully. The setup we have used a simplified cough, which, in reality, is complex and dynamic."

What was found?

Results showed that folded loose masks and bandana coverings over the face could provide minimal protection and had the least ability to stop the respiratory droplets containing the virus.

The team wrote, "Well-fitted homemade masks with multiple layers of quilting fabric, and off-the-shelf cone style masks proved to be the most effective in reducing droplet dispersal."

The average distance jets of aerosols were propelled were as follows;

Without face-covering  around 8 feet

With bandana like covering  3 feet 7 inches

With folded handkerchiefs  1 foot 3 inches

With stitched well-fitted masks  2.5 inches

With commercial fitted cone-shaped masks  8 inches

The authors wrote that the well-fitted masks and the commercial masks reduced both speed and range of the reparatory droplets. There was, however, risk of leakages through the material of the mask from the gaps along the edges they wrote.

Implications

The team emphasizes that current guidelines of social distancing to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 infection is 6 feet, and it is seen that uncovered faces can allow the jet propulsions for up to 8 feet. They wrote, "uncovered emulated coughs were able to travel notably farther than the currently recommended 6-ft distancing guideline".

The researchers have outlined the procedure for conducting similar emulation and visualization studies to check the effectiveness of various face covers in the spread of droplet borne infections. They add that readily available materials could be effective, and their study can help medical researchers, health care professionals, and manufacturers to assess the qualitative efficacy of the personal protective equipment.

Verma said, "Promoting widespread awareness of effective preventive measures [for COVID-19] is crucial at this time as we are observing significant spikes in cases of COVID-19 infections in many states, especially Florida." He added, "It is also important to understand that face coverings are not 100% effective in blocking respiratory pathogens. This is why it is imperative that we use a combination of social distancing, face coverings, hand-washing, and other recommendations from health care officials until an effective vaccine is released."

Silk study

This research ties in with another recent study by a team at the University of Cincinnati that looked to determine what fabrics were the most effective for facemasks. The team examined the hydrophobicity of fabrics (silk, cotton, polyester), as measured by their resistance to the penetration of small and aerosolized water droplets, an important transmission avenue for the virus causing COVID-19.

The researchers found that when used for protection of the face, silk was the most effective at preventing the penetration of droplets, and the least absorptive of water, because of its intensely hydrophobic character compared to the other fabrics tested. This research is published on the preprint server medRxiv*, prior to peer review.
New research from The University of Texas at Dallas suggests food deserts might be more prevalent in the U.S. than the numbers reported in government estimates.

In a feasibility study published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, scholars found that the methods used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify areas with low access to healthy food are often outdated and narrow in scope.

Their findings indicate that crowdsourced information gathered from mobile apps such as Yelp could help provide more accurate real-time representation of food deserts in impoverished communities.

Using data from the city of Dallas, we compared our results with the 2015 USDA database and discovered the agency needs an up-to-date source of information on grocery stores. The number of food deserts may be a lot larger than what the USDA says it is." Dr. Dohyeong Kim, associate professor of public policy and political economy and of geospatial information sciences, School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at UT Dallas

The USDA considers three metrics when identifying "food deserts," areas where residents lack access to fresh and healthy food: income, car ownership and distance to the nearest supermarket. In an effort to improve accuracy of food desert locations, the UT Dallas researchers looked at two additional variables not included by the USDA: access to public transit and shopper-provided food pricing gathered from Yelp, an online source of business reviews by the public.

"If a community has few public transportation options nearby, that may contribute to the existence of a food desert," Kim said. "Plus, low-income households still face limited access to healthy food if prices are too high."

The researchers analyzed data from Dallas' 296 census tracts, which are neighborhood-sized geographical areas used by government agencies to collect population data. Nine census tracts were identified as food deserts based on the USDA's 2015 data only. Using 2018 Yelp data alone, the researchers identified 50 census tracts -- mostly in south Dallas -- as food deserts. Thirty-three census tracts were overlapped by both data sources.

Due to the time difference between the two data sources, Kim cautioned that their findings could not confirm which dataset -- USDA vs. Yelp -- matches the situation on the ground more accurately, and he stressed that Yelp should not be considered as a replacement for government data. The results do show, however, that crowdsourced, georeferenced data could be a good supplement to improve accuracy of official government data and help guide health policies.

"Yelp data is still incomplete in coverage and limited for wide application, although it has the potential to be improved in the future," Kim said. "This study sheds light on the need for on-the-ground, place-specific observation in the study of food deserts, and future studies should include multiple cities to gauge the quality of Yelp data across the country."

Kim added that use of such crowdsourced information also could give guidance to other public-health mapping, such as for noise or pollution.
At the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, Switzerland declared a four-month-long state of emergency, the country's longest since the Second World War.

Pursuant to the Epidemics Act, from 16 March to 19 June 2020 the Federal Council was allowed to make any decision it deemed necessary to contain the pandemic without consulting the parliament or the general public. It issued around two dozen emergency ordinances in this extraordinary period.

How did the Federal Council handle this unparalleled range of powers? Did it listen to all those potentially affected by the measures it enacted, even though there were no official consultations?

Did this crisis highlight how the system needs to change if we are to overcome other challenges such as climate change or mobility bottlenecks?

In an analysis published in the journal 'Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie', WSL researchers studied the decision-making processes implemented by the government and administration during this extraordinary time.

Exemptions for cantons with special requirements

They noticed one thing in particular: "It's clear how robust Switzerland's federalist structures are," explains Yasmine Willi, lead author of the analysis and postdoctoral researcher in the WSL Regional Economics and Development research group.

For example, the canton of Ticino, which was hit particularly hard by COVID-19, decided to close its construction sites, going far beyond the measures required by the corresponding federal ordinance.

Although this was technically in violation of the law, the Federal Council allowed the canton to go ahead and legitimised its action retrospectively by amending the ordinance.

Switzerland's usual federalist processes endured. Even though a state of emergency had been declared, the cantons were ultimately responsible for enacting the political measures devised by the Federal Council." Yasmine Willi, Study Lead Author and Postdoctoral Researcher, WSL Regional Economics and Development Research Group

Federalism's endurance is all the more remarkable given that democratic processes were temporarily suspended, with the elected parliament disempowering itself and postponing sessions and referendums.

Political decisions in fast-changing times

In a crisis, the situation changes rapidly and decisions have to be made without a clear picture of their consequences.

This forces governments and administrations to constantly review and adapt their decisions in line with scientific findings, for example.

Such continuous modification of policy by governments and administrations in the face of far-reaching societal changes is referred to as 'transformative governance'.

According to the authors of the analysis, the handling of the coronavirus crisis has the typical features of such governance: decisions made in a context of uncertainty, different perspectives taken into account, decision-making processes underpinned by reflexive learning and experimentation with solutions.

"Policy-making relies more on scientific findings in times of acute crisis than it does normally," explains Willi. During the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Council's legislation was guided by the case numbers calculated by virologists and epidemiologists.

Another characteristic feature of such transformative governance is the gradual tightening of measures that paralysed public life.

Borders, businesses and schools were closed, significantly curtailing the fundamental rights of Swiss residents, while at the same time the federal government was unable to say which measures would work or how effective they might be.

It therefore set clear deadlines for each step, including for the subsequent easing of restrictions, which were then lengthened or shortened depending on the development of the infection rate.

Change even without extensive knowledge

Yasmine Willi and her colleagues are particularly interested in what will happen after the coronavirus crisis has passed: will there be a long-term change in certain environmentally harmful practices, such as air travel and overconsumption, that the virus had halted in the short term?

Will society continue to shift towards more digital meetings and less consumption?

"The current crisis can only stimulate sustainable societal change if we successfully modify consumer behaviour, goods production and resource use in the long term," explains Willi.

For example, the subsidies granted to companies to support them during the pandemic could be linked to climate protection criteria, or the financial relief offered to families affected by the crisis could reduce social inequalities.

The coronavirus crisis has shown that societal change can be swift, even in times of great uncertainty. Far-reaching decisions were taken quickly and implemented consistently, even though their impact on the economy and society was unclear.

"We know much more about environmental crises such as climate change or biodiversity loss than we did about the coronavirus pandemic, but we still act less decisively," stresses Willi.

However, the coronavirus crisis has made it clear that acting decisively is more important than acting 'perfectly'. This is also the case for climate change, as a flexible, experimental approach would be possible here too.

Long-term climate targets, such as net zero emissions by 2050, could be supplemented by annual reduction targets and the required measures could be reviewed each year and adjusted if necessary.

This could ensure that the climate crisis was managed more effectively, despite the uncertainties.
A new study of wildlife consumption in northern Laos by San Diego Zoo Global researchers found widespread use of products made from sun bears, Asiatic bears, and serows--goat-like mammals found throughout Asia--among other vulnerable species.

The findings indicate that efforts are needed to reduce the unsustainable harvest of bears and serows, in particular, "before this demand becomes a significant conservation challenge," the authors wrote.

Our results indicate the importance of identifying emerging trends in wildlife consumption, which can inform efforts to halt population declines before they become full-blown crises." Elizabeth Oneita Davis, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate in Community Engagement, San Diego Zoo Global

She co-authored the study, published in April in the journal Animals, with Jenny Glikman, Ph.D., an associate director in Community Engagement at San Diego Zoo Global.

"The research presented here represents a critical first step towards a conservation management solution in northern Laos that incorporates the emerging threat of consumption of serow, which may be excluded from management plans directed at conserving more 'charismatic' fauna," said Davis.

Unsustainable wildlife consumption is widespread in Southeast Asia. Exports to neighboring China and Vietnam have led to the extirpation of tigers and Javan rhinos in Laos, the authors said.

Less is known, though, about the demand for wildlife products within Laos. To learn more about use patterns, Davis and Glikman interviewed 100 adults in 18 villages, in the Luang Prabang region of the country.

The most commonly used substances, consumed by about a quarter of those interviewed, were derived from the bile or gallbladder of sun bears and Asiatic bears.

While the use of bear products in the region had been documented, this study suggests consumers may be more common than previously thought. The second most-consumed items, used by 7% of respondents, were derived from serows.

Products derived from serows and bears are similar in form and use, often being made into topicals or consumables to treat bruises or fight fatigue. However, serow products are less expensive than comparable bear products.

Sun bears and Asiatic black bears are listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. The Chinese serow is listed as Near Threatened, but the IUCN is in the process of changing its status to the more-urgent Vulnerable, the study authors said.

Overall, interviewees reported they had used or knew someone who had used a wide variety of products derived from animals ranging from elephants to tigers, snakes, porcupines, monkeys, and bats.

Approximately half of the respondents said they viewed wildlife products as a form of traditional medicine. A majority of the species consumed were listed as Vulnerable or Least Threatened on the Red List of Threatened Species.

"Our results of present and prevalent demand for wildlife in northern Laos indicate both that enforcement efforts are not working and that the Laos government's goals of reducing wildlife trade may be challenging to achieve," Davis said.

It isn't known if the current harvest of serows in Laos is sustainable. But it is possible that demand could increase sharply if those who consume beer products turn to less-pricey serow products instead. If that happens, the ungulates "may suffer a sudden, serious and rapid decline in the next decade," the authors wrote.
Back in 1998 when carmakers in India were launching affordable hatchbacks, Honda Decided to enter India with a seemingly premium product sedan called the City. 22 years down the line, when carmakers are going all about SUVs, Honda has decided to launch the 5th-Gen of the City. However things are quite different this time. The Honda City is one of the India's most trusted brand name and longest running nameplate. Also, Honda has promised the all-new City to be bigger and better.

We were supposed to review the all-new Honda City back in March, but then the lockdown happened. Anyways, we have started to review the cars again as the lockdown has been eased, keeping in mind all the safety precautions. Let's see if the New Honda City was worth all this wait.

Watch our first drive review here:

Design

In my personal opinion, the Mid-size Sedan segment is slowly losing its popularity in India among the youth and mostly the office going, chauffeur-driven executives want to own such a car. And this is where Honda City excels. Without going over the top, Honda has maintained a very niche design for the new City.

The biggest USP of the new City is the fact that the design changes are subtle yet elevates the overall profile. Upfront is the new trademark Honda design language adding a large thick chrome grille called the Solid Wing Face, giving it the Accord inspired look.

2020 Honda City grille. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

The highlight though, is the beautifully crafted LED headlamps with 9 LED arrays that make the face look aggressive and yet attractive. The sides now get sharper lines. At the rear are the large wraparound taillights that make the City look posh even from behind.

Not just the design, but Honda has tweaked the dimensions too and the New City is both longer and wider than the outgoing model. As per Honda, they have been able to liberate additional space inside the cabin thanks to the exterior dimensions and it's similar to that of previous Honda Civic, which is a huge improvement.

2020 Honda City side profile. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

Cabin

Moving inside the cabin, the first thing you notice the spacious cabin with the sense of airyness thanks to the interesting use of Black, Beige and Grey colour tones. The spaciousness in the cabin is not just a feeling, but you actually get a lot of space, be it for the front seats or the back seats, where I am assuming a lot of people would want to sit. The legroom at the rear is generous to say the least. Even the seats are comfortable with enough cushioning and thigh support to make you feel at home. The boot space is 506-litre and is deep enough for big bags.

As for the console design, the Honda engineers and designers deserve a pat on their back. The new Citys central console layout is classy, attractive, functional and most importantly, has impeccable fit and finish. You get a 8-inch system with a neat layout, rotary knobs for Aircon unit and vertically stacked AC vents. Even the instrument panel with 7-inch TFT display is designed to excite the driver inside you. And then theres an exhaustive feature list, few of which are particularly of my liking.

2020 Honda City cabin. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

We shot the New Honda City in the peak summers of Delhi-NCR, with temperatures outside reaching 45-degrees. One feature that I really appreciate in such conditions apart from all the gimmicks that a connected app has to offer is the remote AC function thanks to the Honda Connect technology. Since putting on the AC means the engine has to start, this function is only available in the Honda City CVT variants.

Not just the Honda connect, Honda has also partnered with Amazon to offer Alexa support for its connected technology. But then, you will have to operate all these functions using voice commands, which you have to learn and for me, it is a tedious job. I prefer the simple apps like Honda connect which gets 32 connected features. Honda City also gets a sunroof, rear sun shade, ambient light among others in terms of features.

2020 Honda City back seat. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

Performance

The all-new Honda City gets 2 engine options, a petrol and a diesel motor, both 1.5-litre in capacity. The one we drove was the petrol model with a claimed mileage of 18.4 kmpl in CVT version and 17.8 kmpl in the Manual version. The diesel engine, on the other hand has a claimed 24 kmpl mileage.

The power output in the petrol motor is 121 ps and 145 Nm. The diesel engine generates 100 ps and 200 Nm of output. While the petrol engine gets a 6 speed manual and a CVT gearbox, the diesel only gets a manual unit. Now that we are done with numbers, heres what I feel after driving the new City in one word  Flabbergasted.

2020 Honda City instrument cluster. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

Now you see, we journalists have been driving so many SUVs off late, it seems like I forgot the fun of driving sedans. And on the top of that, the new 1.5-litre petrol engine was a delight to drive around the smooth roads of Noida. Honda says they have worked a great deal on the new petrol engine and you feel it rightaway. The engine is smooth, refined and amply powerful.

The CVT gearbox complements the smooth engine with very less rubberband effect, something which earlier Hondas are known for. I also drove the manual City and it was equally fun, with a slick gearbox. Me, however, love driving the auto gearbox, using the paddle shifters whenever possible and how good it felt to use the ones in the City.

2020 Honda City CVT gearbox. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

Not just the engine and gearbox, the overall vehicle dynamics work in your favour to give you a pleasurable driving experience. Right from the chunky steering wheel which is equally good to hold and offers precision handling to the planted ride thanks to the suspension setup. Even the NVH levels, barring the few moments when you are trying to accelerate CVT equipped model too hard, are massively refined.

However, if I have to point out a couple of negatives, it has to be the brakes, which could have been better and the very fact that you are driving a sedan reduces a bit of confidence in terms of ground clearance when going over the speed breakers or through bad patch of road. Also the suspension was on a bit of the stiffer side, as I felt a lots of potholes inside the car.

2020 Honda City iVTEC badge for petrol engine. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

Safety

Lastly, the safety tech in the new Honda City is as exhaustive as the features. Honda has clearly raised the bar with the set of safety equipment they are offering in the new model and that too apart from the Honda Connect. Just so you know, the new Honda City is ASEAN 5-star safety rated car thanks to technology like a blind spot detector or 'LaneWatch' which provides the live feed on the infotainment system using a side camera below the ORVM, multi-view rear parking camera, vehicle stability assist, and 6 airbags among others.

2020 Honda City rear 3/4th. (Image Credit: Manav Sinha/ News18.com)

Verdict

What I like about the all-new 5th-gen Honda City is the fact that it gets the cabin space of Honda Civic, design somewhat inspired from Honda Accord and the successful brand name and pricing of the City, essentially combining the best of the three sedan segments. And then there are added connected features, segment best safety features and a refined powertrain. For me the all-new Honda City is one of those handful of sedans that still holds its value in the world of SUVs and should be a car high on your list if you are looking to buy a classy and comfortable car.
Chinas aviation authority said on Wednesday it would suspend Sichuan Airlines from operating the Cairo-Chengdu route for a week from July 6, after six arriving passengers tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Last month, a China Southern Airlines flight from Dhaka to Guangzhou was suspended for four weeks over concerns about imported infections. Seventeen passengers on a June 11 flight from the Bangladeshi capital to the southern Chinese city tested positive for the coronavirus, leading to the suspension of the service.

In early June, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced it would allow more foreign carriers to operate flights into the country based on the premise that the risks related to COVID-19 are controllable. The aviation authority also initiated flight incentives and "circuit-breaker" measures from June 8.

Also Watch:

Recently, China also launched a new carrier called the Sanya International Airlines focused on the island destination of Hainan, home to a population of eight million people and a trade hub. The carrier was launched despite the global downturn in passengers caused by the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Furthermore, it was also announced, the government-backed China Eastern will own a majority 51 percent share in the Sanya International Airlines.

Other backers of the newly-formed carrier included Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines and a unit of Trip.com, China's biggest online travel agency.

With Inputs From Agencies
India is in talks with the US and Canada and the countries in European and Gulf regions on establishing individual bilateral bubbles which will allow airlines of each country in the pact to operate international flights, said Arvind Singh, Chairman, Airports Authority of India (AAI), on Thursday.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) had on June 23 said India is considering establishing "individual bilateral bubbles" with the US, the UK, Germany and France. Singh said, "This morning, I took a brief from the key point person (from the MOCA) who is negotiating with the countries, and he said that we are in constant touch. We are working on a consensus to restart the international flights. This is going to be through air bubbles."

"Talks are mainly going on between India and the US, India and Canada, India and Europe and India and the Gulf countries to start flights in these bubbles," he said at a webinar called "Reposing the faith in flying" organised by the GMR group.

Scheduled international passenger flights remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Singh said the MOCA official has informed him that the discussion with the countries is at a "very advanced" level and the effort is to restart international flights at the earliest.

"I am sure there would be a positive outcome of the talks with the US, Canada and with the Gulf countries and the negotiations are going on," he noted. The EU has presently banned the flights from India as the number of coronavirus cases is rising in the country, Singh said.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on June 20 said the government will start thinking on the resumption of scheduled international passenger flights in mid-July when it expects the domestic air traffic to reach 50-55 per cent of the levels before the coronavirus.

After nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak, the government resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25. However, it had then allowed the airlines to operate the maximum 33 per cent of their pre-COVID flights. The MOCA increased the limits on June 26 from 33 per cent to 45 per cent.

The MOCA on June 23 had said, "As we contemplate further opening up in response to demands, we are looking at the prospect of establishing individual bilateral bubbles, India-US, India-France, India-Germany, India-UK. These are all destinations where demand for travel has not diminished. Final decisions pursuant to negotiations are expected to be taken soon."

Also Watch:

"We have received requests from authorities in several countries including the US, France, Germany among others requesting that their air carriers be allowed to participate in the transportation of passengers along the line being conducted by Air India under Vande Bharat Mission. These requests are being examined," it added.

Air India started international chartered flights under the Vande Bharat Mission from May 6 to help people stranded due to the pandemic reach their destinations.

The MOCA's June 23 statement had come after the US Department of Transport (DOT) said on June 22 that it appears that Air India may be using its passenger repatriation charter flights as a way of circumventing the government of India-imposed prohibition of all scheduled international services.

"We are taking this action (of allowing only those Air India flights from July 22 that have DOT's approval) because the Government of India has impaired the operating rights of the US carriers and has engaged in discriminatory and restrictive practices with respect to the US carrier services to and from India," the DOT had said.
A US government report has found that airplane giant Boeing failed to submit certification documents to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) detailing changes to a key flight control system of the globally grounded 737 MAX aircraft, the media reported.

The flight control system, known as MCAS, was "not an area of emphasis" because Boeing presented it to the FAA as a modification of the aircraft's existing speed trim system, with limited range and use, Xinhua news agency quoted a Reuters report as saying on Tuesday.

"Boeing did not submit certification documents to FAA detailing the change.

"FAA flight test personnel were aware of this change, but key FAA certification engineers and personnel responsible for approving the level of airline pilot training told us they were unaware of the revision to MCAS," the report said.

The government report was conducted by the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General (IG).

In response to the report, the Transportation Department said that the FAA's certification of the 737 MAX was hampered by a lack of effective communication between the agency and Boeing.

More than 800 aircraft have been grounded worldwide since mid-March 2019 after investigators found flawed flight control software on the 737 MAX partially responsible for the crashes of two jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.

Also Watch:

Boeing's MCAS stall-prevention system has been faulted in both crashes. On Monday, Boeing began a test flight to determine whether the revamped 737 MAX is safe.

The flight took off from an airfield near Seattle and flew through eastern Washington state before dipping down into Oregon and eventually returning to the Seattle area.

The FAA has approved the certification test flights after Boeing submitted safety fixes for review.


By John J. Metzler





Seventy years ago, on June 25, 1950, North Korean troops attacked South Korea launching an unexpected military blitz. Kim Il-sung's communists had as their aim the forcible reunification of the divided Korean Peninsula, itself a recent legacy of Japan's defeat in World War II. The South was stunned and Seoul, the capital, soon fell to the onslaught.



The United States, though caught militarily off guard, was diplomatically surefooted and called an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council; American Ambassador Warren Austin acted with alacrity and focus summoned delegates on an early Sunday morning. The U.S. passed a resolution calling for an immediate halt in the North's offensive.



But despite world opinion on the side of beleaguered South Korea, how did Washington avoid a certain Soviet veto in the Security Council? In a fortuitous twist of good fate, Moscow's delegation was boycotting meetings given their preference for the seating of Communist China in the U.N.



Since the Nationalist Chinese held the seat, (Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States) were founders of the U.N. five years earlier and held the coveted veto. The Soviets had scored an own goal!



Resolution #82 demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities was quickly passed with only the abstention of socialist Yugoslavia. Needless to say the powerful North Korean offensive did not stop for a U.N. resolution in far-off New York.



Two days later, the council passed Resolution #83 which authorized U.N. military action; "to furnish assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security." On July 7, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, hero of the Pacific campaign, was designated to command the multinational operation.



Sixteen countries would join the war effort in Korea: Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Ethiopia, Greece, Turkey and the U.S. among others, though approximately 90 percent of allied forces were Americans.



The war's early days saw a staggering rout for South Korea; Seoul fell June 28 and before long U.N. forces were encircled in what became known as the Pusan Perimeter, an impending Korean Dunkirk with South Korean and U.N. forces bottled up, backs to the sea and inside a tightening vice of the North Korean encirclement.



General MacArthur's unexpected seaborne Incheon landings recaptured the initiative and launched a mighty autumn offense deep into North Korea turning the tide of war until the Chinese communist intervention in late 1950.



The Korean War wasn't supposed to happen. The Allies had decisively defeated Imperial Japan five years earlier; demobilization and economic prosperity was predictably on the horizon in the post-WWII era.



But the overlooked Korean Peninsula, a former Japanese colony, was divided between the Soviets in the North and the Americans in the South. The arbitrary foreign division of this ancient land in 1945 at the 38th parallel, and the formalization of two separate governments in September 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the North and the Republic of Korea in the South, codified the division in classic Cold War political stenography.



Korea was overlooked. The American focus was on occupying, rebuilding and politically transforming Japan, rehabilitating the Philippines, and watching nervously as an expanding civil war in China between the Nationalists and Communists engulfed mainland China.



Korea, well, we will get to that in "due course" as FDR casually and callously brushed off Korea's postwar status after a half century of Japanese occupation.



Contemporary South Korea has created an amazing socioeconomic success story. By the late 1980s the ROK later evolved into a political democracy. Both Koreas joined the United Nations in 1991 and surprisingly a South Korean Ban Ki-moon, whose family fled North Korea during the war, became U.N. secretary-general in 2007.



The Korean Peninsula forms the vortex of competing power interests: China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. But Korea's strategic standing has only increased in recent years. As a prosperous and tech savvy democracy, South Korea is no longer just viewed as a geopolitical piece on Asia's chessboard, but as a key player in the global economy.



North Korea on the other hand has sunk into a dystopian socialist quagmire ruled by a Marxist monarchy, the Kim family. Nuclear weapons nonetheless give Pyongyang its bargaining chips.



Yet the conflict remains unresolved, ended by a truce in 1953 not a formal peace treaty. For the U.S. and South Korea, resolving the Korean War remains one of the last legacies of the Cold War to ensure future peace in East Asia.





John J. Metzler (jjmcolumn@earthlink.net) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism  The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China."




The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) announced that a ban on international flights will be lifted on Wednesday, but some travel restrictions will remain to prevent any chance of the spread of COVID-19.

"The CAAT has decided to allow international flights to resume after the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) rolled out guidelines of the types of inbound travellers allowed to enter Thailand from July 1," Chula Sukmanop, director-general of the CAAT, said on Tuesday.

The CCSA announced earlier that business travellers, foreigners with Thai spouses, work permit holders, Thai permanent residents, foreigners seeking medical treatment, foreign teachers and students returning to Thailand, can all enter Thailand from July 1 onwards.

However, all inbound travellers will be subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine on their own expenses.

Also Watch:

Other groups allowed entry include diplomatic missions, international organizations and foreign government agencies working in Thailand as well as their spouses and children.

These people will need approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before they book a flight to Thailand.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has fired Zhao Yan, the head of its fast-growing livestreaming division, on grounds of nepotism and accepting gifts, according to an internal memo announcing his termination, seen by Reuters.

The undated document, produced by Alibaba's human resources department and published on June 29 on the company's internal intranet for staff, says Zhao was fired after he used his position to help third-party livestreamers score favourable positioning on Taobao Live, Alibaba's main platform for live-streamed e-commerce.

The document also says Zhao helped his girlfriend secure a high-paying job with a livestreaming company, and accepted gifts from business partners. The document did not link the gifts to the favourable positioning, say how the allegations were discovered or investigated, or when Zhao was fired.

An Alibaba spokesman declined to comment.

Zhao did not respond to messages sent to his personal account on Chinese social media site Weibo, and Reuters did not have his telephone contact details. Reuters was not able to determine whether Zhao had legal representation.

Livestreaming is one of Alibaba's fastest-growing business sectors, with the company's most recent earnings report showing a doubling between fiscal 2018 and 2019 in gross merchandise volume (GMV), which the company uses to track transaction volume, on Taobao Live.

Monday's dismissal comes months after the company demoted Jiang Fan, a vice president thought to be in line for the chief executive job, in a case that sparked online debate about Alibaba's broader influence in big tech.

Jiang was demoted in April after an internal investigation into allegations of improper behaviour, according to a person familiar with the situation, following speculation on Weibo about his relationship with a prominent social media influencer. Jiang did not respond to requests for comment on his demotion at the time and Alibaba has declined to make him available for interview. He was not reachable for comment via social media messaging on Thursday.

An internal memo to all staff seen by Reuters at the time said Jiang's demotion triggered "a serious public opinion crisis which created a major impact on the company's reputation".
India needs foreign direct investments worth Rs 50 to 60 lakh crore and the money can be tapped mainly through infrastructure projects as well as MSME sector to accelerate the wheels of coronavirus-hit economy, according to Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

Emphasising that at this juncture Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is the need of the hour, the senior minister said such funds would benefit the country as there is a need for pumping in liquidity into the market.

Economic activities have been significantly disrupted in the wake of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns that were in place to curb spreading of infections.

"Country at this juncture needs liquidity. Without liquidity our economy's wheel will not accelerate... Rs 50-60 lakh crore foreign investment is needed in the country under present circumstances to boost the economy," the Road Transport, Highways and MSME Minister told PTI in an interview.

Infrastructure sector including highways, airports, inland waterways, railways, logistic parks, broad gauge and metro, apart from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) can attract large scale foreign investment, he noted.

"FDI in MSME, Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) and banks are needed... in the highways sector, we are trying to bring foreign investment," he said.

Gadkari further said that talks are on with investors from Dubai and the US for various sectors, including MSMEs.

"Some MSMEs are already listed on the BSE. I have talked to investors in Dubai and the US to come and invest in such MSMEs based on their three-year turnover, GST track record, IT record and good rating. Investing in these can result in rich dividends as these do exports also," he said.

"We need to boost our technology for increasing growth and need to focus on enhancing exports. The Prime Minister's thrust is also on reducing dependence on imports and boosting exports. In this infrastructure can play a crucial role," he said.

While noting that the present situation is very serious as the entire world is facing problems, Gadkari stressed on the need to work on a war-footing basis on infrastructure front.

Further, the minister noted that public private partnerships can help harness huge funds and would have a cascading impact by generating more employment and boosting the economy.

Besides, the minister said that 22 green highways were being build, including the Rs 1 lakh crore Delhi-Mumbai Expressway on a new alignment.

Citing the example of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, he said talks were on with the Maharashtra government to shift about 1.5 lakh leather workers to Thane in a proposed leather cluster along the highway which will have the most modern facilities including schools and hospitals besides affordable housing under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

"The development of backward area will alleviate poverty and accelerate development. Socio-economic thought is behind this," he said.

The Centre has announced Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus package, including Rs 8.01 lakh crore of liquidity measures announced by the Reserve Bank since March.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY), a free ration scheme, would be extended for 80 crore people till the November end.
The popular Hacker group Anonymous has mounted a fierce campaign on the social media platforms to ban TikTok globally, saying its a malware from the Chinese government that is spying on its millions of users.

The ByteDance-owned platform has been named among 59 Chinese apps that were banned by the Indian government this week. TikTok has nearly 120 million users in the country.

The global backlash against the short-video making app accelerated after the Beta version of iOS 14 exposed it constantly reading user clipboards TikTok later told The Telegraph it would no longer automatically access user clipboards on Apple iPhones.

The Anonymous group tweeted late Wednesday: "Delete TikTok now. If you know someone that is using it, explain to them that it is essentially malware operated by the Chinese government running a massive spying operation".

Delete TikTok now; if you know someone that is using it explain to them it is essentially malware operated by the Chinese government running a massive spying operation. https://t.co/J7N9FS7PvG Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) July 1, 2020

The account shared a link to a Reddit post from an engineer who claimed to have "reverse engineered" TikTok to find several security and privacy issues.

TikTok was yet to comment on the Reddit post or media reports around it."Tiktok is harvesting data on children/teens to monitor their market reach and political development; to find the best methodologies to coerce them within the next 5-10 years. This gives China an upper hand on the manipulation of large swaths of society across several countries," Anonymous further tweeted.

The state-backed media outlet The Global Times tweeted on Wednesday that the loss of ByteDance could reach up to $6 billion after India banned 59 Chinese apps.

"The loss of Chinese internet company ByteDance  mother company of TikTok  could be as high as $6 billion after Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, following deadly border clash between Indian and Chinese troops last month," The Global Times tweeted.

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said that the company was working with various stakeholders to address the concerns raised by the Indian government, and remain committed to support the welfare of TikTok creator community till the interim ban order is in effect.

Mayer, who is also the COO of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, said that their creator managers are actively engaging with top creators to reassure them of their efforts and updates about the path forward.
After long resisting wearing a mask in public, President Donald Trump said Wednesday he thinks it makes him look like the Lone Ranger  and he likes it.

Im all for masks. I think masks are good, Trump told Fox Business in an interview. People have seen me wearing one.

Trumps comments came a day after Republican lawmakers suggested that he wear a mask in public to set a good example for Americans.

If I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely, Trump said in the interview.

Trump has long resisted being photographed in a mask. In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures were difficult to maintain.

Trump immediately undercut the CDC guidance by flatly stating that he wouldnt be following it, suggesting it would be unseemly for the commander in chief to wear a mask as he meets with heads of state.

On Wednesday, he sounded a different tone, saying, I had a mask on. I sort of liked the way I looked. OK. I thought it was OK. It was a dark black mask, and I thought it looked OK.

It looked like the Lone Ranger, he continued, a reference to the fictional law-and-order character from the American Old West who wore a black eye mask. I have no problem with that, and if people feel good about it, they should do it.

In recent days, many Republicans and members of the White House coronavirus task force have been more outspoken in advocating for Americans to wear face masks in public settings as infections have surged in huge swaths of the South and West.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, said last week that he would pursue a federal mask mandate, if elected. In the interview, Trump suggested a federal mandate was unnecessary and continued to frame mask wearing as a matter of choice.

Even so, Trump criticized Biden for wearing a mask while he is some distance away from his audience and for speaking through the covering at times.

When theres nobody around, I dont see any reason to be wearing it, Trump said in a separate interview Wednesday on America This Week.

About the virus, Trump continued to characterize it as a nuisance that he hopes will just go away.

I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that, at some point, thats going to sort of just disappear, I hope, Trump said on Fox Business.

White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway noted Wednesday that Trump is regularly tested for the coronavirus, as are his aides. White House visitors and members of the news media who are in close proximity to him and Vice President Mike Pence are also tested.

Ive said wear them, the first lady has said wear them, the presidents administration has said wear them, Conway said.
Amid simmering border tensions between India and China, a bench in Madhya Pradesh High court asked two bail applicants accused in a murder case to donate a television set to a shelter home but with a strange condition - the TV set should not be made in China.

The order came from the Gwalior bench of the MP High Court, headed by Justice Sheel Nagu, on June 26. As per a report in Hindustan Times, bail applicants Arvind Patel and Kamlesh Pal were granted bail with several conditions including one which bound them to donate a TV set to a shelter home or "reinbasera" set up at the district hospital in Morar.

The TV sets had to be worth Rs 25,000 or more. In wake of Indo-China border tensions, however, the bench clarified that only TV sets that were not made in China or by Chinese companies were allowed.

"...it is directed that the petitioner be released on bail on furnishing a personal bond in the sum of ~25,000 with one solvent surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the concerned magistrate," the bench's order read. In addition, the bench asked the two applicants to "purchase and install a black coloured LED TV" at the shelter home while ensuring that the tv was "worth at least Rs 25,000" and manufactured in "India or abroad except China".

The two applicants were accused along with two others for opening fore on a villager in Dantia district earlier in February.

This is not the first time that a court has set unusual preconditions for approving bail.

On May 29, the Patna High Court had allegedly granted bail to three accused who had been in jail for violating the Prohibitions Act, but only if they donated to PM Cares Fund, Deccan Herald reported.

Earlier in April, Jharkhand High Court had also granted bail for to an ex-BJP leader and five others if they donated Rs 35,000 each for the PM Cares Fund, The Wire reported.
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed the world indoors. With work from home becoming a new norm in the past three months, parents across the globe are working double shifts to balance their work and offsprings on a daily basis.

One such parent happened to be expert Dr Clare Wenham who was recently live on BBC from home discussing the lockdown situation in England and how staying indoors is a learning process for locals amid the spread of the deadly virus.

But Wenham wasn't alone behind the screen. She was accompanied by her daughter Scarlett who invaded the interview and tried grabbing the attention of her mother to help her with her new artwork.

With not a worry in the world, Scarlett continued pacing around, asking her mother to help her choose the best shelf to display her art.

This was when BBC presenter Christian Fraser stepped in and asked, "What's your daughter called?"

Wenham who displayed complete professionalism through the interview, smiled and said, "She's called Scarlett."

Addressing her daughter, Fraser quipped that Scarlett's art looked better on the lower shelf, before praising her skills and adding, "It's a lovely unicorn."

But Scarlett wasn't done.

The kid, on live television, asked her mum the name of the presenter she was talking with.

"Mummy, what's his name?"

Fraser politely obliged to her question by saying, "My name is Christian."

The entire episode was taped and shared by BBC UK's official Twitter handle leaving the Internet amused.

Mummy what's his name?Dr Clare Wenham, we understand your struggles of working from home and looking after children https://t.co/vXb15EQatL pic.twitter.com/4f3PODtJWA BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 1, 2020

"How professional of Scarlet to ask the name before engaging in a conversation! Lovely!" wrote one Twitter user.

"Wonderful to see the realities of homeworking for parents. And thank you to the presenter for making it OK and for talking to the child too," chimed in another.

"Good on the news reader to act normal and engage with the child....well done BBC!"

"I love that the anchor was able to play it off for her and make everyone comfortable. What a good guy," another user commented.

And if this incident gave you deja vu, you aren't alone.

We all have learned from this experience... the BBC Dad @Robert_E_Kelly https://t.co/UqzSNadIsx It seems that anchor and interviewed have improved the reaction  EDGAR APONTE R (@garewiter) July 1, 2020

Nearly three years ago, professor Robert Kelly turned into Internet's "BBC Dad" after his toddler walked in on his while he was live on air went viral.

Kelly and his wife Kim Jung-A and their children Marion and James became the point of a global discussion in 2017 when the toddlers upended an interview he had been giving to BBC regarding South Korean politics.

The viral family appeared on BBC earlier in March to talk about the joys and stresses of working from home.

Much like the last interview, Kelly's interview also went viral on social media and brought cheer in times of lockdown and gloom.
Thai schools reopened on Wednesday for the first time since mid-March, with precautions in place to guard against the coronavirus, ranging from temperature checks to installing makeshift cubicles for social distancing in classrooms.

At Sam Khok school, about 50 km (31 miles) north of Bangkok, nearly 5,000 students were told to self-quarantine at home for 15-days prior to the re-start as an extra precaution, Principal Chuchart Thiengtham said.

"Once students arrive at school, teachers hand face masks to them because its mandatory to wear them," said Chuchart, adding that face shields were also provided to pupils for additional safety during some activities.

Students also get their temperatures checked and a facial recognition scanner automatically sends a message to parents, he said.

In the classroom, the school has turned cardboard ballot boxes used in elections into partitions to ensure social distancing between desks.

"I feel good studying behind the box because it makes me feel safer returning to school," said student Kanlaya Srimongkhol.

However, 17-year-old Soponwich Thianthong said while he felt more secure the partitions could be irritating because it limited his field of vision.

The coronavirus has killed 58 people in Thailand out of 3,173 infections, though the country has not recorded a case of local transmission for 37 days.

Thailand this week extended an emergency decree until the end of July in a bid to avoid the risk of a second wave, even as it relaxed more restrictions by also opening bars and allowing some foreigners into the country.
A 52-year-old man, who worked as a tailor in Bengaluru, died due to Covid-19 on Wednesday at the doorstep of Victoria Hospital which refused to admit him as officials said they were not informed by the civic authorities.

According to a report in The Times of India, the man was a resident of Cholurpalya and was running a temperature, cold and cough. A relative told the publication that he had volunteered to undergo tests and on Sunday morning, he was intimated by a private lab that he had tested positive for the viral infection.

As per protocol, the lab must not inform the patients right away and must instead upload the results on the website, from where the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) would access it and reach out to the patients.

The kin said that their struggle started as they began dialling several private hospitals in hope of getting him admitted, but all of them refused to do so and asked them to provide a letter from BBMP.

She added that the man then decided to put himself in isolation inside their home, but for more than two days, they were unable to get him admitted. In order to not infect his family, the man locked himself in a room on the first floor of their home.

But things took a turn for the worse on Tuesday night, when the man was not answering their phone calls, forcing them to break and enter. The woman said that they found him lying unconscious on the floor and they immediately called an ambulance, which took two hours to arrive.

They had hoped that Victoria Hospital would admit him, but as they tried to enter the hospital, the guard along with the staff stopped them after they informed them that they had a Covid-19 patient who was in a critical state.

The relatives were told that the patient could only be taken in if the civic administration provides a positive report to the hospital officials.

We fought and begged them to let us in but to no avail. Around 2am, he died as he could not breathe, the tailors son-in-law told ToI.

He added that they had to remain in the hospital and the body was kept in the ambulance till 12:30 pm on Wednesday. The son-in-law said that after the deputy CM Ashwath Narayan called BMRCI staff, the body was readied for cremation.

"We are yet to get the Covid report from BBMP officially, the son-in-law was quoted as saying.

A woman relative said that the man passed away because of the policy that Covid-19 test reports should not be handed over to the patient or the kin directly. She believes that had the report been given the same day, his life could have been saved.

Victoria Hospital's in-charge superintendent Dr Chandrashekar H termed the incident as unfortunate. There is a strict policy that the laboratory report must not be handed over to the patient and sent to the admitting hospital only through BBMP, he told ToI.

He, however, added that the hospital is ready to take in patients if they are able to produce a report in the form of a message or email from the testing labs.
A seven-year-old girl from Tamil Nadu's Pudukottai district, who went missing on June 30, was found dead a day later.

Police sources say they suspect it to be a case of sexual assault.

A 25-year-old man, who was the family's neighbour, has been arrested.

The girl was playing near her house and went missing on Tuesday after which her family lodged a complaint with the police. Meanwhile, family members and neighbours were also frantically searching for the minor.

The girl's body was found near a water body in the district and her face bore numerous bruises.

The police suspect she was sexually assaulted and then murdered. Two people, including a 25-year-old youth, have been detained so far and an investigation is underway.

The autopsy report is awaited to know the cause of death.
Egypt's Al-Azhar and its Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb expressed absolute rejection of Israeli plans -- which rely on the policy of imposing a fait accompli -- to annex parts of Palestine's occupied West Bank, a statement by the religious institution said on Thursday.

"Israels expansionist policy constitutes a threat to the regional peace, and a serious violation of international laws and conventions," the statement of the world's foremost institution of Sunni Islamic learning said, adding that the "Zionist occupier entity's annexation scheme represents a blatant violation" of the rights and lands of the oppressed Palestinian people.

Earlier in May, Israel announced that it will launch a cabinet debate on annexing parts of the occupied West Bank under a US-plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace as of 1 July, but no discussions were scheduled for Wednesday in the absence of an agreement with Washington on the modalities of the move.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, has rejected the move as a violation of Israels commitments to a mutually negotiated peaceful settlement to the Israeli occupation under the 1993 Oslo Accords.

"As usual, the Zionist occupier takes advantage of the preoccupation of the international community with the coronavirus pandemic to carry out its blatant abuses towards the occupied Palestinian territories," Al-Azhar statement added.

Al-Azhar urged the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to hold urgent meetings to stand firmly against the Israeli annexation scheme.

Al-Azhar's rejection of Israel's unilateral measures on the West Bank annexation scheme came hours after Israeli officials said a plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, which has drawn global condemnation, was delayed on Wednesday.

Israeli cabinet minister Ofir Akunis said the annexation process would not begin on Wednesday, adding that officials were still working on the final details with their US counterparts.

Akunis said he expected the annexation to take place later in July, according to AP.

Short link:




By Assia Sidibe





JOHANNESBURG  COVID-19 is having a devastating impact on the global economy. Like every continent, Africa has been bracing itself for a sharp economic downturn.



Yet, despite the inevitable recession, the pandemic has created a unique opportunity to promote the growth of small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) on the African continent. Indeed, empowering the continent's SMEs could limit the pandemic's long-term economic fallout.



By creating the right environment for young entrepreneurs and startups to scale innovative solutions that are emerging from the crisis, African countries have a chance to stimulate job creation. This is crucial on a continent where youth employment stands at 16 percent, and 10-12 million young people enter the workforce every year.



Since the beginning of the outbreak, young entrepreneurs and SMEs have been actively involved in developing innovations to combat the potential effects of the virus on African countries.



From the "Solar Wash," a sun-powered, touch-free water dispenser in Ghana, to triage tools in Nigeria and the "DiagnoseMe" COVID-19 remote screening platform in Burkina Faso, young Africans are conceiving ingenious local solutions to help prevent the spread of the disease.



Africa's SMEs have shown their flexibility and adaptability. For example, in Kenya, a local textile factory was transformed into a surgical mask assembly line within a week. In Senegal, the Institut Pasteur de Dakar developed a prototype for a 10-minute COVID-19 diagnostic test.



If commercialized and scaled up, such innovations could create more employment. One example is in the pharmaceutical field. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 16 million jobs are forfeited by importing pharmaceutical products worth $14 billion.



The surgical mask factory in Kenya already employs 400 workers, including 320 women, and plans to use the proceeds of the sales revenue to open two more facilities.



The Institut Pasteur de Dakar has formed a partnership with a British biotech company to obtain international certification. Mass production likely will lead to new hires of young Senegalese men and women.



Properly resourced, these innovations could support manufacturing industries that would strengthen Africa's defenses against COVID-19 and create long-term sustainable businesses offering stable jobs.



In addition to ensuring access to startup capital, governments should create a transparent and reliable regulatory environment that facilitates entrepreneurship and encourages investors.



Access to capital is probably the most significant challenge for African SMEs. While many global institutions already provide capital, local sources should play a more significant role in supporting SME growth.



The Institut Pasteur de Dakar obtained seed funding for its COVID-19 testing kit from the British government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. DiagnoseMe receives funding from the United Nations Capital Development Fund. But most global partners find it difficult to work with SMEs with more modest needs.



At the national level, several African governments have created COVID-19 funds to fight the disease and have invited philanthropists and businesses to contribute.



While most funds will focus on strengthening healthcare systems and providing assistance to their societies' most vulnerable members, some will be designated for job creation and economic recovery. One of the best ways to do this is to provide micro-funding to new businesses, thereby enabling SMEs to invest and grow.



To be sure, corporate donors on the continent are answering the call. In South Africa, business owners have contributed close to $150 million to the government's Solidarity Fund. In Nigeria, CEOs of large companies will fund medical equipment and fully equipped medical tents.



But business leaders can do more. Early-stage funding, seed capital, and mentoring workshops for young innovators are other ways to boost entrepreneurship. Similarly, pan-African programs, such as the one run by the Tony Elumelu Foundation, should ramp up their efforts.



Ensuring that the continent's SMEs have access to the capital and expertise they need is critical to combating COVID-19 effectively.



African-owned solutions that are adapted to local conditions and create valuable employment opportunities may be the key to mitigating the pandemic's economic impact. There is even reason to hope that difficult conditions will yield unexpected gems.





Assia Sidibe leads UNITLIFE, a financing instrument hosted by the United Nations dedicated to the fight against chronic malnutrition. She is a senior Aspen New Voices fellow. Her article was distributed by Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).




In the midst of India's tense border standoff with China, The Defence Ministry on Thursday approved procurement of a number of frontline fighter jets, missile systems and other platforms at a cost of Rs 38,900 crore to bolster the combat capability of the armed forces, officials said.

They said 21 MiG-29 fighter jets are being bought from Russia while 12 Su-30 MKI aircraft will be procured from Russia. The ministry has also approved a separate proposal to upgrade existing 59 MiG-29 aircraft.

The decisions were taken at a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

The ministry also cleared the acquisition of 248 Astra Beyond Visual Range air-time air missiles for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Navy along with the design and development of a new 1,000-kilometre strike range Land Attack Cruise Missile by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), said officials.

The procurement of 21 MiG-29 and upgrading of the existing fleet of MiG-29 are estimated to cost the government Rs 7,418 crore while purchase of 12 new Su-30 MKI from the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd will be made at a cost of Rs 10,730 crore, the officials said.

The decisions come in the backdrop of the ongoing crisis with China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh. Last month, at least 20 personnel of the Indian Army were killed in Galwan Valley during violent clashes with China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Of the 38,900 crore, acquisitions worth Rs 31,130 crore would be from the Indian industry. The projects cleared include ammunition for Pinaka rocket launchers, BMP combat vehicle upgrades and software-defined radios for the Army.

"The equipment to be manufactured in India involving Indian defence industry with participation of several MSMEs as prime tier vendors," said a statement from the DAC. "The indigenous content in some of these projects is up to 80% of the project cost. A large number of these projects have been made possible due to transfer of technology by DRDO to the indigenous industry. These include Pinaka ammunitions, BMP armament upgrades and software-defined radios for the Army, long-range Land Attack Cruise Missile Systems and Astra Missiles for Navy and Air Force. The cost of these design and development proposals is in the range of Rs 20,400 crore."

G Satheesh Reddy, Secretary DD R&D and Chairman of DRDO, said, "Air-to-air missile Astra, software-defined radio, Pinaka munitions and Land Attack Cruise in missile are state-of-the-art systems developed by DRDO. The armed forces and the industry will be immensely benefitted with the manufacturing of these indigenous systems."
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday held a meeting with the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi to discuss the COVID-19 situation in the national capital and its adjoining areas, located in the two neighbouring states.

Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) have seen a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, leading to the Home Minister stepping in to handle the situation and improve the health infrastructure.

Shah reviewed the COVID-19 situation in Delhi-NCR with the three chief ministers, a home ministry official said.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was also present in the meeting.

The NCR comprises districts belonging to Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The prominent ones being Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida) and Ghaziabad (both Uttar Pradesh) and Gurgaon, Faridabad (both in Haryana).

Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi -- Yogi Adityanath, Manohar Lal Khattar and Arvind Kejriwal respectively -- attended the meeting through video-conference.

The novel coronavirus has infected 89,000 people in Delhi and killed 2,803 as on Wednesday.

In Uttar Pradesh, the coronavirus tally has reached 24,056 cases and 718 deaths.

In the NCR district of Gautam Buddh Nagar, 2,362 COVID-19 cases have been detected positive and 22 people have lost their lives so far.

In Ghaziabad, so far 851 people have been infected by the coronavirus and 56 have died.

A total of 14,941 COVID-19 cases were detected in Haryana and the virus so far has claimed 240 lives in the state.

Gurgaon and Faridabad have reported 92 and 80 fatalities, respectively. The two districts put together account for over 9,300 infections.

Restrictions imposed earlier on the free movement of people between Delhi and NCR became a major issue during the coronavirus lockdown.

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister on Thursday had asked officials to stay alert on the movement of people in NCR districts to check the spread of COVID-19.

"By remaining alert in NCR districts (of UP), the spread of COVID-19 can be checked. There should be alertness on movement in these districts," a statement quoted the CM as telling senior officials during a meeting with them.

On June 18, at a meeting, the home minister had said a common strategy should be framed for Delhi and NCR to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and added that the suburbs like Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad can't be separated from the national capital in this battle.

The home minister swung into action to handle the coronavirus situation in the national capital since early last month after criticism in different quarters of the Delhi government's handling of the COVID-19 situation, with complaints of non-availability of beds in hospitals for patients and difficulty in getting the tests done in laboratories.

The home minister has been leading from the front after taking charge of Delhi's fight against the coronavirus.
The Regional Medical Research Centre in Assam's Dibrugarh has become the fourth laboratory in the country to successfully isolate SARS-CoV-2 virus that can be used for the production of a vaccine against COVID-19, state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Wednesday.

Scientists at the RMRC have isolated the COVID-19 virus in VERO-CCL81 cell line in the BSL-3 level lab available at the institute, he told reporters here.

The RMRC is the third government laboratory in the country after the NIV, Pune; and the CCMB, Hyderabad, to isolate the virus. The other facility to do so is Bharat Biotech, a private biotechnology laboratory in Hyderabad.

The scientists used an immortal cell line VERO-CCL81, derived from kidney epithelial cell lines from green African monkey, which expresses the important ACE2 receptor needed by SARS- CoV-2 for cellular entry, Sarma said quoting the researchers.

"In layman's term, the significance of the COVID-19 virus isolation by the team of scientists from the RMRC, Dibrugarh, is that live and viable SARS-CoV-2 can now be produced in the laboratory in abundance when required," he said.

This is important for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine where the virus grown in a laboratory is inactivated by heat or chemical and purified for use as vaccines after pre-clinical and clinical trials, he said.

Bharat Biotech, in collaboration with the NIV, Pune, which supplied the virus grown in tissue culture, has developed an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine (COVAXIN) which will go for Phase I and II trials starting in July.

The COVID-19 virus, which is just over six-month-old has spread across all human communities and scientists now have detected over 10 strains circulating around the world.

Originally, only two types of the virus were noted, the L-type and the S-type, but the S-type is slowly disappearing.The RMRC team also developed in April this year an in-house test (TSP-PCR) to detect the L or S type of the virus within three hours, the minister pointed out.

It was found that all strains circulating in Assam were L-type but now scientists have classified the virus into different clades (O, A1, A2a, A3, B, B1, etc) which differ from one another very minutely.

The A2a clade is now the most dominant across the world, including India", he said.The ICMR-RMRC, situated at Lahowal in Dibrugarh, has been supporting the state of Assam and other NE states in the fight against COVID-19.

Till now, the centre has provided almost 50,000 diagnostic test reports of COVID-19 for the people of this region.
A Bangladeshi national, who was apprehended by the police with some other fellow countrymen recently for violating lockdown norms, died in a government hospital in Assam's Dhubri district, police said on Thursday.

The person, identified as 57-year old Bokul Mia, was caught on May six with 25 other Bangladeshi nationals as they were attempting to move to their country during the nationwide lockdown and were lodged at the Dhubri jail since then.

Mia, who suffered from high blood pressure, complained of uneasiness and vomited, following which he was shifted to Dhubri Civil Hospital on Tuesday on advice of the jail medical officer.

He died in the hospital on Wednesday. The swab sample of the deceased was taken for COVID testing and it was found to be negative.

The deceased was a resident of Beparipara in Kurigram district of Bangladesh and arrangements are being made to hand over his body to his family there, the police said.

All 26 Bangladeshis were booked under relevant sections of the Foreigners Amendment Act 2004 and Passport Act 1967.

Police said that the Bangladeshi nationals, including the deceased, had entered India on tourist visas and worked as

fishermen in Jorhat and Sivsagar districts of Assam and had borrowed two vehicles from Jorhat with a motive to return to

their country during the nationwide lockdown.

They were stopped at Bahalpur under Chapar police station and were in judicial custody at the Dhubri jail.
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday termed India's decision to ban 59 Chinese apps amid a tense stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh a "digital strike".

"We banned Chinese apps to protect data of countrymen; it was a digital strike," Mr Prasad said at a BJP rally in West Bengal today," Prasad was quoted as saying in a Bengal BJP rally by news agency PTI.

The Law, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister added: "India is for peace, but if somebody casts an evil eye we will give a befitting reply."

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including hugely popular TikTok and UC Browser, saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.

The ban, which comes in the backdrop of current stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh with Chinese troops, also includes WeChat and Bigo Live.

The list of apps that have been banned includes Helo, Likee, Cam Scanner, Vigo Video, Mi Video Call, Xiaomi, Clash of Kings as well as e-commerce platforms Club Factory and Shein. This marks the largest sweep against the Chinese technology companies.

On Wednesday Prasad said India must develop its own apps and put an end to the dependence on such foreign apps.

"... the dependence on these foreign apps with their own agenda for a variety of reasons, must stop," the minister said adding that the ban provides a chance for Indian start-ups to leverage their innovative thinking and come up with "good" 'Made in India' apps.

Prasad, who was speaking at a conference organised by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to mark the five years of Digital India, added that it would also provide a big scope for Public-Private Partnership.

Earlier on Monday, when the decision was announced, Prasad welcomed the move and said it was taken to ensure the countrys integrity and protect data and privacy of Indians.

For safety, security, defence, sovereignty & integrity of India and to protect data & privacy of people of India the Government has banned 59 mobile apps. Jai Hind! he wrote on Twitter.
Not Chennai, not Mumbai, not Delhi. Bengaluru is the Indian metro with the fastest doubling rate now, going by the latest data from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

Of course, the overall Covid-19 numbers may be low, but cases are doubling every four days now.

Compare that with other metros: Chennai cases double every 18 days, while Delhi's every 15 days. Mumbai cases are currently doubling every 41 days. IT city Bengaluru, which boasted of less than 400 cases until May 31, is now seeing more than 4,600 active cases, and the cases are doubling every four days.

Saturday's data showed 1,913 active cases in Bengaluru, while Wednesday's data showed 4,649 cases that are currently active  a jump of more than 100 per cent (or double).

There is a sea change from the way things stood on May 31 and how they stand on June 30 on another parameter  the source of infection.

On May 31, barely 17 per cent of the Covid-19 cases in Bengaluru had no known source. All the others, 83 per cent of the cases, were traceable to either travel or to contact history with affected patients.

Today, 90 per cent of the cases have no known history or source. They are either random influenza-like-illness (ILI) cases that have cropped up and have later tested positive for Covid-19, or cases of severe acute respiratory infection that have later tested positive for Covid-19. Less than 10 per cent of the cases are ones with travel history or contacts of patients.

So what has led to this mess? How did the cookie crumble?

Experts say while Bengaluru, a city with a population of 1.3 crore people, is still among the best-performing metros when it comes to absolute numbers, that's no reason to get smug.

"If you look at number of cases, we must compare with our own previous week rather than with other cities," says eminent cardiologist Dr CN Manjunath, one of the advisors to the government. "And when you compare with our previous week, it is a matter of concern. The number of cases may be small compared with other cities, but there is definitely a sudden jump."

And now is the time to strengthen contact tracing, he says. "We have to be aggressive on contact tracing, and we need to put in more manpower also for this. Testing and contact tracing are key, and they must go hand in hand," Dr Manjunath told News18.

One plausible reason for the sudden spurt could be wilful violation of home quarantine norms. As on June 29, there were 17,000 violations of home quarantine. And this is just the tally of violators who were identified, and later acted against  either by a warning or by booking cases against them. There may be many more, of course, whose violations have gone unnoticed, who may have been silent carriers of the virus.

"The cause of the spread is because a lot of people came from other states, particularly Maharashtra. And all big working places, offices, government departments, police stations, etc, have resumed full operations, and if one person is infected then multiple contacts of his/ hers are infected directly or indirectly," Dr Manjunath points out.

This is why it is all the more important that all symptomatic patients must be tested now, and their contacts isolated, while there must be random sampling of high-risk exposures  for example, random sampling of people in slums, in supermarkets, wet markets, etc. Both these tasks have now been taken up by the government.

Epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu says Bengaluru has outperformed other metros on every parameter  in absolute number of cases, in fatalities, in large-scale testing, and most importantly, in the R0 (R-nought) factor. This factor, that indicates how many people are infected by each Covid-positive person, is also low in Bengaluru, compared with many other cities. This, in fact, is the main indicator of an epidemic spread.

He feels that the way the data has been interpreted may be flawed.

"I don't think the doubling rate is four days. For Bengaluru, it is about 15 days. What has happened in the last few weeks is, there had been many pending cases of clearance (backlog in testing). And then suddenly, all these numbers are getting announced at once. That doesn't mean cases are increasing the same way each day," Dr Babu told News18.

But the surge in cases by 500 to 600 per day for the last week remains a matter of concern. Some experts have even advised the government to increase restrictions in inter-district movement or go in for a partial lockdown, to rein in the numbers. As of now, the government has imposed a night curfew from 8 pm to 5 am, and a curfew on Sundays for the next one month, to restrict socialising.

"We would need more beds, we need to plan for this surge. During the lockdown, no city has done as well as Bengaluru did on containment. The cases that have come now are imported  whether from out of state or out of country. Now we need to prevent local transmission," Dr Babu told News18.

Once lockdown is lifted, it is natural that people will start moving around freely. So all the more reason that the contact-tracing mechanism has to improve. But it has been weakened of late, and that is worrying, he said.

Not all labs are testing at full capacity either  another aspect the government must work on, to rope in private labs more efficiently in getting quicker results.
Opposing the Centre's move to open the coal sector to private players, Coal India unions on Thursday began their three-day strike, impacting both production and supplies, even as the government urged the employees to resume work.

Five trade unions, including RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), working in Coal India Ltd (CIL) are protesting against a range of issues, including proposed hiving off of CIL arm CMPDIL and the decision to start commercial coal mining.

The unions went ahead with their strike call after their virtual meeting on Wednesday with Union Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi did not yield any result.

Unions said that on the first day of the strike, the production of coal has come to a standstill with loss of about 2 million tonnes (MT) of output.

"The despatch of coal is also adversely affected and the figure of participants in strike is above 95 per cent," S Q Zama, the secretary general of Indian National Mineworkers' Federation, affliated to INTUC, said.

The coal minister urged the employees of Coal India to end the ongoing strike and resume work.

"It is estimated that States will lose more than Rs 319 crores as part of revenues from @CoalIndiaHq. A loss of this magnitude is a national loss and I urge employees of Coal PSUs to end the ongoing strike and resume back their work," Joshi tweeted.

CIL chairman Pramod Agrawal on Thursday evening appealed to the workermen to resume their duties in the interest of the PSU, a Coal India official said, adding that the attendance of workers of CIL was around 20 per cent on the first day of strike.

Zama said the strike will continue on Friday and Saturday also, and thereafter the five central trade unions will decide on further intensifying the agitation, if decision of commercial mining was not withdrawn.

He, however, added that no untoward incident has been reported from any of the mining companies or working fields except some incidence in few mines under Eastern Coalfields Ltd.

The central trade unions operating in Coal India are HMS, BMS, AITUC, INTUC and CITU. A union led by BMS said that the first day of three-day strike was 100 per cent successful as there was no production and dispatch.

On Wednesday, talks between Coal India trade unions and the government over the issue of commercial coal mining failed.

Nathulal Pandey, president of HMS-affiliated Hind Khadan Mazdoor Federation, said the strike was started by the workers on the first shift, which begins at 6am.

He claimed that in the Jhanjra area (West Bengal) of Eastern Coalfields, five leaders of the unions, three from HMS, one each from AITUC and CITU were arrested but were released after few hours.

Workers employed in the BCCL, a Coal India arm, have not gone to work and as a result emergency services such as hospitals in the mines have been

paralysed, he said.

A notice issued by the public relations department of the BCCL said there was no impact of the strike in the first shift as all miners marked their attendance and resumed work as scheduled.

For the protection of miners, the colliery management has deployed CISF personnel in large numbers and intensified patrolling in the area to foil any attempt of trade union leaders to stop miners from joining duty, sources in the BCCL said.

According to Pandey, it is estimated that the production loss due to the three-day strike would be around 4 MT.

Besides, the general manager of the Sohagpur area (Madhya Pradesh) of SECL, a Coal India arm, has called outsiders to work in the mine which is

an "extraordinary situation" and this has never happened to Coal India, Pandey said.

Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output. According to Pandey, in Jhanjra area, production and dispatch are totally closed.

He further said that in South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL), Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL), Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) and Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL), the strike is successful.

A virtual meeting was held between Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi and representatives of trade unions on Wednesday.

"During the meeting, the minister informed the unions that commercial mining is a policy decision of central government. The minister said that this is the only way to increase the production of coal. The representatives of trade union reiterated their stand opposing commercial mining," Pandey said.

In the end, the minister did not accept the demand of unions to withdraw the decision of commercial mining. Therefore, the unions have no other remedy but to go for a three-day strike, he had said.

On Tuesday, Joshi made an appeal to trade unions not to go on strike, saying that there were no plans to either divest the PSU or hive off Coal India arm CMPDIL.

Trade unions have given a call for nationwide strike against the government's move to open the coal sector to private players and separate the

state-run firm's exploration, planning and design arm CMPDIL from the company, among other issues.
A commemorative stamp would be released soon by the Centre in honour of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao on his 100th birth anniversary, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy said on Thursday.

Reddy's request for the stamp came days after Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao said the state cabinet and legislature would pass resolutions requesting Bharat Ratna for Rao.

"As the nation remembers PV Narasimha Rao on his 100th birth anniversary, I made a request to the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad to consider issuing of postage stamps in his (PVs) honour, " he said.

Reddy, in a press release, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prasad have accepted the plea. Thanking Modi and Prasad for accepting his request,

the Minister of State for Home Affairs further said the move would be a token of respect for what the former prime minister had done for the nation.

Narasimha Rao's foresight and vision helped reboot the country's strategic and economic ties with South East Asia and with his quiet and calm disposition, the former prime minister had left an indelible mark as a great son of India and unleashed many such reforms and initiatives, the union minister said in praise of Rao.
The Director-General of UNESCO has condemned the killing of a young journalist in Uttar Pradesh last month and urged the authorities to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice to deter other criminals from "practicing gunpoint censorship."

Shubham Mani Tripathy was shot dead by two assailants while riding his motorbike back home in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh last month.

Director General Audrey Azoulay called on the authorities to bring to trial those responsible for his murder.

"I condemn the murder of Shubham Mani Tripathi," said Azoulay said.

"I call on the authorities to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice, which is essential to deter other criminals from practicing gunpoint censorship," she said.

UNESCO promotes the safety of journalists through global awareness-raising, capacity building and a range of actions, notably in the framework of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, the organisation said in a statement.

On Friday, the National Human Rights Commission issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and the state's police chief in connection with the murder of Tripathy over his purported coverage of the sand mafia, a senior official said.

According to reports, the journalist worked for Hindi daily Kampu Mail.

The Press Council of India (PCI) has also condemned the killing of the journalist and sought a report on it from the Uttar Pradesh government.

Tripathy was shot near Doodh Mandi in Unnao on June 19. He was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
New Delhi: Amidst call for resignation, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Thursday met former PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal and President Bidhya Devi Bhandari after facing sharp attacks over his comments on India.

A cabinet meeting was too held at the official residence of the prime minister in Baluwatar, where the government decided to prorogue (discontinue without dissolving) the ongoing Budget Session of the parliament.

Later, a Communist Party Standing Committee meeting was also held, which was skipped by Oli. According to sources, majority of the standing committee members want the PM to step down as party president, and "has been isolated in his party".

PM Oli had recently accused New Delhi of orchestrating efforts to topple him in an effort to put the rival faction led by co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on a back foot. PM Oli, speaking at an event, had claimed that his rivals were trying to pull the rug from under his feet because he had brought out a new political map that had upset Nepals giant neighbour. But this attempt appeared to have backfired.

At the partys 44-member standing committee meeting on Tuesday, local media reports quoted communist party leaders such as Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Madhav Nepal, Jhala Nath Khanal and Bamdev Gautam stepping up their pitch to seek his removal. They have argued that the Oli-led government had failed to deliver on basic governance issues and was blaming India to divert attention, according to a report in The Himalayan Times.
By Donald Kirk





Most people hardly need reminders of their mortality. Mere mortals know there's a time to live and a time to die, but surely a statue should insure immortality in history if not in person. Not so, as Americans are reminded in assaults on statues of people seen as bad guys, traitors, villains to be dumped onto the ash heap of history, no longer venerated as heroes in stone or bronze.Attacks on statues have a long history. Red Guards on the rampage in China in the 1960s and 1970s destroyed hundreds of reminders of people they hated. Russian mobs tore down statues of Vladimir Lenin after the demise of the Soviet Union 70 years after he had arisen in triumph as the communist regime's first leader. The statue of Saddam Hussein in a circle in Baghdad beneath a hotel where I stayed was toppled after U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003. In Afghanistan, the Taliban in 2001 blew up ancient images of Lord Buddha that were more than mere statuary. They were revered works of art, irreplaceable and irretrievable, even if the Taliban called them "idols."So it is that tomorrow, July 4, Americans commemorate the signing on July 4, 1776, of the Declaration of Independence by all 56 members of the new "continental congress" in a building now known as Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Unlike on previous July 4th holidays, protesters see the occasion as a chance to amplify their message that nothing is sacred, that the "founding fathers" were fallible, many of them slave-owners, all from the 13 original British colonies whose forebears had come to the new world from England, Scotland and Wales.You have to wonder where the idol-bashing will stop. It's understandable that statues of Robert E. Lee, the leader of Confederate troops in the Civil War, the bloodiest in American history, should no longer have places of honor in the American South, homeland of the Confederate States that rebelled against the union in defense of slavery. I always sort of wondered why Gen. Lee, having been defeated by the union army led by Ulysses S. Grant, should have been so honored or, for that matter, why major U.S. army bases in the South should bear the names of confederate army officers rather than heroes from America's foreign wars.But where does the statue-bashing stop? In Korea, protesters over the years have demanded the destruction of the statue of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a 10-foot-tall image in bronze atop an 18-foot concrete base in a park not far from where U.S. troops stormed ashore in Incheon in September 1950. It was that bold strategy that drove out the North Koreans three months after Kim Il-sung had ordered his troops to invade the South, promising victory within weeks. Police have to keep a watchful eye on the statue while activists of opposing persuasions call for tearing it down or preserving it for the ages.These days probably no statue has greater immediate meaning for Koreans than that of an innocent young girl seated demurely across from the Japanese embassy in Seoul. The Japanese would love to have it removed, just as they have demanded removal of similar statues elsewhere in Korea and also in the U.S. Those reminders of the tens of thousands of Koreans forced into servitude as "comfort women" for the Japanese in World War II are not going away as long as the Republic of Korea remains a free country, independent of Japanese colonial rule.In the U.S., "Black Lives Matter" is a slogan, a rallying cry. Protesters have demanded removal of a statue in Washington of Abraham Lincoln above a former slave newly freed from the shackles of bondage. In New York, the statue at the Museum of Natural History of Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. president who established national parks and forests, astride a horse flanked by an American Indian and a black man, was deemed deeply offensive.The iconic Washington monument on the mall in Washington, D.C. and the nearby Jefferson and Lincoln memorials survive intact, but images elsewhere of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slave owners, have been vandalized. Protesters would also like to blow up the huge heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, carved in granite on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. They say the land was stolen from Native Americans.On this July 4th, Americans appear more divided against each other than in the civil rights movement or the Vietnam War, where I was working as a correspondent. At least, however, we can celebrate the freedom that still gives us the right to protest on Independence Day.Donald Kirk ( www.donaldkirk.com ) writes from Seoul and Washington.
In what is a setback to India in the 2012 Enrica Lexie case, the Arbitral Tribunal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in its judgment has said that two Italian marines cannot be tried in an Indian court.

This has been decided based on the fact that Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone enjoy immunity as marines are state officials. But the tribunal has upheld the conduct of Indian authorities with respect to the incident under the provisions of UNCLOS, said MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava.

India had maintained that the marines had flouted India's sovereignty by moving into Exclusive Economic Zone and killing two Indian fishermen. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Anurag Srivastava said, " It held that the actions of the Italian military officers and, consequently, Italy breached Indias freedom of navigation under UNCLOS Article 87(1)(a) and 90."

India had maintained that the marines had flouted India's sovereign right by moving into Indian waters and killing two Indian fishermen. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Anurag Srivastava, on Thursday said, "It held that the actions of the Italian military officers and, consequently, Italy breached Indias freedom of navigation under UNCLOS Article 87(1)(a) and 90."

Srivastava also said the Tribunal had decided India is entitled to payment of compensation in connection with loss of life, physical harm, material damage to property and moral harm suffered by the captain and other crew members of St. Antony. The Tribunal rejected Italys claim to compensation for the detention of the marines.

Significantly, in 2012 the Italian side had stuck an agreement with the two fishermen's families for Rs 1 crore each as what they described "compensation". The court had expressed shock at some clauses of the agreement saying it amounted to "blood money". Appearing on behalf of the Italian side, Harish Salve has claimed it was not "blood money" but compensation to allow the two families to rebuild their lives.

There has been a pause in the case in the Supreme Court as Italy took the matter to the Arbitral Tribunal under UNCLOS questioning India's jurisdiction in the matter.

Meanwhile, the Tribunal took note of the commitment expressed by Italy to resume its criminal investigation into the events of February 15, 2012.

The Tribunal also held that the parties are invited to consult with each other with a view to reaching agreement on the amount of compensation due to India. The Tribunal also decided that it will retain jurisdiction should either party or both wish to apply for a ruling from the Arbitral Tribunal in respect of the quantification of compensation due to India.
The body of a septuagenarian coronavirus patient was kept inside a freezer by his family members here for at least 48 hours as "no help" came from the authorities to cremate it.

The 71-year-old man, who suffered from breathing issues, had died on Monday at his home on Raja Rammohan Roy Sarani in the central part of the city, health department sources said on Wednesday.

The doctor he had visited on Monday had asked him to undergo coronavirus tests, which he did. However, his situation deteriorated after returning home and he died in the afternoon, a family member said.

The doctor, after being informed, visited the man's apartment wearing a PPE. But he refused to issue a death certificate saying that it was a COVID-19 case and advised the family members to contact the Amherst Street police station, under which the area falls, he said.

The police directed the family to contact the local councillor. "But there too we did not receive any help and we were asked to get in touch with the state health department," he said.

"We even made several calls to the helpline given to us by a person when we called up the health department but nobody responded," another family member said.

Unable to conduct the last rites, the desperate family members contacted a number of mortuaries but they too refused to keep the body after hearing of the circumstances of the man's death.

The family members then managed to procure a freezer to preserve the body till the last rites. "We made several calls to the local councillor and the state health department but no one helped us. Calls were not answered. That's why decided to keep his body at home inside a freezer," the family member said.

The test results on Tuesday night confirmed COVID-19. "In fact even after getting the test reports we kept on calling the state health department but there was no response. On Wednesday morning, we got calls from the health department and told them everything," he said.

Within an hour, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) employees reached the apartment and took away the body for cremation, the family member said. "His body will be cremated as per the ICMR guidelines for COVID-19 deaths," a senior KMC official said.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) made its sixth arrest in connection with the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama district in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed last year.

Iqbal Rather, 25, a resident of Budgam in the Union territory, was taken into custody by NIA for facilitating the attack, an NIA statement said.

The NIA has accused Rather of helping key conspirator Muhammad Umar Farooq reach Kashmir after he allegedly infiltrated through the International Border in Jammu.

"Mohammed Iqbal Rather was part of the transportation module of Jaish e Mohammed. He facilitated movement of Muhammed Umar Farooq, the JeM terrorist and a key conspirator in the case, after he infiltrated into Indian territory in April 2018 from the national highway near international border to south Kashmir," the NIA said.

Farooq had allegedly assembled the IED that was fitted to the vehicle which bombed the convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in February 2019 killing 40 of its jawans.

The NIA said Rather was in constant touch with the Pakistani leadership of JeM and was sending them messages through secured apps.

"We had technical evidence against him which emerged during our investigation into the case. His phone and other electronic devices seized during a Jaish conspiracy case also gave evidence about his involvement in the Pulwama attack," a NIa official told CNN-News18. A Jammu court has granted NIA custody of Rather for seven days.

Rather was first arrested in September 2018 in a Jaish-related case when he was trying to help infiltrated terrorists move from the Jammu-Kathua region to south Kashmir.
New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's visit to Ladakh has been put off for the moment. Singh was to leave for Leh early on Friday morning to review operational preparedness, visit forward locations and drop in at the Leh Hospital to meet soldiers injured in the violent clashes with China in Eastern Ladakh's Galwan Valley last month.

No one is entirely clear why the trip was "rescheduled". Sources indicate India wants to wait and watch if the Chinese honour the commitment made during the Corps Commander-level talks over three rounds -- on June 6, June 22 and June 30.

"When the Defence Minister comes to meet soldiers deployed at the front, it is a huge morale booster. It's also a signal to the enemy that we are ready in case there is an escalation. We are not lowering our guard," a source said.

After the third round of meetings in Chushul on June 30, the Indian Army released a cautious statement. "Both sides have emphasised the need for an expeditious, phased and step wise de-escalation as a priority. The discussions reflected the commitment of both sides to reduce tensions along the LAC. The process of dis-engagement is complex and in such a context, speculative and unsubstantiated reports need to be avoided," it said.

The Chinese were more optimistic about the outcomes of the meeting on June 30. Global Times, the official mouth piece of the Communist regime, said, "China and India have agreed to disengage front-line border troops in batches and take effective measures to ease the situation in border areas."

Sources in South Block confirm that the Chinese have agreed to "step back" a bit from Galwan Valley, Hot Springs and Pangong Tso. There is a consensus to create some distance between Indian and Chinese troops, who are eyeball to eyeball at these flash points, and create a buffer zone to avoid any further escalation. Then why is the Army being careful with its words?

Sources in South Block said, "Last time we had issued a rather optimistic statement based on what was agreed upon by Lt Gen Harinder Singh and Maj Gen Lui Lin. And then for the next 10 days there was no movement from the Chinese side to honour their commitment. It later emerged that as the two commanders were talking, the Chinese had come into PP14 in Galwan Valley, where the bloody clash took place, and built a wall and put up tents. Now they have put up a signage in Mandarin that says 'China at Finger 4 in Pangong Tso'. They say something at meetings but go back and do nothing. We have decided we will not use the word 'dis-engage' till it actually happens on the ground."

The disengagement process will be long, tedious and in phases. After every step taken back, there will be a verification after which another step will be taken.

The Indian Army has already started stocking up for the winter for the 40,000 extra soldiers deployed in Eastern Ladakh in response to the massive Chinese build-up. Each day, more convoys with men and material are making their way up the mountains.

Most questions to Army officials these days are met with two phrases: "Let's wait and watch" and "long haul".

It has been 59 days. Singh's visit to Ladakh, as and when it happens, would be the first time a political leader would land there. The significance will not be lost on any one. Is his visit being rescheduled for the weekend or for Monday? Let's wait and watch.
The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that it has issued individual orders on a case-to-case basis for cancellation of visas and blacklisting of 2,765 foreign nationals for alleged involvement in Tablighi Jamaat activities.

As per the information available, 205 FIRs have been lodged against the foreign Tablighi Jamaat members by 11 states and 2,765 such foreigners have been blacklisted so far, the Centre said in its affidavit.

Of these, visas of 2,679 foreigners (including 9 Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders) have been cancelled, it said, adding that the remaining 86 include Nepal nationals who do not require visa.

The top court was also informed by the Centre that 1,906 Look Out Circulars (LOCs) were issued against foreign Tablighi Jamaat members and 227 left India before the issuance of LOCs/Black Listing.

It said the cancellation of e-visas has been intimated to these foreigners by e-mail, but some on regular visa could not be intimated as their e-mail ids were not available.

The foreign nationals informed the top court through their counsels that around 1,500 one-liner e-mails were sent to them with regard to cancellation of visas but there was no show cause notice for blacklisting from travel to India for 10 years.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna posted the matter for further hearing on July 10 and asked the petitioners to file a rejoinder affidavit to the Centre's reply and make appropriate representation with the competent authority with regard to deportation.

From the reply affidavit filed by the Union of India, it transpired that individual orders have been passed by the department/competent authority on case to case basis regarding blacklisting/cancellation of visa.

"Those orders according to the stand taken by the Union of India could not be served because of non-availability of details regarding whereabouts of the concerned petitioner(s)," the bench said in its order.

It said that the pendency of these writ petitions will be no impediment for the concerned petitioner(s) to make representation to the department/competent authority for deporting/sending them back to their respective countries.

"That representation may be considered by the authority on its own merits and in accordance with law," the bench said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said it has filed an affidavit stating that individual orders were passed with regard to the cancellation of visas and blacklisting of individuals on case-to-case basis.

He said the grant of visa is not an enforceable right, let alone a fundamental right, and these foreigners were not only blacklisted but there are criminal charges pending against them and will be prosecuted under Foreigners Act.

Grant of visa is a plenary sovereign function of the Centre and across the world and if they have committed an offence, these foreigners have to be tried, he said, adding that no foreign Tabligh Jamaat member has been deported till now as criminal proceedings are going on against them.

Senior advocate C U Singh, appearing for these citizens from over 35 countries said that if there was any violation of visa norms, they can be deported to their parent country.

He said that according to the Centre case-to-case orders were passed but only around 1,500 one-liner e-mails were sent to them about the visa cancellation and there was nothing about blacklisting from travel to India for ten years.

The bench told Singh that they can challenge these individual orders of the Centre before the high court as the court needs to see whether it is a well-reasoned order or a mechanical one.

Singh contended that they need to be deported as blacklisting would come into picture, if the foreign nationals try to enter India.

The bench, said that deportation would come into picture, if there are non-pendency of cases against these foreigners.

It asked the Centre to file the orders passed with regard to visa cancellation with the court and also circulate among lawyers for the petitioners.

The Centre said that as these foreign nationals are spread across the country, some of who are still to be located, the execution of the orders would take place at the port of exit.

"It is submitted that since the petitioners and other persons have been found to be breaching the conditions of the visa granted to them, committing criminal offences, etc..., the said persons are being investigated/ prosecuted as the procedure established by law," it said.

On June 29, the top court had asked the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to clarify its stand about the status of visa of these citizens from 35 countries, who were blacklisted for ten years for their alleged involvement in Tablighi Jamaat activities.

Four petitions have been filed by 34 individuals, including a Thai national who is seven months pregnant, challenging the Centre's orders of April 2 and June 4 by which 2,765 foreigners in India were blacklisted.

The petitions, filed through advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi and drafted by advocates Ibad Mushtaq and Ashima Mandla, have contended that the en-masse blacklisting of foreigners without any opportunity to defend themselves is a blatant violation of Article 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) of the Constitution.
Even as Indian and Chinese military officials work towards reaching a consensus to disengage from friction areas along the Line of Actual Control, New Delhi has taken a series of steps that form part of an economic offense against Beijing.

Within a span of 48 hours, the central government banned 59 of the largest Chinese apps in the country, including the likes of TikTok and UC browser; targeted Chinese telecom and tech giants Huawei and ZTE by cancelling 4G upgrade tenders, and barred Chinese companies from participating in Indian highway projects, including through the joint venture route.

This economic escalation, in the backdrop of a two-month-long standoff that led to a bloody fracas on June 15, is designed to send a message to Beijing that India will not hesitate to rethink a trade relationship with a country actively seeking to harm it.

The governments decisions, measured in response to a military conflict, strike at a number of Chinas leading technology companies like ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu- that are key to Chinas ambitions to expand its power.

The Indian governments policy threatens to undo the success these companies have enjoyed as they are shut out of the worlds fastest growing mobile arena.

These companies, which themselves thrived behind a China-imposed Great Firewall that kept out Americas best-known internet names, help Beijing increase its soft power, weaponise its economic and technological ability, and wage an information war in the digital age.

China had itself began putting up walls within the global internet years ago, by blocking Silicon Valley giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter. This created a controlled environment in which homegrown companies flourished, and helped the Communist Party could keep a tight grip on online conversation.

But now as Chinese tech businesses are trying to make it big overseas, the Indian governments policy threatens to undo the success these companies have enjoyed as they are shut out of the worlds fastest growing mobile arena.

TikTok, which built a huge audience in India as part of a forceful and well-funded expansion around the world, will be the most affected. The app has been installed more than 61 crore times in India, accounting for nearly a third of its worldwide user base.

The Indian governments decision will also have wider geopolitical ramifications as it comes at a time when misgivings about the Communist Party are growing in the United States and European nations.

All these steps will come with certain costs as China could hit back through economic coercion in sectors like pharmaceuticals, taking advantage of a severely unbalanced trade relationship.

The tensions have already caused a severe hit to Huawei, the Chinese smartphone and telecom equipment giant, which was cut off from US technology suppliers after accusations that it is a Trojan horse for Beijings cyberspies.

India is also now looking to bar Chinas telecommunications infrastructure for upgrade of its 4G network, and more significantly, the rollout of the 5G networks. With several other countries also signalling intent to control Chinese expansion in such critical sectors, Indias decisions could be the beginning of a trend.

Yet all these steps will come with certain costs as China could hit back through economic coercion in sectors like pharmaceuticals or other industries, taking advantage of a severely unbalanced trade relationship.

Indias trade deficit with China was roughly $57 billion last year, and the figure has only increased over the last six years. In addition, India does not matter quite as much to China as it matters to us, in trade terms.

While Chinas share in Indias import basket is 13-14 per cent, the estimated share of exports to India in Chinas entire export basket is about 3 per cent.

However, along with the decision to shut out Chinese companies, what is also significant is the relaxation of norms to encourage Indian firms  both in telecommunications and in the highway sector. Time is now ripe for India to frame a long term policy of import substitution and increasing manufacturing competitiveness.

The message to Beijing, government officials say, is clear: Aggression at the border and preferential treatment on cross-border trade, commerce and investment will not go hand-in-hand.
The UNSC has unanimously adopted its first COVID-19 resolution that demands immediate cessation of hostilities and explicitly states that it does not apply to terror groups, a vindication of India's position that terrorists do not respect ceasefires and such initiatives must be circumscribed by countries facing cross-border terrorism.

The United Nations Security Council, the 15-member powerful organ of the global body, on Wednesday unanimously adopted the first COVID-19-related resolution that backed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call for global ceasefires in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The resolution, drafted by France and Tunisia, "demands a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations on its agenda and supports the efforts undertaken by the Secretary-General and his Special Representatives and Special Envoys."

Significantly, it "affirms that this general and immediate cessation of hostilities and this humanitarian pause do not apply to military operations against the ISIS, al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with al-Qaeda or ISIS, and other terrorist groups, which have been designated by the Security Council."

Sources told PTI that this particular paragraph of the resolution "vindicates" what India has been saying all along.

The sources said that one can have a global ceasefire but "you cannot ignore the fact" that India is subject to cross-border terrorism. This is exactly why there cannot be a ceasefire against terrorism - the terrorists do not respect ceasefires, they said.

For the resolution to affirm very clearly that the general and immediate cessation of hostilities do not apply to the terror groups is a clear reflection of the recognition of what India has been saying all along on this, they said.

The sources said that this vindicates the position which India has always held that there cannot be a blanket ceasefire and a global ceasefire must be circumscribed by countries like India which are facing and fighting cross-border terrorism.

India has consistently said that terrorism has emerged as the most serious scourge of the current times and endangers international peace, security and prosperity, and has condemned cross-border terrorism.

In February during President Donald Trump's state visit to India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump in a joint statement "denounced any use of terrorist proxies and strongly condemned cross-border terrorism in all its forms."

In the joint statement, the two leaders called on Pakistan to ensure that no territory under its control is used to launch terrorist attacks, and to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of such attacks, including the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks.

They called for a concerted action against all terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, ISIS, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen, the Haqqani Network, Tehrik-e-Taliban, D-Company and all their affiliates.

Several of Pakistan-based terror groups, such as LeT and JeM, proscribed by the Security Council's Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee, have carried out dastardly terror attacks in India and are associated with other terror outfits such as al-Qaeda.

The UNSC resolution calls upon all the parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days in order to enable the safe, unhindered and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance.

It also calls for enabling provisions of related services by impartial humanitarian actors "in accordance with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, and medical evacuations and in accordance with international law, including international humanitarian law and refugee law as applicable."

Guterres welcomed the adoption of the resolution on COVID-19 and the Council's recognition of his efforts to respond to the crisis, in particular his appeal for a global ceasefire.

The Secretary General's appeal for a global ceasefire has been endorsed by nearly 180 countries, more than 20 armed groups, as well as religious leaders and millions of members of civil society.

"The adoption of this resolution will send an important signal to conflict parties and may help change calculations on the ground," a statement issued by his spokesperson said.

The Secretary-General continues to urge individual member states to redouble their efforts for peace in the conflicts in which they have influence, it added.

"He looks forward to working with all stakeholders to advance efforts towards concrete ceasefires and durable peace," the statement added.

According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the contagion has infected over 10 million people and killed more than 516,000 across the world.

The US is the worst affected country with over 2.6 million cases and more than 1,28,000 deaths.

The COVID-19, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has also battered the world economy with the International Monetary Fund saying that the global economy is bound to suffer a "severe recession".

Scientists are racing against time to find a vaccine or medicine for its treatment.
The Uttar Pradesh government launched a massive screening drive across the state on Wednesday, to curb Covid-19 cases and deaths.

The drive, which started in Meerut, is expected to reach other parts of the state soon, for the collection of data related to the novel coronavirus disease, aimed at reducing its fatality rate in UP.

Speaking at the launching of the screening, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that the state government was determined to combat all vector borne diseases along with Covid-19. He said all people residing in UP would be screened under the initiative.

The screening drive started from six major districts under Meerut division, including Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad, which are reeling from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. These also include Bulandshehar, Hapur, Baghpat and Meerut.

Designated health teams will be visiting the residents of these districts from Thursday onwards. In Meerut, the drive will last till July 12, while in other districts, it will be held from July 5 to July 15.

The Uttar Pradesh Health Department has prepared itself for the mammoth exercise by constituting about one lakh surveillance teams. Sample testing, admission and treatment in hospitals, will be the focal points of this exercise, aimed primarily at reducing Covid-19 deaths.

Testing has also seen a rise in the state, with more than 25,000 Covid-19 samples being taken daily as of now. The number of beds for Covid-19 patients has also been increased; there are now 1.55 lakh beds allocated for the purpose.

Coronavirus continues to plague the state, with 585 new Covid-19 cases being reported on Wednesday, pushing the total tally to 24,285. Twenty-one deaths were also reported, and the total fatality count now stands at 718.

Fifty-eight out of the 585 new cases were reported from Gautam Buddh Nagar, followed by the state capital Lucknow which witnessed 54 cases, and Ghaziabad's 52 new cases.
Sushant Singh Rajput's untimely demise by suicide has re-ignited the debate of nepotism, lobbying and favouritism in Bollywood on social media. Several members of the film fraternity and netizens vented out their anger on selected celebrities after reports emerged that Sushant was let down by many people in Bollywood.

The internet has been flooded with angry comments for the likes of Karan Johar, Alia Bhatt, Sonam Kapoor and Salman Khan, among others. The furore over nepotism triggered by Sushants death has also taken a heavy toll on the Instagram followings of Karan, Alia and Sonam.

Now, Saif Ali Khan, who is the son of actor Sharmila Tagore and cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, has weighed in on the debate about nepotism in the film industry.

Reacting to the nepotism row and Kangana Ranauts strong remarks against its practice in the industry, he said, I have no idea what Kangana was saying on Koffee with Karan because I dont think like that. As far as Karan is concerned, he has made himself a large symbol and it seems like hes attracting a lot of flak for it. The truth is always complicated. Theres much more to it but people arent interested in that. I hope the tide is over and better things shine through.

There is inequality in India that needs to be explored. Nepotism, favoritism and camps are different subjects. Even I have been a victim of nepotism but nobody speaks of that. Im happy to see more people from film institutes come to the forefront," Saif was quoted as saying by The New Indian Express.

Saif also talked about his experience of working with the late Sushant Singh Rajput in Dil Bechara thats coming out on July 24 on Disney+ Hotstar.

He was a talented actor and a good-looking guy. I thought he had a bright future. He was polite to me and appreciated my guest appearance in the film. He wanted to talk about many topics like astronomy and philosophy. I got the feeling he was brighter than I was.
On June 25, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary Ram Madhav said the talks between the Centre and Naga political groups were in an advanced stage. We are engaged in serious talk... we want an honourable solution within our Constitution, he said, addressing a virtual rally organised by the Nagaland unit of the BJP to mark one year of the Narendra Modi governments second term.

The next day, a letter written by Nagaland governor RN Ravi indicting the Neiphiu Rio government found its way to the media. Without naming any militant organisation, the governor claimed that armed gangs were brazenly running their own governments in the northeastern state challenging the legitimacy of its elected authority and creating a "crisis of confidence" in the system.

In such a backdrop I can no longer abstain from my constitutional obligations for law and order in the State under Article 371A (1)(b) of the Constitution of India, read the letter dated June 16. Article 371A (1)(b) confers special responsibility on the Nagaland governor with respect to law and order.

These two were separate developments, yet they may be seen in the context of the Naga peace process, which has been hanging fire for the past eight months. Ravi was the Centres interlocutor for Naga talks before he took charge as Nagaland governor last August.

In August 2015, rebel group National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM) had signed a framework agreement with the Modi government, after 22 years of ceasefire. Subsequently, Ravi, a former special director of the Intelligence Bureau, was appointed interlocutor by the Centre. He held a series of discussions with the NSCN-IM, but the final settlement remains elusive as the rebel group was believed to have hardened its stand on a pan-Naga identity, a separate flag and a constitution in the last meeting held in October 2019. The 2015 framework agreement acknowledged the unique history of the Nagas, but remained silent on the NSCN-IM)s demand for a Greater Nagalim or integration of all Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh with Nagaland.

NSCN-IM hits back

In his letter addressed to CM Rio, Ravi claimed the state government was under duress to give regular ransom to the armed gangs, and the latter keep the people in towns and its neighbourhood terrorised. Brazen display of firepower by the rival gangs for turf control drives the people to panic, the letter said without naming any organisation. That the various militant outfits, known as UGs in local parlance, run parallel administrations in the state is an open secret in Nagaland. A large number of people, including government employees, traders and businesses have to pay tax to these outfits. While political parties are aware of this fact, they appear to be helpless in putting an end to this practice.

Neither Rio's Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), a BJP ally, nor the opposition Naga Peoples Front (NPF) has made any comment on this matter. The state unit of the Congress on Sunday said, governor RN Ravi has correctly assessed the law and order situation in the state.

Rejecting the governors extortion charge, the NSCN-IM said it levied legitimate taxes on people. Taxes have been the source of sustenance that has brought the Naga political movement this far...legitimately acknowledged by earlier Interlocutors and Indian authorities... the outfit said in a statement to media.

Another setback for Naga peace process?

Whether the governors action would bring any visible change in the situation is to yet be seen, but it could further complicate the already-fragile peace negotiation with the militant outfit. The last meeting held between the Centre and Naga representatives on October 24, 2019, remained inclusive after the government shot down the NSCN-IMs demand for a separate flag and a Constitution.

Adding to the complexity of the issue, the Centre has been talking to six more rebel organisations, called the Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs), for the past few years, in order to reach a comprehensive deal. Experts believe that the government wants to avoid past mistakes, like in the case of 1975 Shillong Accord, when the agreements reached by some senior leaders of the Naga National Council (NNC) was rejected by another faction, which later formed the NSCN, says Rajeev Bhattacharyya, author of Rendezvous with Rebels.

With the initial euphoria surrounding the proposed Naga peace accord slowly fading, the BJP-led central government should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, and instead think out of the box to find a solution which is acceptable to all Naga groups. There are already signs of despair in the Naga hills and people are apprehensive about the Centres intention with regards to the Naga political issue. The government would do well to recognise the fact that Nagaland is not Jammu and Kashmir although both are disturbed areas, and it must avoid the temptation of replicating the J&K model in the northeastern state.

(The writer is a senior journalist and author based in Delhi. Views expressed are personal.)
By Tom Plate





I wouldn't mind being 20-something again. That was about the only time in my life that I considered myself blunder-immune, and  as best as I can recall  the only time I felt sure I knew just about everything I'd ever need to know. Oh, were they the good old days!



Sometimes at 20-something, you do get things right. Consider the U.S. invasion of Vietnam, for example. The truth was, President Lyndon Johnson made a terrible mistake.



At 20 or so, I wrote the first scorching anti-war editorial in my college newspaper. My political science professor, making fun of my bid for immortality, termed the editorial immature and naive. But on that one (and only that one) the kid was right, and the professor was wrong.



The risk with permitting "young adults" to decide important turns in our political and economic lives is that they may be right on some things, but they can't be right on everything  and maybe not even on most.



If they were, we could throw out the need for much of their costly higher education and ignore the findings of scientists who say that the brain does not reach processing maturity as quickly as young people think. So what are the odds they will get the big ones right?



Examples? Surely, we can all agree that the Chinese kids who power-punched the Cultural Revolution to paroxysms of insanity were not exactly mature decision-makers. And, surely, every candid reader provides an example, from their own household life, of judgments by the younger set they would wish never to become general public policy.



Also, have you noticed that people do not necessarily get more stupid as they get older? Whether for the music composer or accomplished chef, it is fair to say that most types of craft take time to marinate.



Yes, the opera "Apollo et Hyacinthus" was put together when the composer was 11, but Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was, well, Mozart. Genius, which is of course rare by definition, is no function of age.



The immortal greats of Western philosophy were no spring chickens when their best thinking hatched. Thomas Hobbes was a sprightly 63 when his monumental "Leviathan" was published. Fiendishly clever Niccolo Machiavelli had not put it all together in "The Prince" until he was 44.



And Harvard's John Rawls was 50 when "A Theory of Justice" was published  and he kept revising his thoughts to get them as close to right as he possibly could for almost as long as he lived.



Proper political rule  whether in theorization or practice  is not easy. A youthful age is no barrier to intelligence or even original insight, but it can be a substantial impediment to mature judgment.



Let's get down to a pressing example. The "elders" of Beijing have decided that eruptive Hong Kong cannot govern itself as planned and propose to intervene with "federal" legislation  a national security law passed by the National People's Congress Standing Committee.



This empowers the central government to decide whether someone in the special administrative region of the People's Republic of China needs to be extracted from civilian life and transferred to the mainland's judicial system.



Objections to the basic idea have been many and fierce  whether from crusty law professors to the greenest of the young crusaders. These 20-somethings deserve credit (says the West) for keeping the torch of democracy aflame; or deserve punishment (says Beijing) for roiling the placidity of the polity.



From a purely theoretical standpoint, the young crusaders and their older allies presumably hail more or less from the Rawls camp. Beijing and its allies pitch their tent with Hobbes, of course.



As for the local camp, the administration of Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, it would have been helpful if it had possessed the behind-the-scenes political chops of a Machiavelli, so as to stay a few steps ahead of both sides, rather than a mile behind.



The two camps cannot be definitively bifurcated by age, to be sure; old as well as young populate both. But the spirit of each is mutually incompatible.



And both the huffy-stuffy British (gearing up only at the tail end of 156 years of colonization as evangelical democracy missionaries) and holier-than-thou Americans have done little to inspire the hope of effective redemptive intervention.



Their bloviations have only served to steel the Xi Jinping administration in its jackhammer reversion to the option of a national security law.



And so Mother China has opted not to spare the rod on the spoiled children. Sucking the untamable spirit out of Hong Kong is, however, a risky business. Think about it: Do we want Hong Kong to be no different from other similar-sized mainland cities? Is homogenization the only way to press down on Hong Kong's perturbations?



I think I know the answer, but at the same time it's clearer than the waters of Victoria Harbour that Hong Kong's crusaders were not ready for the enormity of the mission on which they set forth.



But be not ashamed, crusaders: Revert to a studious humility; stand down and avoid jail; give yourself time and space to grow up. Live to quarrel with Beijing another time. Martyrdom won't do anything for Hong Kong; but maturity and patience just might.





Tom Plate, a distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific affairs at Loyola Marymount University, is the author of "Yo-Yo Diplomacy" and the Giants of Asia book series, and vice-president of the Pacific Century Institute. His article was distributed by the South China Morning Post. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.




Punjab minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu on Thursday slammed actor Anupam Kher, accusing him of using sacred words of Sikh Guru Gobind Singh to describe BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra.

Kher had tweeted Sawa lakh se ek bhida dun while tagging Patra.

His tweet came after Patra was being trolled on social media for posting a picture of a three-year-old boy sitting on the body of his grandfather who was killed in Jammu and Kashmir's Sopore on Wednesday.

In a statement here, Punjab cabinet minister Sukhjinder Randhawa accused Kher of using the holy 'shabad' of Guru Gobind Singh "merely to please his political master Sambit Patra.

He also charged Kher with hurting sentiments of the Sikh community under a well thought conspiracy and said Sikhs will never tolerate it.

Randhawa also asked the Shiromani Akali Dal to make their stand clear on the Kher's tweet besides demanding the intervention of the Akal Takht Jathedar.

This tweet of @AnupamPKher is highly derogatory, most condemnable. Sikhs r deeply hurt @Akali_Dal_@officeofssbadal @HarsimratBadal_ @bsmajithia should make their stand clear I demand sacking of kher, his wife from BJP Request intervention of Jathedaar Sri Akal Takht sahib, Randhawa tweeted.

Taking strong exception to the Kher's tweet, Ludhiana Congress MP Bittu said in his tweet, How dare @AnupamPKher use sacred words of Guru Gobind Singh ji to describe the spokesperson of BJP. It spoils the martial image of Sikhs.

Bittu further termed it a bid by the RSS to dilute strong tenets of Sikhism. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should tender an immediate apology and kick out Kher and his wife from the BJP.

Congress MLA Amrinder Singh Raja Warring also sought action against Kher. He asked who gave Kher the right to distort Gurbani while saying it was not a dialogue of his film.

@PunjabPoliceInd & @MumbaiPolice this man is playing with religious sentiments of Sikh's. Kindly take immediate & appropriate action against him, Warring tweeted.

However, the actor, whose wife Kirron Kher is a BJP MP from Chandigarh, later sought an apology for his tweet.

Activists of the Youth Congress here held a protest against Kher for allegedly hurting sentiments of Sikhs.
The Congress on Thursday questioned the government over the hurry it has shown in inviting private players in passenger train operations, asking why one of the top employers in the world is doing so in the middle of a pandemic.

Party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the government could have waited for a nod by Parliament by way of a law or resolution before taking the step.

"Why this mad rushing hurry? Could you not have waited to at least convene Parliament? You should pass a parliamentary law," he said during a virtual press conference. "If you cannot pass a law, at least you can pass a resolution of Parliament. If you don't want to call it a resolution, at least you can have a discussion in Parliament."

The Congress leader asked why the government has decided to go for privatisation of railway lines in the middle of coronavirus pandemic. "What is this mysterious mad hurry, what is the reason behind it," he asked.

The Left parties also opposed the Railways' decision, saying the move not only undermined the basis of India's self-reliant economy but was anti-people and should be cancelled.

In a statement titled, "Privatisation of Railways would mean self-subservience, not self-reliance", the CPI(M) said, "The private sector utilising the network established over centuries with all the required infrastructure will run passenger trains making super profits. The Indian Railways remains the most important network uniting our country and providing public transportation for crores of our people. The livelihood of crores of our people are dependent on the railways. Such privatisation undermines the basis of India's self-reliant economy."

It said contrary to the claim that the move will boost job generation, past experiences in other countries have shown that such privatisation results in huge job losses and creates insecurity among crores of employees.

"The Central Government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi refuse to learn from international experience of how such privatisation of public transport has imposed unprecedented difficulties and burdens on the people. The Indian Railways is a public service. It is not a profit-generating enterprise. This character cannot be undermined," it said.

The party also criticised the move, saying the RFQ has been floated at a time when it is exposed how globally, as well as in the country, "reckless" privatisation of health facilities have hampered the fight against the coronavirus.

CPI, in a separate statement, alleged that the government is determined to hand over all the national assets and resources to the private corporates.

Congress slams Centre

Singhvi said the Indian Railways transported roughly 2.5 crore passengers per day, which was equal to Australia's population, and 7,500 crore people a year, besides a massive cargo movement. He said it is the second largest single network in Asia and the world's seventh largest employer, after entities like the Department of Defence of the US, Pentagon.

"With this step, are you decimating and destroying value for India, for the nation, for India's 'Shaan, Baan, Aan' by minimizing value," he said.

The Congress leader said common sense tells that the best time to get bids for individual lines is not in the middle of the pandemic. He alleged that the government is "squandering state largesse and throwing away valuable Indian resources by picking a time of this kind".
DK Shivakumar on Thursday officially took charge as president of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee after over three months since he was appointed to the post.

Called "Pratijna Dina", the function to mark the official take-over of Shivakumar as president, along with Eshwar Khandre, Salim Ahmed and Satish Jarkiholi as working presidents of KPCC, is said to have been digitally witnessed by lakhs of people from over 15,000 places.

Following the restrictions in place to control the spread of coronavirus, the ceremony was organised at the party's new office building.

Aimed at mobilising the party leaders and cadre, arrangements were made at panchayat and ward-level across the state to see to that they are part of the function through live telecast on TV channels, Zoom, YouTube and social media.

The official take-over saw immediate past president Dinesh Gundu Rao handing over the Congress flag to Shivakumar, and this was followed by party workers across locations, who were digitally watching the function, taking oath and reading the preamble of the Constitution.

The ceremony was held on Thursday after it was postponed thrice due to COVID-19 related restrictions in place.

The Congress high command had on March 11 appointed Shivakumar, a six-time MLA, known to be the Congress's chief troubleshooter in crisis situations, replacing Dinesh Gundu Rao as the KPCC chief.

Rao had quit the post in December after the party's dismal show of winning only two of the 15 seats in the bypolls.

A written message by AICC president Sonia Gandhi was read out by party general secretary KC Venugopal in which she appreciated the judicious use of technology to mobilise the workers and leaders.

Former Congress national president Rahul Gandhi telephoned Shivakumar and asked him to work for the party's success by taking everyone together.

Venugopal, Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah, senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge, former state Congress presidents, former and present party legislators and MPs, Congress leaders from neighbouring states were among others who attended the function, virtually.

Addressing the partymen, Shivakumar, vowing to convert Congress in Karnataka as a cadre-based party, said he was just a party worker and believes in collective leadership.

"Joining together is the beginning, thinking together is progress, working together is success," he said, while remembering that he was being written off during his arrest in a money laundering case, but Sonia Gandhi picked him for the post and even came to prison and spent time with him.

Stating that Congress should come to power again on its own in the state, Shivakumar spoke about implementing the Kerala model.

"There's the Kerala model. All big leaders there must represent their booth. We have to follow the Kerala model...," he said.

It was not an easy path for the Vokkaliga strong man to become the KPCC president, as there was opposition from within. He continues to have a tough task ahead in taking together the faction-ridden party.

There were reports of Siddarmaiah being in favour of one of his confidantes to be made state president.

According to many party insiders, he is said to be the man behind the idea of three working presidents seen as a move to loosen Shivakumar's grip on the party.

Several other leaders had also opposed Shivakumar's name, citing his recent arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case.

However, Shivakumar's loyalty, roles that he has played in the party's interest during troubled times, worked in his favour.

Many feel his appointment would help in consolidating the party in southern parts of the state, where Vokkaligas are in large number.

Considered as Congress's man Friday, Shivakumar had hosted party legislators from Gujarat here in 2017 to ensure the victory of AICC leader Ahmed Patel in the Rajya Sabha elections.

He was a key link in the Congress-JDS coalition and had made hectic attempts to prevent the collapse of the H D Kumaraswamy-led government last year after a section of the then ruling MLAs revolted.

Speaking at the take-over function, Siddaramaiah said, "Our aim is to remove BJP and bring Congress to power once again to save the country."

He lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of lying and betraying the people. He hit out at the government for its handling of COVID crisis and economy.
Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath has sent legal notices to two senior BJP leaders for making "false and defamatory" allegations that he favoured Chinese firms by reducing import duty when he was a Union minister, his counsel said on Wednesday.

Nath, through his lawyer Varun Tankha, has sent notices to BJP national vice-president Prabhat Jha and the ruling party's state president, V D Sharma, on June 30.

Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president Kamal Nath has sent legal notices to BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha and MP state president V D Sharma for accusations of favouring Chinese firms," Tankha said.

The notices drew the attention of "defamatory" statements issued by both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders against Nath which were widely circulated in various newspapers and also in the electronic media on June 26-27, he said.

Nath sent the legal notices to the two BJP leaders on June 30, he said.

Tankha said "no public record supports any part of these false allegations. Decisions Nath took during his tenure as Union Minister for Commerce and Industry from 2004 to 2009 were as per the norms."

During Nath's tenure as Union minister, anti-dumping duty against Chinese companies was higher which goes to suggest he never favoured any Chinese firm or for that matter entity of any country, he said.

It is a general practice in the Union government that any increase or decrease in tariffs is a concerted effort taken after Cabinet approval and much scrutiny, he said.

The BJP leaders made baseless allegations about the Chinese firms transferring illegal amounts to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Tankha said.

The accusations of Sharma that Nath took money for development works in Chhindwara, the latter's home district, is also baseless, he said.

Tankha said "no public record supports any part of these false allegations."

The notices said "the statements (of the two BJP leaders) are purely an offence mechanism to protect your partys (BJP) politically reducing turf in the wake of upcoming by-elections of 24 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh."

The notices seek reply from Jha and Sharma within seven days of their receipt failing which Nath will be constrained to initiate appropriate legal action, Tankha said.
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday expanded his cabinet as 28 new ministers took oath at the Raj Bhavan. Among them were a dozen of Jyotiraditya Scindia's loyalists, while several senior BJP leaders were snubbed.

This is perhaps the first such cabinet in Madhya Pradesh where 12 non-MLAs are included as ministers. All of them are former Congressmen mostly from Scindia camp, who have been obliged with the ministerial berths.

The acting governor Anandiben Patel administered oath of office and secrecy to the newly-inducted ministers at a simple function. A total of 20 cabinet ministers and eight ministers of state were included.

With 16 assembly by-polls being due in Gwalior-Chambal region, most of the new faces came from the region as CM Chouhan packed his cabinet with 28 ministers leaving a single ministerial berth vacant so as to strike a balance in caste, region and all-important Scindia camp. In all, the state is to witness 24 assembly by-polls and the cabinet expansion had imprints of approaching crucial electoral battle.

Prominent faces from the Scindia camp include Imarti Devi, Pradyumn Singh Tomar, Prabhuram Chaudhary, Rajyavardhan Singh Dattigaon, Mahendra Singh Sosidia, OPS Bhadauria.

Key tribal leaders to get cabinet berths are Vijay Shah, Ram Kishore Kawre and Bisahulal Singh.

Former Leader of Opposition Gopal Bhargav, who had openly expressed resentment amid talks of being side-lined from the cabinet, eventually got a berth in the cabinet. However, his former cabinet colleagues including Rajendra Shukla, Rampal Singh, Gaurishankar Bisen, Ajay Vinshnoi, Mahednra Hardiya and others could not find a place in the cabinet.

As a surprise, Usha Tahkur, a senior MLA from Indore, was inducted into the cabinet. Her induction evoked surprise as Thakur has been an adversary to BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya whose cordial relations with the party high command are no secret.

Name of Vijayvargiyas close aide Ramesh Mendola was in the hunt for a ministerial berth.

Arvind Singh Bhadauria, a senior MLA from BJP who represents Ater seat in Bhind, also was rewarded with a ministerial berth for his active role in staging a rebellion in Kamal Nath government.

Sources claimed that party high command dropped several names from the original list handed by party state unit. Rajya Sabha MP Jyotiraditya Scindia reportedly was adamant on ministerial berths for his loyalists and eventually managed to get his demand fulfilled by getting a dozen of his followers included in the cabinet.

Former ministers  Rampal Singh and Gaurishankar Bisen  could not hide their disappointment of not being considered for cabinet berths saying they were deprived from ministerial berths due to Scindia camp leaders. They, however, claimed that they accept the decision of the party high command with respect.

Congress was quick to attack BJP for the choice of ministers.

I am pained to not see eligible, senior and committed BJP leaders among ministers, former Chief Minister Kamal Nath said in a tweet. In another tweet, Nath pointed out that 14 out of 33 ministers arent MLA in this cabinet. "Its a mockery of constitutional provisions and a joke with the public," he added.

The state assembly with 230 seats allows any government to have at the most 35 ministers with the expansion of cabinet, now only a single ministerial berth is vacant in Shivraj cabinet.

Congress party also took potshots on CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan for his loyalists being ignored and several of his adversaries finding berths in the cabinet.
With a dozen of his supporters and loyalists finding a place in Madhya Pradesh's Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet on Thursday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jyotiraditya Scindia took a dig at his former party Congress with the quip "Tiger abhi zinda hai".

The one-liner was famously used by Chouhan himself when he had cautioned the-then Kamal Nath government over alleged atrocities against BJP workers, months ago.

Following a recent win in Rajya Sabha polls and induction of nine of his followers and three supporters in the cabinet, Scindia took aim at leaders from his former party who had been targeting him after he switched sides.

Two Scindia supporters Tulsiram Silawat and Govind Singh Rajput were in the state cabinet already.

We are to witness 24 assembly bypolls and the public will offer a fitting reply to the government of the corrupts. To walk on the path of justice is everyones duty and even if a battle is required for this, you will find Jyotiraditya Scindia in the first row, said a confident-looking Scindia after the cabinet reshuffle.

In the last two months, I have been seeing concerted attempts of character assassination and I wish to say to them (Congress) that Tiger abhi zinda hai, said the Scindia family scion, who is on the Congress partys radar after deserting it and helping the BJP form the government in Madhya Pradesh.

Every poll is a challenge but the public is aware. The 15-month government engaged in all sorts of corruption and promises were broken. While the Shivraj government always engages in serving the public. I am confident that the BJP will win all the 24 seats and the public will offer a befitting reply to the corrupt government.

Describing the cabinet expansion, Scindia called it an "expansion of public servants" and added that CM Chouhan has formed an army of public servants.

Out of the 33 ministers in Shivraj Chouhan's cabinet, 11 are staunch Scindia loyalists, while three others Bisahulal Singh, Hardeep Singh Dang and Aidal Singh Kansana had left the Congress with him in March.

Going by this, Scindia has grown in strength after switching to the BJP as only half a dozen of his supporters were ministers in Kamal Nath's cabinet.

Amid talks of discord in his party over the cabinet expansion, Chouhan after the oath-taking ceremony suggested all was well. Its a cabinet of a single party, single heart and single aim of development and growth of Madhya Pradesh, he said. On being asked about his old colleagues missing ministerial berths, Chouhan said, "Responsibilities keep changing and if there is some issue, we will take care of that."

Chouhan loyalists including Rajendra Shukla, Rampal Singh, Rameshwar Sharma and others failed to make the cut when the cabinet expanded with 28 new ministers.

Sanjay Pathak, who had switched from the Congress to the BJP, also missed the ministerial berth despite the fact he was allegedly pressured to ditch the BJP amid political trouble in MP but he stood his ground.

Independent legislators like Thakur Surendra Singh Shera and Pradip Jaiswal too were ignored despite expressing solidarity with the BJP after the fall of the Kamal Nath government.

BSP leader Rambai Singh, her party colleague Sanjeev Kushwaha, and former SP MLA Rajesh Shukla who is now expelled from the party for supporting the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls too had no place in the cabinet.

This government came to power with the support of those who shunned memberships to assembly and ministerial posts and it was obvious that they were to be appointed as ministers. Besides, it was our duty to embrace them with respect, Sanjay Pathak told News18. Other leaders like Gaurishankar Bisen and Rampal Singh too made remarks accepting that the Scindia camp reserved first right on ministerial berths.

There were others who could not hide their disappointment.

Former minister Harishankar Khatik who wasnt picked this time said, The organisation has swollen due to the arrival of Congress leaders, so appointing everyone as minister wasnt possible. Whoever was eligible was given berth in cabinet; by the way, we too were eligible.

Supporters of BJP MLA from Indore Ramesh Mendola expressed anguish over his exclusion from the cabinet on and off social media. One of his supporters, Sumit Hardiya, allegedly even tried immolating himself on Thursday afternoon and was saved by party workers.

Three-time MLA Mendola holds the record of the biggest win in assembly polls and is a staunch loyalist of BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.

The Congress also took a dig at the BJP for ignoring its own senior leaders and instead reposing faith in those who had jumped ship. Due to a crowd of opportunists, leaders like Rajendra Shukla, Sanjay Pathak, Paras Jain, Gaurishankar Bisen, Rampal Singh, Jalam Singh and others are sidelined. Easy to understand that when Jaichands (turncoats) enter a party, committed party workers are shelved, Congress media cell chairman Jitu Patwari said.

Besides offering a chance to Congress rebels, Shivraj Chouhan's cabinet also included nine new faces apart from expressing faith in seven former ministers.
TikTok has refuted reports that suggested that the company was looking to contest the ban on 59 Chinese apps as imposed by the government of India. Instead, a company spokesperson has confirmed that TikTok now aims to work with government suggestions and directives, with regards to data protection and security. This falls in line with yesterdays statement by TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer, who claimed that TikTok is compliant with all rules and regulations put forth by the Indian government.

TikToks latest statement on the matter says, There have been statements in the press concerning the possibility that TikTok might pursue legal action regarding the directive by the Government of India. We have no plans to pursue such action. We are committed to working with the government to address its concerns. We comply with the laws and regulations of the Government of India. Ensuring the data sovereignty, security and privacy of our users has always been and will continue to be a top priority for us.

TikTok was one of the 59 apps that were recently banned by the government of India, citing issues regarding data protection. Owned by Chinese conglomerate Bytedance, TikTok, along with apps such as Helo, Bigo Live, Vigo Video and Likee, were suspended from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store in India for the time being. TikTok is now believed to be meeting with government officials soon in a bid to convince them of the app meeting all privacy and safety guidelines.

However, India is hardly the first nation to raise concerns regarding data-related practices of apps that have their servers in China. The likes of USA and the European Union have repeatedly raised concerns regarding Chinese state-backed cyber espionage, and has put the scanner on multiple services based in China. Some of the most prominent names who have faced backlash so far include Huawei, the Bytedance group, and of late, Xiaomi.

Recently, TikTok also faced allegations for reading user clipboards, which it claimed to have done in the name of preventing spammers.
A landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar killed at least 126 people, with more feared dead, authorities said on Thursday, after a heap of mining waste collapsed into a lake, triggering a wave of mud and water that buried many workers.

The miners were collecting stones in the jade-rich Hpakant area of Kachin state when the "muddy wave" crashed onto them, after heavy rain, the fire service department said in a Facebook post.

Rescue workers recovered 126 bodies, the department said, but more were missing.

Other bodies are in the mud, Tar Lin Maung, a local official with the information ministry, told Reuters by phone, The numbers are going to rise.

Deadly landslides and other accidents are common in the poorly regulated mines of Hpakant, which draw impoverished workers from across Myanmar, but this is the worst in more than five years.

About 100 people were killed in a collapse in 2015, which strengthened calls to regulate the industry.

Media have reported scores of people killed in the area in recent years, many of them freelance "jade pickers" who scour tailings - the residue from mining - for stones that have been missed by larger operators.

Video footage on social media showed frantic miners racing uphill to escape as a towering pile of black waste cascaded into a turquoise lake, churning up a tsunami-like wave of mud.

Photos showed rows of dead bodies laid out on a hill, covered by tarpaulin.

Maung Khaing, a 38-year-old miner from the area who witnessed the accident, said he was about to take a picture of the precarious waste mound that looked set to collapse when people began shouting "run, run!".

Within a minute, all the people at the bottom (of the hill) just disappeared, he told Reuters by phone. I feel empty in my heart. I still have goose bumps ... There were people stuck in the mud shouting for help but no one could help them.

Than Hlaing, a member of a local civil society group helping in the aftermath of the disaster, said those killed on Thursday were freelancers scavenging the waste left by a larger mining company. She said about 100 people were still missing and 30 had been hospitalized.

The government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi pledged to clean up the industry when it took power in 2016, but activists say little has changed.

Official sales of jade in Myanmar were worth 671 million euros ($750 million) in 2016-17, according to data published by the government as part of an Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

But experts believe the true value of the industry, which mainly exports to China, is much larger.

Than Hlaing said a local official had warned people not to go to the mine on Thursday because of the bad weather.

Theres no hope for the families to get compensation as they were freelance miners, she said, I dont see any route to escape this kind of cycle. People take risks, go into landfills, as they have no choice.
No exports to Bangladesh via the Petrapole border took place on Thursday due to an ongoing agitation by Bangladeshi traders and their workers, demanding that India allow imports from the neighbouring country.

The agitators, who began their stir on Wednesday blocking the entry of Indian trucks for several hours, claimed that the border will remain sealed until India allows import.

"Today, there was nil export from India via Petrapole," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Chairman (East) Sushil Patwari said and sought the intervention of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee into the matter.

Some trucks with perishable goods diverted their cargo to Gojadanga, a smaller land port in the North 24 Parganas.

"We have not allowed any truck to enter Benapole. This will continue until India resumes import of our goods," Benapole C&F Agents Staff Association secretary Sajidur Rehman said.

Benapole is the place across the border from Petrapole.

"Our exporters and a lot of workers associated with exports are suffering due to delay from the Indian side to allow shipments from us," Rehman said.

West Bengal-based exporters have already sought Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's intervention into the matter.

"Indian manufacturers, including MSMEs, are running short of essential supplies and raw materials as imports are not allowed. Since Bangladesh has allowed entry of Indian goods, it is required to import their cargo to keep the trade balance moving," Patwari said in a letter to the chief minister.
Democratic presidential candidate and former US vice president Joe Biden has said that he will lift the temporary suspension on H-1B visas, the most sought-after by Indian IT professionals, if he wins the November presidential elections.

On June 23, in a huge blow to Indian IT professionals eyeing the US job market, the Trump administration suspended the H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas until the end of 2020 to protect American workers in a crucial election year.

Biden, in a digital town hall meeting on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) issues organised by NBC News, praised the contribution of H-1B visa holders.

He (US President Donald Trump) just ended H-1B visas the rest of this year. That will not be in my administration, Biden, 77, said responding to a question during the town hall. He was referring to the temporary suspension of the H-1B visas and other foreign work visas by Trump for the rest of the year.

The people on the company visa have built this country, Biden said when asked what his administration will do in the first 100 days of his presidency.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

On day one, I'm going to send the legislative immigration reform bill to Congress to provide a roadmap to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants who contribute so much to this country, including 1.7 million from the AAPI community.

My immigration policy is built around keeping families together, modernising an immigration system by keeping families, unification and diversity as pillars of our immigration system, which it used to be, Biden said.

He alleged that Trump's immigration policies are cruel and humane. Biden said that he will take immediate action to protect dreamers, including more than 100,000 eligible dreamers from East and South Asia.

The former vice president also said that he will rescind Muslim travel ban and immediately restore refugee admission in line with the values and historic leadership of the United States.

Biden also told town hall participants that he will make it easier for qualified Green Card holders to move through this backlog.

Trump, in April, gave an executive order to suspend green cards for 90 days. In June, he issued a proclamation which extended the suspension till December 31, 2020.

The US every year allocates only 1,40,000 green cards for all employment-preference immigrants, including accompanying family members.

Currently, there is a backlog of almost 10 lakh foreign nationals and accompanying family members lawfully residing in the United States. These applicants have been approved but are yet to receive employment green cards.

In his policy paper on immigration, Biden says that his high skilled temporary visas should not be used to disincentive recruiting workers already in the US for in-demand occupations.

An immigration system that crowds out high-skilled workers in favour of only entry level wages and skills threatens American innovation and competitiveness, the policy paper said.

Biden will work with Congress to first reform temporary visas to establish a wage-based allocation process and establish enforcement mechanisms to ensure they are aligned with the labour market and not used to undermine wages, it said.

Then, Biden will support expanding the number of high-skilled visas and eliminating the limits on employment-based visas by country, which create unacceptably long backlogs, it added.

The immigration policy paper also talks about increasing the number of visas offered for permanent, work-based immigration based on macroeconomic conditions. Currently, the number of employment-based visas or Green Card is capped at 140,000 each year, without the ability to be responsive to the state of the labour market or demands from domestic employers, it said.


By Michael Reagan





There was even more yelling and screaming than usual in Washington last week.



I'm not talking about the "peaceful" demonstrators in Lafayette Park, who were putting ropes and chains on the statue of Andrew Jackson and trying to pull it down.



I'm talking about in Congress, where there's always a lot brave yelling and screaming about "We gotta' do something about this" and "We gotta' solve that."



Last week it was the police reform bill proposed by Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Called the "Justice Act," it included incentives for police departments to ban things like chokeholds and no-knock raids, plus grants for body cams and a commission to study the social status of black men and boys.



Everyone  especially the Democrats  has been clamoring for police reform for a month in the wake of the George Floyd killing by police in Minneapolis.



Scott's proposal, designed as a first draft subject to bipartisan debate, went nowhere. Though Democrats and Republicans agreed on probably 75 percent of its content, Democrats in the Senate wanted much more, so they killed the Justice Act in its cradle.



You can understand why ordinary Americans are so frustrated by the people in D.C. They posture. They bloviate. They sling all this BS  and then do nothing till after the next election.



Meanwhile, across the country young demonstrators continue to use Floyd's death and what they claim is systemic racism by police as excuses to riot and mindlessly tear down or threaten the statues of American heroes like Abraham Lincoln.



Dozens of cities  all run by Democrats and many with black mayors and police chiefs  have done virtually nothing to protect their statues or property owners from the mob.



It's long past time for Barack Obama, Basement Joe Biden and Blue State political "leaders" to condemn the lawlessness of the street protesters, the statue destruction and the takeover of several blocks in downtown Seattle.



Yet even as people die, buildings burn and gangs of looters and violent professional agitators roam their streets, Democrats and the liberal media keep calling it "a peaceful revolution."



But the mass of the American people knows better. For a month they've been watching nothing being done to stop the destruction and violence.



Is it any wonder gun sales to whites and blacks are going through the roof? Of course, if you take up arms and defend a statue from the mob, you'll be the one who ends up in jail.



This is where we're at in upside-down America. The good guys are the bad guys and bad guys are the good guys. The sad thing is, nothing is going to change anytime soon.



The Democrat appeasers are not going to get tough on the street mobs. They see the wave of lawlessness and disorder as a weapon to defeat President Trump. It may backfire, however.



Democrats are so foolish they actually think if Joe Biden becomes president things will get back to normal.



I'm sure the Poles thought the same way when they were taken over by Soviets after World War II: "If we just act nice to these bad guys, it'll all be OK."



But Democrats have learned nothing from history.



You don't appease mobs, especially destructive mobs. You don't take a knee to vandals. They only get more violent and demand more power.



The young Americans mindlessly tearing down statues of Ulysses S. Grant and demanding that police departments be defunded or disbanded are historical illiterates, but that's not all.



They've been brainwashed by their college teachers into thinking that America is a terrible country built on racism. Are there racists in America? Sure. But racism is not systemic the way it once was for 70 years in the Jim Crow South by law and in fact in the North.



Institutional racism, even if it existed the way Black Lives Matter and the demonstrators claim, is no excuse for destroying the country. It's time for all of them to grow up, quit breaking things and start studying history.





Michael Reagan (Reagan@caglecartoons.com) is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, Integrity, and Faith of Ronald Reagan." His column is distributed by Cagle Cartoons Inc. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.




Hong Kong police arrested a 24-year-old man at the city's airport early on Thursday on suspicion of stabbing an officer during protests against a new national security law imposed by Beijing on the financial hub.

The arrest followed the latest protests on Wednesday in which police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people as demonstrators defied the sweeping security legislation introduced by China to snuff out dissent.

There were no signs of protests on Thursday.

Police posted pictures on Twitter from Wednesday's disturbances showing on officer with a bleeding arm saying he was stabbed by "rioters holding sharp objects". The suspects fled while bystanders offered no help, the police said.

A police spokesman said the arrested man was surnamed Wong but could not confirm whether he was leaving Hong Kong or working at the airport.

Media, citing unidentified sources, said the suspect was on board a Cathay Pacific flight to London due to depart just before midnight. A witness said three police vehicles drove towards a gate as a Cathay Pacific plane was preparing to take off and about 10 riot police ran up the bridge to the aircraft.

The suspect held an expired British National Overseas passport, a special status which provides a route to citizenship, the source told the Cable TV station.

Cathay Pacific did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying posted on Facebook on Wednesday that a bounty of HK$500,000 ($64,513) would be offered to anyone helping catch the fugitive.

China's parliament adopted the security law in response to protests last year triggered by fears that Beijing was stifling the city's freedoms and threatening its judicial independence, guaranteed by a "one country, two systems" formula agreed when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Beijing denies the accusation.

Hong Kong and Beijing officials have said the law is vital to plug holes in national security defences exposed by the protests, pointing to the citys failure to pass such laws by itself as required under its mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Another unfulfilled constitutional requirement for Hong Kong is to introduce universal suffrage, the protesters' main demand.

DIPLOMATIC TENSION

The new law punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. It will also see mainland security agencies in Hong Kong for the first time and allows extradition to the mainland for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party.

Ten of the arrests made on Wednesday involved violations of the new law, police said, with most of the 360 or so others involved illegal assembly and other offences.

In the latest diplomatic tension over the law, China said Britain would bear all consequences for any offer to Hong Kong citizens of a path to settlement.

China also denounced the United States after the US House of Representatives passed legislation that would penalize banks doing business with Chinese officials who implement the national security law in Hong Kong.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the United States "must stop advancing the bill, let alone sign it or implement" it.

Democratically ruled and Chinese-claimed Taiwan advised its citizens to avoid unnecessary visits to or transit through Hong Kong, Macau or mainland China. Britain and Canada have also updated their travel advisories for Hong Kong, warning their citizens of detention risks.

Apparently seeking to allay fears that judges for national security cases would be cherry-picked by Hong Kong's unpopular, pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam, Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma said they would be appointed on the basis of judicial and professional qualities, rather than politics.

Hong Kong's independent judiciary, one of many freedoms guaranteed when it returned to Chinese rule, has long been considered key to its success as a global financial hub.
The US Congress on Thursday approved tough new sanctions over Hong Kong that include penalties for banks that cooperate in infringing on the territory's autonomy from China.

Two days after China imposed a controversial security law, the US Senate unanimously agreed to send the bill to President Donald Trump, who has not indicated if he will sign it.

"Our timing could not be more critical," said Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat who helped lead the bipartisan measure.

"I hope President Trump will sign this immediately," he said on the Senate floor.
U.S. prosecutors late on Wednesday filed a lawsuit to seize the gasoline aboard four tankers that Iran is shipping to Venezuela, the latest attempt by the Trump administration to increase economic pressure on the two U.S. foes.

The government of Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro has flaunted the tankers, which departed last month, to show it remains unbowed by U.S. pressure. The United States, has been pressing for Maduro's ouster with a campaign of diplomatic and punitive measures, including sanctions on state oil company PDVSA.

Gasoline shortages in Venezuela, like Iran a member of OPEC, have grown acute due to the U.S. sanctions, and the country has undergone an economic collapse. Still, Maduro has held on, and the failure to unseat him has been source of frustration for U.S. President Donald Trump, some American officials have said privately.

In the civil-forfeiture complaint, the federal prosecutors aim to stop delivery of Iranian gasoline aboard the Liberia-flagged Bella and the Bering, and the Pandi and the Luna, according to the lawsuit, first reported in the Wall Street Journal. It also seeks to deter future deliveries.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, also aims to stop the flow of revenues from petroleum sales to Iran, which Washington has sanctioned over its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and influence across the Middle East. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Zia Faruqui and two other assistant U.S. attorneys allege in the lawsuit that Iranian businessman Mahmoud Madanipour, affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, helped arrange the shipments by changing documents about the tankers to evade U.S. sanctions.

The lawsuit says that since September 2018, the Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force has moved oil through a sanctioned shipping network involving dozens of ship managers, vessels and facilitators.

Profits from the shipments support the "full range of nefarious activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism, and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad," the lawsuit said.

The ships carrying Iranian gasoline engaged in ship-to-ship transfers to evade sanctions, the lawsuit said. The Pandi, for example, engaged in such a transfer in Port Khalid in UAE to load the Iranian gasoline surreptitiously, it said.

Last year the Trump administration tried to stop a tanker carrying Iranian oil called the Adrian Darya, formerly known as Grace 1, by blacklisting it and issuing a warrant for the seizure of the crude. The oil was eventually delivered to Syria.
At least 113 people were killed in a landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar, the government and rescue workers said, the latest in a series of deadly accidents at the sites in recent years. A statement from the Ministry of Information gave the death toll as 116, while Khin Maung Win, chairman of the Thingaha rescue group working at the site, said the number of the dead surpassed 113.Rescuers carry a recovered body of a victim in a landslide from a jade mining area in Hpakant, Kachin state, northern Myanmar. Myanmar government says a landslide at a jade mine has killed dozens of people. (Myanmar Fire Service Department via AP)
Funeral services for Thomas Armond "Tommy" Ritch, 72, will be Friday, June 11 at 11 a.m. from the Chapel of Kilgroe Funeral Home. Interment to followe at Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Cemetery in Gallant. The family will receive friends on Friday from 10 a.m. until service time at funeral home
Gilbert F. Kraemer, 74 years of age, passed away on Monday, May 31, 2021. He was born on November 9, 1946 in New Albany, Indiana to the late Edward and Henrietta (Renn) Kraemer. Gilbert was an Army Veteran serving in the 24th Infantry and was a 1965 graduate of Providence High School. Along 




By Kim Yoo-chul







Hyundai Glovis, a logistics affiliate of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group, signed an agreement with Volkswagen's logistics unit under which Glovis will handle the delivery of Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche and Bentley-branded vehicles.







The estimated monetary value of the contract is $432 million. The contract will be effective by 2024, Glovis said in a statement.







Specifically, under the five-year contract with Volkswagen Konzernlogistik, the South Korean logistics company will be in charge of delivering these branded vehicles from Europe to China over the agreed period. Glovis said the deal is exclusive.







"Glovis won some delivery agreements specifically on the routes spanning East Asia, North America and Europe but there were not enough available cargo vessels on our way back to East Asia from Europe. The latest agreement with the German automotive group helps Glovis secure quite stable delivery deals all across the routes," a company official said Thursday.







Glovis is heavily dependent upon Hyundai Motor and its sister company Kia Motors for generating corporate revenue and profits. In 2019, however, Glovis' delivery deals with top-tier carmakers accounted for 53 percent of its total sales, amounting to 2.05 trillion won, the release added.







The Volkswagen agreement came years after Glovis signed China's Changjiu Group to establish two separate joint ventures focusing on China's used car retail business and automotive sea logistics.







Glovis is also betting big on the growth potential of the used vehicle segment in China, the world's largest car market. But Glovis didn't say its recent contract with Volkswagen Group's affiliate unit included its role to handle the delivery of used vehicles.




(Newser)  At the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con, actor Ray Fisher described director Joss Whedon as a "great guy" and a "good person" who stepped in to finish Justice League after Zack Snyder's departure. This week, Fisher tweeted a clip of the statement and said he would like to "forcefully retract" every bit of it. On Wednesday, he accused Whedon of "abusive behavior" on the set of the 2017 movie, Variety reports. The director's "on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable," Fisher tweeted. Whedon, who directed two Avengers movies, was brought in during post-production of Justice League and oversaw extensive reshoots when Snyder left the project after the suicide of his 20-year-old daughter, the AP reports.

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Fisher added that Whedon was "enabled in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg," two Warner Bros. executives who left their positions after the movie's disappointing performance. Berg tells Variety that he "categorically denies" enabling any abusive behavior onset. He says he recalls that Fisher, who played superhero Cyborg, was "upset that we wanted him to say 'Booyaa,' which is a well known saying of Cyborg in the animated series." After years of pressure from fans, Warner Bros. announced in May that Snyder's director's cut of Justice League will be released on HBO Max next year. (In 2017, Whedon's ex-wife said women should know "he is not who he pretends to be.")
(Newser)  Diplomats in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak inside the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia went outside official channels to reach out to Congress last month, fearing their health was in jeopardy. Dozens had fallen ill following a birthday barbecue, and a Sudanese driver for the diplomats had died, the New York Times reports. An internal analysis found the embassy's medical unit was swamped, while a shortage of hospital beds was expected, with a spike in cases through July. But the State Department had refused to allow even high-risk individuals to depart in mid-June, when Yemen and the Philippines closed their embassies in Riyadh, per Al Jazeera. That's when some embassy officials "took the extraordinary step of conveying information to Congress outside official channels," per the Times, which spoke to one former and nine current officials.

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Facing "quiet bipartisan congressional pressure," the State Department announced the "voluntary departure of nonemergency US personnel and family members from the US Mission to Saudi Arabia" on Saturday. However, the embassy's Emergency Action Committee had asked Ambassador John P. Abizaid to approve the evacuation of 400 to 500 US employees at the embassy and two consulates, in line with what had occurred at other embassies in late March. On Wednesday, the State Department described the voluntary departure as "appropriate," adding it "has no higher priority than ensuring the safety of US government personnel and US citizens." But former CIA clandestine officer Douglas London argues the Trump administration appears more concerned with soothing Saudi Arabia, perhaps in the hope of selling more than $500 million in arms and intelligence. (Read more US Embassy stories.)
(Newser)  China's new Hong Kong national security law is "a brutal, sweeping crackdown against the people of Hong Kong, intended to destroy the freedoms they were promised," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday as the House unanimously passed new sanctions. The bill targets Chinese officials behind the draconian law, banks who do business with them, and Hong Kong police units that have quashed protests, Politico reports. The Senate passed a similar measure last week and President Trump could sign the legislation as soon as Thursday. "All freedom-loving people must condemn this horrific law," Pelosi said. The law, which Beijing rushed to approve Tuesday, introduces harsh penalties for activities deemed to be subversive or secessionist. More:

China threatens UK over residency offer . British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that the UK would make good on its promise to offer residency and a path to citizenship for around 3 million people in its former colony, the Guardian reports. Beijing, however, has threatened to block Hong Kongers from emigrating to Britain. A foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday that Beijing would take countermeasures and Britain "would bear all the consequences" if it gave residency to Hong Kongers fleeing the law.

. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that the UK would make good on its promise to offer residency and a path to citizenship for around 3 million people in its former colony, the Guardian reports. Beijing, however, has threatened to block Hong Kongers from emigrating to Britain. A foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday that Beijing would take countermeasures and Britain "would bear all the consequences" if it gave residency to Hong Kongers fleeing the law. For and against: Axios has the list of 53 countries that publicly backed China in a statement at the UN Human Rights Council. Most are autocratic states. Another 27 nations criticized the law. The US withdrew from the council in 2018 and isn't on either list.

Axios has the list of 53 countries that publicly backed China in a statement at the UN Human Rights Council. Most are autocratic states. Another 27 nations criticized the law. The US withdrew from the council in 2018 and isn't on either list. "It's sad that Hong Kong is dead." Pro-democracy Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai tells the AP that the "very draconian but also very vague" law will kill Hong Kong as he knows it. "Its worse than the worst scenario imagined. Hong Kong is totally subdued, totally under control," he says. Its sad that Hong Kong is dead." He says that while his family might have to leave, he plans to stay and somehow keep up the fight for Hong Kong's freedoms.

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Australia will also offer haven . Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the country is planning to offer a haven for Hong Kong residents fleeing the territory, reports the Financial Times. He said Australia has already drafted proposals similar to the British offer. China warned Australia against moving down the "wrong path."

. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the country is planning to offer a haven for Hong Kong residents fleeing the territory, reports the Financial Times. He said Australia has already drafted proposals similar to the British offer. China warned Australia against moving down the "wrong path." Law has a long reach . The BBC looks at some of the law's more chilling provisions, including Article 38, which states that it applies to foreign nationals outside Hong Kong, meaning anybody who has offended Chinese or Hong Kong authorities could be in trouble if they visit the territory. The law also says alleged subversives can face penalties of up to life in prison. It allows mainland officers to freely operate in the territoryand allows Hong Kongers to be taken to the mainland for secret trials and indefinite detention.

. The BBC looks at some of the law's more chilling provisions, including Article 38, which states that it applies to foreign nationals outside Hong Kong, meaning anybody who has offended Chinese or Hong Kong authorities could be in trouble if they visit the territory. The law also says alleged subversives can face penalties of up to life in prison. It allows mainland officers to freely operate in the territoryand allows Hong Kongers to be taken to the mainland for secret trials and indefinite detention. 370 arrests made . Police fired tear gas and made hundreds of arrests Wednesday as thousands protested the new law, reports the Wall Street Journal. Authorities said by the end of the day, 370 people had been arrested, including 10 who will be charged under the new law. Some of them had displayed flags calling for Hong Kong's independence. Police said people chanting pro-independence slogans were "suspected to be inciting or abetting others to commit secession."

. Police fired tear gas and made hundreds of arrests Wednesday as thousands protested the new law, reports the Wall Street Journal. Authorities said by the end of the day, 370 people had been arrested, including 10 who will be charged under the new law. Some of them had displayed flags calling for Hong Kong's independence. Police said people chanting pro-independence slogans were "suspected to be inciting or abetting others to commit secession." Chill descends on Hong Kong . The sudden introduction of the new law sent a "chill over the city," with residents deleting social media accounts to remove evidence of anti-Beijing sentiment, reports the New York Times. A museum commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre said it was racing against time to digitize its archives, and a site that publishes pro-democracy articles said it had received more than 100 requests from writers to have their articles deleted.

. The sudden introduction of the new law sent a "chill over the city," with residents deleting social media accounts to remove evidence of anti-Beijing sentiment, reports the New York Times. A museum commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre said it was racing against time to digitize its archives, and a site that publishes pro-democracy articles said it had received more than 100 requests from writers to have their articles deleted. Restaurant forced to remove "Lennon Wall." A pro-democracy "yellow" restaurant in Hong Kong said police told it Thursday to remove its "Lennon Wall" of pro-democracy messages, RTHK reports. It said officers told it the messages could breach the national security law. Pro-democracy businesses are called "yellow" after the color of umbrellas used to shield demonstrators from pepper spray, notes the New York Times.

(Read more Hong Kong stories.)
(Newser)  College students known to have COVID-19 have been attending parties in Tuscaloosa, Ala., as part of a bizarre game designed to infect others, according to local officials. What's worth the risk of serious illness or death? The chance at some cash, apparently. "They put money in a pot and they try to get COVID. Whoever gets COVID first gets the pot. It makes no sense," says Sonya McKinstry, a city councilor in Tuscaloosa, which is home to three colleges including the University of Alabama, per ABC News. At a council briefing, Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Randy Smith described reports of parties in the city and county "over the last few weeks" in which "students or kids would come in with known positives," per WBMA. "Not only did the doctor's offices help confirm it but the state confirmed they also had the same information," he said.

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McKinstry said officials were "trying to break up any parties that we know of," per ABC. But "how can you truly fight something that people are constantly trying to promote?" The council did vote unanimously Tuesday to make face coverings mandatory in public places beginning July 6, with violators facing a $25 fine, per Tuscaloosa News. Just one of 12 residents who addressed council members objected to the requirement. "I think were truly putting the people before the politics," McKinstry said. "It's just a small sacrifice to make," added councilwoman Phyllis W. Odom. "This was like a no-brainer for me." As of Wednesday, Alabama had recorded 38,422 cases of COVID-19, 10,696 of those coming in the last 14 days, with at least 947 deaths. Tuscaloosa County has seen 2,049 cases and 38 deaths. (A party-goer in California died days after remarking on his own "stupidity.")
(Newser)  Residents in a New Jersey neighborhood went to bat this week for a black couple who had the police called on them by a white neighbor they say has been harassing them for two yearsan incident caught on video that's now gone viral. In a Monday Facebook post that included that 2.5-minute clip, attorney Fareed Hayat writes that "Permit Karen"whom he IDs as his neighbor "Susan""came onto our property three times within thirty minutes to demand" whether he and his wife, Norrinda, had the proper paperwork for the stone patio they were putting in their backyard, just over the fence from Susan's (further identified by Law & Crime as EPA worker Susan Schulz). Not satisfied with the Hayats' answer that everything was legally in place, Schulz "decided to call the police and make a false report of assault" against Fareed Hayat, he wrote.

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"The gentleman ... pushed me off his property," Schulz can be heard saying into the phone. "She's been waiting two years to do this!" Norrinda Hayat, also an attorney, can be heard saying. The Hayats tell WPIX and NBC News that Schulz has been harassing them since they moved into the neighborhood in 2018, on everything from a treehouse they built for their two young sons to the color of their house. However, as Schulz summoned the cops"white entitlement and black hate embodied," Fareed Hayat wrote on Facebook"a collection of largely white neighbors" stood up for the Hayats, "[refusing] to simply go along with her racist efforts," he added. Those witnesses told both Schulz and the police that an assault never happened. A protest in support of the Hayats took place Tuesday on their street. The Montclair Police Department confirms that officers did show up at the scene, but they're staying mum otherwise, noting "the matter is under investigation," per TMZ. (Read more New Jersey stories.)
(Newser)  More than 40 school principals in northern California are in quarantine after attending an in-person meeting about how to reopen schools safely. The event was attended by a person who later tested positive for COVID-19. The individual hadn't been experiencing symptoms at the June 19 meeting of the Santa Clara Unified School District, but tested positive a few days later, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Superintendent Stella Kemp said all attendees were tested and no one else tested positive to her knowledge. She added in-person meetings were taking place under local public health department guidelines because of "the complexity required in the development of our reopening plan." Still, board trustee Vickie Fairchild questioned the decision to allow "a meeting of around 45 people when, I think, indoor meetings are recommended to be around 10."

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The public health department doesn't give a limit on the number of people who should attend in-person meetings. Rather, it says "only those employees performing job duties that they cannot feasibly perform from home may come to a business facility to work," per the Chronicle. "I'm mad, I'm disappointed, I'm concerned," parent Bonnie Lieberman tells NBC Bay Area. She says the decision to host "over 40 people in the room  doesn't give me or any other parents much confidence that the district can make appropriate decisions about safety." Santa Clara Countywhich reported 210 new cases of COVID-19 and two deaths on Wednesday, for a total of 4,572 cases and 158 deaths, per KPIXsaw a 52% jump in hospitalizations in the last week. And on Tuesday, it was one of 19 counties in the state ordered to close indoor operations at restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, zoos, and museums. (Read more coronavirus stories.)
(Newser)  Jeffrey Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell has kept an extremely low profile since his arrest and suicide, but NBC News reports that her whereabouts are now known: She's under arrest in New Hampshire. The network says the FBI arrested Maxwell on crimes related to Epstein. ABC News confirms the arrest, noting that it comes almost precisely a year after Epstein's own arrest, and says Maxwell will make a virtual appearance in federal court later Thursday.

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The 58-year-old British socialite, daughter of the late British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, has been accused of assisting Epstein in his sexual crimes by grooming teenage girls for him. She has been named in multiple lawsuits brought by women against the Epstein estate, notes CNN. Maxwell dated Epstein for years and was a constant presence in his life even after they split as a couple. (Read more Ghislaine Maxwell stories.)
Orion confectionery factory in Novosibirsk, Russia / Yonhap



By Kim Jae-heun



Domestic confectionery giant Orion Corporation issued a statement of apology Tuesday, expressing condolence to the bereaved family of an employee surnamed Suh, who committed suicide at the factory in Iksan, North Jeolla Province, March 17.



"According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor's investigation into the case, the order of the deceased's boss to submit a written apology was an act of workplace bullying and we were told to provide guidance and improve the rigid office culture at our plant in Iksan," Orion wrote. "We will humbly accept and follow the ministry's recommendation."



Suh had reportedly been bullied at work and her team leader forced her to write an apology for her apparent misconduct.



Orion said employees at its company submit written apologies from time to time as the confectionery company has to stick to strict rules when manufacturing food to ensure consumer safety.



However, Suh's boss ordered her to submit the letter without notifying the company or receiving permission to carry out the procedure. Orion said it will take disciplinary action against the team leader who had no authority to make such demands.



"As far as we are concerned, there is no precedent where ordering an employee to submit a written explanation or apology is considered an act of workplace bullying. However, we will humbly accept the judgment of the ministry and will implement improvement guidance and recommended measures," the company said.



The labor ministry did not find Suh's colleague guilty of workplace bullying, though Orion said it will investigate the case internally as advised by the ministry.



The confectionery firm promised it would establish an external counseling body for its employees to use. They will be seeking advice for office life as well as personal matters.



"Through this case, we learned that the deceased had no one to go to for advice at work and there was a rigid organizational culture in the production facility. Now, the head office began listening to the voices of employees to improve the work environment and culture at all of Orion's factories," an Orion official said.


(Newser)  House Democrats are unlikely to see secret material from Robert Mueller's Russia investigation before Election Day because of a move by the Supreme Court on Thursday. In what USA Today reports is a victory for the White House, the court said it would take up the case on whether Congress is entitled the see the redacted material in its next term, which doesn't begin until October. A decision isn't expected until 2021. The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for the material as part of its impeachment inquiry last year. After a federal court sided with the Democratic lawmakers, the White House appealed. Committee chief Jerry Nadler on Thursday accused President Trump and Attorney General William Barr of "continuing to try to run out the clock on any and all accountability," per the Washington Post.

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SCOTUS temporarily blocked the committee's access to the files in May though the appeals court had ruled in its favor. House Democrats argued the material was "central" to its inquiry and might reveal evidence of impeachable offenses. But Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who resigned last month, argued the House had no "urgent need of the requested materials for a hypothetical second impeachment," per USA Today. The Supreme Court case rests on whether an impeachment inquiry constitutes a "judicial proceeding," as judges are only allowed to disclose grand jury material in such cases, per Bloomberg. The lower court ruled that it does, pointing out that courts allowed lawmakers to review grand jury material during the impeachment inquiries of presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. (Read more Mueller report stories.)
(Newser)  With more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases reported Thursday, Florida has reached nearly unique levels of the outbreak. In the US, only New York has reported a larger one-day increase, with 12,847 new positive cases on April 10. Even when the pandemic was at its worst in Europe, no nation there had daily increases to rival Florida's, Reuters reports. The picture has worsened quickly in the past month. Infections were up 168% in June, with more than 95,000 new cases. At the end of May, 4% of the coronavirus tests taken turned out positive; that rate is now 15%. Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida residents lost urgency to be careful after the coronavirus totals were lower during April and May, per NPR. "After Memorial Day, when it fell out of the news, people kind of just thought it was over," he said.

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Some local governments have since started requiring people to wear masks in public, but DeSantis has not issued a statewide order. (Unlike in Texas, as of Thursday.) Jacksonville, where President Trump is scheduled to accept the Republican Party's presidential nomination next month, has imposed a requirement to wear face coverings. DeSantis did close bars last week to indoor patrons, in scaling back the state's reopening. The nation also set a one-day record on Wednesday, with more than 50,000 new cases. "We are not flattening the curve right now," said the federal government's testing coordinator. "The curve is still going up." Dr. Anthony Fauci put it similarly Thursday, per the Washington Post. "I think its pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction," he said. (Read more coronavirus stories.)
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(Newser)  Two-time GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, who was photographed without a face mask at President Trump's rally in Tulsa last month, has entered a hospital to be treated for the coronavirus. Cain, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, tested positive Monday, CNBC reports. He "developed symptoms serious enough that he required hospitalization" in the Atlanta area on Wednesday, a statement on his Twitter page said. Cain, 74, is alert and "resting comfortably," the post said, while pointing out that Cain is a cancer survivor. He's not on a ventilator, per Newsmax, where Cain is a contributor. Trump said he was thinking of nominating Cain for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board last year, but Cain soon withdrew from consideration.

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Cain had tweeted a photo of himself, not wearing a mask, at the June 20 rally. He was surrounded by people at the indoor event without masks. "Here's just a few of the #BlackVoicesForTrump at tonight's rally!" he wrote. "Having a fantastic time!" On Wednesday, he retweeted the news that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem announced a lack of coronavirus restrictions at an Independence Day celebration Friday at Mount Rushmore. "Masks will not be mandatory for the event, which will be attended by President Trump," Caine wrote. "PEOPLE ARE FED UP!" Cain also once was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, per Forbes, and launched his first presidential campaign in 2011. (Read more Herman Cain stories.)
(Newser)  A fire and an explosion struck a centrifuge production plant above Iran's underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility Thursday, analysts said, one of the most tightly guarded sites in all of the Islamic Republic. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran sought to play down the fire, calling it an "incident" that only affected an industrial shed, spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. However, Kamalvandi and Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi rushed after the fire to Natanz, a facility earlier targeted by the Stuxnet computer virus and built underground to withstand enemy airstrikes, the AP reports. The fire threatened to rekindle wider tensions across the Middle East, similar to the escalation in January after a US drone strike killing a top Iranian general in Baghdad and Tehran launched a retaliatory ballistic missile attack targeting American forces in Iraq.

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While offering no cause for Thursday's blaze, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency published a commentary addressing the possibility of sabotage by enemy nations such as Israel and the US following other recent explosions in the country. Satellite photos showed an explosion last Friday that rattled Iran's capital came from an area in its eastern mountains that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites. Another explosion from a gas leak at a medical clinic in northern Tehran killed 19 people Tuesday. "There has been no interruption in the work of the enrichment site," Kamalvandi told Iranian state television Thursday. In Washington, the State Department said US officials were "monitoring reports of a fire at an Iranian nuclear facility."

(Read more Iran nuclear facilities stories.)
"As the rest of the world really grapples with further outbreaks, New Zealand continues to be seen as a bit of a safe haven - so we are getting a lot more people back," he told Magic Talk's Peter Williams on Thursday morning.

"In order to manage those people through quarantine and isolation in a way that gives New Zealanders confidence, we're going to control that pretty tightly we've got to get the facilities available that are of the quality that gives New Zealanders reassurance.

"We are working with the international education sector on that. It would be great if we could do it this year, but I think it is much more likely to be from the beginning of 2021."

Earlier this week, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said New Zealand didn't have the capacity to quarantine all international students.

"That would put our COVID-free status, our very good progress around COVID-19 elimination, at real risk. We don't want to see COVID-19 across the border," he said.
A lockdown has been lifted on a Kaitaia school after a man was seen with what was believed to be a firearm shortly before midday.

Police initially told Newshub the individual was reportedly seen behind Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Pukemiro, a school in Kaitaia. It was immediately put into lockdown.

Police officers with the assistance of its dog section conducted an extensive search of the surrounding area, but police later confirmed it hadn't found any person of interest.

"Police believe the man involved has left the scene in a vehicle and is no longer in the area," a spokesperson said.

"The cordons are being lifted around Norman Senn Ave and the school concerned is no longer in lockdown."

Enquiries are ongoing into the identity of the man, and anyone with information is urged to contact Kaitaia Police by phoning 105 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
"These are hard won gains and we have as a Government no intention of squandering them. The idea that we should open our border in this environment has a price and that price could be a second wave of COVID-19 in our country.

"Yes, we want to open our borders as soon as it is safe to do so and we have been in the enviable position of investigating and undertaking work with Australia and in the Pacific, and where there are safe opportunities we will pursue them."

The European Union has drafted up a list of 14 nations which will be allowed into the bloc from July, and the list includes New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Canada - but China and the United States are excluded.

Ardern confirmed New Zealand has no plans to abandon the mandatory two weeks of quarantine required of returnees.

"While the EU is looking to open its doors for a handful of countries including New Zealand, I'm reminded that New Zealanders returning from trips offshore were part of the spread of the virus in New Zealand in the first place," she said.

"There is a time in the future when we will open our borders but to suggest that time is now when the virus is getting worse is frankly dangerous.

"What we can do is continue to increase our capacity to accommodate New Zealanders who need to get back here - those who have loved ones to care for, job opportunities to pursue, a country that is their home and is safer than most to return to."

National leader Todd Muller is calling on the Government to provide a strategy for reopening the border and to outline when it could potentially happen.

But Ardern said it is dangerous to suggest opening the borders at this point in time.

"The Opposition's primary focus seems to be making decisions that could risk that safety. We are not in a position to give dates and decisions on something as significant as opening up a border when we are in the middle of a situation where it's surging."
The Chinese Embassy has responded by telling New Zealand to "stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs, and do more to promote the sound and steady development of the China-New Zealand relations".

The new law allows extradition to the Chinese mainland for trial. It punishes crimes of separatist activity, state subversion, terrorist activity and collusion with foreign forces, which can be punishable by up to life in prison.

More than 300 people were arrested in Hong Kong on Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in defiance of the law, international media reported. Police used pepper spray and fired pellets at protesters as crowed chanted "resist till the end".

Peters said the New Zealand Government is expressing "serious concern" about the "imposition of this legislation on Hong Kong without inclusive consultation or the proper involvement" of all of Hong Kong's institutions.

"We share the international community's stake in preserving the high degree of autonomy and freedom available to Hong Kong and its people under the 'one country, two systems' framework," he said.

"It is this autonomy and freedom, together with open governance, judicial independence, and consensus on the rule of law that have been fundamental to Hong Kong's growth as a global financial and economic hub since 1997."

The UK's ambassador to the United Nations Julian Braithwaite has delivered a joint statement on behalf of 27 countries - including Australia and New Zealand - expressing concern over the new law.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand shares the position of its Five Eyes partners, a security alliance that includes the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

"Sometimes you'll see collective statements, sometimes you'll see singular," she said on Tuesday. "You'll see the same messaging and very little difference between the Five Eyes partners and the positions we've all taken on this issue."

Hong Kong, officially named the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, was returned to Beijing from Britain in 1997 under the 'one country, two systems' approach.

The Chinese Embassy insisted the "legislation for safeguarding national security" in Hong Kong is "purely China's internal affair" and said it "firmly opposes any foreign interference in China's internal affairs and Hong Kong affairs".

It said opinion was "drawn extensively" from the people of Hong Kong on the new law, which is said is a "fundamental solution" for Hong Kong to restore "order, end chaos and resume stability".

International visitors to Hong Kong - including New Zealanders - will be better off because of the new law, and it will "only target very few criminals", the embassy added.

"Its implementation will strengthen Hong Kong's legal framework, better protect the basic rights and freedom of the people in Hong Kong, ensure social order, improve business environment, and benefit Hong Kong citizens and international investors including those from New Zealand."

Waikato University Professor of Law Al Gillepsie said it is "pointless" to question whether China has acted wrongfully with regards to the 1997 agreement.

He said it cannot be tested in a court of law - like the International Court of Justice - because China would not show up or would veto the debate.

China said the legislation was necessary after sometimes violent anti-government and anti-Beijing protests rocked the city since June last year.

New Zealand in April joined the United States and United Kingdom in condemning the arrest of anti-Beijing Hong Kong democracy activists.

Hong Kong police arrested 15 pro-democracy activists at the time, including Democratic Party founder Martin Lee and trade union leader Lee Cheuk-yang. They were charged with offences including organising and joining "unlawful assemblies".

Damaging certain transportation vehicles and equipment will now be considered an act of terrorism, and anyone convicted of violating the new security legislation will not be allowed to stand in any Hong Kong elections.
In April, it was revealed that Clark had gone mountain biking and driven 20km to the beach under alert level 4 lockdown, despite the restrictions forbidding New Zealanders from driving recreationally. It was later discovered he had also disobeyed ministry protocol and moved house under the stringent rules.

Clark publicly apologised for the breaches and offered the Prime Minister his resignation, which she refused. However, he was demoted to the bottom of her Cabinet rankings and stripped of his Associate Finance portfolio.

ACT Party leader David Seymour also laid into the former minister following his resignation announcement.

"Too much kindness, not enough competence. The PM was happy with a Health Minister who left the Beehive for the greatest health crisis in a century, broke the public health rules twice, and blamed the guy who did his job when it all went wrong. Even then, he had to sack himself."
A worker sends fresh pork for Lotte's three-hour-delivery-service at Lotte Mart in Gwanggyo, Gyeonggi Province, on June 3. / Courtesy of Lotte Mart

By Kim Jae-heun



Lotte Corporation's retailing affiliate Lotte Shopping is battling to survive against competition from the likes of Coupang, SSG.com and Market Kurly.



It has recently decided to strengthen the competitiveness of its super market brand Lotte Mart by offering the freshest food and ingredients possible.



Starting from July 1, Lotte Mart will sell 200 fresh eggs at each of 20 stores in the capital every day that have been laid that morning. If it proves to be popular, the supermarket will increase the amount in accordance with demand.



Those that have not been purchased within 24 hours will be discarded. Normally, other eggs are put on the shelves for sale five to 10 days after they have been laid.



The same system will apply for seafood to ensure the highest quality.



-

The supermarket brand said the premium fresh food service is only available at certain offline stores at the moment but they will be available for online order at Lotte ON starting Wednesday.



Earlier in May, Lotte Mart experienced success with similar marketing schemes by selling pork that had been butchered only three days prior. This was four days less than the week usually taken by directly trading with farms.



This is seen as Lotte Mart's effort to attract customers to offline stores for more food and vie flourishing Market Kurly, the country's largest online fresh groceries service.



"I think it is very important to shorten the distribution time after production of fresh food in order to strengthen the competitiveness of large discount stores," said Moon Young-pyo, a CEO of Lotte Mart. "We have introduced fresh eggs after fresh pork and we will continue to offer super fresh products in the near future."



Meanwhile, Lotte Department Store began the quickest delivery service in the country Monday that sends an online order within three hours.



Any order placed before 4:30 p.m. through Lotte Department Store's online shopping mall or Lotte ON will make its way to the customer within no more than an hour and arrive within 180 minutes.



The service is available nationwide and it offers nearly 90,000 products of 400 brands. There is no delivery charge if the customer purchases over 100,000 won on Lotte Department Store's official website.



Earlier in April, Lotte Mart's branch in Junggye-dong, Seoul, and Gwanggyo-dong, Gyeonggi Province, introduced two-hour-delivery-service and it received favorable reviews.



Such a strategy is seen as targeting Coupang and SSG.com's overnight delivery service, which took away many Lotte Department Store customers.



"We started three-hour-delivery-service starting with Seoul, but we plan to expand it nationwide soon. We will continue to pursue an Offline for Offline strategy to enhance customers' shopping satisfaction," said Kim Myung-gu, the head of Lotte Department Store's online business division.



Meanwhile, Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin visited Lotte Department Store in Incheon  he has been visiting one site almost every week since he went to Lotte World Mall in Jamsil, Seoul, May 23.



Shin expressed the importance of reform and strengthening online business as the key to success in retailing, one of the major businesses of his corporation.


Green Party co-leader James Shaw said the legislation was put forward with good intent, and the Greens have "worked constructively throughout" to improve it, but in the end the party could not support it.

"The Bill aims to fast-track some large scale projects, but sacrifices public input, council decision making, and a thorough consideration of the environmental impacts," Shaw said after the legislation passed on Thursday evening.

"Public participation provides decision-makers with more information and enables communities to participate in decisions which affect their neighbourhoods and places they care about. We didn't feel this Bill quite achieved that."

National's environment spokesperson Erica Stanford suggested in Parliament the legislation highlighted unease between the Greens and New Zealand First.

"I would say it's one of those Bills that exemplify the very uncomfortable relationship between New Zealand First and the Greens."

The Government announced last month the initial fast-tracked infrastructure projects earmarked for approval under the new system, and one of them is a water storage facility in Kaikohe - a project Stanford said the Greens opposed.

She said New Zealand First "knew that they didn't have the numbers on that side to get this through and it was the National Party that came to the rescue for Kaikohe and for the people of Northland".

New Zealand First MP Ron Mark said it will be "interesting to see" what happens with the latest changes to the RMA after the sunset clause.

"I'd like to think that at that time the changes that we're making in this legislation might be considered more widely."

Green MP and Conservation Minister Eugenie opposed suggestions that the legislation should be permanent because there is "significant constraint on local participation" and decision-making by councils.

"Decisions under the Bill are made by the expert consenting panel within 25 to 50 days, rather than by councils elected to represent their communities. So access to justice is constrained, too, with the inability to appeal beyond the Court of Appeal."

Sage said the Greens "strengthened" the legislation during the review stage, by giving more scope to Environment Minister David Parker to decline projects for fast-track status.

Parker can consider the environmental outcomes, whether it minimises waste and contributes to New Zealand's efforts to mitigate climate change and transition more quickly to a low-emissions economy.

Parker initially announced 11 fast-tracked projects but there are now 12 after the Queenstown Arterials Project was added - a new urban route through Queenstown, including road, cycleways and walkways.

He said the initial fast-tracked projects will create an estimated 1700 jobs.

Parker is currently undergoing a review of the RMA and says he will release it before the September election. He will "set out proposals for long term reform to fix the issues that have plagued the resource management system for many years".

The initial fast-tracked projects are listed here.
She said Dr Clark had since "came to the conclusion" he could not continue in the role.

"Last week I had discussions with Dr Clark and we talked about how important the COVID response was and the need for that to be our primary focus as a Government, as a Cabinet and as ministers," Ardern said.

"He reached the conclusion his ongoing presence in the health role was causing too much distraction to the Government's ongoing response to COVID-19 - an assessment I agree with. He came to the very firm view that his ongoing role in this portfolio was going to get in the way of that response."

Ardern lauded Dr Clark for putting the interests of his team above his own.

"I want to thank him for his service. He delivered a lot in his three years as Health Minister and there are many things that he can be proud of."

She has appointed Chris Hipkins as Health Minister because as Education Minister he has experience with an operational ministry of significant scale, and also because of his role as Minister of State Services.

"Our COVID response is an all-of-Government response. Making sure that you have a good understanding and awareness of how to draw in the public sector as effectively as possible is one of the strengths that minister Hipkins has."

Ardern smiled when a reporter asked Hipkins if the health portfolio was something Hipkins had his eye on.

"Very few in Government eye up health."

Dr Clark came under fire recently after Newshub footage showed him pointing blamed at Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield for the Government's quarantine testing botch-up.

Dr Clark also faced backlash during the alert level 4 lockdown for breaching the rules by going mountain biking and driving 20km to the beach for a walk with his family when Kiwis weren't allowed to drive for recreation.

The Prime Minister said after the election she plans to "reassess who is best placed" to take the health portfolio forward, should Labour win.

Newshub also revealed he continued moving house during alert level 4 lockdown, shifting boxes when the rest of New Zealand was told they were not allowed.

The Prime Minister demoted Dr Clark to the bottom of her Cabinet rankings and stripped him of his Associate Finance portfolio, and said she would have sacked him "under normal conditions".

In the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll, voters were asked whether Dr Clark should remain Health Minister. More than half - 56.8 percent - said 'no', with only 35.7 percent saying 'yes'.

In Labour's recent reshuffle infectious disease expert Dr Ayesha Verrall - who rose to prominence during the COVID-19 crisis - appeared just one ranking below Dr Clark.

Dr Verrall has not ruled out ambitions for the health portfolio.
The Prime Minister has appointed Labour MP Chris Hipkins as Health Minister until the election. Hipkins is currently the Minister of Education.

"Our response to COVID is on a stable footing and I have full confidence that minister Hipkins will oversee the portfolio with the thoroughness and diligence he brings to his other areas of responsibility," Ardern said.

Dr Clark offered his resignation during the level 4 lockdown in response to breaking the rules. The Prime Minister said at the time she would have accepted his resignation under normal circumstances but she did not want any distractions.

"Serving as Minister of Health has been an absolute privilege, particularly through these last few months," Dr Clark said on Thursday. "It's no secret that health is a challenging portfolio. I have given it my all."

"But, it has become increasingly clear to me that my continuation in the role is distracting from the Government's overall response to COVID-19 and the global pandemic."
The minister in charge of quarantine and isolation facilities Megan Woods has labelled a National MP's comments about New Zealanders returning from Asia as disgraceful and racist.

In a press release, Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker said up to 11,000 people arriving from overseas could be destined for quarantine in the south without any consultation with the community.

"It's absolutely disgraceful that the community hasn't been consulted on this.

"These people are possibly heading for Dunedin, Invercargill and Queenstown from India, Pakistan and Korea," he said.
The foreign affairs role was given to senior MP Gerry Brownlee in Muller's first reshuffle back in May. Muller told reporters on Thursday he consulted with Brownlee and ultimately decided to give the portfolio to Bridges.

But Bridges will not feature high on National's list. He is ranked number 17 - Dr Reti's previous placement. Brownlee is ranked number six, and holds the spy portfolios, the disarmament portfolio, and is Shadow Leader of the House.

Why the need for change?

Just days into his leadership, Muller came under fire for the lack of diversity in his shadow Cabinet line-up because there were no Maori MPs on the front bench or of any other ethnicity.

It came after the former leadership team of Bridges and Bennett - both Maori - were rolled by Muller and his deputy Nikki Kaye, who are both Pakeha.

Bennett was dropped from second place on National's list to 13, making her the most senior Maori MP in the party's ranks. Bridges did not appear on the list at the time.

Bennett announced her resignation from politics earlier this week, so if National's list had stayed the way it was, Whangarei MP Dr Reti would have been National's most senior Maori MP - way down the list at number 17.

Back in May, Nikki Kaye wrongly suggested frontbench National MP Paul Goldsmith is "of Ngati Porou descent" but he corrected her to say, "No, I'm not Maori myself".

Goldsmith later clarified: "My great-grandfather had European wives and Maori wives and so I've got lots of relatives across the Ngati Porou - I don't claim to be Maori myself."

National's new list:

Todd Muller: Small Business, National Security Hon Nikki Kaye: Education, Sport and Recreation, Women Hon Amy Adams: COVID-19 Recovery, Drug Reform Hon Judith Collins: Economic Development, Regional Development, Shadow Attorney-General, Pike River Re-entry Hon Paul Goldsmith: Finance, Earthquake Commission Hon Gerry Brownlee: Disarmament, GCSB, NZSIS, Shadow Leader of House Hon Michael Woodhouse: Health, Deputy Shadow Leader of the House, Associate Finance Hon Louise Upston: Social Development, Social Investment Hon Mark Mitchell: Justice, Defence Hon Scott Simpson: Environment, Climate Change, Planning (RMA reform) Hon Todd McClay: Trade, Tourism Chris Bishop: Infrastructure, Transport Shane Reti: Tertiary, Skills and Employment, Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Associate Health, Associate Drug Reform Nicola Willis: Housing and Urban Development, Early Childhood Education Hon Jacqui Dean: Conservation Hon David Bennett: Agriculture Simon Bridges: Foreign Affairs Melissa Lee: Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Data and Cybersecurity Andrew Bayly: Revenue, Commerce, State-Owned Enterprises, Associate Finance Hon Alfred Ngaro: Pacific Peoples, Community and Voluntary, Children and Disability Issues Barbara Kuriger: Senior Whip, Food Safety, Rural Communities Jonathan Young: Energy & Resources, Arts Culture and Heritage Hon Tim MacIndoe: ACC, Seniors, Civil Defence Hon Nick Smith: State Services, Electoral Law Reform, Associate COVID-19 Recovery Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Ethnic Communities Matt Doocey: Junior Whip, Mental Health Jian Yang: Statistics, Associate Education, Associate Ethnic Communities Stuart Smith: Immigration, Viticulture Simon O'Connor: Customs, Associate Social Development, Associate Housing and Urban Development (Social Housing) Lawrence Yule: Local Government Denise Lee: Local Government (Auckland) Hon Anne Tolley: Deputy Speaker Parmjeet Parmar: Research, Science and Innovation Brett Hudson: Police, Government Digital Services Simeon Brown: Corrections, Youth, Associate Education Ian McKelvie: Racing, Fisheries Jo Hayes: Whanau Ora, Maori Development Andrew Falloon: Biosecurity, Associate Agriculture, Associate Transport Harete Hipango: Crown Maori Relations, Maori Tourism Matt King: Regional Development (North Island), Associate Transport Chris Penk: Courts, Veterans Hamish Walker: Land Information, Forestry, Associate Tourism Erica Stanford: Internal Affairs, Associate Environment, Associate Conservation Tim van de Molen: Third Whip, Building and Construction Maureen Pugh: Consumer Affairs, Regional Development (South Island), West Coast Issues Dan Bidois: Workplace Relations and Safety Agnes Loheni: Associate Small Business, Associate Pacific Peoples Paulo Garcia Associate Justice

Retiring at 2020 election
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has revealed why she chose Education Minister Chris Hipkins as David Clark's replacement following his resignation.

On Thursday Clark announced he would resign as the Health Minister following weeks of controversy over his various breaches of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Ardern selected Hipkins as temporary Health Minister until the September election. He is also the Education Minister as well as Minister of State Services.

Ardern went on to say Hipkins' experience will hold him in good stead to be interim Health Minister.

"The reason I chose Minister Hipkins is in part because of the experience he has with an operational ministry of significant scale but also his role in state services," she said.

Hipkins added he was looking forward to the role as he "likes a good challenge".
In the Falklands a charge of violent disorder can carry a jail term of up to five years.

Royal Falklands Islands police inspector Barry Thacker told Morning Report there was a fight at Dino's Bar on 29 June.

"When we attended there were a number of people that were assaulted. It turns out that there were five people who were seriously assaulted receiving hospital treatment."

He said the three New Zealand sailors were arrested and were in police custody and would appear before magistrates tomorrow charged with violent disorder.

He said the cause of the fighting was still being investigated.

"Certainly, there would appear to be unprovoked attacks at this moment... There were three acting together that resulted in the serious injuries."

A Sanford spokesperson, Fiona MacMillan, said because the matter is before the courts, she's unable to comment on the charges, except to say Sanford will support the legal process and its crew.

She said the company's efforts to try and understand the events have been hampered by the different time zones.

MacMillan said the planned crew retrieval operation will continue, albeit slightly delayed, while the company waits for more clarity from the court process.

RNZ
Three influential New Zealand figures are urging the Government to consider reopening the borders, and abandon a strategy of totally eliminating the COVID-19 virus.

The former chief science advisor Sir Peter Gluckman, former prime minister Helen Clark and ex-Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe say an extended delay in opening the borders will cause huge damage to the country's economy and social wellbeing, and it's now time change the goals.

The current quarantine and testing processes are "ineffective" and could "come to haunt" the country if they are not replaced, they warn. And they should be replaced with more efficient and aggressive processes, which can cope with higher volumes of people coming in.
It's the sixth day in a row new cases have been above 40,000 each day.

It brings the total number of cases to over 2.7 million, and just over 130,000 COVID-19-related deaths have been recorded.

Fauci urged a nationwide public health push is needed in order to clamp down on the spike in cases.

"We can't just focus on those areas that are having the surge. It puts the entire country at risk," he said.

He added that there was no guarantee of a vaccine, although early trials and data had been promising.

"Hopefully there will be doses available by the beginning of next year," he said.

COVID-19 cases more than doubled in June in at least 10 states, including Texas and Florida, a Reuters tally showed. In parts of Texas and Arizona, hospital intensive care beds for COVID-19 patients are in short supply.

More than 126,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and millions have lost their jobs as states and major cities ordered residents to stay home and businesses closed. The economy contracted sharply in the first quarter and is expected to crater in the second.

In the past week, California, Texas and Florida have moved to close recently reopened bars, states which public health officials believe are likely one of the larger contributors to the recent spike in cases.

South Carolina also has also emerged as a virus hotspot, reporting a record single-day increase of 1,755 cases on Tuesday (local time).

In Texas, where the number of new cases jumped to a one-day record of 6,975 on Tuesday, Houston hospitals said beds were quickly filling up with COVID-19 patients.

Chief executive of Houston Methodist Hospital Dr Marc Boom told CNN on Tuesday his hospital beds have seen a "very significant" increase in COVID-19 patients, although the death rate has lowered.

Dr Boom said he was worried about upcoming Fourth of July celebrations, when Americans traditionally flock to beaches and campgrounds to watch fireworks displays.

"Frankly it scares me," he said.

Reuters / Newshub.
Airplanes of Jeju Air and Eastar Jet are parked at Incheon International Airport, Thursday. Yonhap



Jeju Air Co.'s planned takeover of smaller budget carrier Eastar Jet Co. appears to be on the brink of falling through as Jeju Air asked Eastar Jet to settle all of its debts by mid-July to proceed with the deal.



In March, Jeju Air signed a deal to acquire a controlling 51.17 percent stake in Eastar Jet from Eastar Holdings for 54.5 billion won as part of its expansion strategy despite the new coronavirus' growing impact on the airline industry.



In a letter sent to Eastar on Wednesday, Jeju Air called on Eastar to pay off all of its debts estimated at up to 100 billion won (US$83 million), including unpaid wages to its employees, delayed payments to subcontractors and office operating expenses, by July 15, a tall order that cannot be met by cash-strapped Eastar Jet.



"We sent a letter to Eastar yesterday to demand overall debt payments in the following 10 working days. Unless Eastar meets our requirements, we could notify them that the deal is no longer valid," a Jeju Air spokesman said over the phone.



But the company did not clarify the value of the unpaid debts.



In response, Eastar immediately sent a letter to Jeju Air on Thursday to explain its current financial status and seek understanding from the country's biggest budget carrier over the unpaid debts, Eastar Senior Vice President Kim You-sang told Yonhap News Agency by phone.



"Jeju Air just asked Eastar to pay off all the debts that were generated since March, without stating the value of debts we have to settle," Kim said.



If Jeju Air does not accept Eastar's explanation, the acquisition deal is widely expected to be scrapped.



Jeju Air's 10-day ultimatum comes days after Eastar pressed Jeju Air to push ahead with its acquisition process.



On Monday, Eastar Jet Chief Executive Choi Jong-gu said the airline's founder Rep. Lee Sang-jik of the ruling Democratic Party and his family will put their entire 38.6 percent stake in the hands of the budget carrier in a move to bring Jeju's stalled takeover plan back on track.



Rep. Lee's son and daughter collectively own the 39.6 percent stake in Eastar Jet through Eastar Holdings. The value of their Eastar stake reaches 41 billion won (US$34 million).



Jeju Air was expected to complete the deal by June 29 because the country's biggest budget carrier said in April it will issue 10 billion won worth of convertible bonds on June 30, one of the prerequisites for the takeover. Eastar Holdings was planning to purchase the bonds, which can be converted into Jeju Air equities.



But the bond issuance has been delayed, with the date to be set later according to an agreement from both sides.



Behind the delay in the acquisition process were deep-running differences between the two sides over acquisition terms.



Eastar Jet said it suspended all of its flights and sent all of its 1,700 employees on "paid leave" in late March as Jeju Air said it will guarantee wages for them after the signing the same month. But Jeju Air changed its position in May with the worsening COVID-19 pandemic, according to Eastar Jet.



But Jeju Air balked at Eastar Jet's argument, claiming that the Eastar's management made the decision to halt all flights and sent its employees home without paying wages.



To wrap up the deal, Jeju Air has to obtain approval from Vietnam and Thailand, which are still reviewing the proposed takeover.



Jeju Air has said the acquisition will help it gain a bigger market share and strengthen the company's competitiveness in global markets.



South Korea has two full-service carriers  Korean Air Lines Co. and Asiana Airlines  and seven low-cost carriers  Jeju Air, Jin Air Co., Air Busan Co., Air Seoul Inc., Eastar Jet, T'way Air Co. and Fly Gangwon.



AK Holdings, the holding firm of South Korean retail conglomerate Aekyung Group, holds a 56.94 percent stake in Jeju Air.



On Thursday, Jeju Air jumped 6.9 percent to 16,950 won, and AK Holdings climbed 4.4 percent to 19,100 won, outperforming the broader KOSPI's 1.4 percent gain. (Yonhap)


TDT | Manama

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa delivered an inspirational message of thanks and appreciation yesterday to Bahrains people, particularly those in defence and security, as the Kingdom strives to overcome the challenges that have arisen amidst the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

HM the King, the Supreme Commander and Supreme Defence Council president, gave his speech as he chaired the councils meeting, in the presence of His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

We express our thanks and appreciation to all of you for your distinguished efforts in ensuring the security of the Kingdom and the safety of the citizens and residents, and for doing everything necessary to preserve the course of life and keep the national development process moving forward, HM the King said as he addressed the council.

HM the King lauded the vital roles of HRH the Prime Minister and HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Premier. HM the King said that the Kingdom continues to harness all its capabilities in light of the exceptional circumstances of the health crisis, which represents, through its global spread, a continuous challenge that threatens opportunities for comprehensive development, especially socio-economic gains.

Hence the package of financial and economic policies, decisions and measures that we decreed were called for early, in order to counter its repercussions, HM the King said. Team Bahrain, led by HRH the Crown Prince, began to follow up on the implementation of its programmes accurately and effectively, with a view to maintaining levels of economic growth for the benefit of Bahrain and its honorable citizens.

The state authorities and all institutions have demonstrated their high capacity and readiness to assume responsibility during this difficult stage, and their role has had great effects on work discipline and yielded excellent results. HM the King praised Bahrains defence and security institutions, as well as medical professionals and other front-liners.

We want to highlight the outstanding and much-appreciated performances of our defence and security institutions, the Bahrain Defence Force, with its distinguished long-standing military, medical and administrative organisation; the Ministry of Interior, with its well-prepared staff on the front rows; and the National Guard and National Security Agency forces, who provide everything necessary to tackle this virus and protect the health, safety and security of citizens and residents, according to the highest standards, HM the King said.

On this occasion, we reiterate our gratitude for the endeavors of the medical teams, health professionals and civil crews who have worked with determination and great faith. They continue to assume their humanitarian responsibilities to protect lives by offering the best services, treatments and preventive measures, which has earned the Kingdom an advanced global status in the fight against this pandemic.

Meanwhile, HM the King said that Bahrains people are a source of immense pride as they have demonstrated high morals and civilised commitment in all circumstances and times. We refer here to the significant importance of individual and societal responsibility to overcome this pandemic, HM the King added.

The sense of responsibility is not something new to Bahrain, as its people are invariably ready to tackle adversity, and thanks to their contributions, we will overcome all odds, God willing. Following the speech, HRH the Prime Minister addressed HM King Hamad. Just as Your Majesty kindly said, these are your people who deserve all the health, education, safety and security provided to them, HRH the Premier said.

We ask God to grant all of us success in serving you at this important time, in which we must work hard and diligently to carry out the directives of Your Majesty. Also during the meeting, the council reviewed several topics on its agenda and took the necessary decisions for the benefit and safety of Bahrain, its honorable citizens and all residents.

National Security Advisor and Supreme Defence Council secretary-general HH Major General Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa gave a briefing on issues aimed at raising defence, security and health capabilities.
TDT Manama

Bahrain has provided financial and in-kind support to Syrian refugees in a number of neighboring countries, following the high directives of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Foreign Ministrys International Affairs undersecretary Dr. Shaikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa has said.

Dr. Shaikh Abdullah reported this as he participated in the fourth Brussels Conference on Supporting the future of Syria and the region, which was held virtually on Tuesday. He said that the Kingdom has implemented various projects through the Royal Humanitarian Foundation (RHF).

These have aimed to assist Syrian refugees in the Zaatari camp in Jordan by constructing a housing complex that accommodates more than 3,000 people, along with developing a psychological counseling center and a number of wells in the Zarqa Governorate to provide Syrian refugees with potable water.

In addition to this, a scientific complex has been constructed that includes four schools to serve nearly 10,000 students. The projects were officially inaugurated by His Majesty the Kings Humanitarian Work and Youth Affairs representative and RHF Board of Trustees chairman His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

Dr. Shaikh Abdullah also mentioned the building of the Kingdom of Bahrain School in the city of Irbid, Jordan, to serve about 741 students, and the establishment of prefabricated housing and health facilities in Al Azraq refugee camp, in addition to two childrens libraries in coordination with UNICEF.

Also at the conference, Dr. Shaikh Abdullah delivered a statement in which he expressed the Kingdoms support for a political solution to the Syrian crisis, leading to a comprehensive and lasting settlement that ends the sufferings of Syrian brothers.

He stressed the importance of protecting Syrias sovereignty and territorial integrity, and preventing external interference in Syrias affairs, in accordance with decisions to achieve reform and political pluralism, and on the basis of a UN Security Council resolution.

He pointed to the sufferings of the Syrian people in light of the current difficult conditions due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which threatens the life and health of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees living in humanitarian camps, stressing that a settlement to the conflict in Syria could only be achieved through full implementation of international resolutions, not military means.

The Foreign Ministrys International Affairs undersecretary reiterated Bahrains keenness to support the efforts of the UN Special Envoy to Syria, to enhance security and stability through the political process. He also called on the international community to provide various types of support and assistance to the Syrian refugees to alleviate their sufferings and ensure their security and safety, while working towards a comprehensive political solution capable of ending this tragedy and paving the way for a better future.
TDT | Manama

Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani and his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah Al Saud discussed in a phone call yesterday the latest regional and international political and security developments, along with international efforts to promote security and stability in the region and issues of shared interest.

They reviewed ways to promote coordination and consultation between the two Kingdoms at all levels, to meet the aspirations of the two countries and peoples. The Foreign Ministers also emphasised the deep historical relations between Bahrain and Saudi, seen today as a model of strong solidarity between brothers in light of their common destiny and goals.

Meanwhile, Bahrain welcomed the report of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres on Iran before the UN Security Council, in which he held Iran accountable for the terrorist acts that targeted two Aramco facilities in Abqaiq and Hijrat Khurais in Saudi Arabia, and for targeting Abha International Airport last year with cruise missiles and drones.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry said it commended the professionalism and high transparency of the report based on irrefutable facts, which has demonstrated the grave destructive role of Iran in undermining security and stability in the region by supporting, financing, arming, and training terrorist organisations and continuing to support the Houthi terrorist group that threatens civilians in Saudi.

The Ministry affirmed that Bahrain stands in line with Saudi, and supports all the measures it takes to confront aggressive Iranian actions to protect its security and stability. It also stressed the need for the international community and the UN Security Council to take firm steps to deter and confront Iran and extend the arms embargo imposed on it, until Tehran changes its aggressive approach that violates all international conventions and laws and threatens regional peace and security
TDT | Manama

The Supreme Criminal Court of Appeal upheld a five-year prison sentence issued against a Bahraini man, who was previously convicted of assaulting an on-duty policeman. The appellant was earlier acquitted from the charge of attempting to steal the policemans weapon.

According to court files, the crime occurred in West Riffa in December of last year, when the attacked policeman and the first witness, a fellow policeman, were on duty near the palace of the Late Amir of Bahrain, HH Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa. The policemen mentioned in their testimony that the defendant was walking in a restricted area and did not respond to their calls.

The policemen said the defendant was not in normal condition when they approached him. They explained that he pretended to take out his identity card from his pocket and suddenly attacked them. The policemen told the court that they eventually controlled the defendant. They added that the defendant attempted to snatch one of their rifles.
TDT Manama

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs (DFA-OUMWA) has welcomed and congratulated Bahrain on its latest achievement in being given the Tier One ranking for the third consecutive year in the US State Departments Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) 2020.

In a statement from Migrant Workers Affairs undersecretary Sarah Lou Y. Arriola, she hailed Bahrain for distinguishing itself as the only country in the Middle East and Northern Africa region to obtain such status.

Tier One ranking in the TIP Report puts the Kingdom in the elite club of countries, including the Philippines, fully complying with standards on fighting human trafficking and protecting victims of trafficking, said Arriola, who is also a human rights lawyer and law professor.

The Philippines lauds this success which is the direct result of the various reforms Bahrain has implemented to address trafficking in the Kingdom, under the wise and visionary leadership of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister.

Arriola noted that Bahrains initiatives have tremendously benefited thousands of expatriates, particularly the many Filipinos who have availed of the Flexi Work Permit Programme, which has allowed those who were previously irregular migrants to regularise their status and to find gainful employment legally.

The Philippines and Bahrain, both given the Tier One ranking by the TIP Report, have advanced bilateral cooperation in labour reform, in creating pathways for the regularisation of migrant workers, as well as in cooperating in the multilateral front, notably in the advancement of the Global Compact for Migration to promote the welfare and interests of migrants globally, she said.

Arriola highlighted that the TIP Report acknowledges the bilateral cooperation between the Philippines and Bahrain, which has led to the successful arrest, prosecution and, most importantly, conviction of traffickers who lured Filipino nationals to come to Bahrain under false pretexts and turned them into sex slaves.

This case highlights the importance of cooperation between national governments as an essential element to curb human trafficking, she said. Both our countries have likewise taken advantage of legal mechanisms to prosecute trafficking offenders across international boundaries.

The Philippines therefore commends Bahrains efforts not only in the prosecution of traffickers but also in taking care of the welfare of victim survivors. Arriola cited the case of two Filipino nationals trafficked in Bahrain, who not only obtained justice when their captors were prosecuted and recently sentenced with imprisonment but also received financial assistance through the Trafficking Victims Assistance Fundanother innovation of Bahrain.

These and other successful initiatives of the Kingdom through the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), such as the Flexi Permit, the National Referral Mechanism, and the establishment of a Centre for Excellence in fighting trafficking, strongly reflect the Kingdoms commitment against human trafficking, Arriola said.

These are testaments of leadership in the region in protecting migrants and curbing the menace of trafficking in persons. The Philippines, through its Embassy in Bahrain, is committed to work more closely with the Kingdom, in particular, with the LMRA and the National Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons (NCCTIP), both chaired by Ausamah Abdulla Al Absi, and to further expand and deepen cooperation to address other persisting trafficking issues, Arriola stressed.

The Philippines looks forward to further advancing migrants rights and protecting Filipino migrants in Bahrain. With our Embassy working closely with the LMRA and NCCTIP, we assured of greater success in all future initiatives to further enhance and strengthen Bahrains leading role in the protection of migrants in the region, Arriola said in her statement.
As Gov. Ned Lamont urged Connecticut families on Thursday to avoid traveling more than 10 miles for any diversions during the holiday weekend, the state tourism office revealed a trio of videos that promote safety measures being undertaken at attractions, restaurants and hotels from Norwalk to Mystic.

The So Good to See You, Connecticut campaign is being underwritten with $1.2 million in funding that had been previously announced. Featured attractions include Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport and Silvermans Farm in Easton, with testimonials and imagery from restaurants including Anchor Spa in New Haven, La Fortuna Bar & Restaurant in Stratford, Oak & Almond in Norwalk and West Street Grill in Litchfield.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian attends a news conference in Beijing, April 8, 2020. Reuters



China promised Thursday to take countermeasures against Britain if it presses ahead with plans to extend citizenship rights to Hong Kongers after Beijing imposed a sweeping security law on the restless financial hub.



Beijing has faced a groundswell of criticism from primarily Western nations over its decision to impose a new law outlawing acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces.



Adding to concerns, Hong Kong's influential Bar Association published a new legal analysis warning that the wording of the law  which was kept secret until Tuesday  undermines the city's independent judiciary and stifles freedoms.



Britain has said the law breaches China's pre-handover "One Country, Two Systems" promise to grant residents key liberties  as well as judicial and legislative autonomy  until 2047.



It has responded by announcing plans to allow millions of Hong Kongers with British National Overseas status to relocate with their families and eventually apply for citizenship.



"We will live up to our promises to them," foreign secretary Dominic Raab told parliament.



That move has infuriated Beijing, which says Britain promised not to grant full citizenship rights to Hong Kongers ahead of the 1997 handover.



"If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms governing international relations," China's embassy in London said Thursday.



"We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures," it added.



- Sanctuary calls -



Britain is not alone in announcing plans to offer Hong Kongers sanctuary or increased immigration rights as fears multiply over the semi-autonomous city's future under the new law.



On Thursday, Australian leader Scott Morrison said he was "very actively" considering offering Hong Kongers safe haven.



Taiwan has opened an office to help Hong Kongers wanting to flee, while a proposed bill in the United States offering sanctuary to city residents has received widespread bipartisan support.



Beijing says the law is needed to quell seething pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and restore order after a year of political unrest.



But critics fear it will usher in a new era of political repression given similar laws are routinely used to crush dissent on the Chinese mainland.



The law has sent fear coursing through the city and rattled the legal community in a business hub that has built its reputation on the independence and reliability of its courts.



The Bar Association  which represents the city's barristers  issued a scathing critique of the law, saying it dismantles the legal firewall that has existed between Hong Kong's judiciary and China's Communist Party-controlled courts.



The new national security offences were "widely drawn", the group said, and "are capable of being applied in a manner that is arbitrary, and that disproportionately interferes with fundamental rights, including the freedom of conscience, expression and assembly".



It also criticised "the total absence of meaningful consultation" with Hong Kongers before the law was passed.



China dismissed the association's fears as "unfounded".



"The lawyers' association's claim... that the law lacked meaningful consultation is totally unfounded," said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.



- First arrests -



Thousands of residents defied a protest ban on Wednesday  the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China  to block roads and voice opposition to the bill in some of the worst unrest in months.



Police responded with water cannon, pepper spray and tear gas, arresting nearly 400 people.



Seven officers were injured, including one who was stabbed in the shoulder and three others hit by a protester on a motorbike.



Ten people were arrested under the new law, illustrating how holding certain political views had become illegal overnight.



Most of those arrested were carrying flags or leaflets advocating for Hong Kong independence.



The security law is controversial because it radically increases Beijing's control over the city.



China says it will have jurisdiction over some cases and has empowered its security agents to operate openly inside Hong Kong for the first time, unconstrained by local laws.



It has also claimed global jurisdiction, saying the law covers national security offences committed overseas  even by foreigners.



Some trials will be held behind closed doors and without juries, while local police have been granted sweeping surveillance powers that no longer need judicial sign off. (AFP)


No book is going to make much of a difference in the way Donald President Trump is viewed by American voters.

The publishing industry has cranked out dozens, if not hundreds, of critical Trump-related volumes over the past four years, and still his base holds steady. His approval ratings sit, like Buddha under the fig tree, at 40 percent - apparently immovable despite the bungled handling of a global pandemic, reports of Russian bounties paid to kill U.S. soldiers or thousands of Trumpian lies.

Still, the new book by the president's niece, Mary Trump, is a matter of valid public concern, especially in an election year. And holding it back - as a New York State judge did earlier this week by issuing a temporary restraining order - would have amounted to censorship, the very thing that the First Amendment was written to prohibit.

That order was lifted Wednesday night by the state's appellate division, rightfully allowing publication and distribution to go forward.

It details "a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse," says publisher Simon & Schuster, including "the strange and harmful relationship between" her late father, Fred Trump Jr., and his brother, now the president of the United States.

The title certainly suggests some brutal conclusions: "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man." What's more, we now know that Mary Trump was the primary source behind the New York Times's expose of the president's finances, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018.

In other words, this niece knows plenty and has decided not to pull her punches.

Her apparent breaking of that contract is "truly reprehensible," argues Charles Harder, the lawyer for yet another Trump brother, Robert, who sued to block the book's release, certainly as a stalking horse for the president.

Such contracts do matter, of course. If they're not enforced, they're meaningless.

But withholding publication of this book was never really about enforcing that agreement. It was about prior restraint - censorship - applied to Simon & Schuster, which was never a party to the family agreement and says it didn't even know it existed when it agreed to produce the book.

What's more, this isn't just any book, noted Katie Townsend, the legal director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which, along with other free-speech advocacy organizations, filed a brief arguing that restraining its publication is unconstitutional.

"This is what the First Amendment was designed to protect against," Townsend told me. As the brief puts it: "A restraint of just one day is an unacceptable affront" to constitutionally protected free speech, and "a restraint of more than a week, as this court has already ordered, is extraordinary."

Townsend and others liken the situation to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the Vietnam War, published in the 1970s by the New York Times and then the Washington Post. The documents were stolen from the Pentagon, but their provenance shouldn't have kept - and ultimately didn't keep - the newspapers from publication.

That may seem like a grandiose comparison, but it's apt.

Whatever the president's ability to hold his base steady amid the unceasing tornado winds, American citizens of all political leanings deserve to know the truth about him - especially in a crucial election year.

That the president wanted to stop its distribution is no surprise. But allowing that to hold sway was trouble in the making.

"Then you've opened a Pandora's box and created a monster," Townsend said. The kind of monster that conceivably could halt the publication of a news story - say, for example, the one about the Russian bounties on the heads of American soldier - because of purely political considerations.

In practical terms, it was probably too late to keep the book's revelations from seeping out. Simon & Schuster said that thousands of copies have already shipped. Those who have pre-ordered the book, blasting it into the stratosphere of best-sellerdom, might not have received their copies on time but chances were always excellent that we all would know exactly what's on the forbidden pages.

The case in some ways mirrors the U.S. Justice Department's failed suit to block the release of former Trump national security advisor John Bolton's scathing memoir, also published by Simon & Schuster, "The Room Where it Happened."

A federal judge ruled that, with many thousands of copies already distributed, stopping it would be futile. But he smacked Bolton for not following the government's pre-publication clearance rules.

Townsend said she finds it "head-spinning that in a matter of weeks there have been two attempts to suppress books" critical of the president. No one should dismiss the legitimate concerns here: the enforcement of a private contract in one case, and national security concerns in another. Those matters can still be litigated; in fact, the question of Mary Trump's contract remains before the court right now.

But four months before a presidential election, voters deserve to know everything possible about this president.

Whether that knowledge actually moves them - extremely unlikely - is not the point.
KIHEI  A new date (July 30), a new program and an online venue have been set for the 2020 Hawaii Energy Conference.

Presented by Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) and supported by the County of Maui Office of Economic Development, the live stream presentation will explore the theme Imagining a Just Recovery. What would that look like for the grid?

The in-person event was postponed mid-March, just one week before the scheduled date, due to the escalating risks and ongoing uncertainty surround COVID-19.

Alternative presentation methods were explored to continue the important discussions around equity and energy in 2020.

As we move forward from the pandemic and social justice protests, what strategies will policy makers and regulators use to achieve results that benefit broad swaths of society? How will utilities and companies in the energy sector contribute?

This program is a free, three-hour event designed to give a sample of what the discussion is like at the leading energy conference in Hawaii, said Doug McLeod, conference chair.

Scott Seu, the new president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric, will begin the live stream discussion at 9 a.m. HST. Those joining us will hear what he and the other speakers have to say as part of our discussion of a Just Recovery.

Commissioners from four states will engage in a live discussion on how the pandemic has changed the priorities for public utility regulation across the west.

Hawaii Public Utilities Commissioner Jennifer Potter will moderate the discussion with Clifford Rechtschaffen of California, Mark Kolesar of Alberta and Mark Thompson of Oregon.

The executive director of the Hawaii Solar Energy Association, Will Giese, will lead another panel discussion on how jobs in solar and other parts of the clean energy sector can contribute to a just recovery.

Rachel James, attorney with the Hawaii PUC, will lead a panel titled Develop with Us, Not for Us. This panel will welcome both policy and pragmatic perspectives centered on how to design and develop WITH and not just FOR communities.

Panelists will discuss how societal harms exacerbated by ill-informed energy development can be remedied through co-creative clean energy design.

The final panel will explore Leadership towards a Just Grid. Jonathan Koehn, chief sustainability and resilience officer for the City of Boulder, will lead a discussion on the big opportunities that can arise from big issues.

How can we use the pain from the last few months to create a grid that works for more of society?

With the Hawaii Energy Conference going virtual, it is anticipated to attract a bigger and broader audience than its traditional base of energy industry leaders from Hawaii, Continental U.S., Japan and Europe.

The conference serves to exchange ideas on how to better serve customers in the islands rapidly changing energy environment.

Recognizing the importance of these issues across the globe, and as a mahalo (thank you) for all those who have supported the conference in the past, admission for this three-hour event will be free. This is a unique opportunity to hear from industry leaders and innovators.

For information on how to register and other details, visit: www.hawaiienergyconference.com.
BRIDGEPORT  Jury selection in the federal case against the New Milford man accused of illegally selling a gun that was later used in a Danbury homicide has been reset to Sept. 8.

Nikos Chelioudakis, 35, was indicted by a federal grand jury Feb. 20, and arrested the following month on the charges of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, unlawful possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and unlawful sale or transfer of a firearm to a prohibited person.

The indictment alleges that Chelioudakis  an unlawful user of a controlled substance  sold a gun to Danbury resident David Ramos, knowing he was also likely an unlawful user of a controlled substance.

Ramos, 34, is facing a first-degree manslaughter charge following the fatal shooting of his friend  33-year-old Jason Hoffman, of Brewster, N.Y.  in Danbury last September.

At the time of the killing  which has been described as accidental  Ramos and Hoffman were high on crack-cocaine in the basement of a Hancock Drive apartment where Ramos lived, police said.

Investigators found a .22-caliber Walther P22 with the serial number scratched off in a storm drain about 50 feet from Ramos residence, and markings on a shell casing found on Ramos nightstand matched those on most of the live rounds in the guns magazine.

In a joint investigation with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Danbury police said they determined that Chelioudakis had sold the handgun with an obliterated serial number to Ramos.

Each charge against Chelioudakis carries a maximum term of 10 years in federal prison.

He is being represented at the U.S. District Court in Bridgeport by federal defender Daniel Murphy Erwin and was granted permission by the court last month to transfer to a residential drug and alcohol addiction treatment facility in Lebanon, Conn., according to court documents.

He is being represented by federal defender Daniel Murphy Erwin. Leonard C. Boyle from the U.S. Attorneys Office and Elena Lalli Coronado from the Department of Justice are representing the United States of America.
OTTAWA, ON, July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - The Canadian Red Cross is pleased to announce the launch of its annual fundraising campaign with Walmart Canada in support of disaster relief and preparedness.

For the month of July in all Walmart stores and on Walmart.ca, customers are invited to give to the Red Cross. Walmart Canada will match customer donations with a corporate matching grant of up to $820,000 providing further financial support.

The support from Walmart, their associates and customers, is more important than ever, as the Red Cross continues to provide vital support to Canadians impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside seasonal emergencies including wildfires and floods.

Walmart Canada was the very first corporate partner to support the Canadian Red Cross COVID-19 and other emergencies appeal with a gift of $500,000. In addition to financial support provided through this annual fundraising campaign, Walmart helps the Red Cross provide items such as blankets and personal hygiene kits needed for those impacted by emergencies. Walmart also provides additional support during larger-scale disasters for specific items that may be needed to assist the people impacted.

"This year marks our 17th annual fundraising campaign with Walmart Canada, and we are grateful for their ongoing support," said Melanie Soler, vice president, emergency management, Canadian Red Cross. The funds raised through this year's campaign will allow us to continue providing immediate assistance to Canadians who are impacted by disasters and emergencies across the country."

"Year after year, our associates and customers rally together for the Canadian Red Cross to support the critical work they provide on the frontline," said Horacio Barbeito, president and CEO of Walmart Canada. "We are so proud to partner with the Red Cross, especially during these unprecedented times. Together, we continue to ensure Canadians get the help they need when they need it the most."

Walmart Canada is the Canadian Red Cross' largest corporate supporter and the largest corporate supporter of any Red Cross worldwide. Since 2003, Walmart Canada, its associates and customers, have contributed over $50 million of emergency preparedness and relief program funding.

About the Canadian Red Cross

Here in Canada and overseas, the Red Cross stands ready to help people before, during and after a disaster. As a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement  which is made up of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and 192 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies  the Canadian Red Cross is dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity in Canada and throughout the world.

About Walmart Canada

Walmart Canada operates a chain of more than 400 stores nationwide serving more than 1.5 million customers each day. Walmart Canada's flagship online store, www.walmart.ca, is visited by 900,000 customers daily. With more than 90,000 associates, Walmart Canada is one of Canada's largest employers and is ranked one of the country's top 10 most influential brands. Walmart Canada's extensive philanthropy program is focused on supporting Canadian families in need, and since 1994 Walmart Canada has raised and donated more than $400 million to Canadian charities. Additional information can be found at walmartcanada.ca, facebook.com/walmartcanada and twitter.com/walmartcanada

SOURCE Walmart Canada

For further information: Canadian Red Cross; English Media Line: 1-877-599-9602, French Media Line: 1-888-418-9111; Felicia Fefer, Corporate Affairs, Walmart Canada, [email protected]

Related Links

www.walmart.ca


In a big push to Make in India, the Defence Acquisition Council also approved the acquisitions of various platforms and equipments required by the Indian Armed Forces worth a whopping Rs 38900 Cr.

Amid tensions with China  India Defence Acquisition Council has approves the proposal to procure 21 MiG-29 from Russia and 12 Su-30 MKI from HAL. While the MIG 29 procurement and upgradation from Russia is estimated to cost Rs 7418 Cr, the Su-30 MKI will be procured from HAL at an estimated cost of Rs 10730 Cr.

Also, in a big push to Make in India, the Defence Acquisition Council also approved the acquisitions of various platforms and equipments required by the Indian Armed Forces worth a whopping Rs 38900 Cr. Of these, acquisitions from Indian Industry will be equal to Rs 31130 Cr.

A statement by the MoD read that the equipments are to be manufactured in India involving Indian Defence Industry with participation of several MSMEs as prime tier vendors. The Indigenous content in some of these projects is up to 80% of the project cost. A large number of these projects have been made possible due to Transfer of Technology by DRDO to the Indigenous Industry.

Also Read: PM dials Putin, congratulates Putin on Russia win

Also Read: Rattled by app ban, China threatens India with economic losses

The ministry also declared that Astra Missiles having Beyond Visual Range capability will also be inducted for the forces. Upgradation will include Pinaka ammunitions, BMP armament upgrades and Software Defined Radios for the Army, Long Range Land Attack Cruise Missile Systems and Astra Missiles for Navy and Air Force. The cost of these Design and Development proposals is in the range of Rs 20400 cr.

While the ministers say that the acquisition of new missile systems will add to the fire power of three Services, the acquisition of Pinaka missile systems will enable raising additional regiments over and above the ones already inducted, addition of Long Range Land Attack Missile Systems having a firing range of 1000 Km to the existing arsenal will bolster the attack capabilities of the Navy and the Air Force.

Also Read: After Pompeo, Haley backs Indias decision to ban Chinese apps

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Cairos famous Al-Hussein mosque has been closed by the authorities until further notice as a result of worshippers' non-compliance with the new coronavirus precautions, mandatory since mosques reopened last week.

Some prayer-goers at the mosque had opposed the precautions related to physical distancing and had remained in the mosque after prayers were over, according to a Thursday statement by the religious endowments ministry, violating rules which prevent any non-prayer activities or gatherings from being held on mosque premises at present.

Under the new rules, worshippers are required to wear masks when they pray, bring their own prayer mats, and keep at least 1.5 metres apart for the daily prayer services, which have been allowed since Saturday.

Mosques, which had been closed since March, are also only allowed to remain open for 30 minutes for prayer services under the new regulations.

The ministry, which runs the country's mosques, decided to refer Al-Hussein mosque's imams and staff for investigation for failure to perform their duties.

The mosque is located in Old Cairo and houses a religiously significant shrine.

Under the reopening rules, doors leading to mosque shrines must be shut until further notice, in an attempt to reduce crowding.

The ministry called upon all worshippers, especially those who love Ahl al-Bayt, or the family of the Prophet, to adhere to all preventative measures, to avoid the closure of any more mosques.

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HONOLULU  Gov. David Ige on June 24 announced that all travelers arriving in Hawaii from out-of-state will be required to get a valid COVID-19 test prior to their arrival, and to show proof of a negative test result, to avoid the 14-day quarantine. The pre-travel testing program begins Aug. 1.

Out-of-state travelers arriving in Hawaii must get a PCR test prior to arrival from any testing location approved by the Hawaii State Department of Health. Evidence of a negative test result must be provided upon arrival in Hawaii. Without this, passengers arriving from out-of-state will be subject to the 14-day quarantine. No testing will be provided upon arrival at the airport.

The Health Department is still in the process of developing this program but anticipates requiring an FDA-approved PCR test from a CLIA-certified laboratory. Travelers will be required to provide printed or e-mailed pre-test certification as evidence of a negative test result. Travelers will be responsible for the cost of the pre-travel test.

Temperature checks will continue at airports across the state. Anyone with a temperature higher than 100.4 degrees or who is experiencing other symptoms will be required to undergo a secondary screening at the airport with trained healthcare staff.

In addition, travelers will be required to fill out the State Travel and Health form.

The health of our community remains our primary focus. This multi-layered pre-travel testing and screening process allows travelers an alternative to the 14-day travel quarantine in a way that protects the health and safety of our kamaaina and visitors, said Gov. Ige. Now is the time to work together to ensure that our local businesses can safely re-open to incoming travelers.

Asking passengers to get a negative COVID-19 test prior to travel is one more tool in our layered screening process that will help keep Hawaii safe, said Lt. Gov. Josh Green.

As we navigate this pandemic, any way we can minimize risk while bringing some normalcy to our daily lives is the right path forward. I appreciate the incredible work of the partners involved in this process, and special thanks to the people of Hawaii who have shown their aloha, patience and resilience throughout this challenging time.
Indias COVID-19 tally breached the 6 lakh cases mark with 19,148 new coronavirus cases being reported in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday. The total cases now stand at 6,04,641 of which there are 2,26,947 active cases while 3,59,860 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated. 434 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the number of COVID-19 deaths in the country to 17,834.

Maharashtra, the worst-hit state, has a total of 1,80,298 cases including 8,053 fatalities. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu has 94,049 cases inclusive of 1,264 deaths. Delhi has 89,802 coronavirus cases including 2,803 deaths.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday informed that over 90 lakh COVID-19 tests were conducted by various laboratories across the country till July 1. Moreover, 2,29,588 samples were tested in the last 24 hours.

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The total number of samples tested up to July 1 is 90,56,173 of which 2,29,588 samples were tested yesterday, the ICMR said. In an effort to ramp up testing capacity, the ICMR has approved a total of 1,000 COVID-19 testing labs in both public (730) and private sector (270). This includes RT-PCR labs (557); TrueNat Labs (363) and CBNAAT Labs (80).

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated the overall number of coronavirus cases globally at 10,357,662, with 508,055 people having died from the disease. The UN health agency said in the situation report published on late Wednesday that 163,939 new cases had been recorded in the past day, while further 4,188 patients had died.

America continue to lead the count with over 5.2 million cases, followed by Europe with more than 2.7 million. The WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11.

Also Read: Civilian killed by terrorists in J&Ks Sopore: CRPF

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Karnataka government has issued a notice to 18 hospitals for denying admission to a 52-year old patient who later died. These 18 private hospitals include big names like Fortis, Bowring, and, Manipal.

Karnataka government has issued a show-cause notice to 18 private hospitals for refusing to admit a 52-year-old patient with influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms, who later died. The patient died of influenza-like illness symptoms. After the death of Bhawarlal Sujani, the notice that has been issued demands the hospitals that refused to admit him to get back within 24 hours with an explanation as to why an action should not be taken against them. These 18 private hospitals include big names like Fortis, Bowring, and, Manipal.

According to the notice dated on June 30, a 52-years patient named Bhawarlal Sujani died after he was denied admission by 18 private hospitals. The patient was taken to these hospitals on Saturday and Sunday for admission on observing some ILI like symptoms. But none of these hospitals admitted in on the pretext of unavailability of bed/ventilators, read the notice.

This is a clear violation of providing medical assistance and admission necessitated under the agreed provision of KPME Registration. They should strictly adhere to the provisions under Sections 11 & 11 A of KPME Act 2017. Private Medical Establishments cannot deny/ refuse/ avoid treatment to patients with Covid-19 and Covid-19 like symptoms, the state Health Department said.

Also read: Indias Covid-19 tally crosses 6 lakh mark, toll reaches 17,834



Also read: Jagan reviews janata bazaars, e-marketing for farmers, reiterates farmers welfare is top priority

By denying the admission to the deceased patient, your hospitals have violated the provisions of the above-said act. You are liable for legal action in this regard, as per the notice. The state Health department asked the hospitals to reply as to why action should not be initiated under the relevant Acts.

Also read: Coronil kit to be available across country without any restrictions: Yog guru Ramdev

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CBI FIR has been registered against Dr. GVK Reddy, Chairman of GVK Group, Mumbai International Airport, officials of Airport Authority of India and others, for alleged irregularities worth more than Rs 800 crores in the development of Mumbai Airport.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered an FIR against Dr. GVK Reddy, Chairman of GVK Group, Mumbai International Airport, officials of Airport Authority of India and others, for alleged irregularities worth more than Rs 800 crores in the development of Mumbai Airport. According to the FIR, the accused were involved in siphoning off the funds in the name of development of the Mumbai airport from 2012 to 2018.

CBI FIR read that from 2012 onwards, the promoters of GVK Group with criminal intention to cause loss to AAI, used the surplus funds of MIAL to the tune of Rs 395 crore to finance their other group companies. They fraudulently created forged Board Meeting Resolution of MIAL authorising to keep the reserve surplus funds of MIAL as FDRs with PSU banks at Hyderabad MIAL is Mumbai based company but they chose to deposit the funds in the form of FDRs with Hyderabad based branch of Bank of India.

Eventually, the CBI has further claimed to have found that the GVK group was involved in siphoning the funds by showing the execution of bogus work contracts. The FIR further read that around 200 acres of undeveloped land parcel in Mumbai, around the Airport, was given by AAI for development and generating revenue. The MAL entered into fake/bogus work contracts during 2017-2018 with many private limited companies that were used for transferring the funds to them but these contracts have never been executed on ground and the transactions were only on papers.

Also read: Congress slams Centre for asking Priyanka Gandhi to vacate Delhi accommodation

Also read: Karnataka issues notice to 18 hospitals on denying to admit a patient, who later died

It concluded that using this modus operandi, Rs 310 Crore has been fraudulently siphoned off which resulted in the wrongful loss to AAI and corresponding wrongful gain to themselves. These nine companies have also availed fake Input Tax Credit (ITC) and caused further revenue loss to the Government Exchequer based fake invoices issued.

Also read: Kejriwal inaugurates Indias first Plasma Bank

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday interacted with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the telephonic conversation, the two leaders agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-Covid world.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi spoke on phone with President of the Russian Federation H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin on 2 July 2020. Prime Minister warmly congratulated President Putin on the success of celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War, and also for successful completion of the vote on constitutional amendments in Russia.

Prime Minister recalled the participation of an Indian contingent in the military parade held in Moscow on 24 June 2020, as a symbol of abiding friendship between the peoples of India and Russia.

The leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the Covid-19 global pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-COVID world.

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They agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral Summit to be held in India later this year. Prime Minister conveyed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India for the bilateral Summit.

President Putin thanked the Prime Minister for the phone call and reiterated his commitment to further strengthen the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two countries in all spheres.

Also Read: Congress slams Centre for asking Priyanka Gandhi to vacate Delhi accommodation

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Global air passenger demand in May shows a slight improvement with recovery in some markets, most notably in China.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said that global air passenger demand in May measured in revenue passenger kilometres dropped 91.3 per cent as compared to the same period last year. This was a mild uptick from the 94 per cent annual decline recorded in April this year. The improvement was driven by a recovery in some domestic markets, most notably China.

May was not quite as terrible as April. That is about the best thing that can be said. As predicted, the first improvements in passenger demand are occurring in domestic markets, said IATAs Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac.

International traffic remained virtually stopped in May. We are only at the very beginning of a long and difficult recovery. And there is tremendous uncertainty about what impact a resurgence of new COVID-19 cases in key markets could have, he said in a statement.

Also Read: IATA proposes alternative to traveller quarantines

Also Read: India to ease international travel restrictions for US, European airline carriers?

May international passenger demand fell 98.3 per cent compared to May 2019 which was virtually unchanged from the 98.4 per cent decline recorded in April.

Capacity plummeted 95.3 per cent and load factor sank 51.9 percentage points to 28.6 per cent, meaning a bit more than a quarter of seats were filled on average.

European carriers May demand contracted 98.7 per cent compared to last year, virtually unchanged from a 98.9 per cent drop in April year-over-year and the worst decline among regions. Capacity dropped 97.5 per cent and load factor fell by 41.7 percentage points to 42.4 per cent.

Asia Pacific airlines May traffic plunged 98 per cent compared to the year-ago period, also in line with a 98.2 per cent recorded in April. Capacity fell 95.1 per cent and load factor shrank 46.6 percentage points to 32.1 per cent.

Middle Eastern airlines posted a 98 per cent traffic contraction for May compared with a 97.3 per cent demand drop in April. Capacity tumbled 93.9 per cent and load factor sagged to 23.9 per cent, down 49.1 percentage points compared to the year-ago period.

North American carriers had a 98.2 per cent traffic decline in May, little changed from a 98.4 per cent decline in April. Capacity fell 94.5 per cent and load factor dropped 56.7 percentage points to 27.2 per cent.

Latin American airlines experienced a 98.1 per cent demand drop in May compared to the same month last year versus a 98.2 per cent drop in April. Capacity fell 96.6 per cent and load factor fell 38.1 percentage points to 45.9 per cent, best among the regions.

African airlines traffic sank 98.2 per cent in May, fractionally improved from a 98.7 per cent decline in April. Capacity contracted 77.8 per cent which was the smallest supply reduction among the regions, and load factor dived 61.8 percentage points to just 5.3 per cent of seats filled which was the lowest among regions.

On the other hand, domestic traffic fell by 79.2 per cent in May. This was an improvement compared to an 86.2 per cent decline in April. Domestic capacity fell 69.2 per cent and load factor dropped 27.2 percentage points to 56.9 per cent.

Chinas carriers posted a 49.9 per cent year-on-year decline in traffic in May, significantly improved from the 64.6 per cent demand drop recorded in April. However, the improvement has been more recently interrupted by flight cancellations to and from Beijing amid an increase in the number of new infections in the city.

US airlines domestic traffic was down 89.5 per cent in May, an improvement over the 95.6 per cent decline experienced in April. However, the recent rise in infection rates in key US states following the lifting of lockdown restrictions could negatively impact the budding recovery.

Also Read: IATA provides standard basis for Covid-19 testing of airline passengers
After India's ban 59 China-based apps, a Chinese state-run media outlet has said that this decision of the Indian government may lead to more economic losses for India than during the Doklam crisis.

A day after the Indian government banned 59 China-linked mobile apps, a Chinese state-run media outlet said that the political crackdown by New Delhi may lead to more economic losses than during the Doklam crisis. The Indian government on Monday banned 59 apps with China links including TikTok, SHAREit, UC Browser, Baidu map, Helo, Mi Community, Club Factory, WeChat and UC News in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order.

Chinas state-run Global Times said the move has dealt a severe blow to the confidence of Chinese investors and traders. It said that what the Indian government and people have done has dealt a severe blow to the confidence of Chinese investors and traders and the Indian economy could remain subdued for a protracted time under the devastating shocks from the coronavirus outbreak.

The report said over the years China-India border brawls have occurred occasionally but it would be uncommon for the two countries to engage in an economic war. It further read that even during the Doklam standoff in 2017, Indias economic losses were limited as bilateral trade ties recovered quickly following the crisis. But that doesnt mean the Indian side should underestimate the consequences of an economic war with China. And Chinas restraint is not a reason for India to recklessly crackdown on Chinese businesses.

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It said that Under such circumstances if the Indian government continues to pamper the countrys nationalist sentiment, it may suffer more economic losses than it did during the Doklam crisis. We sincerely hope the Indian government will wake up to the reality of the situation and help prevent the current crisis from deteriorating to a firestorm. Noting that it is undeniable that the app ban will hurt the commercial interests of relevant Chinese companies, the report said when looking at the bigger picture, it is clear that India is in no position to cause harm to Chinas juggernaut economy.

The report said that Indias attempt to extend the China boycott to the internet services sector is sending a very negative signal as the countrys boycott-China provocations will further worsen bilateral relations to trigger an economic conflict. The face-offs on the LAC particularly violent face-off in Ladakhs Galwan valley on June 15-16 after an attempt by the Chinese troops to unilaterally change the status quo during the de-escalation has triggered an anti-China sentiment in India.

Twenty soldiers were killed in the face-off and Indian intercepts revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including dead and seriously injured. Ji Rong, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, said his country is seriously concerned with and firmly opposed to such action.

Also read: India keeping a close watch on recent developments in Hong Kong

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The terror attack at Pakistan stock exchange building in Karachi killed 11 people. Condemning the attack, UNSC has expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Pakistan government.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack that took place at Pakistan stock exchange building in Pakistans Karachi, killing 11 people. After much delay, the UNSC issued a statement on Wednesday (local time) saying that the members of the Security Council expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Pakistan government, and they wished a speedy and full recovery to those who were injured.

The statement sponsored by China was reportedly delayed by the US and Germany. China introduced the statement on Tuesday but Germany stepped in to put a delay in issuing the statement at the last moment. Then, the US intervened also at the last moment.

The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack that took place in Karachi, Pakistan, on June 29, which resulted in several people killed, read the statement. The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, according to the statement.

Also Read: India keeping a close watch on recent developments in Hong Kong

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Four terrorists attacked the Pakistan stock exchange building. Two security guards and a police officer were killed in the attack, along with all the four terrorists. Several people, including three police officials, have been injured, the police said in a statement cited by Dawn. The Baloch Liberation Army claimed the responsibility of the attack.

In the statement, the members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice and urged all states, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with the Government of Pakistan and all other relevant authorities in this regard.

The members of the Security Council reiterated that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed, it read.

They reaffirmed the need for all states to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, the statement said.

Also Read: Paks failures to fulfil intl obligations, respect women calls for sanctions: Report

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Rajiv Kumar Chander, India's ambassador to UN on Wednesday told the UN that India has been keeping a close watch on the recent developments in Hong Kong.

India has been keeping a close watch on the recent developments in Hong Kong, said Rajiv Kumar Chander, the countrys ambassador and permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, on Wednesday, and urged the global body to address related concerns seriously and objectively. He went on to say at a press briefing at the UN body in Geneva that, Given the large Indian community that makes the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China its home, India has been keeping a close watch on the recent developments. We have heard several statements expressing concerns about these developments. We hope the relevant parties will take into account these views and address them properly, seriously, and objectively.

Thousands of Hong Kongers, who saw new dawn with the Chinese imposed restrictions over their autonomy and precious civil and social freedoms, turned out in protest in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay but were met with a heavy security presence. Police fired pepper spray into the crowd, kettled and dispersed protesters, and deployed water cannons.

As per media reports, some 200 people, including a man who was holding a black independence flag, and soon afterward a woman with a sign reading Hong Kong Independence were arrested by the city police. The protests were held just a day after Chinas elite Standing Committee imposed the new national security legislation on the semi-autonomous region in the lead-up to July 1  the 23rd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from British rule to China and dramatically broadens the powers of local and mainland authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish dissenters.

Also read: Australian PM launches billion dollar defence plan to counter China in Indo-Pacific region

Also read: Paks failures to fulfil intl obligations, respect women calls for sanctions: Report

In vague language, the legislation criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers. People convicted of such crimes can face sentences of up to life in prison.

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The White House has blamed Chinese aggression over the India-China border skirmishes and mentioned that it has been closely monitoring India and China since June 15 clashes.

After India banned 59 Chinese applications, the US on Wednesday (local time) said that Chinas aggressive stance along the India-China border is part of Beijings aggression into other parts of the world. The Trump White House has blamed Chinese aggression over the India-China border skirmishes. President Trump has said that Chinas aggressive stance along the India-China border fits with a larger pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world and these actions only confirm the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party.

During a press briefing, White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany said that With regard to India and China, the US is closely monitoring the situation. Both India and China have expressed a desire to de-escalate. The USA supports a peaceful resolution of the current situation. As told in the briefing, the USA has been closely monitoring both the countries after June 15 clashes.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo applauded Indias ban on 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat, and stressed that the move would boost Indias integrity and national security. Brad Sherman, a senior Democratic member of the House of Representatives, unequivocally blamed Chinese aggression for the June 15 clashes. Brad is also the co-chair of House India Caucus.

Also read: India keeping a close watch on recent developments in Hong Kong

Also read: Heinous, cowardly: UNSC condemns Karachi stock exchange terror attack

Pompeo said that they welcome Indias ban on certain mobile apps. Indias clean app approach will boost Indias sovereignty and boost integrity and national security. Although, Both India and China have turned down President Trumps offer of mediation that he mentioned on May 27 for the first and last time.

Also read: Australian PM launches billion dollar defence plan to counter China in Indo-Pacific regionas

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WEST MAUI  At 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7, the Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunset will have a two-part Zoom meeting.

The first part will feature the reports from the four Action Teams that resulted from the clubs Visioning/Strategic Planning session that was held in late May. Reports will be shared from these teams: 1) Partner with organizations and Rotary Clubs; 2) The Computers for Kids project; 3) The Summer Scholarships project; and 4) Support for Small Businesses activities.

Tova Callender and Liz Foote will then share information about the West Maui Kumuwai organization.

Staying Ocean-Friendly During a Pandemic is the topic and will feature information about how we can build some ocean-friendly activities into our current reality, in an unobtrusive way that respects everyones priorities and circumstances.

Club members will receive an automatic invitation to this Zoom meeting. If a guest would like to join this virtual meeting of the Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunset, contact Past President Mariko Higashi at marikoinmaui@gmail.com to be included on the invite list.
When Land Rover stopped production of the iconic Defender in January of 2016, Brits and 44 enthusiasts alike were distraught. The mourners included Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a chemical magnate and industrialist who, as Bloomberg notes, is the U.K.s richest man with a $20 billion fortune. But instead of wallowing in self-pity, Ratcliffe tried to buy the rights to keep building the Defender in the U.K.

That didnt pan out, partly because Jaguar Land Rover released a redesigned Defender in September 2019. But JLRs new off-roader has faced criticism that it isnt faithful to the original design, to its country (production has moved from Solihull, England to Nitra, Slovakia) or to its heritage (starting around $50K, its more luxury and less pragmatism).
NEW HAVEN  The Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology has announced plans to raise money for an economic justice fund to support Black-owned businesses in New Haven.

Officials, coming off a previous effort to raise $600,000 to benefit establishments in the Newhallville area, said they would strive to raise $5 million to stock the fund.

Given the state of the nations current moment of racial unrest and economic instability, the ConnCAT Crisis Committee has issued a mandate to invest in Black communities in pursuit of racial justice. According to Brookings, at $171,000, the median net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family, which was $17,150 in 2016, officials said. As such, the pivot to long-term community investment is the result of re-assessing the need that presently exists in the Black community during and after COVID-19 and understanding that intergenerational wealth creation is the best path to racial economic justice.

The center is in the midst of developing programs to give grants to businesses and support those seeking to buy homes in Dixwell and Newhallville, officials said in the release.

As of June 30, officials said the center had distributed $300,000 to help families suffering the impacts of COVID-19 meet basic needs such as food, medication, rent, utilities, transportation into fall.

Officials said the investment was needed, particularly given the historic economic disenfranchisement of Black residents.

Right now our commitment has to be bold and swift, said Erik Clemons, ConnCAT president & CEO. Without significant support from major donors, the impact of racism and poverty may be irrevocably worsened during pandemic recovery efforts. We know that race and ZIP code have been determinants of individual and family success for far too long. Thats why were committed to investing in direct aid as well as systems-change to ensure long-term success and self-sufficiency for those who need it most.

What COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests have demonstrated is racial justice and economic justice are inextricably linked. The racial wealth gap has long been studied and just as compound interest accrues, so have historic disadvantages. We know that asset ownership, businesses as well as homes, is a key path to wealth creation, said Anna Blanding, ConnCATs director of impact investments. It is time we realize our communities as places of vibrancy, business innovation, wealth creation, and hope. As we enter this next phase, well continue to pursue impact gifts from individuals and organizations who want to support the effort of direct financial assistance to families and businesses that need it the most.

The inclusion of grants for homeownership is so key to this initiative. Homeownership is the primary source of wealth creation in any community, however, the Black community has historically been blocked from this means of wealth creation, said Karen DuBois-Walton, president of Elm City Communities/Housing Authority of the City of New Haven. This has resulted in the low homeownership rates in Newhallville (26%) and Dixwell (15%) neighborhoods. ConnCATs Justice Fund offers a pathway to wealth creation through homeownership.

Donations can be made at Conncat.org/crisis_relief_fund, officials noted.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
Chronic pain can last for months. When pain lasts this long, it is called chronic pain, and it can have severe consequences on the sufferer. It can manifest as headaches, burning or tingling sensations in different parts of the body, jolts of pain in the muscles or joints, etc.

Chronic pain can affect sufferers in the following ways:

Reduction in Sleep Quality  In a study of 268 patients with chronic pain, researchers found a link between pain intensity and sleep disturbance. Almost 90 percent of chronic pain patients had some form of sleep disorder.

Affects Cardiovascular Health  The study also found that people with chronic pain had a higher risk of suffering from cardiovascular health problems like hypertension.

Affects Quality of Life  Chronic pain sufferers find it difficult to handle daily tasks because every movement worsens their pain. Most chronic pain sufferers have little social interactions.

Cervical Chiropractic Care and Chronic Pain: A growing body of evidence suggests that there is a link between upper cervical injuries and chronic pain.

Digital X-ray and thermal imaging tests can detect if you have any unaddressed upper cervical. injuries.

To address the root cause of chronic pain, the specific chiropractor will administer a chiropractic adjustment and various types of care. This will correct the misalignment of the neck vertebrae and eliminate the irritation causing the pain.

You can trust our safety measures to keep you protected. We sanitize our surfaces and equipment.

Have you been suffering from chronic pain? Call us. We can definitely help you find long-lasting relief.

For the past six years, Dr. Addison Bulosan has provided excellent chiropractic care for sufferers of chronic migraines and other travel-related illnesses. For more information, contact Dr. Bulosan at 296 Alamaha St., #C3A, in Kahului, or phone (808) 866-6551. Please forward all e-mail inquiries to maui@thespecific.com. To schedule a free 15-minute consultation, visit www.maui.thespecific.com/schedule.

We are slowly coming back and returning to the community we love. The challenging part here is although we are all trying to make a comeback, we also need to stay as safe and healthy as possible.

As a healthcare professional, our highest priority is health, and weve been able to come back as a business successfully.

Keep up-to-date on whats going on in Maui and join us on our Facebook Group: The Specific MAUI Community Group.
GUILFORD  Leave it to Beth Payne, director of the Dudley Farm Museum, to ruffle feathers in North Guilford.

But they are not current feathers. It was during the Victorian era of the mid-19th century to the early 20th, the Dudley Farm women were frou frou, Payne said, intimating their inclination toward the showy and heavily ornamental.

For evidence, shes produced an 1866 Geneva hand fluter, among the pieces in But What Is It? Unusual Artifacts at the Dudley Farm, an exhibit opening July 1 that invites museum-goers to guess the function of some lesser known 19th century inventions.

Spoiler alert: The hand fluter was developed from cast iron and heated up on the coals of the stove to press rows of narrow flutes, or pleats, into linen.

This was the Victorian era when women wore fancy clothes when they went out and that included these perfectly pleated items, Payne said.

The era renowned for its corsets, bonnets, bustles and petticoats did not bypass the Dudley Farm, it seems. According to Payne, the Dudleys were well off during this period, and carried influence in both educational and church matters in North Guilford.

They were well-educated and well-respected, and they would go out to teas, church functions, Grange meetings, she said. Any place you were seen, you wanted to make sure you made a good presentation.

Back on the farm, the Dudley women reverted to their usual industry and initiative, it seems, which included the use of a butter mold, another piece in the exhibit.

In the 19th century, farmers who prided themselves on making high quality products wanted to mark their wares as their own, Payne said. The butter mold allowed them to give their butter a unique trademark that would let consumers know they were getting the good stuff.

Frank Percy Ayer of Lebanon got the patent for the butter mold in 1888, among the Connecticut inventors featured in the exhibit.

Theres also Charles Goodyear, a New Haven native, who was awarded a patent for vulcanized rubber developed in the lower Naugatuck Valley that led to footwear and tires. South Windsors Eli Terry won a patent for a shelf clock mechanism that introduced mass production to the art of clock making and made clocks affordable for the average American citizen, according to Payne.

Its a way to learn about all the invention that was going on in this state in the 19th century, said Payne.

Payne noted that a 44-star flag will be flying when the Dudley Farm Museum reopens on July 1.

While we fly our 50-star flag on our 1840 flagpole each Saturday during the farmers market, announcing to all we are open, we raise a different flag on the Dudley Farmhouse to celebrate Independence Day and other special events, she said.

This flag was raised at the Great Hill Road School, the predecessor to the County Road School, on July 4, 1891, having just had a star added for the admission of Wyoming.

The 44-star flag is not officially part of the exhibit. Neither are the chickens clucking in their coops or the cows grazing in the pastures or the bluebirds flitting about the pastoral stretch of land on the northeast corner of Routes 77 and 80.

Or the farmers market, which opens for its sixth week on Saturday.

In a way, the grounds are like the museum. Time stands still, Payne said. Everything is just a little softer, a little slower.

Certainly not frou frou.

The Dudley Farm Museum is located on 2351 Durham Road, Guilford. For more information, visit dudleyfarm.com or call 203-457-0770.

The museum will be open on Wednesday, July 1 - Friday July 3 from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (farmers market, 9 a.m. - 12:30 p.m..); and Sunday 1 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Starting July 6, museum hours: Thursday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m., Sunday, 1 p.m. - 4 p.m.

The museum will be enforcing Covid-19 safety measures, including the use of hand sanitizer on the porch, a requirement for face masks, and social distancing.
NEW HAVEN  Detectives continue to investigate a fatal shooting that killed an New York man over the weekend, police officials said Wednesday.

A man was found dead in a parking lot several hundred feet behind a business near 301 Sargent Drive around 6:20 a.m. Sunday. Investigators identified the victim as 29-year-old Joel Price of Oyster Bay, N.Y., Capt. Anthony Duff said Wednesday.
Princess Nahienaena Elementary is a Title I School, and many students do not have access to a computer in their homes.

This could be a problem if there is a future shutdown due to COVID-19, or parents want their children to learn from home.

The Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunset aims to address the issue through its new Computers for Kids Project.

Rotarians recently launched the campaign with the goal of providing 90 refurbished computers for these families.

Have an old laptop, desktop or tablet computer? Pack it in a brown paper bag and bring it to Moku Roots Restaurant in Lahaina Gateway Center between 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. any day of the week.

The computers will be wiped clean, sanitized and updated for the students by George Gordon, the Lahaina News own Computer Guru.

We are very sure that our Maui community members will rise to this challenge of donating 90 devices for these families by July 31st, said Joanne Laird, past president and coordinator of this project.

The Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunset Foundation holds a 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. A form will be available upon drop-off, so that the person making the donation can receive a mahalo letter for tax purposes.

Please consider donating your vintage devices to support this program to get the needed technology into the hands of these families, Laird noted.

For more information, contact Laird at mamalrd01@gmail.com or (808) 757-0981.
BRANFORD  Angela Higgins, widow of late 2nd Selectman Joseph Higgins Jr., took the oath of office Wednesday night to serve as her recently deceased husbands successor on the Board of Selectmen.

I pledge to do my best for all the citizens of Branford, Higgins said after thanking First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove and Selectman Ray Dunbar for the appointment.

After Town Clerk Lisa Arpin administered the oath of office, with Higgins daughter, Michele, holding the Bible, Higgins took her seat and the board immediately got to work and resumed the meeting. Higgins will serve for the balance of her late husbands term, which runs through Nov. 16, 2021.

The choice came despite earlier lobbying by local Democrats to name Representative Town Meeting Minority Leader Tom Brockett, D-7, to the position.

It drew praise from the one person who commented on it at the meeting, resident Wayne Cooke  who more often than not is a critic of Branford government.

Although I disagree with most things that this administration does, that this was a very, very classy move, Cooke, who attended via Zoom, told the board. Angela ... is a great lady. Joe was a great guy. ... I think this was as good as you could have done to replace someone who basically was irreplaceable.

Joe Joseph Higgins, a former Fire Department of New York official during 9/11 who later retired to Branford and served on the Board of Selectmen for 61/2 years, died on June 4.

Higgins was serving on the ground with the leadership team during 9/11 and the loss of so many close friends weighed heavily on his heart, Cosgrove said at the time of his Higgins death.

Joe was the keynote speaker at our annual 9/11 remembrance ceremonies, Cosgrove said. He focused his message towards the children believing the best way to honor the lost was to teach our young people about the immense sacrifice made to save others.

mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com
Niagara Falls, NY (14301)

Today

Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 52F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 52F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.
The largest marijuana raid in Niagara Regional Police history was made Tuesday as a result of a raid at a greenhouse operation in the area of Third Street Louth and Main Street in City of St. Catharines.

The NRP guns, gangs and grows unit, with the opioid enforcement unit, began an investigation in May as a result of complaints from citizens.

At about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, police with a search warrant entered the properties and immediately observed a well-organized and large-scale cannabis growing operation, said a news release.

Police located 11 people working on and tending to cannabis plants. Police found about 17,200 plants in various stages of growth.

The estimated value of the marijuana is $34 million, police said.

The release called it the largest marijuana grow operation investigated by the Niagara Regional Police Service.

Zengshou Liu, 63, of St. Catharines is charged with unauthorized production of cannabis contrary to the Federal Cannabis Act.

Charged with the same offence are Yongqi Liu, 51; Qiaoguo Yang, 50; Xiao Ping Yang, 51; Junso Dong, 48; and Jinying Xue; 52, all of Scarborough; as well as Lin Feng Shi, 41, and Jin Chin Jiang, 35, both of Markham; Libo Qian, 54, of Toronto; and Yingqiu Lin; 68, of New York, U.S.A.

Another man arrested had yet to be identified.

All are to appear at the Robert S.K. Welch Courthouse in St. Catharines on Sept. 4.

Police said illegal operations such as these pose several concerns, including offensive odour and the potential for violence.

In the release, the NRP also said it would like to remind people that individuals can produce up to four cannabis plants per residence. If a member of the public has been granted a Health Canada issued registration/licence to produce cannabis for medical purposes, those authorizations are specific to the named individual and location as well as the prescribed plant amount.

Cannabis grown for ones own medical purpose cannot be sold, given or transferred to other parties. Aside from federal producers and regulated storefronts, it is an offence under the Cannabis Act to distribute or sell cannabis.
Former Niagara Region chair Alan Caslin and his two closest aides claim that Carmen DAngelo acquiring interview questions and answers did not give him an edge over other people competing for the municipalitys top staff position in 2016.

In court documents obtained by the St. Catharines Standard, Caslin and his then-policy director Robert DAmboise and then-communications chief Jason Tamming claim DAngelos credentials were so good, any documents, including the interview questions, would not have changed the outcome of the 2016 chief administrative officer hiring process.

In whatever manner (the documents) have come into DAngelos possessions, or however they have been created, did not give DAngelo an unfair advantage in the recruitment process, says the trios statement of defence in the $850,000 lawsuit brought against them by Niagara Region for their role in the CAO hiring scandal.

Nothing in the documents supplanted the skills, competencies, traits, credentials ... DAngelo otherwise already had.

The trio claim they did not give DAngelo any documents and are the victims of a political battle between ideological factions within the regional government that sought to oust DAngelo and now seeks to settle a political score by suing them.

The defendants should not be scape goats for the Regions flawed past practices or historic systematic failures, the claim says. Nor is appropriate for the Region and current regional council to use the courts processes to pursue the grievances of former political opponents.

The claims made in the statement run contrary to facts as presented by the Ontario Ombudsman investigation into DAngelos hiring and contract extension, as well as contradicting statements by both DAngelo and Caslin over the span of the controversy.

The document attacks DAngelos predecessor, leaks to the press and councils going back to 2008. It presents Caslin, Tamming and DAmboise as having the public good as their sole motive.

The Region filed the lawsuit against the trio in February, claiming they were engaged in an unlawful conspiracy that created the 2016 scandal.

The Region, leaning heavily on conclusions of Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dube, says Caslin, Tamming and DAmboise acted in concert to ensure DAngelo would be hired as CAO and to manipulate the hiring process, including feeding DAngelo confidential information, giving him aid other candidates did not have and keeping council and the human resources department in the dark about contract details.

The municipality also says Caslin committed misfeasance in a public office through the hiring scandal and by granting DAngelo a secret and lucrative new contract without the knowledge of council. As a result, the Region claims it suffered serious reputational damage.

Neither the claims of the Region nor the Caslin trio, who deny having colluded to hire DAngelo, have been proven in a civil court.

Bad reputations

The three men, represented by Toronto law firm Mill Thomson LLP, say nothing they did wounded the Regions public reputation. If the Regions reputation is poor it is not their doing.

The Region has suffered from a damaged public reputation over events occurring well before Caslin became regional chair or DAmboise and Tamming became employees of the Region, the document says.

Significant portions of the document outlines what Caslin, DAmboise and Tamming claim to be a poor job performance of previous CAO Harry Schlange  he left the Region in 2016 following conflicts with Caslin  and the failings of staff regarding the Burgoyne Bridge project, which cost more than $100 million, well beyond initial estimates of $54 million.

These claims rely largely on the 2017 audit of the project by Deloitte Canada  which found a host of policy and procedural problems at the Region  but sometimes omits key context or conclusions.

For instance, the statement says an employee of the Region did not declare a conflict of interest regarding property that person owned near the bridge. However, Diolette found there was no conflict of interest regarding that property.

That Caslin was a member of the regional council that approved the bridge project is not noted in the document.

The statement of defence also points out Schlange, now CAO of Grimsby, was placed on administrative leave by Grimsby Mayor Jeff Jordan in February. However, it failed to note the mayors action was based on an anonymous email that made unsubstantiated allegations against Schlange and that a week later the town council voted to rebuke Jordans actions and reinstate Schlange.

DAngelo and the documents

Nearly two years of reporting by the Standard, later confirmed by the Ombudsman investigation, found before and during the 2016 hiring process, DAngelo downloaded seven confidential and secret documents, including drafts of chairs reports about the CAO before council saw them, interview questions and answers, answers to a written submission to the hiring committee and confidential information about other candidates. All of these documents were materials a candidate for the CAO job should not have. Many of them, including the candidate bios and interview questions, were created by DAmboise and found on his and Tammings regional laptops.

Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dube found DAngelos hiring was unjust and wrong and was orchestrated from within Caslins office.

In their statement of defence, which makes no reference to the Ombudsman probe, Caslin, Tamming and DAmboise say they have no idea how DAngelo got the documents, saying it was the work of unknown persons.

The defendants vehemently deny disclosing any confidential information to DAngelo, the statement says.

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Tamming admits to helping DAngelo craft his written submission to the hiring committee, but says his role was limited to grammar and style issues, and he did that work on his personal time.

The document also says DAmboise asked for a lock to be placed on his office door during the time of the CAO hiring process because of the confidential documents he had, but could only get it installed after DAngelo was hired.

Neither the Standard nor the Ombudsman could identify who emailed the documents to DAngelo, who initially told Ombudsman investigators the documents could have been planted in his computer at Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, where he worked before being hired as Region CAO. However, when shown forensic analysis that demonstrated the documents were authentic, DAngelo told the Ombudsman he probably got them from DAmboise.

Other documents found on DAngelos NPCA computer included a map of an early plan, dated to December 2015, to have DAngelo replace Schlange, as well as documents from the early CAO hiring process including a list of traits the Region might be looking for in a CAO.

In their statement of defence, Caslin, Tamming and DAmboise say they have no knowledge of any of those documents, including the map which contained the exact date of a confidential council meeting, before it took place, where Caslin sought the authority to fire Schlange.

The statement of defence says DAmboises role during the hiring process was in keeping with his position as Caslins policy director and within the hiring committees terms of. The Ombudsmans report, by contrast, says DAmboise drove the recruitment process and neither he, nor any of Caslins staff, is named in the terms of reference.

The contact extension

The statement of defence says Caslin acted within his powers as regional chair to unilaterally grant DAngelo a contract extension which provided him with three years pay even if fired with cause.

The document says due to political opposition DAngelo faced as a result of a proxy war between councillors, his job was at risk.

DAngelo feared that those who continued to oppose his appointment and seek his removal may fabricate false information about him, the statement of defence says.

Caslin acknowledged he recognized the validity of DAngelos concerns, and granted him the new contract. The document says there are no rules that required Caslin to inform council of the deal.

During a July 2018 closed-door meeting of council  a recording of which was obtained by the Standard  Caslin denied having given DAngelo a new contract, saying he knew his role and would never do that. A month later, under further questioning by councillors, Caslin admitted he give DAngelo the deal.

No harm to the Region

Caslin, Tamming and DAmboise claim, while denying they did anything wrong, the Region suffered no damages or losses as a result of their actions.

Whatever reputational damages the Region have suffered, they claim, is the result of unidentified innumerable bad actors within the Regions administration.

They also say while they always acted in the best interests of the Region, there are no regulations that impose fiduciary duties on them  meaning they claim there were no rules that required them to act in the best interests of the municipality.

The trio further claims they are immune from liability under the Municipal Act and that too much time has passed since DAngelo was hired for the Regions lawsuit to be valid.

Saying they only sought to better the lives and well-being of Niagara residents, they claim to be the targets of a political struggle between ideological factions of regional council seeking to score points with the public.
DETROITSome Tesla workers and labour activists say the company is threatening to fire employees who havent returned to the companys California factory since it reopened because theyre afraid of catching the coronavirus.

The group wants the practice to stop, and it also wants state and county officials to do a better job making sure proper safety procedures are followed at the factory in Fremont, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

There are people we are paying to keep us safe, and theyre just turning the other cheek, said Tesla worker Carlos Gabriel, who is among the organizers of a rally scheduled for Thursday at the Alameda County public health department in Oakland. They should be holding (Tesla CEO) Elon Musk accountable.

A Tesla spokesperson wouldnt immediately comment Wednesday, but company officials said at a public hearing on tax incentives in Texas last week that claims of Fremont workers being fired are untrue. Tesla has released plans to maintain worker safety including temperature checks, the wearing of gloves and masks, installing barriers between workers and maintaining social distancing. In early May, Musk told workers that they didnt have to return to the plant if they werent comfortable with it.

A message was left Wednesday seeking comment from the health department.

Problems at the factory are among several that have flared up in the auto industry in recent weeks. Assembly lines at two Fiat Chrysler plants in the Detroit area were briefly shut down this week due to fears over viral spread, and local union officials want General Motors to close and clean an SUV factory in Arlington, Texas.

Gabriel and another Tesla worker say they have heard of COVID-19 cases among workers at the Fremont factory, but dont know numbers because the company wont tell them. They want the health department to release numbers and to trace whoever came in contact with sick workers rather than letting Tesla do it.

Branton Phillips, a towmotor operator who has returned to work, says many workers dont wear masks covering their nose and mouth in the plant, and they remove them and dont keep proper social distance when they go outside. Hes worried about getting sick and spreading it to his longtime girlfriend who is vulnerable to the virus, he said.

I had to go back. I need the (medical) insurance, Phillips said, adding that Tesla is trying to enforce mask requirements inside the factory. He says employees have been threatened with being fired, but then told they wont be fired, creating confusion.

Musk reopened the Fremont plant May 11 in defiance of Alameda County orders to stay closed. The county health department had deemed the factory a non-essential business that cant fully open under virus restrictions, but Tesla contended it was essential under federal guidelines.

The next day, however, the health department announced that the plant could return to manufacturing as long as it delivers on worker safety precautions that it agreed to.

Earlier this week, the United Auto Workers union sent teams to the two Fiat Chrysler plants and the Texas factory to investigate employee fears about other workers being infected, spokesperson Brian Rothenberg said. He didnt know how many coronavirus cases there were at each of the plants.

GM says its safety protocols in Arlington are working and it has not changed production plans. It says in a statement that some workers have tested positive at the plant because there is no vaccine or cure.

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A Canadian epidemiologist has called the decision by Air Canada and WestJet to drop on-board seat distancing policies wildly inappropriate, warning that the move could lead to a second wave of COVID-19 in Canada.

Colin Furness, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, called it a foolish move from both a public health and a business standpoint.

Thats how COVID arrived in Canada. It came on an airplane, he said. Theyre really kind of setting us up ... for a really ugly second wave.

Canadas two largest airlines ended their on-board seat distancing policies on July 1  the same day that Nova Scotias public health agency warned that passengers may have been exposed to COVID-19 on a June 26 WestJet flight from Toronto to Halifax. Its not the only case. The government has posted COVID-19 related health advisories for 11 Canadian airline flights since June 17. Eight are Air Canada flights, two are WestJet, and one is Flair Airlines.

The airlines maintain that temperature checks, mandatory face masks, HEPA air filters, deep cleaning and other measures mean that they can now seat passengers right next to each other, but all three independent health experts contacted by the Star said that the face masks, temperature checks and extra cleaning promised by airlines cannot replace the efficacy of social distancing.

Air Canada and WestJet said they would relax the procedures in accordance with the United Nations aviation agency and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) trade group. Both airlines were previously blocking immediately adjacent seats.

But epidemiologists say its too soon for people to fly for any non-essential reason, and that if people do need to fly, social distancing is the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Furness said the June 26 flight should serve as a scare for anyone thinking of flying recreationally.

He said Canadians who have to fly should choose airlines that are still distancing passengers  almost impossible now that both major airlines have ended the practice  or at least fly business class. And if theyre thinking of flying recreationally, he has this advice: Maybe dont.

What role do you want to have in propagating suffering and death? And is it worth it?

Tim Sly, an epidemiologist and professor emeritus at Ryerson Universitys School of Public Health, said any air travel at all is taking a big risk, because youre doing exactly what the experts have been telling you not to do.

He agreed with Furness that distance is much more effective than masks, and said no matter how careful passengers are, it just takes one person to spread COVID-19 on a flight.

In early June, Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu was one of more than 130 executives from the travel and tourism industry who signed an open letter to the prime minister asking for looser travel restrictions and targeted quarantines for passengers coming from higher-risk countries. A week later, the companys CFO echoed that call during a virtual event.

WestJet spokesperson Morgan Bell said in an email that the company is trying to balance the economic necessity of the airlines to a country with responsibly living with the virus. She added that WestJet has been alerting the public about potential exposures since March 15 to remain transparent with customers.

Bell said WestJet airplanes are fitted with HEPA filters, which refresh air throughout the cabin and help clean recirculated air. She said the seat distancing measures were intended to be temporary while the airline ramped up all its other hygiene measures in preparation for the long haul.

Bell said WestJets posted schedule for July shows the airline operating at 13 per cent of last years capacity.

In an email, an Air Canada spokesperson pointed to HEPA filters as a key reason why there are no reports of outbreak clusters on board flights. The spokesperson said modern aircraft are made to constantly scrub and refresh air every 2-3 minutes, adding that the airline will notify passengers if their upcoming flight is near capacity and give them other flight options.

While we would all like a single measure that reduces risk, we are left to use a combination of approaches to mitigate risk, the spokesperson said.

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On May 19, the IATA called for an end to seat distancing, saying the use of masks rendered it unnecessary. A May 8 publication said continued distancing would make airlines economically unviable and that depending on configuration, seat distancing could result in a reduced capacity of 33 to 50 per cent, causing companies to lose money.

The May 19 publication also states that air filtering, seats as a barrier and the fact that everybody is front facing help negate the need for seat distancing.

IATA has suggested COVID-19 testing be part of airlines safety measures where available.

Furness said he thinks Canada has an unfortunate track record of following international governance over its own officials, and that this is an example of that.

Nitin Mohan, a physician epidemiologist who teaches public and global health at Western University, said people need to figure out their own risk threshold, and think about not just their own health safety, but that of those around them.

He said he would prefer airlines continue to maintain seat distancing and listen to public health officials in Canada. We cant be lax with our precautions, he said.

Mohan said with airlines relaxing restrictions and the economy reopening, Canadians may be lulled into a false sense of security, thinking life is returning to normal.

But were far from that.

On Monday, B.C.s health minister Adrian Dix asked for evidence that its safe for airlines to drop social distancing policies. Neither airline commented at the time, but Transport Canada said in a statement that it had issued nonmandatory guidelines to the industry that included passenger spacing.

With files from Canadian Press and Jillian Kestler-DAmours

Clarification  July 3, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version to clarify comments by WestJet spokesperson Morgan Bell.

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All those warnings from small cottage country mayors to stay away this spring havent discouraged Torontonians from hunting for vacation homes, say realtors in the resort destinations outside the city.

Some say the pandemic is boosting business as urbanites seek a change of scene in less populated communities, finally secure in the knowledge that the boss is OK with working from home.

The lockdown made people stir crazy, said real estate broker Treat Hull in Prince Edward County east of Toronto, which has been attracting tourists, retirees and telecommuters, with its wineries, internet service and home prices at half the cost of the city.

Hull said COVID-19 deepened the pool of potential home buyers beyond the lawyers and knowledge workers because suddenly it has become acceptable to make a big presentation or sales proposal on video chat.

Now, not only can you work from home, you can sell from home. I think thats the breakthrough, he said.

North of the city, prices have been climbing all spring but they were up 10.5 per cent in June over May, said Catharine Inniss, of Johnston and Daniel in Port Carling in Muskoka.

People are coming up in droves. They are buying everything, she said.

COVID brought home that (people) wanted more space. Also employers are embracing telecommuting much more now that they know it works just fine, said Inniss, who is the president of the Lakelands Association of Realtors.

Even the recent stock market turmoil has helped, she said.

People are deciding its a much safer bet to invest in real estate. You can enjoy your money in real estate, said Inniss.

Lake Simcoe real estate was sizzling at the start of 2020, even with 2.5 ft. of ice on the water, said Barrie based realtor Rick Laferriere of Re/MAX Hallmark Chay Realty. His business, based entirely on waterfront properties, went cold the last two weeks of March but then the phones started ringing again.

Laferriere said the first six months of the year saw a 25 per cent year over year increase in sales and he says its all healthy family business compared to recent years when buyers were purchasing lakefront homes to earn short-term rental income.

With no day camp or sleepaway camps for their kids, a lot of families that are just biting the bullet, he said.

Normally after Canada Day, the real estate season starts to slow, but the pandemic appears to have stalled and sped up the usual spring search for vacation homes, said Troy Austen, of Re/MAX Team Haliburton Highlands.

As city folks hunt for year-round homes in cottage country, the Ontario governments commitment to high speed internet in rural areas, cant come soon enough, he said.

Austen said buyers, who cant travel, cant send their kids to camp and are afraid to ride the elevator to their condo, are looking for a sandy beach, sunset views and internet  not necessarily in that order.

The 57.5 per cent year over year drop in waterfront home inventory in June and a 47 per cent increase in sales, means many properties are selling with multiple offers.

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If you want to know what your place is worth, just wait for the next week, he said.

As for the warnings for cottagers to stay away for fear of overwhelming rural health care systems, Austen said many cottage owners took no notice. Now, those people are bored and working on their properties with 2x4s selling out at the lumber store and a run on hot tubs.

For a long time you could fire a cannon up the street, said Austen. Last week, starting on Wednesday, you cant even drive through town any more.
We respect and appreciate law enforcement

A sincere heartfelt acknowledgement and appreciation to the thousands of incredible men and women who serve in law enforcement across our country.

The developments over these past few weeks with rioting, looting and senseless violence have both shocked and frightened me. Of all the crazy ongoing occurrences  such as taking over portions of cities, as in Seattle, and the burning and looting of uninvolved neighborhood businesses -none seems more ludicrous than the call for defunding and dismantling police departments.

Of course we have an element of bad individuals in a number of police departments. We also have an overwhelmingly positive, dependable, dedicated and courageous significant majority of 90-95 percent in nearly every precinct or department.

This vilification of the many, many brave men and women who have taken on law enforcement as a career is unconscionable and embarrassing. It seems all of the press and news media focuses on the anarchist burning, pillaging and calling for defunding and dismantling police departments.

To all of you who are in law enforcement, please know that many of the citizens of this country appreciate your commitment and dedication. We thank you for putting yourselves in harms way to protect and serve.

Doing your job as police officers for mediocre pay and literally no thanks, while now having to take on the insults, attacks and added danger each day, makes you true heroes in my heart. Thank you.

MIKE KELLEY, Lahaina



Remove the Sugar Cane Train signs

There are probably other intersections as well, but at Highway 30/Kapunakea, we have THREE long outdated poles with signs that say:

1. Stop here on red. This results in about two rear-enders per week, since tourists mostly dont know there is no more Sugar Cane Train (at least in Lahaina).

2. Railway crossing.

3. Railway crossing with a red light that has not been turned on in years.

The tracks are torn and twisted, resulting in tire damage, and the plates holding the tracks in place are ripped as well.

The question is, are those poles on county or state property, or is the train company responsible for them?

NOW would be a good time to take those things away; they are all rusty already anyway.

In addition, they block the view onto the main traffic/pedestrian lights at this intersection.

Just another we dont care thing at West Maui intersections (Keawe/Gateway, etc). There wont be (hopefully) any Sugar Cane Train anymore in Lahaina, so whats the holdup?

JOHN BLAHUTA, Lahaina



Clean up after your pooch

Due to the COVID-19, Ive been out and about taking walks with my dog, and I am appalled by how many dog owners who walk without a dog poop bag.

First of all, its disgusting. We go out for walks for the fresh air  not to smell dog poop. It takes less than a minute to pick up after your pup! And you can even use the produce bags and tie them to your leash before you go out (its free and you already have some on hand).

Secondly, if it rains or the sprinklers go on, the runoff goes into the drains. Ive even seen dog poop along the beach areas. Come on, people! We swim in there and sit on the sand.

Third, as playful as all our kids are along our walks, we dont want that burden of the kids stepping into the poop. Even as adults, who wants to step in dog poop?

I have a dog and dont want to pick up after your dogs when they decide to use the bathroom in my yard. And when I politely ask you to pick up after your pup or offer you a bag, please dont be insulted.

As dog owners, please be mindful of picking up after your dog. We all live on this beautiful island; why ruin it for others by not picking up after your pooch? Its the little things that make a difference for everyone in the community.

On another note, dont forget to walk your bag to a trash bin. Im amazed how some people forget this final step.

And for all the people who pick up after your dogTHANK YOU! You made my walk extra special!

MICHELLE SAVELLA, West Maui



Overcoming darkness

In these times, the darkest moments may overcome us! We doubt ourselves, wondering whats the use?! These moments chip away at our sanity and good feelings for life in general.

Perhaps it is precisely at these times of darkest thoughts that pivotal change can occur? Can these times be a testament to our Greater Love of Life and Creator that we turn to light, not darkness? Can we turn to nature? To gratitude for what we do have?

Once we choose the Light of the Greater Love that inspires All Life, the Great Illusion of fear and materialism falls away.

Here is where true freedom reigns, but it takes commitment for ongoing progress. I find that if I can get beyond myself, find purpose in helping others, animals, the aina, I free myself.

Lets make our choice for Freedom!

LINDA LYERLY, West Maui



There is hope for the U.S.

Growing up, the red, white and blue Stars and Stripes were adorned with patriotic well-being. Causing conflicting emotions today, the beloved American flag can be a painful reminder of Hawaiis illegal overthrow. One day, justice will be done. Until then, Queen Liliuokalanis desire of forgiveness and love continues in the Aloha Spirit.

Touring through Glacier Park with a Native American guide, it included driving past a vast development of veteran housing. Inquiring at the high percentage of vets, with pride, the man explained how the Blackfeet perpetuate their warring cultural heritage by serving in the U.S. Military.

Meeting two fun-loving young women on a Maui flight, our friendship began. Originally from East Turkistan, a country illegally annexed by China, they are Muslim Uyghur refugees seeking asylum in the United States.

Months later on a visit to Washington, D.C., we reunited. Meeting one of them at Arlington Cemetery, she wore a red shirt with an American flag on it  To honor the veterans, she said.

Hours later in the August heat, surrounded by acres of grave markers, I complained of thirst, bemoaning the lack of water to drink. Immediately, my young Uyghur companion responded with an incredible insight.

She suggested it was good we were suffering. The deprivation and discomfort would make us more appreciative of the sacrifices made for our countrys freedom.

Just like every one of us, the United States has its faults and failures. Yet, as demonstrated by these oppressed and persecuted individuals, there is redeeming hope.

MICHELE LINCOLN, Lahaina
Facebook Inc. was accused of systemic discrimination in hiring, compensation and promotion of Black people in a complaint to federal civil rights authorities.

Thursdays complaint to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by a Washington-based operations program manager adds pressure on the social network, which is facing an advertising boycott over its failure to remove violent, divisive, racist and discriminatory posts. Along with other major tech companies, Facebook also has been criticized for its lack of diversity.

Oscar Veneszee Jr., a decorated 23-year U.S. Navy veteran hired by the company in 2017 to recruit other workers retired from the armed services, said he filed the complaint after his objections to Facebook managers over treatment of African Americans went nowhere. It was filed as a class action to represent other Black people whove experienced discrimination inside the company, as well as those who claim they were unfairly denied jobs with the social network.

The only way to get contributions from Black experience is to have more Black employees at the company, Veneszee said in an interview. I think the desire is there, but I dont think theres an understanding of whats required to transition to a company thats more open, to being diverse, bold.

Facebook said we take any allegations of discrimination seriously and investigate every case.

We believe it is essential to provide all employees with a respectful and safe working environment, spokesperson Pamela Austin said in an email.

Facebook, along with Google and Microsoft Corp., have renewed pledges to prioritize diversity in the wake of nationwide protests and calls to end systemic racism after the police killing of George Floyd. Veneszee said he was motivated to complain to the EEOC in part by recent protests.

We are really as a country talking about getting it right this time, Veneszee said in the interview. As I look at our response, I dont think it has connected to the pain deep enough in order to develop solutions that are going to be better for us as a company.

A recent Bloomberg News analysis of diversity reports published by the worlds biggest tech companies shows little progress has been made transforming them from a predominantly white and male universe, with Black workers remaining mostly absent from management ranks and under-represented in technical roles.

Despite success at his job and positive feedback from managers, Veneszee said in the complaint, he was denied promotions, stalled by evaluations that said he merely meets all expectations as he ran into hostility and discrimination.

Veneszee described his frustration as a Black employee of a company where, according to Facebooks own figures, just 1.5 per cent of employees in technical roles in the U.S. were Black in 2019, and 3.1 per cent were Black among senior leadership. Those percentages have barely budged even as the company has added tens of thousands to a workforce that has grown by 400 per cent over the last five years, according to the complaint.

Theres really no representation of diversity, of Black employees in mind, all the way across the company, he said in the interview.

Veneszee recalled being forced to apologize to a white recruiter after questioning a plan for interns that listed only one of the nations more than 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He was told the question drove the recruiter to tears. After being routinely told that he must use the right tone, he said he came to realize the company is tone deaf toward Blacks. Me asking about HCBU shouldnt make you feel attacked, it shouldnt offend you if were talking about diversity, Veneszee said. He said it made him feel as if the way I say things fell on a different set of ears at Facebook.

An EEOC spokesman said the agency cant confirm or deny when complaints are filed and said they are handled confidentially.

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Veneszees lawyer, Peter Romer-Friedman of the Gupta Wessler firm, said the alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the complaint should be viewed as an invitation to negotiate.The complaint seeks an independent monitor to determine if Facebook is making progress hiring more Blacks, or if stronger measures are required, he said.

Were trying to extend an olive branch, the lawyer said in an interview. Oscars not trying to burn down the company from the inside or outside.

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OTTAWA - Federal and provincial governments have agreed to extend a commercial rent-relief program to help cover July costs for eligible small businesses.

The move comes with a few changes to the subsidy, as the COVID-19-related aid faces questions about whether it is delivering as expected.

The amended program had doled out $152 million in forgivable loans to landlords that had agreed to give rent breaks to more than 20,000 tenants as of June 21.

It carries a budget of over $2.97 billion, based on the latest federal spending estimates on pandemic-related aid.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said the rent help should run through to September at least, and that the program needs other changes to ease access.

The business group continues to hear stories of small-business tenants arent being helped because their landlords have not applied. Landlords have to seek support from the program and agree to cut their tenants rents in exchange.

CFIBs Alberta director Annie Dormuth said an extension to the fall would help companies still recovering from COVID-19 closures and trying to find their footing as public health restrictions are slowly rolled back.

Take up of the rent-relief program was slow at first, prompting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to publicly press landlords to apply for forgivable loans through the program.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau sounded more upbeat late last month when he said applications were rising thanks to provinces banning evictions during the ongoing pandemic. Landlords that cant kick tenants out have more reason to seek financial assistance.

Still, over the last three weeks, business consultant Jenifer Bartman has seen emails from companies announcing closures, including some deciding to not renew their leases because it no longer makes financial sense to do so.

Were going to see more of that. Were going to see more wind-ups and people might say, Oh well, small business doesnt matter much, but it could be 10 jobs, it could be 20 jobs, it starts to snowball ... and thats permanent.

She said part of the problem in the rent-relief program may be that asking landlords to shave down rents doesnt address that they too have loans to pay off.

The program provides forgivable loans that cover half of rent for eligible small businesses, and also requires landlords to waive a further one-quarter of what theyd otherwise be owed.

So they have financial institutions that are calling them to say, Where is this months mortgage payment? Bartman said. Perhaps part of the disconnect is there.

Among the changes included in the extension of the program is that insurance payments for missed rents and provincial rent supports wont be clawed back from the rent-support loans.

Previous amounts clawed back under the program will be returned to landlords that previously received loans through the program.

As well, those who qualified for loans by showing revenue declines of 70 per cent in April, May or June will qualify anew without being reassessed on whether their earnings have dropped by that much in July.

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In a release, Morneau said the extra month should ensure small businesses and property owners are poised to rebound in the post-pandemic recovery.

The Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals said in its own statement Thursday that without the rent-relief program and others, many Canadian businesses would likely already be insolvent.

Board member David Lewis said he hadnt heard of companies filing for bankruptcy because they couldnt get access to the rent-relief program. He cautioned that not everyone formally files.

There are vacant premises where the tenant was there pre-COVID and now theyre gone, he said, talking about what he sees around his hometown of Edmonton.

Yes, the numbers (of formal filings) have gone down, yes these assistance programs have helped, but if they were struggling before, theyre going to struggle after.

He added that its too early to tell if the aid measures will mean companies come out in good positions once the crisis passes.

Dormuth from the CFIB said the situation is particularly acute at the moment for private-sector health professionals, such as dentists, optometrists and naturopaths, who have to meet safety requirements to reopen after months of little, if any, income.

Among the new costs they have to manage, along with rent, is personal protective equipment like surgical-grade masks that may not be readily available.

Not only are they recovering from a complete mandated closure of no revenues for a couple of months, now theyre coming to an office environment where things are just completely changed, Dormuth said.

Its why the CFIB is asking provincial governments to give these companies access to provincial supply chains. CFIB is also asking the federal government to release revised eligibility rules for a $45-billion federal wage subsidy program that has been extended through the summer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2020.
OTTAWAThe Supreme Court of Canada will not hear a new appeal from British Columbia First Nations over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The court on Thursday dismissed the appeal from the Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, the Tselxweyeqw Tribes and Coldwater Indian Band, effectively ending the years-long legal battle over the project.

As is customary, the court did not give reasons for its decision.

First Nations leaders were planning a news conference later Thursday to respond to the courts decision.

The Trans Mountain project was first approved in 2016, but stopped by the Federal Court of Appeal two years later after First Nations and environmental groups successfully argued the approval process was flawed.

Ottawa approved the project a second time in June 2019 after undergoing additional consultation with the affected communities, but the bands still felt the government did not fulfil its duty to consult and again appealed the decision.

The Federal Court of Appeal ruled in February the approval would stand, saying the government had made a genuine effort to hear and accommodate concerns raised. But the First Nations disagreed and asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.

The bands still have outstanding concerns about the impact the pipeline could have on drinking water as well as ongoing concerns about the effect on marine life  particularly the highly endangered Southern Resident killer whales  off the B.C. coast.

Thursdays decision would appear to be the end of the road for legal arguments aimed at stopping construction on the pipeline.

In January, the Supreme Court said the B.C. government had no authority to try and regulate what could flow through the pipeline, which as an interprovincial project sits in federal jurisdiction.

The court also declined in March to hear a challenge from environmental groups who had been denied the right to appeal the second approval.

The expanded pipeline will nearly triple the amount of diluted bitumen flowing between Albertas oilsands and a marine port in Burnaby, B.C.

Initially proposed by Kinder Morgan Canada to twin the existing pipeline that carries both refined products and diluted bitumen, the pipeline became a political symbol for the fight over whether Canada can continue to extract and sell fossil fuels and combat climate change.

In 2019, the companys shareholders got cold feet about proceeding with the multibillion-dollar expansion, worried that legal challenges from Indigenous communities, environment groups and the B.C. government would delay construction too long.

The federal Liberal government was unable to convince the company it could overcome the legal hurdles, and in May 2018, bought the existing pipeline for $4.4 billion with a promise to get the expansion done and then sell everything back to the private sector.

That decision was dealt a significant blow just months later when the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the approval, halting construction. Building began anew last summer after the second approval, and continued despite the new legal challenges.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has consistently tried to sell the project as his governments compromise between the economy and environment, arguing Canada can only pay for the transition to a cleaner, greener future if it takes the most advantage of its natural resources, which remain in demand around the world.

Most oil produced in Alberta is sold at a discount because Canada is so heavily reliant on the United States as its customer. The hope is that this pipeline will carry more Canadian oil to the Pacific, where it can make its way to Asia, raising the price companies can get for the oil.
Unilever removed the word fair from the name of a skin-whitening cream it has sold in India for decades, following criticism that the brand perpetuated harmful racial stereotyping.

The womens face cream previously called Fair & Lovely will be called Glow & Lovely, while a mens version called Fair & Handsome is being changed to Glow & Handsome, the company said in an emailed statement.

The change is meant to make the brand, which accounts for $500 million (U.S.) in annual revenue, more inclusive, Unilever said. Still, it falls short of demands from activists to stop selling skin-whitening creams entirely because they imply darker skin is undesirable. Those calls have gained attention recently as the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the U.S. have raised awareness of racial stereotyping elsewhere.

From PepsiCo Inc.s Aunt Jemima maple syrup to Mars Inc.s Uncle Bens rice, companies have been changing brands critics have long called problematic. Last month Johnson & Johnson said it would retreat from its own skin-whitening business, which includes the Clean & Clear Fairness brand in India.

The marketing pitch for Fair & Lovely has been rooted in deeply entrenched concepts of beauty in India  the companys second-largest market after the U.S.  where darker skin is viewed as undesirable and often associated with people at the bottom of Hinduisms caste system. Matrimonial advertisements in Indias largest newspapers routinely specify the need for a fair bride.

As Indias leading whitening cream, Fair & Lovely has been a regular target for social media activists over the years. Television cooking-show host Padma Lakshmi last month tweeted that the makers of the product needed to pack their fake cosmetics and GO!! A previous campaign saw dark-skinned women post pictures of themselves under the hashtag #unfairandlovely in 2016.

The rebranded products will be on store shelves in the coming months. The terms fair, whitening, and lightening, will also be removed from packaging and marketing materials, the company has said.
KEY FACTS 2:30 p.m.: Ottawa extends mandatory quarantine order for most people entering Canada

2:10 p.m.: Migrant workers hiding from testing in Windsor-Essex: Ford

2 p.m.: Florida on Thursday confirmed 10,109 additional cases

The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Thursday. This file is no longer being updated. Click here to read Fridays coverage.

5 p.m. Ontarios regional health units are reporting a total of 37,389 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, including 2,728 deaths, up a total of 154 new cases since Wednesday evening, according to the Stars latest count.

As has been the case in recent weeks, the vast majority of new cases reported Thursday came in a small handful of health units. Just Toronto (77 new cases), Peel Region (23 cases) and York Region (21 cases) reported increases in the double digits.

New infections are down sharply, even in these regions. In Toronto, for example, the long-term average rate of new infections has fallen from 196 per day in early June to just 53 daily as of Thursday.

Four more fatal cases were reported Thursday, all in Toronto.

The daily rate of deaths has also fallen sharply since peaking in early May when the health units reported as many as 94 deaths in a single day.

Earlier, the province reported the Canada Day holiday meant it had incomplete information on the number of Ontarians currently hospitalized with COVID-19. The most recent totals of patients hospitalized, in the ICU or ventilated in Ontario hospitals were near the lowest levels in records that were first made public in early April.

The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day. The province also cautions its latest count of total deaths, 2,680, may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system. 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. This means 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.

3:33 p.m. There are 104,654 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Canada, according to The Canadian Press, including 8,638 deaths, and 68,232 cases resolved.

This breaks down as follows (NOTE: The Star does its own count for Ontario; see this file):

Quebec: 55,593 confirmed (including 5,541 deaths, 25,034 resolved)

Ontario: 35,370 confirmed (including 2,680 deaths, 30,730 resolved)

Alberta: 8,108 confirmed (including 154 deaths, 7,405 resolved)

British Columbia: 2,916 confirmed (including 174 deaths, 2,590 resolved)

Nova Scotia: 1,064 confirmed (including 63 deaths, 998 resolved)

Saskatchewan: 795 confirmed (including 14 deaths, 701 resolved)

Manitoba: 314 confirmed (including seven deaths, 302 resolved), 11 presumptive

Newfoundland and Labrador: 261 confirmed (including three deaths, 258 resolved)

New Brunswick: 165 confirmed (including two deaths, 158 resolved)

Prince Edward Island: 27 confirmed, all of which have been resolved

Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed, all of which have been resolved

Yukon: 11 confirmed, all of which have been resolved

Northwest Territories: five confirmed, all of which have been resolved

Nunavut reports no confirmed cases, but one presumptive case.

2:45 p.m.: More than three million Canadians either lost their jobs or had their hours significantly reduced due to COVID-19, according to Statistics Canada.

And now that economies across the country are reopening, some people are looking to change course, having realized their careers arent as viable as they may have been pre-pandemic.

Many are going back to school to pursue an entirely new profession  for example, Ryerson Universitys Chang School of Continuing Education saw a 15 per cent jump in its spring enrolment, according to dean Gary Hepburn, even after the schools in-person courses had to be cancelled.

Read the full story from the Stars Rosa Saba.

2:30 p.m.: The federal government has extended the mandatory quarantine order for most people entering Canada until the end of August to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Any travellers entering the country  by land, air or sea  will have to isolate for 14 days, whether or not they are showing any symptoms of COVID-19.

The order made under the Quarantine Act, which first came into effect in late March, was set to expire at midnight Tuesday, but will now remain in effect until Aug. 31.

It carries penalties that include six months in prison or a fine of up to $750,000, which could go up to $1 million if the person caused death or bodily harm by wilfully and recklessly breaking the rules.

The updated version of the order also clarifies that travellers must wear non-medical masks while they are entering the country or are in transit to the place where they will isolate, unless they are travelling in private vehicles.

The order does not apply to people who cross the border regularly to ensure goods and services continue to flow, or anyone entering to provide essential services.

2:25 p.m.: Atlantic Canadian provinces will lift travel restrictions within the region starting Friday, with some identification from visitors required.

Adults travelling to Nova Scotia must show proof of residency in one of the four provinces in order to enter without having to isolate for 14 days.

2:15 p.m.: More than a dozen caregivers expressed concerns and worry about the lack of socialization for their preschoolers during the pandemic in response to a social media callout by the Star.

Many of them noted signs of regression, behavioural issues, shyness and sadness in their kids.

Read the full story from the Stars Brendan Holmyard.

2:10 p.m.: Premier Doug Ford says migrant workers are hiding from COVID-19 testing going on in Windsor-Essex  a region struggling with outbreaks on farms.

Ford says efforts to ramp up testing on farms is being hindered by a lack of co-operation from the workers themselves.

The premier urged migrant workers to get tested for the virus and promised they would not be sent home if they tested positive.

Ford says the government has been working with local health officials and municipalities to address a spike in COVID-19 cases that has held Leamington and Kingsville, Ont., back from reopening.

The Windsor-Essex Health Unit ordered a work stoppage at one local farm Wednesday after 191 workers tested positive for the virus over the weekend.

Both Ford and the health unit declined to name the farm where the outbreak has occurred.

2 p.m. (updated): Floridas Department of Health on Thursday confirmed 10,109 additional cases of COVID-19, setting another single-day record and pushing the states total confirmed cases to 169,106.

Previously, the highest single-day total was reported on Saturday with 9,585 cases.

There were also 67 new deaths announced Thursday, bringing the statewide death toll to hit 3,617. One additional non-resident death was also announced, bringing the statewide non-resident death total to 101.

On Thursday, the state was still only providing total hospitalization counts  325 hospitalizations were added, bringing the statewide total to 15,150.

More than half of the new deaths but less than half of the new cases were in South Florida.

Miami-Dade County reported 2,304 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 18 new deaths. The county now has 40,265 confirmed cases and 1,018 deaths, the highest in the state.

Broward County reported 961 additional confirmed cases of the disease and nine new deaths. The county now has 17,116 known cases and 394 deaths.

Palm Beach County saw 412 additional confirmed cases and 11 new deaths. The county now has 14,859 confirmed cases and 523 deaths.

Monroe County reported 26 additional cases of the disease and one new death. The Florida Keys now have 296 confirmed cases and five deaths.

1:55 p.m.: Nunavut is reporting what may be its first case of COVID-19.

Dr. Michael Patterson, the territorys chief public health officer, says there is a presumptive infection of a worker at the Mary River Mine, 176 kilometres southwest of Pond Inlet.

He says the person recently travelled to Nunavut for the job and is isolating from co-workers and doing well.

All known contacts have also been placed under isolation.

Nunavut reported what was thought to be the territorys first case of COVID-19 in Pond Inlet in late April, but it later turned out to be a false positive.

1:06 p.m.: Nova Scotia has announced its third new case of COVID-19 this week, with the latest affecting a temporary foreign worker.

The string of new infections comes after the province had gone three weeks without any new cases.

Public health authorities say the likely source of infection for all three is travel outside of Canada.

Premier Stephen McNeil says the new case highlights the importance of public health directives, particularly the 14-day self-isolation period upon arrival in Nova Scotia from outside Atlantic Canada.

1 p.m.: Torontos board of health has approved a proposal that would see the city move towards creating voluntary accommodations for those who test positive for COVID-19 but cant self-isolate at home.

The proposal calls for the city to seek help from the provincial and federal governments in setting up so-called isolation centres.

The plan must now be presented to the full Toronto city council at its next meeting later this month.

The recommendation was put forward by the citys chief medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, who noted many Torontonians share their living space with others.

Documents filed with the board say other cities, such as New York and Chicago, have set up such facilities where people who test positive for the virus can isolate themselves for free.

Toronto previously created similar accommodations for people experiencing homelessness who need to isolate due to COVID-19.

12:43 p.m.: Public Health Ontario CEO Peter Donnelly, who went on medical leave in early April as COVID-19 was starting to peak, says he will not return because of cardiac symptoms.

12:40 p.m.: Nine more NBA players have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, bringing the total to 25 of 351 players tested positive since testing began on June 23.

12 p.m.: Several college students in an Alabama city organized COVID-19 parties as a contest to see who would get the virus first, officials said.

Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry said students hosted the parties to intentionally infect each other with the new coronavirus, news outlets reported.

McKinstry said party organizers purposely invited guests who tested positive for COVID-19. She said the students put money in a pot and whoever got COVID first would get the cash.

It makes no sense, McKinstry said. Theyre intentionally doing it.

11:30 a.m.: Quebec is reporting another 14 deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, for a total of 5,541.

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Authorities said today eight of the deaths occurred in the past 24 hours, while six occurred before June 24.

The province is also reporting 69 additional COVID-19 cases, for a total of 55,593, including 25,034 cases that are considered recovered.

Eleven fewer patients are in hospital with the disease, for a total of 411 patients, including 32 in intensive case, a reduction of one.

Authorities conducted 8,703 COVID-19 tests on June 30  the last day for which testing data is available  which remains below the governments 14,000 daily testing target.

Despite the continued downward trend in infections and deaths, Quebec remains by far the province hardest-hit by the virus.

11:15 a.m.: Ontario is reporing that more than 24,300 tests were completed for the novel coronavirus over the previous 24 hours

11 a.m.: The Miami Herald reports that Floridas Department of Health on Thursday confirmed 10,109 additional cases of COVID-19, breaking another single-day record and pushing the states total confirmed cases to hit 169,106.

Previously, the highest single-day total was reported on Saturday with 9,585 cases.

10:30 a.m.: With Ontarios race-based COVID-19 data collection beginning imminently, health experts say crucial unresolved questions will determine whether those efforts help alleviate the pandemics brutal disparities, or cause more harm.

Regulatory changes came into effect last Friday that mandate the collection of information on race for all newly reported COVID-19 cases province-wide, along with data on income, household size and languages spoken. Data collection is beginning once training for public health units and changes to data entry systems are complete, according to a health ministry spokesperson.

Community organizations, researchers, doctors and public health experts have called for the collection of this data, pointing to the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 in areas with more racialized, low-income and newly immigrated residents.

But health researchers said the question of how this data is managed and used is even more important than whether it is collected.

Read the full story from the Stars Kate Allen.

9:30 a.m.: Alongside 51 other Canadians, WhiteFeather Hunter has signed an open letter to Dr. Theresa Tam and each provincial chief medical officer calling for support for those struggling with persistent COVID-19 symptoms.

The group, who connected through an online support network for those who contracted the virus, are asking for the greater public awareness about the possibility of prolonged symptoms.

Without broad access to testing in the early days of the pandemic, people that signed onto the open letter say they were presumed positive or had close contact with a confirmed case, but fell into a gray area where they could not access a test. Due to the persistent symptoms, they are unsure if they remain infectious and cannot pass screening questionnaires that could allow them to access certain medical services.

Read more from the Stars Jenna Moon.

7:01 a.m.: President Donald Trumps July Fourth celebration on the National Mall will feature one of the largest fireworks displays ever and as many as 300,000 face masks will be given away to those who want them  but despite health concerns from D.C.s mayor, no one apparently will be required to wear them.

Trump made no mention of the masks or of the pandemic overall in a tweet Wednesday on his Independence Day pIans. He thanked corporate donors for supporting what will, without question, be a special evening.

6:52 a.m.: More than three million Canadians either lost their jobs or had their hours significantly reduced due to COVID-19, according to Statistics Canada.

And now that economies across the country are reopening, some people are looking to change course, having realized their careers arent as viable as they may have been pre-pandemic, the Stars Rosa Saba writes on why these Canadians are now looking to switch careers entirely.

6:17 a.m.: It started with an excruciating sore throat and 10 days of headaches. Then, a dry cough  a classic sign of COVID-19  crept in as well.

WhiteFeather Hunter has been battling with persistent symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus for months but was not initially tested for the virus when she fell ill in March.

Shes not alone. Alongside 51 other Canadians, Hunter has signed an open letter to Dr. Theresa Tam and each provincial chief medical officer calling for support for those struggling with persistent COVID-19 symptoms.

The group, who connected through an online support network for those who contracted the virus, are asking for the greater public awareness about the possibility of prolonged symptoms.

Read the full story on people who were unable to get tested for COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic from the Stars Jenna Moon.

6:04 a.m.: The TTCs pandemic recovery plans will enter a crucial new phase on Thursday, when the transit agency will start requiring its passengers to wear masks, and will lift restrictions instituted earlier in the crisis to allow for social distancing on its buses.

The changes come as ridership, particularly on the bus network, continues to rebound from the dramatic drop caused by the pandemic, a trend that has made eliminating crowding increasingly difficult and compelled the agency to institute other measures to contain the spread of the virus.

Read the full story from the Stars Ben Spurr.

5:21 a.m.: New Zealands health minister resigned following a series of personal blunders during the coronavirus pandemic.

David Clark had earlier described himself as an idiot for breaking the nations lockdown measures and then last week appeared to blame a beloved health official for border lapses, generating an angry response from the public. Clark said he was becoming a distraction from the countrys virus response.

5:13 a.m.: China reported three new cases of coronavirus, including just one case of local transmission in the capital Beijing, appearing to put the country where the virus was first detected late last year on course to eradicating it domestically, at least temporarily.

5:10 a.m.: South Korea reported 54 new cases as the virus continues to spread beyond the capital area and reach cities like Gwangju, which has shut schools and tightened social restrictions after dozens were found infected this week.

Health Minster Park Neung-hoo during a virus meeting expressed alarm over the rise of infections in Gwangju, which had one of the smallest caseloads among major South Korean cities before this week. Park urged the citys residents to refrain from unnecessary gatherings, maintain distance from others and wear masks.

5:04 a.m.: The Philippine government is shifting defence spending and putting on hold military modernization projects to help finance the response to COVID-19. Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told a news forum that $260 million from his departments budget was shifted to the pandemic campaign.

Defence spokesman Arsenio Andolong told The Associated Press the countrys military modernization program may be set back by up to three years after its annual allocation was also slashed by $348 million, which will be used to fight the virus.

5 a.m.: Indias number of coronavirus cases passed 600,000 on Thursday with the nations infection curve rising and its testing capacity being increased.

The 19,148 new cases reported in the past 24 hours raised the national total to 604,641, with nearly 100,000 of them in the past four days.

A total of 17,834 people have died so far due to the virus, according to Indias Health Ministry.

More than 60 per cent of the cases are in the worst-hit Maharashtra state, Tamil Nadu state, and the capital territory of New Delhi.

However, the western beach of state of Goa, a popular backpacking destination, opened for tourism on Thursday with the state government allowing 250 hotels to reopen after more than three months. Tourists will either have to carry COVID-19 negative certificates or get tested on arrival.

4 a.m.: A new mobile app meant to help with contact tracing of COVID-19 cases wont roll out across Ontario today as planned.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health says the province is still working with the federal government and the app is expected to launch soon.

The province will be the first to use the COVID Alert app, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said it should be ready for downloading in the rest of the country later this summer.

Premier Doug Ford says the app is meant to enhance the provinces contact tracing strategy.

Hes previously said it could play a key role in helping contain the spread of COVID-19 as more businesses reopen their doors.

The Stars Rob Ferguson has the story.

12:05 a.m.: California closed bars, theatres and indoor restaurant dining all over again across most of the state Wednesday, and Arizonas outbreak grew more severe by nearly every measure as the surging coronavirus crisis across the South and West sent a shudder through the country.

The run-up in confirmed cases has been blamed in part on whats been called knucklehead behaviour by Americans not wearing masks or obeying social-distancing rules as economies reopened from coast to coast over the past two months.

The bottom line is the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in dramatically expanding the round of closings he announced over the weekend.

The shutdown announcement, which came just ahead of what is expected to be a busy Fourth of July weekend that could fuel the spread of the virus, applies to 19 counties encompassing nearly three-quarters of Californias 40 million people, including Los Angeles County.

Confirmed cases in California have increased nearly 50% over the past two weeks, and COVID-19 hospitalizations have gone up 43%. Newsom reported nearly 5,900 new cases and 110 more deaths in 24 hours.

Thursday 7:33 p.m.: The Cuban government opened the islands northern and southern cays to tourism Wednesday amid strong measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the country to shut down travel in late March.

Cuba, which according to official figures has had 2,348 cases of COVID-19 and has had 86 deaths, is seeking to attract international tourists to the islands many cays.

Tourists will undergo a rapid PCR test upon arrival to identify possible infections and will not be able to visit the big island itself. Cuban nationals are prohibited from having contact with foreigners and from staying in hotels equipped for international tourism, the official press reported.

Cuban-Americans will not be able to travel to visit their relatives until the island is fully open to tourism. The government has not announced dates for a full opening.

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Read more of Thursdays coverage here.
OTTAWA  A coalition of First Nations chiefs and residential school survivors are rejecting new recommendations to lift Sen. Lynn Beyaks suspension from the Senate.

They say her most recent anti-racism training undermines and disregards calls from Indigenous Peoples to remove Beyak from the upper chamber.

For them to somehow come up with this finding that Lynn Beyak has been rehabilitated, shes ready to resume her duties as a senator without speaking with any of the survivors, that we know of anyway, in the region, is an insult, said Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler.

Fiddler represents dozens of First Nations communities in northern Ontario, the same area Beyak represents in the Senate.

Last week, the Senate ethics committee tabled a report recommending Beyaks suspension be lifted now that she has taken anti-racism training and apologized for posting derogatory letters about Indigenous people on her website.

The committee says Beyak has acknowledged the wrongs of her past conduct and committed herself to improvement after taking a four-day virtual program to learn about Indigenous history and the role of the Senate in promoting minority rights.

The training program was conducted by a team of what the committee report describes as experienced and qualified experts from the University of Manitoba, engaged by the Senate ethics officer.

Your committee was of the view that the qualifications of the experts would allow for a professional, impartial and informed evaluation to be provided to the committee upon the completion of the training, the report says, also adding that the Senate ethics officer vetted and approved the training program, characterizing it as sophisticated and elaborate.

The work was led by Jonathan Black-Branch, dean of law at the university, who submitted a performance assessment of Beyaks work with his team.

He determined that through the sessions Beyak was co-operative and willing to learn and that she seems to accept the need to refrain from acting in a way that could reflect adversely on the position of senator or on the institution of the Senate in respect of racism and understand her obligations in relation to racism as a senator.

A coalition of chiefs from Ontario and Manitoba together with a group of residential school survivors has now penned a letter to Black-Branch, saying the education program given to the senator was an inappropriate process, as it offered no involvement or input from First Nations and residential-school survivors in Beyaks home region of northwestern Ontario.

Its a top-down and paternalistic process, said Danielle H. Morrison, an Anishinaabe lawyer who is a coalition spokesperson.

Why is a university deemed more highly qualified and impartial than we are? All these institutions are really far removed from our own lived experiences, our own ways of learning, our knowledge-keepers and our own governance and justice systems. Those should be given priority and those are the voices and the systems that should be centred over an academic university.

A request for comment made to Beyaks lawyer was not immediately answered Thursday. A request to ethics committee chair Sen. Murray Sinclair for comment was also unsuccessful.

This is the second time Beyak has received anti-racism training after she was suspended by the Senate for refusing to take down the racist letters from her website, some of which suggested Indigenous people and their culture are inferior.

In February, the Senate ethics committee concluded shed not gone far enough in her first attempt at education after she clashed with different training staff last year. They reported she was resistant to their efforts and also said she had claimed to be Metis because her parents adopted an Indigenous child.

Beyak denied making that claim.

Grand Chief Fiddler said Beyak has been given many opportunities over the last three years to hear and learn from residential school survivors the painful realities they faced and the harm that she caused by minimizing their experiences and using the situation to instead argue the merits of free speech.

He said he rejects the recommendations of the outside group engaged by the Senate ethics officer to conduct her anti-racism training and questions why the residential school survivors in the territory she represents were not engaged in this work.

They want to be heard. They want the country to validate their experience. They want the country to know about what happened to them, Fiddler said.

When you have someone like Lynn Beyak who posts racist material on her website to try to deny those painful experiences, thats creating harm. That is going against everything that these survivors are telling us.

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The group of chiefs and survivors say they reject Beyaks latest apology that was tabled last month  which they say was delivered to the Senate and not to the Indigenous people she represents  and they are calling on the Senate to reject the findings and recommendations of the ethics committee saying she should be reinstated.

They insist Beyak must resign.

She needs to go. Shes created enough harm by her actions and theres no place for someone like her in the Senate, Fiddler said.
HALIFAX  Technicalities are causing delays as the provincial and federal governments work out what form an inquiry into the April mass shooting that claimed 22 lives will take, the provinces justice minister said Thursday.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Mark Furey said he made a mistake last month when he suggested the terms of reference for the inquiry would be announced within days.

I want to commit to the families that we understand their frustrations, he said. Were working day and night to bring this together.

The minister said he expects an announcement some time this month.

Theres legalities and technicalities that our legal teams are reviewing and finalizing in the drafting of relevant documents, he said, declining to offer details. Thats whats taking the time.

Furey has said the investigation could take the form of a traditional federal-provincial public inquiry led by an independent commissioner, but the minister made it clear Thursday that some sort of hybrid is in the works.

The challenges facing legal teams in Ottawa and Halifax appear to stem from the fact that Nova Scotia wants the probe to include a restorative justice approach.

Earlier this month, Furey said the exercise must also have certain features common to public inquiries, including judicial leadership, the power to compel witnesses to testify and the ability to make recommendations to hold public agencies accountable for their actions.

On Thursday, Furey hinted that grafting the restorative justice model onto a traditional public inquiry was taking time to sort out.

We want to take a different approach to sourcing the questions that individuals would have, particularly the family members, he said. Were taking a human-centred and trauma-informed approach consistent with some of the principles of restorative methodologies.

Nova Scotia created a restorative inquiry in 2015 when it appointed a committee to look into allegations of long-term abuse at a former orphanage in the Halifax area, known as the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children.

That process was not a provincial inquiry in the traditional sense, though it was established under the authority of the provinces Public Inquiries Act.

Its collaborative approach featured sharing circles with former residents, black youth and community organizations.

Instead of providing a list or recommendations, the inquirys final report offered a road map for breaking down what it described as the governments fragmented approach to helping people in need.

Furey said this approach is key to getting people to come forward to tell what they know about the circumstances before, during and after Gabriel Wortmans murderous April 18-19 rampage through northern and central Nova Scotia.

However, the provincial and federal governments have faced a growing chorus of calls for a traditional, public commission of inquiry led by an independent commissioner with no strings attached.

Among those asking for this approach are relatives of victims, about 30 professors at Dalhousie University in Halifax and opposition politicians.

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In early June, the daughter of Heather OBrien  a nurse who was killed by the gunman on April 19  urged the federal and Nova Scotia governments to work together. Darcy Dobson said the back and forth about whos responsible for an inquiry is unreal.

Earlier this week, five Nova Scotia senators renewed a call for the province to join with Ottawa to launch a joint inquiry. They said the delays have led to increased speculation about the shootings and the assailant, which could be eroding public trust in law enforcement.

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OTTAWAThe armed Canadian Forces reservist arrested near Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus residence Thursday appears to have posted a conspiracy theory about COVID-19 just minutes before allegedly crashing a truck through the gates at Rideau Hall.

A source with direct knowledge of the investigation confirmed Corey Hurren, a Canadian Forces Ranger from Manitoba, was arrested early Thursday morning while roaming Rideau Halls grounds with a weapon. Hurrens identity was first reported by CBC News.

Hurren allegedly drove a black pick-up truck through the pedestrian gate at Rideau Hall around 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning. The truck was disabled after it breached the gates, according to the RCMP, and Hurren continued on foot to a greenhouse on the Rideau Hall grounds.

Hurren owns and operates a sausage-making company in Bowsman, Manitoba. On his company Facebook page, Hurren wrote things have been on hold with the business since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Before joining the Rangers, Hurren spent three years in an artillery unit of the Canadian Forces, according to a copy of his resume found online, where he would have undergone basic weapons training.

While nothing on the Facebook page for Hurrens business, which he appears to operate, is outwardly political, the most recent post, uploaded just 25 minutes before he drove through the gate at Rideau Hall, is an oblique reference to a COVID-19 conspiracy theory.

It encourages visitors to the page to view Google Event 201, a reference to a 2019 exercise organized between John Hopkins University, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melina Gates foundation.

Event 201 was a tabletop exercise to game out how governments should respond to a possible novel coronavirus outbreak. Conspiracy theorists have seized upon it, and the Gates Foundation involvement, alleging it proves the COVID-19 pandemic was planned.

After nearly two hours of speaking with RCMP officers, who created a perimeter to keep the man contained, Hurren was arrested without incident.

While Hurren made it close to both the residences of both the Governor General and the prime minister, the RCMP say neither family was home at the time.

The Mounties National Division said the man would remain in custody Thursday night.

The RCMP is expected to hold a press conference Friday to release more information. It is not clear what, if any, charges will be laid, but police are generally required to release a suspect within 24 hours if charges are not laid.

Images from the scene showed two boxes of Canadian Armed Forces rations, a leather jacket and a cooler being removed from the truck Thursday morning. The image on the back of the leather jacket, a cartoon bull, matches with an event put on by Hurren for the Bowsman Lions Club in 2013. Hurren is listed as the clubs president online.

Police used a robot to first clear the truck, before bringing in drug-sniffing dogs and officers to examine the scene.

Thursdays arrest comes as hundreds of protesters from across the country descended on Ottawa to call for the investigation of the prime minister for corruption, amongst other things. There is no indication Hurren attended or had any involvement with the demonstration.

Protesters gathered on Parliament Hill Wednesday for a Canada Day rally against the prime minister. A collection of nationalist speakers took to the microphone, including Peoples Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier. At least one homemade protest sign depicted Trudeau being hanged, while many signs touting COVID-19 conspiracy theories.

The protesters marched on the nearby United States embassy, chanting lock him up, where they presented the Americans with a letter calling for Trudeaus investigation under an anti-corruption clause of the North American free trade agreement, citing the SNC-Lavalin affair as evidence. Canadians know that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) did nothing to bring Trudeau to justice on these charges, the letter reads.

Protesters remained in downtown Ottawa into Thursday, camping out at the National War Memorial, across the street from Parliament Hill.

In a statement, Governor General Julie Payette thanked the RCMP for quickly resolving the situation and said all her staff were safe.

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The grounds of Rideau Hall are usually open to the public, but have been closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trudeau and his family have been living at Rideau Cottage, a home on the grounds, since his election in 2015 because the prime ministers official residence at 24 Sussex Dr. has fallen into disrepair.

Correction - July 3, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that mispelled Corey Hurrens surname in two references.

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Two psychiatrists have been found liable for the harm they caused inmates at a maximum security mental-health facility, who said the mistreatment they endured amounted to torture.

In his decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Ed Morgan sided with 28 former patients of Oak Ridge in Penetanguishene, Ont., in their 20-year-old action against the doctors and Ontario government.

Degradation of the patient or an undermining of their personal dignity and sense of self-worth was not a side effect of the...programs, Morgan ruled. It was part of the design.

At issue were three programs instituted by doctors Elliott Barker and Gary Maier in the Oak Ridge social therapy unit. Maier himself had described the programs as the greatest experiments in psychiatry.

For their part, the plaintiffs said they became victims of inhumane treatment and psychological and physical abuse.

Among other things, court heard how the men were forced to take mind-altering drugs such as LSD, forcibly restrained or isolated, and were confined nude and handcuffed to other men in the capsule  a tiny windowless, soundproof room that was always lit and had one open toilet. They were fed through straws in the walls.

The patients were often enlisted to keep others in line, deprived of sleep, or held for long periods in painful stress positions described as positional torture.

The men committed to the facility between 1966 and 1983 were mostly teenagers or in their early 20s and almost all came from abusive and badly broken homes. One, however, had been a child prodigy on the piano and had performed at the Royal Alexander theatre but began drinking and using drugs in his teens.

Before being sent to the facility, most had perpetrated horrific crimes of violence, ranging from rape to murder. One patient was Russ Johnson, one of Canadas most notorious serial killers, who had raped and murdered seven women.

One man, Danny Joanisse, who died in his mid-60s after testifying last year, was in the facility as a small 14-year old boy. He recalled spending days in the capsule cuffed to a convicted pedophile murderer. Joanisse, who had been physically and sexually abused at the St. Johns Training School, was sent to Oak Ridge after multiple suicide attempts.

Barker referred to his wards as throwaway people and once wrote his programs suggested the weekend pastimes of Storm Troopers.

The almost 10-week trial, which generated 120,000 pages of evidence, heard from all the plaintiffs, either directly or through statements. Barker was unable to testify for health reasons, but left behind extensive notes and writings.

In his decision, Morgan found neither psychiatrist ensured patients had provided informed and voluntary consent for the treatment or experimentation. Nor should they have allowed other patients to act on their behalf in keeping fellow inmates in line, he said.

Both doctors disregarded the ethical obligations that were on them to treat the patients in a way that did not cause them further harm, Morgan said.

The government and doctors had denied any wrongdoing, saying the treatment was in line with medical science of the day. The doctors also said the programs were the only chance the men would have of ever being released.

Morgan, however, concluded the programs had no therapeutic value but were punitive and physically and emotionally hurtful.

Joel Rochon, who acted for the men, praised the decision as a positive example of access to justice.

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It confirms that governments, psychiatric hospitals, and physicians who abuse power and humiliate their patients will be held accountable, Rochon said.

The men initially launched their suit in 2000, but proceeded as group of individual plaintiffs in 2004 after the courts rejected their claim as a class action. Eight died either before, during or after the almost 10-week trial.

Morgan also found that the late Dr. Barry Boyd, superintendent of Oak Ridge from 1960 to 1974, collaborated with Barker on the programs and publicized them through the media.
WAILUKU  Mayor Michael Victorino is urging more individuals and families to apply for the temporary Tenant-Based Rental Housing Assistance Program.

The program is seeking more applicants whose income has been significantly impacted by COVID-19 and are seeking a new lease. The program invites landlords seeking tenants to learn how they may participate as well.

Many residents have lost jobs and income because of COVID-19 impacts, and this program provides much-needed rental assistance through the end of this year, Mayor Victorino said. These are unprecedented times, and I hope our residents will submit applications for rental assistance to see if they can get some help.

The program is funded by the HOME Investment Partnerships Program and is being administered by the Family Life Center. Program qualifications include that applicants must be residents of the County of Maui, looking for a new lease and have a household income at or below 60 percent area median income, and experienced a loss of employment or significant decrease in working hours due to COVID-19.

Income limits vary depending on household size. For example, a one- person household can have an income of up to $41,040, and a four-person household can have an income of as much as $58,560.

Residents who may qualify for this program are encouraged to apply and should contact the Family Life Center at (808) 877-0880 or visit its website at flcmaui.org.
A Calgary police officer loudly tells an Indigenous man to put his hands on the roof of his car and, within seconds, the situation escalates to yelling. Body-worn camera video from the officers chest then shows the mans head pushed into his vehicle.

Herbert Daniels, 67, made a freedom of information request to get the video of his arrest, which he provided to Global News, saying it demonstrates excessive force.

Using the arrest of Daniels as an example, many politicians have been calling for wider use of police body cameras in the wake of global protests calling to defund police, claiming the technology increases accountability.

There is, however, no consistent evidence that the cameras reduce police violence.

A study in the Criminology & Public Policy journal published last year looked at 70 other studies into body-worn cameras and found the technology had statistically insignificant impacts on police and citizen behaviour.

(Cameras) will not be an easy panacea for improving police performance, accountability, and relationships with citizens, the study said.

A trial published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 2019 also found the cameras did not meaningfully affect police behaviour on outcomes that include complaints and use of force.

A six-month study by Western Australia Police Force in 2016 actually found a small increase in use-of-force incidents when officers wore the cameras.

Minneapolis police officers involved in the May arrest of George Floyd were wearing body cameras as one of them knelt on the Black mans neck for several minutes and he died.

Data is still emerging in Canada about the efficacy of the cameras. Since 2010, many police forces have implemented pilot projects but most abandoned them later, saying they didnt provide value for what they cost to both purchase the devices and store the data. Calgary is the only large police force to so far adopt the technology for front-line officers.

A final report into an Edmonton pilot project, which ran from 2011 to 2014, said the cameras had a potential for positive outcomes. But it found concerns about policy and no quantitative evidence that the cameras had an impact on complaints against officers.

Body-worn cameras not only create concerns about the publics privacy rights but can also affect how officers relate to people in the community, the communitys perception of the police, and expectations about how police agencies should share information, the report said.

There have also been pilot projects in Toronto, Thunder Bay and Montreal. Montreal found the cameras had little impact on police interventions and there were significant logistical and financial challenges.

Some smaller forces have cameras for a few officers. Fredericton police have six and the force in Medicine Hat, Alta., has 10.

Recently, many communities have changed their positions on cameras. Toronto Mayor John Tory said he expects to have cameras on officers by the fall and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante said the technology will be adopted as soon as possible. The RCMP has also committed to outfitting some officers with cameras.

Nunavut is pushing forward with a pilot project for cameras after a bystander recorded footage of police using a car door to knock a man over during an arrest.

Erick Laming is a Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation PhD candidate in criminology at the University of Toronto. He also researches police use of force and oversight.

He said hes concerned the technology is being rushed by politics and not empirical data.

We have to look at how police respond to (situations), he said. Its not really the body camera.

Laming said there isnt transparency about police force policies on cameras, such as ensuring public privacy, who gets access to the video or when officers are required to turn them on.

Sgt. Travis Baker leads the body camera project for the Calgary police, which has equipped about 1,150 officers with cameras.

City council originally approved $5 million to get the cameras and to fund an eight-year contract with Axon, an American company that supplies the gear and stores the data. All video is uploaded into a cloud-based storage system based in Ontario and only officers involved in an investigation get access to the video related to it, Baker said.

Before the cameras were rolled out, the Calgary force conducted a privacy impact assessment, Baker said. Broadly speaking, the policy says officers are required to record any interaction they have with the public.

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An evaluation of the project is underway, with information about use-of-force and complaints to be released later this year. Baker, however, said all officers have embraced the technology.

He said the cameras hold police and the public accountable.

We truly see it as a tool, Baker said. It gathers evidence at a level that is unprecedented. It keeps absolutely everybody engaged and honest in the interaction.
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan officials announced Wednesday that congressional elections will be held on the first Sunday in December to choose members of the only branch of government not now controlled by socialist Presidethat nt Nicolas Maduro.

National Elections Council President Indira Alfonzo announced the Dec. 6 vote for a new National Assembly. The legislative body is now led by opposition politician Juan Guaido, who has led an unsuccessful U.S.-backed campaign for over a year to oust Maduro.

Guaidos opposition coalition has accused Maduros government of hijacking the upcoming vote to consolidate power.

This date will pressure opposition leaders to decide whether they will participates in an election that some say would validate Maduros illegitimate government, while others fear a boycott would risk losing relevancy and an important power base.

Guaido posted a tweet immediately after the election date was announced, calling it a farce that Venezuelans wont recognize. We choose to live with dignity and democracy, not impositions, he said.

Opposition leaders sharply rejected recent manoeuvrs by officials loyal to Maduro that they say aim to consolidate his grip on power by unconstitutionally seizing control of the National Assembly.

The Supreme Court, which is stacked with Maduro justices, recently formed a new elections commission, and it also replaced the leadership boards of two popular opposition parties.

A once oil-rich nation, Venezuela is in a deepening economic and political crisis that has driven more than 5 million people to flee the once wealthy oil nations chronic shortages of basic goods and a broken health care system.

A day before announcing the election date, the elections commission said Venezuelans will elect 277 new members, an increase its membership from the current 167, estimating a population growth.

Members of the National Assembly serve five-year terms.

Guaido in January 2019 claimed to be Venezuelas interim president as head of the National Assembly, arguing that Maduros election months earlier was fraudulent and thus had left the office empty. Maduro, however, remains in power, and Guaidos congressional term ends Jan. 5.

Maduro often accuses Guaido of being a puppet of the Trump administration, which the president contends wants to oust his socialist government so the U.S. can exploit Venezuelas oil wealth.

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In a state TV address Wednesday, Maduro said election officials have assured him that they will take measures to ensure a safe voting process amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Democracy enriches our country, Maduro said. I call on all Venezuelans to prepare themselves to turn out massively on Dec. 6. Venezuela needs a new National Assembly.
HONG KONG - Chinas government and pro-Beijing activists in Hong Kong condemned what they called foreign meddling in the territorys affairs on Thursday, as countries moved to offer Hong Kongers refuge and impose sanctions on China over a new security law.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said no amount of pressure from external forces could shake Chinas determination and will to safeguard national sovereignty and Hong Kongs prosperity and stability.

He urged the U.S. to abide by international law and stop interfering in Hong Kongs affairs, and not sign a sanction bill into law.

His comments came after the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday joined the Senate in approving a bill to rebuke China over its crackdown in Hong Kong by imposing sanctions on groups that undermine the citys autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to its residents.

If the bill becomes law, China will definitely take strong countermeasures, and all consequences will be borne by the U.S. side, Zhao said at a daily briefing.

Vice-President Mike Pence in a television interview Thursday called the law a betrayal of the international agreement China signed.

President Trump has made it clear that were going to be modifying our trading relationship and the trading status with regard to Hong Kong and were going to continue to speak out on behalf of the people of Hong Kong and on behalf of human rights of people within China, he told CNBC.

We want to reset the trading relationship, but we want China to recognize international agreements, to recognize the human dignity of all of their people, and that includes all the people of Hong Kong. he said.

Meanwhile, dozens of pro-Beijing activists and lawmakers protested outside the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong to demand that the U.S. stop meddling. The group said it gathered 1.6 million signatures online in support of its call.

Tam Yiu-Chung, Hong Kongs sole delegate to the National Peoples Congress Standing Committee, said on public broadcaster RTHK on Thursday that the new security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong was not harsh. If it were, no one would dare violate the law, he said.

His comments came a day after thousands of protesters marched against the security law, which took effect in Hong Kong late Tuesday.

The security law outlaws secessionist, subversive and terrorist acts, as well as any collusion with foreign forces in intervening in the citys affairs. Critics say the law effectively ends the one country, two systems framework under which the city was promised a high degree of autonomy when it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

The maximum punishment for serious offences under the legislation is life imprisonment, and suspects in certain cases may be sent to stand trial on the mainland if Beijing deems that it has jurisdiction.

The law takes aim at actions that occurred during anti-government protests last year. It says destruction of government facilities and utilities would be considered subversive, while damaging public transportation facilities and arson would constitute acts of terrorism.

About 370 people were arrested during and after Wednesdays protests, including 10 on suspicion of violating the new security law. Some of those arrested allegedly possessed materials that advocated Hong Kongs independence.

Hong Kong police arrested a man on a London-bound flight early Thursday on suspicion of having stabbed a police officer in the arm during Wednesdays protests.

The 24-year-old man, surnamed Wong, was arrested on a Cathay Pacific flight after police received an anonymous tip-off about his travel plans, police said.

Wong had purchased a ticket on Wednesday and boarded the flight with no check-in luggage, police said. He did not respond to the crew when they called him by name, and was not in his designated seat. Police identified him after conducting a sweep of the plane.

Meanwhile, two protesters were sentenced to four weeks in jail on Thursday for vandalizing a ticketing machine at a rail station in September last year. They were among nearly 9,000 arrests by police in connection with the anti-government protests between last June and May this year.

The central governments passage of the security law for Hong Kong has triggered concern from the territorys former colonial ruler, Britain, and other countries.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that imposition of the law was a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the treaty that guaranteed the former British colony would enjoy a high degree of autonomy and civil liberties for at least 50 years after its handover to Chinese rule.

The Foreign Office summoned Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming on Wednesday to a meeting with Permanent Secretary Simon McDonald, who reiterated Britains concern. Britain also announced that it is extending residency rights for up to 3 million Hong Kongers eligible for British National Overseas passports, stressing that it would uphold its historic duty to its former colony. Those eligible will be able to live and work in the U.K. for five years before applying for settled status and then again for citizenship.

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On Thursday, the Chinese Embassy in London said such a move would be in breach of international law and basic norms governing international relations.

We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures, it said in a statement, without elaborating. We urge the British side to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respect Chinas position and concerns, refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any way.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday his government is considering a move to provide a safe haven to Hong Kongers, and Taiwan opened an office to help Hong Kongers move to Taiwan for employment and other purposes.
CANBERRA, Australia - Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday his government was considering an offer of safe haven to Hong Kong residents threatened by Chinas move to impose a tough national security law on the semi-autonomous territory.

Morrison said Cabinet would soon consider options to provide similar opportunities as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered Hong Kongers.

When we have made a final decision on those arrangements, then Ill make the announcements, Morrison told reporters. But if youre asking: are we prepared to step up and provide support? The answer is: yes.

Britain is extending residency rights for up to 3 million Hong Kongers eligible for British National Overseas passports, allowing them to live and work in the U.K. for five years.

Morrison said we think thats important and very consistent with who we are as a people and very consistent practically with the views that weve expressed.

Australia could potentially offer Hong Kong residents temporary protection visas that allow refugees to live in the country for up to three years.

China bypassed Hong Kongs Legislative Council to pass the sweeping legislation without public consultation.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the laws threatened Hong Kongs judicial independence and the rights and freedoms of its people.

The Chinese foreign ministry Zhao Lijian urged Australia to look at the security legislation in a correct and objective light.

Stop interfering in Chinas internal affairs with Hong Kong as a pretext, and refrain from going further down the wrong path, Zhao told reporters in Beijing.

An offer of safe haven to Hong Kong residents would further strain relations between Australia and its most important trading partner, China.

They have not positively contributed to Australias  or the regions  security and stability, Australian Defence Minister Linda Reynolds told a security think-tank.

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Australia has watched closely as China has actively sought greater influence in the Indo-Pacific, she said. Australia is far from alone in being troubled by this.

Morrison on Wednesday announced 270 billion Australian dollars ($190 billion) in additional defence spending over the next decade, which will include long-range missiles and other capabilities to hold enemies further from its shores.
NEW YORK - A New York appeals court cleared the way Wednesday for a publisher to distribute a tell-all book by President Donald Trumps niece over the objections of the presidents brother.

The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division said it was lifting a temporary restraint that a judge put on Simon & Schuster a day earlier that sought to block distribution of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man.

Although the book was scheduled to be published on July 28, Simon & Schuster said thousands of copies of the 75,000-copy first run of the book had already been sent to bookstores and others.

The appeals ruling, written by Judge Alan D. Scheinkman, left in place restraints against Mary Trump, the books author and the presidents niece, after the presidents brother, Robert Trump, said she agreed with family members not to write about their relationships without permission.

Robert Trump had sued Mary Trump to block publication of a book promoted to contain an insiders perspective of countless holiday meals, family interactions and family events.

An email seeking comment was sent to Robert Trumps lawyer Wednesday. The appeals court noted it was ruling after hearing oral arguments from lawyers for Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster and before lawyers for Robert Trump submitted opposition papers.

Scheinkman left in place a restraint that blocked Mary Trump and any agent of hers from distributing the book, but the court made clear it was not considering the publisher to be an agent, though that issue could be decided in further proceedings at the lower court.

The evidence submitted is insufficient for this Court to determine whether the plaintiff is likely to succeed in establishing that claim, the appeals court said in an opinion written by Judge Alan D. Scheinkman.

In court papers, the publisher said it was not aware of an agreement between Mary Trump and her relatives until she was sued.

In a statement, Simon and Schuster said it was gratified with the ruling, which it said would let Mary Trump tell her story. The publisher said the book was of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public.

It added: As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions, and we remain confident that the preliminary injunction will be denied.

Mary Trumps lawyer, Theodore Boutrous Jr., said in a statement it was very good news that the prior restraint against Simon & Schuster has been vacated. He added that he believed a similar finding was necessary for Mary Trump, based on the First Amendment and basic contract law.

In ruling, Scheinkman said people are free to negotiate away their First Amendment rights, especially if they are compensated well, which Robert Trump maintains that she was.

But he noted that while parties are free to enter into confidentiality agreements, courts are not necessarily obligated to specifically enforce them.

The judge wrote that whatever legitimate public interest there may have been in the family disputes of a real estate developer and his relatives may be considerably heightened by that real estate developer now being President of the United States and a current candidate for reelection.

He added: Stated differently, the legitimate interest in preserving family secrets may be one thing for the family of a real estate developer, no matter how successful; it is another matter for the family of the President of the United States.

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Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in Washington and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this story.
SEATTLE - Wearing helmets and wielding batons and rifles, Seattle police turned out in force at dawn Wednesday in the citys occupied protest zone after the mayor ordered it cleared following two recent fatal shootings.

Officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder on several streets while others created a makeshift fence with their bicycles, using it to push dozens of protesters back away from the centre of the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone just east of downtown. The group had occupied several blocks around a park for about two weeks after police abandoned a precinct station following standoffs and clashes that were part of the nationwide unrest over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

As residents in the neighbourhood watched from balconies, police cleared out the protesters tents from the park and made sure no one was left in the parks bathrooms.

More than three dozen people were arrested, charged with failure to disperse, obstruction, assault and unlawful weapon possession.

Our job is to support peaceful demonstration but what has happened on these streets over the last two weeks is lawless and its brutal and bottom line it is simply unacceptable, Police Chief Carmen Best said.

One protest organizer, Derrek Allen Jones II, said some demonstrators attempted to stay but were surprised by the early intervention by officers who were trampling everything I seen in sight, flipping tables.

People were trying to hold their ground but you could see the cops literally storm through peoples beds while they were sleeping. And literally say If you dont get out, we will force you out or arrest you, he said.

One man dressed in black was peacefully led away in handcuffs and other demonstrators sat on the wet ground until their small group was handcuffed and detained.

Police also tore down fences that protesters had erected around their tents and used batons to poke inside bushes, apparently looking for people who might be hiding. One officer took down a sign saying We are not leaving until our demands are met: 1. Defund SPD by 50% now. 2. Fund Black Communities. 3. Free all protesters.

After police evicted the protesters, heavy equipment was used to remove concrete barriers, cart away debris from the encampments while officers strung yellow caution tape from tree to tree warning people not to reenter.

I was just stunned by the amount of graffiti, garbage and property destruction, Best said after she walked around the area.

The recent public safety threats have been well documented, Mayor Jenny Durkan said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. These acts of gun violence resulted in the tragic deaths of two teenagers, with multiple others seriously wounded. Despite continued efforts to deescalate and bring community together, this violence demanded action.

Durkan also said while she supported the police in making arrests Wednesday, she doesnt think many of those arrested for misdemeanours should be prosecuted. She also said she was committed to work that would dismantle systemic racism and build true community safety.

Events in the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone this morning, while necessary, should not diminish the cause of racial justice, Gov. Jay Inslee said in an emailed statement.

Best said in addition to the fatal shootings, robberies, assaults, violence and property crimes have occurred in the area in the last few weeks. She said she wanted police to move back into the precinct so officers could better respond to needs in the area. Protesters have said they should not be blamed for the violence in the area.

There had been mounting calls by critics, including President Donald Trump, to remove protesters. A group of local business owners sued the city, claiming that officials abandoned the area and made it impossible to run businesses because there was no police or fire protection.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr praised Best for what he called her courage and leadership in restoring the rule of law in Seattle.

Chief Best has rightly committed to continue the substantive discussion while ending the violence, which threatens innocent people and undermines the very rule-of-law principles that the protesters profess to defend, he said in a statement.

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Seattle Black Collective Voice, which was formed by people in the protest zone, said previously that their work would continue even if they were forced out of that area. On Wednesday afternoon the group said via Twitter, We dont end with CHOP.

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Associated Press video journalist Aron Ranen in Seattle and writer Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington, contributed to this report.
HOUSTON - A change in how Houston area hospitals report intensive care unit capacity during the coronavirus pandemic has drawn criticism from the top two locally elected officials who are questioning if the medical facilities are being fully transparent.

But officials within the Texas Medical Center, a sprawling medical complex made up of Houstons major hospitals, say the change was done to provide more accurate information and reassure the public that it was not running out of ICU beds.

As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have continued to rise in Houston, the Texas Medical Center has been providing a daily pandemic-related update on its website, including charts on ICU capacity, when base ICU capacity could be exceeded, when sustainable surge capacity could be exceeded and other metrics from its local member hospitals.

Last week, the medical centre reported that its normal ICU capacity was at 100% and warned that ICU capacity is becoming increasingly stretched.

Hospital leaders later held a news conference in an effort to tamp down public alarm.

Adding to the public concern, the medical centre then took its charts offline for several days and when they reappeared, references to sustainable and unsustainable surge capacity and when those could be exceeded were replaced with discussion of different phases of intensive care. Many of the bright yellow and red colours used to highlight concern and warnings in some of the old charts were replaced with shades of blue.

Dr. James McDeavitt is senior vice-president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine, which is one of the member institutions within the medical centre. He said the way the data was presented didnt provide a complete picture of ICU capacity.

Not to minimize the fact that were getting stressed at hospitals, but that was the wrong message for people to take away. I think that was the underlying concern because we had plenty of capacity, McDeavitt said Wednesday.

The hospitals in the medical centre have reached their phase one ICU capacity, which is 1,330 beds. But McDeavitt said there are two other phases that could add nearly 900 more ICU beds.

There are plenty of levers now to help manage that capacity before we risk tipping over into the most serious phase, McDeavitt said.

In Harris County, where Houston is located, the number of people hospitalized in ICU beds with COVID-19 has increased by more than 52% since May 26.

Texas case levels continued to skyrocket Wednesday as the state soared past 8,000 new confirmed infections in a single day for the first time. It was also the second deadliest day of the outbreak with 57 new deaths reported, bringing the total confirmed death toll to at least 2,481.

Nearly 7,000 people with COVID-19 are now hospitalized, meaning that Texas is starting July with nearly four times as many patients in hospital beds as on June 1.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she was alarmed by the changes to how the information on ICU capacity in the Houston area was now being presented.

The timing is suspect. I find it very, very problematic, said Hidalgo, the top elected official in the county.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the change raised questions and he asked the medical centre to go back to its original reporting.

We need to be very truthful and be upfront and not try to camouflage the severity of this virus, Turner said.

But William McKeon, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, said the data is constantly being refined as medical professionals learn more about the virus.

Theres nothing sinister here, McKeon told KTRK-TV.

Questions have also been raised about whether the hospitals will have enough staffing if additional ICU beds are needed.

McDeavitt said hospitals at the medical centre have developed training programs and have hired additional staff to ensure that patients have qualified nurses and doctors taking care of them.

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Associated Press Writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
WASHINGTON - The two top Democrats in Congress said Thursday that any threats to U.S. troops must be pursued relentlessly, rebuking President Donald Trump after receiving a highly classified briefing about intelligence that Russia offered bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump, who has downplayed the threat, was soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin and distracted by less important issues. Trump has called reports of the intelligence assessments a hoax and has so far declined to address whether the U.S. has or will respond to Russia.

Our armed forces would be better served if President Trump spent more time reading his daily briefing and less time planning military parades and defending relics of the Confederacy, Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement.

Trump and the White House have repeatedly insisted that the president wasnt originally briefed because the information was unverified, even though its rare for intelligence to be confirmed without a shadow of doubt before it is presented to senior government decision-makers. Officials have told The Associated Press and other news organizations that the information was included in one of the presidents written daily briefings last year and again this year.

The criticism comes as Trump is working to change the narrative but has faced increasing pressure from lawmakers in Congress  including some Republicans  who have demanded more answers about the intelligence assessment. The president has repeatedly tweeted about protesters tearing down monuments to the Confederacy and on Thursday held a news conference to tout newly released numbers showing added jobs in the economy. He did not mention Russia.

Top intelligence officials, including CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, conducted the closed-door briefing for a group of lawmakers dubbed the gang of eight  Pelosi, Schumer, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and the top Republicans and Democrats on the two intelligence committees.

The group regularly receives classified briefings at the highest levels, and leaders rarely speak about them. Pelosi and Schumer did not address the substance of the meeting, and none of the other lawmakers leaving the meeting would comment on it.

In a news conference shortly afterward, Pelosi called for tougher sanctions on Russia. She said the White House has put on a con that there has to be 100% consensus on intelligence for it to rise to a presidential level.

Without sharing details, Pelosi said it was a consequential level that the intelligence community should have brought it to us.

The House intelligence committee also received a briefing on the matter Thursday afternoon, according to a person familiar with that meeting who requested anonymity because it was not publicly disclosed.

The intelligence assessments that Russia offered bounties were first reported by The New York Times, then confirmed to The Associated Press by American intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the matter.

As the president has continued to downplay the intelligence, calling the reports fake news designed to damage him and the Republican Party, administration officials have insisted they have taken the assessment seriously. National security adviser Robert OBrien said Wednesday that the CIA and Pentagon pursued the leads and briefed international allies. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the situation was handled incredibly well to ensure the safety of U.S. troops.

We took this seriously, we handled it appropriately, Pompeo said, without giving additional details. He said the administration receives intelligence about threats to Americans every single day and each is addressed.

Still, lawmakers have pressed for more answers. A group of House Democrats who were briefed at the White House earlier this week said Trump was bowing to Putin and risking U.S. soldiers lives by not making a stronger public statement about the matter.

Texas Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said the panel would leave no stone unturned in seeking further information. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., called on the administration to provide a briefing to all senators after he reviewed some of the intelligence in a secure room in the Capitol.

If it is concluded that Russia offered bounties to murder American soldiers, a firm American response is required in short order, Toomey said.

Other Republicans defended the president, saying they had confidence in the administrations response. McConnell said earlier this week that he didnt think Trump should be subjected to every rumour. He did not comment as he left the briefing Thursday.

While Russian meddling in Afghanistan isnt new, officials said Russian operatives had become more aggressive in their desire to contract with the Taliban and members of the Haqqani Network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan and designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.

The intelligence community has been investigating an April 2019 attack on an American convoy that killed three U.S. Marines when a car rigged with explosives detonated near their armoured vehicles as they travelled back to Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, officials told the AP.

Three other U.S. service members were wounded in the attack, along with an Afghan contractor. The Taliban claimed responsibility. The officials the AP spoke to also said they were looking closely at insider attacks from 2019 to determine if they were linked to Russian bounties.

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Intelligence officials told the AP that the White House first became aware of alleged Russian bounties in early 2019. The assessments were included in one of the presidents written daily briefings at the time, and then-national security adviser John Bolton had told colleagues he had briefed Trump on the matter.

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Associated Press writers James LaPorta, Zeke Miller, Lisa Mascaro, Alan Fram, Matthew Daly and Deb Riechmann in Washington and Jonathan Lemire in Mystic, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
OTTAWAChinas sweeping new national security law extending the Communist governments control over Hong Kong takes aim not only at pro-democracy protesters but also non-residents, foreign governments, non-governmental organizations, and international media.

It subjects all persons in Hong Kong, including non-residents acting from outside the region, to strict bans on political activities that Beijing deems to endanger national security as the central government flexes its muscle over the former British territory.

An English translation of the new law, published Thursday by the South China Morning Post and cited by Beijings central office for Hong Kong affairs, outlined a 39-page list of drastic new executive, police, prosecutorial and judicial powers  all overseen by Beijings hand-picked appointments to the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central Peoples Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

It bans Hong Kongers from activities linked to secession, subversion, terrorist activities and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements. It grants police authorities the ability to conduct surveillance and counter-interference investigations, and gives central authorities power to take measures to strengthen control of organs of foreign countries and international organizations in the region, as well as non-governmental organizations and news agencies of foreign countries and from outside the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Overall, it is a dramatic warning to all diplomats, academics, non-governmental researchers, foreign correspondents or freelancers on the ground in Hong Kong to play by new rules. A top U.S. diplomat in Hong Kong vowed Thursday that American officials would continue to engage with opposition politicians.

Canadas Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne was unavailable for comment, but a statement sent by his office expressed his deep concern that China has adopted a national security law on Hong Kong that already and clearly undermines the agreement that saw Britain hand over the territory to China in 1997.

For weeks in advance of the laws publication, Champagne has said he is consulting with international allies to co-ordinate a forceful response.

A senior government official suggested the Trudeau government would detail more actions in the coming days but acknowledged that while the main concern is to act with its allies, the Trudeau government is also mindful of the impact its actions have on the situation of two Canadian men, Michael Kovrig and Micheal Spavor, held in Chinese jails.

Id by lying to you if I said we dont think about that in almost everything we do, said the official who spoke on a background-only basis.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed concern not just for Hong Kong citizens but for some 300,000 Canadian passport holders who live in the global financial capital, which has long enjoyed more political and civil liberties than mainland China.

The United States, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom denounced the law saying China has breached the autonomy guaranteed to Hong Kong by the One Country, Two Systems handover deal.

In the past week the U.S. said it will deny visas to Chinese officials involved with administering the new law, deny exports of defence and dual-use technology exports to Hong Kong and China, and eliminate special exemptions for Hong Kong. Britain and Australia say they are examining ways to ease entry of Hong Kongers and to create a path to citizenship for Hong Kong emigres.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian dismissed criticism by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying he and others are mad they will not be able to influence activists in Hong Kong.

The reason why Mr. Pompeo and his like make such a fuss about the law is that they wont be able to jeopardize Chinas sovereignty and security in as reckless and unchecked ways as before, Zhao said Thursday in translated remarks posted to the foreign ministry website. The law is like a burglar-proof door for Hong Kong.

Canada has stopped short of saying whether it will facilitate the refugee claims from Hong Kong democracy activists. Groups supporting them have complained there are too many hurdles for asylum seekers.

The Liberal government could increase the allowable stay for visitors holding passports from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Right now they are treated as visa-exempt, and permitted to enter Canada for short stays up to six months at a time, as long as they have an electronic travel authorization, which is valid up to five years.

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Canada is currently processing at least 46 refugee claims filed by people with Hong Kong citizenship, the government said Thursday. Those claims were filed between Jan. 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020, at points of entry into Canada, airports, or at Canada Border Services or Immigration Canada offices across the country.

On Thursday, Immigration and Citizenship Minister Marco Mendocinos office said Canada will continue to open our doors to newcomers, including those fleeing persecution, terror and war.

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LAHAINA  Cynthia Monteleone was invited to compete in the first track meet since March at the Desert Dream Last Hurrah Invitational in San Tan Valley, Arizona. The meet was held June 11-13.

Safety precautions such as temperature taking, limitation of spectators, mask wearing, social distancing and spraying disinfectant on the blocks were set in place.

Monteleone braved the 100-degree temperatures and sand-filled negative (against her) wind to run a 26.88 in the 200-meter on Friday night, throw a 7.70-meter shot throw Saturday evening, followed an hour later by a 59.07 400-meter. She was seeded by time and was the lone 44-year-old in a heat of some of the nations top 17-year-olds. She placed first in her heat and fourth overall.

This meet was well run and a great example of how we can return safely to the sport of track and field, said Monteleone.

Her times place her performance as the No. 3 American and No. 4 World time in the 200m rankings and the top U.S. time and the No. 2 best world performance in the 400m of the year. She missed the world lead by .1 seconds and looks forward to having another chance to compete and take the top spot.

Monteleone is proud to represent her island of Maui and home state.
Canadians are tying themselves in knots trying to fathom the China conundrum.

How does a mild-mannered middle power push back against an aggressive superpower?

The answer is that it doesnt, because it cant. Not on its own.

The reality is that huffing and puffing wont bring any Chinese walls tumbling down. Setting aside fears that a war of words will further provoke Beijing, the bigger risk is that empty rhetoric will only distract us.

Retaliation offers only the illusion of retribution. Unilateralism deludes us into thinking it makes a difference.

China has already made clear, by ransoming our citizens and holding our farmers hostage, that it cares not a whit what we think or say. But that doesnt mean Canada is powerless to respond.

The key is that we should avoid the temptation to act alone. Because we are far from alone in being bullied by Beijing.

The list of aggrieved peoples has never been longer. Its not just the traditional trio of Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan, but many of our other friends who are facing a similar fate.

Australia, India, the Philippines, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.  these are just a few of the countries antagonized and aggrieved by China in recent days, months and years. This is where our leverage lies.

Absent from our intensifying domestic debate about Who lost China is that we have lost sight of the bigger playing field. Our partisan divide and internal blinkers are blinding us to the international dimension of the China challenge, which goes far beyond Canada.

The domestic argument pits two former prime ministers  Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney  against one another. Instead of arguing among ourselves about how we must stand up to Beijing, we need to open our eyes to the tectonic shifts in Chinas foreign policy posture.

The era of China casting itself as a force for stability in world affairs, pledging non-interference and vowing never to act as a hegemonistic power (apart from its historic claims to Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Tibet) is now ancient history. Today, the Middle Kingdom projects military power across Asia, economic power in the West, and soft power everywhere.

It is the abuse of that power that hits home in Canada, with the arbitrary incarceration and persecution of the two Michaels  diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor  in retaliation for Ottawa fulfilling its treaty obligations to arrest Huaweis senior executive Meng Wanzhou. But the abuses go far beyond Canada:

Sweden remains in an uproar over the 2015 kidnapping of a citizen, Gui Minhai, who published books on China. Held without trial for years, he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment this year and allegedly renounced his Swedish citizenship.

Australias bilateral relationship is even more fraught, given its far greater economic exposure. China is suspected of secret cyberattacks and intimidation on university campuses. Beijing cracked down hard on imports from Australia after the country asked questions about the origins of COVID-19.

Hong Kong and the U.K. are both in Chinas crosshairs again, decades after the handover of the former British crown colony to the mainland in 1997. Beijings 1984 pledge to respect One Country, Two Systems is in a shambles this week after it imposed a national security law that overrides local rule, ending Hong Kongs era of political autonomy and the promise of democracy. Britain is opening the door to 3 million Hong Kong people seeking citizenship, and is developing a plan, code-named Project Defend, to disentangle the U.K. from its own economic dependence on Beijing.

India is once again immersed in a deadly conflict with its neighbour over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, an echo of their 1962 border war when China took possession of Aksai Chin. India said 20 of its soldiers died after fighting broke out last month, while China refused to disclose its own casualties. In retaliation, India has banned nearly 60 Chinese mobile apps from its rapidly growing online market as bilateral ties spiral downwards.

Across East Asia, Chinese belligerence in the open seas has led to conflicts with Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Against that global backdrop, Canadas entanglements with China  caught in the middle of a trade war between Washington and Beijing  need to be put in perspective. The idea of a prisoner swap between Huaweis Meng and our two Michaels is wrong in law but also wrong-headed in international relations.

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Spy swaps are a traditional quid pro quo when countries get caught in (illegal) espionage and use extra-legal means to extract the guilty parties. Publicly acquiescing to blatant hostage-taking would be acknowledging that it is open season on foreigners forever.

Canada is not alone in being bullied by China; it should not act alone in responding. We need a clear-headed reassessment of bilateral relations  including our outdated twinning relations between cities  but the real opportunity for us lies in making common cause with countries that also have bitter firsthand experience with Chinese intimidation.

Beijing is in no mood to heed our laments. Only by linking up with each other can middle powers leverage their influence and amplify their voices, using the only language China understands.

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This fall, high school could look a lot more like summer school.

As boards work to find ways to limit contact between students to reduce the spread of COVID-19, secondary school poses a particular problem: How to do that when teens typically take four credits each semester, or eight over an entire year, with different teachers and classmates in each?

One scenario a number of boards are considering is to have teens take one credit at a time, for roughly half a day, for about five weeks each.

Imagine that you are a Grade 9 student and you are in a semestered school and you are taking four classes, said Tony Pontes, executive director of the Council of Ontario Directors of Education, which represents leaders at all 72 school boards in the province.

You have a timetable right now that shows period one, period two, maybe period three is lunch, and then periods four and five. So youve got four classes in a day, he said. One model that some boards are looking at is to say, All right, whatever you have in period one, you are going to have that class now for perhaps the equivalent of 225 minutes, every day for five weeks.

So its going to be almost like summer school  and at the end of those five weeks, everybodys going to move to their period two class.

Under the one-class-at-time model, teens are cohorted with the same teacher, he added. So thats certainly a model that many boards are considering. Theres no movement in the hall, theres no going to lockers and they would  go home (after) so schools dont have to worry about lunch and cafeteria because thats another significant challenge.

In the elementary grades, cohorting is easier to do as an entire class of kids can remain with the same teacher most of the time.

While the one-class scenario is the option being most discussed, Pontes stressed it is just one possible way to manage the issue. However, he added, it does check off most safety concerns because if high schools move to two classes a day, then hallway and other points of contact must be dealt with.

Last month, Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce asked boards to plan for three scenarios in the fall depending on the COVID-19 situation: in-class as usual, with health and safety protocols such as regular handwashing in place; continue with online only  the model used when schools were shut down after the March Break; or some combination of the two.

The education ministry has suggested that for high schools, boards consider shortened periods of in-person instruction in the morning with blended online and independent learning in the afternoons, or the block schedule, with one course taught over several weeks, with an online component. It also says compulsory classes could be taught in person and electives online.

Sofia Zamorano, a student trustee with the Durham Catholic board, said the one-class model could work. But she cautioned that while many students do well with the intense five weeks of summer school, a lot of students also struggle to keep up with the workload ... it may not be the best option for every learning style out there.

She also said students may be left feeling stuck in a rut, especially after being at home for so long, and then having to learn the same thing every day.

Zamorano, who just graduated from All Saints Catholic Secondary School in Whitby, said there are a number of possible models, including one where half the students attend every other day, with livestreamed lessons on the days they are home.

Pontes said directors and superintendents will be working all summer on the fall plans, building regular timetables  a huge job in any year, especially with just weeks before school  and then they have to basically dissect that timetable into digestible pieces, and with a maximum class size of 15 if required.

Busing will be another headache for boards, given routes will be able to handle about 24 children when they would typically transport more than double that number, he said, and also noted that schools will have to hire more custodial staff as well for daily deep cleaning.

Later this summer, he added, boards will have to determine how many students will return to in-person classes  attendance will be optional if families have concerns  which will impact timetabling, he added.

Its a lot of work to ramp up, really, within three to four weeks, Pontes said. However, having said all that, I know superintendents and directors and principals are going to make it work  every student is going to have the support they need.

Plans from individual boards are due to the ministry August 4. Critics have said the province is leaving all the hard work to boards at a time when they are already overwhelmed. Lecce said he wants boards to make decisions based on their own situation and with the advice of local health officials, which will mean schooling will look different across the province.

Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, said boards are collecting surveys to take a pulse of our communities to see how everybodys doing and to ask what parents think of different options for the fall.

Student Trustee Ivy Deng, who just graduated from Earl Haig Secondary School, said this is a constantly changing situation. We dont even know what next week, let alone the next three months, will look like. But she said the Toronto District School Board is consulting extensively and that a number of models are possible.

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The TDSB will have a draft plan to give Toronto public health by July 14, and a month later school schedules will be ready, she added.

While making these plans, the (board) is trying to ensure that student learning gaps are accommodated and that teachers are also well prepared for the fall, Deng added. This is a challenging situation for everyone and I hope whatever plan is decided on will be able to support every student not only in education, but also in mental health.

Ontario teachers unions have called for students to have flexible schedules and take fewer courses, given they may need extra time to catch up as well as to ensure students mental health and well-being after the prolonged shutdown. They have also suggested one day a week be set aside for deep cleaning.
The familiar sights and sounds at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino -- the ones that were all there when it shut down on March 16 -- are all still there. The lights from the slot machines were still bright and colorful. You could hear the ring of a machine celebrating someone who just won some money -- and the occasional groan from someone who just lost a hand.

But there was a lot that was new, too, on Thursday when it opened for the first time since the middle of March when casinos statewide were shut down by way of a Governor Phil Murphy executive order in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Valerie Hill, of Toms River, celebrates a win at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A crew of employees wearing neon safe and Sound shirts was in place, wiping down Plexiglas and other surfaces throughout the day. Thermal imaging checked visitors body temperatures as they entered. About 1,000 new filters brought outside airflow into the building, changing the air in the room between 10 to 12 times an hour.

Jim Allen, the chairman of Hard Rock International and CEO of Seminole Gaming, told NJ Advance Media the Hard Rock brand had spent over $100 million on dealing with the COVID virus on a global basis. Allen said that while it will be a challenging year financially because of the closure, the business will be able to persevere.

A thermal imager checks the temperature of guests as the enter the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City , Thursday, July 2, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

We saw this starting to occur in some of our international locations, specifically in China at our hotel in Shenzhen, which is a beautiful property we had just opened, Allen said. It was really starting to do well. We certainly saw that this was going to be a potential concern. As it came to the United States, we kind of knew what was coming.

Allen is not only monitoring the reopening of the casino and the upcoming Fourth of July weekend, but he is also keeping an eye on what will happen with the planned protest scheduled to take place Saturday in Atlantic City. Allen said he spoke with protest organizer Steve Young Wednesday and that the two had a great conversation. Allen said he supports peaceful protests but does not want to see it reach the level of a riot.

A member of the Safe + Sound Clean Team wipes down a machine at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

"I would surely hope we can come together to not have an actual riot on the busiest weekend of the year," the chairman and CEO said. "If people want to protest, we 100% support their initiative. We understand it. We have the same mindset. We don't understand what happened with George Floyd. That is a very tragic situation."

"The last thing Atlantic City, and all these employers and the 39,000 residents need is a major confrontation where potentially more people and businesses are hurt because frankly and unfortunately, it loses the focus on what the real goal here is, which Hard Rock does support," Allen continued.

A man reaches under Plexiglass to place a bet at Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Hard Rock Atlantic City President Joe Lupo has been thinking about this day for more than 100 days. For Lupo, seeing the employees and guests back in the hotel is making him very happy.

"It is great to be open again," Lupo said. "That has been our goal for a long time. Most importantly, we are doing it in a really safe environment. We're just happy that the doors are open under some challenging times, but it is better to get open first and work through everything that we can."

Sitting and playing the "Sun and Moon" slots, John Borowsky was having a good time. Borowsky, who works in Atlantic City, said it was good to get out of the house and be social again. He also said he was coming out ahead on the slot machines.

I am actually doing well, Borowsky said. I started with $20, and now I have $145, so Im doing OK.

Barbara Phelan came to Atlantic City from Manchester Township to play the machines. Phelan added it was nice to have some normalcy again.

It is good just getting out of the house, Phelan said. I have been going to the beach and things like that. It is good to have some freedom, even with everything going on.

A dealer wears a face shield at Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A ribbon was cut down the boardwalk at Ocean Casino Resort to mark the end of the post-coronavirus closure. Ocean Casino Resort President and CEO Terry Glebocki said the facilitys size is allowing it some flexibility when it comes to offerings such as food.

We will be at 90% occupancy tonight and 100% this weekend, Glebocki said. To help with the current ban on indoor dining, a number of food trucks...were set up just outside the building and we have opened up a dozen to-go outlets.

A worker installs Plexiglass around a gaming table at Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Glebocki added that with the additional measures taken, such as Plexiglas on the table games and having a person check to make sure that no one has had symptoms of the virus, visitors should have patience with the new normal.

Please wear your masks, practice social distancing, and please practice something that is not written anywhere, and it is called patience. This is new for all of us. We are here to do our best.

DeCalle McGowan celebrate after winning on a slot machine at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

After the ribbon was cut, Joe Arnashus of Toms River sat at the blackjack table, watching the dealer place the cards in front of him. Arnahus felt right in his element.

Its good to be back home, Arnashus said. Everybody is worried about not eating and drinking in the casinos. There are a lot of restaurants here. You just have to go outside to eat or drink so it is easy, and it will keep everything cleaner. We can live with that for a little while. Hopefully, it will not be forever, but we will do what we have to do to make it work.

A woman plays slots at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A woman gambles at Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The casino reopened after being shutdown due to the coronavirus scare. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Chris Franklin may be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com.

Tim Hawk may be reached at thawk@njadvancemedia.com.
A meeting between Atlantic Citys mayor and a protest organizer broke down Wednesday afternoon, setting the stage for a Fourth of July protest during which the organizer said he would shut Atlantic City down. The mayor had said he hoped the meeting would deter the protest.

At a briefing in City Hall broadcast on Facebook, Mayor Marty Small Sr. said Wednesday evening that he and his team did a lot of work to bring various organizations together to meet with Steve Young, who is planning the Fourth of July protest - billed as a social justice protest with George Floyd in mind, the man killed in Minneapolis police custody.

But Small said things got off to an ominous start when Young, in an initial agenda, made a request to have proceeds of the citys marijuana dispensary directed to the Black Men United Coalition, an organization in which Young is the president.

These are things that cannot be done, Small said.

Small proceeded with the meeting anyway, lining up many of the people and organizations Yong wanted: the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), healthcare company AtlantiCare, officials from the Tanger Outlets, and the citys Chamber of Commerce, so they could discuss a myriad of ideas.

Small said some people and organizations balked at showing, fearing a shakedown, but Small persisted.

The mayor said he arrived at the Wednesday afternoon meeting at the Atlantic City Convention Center with his chief of staff Ernest Coursey, city Constituent Services Director Bruce Weeks, CRDA Executive Director Matthew Doherty, president of the Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce Michael Chait, two executives from AtlantiCare, Joe Dougherty of the Casino Association of New Jersey, as well as Young, an attorney, and another unidentified individual. Tanger officials did not attend.

Update regarding the 4th of July Protest Posted by Marty Small Sr. on Wednesday, July 1, 2020

After introductions, and Young trying to run the meeting - Small said it was his meeting - things just crumbled.

We thought that (Young) would have been satisfied that he was finally at the table at my urging, Small said. But then Young, according to Small, said: Okay, everyone else can get out.

We all looked around the room, and he was referring to me, the mayor of Atlantic City, Small said.

After some heated language, Young left, Small said.

Young could not be reached for comment.

Small said he will now start the process of removing Young from his current positions on the citys planning board and citizens advisory board, both of which he was appointed to by former mayor Frank Gilliam. (Also, another meeting Small set up for Young with the Casing Association of New Jersey scheduled for next Tuesday is also off.)

I am not going to allow you to disrespect me, Small said of Young. I am not going to allow you to disrespect the office of the mayor. More importantly, I am not going to allow you to make a mockery of the great people of Atlantic City. That is not going to happen.

Small said Youngs motivations are, all about him and his organization, not Atlantic City and its residents.

Protest organizer Steve Young speaks during the Atlantic City protest, Sunday, May 31, 2020. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Young had said during a interview this past Friday on WPG Talk Radio 95.5s Hurley in the Morning show, systemic racism has been going on for years in Atlantic City and has been overlooked, and the protest was to bring light to the situation.

On July the Fourth, we are going to shut Atlantic City down to show the light of systemic racism, and the issues economically and socially, and the oppression that happens right here in Atlantic City, Young said during the interview.

Small reiterated on Wednesday that he supports peaceful protests but does not want to see them spiral out of hand, such as the one that took place May 31, where rioters and looters went through some of the citys businesses - like the Tanger Outlets.

The mayor added that the city is ready in case the protesters attempt to block the Atlantic City Expressway, the main artery into the city for visitors. The mayor said that law enforcement officers as high as the federal level are already in town.

When you are talking about a town that is hanging on by a thread with some businesses in the situation that if they do not have a good summer, they will be gone forever, Small said. Some businesses, as we speak, are unboarding their windows to open up to hope for a successful holiday weekend. Now you have someone, for selfish reasons, want to block the expressway and shut it down. We are not having that. As I told him, you do what you got to do, and we will do what we have to do.

Compounding the situation is the rumor that the Pagans motorcycle gang would be in town, an issue Small addressed Tuesday. I learned some information that the Pagans motorcycle gang was supposed to come here and try to intervene. That is all fine and dandy. However, we are going to take care of our affairs here in the city of Atlantic City, Small said Tuesday.

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The mayor of Woodlynne said Wednesday he intends to fire a police officer charged last month with assaulting two teens with pepper spray. The officer is on his ninth job in as many towns, officials have said.

Officer Ryan Dubiel, 31, of Wennoah, has been charged with two counts of simple assault for the June 4 incident in which he pepper sprayed two teenagers who authorities said were not resisting, and followed a somewhat routine police interaction.

Footage of the incident, from bystanders and police body cameras, show Dubiel shooting his pepper spray while unprovoked, and then chasing after the teens and spraying them again.

State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal called the alleged assault an appalling and completely unjustified use of force.

Woodlynne Mayor Joseph Chukwueke said Dubiel, who had been on the department for less than a year, was suspended with intent to dismiss before he was charged last month.

We dealt with it the same day we viewed the video, Chukwueke said Wednesday. We suspended him with no pay even before the county came down with their investigation. We have civil service procedures we have to go through to get rid of someone.

A local activist had planned a protest in front of the police station this week to protest alleged racism within the Woodlynne Police Department. The demonstration was later rescheduled for next week because of threatening weather.

Dubiel is white. The youths he allegedly assaulted are Black.

This officer, who has worked for nine different police departments, is a strong example of why we need a statewide licensing program for police officers  a proposal that I initiated and that I will strongly support when it is presented later this month to the Police Training Commission, Grewal said after the incident. Just as we license doctors, nurses, and lawyers, we must ensure that all officers meet baseline standards of professionalism, and that officers who fail to meet those standards cannot be passed from one police department to another while posing a threat to the public and other officers.

Chukwueke, a native of Nigeria, who still speaks with a distinctive accent, has lived in Woodlynne for 24 years, but has only been the mayor for six months. He said he would have asked more questions before hiring Dubiel if he was a public official when the officer was hired.

The Woodlynne police department has eight officers to patrol the small borough of less than a quarter square-mile, sandwiched between Camden and Collingswood.

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As a resurgence in coronavirus cases forces Phil Murphy and other governors to dial back plans for reopening their economies, Americans placed the blame on their neighbors.

In a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday, 59% of respondents said their fellow Americans were doing a bad job dealing with the pandemic, while just 28% said they were doing a good job. In May, the numbers were reversed, with 51% saying they were doing a good job and 33% said they were doing a bad job.

Some governors have dialed back their states reopening plans because of images of large groups showing a blatant disregard for social distancing, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. These poll results suggest that most people look at their fellow Americans behavior and say This is why we cant have nice things.

Thats what led to Murphys announcement earlier this week that the state would not reopen indoor dining as originally planned.

There is pent up emotion to get back outside, Murphy said during his daily coronavirus briefing last week. But there is no reason to be a knucklehead. Keep your distances. Wear your masks. Be smart and courteous  the world just isnt about you. Its about all 9 million of us.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Just 37% said they were confident that the pandemic would be brought under control within weeks, down from 62% in March. The percentage of those with little or no confidence rose to 61% from 36% in March.

And twice as many Americans said they were more concerned that governors were moving too fast rather than too slow to reopen their economies, 64% to 27%.

Many states loosened restrictions a few weeks ago, Murray said. Both the epidemiological data and the public opinion data suggest it may have been too soon.

The poll also found Americans continue to have a negative view of how President Donald Trump is handling the coronavirus crisis, with 40% saying hes doing a good job and 54% giving him a bad job rating. State governors get a 65% good job rating, while 28% said they are doing a bad job.

The poll of 867 adults was conducted June 26-30 with a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.
Congress has voted to extend federal program that provided low-interest loans to small businesses that would be forgiven if they kept paying their employees.

If President Donald Trump agrees, the paycheck protection program would be extended until Aug. 8. It had been scheduled to end Tuesday, with $134 billion in loans still available to be handed out.

The Senate passed the extension by voice vote on Tuesday and the House unanimously cleared the measure Wednesday.

For Main Street New Jersey and small businesses, this will be very, very helpful, said Eileen Kean, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. Hopefully there are businesses out there that will say, The time has come. I should have done this already and I didnt.

New Jersey businesses took out 144,523 loans worth $17 billion through Saturday, according to the Small Business Administration.

Overall, the federal government awarded $519 billion to 4.8 million small businesses. Close to two-thirds of the loans, 3.1 million, were for $50,000 or less.

SBA Regional Administrator Steve Bulger said the agency has been reaching out to small businesses in low-income communities that may have not known about the program, and the extension will allow it to continue that effort.

We welcome the opportunity to keep the program going and offer these loans to whoever needs them, Bulger said. There are companies out there. There are applications coming in every day. Our focus is that small segment that hasnt gotten a PPP loan.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

The initial $349 billion program was so successful that Congress quickly added another $310 billion in funding.

But plenty of money remains, even after Congress agreed to let businesses spend 60% of their loan money on payroll rather than 75%, and give them 24 weeks rather than the current eight weeks to use the money.

It kind of caught us by surprise, Bulger said. There was the expectation by everybody -- lenders, business groups, bankers, trade associations -- better get ready, its going to go quick. Numbers were big during the first week. Then it suddenly got kind of quiet and there was a noticeable fallout.

As the coronavirus spikes in other areas, and states like New Jersey pause some reopening plans, Rep. Andy Kim, a member of the House Small Business Committee, said other steps need to be taken as well.

Extending the Paycheck Protection Act deadline is a step in the right direction, but its not enough, said Kim, D-3rd Dist. This crisis isnt over, and we need to stand by our small businesses and give them the full support they need until they can safely reopen and put New Jerseyans back to work.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators are looking at letting businesses apply for a second loan if they still cant reopen, and letting them use some of their loan money to finance personal protective equipment such as masks and plexiglass guards.

As the shutdowns have grown longer, it has become clear that millions of small employers need additional help if they are to keep their heads above water and survive, said U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

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The last time Jean Stanek saw her husband in person was May 20 when he was taken from their Bridgeton home by ambulance.

Chris Stanek was having breathing problems, was disoriented and very warm to the touch, she said.

The senior corrections officer was diagnosed with COVID-19 and has been fighting for his life ever since.

Stanek previously volunteered for an ambulance squad and traveled to New York City after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to help out at ground zero.

Now hes the one who needs a hand.

While he has improved in recent weeks, Stanek faces a long recovery, according to his wife. Friends, co-workers, churches and local businesses are stepping up to help with donations for the family.

Stanek, 45, has worked as a corrections officer since 2003 and is stationed at South Woods State Prison.

He began feeling sick in May, Jean recalled. Hes diabetic, but she knew these symptoms were a sign of something else.

Stanek was taken to Inspira Medical Center in Vineland and a day later was in Cooper University Hospital, where he remains today.

Chris Stanek has been hospitalized since May 20 as doctors treat him for COVID-19.Jean Stanek

His condition was touch and go for several weeks. He was intubated and placed on a ventilator twice and was on continuous dialysis at one point as the disease ravaged his organs, Jean said.

He would improve then nosedive and doctors told her she needed to be ready for anything. She didnt know what to expect each time doctors called with an update.

Not many survive this when its that serious, she said.

She feared she could lose her husband, but credits her faith in God and support of family and friends for helping get through the toughest days.

Stanek has been off the ventilator for two weeks now, is breathing on his own and no longer requires dialysis. He could soon leave Cooper for a rehab center.

Its been a long journey  hes improved a lot, but he still has a long road ahead of him, Jean said. Hes still in a lot of pain throughout his body. The doctor just increased his pain medication. His body has been through so much.

Hes not able to sit up yet. He tries, but hes still so weak.

For her husband, the entire experience is still a blur.

Hes talking now, she said. He did not remember what happened to him. He remembered the ambulance, but that was it. Thats how disoriented he was.

Jean cannot see Chris in person because of continuing pandemic-related visitation restrictions at hospitals, so they stay in touch via Facetime visits. She tries to call daily, between holding down a job and taking care of their home and making sure the bills are paid. She assures her husband that everything is fine on the home front.

Just focus on getting better, she tells him.

After weeks of uncertainty, being able to hear his voice again has reassured Jean that hes going to be OK.

To actually hear him talk now, it really helps me a lot, she said.

Family, friends and co-workers have rallied around Stanek and colleagues launched a GoFundMe campaign to help his family through this battle.

I worked with him personally for quite a number of years and hes a good guy, said PBA Local 105 Vice President Mike Gallagher, who created the GoFundMe. Hes a good employee and hes always willing to help others.

At least two state correctional police officers have died as a result of COVID-19. More than 780 state prison employees have been diagnosed with it, including 35 at South Woods, according to state records. More than 2,700 state inmates have tested positive and 45 have died.

Jean is certain her husband contracted COVID on the job, describing him as a homebody who doesnt go out much, beyond trips to the store.

She was tested for the virus herself and had to quarantine for 14 days at home, but was in the clear.

She urged others to take COVID-19 seriously and protect themselves and others.

This is very serious. Its deadly, she said. Everyone should take all of the precautions needed. You have to be very careful.

Jean and Chris met at the Bridgeton Emergency Ambulance Association, where they both volunteered. Service to his community has always been important to her husband, she said.

As long as Ive known Chris, he always helped people, she said. That was Chris  always helping others, caring for others.

They married in 2004 and Chris is step-father to Jeans three kids.

Jean has been amazed by the support the family has received from the community.

In addition to those donating to the online fundraiser, pastors at their church, Leila Sostre and David Morales of La Iglesia De Dios in Millville, and a local car dealership, South Jersey Motor Trends in Vineland, have made contributions to help the family. Pastors Ruben Soto and Suhein Perez of Iglesia Pentecostal En Manos Del Alfarero Inc. in Wildwood also reached out this week with a donation.

It was very overwhelming, she said. I felt very happy for Chris and very appreciative of all the people that stepped up.

Chris and Jean Stanek were married in 2004 and reside in Bridgeton.Jean Stanek

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Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
The Jersey Shore restaurant that was packed with bargoers ignoring coronavirus guidelines over the weekend will halt live music and limit occupancy, the business wrote Wednesday on social media.

NJ Advance Media observed Donovans Reef in Sea Bright overflowing with patrons with few wearing face masks in the early morning hours of Sunday. A video of the packed venue, which includes part of the beach, was shared widely on social media.

...Effective immediately, we are pausing live music at our venue and further limiting our occupancy, Donovans Reef posted on Facebook. We will also continue to mandate masks in indoor areas, and strongly encourage customers to wear masks on the beach.

"Like countless businesses throughout New Jersey, we too are experiencing the unprecedented difficulties that the... Posted by Donovan's Reef on Wednesday, July 1, 2020

New Jersey restaurants were slated to reopen for indoor dining this week ahead of the Fourth of July weekend as part of the states COVID-19 re-entry plan. But Gov. Phil Murphy indefinitely halted restaurants from doing so on Monday.

While Murphy hasnt called out Donovans Reef specifically, hes cited scenes from bars and restaurants that have expanded outdoors for putting a halt on indoor dining. Restaurants were going to be allowed to reopen for indoor dining if they operated at 25% capacity, set up tables 6-feet apart and staff wore face coverings.

Umm heres a snap of Donovans Reef in Sea Bright  feels like Im back at The Boot on a Saturday night pic.twitter.com/3Qp9GKieoU  Josh Axelrod (@j0shaxelrod) June 28, 2020

Donovan Reefs Facebook post did not say how many patrons would be allowed in. The phone at the restaurant rang indefinitely when NJ Advance Media called Wednesday evening.

Sea Bright Mayor Brian Kelly, however, said Donovans Reef agreed to limit capacity to about 400 in the evening with higher numbers during the day. The restaurant typically had 1,000 patrons before COVID-19, the mayor previously told NJ Advance Media.

New Jersey Restaurant and Hospitality Association President Marilou Halverson said in a statement she spoke with management at Donovans and they were committed to providing a safe and healthy environment during the pandemic.

Theyve invested thousands of dollars to upgrade their facility to meet high levels of sanitation, and theyve spent countless hours training their staff on COVID-19 safety protocols, said Halverson. And now they are willing to do even more to ensure social distancing in their outdoor beach bar location. These are unprecedented times, and businesses are learning and adapting as they go.

In its statement on Facebook, the venue acknowledged it was aware of the social distancing concerns at the venue.

Recently, some have raised issues about social distancing measures in outdoor venues such as ours, the post read. We hear the concerns of our community, and we will continue to put the health and safety of our patrons first.

The restaurant was rebuilt after Superstorm Sandy and has been a popular spot along the Shore since 1976. Thrillist named Donovans Reef one of Americas 21 best beach bars in 2018.

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Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
New Jersey workers left jobless due to the coronavirus pandemic and an impending economic crisis have collected more than $9 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits, the state Labor department announced Thursday.

Roughly 28,000 workers filed for unemployment for the week ending in June 27, a 15 percent drop from the prior week, which saw 33,000 workers file claims, according to the Department of Labor.

The dip in claims comes as the state continues Phase 2 of its reopening, which includes amusement parks, playgrounds, libraries, aquariums and museums on Thursday. But it was slightly pulled back after Gov. Phil Murphy reversed his decision on indoor dining, which will no longer reopen on Thursday.

The Labor Department also recently announced benefits will extend another 20 weeks for New Jersey workers who exhausted their state and federal benefits.

ALSO: U.S. economy roaring back as unemployment falls to 11%

Until now, workers maxed out at 39 weeks. And workers will be automatically enrolled into the extended benefits, which is kicking in because the state has hit benchmarks set by the feds, including a high rate of unemployment, which reached 15.2% in May, compared to the countys 11.1% unemployment rate in June.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

New Jersey went from being at almost full employment last winter to double-digit unemployment a few months later, said Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo. Extended benefits are in place for just such eventualities  so that claimants have access to an income safety net for an extended period during times of high unemployment.

Claims are still steadily coming in by the thousand  bringing the total to 1.3 million new claimants since March  but its a big drop from the peak of 200,000 claims filed weekly in March and April, which left the Department of Labor under an avalanche of claims that created a massive backlog.

Of the 1.3 million who applied, about 1.1 million have met the requirements to receive benefits, and 96 percent of those have received payment, the Labor department said.

A new call center also recently opened to address the thousands of workers who needs to speak to an agent about their claim.

Still, there are thousands waiting to receive benefits. Some workers have been waiting since March to have their claim reviewed, often due to cross-state work or other complicated circumstances.

In June, the Labor Department announced it would borrow $1.7 billion from the federal government to replenish the states unemployment fund for August, September and October.

To date, claimants have received $2.9 billion through state unemployment benefits and $6.2 billion in federal benefits through the CARES Act.

New Jersey workers who are eligible for unemployment may receive 60 percent of their wages, up to $713. Through the end of July, recipients will also receive $600 in additional Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments from the federal coronavirus stimulus package.

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Statehouse Reporter Samantha Marcus contributed to this report.

Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz.

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The Labor Department is extending unemployment benefits for an extra 20 weeks. Now eligible workers can get a total of 59 weeks of benefits.

The update was first reported Wednesday by NJ Advance Media.

The report also said that gig workers, independent contractors and the self-employed will be eligible for an additional seven weeks, bringing their maximum benefit period to 46 weeks.

These kinds of workers are asking why their extension is limited.

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)  the coronavirus relief program under which they qualify for benefits  only allows for the extra seven weeks, the Department of Labor said.

Its how the program was designed, agency spokeswoman Angela Delli-Santi said.

Independent contractors, who normally would not qualify for unemployment because neither they nor their employer contributed to the fund from which benefits are drawn, are eligible under the CARES Act for 26 weeks of benefits plus 13 weeks of extended federal benefits plus seven weeks of state extended benefits, for a total of 46 weeks, she said.

The cost of these benefits is half covered by the federal government and half covered by the state.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Gig workers are also eligible for an extra $600 weekly benefit, which is funded by the federal government and runs through the week ending July 25.

The extended benefits announced Wednesday kicked in because the state hit certain benchmarks set by the federal government, including a high rate of unemployment, which was 15.2 percent in May, the state said.

More than 1.3 million workers have applied for unemployment benefits in New Jersey, and 1.1 million, or 96% of those deemed eligible, have received at least one payment, the Labor Department said.

Last month, the Labor Department said it would replenish the states unemployment fund for August, September and October with $1.7 billion in federal borrowing.

So far, the state has paid out $2.9 billion in state unemployment benefits and $6.2 billion in federal benefits through the CARES Act, the agency said.

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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
The big day is finally here for Hamilton fans  #Hamilfans  along with anyone who has longed to see the Broadway hit but hasnt been able to catch the show.

Lin-Manuel Mirandas Hamilton was originally supposed to come to movie theaters, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused Disney to change its plans.

Unlike a string of movies whose premiere dates have been pushed back by as much as a year, Hamilton has been fast-tracked.

Disney announced in May that it would bring the film version of the Broadway show to Disney Plus on Friday, July 3. The streaming debut means the film arrives 16 months ahead of schedule. (In February, Miranda announced the production would debut in theaters Oct. 15, 2021.)

See below for the exact time(s) of the premiere and more.

Lin-Manuel Mirandas gift in an upside down world

Hamilton, which features non-white actors playing the Founding Fathers and other major characters, won 11 Tonys, including best musical, as well as a Grammy and a Pulitzer Prize.

Thomas Kail, the director of the Broadway show, filmed the production at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in June 2016, when Miranda still occupied the role of Alexander Hamilton.

Im so proud of how beautifully Tommy Kail has brought Hamilton to the screen, Miranda said in a May 12 statement announcing the Disney Plus premiere.

Hes given everyone who watches this film the best seat in the house, he said. Im so grateful to Disney and Disney Plus for reimagining and moving up our release to July 4th weekend of this year, in light of the world turning upside down. Im so grateful to all the fans who asked for this, and Im so glad that were able to make it happen. Im so proud of this show. I cant wait for you to see it.

In a statement, Robert Iger, Disneys executive chairman, said that no other work of art in the last decade has had the impact that Hamilton has.

In light of the extraordinary challenges facing our world, this story about leadership, tenacity, hope, love and the power of people to unite against the forces of adversity is both relevant and impactful, Iger said. We are thrilled to bring this phenomenon to Disney Plus on the eve of Independence Day, and we have the brilliant Lin-Manuel Miranda and the team behind Hamilton to thank for allowing us to do so more than a year before planned.

The Hamilton cast

Heres the full list of main cast members for the film version of Hamilton:

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, the nations first secretary of the treasury (who died in a New Jersey duel).

Daveed Diggs as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson

Renee Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler

Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr

Christopher Jackson as George Washington

Jonathan Groff as King George

Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton

Jasmine Cephas Jones as Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds

Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan/James Madison

Anthony Ramos as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton

Okieriete Onaodowan, who plays Hercules Mulligan and James Madison in the film version of "Hamilton" premiering on Disney Plus. Onaodowan grew up in West Orange.Alex Remnick | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

What time is the Hamilton premiere? How long will it be available?

Dont think July 3 means midnight on July 3  thats not the case for everyone. Viewers here on the East Coast may choose to watch the next day instead of in the middle of the night (unless they have been counting down the seconds, of course).

Hamilton is set to premiere at 3 a.m. ET and 12 a.m. PT on Friday, July 3, according to a Disney Plus spokeswoman.

There will also be a watch party on Twitter where cast members will be tweeting along. The party starts at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Friday, July 3. You can follow along at the hashtag #Hamilfilm.

As for how long Hamilton will be on Disney Plus? So far theres no end date for the film, so feel free to watch it on repeat to your hearts content, or save it for another day.

Disney Plus is $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year alone, and $12.99 a month in combination with Hulu and ESPN Plus.

Calling all HAMILFANS:  Tune in to the Hamilton watch party tomorrow starting at 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET!  #Hamilfilm https://t.co/XqxEg1HDUG  Disney+ (@disneyplus) July 2, 2020

N.J.s Hamilton star

Okieriete Onaodowan, who grew up in West Orange, plays larger-than-life spy Hercules Mulligan and the more quiet James Madison in the film version of the Broadway production.

Ideally I wanted it to be a double take, Onaodowan told NJ Advance Media in 2016. I wanted you to forget and that at some point realize its the same person.

Onaodowan, 32, originated the roles during the shows off-Broadway run at The Public Theater before Hamilton came to Broadway in 2015.

Of course, there are other New Jersey connections in the story of Alexander Hamilton, one being that his fatal duel with Aaron Burr took place in Weehawken July 11, 1804.

Onaodowan recently told Uproxx that the film version of the show was captured over three days of performances.

The alumnus of West Orange High School was performing in November 2016 on the night Mike Pence, then vice president-elect, was in the audience.

Tonight, VP-Elect Mike Pence attended #HamiltonBway. After the show, @BrandonVDixon delivered the following statement on behalf of the show. pic.twitter.com/Jsg9Q1pMZs  Hamilton (@HamiltonMusical) November 19, 2016

Onaodowan told Uproxx he felt rage at the time as people in the crowd cheered for Pence.

It was just hard as an artist to think what Im doing is promoting this message, in black and brown skin, telling our Founding Fathers story, and yet there were still people in there who are celebrating the arrival of Pence, he said. Its complicated and its hard.

At the end of the show, Brandon Victor Dixon, who played Aaron Burr, delivered a message to Pence.

We, sir  we  are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, he said. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.

President Donald Trump called the statement harassment in a tweet and demanded an apology.

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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Send a coronavirus tip here.
The federal investigation into past corruption in the Jersey City Police Departments off-duty jobs program has claimed another officer, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.

Police Officer Gicella Sanchez, 36, of Jersey City, was charged Thursday with one count of conspiracy to defraud a local government after authorities say she was paid more than $5,000 for off-duty jobs she did not work.

She was expected to appear Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cathy L. Waldor, by videoconference.

At least 11 members of the police department, including former Police Chief Phil Zacche, pleaded guilty to getting paid for no-show or low-show jobs.

After the scandal broke, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop ended the program, which entailed businesses like construction companies paying the police department to have at least one officer at the site. The officer assigned to the job would then get paid by the police department.

For decades there was a pattern of corruption in the off-duty jobs program within the Jersey City Police Department, and for that reason, Director Shea and the Mayor dismantled the program, went to court against the union, and ultimately prevailed, city spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said. We will now work to continue to revamp this program into something the city can be proud of.

... The city will continue to cooperate fully to hold any officers who participated accountable.

Authorities say that between November 2014 and June 2016, Sanchez conspired with a Jersey City police officer who was authorized to assign off-duty work and sign vouchers. The officer was described in the criminal complaint as an assistant pick coordinator for the West District.

That officer  with Sanchezs knowledge and consent  submitted phony vouchers to Jersey City certifying that Sanchez had completed certain off-duty assignments that she never performed.

Sanchez faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. According to public records, Sanchez earns $109,757 annually and has been on the force since 2009. Wallace-Scalcione said Sanchez is suspended without pay.

In 2017, Jersey City officers made a total of $22 million working off-duty gigs, according to city payroll records. One officer earned $125,000 from off-duty work that year.

The Jersey City Police Department is cooperating with the investigation, said Carpenito, credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Douglas Korneski in Newark, with the investigation.
Last month was Pride Month, a time of celebrating LGBTQ+ achievements but also marking the continuous need to keep pushing against the kind of discriminatory setbacks unique to LGTBQ+ people. The struggle is in solidarity and often intersects with other disenfranchised groups of people, whether thats because of race, disability, or poverty.

COVID-19 caused a cancellation of in-person Pride celebrations that extends to what had been the Aug. 22-scheduled Jersey City LGBTQ+ Pride Festival and beyond.

Hudson Pride Center (HPC), the longtime nonprofit based in Jersey City that serves the LGBTQ+ community, shifted to providing their in-person services remotely because of the pandemic.

In an interview by email last week, HPC Executive Director Elizabeth Schedl described the ways HPC marked Pride Month. And if groups like HPC seem nebulous for those who never thought about them very deeply, Schedl made it clear that they do a whole lot.

While Hudson Pride Centers physical space is currently closed, our key services and programs are operating remotely and virtually, Schedl said. The HPC team has worked hard to make sure our community feels supported and cared for as we create innovative ways to work remotely. We have connected with and continued to support and provide services for our LGBTQ+ homeless population, LGBTQ+ youth, people living with HIV, people taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and our LGBTQ+ friends over the age of 50.

Our staff are helping new and existing clients set up appointments for LGBTQ+ specific health services, Schedl continued. We are now also helping connect individuals to employment resources, unemployment sites, and COVID-19 facts/education and testing locations. For our clients who are experiencing homelessness during this time, we are helping them to obtain food and food resources, as well as short term housing or shelter. Our staff have already helped a number of homeless LGBTQ+ youth and young adults find safe short-term shelter while protecting them from exposure to COVID-19 on the streets.

Schedl was previously HPCs chief operations officer. She was promoted July 8, and in a press release announcing the Schedls new position, HPC Board Chair Obsetee Korme said, Elizabeth has been a shining star and along with her team has proven their commitment and love for the work they do for the LGBTQ+ community here in Hudson County and beyond. I have watched Elizabeth grow over the past few years and watching her evolve into a strong and determined leader has been an honor. I have no doubt this evolution will lead the center to new heights.

HPC held 10 virtual Pride events during June and collaborated with other organizations and businesses in support of their Pride events, Schedl said.

We are seeing an increase in need for LGBTQ+ support and services and are extremely happy that our virtual support groups, services, and events are now available for those who otherwise would not be able to receive them or attend, Schedl said.

We are very proud of the range of virtual events we were able to create throughout Pride month, Schedl said. Although all of them were really wonderful, I would have to say our LGBTQ+ Virtual Prom was very special. This is an event we normally do in person, and about 100 youth and young adults attend from all over the county and state. Knowing the importance of this event to our young LGBTQ+ community we made sure to include this in our events for the month. Doing the prom virtually definitely created some challenges but overall was extremely successful and allowed us to see the extent of our centers reach to other parts of the state and country.

90 youth registered for the prom, Schedl said.

A little over 30 were from NJ, about 25 from NY, and the rest ranged from all over the country! Schedl said. For example, we had youth register from West Virginia, North Carolina, California, Texas, Iowa and more. A total of 19 states in the U.S. and one person from New Zealand!

Hudson Pride knows that every youth/young adult should have a positive memory of their prom but the reality is for our LGBTQ+ community this is not always the case, Schedl said. Our prom  which we have been doing for over a decade  creates a safe and welcoming environment that allows kids to come with the date of their choice in the attire of their choice. It allows youth to meet others like them, make new friends, and build a positive memory to last a lifetime. Doing the prom virtually this year opened up this event to LGBTQ+ youth across the country that otherwise would not have been able to attend and may not have a center like Hudson Pride in their home town.

All of the HPC virtual events in June as well as the ones in March and April had attendees from all over the country and a few from other countries, Schedl said.

She honed in on the importance of connection and the negative effects of social isolation when she noted HPCs offering of virtual weekly support groups for our most at-risk populations, youth and young adults (ages 13-24) and our seasoned 50+ individuals.

These groups create safe spaces to discuss topics related to mental health and emotional well-being, coping skills, and support, Schedl said. This is especially important, now more than ever, for our LGBTQ+ youth who are in homes that are not LGBTQ+ affirming. HPC is also connecting uninsured LGBTQ+ individuals with mental health providers and paying for them to participate in virtual talk therapy sessions.

HPC has no plans to open its physical space to the public again until its safe to meet in person.

On Tuesday they marked Give OUT Day, a national day of giving to the LBGTQ+ community. With the increased need for their services, those whod like to donate can do so at https://www.giveoutday.org/organization/Jersey-City-Connections or at https://hudsonpride.org/donate/, where they can also learn more about HPC.

This article was updated to reflect Elizabeth Schedls promotion from HPC COO to its executive director since it was first published July 2.
Jersey Citys school district is making plans to resume in-school instruction in the fall, but that doesnt mean things will be back to normal.

Superintendent Franklin Walker said the district may implement a hybrid learning plan that includes both in-school instruction and remote learning to reduce the number of students in school together. The proposal would require all 30,000 students to have internet and computer access.

But citing an increase in COVID-19 cases across the country, Walker remains concerned another wave could hit New Jersey this summer and jeopardize a resumption of in-school learning altogether.

Going into September our numbers could be up. If our numbers are up that will also dictate whether schools will actually open up.

While the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic has shifted from the New York metropolitan area to other states, New Jersey had a total of 171,928 cases and 15,078 deaths as of Wednesday.

If schools can reopen in September, a hybrid learning model would limit only half of the students in school buildings at a time in order to maintain social distancing.

Another possible scenario is to first bring back students who are more academically vulnerable than others, like ESL learners and students with disabilities, Walker said. General education students could do remote learning for the first few months and then slowly be integrated back into the schools.

We are focusing on some type of hybrid model, Walker said. We have an assessment that is taking place that will provide a restructure design in the building, so we have the assessment to determine the social distancing in the schools hallways, in the classrooms, in the cafeterias, in the gymnasium and outside the building.

The Department of Education released guidelines last week for re-opening of schools for the 2020-2021 school. Students will stay 6 feet apart in classrooms and on buses, lunch times will be staggered, and teachers will be required to wear masks, according to the DOE guidelines.

State officials said they do not have a one-size-fits-all plan for reopening, so each of New Jerseys 577 public school districts will have to weigh its options and come up with its own proposals that meets or exceeds the minimum guidelines. All districts will be required to have some form of in-person instruction.

Walker said the district wants to get the input of everyone involved, including parents and teachers by expanding committees that have been working on different elements of the reopening plan. He said they also have to consider the teachers with compromised immune systems who may decide not to return.

He said there are also plans in place to expand the cleaning of schools throughout the day and are not only training custodians but looking to hire a significant number of janitors per diem.

We certainly plan on bringing additional support for the nurses whether it be hiring additional nurses or nurses aides in the school, Walker added. We can certainly expect a lot more medical attention that is needed for the students.

Walker said he will be meeting with committees twice a week and will update parents as parts of the plan are agreed upon. He said by the beginning of August all parents will have information on how the September reopening will be structured.

What we know will happen is instruction, Walker said. The form of instruction is what being decided on now. The least that will happen is that there will be full remote.
Since mid-June, a small New Jersey restaurant near the Delaware River has been serving up to eight tables of patrons  the most that it can fit within its outdoor porch and sidewalk area.

Rosella Caloiero knows if the restaurant were located just half a mile west of where it is, it could serve these patrons and several more customers dining inside the eatery.

And she knows that her customers know it too.

Caloiero is the owner of the Frenchtown Cafe, which just reopened late last year after being destroyed in a fire in August 2018 and is only a three-minute drive away from Uhlerstown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Alongside 11 other Pennsylvania counties, Bucks County shifted into its Green Phase on Friday  a phase that encompasses the reopening of restaurants and bars at 50% occupancy.

Reflecting upon Gov. Phil Murphys recent announcement that restaurants will not reopen for indoor dining as planned on July 2, Caloiero expressed her concern that patrons initially desiring to eat at her establishment may instead make the short drive to Pennsylvania.

Absolutely they will (go to Bucks County), especially if it rains, Caloiero said. Our business is going to be determined by the weather, and thats not fair to us.

Caloieros desire to expand the reopening of her restaurant is shared by the Hunterdon County Board of Freeholders, who have called on Murphy to allow indoor dining to resume across Hunterdon, Warren and Sussex counties  where coronavirus cases are not as widespread as in other parts of the state.

According to a press release shared with NJ Advance Media on Tuesday, Freeholder Director Shaun C. Van Doren and Deputy Director Susan J. Soloway have issued a letter to Murphy asking that he reconsider his decision to cancel the scheduled reopening of indoor dining and reinstate it for restaurants in the northwest region of the state in time for the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Numerous restaurants in Hunterdon County and across the state of New Jersey continue to face severe economic hardship and despite their best efforts they have faced challenges in offering outdoor dining. Now they have invested in preparations for indoor dining only to have the rug pulled out at the last moment, the letter says.

Their request draws upon the joint communication calling for a regional approach to reopening sent to the governor in May by the freeholders of Hunterdon, Warren and Sussex. All three counties have recorded less than 1,300 coronavirus cases since the outbreak began, and on Tuesday were the three New Jersey counties that received the lowest number of new cases. Four were recorded in Hunterdon County, and three in Warren and Sussex counties.

While initially dismissed by the governors office, the regional reopening plan was sound public policy that should have been strongly considered by Governor Murphy, Soloway said in the release. The Hunterdon County Freeholder board has all along sought to provide reasonable ideas to restart our states economy in a responsible manner  whether it be retail curbside pickup, appointment-based shopping, (or) a regional reopening strategy.

Indoor dining at up to 25% capacity was expected to resume on Thursday, but Murphy reversed his decision because of spikes in the number of coronavirus cases across other states that have reopened for indoor dining, as well as recent scenes of packed crowds at outdoor bars and restaurants in New Jersey.

In his daily coronavirus press briefing on Wednesday, Murphy identified restaurants and bars as among the most dangerous environments during the pandemic, and said the state will not move forward in reopening them until knowing there will be absolute compliance from establishments that have reopened for outdoor services.

Indoor environments where its impossible to wear masks, or where people are sedentary for long periods of time without masks  such as gyms, bars, and restaurants  remain the MOST DANGEROUS in terms of transmission.



Well get there  based on data and health metrics.  Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) July 1, 2020

In defending a regional approach to reopening, Van Doren objected to the fact that Hunterdon County eateries will be punished because of the actions of a few bad actors at the Jersey Shore.

Numerous restaurant owners across Hunterdon County have assured me that they are committed to a responsible reopening because their livelihood depends upon it, Van Doren said in the release. Its completely unfair to assume a family-run cafe in Stockton Borough is comparable to a beach bar at the Shore, for example.

Echoing Van Doren, Soloway expressed her concerns that not all restaurants in Hunterdon County are able to reopen for outdoor dining in asking the governor to reconsider the statewide reopening strategy that he has thus far pursued.

Many of our restaurants situated in downtowns across Hunterdon County simply do not have adequate space to provide for outdoor dining and, as such, continue to offer takeout only, Soloway said in the release. Despite government-imposed restrictions, we expect these same restaurant owners to continue to retain staff and pay their bills on time, including local property taxes.

Caloiero said she was particularly frustrated by the governors reversal because of the preparations she had made to resume indoor dining on Thursday as planned, including hiring more staff and ordering more food.

Its not just like poof! and youre open, Caloiero said. Youre giving us three days notice that were not going to reopen inside, when were taking all the precautions to reopen inside.

I dont understand why casinos are allowed to open, salons are allowed to open, stores are allowed to open, but youre isolating restaurants. And if youre isolating restaurants, then it should be fairer down the line  not just restaurants, but everyone. And especially at 25% capacity; thats not even a lot of people. So why not start it? she added.

Rose Carbonara, owner of the Lambertville Station Restaurant and Inn, expressed her extreme disappointment at the cancelation of indoor dining  particularly because it has resumed just down the street from her establishment, in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

People are very confused. They know that theres indoor dining in New Hope, and they just assume that we have it, Carbonara said. We only have so much limited seating outside. So of course theyre disappointed ... we have to turn people away everyday.

And you also have to start thinking about how you have to re-market. Because thats more business that youre losing not just from being shut down, but now folks are staying on the New Hope side and not even coming over the bridge into Lambertville, she added.

Like Caloiero, Carbonara also recognized that the ability to dine is fully dependent upon the weather  which is not just problematic because of the threat posed by rain.

A lot of the elderly just dont want to be outside in the 80- or 90-degree weather. With that clientele, instead of feeling safe about being outside, its just too warm for them, Carbonara said.

The Lambertville Station Restaurant and Inn enjoys both an outdoor and indoor bar. But, unlike the bar owners down the Shore that provoked Murphy to cancel indoor dining, Carbonara has elected to keep the outdoor bar closed in anticipation of the social distancing issues that could have arisen from reopening it.

Its very difficult to move seats apart at our bar, so we determined early on, Lets just remove them, Carbonara said. And we literally have markings on the floor in front of the bar and a sign on the bar so that people know. People cant even walk onto the deck and go to the bar without being stopped by the hostess. So weve managed to control that.

In recognizing that both her restaurant and many others have abided by the guidelines set forth by the state, Carbonara expressed her confidence in her establishments preparedness to reopen without posing risks to the health of its staff and patrons.

So many restaurants have followed the rules and done everything that we need to do to prepare properly. The last thing that we want is for the numbers to increase. Then, were shut down indefinitely, Carbonara said.

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A 72-year-old Monroe Township man died Wednesday afternoon after his car crossed into the median on Route 33 and struck a tractor, police said.

The crash occurred at 1:15 p.m. just east of the intersection of Bentley Road in Monroe Township when the man, who was driving west, left the road for an unknown reason, according to a statement from the Monroe Township Police Department.

His car then hit a New Jersey Department of Transportation tractor that was mowing grass in the median before the vehicle stopped on the shoulder on the opposite side of the highway, police said.

An officer found the driver unconscious and tried to revive him before he was taken to CentraState Hospital in Freehold Township, where he was later pronounced dead, authorities said.

The crash remained under investigation late Wednesday evening and anyone with information was asked to call the Monroe Township Police Traffic Safety Division at 732-521-0222 ext. 126.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
This post has been updated with comments from Marsha P. Johnsons nephew Al Michaels.

Will Marsha P. Johnson one day return to Elizabeth?

A petition gaining momentum this week calls for Johnson, a leader in the gay liberation movement and a pioneer in the fight for transgender rights, to be recognized in her hometown in place of a Christopher Columbus statue.

The petition to replace Columbus with a tribute to the Black trans activist has so far drawn more than 97,000 signatures.

The call comes at a time when statues of Columbus are being removed and opposed across the state. Protesters have damaged and toppled statues of the explorer along with leaders of the Confederacy and slave traders during a reckoning on systemic racism that has followed the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Statues of Columbus have been removed in Newark and Camden. Another will be removed in West Orange. Others have been the subject of debate and protest in Nutley and Trenton. Those who oppose the statues point to Columbus legacy of slavery, sexual abuse and violence toward indigenous people.

The sight this morning at the Christopher Columbus statue in the Peterstown Section of Elizabeth, NJ. Happy Christopher... Posted by Afonso & Afonso, LLC., Attorneys at Law on Monday, October 12, 2015

Elizabeths Columbus statue, installed in 1971 by the American Italian Organization of Union County, is located on 3rd Avenue, in the Peterstown section of the city. The monument shows Columbus holding part of a ships wheel.

We should commemorate Marsha P. Johnson for the incredible things she did in her lifetime and for the inspiration she is to members of the LGBT+ community worldwide, especially Black trans women, the petition says.

Elizabeth resident Celine Da Silva, 19, started the petition. She told CNN that while she was aware of Johnson, she only recently learned that she was from Elizabeth.

I think that the LGBT and queer community should be able to learn more about historic figures from their own community, Da Silva said.

But Al Michaels, Johnsons nephew, tells NJ Advance Media that while he would like his aunt to be recognized with a statue, he does not want it to replace the Columbus statue.

Marsha is known all over the world, but not in Elizabeth, New Jersey, says Michaels, 59.

Though he signed the petition and told CNN that he was in support of the idea, Michaels did so thinking that the Columbus statue stood in a different part of town, not the Italian neighborhood of Peterstown, he says. Michaels believes a statue of Johnson wouldnt even be accepted in that community and wouldnt last in that community.

Michaels, who was born and raised in Elizabeth and lives there now, says he has been in communication with Mayor Chris Bollwage, who told him the Columbus statue would not be removed. Michaels would prefer a statue of Johnson near city hall.

Thats what we want as a family, he says. We also want a street named after Marsha. She should have more recognition, most definitely so.

Johnson, an Elizabeth native who grew up in the city, was born Malcolm Michaels Jr. After graduating from Thomas A. Edison High School in 1963, she arrived in New York with just $15 and changed her name  the Johnson was for a local Howard Johnsons. The P? Pay it no mind.

Johnson described herself as gay, a transvestite  at the time, transgender was not a commonly used term  and a drag queen.

At 23, she was among those who stood against police in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when they raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in Manhattan. In the time since, many have called the event an uprising or rebellion. The night of resistance built support for the first gay pride marches.

After Stonewall, in 1970, Johnson, who was involved with the Gay Liberation Front, founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries with Sylvia Rivera. The group, the first organization to be led by transgender women of color, opened STAR House, a shelter for LGBTQ youth.

New York City is set to dedicate a monument to Johnson and Rivera in Greenwich Village, near the Stonewall Inn.

Before Johnsons death, she lived in Hoboken with a friend, gay rights activist Randy Wicker. Johnsons body was found in the Hudson River July 6, 1992. She was 46.

While Johnsons death was initially ruled a suicide, the cause of death was later changed to drowning from undetermined causes. In 2012, the case was reopened. The questions surrounding her death are examined in David Frances 2017 Netflix documentary The Death and Live of Marsha P. Johnson.

On Tuesday, a Google Doodle recognized Johnson for Pride Month.

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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Send a coronavirus tip here.
The rainclouds kept their distance for a few hours as a small group of supporters waited for James Louis outside Mid-State Correctional Facility in Fort Dix.

But they began pouring buckets as he emerged a free man in a state still partially locked down during a pandemic.
Spurred by broad public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, thousands of Black activists from across the U.S. will hold a virtual convention in August to produce a new political agenda that seeks to build on the success of the protests that followed George Floyds death.

The 2020 Black National Convention will take place Aug. 28 via a live broadcast. It will feature conversations, performances and other events designed to develop a set of demands ahead of the November general election, according to a Wednesday announcement shared first with The Associated Press.

The convention is being organized by the Electoral Justice Project of the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of more than 150 organizations. In 2016, the coalition released its Vision for Black Lives platform, which called for public divestment from mass incarceration and for adoption of policies that can improve conditions in Black America.

What this convention will do is create a Black liberation agenda that is not a duplication of the Vision for Black Lives, but really is rooted as a set of demands for progress, said Jessica Byrd, who leads the Electoral Justice Project.

At the end of the convention, participants will ratify a revised platform that will serve as a set of demands for the first 100 days of a new presidential administration, Byrd said. Participants also will have access to model state and local legislation.

What we have the opportunity to do now, as this 50-state rebellion has provided the conditions for change, is to say, You need to take action right this minute, Byrd said. Were going to set the benchmarks for what we believe progress is and make those known locally and federally.

Wednesdays announcement comes at a pivotal moment for the BLM movement. A surge in public support, an influx in donations and congressional action to reform policing have drawn some backlash.

President Donald Trump lashed out again Wednesday on Twitter over plans to paint Black Lives Matter in yellow across New York Citys famed Fifth Avenue, calling the words a symbol of hate. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump agrees that all Black lives matter but disagrees with an organization that would make derogatory statements about police officers. McEnany was referring to an oft-cited chant of individual protesters from five years ago.

The Black National Convention was originally planned to happen in person, in Detroit, the nations Blackest major city. But as the coronavirus pandemic exploded in March, organizers quickly shifted to a virtual event, Byrd said. The first-ever Black Lives Matter convention was held in Cleveland in 2015.

Recent AP analysis of COVID-19 data shows Black people have made up a third of reported virus deaths.

Initial work to shape the new platform will take place Aug. 6 and 7, during a smaller so-called Peoples Convention that will virtually convene hundreds of delegates from Black-led advocacy groups. The process will be similar to one that produced the first platform, which included early iterations of the demand to defund police that now drives many demonstrations.

Other platform demands, such as ending cash bail, reducing pretrial detention and scrapping discriminatory risk-assessment tools used in criminal courts, have become official policy in a handful of local criminal justice systems around the U.S.

Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, which organizes in 15 states, said the 2020 Black National Convention will deepen the solutions to systemic racism and create more alignment within the movement.

Were in this stage now where were getting more specific about how all of this is connected to our local organizing, Albright said. The hope is that, when people leave the convention, they leave with greater clarity, more resources, connectivity and energy.

The coalition behind the convention includes Color of Change, BYP100, Dream Defenders and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which has 16 official chapters nationwide.

Convention organizers said this years event will pay tribute to the historic 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, which concluded with the introduction of a national Black agenda. The Gary gathering included prominent Black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Shirley Chisolm, who ran for president, as well as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz.

That convention came after several tumultuous years that included the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and outbreaks of civil unrest, all of which were seen as blows to the civil rights movement.

The upcoming convention builds on more than century of Black political organizing.

In 1905, civil rights activist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois formed the Niagara Movement after a national conference of Black leaders near Buffalo, New York. In a written address to the country, du Bois and others decried the rise of institutionalized racial inequality in voting, criminal justice systems and public education.

In the 1950s, William Patterson, founder of the now-defunct Civil Rights Congress, led the effort to charge the U.S. with genocide of African Americans using legal standards set by the United Nation. The resulting petition, We Charge Genocide, is an oft-cited document in conversations about fatal shootings of Black people by police in the U.S.

And in 1998, organizers of the Black Radical Congress in Chicago met to strategize ways to beat back attacks on affirmative action policies that helped to diversify higher education and other facets of American life.

Like any large political gathering, consensus is not guaranteed. The National Black Political Convention caused divisions between participating organizations over the Black agendas position on busing to integrate public schools and statements on global affairs that some viewed as anti-Israel. Ultimately, the agenda prompted a leader of the NAACP, the nations oldest civil rights organization, to sever ties with the convention.

Somewhat similarly, the Vision for Black Lives platform and its characterization of Israel as an apartheid state committing mass murder against Palestinian people drew allegations of anti-Semitism from a handful of Jewish groups, which had otherwise been supportive the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Black Lives Matter movements coalition has more than doubled in size in the years since the first platform, largely because of organizers laser focus on issues central to Black freedom, Byrd said.

That actually is the Black self determination that our politics require, Byrd said, that we dont just respond to the Democratic Party. That we dont just respond to the Republican Party. We dont just say Black lives matter and beg people to care. We build an alternative container for all of us to connect, outside of the white gaze, to say this is what we want for our communities.

The August convention will happen on the same day as a commemorative, in-person march on Washington that is being organized by Sharpton, who announced the march during a memorial service for Floyd, a Black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer held a knee to his neck.

The Black National Convention will broadcast after the march, Byrd said.

August is going to be a huge month of Black engagement, she said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy will hold his daily coronavirus press conference at 1 p.m. on Thursday, after an appearance on a national morning show.

Murphy was scheduled to appear on CBS This Morning at 8 a.m. to discuss the states response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Then, at 1 p.m., he will be in the George Washington Ballroom at the Trenton War Memorial to brief the press. It will be streamed on the governors YouTube channel.

Murphy will be joined at the briefing by state Department of Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli, Department of Health Communicable Disease Service Medical Director Dr. Edward Lifshitz, State Police Superintendent Colonel Patrick Callahan and New Jersey Economic Development Authority CEO Tim Sullivan.

New Jersey had a total of 171,928 cases and 15,078 deaths from the coronavirus as of Wednesday, when 45 new deaths and 423 additional cases were reported.

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Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com.
A Black couple in Montclair who say they have been repeatedly harassed by a white neighbor filmed a video of the woman calling police and accusing them of assault. The video, which has gone viral, begins after an argument erupted Sunday when the woman questioned whether they had a permit for a patio that was being installed.

In the video, other white neighbors immediately come to the couples defense and can be heard refuting the womans claim.

Online commenters have dubbed the woman Permit Karen  Karen now being a pejorative for an entitled, middle-aged white woman  and students organized a protest in front of her home. The commenters say the incident is reminiscent of Amy Cooper and cases of white people calling the police on Black people over minor disputes.
There were stacks of toilet paper in the store room at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Hunterdon County. But when inmate Marianne Brown asked a guard for a roll, he fired back a question of his own.

I was told, What are you going to do for me? recalled Brown, who was serving a 21-year sentence for kidnapping.

Brown was confused, but quickly realized what the corrections officer was suggesting.

Then, it hit me. You know what it meant. Are you going to give them oral sex?' Brown said.

Over the years, she said she saw too many abuses at the womens prison to count, including male and female officers who sexually assaulted inmates, groped prisoners and demanded sexual favors for access to essential items, including sanitary pads, and forbidden treats, like bubble gum.

She filed grievances against corrections officers, only to see those reports ripped up in front of your face, said Brown, who was released in November after completing her sentence. We didnt pursue a lot of things.

Brown was one of six former inmates from the womens prison who testified Wednesday at a public forum of the Workgroup on Harassment, Sexual Assault and Misogyny in New Jersey Politics. The hearing, held via an online video call, was the fourth held by the group since it was founded in January by Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) to hear the experiences of women who have faced sexual harassment and misconduct in state and local politics and government.

The former inmates shared emotional accounts of alleged sexual abuse and corruption in Edna Mahan, the states only womens prison.

Some of the women testified they were sexually assaulted and harassed by corrections officers who came into their cells or rooms in the prisons minimum-security cottages regularly with no oversight. They alleged prison cameras were pointed at walls and ceilings so abuse would not be seen.

Alyssa Feldman said she was sexually assaulted by a corrections officer who had access to the cottage where she was assigned whenever he wanted.

He was king of that cottage, she said.

Feldman, who was serving a short sentence, said the officer threatened to delay her parole if she did not do as she was told.

I was at Edna for six months, but it was enough to learn the way things operate, the way things are handled there, Feldman said. It was so open so much corruption.

Others testified they were groped during strip searches and forced to sit naked in holding cells while guards stared. Those who filed complaints said they were placed in solitary confinement or put in cells alone with minimal clothing on suicide watch while their personal items were damaged or destroyed.

We were assaulted, physically, mentally, sexually, said Melissa Deandino, a former inmate released three years ago.

Deandino said her years after prison have been hard and she continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress, paranoia and a fear of men. She is now homeless.

If it takes every ounce of my being to show everybody how messed up that place was, I will do it, Deandino said through tears. Something needs to change because it cant keep on going like this.

Edna Mahan Correctional Facility has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. A series of NJ Advance Media reports have detailed the harrowing conditions in the prison, including sexual, emotional and physical abuse of the female prisoners.

Corrections officers have been arrested, indicted and convicted. Inmates say that has slowed, but not stopped, the abuse.

A scathing report from the U.S. Justice Department released earlier this year found sexual abuse has been rampant in the prison for decades and efforts to fix the problems have largely failed.

The federal report gave state authorities until June to address the issues or face a potential federal civil rights lawsuit, but its unclear whether the state met that deadline. Asked Wednesday, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office declined to comment.

Officials in Gov. Phil Murphys administration did not testify at a Senate Law and Public Safety Committee hearing on the issue in May. In an interview earlier this year, state Corrections Commissioner Marcus Hicks told NJ Advance Media many of the problems at Edna Mahan were inherited from the previous administration.

We dont believe this is just something that is being drummed up by the media, Hicks said. Youve never heard me or the governor say that. We have taken this very seriously and we continue to do so.

Several of former inmates who testified Wednesday before the Workgroup on Harassment, Sexual Assault and Misogyny are part of lawsuits filed against the prison and the state. Some of the women were sharing their names and stories publicly for the first time at the hearing, said Oliver Barry, their attorney.

Its apparent that the Department of Corrections is not recognizing or engaging in this problems with us, Barry told the workgroup.

Lesly Devereaux, a former top state commerce commission official who served six months for corruption a decade ago, testified she didnt know the other women who shared their stories of abuse at Edna Mahan, but they were her sisters.

They are telling the truth, said Devereaux, now an attorney and minister. There are things that happened in the place that shouldnt happen just because you made a mistake.

She said guards even busted up her Bible study group at the prison, saying it wasnt necessary because all the women would end up back in prison eventually.

I am hoping that what comes out of this is there are changes that are made, in terms of legislation, (in) how women and people who are incarcerated are treated, Devereaux testified.

The members of the all-female Workgroup on Harassment, Sexual Assault and Misogyny , which include Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver and more than a dozen top lobbyists, state officials and activists, are expected to offer recommendations about policy changes once they finish hearing testimony.

Weinberg founded the workgroup in response to a NJ Advance Media report on widespread sexual harassment in local and state politics. The story, which ran Dec. 29, found sexual misconduct was widespread in New Jersey politics, but few women reported harassment or assault to authorities because they feared it would jeopardize their careers.

In addition to the four public hearings, the Workgroup on Harassment, Sexual Assault and Misogyny in New Jersey Politics has held several private hearings where women have testified about their experiences out of the public view.

The women who previously testified included Katie Brennan, a state official who recently settled a $1 million lawsuit against the state and Gov. Phil Murphys campaign over how her rape complaint was handled. Tiffany Kaszuba, a former Democratic candidate for Congress, also testified in May about dropping out of her race last year after she alleged she was stalked and harassed by a former member of the Monmouth County Democrats executive committee.

The group is expected to hold another hearing later this summer where Brennan is scheduled to testify in depth about changes to state policies to help prevent sexual harassment and abuse. Other women are also expected to testify in private before the workgroup about their experiences before the workgroup releases its final report, Weinberg said.

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Staff writer S.P. Sullivan contributed to this report.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com.

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WASHINGTON  The nations unemployment rate fell to 11.1% in June as the economy added a solid 4.8 million jobs, the government reported Thursday. But the job-market recovery may already be faltering because of a new round of closings and layoffs triggered by a resurgence of the coronavirus.

While the jobless rate was down from 13.3% in May, it is still at a Depression-era level. And the data was gathered during the second week of June, before a number of U.S. states began to reverse or suspend the reopenings of their economies to try to beat back the virus.

This is a bit of a dated snapshot at this point, said Jesse Edgerton, an economist at J.P. Morgan Chase.

The news came as the number of confirmed infections per day in the U.S. soared to an all-time high of 50,700, more than doubling over the past month, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The spike, centered primarily in the South and West, has led states such as California, Texas, Arizona and Florida to re-close or otherwise clamp down again on bars, restaurants, movie theaters, beaches and swimming pools, throwing some workers out of a job for a second time.

President Donald Trump said the jobs report shows the economy is roaring back, although he acknowledged there are still areas where were putting out the flames of the virus.

The job losses over the past two weeks will be reflected in the July unemployment report, to be released in early August.

While the job market improved for a second straight month, the Labor Department report showed the United States remains far short of regaining the colossal losses it suffered this spring. It has recouped roughly one-third of the 22 million jobs lost.

A woman walks past a boutique with a sale sign in early June in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. AP Photo/Tony Dejak

The re-closings are keeping layoffs elevated: The number of Americans who sought unemployment benefits fell only slightly last week to 1.47 million, according to a separate report. Though the weekly figure has declined steadily since peaking in March, it is still extraordinarily high by historic standards.

And the total number of people who are drawing jobless benefits remains at a sizable 19 million.

The number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose last week in Texas, Arizona and Tennessee. Though the figure fell in California, it remained near 280,000. That's more people than were seeking unemployment benefits in the entire country before the outbreak took hold in March.

The U.S. job growth in June was driven mainly by companies recalling workers who had been laid off as part of the widespread business shutdowns across the country in the spring.

In an ominous trend contained in the Labor Department report, more Americans said they had lost jobs permanently. The figure rose 600,000 last month to nearly 2.9 million.

Workers who are permanently laid off typically face a much harder time finding new jobs, and most go to a new company or switch occupations.

Even as we move into the second half of the year, a large number of people will still be looking for work, said Eric Winograd, senior U.S. economist at asset manager AllianceBernstein.

Credit and debit card data tracked by JPMorgan Chase show that consumers reduced their spending last week after having increased it steadily in late April and May. The reversal has occurred both in states that have reported surges in COVID-19 and in less affected states, Edgerton said.

And Kronos, which produces time management software, has found that in the past two weeks, growth in the number of shifts worked has slowed in the Southeast.

The pace of recovery is starting to slow, said Dave Gilbertson, an executive at Kronos. We are expecting to see more of a plateauing over the next couple of months.

McDonalds has paused its reopening efforts nationwide, and Apple is re-closing scores of its stores in the U.S.

Economists have long warned that the economic benefits of allowing businesses to reopen would prove short-lived if the virus wasnt brought under control.

Until most Americans feel confident enough to dine out, travel, shop or congregate in groups without fear of infection, restaurants, hotels and stores will lack enough customer demand to justify rehiring all their workers.

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A Manchester Township home was destroyed Wednesday afternoon after a lightning strike sparked a fire that engulfed the structure and claimed the lives of several pets inside, police said.

When police arrived at the home located at 318 Beckerville Road in the Whiting section of town at 2:48 p.m., the house was already engulfed in flames, according to a release from the Manchester Township Police.

The officers confirmed that no one was in the home, but that a number of pets including two cats, a bird and several reptiles were inside, authorities said.

First responders were unable to rescue the animals, but there were no injuries to any of the residents, police said.

Firefighters from eight local departments responded and were able to douse the blaze and the Red Cross was able to get supplies for the family and relocate them.

While the fire remained under investigation Wednesday evening by police and the Ocean County Fire Marshalls Office, its cause was determined to be the result of a lightning strike on the side of the home, according to the release.

Scattered thunderstorms swept across the state on Wednesday afternoon and brought brief, but heavy rains along with them.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
Concerning the recent nj.com op-ed article (Who should our most vulnerable turn to when programs are cut?) from Volunteers of America Delaware Valley:

Its president and CEO, David Lombardo, wrote about the importance of securing legislative funding for social-service programs assisting people experiencing homelessness.

As a student advocate and employee at a non-VOA South Jersey homeless shelter (Josephs House of Camden), I felt compelled to voice my opinion on this matter.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already inflicted overwhelming harm, and it pains me to witness the reality of a nationwide resurgence. As someone whose passions lie in helping underserved and underrepresented persons, I am doubly worried about post-pandemic recovery.

We just read that national unemployment rates declined dramatically in June, yet, people of color did not see similar benefits from this trend. It is reasonable to foresee a prolonged period of economic melancholy for those whose are already underserved. I suspect that homelessness rates in New Jersey will remain high if our congressional leaders do not do more to support social-service programs.

But, lets be clear: Coronavirus-related aid must include an international component. Weve learned that this virus does not respect borders; it can develop anywhere in the world. To truly deal with the economic and public health implications, we must enhance our global response.

Many distressed communities exist around the world where the propensity for a slow post-pandemic recovery is as concerning as our own. A typical letter is supposed to be short and sweet, so I will not delve into the economic and national security rationale for reducing global poverty.

Lombardo calls for our state legislature to do more, and so do I. I also met with representatives in the office of U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., the other day, and I am pleased to say that the senator is leading the fight on erasing economic disparity on the domestic and global fronts.

Nitan Shanas, Cherry Hill

Offshore wind represents real promise

I see climate change every day here in Cherry Hill. Our periods of winter temperatures are shorter and our summers are hotter. I miss more distinct weather seasons and everything that comes with them. Greenhouse gas emissions have made an impact, and we have to reverse it by 2050, before its too late.

New Jersey needs climate action now. Thankfully, theres a state plan to reach 100% clean power by 2050.

Wind energy is a promising opportunity for our economy and environment as we recover from the impacts of COVID-19. New Jersey plans to generate 7,500 megawatts of offshore wind electricity by 2035, replacing the non-renewable energy sources we use now.

The U.S. wind industry has one of the fastest-growing job rates in the country. We should support wind and other sources of renewable energy to turn around our climate future. New Jersey should take the lead and let the benefits inspire other coastal states to use more offshore wind power.

Katrina Chen, Cherry Hill

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The Milano familys restaurant in Red Bank has a great view across the Navesink River of the Murphy familys estate on the other bank.

Theres a big difference, however. Gov. Phil Murphy can do as he likes in his buildings. But he has issued edicts that keep the Milanos from using theirs.

That was all scheduled to end today. Gov. Murphy had said he was going to permit restaurants to open at 25 percent of indoor capacity in time for the July 4 weekend. But on Monday the governor rescinded that decree.

That was the same day that a local blog posted photos from the prior Saturday of the governor enjoying himself at a bar/restaurant on the Barnegat Bay in Bayville.

That sent the local state senator off on a twitter tirade. Republican Declan OScanlon, who lives in nearby Little Silver, tweeted out a photo from the More Monmouth Musings site of Murphy standing near a bar framed by a couple of wall TVs. The photo was captioned Murphy dines indoors in violation of his COVID order.

Thus began another bout between the state senator and his frequent sparring partner the governor. Murphys people argued that the space in question may have looked like it was indoors, but it was in fact outdoors.

Who was right? I decided Id take a drive to Bayville to see for myself.

But first I drove up to Red Bank, where OScanlon was waiting for me outside 26 West, the restaurant on 26 West Front Street run by the Milanos.

We went in and met Michaela Milano, the general manager. She was busy interviewing applicants for the jobs that will be created when the restaurant can finally open up again.

Milano showed us the restaurants rooftop dining area. It was open to the air on two sides and had big ceiling fans to move the air around. Milano told me she thought she had approval to open it when the governor announced that outdoor dining could begin on June 15.

But at the last minute the officials from Red Bank came in and said, Unfortunately, you cant use it, she told me.

Milano said her hopes rose again when the governor granted permission for indoor openings at 25 percent capacity. The restaurant already has about 20 seats on the sidewalk out front.

We would be adding 50 to 60 seats inside we could have about 80 people total, she said. Thats close to what we would do on a weekend day.

Milano had hired and trained enough staff to handle the crowd.

We were training them all week, she said. Now I have to shut down and who knows when we can open?

Good question. I wished her luck and drove back down the Parkway to do a comparison with the bar/restaurant where Murphy seemed to be having such a wonderful time last weekend.

Like 26 West, the Waters Edge is where it says it is, right on the edge of the Barnegat Bay, with a view across to Island Beach State Park.

As you walk to the deck where the bar/restaurant is located, you pass a sign that reads Please Maintain 6 FT From Unrelated Parties.

This is something that our governor clearly did not do on his Saturday visit. In one photo he is shown shoulder-to-shoulder with a smiling guy in a green shirt. Murphy was wearing a mask in that but the other guy wasnt. (Check photos here.) The lack of social distancing brought to mind Murphys participation in that demonstration back when his stay-at-home order was in effect.

On the other hand, the governor was not guilty of dining indoors. The table where the Murphy family dined was out on the deck under a canvas cover, said manager Rich Sorge.

The bar area where the photos were taken is covered by a hard roof. In photos it may look like its indoors. But its outdoors with a bay view, which is wonderful.

So the Governors not guilty of indoor dining. What he is guilty of is failing to know the difference between a bar and a restaurant, said OScanlon.

One of Murphys justifications for reneging on the deal to open New Jersey restaurants was the Memorial Day weekend scene at a swimming pool at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. The governor compared that to the scene outside a couple of bars in Sea Bright and Belmar.

Theres no analogy to be made to a restaurant, said OScanlon. Saying that because we had some bad behavior at bars we should shut down restaurants is like saying because we had some bad behavior at bars we should shut down newspapers.

It is indeed.

But dont say it too loud.

It might give this governor some ideas.
By Pam Melyan-Bratton

The last day of school always brings on an onslaught of emotions. The obvious is excitement for a summer of sunshine, fun and relaxation. However, every year I am surprised by my tears.

As the last day starts to wind down, I become emotional. We grow together as a class from September through June. Students walk through my door in September and they walk out in June as . . . my kids. They will always be my kids. I tell them if I run into you when you are 35, you will be one of my kids.

On each last day of school, I have the same thought: But I was just getting to really know them! Dont go so soon! I want to hear about the new trick you taught your dog! We were just getting started on your fabulous writing!

Teaching is very hard in so many ways. Working with little lives and minds bears a giant responsibility. The challenges, celebrations, and successes every day in a classroom are tiring, exciting, and heartwarming. These past few months during online learning have taken all of those adjectives, turned them on their heads and spun them around in circles.

But we did it. Things that we never did before - we did. And beyond everything else this class learned this year, more than adding fractions and types of rocks, I hope they take that part with them for life.

They did something they never did before.

That is a powerful lesson. Beyond the academics, they learned so many life lessons in these past few months. Too many to name and different for each and every one of them.

And this last day brought tears again. Usually, I get to see their smiles and get and give hugs, and that wraps up the year in a nice, tidy bow-wrapped package. Tears, but closure. But this year, I closed my Chromebook. I saw their smiles on a screen, but that package still feels open. No shiny bow. Like something is still missing.

This class will forever be etched in my heart. They did big things, hard things. They are a part of history. Maybe thats the shiny bow. They did it.

Pam Melyan-Bratton is a fourth-grade teacher at Dennis B. OBrien School in Rockaway Township. She has also published articles in family and parenting magazines throughout the United States.

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By Jon Soderstrom

Scientists at Yale University and scores more research institutions nationwide are working around the clock to identify potential avenues of diagnosing, preventing and treating COVID-19. Many of these projects are backed by the federal governments National Institutes of Health. Any one of them could lead to a game-changing insight that helps to end this pandemic.

For any of these efforts to succeed, however, it will take more than government-funded laboratory research. The reality is that in the United States, medical progress depends on partnerships between academic scientists and biopharmaceutical firms willing to risk millions to test whether a promising insight actually pans out.

The process of drug discovery and development in the United States follows a typical pattern: University researchers apply for federal grants to study basic scientific questions, such as how the novel virus infects a cell or causes different immune responses in certain subsets of patients. If they discover something that could have an application, they may file an application to protect their intellectual property. This intellectual property can then be licensed to a private company that commits to investing the time, expense, and expertise required to try and translate the nascent discovery into a safe and effective therapy.

Typically, those licensing agreements -- generally with small startups -- include terms that guarantee royalty payments should any effort succeed in the marketplace.

Bringing a new medicine would be nearly impossible without this structure. Clinical trials alone can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to complete. And only about 12% of drugs that enter phase I clinical trials make their way to FDA approval.

University researchers have expert knowledge of the science they do in their labs. They do not typically have the expertise and institutional knowledge required to shepherd new drugs through the FDA's complex approval process. That's another benefit of the collaborative model. Private pharmaceutical companies bring such expertise, as well as facilities to produce new technologies at scale while maintaining the highest standards of safety and efficacy. This private-sector expertise and capacity enables new medicines to get to patients as quickly as possible.

The same cant be said of either universities or the federal government. After all, universities are devoted to the creation and dissemination of knowledge not to the intricacies of pharmaceutical supply chains and FDA regulations.

Private investors are willing to assume this risk because their licensing agreements with universities allow them to retain exclusive rights to manufacture any resulting drugs. Should a new medicine prove successful, investors will stand a good chance of recouping their investment and turning a profit during the few years remaining before a patent right expires and the invention enters the public domain. It would be irresponsible for a university to take on such a high level of financial risk.

This model has yielded breakthrough therapies, like Taxol, a medicine for breast and ovarian cancer, and Tovaxin, which treats multiple sclerosis. In the 1980s, the Yale lab of the late, great William Prusoff and Tai-Shun Lin discovered the anti-HIV properties of a compound called D4T. Under license from Yale, the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb developed Zerit, a key component of what would become the combination therapy for HIV/AIDS. Bristol-Myers would subsequently make Zerit available at minimal cost in Africa, where it has helped save millions of lives.

Such collaboration traces its origins to the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act of 1980, better known as "Bayh-Dole." Over the past 40 years, the United States has emerged as the global leader in pharmaceutical innovation, responsible for two in three new medicines.

As recently as the 1970s, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom together produced over half of all new medicines. That number has shrunk dramatically not for lack of talented researchers but because these countries lack a robust system for transferring university inventions into the private sector, where they can be developed into marketable treatments.

America's unique drug development model has never been more important to global health.

The pace of COVID-19 research coming from scientists in American labs has been nothing short of astounding. In partnership with the capital and expertise of the private sector, these discoveries will soon usher in global benefits.

Jon Soderstrom is the Managing Director of the Office of Cooperative Research at Yale University.

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Sesame Streets awesome! said Lux Clark, 5, who couldnt contain her glee.

Along with her brother and parents, she was watching Elmo and Cookie Monster arrive at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pennsylvania as the characters waved from inside the basket of a Langhorne-Middletown Fire Company Tower 21 Ladder Truck.

Lux Clark, 5, waves to Elmo and Cookie Monster. Behind her is her mom, Siobhan Edmonds, holding brother George Clark,2.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Elmo waves to front-line healthcare workers at St. Mary Medical Center.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

From left, Cookie Monster and Elmo offer messages of support to thank healthcare workers for their dedication and hard work.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The characters were on a fun and furry drive-by, looping around the entire hospital, siren blaring, to show appreciation for front line health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Luxs father is Bill Clark, a nurse at St. Mary. He said the family has a seasons pass to Sesame Place, but with the park temporarily closed, this was a nice treat for him, his wife Siobhan Edmonds, Lux, and his two-year-old brother, George.

Elmo waves to healthcare workers St. Mary Medical Center.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Elmo waves to healthcare workers at St. Mary Medical Center.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Cookie Monster holds a sign of appreciation for healthcare workers.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

About an hour before the visit, the skies opened and heavy rains fell. Langhorne-Middletown Fire Chief Frank Farry made it in time for the scheduled 3:30 p.m. start with Tower 12 and crew, but only after first wrapping up a downed electrical wires call.

We appreciate the opportunity to join with Sesame Place to show our support for our front line brothers and sisters, he said.

Elmo holds a sign of appreciation for front line healthcare workers at St. Mary Medial, in Langhorne, Pa. Firefighter Jeremy Wieland is at left.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Michael Mancuso may be reached at mmancuso@njadvancemedia.com.
Watertown, NY (13601)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 53F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 53F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
The so-called "filtros" were meant to help stem the spread of COVID-19 from Arizona into Sonora.
How old is your dog in human years? Scientists develop better method than 'multiply by 7'

If there's one myth that has persisted through the years without much evidence, it's this: multiply your dog's age by seven to calculate how old they are in "human years." In other words, the old adage says, a four-year-old dog is similar in physiological age to a 28-year-old person.

But a new study by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine throws that out the window. Instead, they created a formula that more accurately compares the ages of humans and dogs. The formula is based on the changing patterns of methyl groups in dog and human genomes -- how many of these chemical tags and where they're located -- as they age. Since the two species don't age at the same rate over their lifespans, it turns out it's not a perfectly linear comparison, as the 1:7 years rule-of-thumb would suggest.

The new methylation-based formula, published July 2 in Cell Systems, is the first that is transferrable across species. More than just a parlor trick, the researchers say it may provide a useful tool for veterinarians, and for evaluating anti-aging interventions.

"There are a lot of anti-aging products out there these days -- with wildly varying degrees of scientific support," said senior author Trey Ideker, PhD, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center. "But how do you know if a product will truly extend your life without waiting 40 years or so? What if you could instead measure your age-associated methylation patterns before, during and after the intervention to see if it's doing anything?" Ideker led the study with first author Tina Wang, PhD, who was a graduate student in Ideker's lab at the time.

The formula provides a new "epigenetic clock," a method for determining the age of a cell, tissue or organism based on a readout of its epigenetics -- chemical modifications like methylation, which influence which genes are "off" or "on" without altering the inherited genetic sequence itself.

Epigenetic changes provide scientists with clues to a genome's age, Ideker said -- much like wrinkles on a person's face provide clues to their age.

Ideker and others have previously published epigenetic clocks for humans, but they are limited in that they may only be accurate for the specific individuals on whom the formulas were developed. They don't translate to other species, perhaps not even to other people.

Ideker said it was Wang who first brought the dog idea to him.

"We always look at humans, but humans are kind of boring," he said. "So she convinced me we should study dog aging in a comparative way."

To do that, Ideker and Wang collaborated with dog genetics experts Danika Bannasch, DVM, PhD, professor of population health and reproduction at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and Elaine Ostrander, PhD, chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. Bannasch provided blood samples from 105 Labrador retrievers. As the first to sequence the dog genome, Ostrander provided valuable input on analyzing it.

Dogs are an interesting animal to study, Ideker said. Given how closely they live with us, perhaps more than any other animal, a dog's environmental and chemical exposures are very similar to humans, and they receive nearly the same levels of health care. It's also important that we better understand their aging process, he said, as veterinarians frequently use the old 1:7 years ratio to determine a dog's age and use that information to guide diagnostic and treatment decisions.

What emerged from the study is a graph that can be used to match up the age of your dog with the comparable human age (see figure: go.ucsd.edu/2Ze8ZCd). The comparison is not a 1:7 ratio over time. Especially when dogs are young, they age rapidly compared to humans. A one-year-old dog is similar to a 30-year-old human. A four-year-old dog is similar to a 52-year-old human. Then by seven years old, dog aging slows.

"This makes sense when you think about it -- after all, a nine-month-old dog can have puppies, so we already knew that the 1:7 ratio wasn't an accurate measure of age," Ideker said.

According to Ideker, one limitation of the new epigenetic clock is that it was developed using a single breed of dog, and some dog breeds are known to live longer than others. More research will be needed, but since it's accurate for humans and mice as well as Labrador retrievers, he predicts the clock will apply to all dog breeds.

Next, the researchers plan to test other dog breeds, determine if the results hold up using saliva samples, and test mouse models to see what happens to their epigenetic markers when you try to prolong their lives with a variety of interventions.

Meanwhile, Ideker, like many other dog owners, is looking at his own canine companion a little differently now.

"I have a six-year-old dog -- she still runs with me, but I'm now realizing that she's not as 'young' as I thought she was," Ideker said.

###

Co-authors of the study also include: Jianzhu Ma, Samson Fong, Katherine Licon, Brian Tsui, Jason F. Kreisberg, UC San Diego; Andrew N. Hogan, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health; Peter D. Adams, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute; and Anne-Ruxandra Carvunis, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Disclosure: Trey Ideker is co-founder of Data4Cure, Inc., is on the Scientific Advisory Board, and has an equity interest. He is also on the Scientific Advisory Board of Ideaya BioSciences, Inc., has an equity interest, and receives sponsored research funding. The terms of these arrangements have been reviewed and approved by the University of California San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh received on Thursday two flights coming from Switzerland and Belarus on the second day of the return tourism movement after a three-month closure because of coronavirus.

Hurghada received 141 tourists from Switzerland while Sharm El Sheikh received 172 from Belarus.

Chairman of The Egyptian Tourism Promotion Authority Ahmed Youssef welcomed the tourists who were given memorial gifts upon their arrival at Hurghada International Airport. The airport's authorities checked that tourists are applying the precautionary and distancing measures.

Short link:


Protesters against police violence and racial inequality took to the streets again on Saturday night in New Orleans, the first large demonstration in a week.

Take Em Down NOLA, the group that has organized many of the protests in New Orleans since the May 25 death of George Floyd under a policemans knee in Minneapolis, asked supporters to gather in Lafayette Square in the Central Business District.

The group, which was created to bring down Confederate and white supremacist monuments, promised "a people's victory."

As hundreds of people spread out in front of a statue of Henry Clay in Lafayette Square just after 6 p.m., Take 'Em Down organizer Angela Kinlaw said New Orleans officials  including "Black misleaders"  had been far slower than some other local governments over the past month to remove monuments.

"We don't suddenly give a free pass to exploitation and oppression when it's coming at the hands of a Black person," she said.

Kinlaw said the group would lead a relatively short march to three sites giving out information, and she expected that information to become "manifest" over the next three days.

Can't see tweet below? Click here.

Protesters have gathered in Lafayette Square. 200+ spread out. Take Em Down oganizer Angela Kinlaw: "This won't be a long march today, but it'll be a very potent march because of the information that is going to get shared." Says info will become "manifest" over next 3 days pic.twitter.com/gvNMLUmFBU  Matt Sledge (@mgsledge) June 27, 2020

Kinlaw said it was possible the group would encounter hostility on its walk. Saturday is one of the first protests since a small trickle of tourists returned to the French Quarter as the city proceeds with a phased reopening.

Gary Watson, a native of Vacherie who lives in downtown New Orleans, said the struggle to remove monuments in New Orleans is similar to action he's taken against the marketing of plantation houses in the River Parishes.

He said both symbols of oppression and their supporters only offer some form of supremacy over other people, he said.

"Some people, they can only feel tall by putting their foot on someone else's neck," he said.

Most of the crowd was masked, and Watson wore a bandanna over his nose and mouth.

+20 Photos: Hundreds of protesters march to 3 monuments to demand their removal Protesters gathered in Lafayette Square to listen to speakers before marching to the Edward Douglas White statue in front of the Supreme Court

Noting the summer heat, he said he also wished protesters didn't have to contend with the threat of COVID-19, but that he was glad to be outside with a large and multiracial group of protesters.

"I feel empowered," he said.

As they got into formation to begin their march from Lafayette Square toward the French Quarter, Kinlaw urged protesters to try to remain physically distanced from one another.

They marched downriver on Camp Street and into the French Quarter, where they took up several blocks of Chartres Street as they made their way past the handful of open restaurants and bars. Some patrons at the brasserie Justine politely clapped. The group turned left past the Omni Royal Hotel and then stopped in front of the statue of E.D. White in front of the state Supreme Court building.

White voted with the majority in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which cemented racial segregation as constitutional under the separate but equal doctrine in 1896. His statue was protected by a tall rented fence and armed officers, the only real sign of police as of 8 p.m.

"Clearly they care about E.D. White more than they care about John McDonogh," Kinlaw said. "They let y'all just swoop that little bust and throw it in the river."

The marchers then made their way to North Peters Street and stopped at the statue of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville. The likeness of Bienville, the founder of New Orleans, towers over a seated Native American.

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"The statue explains itself," a speaker said. "Right next to him you will see a slumped over chieftain."

Then protesters marched to Washington Artillery Park on Decatur Street and soon found Jackson Square blocked off with barricades. They began a call-and-response chant: "We can't get no satisfaction ... Until we take down Andrew Jackson."

The historic month of protests since Floyds death has routinely brought thousands of people to downtown New Orleans. Most of the protests have been peaceful, although a June 3 march onto the Crescent City Connection ended with a small group of protesters rushing police and officers unleashing tear gas and projectiles on the crowd.

Another small group of protesters generated controversy on June 13 when they removed a bust of slave owner and educational philanthropist John McDonogh in Duncan Plaza and tossed it in the Mississippi River. The bust has since been recovered, although the city hasnt returned it to the park across from City Hall.

Organizer Malcolm Suber said McDonogh's philanthropy cannot be separated from his time as a slave owner. "He got his wealth directly from the exploitation of the African people," he said.

Suber noted the 1954 boycott of McDonogh Day, a ceremony in which school children laid flowers at McDonogh's statue in which Black children waited in the hot sun so White children could do so first. "That was the first indication that the people of New Orleans were saying 'hell no.' ... We took down one John McDonogh, we got one more to go."

Take Em Down NOLA says it was formed to advocate for the removal of memorials to white supremacy like the statues of Confederate leaders, some of which were taken off their pedestals under former Mayor Mitch Landrieu with City Council approval.

In recent days, protesters around the country have taken it into their own hands to follow the Crescent Citys example  with no legislative debate beforehand  and topple statues of Confederate leaders and other historical figures.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, called on U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr to prosecute protesters who deface or dismantle statues in a letter on Friday.

The rising cancel culture movement is fundamentally coercive," he said. "Given the present danger the mob poses to individual Americans, common sense, and common decency, I call upon you to vigorously prosecute all those who have appropriated the banner of peaceful protest to carry out violent illegal acts."

+8 Protesters march from A.L. Davis Park to NOPD station for workers' rights, police reform A crowd of about 500 marchers walked in formation down Washington Avenue as dusk set in Saturday, chanting No justice, no peace and other sl

In New Orleans, the City Council has created a commission to rename street names tied to Confederate leaders and slave owners.

However, Take Em Down NOLA says the City Council is moving far too slowly to rename streets and remove remaining monuments it finds offensive  like the equestrian statue in front of the St. Louis Cathedral of President Andrew Jackson, the Battle of New Orleans hero who forced tens of thousands of Native Americans on a deadly march out of the eastern U.S.

Suber and others criticized that initiative Saturday.

"These Black misleaders are in the pay of rich people that live Uptown ..." he said. "Instead of taking a clearly defined position, they form a commission ... That means you're trying to put things off."

Demonstrator Heather Gonzales said that at a time when other cities are making rapid changes, it is time for New Orleans to follow suit.

"It doesn't need to be that long of a process," she said. "Let's move into taking them down."

Politicians should show "solidarity with the people," she said.

James Gill: They threw John McDonogh in the river. Is Benjamin Palmer next? When Tulane Professor Richard Marksbury called for New Orleans' statue of Andrew Jackson to be torn down in 2015, he didn't really mean it.

As the protest drew to a close just after 9 p.m., Kinlaw called for a civilian review board to oversee the New Orleans Police Department and have subpoena and disciplinary power.

"It's not the consent decree that we're trying to get rid of, it's the police altogether," she said.
Federal prosecutors have accused a Mississippi property developer of conspiring to defraud the failed First NBC Bank of at least $123 million, the latest charges in a string of alleged frauds unearthed in the wake of the bank's spectacular collapse three years ago.

Gary Gibbs is the second major former First NBC client to be charged by the federal prosecutors in the past three weeks, following the indictment in mid-June of a Kenner hotelier, Arvind "Mike" Vira, for allegedly defrauding the bank of up to $39 million.

Gibbs, like Vira, has been charged in a bill of information rather than an indictment, suggesting that both are cooperating with prosecutors as they pursue a case against former First NBC chief executive, Ashton Ryan, and his chief credit officer, William Burnell, neither of whom have been indicted. Defendants charged by bill of information typically have signed plea deals and agreed to testify for the government.

In a filing Wednesday, U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern District of Louisiana alleged that Gibbs  along with Ryan and other two bank officers, referred to as "Bank Officer B" and "Bank Officer C"  "unjustly enriched themselves by disguising the true financial status of Gibbs, his entities, and other borrowers; concealing the true performance of loans; and misrepresenting the nature of payments to Gibbs and his entities."

The two bank officers, Burnell and loan officer Robert Brad Calloway, have been identified in regulatory actions and lawsuits related to the First NBC failure.

The pattern of allegations is familiar from previous cases. Gibbs is alleged to have submitted false documents that misrepresented his financial position. Ryan and others, meanwhile, allegedly knew that they were signing off on millions of dollars in loans that would be used to cover payments on existing loans that Gibbs was unable to make, rather than for legitimate business investment.

Prosecutors also alleged that Gibbs told Ryan and the others at some point that he was considering declaring his companies bankrupt and not making further payments on the loans, but that Ryan allegedly told him that the bank could not afford for him to default and made further loans to him, right up to the bank's collapse.

Gibbs' attorney, Randy Smith, declined to comment on the charges or whether his client was cooperating.

"It is what it is. We trust the process," Smith said via email.

Ryan's attorney, Eddie Castaing, said Ryan had nothing to do with the alleged fraud.

"If Gibbs committed fraud on the bank, as he is obviously admitting that he did, then he should plead guilty. But Ashton Ryan had no knowledge or involvement in any fraud or wrongdoing," Castaing said.

Brian Capitelli, an attorney representing Burnell, said the new allegations were "baseless."

"Bill Burnell never met Gary Gibbs at any point while he was with First NBC," Capitelli said. "Mr. Burnell relied upon Gibbs and others to provide accurate financial information."

First NBC was shuttered in spring 2017 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. when it was found to be near collapse, with hundreds of millions of dollars in bad loans. With the FDIC on the hook for $1 billion in deposits, it remains the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.

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Along with the two most recent indictments, federal prosecutors have obtained guilty pleas from one former senior bank official, Gregory St. Angelo, and two former clients, Jeffrey Dunlap and Kenneth Charity, both property developers who admitted to borrowing millions of dollars from the bank through fraudulent means. None of so far have been sentenced.

Last week, the FDIC brought a civil action against Ryan and Burnell, aiming to ban them both from banking for life and impose fines of $5 million and $200,000, respectively. In that filing, the FDIC laid out a case of allegedly negligent and in some cases fraudulent actions taken by Ryan and Burnell to cover up bad loans.

The FDIC took similar action last September against Calloway, a former loan officer and chief credit officer at First NBC. The agency alleged he submitted false or misleading documentation in order to make a series of loans to Gibbs, whose business is based in Diamondhead, Mississippi, and whose real-estate interests included residences, hotels and elderly care facilities in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee.

The FDIC actions to ban and fine former bankers are often seen as a roadmap for criminal charges to follow.

Indeed, the charges unveiled Wednesday laid out a similar pattern as the FDIC case in September, though the new documents identified Gibbs by name but not Calloway. The FDIC had identified Calloway by name but referred to Gibbs anonymously.

Calloway's attorney, Michael Magner, has said his client intends to fight the FDIC case and maintains his innocence. Magner said the authority to approve Gibbs' loans was with Ryan or the bank's board.

"All of the loans at issue were above Mr. Calloways loan authority and were negotiated and approved by FNBCs president and CEO or the banks board of directors," Magner said in an e-mail. "Indeed, the FDICs watchdog agency  the Office of Inspector General  has already determined that the bank failed, in large measure, due to the acts of a 'dominant officer,' who controlled this and other lending relationships."

Gibbs' projects in the region over the years have included the $44 million, 380-unit Howell Village senior-living and affordable housing project in Baton Rouge, which was funded in large part by the state Bond Commission. He also developed the Hotel Hot Springs & Spa in Arkansas, which went into receivership in 2018 with debts of $23 million.

In a separate but related civil case filed last autumn in Jefferson Parish, Gibbs is alleged to have defrauded the widowed mother of a former employee of tens of millions of dollars.

That lawsuit alleges that Gibbs duped Regina Heisler into signing over part of her dead husband's estate to cover millions of dollars of loans.

Heisler's youngest daughter, Dayna, worked in one of Gibbs' companies, Coastal Phoenix Investment Advisors in Diamondhead. The lawsuit alleges Gibbs took advantage of her vulnerable position at the time to bully her into having her mother sign documents that pledged assets against $21 million of loans from First NBC.

Gibbs declined to comment on the civil suit.
St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith and Clerk of Court Melissa Henry were sworn in for their second terms during separate ceremonies held July 1 at the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center.

State Supreme Court Justice Will Crain administered Smith's oath early in the afternoon. The sheriff's wife, Adele, held the Bible during the ceremony, which also was attended by a handful of high-ranking Sheriff's Office staff, as well as St. Tammany Parish Coroner Charles Preston.

Henry was sworn in later in the afternoon. Judge Allison Penzato, of the First Circuit Court of Appeal, administered her oath and Henry's husband, Mike Strate, held the Bible. Judges from the 22nd Judicial District attended as did key members of Henry's staff.

Both ceremonies were held in the Justice Center's misdemeanor courtroom and were smaller than the usual inaugurations because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Smith was elected sheriff in 2015 when he ousted longtime incumbent Jack Strain. He was reelected last fall in a three-way battle for the job.

Henry won her first term in 2015, as well, replacing longtime St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court Malise Prieto, who decided to not seek reelection that year. Henry was reelected without opposition in 2019.

Smith and Henry's new terms run through June 30, 2024.

Preston and St. Tammany Parish Assessor Louis Fitzmorris didn't draw opponents in last year's parishwide elections, either, though neither was sworn in on July 1. Preston was sworn in for his second term earlier this year, and Fitzmorris's third inaugural as assessor will come at a later date. Under state law, assessors must wait at least a year from their election to be sworn into office.
An upward tick in New Orleans' coronavirus cases, and more dramatic increases elsewhere, has city Health Department director the most concerned she has been in several months.

Amid a rise in cases, Dr. Jennifer Avegno also raised concerns about supply chain problems that will dramatically cut the number of tests available at public sites.

Avegno spoke during a press conference held by Mayor LaToya Cantrell to call on residents to abide by social distancing guidelines and wear masks during the July 4 holiday, at which multiple officials warned that residents should not be complacent about the coronavirus.

Cantrell did not reintroduce any restrictions on Thursday, something she had hinted at earlier in the week. But she called on residents to follow rules about social distancing and abide by the city's mask mandate. A continued rise in cases, she warned, could imperil plans to return students to public schools in August.

"Our actions over the weekend will have an impact on whether our kids are back in schools in August," Cantrell said. "There is no guarantee because it all depends on how we follow the mandates of the city of New Orleans."

Avegno said that a continued growth in cases could put the city back on a path toward exponential spread similar to what was seen during the start of the outbreak.

"Today I am more concerned than I have been in several months," Avegno said. "The data trends we're seeing are concerning, in our neighboring parishes even more so and in our neighboring states they're downright alarming."

Cases have been surging statewide to levels not seen since early April, when Louisiana was in the middle of the worst of the outbreak. Five of the top 10 days since the start of the outbreak have occurred in the past week and a half, including Thursday when the state reported 1,383 new cases.

Overall, the states cases over the past week are 70% higher than the week before.

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New Orleans has seen its cases rise as well, though they remain at a low level. An average of 46 cases were reported each day over the past week, an 80% increase over where things stood a week ago. Even with the increase, however, the new cases in the city are just a fraction of the hundreds of infections being reported each day when New Orleans was the center of the pandemic in the state.

The average number of cases per day remains below 50, a milestone the Cantrell administration has said could trigger increased restrictions.

"New Orleans became a national leader in COVID response...we had the highest rate of spread and we crushed that curve like no other city. And we crushed that curve with limited resources and defied all the odds in doing so," Councilman Jason Williams said. "But just because you're in the lead in a race doesn't mean you're going to win that race unless you keep that pace up. COVID is not over. People are still getting sick, people are dying."

Amid the increases, Avengo announced that testing sites set up throughout the community will each only be able to offer 250 tests a day due to problems acquiring supplies for the equipment that processes those tests. A drop-off in testing could raise significant concerns, since it could restrict officials' ability to track the spread of the virus.

Avegno said the city had reached out to federal agencies for assistance increasing the testing limits.

"We're working on solutions, I would hope to see it resolved in the near future," she said.

+2 Coronavirus in Louisiana: Nearly 1,400 coronavirus cases reported statewide; here's new data The Louisiana Dept. of Health reported 1,383 more coronavirus cases, 17 more deaths and 41 more hospitalizations in its daily noon update Thursday.

This is a developing story. More details to come.
The places in Jefferson Parish where one can go inside a business or public building without wearing a mask are dwindling.

Kenner Mayor Ben Zahn on Thursday followed the move of Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng and issued a proclamation requiring masks inside Kenner businesses and public buildings.

The Kenner proclamation went into effect Thursday at noon.

Zahn's move came after a similar order from Lee Sheng went into effect Wednesday. Lee Sheng's order doesn't include the parish's municipalities.

It also comes as the parishs case count is climbing. Thursday, the state reported 75 new cases in Jefferson Parish, bringing the parishs total infection count to 9,712, the most in the state. Thursdays report added one death, bringing the parish total to 486.

Requiring masks is the right thing to do, Zahn said.

Kenner will also mount a social media campaign, called Mask Up Kenner, to encourage people to wear masks.

Zahn is the first Jefferson Parish mayor to follow Lee Sheng, who on Monday issued a similar proclamation for unincorporated parts of the parish. Lee Sheng also set up a COVID Compliance Hotline and an online form for people to report businesses that are flouting the rules.

Thursday, Lee Sheng said the hotline had received nearly 1,300 complaints in just under a week.

Infractions will be investigated by the parishs Property Maintenance, Zoning and Quality of Life Department, which has inspectors that will visit egregious violators. Those violators could face a misdemeanor charge which could result in a $500 fine and six months in jail. Nonetheless, Lee Sheng said she didnt anticipate any violations resulting in jail time.

Zahn directed anyone with a complaint to call the state Fire Marshals office, which has been tasked by Gov. John Bel Edwards with enforcing statewide mandates regarding social distancing and business capacity rules during the pandemic. The Fire Marshal can also ask the Kenner Fire Department to look into the complaints, Zahn said.

At least one other Jefferson Parish mayor is considering a similar move.

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Attorneys for Gretna are studying the issue it will likely come up when the city council meets Wednesday, Mayor Belinda Constant said. Like other mayors, Constant had questions about how her small city staff could enforce such an measure.

In the meantime, she pleaded with business owners to heed the states guidelines and urged customers to avoid businesses they felt were not taking the pandemic seriously.

"Vote with your feet," she said.

Two other Jefferson Parish mayors, Joe Peoples in Westwego and Tim Kerner Jr. in Jean Lafitte, said Thursday they dont plan to issue their own proclamations requiring masks.

But both said they are highly encouraging their residents to wear them.

We will recommend it very strongly for everyones safety, Kerner said. We just dont have the manpower to enforce it.

Peoples echoed Kerners sentiments.

I dont have the people to go out and enforce all that, he said. We are just going to follow what the parish recommends.

The mayors of Harahan, Gretna and Grand Isle could not immediately be reached Thursday.
Thousands of New Orleans residents who have struggled to make ends meet as the coronavirus continues to strangle the economy will get free meals this month under a city government program.

City Hall has teamed up with Chef's Brigade, Revolution Foods and others to deliver meals twice a day to at least 30,000 people, city officials and their partners said this week. They said the month-long program, which is now accepting applications from residents, will also breathe life into the city's floundering restaurant industry.

New Orleans launches program that will feed 30,000 residents and boost restaurant industry New Orleans will feed thousands of residents this summer who have struggled amid the coronavirus lockdown under a program meant to relieve foo

Seniors, people with health conditions including exposure to COVID-19, homeless people and children can sign up, as long as they are getting no other food-related government assistance. People can apply by calling 311 or by visiting nola311.org/service-request/.

The program is meant for people who have been impacted by COVID, "that we have been encouraging to stay home especially," said Collin Arnold, the city's Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, on Tuesday. "Secondly, the goal is to offer a bit of a lifeline to our restaurants. Because they make great food, and they can do this."

The endeavor could feed around 8% percent of the city's population and is one of the first of its kind in the country aimed at alleviating food insecurity amid the pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is providing 75% of the funding, or about $18 million, while the city is responsible for the other 25%.

+6 Could children go hungry this summer from coronavirus? Food banks worry, schools' plans unclear As coronavirus has decimated the economy, school districts in the New Orleans area have scrambled to help their most vulnerable populations: t

More than 80,000 city residents have filed for unemployment benefits since the economy initially shuttered in mid-March, and while state and local officials have since eased restrictions on most businesses, many establishments are still operating below their capacity and have kept workers home.

Seniors and people with certain medical conditions have also been encouraged to stay away from crowds, as have those who have been exposed to the often dangerous disease. That's meant that a good percentage of the population stands in need of meals that they can't buy or prepare themselves.

While nonprofits and other agencies have worked to fill those needs through numerous recent food giveaways, the city's program is aimed at easing the burden on those groups. The program will also help restaurants recover revenue they have lost due to the city's restrictions.

Jefferson Parish eyeing program to use restaurants to feed those in need during coronavirus crisis Jefferson Parish is putting together a program to use local restaurants to feed residents rendered homebound by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

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The program will see Chef's Brigade, a coalition of more than 60 restaurants and chefs that have delivered meals to first responders in recent months, expand its operation and prepare various meals for the 30,000 residents who sign up.

Revolution Foods, which provides meals for schools and communities, will also help to prepare and package the meals, and the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute will organize and store them. D'livery NOLA will then transport them to feeding sites in various council districts and to residents' homes, in some cases.

That teamwork could serve as a model for other cities, Chef's Brigade founder Troy Gilbert said.

"In your normal crisis, you will have these national organizations that will come down to feed people, these major corporations that gobble up these emergency contracts," he said.

"And what are they pushing out? They are pushing out bologna sandwiches. Doughnuts."

But, by engaging local restaurants, "what we are providing to New Orleans is beautiful New Orleans food," Gilbert said.

The meals provided will vary daily, as the initial 44 restaurants that will participate as part of Chef's Brigade's involvement could offer anything from Mexican options, to Indian fare, to Creole and Cajun cuisine. Restaurants that have worked with that group in the past include Johnny Sanchez, Cafe Degas, Dooky Chase, and Morrow's, to name a few.

During each distribution, residents will get enough meals to last between three and five days.

Restaurants who want to participate in the program can contact Chef's Brigade at chefsbrigadenola.org. Right now, Gilbert is limiting the number of participating restaurants to ensure those that do participate can see a financial benefit, but he said he expects to pull more restaurants from a program waiting list as the program ramps up.

The program is set to run through month of July. It could be extended if FEMA approves it, said Arnold.
When targeting a politician, the U.S. Department of Justice prides itself on avoiding any appearance that its prosecutors are trying to change the course of an election.

But the indictment of City Council president Jason Williams handed up last week, on charges of tax fraud, will almost certainly cast a long shadow over the race for Orleans Parish district attorney, whether or not Williams officially enters the race, as he has said he will. Qualifying begins in three weeks. The election is Nov. 3.

Williams, a criminal defense attorney who easily won two citywide elections, was widely seen as the leading challenger to incumbent Leon Cannizzaro; he was the only DA candidate to formally announce his candidacy. While Williams may still prove a strong candidate, its hard to imagine the specter of a possible conviction wont hurt his chances.

Not only will some voters turn away from him, the indictment could entice more candidates who could chip away at Williams support in a race widely seen as a referendum on Cannizzaros 12-year tenure.

Meanwhile, its hard to see how Williams will be able to have his day in court before the Nov. 3 election.

Jason Williams presses ahead with DA race; Leon Cannizzaro calls him 'delusional' A federal indictment on a raft of tax fraud charges hasnt shaken the resolve of New Orleans City Council President Jason Williams to become t

In an order posted Friday, Nannette Jolivette Brown, the chief judge for the federal courthouse on Poydras Street, said all trials would be postponed until Oct. 5. Its possible the resurgence of the virus in Louisiana could extend the order.

That directive came down the same day Williams was indicted by a grand jury in a case led by prosecutors from U.S. Attorney David Josephs office in the Western District of Louisiana. The U.S. Attorneys Office in New Orleans has been recused. Williams is accused of inflating his business expenses by roughly $720,000 over five years, and avoiding paying about $200,000 in income taxes as a result.

The timing raised eyebrows. Hours after the indictment was announced, Kenneth Polite, the former U.S. attorney in New Orleans, tweeted: Just a quick reminder that DOJ has a long-standing policy of not doing anything that could influence an election, a quotation Polite attributed to a former deputy attorney general.

In an interview Wednesday, Polite said: I think the timing is always an appropriate question to ask -- any time you have a public official charged in the time of an election. But the reality is, the rule is not ironclad.

Polite stressed he does not know the specifics of the case and what might have influenced the governments timetable. There are times under the policy where exemptions are possible, where other situations come into play, he said.

Other observers noted that prosecutors might have felt none of their choices was appetizing. Waiting until after qualifying, or after the election, would have also spurred second-guessing.

Generally, the feds are sensitive to how charges will impact elections, but if this investigation has been going on for two years, it doesnt surprise me that they brought the charges, said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and an expert in legal ethics.

Jason Williams, New Orleans City Council president, indicted on federal tax fraud charges A federal grand jury on Friday indicted New Orleans City Council President Jason Williams on charges of tax fraud, just weeks ahead of qualify

Harry Rosenberg, another former U.S. attorney in New Orleans, agreed that prosecutors typically try to avoid indicting a candidate near qualifying.

But there can be other factors that have to be considered -- such as the statute of limitations, and whether holding off (from an indictment) would be providing that public official an advantage -- that the public would not know of the charge when they go to the ballot box, he said. Theres a lot of balance there, and theres nothing written in DOJ regs.

Michael Magner, the lawyer for Williams co-defendant, Nicole Burdett, said last week that he intends to push for a speedy trial. But Williams is the one who would theoretically have the most to gain from a quick trial -- at least if he were acquitted -- and his lawyer, Billy Gibbens, was more circumspect than Magner.

Gibbens said he is unlikely to file any motions before July 10, when Williams and Burdett will be arraigned and receive a tentative trial date.

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Some observers say even if they ask for a speedy trial, Williams and Burdett are unlikely to get one in time to make a difference for Williams DA bid.

Rosenberg noted that federal cases are notoriously slow-moving. Discovery materials often include thousands of pages, and lawyers for both sides often skirmish for months with pre-trial motions.

Given all the circumstances -- with COVID not being the least -- its going to be hard to get a trial date before election day, Rosenberg said.

City Councilman Jason Williams doubles down after DA Leon Cannizzaro asks him to reduce role Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro on Tuesday called on his potential opponent in the fall election, City Councilman Jason Willi

But Dane Ciolino, a defense lawyer and professor at Loyola Law School, said Williams case seems straightforward enough that a truly speedy trial could be possible.

This is a tax case, that from a factual standpoint is not as complicated as a big gang case or a long-running corruption case, Ciolino said. This is all about whether income was earned and whether deductions were properly taken.

If they did seek an early trial, courthouse watchers think that the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, would be among the most likely to grant such a motion. Feldman, 86, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, is an iconoclast who in recent years has often expressed disdain for prosecutors tactics -- and in some cases, the entire premise of the governments case.

A few examples: Feldman skewered the prosecution as he issued a sentence of probation to Henry Mouton, a former member of the state Wildlife and Fisheries Commission board who admitted taking bribes from landfill owner Fred Heebe. The governments broader case against Heebe and others had fallen apart. I think any rational person should be concerned about the possibility of, in this case, stories of prosecutorial misconduct and government abuse at even higher levels, which troubles me greatly, Feldman said at a 2013 hearing.

More recently, Feldman oversaw a case in which the feds prosecuted a Hollywood producer, his ex-wife and a local lawyer for bilking Louisianas film tax credit program. Though all three defendants were convicted, Feldman heaped scorn on the case, tried in vain to throw out numerous guilty verdicts by the jury, and sentenced all three to probation, despite sentencing recommendations of nine or more years in prison for two of them.

For the men who bilked Louisiana's film program, a judge doubles down with lenient sentences His Fourth of July weekend working on a house in Pensacola figures to be the most relaxing in years for New Orleans attorney Michael Arata, wi

And in perhaps the closest parallel to the Williams case, Feldman presided over the trial of Craig Taffaro, the former chief deputy sheriff in Jefferson Parish, who was charged with tax evasion. Taffaro, like Williams, was accused of inflating business expenses to avoid income tax. He was convicted, and Feldman opted to give him probation rather than the prison sentence of up to 33 months called for in guidelines.

Coincidentally, either Magner or Gibbens, both former federal prosecutors in New Orleans, represented a defendant in each of those cases.

Whether or not Williams gets a sympathetic ear from Feldman, hell likely have to do his best to persuade voters that hes innocent -- or a victim of political vengeance, as he has already charged -- because theyre unlikely to be resolved before November.

Facing a federal indictment doesnt always translate to a loss at the polls. Former U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, R-New York, was charged with insider trading months before the 2018 election, and he announced he was suspending his campaign. He won anyhow -- only to resign the following year after taking a plea deal.

Likewise, former U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, blamed a political hit job for his 2018 indictment on charges that he misused his campaign fund. He was easily re-elected months later, but then pleaded guilty the next year and received an 11-month prison sentence.

If Williams is elected DA in November, New Orleans could be treated to the unusual but hardly unprecedented spectacle of having the citys top prosecutor stand trial on federal charges.

In fact, two of the last four elected DAs -- Jim Garrison and Harry Connick Sr. -- went to trial after being indicted by the U.S. attorney. Both were acquitted.

-Staff writer John Simerman contributed to this report.
A man was killed in an overnight shooting in Algiers, New Orleans police said Thursday. His name has not been released.

The shooting happened at 11:51 p.m. Wednesday in the 2200 block of Westbend Parkway (map), police said.

The man was shot more than once and died at the scene, authorities said. No other details were immediately available, including his age, a possible motive or a description of a shooter.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.
Riverdale High School's mascot could be on the chopping block. Same for the name of McDonogh No. 26 in Gretna. And they may not be the only ones.

Spurred by the nationwide movement to take down monuments to confederates and change the names of streets and buildings named for racists, Jefferson Parish School Board member Simeon Dickerson on Wednesday night asked interim schools Superintendent Lale Geer to form a task force to examine the district's school names and mascots.

+22 A New Orleans commission will review Confederate, white supremacist streets, City Council says The New Orleans City Council on Thursday kicked off the process of renaming streets that honor Confederates and white supremacists, voting to 

Dickerson announced the effort during the School Board's meeting Wednesday night, and said the task force should include teachers, leaders, parents and students. The task force will report its findings to the full board in September.

Dickerson, who is Black, said Riverdale's Rebel mascot was troubling. When Riverdale opened in the 1960s as an all-girls school, its mascot was the "Lassie." The school changed to the "Scottish Rebel" when it became coed in 1980, but to some, the nickname harkens back to Confederate nostalgia and imagery.

McDonogh No. 26, meanwhile, is named for slave owner John McDonogh, who left a large part of his fortune to New Orleans and Baltimore for the funding of public schools. His name has been taken off numerous schools in New Orleans over the years.

Other names in Jefferson's school district might be so clear. Many of the 80-plus schools are named for former administrators or educators. Those will require more research.

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The move comes as governments and school districts around the country are grappling with the effects of systemic racism that, in the south, often sent Black students to schools named for Confederate leaders.

+8 Protesters return to New Orleans streets on Saturday, calling for 'a people's victory' Protesters against police violence and racial inequality took to the streets again on Saturday night in New Orleans, the first large demonstra

In New Orleans, for instance, leaders at the city's highly rated Lusher Charter School said they would examine a renaming of the school, which currently bears the name of Robert Mills Lusher, a segregationist and Confederate who served as Louisiana schools superintendent. In Baton Rouge, the school board recently voted to rename Lee High School, which was named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The New Orleans City Council has also announced a plan to take up the renaming of streets that are named for Confederate figures, slave owners or other symbols of white supremacy.
The Mississippi River in New Orleans has dropped below 11 feet at the Carrollton Gauge for the first time in nearly six months, ending Army Corps of Engineers "flood fight" rules restricting construction operations on or near the Mississippi and Atchafalaya river levees.

The river fell below that key mark on Sunday, and was at 10.4 feet on Monday. It is expected to continue dropping to 7.6 feet by July 27, according to the National Weather Service. That should neutralize or at least greatly reduce an unusual threat that has bedeviled New Orleans for the last couple of years: The chance that storm surge from a tropical storm or hurricane could move upriver and overtop levees in the city.

The gauge measures the river's height against sea level. Official flood stage at New Orleans is 17 feet, but levees and floodwalls protect New Orleans to river heights of between 22 and 25 feet. The Corps 11-foot flood fight level requires increases to twice a week in inspections of the levees by the Corps and local levee districts, and limitations on work within 1,500 feet of levees.

A rise to 15 feet triggers daily inspections and a complete ban on work on or within 1,500 feet of levees. The river rose above 17 feet briefly on two days this year.

+9 'We're screwed': The only question is how quickly Louisiana wetlands will vanish, study says Because of increasing rates of sea level rise fueled by global warming, the remaining 5,800 square miles of Louisiana's coastal wetlands in th

The river was at or above 11 feet for 176 days this year, or just shy of six months. In 2019, the river was above 11 feet for 230 days  nearly two-thirds of the year  and the river had actually first reached that height almost three weeks before the new year dawned. In five of the last six years, the river has been at 11 feet or higher for more than 100 days.

That data suggests that what used to be considered an unusually high river has changed. Nearly as often as not, the Mississippi is considered elevated.

+5 Mississippi River in New Orleans reaches Phase II flood fight (but that's not as alarming as it sounds) All work near the Mississippi River levees in Louisiana has been ordered to a halt by the Army Corps of Engineers as the water level at the Ca

Scientists attribute the altered conditions to climate change, which is resulting in increased rainfall during winter and spring months across the Midwest portion of the vast Mississippi River watershed, which includes 1.2 million square miles in parts of 32 states and two Canadian provinces.

The high water levels have required a variety of public responses, most overseen by the Corps, including more frequent inspections of levees for damage resulting from the lengthy period that the high water covers and flows by mostly earthen levees, restrictions on work on and within 1,500 feet of the levees, and repeated debates over whether and when to reroute part of the river's flow into either Lake Pontchartrain through the Bonnet Carre Spilllway at Montz above New Orleans, or into the Atchafalaya River corridor through the Morganza Floodway above Baton Rouge.

+5 Upriver diversions could ease New Orleans flood risk, reduce harmful spillway flows, study says Punching two more holes in the sides of the Mississippi River could reduce New Orleans flood risk while easing the environmental harm caused 

The 2020 high river event required the Corps to open the Bonnet Carre Spillway for 23 days, from April 3 to May 1, to reduce the risk of damage to river levees in New Orleans.

It was the fifth time the spillway was opened in the past five years, and resulted in 750 billion gallons of river water flowing into Lake Pontchartrain, equal to about half of the water the lake holds.

The structure has only been opened 15 times since construction was completed in 1931, but its use also has grown more frequent as climate change has resulted in a frequently swollen river.

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The Corps has been keeping track of 247 "hotspots" along the both Mississippi and Atchafalaya levees, including 57 seepage points, five sand boils, 31 slides of levee material, and nine animal burrows.

The Corps had placed rock on the West Bank levee at Algiers Point in January as a temporary repair for several concrete protective slabs that were cracked. The rock will remain in place until a permanent repair can be completed, which will have to wait until the river falls enough for work to resume in that location, a Corps spokesman said.

The lower river level allows local levee districts to reduce their inspections to once a week. The Corps plans on conducting what it calls a "close-out inspection" of the levees when the river drops to below 7 feet at the Carrollton Gauge, likely in August.

"Our engineering division is currently working up design plans to repair damaged areas," said Matthew Roe, a Corps spokesman.

The lower river level allows businesses and individuals with existing Corps or local levee district permits to resume work that may have been stopped by construction restrictions in place during the high river event. Roe recommended that permit holders make sure their permits have not expired before resuming work.

New Orleans received a waiver to continue work on St. Ann Street in the French Quarter, even with the river above 15 feet, and that work resumed in May. Work on renovation of Spanish Plaza on the levee at Canal Street will resume within the next 30 days, a city spokesman said.

The Atchafalaya River dropped below its 6-foot flood stage at Morgan City on June 18, ending nearly five months of water levels above flood stage there.

The Corps is working with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to complete environmental reports outlining the effects of this year's spillway opening, including a summary of efforts to rescue threatened and endangered species that likely entered the spillway and Lake Pontchartrain.

Researchers also will summarize their efforts to capture and tag Asian carp, an invasive species, as they entered the spillway.

After the spillway was closed this year, the Corps' environmental laboratory fish and invertebrate ecology team recovered 27 threatened shovelnose sturgeon and five endangered pallid sturgeon and returned them to the river. They also tagged and released 42 paddlefish, one black carp and nine silver carp.

The results of a second recovery effort conducted last Wednesday will be included in the final environmental report.

The Corps and the federal Mississippi River Commission, which oversees Corps operations along the Mississippi River, were sued last year by the state of Mississippi and several Mississippi counties and environmental and fisheries groups. The various parties contend that the Corps' operation of the spillway has led to increased environmental problems in Mississippi Sound and areas in Chandeleur Sound, including toxic algae blooms that forced closure of beaches and hurt tourism, and increased levels of fresh water that killed oysters and disrupted fisheries.
Staff Writer

Reese Gorman covers elections, local politics and the COVID-19 pandemic for The Norman Transcript. He started as an intern in May of 2020 and transitioned into his current position as a staff writer in August of 2020.
North Augusta, SC (29841)

Today

Partly to mostly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms. Low 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms. Low 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
Williamsport -- The COVID-19 crisis caused the usual annual National Day of Action to be canceled, but the Lycoming County United Way (LCUW) and their community partners continued to carry out parts of the mission nonetheless.

LCUW received an inquiry from the Grit Printing and Direct Mail team seeking volunteer opportunities for as many as 30 employees and received an abundance of help for the Northcentral Pennsylvania YWCA and Sojourner Truth Ministries.

On June 17, 23 Grit volunteers painted a room and mulched beds around the YWCA property. Volunteers brought gloves, shovels, rakes, and wheelbarrows to get the job done and managed to complete the project within just three hours. The landscaping project was expected to take an entire day; the quick completion of the work allowed the afternoon crew to clean stairwells and finish painting the room. The morning crew was also accompanied by members of the LCUW staff.

Doing good deeds is a beautiful thing. The time and talent of the Grit and Lycoming County United Way volunteers simply made our load lighter and the lives of who pass through our doors every day brighter, stated Dawn Linn, CEO of the YWCA. We express our sincere appreciation for your hard work and dedication to volunteering!

As for Sojourner Truth Ministries, the enthusiasm and eagerness was the same. On Wednesday, June 24, after a facility tour including the newly renovated House of Hope from Theresa DiMaggio and Angelique Labadie, the Grit team went to work. Sojourner had a list of volunteer work that needed to be done including hanging artwork, fixing windows, cleaning, painting, and some much-needed landscape maintenance.

The team provided tools and supplies, even offering to bring a string trimmer and taking trash to the county transfer station during the work at Sojourner.

Sojourner Truth Ministries was filled with volunteers on Wednesday for the first time since our open house in February! We are so grateful to the Lycoming County United Way, Lance, Brenda, and Marissa at GRIT, and their wonderful staff, for blessing us with over 200 volunteer hours, said Theresa DiMaggio, Resource Advocate at Sojourner Truth Ministries.

We were able to accomplish so much together, and best of all, we were able to share our ministry and the impact it has on our local community. Thank you to everyone that was involved!

Between both days, volunteers completed a total of 212 hours with almost $5,000 in volunteer impact.

Without corporate partnerships like Grit Printing and Direct Mail, the Lycoming County United Way would not be able to help their community partners.

Supporting the Lycoming County United Way means supporting the community and enabling the organization to continue to fund the critical programs that their partners provide. An investment in the Lycoming County United Way helps ensure that people in communities in Lycoming, Sullivan, and Tioga Counties continue to have these resources available to them.

For questions about the Lycoming County United Way or volunteer opportunities, please contact Melyssa McHale, Resource Development Manager at (570) 323-9448.

To give to the Lycoming County United Way, visit www.lcuw.org and click the "Donate" button or text LIVE UNITED to 50155.
COVID-19 Data for Pennsylvania

The PA Dept. of Health COVID-19 Dashboard reports 84,130 cases as of June 30, 2020. The state reports 2,476 probable cases, 677,581 negative cases, and 6,649 deaths attributed to the virus.

The Department of Health's Dashboard provides up-to-date statistics on confirmed, probable, and negative cases, and deaths, as well as a county-by-county breakdown. Also find graphics that represent number of cases and testing.

The website also offers a weekly report for deaths attributed to COVID-19.

Looking for all statistics on the state's COVID-19 situation? Visit the Department of Health website.

Also find updated information on the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) in Pennsylvania.

You can play a role in helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19

Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available.

Cover any coughs or sneezes with your elbow, not your hands.

Clean surfaces frequently.

Stay home to avoid spreading COVID-19, especially if you are unwell.




Guidance Requires Mask Wearing, 50 percent Occupancy

The Wolf Administration reminded Pennsylvanians of the requirements put in place for restaurants and bars to protect the health and safety of workers and patrons from COVID-19.

As we continue to make public health and safety a top priority, its also important that we take measured and necessary steps so that Pennsylvanians can patronize businesses safely, Gov. Tom Wolf said. Restaurants and bars offer families and friends a place to gather and socialize while enjoying food and drink, and we want to make sure that business owners and staff have the proper precautions in place to protect workers and patrons. We have put forth guidance with critical requirements to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 so that these businesses can remain open.

Under the governors Process to Reopen Pennsylvania, in the green phase of the states reopening plan restaurants and bars may open at 50 percent occupancy.

Pennsylvanias restaurant industry guidance was developed in coordination with the Restaurant and Lodging Association. Pursuant to the guidance, all businesses and employees in the restaurant and retail food service industry are required to do the following:

Require all customers to wear masks while entering, exiting, or otherwise traveling throughout the restaurant or retail food service business. Face coverings may be removed while seated.

Provide at least six feet between parties at tables or physical barriers between customers where booths are arranged back to back. If tables or other seating are not movable, seat parties at least six feet apart.

Where possible, stagger work stations to avoid employees standing next to each other. Where six feet of separation is not possible, consider spacing options that include other mitigation efforts with increased frequency of cleaning and sanitizing surfaces.

Establish a limit for the number of employees in shared spaces, including break rooms, and offices to maintain at least a six-foot distance.

Dont use shared tables among multiple parties unless the seats can be arranged to maintain six feet of distance between parties.

Train all employees on the importance and expectation of increased frequency of handwashing, the use of hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol, and provide clear instructions to avoid touching hands to face.

Assign employee(s) to monitor and clean high touch areas frequently while in operation.

Provide physical guides, such as tape on floors or sidewalks and signage on walls to ensure that customers remain at least six feet apart in lines or waiting for seating or in line for the restroom.

All businesses must follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Health guidance for social distancing and cleaning.

No business is required to conduct in-person operations and should not do so if unable to follow applicable guidance.

As the Wolf administration closely monitors public health indicators, strict compliance with the guidance is critical to prevent spread, and the need for more stringent restrictions.

The administration also supports local governments more stringent protections for dining establishments workers and customers, such as those actions taken this week by Allegheny and Philadelphia counties.

The Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement (BLCE) will be conducting compliance checks at licensed facilities to ensure that the requirements of the guidance are observed. Failure to comply risks citation by the BLCE, a fine of up to $1,000, and possible suspension and/or revocation of the liquor license.

More information about the Wolf Administrations COVID-19 response is available at http://www.governor.pa.gov/covid-19/.




Based on evolving information, Watsontown Police Department Chief Rodney Witherite clarified to NorthcentralPA.com this evening that in fact none of the troopers at the Watsontown rally tested positive for COVID-19.

Shifting information from an official source led to a number of conflicting media reports about COVID-19 and the Watsontown protest.

Chief Witherite clarified the situation by phone this evening.

"Four troopers from the Milton barracks assisted us at the protest. The chief of police at Milton said that two of those troopers were tested positive for COVID. The captain of the PSP Sherman Shadle called me just a couple hours ago and confirmed that every trooper at the rally tested negative for COVID," Witherite said.

The Milton PSP station was shut down "sometime after the demonstration," according to Witherite.

"We're not saying those at the scene had COVID," Witherite clarified. "Their captain is saying they did not have COVID, they tested negative but they came from a station that had an outbreak of COVID here recently and they shut it down. So all the officers involved at the protest needed to be tested just in case."

Approximately 27 first responders from four police departments will be tested for COVID-19 due to the potential for exposure, Witherite indicated.

"We have 24 hours. Were waiting for test results to come back from everybody," Witherite said this evening.

The departments who responded to the protest were state police at Milton, Milton Borough Police, Northumberland County Sheriffs Department, Union County Sheriffs Department, the Watsontown Police Department, according to Witherite.

"We dont want a possible infection or outbreak," Witherite said. "We have to work every day."

Several civilian workers from Watsontown Borough assisted with traffic control at the protest, according to the chief.

Police are in the process of determining which hospitals will take care of testing for the first responders and when, according to Witherite.

"We were there just to protect everybody," Witherite said.

Approximately 200 people attended the protest.

Correction: A previous version of this story misquoted Troop F Public Information Officer Angela Bieber. The Milton PSP barracks has not yet reopened.




Harrisburg, Pa. -- A new partnership between the state and a student loan advisory service plans to provide free student loan help to all Pennsylvania residents during the COVID-19 crisis.

On June 30, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced a new partnership with Summer, a student loan advisory services that specializes in enrolling borrowers into federal and state loan assistance programs to minimize debt loads.

Summer is a certified B Corporation that uses a team of student loan experts and tools to help borrowers find, compare, and enroll in loan assistance and forgiveness programs. Pennsylvanians can access Summer's digital platform free of charge to get customized loan savings recommendations by clicking here.

The U.S. federal government has taken the step of pausing payments on Federal Direct loans, but borrowers are still required to make payments on private loans and commercially-held FFEL and Perkins loans that were excluded from CARES Act loan freezes.

My office is dedicated to doing everything we can to reduce the immense burden that student debt places on Pennsylvanians. This partnership is a critical step to help thousands of borrowers in need. We are proud to partner with an organization that has their best interest at heart to save real money today and over the long term, said Attorney General Shapiro

The partnership is directed to all borrowers, but especially those who have been financially impacted by COVID-19. Borrowers who have filed for unemployment or have had hours cut due to COVID-19 can use Summer to enroll in savings and forgiveness programs that can reduce loan payments based on a status of financial hardship.

Those who have experienced a significant reduction in income may be eligible for payments as low as $0 by enrolling in a federal Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Plan. The average borrower pays about $300 per month on student loans, and an IDR plan may lead to an annual savings of $3,600.

Summer's specialized program operates similarly to online tax software to help Pennsylvanians check eligibility for IDR plans, and helps those who are eligible navigate the application process.

In these challenging times, we know every dollar counts for critical needs such as food and medical supplies, said Will Sealy, CEO of Summer. With our digital platform and team of student loan experts, were working to ensure borrowers have a clear plan for managing their debt and reducing their stress.

Pennsylvania is the third state to launch a partnership with Summer, joining Rhode Island and Connecticut as part of the $84 Billion Project, which represents the total amount of student debt owed by U.S. borrowers that has not been frozen by the CARES Act.
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Calhoun, GA (30701)

Today

Showers and thunderstorms likely. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 67F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Showers and thunderstorms likely. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 67F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Cedartown, GA (30125)

Today

Thunderstorms. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Rome, GA (30161)

Today

Showers and thunderstorms likely - heavy rainfall is possible, especially this evening. Low 69F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Showers and thunderstorms likely - heavy rainfall is possible, especially this evening. Low 69F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Napoleon, OH (43545)

Today

Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 46F. NW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 46F. NW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph.
After hinting at upcoming changes to the Start menu, Microsoft has officially announced that it is coming to Window 10 in the near future. Currently only available in Windows 10 Preview build 20161, users can start to play with the new Start menu and other design and UI tweaks coming to the shipping build soon.

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Weve known that Microsoft has been working on a redesigned Start menu for a while and it has now officially revealed it and discussed the new design approach. Other changes coming to Windows 10 include new ALT + TAB functionality, a new personalized Taskbar, notification tweaks as well as an improved tablet UI for 2-in-1 users. Microsoft has also added new features for developers where the latest Windows SDK is flighting continuously with the Dev Channel.

The new Start menu largely replaces the look and feel introduced with the Live tiles feature that first made its way to Windows from Windows Phone. The new more static design approach uses translucency to create what Microsoft is calling Theme-aware tiles that pick up on the system theme chosen by the user. Microsoft says it makes it easier to identify apps and creates a more uniform look and feel. You can still go back to the old look if you choose, however.

The new ALT + TAB functionality is targeted at multitaskers so that they can quickly choose between any of the open tabs in the Edge browser. Previously, ALT + TAB only showed the active window you were in each browser window. The previous behavior can be reinstated in settings if is not to your liking. The new personalized Taskbar is going to use user telemetry to update the Taskbar layouts according to what a user is doing at any given time, presumably making it easier to select related functions according to task.

Given Microsoft sells its own popular range of Surface 2-in-1 PCs, it is no surprise to see the company move towards trying to improve the user experience when the keyboard is detached. Now, instead of asking a user whether they want to switch into tablet mode, it will automatically occur with touchscreen devices and will include some improvements for touch.

Microsoft says the new features arent tied to any particular release and could roll out at any time. They are currently available to test out in the Windows 10 Preview build 20161.
Humanities Nebraska has introduced a new letter-exchange program called Dear Stranger. Originally conceived by Oregon Humanities, Dear Stranger will connect people from all over the state by inviting Nebraskans to write a letter to someone theyve never met.

In this time of pandemic, our goal with Dear Stranger is to offer Nebraskans of different backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs an opportunity to connect and share their thoughts and stories, said Chris Sommerich, HN executive director, in a press release from the organizations.

The premise is simple: Write a letter, get a letter and make a new connection.

Humanities Nebraska staff and volunteers will match each letter received with a counterpart from a different part of the state. After the first anonymous exchange, each pair of letter writers is free to share contact information to continue the conversation.

For letter writers who are interested, HN has offered the following prompt for the first round of letters, which must be postmarked by July 31.

When you look back at your life in 2020, what stories do you think you will tell about this time and what you learned about yourself?
But the two committee leaders face strong opposition from Nebraskas school districts, and the state revenue surpluses they were counting on to finance it have eroded as COVID-19 cut into sales-tax collections.

Scheer and Hilgers said lawmakers will know better how much money they can expect to work with after the states Economic Forecasting Advisory Board meets July 23.

That will impact not only the tax-relief debate but the 2020-21 state budget bills not yet passed when the session was suspended. Wednesday was the first day of the states new fiscal year.

Rural senators have vowed to block passage of the ImagiNE Nebraska Act tax-incentive bill (LB 720) if the Legislature doesnt enact significant property tax relief this year. The current Nebraska Advantage Act incentive law expires at years end.

If it isnt replaced, its not going to be positive for Nebraskas economic development prospects, Scheer said. But my concern is that we need to do something with property taxes, and I would like to see that done first.

He and Hilgers said they agree it shouldnt take tax breaks to persuade businesses to come to or stay in Nebraska. But the reality is (that) every other state, the other 49 states, all have some type of incentives, Scheer said.
For me, America is an idea. It is the idea, as Jefferson wrote, 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.

Belief in this creed is what unites us as Americans. And while we may not always live up to this idea, we can never stop trying. We should count ourselves fortunate to live in the greatest nation on earth, where the notion of equal justice for all first came into the world.

I was touched to see that on June 22, 36 people became American citizens in the first naturalization ceremony held in Lincoln since February. This diverse group of people renounced their loyalty to their former countries and took an oath of allegiance to the United States. Family and friends in attendance brought red, white and blue balloons, along with homemade banners and other patriotic displays.

These 36 people, despite being citizens for only a few weeks, are just as American as you or me. And these new citizens chose to be Americans. They werent born here, but they saw America for what it is: a shining city upon a hill, where our institutions, though they sometimes falter, strive to honor Jeffersons promise of God-given rights and equal treatment before the law for all citizens.

We are not perfect, but neither can we forget our founding purpose. The United States was the first nation in history to set this high standard for ourselves, and we remain its best example. This Independence Day, as our country wrestles with both a pandemic and national unrest in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, I urge you to remember that we remain, as President Abraham Lincoln said during the Civil War, the last best hope of earth.
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.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Waterman also said it is early in the investigation and new information may yet be discovered.

In interviews with law enforcement, Jourdan alleged that she suffered abuse from her husband. Waterman said both husband and wife may have been abusive toward the other.

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This was not a happy marriage, Waterman said.

The couple and their two boys were moving to Scottsbluff so Kathleen Jourdan could continue her medical residency. She was a resident physician in the University of Nebraska Medical Centers Family Medicine Residency Program. UNMC officials have placed her on administrative leave pending internal and criminal investigations.

According to what Kathleen Jourdan told authorities, she and her husband began arguing as he was driving on I-80 near Cozad. He called a friend from Georgia to serve as a mediator, and both spoke with the friend as Josh drove.

Josh then pulled over to the side of the Interstate, gave Kathleen a look and raised his arm at her like he was going to strike her, according to an affidavit.

Kathleen, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, grabbed a handgun from the center console, removed it from its holster, pointed it at Josh and fired twice at his chest, the affidavit states.
Editor's Note This is the fifth part in a seven part series about the artists of Indianapolis and the gallery spaces that serve them and the community. At the conclusion of this series I will revisit the arts scene as it is now, in the wake of the pandemics first wave  and in the middle of nationwide racial injustice protests that have also taken place in Indy  to explore the way forward.

Tube Factory artspace, located in the Garfield Park neighborhood, is often my terminal stop on First Fridays in Indianapolis.

The hybrid contemporary art museum and community center opened in 2015 in a refurbished, century-old manufacturing building. (One of its incarnations was as a former tube factory.)

On Feb. 7, the space was packed with patrons. Also in the crowd was Big Car Collaboratives executive director Jim Walker who invited me to stop by, some morning soon, and check out the Tubes new coffee bar. In addition to the two opening art exhibitions, vendors were on hand for the First Friday Night Market.

The exhibition in the main gallery featured the work of Kipp Normand, a Harrison Center studio artist, and local historian. His exhibition Snake Oil, A Fantastical American History featured a large assemblage consisting of antiques, constructed parts, and moving gears.

This from the wall text:

In Snake Oil, Normand distills four centuries of history to illustrate the deep-seated American penchant for fantastical thinking. Part worlds fair exhibit, huckster wagon, dime museum, and midway arcade; Snake Oil is a multifaceted installation that challenges the viewer to re-examine the ideas of American Exceptionalism ...

Normands work didnt quite distill four centuries of history for me, but I found it playful and engaging nonetheless. It made me think of both Charlie Chaplins film Modern Times and my Rube Goldberg project from high school. It also made me consider my own writing. That is, in my more frustrating moments as a journalist, I think of writing more as an assemblage than a flow. I find myself moving paragraphs back and forth, constantly adjusting, until everything fits.

The Mari Evans mural

Big Car Collaborative is the nonprofit arts organization that runs Tube Factory artspace and uses the site as their headquarters. But it seems silly to try to ground Big Car at any particular address because so many of their initiatives don't fit within the walls of any of their facilities.

Take Big Car's relationship with the late Mari Evans  one of the founders of the Black Arts movement and longtime resident of Indianapolis  as an example.

If you've been around Mass Ave at any point within the past four years, you've seen the 30 ft. tall mural of Evans painted by Michael "Alkemi" Jordan and facilitated by Big Car. The mural of the renowned poet and writer, one of the founders of the Black Arts movement, stands within sight of a mural of another iconic literary figure, Kurt Vonnegut.

The painting project was facilitated by Big Car in 2016, in close consultation with Evans, who died in 2017, and funded by a grant from their Indiana Arts Commission. The mural site was chosen in part because of its proximity to the Vonnegut mural, according to Shauta Marsh, Big Car's curator and co-founder.

"Vonnegut's also a writer I love, she told me in 2016, as I was writing an article on the mural. A lot of people know about Vonnegut but not a lot of people know about Mari."

Marsh had first encountered her work in 2004, and began reading her essays. After her husband Jim Walker had a chance encounter with Evans, the idea for the mural began to take root as they contemplated projects they could do in collaboration with her. An exhibition on Mari Evans' life and work by Carl Pope was one result of this collaboration. The mural was another.

Big Car has never just been about art for arts sake. As with the Mari Evans mural, the organization has been always been mindful of the social impact of the work that they do.

There have, however, been a lot of adjustments along the way in the history of the nonprofit arts organization. Conceived in 2004, the nonprofit has expanded both its mission and its footprint and has received many grants along the way to implement its strategies. Their brand of social practice art has always emphasized collaboration and engagement in the community. But in the past five years, it seems that theyve gone into overdrive, with initiatives in community radio and artist housing.

In December 2018, Big Car received a $3 million Eli Lilly Endowment grant for its Cruft Street Commons project. Among its objectives, this initiative will transform a 40,000 square foot former factory adjacent to Tube Factory artspace into a community center with artists studios and space for public programming.

Big Car Benefits from past experience. The organizations first gallery/studio space was at Murphy Art Center in Fountain Square. They inhabited the space from 2005 to 2011. Other arts organizations followed Big Car into the Murphy. So did restaurants and bars, banking on Fountain Squares reputation as a hipster neighborhood. Eventually, a new apartment building went up across the street from the Murphy.

Such development raises concerns that, as property values rise, lower-income residents will be displaced from the neighborhood by rising rents, like Big Car itself was displaced from the Murphy Building. One doesn't have to be a scholar to have seen gentrification at work in Fountain Square over the last decade, but a recent scholarly report suggests that this process is, in fact, taking place. A recent study by SAVI, a program of the Polis Center at IUPUI, showed that income levels in Fountain Square have risen 47 percent from 2010 - 2016.

In any case, Big Car does not want to repeat its Fountain Square experience with its creative placemaking projects in Garfield Park.

What is creative placemaking?

Big Car Executive Director Jim Walker defines the term creative placemaking by what it isnt as much as what it is. To Walker, placemaking is not place decorating or directed from above designer-as-god stuff where locals have zero input.

This is part of the definition that he gave me about a year ago when I was writing an article on the subject:

What is placemaking? Placemaking is about making places inviting, comfortable, and fun for people. We utilize creative strategies to make places feel more like home. Placemaking is site and community specific work. It is grassroots work that requires community engagement and collaboration. True placemaking is, at its core, about creating and setting in motion the kind of open and free public social infrastructure we need to be better connected with each other. Studies show that connected people are less lonely, healthier, safer, happier, and more successful. And a community of connected people is more trusting, empathetic, inclusive, sustainable, resilient, and civically involved. These are the primary goals of placemaking for us.

The Artist and Public Life Residency Program (APLR) is Big Cars most innovative creative placemaking project to date. In collaboration with the Riley Area Development Corporation, Big Car purchased and renovated five abandoned houses near Tube Factory artspace for artist housing.

Artists purchase, and then live, in these affordable houses and agree to dedicate some of their time to improving the surrounding neighborhood. There are also artists renting housing through the program.

The APLR program works by allowing qualifying artists to purchase a 49 percent ownership interest in their home. The houses, which cost the artists in the realm of $50,000 or less, can only be sold back to the APLR partnership. They will then turn around and resell the house to another artist at the same cost level. In theory, everybody wins. Artists get affordable housing, the community is improved, and the APLR houses remain outside gentrification-inducing market forces.

Currently, we have three of the five homes sold to artists, Shauta Marsh, co-founder and director of programs, emailed me on May 29. All three have moved in. The two remaining homes, we have artists selected but they are still working on getting financing. There are six rentals in the program. We have artists living in two of the rentals; those artists have also moved in. The other four are still under renovation. Three of the rentals that are under renovation are due for completion and ready for renters on July 1. They will be on the television show Good Bones.

While I think that the jurys still out on the overall effectiveness of this program, I'm impressed by its innovation and its ambition, two qualities that have been with Big Car from the get-go.
Diane Dimonds latest book, Thinking Outside the Crime and Justice Box, is available on Amazon.com. Email: dianedimond.com
Steel imports have plunged 19% this year, largely as a result of the economic turmoil wrought by the coronavirus pandemic that resulted in less steel going into cars, washing machines and many other products.

The United States imported 1.79 million tons of steel in May, which was down 35.5% as compared to April, according to preliminary U.S. Census Bureau data. Finished steel imports fell 13.2% to 1.48 million tons.

Through the first five months of the year, steel imports have fallen 19.2% to 10.9 million tons, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. Finished steel imports have plunged 26.7% to 7.3 million tons during that period as compared to the same time in 2019.

The United States is on pace to import 26.4 million tons of steel this year, including 17.5 million tons of steel that would require no further processing in America, such as at the 20 steel companies operating at the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor.

Steel imports have captured 18% of the U.S. market share so far this year, including 23% in May, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.
You may have noticed the incessant barrage of bangs, booms and blasts leading up to the Fourth of July.

It so turns out Indiana sets off more fireworks than most other states, a new study found.

The career and employment website Zippia found that Hoosiers use the ninth most fireworks per person nationwide.

Indiana imports an estimated 16,375,305 fireworks a year, or about 2.5 per person in the state.

"Indiana imports a surprising amount of fireworks each year, which is why it ranks ninth in the country," Zippia said. "The more than 16 million that is imported into Indiana provides just enough so that everyone has the option of shooting off 2.5 fireworks."

Northwest Indiana is, of course, a regional fireworks retail hub where out-of-staters from Illinois, Michigan and further afield often come to load up on aerials, cakes and other high-impact explosives. The Indiana Department of Homeland Security says about 100 retailers sell fireworks in Lake, Porter and LaPorte Counties.

Nationwide, the United States imports $319 million worth of fireworks per year, nearly all from China.
Northwest Indiana saw one new confirmed COVID-19-related death Thursday in Lake County, while statewide, the number of known infections exceeded 46,000, the Indiana State Department of Health and local health departments reported.

As of Thursday, death totals stood at 241 in Lake County, 37 in Porter County, 25 in LaPorte County, 10 in Newton County and two in Jasper County.

Lake County reported Thursday 113 new coronavirus cases for a total of 4,985. Porter County added nine more cases for a total of 730. LaPorte County had two additional cases for a total of 541. Jasper County, with four new reported cases, had a total of 113. Newton County added just one case, for a total of 96.

Statewide, Indiana saw 453 new positive cases, bringing the number of Hoosiers confirmed positive to 46,387, following corrections to the previous day's total.

All data were provisional and subject to change as more information is reported to the state.

Indiana had 13 more coronavirus-related fatalities Thursday, bringing the state's death total to 2,469. New deaths were reported between June 27 and Wednesday.
CROWN POINT  Charges filed Wednesday allege a Michigan woman complained about her hair being ruined after crashing into a utility pole while driving drunk, causing injuries to her 4-year-old daughter.

Cherrelle M. Bethley, 31, of South Haven, Michigan, was wanted on a warrant Thursday, Lake Criminal Court records showed.

Bethley's 4-year-old daughter suffered a fractured skull, broken femur and two broken wrists in a crash June 27 at the intersection of Broadway and East 107th Avenue, records state.

Crown Point police responded to the area about 4:15 a.m. after a red Chevrolet Blazer struck a utility pole.

Bethley rushed up to a responding officer and said her daughter was still trapped in the Blazer, which sustained heavy front-end damage, records state.

The officer found the girl, who was pinned behind the front passenger seat and against the rear passenger side door. She was only partially in a booster seat, with no seat belts connected to the seat or engaged, records state.

Bethley asked several times why police could not open the door and get her child out, according to documents. Police told her firefighters would have to extricate the child, because of damage to her vehicle.
Groups including children and adults with medical conditions living in the Region were advised to continue taking precautions Friday, as an air quality alert issued Thursday was extended into the next day.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management announced an Air Quality Action Day for Friday in several areas throughout the state, meaning high ozone levels are expected throughout Friday.

Air quality alerts were in effect Thursday for Northwest Indiana and the greater Chicago Metropolitan Area, local National Weather Service offices reported.

In Indiana, the alert, called an Air Quality Action Day, also extended into St. Joseph and Elkart.

The Thursday alerts marked the fourth time the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency declared an Air Pollution Action Day for the Chicago area in 2020, NWS said.

IDEM identified children, the elderly and anyone with heart or lung conditions as groups most sensitive to poor air quality. Officials advised such people to avoid prolonged activity outdoors and any activities that lead to ozone formation.

Activities for sensitive groups to avoid included refueling vehicles or topping off when refueling, using gasoline powered lawn equipment and using charcoal lighter fluid, IDEM said.
CROWN POINT  A Lake Criminal Court judge on Monday granted a Gary man's request to be returned to Lake County to complete his sentence for attempted murder.

Andrew Ford, 47, was convicted in 1996 of murder and attempted murder for killing Patrick Carter, 25, of Gary, and wounding a then-24-year-old man April 23, 1993, in Gary's Delaney housing complex.

Ford completed his sentence for the murder conviction in 2010. He was scheduled to be released from Indiana State Prison in Michigan City in November 2023 after completing his sentence for attempted murder.

During a hearing, Judge Salvador Vasquez granted Ford's petition for a sentence modification and ordered he be placed in the Lake County Community Corrections Community Transition Court Program.

Ford said during the hearing he shot Carter and Miller because he thought they were going to harm Ford's uncle, Terry Hodge.

Ford said he and Hodge were with a woman and Hodge asked her to pull over so he could talk to two men. Ford said he remained in the car with the woman, but he got out when he noticed the woman appeared to be afraid and yelled the men had a gun.
As for wages, when you look at it, you can work for Amazon for $20 an hour delivering packages and they arent being entrusted with someone elses life Robinson said. I was at $9 an hour to start and now I am only at $10.40, and I have been there for nine years. It is not enough to support three children and putting two through college.

In addition, Robinson juggles three jobs between being a home care provider at two businesses and working at a day care.

I have to work multiple jobs and sometimes I have to pick and choose which bills to pay, Robinson said. I dont get to be there to put my kids to sleep and a lot of people dont know this, but I have to make their dinner at 5 a.m. and make sure they are set for the day. Since the pandemic, I have not had a day off.

Kelley said situations like Robinsons are far too common. As the pandemic continues, union members called on the need for expedient negotiations in the wake of a possible second wave of coronavirus cases, including providing more personal protective equipment.

At the rally, SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana home care members employed by Help at Home; SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana Vice-President Beth Menz; State Rep. Lisa Beck; and State Rep. Pat Boy spoke about the challenges home care staff face.
GARY  Another person was confirmed dead in the city's second fatal shooting in a single day, police said.

The victim, an 18-year-old man from Lynwood, Illinois, was pronounced dead after being shot late Wednesday, Gary Police Lt. Dawn Westerfield said. Police did not immediately name the victim.

Gary police responded about 6:40 p.m. Wednesday to a reported gunshot victim at the 1800 block of Taney Place, Westerfield said.

Officers found the teen with multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to Methodist Hospitals Northlake Campus, where he was later pronounced dead, Westerfield said. Additional details on the man's death were not immediately available.

The Lake County coroner's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier Wednesday, 30-year-old Steven Rice, of Gary, died after suffering gunshot wounds, according to the Lake County coroner's office. His death was ruled a homicide.
I swallowed hard. I tried not to.

Yeah, he just threw up.

I was awake for only a few more seconds, but it was enough time to see that I had covered the doctors desk and, in tiny flecks and splatters, the doctor. In that brief moment, I didnt feel humiliated so much as fascinated by the spectacle: It was an awful lot of vomit. Then everything went black.

I came to on my back in the hallway, where the doctor and a handful of nurses stood over me, concerned. I suppose they had helped me stumble there, half conscious. When it was clear I wasnt dying, the doctor flashed a warm smile, as if to say: Didnt see that coming. I stuttered useless apologies  I swear this never happens  and the staff helped me into a hospital gown and bed. Now I felt humiliated. The doctor puzzled at what had happened. A bug? Something I ate? Not clearly, no. Until that moment, I really had been fine. Hadnt I?

[Sign up for the weekly At War newsletter to receive stories about duty, conflict and consequence.]

As soon as you join the military, everyone always tells you that when you get out youll miss the people. I left the Navy in 2017, and I discovered they were right. For seven years, I had worked as an intelligence officer. I deployed with special operations units to Afghanistan and East Africa and spent my last two years in Japan, near Tokyo, which I loved.

I had always wanted to pursue screenwriting after the Navy. But when the moment finally arrived, I couldnt picture it. I imagined long days alone with my computer in Los Angeles and felt certain I would miss the collective sense of purpose Id come to enjoy in the military. Journalism appealed to me as a step between worlds  storytelling as public service  so I enrolled in the graduate program at Columbia University.

I never considered myself the military type, but still I found civilian life strangely coded. In the military, community had been easy to come by. With people coming from all backgrounds, crammed into tight quarters, there was little choice but to seek the best in each other; friendship was assumed and often intense. Now it felt judging and transactional. My peers were clearly practiced in a kind of assured individualism that was difficult for me to reflect back. At the same time, many seemed poised to take offense. Jokes that I intended as friendly  the sort of teasing that was common in the military  were interpreted as attacks. And it was bewilderingly easy to fail social litmus tests. (I once lost friends because I did not find the movie Roma sufficiently problematic.) I found some refuge with other students who were veterans  they were also having trouble  but over time I grew uncharacteristically quiet. I felt on edge.
Every case was a news event then, Mr. Smith said.

In those early days, Mr. Smith or a team member would note an infected persons age, gender and condition, in addition to a few other details, and add them to the sheet. A map on the Times website, built by the Graphics desk, pulled data from the sheet to show where outbreaks were appearing.

By late February, with outbreaks popping up across the country, the team realized that its database had no equivalent in the public sector. We had a level of detail and a level of immediacy that the federal government wasnt providing, Mr. Smith recalled.

The Timess tracking project grew to keep up with an epidemic that was rapidly spreading. Reporters from all over the newsroom pitched in. To date, more than one hundred people have contributed to an effort that is active 18 hours a day.

As it became too difficult to count the cases manually, developers joined. A team led by Tiff Fehr wrote custom software that pulled confirmed case and death numbers from the websites of 56 states and territories every few hours and saved them to a Times database.

The Times is also counting cases around the world, and tracking how overall mortality has changed in 24 countries, with the hope that this data might provide a more accurate account of the viruss toll where cases are underreported. All told, the coronavirus data collected informs over 70 different maps and articles live on the Times website. They are updated about every four hours.

Thats it for this briefing. See you next time.  Melina

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 about why intelligence officials suspect Russia of paying militants to kill American troops in Afghanistan.

 Heres our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Bottled water brand from France (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.

 Azam Ahmed, our Mexico City bureau chief, won the James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for his powerful series exploring the homicide crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Boeing failed to share key information with regulators about flight control software aboard the 737 Max years before the software was implicated in two crashes that killed 346 people, according to a government watchdog report released on Wednesday.

The report, from the Transportation Departments inspector general, found that Boeing had played down the software, known as MCAS, during the planes certification process, presenting it to Federal Aviation Administration officials as operating only under limited conditions.

The grounding of the jet after the second crash, in March last year, has cost Boeing billions of dollars, including compensation paid to victims and airlines. It also led to the ouster of the companys chief executive, set off government inquiries, and raised questions about the rushed effort to build and approve the Max.

The report on Wednesday said the MCAS system was not an area of emphasis in F.A.A.s certification efforts and therefore did not receive a more detailed review or discussion between F.A.A. engineers and Boeing. The crashes were caused in part by the software, which automatically pushed the nose of the planes down.
Pacific Gas & Electric, Californias largest utility, emerged from bankruptcy on Wednesday and put $5.4 billion in cash and 22.19 percent of its stock into a trust for victims of wildfires caused by the utilitys equipment.

The utility exits bankruptcy as a new company with a restructured board of directors and an interim chief executive officer, Bill Smith. The chief executive who led it for much of the last year, Bill Johnson, retired on Tuesday.

PG&E sought bankruptcy protection in January 2019 after accumulating an estimated $30 billion in liability for fires started by its poorly maintained equipment. One of the blazes, the 2018 Camp Fire, killed scores of people and destroyed the town of Paradise.

With its bankruptcy behind it, PG&E is hoping to recast its public image. It has pledged to state lawmakers and regulators that it will improve safety and compensate wildfire victims. To that end, the company paid most of the money it owes under a $13.5 billion settlement into a trust fund that will compensate the tens of thousands of people who lost homes and businesses in wildfires.
WASHINGTON  The Department of Commerce is preventing the release of an investigations findings into whether it coerced the head of a federal agency into supporting President Trumps erroneous claim that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama last year, the departments inspector general said on Wednesday.

In a memo to Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr., the inspector general, Peggy E. Gustafson, said that staff in his department had thwarted the publication of her report. According to Ms. Gustafsons memo, the department has said portions of that report contain information that cannot be made public, but will not say which ones.

The departments refusal to cooperate with the release of the investigation appears to be directly linked to the content of our report and the findings of responsibility of the high-level individuals involved, Ms. Gustafson wrote.

She compared the move to the departments vetoing her investigation, a significant statement given that an inspector generals office is designed to conduct inquiries that are independent from the agency being examined.
On June 17, a crowd of up to 100 people, most of them in their early 20s, attended a party at a home in Rockland County, N.Y., just north of New York City.

The event violated a state order in effect at the time that capped gatherings at 10 people in an effort to slow the coronaviruss spread.

For local officials, that was just the start of the problem.

The partys host, who was showing signs of being sick at the time, later tested positive for the virus. So did eight guests. County officials, eager to keep the cluster from growing, dispatched disease tracers to try to learn who else might have been exposed to the virus at the party.

The tracers hit a wall.

My staff has been told that a person does not wish to, or have to, speak to my disease investigators, Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the countys health commissioner, said on Wednesday. Of those being contacted about the party, she added: They hang up. They deny being at the party even though we have their names from another party attendee.
Overlooked is a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

By the time the lawyer and writer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs took the podium at a meeting of the Association of German Jurists in 1867, rumors about his same-sex love affairs  and the subsequent threat of arrest and prosecution  had already cost him his legal career and forced him to flee his homeland.

Standing in Munich before more than 500 lawyers, officials and academics  many of whom jeered as he spoke  Ulrichs argued for the repeal of sodomy laws that criminalized sex between men in several of the German-speaking kingdoms and duchies that existed in the years before the creation of a unified German state.

Gentlemen, my proposal is directed toward a revision of the current penal law, he said, according to the historian Robert Beachy in the 2014 book Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity.
He said that all of the chief executives agreed to appear voluntarily and that logistics are still being worked out for what he hopes will be an in-person hearing in Washington. But safety concerns over the coronavirus may mean that the executives end up testifying remotely.

And while tech leaders have appeared before Congress in the past  and there is often less illumination than noise at these kinds of hearings  given the growing public alarm about the power of the tech giants, this gathering of the four horsemen of the Techopolypse could be an epic show. Winter may be coming for Silicon Valley.

Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Pichai and Mr. Bezos had indicated in letters previously that they were open to appearing at a hearing, after being invited by Mr. Cicillines antitrust subcommittee, while Apple had said that it was open to sending a top official.

Its clear that the chief executives wanted to appear together, not so much for support  frenemies is about as close as I would describe them, and there is intense dislike between some of the companies  but in the hopes that a group appearance will keep any one of them from being singled out for intense scrutiny. Some are suggesting that a multiday interrogation, with each chief executive facing a small number of experienced questioners, as well as real people they hurt, would be a better way to grill the tech moguls.

Still, if the lawmakers do their job in the planned format and ask pointed questions about the true impact of these companies power on competition, there could be some important moments.
 On Wednesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in New York announced that they had seized a large shipment of weaves and other beauty products that officials suspect were made out of human hair from people locked inside the Xinjiang camp system. The production of these goods constitutes a very serious human rights violation, and the detention order is intended to send a clear and direct message to all entities seeking to do business with the United States that illicit and inhumane practices will not be tolerated in U.S. supply chains, Brenda Smith, a customs official, told The Associated Press. An American government advisory issued Wednesday warned companies that they risk reputational, economic, and legal risks from doing business with companies that used Xinjiang forced labor.

 More than 50 independent United Nations experts signed a statement last week charging that their repeated efforts to communicate their alarm to Chinese authorities about the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, the collective repression of religious and ethnic minorities, excessive use of force by the police, detention of human rights defenders and other violations have been systematically rejected, and requests for investigations dismissed. The group called for a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council to evaluate their charges, and the establishment of an independent mechanism to monitor the human rights situation in China.

 Researchers at Lookout, a San Francisco mobile security firm, reported Wednesday that Chinas massive surveillance efforts in Xinjiang, which have expanded to include measures like collecting blood samples, voice prints, facial scans and other personal data, began as early as 2013 with a hacking campaign that planted malware into the cellphones of Uighurs and Tibetans around the world.

Of all these horrors, the fact that China is actually seeking to reduce the population of Uighurs  a Turkic minority of about 10 million with its own language and culture  is especially disturbing. As Dr. Zenz notes in his report, these measures raise serious concerns that the policies amount to a violation of Chinas obligations under the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, whose definition of genocide includes imposing measures intended to prevent births within a national, ethnic, racial or religious group targeted for destruction.

China has sought for decades to control Xinjiang, an arid and mountainous region where the Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim people have long resented Beijings repressive rule. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, China took to justifying harsh measures as needed to prevent terrorism, and in 2014 President Xi used bombing attacks by Uighur militants to begin what his government called a Peoples War on Terror. The crackdown has intensified since then, with as many as a million members of ethnic minorities incarcerated in camps for forced ideological and behavioral indoctrination, along with a vast system of high-tech surveillance and forced assimilation. According to Dr. Zenz, a 2017 report from a local branch of the Xinjiang Ministry of Justice said the goal of the camps was to wash brains, cleanse hearts, support the right, remove the wrong.
WASHINGTON  The chief executives of four of the worlds biggest technology companies will appear before Congress this month as part of its sweeping antitrust investigation into their market power, according to the committee running the inquiry, setting up a high-profile face-off between the companies and skeptical lawmakers.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, which owns Google and YouTube, will appear at the hearing, said Shadawn Reddick-Smith, a spokeswoman for the House Judiciary Committee, which is said to be nearing the end of its investigation.

The date and whether the executives will appear in person or virtually, as has become common during the coronavirus pandemic, are still being discussed, Ms. Reddick-Smith said.

The hearing will allow lawmakers to ask the executives about accusations of antitrust abuses at their companies, all of which are the focus of investigations by federal regulators or state attorneys general. The executives are also likely to face questions about other issues, like Amazons treatment of its warehouse workers or the spread of hate speech on Facebook and YouTube.
The Miami-Dade Police Department said on Thursday that it was moving to fire an officer who hit a woman in the face one day earlier in an episode that was recorded on body camera footage.

As a result of an administrative investigation into the officers conduct during this incident; it is my intent to proceed with the termination of the involved officers employment with the Miami-Dade Police Department, Alfredo Ramirez, the director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, said in a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday evening. The administrative process to proceed with termination has been initiated.

Mr. Ramirez, who did not publicly identify the officer, appeared to be referring to a video circulated on Twitter by Billy Corben, a filmmaker, that showed a woman arguing with two officers at what Mr. Corben said was Miami International Airport on Wednesday. The woman stood inches away from one of the officers before he struck her forcefully on her left cheek, sending her hurtling backward.

He then pushed her to the ground as officers converged on her, and one can be seen getting out his handcuffs.
This year, for the first time in more than a decade, there will be a major fireworks display to commemorate Independence Day at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

The sculpture features the faces of four American presidents  Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln  carved into a granite slope over the Black Hills of South Dakota. In the eight decades since the carving was completed, it has never been without controversy.

So when President Trump announced in May that he would attend the festivities there, it invited even more scrutiny of the monuments history, the leaders it celebrates, the sculptor who created it and the land it towers over.

Native Americans have long criticized the sculpture, in part because it was built on what had been Indigenous land. And more recently, amid a nationwide movement against racism that has toppled statues commemorating Confederate generals and other historical figures, some activists have called for Mount Rushmore to close.
SOMERVILLE, Mass.  At the tail end of a City Council meeting last week, so quickly and quietly that you could have easily missed it, a left-leaning Massachusetts city expanded its notion of family to include people who are polyamorous, or maintaining consenting relationships with multiple partners.

Under its new domestic partnership ordinance, the city of Somerville now grants polyamorous groups the rights held by spouses in marriage, such as the right to confer health insurance benefits or make hospital visits.

J.T. Scott, a city councilor who supported the move, said he believed it was the first such municipal ordinance in the country.

People have been living in families that include more than two adults forever, Mr. Scott said. Here in Somerville, families sometimes look like one man and one woman, but sometimes it looks like two people everyone on the block thinks are sisters because theyve lived together forever, or sometimes its an aunt and an uncle, or an aunt and two uncles, raising two kids.
HONG KONG  A former employee of the British Consulate in Hong Kong who said he was tortured by the authorities in mainland China last year has been given asylum in Britain.

The disappearance last year of the consulate worker, Simon Cheng, during the height of pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong highlighted the issues that had set off months of protest. Hong Kongers took to the streets in part over fears that they could be subject to the opaque Chinese legal system as mainland officials expand their reach over people in semiautonomous Hong Kong, a former British colony.

I am grateful for the determination and courage shown by the U.K. government to rescue British nationals, Mr. Cheng wrote on Facebook above a photo of the letter granting him asylum. I also hope my case can be a precedent for other Hong Kongers to seek for protection.

The British Home Office said it does not comment on individual cases.

The asylum for Mr. Cheng came amid scattered unrest in Hong Kong on Wednesday after China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that seeks to stamp out displays of dissent against the Beijing government. The move has prompted recriminations from other nations against China and spurred fears that it spells the end of the one country, two systems framework that had distinguished the territory.
He moved to WWJ in Detroit in 1940 and, after serving briefly in the Army and receiving a medical discharge, joined the staff of WMAQ, the NBC station in Chicago. Later in the decade he made the transition to television, working on Kukla, Fran and Ollie, a popular puppet show that began in Chicago and soon went national.

While in Chicago he met Dave Garroway, whose easygoing manner as the first host of NBCs Today show would make him one of televisions earliest stars. He later recalled that he learned from Dave how to ad-lib in a very casual way.

In those days being on the air was rewarding but frightening for Mr. Downs. Although he projected the image of a quietly confident performer in the manner of Mr. Garroway, he suffered from a bad case of mic fright. Mr. Downs recalled those days in On Camera, his memoir:

At the end of a piece of music, when I was supposed to say something, my knees would shake uncontrollably. My pulse and respiration went up. Fortunately, the fear never showed in my delivery, but it did in my hands. If I had to hold copy, the paper would rattle. As a defense, I learned to lay copy out flat on the desk, or, if standing, to grab my lapels along with the copy, so the paper didnt move with my hands. His fright did not diminish until after he had been in the business a good 10 years.

Despite his fears, he came to New York in 1954 and was soon working as an announcer for Arlene Francis on Home and Sid Caesar on Caesars Hour. He joined The Tonight Show when Mr. Paar did, in 1957, and remained until Mr. Paar left in 1962.

Image Mr. Downs in 1960. He was host of the morning question-and-answer show Concentration on NBC from 1958 to 1969. Credit... Associated Press

During those years he was also host of the popular daytime game show Concentration, a job he held from 1958 until 1969. And in 1962 he began his most high-profile and prestigious assignment to date, the one that would establish him as not just an announcer but also a respected television journalist: Mr. Garroways old job as host of Today. He remained there for a decade.
In essence, Let Them Eat Tweets revisits the title question of Thomas Franks classic Whats the Matter With Kansas? Sixteen years after the publication of Franks book, the question he raised remains the most important one in American politics: namely, how has the Republican Party achieved so many victories when its economic policies are so unpopular? Or as Frank posed it: How has the Republican Party persuaded so many working-class voters to support a plutocratic agenda that they often dont especially like, and that often undermines their own livelihoods?

Hacker and Piersons answer to this question isnt revelatory, but it is persuasively and meticulously argued. They begin with a central conundrum of trans-Atlantic politics, what they call the conservative dilemma. From their 19th-century inception, political parties of the right have faced an electoral disadvantage since, for the most part, they emerged as vessels for the wealthy, a definitionally small coterie. Their growth seemed further constrained by the fact that they could never match their opponents enticing promises of government largess because their wealthy backers steadfastly refused to pay higher taxes.

This state of weakness forced an unpleasant choice on any conservative party: Plutocrats could reconcile themselves to the center by agreeing to tax hikes and governmental expansion. Or they could attempt to win ugly by stoking resentments. According to Hacker and Pierson, the British Tories are an example of a party that has flourished over the centuries by gracefully shifting to the middle (although I doubt the coal miners of the Margaret Thatcher years would agree with this description). And then there were the German aristocrats and industrialists who, in the 1930s, sought to salvage their power by aligning with the darkest of forces.

Wisely, the two authors dont dwell on any incendiary parallels between the present-day Republican Party and Germanic antecedents, but they demonstrate how the wealthiest Americans have devised an antidemocratic politics that does echo Germanys grim past. Greed is the root of the problem. Never content with the last tax cut or the last burst of deregulation, American plutocrats keep pushing for more. With each success, their economic agenda becomes more radical and less salable. To compensate for its unpopularity, the Republicans must resort to ever greater doses of toxic emotionalism.

For a long stretch, the wealthy controlled the party. When George W. Bush stared at a well-heeled audience in 2000, he quipped, Some people call you the elites; I call you my base. But that elite ultimately owed its smashing policy successes to the handiwork of evangelicals and the National Rifle Association, who were able to mobilize large numbers of voters. And from the start, Hacker and Pierson show, these groups riled their followers with racism. In the late 1970s, evangelicals surged as a political force after the government ordered the desegregation of private Christian academies. Meanwhile, the N.R.A. titillated its membership with images of urban criminals.
President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have argued that the continuing decline in deaths proves that the virus is under control. Thats not correct, epidemiologists say. But the decline really is good news.

Heres how to understand it, based on two main causes  and one big caveat:

Medical treatment has improved. Doctors and nurses often diagnose the virus more quickly than they did a few months ago, thanks in part to more widespread testing. They have also had some success treating symptoms with remdesivir and other drugs. The sooner you get treatment to people, the better theyre going to do, my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli, a health reporter, says.

Older people are being more careful. The virus is usually rougher on older people, and many have responded with extra caution. As a result, they make up a falling percentage of new virus cases  which has helped reduce the death rate.

The caveat: Deaths may be on the verge of rising again. The flip side of the greater caution among the elderly is that many middle-aged and younger people are acting as if theyre invulnerable. Their increased social activity has fueled an explosion in cases over the last three weeks, which in turn could lead to a rise in deaths soon.

The timing remains unclear. In the spring, the trend line for deaths lagged the trend line for cases by only about a week. But that may have reflected the relatively modest number of tests being done at the time.

With testing now more widespread, its possible that the death data will lag the case data by closer to a month. (In a typical fatal case, the death comes three to five weeks after contraction of the virus.) If thats correct, coronavirus deaths may start rising again any day.

Even the one piece of positive virus news is looking shaky.

In other virus developments:

A coronavirus outbreak inside the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia sickened dozens of employees.

Rockland County, in suburban New York, issued subpoenas to eight people who have refused to provide information about a party that appears to have become a superspreader event.

Because of disparities in care, patients at some community hospitals in New York City were three times more likely to die than patients in the wealthiest parts of the city.

THREE MORE BIG STORIES

1. The economy has new problems

Real-time economic indicators  on job listings, credit-card spending, retail foot traffic and more  suggest the economy has begun weakening again, The Times reports. Greg Ip, a Wall Street Journal economics columnist, adds, After recovering rapidly from mid-April through mid-June the economy has shown signs of sputtering in the past two weeks.

The main reason appears to be the resurgence of the virus.

Dont be confused: This morning, the Labor Department will release a new jobs report, and most forecasters expect it to show an increase in employment last month. But the report is based on a survey done in the middle of June  before the latest virus surge. The Timess Ben Casselman tells me: While we wont know the scale of the damage for a few weeks yet, were already seeing signs that the economic recovery is reversing course.
But after a national security law went into effect this week in Hong Kong, state security could become more visible. China will openly station security officials in Hong Kong to subdue opposition. And it will operate beyond the scrutiny of local laws and courts.

The open yet untouchable nature of these forces signals a drastic shift for a territory that has prided itself on its rule of law, writes our correspondent.

Quotable: We used to think of secret police as something abstract, said Nathan Law, a prominent Hong Kong protest leader. Now it is a very real fear.

Details: The law authorizes Chinese agents in Hong Kong, who once operated covertly, to investigate cases, collect intelligence and help enforce rules across schools, news outlets and social organizations. A plethora of new government bodies will take on this task.

Related: Simon Cheng, a former employee of the British Consulate in Hong Kong who said he was tortured by the authorities in mainland China last year, has been given asylum in Britain.
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Reopenings are reversing

As coronavirus cases surge to yet more highs, U.S. cities, states and companies are increasingly changing course on reopening, threatening what was emerging as a fragile economic recovery.

Nearly 50,000 Covid-19 cases were reported in the U.S. yesterday, the fifth record set in eight days. Three states suffered new highs as well, prompting more rollbacks:

 New York City reversed plans to let indoor dining at restaurants resume, while Miami Beach reinstated a nightly curfew. California shut down bars and indoor restaurant dining for most of its residents.

 McDonalds paused plans to reopen more of its restaurants for 21 days, while Citigroup delayed the reopening of offices in 13 states.

 The halt in reopenings has led to a dispiriting trend: workers who were rehired, only to be laid off again.
BERLIN  Two weeks after the spectacular crash of the German fintech giant Wirecard, Deutsche Bank said Thursday that it was open to provide emergency financing to help keep the company functioning, even as its former chief executive is out on bail and his top aide is hiding from the authorities.

We are, in principle, prepared to provide this support, said Sebastian Kramer-Bach, a Deutsche Bank spokesman, if such assistance should become necessary.

The lender said the offer was being discussed with Germanys financial regulatory agency and the insolvency administrator currently running Wirecards affairs. It did not provide any further details.

The statement was perhaps the first bit of good news for Wirecard since the company, once a rising star of Germanys tech scene providing digital payment services across the globe, imploded two weeks ago after its auditor could not find 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) listed in the companys books. The disclosure forced the resignation of Markus Braun, the longtime chief executive. He was later arrested on suspicion of market manipulation and released on bail after spending the night in jail.
Certain categories of wine must be approached on tiptoe, as opinions surrounding them will be tenaciously defended, even if their champions are ill-informed. Arguments will ensue.

Riesling is like that, for sure, and natural wine, without a doubt. But rose?

Rose is a popular, beloved sort of wine, I imagined, that all would embrace. Its for lovers, not for fighters, connoting relaxation, not combat.

Yet as we explored an assortment of roses in our latest unit of Wine School, I was surprised to find substantial disagreements not only on how these wines were experienced  thats always a given  but also on the nature of rose, how to define it and whether it has any value at all.

Informed debate and discussion is the purpose of Wine School. Our aim is to promote exploration and understanding, first and foremost, as well as comfort and ease with wine. Achieving these goals, however, requires actually drinking the wines and forming opinions based on your impressions.
I always encourage the couples to have these hard conversations about race away from therapy, when theyre at home, because the point of therapy isnt what you do in the office, its what you do all the time in between in your real life, Dr. Henry said. Having these talks will make them aware of what comes up for each of them individually. You know, if the white partner feels like theyre always trying to defend themselves, what does that say about their partner to them? What does it mean to them to accept the fact that they may have been offensive and ignorant, and theyll never truly understand being in Black skin and what that might mean for when they have children or go out to buy a home or go out in the world together.

Dr. Henry said it is equally important for the Black partner to think about their own possible internalized racism and maybe some of the ways in which being with someone who is not Black is a source of shame or guilt for them. This feeling, she said, could stem from messages they may have gotten from childhood or their family, or even friends who indicate theyre doing something wrong or something nonprogressive by being with someone who is white.

Even younger couples face the same issues. Sharon Nealy, 21, met her fiance, Buck Barfield, 22, when she was 16 and has seen tremendous changes and challenges over the course of their five years together. Ms. Nealy, who is Black, is attending the Medical University of South Carolina next fall, while Mr. Barfield, who is white, works as a welder, a job that Ms. Neeley says has gotten some negative responses from mostly Black people in her social circle where they live in Lancaster, S.C. I get a lot of this white guy, whos not really even doing that great, comes in and takes the best of our Black women. Theres Black men out here that are doing great that would be a better partner for you and easier to be with, Ms. Nealy said.

In moments like these, Ms. Nealy defends their relationship. And while Mr. Barfields strongly Republican family has caused an ongoing wedge in their relationship, support from each other and being able to discuss race openly remains their top priority.

Its always been important for me to make sure that I have a partner that supports me and tries to make an effort to understand the best they can. Its something I could not compromise on, Ms. Nealy said. Weve always talked about race, but its heightened with all this going on. We went to a protest together the other day and hes learning, hes listening and hes trying to be supportive without trying to take my voice either.

Dr. Henry said that being open about differences is the only way to reach some level of understanding in how couples will handle them when they arise. Race is never going to go away. Its always going to be present and its just going to be compounded when you do things like move in together, have children, move or take new jobs, she said.
The Google Flu Trends algorithm, as it is known, performed poorly. For instance, it continually overestimated doctor visits, later evaluations found, because of limitations of the data and the influence of outside factors such as media attention, which can drive up searches that are unrelated to actual illness.

Since then, researchers have made multiple adjustments to this approach, combining Google searches with other kinds of data. Teams at Carnegie-Mellon University, University College London and the University of Texas, among others, have models incorporating some real-time data analysis.

We know that no single data stream is useful in isolation, said Madhav Marathe, a computer scientist at the University of Virginia. The contribution of this new paper is that they have a good, wide variety of streams.

In the new paper, the team analyzed real-time data from four sources, in addition to Google: Covid-related Twitter posts, geotagged for location; doctors searches on a physician platform called UpToDate; anonymous mobility data from smartphones; and readings from the Kinsa Smart Thermometer, which uploads to an app. It integrated those data streams with a sophisticated prediction model developed at Northeastern University, based on how people move and interact in communities.

The team tested the predictive value of trends in the data stream by looking at how each correlated with case counts and deaths over March and April, in each state.

In New York, for instance, a sharp uptrend in Covid-related Twitter posts began more than a week before case counts exploded in mid-March; relevant Google searches and Kinsa measures spiked several days beforehand.

The team combined all its data sources, in effect weighting each according to how strongly it was correlated to a coming increase in cases. This harmonized algorithm anticipated outbreaks by 21 days, on average, the researchers found.
I have a lot of things that could spark, but wont, he told me one of the first times we spoke. He spent nearly a decade seeking financing for a script he wrote called Frank or Francis, a musical about an internet trolls deranged feud with a film director that included 50 original songs. The only way a studio would let Kaufman direct it, he was told, was if he loaded it with movie stars. So he got Steve Carell and Jack Black attached. Also Cate Blanchett, Nicolas Cage, Emma Thompson, Kevin Kline, Elizabeth Banks and Catherine Keener. But still, it wasnt enough. He developed ideas for television, then watched them founder. He took jobs to pay his mortgage, including an uncredited rewrite on Kung Fu Panda 2. In 2015, he co-directed the critically exalted, stop-animation film Anomalisa, with Duke Johnson, based on a script Kaufman wrote for a live radio play  but only after Johnsons company raised the initial chunk of the projects budget on Kickstarter. And in all that time, Kaufman made a point of being disarmingly transparent with the press about the obstacles he met with, which the press at times overemphasized, much to his embarrassment. (New York Magazine, 2016: Charlie Kaufman Is Having a Pretty Depressing Existential Crisis: I Wonder If Its Not Cool or Sexy to Be in Business With Me.)

When a book editor first approached Kaufman, in 2011, asking if hed ever thought about writing a novel, he recognized how liberating that might be. Whatever he chose to write wouldnt have to be filmed or budgeted, or screened for a test audience, or tweaked to get a particular rating. If he wanted to write about an army of animatronic Donald Trumps, known as Trunks, or place a new mountain range in the middle of North America, he could. And if he wanted his protagonist to have sexual intercourse with that mountain range, he could do that, too. And more than that: He had to do it. Though he hadnt seriously written prose in 40 years, and kept imagining critics punishing him for his ineptitude, or just his audacity for trying something new, he took the same approach that he does with his screenplays. Ideas that came up that felt like Oh, you absolutely cant do that  those were the ideas that Kaufman forced himself toward. I have to put myself in a position to fail ridiculously, he said.

This was never clearer to me than when he talked about writing Adaptation. In short: Kaufman signed on to adapt The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean  a delicate, wide-ranging, meditative book about orchids, loosely centered on the story of an oddball Floridian plant poacher but without any hint of conventional plot  precisely because he had no idea how it could be done. After spending months in an overwhelming depression over the project, as he put it, he finally stepped back from the source material to consider what was preoccupying him at that moment in his own life, hoping to find something that felt alive, or sufficiently kinetic, to push him forward. And what was preoccupying him was obvious: This idea occurred to me, he says, and it opened things up.

In the end, Adaptation centered on the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, struggling to adapt The Orchid Thief. In one of the first scenes, we see Nicolas Cage, as Kaufman, flop-sweating at lunch with a befuddled Hollywood executive, waving a copy of Orleans book in the air and ranting about how he doesnt want to cram in sex or guns or car chases, or characters learning profound life lessons ... or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. The book isnt like that, he insists, and life isnt like that. It just isnt. It was precisely what the real Kaufman explained to a real Hollywood executive before taking the job.

Discussing Kaufmans creative process in my first draft, I described him as essentially constructing tortuous escape rooms for himself, then writing his way out. This approach seemed to cause him so much suffering that I eventually asked him:

Is there any part of you that feels afflicted by your convictions? Did he ever just wish he could write an action film or something? Theres no part of you that wishes it were easier? I would like to have money that I dont have, he replied, and I tell myself that I could write a commercial blockbuster. But he also understood that he might be flattering himself; hed never actually tried. He was proud of his commitment to do original, meaningful work. Theres lots and lots of garbage out there that isnt honest and isnt trying to help clarify or explore the human condition in any way, he told me, and it sends people down the wrong road  skews our perceptions of our own lives, and each other  and its mind-numbing and its toxic, and I dont want to have that on my resume. I dont even mean my professional resume, but my resume as a human being.

Spike Jonze, who directed both Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, compared Kaufman to Kanye West  albeit haltingly and with a number of disclaimers. This is a weird comparison, Jonze told me, and I hesitate to bring him up because everyone has an opinion about this person, but. ... Jonze and West have been friends and collaborators for 15 years, he said, almost as long as Jonze has been a friend and collaborator of Kaufmans. And the thing about Kanye is, Jonze said, its not that Kanye doesnt care what people think about him. It hurts his feelings if hes misunderstood, like anybody. But he cant not be himself. He has no choice in the matter. And I think Charlies the same way.

Jonze stuttered a bit, then added: Again, I hesitate to make the comparison. Theyre so different in every other way. Then he was quiet for a moment, a long moment, searching for another way to capture it.
Current and former colleagues  including Elijah Cummings, who died in October and to whom the film is dedicated  line up to praise him. Discussing an incident in which Lewis, as one of the Freedom Riders, was beaten bloody in Rock Hill, S.C., the House majority whip, James E. Clyburn, says he has often wondered what might have happened if he had been there, because he was never as tenaciously nonviolent as Lewis was. The documentary is only occasionally less than adulatory, as when recalling Lewiss race for Congress in 1986 against his friend and fellow activist Julian Bond.

Although the film uses a conventional format, it makes an urgent argument: that a new wave of voter suppression has threatened the rights that Lewis labored to secure. That context gives older footage  of Lewis and Bond encouraging voter registration in 1971 in Mississippi, for instance  a renewed power.

John Lewis: Good Trouble

Rated PG. Racial slurs. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Rent or buy on iTunes, FandangoNOW, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
On camera, Hu takes an upbeat attitude toward his reception. Even though his films cannot be shown in festivals, he says, academics and young people still find ways to bring them to schools, giving him a very wide viewership.

Hu studied painting before picking up a video camera, but unlike his artwork, Spark has an unpolished look, retaining almost amateurish imperfections of lighting and sound. The film takes its title from an underground publication put out in response to Maos Great Leap Forward. Its writers, who came out of universities, drew attention to mass starvation and what they saw as Maoists failure to deliver true social-democratic reforms.

The documentary, more of an oral history than an argument, combines the remembrances of former Spark writers with voice-over readings from the publication. It also makes time for the stories of the deceased, like Du Yinghua, a county-level official who, were told, was executed for sympathizing with the students.

Spark is demanding viewing, but it is difficult not to admire the bravery of its subjects. Tan Chanxue, a Spark member, remembers being tried in public for her actions. I felt calm, she says. Its just a few years in prison.

Spark

Not rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. Stream on OVID.tv, or rent or buy on Vimeo.

The Observer

Not rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. Stream on OVID.tv, or rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes or Vimeo.
The girl was 14 years old when she met the financier Jeffrey Epstein and his companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, in the 1990s. They tried to become her friend, taking her shopping and to the movies. Ms. Maxwell asked about her family and school.

Then, Ms. Maxwell began undressing in front of the girl and recruiting her to participate in sexualized massages of Mr. Epstein, prosecutors said. The pattern continued for years, as Ms. Maxwell fed Mr. Epsteins dark desires and participated in some of the abuse herself, according to a newly unsealed indictment.

Ms. Maxwell, the daughter of a publishing magnate and once a fixture on New Yorks social scene, was arrested on Thursday in New Hampshire, where the authorities said she had been hiding. She was charged with luring multiple underage girls into Mr. Epsteins orbit.

The arrest of Ms. Maxwell, Mr. Epsteins former girlfriend and longtime associate, was the latest twist in a legal saga that has been a source of international intrigue and conspiracy theories. The case has drawn in prominent academics, politicians, business leaders and even British royalty.
On the day Trump leaves office, well still have a younger generation with worse life prospects than their parents had faced. Well still have a cultural elite that knows little about people in red America and daily sends the message that they are illegitimate. Well still have yawning inequalities, residential segregation, crumbling social capital, a crisis in family formation.

Trumps rise in 2016 was a symptom of all these crises, long before he had a chance to become an additional cause of them.

Whats the core problem? Damon Linker is on to a piece of it: It amounts to a refusal on the part of lots of Americans to think in terms of the social whole  of whats best for the community, of the common or public good. Each of us thinks we know whats best for ourselves.

Id add that this individualism, atomism and selfishness is downstream from a deeper crisis of legitimacy. In 1970, in a moment like our own, Irving Kristol wrote, In the same way as men cannot for long tolerate a sense of spiritual meaninglessness in their individual lives, so they cannot for long accept a society in which power, privilege, and property are not distributed according to some morally meaningful criteria.

A lot of people look around at the conditions of this country  how Black Americans are treated, how communities are collapsing, how Washington doesnt work  and none of it makes sense. None of it inspires faith, confidence. In none of it do they feel a part.

If you dont breathe the spirit of the nation, if you dont have a fierce sense of belonging to each other, youre not going to sacrifice for the common good. Were confronted with a succession of wicked problems and it turns out were not even capable of putting on a friggin mask.

In the days leading up to this July 4 weekend, Ive been thinking about a scene in Good Will Hunting. Weve seen Will perform all these mathematical feats and flights of verbal brilliance, but the Robin Williams character sits him down on a park bench and confronts him with a rot at the core of his character. I look at you; I dont see an intelligent, confident man; I see a cocky, scared kid.
What is meat?

That question is unlikely to be asked along with the usual ones  Medium or well-done? Cheese or no cheese?  over grills being fired up all over the United States this summer. (Unless, of course, you invite a philosopher to your barbecue.) But it is a timely one and how we answer it  how we ultimately define the word meat  could have a significant impact on the future of our food supply, our health and the health of the planet.

Its no secret by now that the case against meat keeps getting stronger. The social, environmental and ethical costs of industrial agriculture  exacerbated by a pandemic being traced back to a live animal market, and a vulnerable meat processing industry  have become too obvious and damaging to ignore. Yet Americans on average consume more that 200 pounds of animal flesh each year. And, like it or not, it is still part of how the United States sees itself  cultural icons, from cowboys and ranchers to the Golden Arches, express the countrys long, tragic love affair with meat.

But just as the meaning of American identity has changed over time, so too has the food people eat to celebrate it. Fifty years ago, few barbecues included burgers made of tofu or lentils for the stray vegetarians found in so many families today.

For centuries, the definition of meat was obvious: the edible flesh of an animal. That changed in 2013, when the Dutch scientist Mark Post unveiled the first in vitro hamburger. By bathing animal stem cells with growth serum, Dr. Post and his colleagues were able to grow a hamburger in their lab. Their burger had essentially the same composition as a normal hamburger but a different origin. Although Dr. Post estimated that the first in vitro burger cost about $325,000 to create, the price has come down significantly and his team is one of several groups seeking to commercialize in vitro meat and bring it to market. (Dr. Posts first burger was grown using fetal bovine serum, a slaughterhouse byproduct; his team and others have sought out animal-free replacements.)
To the Editor:

Re A Whos Who in Bidens Search for Vice President (news article, June 28):

The former vice president has a number of very capable and exciting choices. Id like to propose that instead of making the decision himself, Joe Biden invite the delegates to the Democratic convention to consider three finalists that he will name before the convention. He should let the delegates make the final decision among the three finalists.

This would add some excitement to a convention that may be held by Zoom and for now has no suspense.

A suspense-free convention wont attract many viewers, a lost opportunity to reach voters. There would be more scrutiny of potential vice-presidential nominees between now and the convention. Embarrassing information about any of them would be disclosed before the nomination, not after, when its too late. And, if the delegates are excited about the eventual choice, voter participation in November will be greater, increasing the chances of a Biden victory.

The vice-presidential nominee is likely to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in four or eight years. Why not provide the most active Democrats in the country with the chance to help select our future leadership team?
Even after a full quarter of sales data in the midst of the pandemic, outlining the shape of an eventual recovery is difficult. More than 90 percent of the sales recorded in the second quarter were actually signed before the virus gripped New York in March, said Bess Freedman, the chief executive of the brokerage Brown Harris Stevens.

A lot will ride on what happens with schools at the end of the summer, Ms. Freedman said, because few potential buyers with children who have left the city to escape the pandemic will choose to return, if virtual classrooms continue.

Pent-up demand, from buyers who were unable to view apartments before the city started to reopen, is likely to fuel sales in the next quarter, and home sellers seem to agree. Last week, 550 new listings hit the market, nearly twice as many as in the same week last year, according to UrbanDigs, a real estate data firm. But overall, listings in Manhattan are still down 26 percent compared to last year, the first year-over-year drop in inventory in five years, according to the Corcoran Group.

Id like to say it dropped because we sold it all, but thats not the reality, said Pamela Liebman, the chief executive of Corcoran, noting that many sellers pulled their homes off the market because of the shutdown.

Despite the significant drop in sales price in the quarter, more time is needed to make sense of the sharp decline. There are plenty of examples of discounts, and just as many without, said Mr. Miller, who notes that the market is only now entering a stage resembling normalcy.
The review  its headline read, The best dope on pot so far  caught the attention of President Richard M. Nixon, who had begun to push a hard line on drugs. President Nixon circled Dr. Grinspoons name on a clipping of the review and wrote, This clown is far on the left.

The book was published a year after the founding of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. Dr. Grinspoon, who would serve on the organizations board of directors and its advisory board, became one of its scientific mentors, his book an intellectual road map to legalization.

In the early days, he gave us incredible credibility, Allen St. Pierre, a former executive director of NORML, said in an interview. He showed there was a history to marijuana, that it hadnt just been discovered by hippies in the 1960s. And by the time I came on the scene in 1990, Lester had achieved a high status in the marijuana reform movement; he was the person people respected the most.

Dr. Grinspoon was a scholarly, kind of nerdy guy, his son David said in an interview. That was part of his power when he got involved in the issue. He was a very professorial person, not a hippie.

Dr. Grinspoon had not tried marijuana while acquiring his expertise in it. After his book was published, he defensively told some interviewers who were surprised by his restraint that he had also written a book on schizophrenia without having experienced it.

But he did relent. He and his wife, Betsy, tried marijuana twice in 1972, but were chagrined that they were unable to get high. On their third attempt, however, they listened to the Beatles album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band  which Dr. Grinspoon had largely ignored in the past when his sons played rock music in the house  and achieved a thrilling high.
People started saying, you guys should date, and they started making hashtags and marriage videos, Ms. Mitchell said. The hashtag #Tevin began spreading (a combination of Tati, as shes known on the app, and Devin).

On June 25, Mr. Caherly posted a video in which he said that if it got a million likes, he would fly Ms. Mitchell out to New Jersey so that they could meet and collaborate in person.

It was exactly what millions of fans had been clamoring for. The video got the requisite million likes in a matter of hours, and four days later, Ms. Mitchell had booked her trip east.

Since then, the excitement has been building. Fans have been commenting about theories on how their first meeting will go and what videos theyd like to see them create together. Ms. Mitchell said she will be staying in a hotel during her time in New Jersey and unfortunately will not be able to host a meet-up as so many fans have asked for, because of the coronavirus. We dont want to put anyone in harms way, so well probably do some FaceTime calls, she said.

In anticipation of her arrival, Mr. Caherly has posted skits on his TikTok where he jokes about picking her up from the airport and going engagement ring shopping. But both Mr. Caherly and Ms. Mitchell say theyre just friends. The romance is a POV plot, and the fans are in on the joke.
Adellas portrait  the one thats the cover of my book Princess of the Hither Isles: A Black Suffragists Story from the Jim Crow South  hung in my parents apartment, so shes always been a visible, physical presence in my life, even though she died when my father was only 6 years old. And, of course, I was named for her. When I was in my early 40s, a young historian who was working on a Ph.D. dissertation about Black women in the suffrage movement was the first one to show me Adellas writings. I hadnt had that kind of specifics before, and I got totally hooked on trying to find out more about her as a suffragist. My father was dead by that time, so I asked my mother, Did you know all this? And her response was, Of course. Not only was Adella involved, but my mothers mother was, too: They were both light-skinned enough to pass, so the two grandmothers, well before my parents were born, would go together to white suffrage conferences in the South, and then come back and share the information they learned with the Black community.

But even before I knew the details of my familys story, voting and political involvement were very much a part of my growing up. One of my first memories is of my hand reaching up for my mothers as she walked with me to the New York Public Library, down through this back labyrinth to where the voting booths were. I always knew that this was something very precious, and not to be taken for granted.
The path that led us to this point was long and grueling, but we said from the start that we would take the time necessary to get this right, he said in a video message. I am 100 percent comfortable with my family flying on it.

Before the plane can fly again, onboard software known as MCAS, which was blamed for pushing the planes in both the crashes downward, will be overhauled and pilots will be retrained. Every Southwest pilot, for example, will receive training on one of the airlines nine 737 Max simulators.

The Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents nearly 60,000 pilots in North America, including those at Delta and United, expressed confidence in the changes ordered by the F.A.A., saying in a statement that the group believes that the engineering fixes to the flight-critical aircraft systems are sound and will be an effective component that leads to the safe return to service of the 737 Max.

Who will fly?

Theres no question that many travelers will be hesitant to fly aboard the Max, but many experts contend that it wont take long to restore confidence.

Airlines are eager to demonstrate the plane's safety, assuring customers that they are reviewing its readiness themselves. United said it would conduct additional pilot training, multiple test flights and meticulous technical analysis to ensure the planes are ready to fly.

But the pandemic has relieved some of the pressure to get the plane flying quickly  and created an opportunity. Because so few people are traveling, airlines can afford to reintroduce the jet gradually without passing up much business, giving them time to show hesitant travelers that the plane can fly without incident. And analysts believe that a few months without any major problems will go a long way in overcoming any doubts.

If the past is any guide, they may be correct. In 2013, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was grounded worldwide for four months because of smoking lithium-ion batteries in two separate incidents. Passengers were nervous to fly the plane for a period, but Boeing was able to move past the crisis quickly, and now the Dreamliner is central to the international routes operated by many airlines.
In 2012, the central government approved a law banning cruise ships from the St. Marks basin and the Giudecca Canal, to lessen overcrowding in those areas, but it has yet to be enforced. And even if it were, Ms. Da Mosto said, it will do little to contain the damage.

Even if cruise ships were to dock in Marghera, the nearby port on the mainland, Ms. Da Mosto said that the vessels would cause the same environmental impact. The only difference is that they would do it a few miles away.

The Covid crisis

Six months ago, Venices overtourism came to a sudden halt.

The number of tourists in the city plummeted first in November, when a series of unusually high tides spurred cancellations. Tourism almost disappeared beginning in late February, when the Covid-19 pandemic prompted authorities to cancel the Carnival and, soon after, declare a nationwide lockdown.

Mr. Scarpa, the president of the hotel body, said that the sudden drop in tourism could cost the city more than 1 billion euros in lost revenues. About 10,000 Venetians have been furloughed in the hotel industry alone, Mr. Scarpa said. The recovery, he added, will to be slow, as hotels expect only one-third of the usual number of visitors for the high season this year.

Italys central government has vowed to help the tourism industry by providing aid packages and tax breaks for struggling hotels and restaurants, but other sectors have also been hit hard.

Tour guides are one such group. They are often self-employed and thus not eligible for long-term unemployment benefits; short-term subsidies for the self-employed, issued by the central government, ended when the lockdown was lifted but before international travelers were allowed back. In June, tour guides held protests in several Italian cities, including Venice.

There are a lot of grievances in the profession, said Mr. Croce, the tour guide. He pointed out that most guides work with international tourists. When the lockdown was lifted, restaurants and cafes could go back to business, but we couldnt. Its not fair that we are getting the same treatment.
The combination of all the factors  the age, alcohol, time of day, all those things come together to make it hard for even the most conscientious bar manager, said Kris Ehresmann, director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at Minnesotas Department of Health.

Many of the people being infected at bars and clubs are in their 20s, a group that is more likely to have milder cases of Covid-19. Health experts warn that young people with mild symptoms or none at all still pose a serious threat to older family members or other vulnerable people.

In the hot spot traced to Harpers in East Lansing, contact tracing has shown that the young adults who were infected spread the virus to people from 16 to 63 years old, health officials said. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York cited the Harpers cluster as a reason to re-examine the citys indoor dining reopening rules for restaurants. Harpers has been shut down until it can provide a plan to address its failures to enforce mask wearing and social distancing, said Linda Vail, an Ingham County health officer.

Bartenders say they have no good options: Stay closed and go bankrupt, or reopen and trip on shifting standards for how to operate during a pandemic.

When the Knights Pub in Orlando, Fla., reopened in early June, it did so with a jubilant Facebook post: Were back, baby! Four days later, the bar was closed after a patron phoned to report a possible case of the coronavirus.

Florida officials eventually suspended the bars liquor license and said it was part of a cluster that had contributed to the coronavirus cases of at least 13 employees and 28 patrons. At a news conference, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, singled out the bar as an example of a place that was having really big parties, that was just not following the guidelines.

As part of their evidence, state officials cited two promotional photos of happy patrons holding drinks and crowded together inside the bar. But both photos were taken in 2019, according to Michael DEsposito, the bars owner, who contends the state has used the Knights Pub as a scapegoat for all Covid-19 cases in the surrounding Orlando area.
ATLANTA  On the website for American Legion Post 410 in Lakehills, Texas, an image shows a bald eagle soaring in front of an American flag. But just below the patriotic picture is the bad news that the unrelenting spread of the coronavirus has mostly grounded the tiny communitys Fourth of July celebrations.

Due to the Governor of Texas shutting down the state again  the Parade has been cancelled, the site says. The live band has been cancelled.

It is a familiar reality from coast to coast, as the nation staggers toward a holiday weekend burdened by a pandemic that is only growing worse.

On Thursday, the United States set a single-day case record for the sixth time in nine days, reaching 53,000 new coronavirus cases. And in a dramatic reversal, the governor of Texas, one of the worst-hit states this week, ordered residents in counties with more than 20 virus cases to wear masks in public.
The tripartite talks between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), brokered by the African Union, are set to resume in the next few days according to Sudanese Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas.

In statements to Sudanese news agency SUNA on Thursday, Abbas revealed that the AU is finalising its procedures for the negotiations over the disputed mega-dam.

"The AU is working on preparing a list of African observers (experts) to engage in the negotiations, along with the other three observers who are already in, representing the US, the EU and South Africa," Abbas said.

The previous rounds of negotiations between the three countries, held virtually from 9-17 June, failed to produce an accord due to Ethiopia's refusal to enter into a legally binding agreement and its announcement that it will begin filling the dam in July even without approval from the two downstream countries.

A few days later, South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current AU chairman, called for a resumption of negotiations under the aegis of the regional body, a move that was welcomed by the three countries.

The leaders of the three countries, along with Ramaphosa, held an online mini-summit on Friday.

At the summit, Ethiopia agreed to delay the filling of the hydropower dam until a final binding deal is reached. The summit also agreed to form a committee of legal and technical experts to draft a final binding deal.

The technical committee will try to strike a deal within two weeks as suggested by Ethiopia, Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said following the summit.

The AU issued a statement on Saturday to the effect that the dam committee will present its report to Ramaphosa within one week.

"The Sudanese negotiations team continues preparations to resume the talks on the Renaissance Dam during the coming few days," the Sudanese minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.

The Sudanese team includes representatives of sovereign ministries as well as water and reservoir experts.

The minister added that his country's delegation is "fully prepared for resuming negotiations to agree on the specific outstanding points grounded in the numerous initiatives presented by Sudan during the previous negotiating rounds."

The United Nations Security Council held a session on the issue on Monday, at the request of Egypt, and it urged the three parties to reach an agreement.

Short link:


Be safe this weekend

As the virus continues to ravage the U.S., its clear that the Fourth of July has the potential to spawn superspreader events. Many cooped-up Americans are eager to leave home and socialize, but the timing for the countrys biggest summer holiday weekend couldnt be worse: Infections are surging, with some states setting repeated daily records for new cases.

Festivities over Memorial Day weekend, less than a month and a half ago, are thought to have contributed to the dire situation that the country is in now. Mask-free partygoers were seen flouting social-distancing guidelines in places like the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where it will still be business as usual this weekend, with pool parties and widely sold-out accommodations.

But in just one month, the pandemic has spiraled out of control in the U.S. In Florida alone, the tally of new cases ballooned from 667 on June 1 to more than 10,100 today. It is among the 13 states that reported their highest single-day case counts yet this week.

Officials are urging Americans to rethink their holiday plans, and some have taken action to make sure they do so. Los Angeles County has ordered beaches closed and fireworks shows canceled. Nebraska suggested that barbecue hosts should keep guest lists to make contact tracing easier if someone gets sick. In Sacramento County, the health director has worked to stop an annual river-rafting event. The most patriotic thing they can do this year is to stay at home, he said.
Good morning.

(Dont get California Today by email? Heres the sign-up.)

Responding to an alarming increase in coronavirus hospitalizations, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced a major rollback of Californias reopening, ordering bars and indoor dining closed in the states hardest-hit counties and banning indoor operations in wineries, zoos, movie theaters and museums.

The closures, which will remain in place for at least three weeks, cover 19 counties representing nearly three-quarters of the states 40 million people.

The bottom line is the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning, Mr. Newsom said in a video news conference, adding that he was establishing Enforcement Strike Teams that will work with local authorities to compel compliance of all public health orders.

Hospitalizations in California have increased 51 percent from two weeks ago and the state reported 110 deaths on Wednesday, its second-highest number during the pandemic.
He urged members of the public to try to defuse tense situations at a time when many are on edge.

My plea is, please let us all try to be that voice of calm in the storm, and remember each one of us is a human being that deserves respect, he said.

Oakland University in Michigan said on Thursday that it had fired Mr. Wuestenberg. He had been listed on the universitys website as a coordinator of veterans support services.

We have seen the video and we deem his behavior unacceptable, a university spokesman said in a statement. The employee has been notified that his employment has been terminated by the university.

It was not immediately clear if the couple had lawyers, and there was no immediate response to messages left at numbers listed under their names.

As the videos spread on social media on Wednesday night, they quickly drew comparisons to footage taken on Sunday of a white man and woman pointing a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun at peaceful Black protesters on a private residential street in St. Louis. The demonstration was one of dozens against racism and police violence that have been taking place across the country for weeks.

The Detroit News, which reported on the Orion Township altercation early Thursday, shared both videos, the longer of which  at just over three minutes  shows more of the encounter. The News identified the mother as Takelia Hill and quoted her as saying that the argument began because the white woman had bumped into her daughter and was yelling in my daughters face. Ms. Hill could not be reached for comment.

The videos, recorded by Ms. Hill and her daughter on Wednesday evening, do not show what happened before the argument began. In one of the videos, Ms. Hill can be seen standing in front of Ms. Wuestenberg, and her daughter says, This ignorant woman bumped into a 15-year-old.
This article was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

WASHINGTON  The Justice Department moved to block the release of a Palestinian man from immigration custody on Thursday in a continuing legal fight over the governments power to indefinitely detain a noncitizen who was convicted of a terrorism-related offense.

The case centers on Adham A. Hassoun, who was convicted of providing material support for terrorism in 2007 for sending aid to Muslim militants in conflicts in places like Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya in the 1990s. Mr. Hassoun, 58, completed a prison sentence early for good behavior in 2017.

But his immigration status presented the government with a legal issue. Although he has lived in Florida, he was not a United States citizen and he was also stateless, having been born in Lebanon but not holding citizenship there, either. So deportation, the normal course of action in the case of a noncitizen who has completed a sentence on terrorism charges in the United States, was not an option.

Not wanting to free him in the United States, the Justice Department put him in an immigration prison in 2017 after he completed his sentence on the terrorism charges.
A fire ripped through a building at Irans main nuclear-fuel production site early Thursday, causing extensive damage to what appeared to be a factory where the country has boasted of producing a new generation of centrifuges. The United States has repeatedly warned that such machinery could speed Tehrans path to building nuclear weapons.

The Atomic Energy Agency of Iran acknowledged an incident at the desert site, but did not term it sabotage. It released a photograph showing what seemed to be destruction from a major explosion that ripped doors from their hinges and caused the roof to collapse. Parts of the building, which was recently inaugurated, were blackened by fire.

But it was not clear how much damage was done underground, where video released by the Iranian government last year suggested most of the assembly work is conducted on next-generation centrifuges  the machines that purify uranium.

A Middle Eastern intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closely held information, said the blast was caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility. The explosion, he said, destroyed much of the aboveground parts of the facility where new centrifuges  delicate devices that spin at supersonic speeds  are balanced before they are put into operation.
WASHINGTON  Geoffrey S. Berman, the former top federal prosecutor in Manhattan who was abruptly dismissed last month, has agreed to testify in a closed-door hearing before lawmakers next week as part of an inquiry into potential politicization at the Justice Department, according to a House Judiciary Committee notice reviewed by The New York Times.

Mr. Berman, who was fired after a brief but highly public standoff over his status with Attorney General William P. Barr, will meet privately on July 9 with members of the committee to discuss the circumstances surrounding his surprise ouster, according to two people familiar with the terms of his testimony.

Mr. Bermans planned testimony comes amid a shake-up at the federal prosecutors office in Brooklyn. Richard P. Donoghue, the offices top prosecutor, will come to Washington to serve as the No. 2 official in the office of the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, a key department post. Mr. Donoghue is seen within the department as a close ally of Mr. Barr.

The position is currently held by Seth DuCharme, who plans to return to the Brooklyn prosecutors office, where he was previously the head of the criminal division. He is being considered to run the office, according to two people familiar with the deliberations.
In political speeches for 40 years, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has evoked his scrappy childhood in Scranton, Pa. He kicked off his presidential run last year in Pittsburgh, and as he takes tentative steps out of home confinement in Wilmington, Del., the campaign trail has often led to the state next door.

Yet surprisingly, Mr. Biden is enjoying no special boost in his native Pennsylvania.

A New York Times/Siena College poll of six battleground states released last week showed that the former vice presidents net approval in Pennsylvania was largely the same as elsewhere: Fifty percent of registered voters viewed him positively and 48 percent saw him negatively.

President Trump, mired in the lowest point of his presidency, was viewed favorably by just 43 percent of voters in the six battlegrounds. It helped explain why he trailed Mr. Biden in all six states and by 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania, a dire picture of the presidents chances of re-election.

Still, with four months to go until Election Day, Mr. Trump could well become competitive again. Leaders of his campaign in Pennsylvania, seizing on Mr. Bidens failure to shine as a favorite son, have sketched out a comeback path for Mr. Trump. Its steps include the Republican Partys advantage in new voter registrations; a return to in-person organizing while Mr. Bidens ground game remains virtual; and a range of issues  including energy policy, reopening the economy and defunding the police  that Republicans believe will peel away swing voters in a state Mr. Trump narrowly won in 2016.
WASHINGTON  The Senate on Thursday unanimously passed legislation to impose sanctions on Chinese officials trying to stamp out political dissent in Hong Kong, sending the measure to President Trumps desk for his signature.

The passage of the bill, spearheaded by Senators Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, comes days after Chinese leaders imposed a sweeping new security law intended to quell protests demanding free elections and greater autonomy in an escalation of Beijings campaign to tighten its grip on Hong Kong.

Its not only an effort to shield freedom-loving Hong Kongers from this continuing escalation of aggression by the Chinese communists, but the bill is a larger signal to China, Mr. Toomey said. Its a message that the United States and the free world are no longer willing to look past some of the worst behavior thats been occurring. Its a message that our patience has run out.

The measure, which passed without debate or a formal vote on Thursday, would place mandatory penalties on the Chinese officials who imposed the security law, as well as police units that crack down on protesters and the banks that finance activities trying to undermine Hong Kongs independence.
One hundred fifty-five years after Robert E. Lee surrendered, the former capital of the Confederacy is re-examining the painful legacy that it publicly memorialized on Monument Avenue.

The former capital, Richmond, Va., took down a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson last Wednesday after Mayor Levar Stoney used emergency powers to order its immediate removal, along with other Confederate statues on city property. A statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate naval officer and oceanographer, was removed on Thursday as a crowd of people watched.

And early on Tuesday, crews moved heavy equipment and cranes into place near the statue of J.E.B. Stuart, the Confederate army officer. Workers took about three hours to lift the statue from the pedestal where it has stood since 1907.

The statues will be temporarily moved to an undisclosed location until the city government decides what to do with them, said James Nolan, a spokesman.
Mr. Trump was impeached by the House in December and acquitted by the Senate in February. But the House told the Supreme Court that its inquiry into the presidents conduct was not over.

The committees impeachment investigation related to obstruction of justice pertaining to the Russia investigation is ongoing, the brief said.

Indeed, the brief said, new areas of inquiry have arisen, including the Justice Departments request for leniency in the sentencing of Roger J. Stone Jr., a friend of Mr. Trumps who was convicted of witness intimidation and perjury, and the departments request to dismiss its case against Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trumps first national security adviser, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to investigators.

The committees investigation continues today and has further developed in light of recent events, the Houses brief said. For example, the committee is investigating the possible exercise of improper political influence over recent decisions made in the Roger Stone and Michael Flynn prosecutions, both of which were initiated by the special counsel.

In March, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the materials must be released to help Congress consider whether to conduct impeachment proceedings. That disclosure was authorized by the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the panel ruled, which contain an exception to grand jury secrecy rules for materials to be used preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding.

The panel was divided on other issues in the case, but it agreed that an impeachment trial was a judicial proceeding for purposes of the rule.

Historical practice supported the ruling, Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote for the majority.

Federal courts have authorized the disclosure of grand jury materials to the House for use in impeachment investigations involving two presidents and three federal judges, Judge Rogers wrote. It is only the presidents categorical resistance and the departments objection that is unprecedented.
BOGOTA, Colombia  Colombian authorities have captured eight members of a left-wing guerrilla group who helped carry out the deadliest attack in years in the capital city, Bogota, officials said on Thursday.

Prosecutors said the people arrested were members of the National Liberation Army, known as E.L.N., the rebel group that took responsibility for the car bombing at the National Police Academy in January 2019 that killed 22 cadets. The bombing shocked a country emerging from decades of civil war, and ended peace talks with the rebels.

Colombia lived a very painful moment, President Ivan Duque said in a national address after the arrests were announced, calling the bombing a miserable terrorist attack that ended the lives of 22 students who chose the path of good, to study to serve their society.

The arrests and the investigation leading up to them allowed the police to dismantle both an urban guerrilla cell and the financial network of one of E.L.N.s main groupings, which operates in the plains region in the east of the country. That network, supplied resources, weapons, explosives and official uniforms and drugs to the urban guerrillas, Mr. Duque said.
MEXICO CITY  Armed men stormed into a drug rehabilitation facility in central Mexico on Wednesday, killing 26 men and gravely wounding five others, in what the authorities said could be part of a fight over territory between rival criminal organizations.

The gunmen entered the rehabilitation center in Irapuato, in the state of Guanajuato, forced everyone to the ground and shot them, the local secretary of security said. Guns were found at the scene and a photo published by local media showed a cluster of men lying face down in what appeared to be a pool of blood.

There is a turf war in the state between the Santa Rosa cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel, said Elihu Ojeda, a spokesman for the state prosecutors office, in an interview. We have had a series of events of this type.

The assault was the latest in a string of high-profile attacks across Mexico, where the governments inability to curb rising violence has become a national crisis and a political liability for the president.
Chinas state security apparatus has largely worked in the shadows while the Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, expanded it over recent years into a bulwark against threats to party rule, public order and national unity.

Hong Kong could change that low profile.

Under a national security law that went into force this week, China will openly station security officials in Hong Kong to subdue opposition to the partys rule. The law authorizes these agents to investigate cases, collect intelligence and help oversee enforcement of the rules across schools, news outlets and social organizations. Until now, Chinese agents operated covertly in Hong Kong.

When I was abducted to China, it was done in secret. Now it can be done openly, said Lam Wing-kee, a Hong Kong book store owner who was snatched in 2015 and spirited to mainland China. He said that security officials placed him in solitary confinement for five months and interrogated him about publishing gossip-laden books about Mr. Xi and other party leaders.

Now that the Chinese national security agencies have official protection in Hong Kong, essentially Hong Kong will be no different from any part of China, said Mr. Lam, who now lives in Taiwan.
The groom, a software engineer living near New Delhi, had returned to his home state to prepare for the ceremony, telling friends it would be remembered forever as a corona marriage.

But a few days before the ceremony, the groom started to vomit and complained of a headache, according to a relative who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared being ostracized.

The relative said the grooms family took him to a hospital in Patna, but that his parents insisted on continuing with the wedding. He was not tested for the coronavirus, according to the relative.
MANDALAY, Myanmar  With barely enough time to yell run, hundreds of jade miners had only moments to escape their killer: a giant wave of mud and water, more than 20 feet high, propelled out of a vast pit mine swollen with rainwater.

Weeks of heavy rains, carried by the seasonal monsoon, had filled the Wai Khar jade mine in northern Myanmar and turned it into a lake. Towering over the pit was a 1,000-foot hillside topped with a mound of mining waste, its foundations weakening with every drop of rain.

Just after sunrise on Thursday the earth began to shift and a wall of mud cascaded down the mounds steep slope, slamming into the flooded mine and sending a huge wave of water along its walls as rushing green water swept from one end of the lake to the other.

When the open-pit mine collapsed, the workers didnt have time to run away, said U Tin Soe, the regions representative in Parliament. The height of the wave was about 20 feet and it drowned many people. It was like a tsunami.
michael barbaro

From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today: Brazil has a long and distinguished history of navigating public health crises, until now. Ernesto Londono on what went wrong with the coronavirus. Its Thursday, July 2. OK, Ernesto, as were talking, Brazil is second only to the U.S. in cases of Covid-19. Where do we need to start to understand how we got here?

ernesto londono

Well, Michael, while were seeing kind of the first concerns about coronavirus rippling beyond China, it was the farthest thing from Brazilians minds. You know, its the peak of summer in the southern hemisphere and especially in February 

archived recording [CARNIVAL MUSIC]

ernesto londono

People are in party mode.

archived recording [CARNIVAL MUSIC]

ernesto londono

You know, all across Brazil in the big cities, people are celebrating Carnival, which turns into this weeks-long celebration. You know, the beaches are thronged. Theres block parties on the street where everybody is dancing, and theres a lot of people kissing strangers. Everybody is sort of a sweaty mess. Theres a lot of heavy drinking. And just about the time when people are starting to sort of nurse their post-Carnival hangover in late February, the first case is diagnosed in Sao Paolo, in Brazils largest city. And the first case involves a man who had traveled home from Italy. And I dont think there were panic alarms that went off initially, but that quickly changed in early March. And it changed as a result of an extraordinary trip. The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, traveled with a large entourage to Florida, where he dined in Mar-a-Lago with President Trump.

archived recording (donald trump) Hes doing a fantastic job, great job. Brazil loves him, and the U.S.A. loves him.

michael barbaro

And as they come back from that trip, a number of people who have been part of that delegation start testing positive.

archived recording 1 The latest sign of the spread of the virus is it is reaching and threatening the most powerful offices in the world. archived recording 2 There are new virus concerns stemming from the meeting President Trump had with a delegation from Brazil in Florida. archived recording 3 This video shows Mr. Trump last weekend at Mar-a-Lago next to a man who has since tested positive for the virus. He is the press secretary for Brazils president. archived recording 4 We now know that a dozen Brazilians who were there have tested positive for the virus.

ernesto londono

So Brazil really becomes sort of consumed because their leadership, the people running the country all of a sudden started falling sick. But even as the virus is clearly within the halls of power, the president is not expressing any alarm. Quite the contrary.

archived recording (jair bolsonaro) [IN PORTUGUESE] archived recording (translator) My obligation as head of state is to anticipate problems, to bring the truth to the Brazilian people. But this truth should not incite panic.

ernesto londono

President Bolsonaro starts calling this virus something that the media was obsessed with in order to bring down his popularity numbers.

archived recording (jair bolsonaro) [IN PORTUGUESE]

ernesto londono

He called it a fantasy. He said, this is a measly cold. He said, even if I were to get this virus, because I have an athletes background, I would shake it off within days.

michael barbaro

Huh.

archived recording (jair bolsonaro) [IN PORTUGUESE]

ernesto londono

(PARAPHRASING PRESIDENT JAIR BOLSONARO) This is nothing to worry about, and this is not something that justifies shutting the country down for. And on the other hand, you had mayors and governors saying, actually, we have to listen to the scientists. We have to shut down businesses. We have to keep people home. We have to act now if we want to save lives. But it was really hard to enforce when you had the president trying to persuade Brazilians that this was all a mistake and that they shouldnt be listening to these local leaders. So what this did was it really polarized Brazilian society. You had people who are very loyal to the president, essentially taking his side and sort of feeling empowered not to be quarantined, not to have to stay at home, not to have to give up their jobs. But on the other hand, you had a lot of people who despise the president and who became very worried. So by late March, something really striking started happening across the country in big cities.

archived recording [PROTESTORS BANGING ON POTS]

ernesto londono

People protesting by banging pots from their windows. It was the only way that people who were actually taking this virus seriously and were worried about it could make their voices viewed. So every night like clockwork at about 8:30 p.m., I would hear from my window people banging pots and screaming, out with Bolsonaro, out with Bolsonaro! And it was a really striking sounded. It almost sounded primal. It was like these voices piercing through the night, and voices that kind of conveyed a degree of despair and anguish.

archived recording [PROTESTORS BANGING ON POTS]

ernesto londono

So thats when we start seeing that much of the country was not feeling safe in Bolsonaros hands at a moment of crisis.

michael barbaro

And did this approach from the president, from Bolsonaro, did it surprise you?

ernesto londono

Well, I think weve learned not to be terribly surprised by anything that Bolsonaro does. As you might remember, hes a far-right populist leader who has been very divisive ever since he was elected in 2018. But it was very surprising that Brazil would be caught flat-footed in a health care crisis of this magnitude. And the reason for that is that the country has, in the past, risen to the challenge of very serious health care challenges, and deployed its pretty robust and very sophisticated public health care service to go after really complicated problems with very innovative solutions. Ill give you a couple of examples. Back in the 90s when the first H.I.V. medicines were on the market and were allowing people to live healthy and productive lives, these drugs were very expensive for people in poor countries. And Brazil took a pretty maverick approach to this. Brazil essentially challenged to the drug companies and said, we think that this is a matter of human rights, and people should have access to lifesaving medicine without having to fill your pockets for years on end. So that argument was so powerful. It led to drug manufacturers making concessions, and that led to these drugs becoming cheaper and more widely available. And Brazil scored a pretty significant victory on the world stage by taking what was a pretty bold stance at the time. More recently, Brazil had to contend with the Zika crisis, which led to babies being born with deformities that were very, very difficult to manage. And once again, it threw everything it had in the way of scientific expertise. And one of the most interesting solutions that Brazil came up with was genetically modified mosquitoes. And the plan was that by creating a genetically altered breed of mosquitoes, they would be preventing the dangerous types of mosquitoes from reproducing, and in doing so, sort of gradually stamp out Zika from areas where people were catching it. So in recent decades, Brazil has been regarded as a really top-tier player when it came to standing up to really complicated health care challenges and to rising to the challenge, even for a country that has enormous problems. You know, lots of people live in poverty. Lots of people dont have access to clean water. But when it came to saving lives, Brazil has a proven track record of acting in a bold and decisive way. But this year, weve seen something very different.

michael barbaro

Well be right back. So Ernesto, what explains why Brazils leader would take this essentially denialist approach to the pandemic, especially in light of Brazils very long history of so aggressively confronting public health crises?

ernesto londono

Bolsonaro was elected as a typical populist, who took the reins of a country that had been reeling from a really brutal economic recession and was only starting to sort of sputter back to life on his watch. So I think for him and his followers, the idea of an economic unraveling on his watch, considering how polarizing a figure he is, was just ruinous. I think he felt that if businesses shut down and jobs disappeared in very significant numbers, his base of support would crumble. And I think another element that might inform Bolsonaros behavior is hes somebody who has always looked up to President Trump for cues on how he should respond to things.

michael barbaro

Interesting.

ernesto londono

And President Trump was also taking the approach that this virus was not that big a deal, that this was going to disappear by itself. So you know, theres a striking similarity in how these two embattled leaders are selling this crisis to their bases and to the broader audience that listens to them.

michael barbaro

Right. And in both cases, and it sounds like especially for Bolsonaro, a strong economy is the basis for his staying in office, for being a leader. And a strong economy and a very strong reaction to this pandemic are almost, by definition, incompatible. So in his mind, the greatest threat to his power is an economy that starts to sputter and stop, not a virus that may infect and start to kill the people of Brazil?

ernesto londono

Thats right, but theres another element at play here. President Bolsonaro has been consumed by political scandals, pretty much from the beginning of his administration. And in recent months, hes begun to face some legislative and criminal investigations that have called into question his ability to serve out his term. One of these involves an investigation into a money laundering scheme that one of his sons is a target for. And the president is also now being investigated by the Supreme Court over his efforts to switch a police chief, in what his former justice minister thought was an abuse of power and an effort to shield his family members and allies from corruption investigations. So as the virus really starts taking hold of the country, youre left with a president who is also in a really politically precarious situation, and who is clinging onto his hopes for a strong economy  an economy that wont go off the rails  because he sees that as the key to his political survival.

michael barbaro

So given all that, Ernesto, how does Bolsonaros approach here play out inside Brazils public health system? What does it look like?

ernesto londono

Well, you have this extraordinary split-screen reality. On the one hand, you have the health minister going on television every night during press conferences 

archived recording (luiz mandetta) (IN PORTUGUESE) There is nothing that will influence this response more than how the Brazilian society will behave in the next month or in a few days.

ernesto londono

 preaching the merits of social distancing, saying quarantines are the only tried-and-tested tool we can throw at this virus right now, people who can stay at home should stay at home, business shutdowns make perfect sense.

archived recording (luiz mandetta) (IN PORTUGUESE) We need to have focus, discipline and science.

ernesto londono

So you essentially had a health minister who was adhering to the conventional wisdom and the scientific consensus on what countries should be doing.

archived recording (luiz mandetta) (IN PORTUGUESE) So that we can get out of this situation together.

ernesto londono

On the other hand, you had the president leaving the palace and joining pro-government demonstrations.

archived recording [CHEERING]

ernesto londono

You had him shaking hands. He certainly wasnt wearing a mask at that point. And the only thing hes really expressing interest in as sort of a cure for the virus is the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which he goes as far as ordering the armed forces to mass produce, even though theres really no scientific consensus that this is a good idea. And theres some signals that it could actually be dangerous for coronavirus patients. So it became this unsustainable rift where people were asking the health minister, how on earth should we expect Brazilians to listen to what youre asking them to do when theyre seeing their president take the exact opposite approach? And it reaches a breaking point in mid-April. The health minister, in the midst of a rising epidemic that is starting to spiral out of control, gets fired.

michael barbaro

Huh.

archived recording (luiz mandetta) [IN PORTUGUESE]

ernesto londono

You know, and on his way out, he delivered a pretty blistering indictment of the presidents handling of this. And he essentially said, I stayed in as long as I could to try to keep Brazil on a responsible path, to try to work within the margins of my authorities, but I can no longer serve under this president because we are too far apart when it comes to our vision and our values on this.

archived recording (luiz mandetta) Thank you very much, and thank you very much to the ministry of health.

ernesto londono

So with the first health minister getting tossed out, the president appoints a new minister whos a physician, who had very little name recognition and had never sort of run a large bureaucracy. He often looks like he has a deer-in-the-headlights look. Brazilians started making fun of him in memes online. It just never felt like he was getting any traction or laying out a vision. And just short of completing a month on the job, he convenes a press conference and says 

archived recording (nelson teich) (IN PORTUGUESE) Life is made of choices, and today I chose to leave. So you tell me if I didnt do my best during this phase, during this period.

ernesto londono

(PARAPHRASING NELSON TEICH) This is as far as I can go.

archived recording (nelson teich) (IN PORTUGUESE) Its not easy to be heading a secretariat like this in such a difficult period.

ernesto londono

Doesnt really give a clear explanation for why hes leaving, but its pretty clear that he, too, just couldnt live with being the face of this response that was being led by the president.

archived recording (nelson teich) It was an honor for me to have been part of this. Thank you.

michael barbaro

So this is definitively not going well. Youre churning through two health ministers in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

ernesto londono

Yeah, and the numbers are just spiraling.

archived recording 1 Brazil now has the most cases of coronavirus in South America with more than 5,800 confirmed Covid-19 cases and growing. archived recording 2 A new study out over the last couple of days showing that Brazil might have eight times more cases that have so far been recorded. archived recording 3 Brazil has officially reported about 4,500 deaths. The true number are believed to be much higher, due to the lack of testing. archived recording 4 Topping 90,000 confirmed cases and with more than 6,000 deaths. archived recording 5 100,000 with more than 7,000 deaths. archived recording 6 Brazil now has more confirmed cases of coronavirus deaths than China.

ernesto londono

You know, at this point 

archived recording Well, as the number of coronavirus cases goes up in Brazil, so does the threat to communities in the Amazon region.

ernesto londono

 you start seeing real strain in some states.

archived recording Already, the biggest city, Manaus, has seen its health system collapse.

ernesto londono

Up in the Amazon, for example, grave diggers started digging mass graves because people were dying so quickly that officials were completely overwhelmed at hospitals and funeral homes.

archived recording In Rio de Janeiro, hundreds of men, women, and children stood on a line to get food and water.

ernesto londono

So 

archived recording Health systems across the country are struggling.

ernesto londono

 you know, across the country in some cities, panic really starts setting in.

archived recording But experts dont expect Brazil to reach the peak for a few weeks yet.

ernesto londono

And at the national level, the health ministry is without a minister. And instead of appointing another expert in the field, the president leaves the ministry in the hands of an active duty army general who was an expert in logistics but had no real track record when it came to medicine. And one of the first things the ministry does when it is essentially run by this army general is endorse this anti-malaria pill, hydroxychloroquine, and say that health care professionals in the country should give it to all coronavirus patients who want it at any stage of contagion.

michael barbaro

So on his third try, he finally found a health minister willing to take that position.

ernesto londono

Absolutely. And he had a general on the job, and the general had to take orders from the president.

michael barbaro

And has Bolsonaro backtracked at all as these infection numbers have surged, as the death toll has risen? Or has he stayed with this same approach as he started with?

ernesto londono

There have been times when he has acknowledged that this is a very significant problem and this is a crisis, but he has been very consistent in saying that it is crucial to save the economy and to put economic recovery ahead of fighting the virus. At one point, when there had been sort of a milestone in the death toll, somebody asked him outside the palace what he thought, and he said, so what? What do you want me to do? My name might be Messiah, which was a reference to his middle name, but Im not here to perform miracles. Earlier this month, Bolsonaro said, I regret the loss of life. But at the end of the day, this is everybodys destiny.

michael barbaro

Everybody eventually dies is what hes saying.

ernesto londono

Yes. So he hasnt really backtracked. And I think in the long run, what some political experts think is that he is betting on the possibility that when the real economic pain is felt  six months, a year down the road, when it becomes clear just how big of a beating Brazilians took  that Brazilians may take out their wrath on the governors and the mayors who imposed these quarantines, and that the president may be able to sort of carve out a role for himself as the person who consistently wanted to save jobs, wanted to keep the economy on track. And I think its too early to tell. As a political strategy, that may pay dividends down the road.

michael barbaro

Ernesto, Im curious if you think that given Brazils history of beating back public health crises, that under different leadership  not a president like Bolsonaro who is skeptical of the science and who explicitly puts economics over public health  that Brazil would be in a very different place right now?

ernesto londono

Well, I think it bears watching what other countries in the region have done. And theres cases where governments had very decisive and well-thought-out responses that are wrestling with very high numbers. So theres something kind of mystifying about where this virus strikes with wrath, even in the face of a decisive and sophisticated response. I think one common theme were seeing that certainly applies to Brazil is countries with very stark inequality have had a harder time reigning the virus in. You have to think about kind of the way Brazilian cities are laid out. You have many Brazilians living in impoverished, teeming communities where people are sort of stacked up together, where they live numerous families to a small dwelling. And this virus has underscored the privilege some Brazilians have in adhering to conventional social distancing norms and the extent to which, for many Brazilians, for millions of them, its just not a possibility. But theres no question that Brazil had the expertise, had a track record of responding to health care challenges in a really decisive way. And it never really mounted a response that was coherent or sophisticated. Its been mired in this political fight that has prevented it from having a plan that makes sense to people, a plan it can explain to its population. At the end of the day, without a clear national policy, without a political consensus, and without effective enforcement mechanisms for some of these quarantines and lockdowns, there was no reining in the virus. But pretty much everybody I spoke to who has spent years working in health care policy in Brazil said, we were equipped and ready and trained to rise to the challenge. There was so much we could have done in the precious early days of the epidemic to strike back, to prepare and to save lives.

[music]

michael barbaro

Ernesto, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

ernesto londono

My pleasure, Michael.

michael barbaro

As of Wednesday, the number of infections in Brazil has risen to 1.4 million, and the number of deaths has surpassed 60,000, confirming Brazils outbreak as the second worst in the world, after the United States. Well be right back. Heres what else you need to know today.

archived recording (bill de blasio) So I want to make very clear, we cannot go ahead at this point in time with indoor dining in New York City. Look, even a week ago, honestly, I was hopeful we could. But the news we have gotten from around the country gets worse and worse all the time.

michael barbaro

As U.S. infections continue to break records, New York City delayed a plan to resume indoor dining, Miami Beach reinstated a curfew to keep residents from congregating at night, and California shut down bars and indoor dining in 19 counties. During a news conference on Wednesday, Californias governor Gavin Newsom said that he knew the decision would be disappointing.

archived recording (gavin newsom) And I deeply respect peoples liberty, their desire to go back to the way things once were. But I cannot impress upon you more, our actions have an impact on other people.

michael barbaro

As of Wednesday night, the U.S. death toll from the virus neared 128,000.

archived recording [PROTESTORS IN HONG KONG]

michael barbaro
PARIS  The police in Europe said Thursday they had arrested hundreds of people on suspicion of drug trafficking and other crimes after successfully hacking into an encrypted phone network being used by organized criminals around the world.

The authorities said that by hacking into the network, the police were able to monitor criminal activity and communication as it was happening, allowing them to stop drug deals and even to prevent murder.

Officials said in a statement that millions of messages were read in real time, over the shoulder of the unsuspecting senders, leading to arrests in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe.

It was as though we were sitting at the table where the criminals were chatting among themselves, really, said Jannine van den Berg, chief constable of the central police unit in the Netherlands, at a news conference in The Hague. What makes this investigation unique is that at a large scale we managed to read all of these criminal messages live, she said.
MOSCOW  The Ukrainian government plunged into another round of turmoil over foreign aid and anti-corruption policy when the director of the nations central bank resigned this week, citing political pressure in violation of International Monetary Fund guidelines.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian, won his office last year on promises to fight corruption. But his star has dimmed in recent months as high-level officials have quit or been fired, many accusing him of backsliding and insider dealing.

Still, the I.M.F. approved an emergency $5 billion, 18-month lending program for Ukraine last month, in part to help the country overcome the coronavirus crisis. In a statement, the fund noted three times that it expected Ukraine to maintain the independence of its central bank.

That independence is one safeguard preventing politically connected oligarchs from siphoning off aid. During a previous I.M.F. lending program, for example, the Ukrainian government bailed out a bank co-owned by a former business partner of Mr. Zelensky, a banking and media tycoon named Ihor Kolomoisky. The episode cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
LONDON  A British judge ruled on Thursday that President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela cannot get access to $1.8 billion in gold in a Bank of England vault, because Britain does not recognize him as the leader of his suffering country.

Like many Western countries, including the United States, the British government has unequivocally recognized the opposition leader Juan Guaido as the countrys interim president, a High Court judge in London, Nigel Teare, wrote in his ruling, adding that it was therefore unlawful to give the gold to Mr. Maduro.

The decision was the latest blow to Mr. Maduro and his efforts to revive an economy that has been in free-fall for years, battered by international sanctions, low oil prices, corruption and now the coronavirus. Venezuelas government has struggled to tackle the pandemic with a once-robust health care system now depleted of its most basic needs.

The Central Bank of Venezuela had sought access to the gold reserves in Britain, prompting a legal fight over who had the authority to seek their release  Mr. Guaido, officially the head of the Venezuelan National Assembly, or Mr. Maduros government.
In a federal complaint, the accused soldier was identified as U.S. Army Specialist Aaron Robinson, 20. A few days before the charge was announced, Specialist Robinson killed himself with a pistol.

The authorities also arrested his girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, in Killeen, Texas. Justice Department officials said in court documents that Specialist Robinson told Ms. Aguilar that he repeatedly struck Specialist Guillen on the head with a hammer, killing her, and hid her body in a large box. The couple then tried to dismember and burn the remains, according to the complaint.

On July 14, Ms. Aguilar, a civilian, was indicted by a grand jury at the U.S. District Court in Waco, Texas, on charges related to tampering with documents or proceedings, including the body of Specialist Guillen. Ms. Aguilar pleaded not guilty on all counts.

How did Specialist Guillen disappear?

Specialist Guillen was last seen around noon on April 22, 2020, in the parking lot of her squadrons headquarters at Fort Hood. Investigators who searched her phone found that the last person she texted was Specialist Robinson.

Specialist Robinson worked in a building at Fort Hood that was adjacent to where Specialist Guillen worked, according to Special Agent Damon Phelps of the Criminal Investigation Command.

A witness told investigators that Specialist Guillen left the arms room where she had been working and went to the arms room controlled by Specialist Robinson to confirm serial numbers for weapons and equipment, the complaint said.

Specialist Robinson later said he read her the serial numbers and gave her paperwork, according to court documents. He said he believed she then left to go to the motor pool.
Joel Rubenfeld worked for years as an elementary-school principal in Canarsie, Brooklyn, where he grew up. About 20 years ago, seeking a pied-a-terre in Manhattan, he bought a studio in a co-op building on East 57th Street.

I fell in love with the area, he said. I had my favorite bagel shop and my favorite Italian restaurant. The subways were right there.

When the studio started to feel cramped, he upsized to a one-bedroom condominium in a recently converted Yorkville high-rise, Wellington Tower.

When you are a retiree, you kind of get shpilkes, said Mr. Rubenfeld, 68, who retired 10 years ago and now works part-time instructing teachers of special-needs students. You get ants in your pants, and you look for things to do. I was always interested in Manhattan real estate and was always looking at StreetEasy.

[Did you recently buy or rent a home in the New York metro area? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]

About three years ago, he noticed that similar one-bedroom units in his building were very hot.

I had some money saved and thought to myself, Let me get my bucket-list apartment, he said.

That meant a sunny, brand-new condominium with a view, and ideally some outdoor space, for under $2 million. So he contacted Alexander Boriskin, an agent at Douglas Elliman, who had just sold a one-bedroom in his building.

Joel wanted to stay in the Midtown-ish area, Mr. Boriskin said. There werent many great options with outdoor space.

There were plenty of amenities in the shiny, new condominiums that Mr. Rubenfeld was interested in, but he had never used them in his own building  not even the pool. Its like when you buy a new TV or a new car, he said. It has all the bells and whistles, and you ooh and ahh, and then you never use them.

The only extra he really cared about was some kind of common room, where he could hold gatherings and birthday parties (when those sorts of things still happened).

I do have friends and family who thought I was crazy, because the Wellington was beautiful, Mr. Rubenfeld said. But I was ready to move on.

Among his options:
LONDON  The British government, after failing to heed early warnings that domestic abuse would soar during the coronavirus lockdown, is still struggling to adequately respond more than four months later. For victims trapped with their abusers, the consequences have been catastrophic.

During the first month after the lockdown began in late March, sixteen women and girls were killed in suspected domestic homicides  more than triple the number from the same period in 2019. At least 10 more have died in the two months since then. The oldest of them was 82 years old. The youngest, killed alongside her mother and 4-year-old sister, was 2.

Distress calls to abuse hotlines are soaring. Charities are overwhelmed, while some emergency housing providers cannot meet demand. An already overstretched court system is suffering lengthy delays and has allowed some abusers to return home, despite restraining orders.

By contrast, New Zealand included domestic abuse preparations in its broader lockdown planning from the start. Italy, Spain and other countries set up nationwide programs to house abuse victims in hotels if existing shelters were full. Germany made an open-ended pledge to fund shelters and other crucial services.

Britain did none of this. Interviews with more than 50 government and law enforcement officials, academic experts, front-line support workers and abuse survivors show that British leaders never prioritized domestic abuse in lockdown planning and are still failing to quickly provide help. Early in the lockdown, the government promised 37 million pounds, or about $46 million, in emergency funds for domestic abuse charities, but as yet only 1 million has reached front-line organizations.

The National Oversight Group on Domestic Abuse  a cross-party advisory group set up under former Prime Minister Theresa May  has not convened once during the pandemic. The governments overall pandemic plan, published on March 3, includes no mention of domestic abuse.

The government did not commission its first strategic action plan for addressing domestic abuse until late May  two months after lockdown commenced  and the resulting report found that violence against women and girls was still not being factored into the highest levels of the pandemic response.

There is no defined government strategy at all, said Jess Phillips, a Labour lawmaker who speaks for the opposition on domestic violence policy. Some services have got no funding to keep going.

The government contests that. Victoria Atkins, the minister in charge of the governments response to domestic violence, said in a statement that the officials had provided financial support, communicated regularly with charities and was committed to supporting victims and bringing perpetrators to account.

The list of 26 women and girls believed to have been killed by male partners or relatives during the lockdown was originally compiled by the Counting Dead Women Project, a group of researchers who have testified before Parliament about homicides of women. The New York Times corroborated the number through police and court records, open-source research, press reports and interviews.

Counting Dead Women only tracks killings of women and girls by men. It does not include transgender victims, meaning the true total is very likely higher. The Times also identified eight cases in which a man was suspected to have been killed by a partner or relative during lockdown.

Birmingham, England Died March 23 Najeeba was found dead at her home in Birmingham. A post-mortem found that she died from pressure to her neck. A 49-year old man has been charged in what police called a domestic murder. Cambridgeshire, England Died March 25 Elsie was a mother to one son, and neighbors described her as lovely and friendly. She was stabbed to death by her husband, who then took his own life. Cwmbran, Wales Died March 28 Ruth had worked in the local supermarket for years and was well known in the community. Her husband has been charged with her murder. Worcestershire, England Last seen March 29 Zobaidah disappeared from her home after telling her family she was going for a jog. Her husband has been charged with her murder. Barnsley, north of England Died March 29 Victoria was a health care worker at a large hospital in the north of England where she was described as a cherished and much-loved colleague. Victorias husband was charged with her murder after she was found stabbed to death. Woodmancote, south of England Died March 29 Kelly was a doting mother to Ava and Lexi before they were killed in a murder-suicide by her partner. Two days before her partner shot her and their daughters, Kelly posted photographs on Facebook from a sunny walk through the countryside with her family.

Domestic abuse is usually an ongoing, deliberate campaign of psychological and physical violence designed to satisfy the abusers desire for control, experts say. Abusers who experience a sudden increase in stress often compensate by escalating their attacks in order to regain a sense of power and agency.

For many abuse survivors, the lockdown has meant living in terror.

On March 24, the day after lockdown began, one woman, M.V., said she was tiptoeing back into her house after work when her husband became enraged. Her husband had forbidden her from leaving the house, claiming that she would bring the virus back with her.

He was screaming that I had disobeyed, she said. (For safety reasons, The Times is not using the full names of any abuse survivors interviewed for this article. Each account was corroborated by the womens case workers. One victim provided court documents, while another provided photographs of injuries and messages contemporaneous with the abuse.)

She said she locked herself in the bathroom, but her husband crashed through the door, then punched her and spat on her face, until she managed to break free and flee to a bedroom and lock the door.

I was so scared, she said, but I didnt know what to do.

Early Warning Signs

By the second week of March, a lockdown seemed inevitable in Britain, but the authorities appeared to discount any risks of rising domestic abuse. The Home Office, which oversees the governments domestic abuse strategy, said in a statement released on March 13 that existing sources of advice and support would be available to those who experienced abuse but mentioned no plans to supplement or reinforce those services.

Behind the scenes, Erika Fraser, a government adviser for the Department of International Development, was worried. On March 16, she presented a report documenting how domestic abuse had risen sharply in countries that had already locked down, while warning that support services would struggle under the increased strain, leaving vulnerable women in danger.

The Houses of Parliament, seen from the south bank of the Thames. Despite early warnings, the government failed to act to protect abuse victims in lockdown. Andrew Testa for The New York Times

In China, police reports show domestic violence has tripled during the epidemic, Dr. Fraser wrote in her report. Organizations have observed increased household tension and domestic violence due to forced coexistence, economic stress, and fears about the virus.

The report was circulated within the highest levels of government and landed on the desk of Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner  a new watchdog and advocacy role.

Alarmed, Ms. Jacobs convened a weekly conference call of charity leaders and government and police officials to better understand what was happening on the ground and rally lawmakers to provide urgently needed support.

But empathy in Westminster did not translate into urgent action.

Britains lockdown began March 23, but Ms. Jacobss calls for immediate and straightforward emergency funding were largely ignored. So was a suggestion of using hotel rooms as temporary abuse shelters  a service that was provided for homeless people.

Meanwhile, 296 beds in domestic abuse shelters have remained closed for weeks because of coronavirus concerns, awaiting emergency government funding to enable them to reopen, the Home Office acknowledged.

Why could the government not provide accommodation in the way they have for rough sleepers? Pragna Patel, chief executive of the London charity Southall Black Sisters, asked, referring to the program for homeless people. Why have they taken two months or more to make money available for abused women?

Buckling Services

When the pandemic hit, front-line services were already under pressure from years of austerity. Private charities, which play a leading role in providing help, had lost funding. Shelters had been forced to close. Budget cuts left police departments struggling. By 2019, domestic homicides had reached a five-year high, the BBC found.

Were shouldering the responsibility of protecting vulnerable people, Ms. Patel said, while the government has washed their hands.

Once in lockdown, service providers raced to meet rising demands for help, even as victims could no longer visit in person.

The house in Barrington, England, where Elsie Smith, 71, was stabbed to death by her husband. Mary Turner for The New York Times

We had to restructure everything, said Gabriela Quevedo of Latin American Womens Aid. The phone lines, the rota of caseworkers, making sure that they spoke Spanish and Portuguese on every shift.

Even Britains national domestic abuse hotline was imperiled. The Home Office partly funds the hotline, but it is operated by the staff of Refuge, a charity. During lockdown, Refuges finance director drove to electronics stores across London to buy laptops and phones, then rushed to distribute them to staff members homes.

In Yorkshire, in northern England, the Anah Project, a small charity, had only two laptops and cellphones available for 10 employees to use at home  and no cash on hand to buy new equipment. A local donor paid for phones, but the organization still needs eight laptops.

Nearly three weeks into lockdown, the government announced that domestic abuse services would be able to bid for additional funding. But ministers did not finalize critical details, including the complex system to bid for grants, for almost a month after that.

The pot allocated was 37 million, or barely half the 65 million that domestic abuse services calculated was needed to keep services running during the pandemic. And even today, only 1 million of that emergency funding is known to have reached front-line services, the government admitted.

Hemel Hempstead, east of England Died March 29 Caroline worked at the local supermarket, and Katie worked with animals. Carolines husband is reported to have shot them before killing himself and setting fire to the family home. Larne, Northern Ireland Died March 30 Elizabeth was found dead in the home she shared with her 32-year-old grandson in Larne. Edmonton, London Died April 6 Maryan was killed by her husband after she asked him to move out because he had the coronavirus, a court heard. He has been charged with her murder. Lincolnshire, England Died April 8 Daniela worked in a nursing home and was a mother to a young son and daughter. Danielas boyfriend has been charged with manslaughter. Bognor Regis, south of England Discovered April 11 Ruth was a well known, loved and respected part of her local community, her family said. A 47-year-old man has been charged with her murder  their relationship is unconfirmed. Brent, London Died April 16 Denises husband has been charged with killing her in an arson attack at her home in northwest London, and planting covert video cameras to spy on her and spread a sexual image on social media. Belfast, Northern Ireland Died April 22 Emma was stabbed to death at her home in Belfast. Her son has been charged with her murder. She also leaves behind a daughter.

Disorder in the Courts

For many people who experience domestic abuse, protection has often come from the courts. Lockdown made that more difficult.

Lynn said her alcoholic partner had bullied and controlled her for years, but that during lockdown he just spiraled out of control. She said she began sleeping with a chest of drawers against her bedroom door after he threatened to kill her.

In late May, a court order against her partner offered hope of a reprieve, except it does not bar him from having contact with her. Lynn described it as useless.

Lynn has been trapped at home with her partner, who she says has become increasingly abusive over lockdown. Mary Turner for The New York Times

Domestic Violence Protection Orders go further by immediately removing perpetrators from the home for up to 28 days. They are critical emergency legal protections for abuse victims, but The Times uncovered multiple instances in which courts were reluctant to enforce protection orders because of coronavirus-related concerns.

One judge granted the orders but allowed abusers to return home because he did not want to leave the men homeless during lockdown. The police eventually intervened and created a system for housing perpetrators who had nowhere else to go.

One woman was hospitalized after a judge allowed her abuser to return home after he said he had coronavirus symptoms, despite parole conditions barring him from the premises, according to two charities.

Lockdown has also created a backlog of hearings on issues like extending restraining orders or filing criminal charges against abusers still at home.

In every area, theres a difficulty for people coming into courts, said Ms. Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner. Criminal cases, arrests, charges are whats being delayed.

Nowhere to Go

In late April, Hajrah said, she attempted suicide by taking an overdose of painkillers after enduring severe emotional and physical abuse from her father during lockdown. When her father and brother found her unconscious, she said, they did nothing. She got help only because a friend alerted the police.

Hajrah attempted suicide after enduring severe emotional and physical abuse from her father. Mary Turner for The New York Times

After recovering, she said, she faced a new dilemma: The lockdown meant that no landlords were accepting new tenants. She could not go home. Her only option was to find a spot in a womens shelter. But by then, shelters in most parts of the country were full.

But Hajrah had help that many others did not. Her area was served by Independent Domestic Abuse Services, a well-funded charity that used Airbnb properties, vacant apartments and empty hotel rooms to provide emergency shelter for abuse victims during lockdown.

Nationally, by contrast, the British government has offered no such assistance. Figures from Womens Aid federations nationwide show that the number of available places dropped by nearly half during the first seven weeks of lockdown.

Even in normal times, the system can be disruptive; survivors are often asked to move hundreds of miles from family and support networks  impossible for many to manage  to secure an available bed. Because of travel restrictions, the system has been almost unworkable under lockdown.

Experts believe that many people who were unable to leave abusive partners will try to escape once lockdown is lifted. This will create a surge in demand for services, including more pressure on overwhelmed courts and shelters. Britains looming coronavirus-related recession will bring additional strain.

Barham, east of England Died May 3 Silke, a German-born solicitor, spoke three languages and was a mother to twin boys. Silkes husband has been charged with her murder. Dorset, southwest England Died May 10 Claire was a wonderful, caring nurse and a mother to a young family. She was strangled to death in a parking lot. A Dorset police officer said to be in a relationship with Claire has been charged with her murder. Manchester, northwest England Died May 20 Melissa was an outgoing and always smiling beautician. Her teenage daughter witnessed her being stabbed at their home near Wigan. Melissas former partner has been charged with her murder. Manchester, northwest England Found May 25 Yvonne was a grandmother and mother of four who was louder than life, her family said. Police have charged a man, reported to be Yvonnes husband, with murder. Salisbury, southwest England Died June 1 Aneta was working at a nursing home before her murder. Relatives plan to use funds raised through Facebook to educate Aneta's surviving daughters. Police have charged Anetas husband with the murder of his wife and daughter. Doncaster, South Yorkshire Died June 5 Amy worked in the army (where she was nicknamed Stringy) and had completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan. She was a mother to a five-year-old daughter. A 45-year-old man, reported to be Amys boyfriend, has been charged with her murder. Norwich, England Died June 19 Gemma was a mother to three young children. She was found stabbed to death at a derelict mental health hospital in Norwich. Her husband has been charged with her murder.

Domestic violence increases during times of economic stress and unemployment, Dr. Fraser said in an email.

Many charity directors are now imploring the government to finally address the issue in a comprehensive way.

The government knew that there was a problem, knew that it had to do something, said Yasmin Rehman, the chief executive of Juno Womens Aid, a charity based in Nottingham, England. It cant just be short-term, quick fixes.
The United Way of Lee, Hendry, Glades, and Okeechobee has concluded the 2019-2020 campaign, and exceeded the campaign goal of $10,783,563. This is the 27th consecutive year that the goal has been met or exceeded.

Campaign Chair Roger Desjarlais made the announcement that local residents and companies contributed a record amount, $10,785,325 to the campaign which is a 3.3% increase. The theme of the 2019-2020 United Way Campaign was One Way, United Way.

The announcement was made at the June 12 annual meeting of the United Way Board of Directors at United Way headquarters. The meeting was a hybrid Zoom/In Person meeting in order to comply with CDC regulations. Desjarlais announced via Zoom that the goal was exceeded this year: The United Way of Lee, Hendry, Glades and Okeechobee met its fundraising goal of over $10.7 million in spite of an economy devastated by COVID-19. It is stunning and speaks volumes about the generosity of our community.

Making the goal means United Way Partner agencies will receive their share of funding for the coming year. Long standing United Way Partners like Harry Chapin Food Bank, Community Cooperative, Abuse Counseling and Treatment and Childrens Advocacy Center will be able to continue their vital programs because of the support provided to United Way by the community in surpassing our goal. Because of the generosity of Southwest Florida, hungry families will receive food, veterans will find support through Mission United, abused children will find safety and shelter, older persons can find assistance to remain in their own homes, and thousands of lower income families can get their taxes done free through Volunteer Income Tax Assistance.

Robert Shearman, newly appointed Board of Directors chairman, added, All funds raised by our United Way stay here in our community, and our United Way keeps administrative and fundraising cost extremely low, investing over 92% of the money raised into local agencies and programs. Our United Way has been named a Four-Star Charity, the top rating on Charity Navigator for the past 9 years. Charity Navigator is one of the most utilized evaluators of charities used to guide intelligent giving.

The top local contributing companies and the top communities are as follows:

Top United Way Contributors

$ 1 million+ Circle of Excellence: Publix and Bonita Bay Community

$500,000+ Circle of Excellence: Bonita Bay Group and Islands of Sanibel & Captiva

$200,000+ Circle of Excellence: Chicos FAS, ENTERPRISE Rent-A-Car, FineMark National Bank & Trust, LCEC, Lee Health and Pelican Landing

$100,000+ Circle of Excellence: Fiddlesticks, Grandezza, Gulf Harbour, Lee Board of Count Commissioners, Lee County School District, McGriff Insurance Services, Mediterra, The Brooks and Zachry Group

All money raised in the United Way Campaign stays in the local community to help support the local human service network. United Way partner agencies and initiatives like Alvin A. Dubin Alzheimers Resource Center, Child Care of Southwest Florida, The Salvation Army, Bonita Springs Assistance, Lighthouse of Southwest Florida, Mission United, and United Way 211 serve a diverse range of needs in our community such as nurturing children and youth, strengthening families, and meeting critical needs such as helping the elderly and disabled live independently, and empowering communities by bringing health and human services to neighborhoods.

In addition to raising funds for human service organizations in our community, the United Way promotes partnerships and collaborations among agencies and initiatives, helping them to work together focusing on issues and solutions that continue to improve lives.

The United Way of Lee, Hendry, Glades, and Okeechobee has raised and distributed over $188 million since it was established in 1957. For more information please call United Way at (239) 433-2000 or visit www.UnitedWayLee.org.
An Auburn man is facing child pornography charges after police say they found pornographic images in his possession.

Kaegan Joseph Meagher, 22, was arrested Tuesday and charged with two counts of possession of child pornography, Auburn police said Thursday.

The arrest is the result of an investigation by the Auburn Police Division and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

Police received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and ALEA on June 25 that an Auburn resident, later identified as Meagher, was possibly in possession of images of child pornography, authorities said.

Meagher was then developed as a suspect and subsequently charged and arrested.

The pornographic images were of non-local children, police said.

The investigation is ongoing, and more charges are possible.

Meagher was taken to the Lee County Jail and held on a $20,000 bond.

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There are many necessities the pandemic has caused people to gather, but face masks seem to remain the most coveted.

While masks have become a wardrobe staple for everyone in battling the spread of COVID-19, medical professionals are among those who need them most. Seeing that need for masks, Mark Green and a handful of volunteers at First Baptist Church of Atlanta began making and donating them.

We started out with the idea of only wearing 50 masks and we can honestly say its been a blessing thus far, and we have made over 2,000 masks as of today, he said.

They began the project more than two months ago with the intention of making 50 masks with Bible verses printed on them to donate to the Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga.

Green said the Albany area has been hit the hardest in the state by the pandemic.

The response has been overwhelming, he said. We only started with 50, but now were getting people contacting us from as far as Seattle, Detroit, Washington, New York; and of course weve been successful in delivering masks to just about all the hospitals in the state of Georgia.

Green said it takes his volunteers 30 to 45 minutes to make one mask, and theyre reusable.
Masks will be mandatory at all Opelika City Schools facilities when students, staff and faculty return to school in August.

Superintendent Mark Neighbors issued the following statement Thursday afternoon:

"In assessing the current circumstances regarding COVID-19 in Lee County and in planning for the upcoming school year, we have been monitoring and reviewing data from our local medical professionals to determine best practices to start school in August. In addition to providing a safe and clean environment for our students, our priority is to have face to face instruction as long as possible in order to best serve our students. Therefore, we believe that all persons should wear face coverings while on campus.

"Beginning with back-to school-activities involving students and teachers, the Opelika City Schools will require all persons on campus to wear appropriate face coverings when social distancing is not feasible. OCS will provide students reusable face coverings at the beginning of the school year - as long as the supply chain is not disrupted and we are able to purchase them. We will have additional disposable masks for emergencies.
In what can easily be regarded as a top contender for the 2020 Darwin Awards, Alabama students are allegedly throwing Covid-19 parties as part of a stupid game to intentionally infect each other with a disease that has so far killed hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone.

Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry was the first to blow the whistle on this potentially deadly game that students in Alabama have been playing. She claims that organizers of so-called Covid-19 parties are intentionally inviting people infected with the disease to see who catches it from them first. As crazy and unfathomable as that sounds, this shocking behavior has been confirmed by the Chief of the Tuscaloosa Fire Department, who told the City Council that such parties had been held for weeks.

Photo: Marvin Meyer/Unsplash

We thought that was kind of a rumor at first, Fire Chief Randy Smith told the council members. We did some research. Not only do the doctors offices confirm it but the state confirmed they also had the same information.

Sonya McKinstry said that she had recently learned of these parties and immediately informed the local council about them. Apparently, students who willingly attend these dangerous events, put money in a pot and they try to get COVID; whoever gets COVID first gets the pot.

It makes no sense, theyre intentionally doing it, McKinstry said. But I think when youre dealing with the mind frame of people who are intentionally doing stuff like that and theyre spreading it intentionally, how can you truly fight something that people are constantly trying to promote?



The Tuscaloosa City Councilor has expressed concern that people may attend Covid-19 parties not knowing their intent and be exposed to infected guests. So far it is unclear if coronavirus-infected students managed to infect anyone at the parties they attended, but since that is the point of them being there, I would say the probability of that is pretty high.

Were trying to break up any parties that we know of, McKinstry told ABC News.
Yo Gotti

Berk Communications has signed musician, entrepreneur and activist Yo Gotti to its roster of athletes and personalities. As Gottis PR agency of record, Berk will work on his personal publicity, promoting his story to the public. In addition to releasing his own music, Gotti has collaborated with such artists as Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Megan thee Stallion, J. Cole, Meek Mill and DJ Khaled. He is also the CEO of music label imprint CMG, the owner of Prive Restaurant in Memphis, an investor in esports organization FaZe Clan and a criminal justice reform advocate.

William Mills Agency has added Charlotte, N.C.-based digital banking platform Finzly to its client roster. The agency is tasked with promoting Finzlys innovation and digital transformation in the areas of payments, online account opening, digital banking and international treasury management. Finzly says that it aims to free banks from their core and core-vendor limitations by creating an Appstore ecosystem that empowers banks to instantly and easily try new products and services. Finzly founder and CEO Booshan Rengachari says that the company is looking to WMA to reach a broader audience that has, to date, been largely underserved in this capacity.

Merlot Marketing has been named agency of record for privately-held real estate investment firm GPR Ventures. The agency will lead public relations efforts and provide marketing consultation in support of the firm's ventures and projects in the Greater Sacramento Region. Merlot Marketing will also publicize the companys projects through social media news releases, wire distributions and trend articles targeted to key Sacramento trade and business media. GPR Ventures' portfolio includes 59 industrial and office buildings, totaling over 1.8 million square feet, and an additional 26 acres of land. GPR Ventures co-founder and managing principal Phil Rolla said that the agencys deep experience in elevating the presence and authority of their clients on a local and national level was a key factor in its selection.
Ash Wright (left) and

Chasen Bullock

The Core Strategic Group (formerly FSB Core Strategies) has added office locations and staff in Austin, TX and Washington, D.C. Senior vice president Ash Wright will head up operations in Austin, while vice president Chasen Bullock will lead CSGs Washington, D.C. office. Both join the new offices from existing independent practices. The Austin and D.C. operations will primarily support CSG companies providing public affairs and election campaign services, while also marketing the full range of CSG company offerings to clients in their regions. The Core Strategic Group of companies includes BadFish Media, c3Public Strategies, Chariot Campaigns, The Core Management Company and FSB Public Affairs.

Waters Agency, a virtual technology public relations firm for B2B and B2C technology companies, has unveiled its new branding, global expansion and executive appointments. The rebranding from Waters Communications to Waters Agency includes a new logo and website, and is intended to highlight the firms ability to deliver strategic communications campaigns that combine public relations with analyst relations, content creation, social media, IPOs, executive communications and influencer marketing. To support its expansion, the agency has also added new leaders including Lauren Curley, based out of the Boston HQ, to the newly created position of chief operating officer and Ryan Waters as senior vice president for EMEA, based out of London.

Woodruff, a Kansas City, MO-based marketing and communications firm, has expanded its digital capabilities to offer progressive web application (PWA). A PWA is essentially an application that works in any web browser but offers the functionality normally associated with native applications, such as a home screen icon, fast load times, access to content when offline, push notifications, GPS locations and other device hardware access. Woodruff digital director Jenny Jones says PWAs help companies to ensure their digital properties are easy to access and as user-friendly as possible. The company has also used the technology to develop a web-based application for Compass Minerals that the companys sales team could use in the field, giving them access to up-to-date information on any device, even in locations without Wi-Fi.

News Direct, a content and news distribution platform that allows users to release standalone multimedia, has launched. The platform features a self-directed, collaborative workspace powered by AI-assisted advanced automation software. How news and information is disseminated and consumed today requires public relations professionals and journalists to create and deliver impactful multi-sensory stories. And this is what News Direct provides, said founder and CEO Gregg Castano. In addition to its multimedia capabilities, News Direct assists users with reimagining their workflow, bolstering security and producing actionable analytics. The company also operates using a flat-rate pricing model.
An Offaly graduate is one of the faces of a new national Women in STEM campaign.

Shauna Moran, a former pupil of the Sacred Heart School in Tullamore, graduated from DCU with a first-class honours degree in Software Engineering in 2019.

The Drumcullen native took up a role as a graduate computer software engineer at Datalex last July.

She is among a group pf women in STEM profiled in a campaign in print in the Irish Independent and on line at www.businessnews.ie.

In her profile, Shauna outlines how she has made the jump from a college graduate to part of the team at Datalex, a leading provider of airline retail solutions.

At college, youre used to knowing everything about your own project  but at work, you have to join a project thats been going on for years. It's much more about being part of a team, learning from the people around you and contributing to the overall team effort, she explained.

She also explains the difference between working in a small and large tech company.

In a lot of bigger companies, youll start by working in a defined role, she explains. In smaller to mid-sized companies, its more hands on. At Datalex, Ive moved around different projects and tried new things plus enhanced my skills. It's all part of the learning process. In this industry, learning never ends.

You can read the full interview and see the full campaign by clicking here
THE Kilbeggan Grand Canal cycle track link joining the Dublin/ Galway route to the Grand Canal at Ballycommon has received the green light with a 1 million funding grant getting full approval.

Renew Kilbeggan saw the opportunity for the link a number of years ago and through quiet persistence, working with Westmeath County Council, Offaly County Council, Waterways Ireland and the local community have finally realized their long held vision become a reality and are delighted to see the project underway, said the group's Chairman, Dan Scally..

Work on the Greenway link from Streamstown to Kilbeggan is already at an advanced stage and Mr Scally congratulated the very active Streamstown community on the renovation of the old railway office, carpark, and childrens play area.

While both county councils commenced work in the early spring, it had to be suspended due to the current Covid -19 crisis. It is expected that work will restart shortly with the objective of all work being completed by late autumn.

The dream to reopen Kilbeggan branch of the Grand Canal began in 1989 and is an ongoing objective. Much progress has happened since then, with the full restoration of the building from its dilapidated state, reinstatement of the Harbour basin, reopening of the Canal banks, restoration of bridges, culverts and overflows.

All this was achieved with the full the cooperation of the two councils, Waterways Ireland, SOLAS (previously known as FAS), LEADER, and most important the very generous support from the local community with all the various fund raising activities.

Said Mr Scally: An important milestone was reached in the last six years, working with legal and property section of Waterways Ireland having the boundaries marked out and assisting with identification of various and previous land owners along the route. This cleared the way for the approval of grant aid and the spending of public funds, thus giving the green light for the current cycle way.

When completed, the total estimated expenditure on the cycle link from Streamstown to Ballycommon, a total of 16 miles distance will be in the region of 1.5 million. This comes soon after the 1.7 million enhancement of Kilbeggan main street, giving a significant infrastructural boost to the town and the area.

The project is very much in line with the Government's long term vision 2040 that promotes environmental protection, better health outcomes, reduce carbon emission, better air quality, reduce traffic congestion and transport cost, said Mr Scally.

Linking together two major cycle routes as is the objective of this project, connects Kilbeggan and the area to a growing network of cycle ways throughout the country and interlinks with major long distance cycle routes across the continent.

Bord na Mona also plan to link Boora wildlife park and Mount Lucas wind farm (where they have already completed 20 km of cycle track) to the Grand Canal way and this will link with other major attractions in the midlands, like Dun Na Si in Moate, Kilbeggan Distillery, Athlone Castle, Belvedere House and probably other links to follow.

Other projects in the pipeline for Renew Kilbeggan are:

Upgrading the energy efficiency of Harbour building

Enhancing facilities along cycle routes like additional picnic areas, tree planting, signage of places of interest including history, folklore, poetry thus adding interest to the route.

Provision of a looped walk, fishing bays, parking along the beautiful Brosna river from the back of Kilbeggan Distillery to Coola Mill, back along the Grange Booreen and Comagh road to the town.

Put an online virtual history tour of the town and environs together with the book publication on the very historic St. Becans graveyard.
AIB branches in Offaly have come together to support six local charities and help provide direct funds to local community efforts.

200,000 has been made available to branches across the county (1,000 per branch) as part of AIB Together, the banks community investment programme.

The Offaly charities which received support from this fund in include; Birr Tidy Towns, Dochtas Offaly Cancer Support, Friends of Birr Nursing Home, Offaly Domestic Violence, Offaly Hospice and St Vincent De Paul.

Speaking about the donations, Ann Marie Freyne, Head of AIB Kildare, Laois and Offaly said: AIBs charity initiative has made a difference for many local charities in Kildare, Laois and Offaly and some national charities where the benefit is even more far-reaching such as Jack & Jill, Pieta House and St Vincent de Paul.

"Our Branch staff know how challenging it has been for charities to raise money during Covid times so they thought long and hard about how they could make a positive impact in their own community supporting domestic abuse support services, meals on wheels, homelessness and support for children with special needs. The gratitude and good-will we received was heart-warming and we will continue in our endeavours to raise much-needed funds over the course of the year ahead and contribute to our communities as best we can.

Separately, AIB has also launched a fundraising initiative to further support communities impacted by the Covid-19 crisis. As part of the AIB Together programme, partnering with AIBs long-standing Community partners FoodCloud and Soar, in addition to Alone & Pieta House, staff can fundraise or donate directly into a dedicated AIB Together Fund. AIB will then match the fund for final disbursement to the chosen charity.

AIB has set itself a target of raising 1million from colleagues which will be matched by 1million from the business  creating an overall ambition of giving 2million to communities most in need right now. Over 337,000 has been raised so far, including the matched funding.

The bank has also recently made a donation of 2.4million to help with the research for a Covid-19 vaccine in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin, as well as entering a partnership with Trinity to ensure that 450 laptop devices were delivered to second level students who were unable to attend school due to the Covid-19 crisis. The Tech2Students initiative was begun by Trinitys Access Programme in association with the charity Camara Education Ireland.

Founded in 2018, AIB Together provides a platform for staff to support charities and causes across Ireland. Each AIB employee is entitled to two volunteering days per year to support their chosen cause as part of the programme and can volunteer or fundraise for a charity of their choice or one of our core community partners
THE Supreme Court decision which could end Bord na Mona's plans to resume peat production also threatens turf cutting for domestic use, according to environmental lobby group An Taisce.

The Supreme Court yesterday struck down the substitute consent planning process, saying it breaches the EU Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) directive.

Bord na Mona has suspended peat harvesting while it awaits a decision on its application to restart cutting through the substitute consent route.

Ian Lumley, head of advocacy with An Taisce, said on Wednesday that the Supreme Court judgment has major implications for Bord na Mona's application to harvest peat on 41 different sites.

And speaking to the Tullamore Tribune today (Thursday, July 2), Mr Lumley said the court ruling could go much further.

The Supreme Court decision was only on the EIA issue but there is the completely parallel issue under the Appropriate Assessment process. That's a completely separate legal process which applies independently but may overlap with that of the EIA process, he said.

We wrote to the Department yesterday pointing this out. Even before the Supreme Court judgment we've been raising this, so that clearly is going to be a major issue now.

We've been basically evading regulation of all classes of peat cutting for the last 30 years. The EIA directive came into place in 1990 and the Habitats directive came into place shortly afterwards.

We've been just trying to get away with it. It's a cute hoor kind of thing, 'let's try and get away with it for as long as we can' sort of attitude. Then you're caught with your pants down.

He said peat cutting by contractors will now come under renewed scrutiny.

Some of the so-called domestic turfcutting is carried on over quite a large area, he said.

It's not a bit of quaint 19th century handcutting, it is quite large scale. Although the sites may be under the threshold for EIA they could be in proximity to a stream draining into a lake and causing pollution.

According to Central Statistics figures from 2016, 38% of households with central heating in Offaly were using peat fuel.

This was the highest rate of turf use for homeheating in the country. Next highest was Roscommon, at 26.6%.

Longford was 20.8%, Westmeath 19.6% and Laois 16.1%.
Olean, NY (14760)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 51F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 51F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Shea, who sat in a booth, brought Kerrie Frisbie along for her first meal at the Dell. Frisbie, from Council Bluffs, said she was glad to be able to dine there before the closure.

The pandemic is taking its toll on the citys dining scene, especially local staples, Shea said.

I wish people didnt have so much fear about coming to bars and restaurants, he said. Something as iconic as the Dundee Dell is closing. It makes you sad their regular crowd isnt here.

More customers thanked the Dell staff and shared memories on social media.

It was always one of Omahas truly great spots, one commenter said.

Others shared some of their favorite memories of the bar and grill.

One said the Dell was a place they knew they could visit for an escape. Another patron said she had been planning a trip back to Nebraska to have the fish and chips again.

The Dell will have several specials over the coming few weeks as part of its farewell.
Omaha-area hospitals reported Wednesday that 79% of hospital beds were occupied and 91 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized, with plenty of ventilators to spare.

Previous hot spots like Grand Island are cooling off, too.

On April 21, during the peak of the coronavirus surge there, St. Francis was caring for 43 patients with COVID-19, and its intensive care unit was filling up, said Dr. Scott Frankforter, the hospitals chief medical officer.

This week, the number of COVID-19 patients there was down to three.

Nebraskans did a good job complying with recommendations to stay home during the start of the pandemic, Anthone said.

They were never told they had to do certain things, but they did, he said. That compliance with health guidelines, he said, needs to continue: We need to do the social distancing, we need to wear the masks in public.
"A kid comes over to see Spider-Man, and the parent has an opportunity to say, 'Oh, look, heroes wear masks. You're wearing a mask. You're a hero. You're just like Spider-Man. That's pretty cool, right?'" Brandenburg said. "So if you're 5, and you're getting that reinforcement from something that you thought was neat on the street, that's the goal: indoctrinating little kids."

Ruby remembers seeing a young neighborhood boy learning to ride a bike. As his mom was teaching him how to pedal, he pointed to the Brandenburgs' artwork.

"He was like, 'Oh, my God, it's Black Panther!'" Ruby recalled.

One morning, Brandenburg woke to a text from another neighbor. Linked to the text was an article from The Times. The lead photo showed a woman wearing a mask while walking two golden retrievers on the sidewalk and heading toward the Brandenburgs' Spider-Man artwork.

Brandenburg was equally shocked and proud.

"The sort of unrelenting creative energy that I've been feeling during coronavirus, I don't know where that came from," he said. "It was just all on our street and just for our little neighborhood. It never occurred to me that anybody would really care."
Testimony at trial established that Sanchez-Delgado took money from the undocumented workers paychecks, shorted them on the hours they worked, and kept their income tax withholdings and Social Security and Medicare withholdings from their paychecks for himself instead of paying it to state and federal taxing authorities.

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations seized more than $138,000 in illegal proceeds from Sanchez-Delgados bank accounts, concealed in the names of one or more of his co-conspirators. The U.S. Attorneys Office obtained forfeiture of Sanchez-Delgados Las Vegas residences with a combined gross value of approximately $1.7 million.

Gerrard indicated at earlier sentencing hearings that he also intends to award the undocumented workers restitution for the wages that Sanchez-Delgado defrauded them of during the conspiracy. This final order of restitution will be entered at a future date.

Gerrard described the conspiracy as one of the most egregious financial crimes, that he had observed. He previously sentenced Sanchez-Delgado to the maximum allowable time by statute, 10 years in federal prison and a $150,000 fine. The fine was in addition to the assets and cash that Sanchez-Delgado was ordered to forfeit to the United States.
MADISON  After 47 years on the Catholic Herald staff, including 34 years as editor, Mary C. Uhler will be retiring as of July 6.

Uhler joined the Catholic Herald staff in 1973 in the role of the gal Friday, a position that later became known as the administrative assistant.

Shortly thereafter, Uhler was promoted to news editor.

In 1986, she was named editor of the newspaper by Bishop Cletus F. ODonnell of Madison following the retirement of Msgr. Andrew Breines, the Catholic Heralds first editor.

Since that time, the Catholic Herald has won numerous awards for journalistic excellence from the Catholic Press Association and other organizations.

Uhler, herself, has won dozens of awards for her own work. In 2000, she was given the Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, a papal award given to laypeople for their service to the Church.

Comments on Uhlers retirement

Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison had the following to say about Uhlers retirement.

Mary has been a remarkable servant of the Church her entire life and has dedicated her talents, energies, love, and faith to the Truth of Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel through her professional expertise as a journalist. We thank her profoundly as she retires and pray that God give her the reward of her goodness!

Upon learning of Uhlers retirement, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York sent her a brief message saying, Say it aint so! Congratulations on your retirement. Thank you for all your efforts in Catholic journalism.

Cardinal Dolan served as the Archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009, which is home to the Wisconsin Catholic Media Apostolate that owns and publishes the Madison Catholic Herald, along with the newspapers in Superior and Milwaukee.

Diocese of Madison Vicar General Msgr. James Bartylla said, In working with Mary Uhler and the excellent Madison Catholic Herald staff, Ive always been impressed by the quality of our diocesan newspaper. I would be hard pressed to be able to articulate a better diocesan newspaper in the United States. Were so grateful for Marys service, but even more importantly, for her fidelity to the Church and witness to the faith. I pray she enjoys her well-deserved retirement with her family, and well miss her.

Msgr. Ken Fiedler, pastor of Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Madison, where Uhler and her husband John are members, said, I am proud to congratulate Mary for all her dedicated work. Her excellent journalism and so many awards reflect her strong faith. Her extraordinary memory will certainly be missed by all at Holy Name Heights. Congratulations, Mary. You deserve to spend more quality time with your family and friends. I pray you also stay in good health.

Longtime Catholic Herald Associate Editor Pam Payne, who herself retired earlier this year, said, Delivering a quality Catholic diocesan newspaper with international, national, and local diocesan news into Catholic homes in the Diocese of Madison was one of Marys goals as editor, and she achieved that weekly. I was proud to be part of the Catholic Herald team that helped her achieve that goal.

Catholic Herald Advertising Consultant Steve Hefty, who has been on staff for 20 years, said, Its been an honor to spend the last 20 years of Marys 47 years with the Catholic Herald newspaper. Mary has led the award winning newspaper through some huge events in the Church and world over the course of her time with the paper. When looking back, the years seemed to fly by so quickly. I wish Mary good health, and a chance to live out some of her dreams that she will have time for now.

New editor

Current Catholic Herald Assistant Editor Kevin Wondrash will take over for Uhler as interim editor.

Wondrash, 36, joined the Catholic Herald staff in 2013 as a reporter and was promoted to assistant editor earlier this year.

He has won Catholic Press Awards for his writing, including Best Personality Profile for Fighting for the Forgotten about the efforts of Hoseas Heart in Swaziland; and Best Newswriting, Local or Regional Event, for his coverage on the 2018 Chicago March for Life.

Prior to working at the Catholic Herald, Wondrash worked in local television news as a producer, photographer, and reporter at stations in Eau Claire and Madison.

A native of Two Rivers, Wondrash graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006 majoring in journalism and communication arts. During his time at the UW, he served as the news director at WSUM 91.7 FM, Madison Student Radio, among other on-air roles.

He is a member of St. Maria Goretti Parish in Madison.
Hailey, a physical therapist who lives in Hastings, said her wedding plans had already been disrupted several times because of the coronavirus pandemic. Theyd planned an outdoor wedding on family-owned pastureland near the lake but the guest list had shrunk by more than half. Then guidelines loosened and they found out a few weeks ago that they could have a dance and dinner.

We threw together a last-minute reception at the lake, Hailey said. I hadnt slept in weeks and dont think my mom did either.

Although she was the one who took charge at the scene, Damrow said daughter Sadie actually had a harder time with what happened. She had narrowly avoided being part of the accident and after helping had to rush home and get three kids under age 6 dressed and off to the wedding, where she acted as the matron of honor.

Damrow showed up, not a hair out of place, and told Hailey, Im sorry Im late. I had to save a life.

Hailey, one of three girls, all in the medical field, drafted her mom to walk her down the aisle because her father, Marty, died of cancer nine years ago. After years of telling him that she had just one more IV or baby delivery to do before coming home, Damrow said he would have understood why she stopped, too.
The Air Force has awarded a $144 million contract to a California firm to begin a total reconstruction of Offutt Air Force Bases 79-year-old runway, the 55th Wing announced in a press release Thursday.

The building and design firm Gilbane Federal of Concord, California, won the contract. The company built the National World War II Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., according to the companys website, as well as buildings on U.S. military bases around the world.

The project will be the most extensive rebuilding of the Offutt runway since it was first constructed in 1941 and extended to its current length in the mid-1950s. Contractors will completely rebuild the concrete end sections, asphalt center section and asphalt shoulders, as well as install new lighting systems, the press release said.

The runway is more than 70 years old and has fallen into disrepair, said Col. David Norton, director of the Air Force Civil Engineer Centers facility engineering directorate, which will help oversee the project, in the press release. We have incorporated modern design and construction techniques to rebuild the runway and to ensure the longest lifespan at the overall lowest life cycle cost.
Because there was no attempt at genuine bipartisan consensus on a number of issues, I voted against the overall bill, but there are a number of good aspects to it, Fortenberry said.

Shore said theres still a lack of public understanding about the risks of keyless ignitions.

My parents never knew this was an issue, Shore said. When anyone goes to search a vehicle this doesnt ever pop up.

She said its frustrating to see car manuals that dont mention the issue, and she doesnt believe her parents would have purchased the car if they had been aware of the potential risk involved with keyless ignitions.

Some auto manufacturers have moved on their own to install automatic shut-off functions, but others have not. And the industry generally has questioned the need for government regulation rather than simply increasing public awareness.

The infrastructure bill now goes to the Senate where it almost certainly wont pass as written. But the keyless ignition portion could pass in some other form.
An intermediate option, if the disease spreads moderately, would be dividing students into A and B groups that would alternate attendance days. According to Superintendent Mark Adler, that could involve attending three days one week and two days the next.

If conditions required it, the district also could go fully remote, with students at home.

Gretna schools will stick to their calendar date of Aug. 13 for opening.

We know the best educational option for all our students is to be in our schools with our teachers, Gretna Superintendent Rich Beran wrote to families.

Beran said, however, that it wont be a return to normal.

For example, he said, parents will be asked to screen their students for temperature and other symptoms such as sneezing, coughing, sore throat and not feeling well.

Building cleaning will be stepped up, with increased frequency of hand-washing and sanitizing, he said.

He said Gretna will ask students to follow current health recommendations to wear a mask when they cannot social distance.
Waterman also said that it is early in the investigation and that new information may yet be discovered.

In interviews with law enforcement, Jourdan alleged that she suffered abuse from her husband. Waterman said both Jourdan and her husband may have been abusive.

This was not a happy marriage, Waterman said.

The couple and their two boys were moving to Scottsbluff so Kathleen Jourdan could continue her medical residency. She was a resident physician in the University of Nebraska Medical Centers Family Medicine Residency Program. UNMC officials have placed her on administrative leave pending internal and criminal investigations.

According to what Kathleen Jourdan told authorities, she and her husband began arguing as he was driving on I-80 near Cozad. He called a friend from Georgia to serve as a mediator, and both spoke with the friend as Josh drove.

Josh then pulled over to the side of the Interstate, gave Kathleen a look and raised his arm at her like he was going to strike her, according to an affidavit.

Kathleen, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, grabbed a handgun from the center console, removed it from its holster, pointed it at Josh and fired twice at his chest, the affidavit states.
Those obelisks, Schissel said, will include a brief summary of the wars events for each year and a listing of Nebraskans who died in Vietnam that year. A separate obelisk will honor the service of women veterans.

The plaza also will feature monuments to each of the service branches. And the committee has obtained a surplus Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey helicopter, which will be displayed as part of an exhibit.

We not only wanted it as a legacy to the Vietnam veterans, but as a way to teach future generations about the Vietnam War and the sacrifices made by these veterans, Schissel said.

Through a partnership with Bellevue University, the committee plans to develop a classroom curriculum to help schools in the state teach about the war.

Schissel said the committee considered sites in different parts of the state, particularly along the Interstate 80 corridor, and in the Omaha and Lincoln areas. But he said sites in the major cities were too expensive, and committee members feared that travelers would not stop along I-80 as they zip through the state at 75 or 80 mph.

Then they connected with Black, the Papillion mayor, who was enthusiastic about finding a site for the memorial in his city.
The Torrington Volunteer Fire Department is investigating an explosion at its department Wednesday.

The explosion occurred around 8 p.m. in south Torrington, Wyoming. What soon became apparent: The fireworks for the Fourth of July fireworks show that were stored at the Torrington Volunteer Fire Department building at Pioneer Park exploded.

Many nearby residents could hear fireworks going off after the initial blast as smoke billowed off the building for quite sometime afterward.

Jeremy Wardell, firefighter and public information officer for the Torrington fire department, reported that one of the departments firefighters suffered a minor hand injury, but no one else was injured. The firefighter was treated at the Torrington hospital.

The explosion is reported to have occurred inside a trailer that was in the fire department building as firefighters loaded fiberglass shells for their fireworks. Ten firefighters were in the building at the time of the explosion.

Torrington is about 15 miles northwest of Lyman, Nebraska.
Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer of Norfolk joined Hilgers to talk about the rest of the session in a webinar sponsored by the Platte Institute, an Omaha-based think tank.

Scheer said he plans to focus the remaining days on bills previously named as priorities, especially measures aimed at revamping school aid to provide property tax relief, creating a new business tax incentive program and supporting a major initiative at the University of Nebraska.

He said he doesnt anticipate that the events of the past four months  including the coronavirus outbreak and the economic havoc it caused or the racial justice marches and renewed scrutiny of law enforcement  will have a big impact on legislation this year.

The deadline for bill introduction has passed and major new ideas would have to go through a public hearing before they could be amended into an existing bill.

In fairness to the general public, they have to have an opportunity to weigh in, Scheer said.

That means businesses hoping for legislation protecting them from coronavirus-related lawsuits probably will have to wait for next year, he said. Many of the proposals put forth at a pair of Judiciary Committee listening sessions on racial equity and policing will have to wait as well.
All lives matter. This is America, dont destroy it. Let justice work.

Paul Meyer, Omaha

Work together for change

The death of George Floyd and James Scurlock once again opened up the door of opportunity for us to change and transform our culture. It is another call challenging us to be who we say we are as citizens of the United States.

The call to change is a call to all of us, not just law enforcement. We do need to keep in mind that there are many wonderful people who serve as law enforcement. Yes, law enforcement does need to examine and change some of their practices and attitudes. And so do each one of us.

As a white person I have been enculturated into a life of privilege  white privilege. It is so deep in each of us of the white race that we may not even be aware. White privilege is an unearned advantage that we have over people of other races simply because we are white. It is important for us who are white to focus on how racism elevates white people. White privilege establishes that white people are the norm and others are inferior.
Magnolia, AR (71754)

Today

Mostly cloudy early followed by heavy thunderstorms this afternoon. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 86F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall possibly over one inch..

Tonight

Thunderstorms early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 64F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Dial M for Murder Jan. 15  31

Both the screenplay and the successful stage play on which the show was based were written by English playwright Frederick Knott. The play premiered in 1952 on BBC Television.

The show tells the story of Tony Wendice, who married his wife Margot for her money and now plans to murder her for the same reason. He arranges the perfect murder. He blackmails a scoundrel he used to know into strangling her for a fee of one thousand pounds, and arranges a brilliant alibi for himself. Unfortunately for Wendice, the murderer gets murdered and the victim survives.

Grease March 12-28

A classic musical story by Jim Jacos and Warren Cassey, Grease centers on Sandy Dumbrowski, the new girl in town, and Danny Zuko, the schools coolest greaser.

The two have a secret summertime romance  but when they get back to school, everything is different. Sandy attempts to navigate the tricky Rydell High School social waters and catch Dannys attention again, but he is concerned with maintaining his tough-guy reputation.

The Outsider May 7-23
Twenty-eight members of the Guard have been diagnosed with COVID-19, but not all of those cases are duty-related. No Guard members have been hospitalized.

Thirteen have tested positive while on duty, all but one after activation associated with law enforcement during recent civil unrest.

No one who was involved in Guard activities related to COVID-19 testing of Nebraskans at sites throughout the state or on duty at food banks has tested positive.

Camp Ashland is available for quarantine of Guard members if needed, Bohac noted.

The concerns expressed in the letter appear to be overstated, the general suggested.

Knowing soldiers, there always are some that dont want to comply, Bohac said. Sometimes, its up to the commanders and sergeants to get people back in line.

But sometimes its sergeants and officers who ignore the need to wear masks and practice social distancing, the letter writer stated.

I am a combat veteran who has served more than 15 years in the Nebraska National Guard and I am doing something I never thought I would have to do, the Guard member wrote.
Are you a current print subscriber? You qualify for online access to the Omak Chronicle. To receive your access, create a website account and then verify your print subscription or e-edition subscription with your subscriber number, which may be found on your bill or mailing label.
After 2nd Quarter Economic Carnage, the Quest for Philippine Recovery

Recently, the IMF downgraded most growth projections, due to weaker private consumption and elevated uncertainty in investment. Those are the twin engines of the Philippine economy. So, whats ahead for economic recovery?

As I wrote in a report 2 months ago (click here), the global economic outlook of the International Monetary Fund (April 2020) was too optimistic. Last week, the IMF downgraded most of its projections. Now global growth is projected at -4.9% in 2020, almost 2 percentage points below the previous forecast.

Consumption growth has been downgraded for most economies, due to the larger-than-anticipated disruption to domestic activity. Worse, investment is expected to remain subdued as firms defer capital expenditures amid elevated uncertainty.

If consumption growth has historically been central in the Philippines, while investment has fueled the countrys Build, Build, Build infrastructure drive, whats ahead for economic recovery?

Pandemic liabilities of consumption-led growth

In the Philippines, the impact of the great coronavirus contraction began already in the 1st quarter, when the economy shrank by 0.2% on year-on-year basis.

The effect was dramatic, even though the official number of cases was still relatively low (less than 2,100 versus more than 35,000 today) and nationwide quarantine began to dampen demand only toward the end of the quarter. With plunging international conditions, travel and tourism, retail and transportation took heavy hits.

For years, the conventional wisdom was that economic growth in the Philippines is fueled by consumption. In the West, observers saw the status quo as positive because it supported foreign exports into the country.

Nevertheless, for years, I have been warning that under adverse conditions consumption-reliant economy can prove a severe liability because, without a vibrant domestic manufacturing base, such growth keeps the country under dependency.

When international conditions are positive and global economy thrives, so will Philippine consumption and economy. Unfortunately, the reverse applies as well  and thats what we have seen in the course of the past few months.

In the 1st quarter, growth in household consumption, which accounts three-fourths of the GDP, fell flat. As the global economy has been frozen, Philippine business, investment and consumer confidence have been impaired as well.

But theres much worse to come.

1st quarter plunge only prelude to 2nd quarter carnage

As the global coronavirus contraction spread in the first half of the year, the plunge is reflected by the revised Philippine economic outlook.

The fall of both exports and imports was only to be expected following the rapid deterioration in external demand and the disruption of supply chains.

Obviously, months of lockdowns and quarantines around the world have reverberated adversely on the supply side as well. Economic growth has decelerated in all sectors. Growth in services fell four-fifths to 1.4% on a quarterly basis, mainly as net effect of the plunge in transport and accommodation, food services, and trade.

In the past, construction, perhaps even manufacturing, was thriving. Now both fell, as did agriculture.

The current forecast for 2020 has been downgraded to -3.8%. Both household consumption and investment have slowed more than expected. And the contraction in the global economy will continue to drag external trade, tourism and remittances.

Nevertheless, the Asian Development Banks (current) forecast for 2021 is maintained at 6.5%, supported by public infrastructure spending and anticipated recovery in consumer and business confidence.

Thanks to its secular economic potential, the Philippines certainly could experience a strong V-shaped recovery. But it will not prove as smooth as currently anticipated. In the global economy, the plunge of the 1st quarter is just a prelude to the massive collateral damage in the 2nd quarter, which is almost over.

In the Philippines, too, new downgrades are likely to reflect the new normal in the coming months.

Hollow lives vs livelihoods debates

In the past few months, critics of the Duterte government first downplayed the impending economic damage associated with the coronavirus contraction. When the stance proved flawed, the tactic was reversed. More recently, they have pushed for even longer lockdowns and quarantines, despite prohibitive economic costs.

These debates are not predicated on the recovery of the Philippine economy and the well-being of its citizens. Rather, such debates, which blame the government for the global pandemic, reflect early positioning for the 2022 election  that is, political exploitation of dire economic realities.

In 2019, the budget debacle proved extraordinarily costly because it weakened Philippine output potential right before the global pandemic and the coronavirus contraction. Should they result in real political polarizations, current lives versus livelihoods divisions could contribute to a slower than expected recovery.

Today, all economies in Southeast Asia hope to gradually ease lockdowns, quarantines and restrictive measures. Yet, in the Philippines, some argue that the quarantines should continue longer to ensure adequate bending of the epidemic curve. They believe that lives precede livelihoods.

In contrast, others claim that such measures would be foolish because they downplay the adverse economic consequences of the quarantines. They claim that without livelihoods lives will be lost.

In reality, both sides have a point, but neither is right. Without lives, there are no livelihoods. Conversely, without livelihoods, lives will be lost. The challenge is not to choose between one or the other. The challenge is the right and timely balance between the two.

While the recent surges in confirmed cases reflect intensified testing rather than changes in the pandemic status quo, Philippine recovery cannot fully move ahead until the epidemic curve is effectively bending. And the reality is that while the Philippines is getting closer to bending the curve, it hasnt succeeded yet in per capita terms (Figure).

Figure Getting closer to bending the curve*

Daily Covid-19 cases per million: ASEAN economies

Source: European CDC, June 27, 2020

Fiscal and monetary flexibility facing stress tests

Obviously, household consumption and investment growth has plunged in the 2nd quarter. But if the pandemic can be kept in check in the coming months and the epidemic curve finally bends, infrastructure investment and household consumption could intensify the hoped-for recovery.

The Duterte governments infrastructure and fiscal economic changes have lifted the share of investment growth up to 27% of GDP from barely 20% in the Aquino era (2010-16). However, since the government must now allocate more to the struggle against the pandemic, public expenditure and construction outlays will be delayed.

Consequently, now its the time to push even harder the infrastructure drive and fiscal economic changes. If this effort proves successful, the growth forecast for the current year is still likely to hover at around -3.5% to -4.5% on a year-to-year basis. But the coming recovery could prove stronger than expected.

In the past months, the Bangko Sentral (BSP) has cut the policy rate by 125 basis points, pushing the benchmark rate down to a record low 2.75% (which is likely to cut closer to 2.0% in the coming months). The reserve requirement ratio (RRR) has been cut down to 12% (with another 200 basis-points reduction likely ahead).

Obviously, the BSP has tried to neutralize the pandemic impact on economic growth.

Recently, lower energy prices and reduced imports have offset the fall in remittances. But since global recovery is likely to prove more challenging than expected, weaker government revenues (and rising deficit) and impending stimulus package (3.1% of GDP) will stress-test fiscal policies in the second half of the year.

Challenging scenarios

If, in addition to the catastrophic consequences of the Trump administrations failed pandemic policies, the White House willaccelerate its trade wars against China and US allies in Europe and East Asia, global economic headwinds will prove much worse than expected.

In that scenario, the anticipated global recovery would prove subdued in the second half of the year and a multi-year global recession could no longer be excluded, especially as the heavily-indebted advanced economies recent and huge debt-taking may result in new debt crises, which could spill over to poorer countries.

Furthermore, such negative scenarios would be reinforced if the development of vaccine and viral therapies will take longer than expected.

In the coming months, the Philippines, like so many other countries, will face the greatest risks (and opportunities) since World War II. Now the margin for error in economic policies and pandemic containment is slim to nil.

Dr. Dan Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and has served at the India, China and America Institute (US), Shanghai Institute for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net/

 2020 Copyright Dan Steinbock - All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Dan Steinbock Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Egypt's aviation sector lost up to EGP 1 billion monthly since March on the back of the three-month flight suspension due to the coronavirus, the deputy civil aviation minister told local television on Thursday.

The country reopened its international airspace on Wednesday, with some new restrictions in force.

Deputy Civil Aviation Minister Montaser Manaa said the state had greatly supported the sector during this period.

He added that the occupancy rate on aircraft had reached 95 percent in the past two days, and is expected to increase in the coming period.

The aviation sector recovers rapidly, he added, citing the high numbers of reservations since the reopening.

Foreign tourists are now allowed to visit three coastal tourist hotspots: South Sinai, where the popular seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh is located, the Red Sea governorate, home to the city of Hurghada, and Marsa Matrouh on the Mediterranean.

Flights coming from Switzerland and Belarus arrived in Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh on Thursday.

In an attempt to lure foreign tourists, the country has exempted tourists visiting these areas from visa fees until the end of October.

National carrier EgyptAir is also offering a 20 percent discount on flights to several European destinations, and on tickets to New York and Washington bought by 15 July for flights until the end of August.

The country also announced a number of new health and safety measures, including requiring travellers from countries with high rates of coronavirus infections to submit PCR test results before travelling to prove they are coronavirus-free, amid other health protocols on board.

Egypt has allowed over 400 hotels nationwide to reopen at a reduced occupancy rate of 50 percent after they met hygiene and safety protocols, according to the tourism ministry.

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Reuters - Politics 19 Jan 2021

Only a few dozen gun-rights activists converged on the Virginia state capital on Monday for an annual demonstration that was..
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been accused of luring girls and young women into Jeffrey Epstein's circle, where they were sexually abused. She has said that many accusations against her are "absolute rubbish."
KDKA CBS 2 Pittsburgh 01 Jul 2020

For some, the sight of a snake slithering on the ground is scary enough, so how about one launching itself through the air?..
The Australian Government will support the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Mauritius to implement projects in collaboration with Stakeholders to strengthen responses to gender-based violence, promote gender equality and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The new partnership was signed by HE Ms Jenny Dee, Australian High Commissioner and Ms Amanda Serumaga, UNDP Resident Representative at a ceremony held on 01 July 2020, in the presence of the Hon Mrs Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah, Minister of Gender Equality and Family Welfare, and Hon. MLP Anjela Speville, Chairperson of the Rodrigues Regional Assembly].

Under the agreement, the Australian High Commission through its Direct Aid Program will provide funding towards the implementation of Pillar 1 (Component 2) of the UNDP Country Programme 2017-2020 on Addressing Challenges to Gender Equality with programmes aligned in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Hon. Mrs Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah, Minister of Gender Equality and Family Welfare laid emphasis on her firm belief that women and girls, everywhere, must have equal rights and opportunity, and be able to live free of violence and discrimination. She stressed on her unflinching determination as Minister of Gender Equality and Family Welfare to reduce all forms of discrimination towards women. In that context, she welcomed the sustained collaboration of International Partners, namely the UNDP and the Australian Embassy, to support her Ministry in its initiatives to achieving gender equality, especially at a juncture where financing of projects is really difficult due to budget limitations. She announced that she will be coming up shortly with a National Gender Policy to engender an all-inclusive legal, policy and administrative framework that will help promote gender equality and equity as an integral dimension of inclusive and sustainable development.

Mrs Speville stated that the funding being allocated to the Rodrigues Regional Assembly is timely as it will contribute to launching the work of the SDG Committee. It is especially even more timely in the post Covid-19 context, where the strict lock-down measures have impacted in one way or the other on different socio-economic sectors, including tourism. She states, In Rodrigues, we are proud of our local resources and aspire to building resilience as well as safeguarding our natural resources, livelihoods and empowering our social capital. We will calibrate our Covid-19 Responses to achieve the SDGs. Having baseline data, through the research to be conducted with the support of the UNDP and the Australian High Commission will, therefore, be of utmost importance in this endeavour.

High Commissioner Dee said the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the challenges women face across economic, security, health and safety spheres. Australia is pleased to partner with UNDP working closely with the Mauritian Government at a time when there are increasing risks of gender-based violence as a result of the pandemic.

Ms. Serumaga mentioned that UNDP engages itself to sustain its actions in Mauritius and Rodrigues to speed up Gender Equality and Womens Empowerment initiatives as the cornerstone of Sustainable Development. She states, We need to speed-up our actions and align our resources towards targeted programmes for womens empowerment and gender equality. This is especially significant in the post COVID-19 situation whereby our in-country analysis reveals that women will bear the brunt of the pandemic in a more disproportionate manner within the overall socio-economic landscape.

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London, 1st July 2020 Vehicle finance broker Car Finance Deals are today celebrating on two counts. The brokerage based on Birchwood Park in Warrington is enjoying its second Birthday. Car Finance Deals are also enjoying the beginning of which it believes will be fast scalable growth after reaching a milestone of financing over 3 million worth of vehicle transactions. Business partners Stephen Staley and Vincent Hilditch set the business up with extremely 
More than 600,000 Oregonians have filed jobless claims since the coronavirus outbreak took hold in the middle of March, and tens of thousands of them are still waiting for their benefits.

In the month since Gov. Kate Brown replaced the director of the Oregon Employment Department, the state has finished processing the vast majority of backlogged, regular unemployment claims.

New jobless claims are still pouring in at twice the rate they were before the pandemic, though, and Oregon continues to struggle to pay benefits to self-employed workers, who are newly eligible for benefits. The departments phone lines remain completely jammed and there are few alternatives for people to address problems with their claims.

We know Oregonians are frustrated, struggling and desperate for their benefits, the departments Interim Director David Gerstenfeld said on a media call Wednesday. Gerstenfeld said he and the departments employees share their frustrations.

Heres a look at the crisis as it currently stands.

Is anybody at all getting their benefits?

Yes. But whether or not workers have been paid depends a great deal on the type of claims they filed.

The Oregon Employment Department says it has paid out $2.5 billion in claims to an estimated 273,000 newly jobless workers since the middle of March.

The department has largely worked through its backlog of regular unemployment claims. The backlog of unprocessed claims, which once numbered more than 100,000, is now around 2,000  though many people with complicated claims that were initially denied must go through a lengthy adjudication process that takes several weeks before getting paid.

Tens of thousands of other jobless Oregonians  including many self-employed people and large numbers of furloughed workers whose employers are participating in the states Work Share program  havent been paid at all.

Many of those workers, some of whom have been waiting months for payments, wont be paid before August.

Why is it taking so long to pay self-employed people who are out of work?

In March, Congress created a new program called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, a federally funded mechanism to pay jobless benefits for self-employed workers, contractors and others who dont qualify for regular benefits.

While Oregon has largely worked through the backlog of regular claims, it still has about 65,000 unprocessed PUA claims  and says it wont work through that backlog before the second week of August. By that time, thousands of PUA claimants will have gone without income for as many as four months.

Heres what went wrong.

It took the Oregon Employment Department about a month to get the new program up and running. It began taking applications in late April but didnt have personnel trained to process the claims and didnt even have a phone number for people to inquire about the status of their claim until the middle of June.

During that period, thousands of PUA claimants flooded the already overloaded phone number for regular claims in a fruitless quest for information about their own backlogged benefits. The people manning the phone lines for regular claims had no answers to give them because they werent trained on the PUA program.

The PUA program in Oregon fielded more than 90,000 claims in the first seven weeks after its launch but paid fewer than 3,000 a week on average. That resulted in the enormous backlog of 65,000 unprocessed claims.

The department has paid more than $90 million in PUA benefits but owes many times that. Newly hired employees tasked with processing PUA claims say training has been uneven and complain the department is putting limits on what they can do to help clients.

The department continues working with Google on a new, web-based PUA application system that would work more efficiently. It hopes to roll that out by the middle of this month.

The department began focusing on PUA claims at the end of June. It hoped to process 5,000 of the outstanding 70,000 PUA claims last week but fell 600 claims short of its goal. It hopes to process 7,500 claims this week and to process a greater number of claims in each successive week.

Even if the department meets those goals, it wont work through its PUA backlog before the second week of August.

Why arent PUA claimants getting their full benefits?

PUA claimants are entitled to $600 a week through July 31, a bonus Congress established for all unemployed people. They are additionally entitled to at least $205 a week in benefits  more if they earned a higher income when they were working.

In most cases, Oregon is only paying out the minimum -- $805 a week  for new claimants. It is then going back to adjust payments upwards. The department says it is working to go back through past cases and update payments.

Why does Oregon use gross wages rather than net wages to calculate PUA benefits, and why does it matter?

Oregon uses net income to calculate the maximum amount that a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claimant is eligible for each week, but asks claimants to provide their gross income on their weekly reports to determine how much to pay that claimant in that given week. In practice, this means that if self-employed or contract workers earn any money for their services during a given week -- even if their earnings go directly to the overhead costs of their businesses -- their payout for that week will be impacted.

Gerstenfeld has said that the state is following federal requirements by using gross income to calculate what a claimant is owned in a given week. He said the state is seeking guidance from the federal government to confirm that they must use gross income to calculate that payout.

A spokesman for the Department of Labor confirmed that states are required to use gross income to determine a claimant's payout each week. The spokesman said the department is in the process of issuing clarifying guidance on this to states that may not be following the federal guidelines.

How many Work Share claims are pending?

Thousands and thousands. But the actual number isnt clear.

Work Share is a state program designed to help employers retain skilled workers through temporary downturns. Employers apply on behalf of their workers and, when those workers get their hours and wages cut, the state steps in to make up some of the lost wages.

The money usually comes from the states Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund but during the pandemic the feds are picking up the tab.

Portland Public Schools and other Oregon school districts used Work Share to compensate several thousand furloughed workers this spring. Thousands of private-sector employees are participating, too.

Work Share, like every element of Oregons unemployment claims system, has been overwhelmed during the pandemic. The employment department says it takes eight weeks to pay claims.

While 15,000 Work Share claims have been paid, many thousands of Work Share participants havent. The employment department doesnt know how many are waiting for their money.

We have to manually count the number of applications, which requires staff time (and time away from processing applications), department communications specialist Ariane Le Chevallier wrote in an email. She said the department hopes to have an estimate next week, and is trying to automate more of the Work Share claims process.

Why is it still so hard to get through on the phone?

Many benefits cannot be paid until claimants talk to a claims processor on the phone to resolve problems  but the employment departments phone lines have been jammed throughout the pandemic.

Thats partly because of the huge volume of calls and partly because the department hasnt implemented a formal call-back system, the way many private companies do during times of high call volume. Its also what the Oregon DMV did last month when it reopened its offices and faced a deluge of appointment requests.

The department says the call volumes are so high it cannot effectively implement a call-back system so its phone lines have been a free-for-all since March. The vast majority of callers cannot get through and most of those who do spend an hour or more on hold  and sometimes a great deal longer.

There are just so many people that all those avenues get flooded. We are really looking at other ways we can communicate to try to improve that, Gerstenfeld said this week.

The employment department says the pressure on the phone lines have been exacerbated by auto-dialing programs people use to call repeatedly and by people calling repeatedly to check on claims.

Exasperated, unemployed workers say they dont know what else to do to get their benefits.

What else can you do if you cant get your claim resolved?

Consider contacting your state representative and state senator. Oregon has an online tool to identify the lawmakers who represent you and the employment department has liaisons working with lawmakers to help resolve constituent claims.

Legislators have oversight authority for the employment department and some are in regular communication with the department. Some lawmakers have worked assiduously to help constituents get their benefits  but many are, like the employment department, overwhelmed by the volume of calls.

When will Oregon waive the waiting week?

It will be months, at least  and the state has left open the possibility it may not be able to implement the waiver in time to meet a Dec. 31 federal deadline.

Unemployed people usually have to be out of work for a week before they are eligible for benefits. That is, there are normally no payments for the first week people are out of a job.

Congress changed that in March, providing federal money to waive that waiting week and pay benefits for that first week people are out of a job.

The employment departments antiquated computers couldnt make the change, though, and the department initially said Oregon would not waive the waiting week. It soon became obvious that decision would cost jobless Oregonians hundreds of millions of dollars in federal benefits.

So, under congressional pressure, the governor reversed course and said the state would waive the waiting week  eventually.

That still hasnt happened, though, because the department has prioritized other claims ahead of the waiting week. Oregon now owes laid-off workers several hundred million dollars for that waiting week  equal to 25% of all the benefits it has paid.

If Oregon doesnt meet the end-of-year deadline, it risks forfeiting the federal money. That could cost jobless Oregonians hundreds of millions of dollars.

We anticipate sometime in August being able to spend the focused time necessary to know how, and when, we can implement the waiting week waiver, said Le Chevallier, the communications specialist working with the department. She said the department is talking with the U.S. Department of Labor, seeking flexibility needed to protect Oregonians benefits.

What about Oregons computers?

Anyone who has followed the series of crises at the employment department knows its obsolete computer systems are at the heart of this years fiasco. The systems date to the 1990s, with some components from the 80s.

The ancient computers are rigid and inflexible, requiring claims processors to fix systemic mistakes manually and spitting out erroneous denials to claimants. Rectifying those problems one-by-one has been a slow, arduous process that has held up payments for thousands of workers.

The systems have struggled to adapt to recent changes in the program, and that has hamstrung efforts to pay out money to self-employed workers through the PUA program and to waive the waiting week. The result is several hundred million dollars in unpaid claims.

Oregon received $86 million in federal money to upgrade the computer systems in 2009 but it hasnt happened  and wont be complete until 2025. The state has spent some of the federal money but still has most of it.

The employment department says it waited until after the Great Recession to begin the upgrade process and then moved with extreme deliberation  letting other states go first to learn from their successes and mistakes.

I dont think its inevitable that it would take several years but we saw several states that went quicker and failed and we didnt want to do that here, Gerstenfeld said last month. I do think its inevitable that its a long, complex, challenging project and we didnt want to rush it and have it be an unsuccessful project.

Washington and other states say they may have to borrow from the feds so they have enough money to pay out benefits. Is Oregons unemployment insurance trust fund going to run out of money?

Oregons trust fund was among the best positioned in the nation coming into the pandemic, with $5 billion in reserve. The coronavirus recession is unprecedented, but most of the $2.5 billion Oregon has paid out thus far has come from special federal programs that dont draw from Oregons trust fund.

The projections we have so far still have Oregons trust fund staying solvent, Gerstenfeld said.

Oregonian reporter Jamie Goldberg contributed to this report.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway |

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WASHINGTON  U.S. employers added a substantial 4.8 million jobs in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%, as the job market improved for a second straight month, yet still remained far short of regaining the colossal losses it suffered this spring.

The nation has now recovered roughly one-third of the 22 million jobs it lost to the pandemic recession. And with confirmed coronavirus cases spiking across the Sun Belt states, a range of evidence suggests that a job market recovery may be stalling. In those states and elsewhere, some restaurants, bars and other retailers that had re-opened are being forced to close again.

The re-closings are keeping layoffs elevated: The number of Americans who sought unemployment benefits barely fell last week to 1.47 million. Though that weekly figure has declined steadily since peaking in late March, it's still more than double the pre-pandemic peak set in 1982. And the total number of people who are receiving jobless aid remains at a sizable 19 million.

California has re-closed bars, theaters and indoor restaurant dining across most of the state. Florida has also re-closed bars and beaches. Texas has reversed some of its efforts to reopen its economy. New York has paused its plans to allow indoor dining.

That trend has left more people in some states unemployed. The number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose last week in Texas, Arizona and Tennessee. Though the figure fell in California, it remained near 280,000  more people than were seeking unemployment benefits in the entire country before the pandemic struck in March.

The U.S. job growth in June was driven mainly by companies recalling workers who had been laid off when the coronavirus outbreak intensified in mid-March, causing widespread business shutdowns across the country.

Yet even as those temporary workers were recalled, more Americans said they had lost jobs permanently. This figure rose 600,000 last month to nearly 2.9 million. This is an ominous trend because workers who are permanently laid off typically face a much harder time finding new jobs. Most of them must find jobs at a new company or even switch occupations.

For June, the Labor Department reduced the number of people it said had been misclassified by government survey-takers who count how many Americans are unemployed. In a problem unique to the pandemic recession, many people have said in recent months that they were still working for companies that are shut down. These people were counted as employed.

Yet if they aren't working, the Labor Department says they should be considered temporarily laid off and therefore unemployed. In April and May, adjusting for that error would have increased the unemployment rate substantially  to 16.4% in May, from the official 14.7%. For June, the misclassification affected fewer people, the government said. If these people had been properly counted as employed, the jobless rate would have been higher, at 12.3%, but still down from May's 13.3%.

Credit and debit card data tracked by JPMorgan Chase show that consumers reduced their spending last week after having increased it steadily in late April and May. The reversal has occurred both in states that have reported surges in COVID-19 and in less affected states, said Jesse Edgerton, an economist at J.P. Morgan.

Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter

Nationwide, card spending fell nearly 13% last week compared with a year ago. That's worse than the previous week, when year-over-year card spending had fallen just under 10%.

And Kronos, which produces time management software, has found that in the past two weeks, growth in the number of shifts worked has slowed in the Southeast and is now rising at just half the rate of the Northeast.

"The pace of recovery is starting to slow," said Dave Gilbertson, an executive at Kronos. "We are expecting to see more of a plateauing over the next couple of months."

Thursday's jobs report is based on data gathered in the second week of June, which helps explain why the figures reflect an improving trend. Last week's plateau in work shifts will instead affect the July jobs figures, to be released in early August.

McDonald's has paused its reopening efforts nationwide, and Apple says it will re-close 30 more of its U.S. stores, on top of 47 that it had already shut down for a second time.

Economists have long warned that the economic benefits of allowing businesses to reopen would prove short-lived if the virus wasn't brought under control. Until most Americans feel confident enough to dine out, travel, shop or congregate in groups without fear of infection, restaurants, hotels and retailers will lack enough customer demand to justify rehiring all their previous workers.

Still, some bright spots in the economy have emerged in recent weeks. Manufacturers expanded in June after three months of shrinking, the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group, said Wednesday. New orders are flowing in, and factories are adding more jobs, the ISM said.

And record-low mortgage rates are encouraging more home buyers. Purchases of new homes rose sharply in May. And a measure of signed contracts to buy existing homes soared by a record amount, a sign that sales should rebound after falling for three straight months.

 The Associated Press
Following a large COVID-19 outbreak at a food processing facility in Newport, coronavirus testing conducted by Oregon State University suggests that 3.4% of the 10,600 people who live in Newport have coronavirus  around 360 people.

Oregon State expanded its coronavirus testing to Newport in mid-June in response to the Pacific Seafood outbreak, which is the states largest food processing workplace outbreak with 163 confirmed cases. The university conducted testing on June 20 and 21.

Crews went door to door, giving nasal-swab test kits to a predetermined, representative set of households. In total, field workers collected samples from 569 Newport residents, and 13 tested positive.

Although 13 positive tests may seem like a small number in comparison to Lincoln Countys 324 total cases, this random sampling provides a new type of data  prevalence of COVID-19 in a community. Across the state, testing efforts so far have been focused on those who have symptoms or may have been exposed to the virus.

Ben Dalziel, assistant professor in the College of Science at OSU and co-director of the testing project, said the results are worrisome.

We expected to find some cases because we know, of course, theres an outbreak in Newport right now, Dalziel said. But 3.4% is a concerning number because of how transmissible this disease is.

The universitys COVID-19 testing project began in Corvallis in late April and expanded to Bend in May. Only 1 in 1,000 people in Corvallis are infected with COVID-19, compared to about 34 in 1,000 people in Newport.

These results are preliminary, and Oregon State is currently working with Lincoln County Public Health to check if anyone who tested positive through the project had been tested before, and not previously tested positive.

Oregon State is strongly considering returning to Newport to conduct more testing, but Dalziel said the projects budget limits the amount of sampling the university can do.

-- Celina Tebor

ctebor@oregonian.com

@CelinaTebor
A group of Oregon State Police troopers appeared to defy Gov. Kate Browns statewide mask order while in uniform Wednesday, entering a Corvallis coffee shop without wearing required face coverings, video obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows.

The stores assistant manager, Travis Boss, said he told the first trooper who arrived that the trooper needed to wear a mask.

Governor Brown has no authority to take our civil liberties. We arent going to wear masks, the trooper allegedly said, according to a written statement from Boss provided to the newsroom.

The trooper proceeded to place his order, Boss said in an interview, offering a foul-mouthed retort to the governors mandate that masks be worn within indoor public spaces.

He said, F--- Kate Brown, Boss recalled.

The troopers alleged comments came on the same day that Browns statewide mask order went into effect, and just hours before Brown implored Oregonians to wear facial coverings as a simple, common sense way to protect yourself and others during the coronavirus pandemic.

Three other law enforcement officers entered the business moments later and also refused a request to wear masks, Boss said. Boss said he felt compelled to fulfill their drink orders because they were in uniform, even though he said he had sent other patrons away earlier for not wearing masks.

The incident represents an extraordinary example of the difficult position that some businesses say Browns order has put them in as they work to enforce the potentially divisive rule. Workers in shops across Oregon have been left to impose the mask mandate with the knowledge that some customers may disobey or, as videos across the country have shown, create made-for-internet spectacles.

Allans Coffee & Tea reported Wednesdays incident to local police. Oregon State Police responded by launching an internal investigation, said Capt. Timothy Fox, an agency spokesman.

The involved trooper has been placed on administrative leave, Fox said in a statement. OSP is early in the investigation, but if found to be true, we are thoroughly disappointed and expect our troopers to follow the governors executive orders and be examples in the community.

Fox confirmed Thursday that all four are state troopers assigned to Oregon State University. Fox would not name the trooper on leave.

Oregon State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton addressed the issue Thursday morning, less than three hours after The Oregonian/OregonLive published this story online. Hampton wrote on Twitter that the conduct described in the article was embarrassing and indefensible, especially as thousands protest each night in Oregon for police accountability in the wake of George Floyds death.

Let me be clear, Oregon State Police Troopers are not above the law and this conduct is being immediately addressed, Hampton wrote. As the leader of the Oregon State Police, I would like to offer my apology to the coffee shop employees and the community.

Not only are police officers expected to comply with the Governors emergency declaration orders, I expect them to set the example for Oregons residents as we strive to fight this invisible enemy- the Coronavirus.  Oregon State Police (@ORStatePolice) July 2, 2020

Let me be clear, Oregon State Police Troopers are not above the law and this conduct is being immediately addressed. As the leader of the Oregon State Police, I would like to offer my apology to the coffee shop employees and the community.  Oregon State Police (@ORStatePolice) July 2, 2020

I am ultimately responsible for all actions of OSP Troopers & should rightfully be accountable for their conduct. I hope my apology is accepted & the swift actions of my agency provide evidence of our commitment to accountability.-Superintendent Travis Hampton, Superintendent  Oregon State Police (@ORStatePolice) July 2, 2020

Brown also issued a statement Thursday afternoon, echoing Hamptons response.

It is inexcusable that a few Oregon State Troopers disregarded my face covering requirement yesterday, and ignored a request from a fellow Oregonian to follow the rule, she said. Oregon State Police Superintendent Hampton and I agree that their actions and behaviors were absolutely unacceptable.

The incident in Corvallis underscores the tension nationwide among some people over whether masks should be worn to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which has killed more than 128,000 Americans, including 208 in Oregon.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing masks in public, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have repeatedly refused to don facial coverings. Masks have become a flashpoint that often fall along political lines.

The co-owners of Allans Coffee & Tea, Robert and Kathryn Morgan, said Wednesday they respect the work of troopers and did not want the incident to turn political. In fact, the business brews a special Oregon State Police blend at their shop in Albany, near the troopers offices.

The co-owners said they simply want to comply with Browns mask mandate and keep their business open for patrons.

Browns mask order does not explicitly name coffee shops but applies to restaurants, bars, breweries, brewpubs, wineries, tasting rooms and distilleries. Masks are not required while eating or drinking, according to state guidance.

Were in this to follow the mandate, Robert Morgan said, to try to get back to some form of normalcy somewhere down the road.

Wednesdays incident began at about 8:30 a.m. when a trooper wearing shorts and a bullet-proof vest entered the Allans location on Northwest Monroe Avenue, next to Oregon State University.

Video shows the unmasked trooper walking to the counter, where Boss greets him. The video, provided to the newsroom by the business, does not have audio.

Boss said the trooper is a regular, and they have a friendly rapport.

Hey, you gotta have your mask on, Boss recalled saying. Boss said the trooper declined.

The video shows Boss and the trooper talking for more than 30 seconds before Boss grabs a cup, giving it to the nearby barista to use to fill the order.

Boss said he initially tried to defuse the situation by asking the trooper what he thought about Browns order requiring masks. That prompted the alleged response that it would be a violation of civil liberties, Boss said.

Boss said the trooper also noted that police would not be enforcing violations and said something like: Im not going to wear a mask and none of us are, in anticipation of more troopers arriving.

That left Boss in a weird situation.

Hes a state trooper, hes in uniform, Boss said. Hes more or less saying, This is how its going to be, and this is what I want.

The video shows three more people in uniform arrive, none wearing masks. One wears a vest that appears to say State Trooper, video footage shows. The second wears a vest that appears to say State Police. The third does not have a vest over his uniform but has a star-shaped badge pinned to his chest.

After they placed their orders, the group sits at a table near the door. The video footage shows several other customers enter the business later, one of whom does not wear a mask when he places an order with the barista.

The troopers remain for about 10 minutes, according to the video footage.

Boss said two of the troopers are regulars and he expected them to leave after getting their drinks, which they usually do. Boss said he contacted the owners to determine what he should do next.

Boss said he was instructed to tell them that Corvallis police had been contacted and they should leave. The video shows Boss approaching them at their table, and the troopers stand up to go.

One of the troopers allegedly said, Thats Corvallis for you, as they walked out, Boss recalled.

Having law enforcement officers in the shop without wearing masks created a horrible situation, Boss said, upsetting some customers who questioned why they had to wear masks when the police did not.

Kathryn Morgan said they expected some customers would not want to comply with Browns mask order. But she found it pretty upsetting that the troopers would not wear masks, putting their business in an awkward position of being at risk for not following the rules.

Its sad, she said. These are people in a position of power and leaders in the community. I think we look to them as examples. For them not to be following the orders, whether or not they agree with it, is telling.

A lieutenant from the Oregon State Police arrived at the coffee shop later in the morning to talk with Boss, and Robert Morgan participated via speaker phone. Boss said he explained what happened and what the trooper said, including the alleged use of profanity.

I dont hold any grudges against him, Boss said. I feel bad about the possible backlash that might come from this, on them, and at the same time I know thats not my doing.

Robert Morgan said the lieutenant didnt apologize for the incident but assured them it would not be swept under the rug.

All the same, Robert Morgan said the lieutenant told them they could share the information with whomever they wanted but but they would prefer to keep it as an internal matter.

Robert and Kathryn Morgan said they wrestled with whether to go public but decided to do so, hoping it would ensure everyone follows the mask order with the goal of reducing coronavirus spread and helping businesses stay open.

Browns office didnt respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.

But earlier in the day  just hours after the incident  Brown had told reporters during a morning news conference that she expected businesses to comply with the mask order to protect patrons and employees.

I know that Oregonians will literally vote with their feet, she said. They will go to businesses that are taking extra efforts to ensure that their customers and their clients are safe and protected from COVID-19.

Brown made clear that violation of the order could be a misdemeanor, although she did not expect police to write tickets nor did she want businesses to contact officers for help with disobedient customers.

We shouldnt have to be in the position of calling the police to enforce face coverings, Brown said. Its just common sense, folks.

-- Brad Schmidt; bschmidt@oregonian.com; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt

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An Oregon teens beer run went bust after authorities say he sideswiped a driver who was chasing him, flipped his own car and fled during an attempted getaway  only to have his mom later drive him back to the crash scene.

Caleb Scott Mitchell, 18, faces robbery, theft and other criminal charges in the wild spree last week, according to court records and the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office.

The trouble began almost immediately after a pair of Mitchells underage buddies snatched cases of Coors and Keystone Light from the Jackpot Food Mart in Eagle Creek around 11:15 p.m. June 25, said Sgt. Marcus Mendoza, a sheriffs spokesman.

They piled into Mitchells 1997 Acura CL, Mendoza said.

Mitchell then nearly mowed down a gas station clerk at the food mart before smashing into a Honda Civic there and speeding off east along Oregon 224 and then onto Southeast Currin Road, Mendoza said. The occupants in the Honda followed.

At some point during the chase, Mitchell pulled a sudden U-turn and sideswiped the Honda, damaging it for a second time, Mendoza said. Soon after, he flipped his car in the middle of Currin Road near Eagle Creek Road.

Mitchell and his friends took off on foot, according to the Sheriffs Office. He returned to the scene a short time later, driven by his mother, Mendoza said.

He was arrested and booked into jail.

The Sheriffs Office said the Honda sustained about $2,500 in damages. A woman in the car was also left with an injured arm, though she didnt seek medical attention.

As for the price tag on the Coors and Keystone Light strewn in and out of Mitchells wrecked car? It was $30.78, Mendoza said.

Clackamas County prosecutors Monday arraigned Mitchell on 10 criminal counts, including third-degree robbery, a felony, third-degree theft, second-degree criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.

His two buddies, both juveniles, remain at large.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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Five people were killed in Portland shootings and stabbings during a 10-day span in June, nearly tripling the number of homicides the city has seen so far this year.

On average, Portland sees between 20 to 35 homicides per year, according to historical city homicide data.

The Portland Police Bureau said detectives have investigated eight homicides from January through June. A police spokesperson initially said there had been nine in total, but the bureau later announced one man who died in a June 21 shooting had died by suicide.

Three of Portlands most recent killings occurred in Northeast Portland in two separate incidents, while another person died in a shooting in Southeast Portland. The last victim died after he was shot on the city line between Portland and Gresham.

These five victims range in age from 22 to 69, and Portland police have arrested one man on two charges of first-degree murder. Another suspect died by suicide.

In 2019, Portland had seen 19 homicides by the end of June, according to the police bureaus monthly crime data. Out of those, three were traffic deaths that met the definition of negligent manslaughter.

Portland ended 2019 with a total of 33 homicides, according to previous reporting by The Oregonian/OregonLive, a figure that falls within the range of recent years: 20 in 2016, 34 in 2015 and 26 in 2014.

A 2018 congressional report analyzing crime in the 50 largest U.S. cities, including Portland, found Portlands violent crime rate has been declining for the last two decades. In 2007, Portland saw under 700 violent crimes per 100,000 people, and that figure fell to under 500 in 2016.

Homicide rates similarly declined, according to the report, from 4.1 homicides per 100,000 people in 2007, to almost half that number, 2.2, in 2016.

Nationally, homicide rates have largely declined since 1991, when they reached their most recent peak of 9.8 homicides per 100,000 people, according to a 2018 Brennan Center for Justice report. In 2014, the national rate of homicides had dipped to just 4.4 per 100,000.

Portland police have disclosed few details about the five recent killings. Here is what is known so far:

June 11

Deannzello McDonald, 28, was shot and killed near Northeast 162nd Avenue and Hoyt Street. Emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene.

June 16

Cassy Leaton, 22, and Najaf Nate Hobbs, 39, both died after being stabbed near Northeast 14th Avenue and Davis Street.

Two days after the stabbing in Northeast Portland, Portland police officers arrested 38-year-old Phillip Lawrence Nelson on two charges of first-degree murder in connection with their deaths. Nelson is being held without bail at the Multnomah County Detention Center, according to court documents. His next court appearance is scheduled for July 8.

Five days before the stabbings, on June 11, officers arrested Nelson during nightly protests against police violence outside the downtown jail where he is now being held. Police charged Nelson with a misdemeanor for interfering with a police officer.

June 18

Evelin Navarro Barajas, 23, was shot and killed near Northeast Killingsworth Street and Cully Boulevard around midnight. A man was also shot and transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

June 21

Eunice Castillo-Ross, 69, died after she was shot by Eric Ackerman, 63, Portland police said 10 days after the shooting. Ackerman then shot himself and died at a hospital, according to police.

Police say officers conducting a welfare check near Southeast 138th Drive and Deardorff Road around 7 p.m. when they saw a person on the floor inside.

Officers said they forced their way into the home but retreated after they believed they had heard a gunshot, telling residents within a six-block radius to shelter in place.

Police have not disclosed details about the relationship between Castillo-Ross and Ackerman.

Police initially described the shooting as a double homicide, including the two deaths in its incorrect figure of six homicides in June. But on the same day of the shooting, KATU reported the suspect had died.

Police did not initially answer repeated requests for six days for clarification about the details of the incident or the identity of the alleged shooter, who police would only say had been apprehended.

 Ryan Nguyen; rnguyen@oregonian.com; @ryanjjnguyen
Toro Bravo Inc., a restaurant group that once included nearly a dozen restaurants and a gleaming Pearl District gastronomic society, will be dissolved in the wake of a Facebook outburst directed at a trans woman of color by chef John Gorham, new leader Renee Gorham told staff at a meeting Wednesday morning, sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The closures will include destination Spanish restaurant Toro Bravo, brunch-focused sister restaurants Tasty n Alder and Tasty n Daughters as well as the Pearl District events space Plaza del Toro. John Gorham had already struck a deal to divest his interests in seven other restaurants within the Toro Bravo Inc. group. Those include Mediterranean Exploration Company, two locations of Shalom Yall, two locations of Bless Your Heart burgers, the falafel shop Mama Sesame and the upcoming Yalla.

The decision, which was confirmed by Renee Gorham on Wednesday evening, puts an end to one of the most successful Portland restaurant groups of the past decade. And it comes after a widespread departure of staff, many of whom left after the offensive nature of Gorhams private Facebook messages was revealed last weekend, according to a half dozen current and former employees.

Renee Gorham did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday, writing in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive that we hope to continue to provide meals for shelters through July.

The saga began in May, after several Toro Bravo Inc. vans parked near Southeast Portlands Tasty n Daughters were tagged. According to the Gorhams, the graffiti was part of a string of break-ins and vandalism that had cost the company a combined $75,000 as they struggled to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, leaving the chef on edge.

Gorham took to Facebook on May 23, floating the idea of starting a vigilante neighborhood patrol to keep properties safe and offering a $5,000 reward for information about the vandals. That post caught the eye of a trans woman of color, who said she decided to mock Gorham with a separate post, which offered to leave a box of free spray paint for any street artists who might need it, while captioning a photo of Gorhams tagged vans with, Art fills me with such joy. The woman asked not to be identified after receiving harassment.

Gorham was soon alerted to the womans post and, along with his followers, began to release personal details about the woman, apparently thinking she was responsible for the graffiti, including a picture of her and another of her SUV, license plate visible.

A series of heated exchanges followed both in public comments and private messages, as Gorham and his followers made veiled threats against the person behind the mocking post. Though John Gorham claimed he did not know the woman was transgender at the time, the chef threatened to kick you in your little man (vulgar term for a womans genitalia), according to screenshots of private messages she provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Last week, she approached the Gorhams for money, saying she planned to take the story public.

The Gorhams offered to donate $5,000 to the charity of her choice as an apology; she asked to be paid directly, promising to donate half, according to emails the Gorhams shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Ultimately, the Gorhams said they made a $5,000 donation to the Native American Youth and Family Center and issued a public apology.

On June 24, Renee Gorham announced she would take over leadership of Toro Bravo Inc., saying she did not condone her husbands behavior.

In an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive last week, John Gorham announced he had checked into the hospital and would not be returning to the company. In a separate announcement posted to the companys website, he apologized for his extremely immature outbreak and misguided anger via Facebook.

In the statement, Gorham blamed his 2018 brain surgery for removing the area that controls emotions and common sense.

According to a current employee, Renee Gorham met with staff at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Plaza Del Toro to announce that the restaurant group would be dissolved and that Toro Bravo, Tasty n Alder and Tasty n Daughters would not reopen. She also announced that Plaza Del Toro, which has been acting as a community kitchen during the coronavirus-enforced shutdown, would also close after fulfilling its contracts with nonprofits through its Feed It Forward meal train sponsorship program.

It is my responsibility that the food that is in our freezers and on our shelves makes it to the people that need it the most, Renee Gorham said Wednesday evening.

John Gorhams Spanish restaurant Toro Bravo was an immediate success when it opened in Northeast Portland in 2007 and eventually grew into one of Portlands largest independent restaurant groups. Before the governors order closing restaurant dining rooms amid the coronavirus pandemic in March, Toro Bravo Inc. had 275 employees, Renee Gorham said.

In emails this week, John Gorham wrote that he had left the hospital and had been diagnosed as clinically depressed.

When this is said and done Ill be bankrupt, holding nothing but memories, Gorham wrote.

-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

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As its phenomenal theatrical success has made clear, Hamilton was the right show at the right time. And now, with the Broadway sensation coming to the Disney Plus streaming service on Friday, July 3, the shows timing is again perfect, though for reasons marked less by celebration, than by tragedy and a long-overdue national reckoning.

When Hamilton, with a book, lyrics and music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, made its New York stage premiere in 2015, it was hailed as a visionary breakthrough. Miranda, whose family has roots in Puerto Rico, took a story of Americas founding fathers, and re-framed it, writing songs that incorporated such contemporary sounds as hip hop. Miranda starred as Hamilton, and the rest of the cast featured gifted professionals who also happened to be people of color.

What Miranda and his collaborators, including director Thomas Kail, achieved electrified viewers of all ages. Critics raved. Honors, including a Pulitzer Prize, and 11 Tony Awards, poured in. The soundtrack album became ubiquitous, as did jokes about how impossible it was to get tickets to the show, because of its immense popularity.

(How to watch Hamilton on Disney Plus: UPDATE: You can watch Hamilton, and more from the Disney library, on Disney+ for $6.99 a month. For more choices, you can also get a package that includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ for $12.99 a month.)

After all that, and equally successful touring productions across the U.S. and abroad, it only made sense that a movie version of Hamilton was supposed to play in theaters in October of 2021.

But then the coronavirus pandemic happened. Movie theaters closed. So, The Walt Disney Company moved up Hamilton, and announced the much-anticipated filmed record of the show would stream on Disney Plus, on July 3, just in time for the long July 4 holiday weekend.

(OUR REVIEW: Hamilton on Disney Plus: The original Broadway cast soars in a thrilling show)

Making Hamilton available to viewers staying home to observe social distancing guidelines meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus made business sense for Disney, and seemed like a sure-fire way to drive even more subscribers to Disney Plus, the companys streaming service.

And then, the death of George Floyd, the Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to Floyds neck, happened. In response, the country erupted into protests against the pattern of police brutality against Black Americans, and a national reckoning was at hand for the countrys history of racism.

In that light, Hamilton, with its multiracial cast playing such characters as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, seems more relevant than ever. As some protesters tear down statues of Jefferson and Washington, condemning the founding fathers for enslaving people, seeing these historical figures portrayed by actors of color in Hamilton takes on even more meaning.

With the July 4 holiday transformed this year, as mass gatherings to watch fireworks displays are canceled, and a surge of coronavirus cases makes staying home and avoiding crowds even more important, there could hardly be a better time to settle down on the couch, and watch Hamilton.

The film is described in a Disney press release as a leap forward in the art of live capture which transports its audience into the world of the Broadway show in a uniquely intimate way. Combining the best elements of live theater, film, and streaming, the result is a cinematic stage performance that is a wholly new way to experience Hamilton.

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton and Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton in "Hamilton." (Photo: Disney Plus)

This Hamilton isnt a movie in the sense of putting the actors on location, but is instead a record of the stage production, edited together after being filmed over three performances in June 2016, at Broadways Richard Rodgers Theatre. Members of the original cast are on hand, including Miranda as Hamilton, the orphan who, as Ron Chernow recounts in Alexander Hamilton, the biography that inspired Miranda, rose from humble beginnings as an orphan from the Caribbean to become an influential U.S. statesman, the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, and one-half of a notorious duel with Aaron Burr.

In addition to Miranda, the cast includes Daveed Diggs as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson; Renee Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler; Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr; Christopher Jackson as George Washington; Jonathan Groff as King George; Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton; Jasmine Cephas Jones as Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds; Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan/James Madison; and Anthony Ramos as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton.

While there was some alarm that Disney Plus would censor Hamilton, Miranda has said that it was important for young people to see it, so he agreed to take out two uses of an expletive that starts with f to achieve a PG-13 rating. Other examples of spicy language will remain, Miranda wrote on Twitter.

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, and Leslie Odom, Jr., as Aaron Burr in "Hamilton." (Photo: Disney Plus)

Though the plan wasnt originally for Hamilton to stream this year, Miranda, in a recent interview on the public radio show, Fresh Air, talked about how the show relates to contemporary conversations about racism, and the countrys history of enslaving Black people.

Slavery, Miranda said, is in the third line of our show. Its a system in which every character in our show is complicit in some way or another.

Touching on the ongoing debates about the founding fathers, and how their enslavement of Black people belied their commitment to democracy, Miranda said that Hamilton voiced anti-slavery beliefs, but remained complicit in the system. And other than calling out Jefferson on his hypocrisy with regards to slavery in Act 2, (he) doesnt really say much else over the course of Act 2. And I think thats actually pretty honest.

Hamilton, Miranda continued, Didnt really do much about it after that. None of them did. None of them did enough. And we say that, too, in the final moments of the song. So that hits differently now because were having a conversation, were having a real reckoning of how do you uproot an original sin?

Hamilton is available to stream beginning at midnight (PT) Friday, July 3 on Disney Plus. Go to the website https://www.disneyplus.com/ to sign up. Disney Plus is $6.99 a month; for $12.99, you can subscribe to a package that includes Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus.

More of our coverage:

-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Its a big step to move out of your family home. Whether youre going across country or staying in the same city as your parents, setting up a home of your own takes restraint. Not everything you want -- or had before -- can fit into a dorm room or first apartment.

What are the essentials youll need to get started? Sheets and laundry detergent, says Stephanie Blair, who organizes new student orientation for Portland State Universitys Housing and Residence Life.

PSU will be opening its dorm rooms to new freshmen, transfer students and returning residents in the fall, even though most classes will continue to be taught online during the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, 1,917 students lived on campus for convenience and, more important, the experience.

Most of PSUs housing are apartment-style units outfitted with a bed, desk, desk chair and dresser, plus a private bathroom. Students dont think about needing cleaning supplies but they do, says Blair.

She recommends students buy forgotten items after they move in. Theres no reason to ship a lot here if youre coming from out of state, she says.

At past orientations, students attend a shopping event called Night at City Target. They ride the streetcar to the downtown Portland store, which is open for them after hours. As music blasts and a disco ball spins, students shop with special discounts.

Blair says she meets parents who have bought everything from the dorm section at Target. She shakes her head.

No one thinks of laundry detergent until well after that first load of laundry should have been done, she says. Thats more needed than the cutest string lights.

Some dorm beds are a standard twin size while others are extra long. The tip she heard from a resident assistant who moves around each year: Stretch jersey sheets work on standard or extra long twin mattresses.

College Dorm Must-Haves

Many residence halls steer incoming tenants to buy from OCM (Our Campus Market), which has a database of dorm bed sizes at more than 900 campuses nationwide and donates some proceeds to campus student organizations. OCMs complete Campus Pak bedding and bath set is $209 plus free shipping.

Bed, Bath & Beyond has a handy campus checklist including desk organization and storage. Get 20% off your first item. Shipping is free with orders more than $39.

The Container Store has starter kits on sale to get the collegiate off to a good start. Get 20% off through Aug. 16 by texting CLASSOF2020 to 22922.

Ikea has a quiz to see what type of student you are -- night owl or early bird -- and directs you to affordable, small-space solutions to make your dorm or apartment your home.

Overstock has dorm desires -- decorative lighting, pillows, poufs and other decor -- at a discounted price with free shipping.

And Wayfair has everything you need branded with your favorite team at its NCAA Fan Shop.

Heres what dorm experts say students really need:

Linens and accessories

Sheets: Splurge with soft, organic and comfy sheets at Brooklinen (15% off sale) or The Company Store (free shipping). Amazon has dorm sheets in all colors and prints, plus mattress pockets to organize your books as you read in bed.

Pillow and pillowcases: Coop has luxury, supportive bed pillows and accessories, while Amazon has inexpensive ones.

Bedspread: Bed, Bath & Beyond is having a sale on bedspreads and free shipping on orders $39 and over.

Blankets: Receive 10% off L.L. Bean blankets and throws, made of organic cotton or washable wool.

Mattress pad: If youre warm when you sleep, Chili has a water-based cooling pad. Read: Make your bedroom cool, comfortable when its steaming hot outside

A lamp, unless theres good overhead lighting, is handy. Home Depot has a wide collection to fit your desk top and taste.

Laundry Items

Take care of everything on your laundry list at Bed, Bath & Beyond, from a laundry bag and hamper to hangers, iron and ironing board.

Dont forget the laundry detergent.

Bath items

Towels and washcloths: You can keep these to a minimum if you do your laundry.

Hand soap and sanitizer: Save time and shop for cleaners while youre gathering school supplies at Staples.

Cleaning supplies: Windex, sponge and a toilet brush should do the trick.

Handheld vacuum: Never look at midnight-made crumbs again.

Added Comfort

Consumer Reports recommends these additional comforts for dorm dwellers:

A small cool-mist humidifier to keep the room from feeling hot and dry.

Noise-canceling headphones to block out loud music or snoring.

Coffee maker: Whats your brew technique of choice: AeroPress, Chemex, French press, pour-over or auto drip? Read Better your home barista skills with these coffee-perfecting devices

Microwave: Best Buy is taking up to 40% off appliances through July 4.

 Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories
With reference to the article entitled Budget Forum 2020  that appeared in Maurice-Info on 9 June 2020, ACCA Mauritius would like to clarify that Mr Gary Gowrea was incorrectly described as representing Cim Taxand.

Based on information we had provided in good faith, when Mr Gowrea should have been described as Commercial Director of IQ-EQ. ACCA Mauritius would like to offer its apologies for this error.

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Authorities are continuing to search Thursday for a kayaker missing at Diamond Lake.

The Douglas County Sheriffs Office said Jared Bruce Boria of Vancouver put his kayak into the lake late Tuesday and paddled off. Several people told deputies they heard a man in distress, but they werent able to see anyone.

Authorities responded to search for Boria, but they couldnt find him. Borias kayak, paddle and shoes were found during another search Wednesday, but he was nowhere to be found.

A third search was scheduled for Thursday.

Boria, 37, wasnt wearing a life jacket when he paddled out into the lake Tuesday. He had been camping at Diamond Lake Campground.

Deputies described him as being about 6 feet tall and 160 pounds. He has brown hair and eyes.

The sheriffs office asks anyone in the area to be aware of Borias disappearance and call 911 if they have information that could help searchers.

Diamond Lake is located near Mount Bailey, Mount Thielsen and Crater Lake National Park.

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

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
By Brian Bull, Underscore.news

When Colby Drake hears mention of COVID-19, he doesnt just think of face masks or physical distancing at the supermarket. He sees forests burning. As fire prevention manager for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Drake has the daunting task of preparing for fire season in the middle of an economic and public health catastrophe.

In response to the pandemic and guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Drakes team decided to reduce the length of an upcoming bootcamp for new firefighters from one week to 2-3 field days. They have canceled in-person drills, and additional training sessions will be held online to further reduce the risk of disease transmission.

Throughout much of the West, and especially on wooded tribal lands in Oregon, June means the arrival of fire season. This year, adjusting to the new reality of pandemic means abbreviated training and the specter of less fire suppression.

Fire suppression is going to have to be reduced because of the requirements for social distancing and other recommendations, said Cody Desautel, National Resources director for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, in northern Washington state.

COVID-19 will change how we do business in general, said Desautel, who is also committee chair for the Intertribal Timber Council. We dont know what normal will look like coming out of this pandemic, but I can guarantee it wont be the same as what weve done in the past.

Theres a lot at stake for the tribes. Forestry is a key industry, second only to casinos, and wildfire fighting is an important source of employment for tribal members.

Crews will be entrusted to observe physical distancing within each individual pod, or firefighting team, and report any potential COVID-19 symptoms among their ranks.

Still, Drake is worried. I dont know how were going to control some of that stuff, he said.

Oregons chief deputy state fire marshal, Mariana Ruiz-Temple, said that well before COVID-19 hit, the state had a plan of action for operations during a pandemic.

Well see a different type of fire camp this year, where incident management teams are located off-site from the camps, Ruiz-Temple said. Food will be delivered in premade boxes, so were not continuing an environment where we can have potential spread.

Updated guidelines from the U.S. Department of the Interior also include: 6-foot spacing between individuals, routine disinfection of equipment and shared facilities, and of course, protective face masks.

Sharing of personal items like tobacco, which can be a sacred practice for Native Americans, is also discouraged.

Firefighter and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde member Eric Garcia listens to instructions on fire shelters during the Wildland Firefighters training earlier this month in Grand Ronde. (Photo/Leah Nash)

Desautel, with the Colville Tribes, worries that if this summer is anything like 2015, firefighters could see one of their toughest seasons ever. Five years ago, fires destroyed 382,000 acres on the Colville Reservation. The estimated cost of the damage: $100 million.

Now, amid drought warnings and climbing temperatures, Desautel sees a precarious combination of vulnerable forests and pandemic.

According to the Intertribal Timber Council, Pacific Northwest tribes harvested 221 million board feet in 2019, with an estimated value of $35 million. With that kind of revenue at stake, together with so many closed businesses and lost jobs due to COVID-19, its easy to see why stopping small fires from growing into widespread blazes is a priority for tribal governments.

At the same time, firefighting means jobs. Since the Civilian Conservation Corps Indian Division was founded nearly 90 years ago, firefighting has proven to be a steady source of income for thousands of Native Americans in the U.S.

Drake, with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, said applications from new firefighters are only down slightly from the typical 50 or so applicants he usually sees. (He needs to hire about 30 people.)

The recent surge in unemployment may be why people are still applying, in spite of any worries they may have about spreading or contracting COVID-19.

Kevin Chen (front) and Jordan Weijland (back) hike during field training. Photo by Leah Nash.

To ensure that his team has sufficient manpower throughout the summer, Drake said firefighters who qualified to work in 2019 can be grandfathered in to work this year, without the refresher course that is usually mandatory. The pressure on veteran and first-time firefighters alike will be immense, considering the limited training for new hires, virtual exercises in lieu of on-the-ground experience, and new protocols required to keep COVID-19 from spreading.

Diminished air quality during fire season could pose still another challenge for tribes, firefighters, and public health officials. Wildfires tend to emit small, microscopic particles that get into the lungs that can cause distressing symptoms, warns Dr. Gopal Allada, associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science Universitys Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.

Wood smoke can further aggravate the respiratory system for people with compromised health conditions, which is to say many COVID-19 patients. Even when smoke is not obvious, tiny specks of particulate matter can lead to irregular heartbeats, asthma, and premature death for people with lung or heart disease. Its like clockwork, said Allada.

With each fire season, hospitals see an increase in the number of patient visits and calls about respiratory issues.

Minority populations, including Native Americans, are at greater risk for COVID-19 fatalities due to an array of factors. These include disparities in healthcare, high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Exposure to smoke puts an already at-risk population in greater danger.

Anticipating the various impacts of wildfire season, and to address the economic toll of the pandemic, some lawmakers are trying to boost resources for Native American communities. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a bill in May that includes a provision to provide an additional $45 million to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Operation of Indian Programs.

Based on the bill, $20 million would be used to advance forest health management on reservation and Indian trust land, with another $5 million allocated for workforce hiring and training.

We worked very closely with the Intertribal Timber Council and Oregon tribes like the Cow Creek, Wyden said. The remaining $20 million would be designated for forestry projects on tribal lands. Our tribes say itll be a real shot in the arm for their community.

Wyden expects the bill to be taken up when Congress addresses more coronavirus legislation, but he could not provide a specific date.

For the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, a cash infusion could not come soon enough. In 2019, just a year after more than 17,000 acres of forest were put into trust for the tribe under the Western Oregon Tribal Fairness Act, 3,600 acres of it went up in flames during the Milepost 97 fire.

Tim Vredenburg, director of forest management for the Cow Creek Tribe, said officials had been depending on timber revenues from that acreage. Now hes merely hoping that, with help from local firefighter units and state and federal agencies, the tribe can prevent further loss. Vrendenburg said his tribe is going to be dogged and innovative in the face of these new challenges.

With COVID-19 compounding the difficulties of fire season, everyone will need to be.

Brian Bull is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and a reporter for KLCC in Eugene. Underscore.news is a nonprofit journalism organization based in Portland, Oregon. Supported by foundations, corporate sponsors, and the public, our reporting focuses on underrepresented voices and in-depth investigations.
Portland protests entered their fifth week Wednesday, hours after state lawmakers, a city commissioner and civil rights leaders raised vocal criticism about police use of force against demonstrators.

Wednesdays demonstrations are the first since the Portland City Council voted unanimously to support a one-year extension of the rank-and-file police union contract. The protests against police violence and brutality took place throughout the city.

Several dozen demonstrators converged late Wednesday outside the downtown Multnomah County Justice Center, a hub for protests. People used loudspeakers and stood on the front steps of the building to deliver speeches and lead the crowd in chants, according to live videos on social media. By 10 p.m., most people had moved near two city parks across the street. By 11 p.m., the crowd had grown beyond 100 people. Some people built bonfires in two planter boxes beneath an elk statue in the middle of Southwest Main Street between Third and Fourth Avenues.

Police largely stayed away until 11:30 p.m. Live videos showed a handful of officers arrive to stop people from accessing the federal courthouse next to the Justice Center. Many protesters gathered behind a makeshift barricade on Main Street

The response was a stark contrast to 24 hours earlier. Dozens of police officers in riot gear broke up a demonstration outside police union headquarters. Officers used tear gas to split up the crowd near the busy intersection of North Lombard Street and Interstate Avenue, leaving some bystanders and drivers unable to avoid the gas. Police arrested 29 people and detained three independent journalists who were watching the scene unfold.

The actions resulted in multiple calls for changes to police protest tactics.

House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, called the police actions completely unacceptable in a letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler. Sen. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, wrote on Twitter that he agreed. Both represent the North Portland neighborhood where protesters had gathered.

Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty called on Wheeler and Police Chief Chuck Lovell to implement several changes, including banning tear gas for any reason and advocating for charges to be dropped against journalists arrested while covering demonstrations.

In a letter to Lovell and Wheeler, who is the citys police commissioner, Hardesty also demanded the police bureau stop using rubber bullets and a long-range acoustic device known as LRAD on protesters, reconsider officers responding to protests in riot gear, make officer identification numbers easier for the public to read and allow only the police chief and mayor to declare a gathering unlawful.

Hardesty said the actions of some officers are becoming more outlandish and said shes asking her city official colleagues to act in the communitys best interest and safety. She told the Wheeler and Lovell to develop less harmful crowd control options within 30 days.

The irony of community members protesting police violence being met with police violence is not lost on me, Hardesty said in the letter. Community members exercising their freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are not the enemy, and I ask that the bureau and its staff reflect that understanding in its response to events.

Over five weeks of protests, many demonstrators have repeatedly called for massive budget cuts to the police bureau and more accountability of police officers. Some protesters contend that systemic racism is so deeply embedded within police agencies and courts that the entire criminal justice system is beyond fixing.

The demands for change have echoed across the globe since the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in late May.

Tensions between police and protesters escalated quickly Tuesday after police ordered marchers to leave the police union building soon after they arrived. Officers continued to press the crowd east for nearly three more hours. At times, police used impact munitions and devices that emitted smoke, gas or loud noises.

Police said some demonstrators threw things at officers, including fireworks. An Oregonian/OregonLive reporter observed fireworks being sent into the air above demonstrators or fizzling out in the space between officers and protesters.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell defended the departments actions and use of CS gas, a type of tear gas.

CS gas is uncomfortable, but effective at dispersing crowds, he wrote. We would rather not use it. Wed rather have those in the area follow the law and not engage in dangerous behavior. We provided plenty of warning and everyone there had the opportunity to leave to avoid the use of force.

Drivers at the scene said they were stuck in traffic and could not move.

Everton Bailey Jr. of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

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

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Schools may be temporarily closed but they remain a driving factor in parents home purchasing decisions. More than half of buyers with children said the quality of school districts and convenience to campuses are important factors, according to a 2019 report by the National Association of Realtors.

An earlier survey by the association found 91% of buyers, with and without school-age children, pay attention to school district boundaries when searching for a home. Half said they would pay extra for a home near a preferred school.

Parents sacrifice a shorter commute, an extra bedroom and other perks to live in a well-regarded school district, where homes for sale are viewed more often, sell faster and are valued higher on average than those in below-average school districts, according to analysis by Realtor.com.

Oregon has more than 1,200 public and charter schools.. There are even more private PK-12 schools.

Which ones are best for your children?

Parents work hard to find out. They might study the school districts achievement scores and enrichment programs. Or the tipping point may be extracurricular offerings, from technology to sports.

Marketing material on homes for sale include the names of nearby schools and some link to ratings by GreatSchools.org, which evaluates based on college readiness and the academic development of all students.

Test scores, class size, curriculum and community are all heavily weighted factors, says Kathy Hall of Hall Group Properties. Smaller public school districts like Lake Oswego and Riverdale [in Dunthorpe] benefit from major community and foundation support that is spread across a smaller number of students.

Districts with fewer students, smaller class sizes and larger space for social distancing may have more flexibility in adjusting to the unprecedented challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic, she adds.

The Lake Oswego School District has released what it calls a roadmap to reopening with in-person learning for the 2020-21 school year based on Oregon Department of Education guidance.

Sunita Thaker of Premiere Property Group, a broker who lives and works in Northwest Portland, says she sees many parents who want their children to attend Lincoln High School, which Portland Public Schools is rebuilding, look for a home in Forest Heights.

Parents love having a school in the city and kids love being at an open campus outside of the suburbs, she says. We cant wait to see the brand new [Lincoln High] campus in 2022.

Stephen FitzMaurice of eXp Realty says schools have always been important to home buyers, but the difference today is the amount of data available about each school.

Decisions are not based on hearsay or a vague reputation, but on numbers, says FitzMaurice.

He cautions people, however, to be wary of snapshot school ratings as provided by real estate databases. Instead, he recommends parents talk to teachers, principals and parents to see if the school is a good fit for their child.

Standardized information is also helpful. The Oregon Department of Education releases test results, attendance and other performance indicators for each school, but not numerical rating of a school or district.

Simple ratings cant capture the complex process of education, FitzMaurice posted on his blog, but the fact cant be denied that GreatSchools ratings are gaining influence over real estate values.

He also tells clients not to read the review sections on GreatSchools or similar sites such as SchoolDigger or Niche. It may be fun to read rants and raves, but when it comes down to it, thats all they really are, he says, adding that most people dont write reviews unless they have strong opinions.

Whats for sale in Portland area school districts? We search real estate listings to find homes in a range of prices, sizes and styles, from condos to mansions, within districts boundaries.

Lake Oswegos median home list price is $669,403, according to Zillow. We found residential properties ranging from a lakefront mansion at 3012 Lakeview Blvd. for $5,495,000 to a condo with two bedrooms and two bathrooms at 100 Kerr Pkwy #3 for $189,999.

Hall has listed a contemporary Craftsman house in Lake Oswegos First Addition, at 881 C Avenue, for $1.6 million and a traditional-style house with exclusive marina access at 15591 Village Dr. on 0.42 acres for $2,495,000.

In the West Linn-Wilsonville School District, the median list price for West Linn is $560,000 and Wilsonville is $475,632. We found an $15-million mansion at 1707 S.W. Schaeffer Road in West Linn and a $175,000 condo with two bedrooms and one bathroom at 1624 Village Park Place.

The Riverdale School District in Dunthorpe has homes that range from a $2,150,000 estate at 11510 S. Military Court to a contemporary house for sale at 1250 S. Radcliffe Road for $944,500.

 Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories

Want to search Oregon real estate listings and use local resources? Click here.
By Brian Nguyen

Advertisers are pulling their money out of Facebook after the company has faced major backlash on how it handles hate speech. Some of Facebooks critics go further  Facebooks early internal motto of move fast and break things worked too well. The argument is best exemplified by the fact that Facebook itself recognized that its product exacerbated disinformation and partisanship, but then chose to preserve profits over tackling those issues. Facebook however argues that the problem is with people, not necessarily with the product. Like with all technology, it is ultimately dependent on the people who are using it  Facebook mirrors society, and the unfortunate fact is that our society is rife with disinformation and partisanship.

Facebooks core problem lies with how it makes money  it leverages the connections it helps people make and uses them to sell ads. It allows for microtargeting  the pitch it gives to advertisers is that it can efficiently use the money to zero in on exactly who the advertisers want to target. This ability has allowed for bad actors to manipulate the ads system to do things like sell products on the idea of a looming civil war, or advertise jobs but only to certain kinds of people.

However, its ads problem is one of many, many problems. Mark Zuckerberg has apparently directly consulted with President Donald Trump on policy  they infamously allowed Trumps threatening statement on George Floyd protests to stay up while Twitter did not. Heres a small sampling of other issues Facebook has been called out for.

Scoop.



BuzzFeed News found Facebook has been running "Boogaloo" ads advocating for violence for months. Facebook said on Tuesday it was banning content associated with the extremist group. https://t.co/SljoH7KeP1@RMac18 @carolineha_ @BuzzFeedNews  Mark Schoofs (@SchoofsFeed) July 1, 2020

This is not reflective of this countrys experience right now. Also SARAH PALIN? https://t.co/7N9Z1X8ds4  Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) July 1, 2020

Speak, @karaswisher. Speak. https://t.co/B3NFyzbma4 By not choosing, Facebook chose hate. By avoiding problems, it chose Trump. When pressured, it caved to a surging right wing with the "trending topics" controversy. As a young adult, it chose continued adolescence. Now it pays.  Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) July 1, 2020

Facebook argues that its products bring a great amount of value to the world. Facebook enables people to make connections in big ways and small. Here's Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs and Communications for Facebook, and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom defends Facebook as a force for good in the world.

Look at what happened when the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Billions of people used Facebook to stay connected when they were physically apart. Grandparents and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. And more than that, people came together to help each other. Thousands and thousands of local groups formed  millions of people came together  in order to organize to help the most vulnerable in their communities. Others, to celebrate and support our healthcare workers. And when businesses had to close their doors to the public, for many Facebook was their lifeline. More than 160 million businesses use Facebooks free tools to reach customers, and many used these tools to help them keep their businesses afloat when their doors were closed to the public  saving peoples jobs and livelihoods.



Importantly, Facebook helped people to get accurate, authoritative health information. We directed more than 2 billion people on Facebook and Instagram to information from the World Health Organization and other public health authorities, with more than 350 million people clicking through.

Facebook does not benefit from hate. My latest thoughts on how Facebook is getting better at removing hate speech. https://t.co/vRK9Rbgbm3  Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) July 1, 2020

It holds a mirror up to society and people don't like what they see. Then blame the mirror.  Tobi Lutke  (@tobi) October 26, 2019

The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say.
The value of energy has been depressed in recent years, driven in part by less demand, higher conservation and use of renewable sources, and low natural gas prices. Talen also said legacy indebtedness it assumed when it acquired the plants in 2015 has become unsustainable due to a drop in generation prices in at least two regional commodity markets.
There are no new coronavirus cases in Midland or Gladwin counties on Thursday, leaving the total of confirmed cases at 127 and nine deaths, and 26 cases and one death, respectively.

The Midland County Health Department states on its website that as of Thursday, July 2, there have been 106 recovered cases in Midland.

To date in Midland County, there have been 5,822 diagnostic (current infection) tests and 485 serology (look for antibodies) tests performed, totaling 6,307 tests, according to the state website. In addition, Midland has 42 other probable cases, or people who have/had COVID-19 symptoms and an epidemiologic link to confirmed COVID-19 but no diagnostic test.

Bay County saw five more cases and an additional COVID-19 death on Thursday for a total of 359 confirmed cases and 30 deaths.

Isabella added just one case for 107 total cases and eight deaths.

Saginaw confirmed 16 more cases for a total of 1,246 confirmed cases and 120 deaths.

The state added 543 new confirmed coronavirus cases  compared to 262 on Wednesday  and 15 new deaths, bringing Michigans total to 64,675 total confirmed cases and 5,966 deaths. Thirteen of the 15 new recorded deaths were identified via a vital records search, according to Michigan.gov.

Statewide, the fatality rate is 9.2% and as of June 26, 51,099 people with confirmed cases have recovered, which represents COVID-19 confirmed individuals with an onset date on or prior to May 27, 2020, according to the state website, mich.gov.

The state website also states there are another 7,003 probable confirmed cases and 246 probable" deaths.

In total, Michigan has tested 1,267,979 coronavirus tests.

Dr. Catherine Bodnar, Midland County Department of Public Health medical director, said it is critical for people to take the following steps:

 Socially distance at least 6 feet from non-household members.

 Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

 Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom, before eating and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing.

 If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol based sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.

 Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty.

 Wear face coverings in public.

 Stay home when sick.

 Covering coughs and sneezes.

 Throw used tissues in the trash right after use.

 Routinely clean frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning wipe or spray.

If you think you've been exposed to COVID-19 and develop a fever and symptoms such as cough or difficulty breathing, call your health care provider for medical advice. If he/she isn't available, call MidMichigan Urgent Care in Midland at 989- 633-1350 or MidMichigan Medical Center's Emergency Department in Midland at 989-839-3100.

MidMichigan Health has a COVID-19 informational hotline with a reminder of CDC guidelines and recommendations. The hotline can be reached toll-free at 800-445-7356 or 989-794-7600. Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also has a hotline number for Michigan residents for questions about COVID-19. The number is 1-888-535-6136 and is available seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents can also e-mail COVID19@michigan.gov. E-mails will be answered seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

If you are feeling anxious, stressed, depressed and feel you need to talk to someone, reach out to Community Mental Health for Central Michigan by calling 800-317-0708.
To the editor:

Eliminating death and suffering from cancer means everything to the millions of Americans with the disease and the people who love them. Thats why Im calling on Congress to increase federal funding for cancer research for 2021.

Perhaps never before has the importance of medical research been so clear. Yet the pandemics reach stretches far beyond just those who are affected by COVID-19. For the 1.8 million Americans diagnosed with cancer this year, they need to know investments are still being made in developing new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat this deadly disease. Right now, we are at a point where advancements in research are saving more lives than ever and its critical that we keep this momentum going forward.

As a cancer caregiver, I hope Congress continues the strong bipartisan support for cancer research funding to maximize our potential for progress against a disease that still kills 1,661 people a day in this country. By increasing NIH funding by at least $3 billion in 2021, Congress has an opportunity to send a clear message that medical research is a priority.

None of us is more than one degree from someone with cancer  whether its a friend, family member or weve been diagnosed ourselves. For the nearly 17 million cancer survivors and their families in this country, we must continue to fund research and fuel the hope to end cancer as we know it.

JENNIFER COSTON

Merrill
Patrons soak in one of the "Top Ponds" at Valley View Hot Springs in the San Luis Valley Friday, November 9, 2012. Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette.
Dalwood Estate is the longest running commercial vineyard in Australia, with a history that dates back to 1828 when it was first established by George Wyndham.

But for years now Dalwood has been lost, the vineyard a forgotten cog in the old Wyndham Estate machine, with the name itself owned by Treasury until 2018.

Now, Dalwood is back, revived by the Aranaout family (who also own Hungerford Hill and Sweetwater) with the man with the best hair in Australian wine, Bryan Currie, making the wines.

This 2018 Shiraz is amongst the first releases under the new/old Dalwood label, and its a genuinely enjoyable modern Hunter red.

Ripe and plump, flush with soft, persistent and fleshy purple berry fruits, carrying an unquestioned red earth character through the finish, shining with that sweetness of fruit without heaviness which marks the best ripe contemporary Hunter Shiraz (a style championed by winemakers like Andrew Thomas, Mike De Iuliis et al).

I have plenty of time for silken Hunter charmers like this, and that line of earth just makes it even more distinct (and enjoyable), even if its perhaps a fraction riper than some of the legendary Hunter Burgundy styles.

Welcome back Dalwood Estate!

Best drinking: now to fifteen years. 18.5/20, 94/100. 14%, $45. Would I buy it? I could drink plenty of this.



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Palestine, TX (75801)

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Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 69F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
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Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The Deputy General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) on Thursday warned that data on the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana show that the country is going in a worse direction and called for a review of safety protocols
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Over 70,000 people, many of whom are internally displaced, were forcibly evicted from their homes in urban areas across East Africa even during the most prevalent months of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - The French government Wednesday released to Tunisian small and medium-size enterprises a financing package of 30 million Euros, including 6 million in loans, a statement issued by the French embassy here said
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan military officials and their Italian counterparts held talks here Wednesday to discuss the training and rehabilitation operations of Libyan coastal guards to fight illegal immigration, officials said here
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Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Dozens of demonstrators Wednesday for the second day in a row protested against persistent power outages in the national capital, official sources said here
Niamey, Niger (PANA) - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday donated rolling stock and technical equipment to the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) for the upcoming general elections in Niger
Paris, France (PANA) - The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has revealed the existence of an illicit trafficking scam in African cultural artefacts, which are sold to unsuspecting buyers, thanks to the entirely fake UNESCO stamp they come with
Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Environmental harm severely affects the youngest children, indigenous children and those from low-income and marginalized communities, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned on Wednesday during the child rights debate at the UN Human Rights Council
Allegheny had 233 new cases, or about 28% of the days new-case total. The 233 figure was more than double the previous day and was greater than the total for last Thursday, Friday and Saturday combined. In response, Allegheny imposed a one-week shutdown of bars, restaurants and casinos and all gatherings of more than 25 people.
EUREKA - Central Illinois health care options will grow stronger with Carle Health's $190 million acquisition of two Advocate hospitals, one in town and the other in Normal. That is according to officials from both organizations on Wednesday.

Carle and Advocate leaders gathered in the chapel garden of what had been Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal to finalize the deal. While only several dozen masked employees joined the outdoor event because of social distancing amid COVID-19, thousands more watched a live stream broadcast to Carle facilities throughout the region.

"This is really a day to celebrate for many reasons," said Dr. James Leonard, Carle president and chief executive officer (CEO). "One of the beauties of us coming together is the shared values across the system ... It's all about patient care."

Urbana-based Carle's acquisition of BroMenn, Eureka and affiliated facilities in Central Illinois from Advocate Aurora Health, based in Downers Grove and Milwaukee, Wis., was announced in January. State and federal regulatory approvals and other transition work took place over the past six months. More than 1,900 Advocate staff members are now a part of Carle.

Facilities also got new names. Advocate BroMenn Medical Center became Carle BroMenn Medical Center, while Advocate Eureka Hospital is now Carle Eureka Hospital.

"We are stronger together," said Colleen Kannaday, who remains president of both hospitals.

She added Eureka and BroMenn are stronger compared with 10 years ago largely due to their affiliation with Advocate and are ready "to take health care in Central Illinois to the next level."

"This is not an effort on our part to move things to Champaign," said Leonard. "This is an effort to partner with BroMenn."

Both Kannaday and Leonard indicated the unification of Eureka, BroMenn and Carle operations would strengthen the region's health care opportunities. That includes making it easier to attract specialists to the region and opening up possibilities for specialized care in Champaign-Urbana that may not be available in Bloomington-Normal. Previously, Advocate referred patients who needed specialized care to facilities in the Chicago area.

"We anticipate growing the clinical providers in the community as well as bringing people over from Champaign who might have some specialization that is not available here," Leonard said.

"The same wonderful providers caring for you yesterday will be caring for our patients today," said Kannaday, who added staffing adjustments have been "very, very minimal. The day-to-day care and the work remains the same."

Dr. Chuck Dennis, Carle Health chief medical officer, noted he began his career as an internist with Carle Clinic Bloomington-Normal in 1998, stayed on for eight years after that clinic was acquired by OSF HealthCare and then rejoined Carle in 2017.

"This is the bringing together of successful health care systems in our community," said Dennis, who resides in B-N.

According to Kannaday, with Carle's acquisition, the same health insurance plans will be accepted with a few exceptions. She encouraged patients to contact their insurance carrier directly with questions about benefits and in-network coverage.

"There are no major plans that we're not contracted with," Kannaday said.

She noted BroMenn remains a faith-based organization and its partnership with its delegate-churches remains unchanged.

Among BroMenn employees who watched Wednesday's ceremony was Kristie Wolfe, BroMenn and Eureka patient safety director.

Wolfe, a nurse for 25 years, mentioned that she worked at BroMenn as a nurse tech and pharmacy tech while a nursing student at Illinois Wesleyan University. She went to work after graduation at Carle in Urbana as a registered nurse in the surgical intensive care unit, and returned to BroMenn in 99.

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"I am extremely excited," she said. "Having the background at Carle and with experience I've had at BroMenn, the organizations culturally and strategically are very similar," with both focusing on patient care and safety.

She added specialty services not offered at BroMenn should be available at Carle in Urbana.

"We'll love to be able to keep our patients in Central Illinois," Wolfe said.

As part of the deal, there are also practices located in El Paso, Fairbury, Le Roy, Pontiac and Roanoke.

In addition, Kannaday was asked Monday to describe five things that she wants people to know about the transition. Here are her responds:

Staff will remain

"Those caring for you today will be caring for you tomorrow," Kannaday said.

The Advocate system's 2,000 team members and physicians joined Carle Health this past week.

"Our staff will retain all of the tools they need to provide the high level of safe, quality care you have come to trust and expect from our sites of care," Kannaday said.

Most insurance coverage will not change

The same insurance plans will be accepted with a few exceptions. According to Kannady, Carle's goal is to make sure there are no gaps in care and create a seamless transition for patients' insurance coverage.

"The majority of our existing insurance plans will remain in place with a few exceptions," she said. "Patients can check Carle's website for further details or contact their insurance carrier directly with questions about benefits and in-network coverage."

More services are coming

Expanded services will be available.

"Joining Carle will provide an opportunity to expand the types of services offered in our community," Kannaday said. "We have a number of new physicians who will join our medical team, including two primary care physicians in Eureka, one in El Paso and one in Fairbury. In addition, a new physical medicine and rehabilitation physician will oversee our acute rehabilitation unit at BroMenn."

Community partnerships continue

"Our long tradition of community involvement will continue," she said. "We know that Carle is dedicated to education and innovation and is a great partner with the University of Illinois.

"In addition, we are excited to strengthen our relationships with ISU (Illinois State University), IWU (Illinois Wesleyan University) and Eureka College with the resources we will have as a part of Carle Health. In fact, we are already having discussions with each of those schools about how we can collaborate on student health needs heading into the fall semester as COVID-19 continues to be an evolving situation."

Get ready to see red

Red will be the new purple. "We will 'paint the town red,' so to speak, as you can expect to see all of our signage change over the next few weeks to match Carle's iconic branding," Kannaday said.

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BLOOMINGTON  A Central Illinois public health professional urged people to be smart and safe this holiday weekend as the number of COVID-19 cases increased Thursday in many Central Illinois counties.

McLean, Livingston, Tazewell, Logan, Woodford, LaSalle and Ford counties all reported new COVID-19 cases on Thursday.

McLean County Health Department Administrator Jessica McKnight said people who are at increased risk of severe illness should limit their travel and anyone who is sick should stay home.

Keep gathering sizes small, gather outside rather than inside, maintain social distancing when possible, wash your hands and wear a face covering in public, McKnight advised.

McLean County Health Department reported four new cases of the novel virus. All four people are isolating at home.

The four cases brings to 265 the number of county residents who have had confirmed cases of the novel virus since March 19.

Of the 265, 238 have recovered (unchanged from Wednesday), 13 are at home in isolation (four more than Wednesday) and one is hospitalized (unchanged from Wednesday), McKnight said.

Thirteen McLean County residents have died of the novel virus since March. No new deaths have been reported since May 29.

More than 13,700 McLean County residents have been tested for COVID-19 and the rate of those testing positive is 1.9%, McKnight said. The county's rolling seven-day positivity rate as of July 1 is 0.9%, she said.

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"This holiday weekend, keep yourself and your loved ones safe," McKnight said in a statement. "You can get infected while traveling...Check the websites of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization for health advisories and self-quarantine requirements."

McLean County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) reported Thursday that 221 people were tested Wednesday at the COVID-19 testing site at the McLean County Fairgrounds, 1106 Interstate Drive, Bloomington.

"As we go into the holiday weekend, and people will be gathering in larger groups, remember that IDPH (Illinois Department of Public Health) recommends being tested 5-7 days after the event," EMA said on its Facebook page.

The testing site is for anyone who can complete a nasal self-swab test. The site is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily but will be closed for Independence Day on Saturday and Sunday.

Livingston County Health Department announced four new COVID cases, bringing that county's total to 51. All four are in isolation.

LaSalle County Health Department reported three new cases, meaning that county's total stands at 222.

Tazewell County Health Department reported four new cases, bringing Tazewell County's total to 139.

Logan County Health Department reported two new cases, so Logan County's new total is 17.

And Woodford and Ford counties each reported one new case, bringing Woodford's new total to 35 and Ford's to 34.

Statewide, IDPH reported 869 new cases and 36 additional deaths (none in Central Illinois) bringing the state's new totals to 144,882 cases and 6,987 deaths.

Contact Paul Swiech at 309-820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech.

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BLOOMINGTON  A Gillespie man who prosecutors say had a weapon inside the McLean County jail faces criminal charges.

Charles D. Six, 25, is charged with a Class 1 felony for possession of contraband in a penal institution. Prosecutors say he had a knife or an instrument of like character which could have been used as a dangerous weapon."

Six was in custody May 22 with charges involving a stolen vehicle with a $20,000 bond with 10% to apply.

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He was held on the contraband charge in lieu of posting $3,035.

The latest Crime Stoppers of McLean County cases:

Contact Kelsey Watznauer at (309) 820-3254. Follow her on Twitter: @kwatznauer.

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Days after Democrats in the U.S. House pushed through a bill expanding the Affordable Care Act, Springfield Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan said Wednesday that she backs the legislation and criticized U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, for his vote against the measure.

"On Monday, he voted against the Affordable Care Enhancement Act, which specifically addressed the problems that I have heard about from people across central Illinois," including the high cost of prescription drugs, premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, Londrigan said of Davis as she addressed reporters in a web-based news conference. She also said the bill addressed "inequities in health care faced by our communities of color."

"Congressman Davis has refused over and over again to listen to us," she said.

Davis, in a news release after he voted against H.R. 1425, called the measure "partisan legislation that does nothing to lower the overall cost of health care. ..."

"New taxes and government price controls on prescription drugs will not address the skyrocketing costs of the American health care system," Davis said in the statement. "In the midst of a global pandemic where researchers are scrambling to find treatments and cures for COVID-19, we should not be hindering pharmaceutical manufacturers' abilities to innovate and make new prescription drugs."

The fight over health care is a reprise of the 2018 race in the 13th Congressional District, when incumbent Davis defeated Londrigan by less than a percentage point. Londrigan said Wednesday, as she has before, that a life-threatening illness that put her son, Jack, in the hospital for 24 days 2009, emphasized the need for insurance for all. That concern and Davis' attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act propelled her into the race, she said.

Jayne Cioni, 63, of Staunton, a six-year survivor of lung cancer, appeared with Londrigan at the virtual meeting. She noted that Davis "celebrated on the White House lawn" after voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017, and supports a lawsuit aimed at declaring it unconstitutional. That, she said, would "leave many Americans without much-needed care."

"Our insurance, though expensive with extremely high deductibles, could not put a cap on my benefits because of the ACA," Cioni said. "I could not be denied coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. I like to say that Obamacare literally saved my life."

Londrigan said if the ACA is overturned, more than 31,000 people in the 13th District would lose health coverage, and more than 282,000 people with pre-existing conditions could lose insurance or "face discrimination in pricing and not be able to afford it."

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The bill passed by the House on Monday would expand tax credits for lower-earning Americans for paying insurance premiums, let more people qualify for subsidies and cap the portion of income some consumers would pay for coverage. It would let the government negotiate with pharmaceutical makers over drug prices, and block low-cost plans that the Trump administration has permitted that don't require coverage of people with pre-existing conditions.

The bill passed 234-179, with two Republicans joining 232 Democrats voting for passage. The bill has no chance of passage in the GOP-led Senate, and a White House statement called it an attempt to "exploit the coronavirus pandemic to resuscitate tired, partisan proposals."

The Davis campaign issued a statement noting that Londrigan has backed a plan called Medicare X, pushed by U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, and Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, that would allow people to join Medicare as a public insurance option. The Davis campaign cited an American Hospital Association report saying that plan could cut reimbursement to healthcare providers by $800 billion over a decade, as Medicare pays less than many insurance plans.

"The so-called cost savings of the Londrigan-backed Medicare X plan are achieved on the backs of hospitals and health care workers," said Aaron DeGroot, spokesman for the Davis campaign. "Londrigan should renounce her support for Medicare X and support good legislation, like Rodney Davis' bipartisan bills to help out-of-work Americans keep their health insurance through COBRA and protect nurses from being furloughed."

"Introducing a public option is something that I have talked about for rural communities and small businesses, because I think it would be good for us to introduce competition back into the markets," Londrigan said when asked about the criticism. "But right now, my first priority when I get to Congress is to strengthen and protect the Affordable Care Act." She said Davis and other Republicans in Congress have carried on "an all-out assault on the Affordable Care Act and on people with pre-existing conditions."

Davis has repeatedly said he wants to protect coverage for pre-existing conditions.

10 ways Illinois schools could look different this fall

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SPRINGFIELD  Illinois top lawyer wants a U.S. court to compel a federal official to formally acknowledge the Equal Rights Amendment received enough state support to be added to the U.S. Constitution  a largely procedural step that has thus far blocked the amendment from ratification.

Ensuring that happens, however, is not a simple matter.

The case centers on a decision by U.S. National Archivist David Ferriero, who was effectively ordered by the U.S. Department of Justice to deem passage of the Equal Rights Amendment  which would add protections for women as the 28th Amendment to the nations governing document  unsuccessful because multiple states missed a key congressional deadline.

Ferriero, who was appointed archivist by President Barack Obama in 2009, has since insisted that, unless a judge orders him to acknowledge the amendments passage, he will not do so.

When Congress introduced and passed the initiative in 1972, it set a seven-year deadline for state ratification, which was later extended to 1982. By then, only 35 states formally approved the language, five of which  South Dakota, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska and Tennessee  withdrew their backing in the 1970s.

In the last three years, Nevada, Illinois and Virginia became the last three states to approve the proposal.

In response to Ferrieros insistence he would not officially certify the Equal Rights Amendment without a judges order, Illinois Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul, joined by his counterparts in Nevada and Virginia, filed a lawsuit in late January.

The archivist later asked a judge to dismiss the case. The attorneys general argued in a document filed Monday that if that request is granted, the careful balance our founders established in the constitution between states and the federal government would be upended.

And accepting the Archivists arguments...would do much more than simply allow an unelected Executive official to disregard his ministerial duty, they wrote. It would tell the women of America that, after 231 years, they must wait even longer for equal treatment under the Constitution. And it would nullify the (three states) sovereign prerogative to ratify amendments that make our Union more perfect.

The amendment process outlined in the constitution was drafted to ensure federal power had limits, according to the court document. Congresss only role is to propose changes and choose one of two methods by which it can be ratified, not to ultimately determine whether requirements were met.

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Once 38 states, or three-fourths of the union, approve an amendment, it shall be valid...as part of the Constitution, according to the governing document.

That arrangement, the attorneys general wrote, is a critical piece of the constitutional design to which the States agreed when they ratified the constitution and consented to be bound by its terms.

By not approving the Equal Rights Amendments inclusion in the constitution, Ferriero improperly interferes with states rights, according to the court filing.

The archivist, however, alleges it would be improper to allow the amendment to succeed because three of 38 states formally supported it after the deadline expired. The attorneys general argued Congresss placement of that cutoff is important  it is in the resolution introducing the Equal Rights Amendment for state consideration, not in its actual text. Therefore, they argue, states never received formal notice of the deadline.

The three lawyers also point to the Constitutions 27th Amendment  the last one officially passed  as an example of why the deadline is irrelevant. It specifies that Congress cannot cut or increase its salary during a lawmakers term in office.

That amendment was introduced by Americas first Congress more than 200 years ago. Several states ratified it in the late 1790s before it effectively died, only to be resurrected and officially adopted in 1992.

In that instance, the U.S. archivist at the time certified the initiative should be adopted a mere 11 days after receiving official notice that enough states support it, without waiting for any action by Congress, according to the court document.

The attorneys general argued that if Ferrieros argument is successful in this case, the 27th Amendment should be declared invalid.

Federal courts must be available to restrain a federal official from overstepping his authority in such a blatantly unconstitutional manner, they added. ...The American people have already made the determination that sex equality should be enshrined in the constitution, and [Nevada, Illinois and Virginia] (along with 35 others) have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment that Congress proposed to do so.

In the court document, the states lawyers also asked a judge to allow oral arguments to address Ferrieros motion to dismiss their lawsuit.

The attorneys generals request to force the archivist to act is extraordinary, they wrote, but so is the archivists unprecedented intrusion on the constitutional authority explicitly granted to the states.

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On June 12 Patently Apple posted a report titled "House Antitrust Investigators are pressing Apple to confirm by Sunday whether Tim Cook will Testify in the Antitrust Probe." The report noted that "The letters raise the prospect of subpoenas to force testimony and document production if the companies don't comply voluntarily." On June 17 we posted a follow-up report titled "Apple's Legal Team won't confirm Tim Cook's attendance before the Antitrust Committee due to Highly Unusual Requests from the Committee."

Politico noted that "The email from Apple's lawyer said the committee appeared "to seek rolling production of materials from current, ongoing investigations that postdate the original request." The lawyer called the request "highly unusual and burdensome," and said the company "will not agree to a perpetual rolling production with no end date."

We're now learning that Kara Swisher has learned from David N. Cicilline who is chairing the House Judiciary Committee antitrust hearings examining Big Tech's power, that all four big tech CEO's will testify in late July. Swisher's tweet is presented below.

SCOOP: You can officially call it Techopalooza. Rep. David Cicilline has told me in an interview today the four CEOs of the most powerful tech companies in the world  Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon  have agreed to appear at a late July hearing on antitrust. Column coming!  Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) July 1, 2020

To clarify, Swisher added: "Cicilline, who has become one of the biggest critics of the enormous power tech wields, said that Amazons Jeff Bezos, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Googles Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook of Apple will testify in front of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee."
Surfaces such as door handles, ballot boxes, table tops, handles, light switches, etc. that may be touched by people inside the polling station will be cleaned with the disinfectant liquid before the commission starts work, according to the guidelines. And then, they must be wiped down once an hour and at least six times on election day.
The government has secured private sector investment to revive the Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL), Mr Alan Kyerematen, the Minister of Trade and Industry, has said.



He said contrary to claims in certain quarters that the operations of ATL had grounded completely, the government was rather up to the task and the future looked good for ATL.



You would recall that government had to intervene to save this company and, in addition to that, has been able to attract private sector investments to ensure that this particular company will go to the point where it started from, he told the staff when President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo paid a working visit to the company last Thursday, as part of his three-day working visit to the Eastern Region.



Mr Kyerematen said, when the current government took office, this company was literally on its knees, with the factory producing at less than 30 per cent of its capacity.



By the time that we took over, the management of ATL had already decided that enough was enough, and that it was time for them, with all the investments that they had made, to say goodbye, that is why the government had to intervene, he said.



Alluding to the fact that at full capacity, the ATL is able to employ 3,500 workers, the minister said this was a pointer to the fact that ATL was a strategic national asset, and gave an assurance that the government would not sit down for the company to collapse.



Textile industry



The trade minister revealed further that the government had decided to introduce a number of policy measures to deal with the challenges of the textile industry as a whole.



The policies include the introduction of tax stamps and the designation of a single import corridor. So you cannot bring textiles into this country except through that designated corridor, which is through Tema, he explained.



Mr Kyerematen referred to a situation in 2016 where even though 30 million yards of textile prints was imported into the country, only one container was declared as having gone through the Tema Harbour.



It means that the rest were being smuggled in through the Eastern Corridor, so we can no longer tolerate this and that is why we are putting in a dedicated entry point, he stated.



Stimulus package



Additionally, the minister indicated that the government was providing stimulus packages and other support to the textile companies, and would also put in place a textile management import system, so that those who are importing and are not declaring what they are importing will have this control management system where imports of textile prints will be managed centrally, he stated.



When that was done, he said, pirated goods could be checked.



Mr Kyerematen indicated further that President Akufo-Addo had directed that, we must take steps to encourage those factories outside, particularly in China, to relocate to Ghana.



In that context, he said, the partners working with Ghana had invited some of the manufacturers to come to the country by the first week of December for discussions on the way forward.



The minister was convinced that with all these policy measures in place and with the Presidents commitment and support, all the challenges of the textile industry would be a thing of the past.



However, we would also ensure that we have a taskforce that will ensure that we all comply with all these policy measures,  he stressed.

Source: Daily Graphic









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BANKS in the country will require some magic to deliver a strong performance in the second quarter, the Managing Director of CAL Bank, Mr Philip Owiredu, has stated.



He said if COVID-19, which was serious in just one month in the first quarter, could have a negative impact on the performance of banks, then three months of COVID-19 would definitely hit the banks harder.



The latest report of the Bank of Ghana on the banking sector indicated that although the sector performance improved at the end of March 2020, there were emerging signs that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to weigh on the industrys performance adversely.



The report shows that the growth rates in the key performance indicators of the sector contracted in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.



Total assets grew by 3.5 per cent in first quarter 2020, lower than the 5.7 per cent growth recorded in first quarter 2019. In addition, deposits, credit, investments and profit-after-tax recorded similar lower growth rates.



In an interview with the Graphic Business, Mr Owiredu said: If we want to see the banking sector performing stronger than this in the second quarter, then we must be doing some magic.



If COVID-19, which within the first quarter impacted us for one month, had a negative impact on the sector, then how much more the three months in the second quarter. I dont expect a significant deterioration in the performance but we will definitely be hit, he stated.



He said what was, however, important to look out for was the asset quality because at the moment, with the challenges that businesses were facing, asset quality would be key.



Some banks probably, based on their pipelines that they had which would have fallen through in the second quarter, might be able to see enhanced performance compared to the previous quarter, but generally that trend in the first quarter will continue in the second quarter, he noted.



Banking going more digital

The managing director also pointed out that banking around the world was going digital although there would still be some elements of person-to-person transactions.



We should see a significant increase in digitisation of services, and increasingly we are going to see a lot of trends towards digitisation of more of the products and services of banks, he said.



He said although banks would still be physically present, the growth in that physical presence would not be like what had been witnessed in the past.



At CAL, we have an agenda to serve clients through the various digital platforms, he said.



COVID-19 and digital banking

The managing director pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic had pushed the digital drive of banks across the world.



Although in recent times we see that the trends of banking have changed and although this change has taken effect in the country, the pandemic has hastened the move towards ensuring that we serve customers through digital means, he stated.



As a bank, he said CalBank already had a digital agenda in place about four years ago, and its strategy from last year was to reinforce that.



It was sort of the right time that we decided to invest quite significantly to ensure that our platforms are stable, and we now have the infrastructure in place to be able to support the digital products that we have. We have hastened the projects we were doing to be able to meet the needs of our various clients.



Growth in digital channels

Mr Owiredu said the CalBank mobile application, which was just launched in January 2020, had so far seen over 20,000 downloads, which was a very fast rate of downloads.



If you take our mobile banking platform which had about 160,000 users at the beginning of the year, we now have about 200,000 users. We have a platform that we use in our banking halls where the clients do not engage our staff very closely which we call Digibank, which has also seen a lot of transactions being done now.



"At the moment, we have between 70 and 80 per cent of customers who come into the banking hall using that platform, he noted.













Source: Daily Graphic









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Featured Video
The Meridian Port Services (MPS) has laid the last pavement block to signify the completion of the first phase of the Tema Port Expansion Project.

The new MPS Terminal 3 will connect Ghana to Africas consumer markets through direct services, shorter transit times and competitive sea freight rates.





It is expected to attract further investments in facilities and factories around the Tema Port and also improve port productivity and capacity.



In his remarks at the ceremony, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the MPS, Mr Mohammed Samara, thanked all who contributed to the successful completion of the works.



The expansion



He said the first phase had increased the container handling capacity of the port from one million to 2.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).



In addition, he said, the last 10 months of operations had presented the opportunity to stress-test and stabilise the fully integrated systems and processes at the terminal.



He said the seamless synchronisation of the system and processes, coupled with the modern infrastructure, could only guarantee the success of the terminal in delivering the highest service levels to the maritime industry.



The MPS will continue to improve the socio-economic fortunes of our community and nation at large, create a safe and secure environment for the port community as we engage in investment for the port community that will grow our external connectivity to newer markets in the global transport sphere, he said.



Economic recovery



The Minister of Trade and Industries, Mr Alan Kyerematen, described the facility as vital towards Ghanas post-COVID-19 economic recovery.



He expressed optimism that the country would benefit from the global shifting necessitated by the pandemic, indicating that it held significant positive implications for the nation.



Port infrastructure or port facilities are not an end in themselves; they are meant to be a means of facilitating trade  I believe that because of what we are seeing here today and given the level of efficiency in the operations of the MPS so far within this very short period, he said.



Maintenance



The Deputy Minister of Transport, Mr Daniel Titus-Glover, urged the operators of the facility not to lose focus, saying constant maintenance and upgrading of the systems would guarantee the future of the facility.



I am pleased to learn that a host of Ghanaian workers were employed to complete these works; each gained some knowledge and many have since gone on to work on other construction projects across the country, he said.



The Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Mr Michael Luguje, said the authority would make major investments to realise the full potential of the Terminal 3, adding that it would also continue to keep the port active, in spite of the worldwide economic difficulties.



Following the construction of the harbour basin capable of accommodating more berths, we will begin to look at further developments to bring to full manifestation our vision for the Tema Port, he said.



We will also look forward to improvements in our roads and rail sector to complement this infrastructure to facilitate the transport of raw materials to and from the hinterlands, he added.









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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An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced George Odum Mensah, a 24-year-old teacher, to 10 years imprisonment for defiling a minor.



The convict was employed to teach the girl at home but ended up defiling her.



Mensah, who was charged with defilement, pleaded not guilty but the court, presided over by Mrs Christiana Cann, found him guilty at the end of the trial and sentenced him accordingly.



Prosecuting, Chief Inspector Kofi Atimbire explained that the complainant is a mason residing at Dome in Accra with his family, including the 15-year-old victim.



He said Mensah taught at an unnamed school within the vicinity and in November 2018, he was employed by the victims mother to assist her

in extra classes at home from 1800 hours to 2000 hours.



Prosecution said one of the rooms in the complainants house was designated as a study room for that purpose.



In February 2019, at about 1930 hours, Mensah took advantage of the situation and had sex with the victim in the study room.



Prosecution said some days later, he gave the victim gifts including neck beads, two pairs of ear ring, two ladies purse, a hair ribbon and pregnancy test kits.



The victims mother saw the items and quizzed her as to the source. Victim then explained that it was Mensah who gave them to her after having sex with her in the study room in February.



Prosecution said Mensah was then warned sternly not to set foot in the house again or talk to the victim.



On October 14, 2019, the complainant saw the victim holding a Samsung Galaxy Two mobile phone and again questioned the victim as to the source of it and the victim again mentioned Mensah.



Prosecution said when the mother went through the phone, she saw the pictures of Mensahs penis, which he had been sent to the victim via WhatsApp chat.



The same day, the victim left home and spent the night in an unknown destination. The complainant suspected the accused to have abducted the victim hence a report was made to the Police and the accused person was arrested.

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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A 37 year old Sales Manager who allegedly collected 12,000 dollars (GHC67,200.00) under the pretext of securing a Canadian passport for a trader but failed has appeared before an Accra Circuit Court.



Rodney Ewusie-Moses charged with defrauding by false pretense pleaded not guilty.



He was admitted to bail in the sum of GH67,200.00 with four sureties one to be justified.



Ewusie-Moses is expected to reappear on July 21 before the court presided over by Mrs. Hellen Ayeh for case management conference.



Prosecuting, Detective Sergeant Thomas Sarfo, narrated that the complainant Latopa Farouk is a trader residing at Pig farm in Accra whiles the accused also resides at Teshie-Nungua.



Detective Sergeant Sarfo said on May 25, last year, Ewusie-Moses informed the complainant that he could secure him a Canadian passport and demanded 12,000 dollars, a cedi equivalent of GH67,200.00.



Prosecution said on June 26, same year, the complainant paid 6,000 dollars to the accused and promised to pay the remaining 6,000 dollars in two weeks time.



He said five weeks later, Ewusie-Moses sent videos and pictures of the alleged procured Canadian passport with permanent resident card to the complainant.



Prosecution said the complainant became suspicious and confronted the accused who led him to another gentleman in a forex bureau, near Alisa Hotel.



He said the accused then informed the complainant that gentleman was going to assist him.



Prosecution said the complainant realising that he had been defrauded demanded the refund of his money of which the accused gave out his fiances vehicle, laptop and land documents as collateral assuring the complainant that he would refund the money but he failed.



He said a report was made to the Police and when the accused was arrested he refunded 3,000 dollars and GH7,000.00 to the Police and promised to refund the rest later but went into hiding.

Source: GNA









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The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, has enjoined media practitioners not to run down the countrys universities but strive to promote their positive attributes.

Such an endeavor, he said, was one of the surest ways to develop the universities to best global practices and standards.



The vice chancellor stated this when he met the management of Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL) in a meeting to explore partnerships aimed at deepening ties between the two organisations.



The GCGL was represented by the Managing Director, Mr Ato Afful, the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kobby Asmah, and the Director, Marketing, Mr Franklin Sowa.



Others from the UG were the Ag. Director, Office of Institutional Advancement, Prof. Robert Ebo Hinson; the Director, Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, Professor George Nkansah; Ms Adwoa Abrokwa and Ms Magdaline Tandoh of the Alumni Relations Office; Mrs Anna Amporful of the UG Alumni Association (Ghana), and Mrs Bernardine Bediako-Poku from the Office of Research, Innovation and Development.



Promoting ties



As part of the arrangement, the two institutions will work to promote the development of joint studies, research and training activities.





The Vice- Chancellor said that making research findings known was a challenge to many universities in the country.



We sit on an ivory tower; we sit on knowledge but we do not project our own, Prof. Owusu stated.



Regrettably, he said, news about the universities were mostly negative.



He posited that positive news helped the universities to strive for excellence and do well in global rankings.



He, therefore, urged the media to endeavour to promote the universities and not to run them down with negative reports.



COVID



Prof. Owusu said, for instance, that the premier university had done so much under the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.



What we have done under COVID-19 is amazing.There is so much research findings we can share on COVID-19, he declared.



We need to tell the success stories of the university, he further stated, adding that COVID-19 had taught us great lessons of being independent.



If we stick to this, the country will do better,  the vice chancellor said.



National mandate



For his part, Mr Afful indicated that GCGL was celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and it was right and proper to have such engagements with the University of Ghana.



He said with GCGL at 70, it was befitting to deepen ties with the premier university, a citadel of education, for guidance, asking: Where better can we go for this level of guidance?



Mr Afful noted that GCGL had a national mandate to inform and educate the citizenry to make the right and informed choices and that the company was ever willing to partner the UG on thought leadership programmes.



Currently, Mr Afful pointed out that the GCGL business which started with print was now moving speedily into digital platforms.



He mentioned the Graphic Online and Graphic Newsplus platforms as additions to the Graphic stables.



Additionally, he urged the university not only to take advantage of the GPAK, a subsidiary of the GCGL, for their printing jobs but the Graphic Courier services in the delivery of goods and services.



We have built an infrastructure that is most reliable and dependable and we do hope you will take advantage of them, Mr Afful stated.



Assurance



The Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kobby Asmah, assured the university authorities of the continuous support of GCGL in the positive promotion of activities of the university.



He, therefore, stressed the need for deepened engagements as it was the only way to sustain collaborative efforts that could mutually benefit the two institutions, help them to learn from each other and grow their brands.



Mr Sowa, for his part, welcomed the initiative and described the two institutions as heritage brands because both were celebrating seven decades of existence.



Professor George Nkansah was of the view that since the world was now in the technology age the bilateral engagement would be a win-win situation.









Source: Daily Graphic









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Final year students of all public schools in the Birim Central Municipality in the Eastern Region have started classes in their various schools as directed by the government.



This came to light when the Ghana News Agency (GNA) toured the schools to observe what was happening in the schools.



The Agency observed that teachers were at post teaching, while the pupils were also observing physical distancing protocols in the classrooms and were all wearing nose masks.



The schools also had veronica buckets, tissue papers, and liquid soap for handwashing.



At an orientation for final year students of Akim Oda Presbyterian 'A' Junior High School, Reverend Happy Anyana, Headteacher of the school advised the students to strictly abide by the safety protocols for the prevention of the spread of the corona virus to enable them to have successful studies in school and pass their examinations.



He advised the students to get themselves well fed before coming to school and carry their snack and water because they would have to study for four hours without break.



Out of the 94 final year students of the school, 68 pupils were at the orientation.



Mr Samuel Appiatu, the Headteacher of Akim Oda Presbyterian 'B' JHS said, the school was using all the four classrooms for the form three students to ensure physical distancing.

Source: GNA









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The Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) has signed a partnership collaboration with Book Aid International (BAI)to begin a book shipment to support Ghanas public, school and special libraries.

GHLA is an agency of the Ministry of Education while Book Aid International is one of the world largest book donor.



The signing of the partnership, which was held in Accra is as a result of series of meetings between Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) led by the Acting Chief Executive, Mr Hayford Siaw and Alison Tweed, Chief Executive of Book Aid International.



The two Executives agreed on the need to revive libraries in Ghana through making available new and appropriate materials that meet the aspiration of library users in Ghana.



Mr. Siaw explained that past policies, as well as inertia on the part of the GhLA, had contributed to the stagnation of growth at GhLA.



He was therefore happy to note, however, that the current President, Nana Addo Danquah AKufo-Addo, as well, the Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh cherish and have the development of libraries at heart.



"Fortunately for the GhLA, our current President has an astounding interest in Education, and he is committed to ensuring quality learning environments for everyone, especially children, hence the renewed commitment to strengthen the public library system to deliver on its mandate.



He added that, in the past few months, GhLA has created the largest book Processing Unit for any public library system in West Africa. We have established a new Acquisition and Distribution Unit, all in a bid to support the transformation of libraries in Ghana.



Alison Tweed after the signing stated that Book Aid International is proud to be partnering with the Ghana Library Authority as it works to become once more a first class service to the general public. We urge all those who want to read for pleasure or to improve their life chances to use their local libraries, where they will soon find brand new up to date books on all subjects donated by Book Aid International. We commend Mr Siaw, his team and all at the Ministry of Education for this renewed commitment to the importance of libraries for national development.



Ghana Library Authority will be receiving Books of commercial value of over half a million British pounds per year, unprecedented in recent years of the agency. This will compliment other government investments in book acquisition to resource libraries in the country.



About the Ghana Library Authority



The Ghana Library Authority (formerly Ghana Library Board) is the only institution mandated to establish, equip, manage and maintain public libraries in Ghana. As part of it work, it also prepares guidelines for the establishment of public, community and school libraries. It maintains a network of 60 libraries across all ten regions.



It was established in 1950 from a 1,000 contribution donated by the late RT. Rev. John Orfeur Aglionby, the then Anglican Bishop of Accra



In 1980, the agency had 1,006,720 books on its shelves but currently have only 531,865.



About Book Aid International



Book Aid International is a UK registered charity which provides books and supports libraries in Africa and around the world. Book Aid International is supported by many publishers who donate books to the charity which Book Aid International then sends onto libraries overseas. The charity only donates new books. His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh is the charitys patron. RT Hon. Lord Boateng is the charitys Chair. In 2016, Book Aid International sent 1,032,610 to 3,583 libraries in 14 countries

















Source: Daily Graphic









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It is apparent that there is an upset in the race for a safe and effective drug or vaccine in the global battle against the pandemic, COVID-19.



A well-known, cheap, simple and easily produced and available drug, dexamethasone, has become the first to make a surprising major breakthrough.



Dexamethasone, a steroid being used since the 1960s to treat some ailments, such as breathing problems, arthritis, hormone and immune system disorders and some types of cancers  has proved to be safe and efficacious in treating COVID-19 patients on ventilators and those on oxygen.



Research scientists in the United Kingdom (UK) have found out, during clinical tests, that dexamethasone, also known as dexamed, can reduce death of very sick COVID-19 patients on ventilators from 40 to 28.



For COVID-19 patients on oxygen, it can reduce death among 100 patients treated with the drug to 25.

That means, dexamethasone can save about 33 per cent out of 100 patients on ventilators that received the drug, and about 25 per cent patients on oxygen.



It is patients that are critically ill and are on ventilators or oxygen that can benefit from the drug, according to the research scientists findings.



How did it all start?

The clinical trials took place in the UK. It was done by a team of research scientists who recruited 15,500 patients in 175 hospitals in that country.



The team was led by Prof Peter Horby and his colleague, Prof Martin Landray, and the study is part of what is called Recovery Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy.





Their purpose was to do simple testing of repurposed or experimental drugs to find out whether any of them could reduce the risk of death.



Dexamethasone and hydroxychloroquine were two of the many drugs on trial. Half way in the trial, hydroxychloroquine was stopped because the drug was found to have not been helpful to COVID-19 patients.



Dexamethasone is described by the scientists as a low-cost anti-inflammatory steroid in use since the 1960s.



As an immune suppressing drug, there were fears that it would worsen the conditions of COVID-19 patients instead of helping them.

We had some senior doctors writing to us saying: You really shouldnt be doing this, and that dampening down the immune system in patients trying to fight an infection was probably not a wise thing to do, Prof Landray has said.



The reality was that nobody knew whether dexamethasone would be helpful or harmful, he noted.

Prof Landray explained that what was missing, until then, was a randomised trial which was big enough to reach firm conclusions.



Some of a large number of patients (the biggest in any clinical trial), were given the drug dexamethasone, and others were not.



According to the scientists, the immune system of the patients reacting to the drug, indeed, appeared to have dampened.



However, in doing so, it gave the lungs of the patients an opportunity to recover.



That is what has made dexamethasone, a major breakthrough and has now become the standard drug of care to be given to COVID-19 patients on ventilators and those on oxygen.



The Oxford team announced the result of their trials on June 16, 2020.



The World Health Organisation (WHO) has welcomed the new development. It described the drug as a lifesaving scientific breakthrough.



However, some research scientists and doctors in the United States (US) have not been so much enamoured about the drug, dexamethasone, in treating COVID-19 patients.



The American medical experts preferred to wait until more data on the drug and how it works are published and trial results are peer-reviewed.



In reaction, the Oxford University team has promised to publish the full results of their clinical trials in a few weeks.



According to Prof Horby and Prof Landray, the recovery team that discovered dexamethasone as a COVID-19 treatment drug involve about 20 staff in Oxford University, 3,500 doctors, nurses, research scientists and administrative staff across the UK.



Both have said that without the thousands of patients, no medical progress would have been made.



I say to everyone involved that they should have a warm feeling about the result we are producing because this is how we have advanced medicine, Prof Landray has said.



The UK scientists have explained why dexamethasone should be used as the first breakthrough drug in the fight against COVID-19.



They have said that the drug, not only significantly reduced mortality rate among COVID-19 patients, it could also be used immediately worldwide to save lives.



Besides cutting the risk of death for patients on ventilators by a third, dexamethasone reduced the risk of death of patients on oxygen by a fifth, according to the research scientists.



Another reason given by the scientists in defence of dexamethasone as a first-line drug for COVID-19 patients is that it is cheap and readily available.



It is a drug that is familiar to all physicians all over the world. Besides, production of dexamethasone in large quantities for immediate use worldwide is easy.



Above all, its properties and side effects are already well known to doctors worldwide.



Meanwhile, another drug, chloroquine phosphate, has been acclaimed, after clinical trials, as another breakthrough medicine for treating COVID-19 patients with serious pneumonia infections.



The drug has proved, in clinical trials, in China to be efficacious and safe in treatment.

Chloroquine phosphate is a well-known anti-malaria drug.



The National Health Commission of the Peoples Republic of China has recommended that the drug be included in the next version of the Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnostics, and Treatment of Pneumonia caused by COVID-19.



The world is awaiting the result of clinical safety trials of a promising Oxford University vaccine, ZD1222, being developed by the institution.



At earlier trials, the vaccine has proved to be effective in preventing COVID-19 infections.

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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Mr Ron Strikker, Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana has lauded the Government of Ghana for professionally managing the Coronavirus pandemic also known as COVID-19.



He was commending the Ghana Police Service (GPS) for strictly following the preventive measures of COVID-19 when it jointly launched a framework on media-police with the media, among other stakeholders.



Mr Strikker described the event planning as impeccable, adding that it was a proof of how excellent Ghana was tackling the corona virus crisis.



So far, Ghana deserves commendation, I feel safe and healthy and I believe all members of the international community feel same, well done Ghana, he added.



The Ambassador therefore urged Ghana to keep up with the good work it was doing and not to be complacent because the fight is not over yet.



Commissioner of Police (COP) Nathan Kofi Boakye, Director-General of Research and Planning expressed concern about how to sanction journalists when they erred.



He said in Ghana, it was difficult to define who a journalist was and with the inflow of bloggers, among other online practitioners makes it more solemn, adding that even the mainstream journalists sometimes make statements that their media houses disassociates with which invariably ends up tarnishing peoples hard won reputation.



Professor Kwame Karikari, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Graphic Communications Group, in a response to a question, said the police could petition the Ministry of the Interior for Cabinet to come up with laws that would stop some of these things when they became rampant.



He urged the Police to demand from the undisciplined to act rightly, especially with regards to rejoinders to their stories.



Outlining the media/Police framework, Prof. Karikari said the framework is not to get the police to give preferential treatment to journalists but to understand each others roles.



He urged both bodies to take their members through the document, stressing that media houses could use a day to educate their staff on it.



Professor Karikari said the framework would strengthen the bond between the media and Police and help both to give the public credible, transparent and reliable information.



He said in as much as police had the privilege to keep some information from the journalists due to security reasons, the media also cannot be censored or prevented from carrying out their duties if its in the public interest.



He said the Police can stop journalists from taking information if it is really against the public interest.



Mr Edmund Kofi Yeboah, General Secretary for the Ghana Journalists Association said the challenge the framework would face is that the Police as a statutory institution can sanction offending officers but difficult to punish journalists because the various regulatory bodies did not have the power to do so.



He advised that the framework be made part of the training manual for both journalists and Police before they come out of school.



Superintendent of Police, Mrs Sheila Abayie-Buckman, Director of the Police Public Affairs Unit said that the framework would curb impunity against journalists and promote their safety.



Initiated by the Media Foundation for West Africa, the framework would guide both the Police and media as they relate to the public.



Mr Edwin Arthur, President of the Private Newspapers Association threatened to call for news blackout of the Police service if they refused to pay attention to media safety.



He advised practitioners not to allow the document to gather dust but put it into operation, adding that, police protection of journalists should be decentralized to other parts of Ghana and not only Accra, Kumasi and Tema.



He said complaints of atrocities against journalists have not been addressed by the Service, citing the gruesome murder of Ahmed Suale.



The framework was sponsored and supported by the Netherlands, Deputy Commissioner of Police David Senanu Eklu, Superintendent Abayie-Buckman and Professor Karikari and other media stakeholders.

Source: GNA









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On the eve of the release of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report the Diocese published the names of 46 priests that they determined were priests credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a child, Serbin said. What about all of the teachers, employees and volunteers that the Bishop of the Diocese of Allentown knew were molesting children? Doesnt the public have a right to know the identities of all individuals known to have sexually violated innocent children?
Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, is calling on all actors in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic to harness their synergies towards defeating the virus as more money goes into testing.



The Deputy Minister said over 290,000 tests worth $17 million have been conducted throughout the country, indicating that it cost $60 to perform a single test.



By these statistics, Ghana is testing 9,000 in every one million population far ahead of Nigerias 521 to a million, and Egypts 3,000 to a million.



He said the country was on a good pathway to containing the pandemic and there was no time for complacency.



Dr Okoe-Boye made the call when he paid a familiarisation visit to the Volta region to assess the efforts of combating the COVID-19 by major actors.



He said all interventions by the government were based on experts advice and were far from copy and paste scenarios from global regulatory bodies.



He said Ghana was recording low COVID-19 related deaths with a mortality rate of 0.6 per cent compared to 14 per cent in the case of Italy adding While developed nations revel on solid infrastructure to contain the fight, Ghana is ahead with strategies.



On contact tracing mechanisms, Dr Okoe-Boye said it was no longer prudent to continue engaging volunteers as staff of the GHS has taken over that schedule.



The Deputy Minister said mass testing was not a panacea to fighting the virus as scientists and researchers have proven that the virus was slippery and tricky in nature.



Giving an overview of case management, Deputy Volta Regional Director of Ghana Health Service Dr Senanu Dzokoto, said the region had only 28 active COVID-19 cases with cumulative case count increasing to 346 cases.



He said the region recorded 212 recoveries with six deaths who had critical underlying conditions.



Dr Dzokoto said collaboration among stakeholders had facilitated the testing of 10,000 suspected cases in Oti and the Volta regions to date.



Dr Dzokoto disclosed that the Ministry of Health had presented a safety cabinet, which is a box designed to protect objects or samples being screened, to the UHAS testing centre to increase their ability to test cases without fear, spills or accidents.



He commended the media for their immense contribution in the fight against COVID-19 and urged them to continue to lend their unalloyed support towards awareness about the virus.



He pleaded with the media houses to verify or double cross-check their reports when in doubt to avoid creating doubts or misreporting on issues.











Source: daily guide









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The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has decided to ban the usage of mobile phones among health workers on duty.

The move according to GHS, the decision which will take effect sometime this year is to improve efficiency in health posts across the country.



The GHS says it has received numerous complaints from relatives of patients on how health professionals spend time on their phones even when attending patients.



Speaking on Starr FM in Accra, the Director General of the Ghana Health Service Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare said the service has received numerous complaints from relatives of patients on how health professionals spend time on their phones even when attending patients



The rationale behind the ban is to get the health officers to pay attention to their job when on the field. Some patients and their family members complain bitterly on how some health professionals use their phones when they visit the hospitals. It is not a good sign he explained.



He added that they will put in place an intercom system through which health officials can communicate, Well put in place an intercom system through which health officials can communicate. Well issue a statement and most of the institutions will have the intercom systems working



In most organisations except in some banks and some corporate institutions, youll find most officials of the facilities on their mobile phones.



In the Western World, in most of the hospitals, networks do not work well to help check some of these irregularities. Intercom systems are used. Were considering scrambling the network system in the hospitals so health officials cannot use them while at post, he added.













Source: Daily Graphic









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Police are randomly stopping people in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, seeking their consent for coronavirus testing.



The exercise kicked off on Thursday morning on some roads and entry points.



Rwandan health authorities say this will provide factual information about the Covid-19 status in the capital.



From March, Rwanda has conducted more than 140,000 tests. More than 1,000 have recorded positive results.



Officials in Kigali told the BBC that they will be focusing on morning hours as people go to work and in the evenings as they return home.



Some are however complaining that they are being forced to consent to the testing.



A motorcyclist told the BBC he was forced by police to cooperate, while another said he was happy to easily get tested on street and carry on his activities.



Last week, the Rwandan authorities re-introduced a lockdown in parts of Kigali as dozens of cases were confirmed.

Source: BBC









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Many people all over the world have been quite anxious about the global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Many have lost their loved ones, their livelihoods and even their minds from the impact of this pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Ghana confirmed its first cases of COVID-19.



Being an infectious illness, it is not surprising that people are afraid to go near those who are infected.



Sometime after joining my departmental COVID-19 team, there was a call for volunteers to work at the National Treatment Centre, specifically the National COVID-19 ICU. I delayed my decision to join for a bit because I was honestly uncertain about what could go wrong and was afraid for the worst. Yes, I was afraid of all the possibilities and the fear of the unknown. I was also scared that I might pick the virus and infect my husband and children with it. My husband Jeffrey was thankfully very supportive. We had more training sessions which really boosted my confidence. I decided, eventually, to join the team and the day came for work to begin at the treatment centre.



Entering the patients room for the first time, there I was with all my tasks outlined for me.



The moment of truth had come and I still had mixed feelings; wondering if I had made the right decision to volunteer in the first place, along with all the potential risks it posed to my family and I.



Work Continues



Apparently, the fear never went away (I soon realised). I said Hello to the patient and started performing my tasks in the room which involved setting an intravenous line for the patient (i.e. placing a needle/cannula into a vein through which the drip and medications can be given). As I got close, I felt my mask might have shifted a bit. (Yikes! Am I exposed?) Many ugly thoughts ran through my mind that instant. Thankfully I still felt my breath was being filtered well by the N95 mask I had on my face, so I cooled down a bit. The next few days after that incident had me really thinking. Many what ifs? ran through my mind. I got to speak with our consultants, Drs Owoo, Commey and Dame, and other team members who calmed me down and asked me to alert them if I had any further concerns or symptoms. Their support helped a lot.



The tasks of the individual team members overlapped all the time with the aim of reducing the number of exposures for health care workers. Of course, the teamwork was great. All the preventive measures for COVID-19 recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) were still practised religiously.



After Work



At the end of the working day or night, I go back home to my family. This means that I need to ensure that I do not take the virus back home. I practise hand washing and change back into my home attire before leaving the hospital. Once I get home, I take a shower before I come close to anyone in my home. We all do miss, to an extent, the physical closeness that is discouraged now. We miss seeing and hugging our friends and even some family members. The masks, however, cannot steal the smiles that show in our eyes even when the mask covers the mouth and nose. We all need to stay strong and help fight COVID-19.



Although it took me some time to say Yes to volunteer for the National COVID-19 ICU team, I have not regretted this decision. There is so much joy when our patients recover and go home. There have also been a few sad moments when patients died or were not doing well. Our clinical psychologists are, however, always there to provide both staff and patients with the much needed psychological support during such unfortunate times. We also have each other. We are there for ourselves as staff and for our patients as well.



Fellow Ghanaian, kindly ensure that you take all necessary precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.



Fellow Ghanaian health care worker, lets not allow fear to prevent us from caring for people infected and affected by COVID-19. By all means say Yes. By all means get trained in the appropriate wearing of PPE and caring for people with COVID-19.



Fellow Ghanaian health care manager, by all means get us the PPE that we need so that we can continue to give of our best in caring for the people of Ghana.



I know that this is not an easy task but yes we can! We all do hope that the COVID-19 pandemic ends very soon. May it, however, find us prepared and well equipped! Lets do this!



The writer is a Specialist Paediatrician at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and a volunteer at the National COVID-19 ICU





Source: Daily Graphic









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President of Ghana Medical Association (GMA) Dr Frank Ankobea has indicated the possibility of a further spread of the novel coronavirus in the country after the new voters registration exercise if the safety protocols are continuously ignored.



According to him, inasmuch as the law allows the Electoral Commission to compile new voters register for elections, the Commission must seriously ensure that the people who come for the registration stick to the safety protocols as it is the only way to stop the spread of the illness.



We are law-abiding Ghanaians as every Ghanaian and so if the law says that the EC should compile new voters register, we cannot stop the EC but we can only insist that the EC makes sure that they maintain safety protocols because that is the only thing they can do to stop the spread of the illness and it can be done, he cautioned.



If you are serious about carrying out your responsibility, you know a lot of people will gather around and so why wont maintain the safety protocols? What stops you from doing that? And so the EC should be able to drive someone away for not having their nose mask on at the registration centre and there should veronica bucket for people to wash their hands or ask the people to adhere to social distancing protocols while in the queue. Cant we adhere to these protocols?, he wondered.



Speaking on Okay FMs Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Dr Frank Ankobea feared that without strict adherent to the safety protocols, the spread of the virus is inevitable as there is not cure for new coronavirus.



What we as Ghana Medical Association is asking for are that we should make sure the safety protocols are adhered to. We are not in a tag-of-war with anybody; we have not asked the EC not to go on with the registration but we are simply saying that whatever they do, they should make sure that the safety protocols are maintained because that is the only way that since we dont have the vaccine, we can do to prevent the spread.



If we dont maintain the safety protocols, the COVID-19 definitely will spread after the registration; that is what will happen if we dont maintain the safety protocols. The only way to prevent the spread is by sticking to the safety protocols, he feared.



He however urged the Electoral Commission to stick to the safety protocols by ensuring that the people put on their masks, wash their hands at the registration centres and maintain the social distancing.



He reiterated that the GMA insistence on the use of safety protocols has to do with the fact that many people with the virus dont show any symptom, making it possible for obvious spread of the COVID-19 as they have not been tested.



if we dont use the safety protocols, automatically, it will spread and the most disturbing issue is that as it shoots up, the health workers will be at the receiving end of its effect. It will make our work difficult because right now, a lot of our workers are infected and if it continues like this, there will be no health workers to attend to COVID-19 patients in the hospitals and our system will be overwhelmed, he alarmed.



This is the reason why we always canvassing for people to adhere to the safety protocols because it is the only way we can prevent spread and so if we are registering people and we dont stick to the safety protocols, there will be a serious problem for all us, he warned.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com









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The Electoral Commission (EC) on Wednesday said it is an electoral offence for an individual to guarantee for more than 10 applicants for the Voter Registration.



A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency, signed by Mrs Sylvia Annoh, the Acting Director of Public Affairs, said any person found culpable would be prosecuted according to the law.



It said the Commissions system was capable of picking guarantors who guarantee for more than 10 applicants.



The system in place is not based on Algorithm Mathematics as it is being alleged. Neither does the system have a vault called Non-verifiable Names.



These terms are alien and completely unknown to the Electoral Commissions systems it said.



The ECs attention had been drawn to an audio making rounds on several social media platforms regarding the Guarantor System being used by the Electoral Commission, the statement said.



The said post by a gentleman who introduced himself as McKenzie was false and should be completely disregarded, it said.









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The party agents of the two major political parties- New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has expressed satisfaction with the registration exercise after day one processes.



The agents, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) during a visit to some centres within the Ho Municipality said the numbers recorded on Tuesday were encouraging.



Mr Arnold Attakora, NDC Agent at the Kabore Primary Centre said so far so good as the process ended well.



Mr Chris Awuku, the NPP agent also said he was satisfied with the proceedings as no major incident had been encountered.



Madam Loretta Dzandu, the Registration Officer said the Biometric Voter Registration machine developed a technical problem but 91 new cards were issued at the end of day one.



Some 23 applicants had their cards on Wednesday, at about 0946 hours.



Mr Jerry Tamakloe and Madam Benedicta Akordor, agents of the NPP and NDC respectively told the GNA they were impressed with how the EC officials were discharging their duties.



Madam Perfect Alai, the Registration Officer of the Centre said the machines went off for some time during the process yesterday and that had accounted for the shortfall, but was, however, quick to add that the situation was rectified.



She said non adherence to the social distancing protocol was one challenge the centre also encountered yesterday as most people were not willing to comply, saying they had already washed their hands and applied sanitizers.



Mr Adu Mensah, the Registration Officer of the Centre told GNA that the rains disrupted the exercise for a short while.



There were Veronica buckets filled with water, tissue papers, liquid soaps and hand sanitizers at all the centres to enable the registration officers and the registrants observe the health safety protocols to stem the spread of the Covid-19.



There was also an infrared thermometer gun at the centres to check temperatures of the registration officers.

Source: GNA









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Hong Kong police have made their first arrests under a new "anti-protest" law imposed by Beijing, as crowds marked 23 years since the end of British rule.



Nine people were held accused of violating the law, including a man with a pro-independence flag. More than 300 others were detained at a banned rally.



The national security law targets secession, subversion and terrorism with punishments up to life in prison.



Activists say it erodes freedoms but China has dismissed the criticism.



Hong Kong's sovereignty was handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and certain rights were supposed to be guaranteed for at least 50 years under the "one country, two systems" agreement.



The UK has now said up to three million Hong Kong residents will be offered the chance to settle in the UK and ultimately apply for citizenship.



On Wednesday, thousands gathered for the annual pro-democracy rally to mark the handover anniversary, defying a ban by authorities who cited restrictions on gatherings of more than 50 people because of Covid-19.



Police used water cannon, tear gas and pepper spray on demonstrators. One officer was stabbed in the arm by "rioters holding sharp objects", police said. The suspects fled and bystanders offered no help, they added.





One of the nine arrested under the new law, adopted in the wake of last year's widespread unrest, was holding a "Hong Kong Independence" flag. However, some Twitter users said the picture appeared to show a small "no to" written in front of the slogan. The man has not been identified, and it was not clear whether he would be prosecuted.



The legislation has been condemned by numerous countries and human rights activists.



UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the measures a "flagrant assault" on freedoms of speech and protest.



The UK has also updated its travel advice on Hong Kong, saying there is an "increased risk of detention, and deportation for a non-permanent resident".



US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China had broken its promise to Hong Kong's people.



But in Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian urged countries to look at the situation objectively and said China would not allow foreign interference in its domestic affairs.









Source: Daily Graphic









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Former General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, has passed away.



He is reported to have died on Wednesday at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra after a short illness.



Sir John was the CEO of the Forestry Commission.



According to sources he tested positive for Covid-19 and succumbed to complications of the disease while undergoing treatment at the ICU of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.



Profile



Sir John was born in the Ashanti Region and he attended Seventh Day Adventist Secondary School in Bekwai from where he obtained his GCE Ordinary level certificate.



He proceeded to obtain his GCE Advanced level certificate from Konongo Odumase Secondary School in Konongo.



Mr Owusu Afriyie was admitted to study political science at the University of Ghana after which he enrolled at the Ghana School of Law where he graduated with Bachelor of Laws.



He was then admitted as a solicitor and counsel for the Supreme Court of Ghana. Sir John entered into private law practice in 1981.



During the John Agyekum Kufour administration, he was appointed head of legal services at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).



He was later made to act as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the corporation.



While managing his firm, Afriyie was also actively engaged in Ghanaian politics.



He lost his bid to secure a second term to Kwabena Agyapong. In May 2017, while serving as the CEO of the Forestry Commission, he publicly declared that he would contest the New Patriotic Partys general secretary elections if there was an overwhelming call for him to do so.



CEO of Forestry Commission



In March 2017, President Nana Akuffo-Addo appointed Afriyie as CEO of the Forestry Commission. He replaced Samuel Afari Dartey, whose term as the CEO had ended.



His appointment was surprising to many Ghanaians because of many rumours that he was linked to the position of head of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.



That position was given to Paul Asare Ansah. Afriyie later revealed that the rumours were true but he had rejected the appointment due to his fear of the sea. He thanked the president for the Forestry Commission appointment and believed that since he hailed from the forest zone of Ghana, he would be able to have a greater impact in that area.



As CEO of the Forestry Commission, Afriyie's job is to oversee the various public agencies that form the divisions of the Commission. His first assignment as head of the commission was to supervise the celebration of World Forest Day which fell on 21 March 2017.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana is at the end of the registration, capture over 90,000 prospective voters in all the 42 registration centres in the Jomoro voters' register.



The projection included names of old voters who were captured in the old voters register since 1992 and those who have just turned 18 and above as well as adults who have never voted before.



The Jomoro Municipal Electoral Officer, Mr Samuel Mensah disclosed this to newsmen at the on-going nation-wide voter registration exercise at Half-Assini in the Western Region.



According to the Electoral Officer, 21 registration centres would be catered for between June 30 and July 05, 2020, with additional centres being captured from July 06 to August 06.



Mr Mensah told reporters that the exercise went on smoothly without any hitches or violence and congratulated the 250 registration officers at the various centres in the Municipality for their comportment and professionalism during Day one of the exercise and encouraged them to carry on with the yeomans job.



Touching on COVID-19 safety protocols, Mr Mensah said items such as Veronica buckets, liquid soaps, tissue papers, sanitizers and thermometer guns have been made available at all the 42 registration centres.



The Electoral Officer said the E.C. had engaged the services of Nurses to screen the registrants.



He also lauded the efforts of security personnel who have been deployed to maintain peace at the registration centres for being up to the task.

Source: GNA









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Garcia is the first known Penn State student to die from the disease caused by the coronavirus, and may be the youngest person in Pennsylvania to die from it. As of June 26, none of the 6,579 people who succumbed to COVID-19 were under age 25, according to state Health Department data.
The late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie popularly known as Sir John played an instrumental role in the New Patriotic Partys (NPP) victory in 2016.



He became CEO of the Forestry Commission in March 2018 after being appointed to that position by President Akufo-Addo.



The lawyer cum politician was born in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.



He attended Seventh Day Adventist Secondary School in Bekwai from where he obtained his GCE Ordinary level certificate.



He then proceeded to obtain his GCE Advanced level certificate from Konongo Odumase Secondary School in Konongo.



He was admitted to study political science at the University of Ghana.



He then enrolled at the Ghana School of Law where he graduated with Bachelor of Laws.



After this he was admitted as a solicitor and counsel for the Supreme Court of Ghana.



Afriyie entered into private law practice in 1981. During the John Agyekum Kufour administration, he was appointed head of legal services at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation.



He was later made to act as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the corporation.



While managing his firm, Afriyie was also actively engaged in Ghanaian politics.



He served as the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party from 2010 to 2014.





He lost his bid to secure a second term to Kwabena Agyapong.









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Egypt restarted international flights and reopened major tourist attractions including the Great Pyramids of Giza on Wednesday after over three months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.



The country closed its airports to scheduled international flights and shut famous historical sites in mid-March as the government looked to curb the spread of the virus.



That brought the tourist industry, which the government says accounts for 5% of economic output but which analysts say may account for as much as 15% if jobs and investment indirectly related to the industry are included, to a virtual halt.



Visitors were few at Giza on the first day, Reuters witnesses said, adding that they spotted only a handful of people at the normally packed site.



Its a pretty place, this is where we see the symbol of Egypt and this is why we come here, said tourist Ravalonandrasana Maurice.



Meanwhile, 16 flights took off from Cairo International Airport on Wednesday, the aviation minister said. Two arrival terminals were empty in the morning but a screen showed four scheduled flights expected to arrive from Toulouse, Kuwait, Tunis and Amman.



Tourism and antiquities minister Khaled al-Anany said two chartered flights arrived Wednesday morning to airports in South Sinai and the Red Sea carrying tourists from Ukraine.



These provinces along the Red Sea Coast as well as Marsa Matrouh on the Mediterranean were allowed to reopen as they had the lowest case numbers so far.



The health ministry has registered 68,311 cases of the coronavirus and 2,953 deaths.

Source: reuters.com









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Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has sent his heartfelt condolences to the family of the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie on his demise.



Mr Owusu Afriyie, one time General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), died on Wednesday, July 1 at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital after a short illness.



He is said to have been admitted at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Hospital.



Taking to his official Twitter account to break the news, the Vice President said he didnt know his conversation with Sir John on Tuesday, June 30 would be his last.



Sir John was a good man who truly paid his dues to the party and Ghana,









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The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mohamed Ibn Chambas, has cautioned Ghana to guard against further spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the ongoing voters registration exercise.



In a statement issued by his office yesterday, Dr Chambas called for immediate enforcement of the safety protocols to protect the citizenry against contracting the virus.



Considering that this exercise will be taking place in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, I entreat all Ghanaians to continue taking appropriate measures towards ensuring that the process is carried out with the utmost respect for health and safety protocols in order to protect those willing to register from any possible contagion, he said.



The UN Special Representative, who observed the consensus built by political parties around the registration exercise, following a Supreme Court ruling, called for collective efforts to support its peaceful conduct.



We call on all stakeholders to work in a concerted manner in creating an enabling environment for this exercise to be peaceful, credible, inclusive, respectful of human rights and the rule of law, he urged.



Dr Chambas reiterated the commitment of the United Nations, including the United Nations Country Team in Ghana, in close collaboration with partners such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU), to continue supporting Ghana through its electoral processes.



The United Nations entreats Ghanaians to continue their exemplary path of democratic consolidation and development through peaceful, inclusive, transparent and credible electoral processes, he added.



Ahead of the December 7 polls, the Electoral Commission (EC) has begun 38-days voters registration exercise in a bid to compile a new electoral roll.



Kicking off on Monday, the exercise which is in five phases, to cover some 33,367 polling stations put into 6,788 clusters across the country, is fraught with non-compliance with COVID-19 safety protocols.



Media reports indicate that social distancing and mask wearing protocols were largely flouted by several Ghanaians who queued at the various registration centres to register.



Despite presence of some security personnel at registration centres, the controlling of crowd in line with the protocols remains problematic.



Meanwhile, the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has called for the arrest of persons who failed to comply with COVID-19 safety protocols in an earlier held New Patriotic Party (NPP) Parliamentary Primaries.



The GMA condemned the lack of observation of the protocols, saying such attitudes as exhibited did not help in the fight against the spread of the disease.



The GMA, in a press statement issued, also asked that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Identification Authority (NIA) be held accountable for the breach in safety guidelines in the ongoing distribution of the Ghana Card.







Source: The Ghanaian Times









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Uganda has opened part of its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo to allow in thousands of people stuck in no-mans land for more than a month.



At least 3,000 of them fled their homes in May after inter-communal clashes in north-eastern Ituri province.



But they were unable to cross into Uganda to seek safety as the country had closed its borders in March to control the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).



It has been agreed the refugees will be quarantined before being settled.



This will happen for 14 days at a new isolation centre, 13km (eight miles) from the border.



The United Nations (UNs) refugee agency (UNHCR) says sample testing will be carried out on the group to see if coronavirus is present amongst them.



This will help authorities decide when the refugees can be transferred to camps.



Two border crossings in Ugandas Zombo district temporarily opened yesterday and it is expected all the refugees will be able to cross over in three days.



Uganda hosts more than 1.4 million refugees  most have fled from South Sudan, while about 30 per cent come from DR Congo.



Aid agencies have talked about the difficulties of ensuring social distancing and sanitation in refugee settlements, BBC Africa correspondent Catherine Byaruhanga reports.



Fifty-two refugees have so far tested positive for COVID-19 in Uganda out of nearly 900 confirmed cases.



The UN says it is concerned about reports of rising violence in eastern DR Congo, where a two-year Ebola outbreak was declared over last week.



DR Congo has one of the highest rates of internal displacement in the world, UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said yesterday.



He said that about six million people had fled their homes  five million remain in the country while a million have sought safety in neighbouring countries as refugees.



UNHCR is receiving accounts of the way armed groups are unleashing terror on people as they flee, in displacement sites and hosting areas, and when they attempt to return, including reports of killings and mutilation, sexual violence and looting.



Ethnic violence in gold-rich Ituri, involving the Lendu and Hema communities, has soared since March. At least 531 civilians have been killed by armed groups in the region between October and May, 375 of them since March, according to the UN.

Source: BBC









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Hackman Owusu Agyeman, Chairman, Council of Elders of the NPP and Board Chairman of COCOBOD has described the late Sir John as the People's General Secretary.



Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, Former General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) passed away on Wednesday at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.



According to sources the CEO of the Forestry Commission tested positive for Covid-19 and succumbed to complications of the disease while undergoing treatment at the ICU of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.



Hackman Owusu Agyeman paid glowing tribute to Sir John in an interview on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo' saying: "Sir John was the 'People's General Secretary' who helped us a lot in the party . . .he has a word for everybody and he understood the grassroots".



Listen to him eulogizing Sir John





Source: Peacefmonline.com









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Ghanaians have been urged to be mindful of the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, while exercising their civic rights in registering for Voters Identification Card.



Mr. Eugene Sackey, Upper West Akim District Chief Executive (DCE) who issued the reminder, cautioned that failure to adhere to the measures could result into the spread of the virus to many more people.



Mr Sackey made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after touring some registration centres at Adeiso, the district capital to acquaint himself with the exercise and also encourage people to comport themselves to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19.



Eleven of the total of 102 registration centres in the District are involved in the first phase of the exercise which started on Tuesday, June 30 and expected to end in six days for the second phase to commence.



Mr Fredrick Obeng Adom, New Patriotic Party Parliamentary (NPP) Candidate for the Constituency, the Chairman and some executives of the party accompanied the DCE to the centers.



GNA observed that almost all the people at the registration centres wore nose masks, but the social distancing protocol was not entirely observed.



The on-going exercise was smooth, but started slowly in some of the centres.



The DCE and the PC also distributed hundreds of the nose masks and hand sanitizers to people at the centres, specially the aged and the vulnerable.



Mr Sackey who is also the chairman of the district security committee stated that security was on the ground to ensure law and order.



He further called on all qualified residents in the district to go out in their numbers to register when the exercise commenced in their localities to enable them exercise their franchise in the forthcoming general election in December.



Let us all comport ourselves during this pandemic era to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, he added.

Source: GNA









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Nearly 78% of Russian voters backed constitutional reforms that could keep President Vladimir Putin in power until 2036, election officials say.



With all the ballots counted, 77.9% voted for the reform package and 21.3% against, the electoral commission said.



The reforms will reset Mr Putin's term limits to zero in 2024, allowing him to serve two more six-year terms.



Opposition figures denounced the vote, saying he was aiming to be "president for life", a claim Mr Putin denies.



He is already the longest-serving leader in modern Russian history since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.



There was no independent scrutiny of the seven-day vote, and copies of the new constitution appeared in bookshops during the week.



By spreading out the vote, because of the coronavirus infection risk, the authorities made any monitoring of it more difficult.



Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny described the results as a "big lie" which did not reflect real public opinion in the country.



'Just a PR exercise'



Golos, an independent Russian election monitoring group, has castigated the vote, alleging there were many violations of democracy.



Its criticisms include: opponents were barred from campaigning in the media; remote electronic voting was organised on an illegal basis; election monitors were appointed by the Civic Chamber - a government body.



Golos describes it as "just a PR exercise from the very start" and says "there was no legal need for it". The vote "will go down in history as an attack on the sovereignty of the people".



The reforms include a ban on same-sex marriage - by defining marriage as between a man and a woman - and introducing a reference to Russia's ancestral "faith in God".



Election officials say turnout was 65%. The highest levels of support - above 90% - were in Crimea, annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, in Chechnya in the North Caucasus, and Tuva, in Siberia.



Mr Putin, aged 67, has not said he will run again for the presidency when his latest term runs out in 2024 - but has said it is vital he has the option to do so.



He has been in power in Russia, either as president or prime minister, for 20 years.



Mr Putin and his supporters say the reforms - more than 200 changes - are needed to ensure national stability.



In New York 816 voted at the Russian consulate and 505 rejected the reforms, while 310 voted for. The other voting district where a majority were against was Nenets, in Russia's remote Arctic.



Preliminary results were released hours before the last polling stations closed at 18:00 GMT in the western enclave of Kaliningrad, in the vast country spanning 11 time zones.



Before the vote had ended, the internal affairs ministry said there had been no violations that could affect the result, Interfax reported. But Golos said it had received some 2,100 reports of possible violations.



Several hundred opponents of the constitutional changes staged protests in Moscow and St Petersburg.



The final results show 65% voted yes to the reforms in Moscow, and 77.6% in St Petersburg.

Source: BBC









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The Electoral Commission (EC) has moved to tackle the social distancing breaches observed at some voters registration centres across the country when the exercise commenced on Tuesday.



The commission, according to its update on the ongoing exercise, has engaged the security agencies with a view to addressing the social distancing breaches without any further delay.



As a result of the massive turnout recorded at most registration centres at the commencement of the exercise, thereby occasioning incidents of overcrowding, the anomaly was considered the only shortcoming in the largely successful project.



Sylvia Annoh, Ag. Director, Public Affairs of the EC, in a statement, pointed out that the commission is aware that some centres recorded high numbers leading to some overcrowding. We are taking steps to work with the security agencies to address possible overcrowding at our registration centres.



The commission had asked the public to disregard a photograph purported to be a scene of a registration centre. The image, it added, does not show the usual traits of a registration centre, the statement went on, adding that it just shows a large crowd gathered together in an area.



With the originator not indicating where the registration centre was taken, the EC can only ask that it be disregarded, the motive being mischievous.



With the success being chalked up by the EC so far, many killjoys will be active at this time with all manner of incredible and illogical stories.



Pointing at one of such spots, the EC stated our attention has also been drawn to an audio circulating on social media to the effect that guarantors who guarantee for up to ten (10) people will be disenfranchised. This is something the commission described as untrue.



Referring to the C.I. 126 which, as it were, clearly states that guarantors can guarantee for up to 10 people, the commission stressed that they will not be disenfranchised.



The EC added though that any individual who guarantees for more than ten (10) persons will be picked up by our system and prosecuted.



The commission has posted a positive outcome of the exercise so far on the first day, assuring though that the identified teething challenges will all be addressed.



All too soon, the antagonism against the exercise by a few Ghanaian politicians has given way to an over-subscription of the process.



Those who promised to thwart the efforts of the EC are now busy encouraging their people to go and register.



All who are eligible to be registered will be allowed to do so; therefore, there is no need for people to create scenes of congestion at registration centres because the EC will ensure that nobody is disenfranchised.



It has now become clear that the refrain of a deliberate project to disenfranchise some Ghanaians was part of a crude propaganda project by the opposition NDC.

Source: daily guide









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Ghanaians have been urged to change their attitudes towards work in order for them to meet the demands of the labour market.

According to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffuor Awuah, work attitudes such as lateness, lack of teamwork and procrastination have negative impact on productivity.



He added that negative work attitude by Ghanaians is affecting the socio-economic development of the country.



He therefore advice the citizenry especially the youth to be more serious when it comes to work.



He said the labour market had advanced leading to the employment of only positive and multi-tasked personnel.



Speaking at a graduation ceremony of the Network of Women in Growth (NEWIG), a Non-Government Organization (NGO) in Accra last Saturday, Mr Baffuor advised the graduants to exhibit a high level of excellence and seriousness in any field of endeavour that they may find themselves working in.





It is important for the graduants to change their attitude towards work, since the labour force market is changing and that we need to change to meet the demands of the change. I therefore encourage others to take advantage of the training, he said.



The Executive of NEWIG, Mrs Mawusi Nudekor Awity, said that the graduants had been taken through some of the skills that are perceived to be male domineering.





They had training in electrical installation, plumbing and draughtsmanship among others



It is gratifying to note that these young ladies are not graduating from acquiring skills that have always been misconceived as the areas for women, but ventured into skills that are perceived as the preserve of males, she said.



Ms Awity noted that most occupations engaged in by women do not fetch them enough income to support themselves and their families like the male domineering jobs.





Numerous career and technical education areas have remained gender segregated with significantly different earning potential. Low-wage land part-time positions filled by women do not provide viable income for females to support families, she said.



Supported by the EMpower Foundation, each trainee received start-up tools based on their area of specialization.



The Acting Executive Director of NEWIG, Mrs Mawulawoe Anato-Dumelo was among some of the key personality present at the graduation.















Source: Daily Graphic









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The Allentown group also said chokeholds should be banned, which, apparently, already is the policy in both cities. And that officers should be required to intervene when force is inappropriately applied  which the Allentown departments policy does not appear to require, though Bethlehems does.
The Supreme Court has declared the governments decision to cap the funds allocated to the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) as unconstitutional.

In a unanimous judgement, a seven -member panel of the court, held that the inclusion of the DACF as part of the statutory funds that would be capped per the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act,2017(Act 947) violated Article 252 Clause 2 of the 1992 Constitution.



The court, presided over by the Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, further held that Section 126 of the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 916) that limited the proportion of revenue due for allocation to the DACF also violated Article 252(2) of the 1992 Constitution.



To the extent that Sections 1(2), 2(b),3(1)(b),3(5)(a),7(a), and 8 of the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act,2017(Act 947) and Section 126 of the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 916) purport to limit the proportion of revenue due for allocation to the District Assemblies Common Fund as established by Article 252(2) of the Constitution, the same are in the contravention of the Constitution and are hereby declared to be null and void, the court held.



Article 252 clause 2 stipulates that Parliament shall make allocation of not less than five percent of the revenues of Ghana to the District Assemblies for development, and the amount shall be paid into the District Assemblies Common Fund in quarterly instalments.



The unanimous decision of the court was delivered by Justice Sophia Akuffo on June 12,2019.



Other members on the panel were Justices Jones Doste, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, Sule Gbadegbe, Gabriel Pwamang and Agnes Dodzie.



Earmarked funds Act

Parliament passed the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act,2017(Act 947) on March 28,2017.



The Act provides that the earmarked funds for each financial year should be equivalent to 25 per cent of revenue.



Making a case for the Act , the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta told Parliament that the capping arrangement had become necessary to remove the rigidities in public expenditure.



He said the government was left with virtually nothing after taking out interest payments, compensation of employees and earmarked funds from revenues.



Legal challenge



On December 27,2017 , two Members of Parliament (MP)-Mr Benjamin Komla Kpodo, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Ho Central and Mr Richard Quashigah , the NDC MP for Keta, challenged the Act and filed for constitutional interpretation at the court.



It was their case that Act 947 violated Article 252 clause 2 of the 1992 Constitution.









Source: Daily Graphic









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The Chamber of Independent Power Producers and Bulk Consumers [CIPDIB] have said the company can no longer supply their 50 per cent power distribution if (PDS) fails to pay its huge financial debt.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of (CIPDIB) Elikplim Kwabla Apetorgbor, the Electriciy Company of Ghana (ECG) owes them an amount of $ 400 million before PDS took over in March.



He added that the debt has mounted to about $ 600 million over the past three months.



Kwabla Apetorgbor said the company has gone an extra mile to ensure that there are no power outages.



He lamented that due to the growing debt of PDS, there is likely to be power outage in the coming days.



Since PDS took over some operations and management of Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) from March 1, 2019, it was expected that PDS will deliver a more quality service to power consumers than its host, ECG.



In a statement signed by the Chief Executive Officer of (CIPDIB), Elikplim Kwabla Apetorgbor said there is likely to be a power outage for 7 days.



The statement further calls on the government to not only make PDS pay its debts to the IPPs, but also be made to pay interest on all overdue invoices which the IPPs could have profitably utilized.



Below is a copy of the Statement



CHAMBER OF INDEPENDENT POWER PRODUCERS, DISTRIBUTORS AND BULK CONSUMERS, GHANA (CIPDIB)



DANGER! ENERGY CRISES LOOM OVER GROWING POWER SECTOR DEBT!



1. It would be recalled that the operations of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG] came under a barrage of criticisms because of perceived inefficiencies which included but not limited to the huge indebtedness to power generators particularly the Independent Power Producers [IPPs].



2. Against this backdrop and the need to revamp the ECG, there were efforts by successive governments to improve the management of this all-important institution to drive the industrialization agenda of the country.



3. This effort eventually culminated in the takeover of some operations and management of ECG from March 1, 2019, by the Power Distributions Services [PDS].



4. Being a private sector led, the PDS, was expected to deliver more quality service than its host- ECG.



5. This implies that various stakeholders in the power sector have high-performance expectations from PDS. The consumers, for instance, expect a reliable, affordable and sustainable power supply.



6. For IPPs, the expectation was that the PDS will honour and abide by the terms of the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) inherited particularly by avoiding the delay in paying for power purchases with respect to the bargained credit days.



7. Regrettably, however, the PDS appears to be reliving some of the very bad contractual and bad business practices that characterized its host -ECG.



8. Energy can neither be stored nor destroyed. This presupposes that consumers are paying for the power consumed and PDS is accumulating the revenues. It is very frustrating to note that PDS, for the past four (4) months, since taking over from March 1, 2019, to date, has not remit any payment to the IPPs yet!



9. In the midst of this issue, one would have expected PDS to engage the players in a bid to inform them of any challenges, if there is, but efforts so far made to cause PDS to honour its contractual bargains has yielded virtually no result.



10. Meanwhile, the huge financial indebtedness of PDS towards the IPPs implies that the IPPs are saddled with huge debts to their creditors and suppliers and also challenged in paying employees salaries.



11. At the moment, most of the IPPs are stressed up and finding it extremely difficult to manage their operations and management costs. Some have to depend on overdrafts to be able to pay salaries and others.



12. For love of country and its people, some IPPs had gone a step further to incur an extra financial cost in borrowing to procure fuel to ensure reliable power supply.



13. Constrained by these existential threats, the Chamber of Independent Power Producers and Bulk Consumers [CIPDIB], is by this release alerting the consuming public of looming power outages unless PDS fulfils its financial obligations to the IPPs within a 7-day period.



14. CIPDIB is urging the government through the Ministry of Energy to cause PDS to expressly release funds to pay all accumulated invoices to the IPPs within seven days.



15. CIPDIB further wants to urge the government to not only make PDS pay its debts to the IPPs; but that PDS must also be made to pay interest on all overdue invoices which the IPPs could have profitably utilized.



16. We call on MiDA to compel PDS to do things to ensure best business practices and respect the terms of the PPAs and ensure the nation derive the optimum benefit from the concession arrangement.



17. We caution that should PDS fail to respect the terms of the PPA and make payment to the IPPs within the 7-day period; our members will be left with no choice than to shut down their plants as they cannot continue to be saddled with huge debts. This action although has huge implications for jobs - cannot be avoided.



18. We reiterate the need to depoliticize the power sector and discourage undue political interferences from the sector and allow the sector to be operated as a pure business.



19. Finally, CIPDIB is urging all participants in the power sector to ensure transparency in our dealings as it is key to the growth and sustainability of the sector.





Thank you.



Signed



Elikplim Kwabla Apetorgbor



Chief Executive Officer, CIPDIB.









Source: Daily Graphic









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The State has appealed a contempt conviction against the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante Apeatu.



It has also filed an application for stay of execution of the courts decision.



A Deputy Attorney-General, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, told the High Court in Accra yesterday that an interpleader to make a case that the police owned the property in dispute had also been filed.



The state is arguing that the trial judge committed a serious error of law when he failed to take account of the fact that none of the mandatory procedures required by the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2004, C. I. 47 for enforcement of judgment or order for recovery of possession of immovable property had been complied with in the case in question.



Hearing for the application for stay of execution has been scheduled for November 1, 2018.



Contempt



The IGP was on September 25, 2018, committed for contempt for disobeying a court order.



The presiding judge, Mr Justice Daniel Mensah, took serious view of the conduct of the police chief and said he must be sanctioned appropriately.



He said the IGP wilfully disobeyed two court orders that directed him to provide security for the execution of another court order that gave the green light for the sale of a 12-block uncompleted flat at Redco Flats in Madina.



The act of the IGP can appropriately be said to be wilful.



The respondent (IGP) has failed to discharge the burden required to avoid a conviction and must, therefore, be committed for contempt of court and sanctioned appropriately, Mr Justice Mensah held.



Application



The ruling of the court followed an application for contempt filed against the IGP by two individuals  Mr Samuel Aggrey and Mrs Augustina Gyekye.



The two had gone to court with a case that the IGP disobeyed two court orders, dated October 23, 2017 and February 20, 2018, for him to provide security for an auctioneer to sell the flats, which were legally theirs.



They argued that the failure of the IGP to obey the orders had brought the administration of justice into disrepute.



Appeal



The states appeal against the IGPs conviction argues that Order 43 rule 3 (1) of C. I. 47 requires a judgment or order for recovery of possession to be enforced by a writ of possession issued with leave of the court.



The rule further states that leave for the issue of a writ of possession shall not be granted without notice to the persons in actual possession of the property  the personnel of the Ghana Police Service in this case.



According to the state, none of the above was done in the instant case.



The learned judge committed a grave error of law when he failed to note that the essential conditions required for using contempt as a process for enforcing an order had not been satisfied in the instant case before the institution of the contempt proceedings in question, the state stressed.



Highlighting the particulars of error of law, the state is arguing that the trial judge erred in holding that a case of contempt had been proven beyond reasonable doubt against the IGP.



The state is further arguing that the contempt application and all that followed from it were void for having been issued by a lawyer who did not have a valid Solicitors licence as of the date of the filing of the application for contempt.



It is accordingly praying the court to reverse and set aside the ruling of the High Court dated September 25, 2018, convicting the IGP of contempt of court.



Background



The contempt case against the IGP is the result of a legal dispute that started in 1988 between Redco Ghana Limited, the former owners of the flats, and one Mrs Isabella Odi Aggrey (now deceased).



In 1988, Mrs Aggrey sued Redco Limited for failing to pay an amount owed her.



On February 23, 1993, she won the case at the High Court and the court ordered Redco to pay her the money.



On March 15, 1993, the block of flats were attached, which meant that if Redco failed to pay the money, the court would sell the property to enable Mrs Aggrey to retrieve her money.



Redco filed an application for a stay of execution of the High Courts judgment at the Court of Appeal and subsequently the Supreme Court but both were dismissed.



Instead of giving the property back to Mrs Aggrey or her family, Redco, the applicants, gave it to the Ghana Police Service to house some officers.



Dissatisfied with the situation, Mr Aggrey and Mrs Gyekye, representing Mrs Aggrey, filed an application at the High Court to seek an order for the police to vacate the flats, and also help execute the High Court order for the flats to be sold by providing security.



The High Court, on two different occasions, ordered the IGP to provide security to enable the auctioneer to sell the block of flats.



Lawyers for the two applicants later filed another case, citing the IGP for contempt with the case that the IGP failed to perform his statutory duty and wilfully disobeyed the orders of the court to provide security for the execution of the court order.



Case of IGP



In response, the Attorney-General (A-G), representing the Ghana Police and the IGP, argued that the property in contention was for the Ghana Police Service and not Redco.



The applicants, the A-G argued, could not sell the properties if they had won a case against the Ghana Police Service, which the A-G argued was the rightful owner.

Source: Daily Graphic









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The High Commissioner of Canada to Ghana, Dr Heather Cameron, has said that Canada remains open to the world and will welcome over 300,000 new residents this year.



Very soon, she said, many more students would be heading to Canada for world-class education, adding that Canadian alumni were active in Ghana and continued to grow and make economic and social contributions to the country.



Dr Cameron observed that Ghanaian-Canadian diaspora were engaging in Ghana, saying she was also pleased about the roles that Ghanaian-Canadians were playing in shaping Canada.



She was addressing ministers of state, Members of Parliament, members of the diplomatic corps, traditional and religious leaders and other distinguished guests at a reception to celebrate Canadas National Day in Accra.



Multilateralism



The High Commissioner noted that Canada`s efforts demonstrated that we are working to contribute to a new multilateralism, where benefits are distributed more broadly, more evenly and more fairly; a new multilateralism where commitments are fulfilled, implementation happens and results can be experienced by people.



She said the United Nations Security Council had an important role to play and assured that we could count on Canada to stand up for things that mattered and to focus on building bridges, rather than divisions.



The High Commissioner announced that Canadas Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mrs Chrystia Freeland, had been an active and important voice on the importance of multilateralism and of sustaining liberal democracy.



She said Mrs Freeland was named Diplomat of the Year, and that as High Commissioner, it was a privilege for her to work here in Ghana to help advance these shared priorities.



Chamber of Commerce



Mrs Cameron said Canada-Ghana Chamber of Commerce also continued to focus on new sectors such as aviation, oil and gas, as trade diversities.



She said responsible business practices, including corporate social responsibility and reducing the environmental footprint of natural resource industries with a focus on clean technologies and renewable energies, remained important pillars of Canadas approach to trade in Ghana and to their own development at home in Canada.



She said trade was fundamental to Canadas economic success, and believed that it was fundamental to Ghanas success as well and commended the government of Ghana for its ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.



Working together



Mrs Cameron observed that their partnerships with the government, development partners and civil society organisations had allowed them to advance their shared agenda.



For instance, she said Canadian expertise had helped ensure that Ghana had the only internationally certified welding facility in the West African region, adding that agricultural techniques were being modernised and adapted to a changing climate.



Whether it is training in advanced mathematics or establishing linkages between research results and farmers, helping to develop clean-energy training or advocating a better access to financial services for women, we are contributing to Ghanas current and future prosperity, she stated.



Womens Day



In March this year, she said, to celebrate International Womens Day with the Western Region and the Ghana Education Service, they organised a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) career fair in Takoradi for over 600 girls and their parents.



In June, she said, Canada hosted Women Deliver in Vancouver, the largest conference on gender equality and the health, rights and wellbeing of girls and women.



She announced that they celebrated with global leaders, including Ghanas President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the progress made in advancing rights and empowerment, and reaffirmed their commitment to do more to make gender equality a reality for everyone, everywhere.



Appreciation



The High Commissioner expressed Canadas heartfelt gratitude to the government of Ghana for the safe return of their two Canadian volunteers who were released from captivity just a couple of weeks ago.



She said they were so thankful for the efforts of those in government, in the security and law enforcement agencies who made serious decisions that enabled not only the safe return of these young Canadian women, but also the capture of those perpetrators.



This successful outcome is an important milestone for Ghana, and for Ghanaians, for it reaffirms the commitment of many to sustaining peace and security in Ghana, she stated.









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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Fifty suspected illegal miners have been arrested in a swoop carried out by Operation Vanguard in the Western and Eastern regions.



Sixteen of the suspects are Chinese nationals operating in Enchi Kwahu in the in the western region.



The rest were operating in the East Akim municipality of the Eastern region.



Speaking on Accra based Starr FM, the Public Relation Officer of the Operation Vanguard, Captain Andy Sowatey said nine of the suspects were Ghanaians while the others were Chinese, Guinean and Burkinabe nationals.



We arrested 16 Chinese illegal miners together with five excavators. Also some 34 suspected illegal miners were arrested in the East Akim Municipality in the Eastern region on Friday. The suspects, who were picked up in the Eastern region, none of them were locals. We have 22 Guinean and three Burkinabe nationals. He said.



He said locals who were handed over to the police at Kibi for prosecution while the foreigners were handed over to the inter-ministerial committee on illegal mining together with five excavators.









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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Mr Osman Ziblim , the chair of Head Porters Association in Kumasi has confirmed three residents of Dagomba line in Kumasi dead because of the clashes that occurred last Tuesday.



Speaking on Accra Based Citi FM, Mr Osman said two of the dead bodies have been released to their family members for burial according to Islamic custom.



He said the two dead bodies were deposited at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and the other person was said to have died in Kintampo.



Muslim leaders in Ashanti Region are putting measures in place to solve the issue at hand.



Alhaji Zakaria Abdul Rackman , the deputy Chief Imam in Ashanti Region also stated that, those who lost their lives as a result of the clashes were going to be buried today, those who got injured are still getting treatment and those who were arrested will be released today to ensure peace in the community.



There were violent clashes between some residents of Dagomba Line in Kumasi over an alleged parcel of a disputed land last Tuesday, July 9, which has led three people to loose their lives.

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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The Head of Agricultural Research and Development Centre in Akosombo, Dr Seth Agyakwa says the presence of either life or frozen tilapia in Ghana is illegal.

He said the country's laws clearly state that "no foreign life strains or frozen tilapia should be allowed into the country."



According to him, importing frozen tilapia or rearing foreign strains in Ghana contravenes the countrys laws.



Dr Agyakwa, a scientist at the Centre of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), was speaking in a radio interview with Accra-based Citi FM Friday morning, concerning the mass death of tilapia at the Fujian Farm in Asutuary in the Greater Accra Region.



He has, therefore, called on the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development to ascertain the strain of tilapia that are involved in the incident to establish whether they are local or foreign strains.



Dr Agyakwa wondered why in spite of the countrys laws forbidding either the importation of life strains or frozen tilapia into the country, some frozen or foreign strains still finds themselves in the country in some farms alleged to belong to some Chinese.



"Who is talking about it? Where are the regulations? Where are the enforcement?" he quizzed, adding that a research conducted by his outfit indicated that some farmers are rearing strains with Asian characteristics.



Read Also: Mass tilapia death: Embargo on 2 Chinese farms at Asutuare



Vacancy - USAID

Dr Agyakwa, however, said as to whether the said strains are genetically modified organism or not could be determined if tests are conducted biochemically on samples from the alleged farms.



He explained that there is a difference between a genetically modified organism and genetically improved organisms, with each having certain distinct characteristics.



About eighteen (18) tons of the unwholesome tilapia said to have died from the Fujian Farm in the Volta Lake area has since been buried.



The deaths is said to have started occurring last week.



The Chief Director of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Prof. F. K. E. Nunoo in a radio interview Friday morning said the ministry has placed an embargo on fishes from the farms involved in the incident.



As of Friday morning [October 19, 2018], more dead fish were still being buried.





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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The Supreme Court has given a seven-day ultimatum to parties involved in a suit challenging the construction of a National Cathedral to file their memorandum of issues.



The memorandum of issues is what the court will set out for determination in the case.



During hearing last Wednesday, the seven-member panel said the one-week ultimatum was to ensure that proceedings were done expeditiously.



We want to expedite proceedings in this matter, the seven-member panel, presided over by Mr Justice Julius Ansah, said.



Other members of the panel were Mrs Justice Sophia Adinyera, Mr Justice Jones Dostse, Mr Justice Anin Yeboah, Mr Justice Sule Gbadegbe, Mrs Justice Vida Akoto-Bamfo and Mr Justice A.A. Benin.



In court were James Kwabena Bomfeh, the applicant, and his lawyer, Dr Aziz Bamba, while the state was represented by a Deputy Attorney-General, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame.



Hearing continues on November 6, 2018.



Background



President Nana Akufo-Addo cut the sod for the construction of the national cathedral on March 6, 2017, as part of events that marked Ghanas 60th independence anniversary.



Funding for the 5,000-seater edifice is to be sourced from individuals within the Christian community.



Plans by the government to demolish houses, including those housing judges, on the land around Ridge in Accra to make way for the construction generated a debate, with the public divided over the project.



Bomfehs case



In March 2017, Mr Bomfeh, the Director of Elections of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), invoked the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, arguing that Ghana was a secular state and, therefore, it was wrong for the state to be excessively entangled in any religion or religious practice.



He, therefore, wants the apex court to declare the building of the National Cathedral and state involvement in the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca unconstitutional.



He is seeking a declaration that the decision of the Government of Ghana to purposely endorse, assist, aid, partly sponsor, and/or support the construction of a National Cathedral near the State House of Ghana, for Christian interdenominational church services amounts to an excessive entanglement of the Republic of Ghana in religion and therefore unconstitutional.



In September 2018, Mr Bomfeh filed an application for interlocutory injunction seeking to restrain any activity towards the construction of the cathedral, including the demolition of residences of judges.









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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Former Attorney-General under the Kufuor administration says he is still in shock following the news of the death of former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John.



According to Ayikoi Otoo, he cannot find words to describe his loss and said aside himself and his party, many Ghanaians will miss him.



Posting on his social media platforms, Mr Otoo said their paths crossed as leading members of the NPP and later in 2013 when he became my most famous client together with Hopeson Adorye, in the celebrated Election Petition case.



He represented both who were charged with Contempt of Court.



Read full statement below:



I met Sir John at the University of Ghana in 1976 and were mates from Law Faculty to Ghana School of Law after which we and the 1981 Class were called to the Ghana Bar. We went our separate ways. I into private practice in Accra, he first as a public servant and later in private practice in Kumasi. Our paths crossed as leading members of the NPP and later in 2013, became my most famous client together with Hopeson Adorye,in the celebrated Election Petition case, when I represented both of them, charged with Contempt of Court.



As General Secretary of the NPP, he was phenomenal and complex in his ways but had very simple habits. He was free with everyone and never showed any pomposity.He was very sarcastic and made light work of many issues. Everyone knows his media encounters and how quickly, he described himself as a village boy.



As CEO of Forestry Commission, he saw to the implementation of the governments policy in Youth In Agriculture and Afforestation with the recruitment of over 60,000 JHS,SHS and University Graduates who were otherwise unemployed. Many can attest to the assistance he offered to them during the period.



He was bold and confident and a devout 7th Day Adventist Elder.

I cant find words to describe my loss but suffice it to say, aside myself and the Elephant family, many Ghanaians will sorely miss him.He has now been elevated to practice in the high courts above.



We commit the souls of his family members who went before him and ask the Almighty for strength for his wife and children.Father dont let his good works be interred with his bones but let them become visible in the sands of history.A Lawyer, an astute Politician,Christian, a Family man and a mentor to countless number of persons.



At 67 he has played his part. His dreams have faded and his supporters are distraught but God knows best.

Sir John was a jolly good fellow, kind hearted and fits the words of Shakespeare that his life was gentle,and the elements so mixed up in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world This was a man.



May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest and abide in the bosom of the Lord until the day of the resurrection.



Sir John, Yaaw ojogbaa!!











I met Sir John at the University of Ghana in 1976 and were mates from Law Faculty to Ghana School of Law after which we...

Posted by Nii Ayikoi Otoo on Wednesday, July 1, 2020











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Officers of the Ghana Immigration Service at the Pulimakom Border Post in the Upper East Region yesterday arrested a Togolese for attempting to acquire Ghanaian voters identification card.



The Togolese who was identified as Mr. Bouguiligue Kouassi Kampe was picked up in a joint Immigration-Police operation at the Bimpelle Primary School registration center at Woriyanga at the Tempane District upon a tip-off.



Mr. Kampe who used the name Yaro Kosi for the registration exercise and was waiting in a queue for his photograph to be taken, admitted in an interrogation that he entered the country through unapproved route.



It was also revealed that Mr. Kampe had two persons guaranteeing for him to get his name into the Ghanaian voters register.



Mr. Kampe has been handed over to the police and investigation is ongoing to apprehend the two guarantors.

Source: Ghana Immigration Service









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Hundreds of elephants have died mysteriously in Botswana's famed Okavango Delta, the wildlife department said Thursday, ruling out poaching as the tusks were found intact.

The landlocked southern African country has the world's largest elephant population, estimated to be around 130,000.

"We have had a report of 356 dead elephants in the area north of the Okavango Delta and we have confirmed 275 so far," Cyril Taolo, the acting director of the department of Wildlife and National Parks, told AFP in a text message.

He said the cause of the deaths was yet to be established with anthrax having been ruled out.

"We do not suspect poaching since (the) animals were found with tusks," he said.

Samples have been collected and sent to specialised laboratories in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Canada for testing.

Similar deaths were first reported in May when authorities found 12 carcasses in just a week in two villages in the northwest of the country.

"It seems they were dying very suddenly in some cases," conservation biologist, Keith Lindsay told AFP, adding that the deaths were sudden.

"The carcases were animals that had fallen down while walking... right on their sternum which is very unusual," said Lindsay.

"Up to now there doesn't seem to be any clear sign of the reason for it. When something like this happens it is alarming."

All ages and sex

The latest discoveries were flagged by a wildlife conservation charity, Elephants Without Borders (EWB), whose confidential report referring to the 356 dead elephants, was leaked to the media on Wednesday.

EWB suspects the elephants have been dying in the area for about three months.

According to the report dated June 19, 2020, "70 percent of elephant carcasses were considered recent, having died about a month ago, and 30 percent of the carcasses appeared fresh, ranging from one day to two weeks old".

"There was good evidence to show elephants of all ages and sex appear to be dying," said the report penned by EWB director Mike Chase.

Several live elephants appeared to have been weak, lethargic and emaciated, with some showing signs of disorientation, difficulty in walking or limping, EWB said.

"One elephant was observed walking in circles, unable to change direction although being encouraged by other herd members," said the report.

For conservationist Neil Fritt the strange phenomenon is "tragic" but appears to be "more like a natural occurrence as opposed to direct human cause," he told AFP.

Botswana has an overpopulation of elephants which President Mokgweetsi Masisi has flagged as the source for much of the human-animal conflict in the country.

In February the southern African country held its first major auction for trophy elephant hunting quotas since controversially scrapping a hunting ban last year. But the hunting season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic

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The relationship between the Department of Aging and the LGBTQ community will be further reinforced as input from the community is considered in the development of our new State Plan on Aging for 2020-2024. The departments plan will be submitted to the federal government by Oct. 1, and will include goals, objectives, strategies and measures that prioritize the needs of and services for all older adults moving into the future.
Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 of the Holy Bible that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. This can help to understand the reason given by the Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, K.T. Hammond, for the presence of soldiers in the Volta Region.



His lips only allowed passage to what some believe is the overflowing content of his partys heart concerning the Volta Region and the Ewe people.



The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP has stated that the reason troops were sent to the Volta Region was to stop Togolese Ewes from registering and voting in Ghana. He said the Ewes in Togo and those in Ghana considered themselves as one people.



He proceeded to quote false statistics to back his equally false claim that in the second round of the fiercely contested 2008 election, these Togolese made the difference in the win for Prof. John Evans Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).



This is not the first time the first time his party has questioned poll numbers from the Volta Region.



In 2015, the NPP said at a press conference addressed by its running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, that over 76,000 Togolese had registered in the Volta Region to vote. The party insisted a new voters register had to be prepared because of this and allegations of minors in the register.



This year, the NPP has got its wish. The EC is compiling a new register despite stiff oppositions from civil society and the main (and the only viable) opposition party. Some leading members of the NPP such as Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, revisited the Volta issue, questioning why Ketu South, a vibrant border area, had the highest number of registered voters.



When the Supreme Court ruled that the EC could go ahead and compile a new registered, there were reports of that the military had been heavily deployed to Ketu South and parts of the Volta Region along the border between Ghana and Togo.



While the government gave different reasons for the deployment, K.T. Hammond said it was to stop Togolese from coming to register because the Ewes in Ghana and those in Togo were like family so some of them often crossed to come to Ghana to vote.





What he has forgotten is that there are actually Ghanaians living in Togo, as there are Ghanaians living everywhere in the world. This year, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) moved from Ghana with relief items to Togo to support Ghanaians who fell victims to a fire accident in Katanga (Togo).



The EC says it is in the process of implementing Representation of Peoples Amendment Law to ensure that Ghanaians living outside the country are able to vote in the coming election.



Are we saying there are hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians living in the United States, Germany and Great Britain, but we cannot have Ghanaians living across the borders?



According to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, the total number of people in the Volta Region was 2,118,252. Ewes formed 78% of the population of that region. This means the Ewe population in their home region was 1,563,269.



However, the total population of Ewes in Ghana, according to the same census, was 3,323,072. In effect, the Ewes in their home region of Volta formed only 47% of the total of Ewes in the country. A majority (53) of them live outside their home region.



Togo is closer to the border towns in the Volta Region than most towns in Ghana. So it is possible that thousands of Ghanaians live and work across the border and should not be referred to as Togolese when they cross over to vote.



According to the 2010 PHC, there were more Ewes in the Greater Accra Region than the Ga people, who are the major ethnic group in the national capital.



The NPP which claims to be reading, must not just look at poll figures from a constituency in the Volta Region and say that cannot be right. They should dig deeper and understand the dynamics of the people, their numbers across the country and why they live mostly outside their home region.



I once visited a friend at the Wli border post near Hohoe in the Volta Region. Most of the farms are across the border. Theres a Ghanaian community on the mountain close to the border, but, according to my friend, the Ghana side is so steep that one has to enter Togo before coming back to the community in Ghana.



What this means is that if the soldiers are going to turn everyone away from crossing the border to register, they are going to disenfranchise many eligible voters from taking part in the next election.



The government says the deployment has been done in all border regions and towns. Doesnt that also raise questions considering almost all the border constituencies are strongholds of the opposition NDC? Start from Aflao to Nkwanta to Paga to Hamile and start descending towards Elubo.



Due to Covid-19, borders have been closed since March and security agencies, led by the Immigration Service have been manning them? Why the deployment of the military? Have the immigration officers called for reinforcement?



Or is anybody denying the fact that the military connote intimidation, brutality and abuse of human rights because of our history?



K.T. Hammonds words have sparked yet another heated conversation about the seeming hostility and disdain with which some members of the NPP, in their utterances, treat the Ewes of the Volta Region and other minority ethnic groups in Ghana. Whether this is real or perceived, one fact cannot be hidden  the NPP consistently raises hackles with some ethnic groups.



In my book The Fourth John: Reign, Rejection & Rebound, I recounted how the NPPs relationship with the non-Twi speaking ethnic groups is not the best.



The attitude of the NPP towards ethnic minorities has garnered support for the NDC among such groups. Both the NDC and NPP do ethnic politics, but while the NDC engages in ethnic politics of inclusion, the NPP often indulges in ethnic politics of exclusion. The party makes the non-Akan or specifically, non-Twi speaking ethnic groups, feel they are less important.



At an NPP rally in 2011, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo referred to the party supporters as we Akans. In 2012, an NPP MP, Kennedy Agyepong, while reacting to electoral violence said Ewe people in the Ashanti Region should be killed. In 2017, a deputy Agriculture minister, William Quaitoo, was forced to resign after his comment in the wake of the fall army worm invasion appeared insulting to the people of the north, I wrote.



Yaw Osafo Maafo, the senior minister, was caught in leaked audio making comments that suggested that people from some parts of the country are not supposed to govern Ghana because where they come from do not have natural resources. Not long ago, Ursula Owusu, stoked controversy when she said we have taken/rescue our nation.



Those who made these comments, including Nana Akufo-Addo, have explained the context and justified them, but it is worrying that such statements have assumed a disturbing rhythm among leading members of the NPP.



Antagonising the Ewe people in Volta Region is not healthy for the NPP. The Ewe, like the Asante in the Ashanti Region, are noted for voting in a certain way, but their role in ensuring victory for the political parties they do not vote for should not be glossed over.



The NPP has been making modest gains in the Volta Region since 1992 and whenever there is voter apathy in that region, it benefits the NPP. In The Fourth John, I tracked the gains of the NPP in the Volta Region:



In the 1992 presidential election, the NDC, represented by J.J. Rawlings, got 93.2% of the votes, followed by the NPPs Professor Albert Adu Boahen, who got 3.6%.



In 1996, Rawlings obtained 94.5% of the Volta Region votes while John Agyekum Kufuor obtained 4.7%.



In the 2000 election run-off, Prof. Atta Mills of the NDC obtained 88.5% while Kufuor got 11.5%.



In 2004, Prof. Mills got 83.4% while Kufuor, who again won the national polls got 14.3% in the Volta Region.



In the first round of the 2008 election, Prof. Mills got 82.9% of the Volta Region votes while his closest contender, the NPPs Nana Akufo-Addo got 15.0%. In the second round of voting, Prof. Mills obtained 86.1% while Nana Akufo-Addo got 13.9%. Mills won that election.



In 2012, John Mahama of the NDC obtained 85.4% of the votes in the Volta Region while Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP got 12.9% of the votes.



In 2016 when Mahama lost, he obtained 80.9% while Akufo-Addo got 17.4%, the highest share of the votes the NPP ever had in the region.



President Mahama obtained the lowest percentage of NDC votes in the Volta Region since 1992. Beyond that, the absolute figures of votes recorded in the Volta Region also dropped for the NDC candidate.



In 2012, Mahama obtained 734,641 votes in the Volta Region. In 2016, he got 629,398. This means his votes in his world bank dropped by 105,243. This was despite the fact that in 2016, 115, 503 new voters registered to vote in the Volta Region from the 2012 figure.



It is important to look beyond the figures in the Volta Region only. The Ewe people are known to vote for the NDC. Statistics show that a good number of Ewes live in other regions. According to the 2010 census, 20.1% of the population of the Greater Accra Region were Ewes. The Ewe population formed 18.9% of the people living in the Eastern Region.



The Central Region and Western Region each had 6.2% of their population being Ewe. This means there were as many as 806,000 Ewes living in the Greater Accra Region which had a total population of 4,010,054 according to the same census. So if Ewes were not enthused about voting for the NDC, then it went beyond those in the Volta Region.



From the above explanation, the NPP has a lot to lose if they anger the people of the Volta Region or Ewes. They may not be happy Mahama or the NDC but they will go out to vote in protest. At least the NDC does not make them feel less human.



The NPP, will end up indirectly working in the interest of the NDC when actions such as the deployment of the military and comments such as the one uttered by K.T. Hammond continue.



The wide gap Akufo-Addo opened in the 2016 election was partly because Mahamas strongholds did not record high voter turnout. That should not be lost on the NPP.



Besides, the Ewe people and all ethnic groups should be treated with respect and dignity even if they dont vote for a particular party. Ewes should not be portrayed as dishonest people who have the propensity to commit electoral fraud. Its offensive.



After years of ethnic stereotyping, dangerous prejudices and being at the receiving end of crude ethnic jokes, is there any wonder that some parents refuse to let their children attend good schools such as Ola Girls SHS just because they are located in the Volta Region?



The writer, Manasseh Azure Awuni, is a freelance journalist and a writer. He is the Author of three books: Voice of Conscience, Letters to My Future Wife and The Fourth John: Reign, Rejection & Rebound. His email address is [email protected]

Source: Manasseh Azure Awuni









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POS Foundation, a facilitator for Justice for All Programme has petitioned President Nana Addo to consider offering amnesty for non-violent drug users and petty offenders as means of decongesting the countrys prisons in the midst of COVID-19 Pandemic.



In a statement signed by Jonathan Osei Owusu, Executive Director of POS Foundation and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said following the outbreak of the novel COVID-19, governments and non-state actors were tasked to provide responses to curtail its spread and mitigate its attendant impact on the entire population.



Whiles commending the President for granting presidential amnesty to 808 prisoners on March 26 this year, under Article 72 of the Constitution, the foundation urged him to review the amnesty criteria.



The Foundation proposed the inclusion of convicted non- violent drug users (Not Trade/Trafficker) who are serving below 10 years from the Old PNDC Law 236 and petty offenders in order to decongest the prisons.



The statement said The POS foundation and its partners together with its donor agencies are willing to support the state for non-violent Drug users who may need treatment to go through a period of rehabilitation and treatment within the pardon process which is accordance with the New Narcotics Control Commission law 2020 and international best practices as they pose no major threat to society but to themselves.



It further stated that across countries where COVID-19 has caused harm to human lives, prisons have been a substantial focus for its spread and the pandemic present a focus for reform.



This have caused the release of many prisoners by many governments such as 381 in California, Iran 54,000, Afghanistan released 10,000 prisoners, Indonesia 30,000 and Ethiopia 4,011 prisoners.



It will spread much more rapidly than in the general population due to the high congestion rate of 52 per cent and even as high as over 150 per cent in some prisons, the statement recounted.



According to the statement as at January this year, the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons designed to hold 815 persons was housing over 3,459 prisoners.



The Akuse Prison holds 207 against a design capacity of 60, while the Koforidua prisons also holds 633 as against a designed capacity of 300 per records from the Prison Service of Ghana, the statement added.



The statement noted that Ghanas Prisons could become epicenters of COVID-19 should there be an outbreak and to prevent that, the only practicable intervention is the release of prisoners through an immediate review of the amnesty criteria/ presidential pardon under Article 72 (1).



According to POS Foundation, this swift intervention is critical to protect the health and wellbeing of prisoners and ensure public safety.



It further urged government to support the Ghana Prison Service with the necessary and protective tools for prison officers and visitors so the service could put in more strict precautionary measures to prevent imported cases of the virus into the prisons.

Source: GNA









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The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Barbara Oteng Gyasi says Ghanas quest is to use the Pan African Historical Theatre Festival (PANAFEST) to rise above and beyond the shadows of slavery to celebrate the African spirit of resilience.



She said the Ministry, together with the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) and the PANAFEST Foundation were committed to creating the awareness that Ghana was still a place to return to.



"Our role as a new generation is to leave the past behind and surge forward into creating a better future that will be a haven of freedom, equality, love, and security for the next generation."



Mrs Oteng Gyasi made this observation at the launch of PANAFEST 2021, via zoom, on the theme "Securing the African Family: Our Soul, Our Health, Our Wealth".



She said the importance of PANAFEST was to create a vital and relevant platform for members of the African family to engage each other in forthright conversation.



She said real brotherhood and unity were catalysts for economic advancement through effective collaboration at national and international levels, saying, As Africans we are one people and must not allow our differences to affect our unification.



"We must as a continent take whatever we have and everything we can offer to make for a united Africa."



The sector Minister said: "As we launch the 2021 edition of PANAFEST, we are today honouring our heroes like Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Dr. Edward Burghart Du Bois and other great ancestors who have built on the Pan-African ideals".



She said the "Year of Return" 2019, was celebrated to cumulate the resilience of all the victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the next decade, 2020  2030 would see the rolling out of the Beyond the Return Programme to further strengthen the bounding with our Kith and Kin in the diaspora.



Professor Esi Sutherland, Chairperson of the International Board of Trustees, PANAFEST Foundation, after due reflection on PANAFEST 2019, said PANAFEST 2021 was planned to bring the African Family together this time, to review the dynamics of The Return or the Sankofa Principle and explore it as an impetus for the future.



The idea was to generate a review of the true value of collectively reviewing the past with an agenda for creating a visions of the future we would all like to see.



She said PANAFEST 2021 was designed as a stimulating, creative space for recollecting and sharing the multiple facets of the African experience of the pandemic and of racist Western hegemony.



"Reclaiming our right to weave our own narrative, the festival will not stop at the profound tragedy of the experience, but will also celebrate the courage, resilience and innovation demonstrated by our front liners, scientists, health workers, inventors, artistes and community activists and careers."



According to her, PANAFEST 2021 was designed to establish a build-up starting in August 2020 to provide Platforms of dialogue and expression in all forms of artistic expression, which speak to the raging interrogation of the state of African life in the global context.



It is expected that activities at the festival will demonstrate beyond doubt that the African Family needs to re-assess and secure and own its own history but also set itself up to be vigilant.



Prof. Sutherland said activities for the festival include "the Return Journey  a symbolic boat ride from the Cape Coast slave dungeons to Elmina, the Akwaaba Ceremony, and Reverential Night.



There will also be a grand durbar and opening ceremony, and the Pan African Colloquium, an Inter-Faith Dialogue, Expo Bazaar, performances from locals and guests and workshops for artistes as well as exhibitions.



"The 2021 edition of PANAFEST will seek to respond to important imperatives which have been raised such as building up participation by different communities of Ghanaian creatives and by the Ghanaian public in general," she added.



She assured that the PANAFEST Foundation was geared up to see the constraints imposed by the COVID 19 pandemic as an opportunity to better deploy technology in innovative ways to break the barriers and rather intensify and diversify the experience of the festival.



Mr Akwesi Agyemang, Chief Executive Officer GTA, assured that the GTA would continue to support the PANAFEST and all its partners even in this difficult times of COVID-19 pandemic.



He said one thing that came out was the resilience of the African spirit and its beliefs moving from 2019 to 2020, there were lessons that were learnt and to be taken to 2021.



"We would be worthy partners and we believe all the programmes that have been put in place will be a follow up to the historic 2019 "Year of Return".

Source: GNA









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The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) on Thursday gave the assurance to citizens that the deployment of military troops to Aflao and its environs was not a ploy to molest citizens but rather, to ensure that people in such areas are well protected.



The Ghana Armed Forces wishes to assure all Ghanaians, and especially the good people of Aflao and the adjoining communities, that the deployment of troops (in conjunction with other security agencies) is to ensure the protection of the citizenry and not to intimidate them.



A statement from GAF signed by Colonel E. Aggrey-Quashie, Director for Public Relations, GAF and copied the Ghana News Agency said their attention was drawn to a report alleging that civilians at the those communities were molested by soldiers deployed there.



It said that after thorough investigations into the allegations leveled against the Force, the outcome indicated that no soldier was involved in any such act.



Colonel E. Aggrey-Quashie encouraged all residents to go about their normal duties without any fear or anxiety and assured that the troops would not relent to uphold the high standards of professionalism in the performance of their duties.



However, he said that any incident of infraction of the law, involving any Service person, would be thoroughly investigated and the case dealt with in accordance with GAF Regulations.

Source: GNA









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The Tema West Constituency Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dennis Amfo-Sefah, has sought to cure rumours that the Member of Parliament for the Constituency has fallen ill with coronavirus.



I can assure you that Mr Carlos Ahenkorah is quite hale and hearty and is actually grateful that people are so concerned about him that his short absence from the busy frontlines of his campaign has generated concern.



In a statement released to the Ghana news agency in Accra on Thursday, Mr. Amfo-Sefah said the rumours are nothing but assumptions and suppositions couched in mischief by our detractors.

Mr Carlos Ahenkorah, who is also a Deputy Minister of Trade became a news item when reports emerged that he had fallen ill with the dreaded coronavirus and is in intensive care.



As he is also the 2020 Parliamentary Candidate for Tema West, followers of the party have become worried.



But according to the statement by the Constituency Chairman, the claim is just a rumour that was cooked by opponents to disorient the NPP in the Constituency.



Our detractors see defeat in the future and so in their desperation, they have resorted to spreading rumours about our candidate to disorient us in Tema West NPP and I am unhappy to say some of us have fallen for the lie and are panicking. Please do not panic, our candidate is as fit as a fiddle. If you think that rumours and half-truths are what will win you power, you are gravely mistaken because at the end of it all, truth will prevail.



My office as constituency chairman has not responded to the rumours, but the panic that it has created in the NPP within this Constituency is unacceptable hence the need to deodorize the atmosphere.



Meanwhile, he called on all well-meaning Ghanaians, especially Moral Society to rise and condemn what he calls, a new trend which is sickening to the heart. How can anybody openly wish illness on others to start baseless rumours in order to gain political capital?.



It is a well-known cultural taboo in Ghana to attack people with their sicknesses and so even if you think your opponent is sick, the proper thing to do is to wish him well, the fact that our parliamentary candidate has admitted fallen sick immediately after the primary doesnt mean he has contracted the virus.



An allegation may be true or false, but the question is, what evidence do we have and is it an official fact from doctors?.

Source: GNA









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Prophet Aikins Awumey, General Overseer of the Holy Ghost Fire Prayer Mission, has called on politicians to demonstrate a high level of tolerance to ensure that there was peace in the country.



He said Ghanaians cherished the desire of politicians to serve their nation but they should know that Ghana is for all.



Prophet Awumey made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra.



He said Ghanaians would be going to the polls this year and encouraged the citizens to eschew all forms of negative activities that would mar the peaceful conduct of the election.



It is only when it is only when there is peace that all can say that Ghana has been successful again as it has always been since the inception of the Fourth Republic, The General Overseer said.



Prophet Awumey said if Ghanaians fail to do that and choose the path of acrimony and disunity, we will create a dangerous path not only for ourselves but for our children and the next generation.



He advised political parties to settle any intra party disputes by dealing with their differences and rather pursue peace and reconciliation ahead of election 2020.



Prophet Awumey charged the citizenry to also demonstrate a high level of patriotism and get rid of selfishness, greed and wickedness.



He said the church was putting up a 2,000 seating capacity auditorium at Oduman, near Amasaman in the Ga West Municipality to enhance the propagation of the gospel.



Prophet Awumey also announced that plans were far advanced to open a hospital to complement governments effort of providing quality healthcare for all Ghanaians.

Source: GNA









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The World Health Organization (WHO) has reacted to a video of a Cameroonian medical doctor Kameni Pierre, claiming to have been healed of Coronavirus by Prophet TB Joshua via his church channel, Emmanuel TV.



The gynecologist and obstetrician who claimed to have suffered Coronavirus, said he received his healing after he called in for prayers during an interactive programme on Emmanuel TV from the isolation center he was placed in.



According to Pierre, he displayed his result and 'vomited out the disease while receiving prayers from the Nigerian Pastor.



WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus who was questioned about the healing by Cameroonian journalist Simon Ateba during an interactive media session, said faith and science should go together.



Ghebreyesus said;



We know many religious leaders who would really advise their followers to follow their faith and at the same time use science. The two do not contradict; they go together We will call on all religious leaders to be in this fight and save lives.



WHO Executive Director of Health Emergencies, Dr Michael Ryan on his own part expressed readiness of the international health agency to collaborate with bodies like The Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) to advance the fight against Coronavirus.



He said; Certainly, spiritual leadership is very important in a time like this."

Source: LIB









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Ms. Faustina Osei Prempeh, a Child Rights Activist, has stressed the need for parents to introduce children to sex education at the early ages of life.



She said this could help kids report issues of sexual harassment and prevent any form of abuse and maltreatment from criminals.



Parents must be bold enough to speak sex language with children and avoid indirect communication, which leaves boys and girls in suspense, she explained, adding that, the exposure to these topics was not going to make children wayward as often perceived.



Ms. Prempeh who is the Programmes Manager for Rights and Responsibilities Initiative Ghana (RRIG), an NGO spearheading the welfare of children, pointed out that, children were the future leaders who required special care for their holistic development.



She was speaking at a joint meeting to mark this years World Day against Child Labour and the International Day of the African Child at Kwamang in the Bekwai Municipality of the Ashanti Region.



These Days are celebrated annually to create awareness on the negative impacts of child labour on the health, education, welfare and development of children.



Community members, including children, were educated on the dangers of child marriages, substance abuse, school drop-out, child neglect and child labour.



Ms. Prempeh used the occasion to enlighten community members on the prevalence of the novel coronavirus.



She advised them to adhere to all the laid down protocols by the Ministry of Health and other regulatory bodies and also boost their immune system to fight against COVID-19.



Mr. Maxwell Bioh, Head Teacher of Kwamang M/A JHS, and a member of the Social Service Sub- Committee of the Assembly advised children to always report any forms of abuse and neglect to teachers, whenever school was in session.



He assured the children of the teachers readiness to assist in any little way to help them progress in the academic, health and social lives.

Source: GNA









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The Deputy Minister of Lands, Forestry and Natural Resources, Mrs Naana Eyiah Quansah, has cut the sod for the construction of a three-Kilometre feeder road from Gomoa Ayensuadze to Gomoa Abaasa to join the Winneba/Swedru main trunk road.



The Minister, also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gomoa Central, was accompanied by Mr Benjamin Kojo Otoo, the District Chief Executive.



Mrs Eyiah Quansah said the road needed to be fixed to facilitate the carting of farm produce from the area to market centres.



The government would ensure that majority of feeder roads in hinterlands were tarred to aid the transportation of goods and services, she said.



She said the contract was awarded in May this year and the contractor was expected to complete the project within one year or less.



The MP said negotiations had been made with the contractor to recruit local artisans and labourers to create jobs for the youth in the town.



She stated that the Gomoa Central District had been slated to benefit from the 88 district hospitals recently announced by President Akufo-Addo to be constructed across the country and assured that the sod-cutting ceremony would be performed this July for works to begin.



The Gomoa Awomerew to Gomoa Ekwamkrom road on the Winneba-Junction/ Agona Swedru trunk road had been given on contract for refurbishment.



According to the MP work was steadily progressing on a polyclinic project at Gomoa Abonyin to reduce referral of cases to Winneba and Agona Swedru among other referral hospitals.



Mrs Eyiah Quansah said the Government had kept faith with the chiefs and people of Gomoa Central within its three and half years in office and urged them to reciprocate the gesture.



She called on residents to vote massively for her and President Akufo-Addo to complete the unfinished business started in 2017.



The MP asked the people to actively participate in the voter registration exercise to avoid being disenfranchised.



Oseadieyo Ayeboafo Atuah, the Managing Director of Nana Kwame Atuah Construction Company limited, said the three-kilometre road from Gomoa Ayensuadze to Gomoa Abaasa and the four kilometre Gomoa Dahom to Gomoa Lome would be completed within a year.



He assured the people that workers would be recruited from the towns to create jobs for them.



Nana Osuan Asare IV, Chief of Gomoa Abonyi, commended the MP and President Akufo-Addo for the numerous infrastructural developments for the area.



He pledged to ensure that his people fully participated in the voters registration exercise, which began on Tuesday, June 30.



Nana Akye Panyin IV, Chief of Gomoa Ayensuadze, expressed appreciation to the Central Government for commencing the tarring of the road.



The Chief, therefore, appealed to the MP to replace a canoe she procured for farmers of the town to cross the Ayensu River to their farms when the river overflowed its banks during the rainy season, which was damaged.



The Chief expressed appreciation to the Central Government, MP and Gomoa District Assembly for bringing development projects into the town to promote quality living standards.

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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One of the biggest arguments against allowing cities, boroughs and townships to write laws that differ from state laws is that its difficult for people, especially travelers from out of the area, to know where its legal to do something and where it isnt. Someone having a long conversation on a cell phone could drive through five municipalities, and be legal in some and illegal in others.
NIGERIA: A robber and serial rapist, Adeniyi Ajayi, on Wednesday, July 1, confessed he raped women and housemaids in the presence of their husbands and bosses, to serve as punshment to the men, for refusing to give him money during operation.



Vanguard reports that Adeniyi who is an ex-convict, was arrested by operatives of the Special Anti- Robbery Squad, SARS, of the Lagos State Police Command, in a hotel at Ijora 7-up area of the state. Adeniyi who operates alone, terrorized residents of Sabo, Ijora Badia, and Lagos Island. When news of his arrest filtered round, eight victims, some of whom were civil servants and lawyers, stormed SARS office to affirm that he raped them during operation.



Two ladies who worked at a company in Sabo, visited the SARS office where they recounted how the suspect raped them right before their male colleagues, in broad daylight on June 16, 2020. They said he stole their phones, two laptops, and Automated Teller Machine, ATM cards after the operation.



Speaking to newsmen, the suspect appealed to the police to kill him instead of sending him to the prison. According to him, he would get more hardened as a criminal if he goes into the prison again.



I have been operating alone since January 2019, with just torchlight. During the operation, I would be giving orders to my imaginary gang members, on where to position themselves, just to give the impression that I was not alone.



I raped women whose husbands refused to give me money, just to punish them. I also raped housemaids. I used the money realized to lodge in hotels. The only solution to this act is for the Police to waste my life because if they take me to prison, I will come back hardened and I dont want to keep disturbing Nigerians.



The first time I was arrested and sent to prison for stealing someones property, inmates made jest of me for coming to prison over a minor case. They said I should join their gangs when I leave there. That Is why I said the Police should waste my life because I know I wont return from prison as a transformed person.'' he said.



When asked what he meant by wasting his life, he replied, ''they should just kill me to end it all. Besides, I have nobody who cares about my well being.





Source: Vanguard









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Doctors are caring for a two-headed baby in intensive care with two sets of organs as it fights for survival.





The conjoined twins share one body but there is only one genital organ  believed to be male  according to doctors in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.



Dr Dilshod Rakhmonov told local media that using medical language, these are Siamese twins  but he then referred to a single child.



At the moment, the baby is in the intensive care unit of our centre, he said.



The babys internal organs are in double quantity, there is one genital organ, and, moreover, the newborn has two heads.



Read Full Story .... dailystar.co.uk >>> :

















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Newborn twin sisters were mauled to death by a family dog when their mother briefly left the room to talk to a neighbour.



The 'jealous' Labrador and American foxhound cross attacked the 26-day-old premature babies at their home in Piripa, in the northeastern state of Bahia, Brazil, last Tuesday.



Mother Elaine Novais, 29, rushed to the aid of her girls Anne and Analu after hearing their cries from her bedroom, but was too late to save them.



Mrs Novais, a council worker who had struggled to conceive for nine years, pulled the violent dog away from the twins, but it had already inflicted fatal damage on their abdomens.



Read Full Story .... dailymail.co.uk >>> :

















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The New Patriotic Partys campaign manager for the 2020 general elections, Peter Mac Manu and Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Carlos Ahenkorah have been admitted at the Intensive Care Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital after testing positive for COVID-19.



Citi News understands that a number of government officials have tested positive for the virus and are currently receiving treatment at various health facilities.

This comes on the back of the death of the former General Secretary of the Governing New Patriotic Party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly referred to as Sir John.



Sir John died on July 1, 2020, after testing positive for Coronavirus. A source at the Forestry Commission told Citi News that he died at the Intensive Care Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.



Government appointees vs COVID-19

A number of Government appointees have been battling with the Coronavirus disease.



Ghanas Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu tested positive for the disease about three weeks ago and received treatment at the University of Ghana Medical Centre in Accra.



The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby, also tested positive for the Coronavirus within the same period.



Mayor of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, K.K. Sam, who also tested positive for the disease, however, passed on.



The MCE died on Friday, June 12, 2020, while receiving treatment at the University of Ghana Medical Centre where he was rushed to after falling sick.

Source: Citi News









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The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Evans Opoku-Bobbie has stated that even though the region has been considered as the most relatively peaceful in the country, recent happenings are beginning to portray a different situation as the number of conflicts seems to be increasing.



Conflicts are bound to happen in any society, but the Brong Ahafo Region has been challenged by its history and structure towards conflicts, he stated.



According to him, the region had some peculiar predisposing conflict situations including the lack of a centralised traditional authority, traditional authority/allegiance and land boundary disputes, multi-ethnicity and natural resource exploitation and benefits sharing.



Mr Opoku-Bobbie made these observations in a speech read for him at the inauguration of the newly-reconstituted Brong Ahafo Regional Peace Council in Sunyani on Tuesday.



Inauguration



Ten out of the 13-member council was inaugurated and given appointment letters by a member of the National Peace Council, Nana Difie Agyakoma, who is also the Queen of Mampong in the Ashanti Region.



In his inaugural address, which was read by the Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive, Dr (Mrs) Evelyn Ama Kumi-Richardson, Mr Opoku-Bobbie said the number of chieftaincy disputes in the region were alarming.



According to him 90 per cent of traditional areas in the region had succession disputes, adding that These definitely cannot be attributes of the most peaceful region.



Mr Opoku-Bobbie therefore welcomed the inception of the Peace Council as a statutory public institution with the mandate to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts and build sustainable peace.



He explained that the lack of peace was a major source of instability in the society as it slowed down development considerably.



Most importantly, peace and stability are essential commodities for national cohesion and development. However, conflicts and disputes will continue to be with us for as long as the human race is not extinct.



Mr Opoku-Bobbie said systems and structures that aimed at managing and resolving conflicts before they escalated into violence were very important and therefore called for more resources to be provided to the National Peace Council to enable it deliver on its mandate efficiently and effectively.



He expressed the hope that the inauguration of the newly-constituted Council would further strengthen efforts by the Regional Security Council (REGSEC) to seek early and lasting solutions to the numerous conflicts in the region.



Limited opportunities

For her part, Nana Agyakoma said the need for peace in the country had never been more important than at this present time when socio-political systems seem not to respond effectively to emerging conflicts.



Our youths are becoming increasingly agitated over limited opportunities, with impunity eating into the very fabric of our society and threat of extremism looming large over our sub-region.



Nana Agyakoma, therefore called on members of the newly-constituted regional council to buckle up because the task ahead was critical for the development of the region.



She appealed to the government, the business community and the international community to support the national and regional peace councils to consolidate the economic gains chalked in recent years.



The President of the Brong Ahafo Regional House of Chiefs, Pimampim Yaw Kagbrese who chaired the function, called on the members to refrain from receiving gifts from parties involved in conflicts that might influence them in their deliberations on conflict situations in the region.









Source: Daily Graphic









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Former President Jerry John Rawlings has called for collaborative efforts to avert the threat posed by terrorism on the continent.



He cited the killing of several soldiers and gendarmes in multi-terrorist attacks in Cote dIvoire early last month, saying, Burkina Faso has become a hub of terrorist activity over the past few years with hundreds killed in recurring attacks across the country.



Travel advices and credible intelligence reports from several sources warn of potential terrorist attacks in countries like Ghana and Togo. Our country faces a real threat of terrorism with the heightened attacks in neighbouring countries.



A statement issued from the Office of the former President and signed by Mr Kobina Andoh Amoakwa, Head of the Communications Directorate and copied the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said threat of terrorism is real and urged stakeholders to collaborate to avert it.



Former president Rawlings said: As Ghanaians we can no longer procrastinate on the matter of terrorism and assume we are insulated from the reality. The time has come for heightened vigilance by every Ghanaian as we enter a vulnerable period leading up to the December Presidential and Parliamentary elections.



Inhabitants, especially the border communities need to remain extra vigilant and observant if we are to avoid any such terrorist attacks on our territory.



While we undoubtedly are nervous about the deployment of the military and other security agencies across our border areas, ordinary civilians can better guarantee their safety when we keep our ears and eyes open for suspicious movement and activities across our vast borders. It added.



In the same vein, I once again urge the military and other agencies deployed in the border regions to perform their roles above reproach and be sensitive to the mood of the people of the border areas who are already reeling under the pressures of Covid-19.



Any unease and mistrust between the military and communities along the border areas will only create an opening for those engaging in terrorist activity to slip through, increasing the threats to our country. Cooperation and sharing of intelligence is key to confronting the challenge.



The statement said the militarys role is to defend the territorial integrity of the country and protect the people of Ghana.

Source: GNA









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The Vodafone Group has invested in one of the worlds largest subsea cable projects known as 2Africa, as part of an international consortium. The transformative subsea cable project is in line with Vodafones commitment to build a resilient future of connectivity and digitalisation for the African continent.



2Africa is one of the largest subsea projects in the world. The project, when completed, would connect 16 countries in Africa including Ghana with Europe and the Middle East, extending to Asia via the main Europe-to-Asia subsea cables. The new subsea cable project is expected to deliver more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today, with a design capacity of up to 180Tbps on key parts of the system.



2Africa will deliver the much-needed internet capacity and reliability across large parts of Africa including Ghana, underpinning the further growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people whilst building a modern digital African society. This is crucial for local businesses and multinational companies looking to operate in Africa.



The population connectivity of the African continent stands at 39%, lagging behind the global average of 59%. Increasing internet access and penetration in Africa has become critical as it also affects the Gross Domestic Performance (GDP) per capita growth. The UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development in 2019 estimated that a broadband expansion of 10% would yield a 2.5% increase in GDP per capita.

Commenting on this groundbreaking initiative, Shoyinka Shodunke, Director of Technology at Vodafone Ghana said:



2Africa is a major building block and an essential milestone in the digitization of Africa especially Ghana, as it will contribute to the Government of Ghanas digital transformation initiatives. When completed between 2023 and 2024, this project which is in line with Vodafones mission to enrich our customers lives through the unique power of mobile communication, would deliver gigantic capacity and much-needed reliability and faster speed;



reaffirming our commitment to our customers and Ghana. 2Africa is a critical success factor required to close the digital divide in Africa and provide a digitally enabled environment for local businesses and multinationals looking to expand to Ghana. This will certainly mark a new era of improved internet connectivity in the country and the whole of Africa.



As a result, millions of people across the African continent will get access to the internet where they could not before, whilst those with existing access will get a better online experience. This in turn will have a positive impact on communities, improve sectors such as healthcare and education, and build a more inclusive global digital society.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The Deputy General Secretary of the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Boamah Otukonor has urged party members without the required documents for the registration exercise to take along their old Voter ID cards to help them get their names in the new register.



Peter Boamah Otukonor, in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie, noted that his party has arranged for some persons that will assist the smooth registration for both Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians without the required documents by the Electoral Commission (EC) to partake in the registration exercise.



He called on his party supporters without a Ghana card or passport to go to the various registration centres with their 'old voters ID card' and register.



Do not be deterred, carry your old voters' ID card at least it shows some form of identity. When you get to the registration centre, there are people there to guarantee for you to register, he emphatically said.



Voters' registration exercise - Day 1



After the back and forth over the need or otherwise of a new electoral roll, the Electoral Commission commenced its month-long nationwide voters registration exercise today.



The exercise will be held in some 6,788 clusters made up of five registration centres each across the country.



It will be conducted in 5 phases, each phase spanning 6 days with additional days for mop-up.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Seasoned journalist, Kweku Baako says he is no more entertaining any malicious allegations against his personality.



According to him, any person who dares link him to illegal activities must be ready with substantial evidence but he will not tolerate any more accusations targeted at him.



Contributing to Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' programme, Mr. Baako said he has been using the media to fight off allegations and would naturally leave issues regarding him to the court of opinion; however going forward; he will take legal actions.



Kweku Baako issued this warning when he was commenting on his defamation suit against Member of Parliament for Assin Central constituency, Kennedy Agyapong.



The vociferous Parliamentarian, in 2018, after an undercover work by Anas Aremeyaw Anas to expose illegal mining activities in Ghana, made wild allegations against Kweku Baako and his protege.



He accused them of being involved in illegal mining and other illegal activities, and so impugned the integrity of Anas Aremeyaw Anas as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Kweku Baako.



Kweku Baako, on Tuesday, October 16, 2018 also filed a defamation suit against Kennedy Agyapong at the Accra High Court and prayed the court to order him to retract and apologize for his words.



He also sought reliefs to a sum of GHC 25 million.



The Accra High Court ruled, in June this year, that Mr. Agyapong should render an unqualified apology to Kweku Baako using the mediums he made his defamatory statements and has issued a 30-day ultimatum to the Assin Central MP.



Mr. Agyapong is also to pay GHC 100000 and GHC 30000 as cost of legal expenses to Mr. Baako.



Addressing his legal victory, Mr. Baako told host Kwami Sefa Kayi; ''Our eyes and ears are wide opened, any further malicious allegations against me; we'll go back to the same forum and tackle the issues there...I'm very capable if it's facts and counterfacts. If it's evidence, I'm not boasting, I'm capable; perhaps more than that but I won't use the radio and TV''.



Watch his full submissions below:





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Communications Director for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Yaw Buabeng Asamoah has condemned the statements by Adansi Asokwa MP, K.T Hammond and former President John Mahama regarding the deployment of security forces in the Volta Region.



K.T Hammond's Statements



Speaking on the security presence in the Volta Region, Hon. K.T Hammond said the Military has been stationed in the Region to prevent non-Ghanaians from participating in the ongoing new voters' registration exercise.



The military is at the Aflao border to make sure you vote if you are a Ghanaian and if you have the constitutional right to vote. Thats all there is. They are not electoral officers, but they are peacekeeping forces. They are keeping the peace. They [Togolese] walk into the [Volta Region] and come out normally but they are not Ghanaians. When they walk in there, they can do whatever they do so I guess that is the reason for that," he stated.



Ex-Prez Mahama Condemns Prez Akufo-Addo



Former President John Dramani Mahama, addressing the issue, also scolded President Nana Akufo-Addo for sanctioning the Military presence in the Region.



"I have sufficient reason to believe that there is merit in the concerns raised by the residents of these Regions. This represents another unprecedented low in the shameless abuse of state power to attack the very citizens whose safety and security the Akufo-Addo government should be protecting. It is becoming evident by the day, that the Akufo-Addo government perceives political power as an end in itself hence the resort to such crude and high-handed measures to usurp the mandate of the people.



"To send troops into regions in times of peace for the sole purpose of preventing them from registration amounts to declaring war on them. Any President sanctioning this sort of activity stands in breach of his oath to the people of Ghana. Any President doing this, commits a grave sin against the very people he swore to protect. No one would have imagined that a Ghanaian government would be so obsessed with hanging on to power as to subject its own citizens to such mistreatment and execute an ethno-tribal agenda of this magnitude against them," a statement from his office read.



Buaben Asamoa on K.T Hammond & Mahama



Speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' on Wednesday, Yaw Buaben Asamoa expressed disgust over the statements by the two leaders and advised them to refrain from making irresponsible comments.



"It is inappropriate to make such remarks. I don't agree with the two at all and the former President and NDC flagbearer also made some comments. He also didn't act well at all. As a former Head of State, stoking such statements is a disgrace to him and Ghana."



He stressed there is no ill motive behind the military deployment to the Regions.



"Nobody has schemed to deliberately infringe on any person's fundamental rights and freedom of movement," he said.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Consider the Lincoln statue in Washington, D.C., which was intended to commemorate the end of slavery. The funds for this piece were raised by freed slaves, but they had no say in what it would look like. It was controversial almost from the get go: it is not an image that inspires African Americans to see themselves as equal. In fact, when freed slaves knelt before Lincoln, he was embarrassed and reportedly said, Dont kneel to me. That is not right.
General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu has called out all members and sympathisers of the ruling party to step out and register for the 2020 general elections.



According to the NPP Chief Scribe, it is time for those who believe that President Nana Akufo-Addo has achieved a remarkable feat in less than 4 years to go to the registration centres and get registered.



Speaking on Okay FMs 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, John Boadu warned against the blatant ignorance of the safety protocols as was witnessed on the first day of the registration.



If you believe that what Nana Akufo-Addo has done within just 3 and half years is satisfactory, you dont have to sit at home and clap your hands. It is time to go to the registration centres in your constituencies and be patience and observe the social distancing protocols . . ." he called out.



He reiterated on the need for Ghanaians in general to adhere to the safety protocols, especially with regards to social distancing, warning that the novel coronavirus should not take over the country after the registration is over.



 . . We must continue to observe the social distancing and be fast to get registered and not wait for the rush hour which is something we are fond of doing. When it is your turn in the 6 days, you have to find time to go and register on time, he advised.



However, John Boadu indicated that their observation of the first day of the registration exercise has been good generally except that the EC at some centres could not meet their target of 100 registrants per day due to some hitches with the machines.



He therefore was hopeful that the subsequent days of the registration exercise will be fruitful for the Electoral Commission (EC) to meet their target as stipulated.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com









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The Ashanti Regional Youth Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Dennis Kwakwa, has called on the youth wing of the party to stand prepared and ensure a sound and emphatic victory in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in December.



He said the economic policies and programmes rolled out by the President Akufo Addo-Bawumia-led NPP government was enough justification for their mandate to be renewed to continue with the good works they were doing for the country.



Mr Kwakwa said this at the close of a capacity building workshop organised in Kumasi by the Ashanti Regional Youth Wing of the party for the party's constituency youth organisers, executives of the Tertiary Students Confederacy of NPP (TESCON) and leaders of identifiable youth groups in the party.



Preparation



According to Mr Kwakwa, the workshop, among others, had prepared the minds of the partys youth and the other groups with strategies that could enable them to play active and significant roles before, during and after the elections.



He said the preparation processes called for commitment, dedication, hard work and zeal to support the party to win handsomely.



The Regional Youth Organiser reminded the participants that effective monitoring of the elections should be seen as an important ingredient and, as such, encouraged them to volunteer to become agents of the party at polling stations on the day of voting.



On the upcoming voters registration exercise, Mr Kwawa said, it was crucial that they got themselves involved in the process as well as encourage other members of the party to register in their numbers.





The NPP National Youth Organiser, Mr Henry Nana Boakye, said the government of the NPP had in the period of its three years in office placed great emphasis o youth development including interventions like the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy and payment of teacher and nursing training allowances.



He said the President recognised the youth as future leaders who should be provided all the necessary training and guidance required, so they could contribute meaningfully to the socio-economic and political development of the country.



Advice



He advised the NPP youth to vote massively in the upcoming elections and support the NPP government to retain power and continue with the good works it was doing for the country.



Present at the closing of the workshop were the Technical Advisor to the Vice President, Dr Gideon Boako; Ashanti Regional Organiser of the NPP, Mr Francis Adomako; Deputy Ashanti Regional Organiser of the NPP, Mr Kwaku Atta Sarpong; Ashanti Regional Research Officer of the NPP, Mr Patrick Acheampong.



Others were, Ashanti Regional Financial Secretary of NPP, Mr K. Abagna, and Deputy Ashanti Regional Youth Organiser of NPP, Mr Yahaya Salifu.









Source: Daily Graphic









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A LEADING member of the Ashanti Regional New Patriotic Party (NPP) Youth Wing, Kwadwo Tweneboah Bonsu, has said he has started a personal campaign towards a successful voters registration exercise.



He said he was using his personal resources, logistics and time to make sure that majority of eligible voters get their names onto the register in the nationwide exercise which started yesterday.



Speaking in an interview with DAILY GUIDE, he said every eligible voter must register in order to be able to exercise his or her franchise during the December 7 polls.



Tweneboah Bonsu stated that it is the civic right of every sound-minded Ghanaian that has attained 18 years to vote during the presidential and parliamentary elections.



According to him, the registration is the only thing that guarantees a citizen the right to vote in all public elections in the country, and this is the reason he has decided to carry out campaigns for the registration.



In this regard, he passionately appealed to Ghanaians, who have attained the voting age of 18 years and of sound mind, to patronize the registration exercise.



Tweneboah Bonsu believes that only after registration that an individual can partake in the upcoming elections and make a choice.



He predicted that the NPP would retain power on December 7 to continue the good works initiated by the government.



He said the Akufo-Addo administration had created jobs, strengthened the economy, embarked on infrastructural projects and, therefore, deserved a second term.

Source: daily guide









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Tanzanian President John Magufuli, also chairman of the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), has said he is seeking re-election to enable him to complete unfinished projects that started during his first five-year term.



Speaking on Tuesday in capital Dodoma, Magufuli gave reasons for seeking the presidential re-election shortly after submitting forms from over 1,000,000 CCM members from across the country, who have endorsed him to be the partys flag bearer in the October 2020 elections.



When I took office in 2015, CCM planned to implement a number of flagship projects. Some of them have been completed and a number of them are still under implementation. My wish is to complete implementation of the unfinished projects in the next five years, Magufuli said in an address televised live by state-run Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation.



He mentioned flagship projects that were yet to be completed including the standard gauge railway, the 2,115 MW Julius Nyerere hydropower in the Rufiji river basin, an international airport in the capital Dodoma and the purchase of a new ship for Lake Tanganyika aimed at boosting trade with Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.



I believe with unity and hard work we can build a modern Tanzania that every citizen can benefit, said Magufuli.



However, Magufuli admitted that the presidency was a post that faced various hard challenges, adding that last night I slept for only three hours after I had spent most of the time dealing with issues.



Bashiru Ally, CCMs secretary general, said the ruling partys top organs, including the National Executive Committee and the Central Committee will endorse President Magufulis presidential candidacy and submit his nomination to the partys national congress for final approval on July 11.



If re-elected in the October elections, President Magufuli will serve his second and final five-year term until 2025 as provided for in the countrys constitution.



The elections will also be used to choose councilors and members of parliament.



According to Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, 29,804,992 Tanzanians have registered to vote in this years elections, compared to 23,161,440 voters registered in 2015. Tanzania has a population of about 55 million.

Source: Xinhua









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Parliaments play a significant role in the democratic political system of nations such as representing the people, making and approving laws to govern the people, approving the national budget and also checking the executive.



The Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of Parliament and MP for Nsawam/Adoagyiri Hon Frank Annoh-Dompreh made these comments in Parliament in a statement to mark International Day of Parliamentarism which is marked on 30th June.



The day, according to Frank Annoh-Dompreh was established by the UN in 2018 to "recognize the role of Parliaments in national planning and strategies , as well as ensuring greater transparency and accountability at national and global levels."



Frank Annoh-Dompreh noted that women representation in Parliaments across the world has increased from 11.3% in 1995 to 24.3% as at February 2018 according to UN Women report 2018.



He said the steady increase in women political participation is a major achievement that must be appreciated.



Despite the significant role played by Parliament to the institutionalisation of democracy, Parliaments continue to face major challenges.



According to the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of Parliament, the public is skeptical or have erroneous impression about Parliament.



Other challenges that Parliament faces which ought to be addressed to enhance the work of Parliament, according to Frank Annoh-Dompreh, are keeping with changes in ICT as well as inadequate budget allocation.



In spite of the immense role played by Parliament to the democratic political system of nations, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of Parliament said there is more room for improvement by the legislature.



The Minority Leader and MP for Tamale South, Hon Haruna Iddrisu contributing to the statement said the role of Parliaments as the third arm of governments cannot be underestimated.



To improve the number of women in Parliament, Hon Haruna Iddrisu said there will be the need to amend the 1992 Constitution to achieve such goal.

Source: Emmanuel Akorli/ Peace FM Parliamentary Correspondent









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Dr Onsy Nathan Kwame Nkrumah, a leading member of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP)has declared his intention to contest for the flagbearer slot of the party.



Due to genuine unsolicited public demand of many Ghanaians I am seriously considering standing to challenge President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and former President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress on behalf of CPP in the December polls, he said.



Dr Onsy Nkrumah told the Ghana News Agency that Ghanaians had suffered enough under the governance of the NPP and the NDC from 1992 to 2020 and deserved much better governance for accelerated development.



The CPP Flagbearer Aspirant said: Today July 1st I Would Not Be Asking Our NPP Government or the President to restore the celebration of Republic Day as Public Holiday or would be asking government to return to the CPP confiscated property.



I would rather call on Ghanaians to make sure they go out to get their new Voters ID Card and to make sure they vote for a CPP Presidential Candidate and Parliamentary Candidates on December 7th, 2020.



Dr Onsy Nkrumah said Ghanaians had tried both the NPP and NDC enough times and they were seriously and equally let down by both parties.



He said: Ghanaians owe a lot to CPP for Ghana's independence and becoming a sovereign Republic and for many great achievements achieved between March 1957 and February 1966.

Source: GNA









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Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' panel on Thursday, July 2, 2020 comprising PNC Stalwart Atik Mohammed, Dean of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Kofi Agyekum, popularly known as Opanyin Agyekum and NPP Communicator, Yaw Adomako Baafi paid tribute to the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie.



Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie was a former General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and doubled as the current Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission until his demise.



Popularly called Sir John, he passed away Wednesday night, July 1 after a short illness.



Speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi, Atik Mohammed recounted the affable character of the late politician.



According to him, although Sir John was a staunch leading member of the NPP, he had a remarkable relationship with members of opposition political parties.



He stated that he (Sir John) was a unifier who treated every person, young or old, with equal respect.



"He was party-colour blind. He had more friends in NDC, PNC; in fact, everybody was his nephew, friend and brother," he sorrowfully said, stressing "this is a personal loss".



Professor Kofi Agyekum, on the other hand, advised the youth in politics to take a cue from Sir John's personality.



He eulogized the late NPP bigwig saying he attained higher academic qualifications and also rose to the peak of his political career by becoming NPP General Secretary and Forestry Commission Boss but was never arrogant.



Opanyin Agyekum stated Sir John had a good nature which should serve as a lesson to the young people in politics and deter them from engaging in politics of insults and disrespect for the elderly.



"The youth of today should learn from his amicable selfless character".



With Yaw Adomako Baafi, he couldn't hold back his tears while paying tribute to the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie.











Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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PNC Stalwart, Atik Mohammed has advised Ghanaians to observe the social distancing and health protocols at the various registration centres across the nation.



Atik Mohammed urged the eligible people who participate in the ongoing new voters' registration exercise to obey instructions from the electoral officers.



He advised that they shouldn't be annoyed when an electoral officer directs them to take their seats at specific places at the polling stations saying it is part of measures to ensure social distancing.



"It is because there has been to be order. It is only when there's order that you can have the observance of these protocols done properly," Atik said on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo'.



He also added that the registration exercise including the mop-up exercise by the Electoral Commission (EC) will last for 43 days to ensure all persons have registered their names, so they shouldn't be worried and cram at the centres to cause overcrowding.



The new voters' registration exercise began on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 and is taking place in over 33,000 polling stations across the country.



"This will prevent a lot of people gathering at one place," Samuel Tetteh, a Deputy Chairperson of the EC in-Charge of Operations said in an interview on 'Kokrokoo'.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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SEATTLE  Nordstrom is laying off thousands of workers, including a large number from its corporate operations in Seattle, as it copes with pandemic-related losses, according to a former employee and reports in a trade journal.

A Nordstrom spokesperson acknowledged Monday that the Seattle-based retailer is realigning and reducing our workforce to support our market strategy, without giving any specifics.

But a veteran Nordstrom worker who had just been laid off from a corporate unit in Seattle said Tuesday the retailer had cut 6,000 jobs nationally in June. The workers division lost around 30% of its staff, said the employee, who had been with Nordstrom for more than a decade.

The workers account follows a report last week in an industry publication, Sourcing Journal, where unnamed sources said Nordstrom was laying off 20% to 25% of its staff nationally over the near term.

That would translate into job losses of between 13,600 and 17,000, based on the companys 2019 workforce. A company spokesperson declined repeatedly to comment on the figures.

Retail analyst Neil Saunders, of the GlobalData Retail consulting firm, said Monday he was told last week by a source at Nordstrom that more layoffs were likely.

The company has said it is taking steps across our business to strengthen our financial position, including closing 19 stores.

Nordstrom declined to say how the job cuts fall on its corporate and store-level operation, but acknowledged that the reductions would include our corporate support teams. Salaries have been reduced for many executives, while Pete and Erik Nordstrom and other board members are not receiving pay for a portion of the year, the spokesperson said.

The former worker said the layoffs were originally planned for the week of June 1, but were delayed by the downtown demonstrations and looting, which left the flagship store heavily damaged. Staff were informed of the layoffs on June 8th or 9th and the last day was June 19, the worker said.

The layoffs come just weeks after Nordstrom announced that most of its 378 stores, including all 15 Washington locations, would be reopened by the end of June.

They follow months of unprecedented challenges as Nordstrom and other retailers shuttered stores in the face of the pandemic. In May, Nordstrom reported a quarterly loss of $521 million and a 40% decline in sales as the pandemic forced stores to close.

Those dismal results come as the broader retail sector, especially brick-and-mortar department stores, braces for a COVID-19 economy and shoppers who want to conserve cash and avoid public places.

Under those conditions, retailers dont need as many associates in stores, said Camilla Yanushevsky, a retail industry analyst with CFRA.

Although consumer anxieties will fade, analysts worry that many people who shifted to online shopping during the pandemic may never return to brick and mortar.

That assessment was shared by the newly laid-off Nordstrom worker, who noted that the company had been working to shift more of its sales into the online channel on the assumption that the customer is not coming back quickly to the physical stores.

That bodes poorly for laid-off workers hoping to eventually be rehired. Yanushevsky said most industry forecasts suggest that around 40% of 50% (of the layoffs) within the retail industry will be permanent.



Paul Roberts of The Seattle Times wrote this story.

2020 The Seattle Times

Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Trump appointees in the Bureau of Land Management want to open 82% of the National Petroleum Reserve for fossil fuel extraction (big business comes first). This region is the home to polar bears, migrating waterfowl and caribou, which provide the natives of the area a supply of game.
Gov. Tom Wolfs administration is advising Pennsylvanians to stay home or stay safe if they do go out ahead of and during the July Fourth weekend.

Its also asking travelers coming from 15 states to quarantine for 14 days upon their arrival in the Keystone State.

A news release from Wolfs office on Thursday said anyone entering Pa. from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah will need to quarantine for 14 days. It did not say, however, how that directive would be enforced.

That said, based on a response from the Health Department about enforcement related to Wednesdays expanded face-covering order that was signed by Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, its likely that the Wolf administration will hope travelers follow their request as opposed to using any kind of legal action to ensure quarantining happens.

It is recommended to stay home for 14 days if you return from a place with a high number of COVID-19 cases, as well.

The green phase is not a green light to stop exercising caution in large, Levine said in a news release. Although it is the holiday weekend, Pennsylvanians should refrain from attending large gatherings, and if you do go out and interact with others, wear a mask.

My mask protects you, and your mask protects me. Wearing a mask shows that you care about others, and that you are committed to protecting the lives of those around you.

Every Pa. county will be in the green phase of Wolfs reopening plan to start the holiday weekend, as Lebanon is the final county to move into it on Friday at 12:01 a.m. Some areas of the state, however, have limited some things; Philadelphia county is currently under a modified green phase and is not allowing indoor dining, while Allegheny County has halted dine-in alcohol sales in hopes of slowing a sharp uptick of confirmed coronavirus cases in Pittsburgh and areas surrounding it.

Pa. reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases since May on Thursday with 832, but Spotlight Pa. says that there is not yet a spike in hospitalizations and also that the percent of tests coming back as positive continues to fall.

The Wolf administration also addressed the upcoming July Fourth holiday weekend in its news release.

Pennsylvanians are encouraged to continue to practice social distancing and other preventive measures, including washing your hands frequently, covering coughs and sneezes, cleaning surfaces often, wearing a mask and staying home if you are sick to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, the news release said.
SUNBURY  The COVID-19 pandemic might have slowed the state attorney generals investigation into the disappearance 31 years ago in Sunbury of Barbara E. Miller.

That is the theory of Lynn Miller who Wednesday said just before the pandemic she received a call from the AGs office looking for Barbara Millers son, Eddie Jr.

The caller, upon learning she had information about the case, expressed an interest in speaking with her, also, she said. Neither she nor Eddie, her stepson, have heard anything since, she said.

The attorney generals office does not discuss investigations, a spokesperson said when asked for its status.

Barbara Miller, 30, disappeared July 1, 1989, after returning from as wedding. She never made it to a bar in Mifflinburg where she was to meet friends.

A judge on Oct. 10, 2002, declared her dead. Her death is classified as a homicide.

The past 31 years have been an uphill battle, Lynn Miller said, referring to times it appeared the case would be solved.

She praised former Sunbury Police Chief Timothy S. Miller, no relation, for the progress he made after he reopened the investigation into the cold case in 2016.

Due to allegations of a cover-up and the involvement of public officials, Lynn Miller believes the investigation is in the right hands.

I truly believe there will be an end, she said. I want to be there when the gavel goes down and I hear the word guilty.

This time of year is especially difficult for Eddie Miler Jr., she said. He was 14 when his mother disappeared. He does not talk about the case much, she said.

Lynn Miller helped raise Eddie Jr. because she married his father in 1982 after he was divorced from Barbara Miller.

The attorney generals office took over the investigation at the request of Northumberland County President Judge Charles H. Saylor after Miller resigned as Sunbury chief in July 2018.

Miller, now a barber, has not forgotten about the case, saying my thoughts are with Barbs family today on this anniversary and every day for that matter.

I did everything I could and approached the case like I would expect the police to work if it was one of my loved ones missing.

I worked long and hard on this case and I sleep well knowing I did all I could. I still keep in contact with the family and some of Barbs closest friends to this day. I only wish they would one day receive the closure that has evaded them for so long.

Miller says he believes that Barbara Miller was a victim of foul play. Court documents have identified Joseph Walter Mike Egan, a former Sunbury police officer, as the leading suspect. He denies any involvement in her disappearance.

Efforts to find Millers remains and her killer have included the use of well-known forensics experts and in June 2017 the removal of a concrete wall from the cellar of a Milton duplex after cadaver dogs had a hit.

It is former chiefs belief her death is linked to the 1986 drug-related murder of Rickey D. Wolfe, who was killed execution-style at a Susquehanna River boat ramp north of Montandon.

His theory is Miller was killed because she had information about the Wolfe case.

Prior to her disappearance, she received threatening letters accusing her of planning to go to police, a search warrant affidavit states.

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WILLIAMSPORT  The remains of a Lycoming County woman killed in 2003 were found last September because the girlfriend of the suspect became afraid after he told her what he had done.

That was revealed Wednesday in a court document filed on behalf of Jade G. Babcock, 50, formerly of Montoursville, who is accused of killing Brenda Lee Jacobs more than 16 years ago.

According to the omnibus pretrial motion, Brenda Jones last September in Philadelphia turned in Babcock out of fear after he told her he had killed Jacobs.

Babcock and Jones had lived together for four years, first in Montoursville where the killing occurred and then in Philadelphia.

The human remains were found last Sept. 17 in a Philadelphia storage facility. Two mummified legs believed to be from the same person were found at the edge of the Susquehanna River at Williamsport on May 11, 2019.

There was testimony at Babcocks preliminary hearing that he admitted killing Jacobs on Dec. 26, 2003, severing the legs and throwing them in the river.

Investigators previously had said a girlfriend told them where to find the remains but not the reason she had gone to police.

The remains and the legs have yet to be identified as Jacobs, Lycoming County District Attorney Ryan C. Gardner said.

Babcock, according to the court filing, told investigators after Jacobs death he got married, was arrested for assaulting her three times, became involved with Jones in 2015 when he got out of prison and had been rough with her.

The document also reveals Jacobs parents had asked her to leave their home because of drug and alcohol use and assumed she had moved in with Babcock.

Trooper Joe Follmer at last Octobers preliminary hearing when Babcock was held for court on homicide and other charges gave this summary of his confession:

Jacobs and he were drinking heavily around the holidays in 2003, and they argued over losing their jobs and being unable to buy gifts for children.

He hit her several times and she fell to the floor. She did not get up and he never called 911. When the body got cold he wrapped it in a comforter and placed it in a living room closet.

A few months later when it got warmer he moved the body to a coal bin in a barn at the rear of the property where it remained until the house was sold on Nov. 18, 2018.

He tried to fit the remains in a wooden box his father used when ice fishing but it did not fit so he cut off the legs with a bow saw.

He moved the legless remains to a storage unit in Williamsport where they stayed until last April when he and his then girlfriend moved to Philadelphia using a rental truck.

The legs were thrown into the Susquehanna River from the Maynard Street bridge in Williamsport. Fisherman found them a short distance downstream.

The omnibus motion, quoting a state police report, states Babcock told investigators he did not call 911 because he feared police would say he killed Jacobs intentionally and that he kept a candle lit for her during the several months the body was in the living room closet.

Chief Public Defender Nicole J. Spring in her motion seeks suppression of evidence found in the storage unit and statements Babcock gave to investigators.

She argues the search warrant for the storage unit was issued on information from an acquaintance without documenting the persons relationship to Babcock or her credibility.

The document also notes Babcock twice was read his Miranda rights while questioned in Philadelphia and each time agreed to speak with investigators but he would not sign the waiver.

Spring points out her client suffers from mental health disorders, including PTSD, bipolar, anxiety and depression.

She has requested more time to determine if she will seek a mental infirmity defense because she has not received the report of a psychological examination.

The psychologist, due to COVID-19 restrictions, was unable to meet with Babcock in prison until last month, she said. He is being held without bail.

--

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The Jersey Shore will not offer indoor dining this weekend, and Delaware has closed its beach bars because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ocean City, Md., however, is taking a different approach.

Everything is expected to be open in the town that sits along the Atlantic Ocean as normal during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Ocean City Acting Tourism Director Jessica Waters said in an email to PennLive.

Proper social distancing and other COVID-19 mitigation practices will be in place, however.

Ocean City is not considering closing the beaches at this time, Waters said. Instead, we are working closely with our business community to ensure proper protocols and safety guidelines are being followed to keep employees, residents and visitors safe.

The town could not immediately say how its June crowds and tourism dollars compared to last June, but it stands to reason that, with open beaches and fully-functioning restaurants, things went as well as they could as Maryland began to more fully reopen in the middle of the month.

Now, Ocean City will hope to entertain travelers from all over the Mid-Atlantic in the same way in July.

Last month did bring reports of violence with it, however, as multiple boardwalk altercations were reported by media outlets. That said, things seemed to operate as close to normal as possible otherwise despite the global health crisis that has caused some states around Maryland to put some restrictions back in place because of rising coronavirus case counts.

Lifeguards are on duty in Ocean City from 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., and indoor dining is limited to 50 percent capacity. Mask-wearing is suggested and strongly encouraged but not required by law outside, but once inside an establishment, all customers over the age of nine are required to wear face coverings while inside the enclosed area of any retail establishment or foodservice establishment, according to OCMDs website.

We do expect to see large crowds this weekend and urge travelers to practice physical distancing, wear masks in public and stay home if they are sick, Waters said. We all need to do our part to keep our communities healthy and moving forward.

Ocean Citys annual July Fourth fireworks have been canceled, but other evening events are expected to take place at this time.

Our nightly events are still taking place as planned, with proper social distancing, hand washing and mask requirements, Waters said.

More beach coverage:
So when did Great Shoals Winery in St. Michaels, Maryland, which for years was best known for its hard ciders and sparkling wines, realize that its decision to add several new casual lines of beverages had paid off?

Regional manager Marina McCaney said that probably happened at a festival in Ocean City, Maryland, last summer. A number of attendees started to refer to Great Shoals as the winery occupying the pineapple tent because of its new lines of tropical offerings. Said McCaney, That definitely speaks to the popularity.

So does the fact that the two categories combined for close to 30 percent of the producers sales last year and so far this year.

The Great Shoals Tangerine, one of six wines that are part of the Tropical Shoals lineup, was featured in Saturdays Wine Down episode thats being sponsored by the Maryland Wineries Association. It assembled mystery four-packs of Maryland wines in the following categories and offered them for sale:

 Dry Red Wines 4-Pack

 Dry White Wines 4-Pack

 Fruit Wines 4-Pack

 Premier Wines 4-Pack

 Rose Wines 4-Pack

 Sweet Red & White Wines 4-Pack

 Weird & Wild Wines 4-Pack

During the past week, it has held six hour-long virtual tastings covering each category, inviting the winemakers to pop in and talk about their product, putting a face to the label while answering questions and offering insights. The seventh one, featuring the Weird & Wild Wines, is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday. The completed shows can be found on the MWAs Facebook page. McCaney was part of my fruit wine group Saturday, explaining a product that a couple of years ago would have been quite out of character with the wines that Great Shoals were making.

In addition to the ciders that incorporate fruits such as apple, cherry, pear, peach and blackberry, Great Shoals produces a variety of dry red and dry white wines, from Barbera and Merlot to Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

But the big change came last year when the 10-year-old winery, which is directed in the cellar by Eastern Shore native Matt Cimino, saw an untapped market as it participated in a number of summertime festivals.

The summer wine festivals are always outdoors and we just noticed that consumers were more looking for sweeter wines, fruity wines, wines that are easy to drink and refreshing, McCaney said. So we decided to branch out, looking for a way to do that while doing something that was unique to us.

The Tropical Shoals line features Tangerine, Mango, Kiwi and Lemon, all blended with Seyval Blanc grapes. It also includes two fortified fruit wines (19 percent alcohol): passionfruit and pineapple. All use fruit, McCaney said, that not a lot of other winemakers are using for wine.

Those were joined last year by another line called Good Dog, all fortified wines (17 percent ABV) that include Apricot Mango to Wild Berry to Sour Cherry. We wanted a different product that didnt exist in the marketplace, McCaney said. Fortified wines, dessert-style wines for those who want something that packs more of a punch while still being super fruit-forward and easy to drink. Its kind of like having a cocktail in a bottle.

Good Dogs line of wines all are fortified by brandy made by St. Michaels Distillery and also incorporate the Seyval Blanc grape. One other difference is that these are packaged in more portable 500 ml bottles, one-third smaller than a traditional bottle. All five wines in the Good Dog line sell for $15 each.

McCaney said that while the cancelation of the states festivals this summer denied them a chance to bring their new products to the public, fans are still finding them. People are still really enjoying them, she said, noting that they market the line differently than the rest of their wines, including Instagram videos they have started to post that show how they make the various cocktails they serve in their tasting room.

Now only are customers coming in at a steady clip to pick up bottles at the winery, a satellite store in Takoma Park in Marylands Montgomery County and at another shop (Boyer Cellars) in Biglerville, Pennsylvania, but online orders for them have increased. These are perfect for sipping outside, drinking super-chilled, she said. [People] can enjoy them on their patio and at the pool.

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A 112-acre tract along the Loyalsock Creek that includes a picturesque, rocky cliff along the stream will soon be part of Loyalsock State Forest.

The site in Lycoming County includes the mouth and lower waters of Bar Bottom, a Class A naturally reproducing trout stream that extends another two miles or so through steep, forested hillsides into the existing state forest.

It was purchased at auction by the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy with plans to turn it over to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Bar Bottom levels out into a flat before emptying into the Loyalsock on the property, but up into the state forest the stream drops through a series of waterfalls.

Loyalsock State Forest is named for Loyalsock Creek, a scenic freestone stream that winds through the heart of its 114,552 acres. It includes portions of Bradford, Lycoming and Sullivan counties and spans Pennsylvanias Endless Mountains region.

More than 200 miles of hiking trail and 146 miles of snowmobile trail are found in the state forest, which is mostly covered by hardwoods forest and holds hundreds of waterfalls and many scenic overlooks.

Pennsylvanias 2.2-million-acre state forest system is one of the largest dual certified forests in North America. The forest is certified under Forest Stewardship Council and Sustainable Forestry Initiative standards.

For more information, visit the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy website.

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Contact Marcus Schneck at mschneck@pennlive.com.
NEW YORK  Spurred by broad public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, thousands of Black activists from across the U.S. will hold a virtual convention in August to produce a new political agenda that seeks to build on the success of the protests that followed George Floyds death.

The 2020 Black National Convention will take place Aug. 28 via a live broadcast. It will feature conversations, performances and other events designed to develop a set of demands ahead of the November general election, according to a Wednesday announcement shared first with The Associated Press.

The convention is being organized by the Electoral Justice Project of the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of more than 150 organizations. In 2016, the coalition released its "Vision for Black Lives" platform, which called for public divestment from mass incarceration and for adoption of policies that can improve conditions in Black America.

"What this convention will do is create a Black liberation agenda that is not a duplication of the Vision for Black Lives, but really is rooted as a set of demands for progress," said Jessica Byrd, who leads the Electoral Justice Project.

At the end of the convention, participants will ratify a revised platform that will serve as a set of demands for the first 100 days of a new presidential administration, Byrd said. Participants also will have access to model state and local legislation.

"What we have the opportunity to do now, as this 50-state rebellion has provided the conditions for change, is to say, 'You need to take action right this minute,'" Byrd said. "We're going to set the benchmarks for what we believe progress is and make those known locally and federally."

Wednesday's announcement comes at a pivotal moment for the BLM movement. A surge in public support, an influx in donations and congressional action to reform policing have drawn some backlash.

Planned for Detroit

President Donald Trump lashed out again Wednesday on Twitter over plans to paint "Black Lives Matter" in yellow across New York City's famed Fifth Avenue, calling the words a "symbol of hate." White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump "agrees that all Black lives matter" but disagrees with an organization that would make derogatory statements about police officers. McEnany was referring to an oft-cited chant of individual protesters from five years ago.

The Black National Convention was originally planned to happen in person, in Detroit, the nation's Blackest major city. But as the coronavirus pandemic exploded in March, organizers quickly shifted to a virtual event, Byrd said. The first-ever Black Lives Matter convention was held in Cleveland in 2015.

Recent AP analysis of COVID-19 data shows Black people have made up a third of reported virus deaths.

Initial work to shape the new platform will take place Aug. 6 and 7, during a smaller so-called People's Convention that will virtually convene hundreds of delegates from Black-led advocacy groups. The process will be similar to one that produced the first platform, which included early iterations of the demand to defund police that now drives many demonstrations.

Other platform demands, such as ending cash bail, reducing pretrial detention and scrapping discriminatory risk-assessment tools used in criminal courts, have become official policy in a handful of local criminal justice systems around the U.S.

Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, which organizes in 15 states, said the 2020 Black National Convention will deepen the solutions to systemic racism and create more alignment within the movement.

"We're in this stage now where we're getting more specific about how all of this is connected to our local organizing," Albright said. "The hope is that, when people leave the convention, they leave with greater clarity, more resources, connectivity and energy."

The coalition behind the convention includes Color of Change, BYP100, Dream Defenders and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which has 16 official chapters nationwide.

Tribute to 1972

Convention organizers said this year's event will pay tribute to the historic 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, which concluded with the introduction of a national Black agenda. The Gary gathering included prominent Black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Shirley Chisolm, who ran for president, as well as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz.

That convention came after several tumultuous years that included the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and outbreaks of civil unrest, all of which were seen as blows to the civil rights movement.

The upcoming convention builds on more than century of Black political organizing.

In 1905, civil rights activist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois formed the Niagara Movement after a national conference of Black leaders near Buffalo, New York. In a written address to the country, du Bois and others decried the rise of institutionalized racial inequality in voting, criminal justice systems and public education.

In the 1950s, William Patterson, founder of the now-defunct Civil Rights Congress, led the effort to charge the U.S. with genocide of African Americans using legal standards set by the United Nation. The resulting petition, "We Charge Genocide," is an oft-cited document in conversations about fatal shootings of Black people by police in the U.S.

And in 1998, organizers of the Black Radical Congress in Chicago met to strategize ways to beat back attacks on affirmative action policies that helped to diversify higher education and other facets of American life.

Like any large political gathering, consensus is not guaranteed. The National Black Political Convention caused divisions between participating organizations over the Black agenda's position on busing to integrate public schools and statements on global affairs that some viewed as anti-Israel. Ultimately, the agenda prompted a leader of the NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization, to sever ties with the convention.

March also planned

Somewhat similarly, the Vision for Black Lives platform and its characterization of Israel as an "apartheid state" committing mass murder against Palestinian people drew allegations of anti-Semitism from a handful of Jewish groups, which had otherwise been supportive the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Black Lives Matter movement's coalition has more than doubled in size in the years since the first platform, largely because of organizers' laser focus on issues central to Black freedom, Byrd said.

That actually is the Black self-determination that our politics require, Byrd said, that we dont just respond to the Democratic Party. That we dont just respond to the Republican Party. We dont just say Black lives matter and beg people to care. We build an alternative container for all of us to connect, outside of the white gaze, to say this is what we want for our communities.

The August convention will happen on the same day as a commemorative, in-person march on Washington that is being organized by Sharpton, who announced the march during a memorial service for Floyd, a Black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer held a knee to his neck.

The Black National Convention will broadcast after the march, Byrd said.

August "is going to be a huge month of Black engagement," she said.

___

Aaron Morrison of The Associated Press wrote this story. AP writer Darlene Superville in Washington and news researchers Randy Herschaft in New York and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report. Morrison is a member of the APs Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.
Well, we can guess which tree this apple falls from.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway may be one of President Donald Trumps biggest champions, but her 15-year-old daughter Claudia has gone viral for opposing the commander in chief.

On the social media platform TikTok, the tenacious teen has received an unexpected wave of support for posting videos that are considered anti-Trump and pro-Black Lives Matter.

Her father, George Conway, is known as an outspoken critic of Trump, despite his wifes high-ranking position within the administration.

One of the Conways four children, Claudia said she holds the opposite political views of her mother, who she referred to her as her best friend, even though they get into political arguments.

I know a lot of my friends are so informed and I think they wouldnt be if it werent for social media, which is why I think using ones platform for good and for the education of others is so, so important, especially in our day, she told USA TODAY.

Claudia has amassed 40,000 followers on TikTok, many gained after a New York Times journalist, Taylor Lorenz, tweeted about Claudias videos Monday night.

Kellyanne and George Conway.

She said her proud pappy is supportive of her videos, though some have openly questioned her about her relationship with her mother.

My dad is pretty supportive of it, you know, my mom, shes always taught me to stand up for what I believe in, she told the outlet.

A lot of people have been telling me that Im disrespecting my mother by doing this  Im not at all, Claudia clarified. I want nothing but love for her because she is an amazing person.

By Karu F. Daniels, New York Daily News (TNS)

More:

How do you like your fake news now? | John Baer

President Trump says hes OK with wearing a face mask: It looked like the Lone Ranger

College suspends Camp Hill grad for email criticizing concerns of students of color
WASHINGTON  After long resisting wearing a mask in public, President Donald Trump said Wednesday he thinks it makes him look like the Lone Ranger  and he likes it.

Im all for masks. I think masks are good, Trump told Fox Business in an interview. People have seen me wearing one.

Trumps comments came a day after Republican lawmakers suggested that he wear a mask in public to set a good example for Americans.

If I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely, Trump said in the interview.

Trump has long resisted being photographed in a mask. In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures were difficult to maintain.

Trump immediately undercut the CDC guidance by flatly stating that he wouldnt be following it, suggesting it would be unseemly for the commander in chief to wear a mask as he meets with heads of state.

On Wednesday, he sounded a different tone, saying, I had a mask on. I sort of liked the way I looked. OK. I thought it was OK. It was a dark black mask, and I thought it looked OK.

It looked like the Lone Ranger, he continued, a reference to the fictional law-and-order character from the American Old West who wore a black eye mask. I have no problem with that, and if people feel good about it, they should do it.

In recent days, many Republicans and members of the White House coronavirus task force have been more outspoken in advocating for Americans to wear face masks in public settings as infections have surged in huge swaths of the South and West.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, said last week that he would pursue a federal mask mandate, if elected. In the interview, Trump suggested a federal mandate was unnecessary and continued to frame mask wearing as a matter of choice.

Even so, Trump criticized Biden for wearing a mask while he is some distance away from his audience and for speaking through the covering at times.

When theres nobody around, I dont see any reason to be wearing it, Trump said in a separate interview Wednesday on America This Week.

About the virus, Trump continued to characterize it as a nuisance that he hopes will just go away.

I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that, at some point, thats going to sort of just disappear, I hope, Trump said on Fox Business.

White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway noted Wednesday that Trump is regularly tested for the coronavirus, as are his aides. White House visitors and members of the news media who are in close proximity to him and Vice President Mike Pence are also tested.

Ive said wear them, the first lady has said wear them, the presidents administration has said wear them, Conway said.

Trump also told Fox Business that people have seen him wearing a mask. But only one image has surfaced of the president wearing a mask. He donned it for a behind-the-scenes tour of a Ford facility in Michigan in May. Reporters were not allowed to accompany Trump on the tour.

Afterward, he told reporters he had worn a mask in a back area only because I didnt want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.

More:

In the U.S., new coronavirus outbreaks stir clash over masks, personal freedom

Wear a mask while down the Shore, especially on the boardwalk, Cape May officials plead

Alaska Airlines plans to warn then possibly ban passengers who refuse to wear masks
The Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology has begun construction on a new facility in Lancaster County.

The career and technical education college will occupy a new nearly 86,000-square-foot facility at the Greenfield business campus in East Lampeter Township. Construction on the new facility began last month and the building will serve as its new diesel technology school and will sit on eight acres.

Automotive technology and collision repair technology classes are currently taught at the colleges main campus at 750 E. King St. in Lancaster. The space that will be vacated by relocating those two departments from the main campus will be used to expand the class size for cabinetmaking and wood technology classes. The Diesel technology curriculum is new for the campus.

Thaddeus Stevens entered into the lease agreement in January with High Real Estate Group to lease space at Greenfield. The College plans to lease an 85,894 square-foot-building that will be built on the newly constructed Ben Franklin Boulevard, off Greenfield Road.

The building is expected to be completed next June. The school expects 150 to 200 students to enroll at the school, which will open next fall.

Thaddeus Stevens College already leases 50,000-square-feet of space at Greenfield at 1812 Colonial Village Lane for its welding technology, masonry construction technology and computer software engineering technology programs.

The college is owned by the state and has more than 1,300 students among 18 buildings.

Greenfield is owned by High Real Estate and this week it announced that Armstrong Flooring is moving its headquarters to the Greenfield business campus. In addition to industrial facilities and businesses, Greenfield also include schools, hotels and residential living. Greenfield previously known as Greenfield Corporate Center has 225 businesses with approximately 4,000 employees; 2,000 students from five colleges; 1,950 residents in its residential communities and 200 hotel guests daily at its hotels.

And since so many people use Greenfield besides just corporate employees, Greenfield has dropped the corporate center from its name and the 55-year-old campus will now be simply known as Greenfield. Greenfield has also announced plans to offer additional activities to appeal to Greenfields tenants. High recently hired a marketing and event specialist, to coordinate and oversee the activities including networking events, educational programs, cooking classes, yoga, blood drives and walking and bicycle competitions. High is also expanding its biking and walking trails.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP)  The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. climbed to an all-time high of more than 50,000 per day on Thursday, with the infection curve rising in 40 out of 50 states in a reversal that has largely spared only the Northeast.

In yet another alarming indicator, 36 states are seeing a rise in the percentage of tests that are coming back positive for the virus.

The surge has been blamed in part on Americans not wearing masks or following other social distancing rules as states lifted their lockdowns over the past few weeks.

The U.S. recorded 50,700 new cases, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. That represents a doubling of the daily total over the past month and is higher even than what the country witnessed during the deadliest phase of the crisis in April and May.

All but 10 states are showing an increase in newly confirmed cases over the past 14 days, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer organization that collects testing information. The outbreaks are most severe in Arizona, Texas and Florida, which together with California have re-closed or otherwise clamped back down on bars, restaurants and movie theaters.

Nebraska and South Dakota were the only states outside the Northeast with a downward trend in cases.

While some of the increases may be explained in part by expanded testing, other indicators are grim, too, including hospitalizations and positive test rates. Over the past two weeks, the percentage of positive tests in Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee has doubled. In Idaho and Nevada, it has tripled.

The surge in cases comes as Americans head into a Fourth of July holiday weekend that health officials warn could add fuel to the virus by drawing big crowds. Many municipalities have canceled fireworks displays. Beaches up and down California and Florida have been closed.

Patrons eat lunch at Slater's 50/50 Wednesday, July 1, 2020, in Santa Clarita, Calif. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered a three-week closure of bars, indoor dining in various counties. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)AP

Florida reported more than 10,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases for the first time Thursday. That is six times higher than the daily count of less than a month ago. The state also reported 67 deaths for the second time in a week. Deaths per day are up about 30 percent from two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the government reported that U.S. unemployment fell to 11.1% in June as the economy added a solid 4.8 million jobs. But the data was collected during the second week of June, before many states began to backtrack on restarting their economies.

Several Northeastern states have seen new infections slow down significantly, including New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey, which allowed its Atlantic City casinos to reopen Thursday, though with no smoking, no drinking and no eating.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday seemed confident the virus would soon subside, telling Fox Business: I think that, at some point, thats going to sort of just disappear, I hope.

The U.S. has reported at least 2.7 million cases and more than 128,000 dead, the highest toll in the world. Globally there have been 10.7 million confirmed cases and more than 516,000 dead, according to Johns Hopkins count. The true toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part because of limited testing and mild cases that have been missed.

Partitions between players and face masks allow gamblers to enjoy craps at the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., Thursday, July 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)AP

Other countries are also reporting record numbers of cases.

South Africa recorded more than 8,100 new cases, a one-day record. The country has the most cases in Africa, more than 159,000, as it loosens what had been one of the worlds strictest lockdowns.

We have now entered a new and treacherous phase in the life cycle of this pandemic, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa warned in a broadcast to the nation.

India, the worlds second-most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people, surpassed 600,000 infections on Thursday after over 19,000 new cases were reported. India has reported nearly 100,000 new cases in the past four days alone.

Many industries and businesses have reopened across India, though schools, colleges and movie theaters are still closed.

On the medical front, the World Health Organization said that smoking is linked to a higher risk of severe illness and death from the coronavirus in hospitalized patients, although it was unable to specify exactly how much greater the danger might be.
Ive been thinking a lot about the news biz. Its performance in the time of coronavirus. And how, or if, media ever can win back peoples trust.

You may know such trust has been missing for some time. Gallup polling shows a majority of Americans havent trusted media at any point in the last 15 years.

President Trumps claims of fake news, and tagging the press the enemy of the people, hasnt helped.
The Palmyra Italian eatery Taste of Sicily has now racked up $10,000 in fines for allowing customers to eat in their dining room before they moved to the green phase of the states reopening plan.

The restaurants owners showed themselves getting served the latest citation in a video posted to their Facebook page. Two inspectors from the Department of Agriculture enter the Main Street establishment and leave the $4,000 citation behind, without saying a word.

Would you guys care to do an interview? co-owner Christine Wartluft asks, while following the men to their car. And you call yourselves an American, giving hard working people a fine? Its ridiculous.

Wartluft gets emotional in a second video, telling viewers shes frustrated with the way state officials have treated them.

This stuff can really wear you out if you dont keep it in check, she said. Tough day, but Gods got me.

Taste of Sicily has gained notoriety around central Pennsylvania for reopening its dining room in mid-May, back when many counties were still in the yellow phase.

The Palmyra restaurant had its license temporarily suspended as a result, although Department of Agriculture officials told LebTown thatll be reinstated once Lebanon County moves to green.

Thats scheduled to happen tomorrow. In that stage, restaurants may resume indoor dining at 50 percent of their capacity, while taking steps to allow social distancing.

Wartluft said Tuesdays have been hard as they wait for the fines to arrive. But she and her family plan to challenge them in Commonwealth Court, she said.

Her brother and co-owner, Mike Mangano, sharply criticized the state  and Gov. Tom Wolf in particular  for fining business owners who he says are just trying to stay afloat amid tough times.

They dont understand who theyre dealing with here, Mangano said in the Facebook video. We are upright standing people, just coming to work and doing our thing.

Posted by Taste Of Sicily on Tuesday, June 30, 2020

While the financial consequences might deter some from going against the governors wishes, Mangano has made it clear Taste of Sicily has no plans to shut down its dining room or even pay the fines.

Theres absolutely no fear here, he said. Were going to continue to come to work, and the governor aint going to do anything about it.

Suspension of their license only spurred Mangano, his sister and mother to continue on. In a press conference last month, Mangano encouraged other business owners to follow their example.

We dont care what the repercussions may be. We want the world to see how ridiculous it is for being penalized to go to work, he said. Nobodys asking business owners to take up arms or go to war. Open your doors already.

During the Facebook Live, a woman on the street asks Wartluft if theyre open and if she needs to wear a mask to come inside.

No, you do not have to wear a mask, she said. Im just honest, what are you wearing a mask for?

Lebanon Countys Republican legislators have all voiced support for Taste of Sicily.

Taste of Sicily is the first domino, said Rep. Russ Diamond. Go, open your business! Go enjoy your life!

Mangano remained steadfast Tuesday in his plans to ignore the fines.

Some rob you with a gun, while others rob you with a pen, he said of Wolf. We aint paying crap.

READ MORE:

NYC suburb party guests wont cooperate with officials after 9 test positive for coronavirus: Subpoenas issued

Penn State student, 21, dies from coronavirus complications, university says

Kids should wear masks for youth sports, Pa. health secretary says, and futher explains expanded order
You can listen to the latest episode of Today in Pa at this link, or on your favorite app including Alexa, Apple, Google, Spotify and Stitcher. Episodes are available every weekday on PennLive. Subscribe/follow and rate the podcast via your favorite app.

Today in Pa. Daily Podcast | July 2, 2020

Pennsylvania issues a mandatory statewide face mask order. The state Supreme Court affirms the governors authority over coronavirus orders. Philadelphia cultural institutions begin reopening. An old and treasured beer from the 1970s in Pittsburgh is making a return.

Those are the stories we cover in the latest episode of Today in Pa, a daily weekday podcast from PennLive.com and hosted by Julia Hatmaker. Today in Pa is dedicated to sharing the most important and interesting stories in the state.

Todays episode refers to the following articles:

If you enjoy Today in Pa, consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Amazon. Reviews help others find the show and, besides, we like to know what you think of the program.

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.
Television broadcaster, game show host, news anchor and producer Hugh Downs died July 1 at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Washington Post and other media outlets are reporting. He was 99.

Downs is perhaps best known as the co-host with Barbara Walters of the popular ABC newsmagazine show 20/20, a position he held from 1978 to 1999.

Prior to that, he had served as the host of NBCs Today show from 1962-71. He was also the host of the popular game show Concentration from 1958-69 and served as the announcer and sidekick for Tonight Starring Jack Paar from 1957 to 1962.

He also was the host of the PBS talk show Over Easy, and hosted Live from Lincoln Center from 1990-96.

According to USA Today, at one point Downs held the record for most hours  10,000  in front of a television camera. That number was later surpassed by Regis Philbin.

Downs described his time on 20/20 as the pinnacle of everything I had done, and interviewed a host of notable figures on the program over the years, including the Dalai Lama, Stephen Hawking, Patty Duke, the Rev. Billy Graham and Barry Goldwater.
Pa. Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine signed an expanded face-mask wearing order on Wednesday that requires almost everyone in the state to cover their mouth and nose when leaving their home.

On its face, that sounds direct enough, but the four-page order that took effect immediately as of just after 3 p.m. on July 1 actually leaves many questions left to be answered.

What we know

Specific inquiries from PennLive directed to Levines office about whether or not a mask is required when one walks their dog or cuts their grass, among a number of other activities, received a response that linked back to the order (which you can read here) along with this statement from Health Department spokesperson Nate Wardle:

When in doubt about a circumstance or if a specific circumstance is not included in the order, people should err on the side of caution and wear a mask.

In other words, the Health Department is saying what Levine, the Centers for Disease Control, and many other experts have said in recent weeks and months: Wearing a mask can help slow the spread of COVID-19 as people head to large outdoor gathering locations like beaches and indoor ones such as restaurants to celebrate the July Fourth holiday and summer in general.

With science on their side, Pa. officials are relying on citizens choosing to do the right thing, a phrase used often by Gov. Tom Wolf, as some parts of the state, and many areas of the country, start to see increases in their daily confirmed coronavirus case counts.

A follow-up inquiry about how the new order would be enforced indicated as much.

We are relying on the good sense and cooperative spirit of Pennsylvanians to follow the Sec. of Healths mask-wearing requirement order, and at this time law enforcement will not be charged with enforcing this latest order with citations for noncompliance, the Health Department spokesperson, Nate Wardle, wrote in an email to PennLive.

Other existing orders, such as the business safety order, will continue to be enforced with educational tactics, warnings and possible citations for non-compliance.

Here are some other frequently asked questions:

What kind of face-covering is acceptable?

Anything that can adequately cover your mouth and nose.

As has been the case since April when Levine signed an order about wearing masks inside of a business, an N-95 respirator mask, a surgical mask, or otherwise hospital-grade face-covering is not required.

Per the new order, homemade masks of any material are fine, as long as, again, the nose and mouth are covered.

Do I have to wear a mask on the bus, while in an Uber, or on the train?

Yes, the new order requires that you do so while waiting for any form of transportation and also while inside of it.

What about at my job site?

If masks were required there before, they will continue to be under the new order.

And indoor businesses?

Same answer: If you had to wear them before, like at a grocery store or mall, you still do now.

What about at the doctor or other treatment centers, either for humans or animals?

Employees and anyone entering these facilities must wear a mask, which has been the case for a few months now.

Does this change the mask-wearing order as it relates to indoor and outdoor dining?

Some restaurants, bars, and food service businesses have required masks unless a customer is eating or drinking, while others have allowed masks to come off once a customer is seated. Asked specifically about the latter example as it relates to the new order, Wardle wrote:

As far as eating, yes, the mask should be worn until the point of eating or drinking, at which point the individual does not need to be wearing a mask until they finish.

It stands to reason, then, that individual buisnisses will continue to make their own choices in this regard.

When is it OK not to wear a mask, and who doesnt have to wear one?

Those under the age of two are exempt from the order. The same goes for anyone with a medical condition that makes wearing a mask impossible, which is something you dont need to prove.

Additionally, if it would be unsafe to wear a mask while doing your job, and the order specifically cites while operating equipment as an example, then you dont have to wear one then.

Anyone communicating with someone who is hearing-impaired or otherwise has a disability that needs the ability to see the mouth to communicate does not have to wear a mask, either.

What if I have questions about other activities?

A good rule of thumb is to wear a mask if you cannot stay six feet away from others, and also if you think youll frequently be coming into contact with people, even at a six-foot distance. Tasks like mowing your grass, walking the dog, or running, walking, hiking, and jogging will be up to the comfort level and decision making of each citizen.

More coverage:
Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Republican who represents and lives in Peoria, praised work on the border wall in Yuma before attending a President Donald Trump rally in Phoenix.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP)  Three people on a recreational boat were injured, one seriously, after it collided with a humpback whale, authorities said Monday.

The collision happened Saturday just outside Auke Bay, north of Juneau, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries said in a statement.

The Coast Guard relayed information to NOAA that the boat immediately returned to shore, where some family members were transported to Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau.

Hospital spokeswoman Katie Bausler said three people were taken to the hospital. Two were discharged, but one was flow...
William T. Perkins

(231) 439-9353

PETOSKEY  On Independence Day, local activists are calling for healing.

A month ago, in light of heightened national awareness of racial inequality issues, hundreds gathered in downtown Petoskey calling for justice. Now, members of a group called Awaken Petoskey, who were largely responsible for organizing the week-long demonstrations at the corner of U.S. 31 and Mitchell Street, are returning to the spot. On Saturday, they will conduct a sit-in and traditional indigenous healing ceremony, bringing in Annishinaabe jingle dancers and drummers from around Northern Michigan.

What better way to celebrate diversity and equality than doing it on a day thats supposed to be representing all Americas independence and freedom, Meredith Kennedy said.

Kennedy, one of the women involved in the group, described the upcoming demonstrations, which will begin at 11 a.m., as a gift to the community. Kennedy, like many others involved in the local movement for social justice, is of First Peoples heritage. The sit-in this weekend is specifically focused on racial equality and the Black Lives Matter movement, but it will also expose native traditions to non-native attendees who have likely never experienced such rituals before.

The crowd size and range of personal backgrounds are two factors which are out of the ordinary compared to how such ceremonies are usually carried out.

Weve had so many things taken from us, that this is actually a gift that were giving this time, Kennedy said. This is a gift were giving to our community by showing them, and having them participate, by sitting and listening to our healing song, by putting our prayers in. That to me is huge. ... In my experience, generationally, this is a huge step to be doing this in our community, and I know anybody who goes down there will have the intent to receive this gift with their heart.

Sheila Hartson, another local activist, is one of the individuals largely responsible for organizing the event.

According to a post she has shared, attendees are asked to bring a sign displaying the name of a person of color who has lost their life due to racism. Attendees are encouraged to research the life of that individual and include details, such as father, brother, EMT, to humanize the individual.

Kennedy described it as breathing life, into their name.

Attendees will sit in circles, six feet apart and wearing masks.

The ceremony is intended to bring cultural awareness to how a part of our local Anishinaabe culture addresses healing.

Kennedy said that need for healing could come from a wide range of sources on a personal level  attendees may need healing from physical or psychological struggles. But, on a wider scale, she noted that the community and culture needs healing.

Whether its for equality, or maybe theyre struggling with mental health, maybe someone they know had cancer and they want to put that out their, she said. Our dancers will be able to feel that and make sure its up in our prayers. Sometimes people just need a prayer to make sure theyre OK.
Burley, ID (83318)

Today

Sunny. High 92F. ENE winds shifting to NW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 60F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
Musicians perform during a prior years Stroll the Streets event in downtown Boyne City. This years events have been canceled because of safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
William T. Perkins

(231) 439-9353

Enbridge will be able to reopen the west leg of its energy pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac while it inspects a piece of the underwater infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the eastern segment of the pipeline  which has been shut down since a support anchor was damaged at the end of last month  will remain closed. Those two mandates came down from Ingham County Judge James S. Jamo after a hearing Wednesday.

The ruling is the latest development in a series of legal actions that took place after Enbridge reported the damage June 18. Enbridge shut off both sides of the pipeline around the time it reported the damage, but opened the west segment, which is currently assumed to be unaffected, shortly thereafter.

On June 25, following a request filed by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, the court ruled that both sides had to close as Enbridge provided the state with more information.

Jamo amended that ruling after a hearing Wednesday.

Todays court decision allows the state to receive the vital information surrounding this incident that we need to complete an informed analysis of the damage and evaluate the threat this pipeline poses to our environment if left to operate in its current state, Nessel said in a press release. A breach of the Line 5 pipeline or a similar incident would result in devastating consequences for a wide range of industries and countless Michiganders. The long-term risk this pipeline poses to not only Michigan, but the Great Lakes region, cannot be taken lightly.

So far, the company has not reported any knowledge of how or when the damage occurred. The company hasnt found any evidence of physical damage on the pipe itself  the structure in question is a connected piece which bolsters the pipeline as sediments wash away from underneath the pipeline. The currently available information on the damage is limited to studies done by remote-operated vehicles.

Information from the upcoming west leg inspection will be provided to the state.

The east leg will stay down until we provide information PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) has requested and are cleared to restart, Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy told the News-Review in an email.

In a formal statement, Enbridge said it was committed to sharing this information with the State of Michigan to keep them informed regarding our inspections of the east segment.

Enbridges Line 5 has served Michiganders safely without incident at the Straits crossing for more than 65 years, the statement read. We remain willing to work with the state going forward to address issues of concern about the safety of Line 5 and its ultimate replacement with The Great Lakes Tunnel that will contain a new section of pipeline. Enbridge is currently seeking permit approval of the tunnel which, upon completion, will make a safe pipeline even safer.
Paul Welitzkin

(989) 732-1111

GAYLORD  Coronavirus case counts are on the rise in parts of Northern Michigan, the Health Department of Northwest Michigan reported.

The department said there have been a total of 169 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet and Otsego counties as of Wednesday. The 14 virus-connected deaths in the region include 10 in Otsego and two each in Charlevoix and Emmet counties, the same as last week.

In Otsego County there have been 104 cases, also the same as last week.

A week ago the department said there were 159 confirmed cases in the four counties along with 14 deaths. As of Tuesday, the department reported four new cases in Antrim (1), Charlevoix (1), and Emmet (2) counties.

Over the last week we have seen an uptick in new cases in our region. As we are heading into our busiest time of the year, and our population rises with seasonal residents and guests, it is extremely important to remain vigilant, said Dr. Josh Meyerson, medical director for the health department in a statement. Given that we are still learning about asymptomatic infection and how contagious these individuals are, we are reminded to take all safety precautions whenever we are out in public to protect ourselves and those around us.

There were an additional 262 confirmed coronavirus cases reported by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) in the state on Wednesday, bringing the total to 64,132 cases.

There were four new deaths reported in Michigan, with a new death toll of 5,951 as of Wednesday.

The first two confirmed COVID-19 cases in Michigan were reported on March 10 and the first death was reported March 19.

As of Wednesday, Crawford Countys coronavirus statistics stood at 65 cases to date and five deaths. At that point, Cheboygan County had 22 cases to date and two deaths, according to state health officials.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered the closure of all indoor bars in much of lower Michigan to fight the spread of the virus.

The governors edict excludes Regions 6 and 8  which cover Northern Michigan areas such as Emmet, Charlevoix and Otsego counties as well as the Upper Peninsula  where cases and deaths have been muted.

Bars elsewhere in the Lower Peninsula can continue to serve outdoors, Whitmer said Wednesday, and the governor recently signed a package of bills allowing for cocktails-to-go and social districts where customers from different establishments can eat and drink their purchases in an outdoor common area.

Whitmer is making a distinction between restaurants and bars by applying her order to all facilities with on-premise retailer liquor licenses that earn more than 70 percent of their money from alcohol sales. Most brewpubs, vineyards and distilleries will not fall into that category, Whitmer said, but night clubs, strip clubs and traditional bars will.
Staff reports

The Petoskey News-Review

The first clue for me life was going to be different was back in February when my wife and I took a road trip to Georgia and watched on the news from the safety of our hotel room the beginning wave, which would soon become a tsunami of COVID-19 washing over the United States.

The news had been dominated by images of the virus sweeping through first Asia and then Europe, hitting especially hard Italy and Spain, followed by images of New York City getting slammed by the invisible enemy as an increasingly clueless president liked to call it when he wasnt racistly naming it the kung flu. Ha, ha, look at me. Im a racist and proud of it. My base demands it of me you know, one can imagine an out-of-touch president gleefully claiming. The same president who as early as April declared we had defeated the invisible enemy and it was time to move on and liberate the states so the economy could robustly return by November just in time for him to be reelected to a second term. How is that working out now, one might ask, for the denier-in-chief?

We had been planning an April trip to Eastern Europe but were, in February, of course, having our doubts that such a trip would be prudent despite Trump infamously claiming 15 cases here would soon be zero. Rule number one in life: never ever trust a pathological liar to speak the truth. Not going to happen. We were following the news and the news did not look good regards this new and wildly contagious virus sweeping across the globe. Fifteen cases, my you know what.

So with the escalation of cases across America we decided to cancel our spring trip, planning to reschedule for the fall, when, hopefully things would return to a more normal and manageable world. How wrong it looks now from here in the present that it would turn out to be normal in the fall.

One week after returning to Gaylord from Georgia we learned schools in Michigan would be closing for two weeks in an effort to corral the new and deadly virus. The day after the first of no classes for Michigans students, restaurants and bars were closed. A week later Michigan enacted its stay-at-home order, as did most of the other states, and, as we sit here in the present, states having lifted those restrictions, we watch, predictably, virus cases once again skyrocketing out of control and we wonder where all of this is going to go and how it will turn out.

Travel is one of the last things on my mind as we navigate a world where face masks have become a political hot-button issue and people honestly believe it is their God-given right and freedom to infect and kill people through their reckless behavior. Such a sad commentary on life.

Americans, I have come to the conclusion, are basically a stupid people, led by a stupid president. While most European nations reacted responsibly to the threat of COVID-19 and are cautiously reopening their countries safely, the United States is like the Wild West of the 1800s where it is every man, woman and child for themselves and there is no sign of control, caution or common sense to be found. American tourists are now officially banned from traveling to Europe due to our dismal response to the virus. A sad commentary on a once great nation as we stumble and bumble our way through this catastrophe.

We would be the laughingstock of the world if it werent so darn serious what we are now being painfully subjected to: a profound increase in coronavirus cases and deaths with no end in sight because of our stupid, reckless behavior, especially in states such as Florida and Texas which were hell-bent on reopening the economy without ever having properly shut down to begin with.

My thoughts of first a spring, then fall trip to Europe, then maybe a road trip to somewhere safe like rural Vermont, then maybe to the remote Upper Peninsula, have been sidetracked by Trumps invisible enemy with no end in sight.

I believe a staycation is in order this summer followed by a pleasant fall in Otsego County watching the leaves change color in this the strange new normal of travel for someone like myself generally consumed by wanderlust. My wanderlust, unfortunately, has got up and gone on without me.
Ryan Bentley

(231) 439-9342

Three companies from around Emmet and Charlevoix counties were among the honorees recently announced as part of the Michigan Celebrates Small Business awards program for 2020.

Michigan Celebrates Small Business named Petoskey-based spirits distiller High Five Spirits and Boyne City-based marine services and storage business Boyne Boat Yard Inc. to this years Michigan 50 Companies to Watch list. In cooperation with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the program is recognizing Redi-Rock International  a Charlevoix company offering block-based retaining wall systems  as the SBAs Small Business Exporter of the Year for Michigan.

The awards program, structured as a 501(3) nonprofit, reflects a collaboration among statewide organizations offering resources for small businesses. It aims to recognize ways small businesses positively impact Michigan communities and the state as a whole, and presents a variety of honors during an annual gala  which will involve a virtual format this year.

Michigans small businesses are the lifeblood of our local economies and play a vital role in making our communities attractive places to live, work, visit and play, Michigan Economic Development Corporation chief business development officer Josh Hundt said in a recent news release. As the state continues to recover from the COVID-19 outbreak, we are honored to recognize and celebrate these small businesses, which demonstrate the resilience, innovation and grit that sets Michigan apart.

To be considered for a Michigan 50 Companies to Watch award, a nominated business must be a second-stage company, defined as having six to 99 full-time-equivalent employees and generating $750,000 to $50 million in annual revenue or working capital from investors or grants. Additionally, potential recipients of the award must be privately held and headquartered in Michigan.

As part of the 50 Companies to Watch selection process, Michigan Celebrates Small Business noted judges from economic and entrepreneurship development organizations evaluated the nominees demonstration of intent and capacity to grow based on the following:

employee or sales growth

exceptional entrepreneurial leadership

sustainable competitive advantage

other notable factors that showcase the companys success

High Five Spirits, founded and owned by twin brothers Michael & Adam Kazanowski, is known for products such as Gypsy Vodka. The company serves cocktails incorporating its spirits at a tasting room in downtown Petoskey, and High Fives website notes its products are also available at numerous retailers around Michigan and Florida.

Boyne Boat Yards website notes the Boyne City business was founded by the Van Dam family and is a sister company to Van Dam Custom Boats. Along with boat storage, Boyne Boat Yard offers boat services in categories such as cosmetic, structural, electrical and mechanical.

For 2020, Michigan Celebrates Smalll Business received 575 nominations for the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch award.

Regarding nominations, companies can self-nominate, Michigan Celebrates Small Business board chair Jennifer Deamud said in an email. The majority of our awardees are nominated by a peer, entrepreneurial service organization or even an employee of the company.

The SBA Exporter of the Year award recognizes a business for achievements such as significantly increasing export sales and profits, encouraging other firms to export, increasing jobs through exports and innovative methods of creating markets, Deamud said. The applicant for this award should be the highest ranking officer of a company seeking consideration.

Redi-Rock International, Michigans Exporter of the Year for 2020, developed an approach to retaining wall construction which makes use of large concrete blocks. On its website, the company notes it works with numerous licensed retailers around the world, providing them with forms, molds, equipment and support. Redi-Rock is one of several businesses operating under the umbrella of Aster Brands, owned by members of the Manthei family.

Michigan Celebrates Small Business was founded by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Small Business Association of Michigan, U.S. Small Business Administration  Michigan, Edward Lowe Foundation, Michigan Business Network, and Michigan Small Business Development Center. The Manufacturing Growth Alliance is the managing partner of Michigan Celebrates Small Business.

To learn more about the Michigan Celebrates Small Business program, this years other honorees and registration details for the virtual awards gala on July 28, go to michigancelebrates.org.
Staff reports

The Petoskey News-Review

PETOSKEY  ZontaClub of Petoskey Area, through the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation, awarded $16,165 this spring to area organizations in need of funding.

TheZontaWomen and Children's Field of Interest Fund was established in 1996 by the Petoskey club and its purpose is to support programs or projects which benefit area women and children and help them achieve their full potential.

The club awarded $16,165 to the following:

Cheetos Club (a kindness initiative at Petoskey High School): $1,400

Planned Parenthood (distribution of feminine hygiene kits, education about sexual and reproductive health): $4,000

North Emmet Little League (fence and safety equipment for girls' softball field in Pellston area): $8,765

Essential Needs Fund at the Community Foundation: $2,000

The grants were submitted to the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation and brought to the attention of the club committee  Judy Mainland, Linda Hume and Maureen Nicholson  for approval.For more information about these grants, contact club member Sarah Ford atsford@phsacf.org.
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[July 02, 2020] Surf Bank Selects Paygilant to Prevent Fraud, Enhance Customer Experience and Reduce Friction NEW YORK and TEL AVIV, Israel, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Paygilant, the mobile payments fraud-prevention and authentication solution provider, announced today that Brazilian Surf Bank Brazil, has chosen Paygilant to secure its digital bank. Paygilant will secure the Surf Bank digital payment account from mobile fraud and ensure a frictionless experience for its customers. Surf Bank is a mobile-based digital bank and a microfinance Institution, which enables its customers to pay bills, transfer money, recharge a pre-paid card, purchase cellular packages, offer micro loans and more. Surf Bank searched for a robust mobile fraud prevention solution, that did not adversely impact the customer payment experience. "Paygilant was a perfect fit for our needs, as its solution demonstrated superb fraud prevention capabilities," said Yon Moreira, CEO of Surf Bank. "We were very worried about account takeover activities that are prevalent in our region, and Paygilant not only provided us with a solid fraud solution  but also eliminated the countless SMS verifications we were sending to our customers." "Paygilant's solution is designed for challenger banks, to distinguish between legitimate nd fraudulent transactions, throughout the entire user-journey. It enables challenger banks to gain customers' trust and accelerate growth, while avoiding money loss. We are honored to be working with a forward-thinking organization like Surf Bank," stated Ziv Cohen, Paygilant's CEO. Yossi Shelly, Israel's ambassador to Brazil added, "It is great to see Israeli high-tech and Brazilian Fintech uniting forces in constructing a secure payment experience. Israel's commitment to securing the cashless world has reached Latin America." About Surf Bank Surf Bank was launched with the aim of freeing Brazilian bank customers from the bureaucracy of traditional banking. Surf Bank's digital payment account streamlines the way clients carry out their financial activities. Using the Surf Bank's app customers can carry-out financial transactions and top-up their Correios Celular account using a single smartphone. About Paygilant Paygilant is a revolutionary digital payments anti-fraud company, designed to eliminate the trade-off between strong fraud prevention, frictionless authentication, and user privacy. Paygilant enables financial and eCommerce organizations to boost their revenue, by enhancing the user experience and stopping fraud before the transaction occurs. It is easy-to-integrated patented technology utilizes six proprietary intelligence sets, which work in harmony to deliver value from day-one. Paygilant simply triggers a real-time "risky" alert when fraud is detected and as "safe" one when the legit customer is identified. Contacts Yossi Geller

VP Marketing, Paygilant

yossig@paygilant.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/surf-bank-selects-paygilant-to-prevent-fraud-enhance-customer-experience-and-reduce-friction-301087516.html SOURCE Paygilant

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On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 87,242 coronavirus cases since the coronavirus pandemic began, and 6,687 deaths.

As of Wednesday, Philadelphias Department of Public Health has reported 26,257 cases and 1,609 deaths.

Wolf expands mask mandate; must be worn every time you leave the house

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Following Phillys mask order from a few days ago, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine signed an order Wednesday expanding the mask-wearing directive beyond just inside businesses.

Effective immediately, Pennsylvanians statewide must wear a mask every time they leave the house.

This mask-wearing order is essential to stopping the recent increase in COVID-19 cases we have seen in Pennsylvania, Wolf said. Those hot spots can be traced to situations where Pennsylvanians were not wearing masks or practicing social distancing  two practices that must be adhered to if we want to maintain the freedoms we have in place under our reopening.

There are limited exceptions to the order, such as people who cannot wear a mask due to a medical condition including those with respiratory problems or other health issues; children under the age of two years old; people who cannot remove a mask without assistance; and people for which the ability to see the mouth is essential for communication.

The order will be sent to local officials and law enforcement and others will be tasked with educating the public about the order.

Pennsylvania sounds the alarm about $600 COVID-19 payments running out

Federal unemployment assistance payments that help many out-of-work Pennsylvanians get by will end at the end of this month, warned state officials on Wednesday.

Without a new stimulus package, the $600-a-week payments created through the federal CARES Act added will run out on July 25. These payments are currently added automatically on top of state-issued unemployment benefits, which max out at $573 per week.

Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry secretary Jerry Oleksiak said Pennsylvania would like to see them stay. Anything that the federal government can do to help the citizens of America, and particularly Pennsylvania, get through this crisis will be welcomed, he said.

The extra $600 payments were intended to keep people home during the pandemic, keep households afloat, and lubricate the economy as the countrys unemployment rate hit its highest point since the Great Depression. Workers say the additional funds have helped keep their heads above water, while some employers complain it is incentivizing their employees to stay home.

On average, unemployment compensation covers only around 41% of a persons previous income, according to the Brookings Institution. However, about half of all Americans earn wages so low that they stand to make more on this enhanced unemployment, per an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.

Democrats in Congress support keeping the payments, but some Republicans have said they would prefer to eliminate them, or replace them with a bonus for returning to work.

Congress will not meet again until the second half of July.

In the event that more federal support doesnt materialize, state officials urged Pennsylvanians to apply for other forms of assistance, such as Medicaid and SNAP, or food assistance payments.

I just want Pennsylvanians to know no matter what happens at the federal level, they dont have to weather this time alone, said Secretary Teresa Miller of the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. The applications for those forms of assistance can be found here.

Made In America festival canceled, rescheduled for 2021

As the Mann Center, the Roots Picnic, Firefly Festival and many others canceled their outdoor summer concerts  Jay-Zs annual Labor Day Weekend music festival along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway has been canceled and rescheduled for 2021.

Now is the time to protect the health of our artists, fans, partners and community as well as focus on our support for organizations and individuals fighting for social justice and equality in our country, a statement from festival organizers reads.

Hold on to your tickets, organizers say, as theyll be valid for next year. If you would prefer a refund, an email will be sent from the festival where you can request one.

Festival organizers will release more information as it becomes available via the Made in America website and on social media.

The festival has been held every Labor Day weekend in the Art Museum area since 2012.

Philly sets sights on COVID-19 scammers

A global pandemic isnt stopping scammers from trying to swindle people of their hard-earned money. Federal regulators say predators are even adapting their schemes to the times, falsely advertising cures to COVID-19 or targeting businesses waiting for coronavirus-related funds.

We know that when consumers fall victim to fraudulent schemes, it not only hurts them, but it drains wealth from our communities and our overall economy, as residents are often forced to turn to social services for assistance, said Mayor Jim Kenney.

On Wednesday, Philadelphia announced it would begin planning a local consumer financial protection effort with support from the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The effort would help protect Philadelphians from such scams.

The city will receive a nine-month technical assistance engagement partnership from the groups, as well as $10,000 to identify critical consumer issues in the city and survey the legal landscape which will inform the agencys creation.

Mitchell Little, executive director of the Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity in Philadelphia, said as the nation confronts disparities in economic mobility and racial equity, its important to note who is often the target of scams.

Historically, communities of color have been the focal point of many of these fraudulent and predatory schemes, which has contributed to the wealth gap, Little said.

The Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund and the Annie E. Casey Foundation picked Philadelphia alongside cities such as St. Paul, Minnesota and Detroit, Michigan for the program.

300K Pa. residents received early rebates

Many Pennsylvanians enrolled in the states Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program  which supports older homeowners, renters and people with disabilities  received their rebates early this year.

$162 million in payments were distributed a month and a half ahead of the usual start date, according to Pennsylvania Treasurer Joe Torsella.

Under state law, July 1 is typically the earliest day that rebates can be issued  but through a collaborative effort between the Department of Revenue and the Treasury Department  more than 310,000 Pennsylvanians were able to get their check before then.

Gov. Tom Wolf signed a bill in May that allowed rebates on property taxes or rent paid in 2019 to be issued earlier than normal to provide financial support to state residents during the pandemic.

These rebates on property taxes and rent have added importance this year, because they have provided support to our older and vulnerable residents at a time when they may need it most, Wolf said.

Torsella said the Treasury Department will continue to work closely with the Wolf administration to process rebate payments to those enrolled in the Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program as quickly as possible.

For people who are eligible and have yet to file their rebate program application, claimants are encouraged to call 717-772-9236 for guidance.

The Department of Revenue website has the Property Tax/Rent Rebate claim form and more information.
Pennsylvanias state Supreme Court upheld Gov. Tom Wolfs COVID-19 emergency declaration on Wednesday, ruling that an attempt by the Republican-controlled Legislature to overturn it was unconstitutional.

The majority opinion, written by Justice David Wecht, joined by three of his colleagues, comes less than a month after the House and Senate passed a resolution that sought to topple the declaration that Wolf issued on March 6.

The declaration has armed Wolf with vast executive powers, which he used to shutter schools and businesses in the early days of the pandemic.

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But Republicans in the General Assembly have said that Wolf has abused those powers by failing to consult lawmakers on business shutdowns, which led nearly 2 million Pennsylvanians to seek unemployment benefits.

The justices who signed on to the courts majority opinion Wednesday issued no opinion as to whether the governors response to the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes wise or sound policy.

Instead, they sought to determine whether state lawmakers had the power to check his executive powers in the time of emergency  and on that front, they found, the resolution they passed came up short.

The justices said lawmakers failed to comply with the state Constitution when they declined to present the resolution to Wolf so he could veto or sign it.

Lawmakers had argued that the resolution sponsored by Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, did not need the governors signature to become law, thanks to a statute in the states Health and Safety code.

But the justices found that the resolution met the requirements for a legal action that required the governors signature to take effect.

Circumventing such requirements, they wrote, would grant the General Assembly such broad authority would be to rewrite our Constitution and remove the Governor from the lawmaking process, the justices wrote.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, joined by fellow Republican Justice Sallie Mundy, argued that allowing Wolf or any governor a veto to defend their expanded emergency powers was inconsistent with common sense and the separation of powers.

I simply cannot envision that the framers of the Pennsylvania Constitution contemplated that the Governor could be invested with a panoply of exceptional powers, Saylor wrote in his dissent, but that the Legislature nonetheless would be powerless to implement a counterbalance that was not then subject to the chief executives own veto power.

The four justices in the majority were all Democrats.

Another Democratic justice, Kevin Dougherty, wrote a concurring opinion agreeing with the majoritys ruling.

But he went further, arguing that the high court should have found the states entire emergency code unconstitutional, voiding the law entirely even as coronavirus cases increase again.

In a statement, Senate Republican leaders who challenged Wolfs order assailed the high courts ruling.

The ruling fails to uphold the Constitutional balance of power between the three, co-equal branches of government, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said. We understand the need for a temporary suspension of civil liberties under dire circumstances  something we agreed needed to happen initially as we worked to flatten the curve. However, while we work to protect lives, we cannot continue to disregard the civil liberties of Pennsylvanians. Our government was established to be of the people, by the people and for the people. With this ruling the Court has elected not to uphold the foundation of our democracy.

The decision represents a titanic shift in power which we believe is wrong and not in the best interest of justice, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre said. The Court has essentially granted the Governor King status. As we approach the July 4th holiday when our Country celebrates the freedoms that our forefathers established and fought to uphold, the Court has returned an unchecked monarchy to Pennsylvania. The unilateral decisions made by the executive branch caused hardships for families and communities in every corner of the Commonwealth. Despite the challenges that can be seen across the state, the governor repeatedly spurned attempts by the General Assembly to provide input through legislation.
On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 88,074 coronavirus cases since the coronavirus pandemic began, and 6,712 deaths.

Philadelphias Department of Public Health has reported 26,400 cases and 1,614 deaths as of Thursday.

Philly experiencing second wave of coronavirus

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Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said Thursday that Philadelphia is experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infections, adding that residents will be living with the coronavirus for a long time  at least until researchers develop a vaccine.

We may have some tough months ahead, but there will be an end to it overall, said Farley.

Philadelphia has now recorded 26,400 positive cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic in March.

Daily case counts were on the decline, but have stopped dropping over the last two weeks. The city is now reporting an average of 110 new positive cases of COVID-19 per day, said Farley.

A third of new cases over the last two weeks are people who are under 30.

And we continue to get reports of people with infection who have traveled, before they got infected, to the New Jersey shore, said Farley.

To date, the city has recorded 1,614 coronavirus-related deaths. Roughly half of them were nursing home residents.

Mayor Jim Kenney has issued an executive order mandating that residents wear masks when theyre in public and cant social distance, as well as inside any indoor location.

Gov. Tom Wolf has issued a similar order for all of Pennsylvania.

New city program launched to support reopening businesses

The City of Philadelphia is partnering with the North Broad Renaissance, a nonprofit rooted in community revitalization, to help support local businesses as they prepare to gradually reopen.

In the coming weeks, the collaboration will post an online pledge for businesses to follow the citys safety guidelines; distribute personal protective equipment; and offer digital posters about social distancing and safety precautions that businesses can download and hang in their establishments.

Our neighborhood businesses are eager to reopen after the devastating economic impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Shalimar Thomas, executive director of the North Broad Renaissance, said in a statement. As Philadelphia begins its gradual reopening, it is vital that standards are put in place  and followed  so employees and the public are safe, while protecting the health and economic vitality of our communities.

To bolster the partnership, Visit Philadelphia is releasing an online resource guide highlighting commercial corridors in nearly 20 city neighborhoods, as well as four surrounding counties.

Philadelphia was expected to move into the green phase of its reopening plan on Friday. City officials have since that pushed back to Aug. 1  at the earliest  after the daily count of new coronavirus cases stopped dropping.

Under the citys plan, officials want to see fewer than 80 new positive cases of COVID-19 a day before the green phase can start. There were 124 additional confirmed cases on Wednesday and 142 on Tuesday.
The path of the Sunoco Mariner East pipeline takes it near the Chester County Library.
KAMPALA/MASAKA  Uganda has announced 9 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday July 2 after 1,958 samples were analyzed on Wednesday July 1.

The new development means, the cumulative total confirmed cases of Uganda are 902.

The new cases include seven contacts from the communities of Amuru (2) and Tororo (5).

The other two cases were from truck drivers who arrived from Kenya via Malaba entry point.

On the same day, 27 foreign truck drivers tested positive for COVID-19 and were not allowed into the country.

The latest update indicates that active cases on admission are 188 including 163 Ugandans, 19 foreign national and 6 refugees.

The update also indicates that total recoveries have also reached 847. The figure includes includes both Ugandans and Foreigners.

While there is massive progress in coronavirus recoveries, COVID-19 patients admitted at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital in Masaka City have rose up in protest against the poor living conditions in the isolation unit.

According to reports, male patients caused a stampede in the mental ward, which is currently serving as an isolation and treatment center for Coronavirus patients on Wednesday.

The patients banged doors and windows as well as shouting on top of their voices demanding to be discharged from what they describe as incarceration disguised as treatment.

On weekend, one of the COVID-19 patients who identified herself as Aliona Mary, a former nurse said the conditions they go through at Masaka Referral Hospital, South of the country are  mentally distressing and painful.

Ms. Aliona claimed the doctors unkindness towards them is shocking, and that they just drop the medicine and run away.

The conditions in this hospital are really horrible. We rarely see doctors, doctors just come in to just drop a medication that has no name for us to use, she said adding they are put in a section that had been abandoned many years ago.

The Ministry of Health described as gross exaggerations claims that the government has neglected Covid-19 patients at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital.

Ministry of Health spokesperson Emmanuel Ainebyoona said whereas the conditions are not perfect, Ms Aliona makes many falsehoods.

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COLUMBIA  South Carolina has years of success enticing major manufacturers to the state. But the Columbia metro area is switching up that strategy in search of new industry.

The Capital City and surrounding counties are shifting focus with a plan to target high-paying, fast-growing technology and software companies. Business leaders say this plays to the area's existing industry and academic strengths while tech's lesser square footage requirements also provide a workaround to the competitive disadvantage of a high property tax burden.

South Carolina is among the most successful states in the nation in building its manufacturing base, but the state has not been as successful in generating jobs in knowledge-based industries, said Garry Powers, who is overseeing the project for Richland County. "The state has not focused on IT in the past. This is very much a new kind of initiative for South Carolina."

According to global accounting and consulting giant Deloitte, Columbia has "significantly underachieved" its potential. The metro area doesn't have a bad reputation for industry, they say.

"It's that we don't have any reputation," Powers said.

Nearby Charleston and financial hub Charlotte are known for their abilities to attract talent, and companies want to be in those growing cities, he said. Annual federal jobs reports show it.

When Deloitte conducted the headquarters search for Prisma Health  the result of the marriage between Columbia-based Palmetto Health and Greenville Health System  it was the perception that the Upstate could retain top-level talent better, according to Richland County Economic Development Director Jeff Ruble.

As a multi-college town, Columbia has the talent pool, if it could just keep it from leaving after graduation.

Of particular interest to Columbia's new target industries would be the students coming out of the University of South Carolina's growing engineering and computer science programs, as well as a world-class international business school.

In 2006, the engineering and computing school enrolled 1,100 students. Today, its nearly tripled to 3,200 students. And at the end of the 2018-19 school year, the school awarded 875 degrees, ranging from undergraduates to doctorates, said Hossein Haj-Hariri, dean of the college of engineering and computing.

Ruble said it is the county's goal to align business recruiting with the university's initiatives, such as cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing technology, and tap USC academic leaders for targeted marketing to specific companies.

Haj-Hariri said that's something USC's Office of Economic Engagement has already done on occasion.

Most recently, the school secured a partnership with the defense contractor Navatek, which in March opened a branch office on Main Street with plans to hire 60 engineers over the next three years. The software companies Capgemini and SIOS are two others in which USC was in the room and was a difference-maker in selling them on the city, Haj-Hariri said.

Haj-Hariri said he thinks the push by USC President Bob Caslen to make the college into a flagship university "indispensable to the citizens of the state" will only help increase that activity.

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Though Midlands-focused, this plan could help more than just Columbia, according to South Carolina Research Authority Executive Director Bob Quinn. The state's nonprofit business accelerator participated in funding the approximately $250,000 study, alongside the city of Columbia, Richland and Lexington counties and area regional development organizations, that will be used to create the area's new economic development strategy.

Quinn said the Deloitte study offers some new suggestions but also supplements efforts underway in the last year at the state level. For example, the research authority already serves as a conduit between companies and university researchers. But this latest plan would create a more accessible database of research capabilities at USC.

The authority is pushing for more on the state tax incentives side, seeking relief from the Palmetto State's franchise tax for startups. Quinn said that tax cost Mount Pleasant-based Firststring biomedical $40,000 of its latest $40 million venture capital raise.

And while the state has catered incentives to legacy manufacturers, the authority would like to see adaptations made to better help life sciences companies that often put their focus on a different set of assets.

"If we implement even a handful of these initiatives it will have a profound impact on the Midlands and the state as a whole," Quinn said.

Retired longtime site selector Mark Sweeney, of Greenville, sounded the alarm some years ago, saying the state fell behind when it comes to attracting the companies that he says will produce the jobs of the future. One thing he's seen in cities that do well in going after knowledge-based jobs is they focus on one particular area of study.

The financial services sector is where Columbia has more workers than the national average. It also boasts the highest percentage of software and IT personnel in the state, but they're embedded in the insurance technology companies.

"BlueCross (BlueShield of South Carolina) is like an anchor tenant. They're such an important part of our economy," Powers said.

Bioscience-related manufacturers, like Nephron, Rhythmlink and Ritedose, are expanding rapidly in the region, too.

These will be the Midland's new focus industries.

In going after these firms and growing those already here, Powers said the counties hope to better leverage existing research authority programs. The Charleston and Greenville metro areas have more companies participating in the startup program S.C. Launch  48 and 45 respectively compared to Columbia's 31, according to a map on the research authority's website.

Between S.C. Launch, and another program, S.C. Ventures, for more advanced companies in need of new technologies to help them grow to the next level, the authority handed out more than $2.7 million in investment funding to companies in 2019, plus up to roughly another $1 million in grants.

To hold themselves accountable, Ruble said the municipal groups have four focus committees expected to come up with implementation plans by the end of the month. With the loss of multiple company headquarters last year yet to be backfilled, he said he sees a hunger in the community to increase employment and wages and keep up with Palmetto State peers.
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
The Confederate statue stands in a nondescript section of North Main Street, set back from the sidewalk under a stand of trees, a block up from where the clamor of downtown Greenville begins.

Three years ago, protesters stirred and the city promised to deliver on a compromise. The statue of a Confederate soldier would remain but with a special plaque that would tell the story of how the South seceded from the Union with slavery as a central motivation.

That compromise remains unfulfilled. No plaque exists.

Now, as Confederate monuments fall across the country in a wave of activism against systemic racism, the compromise might have seen its day pass.

The calls for removal are stronger now, political leaders and activists say, even if state law stands in the way.

City Councilman Ken Gibson is not yet a year into his four-year term, but he is familiar with protests in support of Black causes. His mother, the late County Councilwoman Lottie Gibson, was one of Greenvilles champions in the civil rights era.

The time has come for bolder action to remove the statue from where it stands on public property, just outside the quiet of the Springwood Cemetery, Gibson told The Post and Courier.

The placing of the memorials, even with that clarifying language, still causes more harm than good, said Gibson, who is Black and an Army veteran of Desert Storm. That is a chapter of our history that we should turn the page on and move on from. The cleanest thing to do is just remove them.

One thing stands in the way: The states Heritage Act, a measure adopted in 2000 after the Confederate battle flag was removed from the Statehouse dome, that prevents the removal or alteration from public property of flags or memorials for any war, historic figure or event, unless the state Legislature approves a change by a two-thirds majority.

The Legislature successfully overrode the act to remove the Confederate flag entirely from Statehouse grounds in June 2015 following the massacre of nine worshipers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston by a white supremacist.

Republican House Speaker Jay Lucas pledged afterward not to entertain any changes to the law.

In recent weeks, calls to alter or eliminate the act have grown. Local governments have been challenged to defy the law and dare the state to take action against them.

State Rep. Chandra Dillard, who represents the district that includes downtown Greenville, told The Post and Courier that she supports whatever action local governments feel they should take, whether crafting a compromise or removing a monument.

Greenville could be a pacesetter, whatever action it takes, Dillard said.

Have at it, she said. Thats just as American as some people feel the statues are. Were in an era of great debate and action. People are tired of talking about things and want action.

The last time protests erupted over the downtown Greenville statue was August 2017, following racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Protesters in Greenville on either side of the issue were separated by police. Those who wanted removal were contained to one side of Main Street. Those who claimed the statue as history and not racism stood on the other.

Each side was allowed a set amount of time to stand near the statue as police looked on.

Following the protests, Mayor Knox White pledged to have a plaque installed that would provide language that would contextualize the statue. The effort was to be in concert with Furman Universitys broadly defined diversity project.

But the city and the university couldnt agree on the language, which White said created an unfortunate delay.

Now, White said, the city will form a citizen committee to determine the best path and will ask the Legislature for permission to alter the monument to recognize the immense human tragedy of the war, but certainly not celebrate those who brought it on in the name of perpetuating the enslaving of people.

At a minimum, I still believe it needs a new narrative on the site to tell the complete story of Greenville and its role in the Civil War, White said. Greenville was a Unionist stronghold and the upper county staunchly remained so even during the war. That story was intentionally written out of history, but we can change that.

The statue of the Confederate soldier in Greenville was erected in 1892 and stood in the center of Main Street a block from its current location. It was moved in 1922 because of traffic concerns. In 1924, the state Supreme Court settled a dispute over whether the statue was public property.

The most recent mention of the memorial grounds was last February, when supporters of the preservation of Confederate history spoke before the City Council to defend the placement of Confederate flags on the graves of Confederate soldiers in Springwood Cemetery, just steps from the statue.

The speakers defended the Confederate cause, which they said was more motivated by states' desires to maintain their sovereign rights than to preserve slavery.

A poem is inscribed on the south side of the statue, along with memorials honoring Gen. Robert E. Lee and men who signed the Ordinance of Secession:

All lost, but by the graves



Where martyred heroes rest He wins the most who honor saves Success is not the test The world shall yet decide In truth's clear far off light That the soldiers Who wore the gray and died With Lee, were right.

Black Lives Matter activist Bruce Wilson, who led weekend protests in downtown Greenville a month ago that saw riot police, flash bombs and pepper spray deployed on Main Street, said he plans a small protest at the Confederate memorial this Saturday, the Fourth of July.

Wilson led the 2017 protest of the statue, along with recent protests at restaurant Tanner's Big Orange, which sparked after the owner posted racist content on social media that he has since apologized for sharing. Wilson said he told anyone who would listen at the time to let the monument be until the compromise could be fulfilled.

Now, he said, "We're going to be a little more aggressive with it."

In the past, Ive told people to leave it alone, let me fight the fight, Wilson said. But Ive gotten to the point now that if something happens to that statue, then Im OK with that also.

Wilson said the city should defy state law.

If they want to say we broke the law, we should fight against it and challenge it," he said. "Dont ask for permission. Just do it. The nation is ready for this kind of change. Now is the right time. If we dont get it done, itll never happen.

Any removal would require defiance or a change in the Heritage Act, Dillard said. When Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg and City Council removed a longstanding statue of John C. Calhoun from Marion Square last week, it did so without a need to consult the act because it was on private property, she said.

"They can move that," Dillard said. "Lucky for them."
With coronavirus cases continuing to rise and Charleston-area officials warning of a dwindling supply of open hospital beds, authorities continue to ramp up public health messaging.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey signed an emergency proclamation Thursday requiring masks in public places. The rule goes into effect at noon on Friday. Those who refuse to comply with requests could be fined $200 or face 30 days in jail.

The mask requirement follows similar moves by Charleston, Isle of Palms, Mount Pleasant and other communities across the state. Earlier in the day, Charleston County enacted a similar measure.

North Charleston police distributed masks from two locations in the city Thursday. The effort was made possible by the donation of 10,000 masks, and follows distribution of 25,000 masks earlier in the week.

Meanwhile, health officials said they're worried about hospitals being overwhelmed by new coronavirus patients.

Dr. Stan Wilson of Roper St. Francis Healthcare said the downtown emergency room logged three positive tests in the span of eight minutes on Wednesday, and doctors are worried about bed availability even as the hospital system announced it is postponing any elective surgeries that would require an overnight stay.

Here is the ordinance passed by Charleston County Council requiring face coverings in businesses in unincorporated Charleston County. #chsnews pic.twitter.com/nrR6AwUeTV  Charleston County (@ChasCountyGov) July 2, 2020

As Charleston leads the state in new cases, many of the positive tests are in patients under 40. Though younger people tend to suffer less severe complications than their older counterparts, they are still at risk of serious effects and can pass the virus on to others.

The numbers announced Thursday bring the state to a new high in both the seven-day rolling average of deaths and the rolling average of new cases.

Statewide numbers

Number of new cases reported: 1,629

Total number of cases in S.C.: 39,587

Number of new deaths reported: 19

Total number of deaths in S.C.: 777

Number of hospitalized patients: 1,125

Percent of tests that were positive: 16.9 percent

Total number of tests in S.C.: 442,263

Which areas are hardest-hit?

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Greenville County led the state in new confirmed infections Thursday with 246 new positive tests. Charleston County followed with 244 new cases.

Horry County, home to Myrtle Beach, saw 179 and Richland County counted 114 new positive tests.

Charleston has reported an average of 281.4 new cases over the past seven days; that's more than 100 cases per day above the next-worst counties.

Horry logged an average of 175.6 new cases per day in that period, and Greenville saw 166.6.

Whats happening in the tri-county region?

The tri-county continued to see high coronavirus case numbers Thursday. In addition to 244 new cases in Charleston County, Berkeley County logged 77 and Dorchester counted 69.

Charleston City Innovation Officer Tracy McKee said the area's infection number increased 40-fold since just before Memorial Day weekend, and that any continuance of the trajectory would leave the tri-county region with over 40,000 active cases by the end of July.

Currently, the area has about 4,000 cases.

The infection rate is about 80 percent higher in Charleston ZIP codes than in the rest of the state, McKee said, and 200 percent higher than the state overall.

Deaths

Of the newly deceased patients, 15 were individuals above the age of 65 living in Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton, Florence, Horry, Lexington, Richland, Spartanburg and Sumter counties. Four were between the ages of 35 and 65 and lived in Beaufort, Clarendon, Darlington and Sumter counties.

How to stop the spread

Medical experts and government officials have begged people to wear masks as cases spike. While Gov. Henry McMaster declined to issue a statewide mask-wearing mandate, several cities have enacted ordinances within city limits.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control also asked that South Carolinians avoid crowds, stay 6 feet away from others outside their households, and regularly wash their hands.

What do experts say?

The rise in the number of people hospitalized with the virus has concerned medical officials. Officials with the Medical University of South Carolina and Roper St. Francis Healthcare warned that their hospitals were preparing for a rise in new cases, and begged residents to wear masks and maintain social distancing.

Gregory Yee contributed to this report.
Charleston's mandatory mask ordinance went into effect Wednesday requiring people to wear face coverings in restaurants, retail stores and public spaces as COVID-19 cases spike across the Palmetto State.

But by Thursday afternoon, with the Fourth of July holiday looming, it appeared that many pedestrians forgot or didn't take the policy seriously.

At State and Market streets, one of the more high-traffic areas for tourists by the Charleston City Market, 15 people were seen wearing masks within a five-minute period, but about 35 people were not wearing masks.

Booth salespeople were offering jewelry, T-shirts and purses to crowds of people as they walked shoulder and shoulder down the sidewalk, the majority of them breathing in the humid Charleston air through open and unmasked noses.

Nearly 1,630 cases of the novel coronavirus were reported in South Carolina on Thursday, hundreds of them in Charleston County. In addition, the state said another 19 people died of the disease.

A record number of people also were reported hospitalized with the disease  1,125 patients. In Charleston, upward of 3,000 positive cases have been reported in the past two weeks.

In a news conference Thursday afternoon, medical workers and government officials explained how dire the situation is in Charleston.

At Roper St. Francis Healthcare, doctors have been working for 20 days straight to treat 87 hospitalized patients. They're worried about hospital beds being full, Dr. Stan Wilson said. On Wednesday, they had three patients test positive for the coronavirus at their downtown emergency room in just eight minutes.

"This is a Category 6 hurricane of illness," Wilson said. "And we can't evacuate."

The Medical University of South Carolina faces similar trials, Dr. Danielle Scheurer said, adding she worries that a wave of new cases among patients under 40 indicates a second slew of infections beyond older patients, who tend to suffer greater complications.

Flattening the curve is possible, Scheurer said, but the process needs to begin immediately.

"We did it once and we can do it again," she said.

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Mask Ordinances

The Holy City was ahead of Charleston County and North Charleston, each of which enacted a rule on Thursday, but the city followed Greenville and Columbia as being one of the Palmetto State's metro areas to make masks mandatory in certain spaces. And while there is a $50 fine possible for not following along in the city, it is not expected to be strictly enforced.

Primarily, violators are issued a warning and given a mask. Charleston police are not handling enforcement. The city's Department of Livability and Tourism is.

"It's not our goal to write a single ticket," Mayor John Tecklenburg said at a news conference on Thursday. "I think having an ordinance in place raises the awareness."

A Livability employee was stationed in a truck outside of the Harris Teeter grocery store on East Bay Street about noon. Most customers inside were wearing masks, some around their chin and not around their nose and mouth as recommended by public health agencies. A handful of customers not wearing masks were not stopped by employees.

Daniel Riccio, director of the city's Livability and Tourism Department, said his officers will focus on educating businesses and residents before issuing warnings or citations.

As of Thursday, no citations had been issued. The city has been making calls to large retailers like Walmart and Dollar General encouraging them to implement stricter social distancing and mask policies. In total, there are 15 officers enforcing the ordinance from Johns Island to the peninsula, Riccio told The Post and Courier.

More information about the ordinance is available on the city's website and a staff member at the citizen services desk will answer questions at 843-723-7311.

Many businesses are taking matters into their own hands to protect the welfare of their employees and customers.

At Publix, a worker tasked with wiping down carts pulled double duty, turning away a woman whod come without a mask. Past the double sliding doors, employees wore bright green masks with the stores bubbly logo pulled up to their cheekbones.

"It takes time," Riccio said. "We saw the same issue with social distancing. It's still brand-new to people and news travels slower than we think."
A home-decor and seasonal goods retailer struggling to regain its footing after the coronavirus lockdown plans to close its North Charleston store as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.

Old Time Pottery sought protection from creditors in its home state of Tennessee on Monday. It was proposing to start liquidation sales on Wednesday at four of its 43 retail sites.

The local store that's being shuttered is an anchor tenant in North Charleston Center at 5900 Rivers Ave., near the Aviation Avenue intersection. The Murfreesboro-based chain moved in the 63,000-square-foot space about three years ago.

Elsewhere in South Carolina, Old Time Pottery has two other stores, in Greenville and Surfside Beach, that will remain open.

Old Time Pottery said it "was growing profitability at a near-record pace" until the potentially lethal COVID-19 outbreak abruptly shut down large swaths of the U.S. economy in mid-March. As a result, many of its stores were forced to close, driving sales to "precipitously" low levels, according to a statement by finance chief Jonathan Tyburski.

More recently, sales have improved as government lockdown restrictions were lifted "and more home decor shoppers venture out," Tyburski said.

Even so, management determined that filing for bankruptcy protection "was in the best long-term interest of all constituencies and will allow Old Time Pottery to emerge stronger," he added.

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The company has stores in 11 states, according to its website.

In addition its North Charleston outlet, Old Time Pottery is asking a judge to allow it to shutter retail locations in Illinois, Florida and North Carolina "to increase liquidity, maximize cost savings, and strengthen the companys overall financial position and position it to continue as a going concern."

It also noted that one or more of the four stores "could remain open under certain circumstances"  such as whether the landlords will agree to rent reductions  and that others could be added to the closing list.

Old Time Pottery has filed for bankruptcy protection once before, in August 2009, shortly after the Great Recession ended. It emerged from the process a year later.

The company joins a growing list of U.S. retail chains turning to the nation's bankruptcy courts to close stores and reduce debt since the pandemic struck more than three months ago. Others include GNC, J.C. Penney, J.Crew & Co., Neiman Marcus, Stage Stores and Tuesday Morning.
COLUMBIA  South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster abruptly changed course Thursday and delayed the release of guidelines aimed at reopening visitation at the states nearly 200 nursing homes, which have been locked down since March.

The reopening had been seen as a welcome step for those who say a watchful family member is often the best way to ensure vulnerable residents receive proper care. But McMaster said the timing just wasn't right given the state's surge in coronavirus cases.

"We must protect the lives of our elderly and at-risk citizens and protect the lives of the front line healthcare workers in these facilities," the governor said in a series of tweets. "This is a heartbreaking situation for loved ones, but the rising rate of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations leaves us no choice."

The coronavirus has infected more than 2,600 patients and staff at 184 nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. According to data released earlier this week, those infections have killed 328 people  just under half of the states confirmed virus-related deaths.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control had not yet released its plans to allow homes to reopen, and McMaster's order puts that process on hold. But, according to Randy Lee, president of the states nursing home association, preliminary discussions had called for visits to take place outside the facilities.

And Lee did not expect every nursing home to reopen its doors  the decisions would be likely left up to each facility, he said. Lee also stressed that visitors would not be allowed into isolation units.

We are very concerned about this, but we also are very concerned about their residents who have not had visitation for quite a while, Lee said. We very much see the need for residents to see their families.

For Robert Rikard, a Columbia attorney who handles litigation involving nursing homes, such arrangements would not go far enough. He contends its critical that families have more direct access to their loved ones care-taking. For him, that means inside the facilities.

That helps fend off neglect and a chance to spot other issues, he said  everything from a developing bedsores to soiled sheets that need washing. During the pandemic, he said, it could be even more important  helping ensure that nursing home staff wear proper protective gear, or diligently monitor symptoms.

Its a huge gap in the ability for problems to be noticed, or prevented from getting worse, Rikard said.

McMaster announced plans on June 26 to open the homes to visits from relatives, under limited circumstances. He directed the states public health agency to come up with a plan for immediate family members only, possibly only those over a certain age.

But COVID-19 infections have continued to explode across South Carolina in the days since, with more than 1,600 cases and 19 deaths reported on Thursday alone.

The most recent data suggests confirmed infections at nursing homes have slowed, and the deadly toll has dropped off. But the data may not portray the full picture because it wasnt immediately clear how regularly residents and staff are being tested.

After universal testing of some 40,000 patients and staff at the homes throughout May, DHEC has since left testing to the discretion of the homes themselves, a DHEC spokeswoman said.

A DHEC spokeswoman stressed that the agency has provided its own oversight of nursing homes through on-site inspections of infection-control practices. Those have covered 162 of the states 194 nursing homes so far, spokeswoman Laura Renwick said.

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To be sure, any visitation carries some risk. But lawyers said visitors should be allowed indoors if they are required to have their temperature checked and wear protective gear.

Lee stressed that administrators must remain diligent to keep the virus out of nursing homes, where the contagion preys on the elderly and vulnerable.

Outside visitors were an early concern. DHEC restricted them at nursing homes in mid-March. But that didnt stop the facilities from quickly becoming host to COVID-19, which likely spread from people who were sick prior to the lockdown, or staff who were free to come and go.

In the month that followed, the homes were ground zero for South Carolinas outbreak.

By the end of April, more than 800 were infected at these facilities in virtually every corner of the state.

Though family members were banned from the facilities, concerns about care began to trickle out.

The Post and Courier reported that the virus spread quickly at nursing homes with some of the states poorest records of care, including those with histories of understaffing or infractions for their infection-control practices.

At Heartland Health and Rehabilitation Center in Hanahan, which carries one of the lowest federal ratings in South Carolina, 16 have died at the 135-bed facility, the second most in the state, according to the most recent data from DHEC.

A representative for that facility has stressed that staff moved quickly to isolate infected patients and have followed federal guidelines for controlling the spread of the virus.

But a nurse who eventually contracted the virus told The Post and Courier in April that he was not given the proper protective gear, forced to wear the same thin surgical mask while tending to infected patients and patients who were not isolated.

That has amplified the concerns for some advocates, who say thats exactly the kind of issue that a visit from a family member could help quickly address.

Theres no accountability if no one can go in there and see whats going on, said Nathan Hughey, a Mount Pleasant lawyer who practices nursing home litigation.

He and other lawyers share a concern that homes with large outbreaks will remain closed off to visitors. Greenville lawyer Matt Christian said for those that only allow outdoor visits, that likely will preclude a significant segment of residents who are not physically able to leave their beds.

If you leave it up to each facilitys discretion, Im very concerned theyre going to make it the most restrictive as possible, Christian said.
While health officials urging South Carolinians to wear masks in public is nothing new, mandatory masking ordinances in the state are.

Greenville made the first move when it required people to wear masks in retail stores, groceries and pharmacies on June 23. Columbia followed suit with an ordinance that took effect June 26. Charleston's mask-wearing rule officially began Wednesday.

And Myrtle Beach  the state's most popular tourism destination and a place that's been called out by at least four states linking outbreaks to residents' vacations there  will consider a mask ordinance later today.

During our last episode that focused on mask-wearing, which we recorded just before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, we discussed how health officials were worried their guidance was being ignored.

A large portion of South Carolinians were going to grocery stores, recently-reopened restaurants and other places without face coverings.

Now, the state's coronavirus case numbers have been breaking records at a rapid pace, leading about 30 cities and counties to pass rules that make not wearing a mask an offense punishable with a fine.

We talked with Columbia bureau chief Andy Shain and data producer Bryan Brusee who teamed up this week for a comprehensive look at the masking ordinances being adopted across the state. And, later on in the show, food and beverage reporter Dave Infante talks us through proper mask-wearing processes at bars and restaurants.

Our discussion also covers why we don't have a statewide mask mandate, just how bad these rising case numbers are and how and why we present COVID-19 data on our frequently-updated dashboard.

Listen now to find out.

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Understand SC is a weekly podcast from The Post and Courier that explains important issues in our state as well as the context that gives it meaning. Hosts Emily Williams and J. Emory Parker use the reporting resources and knowledge of the newspaper to help you better understand our state.

How to listen:

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Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Scattered clouds with the possibility of an isolated thunderstorm developing late. Low 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Scattered clouds with the possibility of an isolated thunderstorm developing late. Low 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
For the S.C. National Guard, hurricanes come with the territory.

Responding to seasonal storms has become routine, and many of the procedures are straightforward.

This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Climate Prediction Center is predicting an above-normal season of 13 to 19 named storms. Two named tropical storms already occurred in May, weeks before the official June 1 start of hurricane season.

There is a force of more than 10,000 Guardsmen at the ready when chaos erupts. But the S.C. National Guard already has a full plate.

Around 800 of them are already deployed out of the Palmetto State, including on missions overseas and on the Southwest border.

Nearly 500 have been deployed for COVID-19 response in South Carolina as the state sees increasing cases and deaths. Hundreds have been sent out this year for tornado responses, flooding and storms earlier this spring.

Amid the global pandemic, there will be more potential problems to anticipate, Maj. Gen. Van McCarty, the S.C. adjutant general, said in a statement.

"This year, if we have a hurricane that is projected to impact South Carolina, it will most likely create new challenges that we've never experienced before," he said. "While storm projections can give the state partner agencies an idea of what precautions need to take place, there is no way of knowing the total impact the hurricane will have on the state until it has made landfall."

The potential for a record-setting storm year brings a flurry of worries to meteorologists, residents and homeowners in the Palmetto State. The S.C. National Guard's strategy is to embrace and react to what is to come.

From Hugo to the present

The Guard has been on the front lines of some of the most notable storms in South Carolina's history.

Hurricane Hugo in 1989, which S.C. Electric & Gas Co. dubbed "the single greatest natural disaster ever to strike the state," caused nearly $6 billion in property damage.

Then-President George H.W. Bush declared roughly 50 percent of the state a federally recognized disaster areas which allowed for federal dollars to be used in cleanup and response efforts. A total of 6,317 S.C. Guardsmen were called up in support of the efforts.

Maj. Gen. Robert E. Livingston Jr., the previous state adjutant general, said for the Palmetto State's National Guard and residents, everything in relation to hurricanes in South Carolina has been compared to Hugo.

My concern is citizens that have moved in since Hugo and dont know how devastating this storm was," Livingston said in a 2014 interview. "People may not have the experiences with hurricanes that some of us have seen firsthand."

In the past five years, S.C. Guardsmen have been activated by the governor to respond to Hurricane Joaquin in 2015, Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Hurricane Florence in 2018 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

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They also assisted other states and territories in 2017 after the impacts of Hurricanes Maria, Irma and Harvey.

Last year, Dorian was a pretty mild hurricane compared with many in recent history. But the S.C. National Guard's response was still large.

More than 1,600 soldiers and airmen assisted in preparation and response during and in the aftermath of the storm that skirted the Carolina coast. But it was the waiting and uncertainty of not knowing how or when Dorian could have made landfall that made it hard to prepare for.

"This past year's response to Hurricane Dorian presented some of its own challenges due to the storm stalling over the Bahamas, as well as projections showing constant changes to the potential path of the storm," McCarty said. "It can be a challenge to know what types of resources and numbers of personnel are needed when the full impact of the storm isn't known."

'This is why we plan'

This month, S.C. National Guard engineers conducted their annual two-week course at McCrady Training Center and Clarks Hill Training Site.

They play a large role with conducting debris-clearing missions, which allow first responders access to hard-hit areas, as well as allowing residents to return home after evacuation orders are cleared, McCarty said.

And it's also this training and planning that has kept Guardsmen safe. While some have been injured during storm response, the S.C. National Guard has never had a fatality during a hurricane response.

COVID-19 will put more S.C. National Guardsmen at risk than usual as they respond to hurricanes. The force has now added extra protection measures such as taking daily temperatures and health screenings to ensure they aren't spreading the virus, McCarty said.

National guidance on hurricane preparedness has changed during the pandemic, too. Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising people to include extra items in their go kits.

"Include items that can help protect you and others from COVID-19, such as hand sanitizer, or bar or liquid soap if not available, and two cloth face coverings for each person," the CDC said in an advisory.

Additionally, hurricane shelters are being asked to practice social distancing and sanitize surfaces as frequently as possible.

Ultimately, for the S.C. National Guard, sometimes planning just means being flexible.

"This is why we plan," McCarty said. "There is no way of ever fully knowing what to expect, but by having a plan in place, we're able to adapt our response. Even with all this taking place, the South Carolina National Guard is still prepared to respond to Hurricane Season 2020."
Authorities on Wednesday released more than six hours of law enforcement radio communications from Black Lives Matter protests and a riot that broke out in Charleston on May 30.

The 6 hours of audio represent a condensed version of the actual time covered by the recording: about 13 hours, from 2 p.m. that Saturday to about 3 a.m. the following day, according to a memo by Heather Mulloy, assistant city attorney.

Together, the radio calls paint a picture of officers who were eventually hemmed in as the protest turned violent after several hours. Trapped on several sides by crowds, officers were unable to respond quickly to calls from business owners and residents after looting started downtown around 8 p.m.

Around 3 hours, 17 minutes into the recording, protesters had already started vandalizing businesses, breaking windows and looting.

Officers could be heard calling for backup and trying to coordinate a response for some time.

But protesters had broken into separate groups and officers feared they were doubling back and getting around law enforcement.

"Can we get the air unit to give us an idea of what the crowd is doing, because I feel like we're chasing each other," an officer says.

"They're turning onto King Street from George Street," an officer in the helicopter says.

"Captain, we've got multiple units at East Bay and Wentworth. I don't think we need them there," an officer says.

"Go ahead and move them. Wentworth, head toward King. We're bringing in all of midnight shift over the King Street, also," the captain says.

"Just so you know, they're breaking into stores up and down King Street," the officer in the helicopter says.

For roughly the first 2 hours of the recording, law enforcement radio calls have to do with crowd control, keeping protesters out of the street and monitoring general public safety concerns.

But tensions rose throughout the afternoon.

Rioting started in the Charleston City Market.

About 2 hours, 35 minutes into the recording, an officer asks, "Should we shut the Market?"

"They just changed directions. They're going through the City Market," an officer says around 2 hours, 38 minutes into the recording. "They're starting to flip tables in the City Market."

"Be advised, they started smashing windows in the Market," an officer says. "They're throwing water bottles down here at officers. Just keep your heads up."

Commanders tell officers to keep eyes on protesters engaging in vandalism because they want to start making arrests once they have the manpower.

"I'm telling you right now, you need to get as many units into the Market to help clear it out right now," an officer says. "This needs to be shut down."

By the 3 hour, 15 minute mark, officers can be heard trying to block protesters.

"Any units paralleling them, please make sure they don't take side streets. We don't want them going down King Street at all," an officer says.

Another officer says a group of protesters broke off earlier and was "prowling King Street."

Around the 3 hour, 16 minute mark an officer says the Apple store at 301 King St. and a clothing shop at 220 King St. were being broken into.

"Door's been broken, possible theft," an officer says, of the Apple store.

Around the 3 hour, 21 minute mark, officers can be heard forming a plan to gather forces on King Street and push north.

Officers report protesters are inside of a Walgreens. Commanders tell them to get ready, not to go in without backup and be prepared to make arrests.

"We'll be pushing north," an officer says shortly after. "We'll be deploying gas ahead of us. We'll be deploying gas ahead of us at King and Calhoun."

Around 3 hours, 22 minutes, an officer calls for help.

"I need units at King and Calhoun right now," he says. "They are chasing officers. They're (unintelligible) throwing water bottles."

As the night progresses, officers slowly began to push looters out of downtown.

It was a process that involved officers forming lines and marching in formation, while using tear gas and pepper spray balls on looters who did not disperse.

By 3 a.m., the last of the rioters were cleared from downtown.

In all, 238 officers from multiple agencies responded to quell the violence, according to the memo by Mulloy, the assistant city attorney. Officers arrested 10 people that night.

Since then, 74 arrest warrants were issued, 27 suspects have been identified and 65 warrants have been served.

As of now, 23 people have been arrested in connection with the rioting.
Watching colorful pyrotechnics explode against a night sky is a time-honored tradition to celebrate America's independence each year.

But not in 2020.

Every major municipality in the Charleston area and many others across the state have canceled their annual fireworks displays for the Fourth of July, a move that could prove a boon to the roadside stands that pop up in June each year.

The coronavirus pandemic and the threat of spreading the disease further is causing municipalities to avoid bringing together large groups to watch the sky light up in a kaleidoscope of colors against the darkness of night.

Folly Beach, Isle of Palms, North Charleston, Sullivan's Island and Patriots Point won't host events this year, joining other cities and towns in abandoning the tradition.

As the cancellations of Independence Day celebrations multiply, the American Pyrotechnics Association estimates only a handful of the usual 16,000 fireworks shows will be held this year.

"Normally, there are so many shows that we don't keep up with them all, but this year we are gathering a list," said Julie Heckman, executive director of the Bethesda, Md.-based trade group. "It's about three dozen, but it keeps changing because communities keep cancelling events."

Heckman called the cancellations brought on by the pandemic "devastating to the professional industry."

"They have had no income since New Year's Eve," she said. "They have lost every sporting event, festival, concert and now the Fourth of July. For the first time in their lives, they are sitting around in what is typically the busiest time of year with nothing to do."

The trade group is asking Congress for $175 million in loans to help professional fireworks companies make it until next year. With display fireworks ordered sometimes a year in advance, companies are left with millions of pounds of explosives that have to be stored safely until next year, Heckman said.

Some big shows are planned, such as the Friday event at Mount Rushmore where President Donald Trump is expected for a ticket-only event. Also, Heckman said Macy's is sponsoring an event in New York City that will be televised.

And while professional vendors will mostly sit out this year's celebration, the consumer industry of fireworks stores and pop-up stands is expected to do a booming business.

"For the backyard consumer, this will be beyond a banner year," Heckman said.

Kevin Carpenter of Fireworks Masters in Mount Pleasant said he's ready.

Back in January, as he saw events unfolding in China with the novel coronavirus, he ordered extra fireworks since July Fourth falls on Saturday this year.

"I budgeted for a 50 percent increase in sales," he said. "Sales are always bigger when it falls on the weekend."

And they pick up dramatically after July 1.

"The general rule of thumb is on July 2 you should be saying, 'I have too much inventory,' and on July 3 be saying, 'I hope I have enough to get through tomorrow,' " Carpenter said.

Carpenter operates two locations in Mount Pleasant, in front of Aldi supermarket on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard and another at the Market at Oakland Shopping Center in the northern part of town. But he said there are plenty of other vendors in East Cooper and even more throughout the Charleston area.

"We are expecting a big increase in sales," he said. "My phone starting ringing in May and people were asking when I would be opening this year. People have been pent up in their homes, and everything is not back the way it was, so they are looking for something to do safely outdoors."

He has noticed some neighborhood homeowners coming together to buy in bulk for what he called "cul-de-sac displays."

"They are calling me up and going online and wanting big orders," Carpenter said. "They are spending $1,000 in one shot."

Carpenter, who works in credit card sales and has been selling fireworks since 2014, donates a portion of his pyrotechnic proceeds to a couple of different Boy Scout troops in Mount Pleasant each year. He also makes a monetary donation to the Coastal Carolina Council of Boy Scouts.

Customers will notice masks and hand sanitizer available at Carpenter's stands, and he is marking off social distancing lines for shoppers, as well.

"I want everyone to feel safe," he said.

At Ohio-based Phantom Fireworks, the company is promoting safety along with the predicted surge in consumer sales.

"Retail indicators show that at-home fireworks use will sharply increase amid the global pandemic crowd restrictions and cancellation of public shows," said Bill Weimer, company vice president.

The company, whose nearest store to Charleston is in Myrtle Beach, urges shoppers not to wait until the last minute to buy fireworks so they can avoid large crowds. It, too, will exercise proper health protocols and monitor social distancing and store sanitizing.

"Even though this Fourth of July will be very different in communities throughout the country, we are excited to help Americans celebrate this national holiday by ensuring that customers can enjoy our product safely  while shopping and using our products," Weimer said.
COLUMBIA  Two Columbia residents have been arrested after leaving an incendiary device at the base of the Benjamin Tillman monument on the S.C. Statehouse grounds, authorities said.

Anna Elizabeth Jordan, 19, and James McTeer, 36, are both facing charges of arson and threatening to use destructive force, the South Carolina Department of Public Safety said.

Around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, officers found a device at the foot of the 80-year-old bronze statue of South Carolinas former governor and U.S. senator that has been targeted for removal because Tillman was an avowed white supremacist.

Agents from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Divisions bomb squad and arson investigation unit assisted in examining and disposing of the device.

The statue did not sustain any permanent damage. No details were provided on what led to the arrests.

Jordan and McTeer were booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, authorities said.

The State House grounds must be a place where everyone can feel safe to peaceably assemble and exercise their First Amendment rights, however, there is no place for violence or vandalism," said Matthew Calhoun, chief of the state Bureau of Protective Services, which patrols the Statehouse.

The incident comes at a time of heightened awareness over divisive figures in South Carolinas past, including the virulent white supremacist Tillman, who was governor from 1890 through 1894 before a 23-year-career in the U.S. Senate.

Tillman worked tirelessly to deny African Americans access to the ballot box and, as noted by Historic Columbia, once bragged that he shot negroes and stuffed ballot boxes in the racially charged 1876 Hamburg Massacre.

State Rep. Seth Rose, D-Columbia, is proposing legislation to remove Tillmans visage from the capitol complex, while trustees at Clemson and Winthrop universities want permission from lawmakers to scrub his name from campus buildings.
The Don Holt Bridge over the Cooper River again showed how dangerous traveling it can be after a horrific crash unfolded Wednesday that left a sheriff's deputy seriously injured and a tow truck driver missing  presumably plummeting from the bridge.

The deputy remained in a hospital while the tow truck driver was unaccounted for late Wednesday following a search of the waters 155 feet below the span by boat and helicopter.

The multivehicle crash on the bridge, which is part of Interstate 526 connecting North Charleston to Daniel Island and Mount Pleasant, took place just after the morning rush hour had peaked, but it would snarl traffic throughout the region for hours.

According to authorities, about 9:50 a.m. the Charleston County sheriff's deputy was driving west when he pulled up to help a tow truck driver who was helping the motorist whose vehicle had broken down on the North Charleston side of the span.

Thats when a westbound Ford F-350 pulling a trailer struck the rear of the deputys Dodge Charger, which, in turn, struck other vehicles, said Cpl. Matt Southern, a S.C. Highway Patrol spokesman.

The deputy, identified as Mike Costanzo, and the tow truck driver, were both outside of their vehicles when the collision occurred, Southern said.

Costanzo was transported to Medical University Hospital by emergency medical services, sustaining serious injuries, said Capt. Roger Antonio, a Sheriff's Office spokesman.

When the tow truck driver could not be found, crews with the Coast Guard and local marine patrol units began a search of the Cooper River near the bridge.

"The driver of the tow truck remains unaccounted for at this time," Southern reported.

The driver's identity has not been disclosed.

The crash was met with shock by those who drive the bridge or represent constituents who do, as it draws a mix of port truckers and daily commuters in crowded lanes by the thousands.

"The accident is just absolutely horrible to read about and think about," said Charleston Councilwoman Marie Delcioppo, of Daniel Island.

"A large portion of my district, all of Daniel Island and the incorporated Cainhoy Peninsula, these are mostly families and they dont want to have their teenage drivers get on 526," she said. "Its the same with moms with little babies. It is scary to drive out there."

The Don Holt Bridge was built in 1992 and has a history of issues and bad crashes. The bridge's design doesn't make it easy for police and rescue crews to reach the scene of a wreck. There is no way off the elevated roadway between North Charleston and Daniel Island. It has no breakdown lanes, so a crash that jams traffic can force police and rescue crews to come from the opposite direction.

That, in turn, jams traffic in both directions.

But it is a vital artery for the region's travel grid. The Don Holt, combined with the James B. Edwards Bridge on I-526, and the Arthur J. Ravenel Jr. Bridge on U.S. Highway 17, are the only river crossings linking roughly 110,000 people east of the Cooper River to the rest of the greater Charleston area. Wrecks on the Don Holt and Ravenel bridges more than doubled from 2011 through 2016, and injuries from wrecks nearly tripled.

Authorities have blamed most of the collisions and accidents on drivers not paying attention, and many of the fatal accidents have involved drivers who struck vehicles that were disabled or stopped in traffic.

One of the things I hear repeatedly is, tougher distracted driving laws," Delcioppo said. Driving should not be a multitasking activity."

The explosion of population growth in Mount Pleasant and Daniel Island communities has played a part in the bridge issues. When the Don Holt opened in 1992, Daniel Island had not been developed and Mount Pleasant had about 55,000 fewer residents than it does today.

The population growth in Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island and the Cainhoy peninsula, along with the growth of South Carolina's largest port  Wando Welch Terminal in Mount Pleasant  have put immense traffic demands on I-526 and the Don Holt Bridge. South Carolina is planning to double the width of I-526, including the river crossings, but planning is in the early stages and the price tag is in the billions.

SCDOT is currently studying the stretch of I-526 between North Charleston and Mount Pleasant, including the Don Holt, and has an online survey where area residents can share their concerns at https://526lcceast1.metroquest.com/.

Meanwhile, the bridges each average more than two wrecks a week, some of them fatal, and with wide-reaching ripples. A wreck on the Don Holt bridge tends to send a wave of traffic cascading through local roads, heading for the Ravenel Bridge, and the resulting heavy traffic sometimes results in yet more wrecks.

Costanzo previously worked for the sheriff's 1994-2006, according to a media announcement, then returned in April 2017.

He served as a school resource officer at Sullivans Island Elementary during the school year and was assigned to the Marine Patrol Unit this summer.

Gregory Yee contributed to this report.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story misstated S.C. Highway Patrol Cpl. Matt Southern's rank.
After mounting public concern that foul play led to Elijah "Nicky" Weatherspoon's disappearance from a boat in the Charleston Harbor, the State Law Enforcement Division is investigating the teenager's death.

Weatherspoon, 18, had been boating with eight others on Thursday night when he jumped from the boat and went under, according to the state Department of Natural Resources, which is leading the initial investigation. His body was found on Sunday near Sullivan's Island.

SLED agents have begun gathering information and are still investigating, SLED spokesman Tommy Crosby said Thursday morning.

More than 150,000 people have signed two petitions demanding a more thorough investigation, pointing to conflicting accounts of how Weatherspoon, who was Black, ended up in the water and went under.

Friends and family shared suspicions of foul play on social media, and attorneys for Weatherspoon's family called for an exhaustive and thorough investigation.

A protest calling for justice is scheduled for July 12.

"If that were a white guy, this would have been handled already," protest organizer Brandon Trollinger told The Post and Courier.

SLED agreed to conduct its investigation on Wednesday, after the Charleston County Legislative Delegation asked the agency to review the facts, State Rep. Marvin Pendaris said.

"It's important that the family and community get assurance nothing gets overlooked," Pendarvis said in a Facebook post.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this report had an incorrect number of people on the boat.
Over the past few weeks, I have been hearing politicians and media types lament the publics lack of knowledge about U.S. and world history. As a career educator, I began to think about how this happened.

Since the huge increase in high stakes standardized testing began in public schools about 25 years ago, history instruction has become mostly geared to teaching massive numbers of names, dates and disconnected facts in a way that promotes success on these tests. Because of this, there is little time for the higher-level discussion and analysis that fosters a deep understanding of history and how it relates to the present and the future. I strongly believe this superficial approach has been detrimental to informed citizenship and to nurturing an appreciation of the relevance of history to contemporary life.

Knowing that Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, is one thing. Understanding what led to this cataclysmic event and the long-term impact of what came afterward is quite another.

We need to stop teaching history like we are preparing students for a television quiz show instead of for informed citizenship. The focus on teaching history as a means to pass a standardized test needs serious rethinking.

FRANK MORGAN

Hunter Hill Road

Camden

Enforce IOP mask law

Enforcing the wearing of masks is easy. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Mask, No Service. Thank you to the wise council members who voted for the mandate.

BEATRICE LOVE

Sand Dollar Drive

Isle of Palms

Stop racial injustices

I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired of racial injustices. It is sad people believe its OK to kill a person because of their race. This has been happening for centuries.

A recent victim, George Floyd, was blatantly killed May 25. It was at the hands, or should I say the knee, of a white police officer. Still, disparities in the judicial system, health care (brought to light during COVID-19), employment and more continue to happen. The hatred, violence, discrimination, degradation and excessive use of force must stop. There are no excuses for the derogatory and heinous acts of discrimination that are inflicted upon a race.

In the wake of Mr. Floyds death, there have been mostly peaceful protests. We are seeing people of all nationalities come together to represent the 50 states. There are other countries and world leaders protesting with us.

Black Lives Matter and I Matter. I am not an angry black woman. Im passionate about my truth and experiences as a black woman. Let love conquer all!

NATALIE BEE

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Channel Drive

Florence

Use Emanuel design

I would like to propose that the Calhoun monument at Marion Square be replaced with a sculpture based on Gil Shulers haunting palmetto with nine rising doves.

The design was done after the Emanuel AME Church shooting and, with the statue being only a block from the church, its a fitting replacement and rebuke to the shooter who tried to start a race war.

In addition, the image seems to fit Charleston overall. Charleston has had some ragged history: slavery, fire, earthquake, systemic racism, hurricanes and floods.

And, despite all that, the city seems to rise to beauty after each incident. I think the sculpture could symbolize how Charleston has risen after stumbling, and also how we can continue the dialogue begun by the recent protests and evolve into beauty.

HELEN MITTERNIGHT

Chapel Street

Charleston

Policing must change

Regarding the Sunday front-page story about Sen. Tim Scotts frustration in getting a police reform bill passed, I found it heart-wrenching.

The reason I was so disturbed was because Sen. Scotts bill was so Republicanized. It was watered down with incentives rather than mandates. Bystander training? Keep bystanders far enough away they cant see through the officers blocking their view.

Financial incentives? The problematic departments with unions whispering in their ears will say, They can keep the extra money. Were running things the way we always have.

Why didnt the NAACP back Sen. Scotts bill? It was inadequate.

I do feel for Sen. Scott. He worked hard on this bill. He hoped his 20 amendment proposals would swing the Democrats to sign onto his bill. And ultimately, Sen. Scott took the defeat personally, saying its not what is being offered, it is who is offering it. This is just the response that makes this defeat a victory for those who want to divide us rather than unite us. This is the truly heart-wrenching part.

DAVID W. ROCKEY

Pleasant Hill Drive

Goose Creek
Goose Creek, SC (29445)

Today

Overcast. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 75F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Overcast. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 75F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.
The Work Zone

My son and I were running errands on a recent day, when he said, Dad, did you ever think about suicide? Read more
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Turkey's intervention in Libya has resulted in complicating its relationship with France even further.

The latest sign of tension between the two NATO member states took place on Wednesday.

French Ambassador to NATO Muriel Domenach told the secretary-general of the military alliance Jens Stoltenberg that Paris will temporarily withdraw from Operation Sea Guardian, a NATO naval operation in the Mediterranean.

Domenach, in her letter to NATO, explained that a NATO report  which came after the alliance started a probe in June  over a French-Turkish naval incident did not establish the facts. Paris is definitely looking forward to see a clearer stance from NATO officials on this case.

France says that Turkey acted aggressively on 10 June towards its Courbet warship in the Eastern Mediterranean after it sought to inspect a vessel that it believes was disregarding a UN arms embargo on Libya.

According to the French narrative, which the Turks described as groundless, Turkish warships used their radar lights three times at the Courbet, while Turkish sailors wore bullet-proof vests while holding light weapons.

It can be argued that these devleopments came in light of the French-Turkish disagreements on Libya.

Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Turkey of playing a dangerous game in the war-torn state.

"I have already had the opportunity to say very clearly to President (Tayyip) Erdogan, I consider that Turkey is playing a dangerous game in Libya today and going against all of its commitments made at the Berlin Conference," Macron said.

He warned that France wont tolerate the role that Turkey is playing in Libya. Macron even backed the legitimate concern of President Sisi when he sees troops arriving at his border.

This is a Mediterranean subject that affects us because today from Libya each day men and women are fleeing misery to come to Europe. Do you think we can let Turkey for a long time import Syrian fighters to Libya given everything we know," Macron explained.

The Government of National Accord (GNA), which is based in Tripoli, is backed by Turkish troops and thousands of Syrian mercenaries in its war against the eastern-based Libyan National Army and its leader Khalifa Haftar. Ankara, according to Reuters, is conducting talks with the GNA for a possible use of the Misrata naval base and Al-Watiya air base.

Other factors also are leading to this outcome, including Ankaras actions in the Eastern Mediterranean and northern Syria. In May, in a teleconference meeting that was joined by France, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, all five states slammed the Turkish illegal activities in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The weight of the participating countries and their endeavour to enhance stability and the primacy of international law cannot be ignored. [It was] an important platform established by the primacy of the language of international law over the laws of the jungle," tweeted then Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash.

The meeting came after Turkey signed an accord with the GNA last year to create an exclusive economic zone from Turkeys southern Mediterranean shore to Libyas northeast coast. Some of the areas involved are around Cyprus, and the latter accuses Turkey of searching for gas in its territorial waters.

Meanwhile, in Syria, the French leadership expressed anger about the Turkish military operations in the war-torn state, fearing its impact on the revival of the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

France, constantly meeting with Kurdish officials, slammed the Turkish operations in October 2019 in areas that are under the control of the Peoples Protection Units (YPG).

By then, the French military was not happy with the US withdrawal from northeastern Syria.

We are going to be extremely careful that this announced disengagement from the United States and a possible offensive by Turkey does not create a dangerous manoeuvre that diverts from the goal we all pursue -- the fight against Islamic State -- and which is dangerous for the local population, the French defence minister Florence Parly was quoted as saying to reporters.

We must be extremely vigilant that a manoeuvre of this kind can not, contrary to the goal of the coalition, strengthen (IS) rather than weaken and eradicate it, said Parly.

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Here in Montgomery County, we need everyone to wear a mask or a face covering anytime you are close to someone who is not a household contact. That is the single most important thing that you can do." - Montgomery County Commissioner Dr. Valerie Arkoosh

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Carl Hessler Jr. is a multi-media reporter who writes about crime and justice from the Montgomery County Courthouse for 21st Century Media Newspapers Greater Philadelphia area publications. Follow Carl on Twitter: @MontcoCourtNews
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

At first glance, it appears that Luxembourg is a small and relatively obscure country with an estimated population of just 625,815. However, its actually one of the wealthiest nations in the world on a per capita basis, with a total GDP per capita of $96,269.

Not only is Luxembourg a deceptively wealthy nation, but its also widely considered to be a tax haven of choice for corporations and wealthy individuals from across the globe. This has been the case since the 1960s, during which time Luxembourg emerged as a financial center for the offshore trade in European bonds.

These factors contribute to Luxembourgs deserved status as an attractive hub for investors, but what else helps the country to appeal to entities with wealth and disposable capital?

Investment in Luxembourg  What You Need to Know

Interestingly, Luxembourgs progressive tax haven status remains to this day, with a favourable regime underpinned by the lack of withholding taxes on interest and royalty payments.

Overall, economists estimate that 80% of all profits shifted from EU member states end up in tax havens such as Luxembourg, which accounted for a staggering $47 billion in moved funds back in 2015.

This is why tax experts such as RSM do such large volumes of work in Luxembourg, in order to create lucrative and compliant structures in a bid to optimise profits.

While this is definitely appealing to institutional and large-scale investors, Luxembourgs innately stable economy and aforementioned GDP performance also engages investors with lesser resources.

It can also be argued that Luxembourgs economic success can be partially attributed to its location on the continent, which allows for good connectivity with fellow European countries and seamless capital inflows between economies.

This also lends itself to a multilingual workforce and business environment, with Luxembourgish, French and German all widely used and fluent languages in the region.

Photo by Yannis Papanastasopoulos on Unsplash

What About Tax and Legal Ramifications?

Weve already touched on Luxembourgs favourable tax system, which actively encourages corporations from all over the world to form special purpose entities in the region.

This certainly allows companies and investors to create more profitable and extensive business models, largely through foreign direct investment (FDI).

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Luxembourg attracts a staggering $4 trillion in FDI, with much of this cash flowing through empty corporate shells that are designed solely for the purpose of minimising tax liabilities.

Outside of such shells and the regions bustling financial market, there are other sectors that continue to perform well and provide an attractive opportunity to investors. The shipping and logistics industry is one of the fastest-growing entities in Luxembourg, for example, thanks largely to the regions location and outstanding transportation links with Europe.

High-value markets such as automotive, aerospace and ICT (information and communication technologies) are also thriving in Luxembourg, with these entities offering huge potential to international investors.

Wed argue that the space segment is particularly lucrative at present, with the manufacturing of satellite and instrument structures highly profitable and evolving as an increasingly profitable endeavour.

These are definitely markets to target as an investor, while Luxembourg itself remains synonymous with wealth creation and successful tax avoidance across the board.

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In his NR column Dementia politics Victor Davis Hanson sounds like the boy declaring the emperor wears no clothes:

Joe Biden is tragically suffering a mental eclipse and sliding away at a geometric rate. Understandably, his handlers have kept him out of sight. He stays off the campaign trail on the pretext of the virus and his age-related susceptibility to COVID-19 morbidity.

I say pretext without apology. Quarantine should not have otherwise stopped Biden over the past three months from doing daily interviews, speeches, and meetings. But each occasion, however scripted, rehearsed, and canned, would only have offered further daily proof that Biden is cognitively unable to be president or indeed to hold any office.

Often Biden cannot finish a sentence. Names are vague eddies in his minds river of forgetfulness. He is in a far more dire mental state than a physically failing FDR was in his 1944 campaign for a fourth term.
Heather Mac Donald documents the increase in violent crime that has accompanied the decrease in policing resulting from the denunciation, without evidence, of American police forces as racist, after an officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. She shows that the recent increase in violent crime has come with a speed and magnitude that makes the Ferguson effect  the spike that occurred after a police officer killed Michael Brown  seem tranquil.

Lets start with Minneapolis itself:

In Minneapolis, shootings have more than doubled this year compared to last. Nearly half of all those shootings have occurred since George Floyds death, according to a Minneapolis Star Tribune analysis. On Fathers Day, a mass shooting on a crowded street uptown struck 11 people. The next day saw a chain of retaliatory shootingsthe first next to a park filled with children, the next, 90 minutes later, on a notorious gang-dominated street intersection. In nearby St. Paul, reported firearms discharges have more than doubled. The same gangbangers are getting shot repeatedly. One 17-year-old boy has been shot in four different events over the last month and a half.

Now consider Chicago:

In Chicago, 18 people were killed and 47 wounded in drive- and walk-by shootings last weekend. The fatalities included a one-year-old boy riding in a car with his mother (the gunman drove up alongside and emptied his gun into the vehicle) and a 10-year-old girl struck in the head inside her home; a group of youth on the street outside her house had started shooting at another group of youth nearby. The previous weekend in Chicago, 104 people were shot, 15 fatally. The deceased included a three-year-old boy riding in a car with his father on Fathers Dayhis gangbanger father was the intended victimand a 13-year-old girl shot in her head in her home.

Baltimore has been suffering from the Freddy Gray effect for years. You wouldnt think matters could get worse there, but they have:

In Baltimore, homicides are higher so far this year than in 2019, which had the highest homicide rate on record for that city. Junes killings, which eclipse those of June 2019, include a 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant and her three-year-old daughter. They were gunned down in their car by the father of the womans unborn child, according to the police.

What about New York City:

New York Citys homicide rate is at a five-year high; the number of shooting victims was up over 42 percent through June 21 compared with the same period in 2019. The number of shootings in the first three weeks of June was over twice that of the same period in 2019, making this June the citys bloodiest in nearly a quarter century, according to the New York Times. At 4 A.M. last Sunday, a 30-year-old woman was shot in the head in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a house party. On Saturday afternoon, a man and a woman were shot to death outside a Brooklyn home. Early Friday morning, a 19-year-old girl was shot to death in the heart of Manhattan, near Madison Square Park, on East 26th Street.

Other cites show the same deadly pattern:

Milwaukees homicides have increased 132 percent. In 25 years, Ive never seen it like this, a Milwaukee police inspector told the Police Executive Research Forum, referring to the violence and the low officer morale. Shootings are spiking in Indianapolis. Other cities will show similar increases once their crime data are published.

I need hardly add that its black lives that, to an overwhelming degree, are being lost due to the Minneapolis effect:

The victims in these shootings are overwhelmingly black. So far this year, 78 percent of all homicide victims in Chicago are black, though blacks are less than a third of the population. But the defund-the-police advocates and the Democratic establishment have said nothing about the growing loss of black lives.

In this context, it makes no sense to cut back on police funding or to discourage proactive policing. The BLM agenda is the antithesis of what America needs. As Mac Donald warns:

[The spikes in violent crimes] are no longer the warning signs of a possible breakdown of civilized life. That breakdown is upon us. If local and national leaders are unable to summon the will to defend our most basic institutions from false and inflammatory charges of racism, they have forfeited their right to govern. Unless new leaders come forth who understand their duty to maintain the rule of law, the country will not pull back from disaster.

(Emphasis added)
I decided to post our regular weekly podcast a couple days ahead of schedule to match up with Dan Mahoneys compelling essay up today at Real Clear Politics on What Does Our Nation Mean to Us? Rejecting the Culture of Hate, because his article meshes perfectly with the conclusion of our wide-ranging conversation about the roots of our present discontents.

With everyone comparing the dismal events of this year with our previous annus horribilis of 1968, I wanted to walk through the other great eruption in May 1968 in France. A lot of Americans dont know much about that episode, and its powerful and lasting impact on French intellectual and political life. Few Americans know more about French politics and intellectual life than Mahoney, and along the way we survey some leading French thinkers then and now, some well-known like Raymond Aron and Pierre Manent, and some less well known, like Claude Lefort.

But ultimately we conclude with some reflections on the deep crisis of the moment here in America, and with Dans rousing charge: We need a Gaullist moment and we need Churchillian fortitude. Listen here for more, but also see his article mentioned above.

Daniel Mahoney is the Augustinian Boulanger Chair of political science at Assumption University in Massachusetts, and author of too many fine books to list, though I will recommend as a good short introduction to his thought his book The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order.

You know what to do now: listen here, or download from our hosts at Ricochet, or from your favorite podcast platform.
Paul wrote earlier about the Minneapolis Effect. For those of us living in Minnesota, the effect is very real. But the Minnesota right is fighting back. My organization, Center of the American Experiment, has sponsored a poll that finds, among other things, that 85% of Minnesotans support law enforcement. We will soon begin a campaign to mobilize support behind law enforcement, including 38 billboards, radio ads, a social media campaign, a live webinar featuring Heather Mac Donald that we will be announcing soon, and more.

The current issue of our magazine, Thinking Minnesota, is at the printer. This is what the cover looks like:

The cover story on the riots in Minneapolis and St. Paul is by John Phelan and Tom Steward and is, in my opinion, riveting. It is uploaded via Scribd below, and I highly recommend it. Over the next few days I will be uploading some of the other major articles in the magazine, including one by Scott Johnson and Kevin Roche on COVID.

Thinking Minnesota is a terrific magazine with an impressive reach; the current issue will go out to an audience of 97,000. It focuses mostly on Minnesota, but pretty much all of the content is of interest no matter where you live. If you would like to subscribe (for free), all you have to do is send your name and address in an email to [email protected] and we will add you to the subscription list. Also, if you would like to support our work, you can go here to donate.
The loggerhead shrike is one of the varieties of birds that are being protected.
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Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has announced a total easing of the lockdown imposed on the state to check the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Mr Ganduje made the announcement on Thursday in Kano while briefing journalists on the COVID-19 pandemic at Government House, Kano.

He said, however, that restriction of movement from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. would continue.

The governor also directed civil servants on grade level 12 and above to resume work from July 6.

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Civil servants from grade level 12 and above can return to work from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. but must continue to practice social distancing, he said.

The governor said the law banning street begging and hawking is still in place.

He told Kano State residents to wear masks when going out and to continue to adhere to social distancing in public places. 

(NAN)
Three prominent Nigerians who were named as being part of a new political movement have said they were not consulted before such announcement was made.

Abubakar Umar, a retired colonel and activist; Shehu Sani, a former senator, and Olisa Agabakoba, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, said they were not consulted before the political movement called National Consultative Front (NCF) was announced.

Messrs Umar and Sani spoke to PREMIUM TIMES in separate interviews while Mr Agbakoba released a statement.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that about 30 prominent Nigerian activists, academics, and other professionals, were named, on Wednesday, as members of the newly formed political movement ahead of 2023 general elections.

This was after a public communique signed by Anthony Kila, a professor, was made available to different newsrooms.

Mr Kila said the group came up after month-long nationwide consultations and virtual meetings.

Members of the group, as listed in the communique, include former speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Naabba; former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Obadiah Mailafia; Mr Agbakoba; Femi Falana; Mr Umar: Oby Ezekwesili; Jibrin Ibrahim; Yabagi Sanni; Nkoyo Toyo, Isa Aremu, Chidi Odinkalu, and Mr Sani.

Others are Remi Sonaiya, Tanko Yinusa, Shettima Yerima, Funke Awolowo, Peter Ameh and Lanre Banjo, among others.

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Mr Kila said the movement would be citizen-driven and process-led in engendering a new peoples constitution.

When contacted, Mr Umar said although he believes such a movement was necessary, he was not consulted.

I was not consulted before I saw my name in the group, the retired colonel said, saying he may release a statement on the topic later.

Mr Sani expressed a similar view, saying although he agreed on the need for such movement, he was not consulted before his name was included.

Both men said they had a lot of respect for many of those mentioned as members of the movement.

Mr Agbakoba, in a short statement on Thursday, also denied being part of the newly formed group.

He said: My attention has been drawn to a widely circulated story that I am part of a new political movement known as the National Consultative Front. Without prejudice to the need for such a political movement, I want to place it on record that I was not consulted and so I am not part of the National Consultative Front.

When contacted, Mr Falana declined comment about the movement although an associate said even he was not consulted.

Meanwhile, Mrs Sonaiya, a professor, told PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview that truly a WhatsApp group was created for the aim of a political movement. But what surprised many was that the discussion has not reached a reasonable conclusion before it was made public. Some members did not expect that it would be made public so quickly even when we are yet to reach a reasonable conclusion.

So, I cant say I am not part of the group. Just that, no one expected it to be blown that early. For me, I am part of any movement that will transform Nigeria for good, she told our correspondent.

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Many retirees under the aegis of Osun State Contributory Pension Retirees, on Wednesday, protested alleged non-payment of their pension and gratuity.

The retirees, who came out with different placards, disrupted vehicular movement at the palace of the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi, where they had taken their protest.

They said the state government had refused to pay their 30 months half-salary arrears (2016 till date), non-payment of gratuities (2015 till date) and non-payment of their monthly pensions since 2015.

Some of the inscriptions on their placards include Governor Oyetola, give us our 30 months half salaries, Masses help us! Were dying among others.

Niyi Adefare, who led the protest, urged the Ife monarch to assist the helpless and some homeless senior citizens to get their entitlements.

He disclosed that despite their sickness and old age, the state government had neglected them.

Some of us find it difficult to even buy drugs and other essentials because our monies have not been paid by the state government, he lamented.

Another protester, Lawrence Ajayi, said the failure of the government to pay pensioners is an act of irresponsibility.

Oyetola came on board and hes boasting of not owing workers salaries. What then happens to some of us dying because of the negligence caused by his boss. We are dying of hunger and thats why we took our protest to Ooni to help intervene. Coronavirus has added salt to our injuries.

Governor of Osun state, Gboyega Oyeola

Before now, PREMIUM TIMES in January reported how some pensioners complained about being ejected from their houses and having to withdraw their children from school.

This newspapers publication revealed that Osun State, under Rauf Aregbesola, received several bailout funds from the federal government. Still, he defaulted in payment of salaries and pensions of retirees.

Rauf Aregbesola (Photo Credit: Instagram page)

He defended himself during a ministerial screening in the Senate last year by saying he made huge investment in the infrastructure of the state.

The protesters said Governor Gboyega Oyetola has begun to look into the plight of the deprived retirees, but his efforts appear inadequate.

The states deputy governor, Benedict Alabi in a recent interview with PREMIUM TIMES said the problem is that when you have arrears, you cant pay it in a single day. The government is not only to pay salaries of workers and pensioners alone, we are to take care of the welfare of our people.

Salary is there, security is there, health is part of it, and also economy development is part of the Mandate of the government. We are balancing all these but we know that salary is important and pension payment is important. We started from somewhere and weve been following through. It isnt being selective.

Osun retirees protest non-payment of entitlements since 2015

Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of the Ooni at the palace, the Laadin of Ife  a High Chief  Kayode Awofiranye, said, I sympathise with you (protesters) and I promise that your message will be delivered to His Imperial Majesty, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi for prompt communication with the state government.

It is so bad to hear that you are going through several hardships as a result of the non-payment of your entitlements, Kabiyesi is aware of your presence here and I want to assure you that necessary actions will be taken to effect the prompt payment of your rightful monies.
The bureau of board of governors of the African Development Bank Group has constituted a panel to conduct an independent review of the report of the ethics committee on the allegations made by whistleblowers against the president of the bank, Akinwumi Adesina.

A communique released by the bureau on Wednesday said that it agreed on the terms of reference for the independent review at its meetings of June 18 and July 1, 2020.

It, thereafter, selected three personsMary Robinson, Hassan B. Jallow and Leonard F. McCarthyto constitute a High-Level Panel of Independent Experts to conduct the said review.

The communique, signed by Niale Kaba, Governor for Cote dIvoire, noted that the bureau expresses its utmost trust and confidence in the panels ability to successfully carry out the assignment and reaffirms its commitment to fully assisting the panel in the process.

The panel is expected to submit its report to the bureau within a period of two to four weeks maximum, the communique said.

Bank violating own rules?

Last month, PREMIUM TIMES reported how the decision of the governors to authorise an independent review of the allegations against Mr Adesina is a violation of the banks rule.

This newspapers analysis of the banks ethics committees report and its code of conduct for its executive directors, including its president, revealed that the ethics committee should not have referred the matter to the board in the first place.

The review also showed that the board should not have authorised an independent review of the report of the preliminary examination into the complaint as demanded by the U.S. government.

Article 3 Section 1 of Resolution B/BG/2008/11 empowers the Ethics Committee to receive complaints and allegations relating to the violation of the provisions of the Code of Conduct by the President. The resolution also stipulates that on receipt of such complaints and allegation, the ethics committee should conduct preliminary examinations of such complaints.

After exonerating Mr Adesina and describing each of the 16 allegations against him as either unsubstantiated, spurious or unfounded, the ethics committee proceeded to refer the matter to the banks board.

That is a clear violation of the regulation upon which the ethics committee claimed it acted, the report revealed.

By the rules, the committee should have taken no further action on the matter after it determined that the allegations were baseless and unfounded.

Article 4 of the resolution stated that the chairperson of the bureau of the board of governors, in consultation with other members of the bureau, has the final say whether or not a complaint against the President submitted to the board requires investigation in relation to the violation by the president of any provision of the code of conduct.

It stated that in taking this decision, the chairperson may require the ethics committee and the person that made the complaint or allegation or any department of the bank, to provide additional information and clarifications, where necessary.

The chairperson of the bureau of the board of governors may, in appropriate cases, require the Ethics Committee to conduct more in-depth investigations.

Panel members

Meanwhile, the bureau in its latest communique, said the new panel is made up of individuals with unquestionable experience, high international reputation and professional integrity.

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Mrs Robinson, who is chair of the panel, is a barrister and a former President of the Republic of Ireland. She was also the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

She, among other numerous global and national responsibilities, is the chairperson of the Elders, a global body of wise persons concerned about the wellbeing of the world.

Mr Jallow is a former attorney general and minister of justice of the Republic of the Gambia as well as a former Justice of the Supreme Court of the Gambia.

In 2003 he was appointed as a judge of the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and later that year as the Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). On February 5, 2017, Mr Jallow was sworn-in as the Chief Justice of the Gambia.

Mr McCarthy is a former director of public prosecutions, a former director for the Office of Serious Economic Offences, and a former head of the Directorate of Special Operations of South Africa.

He served as the Integrity Vice President of the World Bank for nine years. Mr McCarthy is currently the President of LFMcCarthy Associates, Inc., an integrity risk management company based in Washington, D.C, USA.

Allegations

In a petition by the group of whistleblowers, Mr Adesina was accused of breaching the banks code of conduct, including unethical conduct, private gain, an impediment to efficiency, preferential treatment, and involvement in political activities.

The group, which noted their allegations were in line with AfDBs whistleblowing policy, said these activities adversely affected the confidence and integrity of the bank.

The bank, however, found the allegations to be frivolous and thus cleared Mr Adesina.

Regardless, the United States government kicked. It expressed deep reservations about the integrity of the committees process and called for a fresh in-depth investigation of the allegations.

In a letter dated May 22, 2020 to Ms Kaba, the U.S. government, through the Secretary, Department of Treasury in Washington, D.C., Steven Mnuchin, faulted the decision of the committee to totally exonerate Mr Adesina of all allegations, saying it was not yet time to make such a declaration.

On June 5, PREMIUM TIMES reported how the board of governors of the bank approved an independent review of the ethics committees work.

The decision, taken at the meeting of the bureau regarding the whistleblowers complaints against Mr Adesina, was obviously in deference to the demand by the U.S. government

Mr Adesina has consistently insisted that he is innocent amid the crisis.

President @MBuhari receives President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. @Akin_Adesina, at the State House, Abuja. [PHOTO CREDIT: BASHIR AHMAD]

In a recent visit to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Adesina, a former Nigerian minister for agriculture, said the allegations raised against him were trumped up, and without facts, evidence, and documents, as required by the rules and regulations of the bank.

Earlier, he had said that he is confident that a fair and just process of investigation would establish that he is innocent of all the allegations levelled against him.
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Two suspected Nigerian internet fraudsters, Ramon Abbas and Olalekan Ponle, widely known as Hushpuppi and Woodberry respectively, have been extradited to the United States, officials have said.

The Dubai police disclosed this in a statement posted on Twitter, on Thursday.

Hushpuppi and Woodberry were arrested in the United Arab Emirate on June 10, for multiple fraud charges after a raid by operatives of the Dubia crime unit, titled Fox Hunt 2.

The Dubai police had also released a video detailing how the arrest was effected.

It was revealed in the video that Hushpuppi had defrauded thousands of victims of about N168 billion. The police also stated that they recovered 150 million dirhams cash (about N16 billion)during the coordinated raids.

According to the statement, the Director Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, thanked the Dubai authorities for their cooperation in arresting and extraditing the suspects.

Mr Wray said, FBI thanks Dubai Police for arresting and extraditing Hushpuppi and Woodberry, the statement revealed.

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray has praised the exceptional efforts exerted by the United Arab Emirate, represented by the Dubai Police General HQ, in combating transnational organised cybercrime including the recent arrest of Raymond Igbalode Abbas, known as Hushpuppi and Olalekan Jacob Ponle aka Woodberry who were taken down in operation Fox Hunt 2.

Mr Wray also extended his appreciation to Dubai Police for their cooperation in extraditing the wanted criminals, who committed money-laundering and multiple cybercrimes, to the United States, the statement highlighted.

The suspects were caught in a series of synchronised raids by six SWAT teams from Dubai Police who foiled the gangs bid to deceive many people from around the world and steal their money, the statement said.

The director of Dubai CID, Jamal Salem Al Jallaf, said the raid resulted in confiscating incriminating documents of a planned fraud on a global scale worth AED 1.6 billion ($ 435 million).

The team also seized more than AED 150 million ($40.9 million) in cash, 13 luxury cars with an estimated value of AED 25 million ($6.8 million) obtained from fraud crimes, and confiscated 21 computer devices, 47 smartphones, 15 memory sticks, five hard disks containing 119,580 fraud files as well as addresses of 1,926,400 victims, he said.

After conducting further investigations and analysing confiscated electronic devices, Dubai Police investigators uncovered sensitive information mined by the suspects on individuals and companies overseas including bank accounts and fake credit cards as well as documents and files condemning the gangs illegal activities.

Hushpuppi joins a list of high-profile Nigerians to be arrested so far in 2020. He was arrested months after several other Nigerians, including Obinwanne Okeke and Ismaila Mompha; who were arrested in August and October 2019 respectively, for their alleged roles in separate multinational fraud.

Hushpuppi, who has over two million followers on Instagram, is known for his display of luxury on social media.

In the wake of his arrest, sources had told PREMIUM TIMES about a custody battle for him between Nigerian and U.S. officials.
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The Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) in partnership with Development Research and Project Center (DRPC), through the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale (PACFaH@Scale) project, is hosting a webinar Friday, July 3.

The online event is titled: Securing The Funding Gap For Family Planning In The Face Of COVID-19.

A set of experts and key stakeholders in the family planning field are expected to attend this webinar. This includes the government, with Lawrence Anyanwu, civil society advocates with Minnie Oseji, Ejike Oji, Habib Muhammad Saduaki and Ekenem Isichei.

The relevance of this subject matter is one that threatens gains made in the health sector this past decade. Recently, reports have been made of a decline in health intervention activities and services including in the family planning sector.

According to the civil society organisation, PACFaH@Scale, the webinar is deemed relevant by the recent budgetary cuts in the country.

In 2019, the Federal Ministry of Health released N300 million naira out of the N1.2bn proposed in the budget for family planning. This represented a 75 per cent cut from the N1.2bn approved. The Federal Ministry of Health then committed to a follow-up of N900m from Federal-Ministry-of-Health-Service-wide vote to meet the 2019 commitment of N1.2 bn.

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In 2020, the Federal Government of Nigeria has proposed N1.2bn for family planning in the budget but there is still a funding gap as this fund is for the purchase of family planning commodities.

As such, what PTCIJ aims to achieve with this webinar is to consolidate and sustain the governments commitment towards family planning funding in the country, as well as explore the true extent of the impact of the funding gap on the family planning sector.

It is also hoped that this webinar opens up discussions on more sustainable ways of funding family planning in Nigeria going forward, a statement on the webinar, highlighted.

PACFaH@Scale noted that the webinar is therefore designed to educate the public, civil society organizations, and to engage with the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Health on the need to fulfil this commitment to releasing the service-wide vote of N900 million for the purchase of family planning commodities.
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Members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) caretaker committee, on Thursday, visited the former interim national chairman of the party, Bisi Akande, in Osun State.

The members, who visited Mr Akande  a former governor of Osun State  at his residence in Ila Orangun, said the meeting was to begin the reconciliation process and find a solution to the crisis that has rocked the party in recent months.

Mr Akande is also the chairman of the partys National Reconciliation Committee.

On Thursday, the chairman of the caretaker committee, Yobe Governor, Mala Buni, led other members of the committee to Mr Akandes country home.

The members who attended the over one hour meeting include the secretary of the caretaker committee, Akpan Udoedehe; Osun State Governor, Gboyega Oyetola, and Governor of Niger State, Sani Bello.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the committee came into being on June 25 after the party dissolved its National Working Committee after months of internal crisis and serial litigations.

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Yekini Nabena, had said the reconciliation committee for Edo would be led by former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, while Governor Bello would head the reconciliation committee for Ondo State.

This is in line with the process of true reconciliation among leaders and members of the party at all levels, announced by the National Chairman of the Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary National Convention Planning Committee, Governor Mai Mala Buni.

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Members of the Edo reconciliation committee headed by Mr Nnamani include the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola and the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo.

Others are Tahir Mamman, Margaret Okadigbo, Sanusi Musa and Abdul-Rahman Kawu Sumaila as Secretary, the official had added.

The ruling party has been embroiled in a series of crisis which played out primarily as a tussle in one of the states it controls.

The months-long tussle for political supremacy between the recently sacked national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, and his estranged protege, the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki ended with the ouster of the former and the governors defection to the opposition PDP, under whose banner he will now be seeking re-election.

Political pundits opine that the internal crisis is aimed at controlling crucial party structures ahead of the 2023 polls.
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The Senate has summoned Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, to brief the Senate Committees on Finance, Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes; Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions on measures being sought to curb revenue loss, and curb tax evasion and money laundering activities.

Also summoned are heads of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).

The heads of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU); the Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM); Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) among other relevant institutions were also invited.

The decision was sequel to a motion sponsored by Gershom Bassey on the need to review the domestic legal framework against illicit Financial Flows and to consider the creation of a Tax Amnesty for the voluntary repatriation of funds to Nigeria.

In his presentation, Mr Bassey noted that Nigeria lost a minimum of $140 billion to illicit financial flows between 2000 and 2014, mainly to crude oil and commercial activities mis-pricing.

This economic loss, he said, was not abated, as Nigeria was ranked among the global top 30 countries of illicit financial outflows by dollar value, with $8.3 billion in illicit outflow from Nigeria in 2015.

Findings by the Tax Justice Network and International Monetary Fund reveals that developing countries, including Nigeria, have lost over $200 billion per year to illicit financial flows as multinational corporations neglect and refuse to pay taxes in these countries where they generate substantial amounts of profit, he explained.

Nigeria loses approximately $15 billion annually to offshore tax evasion. This has resulted in a consistently low tax revenue as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as low as 5.7 percent in 2017. Such statistics are alarming, especially when compared to the 17.2 percent average of 26 African countries in the same year.

This incessant financial drain on the Nigerian economy continues to have negative implications for domestic resource mobilization and long-term economic growth and development, Mr Bassey said.

The lawmaker lamented that though Nigeria has at least 12 institutions and agencies responsible for tackling illicit financial flows (IFFs), the country continues to be menaced by weak regulatory structures and the complicity of other financial secrecy jurisdictions, among others.

While mandating the relevant committees to investigate illicit financial flows, the Senate called for an appraisal of the Federal Inland Revenue Services current framework for tracing, identifying, preventing and sanctioning cross-border tax evasion and other illicit financial outflows.

The Senate also mandated the committee to come up with a holistic legislative framework on how to repatriate lost revenue due to illicit financial flows, mitigate such future unabated flows and provide an efficient strategy for the reinvestment of repatriated resources into the Nigerian economy.
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The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has restated its call for a honest implementation of the federal governments whistleblower blower policy as a way of ensuring the success of the war against corruption.

The centre highlighted fair and upright application of the rules as one of three key areas in engaging the whistleblowing policy.

Other areas are creating awareness and advocating effective whistleblower protection.

In a press statement signed by Chido Onumah, coordinator of the centre, AFRICMIL said the signals from the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice which give the impression of unfair treatment of a whistleblower, John Okupurhe, were disturbing.

The outcome of the reported interactions between the whistleblower and officials in the AGFs office is depressing, the statement said. You do not expect a whistleblower to be so shabbily treated that the only conclusion an unbiased observer would reach is that there is a grand plot to deny him his due.

AFRICMIL described as worrisome the statement credited to the AGF to the effect that beyond providing information or exposing stolen public funds, whistleblowers would have to recover the funds and lodge them in stipulated accounts before they are rewarded.

The centre accused the AGF of misreading the whistleblowing policy document released by the federal government in December 2016, adding that there is nowhere in the document that says whistleblowers have a responsibility to recover fund after providing information to the relevant authorities.

Section 12 of the whistleblowing policy FAQ document available on the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning say: A Whistleblower responsible for providing the Government with information that directly leads to the voluntary return of stolen or concealed public funds or assets may be entitled to anywhere between 2.5%-5.0% of amount recovered. In order to qualify for the reward, the Whistleblower must provide the Government with information it does not already have and could not otherwise obtain from any other publicly available source to the Government. The actual recovery must also be on account of the information provided by the Whistleblower.

According to Mr Onumah, That document only says whistleblowers would get their reward following the supply of information that leads to the voluntary return of stolen or hidden funds or assets. It did not say whistleblowers must recover the funds or assets as the AGF is interpreting.

AFRICMIL said the duty of ensuring recovery is statutorily that of the security agencies working with the administrators of the whistleblowing policy. The organisation cited, for example, the Ikoyi apartment incident where upon the exposure of funds concealed in the apartment, security agents moved in and recovered the looted funds. That recovery was not made by the whistleblower but by security agents. And the whistleblower was rightly paid what is due to him even if after some embarrassing official delay, the statement added.

The organisation advised the AGF to promptly retract the portion of his statement that has apparently distorted the facts in the whistleblowing policy document, warning that failure to do so will be a costly disincentive to the patriotic duty of whistleblowing.

According to the statement, no reasonable citizen will blow the whistle on stolen or hidden public funds if he is also the one to recover the funds and deposit in a bank.

AFRICMIL said instead of appearing to cut the image of a huge stumbling block in governments anti-corruption efforts, the office of the AGF should focus on redirecting its purpose toward desirable societal ends by working harmoniously with the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) and other anti-corruption agencies to ensure a faithful implementation of the whistleblower policy.

The statement called on President Muhammadu Buhari to show commitment to genuine anti-corruption war by ensuring that whistleblowers get the protection they deserve. It urged him to ensure swift investigation of the petition sent to him by lawyers of John Okupurhe, the whistleblower in the alleged fraud in the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), both in the interest of justice and the survival of whistleblowing as an important tool for fighting corruption in Nigeria.
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The commissioner for health in Ondo State, Wahab Adegbenro, is dead.

Multiple sources in the government house told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr Adegbenro died at the states infectious disease hospital on Thursday.

He died this morning at the state infectious disease hospital where he was receiving treatment, one of the sources who did not want his name on print said.

The senior special assistant to the governor on special duties, Odebowale Oladoyin also confirmed the death of Mr Adegbenro. He was silent on whether he died of COVID-19 complications.

This is coming two days after the state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, tested positive for the deadly disease.

He had since ordered his cabinet members to go for a compulsory test.

Profile

The late health commissioner was born on June 5, 1955 at Ilara-mokin in Ifedore Local Government Area of Ondo State where he had his primary education.

He later attended Oyemekun Grammar School, Akure between 1962 and 1967, before proceeding to the University of Benin, in Edo to bag Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (M.B; B.S).

He was a member of the Nigeria Medical Association; member of the Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria; Associate member, Royal College of General Practitioners of London; and member of Nigeria Guild of Medical Directors.

He established Crown Hospital, Akure where he was the Chief Medical Director.

He served at different capacities during his time.

He was once a commissioner in charge of culture and tourism and later the health ministry.

Also, he served as the Chairman, Ondo State Council of All Progressive Congress (APC) Muslim members.
The chairman of the ruling APC caretaker committee, Yobe Governor, Mala Buni, on Thursday said a meeting his team held in Osun State on Thursday with a chieftain of the party, Bisi Akande, was aimed at initiating reconciliation in the party.

Governor Buni, who did not give specific details of what was discussed at the meeting, however, said it was successful.

This meeting further gives the committee a lot of confidence towards a very successful exercise, a statement from the governors media team said.

He said with such support and encouragement from founding fathers like Mr Akande, the commitee is strengthened and confident that all other stakeholders will extend the required support for the party to emerge more stronger.

Hope rising?

Meanwhile, the statement quoted Mr Akande as saying his faith in a strong APC has been renewed with the calibre of members of the committee.

Mr Akande reportedly disclosed this in an interview with reporters after a meeting with Governor Buni, three other governors and the partys national secretary who visited him at his Ila Orangun country home in Osun State.

Mr Buni was named chairman caretaker/extra-ordinary convention committee last week when the National Executive Committee dissolved the crisis ridden National Working Committee led by ousted Adams Oshiomole.

Mr Akande, while advising members of the committee urged the committee to differentiate true party men from platform seekers for the party to grow.

There is a great hope in what l have seen in this committee, the party will certainly bounce back stronger.

I will continue to leave myself open with a call on other stakeholders to cooperate and support the committee to succeed.

READ ALSO:

The governors present at the meeting were Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi, Abubakar Bello of Niger and Gboyega Oyetola of Osun State.

The committee came into being on June 25 after the party dissolved its NWC after months of internal crisis and serial limitations.

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Yekini Nabena, had said the reconciliation committee for Edo would be led by former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, while Governor Bello would head the reconciliation committee for Ondo State.

This is in line with the process of true reconciliation among leaders and members of the party at all levels, announced by the National Chairman of the Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary National Convention Planning Committee, Governor Mai Mala Buni.

Members of the Edo reconciliation committee headed by Mr Nnamani include the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola and the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo.

Others are Tahir Mamman, Margaret Okadigbo, Sanusi Musa and Abdul-Rahman Kawu Sumaila as Secretary, the official had added.

The ruling party has been embroiled in a series of crisis which played out primarily as a tussle in one of the states it controls.

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The months-long tussle for political supremacy between the recently sacked national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole and his estranged protege, the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki ended with the ouster of the former labour leader and the governors defection to the opposition PDP, under whose banner he would be now be contesting for re-election.

Political pundits opine that the internal crisis is aimed at controlling crucial party structures ahead of the 2023 polls.
The Ekklesiyar Yanuwa a Nigeria (EYN) also known as Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, has said it lost more than 8,370 members, including eight Pastors, to the Boko Haram Insurgency in the North East.

EYN President, Joel Billi, who gave the statistics on Thursday, at the World News Conference, organised by the Dominion, in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, said 25,000 members of the Church were currently taking refuge in neighbouring Cameroun, while more than 700,000 were in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.

Mr Billi said the purpose of the news conference was to review and highlight the effects of insurgency and the state of the nation, on the Churchs activities.

The president regretted that the activities of the terrorists had affected more than 1.5 million members, and caused huge damages to the denominations places of worship in the North East region.

It could be recalled that EYN has lost over 8,370 members and eight pastors with the numbers increasing on a daily basis.

Over 700,000 members are displaced and about 25, 000 are currently taking refuge in Cameroon and Chad Republics.

About 300 of the 586 churches have been either burnt or destroyed with an uncountable number of houses belonging to our members looted or burnt too, Mr Billi said.

He further explained that only seven, out of the 60 District Church Councils, were not directly affected by the insurgency.

On abduction, he stated that many of their members were abducted by the insurgents, with 217 out of the abducted 276 Chibok school girls belonging to the EYN.

He said the EYN is the single Christian Denomination that is worse hit by activities of the Boko Haram terrorists.

On the fight against the insurgency, the EYN president commended the renewed zeal by the military and other security agents, in tackling the menace.

He however, called on the federal government and the state governments of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, to as a matter of urgency, rescue the remaining abducted Chibok school girls and reunite them safely with their families.

I also call with a loud voice, on the federal government, under President Muhammadu Buhari, to rescue Leah Sharibu, Alice Loksha, and hundreds of others abducted by the Boko Haram, he stated.

He lamented that there were still several villages and communities that had been deserted by their inhabitants due to continuous attacks by Boko Haram.

Mr Billi also urged the president, to as a matter of urgency, deploy at least a Battalion of military to the deserted areas behind the Gwoza Hills, to ensure the speedy return of the IDPs to their ancestral land.

Government should immediately reconstruct and rehabilitate all houses, schools and worship places, destroyed by the insurgents in the deserted villages, through the Northeast Development Commission.

Government should also deploy more security personnel to volatile areas to mitigate further attacks.

The federal government should equally marshal out plans to evacuate the over 47,000 Nigerian refugees in Cameroonian Camps, back to their ancestral homes, by the end of 2020, he said.

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Mr Billi urged further urged the government to live up to its constitutional responsibility by putting a stop to the continuous killings, abductions, rape and all forms of criminality across the country.

He also called the attention of the government to activities of tribal militia, armed bandits and kidnappers terrorising Nigerian communities.

On the state of the nation, Mr Billi commended the federal government and the Presidential Task Force (PTF), on (COVID-19), for the proactive measures they had been taking in fighting the pandemic.

We salute our front line health workers for putting their lives on the line for the generality of Nigerians.

We sympathise with families who lost their loved ones, as a result of this global pandemic, and call on all Nigerians to adhere to safety protocols and guidelines so that the disease will be defeated Mr Billi added.

(NAN)
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The Niger State government on Thursday approved N86 million for the quarantine, feeding and repatriation of almajiri pupils to their various states of origin.

The state Commissioner for Education, Hannatu Salihu, said this at a news conference in Minna.

She said the approval was given during the weekly Executive Council meeting.

Ms Salihu said that it was in line with the Northern Governors Forums decision that all state governments should return almajiri pupils to their various states as parts of measures to contain the spread of Coronavirus.

She said that 86 almajiri pupils were returned and reunited with their parents in the first phase.

The commissioner added that 557 almajiri pupils out of 708 were taken back to their states during the second phase of repatriation.

She said that 139 of them from the state were reunited with their families through the Niger State Child Rights Protection Agency, while 12 were foreigners and two could not identify their states of origin.

On the reopening of schools in the state, the commissioner said the ministry held two critical stakeholders meetings to review COVID-19 responses and guideline implementation.

ALMAJIRI

She said that the meetings were to come up with recommendations in line with the Presidential Task Force and Federal Ministry of Education guidelines on COVID-19 on the reopening of schools.

If schools must be reopened, we must first consider the health of the students and the teachers.

For now, we cannot give a tentative date for reopening of schools until all the recommendations are put in place, she said.

Ms Salihu said the state government was doing its best to ensure the protection of the lives of children.

Also, the states Commissioner for Justice, Danmalam Nasara, said that the council approved two bills which included, the bill for creation of Niger State Traffic Management Agency and the bill to amend Child Rights Law, 2010.

Mr Nasara said the bills were to enforce traffic rules and regulations and to give the Child Rights Protection Agency a legal backing to operate in protecting the rights of children.

He added that the two bills would be sent to the legislature for consideration and passage.

(NAN)
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The Kwara College of Education says it is yet to uncover how more than 2,000 fake certificates of the school were used to secure employment with various government agencies in the state.

The Provost of the college, Abdulraheem Yusuf, a professor, said in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Ilorin that recent reports had twisted his response in the interview he granted.

The statement asserted that he never made mention of a fake Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) in the interview, but statement of results.

NAN recalls that there was a media report recently disclosing that the college had so far uncovered about 2,000 fake certificates of the institution used to secure teaching jobs with the state.

The attention of the management of Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin, has been drawn to trending reports on some news media platforms purportedly credited to me.

The report claimed that over 2,000 fake NCE certificates issued in the name of the institution have been used to secure employment in the State Civil Service, especially in SUBEB, Teaching Service Commission, and the state Ministry of Education, the statement read in part.

It admitted that the provost granted an interview to a newspaper correspondent on June 18, but explained he was largely misquoted.

However, what is being reported, though not put in proper perspective as it is being misconstrued as if it is a recent development, was a result of the verification exercise carried out by SUBEB, Teaching Service Commission and State Civil Service Commission in 2018.

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Although there were cases of fake statement of results, not certificates, claimed to have been issued by the College in the past, many of them have been fished out.

It should be stated for clarity of purpose that the issuance of certificates is the sole responsibility of the National Commission for Colleges of Education based on students graduation lists sent from the College.

The Kwara State College of Education Ilorin, which remains the oldest NCE awarding institution in northern Nigeria, is known for credibility of its products, who have contributed and still contributing to all sectors of our national development.

The college therefore will neither discredit nor disown any of its own products, who have legitimately fulfilled all conditions required for certification, the statement quoted Mr Yusuf saying.

It noted that the verification exercise was done in 2018 to restore the glory of the college and reposition it.

(NAN)
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Two persons have been killed and five others abducted in Ekoli Edda in Afikpo South local government area of Ebonyi State

The police said the victims were attacked by gunmen from the neighbouring Biase local government area of Cross River State.

The two communities have a dispute over a palm plantation on their boundary.

Police spokesperson in Ebonyi State, Loveth Odah, in a statement said the two dead victims were a couple.

She gave their names as Ndukwe Okoroafor, aged 55, and his wife, Paulina Ndukwe, 49.

On June 30 at about 4 p.m, the DPO Afikpo South received a distress call that gunmen from Biase LGA of Cross River State attacked some persons at Erei Palm Plantation located at the boundary between Ekoli Edda in Afikpo South L.G.A of Ebonyi State and Biase LGA of Cross River State.

Following the report, the DPO quickly contacted the youth leader of Ekoli Edda who also informed him that an eyewitness to the alleged attack, one Kalu Ndukwe, narrowly escaped with bullet wounds but saw his father, one Ndukwe Okoroafor m aged about 55yrs, and his mother, one Paulina Ndukwe f aged about 49yrs, being slaughtered by the attackers.

The police spokesperson said the gunmen also abducted five others, namely Esther Ikwo, Elizabeth Ikwo, Chinechere Nnachi, Ogbonna Aku and Sunday Ogbuu Ama.

The victims, according to Mrs Odah, were taken to an unknown destination together with the corpse of the Ndukwe couple.

Mrs Odah said the commissioner of Police, Philip Maku, condemned the attack as hideous and barbaric.

She said the commissioner dispatched a team of police officers and soldiers to the area with a view to rescuing the abducted persons and arresting the assailants.

Furthermore, the CP has enjoined residents of the area, especially the youths, to maintain peace, avoid taking law into their hands or acting in ways that could jeopardize investigation into the matter.

Meanwhile, preliminary investigation revealed that the attack is as result of resurgence of the longstanding communal feud between the people of Ekoli Edda in Afikpo South L.G.A of Ebonyi State and Biase L.G.A of Cross River State over the Palm Plantation.

To this end, the good people of Ebonyi State have been enjoined to remain law abiding and assist the Police with credible information that will lead to the arrest of the culprits, she added.
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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will hold a screening for aspirants today in Abuja, ahead of the Ondo State governorship race, an official has confirmed.

The leadership of the party has also named former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, as chairman of a five-member screening committee.

Others in the committee are Bunmi Jenyo (secretary), Zainab Kure, Fred Agbedi, and Ndubuisi Agwuama.

According to a statement signed by Kola Ologbondiyan, national publicity secretary of the party, the screening is scheduled to hold on Thursday, July 2, 2020 at the NWC Hall at the PDP National Secretariat, Abuja at 10 a.m.

Equally, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it would not embark on new registration of voters, distribute PVCs, nor carry out transfer and replacement of lost or defaced PVCs owing to the ravaging coronavirus.

Speaking at a press briefing in Akure on Wednesday, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for INEC in Ondo, Rufus Akeju, reportedly said the state has 1,822,346 registered voters with 1,478,470 PVCs collected.

Over 500,000 likely potential voters in Ondo may be disenfranchised in the October 10 governorship election as there are over 372,888 uncollected PVCs in the state. Also the number of persons that have turned 18 since the last voter registration are said to be over 200,000.

Mr Akeju, however, stated the new measures put in place was to mitigate the new challenge thrown up by COVID-19 pandemic.

He also urged political parties to be democratic and avoid violence.
Sterling Heights, MI (48312)

Today

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 46F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 46F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.
The Declaration of Independence was written out in Spanish and in English, and was read aloud in both languages on July 4, 1850 at an Independence Day celebration in Monterey. The documents remain on display at Colton Hall.
Since we talked about real estate in an IRA last week, I thought we would stay on the real estate topic this week. I know home prices are sky 
The Community Scholars Program grants will be provided to local educational institutions, supporting students as gap funding. Partnering educational institutions will make award decisions based on a students financial need and pursuit of degrees in energy related fields.

Rowan College of South Jersey is appreciative of this generous donation being made to our Cumberland and Gloucester students by Atlantic City Electric, College President Frederick Keating said. On behalf of the foundations, I want to thank Atlantic City Electric for the Community Scholars Program Scholarship. This gift is evidence to the commitment and desire to aid students in the pursuit of a higher education and will make a difference in the lives of our students, particularly during this time of economic uncertainty.

"We are thrilled about our ongoing partnership with Atlantic City Electric in creating education pathways for Atlantic Cape students, said Barbara Gaba, Atlantic Cape Community College president. "We are most grateful for the $25,000 grant that provides scholarships for students in need.
American Legion Auxiliary will assist quarantined vets: The Kline-McAnney American Legion Auxiliary Unit 396 offers assistance to local veterans and senior citizens who are homebound as a result of the COVID-19 self-quarantine measures. Auxiliary members can run errands and provide other services based on need on a first-come, first-served basis, the auxiliary announced in a new release. For information, call Rita Pagaloutus at 609-412-1851.
The start to any relationship begins with a greeting. This holds true for a business to customer or B2B relationship as well. The way you greet your customer goes a long way toward setting the tone for the customer's experience with you and your business. A warm, sincere greeting has the ability to make a positive first impression. Making the greeting as effective as possible should also help to do a number of things. The greeting has the potential to identify the customer's needs and also help move the conversation of commerce forward while setting the stage for a sale.

Many customers may come in to your establishment with pre-conceived notions or in a more timid way if this is their first visit to your business. While it is important to recognize the posture and attitude of a customer entering your business, do not let what you think you see stop you from greeting a customer properly. Some customers will give the impression that they do not want to be approached or assisted. This is an opportunity to offer a warm, sincere greeting. This may be exactly what the customer needs to move towards feeling more comfortable in your store or business.

A greeting acknowledges you are aware of the customer's presence. It also makes clear that you are there to offer assist if they need it.
Knights of Columbus Yard Sale

The KofC store at 601 Bayshore Ave. is open 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday. Drop off unwanted but usable items from your closets at the store. For larger items contact the Parish Office and leave your name and phone number. A member of the Knights will contact you. No clothing or shoes please. Many thanks for your past generous donations and support of this sale.

Summer update

Our parish is back in business with a full schedule of summer weekend Masses, but with limited seating and social distancing as required by the diocese. The church and the hall can accommodate only 30% of their capacity, but an additional 5:30 p.m. Mass is offered Sunday evenings as an alternative to the morning Masses. The weekend Mass schedule is 4 p.m. Saturday and 7, 8, 9:30 and 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Sunday. The 5:30 Mass replaces the summer 10 a.m. Mass previously celebrated in the Community School.

Rosary for Peace

The Tuesday evening Rosary for Peace has resumed at the outdoor shrine. Join us at 7 p.m. for the recitation of the rosary, but please remember to bring your own lawn chair and mask.

July anniversaries

Anyone celebrating an anniversary in July is invited to notify the office so we can publish your names in our weekly bulletins. Call the office or e-mail the bulletin editor at bulletin@stabrig.org. Let us all share in your happiness.
The primary way children get lead poisoning is by inhaling lead dust from old lead-based paint. More than 70% of homes in New Jersey were built before 1978, the year the federal ban on the use of residential lead-based paint was enacted. Because New Jersey has a high number of older homes, lead poisoning prevention is especially important for residents, regardless of whether they live in an urban, suburban or rural area.

Lead poisoning is more than just a public health issue. It is an environmental justice issue as well, since a disproportionate number of children who are exposed to lead are minorities, low-income, and live in substandard rental properties, McLaughlin said.

Kellys presentation was originally intended to be a live event planned through Sustainable Downbeach, but offering it online enables this information to reach a larger audience, said Amy Menzel, Hub co-chair. Kelly is undertaking this as part of her certification as a Rutgers Environmental Steward and it is a great way for her to use her professional knowledge and experience as a volunteer to help local Green Teams to address this public health issue.
Jewish Family Service of Atlantic & Cape May Counties employees Dina McGowan, Rita Conti and Patience James show a sign celebrating the JFS staff who have continued to provide essential services to residents and the community during this pandemic. The sign, which is displayed in front of the Margate office building, features the first name of all 175 JFS staff members. The JFS staff continues to provide nonperishables through our Food Pantry, Meals on Wheels and grocery shopping for homebound seniors, and virtual programming for Village by the Shore members, their family and friends. For more information on JFS programs and services, call 609-822-1108, ext. 1.
The South Jersey Jazz Society has announced the annual Bob Simon Scholarship Award has been awarded to Grant Johnson.

Johnson is entering his senior year at Oakcrest High School. He is a saxophonist and composer. According to Richard Schwartz, the directors of bands at Oakcrest, Johnson is an amazingly talented tenor player and he is an exceptional instrumentalist who excels at music technology through the creation of his own sound.

Johnson will receive a $1,000 scholarship that will allow him to work one-on-one with a professional jazz educator.

Bob Simon, whom the grant is named for, was a longtime supporter of the arts, and specifically jazz, in southern New Jersey. This program is made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council of the Arts of the State Department, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, through the Local Arts Grant administered by the Atlantic County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs.

Additional funding was provided by Shore Medical Center.

For more information call 609-927-6677 or see southjerseyjazz.org.
Welcome to History Notes, our weekly feature that looks at Egg Harbor Township history. Each week we get a chance to learn or reminisce courte
As we talked about in our last column, we are concentrating on native plants to study and purchase in our area. Again, the benefits of helping
Land of the (not so) Free

The Declaration of Independence set out principles of freedom for some, but not for all.
An Associated Press investigation has found that at least 1,900 U.S. military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s. Civilians later u
SEA ISLE CITY  Five South Jersey police departments Thursday held a ceremony to launch a campaign to combat drunken driving this summer.

The 11 a.m. ceremony at the Promenade and JFK Boulevard featured the unveiling of a fleet of patrol cars for departments in the city, Atlantic City, Ocean City, Lower Township and Evesham Township displaying the branding of the John R. Elliott HERO Campaign for Designated Drivers, according to a news release from the city. The event also highlighted the launch of the Summer of HEROES drunken driving prevention campaign.

Lower Township police unveil new vehicle promoting HERO Campaign, honoring fallen officers LOWER TOWNSHIP  Township police on Friday unveiled their new vehicle dedicated to a campaig

The campaign logo and slogan, Be a HERO. Be a Designated Driver, are emblazoned on the cruisers and SUVs as rolling billboards for the HERO Campaign, named in memory of a young naval officer killed by a drunken driver in July 2000, officials said.

We are grateful to our law enforcement partners for helping us save lives by encouraging safe and sober designated driving, HERO Campaign Chairman and co-founder Bill Elliott said at the ceremony. With these rolling billboards reminding South Jersey residents of the importance of designated driving, we will keep our roads safe from the dangers of drunk driving.

Linwood and Middle Township also have HERO-branded police vehicles, according to a news release from the campaign.

+2 South Jersey police grow beards to support local sergeant's family MIDDLE TOWNSHIP  A year ago, I never would have imagined my family in the position its in
Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday signed an executive order extending the public health emergency in the state an additional 30 days.

What todays action means is that we will have the authority to remain vigilant and prepared to act should there be a new outbreak  please God, no  of COVID-19, Murphy said during his daily briefing with other state officials.

A public health declaration expires unless extended.

He also signed an order raising the limit on outdoor gatherings from 250 to 500, effective Friday, which would accommodate outdoor in-person graduation ceremonies that are allowed to begin Monday.

+7 WATCH NOW: Atlantic City casinos reopen to excited, cautious crowds ATLANTIC CITY  Leslie Hauck sat at an empty row of slot machines near the back of the gamin

Murphy asked residents Thursday to continue practicing social distancing from others and wear masks as more spaces, closed to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, begin to reopen.

As you continue to get back out, please continue to keep a social distance from others and wear a face covering, Murphy said. And if youre going to be at an indoor business, remember that face coverings are required before you step inside.

Casinos, as well as many outdoor and indoor spaces, reopened Thursday.
A Mullica Township man was hit by lightning, and police went to his aid, only to be responded with violence visited upon them including biting by the agitated man, a possible health threat. This should educate the public that when an individual is highly agitated by drugs, booze or even lightning, they sometimes have the strength of 10 men, and require extraordinary force to get them under control.

I myself had to deal with such a situation during the Korean War, when an agitated soldier on booze triggered a call for help, wherein upon arrival at the scene I saw the soldier fling the heavyset paratrooper officer of the day into the air like a rag doll. As the sergeant of the guard I had to order several men to bring down the soldier and sit on him until I could get the doctor to administer a sedative. Even then the soldier was mocking the doctor who had to hesitantly give him another shot, which finally calmed him.
Kennedy criticized for link to Super PAC The Democratic primary race in the 2nd Congressional District heats up as questions arise co

As our nation is grappling with its racial divides through the Black Lives Matter Movement, articles like this ... showcase that those with power and influence are not willingly ready to change, Cunningham wrote. No matter how many empty platitudes are espoused by the press, when it comes to considering the worthiness of a Black man from a humble background to be the voice of his regions struggle ... I am muzzled.

Froonjian and Golden also said the moderate to conservative nature of the 2nd District  even on the Democratic side  must be considered.

Democrats who have won the district have been moderate to conservative, such as Bill Hughes, the congressman from 1975 to 1995, and Van Drew.

Things like the Green New Deal, even (Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy) Pelosi doesnt support that, Golden said.

Cunningham called Kennedy and Harrison insiders with ties to political machines, calling himself the only true candidate of the people.

Ive seen for six months the media wanting to characterize the race as between two white millionaires, Cunningham said. My surging candidacy is an inconvenient truth ... (challenging) to media who want to create the narrative of Kennedy vs. the machine.

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Plattsburgh, NY (12901)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong during the evening will give way to mostly cloudy skies after midnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong during the evening will give way to mostly cloudy skies after midnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Ethiopian couple forego wedding party for Tigray aid An Ethiopian couple has donated funds they had set aside for a lavish wedding

WHO says Africa experiencing full-blown third wave of COVID-19 The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said Africa is in the middle of a
The Prince William Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.
Or will she be suicided?

Paul Joseph Watson

PrisonPlanet.com

July 2, 2020

The FBI has arrested Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman who helped Jeffrey Epstein procure young girls and minors as part of a sexual blackmail operation involving members of the global elite that could now be blown wide open.

She was arrested in Bedford, New Hampshire around 8:30 a.m. on charges she conspired with Epstein to sexually abuse minors, and is expected to appear in a federal court later today, reports NBC News.

Now it remains to be seen whether Maxwell will suffer the same fate as Jeffrey Epstein, who conveniently committed suicide before he could talk.

Both Maxwell and Epstein were reportedly intelligence assets, which protected both of them from arrest for a number of years before Epsteins death.

Maxwell is the only surviving person to know the full extent of Epsteins blackmail operation and which members of the global elite were intimately involved.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t



Lets hope that cameras dont mysteriously fail and guards dont go AWOL, allowing Maxwell to commit suicide, something which will likely see the full extent of the case buried for good.

Questions will also be asked as to what role if any the Trump administration had in pushing for Maxwells arrest given that Trump has made it a cornerstone of his agenda to go after global sex trafficking rings.

Numerous global pedophile busts over the last three decades have had deep ties to the political classes and the establishment.

German authorities also recently announced that they were investigating a pedophile ring with a whopping 30,000 potential suspects.

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This article was posted: Thursday, July 2, 2020 at 9:06 am

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Lawyer surprised Epstein co-conspirator left relative safety of Paris.

Paul Joseph Watson

PrisonPlanet.com

July 2, 2020

Criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Turley expressed surprise that Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell left the relative safety of Paris to return to America, while noting that her arrest was bad news for Prince Andrew.

Maxwell was arrested by the FBI in New Hampshire and immediately charged by federal prosecutors, leaving open the possibility that damning new details about Epsteins global sex trafficking pedophile network could be exposed.

According to Turley, its a surprise that Maxwell decided to leave Paris and travel to the U.S. given that extradition laws in France would have largely protected her from prosecution.

Frankly, as a criminal defense lawyer, I am surprised that Maxwell risked returning to the United States, writes Turley. She was believed to be living in Paris. It was well-known that the Justice Department was pursuing the case, including demands to interview Prince Andrew.

Maxwell's arrest could be bad news for a number of individuals including Prince Andrew. One wrinkle however is the outrageous plea deal struck by the Justice Department with Epstein that purportedly protects "co-conspirators." https://t.co/X8MdDgCabv  Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) July 2, 2020

Prince Andrew was pictured with both Maxwell at her London home and a 17-year-old Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who alleges she was sexually abused by the Royal and other members of Epsteins network. Prince Andrew has denied ever meeting Roberts and suggested during an interview with the BBC that the photograph could be fake.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t



Turley says Maxwells arrest is bad news for Prince Andrew because Maxwells testimony would bolster Roberts allegations against the Royal. That is of course if Maxwell doesnt suddenly commit suicide like Epstein.

Her arrest may be unnerving for figures like Prince Andrew, writes Turley. She would be the ultimate cooperating witness if she decided to cooperate on broader criminal inquiries. Giuffre and others have alleged that she was the primary procurer of young girls for Epstein to abuse.

Such prosecutions are not easy given the passage of time. However, the government clearly has live witnesses like Giuffre who might have a significant impact on a jury. The government would have to show more than her mere presence at these homes or parties.

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This article was posted: Thursday, July 2, 2020 at 9:59 am

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Same speculation surrounded Epstein himself before billionaires suicide.

Paul Joseph Watson

PrisonPlanet.com

July 2, 2020

Victims attorney Lisa Bloom says that Ghislaine Maxwell could reveal a bigger name involved in Jeffrey Epsteins pedophile network in order to secure a plea deal.

Appearing on UK radio show LBC, Bloom stated, Im sure that Ghislaines attorneys will try to make a deal where she speaks out about a bigger name to get reduced charges for herself.

But she herself is a big name, with Jeffrey Epsteins passing a year ago, she is one of the biggest names of people who were involved in this scheme, she added.

"I'm sure that Ghislaine's attorneys will try to make a deal where she speaks out about a bigger name to get reduced charges for herself," says Lisa Bloom, the lawyer who represents one of Ghislaine Maxwell's accusers. @eddiemair | @LisaBloom pic.twitter.com/aXFIE4AkiU  LBC (@LBC) July 2, 2020

The prospect of Maxwell fingering a bigger name in order to get a reduced sentence for herself is interesting given that there were reports Jeffrey Epstein was planning to do the same before he committed suicide weeks later.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t



As we highlighted on July 7, just over a month before his death, OANNs Jack Posobiec reported that Epsteins lawyer had offered on behalf of his client to cooperate with the investigation, including giving up the names of individuals that paid for activities with underage girls in exchange for a maximum sentence not to exceed 5 years.

Whether that was one of the incentives for Epstein being suicided remains unknown, but it was widely speculated at the time that the billionaire pedophile would be eliminated before he could talk.

Just over a week before Epsteins suicide, lawyer Spencer Kuvin expressed his fear that a hit had been put out on Epsteins life that would prevent him from implicating influential people who were complicit in the sex trafficking of girls and young women.

After Epsteins death, a Congressman told the Daily Mirror that a lot of powerful people were breathing a huge sigh of relief that he had been silenced.

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MUMBAI, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The current pandemic has made one thing starkly obvious - uncertainty can hit someone uninvited at any point of time. There is heightened awareness now regarding the need for protecting loved ones from such uncertain events through a term insurance like Edelweiss Tokio Life's Simply Protect.

A term plan like Edelweiss Tokio Life - Simply Protect acts as a protective shield for the family when unforeseen events like disability, critical illnesses, or death threaten financial stability of the household.

The highlight of this plan is its flexibility - from offering 4 life cover variants to multiple pay-out frequency, Edelweiss Tokio Life - Simply Protect allows the policyholder to customize the plan to meet their specific needs.

The 4 life cover variants are - Basic life cover, Life Cover with Inbuilt Accident Death Benefit, Life Cover with inbuilt Waiver of Future Premiums on Accidental Total and Permanent Disability and Life Cover with inbuilt Waiver of Future Premiums on Critical Illness. One can choose a variant that provides the best protection solution for individual needs.

A customer can choose either a limited pay option or a single pay option for premium payment. The Limited Pay option allows one to pay premiums within 5, 10, 15, or 20 years and enjoy a liability-free retirement. The Single Pay option allows one to pay the premium in one go. With all the 3 options, life cover can go up to 80 years.

Edelweiss Tokio Life - Simply Protect also offers a Regular Income Benefit option that gives the beneficiary 1% of the sum assured every month for 130 months, after the policyholder's demise. This ensures that the family continues to receive a steady income, even in the absence of the breadwinner.

Being financially protected from unforeseen events is a necessity, now more than ever. So cover oneself with a term plan like Edelweiss Tokio Life - Simply Protect.

About Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance

Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance is a joint venture between Edelweiss Financial Services, among India's leading diversified financial services companies, and Tokio Marine Holdings Inc, one of the oldest and largest insurance companies in Japan.

Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance launched its pan-India operations in July 2011, offering proprietary need-based solutions to help customers meet their life stage financial goals. Its lineage brings together a deep understanding of customer needs and international expertise. The company is headquartered in Mumbai serving over 2.02 lakh customers through 43,681 personal finance advisors as on March 31, 2019, across 121 branches in 93 major cities.

Awards:

Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance has been consistently recognized for its Product Innovation capabilities at several industry forums and has won several awards for its contribution and innovation. Some notable mentions comprise the Outlook Money Award for Best Life Insurer 2016, Golden Peacock Awards 2018, Golden Globe Tigers Awards and ET NOW - BFSI Awards for Best Product Innovation 2018, Times National Award for Marketing Excellence 2018, India Insurance Summit 2019 and Skoch Awards 2019.

To learn more about Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, please visit www.edelweisstokio.in

You can follow Edelweiss Tokio Life on:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/edelweiss-tokio-life-insurance/?viewAsMember=true

https://twitter.com/edelweiss_tokio

https://www.instagram.com/edelweiss_tokio/

https://www.facebook.com/EdelweissTokioLife/

SOURCE Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance
COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- While the Public Utility Commission of Texas today denied approval of Southwestern Electric Power Co.'s (SWEPCO) plan to add 309 megawatts (MW) of wind energy to serve Texas customers, American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) has received the other regulatory approvals needed to acquire the entire planned 1,485 MW of North Central wind generation. AEP is investing approximately $2 billion to bring new renewable energy to Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) customers and SWEPCO customers in Arkansas and Louisiana.

"We are disappointed that our SWEPCO customers in Texas will not be able to benefit from the low-cost wind energy the North Central projects will provide," said Nicholas K. Akins, AEP chairman, president and chief executive officer. "The regulatory approvals we have received in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will allow us to move ahead with the North Central wind projects at full scale, saving our customers in those states approximately $3 billion over the next 30 years. As we transition to a clean energy future, our investment in the North Central wind projects supports economic and business development in our communities and will help our customers meet their renewable energy goals."

North Central includes three wind generation facilities located in north central Oklahoma. AEP's SWEPCO and PSO operating units announced July 15, 2019, that they would seek regulatory approvals to purchase the three wind projects. The projects are expected to be completed over the course of the next two years.

The Arkansas and Louisiana Public Service Commissions approved the projects in May, and PSO received approval from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in February. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also approved the acquisitions in February.

PSO will acquire 675 MW of the North Central wind projects to serve its customers in Oklahoma. The Arkansas and Louisiana commissions approved options to increase their allocations of wind energy if another state did not approve the projects. With these options, an estimated 464 MW will be allocated to Louisiana and 268 MW to Arkansas, while wholesale customers will benefit from 78 MW for a total of 810 MW that will serve SWEPCO's customers.

AEP continues to make significant investments in renewable energy to serve its customers. The company's regulated integrated resource plans call for the addition of more than 8,000 MW of wind and solar, including North Central, and 1,600 MW of natural gas between 2020 and 2030.

American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, is focused on building a smarter energy infrastructure and delivering new technologies and custom energy solutions to our customers. AEP's approximately 17,400 employees operate and maintain the nation's largest electricity transmission system and more than 221,000 miles of distribution lines to efficiently deliver safe, reliable power to nearly 5.5 million regulated customers in 11 states. AEP also is one of the nation's largest electricity producers with approximately 31,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including more than 5,200 megawatts of renewable energy. AEP's family of companies includes utilities AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana, east Texas and the Texas Panhandle). AEP also owns AEP Energy, AEP Energy Partners, AEP OnSite Partners, and AEP Renewables, which provide innovative competitive energy solutions nationwide. For more information, visit aep.com.





SOURCE American Electric Power

Related Links

www.aep.com


SEATTLE, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alaska Airlines has secured nearly $1.2 billion in private loans to further secure its financial stability and future during the COVID-19 recovery period, while balancing the appropriate amount of liquidity. The debt financing will be funded on or around July 2.

As part of an Enhanced Equipment Trust Certificate (EETC) offering, Alaska will use 61 of its owned aircraft as collateral to back the debt: 26 Boeing 737-800s, 16 Boeing 737-900ERs and 19 Embraer 175s.

The aircraft will remain encumbered until the debt is repaid: Series A ($966 million) will be repaid by Aug. 15, 2027, and Series B ($208 million) will be repaid by Aug. 15, 2025.

"We're proud of what our people have built at Alaska. Because of our long-standing commitment to conservative financial management and a strong balance sheet, we were fortunate to see strong demand for our offering," said Shane Tackett, Alaska's executive vice president of finance and chief financial officer. "With this financing and the actions we've taken to reduce our cash burn rate, we've created a liquidity runway that rivals our strongest competitors."

As part of the Payroll Support Program (PSP) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, McGee Air Services, a wholly owned ground services subsidiary of Alaska Airlines that operates independently, has also received nearly $30 million in funding. This is in addition to the $992 million in the form of a $725 million grant and a $267 million loan that Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air jointly received to be exclusively used to pay employee salaries, wages and benefits through Sept. 30.

Alaska Airlines and its regional partners serve more than 115 destinations across the United States and North America, providing essential air service for our guests along with moving crucial cargo shipments, such as food, medicine, mail and e-commerce deliveries. With hubs in Seattle; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; and Anchorage, Alaska, the airline is known for low fares, award-winning customer service and sustainability efforts. With Alaska and its Global Partners, guests can earn and redeem miles on flights to more than 800 destinations worldwide. Learn more about Alaska at newsroom.alaskaair.com and blog.alaskaair.com. Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK).

SOURCE Alaska Airlines

Related Links

http://www.alaskaair.com


HOUSTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BBVA USA continues its strong push to provide financial education opportunities in the communities it serves, despite the continuing challenge of pandemic related stay-at-home orders in many areas.

While the bank's financial education workshops have traditionally been held in person, its Responsible Business team has shifted quickly to leverage digital solutions to provide the same curriculum through virtual workshops led by BBVA volunteer subject-matter experts. Since the transition to virtual workshops in April, the program has reached more than 2,000 participants.

"We have always incorporated technology into our workshops, using iPads and computers in our financial education workshops across our footprint," said Tony Moraga, Manager of Social Impact. "Because we already had the curriculum for our 13 topics on a digital platform, it was relatively simple for us to adapt the workshops to a remote setting."

The biggest task in converting to a virtual program was training nonprofit partners and employee volunteers on the platform, which was specifically designed to work best on a mobile device or smartphone. This mobile-first approach was critical to allow as many community members as possible to participate in the virtual workshops, according to Moraga. "We know that not everyone has access to a computer at home, so we wanted to be sure the workshops were available on tablets and smartphones, as well."

Remote classes are taught on an online meeting platform, which allows participants to interact with the instructor, ask questions and participate in real-time surveys and interactive exercises. In addition to the 13 financial topics covered by BBVA's current curriculum, two new modules, Mobile Banking and Debt Management, are in development and slated to be available in late July.

"As part of our vision of creating opportunities for everyone, BBVA remains dedicated to improving the lives and financial well-being of the people in our communities, and financial education is a key part of that," said Rey Ocanas, Director of Communications and Responsible Business. "During these difficult times, it's never been more important for people to understand and control their personal finances, and we will continue to find creative ways to help them do that."

In 2019, BBVA provided more than 800 adult financial education workshops on personal finance, small business and home ownership, reaching more than 12,000 participants. To date in 2020, volunteer instructors have led more than 250 workshops providing financial education to more than 4,000 participants through in-person (pre-COVID-19) and virtual (post-COVID-19) workshops.

Financial education heads the list of the bank's guiding pillars in its new 5-year global strategic plan, specifically focused on helping clients improve their financial health as a means to subsequently improve society's overall health. According to Ocanas, the elevation of this focus makes sense for customers, business and society as a whole.

For more BBVA news visit, www.bbva.com and the U.S. Newsroom .

Additional news updates can be found via Twitter and Instagram .

For more financial information about BBVA in the U.S., visit bbvausa.investorroom.com .

About BBVA

BBVA Group

BBVA (NYSE: BBVA) is a customer-centric global financial services group founded in 1857. The Group has a strong leadership position in the Spanish market, is the largest financial institution in Mexico, it has leading franchises in South America and the Sunbelt Region of the United States. It is also the leading shareholder in Turkey's Garanti BBVA. Its purpose is to bring the age of opportunities to everyone, based on our customers' real needs: provide the best solutions, helping them make the best financial decisions, through an easy and convenient experience. The institution rests in solid values: Customer comes first, we think big and we are one team. Its responsible banking model aspires to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable society.

BBVA USA

In the U.S., BBVA is a Sunbelt-based financial institution that operates 641 branches, including 330 in Texas, 89 in Alabama, 63 in Arizona, 61 in California, 44 in Florida, 37 in Colorado and 17 in New Mexico. The bank ranks among the top 25 largest U.S. commercial banks based on deposit market share and ranks among the largest banks in Alabama (2nd), Texas (4th) and Arizona (6th). In the U.S., BBVA has been recognized as one of the leading small business lenders by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and ranked 8th nationally in terms of dollar volume of SBA loans originated in fiscal year 2018.

SOURCE BBVA USA

Related Links

www.bbva.com


PORTLAND, Oregon, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, "Cables and Connector Market by Product Type (Internal Cables & Connectors and External Cables & Connectors), Installation Type (HDMI, USB, VGA, DVI, CAT5/CAT6, and Others), and Industry Vertical (Automotive, Commercial, Oil & Gas, Energy & Power, Aerospace & Defense, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202027". According to the report, the global cables & connector industry generated $86.14 billion in 2029, and is expected to reach $160.93 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 8.3% from 2020 to 2027.

Drivers, restraints, and opportunities

Rise in investment by government to improve connectivity within region, increase in investment in defense & submarine cables by various organizations, and surge in demand for higher bandwidth cables & connectors among different industries have boosted the growth of the global cables & connector market. However, complex fault detection and removal process of errors hamper the market growth. On the contrary, surge in government initiative to surge connectivity in rural areas of developing countries and growing number of data centers are expected to create lucrative opportunities for the market players in the coming years.

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COVID-19 scenario: The emergence of Covid-19 has greatly affected the global cables & connector market.

The majority of the auto supply chain is connected to China , and it would impact negatively on the sale of cables and connectors.

, and it would impact negatively on the sale of cables and connectors. During this pandemic, organizations are reluctant to invest big capital on new business models, hiring workforce, and every additional expense apart from essentials.

External cables and connector segment dominated the market

By product type, the external cables and connector segment held the largest share in 2019, accounting for more than two-thirds of the global cables & connector market, due to increase in deployment of data centers across the globe, rise in demand for enhanced network bandwidth, and the emergence of smart cities & smart factories. However, the internal cables and connector segment is anticipated to portray the highest CAGR of 9.4% during the forecast period, owing to the supportive government initiatives and plans to drive digitization & promote the adoption of eco-friendly electric products such as electric vehicles.

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USB cables & connector segment to manifest highest CAGR through 2027

By installation, the USB cables & connector segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 11.3% during the study period, due to increase in demand for digital data storage and the emergence of USB 3.0 and 3.1 standards for high-speed data transfer. However, the external cables and connector segment held the largest share in 2019, contributing to more than two-fifths of the global cables & connector market, owing to changing customer preference and aggrandized generation of data.

Asia-Pacific, followed by North America, held the largest share

By region, the global cables & connector market across Asia-Pacific held the largest share in 2019, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the market. Moreover, the market across this region is projected to portray the highest CAGR of 10.4% during the forecast period, owing to huge investment in infrastructure, energy, and technology development by the developing nation of such as India, China, and Japan. The market across North America held the second-largest share in 2019, contributing to more than one-fourth of the market.

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Major market players

3M Company

Company Alcatel-Lucent (Nokia Corporation)

Amphenol Corporation

Fujitsu Ltd.

Axon Cable S.A.S.

Nexans

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems, Inc.

Prysmian S.P.A.

TE Connectivity Limited

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Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.

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SOURCE Allied Market Research
SAN FRANCISCO, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe has launched an investigation into both the University of California ("UC") and California State University ("CSU") for failing to refund certain student fees charged for on-campus services during the Spring 2020 academic semester or quarter.

This Spring, in response to COVID-19, UC and CSU effectively closed their campuses and transitioned to online-only instruction. While this decision was a reasonable response to the health emergency, UC's and CSU's failure to refund the unused portion of students' fees paid to cover the cost of certain on-campus services may constitute a breach of contract, and may have unjustly enriched the universities.

The Schubert Law Firm is investigating the viability of class action claims against the universities for their policies and practices regarding on-campus service fees. To learn more about your legal rightsor to participate in a potential class action lawsuitplease contact us today.

About Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe

Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe has successfully prosecuted class actions for over twenty years. The firm is based in San Francisco, and with the help of co-counsel, litigates cases nationwide.

Contact

Miranda Kolbe

Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe

[email protected]

Tel: 415-788-4220

www.classactionlawyers.com

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

SOURCE Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe LLP
DALLAS, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- This Fourth of July, Essilor Vision Foundation (EVF) asks everyone to join the foundation in helping fellow Americans in need get essential vision exams and glasses.

The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the country in many ways and EVF is anticipating that more families will need financial assistance to cover medical expenses, including eye exams and glasses. Good vision is necessary for adults to be able to work and support their families and for kids to succeed in school. Donations can transform lives by giving glasses to people who cannot afford them.

Two girls wearing Vote for Vision t-shirts and waving flags

Vote for Vision

This Fourth of July, everyone can make a difference in someone's life by supporting EVF's Vote for Vision campaign, which encourages people to prioritize their own eye health and to donate to the foundation so individuals in underserved communities can receive critical vision care during this uncertain time.

A donation of $25 provides a pair of glasses. This year, thanks to a generous matching grant, every donation made by an individual will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000. In recognition of people's support, anyone who donates $25 or more will receive a Vote for Vision t-shirt.

These donations give families a choice. They will not have to decide between glasses and other essential needs. Thanks to generous donors, no one ever receives a bill for vision care from EVF.

Helping Americans See Clearly

Eighty percent of all vision impairments can be treated or cured, often with a pair of eyeglasses. Be part of the solution and change someone's life.

"My dream is that one day, everyone will think of their eye health as a regular part of their overall health and that going to the eye doctor becomes as routine as seeing a doctor or dentist for checkups," says Becky Palm, EVF President and Executive Director. "While this may be as easy as simply making an appointment for some people, that is not the case for millions of families in this country. By Voting for Vision, you help give clear vision to someone who otherwise cannot afford it."

EVF is committed to helping everyone have a better life through better sight because everyone deserves to see clearly. The foundation strives to serve all people in need equally. EVF does not discriminate and is inclusive of all races, ages, orientations, identities, origins, abilities/disabilities or similar characteristics. Visit evfusa.org/VoteforVision to learn more.

About Essilor Vision Foundation

We strive to give children a brighter future by helping them see the world more clearly. Since 2007, Essilor Vision Foundation has provided more than 1.5 million pairs of eyeglasses to individuals in need. Essilor Vision Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public, non-profit organization committed to eliminating poor vision and its lifelong consequences. Visit www.evfusa.org to learn more.

Related Images

essilor-vision-foundation-vote-for.jpg

Essilor Vision Foundation Vote for Vision

Two girls wearing Vote for Vision t-shirts and waving flags

SOURCE Essilor Vision Foundation

Related Links

http://www.evfusa.org


DENVER, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cimarex Energy Co. (NYSE: XEC) today announced it plans to report second quarter 2020 financial results on Wednesday, August 5, 2020, after market close. The company will host its quarterly conference call at 11:00 AM ET on Thursday, August 6, 2020.

The call will be webcast and is accessible via the Cimarex website at www.cimarex.com. To join the live, interactive call, please dial 866-367-3053 ten minutes before the scheduled start time (callers in Canada dial 855-669-9657 and international callers dial 412-902-4216).

A replay will be available on the company's website.

About Cimarex Energy

Denver-based Cimarex Energy Co. is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company with principal operations in the Anadarko and Permian Basins of the U.S.

SOURCE Cimarex Energy Co.

Related Links

www.cimarex.com


WASHINGTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CultivatePeople has launched a global compensation software for companies to pay their employees fairly and competitively against the market. The new software, Kamsa (Korean for "appreciation"), uses machine learning to help organizations manage employee pay, close pay gaps, and establish equal pay for equal work.

CEO and Founder Lola Han , formerly head of compensation at Zendesk, dedicated her career to employee compensation and has advised over 100 companies. Learning from pain points, she and her team developed Kamsa to make compensation painless for organizations.

"From planning and budgeting to processing pay increases, Kamsa guides clients through the complete compensation review process," Han said. "This significantly reduces manual work and errors that commonly arise with using spreadsheets. Kamsa uses machine learning to match employees' jobs to the market, so employers can compare their pay to similar roles, seamlessly."

CultivatePeople is launching Kamsa now because companies need tools to bring equality to the workplace. "Ensuring equality in the workplace is vital and regular evaluation of compensation can help companies move towards that objective," said Han.

Kamsa provides real-time global market compensation data, allowing leaders to make data-driven pay decisions that establish consistent compensation structures and ranges, reducing bias. Kamsa allows companies to save time and money by budgeting for and conducting compensation reviews 5 times faster than traditional ways.

Companies can also use Kamsa to be more transparent with employees by providing career paths and growth opportunities. "Kamsa's guided process, alongside our expert compensation consultants, provides clients with a unique and intuitive experience," said Han.

With recent desire for remote work and anticipated post-pandemic hiring, Kamsa helps companies evaluate employee compensation to align with the new landscape. It helps companies maintain a competitive advantage by ensuring they have a comprehensive compensation strategy that attracts and retains top talent.

About CultivatePeople

CultivatePeople , a consulting firm, is the fastest growing compensation solution provider. They help companies make compensation strategies and processes painless. Founded in 2017, CultivatePeople has partnered with global companies including Docker, HackerOne, InVision, MasterClass, and Sisense to help attract and retain their most valuable asset - their people.

More about CultivatePeople and Kamsa: https://www.cultivatepeople.co/kamsa

SOURCE CultivatePeople

Related Links

https://www.cultivatepeople.co


LOGAN, Utah, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- EFORCE, a public safety software company with more than 350 customers around the US, will relocate its headquarters this fall to Providence, Utah. The company announced the move with an unconventional groundbreaking video it posted to its YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/reYaCg_sotc.

EFORCE has seen steady growth in its 20-year history and has become a noteworthy competitor in many regions around the country. The move signals a major development for the company and its customers, by adding considerable space for the company to expand operations. "It became apparent during the last couple years, that this company had outgrown the space we had occupied since 2011," said Cory Bowers, one of the company's founders and Chief Executive Officer. "Our software development and support functions have expanded significantly over the last decade to serve our growing customer base."

Those customers include agencies and organizations such as LA Metro, The Country of Trinidad and Tobago Communications, Denver Regional Transportation, Utah Transit Authority, State of Utah Price Communications, Bountiful Police Department, and CSX Technology. EFORCE has seen success in helping these agencies and others streamline their operations to save time and money. Specifically, the company has helped its customers be more efficient and effectivepurposefully doing less so they can be more.

"While this move is customer-driven, one thing we've purposefully done is retain our Utah roots. I really wanted this new facility to support the team that has helped build this company by providing a little more elbow room, collaboration space, and a comparable commute," adds Bowers. The EFORCE office, while located in a different city, is less than a mile from its current location at 168 N. Gateway Drive in Providence. The company will officially make the move this November.

SOURCE EFORCE

Related Links

http://eforcesoftware.com


IRVINE, Calif., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- California-based Fluxergy will work with Mass General Brigham (MGB), a major health system in Massachusetts, to further evaluate Fluxergy's innovative Research Use Only (RUO) COVID-19 testing platform, designed to deliver accurate PCR test results in under one hour.

"MGB is committed to working collaboratively with innovators in the medical field like Fluxergy to help assess new technologies that may enable our hospitals and other medical institutions to more quickly and accurately identify patients with COVID-19, and keep medical staff safely on the job," said Lauren Ritterhouse, MD, PhD, Associate Director for the Center for Integrated Diagnostics in the Department of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School.

Fluxergy has filed a request for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If granted, the EUA would permit medical sites with CLIA-certified high complexity laboratories, such as MGB, to use the Fluxergy system as a COVID-19 diagnostic tool in accordance with the FDA's authorization. Subject to confirming the performance of the Fluxergy system, and the potential receipt by Fluxergy of the EUA, MGB may utilize the new platform within its healthcare system. MGB also has plans to publish its findings for review by other medical institutions.

Fluxergy is also working to develop additional validation data that may support a possible future EUA request to use its COVID-19 testing system at the point-of-care, such as at physician offices, urgent care centers, and outreach clinics. Fluxergy has also begun initial work developing a first-of-its-kind multimodal test that may be able to perform a combined PCR and immunoassay (antibody) COVID-19 analysis using a single Fluxergy test card.

"Fluxergy is proud to work with Mass General Brigham, one of the nation's most respected healthcare systems, to assist in evaluating the efficacy of the Fluxergy COVID-19 PCR test," said Dr. Ali Tinazli, Fluxergy's Chief Commercialization Officer.

Fluxergy recently announced that it has received $30 million in capital from its principal investor John Tu, a co-founder of Kingston Technologies, to ramp up manufacturing capacity to produce as many as one million COVID-19 tests per month in the U.S. by year end.

For more information, visit Fluxergy.com.

CONTACT FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Media: David Paine, PaineLab, [email protected]

Business and Clinical: Dr. Ali Tinazli, [email protected]

SOURCE Fluxergy

Related Links

http://Fluxergy.com


COLUMBIA, Md., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GP Strategies Corporation was named a GM Supplier of the Year by General Motors during a virtual ceremony honoring the recipients of the company's 28th annual Supplier of the Year awards on Wednesday, June 24, 2020.

During the event, GM recognized 116 of its best suppliers from 15 countries that have consistently exceeded GM's expectations, created outstanding value or introduced innovations to the company. The awards ceremony was originally scheduled as a live-event to be held in March but was postponed due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recognition is for supplier performance in the 2019 calendar year.

This is the 3rd time GP Strategies has received the award.

"Our suppliers play a key role in delivering the products, services and experiences our customers deserve  and these award-winning suppliers went above and beyond our expectations," said Shilpan Amin, GM vice president, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain.

"We also believe it's important at this point in time to thank our entire supply base for their efforts the last few months to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19," added Amin. "Not only have we been able to safely restart our manufacturing operations, our suppliers played a key role in assisting our initiatives to increase the supply of ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE) for frontline health care workers to help save lives and keep communities safe."

The Supplier of the Year award winners were chosen by a global team of GM purchasing, engineering, quality, manufacturing and logistics executives. Winners were selected based on performance criteria in Product Purchasing, Global Purchasing and Manufacturing Services, Customer Care and Aftersales, and Logistics.

"Disruption has become a way of life in the automotive industry, from technologies such as autonomous vehicles to rapidly evolving business processes. We take great pride in our partnership with GM and the work we do to support their transformation through our focus on innovative and evidence-based solutions to increase their dealer network performance," said Martha Manting, Senior Vice President, GP Strategies. "We are truly honored to be recognized as GM's Supplier of the Year once again."

About GP Strategies

GP Strategies Corporation (NYSE: GPX) is a global workforce transformation provider of organizational and technical performance solutions. GP Strategies' solutions improve the effectiveness of organizations by delivering innovative and superior training, consulting, and business improvement services customized to meet the specific needs of its clients. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, automotive, financial services, manufacturing, process and energy industries, and other commercial and government customers. Additional information can be found at gpstrategies.com.

 2020 GP Strategies Corporation. All rights reserved. GP Strategies and the GP Strategies logo design are trademarks of GP Strategies Corporation.

General Motors is a global company committed to delivering safer, better and more sustainable ways for people to get around. General Motors, its subsidiaries and its joint venture entities, sell vehicles under the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Holden, Baojun and Wuling brands. More information on the company and its subsidiaries, including OnStar, a global leader in vehicle safety and security services, can be found at http://www.gm.com.

SOURCE GP Strategies Corporation

Related Links

www.gpstrategies.com


OAKLAND, Calif. and TORONTO, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Harborside Inc. ("Harborside" or the "Company") (CSE: HBOR), a California-focused, vertically integrated cannabis enterprise, today announced a $10,000 charitable contribution to Oakland-based Peralta Colleges Foundation for students enrolled in the Cannabis Certification program at Merritt College. The scholarship aims to provide prospective professionals in the legal industry with a comprehensive portfolio of skills and business expertise.

Peralta Colleges Foundation was established in 1971 to support academic excellence and success throughout Alameda County and serves a diverse population of over 21,000 students largely consisting of African American, Hispanic American and Asian American students. This program will play a significant role in creating gainful opportunities for underserved communities to participate in the thriving cannabis industry within the greater area of Alameda County.

Harborside is committed to rectifying the social and racial injustices specific to the cannabis industry in its surrounding community. The Company has pledged to continuously work with Peralta Colleges Foundation to develop this scholarship program and contribute the company's own retail, cultivation and business expertise to build the core curriculum. Future students that enter the program will gain extensive knowledge of the cannabis supply chain and understand the financial side of consumer market demands.

"We at Harborside are elated to be a part of such an important initiative for those young adults in our community deserving of access, encouragement and opportunities to soar," said Peter Bilodeau, Chairman and interim CEO of Harborside, Inc. "We look forward to supporting Peralta Colleges Foundation in achieving this first milestone and are eager to continue providing more industry resources as this program matures."

"I look forward to working with Harborside in designing our Cannabis Certification program at Merritt College," said Dr. David M. Johnson, President of Merritt College. "We believe through certification and skills preparation our students will be well prepared for jobs in the industry,"

About Harborside:

Harborside Inc. is one of the oldest and most respected cannabis retailers in California, operating three of the major dispensaries in the San Francisco Bay Area, a dispensary in Palm Springs outfitted with Southern California's only cannabis drive-thru window, two dispensaries in Oregon and a cultivation facility in Salinas, California. Harborside has played an instrumental role in making cannabis safe and accessible to a broad and diverse community of California consumers. Co-founded by Steve DeAngelo and dress wedding in 2006, Harborside was awarded one of the first six medical cannabis licenses granted in the United States. Harborside is currently a publicly listed company on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") trading under the ticker symbol "HBOR". Additional information regarding Harborside is available under Harborside's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. 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 release.

SOURCE Harborside Inc.
In order to flatten the curve of cases of COVID-19, the state of Minnesota closed all museums to help stop the spread of the virus. Over that time, the SPAM  Museum's team of SPAMbassadors remained busy, helping to deliver more than 20,000 meals to seniors in the Austin community while the museum was closed.

"While being closed was the right thing to do to help curb the spread of COVID-19, we are so excited to open our actual doors and our virtual one and welcome guests back to our museum," said Savile Lord, SPAM Museum and community relations manager at Hormel Foods. "For those visiting us in person, we have robust cleaning and sanitation protocols in place, as well as following social distancing guidelines provided by the Minnesota Department of Health, to provide the safest experience for our guests while giving them a SPAMtastic tour."

As an innovative way to help everyone across the globe take in all the sights, sounds and exhibits at the SPAM Museum, the team has launched a live virtual tour option via Zoom.

"Instead of recording a virtual tour and having people play a video on their devices, we wanted to create a more personal experience and provide a customized tour for each group, like we would do if they were at the museum," said Lord. "When guests sign up for a live virtual tour, one of our outstanding SPAMbassadors will lead them on a tour and interact with each person or group in real time, providing the memorable experience we are known for."

The museum's address and hours of operation can be found at https://www.spam.com/museum.

To sign up for a virtual tour, please email [email protected].

For more information about the lunch delivery program for seniors conducted by the SPAM Museum SPAMbassadors, please visit https://www.hormelfoods.com/inspired/story/hormel-foods-gives-back-to-battle-hunger-food-insecurity-throughout-the-covid-19-crisis/. For more information about the SPAM Museum, please visit www.spam.com/museum.

ABOUT HORMEL FOODS  Inspired People. Inspired Food.

Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minn., is a global branded food company with over $9 billion in annual revenue across more than 80 countries worldwide. Its brands include SKIPPY, SPAM, Hormel Natural Choice, Applegate, Justin's, Wholly, Hormel Black Label, Columbus, Happy Little Plants and more than 30 other beloved brands. The company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named on the "Global 2000 World's Best Employers" list by Forbes magazine for three straight years, is one of Fortune magazine's most admired companies, has appeared on Corporate Responsibility Magazine's "The 100 Best Corporate Citizens" list for 11 years in a row, and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts. The company lives by its purpose statement  Inspired People. Inspired Food.  to bring some of the world's most trusted and iconic brands to tables across the globe. For more information, visit www.hormelfoods.com and http://csr.hormelfoods.com/.

SOURCE Hormel Foods Corporation

Related Links

http://www.hormel.com


DALLAS, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- TEX-ABOTA, the Texas chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates, will host a webinar titled "How Race and Implicit Bias Impact the Practice of Law" on July 10, 2020 via Zoom webinar. The featured speaker will be Dr. Kevin Cokley, a psychologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Public demonstrations sparked by the killing of George Floyd, and other African Americans protest racial bias not just in law enforcement, but throughout our society, including the justice system that enforces our laws. This workshop will examine the role that race and implicit bias play in the courthouse and the practice of law in general. Participants will learn how to recognize implicit bias in themselves and in others. The workshop will conclude with strategies lawyers can use to reduce implicit bias.

Dr. Cokley is an endowed professor in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin and Director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis. He is a Fellow of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He teaches Educational Psychology and African and African Diaspora Studies. His publications have appeared in professional journals such as the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, the Journal of Black Psychology, and the Harvard Educational Review.

He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Black Psychology, and was elected to Fellow status in the American Psychological Association for his contributions to ethnic minority psychology and counseling psychology. He has received numerous awards for teaching and academic excellence.

To register for this complimentary webinar click here.

About the American Board of Trial Advocates

ABOTA is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to civil jury trials. ABOTA's primary goal is to educate the American public about the history and value of the right to trial by jury.

Founded in 1958 with a membership of more than 7,600 experienced attorneys representing both the plaintiff and defense bars in civil cases, ABOTA is dedicated to elevating the standards of skill, integrity, honor and courtesy in the legal profession.

For more information contact:

Robby Alden at (800) 344-3751

[email protected]

SOURCE American Board of Trial Advocates

Related Links

http://www.abota.org


DUBLIN, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Europe E-Invoicing Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Regional Analysis By Type; End-User" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The e-Invoicing market in Europe was valued at US$ 1,241.7 million in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 4,217.6 million by 2027; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.1% from 2020 to 2027.



In Europe, the adoption of electronic and digital processes/solutions is quite high among businesses, and the e-Invoicing practices in this region are being driven by governments in various countries. The wide market fragmentation and high cross-border trade between European countries is driving the demand for efficient Invoicing solutions. Countries are also increasingly working to formulate a common e-Invoicing standard to boost the digital agenda of the European Union.



Presently, the EU directives 2014/24/EU and 2014/55/EU are encouraging the adoption of e-Invoicing in various European countries. Key industry associations, public administrations, tax authorities, and regulatory bodies in the countries are also complementing the growth of e-Invoicing market by supporting the development of various standards and interoperability between various document formats.



The cloud segment led the e-Invoicing market, based on deployment model, in forecast period from 2020 to 2027. Various service providers are now offering cloud-based e-Invoicing solutions, and customers are increasingly adopting these solutions. These firms develop, maintain, and manage the solutions for their customers, while the customers pay the prescribed fees for their services.



The overall Europe e-Invoicing market size has been derived using both primary and secondary sources. To begin the research process, exhaustive secondary research has been conducted using internal and external sources to obtain qualitative and quantitative information related to the market. The process also serves the purpose of obtaining overview and forecast for the e-Invoicing market with respects to all the segments pertaining to the region.



Also, multiple primary interviews have been conducted with industry participants and commentators to validate the data, as well as to gain more analytical insights into the topic. The participants who typically take part this process include industry expert such as VPs, business development managers, market intelligence managers, and national sales managers along with external consultants such as valuation experts, research analysts, and key opinion leaders specializing in The European E-Invoicing market. Basware Corporation, Cegedim SA, Coupa Software Inc, IBM Corporation, and SAP SE are among the major players in the market in this region.



Reasons to Buy:

Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in The European E-Invoicing market.

Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies.

The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in The European E-Invoicing market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long-term strategies.

Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets.

Scrutinize in-depth Europe market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it.

market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it. Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution



Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction



2. Key Takeaways



3. Research Methodology



4. E-Invoicing Market Landscape

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 PEST Analysis

4.2.1 Europe

4.3 Ecosystem Analysis

4.4 Expert Opinion



5. E-Invoicing -Market Dynamics

5.1 Market Drivers

5.1.1 Investment in Digital Technologies

5.1.2 Adoption of E-Voicing to Prevent Fraud

5.1.3 Government Initiatives to Boost E-Invoicing Adoption

5.2 Market Restraints

5.2.1 Lack of IT Resources

5.3 Market Opportunities

5.3.1 Adoption of Cloud Based Solutions

5.4 Future Trends

5.4.1 Implementation of Advanced Technologies like Blockchain

5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints



6. E-Invoicing Market - Europe Analysis

6.1 E-Invoicing Market Europe Overview

6.2 E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



7. E-Invoicing Market Analysis - By Deployment Model

7.1 Overview

7.2 E-Invoicing Market, By Deployment Model (2019 and 2027)

7.3 On-Premise

7.3.1 Overview

7.3.2 On-Premise: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

7.4 Cloud

7.4.1 Overview

7.4.2 Cloud: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



8. E-Invoicing Market Analysis - By End-User

8.1 Overview

8.2 E-Invoicing Market Breakdown, by End-User, 2019 & 20

8.3 B2B

8.3.1 Overview

8.3.2 B2B Market Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

8.4 B2C

8.4.1 Overview

8.4.2 B2C Market Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

8.5 Others

8.5.1 Overview

8.5.2 Others Market Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Mn)



9. Europe E-Invoicing Market - Country Analysis

9.2 Europe: E-Invoicing Market

9.2.1 Europe: E-Invoicing Market, by Key Country

9.2.1.1 Germany: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.2 France: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.3 Italy: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.4 UK: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.5 Russia: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.2.1.6 Rest of Europe: E-Invoicing Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



10. E-Invoicing Market- COVID-19 Impact Analysis

10.1 Overview

10.2 Europe



11. Industry Landscape

11.1 Market Initiative

11.2 New Product Development

11.3 Merger and Acquisition



12. Company Profiles

12.1 Basware Corporation

12.1.1 Key Facts

12.1.2 Business Description

12.1.3 Products and Services

12.1.4 Financial Overview

12.1.5 SWOT Analysis

12.1.6 Key Developments

12.2 Cegedim SA

12.3 Comarch SA

12.4 Coupa Software Inc.

12.5 IBM Corporation

12.6 SAP SE

12.7 The Sage Group plc

12.8 Tradeshift



13. Appendix

13.1 About the Publisher

13.2 Word Index



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qscb2m

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


RESTON, Va., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, has scheduled a conference call for Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, at 8 a.m. (ET) to announce its second quarter financial results for the period ending July 3, 2020. The company plans to issue its quarterly earnings press release before the conference call on Aug. 4, 2020.

The details for the earnings conference call follow:

Date: Aug. 4, 2020

Time: 8 a.m. (ET)

To Listen via the Internet:

The company offers a live and replay audio broadcast of the conference call with corresponding supplemental information at http://ir.leidos.com.

To Listen via Telephone:

877-869-3847 (toll-free U.S.)

+1-201-689-8261 (for International Callers)

Replay:

A telephone playback of the second quarter earnings conference call is scheduled to be available beginning at 11:30 a.m. (ET) on Aug. 4, 2020, through 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Aug. 11, 2020. The replay will be accessible by calling 877-660-6853 (International callers: +1-201-612-7415), and entering conference ID 13706044.

An archived version of the webcast will be available on the Leidos Investor Relations website at http://ir.leidos.com.

About Leidos:

Leidos is a Fortune 500 information technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 37,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $11.09 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2020. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Media contact:

Melissa Lee Duenas

571.526.6011

[email protected]

Investor Relations:

Peter Berl

571.526.7582

[email protected]

SOURCE Leidos

Related Links

http://www.leidos.com


HOUSTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ManhattanLife, one of the oldest health and life insurance companies in the United States, announced today the growth of their partnership with Integrity Marketing Group ("Integrity") with the launch of the ManhattanLife Assurance Company (MAC) Medicare Supplement. This Medicare Supplement product is an extension of the current ManhattanLife Medicare Supplement portfolio and will be distributed exclusively through Integrity Marketing Group.

The relationship between ManhattanLife and Integrity dates back to 2009 when AIMC, an Integrity Partner, first introduced the Family Life Medicare Supplement. Since its launch, the program has resulted in $1.3 billion of collected Medicare Supplement premium.

David Harris, CEO of ManhattanLife, said, "We are delighted to continue our successful relationship and to enhance it." He added, "Integrity is a key partner in our success. We pull out all the stops to maintain great relationships with our producers and policyholders."

"During my 37 years of working in the Medicare Supplement market, the partnership with David Harris and his team at ManhattanLife has produced one of the most successful and admired Medicare Supplement programs in the industry," said Mike White, CEO of AIMC and Managing Partner of Integrity. "Policyholders and agents have come to know and trust this company at the highest level. We are excited to continue this relationship with the release of ManhattanLife Assurance Company Medicare Supplement."

ManhattanLife Assurance Company Medicare Supplement will be available starting July 1, 2020. For more information on ManhattanLife Assurance Company, visit www.Manhattanlife.com.

About ManhattanLife:

Founded in 1850, The Manhattan Life Insurance Company is celebrating its 170th anniversary and is one of the oldest insurance companies in the United States. ManhattanLife is a group of four operating life and health insurance companies  Manhattan Life, ManhattanLife Assurance Company of America, Family Life and Western United Life Assurance Company. They offer a diverse, high-quality portfolio of Individual Life & Health Insurance, Voluntary Benefits, Medicare Supplements and Annuities through its four charters.

About Integrity Marketing Group

Integrity Marketing Group, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is the leading independent distributor of life and health insurance products focused on serving Americans. Integrity develops exclusive products with insurance carrier partners and markets these products through its distribution network that includes other large insurance agencies throughout the country. Integrity's almost 1,200 employees work with more than 270,000 independent agents who service over 5 million clients annually. In 2020, Integrity expects to help insurance carriers place more than $3 billion in new premium. For more information, visit www.integritymarketing.com.

SOURCE ManhattanLife Assurance Company of America

Related Links

http://www.manhattanlife.com


GREENBELT, Md., July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA has awarded the Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS) contract to South West Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas.

This is a cost plus fixed-fee contract with a total value of $15,579,930. The performance period begins on July 1 and runs for 76 months. The work will be performed at SwRI's facility in San Antonio, Texas.

The principal purpose of this requirement within the Space Weather Follow On (SWFO) Project is to design, analyze, develop, fabricate, integrate, test, calibrate, evaluate, and support launch and on-orbit check-out of the Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS) instrument as part of the SWFO-L1 Observatory. SWFO-L1 will provide NOAA with the continuity of solar wind data and coronal mass ejection imagery, the National Weather Service's highest priority for space weather observations.

The SWFO-L1 satellite, which is planned to launch in 2024 as a rideshare with the NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, will collect upstream solar wind data and coronal imagery to support NOAA's mission to monitor and forecast space weather events.

NOAA is responsible for the Space Weather Follow-On project. NASA is the program's flight system procurement agent, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is the lead for this acquisition.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: https://www.nasa.gov

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


SHANGHAI, China and COPENHAGEN, Denmark, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today two MedTech companies, Polaris Biology of China and Tetramer Shop of Denmark, announce a strategic partnership to co-develop and distribute technologies that accelerate T cell science. First on the agenda is to commercialize metal-labelled MHC tetramers for distribution in China.

Conventional fluorophore labelled tetramers are restricted by spectral overlap and compensation issues. With quick, easy access to metal-labelled tetramers, researchers will be able to detect hundreds of T cell specificities in a single sample, accelerating therapeutic development.

"Our partnership with Tetramer Shop will allow us to extend our immunophenotyping capability to antigen specificity analysis," says Shuangwu Sun, partner of Polaris Biology. "And our co-development of metal-labelled tetramers will enable us to accelerate our high-throughput single-cell analysis capacity. This has positive implications for the development of personalized therapeutic modalities here in China."

Founder and CEO of Tetramer Shop, Sren N. Jakobsen, says, "Since our first contact, we have been impressed by the expertise and diligence of the Polaris team, Dr. Shuangwu Sun and colleagues, within state-of-the-art single-cell analysis technologies. We could not have found a better partner and we are looking forward to a fruitful endeavour."

Empty loadable MHC tetramers as the foundation

Tetramer Shop is applying its proprietary empty loadable MHC technology to the development of the metal-labelled tetramer. This technology holds the potential to develop a new generation of MHC tetramers for the analysis of T cell immune monitoring.

While algorithms are becoming a key tool for predicting neoantigens/neoepitopes in the context of MHC, verifying existing or raised T cells against weak self-antigens remains a bottleneck. Empty loadable MHC tetramers are an effective tool for exploring existing and raised T cells against neoantigens in immuno-oncology as well as in the development of cancer vaccines and T cell therapy.

"Empty loadable MHC tetramers offer the researcher the possibility of testing hundreds of peptide antigens in parallel," says Jakobsen. "Our MHC tetramer solution offers fast, easy detection of antigen-specific T cells, extreme stability and specificity, excellent value, and ease of use."

Accelerating therapeutic development in China

Under the agreement, Polaris commences the sale and distribution of MHC tetramer reagents from Tetramer Shop on the rapidly expanding Chinese market for T cell immune monitoring and antigen specificity profiling.

"We are excited to partner with Tetramer Shop and to help bring their expertise and game-changing MHC tetramer products to the market," says Shuangwu Sun. "The collaboration will significantly benefit the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases and infectious diseases by accelerating the development of personalized therapeutic modalities, including vaccines, T cells and T cell engagers."

About Polaris Biology

Polaris Biology is committed to providing accurate, safe and reliable high-throughput single-cell precision diagnostic solutions. Polaris Biology have developed single-cell technology platforms and related assays to monitor pharmacodynamic effect and to predict response for a wide spectrum of therapeutics. The solutions have been developed and deployed in multiple clinical practices, supporting smarter treatments.

About Tetramer Shop

Tetramer Shop serves a range of global customers from academic research institutions to therapeutic development labs including cancer vaccine and T cell therapy development. Based in Denmark's Medicon Valley, Tetramer Shop is driven by the unique capabilities of their technology and aims to democratize high-performance MHC tetramers to make the testing and monitoring of antigen-specific T cells faster, more efficient and affordable for any lab.

For more information, please contact:



Polaris Biology

Email: [email protected]

Office line: +86 21 5089 5313

https://www.polarisbiology.com/



Tetramer Shop

Email: [email protected]

Office line: +45 6018 3764

https://tetramer-shop.com/



SOURCE Polaris Biology; Tetramer Shop
NEW YORK, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- James E. Miller of Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller & Shah, LLP ("SFMS")(www.sfmslaw.com), Lead Counsel for Plaintiff-Relator, Oswald Bilotta (the "Relator" or "Whistleblower"), announced today that Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation ("Novartis") has agreed to settle alleged violations of the False Claims Act based on a complaint filed by the Whistleblower in 2011 asserting that Novartis used "speaker programs" to pay physician speakers unlawful compensation in violation of the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C.  3729-3733, and the Anti-Kickback Statute, 42 U.S.C.  1320a-7b.

The Whistleblower is represented by Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller & Shah, LLP ("SFMS")(www.sfmslaw.com), and its co-counsel, Eric L. Young of McEldrew Young (https://www.mceldrewyoung.com), and John Mininno ([email protected])

"I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation for the courageous actions of Mr. Bilotta in stepping forward to challenge Novartis' use of 'speaker programs' and other tactics to influence the prescription writing of physicians with respect to a number of its drugs," said James E. Miller ([email protected]).

Mr. Miller also stated: "In addition to thanking the entire SFMS team that worked on this case, including Laurie Rubinow, Natalie Finkelman Bennett, Jillian M. Boyce, Jonathan Dilger, Betsy Ferling Hitriz, Nicolas Lussier, Bruce Parke, , James C. Shah and Nathan Zipperian, as well as our highly skilled co-counsel, Eric L. Young, John Mininno and Joseph Trautwein, I would like to take this opportunity to state that it was a pleasure and honor to work closely with the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in resolving this important matter. I would like to specifically thank Jeannette A. Vargas, Pierre G. Armand, Monica Folch, Jacob T. Lillywhite, Jennifer A. Jude and Jacob M. Bergman of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, for their diligence, excellent work and perseverance on behalf of the United States of America. I also would like to thank Kathryn M. Heim Harris and Andrew J. Gropper, Special Assistants Attorney General of the New York Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, for their persistence and hard work on behalf of the various states participating in the settlement."

According to the complaint, physicians who participated in alleged sham speaker programs wrote prescriptions for several drugs  Lotrel, Valturna, Starlix, Tekturna, Tekturna HCT, Diovan, Diovan HCT, Exforge and Exforge HCT - that were filled at pharmacies across the country. After filling and dispensing the prescriptions, the pharmacies then submitted claims for reimbursement to various government-funded health care programs. The pharmacies' claims resulted in payments by the government for prescriptions that were allegedly induced through fraud, i.e., Novartis' alleged illegal payments to physicians who wrote the prescriptions. Since Novartis' actions allegedly caused the submission of false claims to the government via the dispensing pharmacies, those actions were alleged to constitute violations of the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute ("AKS" ), 42 U.S.C.  1320a-7b, which criminalizes, among other things, "knowingly or willingly" offering or paying a person "remuneration," in the form of kickbacks, bribes, or rebates, to "induce" that person to "recommend" the purchase of a drug covered by a "Federal health care program." 42 U.S.C.  1320a-7b(b)(2).

Background

SFMS filed the original qui tam complaint on behalf of Mr. Bilotta in 2011. Among other things, the complaint alleged that Novartis provided bogus honoraria or speaking fees to physicians for participation in numerous sham speaker programs in connection with the drugs at issue. In 2013, the United States and the State of New York intervened in the lawsuit. Novartis' attempts to dismiss the Whistleblower's case, as well as that of the United States and State of New York, were unsuccessful, and counsel for the Whistleblowers engaged in substantial discovery, including the review of millions of pages of documents, scores of depositions of Novartis employees and former employees and expert discovery. The case settled on the eve of trial and resulted in the negotiation of an agreement requiring Novartis to engage in a number of important changes in practice with respect to its speaker programs.

Settlement

"We believe that this settlement will help to ensure that when a physician chooses to prescribe a drug for his or her patient, that choice will be motivated solely by the best interests of the patient and not tainted by any improper financial considerations," said James E. Miller. Laurie Rubinow also added, "We were inspired by the level of our client's commitment to ensuring that Novartis was held to account for its alleged misconduct. Today's result is also a victory for the American taxpayers who are the ultimate victims when unscrupulous individuals and companies defraud the government, oftentimes with impunity. This significant settlement on behalf of the United States and the participating states, including the State of New York, results in extremely meaningful changes in the manner in which Novartis will conduct business going forward."

As SFMS's Managing Partner, James E. Miller has a distinguished track record of success. Mr. Miller has tried over thirty cases to successful verdict as lead counsel, and has recovered more than $3 billion dollars for his clients. SFMS represents whistleblowers throughout the United States and on a global basis. Many whistleblower cases are brought under the False Claims Act, which allows a private individual, known as a relator, to file a lawsuit on behalf of the United States government against a company that has perpetrated a fraud against the government. If a relator successfully recovers funds on behalf of the government, he or she may receive a reward of up to thirty percent (30%) depending on the circumstances of the case. SFMS has taken the lead in prosecuting some of the most important and significant cases in the United States regarding "speaker programs" and efforts by pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers to influence the behavior of physicians, prescribers and other providers through allegedly unlawful payments.

Case citation: United States ex rel. Bilotta v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., No. 1:11-cv-0071-PCG (S.D.N.Y.)

About SFMS

Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller & Shah, LLP (www.sfmslaw.com) has obtained billions of dollars in recoveries for its clients since its founding in 2002. Our attorneys have attended some of the best law schools in the country and have extensive experience in litigating cases against large and powerful companies. We maintain eight offices in the United States and two offices in Europe to serve our worldwide clients. SFMS has handled some of the most significant whistleblower cases in the United States and is increasingly recognized as one of the "go to" law firms when a whistleblower case needs to be litigated to trial.

Contact

James E. Miller and Laurie Rubinow

Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller & Shah, LLP

65 Main Street

Chester, CT

Tel: (866) 540-5505

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

SOURCE Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller & Shah, LLP

Related Links

https://www.sfmslaw.com


Sayre, PA (18840)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 88F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
DUBLIN, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Lab Automation For In-Vitro Diagnostic - Global Market Outlook (2019-2027)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Lab Automation for In-Vitro Diagnostics market accounted for $4,315.48 million in 2019 and is expected to reach $8,288.33 million by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 8.5% during the forecast period. Some of the key factors propelling market growth include flexibility and adaptability of lab automation systems, digital transformation for laboratories with IoT, innovative development in the IVD field, and increasing the demand for early remedies and diagnosis. However, lack of skilled laboratory professionals is likely to hamper the market.



In-vitro diagnostics (IVD) tests are basically medical devices that could be in the form of reagents, techniques, instruments, or a combination of these used in vitro for the examination of specimens, such as blood, urine, or tissue, with the goal of obtaining a diagnosis from assays in a controlled environment. Diagnostic tests are usually conducted in laboratories, private or public, equipped with appropriate and sometimes expensive instrumentation and staffed with trained and qualified personnel to perform the tests. Some IVDs can extend beyond the laboratory, hospital, or doctor's office, thereby empowering patients with chronic diseases to self-monitor and manage their own conditions.



By end user, laboratories are one of the prime recipients of lab automation for In-Vitro diagnostics. Hospitals and private labs are considered as laboratories. Technological innovations have improved the productivity of clinical labs. Owing to the ongoing advances in connected technologies and cloud-based laboratory information management systems (LIMS) platforms, these tools are helping businesses to access the benefits of the digital transformation and provide laboratories a secure way to organize data, making accessing insights quick and easy, while allowing businesses to control which data is sent to third-party instrument vendors.



On the basis of geography, North America region is expected to have considerable market growth during the forecast period, owing to the availability of government funds, stringent FDA regulations, growing use of molecular diagnostics in genetic disorders and cancer screening, and the presence of most of the major players in this region. North America has been a pioneer in clinical research for years. The region also has the highest concentration of contract research organizations (CRO's). Some of the sisgnificant CROs are Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, IQVIA, Syneos Health, and Parexel International Corp.



Some of the key players in lab automation for in-vitro diagnostics market include Siemens Healthineers AG, Cognex Corporation, Tecan Group Ltd, Roche Holding AG, PerkinElmer Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Danaher Corporation, Abbott Laboratories, Agilent Technologies Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, and Bee Robotics Ltd.



What the report offers:

Market share assessments for the regional and country-level segments

Strategic recommendations for the new entrants

Covers Market data for the years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2024 and 2027

Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)

Strategic analysis: Drivers and Constraints, Product/Technology Analysis, Porter's five forces analysis, SWOT analysis, etc.

Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations

Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends

Company Profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments

Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancements

Key Topics Covered:



1 Executive Summary



2 Preface

2.1 Abstract

2.2 Stake Holders

2.3 Research Scope

2.4 Research Methodology

2.4.1 Data Mining

2.4.2 Data Analysis

2.4.3 Data Validation

2.4.4 Research Approach

2.5 Research Sources

2.5.1 Primary Research Sources

2.5.2 Secondary Research Sources

2.5.3 Assumptions



3 Market Trend Analysis

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Drivers

3.3 Restraints

3.4 Opportunities

3.5 Threats

3.6 End User Analysis

3.7 Emerging Markets

3.8 Impact of Covid-19



4 Porters Five Force Analysis

4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers

4.2 Bargaining power of buyers

4.3 Threat of substitutes

4.4 Threat of new entrants

4.5 Competitive rivalry



5 Global Lab Automation for In-Vitro Diagnostics Market, By Equipment

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Automated Storage and Retrieval System

5.3 Analyzer

5.4 Automated Plate Handler

5.5 Robotic Arm

5.6 Automated Liquid Handler



6 Global Lab Automation for In-Vitro Diagnostics Market, By End User

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Laboratory

6.3 Academic



7 Global Lab Automation for In-Vitro Diagnostics Market, By Geography

7.1 Introduction

7.2 North America

7.2.1 US

7.2.2 Canada

7.2.3 Mexico

7.3 Europe

7.3.1 Germany

7.3.2 UK

7.3.3 Italy

7.3.4 France

7.3.5 Spain

7.3.6 Rest of Europe

7.4 Asia Pacific

7.4.1 Japan

7.4.2 China

7.4.3 India

7.4.4 Australia

7.4.5 New Zealand

7.4.6 South Korea

7.4.7 Rest of Asia Pacific

7.5 South America

7.5.1 Argentina

7.5.2 Brazil

7.5.3 Chile

7.5.4 Rest of South America

7.6 Middle East & Africa

7.6.1 Saudi Arabia

7.6.2 UAE

7.6.3 Qatar

7.6.4 South Africa

7.6.5 Rest of Middle East & Africa



8 Key Developments

8.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures

8.2 Acquisitions & Mergers

8.3 New Product Launch

8.4 Expansions

8.5 Other Key Strategies



9 Company Profiling

9.1 Siemens Healthineers AG

9.2 Cognex Corporation

9.3 Tecan Group Ltd

9.4 Roche Holding AG

9.5 PerkinElmer Inc.

9.6 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

9.7 Becton, Dickinson and Company

9.8 Danaher Corporation

9.9 Abbott Laboratories

9.10 Agilent Technologies Inc.

9.11 F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

9.12 Bee Robotics Ltd.



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/6ugl45

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HELSINKI, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Puro.earth today announces the commercial launch and global rollout of its new approach to scaling carbon transformation, matching companies that lock away carbon dioxide (CO2) in environmentally sound processes for the long term with companies that have pledged to get to neutral carbon dioxide emissions (Net Zero).

Experts including The World Resources Institute and the UN IPCC agree removal of CO2 from the atmosphere is the necessary way to address increasing CO2 concentrations.

Puro.earth aims to help create a global 'green' market that could be worth as much as $300bn by removing 10 Gigatons of CO2 a year by 2050, harnessing carbon net negative industries and creating a new revenue stream to enable them to build and scale rapidly.

The market sells DNV GL verified CO2 removal certificates (CORCs) to companies looking to meet Net Zero targets. During beta testing, a coalition of 22 companies traded verified CORCs through Puro.earth and a further 69 companies have since bought CORCs, including Swiss Re.

Puro.earth scales trusted and verifiable industrial businesses that store CO2 for the long term in commercially available products, like biochar and building materials, with additional industrial carbon removal methods to be added in the coming months.

Puro.earth's model represents part of the global effort to 'Build Back Better' - a movement that campaigns for a more sustainable post-coronavirus world. It is on a mission to support business pioneers that are targeting Net Zero with a marketplace that offers consistent pricing, measurement and reporting.

"With our ecosystem of carbon transformers, we cracked a way to scale carbon removal globally. The carbon market is using Puro.earth prices as a de-facto reference price for the carbon removal industry. Now is the time to launch it at scale," says Antti Vihavainen, Co-Founder of Puro.earth. "The climate cannot wait, and through the marketplace we can accelerate economic activity that is climate positive."

For more information: https://puro.earth/join

CONTACT:

Jo Hooke,

+ 44 (0)20-7935-4800,

[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/superson-oy/r/puro-earth-rolls-out-proven-carbon-transformation-business-model-for-co2-removal,c3146953

SOURCE Superson Oy
DENVER, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent survey by ROI Rocket, a leading market research-based consultancy, reveals a country deeply conflicted by the dual goals of fighting the spread of the coronavirus and re-opening the economy.

According to this poll, about two in five Americans (39%) are equally concerned about health & safety and the economy, with about one in three (31%) strongly favoring the former and about 15% strongly favoring the latter. This dilemma splits predictably along partisan lines. More than two in five Democrats (44%) fall into the health & safety camp compared to less than half as many Republicans (19%) and about one in four Independents (28%). On the flipside, about one in five Republicans (22%) fall into the economic growth camp compared to only 9% of Democrats and 16% of Independents.

Regardless of political party, however, concerns about contracting the virus are on the rise. The number of Americans 'extremely concerned' about getting infected is at its highest level since the third week in Mayjust after the initial wave of community re-openings. About 35% now report being 'extremely concerned' about contracting COVID-19, not coincidentally, the same percentage who believe life won't be back to normal until a year or more has passed.

Many chalk up the extended pandemic to an inadequate government response. More than one in four (29%) believe strongly that the government response to the crisis has been less than what the situation requires while only 12% harbor the belief that the government's done more than circumstances require. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to be disappointed in the government's actions to combat the virus. More than two in five Democrats (45%) feel this way compared to only 9% of Republicans.

The results of this poll show Americans are divided on the proper aims of government policy and their level of trust in government to achieve them. Meanwhile, to a growing number of people, the future looks increasingly grim.

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH

This study of 1,006 U.S. residents aged 18 and older was fielded between June 23 and June 26, 2020. The results have an associated margin of error of +/- 3.1% at the 95% confidence level in the most conservative case. This means the results come within plus or minus 3.1% of the results that would have been obtained given a census of all qualified individuals. Sample collection was balanced to U.S. Census figures for gender, age, race/ethnicity and household income.

ABOUT ROI ROCKET

Founded in 2007, ROI Rocket is a leading provider of full-service market research, marketing and sales automation, and digital agency support with offices in Denver, CO, Vancouver, WA, and Jacksonville, FL.

PRESS CONTACTS

For additional information about this study, please contact David McGrath, CEO

([email protected]) or Libby Perkins, General Counsel ([email protected]).

SOURCE ROI Rocket
BOSTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Santander US announced today steps it is taking to redouble its commitment to racial equity and justice. These latest actions support Santander's commitment to social equity across its businesses and in the communities it serves. The initiatives include both immediate and longer-term programs. Among them:

Near-term Initiatives and Giving

$200,000 will be given to non-profits focused on social justice and racial equity, including $100,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative

will be given to non-profits focused on social justice and racial equity, including to the Equal Justice Initiative Establishing Santander Voices , a user-generated video platform that allows employees to respond to a prompt or answer a question about racism, describe how they are feeling about social equity issues right now and what they plan to do to turn energy into action

, a user-generated video platform that allows employees to respond to a prompt or answer a question about racism, describe how they are feeling about social equity issues right now and what they plan to do to turn energy into action Promoting new programs hosted by Santander's Black Employee Network, including a series of panel discussions around topics such as the significance of Juneteenth, and ways US businesses and the nation can take meaningful steps toward social equity

Long-term Investments

$3 million over three years for Santander Bank's (SBNA's) Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) Grant Initiative, which is focused on advancing diverse small businesses, as well as addressing the lack of capital, resource and technical assistance investment within communities of color

over three years for (SBNA's) Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) Grant Initiative, which is focused on advancing diverse small businesses, as well as addressing the lack of capital, resource and technical assistance investment within communities of color $1 million over two years to expand Santander Bank's Cultivate Small Business program, which provides curriculum, mentors and micro-grants to food industry and small business entrepreneurs, with a focus on owners of color

over two years to expand Cultivate Small Business program, which provides curriculum, mentors and micro-grants to food industry and small business entrepreneurs, with a focus on owners of color $1 million over two years for diverse leadership training, and racial and social equity initiatives

"The actions we are announcing today are part of the ongoing work that Santander is doing to help make our country, our communities and our company places where equality and justice prevail," said Tim Wennes, Santander US CEO. "This starts with listening to our Black colleagues and hearing their perspectives, engaging in meaningful conversations with community leaders about racial inequality and how to help eradicate it, and providing financial support to organizations dedicated to bringing about real change for people of color."

In addition to its financial commitments, Santander will encourage employees to volunteer and donate to nonprofit organizations dedicated to social equity and the empowerment of Black and underserved people and communities. Employees can take advantage of Santander's Volunteer Paid Time off program to volunteer virtually or in person, and Santander Bank employees can utilize SBNA's matching gift program to help their charitable contributions make an even greater impact. Santander will also continue the important work of assessing the feedback around inclusion and equal opportunity from employee focus groups, and promoting its already established diversity training and resources, which are widely available to all employees.

Santander US' review of its businesses, people, philanthropic and community investment practices to ensure alignment with its social equity goals is ongoing. We stand with our colleagues, customers and communities in the fight for social justice and the eradication of systemic racism in our communities and places of work.

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.
PHOENIX, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Advisor Group, the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, and Securities America today welcomed Oregon Community Credit Union (OCCU) to the Securities America Financial Institutions platform. The financial institution's Investment Services team includes four licensed financial professionals who offer financial planning and wealth management services to credit union members at each of the institution's 10 Oregon branches and oversee $340 million in client assets. OCCU has affiliated with Securities America through Priority Financial Group (PFG), a hybrid Registered Investment Advisor / Super-OSJ based in Phoenix that specializes in developing competitive, customized programs for financial institutions to grow their wealth management capabilities and improve operating efficiency.

Securities America is part of Advisor Group, which also includes FSC Securities Corporation, Royal Alliance Associates, SagePoint Financial, Woodbury Financial Services, Triad Advisors, Investacorp, KMS Financial Services and Securities Service Network.

Headquartered in Eugene, Ore., OCCU has eight branches in the Eugene / Springfield area and additional locations in Salem and Wilsonville. OCCU has more than $2 billion in total assets and offers its 170,000 members banking, lending and wealth management services.

Jim Norwood, President of Securities America's Financial Institutions Division, said, "We are thrilled to have a financial institution of OCCU's caliber join the Securities America and Advisor Group family. OCCU President & CEO Ron Neumann and his team have built a strong, trusted company that is actively expanding its ability to serve and assist its members. Along with Priority Financial Group, Securities America and Advisor Group stand ready to help OCCU's Investment Services program take the next step in its growth and reach its full potential."

Priority Financial Group has over two decades of experience helping financial institutions build and strengthen their wealth management capabilities. The hybrid Registered Investment Advisor / Super-OSJ provides financial institutions at all stages of growth with expertise in the areas of compliance, operations and sales management.

Priority Financial Group CEO Michael Prior said, "The future of banking and wealth management is evolving rapidly, and the way members engage with credit unions will look very different going forward. At PFG, we are excited about helping OCCU drive growth by evolving its wealth management program, improving business operations and taking advantage of rapid technology innovations."

Mr. Neumann has been part of OCCU's executive leadership team since 2010, serving first as Chief Financial Officer and later as Executive Vice President before being appointed President & CEO in 2018.

Mr. Neumann said, "We are pleased to support our members as they progress through their financial journey by offering high-quality, objective financial advice and planning services. We are excited to start this new chapter alongside Priority Financial Group, Securities America and Advisor Group, and believe that together, we are well positioned to support the continued growth and development of OCCU's investment services offering, allowing us to provide the best experience possible for our members."

Advisor Group President and CEO Jamie Price concluded, "On behalf of the entire Advisor Group network, we congratulate Securities America, Priority Financial Group and OCCU on today's announcement. OCCU's decision to join our family provides further evidence that Securities America and the other firms in our network are destinations of choice for financial professionals and institutions seeking top-notch technology and resources to raise their efficiency and accelerate their growth trajectories. As always, we are in our financial professionals' and institutions' corner and will continue to invest in their future success."

About Securities America

Securities America is part of Advisor Group, the nation's largest networks of independent wealth management firms. Headquartered in Omaha and founded in 1984, Securities America supports approximately 2,600 independent financial professionals with innovative technology and wealth management platforms, practice management and business growth tools and a personalized service culture. The firm's flexible, multi-custodial approach supports a range of business models including Super OSJs, independent RIAs, RIA-only advisors, hybrid advisors and financial institutions. For more information visit https://www.securitiesamerica.com/.

Securities offered through Securities America, Inc., member FINRA / SIPC. Advisory Services offered through Securities America Advisors, Inc. and Arbor Point Advisors, LLC.

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. 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.

Securities and investment advisory services are offered through Advisor Group, Inc. subsidiaries, FSC Securities Corporation, KMS Financial Services, Inc., Royal Alliance Associates, Inc., SagePoint Financial, Inc., Triad Advisors, LLC, and Woodbury Financial Services, Inc., broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, and members of FINRA and SIPC. Securities services are offered through Investacorp, Inc., Securities America, Inc., and Securities Service Network, broker-dealers and members of FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Arbor Point Advisors, LLC, Investacorp Advisory Services, Inc., Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management, Inc., Securities America Advisor, Inc., SSN Advisory, Inc., and Triad Hybrid Solutions, LLC, registered investment advisers. Advisor Group, Inc. is a holding company. Advisor Group, Inc. is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of Advisor Group, Inc. 20 E. Thomas Rd., Ste. 2000, Phoenix, AZ, 85012. 866.481.0379

About OCCU

OCCU was founded in 1956 in Eugene, Oregon. Today, as a not-for-profit financial cooperative, OCCU has more than $2.2 billion in assets, and its members are served through digital channels and 10 branch and service center locations in Eugene, Springfield, Salem and Wilsonville. Although most members reside in one of the 28 Oregon counties or six Washington counties OCCU serves, others reside throughout the United States and even abroad, keeping their membership active through online and mobile banking. Learn more at MyOCCU.org.

Media Inquiries

Joseph Kuo / Chris Clemens

Haven Tower Group

424 317 4851 or 424 317 4854

[email protected] or [email protected]

SOURCE Advisor Group; Securities America

Related Links

https://www.securitiesamerica.com


Tom Vice, Aerion's Chairman, President and CEO, said: "I am really excited to have such an incredible group of successful and committed executives join our team. They are each passionate about our purpose to build the next generation of global transportation networks that significantly reduce the time and friction of travel while leaving no carbon footprint behind. They join our team of entrepreneurs, innovators, risk takers and creative people with the courage to disrupt."

Joining the company from Embraer, Alessandro Salvia is appointed Aerion's new Controller with lead responsibility for accounting and finance management. Alessandro brings 12 years of accountancy expertise from management roles at PWC and Embraer and holds CPA, CISA and CFE licenses.

With expertise in aerospace industry compliance and contract negotiation, Rachelle St Louis-Vincent joins Aerion from Gulfstream as a key member of the company's in-house Legal and Compliance team. In addition to providing legal support to key business functions, Rachelle's new role will include leading the initiation of the Aerion Foundation  a new independent body committed to reversing climate change.

Robert (Bob) Lewis joins Aerion as Director, System Test Evaluation to build and lead the company's new testing facilities at Aerion Park. With more than 29 years aerospace leadership experience with the USAF and Northrop Grumman, Bob will play a central role in the AS2 testing program.

Matthew Clarke joins Aerion as Senior Vice President of Marketing & Communications. With extensive experience of global marketing and communication management in the luxury and high-performance automotive sector, Matthew will lead growth of Aerion's global brand presence. Matthew brings 20 years of experience with brands including Aston Martin Lagonda, Land Rover and Karma Automotive.

Aerion has a growing nationwide employee base encompassing core sites in Reno, NV  the company's current HQ  an Aerion Technologies division in Palo Alto, CA and a new facility in Melbourne, FL  home to the future Aerion Park which will break ground later this year.

The AS2  the world's first supersonic business jet - will be the first aircraft to be assembled at the company's new global headquarters in Melbourne, Florida. Aerion Park, which represents an investment of $300 million will create at least 675 new jobs by 2026. The state-of-the-art development  powered by clean energy - will incorporate headquarters operations plus an integrated campus for research, design, build, and maintenance of the company's supersonic aircraft.

Further information on career opportunities at Aerion are available here: www.aerionsupersonic.com/careers

About Aerion:

We believe in bringing humanity closer. Our vision is a future where humanity can travel between any two points on our planet within three hours using new transportation networks  powered by clean energy solutions  that present a world where distance is no longer a barrier. Our starting point is sustainable supersonic flight, led by the world's first supersonic business jet  the AS2.

SOURCE Aerion Supersonic

Related Links

http://www.aerionsupersonic.com


NEW YORK, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Lithuanian Jewish Community are jointly calling on the Speaker of the Seimas, Lithuania's legislature, to stop a resolution honoring a member of the antisemitic Lithuanian Activist Front.

"We are deeply troubled to learn that the Seimas will entertain a resolution which would dedicate 2021 the Year of Juozas Luksa-Daumantas, an active member of the World War II-era Lithuanian Activist Front," wrote Rabbi Andrew Baker, AJC Director of International Jewish Affairs, and Faina Kukliansky, Chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community, in their letter to Seimas Speaker Viktoras Pranckietis.

Founded in Berlin, the Lithuanian Activist Front was an early ally of the Nazis in the occupation of Lithuania. Many of its members were directly involved in the persecution and murder of Lithuanian Jews. Its vision of an independent Lithuania was of an ethnically "pure" homeland with no place for Jewish citizens.

"We implore you to take no action which might give honor to any leader or prominent member of the Lithuanian Activist Front," wrote Baker and Kukliansky. "Instead you should defer such matters to the International Commission for Evaluating the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes appointed by the Lithuanian president for a clear and critical understanding of this tragic period in the country's history."

It may not be possible to provide irrefutable evidence that proves Luksa-Daumantas was guilty of war crimes in the persecution of Jews eighty years ago. But that is not relevant to the Seimas resolution, wrote Baker and Kukliansky.

"There is today a worldwide reckoning with history and growing recognition in all Western democracies that even past leaders of great accomplishment must forfeit any honor if they were also racists, bigots, or anti-Semites. Surely Lithuania should do no less," stated the letter to the Seimas Speaker.

Baker and Kukliansky, who also serve as co-chairpersons of the Lithuanian Goodwill Foundation, expressed appreciation for "the warm cooperative relationship" they have had with Speaker Pranckietis. "We know we share a common commitment to maintain the legacy and history of Jewish life in Lithuania and to build an inclusive and tolerant future. It is in this spirit that we write to you."

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is an AJC international partner.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee
DELRAY BEACH, Fla., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alterna Equity Partners today announced the successful completion of a follow on $15 million preferred equity investment to it's initial investment in Alterna Capital Solutions LLC. In conjunction with new lending syndicate commitments, Alterna's investment will provide the company with a $105 million balance sheet. Alterna's founder, Robert Konrad, joined forces with Stan Carpenter, ACS' founder and CEO, in 2018 to create an accounts receivables financing company for funding small and medium-sized enterprises (SME's). Headquartered in Winter Park, Florida, with offices in Atlanta, San Francisco and Denver, Alterna Capital Solutions has been one of the fastest growing companies in it's market segment over the past 24 months. Since its 2018 launch, the Company has purchased over $497,000,000 million in total receivables. "Alterna is excited to have the opportunity to continue it's work with ACS to bring additional financial and managerial resources to continue to build a best in class organization providing an attractive service focused offering to clients. The company is well capitalized and uniquely positioned to help SME's navigate the economic impact from COVID-19," said Alterna Founder Robert Konrad.

Alterna Equity Partners, founded by Mr. Konrad in 2006, is a private equity investment firm based in South Florida that makes strategic investments in early stage and established growing companies. Alterna invests in existing and new management teams and assists in the growth and development of its company investments through the introduction of new financial and managerial resources. Its operating and affiliated businesses oversee more than $1 billion in assets across several funds, portfolio companies and co-investments. Learn more at AlternaEquityPartners.com.

Contact

Ilona Wolpin

(954) 298-8784

[email protected]

SOURCE Alterna Equity Partners LLC

Related Links

http://www.alternaequitypartners.com


JUPITER, Fla., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- This week, Florida Governor  Ron DeSantis signed (SB-70) Alyssa's Law into law and allocated $8 million dollars for it in the state's budget. Alyssa's Law mandates that all public & charter schools in the state of Florida must install panic buttons that directly alert law enforcement and first responders of emergencies.

The law was named after Alyssa Alhadeff, a 14-year old student who was one of 17 people killed during a mass shooting in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

One company that is already on the cutting edge of this type of technology is ASR Alert Systems. The company customizes, designs and installs threat alert buttons (panic buttons, pendants and tablets) for crisis management situations (think Active Shooter, Medical Emergencies, Weather Incidents, Tornado Warnings, etc.).

What separates ASR Alert Systems from the competition is their patented technology which sends an emergency notification directly to First Responders (Police), Dispatch Centers, Real Time Crime Centers, and all those under attack. The critical information delivered mitigates response times during an emergency. Trying to seek shelter, unlock a cell phone and dial 9-1-1 during a crisis can be alleviated with the ASR Alert System.

Congress is also pushing for Alyssa's Law to be pursed on a national level.

ASR Alert Systems  Because Saving Time Saves Lives.

ASR's President, Hector Delgado says, "Our system empowers students, faculty and staff to notify local first responders, 911 dispatch, and all designated personnel within their facility in an active shooter/assailant situation with the simple push of a button. The notification pinpoints and provides the exact location of the threat. This not only helps police respond immediately with accurate information, but it also helps our students, faculty and staff know where the threat is located so they can run away from the threat, not towards it. There is no question that the ASR Alert System can make a difference, we truly believe that saving time saves lives!"

John Discepolo

(561) 232-1261

[email protected]

SOURCE ASR Alert Systems

Related Links

https://asralertsystems.com/


CRANBURY, N.J., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AmeriHealth HMO, Inc. and AmeriHealth Insurance Company of New Jersey (collectively "AmeriHealth New Jersey") are providing notice to certain members of a recent incident involving protected health information.

On May 8, 2020, the AmeriHealth New Jersey Privacy Office was notified that certain member information may have been accessible for unauthorized viewing. We quickly launched an investigation to determine the nature and scope of this incident, working with a leading forensics investigation firm to confirm what happened and what information may have been affected. The investigation determined that certain AmeriHealth New Jersey members used the same password credentials for multiple websites. These passwords were previously exposed through other third-party events, such as the 2018 MyFitnessPal application compromise. The passwords obtained from the third-party compromise were then used to obtain access to certain pages within AmeriHealth New Jersey's member portal between March 17, 2020, and April 30, 2020. After thorough investigation, AmeriHealth New Jersey is unaware of any actual or attempted misuse of this information. In an abundance of caution, AmeriHealth New Jersey is notifying affected members about this incident and will be offering access to 24 months of free credit monitoring and identity protection services.

The investigation confirmed the information present on the website included the following information related to the affected members: name, member identification number, plan type, spending account balances (if applicable), user reward summary (if applicable), and claims information, such as provider and/or prescription information (if applicable). This incident did not involve any social security numbers, financial information or credit card information.

Information privacy and security are among AmeriHealth New Jersey's highest priorities. AmeriHealth New Jersey has strict security measures in place to protect information in their care. Upon learning of this incident, AmeriHealth New Jersey quickly took steps to ensure the security of the member portal accounts involved. AmeriHealth New Jersey reviewed company policies and procedures and implemented additional technical controls to help prevent future incidents of this kind.

Additional information, including information on how to protect against identity theft and fraud can be obtained by contacting AmeriHealth New Jersey's dedicated call center at 877-890-9332.

SOURCE AMERIHEALTH HMO, INC. AND AMERIHEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY
NEW YORK, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ankura, a global business advisory and expert services firm, today announced the acquisition of Water Street Partners, LLC ("Water Street"), the world's premiere joint venture and alliance advisory firm, based in Washington, D.C. The addition of Water Street's professionals, transaction advisory capabilities and multi-national client base continues Ankura's ongoing expansion of its global platform and provides complementary services to the firm's existing client offering.

"We continue to grow our business by attracting top talent in defined and attractive market segments and fostering a collaborative environment that encourages these leaders to leverage one another's insights and expertise to deliver high-quality, customized solutions to our clients," said Kevin Lavin, Chief Executive Officer of Ankura. "Water Street is a proven leader in the joint venture and alliance advisory sector. This combination extends our delivery of expert advice to an expanding global client base facing complex and challenging situations."

Founded in 2008, Water Street provides leading companies with transaction, governance and portfolio advisory services centered on joint ventures and alliances. With the addition of Water Street, Ankura augments its client offering with a new depth of expertise from globally-recognized transaction advisory professionals that have worked across a multitude of industries, including energy, financial services, healthcare, technology, and aerospace. Water Street's entire group will join Ankura. The leadership  James Bamford, Gerard Baynham, Peter Daniel, David Ernst and Geoff Walker  will join Ankura as Senior Managing Directors.

"We are excited to join the Ankura team, and we share a commitment to serving clients and a common culture focused on collaboration and respect," said James Bamford, a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Water Street. David Ernst, also a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Water Street, added, "We look forward to working together with our new colleagues and helping them grow our combined businesses through a continued commitment to exceeding our clients' expectations."

"We welcome the entire Water Street team to Ankura with open arms. This combination is a significant development that will benefit our firm, our professionals and our clients worldwide. We will continue to execute our growth strategy delivering customized services to our clients during these extraordinary times and into the future," said Philip Daddona, President of Ankura.

Equiteq served as a financial advisor to Water Street and Cooley LLP acted as legal counsel. Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP served as legal counsel to Ankura. Funds affiliated with private equity investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners remain significant shareholders in Ankura.

About Ankura

Ankura is a global business advisory and expert services firm defined by HOW we solve challenges. Whether a client is facing an immediate business challenge, trying to increase the value of their company or protect against future risks, Ankura designs, develops, and executes tailored solutions by assembling the right combination of expertise. We help clients navigate a wide range of corporate performance and risk management challenges, including those pertaining to compliance, investigations, forensics, technology, turnaround and restructuring, and corporate strategy. We build on this experience with every case, client, and situation, collaborating to create innovative, customized solutions, and strategies designed for today's ever-changing business environment. This gives our clients unparalleled insight and experience across a wide range of economic, governance, and regulatory challenges. At Ankura, we know that collaboration drives results. For more information, please visit: www.ankura.com.

About Water Street Partners

Water Street Partners, which will operate under the Ankura brand name, is the world's leading advisory firm on joint venture transactions and governance. Water Street's transaction work specializes in joint ventures and other non-M&A partnerships, both in new deal formation and restructuring. On governance, Water Street advises clients on corporate and joint venture governance, working with boards, management teams, and individual shareholders.

Water Street is built around giving its clients access to the most experienced advisors, the most comprehensive database of practices and benchmarks, the best proprietary tools, and the widest network of practitioners in the world. Based in Washington, D.C., Water Street's work spans industries and geographies. Water Street has negotiated, restructured, or advised many of the largest and most complicated partnerships in the world. Since its founding in 2008, Water Street has advised on 250+ JV transactions valued at $750 billion, and supported the shareholders, boards, or management teams in more than 450 existing joint ventures. Prior to Water Street, its founders were global co-leads of the joint venture and alliance practice of McKinsey & Co.

SOURCE Ankura

Related Links

http://www.ankura.com


Dr. Zhinuan Yu has been working in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years. Prior to joining Antengene, she was Senior Director of Biostatistics at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Before that, Zhinuan had served in Celgene Corporation for nearly 16 years, leading statistical support for multiple high priority programs including Thalidomide, Lenalidomide, Pomalidomide, and bb2121 (CAR-T) for multiple myeloma and other therapeutic areas, and played a key role in successful NDA/ sNDA / BLA submissions with global health authorities including the US FDA, EMA, Swissmedic, Health Canada, PMDA, CFDA, and other regulatory agencies.

Zhinuan provided statistical expertise and co-authored multiple publications in prestigious journals including the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and Lancet, and at various professional conferences. Her outstanding contributions and leadership earned her the highest individual recognition bestowed by Celgene, the John W. Jackson Leadership Award. Prior to Celgene, Zhinuan had worked at Organon (now Merck) and the University of Miami.

"I'm delighted to have Zhinuan join Antengene at this exciting time. Zhinuan will play a key role in building Biometrics and Regulatory Enabling Functions with her solid technical knowledge of advanced statistical methodologies as well as successful experience in NDA/sNDA submissions," said Dr. Jay Mei, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Antengene. "We have initiated NDA of ATG-010 (selinexor) for the patients with relapsed refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) and the patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with several Asia Pacific markets that meet the regulatory requirement. I am confident that Zhinuan, a seasoned industry leader with a proven track record in the past 20 years in NDA with global regulatory agencies, will strengthen our ability to deliver meaningful results now and in the future."

"I am impressed by the fast growth of the promising pipeline and talented team at Antengene within such a short time," said Zhinuan. "Having had an amazing journey of drug development at Celgene/BMS, I look forward to joining Jay and the Antengene team to continue to do well by doing good, and to bring much needed innovative medicines to patients in China, Asia Pacific regions, and around the globe."

Zhinuan earned her B.A. in English and M.A. in World Economy from Fudan University in China, and Ph.D. in Psychometrics / Statistics from Tulane University in the USA.

About Antengene

Antengene is a biopharmaceutical company with integrated drug discovery, clinical development, manufacturing and commercialization anchored in Asia Pacific region with global layout, aiming to provide the most advanced and first-in-class anti-cancer drugs and other treatments for patients in China, the rest of Asia and around the world. In April 2017, Celgene (now officially acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb and a world's top ten pharmaceutical company after the merger), a global leading innovative biopharmaceutical company became a founding partner and obtained an equity position as an investor in Antengene. Over the past 3 years, Antengene has obtained 7 IND approvals with 6 first-in-class drugs in more than 10 ongoing cross-regional clinical trials in Asia Pacific regions, and has built a product pipeline of 12 clinical and pre-clinical stage programs. The vision of Antengene, "Treating Patients Beyond Borders," is to meet the unmet medical needs of patients in Asia Pacific regions and around the world through research & development and commercialization of first-in-class drugs.

ATG-010 (selinexor) is the first oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export (SINE) compound with novel mechanisms in the world. In July 2019, the U.S. FDA approved selinexor in combination with low-dose dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed refractory multiple myeloma. Currently, the registration clinical trials of ATG-010 in relapsed refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) are ongoing in China. The compound is also in late clinical development for various other hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. In addition, preclinical studies have shown that inhibitors of nuclear protein export XPO1 can effectively treat KRAS mutant tumor, and related clinical studies are currently being conducted.

ATG-008 is a second-generation dual mTORC1/2 inhibitor and is in multi-regional clinical trials for treatment of advanced liver cancer, lung cancer, and several other tumors.

ATG-016 is a second-generation oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export protein, and is currently being studied in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) as well as in several clinical trials of solid tumors, including colorectal cancer (CRC), gastric carcinoma (GC), triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and prostate cancer (PrC) .

ATG-019 is the first-in-class PAK4/NAMPT dual-target inhibitors, and is currently being studied in a number of clinical trials including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma. In addition, preclinical studies have demonstrated that ATG-019 in combination with anti-PD-1 antibodies can effectively improve the anti-tumor activity and is effective in tumors that became resistant to anti-PD-1 therapy. Related clinical trial is about to initiate.

ATG-527 is an innovative product under development for antiviral and treatment of autoimmune diseases, and has been in clinical trial of healthy volunteers and been studied against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and other related diseases.

ATG-017 is a potent and selective small molecule extracellular signalregulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) inhibitor, in clinical development for the treatment of various solid tumors, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) and multiple myeloma. In addition, the drug discovery team of Antengene focuses on the early preclinical development of multiple innovative target drugs in the fields of small molecule, monoclonal and bi-specific antibodies. For more information, please visit www.antengene.com.

Forward-looking Statement

The forward-looking statements made in this article relate only to the events or information as of the date on which the statements are made in this article. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. You should read this article completely and with the understanding that our actual future results or performance may be materially different from what we expect. In this article, statements of, or references to, our intentions or those of any of our Directors or our Company are made as of the date of this article. Any of these intentions may alter in light of future development.

SOURCE Antengene Corporation
VANCOUVER, BC, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Body and Mind Inc. (CSE: BAMM) (OTCQB: BMMJ) (the "Company" or "BaM"), a multi-state cannabis operator, announced today details of grand opening celebrations in San Diego and West Memphis and provides a corporate update.

"We are excited to have grand opening celebrations at our newest dispensaries and our strategy of measured growth while diversifying across limited license jurisdictions has enabled us to be one of the few debt free operators in our industry," stated Michael Mills, CEO of Body and Mind. " In addition to completing construction on several new facilities, we are focused on developing our licenses, expanding our brand and accretive acquisition opportunities. I'm incredibly proud of our team as we have opened these facilities and developed reduced contact solutions including on-line and express pickup ordering options."

The Company continues to observe COVID-19 protocols at all our operations including physical distancing, elevated cleaning and working with customers on low contact ordering options.

Grand Opening of ShowGrow Dispensary San Diego

ShowGrow San Diego will hold a Grand Opening Celebration at 7625 Carroll Road in the Miramar area of San Diego from July 2 to July 5. Local and national brands will be on site with social distancing observed in addition to regular COVID-19 cleaning protocols. The dispensary will offer grand opening product specials, complimentary food while it lasts, and free gifts of merchandise to every customer. Customers and patients who would prefer to order on-line can view our live menu and register for our rewards program at: https://bamcannabis.com/california/sandiegodispensary/sandiegomenu/

Visit https://www.instagram.com/p/CCGbaGFBLNR/ for more information. See Instagram @dispo7625carrollrd or twitter @dispo7625 for more information.

Grand Opening of Body and Mind Dispensary  West Memphis

Body and Mind will hold a Grand Opening Celebration at 203 N Ok Street in West Memphis from July 2 to July 5. As one or the first dispensaries to open in South West Arkansas the Company is excited to welcome medical patients in the area and provide a knowledgeable and caring experience. The dispensary will offer grand opening product specials, complimentary food while it lasts, and free gifts of merchandise to every customer. The dispensary offers a live on-line menu that allow patients to order on-line for express pickup. Patients can view and order from the live on line menu at https://bamcannabis.com/arkansas/westmemphisdispensary/westmemphismenu/

Visit the dispensary Instagram site @bamarkansas for more information.

The Arkansas facility construction has been completed for both dispensary and cultivation operations and is consistent with the strategy of bringing BaM's experience to limited license states and expanding the Body and Mind brand. The Company is working on ramping up for cultivation at the facility and is working on state and local approvals.

BaM and Comprehensive Care Group, LLC opened the dispensary in late April 2020 in West Memphis, Arkansas near the border with Tennessee. This was the 22nd dispensary to open in the state out of a total of 33 licensed dispensaries approved in Arkansas, and the first one in Zone 3 along the I-40 corridor. Sales of legal medical cannabis commenced in Arkansas in May 2019 and the program has experienced expanding adoption from medical cannabis patients.

Body and Mind Completes Conversion Agreement and Issues Shares to Australis Capital Inc.

The Company has issued 2,909,091 shares of common stock to Australis Capital Inc. ("Australis") effective July 1, 2020 to complete the investment agreement from October 30, 2018 as amended through a Conversion Agreement dated July 1, 2019.

The shares issued to Australis on July 1, 2020 are "restricted securities" and the resale safe harbor under Rule 144 for such shares will not be available until January 1, 2021 at the earliest. As a beneficial owner of 10% or more of BaM's outstanding shares of common stock, if Australis intends to rely upon the resale safe harbor under Rule 144, it is required to comply with Rule 144 requirements for affiliates, which among other things, requires it to file a Form 144 with the SEC only for the amount of shares that Australis intends to sell in the three-month period from the date of filing the Form 144. A Form 144 only needs to be filed if the sale involves more than 5,000 shares or the aggregate dollar amount is greater than $50,000 in any three-month period. The sales must take place within three months of filing the Form 144, and if the securities have not been sold, then Australis must file an amended notice. In addition, any sales of shares by Australis under the Rule 144 resale safe harbor while it is an affiliate is subject to the "dribble-out" provisions of Rule 144(e), which limits the amount Australis is able to sell during any three-month period to a maximum of 1% of the outstanding shares of common stock of BaM preceding the filing of the Form 144.

ShowGrow Long Beach Update

The company, through its subsidiary NMG Long Beach LLC continues to work towards completion of the definitive agreement for the ShowGrow Long Beach dispensary. The company has not received all approvals required to transfer the license and continues to work with state and local regulators to complete the license transfer.

Updated on Interim Financials for Q3 of Fiscal 2020

Further to BaM's Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on EDGAR on June 15, 2020 and filed as a material change report on SEDAR on the same day in relation to the timing of the filing of its Periodic Report on Form 10-Q for its Q3 2020 financial statements, BaM expects to file such documents on or prior to July 30, 2020.

The Company, due to continuing logistics and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, is relying upon the 45-day grace period provided by the SEC's order issued on March 25, 2020 (Release No. 34-88465) and on the blanket relief exemptions provided by the Canadian Securities Administrators with respect to Section 4.4 of National Instrument 51-102  Continuous Disclosure Obligations, delaying the filing of its Periodic Report on Form 10-Q, which includes the Company's unaudited interim financial statements for the three and nine month periods ended April 30, 2020.

About Body and Mind Inc.

BaM is a debt free publicly traded company investing in high quality medical and recreational cannabis cultivation, production and retail. BaM's wholly owned Nevada subsidiary was awarded one of the first medical marijuana cultivation licenses and holds cultivation and production licenses. BaM products include dried flower, edibles, oils and extracts as well as GPEN Gio cartridges. BaM cannabis strains have won numerous awards including the 2019 Las Vegas Weekly Bud Bracket, Las Vegas Hempfest Cup 2016, High Times Top Ten, the NorCal Secret Cup and the Emerald Cup.

BaM continues to expand operations in Nevada, California, Arkansas and Ohio and is dedicated to increasing shareholder value by focusing time and resources on improving operational efficiencies, facility expansions, pursuing state licensing opportunities and mergers and acquisitions.

Please visit www.bamcannabis.com for more information.

Instagram: @bodyandmindBaM

Twitter: @bodyandmindBaM

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.

Safe Harbor Statement

Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented in this news release constitutes "forward-looking statements" as such term is used in applicable United States and Canadian laws. These statements relate to analyses and other information that are based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determinable and assumptions of management. Any other statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans, "estimates" or "intends", or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and should be viewed as "forward-looking statements". Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and other factors include, among others, the actual results of activities, variations in the underlying assumptions associated with the estimation of activities, the availability of capital to fund programs and the resulting dilution caused by the raising of capital through the sale of shares, accidents, labor disputes and other risks. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this news release and in any document referred to in this news release.

Certain matters discussed in this news release and oral statements made from time to time by representatives of the Company may constitute forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Many of these factors are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict. Important factors that may cause actual results to differ materially and that could impact the Company and the statements contained in this news release can be found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities.

SOURCE Body and Mind Inc.

Related Links

https://bamcannabis.com/


A division of C Spire, the Mississippi-based diversified telecommunications and technology services parent company, C Spire Business was included in the annual list under the Solution Provider 500 category for the seventh consecutive year. The list serves as the industry's benchmark for recognizing the top-performing technology integrators, strategic service providers, and IT consultants and as a valuable resource for technology vendors looking to partner with top solution providers.

C Spire Business is among an elite group of managed solutions firms that help companies and enterprises navigate the complex and ever-changing information technology landscape, improve operational efficiencies and maximize business' return on IT investments.

"We're honored to be ranked so highly on this competitive list of solution providers," said Allen McIntosh, general manager for C Spire Business. "With the help of key partners like Cisco, Dell EMC and Microsoft, our highly certified team of experts is dedicated to bringing the industry's best solutions to our clients. Thanks to CRN for this recognition."

CRN said SPs are integral to the success of small and large businesses everywhere. "Capable MSPs enable companies to take their cloud computing to the next level, streamline spending, effectively allocate limited resources and navigate the vast field of available technologies," said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company, which owns CRN. "This year, companies on this list represent a combined revenue of $393 billion, a data point that underscores the impact and influence these solution providers have on the IT industry," Skelly added. "On behalf of The Channel Company, I'd like to congratulate these companies for their outstanding contributions to the growth and success of our industry."

With the coronavirus outbreak earlier this year, businesses and firms promptly shifted their operating model with many employees working from home and solution providers like C Spire Business had to quickly pivot, providing their clients' employees with laptops, collaboration and video conferencing tools, access to cloud applications and security technology.

The pandemic and economic shutdown "have been very disruptive," McIntosh said. "We're not directly in front of our customers." The division helped employees meet the surge in demand from its customers for work-from-home technology, collaboration tools and managed services. "We continue to see strong demand for these capabilities from our customers," he added.

McIntosh said C Spire Business offers advanced connectivity, cloud, software, hardware, communications, professional services, cybersecurity, business continuity and technology support in a single, seamless, managed IT solution portfolio. "From desktop to data center, we help customers work smarter, faster and more secure."

With hundreds of service professionals, multiple data centers and ownership of nearly 10,000 route miles of fiber optic infrastructure, C Spire Business is poised to deliver world-class managed services to a variety of businesses. The firm is ranked 9th in the world among cloud service providers, McIntosh added.

The SP 500 list is featured in the June 2020 issue of CRN online at www.CRN.com/SP500.

About C Spire Business

C Spire Business is a division of C Spire, a Mississippi-based diversified telecommunications and technology services provider. The managed solutions provider brings together a team of specialized IT experts to deliver a wide range of technology services for businesses. The team collaborates with firms to provide new ideas and technologies that keep them prepared for the future. From cloud services to VoIP, C Spire Business engineers work with companies to offer customer inspired IT solutions focused on their needs. This news release and other announcements are available at www.cspire.com/news. For more information about C Spire Business, visit www.cspire.com and click on the business tab or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CSpireBusiness; on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CSpireBusiness and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/showcase/c-spire-business.

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook Copyright 2020. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

SOURCE C Spire Business

Related Links

http://www.cspire.com


HOUSTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE: COG) ("Cabot" or the "Company") announced today that it plans to release its financial and operating results on Thursday, July 30, 2020, after market closes. The Company will host its second quarter 2020 earnings conference call on Friday, July 31, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

To access the live audio webcast, please visit the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.cabotog.com. A replay of the call will also be available on the Company's website.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a leading independent natural gas producer with its entire resource base located in the continental United States. For additional information, visit the Company's website at www.cabotog.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Matt Kerin (281) 589-4642

SOURCE Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation

Related Links

http://www.cabotog.com


WASHINGTON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board) announced today public disciplinary actions against the following individuals, effective immediately or on the date noted in each case. Public disciplinary actions taken by CFP Board, in order of increasing severity, include letters of admonition, suspensions and permanent revocations.

This release contains information about recent disciplinary actions relating to seven current or former CFP professionals. Of these actions, there are four suspensions and three administrative revocations.

The basis for each decision can be found in the Disciplinary Action Report below and on CFP Board's website. The public may check on an individual's disciplinary history and certification status with CFP Board at www.CFP.net/verify . That website also provides links to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's (FINRA) BrokerCheck and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Investment Adviser Public Disclosure databases, which are free tools that may be used to conduct research on the background and experience of CFP professionals who are subject to FINRA or SEC oversight, including with respect to employment history, regulatory actions, and investment-related licensing information, arbitrations, and complaints.

CFP Board's enforcement process is a critical consumer protection. As part of their certification, a CFP professional agrees to abide by CFP Board's Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct (Code and Standards), or its predecessor, the Standards of Professional Conduct (Standards), which included the Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Rules of Conduct and Financial Planning Practice Standards.

CFP Board enforces its ethical standards by investigating incidents of alleged violations and, where there is probable cause to believe there are grounds for discipline, presenting a Complaint containing the alleged violations to CFP Board's Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (Commission) pursuant to CFP Board's Procedural Rules, which became effective on June 30, 2020, or its predecessor Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (Disciplinary Rules). If the Commission determines there are grounds for sanction (previously called grounds for discipline), then it may impose a sanction ranging from a private censure or public sanction (previously called a letter of admonition) to the suspension or revocation of the right to use the CFP marks. CFP Board's Procedural Rules set forth the process for investigating matters and imposing discipline where violations have been found.

The Commission meets at least six times a year to provide a fair, unbiased review of any matter in which CFP Board has alleged that a CFP professional has violated the Code and Standards, or its predecessor Standards.

The Commission functions in accordance with the Procedural Rules and reviews all matters on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the details specific to an individual case. While CFP Board has attempted to capture the details relevant to each decision, the summary nature of these releases may omit certain details affecting the decision. Accordingly, the decisions and/or rationale described in the releases may not apply to other cases reviewed by the Commission or reflect the Commission's future interpretation or application of the Code and Standards, or the predecessor Standards.

STATE NAME LOCATION DISCIPLINE Pennsylvania James Vincent Cipriotti Radnor Suspension Florida Bryan S. Girgenti Altamonte Springs Suspension Massachusetts Katherine Horgan Osterville Suspension California Richard LaBare Rancho Mirage Administrative Revocation Arizona Paul Mosley Lake Havasu City Administrative Revocation New Mexico Thomas Martin Santa Fe Suspension New Jersey Samuel K. Van Allen Milford Administrative Revocation

SUSPENSIONS

FLORIDA

Bryan S. Girgenti (Altamonte Springs): In June 2020, the Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (Commission) and Mr. Girgenti entered into a settlement agreement in which Mr. Girgenti agreed that CFP Board would issue a three-month suspension of his right to use the CFP certification marks. In the settlement agreement, Mr. Girgenti consented to findings that he, as the president, chief compliance officer, and sole owner and registered associated person of his firm, entered into: (a) a 2010 Consent Order with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation ("Florida") for failure to file annual financial statements for 2008 and 2009, resulting in violations of various sections of the Florida Administrative Code and Florida Statutes; and (b) a 2018 Consent Order with Florida for numerous misrepresentations in his firm's Form ADV, ADV Part 2A and Part 2B in violation of Florida law. Mr. Girgenti also consented to findings that he failed to disclose to CFP Board his 2018 Florida Consent Order on his July 1, 2019 CFP Board Renewal Application and never disclosed his 2010 Consent Order to CFP Board. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, Mr. Girgenti also consented to findings that his conduct violated Rules 2.1, 13.1, 13.3, and 13.4 of the Rules of Conduct and provided grounds for discipline pursuant to Articles 3(a) and 3(g) of the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures. Accordingly, the Commission issued to Mr. Girgenti a suspension for three months. Mr. Girgenti's suspension is effective from June 29, 2020 to September 29, 2020.

MASSACHUSETTS

Katherine Horgan (Osterville): In August 2019, the Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (Commission) and Ms. Horgan entered into a settlement agreement in which Ms. Horgan agreed that CFP Board would issue a one-year and one-day suspension of her right to use the CFP certification marks. Ms. Horgan also agreed to complete 15 additional hours of continuing education (CE). In the settlement agreement, Ms. Horgan consented to findings based on a 2019 Massachusetts Consent Order that she made unsuitable securities recommendations in violation of Massachusetts law, for which she was ordered to permanently cease and desist, compensate impacted clients in the amount of $100,000, and pay an administrative fine (together with her firm and another individual) of $40,000. Ms. Horgan's registration in Massachusetts as an investment adviser representative also was suspended for two months. Pursuant to the settlement agreement with CFP Board, Ms. Horgan consented to findings that her conduct with respect to the unsuitable recommendations violated Rules 4.1, 4.3, and 4.5 of the Rules of Conduct, providing grounds for discipline under Article 3(a) of the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures. Accordingly, the Commission issued to Ms. Horgan a suspension for one year and one day and additional CE hours. Ms. Horgan's suspension was effective as of August 27, 2019. On September 24, 2019, Ms. Horgan sent CFP Board a letter in which she voluntarily relinquished her CFP certification.

NEW MEXICO

Thomas Martin (Santa Fe): In June 2020, the Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (Commission) and Mr. Martin entered into a settlement agreement in which Mr. Martin agreed that CFP Board would issue a three-month suspension of his right to use the CFP certification marks. In the settlement agreement, Mr. Martin consented to findings that, from 2011 through 2017, of exercising discretion in multiple clients' accounts without obtaining prior written authorization from the clients. This conduct led to a 2011 Letter of Warning from his firm, a 2012 Cautionary Action Letter from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a 2014 Written Reprimand from his firm, a 2017 termination of his firm, and a 2017 FINRA Investigation and 2020 Letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent wherein he consented to a 15-business day suspension and a $5,000 fine. Mr. Martin failed to report to CFP Board his FINRA suspension within 30 calendar days as required by Article 13.2 of the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (Disciplinary Rules). Pursuant to the settlement agreement, Mr. Martin also consented to findings that his conduct violated Rules 4.3 and 5.1 of the Rules of Conduct and provided grounds for discipline pursuant to Articles 3(a), 3(e), 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, and 13.4 of the Disciplinary Rules. Accordingly, the Commission issued to Mr. Martin a suspension for three months. Mr. Martin's suspension is effective from June 29, 2020 to September 29, 2020.

PENNSYLVANIA

James Vincent Cipriotti (Radnor): In December 2019, the Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (Commission) issued an order in which Mr. Cipriotti received a three-month suspension of his right to use the CFP certification marks. The Commission issued its order after determining that Mr. Cipriotti mailed a solicitation to potential clients that contained false and misleading information and offered an unlawful $200 Visa gift card as an inducement for prospective clients to schedule an office appointment with him. The Commission found the solicitation misleading because (1) it did not identify the product to which Mr. Cipriotti was referring, (2) Mr. Cipriotti added emphasis to language through underlining and bolding of certain words in the solicitation, and not others, which created an unbalanced and deceptive document, (3) it stated that, by receiving a free retirement income analysis from Mr. Cipriotti, prospective clients would not outlive their money, (4) it stated that the unidentified investment product's return was guaranteed and that the product had no fees when a brochure for the annuity Mr. Cipriotti later identified as the product contained the disclaimer that the product "may lose value" and also stated that there were surrender fees for withdrawals in excess of the penalty-free amount, and (5) it failed to disclose the risks associated with the investment product in his solicitation. The Commission also found that, by offering the $200 gift card in his solicitation, Mr. Cipriotti exceeded the di minimis exception to Pennsylvania's rebating and inducement law, which only permits an inducement of less than or equal to $100. The Commission determined that Mr. Cipriotti's conduct violated Rules 2.1 and 4.3 of the Rules of Conduct and provided grounds for discipline pursuant to Articles 3(a) of the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures. Accordingly, the Commission issued to Mr. Cipriotti a suspension for three months. Mr. Cipriotti's suspension is effective from July 1, 2020 until November 1, 2020.

ADMINISTRATIVE REVOCATIONS

ARIZONA

Paul Mosley (Lake Havasu City): In April 2020, CFP Board issued an order permanently revoking Mr. Mosley's right to use the CFP certification marks. This discipline followed Mr. Mosley's failure to file an Answer to CFP Board's Complaint within the required timeframe. CFP Board's Complaint alleged that Mr. Mosley was terminated from his firm for "compliance policy violations related to complying with disciplinary action and heightened supervision, soliciting a prohibited security and suitability of a transaction." The Complaint further alleged that, prior to his termination, Mr. Mosley had been the subject of prior discipline by the firm, including a Letter of Reprimand that cited multiple instances of recommending unsuitable investment strategies, the failure to provide full and fair disclosure of risks, the failure to follow procedures to obtain approval to execute trades for clients in energy sector products, and improperly recommending certain closed-end funds that were not approved for solicitation to at least 22 clients. In connection with that discipline, Mr. Mosley's firm assessed a $1,000 fine and he was placed on a six-month Heightened Supervision Plan. CFP Board's Complaint further alleged that Mr. Mosley's conduct violated Rules 5.1 of the Rules of Conduct, providing grounds for discipline under Article 3(a) of the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (Disciplinary Rules). Mr. Mosley declined to file an Answer to the Complaint to CFP Board within 30 calendar days of the date of service, as required by Article 7.3 of the Disciplinary Rules. In accordance with Article 7.4 of the Disciplinary Rules, the allegations set forth in the Complaint were deemed admitted, and CFP Board issued an Administrative Order of Revocation. Mr. Mosley's revocation was effective as of May 27, 2020.

CALIFORNIA

Richard LaBare (Rancho Mirage): In April 2020, CFP Board issued an order permanently revoking Mr. LaBare's right to use the CFP certification marks. This discipline followed Mr. LaBare's failure to file an Answer to CFP Board's Complaint within the required timeframe. CFP Board's Complaint alleged that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) suspended Mr. LaBare's registration indefinitely starting April 1, 2019 based upon Mr. LaBare's failure to respond timely to several requests for information, in violation of FINRA Rule 8210. On June 11, 2019, after Mr. LaBare continued to fail to respond to the original requests and failed to request termination of his suspension within three months of the implementation of the suspension, FINRA imposed a permanent bar on Mr. LaBare from associating with any FINRA member in any capacity. The Complaint also alleged that, on January 31, 2020, the Insurance Commissioner of the State of California suspended Mr. LaBare's license for ten days as accident and health agent and life-only agent for failure to notify the Commissioner of the FINRA disciplinary actions. The Complaint further alleged that Mr. LaBare never disclosed either of the actions taken by FINRA nor the action taken by the Insurance Commissioner of the State of California to CFP Board and also that CFP Board had discovered that Mr. LaBare previously failed to disclose details to CFP Board regarding an arbitration, a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, an arbitration award for $160,000, and a termination by a prior firm. On March 23, 2020, CFP Board imposed an automatic interim suspension upon Mr. LaBare in connection with the FINRA bar. CFP Board's Complaint further alleged that Mr. Mosley's conduct violated Rules 4.3, 6.2, and 6.4 of the Rules of Conduct and provided grounds to discipline Mr. LaBare under Articles 3(a) and 3(d) of the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (Disciplinary Rules). Mr. LaBare declined to file an Answer to the Complaint to CFP Board within 30 calendar days of the date of service, as required by Article 7.3 of the Disciplinary Rules. In accordance with Article 7.4 of the Disciplinary Rules, the allegations set forth in the Complaint were deemed admitted, and CFP Board issued an Administrative Order of Revocation. Mr. LaBare's revocation was effective as of May 27, 2020.

NEW JERSEY

Samuel K. Van Allen (Milford): In October 2019, CFP Board issued an order permanently revoking Mr. Van Allen's right to use the CFP certification marks. This discipline followed Mr. Van Allen's failure to file an Answer to CFP Board's Complaint within the required timeframe. CFP Board's Complaint alleged that Mr. Van Allen failed to respond to multiple requests for information from CFP Board about a Form U-5 disclosure stating that Mr. Van Allen had been permitted to resign from a broker-dealer registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority while under investigation for violating internal company policies in connection with confidential customer information. Respondent did not disclose this event to CFP Board. CFP Board's Complaint further alleged that Mr. Van Allen's conduct provided grounds for under Article 3(f) of the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (Disciplinary Rules). Mr. Van Allen declined to file an Answer to CFP Board's Complaint within 20 calendar days of the date of service, as required by Article 7.3 of the Disciplinary Rules. In accordance with Article 7.4 of the Disciplinary Rules, the allegations set forth in the Complaint were deemed admitted, and CFP Board issued an Administrative Order of Revocation. Mr. Van Allen's revocation was effective as of November 11, 2019.

ABOUT CFP BOARD

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. is the professional body for personal financial planners in the U.S. CFP Board sets standards for financial planning and administers the prestigious CFP certification  one of the most respected certifications in financial services  so that the public has access to and benefits from competent and ethical financial planning. CFP Board, along with its Center for Financial Planning, is committed to increasing the public's awareness of CFP certification and access to a diverse, ethical and competent financial planning workforce. Widely recognized by firms and consumer groups as the standard for financial planning, CFP certification is held by more than 87,000 people in the United States.

SOURCE Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cfp.net


BANGALORE, India, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Cloud Applications market size is projected to reach USD 365.00 Billion by 2026, from USD 147.12 Billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 16.35% during 2020-2026.

The scalability and flexibility of cloud applications, together with the customization provided by various cloud service providers, help businesses to adopt cloud applications. Cloud applications help reduce the cost of installing IT hardware and infrastructure and help companies concentrate on their core businesses. These advantages are expected to accelerate cloud application adoption during the forecast period.

The report offers an exhaustive geographical analysis of the global Cloud Applications market, covering important regions, viz, North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, and Central & South America. The report includes a country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by each application segment in terms of revenue for the period 2015-2026.

This report also analyses the impact of Coronavirus COVID-19 on the Cloud Applications industry.

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TRENDS INFLUENCING THE CLOUD APPLICATION MARKET SIZE

Factors such as increased use of advanced technology adoption, low maintenance costs, and business expansion are driving the market growth.

The rapid increase in the use of mobile apps is the primary reason for the growth of the cloud application market size. The convenience of apps to access data, make financial transactions, extract vital information, share information in real-time, and improve flexibility and productivity are fueling the market growth.

The banking sector needs to store and manage confidential customer information, such as credit card details, transaction details, and personal information. These data need to be stored securely, as the loss of such data could result in a loss of the customer and could result in negative brand value on the market. This widespread adoption by the BFSI sector is, in turn, expected to increase the cloud application market size during the forecast period.

Market growth can be constrained by concerns over data security.

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CLOUD APPLICATION MARKET SHARE

On the basis of the application, the cloud Supply Chain Management (SCM) segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period. This is due to the growing acceptance among small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large enterprises in order to ensure enhanced business processes. For example, Cloud SCM applications provide businesses with real-time access to enterprise data, which facilitates rapid decision-making and enhanced business processes.

Based on the region, the North American region is expected to dominate the Cloud application market share during the forecast period. North America is one of the leading investors in IT technology. The presence of major economies in the region, such as the US and Canada, is expected to contribute to the growth of the cloud application market.

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CLOUD APPLICATION MARKET SEGMENTATION

Cloud Applications Breakdown Data by Type

E-mail

File Storage

File Sharing

Customer Relationship Management

Other.

Cloud Applications Breakdown Data by Application

BFSI

Manufacturing

Government and Public Sector

Telecommunications

Other.

The following players are covered in this report:

AWS

Microsoft

Salesforce

Oracle

SAP

Google

Workday

Adobe

IBM

Infor (Koch Industries)

Sage Group

Intuit

Epicor

Cisco Systems

ServiceNow

OpenText

Box

Zoho

Citrix

LogMeIn

Upland Software

Microsoft

Others.

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SIMILAR REPORTS

Cloud CRM Market Report

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-0N2264/global-cloud-crm

SaaS-based Business Intelligence (BI) Market Report

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-2T2093/global-saas-based-business-intelligence

Cloud Based Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Market Report

The cloud PLM solutions help in enhancing the communication between manufacturers and suppliers and offer more organized results for the development of a product.

The report offers an exhaustive geographical analysis of the global Cloud-Based PLM market, covering important regions, viz, North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, and Central & South America.

The report includes a country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by each application segment in terms of revenue for the period 2015-2026.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-35C1247/global-cloud-based-plm

Cloud-based Training Software Market Report

Cloud-based training software is an application that delivers, tracks, and manages all online and instructor-led training programs on the cloud.

One of the major factors that are expected to increase the Cloud-based Training Software Market size is the increased need to improve employee value. Effective training can be used to improve the value of employees.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-37B230/global-cloud-based-training-software

Cloud Email Security Software Market

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-21X2561/covid-19-impact-on-global-cloud-email-security-software

Software as a Service (SaaS) Market Report

The global SaaS market size is projected to reach USD 307.3 Billion by 2026, from USD 158.2 Billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 11.7% during 2020-2026.

An increasing number of infrastructures and established networks have forced organizations to pursue scalable and flexible solutions, such as SaaS. This, in turn, has helped in the growth of SaaS market size.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-1G311/covid-19-impact-on-global-software-as-a-service

ABOUT US:

Valuates offers in-depth market insights into various industries. Our extensive report repository is constantly updated to meet your changing industry analysis needs.

Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. With our customization in place, you can request for any particular information from a report that meets your market analysis needs.

To achieve a consistent view of the market, data is gathered from various primary and secondary sources, at each step, data triangulation methodologies are applied to reduce deviance and find a consistent view of the market. Each sample we share contains a detailed research methodology employed to generate the report. Please also reach our sales team to get the complete list of our data sources.

CONTACT US:

Valuates Reports

[email protected]

For U.S. Toll-Free Call +1-(315)-215-3225

For IST Call +91-8040957137

WhatsApp : +91 9945648335

Website: https://reports.valuates.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/valuatesreports

Linkedin - https://in.linkedin.com/company/valuatesreports

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/valuatesreports

SOURCE Valuates Reports
Businesses in South Korea who are looking to embark on digital transformation or IT modernization journey will benefit immensely from Cloud4C service portfolio. Cloud4C is cloud managed services provider with key strategic partnerships with SAP, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, while it brings its own public cloud platform. It has helped SAP launch its SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud across 25 countries and serves world renowned global brands.

Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder and CEO, Cloud4C said, "We are delighted to launch our operations in South Korea which is world's 12th largest economy with a unique geographic position and pursues business-friendly policies with tremendous potential for growth. We plan to enable businesses in South Korea through our wide spectrum of services to help them address their critical business needs through differentiated offerings such as banking community cloud, SAP community cloud, cloud migration services to hyperscale cloud providers and cloud managed services." He further added, "We bring to South Korea our experience of working with 4,000 enterprises from across the world to help CIOs embark on their digital transformation and help them achieve their technology and business goals. We plan to partner with South Korean CIOs to help them play a larger role in evolving their IT strategies and establish digital Leadership."

Cloud4C plans to set up Cloud4C Academy in South Korea in partnership with the Government and leading IT Universities to train and nurture local talents with adequate industry exposure. "We aim to train the youth in South Korea and prepare them for a bright future in cloud computing to help them gain employment and eventually assume leadership roles in the industry," said Sridhar Pinnapureddy.

The company has recently appointed Peter Seo, Country Head and Vice President, he will be based out of Seoul and provide leadership and growth direction to the organization.

Peter Seo said, "Leveraging the existing alliances as Premium Supplier of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, we aim to be the number one SAP partner in the region. As an Azure Expert MSP, Advanced Consulting partner of AWS, Managed services partner of GCP and OCI, we have the groundwork to build a collaborative ecosystem to deliver stellar business outcomes for organization in South Korea, China and Japan looking to modernize their IT environment."

About Cloud4C

Cloud4C is the World's leading Cloud Managed Services Provider serving 4,000 customers in 25 Countries and 50 locations including 60 of the Fortune 500 Global Multinationals. The company provides cloud (public, private, hybrid) and community cloud services (Banking Community Cloud, SAP Community Cloud), cloud migration on hyperscalers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, end to end cloud managed services, disaster recovery services, managed security services.

The company plans to expand its geographical footprint to 80 countries and 160 locations worldwide in the next 36 to 48 months.

www.cloud4c.com

Media Contact:

B.S.Rao

Vice President and Global Head (PR and Communications)

[email protected]

SOURCE Cloud4C
BANGALORE, India, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The key factors driving the CGM market size include an increase in the geriatric population and a high prevalence of diabetes-stricken people.

The global continuous glucose monitoring systems market size was valued at USD 1,774.2 Million in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 8,844.9 Million by 2027, registering a CAGR of 22.0% during the forecast period.

Due to the rising diabetes cases, the priority of health services and stakeholders in the diagnosis and control of diabetes. The increased incidence of diabetic cases is expected to provide market growth and opportunities for continuous glucose monitoring systems, which in turn will attract and compel numerous market players to develop innovative products or extensions to the product line.

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TRENDS INFLUENCING THE CGM MARKET SIZE

High growth opportunities, along with increasing awareness for the use of CGM devices in the developing countries and untapped markets, are expected to provide profitable opportunities for manufacturers during the forecast period.

Preventive measures taken by the government to help diabetic individuals understand and manage the disease before serious consequences occur are the key driver for the CGM market size.

CGM devices can offer an alert to patients, parents, or caregivers during actual or pending glycemic visits to facilitate timely management of blood glucose. Furthermore, continuous R&D to reduce costs and make it more affordable is expected to further fuel the CGM market size.

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CGMS MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS

Based on the COMPONENT, the Sensors segment was the largest revenue contributor in 2019, and this trend is expected to continue over the forecast period due to continuing CGMS sales, short scrap life, and bulk buying.

Based on REGION, North America held the largest continuous glucose monitoring systems market share in 2019 and is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period. This dominance of North America is due to an increase in the geriatric population, an increase in diabetes incidence, an increase in demand for wireless & portable devices, and the availability of sophisticated reimbursement mechanisms aimed at minimizing costs.

Asia Pacific region is anticipated to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The prevalence of the disease in developing countries such as India and China has propelled market growth in the region.

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THE KEY PLAYERS PROFILED IN THE CGMS MARKET INCLUDE

Abbott Laboratories, Dexcom, Inc.,

A. Menarini Diagnostics,

Echo Therapeutics, Inc.,

GlySens Incorporated,

Johnson & Johnson,

Medtronic plc,

Senseonics Holdings, Inc.,

F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

Others.

The major strategies adopted by market players are collaborations, product launches, and product approvals. The adoption of collaboration strategy by companies enables greater focus on innovation, distribution, and commercialization of devices.

KEY MARKET SEGMENTS

By Component

Sensors

Transmitters & Receivers

Integrated Insulin Pumps.

By Demographics

Child Population (14 years)

Adult Population (>14 years).

By End User

Diagnostics/Clinics

ICUs

Home Healthcare

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SIMILAR REPORTS :

Europe Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems Market Report

Europe CGM Systems Market size was valued at USD 58 Million in 2015 and is expected to reach USD 792 Million by 2022, supported by a CAGR of 44.9% during the forecast period 2014 - 2022.

Continuous glucose monitoring systems (CGMS) are used to constantly monitor glucose levels in diabetic patients, thereby helping in reducing the risk of developing long-term diabetic complications by stabilizing the elevated glucose levels.

The Europe continuous glucose monitoring systems market is the second largest market due to the rise in the adoption of CGM devices in key countries such as the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

Factors such as limited invasiveness and real-time control of blood glucose per capita healthcare expenditure, an increase in diabetes incidence in Europe, and an increase in buying power due to high disposable individual income are expected to fuel the growth of Europe CGM market size.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Auto-2M80/europe-continuous-glucose-monitoring-systems

U.S. Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems (CGMS) Market Report

Growing CGMS device adoption, increasing diabetes prevalence across the U.S., and raising awareness among people are key factors that are expected to drive the U.S., Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems (CGMS) Market size during the forecast period.

In addition, the surge in need for hypoglycemia & hyperglycemia diagnosis and the rise in demand for glucose level monitoring is expected to boost the market significantly in the coming years.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Manu-2H24/us-continuous-glucose-monitoring-systems

Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Market Report

The North America region is expected to dominate the continuous blood glucose monitoring system market in the global arena due to growing FDA approvals and an increase in the number of diabetic patients in the U.S.

However, rising economies of China & India and enhancing healthcare infrastructure in APAC is expected to boost the demand for continuous blood glucose monitoring system market in the future.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-25T483/global-blood-glucose-meters-and-strips-and-continuous-glucose-monitoring

Self-Monitoring Blood Glucose Devices Market Report

The global self-monitoring blood glucose devices market was valued at USD 7,768 Million in 2017 and is projected to reach USD 10,828 Million by 2025 at a CAGR of 4.2% from 2018 to 2025.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Auto-2J290/self-monitoring-blood-glucose-devices

Blood Glucose Meters and Strips and Continuous Glucose Monitoring Report

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-25T483/global-blood-glucose-meters-and-strips-and-continuous-glucose-monitoring

Smart Continuous Glucose Monitoring System Report

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-1A314/smart-continuous-glucose-monitoring-system

Internet of Things in Healthcare Market Report

The global IoT in healthcare market size was valued at USD 113.75 Billion in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 332.67 Billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 13.20% from 2020 to 2027.

The major factors that contribute toward the growth of the iot in healthcare market size are technological advances, increasing incidence rates of chronic diseases such as COPD, genetic diseases, respiratory diseases, and others, increased connectivity to high-speed internet, and implementation of favorable government regulatory policies.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Auto-2E42/internet-of-things-iot-healthcare

ABOUT US:

Valuates offers in-depth market insights into various industries. Our extensive report repository is constantly updated to meet your changing industry analysis needs.

Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. With our customization in place, you can request for any particular information from a report that meets your market analysis needs.

To achieve a consistent view of the market, data is gathered from various primary and secondary sources, at each step, data triangulation methodologies are applied to reduce deviance and find a consistent view of the market. Each sample we share contains a detailed research methodology employed to generate the report. Please also reach our sales team to get the complete list of our data sources.

CONTACT US:

Valuates Reports

[email protected]

For U.S. Toll-Free Call 1-(315)-215-3225

For IST Call +91-8040957137

WhatsApp : +91-9945648335

Website: https://reports.valuates.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/valuatesreports

Linkedin - https://in.linkedin.com/company/valuatesreports

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/valuatesreports

SOURCE Valuates Reports
PHILADELPHIA, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- To bring support and counseling services to teens around the Center City Philadelphia area, Creative Healing recently opened a new Teen Support Center in Rittenhouse Square . Located at 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 2022, the new Rittenhouse Square location will offer the same therapy services and science-backed treatment programs that Creative Healing provides at its Flourtown and King of Prussia centers to help teens grow, thrive, and succeed so they can live a life they love.

Katie K. May, Owner and Clinical Director Hannah Heffner, Art Therapy and Teen LGBTQ Affirming Specialist

Creative Healing offers a unique three-part treatment program designed specifically for teens, that is not being offered anywhere else. This program focuses on three critical components to teen success, which are:

Self-expression: This is how teens learn to tune in, identify their feelings and warning signs, and communicate those emotions to others.

This is how teens learn to tune in, identify their feelings and warning signs, and communicate those emotions to others. Support: This is how teens learn to identify a positive support system, and find accountability among healthy peers and adults.

This is how teens learn to identify a positive support system, and find accountability among healthy peers and adults. Skill-building: These are the tools and techniques to adequately prepare teens to manage life's ups and downs so that they can be successfully independent in college, young adulthood, and beyond.

"At a time when so many teens are enduring stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and other mental health related issues, I opened Creative Healing so that teens would have a safe space that was made just for them; A place for them to come home to, to take off the mask, and to know that they are not alone," said Katie K. May, Creative Healing Founder, Owner, and Clinical Director. "Ultimately, my passion and purpose is for your teen to know they aren't weird, bad, wrong, or different for feeling the way that they do, and there's a place where they are fully accepted for exactly who they are. And, that you can totally love and accept yourself, while also gaining the support and skills to make lasting positive changes in your life."

The Creative Healing team consists of mental health specialists who focus solely on the adolescent population, have dedicated their careers to learning about the teen brain, and hold advanced training as it relates to trauma and self-harm during high school years. Creative Healing also provides LGBTQ+ affirming care and offers a safe place for all teens to feel heard and understood, while learning the skills to manage big emotions.

About Creative Healing

Founded in 2015, Creative Healing specializes in offering individual and group treatment for teens, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy and LGBTQ+ Affirming Care, that blend evidence-based practices with expressive arts and creativity. To meet the growing need for teen mental health programs in Philadelphia, Creative Healing has three Teen Support Center locations in Flourtown, King of Prussia, and Center City. For more information on Creative Healing, please visit CreativeHealingPhilly.com .

Media Contact

Katie K. May

[email protected]

(610) 247-2475

SOURCE Creative Healing

Related Links

http://CreativeHealingPhilly.com


The speaker of the eastern Libyan parliament, Aguila Saleh, landed in Moscow on Thursday to discuss the recent developments in the North African state with Russian officials, Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath reported.

Fathi Al-Meremi, Salehs advisor, told Russia Today that the visit aims at covering economic, diplomatic and military issues related to Libya. Al-Meremi stressed that peace initiatives, including those of Egypt and the Berlin conference, are among the key topics under discussion.

Saleh will also discuss Turkish aggression against Libya, Al-Meremi stated, highlighting the importance of Russias role as a superpower and stressing the need to reach a ceasefire.

According to the same news source, the Russian side has not issued any public statements on the visit so far.

The Government of National Accord (GNA), which is based in Tripoli, is backed by Turkish troops and thousands of Syrian mercenaries in its war against the eastern-based Libyan National Army and its leader Khalifa Haftar.

Ankara, according to Reuters, is conducting talks with the GNA for a possible use of the Misrata naval base and Al-Watiya air base.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias met Saleh on Wednesday during a visit to Libya, and condemned the "Turkish intervention in the war-torn state."

According to Al-Arabiya Al-Hadaths Twitter account, Dendias said that the departure of foreign powers, especially Turkey, from the North African country is the solution to the ongoing conflict.

Saleh said last month that the Libyan people will request the military intervention of Egypt in Libya if armed militias infiltrate the strategic city of Sirte.

The Libyan people formally ask Egypt to intervene with military forces if needed to maintain the Libyan national security and the Egyptian national security, said Saleh, who is allied with Haftar. That would be legitimate self-defence if the terrorist and armed militias crossed the red line that President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi spoke about and attempted to go beyond the cities of Sirte or Jufra."

Short link:


DENVER, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- EnerCom, Inc. is pleased to announce that registration is open for the 25th annual edition of its popular The Oil & Gas Conference August 17th to the 19th, 2020. This year's event will allow the global energy investment community to attend digitally. EnerCom is excited to expand upon it's quarter-century of experience providing high-quality events to offer an experience that allows investors to attend from anywhere in the world.

Buyside investors and oil and gas company professionals may register for the event for free through the conference website.



"COVID-19 creates new challenges for our firm as we prepare for our 25th annual conference, and we continue to find ways innovate," said EnerCom President Aaron Vandeford. "The oil and gas industry is one that finds a way to continually evolve in the face of new challenges and we look to take that thought process into our event."



Health and Safety: EnerCom remains focused on the health and safety of our attendees, presenters, sponsors and staff. As such, this year's conference will be held primarily in a digital format which will ensure the safety of everyone involved in the event.



Conference Details: The Oil & Gas Conference 25 offers investment professionals the opportunity to listen to senior management teams in the oil and gas industry present operational and financial strategies and to gain exposure to important energy topics affecting the global oil and gas industry.



Public and Private Company Presenters: The 2020 edition of EnerCom's The Oil & Gas Conference will feature public and private oil and gas companies with operations around the world including the U.S. shale basins, the Gulf of Mexico and Canada. A list of presenting companies will be provided on the conference website at a future date and updated periodically.



Additional Speakers: Global energy industry leaders, economists, market strategists, government officials and other energy experts will provide their insights on global commodities markets, ESG policy and reporting, exports of crude oil and natural gas, frac sand supply and logistics, and capital sources for energy development.



Who Attends the Conference: More than 2,000 institutional, private equity and hedge fund investors, energy research analysts, retail brokers, trust officers, high net worth investors, investment bankers and energy industry professionals gather for the conference.



One-on-One Meetings: EnerCom works in advance with presenting company management teams to arrange one-on-one meetings with the attending institutional investors and research analysts at the conference venue. Traditionally, EnerCom arranged and managed more than 2,000 one-on-one meeting requests. Registered buy- and sell-side attendees will be able to schedule meetings with presenting management teams in-person and online as appropriate.



How to Register: Investment professionals and oil and gas companies can register for the event through the conference website.



EnerCom History and Sponsors: EnerCom ( Ener gy Com munications) has a rich history of working with clients to differentiate and deliver targeted messages to investors. EnerCom, Inc. founded The Oil & Gas Conference in 1996 with this goal in mind.



Global sponsors of EnerCom's conferences are Netherland, Sewell & Associates; and Moss Adams, LLP. Additional sponsors of The Oil & Gas Conference 25 include Enverus; CAC Specialty; Haynes and Boone, LLP; PNC; and Bank of America.

About EnerCom, Inc.

Since 1994 EnerCom, Inc. has developed into a nationally recognized management consultancy advising oil and gas industry clients on corporate strategy, asset valuations, investor relations, media relations, external communications and visual communications design.



EnerCom produces and publishes numerous data products and external communications tools for public energy companies and oil and gas investors including:

ESG consulting and reporting

peer group company valuations that are specific to the oil and gas industry;

corporate annual reports, oil and gas company websites, custom stratigraphic and subsurface illustrations;

company investor presentations; and

Oil & Gas 360 - an online daily industry news portal.

Headquartered in Denver, with senior consultants in Texas, EnerCom uses the team approach for delivering its wide range of services to public and private companies, large and small, operating in the global exploration and production, OilService, capital markets, and associated advanced-technology industries. EnerCom's professionals have more than 170 years of industry and business experience and a proven track record of success.

For more information about EnerCom and its services, please visit http://www.enercominc.com/ or call +1 303-296-8834.

About Netherland, Sewell & Associates, Inc.



Netherland, Sewell & Associates, Inc. (NSAI) was founded in 1961 to provide the highest quality engineering and geological consulting to the petroleum industry. Today they are recognized as the worldwide leader of petroleum property analysis to industry and financial organizations and government agencies. With offices in Dallas and Houston, NSAI provides a complete range of geological, geophysical, petrophysical, and engineering services and has the technical experience and ability to perform these services in any of the onshore and offshore oil and gas producing areas of the world. They provide reserves reports and audits, acquisition and divestiture evaluations, simulation studies, exploration resources assessments, equity determinations, and management and advisory services. For a complete list of services or to learn more about Netherland, Sewell & Associates, Inc. please visit www.netherlandsewell.com



For more information about NSAI, call C.H. (Scott) Rees, Chief Executive Officer, at 214-969-5401 or send an email to [email protected].

About Moss Adams LLP

Moss Adams is a fully integrated professional services firm dedicated to assisting clients with growing, managing, and protecting prosperity.

With more than 3,200 professionals and staff across more than 25 locations in the West and beyond, we work with many of the world's most innovative companies and leaders. Our strength in the middle market enables us to advise clients at all intervals of developmentfrom start-up, to rapid growth and expansion, to transition.

For more information, please contact Joe Blice, Partner, National Practice Leader, Oil & Gas, CPA.

[email protected], 972.687.7818.

Moss Adams LLP provides details at mossadams.com/industries/oil-and-gas

About Enverus

In 1999, Enverus was founded as Drillinginfo, a groundbreaking provider of reliable oil & gas data, when the industry was on the brink of a digital revolutiona revolution that we would eventually fuel. Over the years, we grew exponentially through product innovation, market expansion, and acquisitions. Today, we are the energy industry's leading data, insights, and software company, helping customers outpace their competition and influence their respective industries.



For more information, visit https://www.enverus.com

About CAC Specialty



CAC Specialty is an employee owned risk solutions company of seasoned and proactive industry leaders, operating as a nimble and collaborative partner who puts you and your business first. With a knowledge-driven approach informed by industry data and decades of honed instinct, CAC brings an innovative vision to insurance broking and merchant banking by providing solutions to solve your risk challenges  from the simple to the previously unsolvable. Backed by a $40B AUM asset manager and not constrained by traditional risk transfer thinking, CAC can expand the range of risk transfer through access to private debt and alternative pools of risk capital.



Read CAC's most recent insights here, and for more information contact Brad Elliott, Senior Vice President and Team Lead.

About Haynes and Boone



Haynes and Boone, LLP is an energy focused corporate law firm that provides a full spectrum of legal services and solutions to clients across the oil and gas industry, including the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors. Our team of more than 100 energy lawyers and landmen has been helping operators, lenders and private equity firms complete some of the largest financings and M&A transactions in recent years. With more than 575 lawyers in offices in Texas, New York, California, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Washington, D.C., London, Mexico City and Shanghai, Haynes and Boone is ranked among the nation's most recommended law firms by general counsel for client service according to BTI Consulting Group's "Most Recommended Law Firms 2019" report.



For more information, please visit www.haynesboone.com.



About PNC

For more than 160 years, we have been committed to providing our clients with great service and powerful financial expertise to help them meet their financial goals. We are proud of our longstanding history of supporting not only our customers but also our communities, employees and shareholders.



For more information, please visit www.pnc.com.

Bank of America



Whether expanding a local business in the US, raising capital in Singapore or hedging currencies in Frankfurt, Bank of America Merrill Lynch understands the challenges our clients face in the US and around the world. We use the full resources of our company to help them achieve their goals. Our solutions span the complete range of advisory, capital raising, banking, treasury, as well as liquidity, sales and trading, and research capabilities.



Our Global Banking & Markets division serves mid- to large-sized companies, corporations and institutions. It comprises Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking, Global Corporate & Investment Banking and Global Markets. Aligned with these client-facing groups are Global Capital Markets, Global Research, Global Transaction Services and Wholesale Credit.



For more information, please visit www.bankofamerica.com.

SOURCE EnerCom, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.enercominc.com


AUSTIN, Texas, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Financial Gravity Companies Inc. (OTCQB: FGCO), in partnership with Applied Behavior Finance, Inc. (ABF), releases The Real Risk MeterTM, a new SaaS based tool for advisors in the wealth management industry that challenges Riskalyze, Finametrica, and other risk analysis tools. www.realriskmeter.com

Dr. William Nelson, Co-Founder of ABF, acknowledged, "We know we're taking on an 800-pound gorilla in Riskalyze, but real-life experience has shown us that Bear markets are a reality of life and investing. In our view, pretending Bears don't exist is not the path to building real trust with clients."

Nelson explained, "There have been five S&P 500 downdrafts just in the last 20 years that exceeded Riskalyze assumptions. On average, every four years, clients have been hit with a bad surprise, and I've no doubt that some of them bailed on their stock portfolio. We want the client to be part of the decision making process, to take psychological ownership of their portfolio from the beginning. We believe that this process is the foundation of trust."

Applied Behavior Finance, Inc. (ABF) helps financial advisors provide prudent advice grounded in realistic capital market assumptions and behavioral expectations. ABF currently offers two SaaS tools. https://appliedbehavioralfinanceinc.com

About Financial Gravity Companies, Inc.

Financial Gravity Companies is a parent company of financial services companies including brokerage, wealth management, estate planning, family office services, risk management, business and personal tax planning, business consulting, and financial advisor services. Financial Gravity's mission is to synergistically bring together companies that create symbiotic advantages to each other in order to bring a complete financial experience to our clients. www.financialgravity.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from the current expectations. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Financial Gravity's business, and Financial Gravity undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE Financial Gravity Companies, Inc.

Related Links

http://financialgravity.com


Olivia Bushe, CEO, FlowForma, says, "Businesses drowning in paperwork have struggled with enforced home working and need to digitize as quickly as possible. Our new bundles seamlessly connect distributed employees while paving the way for long-term digital transformation. Our new Team Apps also means these remote meetings can be much more productive. We provide process automation software that delivers time and money-saving efficiencies as well as improved governance."

The bundles combine new and familiar FlowForma features and functionality to deliver immediate business benefits:

Enhanced employee collaboration  a new FlowForma Teams App seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Teams for advanced document sharing, group decision-making, and 'live' process development. There is also the option to expand across other groups with FlowForma Collaborate.

Improved stakeholder engagement  get closer to customers, clients, and supply chain partners by giving them access to your forms through FlowForma Engage. Encourage stakeholders to seamlessly complete steps within your business processes via a unique and secure web link.

Faster decision making  use FlowForma Decision for public and private voting to make informed decisions while remote working. Authorized e-signatures and a fully traceable record ensure security and compliance.

A pioneer in automating processes for organizations without coding or technical expertise, FlowForma has grown a global customer base that is well equipped to work through the pandemic, including a UK further education institute and a community service agency in Singapore. Mark Lay, Finance Director at Abingdon & Witney College, says, "Having our processes online with FlowForma meant that when we shifted to working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the students and staff could input to vital emergency processes."

Lim Pua Meng, IT Manager at Touch Community Services, says, "COVID-19 hit us hard and all our staff have been forced to work from home. We are very glad that digitization has allowed our staff to work from home without any hindrance, thanks to FlowForma."

FlowForma's Remote Collaboration bundles feature a select set of COVID-19 themed process accelerators. These accelerators can be easily edited to suit each businesses own requirements as staff prepare to return to the workplace, including Pre-return to Work Forms, Employee Wellness Assessments, and a Contact Tracing Log. FlowForma is available for a 14-day free trial.



Supporting Resources:

To find out how FlowForma can help prepare you for the new normal visit:

www.flowforma.com/here-to-support-you

To find out more about FlowForma for Microsoft Teams visit:

www.flowforma.com/flowforma-for-microsoft-teams

To find out more about FlowForma's collaboration bundles visit:

www.flowforma.com/book-a-call-with-our-experts

T o download a free 14-day trial of FlowForma Process Automation visit:

www.flowforma.com/start-your-flowforma-trial

To learn more about FlowForma Process Automation, book a demo with one of our experts:

www.flowforma.com/book-a-demo

About FlowForma

FlowForma, the leading provider of Process Automation tools for Microsoft Office 365 has been revolutionizing the traditional BPM space with an innovative approach to developing award winning products that empower users to create and streamline processes smarter and faster, utilizing the familiar SharePoint platform, without any coding.

FlowForma is a Gold Microsoft Partner, with over 150,000 users across Europe, America and Asia. The company is headquartered in Dublin with offices in London and Boston and is motivated by its values to innovate, evolve and achieve with employees, customers and partners.

For further information or a 14-day free trial, visit www.flowforma.com

SOURCE FlowForma
SAN MARCOS, Calif., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Golden Door, the world's leading wellness resort, is celebrating a major win for the environment after years of pursuing expensive litigation to force the County of San Diego to create, implement and enforce a real, meaningful Climate Action Plan. Earlier this month, a three-judge panel ruled in favor of Golden Door and the other plantiffs, which included the Sierra Club Center for Biological Diverstiy, tossing out the County's Climate Action Plan that allowed developers to buy their way around restictions on greenhouse emissions.

The Climate Action Plan is one of San Diego County's sustainability tools that contains a series of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years. The Climate Action Plan, however, was flawed. It allowed developers to purchase carbon offsets from offshore or out of region to mitigate new vehicle traffic.

"This is a huge victory for our environment, and this decisive ruling will help keep the pressure on the County of San Diego to meet its responsibility to San Diegans to protect our environment," said Kathy Van Ness, General Manager and COO of Golden Door Properties and Golden Door Farms. "Golden Door is proud to take a stand for our environment with committed leaders that are fighting for all of us. We are grateful that California State Attorney General Xavier Becerra is in the fight with us," she added. Becerra weighed in to support the climate advocates with a letter to the Court of Appeals.

See full ruling: https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/D075478%20Opn%20Cert%20%2800000003%29.pdf

"Making a positive difference for Climate Action takes all of usnon-profit, elected leaders, citizens and business," said Dan Silver, Executive Director of the Endangered Habitats League. "Golden Door is now a cornerstone of environmental efforts in San Diego, and thanks to their partnership, we have been able to keep up the legal effort that finally will force San Diego County to come up with a strong, effective, enforceable Climate Action plan."

Golden Door is celebrating 60 years in San Diego County, and donates 100 percent of its net profits to organizations that are working to help end child abuse and transform young lives. "Our commitment to health and wellness extends beyond the Golden Door, and we believe that Climate Action is fundamental to a healthy, safe, thriving community," said Van Ness.

About Golden Door:

Located in a serene coastal valley between San Diego and Los Angeles, Golden Door is nestled in 600 acres of nature surrounded by breathtaking beauty that nurtures the soul. Golden Door is passionate about changing lives and we believe that responsibility extends beyond our walls. As a show of support to those involved in making the world a more loving, more humane and more peaceful place, we have pledged 100% of our net profits from to select charities in support of their missions. For more information visit www.goldendoor.com

SOURCE Golden Door

Related Links

http://www.goldendoor.com


LUND, Sweden, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hansa Biopharma ("Hansa"), the leader in immunomodulatory enzyme technology for rare IgG mediated diseases, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. ("Sarepta"), the leader in precision genetic medicine for rare diseases, through which Sarepta is granted an exclusive, worldwide license to develop and promote imlifidase as a pre-treatment to enable Sarepta gene therapy treatment in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD). The pre-treatment is intended for patients with pre-existing neutralizing antibodies (NAb-positive patients) to adeno-associated virus (AAV), the technology that is the basis for Sarepta's gene therapy products.

Sarepta will be responsible for conducting pre-clinical and clinical studies with imlifidase and any subsequent regulatory approvals. Sarepta will also be responsible for the promotion of imlifidase as a pre-treatment to Sarepta's gene therapies following potential approval.

Under the terms of the agreement, Hansa will receive a USD 10 million upfront payment, and is eligible for a total of up to USD 397.5 million in development, regulatory and sales milestone payments. Hansa will book all sales of imlifidase, and earn high single-digit to mid-teens royalties on Sarepta's incremental gene therapy sales when treating NAb-positive patients enabled through pre-treatment with imlifidase.

Sren Tulstrup, President & CEO of Hansa Biopharma comments,

"We see significant potential for our enzyme technology in the gene therapy space overall, and we are excited to partner with Sarepta, a leading player in the field, to use the unique features of imlifidase to potentially enable gene therapy treatment in patients who today aren't eligible for these breakthrough therapies due to pre-existing neutralizing antibodies in two conditions with a very high unmet medical need."

Doug Ingram, President & CEO, Sarepta Therapeutics said,

"As we expand our leadership position in genetic medicine and build out our gene therapy engine, one of Sarepta's central ambitions is to find scientific solutions that bring our potentially life-saving therapies to the greatest number of the rare disease patients we serve. One of the current limitations of gene therapy is the inability to treat patients who have pre-existing neutralizing antibodies to the AAV vector. While our AAVrh74 vector has been associated with a low screen out rate for neutralizing antibodies, even that low rate is inconsistent with our mission.

In pre-clinical and clinical models, Hansa's technology has shown the ability to clear the IgG antibodies that prevent dosing AAV-based gene therapies. If successful, this could offer the potential of extending our gene therapy treatments to DMD and LGMD patients who would otherwise have been denied access due to pre-existing antibodies."

Hansa Biopharma will be hosting a conference call with President & CEO Sren Tulstrup, CSO & COO Christian Kjellman and CFO Donato Spota.

Conference Call "Partnership agreement with Sarepta Therapeutics"

A conference call will take place July 2nd, 2020 at 10:00am CET. The audio cast will be recorded and subsequently be available on the Hansa website https://hansa.eventcdn.net/202007

Participants dial-in numbers

SE: + 46 81 241 09 52

UK: + 44 203 769 6819

US: + 1 646 787 0157

This is information that Hansa Biopharma AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation.

About imlifidase

Imlifidase is a unique antibody-cleaving enzyme originating from Streptococcus pyogenes that specifically targets IgG and inhibits IgG-mediated immune response. It has a rapid onset of action, cleaving IgG-antibodies and inhibiting their activity within hours after administration. CHMP/EMA has adopted a positive opinion, recommending conditional approval of imlifidase for the desensitization treatment of highly sensitized adult kidney transplant patients with a positive crossmatch against an available deceased donor. Endorsement of the positive opinion by the European Commission is expected in the third quarter of 2020.

Hansa has also reached an agreement with the FDA on a regulatory path forward for imlifidase in kidney transplantation of highly sensitized patients in the U.S. and has three ongoing phase 2 trials in autoimmune diseases and post-transplant indications.

About gene therapy and neutralizing antibodies

Gene therapy is a growing and revolutionizing treatment technology in which healthy gene sequences are inserted into cells of a patient. The treatments are potentially curative in monogenic diseases like hemophilia and muscular dystrophy through a single dose. Harmless recombinant viruses are used to carry the healthy genes into the cell. Due to the partial viral origin of the gene therapy constructs, a certain subset of patients carry neutralizing anti-AAV antibodies towards gene therapy products, depending on what AAV serotype being used, forming a barrier for treatment eligibility. Antibodies prevent effective transfer of healthy gene sequence and can be a safety concern. Imlifidase as a pre-treatment may have the potential to eliminate neutralizing antibodies prior to gene therapy. Similarly, imlifidase may have the potential to enable any potentially necessary re-dosing of gene therapy for all patients.

About Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a rare genetic disease caused by mutation in the DMD gene, encoding for the protein dystrophin. Duchenne is an irreversible, progressive disease that causes the muscles in the body to become weak and damaged over time. It is eventually fatal and there is no cure. DMD affects one in 3,500 to 5,000 males born worldwide (approximately 400-500 annual cases in the US) and causes muscles in the body to become weak and most patients use wheelchair by the age of 12.

About Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD)

Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy or (LGMD) is a genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of rare muscular dystrophies. It is characterised by progressive muscle wasting which affects predominantly hip and shoulder muscles. LGMD has an autosomal pattern of inheritance and currently has no known cure or treatment. It can be caused by a single gene defect that affects specific proteins within the muscle cell, including those responsible for keeping the muscle membrane intact. LGMD has a global prevalence of approximately 1.63 per 100,000 individuals worldwide.

CONTACT:

For further information, please contact:

Klaus Sindahl, Head of Investor Relations

Hansa Biopharma

Mobile: +46-(0)-709-298-269

E-mail: [email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/hansa-biopharma-ab/r/hansa-biopharma-announces-exclusive-agreement-with-sarepta-therapeutics-to-develop-and-promote-imlif,c3146986

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Hansa Biopharma AB
LAS VEGAS, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ignite Funding earned the highest compliance examination score a licensed mortgage broker can achieve from the Nevada Division of Mortgage Lending. Nevada has some of the most stringent licensing requirements, lending practice regulations and oversight in the nation.

"Nevada is one of the few states that don't allow exemptions from licensing as a commercial broker," says Misty Bethany, the Chief Compliance Officer at Ignite Funding. "We are held to the same high standards as residential lenders, and we regularly exceed our compliance requirements."

Lack of oversight and questionable lending practices are one of a handful of common misconceptions that surround hard money lenders. Ignite Funding strives to combat these misconceptions into submission with achievements like exceeding compliance standards, providing educational content as well as unprecedented transparency.

"We strongly encourage each investor to perform their due diligence on any company they choose to invest their hard earned money with, even to the point of encouraging them to call our State regulatory body directly to confirm how compliant we are," affirms Carrie Cook, the President of Ignite Funding.

Misinformation can lead to missed opportunity. Learn more about hard money lenders in the FREE whitepaper, "5 Misconceptions of Trust Deed Investing", and begin your due diligence by reviewing Ignite Funding's annual Loan Portfolio Performance Record dating back to its inception in 2011.

About Ignite Funding

Ignite Funding proves that real estate lending does not stop because of an epidemic as its investors continue to fill the gap left by traditional bank lending. Ignite Funding is quickly approaching $1 billion funded in real estate projects financed by private investors seeking double-digit annualized returns collateralized by real property.

Contact:

Izzy Irizarry

Ignite Funding

Phone 877.739.9094

Fax 702.739.7735

[email protected]

SOURCE Ignite Funding

Related Links

http://www.ignitefunding.com


Girotto gained a deep understanding of the analytics space at Tableau, where she spent four years as Senior Vice President, Marketing, with responsibility for all customer-facing marketing initiatives, including digital media, channel, regional, and customer engagement marketing. While at Tableau, she scaled the Global Demand Generation capability to help fuel the company's growth to over $1 Billion. Most recently, Girotto was CMO at Amperity, where she dramatically increased demand while creating and executing the company's integrated marketing strategy. She has also served as Vice President of Global Product and Digital Marketing at Getty Images and as Head of Marketing and Category - NACP at Starbucks, and held several leadership roles at Microsoft.

Girotto joins a list of powerful senior executives at Heap, including Ken Fine (COO/President) and Dennis Dresser (CRO) , both of whom were appointed last year. She also joins Heap at an exciting period, as the company builds off its $55M Series C funding round in 2019 and its opening of an EMEA Headquarters in London in 2020.

"As a Marketing leader at top-tier technology and consumer brands, Lynn has lived the data-driven culture that is vital to growth and business success," said Heap CEO and co-founder Matin Movassate. "Lynn's experience and passion make her the perfect person to bring our vision of data-driven product management to the world."

Girotto's appointment will help Heap continue its ambitious scaling goals, as the company expands its international reach and grows internal functions, including engineering, sales, marketing, product, and customer success.

"As the business world is increasingly transacted through digital products, it is becoming an absolute priority for product leaders to be able to make data-informed decisions," Girotto said. "With its unique technology and its robust approach to data and insights, Heap is poised to transform the way thousands of companies create digital experiences. I am thrilled to join Heap at this pivotal time in the company's development."

About Heap

Heap's mission is to power business decisions with truth. We empower product teams to focus on what matters  building the best products  not wrestling with their analytics platform. Heap automatically collects and organizes customer behavioral data, allowing product managers to improve their products with maximum agility. Over 6,000 businesses use Heap to drive business impact by delivering better experiences and better products. For more information visit https://heap.io

SOURCE Heap Inc.

Related Links

heapanalytics.com


INDIANAPOLIS, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A pandemic and a canceled annual convention strengthened the resolve to gather  if only virtually  for student leaders of Key Club International.

The preeminent service leadership group for high school students typically sees 1,000 students at its annual convention. This summer, more than 4,500 teens registered for a three-day summer online leadership conference. A key meeting component is a series of sessions on creating a Culture of Care in high schools.

Since the beginning in 1925, Key Club International has supported the transformation of high school students as they graduate and become the world's next class of leaders.

"It was important to us to be able to connect, to offer relevant content for continuing education and to have something we could all be a part of in light of the cancellation of our Key Club convention," said K'lena Schnack, Key Club International president. Schnack, from the Nebraska-Iowa District, had the distinction of serving as president during a tumultuous year that included changes to her own school year and club activities.

"While 2020 brought so much uncertainty, our Key Club members know that leadership and service are at their core," said Michelle Study Campbell, executive director, Kiwanis Youth Programs. "We had to find a way to bring them together to support them as they develop the skills they will need to continue their leadership journey."

Students who complete the four Culture of Care sessions will be certified change-makers, ready to make a positive impact in their communities. Each student will receive a certificate and will be included in continuing education throughout the year.

"Of all the sessions we offered, the Culture of Care series garnered the most interest among students," said Greg Stowers, director, Key Club International. "These sessions reinforce positive peer pressure that students can employ in their own schools and communities to help bring about real change."

The four courses include Out of bounds: Understanding healthy boundaries; You talking to me? Effective peer communication; Removing the blindfold: Bystander intervention 101; and a Train the trainer course, that will help students as they lead these sessions in their own communities.

Study-Campbell said Key Club International's board of 13 student leaders developed the curriculum for the summer leadership conference and quickly brought the online sessions to life. Registration is free and features more than a dozen sessions from today and Thursday; elections and business meetings will be Friday.

As with a physical convention, students will participate in a service project by writing letters of encouragement to residents of long-term care facilities and deliver them based on the lockdown phases of their communities.

Media Contact:

Vicki Hermansen

[email protected]

317-217-6171

SOURCE Kiwanis International

Related Links

https://www.keyclub.org


TEL AVIV, Israel, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ICL Group Ltd (NYSE: ICL) (TASE: ICL), a leading global specialty minerals and specialty chemicals company, will announce its second quarter 2020 financial results on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, prior to the TASE market open.

Mr. Raviv Zoller, ICL's President & CEO, and Mr. Kobi Altman, ICL's CFO, will host a conference call at 8:30AM EST (1:30PM London time, 3:30PM Israel time), to discuss the results and to address questions.

To participate, please call one of the access numbers listed below:

U.S.A (toll free): 1866 966 1396

Israel (toll free): 1809 203 624

UK (toll free): 0800 376 7922

Or (toll/international): +44 (0) 2071 928 000

Conference ID: 5169098

ICL's conference call and presentation may also be viewed on WebEx at the following link: https://icl-meet.webex.com/icl-meet/onstage/g.php?MTID=e4c1bb464c8004091831834faf2cc6ec9 (Please use the password: July2020, if necessary)

ICL's conference call and presentation may also be viewed on ICL's website at: www.icl-group.com

About ICL

ICL Group is a leading global specialty minerals and chemicals company operating bromine, potash, and phosphate mineral value chains in a unique, integrated business model. ICL extracts raw materials from its unique mineral assets and utilizes technology and industrial know-how to create value for customers in key agricultural and industrial markets worldwide. ICL shares are dually listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (NYSE and TASE: ICL). The company employs over 11,000 people worldwide, and its 2019 revenues totaled approximately $5.3 billion.

For more information, visit the Company's website at www.icl-group.com.

To access ICL's interactive Corporate Social Responsibility report, please click here.

You can also learn more about ICL on Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram

INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACT

Dudi Musler

Investor Relations Manager

+972-3-684-4448

[email protected]

PRESS CONTACT

Or-li Kasuto Madmon

Scherf Communications

+972-52-4447750

[email protected]

SOURCE ICL
SELBYVILLE, Del., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the latest report "Inventory Management Software Market by Type (Manually Managed Inventory System, Barcode Scanning System, Advanced Radio Frequency System (RFID)), Application (Order Management, Asset Tracking, Service Management, Product Differentiation, Inventory Optimization), Deployment Model (On-premise, Cloud), Organization (Large Enterprise, SMEs), End-Use (Manufacturing, Medical/Healthcare, Retail, Automotive, Oil & Gas), Regional Outlook, Competitive Market Share & Forecast 2026", by Global Market Insights, Inc., the market valuation of inventory management software will cross $5 billion by 2026. The increasing demand to streamline the inventory management process and mitigate risks associated with inventory management will fuel the market growth.

Major players operating in the inventory management software market are Lightspeed, Microsoft Corporation, NCR Corporation, SAP SE, and Zoho Corporation.

Changing consumer preferences and the emergence of omnichannel retailing are fueling the adoption of advanced inventory management solutions. Companies ensure optimum finished goods stocks due to flexible consumer buying behavior. This software helps enterprises to manage their inventory efficiently. In addition, it provides access to only authorized people to its database.

Request a sample of this research report @

https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2364

The product differentiation application segment will witness significant inventory management software market growth from 2020 to 2026. Enterprises with an extensive product portfolio are benefited from advanced product differentiation capabilities. It allows enterprises to categorize the product portfolio based on multiple categories including price, type, application, and popularity. This provides efficient control over the inventory management processes.

The manually managed inventory system type is expected to grow at a steady rate over the coming years. Companies shifting from paper-based stock management processes are deploying manually managed inventory systems. These systems take formulae as input from users for both simple and complex calculations related to inventories. It also assists enterprises in ordering and tracking functions for a limited number of products. However, the manual formulae inputs may result in human-caused errors and affect the overall efficiency.

The cloud deployment segment in the inventory management software market is poised to observe growth of over 9% through 2026. Extensive digitization across industries and enterprises shifting toward the cloud-based network infrastructure will result in the growing demand for cloud-based inventory management software. The SaaS-based inventory management software offers additional functionalities & capabilities such as offshore installation and reduced downtime along with cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, system integration and configuration are relatively faster compared to the on-premise model.

The adoption of inventory management software across large enterprises is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of over 8% till 2026. Large enterprises are investing in advanced inventory management software with integration capabilities to track large volumes of inventories. These companies use QR code-based systems, RFIDs, and barcodes to track the inventory. The inventory management software integrates with these systems and provides real-time analysis of stocks. It also helps in electronic scanning and automatic ordering along with sales order tracking.

The automotive end-use segment is predicted to register around 5% gains during the forecast timeline. Companies providing automotive software solutions are acquiring innovative inventory management solution providers to enhance the capabilities of their automotive software solutions. For instance, in January 2020, DealerSocket, Inc. announced its plan to acquire Auto/Mate, a unique all in one software platform provider. This software will provide automotive dealers with inventory management and digital retail capabilities.

Request a customization of this research report @

https://www.gminsights.com/roc/2364

Europe inventory management software market is expected to hold a revenue share of more than 25% by 2026 due to growth in the retail industry and development of advanced software solutions. Companies are developing intuitive Point of Sale (POS) software with inventory management capabilities. For instance, in September 2019, Lightspeed, an omnichannel point of sale software solution provider launched the Lightspeed Retail 3.0. The software features sales history, profile, and retail manager functionalities including inventory management capabilities. This launch helped the company to deliver innovative inventory management software solutions to SMEs in the region.

Major players operating in the inventory management software market are Lightspeed, Microsoft Corporation, NCR Corporation, SAP SE, and Zoho Corporation. Enterprises operating in the industry are developing innovative solutions with integrated functionalities to expand their product portfolio. For example, in January 2020, Tecsys, Inc. launched the Advanced Analytics for retail supply chain management. The cloud-based retail order management solution features integrated Microsoft's Power BI intelligence tools. This integration helped the company to deliver innovative solutions to support omnichannel retailing.

Table of Contents (ToC) of the report:

Chapter 3. Inventory Management Software Market Insights

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Industry segmentation

3.3. Impact of COVID-19 outbreak

3.3.1. Impact by region

3.3.1.1. North America

3.3.1.2. Europe

3.3.1.3. Asia Pacific

3.3.1.4. Latin America

3.3.1.5. Middle East & Africa

3.3.2. Impact on industry value chain

3.3.3. Growth strategy

3.4. Features/benefits of inventory management software solutions

3.5. Technological evolution

3.6. Industry ecosystem analysis

3.7. Inventory management vs. warehouse management

3.8. Technology & innovation landscape

3.8.1. IoT Thrust for smart inventory management

3.8.2. Big Data integration

3.8.3. Enterprise mobility in inventory management

3.9. Regulatory landscape

3.9.1. 41 CFR Part 101-27 - INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

3.9.2. Drug Supply Chain Security Act

3.9.3. Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive

3.9.4. The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003

3.9.5. The Dodd-Frank Act

3.9.6. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

3.9.7. Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food (STF) Rule

3.10. Industry impact forces

3.10.1. Growth drivers

3.10.2. Industry pitfalls & challenges

3.11. Porter's analysis

3.12. PESTEL analysis

3.13. Growth potential analysis

Browse Complete Table of Contents (ToC) @

https://www.gminsights.com/toc/detail/inventory-management-software-market

About Global Market Insights, Inc.

Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider, offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy, and biotechnology.

Contact Us:

Arun Hegde

Corporate Sales, USA

Global Market Insights, Inc.

Phone: 1-302-846-7766

Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688

Email: [email protected]

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Global Inventory Management Software Market revenue to cross USD 5 Bn by 2026: GMI

Major players operating in the inventory management software market are Lightspeed, Microsoft Corporation, NCR Corporation, SAP SE, and Zoho Corporation.

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AI in Retail Market Size

IoT in Healthcare Market Size

SOURCE Global Market Insights, Inc.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Artist Angelica Hoyos' new website offers an Augmented Reality component where people can "try on" the artwork in their homes and make a better purchasing decision.

"I've heard there's going to be a recession. I've decided not to participate" - Walt Disney

Artist and Creative Director. Founder or AH! Studio LLC DBA Angelica Hoyos Studio

This is the sentiment that Artist Angelica Hoyos shares. Angelica Hoyos is a Creative Director and has worked on campaigns for brands such as American Express and Komatsu. Angelica was growing tired of the lack of flexibility and empathy for her parental responsibilities from her employer when she made the decision to leave her job. She knew she would have to homeschool her six-year-old daughter through the Covid-19 pandemic and could not work in a place where the employer does not understand her responsibilities as a parent. "It will take me approximately 1-2 months to get hired again," she thought, but this time was different. As soon as she quit her job on March 6 the world stopped and so did hiring. It has now been 4 months since she's been unemployed, but this has not stopped Angelica from moving forward. Angelica quickly dusted off her talents as an Artist and partnered with a SaaS company to offer top of the line virtual Art Gallery experience.

"If no one is leaving their home, I will bring the Art Gallery experience to them."

Ms. Hoyos believes that the old way of selling Art is almost extinct, and as Artists, we have to leverage technology and make the best of the trying times we face.

"Virtual Art shows are the future," says Angelica Hoyos, Creative Director/Founder of Angelica Hoyos Studio.

Angelica Hoyos believes in the power of color and design to uplift the human spirit. Her Artwork is inspired by her travels through the Amazon rainforest in Colombia, where she witnessed the agony indigenous people face daily at the thought of one day losing their home to development. She believes that through her work she can inspire self-reflection so that we can become gentler with ourselves, with others and with nature.

CONTACT:

Angelica Hoyos  Creative Director and Founder

Phone #: 954-665-3850

Email: [email protected]

Email 2: [email protected]

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Angelica Hoyos

Artist and Creative Director. Founder or AH! Studio LLC DBA Angelica Hoyos Studio

SOURCE Angelica Hoyos Studio
NEW YORK, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global laser diode market was valued at USD 8.26 billion in 2019, and it is expected to reach USD 15.01 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 11.2%, between 2020 and 2025. According to the laser-focus world, the market for laser materials-processing systems grew by an incredible 50% from 2016 to 2018. In 2019, one of the key trends is the rise of VCSEL technology for applications like facial recognition in smartphones. VCSELs are a type of laser diode that offers superior beam properties, thermal stability, and device scalability compared to products like Fabry Perot laser diodes.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05917984/?utm_source=PRN







- The increasing adoption of high-power laser diodes in autonomous vehicle technologies? drives the market. The optical technologies are in demand for autonomous vehicles, such as high laser beam, which is converted into white light and directed onto the road via tiny reflectors by the high light density of the laser that helps the drivers to see 600 meters ahead of them (about double the distance possible with the previous LED high beams).? LiDAR systems are the key to the development of autonomous vehicles. Research institutes, photonics companies, and traditional suppliers of automotive parts are currently positioning themselves with new LiDAR technology to play a part in this market in the future.

- Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems IMS presented a Flash LiDAR Instead of directing the laser beam onto a rotating mirror for a 360 degrees view, the system emits laser flashes that expose a rectangular measuring field up to 100 meters wide. Highly sensitive single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) detect reflected light.?

- Growing directed energy application of laser diode? is driving the market. The use of lasers for directed energy (DE) applications is increasing, while diversity in requirements and technology is continuously evolving. Directed energy applications, such as to eliminate airborne drones and intercontinental ballistic missiles, among other missions are increasing significantly, are witnessing the application of DE.

- High-power laser weapons are becoming an increasingly important component within the United States' defense arsenal. The use of lasers for DE is a broad and diverse space. DE applications range from comparatively lower-powered, man-portable lasers offering powers on the order of 10 kW of optical output power with the mission of eliminating airborne drones, to extremely high-powered lasers with megawatt-class (MW) power levels mounted on high-altitude platforms for the destruction of boost-phase intercontinental ballistic missiles.

- With the outbreak of COVID-19, the demand for laser diodes decreased, due to nationwide lockdowns imposed in countries. Additionally, the shortages in the supply of raw material, along with a significant decrease in the demand are expected to continue until the end of 2020, due to the disruption in the supply chain across worldwide. According to IPC's survey of electronics businesses, around 69% of the respondents are informed by their suppliers that there will be delays in shipments due to COVID-19.?

- Moreover, the major manufacturers in North America and Europe extended the shutdowns in plants, and some are working with minimal workforce. For instance, Osram, Coherent, IPG, and Sharp Corporation decided to continue the production process with a limited workforce.? This is suggestive of a decreased demand for laser diodes in various industrial applications.



Key Market Trends

Adoption of Laser in Medical and Healthcare to Drive the Market Growth



- The past few years have witnessed increased demand for laser diodes in the healthcare sector owing to their assistance to physicians to focus the beam with better precision on directed areas, preventing unwanted damage to the surrounding area.?

- However, these lasers are used to process plastics for medical devices (polymer processing). There is an increased demand for cosmetic surgery procedures, which include surgical and non-surgical procedures that improve the appearance by reshaping and enhancing the body structure. For instance, according to American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), almost 18 million people underwent surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures in the United States in 2018 for contouring, skin resurfacing, wrinkle and pigmentation reduction, and tattoo removal, providing the growth to the energy-based aesthetic treatment system.

- Of all the wavelengths in which the laser diode operates, the green laser diodes have operational advantages over other wavelengths. As these green laser diodes are capable of operating in a wide range of temperatures, have a long lifetime, and are highly reliable at continuous operation, the growth potential of this type of laser diodes is high.

- The applications of green laser diodes include projection applications, biotechnology, spectroscopy, medical applications, etc. Due to the increased demand in the healthcare sector, green laser diodes are expected to occupy the largest share of the laser diode market during the forecast period.

- Besides, lasers available in the femtosecond and picosecond variants, are slowly gaining traction in the medical equipment. Femtosecond variant lasers are widely used for marking the glass, allowing the traceability of syringes and other glass devices. Also, laws mandating the marking of medical devices across various regions are further driving the increasing demand for ultrafast lasers, whose applications included stents and catheters.?

- Further, these lasers are being used for processing plastics for medical devices, also known as polymer processing. There is an increased demand for cosmetic surgery procedures, which include surgical and non-surgical procedures that improve the appearance by reshaping and enhancing the body structure. For instance, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the total number of minimally-invasive cosmetic treatments has gone up a whopping 228% since 2000.?

- However, these lasers are used for processing plastics for medical devices (polymer processing). There is an increased demand for cosmetic surgery procedures, which include surgical and non-surgical procedures that improve the appearance by reshaping and enhancing the body structure. For instance, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), almost 18 million people underwent surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures in the United States in 2018.



Asia-Pacific to Witness a Significant Growth



- The laser diode market in the Asia-Pacific region is witnessing robust growth, primarily owing to the widespread presence of electronics and automobile manufacturing organizations and an increase in the purchasing power of consumers. The region is also witnessing a growth in the adoption of smartphones and digitization of business processes, fuelling the adoption of laser diodes to cater to the booming consumer electronics and automotive sector.?

- The growing demand for smartphones and other major consumer electronics products from countries, such as China, the Republic of Korea, India, and Singapore, are encouraging many companies to set up production establishments in the Asia-Pacific region. The abundant availability of raw materials and the low establishment and labor costs are also helping the companies launch their production centers in the region. ?

- For instance, in October 2019, an Australian semiconductor developer, BluGlass Ltd, announced its direct-to-market business unit, which will offer higher brightness and higher efficiency GaN laser diodes. The laser diodes can be used in various commercial applications, such as industrial lasers, automotive and general lighting, displays, and life sciences.?

- The Asia-Pacific semiconductors market was boosted by the strong domestic demand, causing the market to become the largest in the world. According to WSTS, in 2019, the semiconductor industry in the Asia-Pacific region (except Japan) was expected to reach revenues of around USD 297 billion.

- Further, in May 2019, researchers from Japan demonstrated that a long-elusive kind of laser diode based on organic semiconductors is possible, making way for the further expansion of lasers in applications, such as displays, biosensing, healthcare, and optical communications. The organic laser diodes use carbon-based organic materials, primarily to emit light instead of the inorganic semiconductors, such as gallium arsenide and gallium nitride, which were used in traditional devices.?

- Additionally, in January 2020, USHIO announced the launch of a new 660nm red laser diode, which produces an output power of 200mW CW/400mW pulsed. The series is available with three different types of connectorsCC, AC, or FNdesignated as HL65221DG, HL65222DG, and HL65223DG, respectively. These high-power laser diodes offer a built-in monitoring photo-diode at the lasing wavelength.?



Competitive Landscape

The laser diode market is fragmented and highly competitive, owing to the presence of many small and large players. The players are expanding their portfolio, which caters to the intense rivalry among the players. Key players are



- March 2020 - IPG Photonics Corporation announced that it is extending its portfolio of coherent modules with support for single fiber, and bi-directional transmission. IPG photonics also announced support for extended temperature operations across its Menara-branded Hytham line of coherent transceiver modules.?

- February 2020 - OSRAM Opto Semiconductor GmbH launched 65-Watt laser to its LiDAR photonics portfolio. It will be used in autonomous driving for capturing the immediate vehicle surroundings, ensuring high-resolution images for subsequent systems.?



?



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KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MRIGlobal has received a $250,000 grant to increase expertise for diagnostics, epidemiology and COVID-19 disease surveillance on the African continent from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

MRIGlobal will establish virtual training modules for laboratory and data analytics work related to COVID-19 epidemiology for use by labs partnered with Africa's national public health network.

An important outcome of the program will be achieved when each laboratory has customized procedures in place and highly trained staff to add the COVID-19 sequencing assay to their laboratory testing capability.

MRIGlobal's global health team members have been training diagnostic laboratory scientists, technicians, and healthcare professionals around the world for close to three decades to develop or supplement health surveillance capabilities. This team will conduct the remote training to laboratory staff by leveraging existing online communities of practice, live streaming sessions, and other routes to learning as appropriate to the needs and resources of each partner laboratory.

MRIGlobal's approach to virtual training maximizes the sustainability of transferred knowledge by tailoring blended learning experiences to match the trainees' preferred modes of learning, followed by leave-behind resources and continued access to the existing communities of practice they have joined.

"This is the first time MRIGlobal has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," said Thomas Sack, Ph.D., president and CEO, MRIGlobal. "We're delighted to apply our vast expertise in global health engagement as one solution to ensure that the world's pandemic response is effective and equitable."

SOURCE MRIGlobal

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SILVERDALE, Wash., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mud Bay's new Silverdale, Washington, location (11467 Pacific Crest Place NW Suite C125) will open on Sunday, July 5th at 9:00 a.m., but instead of hosting opening day festivities, Mud Bay will be matching food donations made at their new store for Kitsap Humane Society's Pet Food Pantry. The donation drive will last through Friday, July 31st, and Mud Bay is committed to matching all pet food donations pound-for-pound.

Mud Bay Silverdale, WA Grand Opening. Mud Bay is the Pacific Northwests largest retailer focused on healthy, natural nutrition for dogs and cats. With 56 locations in Western Washington and Oregon, Mud Bay is an employee-owned company focused on helping dogs and cats thrive through customized nutritional recommendations. For more information about Mud Bay, please visit our website.

Since COVID-19 began to affect Washington, Kitsap Humane Society has seen a 20-percent increase in people visiting its pet food pantry. The animal welfare organization hopes that people from the surrounding communities will take this opportunity to contribute to the pet food bank by buying or bringing food to Silverdale's Mud Bayand possibly help their neighbors in the process.

"One of our biggest priorities is to help pets stay in their homes and to keep families together. With this extra food, we can support more pets and their owners during this time of hardship and ensure pet owners in our community don't have to consider rehoming their pet due to an inability to afford pet food," said Kitsap Humane Society Events and Outreach Manager Amanda Graham.

In addition to the donation drive, Mud Bay will be giving away 4 great prizes valued at over $200 to celebrate the Silverdale store grand opening. Visit Mud Bay's Facebook page for contest details. Winners will be announced on July 18th and August 1st.

Visitors to the new Silverdale, Washington, store can browse inside or order online for curbside pickup prior to their visit. In-person visitors can take advantage of the full-size pet scale, free treat of the week samples, and a solution-based philosophy that helps customers find the right products for their individual dog or cat.

About Mud Bay

Founded in 1988 in Olympia, Washington, Mud Bay is the Pacific Northwest's largest retailer focused on healthy, natural nutrition for dogs and cats. With 56 locations in Western Washington and Oregon, Mud Bay is an employee-owned company focused on helping dogs and cats thrive through customized nutritional recommendations. For more information about Mud Bay, please visit our website.

SOURCE Mud Bay

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Napatech (OSLO: NAPA.OL), the leading provider of reconfigurable computing platforms, today announced the availability of Link-Assure, a premium professional services offering that supports an always-on, always-available connectivity model for its FPGA-based SmartNICs. Designed for data center operators in cloud, telecommunications, enterprise and government networks, the offering delivers advanced professional and support solutions to meet the most demanding uptime requirements of networks supporting real-time, business- and mission-critical applications and services.

Click to Tweet: @Napatech Link-Assure premium professional services offering delivers #SmartNIC assurance for data center operators.

In response to market need, Link-Assure premium professional services feature 24x7 access to technical support for case submissions, 8x5 in-region phone support, and global depots serving major IT cities and regions for parts sparing and next-business-day replacement.

The new service was designed explicitly for a tier-1 cloud data center operator for a global social media platform that is in its third year of deploying Napatech SmartNIC hardware and software to accelerate cybersecurity applications. It is also designed for an enterprise data center customer in international banking and finance in its first year of SmartNIC deployments for regulatory and compliance applications.

To fulfill parts of the service, Napatech has extended their existing partnership with Global Convergence (GCI), a recognized leader in delivering world-class services for their partners' global customers who require proven IT expertise and service delivery capabilities for complex, geographically-dispersed networks.

Jarrod J.S. Siket, chief marketing officer, Napatech, said: "SmartNICs are mainstream, and mainstream often means mission critical. Zero downtime requires active, in-region depots with expert IT resources for sparing and installation within 24 hours. We are pleased that our premium professional services offering has been able to meet the most demanding requirements of hyperscale data center network operators in diverse markets such as global social media and international banking and finance. This positive reception spurs us on as we continue innovative new ways to serve our growing customer base."

Jim Bradshaw, chairman and chief executive officer, GCI, said: "Napatech has been a trusted partner since we began our value-added distribution and reseller relationship, and we are pleased that our shared success has resulted in the expansion of our business to support their premium professional services offering. With physical depots and skilled IT resources to service every major continent and tech hub, GCI is ideally suited to support Napatech and their tier-1 hyperscale data center customers."

Napatech has successfully booked business in 2Q-2020 for the new service with its lead customer and anticipates annual renewals of increasing value as more SmartNICs are deployed and require coverage. Due to the sensitive cybersecurity posture within each customer, full financial terms, locations, and specific customer names were not disclosed.

About Napatech

Napatech helps companies to reimagine their business by bringing hyperscale computing benefits to IT organizations of every size. We enhance open and standard virtualized servers to boost innovation and release valuable computing resources that improve services and increase revenue. Our reconfigurable computing platform is based on a broad set of FPGA software for leading IT compute, network and security applications that are supported on a wide array of FPGA hardware designs. Additional information is available at: www.napatech.com

About Global Convergence

Global Convergence, Inc. (GCI) is a global Managed IT Lifecycle Services and Solutions company that specializes in resolving complex digital transformation challenges within geographically dispersed, mission-critical networks. GCI provides seamless IT support services worldwide, including within the most challenging regions around the globe. https://www.globalconvergence.com/

No Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements which are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to, business conditions, trends in the industry and markets, global economic and geopolitical conditions, macro-economic factors, and other risks and uncertainties set forth in Napatech's reports. The matter discussed in this release is based on current expectations and maybe subject to change. Napatech will not necessarily update this information. For details, visit us at www.napatech.com.

Media Investor Relations Katrina Porter, Nadel Phelan Heine Thorsgaard +1.831.440.2406 +45.2241.8090 [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE Napatech

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SHENYANG, China, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, International Data Corporation (IDC) has released the China Market Shares of Core Hospital Management Systems 2019: Upgrading Core Systems to Support Healthcare Digital Transformation. According to this report, Neusoft took the first place in China core hospital management systems solutions market in 2019 and topped the ranking of China healthcare IT solutions market for the tenth consecutive year, continuing leading the healthcare informatization construction in China.

In the healthcare informatization sector, Neusoft is a leading provider of intelligent healthcare integrated solutions in China. With the largest client base in the industry in China as well as the best practices in various sub-sectors, Neusoft is striving to facilitate the rapid development of healthcare informatization and promoting China's healthcare system reform. Neusoft is also the first large provider to have launched core hospital management systems, with leading market shares as well as advanced concepts and products.

With over two decades' devotion to the healthcare sector, Neusoft consistently commits itself to utilizing information technologies to promote the harmonious development of the healthcare ecosystem. Nowadays, Neusoft's healthcare business has covered hospital informatization, health insurances, medical equipment, cloud hospitals, medical big data and intelligence, health and medical education, medical IoT and 5G, etc., and Neusoft has built a sustainable IT-centric ecosystem.

In the future, Neusoft will continue to empower the healthcare industry through software. Neusoft will keep promoting the integration of information technology and the healthcare, make the new technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, internet of things become new medical elements, and build a sustainable healthcare ecosystem for creating more value for the society, industry and clients.

SOURCE Neusoft Corporation

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DENVER, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- After a dramatic dip in attendance due to COVID-19 closures, child care centers across the U.S. are beginning to see a steady rise in check-ins, according to a report released by Procare Solutions, the leader in child care management software for more than 30 years. The report, "Tracking the Impact of COVID-19 on the Child Care Industry," assessed anonymized data across Procare's customer base to identify trends in attendance and child care center re-openings.

Access the full report here.

"With more than 30,000 customers, Procare can offer a helpful perspective on the state of the child care industry as we all work to navigate the challenges presented by COVID-19," said JoAnn Kintzel, CEO of Procare Solutions. "As states across the U.S. are beginning to relax stay-at-home orders, we're seeing a marked increase in the number of centers that are either opening up or increasing their enrollment. During the week of June 22, our data showed center attendance is up more than 250 percent over its lowest point since shutdowns began."

KEY FACTS

The report provides both a U.S. and state-by-state analysis of child care attendance rates.

Top trends the report identified include:

Sixty-one percent of child care centers closed during the worst of the crisis, and 46 percent of the centers that closed have reopened.



After an 87 percent drop in attendance following COVID-19 shutdowns, attendance in child care centers is rebounding. During the week of June 22 , attendance is up over 250 percent from its low point during the crisis.

, attendance is up over 250 percent from its low point during the crisis.

California , along with much of the northeastern United States , has the lowest current attendance rate compared with their normal activity.

, along with much of the northeastern , has the lowest current attendance rate compared with their normal activity.

Idaho , Minnesota , Nebraska , Oklahoma and Utah were among the least impacted states at the worst point in the crisis, which points to why they are also among the states returning to normal the quickest, with some states reaching higher than 75 percent of their normal attendance the week of June 22 .

, , , and were among the least impacted states at the worst point in the crisis, which points to why they are also among the states returning to normal the quickest, with some states reaching higher than 75 percent of their normal attendance the week of . Key metrics analyzed include:

Weekly percentage of attendance compared to normal attendance rates.



Percentage of centers that are open and closed.



Change in attendance compared to the previous week.



Percentage of closed centers that have reopened.

The report used anonymized data from Procare Solutions customers.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

To read the full report, click here.

Procare offers an entire hub of child care resources for child care providers, parents and administrators as they navigate this new environment.

ABOUT PROCARE SOLUTIONS

For more than 30 years, Procare Solutions has been the leading provider of child care management software, integrated payment processing, technology and services. The company supports over 30,000 child care centers, preschools, daycares, afterschool programs, camps and related facilities with comprehensive software that has the power to manage every aspect of their business, enrich classroom and parent interactions, and automate the payment process. Procare offers web-based, on-premises and cloud hosted solutions, and supports customers of all sizes - from single-center operations to complex multi-location enterprises. For more information, please visit www.procaresoftware.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Procare Solutions

Francie Dudrey

[email protected]

800-338-3884 x2651

SOURCE Procare Solutions

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MIAMI, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) has published a new study entitled The New COVID Consumer in Latin America which details the attitudes, behaviors and purchase intentions of e-commerce consumers in three Latin American markets: Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. Conducted in the first week of June 2020, this study of more than 2,000 LatAm consumers identifies 5 key segments that have emerged in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis:

Americas Market Intelligence

Retreaters (reduced their online purchases)

Maintainers (have not changed their online purchasing habits)

Adapters (are purchasing slightly more online)

Disruptors (are purchasing significantly more online)

Newbies (recently made online purchases for the first time)

"Over 500 million consumers in Latin American and Caribbean markets have found themselves under quarantine for three months. Over one-third lost their jobs. Isolated, scared but resolute, Latin Americans have been forced to change how they consume, where they consume, and what they consume. Their priorities and loyalties are changing. This is a pivotal moment not to be missed by marketers," explains John Price, Managing Director of AMI. "This study is part of a new service we developed that's called COVID Consumer Snapshot Studies . We use innovative methodologies to quickly map out and execute studies within 2 weeks or less, allowing companies to adjust their plans and tactics as needed  or identify new opportunities," says Price. "Speed is essential in the time of COVID , and companies that can't pivot quickly will be left behind."

Key results from The New COVID Consumer in Latin America include:

43% of Latin American consumers are purchasing more online

12% are purchasing online for the first time

Of LatAm consumers purchasing significantly more online, 54% are women

Up to 52% of respondents reported gaining weight and nearly half reported sleeping worse during the crisis

Insurance, exercise and connectivity are top-of-mind priorities for consumer's next purchase.

More detailed study results can be found on AMI's website.

Companies can also explore how they can work with AMI to order their own COVID Consumer Snapshot Studies, not only for the consumer market but also for B2B industries such as payments, healthcare, logistics and more.

About Americas Market Intelligence

Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) is the premier market intelligence and strategy consultancy for Latin America, providing powerful research insights for companies to succeed in a wide range of verticals in the region, including payments, healthcare, logistics, mining, oil & gas, infrastructure, consumer goods and the industrial sector. Its customized research reports deliver data-based clarity and far-reaching strategic direction based on expert sources.

Press contact: Abel Delgado, Digital Marketing Director, [email protected]

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SOURCE Americas Market Intelligence
CENTENNIAL, Colo., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NioCorp Developments Ltd. ("NioCorp" or the "Company") (TSX: NB;OTCQX: NIOBF) is pleased to announce the promotion of Scott Honan to Chief Operating Officer ("COO") of NioCorp, a new position. The promotion is effective immediately.

"This is a well-deserved promotion for a friend and colleague who maintains the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and dedication," said NioCorp's CEO and Executive Chairman Mark A. Smith. "Scott was instrumental in the characterization of the Elk Creek Project's significant reserve and resource assets, as well as the design of the Project's proposed underground mine and surface processing facility. Under Scott's leadership, the Project has evolved into a highly efficient, environmentally sound, and compelling critical minerals project."

Mr. Honan joined the Company in 2014 as NioCorp's Vice President of Business Development. In addition to his role as NioCorp's new COO, Mr. Honan will remain President of Elk Creek Resources Corporation, NioCorp's operating subsidiary.

Mr. Honan has more than 25 years of experience in base metals, gold, niobium, and rare earth mining and processing. He served as General Manager and Environmental Manager at the Mountain Pass, CA rare earth facility and as Vice President of Health, Environment, Safety and Sustainability at Molycorp.

Mr. Honan is a graduate of Queen's University in Mining Engineering in both Mineral Processing (B.Sc. Honors) and Environmental Management (M.Sc.) disciplines. He is a Registered Member (No. 04231597) of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME).

@NioCorp $NB $NIOBF #Niobium #Scandium #ElkCreek #MarkSmith #ScottHonan

For More Information:

Contact Jim Sims, VP of External Affairs, NioCorp Developments Ltd., 720-639-4650, [email protected]

About NioCorp

NioCorp is developing a superalloy materials project in Southeast Nebraska that will produce Niobium, Scandium, and Titanium. Niobium is used to produce superalloys as well as High Strength, Low Alloy ("HSLA") steel, which is a lighter, stronger steel used in automotive, structural, and pipeline applications. Scandium is a superalloy material that can be combined with Aluminum to make alloys with increased strength and improved corrosion resistance. Scandium also is a critical component of advanced solid oxide fuel cells. Titanium is used in various superalloys and is a key component of pigments used in paper, paint and plastics and is also used for aerospace applications, armor and medical implants.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this document may constitute forward-looking statements, including statements related to the Company's belief that the Elk Creek Project, and its reserve and resource is world-class and is one of the most efficient, environmentally sound, and compelling critical minerals projects in the world today. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause a change in such assumptions and the actual outcomes and estimates to be materially different from those estimated or anticipated future results, achievements or position expressed or implied by those forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause NioCorp's plans or prospects to change include risks related to the Company's ability to operate as a going concern; risks related to the Company's requirement of significant additional capital; changes in demand for and price of commodities (such as fuel and electricity) and currencies; changes in economic valuations of the Project, such as Net Present Value calculations, changes or disruptions in the securities markets; legislative, political or economic developments; the need to obtain permits and comply with laws and regulations and other regulatory requirements; the possibility that actual results of work may differ from projections/expectations or may not realize the perceived potential of NioCorp's projects; risks of accidents, equipment breakdowns and labor disputes or other unanticipated difficulties or interruptions; the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated expenses in development programs; operating or technical difficulties in connection with exploration, mining or development activities; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, including the risks of diminishing quantities of grades of reserves and resources; and the risks involved in the exploration, development and mining business and the risks set forth in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators at www.sedar.com and the SEC at www.sec.gov. NioCorp disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE NioCorp Developments Ltd.

Related Links

http://www.niocorp.com


SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Off Day Trainer (offdaytrainer.com), a software company managed by RELENTLESS Management Group (BeRelentless.com), has become an official partner of GoDaddy's #OpenWeStand program.

"Within days of hearing that gyms were closing, I instructed our development team to overhaul our subscription billing tiers to provide a NEW no-cost entry point for all new trainers. We removed the requirement for a credit card to be placed on file and we reduced the first paid tier by 60%.

"We expedited the development of our Group Challenge Programs, which are designed to help generate new leads/revenue for trainers all fees for access to this content have been waived.

I couldn't be more proud of our team who have remained resilient and committed to serving our customers and their clients around the clock," explains CEO Geoff Chaney.

#OpenWeStand partners are bringing their initiatives and programs in support of this pledge to support small businesses by contributing expert advice, services, and special offers to ease the financial stress caused by COVID-19.

"The increasing amount of support and interest in #OpenWeStand indicates the acute need that the small business community feels right now," said Fara Howard, CMO at GoDaddy. "We're committed to continuing growing the #OpenWeStand resources and community for as long as necessary and want to thank all of our partners for being willing to do the same."

The latest companies joining in support of #OpenWeStand include 1-800Accountant, Adobe, Cisco, Corestream, Experian, Gusto, Heymarket, Houzz, Hownd, HubSpot, LegalShield, LivePerson, LinkedIn, LivePerson, Mastercard, Microsoft, Nexa, Patch, Pitney Bowes, Powr.io, RingCentral, Splitit, Submittable, Trustpilot, and Uber.

To learn about the #OpenWeStand movement and check out available resources, please visit: https://www.openwestand.org

About Off Day Trainer (offdaytrainer.com):

During these times where gyms are closed and fitness trainers are limited in their ability to get one-on-one with clients, Off Day Trainer is committed to providing technology and training resources to help these small business owners grow their client base from a distance.

Media Contact:

Alex Minicucci, CEO

RELENTLESS Management Group, LLC

[email protected]

844-245-7048

SOURCE RELENTLESS Management Group
The HIV2020 Conference was initially conceived as a safe alternative for sex workers and people who use drugs who would not have been able to attend AIDS2020 because of legal travel restrictions in the U.S. Additionally, the choice of San Francisco's Bay Area would have excluded community members entering from countries who are on the Trump administration's travel bans. HIV2020 was therefore planned as a protest against IAS's selection of the U.S. to host its conference, which community advocates from around the world argued was unsafe for people of color, LGBTI people, Muslims, people who use drugs, sex workers, and transgender people  groups that are frequently the targets of state sanctioned violence.

HIV2020 Online is led by key population-led networks including The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), The International Network of People Who Use Drugs (INPUD), MPact Global Action for Gay Men's Health and Rights, and The Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+).

"HIV2020 Online has been conceived by and for the communities most impacted by HIV," said Ruth Morgan Thomas of NSWP. "We are challenging business as usual and we are inviting those in power to reflect on the potential of truly partnering with our communities"

The organizers of HIV2020 have doubled down on their efforts to speak truth to power with their set of ten recommendations to the IAS. They endeavor to work with communities to #ReclaimTheResponse from large institutions that continue to take top down decisions and fail to meaningfully address social justice.

"Communities need to be meaningfully engaged as equal partners at all levels of the global HIV response. We need to devote prominent attention to racial and economic justice, gender equality, and human rights," said George Ayala, Executive Director of MPact. "HIV2020 Online is a chance to model new ways of convening experts for equitable knowledge exchange about issues that matter most to people living with and most affected by HIV."

HIV2020 Online will now take place as a series of online events from the month of July through October. It's opening plenary on Monday, July 6th will feature Winnie Byanyima of UNAIDS, Peter Sands of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Sigrid Kaag of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Trade, and Atlethse de la Torre Rosas of Mexico's CENSIDA.

Check out HIV2020 Online's full calendar of events and register at www.hiv2020.org

Contact: Gregory Tartaglione

MPact, Sr. Communications Officer

[email protected]

SOURCE HIV2020 Online
NEW YORK, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of financial markets for 10,000 U.S. and global securities, today announced Aurion Resources, Ltd. (TSX-V: AU; OTCQX: AIRRF), a Canadian exploration company, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX Best Market. Aurion Resources upgraded to OTCQX from the Pink market.

Aurion Resources begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol "AIRRF." U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com.

"Trading on OTCQX will allow Aurion Resources to efficiently expand access to its news and financial disclosure and demonstrate to investors that the company meets high financial standards and follows corporate governance best practices," said Jason Paltrowitz, EVP of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "We look forward to supporting Aurion Resources and its shareholders."

Mike Basha, President of Aurion states: "We are pleased to join the OTCQX Market. Our current and future investors will benefit from a stronger and more efficient platform to trade within the US that also provides us with significant additional market exposure."

Nauth LPC acted as the company's OTCQX sponsor.

About Aurion Resources Ltd.

Aurion Resources Ltd. is a Canadian exploration company. Aurion's strategy is to generate or acquire early stage precious metals exploration opportunities and advance them through direct exploration by our experienced team or by business partnerships and joint venture arrangements. Aurion's current focus is exploring on its Flagship Risti and Launi projects, as well as advancing joint venture arrangements with B2 Gold Corp., Kinross Gold Corp., and Strategic Resources Inc. in Finland.

About OTC Markets Group Inc.

OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors.

To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com.

OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN are SEC regulated ATSs, operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.

Subscribe to the OTC Markets RSS Feed

Media Contact:

OTC Markets Group Inc., +1 (212) 896-4428, [email protected]

SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.otcmarkets.com


DUBLIN, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Industrial Radiography - Global Market Outlook (2019-2027)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Industrial Radiography market accounted for $483.20 million in 2019 and is expected to reach $1043.33 million by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 10.1% during the forecast period. Strict safety regulations by governments and high demand by the automotive & aerospace industry are the major factors driving market growth. However, higher deployment cost of this technology is restraining market growth.



Industrial radiography is a technique utilized for inspection of materials for internal flaws utilizing short wavelength electromagnetic radiation. The defects which are not visible to naked eye are detected using industrial radiography. It is utilized in flaw detection, crack detection, and surface infection of products in manufacturing plants. The examination of gas & oil pipelines and pressure vessels in chemical plants is carried out using this technique.



Based on end user, the petrochemicals & gas segment is likely to have a huge demand as it is extremely important for the deep-sea oil and natural gas industry which incorporates monitoring pipelines, storage tanks, and refining equipment for measuring internal corrosions without externally harming the material. By geography, Asia Pacific is going to have a lucrative growth during the forecast period due to a huge demand for stringent government regulations regarding safety, rapid technological advancements and the increased focus of manufacturers on R&D.



Some of the key players profiled in the Industrial Radiography Market include 3DX-Ray, American testing services, Anritsu, Applied Technical Services Inc, Ashtead technology Ltd, Bosello High Technology, Comet Group, Fujifilm, General Electric, Mettler-Toledo, Mistras Group Inc, Nikon, Nordson dage, Perkinelmer and Shimadzu.



What the report offers:

Market share assessments for the regional and country-level segments

Strategic recommendations for the new entrants

Covers Market data for the years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2024 and 2027

Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)

Strategic analysis: Drivers and Constraints, Product/Technology Analysis, Porter's five forces analysis, SWOT analysis, etc.

Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations

Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends

Company Profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments

Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancements

Key Topics Covered:



1 Executive Summary



2 Preface

2.1 Abstract

2.2 Stake Holders

2.3 Research Scope

2.4 Research Methodology

2.4.1 Data Mining

2.4.2 Data Analysis

2.4.3 Data Validation

2.4.4 Research Approach

2.5 Research Sources

2.5.1 Primary Research Sources

2.5.2 Secondary Research Sources

2.5.3 Assumptions



3 Market Trend Analysis

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Drivers

3.3 Restraints

3.4 Opportunities

3.5 Threats

3.6 Technology Analysis

3.7 End User Analysis

3.8 Emerging Markets

3.9 Impact of Covid-19



4 Porters Five Force Analysis

4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers

4.2 Bargaining power of buyers

4.3 Threat of substitutes

4.4 Threat of new entrants

4.5 Competitive rivalry



5 Global Industrial Radiography Market, By Radiation Type

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Gamma Rays

5.3 X-Rays



6 Global Industrial Radiography Market, By Technology

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Film-Based Radiography

6.3 Digital Radiography

6.3.1 Direct Radiography

6.3.2 Computed Tomography

6.3.3 Computed Radiography



7 Global Industrial Radiography Market, By End User

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Automotive & Transportation

7.2.1 Critical Component Manufacturing

7.2.2 Metal Casting

7.2.3 Wheel and Axle Manufacturing

7.3 Aerospace & Defense

7.3.1 Composite Airframe Manufacturing

7.3.2 Engine Part Production

7.3.3 Maintenance

7.3.4 Material and Component Analysis

7.4 Power Generation

7.4.1 Fossil Fuel

7.4.2 Nuclear Power

7.4.3 Solar Power

7.4.4 Wind Power

7.5 Manufacturing

7.5.1 Foundry

7.5.2 Metal Industry

7.5.3 Mining Industry

7.5.4 Pipe and Tube Manufacturing

7.5.5 Shipbuilding

7.6 Petrochemicals & Gas

7.6.1 Liquefaction

7.6.2 Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)

7.6.3 Natural Gas

7.6.4 Refining

7.6.5 Storage Tanks

7.6.6 Subsea Pipelines

7.6.7 Transmission Pipelines



8 Global Industrial Radiography Market, By Geography

8.1 Introduction

8.2 North America

8.2.1 US

8.2.2 Canada

8.2.3 Mexico

8.3 Europe

8.3.1 Germany

8.3.2 UK

8.3.3 Italy

8.3.4 France

8.3.5 Spain

8.3.6 Rest of Europe

8.4 Asia Pacific

8.4.1 Japan

8.4.2 China

8.4.3 India

8.4.4 Australia

8.4.5 New Zealand

8.4.6 South Korea

8.4.7 Rest of Asia Pacific

8.5 South America

8.5.1 Argentina

8.5.2 Brazil

8.5.3 Chile

8.5.4 Rest of South America

8.6 Middle East & Africa

8.6.1 Saudi Arabia

8.6.2 UAE

8.6.3 Qatar

8.6.4 South Africa

8.6.5 Rest of Middle East & Africa



9 Key Developments

9.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures

9.2 Acquisitions & Mergers

9.3 New Product Launch

9.4 Expansions

9.5 Other Key Strategies



10 Company Profiling

10.1 3DX-Ray

10.2 American testing services

10.3 Anritsu

10.4 Applied Technical Services Inc

10.5 Ashtead technology Ltd

10.6 Bosello High Technology

10.7 Comet Group

10.8 Fujifilm

10.9 General Electric

10.10 Mettler-Toledo

10.11 Mistras Group Inc

10.12 Nikon

10.13 Nordson dage

10.14 Perkinelmer

10.15 Shimadzu



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/1au4ri

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Following significant investments to support population growth and the reliability of its system, Piedmont Natural Gas today filed a request with the Tennessee Public Utility Commission (TPUC) to raise its base rates by 15%.

Piedmont's last base rate adjustment was nearly nine years ago. Since 2012, Piedmont has invested approximately $600 million in the Nashville metropolitan area to build the infrastructure needed to support the community's substantial growth, which includes an increase in population of 11.2% since 2010, and comply with federal safety regulations.

"Piedmont has made vital upgrades to our natural gas system in this growing community without a rate increase for nearly a decade  a result of our strong effort to control costs and minimize impacts to customers," said Sasha Weintraub, Piedmont Natural Gas senior vice president.

If approved, the new rates could go into effect Jan. 1, 2021, with the utility's average residential customer experiencing a bill increase of about $11 each month, or $132 annually.

"With the cost of natural gas continuing to decrease, customer bills after the proposed rate adjustment would still be lower than they were in July 2018, and Piedmont will be able to continue supporting growth and prosperity in our Tennessee communities," said Weintraub.

The new proposed residential rate will be 10% less than the rate was in July 2018, as Piedmont made a series of rate adjustments that resulted in a net bill decrease of $14 per month for the average residential customer between March 2019 and March 2020.

To learn more about Piedmont's rates, visit piedmontng.com/rates.

Bill Relief Programs

Piedmont will continue aiding residential and business customers whose accounts have fallen behind due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has suspended key credit actions, including disconnections for nonpayment, late payment fees and fees for credit card and other payments.

Support for these efforts includes:

Online tools so customers can directly choose an extended payment arrangement that best fits their needs

Simplified processes for accessing Low Income Home Energy Assistance

Program (LIHEAP) and other funds available through communities' agencies

Ongoing Community Assistance

In March of this year, when a devastating tornado hit downtown Nashville, Piedmont Natural Gas donated $200,000 to organizations in the metro area to support recovery. With the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic, Piedmont Natural Gas and its parent company together have donated a total of $6 million for COVID-19 relief efforts in seven states, including Tennessee.

Piedmont Natural Gas

Piedmont Natural Gas, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, is an energy services company whose principal business is the distribution of natural gas to more than 1 million residential, commercial and industrial customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The company also supplies natural gas to power plants. Piedmont is routinely recognized by J.D. Power for excellent customer satisfaction, and has been named by Cogent Reports as one of the most trusted utility brands in the U.S.

Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of the largest energy holding companies in the U.S. It employs 30,000 people and has an electric generating capacity of 51,000 megawatts through its regulated utilities, and 3,000 megawatts through its nonregulated Duke Energy Renewables unit.

Duke Energy is transforming its customers' experience, modernizing the energy grid, generating cleaner energy and expanding natural gas infrastructure to create a smarter energy future for the people and communities it serves.

Duke Energy was named to Fortune's 2020 "World's Most Admired Companies" list, and Forbes' "America's Best Employers" list. More information about the company is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center contains news releases, fact sheets, photos, videos and other materials. Duke Energy's illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Media contact: Jennifer Sharpe

Office: 704.731.4108

Media Line: 877.348.3612

[email protected]

SOURCE Piedmont Natural Gas
The frozen foods market has been growing exponentially during the last few years, specifically for products that align with consumer demand for more plant-based options, according to the National Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Association.

"As more and more consumers are seeking to add plant-based options to their weekly routines but aren't ready to commit to a full lifestyle change, these single-serve meals offer a perfect way to get a taste of what plant-based foods can offer," said Andy Levitt, Founder and CEO of Purple Carrot. "From the beginning, Purple Carrot has been dedicated to creating incredible plant-based meals that even non-plant-based consumers will love, and our new frozen line is no different."

Developed in partnership with Conagra Brands, Purple Carrot will launch four (4) single serve meals including:

Plant-Based Meatball Marinara  made with Gardein Meatless Meatballs

Maple Chipotle Veggie Bowl

Sweet Corn Elote Bowl

Fiesta Pepper Bowl  made with Gardein Beefless Ground

"We are excited to partner with Purple Carrot on this endeavor," said Tara Rozalowsky, VP/GM at Conagra Brands. "They have built a large, successful direct to consumer model for plant-based meal solutions and together, we plan to take that equity across the retail space, increasing the access points for flexitarians and plant-based lifestyle enthusiasts to have complete meal solutions, including frozen options that are entirely plant based, vegan and non-GMO comfort foods."

Consumers will be able to purchase these meals across nearly all Whole Food Market stores in the US starting the first week in July. The single serve frozen meals have an MSRP of $5.29. Specific product offerings and pricing depend on location.

About Purple Carrot

Purple Carrot started with just a seed of an idea in 2014: encourage people to eat more plants for their health and the health of the planet. Today, it is leading the charge for people to adopt a plant-based lifestyle. Purple Carrot's irresistible, globally-inspired recipes, fresh ingredients, and meals are available in the U.S. and Japan. To learn more about Purple Carrot, visit www.purplecarrot.com

About Conagra Brands

Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE: CAG), headquartered in Chicago, is one of North America's leading branded food companies. Guided by an entrepreneurial spirit, Conagra Brands combines a rich heritage of making great food with a sharpened focus on innovation. The company's portfolio is evolving to satisfy people's changing food preferences. Conagra's iconic brands, such as Birds Eye, Marie Callender's, Banquet, Healthy Choice, Slim Jim, Reddi-wip, and Vlasic, as well as emerging brands, including Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP, Duke's, Earth Balance, Gardein, and Frontera, offer choices for every occasion. For more information, visit www.conagrabrands.com.

For all media inquiries please contact [email protected]

SOURCE Purple Carrot
"I chose to join Mohr Partners as they have built a technology enabled platform to support their transaction advisors with best-in-class tools and resources in business intelligence, labor analytics, workplace strategy and economic incentive advisory," stated Shipman.

Rob Pipkin, Managing Principal commented, "I am excited to have Randy Shipman join my team as he is one of the most respected commercial real estate professionals in Dallas with a great reputation for honesty and integrity."

Shipman joins Mohr Partners from TenantBase and has previously held senior roles JLL, Trammell Crow and CBRE.

About Mohr Partners, Inc. :

Mohr Partners, Inc. is a global corporate real estate advisor, providing corporate tenants with an integrated set of portfolio services including strategic planning, business intelligence, lease administration/accounting & FASB ASC 842 compliance, research and site selection, labor analytics, project and construction management, comprehensive demographics analysis, economic incentives negotiations and transaction management. Since 1986, Mohr has been managing real estate portfolios for corporations, and each year completes transactions for its clients in all 50 U.S. states, all provinces of Canada and locations around the world. Mohr seamlessly provides corporate real estate services globally through its strategic alliance partners in Canada, Mexico/Latin America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. For more information on Mohr, please visit www.mohrpartners.com.

SOURCE Mohr Partners, Inc.

Related Links

www.mohrpartners.com


Hundreds of miles of pipes from faraway lakes and rivers supply about 30 percent of Mexico City's water needs. The rest comes from a vast underground aquifer where twice as much water is pumped as is replenished. Mexico City is struggling to provide the growing population with enough water, and the water supply is of inferior quality. Even before a global pandemic, water riddled with heavy metals from the soil and a high bacteria content created a global health crisis.

In March 2020, when Covid-19 started to make its way around the world, it became clear that Mexico City's long-standing issue in securing potable water for its growing population of approximately 22 million people would become increasingly urgent. The government of Mexico City immediately tasked SacMex, the prestigious institution responsible for bringing water to millions of homes all over Mexico City, with delivering potable water to approximately 40,000 families who do not have access to it.

To achieve their goal, SacMex went in search of a partner that could offer innovative water treatment technology. "SacMex interviewed companies all over the world, searching for one that could help them build a plant that could provide a potable water stream of 60 liters per second within the deadline of 12 weeks," said MIS LATAM Director, Alfonso Llorens. "MI Systems was the only one that could help."

MI Systems will use their END technology to treat well water saturated with high amounts of heavy metals and high amounts of TOC, Total Organic Carbon. Usually, a plant this size would take 6-9 months to build, but END technology enables them to build the plant and deliver water within the 12-week deadline. Not only can they meet the deadline, but MIS committed to providing 90 percent efficiency for low water waste with low energy expenditure, making it a more economical venture.

"It is an interesting challenge. Due to the pandemic, many suppliers are shut down or almost shut down, but we are working night and day to meet the delivery deadline," Llorens said. "People need water right now, especially during a global pandemic."

The SacMex Project aims to deliver water to homes by July 8, 2020.

About Magna Imperio Systems

Magna Imperio Systems Corp. is a Texas-based national and international water treatment solutions company that designs, develops, and manufactures the highest recovery, most energy- and cost-efficient water treatment systems in the world. The core of MI Systems' water treatment solutions is its patented Electrochemical Nano Diffusion (END) process, a transformation of the long-established electrodialysis reversal (EDR) process, which has established new benchmarks in terms of energy efficiency and recovery for desalination technology. END offers up to 60% energy savings versus traditional treatment technologies, with clean water recoveries up to 99+%, capitalizing on the far-reaching impacts of Maximum Recovery, Minimum Energy.

This level of recovery extends the life of each drop, and clients can minimize waste, indirectly treat various water sources or recycle and reuse their wastewater for future processes. They are thus cutting costs by increasing their available water supply without purchasing additional water.

Media Contact:

Sanny Visser



Global Imprint

828-719-7464

[email protected]

SOURCE Magna Imperio Systems Corp.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With a goal of protecting merchandise at some of the nation's largest drugstore chains, Texas based SATX Technologies has announced new uses for its popular SATX Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers.

The company's tracking devices continue to be its leading seller, with sales reaching record levels in 2020 due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

With so many warehouses and retail locations temporarily closed during the health crisis, SATX GPS magnetic trackers have been much more widely used over the last few months.

One new use for these popular trackers has been to safeguard powerful and valuable drugs that have become a target of burglars and thieves, even more so during the civil unrest that's currently plaguing many parts of the country.

"Aside from actual cash, drugs like oxycodone have always been popular targets for burglars and looters," says Ryan Birdsell, founder and owner of SATX Technologies. "With the use of SATX GPS trackers, drugstore owners have another safeguard against these types of events. It will allow them to not only recover their merchandise, but also to apprehend the thieves in a relatively short period of time."

Drugstore owners and managers can place GPS tracking devices in narcotic dispenser cabinets largely without threat of detection. Magnetic GPS trackers are used to embed into the cabinet, thieves typically will steal the entire cabinet or drawers.

Law enforcement officials can then easily track the items via SATX Technologies software that's been provided to the client.

"It would be very difficult for thieves to recognize these dispensers contain a magnetic gps tracker because they magnetize and conceal themselves well," says Birdsell. "It's likely that not every bottle will have a tracking device in it, but thieves are almost certainly not going to take only one bottle.

"When they grab the dispenser or drawers, they can be tracked easily via software provided by our company."

The United States currently makes up around 5 percent of the world's population but consumes approximately 30 percent of the world's prescription opioid drugs, according to data from the International Narcotics Control Board.

This widespread use makes these types of drugs popular for thieves, as well as for addicts and for those seeking to prey on individuals suffering from drug addictions and misuse.

Unfortunately, employee theft is also a rampant problem when it comes to opioid drugs, making it even harder to safeguard these types of products.

"We recommend that only one or two individuals in any particular store be responsible for inserting the SATX Magnetic GPS tracker," cautions Birdsell. "That way, you can minimize your risk and improve your chances of apprehending the dishonest individual when a theft does occur."

SATX Technologies was founded in 2014 and specializes in high-tech gadgetry and GPS trackers for trailer, which are used for many purposes. These include tracking vehicles and other high ticket items, but they can also be used to protect young children and even elderly members of the family who may be vulnerable for various reasons.

Source: https://thenewsfront.com/satx-gps-trackers-used-to-catch-drug-thieves/

Contact Person: Ryan

Company: SATX Technologies

Address: 6923 W Loop 1604 N. Suite 123B

San Antonio TX 78254

United States

Contact Number: +1 210-899-1033

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://satxtechnologies.com

SOURCE SATX Technologies

Related Links

https://satxtechnologies.com


HERNDON, Va. and FARMINGTON, Conn., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SourceCast, Inc. and Cost Management Services, LLC have entered into a strategic partnership providing employers the ability to source diverse talent and receive applicable Work Opportunities Tax Credits for qualified new hires.

Across the country, HR professionals recognize the need to accelerate their hiring practices. This agreement brings together two influential service providers to help businesses work efficiently. SourceCast is a leader in diversity sourcing and OFCCP Compliance Services. For over 20 years, Cost Management Services has been a trailblazer in recruiting, applicant tracking, electronic onboarding and employment tax credits.

"Partnering with Cost Management Services allows SourceCast customers the ability to capture Work Opportunity Tax Credits to hire veterans, people with disabilities, minorities and women," said James Acquah, COO at SourceCast. "We are pleased to offer employers a way to receive money in the form of tax credits for qualifying new hires made through our diversity sourcing services."

"We are excited to begin this partnership with SourceCast and look forward to helping employers who source and hire diverse employees find and maximize tax credits utilizing the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. WOTC is like a hidden gem, not enough people know about it. As more companies develop formal diversity plans CMS iRecruit, WOTC and SourceCast is a great marriage," said Brian Kelly, Cost Management Services, President.

About SourceCast, Inc.

SourceCast is a leading provider of diversity sourcing for employers, talent sources and job seekers nationwide. DirectSource, a web-based software connects candidates to jobs matching their unique qualifications delivering highly-skilled applicants to employers in all industries across the United States.

About Cost Management Services, LLC

Since 1997 Cost Management Services has helped businesses save money by taking advantage of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. There are 10 qualifying categories for WOTC of which 8-15% of New Hires are classified. Your business can be eligible to receive a tax credit between $2,400 and $9,600 depending on the qualifying category. We help qualify new employees through a secure online portal, helping employers receive the maximum tax credit available.

SourceCast Media Contact

Estelle Allen

Communications Manager

[email protected]

Cost Management Services Media Contact

Linzi Strong

Marketing Manager

[email protected]

SOURCE SourceCast

Related Links

http://www.sourcecast.net


LONDON, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Government of the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis has extended the Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP)  a project funded with Citizenship by Investment (CBI) proceeds. Prime Minister Dr Timothy Harris mentioned this in a TV broadcast on Tuesday evening. He also said that the government has invested a total of $80 million to aid those affected by the pandemic. A further $40 million will go towards stimulating the economy.

PM Harris explained that the country's fiscal position was the best in the region in the first quarter of this year. While COVID-19 shook the twin islands' economy and society, PM Harris says that the country overcame the spread of the virus thanks to its health experts. Now, St Kitts and Nevis is focused on supporting those impacted most and reviving its economy.

"We will bring an institutional and people response to the crisis," PM Harris said on the Leadership Matters programme. He continued: "We announced the largest and most comprehensive response on a per capita basis to COVID-19. To mitigate the impact on our people, we announced a 1,000-dollar grant by Social Security, the 500-dollar PAP programme was to be extended, we waived water charges for three months in the first instance, we instituted a moratorium on electricity bills for three months, a moratorium on mortgage payments for six months. Indeed, we put the people first and, in particular, those more severely hit by COVID-19."

GDP projections around the globe are unprecedented, according to the IMF's updated World Economic Outlook report. For this reason, the Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis said that the country must rely on its own capabilities to overcome this crisis. The Caribbean nation has a strong Citizenship by Investment Programme to count on  the world's longest-standing initiative of such kind.

Reputable foreign investors are welcome to obtain St Kitts and Nevis' valuable citizenship in exchange for an economic contribution. The fund option provides the fastest route to second citizenship, which, when coupled with the Accelerated Application Process, can take 60 days or less. Investors are attracted to St Kitts and Nevis because it is a safe, modern democracy, with high regard for the rule of law. It is both family- and investor-friendly, where citizens can easily access almost 160 countries and territories, thanks to Foreign Minister Mark Brantley's diplomatic efforts.

Contact:

[email protected]

www.csglobalpartners.com

SOURCE CS Global Partners
As the largest bank in Africa, Standard Bank Group, along with its strategic partner ICBC, has been attending the CIIE since its inception. It has also introduced 20 businesses from the continent to the expo.

Impressed by the size and diversity of the event, the bank intends to leverage the opportunity to access one of the world's most consequential and dynamic markets to actively engage its client base.

At the most recent edition of the CIIE, Standard Bank hosted two stands: one in the financial services pavilion and the other in the agro-processing pavilion, greatly benefitting our customers who were predominantly from this sector, he says.

Gamet points out that many of Standard Bank's customers who attended the CIIE have successfully negotiated sales agreements, with Chinese buyers purchasing products such as wines, fruits, nuts, chilies, and a variety of other agricultural and agro-processed goods.

For many clients, it was their first sale in the Chinese market and therefore an exciting, lucrative, new market entry for them. In some instances, these exporters had to increase capacity to meet their first orders, further indicating the extent to which the CIIE can benefit African businesses, says Gamet.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in slower economic growth this year, Gamet retains his confidence in the Chinese economy and the Belt and Road Initiative, which has brought important development opportunities to African countries.

Despite the gloomy economic outlook, the structural drivers in the China-Africa corridor remain intact, and are likely to re-assert themselves soon, he says.

Over the past 16 years, African countries have enjoyed a strong trade relationship with China. Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show that bilateral trade between the two sides reached more than $200 billion in 2018, representing a year-on-year rise of 20 percent. China has now been the continent's largest trade partner for 10 consecutive years.

Standard Bank remains committed to driving Africa's growth and sees trade with China as key to supporting this commitment, says Gamet.

This year's CIIE will take place from Nov 5 to 10 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai.

So far, more than 90 percent of the planned business exhibition area has been reserved by exhibitors, according to the organizers.

And despite the current economic uncertainty, one thing seems certain  the trend for increased economic cooperation between China and Africa is set to continue.

More information of CIIE is as follows: with two editions successfully held since 2018, CIIE serves as the platform for international procurement, investment promotion, cultural exchange, as well as opening-up and cooperation. The third edition of CIIE will take place in Shanghai from November 5th to 10th. Thousands of companies, which are leading players in their industries, will gather at the expo to showcase their products and services, and seek business opportunities with global buyers.

At CIIE, participants can both purchase a wide range of products from the world and can also sell their products to the world. CIIE helps drive investment both inward and outward and contributes to maintaining a stable global supply chain. CIIE welcomes global buyers to join the upcoming event and to share opportunities presented by China's further opening up.

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhejGnVdGWk

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1077995/CIIE_Logo.jpg

Contact:

Ms. Nie Qingxin

Tel.: +86-21-59760717, +86-21-59761076

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.ciie.org/zbh/en/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ciieonline

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ciieonline

YouTube: https://youtu.be/fhejGnVdGWk

SOURCE CIIE

Related Links

https://www.ciie.org/zbh/en/


CAMDEN, N.J., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Michaels Organization Educational Foundation has awarded more than $1.2 million in college scholarships for the 2020/2021 academic year. All scholarships benefit residents of affordable and military living communities owned or managed by The Michaels Organization, a national leader in residential real estate and the largest privately held owner of affordable housing in the country.

A multiple scholarship recipient, Aryana is working towards a degree in Social Work.

The total dollar amount of scholarships awarded -- $1,259,000 -- represents a record high for the Foundation, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary year of providing educational grants to Michaels' residents. Earlier this year, the Foundation announced a deadline extension as well as changes to the submission process to help ensure residents could successfully apply, despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"At Michaels, our mission is to create communities that lift lives," said Michaels' Chief Executive Officer John J. O'Donnell. "We believe that mission mandates an investment in our residents, and there is no better investment we can make than in someone's education."

Among the 273 Michaels Scholars who were awarded grants ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 each are students involved with a wide range of majors and who will be attending various community colleges and universities across the country, as well as some who will participate in vocational training programs. Four senior residents interested in pursuing continuing education classes were also awarded grants of $500 each.

Many of the 2020 Michaels Scholars are recipients of the Foundation's scholarships in the past, as all residents are invited and encouraged to apply for grants for every year of their undergraduate education.

All Foundation funds are raised through voluntary contributions by companies and private individuals throughout The Michaels Organization's business network. All donations are then matched $2 for every $1 dollar by The Michaels Organization's Founder and Chairman, Michael J. Levitt, and his wife Pat Levitt.

Michael Levitt created the non-profit Educational Foundation in 1991 when it was the first program of its kind offering college scholarships to residents of affordable housing. Since then the program has expanded to include the families and children of service members who live in private, on-post military housing communities owned or managed by Michaels, as well as college students who live in Michaels' student living communities, both on- and off-campus. The scholarship applications for student living community residents will be offered later this fall.

Media Contact:

Laura Zaner, The Michaels Organization, 856-988-5983, [email protected]

Related Images

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A 2020 Michaels Scholar

A multiple scholarship recipient, Aryana is working towards a degree in Social Work.

SOURCE The Michaels Organization Educational Foundation

Related Links

https://www.michaelsscholars.com


LITTLE ROCK, Ark., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Incumbent U.S. Junior Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) successfully eliminated a Democratic opponent in this year's race. But the campaign by Independent challenger Dan Whitfield has been building momentum and has made significant progress towards earning a spot on the ballot to challenge Cotton on Nov. 3. On Monday, the Eighth Court Circuit assigned a case number for the appeal in the ongoing battle for ballot access in the Arkansas Senate Race.

On June 24, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker denied a preliminary injunction. The ruling allows Independent Candidate Dan Whitfield to move forward with the appeal process and secure a spot on the November ballot. The ruling stated, "The Court concludes that the plaintiffs have sufficiently demonstrated their standing to pursue declaratory and injunctive relief."

The issue of candidacy and ballot access in Arkansas has unfolded dramatically, if not quietly, over the course of several months. In late 2019 a memo written by Tom Cotton campaign manager Brian Colas and addressed to "Senator Cotton's Top supporters" detailed a plan to hold onto "damaging material" they had gathered on the democratic candidate and "release the information after it was too late for anyone else to enter the race."

The Democratic challenger Josh Mahony dropped out of the race two hours after having filed, leaving Cotton without a major party opponent in what is shaping up to be one of the most important elections in American history.

Mr. Whitfield, who reports a significant following for his grassroots campaign, holds that the coronavirus outbreak had impacted the ability of candidates to gain ballot access. Whitfield was able to collect 6,514 signatures, of which 5,954 were valid, while losing 60% of the collection period due to Governor Hutchinson's orders of the state declaring a state emergency. These orders of the state enacted social distancing policies and banned gatherings of 10 or more people. Several significant "petition parties" had been planned to achieve the signature goals, which had to be canceled due to the Governor's orders. Still, the Whitfield achievement of 6,514 signatures obtained during a very short collections window is impressive, especially in that over 98% of all signatures were obtained through unpaid volunteers, and not from paid collectors.

Regarding the appeal, Mr. Whitfield has stated "This is actually the best possible outcome for the people of Arkansas and our campaign. If Judge Baker had granted the preliminary injunction, the Secretary of State would have appealed. With this ruling, we get the opportunity to present our case to the 8th Circuit and win our ballot access without interference from Secretary Thurston or the Attorney General. They tried to claim that orders from the state did not directly affect our efforts, but the fact is COVID-19 and the governor's instructions did impact our ability to get signatures. Judge Baker's ruling states as much."

At the hearing conducted on May 27, 2020, the Secretary of State was represented by several individuals from the Attorney General's office who argued the state's COVID-19 response did not represent a challenge in gathering the required signatures despite the Governor's stay at home orders, even suggesting that if the campaign was serious it could have spent upwards of $80,000 for paid canvassers to collect signatures. Local paid canvassing companies were closed due to COVID-19.

Whitfield goes on to say, "It's obvious that the people have had enough, we will win our appeal, and the people of Arkansas will have a choice."

Judge Baker's ruling states, "the Court determines that the pandemic and the State's response to it hindered Mr. Whitfield(s) efforts to collect successfully all qualifying signatures"

Secretary Thurston has been the subject of several complaints and lawsuits involving ballot access, many of which were referenced in the ruling. The lawsuits involved candidates outside the Republican party, which has led to questions of attempted ballot and voter suppression. Judge Baker's ruling also noted "enjoining Secretary Thurston from continued application of the requirements plaintiffs argue are unconstitutional is likely to redress the injuries."

By preventing Secretary Thurston from interfering any further in this case, it all but assures Dan Whitfield ballot access to run against Junior Senator Cotton in November. The people of Arkansas will have a choice.

Case Documentation: https://danwhitcongress.us/ballot-access

Related Images

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Dan Whitfield Headshot

Independent U.S. Senate Candidate Dan Whitfield is challenging Republican incumbent Tom Cotton

SOURCE Dan Whitfield for U.S. Senate
ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With Americans projected to take 700 million trips this summer, 97 percent by car, America's travel plazas and truckstops are stepping up to serve passenger vehicles and RVers seeking a safe Summer vacation.

Travel plazas and truckstops nationwide serve as a prime location for the traveling public, offering fuel (gasoline, diesel and alternative fuels), food (both quick-serve and dine-in options) as well as the ability to accommodate recreational vehicles and buses. The average travel plaza or truckstop also offers amenities such as showers, laundry facilities, overnight parking that is separate from commercial trucks and vehicle repair services.

Travel plazas and truckstops also serve as home to some of America's best diners, mercantiles that sell locally sourced foods and products as well as unique industry museums, making them a key stop as the nation embarks on the Great American road trip.

"Americans are eager to travel this summer, and the all-American road trip that includes stops at travel plazas and truckstops presents them with a safe and viable option for a Summer vacation," said NATSO President and CEO Lisa Mullings. "Truckstops and travel plazas are designed to meet the needs of the long-distance traveler. As we embark on the July 4 weekend, the travel plazas that crisscross this country and dot the nation's Interstate highways are ready to meet all of the needs of the traveling public in a safe and efficient manner."

The United States is home to more than 5,000 private travel plazas and truckstops, the vast majority of which are located within  mile of an Interstate exit interchange. Travel plaza locations often house travel stores, mercantiles, restaurants, hotels and vehicle repair services. The travel plaza industry serves more than 1 billion people a year throughout the industry.

Delia Moon Meier, Senior Vice President of Iowa 80 and NATSO Chairman of the Board, said, "Travel plazas and truckstops have long been a favorite stop for those traveling by RV." Iowa 80, for example, has 20 pull-through parking spaces for RVs and travel trailers located near the convenience store and gas islands. The site also is home to the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum, which houses a collection of rare, vintage trucks, making it a vacation destination.

Founded in 1960, NATSO represents the industry on legislative and regulatory matters; serves as the official source of information on the diverse travel plaza and truckstop industry; provides education to its members; conducts an annual convention and trade show; and supports efforts to generally improve the business climate in which its members operate.

SOURCE NATSO, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.natso.com


CHICAGO, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Examples of trade secrets in the life sciences include drug compounds, formulations, routes of synthesis, manufacturing details, protein production/isolation/post-translational modifications/assays/storage, vendor names and pricing, marketing strategies, etc. Trade secrets provide an advantage unless acquired via theft or misappropriation. Although they are not officially registered, trade secrets are protected by law, such as the 2016 Defend Trade Secrets Act.

Trade secrets are protected by their status as a secret. If the information is leaked/stolen, the advantage is lost. A trade secret was likely obtained illegally if fraud, theft, bribery, or a breach of a nondisclosure agreement was involved.

Accidental theft or misappropriation by a receiver may still count when, for example, the person obtains information known to be a secret. An employer should guard against inadvertently receiving another's secrets from employees. A new employee may bring the secrets from past employers, often in an effort to "look good" to new management.

As a trade secret owner, you have a responsibility to protect this information. If you fail to keep it a secret or fail to take sufficient precautions, you could be out of luck. The owner cannot claim it's a secret if the owner does not treat it like a secret.

The threat of "inevitable disclosure" happens because the memory contains the information. Any memory is really just a marketable general skill or knowledge in the industry. The employer has an interest in protecting its secrets that were developed during R&D. The departing employee has an interest marketing and monetizing his knowledge, skill, and experiences.

There are lots of places to look for the theft. In our experience, thieves do the same activities. Our investigation into the theft may include: USB sticks; company and personal email; uploads to cloud storage; identifying access to network drives/middle of the night access to file servers; on-site key card analysis of sensitive areas; bulk copying at copy centers; and last minute trips to foreign countries. We often see a theft when a current employee is about to quit and join a new company. Or the employee is in the process of setting up his own company, here or elsewhere. We often read or hear about US thefts to benefit foreign companies.

Call Upadhye Cwik LLP at 312-327-3326 or view our website: ipfdalaw.com for more information about our innovative legal practice and how we help solve a client's problems.

Media Contact: Shashank Upadhye, (312)327-3326, [email protected]

SOURCE Upadhye Cwik LLP

Related Links

https://ipfdalaw.com


CHICAGO, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Upadhye Cwik LLP's first year was busy and fruitful since opening in June 2019. The firm started with four experienced litigators in court cases and arbitrations involving claims of patent infringement, incorrect patent inventorship, false advertisement, unfair business practices, trademark infringement, antitrust violations, etc., as well as non-litigation or quasi-litigation matters before the PTO (such as inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews), FDA, FTC, EPO, ITC, and state attorney generals' offices. We "punch above our weight," zealously represent our clients assertively and efficiently, and provided, we believe, excellent and affordable legal representation and insightful and timely communications to our clients in the pharmaceutical, medical, chemical, biotechnology, electronics, and other technical fields.

Our attorneys, through combined decades of practice, are interested and proficient in providing integrated solutions for the business, regulatory, and litigation needs of large and small companies alike, as well as individual clients on patent prosecution and litigation matters. Our firm represented clients based all across the globe, including pharmaceutical, biotech, and electronics companies based in the US, Canada, Turkey, India, Europe, and China.

Here are a few examples of the work we've done in our first year:

In October, 2019, we tried a patent inventorship case in Los Angeles . The trial involved a determination of inventive contributions to two chemical compounds that involved two prostate cancer drugs. UC also defended against allegations of trade secret theft levelled against our client.

. The trial involved a determination of inventive contributions to two chemical compounds that involved two prostate cancer drugs. UC also defended against allegations of trade secret theft levelled against our client. In November, 2019, UC was ready for trial in a five-patent Hatch-Waxman or "Paragraph IV" case involving our 505(b)(2) applicant client. UC clients are the only defendants in this case. A last minute bankruptcy by the Plaintiffs pushed the trial at least into 2020. Because of new patents added to the case, the case if tried today would involve a dozen patents.

In April, 2020, UC helped its client settle a long-running dispute with Bausch Health that involved an ITC petition, FDA citizen petition, and two federal court lawsuits.

Recently, UC attorneys worked with its clients to prepare for and resolve emerging issues relating to the COVID-19 crisis. More particularly, UC attorneys worked with clients involving supply chain interruption, product recalls, contract disputes, and FDA enforcement actions.

Call Upadhye Cwik LLP at 312-327-3326 or view our website: ipfdalaw.com for more information about our innovative legal practice and how we help solve a client's problems.

Media Contact: Shashank Upadhye, (312)-327-3326, [email protected]

SOURCE Upadhye Cwik LLP

Related Links

https://ipfdalaw.com


RICHMOND, BC, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- delicious living magazine, a trusted health and wellness resource for more than 30 years, announces Veggies Made Great as the winner of its annual Best Bite Awards! Veggies Made Great Double Chocolate Muffins wins "Gold" in the Delicious Living 2020 Best Bites Awards as the "Best Breakfast Product" in the Retailer Choice Awards

Veggies Made Great Double Chocolate Muffins wins "Gold" in the Delicious Living 2020 Best Bites Awards Veggies Made Great Double Chocolate Muffins wins "Gold" in the Delicious Living 2020 Best Bites Awards

The Gold winner in the Retailer Choice Awards, Veggies Made Great, is a plant-based company that creatively combines clean and simple ingredients to create a remarkably delicious line of veggie-rich prepared foods for everyday snacks and meals. The amazingly convenient and frozen line of products are gluten free, soy free, peanut and tree nut free (with many dairy free options) and always made with veggies as the first and primary ingredient. Double Chocolate Chip Muffins from their line of Veggie Packed Sweet Muffins.

The Double Chocolate Muffin may sound suspicious, but these muffins are made with clean and simple ingredients and taste like a decadent lava cake when heated! You will never believe the first ingredient in these muffins is vegetables. Made with a delicious blend of zucchini and carrots to moisten and sweeten the muffins, Veggies Made Great Muffins make the perfect breakfast, snack or guilt-free indulgence. The Muffins are 120 calories or less and offer a great source of fiber and protein, using vegetables as the primary ingredients.

"Congrats to the winnersthe competition was tough this year," said Kristina Hall, editor-in-chief of delicious living. "Every company that participated contributes healthy and tasty foods to our industry, and we thank them for that."

"We are beyond thrilled to be selected as the Gold winner in the 2020 delicious living Retailer Choice Awards for the Best Breakfast Product, says Christine Luongo, Marketing Manager of Veggies Made Great. "We are the best for so many reasons and appreciate the recognition of both the retailers and Delicious Living Magazine."

This year's awards are more extensive than ever before, as delicious living has created two distinct types of awards: Retailer Choice Awards (voted on by natural health retailers) and Consumer Choice Awards (voted on by natural health shoppers).

For more exclusive content on these winners, visit deliciousliving.com and pick up the July 2020 issue of delicious living at your local natural health retailer.

For more information about the delicious foods from Veggies Made Great, sizes and prices, and to find out where to buy them, visit www.veggiesmadegreat.com or www.thehealthfoodstore.com .

About delicious living: delicious living is a leading consumer-facing magazine and health information provider for the natural, organic, and healthy products industry. The print edition is distributed 12 times annually and available at natural health retailers nationwide.

About Veggies Made Great

Veggies Made Great  is a New Classic Cooking, LLC brand based in Avenel and Rahway, New Jersey. Since 2008, Veggies Made Great has raised the bar in healthy foods by delivering surprisingly delicious veggie-rich foods. Veggies Made Great is the recipient of numerous awards, including; Women's Health Top Health Picks; Cooking Light - The Healthiest Frozen Foods in the Supermarket: Breakfast; Grocery Headquarters Trailblazer Award; Parents Magazine 25 Best Frozen Food for Families; Gluten Free Digest Chocolate Muffins; 2015 Pioneers of Better For You: Refrigerated and Frozen Foods, and Runner's World Editor's Pick.

For more information on Veggies Made Great visit www.veggiesmadegreat.com

"Like" Veggies Made Great on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/veggiesmadegreat

Follow Veggies Made Great on Instagram @veggiesmadegreat

Follow Veggies Made Great on Twitter @veggiesmadegr8

PRESS RELEASE Contact:

Hayden Hammerling

973-405-4600

[email protected]

SOURCE Veggies Made Great

Related Links

http://www.veggiesmadegreat.com


FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- VPR Brands, LP ( OTC: VPRB ) a technology products company is proud to announce its Automated Infrared Body Temperature Screening Device dubbed VPR Verified is now available for resale through industry leading Katom Restaurant Supply, Inc.

With the gradual easing of the public lockdown measures and a return to work, the VPR Verified system helps businesses, especially food service and restaurants with health check protocols. As a part of the recent reopening of most business in the USA the CDC along with state and local governments are recommending or requiring certain procedures regarding temperature checks and facial coverings. The Verified Personnel Recognition system automates this process, and greatly reduces any errors. It also has advanced facial recognition that can automatically log all employees, their temperatures and if they are wearing masks and alert management to any breaches. "Katom is an industry leader within the restaurant and food service space; they have built a great company and a fantastic, easy to use, online ordering portal to serve their customers. VPR Verified systems will now be available to all dining and food related businesses nationwide as they open back up," said Dan Hoff, COO of VPR Brands.

For more information please visit: https://www.katom.com/cat/vpr-brands.html

"The recent shift our company has made into the Personal Protective Equipment space during the pandemic has opened up new channels of distribution for our business and expanded our reach into the B2B world. There are more than 32milion business's in the USA, all of which can benefit from our VPR Verified system. We plan to continue to partner with industry specific distributors, the caliber of Katom Restaurant Supply, to be able to offer and service all business segments nationwide," said Kevin Frija, CEO of VPR Brands LP

About VPR Verified Personnel Recognition System:

The VPR Verified device has many benefits over the handheld alternative along with management reporting and recording features. Operators can detect and reduce the potential spread of unknown viruses among employees, guests and visitors by combining contactless thermal temperature screening sensors with biometric facial recognition Software the VPR Verified offers a level of public access safety and accuracy that exceeds human-error prone processes. The temperature check is performed just a second, enabling processing of up to 600 people per hour. Single or multiple kiosks can be connected to automatic doors, turnstiles, locks or barriers for access control after testing customers and employees.

The Automated Infrared Body Temperature Screening Kiosk Quickly and efficiently screens all incoming guests and employees. Choose from our wall-mounted, table stand, and floor stand models.

Facial Recognition software is motion sensor activated and quickly scans each person as they pass in front of the monitor. The VPR Verified system immediately displays the temperature of scanned person and shows a green pass or a red fail.

Eliminate costs on having a dedicated temperature screener and give yourself and anyone entering your business a visible reminder that you are taking all the necessary precautions to protect their health and safety.

About Katom Restaurant Supply, Inc

KaTom Restaurant Supply is a leader in the commercial restaurant equipment industry, offering thousands of quality restaurant, bar, and kitchen supplies online at wholesale prices, many available for next-day delivery. KaTom is a supplier of all the equipment you need to build your commercial kitchen and has been a trusted name in wholesale restaurant supplies since 1987. We provide you big-name restaurant supply company brands with small-town service that's with you from your first thoughts about your bar, bakery, or other foodservice business, through delivery and thereafter. We are a BBB Accredited Business, a certified Women's Business Enterprise, and one of the fastest growing companies in America.

Foodservice Equipment & Supplies - Distribution Giants

KaTom was named the 10th-largest foodservice equipment and supplies dealer in April of 2020.

Management Excellence Award

KaTom was recognized by Foodservice Equipment Reports for management excellence. This honor is given to companies that show a consistent investment in relationships with both suppliers and staff. Everyone at KaTom takes great pride in our successful and strategic partnerships and will continue to do our best to keep these relationships strong.

Women Presidents' Organization (WPO)

In 2019, KaTom was ranked No. 23 on the WPO list of the 50 fastest-growing women-owned/led companies. It's the third time in four years the company made the list.

Certified Women-owned Company

KaTom was first recognized by the WBENC as a woman-owned business in 2009. It's a designation we're proud to carry, since it recognizes the pioneering leadership of our CEO Patricia Bible and her amazing accomplishments in helming the company. It also lets government buyers know they might qualify for a credit for purchasing from a woman-owned business.

GSA

KaTom has maintained a contract with the United States General Services Administration (GSA) since 2007. This acknowledgment shows our commitment to setting aggressive pricing on a wide variety of essential equipment and supplies.

ENERGY STAR

KaTom is a certified partner of ENERGY STAR, the agency established to identify and promote efficient products. We are committed to seeking out and marketing products that are better both for our customers' bottom lines and for the environment.

Knoxville Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award  Woman-Owned Business Excellence

Our remarkable CEO Patricia Bible was recognized in May 2014 with a Pinnacle Business Award from the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce. The award she shared with the company recognizes outstanding achievements by a woman-owned business in East Tennessee.Inc. 5000Since 2009, KaTom has been recognized each year as one of America's fastest-growing companies by its inclusion on the Inc. 5000 list. In 2019, KaTom was ranked No. 2,866. Due to the company's consistent and rapid growth, KaTom also earned recognition as part of the Inc. Honor Roll, which lists companies that spend at least five years in the ranks of fastest-growing companies.The Impact 50In 2015, KaTom was ranked No. 42 on an Inc. magazine list of America's 50 fastest-growing woman-led companies

NAFED Dealer of the Year

In 2013, the National Association of Food Equipment Dealers (NAFED) named KaTom the restaurant equipment dealer of the year. NAFED CEO Mark Anderson said the award recognizes KaTom's "meteoric rise to success."Hire PowerIn addition to Inc. acknowledging KaTom as one of America's fastest-growing companies, the business publication also recognized us in its Hire Power Awards for 2012. That designation is given to private businesses that created the most jobs in the preceding year.

Next Economy Hero

During the 2011 GROWCO conference, a gathering of hundreds of businesses driving the economy into the future, KaTom was recognized as one of five finalists for the Next Economy Hero Award.

About VPR Brands, LP:

VPR Brands is a technology company, which develops consumer and business products based on the newest cutting-edge technologies and whose assets include issued a U.S. patent for atomization related products including technology for medical marijuana vaporizers and electronic cigarette products and components. The company is also engaged in product development for the vapor or vaping market, including e-liquids, vaporizers and electronic cigarettes (also known as e-cigarettes) which are devices which deliver nicotine and or cannabis through atomization or vaping, and without smoke and other chemical constituents typically found in traditional products. For more information about VPR Brands, please visit the company on the web at www.VPRBrands.com .

Forward-looking statements: This news release contains statements that involve expectations, plans or intentions, and other factors discussed from time to time in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. These statements are forward-looking and are subject to risks and uncertainties, so actual results may vary materially. The company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The company disclaims any obligation subsequently to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

For More Information contact:

Dan Hoff, VPR Brands LP

954-715-7001

[email protected]

SOURCE VPR Brands, LP
SHANGHAI, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 29, China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation hosted a video conference to honor 25 Chinese petrochemistry companies and 20 outstanding individuals for their proactive efforts in fighting against COVID-19. Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Group ("Yangnong") received the accolade in recognition of its special contribution to the production of urgent medical supplies.

Headquartered in Yangzhou, China, Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Group is a subsidiary of Sinochem International, with factories based in a number of cities across China.

During the epidemic, Yangnong had been running at full speed to produce the sodium hypochlorite, the chemical material used for producing disinfectant. From February 7 to 14, the Group donated 75 tons of sodium hypochlorite in batches to the first responders of COVID-19 in Wuhan. To date, Yangnong has donated 130 tons of sodium hypochlorite to about 300 companies and organizations. In addition, it has also supplied more than 10,000 tons of sodium hypochlorite to cities across China to alleviate the shortage of cleaning and disinfection chemicals for COVID-19.

The efforts of Yangnong Group in helping the nation tackle the pandemic have been acknowledged by the State Council of China early this year. In March 2020, it was among the first batch to be incorporated in the list of the key enterprises under the government business protection scheme and received an appreciation letter from the Medical Supplies Team of China's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Sinochem International has been coordinating with its subsidiaries to help domestic and overseas communities in preventing and controlling the spread of the virus. Aside from ensuring sufficient supplies of sodium hypochlorite, subsidiaries of Sinochem International have also donated medical protective equipment to the anti-epidemic centers in Hubei and Jiangsu. From May this year, ELIX Polymers, a manufacturer of ABS and a member of Sinochem International in Europe, has also donated ABS products to medical equipment manufacturers in Spain, ensuring the local 3D printing facilities have sufficient supplies of raw material to produce masks for medical institutions.

(END)

SOURCE Sinochem International

Related Links

www.sinochemintl.com


New Delhi, July 2 : The Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked for a detailed report from the election officials of the states where assembly elections or by-elections are to be held in the coming time. The Election Commission has asked for the report to review the situation in the states, an Election Commission official told IANS on Wednesday.

The ECI has written a letter to the State Election Commissioners of states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat asking the condition of the states and how elections can be conducted amidst the challenge of coronavirus. The report has been summoned with the suggestions related to social distancing at the booths.

An Election Commission official told IANS, "The election officers of the respective states have been asked to submit a report on the situation of the state. The Election Commission will decided about the elections in the state after studying the report. However, there are still a few months remaining in the by-elections till then the situation might get better but the Commission is pro-active on the issue." "The commission will decide on the election schedule after discussing with the Central health ministry and health departments of the concerned states. All the guidelines of the Central and state governments will be followed while conducting the elections." The elections for 243 seats in Bihar are probably scheduled for November but before that before that the by-elections in the vacant assembly seats in Bihar and Gujarat are also to be held. 22 Congress MLAs resigned in Marcy in Madhya Pradesh while two MLAs have passed away. Similarly, eight seats are vacant in Gujarat after the Congress MLAs resigned just before the Rajya Sabha elections. It is necessary to hold the elections within six months. In such a situation, by-elections in both the states have to be conducted by September but due to the coronavirus outbreak there are speculations that whether the ECI will conduct the elections on time or it will extend the dates.

(Navneet Mishra can be contacted at naveneet.m@ians.in)
New York, July 2 : US President Donald Trump sees China's aggressive action along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh confirming the Chinese Communist Party's "true nature", according to his Spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany.

Asked at her briefing about China's attack on Indian troops, McEnany said, "Trump had said that China's aggressive stance along the India-China border fits in with the larger pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world. And these actions only confirm the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)." She said Trump was closely monitoring the situation with India and China and added, "Both India and China have expressed a desire to deescalate and we support a peaceful resolution of the current situation." Asked about India's decision to ban TikTok and 58 other Chinese phone apps, she referred to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement earlier in the day.

He called the apps potential "appendages of the CCP's surveillance state" and welcomed India's decision to ban them.

"India's 'clean app' approach will boost India's sovereignty, will also boost India's integrity and national security as the Indian government itself has stated," he added.

China is building up troops along the LAC, where a clash without firearms between Indian troops and China's Peoples Liberation Army resulted in the deaths of at least 20 Indian Army personnel including a colonel.

China has refused to say how many of its personnel were killed.

India's Lieutenant General Harinder Singh and China's Major General Liu Lin met on Tuesday at the LAC in an effort to defuse the situation.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)
Moscow, July 2 : Russian Su-27 fighters were scrambled over the Black Sea to intercept a US reconnaissance plane, the Russian Defence Ministry had said.

"On July 1, 2020, on-duty air defence units of the Southern Military District timely detected a US Air Force reconnaissance plane over the Black Sea and sent Russian fighters to escort it," the ministry's Zvezda broadcasting service said on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"At a considerable distance from the state border of Russia, the approaching aerial target was continuously followed by Russian radar controls," it said.

The reconnaissance plane was identified as an RC-135W Rivet Joint, Zvezda said.

The Russian aircraft proceeded in strict compliance with international airspace rules, it added.
New Delhi, July 2 : Esme Creed-Miles feels it is fun to get into the skin of a character without relating to it on any level. The "Hanna" star says it is a privilege that actors enjoy, and she cherishes that escape.

"It is really fun as an actor to be someone who you don't really relate to," Esme told IANS when asked if she could relate to her character from the series "Hanna".

"I mean, that's what is wonderful about (acting). We have the privilege of doing (that). I don't feel that I (relate to the character in a lot of ways), but that's not really an issue for me. I really enjoy that escape and that ability to create things from out of nothing," she added.

Esme is the daughter of actors Samantha Morton and Charlie Creed-Miles. She got her big break with the web series in 2019.

Looking back at getting the role, she said: "It was a fantastic opportunity for a young actress. I mean, it's a real dream role. I never really thought I would get it. I was familiar with the film, I loved the film, and I just thought it would be such a cool opportunity. I just thought it would be fun. And that was the main attraction for me." The show spins a new world from the story of Joe Wright's acclaimed 2011 film of the same name. British writer-producer David Farr, who co-wrote the original feature film, is driving the narrative of the show, which will be back with its second season on July 3.

With a cast led by Esme, Mireille Enos, and Joel Kinnaman, the first season of "Hanna" narrated the story of a young girl named Hanna, who has lived in a forest and has gained extraordinary physical abilities. It is about her experience with modern reality. It explored the dynamics of a father-daughter bond, emotional issues of a family while highlighting the dilemma of how teenagers grow in the modern world and do they ever fit in.

The eight-episode second season follows the journey of Hanna as she evades the pursuit of a "sinister government agency", and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

For Esme, her stint in the show and the physical challenge that came with it turned out to be empowering.

Reflecting on her past, she said: "Like growing up, I was like the kid who would hide in a locker room if sport was happening. I hated it. I was like, this tiny little weakling. And when I got this part, all my mates were like, 'how are you gonna do that?' And I ended up getting really strong. And I found that really empowering to actually like, 'I can do push ups'... That's crazy to me. And after doing season one, I really kept up with the training and was impressed. It has been really wonderful." The young actress is glad to get appreciated for her show.

"The reception has been fantastic and I'm very grateful for that. I tend not to, although I'm bad at this, but I try not to go on my social media... so I don't really interact very much with (netizens), but I think the reception has been great and anyone who does enjoy the show and is a fan of it, I'm super grateful for them and their engagement with it." The second season, which also stars Yasmin Monet Prince, Dermot Mulroney and Anthony Welsh, will launch on July 3 on Amazon Prime Video.

(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandhaccc.r@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Jerusalem, July 2 : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue discussing his West Bank annexation plan "in the coming days," his office said.

Netanyahu will continue to hold discussions with the US teams, his office said in a statement, adding that he held a discussion on Wednesday with Israel's National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat and will hold further talks on the issue, Xinhua news agency reported.

Netanyahu previously set July 1 as the starting date for his plan to annex parts of the West Bank. However, the controversial plan seemed to be delayed, short of a green light from the White House.

Netanyahu and his main coalition partner, Benny Gantz, leader of the centrist Blue and White party, are at odds over the starting date of the annexation, with Netanyahu wishing to begin it on Wednesday and Gantz wanting to postpone until after the coronavirus crisis.

On Tuesday, after meeting with US Special Representative for International Negotiations Avi Berkowitz, Netanyahu appeared to be backtracking on the date, saying his government is still "working" on the plan, suggesting it will be postponed.

The Palestinians and most of the international community have condemned the plan and consider it a violation of international law.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Washington, July 2 : The US House Armed Services Committee voted to approve an amendment to ban the public display of the Confederate battle flag on all Pentagon property.

The measure was approved without debate by voice vote as part of a package of noncontroversial amendments to the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA), according to a report from The Hill, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

The amendment would ban the public display of the flag, including on bumper stickers and clothing, at all Defence Department property, including bases, workspaces and front porches of military housing, said the report.

However, the amendment would create exceptions for museums or other educational displays about the Civil War, state flags that incorporate the Confederate emblem, state-issued license plates and grave sites of Confederate soldiers, said the report.

The House panel is also expected to consider an amendment later Wednesday that would require the Pentagon to strip Confederate names from bases and other property within a year. President Donald Trump on Tuesday night vowed to veto the NDAA if it includes such a requirement.

The Senate's NDAA version already includes a requirement to rename bases and other property within three years, said the The Hill report.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New York, July 2 : An Indian origin cardiologist and the administrator of her company have agreed to pay $400,000 to settle allegations that they submitted irregular billings to Medicare, the government health insurance programme for senior citizens, according to officials.

Southern Texas federal prosecutor Ryan Patrick said on Wednesday that cardiologist Annie Varughese, 57, who owned the Houston-based company, and its administrator, Babu Varughese, 64, agreed to the payment to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act (FCA).

The allegations came to light when a former cardiologist filed a lawsuit under FCA that allows whistleblowers to file cases on behalf of the government and be entitled to a share of the proceeds from the action, the prosecutor's office said.

One of the allegations was that her company sent bills under her number to Medicare for services performed when she was not in the country.

Other allegations were that claims were sent to Medicare for services "that were not reasonable and medically necessary." Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Perrye Turner said, "Billing Medicare for services that are not necessary and/or not provided constitutes fraud." He added, "The largest area of fraud committed against the federal government today is by unethical healthcare providers who inflate or fabricate Medicare or Medicaid bills." Sometimes the government reaches an agreement for those facing allegations to settle out of court by making a payment or restitution in order to avoid costly or complicated litigation. In this case, while making the settlement they have not made any admissions and, as the prosecutor's office said, they are legally only allegations "with no determination of liability." (Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)
Washington, July 2 : US President Donald Trump, who has long resisted wearing a mask in public, has said he likes face coverings and they make him look like the Lone Ranger, the media reported on Thursday.

"I'm all for masks," the BBC quoted the President as saying to the Fox Business Network on Wednesday.

When asked whether he would wear one, Trump said: "If I were in a tight situation with people I would, absolutely," adding that people have seen him wearing one before.

Trump said he would have "no problem" with wearing a mask publicly and that he "sort of liked" how he looked with one on, likening himself to the Lone Ranger, a fictional masked hero who with his Native American friend, Tonto, fought outlaws in the American Old West.

But the President reiterated that he did not think making face-coverings mandatory across the US was needed, because there are "many places in the country where people stay very long distance".

"If people feel good about it they should do it," the BBC quoted him as saying in his Fox Business interview on Wednesday.

Trump was also asked iif he still believes the novel coronavirus will "disappear" someday.

"I do," he said. "I do. Yeah sure. At some point." During Trump's forthcoming Independence Day celebration on Friday at Mount Rushmore, his supporters in attendance will not be forced to wear masks or socially distance.

When the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in April began recommending people wear masks or cloth coverings in public to help stop the spread of the virus, Trump had said that he would not follow the practice.

But he has repeatedly emphasised that choosing to follow the official health guidance around masks is a personal decision, the BBC reported.

In May, during a visit to a factory in Michigan, he told reporters he took off a facial covering before facing the cameras because he "didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it".

The White House has defended the President's choice by saying everyone in contact with him is tested frequently for COVID-19, and so is Trump himself.

His daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, has also been spotted wearing a mask in public.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that in the last week, 89 per cent of Americans said they wore a mask or face covering outside their home in the last week - a 20-point jump from mid-April.

As of Thursday morning, the US reported a total of 2,685,806 COVID-19 cases, with 128,044 deaths, both tallies are currently the highest in the world.
New Delhi, July 2 : When you ask the last question first -- will Amish, whose name is synonymous with mythology will ever work in another genre, he pauses. Then laughs. "Look, I go with what inspires me. But I admit, for the last one year, I have been thinking about a book set in modern times, complete with elements of time travel and gaming," he leaves it at that.

Even as he laments that in these highly polarised times, when the discussion on mythology and heritage has become clouded in a duel between the left and the right wing , smiling that it is a classic case of "Ram Banaye Jodi...", he added, "Don't you feel they are just made for each and desperately need one another to feed themselves? Frankly, most people happen to be in the centre. I am a proud Indian, but why do I have to hate anyone to prove that? And yes, I am a liberal, not because I am trying to be western or whatever being a 'leftist' means. I am that for that is what my ancient culture has ingrained in me. Where is the need to be negative? And that goes for western knowledge too. Why should we not welcome it? After all, it is so useful." Considering his recently released book 'Suheldev: The King who Saved India', set in 11th century India that traces the adventure of King Suheldev, as he unites Indians to mount resistance against the invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni, as he destroys the Somnath Temple; is the first work from the 'Immortal Writers' Centre' set up Amish, the author adds that his mind is abuzz with way too many story ideas that cannot be converted into books in one lifetime, and therefore the centre.

"It takes me two years to write a book as there is loads of reading and research involved. I am sure my soul will not rest if I don't tell all my stories. While only I will write the core books including the Shiva Trilogy, Ram Chandra Series and the Rudra Series, the Centre will contribute in other books," he says.

Once the author has written the overall story summary, which could be 5,000-10,000 words, some one from the writer's Centre -- either a team or an individual will expand that to 17,000 words, and then he will finally work on shaping the book. "Thus, my capacity gets expanded," he adds.

Stressing that he is all for authors from the centre to come up with their own books under their own names, Amish adds that it would be great if more writers emerged to cover such a vast heritage, stories about which needs to be told and retold. "It's simply not possible for one person to do that, and would be delighted if more people did. Well, as long as the story idea is not mine." For Amish, mythologies have a peculiar ability to appeal both to the heart and the mind. "It is my soul's direct connection to a culture and land that I love, my ancestors and their philosophy. They give me a sense of rootedness. And let us not forget, mythologies are not random stories, but deeply philosophical and intelligent texts that enrich the mind and intellect." The author, who has always propagated the introduction of epics in school curriculums feels that the same assumes importance as they are part of the collective heritage of every individual in the Indian sub-continent. "Through the explorations of dharma, you learn liberalism in a much deeper manner. It's a bit like -- should Yoga be taught? While it is being welcomed now, twenty years ago, people would have vehemently opposed it. Of course, Yoga has Hindu and Buddhist roots; so? The Ambulance service has Christian roots, does that mean that during an emergency, you won't get into one because you're not Christian?" At present, serving as the Director of the Nehru Centre, London, he points out that the place is not just about culture but cultural diplomacy. "One of the things I was briefed about was the fact that the Centre had not been reaching out to non-Indians, which I realised was true. So, we started changing the programming and got more non-Indians as well as second and third generation Indians involved. However, the pandemic messed up things and we were forced to move online. But that ended up being a blessing in disguise as our reach expanded dramatically. While only 120 people could be hosted in the auditorium, we managed to reach thousands through the Internet." While he is working on the fourth book of the Ram Chandra series, it's hard not to point that he is one of the least 'visible' authors, emerging only when his books are launched. He smiles, "But that is because I am a private person. It's strange that life has brought me to a space where I am forced to be in public. Yes, I don't do television panel discussions and you will not see my pictures splashed on page 3."
According to the Zimbabwe 2018 Nutrition Survey report, the national rate of child stunting, a manifestation of chronic malnutrition, is 26.2 per cent in Zimbabwe, which means nearly one in every three children are chronically malnourished. We have outstanding issues related to malnutrition that we have been dealing with as a country from years ago which explains why there is great need that we continue channeling resources towards nutrition even in the wake of Covid-19, he said.
Varanasi, July 2 : The holy city of Varanasi is gearing up to meet the rush of devotees during the month of 'Saawan' even as the coronavirus continues to spread.

With the holy month of 'Saawan' beginning on July 6, the district administration in Varanasi has warned that if any temple is found violating the guidelines of social distancing and checking crowding, the temple will be closed.

A huge number of devotees throng the various temples, particularly Shiva temples, including Kashi Vishwanath, during the auspicious month of 'Saawan'.

District Magistrate, Kaushal Raj Sharma, has asked the police to increase vigil on roads and around temples and identify spots where safety protocols are being violated.

Sharma said, "If crowding and violation of prescribed guidelines for social distancing is found at any temple, the temple will be closed immediately. No devotee will be allowed to move out before 5 a.m to offer prayers. Wearing a mask, using sanitizer and following norms of social distancing will be mandatory." The District Magistrate has further ordered a two-hour drive, every morning, against those who violate the safety guidelines.

Devotees turn out in large numbers in the morning at the Ghats of Varanasi and in temples.

The officials have been directed to create awareness among people for prevention of spread of the virus through police or hired vehicles.

The additional city magistrates have been asked to keep a sharp vigil on shops, market-goers, auto and e-rickshaws to ensure that the norms of social distancing are maintained.
London, July 2 : The UK competition watchdog has revealed that the deal between Apple and Google over the default search engine in the mobile Safari browser has created a significant barrier to entry for other players, thus inhibiting competition in the search market.

According to an updated report compiled by the UK government's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Google paid around 1.2 billion pounds (nearly $1.5 billion) in return for default positions in the UK alone, "the substantial majority of which was paid to Apple for being the default on the Safari browser".

In Search, Google has negotiated agreements with Apple and with many of the largest mobile phone manufacturers under which it pays a share of search advertising revenues to these partners in return for Google Search occupying the default search positions on the device.

"The scale of these payments is striking and demonstrates the value that Google places on these default positions," the CMA said in the report released on Wednesday.

"Rival search engines to Google that we spoke to highlighted these default payments as one of the most significant factors inhibiting competition in the search market," the report mentioned.

Google's extensive default positions across devices and browsers, and in particular on almost all mobile devices in the UK, act as a barrier to expansion for other search engines, "making it more difficult for these providers to grow their user bases and improve their search quality and search monetisation rates".

The CMA said it has identified many examples of how platforms' choice architecture and use of defaults inhibits consumers' ability to exercise informed choice and nudges consumers into making choices that are in the best interest of the platforms.

"Advertisers and media agencies have told us that Google offers in-depth targeting options, driven by its unique and vast sources of data, while Facebook has the advantage of offering the ability to target specific audiences based on demographic characteristics, interests and location," said the report.

This creates a substantial competitive advantage for Google and Facebook, both of which have access to more extensive datasets than their rivals. The inability of smaller platforms and publishers to access user data creates a significant barrier to entry.

Google ran a trial in 2019 to compare the revenue publishers received from personalized advertising with revenue from non-personalised ads.

"Our analysis of the results suggests that UK publishers earned around 70 per cent less revenue when they were unable to sell personalised advertising but competed with others who could," the report revealed.

The watchdog said it has also heard concerns that large platforms use data protection regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a justification for restricting access to valuable data for third parties, while retaining it for use within their ecosystems, thereby consolidating their data advantage and entrenching their market power.

"We have found that competition is not working well in these markets, leading to substantial harm for consumers and society as a whole," said the final report that looked into online platforms and the digital advertising market in the UK.

The UK competition watchdog has also called on the government to introduce a new pro-competition regulatory regime to tackle Google and Facebook's market power.

The CMA said in a statement that it proposed the creation of a "Digital Markets Unit" designed to rein in platforms with "a position of market power" when it comes to digital ads.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Muzaffarnagar : , July 2 (IANS) Once infamous for hunters and poachers, Muzaffarnagar, a town located midway between the Delhi-Dehradun highway, is once again nature's paradise where a large herd of swamp deer, a critically endangered species, was spotted lately.

Found in north India, and now extinct in several countries, the discovery was a pleasant surprise. "I was on inspection (this Sunday) when I suddenly spotted a large herd of this endangered deer species near Jansath, (a tehsil in Muzaffarnagar).

"By the next day our team of experts discovered 143 swamp deer. We almost found a treasure trove," says Sanjay Kumar, Commissioner of Saharanpur Range of Uttar Pradesh.

Innumerable poachers in the past, few decades back hunted for this rare species and almost wiped it out from the marshy wetlands in western Uttar Pradesh and foothills of the Himalayas bordering Terai area.

Wildlife experts, who have been provided drone fitted cameras to sight more such herds around the wetland, told IANS that swamp deer could have migrated from Jhilmil lake, a marshy grassland near Rajaji National Park in Haridwar.

Till Wednesday evening around 150 swamp deer, including a good number of fawns were spotted and with the help of drones the overall count of deer in 18,000 hectare of marshy wetland in Haiderpur was now likely to exceed 250.

In fact, the Haiderpur wetland, a 45-minute detour from Muzaffarnagar town, is home to 290 species of birds. Every year the place is home to one of the largest congregation of grey leg goose and bar headed goose in India.

"Acknowledging such rich biodiversity in Haiderpur, a proposal was recently sent to the state government to declare this as a 'Ramsar Site' (wetland of International importance). But now, after spotting a large herd of rare swamp deer, we also want to declare it as Swamp Deer National Conservation Reserve," said Commissioner Sanjay Kumar, a senior IAS officer, adding "let me tell you another interesting point. Swamp deer known as Barasingha happens to be the state animal of Uttar Pradesh." Despite a ban on hunting swamp deer under the Wildlife Protection Act, desperate poachers and hunters killed Barasinghas in large numbers. Four decades back, the population of swamp deer was reduced to 66 when Madhya Pradesh launched conservation work in the Kanha National Park to protect this rare species.

Similar efforts were also made by the Uttar Pradesh government which gave a new lease of life to this large deer species found in marshy wetlands.

The Yogi Adityanath government is also contemplating to declare the 33,000 acre of Shivalik Forests Reserve under the Saharanpur Division as Tiger Reserve.

On the basis of camera trap findings, movement of tigers was discovered in the forest reserve which adjoins the Rajaji National Park. The census (2018) reveals that Uttar Pradesh has a tiger population of 173, while neighbouring Uttarakhand state has 442 tigers, a majority of them seen in Jim Corbett and Rajaji national park.
New Delhi, July 2 : Ace filmmaker JP Dutta had launched actors Kareena Kapoor Khan and Abhishek Bachchan in Bollywood 20 years ago with his directorial "Refugee".

In an interview with IANS, Dutta spoke about the romance drama "Refugee" and the bond he shares with Kareena and Abhishek.

"Kareena and Abhishek are like my children. I am sort of a father figure to them. I consider 'Refugee' as one of my special films because it gave Indian cinema two of its finest and versatile actors. They have completed two decades in the industry, and their work truly depicts the hard work they have put in. It feels great to see them where they are today," Dutta beamed with pride.

He also recalled how Abhishek broke down during the shoot of one of the scenes of his debut film, which also featured Jackie Shroff, Suniel Shetty and Anupam Kher.

"I remember Abhishek doing a scene with Jackie Shroff. It was a highly emotional scene where Abhishek had to put a gun on his head. It was a long shot, and the way Abhishek nailed it was quite laudable. He had done it with a lot of conviction. He actually broke down in the scene and started crying. Even after saying 'cut', he continued crying. It took a while to soothe him. That shot made me realise how much involved Abhishek was in acting," Dutta reminisced.

Dutta also recalled how he would always try to ensure Kareena and Abhishek were comfortable on the sets. "They were not at all nervous. They were full of energy and enthusiasm. I always tried to make them comfortable on the sets. It's very important for any director to make his or her cast and crew comfortable. There's no point of having a tensed atmosphere," he added.

Released in 2000, "Refugee" revolves around a young Indian Muslim man, who helps illegal refugees from India and Pakistan cross the border.

On completing two decades in the industry, both Abhishek and Kareena have thanked Dutta, their first director, on social media.

"J.P. sahab was the best teacher. Caring, nurturing and has since been an amazing guiding force for me," Abhishek wrote.

Kareena shared the still of her first shot, thanking J.P. Dutta for her "life in the movies".

(Simran Sethi can be contacted at Simran.@ians.in)
Hyderabad, July 2 : A man, who murdered his two sisters and injured the third in the old city of Hyderabad on Monday, has committed suicide, police said.

Ahmed Bin Salam Baa Ismail (27) was found hanging at his residence in Salala under the limits of Chandrayangutta police station late on Wednesday.

The police found the body in decomposed state and it is suspected that he hanged himself after committing the crime.

Police entered his house after receiving information from local residents that his motorbike was parked near the rear entrance and found the man hanging.

It was in the same house, the accused had killed his two sisters by stabbing them. While Razia Begum (35) died on the spot, Zakira Begum (45) succumbed to injuries on way to hospital.

After committing this crime, the accused went to the house of his younger sister Noora Begum (30) in Nabeel Colony, one kilometre away from Salala, and attacked her with the same dagger.

When her husband Omer Ba Hassan, 36, came to her rescue, he also stabbed him. Both were critically injured and were admitted to hospital.

The accused escaped from the spot. Police suspect that the property dispute could be the reason behind the murders.

As scenes of crime fall under limits of Hyderabad and Rachakonda police commissionerates, separate teams were formed to arrest the accused.

He, however, is believed to have entered his house the same night by scaling the wall in the backyard despite the deployment of a police team there. "We are investigating the case from all angles," said Assistant Commissioner of Police M. A. Majid.

Ahmed Bin Salam was arrested in March 2019 on charges of murdering his wife Fatima Sadi at his house in Salala. He was released on bail this year.
Colombo, July 2 : Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ordered not to use his photographs by candidates contesting for the upcoming parliamentary elections in their propaganda campaign, it was reported on Thursday.

Rajapaksa has further instructed that no public official serving in security forces, government service, Corporations, Boards and Statutory Bodies should engage in political activities, the Daily Mirror newspaper quoted the resident's Media Division as saying.

In a letter on Wednesday, Secretary to the President P.B. Jayasundera said that infrmation was received that besides using Rajapaksa's photos, the candidates were also promising jon appointments and secure services of Army and public officials.

The President has instructed his Secretary to strictly advice relevant parties not to use the photograph of the President in election campaign and the public officials to refrain from engaging in political activities, it added.

Sri Lanka is set to hold its parliamentary elections on August 5, the country's National Election Commission (NEC) announced after it postponed the crucial polls twice due to restrictions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The elections were initially set to be held on April 25, after Rajapaksa dissolved Parliament in March following his landslide victory in the November 2019 presidential polls.

The date was shifted to June 20 after lockdown measures were announced in mid-March.

The elections are set be held under strict health protocols with campaign meetings limited to a maximum of 100 people, while the NEC has recommended using the print and electronic media for propaganda and cutting down physical meetings to avoid exposure to the virus.

The Commission has also limited house-to-house campaigns to a maximum of three people.

Rajapaksa was sworn-in as President after an easy victory in the November 16, 2019 polls on the back of an agenda focused on national security.

Soon after, he appointed his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister and dissolved the opposition-majority Parliament.

The President's Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party has to win majority in the house in order to secure the government's full control in the semi-presidential representative democracy.
Chennai, July 2 : The Crime Branch-Crime Investigation Department (CBCID) of Tamil Nadu police have arrested five policemen working in Sathankulam police station in Tuticorin district for the murder of P. Jeyaraj and his son J. Bennicks, officials said.

The CBCID also altered the first information report (FIR) registered on the death of Jeyaraj and Bennicks as a murder case from the earlier charge of suspicious death.

The five arrested policemen are: Inspector Sridhar, Sub-Inspectors Balakrishnan and Raghu Ganesh, Head Constable Murugan and Constable Muthuraj.

Ganesh was remanded to custody till July 16 on late Wednesday.

According to Inspector General CBCID Shankar, 12 teams have been formed to carry out the probe into the custodial death of father and son Jeyaraj and Bennicks.

Jeyaraj and Bennicks had been booked for not closing their mobile shop in time on June 19 by the Sathankulam police. They were sent to judicial custody and lodged in Kovilpatti jail on June 21.

Jeyaraj died on June 22 night and Bennicks on June 23 morning in judicial custody, allegedly due to the police torture.

The Madras High Court Bench in Madurai which took up the case suo moto had said there was prima facie evidence to register a murder case against the Sathankulam police officials.

The Kovilpatti Judicial Magistrate M.S. Bharathidasan who was asked to inquire into the case of brutal torture of AJeyaraj and his son Bennicks by the Sathankulam police on June 19 and their subsequent deaths had submitted is report to the High Court.

A woman police constable Revathy, at the Sathankulam police station, in her deposition before Bharathidasan had said that Jeyaraj and Bennicks were beaten with batons throughout the June 19 night.

According to Bharathidasan's report, Revathy also said the victims' blood stains were on the batons of the station police officials and on tables.

She said the batons and the tables should be secured so that the evidence is not lost, the report stated.

Expressing fear that she may be targeted later, Revathy was initially reluctant to sign a printout of her statement but later on being assured of her safety she signed the document.

The court also transferred the probe into the deaths of Jeyaraj and Bennicks to the Crime Branch Crime Investigation Department (CBCID) to gather and protect the evidence till the case is handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The High Court has initiated criminal contempt cases against three police officials - Additional Superintendent of Police Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police Prathapan and constable Maharajan - for their behaviour at the Sathankulam police station in front of Magistrate Bharathidasan.
Yangon, July 2 : At least 50 people were killed and many others were reported missing on Thursday after a jade mine collapsed in Myanmar's Kachin state, authorities said.

Caused by the monsoon rains, the landslide occurred at the jade mining site in Sate Mu village tract of Hpakant township at 8 a.m., Xinhua news agency quoted a statement from the Fire Services Department as saying.

Further details were awaited.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, July 2 : As hacking threats increase from nation-state bad actors from China and North Korea, a staggering 89 per cent of CIOs in India say that cybersecurity remains to top investment area for them, a new Adobe survey revealed on Thursday.

The CIOs from India and Australia re-asserted that cyber security continues to be one of the most cited areas for planned investment.

Some of the most prominent areas of cybersecurity related issues for Indian organisations were pertaining to insider threats (45 per cent) and data breaches (38 per cent), said Adobe's 'CIO Perspectives Survey'.

"As we rapidly moved from functioning in an increasingly-digital world to one that is digital-only, CIOs have had to pivot their strategies to prioritise the online needs of their customers and employees," said Scott Rigby, Head of Digital Transformation, Adobe Asia Pacific.

Nearly 98 per cent of organisations across India have seen Covid-19 impact business functioning, with CIOs facing challenges in helping their teams to communicate effectively and having the right technology deployment to ensure smooth business continuity.

The similar number of the CIOs claimed their organisations are well equipped to work effectively even in a remote setting.

Overall, long-term support to remote workforce (36 per cent), security (35 per cent) and Cloud-based computing (31 per cent) were identified as key challenges for organisations in India and Australia.

In India, cloud computing (58 per cent) and mobility (56 per cent) were named as the primary challenges.

Additionally, while 97 per cent of businesses in India and Australia initiated planning for when restrictions are eased, close to half of the organisations are still in the early stages of planning, with 63 per cent of the respondents in India being optimistic about their organisation's ability to find success in the post COVID-19 economy and committing to a positive outlook.

"Business leaders need to find avenues where large-scale integration of technology can drive efficiency, and create a seamless customer and employee experience, eventually adding to business growth," said Rigby.

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) adoption, 82 per cent Indian organizations are already using these capabilities to implement to an existing project.

In terms of assessing the potential of emerging technology such as 5G, 67 per cent of CIOs cited as this making a major impact to business operations in the next five years.

"One-fourth CIOs in India and Australia have listed data-related issues as being the biggest challenge to implementation of AI in operations," said the survey.

Conducted between April 24 and May 7, the 'CIO Perspectives Survey' surveyed over 100 CIOs in India and Australia, in firms with at least 100 employees.
New Delhi, July 2 : Pankaj Solanki, doctor who runs the 50-bed Dharamveer Solanki Hospital in Rohini, spent Rs 5 lakh to create a separate entrance for the COVID patients, installed monitors, jumbo oxygen cylinders, air conditioners, and a host of other structural changes to comply with COVID treatment norms.

Another 100-bed nursing home on the Najafgarh road built an entirely separate structure for the Covid patients inside its premises, equipped with all medical facilities, including for testing. Its owner said the motive was to bar contact between Covid and non-Covid patients -- to check infection spread.

Solanki's and the Najafgarh facility are among many small scale nursing homes which modified their infrastructure and build capacity to treat Covid patients after the Aam Aadmi Party government came out with an order directing the private hospitals/nursing homes to reserve 20 per cent of their bed capacity for COVID-19 patients.

Weeks later, the government also capped charges for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

The government fixed the charges for isolation beds at Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 per day; Rs 13,000 to Rs 15,000 for treatment in ICU and Rs 15,000 to Rs 18,000 per day if a patient is put on a ventilator.

While for the public, the orders of reservation of beds and capping treatment charges for COVID-19 patients came as a huge relief; for the small-scale nursing homes, it was a nightmare.

Threat of contraction and competition with big leagues making small hospitals bleed. The owners of small-scale nursing homes are facing extreme hardship in following government orders. The owners said that while they are already witnessing a steep fall in the admission of non-COVID patients, the cap on treatment charges for COVID patients has created a situation as most of them opt for big corporate hospitals instead of these nursing homes.

"After conversion, the non-COVID patients stopped coming to the hospitals. With the cap on treatment charges, the COVID patients are turning towards big and corporate hospitals. Why would patients choose a small nursing home if they can avail a 5-star treatment at the same price?" asked Dr Bhaskar, who runs Kapil Hospital, a 50-bed nursing home in Burari.

The small-scale nursing homes are now worried what lies ahead for them. The procurement of medical equipment, infrastructural changes and employing more staff for converting a non-COVID hospital into a COVID facility have put a dent in their pockets.

The owners said that if the situation remains the same, they would be left with the only option to shut down their facility.

Many nursing homes said that their occupancy has decreased to 10 per cent after the government orders.

The owner of Najafgarh hospital told that the maximum number of occupancy his nursing home reached in June was barely ten beds out of 100 available. "The COVID patients occupied only two," he added. Similarly, Dr Solanki said that he received only seven patients in June. Of them, five were non-COVID. "The non-COVID stayed only for a day," he added.

Stall in surgeries, reduced footfall in OPDs pose further challange. The owners find it difficult in managing the daily expenses. The surgeries are the major source of income for private hospitals. "The OPD footfall has now reduced to 20 per cent; the number of surgeries done is limited. The occupancy rate of COVID 19 patients is around 20-25 per cent. The patients with moderate to severe symptoms are going to corporate hospitals because they have better facilities, and the rates are capped," said Dr Solanki said.

Meanwhile, the owners said that the revenue generated from the treatment of the COVID patients is insufficient to run the operations of the COVID dedicated wards itself. "To treat COVID patients, we hired additional nursing staff, resident medical officers, and sanitation workers. We divided them into two groups. While one group provides service for two weeks and another remains on stand-by. Then the previous group goes into isolation, and the stand-by group fills its place," Dr Solanki said.

Losing staff to stigma and big hospitals The owners also said that they are also struggling to maintain the required number of staff since their facility converted to COVID care. Their staff is leaving jobs or showing reluctance to come on duty. Those who had agreed, are demanding high incentives, the owners said.

"Many among our staff are reluctant to come on duty because of the fear of contracting the infection. I have to persuade them with incentives despite a decrease in income," Dr Solanki said.

"I had to increase their salary by 25 to 30 per cent only to make them (staff) stay. However, a few still left. I hired their replacement on 50 per cent extra of standard salary package we offer," Dr Solanki added.

Meanwhile, the owner of the Najafgarh-based hospital said that the staff is allured by the attractive pay big and corporate hospitals are offering. He informed that around 10 workers from his hospital resigned and joined big hospitals recently.

Apart from these expenditures, other costs have been added to run a medical facility now like PPE kits, consumables, and increased electricity bills. The owners of small nursing homes said that expenditure has increased, and they are not generating even 50 per cent of the required amount of the expenditure.

"We are also human. There are bank loans, EMIs, and families to feed as well. We can't help others if we can't help ourselves, and in the current situation, we are feeling helpless. We are struggling to survive and need some help from the government," Dr Bhaskar said.

The small nursing homes are hoping to receive some aid from the government. Their demands include workforce availability, relief in charges of electricity bills, and capping in prices of PPEs and consumables.

"We should not be charged with commercial electricity charges in this crisis. We want the government to provide us electricity on domestic charges. The rate of PPEs and consumables like masks and gloves are increasing every month. We want them to be capped. Besides, we are operating with minimum staff in high-risk COVID dedicated area. If, at any point in time, 25 per cent of our staff gets infected, it will be tough for us to run the facility. The government should provide a pool of health care workers who could be deployed on duty if more than 25 per cent of staff gets infected," Dr Solanki suggested.

Dr Ajay Bedi, vice-president of Delhi Medical Association, also suggested that the government should look into the challenges the small nursing homes are facing. "We are preparing a draft and would soon present it to the government, which will include our suggestions to solve the crisis faced by them (nursing homes)," he said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (yellow)also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab.
Seoul, July 2 : South Korean police on Thursday closed the country's longest-standing cold case involving a series of brutal rapes and murders that began more than three decades ago.

Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency concluded in a briefing that Lee Chun-jae killed 14 women, most of them rape-murder cases, and raped nine others, wrapping up its one-year investigation into him and his killing and raping spree that terrorized the country in the 1980s and 90s, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Lee was found responsible for all of the 10 killings of women aged 14 to 71 in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi province, from 1986-1991 in what is known as the worst serial murder case in the country's modern history, the police said.

All but one of the killings had long remained an unsolved criminal mystery.

In the eighth of the 10 murders in chronological order, a man surnamed was convicted in 1989 of raping and killing a 13-year-old girl at her home on September 16, 1988.

He was released on parole in 2009 after serving 20 years in prison. He applied for a retrial last year as Lee emerged as a key suspect in the case.

In addition to the infamous serial murder case, Lee was also blamed for four other murder cases that occurred in December 1987, July 1989, January 1991 and March 1991 after the reinvestigation.

Police said Lee admitted to a total of 34 rapes and robberies, but only nine cases, which could be backed by forensic evidence, were confirmed to have been committed by him,Yonhap News Agency reported.

The reinvestigation began in July last year when Lee's DNA appeared to match samples recovered from some old objects from the murder scenes.

Lee was serving a life sentence in prison at that time in the southern port city of Busan for raping and killing his sister-in-law.

As the statute of limitations on all the cases has already expired, however, police said, Lee cannot be prosecuted for any of the crimes.

"We offer an apology for those damaged during the police's excessive investigation into the Lee Chun-jae Serial Murder Case," Bae Yong-ju, chief of the police agency, said during the briefing.
New Delhi, July 2 : Toys are an intrinsic part of a child's formative years. From ancient times they (toys) have been a tool for learning and developing social and cognitive skills. The importance of toys is undeniable in a child's growing years.

When Kiran Rana, a mother of two toddler, shifted to Delhi she experienced a dearth in the quality of toys to cater to her babies' needs.

What struck her was mostly the toxic components present in most of the items that were available in the city, which included toys while scourging through well-known toy shops in upscale markets like Khan Market and Aurobindo Marg.

Rana's elder daughter was born at 32 weeks and her younger daughter, Sophia, was born at 25 weeks. With Sophia Rana faced multiple issues, necessitating a move to Singapore for medical care. Once Sophia was better and a year and a half old, they decided to move back to Delhi.

The doctors were adamant that in order for Sophia to thrive the toys she played with had to be high quality, non toxic and good for her development. Finding Delhi lacked the same, Rana imported most of her daughter's toys from Europe and Singapore.

Over the past two years - she found many of her friends' with children would ask her where she bought her daughter's toys from and often ask her to pick up toys for their children. Thus, the seeds of the idea of 'The Toy Curator' was planted.

"Tired of cheap Chinese knock offs and buying toys abroad which had to then be carried back to India, I decided to launch the Toy Curator. Children deserve toys which are far better than the unsafe toys made with harmful colours and plastics available in the market today. Each toy and product has been through international quality control checks, to make sure your little ones are safe," states Kiran, Founder at The Toy Curator.

Adding, "There is lack of quality standards in the toy market here. Educated and well informed mothers will always scan for toxic elements in their children's accessories and choose products that stimulate the minds of their little ones. The quality is the premium here, and they are ready to spend on the right products. There is a void in the market, especially in North India. Also, owing to slacking regulatory norms standards here, bigger brands dilute the quality. We have no marketing, it is all through social media, that is, via Instagram, Facebook we are reaching out to consumers who want the best for their kids." The Toy Curator boosts of an impressive portfolio of brands from around the world with the likes of Plum, Battat, Alt Retail, Djeco, among many. Not only imported toys but company also sources its products from domestic brands as well.

"The Toy Curator prides itself on promoting/selling domestic brands as well. As long as they are high quality and non toxic, we are happy to keep them in stock. We want what is best for our children and what promotes the best development for our children," says Rana.

The newly launched brand is not only for the kids, but also for busy mums nurturing their little ones. It also has wellness products for mummies in the need of their Zen moments! (Aditi Roy be contacted at Aditi.r@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
London, July 2 : UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said China's imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong constituted a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984 and aimed at smoothing the transition when the territory was handed back to Beijing in 1997.

The UK believes that Beijing's move violates HongKong's autonomy, threatens the freedoms and rights protected by the joint declaration, and is in direct conflict with the territory's Basic Law, its mini-constitution.

Addressing the media on Wednesday, Johnson said: "We have made clear that if China continued down this path, we would introduce a new route to those with British National (Overseas) status to enter the UK granting them limited leave to remain with the ability to live and work in the UK and thereafter to apply for citizenship, and that is precisely what we will do now." Describing the Chinese move as "a grave and deeply disturbing step", Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab promised that UK would honour its commitment to the people of Hong Kong.

"We will grant BN(O)s five years' limited leave to remain, with the right to work or study. After these five years, they will be able to apply for settled status.

"After further 12 months with settled status, they will be able to apply for citizenship. This is a special, bespoke, set of arrangements developed for the unique circumstances we face," Raab told MPs.

Raab did not set out any plan to sanction China or individual Chinese officials through new legislation due to be introduced by the Foreign Office this month.

He also said he was hopeful that other countries in south-east Asia would also offer asylum to Hong Kong citizens wanting to leave.

"China has broken its promise to the people of Hong Kong under its own laws. China has breached its international obligations to the UK under the joint declaration." Hong Kong's autonomy, which now faces threat from Beijing's imposition of a new security laws, was guaranteed under the "one country, two systems" agreement of the 1984 joint declaration signed by the then Chinese premier, Zhao Ziyang, and British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

The Foreign Office said: "There are 349,881 holders of BN(O) passports and the government estimates there are around 2.9m BN(O)s currently in Hong Kong. The scheme is for eligible BN(O) status holders and their immediate family dependants."
Jaipur, July 2 : As a class X student in Kota tested positive for COVID-19 on June 30 after appearing in RBSE exams held on June 29 and 30 and 357 students from her examination centre were sent for home quarantine, the parents in Rajasthan have expressed their concern on the issue and asked who will take the onus of the kids who were infected with COVID-19.

"When CBSE and ICSE boards have cancelled the remaining exams, why did RBSE organise these exams? Weren't the officials concerned for the students?" a parent Amit Goyal told IANS.

Another parent, Rohit Bajaj took to Twitter saying, "Despite raising concern on #NoExamsInCovid19 #RajasthanNoExamsInCovid, still exams were conducted. Will they take responsibility? Can they feel pain of #Students & #parents? Haryana #Govt must #closeschools, #StudentsLivesMatter." A Class 10 girl student, after appearing in Rajasthan Board of Secondary Examination (RBSE) on June 29 and 30, tested positive for coronavirus (Covid-19) on June 30. After her report, 357 students appearing for the Class 10 exam at the same examination centre along with 30 teachers on invigilation duty have been sent to home quarantine, confirmed Kota chief medical and health officer Dr B.S. Tanwar.

The girl's sample was tested after her younger sister tested positive on June 27 and was admitted in the government hospital for Covid-19.

Similarly, during the exam of Class 12, two teachers also tested positive and samples of 23 teachers and 123 students were further taken for testing and all of them sent to home quarantine, the CMHO confirmed.

The RBSE Class 10 and Class 12 exams were held across 6,209 centres in the state starting from June 18 in which students had to report to the centre an hour before the start of examination for getting screening and sanitization done.

A total of 524 new centres were dedicated for the purpose to follow social distancing during exams, and the number of invigilators were also increased substantially.
Lucknow, July 2 : The basic education department in Uttar Pradesh has collaborated with the Tata Trust, for a concept of an e-magazine for children in primary and upper primary classes.

UP is the second state, after Rajasthan, to take up this alternative innovative solution, with an aim to ensure all-round development of children.

The e-magazine will reach students and teachers twice a week.

Each edition is divided into four parts-three for children and one for teachers.

Named as 'Library Khidki', the e-magazine will have e-material such as poetry and stories for children aged between 3 and 14 years.

The e-learning material, available in the form of text, audio and video, will be made accessible to children, parents and teachers mostly through social media platforms and the Diksha app.

The first edition of the e-magazine was released on June 30.

According to Tata Trust's education officer Vishambhar, who is overseeing the e-magazine project in UP, the idea of this innovation is to ensure all-round development of children of government schools using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platforms.

He said, "Through this innovation, e-material for subjects like library, arts, life skills education will be shared for children. For teachers' capacity building, useful e-material and academic papers will also be put online.

Additional Director (education) Lalita Pradeep said, "It's a very innovative concept to reach out to children and their environment with such rich material. This will engage them in age-appropriate stories and content. Teachers and parents will have something very interesting to interact with their children."
New Delhi, July 2 : Well-known French security researcher Elliot Alderson claimed that the website of Globussoft, the company behind social media app Chingari, a desi alternative to Chinese TikTok, has been compromised. The company said that the app is completely safe.

According to the security researcher, the website's drop script has reportedly been inserted with a malicious code which redirects the user to various other websites.

"The website of Globussoft, the company behind #Chingari, the so-called Indian #TikTok alternative, has been compromised. The malicious drop has been inserted to all the webpages," Alderson tweeted late Wednesday.

Sumit Ghosh, co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Chinagri replied, saying that although the Chingari app was incubated by Globussoft, the security or privacy of the app have not been compromised.

"Thanks for pointing the wp (Word Press) issue to me. Chingari was incubated under Globussoft and built by us, the security of Chingari app/website and our users is not compromised by any of this," replied Ghosh.

He noted that the user data is safely stored on a dedicated and secure AWS server.

"Globussoft website and Chingari app have very different security/engineering teams and are totally unrelated. Chingari will soon be an independent company," Ghosh added.

Downloaded over 3 million times, Chingari app was founded by Bengaluru-based programmers Biswatma Nayak and Siddharth Gautam last year and it is witnessing nearly 1 lakh downloads and over 2 million views per hour since the government banned 59 Chinese apps over national security concerns.

It allows a user to download and upload videos, chat with friends, interact with new people, share content, and browse through feed.

A Chingari user gets the opportunity to get creative with WhatsApp status, videos, audio clips, GIF stickers, and photos.

The app is available in languages including English, Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
Bengaluru, July 2 : Congress troubleshooter D.K. Shivakumar, 58, took reins of the party's Karnataka unit as president in style, with hundreds of party leaders and cadres witnessing the spectacle across the state through live streaming under the shadow of Covid cloud on Thursday.

"Shivakumar took oath as the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president on 'Pratigna Dina' (Day of Oath) in Kannada at the party office in compliance with the lockdown guidelines, which restricted the gathering to about 50 people," party leader M.A. Saleem told IANS here.

Party's General Secretary K.C. Venugopal, party's newly-elected Rajya Sabha member from the state Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah, former state chief Dinesh Gundu Rao, former Union Minister Rehman Khan and party's women's wing head Pushpa Amarnath were present on the occasion.

The over 2-hour long event began with the party's rank and file paying homage to 20 martyrs of the Indian Army who died in a clash with Chinese soldiers in Ladakh's Galwan Valley on June 15.

After 'Vande Mataram' recital invoking the motherland, party's state unit working president Saleem Ahmed welcomed the august gathering at the venue and all who watched the event remotely from across the southern state.

As per the party's tradition, Gundu Rao handed over the Congress flag to Shivakumar, who sported a white cap.

Venugopal delivered the inaugural speech and he was followed by Gundu Rao, Shivakumar, Kharge, Siddaramaiah, party's leader in Legislative Council S.R. Patil and Working Presidents Eshwar Khandre and Satish Jarkiholi.

"Khan administered the oath to all party members on the Preamble of the Constitution and Shivakumar took the party's pledge," said Saleem.

Terming the event historic, Shivakumar said in Kannada though he took charge in the presence of a few party leaders due to restriction on a large gathering, hundreds of party leaders and cadres joined him in the virtual world from 7,800 places across the state through live streaming.

"Hundreds of our party members and supporters watched the event from their homes, panchayats, civic offices and civic wards across the state, wearing masks and maintaining social distance," asserted Shivakumar.

Though Shivakumar was appointed on March 11, he could not take charge since then, due to the lockdown.

Shivakumar's appointment came three months after Gundu Rao resigned on December 9 following the party's debacle in the Assembly by-elections on December 5, in which only 2 out of the 15 candidates won, while the ruling BJP got 12.

Shivakumar is a legislator from the Kanakapura assembly segment.

His brother D.K. Suresh is the party's Lok Sabha member from the Bangaluru Rural constituency for the second time. He was the party's only candidate to have retained the seat, while 20 others lost in the May 2019 general elections.
New Delhi, July 2 : The Delhi High Court has observed that it is the duty of the husband's family to make a new bride feel at home and has held that her conduct of trying to remain in her room or not showing initiative in doing household work cannot be described as cruelty.

"As such conduct of the wife of being interested in remaining in her room or not showing initiative in doing household work can by no stretch of imagination be described as cruel behaviour and that too upon the husband," held a Division Bench of the high court presided by Justices Hima Kohli and Asha Menon.

The court said that a new bride would be hesitant in her new surroundings and it is always for the husband's family to make the new bride feel at home and accepted as a family member.

The bench passed the observations while dismissing an appeal filed by one Vishal Singh who had approached the high court against the order of the trial court which had dismissed his appeal for dissolution of marriage with Priya under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

Vishal and Priya got married in 2012 and though the marriage was duly consummated, no child was born to the parties. The husband has alleged that since the beginning of the marriage, the attitude of the wife was not positive as she declined to consummate the marriage or attend the marriage ceremonies till some time had passed.

The husband further contended that in 2013, Priya left his home with all her jewellery and valuables with her brother and brother-in-law and almost after a week, asked him over the phone to read the letter she had left under the mattress which contained shocking disclosures.

She also informed him that she would not return back and preferred to live her life with her lover, as both were planning to get their marriage registered. However, she was brought back to her husband's place by her brother but the Appellant did not allow them to enter the house and the Respondent went back to her paternal house.

After this, the woman kept apologizing for her conduct by calling the Appellant up on her phone, at the same time, she claimed to be happy in the company of the brother of her brother-in-law and only after all this, the man filed the appeal before the trial court, Vishal submitted.

While considering the said appeal, the High Court noted that the most serious allegation leveled by the man against Priya was her adulterous life.

The bench, however, observed that no case of adultery and cruelty has been made out against the woman. "Moreover, adultery could have been committed only after the marriage between the appellant/husband and the wife had been solemnized and the allegation of adultery on the ground that before the marriage of the parties, the respondents had stayed together, is completely meaningless," the bench held.

While on the grounds of cruelty, the husband alleged that the woman was "rude" and "cruel" immediately after the marriage, picked up quarrels with every family member on trivial matters, refused to have any physical relations with him immediately after the marriage and some more.

Responding to these grounds of cruelty, the bench said, "To our mind, none of these acts, if at all were committed by the wife, could tantamount to 'cruel' conduct." "A new bride would be hesitant in her new surroundings in the matrimonial home. It is always for the husband's family to make the new bride feel at home and accepted as a family member," the bench stated.

With regard to the allegation of refusing to have any physical relations immediately after the marriage, the court observed, "the husband himself admits that the marriage had been consummated and except for this one occasion, there were no repeated instances cited of refusal on the part of the wife to have any sexual interaction with the husband. Therefore, this ground too is not available to the appellant/husband to claim 'cruelty'." Regarding the allegation of the husband that Priya lodged a false case against him and his family under sections of dowry, attempt to murder and various other sections of the law, the court held that prima facie, the FIR cannot be held to be a false, frivolous or a vague one, as the trial is still going on. It is not as if any court of law has come to a conclusion that the FIR so lodged by the respondent No.1/wife was a false one.

"It is thus clear that the learned Family Court had arrived at the right conclusion including observing that the accusations of adultery heaped by the appellant on the wife are without any proof whatsoever of the respondents living in adultery and having an illicit relationship either before or post the marriage of the parties and that the wife had treated the husband with any cruelty," it said.

"In other words, whatever "misconduct" that the appellant/husband had noticed and alleged, as delineated here in above, stood condoned by him, leaving no scope for him to have filed the petition before the court for dissolution of marriage between the parties either on the grounds of cruelty or adultery," the bench added.

"In view of the discussion, there is no merit in the present appeal which is, accordingly, dismissed," the bench concluded.
Gaborone, July 2 : Mystery surrounds the "completely unprecedented" deaths of hundreds of elephants in Botswana over the last two months, a media report said.

No one knows why the animals are dying, with lab results on samples still weeks away, the BBC report said on Wednesday citing the government as saying.

Botswana is home to a third of Africa's declining elephant population.

Niall McCann of the UK-based charity National Park Rescue, told the BBC that his colleagues in the southern African country had spotted more than 350 elephant carcasses in the Okavango Delta since the start of May.

Local conservationists first alerted the government in early May, after they undertook a flight over the delta.

"They spotted 169 in a three-hour flight. To be able to see and count that many in a three-hour flight was extraordinary.

"A month later, further investigations identified many more carcasses, bringing the total to over 350.

"This is totally unprecedented in terms of numbers of elephants dying in a single event unrelated to drought," he told the BBC.

In May, Botswana's government ruled out poaching as a reason, noting the tusks had not been removed.

There are other things which point to something other than poaching.

"It is only elephants that are dying and nothing else," McCann told the BBC, adding: "If it was cyanide used by poachers, you would expect to see other deaths." He has also tentatively ruled out natural anthrax poisoning, which killed at least 100 elephants in Bostwana last year.
Lucknow, July 2 : Former Uttar Pradesh Minister and BJP legislator from Bahraich, Anupama Jaiswal has announced that she will provide free face masks to all those who delete Chinese applications from their mobile phones.

India on June 29 banned 59 apps with Chinese links, saying that they were prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.

Jaiswal said, "After banning of 59 Chinese apps in the country, I have started this campaign of providing free face masks for those who delete these apps." The campaign is being run with the help of the party's local Mahila Morcha unit.

Jaiswal was Minister of State for Basic Education in the Yogi Adityanath government.

She was dropped from the council of ministers in last year's reshuffle.
New York, July 2 : Scientists have found new evidence that the Moon's subsurface might be richer in metals, like iron and titanium, than previously thought.

The study, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, sheds new light on the composition of the dust found at the bottom of the Moon's craters.

Led by Essam Heggy from the University of Southern California, and the team members of the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission used radar to image and characterise this fine dust. They revealed that that the Moon's subsurface may be richer in metals than scientists had believed.

"By improving our understanding of how much metal the Moon's subsurface actually has, scientists can constrain the ambiguities about how it has formed, how it is evolving and how it is contributing to maintaining habitability on Earth," Heggy said.

According to the researchers, the fine dust at the bottom of the Moon's craters is actually ejected materials forced up from below the Moon's surface during meteor impacts. When comparing the metal content at the bottom of larger and deeper craters to that of the smaller and shallower ones, the team found higher metal concentrations in the deeper craters.

According to the researchers, the traditional hypothesis is that approximately 4.5 billion years ago there was a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized proto-planet (named Theia). Most scientists believe that that collision shot a large portion of Earth's metal-poor upper crust into orbit, eventually forming the Moon. One puzzling aspect of this theory of the Moon's formation has been that it has a higher concentration of iron oxides than the earth--a fact well-known to scientists.

This particular research contributes to the field in that it provides insights about a section of the Moon that has not been frequently studied and posits that there may exist an even higher concentration of metal deeper below the surface. It is possible, say the researchers that the discrepancy between the amount of iron on the Earth's crust and the Moon could be even greater than scientists thought, which pulls into question the current understanding of how the Moon was formed.

The team plans to continue carrying out additional radar observations of more crater floors with the Mini-RF experiment to verify the initial findings of the published investigation.
Istanbul, July 2 : A Turkish court on Thursday delayed a decision on whether the Hagia Sophia, a 1,500 year old Unesco World Heritage site, in Istanbul can be converted into a mosque.

The Council of State - Turkey's highest administrative body - said it would make a ruling within 15 days, after a hearing lasting just 17 minutes, the BBC reported.

The Hagia Sophia was originally a cathedral before becoming a mosque and then a museum in the 1930s.

It may become a mosque again if the court approves the move.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the change during an election rally last year.

Islamists in Turkey have long called for it to be converted, but secular opposition members have opposed the move.

The proposal has prompted international criticism, from religious and political leaders worldwide, said the BBC report.

The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church has criticised the proposal, as has Greece - home to many millions of Orthodox followers.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni has accused Turkey of reviving "fanatical nationalist and religious sentiment", insisting no change to a Unesco World Heritage site can take place without being approved by the body's own intergovernmental committee.

Unesco Deputy director Ernesto Ottone Ramirez agreed that wider approval was needed, in an interview with Greek newspaper Ta Nea.

The UN body had written to Turkey about the proposal, but received no reply, he said.

The Hagia Sophia is a domed building that sits in Istanbul's Fatih district, on the west bank of the Bosporus.

Justinian I ordered the massive construction built in 532, when the city - then known as Constantinople - was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire.

Engineers brought materials from across the Mediterranean to build the colossal cathedral.

Because of its 1,500-year history, the Hagia Sophia holds immense religious, spiritual and political significance for groups inside and outside Turkey.
Panaji, July 2 : Two days after a ruling BJP MLA tested positive for Covid-19, Speaker of the Goa assembly Rajesh Patnekar on Thursday urged all legislators to get themselves tested.

"Definitely, it is better to have tests done. MLAs often have to rush to sites where Covid cases are detected. People expect MLAs to help. By default they come in contact with some persons there, when they reach the spot," Patnekar told reporters here.

"I request all MLAs to go for self-testing. It is my appeal to them," Patnekar said.

The Speaker's comment comes a few days after Goa Governor Satya Pal Malik convened the monsoon session of the state legislative assembly from July 27.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had said, that the BJP MLA who had tested positive was part of a meeting of the ruling legislators, but added that social distancing norms were followed at the meet, which was held last month.
New Delhi, July 2 : Leader of the Congress in the lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has slammed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for grilling party treasurer Ahmed Patel, who has been interrogated for the third time on Thursday for links with promoters of Sterling Biotech.

Congress leader levelled allegation that Sterling Biotech promoters have links with Rakesh Asthana, an IPS officer.

Chowdhury alleged, "Modi ji's most trusted man Mr Rakesh Asthana, IPS, has been implicated as a recipient of bribe money which has been exposed in Sandersara diary. I am flagging the attention of Narendra Modi Ji, but Congress party's leader Ahmed Patel Ji has been grilled for 3 consecutive days by ED to unearth the nexus between Patel Ji and notorious Sandesara case." A team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) again on Thursday arrived at Patel's residence for the third time in less than a week to question him in connection with its probe into multi-crore bank fraud case by the Gujarat-based Sterling Biotech.

The ED had earlier questioned Patel on June 27 and June 30 for several hours under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

A team of financial probe agency officials arrived at the 23, Mother Teresa Crescent Road here on Thursday morning to record Patel's statement once again.
Srinagar, July 2 : The resignation of hardline separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Gealani from the all-party Hurriyat conference has exposed the myth of 'peaceful resistance' against Indian rule in Kashmir.

Geelani's disenchantment with the separatist politics marks a watershed moment which will weigh heavily on all those who chose to follow his footsteps.

Serious allegations have been levelled by Geelani against those he claims to have hijacked the separatist movement against the "Indian rule in Kashmir".

In his letter of despair, Geelani has blamed the constituents of the separatist conglomerate to have brazenly used it for accumulating wealth and using their clout for personal aggrandisement.

Despite feeling bad about the allegations levelled against them by Geelani, his erstwhile comrades cannot publicly criticise him.

The reason is very simple, they have glorified Geelani as the "Amir-e-Karwan", (Leader of the movement) for over 30 years and speaking against him now will only result in deeper chinks in the separatist armour.

"Thou can do no wrong": This is how Geelani was seen in Kashmir's separatist camp and finally discovering that he had feet of clay is definitely going to force a re-thinking on whether the path chosen by the separatist leaders is still the right thing to do, feels many.

The fact that Geelani's supremacy in all party Hurriyat conference has been challenged by its new convened, Mohammad Hussain Khatib, who belongs to Doda district of J&K and is now based in Muzaffarabad, has sent a clear message to Kashmiri separatist leaders.

Pakistan has decided to give up proxies in Kashmir and handle the separatist politics directly from across the border.

The creation of 'The Resistance Front' (TRF) has preceded Geelani's ouster from the Hurriyat.

It is believed that while the TRF would coordinate and represent all terror outfits to coordinate attacks against the security forces in Kashmir, the takeover of Hurriyat by Muzaffarabad based Khatib signals the take over of separatist politics by Islamabad.

This new development leaves very little to look for in the separatist camp for the so-called moderates or those who claim to be fighting for an independent Kashmir.

Street violence had its heroes like Geelani's man Friday, Masarat Alam who is in detention under the public safety act (PSA).

If street violence was intended to generate mass agitation against India, the experiment has been tried with very limited success.

Despite precious lives lost during those orchestrated violent protests, instead of gaining ground against India, the separatists are faced with abrogation of article 370 and the loss of statehood for J&K.

Geelani's disgruntlement with his cherished idea to give an overground political platform to the underground armed separatism has failed.

Those who control the gun will also control the separatist politics in Kashmir.

This is a chilling message for all those who thought the separatist politics in Kashmir did not have its moorings in violence that has achieved nothing more than eating its own children.
Lucknow, July 2 : Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Ajay Kumar Lallu has alleged that the police and intelligence agencies are spying on the Congress office.

"It has been a month since the cops are stationed outside the party office gates till late in the night. What do they do there?" he said at a press conference here on Thursday.

He claimed that the Yogi Adityanath government is getting restless over the increasing influence of Congress and is using arrest as a weapon to scare party workers.

The UPCC chief termed the arrest of Congress minority cell chairman Shahnawaz Alam , earlier this week, as "illegal, undemocratic and condemnable".

"Shahnawaz Alam's name did not even figure in the FIR or the chargesheet when he was arrested. Across the state, the Congress workers are being harassed by the Yogi government and they are being sent to jail after being booked in false cases," he said.

Lallu said that Congress leaders and workers are committed to raising their voices in support of the common man.

"The BJP government is frustrated as the influence of the Congress is increasing in the state. This government is scared, but the soldiers of Rahul and Priyanka are not scared. The Yogi government is trying to frighten us, but we are not scared. We will fight on the streets," he stated.

Lallu said, "Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's activism in Uttar Pradesh is troubling the ruling BJP and they are trying to break our spirit. But we are going to continue our fight with greater energy and determination under the leadership of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra."
Los Angeles, July 2 : Mindy Kalings coming-of-age comedy series "Never Have I Ever", about an Indian teenager growing up in the US, will be getting a second season.

With the show, she has used her "relationship with being Hindu" and the experience of "straddling the lines of two cultures" to narrate story of a 15-year-old Devi, first-generation Indian American, and her desperation to feel that she belongs in the society.

With Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Poorna Jagannathan and Richa Moorjani leading the cast, the coming-of-age story examines Indian culture against an American backdrop, its values and grief through the story of Devi as she navigates ups and downs of high school.

Netflix has renewed Kaling's series for a second season. The news comes just over two months after the show launched to critical acclaim, reports variety.com.

The second season will see Maitreyi return alongside Poorna (who plays Devi's mother Dr. Nalini Vishwakumar), Richa Moorjani (who plays her cousin Kamala), Jaren Lewison (who plays her high school nemesis Ben Gross), Darren Barnet (who plays her crush Paxton Hall-Yoshida) and Lee Rodriguez and Ramona Young (who play Devi's best friends).

Talking about the show, Mindy had told IANS: "A lot of Devi's relationship with her faith was inspired by my relationship with being Hindu. I do consider myself a Hindu, but I also feel insecure about my understanding of my own religion.

"The scene where Devi prays to her household shrine of Gods, it's a lot similar to my upbringing. And when I was a teenager, I resisted wearing Indian clothes because while beautiful, I found them itchy and hard to wear," she added.

Mindy co-created "Never Have I Ever" with Lang Fisher and also co-executive produced the show.
New Delhi, July 2 : In a bid to reduce air pollution in the national capital, the Delhi government is all set to launch a campaign to plant as many as thirty-one lakh plants, trees, and shrubs across the city by July 26.

This holds significance as the national capital records high-level air pollution throughout the year. Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said, "We will launch a campaign from July 10 to July 26 during which 31 lakh saplings will be planted." The 'Podhe Lagao, Paryavaran Bachao' (Plant Trees, Save Environment) campaign will be launched from the National Highway (NH) 20 near ITO.

He claimed that the green cover of the national capital is increasing in the past few years. In 2017, there was 299 square kilometres of green cover, which increased to 325 square kilometres in 2019 and will further enlarge to 350 square kilometres in 2021, the Environment Minister said.

During the 17-day campaign, twenty lakh big trees and eleven lakh shrubs will be planted, he said.

Shrubs will be put to the ground at the side of the roads to reduce the dust pollution which is the major contributor to increase in PM10 particles, which are too small to be filtered out of the body.

The 45-year-old leader said that the Delhi government is going to plant more than double of the target set by the Central government.

"Out of 31 lakhs, 18 lakh will be planted by various departments of the Delhi government, 9,40,000 will be sowed by Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Municipal Corporation will plant two lakh plants and Delhi Metro, Northern Railways and BSES will also place two lakh plants," he said.

Dehradun's Forest Research Institute will act as a third-party audit team to oversee how many trees and shrubs planted last year have sustained.
Mumbai, July 2 : Amid unending complaints of fleecing by private hospitals and medicos, a centre in north-Mumbai stands out like an oasis of hope for panicky COVID-19 patients.

Since the past couple of months, the Pawan Dham charitable centre in Kandivali west has become a refuge for those infected by corona, even as this middle-class region was recently declared a new 'hotspot' after Dharavi slum was on the steady route to 'recovery'.

"At the Pawan Dham, patients are being charged Rs 1,000 per day for full COVID-19 treatment. This includes lodging-boarding, but they have to pay for certain variables like external tests, etc.," North Mumbai Bharatiya Janata Party MP Gopal Shetty told IANS.

The brainchild behind the project, Shetty says it was the outcome of the desire of the Jain spiritual leader Namramuni Maharaj, who wanted it to serve the needy masses during this global pandemic.

Accordingly, Pawan Dham -- originally a religious-cum-social services centre -- was converted into a private dedicated Covid-19 treatment charitable facility, informed its member, Nitin Sunderji Shah, a businessman who oversaw the implementation of the project.

"There are 70-beds in this centre and so far we have already treated and discharged around 200 completely cured patients from here," Shah said, adding that with the good reputation it has earned, there is already a long waiting list of patients seeking admission.

The centre is manned by a 70-strong army of corona warriors comprising medicos, nurses, support staffers, management functionaries and others who dedicatedly serve in three shifts.

"Till date, only one critical patient had to be shifted to a government facility. Otherwise, all those who approached the centre in time have happily gone home, fully recovered," Shetty pointed out.

On how the centre manages the treatment with such nominal charges, both Shetty and Shah claim its the cheapest such facility in the country, possible "with the blessings of Namramuni Maharaj, who inspired many to willingly come forward with donations" to run the centre for the yeoman services it is rendering in these difficult times.

A Patient Nikhil J. Shah -- who spent around Rs 8,000 for eight days at the centre and returned home fully recovered this week -- said the treatment comprised an initial counseling by the doctors to "prepare" the patient for the entire COVID-19 course.

"Many get terrified when they test positive and believe they're going to die. So, it's imperative to calm them first to enable them to respond to the treatment well and also keep their equally jittery families free of worry," explained Shah.

Incidentally, Health Minister Rajesh Tope On Thursday ordered CCTVs to be installed in the COVID-19 ICU wards in all hospitals following complaints of 'overbilling', besides a check on ambulance operators who fleece needy patients for ferrying them even short distances.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at q.najmi@ians.in)
New Delhi, July 2 : In a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday reiterated his nation's commitment to further strengthen the "special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries in all spheres".

Putin gave his assurance during the telephonic conversation with Modi who called him to congratulate on the success of celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War and also for successful completion of the vote on constitutional amendments in Russia, said a statement issued from Prime Minister's Office.

During conversation, both leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the Covid-19 global pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer Indo-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-COVID world.

They agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral Summit to be held in India later this year.

The Prime Minister conveyed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India for the bilateral Summit and also recalled the participation of an Indian contingent in the military parade held in Moscow on June 24 this year as a symbol of abiding friendship between the peoples of India and Russia.

President Putin thanked the Prime Minister for the phone call and reiterated his commitment to further strengthen the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two countries in all spheres.

Conversation between the two top nation heads is significant in the backdrop of the recent stand-off between the soldiers of Indian Army and China's People's Liberation Army (PLA)
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New Delhi, July 2 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone conversation on Thursday reiterated their commitment to further strengthen the special and privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India in all spheres.

Prime Minister Modi on Thursday called President Putin to congratulate him on the success of the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II, and also for the successful completion of the vote on constitutional amendments in Russia.

An Indian armed forces contingent participated in the Victory Parade held in Moscow on June 24, as a symbol of abiding friendship between the people of India and Russia.

Modi and Putin talked about the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the global Covid-19 pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-Covid world.

The two leaders agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral summit to be held in India later this year. Modi also conveyed his keenness to welcome Putin in India for the bilateral summit.

The Russian President also thanked Modi for the phone call.
New Delhi, July 2 : Doha-based Qatar Airways has started to reinstate 18 more destinations worldwide from July 1-15.

Accordingly, by mid-July, the airline's network will expand to over 430 weekly flights servicing more than 65 destinations.

On Wednesday, the national carrier of the State of Qatar relaunched 11 more destinations, its largest single day of restarts.

The Persian Gulf carrier said it continues to work closely with governments around the world to resume commercial flights in line with entry restrictions.

"The airline is hopeful that further commercial flight restrictions will be eased throughout July, with the carrier planning to resume almost two thirds of its pre-COVID-19 network by the end of the month," "The airline expects its number of flights to almost double in July with close to 3,500 flights scheduled, compared to just under 2,100 in June." Uniquely enough, the airline had maintained a global network that never fell below 30 destinations during these past few months.

Last month, another Gulf-based international air carrier Emirates Airline offered flights to an additional 16 cities and resumed transit through its Dubai hub.

Consequent to the addition, the airline has started operating flights to 29 cities from June 15.

This decision was taken after the UAE Federal government announced to lift restrictions on transit passenger services from June 15.

On its part, the Lufthansa Group will offer in the upcoming month over 40 per cent of their originally planned flight programme.

A total of over 380 aircraft by the Lufthansa Group carriers will be used for this purpose until October.

"This means that half of the Lufthansa Group's fleet is in the air again, 200 aircraft more than in June," the airline said on Monday.

Besides, the group expects that by end of October, over 90 per cent of all originally planned short- and medium-haul destinations and over 70 per cent of the Group's long-haul destinations will be served again.

Similarly, Virgin Atlantic has announced its plan to restart passenger flying to 17 additional destinations from August 2020.

The airline expects services from London's Heathrow to Hong Kong, New York's JFK, and Los Angeles to resume between 20th and 21st July, 2020.

Furthermore, it has planned flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Heathrow to start from September 2, 2020.

In India's case the Directorate General of Civil Aviation last month issued a circular extending the suspension on scheduled commercial international flight operations to and from India till July 15.

However, the Centre in the past has hinted at the prospects of 'bilateral bubble arrangements', which will allow some international operations between countries.

At present, domestic operations, charter flights and services under the Vande Bharat mission are allowed.
Bengaluru, July 2 : Congress' newly-installed Karnataka President D.K. Shivakumar on Thursday vowed to bring the party back to power in the southern state with the support of its leaders and cadres.

"I am assuming charge as the party's state President with a promise to bring the Congress back to power in the state under collective leadership and support of our cadres," he said at the party office here.

Addressing thousands of party's cadres across the state through live streaming of the event, Shivakumar said he was grateful to Congress President Sonia Gandhi for giving him an opportunity to strengthen the party and returning to power for serving the people.

"Though the BJP tried its best to finish me off politically by sending me to Tihar jail in September (2019) after misusing the Income Tax office and the Enforcement Directorate to frame false cases, I have emerged stronger with the support of the party leadership," he asserted.

Dressed in kurta-pyjama and sporting a white Nehru cap, Shivakumar said as he believed in collective leadership, he would take the help of senior leaders in gearing up the party for the next state assembly elections, due in 2023.

"I joined the party as an ordinary worker long ago and grew up over the years by working under the leadership of S. Bangarappa, S.M. Krishna, Dharam Singh, Mallikarjun Kharge and Siddaramaiah at the state level and under Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi at the national level," he said.

Shivakumar said he would adopt the model of the party's Kerala unit to create leaders from the booth level.

Earlier, the 58-year-old Shivakumar took reins of the party's state unit in style, with hundreds of party leaders and cadres witnessing the event which was streamed live.

"Shivakumar took oath as the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president on 'Pratigna Dina' (Day of Oath) inside the newly constructed auditorium at the party office in compliance with the lockdown guidelines, which restricted the gathering to about 50 people," party leader M.A. Saleem told IANS here.

Party's General Secretary K.C. Venugopal, newly-elected Rajya Sabha member from the state Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah, former state chief Dinesh Gundu Rao, former Union Minister Rehman Khan and party's women's wing head Pushpa Amarnath were present on the occasion.

"Shivakumar's loyalty towards the party is his best quality. We have seen many leaders desert the party in times of crisis. Despite facing problems caused by the NDA government, he stood by the party like a rock," said Venugopal, who is in charge of the party's state unit.

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi also greeted Shivakumar and wished him in his endeavour to revive the party after facing rout in the May 2019 general elections and May 2018 assembly polls in the state.

The over 4-hour long event began with the party's rank and file paying homage to 20 martyrs of the Indian Army who died in a clash with Chinese soldiers in Ladakh's Galwan Valley on June 15.

After hoisting the party's flag and reciting 'Vande Mataram' to invoke the motherland, party's state unit working president Saleem Ahmed welcomed all those at the venue and all those who watched the event remotely from across the state.

As per the party's tradition, Gundu Rao handed over the Congress flag to Shivakumar.

All party leaders and cadres took constitutional pledge as administered by Khan. Shivakumar led the pledge of loyalty to the party, with all leaders and cadres joining him in unison.

Terming the event historic, Shivakumar said that though he took charge in the presence of a few party leaders due to restriction on a large gathering, hundreds of party leaders and cadres joined him in the virtual world from 7,800 places across the state through live streaming.

Though Shivakumar was appointed on March 11, he could not take charge then, due to the lockdown.

Shivakumar's appointment came three months after Gundu Rao resigned on December 9 following the party's debacle in the Assembly byelections on December 5, in which only 2 out of the 15 candidates won, while the ruling BJP got 12.

Shivakumar is a legislator from the Kanakapura assembly segment.
New Delhi, July 2 : The popular Hacker group Anonymous has mounted a fierce campaign on the social media platforms to ban TikTok globally, saying its a malware from the Chinese government that is spying on its millions of users.

The ByteDance-owned platform has been named among 59 Chinese apps that were banned by the Indian government this week. TikTok has nearly 120 million users in the country.

The global backlash against the short-video making app accelerated after the Beta version of iOS 14 exposed it constantly reading user clipboards TikTok later told The Telegraph it would no longer automatically access user clipboards on Apple iPhones.

The Anonymous group tweeted late Wednesday: "Delete TikTok now. If you know someone that is using it, explain to them that it is essentially malware operated by the Chinese government running a massive spying operation".

The account shared a link to a Reddit post from an engineer who claimed to have "reverse engineered" TikTok to find several security and privacy issues.

TikTok was yet to comment on the Reddit post or media reports around it.

"Tiktok is harvesting data on children/teens to monitor their market reach and political development; to find the best methodologies to coerce them within the next 5-10 years. This gives China an upper hand on the manipulation of large swaths of society across several countries," Anonymous further tweeted.

The state-backed media outlet The Global Times tweeted on Wednesday that the loss of ByteDance could reach up to $6 billion after India banned 59 Chinese apps.

"The loss of Chinese internet company ByteDance - mother company of TikTok - could be as high as $6 billion after Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, following deadly border clash between Indian and Chinese troops last month," The Global Times tweeted.

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said that the company was working with various stakeholders to address the concerns raised by the Indian government, and remain committed to support the welfare of TikTok creator community till the interim ban order is in effect.

Mayer, who is also the COO of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, said that their creator managers are actively engaging with top creators to reassure them of their efforts and updates about the path forward.
New Delhi, July 2 : After the government sent Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi a notice to vacate her 35 Lodi Estate official bungalow within a month, party sources said that being in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh she is likely to shift to Lucknow.

Sources close to Priyanka Gandhi said she will shift after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides.

But Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said "she has been going to Lucknow often and what steps she will take she has a right to and will not succumb to pressures and she will stand with the common man as she is raising the issues," After the eviction notice was given the Congress said it's unfair. Party senior spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "The threat perception has not changed but only protection agency has changed " and added that the bills for all amenities were paid by Priyanka Gandhi.

The government is rattled by the issues raised by Priyanka Gandhi, added Singhvi and it is resorting to petty politics.

Priyanka has reportedly already finalised the house of late Congress leader Sheila Kaul in the Hazrat Ganj area of Lucknow.

During her Lucknow visit before the pandemic she had stayed in that house.

The government in an order said that it has cancelled the government accommodation given to Priyanka Gandhi with the direction to vacate the house within one month.

The government said that the Ministry of Home Affairs has informed vide its communication dated June 30 that Priyanka Gandhi has been assigned Z plus security with CRPF cover on an all-India basis, which does not have any provision for allotment or retention of government accommodation. She is not a SPG protectee now.

"I fail to understand the timing of the govt's actions however Priyanka Gandhi is on a mission to fight and work for the people of UP and is unfazed and not bothered by these diversionary tactics." said Congress leader Jitin Prasada.
Bengaluru, July 2 : Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya has tested negative for Covid-19 following a meeting with an infected doctor at the Victoria Hospital here.

"I underwent a Covid test and I'am negative," Surya told IANS on Thursday.

Surya and Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa's political secretary S.R. Vishwanath had to undergo test as they met an infected doctor at the Victoria Hospital. Incidentally, Revenue Minister R. Ashoka also attended the meeting but did not undergo a test.

Ashoka had substituted for Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar when he isolated himself for eight days in home quarantine after his family members tested positive.

The Revenue Minister also celebrated his 64th birthday recently and said that a test was not necessary as per experts' advice.

The Dean of Victoria Hospital has exempted Surya, Vishwanath and Ashoka from quarantine.

The state government has recently exempted Union and state ministers and officials from quarantine.

"The ministers of the Union government or the state government or officers on duty will be exempted from quarantine as has been done for health professionals," state Health Commissioner P.K. Pandey said in an order.

The order came on the day when Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, was allowed to exit the airport on arriving from New Delhi without going into seven-day institutional quarantine.
New Delhi, July 2 : To check the sudden spurt in street crime cases in the capital, the Delhi Police it seems have decided not to hesitate while opening fire on criminals in case they are challenged.

Several encounters recently by various units of Delhi Police have left the criminals with bullet injuries in their legs. The message seems clear that if the criminals dare open fire at cops, they would get the answer in the same coin. The sudden rise in cases like robbery and snatching has also led the specialised units to get tough on active criminals in the national capital.

Within a month the police had at least four encounters with the bullets hitting the criminals in their legs in the exchange of fire. Within a span of eight days from June 23 to July 1, at least four criminals have been shot below the knees by policemen at different locations in Delhi. Also, on June 3, an illegal arms manufacturer was apprehended after an exchange of fire near Shastri Park. The accused was injured in his leg.

On June 23, in an encounter with police near Pushta road, Geeta Colony, a criminal wanted in a MCOCA case identified as Rashid was shot below the right knee in the exchange of fire.

"To curb street crime, a team of special staff in Shahdara was in the area for patrolling. It was during patrolling that our team got information that a criminal wanted in MCOCA case would be going to Ghaziabad, UP. When he was asked to stop, the accused opened fire. In the retaliatory fire the accused received a bullet injury on his leg," said Amit Sharma, DCP-Shahdara.

In another encounter on June 25, the police in an exchange of fire at Seemapuri shot a criminal on his left leg. He was wanted in many cases of snatching and robbery. In yet another encounter, two criminals sustained bullet injuries on their legs after they tried to challenge the cops with pistols.

There has been just a marginal decline in number of heinous crimes registered in Delhi until May 31 despite the lockdown compared to the same period last year. The statistics show that the capital recorded 2,205 heinous crimes till May 31 this year in comparison to 2,277 cases registered last year during the same period.

This shows that even the lockdown had a marginal effect in reducing heinous crimes.

Up to May 31, 596 cases of robbery have been recorded this year in comparison to 964 cases last year during the same period. Upto May 31, 2020, the statistics show that 2,141 cases of snatching were reported as compared to 2,811 cases last year.

Only 2 cases of dacoity this year till May 31 have been recorded in comparison to eight cases last year.

Earlier, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal directed senior police officers to keep a vigil on street crime, while reviewing the law and order situation in the capital.
New Delhi, July 2 : Keeping in view the prevailing circumstances when the Covid-19 cases are on the rise, the Delhi High Court has advised the private labs not to stop home collection of samples.

"The current times are crucial and it's not acceptable that the private labs stop collection of samples," it said while hearing a plea filed by advocate Sanjeev Sharma.

The plea highlighted situations where non-Covid patients needing immediate medical procedures required to undergo testing, but that couldn't be done as the hospitals were prohibited from doing so by the government.

A Division Bench, comprising Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad, posted the matter for hearing on July 14.

The petitioner argued the private labs had stopped home collection of samples after the Covid-19 tests rates were capped. "I called up some private labs who refused to collect samples from home," petitioner Rakesh Malhotra submitted.

Responding to it, the Delhi government's additional standing counsel (ASC) Satyakam said the government had written to private labs about it and several labs clarified that many of them hadn't stopped the practice.

Following these arguments, the court asked the private labs to approach the Delhi government if they had any grievances.

The Delhi government also informed the court serosurveillance had been initiated and the samples for it would be collected till July 5 and the result would be out within a week.

Serosurveillance is a process of monitoring presence or absence of specific substances in the blood serum of a population.

"Point of care camps have been set up at 167 places. Also, 26 government hospitals have been permitted to undertake the rapid antigen tests. Of these, 20 hospitals have started the tests today (July 2)," Satyakam submitted.

On permission to private hospitals, which are made Covid-19 specific, for conducting the rapid antigen tests, the Delhi government said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in a circular said any hospital that wished to conduct this test should approach it.

The rapid antigen tests at government dispensaries would be free, he added.

The court has asked the Delhi government and the ICMR to file their responses by way of an affidavit by July 13.

Malhotra had also said the Delhi government was not taking expeditious steps to furnish Covid-19 test reports within a reasonable time of 48 hours or even earlier, and due to that the contact tracing was also getting delayed.
New Delhi, July 2 : After Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra got an eviction notice from the government, the Congress said that the threat perception of the Gandhi family has not changed. They are still Z plus protectees and only the protection agency has been changed from the SPG to another agency, the party said.

Priyanka Gandhi was allotted government accommodation at 35, Lodhi Estate, a type 6B house.

"This is a trick to manipulate and treachery from the government," said senior Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Singhvi cited the J.S. Verma committee report which had said that the security of Rajiv Gandhi was wrongly withdrawn and subsequently he was assassinated by terrorists.

Singhvi said, "the threat perception remains the same and it has not changed." When asked if the party is anticipating a similar type of order for Rahul Gandhi, who is an MP from Wayanad in Kerala, Singhvi said, "We are not here to second guess about the petty things which this government does." Though Rahul Gandhi is a Lok Sabha MP, he has been allotted a house in the General pool, said sources close to the Chairman of the housing committee responsible for the accommodation of the MPs in Delhi.

Rahul Gandhi is a fourth time MP and as per rules he is eligible for the accommodation in Delhi. He has been given a 12, Tughlak Lane bungalow, as per the SPG requirements, but in the changed scenario there are apprehensions that the government may evict him as well.

Sources say that half of Rahul Gandhi's office has been functioning from 10, Janpath, the accommodation provided to party interim chief Sonia Gandhi, who is a sixth term MP from Rae Bareli.
Mumbai, July 2 : Screenwriter Aseem Arrora is currently busy with his upcoming Akshay Kumar-starrer "Bellbottom". The writer says the rollercoaster spy ride will overwhelm the audience with strong emotions.

"'Bellbottom' is an untold true story and pierces your heart even though it is set in the espionage world," Aseem said.

Directed by Ranjit M. Tewari, the film is scheduled to go on floors later this year.

The writer has worked on movies like "Baazaar", "Malang" and "Lucknow Central". He has also written for shows like "P.O.W. - Bandi Yuddh Ke" and "Uttaran".

He entered Bollywood with the 2008 movie "Heroes". He said he started his writing career with films and added: "Moved to TV on the advice of Anurag Basu. But after five years I returned to films again with 'Lucknow Central'." On what he thinks of the changing content in Bollywood, he said: "Looking forward to great times ahead. Everyone has a space under the sun with platforms from web to films to TV and now even phone apps. Everyone can write, and everyone can create and find an audience. Challenging themes that could never be pursued, now have the best chance."
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Hyderabad, July 2 : Coal production in Telangana's Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) came to a halt on Thursday as miners began a three-day strike called by various unions to protest against the Centre's decision to privatise the mines.

Nearly 50,000 employees struck the work in all the mines spread across six districts of Telangana.

While the national trade unions have called for a three-day strike from Thursday, the Telangana Boggu Ghani Karmika Sangham (TBGKS), the biggest and recognised union in Singareni, supported the strike for only one day.

The production in all underground mines in Bhadradri Kothagudem district came to a halt while operations in open cast mines were also affected.

Production was also hit in almost all the mines in Ramagundam, Bhupalapally, Mancherial and other areas.

The strike might result in production loss of nearly two lakh tonnes. The company is estimated to suffer a loss of over Rs 50 crore.

Employees' unions, SCW (AITUC), SCMLU (INTUC), SCE&W (HMS), SCE Union (CITU), SCMKS (BMS) and GLBKS Union (IFTU) joined the strike.

The unions demanded that the government immediately withdraw its decision to permit commercial mining in the Coal India Ltd (CIL) and SCCL blocks.

The Centre has put up for auction 41 coal blocks belonged to the CIL. The unions now fear that the government may auction the coal blocks of SCCL too in the future.

They have demanded the management stop weakening the coal industry by permitting discriminative outsourcing in the CIL and SCCL. They sought the withdrawal of proposals for e-auction of 50 coal blocks, bid to delink Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited (CMPDIL) from the CIL, and the proposed amendments to labour laws.

The day-long protest by the TBGKS affiliated to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was held across the state, with workers demanding the Union government roll-back its decision.

TBGKS honorary President and former MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha demanded the Central government to roll back its decision to of privatise coal mines.

"Today across the nation, thousands of coal mine workers are on strike demanding the Central government to roll back the decision to auction coal blocks to private companies. The TRS party-affiliated TBGKS is also on strike today. We demand that this privatisation move be rolled back," tweeted Kavitha, who is daughter of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao.

The main fear among workers with regard to the privatisation of coal mines is about their future and as to how private companies will function, as against a public undertaking.

The privatisation move, according to TBGKS leaders, will also adversely impact Singareni coal mines in Telangana, which is a government-run public undertaking.

Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they wondered how this move is "an act of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat".

SCCL is the largest public sector company in Telangana. It is owned by the state government and the Centre on a 51:49 equity basis.

It registered a record production of 64.41 million tonnes in 2018-19. The company earned a net profit of Rs 1,765 crore.
New Delhi, July 2 : The Centre has allowed voters above 65 years and Covid-19 positive people under home or institutional quarantine to use postal ballot to cast their votes in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a gazette notification issued last month, the Law Ministry gave its nod for amending the Conduct of Elections (Amendment) Rules 2020.

The decision follows the Election Commission's June proposal in which it had requested the Ministry to enlarge the ambit of use of postal ballot facility to people aged 65 years, reducing it from 80 years, and those under quarantine or home isolation due to Covid-19.

Medical research has shown while people of all ages can be infected by coronavirus, elderly people and people with pre-existing medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease) are more vulnerable to the disease.

According to a Health Ministry advisory, citizens above 65 years have been advised to stay indoors due to coronavirus.

On the recommendation of the ECI, on October 22, 2019, the amendment enabling postal ballot facility to senior citizens (above the age of 80 years) and for persons with disability, was introduced to provide them the choice of voting from the comforts of their homes.

Last month, the ECI not only requested the Ministry of Law and Justice to extend the postal ballot facilities to all electors above 65 years of age, but also to all Covid-19-positive electors under home isolation or institutional quarantine to reduce crowding at the polling stations.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Colombo, July 2 : Sri Lanka's active Covid-19 cases reduced to 227 on Thursday as 79 more patients recovered and were discharged from hospital, according to health ministry's statistics.

The country has to date detected 2,054 cases of the Covid-19 since the first local patient was detected in March but as of Thursday morning, 1,827 patients had been successfully treated and released, Xinhua reported citing officials.

Eleven deaths have been reported from the virus.

Sri Lanka's Army Commander, Lt. General Shavendra Silva, who is heading the national operation centre for the prevention of Covid-19, told a local media outlet earlier this week that the country had successfully been able to halt a public transmission of the virus as no new cases were reported from the society since April 30.

New cases were now reported among those who were being repatriated from overseas but they had no contact with society as they were directly transported to quarantine centres.

Silva said Sri Lanka's containment of the Covid-19 was a success story to share with the world and post-Covid-19 Sri Lanka would have a new place on the global map.

Local authorities, since last week, have started opening up archaeological sites, museums, parks, and cinemas after nearly three months due to the easing of the virus spread, but said strict health guidelines would remain in place to ensure the health of the public.

Sri Lanka is all set to open its international airports next month as soon as local repatriations end.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, July 2 : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has demanded that suspension of the H-1B visas should be revoked as it will impact millions of Indians. He also said that America has benefited from India's talent.

Rahul Gandhi in a tweet said, "America has benefited enormously by embracing India's vast talent pool through its H-1B program." "Its suspension will impact millions of Indians and US firms. It should be revoked," added Rahul.

The former Congress president was reacting to US Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, who said that he will lift the temporary suspension of the H-1B visas if he wins in the November Presidential elections.

The Trump administration suspended the H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas until the end of 2020 to protect American workers in a crucial election year.

"He (Donald Trump) just ended H-1B visas the rest of this year. That will not be in my administration," said Joe Biden, who was responding to a question in a town hall meet.
Mumbai, July 2 : Like many others, "Kasautii Zindagii Kay" actor Parth Samthaan has also faced moments of depression and sadness during the coronavirus lockdown.

Taking to Instagram, Parth wrote: "Yes there were moments of depression and sadness during this lockdown, but that's what gives us strength to be stronger and push ourselves so that one day when this pandemic is over. We are ready to face this world again." Reacting to the post, actress Hina Khan asked Parth to just focus on good things.

"You are a rockstar. Just focus on good things and work," Hina commented.

Actor Arjun Bijlani suggested Parth to listen to the song "I'm losing it".

"Listen 'I'm losing it', and you will be rocking. You know what I mean," Arjun quipped.

A few days ago, Parth made headlines when producer Vikas Gupta called him out saying the actor was mentally harassing him.
Chennai, July 2 : The Tamil Nadu Police's Crime Branch-Crime Investigation Department (CBCID) have arrested five suspended policemen working in Sathankulam police station in Tuticorin district for the murder of P. Jeyaraj and his son J. Bennicks, officials said.

The CBCID also altered the first information report (FIR) registered on the death of Jeyaraj and Bennicks as a murder case from the earlier charge of suspicious death.

Police have registered the case as two separate murders while security has been provided for Revathy, the policewomen who had deposed before a Magistrate that the father and son were beaten throughout the June 19 night by the police at Sathankulam police station.

The court also ordered that Revathy be given leave with pay.

The five arrested policemen are: Inspector Sridhar, Sub-Inspectors Balakrishnan and Raghu Ganesh, Head Constable Murugan and Constable Muthuraj.

The police nabbed Sridhar at Gangaikondan while he was trying to escape in his car.

Ganesh was sent to custody till July 16 on late Wednesday.

The Madras High Court's Madurai Bench which suo moto took up the case, appreciated CBCID for nabbing the policemen.

The action of CBCID has created the impression that justice will be delivered, it said, as it adjourned the case.

According to Inspector General, CBCID, Shankar, 12 teams have been formed to carry out the probe into the custodial death of father and son Jeyaraj and Bennicks.

Meanwhile Abraham Mathai, founder of Harmony Foundation and former Vice Chairman of Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, welcomed the arrest of the policemen and altering the FIR to murder case.

He also said the outstanding intervention by the court has now set a precedence that the courts of justice can halt the tide of impunity that has been trying to take root lately.

He said the order to the court to revenue officials to take over the Sathankulam police station only proves that the high court was more than convinced that the police station was a "den of savages".

Jeyaraj and Bennicks had been booked for not closing their mobile shop in time on June 19 by the Sathankulam police. They were sent to judicial custody and lodged in Kovilpatti jail on June 21.

Jeyaraj died on June 22 night and Bennicks on June 23 morning in judicial custody, allegedly due to the police torture.

The High Court while hearing the case had said there was prima facie evidence to register a murder case against the Sathankulam police officials.

Kovilpatti Judicial Magistrate M.S. Bharathidasan, who was asked to inquire into the case of brutal torture of Jeyaraj and his son Bennicks by the Sathankulam police on June 19 and their subsequent deaths, had submitted his report to the High Court.

Woman police constable Revathy, at the Sathankulam police station, in her deposition before Bharathidasan had said that Jeyaraj and Bennicks were beaten with batons throughout the June 19 night.

According to Bharathidasan's report, Revathy also said the victims' blood stains were on the batons of the station police officials and on tables.

She said the batons and the tables should be secured so that the evidence is not lost, the report stated.

Expressing fear that she may be targeted later, Revathy was initially reluctant to sign a printout of her statement but later on being assured of her safety, she signed it.

The court also transferred the probe into the deaths of Jeyaraj and Bennicks to the CBCID to gather and protect the evidence till the case is handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

It has also initiated criminal contempt cases against three police officials - Additional Superintendent of Police Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police Prathapan and constable Maharajan - for their behaviour at the Sathankulam police station in front of Magistrate Bharathidasan.
Bengaluru, July 2 : Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has rewarded octogenarian pond rejuvenation champion Kamegowda with a free lifetime bus pass, an official said on Thursday.

"To recognise his yeoman service, I ssue lifetime free bus pass for travel in KSRTC buses," said the road transport corporation managing director Shivayogi C. Kalasad.

Calling him a 'Man of Ponds', the transport corporation has entitled him to travel for free in all classes of bus services that KSRTC operates.

Recently, Kamegowda came in for praise by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself for digging ponds.

"Kamegowda has dug 16 ponds through his hard work. He is a simple farmer, but his personality is extraordinary. The work done by him sets him apart from others. At his age, Kamegowda takes cattle for grazing and has dug ponds in his village," noted Modi in his 'Mann ki Baat' address to the nation.

Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa has also appreciated the 85-year-old ponds champion and endorsed the lifetime bus pass.

Kamegowda is known for digging ponds at Dasanadoddi village in Mandavalli taluk of Mandya district.

Mandya is about 100 km southwest of Bengaluru on way to Mysuru.

Touted to have the largest air-conditioned Volvo fleet of buses in the country, KSRTC operates services in 17 of the 30 districts across the state and to neighbouring states, including Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

The corporation has about 8,650 buses and ferries about 30 lakh passengers daily under normal circumstances.
New Delhi/Patna, July 2 : The Bharatiya Janata Party which is preparing for the Bihar Assembly election, is in action mode. BJP national general secretary and state in-charge Bhupendra Yadav, who is on a 10-day visit from Delhi to take stock of the election preparations in Bihar, is visiting temples in the state daily.

While Rajya Sabha MP Yadav visited the famous Patan Devi temple in Patna on Wednesday, on Thursday, he also visited ISKCON temple under construction in Patna. It is said that he will also go to many other temples. He is also interacting with the people during their prayers at temples.

Yadav on Thursday tweeted, "I have been in Patna continuously for the last two days. Yesterday I got the opportunity to visit the famous Patan Devi temple in Patna. It is believed that 52 Shakti Peethas are believed to be in the country. The Patan Devi site is also a prominent one. In this sequence, the ISKCON temple under construction in Patna was also visited by me today." Party sources say that Yadav will be in Bihar till July 10 to review election preparations in Bihar and hold talks with leaders on seat sharing. During this time he will visit many more famous shrines. On the other hand, it is seen in the opposition corridors as being connected it with BJP's temple politics.

Bihar BJP spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan told IANS, "Opposition leaders do not have any issues. Opposition leaders are afraid of BJP's public welfare politics. Opposition's existence will also be in danger in the upcoming Bihar Assembly election." Elections are expected in November on a total of 243 Assembly seats in Bihar. The Election Commission has also started preparations. Seat-sharing is currently underway between the NDA constituents. In Bihar, the leaders of BJP, JDU and Lok Janshakti Party are focused on seat sharing.

As party in-charge of Bihar, Yadav is said to be instrumental in deciding the seat sharing.
New Delhi, July 2 : After there seemed no sign of conclusion of the tussle between the Centre and the Delhi government inside the court room, the Delhi High Court on Thursday vacated the bail granted to Delhi riots accused school owner Faisal Farooq.

While passing the order, the court noted that the respondent (Faisal) was recently arrested in another case relating to the Delhi riots registered at Dayalpur police station under 147,148,149, 427 and various other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and The Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 and hence he will remain behind bars until and unless bail order is passed in the new case.

"Therefore, his case before the trial court may be prejudiced by the interim order of this Court. I vacate the said order," said a single judge bench of the high court presided over by Justice Suresh Kumar Kait.

He added that this controversy between the Modi government and the Arvind Kejriwal government over who will represent Delhi Police in the matter has been going on since June 22 and the same is likely to continue.

"If that is so, the stay remained in force, it will prejudice the accused," Justice Kait said.

During the course of hearing, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aman Lekhi said that in the present case with the request of Delhi Police and the Lieutenant Governor (LG), Delhi, appointment of Amit Mahajan and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta along with Lekhi and other officers were made in a communication dated July 1, 2020.

"Thus, Mr Mahajan has right to file this petition and the law officer of Centre has the right to appear against the order passed by Session Judge," said Lekhi.

Countering the claims of the ASG, Delhi government standing counsel (Criminal) Rahul Mehra told the bench that in the present case, the appointment has been made without consultation with the council of ministers.

The court then passed the said order while placing the matter for further hearing on July 22.

Justice Kait also asked both the Centre and the state counsels to file written submissions on the matter of who will appear for the Delhi Police.

Earlier on Wednesday, after the tussle between the counsels of both the governments again popped up in the courtroom, the Delhi High Court while taking strong note of the same remarked "Courts are not here to solve your personal issues".

"Courts aren't here to solve your personal issues. Instead of wasting the time of the public, you both should concentrate on greater issues, the country is already dealing with grave and tough time," Justice Kait had said.

The court's observation had come while it was hearing the petition filed by the Delhi police seeking cancellation of bail granted to Rajdhani School owner Faisal Farooq in a case relating to the Delhi riots case.

In its charge sheet, the Delhi police has categorically mentioned that Farooq visited Deoband on February 23, just one day before the riots began in Shiv Vihar and its neighbouring areas.

The case relates to the riots that broke out on February 24 outside Shiv Vihar's Rajdhani School where another school named DRP Convent and an adjacent sweet shop were burnt and a man trapped inside the shop died. Eighteen people including Farooq were arrested by the police in this regard.

"The rioters had camped inside and fired bullets from the terrace of Rajdhani School. They also threw petrol bombs, acid, bricks, stones and other missiles using an improvised large iron catapult, specially installed for the purpose, from the terrace of Rajdhani School, the police said.

The charge sheet states that Farooq had hatched a conspiracy to precipitate and aggravate riots, in and around Rajdhani School. On his instructions, the adjacent and rival DRP Convent School, 2 parking lots run by the other party and the building of Anil Sweets were systematically destroyed by the mob.
Thiruvananthapuram, July 2 : The Congress-led opposition in Kerala on Thursday slammed the Pinarayi Vijayan government for going ahead with opening the office of PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd inside the state Secretariat.

Leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala told the media that the file for this would have been signed by state Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran, had the opposition remained silent.

"This file has been raised by the state Transport Secretary and has been given the nod by the Finance Department and it (the PwC office) will become a reality when Saseendran signs the file. Such a thing has never happened in the history of Kerala...," he said.

"The highlight of this office it has been aptly named as 'PwC back door office' and for this, I will appreciate the person who has named it as this entry by this company is through the back door," he claimed.

Chennithala also claimed that four staffers for the office have also been appointed and their salary is higher than the salary of the Chief Secretary, as it ranges from Rs 3,02,400 to Rs 3,34,800.

Chennithala said Chief Minister Vijayan is heading a government which is flooded by consultants and refuted his statement that no agreement has been reached on implementing the e-bus project with Swiss vehicle manufacturing major Hess AG for manufacture of 6,000 e-buses as part of a joint venture with the Kerala Automobiles Ltd.

"If so, then I am releasing a picture which says that the agreement has been inked and in the caption, it is written that this was the signing of the agreement with the Swiss company. This is also mentioned in their website. We wish to know who is right, is it Vijayan or the Swiss company," he said.

Two-time Chief Minister Oommen Chandy also joined in this issue, saying that it was surprising that when the then Chief Secretary and Finance Minister Thomas Issac opposed this project, why was Vijayan in a hurry to go forward with this.

"When the discussions in this project was going, these two people opposed this project and it was after that, Vijayan handed over the consultancy contract to PwC for this project. It is time Vijayan comes clean on this deal," he demanded.

UDF convenor Benny Behanan said that the role of Vijayan's daughter Veena's IT firm in this deal has to be explained.
Irans financial and military support for Shia proxy paramilitary groups in Iraq, a linchpin of its regional foreign policy, has been dramatically disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and US sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.

Interruptions caused by the virus, including border closings to prevent the spread of the disease, have drastically cut Tehrans cash supplies to the militia groups in recent months, said three Iraqi paramilitary group commanders and a regional official familiar with Irans activities in Iraq.

The funds from Iran are typically allocated for military operations related to the paramilitary groups activities such as fighting Irans opponents, including attacks against US targets, the three commanders said.

Since the coronavirus hit earlier this year, Iran has reduced its monthly payments to each of the four top militia groups in Iraq to between $2 million and $3 million from $4.5 million to $5 million, said one of the commanders, who belongs to a powerful paramilitary group.

The reduced funding has impacted operations of the militia groups and is forcing them to seek alternative sources of funding for military operations and weapons such as from their own business interests, the commanders said.

Iraq shares a border with Iran, a coronavirus epicenter in the Middle East with more than 11,000 reported deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

Disruptions brought on by the pandemic come on top of a squeeze on Tehrans financing of the paramilitary groups over the past two years caused by US sanctions on Iran, said the three commanders and the regional official.

The regional official said Tehrans funding of the groups has dropped by millions of dollars. The sanctions combined with the coronavirus crisis and a decline in oil prices have helped force Iran, which faces a large budget deficit, to limit its military spending including on the Revolutionary Guards.

Irans linking of its paramilitary proxies in a Shiite axis of power across Iraq and through Syria to the Mediterranean, has been crucial to its strategy of countering US influence as it has come under pressure from sanctions.

US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook agreed that US sanctions were having an impact on Irans funding of paramilitary groups, saying it was "further evidence that our campaign of maximum pressure is successfully depriving the (Iranian) regime of revenue to fund its terror proxies and other destabilizing actions across the region." He did not discuss the degree of the impact.

The squeeze on militia financing also follows the killing of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, who died in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January.

The loss of the senior military commander, who created an Iran-aligned axis of influence across the Middle East and steered political allies in Iraq, has dealt a blow to the operations of paramilitary groups and Irans broader aims in Iraq, according to the three commanders as well as the regional official and a senior Iranian diplomat.

The Iran-backed paramilitary groups helped the Iraqi government defeat Islamic State in 2017. They have dominated the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an Iraqi state-controlled institution that is an umbrella grouping of militias, including and smaller Shia groups that object to Iranian dominance.

The PMF was formally integrated into Iraqs armed forces and has led many security operations.

A PMF spokesman, Muhannad al-Aqabi, declined to comment on any issues to do with groups backed directly by Iran. The PMF receives funding and equipment through official channels via the Iraqi state, even if the ultimate source of the money is often Iran, Aqabi said.

A spokesman at the public relations office of Irans elite security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC, denied that Iran finances the militias. The Islamic Republic has always supported the oppressed people in the region and beyond and our policy has not changed. But we do not provide financial support to those who fight against Americas hegemony in our region.

When asked by Reuters whether Irans financial and military support of Iraqi paramilitaries had declined, Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Irans mission to the United Nations in New York, said: These rumors are designed to sow discord between the two nations and are doomed to fail.

He added that Iran is fully supportive of the Iraqi government and that the two countries engage closely in all matters of mutual interest but that Iran doesnt interfere in its neighbour's internal affairs.

A spokesman for the Iraqi prime ministers office wasnt immediately available for comment. Other Iraqi government officials couldnt be reached or didnt respond to requests for comment.

Tehran has long seen its paramilitary partners as a way of exerting its presence in Iraq and countering the influence of Washington, a critical ally for Baghdad.

US President Donald Trump started to re-impose sanctions in 2018, including measures targeting the Revolutionary Guards, in an attempt to curb Tehrans missile and nuclear programs and diminish the Islamic Republics influence in the Middle East. Iran has said the US sanctions are illegal and hurt the Iranian people.

Prior to the US re-imposing sanctions, Tehran was sending $12 million to $15 million a month to its militia allies in Iraq, a major OPEC oil producer and one of the United States most important allies in the Middle East, said the commander and another member of a powerful militia.

In addition to interruptions to funding from Iran, the three paramilitary commanders said border closures and the pandemic had reduced the flow of other types of support, including ammunition and training for Iraqi fighters sent to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad in the multi-sided conflict.

The training, said the second commander, included street fighting, the use of anti-armour rockets, and the use of drones to triangulate enemy positions. That has all stopped, he said.

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New Delhi, July 2 : Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday announced the commencement of remote teaching-learning activities for students of city government schools starting next Monday.

In the wake of the closure of schools till July 31, the Directorate of Education has devised an alternate teaching-learning plan to reduce the academic loss of students in classes KG to XII of all government and aided schools in Delhi.

"Schools are closed, but learning will continue. Learning with human feel is the new mantra of Delhi government's teaching-learning approach. We are following the principle that digital divide should not come in the way of children's access to learning opportunities," said Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia.

A plan of action in this regard has been worked out for the students through a combination of strategies using digital devices and support of the parents and the school managements.

From KG to XII, classes have been divided into three cohorts to follow three distinct strategies to support the learning of students.

For KG to Class VIII, daily syllabus agnostic worksheets with content and questions, which will promote reading, writing, understanding, basic numeracy and happiness among the students, will be sent by the teachers.

Similarly, for Class IX and X, daily subject-specific worksheets with subject-related content to strengthen the basic understanding of core subject matters will be sent to the students.

In case of Class XI and XII, live online classes of up to two-hour duration in 12 subjects having the highest enrolment, starting with most basic topics, would be conducted daily.

All the head of schools have been asked to ensure that the class teachers have access to the updated WhatsApp group of students of their respective sections. Teachers will also maintain a list of the number of parents who are not available on WhatsApp.

Step by step process has been laid down by which students of KG to Class X, which are in cohorts 1 and 2, will get specially developed worksheets through their class teachers on WhatsApp.

Those parents who are not in the WhatsApp groups will be contacted over the phone by the concerned class teachers and be invited to the school to collect the worksheets for the entire week. Only the parents will be invited, following the physical distancing protocol.

The completed assignments would be sent back by the students or their parents to the teachers through WhatsApp. Those collecting the worksheets physically will return the completed assignments to the concerned teachers in a similar manner and pick up the new worksheets.

For students of Class XII, live online classes will start from next week in 12 subjects having the highest enrolment.

These classes will be of approximately 45 minutes each and not more than two classes will held in a day. The respective subject teachers in the schools will follow up with their students over phone or WhatsApp and clear the doubts, if any.

For Class XI students, live classes will start after the readmission of students post the Class X board exam results.

Further, apart from these regular teaching-learning activities, additional optional online teaching-learning activities will be added from time to time to enhance the learning activities of the students.

The Directorate of Education will track the coverage and effectiveness of the remote teaching-learning approach on a regular basis.
New Delhi, July 2 : An independent court of the United Nations has held Italy guilty of breaching India's freedom of navigation in the 2012 naval dispute between the two countries and rejected Italy's claim of compensation from India.

On February 15, 2012, two Indian fishermen aboard the Indian fishing vessel, St. Antony, were allegedly killed by two Italian marines aboard the Italian tanker 'Enrica Lexie' off the coast of Kerala. The Indian Navy intercepted the Italian tanker and detained the two marines, triggering an international conflict over legal jurisdiction and functional immunity.

The two marines were released and returned to Italy after two and four years, respectively. The Arbitral Tribunal of the United Nations was tasked to resolve the conflict over jurisdiction.

In a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday, the government said that the Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2015 on the request of Italy in respect of the 2012 dispute upheld the conduct of the Indian authorities.

The court "held that the actions of the Italian military officers and, consequently, Italy breached India's freedom of navigation under UNCLOS Articles 87(1)(a) and 90." The Tribunal observed that India and Italy had concurrent jurisdiction over the incident and a valid legal basis to institute criminal proceedings against the marines, the statement said. The court also rejected Italy's claim of compensation for the detention of the marines.

"However, it found that the immunities enjoyed by the marines as state officials operate as an exception to the jurisdiction of the Indian courts and, hence, preclude them to judge the marines," the Tribunal said.

The UN court took note of the commitment expressed by Italy to resume its criminal investigation into the events that led to the killing of two Indian fishermen.

The Tribunal also decided that India is entitled to payment of compensation in connection to loss of life, physical harm, material damage to property and moral harm suffered by the captain and other crew members of 'St. Antony'. The parties involved in the case are invited to consult with each other with a view to reaching agreement on the amount of compensation due to India, the court said.

The UN court shall retain jurisdiction should either party or both parties wish to apply for a ruling from the Arbitral Tribunal in respect of the quantification of compensation due to India, the statement said.

Reacting to the verdict, the government in New Delhi said that it "has taken note of the award and will be in touch with relevant entities on the matter".
New York, July 2 : Exercise can slow down or prevent the development of macular degeneration and may also help reduce other common causes of vision loss, such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, say researchers.

The study, published in the Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, found that exercise reduced the harmful overgrowth of blood vessels in the eyes of lab mice by up to 45 per cent.

This tangle of blood vessels is a key contributor to macular degeneration and several other eye diseases.

"That is basically the most sophisticated study that has been done. This study offers hard evidence from the lab for the very first time," said study researcher Bradley Gelfand from the University of Virginia in the US.

However, the research found that the bar for receiving the benefits from exercise was relatively low -- more exercise didn't mean more benefit.

"Mice are kind of like people in that they will do a spectrum of exercise. As long as they had a wheel and ran on it, there was a benefit. The benefit that they obtained is saturated at low levels of exercise," Gelfand said.

An initial test comparing mice that voluntarily exercised versus those that did not found that exercise reduced the blood vessel overgrowth by 45 per cent.

A second test, to confirm the findings, found a reduction of 32 per cent. The scientists aren't certain exactly how exercise is preventing the blood vessel overgrowth. There could be a variety of factors at play, they say, including increased blood flow to the eyes.

The researchers noted that the onset of vision loss is often associated with a decrease in exercise.

"It is fairly well known that as people's eyes and vision deteriorate, their tendency to engage in physical activity also goes down. It can be a challenging thing to study in older people," Gelfand said.

The researchers already have submitted grant proposals in hopes of obtaining funding to pursue their findings further.

"The next step is to look at how and why this happens, and to see if we can develop a pill or method that will give you the benefits of exercise without having to exercise," the authors wrote.
Patna, July 2 : In Bihar, more people were killed by lightning strikes in a week than due to coronavirus. On Thursday, 26 more people died in fresh lightning strikes across the state.

An official of the Disaster Management Department said, according to information received from the districts, 26 people died due to lightning strikes on Thursday in the state - six in Patna, four in East Champaran, seven in Samastipur, three in Katihar, two each in Shivhar and Madhepura and one each in Purnia and West Champaran districts.

The Meteorological Department on Wednesday had issued an alert for heavy rain and thunderstorms in the next 48 hours in Bihar.

On Tuesday, 11 people had died by lightning in various districts of Bihar, while on June 26, at least 96 people died across Bihar in lightning strikes.

So far more than 78 people have died due to Covid-19 in Bihar in more than three months since the first case was detected in the state and more than 10,000 are infected with the virus, while more than 125 people were killed by lightning strikes in the state in just a week.
Srinagar, July 2 : The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court on Thursday issued notices to the Union Finance Ministry, the Union Home Ministry, the J&K government, the Reserve Bank of India and the J&K Bank Ltd, the lead bank in the UT, on a PIL challenging charging of interest on loans during the moratorium period.

The notice is returnable within two weeks.

The PIL, filed by prominent local businessman Sheikh Feroz Ahmad, before a division bench of Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice Rajnesh Oswal has prayed for directions to the authorities concerned so that no interest is charged on loans those have been put under moratorium because of the losses suffered by businesses due to the ongoing pandemic.

Interestingly, the PIL has revealed that so far four moratoria were announced by the J&K government in 2014, 2016, 2019 and 2020, but all the financial institutions that have made advances to the business community have been charging interest on these loans and thereby the moratorium is applicable to only non-payment of instalments during the period.

"The charging of interest by the financial institutions on loans.... those have come under the moratorium has defeated the very purpose of declaring moratorium on loans.

"It defeats the very purpose of announcing the moratorium. What relief does a borrower get when he has to pay interest on a loan where instalments are put on hold because of the moratorium? "Instead of helping the business community, the interest applied during one quarter becomes principle for the next quarter, thereby attracting interest on interest," Feroz Ahmed told IANS.
Guwahati, July 2 : The Assam Cabinet's approval of an ordinance to allow conversion of land without multiple clearances from the certain authorities for setting up Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) set off protests within and outside the state on Thursday.

According to police and official sources, agitators from the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) burnt copies of the "MSME Ordinance" in many parts of the state on Thursday. The AASU protestors called the "MSME Ordinance" as a "betrayal of trust" by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government that had come to power in 2016 promising to protect 'jati' (race), 'mati' (land) and 'bheti' (hearth).

A senior Assam government official on condition of anonymity told IANS that in a major decision to boost "Aatma Nirbhar Assam" (self reliant Assam), the council of ministers headed by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal finalised the MSME ordinance putting an end to the process of taking multiple permissions for setting up MSMEs in the state for next three years.

Assam's Industry and Commerce Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary has clarified that the ordinance would not be applicable for hazardous industries and for large or big industries and under the ordinance no industry would be allowed in eco-sensitive zones.

The minister said that the ordinance has been endorsed by the state Cabinet on June 29 only to facilitate the local entrepreneurs and youths in MSME sectors. AASU general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi said that the BJP government has taken advantage of the COVID-19 situation to deprive the indigenous people in the name of reviving the economy.

"Instead of seeking investments to develop the farm economy of the local people, the state government is favouring industrialists who have very limited regard for the indigenous people, the local land and the environment," Gogoi told the media.

He said that the proposed ordinance, which awaits Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi's assent, would overrule all prevailing laws and violate the implementation of the Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, which gave constitutional safeguards to the genuine natives of the state.

The All Assam Tribal Sangha and Anchalik Gana Morcha also condemned the ordinance too.

Rajya Sabha member Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, who is also the chief convener of Anchalik Gana Morcha said that the "MSME Ordinance", if approved, would be the second blow to the people of Assam after the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

The Delhi-based Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) has urged the Assam Governor not to give his assent to the "disastrous MSME Ordinance" in the veil plea of promoting MSMEs. RRAG director Suhas Chakma in a statement said that the ordinance effectively suspends the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act of 2013, the Forest Rights Act of 2006, Chapter X of the Assam Land And Revenue Regulation of 1886, the Environment Protection Act of 1986 and the Biological Diversity Act of 2002, which prohibit certain land acquisition and prescribe the manner in which land can be acquired.

Chakma said that there is no provision either in the Indian Constitution or in the existing laws to suspend their operation for the purposes of acquiring lands to set up industries. "The ordinance would be disastrous for the MSMEs as their investment shall remain stuck because of the illegality of land acquisition," the RRAG director said.
Mumbai, July 2 : Bellwether stock index NSE Nifty50 will exclude natural resources major Vedanta from July 31.

The Index Maintenance Sub-Committee (IMSC) of the NSE decided to make the change as Vedanta has proposed a voluntary delisting.

In its place, HDFC Life Insurance Company will be included in the index from July 31.

"The IMSC has decided to replace Vedanta Ltd (VEDL) from various indices on account of proposed voluntary delisting," the NSE said in a statement.

"The changes shall become effective from July 31, 2020 (close of July 30, 2020)." The NSE Indices is a subsidiary of NSE which provides a variety of indices and index related services for the capital markets.

It owns and manages a portfolio of indices under the Nifty brand of NSE, including the flagship index, the Nifty50.

The Nifty equity indices comprises of broad-based benchmark indices, sectoral indices, strategy indices, thematic indices and customised indices.
Mumbai, July 2 : A Twitter handle dedicated to 'Nepometer, described as an app to gauge how 'Nepotostic a film is, has been impressing netizens no sooner it was launched by late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's brother-in-law Vishal Kirti's brother Mayuresh Krishna.

The official handle describes Nepometer as a device "providing score and rating on Nepotistic and Independent Bollywood movies and TV".

The first film rated on Thursday on the Nepometer is for Mahesh Bhatt's upcoming "Sadak 2", starring Alia Bhatt and Pooja Bhatt in the cast, and produced by their uncle Mukesh Bhatt.

According to the Nepometer, the film is 98 per cent Nepotistic! "#Sadak2 is 98% Nepotistic. We rated it based on 5 categories, Producer, Lead Artists, Supporting Artists, Director & Writer. 4 out of 5 categories have Bollywood Family members. When #nepometer is high it's time to #boycottbollywood..Will you watch this movie? Tell us in comments," tweeted @nepometer.

The Nepometer initiative launched on Twitter seeks to fight nepotism in Bollywood with adequate information.

"Fight Bollywood Nepotism with Information. We will provide rating for movies based on how nepotistic or independent movie crew is. If the #nepometer is high, then it's time to #boycottbollywoodnepotism #fightnepotism," reads a tweet describing the app.

Users were suitably impressed. Reacting to the Nepometer rating of "Sadak 2", a user tweeted: "#Nepotism is an issue whn it gives opportunity to non deserving 1s hvng 0/low acting skills like AP, SAK, VD etc. Thr r some good #nepokids actors too like Shahid K, RanbirK, Hrithik, FarhanA. Will b grt if #Nepometer considers all unbiased angle." Reacting to the tweet, the Nepometer makers replied: "Agreed. Goal is to drive change of overall composition. We are not saying don't make movies with your kids. But the overall crew should have diversity. If one leading artist is nepo kid, let's have another leading independent artist. Same goes with other categories like Director etc." Sushant Singh Rajput's death has once again stirred the debate on the alleged practice of nepotism in Bollywood. Netizens feel, the young and talented actor was a victim of nepotism. Now it seems, his family also believes the same.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Baramulla: A medical worker collects sample from a person for COVID-19 tests at a 'Booth type sampling Centre' set up in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla amid cornavirus pandemic, on Apr 7, 2020. (Photo: ANS) Image Source: IANS News

Jammu, July 2 : Eight patients succumbed on Thursday in Jammu and Kashmir as the union territory on Thursday recorded the highest single-day Covid-19 deaths so far.

Doctors at different hospitals said eight Covid-19 patients succumbed as the total number of people killed by the dreaded virus rose to 115 in Jammu and Kashmir.

Meanwhile, 154 people tested positive on Thursday, 20 from Jammu division and 134 from Kashmir division as the total number of Covid patients in Jammu and Kashmir rose to 7,849.

So far, 4,974 people have completely recovered.

The number of active cases in Jammu and Kashmir is now 2,760 out of which 432 are in Jammu division and 2,328 are in Kashmir division.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, July 2 : China may be crying foul as some of its companies are being shut out of bids in other countries, but it has been for long following discriminatory policies against foreign investors.

In China, long-term visas are really difficult to get. Investors need to form a company and make an investment of either $500,000 in China's underdeveloped west, over $1,000,000 in a central province, or $2,000,000 in any other region to get a Chinese investment visa.

Foreigners (and locals as well) can't own freehold property in China. Every plot of land belongs purely to the state and can only be obtained on a 70-year leasehold at maximum. This makes business very difficult for real estate investors.

Stock investors also face severe restrictions. Foreigners can only buy "A-Shares" via Hong Kong, and one needs to open a Hong Kong brokerage account to do so.

In addition, China relies on the Special Administrative Measures for Foreign Investment Access (known as the "nationwide negative list") to categorise market access restrictions for foreign investors in defined economic sectors.

Foreign participation in many industries important to US investors remain restricted, including financial services, culture, media, telecommunications, vehicles and transportation equipment.

This makes things more difficult due to lack of transparency and lack of rule of law in China's regulatory and legal systems, leaving foreign investors vulnerable to discriminatory practices such as selective enforcement of regulations and interference by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in judicial proceedings.

Some US businesses have reported that local officials and regulators sometimes only accept investments with "voluntary" performance requirements or technology transfer that helps develop certain domestic industries and support the local job market.

Provincial and municipal governments will sometimes restrict access to local markets, government procurement, and public works projects even for foreign firms that have already invested in the province or municipality.

In addition, Chinese regulators have reportedly pressured foreign firms in some sectors to disclose IP content or provide IP licences to Chinese firms, often at below market rates. These practices run contrary to WTO principles.

China has also restricted the ability of both domestic and foreign operators of "critical information infrastructure" to transfer personal data and important information outside China, while also requiring those same operators to only store data physically in China.

Foreign firms also fear that calls for use of "secure & controllable" and "secure & trustworthy" technologies will curtail sales opportunities for foreign firms or that foreign companies may be pressured to disclose the source code and other proprietary information, putting the IP at risk.

China's Property Law stipulates that residential property rights will renew automatically, while commercial and industrial grants shall be renewed if the renewal does not conflict with other public interest claims.

A number of foreign investors have reported that their land use rights were revoked and given to developers to build neighborhoods designated for building projects by government officials. Investors often complain that compensation in these cases has been nominal.

China also imposes requirements that US firms develop their IP in China or transfer their IP to Chinese entities as a condition to accessing the Chinese market, or to obtain tax and other preferential benefits available to domestic companies. One in five corporations said that China has stolen their IP within the last one year.

According to a report, "The Digital Hand", published by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, implementation of China's Social Credit System (SCS) has the potential for discriminatory use towards international companies.

Some of the rating requirements apply equally to all market participants but are more difficult for international companies to fulfill. This appears to be the case for the State Administration for Market Regulations (SAMR) blacklisting mechanism for "heavily distrusted entities" which makes the SCS usable in trade conflicts.

Chinese companies have the advantage in navigating the intricacies of the system, potentially enhanced by better information flows from the government authorities.
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New Delhi, July 2 : The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Thursday announced the appointment of Ajai Puri, Chief Operating Officer (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel as its Chairman for the year 2020-21.

The telecom industry body concluded its Annual General Body Meeting for the Financial Year 2019-20, with the announcement of its leadership for the term 2020-21.

Pramod Kumar Mittal, President, Reliance Jio Infocomm, will be the Vice Chairman of the Association, said a COAI statement.

Puri has been with Bharti Airtel since 2004, and has held several senior leadership positions including Director for Market Operations and Director and CEO, DTH, it said.

Mittal of Reliance Jio comes with a rich experience of 42 years in telecommunications.

Puri said: "It is a privilege for me to take on this role and I would like to thank all the members of COAI for considering me worthy of this responsibility. The digital communications industry has once again risen to serve India and has kept the nation connected during this unprecedented phase." Mittal said: "It's a pleasure to take the responsibility as Vice Chairman of COAI and continue to work with the industry to bring about the nextlevel of reforms in order to uplift and strengthen the sector while initiating measures for the benefit of end consumers." COAI DG Mathews said that as the industry continues to play its critical role, the future has a lot in store for it with the ecosystem gearing up for 5G.
Mumbai, July 2 : Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt on Thursday took to social media to express her gratitude to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for inviting her to be a member. In the same message, Alia claimed that social media divides people.

"I thank The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for inviting me to be a member of the Academy. I feel at once honoured and humbled." "There is also a deep satisfaction in seeing that the voice of Indian cinema is finding a very well deserved platform on the world stage. Every year, more actors, filmmakers and technicians from India are recognized by the Academy and Indian cinema continues to reach the hearts and homes of people all over the world." "I truly believe that cinema, like water, find its level. And, like water, it knows no race, class, border or geography and flows freely. It takes everything in its course: audiences who passionately love or hate it, critics who dissect it, students who immerse themselves in it. Our opinions about films maybe divided, but cinema as a whole is a powerful binding and unifying force." "In a world that can be unsure and fragmented, at a time when the very social media that is meant to connect people ends up dividing them, movies are the glue that binds us," reads Alia Bhatt's message on Instagram.

Bollywood stars Alia Bhatt and Hrithik Roshan are among the 819 artistes and executives who have received invitations to join The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Alia Bhatt's allegation against social media comes at a time when she is being targeted by trolls and receiving hatred from netizens for being a star kid in the film industry that is allegedly dominated by nepotism. Netizens have been vocal about nepotism and targeting star kids ever since Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's demise on June 14.
New Delhi, July 2 : In a major breakthrough in the 2019 Pulwama terror attack case in which 40 CRPF troopers were killed, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday said it has arrested one more accused who was in touch with Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members in Pakistan.

An NIA spokesperson here said that it has arrested Mohammad Iqbal Rather, 25, a resident of Budgam in Jammu & Kashmir.

This is sixth arrest in the February 2019 CRPF convoy terror attack case.

The NIA official claimed Rather had facilitated the movement of Muhammad Umar Farooq, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist and a key conspirator in this case, after he infiltrated into Indian territory in Jammu region in April, 2018, from the National Highway near international border to south Kashmir.

Farooq, along with others, had assembled the IED used in the terror attack.

Rather had been in judicial custody since September, 2018 in another Jaish-e-Mohammed related case investigated by NIA.

After Rather was produced before the NIA Special Court in Jammu on Thursday he was taken into seven-day agency custody for his interrogation.

The official said that initial examination has revealed that Rather was in constant touch with Pakistan-based leadership of JeM and was in communication with them over secure messaging applications.

"Rather was part of the transportation module of JeM terrorist organisation," the official said.
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel administers the oath of office and secrecy to BJP leader Yashodhara Raje Scindia as the new state cabinet minister at a function in the Raj Bhawan in Bhopal on July 2, 2020. Madhya Pradesh Chief Ministe Image Source: IANS News

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan inducted 28 new ministers including 12 from Jyotiraditya Scindia's camp, in Bhopal on July 2, 2020. Of the 22 Congress MLAs who resigned from the Congress to join the BJP, 14 are now in the Image Source: IANS News

Bhopal, July 2 : With 14 non-MLAs bagging ministerial berths, the 33-member BJP ministry in Madhya Pradesh has the look of Jyotiradiya Scindia's team with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as the "caretaker Chief Minister".

The BJP refuses to admit it, but it is saddled with a horrible bargain. Thursday's expansion took 100 days to materialise and has left the party with a tall order of winning the by-elections for most of the 24 seats. The entire exercise has been by-election centric.

In the process, the BJP leadership has created many dissidents. Former Chief Minister Uma Bharti was also disappointed with the latest expansion. She said she had written to party Vice President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and state unit President V.D. Sharma about the lack of regional and caste balance in the team.

The other key faction leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is seen as Home Minister Amit Shah's point person in MP has also been left high and dry. His protege Ramesh Maindola has been left out while Usha Thakur from the camp opposed to him is in. Thakur is seen as a Rajnath Singh loyalist.

Narottam Mishra who is being promoted as a counter power centre against Chouhan has been denied the Deputy Chief Minister's berth, apparently because Scindia was insisting on Tulsi Silawat to be made a Deputy CM too. Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar who has no love lost for Scindia is not pleased with the team either.

Chouhan failed to have his way with senior loyalists Rampal Singh, Rajendra Shukla, Gaurishanker Bisen and Sanjay Pathak being left out. Scindia, who plotted the fall of the Kamal Nath-led government to facilitate the return of the BJP to power just after a 15-month gap, now has 14 ex-MLAs in the ministry. The BJP leadership claims it has tried to take the party forward with a judicious mixture of youth and experience.

Some BJP leaders feel Scindia would drive the Chouhan government from the back seat. "After some days, Scindia will become MP Chief Minister," a senior BJP MLA close to Chouhan, said sarcastically.

But as the BJP owes Scindia its new innings, it is not surprising to find him calling the shots. The allocation of portfolios to the ministers will further reflect the clout different leaders hold in the ministry.

Dr Keshav Pandey a Scindia loyalist says it was only expected that there would be more ministers from Gwalior-Chambal region as 16 out of 24 assembly seats going to by-elections are from this region. Seven from Scindia's camp and three BJP MLAs --Yashodhara Raje Scindia, Arvind Bhandoria, and Bharat Singh Kushwaha -- have been made ministers from the region, he said.

Meanwhile, former Chief Minister Kamal Nath said never did the state have a ministry where 14 of 33 members are non-MLAs. "This is distortion of constitutional provisions and a cruel joke on the electorate," he said, adding that he was "personally very sad to not to find many qualified, experienced, loyal BJP in the cabinet".

Congress Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha said: "I congratulate team BJP and former Congress colleagues for becoming ministers. Can't offer them best wishes though. People who achieve power by unethical means will never receive my best wishes. This is not an elected government but a manufactured one".
New Delhi, July 2 : Cracking its whip against bank defaulters, the CBI on Thursday carried out searches at the premises of Bulandshahr-based Santosh Overseas Limited and its director Sunil Mittal in connection with an alleged fraud of over Rs 424 crore.

CBI officials here said that it conducted searches in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr and Delhi.

The CBI booked the company and Mittal in connection with a complaint from a consortium of seven banks led by the IDBI, alleging that they were defrauded to the tune of Rs 424.07 crore.

A CBI spokesperson said that it was alleged that the borrower company had availed packing credit from the banks on a fake purchase order from an associate concern.

"It was further alleged that the company was maintaining current accounts with non-consortium banks and the sale proceeds were routed through these accounts without the knowledge of consortium members," the spokesperson said.

The CBI has alleged that heavy transactions were made by the company with related parties who did not have TIN registration etc.

Searches at the premises of the accused at Delhi and Bulandshahr led to the recovery of certain incriminating documents and material, the official added.
Gandhinagar, July 2 : Gujarat again recorded the highest single-day spike in the number of positive cases on Thursday, as 681 fresh cases took the states Covid-19 tally to 33,999.

For the second time in three months, Surat's single-day Covid-19 tally on Thursday surpassed that of Ahmedabad's to be the highest in the state.

A total 19 persons succumbed to the dreaded disease on Thursday, taking the state's Covid-19 death toll to 1,888, while as many as 563 persons were discharged from different hospitals across the state.

For the sixth day in a row, Gujarat reported more than 600 positive cases, each day with a new record. With an average of 640 cases getting reported daily, the state has registered 3,841 positive cases in the last six days.

Of the 681 cases reported on Thursday, Surat topped the chart with 227 cases to emerge as the new Covid-19 hotspot in the state. The Diamond City was followed by Ahmedabad (211), Vadodara (57), Rajkot (26), Bhavnagar (14), Junagadh (13), Banaskantha and Surendranagar (12 each), Jamnagar (11), Bharuch and Patan (10 each), Mehsana (9), Valsad (8), Amreli and Gandhinagar (7 each), Kutch and Kheda (5 each), Aravalli, Panchmahals and Navsari (4 each), Anand, Sabarkantha, Botad, Gir-Somnath, Dahod, Chhota Udepur and Morbi (3 each), and Mahisagar, Devbhumi Dwarka, Porbandar and Tapi (1 each).

Of the 19 casualties on Thursday, Ahmedabad reported 7 deaths, followed by Surat (4), Vadodara (2), and Junagadh, Mahesana, Patan, Kheda, Valsad and Surendranagar (1 each), taking the state's death toll to 1,888.

Ahmedabad has reported the maximum number of fatalities till now at 1,459, followed by Surat (168), Vadodara (53), Gandhinagar (31), Aravalli and Patan (17 each), Panchmahals (15), Bhavnagar and Anand (13 each), Mehsana (12) and Banaskantha (11).

Gujarat has one of the highest Covid-19 mortality rates in the country at 5.55 per cent.

On a positive note, with 563 patients getting discharged on Thursday, the number recoveries in the state has gone up to 24,601.

At present, there are 7,510 active cases in Gujarat, out of which the condition of 7,442 is stable, whereas 68 critical patients are still on ventilator support.

Over 2.5 lakh people are quarantined in the state at the moment, 2,48,062 under home quarantine and 3,060 in different government facilities.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Dhaka, July 2 : A Kuwaiti major general, working in the Interior Ministry, has been suspended in connection with his alleged link with human trafficking and visa trading business of Bangladesh lawmaker M. Shahidul Islam Papul in the Gulf kingdom, as per reports.

The lawmaker, who was charged with money laundering and human trafficking, is in jail there, the Arab Times has reported.

Kuwait's Deputy Chief Minister and Interior Minister, Anas Al Saleh issued a decree suspending Maj Gen Mazen Al Jarrah, who was an Assistant Under Secretary in the ministry.

Papul, an Independent lawmaker, had named the army officer as one of the officials who took bribes from his company to allow his visa trading.

Al Saleh told the parliament that no one found guilty in illegal visa trading will be spared. He also said that Kuwait is planning to heighten the level of punishment for human trafficking and visa trading.

Earlier, five Bangladeshi expatriates testified against Islam before a Kuwait court, claiming to have paid him upto 3,000 dinars to be sent to Kuwait.

"The prosecution heard testimonies of the expatriates, who also paid annually in exchange of renewing their residency," the Arab Times reported.

On June 6, Kuwait's CID arrested Papul on the charges of human trafficking, visa fraud and money laundering. Bangladesh's criminal investigation agency found evidence of human trafficking and smuggling of about 53 million Kuwaiti dinars (about 1,400 crore Bangladeshi takas).

A court denied Papul's bail plea and sent him to jail.

Other media reports said over the past two months, a number of government agencies have extended more than four government contracts of Papul's companies, triggering another scam.

The contracts were completed years ago, but some of them ended over the past two months, and were extended, in view of the authorities' needs amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The total value of the four contracts is one million Kuwait dinars ($3.25 million), and most of them are related to workers employed as cleaners.

One of the government agencies, which manage vital facilities, sent a letter earlier this month to the central agency for public tenders to extend the contract with a Bangladeshi lawmaker, starting from July 1 to January 19, 2021, but the agency postponed the process, as per the Gulf News.

There is another government agency with religious activity that had recently assigned additional duties to a company of Papul, managing the cleaning of facilities for only one governorate in the original contract, but another governorate was added to his work, which raised the value of the contract to 720,000 dinars, and it was also extended until the end of November 2020.

Papul is Managing Director and CEO Marafie Kuwaitia Group and has five million dinars in assets in Kuwait.

Sources said that he has four companies in Kuwait, working in general trade, contracting and cleaning of streets and buildings.

Meanwhile, two Kuwaiti lawmakers have been indicted, while three others are likely to be charged in connection with the case.

This comes against the backdrop of the prosecution's demands to toughen penalties for certain offences currently classified as misdemeanours and attracting just a small fine.

Kuwait's Attorney General has decided to keep Papul in jail, and the public prosecutor ordered continuing the imprisonment of the remaining accused but released the owner of a company on bail of 2,000 dinars.

The prosecution approached the Central Bank of Kuwait to freeze the bank accounts of Papul and his company, whose financial balance amounts to about 5 million dinars, including 3 million dinars capital.

Apart from the bribes to be sent to Kuwait, workers also paid huge sums to the company for renewing their residency every year.

In response to a complaint filed in February, Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission opened an enquiry into the allegation that Papul amassed 1,400 crore takas by trafficking people to Kuwait and laundered the money to different countries.

It was then only that Kuwaiti media reported that three Bangladeshis were operating a human trafficking racket in the country and that one of them was a "member of parliament in Bangladesh".

According to the report, the trio "occupied sensitive positions" in three major companies that sent over 20,000 Bangladeshi workers to Kuwait in exchange for an amount believed to be more than thousands of crores of takas.

Papul, who has pleaded not guilty, told the public prosecutor that some Kuwaiti officials were trying to hinder his work.

"No one can complain about the success of what I have done.

"But some Kuwaiti officials tried to block my work. I paid a bribe to stop them," he claimed.

Noting that no other company has the kind of equipment his company has or has provided quality completed service, he said: "But the 'problem' is some Kuwaiti officials." However, the reports said that Papul has not only confessed to his crimes to Kuwait's criminal investigation agency, but has also revealed the names of his associates in Kuwait and information about bribery.

Following the confession, the Kuwait government has also taken steps to confiscate about 138 crore takas from his bank accounts.
Bengaluru, July 2 : Concerned over rising Covid-19 cases in the state, Karnataka would ramp up testing to detect infected people early for isolating and quarantining them for treatment, said state Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar on Thursday.

"Though we have increased testing since April, we are ramping up the lab capacity to test more people daily to ascertain if they are infected or not," Sudhakar told reporters here.

The southern state has about 80 labs, including 44 state-run and 36 private to ramp up testing to 20,000 samples a day from 15,000 samples daily.

According to the health bulletin, of the 16,210 samples tested on Thursday, 14,470 turned negative, while 1,502 reported positive for Covid-19.

Of the 6,53,627 cumulative sample tested since March 10 across the state, 6,19,292 were negative, while 18,016 reported positive.

Of the 1,502 positive cases across the state, Bengaluru accounted for 889.

With 8,334 cured and discharged, including 271 on Thursday, active cases in the state are 9,406, while 272 died of the virus, including 19 during the day.

By making private hospitals and nursing homes allot 50 per cent of their beds to treat Covid-19 patients, the state government has also increase their capacity.

"Though asymptomatic cases will be isolated for home quarantine, we have increased beds by roping in private hospitals across the state to admit positive cases," asserted Sudhakar.

Unveiling a testing lab at Gadag Institute of Medical Sciences in the state's northwest district through video conference from here, Sudhakar said around 1.5 lakh households were surveyed so far to detect asymptomatic and identify vulnerable persons.

Gadag is about 380 km northwest of Bengaluru in the southern state.

The Medical Council of India has permitted the Gadag Institute of Medical Sciences to offer post-graduate courses within 5 years of its inception.
New Delhi, July 2 : Airline major IndiGo will provide up to 25 per cent 'Tough Cookie' discount on airfares to nurses and doctors who have served in these challenging times.

The airline launched the 'Tough Cookie' campaign on the occasion of National Doctor's Day to express gratitude towards the tireless commitment and service being provided by the medical fraternity to the nation.

"As part of the campaign, IndiGo will provide up to 25 per cent 'Tough Cookie' discount on airfares to the nurses and doctors who have serviced in these challenging times," the airline said in a statement.

According to the airline, the nurses and doctors will be required to provide valid hospital IDs at the time of check-in as a proof of their identity.

"The discount will be offered while booking through IndiGo's website, valid for sale and travel from July 1 till December 31, 2020," the airline said.
New Delhi, July 2 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday chaired a meeting via video conference with the Chief Ministers of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana for a unified strategy to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his counterparts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Yogi Adityanath and Manohar Lal Khattar, respectively, shared the measures being undertaken to check the spread of coronavirus as well as the preparedness to treat the patients in their respective states.

Shah emphasised on the need to focus on more testing of people suspected of Covid-19 so that the infection rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) could be controlled.

The Home Minister said that adoption of more testing via Rapid Antigen Test Kits will help bring the infection transmission rate below 10 per cent as suggested by the World Health Organization.

He said that nearly 90 per cent of screening is possible through these kits, which can be provided by the Centre to the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana in numbers desired by them.

Emphasising on the importance of the humanitarian perspective to save the lives of the poor and the needy, Shah said the focus should be on early hospitalisation of patients, so that the mortality rate can be reduced.

He also emphasised on the wide use of the Aarogya Setu and Itihas apps to help Covid-19 mapping in the NCR.

Shah added that the AIIMS Delhi telemedicine consultation model should be replicated in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana also.

Training for doctors in small hospitals in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana can be provided by AIIMS with the help of Tele-videography, he suggested.

V.K. Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, also gave a presentation on the strategy to tackle Covid-19 in the NCR. He provided details of the best practices adopted in Delhi-NCR and on the way ahead.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and senior officials of the Central as well as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi governments were present in the meeting.

Delhi has reported 89,802 Covid-19 cases so far, including 2,803 deaths. In Uttar Pradesh, the Covid-19 tally during the day reached 24,056, including 718 deaths.

Nearly 2,400 people have been infected in Gautam Buddh Nagar of which 22 have died. In Ghaziabad, the tally has crossed 850 with reports of 56 deaths.

In Haryana, 14,941 Covid-19 cases and 240 fatalities have been reported so far. Gurgaon and Faridabad districts have reported 92 and 80 deaths, respectively. The two districts jointly account for 9,300 cases.

On June 18, the Home Minister had held a similar meeting at his North Block office to implement a common strategy to tackle the pandemic. It was attended by Kejriwal, Delhi Police Commissioner S.N. Shrivastava, and senior officials from the NCR districts, Ministries of Home and Health, and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Authorities in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have imposed restrictions at different times on the movement of people between the states.

The Home Minister also held an all-party meeting last month, in which he urged all the political parties to set aside political differences and unite to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
A day after China passed and enacted a new national security law to govern Hong Kong, Japanese lawmakers kicked off official discussions over ways to welcome financial talent that may be contemplating leaving the international financial hub.

At the first meeting Wednesday of a new project team established by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, experts stressed an urgent need to create a more accommodating environment for foreign professionals. The team will assemble a package of recommendations this year.

A shorter path to permanent residency and tax breaks are some of the measures on the table, as Japan seeks to raise Tokyo's status as a global financial center.

The Hong Kong law passed Tuesday is widely expected to reduce the autonomy that has made the city attractive as an international financial hub, potentially redrawing the map of Asia's finance sector and providing an opening for Tokyo to boost its own status.

The legislation is "not likely to affect financial markets right away, but I think [Hong Kong] will undoubtedly lose its position as a finance center," Shigeharu Suzuki, chairman of the Japan Securities Dealers Association, told a news conference Wednesday.

But while Japan looks to vie with rival economies such as Singapore for talent, it has not been a favored destination for finance workers. A 2017 survey by Switzerland's IMD Business School ranked Japan as 51st in terms of appeal to foreign highly-skilled personnel -- the lowest among the Asian economies covered.

Japan issues visas for highly skilled professionals based on a point system that considers such factors as education, work history and salary. Recipients can stay in the country for five years, with possible eligibility for permanent residency if they meet certain conditions.

About 21,000 visas had been approved through Japan's point system at the end of 2019, according to the Immigration Services Bureau. While issuance is picking up, critics have pointed to issues including the complexity of the system, limits on residency time and restrictions on bringing family members.
New Delhi, July 2 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against Punjab Basmati Rice Ltd for cheating a consortium of six banks to the tune of Rs 350.84 crore by disposing off the stock and prime security.

The agency registered the case on a complaint filed by Canara Bank, Chandigarh, against Punjab Basmati Rice Ltd (borrower company). Some unidentified persons and bank officials have also been booked by the CBI.

It was alleged in the complaint that the accused had cheated the Canara Bank-led consortium comprising Andhra Bank, Union Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, IDBI Bank and UCO Bank to the tune of Rs 350.84 crore, including Rs 174.89 crore of Canara Bank, by disposing off the stock and prime security without any prior intimation or approval from the consortium of lender banks.

The CBI on Thursday also conducted searches at the premises of the accused directors and promoters of the firm -- Kulwinder Singh Makhani, Jasmeet Kaur and Manjit Singh Makhani -- and the premises of the company in Amritsar.

"All precautions were taken while conducting the searches and PPE kits were provided to the search teams. The investigation is continuing," the CBI said.
Srinagar, July 3 : One terrorist was killed and a CRPF jawan was injured in an encounter at Malbagh in Srinagar on Thursday night.

The firefight broke out after a joint team of the police and the security forces cordoned off the area on the basis of a specific intelligence input about the presence of terrorists there.

As the security forces zeroed in on the place where the terrorists were hiding, they came under a heavy volume of fire that triggered the encounter.
Kohima, July 3 : The Union Home Ministry (MHA) has extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Nagaland for another six months, officials said here on Thursday.

According to an official of the Nagaland Home Department, the mountainous state, bordering Myanmar, has been under the AFSPA for the past several decades.

In a notification, Joint Secretary, MHA, Satyendra Garg said that the Central government is of the opinion that the area comprising the whole of Nagaland is in such a disturbed and dangerous condition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power is necessary.

"Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (No. 28 of 1958), the Central Government hereby declares that whole of the said state to be a 'disturbed area' for a period of six months with effect from June 30, 2020 for the purpose of that Act," said the notification, issued on Tuesday.

The Nagaland government official said that the state has been requesting the Central government to resolve the long-ending Naga issues, involving the numerous outfits. The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), which had several rounds of negotiations with the Indian government in Delhi as well as outside India after signing a ceasefire pact in August 1997, is one of the most influential rebel groups in the northeastern region.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had signed a "framework agreement" with its leadership in 2015.

Nagaland Governor R.N. Ravi is also the Centre's interlocutor to hold talks with NSCN-IM and other Naga outfits.

Recently, Ravi had written to Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on the "deterioration of law and order in the state".

The Nagaland government, however, in a series of statements, claimed that the state is in a normal situation.
New Delhi, July 3 : The Delhi Police's Crime Branch has seized 500 kg of contraband cannabis, valued at more than Rs 5 crore in the international market, brought here in a truck, police said on Thursday.

According to police, the cannabis was smuggled in a specially-made cavity in a truck from Andhra Pradesh's Rajahmundry to Delhi and UP.

Truck driver Gulfam, a resident of Baghpat in UP, was arrested and interrogated.

During interrogation, he told police that he has been working as a driver with UP roadways from last 3-4 years. In due course of time, he came in contact with some people of his village who used to sell 'Ganja'. They lured him to smuggle it from Andhra Pradesh through which he could earn Rs 30,000 per trip.

Few days back, he was given a truck loaded with soaps to be delivered in Hyderabad. After delivering the consignment, he drove the empty truck to Rajahmundry where the contraband was loaded in the secret cavity.

"A part of the contraband was to be handed over at Ghazipur, Delhi and remaining was meant for Baghpat. Police nabbed him while he was waiting for the receiver near Samshan Ghat in Ghazipur," Rakesh Paweriya, DCP Crime Branch (Narcotics) said.
New Delhi, July 3 : After hours of grilling by Enforcement Directorate (ED) on links with fugitive Sterling Biotech promoters, Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel said the financial probe agency is working under some pressure as no proof has been found against him despite answering 128 questions.

This is the third time the ED questioned Patel under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 . Earlier he was first questioned on June 27 and then on June 30.

"I was asked 128 questions based on allegations but yet no proof was found against me. The agency was satisfied by my replies but the questioning is a result of political vendetta. I don't know under whose pressure they are working," Patel told mediapersons.

Patel said he is ready to answer more questions.

A team of ED on Thursday grilled Ahmed Patel at his residence for the third time in less than a week's time in connection with its probe into multi-crore bank fraud case by the Gujarat-based Sterling Biotech.
New Delhi, July 3 : A Delhi Police retired Assistant sub inspector's son was shot multiple times by an unidentified man in Delhi's Rohini Aman Vihar on Thursday night. He was rushed to the hospital but was declared brought dead.

"Nitin Dalal, son of a retired Delhi Police Assistant Sub Inspector was shot dead by some unknown persons. They came in a Santro car. Nitin was driving his brother's car when he was attacked. Neeraj, elder brother of Nitin is in property business. Efforts are been made to identify the accused and nab him," said DCP Rohini PK Mishra.

Since Nitin was driving his brother's car, police suspect it might be a case of mistaken identity. However, police said the real motive of the murder would be clear only when the accused is nabbed. Several teams of Delhi police have been formed to arrest the accused. The CCTV of the nearby areas is also being scanned.
West Penn Hospital, part of Allegheny Health Network (AHN.)

West Penn Hospital, part of Allegheny Heath Network (AHN), has been named one of the nations 100 Top Hospitals by IBM Watson Health for the second consecutive year.

The new report, published this week in Fortune magazine, spotlights the top-performing hospitals in the United States, based on a scorecard of publicly available clinical, operational, safety, financial, and patient satisfaction data.

IBM Watson Health recognizes hospitals of all sizes, in five different categories  major teaching hospitals, teaching hospitals, large community hospitals, medium community hospitals, and small community hospitals.

West Penn is among 25 facilities recognized in the teaching hospitals category. It is one of just two hospitals in the Pittsburgh area, and one of four in Pennsylvania, to be named to the 100 Top Hospitals list.

We are extremely proud to be named one of the nations top hospitals by one of the countrys most respected health care industry analysts, said Ron Andro, president of West Penn Hospital. This honor again is reflective of the extraordinary talent and dedication of our physicians, nurses, volunteers, and employees at every level.

This year marks the sixth time that West Penn Hospital has been named to the prestigious Top 100 Hospitals list, which has been published annually since 1993. To create its 2020 list, IBM Watson Health researchers evaluated more than 3,100 short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals.

West Penn Hospital has always held a special place in the hearts of those who are cared for within its walls, and this recognition by IBM Watson Health is a wonderful validation of the clinical excellence and compassion that the hospitals caregivers provide every day to those in need, said Cindy Hundorfean, AHN President and CEO. We cant express enough how grateful we are to Ron Andro and everyone at West Penn for consistently raising those standards.

The Watson Health 100 Top Hospitals study uses independent and objective research to analyze hospital performance in areas such as clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, patient experience and financial health. IBM Watson Health established the list to help identify best practices that may help other health care organizations achieve consistent, balanced, and sustainable high performance.

A cornerstone of Pittsburghs Bloomfield neighborhood, West Penn is a 333-bed teaching hospital and tertiary care facility. Among the many leading clinical programs based at the hospital are AHNs Womens Institute, Autoimmunity Institute, Esophageal and Lung Institute, blood and marrow transplant program, and the West Penn Burn Center.

The hospital continues to evolve and expand its clinical programs. In 2019, the hospital cut the ribbon on its expanded Level III neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and in the same year opened three new cancer care facilities for patients with breast, gynecologic and hematologic cancers.

In 2018, the hospital opened a first-in-the-region Healthy Food Center, which provides fresh, healthful foods to patients with diabetes who are screened by their doctor as being food insecure. West Penn is also home to the Alexis Joy D'Achille Center for Perinatal Mental Health, a one-of-a-kind program and facility dedicated to caring for women with post-partum depression and other anxiety disorders.

West Penn also was the first hospital in Pittsburgh to earn the American Nurses Credentialing Centers Magnet Recognition, the nations most prestigious honor for nursing excellence.

According to IBM Watson Health, compared to similar hospitals, the hospitals included on the Fortune and IBM Watson list had better results on key clinical and operational performance indicators. These include survival rates, patient complications, healthcare associated infections, 30-day mortality and 30-day hospital-wide readmission rates, length of stay, throughput in emergency rooms, inpatient expenses, profitability, and ratings from patients.

Hospitals, health systems, and the dedicated clinicians and staff who work at these organizations have emerged as true heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic and we are grateful to be able to recognize these extraordinary leaders at this time, said Kyu Rhee, M.D., M.P.P., Vice President and Chief Health Officer, IBM Watson Health.

From small community hospitals to major teaching hospitals, organizations on this list demonstrate a relentless commitment to high value, patient-centered care and innovation. It is clear that the COVID-19 crisis will be a catalyst for reinvention, and we believe these top performing hospitals are positioned to emerge stronger and smarter out of this crisis.

For more information, visit http://www.100tophospitals.com.

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Xtalks Life Science Webinars Because study conduct is already underway, the focus shifts beyond initial study implementation to the entire study process, requiring meticulous planning for simultaneous transition of administration, logistics and technology, as well as project and data management.

Although often not a component of the initial study plan, a contingency plan can be needed if a study is transitioned because of acquisition at the sponsor level, performance/capability issues or study re-design. When addressing this type of transition or rescue scenario, it is important to recognize the unique challenges that a study team will face. Because study conduct is already underway, the focus shifts beyond initial study implementation to the entire study process, requiring meticulous planning for simultaneous transition of administration, logistics and technology, as well as project and data management.

Effective, efficient transition of study conduct requires consideration of not only the sponsor, CRO and associated service providers but also particularly the study sites, to avoid losing or potentially to regain or energize participating sites.

Join Kevin Bishop, VP, RTSM, Bioclinica and Jeff Heilbraun, VP, Medical and Scientific Affairs Cardiac Safety Service, Bioclinica in a live webinar on Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 11am EDT (4pm BST/UK).

For more information or to register for this event, visit Anatomy of a Successful Study Transition: If I Knew Then What I Know Now.

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/
Attorneys Steve Hill and John North Our firm is comprised of professionals who thrive under pressure and are dedicated to achieving the goals set by our clients.

Steve Hill and John North, partners at the law firm Hill, Kertscher & Wharton, LLP, were recognized in the 2020 edition of Intellectual Asset Managements Patent 1000: The Worlds Leading Practitioners. This is the sixth consecutive year the two attorneys have been honored in IAMs 48-country analysis of leaders in patent practice. Hill, Kertscher & Wharton, LLP was also one of only twelve law firms in Georgia included as a top patent firm.

IAMs prestigious list is derived from an extensive qualitative research process that includes over 1,700 interviews of patent pros across the world conducted by a team of highly qualified, full-time analysts. Nicholas Richardson, research editor of the IAM Patent 1000 said of the 2020 edition, the IAM Patent 1000 delivers the most in-depth coverage of the market yet undertaken, pinpointing the best of the best in prosecution, litigation and licensing.

In addition to emphasizing HKWs status as one of the leading law firms in Georgia for patent litigation, IAMs guidebook noted that it's reputation for deploying compact but highly proficient litigation teams  whose members have a shared understanding of strategy... nets trial and PTAB success time and again. Its lean, efficient approach yields not only good outcomes, but also much-welcome cost savings.

Hill has been litigating complex intellectual property matters for more than 25 years and has established a reputation for outstanding results in high-stakes patent, trademark, and copyright disputes. North has been regularly called upon to represent clients across the globe in complex litigation over his 33-year career and is known for excelling in cases with sophisticated legal and factual issues.

Hill believes the international success of the law firm he co-founded is due in large part to the entire teams commitment to stay at the forefront of high-quality intellectual property legal services. Our firm is comprised of professionals who thrive under pressure and are dedicated to achieving the goals set by our clients, said Hill. Its through a continuous commitment to knowledge and advocacy training as well as a willingness to out-prepare and out-work opposing parties that we are able to produce exceptional results.

About Hill, Kertscher & Wharton, LLP: Nationally recognized for its work on behalf of businesses and individuals, HKWs litigation, corporate, employment, and intellectual property attorneys provide top tier legal representation to clients in the United States and abroad. The firm recently celebrated its 16th year of providing successful results and unmatched personal service to clients.


Paul Torrance is a chemical and applied quality engineer who joined the advanced life support for crew and thermal systems division of NASAs Johnson Space Center in 1985. He has published his new book The Dark Side of NASA: Missed Opportunities for Leadership and Imagination in a Bureaucracy: an illuminating analysis drawn from his years of work at the agency.

For the first time, the author Paul Torrance reveals the dark side of NASA. As a retired NASA engineer, his work experience in the trenches gives the reader a unique insight into the management system in place during the latter Apollo and Space Shuttle era, and what led to disaster.

Published by Page Publishing, Paul Torrances engrossing book is a thought-provoking work exploring the innate inefficiencies of organizations mired in bureaucratic protocol.

Readers who wish to experience this eye-opening work can purchase The Dark Side of NASA: Missed Opportunities for Leadership and Imagination in a Bureaucracy at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
As the world continues to hold out for a vaccine amidst rising numbers of new coronavirus infections, people around the world continue to debate the efficacy of mask wearing.

For some, especially those in Asian countries like Japan where theyave been wearing masks long before the pandemic, it simply makes sense to cover your mouth and nose when these are considered the primary routes of infection.

For others, though, a mask has become akin to a human rights violation, with people citing constitutional entitlements and using unsubstantiated negative health claims as reasons for not masking up.

Admittedly, the World Health Organisation added to the confusion early on in the health crisis, by flipping back and forth between advice regarding mask-wearing during the pandemic. Their updated guidelines now state:

aThe general public should wear non-medical masks where there is widespread transmission and when physical distancing is difficult, such as on public transport, in shops or in other confined or crowded environments.a

WHO may be late to the party when it comes to realising the effectiveness of masks in stopping the spread of the virus, but not everyone has been so slow on the uptake. In fact, Hollywood movie star Brad Pitt stopped a press event in Tokyo last year, months before anyone had even heard of COVID-19, to comment on the use of face masks and share his thoughts on them.

Pitt was in Tokyo for the premiere of Ad Astra in Japan, speaking about the movie to the assembled press on 12 September, when he spotted someone in the crowd wearing a face mask. He unexpectedly stopped the interviewer on stage to comment on the mask in an off-the-cuff moment captured in the video below.
BlueStar 140th Anniversary Limited Edition Platinum Range We have committed ourselves to making great American handcrafted appliances for 140 years. From our professional performance ranges to premium refrigeration, each BlueStar appliance is designed, engineered and handcrafted with pride by American workers.

BlueStar, manufacturer of high-performance, customizable appliances for the home, is proud to celebrate a landmark anniversary  140 years of high quality, custom manufacturing in Pennsylvania that has transformed home kitchens around America.

We have committed ourselves to making great American handcrafted appliances for 140 years. We are a company that was born in the USA and never left, said Eliza Sheffield, president, BlueStar. From our professional performance ranges to premium refrigeration, each BlueStar appliance is designed, engineered and handcrafted with pride by American workers. We are proud to celebrate our companys great history of providing high quality, bespoke products that are winning with consumers.

In honor of its milestone anniversary, BlueStar is launching a Limited Edition Platinum Series Range, featuring a custom Heritage Blue finish and commemorative star logo with special 140 year anniversary inscription. The Platinum Anniversary range  offered in sizes from 24 to 60  will be available from July 1 to December 31, 2020 and provides an added value of up to $2,640 to consumers. The top-selling Platinum Range Series features searing 25,000 BTU burners, an interchangeable griddle and charbroiler system and an oversized PowR oven that fits commercial-size sheet pans.

Originally known as the Prizer-Painter Stove and Heater Company, in its early days the company produced a full line of coal ranges, hot water heaters, furnaces and heating stoves, sold under many of the major brand names of the day. Many of those original models are still in service today across America. In the 1950s, Prizer also produced a full line of porcelain enamel cookware that was sold under the brand name Prizerware. Prizer continued to manufacture quality cooking ranges under the Prizer label, as well as for other high-end brands, and took a major step forward with the introduction of its advanced two-coat/one-fire enameling system. In 2002, Prizer introduced handcrafted, high-performance ranges for the residential market under the BlueStar brand. Since then, BlueStar has continued to strengthen its reputation as a top manufacturer of high performance appliances for the serious home chef, adding professional-grade custom ventilation and premium refrigeration to its venerable line.

American Workmanship, American Quality

Today, BlueStar is proud to produce award-winning home kitchen appliances including cooking equipment, kitchen hoods and premium refrigeration in its Pennsylvania factory. Using the finest, commercial-grade materials, each product is built by hand by skilled American workers. The handcrafted quality and performance of its appliances has caught the attention of cooking enthusiasts from home cooks and culinary enthusiasts to professional chefs such as Michael Symon, Paul Kahan and Suzanne Goin, among many others.

BlueStar has been a trailblazer in color and customization innovation, offering its appliances in 1,000 color choices and 10 metal trim options, as well as any custom color. Many appliance manufacturers offer custom finishes, but none offer the breadth of BlueStar. BlueStar also has the ability to color match appliances to paint colors, or match paint colors to appliances for a seamless, integrated look within the kitchen space. An interactive web site tool, 'Build Your Own BlueStar', allows consumers to customize a new BlueStar range or refrigerator  from the intensity of the ranges burners to the color of the unit itself  before buying.

This 140th anniversary signals an exciting chapter in our storied history. We bring a distinguished legacy and a renewed commitment to deliver high-quality, unique kitchen appliances that can be customized to the individual needs of our customers, said Sheffield. We are proud to support our countrys long standing tradition of quality manufacturing. We are looking forward to another 140 years of American manufacturing.

For information, on the 140th Anniversary Limited Edition Platinum Range, click https://bit.ly/31yvxjX. For general information, visit http://www.bluestarcooking.com.

Tweet this: While it may be our anniversary, it's everyone's celebration. @BlueStarCooking appliances deliver power & performance to American kitchens. #cheersto140years. Find out more: https://bit.ly/31yvxjX.
We believe that student financial success means students go to college knowing they can fund their education from their first day through graduation," said Gregg Scoresby, CEO and founder of CampusLogic.

CampusLogic, the category leader in student financial success, today announces that it has acquired RaiseMe, a social enterprise focused on expanding access to higher education, especially among low-income and first-generation students.

This acquisition brings together two champions of student financial success, which will drive more integration and innovation in this mission-critical category. This combined effort empowers colleges and universities to enroll, engage, and retain more students at a time when these numbers are threatened by the pandemic and a vastly changing higher education landscape. Institutions will also be able to attract a higher percentage of low-income and first-generation students, which will help accelerate goals to broaden diversity on college campuses.

We believe that student financial success means students go to college knowing they can fund their education from their first day through graduation," said Gregg Scoresby, CEO and founder of CampusLogic. "RaiseMe has created a truly innovative solution that helps remove the financial barrier upfront, especially for low-income students. I have been following RaiseMe for years and I know that our combined companies will recreate the entire student financial journey.

RaiseMe began with a mission to expand access to higher education so that every student has a shot at the American Dream. Rather than waiting until the end of high school to earn scholarships, which is often too late in the student journey to impact their enrollment, RaiseMe enables students to earn scholarships throughout high school, starting as early as 9th grade. To date, students on RaiseMe have earned over $6 Billion in micro-scholarships for accomplishing things that best prepare them to succeed, such as earning good grades, volunteering in the community, and participating in extracurricular activities. RaiseMes newest student success platform offers current undergraduates, such as community college students intending to transfer, the opportunity to earn additional merit aid for completing specific academic and behavioral milestones.

By the time students on our platform get their acceptance letters, they are already financially on their way and engaged with colleges that are a good fit for their interests and skills. Knowing earlier in their journey that they already have some of the funding theyll need gives them the confidence to pursue their college ambitions. Thats where CampusLogic comes in, stated Preston Silverman, CEO and founder of RaiseMe. RaiseMe gives students the hand up to get on their path to college, and CampusLogic takes their hand and leads them through to graduation day and beyond. Our goal, together, is to help millions of students achieve their education goals with confidence and clarity.

More than two million students across the country are already using the RaiseMe platform to earn micro-scholarships from leading colleges and universities across the country, such as Penn State, Tulane, University of Chicago, ASU, and Syracuse. The RaiseMe platform will become part of CampusLogics growing suite of award-winning education technology. The company most recently launched VirtualAdvisor  an AI-powered virtual assistant that streamlines and personalizes the student financial aid experience.

While RaiseMe will remain in San Francisco, CA, its 30 employees and 300 college and university customers will become part of the CampusLogic family. CampusLogic was recently ranked #1 in the U.S. for technology in the education sector on the Inc. 5000 list, and ranked the 81st Fastest-Growing Company in North America on Deloittes 2019 Technology Fast 500.

About CampusLogic

CampusLogic helps schools change lives by delivering the firstand onlyStudent Financial Success platform that incorporates complete scholarship management, net price calculators, personalized digital communications, simplified financial aid verification, 24x7 multilingual virtual advising, tuition and scholarship crowdfunding, and integrated data visualizations. Over 500 schools across the country use CampusLogic to provide their students with an easy, mobile, and personalized experience to simplify the financial success journey, resulting in increased enrollment, better informed borrowing, and improved retention. CampusLogic annually hosts EmpowerED, a conference dedicated to providing student financial success professionals with access to industry trends, best practices, and networking opportunities with like-minded colleagues. For more information, visit campuslogic.com.

About RaiseMe

RaiseMe empowers every student to build their path to and through college by delivering a student-centric platform for college discovery and scholarship attainment. Students receive the motivation and guidance to be successful in their pursuit of a college degree, and colleges have an opportunity to engage students years before they set foot on campus. Students can join RaiseMe for free as early as the 9th grade, and earn incremental, achievement-based financial aid from colleges for their achievements. More than two million high school and community college students have earned micro-scholarships on RaiseMe from nearly 300 institutions, including Arizona State University, Florida International University, University of Chicago, University of Rochester, Northeastern, Tulane, and Georgia Tech. For more information and to sign up for free, visit http://www.raise.me.

Media Contact - CampusLogic

Aly Saxe

Public Relations

Aly.saxe@campuslogic.com
When applying for coverage, drivers should bring the relevant documents, be honest and ask questions about the policys terms and conditions, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company.

Cheapquotesautoinsurance.com has launched a new blog post that presents top car insurance mistakes that will cause problems to drivers seeking coverage.

For more info and free quotes, visit https://cheapquotesautoinsurance.com/costly-auto-insurance-mistakes/

Not having the right documents will prevent drivers for getting coverage. This is one major mistake that can be easily avoided. Make a call and ask what documents to bring. Drivers should prepare the cars papers and provide them it when asked. Furthermore, bring proof of homeownership, graduating defensive/refresher courses, receipts for custom parts, VIN number and other documents needed to provide coverage and discounts.

Buying coverage without fully understanding the terms of the contract is another big mistake. Carefully read each page of the contract and require additional explanations.

It is recommended to get quotes before negotiations. Compare prices from multiple carriers and determine the average value. Now it is easy and fast to get online quotes. It only takes several minutes.

For more car insurance info, money-saving tips and free online quotes, please visit http://cheapquotesautoinsurance.com

Cheapquotesautoinsurance.com is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc.
The luxurious Island Princess is the largest vessel ever to host a World Cruise. Image courtesy of Princess Cruises. In looking forward to the resumption of sailing days, one would be hard pressed to find a more exciting offering than Princess Cruises 2022 World Cruise.

The cruise experts at Cruises-N-More (https://www.cruises-n-more.com/) love sharing travel ideas. Please visit our blog (http://blog.cruises-n-more.com/) to enjoy some insight into an all-suite luxury Galapagos cruise, living like a millionaire, a peek at a world cruise mini-suite and more!

The Celebrity Flora  Tailor-Made Luxury for A Galapagos Cruise:

If you can imagine an all-suite luxury mega-yacht Celebrity cruise, then youre ready for the Celebrity Flora, the first ship of its kind to be built especially for the Galapagos Islands.

More: https://blog.cruises-n-more.com/2020/06/celebrity-cruise-line-a-focus-on-adventure-exploration-with-expedition-ships/

Spend a Day Like A Millionaire, the MSC Cruises Feature Private Island:

MSC Cruises recently unveiled its new private island in the Bahamas  Ocean Cay Marine Reserve. The island features panoramic views of crystal blue waters and over two miles of pristine beachfront, spread over no fewer than eight world class beaches.

More: https://blog.cruises-n-more.com/2020/06/spend-a-day-like-a-millionaire-the-msc-cruises-feature-private-island/

Princess Cruises 2022 World Cruise, Peek into A Mini Suite:

In looking forward to the resumption of sailing days, one would be hard pressed to find a more exciting offering than Princess Cruises 2022 World Cruise. The luxurious Island Princess is the largest vessel ever to host a World Cruise, with pricing and benefits sure to entice any traveler.

More: https://blog.cruises-n-more.com/2020/06/princess-cruises-2022-world-cruise-peek-into-a-mini-suite/

With over 20 years of dedicated service in the travel industry, Cruises-N-More, (https://www.cruises-n-more.com/) a Virtuoso member, offers select benefits for our clients. Cruises-N-More is pleased to announce being recognized as a winner of the 2019 Online Travel Partner Excellence Award of Carnival Corporation & plc brands Carnival Cruise Line, Cunard, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn. Contact a Cruises-N-More cruise specialist at 800-733-2048 (toll-free USA/Canada), +1-407-771-4454, 0-808-189-1292 (toll-free U.K.), or 800-076-002 (toll-free Australia).

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About Cruises-N-More

Family owned and operated, with over 20 years of dedicated service in the travel industry, Cruises-N-More (https://www.cruises-n-more.com/) offers respected expertise and superior deals, prices and amenities and consistently ranks among top producers with the major cruise lines.

Cruises-N-More has received many additional cruise line awards and recognition, including Regent Seven Seas Cruises Council Member and Top Producer; Princess Cruises Gold I-Excel Agency; Royal Caribbean International Travel Partners of the Year Awards for North America, Royal Caribbean International & Celebrity Cruises Online Agency of the Year/Key Account; Carnival Cruise Line Top Agency & Select Agency; Norwegian Cruise Line Presidents Club Agency; Holland America Line Centurion & Premium Preferred Agency; Top Producer for Crystal Cruises, Cunard Line, Disney Cruise Line, Silversea Cruises, and Rising Star Partner of the Year by Royal Caribbean International.

A member of ASTA (American Society of Travel Agents), CLIA (Cruise Line International Association) and endorsed by IATAN (International Airline Travel Agent Network), Cruises-N-More is proud to be a Virtuoso member as well as previous Travel Leaders Group Presidents Club and Inner Circle top agency.

Cruises-N-More has been featured in USA Today and Frommers Cruises for Dummies as having great cruise prices, has been ranked by MSNBC as a top web broker and was recently featured as a great source of Caribbean travel package cruise tours on TravelVacationDream.com.

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Dearfoams Limited Edition Hero Bear Capsule Collection "We are so thrilled to continue our heroes campaign and commitment to our community by honoring and celebrating all of the heroes in our lives with the new Limited Edition Hero Bear Capsule Collection," says Tricia Bouras, Dearfoams President.

Dearfoams, America's number one slipper company, is excited to introduce its new Hero Bear slippers  a limited edition capsule collection that celebrates the everyday heroes in our lives.

"We are so thrilled to continue our heroes campaign and commitment to our community by honoring and celebrating all of the heroes in our lives with the new Limited Edition Hero Bear Capsule Collection," says Tricia Bouras, Dearfoams President. "We have been so inspired by the overwhelming response the campaign has received these past few months and want to continue honoring those individuals who continue to make a positive impact in our daily lives by giving them the gift of comfort."

From healthcare workers and military service members, to everyday leaders such as teachers and parents, everyone's hero deserves to be recognized and celebrated. Launching Wednesday, July 8, 2020, the Dearfoams Limited Edition Hero Bear Capsule Collection is available in camo and leopard prints and will be sold exclusively on Dearfoams.com. While supplies last.

"We are excited to celebrate everyday heroes with this new collection. It's the perfect gift for any hero that deserves a moment to slow down and get comfy after a long day," says Angie Kenney, Dearfoams Vice President of Merchandising & Design.

In addition, as a way to continue to pay it forward and to honor everyday heroes, Dearfoams will also be introducing the Nominate a Hero sweepstakes. From July 1-15, 2020, consumers are invited to nominate their hero on Dearfoams.com for the chance to surprise them with a free pair of cozy Dearfoams slippers. 200 winning heroes will be selected at random. Terms and conditions apply. See official rules for details.

Press Contact:

LaForce: Ana Rallis, Dearfoams@LaForce.nyc, 347.852.2619

About Dearfoams: Dearfoams, a brand of RG Barry Corporation, was established in 1947 by visionary female entrepreneur Florence Melton who invented the world's first foam-soled, washable slipper. Dearfoams is headquartered in Pickerington, Ohio. To learn more, visit http://www.dearfoams.com.
Ege University Hospital serves as the largest hospital in the western part of the country, with 1,896-beds. Beyond Turkey itself, the university hospital provides services throughout the neighboring countries, as well as the Balkans and the Caucasus, with its experienced team and state-of-the-art equipment.

Ege University-Clinerion partnership project is supported by Prof. Necdet Budak, President of Ege University and Prof. Dr. Tuncay Goksel, Chief Physician of Ege University Hospital. Clinerion provides a way for us to use our own patient data more efficiently, says Dr. Ersin Koylu, project leader. This will bring more clinical trials to the university and it will make the clinical trial process easier for our competent researchers.

Clinerion has been dedicated to supporting patients and their physicians in Turkey for many years, and we are pleased to be able to offer our services to even more of the population by welcoming Ege University to our fold, says Ian Rentsch, CEO of Clinerion. Our strong coverage of the country makes the country itself more attractive to Pharma sponsors and CROs using Patient Network Explorer who are looking to set up trials in the country, as well as offering more statistically meaningful data to researchers.

EDIT: the number of beds at Ege University was incorrectly reported in the original release dated July 2nd, and has been updated.

About Clinerion

Clinerion accelerates clinical research and medical access to treatments for patients. We generate real-world data from our global network of partner hospitals for Real World Evidence analyses. Clinerion's Patient Network Explorer radically improves the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical trial recruitment by offering data-driven protocol optimization, site feasibility evaluation and real-time patient search and identification to match patients to treatments.

Clinerion facilitates the participation of partner hospitals in leading-edge, industry-sponsored trials and time savings in patient recruitment. Researchers gain access to real-time, longitudinal patient data from electronic health records for analysis. We enable pharmaceutical companies, CROs and SMOs to shorten patient recruitment and save costs by streamlining operations and leveraging strategic intelligence. Clinerions Patient Network Explorer also provides a platform for integration of diverse patient data sources into real-world data ecosystems. Clinerions proprietary technologies comply with international patient privacy and data security regulations. Clinerion is a global data technology service company headquartered in Switzerland.

Clinerion website: http://www.clinerion.com

Clinerions Patient Network Explorer: http://www.clinerion.com/index/PatientNetworkExplorerSolutions.html

For more information, please contact:

Le Vin Chin

Director, Head of Marketing & Communications

Clinerion Ltd

Elisabethenanlage 11, 4051 Basel, Switzerland

Tel.: +41 61 865 60 54

media@clinerion.com

About Ege University

Ege University Medical Faculty Hospital provides service with its experienced team and rich equipment. Being one of the first two faculties of Ege University, Faculty of Medicine, being in the Aegean Region, provides healing to the Balkans, the Caucasus, and patients from neighboring countries. Ege University Medical Faculty Hospital serves as the largest hospital in the Aegean Region with 1,896 beds.

Ege University website: https://ege.edu.tr/eng-0/Homepage.html

For more information, please contact:

Academician Levent KONUS

Press Relations Manager of Department

Ege University

Tel.: 0232 311 42 99 / Extension no.: 2212

basinlailiskiler@mail.ege.edu.tr
"The findings are illuminating for both U.S. lawmakers and the diverse American workforce they represent. The Report shows just how wide and deep is the involvement of foreign governmentsespecially Chinain promoting and financing exports from their countries."

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) today released its June 2020 Report to the U.S. Congress on Global Export Credit Competition (Competitiveness Report), which covers the 2019 calendar year. The Report aggregates input from U.S. exporters and lenders as well as EXIMs counterparts from other countries and comprehensively analyzes official export credit and trade-related finance that was provided last year by governments around the world.

Building on my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee just one week ago, I am pleased to submit EXIMs latest Competitiveness Report to Congress. The findings are illuminating for both U.S. lawmakers and the diverse American workforce they represent, said EXIM President and Chairman Kimberly A. Reed. The Report shows just how wide and deep is the involvement of foreign governmentsespecially Chinain promoting and financing exports from their countries. In the end, it comes down to competing for jobs through exports, and EXIM stands ready to support our great American workers.

Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, the year 2019 was historic for EXIM, Reed added. The 2019 Competitiveness Report highlights many of these wins  including reopening EXIM after its Board quorum was restored in May, authorizing the largest-ever EXIM transaction, and reauthorizing the agency for the longest tenure in EXIMs history  to help level the playing field for U.S. companies and workers. This Report also underscores the magnitude of Chinese state-backed unfair competition, which undermines our exporters and even puts America at a disadvantage in key sectors critical to our long-term economic and national security. Fortunately, our nation is taking a competitive approach to these, and other, challenges posed by Beijing, as outlined in the United States Strategic Approach to the Peoples Republic of China. EXIM is pleased to have the new Congressional mandate to establish a Program on China and Transformational Exportsone of the agencys most significant efforts in its 86-year historyto counter China and its opaque and exploitative model of economic development and finance and advance the comparative leadership of the United States.

As required by law, the EXIM 2019-2020 Advisory Committee, which is chaired by the Honorable Stevan Pearce, carefully reviewed the findings of the agencys Competitiveness Report. The Advisory Committees statement to the U.S. Congress is included in the Report. The Advisory Committee noted that, The days of the United States, through inaction, giving away hundreds of billions of dollars in business to foreign competitors must be seen as having come to a decisive and permanent end. An inspired, energetic advancement of the mission of the newly empowered Export-Import Bank of the United States will go far in making this vital objective a reality.

While this Report focuses on calendar year 2019, it includes a preface describing the official export finance markets response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) global pandemic. For the first time, the Report also includes an introductory primer outlining the building blocks of export and trade-related financing available to help U.S. companies of all sizes better compete across the globe, as well as a chapter focusing on foreign export credit agencies (ECAs) proactive efforts to support small businesses facing global competition. Also of note, the Report covers an expanded, in-depth view of official financing practices from Chinas numerous government institutions.

Key Findings:



Worldwide, there are presently 115 known official export credit providers, including ECAs such as EXIMup from 85 only four years earliera 35 percent increase from 2015 to 2019.

The top 10 providers of official medium- and long-term (MLT) export credits in 2019 were China ($33.5 billion), Italy ($11.1 billion), Germany ($10.5 billion), India ($7.0 billion), the United Kingdom ($6.6 billion), France ($ 6.2 billion), South Korea ($5.8 billion), the United States ($5.3 billion), Finland ($4.1 billion), and Sweden ($4.0 billion).

In 2019, the aggregate amount of official MLT export credit provided under the rules of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developments (OECD) Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits, to which EXIM adheres, was approximately $76 billiononly 34 percent of the total official MLT export and trade-related finance provided by governments worldwide.

Foreign ECAs are using their official MLT trade-related programs (programs outside the scope of the OECD Arrangement) to offer more flexible financing, including in support of their countrys small businesses.

From 2015 to 2019, Chinas official MLT export credit activity alone was at least equal to 90 percent of that provided by all G7 countries combined. (Of note, beyond its two official ECAs, China uses several other official government entities to finance its exports and trade practices through a variety of means, including export credits.)

By a conservative estimate, Chinas official export and trade-related financing totaled at least $76 billion in 2019. An exact figure is impossible to come by, given the opacity of Chinese official financing.

For additional highlights from EXIMs Competitiveness Report, please see the fact sheet on EXIMs website.

First mandated by Congress in 1971 and now in its 53rd edition, EXIMs annual Competitiveness Report meets the agencys requirement to report on how well EXIM was able to provide financing that is competitive with other major foreign government providers of export credit and enable U.S. companies to be competitive in global export sales.

ABOUT EXIM:

EXIM is an independent federal agency that promotes and supports American jobs by providing competitive and necessary export credit to support sales of U.S. goods and services to international buyers. A robust EXIM can level the global playing field for U.S. exporters when they compete against foreign companies that receive support from their governments. EXIM also contributes to U.S. economic growth by helping to create and sustain hundreds of thousands of jobs in exporting businesses and their supply chains across the United States. In recent years, approximately 90 percent of the total number of the agencys authorizations has directly supported small businesses. Since 1992, EXIM has generated more than $9 billion for the U.S. Treasury for repayment of U.S. debt.

For more information about EXIM, please visit http://www.exim.gov.
This webinar discusses how to maintain corporate regulatory compliance with various state law requirements.

Corporate compliance is what you do after forming an entity to make sure the business remains in good standing with specific state law requirements. This webinar discusses how to maintain compliance with various state law requirements, including Delaware. Notice requirements and best practices on recording meetings will be reviewed, along with the importance of maintaining separate business and personal assets, by-laws, corporate compliance, and ethics programs. Also discussed is whether the compliance program should be a stand-alone program or if it should be integrated into the normal business process of a company.

To learn more and register, click here.

The webinar will be available on-demand after its premiere. As with every Financial Poise Webinar, it will be an engaging and plain English conversation designed to entertain as it teaches.

About Financial Poise 

Financial Poise has one mission: to provide reliable plain English business, financial and legal education to investors, private business owners and executives, and their respective trusted advisors. Financial Poise content is created by seasoned, respected experts who are invited to join our Faculty only after being recommended by current Faculty Members. Our editorial staff then works to make sure all content is easily digestible. Financial Poise is a meritocracy; nobody can buy their way into the Financial Poise Faculty. Start learning today at https://www.financialpoise.com/
With Corservs credit card program, Five Star Bank now offers competitive credit cards and is able to make the credit decisions especially for our relationship customers, said Krista Snelling, Chief Financial Officer of Five Star Bank.

Corserv, a company that empowers Banks and Fintechs with payment programs, announced today that Five Star Bank has partnered with Corserv to offer credit cards to consumer, business, and commercial customers.

With Corservs credit card program, Five Star Bank now offers competitive credit cards and is able to make the credit decisions especially for our relationship customers, said Krista Snelling, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Five Star Bank. Corservs solution provides robust features for our business customers such as a self-service card management portal, alerts and controls, and virtual cards to automate ePayables.

Corservs credit card program enables Five Star Bank to provide the best credit card products with local service for businesses, municipalities, and non-profits, said Jerry Craft, CEO of Corserv. Five Star Banks program considers the overall relationship with their customers when making credit decisions, setting a credit line, and assigning an APR  something National providers cant do.

Through Corservs program, Five Star Bank offers bank-branded Mastercard Platinum Low-rate, Platinum, Platinum Rewards, and World cards to consumers and businesses, with Corporate, Corporate Rewards, and Purchasing cards offered to commercial customers. Cardholders can manage their accounts online, on mobile phones or through a multi-lingual IVR. Use of these cards within Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay is also supported.

Learn about these Mastercard credit card products now at branch locations.

Contacts:

Five Star Bank: Shelly Wetton, Chief Marketing Officer, (1.916-640-1507), swetton@fivestarbank.com

Corserv, Inc.: David Luther, Chief Business Officer, (1.404.822.8418), dluther@corservsolutions.com

About Five Star Bank

Five Star Bank was founded in 1999 by a group of local entrepreneurs seeking specialized banking services with an emphasis on commercial real estate and small business. Today, Five Star Bank is among the top performing banks in the nation for banks of its size. With offices in Roseville, Sacramento, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Chico and Redding, Five Star Bank is a deeply rooted steward of community and arbiter of economic development with a focus on reinvestment of capital in the Capital Region. Five Star Bank, a locally owned and based community bank, delivers expedient decision-making by professionals with regional expertise. For more information about Five Star Bank please visit http://www.fivestarbank.com.

About Corserv

Corserv provides payment services including a turnkey issuing program for credit cards, P-cards, and virtual cards that enables Banks and Fintechs to deliver competitive, branded payment services to their customers. Corservs secure hosted programs combine our credit, compliance and marketing expertise with our modern online solution and open APIs  everything clients need to quickly build a successful card-issuing business. Our Bank and Fintech clients increase their earnings per share by benefitting from loan interest, interchange, fee income and economies of scale from Corservs client base. Most importantly, they deepen their customer relationships. For more information, please visit http://www.corservsolutions.com.
Our artificial intelligence-driven innovations in fraud, waste, and abuse identification and prevention are matched only by the results we deliver to our customers.

FraudScope, the fast-growing AI-based platform that helps health plans address the increasing problem of fraud, waste, and abuse, today announced it has completed a $7 million round of Series A financing. The largest participants in the round were QED Investors, Brewer Lane Ventures, and the GRA Venture Fund.

QED is singularly focused on supporting companies that solve real-world problems and can have a broad societal impact. The rising cost of health care is a perfect example of an issue that hurts consumers, businesses, and the economy as a whole  and one that technology is uniquely positioned to help solve, said Matt Risley, Partner at QED Investors. We look forward to using our operational expertise to help the FraudScope team use its cutting-edge machine learning to reduce healthcare fraud, shoring up health plans and bringing down costs for consumers and employers at a time when both are under tremendous pressure.

Our artificial intelligence-driven innovations in fraud, waste, and abuse identification and prevention are matched only by the results we deliver to our customers, stated Musheer Ahmed, CEO of FraudScope. With this round of financing, we are closer to realizing our vision of becoming the AI-based collaboration platform that integrates across fraud, payment integrity, clinical and provider network teams to drive down costs and increase efficiencies for health plans. Traditional rules-based techniques to address healthcare fraud, waste and abuse are reactive and cannot identify new and emerging schemes in a timely manner leading to significant financial losses at health plans. FraudScopes solutions are designed to proactively monitor and identify new schemes as soon as they emerge which helps maximize savings.

The additional capital will be used to scale the team and expand product offerings to meet the growing needs and opportunities at health plans. "Fraudscope is a leader in AI driven health fraud detection," said John Kim, Founder and Managing Partner of Brewer Lane Ventures. "We are delighted to leverage our operating experience in the insurance industry to assist the company with its strategy and marketing efforts." This Series A Round brings FraudScopes total funding to $10.5 million. Existing investors that also participated in the round include Spider Capital, Mosley Ventures, and TechSquare Labs.

The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association and other government and law enforcement groups place the cost of healthcare fraud at 3 percent to 10 percent of the total healthcare costs in the U.S., or as much as $300 billion. FraudScope provides health plans with advanced identification and workflow tools to detect and investigate emerging fraud, waste, and abuse schemes, and prioritize claims to greatly reduce their financial risk. These capabilities become extremely valuable to health plans, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the increase in new fraud, waste, and abuse.

This announcement follows a host of other news coming from FraudScope in recent months. In the first quarter, FraudScope announced its AI platform had helped health plan customers realize tens of millions of dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse identifications and savings. FraudScope also recently announced that it achieved Certified status for information security by HITRUST, and the company rolled out a series of upgrades and enhancements for its proprietary case management and reporting technology.

As an early investor, the GRA Venture Fund is pleased to see the continued growth of FraudScopes technology and customer satisfaction, said Kurt Jacobus Managing Director of the GRA Venture Fund. Fraud, waste, and abuse are affecting the whole healthcare system, and we believe that FraudScopes AI is a strong market differentiator.  Information about FraudScopes AI platform and claims investigation solutions can be found at https://www.fraudscope.com/solutions/.

About FraudScope

FraudScope is an AI-based platform that accelerates the identification of fraud, waste, and abuse. Our comprehensive claims investigation platform utilizes proven and patented AI-based technology to empower investigators and analysts to derive insights and conduct full investigations of suspect claims. For additional information about FraudScope and our solutions, visit https://www.fraudscope.com.

About QED Investors

QED Investors is a leading boutique venture capital firm based in Alexandria, VA. We are focused on investing in early stage, disruptive financial services companies in the U.S., U.K. and Latin America. QED is dedicated to building amazing businesses and uses a unique, hands-on approach that leverages our partners decades of entrepreneurial and operational experience, helping their companies achieve surefooted growth. Notable investments include Creditas, Credit Karma, ClearScore, GreenSky, Klarna, Konfio, Mission Lane, Nubank, QuintoAndar, Remitly, SoFi, and Wagestream.

About Brewer Lane Ventures

Brewer Lane Ventures is an early stage venture firm focused on insurtech and fintech companies. Using our deep knowledge of the insurance and financial services industries, we invest in startups that will transform the market for companies and consumers alike. We bring together domain expertise from founding and scaling startups, venture investing, and running Fortune 100 companies. Brewer Lanes partners have significant operating and board experience in leading financial services companies like New York Life, CIGNA, Aetna, SoFi and FiServ. To learn more, visit us at brewerlane.com or @BrewerLaneVC.

About GRA Venture Fund

GRA Venture Fund is a public-private venture capital fund investing in research-driven, Georgia-based startup companies. The Fund makes seed, early-stage and mid-stage investments in companies. Fund investors are the State of Georgia, private individuals, corporations and foundations. For more information, visit graventurefund.org.
As protests were spreading around the globe in response to George Floydas killing by the police, Sierra Todd, an African-American undergraduate in Japan, organized a march last month in Tokyo to show solidarity with American demonstrators.

She said she hoped it would prompt Japanese marchers to think about racism in their own country, too. aOf course, we want to talk about American issues, and Black Lives Matter is an American thing,a said Ms. Todd, 19, who is studying at Temple Universityas campus in Tokyo. aBut we also do live in Japan.a

A backlash quickly followed. Critics on social media accused participants of disregarding the risks of spreading the coronavirus. An interview with Ms. Todd posted on YouTube elicited comments that aThis is an American issuea and aPlease do this in your own country.a

With images of Americaas racial strife rolling across television screens, some in Japan have insisted that institutional racism is a faraway problem. That, activists and scholars say, is keeping the public from more fully seizing the moment to reckon with entrenched discrimination against marginalized groups in Japan.

A vocal faction of Japanese conservatives endorses racist notions of blood-based purity. And the largely homogeneous population has often resisted acknowledging difference or engaging in the kind of introspection about racism and inequality that is playing out in the United States.

aIn essence, Japanese people donat have a lot of experience of seeing other races,a said Yasumasa Fujinaga, an associate professor of American studies at Japan Womenas University. aSo they donat think racism exists.a

But Japan has a longstanding history of discrimination against minorities, including the descendants of Koreans brought to Japan as forced labor before and during World War II; Indigenous groups like the Ainu of the northernmost island, Hokkaido; those whose lineage traces back to a feudal class of outcasts known as buraku; and mixed-race individuals.

The mistreatment of mixed-race people through their school years and beyond has drawn particular attention as a growing number of biracial celebrities have spoken out.
The eighth vintage of Tenuta Frescobaldis Gorgona has debarked. Every year, wine-lovers eagerly await the month of June, when they will again have the pleasure of savouring the cru wine made on Italys last prison island, founded in 1869. The inmates there have been helping produce this blend of Vermentino and Ansonica since 2012, all in the hope of redirecting the course of their own lives by learning a profession, using their time productively, and believing in a better future. Their wine, appealing and wild at the same time, conveys redemption, suggests a desire for recovery, and is emblematic of hope, all amidst a myriad of emotions.

Addressing the inmates on Gorgona, Marchesi Frescobaldi President Lamberto Frescobaldis message is always Take pride in your creation, since every bottle exhibits your labour and your longing for renewal. Every year increases my own pride in this project. Around us here on Gorgona, surrounded by its scents and tastes, is everything one could want: love for this island, mans loving attention, the influence of the sea, and this extraordinary environment, all elements that combine to bring forth a wine that is inimitable, innately exclusive, a symbol of hope and freedom. In a word, it is the very quintessence of this corner of our planet and of our project, but a symbol too that never ceases to pour out excitement.

The islands 2019 growing year started off with a winter of lower than average rainfall, but the rain picked up during the spring, particularly in May, which was cool yet mild. June, July, and August brought the island heat, but scattered, well-paced showers prevented any stress to the vines, and at harvest, the grapes were ideally ripe, healthy, and sound. Vermentino was the first to come in, in the first week of September, which was marked by optimal day-night temperature differentials, perfect conditions for slow, complete ripening, and the reason that the Ansonica grapes were picked during the last week of the month.

Gorgona 2019, appealing and wild at the same time, stands out for its vibrant, deep straw yellow color, with gold highlights. It releases a bouquet that is generous and complex, but judiciously so, opening to a lively dance of white-fleshed fruit, which immediately segues into the sensual, enveloping wild herbs classic to the island, such as curry plant and rosemary. The nearby sea not only heightens the wines aromatic complexity, but gives it a remarkable crispness and vein of minerality as well. It boasts an enviably smooth, enfolding entry, as well as an unbelievable harmony on the palate, a duet between its acidity and savoury fruit. The near-endless finish is stylishly elegant.

The label too, is exclusive and one-of-a-kind. Physically sealed to convey Gorgonas inaccessibility, it opens to reveal the beautiful characteristics of the island. Each years label is unique, but each is conceived as a limited edition newsletter that communicates a different aspect of the island. The Gorgona 2019 version describes its marine biodiversity. Gorgona lies within the Pelagos Sanctuary, a marvellous area of the sea that was established by an agreement between France, Italy, and the Principality of Monaco. The small section around the island contains an amazing variety of marine fauna, including almost all the Sanctuarys Cetacea, from the smallest to the largest, and even the majestic sperm whale.

Produced from organically-grown Vermentino and Ansonica grapes, Gorgona has a limited production of just 9,000 bottles. In its seven-year life, it has conquered international markets from New York to Japan, and those who have been fortunate to have tasted it eagerly look forward to each vintage.

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THE VISION

Frescobaldi for the social good began in August 2012. Before it involved wine production, it was a multi-year project involving collaboration with the authorities of the penal colony, whose objective was to get the inmates involved in practical viticultural work. Under the supervision of Frescobaldi agronomists and winemakers, the inmates restored and cultivated a one-hectare vineyard on the island, to which over the years Frescobaldi added another 1.3 hectares of vines.

THE PROJECT

The Gorgona project was launched in August 2012, fruit of a collaboration between Frescobaldi and Gorgona, Europes only remaining island-penitentiary. The inmates spend the final period of their detention here, working and living in contact with nature, creating for themselves a professional means of re-joining the workforce and the community at large. The project took root in a small vineyard lying in the heart of an amphitheatre high over the sea; its goal was to enable the inmates to gain personal, hands-on, professional experience in the field of viticulture. Under the supervision of Frescobaldi agronomists and winemakers, a few rows of organically-grown Sangiovese and Vermentino Nero yielded Gorgona Rosso, with the 2015 vintage, which matured in large terracotta jars. With additional plantings in 2015, that vineyard has grown today to almost two and a half hectares of Vermentino and Ansonica, which now produce Gorgona, the perfect expression of the uniqueness of this corner of earth and the work of man, and eloquent symbol of hope and freedom.

STAGES OF THE PROJECT

In May 2013, the first vintage of Gorgona (2013) was submitted to the authorities in Rome, and in September Lamberto Frescobaldi presented magnum number 0 to Giorgio Napolitano, President of Italy. In June 2014, Frescobaldi signed a 15-year contract for collaboration with the administration of the penal colony, and the winery hired and paid two inmates to work in the Gorgona vineyard. In February 2015, under supervision by Frescobaldi winemakers, inmates planted another hectare of Vermentino, to involve more inmates in the viticultural work and to obtain, in another four years, a better-quality wine. The total hectares thus rose to 2.3. In June 2018, the sixth vintage of Gorgona was bottled, 2017, in an edition of 9,000 bottles. The bottle label focused on the island fauna, which was perfectly adapted to the islands biodiversity: wild rabbits, peregrine falcons, and seagulls, who chose Gorgona as their nesting place.

PARTNERS

Andrea Bocelli created the text and signed the bottle label of the 2013 vintage.

Simonetta Doni, with Studio Doni & Associati, one of the very few international wine-label design agencies, donates her talents every year for the label graphics. Together with a highly-qualified team of experts in culture and art, she graphically interprets the characteristics that make the project and its island so distinctive.

Giorgio Pinchiorri, owner of Enoteca Pinchiorri, one of the most famous Italian restaurants world-wide, participates in the project by utilising his distinctive cuisine to promote appreciation of Gorgonas tradition of food and wine.

Argotractors, part of the Gruppo Argo, was founded in 2007 to create a world-class tractor enterprise; it donated a vineyard tractor for use on the island.

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On June 29, 2020, Seattle-area innovation company Fresh Consulting (https://www.freshconsulting.com/) released Balance Tech (https://balancetech.org/), a resource-site that provides tools  articles, apps, products, and videos  for offsetting the negative effects of too much media consumption, an overreliance on electronics, and passive engagement with technology.

Balance Tech allows users to assess their current reliance on technology and take steps to find a better balance. Resources are geared toward helping users tune out digital noise, create healthy social connections, prioritize creativity over consumption, improve productivity, and much more.

Some of Fresh Consultings more common output includes tools like innovative web apps, enterprise systems, mobile apps, digital hardware, and robotics. With a company that creates digital experiences for efficient, effective connection, the notion of disconnecting might seem at odds, however, Fresh believes that intentional connection is more important than ever.

In line with the companys core belief in building technology for good and creating better human experiences, Balance Tech provides a curated repository of existing material on the topic of disconnection, as well as a platform for additional thought.

As thought leaders for over 10 years, Fresh has previously published over 100+ resources for the benefit of others. Under their own Fresh Labs, the company develops proprietary apps, websites, tools, and hardware  such as the award-winning Defeat BOCO (https://www.defeatboco.com/), and applications like Invent Value (https://www.inventvalue.com), to push the limits of whats possible. Even the site Balance Tech utilizes cutting-edge web technology to achieve 98% faster loading times. This work prepares the team to build whats next for some of the largest and most innovative companies worldwide.

About Fresh Consulting

Fresh is an integrated consulting team of designers, developers, and engineers that build fresh experiences people love. From creative brands and intuitive apps to digital hardware and robotics, Fresh works from strategy to execution to create what's next. Powered by their design-led process, innovation technology, and multi-talented teams, Fresh delivers end-to-end experiences and products to help companies grow.
Attorney Anjel Burgess Im very proud of the professionals at our office who work tirelessly to ensure our clients have the means and resources to support their families in the future.

Attorney Anjel Burgess was recently rated 10/10 by AVVO for her extensive work on behalf of clients and their families. The AVVO rating is one of the most respected among attorneys nationwide because it is determined by a mathematical model that considers a lawyer's years in practice, disciplinary history, professional achievements, and opinions of other attorneys.

Burgess has devoted the past 12 years to representing clients throughout the state of Georgia in complex legal matters, including social security disability, veterans disability, and guardianship. She is also a highly sought after speaker on issues impacting the disabled, having presented at national conferences for the Hypersomnia Foundation and National Alliance on Mental Illness.

For Burgess, receiving the highest rating from a well-respected organization in the legal industry is a reflection of her teams larger commitment to achieving positive results for Georgians facing unique physical and financial challenges. Im very proud of the professionals at our office who work tirelessly to ensure our clients have the means and resources to support their families in the future, said Burgess. For us, the practice of law is much more than files and phone calls and fees. We believe the work we do makes a difference, and thats a very gratifying feeling for everyone at our practice.

Burgess is no stranger to recognition for attaining positive outcomes for clients. She has been named to the list of the states Legal Elite by Georgia Trend Magazine since 2016 and has also been honored multiple times by Super Lawyers Magazine, an annual Thomson Reuters publication which recognizes the top 5% of attorneys in Georgia.

About Burgess & Christensen: The law firm of Burgess & Christensen represents individuals and families in matters involving social security disability, veterans disability, and guardianship law. The firms commitment to excellence in the practice of law spans over 40 years and includes the successful representation of thousands of clients. The firms office is conveniently located in Marietta, Georgia, providing easy access to high-quality legal representation to residents in all of metro-Atlanta and across the State.


Canvasing The World With Sean Diediker has been awarded Gold for Best Directing in Television and also Silver for Cinematography in Television for the Canvasing Southern Costa Rica episode in the 41st Annual Telly Awards.

Canvasing The World takes viewers on adventures to explore creativity, experience the people, and reveal the places that spark the inspiration for Sean Diedikers original paintings. Each half-hour episode concludes with an original painting that evolves from that particular destination.

Every episode a place, every episode a painting.

The series highlights the evolution of Diedikers creative process in an approach that is compelling, stimulating, and engaging. I decided many years ago that while I absolutely love painting I wasn't going to spend my life in the studio. I believe the charge for any creative is to go out and taste the world as hard as they can. I am honored that I can collect these stories into a creative sphere that hopefully crafts a modest window into their humanity that can be shared with others, said Sean Diediker, Host and Director.

Filmmaking and traveling are two of my greatest joys. Exploring the world with the goal of sharing our experiences with a worldwide audience is a dream come true. As a veteran filmmaker, I have worn every hat in the production process, however, cinematography was my first passion. Winning a Silver Telly for cinematography is pretty cool  for real, stated Bruce Royer, Producer and Cinematographer.

While the television industry is rapidly changing, viewers are seeking out holistic storytelling and a connection to art. Our theme for this season, Telly Award Winners Tell Great Stories is a true reflection of the diversity of stories the community is skillfully able to tell. Now, more than ever, do we need to celebrate them and those that bring global stories to our attention. This award is a tribute to the talent and vision of these creators, declared Sabrina Dridje, Managing Director of the Telly Awards.

The Telly Awards received over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and 5 continents. Entrants are judged by The Telly Awards Judging Councilan industry body of over 200 leading experts including advertising agencies, production companies, and major television networks, all reflective of the multiscreen industry.

Canvasing The World is one of the few programs I have seen in 2020 that truly created something new both in the focus of the content, and with the visual look and design of the production, said Thomas Davison, Director Business Development, Grants and International Sales, American Public Television and APT Worldwide.

Diediker, Royer, and the team at Canvasing The World are currently working on Season 2 episodes for release in 2021, distributed by American Public Television to PBS across North America.

The full list of the 41st Annual Telly Awards winners can be found at http://www.tellyawards.com/winners.

For questions regarding Canvasing The World, contact: Bruce Royer, Producer, Canvasing The World, L.L.C. info@canvasingtheworld.tv
Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP has expanded its award-winning Real Estate Practice with the addition of Michael A. Seiden as a shareholder in the firms Los Angeles office. Seiden assists clients with complex real estate transactions, including acquisitions, dispositions, financings and joint ventures.

We welcome Michael and feel that his experience will resonate with clients who are involved in the increasingly complex commercial real estate environment rendered even more challenging by the novel coronavirus crisis, said Gregory A. Fishman and Jeff E. Scott, co-managing shareholders of the firms Los Angeles office. Fishman is also co-chair of the offices Real Estate Practice.

Seiden, whose clients include institutional investors, debt funds, developers, publicly traded REITs, and family offices, joins the firm from Pircher, Nichols & Meeks, LLP.

Michael joins us during a unique time for the real estate industry. There are few asset types that do not have the potential to be impacted, which means clients will generally require diverse and robust assistance to address a spectrum of evolving issues. We welcome him to the firm and to our growing practice, noted a joint statement from the co-chairs of the firms Global Real Estate Practice, Stephen L. Rabinowitz, Corey E. Light, Richard J. Giusto, and Michael J. Baum.

I am very familiar with Greenberg Traurigs highly-regarded team of real estate attorneys and I am excited to join, Seiden said. The teams reputation and experience will serve my clients well, particularly given the firms global platform and culture of collaboration. Additionally, I look forward to assisting in the continued growth of the practice with the goal of benefitting the firms real estate clients wherever they do business.

Seidens prior experience includes representing a publicly traded data center operator in the acquisition of a $3.6 billion data center portfolio; a private debt fund in connection with a $270 million loan secured by an office park in California; and an institutional investor as the purchaser, borrower, and landlord in connection with a $300 million sale-leaseback transaction and related financing involving multiple properties located across the United States, to list only three of many.

Seiden earned his J.D. from the University of California Los Angeles, and his B.A., magna cum laude, from Claremont McKenna College.

Greenberg Traurigs Real Estate Practice has expanded recently with the addition of Shareholders Martin Marty Taylor in Orange County, Jon S. Robins in Philadelphia, and Elizabeth H. Friedgut and Andrew S. Ryerson in Chicago. Earlier in June, for the fourth consecutive year and sixth time overall, Greenberg Traurig was recognized in The Legal 500 U.S. 2020 Guide as a Top Tier firm in Real Estate.

About Greenberg Traurig's Real Estate Practice: The Greenberg Traurig Real Estate Practice is a cornerstone of the firm and recognized leader in the industry. The firms real estate attorneys deliver diversified and comprehensive counsel for property acquisition and investment, development, management and leasing, financing, restructuring, and disposition of all asset classes of real estate. The team draws upon the knowledge and experience of more than 400 real estate lawyers from around the world, serving clients from key markets in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. The groups clientele includes a broad range of property developers, lenders, investment managers, private equity funds, REITs, and private owners. The firms real estate team advises clients on a variety of matters across a broad spectrum of commercial, recreational, and residential real estate, including structured equity and debt and the hybrids.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has approximately 2200 attorneys in 41 locations in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, diversity, and innovation, and is consistently among the largest firms in the U.S. on the Law360 400 and among the Top 20 on the Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.
Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP has released episode three of the Workplace Safety Review Podcast, Interview with Hamid Arabzadeh on OSHA Recordkeeping Regulations During COVID-19.

In this episode, host Michael Taylor interviews Hamid Arabzabeh, Principle of HRA Environmental Consultants, regarding OSHAs recordkeeping regulations and how they apply during COVID-19.

Workplace Safety Review, is a Greenberg Traurig Podcast, hosted by Taylor, Chair of the firms OSHA Group. Taylor interviews experts from across the industry to discuss different aspects of work place safety and best practices for employers.

Links to select prior episodes:



Taylor focuses his practice exclusively on representing employers regarding OSHA and Chemical Safety Board matters across the country. Over the last 18 years, he has defended scores of employers during enforcement litigation before federal OSHA, Cal-OSHA, SC-OSHA, WA-DOSH, as well as other state plan states. Many of these representations have involved a significant injury, fatality, or catastrophic event in the workplace.

About Greenberg Traurigs Labor & Employment Practice: Greenberg Traurigs Global Labor & Employment Practice serves clients from offices throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Members of the practice have had numerous trial wins and are frequently called upon to handle complex, bet-the-company, and large high-stake cases, including nationwide class and collective actions. On the labor side, a leading group of lawyers regularly represents management with labor-relations matters. Labor & Employment team members assist clients with complex employment issues, and design practical, proactive strategies that can be readily implemented by todays human resources professionals. In addition, the practice is recognized by The Legal 500 United States in the areas of Labor and Employment Litigation, Labor-Management Relations, ERISA Litigation, Workplace & Employment Counseling, and Trade Secrets Litigation. Visit Greenberg Traurigs Labor & Employment Blog for insights and analysis of the latest labor and employment developments, including legislation, regulations, cases, policies, and trends.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has approximately 2200 attorneys in 41 locations in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, diversity, and innovation, and is consistently among the largest firms in the U.S. on the Law360 400 and among the Top 20 on the Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.
People with chronic diseases need more than a diagnosis and prescriptions - they need a person-centered approach where they feel their preferences, values, and needs are considered, along with clinical decisions.

Prolific actor Laurence Fishburne gained widespread acclaim for his gripping performances in the Tina Turner biopic "What's Love Go To Do With It (1993)" and "Hoodlum (1997)." Now the award-winning actor is hosting an educational segment for the program "In Depth" with Laurence Fishburne. The informational television program showcases industry experts to discuss a variety of topics that affect people all over the country. A new episode will take a plunge into the medical field. Medical professionals will discuss how to provide proper care for patients experiencing chronic health conditions.

Nearly 50 percent of all adults have one or more chronic health conditions, and one of four adults have at least two or more chronic health conditions. Long-term illnesses like heart disease, stroke, and cancer are the leading cause of mortality rates worldwide. Despite alarming figures, the healthcare system lacks the structure to handle chronic illness adequately.

People with chronic diseases need more than a diagnosis and prescriptions - they need a person-centered approach where they feel their preferences, values, and needs are considered, along with clinical decisions. Increasing numbers of medical professionals are becoming aware of this need and are formulating ways to treat patients with their personal needs in mind. "In Depth" will explore more about how to go about caring for people with chronic health conditions in the upcoming episode.

"In Depth" with Laurence Fishburne is cautiously inspected before revealed to a public audience. The informational show has received numerous accolades for its endeavors.


Ellen Philip Associates (EPA) and Integrated Software Solutions, Inc. ("IS"), leading providers of proxy voting management technology solutions, today announced the merger of the two companies creating a proxy and financial software solutions technology leader. The merger is effective today, and the companies will combine business operations in the coming quarter.

The combined company will be privately held and continue to operate under the EPA and ISS brands. Ellen Philip, EPAs founder and CEO will work with the management team through the transition to a single company and serve on the Board of Directors. The headquarters for the combined company will be in suburban Philadelphia with offices in New York.

"We are thrilled to be joining with Ellen Philip Associates, our long-time partner," said Kathy Witman, Vice President at IS. "With the well-known expertise of Ellen Philip and her experienced team, we look forward to expanding our current products and services, enhancing our unique flexibility for customization of our offerings, and growing the business line. Most importantly, however, we look forward to continuing the unmatched level of customer service for which Ellen Philip Associates has been known throughout the industry.

Over the past two decades, EPA and IS have been partners in delivering innovative and successful proxy solutions addressing the needs of public and private companies, organizations, and proxy solicitors nationwide. These solutions include the full spectrum of electronic proxy voting services by web, phone and mobile devices, stock subscription processing and services, corporate actions and reorganizations, document hosting and materials requests, and data consolidation for mutual to stock conversions.

About Ellen Philip Associates: Ellen Philip Associates assists businesses through the complex world of shareholder services, offering a full spectrum of electronic proxy voting services by web, phone and mobile devices, stock subscription processing and services, corporate actions and reorganizations.

About Integrated Software Solutions, Inc.: With over 30 years of experience providing custom software solutions to financial service providers, IS provides software for shareholder management, bond recordkeeping, escrow accounting, and financial services consulting to corporations, state governments, banks and transfer agents.
John Lee, MD, Named Chief Medical Information Officer for AHN AHNs commitment to investing in a robust, leading-edge IT strategy and system that drives better healthcare value, outcomes and experiences for patients has been extraordinary, said Dr. Lee.

Allegheny Health Network (AHN) today announced that John S. Lee, MD, has been appointed as the organizations new Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO), effective immediately. Dr. Lee succeeds Robert White, MD, who announced his plans for retirement earlier this year. Dr. White will stay with AHN through the end of the year to help support a seamless transition.

Dr. Lee joins AHN from Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare, based in Naperville, Ill., where he has served as CMIO since 2016. At AHN, Dr. Lee will assume oversight of the networks electronic health record integration and optimization as well as direct all strategies and technological solutions related to the convergence and utilization of telemedicine, population health management and health care analytics. In this capacity, hell work closely with network and Highmark Health clinical and executive leaders in assessing, designing and implementing clinical support systems that maximize quality, safety, patient engagement, and process improvement.

In 2019, all eight of AHNs acute care hospitals were recognized as Most Wired providers by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). Most Wired is the industry-leading survey and recognition relative to IT implementation, integration and innovation in health systems across the country. AHN is one of the nations largest health systems with a singular electronic health record (Epic) that integrates all affiliated sites of care, including now 12 hospitals, five large Health + Wellness Pavilions and other outpatient care facilities, and hundreds of physician practices.

In addition to implementing systems such as Epic, Most Wired designated organizations are those that have deployed technologies and strategies such as population health and cost-of-care analytics, telehealth, and patient portals, to expand access to care and improve clinical and efficiency outcomes.

Information technology has been the foundation of our success in building a transformative, physician-led and patient-centered model of care for our region," said Cynthia Hundorfean, AHN president. It takes exceptional talent and visionary leadership to sustain and continuously advance the IT systems we deploy, and we could not have found a more accomplished and qualified physician executive to take those reigns for our organization than Dr. Lee.

An undergraduate of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Lee earned his medical degree from the Loyola University of Chicagos Stritch School of Medicine, and completed residencies at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. His professional affiliations include fellowship in the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

Last year, Dr. Lee was named the Physician Executive Leader of the Year by both HIMSS and the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems (AMDIS).

AHNs commitment to investing in a robust, leading-edge IT strategy and system that drives better healthcare value, outcomes and experiences for patients has been extraordinary, said Dr. Lee. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to help build upon the programs success and to shape its future course as part of a blended health and wellness enterprise.

About the Allegheny Health Network:

Allegheny Health Network (AHN.org), a Highmark Health company, is an integrated healthcare delivery system serving the greater Western Pennsylvania region. The Network is composed of 12 hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, Health + Wellness Pavilions, multiple employed physician organizations, home and community based health services, a research institute, and a group purchasing organization. The Network provides patients with access to a complete spectrum of advanced medical services, including nationally recognized programs for primary and emergency care, trauma care, cardiovascular disease, organ transplantation, cancer care, orthopedic surgery, neurology and neurosurgery, womens health, diabetes, autoimmune disease and more. AHN employs approximately 21,000 people, has more than 2,500 physicians on its medical staff and serves as a clinical campus for Drexel University College of Medicine, Temple University School of Medicine, and the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.
We believe she will be a great asset to the company and will add value to our existing client relationships as well as potential new business.

The Crouch Group is proud to announce Kellie Kilgore has joined the company as a new Account Representative. Kilgore will be responsible for existing client account management, new business development, and public relations.

She joins The Crouch Group from LG Seeds located in Westfield, Indiana. LG Seeds is a provider of corn, grain sorghum, soybean and alfalfa seed to farmers across the United States. It was there that Kilgore served as an Independent Account Representative in Amarillo, Texas and covered a sales area that cover the Texas panhandle, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. During her time there, she managed a sales team of local seed dealers and assisted them in creating business plans, sales support, farm visits and creating sales prospects.

Kilgore also comes to The Crouch Group with a degree from Oklahoma State University in agricultural communications, and experience in sales, marketing, advertising, public relations and business strategy. In the past, she managed major projects for outdoor retail name brands and crisis communications for oil and gas companies. During her time at OSU, she was the editor of Cowboy Journal, the official publication of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and the founder of PhilanthroPete, the official crowdfunding platform at OSU.

We are excited to have Kellie join our team at The Crouch Group, Tim Crouch, the owner of The Crouch Group said, We believe she will be a great asset to the company and will add value to our existing client relationships as well as potential new business.

The Crouch Group works with clients of all sizes and budgets throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Their focus is growing our clients business with an intense concentration on results. The Crouch Group provides clients with campaign design and implementation services, graphic design, web design, video production services and advertising specialties.
The number of coronavirus cases in Japan continues to rise, particularly in Tokyo.

Officials confirmed 67 new infections in the capital on Wednesday. That's the highest figure since a nationwide state of emergency was lifted in late May.

The daily tally in Tokyo has now topped 50 six days in a row. In total, nearly 6,300 people have tested positive in the city of about 14 million people.

The government's new panel of experts met for the first time to assess the effectiveness of anti-coronavirus measures.

The members include Nobel Prize laureate Yamanaka Shinya.

He has become a key figure since the outbreak began... launching a website with the latest information and making frequent media appearances.

The minister in charge of the country's coronavirus response says cooperation is essential to prepare for a possible surge in infections.

Economic Revitalization Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi said, "We have prevented a disastrous epidemic so far. Based on that experience, as well as new findings, we want to keep improving our measures."

The government plans to use the world's fastest supercomputer to simulate how the virus could be transmitted through droplets.

The panel will use the data to help guide the government's ongoing strategy.
"Knowing that we have a variety of businesses that were facing different hurdles to reopening, we determined a Micro-Grant would be essential to the mix of support we could offer our local businesses. - Jim Hoover, President, Main Street Middletown Board of Trustees

Main Street Middletown, MD Inc. has awarded $11,300 in grants to support local businesses in response to the economic hit many small businesses have endured due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent mandatory closings and shutdowns.

Main Street Middletown, MD Inc. is one of the 31-certified Maryland Main Streets and is part of the National Main Street program. Although it is a small organization run by a volunteer Board of Trustees, and staffed by one person, the Board has achieved some major milestones over the last ten years, but according to the Main Street Manager, Becky Axilbund, this is a very proud moment for our organization.

Supporting local businesses within the Main Street district is mission-driven work. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns and partial closures, the Main Street Board of Trustees has created a multi-faceted approach to assist the businesses as they reopen. Board President, Jim Hoover said, knowing that we have a variety of businesses that were facing different hurdles to reopening, we determined a Micro-Grant would be essential to the mix of support we could offer our local businesses.

Other efforts include increased advertising, creating a new unity slogan and signage, and increased business meetings with speakers providing technical assistance. Events that have been cancelled are being retooled to address changing attitudes about crowded events, and new virtual events are being planned all in an effort to continually bring positive attention to our hard-working businesses in Middletown, Maryland.

Main Street Middletown, MD Inc works to enhance the economic vitality and quality of life of the Main Street district. Our efforts stem from the National Main Street and Maryland Main Street programs. We bring together local, regional, and state partners, citizens, businesses, and elected officials to support the Main Street district through various forms of promotion, valuing the unique historic buildings and visual cues that make up the downtown district, and implementation of economic retention and economic growth strategies.
At Nativz, we say content is king, but data is queen, said Nativz CEO Cole Feigl. We call ourselves the Army of Nerds because we leverage this data to help clients dominate and navigate the ever-changing online world of advertising.

Nativz, a top-rated digital agency in Dallas, TX, has been recognized as a leader in digital marketing and big data analytics in a new report by DesignRush, ranking first in both categories.

Marrying data science with digital marketing expertise, in just three years this generalist marketing agency has delivered over 350 projects for B2B and B2C clients across 70 industry verticals.

In addition to their outstanding results, the agency earned the accolades thanks to their network of data scientist who build attribution, i.e. return on ad spend (ROAS), models to help clients measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and justify their investments.

Nativz CEO Cole Feigl credits the agencys success to their commitment to data as both the foundation of strategy and of client relationships.

At Nativz, we say content is king, but data is queen, said Feigl. Strategic use of data is what allows for highly targeted, localized-level marketing activities. We call ourselves the Army of Nerds because we leverage this data to help clients dominate and navigate the ever-changing online world of advertising.

Tapping into the power of data, the agencys Army of Nerds have managed over USD 2 million in clients ad spend, as well as built high-performing marketing strategies, including viral content.

Nativz actively manages a total of over 1.3 million followers on Instagram in the niche industry of the Aquarist hobby alone, and has produced one of the most successful posts in Instagrams history - one that has collected 3.5 million impressions and over 100K likes.

Commenting on the key to a successful -and even viral- strategy, Feigl highlighted personalization.

Personalized content is what separates good digital marketers from great digital marketers that consistently produce viral ads and posts, he concluded.

About Nativz: Nativz is a top-rated digital agency who are known by their clientele as The Army of Nerds. From large corporations all the way to freelancers, the Nativz team provides state-of-the-art web development, digital marketing and data analytics services for their clientele.
It is imperative... to help distribute food to those who need it most.

The National Diversity Inclusion and Cannabis Alliance (NDICA) announced today its participation in a comprehensive food services program in partnership with the USDA. NDICA will distribute food boxes at its main campus, 6065 S. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90047 every Tuesday from 2-6pm.

While our mission is to support social equity and social justice in the cannabis industry, you cannot have a viable employment program if basic needs go unmet, said Bonita Money, executive director and founder of NDICA. As a non-profit located in one of the most underserved areas of Los Angeles county, it is imperative that we use all the resources available to us to help distribute food to those who need it most during these difficult times, she added.

NDICA has been distributing food for more than seven months. Its partnership with the USDA is a way to expand the food service program to reach even more individuals in the community.

The USDA initiative is intended to bring food to families through innovative, regional distributors so fresh food can get to as many people as possible, especially in hard to reach places. The USDA is partnering with food banks, non-profits and faith-based communities to help distribute good. The Farmers to Families food box initiative has already delivered more than 5 million boxes of food to those in need across the country.

NDICA is on track to distribute 10-20K pounds of food per week. Food boxes include meat, eggs, rice, pasta, vegetables, fruits, bread, other dairy products and juices. Vegan options are also available. No registration or application is needed.

For more information, please contact info@thendica.org or visit NDICAs main campus at 6065 S. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90047 every Tuesday from 2-6pm to pick up a box.

# # #

For further information, please contact:

Kristie Amobi, Head of Communications

Tel: +1-213-598-0236, e-mail: kristie@thendica.org

Time zone: PST: Pacific Standard Time

About NDICA

The National Diversity Inclusion and Cannabis Alliance (NDICA) is a non-profit working to promote social equity and social justice in the cannabis industry. With chapters in Los Angeles, CA, Fresno, CA, Chicago, IL, Oklahoma City, OK, and Columbus, OH, NDICA exists to help ensure that people who were negatively affected by the War on Drugs are represented in the legal cannabis industry throughout the country. We work with social equity applicants and license holders in need of technical assistance, mentorship and resources to ensure a fair and equitable cannabis industry. Visit http://www.thendica.org to learn more.
DrupalCon Global is the conference designed to bring people together to share thought leadership around open source and ambitious digital experiences. Mitchell Baker is a pioneer of the web and a strong advocate for open source. As the chairwoman of Mozilla for the last two decades, she is one of the most influential women in technology. We are honored to have her at DrupalCon Global and are excited to hear her speak on July 16th.

The Drupal Association is excited to announce plenary and featured speakers for its DrupalCon Global, the conference designed to bring people together to share thought leadership around open source and ambitious digital experiences, provide professional development opportunities and invigorate Drupal project momentum.

Open Source Thought Leaders and Makers of the Free and Open Web

Mitchell Baker, Chief Executive Officer of Mozilla, will speak on Thursday, July 16 at 17:15 UTC. Heather Rocker, executive director of the Drupal Association states, Mitchell Baker is a pioneer of the web and a strong advocate for open source. As the chairwoman of Mozilla for the last two decades, she is one of the most influential women in technology. We are honored to have her at DrupalCon Global and are excited to hear her speak on July 16th.

Baker co-founded the Mozilla Project to support the open, innovative web and ensure it continues offering opportunities for everyone. She is a strong advocate for the open internet, open source, and the importance of connecting technology to its impact on individuals and society. TIME Magazine included Baker in its global list of 100 Most Influential People and in 2018, she received the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award.

Per tradition, Dries Buytaert, founder and project lead of Drupal, will deliver the highly anticipated Driesnote on Tuesday, July 14 at 16:15 UTC, celebrating the successful launch of Drupal 9 earlier this month and detailing the vision for where Drupals powerful enterprise open source content management system is going next. Founder and CTO of Acquia, Buytaert was named a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, CTO of the Year by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, New England Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and a Young Innovator by MIT Technology Review. He blogs frequently on Drupal, open source, startups, business, and the future at dri.es.

Additional Featured Speakers Include (confirmed as of July 1st):



Ayodele Odubela, data scientist, SambaSafety

Grace Francisco, vice president, Worldwide Developer Relations, MongoDB

iAsia Brown, program manager II, Microsoft

Jacqueline Gibson, software engineer, Microsoft

Leslie Mac, digital strategist and founder, Ferguson Response Network

Lev Kaye, founder and chief executive officer, CredSpark

Stu Keroff, founder of Community School of Excellence, Asian Penguins and Aspen Academy Penguin Corp

Increased Focus on Diversity and Inclusion

Re-imagined as a result of COVID-19 impacts, DrupalCon Global will be the first fully online DrupalCon event in its 15-year history. In adapting DrupalCon for 2020, we committed to creating a virtual interactive experience that provides an outlet for our community to collaborate and contribute, as we strongly believe Drupal can be used to make the world a better place. Rocker added, Moving this event online had the added benefit of allowing us to widen our scholarship program efforts with a particular lens on diversity and inclusion, providing more access than ever before for those in underrepresented communities in technology. Drupal Association partnered with a variety of organizations for its DrupalCon Global scholarship program including: TechUp Women, SheCodeAfrica, WomenTech Network, Semicolon, Pehia, Progra{m}aria, WoMakersCode, Women in Technology Uganda, FOSSASIA, AfriLabs, iUrban Teen, Open Source Community Africa (OSCA), and Black Women in STEM 2.0.

DrupalCon scholarship partner organization, She Code Africa, is a non-profit organization focused on celebrating and empowering young girls and women in technology across Africa. Tola Olawumi, remarked, We are a community that provides support, growth and guidance for ladies in tech and are excited to have ladies in our community attend DrupalCon Global where they get access to resources to help them spur their career in tech.

Sessions, Summits and Networking for Leaders, Developers, Marketers, and End Users

The DrupalCon Global experience includes over 100 sessions and will feature 12 hours of programming each day including live interactive discussions, 1:1 networking, mini-summits, virtual exhibit hall, and access to hours of on-demand educational content. The event takes place online Tuesday, July 14 - Friday, July 17 from 13:00 -1:00 UTC and includes a dedicated day for project contributions. DrupalCon Global is an excellent opportunity for businesses to invest in professional development for their teams - especially in this distributed workforce environment.

Tickets to DrupalCon Global are $249 per attendee. Tickets, additional speaker and session information, and scholarship applications are available at https://events.drupal.org/global2020.

About Drupal and the Drupal Association

Drupal is the most powerful enterprise open source content management software used by millions of people and organizations around the world, made possible by a community of 100,000-plus contributors and enabling more than 1.3 million users on Drupal.org. The Drupal Association is the non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the Drupal software project, fostering the community, and supporting its growth.

For more information contact Heather Rocker, heather@association.drupal.org
Were excited to share that G2, the worlds leading business solutions review website has named Postal.io a High Performer for Summer 2020, based on the responses of real users in the Grid Report for Account Based Execution. 100% of users rated with 4 or 5 stars, and 100% of users believe it is headed in the right direction, and users said they would be likely to recommend Postal.io at a rate of 99%

In addition to the High Performer ranking, Postal.io achieved an overall score of 4.9 out of 5 in the Direct Mail Automation category and 4.9 out of 5 in the Account Based Direct Mail Software category. This allowed Postal.io to secure spots on the G2 Grid Report for both categories for Summer 2020. These high scores are a result of Postal user ratings being near perfect for ease of use, quality of support, and ease of setup.

Were extremely excited to have made this much positive progress so quickly to achieve a High Performer ranking on G2, after only launching in early May of 2020, said Erik Kostelnik, CEO of Postal.io. Our customers are amazing and were elated that theyre having so much success using gifting and direct mail to achieve their revenue goals.

Postal.io has been named a High Performer on G2's Summer 2020 Grid for Account-Based Execution, said Kara Kennedy, Director of Market Research, G2. Making its debut in the report, users rated its 'ease of use' well above the category average.

Explore the latest reviews at G2.com to learn what real-life users have to say about Postal.io!

About Postal.io

Postal is a leading sales and marketing engagement platform that empowers companies to improve conversion rates with automated direct mail, corporate gifting and charitable giving. The Postal platform leverages machine learning to enable customers to optimize the creation, delivery, budgeting, and reporting of offline campaigns at scale. Forward-thinking enterprises and small companies alike trust Postal to deliver greater ROI through the automation and integration of offline and online strategies. Postal is a venture-backed, privately held company based in San Luis Obispo, California. To learn more, please visit Postal.io.

About G2

G2, the worlds leading business solution review platform, leverages more than 1,000,000 user reviews to drive better purchasing decisions. Business professionals, buyers, investors, and analysts use the site to compare and select the best software and services based on peer reviews and synthesized social data. Every month, more than one million people visit G2s site to gain unique insights. Co-founded by the founder and former executives of SaaS leaders like BigMachines (acquired by Oracle) and SteelBrick (acquired by Salesforce) and backed by more than $100 million in capital, G2 aims to bring authenticity and transparency to the business marketplace. For more information, go to G2.com.
Sell My House Fast Gainesville FL Our best form of marketing is by being completely honest and treating our sellers with respect and doing everything we can to help provide a solution regardless of their situation!

The founder of Sell My House FL, Jarred Mussen, launched this business in effort to help people who want to sell their house quickly and easily regardless of condition. Jarred is a licensed realtor who began his real estate investing career in 2016 within the Gainesville market. While working with a licensed real estate agent is a great fit for many people trying to sell their house, this is not necessarily the best fit for people that have a property with lots of problems and/or need to sell their property fast. Sell My House FL launched its business to provide homeowners the option to be able to sell their house fast regardless of property condition, and without having to pay any closing fees or real estate commission.

With the recent world changing events of COVID-19, many people who want to sell or buy a house are unsure if this is the best time for various reasons. This leaves many people putting off the process to get their house ready to sell. Many Florida homeowners are uncomfortable taking the safety risks of having a bunch of people enter their home. Beyond safety concerns, there is also the uncertainty of future housing prices due to the unemployment rates and effects that COVID-19 is having on many businesses shutting down and the local economy.

With the current state of uncertainty for the future housing market due to unemployment, many homeowners are unsure about whether it would be wise to wait to sell their property until after things become more safe regarding the number of COVID cases. Every homeowners situation and goal with their property is unique and needs to be considered to make the optimal decision for them and their family. It can be immensely helpful to speak to someone who is knowledgeable about all house selling options along with the pros and cons to each option in order to make the best decision for each family's unique situation.

In effort to give alternative options to families that have a house that they need to sell fast, many say that we buy houses companies are able to provide helpful solutions to those who are facing challenging life circumstances. The traditional method of listing with a realtor on the market is a great a way to get the highest price for a property, but it could take a few months and may not be the best solution for some families. Most realtors recommend fixing up or updating the property before listing it on the market. While investing funds into the house will help sellers to get the highest price, this may not be feasible for the seller.

For those who are in a situation asking how to sell my house fast Gainesville FL, then working with a house buyer directly may be a great fit to help sell the owners' house quickly and conveniently. Selling directly to a house buyer can allow the seller to close in as little as 7 days.

There are also many sellers that dont want to have to pay realtor commission along with closing fees when selling their property since these costs are taken away from the purchase price agreed with the buyer. Working directly with a we buy houses company allows the seller to not have to pay any realtor commission, and the company usually will pay for the sellers closings costs so that the seller knows exactly how much money they will be receiving when it comes time to close.

Selling a house can be overwhelming with so many things to consider such as when to sell, who to work with, and what the best options are for the sellers situation. Its important the seller to first get clear on what is most important to them within their circumstances in regards to selling their house. Having a consultation with a real estate professional can be an extremely helpful step to take when trying to come up with a game plan that aligns with the seller's goals.

Sell My House FL is a local we buy houses Gainesville FL company that works with homeowners who want to sell their house fast as-is (without having to make any repairs or clean up the property) by giving sellers an all-cash offer. They pay all the closing costs and there are no fees or commission to work with them. The company exists to help people who need help most going through various situations and frustrating challenges with owning their property. Regardless of the condition of the property, property owners can contact Jarred to speak with him directly to discuss needs and any relevant information to the seller's situation so they can have a quick and easy house sale. He can go over both options of working with him as a realtor in comparison to selling the house fast for cash to determine which option is best for the homeowner's specific situation.

Sell My House FL is committed to being a house buying company that people can trust by taking the time to understand the seller's needs, being completely honest about the seller's situation, and not putting any pressure on the seller to work with them. Contact Jarred Mussen for further information via email at SellMyHouseFla@gmail.com or call to speak directly with Jarred at 352-499-1498. Homeowners can also visit https://www.sellmyhousefl.com/.
Manufacturing Automtaion Solutions for Medical Device Industry "Now thanks to the partnership with SLINED Automation & Robotics, TECHNOMARK brings even greater value to our customers by offering a single-source solution for all of their manufacturing automation needs."

TECHNOMARK North America has joined forces with SLINED Automation & Robotics to expand its range of capabilities for process automation, industrial part marking and traceability in order to meet the needs of medical device manufacturers who must comply with FDA requirements for Unique Device Identification (UDI)

TECHNOMARK is a leading OEM of direct-part-mark (DPM) machinery centered on two core technologies: dot peen and laser marking. SLINED Automation & Robotics is an engineering company with fully integrated in-house capabilities for design and fabrication of manufacturing automation solutions with domain expertise in the medical device industry.

"Since 2000, TECHNOMARK's innovative modular design concept for direct part marking has lowered Total Cost of Ownership for our customers," said Eric McDaniel, President of TECHNOMARK North America. "Now thanks to the partnership with SLINED Automation & Robotics, TECHNOMARK brings even greater value to our customers by offering a single-source solution for all of their manufacturing automation needs."

To learn more about TECHNOMARK's complete range of custom integrated solutions for industrial part marking and traceability, please visit https://www.technomark-inc.com/custom-made/

To learn more about the complete range of capabilities for manufacturing automation offered by SLINED Automation & Robotics, please visit http://slined.com/
"I am humbled to be part of such a talented group of individuals" - Rahul Pandhi, CollabraLink CEO

CollabraLink has been named one of The Washington Posts 2020 Top Workplaces in the Washington, D.C. area. Selection is based solely on employee feedback gathered through an anonymous third-party survey administered by research partner Energage, LLC, which measured numerous aspects of workplace culture, including alignment, execution, and connection.

Now in its seventh year, The Posts Top Workplaces list continues to highlight the companies that are leaders in the Washington-area in terms of employee engagement and satisfaction, said Washington Post Top Workplaces editor Dion Haynes. We had a record number of employees participate in the survey this year, making it clear that these organizations have made cultivating an atmosphere of support and respect a priority.

CollabraLinks CEO, Rahul Pandhi said, Our team is honored to be selected as one of The Washington Posts 2020 Top Workplaces. I am humbled to be part of such a talented group of individuals. This award celebrates the commitment our team has made to operating with integrity, serving as stewards for our clients, working as a team, holding each other accountable for our choices and actions, and ultimately, ensuring we operate with unwavering respect for the individual.

The full list, along with additional content, will run in print in a special Top Workplaces magazine on October 14, 2020 and will be available on The Posts website. The Washington Post will also host an awards ceremony in October to recognize the 200 top-ranked companies.

About CollabraLink

CollabraLink is a digital services consulting team that delivers solutions to help our Federal customers achieve their mission. Using HCD, Agile, and modern methodologies, CollabraLink makes the Government more interactive, productive, and secure. Since CollabraLink was founded in 2003, theyve evolved from a business process management advisor to Fortune 100 companies, into a trusted leading federal contractor offering clients mission-critical solutions. Throughout this time, CollabraLink maintained a commitment to incorporating advanced technology and process innovations that deliver value to their clients, and provide added mission advantage. At CollabraLink, one common goal unites their team: put our clients mission first.

About The Washington Post

The Washington Post is an award-winning news leader whose mission is to connect, inform, and enlighten local, national and global readers with trustworthy reporting, in-depth analysis and engaging opinions. It combines world-class journalism with the latest technology and tools so readers can interact with The Post anytime, anywhere.

About Energage, LLC

Headquartered in Exton, PA., Energage (formerly known as WorkplaceDynamics) is a leading provider of technology-based employee engagement tools that help leaders to unlock potential, inspire performance, and achieve amazing results within their organizations. The research partner behind the Top Workplaces program, Energage has surveyed more than 47,000 organizations representing well over 16 million employees in the United States.
Giving back to our local communities and being socially responsible is a major, foundational pillar that has supported our Urbane Cafe brand from the very first opening of Urbane Cafe 17 years ago."

Voted for having Best Sandwich by the Ventura County Reporter, Urbane Cafe is opening its newest cafe in North Hollywood, located in the NoHO West shopping center at 6160 Laurel Canyon Drive, Suite 120, on Monday, July 6th at 11:00 am. The North Hollywood location will become the 19th family-owned cafe in Southern California. To celebrate its opening, Urbane Cafe will host days of special giveaways, fundraisers, and complimentary meals starting Monday, July 6th at 11:00am. Guest may sign up for a special invitation to the event on Eventbrite by searching Urbane Cafe in North Hollywood.

On Grand Opening Day, Urbane Cafe plans to match funds donated by patrons supporting Brotherhood Crusade & Food Forward during the Grand Opening Fundraiser on July 6th at either 11:00am  2pm or 4pm-8pm.

Tom Holt, the owner and founder of Urbane Cafe, stated, Giving back to our local communities and being socially responsible is a major, foundational pillar that has supported our Urbane Cafe brand from the very first opening of Urbane Cafe 17 years ago. It is important for our staff to connect with our guests and to care about our community in the very same way we care about the preparation of our hearty, fresh, focaccia sandwiches and generous, healthy salads and bowls."

The two Grand Opening events will kick off a week full of giveaways. On Tuesday, July 7th, Urbane Cafe will provide complimentary meals for all our hard-working teachers and staff. On Wednesday July 8th they will spoil all Healthcare Heroes to a free meal, followed by kids eat free on Thursday July 9th. Finally, on Friday, July 10th, local neighbors possessing a golden ticket will receive a complimentary meal. Local businesses be on the lookout for our Urbane team who will randomly be passing out golden tickets! Also follow us on social media to come join the celebrations!

Schedule of events:

Monday, July 6th, 11:00am  2pm

GRAND OPENING  VIP PARTY  PARTENERED WITH BROTHERHOOD CRUSADE

Local residents and Urbane fans sign up at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/urbane-cafe-vip-grand-opening-party-lunch-tickets-110896438232. Allow us to spoil you with a handcrafted sandwich or farm-fresh salad, craft sodas, house made lemonades and delicious freshly baked cookies while giving back to the community. Brotherhood Crusade was Founded in 1968 to provide necessary resources, supportive services, & a voice of advocacy to traditionally underserved communities. Check out our Facebook Events page @UrbaneCafe for more details.

Monday, July 6th, 4pm  8pm

GRAND OPENING  VIP PARTY- PARTNERED WITH FOOD FORWARD

Local residents and Urbane fans sign up at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/urbane-cafe-vip-grand-opening-party-dinner-tickets-110900929666. Allow Urbane Cafe to spoil you with a handcrafted sandwich or farm-fresh salad, craft sodas, house made lemonades and delicious freshly baked cookies while giving back to the community. Food Forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people in need and inspiring others to do the same. Check out our Facebook Events page @UrbaneCafe for more details.

Tuesday, July 7th, 11:00am  8:00pm

TEACHER APPRECIATION DAY

All Teachers showing their teacher ID will receive a complementary sandwich, salad, or bowl. Be sure to reserve your spot at http://UrbaneCafe.eventbrite.com.

Wednesday, July 8th, 11:00am  8:00pm

HEALTHCARE GIVEBACK DAY

As a way to thank our local healthcare heroes, all of our well-deserving, hard-working, Doctors, Nurses, EMTs and healthcare staff will dine free. ID required.

Thursday, July 9th, 11:00am 8:00pm

KIDS EAT FREE!

Bring in the kids under 12 for a free kids meal with the purchase of an adult meal.

Friday, July 19th, 11:00am  8:00pm

LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS DAY  Local Urbane Cafe neighbors will randomly receive menus the week before opening. Lucky winners will find a golden ticket inside the menu. Those possessing a golden ticket will receive a complimentary meal on this day. Guests must present their golden ticket to redeem their reward.

Urbane Cafe would be delighted to have their local community members join them for one of these fun, worthwhile events. For more information about their opening events or questions about Urbane Cafe, please visit https://urbanecafe.com, contact Caprice Kindgren at CapriceW@urbanecafe.com, or call (805) 648.2500.

Event Location:

Urbane Cafe

6160 Laurel Canyon Blvd Suite 120,

North Hollywood, Ca 91606

Social:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UrbaneCafeNoHO

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UrbaneCafe

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/UrbaneCafe/

ABOUT URBANE CAFE

Known for its fresh fire-baked focaccia breads, hand-carved meats and hearty salads, Urbane Cafe is a consistent favorite on Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor and other restaurant review websites. Popular with health-and-budget-conscious customers for 16 years, Urbane Cafe is a lunch and dinner destination for families and business people who want a fast, fresh, affordable meal. The lunch and dinner menu at each Urbane Cafe restaurant features fresh, healthy sandwiches and salads served in a warm, inviting setting. Catering and Take-Out are also popular. Though the restaurants span from Southern California to the Central Coast, owner Tom Holt retains a close, hands-on role in every aspect of the business, ensuring that standards of quality are consistent throughout the chain.

URBANE CAFE HISTORY

It all started in 2003 when owner Tom Holt realized there was a missing niche in the Ventura restaurant scene. He wanted a great sandwich and salad  something different, while still being dedicated to delicious tasting food. He understood that every great sandwich starts with the freshest of bread, so he designed the cafe around a hearth oven. Working with his friend Pete, they came up with a bread recipe that was soft, delicious and baked fresh, right in front of your eyes. It didnt stop there though, he created a menu centered around locally sourced ingredients, juicy-roasted meats, and crafted sauces to give each creation its own unique flavor. Urbane Cafe loves being the place where friends, family and communities gather to celebrate and make memories over delicious food. Our passion is to have our guests walk out happy every time and keep them coming back for more.
The number of corporate officers in Japan earning at least 100 million yen ($930,000) annually fell for the first time in eight years in fiscal 2019 as the coronavirus pandemic eroded performance-based compensation packages.

The ranks shrank by about 100 from the previous year's record high to 485 corporate officers at 237 companies, according to Tokyo Shoko Research, which looked at listed companies that had submitted earnings statements by Wednesday. The total last declined in fiscal 2011, in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

The decline, as well as the preceding rise, is rooted in the growing popularity of Western-style incentive-based remuneration to attract global management talent. While such frameworks boosted pay in past years, they worked against many executives in fiscal 2019 as net profit at listed companies plunged 31% and the Nikkei Stock Average sank more than 10% over the year through March.

Mitsubishi Electric had 21 people in the 100 million yen club in fiscal 2018. In fiscal 2019, with operating profit down 11%, the total dropped to one.

Those who did make the list often earned more than in the previous year. Forty-eight received at least 300 million yen, suggesting that the downturn has not done much harm to pay rates at the top end. Many of the highest-compensated executives hailed from outside Japan, including Toyota Motor's Didier Leroy and Nigel Frudd of Sompo Holdings, reflecting the scramble to retain foreign talent.

SoftBank Group had three board members in the top 10, including Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure, who ranked second with 2.11 billion yen. The technology conglomerate reported a net loss of well over 900 billion yen for fiscal 2019.

CEO Masayoshi Son responded to shareholder questions at June's annual general meeting by taking the blame for insisting on investing heavily in WeWork, the main culprit behind the losses. "I should be getting the biggest pay cut," he said.

At Takeda Pharmaceutical, which has been criticized by shareholders for high executive pay, CEO Christophe Weber's compensation grew 18% to 2.07 billion yen in a year in which the company's net profit plunged roughly 70%. Takeda introduced in April a system allowing for compensation to be clawed back in response to such problems as misconduct.
In the wake of a comics shop market rocked by the pandemic and the loss of a major distribution client, Diamond Comic Distributors founder Steve Geppi announced that he will take back the role of president of Geppi Family Enterprises (GFE), the parent company of Diamond and its network of pop culture businesses.

Stan Heidmann, a former PepsiCo executive who joined the company to head GFE when it was formed in 2019, is leaving the company.

Today I am announcing an organizational change that will help us lean even further into the many opportunities to elevate our industry, our business and our brands in this fast-moving and evolving marketplace, Geppi said in an announcement issued July 1. Geppi is also chairman and CEO of Geppi Family Enterprises.

Geppi is returning to take charge of Diamond Comic Distributors, the dominant distributor of comics in the North American comic shop market, at time when the comics shop market is reeling after a cascading series of disruptive events brought on by the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic. In March, with comics shops and other comics retailers shuttered due to shelter in place orders, Diamond Comic (as well as Diamond Book Distributors, which services the book trade) was forced to halt shipments of all new comics to stores. In April, Diamond halted payments to publishers and other vendors due to cash flow issues linked to disruptions in the supply chain.

In June, as Diamond began to restart shipments, DC, one of the two dominant publishers (the other is Marvel) in the direct market comics shop channel, announced that it was ending its 25-year distribution relationship with Diamond, after setting up a separate and competing distribution channel with two mail-order comics vendors that have expanded their services to include national comics distribution.

I have a strong history of growing and leading this organization for several decades and I am energized about our next phase, Geppi said, emphasizing that more announcements about plans will be coming in the next few weeks.

Under my guidance, the executive leadership team will support a comprehensive strategic review to position the enterprise for future growth. I feel a tremendous responsibility to our employees and the industry, and I fully intend to set all Geppi Family Enterprise brands on a path for robust growth.
In a speedy reversal, the Second Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court has vacated judge Hal B. Greenwald's Temporary Restraining Order blocking Simon & Schuster from publishing Mary L. Trumps forthcoming tell-all, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man.

The July 1 decision comes just a day after Greenwald issued his June 30 order, following emergency appeals by both Simon & Schuster and the author, and a speedy private hearing before the appeals court. The decision means S&S can continue to move forward with its planned July 28 publication, although a July 10 appearance date on the matter still looms.

In his six-page ruling, Presiding Judge Alan Scheinkman held that because S&S is not a party to the confidentiality agreement at the heart of the case, they cannot be restrained without a full hearing of the facts.

"The only basis offered by the plaintiff to extend the temporary restraining order to S&S are the allegations that S&S 'intends to act' on Ms. Trumps behalf in causing the publication of the book and that S&S is acting at Ms. Trumps direction and in concert with her," Scheinkman wrote. "However, these allegations are conclusory and not supported by any specific factual averments. Unlike Ms. Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights. Since the predicate for the plaintiffs application for a temporary restraining order is the existence of the confidentiality provision of the settlement agreement (and no alternate basis for an injunction against Ms. Trump is either suggested or apparent), and S&S is not a party to the settlement agreement, this Court perceives no basis for S&S to be specifically enjoined."

But with a hearing set for July 10 before Judge Greenwald, the appellate court upheld a modified version of the Temporary Restraining Order pertaining to the author, Mary L. Trump.

"At this preliminary stage of the proceedings, this Court is of the view that it is appropriate, in view of the confidentiality provision of the settlement agreement and the showing made in the plaintiffs papers, for a temporary restraining order to issue as against Ms. Trump to temporarily enforce its terms pending a hearing on the preliminary injunction," Scheinkman concluded.

In a statement, S&S officials said there were "gratified" by the Appellate Courts decision. "As we all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions," S&S officials said, "and we remain confident that the preliminary injunction will be denied."

The decision is the latest twist in a fast-moving lawsuit pursued by Robert S. Trump, the brother of President Donald J. Trump, in New York State Supreme Court in Dutchess County that seeks to block Mary L. Trump from publishing a potentially explosive Trump family memoir on the basis of a sweeping confidentiality clause agreed to in 2001, when the estate of the presidents father, Fred Trump Sr., was settled. On the S&S website, Mary L. Trump's book is described as a revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him," and claims to offer insight into how Trump "became the man who now threatens the worlds health, economic security, and social fabric. The publisher's catalog copy describes Mary L. Trump as a trained clinical psychologist as well as the presidents only niece.

 Unlike Ms. Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights. 

In its June 30 answer to the Trump family lawsuit, attorneys for Simon & Schuster insisted there is no constitutional or contractual basis for blocking Simon & Schuster's publication, and denied that the publisher is acting either as an "agent" or "in concert" with Mary L. Trump.

This argument, which posits that Simon & Schuster can be bound by an agreement that pre-existed its relationship with Ms. Trump by almost twenty years and whose existence was unknown to it, is specious at best, S&S attorneys argue, adding that the publisher and the author are "independent parties that entered into an arms length transaction." And unlike a legally defined agent, "Simon & Schusternot Ms. Trumpmaintains the right to control the publication of the Book.

That argument is bolstered by an affidavit from S&S CEO Jonathan Karp, who told the court that after book was formally accepted on May 7, Mary L. Trump lost any ability she otherwise may have had to prevent or delay the Books publication. Further, Karp said that "approximately 75,000 copies have been printed and bound and are ready for publication, which includes shipments to retail booksellerscopies which S&S no longer maintains control of.

Once Simon & Schuster shipped [the books] in response to a purchase order," Karp explained, "title to the physical copies passed to the retailer or wholesaler.

Clarification: this story has been edited to reflect that while the parties have requested oral argument, no appearance is required on July 10. The court will rule on the briefs submitted.
A conference room that doubles as a classroom on the second floor of Stewart Center has chairs spaced out across the room to promote proper distancing.
New York City, NY (11385)

Today

Heavy thunderstorms during the evening will give way to mostly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 71F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Heavy thunderstorms during the evening will give way to mostly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 71F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Former Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has sent a message to state governors undergoing COVID-1...





Former Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has sent a message to state governors undergoing COVID-19 treatments.





Atiku wished Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State and Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State quick recovery.





In a tweet, Atiku urged families of the governors to be strong.





My thoughts and prayers and those of my family are with Gov. @IAOkowa, Gov Okezie Ikpeazu and Gov @RotimiAkeredolu and their families and all those currently undergoing treatment for COVID-19. Be strong and get well soon. -AA, he tweeted.





Recall that Okowa had on Wednesday announced that he and his wife tested positive for coronavirus.





The governor had disclosed this via his Twitter handle.





Also, Akeredolu had on Tuesday said he tested positive for the virus.





Akeredolu had made his health status public during a press conference in Akure.





Similarly, Ikpeazu had in June tested positive for the virus.
Rantoul, IL (61866)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. High around 70F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low near 50F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.
Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low around 65F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low around 65F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Tomorrow

Cloudy with rain ending in the afternoon. Thunder possible. High 72F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
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Berks adds 4 cases but state surges

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The police in Dubai has extradited Raymond Igbalode Abbas, an Instagram celebrity better known as Hushpuppi, from the United Arab Emira...





The police in Dubai has extradited Raymond Igbalode Abbas, an Instagram celebrity better known as Hushpuppi, from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the United States.





The security outfit took to its social media page to break the news on Thursday.





In a statement, the Dubai police said the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) extended its gratitude to the UAE crime unit for its role in apprehending and extraditing the internet personality.





The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray has praised the exceptional efforts exerted by the United Arab Emirate, represented by the Dubai Police General HQ, in combating transnational organised cybercrime including the recent arrest of Raymond Igbalode Abbas, known as Hushpuppi and Olalekan Jacob Ponle aka Woodberry who were taken down in operation Fox Hunt 2, the statement read.





Mr Wray also extended his appreciations to Dubai Police for their cooperation in extraditing the wanted criminals, who committed money-laundering and multiple cybercrimes, to the United States.

Hushpuppi was arrested in June alongside his associates of 11 other Nigerians, including Olalekan Ponle, better known as Woodbery.





The suspects were apprehended on June 10, for alleged crimes committed outside the UAE, including money laundering, cyber fraud, hacking, impersonation, scamming individuals, banking fraud and identity theft worth Dh1.6 billion (an estimated N168 billion).





It is also understood that about 1,926,400 victims were targeted by the syndicate.





Their arrest followed an intense tracking by a special operation dubbed Fox Hunt 2, in an investigation that took less than four months and prompted a series of synchronised raids by the police on the suspects different residences while they were asleep.





Hushpuppis extradition also comes at about the same time when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) described him as Nigerias most-wanted hacker, adding that he has a case to answer.
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A former Publicity Secretary of the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Godwin Erhahon, has said that the State ...





A former Publicity Secretary of the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Godwin Erhahon, has said that the State Governor, Godwin Obaseki has refused to learn from history.





According to him, what happened in Imo State between the Action Alliance, AA, and its governorship candidate in the 2019 election, Uche Nwosu, should have served as a lesson to Obaseki and his Deputy, Philip Shaibu.





He said a recent Supreme Court judgement that sacked Nwosu as the AA governorship flag-bearer, should have guided the governors decision to participate in Peoples Democratic Partys primary after undergoing screening in APC.





He said having surrounded himself with swindlers who are urging him and his deputy to continue to pursue their gubernatorial ambition on the wonky, expired and empty PDP platform, Obaseki has failed to reason.









The apex court crafted the judgment so explicitly as if it was meant for the duo of the governor and his deputy to understand what fate awaits them in the state, Erhahon stated.





The Supreme court nullified Uche Nwosu nomination in AA on the account that he had contested for nomination under APC.





As if to explain itself further to the outgoing Governor, the Supreme Court elaborated on how the relevant law nullifies the PDP candidacy for their understanding when it elaborated thus:





Edo election: Why I'll never support Obaseki - PDP chieftain, Kassim Afegbua READ ALSO:Edo election: Why I'll never support Obaseki - PDP chieftain, Kassim Afegbua

The spirit of the law forbids anyone to contest for nomination under two or more parties in the same election or even start the process of being nominated by procuring the nomination form. How does Governor Obaseki hope to escape the last clause? Erhahon wondered.





He said the governor, at the moment possesses a counterfeit PDP governorship ticket, explaining that Obaseki obtained the APC nomination form, filled it and returned same, and even attended the partys screening and was disqualified.





He said by the clause under reference, the apex Court seems to have told Obaseki to stop wasting his time and resources.





So also does it sound a warning to Obasekis supporters that they are about burying themselves along with a dead body because they are blinded by temporary pecuniary sentiment.





Whoever is being deceived by his neighbour may survive but whoever deceives himself is on a suicide mission. Lets watch and see where desperation, cantankerousness and sadism are leading Governor Obaseki to. Like the Benin elders would say hasty wrestling and fatal fall go together.





The APC had announced the disqualification of Obaseki, from participating in the June 22 primary election.





This was after the Governor raised the alarm, alleging that the former National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole was planning to announce his disqualification.





Following his disqualification, Obaseki resigned from the ruling party.





He later joined the PDP where he participated in the partys primary election and emerged as the partys sole candidate for the September 2020 governorship election.
While most countries struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, the civil wars in Syria and Libya have become battlegrounds for foreign states backing different local sides. External powers have intervened in both civil wars supplying advanced conventional weapons that have intensified the conflicts, but not all the weapons have performed as claimed. Perhaps the most startling example of this is how ineffective modern Russian air defense systems have been at countering drones and low-flying missiles. In the face-off between expensive air defensive systems and lower cost offensive drones and low-flying missiles, the offense is winning.



In recent weeks, drones supplied by Turkey in support of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord have reportedly destroyed the Russian Pantsir short-range air defense systems (SHORADS) that the opposition Libyan National Army (LNA) used to protect their forces. The inability of the LNA to protect their forces has turned the tide of the conflict and is a reminder of how difficult effective air defense is in an era of comparatively inexpensive armed drones and precision guided low-flying cruise missiles.



The LNA is not alone in having difficulty employing air defense systems effectively. The Syrian regime is protected by several Russian-origin air defense systems, including the S-300, S-400 High Altitude Air Defense Systems (HIMADS), Buk-M1 medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, and Pantsir SHORADS. The Israeli Air Force has regularly defeated these systems through the combined use of electronic warfare, anti-radiation missiles, and stand-off precision guided munitions. Many of the tactics, techniques, and procedures used to defeat SHORADS in Libya were tested during the Turkish militarys brief 2020 winter campaign in Idlib Province during which Turkey destroyed Pantsir SHORAD and Buk-M1 medium-range SAM systems operated by the Assad Regime. Some of the destroyed Syrian and Libyan Pantsir systems appeared to be operational in the field, while others were being moved on flatbed trailers or hiding under sheds at the time they were knocked out. This shows how good intelligence aiding offensive attackers can easily neutralize defensive systems.

Not all of these systems were defeated due to inherent technical shortcomings. The tactical and strategic situation in which these air defense systems are employed also affects their performance. For example, as part of a United States government foreign assistance-funded project, RAND has examined open source reporting that highlights how Syrian personnel operating newly-acquired advanced Russian air defense systems lack the training time that is needed to effectively operate these complex systems. The repeated success of forces using drones and low-flying missiles to destroy or suppress multiple air defense systems on the battlefield is a cautionary note about the effectiveness of these systems against modern air threats. In both Libya and Syria, lower cost offensive drones and low-flying missiles have bedeviled more expensive, complex, and difficult to operate air defense systems.

Even well-equipped countries like Saudi Arabia know from the drone and missile strikes on its oil facilities during the late summer of 2019 by Houthi rebels or Iranian operatives that effective air defense against armed drones or low-flying missiles is very difficult. Similarly, as Iran knows from its own tragic misfires of its Russian-supplied Tor air defense system that shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner, operating sophisticated precision guided missile systems requires extensive training, and even then tragic errors can occur.



Russian defense company and government officials have marketed their advanced HIMADS and SHORADS as highly effective against aerial threats. However, as the recent fighting in Libya and Syria has demonstrated, the acquisition and operation of a modern integrated air defense system is a challenging military enterprise. Even technically, effective weapons can and have been defeated. Unfortunately for the air defenders around the world, an offensive attacker has a wide range of electronic and kinetic weapon options to degrade if not defeat that air defense. National decisionmakers would be wise to carefully weigh offense and defense trade-offs to meet their security needs before spending national treasure on expensive and complicated systems that are hard to operate and do not always work as advertised in the field.



John Parachini is a senior international defense researcher and Peter Wilson is an adjunct international defense researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.
A bipartisan coalition of U.S. Senators has pulled back the curtain on Russias quiet march to expand its regional influence by way of energy infrastructure. More, and welcome, legislation is under consideration in an effort to halt Russias Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project through sanctions against the Russians and auxiliary companies supporting its completion. If completed, the Nord Stream 2 project will serve as a geopolitical weapon to expand Russias influence in Western Europe and undermine American national security efforts with key allies.

Introduced by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the Protecting Europes Energy Security Clarification Act aims to keep Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin from being able to circumvent active sanctions against the project. This latest bill is an expansion of measures passed in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that co-sponsor Senator Jeanne Shaheen described as ensuring Russia does not surreptitiously extend its malign influence throughout Europe, and protecting the Ukraine, Europes energy independence, and American allies from Russian exploitation.

The Nord Stream 2 project is a sister pipeline to Nord Stream 1 and is designed to move billions of cubic feet of Russian produced shale gas to a German offtake for use across Western Europe. Officially registered with Nord Stream AG, incorporated in Switzerland, there is little doubt that Nord Stream 1 and 2 are intended to disproportionately support Russian interests. Gazprom, the Russian state owned and operated energy services entity, is the majority shareholder in Nord Stream AG.

This battle between American sanctions and Russian expansion is truly analogous to differences in free market and top down, state-driven approaches to energy development. And added efforts by policymakers to halt the completion of the project are worthwhile despite pushback from German leadership.

Russia relies heavily on energy industries to support its economy at large with oil and gas operations making up 40% of fiscal revenues and nearly a fifth of the countrys gross domestic product. For American interests, there is obvious value in hamstringing the cash flow stemming from their energy influence.

Already the 2020 Russian budget faces a $39 billion deficit because of lower revenues from oil and gas. Nord Stream 2 is a longterm play to lock in decades of buyers in Western Europe, increasing our allies reliance on energy supplied by an unpredictable and often aggressive regime.

This isnt just about Nord Stream 2. American policymakers should also consider commonsense solutions outside of legislation. Further unlocking American domestic energy can support our European allies with reliable energy while bettering our own energy industry  all while limiting Russias influence.

A first step can come by encouraging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review the six outstanding applications for export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico. Added export capacity would give confidence to industry members contemplating new development projects and push the country closer to greater freedom and flexibility with energy exports.

To double down on the benefit of added export terminals, a second look must be given to Senators Rubio and Scotts calls for a ban on offshore leasing and drilling activity. Technological advances have proven offshore operations to be safe and free from interfering with coastal tourism.

Data from the Energy Information Administration show federal offshore reserves (Gulf of Mexico) of nearly 600 million barrels and another 400 million offshore of Alaska. These reserves are valuable and geopolitically important. Had access to these reserves been available six months ago, the United States may have been able to better insulate itself from the Saudi / Russian price war. Or, these reserves could counter Nord Stream 2 by offering European allies an affordable and sustained stream of energy as part of larger trade agreements.

The United States is in a global leadership position when it comes to energy. To sustain that role, attention must be given to improving domestic energy strength and reiterating to allies that we are capable and eager to support them. Allowing Russia to complete and operationalize the Nord Stream 2 pipeline forfeits strategic advantages critical to the United States and its allies.

James Spider Marks is a retired U.S. Army major general and strategic advisor to the GAIN Coalition  Grow Americas Infrastructure Now.
If I tried to burn some railroad tracks in Canada, my fate would be clear and immediate. As soon as information about my despicable act was known to the authorities, I would be summarily arrested. The same would occur were I to try to prevent pipeline construction by blockading a highway. The Canadian courts might go easy on me, since this would be my first offense, but, then again, they might not, in these troubled times. No one would negotiate with me. Any negotiation I would be involved in would occur between my lawyer and the prosecutor. If I demanded to deal directly with Justin Trudeau, I might not end up in jail. More likely, a mental institution.

Suppose I demanded that the RCMP pull back and leave me alone, free to pursue my blockading activities. They should depart from my august presence. Perhaps this might even work, for a time. They would be so doubled up with laughter I might ward them off for a few moments. But they would quickly recover, and then out would come the handcuffs.

Why is it that I would be treated so differently than the heredity chiefs of the native bands who were engaged in this self-same behavior I had (hypothetically) exhibited? The answer is obvious. I, too, could lay claim to sovereignty, but they actually enjoy more than just a little bit of this status.

What the hereditary Wetsuweten chiefs claim, and to a significant degree actually enjoy, is more powerful, even, than that wielded by the provincial governments. According to the federalist doctrine which undergirds Canadian law and actual practice, if a dispute broke out between the premier of a province and Ottawa, it is clear which level of government would prevail. When there was talk of Quebec seceding from the union, the federal government was generous and supportive. They provided not unreasonable conditions under which this could legally occur. But they need not have done so. Instead, the prime minister might well have taken the tack adopted by the Spanish central government regarding a similar desire on the part of the Catalonians: absolute refusal, coupled with imprisonment for those they regarded as rebels.

British Columbia and Alberta, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and the other provinces are sovereign within their own territories, but not vis a vis the federal government. The same cannot be said for the native tribes. They enjoy at least a modicum of the sovereignty that provincial governments do not have, do not even claim.

How did this strange state of affairs come to be? What is the background for the tribal claim that they would negotiate, only, with their political equal who represents much of Canada, but not their part of it, the prime minister? Why was this demand not immediately met with scorn and derision on the part of all and sundry? How could the Wetsuweten chiefs, with a straight face, in all seriousness, demand that the RCMP be removed, forthwith, from their sovereign territory?

This is all due to the fact that they not only claim a modicum of sovereignty, but actually enjoy more than just a little bit of it.

There cannot be two spiders in the same web, at least not for long. There cannot be two sovereign nations ruling over the same territory. That is a recipe for disaster. Until and unless this political contradiction is settled one way or the other, it will be the fate of Canada to be plagued by these sorts of conflagrations. This pipeline protest was not the first of these episodes to occur, nor will it be the last.

How might a resolution of the present imbroglio occur? One possibility would be to treat the native peoples exactly in the same manner as all other Canadians. They would have no more rights than any other citizen, and no fewer either. Tribal lands would be dealt with as would any other territory or capital good in the country. If members wanted to secede, they could do so on a proportional basis, taking with them, or selling, or being given, 1/n of the value of the entire holding. This is the way members of other multi-owner operations are dealt with, for example those who hold stock in a given corporation.

Under this resolution, there would be no more largesse, courtesy of the long suffering Canadian taxpayer, which enables tribal chiefs to be paid million dollar annual salaries. Native persons would have no more tribal rights than any other group of people, such as Asians, blacks, whites, gays, straights, Jews, Christians, athletes, non athletes, chess players, non chess players, etc. No more gambling establishments for tribal members, only. Everyone could now get in on this industry.

The other path would be to get serious about native peoples sovereignty. Treat them exactly the way Canada deals with its other sovereign neighbors: the U.S., Russia, the U.K., Iceland, etc. The Great White North makes no welfare payments to any of these other sovereign nations, nor would tribal members continue to receive any. Foreign aid? Maybe. Welfare? No. Then, of course, Canadians would no more be able to run pipelines on their territory without permission, than they would be able to do so on the land of any other sovereign power.
Seven years ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the taxpayer-funded U.S. broadcasting agency and its flagship media outlet, the Voice of America, as practically defunct in its capacity to be able to tell a message around the world.

Were abdicating the ideological arena, and we need to get back to it, she told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. This was a widely held belief spanning the partisan divide. So much so that in 2016 -- the year most political observers expected Clinton to be elected president -- Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law, a reorganization of the Voice of America and its sister U.S. government-funded broadcasters.

The new law was designed to take power away from a board of governors and give it to the agency chief, a presidential appointee who requires Senate confirmation. The law also gave the new CEO more power to hire and fire division heads within the agency and shift the direction of the programming back to the presidents interpretation of its original charter and mission. It specifically states that the heads of the different broadcast outlets of the U.S. Agency for Global Media serve at the pleasure of and may be named by the CEO.

But in Washington, shaking up entrenched bureaucracies  even in small government agencies when there is widespread bipartisan support for doing so -- is risky business. There are 535 opinions in Congress on how it can and should be done, and the second-guessing and recriminations extend across the political landscape with think tank heads jumping on soap boxes and so-called good government groups taking sides.

Enter documentary filmmaker Michael Pack, Trumps choice to head USAGM. Pack is no newcomer to public broadcasting or the USAGM, having served in several U.S. taxpayer-backed media positions under three presidents  two Republican and one Democratic.

During the George W. Bush administrations, Pack served as the vice president of programming for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and before that, during Bill Clintons time in the White House as the co-chair of that organizations International TV Council, which oversees the feasibility of collaborative efforts between American public television producers and states and their counterparts in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. When George H.W. Bush was president, Pack was director of WorldNet, the equivalent of todays VOA TV, which produced and distributed programs to more than 127 countries across the globe.

Pack directed and produced more than a dozen films in his career that were aired on the Public Broadcasting Service, the most recent a ground-breaking biopic of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which premiered on PBS in May. Despite Packs years of direct experience, the fierce media campaign launched against him has either glossed over it or failed to mention it at all, while at the same time playing up his ties to controversial Trump administration figures. For most of the last three and a half years, anti-Trump Republicans joined with Democrats to block his confirmation in the Senate.

The forces aligned against him cited his work with former White House senior adviser Steven Bannon on two documentaries as cause for great alarm. The news media carried dire headlines warning that Pack would turn the USAGM into a Trump-administration megaphone even as he testified that he is dedicated to maintaining the agencys journalistic independence.

The Senate finally confirmed Pack in early June  and the last few weeks since he officially took the helm have been tumultuous ride, to put it mildly. One article asked whether Trump is putting fascists in charge of the Voice of America, even though Pack is Jewish, as are several of the other top officials hes brought into front-office positions. Other articles claimed he would turn the VOA into a Trump propaganda machine.

I think the media reaction has been hard to fathom and disproportionate, he told RealClearPolitics in an interview this week. Instead of turning the USAGM into Trump TV and radio, he pledged to continue to safeguard journalistic independence at its outlets while stressing his intention to return the agency to its original charter to present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively and to present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.

His opponents, many of them the very board members he fired, have jumped to conclusions about how he plans to fulfill that mission and have complained bitterly that he hasnt consulted them. Only days before his arrival, then-VOA Director Amanda Bennett and her deputy, who were appointed by President Obama and have remained for most of Trumps first term, resigned in anticipation that Pack would fire them. As widely expected, Pack then went about dismissing the heads of four media organizations the USAGM oversees, in what critics labeled a Wednesday night massacre amid an onslaught of new warnings in the media that he planned a right-wing takeover.

Pack dismissed the heads of Middle East Broadcasting, Radio free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Open Technology Fund, an office devoted to promoting Internet freedom  moves that were largely expected as he looked for his own team of agency leaders. The firings spurred a new torrent of negative stories and a lawsuit from those fired. Pack is standing by his actions as both lawful and necessary. On Thursday a judge agreed in a key decision, ruling against the motion for a preliminary injunction against Packs decision to fire the network heads and replace the agencys governing board.

I decided to have a fresh start and change the leadership of all five broadcasters, he told RCP. I thought by doing it on day one it would be clear that I wasnt passing judgment on them. I asked for the resignations of both Democrats and Republicans so it wouldnt be perceived as a partisan witch hunt, even if its portrayed that way.

I dont think thats an unusual thing to do  many people coming in to run a network or news division change leadership, he said.  I have to do the right thing and hope that will become clear in the end. I dont regret doing it.

The Open Technology Fund, which USAGM officials had curiously spun off as a separate nonprofit months before his arrival, reacted by launching the lawsuit claiming the firings were unlawful. A bipartisan group of senators, including Republicans Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and Jerry Moran  all members of the Appropriations Committee -- upped the ante on Wednesday by sending Pack a letter expressing deep concerns about the firings and warning that they are going to conduct a thorough review of USAGMs funding to ensure the agency is not politicized.

These [firings], which came without any consultation with Congress, let alone notification, raise serious questions about the future of the U.S. Agency of Global Media (USAGM) under your leadership, they wrote.

It came as no surprise that several senior Democrats would sign the letter, including Sens. Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Chris Van Hollen. But Rubio and Graham, members of the House Foreign Relations Committee, had recently voted in favor of Packs nomination in committee and when it came to the Senate floor for confirmation. Some sources have speculated that Rubio is upset that Pack chose to dismiss two Republicans -- Jamie Fly, the former head of Radio Free Europe, as well as Alberto Fernandez, who headed the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Fly had once served as a foreign-policy aide to the Florida Republican.

The letter threatened to review the agencys funding, but it didnt argue that Packs leadership shakeup is illegal.

One day later, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell decided in Packs favor and against the Open Technology Fund. While Howell acknowledged the backlash in the press against the firings and the senators concerns, she noted that Pack defended his actions as authorized by 2016 amendments to the International Broadcasting act. Despite being buried in a brief, six-page section of the 970-page enacted bill, the judge said it made profound structural changes in the management of the agency tasked with overseeing the funding and operations of the affected networks that allowed Pack to make the personnel changes.

The ruling also applied to the Open Technology Fund  finding that Pack also had the power to fire officials there and dissolve its board of governors.

One day before, the Aspen Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan organization that holds leadership exchanges and forums, waded into the controversy. It held an online forum titled Americas Megaphone at Risk, giving several of the fired USAGM board members and former executives a platform to rail against Packs moves.

Vivian Schiller, the executive director of the Institutes digital arm, hosted the virtual conference and served as its moderator. Afterward, she re-tweeted an AspenDigital video of the forum with a spoiler alert that the recent upheaval at USAGM has already done irreparable damage for democracy both at home and abroad, a statement based on the fired officials opinions.

With one stroke of a pen, he removed those who are absolutely the best and the brightest in their field, said Ryan Crocker, a former career ambassador who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria and held a position the USAGM board of governors before his removal. Im deeply concerned that through these abrupt terminations, that the intent of the administration is to effectively turn USAGM into precisely those state-controlled media agencies [of other countries] we are locked in battle with.

Pack counters such attacks by referring to the driving force behind the congressional reforms that gave him the new powers. Critics and journalists covering the issue for the first time, he said, really dont know the full history and the reasons behind Congresss decision to dissolve the board as soon as the Senate confirmed a new CEO.

There was bipartisan agreement that [USAGM] was not doing what it should -- and that the structure, that a bipartisan board -- should not manage an agency of this size, he said, referring to congressional concerns about agency mismanagement and a series of recent scandals. There were all kinds of things that I think made people on a bipartisan basis agree to create this job  the CEO job that replaces the board.

Critics have also assailed Pack for installing interim heads of the USAGM media outlets, including Jeffrey Shapiro, who several media reports have cast as a Bannon ally, as leading the Office of Cuba Broadcasting  at least in an interim basis. Bannon made himself an easy target with several recent comments suggesting he could be involved in USAGM decision-making. Pack dismisses the notion that Bannon is playing or angling to play an influential role in running the agency  either officially or in an informal advisory capacity.

I havent been in touch with Steve and I havent seen Steve since he left the White House a couple of years ago, Pack said. He also clarified that Bannon is not a business partner, that the two only worked on two documentaries together five-plus years ago. He was essentially a consultant, Pack said. He provided creative and business advice, and I actually think he did a great job and hes fun to work with, but it wasnt like a political partnership or a media partnership.

Pack also dismissed rumors that Sebastian Gorka, an aggressive ex-Trump aide, could get a USAGM role. I have not approached Seb Gorka to serve in any position whatsoever in this agency, and I have no plans to do so, Pack said.

He declined to discuss the Open Technology Funds lawsuit against the firings, though he sought to clarify that he is still evaluating the OTFs role and has no plans to dismantle it. An online petition, signed by 498 human rights and Internet freedom organizations, several of them left leaning, asserts that Pack has plans to eliminate the OTF and rescind its funding. Along with the lawsuit, the groups have launched a social media hashtag campaign dubbed #SaveOTF.

The OTF, on its website, says it is devoted to advancing global Internet freedom and countering repressive censorship and surveillance. Its research and development funds have helped support innovative encryption products that help dissidents and protesters communicate and organize in repressive countries, but theres widespread disagreement on whether its been effective in piercing Chinas, Irans and other repressive regimes Internet firewalls. Over the past decade, the USAGM has received more than $100 million for its internet freedom programs, but internal agency figures, viewed by RCP, show that only 1.7% of people inside China have access to USAGM programming.

RCP also reported last week that the State Department inspector general is investigating the way in which the OTF was recently spun off to become a private nonprofit, even though the organization is taxpayer funded. Pack says hes still in the early information-gathering stage about what technology tools are the most effective in helping break through those information iron curtains. I have made no decisions, he said. I simply changed the leadership of that organization. I havent taken positions on these technologies and which ones are going to work.

Instead, Pack has spoken more broadly about the importance of ensuring the U.S. is doing all it can to help citizens under repressive regimes break through internet barriers and provide greater protections from government censors. I give internet firewall circumvention a high priority. I think its really important. I agree with people who call it the Berlin Wall of our time, he said. I think if you can give people in China and other places access to the internet, its a huge win for liberty.

My sense is it hasnt been pursued as aggressively in the past as it should be, he added. I plan to change that.
He wanted to look good for his day in court, and that meant a blue suit made by British tailor Richard James, a blue double-cuffed dress shirt with a Windsor collar, George Cleverley shoes, a blue silk knit tie, and a checked pocket square (also blue).

Then, for whatever reason, he made note that beneath it all he was wearing boxers by Charvet of Paris. Ahead of his 2019 arraignment, Roger Stone reminded a reporter from the conservative Daily Caller that hes always adhered to the old adage the clothes make the man.

He appeared, by most accounts, impeccable. His later sentence, by all accounts, was ugly.

It was recommended that he serve seven to nine years in prison for lying to Congress, a penalty later reduced to 40 months after the intervention of the Department of Justice. Stone, the longtime friend of -- and the former adviser to and the first presidential campaign manager for -- Donald Trump, does not want to go. He told me late Wednesday afternoon, while speaking under home confinement from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that the only stripes he can stand are pinstripes.

But prison-issued jumpsuits, usually drab orange and not up to his standards, are not what worries him about federal penitentiary. Stone is 67 years old. He has a history of asthma, an underlying condition that, when combined with his age, place him at greater risk for the coronavirus (there are other health problems, ones that he said would not be polite to discuss on the record).

We're in the middle of a pandemic, he explained. Sending me to prison, while Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen and Rick Gates are sent to home confinement, is manifestly unfair. In my case, since I'm older than all of them and evidently not as healthy, you know, this is a very real danger.

Stone has asked that he stay out of prison stripes until at least Sept. 3 while he appeals his conviction. He was set to start his sentence yesterday but asked a federal judge for a two-month extension. The Justice Department didnt oppose that request, giving him a little more time to argue in the legal system and the press.

In an April interview with Myra Adams, an acquaintance from Republican politics, Stone stressed his renewed Christian faith. Listening to Stone on the first day of July -- as prison becomes a nearer possibility  more of the old Roger Stone shines through. Its a more secular version, although there is certainly an element of grace implied by Stones observation that his final chapter is not yet written.

From Richard Nixon to Trump, the press has chronicled his infighting, his hard-edged politics, his so-called dark arts of political persuasion. But the man who rigged his own election for class president in high school and who later made devious political donations to political rivals on behalf of the Young Socialist Alliance of America in an effort to smear them now talks earnestly about justice and equal treatment under the law.

His trial? Well, that was a hatchet job by a jury basically selected from the Clinton and Obama administrations alumni association. His wrongs, past and present, recorded by the press? Well, those are slanderous stories written by a pack of jackals. His treatment by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein? Well, that man is a liar who perjured himself before Congress when he said that he didnt authorize the investigation into the Republican operative three months after they knew there was no Russian collusion.

Stone insists that he did not receive a fair trial and he was hung out to dry by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and that he will soon be a political prisoner. That is, if Trump does not intervene first. The White House wouldnt comment when asked by RealClearPolitics, but the president has made his thoughts clear on how the criminal justice system is treating his old friend.

Roger Stone has been treated very unfairly. How about that jury forewoman, does anybody think that was fair, Trump tweeted. DISGRACEFUL! he added, before insisting that everyone stay tuned.

But all of that was in May, and Trump hasnt said anything since. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, meanwhile, denied Stone a retrial, ruling that the aforementioned forewoman, who shared posts on social media critical of the president, had considered evidence against him fairly and that the assumption that she was biased is not supported by any facts or data and it is contrary to controlling legal precedent. But before that, when others turned on him, the president praised Stone for refusing to testify. In December of 2018, he tweeted, Nice to know that some people still have guts!

What happens next? If loyalty is reciprocal, shouldnt the president, who praised the gastrointestinal fortitude of his old political aide, give a little grace? I have no answer to that question, Stone replied wistfully, I have no idea.

I mean, look, perhaps, he also has confidence in the appeal system, but I have to live long enough for my appeal to be heard, Stone added. If he should die in prison from the respiratory disease sweeping its way across the globe, my appeal dies with me.

I guess if I had to make an appeal, it would be that on humanitarian grounds, as an act of mercy, as well as of justice, I would pray that the president use his incredible powers of clemency, he said.

Stone does not sound worried though, let alone afraid. He says his livelihood had been ruined by litigation, sure. His name dragged through the mud, absolutely. But the man with the Nixon tattoo believes he isnt done. The political operative has a final pitch: Keep me out of prison, and I will help Trump win again.

Stone argued as much to Lou Dobbs on Fox News and repeated the same to RealClearPolitics, stressing, all the while, that he doesnt want a gig with the campaign. He wants a free hand to make mischief all on his own. It is what made him Roger Stone in the first place.

There are a lot of independent things that I would like to do because I really think the 2020 election is going to be very close and very competitive, he told RCP. I also believe that there's no question that the president not only can win, but will win. Frankly I'm nauseated by the sunshine soldiers in the Republican Party who are wringing their hands in defeat this far out from an election.

The playbill of the Trump era hasnt been printed because the show isnt quite over, even as the curtain threatens to drop. Maybe Stone was a bit player who didnt actually get the president elected and who cant do much to get him elected again. But he pushed himself into the spotlight so many times that he couldnt be ignored.

Will the president, who pardoned Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois, the guy who tried to sell Barack Obamas Senate seat to the highest bidder, really leave one of his own behind? Stone does not know. For once the dapper political disrupter does not care about his wardrobe. He might go to prison. If he goes, he says he will have some time to write:

I've written half a book on my current experience. The problem, of course, is that the book  I still don't know the ending of the book, so I can't finish it.

The president could help provide the ending, but for the time being  and with the clock ticking  Trump is remaining uncharacteristically silent.
As we approach this Fourth of July, the United States is consumed by reckless violence, nihilistic silencing, and a systematic assault on the nations cultural and political patrimony. The voices of sanity are few, and civic courage is in short supply. The exemplars of such courage in the Anglo-American tradition  Washington, Lincoln, U.S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill  are under assault from angry extremists who topple statues with impunity and demand absolute conformity. Government at every level appears impotent as indignant fanatics rule the streets. We have arrived at the unthinkable: Americas Jacobin moment, as an editorial in the Wall Street Journal aptly put it. What has happened to our republic?

Our talking heads, the so-called chattering classes, pretend that this eruption of insanity has something to do with the quest for racial justice. That could not be further from the truth. Black Lives Matter  the movement, not the slogan  is in fact a racialist and ideological organization that denies common humanity and a morality applicable to all human beings. Professed enemies of decency and restraint, these Maoists and para-Marxists demonize all white people and anyone of any race or religion who challenges their bizarre and fanatical worldview, as well as the police (whose immediate abolition they demand). Of course, they do not believe that all black lives matter: Those black people, including children, cut down by urban violence in Chicago or Baltimore every weekend, or aborted at higher numbers than they are born in New York City, dont pass ideological muster. Black lives matter, of course, because all lives matter, but that elementary truth is now verboten. All races are equal, but in BLMs universe, some are more equal than others. This is a recipe for hatred and perpetual social conflict.

To affirm the moral law, the natural law, the spirit of the Ten Commandments, the true ground of all human dignity, is now said to be an indelible mark of racism. The mob dictates, and subservient elites shamelessly comply. We are witnessing nothing less than a Cultural Revolution marked by voluntary servitude or self-enslavement. American democracy risks committing suicide. Things are just that stark. And our pusillanimous cultural elites risk plunging us off the cliff like the Gadarene swine described in Scripture, but with the demons in charge rather than exorcised.

True democracy presupposes mutual accountability and mutual respect. Our greatest and most noble president, Abraham Lincoln, loathed slavery, as Frederick Douglass, the greatest black American of the 19th century, rightly said. As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master, Lincoln wrote in a note to himself in August 1858. This, he said, expresses my idea of democracy. And in his Gettysburg Address of November 1863, he called for a new birth of freedom that would bring black Americans fully into the American civic community. Lincoln knew that proud black men had spilled their blood for the Union and liberty and that Americans owed them honor and due respect for their sacrifices on behalf of the republic. As Douglass said in his dedication to the Freedmens Monument in Washington, D.C., in April 1876  a statue dedicated by former slaves in memory of Lincoln  one must show gratitude and appreciation to those loyal, brave, and patriotic black soldiers who fell in defense of the Union and liberty. Both they and Lincoln died at the service of a republic worthy of free men and women, one where citizens shared in rule and were neither masters nor slaves. We should be proud of that shared civic legacy, that mutual struggle for liberty and human dignity.

But now even the Freedmens Monument is threatened by a mob of angry thugs. These Bourgeois Bolsheviks, as The American Conservative recently described them, despise the mutual accountability and respect for law that undergirds true liberty and equality. They mock the greatness of Lincoln and Douglass. They are defined by ignorance, ingratitude, and envy. Their ignoble passion for equality, as Tocqueville called it, is a grotesque perversion of the noble moral and civic equality that underlies the American proposition. This desire to tear down, to destroy and repudiate the patrimony of our fathers, is incompatible with civilized existence.

It is time to reopen Dostoevskys Demons, the most penetrating expose of modern nihilism ever written. Even in the early 1870s, Dostoevsky exposed the spirit of pure destruction that could only pull down and never build anything worthy of human beings. The revolutionaries portrayed in his pages promise to cut off Ciceros tongue and poke out Shakespeares eyes, to the applause of an educated society that fawned before fashionable barbarism. Dostoevsky, in his most prescient and prophetic mode, predicted that 100 million people would perish if such nihilists and fanatics ever came to power. It was given to that great soul to see many things, as another great Russian writer once observed.

Now is a time for Lincolnian and Churchillian fortitude. Let us reject the path of nihilism and hate and renew our own civilized patrimony and our noble civic tradition. Nothing less than the survival of republican self-government is at stake. If we are to renew our commitment to racial justice and civic reconciliation, we must take our bearings from the best of the Western and American traditions. Freedom has died many times in history; let us not witness new death pangs on the anniversary of its birth.
France announced Wednesday that it is suspending its involvement in a NATO naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea after a standoff with a Turkish warship, amid growing tensions within the military alliance over the conflict in Libya.

France's Defense Ministry said that the government sent a letter Tuesday to NATO saying it is suspending its participation in Sea Guardian ``temporarily.'' It came after NATO investigators submitted their report into the June 10 incident.

A ministry official said France wants NATO allies to ``solemnly reaffirm their attachment'' to the arms embargo on Libya, which is being policed in part by a European Union naval operation.

France has accused Turkey of repeated violations of the UN arms embargo on Libya and branded the Turkish government as an obstacle to securing a ceasefire in the North African nation, which Turkey firmly denies.

France is also calling for a crisis mechanism to prevent a repeat of an incident earlier this month between Turkish warships and a French naval vessel in the Mediterranean. NATO is investigating what happened.

France says its frigate Courbet was ``lit up'' three times by Turkish naval targeting radar when it tried to approach a Tanzanian-flagged civilian ship suspected of involvement in arms trafficking. The ship was being escorted by three Turkish warships. The Courbet backed off after the confrontation.

France claims that under NATO's rules of engagement such conduct is considered a hostile act. At the time, the French frigate was part of the Sea Guardian mission, which is helping to provide maritime security in the Mediterranean.

Turkey has denied harassing the Courbet. Turkey's ambassador to France was questioned in the French Senate on Wednesday and defended Turkey's actions as peaceful and crucial to restoring stability to Libya.

Ambassador Ismail Hakki Musa said he thinks NATO has completed its investigation and that the findings were inconclusive. NATO confirmed that investigators had submitted their report on the incident, but declined to discuss it as the findings are ``classified.''

German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the incident as a ``very serious.''

``We should do everything to ensure that such incidents aren't repeated among NATO allies,'' Merkel said Wednesday during a question-and-answer session in the German parliament.

Merkel met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday; Turkey's foreign minister is expected to visit Berlin on Thursday.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when an uprising toppled leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since been split between rival administrations in the east and the west.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Fayez al-Sarraj is backed not just by Turkey, which sent troops and mercenaries to protect the capital in January, but also Italy and Qatar.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) forces under the command of Khalifa Haftar, who launched an offensive on Tripoli last year, are supported by France, Russia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and other key Arab countries.

* This story was edited by Ahram Online.

Short link:


Federal Government says it will withdraw the operational permit of transporters who flout safety protocols. The Minister of State ...





Federal Government says it will withdraw the operational permit of transporters who flout safety protocols.





The Minister of State for Transportation, Sen. Gbemisola Saraki, announced this in a statement signed by Mr Eric Ojiekwe, Director of Press and Public Relations in the Ministry on Wednesday in Abuja.





Saraki was quoted as giving the warning when she chaired a virtual meeting with the Forum of Nigerian Transport Commissioners.





She said that it had been resolved that the implementation guidelines prepared by the ministry would be adopted to minimize the transmission of COVID-19.





The minister pointed out that interstate transport operators should apply and could only operate on confirmation of satisfaction of the defined guidelines by the state ministry of transportation.





She said the ministry at federal and state levels would regularly monitor the implementation and compliance to the guidelines.





The ministry would also monitor the impact of the measure on safety and minimizing the transmission of COVID-19 through the mass transit sector, she added.





According to the minister, the overall objective is to protect passengers, operators and workers as well as preventing the spread of COVID-19.





The guideline has been fine-tuned with that of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).





The guideline also required the registration of all private travel operators, parks and terminals operators.





This is to ensure restricted access, social distancing, disinfection and sanitisation as well as have designated areas to isolate passengers with a suspected case of COVID-19 infection.





Similarly, all passengers must be subjected to temperature checks, and no mask, no entry policy must be adopted.





Staff must be sent for COVID-19 training and must adorn Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) while on duty.





Bus operators must observe all the safety protocols and limit their capacity to 50 per cent while windows must be open for short trips and the face masks should be worn throughout the journey, she said.
Traverse City, MI (49684)

Today

Some clouds. Low 43F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph, becoming SW and decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low 43F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph, becoming SW and decreasing to less than 5 mph.
More than 150 new cases confirmed in county: 80 new recoveries, one new death
The Nigerian Army says it is not its duty to expose sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgents. At a media briefing on Thursday, John E...





The Nigerian Army says it is not its duty to expose sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgents.





At a media briefing on Thursday, John Enenche, coordinator of defence media operations, said although the army is aware that some groups are being sponsored, its duty is to defeat terrorism and other criminality.





Enenche said it is the responsibility of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Department of State Services (DSS) to find out and disclose the identities of those sponsoring the criminal groups.





The kind of weapons these terrorists are using like the gun truck and other sophisticated weapons are expensive and how much are they stealing to procure those arms, that have to say that they are sponsored and heavily funded, he said.





But like I said, it is not the duty of the military to uncover the sponsors. Our duty is to remain in the frontline and defeat terrorism and other criminality and that is what we are doing.





We have the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Department of State Security (DSS), it is their responsibility to gather intelligence on the sponsors of the terrorist sand not the military.





On why the military is yet to invade the Sambisa forest, Enenche said troops are trying to avoid collateral damage that may result from total bombardment of the forest.





He said some civilians collaborate with insurgents in the area and this makes it difficult for troops to carry out major attacks on identified locations.





He, however, noted that the army has made tremendous successes in the fight against insecurity.





In the north-east, troops of Operation LAFIYA DOLE (OPLD) recorded commendable results in the past two weeks, he said.





During the period under review, troops conducted several operations at various locations, which led to the neutralization of terrorists, destruction of their equipment and structures as well as recovery of various items.





Between 18 and 30 June 2020, the air task force of OPLD conducted intensive airstrikes to mark the launching of its subsidiary operation LONG REACH along the fringes of the Sambisa Forest in Borno state following concerted intelligence surveillance reconnaissance missions.





The air operations led to the destruction of a BHT tactical command centre housing some of their high-value leaders and neutralized several of their fighters at Garin Maloma and Yuwe villages. Additionally, airstrikes conducted at Buka Korege, Bula Bello, Ngoske, Tongule, Bukar Meram and Warshale Villages led to the destruction of several BHT locations and gun trucks while scores of fighters were effectively neutralized.




As a new wave of coronavirus infections sweeps the South, Georgia and Athens-Clarke County are no exception. ACC reported 248 confirmed cases in June, which is only slightly higher than the 232 confirmed cases reported in April and May combined.

ACC reported 104 COVID-19 cases from June 22 to June 28, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. That is an increase of 166.7% from the week of June 15-21, when Athens added 39 new cases. The county also broke records of single-day case increases four times in the past week  the highest record was 43 cases reported on Wednesday.

Statewide cases are also on the rise. Georgia added 12,509 confirmed cases over the week of June 22-28. The DPHs COVID-19 case chart shows an increase in both confirmed cases and the seven-day moving average. Cumulative cases are also on the rise.

Increased testing could be contributing to the rapid increase in cases, but it doesnt explain all of the rapid increase. Georgias test positivity rate is around 13%, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Thats higher than the World Health Organizations recommended 5% positivity rate.

The latest increase in case numbers has also been driven by younger people, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. People between the ages of 18 and 29 now account for 21.6% of confirmed cases in the state  17,568 cases out of 81,291 total.

While younger people arent at a high risk for severe complications from COVID-19 unless they have an underlying medical condition, they can still transmit the virus. Gov. Brian Kemp issued an executive order allowing bars to reopen at limited capacity on June 1.

The governors of Texas and Florida, other states where cases have recently surged, have both closed bars and increased restrictions on other businesses, according to Politico.

The University of Georgias case number is also increasing. There were 154 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the university community on Tuesday, according to UGAs University Health Center. The UHCs numbers include those tested at the university health center as well as UGA students and employees tested in their hometowns that reported to the health center.

St. Marys Hospital has not yet seen a significant increase in their number of COVID-19 patients, St. Marys spokesperson Mark Ralston said in a Tuesday email.

Since the local onset of the pandemic in March, the average age of admitted COVID-19 patients at St. Marys is 61, with slightly higher average ages in the early months and slightly lower more recently, Ralston said.

Representatives from Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing a mask, washing hands frequently and keeping 6 feet in between you and other people to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Stroud Payne contributed to the data reporting.
Athens-Clarke County Animal Services is asking the community to foster the shelters dogs and cats during the Fourth of July holiday weekend with its Foster Over the 4th Program.
The University of Georgia is implementing safety guidelines on its buses in the fall to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Last updated on: July 06, 2020 09:09 IST

'China feels India will be hard-pressed not to go after China because we are so badly dependent on them -- and that is the reality.'

IMAGE: A protest against Chinese goods in Bhopal. Photograph: Rajeev Gupta/ANI Photo

Amidst the tension on the Ladakh front with China, another looming concern is the enormous trade deficit India has vis a vis China which makes it impossible for the country to break out of the Chinese economic stranglehold.

Going on the offensive over the issue, the Congress party sharply attacked the Narendra Damodardas Modi government for allowing the trade deficit with China to balloon to $53 billion -- from $36 billion when the Manmohan Singh government left office in 2014.

So how did India reach this level of trade deficit with its neighbour? How and why did Chinese goods so capture Indian markets?

Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com spoke to Biswajit Dhar, economics professor at the Centre for Economics Study and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, to understand what bedevils India-China trade.

"India as a country cannot run without electronics and pharma products from China. If we do not get these products, who will provide us? Professor Dhar asks in the first of a two-part interview.

Whenever border tensions rise, voices across India get louder about banning Chinese imports. But can we do without them?

I don't think it is possible in the short run. The amount of inter-climbing between the two economies -- and especially given our dependence on China -- it is not possible for us to decouple from china in the short run.

It can happen in the medium term if the Indian government takes serious steps to rejuvenate domestic production so some amounts of imports can be replaced by domestic production.

Can India raise duty on Chinese goods?

If it does so, will it lead to a violation of WTO terms which says that every member must offer every other member the same import duty rate and not discriminate?

There are ways of doing it. The WTO would never say no to countries trying to develop their industrial or manufacturing sector.

What the WTO would object to is if you give direct subsidy or raise tariffs beyond the permissible limit.

As long as government does this, finds ways of supporting the industry without violating the WTO, it should be fine.

Every country gives certain amount of support to its industries. There are red lines of what kind of support you can give so you should be careful that you do not transgress those red lines and violate WTO rules.

India's trade deficit with China has ballooned in the last six years. Why did it happen and what are the companies that benefit from this?

It is not six years, it has happened in the last 15 years.

If you see, imports from China in 2003-2004 were $4 billion. In the last financial year it was $65 billion.

Now, two things happened. At that time China had just joined the WTO and was given the Most Favoured Nation status and treated at par with other members.

At the same time India started liberalising more and tariffs started coming down rapidly in 2003.

After the 1991 liberalisation, the sharpest decrease in tariffs happened in 2002 and 2003.

The third thing that happened was that India's manufacturing sector was very weak then. There were government reports that talked about improving the share of manufacturing in GDP. But all those reports were ignored by successive governments.

As a result, China got advantage of the open Indian economy.

Without any competition from India's manufacturing sector who could not compete with China, that resulted in the ballooning of the trade deficit.

But what was the compulsion to reduce the tariffs on Chinese goods? Was it because of the WTO?

No. Even I have not been able to understand what was the necessity of unilaterally bring down the tariffs when your industries cannot compete.

Why are you exposing our industries to unfair competition?

And once China comes in then they indulge in all kind of unfair competition. They dumped their products.

This answer has not been given by the successive Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and Modi governments.

The Vajpayee government got into this agreement with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) to do a Free Trade Agreement which was concluded by the Manmohan Singh government. And then there were FTAs with Japan and South Korea.

The Modi government decided to join the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) which we vehemently opposed as China was a part of that grouping and they have already done so much damage to us and this decision would be like a kulhadi (axe) on your leg.

Fortunately, Prime Minister Modi went to sign the RCEP in Bangkok in November 2019, but pulled out at the last moment.

If the government had signed the RCEP, the situation would have been more terrible.

What was the reason for Modi not to sign the RCEP?

A lot of us wrote against it and a large number of domestic industries spoke up against it. They said there will be unfair competition from China and we will cease to exist.

Who benefits from these Chinese imports? Is there a lobby?

There must be some lobby, but I don't know. It is a matter for journalists to investigate. There are obvious pitfalls, we as researchers can point out by looking at the broad numbers.

Who are the people who pushed us into this situation from where there is no escape?

Two big areas where our dependence is huge on China are electronic goods -- that includes telecom -- and pharmaceuticals products.

We cannot do without China in these two sectors.

India as a country cannot run without electronics and pharma products from China.

If we do not get these products, who will provide us?

Eighty percent of the 17 rare earth minerals used in computers to lighting to renewable energy is controlled by China, so how can you as a country do without them?

I am not saying you can cut off from China completely. I believe Indian entrepreneurs have the capability of producing smartphones and computers, so why can't we produce it?

If you have large industries here, these industries need raw materials and when Chinese companies are selling 17 rare earth minerals, they will come here to sell their products.

Today what is happening is that they have the raw materials, they are processing it and they are giving their people jobs.

Here we are only importing and there is widespread unemployment in India because there are no jobs.

Did Make in India fail because of China?

That never took off. If it had taken off, we would have not been in this mess.

It did not take off not because of China, but because of us.

Every country where production happens, the government creates the right kind of infrastructure, ecosystem and does handholding for entrepreneurs to come and invest. It creates the environment for them.

Look at the infrastructure, red tape etc here.

Your cost of capital is higher. Take the MSME sector, they get loans at very high rates. Your cost of capital is higher.

So where is the incentive for entrepreneurs to come up and start manufacturing in India?

Look at China, the government is giving incentives to their industries, they are giving subsidies directly or indirectly. Therefore, we cannot compete with them unless the Indian government plays an active role.

Does China not fear losing its business from India when border tensions rise?

China feels that it is in a win-win situation because the Indian economy is so terribly dependent on them.

It is difficult for us to get rid of China overnight.

Suppose China stops exporting pharmaceutical products to us, then our pharmaceutical industry will suffer badly. The same is the case with electronic products and telecom sector.

China is doing all this as they are confident of the fact that India is on the back foot economically. They think they can extract some additional concessions from India.

They feel that India will be hard-pressed not to go after China because we are so badly dependent on them -- and that is the reality.
July 02, 2020 17:39 IST

The idea behind starting Chingari is not to build a TikTok clone but to position itself as a super app for India like WeChat.

The ban on TikTok is proving to be a demonetisation moment for desi social apps like Chingari.

Its co-founder Sumit Ghosh has had sleepless nights ever since the government banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok.

He is trying to find ways to equip the app so that it can handle the unprecedented and sudden spike in traffic.

Chingari is adding up to 600,000 users per hour, crossing a total user base of 7.5 million.

Ghosh said the app has a creation tool, which is as good as TikToks, hence a lot of influencers are moving to their platform.

The idea behind starting Chingari, he says, is not to build a TikTok clone but to position itself as a super app for India like WeChat.

We just wanted to penetrate the market with short videos, which have already taken off in India.

"We are now working on live streaming and chat functions, which will be rolled out soon, said Ghosh.

The app, which also has a news feature, is hoping to close a Series-A round of funding next week.

Chingari has a reward point feature in which every time a content creator uploads a video, he earns points that can be encashed later through partner UPI platforms.

Experts say top content creators and influencers make between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh per post on platforms like TikTok, and such influencers can have at least four deals a month.

"In the short term, many (content creators) would have lost their livelihoods.

"Now they have realised and wont keep all their eggs in one basket," said Rahul Singh, chief executive and co-founder at Bengaluru-based influential marketing firm Winkl.

Sequoia-funded vlogging platform Trell has witnessed over 1 million downloads since the imposition of bans on the Chinese apps, while it has on-boarded nearly 150,000 content creators.

The apps users can share or view experiences and reviews in categories such as cooking, movie reviews, beauty, and skincare through videos of not more than five minutes.

Content creators are going through disruption in terms of survival as the Chinese platforms, brand collaborations, and followers have vanished, said Pulkit Agarwal, co-founder, Trell.

"We are working on a crowd-sourced repository of content creators, who have been affected, as they are trying their best to migrate followers to other platforms."

The database of these content creators in India will be made public, and brands or other apps can get in touch with them.

This is similar to a database created for laid-off employees, Agarwal added.

Chingari is also building new tools for its users.

If we build a tool to import all your TikTok content to Chingari, will you use it?

"As a user generated content, you own it and can move it anywhere you want, Ghosh tweeted.

Inmobi-backed Roposo, which has witnessed 10 million downloads within 24 hours of the ban, is enhancing features on its camera stack in terms of getting new filters and editing tools.

We have signed brand partnerships with an e-commerce site and health care and fitness start-ups for hosting Roposo on their platforms for marketing and contests, said Mayank Bhangadia, founder, Roposo.

Unlike the Chinese apps, on Roposo, content creators receive a coin every time a user views their content that can be later exchanged for money.

Twitter-backed ShareChat claims to have recorded 500,000 downloads every hour to cross over 15 million downloads since the ban was announced.

With this sudden growth, the company might work on product improvisation to increase user stickiness.

The company is already playing with the idea of a TikTok like short video app called Moj, which is tailor-made for Indian internet users.

The app has seen over 10,000 downloads so far.

ShareChat, which had shared a confrontational past with ByteDance, the owner of TikTok and Helo leading to court battles, has already seen more than 100,000 posts supporting the governments move towards banning Chinese applications.

We invite creators across India to ShareChat and take part in the endless possibilities it offers.

"ShareChat plans to provide a fun and exciting experience to creators promoting talent across the country, said Farid Ahsan, chief operating officer and co-founder, ShareChat.

Another homegrown app Khabri, which provides audio content to users, is giving monetary incentives to users through its Creators Programme at various levels.

The app has seen a jump of 80 per cent in daily downloads after the ban on Chinese apps by Indian authorities.

While the Indian alternatives are seeing a huge surge in usage, experts believe their dream run could be short-lived if the government decides to overturn the ban.

"It is difficult for the Indian players to replicate the ecosystem of celebrities, influencers, content creators, and advertisers that these Chinese apps especially TikTok have created, without strong-venture capital backing (supporting the Indian apps)," said Singh of Winkl.
July 02, 2020 14:42 IST

According to experts, the banning of the apps has created negative sentiments and reduced the confidence among the Chinese investors to invest in India.

The Chinese app-ban is expected to further create hurdles for Chinese investments in Indian unicorns, soonicorns and other firms as Sino-India tension escalates.

With 59 Chinese apps banned by India, including Bytedance's TikTok, Alibaba's UC Browser and Tencent's WeChat, as the government cited security concerns, the country is expected to increase the level of scrutiny of investments coming from China - both directly and indirectly.

According to experts and industry insiders who work on cross-border investments between the two countries, the banning of the apps has created negative sentiments and reduced the confidence among the Chinese investors to invest in India.

They said this will have a major impact on new investments by Chinese players in companies such as Paytm, Ola, BigBasket, Dream11, MakeMyTrip, and Swiggy, when they go for follow-up funding.

Chinese investors, such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, are active in the Indian start-up space and have collectively invested billions of dollars.

Interestingly some of the Indian companies backed by Chinese investors have supported the governments move of banning the Chinese apps.

The government had also recently made changes to its FDI policy and introduced strict measures to curb opportunistic takeover due to the COVID-19 crises.

It had introduced a pre-clearance mechanism on investments from China.

The message from India to China is getting very clear that geopolitics and business will go hand in hand and access to Indian market for Chinese companies and investors will become a challenge if we have an unfriendly relationship in our border, said Anand Prasanna, managing partner at Iron Pillar, a venture growth investor specializing in technology investments in India.

I think most Chinese investors will hold back on investment plans in India given this dynamics, including follow on investments.

"I will not be surprised if a few will just sell existing investments and leave. It will take a long time for things to get back to normal if it ever will, said Prasanna.

Approximately $10 billion of capital was invested in Indian tech startups in 2019. As per Iron Pillars estimate, approximately 30 per cent of this capital came from investors based in China, including Hong Kong.

This is a significant increase from just a few hundred million dollars invested before 2017, according to Iron Pillar.

This app-ban or digital strike will impact the sentiments of Chinese investors.

"There lies a slippery road ahead for (Indian unicorns), which were showing steady growth in the Indian startup market, said Sumit Kochar, corporate commercial lawyer and transaction advisory partner at Dolce Vita Trustees.

According to foreign policy think tank Gateway House, Chinese tech investors have been successful and over the five years ending March 2020, 18 of Indias 30 unicorns are now Chinese-funded.

TikTok, the video app, had 200 million subscribers and had overtaken YouTube in India.

Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance rival the US penetration of Facebook, Amazon and Google in India. Chinese smartphones like Oppo and Xiaomi lead the Indian market with an estimated 72 per cent share, leaving Samsung and Apple behind, according to Gateway House.

TikToks owner ByteDance, had also a $1 billion India-specific expansion plan.

Chinese app Club Factory which was also banned claimed to be the third-largest e-commerce platform in India.

The other banned platforms include Mi Video Call and Mi Community of Xiaomi, which is the top smartphone vendor in the country.

There will be a wait and watch for Indian companies seeking capital and Chinese strategists will want to wait as well, said Madhur Singhal, managing director at management consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) which represents 7 crore traders this week also sent a communication to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and pointed out that Chinese companies have major investments in many start-ups in India.

It said Chinese companies like Alibaba and Tencent are lead investors in many of these startups and it should be ensured that no foul play is taking place under the garb of investments.

Experts said Chinas Digital Silk Road (DSR) project is feared to have made a major inroad deep into the country through investments by Chinese firms in Indian startups, and also the countrys control of the cyber and digital space.

The blocking order by the government is going to have some impact on the number of users of these Chinese apps in India in the short term, said Salman Waris, managing partner at TechLegis Advocates and Solicitors.

India has been one of the largest recipients of Chinese investments and hence in that sense, they have a long term strategy here, said Waris.

Blaise Fernandes, director at Gateway House said the India Digital Story is Covid resistant and even during these uncertain times investments from North America and the Middle East have come into the digital ecosystem of the country.

He said the privately held family funds and European sovereign funds will also be looking at India.

India needs a well-calibrated diplomatic outreach to tap these funds. So the Indian tech and startup systems have ample opportunities to tap the overseas markets, said Fernandes.

A few Indian entities have also raised capital in the past 6 weeks.
Source:

July 02, 2020 13:15 IST

TikTok's mother company, China-based ByteDance, could face a loss of USD 6 billion following the Indian government's decision to ban 59 Chinese apps including the wildly popular TikTok.

Photograph: Kind courtesy Kon Karampelas/Pixabay.com.

The loss of Chinese internet company Byte Dance, mother company of TikTok, could be as high as USD 6 billion after the Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok following deadly border clash between India and Chinese troops last month, reported Global Times citing sources.

A source close to ByteDance said that in the past few years, the company had invested more than USD 1 billion in the Indian market, and the ban could virtually halt its business there, causing a loss as high as USD 6 billion. That figure would exceed the potential losses of all the other apps combined, the Global Times reported.

TikTok is a short video-sharing platform under ByteDance, and Helo is a social media platform the company released for the Indian market. Another app called Vigo Video, which is also on the list, is also from the company.

According to data from Sensor Twoer, a mobile app analysis company, TikTok was downloaded 112 million times in May, with 20 percent of that total in the Indian market, double that of the US market.

The Indian government on Monday said it has decided to block 59 apps in view of the information available that "they are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the State and public order".

Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government has banned apps for the safety, security, defence, sovereignty, and integrity of India.

The development comes in the wake of latest escalation between the ties of India and China following the recent stand-off at Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) last month, which also killed 20 Indian personnel, in one of the most bloody confrontations between the border troops of two sides since the 1962 war.

China had expressed concerns over India's decision to ban 59 apps developed by Chinese firms and stressed that New Delhi has a responsibility to uphold the legal rights of international investors including Chinese.
July 02, 2020 11:28 IST

'Behind the BJP's anti-Congress crusade is an attempt to divert attention from the Ladakh standoff,' explains Amulya Ganguli.

Illustrations Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

The vehemence of the BJP's attacks on what the party appears to consider as its foremost enemies -- the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty -- is self-explanatory.

Among the fiercest of critics is the former heroine of a trashy, though popular, soap opera and now Union minister, Smriti Irani.

Considering that even a BJP-friendly TV anchor was constrained to accuse her of 'hitting below the belt' when Irani questioned Rahul Gandhi's mental prowess, her animus against the Congress's first family is crystal clear.

Now, she is engaged in a vitriolic diatribe at the BJP's so-called virtual rallies in which she has accused Sonia Gandhi of accepting funds from the Chinese for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

According to Irani, the Congress's interim president left 'no stone unturned to loot the country for her children'.

The minister is not the only one in her party to spout anti-Congress vitriol.

The BJP's national general secretary, P Murlidhar Rao, told another virtual rally that the Congress's mother-and-son duo were interested in 'politics' and not in the army's 'well-being' when they criticised the Centre on the faceoff in Ladakh.

Rao had a dig at the Congress's ally in Tamil Nadu, the DMK, when he wanted to know why the DMK is not criticizing 'taking money from China for RGF'.

Rao's question to DMK leader M K Stalin is 'Why are you associating with this party?'

It doesn't take much perspicacity to understand that behind the BJP's anti-Congress crusade at the virtual rallies as well as in real life by the party's past and present chiefs, Amit Anilchandra Shah and Jagat Prakash Nadda, is an attempt to divert attention from the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh where the Indian Army is engaged in staving off Chinese incursions.

It cannot be gainsaid that the multiple crises which the government is facing at the moment on the health, economic, diplomatic and security fronts are unprecedented.

While the coronavirus is still raging, the economy is in dire straits, India's relations with its two friendly neighbours -- Nepal and Bangladesh -- are frayed and China has trashed all the diplomatic attempts that were being made to repair India's ties with it.

It is odd that at such a time when the government's efforts should have focussed on untangling these critical knots, the ruling party should be so preoccupied with running down a party which, by the BJP's own admission, is in a condition of disarray under an interim president and a sulking former chief who is derided as 'Pappu' or an adolescent dilettante who cannot be taken seriously.

Yet, the viciousness of Irani's and Rao's speeches at the virtual rallies underlines a latent fear of the Congress's hidden potential to upset the BJP's apple cart.

Is this because the BJP is aware that 62.6 per cent of the electorate did not vote for it in 2019 when the party's vote share was 37.4 per cent?

True, many of the other parties which won were the BJP's allies or were favourably disposed towards it like the Biju Janata Dal or the YSR Congress.

But, still, a 60-plus percentage is a lot if the tide turns.

It is also possible that the venom directed at the Nehru-Gandhis, particularly in Irani's invective, is explained by the fact that Rahul Gandhi has been consistently targeting Narendra Damodardas Modi, ignoring the party's belief stemming from the 'maut ka saudagar' and 'chowkidar chor hai' fiascos in 2002 and 2019 that a direct attack on the prime minister is counter-productive.

Moreover, Rahul has come to the forefront of the anti-BJP campaign, leaving all the other Opposition leaders far behind who have either been silent or are quietly playing the BJP's tune like Sharad Pawar.

'Pappu' has shown, therefore, that there is virtually no one else who is willing to stand up to the BJP.

Hence, the bile at the BJP's virtual rallies.

Amulya Ganguli is a writer on current affairs.

Feature Production: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
Source:

Edited By:

July 02, 2020 22:18 IST

A plasma bank for treating COVID-19 was made operational on Thursday in Delhi which saw the total number of cases crossing 92,000 even as Union Home Minister Amit Shah suggested extensive use of Aarogya Setu and Itihaas apps to help mapping of coronavirus cases in the NCR region.

IMAGE: A boy reacts as a medical worker collects a sample from him at a centre to conduct tests for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), amidst its spread in New Delhi. Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

The plasma bank came up at the Delhi government's Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences.

The capital recorded 2,373 fresh coronavirus cases taking the tally to 92,175. With 61 deaths, the fatalities now stand at 2,864, a bulletin issued by the health department said.

However, the silver lining is that 3,015 patients recovered on Thursday, taking the number of those recovered to 63,007. There are 26,304 active cases in the national capital.

Addressing an online media briefing, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the eligibility for being a plasma donor is "very strict", and hoped that with this bank the number of COVID-19 deaths will decrease in the national capital.

Patients can donate their plasma 14 days after recovery, he said.

After inaugurating the plasma bank, he urged those who have recovered from the disease to donate plasma to other patients.

IMAGE: Honoured doctors flash victory sign after they recovered from the novel virus disease during COVID Warriors in White Coat event on National Doctor's Day, at Lady Hardinge Hospital in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

Home Minister Shah also chaired a high-level meeting which was attended by the chief ministers of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Shah has been steering the COVID-19 response strategy in Delhi-NCR.

"HM Shri @AmitShah emphasised on, 1. Adoption of more testing using Rapid Antigen Test Kits to help reduce infection transmission rate. These kits can be provided by GoI to UP and Haryana. 2. Focus on earlyhospitalisation to reduce mortality rates. 3. Extensive use of Aarogya Setu & Itihaas App to help mapping of COVID in NCR," a home ministry spokesperson tweeted.

The National Capital Region is a densely populated urban belt comprising cities like Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Faridabad. It spreads across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Among the cities, Delhi has highest number of cases in the country.

"Today, we have started the plasma bank and some people have also donated. As we all know there is no vaccine for novel coronavirus yet, but plasma therapy seems to be quite helpful for COVID patients," Kejriwal said.

It (plasma donation) was happening in a scattered way, so the idea was to bring it at one place in an organised manner, he said.

IMAGE: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visits India's first 'Delhi Plasma Bank' started at Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, for treatment of COVID19 patients, in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI Photo

Plasma therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 and transfusing those into a coronavirus-infected patient to help kickstart the immune system to fight the infection.

Explaining the procedure of donating plasma, an official said it is separated from the blood of donor using a plasmapheresis machine. ILBS has 10 of these machines at present, and two more are expected to arrive soon, a senior doctor at the institute said.

On the first day, many who have recovered from COVID-19, including the ILBS staff, donated plasma.

Sources said about 90 staff at ILBS have tested positive till date.

For donors, there are some strict criteria and counselling and screening is done for them before the actual donation process begins, so, about two to two-and-a-half hours is the total time per donor, the doctor said.

"Also, we do TTI (Transfusion Transmissible Infections) tests. So, the donor should not have HIV, hepatitis B or C, syphilis among other ailments. The donor also should not have any co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension or renal problems," she said.

IMAGE: A medic wearing a PPE Kit at Smt Sucheta Kriplani and Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital, in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

Each donor, a person who has recently recovered from COVID-19, develops antibodies, which are transferred to the recipient through plasma.

"Each person can donate 250-500 ml of plasma. We give first dosage of 250 ml to the recipient, and if needed a second dosage of 250 ml after 24 hours," a senior doctor at LNJP hospital said.

In a related development, the Delhi government constituted a 12-member expert panel to suggest measures for economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19 in the national capital, a statement said.

The city government also announced a remote teaching-learning plan for all classes in its schools in wake of the closure due to COVID-19 pandemic.

While the plan focuses on reducing academic loss of students, the government is focusing on addressing the issues of digital divide as not all students have access to internet or smartphones, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia announced.

Schools in Delhi have been shut till July 31.
Source:

Edited By:

Last updated on: July 02, 2020 12:21 IST

India's COVID-19 tally zoomed past six lakh on Thursday with a single-day increase of 19,148 cases, just five days after it crossed the five-lakh mark, while the death toll rose to 17,834, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

IMAGE: A healthcare worker checks the temperature of a resident during a medical campaign for COVID-19 at a slum area in Mumbai. Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters

It took 110 days for coronavirus infections in the country to reach one lakh, while just 44 days more to go past the six-lakh mark.

The country's COVID-19 caseload increased to 6,04,641 on Thursday, while 434 persons have succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 3,59, 859 while one patient has migrated. There are 2,26,947 active cases of coronavirus infection presently in the country.

"Thus, around 59.52 per cent of patients have recovered so far," an official said.

The total number of confirmed cases included foreigners.

This is the sixth consecutive day when coronavirus infections increased by more than 18,000.

There has been a surge of 4,14,106 COVID-19 cases from June 1 till date.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, the number of tests for detection of the disease crossed the nine million mark on Thursday.

A cumulative total of 90,56,173 samples have been tested up to July 1 while 2,29,588 samples have been tested on Wednesday, the apex health research body said.

Of the 434 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 198 are from Maharashtra, 63 from Tamil Nadu, 61 from Delhi, 21 each from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, 15 from West Bengal, nine from Madhya Pradesh, eight from Rajasthan, seven each from Telangana and Karnataka, six from Andhra Pradesh, five from Punjab, four each from Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, three from Bihar and one each from Chhattisgarh and Goa.

Of the total 17,834 deaths reported so far, Maharashtra accounted for the highest 8,053 fatalities followed by Delhi with 2,803 deaths, Gujarat with 1,867,Tamil Nadu with 1,264, Uttar Pradesh with 718, West Bengal with 683, Madhya Pradesh with 581, Rajasthan with 421 and Telangana with 267 deaths.

The COVID-19 death toll reached 253 in Karnataka, 240 in Haryana, 193 in Andhra Pradesh, 149 in Punjab, 105 in Jammu and Kashmir, 70 in Bihar, 41 in Uttarakhand, 25 in Odisha and 24 in Kerala.

Jharkhand has registered 15 deaths, Chhattisgarh 14, Assam and Puducherry 12 each, Himachal Pradesh 10, Chandigarh six, Goa four and Meghalaya, Tripura, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh have reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry.

More than 70 per cent deaths took place due to comorbidities, it said.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases at 1,80,298, followed by Tamil Nadu at 94,049, Delhi at 89,802, Gujarat at 33,232, Uttar Pradesh at 24,056, West Bengal at 19,170 and Rajasthan at 18,312 according to the ministry data.

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 17,357 in Telangana, 16,514 in Karnataka, 15,252 in Andhra Pradesh, 14,941 in Haryana, and 13,861 in Madhya Pradesh.

It has risen to 10,249 in Bihar, 8,582 in Assam, 7,695 in Jammu and Kashmir and 7,316 in Odisha. Punjab has reported 5,668 novel coronavirus infections so far, while Kerala has 4,593 cases.

A total of 2,947 people have been infected by the virus in Uttarakhand, 2,940 in Chhattisgarh, 2,521 in Jharkhand, 1,396 in Tripura, 1,387 in Goa, 1,260 in Manipur, 990 in Ladakh and 979 in Himachal Pradesh.

Puducherry has recorded 714 COVID-19 cases, Nagaland 459, Chandigarh 446 and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu together have reported 215 COVID-19 cases.

Arunachal Pradesh reported 195 cases, Mizoram has 160 cases, Sikkim has 101, Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 100 infections so far, while Meghalaya has recorded 52 cases.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR," the ministry said, adding that 6,832 cases are being reassigned to states.

State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it added.
The Lagos state house of assembly has asked Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor, to look at the listed sites (Prevention) law, 2015, with...





The Lagos state house of assembly has asked Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor, to look at the listed sites (Prevention) law, 2015, with a view to removing all vestiges of slave trade and colonialism.





moved the motion at plenary. Noheem Adams, deputy majority leader,moved the motion at plenary.





In the motion, the lawmaker recalled the gruesome killing of George Floyd in the US by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin.





The brutal and callous murder of Floyd triggered worldwide condemnations, demonstrations, and protests against the continue police violence and racism of blacks in US and Europe without provocation, he said.





The house is aware that these protests further drew attention to the reality of systematic racism, oppression and domination of blacks by whites in spite of abolition of vexatious slave trade and related activities since the 18th century.





This house is further aware that the demonstration brought about the pulling down of status of Edward Colston, a notable slave trader into a river in Bristol, London, while the British authorities removed from her museum status of another prominent slave master and promised a review of history pertaining to slave trade monument and sites.





said the motion was not about history, and that history could not be changed. Commenting, Mudashiru Obasa, the speaker,said the motion was not about history, and that history could not be changed.





Obasa added that statues are not history and that Africans all over the world should give backing to blacks fighting for the rights of fellow blacks.





South Africa got her independence much later than the rest African countries and they are not talking about Black Lives Matters campaign, he said.





We must protect the interest of our people all over the world. So many statues in London and other places are being brought down. We should change the names of some of these buildings. We cannot bring down the buildings because they were once used by colonial masters.





We can change the names of some of these buildings and streets. Some of the names remind us of these people that enslaved our people.





We need to change the names, but it does not affect our history. We should look at the history.





The speaker also asked why anybody would ascribe the discovery of River Niger to Mungo Park and Richard Landers brothers.





Does that mean people were not living there before the arrivals of the foreigners?





The speaker said even the name Nigeria was given by the colonial masters.





It is what you believe that says who and what you are. It is about what you believe and what you can do on your own.





You need to exhibit your own beliefs and culture. Most times, we speak like foreigners and some of our children cannot speak our mother tongues.





We are saying that our own language is inferior to their own language. We should let our children know that we are superior.





The motion is about us, about Africans. We have to tell the world about our own civilization. The resolve is not broad enough. It is not about Lagos State alone. We have to tell African Union about reparation which was started by the late Chief M.K.O Abiola.





The President can issue an Executive Order that all over Nigeria we should change the names of streets named after beneficiaries of slave trade.





Those who dehumanized Africans should not be celebrated. Our people who collaborated with the colonial masters should be made to apologise to us.





The motion was passed unanimously and the house asked the clerk to make the resolution known to the governor.




July 02, 2020 07:47 IST

Black Lives Matter protests and coronavirus rages across the pandemic and much more.

Here are the top images from the month of June.

IMAGE: Nurses Sasha Dubois and Farah Fevrin kneel for the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence during a vigil at Brigham and Womens Hospital, where many coronavirus disease patients have been treated, against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Boston, Massachusetts, US. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

IMAGE: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wears a mask as he takes a knee during a rally against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Photograph: Blair Gable/Reuters

IMAGE: A cemetery worker dig new graves at the Xico cemetery on the outskirts of Mexico City, as the coronavirus disease outbreak continues in Mexico. Photograph: Edgard Garrido/Reuters

IMAGE: Relatives and health workers unload the body of a man who died due to the coronavirus disease for his cremation at a crematorium in New Delhi, India. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

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 following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, in London, Britain. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

IMAGE: A girl observes a partial solar eclipse on the Mahanakhon Skywalk Glass Tray at the King Power Mahanakhon building in Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

IMAGE: People participate in an outdoor yoga class by LMNTS Outdoor Studio, in a dome to facilitate social distancing and proper protocols to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/Reuters

IMAGE: Nursery plants are seen placed in people's seats during a rehearsal as Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu opera reopens its doors with a concert for plants to raise awareness about the importance of an audience after the lockdown, amid the COVID-19 outbreak, in Barcelona, Spain. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters

IMAGE: A person views the sun rise from beside the remains of Saint Michael's Church on top of Glastonbury Tor, as the hottest day so far of the summer in Britain is predicted, in Glastonbury, south west Britain. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

IMAGE: Members of Youth Army movement march during the Victory Day Parade in Red Square in Moscow, Russia. The military parade, marking the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, was scheduled for May 9 but postponed due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

IMAGE: A new born baby Western lowland gorilla is seen with its mother Mambele at the Antwerp zoo in Antwerp, Belgium. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

IMAGE: Demonstrators march in support of LGBTQ pride and black lives matter movements in New York City, New York, US. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

IMAGE: A couple draws their firearms on protestors, one of whom holds a video camera and microphone, as they enter their neighbourhood during a protest against St Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, in St Louis, Missouri, US. Photograph: Lawrence Bryant/Reuters
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July 02, 2020 19:59 IST

"Tiger abhi zinda hai," said BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday as he launched an attack on Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh and Kamal Nath and accused them of going back on promises to people of Madhya Pradesh.

Scindia made the remarks on a day the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in the state was expanded with the induction of 28 ministers.

"I don't need any certificate from Kamal Nath nor Digvijaya Singh. The facts are before the people how they looted the state in 15 months. They have taken everything for themselves. They (people) have also seen their history of going back on promises. But I would only like to tell them 'tiger abhi zinda hai (tiger is alive)," Scindia said.

Earlier on Thursday, Scindia had said that the cabinet is not a leader's team but that of people and will serve them.

"This (the Cabinet) is not any leader's team, but the team of the public. They are not the government's ministers but public servants. We will strive for serving the people and will provide services to the last person in the society. In 100 days of its rule the Shivraj Singh government has battled corona, helped the farmers in every possible way. We will continue doing this in the next four years," Scindia said.

Scindia, who joined BJP on March 12, also expressed the hope that the 12 ministers chosen in the Cabinet on Thursday will win by-polls when these are held.

Chouhan on Thursday held the first cabinet meeting of the expanded cabinet in Bhopal.

He returned as chief minister in March after Kamal Nath resigned from the post as his government was reduced to a minority due to resignation of over 20 Congress MLAs.
July 02, 2020 15:14 IST

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has unanimously adopted its first COVID-19 resolution that demands 'immediate cessation of hostilities' and explicitly states that it 'does not apply' to terror groups, a vindication of India's position that terrorists do not respect ceasefires and such initiatives must be circumscribed by countries facing cross-border terrorism.

The UNSC, the 15-member powerful organ of the global body, on Wednesday unanimously adopted the first COVID-19-related resolution that backed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call for global ceasefires in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The resolution, drafted by France and Tunisia, 'demands a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations on its agenda and supports the efforts undertaken by the Secretary-General and his Special Representatives and Special Envoys'.

Significantly, it 'affirms that this general and immediate cessation of hostilities and this humanitarian pause do not apply to military operations against the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al Qaeda or ISIS, and other terrorist groups, which have been designated by the Security Council.

Sources told PTI that this particular paragraph of the resolution 'vindicates' what India has been saying all along.

The sources said that one can have a global ceasefire but 'you cannot ignore the fact' that India is subject to cross-border terrorism.

This is exactly why there cannot be a ceasefire against terrorism -- the terrorists do not respect ceasefires, they said.

For the resolution to affirm very clearly that the general and immediate cessation of hostilities do not apply to the terror groups is a clear reflection of the recognition of what India has been saying all along on this, they said.

The sources said that this vindicates the position which India has always held that there cannot be a blanket ceasefire and a global ceasefire must be circumscribed by countries like India which are facing and fighting cross-border terrorism.

India has consistently said that terrorism has emerged as the most serious scourge of the current times and endangers international peace, security and prosperity, and has condemned cross-border terrorism.

In February during President Donald Trump's state visit to India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump in a joint statement 'denounced any use of terrorist proxies and strongly condemned cross-border terrorism in all its forms'.

In the joint statement, the two leaders called on Pakistan to ensure that no territory under its control is used to launch terrorist attacks, and to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of such attacks, including the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks.

They called for a concerted action against all terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, ISIS, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen, the Haqqani Network, Tehrik-e-Taliban, D-Company and all their affiliates.

Several of Pakistan-based terror groups, such as LeT and JeM, proscribed by the Security Council's Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee, have carried out dastardly terror attacks in India and are associated with other terror outfits such as Al Qaeda.

The UNSC resolution calls upon all the parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days in order to enable the safe, unhindered and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance.

It also calls for enabling provisions of related services by impartial humanitarian actors 'in accordance with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, and medical evacuations and in accordance with international law, including international humanitarian law and refugee law as applicable'.

Guterres welcomed the adoption of the resolution on COVID-19 and the Council's recognition of his efforts to respond to the crisis, in particular his appeal for a global ceasefire.

The Secretary General's appeal for a global ceasefire has been endorsed by nearly 180 countries, more than 20 armed groups, as well as religious leaders and millions of members of civil society.

'The adoption of this resolution will send an important signal to conflict parties and may help change calculations on the ground,' a statement issued by his spokesperson said.

The Secretary-General continues to urge individual member states to redouble their efforts for peace in the conflicts in which they have influence, it added.

'He looks forward to working with all stakeholders to advance efforts towards concrete ceasefires and durable peace,' the statement added.

According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the contagion has infected over 10 million people and killed more than 516,000 across the world.

The US is the worst affected country with over 2.6 million cases and more than 1,28,000 deaths.

The COVID-19, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has also battered the world economy with the International Monetary Fund saying that the global economy is bound to suffer a 'severe recession'.

Scientists are racing against time to find a vaccine or medicine for its treatment.
July 02, 2020 06:54 IST

'Tibetans will participate in future conflicts with India (in all probability, some were already present in Galwan).'

'As nobody in India would like to have a deadly fight with Tibetan soldiers and officers, the issue needs to be closely followed,' observes Claude Arpi.

IMAGE: People's Liberation Army soldiers at the Line of Actual Control. Photograph: Reuters

Recently, a message circulated on Twitter with the names of the 38 Chinese soldiers who would have died in the Galwan incident on June 15 ('coincidentally', Chinese Communist party Generak Secretary Xi Jinping's 67th birth anniversary).

The tweet has not been confirmed; it might well be one of the hundreds of Information Warfare unverified information going around since the beginning of the standoff between India and China and Ladakh.

What was interesting is that the message also provided the regions from where the purported casualties had come from.

Among them, eight were from Tibet and their names tallied more or less with Tibetan names transliterated in Pinyin (Lakpa, Tsering, Kalsang, etc.).

Once again it could not be verified (something very difficult, next to impossible to do), but the fact that Tibetans are involved near the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh is beyond doubt.

Some knowledgeable sources put the percentage of local Tibetans as high as 10% of the People's Liberation Army soldiers stationed in the Tibet Military District or the Southern Xinjiang Military District. The present 'hot' spots in Ladakh -- Galwan, Hot Springs, Fingers, Depsang -- are under the command of the Southern Xinjiang Military District.

IMAGE: The scene after completion of a military exercise in the Tibet military region.

It is extremely worrying that Tibetans are being used by China to fight India.

There is no doubt that the PLA is recruiting local youth to participate in the 'defence of the Motherland' (incidentally, the Tibetans speak of phayul, or 'fatherland'), whether directly under the PLA or border defence forces or even the militia.

News of the recruitment of Tibetans was recently confirmed in an article in 81.cn , the PLA Web site; on June 15, the Tibet Military District held a special flag presentation ceremony for five new militia units, which will work under the PLA; all with Tibetan recruits.

Global Times, the Chinese government owned tabloid, reported: 'PLA Tibet military district and Tibet Autonomous Region held a flag presentation ceremony for 5 new militia units including an air patrol team, polar communication team and extreme climbing team in Lhasa. The duties of the militia units are patrol and emergency rescue.'

Two units have not been named, but a large number of photographs were released.

IMAGE: The militia in the Tibet military region can provide emergency rescue support.

China Defense Blog commented on the function: 'Personally, I think the phase 'militia' could be a mistranslation, it conjures a negative connotation of a bunch of farmers and their Type56 semi-automatic carbines.

'The Tibetans have their own chopper fleet and air traffic radar sites, providing air patrol as well as S&R [Service and Recovery] operations, not exactly living on rice and beans here.

'They are more aligned with the US 'civilian auxiliary' 'Civil Air Patrol' than the 'people's militia' of the 1960.'

There is no doubt that more than meets the eye.

IMAGE: The Tibet military region has conducted several military exercises.

The Militia in China is one part of the armed forces; the other two being the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police.

Under China's Communist party, the Militia serves as an auxiliary and reserve force for the PLA.

China has one of the largest militias in the world, said to be 8 million strong.

According to Article 22 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on National Defence, the Militia, under the command of military organs, shoulders the tasks of preparations against war and defence operations, and assists in maintaining public order.

According to Article 36 of the Military Service Law of the People's Republic of China, the Militia's tasks are:

To take an active part in the socialist modernisation drive and be exemplary in completing the tasks in production and other fields;

To undertake the duties related to preparations for war, defend the frontiers and maintain public order;

To be always ready to join the armed forces to take part in war, resist aggression and defend the motherland.

The militia is organised into regional militia corps in each of the five theatre commands of the PLA; it works under the overall coordination of the National Defence Mobilisation Commission of the Central Military Commission, which can order the deployment of its personnel during peacetime and wartime, if and when ordered by the CMC's Chairman (presently, Xi Jinping).

IMAGE: Lieutenant General Zhang Xuejie.

The Tibet Military District's special flag presentation ceremony was presided over by Lieutenant General Zhang Xuejie, the TMD's Political Commissar.

General Zhang is one of the two senior-most PLA officers based in Tibet, along with Lieutenant General Wang Haijiang, the TMD Commander. The TMD faces India's northern borders, particularly Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

In 2018, then Major General Zhang was promoted and transferred to Tibet to take the vital post of Political Commissar; a year ago, Zhang was promoted to lieutenant general.

In 2016, the TMD was upgraded to a sub-theatre unit, directly under the PLA Army or Ground Force (PLAGF).

IMAGE: The new militia unit formed in the Tibet military region.

The Chinese government has obviously decided to integrate more Tibetans into its defence forces; to start with, in the paramilitary forces, giving them good salaries and buying their fidelity.

The Political Commissar's presence at the ceremony means that the recruitment of Tibetans is part of Beijing's 'political work' to stabilise Tibet... as well as the borders with India.

This could have serious implications for India which is fighting a battle in the Himalayas for an imaginary Line of Actual Control, which Beijing has systematically refused to define.



IMAGE: Major General Ngawang Sonam, a Tibetan officer who is presently a deputy commander in the Tibet Military District. IMAGE: Major General Ngawang Sonam, a Tibetan officer who is presently a deputy commander in the Tibet Military District.

Photographs from the event show Che Dalha standing behind General Zhang.

Che Dalha, a Tibetan leader, is the Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region since January 2017.

Che is the senior-most Tibetan official in the TAR; he is a member of the Communist Party of China's over-powerful Central Committee.

His presence demonstrates the importance for China to 'integrate' local Tibetans into its defence forces.

Also on the dais was Major General Ngawang Sonam, a Tibetan officer who is presently a deputy commander in the Tibet Military District.

Ngawang Sonam was born in Yushu (Jyekundo in today's Qinghai province) in October 1962; he is trusted by China as he earlier served as a PLA delegate to the 12th National Peoples' Conference.

At that time, he was deputy commander of the Qinghai Military District.

A few years ago, a Chinese publication explained: 'Minority officers, who represent the people in ethnic minority areas in the country's highest political authority (the NPC) are dedicated to a strong army and China's steadfast dream.'

Many Tibetans like Ngawang Sonam have a pastoral background; most of them did not even know how to use chopsticks or speak Chinese when they were picked due to their parents's Communist credentials.

The article explained that they learned their skills in the PLA. 'We were also taught Chinese, we learned to write Chinese characters, as the Chinese soldiers did know how speak the minority language (TibetanM.em>),' recalled Sonam, adding: 'By the time the (Tibetan) soldiers are demobilised, they are usually proficient in Chinese and can read the local language as well'.

To have a few local officers is an advantage for an army stationed in a land where they can't grasp the language.

IMAGE: The flag-giving ceremony of the new militia in the Tibet military region was held at a militia training base in Lhasa.

A short item in The Tibet Daily on September 29, 2019, speaks of a video conference held between Lhasa and Beijing on military recruitment for the TMD: 'On July 26, a video conference about recruitment of troops in the military district was held.'

A senior Tibetan leader, Norbu Thondup, the TAR Executive Vice Chairman, 'attended the meeting and delivered a speech'. Thondup has a bright future in China's Communist party; he is already an Alternate Member of its Central Committee.

Others who participated in the conference: Major General Thubten Thinley, another Tibetan and a Tibet Military District deputy commander, and the TMD's Tibetan Chief of Staff Ngawang Dorjee, a PLA senior colonel (brigadier rank in India). Senior Colonel Dorjee is said to have been presiding over the discussion; he is also director of the Tibet Military Region's Political Work Department.

IMAGE: New militia troops of the Tibet Military region.

Two weeks earlier, the Tibet Daily announced that the Tibet Military District held a 'breaking record militia competition'.

Both Major General Thubten Thinley and Senior Colonel Ngawang Dorjee were in attendance. 'The competition requires that all personnel in the competition should be aware of the guiding ideology (Communism) to improve the level of their participation.'

'The exercises focus on changing the thinking mode of actual combat, to develop the ability to eliminate panic, and stimulate the training of the force, not only in regard to the battlefield, but also by treating the battle as a test.'

It concluded that the participants 'fully demonstrated superb skills and great style'. Ideological training is undoubtedly crucial.

The Tibet Military District has many senior Tibetan officers of the rank of colonels, senior colonels and major generals (never higher, as Communist China does not trust the Tibetans that much); but this gives a clear indication that the Tibetans will participate in future conflicts with India (in all probability, some were already present in Galwan).

It does not augur well for the relations between India and Tibet.

What will be the Tibetan government in exile's stand when it realises what is happening?

As nobody in India would like to have a deadly fight with Tibetan soldiers and officers, the issue needs to be closely followed.

Scenes from the Tibet Military District event:

Claude Arpi is a regular contributor to Rediff.com.

Feature Production: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
July 02, 2020 07:30 IST

Two months ago, May 2, Major Anuj Sood, 30, company commander, 21 Rashtriya Rifles, made the supreme sacrifice for the motherland in a hostage-rescue mission in J&K.

As his grieving family grapples with their immense loss, they graciously share memories of the young major -- a husband, brother and son -- whose only calling was the fauj.

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood, company commander, 21 Rashtriya Rifles lost his life along with his commander, Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, three soldiers and a Jammu and Kashmir police officer in an anti-terrorist operation in Handwara, May 2, 2020. Photographs: Kind courtesy Aakriti Sood, Shruti Sood

In the weeks after Major Anuj Sood was martyred along with his team in Jammu and Kashmir, his wife Aakriti has spent the days remembering him.

"I think of the good times we shared, sometimes you feel angry, sometimes sad -- I talk about the moments we had, the stories we shared -- and that brings happiness to me," Aakriti tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih over the phone from Bhatinda, Punjab, where she had gone to spend a few days with a friend who is married to an army officer.

"I have only started going through everybody's messages on my phone. The five martyrs touched everyone's heart and people express their gratitude -- that gives me strength."

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood and Aakriti Sood in Kashmir.

The daughter of an Indian Navy marine commando, Aakriti had never intended to marry a man from the armed forces, but when the two met through a common friend at a Holi party in Pune three year ago, they just connected at a different level.

"I have never met two people who were genuinely meant to be together," says Major Sood's elder sister Shruti over the phone from Australia.

The pandemic prevented the family from grieving together and Shruti could only see her brother's funeral over a video call. "This disease has forced us to grieve remotely. It is hard. We take one day at a time," adds Shruti as she waits for flights to resume to travel home with her husband and two-year-old daughter.

"We lost our mother ten years back when Anuj was in his final term at NDA, we thought we have had one tragedy and we will not have another. We used to be worried about him serving in Kashmir, but he had done it for two years and his tenure had almost come to an end. But what has to happen, happens," Shruti says as she shares memories of her brother and a childhood spent across cantonments where their father Brigadier Chandrakant Sood was posted as an officer of the Indian Army's mechanical corps.

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood with his mother, centre, and sister Shruti.

As a boy, Major Sood loved seeing the men saluting his father and there was nothing else he wanted more than a life in the olive green.

"The fauj was his calling. He always wanted to be an infantryman and had the fighter spirit. When I hear about the two-day operation, I keep thinking how brave he was," says Shruti.

"The army meant everything to him. I wish I had that kind of passion for my job. It was good to see someone truly love what they were doing," adds his wife, Aakriti.

IMAGE: 'Our first rakhi,' remembers sister Shruti.

Major Anuj Sood along with his Commanding Officer Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Naik Rajesh Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Singh and Kashmir police officer Shageer Qazi Pathan were martyred in a hostage rescue mission in Handwara, J&K, on May 2.

A day before his encounter with terrorists, Major Sood had spoken to his wife and sister on a group call. Major Sood had told them he was in the middle of making atta halwa for his men to celebrate the unit's Raising Day.

That afternoon, the band of five men set out for the operation against terrorists in a village in the Rajawar forest, North Kashmir. They entered the house to rescue a family and sacrificed their lives in the line of duty.

"We can't replicate the bravery the five martyrs showed that day, no one can. It takes immense courage to be able to put your country before anyone and anything else," says Aakriti.

"I know he would want me to be strong through this. It is my way of honouring him. I get my strength from him," she says.

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood with his family in Delhi, the last time Shruti met her brother in November 2019.

That morning, the couple had spoken of everyday things that husbands and wives talk about. Major Sood told her that his salary had been transferred and they discussed the new appliances they needed to buy for the house in Gurdaspur where Aakriti was to join him in a few weeks.

"Anuj was the planner. Since he had been posted to Gurdaspur, we had literally planned the next one-and-a-half years, day by day and month by month," says Aakriti with a pause. "It will take some time to change those plans."

Before setting out for the operation, he texted her that they were going on a mission and he would text her on his return. It is a routine followed by men in uniform to their wives and loved ones. Aakriti would often receive these texts at work or at home or while driving and she would wait to hear from him on his return, always worried till she did.

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood with sister Shruti at his wedding in 2017.

On May 2, she was in Dharamsala with her parents and grandparents. Worried about the long hours without any word from her husband during the day and night, she kept looking at her phone and sent messages to his phone that was switched off.

At 8 am on May 3, she got the call that no army wife wants to receive.

"It is a call that we all fear, but somewhere in our minds, we are mentally prepared that this could happen. When you marry an army officer you know this."

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood.

Colonel Ashutosh Sharma's wife, Mrs Pallavi Sharma has been a pillar of strength. United in grief as they come to terms with the loss of their husbands, they talk often and draw support from each other.

"The unit is a close-knit family. Till date they are supportive and I know they are genuine. I feel Anuj knew at the back of his mind that I would be taken care of by our family that includes the regiment as well. That's why he was confident to take the step that he did," she says.

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood with wife Aakriti Sood.

Hailing from a family with deep roots of service in India's armed forces, it is unfortunate that no one in the Union government has called Aakriti or Major Sood's father, Brigadier Sood.

Except for Anurag Thakur, the Union minisyer of state for finance who is known to the family. The Union home minister sent a routine demi official letter that is sent to next of kin of martyrs.

A letter sent from a Haryana MLA referred to Major Anuj Sood as 'Alok', while Maharashtra, where the martyr lived and where his Aadhar card is registered has not made any effort to reach out to the family.

Major Sood's family initiated an online petition last month demanding that elected officials should send a letter to the next of kin of martyrs pertaining to their sacrifice.

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood with wife Aakriti Sood in Kashmir. The major's tenure in the Kashmir valley had ended. He has been transferred to Gurdaspur, but the coronavirus pandemic prevented him from travelling out of the valley. Sadly, it cost him his life.

There needs to be national protocol legislated by Parliament which lays down duties of citizens. including public administrators, representatives of the public on how to behave with martyrs because they are special people, says Brigadier Chandrakant Sood (retd), Major Sood's father.

"They are the only special people in this country, or in any country," says Brigadier Sood, who has been trying his best to ensure that the jawans who were martyred alongside his brave son are given their due.

IMAGE: Major Anuj Sood with his father, Brigadier Chandrakant Sood and sister Shruti.

"The entire armed forces fraternity feels the political class and bureaucrats make political potatoes out of martyrs. They make announcements to the press and expect the next of kin of martyrs to go running around after them," the brigadier says in anguish.

"Martyrs don't need rhetoric, they need respect."

Feature Production: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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Greenville, NC (27833)

Today

A few passing clouds. Low 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has restated its call for an honest implementation of the federal gover...

The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has restated its call for an honest implementation of the federal governments whistleblower blower policy.





This was contained in a statement on Thursday by Chido Onumah, the Coordinator.





It criticised the recent comments by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, that whistleblowers can only get commission from loot they expose after a series of processes.





AFRICMIL said Malami suggested that beyond providing information or exposing stolen public funds, whistleblowers would have to recover the funds and lodge them in stipulated accounts before they are rewarded.

You do not expect a whistleblower to be so shabbily treated that the only conclusion an unbiased observer would reach is that there is a grand plot to deny him his due, it noted.





The centre accused the AGF of misreading the whistleblowing policy document released by the federal government in December 2006.





It stressed that there is nowhere in the document that says whistleblowers have a responsibility to recover funds after providing information to the relevant authorities.





Section 12 of the whistleblowing policy FAQ document says: A Whistleblower responsible for providing the Government with information that directly leads to the voluntary return of stolen or concealed public funds or assets may be entitled to anywhere between 2.5%-5.0% of the amount recovered.





In order to qualify for the reward, the Whistleblower must provide the Government with information it does not already have and could not otherwise obtain from any other publicly available source to the Government. The actual recovery must also be on account of the information provided by the Whistleblower.





Onumah pointed out that the document only says whistleblowers would get their reward following the supply of information that leads to the voluntary return of stolen or hidden funds or assets.





It did not say whistleblowers must recover the funds or assets as the AGF is interpreting, he stressed.





AFRICMIL said the duty of ensuring recovery is statutorily that of the security agencies working with the administrators of the whistleblowing policy.





The organization cited the Ikoyi apartment incident where upon the exposure of funds concealed in the apartment, security agents moved in and recovered the looted funds.





That recovery was not made by the whistleblower but by security agents. And the whistleblower was rightly paid what is due to him even if after some embarrassing official delay, the statement added.





The organization advised the AGF to retract the portion of his statement that has distorted the facts in the whistleblowing policy document.





It warned that failure to do so would be a costly disincentive to the patriotic duty of whistleblowing.





No reasonable citizen will blow the whistle on stolen or hidden public funds if he is also the one to recover the funds and deposit in a bank, AFRICMIL added.
Beckley, WV (25801)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
The trial of Osagie Ize-Iyamu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Edo governorship election, has been stalled due t...

The trial of Osagie Ize-Iyamu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Edo governorship election, has been stalled due to the absence of Umar Garba, the trial judge.





Although Ize-Iyamu was also absent from court, Peter Uwadiae, his counsel was present.





Lucky Imasuen, former deputy governor of Edo state who is the second defendant in the case, was also seen in court.





Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Pascal Ugbome, counsel to the third defendant, explained that it is not uncommon for a judge to be absent.





It is nothing unusual and nothing unnatural for the court to adjourn the matter. The court has said that their hands are full, and so they have to reschedule the matter according to their convenience, he said.





Ize-Iyamu is standing trial alongside Imasuen, Dan Orbih, the state PDP chairman; Tony Aziegbemi and Efe Erimuoghae.





The defendants were first arraigned on an eight-count charge bordering on money laundering in May 2018.





The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alleged that the defendants, sometime in March 2015, directly took possession of public funds to the tune of N700 million without any contract award.





The commission alleged that the accused persons contravened the provisions of the EFCC Act and Section 15(2)(d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act.





The court had on June 18, 2020, validated the corruption charges against the defendants and adjourned the case to July, 2, 2020, for further hearing.





The matter has now been adjourned to July 7 for hearing.




Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi state, has alleged that politicians are playing games with the lives of Nigerians through COVID-19. ...





Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi state, has alleged that politicians are playing games with the lives of Nigerians through COVID-19.





Bello spoke on Thursday while hosting the board of trustees of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation at his office in Lokoja.





The governor, who insisted that the state is COVID-19 free, said the disease is not new in Nigeria and that the country has its own way of treating it.





He said rather than subjecting citizens to hardship through a lockdown, the country should be busy exploring ways of treatment.





Bello said the death of Nasir Ajanah, the states chief judge, was natural and should not be attributed to COVID-19.





Let us stop this game, Nigerians are suffering, instead of the lockdown with its attendant negative effects on the people, why cant we turn it to employment opportunities, providing clothes for face masks to be imported to those countries who have the disease, Bello said.





COVID-19 is not a new disease in our climate, we have our own way of treating it, that is what we should be exploiting rather than subjecting our people to hardship, hunger, and starvation through the lockdown.





We know his medical history, he was my brother, we know we have been managing him since 2016 but this time, he was completely isolated, no one was allowed to even speak to him until he passed away, we cannot afford to be playing games with lives of Nigerians, this must stop.





The Kogi government has repeatedly accused the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) of perpetrating illegality through COVID-19.





Two patients who were transferred to Abuja from the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Lokoja, Kogi, tested positive for COVID-19 in the nations capital, but the Bello administration still insisted that there is no coronavirus in the state.





On Wednesday, doctors at FMC, Lokoja, declared indefinite strike over the poor response of Kogi government to COVID-19.





Gunmen had broken into the hospital, attacking doctors and other health workers ahead of a media briefing on COVID-19.





The government later blamed the incident on aggrieved patients, a claim some doctors refuted.





They had said the briefing was disrupted to stop a protest on the status of some COVID-19 patients who were being treated in the hospital.








Early in the coronavirus pandemic, many believed the virus would sweep through prisons in the state leaving behind a trail of avoidable death and destruction.

But just seven individuals of the more than 12,000 who were incarcerated at the beginning of the pandemic have died from the virus. And mass testing of offenders completed by the Department of Correction this week revealed that while 12 percent of the population has contracted the virus, most of those infections have been asymptomatic.

Of the 832 who tested positive during the mass testing, just two showed symptoms.

So how did the state contain the virus, avoid hospitalizations and mostly avoid death in a congregate setting like prisons?

In the view of one epidemiologist: they got lucky.

Either they did something right or they got very lucky, said Dr. Robert Heimer, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine who has studied the potential for outbreak in the prison system since the onset of the virus. The 800 positive and limited number of deaths, those two statistics seem irreconcilable unless they were very lucky ... I wish I had a compelling and logical reason for these results.

He added, But what I do have is a great sense of relief.

Heimer, who worked with several advocacy groups that urged the state early in the pandemic to release as many incarcerated individuals as possible, said he and other public health experts advised the Lamont administration to release as many of the at risk for COVID and low risk for criminality as they could, something Lamont declined to do.

The results were in addition to 510 inmates who tested positive before May 13, for a total of 1,342 who have tested positive  about 12 percent of the average population over the last three months. Thats compared to a roughly 10 percent positivity rate for the general population that has been tested. About 9 percent of cases in the general population have resulted in death.

Just one person with symptoms remains in the hospital, and 173 have been discharged. Thats a hospitalization rate of about 13 percent, compared to 21 percent of the general population that tested positive for the virus.

Clearly, part of the reason for the outcome was measures the department took, said Karen Martucci, a spokeswoman for the Department of Correction. But they, too, were surprised by the results of the testing.

Because this is just so new, we didnt know what to expect. As we told the offenders they were positive, they were just as surprised as we were, she said. We thought we would see a higher rate at jails just given the nature of more people coming in from outside. As of right now, as we speak, we have zero symptomatic positives in the state, and havent had a staff positive in a month. But knock on wood because this isnt over ... The problem with this virus is that testing on Monday means nothing by the end of the week.

Department strategy

Martucci said the department divided incarcerated individuals into three categories upon testing. Those who tested and were negative remained in their regular unit, those who tested positive and were asymptomatic were moved to a separate unit to quarantine for two weeks while their vitals were monitored daily. The department treated the cohort of inmates who declined to be tested as though they were asymptomatic, but did not house them with those who had actually been tested.

Those who were symptomatic were transferred to Northern Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in Somers. All of the offenders who tested positive were isolated for two weeks. None beyond the two who showed symptoms developed symptoms during their monitoring periods, Martucci said, and most have returned to their normal units.

Up at Northern, we had people who felt miserable, and then others who just couldnt taste or smell, Martucci said. The symptoms were all over the place. There was no pattern.

Heimer noted that early testing in March and April frequently resulted in false negatives or false positives, so urged the state to approach the overwhelmingly positive results with caution.

While the state did not engage in a mass release of inmate, the prison population has fallen under 10,000 for the first time in nearly 30 years as the number of offenders in the system has fallen by almost 2,500 since March 1. That means the state has halved its prison population since it peaked at 19,894 people on February 1, 2008. The reduction freed up substantial space to relocate and separate inmates during the crisis, Martucci said.

The reduction was achieved mostly by utilizing standard release procedures. An analysis by Hearst Connecticut Media in early June showed that most of the reduction was due to a sharp decline in new imprisonments, although hundreds have been released early amid the threat of coronavirus.

In all, the department tested 9,504 inmates between May 13 and June 25 in an effort to check for the illness in every prisoner. About 440 opted out, mostly at Osborn Correctional Institute in Somers, and those inmates are being offered tests this week, the department said Tuesday. Of those who were tested at Osborn, 146 inmates tested positive for the virus and 105 were asymptomatic, which resulted in an immediate lockdown of the facility at that time.

Percentages of positive results varies widely, from 45 percent at the Brooklyn Correctional Institute to three or fewer total cases at four separate facilities, including the largest, MacDougall-Walker, in Suffield, with 1,862 offenders. The department is still testing its staff at all facilities, but reported that it has been more than a month since a staff member has tested positive for the virus.

A stealthy virus

Heimer said the state likely benefited from the location of most of its prisons. Nearly all are located in the least impacted areas of the state, making it less likely for a corrections officer or other DOC employee to contract the virus in the community and bring it into the facility.

And, ultimately, he said there is still very little understanding of how the virus spreads in congregate settings, noting that the majority  74 percent  of all deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities.

And yet here are some nursing facilities with zero deaths, where for whatever reason, luck, roll the dice, whatever, the virus didnt spread there, he said. Im not sure we understand sufficiently the circumstances under which some individuals manage to spread the virus to large numbers of individuals in congregate settings, while other individuals just dont. This virus is still only 6 to 7 months old here that we started doing any real epidemiology on it and there is still a large set of unknowns.

Another epidemiologist, Dr. Michael Parry, chief of infectious diseases at Stamford Hospital, wasnt as alarmed by the data released by the department, citing the example of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Roughly half of those who tested positive aboard the cruise ship, which was placed in lock down for two weeks in February, were asymptomatic and never developed symptoms.

We do think that about half of the infections in the community are asymptomatic or easy to miss and that is a huge problem, Parry said. I might expect the total number to be higher, but it proves this virus is really stealthy.

kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2563; @kaitlynkrasselt
Lebanon, IN (46052)

Today

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low near 50F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low near 50F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Bollywood actor Parineeti Chopra took to social media and treated fans with a throwback photo of herself. She shared a snap from the Maldives on her official Instagram account. She also nominated her friend Sania Mirza to participate in a challenge. Read on:

Parineeti Chopra's story behind her smile

Parineeti Chopra posted a fun throwback picture while vacationing in the Maldives. The actor is visible wearing a strappy black dress and has sported a classic hat over her head. She has kept her cropped hair loose and opted for a no-makeup look. Moreover, she is holding a chilled beverage in her hand. In the caption accompanying her Instagram post, Parineeti Chopra wrote a wondrous message for her fans and followers.

The actor described the story behind her smile. Chopra revealed that she travels to an island and go diving every three months. So, amid the lockdown, she urged everyone to share some reasons that make them smile. Parineeti Chopra also dropped examples like food, family, music, or anything that could help lighten up their mood and make them feel better.

Parineeti Chopra started the challenge with her Paagal friend, Sania Mirza. She captioned it as, Throwback. The Maldives. Ocean = SMILING!  Behind every smile, there is a story. Mine is simple - I travel to an island and go diving every three months!! During this lockdown, let's all share some reason that makes us smile. It could be food, family, music, anything! Im starting this challenge with my paagal friend Sanu! @mirzasaniar. Also, this is my lifestyle transformation without compromising on sleep and exercise!. Check out her latest Instagram post:

Parineeti Chopra's travel photos

Parineeti Chopra loves to travel and often shares photos of herself travelling to different parts of the world. On various occasions, she has posted her pictures on Instagram and other platforms. Here are some of them that you must check out right away.

Also read: Ajay Devgn Lends Voice To 'Lalbazaar', Actor Ronjini Chakraborty Calls It 'icing On Cake'

Also read: Kajol And Ajay Devgn's 'Jee Le' From 'U Me Aur Hum': Making Of The Song

Also read: Making Of Kareena Kapoor Khan's Multi-starrer Hit Film 'Ajnabee': WATCH

Also read: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Vs Anushka Sharma: Who Rocked The Classic Red Saree Better?

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.
Numerous events have made headlines in the last couple of years on this day. From Rishi Kapoor appreciating Ranbir Kapoor's performance in Sanju to Amitabh Bachchan sharing a hilarious meme on social media, here is a compilation of some of the events which happened in the past on this day. Read on:

Rishi Kapoor lauds his son

Actor Ranbir Kapoor received love from the audience and the critics for his spectacular performance in the biographical drama movie Sanju. The Rajkumar Hirani-directorial performed well at the box-office. After celebrities lauded the actor, Ranbir Kapoors father Rishi Kapoor did not shy away from appreciating his son. The actor spoke his heart out and expressed how proud he was on his official Twitter account. He wrote, I am flying and aircraft flying at 40,000 ft. Emirates flight EK702 Mauritius to Dubai now in real-time. Cheers Ranbir! You dont know how proud your parents are. Thank you, and God Bless you. Aur bhi achcha kaam karo!. Check out Rishi Kapoors tweet.

I am flying and aircraft flying at 40,000 ft.Emirates flight EK702 Mauritius to Dubai now in real time. Cheers Ranbir! You dont know how proud your parents are. Thank you and God Bless you. Aur bhi achcha kaam karo! pic.twitter.com/CIt63wjxg1  Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) July 1, 2018

Richa Chadha starrer Love Sonia opened IFFM

Tabrez Nooranis Love Sonia was reportedly the opening night movie for the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM). The event took place in August 2018, which marked the flicks Australian premiere. Love Sonia features Mrunal Thakur, Richa Chadha, Frieda Pinto, Demi Moore, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpayee, Rajkummar Rao, and Sai Tamhankar in pivotal roles. The movie, which revolves around the human trafficking epidemic and global sex trade network, premiered on August 10.

Amitabh Bachchan shares meme

Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan took to social media and lightened up the mood of Mumbaikars with a hilarious meme. He shared a post while taking a dig at the woes which rain causes. So, the actor posted a meme on his official Twitter account. It features a snapshot from the video of the popular song Do Lafzon Ki Hia Dil Ki Kahani from the movie The Great Gambler. The still showcases Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman taking a romantic boat ride. He found it fit the situation in Mumbai amid monsoon when rainwater clogs the roads and disrupt life. So, the picture features a blurb asking the helmsman to drop him to Goregaon. See post:

T 3... Jalsa hote hue .. pic.twitter.com/PKSZuQm7ju  Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 2, 2019

Also read: Samantha Akkineni Gushes Over Rana Daggubatis Fiancee Miheeka's Pre-wedding Pictures

Also read: Manish Raisinghan And Sangeita Chauhaan's Wedding Pictures Release Online; See Here

Salman Khan becomes nostalgic

Bollywood actor Salman Khan often showcases his talent for painting on social media platforms. The previous year, he dedicated one of his art pieces to the 2000 movie Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega. So, the actor took to his official Instagram account and shared a video while sketching. Salman Khan drew a face in charcoal on a white sheet of paper and wrote a dialogue from the movie on another one. In the caption accompanying the post, the actor wrote, "While sketching, a song of 'Har Dil...' played and this dialogue was written by my friend Sajid Nadiadwala's grandson at that point in time. I thought it was complete but..." Watch the video:

Also read: Did You Know 'Do Anjaane' Was Amitabh Bachchan's First Film With Rekha? Read Trivia

Also read: Amitabh Bachchan's 'Dostana': Interesting Trivia About The 1980 Film

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.
Reality star Raghu Ram recently moved to Canada along with his wife, Natalie Di Luccio, and their son, Rhythm. The family took this decision to move to Natalies hometown in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. They have safely reached Toronto and have been practising self-quarantine at home, as per the guidelines laid down by the government and medical authorities.

Raghu Ram and family move to Canada

Actor Raghu Rams wife, Natalie Di Luccio, had recently taken to Instagram to tell her followers about their journey back home. Raghu Ram, along with his wife and 5-month-old son, recently made the decision to move to Toronto and also kept his followers updated through the journey. Through the various pictures posted by Natalie di Luccio, she has narrated how her journey and quarantine experience has been going.

She recently posted a picture from her home in Toronto on the occasion of Canada Day. She wrote about how the family is celebrating Rhythms first Canada Day. She informed her followers that even though they are in quarantine, they are doing it in style. Baby Rhythm can also be spotted wearing an I Love Canada T-shirt, in the family picture posted. Have a look at the picture on Natalie Di Luccios Instagram here.

Previously, Natalie Di Luccio had posted a picture on her birthday, which she had spent on a flight journey to Canada. In the picture posted, she could be seen posing with a mask on while baby Rhythm was seen sitting on her lap. She thanked all her followers for the wishes in the caption for the post. She also expressed her excitement upon reaching her home country. Have a look at the adorable picture from Natalie Di Luccios Instagram here.

Read Raghu Ram And Wife Natalie Enjoy 'quarantine Date Night' With Wine & Romantic Music

Also read Rannvijay Singha Shares Throwback Pic To Wish Raghu Ram & Rajiv Lakshman On Their Birthday

In the picture that followed, she spoke about being in quarantine and not being able to meet her family members. She also spoke about how difficult the journey has been and how they have finally reached home. She posted a picture with her mother who had come to visit the family along with their dog, Niko. They can also be seen following social distancing measures in the picture that was put up. Have a look at the picture on Natalie Di Luccios Instagram here.

Read Raghu Ram Saddened After Losing Friend To COVID-19, Expresses Grief In A Long Post

Also read Rannvijay Singha Gets Candid About His Long Association With Roadies And Its Evolution

Image Courtesy: Natalie Di Luccio Instagram

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Stranger Things fame Finn Wolfhard revealed in an interview with a British news portal that he was close to quitting acting before his audition for the thriller show. He also talked about how he bagged the Mike Wheeler role at a critical moment in his budding career. Read on:

Finn Wolfhard almost quit before Stranger Things

Finn Wolfhard revealed that when the Stranger Things audition came up, he was very sick. He added that he almost considered not acting anymore. He still sent a tape to the makers and caught the attention of brothers and directors, Matt and Ross Duffer. Wolfhard was just 13 when the show started airing and revealed that he just had to give up on a planned film part that did not work out.

ALSO READ | Julianne Moore, Finn Wolfhard To Headline Jesse Eisenberg's Directorial Debut Movie

Finn Wolfhard was originally planning to pursue a career as a director instead of an actor. He is once again set to reprise his role in the fourth season of Stranger Things. Like many other series and films, the show's shooting has also been delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Wolfhard travelled to Atlanta, Georgia, to film for Stranger Things before the pandemic. Once the lockdown set in, the production of the show was halted and the shoot was postponed. The makers will soon resume production once things get better and as soon as it is safe to do so.

ALSO READ | Finn Wolfhard Birthday: TV Shows Of The Star Other Than 'Stranger Things'

Further discussing Stranger Things, Finn revealed that nobody expected the show to blow up overnight. Wolfhard said that they all thought they were filming a secret thing that no one knew about. He added that Netflix was kind of hands of and no one knew what they were doing. The actor said that they thought it would become a cult classic and they would be really proud of doing it when they come back to it in 30 years.

Further talking about growing up as a child star, he said that he has had a different experience than those who rose to fame at a young age in the nineties. Finn Wolfhard added that there are many rules to keep children safe. The actor revealed that none of them have been in a position where they are at an uncomfortable party and were being served with drinks. Finn added that it depends on the person as well and said that the environment that he has grown up in has been very positive.

ALSO READ | 'Stranger Things' Star Finn Wolfhard Recalls Being Stalked By A Fan When He Was 13

ALSO READ | Millie Bobby Brown And Finn Wolfhard 'want To Hook Up', Claims Noah Schnapp

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.
With the easing of lockdown curbs, banana growers from Ardhapur tehsil in Maharashtra's Nanded district have started getting demands for export of the fruit to Gulf countries, helping them fetch a better price for their produce. The state agriculture department is also guiding farmers from the area to export bananas and other crops, an official from the department said.

The Ardhapur tehsil and other parts of Nanded, located around 570 km from Mumbai, have been known for banana cultivation because of the availability of water in the area. Nearly 40 tonnes of bananas are now being exported everyday from Ardhapur to Oman, Iran, Iraq and Dubai, local farmer Nilesh Deshmukh told PTI.

"Export quality bananas are selected from various farms in Ardhapur and around 40 tonnes are exported everyday. During the lockdown, we were getting Rs 500 per quintal, but the unlocking process has helped us fetch Rs 900 per quintal. Before the lockdown, the rate was Rs 1,400 per quintal," he said.

Farmers have been cultivating different varieties of bananas in this agricultural belt since many years. Deshmukh said he and other farmers are now planning to expand the cultivation process by growing a specific variety of the crop for export purposes in at least 100 acres of area in Ardhapur.

"This will help us to get the same quality of produce in the area next time. At present, we are selecting export quality bananas from the entire tehsil," he said.

Deshmukh said farmers have also improvised the packaging method and are now vacuum sealing the fruits in boxes for export. With this, their losses have come down from 25 per cent to one per cent, he said.

"Now, the losses are almost zero which has helped us in having financial gains, he added.

Another local banana grower Vibhishan Dudhate said with the easing of restrictions, the situation is gradually getting back to normal and farmers have started getting good rates for their produce.

"Now, our crop demand is increasing in foreign countries and this has led us to fetch a rate of around Rs 1,000 per quintal," he said.

Earlier, farmers used to send their produce to markets. But, now companies are directly collecting it from the farms for export, he said. When contacted, Nanded's agriculture superintendent Ravishankar Chalwade said farmers from Ardhapur and nearby areas are producing export quality bananas.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday rejected 'absurd comments' by Pakistan accusing India of instigating attacks on Pakistan Stock Exchange building in Karachi early this week and said Islamabad cannot shift the blame on New Delhi for its domestic problems.

The Ministry rather urged that Pakistan should reflect on the problems in their own country as well as the government led by prime minister Imran Khan who had himself called global terrorist Osama Bin Laden a 'martyr' while addressing the National Assembly.

"India rejects these absurd comments on terrorist attacks in Karachi. Pakistan cannot shift the blame on India for its domestic problems," said Anurag Srivastava, MEA spokesperson, on Pakistan accusing India of instigating Karachi attacks.

"We would ask Pakistan that they may wish to reflect on this and on their own government's position including their Prime Minister's description of a global terrorist as a martyr," Srivastava added.

Pakistan Stock Exchange attack

The Pakistan Stock Exchange building came under attack on Monday morning as four terror suspects tried to storm into the building on Karachi's II Chundrigar Road. The Baloch Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the attack. Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had alleged that the clues of a strike are leading towards sleeper cells activated by India. Two security guards and a police officer were killed in the attack, along with all four suspected terrorists. Several people, including three police officials, have been injured, as per reports by Pakistan media.

READ: Ajmer Dargah head slams Pakistan PM for calling Osama bin Laden a 'martyr'

READ: Bilawal Bhutto slams Imran Khan's 'Shaheed Osama' remark; asks 'What about Benazir?'

Imran Khan calls Osama bin-Laden a 'martyr'

Last week, speaking in Pakistan's National Assembly in Islamabad, PM Imran Khan referred to Al Qaeda terrorist Osama Bin Laden as a "martyr". He opined that Pakistan had suffered tremendous losses by participating in the US-led War on Terror after the 9/11 terrorist attack. He termed the US killing of Bin Laden in 2011 as a shameful incident, lamenting the fact that their former ally US had not even informed the authorities before entering the country and killing Bin Laden.

He remarked, "The manner in which we supported the US in the War on Terror and the trouble that my country had to face...They call us names. If they don't succeed in Afghanistan, they blame Pakistan. I still cannot forget- there were two incidents which made all Pakistanis feel ashamed. One was when the US entered Abbottabad and killed Osama Bin Laden, martyred him. After that, the entire world abused us. Our ally is entering our country and killing someone and is not even telling us. 70,000 Pakistanis have died to their war. You should see what Pakistanis living overseas had to face. I still remember this is an incident from 2010. After that, there were drone attacks in Pakistan. The Pakistan government said that we are doing nothing."

READ: '30% of pilots have fake license, paid others to take exams': Pakistan Aviation Minister

READ: SHOCKER: Imran Khan terms Osama Bin Laden a 'martyr', contradicts own 2019 admission

(with inputs from ANI)
Shipments to Bangladesh from the Petrapole border were halted for several hours on Wednesday following protests by exporters in the neighbouring country, which demanded that India allow import of their goods. However, some trucks entered Bangladesh through the Benapole border in the evening following a meeting with stakeholders from both sides, an official said.

"Bangladesh had stopped imports this morning on grounds that exports from that country were not accepted in India. But, the stalemate seems to have ended after the meeting, as 50 trucks from the Indian side crossed the border," Federation of Indian Export Organisations Chairman (East) Sushil Patwari told PTI.

Bangladeshi exporters claimed that trucks from India made their way through the border in the evening as the majority of protesters had left by then.

"We will not allow any truck to cross the Benapole border from Petrapole from Thursday. This will continue until India resumes import of our goods," Benapole C&F Agents Staff Association Secretary Sajidur Rehman said.

"Bangladesh has been importing Indian goods since June 7," he added.

Meanwhile, West Bengal-based exporters have sought Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's intervention into the matter.

"Indian manufacturers, including MSMEs, are running short of essential supplies and raw materials as imports are not allowed. Since Bangladesh has allowed entry of Indian goods, it is required to import their cargo to keep the trade balance moving.

"Currently, more than 500 trucks from Bangladesh are waiting at the Benapole border to enter India," Patwari said in a letter to Banerjee.
Thousands of non-resident Telugus in the US and other countries are planning simultaneous demonstrations on July 4 (9 am IST) to express their solidarity with the farmers of Amaravati, the present capital city of Andhra Pradesh. The farmers have been agitating against the current government's decision to trifurcate the state capital which will enter its 200th day on Saturday.

More than 24,000 farmers of Amaravati capital region have been on the warpath ever since the ruling YSRCP government in the state announced on December 17 last year about creating three capitals - executive capital at Visakhapatnam, legislative capital at Amaravati and judicial capital at Kurnool.

These farmers belonging to 29 villages - who gave away nearly 34,000 acres of their fertile land to the capital city during the previous Chandrababu Naidu led TDP regime in 2015 - strongly resisted the move, asserting that they had sacrificed their livelihood in anticipation of the development of a world-class capital city in Amaravati.

"For the last 200 days, these farmers have been waging a relentless battle demanding that the capital be retained at Amaravati. They took out rallies, held relay hunger strikes blocked the national highways and braved arrests and lathi attacks from the police. Some of the farmers died of heart attacks due to psychological pressure," said B Jayaram Komati from California.

Read: WATCH: CM Jagan's New 1068-strong Andhra Ambulance Fleet Stretches Beyond Visual Range

Read: SAD Pegs Rs 4,000 Crore As Farmers' Loss In 'seed Scam'

Komati, who was former president of Telugu Association of North America (TANA) and former special representative of AP government for North America, said representatives of non-resident Telugu associations in the US had decided to stage demonstrations in as many as 200 cities, in support of the 200 days' agitation by Amaravati farmers to retain their capital city.

"We thought of taking up huge rallies, but because of Covid-19 pandemic, we won't be able to get permission for the same. So, we decided to restrict our protests by taking out candle-light rallies in these cities to convey our solidarity to the fighting farmers of Amaravati," Komati said.

He said on coming to know about the proposal, Telugus in several other cities had also come forward to hold rallies. "Similarly, Andhra people in other countries like Singapore, Thailand, Australia, England and New Zealand have also evinced interest in similar demonstrations. In all, the protests are likely to take place in 300 cities," the NRI businessman said.

The NRI Telugus had contributed to the building of the state capital. When former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu launched a campaign - My Brick, My Amaravati - aimed at selling "electronic bricks" to build Amaravati, they responded in huge numbers.

Komati said the Andhra NRIs would continue to help the agitating farmers of Amaravati financially and morally to help them fight a legal battle against the decision to shift the capital. "We shall use all our resources and influences to see that the capital is retained at Amaravati," he said.

Read: Andhra: Social Distancing Goes For A Toss As YSRCP Leaders Welcome New Ambulances

Read: Andhra Pradesh Dy CM, Fisheries Minister Resign As MLCs After Being Elected To Rajya Sabha
Sofia Vergara is known for her sartorial choices apart from her acting chops. She is quite active on social media and shares casual-chic looks on the photo-sharing platform regularly. Recently, she showed her followers how to slay casual-chic looks on a budget with a pair from her Walmart Collection. Read on:

Sofia Vergara's style

The Modern Family actor posts pictures of herself on the photo-sharing platform wearing distinct outfits. Recently, she also showed-off vivid pieces from her Sofia Jeans by Sofia Vergara label to her 19.3 million followers on Instagram. The actor has created a hashtag #FashionSelfi and combined the brands $19 Costa Rica sleeveless floral top with a pair of ripped Bagi boyfriend jeans. The combination is currently on sale for $23, which is far less from the usual price of $28.

Walmart Collection

Sofia Vergara completed the look by wearing almost-transparent footwear featuring a sky-high wedge platform. The slip-on sandal fitting Vergaras foot with a peep-toe PVC strap is a show-stealer. The actor sported a shiny gold bracelet and pendant. She also kept her middle-parted hair loose flaunting her pink and white combination of clothes in the IGTV video. Check out the actors social media post:

Besides her jeans line, the Escape from Planet Earth star also features in ads for Foster Grant modelling styles from her debut collection with the brand. So, in another Instagram post, Sofia Vergara donned her $31 Sofia readers in a red leopard shaded frame. The actor teamed it up with a blush pink linen suit with pleated pants.

Also read: Khloe Kardashian's Adorable Daughter: 3 Things To Know About True Thompson

Also read: Khloe Kardashian Gives Sneak Peek Of Kylie Jenner's Pink Private Jet Worth $50 Million

She completed her monotone ensemble with a pair of similar shaded strappy heels. Featuring a velvet finish and a thicker strap across the toe, it is the perfect footwear move for Vergara who prefers sky-high heels over flat designs. She kept her wavy hair loose and rounded off the look with statement earrings. Check out her photo on Instagram.

Sofia Vergaras experience in the fashion industry has been ahead of eyewear and stylish looks. The actor has been campaigning for plush brand Dolce & Gabbana. One can easily recreate her looks without shopping from high-budgeted brands and use their creativity for a perfect combination like Sofia Vergaras attires.

Also read: Kim Kardashian's Pet History; From Rocky The Boxer To White & Black Pomeranians

Also read: Kim Kardashian Breaks Quarantine For The First Time; Says 'it Was Nice But Scary'
The President of the Ivory Coast and grieving relatives gathered on Thursday to mourn soldiers killed in a jihadist attack in the country's north.

A ceremony for the 14 soldiers killed was held in the West African nation's capital, Abidjan.

The attack shocked the country and was the first major jihadist attack in the country since 2016, when al-Qaida's North African branch killed at least 19 people at the Grand-Bassam beach resort area.

It targeted an army and gendarmerie post in Kafolo in Sikolo prefecture.

In May, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso launched joint operations along the border region.

Fighters affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have staged a growing number of attacks and gained more territory in the past year in Burkina Faso, displacing more than 750,000 people in that country's north.

There have been growing concerns over the possible presence of Islamic militants in Ivory Coast.
Israel's parliament approved a law Wednesday granting the country's internal security agency limited authority to use phone surveillance to track coronavirus cases as the country struggles to contain a second outbreak.

The Israeli government had authorized the Shin Bet to use the technology in March during the peak of the country's coronavirus outbreak, despite public outcry over privacy concerns. But the country's Supreme Court ordered the surveillance halted until the security agency's permission was granted by law.

The Knesset, Israel's parliament, voted 51-38 in favor of granting the Shin Bet power to use phone surveillance to retrace the steps of people infected with COVID-19 and identify others who came in contact with them in the previous two weeks. Those determined to have been in close proximity with an infected person will be ordered to self-quarantine for two weeks from the date of contact.

The law grants the Shin Bet permission to track cell phones for a three-week period on a case-by-case basis and only in instances in which other epidemiological tracking methods are insufficient in determining contact between a patient and other potentially infected persons.

But the law does grant the prime minister authority to give the Shin Bet additional powers if circumstances require. A ministerial team will evaluate the need of the surveillance, while taking into consideration the impact on individuals' right to privacy.

Israel has seen a spike in confirmed coronavirus cases in recent weeks since the government began easing restrictions on movement in May. New daily cases of the novel coronavirus have exceeded 600 in the past week, with the total number of confirmed cases exceeding 26,000. At least 321 Israelis have died of the disease since the beginning of the pandemic in March, according to the Israeli Health Ministry.

Earlier this month, the head of the Shin Bet reportedly told Israeli Cabinet ministers that he opposed the continued use of his agencys technology to track coronavirus cases.
In quick-fire developments amid Nepal's bid to change the country's map by showing parts of India as their own territory, and political tussle amid Nepalese parties wherein the current PM has peddled anti-India rhetoric, KP Sharma Oli has reached the residence of Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari. Oli on Thursday is also expected to address the nation amid speculation that his party's senior leadership has sought his resignation.

This comes at a time that the Nepal government has decided to prorogue (discontinue without dissolving) the ongoing Budget Session of its Parliament. It has said that the decision was taken at cabinet meeting held at Oli's official residence in Baluwatar.

As per sources, Oli has been advised by his aides in Nepal Communist Party (NCP) to reach out to the rival faction in an attempt to win their confidence. He had also held a meeting on Wednesday evening with his key confidants, including Cabinet ministers. Sources added that Oli was asked by Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Standing Committee members to resign from both the posts of the Prime Minister and party co-chair.

This comes days after both houses of Nepal Parliament passed a Constitutional amendment for a new map which includes India's Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura as their territory. While India has said that its friendship with Nepal continues and it has been providing assistance to Nepal amid COVID-19, MEA has also conveyed its opposition to the move calling it a 'unilateral act'.

READ | Traders in Bengal's Panitanki stop busines with Nepal for claiming Indian areas as its own

Meanwhile, on July 1, Oli, was taken to Sahid Gangalal National Heart Center in Kathmandu after he complained of chest pain, according to ANI. Later, his press Advisor Surya Thapa said that Oli had returned from Sahid Gangalal National Heart Center in Kathmandu after a check-up.

READ | Nepal PM KP Oli hospitalised after complaining of chest pains; discharged after check-up

Rival rubbishes Indian involvement in Oli's turmoil

Last week, Nepal Communist Party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda along with his party colleagues Madhav Nepal, Jhala Nath Khanal, and Bamdev Gautam officially demanded his resignation at the standing committee meeting of the Nepal Communist Party. Oli's resignation was sought on his alleged failures on a range of issues. Prachanda asserted that it is not India but he himself who is seeking Oli's resignation, rubbishing Oli's claims that India was hatching a conspiracy to dislodge him.

There has been infighting in the party ranks over the leadership of Nepal Communist Party and the government, over Oli's unilateral style of functioning and his backing the Mahakali treaty signed with India in 1996. Oli, who has often blamed India for its border issues and the ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, accused India of trying to hatch a conspiracy to destabilise his government. Alleging that meetings were being organized in hotels in India to topple his government, Oli had exuded confidence that these plots would fail.

READ | 'Nepal PM Oli hid India's offer to talk on border issues prior to map amendment': Sources

Nepal's new map includes Indian territory

Nepalese Parliament has passed a Constitutional amendment for a new map which includes Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura and the updated map will now be accommodated in the national emblem. As per reports, Nepal's new map has been drawn on the basis of the Sugauli Treaty of 1816 signed between Nepal and the then-British Indian government and other relevant documents. India has called this move 'unilateral' and alleged that India had reached out to Nepal before the passage of the bill seeking talks on border issues, which were ignored by Oli - who went ahead with the amendment, without informing the citizens on India's offer.

READ | Nepal records 475 new coronavirus cases, tally crosses 13,000-mark
Uganda opened its borders to thousands of people fleeing violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday.

Refugees from the DRC were stuck in a remote area since late May after border crossing was disallowed due to coronavirus restrictions.

The Ugandan government agreed to temporarily open the two border crossing points in Zombo on humanitarian grounds.

Hilary Obaloker Onek, Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees in Uganda, ceremoniously welcomed the refugees at the border.

"Our country is small but we still allow them, out of sympathy," Onek said.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was working with the Government of Uganda and partners to make sure humanitarian assistance, including food and shelter will be available.

The agency said it was also working with border security forces and the Ministry of Health to ensure screening, testing and response measures for COVID-19.

After initial screening, asylum seekers will be transported by UNHCR to an Institutional Quarantine Centre 13 kilometres (8 miles) from the border.

Following the mandatory quarantine period of 14 days in line with health guidelines and protocols, they will be relocated to existing refugee settlements.

In Uganda, refugees and asylum seekers are included in the national surveillance, preparedness, and response plans and activities.

At the border, Congolese refugee Oronyboth Victor said he woke one morning to rebels destroying his community.

"I decided to run away because our neighbours were killed. Our crops and animals were all destroyed," he said.

As the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt, UNHCR said the needs of refugees and local communities that host them continue to grow and put increased pressure on already overstretched resources.

The UNHCR said the pandemic came at the same time as a 30% food ration-cut for refugees and severe gaps in education, child protection and mental health support due to existing funding shortfalls.

(Representative Image)
For the first time since mid-March, the members of the UN Security Council held an in-person meeting on June 1. As per reports, the details of the meeting were announced by the council's president for the month for July, German Ambassador to the United Nations Christoph Heusgen in a press briefing. Heusgen also added that he hoped that the Security Council would return to its regular meeting schedule during his tenure as President.

A 'good and informative' UNSC meeting

In the press briefing, Heusgen said: "We had for the first time since for almost three and a half months a physical meeting of the members of the Security Council,". He added that all the ambassadors met in the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations wherein they had a good and informative discussion.

Read: Security Council Trying Again For First COVID-19 Resolution

Read: Security Council Extends Peacekeeping Force In Mali For Year

The United Nations Security Council stopped meeting in person when New York was placed under lockdown in an effort to combat the deadly coronavirus pandemic. The 15-member body began to hold virtual meetings from then on. In regards to the virtual meeting sessions, Heusgen has said that "It's much more convenient and much better for the atmosphere if we meet in person, but, of course, it has to take place under conditions that are compatible with all the medical implications,.

According to reports, the United Nations is under phase 0 of a physical return after the coronavirus pandemic. It is expected that the first phases will begin in August and even then will only allow 400 employees to return to work on any given day.

Read: UN Security Council Warns Violators Of CAR Peace Deal May Face Sanctions

Read: COVID-19: WHO Warns Some Nations Still Face 'long And Hard' Battle With Pandemic

COVID-19 has infected about 10,538,577 people worldwide and the global death toll has crossed the 500,000 mark according to the John Hopkins University coronavirus resource centre. The United States is currently the global epicentre of the virus having reported 2,658,324 positive coronavirus cases and more than 125,000 deaths.

The novel coronavirus first appeared in China late last year and the country has been heavily criticised for its role in allegedly keeping the origin and pandemic potential of COVID-19 a secret from the world. While it is believed that the virus originated t a wet market in Wuhan, some leaders believe the virus was manufactured in a Wuhan laboratory.

(Image Credit AP) (Representative Image)
As Chile battles with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and more than three months of lockdown, San Bernardo commune residents in the south of Santiago are organising to help feed their neighbours.

Javier Vicencio, a volunteer at Lo Blanco Community Kitchen, explained that nearly 80% of the families in his commune are unemployed.

It's chaotic because we don't have resources and the government aid is not enough," said Vicencio, while attempting to raise money on the streets to fund the community kitchen.

Chile's economy contracted by -15.3% in May compared to the same month last year - the worst fall in several decades, driven by the negative effects of compulsory quarantines to curb spread of the coronavirus.

"These are historically unprecedented figures," said Finance Minister Ignacio Briones, as he explained that the contraction is expected to be replicated or even higher in June.

The contraction reported on Wednesday by the autonomous Central Bank is the second historic fall in two consecutive months, after -14.1% in April.

May is the worst contraction since records began.

Despite some of the strictest measures in the region, Chile has diagnosed 282,000 cases of coronavirus and counted 5,753 deaths.
The 24-hour total is six times higher than the daily record just a month ago and represents a stunning 19.5% of the nearly 52,000 people tested across the state. The Florida Department of Health also confirmed nearly 70 new deaths for the second time this week.
An 8-foot (2.4 meters) tall whipping post was removed from a Delaware county courthouse square Wednesday after activists said the post was a reminder of racial discrimination.

The post outside the Sussex County Courthouse in Georgetown was removed after an hour and a half of excavation and put in storage unit with other historical artifacts, news outlets reported.

A crowd gathered to watch the post being removed, including Diaz Bonville, who said he brought his 8-year-old granddaughter.

"I wanted her to be witness today and it's a history lesson for her because she had never heard of a whipping post", he said.

The Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs said the post was used to bind and whip people publicly for committing crimes up until 1952.

However, Black people were disproportionately punished, according to the historical group.

A book published in 1947 by Robert Caldwell, a former sociology professor in the state, said more than 60% of those beaten between 1900 and 1945 were Black, The Delaware News Journal reported.

At that time, Black people made up less than 20% of Delawares population.

The state-owned post was put on display outside the courthouse by the Georgetown Historical Society in 1993, nearly two decades after Delaware outlawed state-sanctioned public floggings outside local jails and prisons.

It was the last state to abolish the whipping post, news outlets reported.

Delaware Heritage Commission vice-chairwoman Dr. Reba Hollingsworth says the post will go to a museum.

She also says she saw it used to punish a man when she was a child, growing up in Dover, Delaware.

"He was shackled to the post, actually facing it like this, bare back, bare from the waist, down to the waist and this man was standing there with this cat o' nine tails and he was whipping him and count each whip."

The post's removal is part of nationwide movement reassessing displays of monuments that represent racism and oppression.

Removal of Confederate monuments and symbols of racism were sparked by protests over the death of George Floyd and other Black victims.
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Garment factory workers stand in a truck they use to commute to and from work in Kampong Speu province, Dec. 12, 2019.

Cambodias ACLEDA Bank accused three nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of defamation on Thursday and urged the government to take action against them after they issued a report calling for debt relief for workers, who are struggling to repay their loans after losing jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.

Late last month, Licadho, the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL), and the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU) issued a joint briefing paper entitled Worked to Debt, which said that tens of thousands of garment workers will struggle to repay microfinance debts during work stoppages and factory suspensions caused by the outbreak.

The groups said the situation is creating a mounting human rights crisis and warned that without relief from debts owed to microfinance institutions (MFIs), many of the workers will resort to selling their land or homes, eating less food, or taking out even more loans to repay what they borrowed.

The briefing paper was based on interviews with 162 workersmost of them womenfrom three factories in Phnom Penh and Kampong Chhnang, and found that of those surveyed, only four were debt-free. Nearly every worker said they would be unable to repay their debt if their work was suspended and that their lives were worse off now than they were before they took out their loan.

The groups said years of a lack of a living wage in Cambodia has forced workers to take on larger and larger debts to survive, noting that most of the loans are borrowed from MFIs and collateralized with land titles.

The fact that so many workers have taken on this level of debt just to cover their cost of living is alarming, CENTRAL program manager Khun Tharo said in the paper.

Getting deeper into debt is just going to hurt those whove already been hit hardest by this crisis.

According to the groups, two-thirds of those surveyed had taken out at least one microloan from a bank or MFI, mostly to pay off an earlier debt. Nearly three-quarters of those with microloans were eating less food in order to pay back what they owed, they said.

There are approximately 2.6 million microloan borrowers in Cambodia, who together held more than U.S. $10 billion in microloans at the end of 2019, the paper said. Cambodias average microloan size far surpasses that of the rest of the world at U.S. $3,804.

The groups called for immediate debt relief programs from both MFIs and international investors who they said had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to burden Cambodians with unmanageable debts.

They also urged the government to expand borrower protections and enact enforceable, sector-wide regulations that include the temporary suspension of loan repayments and the return of land titles used as collateral, prioritizing hardest-hit borrowers.

Lender responds

On Thursday, ACLEDA issued a statement accusing the groups of trying to confuse the people who are using banking services and provoking social chaos to exploit donors. It said the groups were trying to take advantage of companies in the private sector that are working with the government to promote development.

The report is baseless and was written without conducting a proper study, the bank said.

It has affected ACLEDAs reputation and can be regarded as incitement with an intent to defame the banking and financial sector.

ACLEDA said none of the information in the paper was verified with the countrys lenders, calling it false and lacking data.

The statement, which did not explicitly threaten legal action, also demanded that the NGOs cease any further actions that could impact the reputation of banks and MFIs.

ACLEDA appealed to authorities to take action against any individuals or groups who incite [the people], leading to economic instability and a loss of trust in the banking system.

Am Sam Ath, deputy director of Licadhos Human Rights Investigation Team, told RFAs Khmer Service that he had no comment on ACLEDAs statement, but said his organization issued last months briefing paper because we are concerned about the workers.

We did not seek to incite the workers because the information in the paper is already known, he said.

Am Sam Ath said Licadho is not concerned about any actions the government might pursue as a result of ACLEDAs statement.

What is important is that we have called for solutions because the people are enduring [financial] problems, he said.

Call for payment suspension

The joint briefing paper and the response by ACLEDA follow a recent appeal by the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) to suspend payments to lenders.

Sam Rainsy, the acting chief of the CNRP, recently urged villagers to stop their loan payments for at least six months in messages posted to social media from Paris, where he has lived since 2015 to avoid a string of what he says are politically motivated charges and convictions. He said such a move is warranted because the government has failed to provide borrowers with assistance during the outbreak.

Sam Rainsys calls were met with rage by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who threatened to respond to the attempt to sabotage his government by adding to the nearly 20 CNRP opposition officials or activists who authorities have arrested and thrown in prisonmost without arrest warrantssince the beginning of the year.

Last week, Hun Sen threatened to allow banks and microfinance lenders to file complaints with the courts in order to confiscate the assets of borrowers if they refuse to pay their debts.

Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
China on hit back at international criticism of its draconian new security law for Hong Kong, saying that the city's residents are under its jurisdiction, indicating that may not be allowed to leave.



After the U.K. announced it would extend residency rights and offer a pathway to citizenship for up to three million of the city's seven million residents, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in London said Beijing "firmly opposed" the move.



"We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures," it said in a statement. We urge the British side to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respect Chinas position and concerns, refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any way."



The spokesman said the U.K. had broken its promise not to offer right of abode to Hongkongers made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration governing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule.



"It is made clear in [an interpretation of China's nationality law by Beijing's National People's Congress (NPC) standing committee] that all Chinese compatriots residing in Hong Kong are Chinese nationals, whether or not they are holders of the British Dependent Territories Citizens passport or the British National (Overseas) passport," the spokesman said.



Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said no amount of pressure from external forces could "shake Chinas determination and will to safeguard national sovereignty and Hong Kongs prosperity and stability."



His comments came after the U.S. House of Representatives on joined the Senate in approving a bill to impose sanctions on groups that undermined the citys autonomy or restrict the freedoms promised to Hongkongers.



"China will definitely take strong countermeasures [if the bill becomes law], and all consequences will be borne by the U.S. side," Zhao told a regular news briefing in Beijing.



Pro-independence flag waver arrested

U.K. foreign secretary Dominic Raab said there would be little his government could do if Chinese were to prevent Hong Kong residents from leaving the city.



"Ultimately we need to be honest that we wouldnt be able to force China to allow BNOs to come to the UK," he said.



Thousands of protesters marched against the security law on in defiance of a protest ban by police, who arrested 10 people under the new law, one of whom was waving a pro-independence flag.



The law takes aim at actions that occurred during anti-government protests last year. It says destruction of government facilities and utilities would be considered subversive, while damaging public transportation facilities and arson would constitute acts of terrorism.



It brings a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for offenses that could include "causing the people of Hong Kong to have misgivings about [the government]," and theoretically applies to anyone on the planet, regardless of the legal jurisdiction they live under.



Hong Kong police arrested a man on a London-bound flight on on suspicion of having stabbed a police officer in the arm during 's protests.



The 24-year-old man, surnamed Wong, was arrested on a Cathay Pacific flight after police received an anonymous tip-off about his travel plans, government broadcaster RTHK reported.



U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson said on that imposition of the law was a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the treaty under which China promised Hong Kong could run its own affairs and enjoy its traditional freedoms of speech and association for at least 50 years after the handover.



Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab makes a statement offering Hong Kong residents a broader path to citizenship in response to China's sweeping new security law for the former UK territory, July 1, 2020. AFP 'Irresponsible and unwarranted'

The Foreign Office summoned Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming on to a meeting with Permanent Secretary Simon McDonald.



Liu said the U.K.'s remarks were "irresponsible and unwarranted."



"The Chinese side urges the UK side to immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs, which are internal affairs of China," he said.



The row escalated as the U.K. granted political asylum to former British consulate staff member Simon Cheng, who reported being tortured by mainland Chinese police in Shenzhen at the height of last year's protest movement in Hong Kong.



Cheng said he believed he would be accused, under the new security law, of colluding with foreign forces and that he would be sent to the mainland for trial if he returned to Hong Kong.



U.K. foreign minister Raab said on that the U.K. would live up to its responsibilities to the people of Hong Kong.



However, Hongkongers who were born after 1997 aren't eligible, leaving many of the citys young student activists left vulnerable to arrest and political prosecution.



Around 2.9 million people are believed to be eligible for the BNO immigration pathway, as well as their immediate dependents.



Australia said it could offer tens of thousands of 'safe haven' visas to Hong Kong residents who want to fleet he city, with prime minister Scott Morrison saying that his government is "very actively" considering such a plan.



Reported by Wu Hoi-man and Fok Leung-kiu for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Authorities in Hong Kong on warned that slogans and speech related to last year's protest movement or calls for independence for the city fall within the scope of draconian security legislation imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party on .



"Some people participating in illegal and violent activities ... [on] displayed or possessed items bearing the words   ," the government said in a statement referring to a popular protest slogan which translates as "Free Hong Kong! Revolution Now!"



"[This] slogan nowadays connotes "Hong Kong independence", or separating the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) from the People's Republic of China, altering the legal status of the HKSAR, or subverting the State power," it said.



The government said it "strongly condemns any acts which challenge the sovereignty, unification and territorial integrity of the People's Republic of China."



It cited the national security law, which bans actions or activities promoting "secession, subversion of state power and other [dangers to] national security."



"The HKSAR Government calls upon members of the public not to defy the law," it said.



The announcement came after police said they had made 10 arrests under the new law -- among hundreds for public order offenses -- as thousands came out onto the city's streets on in defiance of a protest ban.



A pro-democracy noodle restaurant said it was warned on by the police to remove its "Lennon Wall" of protest material on display because it was in breach of the new law.



Media control looms

Eastern District councillor Chui Chi-kin likened the warning, which came after someone alerted police to the protest material, to the political denunciations of China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).



Meanwhile, the chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), Chris Yeung, said the law would also likely be used to exert controls over the city's once-freewheeling media.



"There are articles in the law that says the government will regulate, supervise media and foreign media  that seems to be a curtain-raiser to more control," Yeung said in comments reported by government broadcaster RTHK.



"There are a lot of questions, worries that may not be answered, I think, in the near future until we know that some journalists or media organizations are in trouble under the law  being taken to the court, or ordered to produce the information or news material they collected," he said.



Yeung also hit out at attacks on at least one journalist by a police water cannon truck during protests on .



"Since June last year, police have been handling journalists with more use of violence and force and verbal abuse," he said.



"Localist" political groups regarded by Beijing as pro-independence disbanded as soon as the law came into effect, with former Demosisto lawmaker Nathan Law leaving the city soon afterwards, according to media reports.



Law's colleagues Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow were unable to follow suit, as they are under a travel ban and currently face court proceedings for their role in the protest movement.



Anita Yip, vice-president of the Hong Kong Bar Association, said there are concerns that the courts will be less willing to grant bail at all under the new regime.



"Article 42 [of the new law] is very clear that bail shall not be granted unless the judge has good reason to believe that the suspect won't continue to break this law," Yip told local media.



'This is a socialist law'

Hong Kong current affairs commentator Liu Ruishao said there seems to be scant presumption of innocence under the national security system, which is now being applied to Hong Kong under Beijing's direct supervision, and with the help of China's feared state security police.



"When it comes to politically sensitive cases, I haven't really seen a single case in mainland China in which innocence is presumed," Liu said. "You are basically presumed guilty if you get as far as a court."



Former Suzhou high-school teacher Pan Lu said such laws are a long-established part of the national security, or "stability maintenance" regime in mainland China.



"This is a socialist law, so the wording is vague, and it doesn't have the same strict requirements as Western laws," Pan said. "As for the more than 50 countries that have expressed support for China over the [Hong Kong] national security law, I'm pretty sure that they are basically authoritarian regimes."



Beijing academic Wu Qiang said the law will be the death of Hong Kong's status as an international port city.



"What with the protests and the sanctions imposed by the international community, the death of Hong Kong is already here," Wu said. "This can only create a large number of refugees will be born, and the international community will try [to help them]."



"The only thing the international community can do is to accept and resettle and [political] refugees from Hong Kong," he said.



Reported by RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Qiao Long for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Protesters hold placards as they shout anti-China slogans during a rally in front of the Chinese consulate in Manila to mark the third anniversary of a 2016 arbitral ruling by United nations on the South China Sea, July 13, 2019,

The Philippines and Vietnam on Thursday separately denounced Beijings decision to stage naval exercises this week in contested waters of the South China Sea, saying this could deepen international tensions in the strategic waterway.

Chinas launching on Wednesday of five days of drills in waters around the Paracel Islands was highly provocative, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said, as he noted rising tensions stemming from Beijings perceived aggressiveness in the sea region

In Hanoi, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had lodged a diplomatic note with Beijing to complain about the drills that seriously violate Vietnams sovereignty.

The maneuvers began on Wednesday and were expected to run until Sunday. Other ship traffic was to be prohibited in the affected waters, according to Chinese state-run media and a June 27 announcement by the Maritime Safety Administration of Hainan province.

Although the Philippines has no official territorial claim in the Paracel chain, Lorenzana said the exercises would trigger alarm bells for all the claimants in the South China Sea, which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea.

Well, that is very concerning. We view that with alarm, Lorenzana told an online forum on Thursday organized by the National Defense College of the Philippines, where reporters were invited to participate.

The Chinese can do theirs in their own territorial waters within their exclusive economic zone, Lorenzana said, referring to naval exercises. But if you do it here in contested areas, as I said earlier, then thats highly provocative.

China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim the Paracel Islands. The Philippines, for its part, claims Macclesfield Bank, which lies east of the Paracels, but which China considers part of that chain. Beijing has also included the bank as part of its administrative district named after the Paracels.

Chinas drills around the Paracel Archipelago seriously violate Vietnams sovereignty, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement issued Thursday.

The action by Beijing was also detrimental to the relationship between China and ASEAN in their efforts to negotiate a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, as well as maintain peace, stability and cooperation in the maritime region, the ministry said.

There was no immediate response from Chinas government or state-run media to Thursdays criticism by the Philippines and Vietnam.

Elsewhere in the sea region China, Taiwan and four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)  the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei  have competing claims to the Spratly Islands, where Beijing has constructed artificial islands and installed military outposts on atolls.

Amid the [COVID-19] pandemic, the tension in the West Philippine Sea continues, the Philippine defense chief said. Four years after the Hague ruling that favored the Philippines, the South China Sea region remains  a contested geopolitical space and a potential flashpoint.

Lorenzana was referring to a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that went in Manilas favor. President Rodrigo Duterte has never enforced that ruling, and instead has sought closer bilateral ties with China, while distancing the country from the Philippines traditional ally, the United States.

The Duterte administration, however, lately has been voicing its displeasure with Chinese actions in the South China Sea, and has sided with other claimant states including Vietnam. Last year, a Chinese ship sank a Filipino boat in contested waters, leaving 22 Filipino crew members floating at sea until they were rescued by a passing Vietnamese boat.

More recently, Manila protested Chinas creation of two districts in the sea region and the designation of Kagitingan Reef within an administrative region it calls Nansha district.

China is the most assertive and aggressive among the claimant states, Lorenzana said.

Recently, there has been a slight increase in the occurrence of incursions and harassment perpetrated by Chinese vessels  both military and civilian  against the Philippine Navy, Philippine Air Force, Philippine Coast Guard and Filipino fishermen, he said.

Between August 2019 and early 2020, there had been nearly 20 incidents of harassment in the sea region that involved Chinese military ships, commercial boats and maritime militia, Lorenzana said.

Weighing these events, the Philippine government believes that matters of sovereignty can be prudently solved, or best resolved in peaceful and diplomatic channels, he said.

During an online meeting of ASEAN leaders hosted by Hanoi last week, both the Philippines and Vietnam were vocal about recent Chinese activities in the South China Sea.

Even as our region struggles to contain COVID-19, alarming incidents in the South China Sea occurred, Duterte said during his speech before ASEAN counterparts on June 26. We call on parties to refrain from escalating tensions and abide by responsibilities under international law.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
This file photo shows the custom inspection area for trucks with goods arriving from North Korea to China at the Chinese border town of Dandong, opposite the North Korean town of Sinuiju.

North Korea has pushed back its timeline for reopening border trade with China over concerns about new coronavirus cases in nearby northeastern Chinese provinces, trade sources in the country told RFA as they braced for more lean times.

The halt in trade since January between the northeast Asian neighbors has had a crippling effect on North Koreas economy, already struggling under years of U.S. and UN sanctions imposed to deprive Pyongyang of resources that could be funneled into its nuclear and missile programs.

Sources involved in cross-border trade say the prolonged shutdown of trade has hurt the many North Koreans who supplement low salaries by trading consumer goods from China. They said goods will flow through so-called unofficial trade that advantages Chinese exporters facing a sellers market.

Provincial officials explained the decision not to restart trade in mid-June as had been planned, after assessing the situation in adjacent Liaoning and Jilin provinces in northeastern China, at an emergency meeting on June 27, a trade official from North Pyongan province told RFAs Korean Service.

The meeting did not give the exact reason why official trade is being postponed again. However, the coronavirus is spreading again in [Chinas] northeastern region, including in Liaoning Province, which borders North Korea, said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

In mid-June Beijing reported an outbreak of coronavirus, and authorities confirmed it had also spread to Liaoning. More than 10 Chinese cities, including Harbin and Dalian in northeastern China, urged residents not to travel to the capital, state media reported.

Given the authorities emphasis on the quarantine of emergency supplies entering the Dandong-Sinuiju customs office, it seems that they are concerned about the spread of the coronavirus through border trade, the source said, referring to measures imposed at the main border crossing.

The North Korean government has been tightly monitoring the Sino-Korean border since trade was shut down at the end of January. RFA reported in February that authorities had threatened to execute smugglers to prevent cross-border movement to slow the spread of the virus to North Korea.

Pyongyang maintains that it has not confirmed a single case of coronavirus within its borders. But RFA reported that authorities acknowledged in public health lectures in late March that the disease had spread in three parts of the country, including the capital.

North Korean residents and authorities have been clamoring for trade to restart, to restore livelihoods hit by the border lockdown and address skyrocketing food prices resulting from supply shortages.

North Koreans earning a government salary of as little as U.S. $5 a month support themselves by petty trading in food and consumer goods imported from China, or by exporting North Korean goods back to China.

The trade official said that at the emergency meeting, officials were held responsible for their agencys decreased trading volume, even though the closed border was to blame.

Each trade agency was required to report on how much business with Chinese partner companies they could expect if border trade was resumed, the source said.

Participants in the meeting questioned whether the authorities were deliberately using coronavirus as an excuse to extend the trade stoppage so that they could replace trade officials, the source added.

A North Korean trade worker stationed in the Chinese port city Dalian, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA that this time it was North Korea, not China that rejected opening the borders. In April, China turned down a North Korean request to resume trade flows.

Authorities, too, are facing economic difficulties, so they have attempted to resume trade across the border several times, the trade worker said

Now that coronavirus is showing signs of spreading again in many different parts of China, it seems like we are the ones who decided to postpone the resumption of official trade this time, the Dalian source added.

The Dalian trade worker said that with no end to the trade ban in sight, North Korean authorities are ordering each trading company to increase imports of emergency supplies, which are being brought in unofficially.

Unofficial trade between China and North Korea covers exchanges ranging from small-scale smuggling, to cross-border transfers of emergency food supplies for Pyongyang, to secret dealings to avoid sanctions while supplying luxury goods and other banned products for North Koreas elite.

Last month, RFA learned from dockworkers that ships carrying corn and rice labelled as construction materials were frequently sailing from a northeastern Chinese port of Dandong to nearby North Korea in a secret operation run at night kept to avoid international scrutiny.

Under the coronavirus lockdown, North Koreas dire need for imports makes it a sellers market for Chinese exporters. The cost of moving goods through the closed border falls on North Korea, which must pay much more to bring in emergency supplies through unofficial trade, said the second source.

The biggest concern for trade workers is that if we must rely solely on unofficial trade, the Chinese companies will get used to it and we will in the future have a thinner margin with them, the Dalian trader said.

According to the (South) Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency, after peaking at $6.86 billion in 2014, total official trade volume between North Korea and China dropped to $2.72 billion in 2018 with the onset of sanctions. In 2019 it showed a slight increase to $3.1 billion.

Reported by Hyemin Son for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Morgan Ortagus, U.S. Department of State spokesperson since April 2019, spoke with Alim Seytoff, director of RFAs Uyghur Service, on Wednesday about Washingtons efforts to hold China accountable for its policies of persecution in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), including the extrajudicial incarceration of some 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps since early 2017. The former Fox News contributor, who also served as a public affairs officer at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Department of Treasury, said that following U.S. President Donald Trumps enactment of legislation that allows for sanctions of Chinese officials deemed responsible for rights abuses in the XUAR, Washingtons allies and Muslim-minority nations should take similar actions against Beijing. Ortagus also welcomed calls for international experts to be granted unfettered access to the XUAR to investigate reports of violations and dismissed Chinas claims that its crackdown on Uyghurs is being done in the name of counter terrorism.

RFA: Do you think the U.S. and European countries can work together in this effort to end Chinas atrocities against the Uyghur people?

Ortagus: We are constantly evaluating and looking at what we can do to help the Uyghur people. What I really think is importantthe next step, what needs to happenis our friends in Europe, our allies, majority Muslim nations, anybody who cares about freedom of religion, anybody who cares about human rightswe welcome the rhetoric, but its time for action. Its time for these countries to join the United States in holding the officials and holding the companies responsible that do business in Xinjiang or somehow are involved with this repressive campaign.

RFA: Yesterday, the U.K. Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva (Julian Braithwaite)  called on China to allow the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights (Michelle Bachelet Jeria) to visit the Uyghur region. Does the U.S. government support that and will it call on China to do so? And if so, under what conditions?

Ortagus: In general, we support any initiatives that would allow for real access in Xinjiang into these camps that have not only Uyghurs, but other ethnic minorities as well. I often tell people, especially when Im trying to educate people in the United States about whats going on, theres a million Muslims locked upat least. Thats the number we know of, but it could be more. How would the world react if it was a million Christians? Or a million Jews? And we should have the same reaction whenever this happens to our Muslim brothers and sisters. So, anything that will open up and show true transparency, that will allow people to understand what is actually happening in Xinjiang, would be something that we would welcome, but what we dont want is just a show. We want real people to be able to investigate, people with credibility to be able to investigate and get to the bottom line.

RFA: Do you think the Chinese government will close the camps and release the detained Uyghurs and other ethnic groups?

Ortagus: Right now, they continue to refer to Xinjiang in the terms of national security and anti-terrorism and they frame it in those manners, which of course we know is not accurate. Our ambassador for counter terrorism, Nathan Sales, often has soundly rejected that this is at all a part of any sort of discussion on counter terrorism. Lots of reports of what actually happens in these camps, which includes Muslims being forced to recount their faith, to eat pork, to do things that would violate their religious beliefs.

Were in the post-World War II order and as we look at President Trumps national security strategy, which talks about the return of Great Power competition between the United States, China, and Russia, the world really needs to look at these camps and ask themselves, Is this what a Chinese-led world order looks like? Do we have to turn the other way and not look at these camps in order for China to buy our Louis Vuitton bags or our BMWs? Is it worth it?

Reported by Alim Seytoff for RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Brotherhood for Democracy member Nguyen Trung Ton is shown in an undated photo.

Vietnamese police detained and assaulted family members of a jailed democracy activist and Christian pastor before and during U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kritenbrinks recent visit to their district in Thanh Hoa province, the political prisoners wife said Wednesday.

The house arrest and beating appears to be part of an intensifying crackdown on human rights activists and dissidents six months before the Communist Party of Vietnams next five-yearly party congress.

Ahead of the ambassadors visit, local police visited the Quang Xuong district home of Pastor Nguyen Trung Ton, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for his involvement with the Brotherhood for Democracy dissident group.

On June 26, officers from the Quang Yen commune police department came to my house, ordering all the family members not to go out of the home for the next few days, Nguyens wife Nguyen Thi Lanh told RFAs Vietnamese Service.

They locked the gate surrounding the house Monday night, as Kritenbrink was arriving in Quang Xuong the next day.

According to a report by Thanh Hoa Radio and Television, the ambassador was leading U.S. delegation to the northern coastal province to attend an opening ceremony for a local project supported by the embassys Fund for Cultural Preservation.

Nguyen Thi Lanh said that on Tuesday morning, she used pliers to break the locks so she could sell goods in the market. Police arrested her there and took her to the Quang Yen police station.

At 4:00 p.m. that day her son Nguyen Trung Trong Nghia left the home to meet his mother at the station.

She said that when her son was on his way there he was attacked by two people, believed to be plainclothes police officers.

My son was ambushed. They blindfolded and bludgeoned my sons head with an electric baton, causing him injury, said Nguyen Thi Lanh.

A police officer took my son to a health clinic for treatment then brought him back to the Quang Yen police office for booking, she said.

This morning, my son returned to the health clinic for more treatment. His face was swollen, and he has broken teeth, she added.

An official at the Quang Yen police station told the family that the reason for the house arrest was because Ambassador Kritenbrink was visiting their district. The ambassador left Quang Xuong at 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, after which the police left their position at the familys house.

RFA attempted to contact the Quang Xuong district police office for comment, but nobody answered the phone.

Pastor Nguyen Trung Ton was arrested in July 2017 on charges of "attempting to overthrow the people's government" and was sentenced to 12 years in prison and three years of probation in April 2018.

Vietnamese authorities have in the past taken interest in the family of political prisoners with Christian affiliations meeting with U.S. diplomats.

In 2016, local police subjected Tran Thi Hong, wife of imprisoned Mennonite pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh to an intense interrogation two months after she met with U.S. diplomats to discuss religious freedom.

Estimates of the number of prisoners of conscience now held in Vietnams jails vary widely. New York-based Human Rights Watch said that authorities held 138 political prisoners as of October 2019, while Defend the Defenders has suggested that at least 240 are in detention, with 36 convicted last year alone.

Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
HRODNA, Belarus -- Syarhey Tsikhanouski, a jailed Belarusian vlogger who is seeking to take part in an August presidential election and facing criminal charges, has been sentenced to additional 15 days in jail on a charge of "disobeying the police."

Tsikhanouski took part in the July 1 hearing in a court in the western city of Hrodna via video link from a detention center in Minsk, the capital.

He rejected the charge and called it politically motivated.

The Lenin district court found Tsikhanouski guilty of refusing to follow the orders of a police officer in Hrodna on May 29 during rallies held to collect signatures for potential independent presidential candidates, including himself.

The court sentenced him to 15 days in jail.

Tsikhanouski's supporters in the courtroom chanted, "Shame! Shame!" and "Down with the judge!" after the ruling was pronounced.

Tsikhanouski was first arrested in late May and sentenced to 10 days in jail for taking part in the unsanctioned rally in Hrodna.

He was set to be released on June 8 after completing the sentence but he was kept incarcerated and said a day later that he and seven others had been charged with "the organization and preparation of actions that severely violated public order," a reference to the May 29 rally.

If convicted, Tsikhanouski and the seven others in the case may face up to three years in prison.

Tsikhanouski is the owner of a popular YouTube channel called The Country for Life, which challenges the Belarusian authorities.

In mid-May, the Central Election Commission rejected Tsikhanouski's registration documents for his candidacy for a presidential election scheduled for August 9.

Since Tsikhanouski's candidacy was rejected, his wife, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has been trying to get registered as a candidate herself, collecting the necessary 100,000 signatures to qualify.

Amnesty International has recognized Tsikhanouski and another jailed potential presidential candidate, Viktar Babaryka, and his son Eduard as prisoners of conscience.

Babaryka and his son were arrested on June 18 after the police questioned them on allegations of tax evasion and money laundering in connection with an investigation at Russian-owned Belgazprombank, where the elder Babaryka worked for 20 years.

Belarusian authorities on June 15 took control of the bank and arrested more than a dozen top executives on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.

Babaryka is said to have compiled more than four times the number of signatures needed to be a candidate in the election.

Critics of incumbent President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has been in power in Belarus for more than 25 years, say his government has shown little tolerance for dissent and independent media.

Several international and domestic rights groups, western governments and the United Nations experts have called on Belarusian authorities to stop persecuting political activists, rights defenders, journalists, and bloggers ahead of the presidential election.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in March signed an executive order shuttering gyms and other businesses in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus. While parts of the state have since been given the go ahead to reopen, most gyms are required to remain closed until at least July 4.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assured a doctoral student in a 2016 meeting that there was nothing wrong with criticizing the country's top official.



"Speaking against me is neither [reprimandable] nor is it a crime, I've said it many times," Khamenei said at the July 2, 2016, meeting with a group of handpicked students, including Mohammad Ali Kamfiruzi.



The young student had directly confronted Khamenei over rights abuses in the Islamic republic, including violating people's freedom of expression.



Four years later, the former student who became a lawyer has been given a two-year suspended prison sentence for offering mild criticism of Khamenei in a 2018 speech.



Kamfiruzi -- whose father was a Basij fighter killed in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War -- has also been ordered to make 60 trips to Shiraz, his hometown, within five years to report to the intelligence branch of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), whose commanders are appointed by Khamenei.

Feared Unit



Kamfiruzi thinks the feared unit is the one who pushed for his sentence.



Kamfiruzi published details of his case earlier this week on Twitter. There he said the IRGC's feared intelligence branch had been pursuing him for the "last three or four years."



The IRGC's intelligence unit has detained many activists, journalists, environmentalists, and dual citizens in recent years.



Kamfiruzi said he was convicted by a Revolutionary Court in Shiraz of insulting Iran's highest authority based on two sentences in a speech he made in the south-central city two years ago to mark Students Day.



"The performance of the leader can also be criticized when it comes to the rights and freedoms of citizens," is the first one and the second: "It is regrettable if the leader is not aware of the violations of citizen's rights [in some of the bodies under his supervision] and if he's aware and does not take action it is 100 times more unfortunate."

The case highlights the high-level of state repression in Iran, where even those loyal to the Islamic republic -- which includes Kamifiruzi -- are being prosecuted for speaking their mind and criticizing the country's security apparatus.

In his 2016 meeting with Khamenei, a video of which was posted on the leader's website, Kamifiruzi highlighted a long list of rights violations -- including pressure on the press and student publications -- and the state media's defamation of critics and former government officials, an apparent reference to opposition figures Mir Hossein Musavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, as well as reformist cleric Mehdi Karrubi.

All of them have been living under house arrest since 2011.

'My Father Was Martyred'



Kamifiruzi concluded his remarks -- which have received so much attention -- by asking Khamenei how the establishment should deal with people like him who are "attached" to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the establishment but are critical of some repressive policies and social ills.



"I was three years old when my father was martyred. I have no doubt that if -- God forbid -- one day any foreign power has [bad intentions] towards Iran, I would be the first person to go to the front lines to defend this [Islamic] establishment and Iran's territorial integrity," he said.



"Despite supporting you stances regarding hostility towards [the United States] and economic justice, I oppose some of your views regarding the domestic politics of the work of some of the bodies under your control," Kamirfiruzi added, calling on the supreme leader to "please tell me how the establishment should deal with me and people like me."



In recent years, those criticizing Khamenei have been detained, pressured, tortured, and sent to jail.



Some of them -- namely Musavi, Rahnavard, and Karrubi -- have been put under house arrest with limited contact with the outside world and amid reports of their deteriorating health.



Despite the pressure, criticism of the leader who has the last say on all matters in Iran has been on the rise, with many chanting against him or calling him a dictator in recent street protests in the capital, Tehran, and other cities.



In recent months a number of activists have also issued public letters calling on Khamenei to resign.

Khamenei has not ever publicly reacted to the criticism. And despite what he told Kamifiruzi, it apparently will not be tolerated.
BISHKEK -- A man in Kyrgyzstan's southern region of Jalal-Abad has been freed from custody despite being found guilty of severely beating and torturing his wife in a case that became widely known after a video showing the beating went viral last month.



In following new sentencing guidelines that were part of a 2019 reform package that criminalized domestic violence, the judge handed the man a two-year suspended sentence, with a warning that if he breaks the law the sentence can be turned into a two-year prison term.

The unidentified 51-year-old resident of the Suzak district was arrested in mid-June after a video circulated on the Internet showing him beating and pouring buckets of water on his shaken wife who cried as she stood outside with two car tires hanging from a rope around her neck.



As the man abused the woman, he gave instructions to another woman, apparently a relative, to "properly" film the scene.

Rights activists decried the sentence saying it sends the wrong message to offenders.



"Impunity for domestic violence: that's the message a two-year suspended sentence...sends," Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Twitter on July 2.



"Strengthening laws for dv (domestic violence) is a start, but if courts won't sanction abusers caught on tape? Ugh," she added.



The woman being abused in the video, who was hospitalized after the incident, originally filed a lawsuit against her husband, who was arrested days later.



But police said the woman later withdrew her suit, saying that she had forgiven her spouse. Local prosecutors, however, refused to close the case.



Kyrgyz authorities have been trying to curb domestic violence in the country for years.



The Interior Ministry said earlier this year that almost 6,145 domestic violence cases had been registered in 2019 but only 649 resulted in criminal cases.
The official returns on Russia's plebiscite on constitutional amendments showed a solid block of "yes" votes across the nation for a package of changes that, first and foremost, allow President Vladimir Putin to seek a 12-year extension of his reign.



That is, except for the northwestern Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) -- the littlest of all of Russia's regions in terms of population -- which stood out on electoral maps as the lone territorial voice of dissent.



The numbers in the sparsely populated, oil-dependent territory -- where there is strong resistance to plans to merge with the Arkhangelsk and Komi regions, two neighboring regions in the Northwestern Federal District -- were not kind to the proposals.

According to preliminary results of the weeklong vote reported on July 2, 55.25 percent of NAO voters checked "no" on their ballots, which gave the option only of approving or rejecting the package of amendments in its entirety.



Turnout was relatively low, with fewer than 22,000 of the autonomous district's just under 37,500 eligible voters casting ballots. Of them, 12,074 voted against the proposed amendments, with 9,567 in favor.



If there was a trend to be found it was that support for the measures was lowest in more remote areas. Second to Nenets Autonomous Okrug was the Far Northern and oil- and natural gas-rich region of Yakutia, where just over 40 percent of voters chose "no." In third place was Kamchatka in the Far East, with just over 37 percent voting against the package. The southern Far East subject of Khaborovsk came in at just under 37 percent opposed, as did the Magadan region.



The Kremlin unofficially brushed off the results, with the Interfax news agency quoting an unnamed source close to Putin's administration as saying that it was not "dramatizing" the situation and noting that majorities in 17 regions voted against Russia's post-Soviet constitution when it was adopted in 1993.

Nationwide, the package of amendments was supported by nearly 78 percent of voters, with turnout of 65 percent, according to the Central Election Commission, though opponents of Putin say the figure is not credible.



Some areas -- such as Chechnya, headed by Kremlin-backed strongman and vocal Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov, and the Siberian region of Tyva, where longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu comes from, both around 97 percent "yes" -- were overwhelmingly in favor of the amendments, according to the official results.



In addition to making it possible for Putin to remain in office for another two terms, until 2036, the package included constitutional changes defining marriage as between a man and a woman, describing "belief in God" as a core national value, and calling Russian "the language of the state-forming ethnicity."

Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova declined to comment on why NAO residents might have been against the amendments, but told Interfax on July 2 that the results "speak to the accuracy of the vote count."

Some observers in Russia, such as economics analyst Ivan Tkachyov, wondered if the negative result might be due to public discontent in the energy-dependent region following the recent crash of global oil prices.



No Urge To Merge?



However, to Valery Fedeyev, who is seen as a Putin loyalist and heads the presidential advisory council on civil society and human rights, the reason NAO voted against was "clear."



"Apparently the residents of this district don't want to merge with anyone, so it became a protest vote," he told a meeting of the quasi-government Public Chamber on July 2.



There has been strong resistance to plans to merge the Nenets region with the Arkhangelsk region -- its relatively impoverished neighbor to the north and southwest that has administrative jurisdiction over the NAO -- and Komi, which lies to the south.



The plan was announced by the governors of Arkhangelsk and the NAO in May, and shortly afterward a working group set up to oversee the merger proposed adding Komi, too.



But public outcry in the NAO, which has a wealth of oil and natural gas and is one of Russia's richest regions per capita, put the idea of holding a vote on the issue in September on hold.

The NAO is one of only four autonomous districts -- the others being Chukotka, Yamalo-Nenets, and Khanty-Mansi -- to have survived the government's effort to eliminate them through mergers during Putin's first two terms as president.



Many in the 42,000-strong NAO want to preserve that autonomy, and among their reasons have cited concerns about the timing of the move amid the coronavirus pandemic, the loss of higher status compared to other regions, and fears that it could clear the way for indigenous languages to be watered down.



Ethnic minorities have expressed concern that the new constitutional wording granting the Russian language special status will lead to the further marginalization of indigenous tongues.



An online petition on Change.org had garnered more than 2,500 signatures in opposition to the merger plan as of July 2.



In conceding just two weeks after announcing the merger plan that the idea needed more thought, NAO acting head Yury Bezdudny said in early June that "the general position is this: such a serious issue needs to be worked out, and there is no need to be hasty."
The St. Petersburg City Court has sentenced military analyst Vladimir Neyelov to seven years in prison after convicting him of treason.

"The court found that Neyelov, for money, gave a German consulting firm information about the process of training and preparing operative agents of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation," the court said in a statement on July 2 after a closed trial.

The court added that Neyelov "partially" admitted his guilt by arguing that the information he provided was not classified.

Neyelov, 30, was arrested in October 2018 and has been held in Moscows Lefortovo remand prison.

Neyelov worked with Moscow's Center for Strategic Forecasting and specialized in Russia's private security firms, some of which carry out mercenary activities abroad in cooperation with Russian security forces.

He was often quoted in the media speaking about the Vagner security group, which is controlled by financier Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Vagner group has sent mercenaries to Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and other countries.

He also is the author or co-author of several books on the activities of Russian private security firms in various conflicts in the former Soviet space and in Afghanistan.

With reporting by the BBC
Only weeks after emerging from lengthy lockdowns that battered their fragile economies, an upsurge in coronavirus infections in Central Asia has forced officials to reimpose restrictions that will close businesses and leave people jobless.



But work is always plentiful during pandemics for health-care workers and gravediggers.



Normally in our cemetery about five bodies are buried every month, Turganbek Otebaev, a cemetery worker on the outskirts of the northwestern Kazakh city of Aqtobe, told RFE/RL on June 25. But in the past two to three days, six or seven bodies are being brought for burial every day.



In Uzbekistans Bukhoro region, the government has ordered limits be put on public transport and the closure of some bazaars as of July 1 due to an increase in the number of the infections, state media reported.



All shopping centers and markets across Uzbekistan will be closed during the weekends for extensive disinfection efforts, the states coronavirus task force announced on June 30.



Central Asias most populous nation of 32 million, Uzbekistan recorded at least 230 new cases each day recently, although the real number of infections remains unknown due to a severe lack of testing and accusations that officials are underreporting cases.



In Kazakhstan, a two-week lockdown was announced on July 1, scheduled to begin on July 5. The new quarantine measures were announced after the country experienced a startling spike in COVID-19 cases in the past three weeks.



President Qasym-Jomart Toqaev had ordered officials to introduce measures similar to the strict quarantine Kazakhstan had imposed from March 16 to May 11.



The number of confirmed infections cases rose to 41,065 on July 1, from about 5,000 in mid-May when Kazakhstan -- the largest economy in Central Asia -- lifted its nationwide lockdown.



Some 1,604 people had tested positive for the virus over the previous 24 hours, a government website reported on July 1.



New cases are also soaring in Kyrgyzstan, where the government says the crisis has put tremendous pressure on the countrys struggling health system.



Second Wave Or Recharged First Wave?



Officials in Kazakhstan began sounding alarms about the surge in new cases in mid-June, when the government planned to gradually reopen large shopping centers, cinemas, and theaters.



Instead, it has been forced to tighten restrictions on businesses once again.



In Almaty, Kazakhstans largest city, all bazaars and shops have had their opening hours reduced since June 15.



Similar restrictions were introduced for restaurants, grocery stores, and markets in the Qarangandy, Mangistau, North Kazakhstan, South Kazakhstan, Turkestan, and West Kazakhstan provinces.



Many Kazakh hospitals have been running out of beds because of the growing number of people being admitted with COVID-19 symptoms.



The country has also seen an unprecedented rise in severe pneumonia cases, many of them resulting in death. Pneumonia is often triggered by patients with COVID-19.



On June 30, Health Minister Aleksei Tsoi said 2,500 new pneumonia cases were being recorded every day.



In Kyrgyzstan, Emergency Medicine Center head Iskender Shayakhmatov said the facility is getting a high volume of calls from Bishkek residents complaining of pneumonia-like symptoms. Shayakhanov said it is highly unusual for the summer season.



Pneumonia infections have also been on the rise in Tajikistan, although health officials in almost every Central Asian country say patients tests for the coronavirus are often coming back negative.



Dubious Statistics



The true coronavirus statistics are hard to determine in Central Asia, where critics accuse officials in most of the countries of underreporting the cases.



With the exception of Kazakhstan, testing rates remain extremely low across the region, where medical experts also question the reliability of testing kits.



In Tajikistan, doctors in provincial hospitals say that they have no access to coronavirus tests and have to send samples to the capital, Dushanbe.



Two hospital directors told RFE/RLs Tajik Service that, because of the lack of tests, they put pneumonia as the cause of death for all patients who die from obvious COVID-19 symptoms.

Tajikistan reported 5,954 infections as of June 30, while the number of deaths remained unchanged at 52 for several days.



But an investigative report by RFE/RL showed that officials figures are significantly lower than estimates by local activists and medics.



A website set up by some activists puts the number of coronavirus deaths at 437 as of June 14, citing information provided by relatives, health authorities, local officials, or social media reports. RFE/RL had verified more than 150 of those deaths from the coronavirus.



Tajik authorities claimed there were no coronavirus cases in the country until April 30. Before then, officials had harassed journalists who questioned a rise in the suspicious pneumonia-like cases.



Turkmenistan, the most secretive and repressive country in Central Asia, hasnt reported a single coronavirus infection.



But various medical sources have told RFE/RL that COVID-19 cases have been recorded in almost all of the regions in Turkmenistan, despite the governments denial.

Having first refused to allow a World Health Organization (WHO) delegation from visiting the country, Ashgabat relented last week and said WHO officials could come. But the visit has yet to take place.



Several medics are said to be among those who contracted the coronavirus in Turkmenistan.



Two doctors died from COVID-19 at the Choganly infectious diseases hospital on the outskirts of Ashgabat, while several other medics became infected with the virus at different medical facilities in the provinces, the sources told RFE/RL.



Kazakh President Toqaev says his government has nothing to hide from the international community and wants to show the real situation in the country. He said on June 29 that Kazakhstan has the capacity to conduct some 28,000 tests a day.



On July 1, Kazakhstans official website for coronavirus statistics ended its practice of excluding asymptomatic cases from the total tally.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde says Iran has agreed that it will compensate the families of foreign victims who died when a Ukrainian airliner was shot down after taking off from Tehran's main airport in January, killing all 176 people on board.

"We have signed an agreement of mutual understanding that we will now negotiate with Iran about amends, compensation to the victims' next of kin," Linde told the Swedish news agency TT, adding the agreement was reached following talks with ministers from the countries affected by the crash.

It was unclear what sums would be paid out and when.

Iran has said in the past that it wants to negotiate directly with the victims' families.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was heading to Kyiv when it was shot down by Iran's air defenses on January 8 in what Iranian officials eventually acknowledged was a "mistake."

Many of the 176 victims were Iranian-Canadians, but there were also nationals of Afghanistan, Britain, Sweden, and Ukraine on board.

Iranian forces had been on high alert at the time of the tragedy, which came hours after Iran launched missile strikes on an Iraqi military base housing U.S. troops.

The Iranian strikes were carried out in response to the killing of a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport.

With reporting by dpa and AFP
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has been briefed by senior intelligence officials following reports alleging Russia paid the Taliban bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Lawmakers from the Democratic and Republican parties have demanded more information about the alleged bounty scheme and whether any bounties were paid for the death of U.S. troops. Many have called for sanctions against Russia, if the allegations are true.

The top intelligence officials who spoke with the lawmakers in a classified briefing on Capitol Hill included CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California), who participated in the gathering, told reporters that U.S. sanctions on Russia should be beefed up to include the country's intelligence and defense sectors.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said that "independent of the briefing, I don't think the president is close to tough enough on Vladimir Putin."



U.S. President Donald Trump on July 1 reiterated that he was not told about the reported Russian effort to get the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers because many U.S. intelligence officials doubted it was true.



"We never heard about it because intelligence never found it to be of that level," he told Fox Business Network. "The intelligence peoplemany of them didn't believe it happened at all."



Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky), who was among the lawmakers briefed on July 2, said he didn't think Trump should be "subjected to every rumor."



Democrats, however, have been upping the pressure on Trump over the report, which first appeared last week in The New York Times based on multiple unidentified sources with knowledge of the matter. They have questioned how the president could not have known about the intelligence and why he has not issued a stronger response.



Senator Chuck Grassley (Republican-Iowa), speaking on the Senate floor on July 1, said the matter "demands a strong response, and I don't mean a diplomatic response," if the reports are true.

'We Took This Seriously'

White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien told reporters that if the allegations are verified, I can guarantee you the president will take strong action." He added that Washington may never know the truth of the matter because of leaks to the media.



O'Brien provided a few specifics, saying Trump was not verbally briefed by his CIA briefer, and he defended that decision as "the right call." The briefer, a senior career civil servant, "didn't have confidence in the intelligence," O'Brien said.



Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the situation was handled incredibly well to ensure the safety of U.S. troops.



We took this seriously, we handled it appropriately, Pompeo said at a briefing. He said the administration receives intelligence about threats to Americans every day and each is addressed.



Pompeo added that Russian activity in Afghanistan is nothing new and when there is credible information suggesting Russians are putting American lives at risk, the United States responds "in a way that is serious."



Russia and the Taliban have denied the existence of any offer of bounties to kill U.S. troops.



But according to The New York Times and other media outlets unidentified U.S. and European government sources familiar with intelligence reporting say bounties were offered.



They said that in recent weeks the United States had acquired fresh information backing up the allegations that Russia had encouraged Taliban-affiliated militants to kill U.S. and allied soldiers in Afghanistan, according to the news reports.



At least two sources have said the U.S. intelligence community is confident Russia encouraged the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan but there was internal debate over whether Moscow had actually paid bounties.



Another person familiar with the matter said the CIA was sufficiently confident of the intelligence to include it in May in its daily publication, and its inclusion there undermines the administrations claim that it was not verified, the source said.



A withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is a top agenda item for the president, who is up for reelection in November. The United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in February intended to pave the way for peace talks between the militant group and the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and bring an end to the long-running conflict.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
TBILISI -- U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan has warned that Russia will likely try to interfere in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

"We've seen how active and creative Russian disinformation is in affecting and interfering with many elections and Georgia is an obvious target," Degnan said during a panel discussion organized by the Georgian Institute of Politics on July 1.



"The United States, the U.K., and other friends of Georgia are helping the public to be able to discern disinformation from accurate information, to hear and read the media and the information they are receiving with greater scrutiny and to be able to evaluate it better," she added, noting that while she didn't "have any concrete proof, I think it will be quite likely that Russia will try to interfere with Georgia's elections."

Degnan pointed to a massive, allegedly Russian-organized cyberattack on more than 2,000 Georgian websites in October 2019 as "a serious warning" for Georgia and other countries.

Parliamentary elections in Georgian will be held in October.
U.S. prosecutors have filed a lawsuit to seize the gasoline aboard four tankers that Iran is currently shipping to Venezuela, the latest attempt to increase pressure on the two sanctioned anti-American allies.

The civil-forfeiture complaint filed in the District of Columbia federal court late on July 1 claims the sale was arranged by an Iranian businessman with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

Since September 2018, the IRGC's elite Quds Force has moved oil through a sanctioned shipping network involving dozens of ship managers, vessels, and facilitators, according to the lawsuit.

"The profits from these activities support the IRGC's full range of nefarious activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism, and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad," the prosecutors alleged.

Iran's mission to the United Nations said that any attempt by the United States to prevent Iranian lawful trading with any country of its choosing would be an act of "piracy."

The four tankers named in the complaint -- the Bella, Bering, Pandi, and Luna -- are carrying 1.1 million barrels of gasoline, the U.S. prosecutors said.

The Justice Department said on July 2 that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a warrant to seize all the gasoline on the vessels, "based on a probable cause showing of forfeitability."

The United States has been pressing for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's ouster with a campaign of diplomatic and punitive measures, including sanctions on its energy sector.

The South American country is suffering from a gasoline shortage amid a ravaging economic crisis.

Tensions have been on the rise between Tehran and Washington since 2018, when the United States withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and reimposed crippling sanctions that have battered the Iranian economy.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a bid by the administration of President Donald Trump to avoid disclosing to the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives grand-jury testimony from an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The high court agreed on July 2 to hear the administration's appeal of a lower-court order for the material related to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian meddling to be turned over to the House Judiciary Committee.

The move means the documents won't likely be released before the November 3 presidential election, in which the Republican president is seeking a second four-year term in office.

The House panel has argued it needs the underlying grand-jury material to make its own determinations about Trump's actions as investigators looked into his campaign's involvement with Russians.

In March, a federal appeals court ruled that the material must be disclosed to lawmakers because the committee's need for the material outweighed the Justice Department's interests in keeping the testimony secret.

Mueller's report, issued in April 2019, stopped short of reaching conclusions about Trump's conduct, including whether he obstructed justice.

The report detailed multiple interactions between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, but did not find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and the Kremlin to tip the election.

However, large portions of the report were blacked out, including the grand-jury testimony and material that Mueller said could harm ongoing investigations or infringe on the privacy of third parties.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
We honestly have no idea where he contracted it. I realize people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of traveling the past week, including to Arizona where cases are spiking. I dont think theres any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected. Well never know, HermanCain.com editor Dan Calabrese said regarding the 74-year-old cancer survivor.
Editor's Note: This is an ongoing series which runs each Thursday morning titled the Richland Chronicles, by author Paul Lintern. It is set in the 1800s and tells the story of Richland County through the eyes of young people. The books are available from Lintern for $25 a set, tax and shipping included. Each book is about 120 pages written for intermediate readers (4th grade) with local illustrations. Volume I is Amelia Changes Her Tune. Volume II is Isaac and Wolf Paw Find Their Home. Volume III is Autumn Keeps Her Secret. Volume IV is Mr. Gamble Starts a School. Volume V is Jacob Blows his Horn. Volume VI is Cassie Fights the War. Volume VII is Emilene Adopts Her Family. Volume VIII is David Dances the Bases.

Here eye shall be delighted by the glittering drops and glistening jets. Here ear shall be charmed by the harmonious fall and flow. Here desire shall be gratified by all the thirsty sons often. Here in this park the air shall be more balmy and more helpful to the weary.

Natalie loved to hear Mr. Hedges speak. He was wealthy man in town, a leader, from a founding family, and had a good, booming voice that made you pay attention without making you scared, at least in a 10-year-olds mind.

His speech at the fountains dedication made everything seem to fit together.

Joy smiles in the fountain, health flows in the rills and the ribbons of silver unwind from the hills, he said to conclude his speech.

I dont know exactly what he said, but I sure do like the way the words sound, Natalie thought.

Colonel Burns, who Natalie thought must be related even though Father says not, accepted the fountain on behalf of the city, but not before saying, Central Park was a hog wallow patronized by unretained porkers roaming at will and where meditative cows reposed in quiet through the shade of night, chewing their cuds of contentment, to everyones laughter and applause.

The church bells had sounded throughout downtown at 9 oclock that morning to call citizens to the park. It was July Fourth  the countrys 105th birthday  and the Square was becoming known as Central Park, because that is what it had become. It was no longer a cow pasture, a hog pen, a market, a courthouse entrance or even a horse hitching area.

It was a park.

Earlier in the year, Mayor Bigelow saw to the removal of the fence that had surrounded the square. It was done quietly and quickly, and to the dismay of local farmers, but the mayor stood his ground, opening the way for benches, green grass, a bandstand, some flowers, and a criss-cross of paved paths.

And now a fountain in the very middle of the park, surrounded by elegant trees and a gentle breeze.

A parade had made its way from Marion Avenue to the center of town, with two bands and a host of dignitaries.

Little Delmar Hightower was in one of the carriages, as winner of the grand prize in Natalies contest. He looked a little uncomfortable with all the attention.

But Ill bet he doesnt mind having that bicycle, she thought.

The other big prize winners were allowed to walked behind the carriage, carrying a banner.

The Mansfield Philharmonic Society sang the Star-Spangled Banner, all four verses, with many people joining in on the first verse. The park was filled with men in old uniforms, many of which did not fit their frames as well as they had 20 years earlier.

While the turnout was high and the event a celebration, everything was somewhat subdued because of the newspaper headlines from the day before:

President Garfield shot!

Crazed man fires pistol in Baltimore.

Presidents life hangs in balance.

Ohios son inaugurated only fours months ago.

Do you think the President will die, Papa? Natalie had asked the day before.

Doctors will do everything they can, but God can do more. We have to wait and pray and see what is to come, he told her.

And so the waiting crowd gathered to honor the birth of the country, to pat themselves on the back for making such a nice park, and to pray for the recovery of the 20th President, and an Ohioan at that.

Natalie looked around to find many of her classmates at the event, even though most of them did not live in Mansfield. They were relishing the success of their contest and it had been suggested that they may be recognized at the dedication.

Isnt it beautiful? Violet said as she stared at the fountain while walking up to Natalie.

I didnt know it would be so tall, Harriet added.

And that pretty woman at the top. Is that Miss Vasbinder? Olivia asked.

Natalie laughed, then caught herself.

Well, maybe it looks a little like her.

No, thats just a typical pretty fountain lady, like the others, Natalie said.

Actually, its Hebes, the Greek cupholder to the gods on Olympus, said Miss Vasbinder, who happened to be walking up to the speakers stand.

Oh, I am so embarrassed.

Do you think she looks like me?

No, I mean, yes, a little, maybe? Natalie stammered.

Its fine, Dear One. I am the last person I would want on top of the statue, Miss Vasbinder replied.

Good, because her name means youth, and thats more for you than for me.

Who are those women in the middle? Harriet asked.

They are the Graces. The Greek word is charis, as in charity. Those three remind us that all of life is a gift.

Natalie started to explain what Uncle Lucas had told her, about the cornucopia and vase and a twine of roses in their hands, but before she could elaborate, she heard her name from the speakers stand.

 and lets bring up all those students who helped prepare this contest, and then we will celebrate the winners of the contest, and then, lets bring up everyone here who participated in the contest, so they can be close to see the fountain start flowing, a dignified man called out, who happened to be Dr. Bushnell, one of the members of the fountain committee.

Dozens of students came forward, and Natalie was lost in the shuffle, but was happy to have been recognized, without having to get up on the stand. She also found herself right next to the fountain when Dr. Bushnell called out, Like Moses at the Rock of Maribah, let the water flow.

There was a pause, and then a gurgle and then a  a trickle of water dripped out of the jar at the end of the outstretched arms of the woman at the top and dribbled into the top bowl.

Thats it? All that excitement and they forgot to see if it actually would work?
COLUMBUS -- Continued applications for unemployment benefits have declined for the ninth straight week, according to the Ohio Dept. of Job & Family Services.

Those who remain jobless filed 332,681 fewer continued claims last week compared to the peak in April duing COVID-19.

In addition, for the week ending June 27, ODJFS reported 35,623 initial jobless claims to the U.S. Dept. of Labor. The total number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last 15 weeks (1,430,807) is more than the combined total of those filed during the last three years.

Over the last 15 weeks, ODJFS has distributed more than $4.7 billion in unemployment compensation payments to more than 728,000 Ohioans.

Of the more than 1 million applications the agency has received, more than 94% have been processed, with less than 6 percent pending. In addition, ODJFS has issued more than $3.4 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) payments to more than 378,000 PUA claimants.

According to ODJFS, Richland County had the eighth-highest unemployment rate in the state at 15.6 percent.

Among the states 88 counties, preliminary May 2020 unemployment rates ranged from a low of 5.1 percent in Holmes County to a high of 19.9 percent in Erie County.

From April, unemployment rates decreased in all 88 counties. The comparable unemployment rate for Ohio was 13.4 percent percent in May.

Ten counties had unemployment rates below 10.0 percent in May. The counties with the lowest rates, other than Holmes were: Delaware, 8.4 percent; Union, 8.8 percent; Athens and Mercer, 9.0 percent; Wayne, 9.2 percent; Knox, 9.3 percent; Madison, 9.5 percent; Ashland, 9.6 percent; and Greene, 9.9 percent.

Six counties had unemployment rates above 16 percent in May. The counties with the highest rates, other than Erie were: Lorain, 18.8 percent; Lucas, 18.7 percent; Crawford, 18.4 percent; Cuyahoga, 17.9 percent; and Trumbull, 16.3 percent.
Bill Rider, a retired math teacher who worked at Collegiate, hopped on his bike and rode over when his wife told him what was happening.

Its gratifying. It means that were growing as people that need to reflect about our history, said Rider, who has lived in the Museum District for more than 30 years.

As a teacher, it means that I feel a lot better. I had to look my students in the eye and say, Im not sure why this is still here. I was oblivious forever. Its never too late to keep learning, to better understand the purpose of these monuments and how they affect all of our friends and neighbors. He said he was glad that the statues came down due to government action and not forced removal by protesters.

We needed this to happen this way because it shows that the government is responsive to the people, Rider said. Yes, there was a lot of anger  there still is  but we need to show that the folks in charge can do the right thing.

For a recent VCU graduate whose porch overlooked the monument, it was a thrilling afternoon.
Short-term rental regulations in Richmond went into effect Wednesday.

The finalized regulations come after nearly five years of discussion and study. Prior to the regulations implementation, city code prohibited residential rentals offered for a period of fewer than 30 consecutive days. Still, in March 2018, 749 unique short-term rental units were active within the city.

Under the regulations, Airbnb and other short-term rental operators must reside in their rental units  or a home on the property  for at least 185 days of the year. The number of nights a year each short-term rental can operate is unlimited.

The new rules also require that renters pay a $300 fee every two years for a short-term rental permit.

Thomas Courtney, who is a part of a group of Richmond short-term rental operators, said that getting his input into the citys evaluative process was near-impossible.

I felt powerless to do anything, and I think most of the short-term rental operators felt the same, Courtney said.
In Denton, Texas, 1,300 miles away from where a crowd was gathered to watch the removal of the Stonewall Jackson statue, Jacksons great-great-grandsons phone was buzzing with text messages from friends watching workers saw off the base of the statue.

Im very much cheering on from afar, said William Jackson Jack Christian, a lecturer in the English department at the University of North Texas who was home with his 3-week-old daughter on Wednesday when he heard the news. I think removing racist imagery and symbols - whether its statues or a Confederate flag or school names  is a first step toward addressing a racist past and hopefully enacting a more just future.

Christian, 41, said he was raised in Bon Air with both reverence and skepticism for his namesake. He was taught that Jackson committed good deeds, such as educating enslaved people in violation of state law. As an adult, his views sharpened.

He still had a white supremacist viewpoint that he went to war to protect, Christian said.
8 p.m.: The statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson was hauled away on a flat bed trunk after workers hoisted it off its pedestal overlooking Richmond's Monument Avenue and Arthur Ashe Boulevard.

After more than 100 years on Monument Ave., the Stonewall Jackson statue has been removed

5 p.m.: A crowd of an estimated thousand spectators stood in heavy rain Wednesday afternoon and watched as the bronze statue to Stonewall Jackson was removed from the granite base where it stood for more than 100 years.

The Stonewall Jackson statue by Richmond sculptor Frederick William Sievers was unveiled Oct. 11, 1919.

The statue was removed at around 4:40 in the afternoon after about four hours of work by crews.

Hundreds show up to watch Stonewall Jackson statue come down along Monument Avenue

2 p.m.: Hundreds of people gathered at the Stonewall Jackson monument Wednesday about an hour after crews arrived to begin taking down the statue of the Confederate general.
Richmond-area households under the threat of eviction owe an average of about $1,200, and 30% of renters in Virginia have no confidence or slight confidence that they will be able to pay rent for July, according to the RVA Eviction Lab study, which found many pending cases are for properties in the citys north and south sides.

Carolina Lopez, a Guatemalan immigrant who lives with her three children in South Side, said she and others have recently lost their jobs because of the pandemic and are struggling to find work to replace that lost income.

Its not just going to be one family. A lot of families are affected, she said in Spanish. We came here to fight, to get ahead with our kids. I dont want us and others to end up on the street.

At the start of Wednesdays rally, Omari Al-Qadaffi, a housing activist and organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center, said people should fight against the notion that housing is not a human right. We would never say that about food or water, but for some reason weve allowed corporatists and people that want to make money off others have us believe that its OK to evict people, to put entire households on the street, he said.
As significant as the removal was, Edwards said crucial work remained to undo the systemic racism represented by the statues. She cited a wave of pending eviction cases against city residents in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Protesters were arrested at the Richmond courthouse hours before the crane lifted Jackson from his pedestal.

Taking the statues down is a part of the process, but we have to do the real work, she said.

Protests against police brutality and racism have gripped the city for 4 weeks since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Daily demonstrations in Richmond increasingly centered on Monument Avenue, home to the countrys most prominent statues honoring Confederate leaders in what is the former capital of the Confederacy.

Protesters decried the monuments as emblems of white supremacy and the racism that is foundational to life in America. They demanded that city leaders tear them down.

What had been a perennial debate in the city quickly gave way to political consensus among elected officials. Stoney pledged to take the monuments down, and all nine City Council members said they would support doing so when a new state law took effect July 1.
The unemployment rate in the 19 countries that use the euro currency inched higher to 7.4 % in May from 7.3% in April as governments used active labor market support programs to cushion the impact of the virus outbreak on workers.

The figures released Thursday by statistics agency Eurostat show how European governments have held down the rise in unemployment through programs that pay part of workers' salaries in return for companies not laying them off.

Another factor limiting the jobless rate is that people have dropped out of the labor force and are no longer looking for work. That could be because they are limited by confinement measures, or because they have to take care of their children who are not in school or daycare because of the lockdowns.

The government support for wages is granted because the companies are not to blame for the economic trouble - countries around the world have had to limit business, travel and public life to limit the spread of the coronavirus. The idea is to support the recovery since companies will not have to recruit and train new workers, having kept their staff.

In Germany, the eurozone's largest economy, 6.7 million people were still on wage support programs in June. The program pays at least 60% of missing pay when workers are put on shorter hours or no hours.

Eurostat estimated that 12.1 million people were unemployed in the countries that use the euro. The agency said that in order to fully capture the unprecedented labor market situation, its upcoming quarterly labor survey to be published July 9 would have additional information about underemployment and job market dropouts.

The U.S. jobless rate has risen to 13.3% in May from 3.5 % in February. New U.S. figures on the jobless rate and first-time unemployment claims were due out later Thursday.

Short link:


As a result of the failure of defendants to provide PPE to union members and properly sterilize work areas within the court system, union members have been, and continue to be, exposed to COVID-19 and have in fact contracted coronavirus and have died as result of said failure, Quirks suit says.
Randall Robinson, a Richmond-born human rights activitist, helped dismantle apartheid in South Africa but moved to St. Kitts because he no longer could abide U.S. racism.

As this nation observes its 244th birthday, its helpful to evaluate our not-so-United States from a more distant perspective.

So when friend Josh Arinze sent a note checking on my well-being during this pandemic, I was delighted at the chance to hear his clear-eyed assessment of the state of our union.

Arinze, a native of Nigeria, first visited the U.S. in 1991, an occasion that included a stint as a visiting journalist in the Richmond Times-Dispatch newsroom. He returned to this country for good in August 1995 and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2008.

This nation was not something he inherited as a birthright; it was a choice. But he is unsettled by what he is witnessing in his adopted land.

At 57, Ive seen quite a bit in more than one country  the good, the bad, the ugly  and I consider myself resilient. But in the nearly 25 years Ive been in the United States, Ive never felt as upset and disoriented as I do now, he wrote.
The economy might be a shambles, but Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' wallet couldn't tell. He's now worth nearly $172 billion, a new record for the world's richest person, according to Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

Bezos this week surpassed his previous wealth record that he reached prior to his divorce from his ex-wife MacKenzie. Last year, the couple divorced after 25 years of marriage. She received 25% of the couple's Amazon stock, which is roughly a 4% stake in the company.

MacKenzie's wealth also hit a record: She's now worth $57 billion, making her the 12th richest person in the world. Her wealth skyrocketed 54% year to date, or an increase of nearly $20 billion, according to Bloomberg's tallies.

Much of Bezos' wealth is tied to Amazon. He owns roughly 57 million shares, or 12% of the company. And its stock has soared 56% year to date.
Fentress feared for their safety as COVID-19 became a growing threat and hoped to be freed to help care for them. Living quarters were found for the two later in March, and the homeless encampment was broken up.

The pardon request was supported by the man who helped put him behind bars: Brian Wainger, the former assistant commonwealths attorney who prosecuted Fentress in 1997.

In a Nov. 9, 2018, letter to the governors office on Fentress behalf, Wainger wrote that at the time of the trial, he was convinced of Fentress guilt, but that even for the crime of murder, a 53-year sentence for a 16-year-old was unusually harsh. A more moderate sentence of 20 years might have been more fair, he wrote.

He added: Whether or not Mr. Fentress actually committed the crimes for which he was convicted, the interests of justice now require his release from confinement, with certain safeguards to ensure that he is not a threat to society, and assuming that he has been a model prisoner.

Another inmate has said it was he, not Fentress, who fired the fatal shot  once in a 2014 affidavit and twice more in conversations with news reporters. But a federal judge did not find the mans confession in the affidavit credible.
Amid calls for racial justice, Virginia is set to consider requiring teachers to get a certificate in African American history.

The Commission on African American History Education, a group Gov. Ralph Northam assembled last year, is making the recommendation in its upcoming report, Secretary of Education Atif Qarni said in an interview.

The report and landmark recommendation comes during a racial reckoning in Virginia and around the country, with protesters highlighting the disparities in education among other issues after the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

The full story of the countrys history is not being told in Virginia classrooms, members of the commission said. Educating teachers on the subject is one way to fix that, they said.

We want to make sure that we give a full perspective of our history, and thats just not been done, Qarni said. We talk about freedom and justice and spreading democracy throughout the world. I would argue that a lot of those principles came from the struggles of African Americans throughout our history, and that history is not being told in our classrooms.

Qarni said he is unaware of any other states that have such a requirement, which the Northam administration is seriously considering.
No matter how well-meaning and well-intentioned, race and the death penalty are two inseparable sides of the same coin.

The two men remaining on Virginias death row are Black. There have been no executions in Virginia since 2017 and nearly a decade since a Virginia jury handed down a death sentence  which was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in 2018. That same year, a Prince William County jury rejected a death sentence for a Black soldier who killed a white police officer. Virginians have turned away from the death penalty in the courtroom.

Now, it is time for the General Assembly to follow suit. All killings, particularly those carried out by the state in a biased manner, dilute the morality of society as a whole. Meaningful and equitable criminal justice reform, born in the wake of the recent police murders of Black Americans and subsequent protests, must include abolishing the death penalty.

Gov. Ralph Northam has promised to sign a death penalty repeal bill. Virginia legislators, supported by Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, will introduce an abolition bill in the 2021 General Assembly.

Virginia has the opportunity to be the first Southern state to abolish capital punishment to correct the wrongs of the past and advance toward a more just, equitable and unbiased tomorrow.
I am a lover of history. It was my major in college. I am a published author of historical events now, and I understand and appreciate the singular importance of history and the lessons it teaches us. It is true that those who ignore its lessons will be condemned to the wrath of repeated mistakes.

The founders knew this too, which is why they devoured the classics of Greek and Roman history to glean the lessons the ancients learned from democracies and republics, the formation of constitutions and corruption. Yes, the corruption that accompanies the rejection of virtue, that silent yet hostile invader that reduces civilizations to ruin and dust. They sought out the lessons of history to defy history.

They won our revolution, they ordered it with our Constitution, and they left to us the task of sustaining freedom. We need history to do so, not only its elevating and inspiring examples, but its pain and suffering as well. The American Civil War offers both.
The Trump administration filed a brief June 25 in the Supreme Court, saying the entire ACA must fall because Congress in 2017 eliminated the financial penalty for those who fail to buy health insurance.

Meanwhile, cases of the coronavirus are surging around the country and hospitals in some states are filling up. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Tuesday the number of daily cases soon could jump from 40,000 to 100,000.

Fortunately, Obamacare remains in place. About a half-million people have signed up for coverage in special enrollments as theyve lost their jobs and their health insurance.

The court will hear oral arguments in California v. Texas in October at the earliest, so Obamacare could loom large just before the election. A ruling is expected by next spring or early summer.

Democratic candidates who rode the health care horse to victory in 2018, gaining control of the House, are saddling up again. The House on Tuesday approved an Obamacare expansion in a vote largely along party lines. It was symbolic as the measure is dead in the Republican-controlled Senate.
On Wednesday, a host of new Virginia laws went into effect. One of those new measures gives localities the ability to keep or remove Confederate statues as they see fit. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney wasted no time in putting that law into action.

Using what he calls his emergency powers, on Wednesday, cranes appeared on Monument Avenue to comply with the mayors order to take down the statues. Stonewall Jackson became the first fallen Confederate icon, with crews spending the afternoon working to remove it from its graffiti-covered pedestal.

Hundreds gathered at the intersection of Monument and North Arthur Ashe Boulevard, braving a drenching rain to witness another tribute to the Lost Cause tumble.

In a YouTube video, Stoney gave two reasons for his decision to take the statues down with his emergency powers. He says the urgent need to protect the public and prevent the spread of the coronavirus justifies the removal.

Stoney says his second reason to remove the memorials is because it is past time. The burden of Richmonds role as capital of the Confederacy has weighed too heavily on the citys residents of color, he said, claiming its his responsibility to ensure that minorities have a place at the citys table.
On a brighter note: Congratulations to Janis Shinwari and his two children who became American citizens on Monday. The former combat translator worked alongside American troops in Afghanistan for eight years. He is credited with saving the lives of at least five U.S. soldiers. Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, administered the oath of allegiance to the family. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in 2018 more than 756,000 people were naturalized. Despite all the upheaval and the unrest in our country, the U.N.s World Migration Report 2020 notes that the U.S. continues to remain by far the top destination for international migrants. We salute and welcome all of Americas newest citizens. Immigrants are the lifeblood of this country.

Speaking of being grateful, tomorrow is the 81st anniversary of Lou Gehrigs Luckiest man alive speech. On July 4, 1939, more than 61,800 New York Yankees fans packed into Yankee Stadium to bid farewell to Gehrig, nicknamed the Iron Horse. Stricken with what would become known as Lou Gehrigs disease, or ALS, the athlete gave a short speech that left the crowd in tears: Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldnt consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, Im lucky  When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift  thats something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies  thats something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter  thats something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body  its a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed  thats the finest I know. So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for. Gehrig died less than two years later, just shy of his 39th birthday. He might have been bitter at being cheated out of so much life, but he chose to focus on his blessings. We all would do well to try and emulate that.
Joyce Barnes has become sick before by caring for someone who was carrying a communicable disease without anyone knowing it  a bacterial infection that put her in the hospital last year.

The coronavirus pandemic has raised the stakes for Barnes, 61, who cares for Medicaid patients in their homes but does not have health insurance or paid sick leave or hazard pay to care for herself if she contracts COVID-19.

Barnes, who lives in Sandston in eastern Henrico County, makes $9.40 an hour as a personal care attendant for people who otherwise would have to go to nursing homes. An elderly man incapacitated by stroke. Another who has lost both legs to diabetes.

I love the one-on-one work, but its just sad that with predominantly Black women working in these jobs, we dont get what we deserve, she said. I feel like we are the forgotten ones.

Their plight has gotten the attention of Gov. Ralph Northam, who protected a 5% wage increase for personal care attendants in the two-year state budget that took effect on Wednesday. The increase represents an additional 47 cents an hour in the average wage for attendants in Virginia.
Im very concerned, especially given this coming weekend, that the same types of spikes, the same types of surges could be seen  not just in the places that are currently experiencing surges, but in places that have already experienced surges and in ones that havent yet, he said, according to CNN.
Richmond, KY (40475)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Cancun International Airport continues to see increase in flights

Cancun, Q.R.  On Wednesday, the Cancun International Airport surpassed 100 operations, a figure they have not reached since April 7.

Airport managing company Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (ASUR), reports 117 operations Wednesday, starting the month of July with a continued increase in both passengers and flights. ASUR notes that of the operations, 59 were arrivals of which 34 were domestic and 25 international. They also managed 58 departures of which 34 were domestic and 24 international.

Flights into Cancun Wednesday involved airlines to and from Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale, Charlotte, New York, Denver, Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, Santo Domingo and one arrival from Havana.

The airlines landing at Cancun International include American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines, Sun Country, Spirit, JetBlue and Southwest Airlines, which as of July 1, resumes activities with six operations.

Dario Flota Ocampo, director of the Tourism Promotion Council of Quintana Roo said that the growth of flights is a good sign, adding that over the next few days, the opening of flights from Canada will arrive.
Fin Whale found washed up on Baja California beach

Playas de Rosarito, Baja California  The Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) attended to the report of a deceased whale in the municipality of Playas de Rosarito.

The large mammal was discovered washed up on the beach by municipal cleaning personnel. Profepa officers arrived and verified the mammal was an 18-meter long Fin Whale and was in an advanced state of decomposition.

An 18-meter long Fin Whale found washed up on Baja California beach

Officers noted that the whale did not exhibit any signs of physical injuries and deemed the death was likely caused by anthropogenic impacts. The Fin Whale is listed as a protected species in Mexico. It is the third whale found dead in Mexican waters since May.
The guidelines suggest 3 feet may approach the benefits of 6 feet, especially if students wear a face covering and are asymptomatic.

Nicely said he discussed it with Dr. Molly ODell, who is leading the pandemic response for the Roanoke and Alleghany Health Districts. ODell told him the jury is still out on definitive evidence about transmission from children to adults, Nicely said. She also told him it would be reasonable to have shorter social distancing when there are extra mitigation strategies in place for younger students, who dont cough as forcefully and therefore dont spread germs as far.

If we can go 3 to 4 feet with those younger kids, then we may be able to get the third graders in, Nicely said.

But he said survey results will be important to determine how many students plan to attend in person. That number could allow for more grades to attend in person or make it more difficult. The survey will be published following Thursdays meeting.

Some members, such as Tim Greenway, have voiced strong support for sending all elementary students to the classroom daily. Greenway said his opinion hadnt changed after Wednesdays news; he still wants fourth and fifth graders to attend daily in addition to third grade.
A Franklin County modular homebuilding business plans to expand the regular operations at its Rocky Mount facility and add 60 jobs.

Fleetwood Homes will make a $2.1 million renovation that includes purchasing $700,000 in new equipment, according to a Thursday statement from Gov. Ralph Northams office.

We are very excited to see Fleetwood expand here in Franklin County, said Mike Burnette, the countys director of economic development. Right now, with so much uncertainty within the entire country, having companies that are doing so well and feel committed to their community enough to expand in this kind of meaningful way is very heartening.

A subsidiary of Cavco Industries, Fleetwood Homes has had a factory in Rocky Mount for 52 years. At present Fleetwood employs 146 at that plant.

Even before the expansion, they are one of the countys larger employers, said County Administrator Chris Whitlow. We look forward to their continued growth.

With the added positions, theres going to be a pretty wide variety of jobs, mainly production, with a wide range of wage levels, Burnette said. The total annual payroll for the additional jobs is going to be about $1.7 million, he said, which averages out to about $28,333 per job.
Lakeway mayor Sandy Cox refused to snitch on the teens and divulge the location of Pong Fest in a June 25 Facebook video. She did, however, encourage everyone associated with the party in any way to get tested for coronavirus.
The threat of violence went both ways, though. One group of deserters, led by David and James Sisson, eventually became bold enough to turn the tables on deserter-hunting Confederate forces. They ambushed and captured them instead. In at least one case, deserters shot and killed a Confederate recruiting officer on Bent Mountain  and a witness found his home burned to the ground. An attempt to arrest one group of deserters turned up a fort and led to a battle in which two deserters and four members of the Confederate home guard were killed. When deserters were arrested and taken to the Floyd County jail, armed groups would often show up to free them  which made local authorities reluctant to arrest others. In the fall of 1864, two Confederate detectives went undercover into Floyd County to infiltrate the Unionists there. One Unionist told the detectives that nearly all the people in the county were members of a not-so-secret society that called itself The Heroes of America. The nearly all claim was clearly not true, but the Heroes were strong enough that they openly organized their own home guard, 100 strong, and often clashed with the Confederate home guard. The Heroes were not above issuing threats of their own. When one man ratted them out to Confederate authorities, he received a note that called him you old Southern devil and warned your time is short if you dont quit supporting the guard when they are in your neighborhood.
Too often, when a problem becomes too big for society to solve, it becomes the responsibility of the school. Lack of affordable childcare has been an issue for decades, for example. Well before this global pandemic, far too many children suffered abuse, neglect, food insecurity, lack of affordable housing and inadequate healthcare. The needs of children are simply not being equitably met in our nation.

School systems have grappled with inadequate funding for decades. A budget is a moral contract, one the state of Virginia has continually violated when it comes to educating children. Teachers will once again be required to do even more for their students with less funding to do so, and this says quite a lot about government leaders priorities.

State legislators and local officials advocating for sending all students back into the classroom full time during a pandemic whove never advocated for full and fair funding of our childrens schools have little credibility in this conversation. Im glad more people are now talking about the importance of the health, safety, education and well-being of children. Well see if theyre still this passionate about it when schooling returns to normal. I wont hold my breath.
Rocky Mount, NC (27804)

Today

Some clouds. Low around 75F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low around 75F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
The most important of those conditions was a near-total lack of awareness and understanding of what was going on until it was way too late. By the beginning of March, when New Yorks first COVID-19 cases were confirmed, more than 10,000 people in the city may have already been infected, according to a modeling exercise conducted in April. With a reproduction number (the number of people each person can be expected to infect) that has since been estimated at above six in late February and early March, that total subsequently exploded. A new study of blood samples taken from non-coronavirus patients at Mount Sinai Health System hospitals in the city indicates that as many as 800,000 New Yorkers may have been infected by the week of March 16, when the city closed schools and many began working from home (the states stay-at-home order went into effect March 22).
New Delhi: Google on Thursday said it has temporarily blocked access to those apps that were still available on the Play Store in India even after the government banned on 59 apps this week.

"While we continue to review the interim orders from the Government of India, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India," a Google spokesperson said.

Google Play StoreHowever, the spokesperson did not disclose details of the apps that Google had blocked.

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, UC Browser, SHAREit and WeChat, saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.
New Delhi: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday called the ban on Chinese apps a digital strike and said that India wants peace but if someone casts an evil eye, the country is capable of giving a befitting reply.

Ravi Shankar Prasad

He said that if our country has lost 20 soldiers, the toll is double on the Chinese side.

"Now you can hear about only two 'Cs' - Coronaviris and China. We believe in peace and solve problems through discussion, but if somebody casts an evil eye on India, we will give a befitting reply...if our 20 jawans have sacrificed their lives, then the toll is double on the Chinese side.

Chinese apps ban"You all must have noticed that they have not come out with any figure," Prasad said.

Recalling how India had responded after terror attacks in the recent past, Prasad, said, You all must remember how we had retaliated after Uri and Pulwama (terror strikes). When our PM is saying that the sacrifice of our jawans won't go in vain, it has a meaning. Our government has the will to deliver."
New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's planned visit to Ladakh on Friday has been rescheduled, official sources said on Thursday.

It was not immediately known why the visit has been postponed.

Rajnath SinghThe sources said Singh will soon undertake the visit to Ladakh to take stock of India's military preparedness in the region where Indian and Chinese troops are locked in a seven-week bitter border standoff.

The defence minister was to be accompanied by Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane.

The Army Chief visited Ladakh on June 23 and 24 during which he held a series of meetings with senior Army officials and visited various forward areas in eastern Ladakh.

MM Naravane The tension escalated manifold after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on June 15.

The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details.
Chandigarh: Director SCERT has released the date sheet for conducting bi-monthly assessment of students studying in government schools.

Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson of the Punjab school education department said that in view of the current situation of Covid-19, the subjective test of the students of 6th to 12th classes would be taken online through the Teacher-Student WhatsApp group.

PhotoQuestion papers in this regard would be prepared by the head office and will be sent online. Assessment test will be of 20 marks and there will be objective and subject questions.

According to the spokesperson, the date sheets for the 6th to 10th classes has been released while the date sheets for 11th and 12th classes will be prepared by the school principals at their own.

Exams According to the spokesperson, all the subject teachers will be given one week time to check these tests of the students. Subject teachers will prepare a record of students' marks in collaboration with the class in-charge.

It is to be noted that the two-month (April to May) syllabus for classes 6th to 12th had already been provided through TV channels/Zoom Classes/PDF Assignments.
Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday directed the Cooperation Minister to ensure immediate payment to sugarcane farmers for 2019-20 by the states nine sugarcane cooperative mills, which have received Rs 100 crore from Sugarfed on this account.

Sugarfed had released Rs 100 crore against payment of the sugar mills for crushing season 2019-20 on the directives of the Chief Minister, said an official spokesperson.

Capt Amarinder SinghThe Chief Minister has asked Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa to issue directions to the cooperative mills to transfer the payments to the accounts of the farmers without any delay.

With the release of Rs 100 crore, the cooperative sugar mills will be able to clear payment of Rs 349.05 crore against the total of Rs 486.23 crore due for the crushing season 2019-20.

Payments of 2018-19 season have already been cleared by the mills, located at Nawan Shahr, Budhewal, Morinda, Fazilka, Gurdaspur, Ajnala, Nakodar, Bhogpur and Batala.

Randhawa has assured the farmers of early clearance of the balance payment for 2019-20.

Sukhjinder Singh RandhawaHe said that the Government of India was being approached for early release of payment of about Rs 60 crore as sugar export subsidy and buffer stock claim of the co-operative sugar mills so that all the arrears of sugarcane could be settled as soon as possible.

Randhawa reiterated the state governments commitment to the welfare of the farmers, saying that despite the decline in government revenue due to the coronavirus and lockdown, all possible efforts were being made to pay the outstanding arrears of the sugarcane farmers at the earliest.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday discussed various bilateral issues and the post-Covid world.

The leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-Covid world, an official statement said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir PutinDuring their telephonic conversation, they agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral summit to be held in India later this year.

Prime Minister Modi conveyed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India for the bilateral summit.

President Vladimir PutinPutin thanked Modi for the phone call and reiterated his commitment to further strengthen the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries in all spheres.

During their conversation, Modi congratulated President Putin on the success of celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War and also for successful completion of the vote on constitutional amendments in Russia, the statement said.
Rutland, VT (05701)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening with a few showers possible overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 63F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening with a few showers possible overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 63F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Pretty early on I started to get feelings of depression, Julian, a junior, told the Daily News. I didnt really have anybody to go to. I was sort of hiding myself in my room...and that sort of caused me to go in this downward spiral of not doing work.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, World Sailing has hosted a series of Townhall Meetings for Council delegates, Member National Authorities, Class Associations, Committee members and Commission members.

On 24 June, the Council met via videoconference with MNAs and Committee / Commission Chairs in attendance for an informal session. A follow up meeting for the same members with Class Associations and Committee / Commission members was then held on 30 June.The meeting of the Council on 24 June allowed World Sailing President Kim Andersen and members of the Board of Directors to provide updates on World Sailing matters. In addition, Committee and Commission Chairs were able to provides updates on their streams of work and for Council members to ask questions.The full session is available here Andersen opened the meeting with the Presidential address which is available in the June Presidential newsletter here Following Andersen's update, Vice-President's Scott Perry and Jan Dawson provided delegates with an update on World Sailing's financial position following support from the International Olympic Committee . The IOC is supporting World Sailing in addressing the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequence on postponing the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The support will enable World Sailing to continue developing and promoting the sport as well as delivering a high-quality product at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.Ahead of the meeting, World Sailing's MNAs were invited to vote on a written special resolution to hold an electronic 2020 Annual General Meeting and General Assembly. In total, 68 valid votes were received. Nine of these votes were invalid as they were received by MNAs who are either suspended or who have not paid their annual subscription and so are not entitled to vote under Article 12 of the Constitution.The required majority was 75% which meant that 51 votes in favour were required.The result received 59 in favour with nine against and zero abstentions ensuring the resolution was approved.The 2020 Annual Conference is due to be held in Abu Dhabi, UAE in October with the General Assembly on 1 November. Council members received an update on the hosting of the Conference with a final decision to be made in August.In advance of the session, World Sailing Committee and Commission Chairs provided Council reports with reports on their streams of work since the last meeting in November. These reports are available to read here . Delegates followed up on these reports with questions to the Chairs on their work.On Wednesday 30 June, as a follow up to the Council meeting, World Sailing hosted two MNA Townhall Meetings, accommodating worldwide participants with sessions held at 07:30 and 17:30 UTC. The session allowed delegates to hear the Presidential update as well as updates on finances, the 2020 Annual Conference and Committee / Commission reports.Both sessions are available to view here - 07:30 (recording delay at the beginning) and 17:30 UTC. As of 16:00 BST - the videos are currently being processed by YouTube.
Danvers, MA (01923)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
Weather Alert

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH 300 IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EDT THIS EVENING FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS IN NEW YORK THIS WATCH INCLUDES 4 COUNTIES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK CLINTON ESSEX FRANKLIN ST. LAWRENCE IN VERMONT THIS WATCH INCLUDES 12 COUNTIES IN CENTRAL VERMONT ADDISON ORANGE WASHINGTON IN NORTHEAST VERMONT CALEDONIA ESSEX ORLEANS IN NORTHWEST VERMONT CHITTENDEN FRANKLIN GRAND ISLE LAMOILLE IN SOUTHERN VERMONT RUTLAND WINDSOR THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF ALBURG, BRADFORD, BURLINGTON, DANNEMORA, GOUVERNEUR, ISLAND POND, JOHNSON, LAKE PLACID, MALONE, MASSENA, MIDDLEBURY, MONTPELIER, NEWPORT, OGDENSBURG, PLATTSBURGH, PORT HENRY, POTSDAM, RANDOLPH, RUTLAND, SARANAC LAKE, SOUTH HERO, SPRINGFIELD, ST. ALBANS, ST. JOHNSBURY, STOWE, TICONDEROGA, TUPPER LAKE, VERGENNES, AND WHITE RIVER JUNCTION.
City lawmakers made a successful 11th-hour effort to restore $100 million in Fair Student Funding  the pot of money principals use to pay teacher salaries and other basic expenses  and $12 million for the Single Shepherd program that placed 130 counselors in high-need schools in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn. Both were axed in Mayor de Blasios April executive budget.
The appeal, which was filed to the Appellate Division in April but made publicly available Thursday, argues that Manaforts case should be exempt from state double jeopardy, which does not allow the prosecution of a person twice for the same offense, because of the different aspects of the crimes committed in the federal case, which ended with Manafort convicted on eight counts of tax and bank fraud and a hung jury on 10 other counts.
A new study published in the Journal Environmental Pollution by researchers at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science found that the Ultra Music Festival was likely stressful to toadfish.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers findings show that the fish experienced a significant stress response on the first day of the Ultra Music Festival in March 2019 on Virginia Key, Florida when there was elevated noise.

"The stress response was similar to what toadfish would experience when hearing bottlenose dolphins, a toadfish predator," said the study's co-investigator Danielle McDonald, professor of marine biology and ecology at the UM Rosenstiel School.

The researchers' findings showed that the toadfish experienced a 4-5 fold increase in blood cortisol, their main stress hormone, during the first night of the Ultra Music Festival compared to two baseline samples taken before Ultra began.

In addition to testing cortisol levels, the research team placed recording devices to measure sound intensity in the air and underwater. Hydrophones were placed in the toadfish tanks and in the waters directly next to the Ultra stages in Bear Cut Inlet in the Historic Virginia Key Beach Park and in Lamar Lake, a shallow mangrove lagoon further north.

"Recordings revealed that the sound intensity increased by 7-9 decibels in the toadfish tanks and 2-3 decibels in the nearby waters of Bear Cut in the low frequency range where fish are the most sensitive to changes in sound pressure," said co-investigator Claire Paris, professor of ocean sciences at the UM Rosenstiel School. "Variations in the sonic activity of marine organisms and additional noise from boat traffic may have contributed to the signal detected in Bear Cut during Ultra. In situ measurements, including long term acoustic recording, are necessary to evaluate the effect of Ultra on wild fish populations."

Prior studies have shown that "underwater noise pollution causes stress and various physiological and behavioral disruptions on communication, hearing, spawning behavior and reproduction in aquatic organisms," said Maria Cartolano, lead postdoctoral scientist on the study.

Gulf toadfish (Opsanus beta) play an important ecological role in the local marine environment and rely heavily on sound and their hearing for reproduction, social interactions and avoiding prey. This study could not determine if the elevated cortisol levels will have any long-term effects on the fish.

"We conducted the study on the effects of the multi-day music concert due to the close proximity of the festival to our experimental hatchery and aquaculture facility," said co-investigator Martin Grosell, professor of marine biology and ecology and Maytag Chair of Ichthyology at the UM Rosenstiel School. "It provided us an opportunity to investigate the potential impacts a large music festival of this kind can have on fish."

The electronic music festival, held at the Miami Marine Stadium and Virginia Key Beach Park, on March 29-31, 2019 attracted over 170,000 attendees during the three-day event, one of the largest electronic music festivals in the world.
Most bird species are slow to change their tune, preferring to stick with tried-and-true songs to defend territories and attract females. Now, with the help of citizen scientists, researchers have tracked how one rare sparrow song went "viral" across Canada, traveling over 3,000 kilometers between 2000 and 2019 and wiping out a historic song ending in the process. The study, publishing July 2 in the journal Current Biology, reports that white-throated sparrows from British Columbia to central Ontario have ditched their traditional three-note-ending song in favor of a unique two-note-ending variant -- although researchers still don't know what made the new song so compelling.

"As far as we know, it's unprecedented," says senior author Ken Otter, a biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. "We don't know of any other study that has ever seen this sort of spread through cultural evolution of a song type." Although it's well known that some bird species change their songs over time, these cultural evolutions tend to stay in local populations, becoming regional dialects rather than the norm for the species. This is how the two-note ending got its start.

In the 1960s, white-throated sparrows across the country whistled a song that ended in a repeated three-note triplet, but by the time Otter moved to western Canada in the late 1990s and began listening to the local bird songs, the new two-note ending had already invaded local sparrow populations. "When I first moved to Prince George in British Columbia, they were singing something atypical from what was the classic white-throated sparrow song across all of eastern Canada," he says. Over the course of 40 years, songs ending in two notes, or doublet-ending songs, had become universal west of the Rocky Mountains.

Otter and his team used the large network of citizen scientist birders across North America who had uploaded recordings of white-throated sparrow songs to online databases to track the new doublet-ending song. They found that the song was not only more popular west of the Rocky Mountains, but was also spreading rapidly across Canada beyond these western populations. "Originally, we measured the dialect boundaries in 2004 and it stopped about halfway through Alberta," he says. "By 2014, every bird we recorded in Alberta was singing this western dialect, and we started to see it appearing in populations as far away as Ontario, which is 3,000 kilometers from us."

The scientists predicted that the sparrows' overwintering grounds were playing a role in the rapid spread of the two-note ending. "We know that birds sing on the wintering grounds, so juvenile males may be able to pick up new song types if they overwinter with birds from other dialect areas. This would allow males to learn new song types in the winter and take them to new locations when they return to breeding grounds, helping explain how the song type could spread," Otter says.

So the researchers harnessed sparrows with geolocators -- what Otter calls "tiny backpacks" -- to see if western sparrows who knew the new song might share overwintering grounds with eastern populations that would later adopt it. They found that they did. And not only did it appear that this rare song was spreading across the continent from these overwintering grounds, but it was also completely replacing the historic triple-note ending that had persisted for so many decades -- something almost unheard of in male songbirds.

Otter and his team found that the new song didn't give male birds a territorial advantage over male counterparts, but still want to study whether female birds have a preference between the two songs. "In many previous studies, the females tend to prefer whatever the local song type is," says Otter. "But in white-throated sparrows, we might find a situation in which the females actually like songs that aren't typical in their environment. If that's the case, there's a big advantage to any male who can sing a new song type."

Now, another new song has appeared in a western sparrow population whose early spread may mirror that of the doublet-note ending. Otter and his team are excited to continue their work and see how this song shifts in real time with more help from citizen scientists. "By having all these people contribute their private recordings that they just make when they go bird watching, it's giving us a much more complete picture of what's going on throughout the continent," he says. "It's allowing us to do research that was never possible before."
New technologies capable of sequencing single molecules in fine detail will help scientists better understand the mechanisms of rare nucleotides thought to play an important role in the progression of some diseases.

A review paper, led by a scientist at the University of Birmingham, describes how emerging sequencing technologies will transform our understanding of these molecules, ultimately leading to new drug targets. The paper is published in the journal Trends in Biotechnology.

Expression of genes to make protein involves making a messenger RNA molecule. Although RNA, like DNA consist of the four nucleotides, some of them carry decorations called the epitranscriptome. These modified nucleotides are important additions to the genetic code whose functions are little understood, but have been linked to disease such as obesity, cancer and neurological disorders.

Although the importance of the epitranscriptome is recognized, its detection is difficult and comes with high error rates.

Scientist have been interested in these rare modified nucleotides since their discovery more than 40 years ago, but they had been very difficult to examine in specific genes due to technical difficulties. However, their importance has been recognized, because many human parasites and viruses have them. Even more, some viruses including coronavirus SARS-CoV2 have their own RNA modification enzymes, originally acquired from their hosts, but then adapted to their needs.

Until recently, the study of these modified nucleotides has been limited because they occur so rarely, and existing technologies have not been sufficiently fine-tuned to detect the modifications.

The new technology, developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies, is promising to overcome current sequencing limitations, with highly selective sequencing capabilities. By identifying specific nucleotide targets associated with particular diseases, drug developers will be able to start to investigate inhibitor drugs that can interfere with the molecules and influence the progression of the disease.

Lead author of this multinational study, Dr Matthias Soller from the University of Birmingham, UK, says: "These modified nucleotides are particularly hard to detect and previously it was impossible to examine their occurrence in the entire genome with high confidence."

First author and Schmidt Science Fellow Dr Ina Anreiter, University of Toronto, Canada, adds: "Previously, it was only possible to look at one modification at a time, but there a more than just one and they likely hiding a yet to discover code.

"This new technology will really enable a step-change in how we approach modified nucleotides, giving us a 'real-time' topographic map of where the molecules are within the genome, and how frequently they occur. This will be really important in instructing further research into their function and providing us with new insights into how these molecules lead to human disease."

Dr Soller added: "There is plenty of work still to be done to further develop these sequencing devices, including improving the machine-learning capability for interpreting the sequencing signals, but progress is happening rapidly and I think we will be seeing some very exciting results emerging from this technology."
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Professor Sarah Gilbert, who runs the Oxford trials for their coronavirus vaccine candidate, claims their jab could provide protection that lasts for several years.

Additionally, she says their experimental vaccine has been found to generate antibody levels of up to three times more than those patients who recovered from COVID-19.

Concerns had been raised lately after patients with other types of coronavirus were able to be reinfected within a year. Such coronaviruses were found to be less dangerous and would usually cause the common cold.

However, Professor Gilbert told the Commons Science and Technology Committee that there might be a better result from a vaccine than the natural immunity obtained when individuals recover from a virus.

She explains that vaccines have a different way of interacting with the immune system. Her team follows people in their studies utilizing the same type of technology to make the vaccines for several years. Moreover, she says they still see strong immune responses.

Gilbert says they are optimistic based on earlier studies. She says that they are hopeful of seeing a reasonable duration of immunity and probably even better than naturally-acquired protection.

Also Read: UK's Second Coronavirus Vaccine That Could Only Cost Less Than $4 Per Dose Will Start Human Trials on Wednesday

The Oxford Coronavirus Vaccine

About 8,000 Britons are enrolled in the Oxford vaccine trial being manufactured by AstraZeneca. However, as the rates of infection in the country has gone down, the researchers are looking at involving 4,000 Brazilians and 2,000 South Africans in their study.

The vaccine comes as an experimental coronavirus jab being tested by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech. Furthermore, it was found to produce neutralizing antibodies that were between 1.8 and 2.8 times greater than those seen in recovered coronavirus patients.

Oxford's vaccine uses part of the pathogen's genetic code to get the body to identify and recognize the coronavirus. The jab is also designed to attack the virus if a person becomes infected with it.

The trial of 45 people was divided into three groups and a control group. Moreover, it gave off promising early results, which many look forward to. Philip Dormitzer, the chief scientific officer at Pfizer's research laboratories, told STAT News that they still have a long way to go before the vaccine can fully take off.

However, at this point, he says that there is a viable vaccine candidate based on early tolerability safety data and immunogenicity.

Is a Second Infection From COVID-19 Possible?

Currently, there is still no certainty that a previous infection from the coronavirus warrants protection from a second one. The World Health Organization says that there is currently no evidence showing that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are indeed protected from a second infection.

Similarly, the key question in the current Oxford trials is whether the vaccine will protect individuals from becoming infected or simply make them less ill. Researchers are also working out how it may also work less well in older people due to their weaker immune systems.

The head of the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, Kate Bingham, told MPs she was less optimistic that the jab could protect against catching the infection. She said it is more likely only to reduce the severity of symptoms.

She told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that she's relatively optimistic that a vaccine capable of treating the population will soon be available.

A regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, Sir John Bell, also gave the committee evidence. He cautioned that the UK must "prepare for the worst" this winter, instead of relying on the development of a vaccine.

He also mentioned seeing coronavirus tests of good standards, saying it produced results within a few minutes. He believes those kinds of tests would be transformative as it would allow easy determination of the infection. He also urged Britons to get the flu jab to 'avoid pandemonium in A&E departments.'

Read Also: Monkeys in Montana Injected with Oxford's Coronavirus Vaccine Were Unscathed Despite Extreme Exposure
I was concerned to be here today initially, but what shall be, shall be, he said. Today is what you make it. I dont listen to the negativity anymore. Im here to find peace and serenity. What better way than with the ocean.
Let the record reflect that I oppose this recommendation. There are areas in the community, particularly as it relates to the African American community, that have been not addressed," Pipkins said. "Second, they are areas that have been requested as it relates to employee evaluations that have not been addressed. And there are other areas that have been requested and information as it relates to the fairness and equitable treatment of all board members. That does not exist at this board.  I would like to acknowledge that I have a deep concern for the direction that this district is moving in terms of building all of Florence.
Mel said they met at a retail store New York City. They both worked as store managers.

Their families are from all over the world. She is originally from Argentina, and David is from Scotland.

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We are an international coffee shop, Mel said.

Mel said she spent summers in Hartsville visiting her mothers best friend and that was when she discovered the charm of this area.

Her mother moved here, and they followed.

Our dream has been to have our own store and sell our own products, she said.

On their website, Mel says, David and I love Florence and are passionate about being a part of its growth. We wanted to bring to Florence the art and finesse of serving high quality, organic coffee and food, paired with excellent customer service

Florence is growing. It is amazing, Mel said. We wanted to be more of a part of the future of Florence. Getting to know the people is one reason we joined the chamber. The chamber is a great avenue for doing that. We want to bring our own vision to a city that is headed forward.
Ansley Brown Hurst, 49, of Marion, South Carolina (formerly of Rock Hill, SC), entered into eternal rest on Friday, June 19, 2020, after complications from cancer surgery. A memorial service will be announced at a later date due to the COVID-19 virus. Arrangements by J. Henry Stuhr, Inc., Mount Pleasant Chapel.Ansley is survived by her husband, L. Russell Hurst of Marion, S.C.; parents, Gayle and Eddie Brown of the Isle of Palms (formerly of Rock Hill, SC); and step-son, Russell K. Hurst of Florence, S.C.Ansley was born on July 18, 1970, in Orangeburg, S.C., daughter of Robert Eddie and Gayle Austin Brown. She graduated from Northwestern High School in 1988 and later received two degrees from York Technical College. Ansley worked in various capacities in Rock Hill including several positions with the Rock Hill Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department. In 2013 she met the love of her life and married Russell later that year. While her time with Russell was short, these were the happiest and most fulfilling years of her life. Their relationship was something truly special and one that very few people will ever experience. Ansley loved all the animals she had on her farm in Marion; her friends; traveling; and most importantly her Lord. She was one of the sweetest, most caring, lovable people you could ever know. Memorials may be made in Ansley Hurst name to: Ebenezer Souther Methodist Church, Attn: Rev. Phillip Fulmer, 1048 Dudley Road, Marion, SC 29571.A memorial message may be sent to the family by visiting our website at www.jhenrystuhr.com.
He had already bumped off one lover when he went to Florida to pursue Martha Beck, a lovelorn, morbidly obese nurse. But surprisingly, instead of killing her, he fell for her, and she for him. Beck abandoned her two kids at the Salvation Army and ran off with Fernandez, becoming his partner in love and death.
In a statement, Simon and Schuster said it was gratified with the ruling, which it said would let Mary Trump tell her story. The publisher said the book was of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public.
Businesses across Washington beginning next week will not be allowed to serve customers who are not wearing face masks, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday.

Inslee said the decision comes as the number of reported cases of the novel coronavirus continues to rise across the state.

"Beginning Tuesday, businesses will not be allowed to legally serve customers goods or services unless their patrons are adhering to this requirement and are wearing face coverings," Inslee said during a news conference Thursday.

"Now, we're doing this for some very powerful reasons. First, we're doing this because of the extremely troublesome spike in the number of cases that we are experiencing across the state of Washington. And because we know the better we can protect ourselves from the virus, the better we can avoid repeating the painful shutdowns that we have had to experience in the last several months."

Inslee said the number of cases and the rate of infection across the state is rising as people are interacting more. Most counties across Washington have already advanced to Phase 2 of the state's reopening plan, and some are in Phase 3. Few counties remain in Phase 1.

But the good news, Inslee said, is a mask is a "low-cost" and "essentially universally available tool." They work, and they save lives, he said.

"It's really in a sense lucky that we have this available. It's not a high-tech solution ... it's just a piece of cloth and it's available to all of us," he said.

Wearing a mask is a symbol that people care about the community, Inslee said. It helps to reduce the spread of the virus, including among people who are asymptomatic.

"It is a symbol that we realize we're willing to be a little bit heroic to protect other people," he said.

Inslee added it's a reasonable expectation for businesses to enforce this law because it protects both customers and employees. There will be exceptions, including for people who have medical conditions that make them unable to wear a mask. Inslee said he expects businesses will follow the order without having to enforce it or pursue sanctions.

Late last month, Inslee announced people would be required to wear masks while indoors and in some outdoors settings if people are unable to maintain six feet of distance apart.

On Thursday, Inslee also announced he was ordering a pause for two weeks for counties to advance to the next phase of reopening.

"The rate of infection is increasing in all the regions," he said. "This is going to require additional containment steps ... as we go along, we are going to learn what works and what gives us concern."

He also announced new restrictions on bars. When they are allowed to reopen in Phase 3, they won't be allowed to have bar seating.

Public health officials have repeatedly emphasized the importance of wearing face coverings in slowing the spread of the virus. Several states across the country also have statewide mask mandates as many areas continue to see upticks in the number of positive cases of the novel coronavirus.

Inslee offered praise for the work residents in Washington have done in slowing the spread of the coronavirus over the past few months.

Health officials in recent days have also been warning people to continue taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously heading into the Fourth of July weekend.

"COVID-19 isn't taking the weekend off & neither is the need to protect ourselves and our community," Jeff Duchin of Public Health-Seattle & King County said on Twitter. "Limit close contact with others, avoid group gatherings, wear a mask and wash your hands. We depend on each other to prevent COVID-19."

RELATED:
When students in Seattle Public Schools head back to school this fall, they will likely be in for a lot of changes.

The Seattle Public School Board during a meeting this week looked at a working plan for what school could look like come fall when students return to class amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. Possible setups in the nearly 50-page document examining a number of scenarios includes staggered schedules, a combination of in-person and remote learning, health screenings, social distancing, mask wearing and enhanced cleaning protocols for all students in grades K-12.

The document proposes an example of what a typical day could look like for students in grades K-12.

For elementary school students, a possible scenario for an in-person school day includes students arriving at a certain time, where they would be asked health screening questions and have to wash their hands. They would be in small groups and have spaces identified for them and their belongings. The school would have staggered scheduling and frequent cleaning of common areas and supplies. On remote days, students would meet in small groups and have online support from teachers.

A possible scenario for middle and high school students on in-person days similarly includes entering through a designated entrance and answering a series of health screening questions. Then, students would go on to have a three-period day with staggered passing periods and small group lunches. Students would be split up into groups for staggered schedules.

Schools could operate on an A/B schedule, with groups of students going in two days a week on alternating schedules. Special education students may meet more frequently. The goal, according to the proposal, is to have students in grades K-5 in school a minimum of two days a week and students in middle and high school in school a minimum of one day per week.

Students in school across all grade levels would have at least 50 square feet around them. Schedules could depend on the percentage of families who choose to continue with 100% remote learning, which will be an option for any families not comfortable returning to school.

For example, if all students return as projected, K-5 and K-8 schools will largely have students attending two days per week in person on A/B alternating schedules. If 15% or 20% of students, though, decide to continue with 100% remote learning, some schools could have students in grades K-1 attend in-person learning five days a week and students in grades 2-5 would attend two days a week.

The schedule and amount of in-person learning will also be dependent on the spread of the virus. If there is a surge in the number of cases, schools could again have to go back to 100% remote learning.

The cost to open schools during the coronavirus pandemic, including adhering to cleaning and disinfecting protocols, hiring extra staff members to implement safety protocols and providing personal protection equipment to staff and students is estimated to be more than $15 million, according to the document.

The detailed document presented a variety of different options and scenarios, dependent on grade level, the use of communal spaces and the percentage of students who continue learning remotely. SPS has also said it will focus on ensuring racial equity and "address the needs of students of color who are furthest from education justice, and work to undo the legacies or racism in our education system."

Last week, SPS officials said whether or not students would return to in-person learning would depend on what phase King County is in of its reopening.

It appears unlikely King County will advance to the fourth and final phase of the reopening plan by the time school starts up in the fall. Gov. Jay Inslee late last month put a pause on counties moving into Phase 4 as the number of cases continues to rise across the state.

King County moved into Phase 2 on June 19. Since entering Phase 2, the number of positive cases of the virus has gone up. As cases across the state have risen, Inslee late last month put into place a statewide mandate for people to wear masks indoors and outside when they're unable to maintain six feet of distance from others.

"We want to help each other. There is a commonality of purpose," Inslee said during a press briefing. "If doctors can put their lives on the line, we can put on a mask."

Students have been out of school since March due to the novel coronavirus. Inslee announced in April schools across the state would remain closed for the rest of the year.

Districts have since adapted to remote learning, using various tools including online courses and printed materials. The transition to distance learning, though, posed challenges for students and families who didn't have access to technology or internet and for teachers who had to reimagine their curriculum.

Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said late last month school districts across Washington should prepare for students to come back to school for in-person learning in the fall. The state released guidelines for schools to reopen safely, including requiring students and staff to wear masks and keeping students six feet apart in the classroom.

But Reykdal later said it was "very unlikely" and "almost impossible" that every student across the state would be going back to in-person learning at the beginning of the next school year.

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
China promised Thursday to take countermeasures against Britain if it presses ahead with plans to extend citizenship rights to Hong Kongers after Beijing imposed a sweeping security law on the restless financial hub.

Beijing has faced a groundswell of criticism from primarily Western nations over its decision to impose a new law outlawing acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces.

Adding to concerns, Hong Kong's influential Bar Association published a new legal analysis warning that the wording of the law -- which was kept secret until Tuesday -- undermines the city's independent judiciary and stifles freedoms.

Britain has said the law breaches China's pre-handover "One Country, Two Systems" promise to grant residents key liberties -- as well as judicial and legislative autonomy -- until 2047.

It has responded by announcing plans to allow millions of Hong Kongers with British National Overseas status to relocate with their families and eventually apply for citizenship.

"We will live up to our promises to them," foreign secretary Dominic Raab told parliament.

That move has infuriated Beijing, which says Britain promised not to grant full citizenship rights to Hong Kongers ahead of the 1997 handover.

"If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms governing international relations," China's embassy in London said Thursday.

"We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures," it added.

Sanctuary calls

Britain is not alone in announcing plans to offer Hong Kongers sanctuary or increased immigration rights as fears multiply over the semi-autonomous city's future under the new law.

On Thursday, Australian leader Scott Morrison said he was "very actively" considering offering Hong Kongers safe haven.

Taiwan has opened an office to help Hong Kongers wanting to flee, while a proposed bill in the United States offering sanctuary to city residents has received widespread bipartisan support.

Beijing says the law is needed to quell seething pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and restore order after a year of political unrest.

But critics fear it will usher in a new era of political repression given similar laws are routinely used to crush dissent on the Chinese mainland.

The law has sent fear coursing through the city and rattled the legal community in a business hub that has built its reputation on the independence and reliability of its courts.

The Bar Association -- which represents the city's barristers -- issued a scathing critique of the law, saying it dismantles the legal firewall that has existed between Hong Kong's judiciary and China's Communist Party-controlled courts.

The new national security offences were "widely drawn", the group said, and "are capable of being applied in a manner that is arbitrary, and that disproportionately interferes with fundamental rights, including the freedom of conscience, expression and assembly".

It also criticised "the total absence of meaningful consultation" with Hong Kongers before the law was passed.

China dismissed the association's fears as "unfounded".

"The lawyers' association's claim... that the law lacked meaningful consultation is totally unfounded," said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

First arrests

Thousands of residents defied a protest ban on Wednesday -- the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China -- to block roads and voice opposition to the bill in some of the worst unrest in months.

Police responded with water cannon, pepper spray and tear gas, arresting nearly 400 people.

Seven officers were injured, including one who was stabbed in the shoulder and three others hit by a protester on a motorbike.

Ten people were arrested under the new law, illustrating how holding certain political views had become illegal overnight.

Most of those arrested were carrying flags or leaflets advocating for Hong Kong independence.

The security law is controversial because it radically increases Beijing's control over the city.

China says it will have jurisdiction over some cases and has empowered its security agents to operate openly inside Hong Kong for the first time, unconstrained by local laws.

It has also claimed global jurisdiction, saying the law covers national security offences committed overseas -- even by foreigners.

Some trials will be held behind closed doors and without juries, while local police have been granted sweeping surveillance powers that no longer need judicial sign off.

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FILE - Prince Andrew smiles as he stands with his left arm around the waist of Virginia Roberts. It is alleged to have been taken in early 2001. Ghislaine Maxwell stands behind. More than a dozen women have filed suits against Jeffrey Epsteins estate for his alleged sexual abuse.
Clashes between protesters and Seattle police continued overnight after Wednesday's early morning sweep of the CHOP protest zone following an executive order signed by Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Police and protesters faced off at a barricade on Broadway and East Pine Street that was set up as part of the sweep and reclaiming of the East Precinct.

SPD stated that just before midnight, the standoff became violent and police deployed pepper spray and blast balls after the crowd allegedly threw bottles at the police line. According to the police statement, 25 arrests were made for obstruction, assault and failure to disperse.

Flashbangs were also reportedly deployed to disperse protesters in Capitol Hill. SPD is still authorized to use these crowd control munitions in the coming weeks despite a temporary restraining order filed in June after earlier clashes following the death of George Floyd.

An exception in the order allows police to use these munitions if "reasonable, proportional, and targeted action to protect against a specific imminent threat of physical harm  or to respond to specific acts of violence or destruction of property."

Groups of protesters also made their way to City Hall and to the Windermere neighborhood near Durkan's house to demand the city defund SPD and release all of the protesters detained.

Cal Anderson Park remains closed as crews clean out the area.

44 arrests were made Wednesday morning and afternoon as the police cleared out the area. Protests are expected to continue in the upcoming days as the mayor's executive order remains in place.

"Officers will disperse groups or individuals as needed, or make arrests, to ensure safety in the area," wrote SPD.

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At a time of increased need and economic hardship where so many people lost their jobs and are struggling to pay rent, we need to do things that provide some financial help to people, said Rankin. What happens when more people sign up and transit usage increases and we bump into this limit of $41 million?
Today, my fellow Epstein survivors and I are able to take a breath of relief, as Maxwells arrest means some justice for survivors can exist. For years, I feared Epstein and his ring. Maxwell was the center of that sex trafficking ring. Now that the ring has been taken down, I know that I cant be hurt anymore. Day after day, I have waited for the news that Maxwell would be arrested and held accountable for her actions. Her arrest is a step in that direction, and it truly means that the justice system didnt forget about us, said Jennifer Araoz, who has sued Epsteins $630 million estate and Maxwell.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Matthew Benjamin, a Tenafly, New Jersey resident, and his private company for defrauding investors of approximately $900,000 by selling them securities using false and misleading statements about the company's business, and then misappropriating investor funds for his personal use.

According to the SEC's complaint, between 2017 and 2019, Benjamin and his purported cosmetics company, Clear Solutions Group, LLC, defrauded investors of approximately $900,000 by soliciting and selling securities to the investors using false and misleading statements. Specifically, the complaint alleges that Benjamin falsely told investors Clear Solutions was able to purchase cosmetics at wholesale prices and profitably resell them at a mark-up to a retailer. The complaint alleges that, in reality, Benjamin and Clear Solutions did not conduct any such business. Instead, Benjamin allegedly used investor funds for his own personal benefit. In August 2019, Benjamin confessed to several investors that his purported business was a sham designed to defraud them.

The SEC's complaint, filed in federal district court in Newark, New Jersey, charges Benjamin and Clear Solutions with violations of the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The SEC is seeking a final judgment ordering permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement plus prejudgment interest thereon, and civil monetary penalties.

Separately, the United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced criminal charges against Benjamin.

The SEC's investigation has been conducted by Gerald Gross, James Hanson, and Paul Gizzi of the New York Regional Office, and the litigation will be handled by Messrs. Gizzi and Hanson. The case is being supervised by Sanjay Wadhwa. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
How the world's oldest nation cares for its elderly

Graying Pains is a series of weekly stories and broadcasts exploring the challenges and opportunities as Montana grows collectively older in communities statewide. The series is produced by the Montana Fourth Estate Project, a collaboration among several Montana newsrooms and the University of Montana School of Journalism under the auspices of the Montana Newspaper Association and the Solutions Journalism Network.

This is part 1 of a two-part story about financing elder care in aging populations. Part 2 - what new strategies could Montana explore? - will be published next week.

Montana, the oldest state in the western United States, faces many of the same problems as Japan, the world's oldest country. Might there be solutions for Montana from what looks to be a successful experiment enacted two decades ago to help pay for elder care in Japan?

On April 1, 2000, a new law in Japan began the world's largest and most radical long-term care program for the elderly.

It was a surprising development to many outsiders, because although it was well-known that Japan was, and remains, the world's oldest country, the government had a reputation for not doing much about the issues raised by that demographic fact. In Japanese society, the burden of caring for the elderly has historically fallen on the shoulders of family members, especially women. For example, the wife of any given family's eldest son often takes care of his parents. Elderly people often live in the same home as the eldest son or one of the daughters.

The program, called Kaigo Hoken (care insurance), is essentially a socialization of elder care through mandatory social insurance. Every citizen over the age of 40 with an income must contribute a monthly premium of $30-$50, depending on income. Then, everyone over the age of 65 is eligible for benefits in the form of care. The range of available services depends on a recipient's level of disability but the law pays for trips to adult day care centers, hospice care, medical care and in-home care such as cooking and cleaning.

After two decades, the $100 billion program has become "very popular," said Naoki Ikegami, a professor in the School of Public Health at St. Luke's International University's Center for Clinical Academia in Tokyo. "For both the middle-aged and the young, it's very popular because it has taken care of their parents. Japanese society can't exist without [the law] now."

John Campbell, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Michigan, is one of America's foremost experts on Japanese health care and policy implementation. He's the author of several papers and books on the topic, including "Medical Care in Japan" for the New England Journal of Medicine and "How Policies Change: The Japanese Government and the Aging Society" for Princeton University Press.

"The program was overwhelmingly popular with people," Campbell said. "Even among big businesses or people that would have to pay more in taxes, they never really opposed it. Big companies were very worried about increasing health care spending, and the government argues that if we provide decent long-term care, it can reduce the burden on health care spending."

That's because, Campbell said, the care that the law pays for keeps elderly people physically active and less socially isolated.

"They're in better shape, they're eating well, they're doing chores and staying active," he said. "It's not true that it saves enough in health care spending to pay for all of these social programs, but the financial side of how much it was going to cost never got to be that big of an issue."

Campbell said the law has become the "third pillar of social policy" in Japan, along with the pension system and the health care system.

"Nobody would ever think about overturning the law," he said. "It's as popular as Social Security is in America, or Medicare. Japan is the oldest country in the world. There's more and more old people, and just because of that, actual spending goes up, fewer younger people are paying premiums, so there's financial problems with it. Now they're looking at reduced services for people that are not frail at all, so they've cut back payments but they're keeping the core of the program solid."

Another reason the law generated so much support, Campbell explained, is because the younger generation of women didn't want to shoulder the burden of elder care as previous generations had for centuries in Japan.

"The women's movement was very much in favor of it," Campbell said. "It was a very big thing among Japanese women, the burdens of having to care not only for their parents, but the wife of the oldest son would have to take care of her husband's parents."

The conflict between a woman and her mother-in-law became a staple of Japanese friction, Campbell noted.

"There's a feeling of burden," he said. "The only people that were against the law were very conservative people who said this is going to destroy the Japanese family system. They said [having the wife of the oldest son provide care for his parents] is a wonderful part of Japanese culture and you're sort of doing away with it by having people being taken care of by home helpers. Those concerns were mainly only voiced by mostly politicians in the conservative party."

Even so, Campbell said, few people in Japan thought the law would be popular at first.

"It was called the Gold Plan," he explained. "It was this big idea of how [Japan] would subsidize and pay for all sorts of long-term care, home-based care for older people. The Gold Plan won the election. It was a nice campaign ploy, but they didn't think people were going to take it at all seriously."

The law was initially supposed to be in effect for only 10 years, he said.

"It turns out they threw this plan together with no forethought," Campbell said. "It was kind of a Trump kind of a plan. But there was a great deal of demand in society for these services, and pressure on local governments built up to pass a new Gold Plan to raise the level of services they were going to give."

What happened, in essence, was that older people loved the care they were getting and younger people were happy to pay a reasonable amount for the care of older family members. A new social tax became almost universally embraced.

Next week: Could a mandatory elder care insurance program work in Montana?
I knew instantly they were trying to intimidate me for speaking out against themto use the threat of lawsuits to silence all of us who fight against racism and all kinds of bigotry, said Gordon Beeferman, an LGBT activist who was named as a defendant. I refused to be intimidated.
Keene, NH (03431)

Today

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 67F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 67F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
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Bay Area hospitalizations related to COVID-19 have spiked over the past two weeks, driven by a variety of factors, including a major outbreak at San Quentin State Prison and an uptick in summer social gatherings.

Those heightened numbers concern state and local health officials who keep a close eye on hospitalization rates as they decide whether counties should continue down the path of economic and social reopening or pull back. As the Bay Area moved into the July Fourth weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom decided to slow things down in 19 California counties, including Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Solano, citing the growing burden on hospitals as a major concern.

Were not out of this pandemic. Were still in the first wave, and we have a lot of work to do to mitigate the spread to make sure our hospital system is ready to receive people outside of an emergency or COVID-19-related cause and to make sure our ICUs are free from COVID-19, Newsom said at a news conference Thursday.

Bay Area hospitals report rising COVID-19 hospitalizations, with a current total of 469 people hospitalized in six counties on Tuesday. The region hit its peak on April 7, when 471 people were hospitalized. That number fell to as low as 220, on June 1.

San Quentins outbreak is a big part of the recent rise, with 59 inmates transferred to local hospitals as of Thursday afternoon, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Dana Simas said.

Across California, coronavirus hospitalizations increased by 56% in the past two weeks, including 49% in intensive care units, Newsom said. On Thursday, 5,355 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19.

To put that in perspective, however, those patients filled just 7% of the states hospital beds. In the Bay Area, where shelter-in-place orders bought time for hospitals to prepare without being overwhelmed, hospitalizations are not yet straining capacity. Coronavirus patients are filling just a fraction of most counties hospitals, and medical facilities say theyre poised to utilize hundreds more beds if need be.

The surge plan is simmering on the back burner. Theres always concern, said Janet McInnes, chief nursing executive and administrative officer at Alameda Health System. Its on everyones mind all the time.

Influx of prisoners

The increasingly grim situation at state prisons could play a significant role in hospital planning.

At San Quentin, more than 1,000 people  a third of all inmates  tested positive and two people died on Death Row. (One victim tested positive for the coronavirus; the second is still under investigation.) The outbreak is filling more hospital beds across the Bay Area, where sick inmates are being transferred to community health facilities.

In San Francisco, hospitalized coronavirus patients spiked 61% over the past week, according to the Department of Public Health. That number can be misleading, as 12 of those patients came from San Quentin, adding to the total of 72 hospitalizations in the city. That also included four patients from Imperial County and one from Fresno County transferred to San Francisco.

At Alameda Health Systems hospitals, located in Alameda, San Leandro and Oakland, relatively stable numbers of COVID-19 patients ticked up when the hospital received seven patients from San Quentin, two of whom are in intensive care. The health system had an existing contract with the state to treat inmates. The system was treating 21 confirmed COVID-19 patients Wednesday.

Caring for sick inmates at hospitals involves a layer of security logistics. Patients transferred from a prison come with two to four guards, including one who stays in the hospital room at all times. The hospital provides these guards with personal protective equipment and training in how to use it. San Leandro Hospital was set to receive a few more inmate patients Wednesday, with room for only eight, McInnes said.

Mawata Kamara, a nurse in the emergency room at San Leandro Hospital, said the second floor is now filled with guards for San Quentin patients.

A person is a prisoner, but still my patient, she said. I have to treat all my patients the same way.

Bay Area hospitalizations

The prison outbreak isnt the only driver of hospitalizations and pressure on hospital capacity. COVID-19 numbers started to steadily climb in the Bay Area about two weeks ago, with more patients in general care than intensive care. Hospitals also reported an increase in regular patient traffic, as people suffer routine injuries and also began returning to address non-emergency procedures and treatment.

In Solano County, which reopened its economy faster than its Bay Area counterparts, hospitalizations have quadrupled  from 10 to 41  since June 17. A large outbreak among farmworkers in Sonoma and Napa counties who live in Solano County led to more patients, but hasnt stressed facilities, the public health department said. Currently 68% of ICU beds in the county are filled with both COVID and non-COVID patients.

At NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield, COVID-19 patient numbers have tripled since the end of May, where they have hovered around 15, said Steve Huddleston, vice president of public affairs.

Were very concerned about the trend line in the community, Huddleston said. The capacity is there for more cases and a moderate increase, but at some point weve got to see that curve flatten or well likely be in for some capacity issues in the long run.

Kaiser Permanente Vacaville Medical Center has 10 positive patients, more than ever before, said nurse Becky Cherry-May. Shes worried about the availability and quality of personal protective equipment. Nurses reuse N95 masks, intended for one-time use but now commonly reused during the pandemic, to preserve supplies.

Im very concerned. Were going into a very bad place, she said. Were just starting our surge.

A Kaiser Permanente spokesman said the hospital system was prepared to double its capacity and had access to enough hospital beds, ventilators and other equipment to meet the current and projected need in Solano County and statewide.

In San Francisco, coronavirus hospitalizations more than doubled in the past two weeks, to 72 on Wednesday. Around 70% of hospital beds were full  mostly with non-COVID patients. At UCSF, which had 22 COVID-19 patients Wednesday, the intensive care unit at the Parnassus campus was 82% full with mostly non-COVID patients. At the Mount Zion campus respiratory isolation intensive care unit, six of the seven beds were filled with COVID-19 patients.

Heres where capacity stands in other Bay Area counties:

 In Marin County, where San Quentin is located, 7% of hospital beds are filled with COVID-19 patients.

 In Sonoma County, 3% of hospital beds are filled by COVID-19 patients.

 In Contra Costa County, COVID-19 patients fill around 2% of beds.

 In San Mateo County, which doesnt report figures the same way, 20% of ICU beds are filled with COVID-19 patients.

 In Santa Clara County, COVID-19 patients fill 3% of hospital beds.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

 Alameda County has the highest hospitalization numbers in the Bay Area, with 116 patients at local facilities. Half of hospital beds and fewer than half of ICU beds were occupied Wednesday. People with COVID-19 made up only 5% of those patients. Fewer were in the ICU than earlier in the pandemic.

Dr. Kathleen Clanon, medical director for Alameda Countys Health Care Services Agency, said the county is ready to surge if hospital capacity maxes out.

When it gets very dangerous, like in some other counties, is when the hospital system gets overwhelmed with ICU patients, she said.

Tiffany Talerico, a nurse at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and member of the Registered Nurses Professional Association, watched numbers of COVID-19 patients on her floor increase from five to nine by the end of her shift on Sunday. She said she is less anxious now than she was at the start of the pandemic, when her hospital was in a hot spot.

We have the resources and staffing to back it up right now. It may not always be the case as things pick up, but we have those things that are good to support us, she said.

Breana Lastiri, a nurse at St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, said she feels safer than earlier in the pandemic, but is still worried.

Its pretty nerve-racking, she said. I just hope that were prepared.

Mallory Moench is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mallorymoench
A Cambodian refugee who was released on parole from San Quentin State Prison on Wednesday was not arrested by immigration authorities and, instead, welcomed by advocates who have rallied for his release into the Bay Area community.

Chanthon Bun, who was born at a Cambodian refugee camp in 1979 after his family fled the Khmer Rouge, a regime that killed more than 1 million people in Cambodia, was released into the care of the community after serving time for second-degree robbery and use of a firearm, according to the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity.

Bun was released from the prison at around 9 a.m. Wednesday. After getting tested for the coronavirus, he called his mother, said Anoop Prasad, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus who is representing Bun.

He tested positive for the coronavirus, Interfaith Movement officials said.

In recent days, advocates told The Chronicle that Bun, 41, had COVID-19 symptoms, such as such as loss of taste and smell. Advocates feared that Bun, who they say has a blood disorder, muscle disorder and hypertension, would have been at higher risk of getting seriously ill or dying if he was transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

If ICE had transferred him to ICE detention, he may not have survived, because he is immunocompromised, and would have further spread the illness, Interfaith Movement officials said.

After his release, Bun said in a statement that, To live is to hope.

For me this means to never give up hope and keep on fighting, Bun said.

In a photo taken after his release, a masked Bun posed with friends and advocates who have called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to block immigration authorities from arresting Bun, and others, after getting released from incarceration. Bun held a sign with the phrase, Free them all. Come home Chanthon. The phone numbers to the offices of Newsom and Ralph Diaz, the Secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, were scribbled beneath the blue and teal demand.

Bun is a permanent resident, but Prasad said ICE placed a detainer on him when he was convicted so that at the time of his release, immigration officials could transfer him to an ICE facility. From there, he would likely have been deported to Cambodia  a country he has not been to since he was a child.

When he was 18 years old, Prasad said he joined a group of older men who took part in an armed robbery in which no one was injured. He was convicted in 1998. Over the course of his incarceration, advocates with the Asian Prisoner Support Committee told The Chronicle he has become a mentor for others incarcerated at the prison and program facilitators alike.

Representatives with the Interfaith Movement, which is offering housing to Bun, said in a statement that Buns experience  one of community care, not continued punishment if he had been transferred to an ICE facility upon his release  should be a model for the experience of everyone who is being released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

While immigrant advocates in the Bay Area said they will provide food resources and get him connected to other services as part of his re-entry back into society, Interfaith Movement officials said their call for Newsom to stop collaboration and transfers between CDCR and ICE remains.

Ny Nourn, a community advocate with the Asian Law Caucus said in a statement that she hopes Newsom will extend clemency to other currently and formerly incarcerated refugees, immigrants, and survivors facing deportation like I was.

California can take a step in the right direction and end the prison-to-ICE pipeline, Nourn said.

Lauren Hernandez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByLHernandez
The Catholic Church is once again preaching a commitment to address racism, and Oakland is at the center of the current racial uprising inside the church.

Heres a brief recap: In an emotional, 13-minute video posted on Facebook on June 14, the Rev. Aidan McAleenan, the white pastor of St. Columba Catholic Church, a predominantly Black parish on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, called Bishop Michael Barber, the head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, a racist and a liar.

In the video, McAleenan says: The bishop of Oakland is a racist. He said to me, Black people should be happy with the way the church and this country has treated them.

In a statement on the diocese website, Barber denied saying that to McAleenan.

I am on a journey, as are we all, learning what I can do as the shepherd for our diocese, in helping our parishioners change our actions to meet our words and our professed faith, wrote Barber.

He also published an editorial supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in The Catholic Voice, a diocesan publication.

Sadly, that wouldve been enough effort before George Floyds death in police custody.

Brandon Tauszik / Special to The Chronicle

Black Catholics in Oakland are demanding action. Whats happening in the Catholic Church is inextricable from the racial reckoning happening across the country as Black people and their allies refuse to let institutions deny, deflect or dismiss systemic racism.

Were not letting it go, said Timothy Gholston, a Black parishioner at St. Columba who helped organize the meeting of Black Catholics I attended at the church last week.

Our tendency has been that when the hoopla dies down, we become complacent again, said Cheryl BryantBruce, a Black parishioner of St. Benedict Catholic Church in East Oakland. We can no longer be complacent. The Catholic Church notoriously has not been accepting of us.

A half-century ago, the Catholic Church preached a commitment to address race.

In April 1968, the Black Catholic Clergy Caucus denounced the Catholic Church as primarily a white racist institution. The statement came two weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops, now known as the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, responded with a statement on the nations race crisis.

Catholics, like the rest of American society, must recognize their responsibility for allowing these conditions to persist, the statement read. It would be futile to deny what the Commission on Civil Disorders has told America  a white segregationist mentality is largely responsible for the present crisis.

Brandon Tauszik / Special to The Chronicle

It took two decades for the church to name the first Black archbishop in the United States. How long are Black Catholics supposed to wait for change this time?

We see the church being complicit in white supremacy, and until we can deal with the structural issues, we cant pray this away, said David Robinson-Morris, director of the Center for Equity, Justice, and the Human Spirit at Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically Black Catholic college in the country.

There are 3 million Black Catholics in this country, which is about 3% of the Catholic population. But there are only 250 Black priests, which is less than 1% of the 36,000 priests in the U.S., according to the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops data.

There are only eight Black bishops in the U.S., where the Catholic Church is almost 60% white.

Larry Kamer, a spokesman for the diocese, told me that Barber plans to meet with St. Columbas parishioners.

This is a conversation that he wants to have throughout the diocese  not just in black churches, but in all churches, Kamer said. He believes there is work to be done to cleanse our community of the sin of racism, and the structures of injustice and violence that make us all accomplices.

Again, the Black Catholics Ive spoken with want more than words.

You have to say Im willing to or I am going to do x, y and z, said Chiquita Tuttle, a Black parishioner at St. Benedicts, referring to Barber. Im going to have a forum with Black Catholics to talk about their concerns and to look at how we can have some resolution to this problem.

There needs to be accountability, Kaya Oakes, a Bay Area author who has written books about Catholicism, told me as we discussed the churchs hesitation to address racism.

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

What can the church actually do for Black people who are suffering right now? And beyond just ministering to them, what kind of reparations can it offer for its past? Oakes said. Thats the question the church needs to be asking itself, but that requires a humility that people in hierarchical positions  they dont do very well with being humble.

The hesitancy seems hypocritical to Catholic doctrine.

Given everything we know about how whites typically respond to talking about assertions that they are privileged or have advantages, theres going to be a lot of fighting over whether or not these differences exist, whether or not theyre legitimate, Rosalind M. Chow, an associate professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Tepper School of Business told me. Theres a lot of mechanisms that people who are in power, people who have benefited from the ways societies have structured  they have a lot of tools at their disposal to try and push back on these narratives that are trying to make an impact through change.

In a June 21 homily, Barber spoke of the Catholic Church as the ultimate source of healing and reconciliation.

Jesus is the answer to every question and concern we have, and he is the perfect model of justice and love, he said.

What would Jesus do if the sheep in his flock begged him to address systemic racism?

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
A burning question faces technologists around the country as they seek to develop and roll out apps to track the newly resurgent pandemic: Will anyone download them?

The app developers, and the public health experts who are watching closely, worry that if they do not engage enough people, the apps will fail to catch a significant number of infections and people at risk of infection. Their success relies on levels of compliance and public health competence that have been sorely lacking in the U.S. during the COVID-19 crisis.

We cant even get people to wear masks in this country, said Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego. How are we going to get them to be diligent about using their phones to help with contact tracing?

The tracking apps, a handful of which already have been launched in the U.S., enable cell phones to send signals to one another when they are nearby  and if they are equipped with the same app, or a compatible one. The devices keep a record of all digital encounters, and later on, they alert users when someone with whom they were in physical proximity tests positive for the virus.

For an app to stop an outbreak in a given community, 60% of the population would have to use it, although a lower rate of participation could still reduce the number of cases and deaths, according to one recent study. Some say an adoption rate as low as 10% could provide benefits.

In many places where apps have been implemented so far, adoption has failed to reach even that lower threshold. In France, less than 3% of the population had activated the government-endorsed app, StopCovid, as of late June. Italys app had attracted about 6% of the population. The percentage of residents who have downloaded the app endorsed by North and South Dakota, Care19, is in the low single digits.

One exception is Germany, where more than 14% of the population downloaded the new Corona-Warn-App in the first week after its launch.

The tracing apps are generally intended to supplement the work of human contact tracers, who follow up with people whove tested positive for the virus, asking them where theyve been and the people theyve been in contact with. The tracers then contact those potentially exposed individuals and advise them on the next steps, such as testing or self-quarantine.

Human contact tracing, slow and laborious in the best of times, has been a notable failure in the United States so far: An insufficient number of sometimes inadequately trained people have been deployed, and the infected people theyve contacted often wont cooperate.

The prospects for digital tracing appear no better.

Ideally, wed have a digital way to supplement the human contact tracing, said Topol. But there hasnt been any place yet globally where theres proof that it goes from a clever idea to really helping people.

Close to 20 tracing apps are in use or under development in the U.S.

Apple and Google in May released software tools for developers to harness Bluetooth signals for contact tracing. A growing number of U.S. app developers are targeting state health agencies because Google, the maker of Android cell phone software, and iPhone maker Apple wont enable an app to use their technologies without a states endorsement. The Google-Apple technology, despite very limited use so far, is considered by many to be the most promising.

However, many states are lukewarm to the Google-Apple technology  and to digital contact tracing more broadly. In a Business Insider survey published in June, only three states said they had committed to the Google-Apple model, while 19  including California  were noncommittal. Seventeen states had no plans for a smartphone-based tracking system. The remaining 11 didnt respond or gave unclear plans.

In April, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his office was working with Apple and Google to make their technology a part of the states plan for easing out of the stay-at-home order. Two months later, the Golden State seems to have backed off the idea. Instead, it is training 20,000 human contact tracers with the hope they will hit the ground running this month. The states Department of Public Health said in an email that most contact tracing can be done by phone, text, email and chat.

The multiple obstacles to successful use of digital tracing apps include indifference or outright hostility to anti-coronavirus measures. Some people wont even wear masks or are leery of other public health efforts.

Moreover, to the extent that people do adopt phone-based tracing, it might miss potential outbreaks among the hardest-hit populations  seniors and low-income people, who are less likely than others to engage with smartphones.

If adoption is high among 20-year-olds and low among seniors and in nursing homes, we probably dont want the result to be that seniors and nursing homes dont get the attention they should get through contact-tracing efforts, said Greg Nojeim, director of the Freedom, Security and Technology Project at the Center for Technology and Democracy in Washington.

Unresolved technical challenges could also hamper the effectiveness of the apps.

Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available.

To capture risky close encounters between two users, some apps employ GPS to track their location. Others use Bluetooth, which gauges the proximity of two cell phones to each other without revealing their whereabouts.

Neither approach is perfect at measuring distance, and either might incorrectly assess a viral threat to users. GPS can tell if two people are at the same address, but not if they are on different floors of a building. Bluetooth determines distance based on the strength of a phones signal. But signal strength can be distorted if a phone is in somebodys purse or pocket, and metal objects can also interfere with it.

The biggest barrier to public buy-in is the privacy question. Advocates of the Google-Apple system, which uses Bluetooth, say the two companies enhanced the prospects for wide adoption by addressing fundamental privacy concerns.

The Google-Apple system wont allow apps to track the locations of smartphone users, and it ensures that all contacts traced are stored on the phones of individuals, not on a centralized database that would give public health authorities greater access to the information.

Users of the smartphone app decide whether to notify other app users if they contract the virus or whether to follow the advice  to self-quarantine and contact public health authorities  that would accompany an alert of possible exposure.

The Google-Apple system makes it easy for apps that use it to communicate with one another, which could be particularly important in multistate regions  the Washington metropolitan area, for example  where each state might have a different app and people frequently travel back and forth across state lines.

But developers of apps that dont use Google or Apples technology will struggle to sync with it, especially if their apps track locations or use a centralized server. Those include the Care19 app in the Dakotas and Healthy Together, Utahs app, which both use GPS and Wi-Fi to track locations. Healthy Together also allows public health officials to see peoples names, phone numbers and location history.

These models are anathema to privacy-first app proponents, which might limit their uptake. In fact, North Dakota has announced it is planning a second app based on the Google-Apple technology.

Some public health experts, however, warn that the strong privacy focus of Google-Apple, to the exclusion of other factors, may limit the value of the apps in tackling the pandemic.

Apple (and) Google in their partnership have pretty narrowly defined what is acceptable, said Jeffrey Kahn, director of Johns Hopkins Universitys Berman Institute of Bioethics. If these things are going to work as everyone hopes, we have to have a fuller and more soup-to-nuts discussion about all the parts that matter.

Bernard Wolfson is a columnist and senior correspondent for California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. California Healthline is produced by Kaiser Health News, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. Email: bwolfson@kff.org
Police said the 75-year-old woman driving the 2002 Toyota SUV had just exited a driveway when she fell ill about 3:40 p.m. June 10. She lost control of her vehicle, cut across two lanes of traffic on Hegeman Ave, then hit Rampersaud.
PG&E Corp. exited bankruptcy on Wednesday, one day after Gov. Gavin Newsom authorized a new law paving the way for the state to radically restructure the company if it fails to rehabilitate itself.

The company said it has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after implementing the financial restructuring plan that was previously approved in court and by state regulators. As part of that process, PG&E has provided about $5.4 billion in initial funds to pay wildfire victims.

PG&Es restructuring plan creates a trust to compensate fire victims that is supposed to be worth an estimated $13.5 billion. But the actual value that the trust will reach is still not clear because half of the price tag is coming through PG&E shares that the trust will sell off over time.

PG&E said it has also seated its post-bankruptcy board of directors that consists of 14 members, 11 of whom are new. And the company has funded $12 billion in settlements over the wildfire claims of insurers and local governments.

In a statement, interim CEO Bill Smith said he was glad to start funding the victims trust to quickly pay people who survived recent PG&E-caused fires.

This is an important milestone, but our work is far from over, he said. Our emergence from Chapter 11 marks just the beginning of PG&Es next era  as a fundamentally improved company and the safe, reliable utility that our customers, communities and California deserve.

PG&Es bankruptcy exit came after Newsom on Tuesday signed SB350, a bill through which the state could someday transform investor-owned PG&E into a nonprofit public benefit corporation named Golden State Energy.

Sponsored by state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, SB350 is intended to provide the state with assurances about what will happen if PG&Es Chapter 11 restructuring does not prevent the company from starting more fires like those that led to its bankruptcy. The state Senate approved the bill on Monday, about two weeks after it cleared the Assembly.

The corporate overhaul enabled by SB350 would occur if state regulators decide to revoke PG&Es operating license  a drastic step they will consider taking if the company continues to cause major disasters.

No more business as usual for PG&E, Newsom said in a statement. As we head into wildfire season amid a pandemic, Californians need to have confidence that their utility is focused on customer safety  preventing wildfire sparks and making critical safety upgrades. SB 350 marks a critical step in the transformation of PG&E into a utility that is accountable to those it serves  the people of California.

2 1 of 2 Jessica Christian / The Chronicle 2018 Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle Show More Show Less



PG&E stressed that it had worked closely with state officials on its bankruptcy restructuring plan and won support from the governor several months ago.

We intend to meet our safety and operational commitments to California and our customers and ultimately render this legislation unnecessary, said company spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo.

PG&E entered bankruptcy protection in January 2019 because its power lines had caused a series of huge and devastating wildfires that collectively killed more than 100 people and incinerated more than 20,000 buildings in Northern California.

The victims trust is designed to resolve the claims of people and businesses harmed by those fires, which occurred in 2015, 2017 and 2018. But the money will not all arrive at once.

PG&E is initially providing about $5.4 billion in cash to start the fire victims trust. The company is also granting a projected $6.75 billion in company stock to the trust and will pay more cash later. However, the actual value of the stock portion  a major source of contention during the bankruptcy  may eventually be worth more or less than the projected amount.

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The company is giving the victims trust nearly 477 million shares, which on Wednesday were worth about $4.3 billion based on PG&Es closing price of $9.03 per share. While that is far less than the $6.75 billion projection, the trust cannot yet cash out any of the stock it holds. First, the shares are subject to a 90-day lockup period, after which the trust is expected to gradually sell off its holdings in order to maximize the amount of money available to fire victims.

The ultimate value of the stock component ... therefore, is not known at this time and could exceed $6.75 billion, Paulo said.

Still, the gap between the stocks current value and its intended value was disappointing to fire victims who have long been concerned about that part of the deal to pay their claims.

This is what we all feared would happen, said Helen Sedwick, who lost her Sonoma County home in the 2017 Nuns Fire. Our prediction proved to be accurate, and it means that fire victims are shortchanged ... we have so far to go to get to what we were promised.

Gerald Singleton, an attorney for fire victims who has been involved in the PG&E bankruptcy, said the trust likely wont need to sell any shares until early next year. Singleton, who sits on an oversight committee for the victims trust, said he wasnt surprised to see where PG&Es stock stood as of Wednesday.

We hope that its going to go up  thats what everybodys anticipating  but time will tell, he said.

The trust should start paying the first fire victims in October, according to Singleton.

J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris
The numbers reveal a puzzle about the nations economy: The unemployment rate in the U.S. fell sharply from May to June, but claims for benefits by the newly jobless continued to arrive at nearly the same pace as they have for weeks.

Another 1.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, even as the national unemployment rate fell from 13.3% to 11.1%, another arm of the federal agency said. The numbers, still without recent precedent after a decade-long economic boom, show that the pandemics deep economic wounds have not been stanched.

In California, 279,341 claimants filed for new unemployment benefits last week, down only slightly from the 284,494 claims sought two weeks ago.

With cases of the virus spiking across the country and in California, experts said they expect slumping demand and climbing unemployment numbers, possibly through the end of the year. The latest figures reflect the situation in middle or late June, as states were rushing to reopen their economies before a rise in coronavirus cases put a pause on those plans.

Todays jobs report ... is a look in the rearview mirror, said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at hiring site Glassdoor, in a statement. Rough waters are surely ahead for the economy in the coming months as a second wave could again shutter millions of American small businesses and put a freeze on hiring, he added.

It feels like a steady bleed, said Josh Bivens, director of research at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute in Washington. With business reopenings sputtering amid a resurgence in daily virus cases, and the supplemental $600-a-week federal unemployment benefits set to expire at the end of the month, Bivens said he hopes Congress will act to assure some money keeps flowing to the jobless as long as the virus looms.

If we get a scenario where theres a shutdown again and the benefits get cut off, youve got a bunch of people who will be suffering terribly, he said. Thats going to spill over into sectors where people can keep working.

On Wednesday, the Employment Development Department said jobless Californians could get up to seven additional weeks of unemployment insurance benefits, meaning those receiving regular state benefits could get up to 59 total weeks of payments. Self-employed people and gig workers paid through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program could get up to 46 weeks of payments.

That may buy time for workers affected by new shutdowns or the extension of restrictions on economic activity taken to quell a surge in coronavirus infections.

Dire health numbers could lead to continuing business closures, according to Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust.

Some businesses are in a bit of economic limbo, neither fully open nor fully closed, he said. We may be in for a period of stop-start recovery.

For business owners like Yen Tuyet Le of San Franciscos Paua Beauty Lounge, local authorities wavering reopening plans mean she cant hire back staff. San Francisco had given nail salons like hers the go-ahead to open last week, then pulled back in the face of the threatening health trends.

Monday, we were fully booked, she said, adding she had planned to double her staff because of the backlog of customers in need of beauty services. I had to cancel them all.

In addition to the bulked-up hiring, Le spent time and money installing precautions like plastic shields and temperature scanners for her employees and customers. Shes now waiting to hear for a new date to open back up.

Pulling out of the current economic tailspin and revving up spending to pre-pandemic levels is inextricably linked to gaining the upper hand over the coronavirus, according to Joel Prakken, chief U.S. economist at IHS Markit.

Its not about ... ordering a reopening of the economy, its about getting on top of the virus, Prakken said. He said his firm expects the economy will see a pretty big pop between now and September as some states reopen businesses, but it will hit a slog in the last three months of the year.

That could mean a steady stream of new and continuing unemployment claims, burdening state unemployment benefits systems, including Californias, that have often not seemed up to the task of tackling the tidal wave of applications.

Theresa Tess Vasquez is one of thousands of Californians who have been waiting anxiously for word from the EDD on the application for benefits she filed over two months ago after being forced to close her massage practice in Pleasant Hill.

Vasquez, who specializes in deep tissue and injury massage, said she has been unable to see clients under shutdown orders since March, and with planned business reopenings in Contra Costa County delayed, she has been getting increasingly desperate.

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On Thursday, Vasquez said her months of waiting paid off. The money she applied for became available on her state-issued debit card. This helps so much, she said in a text message. She had worried that she and another masseuse and a physical therapist might lose the space they share, with no money coming in to cover the rent.

Like many others, Vasquez had found herself listening to recorded messages that go nowhere as she pursued her claim. Its so insensitive, Vasquez said. Its like talking to a piece of furniture. The department only offers limited hours of phone service staffed by agents trained to investigate claim problems.

The EDD has hired thousands more staff during the pandemic to work phones and assist the legions of unemployed, but wait times are still extremely long.

People are going to get desperate, and theyre going to go work, Vasquez said. She said her own small group of clients is willing to see her in person again, despite the risks.

I will take the clients on and I will go back, I have no choice, she said. She planned to work with a chiropractor, which would categorize her services as essential, and wear extensive protective equipment, requiring the same of her clients.

The number of unemployment claims waiting to be processed, as Vasquezs had been, could be a factor in the high weekly unemployment filings, according to Prakken, the economist.

State systems have been overwhelmed by the volume of claims and still may be catching up, he said. That could explain why the level of claims is still pretty darn high.

The Employment Development Department said Thursday that it had processed 7 million claims in recent months, almost twice the total it had dealt with in 2010, as the economy recovered from the 2007-2009 recession. The agency said it has paid $37.5 billion in benefits to out-of-work Californians since the onset of the pandemic

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice
Saying he and his colleagues in the Legislature are at wits end trying to help constituents who are unable to get unemployment benefits, Assemblyman David Chiu lambasted the Employment Development Department and especially its leadership in a Zoom conference Thursday morning held jointly with state Sen. Scott Wiener.

The last straw for the two San Francisco Democrats was a memo they received from the EDD last month that stated, Beginning June 22nd, each Assembly or Senate District Office may request one constituent referral per week to be expedited. Chiu called the letter a classic example of bureaucratic arrogance and tone deafness.

Wiener said his jaw dropped when he got the memo.

One case a week is better than zero cases per week. Its ridiculous. The idea that we would have to choose which constituent needs help the most makes no sense. He added that the people who have come to their legislators asking for help are the people who are the most desperate, although there are others who dont know to contact their legislator, and they should.

EDD said Thursday afternoon, hours after the legislators call, that it was changing its recent policy. In the past, EDD addressed referrals from each of the 120 legislative offices in the order they are received, but at the request of legislative staffers to elevate more recent hardship cases, the department did try a revised process of elevating one more recent hardship request each week, it said in an email. Based on feedback to that change, we are revising the referral process.

In an email to legislators Thursday, EDD said it has implemented a recent recommendation from legislative staff to further expedite the resolution of your older cases. Specifically, these are cases where the individuals filed for unemployment in March or April and have not received an Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefit payment recently.

This is a welcome change that prioritizes constituents who have been waiting for benefits for months, Chiu said in a statement.

However, we don't fully understand what expedite means in this context, his spokeswoman, Jennifer Kwart, said via email. I dont know if this means all of our old cases get solved in the next week or if they will continue to take 4-5 weeks.

The Zoom conference featured four women who applied for unemployment months ago and have been unable to reach EDD to resolve problems with their claim.

Taylor Whitehouse, who worked as a location scout for the film industry and a bartender in the Castro, said she received one payment of $155 on April 17. Since then, her benefits are listed as continuously pending. She said she called EDDs expanded customer service line 100 times, and finally got through to someone who couldnt advance her claim. She did have a disability flag removed from her account, but then had to resubmit her application for review. I dont understand why I cant access these benefits, she said.

Jenni Rowe, who managed events at a major San Francisco hotel, was furloughed March 20 and was initially denied unemployment, for unexplained reasons, while her colleagues received payments. She reapplied a month later, and received verification that she would get payments, but since then has received only one in the 15 weeks she has been unemployed.

Sarahbeth Maney / The Chronicle

Ive called hundreds and hundreds of times, Rowe said. Usually she gets a recording, but once she was able to click through some options, though, at the very end it gets disconnected because there is too many callers ahead of me.

Chiu noted that Californias aging information technology structure, which uses a 60-year-old programming language called COBOL, was dysfunctional during the last recession and was supposed to be upgraded before the next one hit, but still has not.

People asked to verify their identity  a big holdup in many cases  cannot even upload their photo identification to EDDs website; they have to mail or fax it.

I put these challenges squarely at the foot of the leadership of the agency itself, Chiu said. Many of the leaders who run this agency, they were the ones making excuses a decade ago for the failures of the system, for the failures of IT reform, and theyre very good at providing excuses, but we have not seen a proactive plan to address the crisis we have. He added, We need really transformational leadership, systemic reform leadership within EDD to look at this in different ways.

Wiener said Senate Democrats have had calls with people from Gov. Gavin Newsoms administration and the head of EDD multiple times. The senators have expressed deep frustration and asked the administration to get this fixed. The governor wants to get this fixed, Wiener said, but added, Its just going way, way, way way too slowly.

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Chiu said members of the Assembly have also had meetings and public hearings on the subject. EDD always appears to have excuses. They have a long laundry list of plans, accomplishments and challenges, but we are at a point four months in where we need solutions ... to address the pain and suffering that is happening right now.

In late May, California Labor Secretary Julie Su told legislators that EDD was increasing the number of staffers dedicated to legislative offices from one to 25, and planned to add 20 more. Of those 45, 35 would be trained to resolve unemployment cases.

EDD said in a statement that during the previous recession, it was only authorized to replace the Continued Claims functionality, roughly 25% of (unemployment insurance) program functionality. This short-term fix required the EDD to keep and interface to older, legacy mainframe systems. The EDD is now on course to implement a long-term fix that will provide one modernized solution for our unemployment insurance, disability insurance and paid family leave programs.

It added that EDD cares deeply about serving those impacted by this unprecedented pandemic, which hit at a time when the state was seeing record low unemployment with correspondingly low federal administrative funding and therefore reduced staffing levels. We continue to work around the clock, seven days a week to expand our capacity for processing this unprecedented demand for unemployment benefits as quickly as possible.

It has hired or has offers out to more than 4,000 new staff needed as part of an expedited mass hiring effort with the increased federal funding weve received. We also put in place a chatbot and text message service to help provide Californians answers to their most common questions and help reduce the high demand for the call center.

It added that EDD paid $4 billion in benefits just last week and has processed a total of more than 7 million claims in just a few months, almost doubling the claim total over the worst full year in the wake of the 2007-2009 recession  3.8 million claims in 2010.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender
An Air Force staff sergeant pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges of murder and attempted murder in connection to the killing of a federal security guard in Oakland.

A federal grand jury indicted Steven Carrillo, a 32-year-old Ben Lomond resident, on charges of first-degree murder of a person assisting an officer or employee of the United States, as well as attempted murder of a person assisting an officer or employee of the U.S.

He is accused of being the gunman who sprayed bullets across a guard shack May 29 in front of the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, killing 53-year-old David Patrick Underwood and wounding another officer. A week after that attack, Carrillo allegedly ambushed sheriffs deputies in Santa Cruz County, killing Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller.

On Thursday, Carrillo was appointed a lawyer, James Thomson, who entered the not guilty pleas during a virtual arraignment. Carrillo appeared from Santa Rita Jail via video, wearing jail scrubs and a blue mask that he removed as the hearing started.

His next court date was scheduled for

Aug. 6.

Carrillo, who was active duty at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, allegedly plotted the attack in Oakland while protesters marched through the citys downtown in a demonstration against police brutality, which he allegedly saw as a distraction for authorities.

An accomplice in the Oakland shooting, Robert Alvin Justus Jr. of Millbrae, is due in court July 23. Federal authorities accused him of being the driver of the van from which Carrillo opened fire on the guard shack.

Justus pleaded not guilty last week to two charges of aiding and abetting Carrillo, according to court records.

The attack set off a weeklong manhunt that ended June 6 in Ben Lomond, where Santa Cruz County sheriffs deputies received a call about a suspicious white van abandoned off Jamison Creek Road.

Carrillo allegedly ambushed the responding deputies, killing Gutzwiller and wounding another officer. Prosecutors in Santa Cruz County filed a slew of charges, including murder, in connection to the case.

Federal authorities have linked Carrillo to the Boogaloo movement, an anti-government extremist group whose supporters believe there is an impending civil war.

Alejandro Serrano is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alejandro.serrano@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @serrano_alej
State lawmakers skewered prison officials on Wednesday over their handling of a coronavirus crisis that has killed 22 incarcerated people across the state and infected nearly 5,000 others, taking special aim at prison transfers that effectively delivered the virus to multiple institutions.

At a partially virtual Senate oversight hearing, officials for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and its health care system acknowledged the botched prisoner transfers to San Quentin and Corcoran state prisons, confirming the missteps first revealed last month by The Chronicle. Those mistakes included a failure to test incarcerated patients for the coronavirus for up to a month before they were transferred.

Ralph Diaz, secretary of the states prison system, told senators that officials have recently faced setbacks, and he specifically noted the San Quentin outbreak that has sickened more than 1,100 people in custody and 100 staffers.

But the secretary also defended the prisons efforts to thwart infections from incarcerated people, staff and communities, adding that many prisons have seen no cases to date.

We can do better. And I know we will do better, Diaz said. But I need to express weve also had successes.

Wednesdays hearing  held by the Senate Committee on Public Safety  was initially scheduled for later in the year, but it was to moved up to before the Senates summer recess because of deteriorating conditions at San Quentin and Corcoran, committee Chair Nancy Skinner said last week.

J. Clark Kelso, leader of California Correctional Health Care Services, addressed the committee and provided new, disturbing details about the ill-fated transfer from the California Institution for Men in Chino to Corcoran and San Quentin state prisons.

For the first time, Kelso publicly acknowledged that the men sent away from Chino had not been tested for the coronavirus for up to four weeks prior to the late May transfers, confirming what sources told The Chronicle.

Kelso explained that the decision of whom to transfer was based on a matrix assessment for patient movement, with the goal of sparing medically vulnerable prisoners from infection. In order to be transferred, the matrix required that a patient test negative for coronavirus and not be transferred prior to the availability of those test results.

However, Kelso said, the matrix did not specify that the required negative test had to occur within only a short period of time before the transfer.

The weeks-old results, he acknowledged, were far too old to be a reliable indicator for the absence of COVID.

Two of the 66 patients transferred to Corcoran tested positive immediately upon arrival, Kelso said. At San Quentin, where more than 120 men were sent, 25 tested positive.

Neither San Quentin nor Corcoran had any known cases in its populations until that point.

Largely because of the five-tiered cell blocks at San Quentin and testing turnaround issues, Kelso said, San Quentin almost immediately fell behind the virus.

Skinner, who represents Oakland and neighboring East Bay cities, was visibly emotional even behind her California state flag mask, and she said she still couldnt understand the rationale behind the transfers.

How (could there) have been a transfer with people that had not been tested for two or three weeks? she said. Its abhorrent.

In a later panel discussion, Skinner said that anyone who watches TV knows that coronavirus test results are only reliable for about 48 hours.

Skinner criticized prison officials assertion that they have released about 8,000 people since the pandemic hit the U.S., adding that the figure was about the same number that would have been released in normal times.

The senator asked Kelso whether he had the authority to order the type of widespread releases that advocates and some lawmakers are demanding, which would make room for appropriate physical distancing. Skinner said these housing changes do not have to be releases into the public, but could also go to non-prison settings where incarcerated people could still be monitored.

I do not believe I have authority myself to order housing changes or releases that would put patients outside the institution, Kelso said, noting an exception for hospital care. I dont believe I have the higher power to do what youre asking.

The Wednesday hearing occurred amid mounting pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom and prison officials to make the types of major population cuts that have been resisted in the past.

Prison officials recently announced that they are setting up a new emergency incident command center at San Quentin, as well as tents, to make room for coronavirus patients.

As of late last week, prison officials were gearing up for yet another transfer, planning to move as many as 150 men out of San Quentin to North Kern State Prison near Bakersfield. But the transfer was called off after two of the men bound for Kern tested positive.

Prison officials are now considering transferring up to 300 people at San Quentin who have recovered from the virus to other facilities.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
The Bay Areas first and only Ohlone food pop-up has shuttered following the permanent closure of its host, University Press Books in Berkeley, last month. Well, perhaps shuttered isnt the right word.

We dont want to give the notion that were closed for good at all, says co-founder Vincent Medina. Were always thinking of Cafe Ohlone as a fluid thing that can move past any one location.

When I asked Medina and partner Louis Trevino how best to describe this transition, they emphasized that this wasnt a closure in the traditional way we tend to think, though the Cafe Ohlone as I knew it, the one nestled in the back room and courtyard of a bookstore, would be gone for good. Like it or not, I instinctively tie the experience of eating with them with the herbaceous scent of nettle tea intermingled with the mustiness of books, opened and examined by countless thumbs: To me, the bookstore ambiance is as much a character in this as anything else.

Cafe Ohlone closed to the public on March 14, a few days before the Bay Areas blanket shelter-in-place order. Yet the 2-year-old pop-up is just one facet of the work that Medina and Trevino do through their organization, mak-amham. They have spent the duration of shelter-in-place continuing their work with Muwekma Ohlone tribal members: conducting Chochenyo language classes over Zoom, teaching Ohlone recipes via livestream, delivering meals to elders and learning the craft of making rope from the fibers of rushes and other plants. Theyre also starting to organize socially distanced, masked-up salt gathering trips to the salt flats of San Lorenzo Creek in Hayward.

Trevino says that theyve been taking things very slowly and returning to the lessons learned by their community during past epidemics. Family archives show that, after the mission era, their ancestors in the Bay Areas urban centers would take to the hills to avoid diseases like the Spanish flu, tuberculosis and measles. They would send scouts once in a while to report on the situation; but in the meantime, they would wait it out. Thats where were at right now, says Trevino. Like the rest of the community, theyre staying cautious and waiting for the all-clear.

Even if theyre not in a hurry, Medina and Trevino are looking forward to the future of their project, and its going to be much more ambitious than another pop-up. When we do have another restaurant its going to be a hyped-up version of what we had before, says Medina. Its going to be sustainable, something thats going to last. Its going to be big. They imagine a self-sufficient, standalone community space, potentially located closer to the core of the Ohlone community in central Alameda County, where the roots of their culture run deep. The space would be open for dining a few days a week, but it would also fulfill what the founders say is an urgent need for an Ohlone cultural space in the Bay Area.

We have no museum, no dedicated cultural space beyond the homes of family members. We deserve cultural space for us. Were the first people of this space! Medina added, Obviously the governments doing nothing, so weve got to find a way to do it ourselves.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle 2019

Through brainstorming with their community and collaborators, Medina and Trevino have also developed a way to bring people the dining experience of Cafe Ohlone in boxed form in the meantime, set to launch in the late summer.

More than simply takeout, the monthly boxes are meant to be experiential and layered: slow, intentional and curated, Medina says. It would be a sensory explosion of Ohlone culture.

Bound up with handmade rope, the boxes would be filled with gathered herbs and flowers whose aromas would blast out as soon as they were opened: clarifying yerba buena, licorice-like artemesias, black sage, honey-scented manzanita blossoms. Underneath, you would find a seasonal Ohlone meal with all of the fixings, like acorn bread, fiddleheads, smoked walnut oil and chilled cuts of venison with cooking directions.

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Theyre also working on sourcing tapered candles from a local beekeeper to help set the mood. Ideally, these boxes would be made from sustainably sourced cedar wood. They estimate they will cost around $150, or the same price as the pop-ups Saturday dinners.

Another key component will be a link to a private Vimeo page, where Medina and Trevino hope to host customized videos of them introducing the meal and sharing aspects of Ohlone culture, just like before. Community elders would be able to join in as well and record snippets of video to include.

It would be be a collective effort again, says Medina. The team is optimistic about the project and hope to make 50 to 60 boxes per month in a commercial kitchen. They say it would enable them to keep Cafe Ohlone alive while also allowing them the time to continue their community work.

In their announcement of this project on mak-amhams website, the team signed off with this sentiment, written in Chochenyo: numma, ewweh tuuxi huyyuwistruthfully, a brighter day is ahead.

Soleil Ho is The San Francisco Chronicles restaurant critic. Email: soleil@sfchronicle.com
The number of protests demanding police reform and an end to systemic racism have started to wane. So where does the Black Lives Matter movement go from here? Sheryl Davis, executive director of San Francisco's Human Rights Commission, has been surveying people of color about what they want to see happen next. She joins host Heather Knight on The Chronicles Fifth and Mission podcast to talk about why she thinks society will start to see big changes. Below is an edited transcript of the full episode.

What has it been like for you to run San Francisco's Human Rights Commission during a time when so many people are talking about the issue of human rights and pointing out that so many people have more rights than others? Does your work seem more important than ever right now?



Sheryl Davis: It does. I think one of the things that we're kind of benefiting from is that the work that we've already been doing is kind of elevated and people are more responsive.



And I think maybe a month ago  definitely two months ago  if we had tried to say, "We need to center these conversations around Black and brown people," I think it would have been a little bit harder. The conversation would have been more like, "Well, everybody needs to be supported."



But now, with what's happening with COVID-19 for the Latinx population and what we see nationally with the Black community  both in terms of death to COVID-19 but also to police brutality  is a call to "change that landscape." And it makes it easier to talk about our Samoan population of folks who are small in number but disparately impacted. So now, we are able to say that we should seize this moment to push some of the things that didn't seem quite as important to folks three months ago.



And it seems like the daily protests around Black Lives Matter are starting to wane a little bit in terms of frequency and number, but I was wondering where you think the movement goes from here, and if you think this was sort of a moment in time or will it lead to lasting change.



Sheryl Davis: I do think it's a little bit of both. I keep saying to people, "We need to hit while some of this stuff is still trending." But there's a level of it that may wane.

But not for the young people. They are going to be voting soon. They are changing things. And I think the structural pieces that we've become used to are not going to be in place when this group of young people are my age. It'll be a very different world. I think that they've tasted the power of their voice and their movement. Even though other people may begin to ignore what they're doing, the young people are going to keep pushing. And when they're in power, it's going to be very different.



There are issues that are now right in our face  whether it's different races being more likely or less likely to get the virus in the first place, educational disparities, income disparities, all sorts of things. How are you thinking about these issues? And do you think that the fact that they're staring us in the face right now will force us to work on them?



Sheryl Davis: I mean, that is what we're hoping. I've heard from a lot of the communities that have seen additional attention and resources say, Look, we don't want to go back to normal right now because normal



It wasn't good.



Sheryl Davis: Now, food security is a heightened awareness. They're pouring more resources into some of the communities where efforts around food are different than what we were doing before. Education-wise, folks are realizing that Wi-Fi is really not the greatest in certain communities and neighborhoods. And just giving someone a device is not enough. Theres this idea of getting books and activities and supporting folks.

So we're really working hard to ensure that we don't forget about folks who are afraid and worried that we're going to go back to normal  because they felt invisible and forgotten, like there was no path forward out of poverty, or experiencing some of the disparities they were living through. So the challenge has been put to us.

Fifth & Mission is The San Francisco Chronicle's flagship news podcast. Keep up with the biggest Bay Area stories of the day by subscribing to Fifth & Mission on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find our full slate of podcasts at sfchronicle.com/podcasts
The Supreme Court granted a request by U.S. chocolate companies Thursday to decide whether they can be sued for allegedly taking part in slave labor in Africa, a case that could decide whether U.S. companies are legally immune for actions abroad.

A lawsuit by six former child laborers on cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast accused U.S. companies Nestle U.S.A. and Cargill of collaborating in their enslavement and brutal treatment while working without pay for up to 14 hours a day, six days a week. The case has trudged through the legal system for 15 years, and reached the Supreme Court once before but was turned back for reconsideration under the courts 2018 ruling restricting U.S. suits for conduct in foreign countries.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled last year that the suit could proceed, citing allegations that both companies aided and financed the plantations while aware that slave labor was a pervasive problem in the African nation. Dissenting judges, led by appointees of President Trump, argued that U.S. law did not authorize suits against corporations for their conduct in foreign countries.

On Thursday, the high court set the appeals court ruling aside, granted review of the Nestle and Cargill cases and agreed to consolidate them for hearing in the term that begins in October. The companies appeals were supported by filings from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, other corporations and the Trump administration.

The six plaintiffs said they were kidnapped at ages 12 to 14 from the African nation of Mali and taken to plantations on the Ivory Coast, which is the worlds largest producer of cocoa. They said their overseers forced them to work without pay, beat and whipped them, gave them scraps to eat, and locked them in small rooms at night.

While the U.S. chocolate makers said they do not tolerate child slave labor, the appeals court said the domestic chocolate industry persuaded Congress in 2001 to defeat a bill that would have required all importers and manufacturers to certify that their products were slave free.

The suit relies on the Alien Tort Statute, a law dating from 1789 that allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts for violations of international law. The Supreme Courts 2018 ruling said the law could not be used against companies located abroad. The current case could set limits on suits against U.S. companies.

The alleged forced labor and other abuses were committed by farmers in Cote dIvoire, lawyers for Cargill said in a Supreme Court filing, using the countrys formal name. And Cargills alleged substantial assistance all occurred on the ground in Cote dIvoire  the financial support to Ivorian farmers as well as the training and capacity building and provision of farming supplies.

Allowing such lawsuits for actions on foreign soil, they argued, would discourage U.S. corporations from investing in developing countries, and would undermine U.S. foreign policy, which favors trade and investment in those countries.

Lawyers for the workers told the court the companies were extensively involved in the operations, visiting the farms where the youths labored, then providing advance unrestricted payments, personal spending money and a guaranteed market (to the farms) in the form of exclusive buyer contracts for slave-made goods.

The cases are Nestle vs. Doe, 19-416, and Cargill vs. Doe, 19-453.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
What pains me most about the continued loss of Black trans life is that nearly everyone who is identified as Black knows the sting of stigma and the trauma of discrimination, Johns continued. We know the horror of being the victim of violence simply because of socially constructed ideas of Blackness. This shared experience alone should be enough for each of us, everyone who is Black, regardless of cis or trans experience, to collectively call for and do the work to end the violence that trans and non-binary members of our community experiencetoo often in silence. Merci Mack deserves better, as a community we failed her and so many of our trans siblings, and this is beyond unacceptable.
In 1776, John Adams hoped this day, July 2, would be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other. Heres hoping that when this weekends Independence Day celebrations are over, Adams will have gotten more than the date wrong.

This Fourth of July, sadly, is no time for festivals, parades or shews, other than the Netflix variety. With the coronavirus pandemic resurgent in California and across much of the West and South, lives depend on our collective will to suppress our penchant for gathering, particularly on holidays.

Otherwise joyous holidays and other festivities are a documented danger during pandemics, tempting families and friends to get together and take up old traditions and habits. Some of the current acceleration of infections has been traced to gatherings around Memorial Day. The Lunar New Year holiday in China and Mardi Gras in New Orleans are believed to have accelerated the contagion in January and February. During the 1918 flu pandemic, a parade to support the war effort in Philadelphia and celebrations of the armistice in San Francisco preceded waves of new infections.

With more than twice as many confirmed COVID-19 deaths as any other country and new infections again rising sharply, the United States is still the epicenter of the pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers this week that the current rate of more than 40,000 new cases a day could reach 100,000 without changes.

The Bay Area and California, meanwhile, this week recorded their two highest daily totals of new infections as the states death toll passed 6,000. Other signs point to a mounting outbreak, not just better detection through increased testing. The share of tests yielding positive results is also creeping upward, from 4.4% two weeks ago to 5.9% this week. And in the most troubling signal of the toll to come, coronavirus-related hospitalizations have climbed 43% statewide and 49% in San Francisco in that period.

After weeks of hastily reopening the economy, threatening to undo the states early success in stemming infections, Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed an escalating series of measures to slow the contagion. He issued a statewide mask mandate on June 18, ordered or urged bars in 15 counties to close or remain closed on Monday, and, on Wednesday, ordered restaurant dining and several other indoor activities to cease in 19 counties, including Santa Clara, Contra Costa and Solano. Local orders have also reversed planned or implemented reopenings of high-risk businesses such as bars, gyms and salons in the region.

These measures should send a signal that Californians must redouble their efforts to eschew gatherings outside their households. A smaller and quieter celebration of the nations birth will ensure that more Americans are here for the next one.

Judging by the nightly sounds of San Francisco, Oakland and other cities across America in recent weeks, however, the fireworks, albeit unsanctioned, are still on. Just dont get too close to them  or each other.

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.
Upcoming political events in the Bay Area. Events take place online unless otherwise noted:

THURSDAY

Latinos and the coronavirus: A discussion about the risk factors, particularly around employment and housing, that make the pandemic a public health challenge for the Latino community, and what Latino-serving organizations are doing to address them. Panelists include Jacqueline Garcel, executive director of the Latino Community Foundation; Miriam Yupanqui, executive director of Nuestra Casa; and Crisantema Gallardo, director of 99Rootz. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 9:30 a.m. More information is here.

Trump and the Middle East: How the Trump presidency is affecting the Middle East. Panelists include author Banafsheh Keynoush and Eddy Simonian of the University of San Francisco. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 2 p.m. More information is here.

Contraception and conservation: How population growth and overconsumption are at the root of environmental problems such as wildlife crisis, habitat loss and climate change. A discussion about solutions including the empowerment of women and girls, universal access to reproductive health care and education, and healthy and secure food systems. Hosted by the Center for Biological Diversity. 4 p.m. More information is here.

High courts year: Ben Feuer, chairman of the California Appellate Law Group, analyzes the U.S. Supreme Courts session. Hosted by Mannys. 6 p.m. More information is here.

SATURDAY

Sean Monterrosa march: Protest and march in response to the release of the body cam footage of Sean Monterrosas killing by a Vallejo police officer. Hosted by Vessels of Vallejo. Noon. Vallejo City Hall, 555 Santa Clara St. More information is here.

JULY 15

Resurgent coronavirus: Where we are in the pandemic and what to expect the rest of the year. Speakers include Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, and Dr. Bob Kocher, a member of the California Coronavirus Testing Task Force. Hosted by the Commowealth Club. Noon. More information is here.

JULY 16

Zerlina Maxwell: MSNBC analyst and author of The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide, discusses how progressives can hold themselves accountable for racist and misogynist blindspots. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 3 p.m. More information is here.

Dewey defeats Truman: A.J. Baime, author of Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul, discusses that pivotal election. Hosted by the Commowealth Club. 6 p.m. More information is here.

To list an event, please email Chronicle politics editor Trapper Byrne at tbyrne@sfchronicle.com
Alex Vitales book, The End of Policing, has become a blueprint for the national defund the police reform movement  and San Francisco has a lot to do with that. Much of what shaped Vitales thinking on how to change law enforcement was formed when he was an advocate for homeless people in San Francisco three decades ago.

That was an era when tents filled Civic Center in front of City Hall and the city had really given up on the possibility of actually housing people, Vitale told The Chronicles Its All Political podcast. It was also the era of then-Mayor Frank Jordans Matrix program, which tasked the police with clearing homeless encampments and steering their residents into counseling and housing programs.

It didnt work.

The city just turned the problem over to the police to manage, said Vitale, who worked at San Franciscos Coalition on Homelessness in the early 1990s and is now a sociology professor at Brooklyn College at New York. And that lesson really has stuck with me: that when we see a problem turned over to the police to manage we should look behind that, for the political failure that its enabling.

Vitale wrote his book in 2017 based on two decades of studying the police. Mainstream public opinion has now caught up with it. The movement to defund the police has picked up momentum nationally in the five weeks since George Floyd was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis. California is leading that charge.

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

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to cut $150 million out of the citys $1.8 billion police budget, promising to plow two-thirds of the savings into programs aimed at helping Black, Latino and other underserved communities. Also on Wednesday, Berkeley cut $9 million from its police spending, with City Council members seeking to eventually reduce the forces budget by half.

Oakland leaders sliced $14 million out of the citys $300 million police budget last month and now say they want to cut more. San Francisco Mayor London Breed has committed to redirecting money from the Police Department to the citys Black community. The Oakland school board voted to eliminate the districts police department.

Vitale called the proposed moves in San Francisco promising. But he cautioned that reformers shouldnt expect wholesale changes to happen tomorrow ... (or during) this budget cycle. He said it could take five years to redirect half of a police budget into social and community services  which is what he believes defund the police means.

It takes time to put in place these alternative infrastructures, to ramp up community-based anti-violence movements, to ramp up the availability of mental health outreach workers, to increase the number of counselors in schools, Vitale said. All of this is going to take some time, and its going to take time to create the political will for this.

Yet, after years of studying policing in America, Vitale is skeptical, if not outright dubious, about some changes cities are discussing to reform policing. Some, he said, are reheated ideas that havent curbed police power in the past.

Start with the concept of community policing, where officers spend more time interacting with locals and getting to know them and their problems on a nonemergency basis instead of patrolling in squad cars and responding only to crimes.

Its a nice idea, Vitale said, but it still miscasts the police as social workers, psychologists, housing experts or doctors.

What tools do police have to solve our community problems? Theyve got guns and handcuffs and ticket books, Vitale said. They dont have access to affordable housing, they dont have access to youth jobs. They dont have access to mental health services. They dont have access to high-quality medical drug treatment.

So, by saying that were going to just fix policing by further embedding it as the only solution to community problems, youre actually making the situation worse, Vitale said.

Other reformers say policing would improve if officers received better training in avoiding confrontations. Vitale, however, pointed out that Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who knelt on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes, and the three officers who stood by as it happened, had received de-escalation and implicit bias training.

I wish we could fix this with training, but I just dont think we can, Vitale said. Ive been a police scholar for a couple of decades now, and I just dont see the evidence that this training makes a meaningful difference.

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

Vitale is also skeptical that more racially and ethnically diverse police forces will do much to bring about reform. While he said that recent studies have shown that female officers are better at defusing confrontations, a more diverse force just changes police responses at the margins.

We have to remember that police are a tool of government, and they get their marching orders from the political leaders of a city, Vitale said. And so if the message sent is get rid of those kids on the corner, the race of the police officer just doesnt matter.

Regardless of an officers race or sex, the fundamental problem of modern policing remains the same, Vitale said: Were using police to paper over social problems without giving them any tools to really do that, without really addressing those issues, and that leads to a lot of unnecessary criminalization.

The pace of police reform, Vitale said, depends on how long the multiracial coalition demanding it remains in the streets and pressures people in city halls.

This is always an open question, he said. Anybody who thinks they know what the future of the social movement is, you know, is kind of fooling themselves.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
Poherence was working at a rally on May 31 with other officers when he was filmed shoving a woman, later identified as Jada Servance, to the ground. She was kneeling and had both hands in the air during the confrontation.
It has not been a quiet week on the drinking beat. Lets review.

The wine industry continues to reckon with its failures to be inclusive and equitable for people of color, and this week brought a little bit of long-overdue visibility for some. Three Bay Area wine personalities  masters of wine Martin R. Reyes and Mary Margaret McCamic, plus DLynn Proctor of Fantesca Estate  created Wine Unify, an organization that aims to increase diversity within the wine industry, largely through funding education. And wine writer Julia Coney launched Black Wine Professionals, a database that she hopes will help promote the work and talent of Black people making a career in wine.

In the New York Times, Eric Asimov wrote about a few of those professionals, including Coney, and the challenges they have endured.

And in Punch, sommelier Miguel de Leon shared a diary-like account of some crucial moments in his career  and life. I got into wine because of its ability to connect people, he writes. Structures that aim to keep people like me away from this space dont get the point of why wine exists.

Meanwhile, bars have been at the center of the COVID-19 reopening crisis. Bars that had already reopened in several California counties suddenly had to close again, after the state noted a spike in coronavirus cases. In San Francisco, bars were told theyd be able to reopen this week, but that decision was reversed at the eleventh hour, leaving many small business owners frustrated.

Yesterday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that bars and breweries must shut down in 19 California counties, and other businesses, including wineries and restaurants, must close for indoor seating.

One place where bars remain open, however, is Sonoma County, and my colleague Sarah Ravani visited a few spots in Petaluma to see what it feels like to go out drinking right now. It was a rare scene in the Bay Area, she writes of the eerily normal mood at one bar last Saturday night, one that is being closely watched  and may not last.

Ramin Rahimian / Special to The Chronicle

The closures continue to take a massive toll on the people who depend on bars for their livings. This heartwrenching account by Jack Nicas of one Oakland dive bar, the Hatch, is well worth a read.

Whether or not a California bar can be open right now comes down to one thing: food. Bars that serve food can resume business  albeit in an attenuated form  and those that dont cannot. It ends up feeling like a fairly arbitrary distinction, and I dont blame business owners for feeling frustrated with it. (Im having deja vu, remembering the frustration of California wineries in May over the same exact thing.)

In other news: celebrity wine! The latest star to launch a wine brand is Portland Trail Blazers player CJ McCollum, whos working with Oregons Adelsheim Vineyards to produce a Pinot Noir  and proving that the NBAs obsession with fine wine is still going strong.

What Im drinking

Ramin Rahimian / Special to The Chronicle

And now for something that has nothing to do with current events but is just about  wine.

I have a big feature out this week on the promise of Alpine-style wines in Mendocino County. Three winemakers have begun cultivating grape varieties including Jacquere, Nebbiolo and Schiava at three different vineyards, all with the idea that these sites could be well-suited to grapes that thrive in mountainous European wine regions in and around the Alps.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Part of why this story interested me  apart from the possibility of some delicious wines  is that in California were always justifying viticultural decisions by looking to Europe. Were obsessed with tracking similarities between places here and places there. Plant Pinot Noir in limestone, like in Burgundy! And Cabernet Sauvignon in gravel, like in Bordeaux! And now, were applying that same reasoning to hilly, chilly, mountainous corners of California, as we put in Mondeuse and Kerner. So part of what I wanted to address in this piece is: How necessary is that logic, really?

The Alpine effort is still nascent, and it will still be a few years before we can taste anything. But the three winemakers behind it  Evan Lewandowski, Sam Bilbro and Mike Lucia  are already all making delicious wines, Alpine-inspired and otherwise, and so I thought Id share a few of my favorites here.

Idlewild Arneis Lost Hills Ranch Yorkville Highlands 2019 ($30, 11.6%): Winemaker Sam Bilbro models the Idlewild portfolio on the wines of Piedmont, and this rendition of the Piedmontese white variety Arneis is stunning. It has a salt-tinged aroma of preserved lemon and, though young, even smells a little honeyed. Theres some grip to the texture here, and the flavors suggest sandalwood, grilled stone fruit and fennel.

Ramin Rahimian / Special to The Chronicle

Rootdown Rose of Trousseau St. Amant Vineyard Amador County 2019 ($23, 11.9%): Trousseau, the signature red grape of Frances Alpine-adjacent Jura region, is a major focus for Rootdown Cellars winemaker Mike Lucia. Hes planting more of it at Cole Ranch, the Mendocino County vineyard he bought last year, but in the meantime continues to make red and rose versions from the venerable St. Amant Vineyard. While the red Trousseau is all earth, the rose is insistently fruity, with flavors of almost-ripe apricot, strawberry and cantaloupe. Its got a pleasantly bitter bite, making it an ideal summer aperitif.

Ruth Lewandowski Feints American Wine 2019 ($25, 12.1%): Winemaker Evan Lewandowskis Feints cuvee is a co-fermentation of a white grape (Arneis) with three reds (Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo), all Piedmontese varieties planted at Fox Hill Vineyard in Mendocino County. Its a prime example of glou glou  light, chuggable and natural  and bears the exuberantly fruity, lightly fizzy hallmark of carbonic maceration. The wine reminds me of lingonberry, orange peel, and produces an effect not dissimilar from a Campari and soda.

Drinking with Esther is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicles wine critic. Follow along on Twitter: @Esther_Mobley and Instagram: @esthermob
The West Hollywood station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced Wednesday it will issue non-criminal citations to people who don't comply with the statewide mask order.

Violators will be required to pay $300  a $250 fine and $50 processing fee  for the first offense.

"Our last option was to conduct enforcement by using an administrative citation, but the risk to community health is too great," the sheriff's department said in a statement.

In California, Monterey is also citing people for not wearing masks in the city's commercial districts. The fee in Monterey is $100 for first offense, $150 for second and $300 for third.

Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the statewide mask order on June 18 and this week said he may take additional steps to ensure it's enforced on the local level.

"If you're not going to stay home, and you're not going to wear masks in public, we have to enforce, and we will," Newsom said.

Several jurisdictions outside the state have started issuing citations: In New Mexico you can be fined $100 for not wearing a mask, and in Savannah, Ga., the fee is $500.

Meanwhile in Germany, people who violate a mandatory mask mandate can be fined up to $5,000, according to CNN.

While none of the Bay Area counties have announced mask fines, San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa has called on Newsom to issue a statewide fine, according to KRON 4.

Amy Graff is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
As California raced to expand coronavirus testing this spring, advisers to the state noticed one company pitching particularly hard to assist: China's BGI Group.

The company's U.S. subsidiary and one of BGI's partners were approaching city, county and state officials with offers to sell supplies and help set up entire labs, proposing to export a rapid testing model that they said had helped contain China's outbreak.

In the end, the advisers recommended that California exercise caution about BGI and its U.S. subsidiary, CGI; one of the advisers recommended avoiding them all together. But BGI's efforts to sell testing supplies in a state now facing a new surge of infections underscores a dilemma the United States will face again and again as China's ambitious technology companies gain prominence globally: Under what circumstances should U.S. officials and businesses engage with the Chinese tech sector?

Bob Kocher, a physician and venture capital executive who volunteers on the state's coronavirus-testing task force, said in an interview that BGI's pitching raised red flags for him. For one, he was worried about relying on a Chinese company for critical medical supplies, given U.S.-China tensions. He was also concerned that allowing a China-headquartered entity to equip U.S. laboratories for coronavirus testing or other future purposes could give China access to sensitive patient data.

Kocher said his concern was sparked in part by a brief and inconclusive U.S. intelligence report cautioning that CGI "may be vulnerable to Chinese influence." He added, however, that he has seen no evidence of data breaches involving BGI or CGI, and BGI wholly rejected the idea.

Kocher discussed the matter with another of the state's unpaid coronavirus advisers, D.J. Patil, a health-care-technology executive who previously served as the Obama administration's chief data scientist. In an interview, Patil said he raised a different concern - that giving BGI a bigger role in U.S. laboratories could strengthen China in the fast-growing and ethically sensitive fields of biotechnology and genetic science - sectors the United States hopes to continue leading.

Kocher in early April advised California's health secretary, Mark Ghaly, to steer clear of BGI supplies, saying the state had better options, and the health secretary agreed, said Kocher, a partner at Venrock, a venture-capital fund that previously owned a stake in BGI rival Illumina and currently owns part of a company aiming to compete in a field where BGI is also present.

Patil said he advised testing task force members to tread carefully and consider the long-term ramifications of using BGI supplies.

Ghaly didn't respond to requests for comment. "The state has evaluated multiple testing options in its efforts to significantly expand the availability of covid-19 tests and makes decisions based on which testing platforms best meet the needs of California and its diverse residents," said Ali Bay, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health.

BGI called security concerns about its technology "not valid" and lacking in any evidence.

"The testing system that we deploy in the U.S. makes it impossible for us to have access to patient data," Jeremy Nickolenko, an American who heads global commercial partnerships from BGI's U.S. offices, said in an interview. "We can provide the gear, but it's a U.S. laboratory that's actually running the assay and getting the results, and they deal with the data, as they should, per regulation."

"We are a significant testing and technology company with a global footprint, and we can actually make a very significant impact in the midst of a pretty terrible pandemic," Nickolenko added. BGI declined to make its leadership in China available for interviews.

Other countries have welcomed BGI to set up high-speed testing labs, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And testing centers in Sweden and Kansas - and in California's Santa Clara County, despite the state's cold shoulder - have purchased supplies from the company, saying they didn't fear data breaches.

Santa Clara officials took the security concerns into account before buying one piece of equipment but are "100% confident that no private information would be made available to the company," said deputy county executive David Campos.

- - -

China is spending billions on high-tech development, aiming to dominate technologies that will shape the future of business and defense. Those ambitions have concerned not only the Trump administration and Congress but also U.S. business leaders such as former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, who have warned that the United States cannot afford to cede critical innovation to China.

Tension has already come to a head over Chinese telecom giant Huawei, the world's largest provider of mobile network gear - a field from which U.S. companies are largely absent. The United States calls Huawei a security risk, which the company denies, and has undertaken an international lobbying campaign, with mixed results, to persuade other countries not to buy from Huawei.

The Trump administration has targeted other Chinese companies, restricting trade with more than a dozen it accuses of supplying surveillance gear in the western province of Xinjiang, where U.S. officials and human rights groups say China's ruling Communist Party is holding Muslims in mass detention camps.

And the United States has blocked Chinese investors from buying U.S. technology companies deemed strategic to economic growth or national security. Last year, the Trump administration forced a Chinese company founded by BGI's former chief executive to sell its majority stake in a U.S. health-care-data company, PatientsLikeMe.

At the same time, Chinese companies, often backed by significant government financing that critics say can sometimes represent an unfair subsidy, are cranking out a slew of high-tech products. Their growing output, including industrial drones, electric buses and more, makes Chinese tech harder to avoid or contain.

"One and a half billion people are going to come up with a lot of cool stuff," said Rod Hunter, a trade lawyer at Baker McKenzie and a former national security official in the George W. Bush administration. "If it's something with the potential to save human lives, are we going to say we don't want it? For U.S. policymakers, it's going to be a tough choice."

V.J. Sahi, a partner at the corporate advisory firm Clark Street Associates, who was hired by BGI's U.S. subsidiary to pitch state officials, said the campaign hasn't borne much fruit. "Candidly, we haven't had a lot of success. There is a lot of xenophobia," he said in an interview. "Some people have been direct with us and said, 'No, because it's from China.'"

California is doing a better job providing coronavirus testing than many U.S. states are, but it lags behind the most highly regarded countries and has reported some "worrying signs" in recent days, according to Jennifer Nuzzo, lead epidemiologist for the Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Testing Insights Initiative.

A low rate of positive tests is a sign of a strong testing program. About 4 to 5% of tests in California have come back positive in recent weeks, though that number is now rising toward 6% - better than Arizona's 23% but worse than South Korea's rate of under 2%, Nuzzo said.

"There are some worrying signs in California. Positivity and case numbers are ticking up," Nuzzo said. "I think measures the governor is taking to address increasing case growth is important."

The state's public health department says it is making progress. "California's testing capacity continues to increase dramatically - scaling up from just 2,000 per day in April" to about 100,000 a day now, the department said in a statement.

- - -

BGI, based in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, is well known in the fields of genetic research and medical diagnostics. Its co-founder and chairman, Wang Jian, is a prominent geneticist who spent six years as a research fellow in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s.

The company's coronavirus-related products enable a standard form of testing that extracts genetic material known as RNA from nasal swab samples, then determines whether it matches the genetics of the novel coronavirus.

A separate BGI business is more closely tied to the future of biotech: selling DNA-sequencing machines and services. The machines, which resemble photocopiers, are like fancy digital cameras that scan DNA molecules to decode the full genetic makeup of people, animals and other organisms.

The genetic maps, or genomes, the machines generate are a hot commodity as researchers worldwide attempt to decipher the genetic underpinnings of life and disease, with the hope of finding new medicines or crops.

BGI has some prominent supporters in U.S. academia, including George Church, the Harvard geneticist who has served on the Chinese company's scientific advisory board since 2007. In 2017, BGI established the George Church Institute of Regenesis, a research collaboration between Church's lab and about a dozen staffers at BGI in China.

The group is attempting to synthesize organisms from human-made DNA, among other projects, Church said in an interview. Church also has a business relationship with BGI: Consumers who want their genomes decoded can send saliva samples to a company he co-founded, Nebula Genomics, which sends them to BGI labs in Hong Kong for sequencing.

Harris Lewin, a professor of evolution and ecology at University of California at Davis, has worked with BGI through the Earth Biogenome Project, an international consortium aiming to sequence many of the planet's species. "They've honored all their commitments to the organization," he said. "They've been good partners."

Some of BGI's activities have drawn scrutiny, however. Over the past year, a unit of BGI has sold China's public security bureaus supplies needed to collect and analyze DNA from millions of men and boys who have no serious criminal history, according to a recent report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which called the collection a violation of human rights and a disturbing extension of China's efforts to "manage and control society."

The BGI subsidiary Forensic Genomics International is one of two dozen Chinese companies that have supplied testing kits or other materials to the project, along with the U.S. company Thermo Fisher, according to the study, which analyzed government purchase orders. The New York Times earlier reported details of the project.

Emile Dirks, an author of the report and a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, said the men and boys being targeted "really have no capacity to refuse" to give a blood sample and are often located in rural or semi-rural communities where public scrutiny of the collection is less likely. He said the size of the project suggests that companies "are aware on some level what is being done with their technology."

In a written statement addressing the report, BGI said it "does not condone and would never be involved in any human-rights abuses."

The company "has a long track record in applying strict ethical standards and protection of data privacy and security," added the statement, which was provided by Matthew Ballard, senior vice president of the public relations firm BCW Global.

American researchers who have interacted with Wang, BGI's chairman, call him a talented scientist who has at times stirred controversy. One pointed to remarks Wang made at a 2018 panel discussion where he said that employees of BGI, which sells prenatal tests, are "not allowed" to have babies with birth defects.

"If there is a birth defect, it is a humiliation for all 7,000 of our employees. It would mean we are swindling the public," he said, in remarks reported by the Chinese publication Sixth Tone and captured on video.

Asked about the comments, BGI said "there are no such company rules."

- - -

BGI was founded as the nonprofit Beijing Genomics Institute in 1999, to participate in the Human Genome Project, the international consortium that mapped the first human genome. It relocated to Shenzhen in 2007. In late 2009, it received a $1.5 billion line of credit from the state-run China Development Bank, after which it purchased 128 DNA sequencers from California-based Illumina, the U.S. company announced. At the time, it was Illumina's largest-ever order.

Three years later, BGI and Illumina found themselves on opposite sides in a bidding war to acquire Complete Genomics, a California-based company whose acquisition gave BGI access to the sequencing technology it now sells. During that fight, BGI complained that Illumina was raising unfair national security concerns about it, but the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, reviewed the deal for national security risks and cleared it.

Still, the one-page U.S. intelligence report reviewed by Kocher and Patil, dated April 10, said BGI's U.S. subsidiary "may be vulnerable to Chinese influence" via its parent company, which the report said had "multiple connections to Chinese state government," including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

"Chinese influence over CGI could provide China with access to the sensitive medical data of patients who use its medical testing," said the unclassified report from the Department of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which The Washington Post reviewed. It did not elaborate on this risk.

The Air Force declined to comment on BGI or on the specifics of the document, but said in a statement provided by spokeswoman Linda Card: "A foreign organization that may incidentally gain access to the protected health information (PHI) of current or future U.S. Government personnel through community-based medical testing services, may present an increased opportunity for third-party, foreign intelligence entities to access and exploit that data."

It added: "The reports that we produce for senior leaders and decision makers are sometimes drawn from publicly available information and placed in a single document to help inform."

Asked about the report, BGI said it "takes all aspects of data protection, privacy and ethics extremely seriously" and has "no access to patient data" via coronavirus testing. It added that BGI is not "owned or funded by the Chinese government."

- - -

BGI's expertise in the current health crisis dates to late December, when the company determined that the covid-19 illness appearing in Wuhan, China, was caused by a novel coronavirus, according to Chinese media outlet Caixin.

On Jan. 25, two days after China locked down Wuhan, Wang led a team to the city to set up testing, according to the company, which later opened similar "Fire Eye" labs in Shenzhen, Beijing and other cities.

By the end of March, BGI and China were promoting the testing gear all over the world. After a phone call between President Xi and Saudi King Salman, Saudi Arabia hired the company to establish six testing labs and provide 500 Chinese testing specialists, according to the Saudi Press Agency. In the United Arab Emirates, BGI and a local cloud computing company, Group 42, jointly opened a testing lab in late March, the Chinese company said.

As the United States struggled to ramp up testing, offers of BGI supplies arrived at all levels of California government.

"We propose to establish the world's largest COVID-19 testing facility through a public private partnership," said an April 5 proposal that BGI's U.S. subsidiary sent state officials, the mayor of San Jose and task force members, including Kocher. "By working with the state's existing CLIA testing labs, this operation could be running tests in less than 2 weeks," it added.

BGI executive Nickolenko said the company's mention of CLIA labs, which are federally regulated, shows it was expecting California to be fully in charge of any testing operation.

A second proposal from BGI's partner in the United Arab Emirates, Group 42, struck Patil and Kocher as more concerning. It said Group 42 and BGI were ready to build two labs on a nonprofit basis and initially operate them.

"G42 and BGI will build, and initially for up to a 30-day period operate, and then transfer two Fire Eye Laboratories . . . to the State of California," read the March 23 proposal, sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) by Group 42 Chief Executive Peng Xiao.

"G42 and BGI will provide the equipment, installation, validation and test protocols and train local staff in California to operate the labs," it said.

"We will only recover from you our actual cost of setting up these two laboratories, which we estimate to be approximately $10,000,000. We will provide the necessary technical personnel to build the labs and train the operational personnel," said the proposal, which even offered to advance California money to help it cover costs.

Patil said he was suspicious of the offer to construct the labs at cost and to advance California money. "What's the catch here?" he asked in an interview.

In an emailed statement, G42 said it was "prepared to absorb upfront costs in exchange for a long-term commitment from California to buy testing kits and supplies for the laboratory facility."

BGI said: "G42 initiated contact with California on behalf of our partnership in the UAE as a possible way to help." Nickolenko said he didn't sign off on the proposal, and that BGI's U.S. unit has never proposed operating California labs.

Newsom's administration declined to comment on the letter.

- - -

Patil said he was also concerned that allowing BGI into U.S. labs could give it market access that the United States would later regret. The country and China are competing to develop industries around DNA sequencing and genomics, he said, including "precision-medicine" ventures to deliver treatments tailored to a patient's genetic profile. Why should the United States help a Chinese company establish its equipment and services in that field, he asked?

"What China has really been trying to do is try to get to a place where they can own the entire supply chain for genomic testing," Patil said. "This is a toehold that they build on."

He added that there are risks to helping China lead a new industry facing so many ethical quandaries. "China is not transparent with their use of technology, and they are using technology in many cases to oppress groups. Do you want them setting the standards?" he asked.

BGI said it "pays particular attention to complying with scientific ethics and personal privacy protection at all times."

Kocher said he feared patients' personal data could leak back to China if California labs opened up to BGI equipment or personnel.

In the case of coronavirus testing, that could include information on the sample test tubes, such as a patient's name, date of birth or the name of their doctor, he said. While this data is sometimes hidden behind a bar code, labs decode the bar codes to submit bills to insurance companies, so the data can exist in lab information systems, Kocher said.

Nickolenko said BGI would have "absolutely no access" to data flowing through the laboratory information system.

Lars Engstrand, a microbiologist who is overseeing a coronavirus-testing lab at Sweden's Karolinska Institute that is using BGI equipment, was skeptical that any personal data could leak out, saying he didn't see any way to obtain patient information protected behind the bar codes on the samples he sees.

Santa Clara County, the home of Silicon Valley and site of the earliest-known coronavirus deaths in the United States, said its officials considered privacy concerns before buying BGI test materials but were confident they could use the supplies in a secure fashion.

The county purchased test kits and a piece of equipment that automates the extraction of RNA from the nasal-swab samples, said Campos, the county official.

"It is a stand-alone piece of equipment. It is not connected to any computer in our system," Campos said. "It doesn't have any patient information," he added.

The instrument will allow the county to performmore tests per minute than other vendors' equipment would, which was the county's priority, he said.

Lewin, the University of California professor, said he would like to see BGI products available in the U.S., to boost levels of coronavirus testing. "Any competition that increases testing capacity, drives down costs and improves quality is good," he said.

- - -

The Washington Post's Eva Dou and Ruth Eglash contributed to this report.
By 1989, prison overcrowding made Texas authorities decide that it was safe to give some inmates their freedom. McDuff was among the 127 murderers and 20 death-row inmates who rode out of jail on a wave of paroles. Nine months later, he was back behind bars after pulling a knife on an African American teen. Inexplicably, by the end of 1990, he was out again, supporting himself by dealing drugs.
Following drastic budget cuts and millions of dollars in revenue loss, the Oakland Zoo is faced with the possibility of closing permanently if it does not receive approval to reopen this month, according to Dr. Joel Parrott, the zoos president and CEO.

Normally, attendance soars during July, and the popular summer months are critical to sustaining the zoos operating costs through the less-visited winter season.

But this year has been anything but normal.

In mid-March, the zoo was forced to close with no reopening date in sight. As the pandemic lingered, zookeepers and veterinary staff had their wages cut by 20%, while the zoos executive staff saw pay reductions of at least 40%. The following month, all part-time and seasonal employees were laid off, and by July, 15 permanent, full-time employees representing 10% of the zoos remaining workforce were also furloughed.

RELATED: 'Last thing to go will be care for animals': Oakland Zoo has used $1.5M of $4.5M reserve

Now, the zoo is down to a dire $3.2 million in its emergency reserve fund. To put that into perspective, the cost to keep the zoo running at its lowest possible operating budget is $1.2 million per month, focused on caring for the animals and 24/7 public safety.

If we dont open in July, we wont make it through the winter, said Parrott. And if thats the case, we have about three months to go.

Though the zoo received a PPP loan in mid-April, it only helped it stay afloat temporarily as it prepared to safely reopen with restrictions in place. Social-distancing markers and hand sanitizer stations were installed throughout the park as staff received special safety training.

During this time, the zoo also spearheaded Behind the Scenes, a daily interactive livestream program with the goal of virtually connecting guests with animals and zookeepers during the shelter-in-place order to help generate revenue.

But as the zoo continued to wait for approval from county public health officials, the funds from its PPP loan ran out, forcing the park to dip into its already draining financial reserves. The Oakland Zoo is currently classified as a Stage 3 business, but Parrott said the staff is vying for it to be considered as an outdoor museum, allowing it to continue operations. The San Francisco Zoo (which was slated to reopen on Monday but later deferred) attempted to obtain a similar title, but was consistently denied.

MORE: San Francisco Zoo not reopening Monday as previously announced

Were more like the East Bay Regional Parks than we are like a theater or restaurant, said Parrott. When people are here, they are outdoors. They very briefly pass one another and are usually in a small, family-sized group. The zoo is not a threat to public health.

He added that none of the zoos employees have tested positive for COVID-19 and are required to wear masks in addition to practicing social distancing. All surfaces are regularly disinfected throughout the day. Additionally, the parks restaurants, play areas and rides will be closed until further notice.

Despite these preparations, Parrott wasnt expecting guests to show up in droves. He noted zoos that have been able to reopen, such as the Sacramento Zoo, reported a 50% drop in attendance. Anticipating a similar turnout for the Oakland Zoo, the staff is in the process of contacting state officials in the hopes that it can be recognized as a Stage 2 business before time runs out.



Weve cut our budget; weve cut our staff, said Parrott. We have ramped up as much as we possibly can in our efforts for philanthropy. But philanthropy cant rescue the zoo.

The public has raised $450,000 since the zoos closure in March  an impressive feat, although one that covers just a quarter of their typical monthly operating costs.

Still, Parrott said, We do need donations in an urgent way. At this point, it will all go straight toward the care of the animals.

The zoo is currently operated by the Conservation Society of California, a nonprofit organization that manages the facility for the city of Oakland under a contract. If the zoo does run out of funds, those operations would be taken over by the Oakland Parks Department, which Parrott said is less equipped to operate the zoo and would also be a costly endeavor for the city to take on.

On Tuesday afternoon, zoo officials met with the Alameda County board of supervisors. Parrott said supervisors were originally going to write a letter in support of the zoos reopening but later decided against doing so.

What were confronted with is this: If theres not going to be another PPP program from the federal government, and the states out of money, and the county cant help  were at a loss," said Parrott. "This staff is so committed; they would volunteer to take care of the animals for free before leaving their responsibility. Including me. Thats not sustainable, though.

He said the zoo was left with two options: to drain the rest of their emergency reserve, or reopen to the public again.

Thats the only way we can solve the problem. If we dont, we most assuredly will run out of money. Its as simple as that.

Amanda Bartlett is an SFGATE Digital Reporter. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfgate.com | Twitter: @byabartlett
The late suspect is Spc. Aaron David Robinson, who authorities say fled Fort Hood on Tuesday night before he could be put into the custody of Army criminal investigators. Robinson was from Illinois and enlisted in the Army in 2017. Though co-workers, he and Guillen did not work in the same building and were not in the same line of command.
It started with a dispute over illegal firework sales and ended with a rampage in a San Francisco restaurant that in under 60 seconds left five innocent bystanders dead, and 11 injured.

Here's the story of 1977's Golden Dragon Massacre and the Chinatown underground war between two rival street gangs, the Joe Boys and the Wah Ching, that led three teenage shooters to carry out one of the worst mass murders in San Francisco history.

San Francisco in '70s was a bloody, violent city.

So many high profile crimes occurred during that period that a gang-fueled bloodbath in the middle of Chinatown is often a footnote to the chaos.

Only a few years after the hippie utopia of the Summer of Love, mid-70s San Francisco was embattled in violence and bloodshed. The racially-motivated "Zebra" murders claimed up to 70 lives, causing panic across the city. Jim Jones gathered his doomed herd at his headquarters on Geary Street. The Symbionese Liberation Army had kidnapped 19-year-old Patty Hearst from her Berkeley apartment and the Zodiac Killer was still on the loose.

But as racially-provoked slaughters, heiress kidnappings and serial killing sprees were unfolding elsewhere in the city, a feud was erupting between the street gangs of Chinatown.
Officers put McClain in a chokehold which caused him to vomit and he went into cardiac arrest after he was injected with ketamine. He died three days later after he was taken off of life support.
A path to new nanofluidic devices applying spintronics technology

Researchers in the ERATO Saitoh Spin Quantum Rectification Project in the JST Strategic Basic Research Programs have elucidated the mechanism of the hydrodynamic power generation using spin currents(1) in micrometer-scale channels, finding that power generation efficiency improves drastically as the size of the flow is made smaller.

In a microchannel, the flow takes on a state referred to as laminar flow (2), where a micro-vortex-like liquid motion is distributed widely and smoothly throughout the channel. This leads to properties that are more suitable to miniaturization, and an increase in power generation efficiency. Group leader Mamoru Matsuo, et al., predicted the basic theory of fluid power generation using spin currents in 2017, and in this present study, the researchers experimentally demonstrate the fluid power generation phenomenon in the laminar flow region. As a result of experiments, they confirm that in the laminar flow region, energy conversion efficiency was increased by approximately 100,000 times.

The characteristics of the spin fluid power generation phenomenon in laminar flows that they elucidate in this research are that an electromotive force proportional to flow velocity can be obtained, and that conversion efficiency increases as flow size decreases. Also, whereas hydroelectric power generation (also known as fluid power generation) and magnetohydrodynamic power generation(3) require additional equipment such as turbines and coils, the phenomenon in the research requires almost no additional equipment, both inside and outside of the flow channel. Due to these characteristics, application to spintronics-based nanofluidic devices such as liquid metal flow cooling mechanisms in fast breeder reactors or semiconductor devices, as well as application to flowmeters that electrically measure micro-flows, can be hoped for.

(1) Spin current

The flow of spin angular momentum. For example, electrons have a charge (an electrical degree of freedom) and a spin angular momentum (a magnetic degree of freedom), where the flow of the former is called an electric current and the flow of the latter is called a spin current.

(2) Laminar flow

Flow within a channel is characterized primarily by flow-velocity, size and viscosity. In a low-velocity flow in a small-sized channel, viscosity dominates, and the fluid will flow regularly, and in layers, along the channel axis. This is referred to as laminar flow.

(3) Magnetohydrodynamic power generation

When a charged particle moves in a magnetic field, it is subjected to a force (Lorentz force) that is perpendicular to both the particle's direction of motion and the direction of the magnetic field. Particles with charges of the same polarity (positive or negative) are subjected to a force in the same direction, and move in one direction. As a result, electric charge accumulates at the destination of the particles' movement. Magnetohydrodynamic power generation is a power-generation method that uses the potential difference (electromotive force) generated from this accumulation.

This research was conducted under the ERATO Saitoh Spin Quantum Rectification Project of the JST Strategic Basic Research Programs. The members of the project are as follows: Research Director, Eiji Saitoh (Professor, University of Tokyo), Group leader, Sadamichi Maekawa (senior researcher at RIKEN), Group leader, Mamoru Matsuo (former deputy chief researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, currently associate professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences), Vice Group leader, Hiroyuki Chudo (deputy chief researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency), Research Supporter, Ryo Takahashi (former postdoctoral researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, currently assistant professor at Ochanomizu University).

###

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
U.S. congressional leaders will seek more information from top intelligence officials Thursday on reported Russian payments to Taliban militants to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The directors of U.S. intelligence agencies were scheduled to brief the "Gang of Eight" made up of congressional leaders and chairs of the intelligence committees in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.

President Donald Trump, a Republican who has worked to cultivate warmer relations with Moscow, denied being briefed on the matter before it was reported by news outlets last week. On Wednesday, he called the reports hoaxes.

Democrats in Congress have accused Trump of not taking intelligence information concerning soldiers' deaths seriously enough.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top elected Democrat, said the United States must immediately impose sanctions on Russia.

"To see this possible threat, this bounty on our soldiers be treated so lightly, without investigation and the rest, is so inappropriate. It is dereliction of duty," she said in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday evening.

The White House has struggled to explain the Trump administration's response to the bounty reports, but has not commented on their substance or denied the information was included in written presidential intelligence briefings.

National security adviser Robert O'Brien said Trump was not verbally briefed on the intelligence because his CIA briefer concluded the allegations were uncorroborated.

Trump said on Wednesday he was not told about the reported Russian effort because many U.S. intelligence officials doubted its veracity, a stance contradicted by four U.S. and European sources and by its inclusion in a widely read CIA report in May.

"We never heard about it because intelligence never found it to be of that level," he told Fox Business Network.

The New York Times, which broke the story last week, has reported Trump received a written briefing in February.

Short link:


In 2018 for example, the US Securities and Exchange regulator fined both Musk and Tesla $20 million over tweets suggesting he planned to take the company private at a substantial premium to the share price, which caused the stock price to surge.
Governors of states seeing coronavirus infections surge are piling restrictions back onto their citizens. But a raft of new data show its everyday Americans who have been leading the way in this area, once again deciding to self-isolate before official lockdown orders return.

Those precautionary moves are squelching the consumer spending the economy will need to sustain a bounce back from this spring's recession. Economists expect the June jobs report out later this morning to offer a sunny snapshot of a recovery finding its legs.

But the evidence of sinking consumer spending paints a more up-to-date, and altogether grimmer, picture of an economy that looked to be rallying strongly just weeks ago now stalling out.

The development confirms anew the pandemic itself will steer the economy's course.

We've known since the pandemic began that consumers were drawing their own conclusions about the safety of public activities and behaving accordingly. So it stands to reason they would start closing their wallets again as infections surged nearly 50% last month, in what now looks like a case study in the consequences of state leaders reopening too quickly.

Those that relaxed restrictions earliest - including Florida, Arizona, and Texas - helped lead the country to 800,000 new cases in June. And the pandemic is still raging, with the U.S.breaching50,000 cases on Wednesday alone, a new daily record.

Governors overseeing infection spikes in the last week are racing to revive controls on businesses and public gatherings and introducing news ones, including mask mandates. States home to more than half the population are now rolling back or pausing plans to reopen, according to Goldman Sachs.

Consumers again are ahead of the curve.

Morning Consult economist John Leer points to a "steady decrease" in consumer confidence starting on June 12, following more than two months of clawing back from its trough after the pandemic first hit. And that sentiment continues to deteriorate, he says.

"Consumers have changed their mind about how they're going to engage prior to any sort of public announcement being made," Leer says. "Regardless of when the lockdowns happen, they're following the news. It's sort of that simple."

A study by University of Chicago economists this month backs up that finding. Using cellphone data to track visits to more than two million businesses, Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson found consumer traffic fell more than 60% during the lockdown, but legal restrictions only explained 7% of that drop. "Individual choices were far more important and seem tied to fears of infection," they write.

Other real-time readings show the pullback accelerated in the second half of June.

"Data on small business openings and employment from Homebase, which provides scheduling and time tracking software for businesses, show that small business employment and openings worsened over the past week, after plateauing for much of June," The New York Times's Jim Tankersley and Ben Casselman reported. "The Homebase data showed a nearly 40% improvement for small business activity in May; across all of June, that fell to 6%."

Meanwhile, "foot traffic to retailers and other businesses declined in the third week of June in Houston, Orlando, Jacksonville, Phoenix and other large cities across the southern states where infections have spiked, according to an analysis of Safegraph.com data by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington."

And spending in restaurants and bars that had picked up in states that opened early started dropping last week, according to anonymized credit card data tracked by JPMorgan Chase, The Wall Street Journal's Greg Ip reported.

Americans' outlooks have also grown more pessimistic.

Navigators Research, a Democratic polling firm, finds nearly four in five people don't expect a "return to normal" until next year at least:

Neither, for one, does San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly. Under her best-case scenario, the economy won't fully recover for four or five years. That, she told Heather Long in a PostLive interview Wednesday, would come about "if we can get the public health issues under control either through a really robust mitigation strategy or a vaccine. . . But if we end up with a pervasive long-listing hit to the economy, then it could take longer."

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal said they expect the economy added 2.9 million jobs in June, nudging the unemployment rate down to 12.4%, the paper's Sarah Chaney reports. That would "still leave the U.S. with about 17 million fewer jobs than in February, the month before the coronavirus pandemic struck the U.S. economy." And the jobs report set for release this morning, "based on survey data largely collected in mid-June, won't reflect these recent government-mandated business closures and related layoffs."
Testing of the 737 Max jetliner's revised flight-control systems by U.S. regulators and Boeing wrapped up Wednesday, laying the foundation for the plane's possible return to service later this year.

The tests concluded an important milestone in assessing the grounded aircraft's safety, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

"During three days of testing this week, FAA pilots and engineers evaluated Boeing's proposed changes in connection with the automated flight control system on the aircraft," the agency said in the statement.

Boeing's test aircraft -- a Max 7 with the flight identifier BOE701 -- made multiple flights over the past three days, mostly over sparsely populated eastern Washington state. With an FAA test pilot alongside a Boeing crew member, the plane conducted a variety of maneuvers to ensure that a system linked to two fatal crashes has been adequately updated and that other changes to the plane meet federal standards.

A photo provided by FAA shows four people in the cockpit of the jet, two pilots and two others who are monitoring the activities. All four are wearing protective face coverings as they work during the pandemic.

The FAA has repeatedly cautioned that it won't re-approve the 737 Max, grounded worldwide in March 2019 after the second fatal crash, until it is satisfied the plane is safe.

"Boeing has made tremendous progress in a short period of time," President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday during a White House news conference called to discuss June economic data. "They are starting to do some real business."

Multiple steps remain before it can get the green light to carry passengers again. FAA, along with its counterparts in other nations, must approve new pilot training standards. An outside panel of aviation experts is reviewing the fixes to the plane. And FAA has to publish new regulations mandating various changes to software, wiring and other systems.

The European Aviation Safety Agency said earlier in the week that it was coordinating its own test flights with the FAA.

"EASA is continuing to work in close cooperation with the FAA and we will be discussing the outcome of their test flights with them in the coming weeks," EASA said in a statement June 30. "EASA is looking to schedule its own test flights during the summer."

Boeing's best-selling jetliner, a more efficient update to the 737, went down twice in less than five months, killing 346 people. The crashes were linked to a system that repeatedly drove down the plane's nose following a malfunction. Pilots on both planes failed to respond in the way Boeing predicted, did not to counter the system and lost control.

The exact maneuvers the test aircraft performed weren't detailed by the agency or Boeing.
Lori Vallow, the Idaho woman whose two childrens bodies were found on her new husbands property in June months after their disappearances, is now accused of claiming to have cancer to convince her sons grandmother to take care of him, according to newly released court documents.
Twitter also removed video from the presidents feed in June that he did not have permission to use. Music from the band Nickelback was removed from Trumps Twitter page in October when that, too, was used illegally.
Fresh on the heels of Christopher Columbuss unceremonious removal from City Hall in his namesake Ohio city, residents of Elizabeth, N.J., are drumming up support to get rid of their own monument to Columbus. And they have an idea for the hometown hero who can replace it.
Mug shots, or booking photos, are taken when a person is arrested and are often released to the public, regardless of whether or not the subject is actually being prosecuted for their alleged crime. Even if a person is innocent, their mug shot can live forever on the internet, where viewers will make an unfair association between the subject of the photo and crime.
Khawam asserted that the man put Guillens body in a Pelican bag, and later, with the help of his girlfriend, tried to bury her at a river. They allegedly attempted to burn her body, and then took a machete out and ... start dismembering her whole body, Khawam said on the podcast.
Santa Clara County will move forward with allowing a number of higher-risk businesses to reopen this month, so long as they follow a new set of strict social-distancing and hygiene guidelines from the county, Santa Clara Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody announced Thursday.

The new health order will go into effect July 13 or two days after the state of California approves its application (called a "variance"), whichever of the two comes second.

The plan involves the reopening of personal care services (hair salons, nail salons, tattoo and piercing shops, massage therapy), gyms and fitness centers, public transit, pools, outdoor dining, and others. The plan also allows gatherings, "including for social, economic, religious, cultural, and other purposes" to resume. It requires that other businesses and events follow new and stringent social-distancing requirements. (See all business types included in the official order here.)

"This order is designed to guide how we approach activities in our county in the months ahead," said Cody in a livestreamed announcement. "This new phase will be stable for some time."

Cody added that the July 13 date will "give certain businesses the time they need to open safely and to train employees to comply with strict social-distancing protocols they must have in place in order to open."

The new protocols involve four points, as County Counsel James Williams then explained:

 Telework should still be prioritized as much as possible.

 Businesses should follow new social-distancing requirements. All businesses must submit a plan for their social-distancing strategy to the county, and sign it under penalty of perjury. These plans must be distributed to workers.

 Businesses must operate under density restrictions. Specifically, that means one worker per 250 gross square feet of the business, and just one customer per 150 square feet of space open to the public. (There are exceptions for accompanying children 12 or under, and "healthcare, education and childcare facilities.")

 Lastly, businesses must report any COVID-19 cases among employees to the county Department of Public Health. These results must be reported by the business within four hours of notification, and business owners must inform other employees of the test result.

In general, Williams said, places that require the removal of masks, like indoor pools and saunas, for example, will not be allowed to reopen with this order. But some businesses, he added, can "get creative."

"If you can modify your opening to accommodate social distancing and masking and the capacity limits, you will be able to open," he said.

Specific directions and guides for businesses are forthcoming.

Notably, outdoor gatherings of up to 60 people and indoor gatherings of up to 20 people  such as religious services or cultural events  will be allowed under the new order, despite the rise in cases attributed to similar gatherings across the state. Cody explained that in Santa Clara County, these types of events will need to follow social-distancing guidelines as well. Those directions are also forthcoming.

Our approach from the outset of the pandemic has been careful, based on constant assessments of relevant data, and also the evolving scientific understanding of the virus, said Cody in a statement. This new order marks the next stage in this consistent approach, reflects the reality that COVID-19 will be with us for a long time, and we need to adapt to that new reality. Todays order offers a long-term containment strategy that we believe will need to remain in place for the coming months.

On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom included Santa Clara County on a list of 19 counties in the state that would not be permitted to reopen certain businesses because of a rise in hospitalizations. None of those businesses, which included movie theaters, museums, and indoor restaurants, had been open in Santa Clara County, however, and are not included in Thursday's new health order announcement.

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 Newsom announces new restrictions in 19 California counties

 The virus didn't stop a socialite from throwing a backyard soiree. Then tests came back positive.

 These metrics suggest the coronavirus is indeed back on the upswing in the Bay Area

 Why coronavirus cases in California are suddenly surging

 Gavin Newsom: Californians should 'reconsider' July 4th plans, state will 'mitigate' big gatherings

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGate digital editor. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira


I am deeply disturbed by this situation. The fact that a resident of our town could face accusation and be followed around like a criminal should make everyone stop in their tracks and consider how we treat one another, Groveland police chief Jeffrey Gillen said.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Norway is facing demands that he abandon his pursuit of the diplomatic post after the unearthing of a 1994 court filing indicating his involvement in the production of a racist campaign flier against an African American politician in Georgia.

According to the filing, Mark Burkhalter helped create the a flier that distorted and exaggerated the features of Gordon Joyner, a candidate for county commissioner in north-central Georgia. Joyner was pictured with some features darkened, a large Afro, enlarged eyebrows and a warped eye.

Joyner accused the group involved of libel and sued, resulting in an out-of-court settlement, an apology signed by Burkhalter and three other men, and payment of an undisclosed sum.

Burkhalter did not disclose his involvement in the controversy to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to a letter by Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the panel's ranking Democrat, that was obtained by The Washington Post. The committee's discovery of his role has not previously been reported.

Burkhalter, a real estate developer and former Georgia state representative, did not respond to requests for comment. The State Department and the National Security Council referred questions about Burkhalter to the White House, which did not respond to requests for comment.

"These actions should disqualify anyone from Senate confirmation," Menendez wrote in a letter sent to White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows on Thursday. "During this time of national trauma and reckoning over violence and racist actions against African-Americans, however, it is unthinkable to nominate for a position of public trust an individual who participated in such a despicable, racist scheme. I therefore urge you to immediately withdraw his nomination."

Burkhalter became a target of the lawsuit during his role as campaign chairman for Mitch Skandalakis, who was at the time chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. The signed apology says the flier "contained a distorted photograph of you and inaccurate statements regarding you and attributed to you."

Burkhalter approved the flier's release, authorized payment for some of the printing costs and directed that it be attributed to a fake Political Action Committee with a fake P.O. Box address, according to court filings citing his and other depositions.

The flier sparked a controversy when it was released, with a 1995 editorial in the Atlanta Journal Constitution calling it a "racist hit piece." The filing says that during a meeting Burkhalter attended before the flier was created, attendees discussed that "white voters in North Fulton County were unaware that Gordon Joyner is black."

During a deposition, Burkhalter said the doctoring of Joyner's photo was discussed and joked about because "the face looked a little funny."

"People laughed about it at the meeting?" Burkhalter was asked.

"Yeah," he said, according to the deposition.

During the campaign, Skandalakis admitted responsibility for another flier with a photograph of Joyner next to his white opponent. "The Issue Isn't Black or White," read the flier with the word "Black" above Joyner and "White" above his opponent.

Burkhalter's nomination battle comes as Trump has attempted to fend off criticism of his response to nationwide protests demanding an end to police brutality against black people after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

Last weekend, the president shared a tweet that included a Trump supporter shouting "white power" at counterprotesters in central Florida, and called his supporters there "great people." After facing a wave of criticism, including from Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chamber's only black Republican, Trump deleted the tweet in a moment that underscored his bombastic and improvisational handling of the national tumult.

Joyner, who narrowly won reelection in the 1994 race and is now a private lawyer, said that when he learned that Trump had nominated Burkhalter "to be an Ambassador representing America on foreign shores, I immediately was stunned, shocked, dismayed, saddened, and very, very hurt."

Joyner told The Post that Burkhalter was a "leader in a notoriously despicable, mean, hateful, nasty, racist political campaign targeted, directed, and financed against me as a black elected official serving in office."

"The picture on the flier portrayed me as having a bigger Afro; my right eye was made to appear lower than my left eye; my eyebrows, mustache and beard were made darker; and my lower lip was made to appear thicker," he said.

The State Department declined to respond to a question about whether Burkhalter's nomination undermines its campaign to promote the department's diversity. Last month, the department's only African American assistant secretary resigned over Trump's handling of the Black Lives Matter protests.

"The president's comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions," Mary Elizabeth Taylor, who managed the State Department's relationship with Congress, wrote in her resignation letter.

Menendez letter urged Meadows to "ensure that the President immediately withdraws [Burkhalter's] nomination."

He added: "At a minimum, advice and consent means that we ensure that the individuals we confirm are not only experienced and qualified, but suitable for public service."

- - -

The Washington Post's Julie Tate contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Wednesday said painting "Black Lives Matter" on New York's Fifth Avenue would be "a symbol of hate" and wind up "denigrating" the street outside Trump Tower, as he ratcheted up objections to a plan that he suggested the city's police could stop.

Trump's comments, in morning tweets, were his latest volley directed at New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, D, who last week ordered that the tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement be painted in large yellow letters in a move designed in part to antagonize the president. De Blasio responded to Trump's tweets Wednesday by calling them "the definition of racism."

Trump's tweets were also the second time in as many weeks that he has lashed out at the Black Lives Matter movement as polls show a majority of Americans disapproving of his response to the nationwide protests that emerged after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later defended Trump's tweet, claiming that he was referring to the Black Lives Matter organization, not the cause.

"All black lives do matter," she said. "He agrees with that sentiment."

She pointed to remarks made by a man who describes himself as the president of the Greater New York Black Lives Matter chapter - "If this country doesn't give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it" - to justify Trump calling the organization a "symbol of hate."

But the man, Hawk Newsome, whom Trump accused of treason last week, has no relationship with the official organization despite using the name for his own group.

"Only BLM chapters who adhere to BLM's principles and code of ethics are permitted to use the BLM name, said Kailee Scales, managing director of Black Lives Matter Global Network. "The reason for this is simple: unaffiliated uses of BLM's name are confusing to people who may wrongly associate the unsanctioned group and its views and actions with BLM."

The movement against racial profiling and police violence has played a prominent role in demonstrations for which Trump has expressed disdain, despite his claims that he supports peaceful protests.

In his tweets, Trump decried a move by New York officials to shift about $1 billion from the city's police budget in a bid to respond to calls to "defund the police" that resonated following the recent deaths of Floyd and other African Americans in police custody.

"NYC is cutting Police $'s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue," Trump tweeted. "This will further antagonize New York's Finest, who LOVE New York. . . . Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, won't let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York's greatest street. Spend this money fighting crime instead!"

De Blasio responded on Twitter less than two hours later, writing that Trump does not understand that "Black people BUILT 5th Ave and so much of this nation" and highlighting that the tribute to the movement would be painted near Trump Tower, which houses Trump's company and one of his homes.

"Your 'luxury' came from THEIR labor, for which they have never been justly compensated," de Blasio said. "We are honoring them. The fact that you see it as denigrating your street is the definition of racism."

De Blasio also took issue with Trump's appeal to New York police, noting that "NY's Finest are now a majority people of color."

"They already know Black Lives Matter," de Blasio said. "There is no 'symbol of hate' here. Just a commitment to truth. Only in your mind could an affirmation of people's value be a scary thing."

Trump also sought to sow division between de Blasio and the city's police force last week in a tweet that objected to the planned painting of "Black Lives Matter" between 56th and 57th streets in New York.

Plans for the New York tribute to Black Lives Matter follows a move last month by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, D, to rename a street in front of the White House "Black Lives Matter Plaza" and paint the slogan in massive yellow letters.

Last week, in explaining de Blasio's decision to paint the tribute to the movement outside Trump Tower, a de Blasio spokeswoman pointed to Trump.

"The president is a disgrace to the values we cherish in New York City," spokeswoman Julia Arredondo said in a statement last Thursday. "He can't run or deny the reality we are facing, and any time he wants to set foot in the place he claims is his hometown, he should be reminded Black Lives Matter."
WASHINGTON - U.S. authorities have moved to seize the cargo of four oil tankers carrying gasoline and fuel products from Iran to Venezuela, escalating a sanctions battle with two regimes Washington opposes and a contest over Iranian oil shipments that allegedly finance its nuclear program.

The action comes weeks after Iran sent five tankers and 1.5 million barrels of gasoline in a symbolic gesture of support to embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in defiance of the Trump administration.

A U.S. judge in Washington signed a seizure warrant Thursday for Venezuela-bound shipments aboard four other tankers - the Bella, Bering, Pandi and Luna - whose deliveries were disrupted. Prosecutors estimated that their cargo included 1.2 million barrels of gasoline worth nearly $50 million - the seizure of which would be a blow the U.S. government aimed at Iran's use of third-party shippers to avert economic penalties.

In a civil forfeiture lawsuit and statement filed late Wednesday, U.S. officials in Washington cited a network of informants indicating that the fuel was "a source of influence" for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization. Prosecutors said the movements were arranged by Mahmoud Madanipour, an Iran-based man affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard.

Madanipour purportedly acted on behalf of Mobin International, a firm associated with Guard Corps-connected bank accounts, prosecutors said. Madanipour and the firm also are associated with a United Arab Emirates trading company that the suit did not name that moved to conceal the shipments' Iranian origin, prosecutors and Homeland Security Investigations agents said.

A text message between Madanipour and a co-conspirator noted difficulties in the voyage of the Liberian-flagged Bella and the Bering, after the United States threatened the Greek owners with possible sanctions, court filings state.

"The co-conspirator texted, 'the ship owner doesn't want to go because of the American threat, but we want him to go, and we even agreed We will also buy the ship,' " prosecutors wrote in court filings.

U.S. authorities said any funds seized would be directed in part to a fund for U.S. victims of state-sponsored terrorism, according to a statement by the Justice Department's national security division, U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia, Homeland Security Investigations and FBI.

Madanipour could not immediately be reached for comment, and UAE-based Mobin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations said the seizure would be "piracy."

"Any attempt on the high seas to prevent Iran from engaging in lawful trade with any country it chooses will be an act of piracy, pure and simple," said Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Tehran's office in New York. "This is a direct threat to international peace and security and in contravention of international law including the U.N. Charter."

The U.S. move against the tankers is the latest action in a two-year "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions that have decimated Iran's economy. And it comes as the Trump administration is making a major push to get support for an extension of a United Nations arms embargo due to expire in October.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressed the U.S. case at the Security Council this week, where he called Iran "the world's most heinous terrorist regime" and raised fears that it could become a rogue arms provider to militant groups throughout the region.

Brian Hook, the State Department's special envoy for Iran, recently completed meetings in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel, where senior officials expressed concern that lifting the embargo could fuel a regional arms race, according to accounts provided by the office of the department's spokesman.

Hook also went to Vienna on Friday to meet with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a visit designed to highlight a U.S. demand that Iran provide the agency access to suspicious sites where the United States believes Tehran is safeguarding research on developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has repeatedly denied the accusation and called the intelligence behind the charges fabricated.

U.S. officials have tightened sanctions on Iran's oil industry, a mainstay of its economy, saying the Revolutionary Guard and its major holdings have extensive interests in it and use the profits to support terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and human rights abuses.

U.S. sanctions officials say one network led by the guard's elite Quds Force in spring 2019 alone used more than a dozen vessels to covertly transport nearly 14 million barrels of crude oil and other petroleum products, grossing more than $750 million.

This week's actions came almost exactly one year after British authorities seized the Grace 1, an Iranian oil tanker, in Gibraltar, saying it was carrying oil to Syria in violation of a European Union embargo. Soon after the July 4 incident, Iran detained a British-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, in the Strait of Hormuz.

Gibraltar ultimately released the Iranian ship in August, despite a last-minute request by the same U.S. attorney's office in Washington to permit the United States to seize the ship, its oil and $1 million, alleging U.S. sanctions violations.

U.S. authorities in May charged two Iranian men and seized $12 million used to purchase a now-detained Liberian-flagged oil tanker, the Nautic, in what was then billed as the largest seizure of funds used to support the Quds Force.

Washington also hit the five captains of the Iranian-flagged tankers that successfully delivered oil to Venezuela with sanctions.

A State Department official said the sanctions have been effective in depriving Venezuela of its major source of revenue.

"The global shipping community is moving out of doing business with Venezuela in the face of U.S. sanctions," said Elliott Abrams, the special envoy for Venezuela, in an emailed statement. "The most reputable firms, including the largest Greek shipping companies, have been cooperative and have shown that they value their reputations and their global businesses."

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the U.S. disruption of the other Venezuela-bound deliveries of Iranian oil products, has also reported that the Trump administration is preparing to add as many as 50 tankers to U.S. commercial blacklists for working with Maduro's government.

Wednesday's court filings state that Madanipour and Mobin International worked with the National Iranian Oil Co. and entities associated with it and the Guard Corps. Madanipour took steps to conceal the involvement of Iranian entities in previous shipments or potential deliveries to China and Malaysia, prosecutors asserted.

For example, the filings state the UAE company, identified only as "Company 1," in January asked the owner of the Pandi to carry gasoline from Iran to the UAE but that Madanipour changed documents to show that Mobin International was responsible for the voyage. The UAE company then invoiced for $14.9 million an entity that the Guard Corps has publicly said was operating on its behalf and that ran the Grace 1 last year.

Prosecutors said Mobin International in March 2019 described setting up a new Persian Gulf country joint venture "to be secured of any risk of sanctions" and "handle all our transshipments of risky oil business."

According to the court filing, an associate in 2017 also asked Madanipour - allegedly on behalf of proposed Chinese buyers - whether Iranian oil could be provided through other countries with payments made through other countries to avoid U.S. sanctions. "We can get payment in Oman, UAE, Turkey, Italy and Germany," Madanipour replied, according to court documents.

It was unclear whether the Bella, Bering, Pandi and Luna had been detained. Shipping tracking websites placed the first two Greek-owned vessels most recently in the Aegean Sea, and the other two in the Gulf of Oman.
New York has been and always will be a beacon of diversity and acceptance, and we will continue to stand united in condemning these vile acts of hate whenever and wherever we see them, Cuomo said.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

The San Francisco Fire Department and the U.S. Coast Guard recovered the body of a man this week who went missing after swimming at China Beach.

Crews recovered the body of 67-year-old San Francisco resident Denis Bouvier around 2:07 p.m. Wednesday afternoon after he had been reported missing about an hour before.

Investigators determined that Bouvier had gone to China Beach around 9 a.m. to swim. While he had not returned from the beach, his car remained parked at the China Beach lot and his clothes remained on the beach, according to the Coast Guard's 11th District.

A fire department boat recovered a body around 2 p.m. that matched Bouvier's description and rendered CPR but could not resuscitate him.

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.
During his Thursday press conference, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was asked why Californians should heed his new warnings against gatherings for Fourth of July weekend when he was previously supportive of protests against police brutality, where officials did not enforce mask-wearing or social-distancing.

Over the past week, Newsom has told residents not to gather with individuals outside their households and to avoid large crowds for any Fourth of July parades or demonstrations, while adding the state will "mitigate" any large crowds.

"As always, we've had a mandate for a consistent period of time as it relates to large crowd gatherings," he said on Wednesday. "Please, avoid those crowds. We're going to do our best to try to mitigate people congregating and doing what we can to encourage good behavior."

On Thursday, KCBS Radio's Doug Sovern asked the governor, "I've heard from a number of people who don't understand why they're being told you can't go see grandpa this weekend, you can't see Uncle Joe, you can't have a barbecue with your neighbors but then they turn on the TV and see hundreds or thousands of people protesting. So can you explain the selective enforcement or preferential treatment given based on political persuasion? Can you explain to people why they should listen to these messages when they do see that happening and no one is getting tickets, no one is even being told to enforce the masks or social distancing?"

Newsom responded with, "If they care about their grandfather, their uncle, their aunt, that's why they should listen."

The governor then stated that no one will be cracking down on social gatherings in backyards before returning to commenting on the protests.

"I maybe was unique in my household but I don't think I was, I think it was universally taught: Just because someone else is doing it, doesn't mean you should," Newsom said. "People know what the right thing to do is. I encourage them to do the right thing. And people also understand that we have a Constitution, we have a right to free speech and we are all dealing with a moment in our nation's history that is profound and pronounced... but I recognize the dichotomy and to the extent the dialectic between those examples and all I can offer is this consideration: Do what you think is best not only for you but for the health of the people you love."

It is unclear to what extent the protests contributed to the spread of the virus. An Associated Press investigation found little evidence the demonstrations are primarily responsible for recent upticks, but Los Angeles County public health director Barbara Ferrer has stated it is "highly likely" the protests led to an increase in positive cases.

When the protests first started, Newsom told the demonstrators, "Youve lost patience, so have I. You are right to feel wronged. You are right to feel the way you are feeling" and retweeted images of protests in praise. After police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds, he tweeted, "Protesters have the right to protest peacefully  not be harassed."

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on coronavirus here.

 Newsom announces new restrictions in 19 California counties

 The virus didn't stop a socialite from throwing a backyard soiree. Then tests came back positive.

 These metrics suggest the coronavirus is indeed back on the upswing in the Bay Area

 Why coronavirus cases in California are suddenly surging

 Gavin Newsom: Californians should 'reconsider' July 4th plans, state will 'mitigate' big gatherings

Eric Ting is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting
"This tone shift appears to be directly linked to the content of our report and the findings of responsibility of the high-level individuals involved," Gustafson wrote. "I am concerned that the substance of our report and findings has resulted in this retaliatory posturing."
If youre looking for an ultra-secluded getaway, why not simply disappear into the Invisible House?

A mirrored modern building, the vanishing dwelling blends in seamlessly with its desert surroundings. The shimmering surface reflects the natural beauty of the land and renders it a part of the landscape.

Located adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, it's the sleekest desert getaway we've ever seen.

The pop star Demi Lovato recently made headlines when she and her actor boyfriend, Max Ehrich, stayed at the Joshua Tree, CA, hideaway for a weekend, reportedly dropping $2,500 a night for the privilege, according to TMZ.

Of course, the couple posted pictures of the Instagram-friendly home on social media. One snap showed Ehrich sitting in the cavernous living room, complete with 100-foot indoor pool.

But the one-of-a-kind getaway isn't reserved just for celebsanyone can rent it. That is, if youre willing to plunk down $35,000 for a one-month commitment. Suffice it to say, it will be an unforgettable getaway if you have the dough.

The eye-catching architectural wonder can also be rented out for short-term rentals, special events, and film shoots.

Its photogenic appearance is no accident. Designed by the Los Angeles-based film producer Chris Hanley, and the architect Tomas Osinski, the three-bedroom, four-bathroom property features an elongated, minimalist design spanning 5,500 square feet. A separate prefab house on wheels serves as guest quarters.

Theres nothing else like it," says the listing agent, Raymond Dominguez with Engel & Volkers Santa Monica. "Its a rental, sure, but its also an experience."

A vision began 14 years ago with desert land purchased by Hanley and his wife, Roberta. The Invisible House is the end result of a six-year project to create an environmentally sustainable and artful living space.

A cantilever system ensures that the structure leaves a minimal footprint on the desert ground. Smart and sustainable, the home includes solar and thermal systems.

Invisible House Petr Masek

Living room with pool Brian Ashby

Open kitchen Brian Ashby

Bedroom with glass bed Brian Ashby

Light show at night Brian Ashby

The horizontal layout allows for the eye-popping indoor pool in the living room. A west-facing glass wall completely opens to the outdoor expanse.

At night, the pool puts on a light show, competing with the starry night sky and flooding the space with shades of blue, red, green, and violet. A massive white wall at one end of the pool can serve as a screen for video projection.

Other details include concrete floors, 11-foot ceilings, and a designer kitchen. The open cooking and dining area is set up for small catered events, with two ovens, a warming drawer, as well as a separate fridge and freezer.

Sliding walls open up from all four bedrooms for uninterrupted desert views. The main suite includes a freestanding tub in the bedroom and a glass bed.

Set on 90 acres, this is the largest privately owned parcel of land to abut Joshua Tree National Park, according to the propertys website. It is also just 10 minutes from the shops, hotels, and restaurants of downtown Joshua Tree, and a two-hour drive from Los Angeles.

Drone footage courtesy of Petr Masek.

The post Follow in the Footsteps of Demi Lovato and Rent the 'Invisible House' in the Desert appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
You are now listening to the sounds of the New Generation. A podcast created for those who desire a new way of gaining information rather than reading a traditional newspaper. In our show we will discuss everything from sports, pop culture, politics, and local news. To stay up to date on our latest episodes every week be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast service. And dont worry, we keep it short.
Eight months after his bond reduction request was denied, former Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Juan David Ortiz, indicted for allegedly fatally shooting four women and kidnapping another, is scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

According to online court records, Ortizs attorney, Joel Perez, filed two ex parte motions in December and March, respectively, on behalf of his client. An ex parte motion is a sealed record filed with no advanced notice. The motion is only discussed between the court and the party that filed it.

In April, 406th District Court Judge Oscar J. Hale Jr. signed three orders setting hearings on motions to determine admissibility of written or oral statements made by Ortiz, a motion for a hearing on voluntariness of any admission or confession whether written or oral and a motion to suppress.

Ortiz was indicted on December 2019 on one count of capital murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful restraint and evading arrest. The assault and unlawful restraint charges stem from Ortiz allegedly pointing a gun at a woman in his pickup truck. The woman, Erika Pena, escaped from the vehicle and notified a nearby Texas trooper, law enforcement said.

Pena was the main witness for prosecutors during Ortizs bond reduction hearing in October. She testified that Ortiz said she was his favorite. She described their relationship as a friendship. Her escape is what eventually led authorities to Ortiz.

She testified that they met five months before the homicides and the night before he got arrested, Ortiz took Pena to three different locations in the city to buy drugs and he then took her to his house.

In her testimony, Pena also said that she was friends with Melissa Ramirez and Claudine Anne Luera, the first and second victims, respectively. She said she asked him about the murders and he said he had seen it on the news. She added that she was feeling nervous because he was acting weird.

Case timeline

Following his arrest Sept. 15, 2018, Ortiz confessed to killing Ramirez, 29; Luera, 42; Guiselda Alicia Hernandez, 35; and Nikki Enriquez, 28; over a 12-day period, according to an affidavit filed by law enforcement.

Authorities said the four victims were sex workers. Ortiz would pick them up on San Bernardo Avenue, drive them outside city limits and shoot them in the head, according to court records.

All four were killed in roughly the same area near North U.S. 83 and Interstate 35 in the northwest part of Webb County. According to the indictment, Ramirez, Luera and Enriquez, a transgender woman, were each shot in the head. Hernandez was shot twice in the neck but died of blunt force trauma after being struck in the head with an unknown object.

According to arrest affidavits, Ortiz would pick them up on San Bernardo Avenue, drive them outside city limits and shoot them. Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz has said. Ortiz told investigators he was "doing a service" by killing the women and believed police were not doing enough to curb prostitution in the Gateway City.

The first victim, Ramirez, was taken to Jefferies Road and shot in the head, according to court documents. Luera was taken to U.S. 83 and Spur Road 255 on Sept. 13, 2018 and fatally shot, records state. She was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to a hospital.

Initially, it was thought that the third victim, Hernandez, also died of gunshot wounds, Alaniz said. She was shot but died of blunt force trauma on Sept. 15, 2018, according to an autopsy report, Alaniz said.

The fourth victim, Enriquez, was shot in the head on Sept. 15, 2018, according to court records.

Ortiz was off-duty when he killed the women, authorities said, but he may have used his service weapon in the homicides.

Ortiz remains behind bars since his arrest, held on a $2.5 million bond.

Ortizs next hearing is scheduled for June 29 in the 406th District Court.
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In a statement, the United Nations in Myanmar said it deeply saddened by the loss of life and commends the courageous efforts by the men and women involved in the difficult rescue and recovery efforts and extends its sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wishes the injured a speedy recovery.
Canberra [Australia], July 1 (ANI): We now know just how massive the fastest-growing black hole in the universe actually is, as well as how much it eats, thanks to new research led by the Australian National University (ANU).



It is 34 billion times the mass of our Sun and gorges on nearly the equivalent of one Sun every day, according to Dr. Christopher Onken and his colleagues.

"The black hole's mass is also about 8,000 times bigger than the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way. If the Milky Way's black hole wanted to grow that fat, it would have to swallow two thirds of all the stars in our galaxy," Dr. Onken said.

This giant black hole -- known as J2157 -- was discovered by the same research team in 2018.

"We're seeing it at a time when the universe was only 1.2 billion years old, less than 10 percent of its current age. It's the biggest black hole that's been weighed in this early period of the universe," Dr. Onken said.

Exactly how black holes grew so big so early in the life-span of the universe is still a mystery, but the team is now searching for more black holes in the hope they might provide some clues.

"We knew we were onto a very massive black hole when we realised its fast growth rate," said team member Dr. Fuyan Bian, a staff astronomer at the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

"How much black holes can swallow depends on how much mass they already have. So, for this one to be devouring matter at such a high rate, we thought it could become a new record holder. And now we know," Dr. Fuyan Bian added.

The team, including researchers from the University of Arizona, used ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile to accurately measure the black hole's mass.

"With such an enormous black hole, we're also excited to see what we can learn about the galaxy in which it's growing," Dr. Onken said.

Dr. Onken said added, "is this galaxy one of the behemoths of the early universe, or did the black hole just swallow up an extraordinary amount of its surroundings? We'll have to keep digging to figure that out." (ANI)


According to Fitch Ratings, Indian banks are likely to require at least $15 billion in fresh capital to meet a 10 per cent weighted-average common equity Tier 1 ratio under a moderate stress scenario.

Mumbai/Singapore: Ratings agency Fitch Ratings on Wednesday said that India's banking sector is expected to face capital shortfalls due to coronavirus pandemic-related disruption.

"This rises to about $58 billion in a high-stress situation where the domestic economy fails to recover from the coronavirus pandemic-related disruption," the agency said in a statement.

"State banks will require the bulk of the recapitalisation, as the risk of capital erosion at state banks is significantly higher than for their privately owned peers."

Fitch Ratings expect the majority of capital injection to come through in FY 22, as bad loan recognition has been pushed back by a 180-day regulatory moratorium.

"However, a clearer picture should start to emerge from December 2020, unless the central bank agrees to a one-time loan restructuring, which would affect the timely recognition and resolution of bad loans," the statement said.

"We do not believe the reported performance of Indian banks for the financial year ending March 2020 (FY20) adequately reflects the incipient stress caused by the pandemic. The results are broadly in line with Fitch's expectations, but bank balance sheets are yet to feel the impact of India's strict lockdown measures that were implemented by the government from 25 March 2020. Moreover, a meaningful short-term recovery looks unlikely, as the acceleration of new COVID-19 cases threatens the gradual reopening of the economy ."

In addition, Fitch expects heightened asset quality and earning pressure for at least the next two years, as disruption to business activity and supply chains, as well as shrinking personal incomes, damage banks' balance sheets.

"State banks were more vulnerable than private banks coming into the crisis, with weaker loss-absorption buffers, and appear to be shouldering a disproportionate share of the burden in bailing out affected sectors," the statement said.


"Sacred Games" actress Elnaaz Norouzi is going to celebrate her birthday by doing a good deed.

Ahead of her birthday on July 9, Elnaaz will raise money to help feed six to seven thousand families of Indian migrant workers. This will be done in association with an NGO. Whatever money is raised by Elnaaz and her fans, will directly go to the NGO for the cause.

"A few weeks back I saw a video of some migrant workers crying and saying that they don't even have money to eat roti. It was such a heartbreaking video. I am helping the ones I know around me but there are so many more who need help," she said.

"I'm so fortunate and could survive and live well for one more year. I needed to give back. India has given me the life that I have now, I want to thank the people with this small gesture," added the Iran-born and German-raised actress.

She is currently in Germany amid the global COVID-19 lockdown.

Text: IANS

Images: Elnaaz on Instagram
The statement was released on Tuesday after the special ASEAN-Australia foreign ministers' meeting on COVID-19 via video conference, Xinhua news agency reported.

Phnom Penh, July 1 (IANS) The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Australia vowed to work with the World Health Organization (WHO) and relevant agencies to enhance collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Cambodian foreign ministry's press statement.

"The meeting agreed to work with relevant international organisations, especially the World Health Organization (WHO), and the global community to enhance collective pandemic preparedness and response and to prevent its long-term impacts," it said.

During the virtual meeting, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn said ASEAN has been very active since the beginning of the crisis in galvanizing collective response, not only among ASEAN member states but also with their external partners, the statement said.

"The proactive approach of ASEAN can send a clear message that, in time of crisis, the international communities in fact need to ramp up coordinated and collective response as well as international solidarity," he said.

Sokhonn, who is also a deputy prime minister, said ASEAN and Australia need to stay vigilant of a second wave of infection as countries are beginning to draft their own respective roadmap for easing the COVID-19 restriction.

"We must continue to intensify our efforts to defeat this pandemic together on all fronts as our respective governments have committed at the 73rd World Health Assembly," he said.

He added that as part of the economic recovery plan, a concrete action can be done through the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at the earliest possible time.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

--IANS

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Chandigarh [India], July 2 (ANI): A flight from Kuwait, carrying 177 Indians, arrived in Chandigarh on Wednesday. All repatriated persons will reach their districts under the supervision of respective state government representatives where they will be quarantined as per the government guidelines, said Chandigarh International Airport Limited.



Earlier, A GoAir Flight under the Vande Bharat Mission arrived at the Chandigarh International Airport carrying 184 stranded Indians from Kuwait on June 30.

Vande Bharat Mission, which started from May 7, is in its third phase. The recent phase commenced on June 11. (ANI)


New Delhi: India's COVID-19 tally breached the 6 lakh cases mark with 19,148 new coronavirus cases being reported in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday.

The total cases now stand at 6,04,641 of which there are 2,26,947 active cases while 3,59,860 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated. 434 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the number of COVID-19 deaths in the country to 17,834.
"The Syrian war has no military solution and must be settled only through a political process," read a joint statement issued at the end of video conference on Wednesday attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Tehran, July 2 (IANS) A trilateral summit between Iran, Russia and Turkey has called on conflicting parties in Syria to adhere to a political solution in order to settle their differences.

They also agreed to hold the next trilateral summit on Syria in Iran but provided no date, according to the Iranian state TV.

During the meeting, Rouhani denounced the US new sanctions against Syria which is battling the coronavirus pandemic as "inhumane".

"In line with the previous sanctions and its desperate efforts to put pressure on the Syrian people, the United States has imposed new unilateral and inhumane sanctions, known as the Caesar Act with the aim of achieving its illegitimate political aspirations," Rouhani said.

"The US move amounts to economic terrorism that violates international law, human rights, international humanitarian law and the sovereignty of nations."

The Caesar Act, which took effect in mid-June, punishes any country, individual or entity that does business with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"The US must be assured that what it has not achieved through military pressure and resorting to terrorist groups cannot be attained through the tools of economic pressure and punishment of the Syrian people," Rouhani noted.

He described the Astana process that underlines inter-Syrian dialogue as the only viable means to help resolve the Syrian crisis peacefully.

Putin also denounced the new US "illegitimate" sanctions on Syria, saying they were aimed at "suffocating" Damascus.

Highlighting "an inclusive inter-Syrian dialogue", he said the Astana peace framework should deal with the issue of terrorism which remains in Syria's Idlib and other regions.

For his part, Erdogan called for restoration of peace and security along the southern borders of Turkey as well as in Syria.

Turkey's priority for Syria is a lasting solution to the conflict, said Erdogan.

The three-way talks were held in line with the Astana peace process which was launched in January 2017, in an effort to bring all warring parties in Syria to the negotiating table as a complement to the UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva.

--IANS

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Several university students in an Alabama city organised  Covid-19 parties as a contest to see who would get the virus first, officials said.

Tuscaloosa City Councillor Sonya McKinstry said students hosted the parties to intentionally infect each other with the new coronavirus, news outlets reported.

McKinstry said party organisers purposely invited guests who tested positive for Covid-19. She said the students put money in a pot and whoever got Covid-19 first would get the cash.

It makes no sense, McKinstry said. Theyre intentionally doing it.

Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Randy Smith confirmed the incidents to the city council on Tuesday.

The department thought the parties were rumours, but Smith said after some research, officials discovered the parties were real.

Not only do the doctors offices confirm it but the state confirmed they also had the same information, Smith said.

Smith did not say whether actions would be taken against the students. He also did not say which schools the students attend. Tuscaloosa is home to The University of Alabama and several other colleges.

Alabama is one of several states reporting record increases in new coronavirus cases in the past week. Others include Arizona, Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas.

The United States has reported over 2.7 million total infections and more than 128,000 coronavirus-related deaths.

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But the Laekenois, like its other 195 potential competitors, must wait until 2021 to see if it has the mettle of a champion due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. More than 11,000 dog shows and canine competitions have been scrapped this year, stated Doug Ljungren, an AKC executive vice president.
Sima Sadat Lari, the spokeswoman for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said during her daily update on Wednesday that 141 people died overnight, taking the total fatalities over the virus to 10,958, Xinhua news agency reported.

Tehran, July 2 (IANS) Iran reported 2,549 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the total confirmed novel coronavirus cases to 230,211, according to official IRNA news agency.

So far, 191,487 have recovered and 3,081 are in intense condition, said Lari.

According to the health spokeswoman, 1,693,242 lab tests for COVID-19 have been carried out in Iran as of Wednesday.

Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on February 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 three million masks to China.

In return, China has delivered several shipments of medical supplies to Iran. On February 29, a five-member Chinese medical team visited Iran for a month-long mission to help Iran fight the pandemic.

--IANS

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The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) of the Philippines said these inmates called "persons deprived of liberty" jailed in the facilities run by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, were freed from March 17 to June 22, Xinhua reported.

Manila, July 2 (IANS) The Philippines has released a total of 15,322 prisoners amid a rising number of Covid-19 cases, officials said on Thursday.

The majority of the freed prisoners are "elderly and have committed light or bailable offences," the DILG said in a statement.

It further said the freed inmates were from Metro Manila and several jail facilities across the country.

As of July 2, the DILG said some 783 inmates throughout the country have contracted the virus. It said 549 inmates have recovered.

The DILG also said that 135 jail personnel have also been infected but 90 of them have recovered.

The Philippines now has 38,805 confirmed Covid-19 cases, including 10,673 recoveries and 1,274 deaths.

--IANS

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Rajapaksa has further instructed that no public official serving in security forces, government service, Corporations, Boards and Statutory Bodies should engage in political activities, the Daily Mirror newspaper quoted the resident's Media Division as saying.

Colombo, July 2 (IANS) Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ordered not to use his photographs by candidates contesting for the upcoming parliamentary elections in their propaganda campaign, it was reported on Thursday.

In a letter on Wednesday, Secretary to the President P.B. Jayasundera said that infrmation was received that besides using Rajapaksa's photos, the candidates were also promising jon appointments and secure services of Army and public officials.

The President has instructed his Secretary to strictly advice relevant parties not to use the photograph of the President in election campaign and the public officials to refrain from engaging in political activities, it added.

Sri Lanka is set to hold its parliamentary elections on August 5, the country's National Election Commission (NEC) announced after it postponed the crucial polls twice due to restrictions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The elections were initially set to be held on April 25, after Rajapaksa dissolved Parliament in March following his landslide victory in the November 2019 presidential polls.

The date was shifted to June 20 after lockdown measures were announced in mid-March.

The elections are set be held under strict health protocols with campaign meetings limited to a maximum of 100 people, while the NEC has recommended using the print and electronic media for propaganda and cutting down physical meetings to avoid exposure to the virus.

The Commission has also limited house-to-house campaigns to a maximum of three people.

Rajapaksa was sworn-in as President after an easy victory in the November 16, 2019 polls on the back of an agenda focused on national security.

Soon after, he appointed his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister and dissolved the opposition-majority Parliament.

The President's Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party has to win majority in the house in order to secure the government's full control in the semi-presidential representative democracy.

--IANS

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Crews could be seen preparing to remove a statue honouring Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from the city's historic Monument Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, Xinhua news agency quoted a CNN report as saying.

Washington, July 2 (IANS) The Mayor of Richmond, the capital of US' Virginia state, has invoked emergency powers to remove multiple Confederate statues from the historic city.

The statue of Jackson, who was a slave owner and fought to preserve slavery during the American Civil War, has stood in the city for more than 100 years.

Virginia was also the former capital of the Confederacy.

But the move by Mayor Levar Stoney, a Democrat, did not specify which other statues he planned to remove from Richmond

"It is past time," Stoney said in a statement on Wednesday.

"As the capital city of Virginia, we have needed to turn this page for decades. And today, we will."

The Mayor also cited the "threat to public safety" some of the city's controversial statues pose as a reason for using his emergency powers.

The city's move came as a number of cities and states across the country have removed in recent weeks statues and other symbols that honour Confederate leaders amid a national reckoning with America's racist past in the wake of George Floyd's death in the hands of a white police officer on May 25.

This development came on the same day the US House Armed Services Committee voted to approve an amendment to ban the public display of the Confederate battle flag on all Pentagon property.

The measure was approved without debate by voice vote as part of a package of non-controversial amendments to the National Defence Authorization Act, according to a report from The Hill.

The House panel is also expected to consider an amendment later that would require the Pentagon to strip Confederate names from bases and other property within a year.

On Tuesday, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a legislation into law to officially removing a Confederate battle emblem from the state flag.

The state's lawmakers on Sunday overwhelmingly voted to replace the flag.

A commission will design a new flag that does not include the Confederate symbol broadly condemned as racist, said local media reports, and the new design will go before voters in November for approval.

The state flag, adopted in 1894, nearly 30 years after the end of the Civil War, is the last in the US to feature the Confederate battle emblem.

The flag was originally used by the slave-owning states who lost the US Civil War (1860-65).

--IANS

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The visa outsourcing and technology services specialist is resuming operations for a few of its Visa Application Centres in Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Cochin and Hyderabad, New Delhi, Jalandhar, Chandigarh and Kolkata for specific visa categories for the UK, Ireland, Italy, Belarus, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Dominican Republic, UAE and Turkey, informed Pranav Sinha, India Regional Head (West & South India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives), VFS Global, at a digital conference held on Wednesday.

Out of the 64 client governments that VFS Global works for in 144 countries at 3,390 application centres, it has already resumed operations 632 centres in 80 countries for 51 client governments.

Amit Kumar Sharma, Regional Head (North and East India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Israel, Nepal and Palestine, at VFS Global also joined the conference to answer some widely asked questions by their customers regarding visa application services. Here are some of the important ones:

Will Visa Application Centres (VACs) open for appointments once the lockdown lifts?

Sharma: Our VACs can open only when the local Embassy/Consulate provides approval for the re-opening. VFS Global does not decide about the re-opening of a Visa Application Centre on its own. The local Embassy / Consulate provides approval for the re-opening.

What happens to passports submitted before services were suspended?

Sharma: we will evaluate at which stage of assessment of each application is (i.e. whether it is still being assessed at the Embassy/Consulate or has been returned to the VFS Global) and resume the passport return process. Passports currently with us will be returned to the customers when the VACs are allowed to re-open.

We would like to assure our customers that passports that were returned to us from the Embassy/Consulate prior to the lockdown are in safe custody.

Would one be required to submit medical history for visa applications now?

Sharma: VFS Global does not seek a medical report for customers visiting our Centres, though medical reports are often part of required documentation in some visa applications (may or may not be related to COVID-19).

Governments may introduce health screening measures going forward, so make sure you've carefully been through the updated document checklist for the country you're visiting, in case any medical and vaccination histories are required as part of your visa application.

Can I travel if I have a work or residency permit?

Sharma: If you already hold a valid work or residence permit, your travel / entry will depend on entry restrictions of that country. For fresh applications, this depends on the country you are applying for. Several countries have put in place border control measures, temporarily disallowing certain non-essential travellers from submitting visa applications. Make sure you're checking regulations of not only your government, but also that of the country you plan to visit.

What happens to a valid visa, if the country in question has restricted/banned travel?

Sharma: Those who are yet to travel and whose existing visas have expired, or expiring soon, can re-apply for a fresh visa when operations resume.

What are health and safety precautions implemented at the centres?

Sharma: As per guidelines prescribed by the World Health Organization, as well as local authorities, customers and employees at Visa Application Centres will be subject to body temperature checks, face masks and gloves - for their own protection and that of others. Centres are also maintaining preventive measures such as disinfecting high-contact surfaces, use of hand sanitizers, and social distancing practices.

When services resume, can one avoid visiting a Visa Application Centre as a physical distancing precaution?

Sharma: Once services resume, customers who wish to avoid visiting public places can also use optional services, such as the Visa At Your Doorstep service for application submission - with this service, trained VFS Global staff will visit the customer's location of choice (home, office, etc.) to complete the visa application submission process and/or biometric enrolment if needed, while maintaining necessary health precautions. In India, this service is available for 18 destination countries, and will resume after lockdown subject to approvals from the concerned embassy/consulate.

(Puja Gupta can be contacted at puja.g@ians.in)

--IANS

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The head of a state court officers union has sued the states chief judge and court administration agency, alleging a failure to provide proper coronavirus (COVID-19) safety measures in courts on Staten Island and throughout the state.

The multimillion-dollar suit was filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court by Dennis Quirk, president of the New York State Court Officers Association, individually and on behalf of the union.

New York State Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and the state Office of Court Administration (OCA) are named defendants.

In a civil complaint, Quirk and the union allege courts have not been adequately cleaned and sterilized, nor have proper protocols been established to continually monitor and disinfect courthouses.

In addition, court officers have insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), and have not been properly trained in the maintenance, care and disposal of that equipment, alleges the suit.

Quirk has consistently and vigorously objected to the lack of PPE and properly sanitized work area for union members to combat the very clear and present danger COVID-19 issues have manifested within the court system as courts began to reopen, the complaint contends.

The suit seeks several million dollars each in compensatory and punitive damages.

The courthouses are not being cleaned. Theres no sanitizer, Quirk said Thursday in a telephone interview. We dont have a problem working, but the courts have to be cleaned properly so our people and the public dont get sick.

In a footnote, the complaint said one court officer, two court assistants who are members of the union, and three state court judges are believed to have died from COVID-19.

The footnote does not say where those individuals contracted the disease.

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

Quirks union represents about 1,500 members who provide security in the lower courts, such as Criminal Court, Civil Court and Family Court.

Another union which also works in Staten Island courts, the New York State Supreme Court Officers Association, is not part of the suit.

The litigation comes just days before the city is poised to enter Phase 3 of its re-opening operations on Monday.

Starting Monday, visitors to courts on Staten Island and throughout the city will be subject to temperature screening and coronavirus-related questioning on entering the building.

Individuals will be allowed or denied further access inside depending on their temperature readings and response to the questions.

Lawyers, litigants, witnesses, law enforcement personnel, spectators, prisoners and vendors will all be subject to the screening, according to information on the state court web site.

Quirk said officers have not been properly trained in using the thermometers to take visitors temperatures. Nor are appropriate measures in place to secure officers safety when doing so, he maintains.

If those conditions dont change, there could be a showdown: Quirk said the union would seek a temporary restraining order next week to stop the temperature-taking.

We dont want to shut down courthouses, we want to shut down the thermometers, said Quirk. We believe more people will get sick if there isnt adequate training and safety precautions.

Quirk has long feuded with OCA and the chief judge.

In the suit, Quirk and the union allege the defendants have threatened disciplinary action against him over multiple Freedom of Information requests the union has made for more than a year to OCA regarding spending.

Such money could have been used on safety-enhancement measures for union members, the suit contends.

In response, Lucian Chalfen, an OCA spokesperson, said, While we do not comment on pending disciplinary matters, no union leader would ever be referred for investigation for doing their job, that of advocating for their members.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The next Staten Island Ferry will be arriving... at some point.

The delivery of the first of three new ferry boats -- the Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis -- previously scheduled to arrive in August 2020, has been delayed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).

However, the department was unable to provide an updated timeline as to when the boat is now scheduled to arrive.

Due to the COVID-19 health crisis, the delivery date for the Ollis ship has been impacted, according to the DOT. Further details on the delivery dates are forthcoming.

The Ollis boat was initially scheduled to arrive in the New York Harbor in fall 2019, with the vessel originally set to be commissioned and put in service in early 2020.

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

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans.

The Florida shipyard, operated by the Eastern Shipbuilding Group Inc., where the newest Staten Island Ferry vessels are under construction, was badly damaged by Hurricane Michael in October 2018, delaying the arrival of the new boats.

The second new boat, the Sandy Ground, was originally scheduled to arrive in the New York Harbor in summer 2020, with the third new boat, which remains nameless, initially scheduled to arrive in spring 2021.

The DOT did not provide any information regarding updated timelines for the second or third ferry boats.

The Ollis boat is named after the late Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis, a New Dorp native who died at age 24 while saving a Polish soldier in Afghanistan.

The Sandy Ground is named for the historic community settled by freed slaves in Rossville.

The new storm-resilient vessels, which will replace the Kennedy, Andrew J. Barberi and the Samuel I. Newhouse boats, will be more capable of operating in a wide range of weather conditions and locations -- and can also be used in emergency evacuations.

The ships were modeled after the John F. Kennedy boat, popular for its outdoor promenades and extended foredecks.
Clark first tried to resign back in April after admitting that he broke lockdown rules twice, once to go mountain biking and once to go to the beach with his family. At the time, Ardern rejected his resignation but lowered his standing in her cabinet.
Update: Just hours after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City public schools would reopen their doors to students this fall, Gov. Andrew Cuomos office issued a statement saying that the mayor does not have the authority to reopen city schools.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A major step has been made in the return to normalcy.

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City public schools will officially reopen their doors to students in September with various health and safety protocols in place and specialized plans to accommodate each schools unique learning community.

Were full steam ahead for September, de Blasio said. The goal, of course, is to the have the maximum number of kids in our schools as we begin school.

Each school will have a number that is the maximum number of kids who can be in that school with social distancing -- using every conceivable space in that school. Were going to convert everything that can be converted to a classroom into a classroom to accommodate social distancing, he continued.

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

The mayor acknowledged that it will be difficult to devise plans that allow for adequate social distancing, but emphasized that the city is working hard with each school to determine the safest way for reopening.

We know that theres going to be a lot of challenges, just sheer logistical challenges, with schools that were overcrowded before the coronavirus and now have to practice social distancing, but were going to make it work to the maximum in each school, de Blasio said.

According to the Department of Education (DOE) Enrollment, Capacity and Utilization Report, which provides an assessment of capacity for each school and school building to assist in space utilization, four Staten Island public high schools, two intermediate schools, and 34 public elementary schools, were overcrowded during the 2017-2018 school year.

NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza is scheduled to meet with public school principals on Thursday to discuss individualized plans based on the capacity limits of each school building.

While some schools are expected to be able to bring back all their students, even with social distancing measures in place, others will not have adequate space and will need to develop either a staggered schedule or some form of blended in-class and remote learning.

Chancellor Carranza is meeting later today with principals to hone their plans specifically on how much each school will be able to bring back its kids. Whats the number each school can hit in terms of bringing back kids safely when distancing, the mayor said.

For schools that can not accommodate all their kids in the building at one time, by definition, some kind of staggered schedule. That peice will be determined with the schools. Its an ongoing conversation with the unions to see what that configuration will be, but it will be announced well in advance of schools reopening, continued de Blasio.

Various precautions will be in place as students return to schools, including face covering requirements for all students and staff, strict social distancing measures, hand-washing and sanitizing stations, as well as regularly scheduled deep cleanings of the facilities.

These are the kinds of things we need to do to give people confidence and make them feel safe and well be doing that and preparing for that in the months ahead, de Blasio said.

Additional details regarding the reopening of schools are expected later this month when the city submits its official reopening plan to the New York State Department of Education.

Every school district in New York State is in the thick of developing their reopening plans. We anticipate sometime this summer theyre going to ask for the plan and were going to be ready to go, Carranza said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Officials have issued eight subpoenas to people who attended a Rockland County party in mid-June that drew up to 100 people, including multiple individuals who later tested positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19), according to a New York Times report.

The host of the party, who reportedly was showing signs of being sick during the gathering, later tested positive for the virus, along with at least eight others, the report said; however, contact tracers whose job it is to learn who else might have been exposed have hit a dead-end.

People who attended the party hang up on contact tracers and deny being at the party even though we have their names from another party attendee, said Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the countys health commissioner, in the New York Times report.

As a result, officials issued subpoenas to eight people they believe were at the party. Each carries a $2,000 penalty for those who do not comply, the report said.

TEXAS PONG PARTY

The gathering drew parallels to a pong party in Lakeway, Texas on June 20 that potentially exposed 300 high school students to the coronavirus, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

The mass-gathering occurred in a state currently hammered with record-breaking hospitalizations, as nearly 7,000 coronavirus-positive patients are currently being cared for in Texas hospitals, data shows.

Unfortunately, our caseload is probably going to increase, and its because there was a very large party this past Saturday, Lakeway Mayor Sandy Cox said in a Facebook video following the event.

Teens who attended the party were awaiting test results and were later confirmed to have the coronavirus, the report said.

The city is trying to get a handle on who attended, and the numbers are so big, contact tracing everyone is not possible, Cox said to the Community Impact Newspaper at the time. Hopefully we can contain this. The worst thing that can happen is that we dont contain this.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Tenants in New York financially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic will be protected from evictions after the state passed legislation late Tuesday.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, which prohibits courts from issuing either eviction warrants or possession judgments against residential tenants who have suffered financial hardship during the pandemic affecting their ability to pay rent.

State Sen. Brad Hoylman, who sponsored the legislation, said it will help protect those most vulnerable to evictions related to finance for the duration of the pandemic.

Theres tidal wave of evictions looming over New York. No one should be forced onto the street during a pandemic. We have a moral obligation to do everything possible to keep New Yorkers in their homes, Hoylman said.

The legislation that passed Tuesday applies to unpaid rent starting March 7 until the state lifts coronavirus restrictions.

On Staten Island, attorney Tashanna Golden, who is director of housing at Staten Island Legal Services NYC, welcomed news of the legislation ahead of the Aug. 20th deadline for the governors partial eviction moratorium.

She raised additional concerns about evictions still occurring for other reasons like outstanding warrants in hold overs issued before the pandemic, which could leave those tenants homeless and more vulnerable to a virus that has killed more than 30,000 New Yorkers.

The tenants most at-risk for eviction on Staten Island, according to Golden, are usually people of color, who have also been impacted hardest by the coronavirus.

My concerns are that people will be evicted, and will be rendered homeless, Golden, who sits on the Steering Committee for the Advances Disparity Project, said. This pandemic is nothing like weve ever seen before, and we dont know whats going to happen once housing court cases can be filed again.

The New York City Housing Court announced May 19 that it would begin conducting virtual conferences in pending eviction matters in an effort to address case loads and facilitate settlements.

Qualifying cases to be heard by the court, which is one of the busiest in the nation handling more than 240,000 new filings each year, would have to have been filed before the pandemic with both landlords and tenants having retained counsel.

As of June 20, the governors moratorium only applies to people who could prove that they suffered a financial hardship due to the pandemic, or were eligible to collect unemployment. The court system effectively extended the portions protecting all tenants to July 6.

The legislation signed Tuesday expands the eviction moratorium to tenants who have lost income during the pandemic, and protects them post-pandemic from evictions related to arrears accumulated during that time.
The Staten Island Rotary Foundation, the giving arm of the Rotary Club of Staten Island, has presented scholarships totaling $15,000 to students attending St. Johns University in memory of Rotarian Gladys Schweiger, to the College of Staten Island in memory of Borough President Albert Maniscalco and to Wagner College in memory of Rotarian Dr. William Smith.

Because of the current coronavirus concerns, awards were presented by club president John Amodio via a Zoom meeting and lawn signs congratulating the awardees were delivered to individual homes.

The Dr. Norbert H. Leeseberg Service Above Self Scholarship was presented to Staten Island Tech graduating senior Laura Zhang, who is attending the University of Connecticut this fall, for her academic excellence and community service.

The Lou DeMartino Community Service Award was presented to St. Joseph Hill Academy High School student Nicole Fracchiolla.

The Rotary Club of Staten Island Memorial Scholarship, initiated by Past President Joseph Marchese, was presented to Monsignor Farrell High School student Ryan Manuelian who has demonstrated exemplary service and leadership in the school community while maintaining a high average.

Ryan Manuelian received a scholarship from The Rotary Club of Staten Island. (Courtesy/Marylee Montalvo)Staten Island Advance

Since 1962 the Staten Island Rotary Foundation has award $2.7 million in grants and scholarships to individuals, organizations and relief efforts.

In addition, the Rotary Club of Staten Island has been active in assisting the St. Adalbert-St. Roch Parish Food Pantry as they prepare to reopen. The date is to be announced. The pantry is managed by the Sisters of St. John the Baptist in collaboration with the St. Vincent De Paul Society of the parish with the support of members of both churches.

The effort, coordinated by the Rotary Club of Staten Islands Past President Rosemarie Scampas, and under the direction of the Clubs Immediate Past President MaryJane OConnell, also includes Rotarians painting the floor, constructing shelves (purchased for the pantry by the Rotary Club of Staten Island along with tables for stacking items) and delivering food and sundries needed to help stock shelves.

The food pantry is sponsored by the contribution of the people of St. AdlabertSt. Rochs parish through their poor box and St. Vincent De Paul Societys poor box and annual food drives in both the churches and neighborhood churches and schools.

The food pantry is located at 602 Port Richmond Ave.nContact the parish at 718 442-4755 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. or email Stastr602@gmail.com for further information on how to donate or receive assistance.

The Rotary Club of Staten Island has continued meeting each week, as they have since 1921. At this time theyre meeting virtually in order to continue to serve the community.

A Staten Island Rotary Club Zoom meeting. (Courtesy/Marylee Montalvo)Staten Island Advance

Installation of officers for 2020-2021 was conducted virtually as well with Patrick McGrade installed as the new president. The following were installed:

Board of Directors: President, Patrick McGrade, president-elect, Eric Campione, vice president, Sam Farag, sergeant-at-arms, Kash Pervez, deputy sergeant-at-arms, Enrico Bawar, secretary, Amina Diop, treasurer, Joseph Pane, advisor to the president, Rob Myers. Past presidents are Mary Jane OConnell and Abdul Rehman.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A look at the string of 17 burglaries that affected restaurants and grocery stores over a 39-day span on Staten Island shows a targeted spree that ranged from Eltingville to West Brighton  netting about $6,000 worth of cash, electronics and cigarettes, police said.

The NYPD supplied the Advance/SILive.com with the addresses of the burglarized locations, along with the date the incidents occurred; however, in instances where multiple businesses reside at the same address, it is not immediately clear which specific location had items stolen.

The incidents, which include shops in the 120th, 121st and 122nd precincts, have been identified by police as a burglary pattern, the NYPD said in a statement on Thursday.

The onset of the sequence of burglaries came as many businesses on the Island struggled  and continue to struggle  as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

The first heist took place on May 14 at 604 Forest Ave. in West Brighton, which includes multiple businesses and restaurants, according to police and data mapped by the Advance/SILive.com.

Five days later, a business in a Willowbrook strip located at 2491 Victory Blvd. was burglarized, police said.

The following day, on May 20, a business within a Meiers Corners group of establishments at 1957 Victory Blvd.  which contains two eateries  was targeted, according to authorities.

Less than a week later, the burglary spree reached its southern-most point on Staten Island when a store located at 4295 Amboy Road in Eltingville was broken into.

Making rounds back to 604 Forest Ave., the strip was burglarized for a second time in approximately two weeks on May 30, according to the NYPD.

June 4 marked the sixth burglary, police said, when a set of businesses located at 407 Manor Road in Castleton Corners, which only contains one food establishment, was the first location to be targeted in the month of June.

Then, police said the 4295 Amboy Road strip was broken into for a second time on June 6.

The next location victimized was within a strip located at 1733 Richmond Road the following day, according to police. The Dongan Hills heist on June 7 is the only known location targeted in the area amid the spree.

June 8 marked the first-known time within the pattern in which two locations were burglarized on the same day when Graniteville businesses located at 1218 Forest Ave.  a strip of eateries and other stores  and 1310 Forest Ave.  a set of two restaurants less than a quarter mile away  were targeted, according to information supplied by the NYPD.

Three days later, on June 11, the run of burglaries continued when a business within a Bulls Head strip mall was broken into, according to police.

Four days later and only hundreds of feet away at a collection of establishments at 2059 Richmond Ave., a burglary marked the 12th incident within the spree, according to police; however, while police initially said restaurants and grocery stores were the targets of the burglary spree, no such businesses appear to exist at the location.

The string of burglaries reached 2018 Forest Ave. in Mariners Harbor on June 18, which is the location of a florist, police said.

The following day, a bagel store in Castleton Corners located at 1810 Victory Blvd. marked the 14th burglary within the spree on the Island, according to police.

Just down the block, police said an eatery located at 1903 Victory Blvd. was broken into on June 19.

Circling back to the Bulls Head strip mall targeted 11 days prior, police said two separate locations at 1949 Richmond Ave. were burglarized on June 22.

Police are seeking to question this man in connection with 17 burglaries of businesses on Staten Island. (Courtesy of NYPD)

The NYPD supplied surveillance photo and video of the man sought for questioning in the spree taken from Polish Specialties Grocery within the Bulls Head strip during the most recent incident.

In that incident, an individual gained entry by breaking the front window of the establishment, police said. Once inside, he removed $400 before fleeing in an unknown direction, according to a police statement.

People with information are encouraged to contact the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 (TIPS) or for Spanish, 1-888-577-4782 (PISTA). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A group of Staten Island students, parents and activists called for the firing of an assistant principal at New Dorp High School and an increased effort toward racial equity at schools on Thursday.

The Equity Alliance of Staten Island held a virtual town hall to address a social media post that brought New Dorp High School Assistant Principal Deborah Morse-Cunningham under fire for its perceived racism.

Tristen Butler, a recent graduate of New Dorp High School, said he was unaware of the post, but found it to be racist after it was brought to his attention.

I felt like it was almost directed to me, Butler, who is Black, said. Seeing racism being brought to my face was definitely a different experience, and we just have to try to get a better understanding from each other because we are all human.

In the post from June 20, Morse-Cunningham talks about the concept of privilege while referencing the ongoing protests against racial injustice following the death of George Floyd.

She links modern luxuries like expensive headphones and smartphones to the right to protest guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

According to screenshots on social media, the post linked to a Facebook account with her name that has since been taken down reads: Privilege is wearing $300 Beats headphones while living on public assistance. Privilege is having a Smartphone with a Data plan which you receive no bill for. Privilege is living in public subsidized housing where you dont have a water bill, where rising property taxes and rents and energy costs have absolutely no effect on the amount of food you can put on your table. Privilege is the ability to go march against, and protest against anything that triggers you, without worrying about calling out of work and the consequences that accompany such behavior.

The Equity Alliance, which launched in 2018, also introduced an open letter to Staten Islanders that addressed the Facebook post and called for better treatment for students of color in schools.

The organization also called for the Department of Education (DOE) to take swift action against the assistant principal.

The post by Morse-Cunningham further deepens the divide between Black, Latinx, and White, rich and poor communities and bears naked the problem Staten Island schools face, the open letter read.

A mayor and a police officer in Georgia both came under scrutiny earlier in June for posting the same message on privilege to their social media accounts.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Savannah police officer Edwin Myrick had been fired, but Benjamin Rozier, the mayor of Bloomingdale, which is about 18 miles from Savannah, has not bee fired.

A spokeswoman for the city DOE said there is an investigation underway, and that Morse-Cunningham remains on the job while the office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation conducts its review.

The DOE stands against racism and schools must be safe, inclusive learning environments and this incident is being investigated, DOE Spokeswoman Danielle Filson said. We thank The Equity Alliance of Staten Island for their advocacy.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Legislation that would allow agencies to use toll revenue to provide commuter discounts is one step closer to becoming a reality.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the $1.5 trillion Moving Forward Act, a comprehensive transportation, infrastructure and housing funding bill that includes new federal legislation from Rep. Max Rose (D-Staten Island/South Brooklyn) that would give agencies the ability to provide commuter discounts using toll revenue.

I promised to do everything I can to end my constituents commuting nightmare and this is another step of many we are taking to get the job done, Rose said. Staten Islanders and South Brooklynites deserve lower tolls, better streets, subways that are actually on time, shorter commutes, and the assurance that their roads wont flood every time it rains -- and I wont stop fighting until thats a reality.

The legislation, if passed by the U.S. Senate and signed by President Donald Trump, would amend a section of the U.S. Code that dictates how agencies can use toll revenue, and doesnt currently allow for discounts.

Under existing law, agencies can only use toll revenues from federally-funded projects for certain purposes like maintenance work, debt obligations, and the meeting of public-private partnership agreements.

Currently, discounts come from a variety of sources, and require annual negotiations to ensure that they are included in state and local budgets, as is the case with Staten Islands resident discount on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

This bill includes my legislation to overturn outdated rules preventing agencies like the Port Authority and MTA from using the tolls they collect to provide discounts for commuters with no other choice than to pay the highest tolls in the country, Rose said on the House floor on Wednesday.

The massive funding bill also includes a nearly $500 billion investment in surface and rail transit, over $23 billion of which is earmarked for New York, the third-highest funding amount of any state.

New York will receive $11.5 billion in Federal Transit Administration (FTA) formula funding over the next five years, as well as $12.1 billion in Federal Highway Administration (FHA) funding.

This bill allocates $300 billion to rebuild our roads and our bridges so my constituents on Staten Island dont have to pay thousands of dollars a year to repair road damage to their cars, Rose said.

This is the second time Rose has managed to include crucial tolling legislation into a larger funding bill, with the congressman having successfully repealed the federal split tolling ban on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge via a $1.4 trillion spending package signed by Trump in December.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Protests have taken the United States by storm over the last month, with many protestors sharing one clear message: Defund the police.

The new New York City budget for 2021 attempted to begin that process.

The call for change to policing policy and funding followed the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes in May. Chauvin has since been fired, arrested and charged in Floyds killing.

Members of the movement want money moved away from police departments and shifted toward education and social services.

On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council finalized a new budget for fiscal year 2021, which includes $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD.

Ahead of the vote, hundreds of protesters had camped outside of City Hall for a week demanding the $1 billion cut to the NYPDs budget be made.

The cut includes:

Cancelling NYPDs July recruitment class, reducing NYPDs headcount by 1,163

Reducing overtime spending by $296 million

Returning school safety duties to the Department of Education

Removing NYPD from homeless outreach

Removing NYPD from crossing guard duties

$430 million shifted from NYPD to create summer youth programs

$537 million shifted from NYPD to NYCHA and youth recreation programs

Redeployments of officers to ensure safety with the lower uniform headcount

The new fiscal year began on Wednesday, with all of these changes going into effect.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Whale, whale, whale  what do we have here?

A humpback whale was seen off the coast of South Beach on Wednesday by NYPD Harbor Unit members patrolling the waters.

The massive mammal can be seen breaching the surface multiple times just feet from the NYPD boats where members of the department were watching, including one thrust where its entire head rose above the surface.

While patrolling the waters in the vicinity of South Beach today in @NYPDstatenIslnd, our #NYPD #Harbor members were visited by this humpback whale who put on an up-close & personal water show, the NYPD Special Operations unit wrote on Twitter.

Spotted: A humpback whale enjoying the waterway near our South Beach waterfront #onStatenIsland. Welcome! https://t.co/XeEfPn2ceW  NYC Parks (@NYCParks) July 2, 2020

Last year, the Advance/SILive.com reported on multiple whale sightings off the coast of the borough  especially in Great Kills Harbor, where a massive whale was seen breaching above the surface.

Paul Sieswerda, president and CEO of Gotham Whale, an advocacy group that combines citizen activism with science by collecting marine research data throughout the area, previously said more whale sightings could be attributed to cleaner waters in New York Harbor.

Theres more fish, and the whales are eating the prey species, menhaden, said Sieswerda. The concept of cleaner water and regulations on the menhaden catch have increased the abundance of this prey species that make a very good food for the whales. And this area is perfect for whales to feed on these menhaden so were getting a big, big increase. Every year, the numbers are going up. Were seeing more and more whales.
2298909

As surrogacy booms, fears Ukraine becoming 'online baby store'





By Ania TSOUKANOVA and Olga SHYLENKO

KIEV (AFP) -- Tears of joy stream down Andrea Viez's face as she lifts her baby boy, born to a surrogate mother in Ukraine.

"He's a star," the Argentinian in her late 40s says, her voice trembling. After nine years of trying to have a child, Viez can finally hold her son in her arms, thanks to a booming surrogacy industry in Ukraine that has given hope to thousands of struggling would-be parents.

But behind their dream-come-true is a highly profitable and murky business that many worry is taking advantage of desperate young women and operating in a grey zone open to abuse.

"Ukraine is becoming an international online baby store," the country's commissioner for children's rights Mykola Kuleba warned last month, condemning the "exploitation" of Ukrainian women and calling for a ban on the industry.

The fact that Ukraine is one of the few countries allowing commercial surrogacy for foreigners was oddly thrown into the spotlight by the coronavirus.

When travel restrictions imposed to fight the pandemic prevented dozens of parents from picking up their children born to surrogates, a local surrogacy company posted a video online showing the infants lying in rows of plastic cots in a hotel on the edge of Kiev.

The BioTexCom clinic hoped to draw attention to the stranded babies' plight. It worked and the government stepped in to help parents like Viez obtain special permits and pick up their children a few weeks later.

Though it has existed since the early 2000s, the industry exploded in Ukraine after India and Thailand outlawed commercial surrogacy for foreigners about five years ago.

One the poorest countries in Europe, the post-Soviet nation is also known for its attractive prices, with birth through a surrogate costing about $42,000. In the United States it can cost more than twice as much.

'Total chaos'

There are no official statistics, but experts say between 2,500 and 3,000 children are born every year through surrogacy in Ukraine for foreign parents. About a third of customers are Chinese.

The industry is poorly regulated and rife with abuse and corruption, says Sergiy Antonov, who runs a law firm specialising in reproductive issues.

Women are sometimes not paid promised amounts or are housed in terrible conditions during the later stages of their pregnancies. In some cases parents have discovered they have no genetic link with children born to surrogates.

Authorities suspect some clinics are also using surrogacy as a cover for illegal commercial adoptions.

"It's total chaos," Antonov says.

Olga Korsunova, a 27-year-old going through her fourth surrogate pregnancy, says women "very often" have trouble obtaining money they were promised.

They are most often hired through intermediaries who keep part of the surrogacy fee.

Korsunova is paid $400 a month during a pregnancy and receives $15,000 after delivery.

"I would not call this exploitation, nobody forces us," she says in the modest flat she rents in Kiev with her eight-year-old son.

Korsunova dreams of becoming a doctor but started working as a surrogate after she and her son fled war-torn eastern Ukraine in 2014.

She does admit that because of their drastic financial situation Ukrainian women "trade part of your health... for money."

Another surrogate, 26-year-old Olga, says she is happy to be able to help people have children.

"These children will be loved by their parents for the rest of their lives," says Olga, who is expecting twins for a Chinese couple.

She normally earns about $135 a month as a waitress and this is her second surrogacy. She hopes to open a cafe with her payment of $15,000 after delivery.

"I'm proud to be able to provide babies to people who couldn't become parents in a different way," she says.

"But if I had a normal job, of course I wouldn't have done it."
Germany saw a significant rise in right-wing extremists in 2019, according to DW News, which reports the number of people affiliated with hate groups leapt by about a third from the previous year. The countrys history of fascism is well known.
2299300

Malaysian politics is a family business









By Mariam Mokhtar



What's in a name? In Malaysia, the right name means everything as it can carry a lot of influence and opens many doors, to business, contacts and funding.

If there was no tag team of Najib Abdul Razak and Jho Low, Riza Abdul Aziz, Najib's step son, would not have received the money from 1MDB, to produce his Hollywood films.

Each time the offspring of a prime minister is linked to a company, the shares in the company increase by leaps and bounds.

On 3 March, shares in the little-known Malaysian building company, Thriven Global Bhd. jumped 118% on speculation that the company's ties with Muhyiddin Yassin, Malaysia's 'new' PM, could boost business. Muhyiddin's son, Fakhri Yassin Mahiaddin, is its chairman. The same effect has been reported when sons of former PMs purchased shares in various companies.

Malaysian politics are like playground brawls. We focus on personalities instead of policies and issues. After 63 years, the nation has not progressed from the playground.

In the playground you can spot the children who like to show-off. At one time, some children could cultivate a following by owning rare Pokemon cards, or by wearing the latest trainers.

In the political playground, the same attraction occurs. The chunky diamond encrusted watches worn by Umno-Baru politicians and their spouses, are not for telling the time. They signal to the wider community that the wearer has 'made it' in Malaysia. These watches are a symbol of decadence and luxury, and some cost more than a semi-detached house.

Children can be cruel and will resort to name calling, incivility and taking sides. Our politicians adopt the same polarizing attitudes, to impress their followers. Today, paid cybertroopers use social media to have a devastating and immediate impact on the rakyat. One is aware that a by-election is approaching, by the increased intensity of these childish attacks.

In the latest round of political bitching between former PMs, Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Najib Abdul Razak, Najib criticized Harapan leaders, for allowing their children to inherit control of their respective parties. He said, "My name is not Anwar, Mahathir, nor Kit Siang, and Umno is not a party owned by any one family."

Najib is being disingenuous about his entry into politics. He is the consummate career politician who, five decades ago, was thrust into the political limelight, on the death of his father, the second PM of Malaysia, who died from leukemia.

Najib offered his name for the by-election and buoyed by the sympathy factor, became the nation's youngest deputy minister. He was in his final year at university but was thrust into the make-believe world of political intrigue, backstabbing and false promises. He soon learned to climb the greasy pole of politics, to survive, and to reach the top. It is a world dominated by three S's  sex, sleaze and scandal. Today, he often trades on his father's name, especially when he is in a tight spot.

Najib forgot to mention his cousin, Hishammuddin Hussein Onn, who is another political deadbeat. The same families seem to crop-up within Umno, Umno-Baru and Perikatan Nasional (PN).

Nurul Izzah Anwar's entry into the political limelight happened when Anwar was jailed by Mahathir. She had to stay strong for her mother and her siblings. She met world leaders, to highlight the abuses perpetrated on her father.

We will never know if Nurul would have pursued a career in electrical engineering, instead of being catapulted into politics, if her father had not been jailed by Mahathir.

Najib practices selective amnesia. In various police raids after GE14. he and his family were caught with billions of ringgits in cash, gems, watches, and expensive hand-bags stashed away in their various homes. No-one could say that of any of the children of his political rivals.

Malaysians keep carping on about Mahathir having sown the seeds of division. That is true, but the more important thing is to focus on the failure of successive PMs to end the polarization and inequality. These leaders merely perfected Mahathir's evil policies.

Timing is critical. If Najib was serious about dealing with nepotism and corruption, he could have exposed the details about Mahathir's children's business dealings years ago. Why now? Najib was hemmed into a corner and lashed out, just like a petulant child in the playground.

In the 80s and 90s, Najib held important ministerial roles under Mahathir, and had been intricately involved in the decision making of the cabinet. So it is disingenuous for him to claim that he was trapped by problem legacies. He had the power to act and expose the bail-outs of Mahathir's children, but he did not.

An effective leader sets a good example to his citizens. Neither Mahathir nor Najib fit the mould of a good leader, as they were driven by their rampant greed and self interests.

The rakyat must start a new dialogue and this time, demand that their leaders listen to them. They must dispense with the old guard and nurture the younger generation, especially those with the courage to tackle the twin evils of race and religion. We need a new political narrative in which Malays and non-Malays are treated as equals.

Source:

1. Malay Mail: Prove my children awarded govt contracts when I was PM, Dr Mahathir challenges Najib

2. MalaysiaKini: Najib hits back at Dr M with veiled swipe at sons' business deals



3. The Star: Eden, Thriven rally after appointment of new PM



4. Bloomberg: Malaysian property stock doubles in value over links to the new prime minister

(Mariam Mokhtar is a Freelance Writer.)
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Jeff Bezos wants you to know that Amazon is serious about tackling climate change. In the space of four days last week, his company launched a $US2 billion ($2.9 billion) venture capital fund to invest in technologies that tackle carbon emissions, bought an electric self-driving car firm and revealed that it would rename a Seattle ice hockey stadium to the "Climate Pledge Arena".

"Instead of calling it Amazon Arena, we're naming it Climate Pledge Arena as a regular reminder of the urgent need for climate action," the billionaire founder wrote in an Instagram post captioning a rendering of the stadium's future logo.

"Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says. Credit:AP

In February, he announced a $US10 billion pledge in his own name to finance scientists and charities on the front line of global warming, building on an order of 100,000 electric vehicles last year from car manufacturer Rivian and a 2040 target to have net zero emissions.

The moves are meant to show that the world's richest man and his trillion-dollar company mean business when it comes to the environment. But any praise for the billionaire's climate change battle plan warrants some degree of scrutiny.
Outdoors equipment maker Kathmandu has maintained a pessimistic outlook on Australias retail sector despite seeing a rebound in sales over the past two months as it emerged from the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Kathmandu, which is dual-listed on both the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges, told investors on Thursday morning it had "significant" concerns over Australia's economy over the next six months as government stimulus wears off and threats from further virus outbreaks loom.

Due to the impact of COVID-19, Kathmandu warned it now expects its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to just be above $70 million for the full year, a 30 per cent decrease on last year's $99.6 million.

Outdoor and adventure clothing chain Kathmandu has maintained a pessimistic outlook on Australias retail sector. Credit:

Chief executive Xavier Simonet told investors he was concerned the recent double-digit uptick in sales across the company wouldn't last long and was just a reflection of pent-up, stimulus-fuelled shopping demand.
For every two of those that come out, a single new one goes in, ready to power the station when its on Earths night side, AP said. The two also had to loosen the bolts on the next batch of old batteries slated for replacement, some of which proved stubborn. The spacewalk lasted six hours in total, ending at 12:14 p.m. EDT, NASA said.
Energy giant AGL's contentious plans for a floating gas import terminal in Victoria's Western Port Bay will come under closer scrutiny this month as residents and conservationists fight to stop the $250 million project going ahead.

Following years of delays and a bitter community backlash, AGL's environmental effects statement released on Thursday said construction works for the jetty at Crib Point and a new 55-kilometre pipeline from the Mornington Peninsula to Pakenham could begin next year and be able to supply new gas into the market by 2023  in time to help offset a gas shortfall which authorities forecast will hit the nation's south-east.

A jetty at Crib Point, where the floating gas import terminal would be placed.

"The project would help support Victoria's energy security and continued liveability, economic development and growth," the statement said.

But the proposal, which requires the approval of both the state and federal governments, is facing stiff opposition from environmental and residents groups worried about potential risks to the region's ecosystems and tourism. Critics say it would negatively affect marine life, Ramsar-listed wetlands, the tourism and fishing industries and drive up greenhouse gas emissions.
The sale of Virgin Australia to Bain Capital is facing a fresh legal obstacle after a major aviation leasing group launched court action to repossess jet engines and other parts it had supplied to the airline prior to its collapse.

US financial services group Wells Fargo Trustees and Florida-based aviation leasing company Willis Lease Finance Corporation filed action in the Federal Court on Tuesday, just two days after Virgin's administrators at Deloitte inked a deal to sell the airline to Bain Capital.

The lessor is seeking to repossess four engines used on four Boeing 737s. Credit:Getty

Wells Fargo, which is Willis' trustee, and Willis are demanding the return of four jet engines used in four different 737s, engine stands and other equipment to monitor the maintenance of the engines.

They are seeking orders from the court that Virgin Australia and its administrators deliver the aircraft equipment to the applicants at Coconut Creek, in Florida by not later than July 31.
Online travel agent Webjet says it will emerge from hibernation ready to make acquisitions after raising $160 million to boost liquidity and fund takeover deals in the pandemic-ravaged travel industry.

The $1.2 billion ASX-listed group announced after market close on Wednesday it was raising fresh funds by issuing 100 million in convertible notes.

The offering came as a surprise after Webjet raised $346 million in equity in early April as the COVID-19 crisis brought the global travel industry to a standstill. The company said at the time that would last the business through to the end of the 2021 financial year.

Webjet's chief executive John Guscic said there were "extraordinary opportunities" for M&A. Credit: Elke Meitzel

Webjet managing director John Guscic said the convertible notes extended its liquidity well into 2022, even on a doomsday scenario of there being no recovery in revenue. But its not really the reasons were doing this," he told analysts, with the capital giving it "firepower" to pounce on acquisition opportunities.
The nascent restart of the US economy has begun to stall as a surge in new coronavirus cases dampens consumer and business activity across states like Florida, Texas and Arizona.

After weeks of a pandemic-induced contraction, the economy had begun rebounding faster than many economists expected from mid-April into June as infection rates stabilised or fell across much of the country and the federal government injected trillions of dollars in the economy. States began to reopen, shoppers increased their spending and employers started to hire back furloughed workers.

Hopes of a rapid economic rebound may have been dashed. Credit:Bloomberg

But there were signs in late May and early June that the pace of recovery was beginning to slow, even before another wave of infections swept through states that had moved quickly to ease limits on public gatherings. In recent weeks, as that wave intensified, real-time economic data began to show the economy moving backward as rising infection fears spooked consumers.

The national jobs report, scheduled to be released on Thursday (US time) by the Labor Department, is expected to obscure that reversal. Forecasters expect the report, drawn from data compiled in the middle of the month, to show the economy added about 3 million jobs in June. That would represent progress, but nowhere close to victory against the more than 20 million jobs shed at the trough of the recession.
Employers brought back millions more workers in June as businesses began to reopen across the country. But the recent surge in coronavirus cases is threatening to stall the economic recovery long before it has reached most of the people who lost their jobs.

US payrolls grew by 4.8 million in June, the Labor Department said on Thursday, leading to President Trump to claim the economy was "roaring back". It was the second month of strong gains after April's huge losses, when businesses laid off or furloughed tens of millions of workers as the pandemic put a large swath of economic activity on ice. The gains were broad-based, cutting across industries and demographic groups.

Donald Trump said the US economy was "roaring back" but the jobs data was collected in mid-June, before coronavirus cases began to spike across the country. Credit:AP

But the thaw is far from complete. There were still nearly 15 million fewer jobs in June than in February, before the pandemic forced businesses to close. The unemployment rate fell to 11.1 per cent in June, down from a peak of 14.7 per cent in April but still higher than in any previous period since World War II. The rate would have been about 1 percentage point higher, the Labor Department said, had it not been for persistent data-collection problems.

The monthly jobs data was collected in mid-June, before coronavirus cases began to spike in Arizona, Florida and several other states. More timely data, also released by the Labor Department on Thursday, showed that 1.4 million Americans filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week  the 15th straight week that the figure exceeded 1 million  and another 840,000 filed for benefits under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.
Owen Harries was a foreign policy adviser, thinker, gadfly and editor. His influence, in Australia and globally, was profound. He persuaded, stung and prodded those around him to think differently about global politics and foreign policy.

Owen Harries, pictured in 2004. Credit:Michel O'Sullivan

The son of David Harries and Maud Jones, he was born on March 29, 1930, in Garnant, a Welsh mining village in the valley of the River Amman  an industrial hell on one side and lovely rivers on the other. Educated locally, he studied history at the University of Wales, and went on to Oxford where he obtained an MA, and then served as a pilot officer in the RAF from 1952 to 1954.

In 1953, he married a fellow Welsh Oxford history scholar Dorothy Richards, with whom he was to have two daughters.

In the UK, he was impressed by Fabian ideas and temperament, and began a lifelong intellectual wrestle with what it means to be a fair-minded political realist. The semi-Marxist historian E.H. Carr influenced him and Harries distilled from Carrs The Twenty Years Crisis some major themes on foreign policy realism. Like the best thinkers, Harries often drew from others, reflected on their position, and decided his own view rather than merely absorbing anothers viewpoint.
Of course, the High Court investigation into Heydons alleged misconduct recorded a claim that Gleeson and McHugh were told of their colleagues behaviour. Gleeson headed the court for a decade until 2008, while McHugh served on the court from 1989 until 2005. Details from the report included an account of how McHughs then-associate Sharona Coutts claimed that in 2005, Heydons associate Rachael Patterson-Collins had said "Heydon tried to kiss me and I had to push him off me!" Coutts told the investigator she had informed McHugh, who allegedly replied that he was "truly shocked". A day later, McHugh allegedly told her he had passed the information on to Gleeson. Gleeson has rejected an account of the events as "false", without going into detail. PRACTICE MAKES IMPERFECT Rio Tinto boss Jean-Sebastien Jacques has injected some fresh blood to the miners top ranks which are still dealing with fallout from the companys destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site. Rio announced this week that London-based Hungarian/Aussie Peter Toth will now be in charge of what passes for Rios strategy and development as of October 1.

Jean-Sebastien Jacques and Peter Toff. Credit:John Shakespeare Rio even mentioned Toths previous role as CEO of manganese miner OM Holdings as part of his vast mining experience which is very relevant to its current woes. Toth was OMs boss in 2013 when it was fined $150,000 for desecrating an Aboriginal sacred site in the Northern Territory by the Darwin Magistrates Court. According to reports at the time it was one of the very first convictions of its sort. Cracks started to appear at the sacred site near OMs Bootu Creek mine soon after the company used explosives to break up ground in the area in 2011. OM didnt respond to requests for comment about its old boss on Thursday. In a public statement following the judgment in 2013, OM said it had contested the charges of desecration arguing it never intended to damage the site. The company never intended to harm, damage or disrespect the sacred site. We sincerely regret the damage and the hurt caused and unreservedly apologise to the sites custodians and traditional owners, Toth said at the time.

J-S could not have put it better himself. In fact CBD doesnt think he did with his statement last month. "We are very sorry for the distress we have caused the PKKP (Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people) in relation to Juukan Gorge and our first priority remains rebuilding trust with the PKKP," was the J-S version of an apology. POLITICIAN STOCKING THE BAR Heres one to file under Politicians, theyre just like us. Locals in former Labor leader Bill Shortens home electorate of Maribyrnong spotted the opposition frontbencher on Tuesday night at a Dan Murphys liquor store buying a bottle of Grey Goose vodka. And probably with good reason too, given the partial lockdown in Melbournes COVID-19 hotspots includes Shortens home in Travancore. A litre of French-made Grey Goose will set you back about $90 at Dan Murphys. We suggest a man of the people should be drinking Red Square vodka ($44 per litre).
The NSW Supreme Court has appointed an external adviser to handle complaints about workplace misconduct following the sexual harassment scandal centred on former High Court judge Dyson Heydon.

The court's new policy on inappropriate workplace conduct, released on Thursday, includes a new mechanism for judicial staff to report complaints against judges to an external consultant, along with more traditional avenues for reporting complaints.

Former High Court justice Dyson Heydon was found in an inquiry ordered by the High Court to have harassed six associates. Credit:Dean Sewell

Chief Justice Tom Bathurst will meet with judicial staff on Friday to discuss the policy.

"Staff will be informed of the identity of the external consultant and a dedicated phone line on which she can be contacted at any time," the policy says.
Were all of these decisions correct? Undoubtedly not. It's a fantasy to suggest that judgments made under the kinds of pressures endemic to the news business will always be right.

Many judgment calls were made about what or who to publish, and when. To hold off until facts became clearer, or to publish because on balance that was in the public interest.

This was also a time when many good potential opinion writers were locked away planning the national response while plenty of others filled with "passionate intensity" were clamouring to be heard. We were inundated with an unprecedented number of submissions.

During the height of the COVID-19 crisis in Australia, we were hugely aware of the need to be responsible in our choices, but also aware that in a democracy it is crucial that the actions of our leaders are debated and tested and our readers given access to a spread of opinions.

I don't know the exact circumstances that led to the publication of the Cotton piece at The New York Times, and my sense is that the American situation at the moment is painfully particular. The pressure on that masthead under the Trump presidency, the state of New York City racked by COVID-19, the failure of the country to confront racism and the legacy of slavery, the President's authoritarian tendencies make for a fissile mix.

But as someone who has weighed up the pros and cons of a controversial piece, I have much sympathy for the pressures the Times opinion team must have been under for months prior to publishing Senator Cotton. Publishing serving politicians is always something we consider carefully. For example, we require them to give perspectives beyond standard talking points, and more detail than in a press conference. We reject pieces that are press releases disguised as opinion.

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But the increasingly divisive way in which political and cultural argument is being conducted in Australia and elsewhere is an alarming development for those of us whose job it is to contribute material to public debate. Social media is contributing to this, though the trend is also evident in the mainstream. Proportionality is in short supply as is listening to those with whom you disagree and trying to understand their perspective or respectfully change their mind rather than bullying, belittling, dismissing and attacking them. It is corrosive. Both of what we might once have thought of as the right and left are guilty of this behaviour.

We are in a moment of disruption: where many old certainties are under challenge. For some, change is not coming soon enough  and they are angry. For others, any change is too much  and they are angry too. Building walls and retreating into silos will not stop change  and I fear for the kind of world those trends create.
Because Trump revels in this sort of attention-seeking gimmick; sure enough, he tweeted out that de Blasio was promoting a symbol of hate while defunding the cops. Because the city and state need cooperation from Trump for critical funding in the next round of coronavirus relief. And because the whole point of Americas healthy newfound focus on systemic racism is that, you guessed it, systems need to change.
The path has been cleared for work to start on the $48 million redevelopment of North Sydney Olympic Pool, but only after an independent panel recommended a series of changes to the local council's plans for the project.

North Sydney Council submitted an application to overhaul the Milson Point site with a new 50-metre pool, upgrades to the indoor pool, a children's play pool, expanded gymnasium and a replacement grandstand.

North Sydney Council changed the proposed design due to heritage concerns.

The majority of the Sydney North Planning Panel determined late on Thursday the controversial project could proceed before the council resolves the dilemma of shading the children's pool without disrupting heritage features.

The panel, chaired by former NSW Coalition leader Peter Debnam, said the council would need to lodge a separate application for a sun-shade after the structure was scrapped in a bid to facilitate the project's approval.
The man was assessed on day 10 of his quarantine period and let out on day 14. He flew on Jetstar Flight JQ 510 on June 26 which left Melbourne at 1pm and arrived in Sydney at 2.25pm. He worked two shifts at Balmain Woolworths on June 28 and 29. Passengers on a Jetstar flight from Melbourne are screened by NSW Health as they exit the aircraft at Sydney Airport. Credit:Steven Siewert The manager of the store asked him to have another test because he obviously had some sort of symptoms, and that test has come back positive, Mr Hazzard said. There is some confusion as to whether he was symptomatic at the time. There was a suggestion that he had told Victorian authorities his symptoms had subsided, but he told NSW Health authorities he had persisting symptoms. Late on Thursday a Woolworths spokesman said the man was referred for a coronavirus test because of his travel history.

"The team member didn't report or present with any symptoms of illness while on duty," the spokesman said. Dr Chant said the man was probably "low-level infectious". "The level of virus detected is very, very low and what this may reflect is just the tail end of the infection," Dr Chant said. "We are acting at this moment for the abundance of caution ... it may be subsequently concluded that he is not infectious," she said. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video

The Balmain store underwent a deep clean on Wednesday night and remains open. "Any customers who shopped in our Balmain store on the weekend and feel unwell in the next two weeks should make contact with NSW Health," the Woolworths spokesman said. A woman who was symptomatic when she took a train from Melbourne to Sydney while still waiting for the results of her COVID-19 test has been quarantined and NSW Health is awaiting her test results. "Our health staff found somebody with symptoms, who had actually been tested in Victoria, and then got on the train and came to Sydney," Mr Hazzard said. "Now, that's about as silly as it gets." It is unclear whether the woman breached the new public health order banning people from Melbourne's hotspots from entering NSW under penalty of an $11,000 fine or six months' jail time as she might have boarded the train before the order came into effect at midnight.

Loading Police officers and NSW Health personnel were checking the identification of passengers from Melbourne to ascertain if they had breached the new public health order barring their entry. Mr Hazzard repeated his warning to Victorians from hotspots to stay away from NSW. "Don't come, you run the risk of an $11,000 fine and six months in jail," Mr Hazzard said. NSW residents who visit the Melbourne suburbs under lockdown must self-isolate for 14 days on their return or face the same penalties.

But Mr Hazzard said the NSW border would not be closed to people from Victoria who do not live in the hotspots. "NSW remains committed to keeping our borders open," he said. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Victorians from outside the hotspots were welcome to travel to NSW. "We also have to assume that the restrictions that Victoria is putting in place  will actually work and then people in those communities will stick to the rules," Ms Berejiklian said. The Premier said she had no doubt that NSW would get another spike in COVID-19 cases during the course of the pandemic.

"This could very well happen in NSW," she said referring to Victoria's outbreaks. "Please know that we are coming down hard on individuals and businesses to make sure everybody does the right thing, and I've got confidence that NSW citizens will continue to do that." A NSW Police representative confirmed on Thursday the force would seek a prohibition order in the Supreme Court on Friday morning in relation to a Black Lives Matter protest in Newcastle on Sunday. A prohibition order does not prevent participants attending the protest but leaves them open to criminal sanctions, including for blocking roads and cars. A NSW Police spokesperson said: "The NSW Police Force recognises and supports the rights of individuals and groups to exercise their rights of free speech and peaceful assembly; however, the first priority for NSW Police is always the safety of the wider community."
Professor Sutton also confirmed there was now evidence suggesting virus transmission had occurred at schools, including cases of children being infected by other children. "There has been some student-to-student transmission and also teacher-to-teacher transmission at some schools," he told reporters. Professor Sutton said a surge in community transmission in Victoria meant more students were getting infected, but he stressed more families were being tested in hotspots and this meant more children with the virus would be detected. "Were now obviously engaging with a lot of families, getting testing of kids at a household level, and so probably picking up cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed previously," he said.

Loading "Kids are not as likely to transmit. Thats pretty clear now. Theyre less of a priority for testing, but I think it is important that we enable testing in children as much as possible." Professor Sutton said there were not many new cases outside the 10 postcodes that were placed under restrictions on Thursday. "They are largely in the hot zones, as it were, but not exclusively," he said. Professor Sutton said there were now 415 active cases in Victoria, an increase of 45 on the previous day.

"Perhaps not unexpectedly, there are now 20 patients hospitalised, an increase of five since yesterday, including four in intensive care, which is an increase of two," he said. On Monday there were nine people with COVID-19 in hospital, including one in intensive care. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video "There are now 332 total cumulative cases with an unknown source that indicate community transmission." Professor Sutton said the current level of transmission could result in more deaths. Loading

"I'm afraid that's absolutely a possibility when you've got significant transmission, when you've got 70-odd cases every day, there is absolutely an expectation that some of those people will die," he said. "That's why it's incumbent on all of us to be minimising our interactions with others." The news comes as 10 Melbourne postcodes were placed in lockdown on Thursday after a spate of cases in the city's north and west. Professor Sutton said he hoped other postcodes would not face restrictions, but conceded the numbers were worrying and that the situation would be assessed weekly. Loading

"I get some comfort from stabilisation in numbers, but it is never an easy place to sit when you've got 415 active cases, all of which are infectious," he said. "Obviously, we've identified them, they're in isolation, their close contacts are in quarantine, but it's an indication of a very large number of people who have acquired it, which means there are other infections still to be found out there and they're all at risk of transmitting to others if we're not doing the right thing. "So the restrictions are in place, even though they apply to those restricted postcodes. We need to bear in mind that it's something for all of us to do, especially across Melbourne, but really the whole of Victoria." Professor Sutton said the number of tests has increased by 26,320 to 856,591 since Wednesday. Today's numbers included a number related to schools, raising questions again about whether they should reopen after the school holidays.
Details emerged on Thursday of a bureaucratic snarl involving the departments of Health, Jobs, Premier and Cabinet, Emergency Management Victoria and the Victoria Police, which resulted in the decision to hire the private security firms whose employees are being blamed for carrying the virus from the hotels into the community. The agencies and departments, working under the umbrella of Emergency Management Victoria, have wide powers to make far-reaching decisions when operating in an officially declared state of emergency. Police and Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville avoided questions on Thursday about which of her cabinet colleagues were involved in the rapid planning of the quarantine hotels program. It remains unclear if any Labor government minister or Premier Daniel Andrews knew before the hotels began receiving returned travellers for their mandatory 14-day quarantine that private security would be used to guard the sites. Victorias Chief Health Officer, Professor Brett Sutton, said the move to post private security guards at quarantine hotels 'wasn't mine'. Credit:Eddie Jim

There are now 415 active cases of the virus in Victoria and there have been a cumulative 332 infections since the pandemic began which authorities believe have been acquired in the community. Both Professor Sutton and Chief Commissioner Patton said on Thursday that they played no role in the snap decision in May to draft in three private security firms to guard the hotels housing the returned travellers. Senior state bureaucrats were given little more than 24 hours to put a plan in place to begin receiving returned travellers after the national cabinet approved the policy on March 27, with flights carrying returnees due at Tullamarine from midnight the following day. The government has confirmed it bypassed the usual tender process when it hired security outfits MSS, Unified and Wilson to deliver security arrangements within the hotel quarantine program, citing the urgency of the effort.

The hotel quarantine program has now been placed under the supervision of prison service Corrections Victoria, while retired judge Jennifer Coate begins her inquiry into the debacle with a reporting date set for September 24. The terms of reference for the inquiry require Justice Coate and her staff to inquire into the actions of the government, its agencies, contractors and hotels. Professor Sutton said on Thursday that he had had nothing to do with the decision to hire the private contractors. "It [the decision] wasn't mine, I haven't been involved in the governance and operation," he said.

"But it was jointly oversighted by emergency management within the Department of Health and Human Services, Emergency Management Victoria and Department of Jobs Precinct and Regions. Mr Patton said he had not personally been involved in planning the quarantine effort but indicated that police had a role in the decision making. Asked if police had refused to have officers stationed inside the hotels, he said he had had no discussions about the program. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video I certainly havent had any conversations in relation to the quarantine, Mr Patton said.

Decisions were being made with other organisations on what was the most appropriate way for quarantine to be looked after. Police Minister Lisa Neville, the only senior Labor government minister to talk to the media on Thursday, was reluctant to speak about the role of ministers in the decision to hire private security, saying the inquiry would look at all aspects of the affair. The minister stressed the fast-paced environment facing the governments departments and agencies when they put the quarantine system in place. There are a range of people that are involved in making decisions about how you implement a quarantine decision of that nature, Ms Neville said. We did it in 24 hours, decisions were made by various agencies, and Im not going to throw anybody under the bus, rightly or wrongly.

Loading Lets see what the inquiry finds about those decisions. When asked why Victoria's quarantine was run differently to other states, Ms Neville said: "Every state runs their emergency management system in a very different way. In NSW its run by the police ... that is not the case in Victoria. In health emergencies, its health." The secretaries of the departments of Jobs, Precincts and the Regions, Premier and Cabinet, Health and Human Services and the Emergency Services Commissioner either declined to comment on Thursday or did not respond to requests for comment. Wilson Security said in a statement that it does not provide security services to the Rydges on Swanston or the Stamford Plaza , the two sites confirmed as part of the outbreaks.
Police officers in Western Australia's north travelled 300 kilometres to a remote community in the Kimberley to charge an Aboriginal boy with the theft of a pram he had not stolen, according to evidence before a parliamentary committee.

In a similar instance, a teenager from Onslow spent two weeks in jail for stealing a $2 ice cream after his bail application was refused following opposition from the prosecution.

Dennis Eggington CEO Aboriginal Legal Service Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington.

These are just two of several stories shared by the Aboriginal Legal Service in a parliamentary committee hearing held on Wednesday examining the use of excessive force by police.

An ALS delegation, including prominent Aboriginal advocate Dennis Eggington, accused police of discriminating against Aboriginal people, particularly in rural and remote communities.
The WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions has come under fire from Esperance locals angry at photos on social media of a recently appointed Parks and Wildlife manager posing with dead animals.

The department recently appointed Jewell Crossberg as district manager in Esperance, but photos on his Facebook page under an album titled business and pleasure prompted some residents to alert Nine News Perth via an anonymous letter.

Photos from Jewell Crossberg's Facebook show him posing with dead wildlife. Credit:Facebook

We the citizens of Esperance are very concerned about the recent appointment of Jewell Crossberg, the letter read.

We are so disappointed to see Mr Crossberg is not a true conservationist and shouldn't be in a position of this standing.
Australia is set to offer safe haven visas to Hong Kong residents as the Chinese territory is consumed by another wave of protests and arrests over new national security laws imposed by Beijing.

The move will make Australia the second of the Five Eyes partners to offer Hong Kong residents refuge after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would open the country's borders to more than three million Hong Kongers if they wanted to leave the former British colony.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he will offer safe haven visas to people from Hong Kong. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Hong Kong police arrested more than 300 people during protests on Wednesday after the new laws came into force, criminalising acts that undermine the Chinese state with life imprisonment in the historically liberal city.

Ten protesters were detained for specifically violating the new laws, which prohibit acts of subversion, including holding up independence signs with British and American flags on them.
Cumbo answered the DSA demonstration with her own protest at Brisports home. You did that because you knew I was vulnerable, said Cumbo, according to Kings County Politics. You knew that you could do that because I was with a 2-year-old. You did that because you thought that I was alone, but I came here today to let you know that I am not alone.
The nation's biggest business lobby group is urging the federal government and corporate leaders to hire more Asian Australians in senior management and board roles.

Using gender equality strategies such as upskilling programs to identify more ethnically diverse leaders is one of the recommendations in a report released on Friday by the Business Council of Australia and The Asia Society's Asia Taskforce.

Tim Soutphommasane has encouraged companies to back quotas and targets to ensure ethnic diversity on boards. Credit:Kate Geraghty

"Asian Australians now constitute 12 per cent of the Australian population, with Chinese Australians comprising one of the world's largest overseas Chinese communities. Yet the Asian Australian community remains virtually absent in the top leadership of our business and government institutions," the report says.

"Business and government should adopt cultural diversity strategies and [training] programs for their boards and executive teams, using lessons and experiences in recent years in the promotion of gender diversity."
But the celebrations really started yesterday when Mr and Mrs. O'Malley entertained friends who "dropped in" on them throughout the day.

In a little, tapestry-lined sitting room in Albert Park, the last surviving member of Australias first Commonwealth Parliament  Mr. King O'Malley - today will celebrate his 99th birthday.

First published in The Age on July 4th, 1953.

When I called yesterday, Mrs. O'Malley led me into the sitting room where I found the veteran statesman seated in a deep armchair by the fire chatting with friends.

Mr. OMalley rose as his wife introduced me. "How are you, brother," he said as he led me to the armchair he had just left. "Now you sit here.

I took another chair while Mr. O'Malley resumed the armchair and began to recall some of the highlights of his political career.

He spoke quietly, with a sense of keen enjoyment, but at times a touch of fire crept into his voice as he spoke of political battles of the past.
It's the policy realm that forces politicians to think far beyond the usual political cycle. Decisions on Australia's defence strategy demand mastery of geopolitical forces at play, educated guesses of future threats and very deep pockets. The wrong call can put lives, and even the nation's sovereignty, at risk. The government has no greater responsibility.

This week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison released the most substantial update to the nation's strategy since the government's 2016 Defence White Paper. While not a dramatic shift in policy, the update reflects the reality that the global political landscape is shifting even faster than foreseen just four years ago. And with the rise of China the epicentre of that change, it turns Australia's Indo-Pacific neighbourhood into a potentially more volatile region.

After years of wishful thinking that China would play a benevolent global role as its economic might grew, Beijing's increasingly assertive stance has quashed that idea. Add to that America's increasing reluctance to be dragged into world affairs and the diminishing capacity and effectiveness of multilateral organisations  the United Nations for one has lost much of its clout  and Australia finds itself increasingly reliant on its own standing and resources.

The Morrison government has responded by beefing up Australia's capacity to defend itself and its friendly neighbours by committing to acquiring a range of new weaponry including long-range missiles for its fleet of Super Hornets and, for the first time, an anti-ballistic missile defence shield.

And it's not just traditional weaponry that is being expanded. While not naming China, the most likely aggressor, Mr Morrison has recently called attention to cyber attacks on critical infrastructure. To strengthen Australia's defences, the government will recruit 500 cyber spies to join the Australian Signals Directorate. It's not before time.
Former Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad will not return to the frontbench before the October election despite being cleared of any wrongdoing in a recruitment process that went "off the rails".

Ms Trad resigned from her role as Queensland's treasurer and deputy leader in May while the state's corruption watchdog investigated her involvement in the appointment of a principal for a new high school in her electorate.

When asked if she felt used by department officials, Ms Trad said: I guess its hard not to feel that way. Credit:Bradley Kanaris

In a 175-page report handed down on Thursday afternoon, the Crime and Corruption Commission found Ms Trad did not commit a crime or show "dishonest or corrupt intent".

"I have said from day one that I didn't interfere in the selection of a principal for a new high school being delivered in my local community," Ms Trad said.
Stamford Plaza management has blamed the Victorian government and its contractors for a coronavirus outbreak affecting at least 32 people that was spread by private security guards deployed to the hotel.

The Andrews government, in turn, has pointed the finger at its three contractors  MSS Security, Unified Security and Wilson  and confirmed that, in some instances, these companies subcontracted out security work at quarantine hotels to other firms.

Guards and police at the entry of Crown Promenade last week. The hotel is one of 15 "quarantine hotels" in central Melbourne where returned travellers must spend 14 days in mandatory isolation.

But the government argues the firms subcontracted by MSS Security, Unified Security and Wilson were still obliged to follow rules around physical distancing and the use of personal protective equipment.

Due to slip-ups and inappropriate practices in the hotel quarantine system in Melbourne, at least 51 people including security guards and their contacts have been infected with coronavirus brought in by international travellers.
Yangon: Myanmar has announced it will hold elections on November 8 for the national, regional and state parliaments.

The state Union Election Commission announced the date in a statement on its Facebook page.

The last general election in 2015 brought to power the National League for Democracy party of Aung San Suu Kyi after more than five decades of military rule.

Suu Kyis party won a landslide victory, partly through tactical alliances with ethnic minority parties.
London: Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex was left "undefended by the institution" while pregnant and a member of the royal family, her legal team have said, as they claim her wedding brought 1 billion ($1.8 billion) in tourism to Britain.

The duchess, who is suing The Mail on Sunday for publishing parts of a letter she wrote to her father, has said she was "prohibited from defending herself" against false stories while at Kensington Palace, with her friends left frustrated and "silenced".

Prince Harry and Meghan after their wedding ceremony in May 2018. Credit:AP

Lawyers for the duchess, who have submitted new paperwork to support her privacy claim against the newspaper, have laid out her version of events surrounding an interview given by five of her close friends to People magazine in 2019 in an attempt to defend her.

In doing so, they spell out her frustrations with the palace's approach to the media, as well as correcting what they claim are inaccuracies in reporting about the Sussexes' lives.
Advertisements for more than 400 brands including Coca-Cola and Starbucks vanished from Facebook overnight, after the failure of last-ditch talks to stop a boycott over hate speech on the site.

United States civil rights groups have enlisted the multinationals to help pressure the social media giant into taking concrete steps to block hate speech in the wake of the death of George Floyd and amid a national reckoning over racism.

Big business says Zuckerberg needs to do more to police hate speech. Credit:AP

Facebook executives including Carolyn Everson, vice president of global business solutions, and Neil Potts, public policy director, held at least two meetings with advertisers on Tuesday, the eve of the planned one-month boycott, three sources who participated in the calls told Reuters.

But the executives offered no new details on how they would tackle hate speech, the sources said. Instead, they pointed back to recent press releases, frustrating advertisers on the calls who believe those plans do not go far enough.
At the checkout, an elderly, unmasked woman was in front of me, so I kept as much distance between myself and her as possible. When the cashier implored me to move up and place my items on the conveyor belt, I declined, saying I would wait until the maskless woman had completed her transaction.
New York: A New York court has lifted a temporary restraining order against a book by US President Donald Trump's niece, enabling publisher Simon & Schuster to continue printing and distributing the insider account by Mary L Trump.

Mary Trump's book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, has already rocketed to the top of bestseller lists based on pre-sale orders after a blizzard of publicity.

US President Donald Trump has tried to stop the publication of Mary Trump's book. Credit:AP

Last week Trump's brother Robert filed a petition asking that Mary Trump and the publisher be prevented from publishing the book, citing a confidentiality agreement signed two decades ago as part of a settlement in an inheritance dispute.

On Tuesday, a state Supreme Court judge agreed to impose the restraining order to allow the parties to present their arguments next week, raising doubts about whether it would be published.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of the late accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested in the US on charges of helping to lure underage girls who were then sexually abused by Epstein.

Maxwell has kept a low profile since the death in August of Epstein, a financier who was accused of raping and trafficking underage girls over nearly two decades. Some of Epsteins alleged victims have said Maxwell lured them into his circle, where they were sexually abused by him and powerful friends.

Ghislaine Maxwell, in a black dress, pictured with her father, British media tycoon and fraudster Robert Maxwell. Credit:Apha Press/Australscope

Here are some facts about her:
Boa Vista: Brazilian soldiers have handed out masks to barefooted Yanomami indigenous people including body-painted warriors carrying spears and bows and arrows on the second day of a military operation to protect isolated tribes from COVID-19.

The Yanomami are the last major isolated people in the Amazon rainforest where dozens of indigenous communities have been infected with the latest disease to come from the outside to threaten their existence.

A Yanomami man awaits medical attention during the coronavirus pandemic in Alto Alegre, Roraima, Brazil. Indigenous representatives say 405 tribespeople have died of COVID-19 in the Amazon, and more than 9000 have been infected. Credit:Getty Images

"It's all under control. We detected no cases here," Defence Minister Fernando Azevedo, a retired army general, told reporters at a frontier post called Surucucu on the border with Venezuela.

Azevedo said the death of two Yanomami purportedly shot by illegal gold miners on the vast reservation last week was an isolated case being investigated by federal police.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Permanent Committee of Kingdom Affairs and Inter-Parliamentary Relations (CKAIR), will meet on July 2, 2020.

The CKAIR Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 10.00 hrs. and will be held in a virtual setting.

The agenda points are:

1. Incoming documents

2. Debriefing of the virtual IPKO meeting of June 10 and 11, 2020

Due to measures taken to mitigate the coronavirus (COVID-19), the House of Parliament is only allowing persons with an appointment to enter the Parliament building.

The parliamentary session will be held virtually and will be carried out live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 115, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1 www.pearlfmradio.sx, via the internet www.sxmparliament.org, and Parliaments Facebook page: Parliament of Sint Maarten

The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 115, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1 www.pearlfmradio.sx, via the internet www.sxmparliament.org, and Parliaments Facebook page: Parliament of Sint Maarten
PHILIPSBURG (DCOMM):--- The Inspectorate of the Ministry of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunications (Ministry TEATT), would like to remind all driving schools, instructors and existing and prospective students of the following.



Every business should have a COVID-19 Prevention & Safety Plan. The Government of Sint Maarten has issued Guidelines to assist business to prepare their own COVID-19 Prevention and Safety Plan.



These guidelines can be found on the governments main webpage www.sintmaartengov.org, click on Laws and National Gazette and select the year 2020. The document is entitled, Final Guidelines to prepare COVID-19 Prevention and Safety Plan for Business.

Given that the vehicles used by driving schools are in high use and have high touch areas it is strongly encouraged that driving schools sanitize their vehicles after every use.



Students should ensure that they have hand sanitizers on their person as well. Face coverings should be worn inside the vehicle while lessons are being given.



Schools and instructors should rearrange their classroom setting to ensure social distance and proper sanitation protocols are followed including the supply of hand sanitizers in the classroom.



Face coverings should be worn when reporting to the department for your appointed theoretical practical exams.



Please report for your examination a maximum of 15 minutes before your appointed time and not earlier to ensure adequate social distancing.



Walk-ins are not being accepted at the Driving Examinations office. Examiners will not administer exams if candidates do not wear masks or sanitize their hands before commencing the examination (theoretical or practical).



Good cough etiquette must be practiced at all times. Persons exhibiting flu like symptoms will not be allowed to take the theoretical or the practical exam and will be asked to leave and contact their physician.



It is the responsibility of the driving instructor/school to educate their students on the house rules of the department to the student. This has been shared with the instructors/schools previously.

Lastly, the departments objective is to promote a safe, hygienic working atmosphere for all concerned and looks forward to a continued cooperative relationship with driving schools, instructors, and the driving student population at large.



If you have questions or concerns, please contact the department at 542-5641/527-3825 or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Add to all of this the vagueness of the four crimes under the new law  succession, subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign and overseas officials  and it is easy to judge the dramatic chilling effect on freedom of expression and association. Possible sentences of three years to life add to that effect. The law will apply worldwide to both corporations and individuals, to residents and non-residents, and to such activities wherever they may occur. On the first day of the new law, 10 protesters were already arrested merely for carrying signs advocating independence. The blueprint for repression is already in force.
Somerset, KY (42501)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
A measure requiring law enforcement agencies to conduct a thorough background investigation on potential new hires was approved by the state House of Representatives, state Rep. Harry Readshaw announced. The bill now heads to the state Senate for consideration.

House Bill 1841 will make sure Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies have all the information they need to select the best candidates for police officer positions and I am pleased that it is one step closer to becoming law, Rep. Readshaw said. Not only does it require a hiring agency to review an applicants previous employment record before he or she can be hired, it also requires law enforcement agencies to keep records of the reason for a police officers separation from service. This includes criminal records, civil suits and any other ethical complaints against the officer.

It is my hope that my legislation will foster trust in law enforcement agencies by ensuring they do not unknowingly hire an officer with a history of misconduct. It will also boost the integrity of police officers who serve the public with honor. I look forward to its consideration in the Senate.
Secure access control is helping to shape the post-pandemic world

With the continued rolling back of COVID restrictions in the UK, there is a palpable sense of relief. A mixture of mass vaccinations, widespread testing, and track and tracing of the infection is helping to enable a healthy bounce back for businesses  with secure access control taking an important role in facilitating this. However, rather than just being a reaction to the wake of the pandemic, there is every sign that the economy, and consequently the security sector as well, are both rebuilding and reshaping for the long-term new normal. Prioritising Safety Already deemed an essential service even during the first wave of the pandemic, the security industry has of course taken a vital role in protecting people and property throughout the crisis. Now that venues in the UK are starting to reopen again, our services are key to occupancy management and ensuring that disease transmission is limited as far as possible. Access control is also key in reassuring people that their safety is a priority. Making the upgrade Its all been about choosing the most suitable components and technology that already existed with a few tweaks Businesses and organisations have a duty of care to their employees and the safety of visitors  so controlling access, employing lateral flow testing, and deploying suitable Track & Trace mechanisms are all key components. I think those outside our industry are surprised to learn that most of the technology being deployed and used hasnt just magically developed since COVID appeared  its all been about choosing the most suitable components and technology that already existed albeit with a few development tweaks or adjustments for the situation at hand. This includes using or installing facial recognition readers rather than using fingerprint or contact tokens, it is swapping to automatic request to exit sensors instead of buttons; it is using powered secure doors rather than having people all grab the same handle. Using mobile credentials is also a key technology choice  why not use the highly secure, easy to manage, cost-effective, and of course contact-free benefits of this approach? Touchless solutions We have seen a clear shift in organisations looking to protect their staff and visitors. For instance, we have a big utility customer in Southeast Asia that has just replaced close to 200 sites using fingerprint readers with an additional facial recognition capability. We have also seen a big rise in demand for touchless request to exit sensors and Bluetooth Low Energy Readers for use with smartphone authentication. Working together Integration of security systems is of course nothing new, but in the post-pandemic or endemic age, it has perhaps never been more important. Installations need to be simple, straightforward, and rapid to help maintain safe distancing but also to ensure systems can be deployed as soon as they are needed. The world is changing and developing rapidly and there is simply no place for systems that dont work with others or cause the end-user considerable cost and inconvenience to upgrade. This flexible delivery of security solutions perfectly matches the evolving and increasing demands of the market. Its clear that end-users want systems that work well and can easily integrate with their existing systems  not only security but all the other business components which work in unison with each other over a shared network. Great opportunities ahead The recent work-from-home trend is also clearly changing the way organisations and businesses interact with the built environment. Lots of companies are downsizing, offices are being split up, there is lots of revitalisation and reuse of existing office space  all of which creates considerable opportunities for security providers. UK inflation more than doubled in April 2021 with unemployment figures dropping and the Pound rising in value There are also, in the UK at least, clear signs that the construction industry is rapidly growing again -with a forecast of 8% rebound and growth this year. UK inflation more than doubled in April 2021 with unemployment figures dropping and the Pound rising in value  all positive signs for UK-based security providers. Undoubtedly the highly successful UK vaccination rollout has helped considerably, but there are signs that the Eurozone looks set to improve considerably over the next few months as well. Using integrated access control Undoubtedly the pandemic has made security markets around the world more aware of the benefits of integrated access control in managing the needs of the new normal COVID endemic environment. For example, as a business, we have always had keen interest from the UK healthcare sector, but over the last 12 months, we have seen a big growth in previously modest international markets including Morocco, Kuwait, Bahrain, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand  all of which are very keen to adopt improved access control solutions. Learning the lessons Nobody would deny the last year or so has been unprecedentedly tough on everyone, as a society we have had to make huge changes and sacrifices. Governments, organisations, and businesses all need to be better prepared in the future, to understand the things that went wrong and those that were successful. However, there is a world beyond the immediate pandemic and its effects. Flexible working practices and the changes these will have to the way we live and work will undoubtedly present great opportunities for the security sector in helping the world evolve. The pandemic has been a wake-up call for many organisations with regards to their duty of care to employees  particularly when it comes to mental health and providing a sensible work/life balance. Where we work and the safety of these facilities has received far more scrutiny than before. Flexible security systems Integrated security solutions have a vital role to play in not only protecting the safety of people during the post-lockdown return to work but also in the evolution of the built environment and move towards smart cities - which inevitably will now need to consider greater flexibility in securing home working spaces rather than just traditional places of work. Importantly, powerful access control and integrated security systems need to be flexible to the uncertainties ahead. The COVID pandemic has shown that nothing can be considered certain, except the need for greater flexibility and resilience in the way we operate our professional and personal interactions.
Emily Hopkins

Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS  Indiana officials will release facility-level data for COVID-19 in nursing homes, a drastic departure from previous policy, which shielded that information from public view.

For weeks, family members of nursing home residents, lawmakers, resident advocates and media outlets have repeatedly called on the government to identify the homes suffering from COVID-19 outbreaks. But state officials repeatedly refused.

The Tribune, based on reports from family members and limited information from some nursing homes, has reported on outbreaks at local facilities, including Cardinal Nursing and Rehabilitation and West Bend Nursing and Rehabilitation in South Bend; Hamilton Grove in New Carlisle; and West Woods of Niles.

Dr. Dan Rusyniak, chief medical officer for the Family and Social Services Administration, said the state is changing course after the largest associations that represent long-term care facilities and AARP expressed their support for providing facility-level information. The Indiana Health Care Association and the Indiana Center for Assisted Living, which represent and lobby on behalf of the long-term care industry, expressed their support for releasing the data, according to the state.

Weve stated from the beginning that we have been focused on early identification and mitigation of COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities, Rusyniak said during a press conference. As we have all learned, responding to this pandemic requires us to continuously evaluate our approaches, and when appropriate, to change them. This is one of those times.

Past refusals

Amid initial concerns about the lack of information, Dr. Kristina Box, the states health commissioner, issued an order on April 8 requiring nursing homes to report positive cases and deaths to state and local health departments within 24 hours. By that time, 31 people had died in 12 facilities. On April 27, the health department began posting statewide data regarding long-term care facilities to its dashboard.

Gov. Eric Holcomb and Box, however, repeatedly denied requests for information about outbreaks at specific nursing homes, despite news reports of families who said they had trouble getting information about their loved ones from nursing homes.

Box cited the personal relationship between facilities and family members, while Holcomb referenced his respect to the homes as private businesses, even though more than 90% of nursing homes in Indiana are owned by county hospitals.

In May, state Rep. Ed Delaney, D-Indianapolis, called on Holcomb to release the data. Rep. Chris Chyung, D-Dyer, echoed those calls a week later.

On May 19, the AARP of Indiana, which represents older Hoosiers, sent an open letter to Gov. Holcomb asking him to release the information.

It is essential that Indiana provides as much information as possible to long-term care residents and their loved ones, especially during this public health emergency, state director Sarah Waddle wrote in the letter.

What to expect

It will take some time to build a dashboard that will allow the public to search by facility, he said. This will require comprehensive reporting by nursing homes of a list of staff and residents who have contracted COVID and when those cases occurred, going back to March 1. Rusyniak hopes the data will be collected by mid-July, when the state will make the data available to the public in a preliminary form.

The state will also build out a dashboard to launch two to three weeks after the initial release of the data.

The state will also analyze the results of a June initiative to test all skilled nursing staff. Last month the state tested 40,000 staff from more than 480 facilities. The state is working with its data partners, the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and the Regenstrief Institute, to analyze that data.

Well use this analysis to better inform us on who needs testing and how often, Rusyniak said.

Rusyniak also reported that weekly new cases in long-term care facilities were down 77% and deaths were down 83% compared to their peak in late April. He attributes the improvements to several measures, including the states targeted strike teams, personal protective equipment, and close collaboration with the nursing homes.

He also credits the behavior of Hoosiers with limiting the spread of the virus.

By decreasing community spread through social distancing, washing your hands, fewer nursing home staff were exposed and unknowingly went to work with COVID-19, he said.

The state is also moving forward with plans to allow in-person visitation as early as Saturday for some facilities. In June, Indiana was one of the first two states to open to outdoor visitation at nursing homes.
Mary Beth Spalding

South Bend Tribune

A longtime employee of St. Joseph Countys planning department says plans for an industrial park near New Carlisle have been irresponsible and plagued with mismanagement and insensitivity towards the public.

Larry Magliozzi, who retired as director of the countys Area Planning Department at the end of March, recently sent an eight-page letter to a handful of county leaders detailing his concerns about the controversial project and sharply criticizing some officials, especially Bill Schalliol, the countys economic development director.

He points out in the letter that he had spent more than 40 years in public land use planning, with positions in various cities in Illinois and Indiana.

In all those years I never experienced such a lack of respect and professionalism towards the public, Magliozzi wrote, adding that the project has been a public relations disaster.

He details his view that county planners were sidelined while economic development staff worked with consultants to draft a plan for the industrial park, called the Indiana Enterprise Center (IEC).

The result, Magliozzi said, are plans for a massive industrial park with the promise of turning into a regional economic engine but that few people in the area seem to want.

Opponents of the project routinely pack county meetings when the industrial park plan is a topic, and New Carlisle and Olive Township officials passed resolutions seeking a moratorium on it. Most recently, opponents spoke for nearly two hours to the Area Plan Commission to protest rezoning petitions related to the project. The County Council has yet to decide those requests.

The IEC has been touted as potentially one of the largest mega-parks in the U.S. Located just east of New Carlisle, in Olive Township, it would feature a 7,200-acre development area and thousands more acres of potential secondary development.

The county has spent millions of dollars in tax increment financing to hire consultants and for environmental studies. Several million dollars have also been spent on infrastructure work and to acquire properties in the area.

Proponents envision a mix of agribusiness, logistics and advanced manufacturing companies tapping into the areas air, rail and road network. Opponents fear heavy traffic, environmental pollution and the loss of farmland.

In the letter, Magliozzi specifically took Schalliol to task for not responding well to public opposition to the project, writing, Why Bill has been allowed to continue his tactics is inexcusable.

He skillfully deflects any contact with individuals or groups that would contradict or get in the way of what his goals are, Magliozzi wrote. This shows through his handling of the IEC planning process and the negative publicity that continues to be generated by his actions.

Schalliol did not return messages seeking comment.

In an interview, Magliozzi said if county planners had been allowed to lead the project instead of being marginalized, compromises could have been reached that most residents would have accepted.

You negotiate, Magliozzi said about the land use planning process. You sit down, you get input, feedback. Its a messy process, but ... everyone has input.

Andy Kostielney, the president of the countys Board of Commissioners who is also criticized in the letter, disputed the former plan directors assertions, saying its simply not the case that the planning department was ignored.

I dont think for a second the planning department has been marginalized, Kostielney said.

In the past, both he and Schalliol also have said that input from critics has been baked into the industrial park plan.

Kostielney also said that consultants were tapped because they had expertise that local planners generally dont have and because the planning department lacked capacity to take on more work. He also said that weekly meetings of department leaders would have been the time for Magliozzi to air any concerns.

Kostielney applauded Magliozzis long years of service to the county but added, I dont know why he came up with the conclusions he did.

Take his concerns seriously

In March, County Council leaders asked to meet for an informal exit interview but the coronavirus pandemic nixed the meeting, according to Magliozzi. Instead, he recently emailed his letter to Rafael Morton, council president, and council members Diana Hess and Corey Noland. The letter also was sent to County Auditor Mike Hamann, who opposes the industrial park plan and had talked with Magliozzi about his concerns. The Tribune obtained a copy of the letter.

All three council members said they had not yet had a chance to discuss it.

When you receive a narrative from an ex-employee, we look at it with a fine-tooth comb, Morton said. None of that has happened. Im not saying its not going to happen.

Hamann said he agrees with Magliozzi that the industrial park has created a public relations problem.

Larry Magliozzi is a man of high integrity and talent, Hamann said. I would take his concerns seriously.

Hess said she was interested in learning more from Magliozzi about an issue that concerns her: whether the countys planning department is losing an independent voice

That was a key point in the letter, and Magliozzi said he hopes County Council leaders agree with him that the Area Planning Department should again become a stand-alone department.

Two years ago, county commissioners directed the merger of three departments  the planning department, economic development and public works  to create the department of Infrastructure, Planning and Growth.

Magliozzi wrote that he felt somewhat blindsided by the merger, while other department heads seemed already to know about it. He also accused Schalliol and Kostielney of trying to sideline the planning department and restrict it to administrative duties, undermining the authority of the planning staff and diminishing its effectiveness.

Kostielney said Magliozzi sees conspiracies where none exist.

The vision for the merged department was to create a one-stop shop where people could get answered many questions that straddle the different departments, Kostielney said. Ideally, he said, it works like a three-legged stool, with each department on equal footing.

In an interview, Magliozzi said he isnt opposed to development near New Carlisle. He said the area is one that the county has long identified as suitable for industrial growth but that much of the resistance is because of its scale.

Magliozzi said he would have liked to see planners meet with the public to explain the history of the area, the current land use plan and the potential for development. Weighing public reaction then would have helped planners develop a realistic land use plan, he said.

Planning, Magliozzi said, leads economic development.
Christian Sheckler

South Bend Tribune

The economic downturn hit employees of Whirlpool Corp. this week, as the appliance maker laid off an unspecified number of workers, including some at its world headquarters in St. Joseph-Benton Harbor, as part of cost cuts amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Whirlpool wont say how many people lost their jobs. But the company said the layoffs, which were focused on salaried employees, came only after a series of other measures that included furloughs and an early retirement program.

In order to weather a global economic recession, which includes the impact of COVID-19, Whirlpool Corporation has publicly committed to reducing global costs, the company said in a statement. Though these decisions are difficult, we believe they are necessary to adapt to the reality of an economic contraction and prepare us for new ways of working in the future.

In a call with shareholders in May, company officials said they expected net annual sales to be down by 10% to 15% through 2020, largely due to a global economic slowdown brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The layoffs are part of about $500 million in savings company leaders told investors they hoped to achieve this year.

Reduced demand due to COVID-19 is expanding to impact nearly every industry, Michael Hicks, an economist at Ball State University, said in an email. Suppliers of home appliances face reduced demand due to the broad shocks to income, the reduced demand for new home construction as well as a growing expectation that this downturn will be longer, and perhaps much deeper than expected.

Hicks said competition has forced companies to keep getting leaner over the past 40 years. Between 2010 and 2019, manufacturing employment grew as demand outpaced production, but that stretch of growth is now over, he said, and cost-cutting will follow as COVID-19 surely makes this worse.

During the shareholder call in May, company officials said Whirlpool was seeing demand shift to less profitable products, such as microwaves and low-end refrigerators. Executives said they expected the economy to begin to stabilize in the third quarter of 2020, possibly followed by growth in the last three months.

The company recently estimated it employed about 4,000 people in the southwestern Michigan region, and about 77,000 workers worldwide.

State and local economic development officials also said they did not know how many people were laid off.

The company did not file a notice with the state of Michigan under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires employers in some instances to disclose mass layoffs or facility closures.

The law requires the notification, known as a WARN notice, if a company lays off at least 500 people, or lays off between 50 and 499 people and they make up at least a third of the employers active workforce.

A Whirlpool spokesman said the number of people who lost their jobs did not meet the threshold for a WARN notice.

Dan Fette, director of community development for Berrien County, said it was difficult to quantify the impact of the job losses on the local economy.

No one likes to hear our neighbors and friends and residents are being laid off at any given time, he said. Not knowing what the number is, its hard to estimate what the impact would be, but Whirlpools workforce represents a significant part of the local economy.

Even before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, Whirlpool had taken steps to cut costs.

In 2018, the company laid off workers, including some in southwestern Michigan, as part of a $150 million cost-savings plan. Those cuts came just after Whirlpool officials said they expected U.S. tariffs on imported washing machines to help the company. A company spokeswoman at the time told the publication MiBiz the $150 million in cuts were intended to better position the company for future growth and profitability.

At the start of 2020, Whirlpool said it planned to reduce costs by $200 million, but revised that target upward amid the pandemic.
In an interview just after his reelection in 2012, Barack Obama put it this way: It was easy to think that maybe 2008 was the anomaly. And I think 2012 was an indication that, no, this is not an anomaly. Weve gone through a very difficult time. The American people have rightly been frustrated at the pace of change, and the economy is still struggling, and this president we elected is imperfect. And yet despite all that, this is who we want to be.
Deena Winter is a freelance journalist who has covered state and local government in four states over the past three decades. This story originally appeared on Minnesota Reformer.
The first COVID-19 attributed death in Steele County has been confirmed by the Minnesota Department of Health. Current numbers for confirmed cases in Steele County is 223, with 173 of those cases no longer in isolation and deemed healthy. (Annie Granlund/Peoples Press)
Boujdour (Refugee Camps), 20 June 2020 (SPS) - President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, said the Polisario Front can no longer accept the current stalemate of the decolonization process in Western Sahara, condemning Morocco's obstacles.



"Concerning the decolonization process in Western Sahara, the Frente Polisario Front cannot accept the current stalemate," said a statement released at the end of a meeting of the Front's Permanent Office, chaired by President Brahim Ghali.



The meeting chaired by the Saharawi leader condemned "Morocco's obstruction and intransigence, with support of France, and the failure to comply with the solution criteria specified in the AU-UN solution plan, signed by the parties to the conflict, namely the Polisario Front and Morocco, and ratified by the Security Council in 1991."



The meeting's agenda, according to the statement, focused on "summer programmes, the situation in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and the humanitarian situation in Saharawi refugee camps, in the light of the reports presented by the monitoring committee of the Covid-19 and the effects of the pandemic in the region." (SPS)



062/SPS/APS
This week I spent time with a friend I admire highly  Trina Limpert, formerly Global President of Women for eBay. She now heads RizeNext, with a vision of raising up a new generation of diverse technologists, executives, and directors. Since mid-2019, shes been training companies in the creation of diversity and impact initiatives that drive change while also propelling profitability and growth (agendas that are often seen as being at odds).

Limpert and I have much in common, as we both began our technology careers at Provo, Utah based Novell, Inc., which was acquired by The Attachmate Group in 2011. I arrived in 1986 before launching my own business in 1989. Limperts Novell experience was much longer, beginning in 1998 and ending in 2007 when she transitioned to a role at Oracle.

The 1980s and 90s were a different world for women in technology. I was fortunate to begin my work in public relations under a female Senior Vice President who served as a wonderful mentor. But much of the reason I left Novell to start my own business in 1989 is that I came up against too many requirements that were unfriendly to both women and parents.

As a female programmer, Limpert faced much greater difficulties. On her first day of work, she was handed a box of computer parts and instructed to build her own workstation. She did, but wryly noted the shiny new computers that arrived on a regular basis for her male counterparts.

Related: 40 Online Resources All Women in Tech Careers Should Know About

Translating lived experience into lasting change

Neither of us was inclined to be angry and we both persevered. But the experiences instilled a desire in Limpert, especially, to make things better for the women and the employees and leaders of every diversity to come.

To that end, Limpert stepped forward as Global President of Women during her tenure at eBay and launched the RizeNext organization last year. In addition to corporate and individual training, Limpert provides free assessments, consultations, and roadmaps on diversity programs and female talent pipelines and has given a number of keynote addresses. In early 2020, RizeNext also became an affiliate partner of MotherCoders.org, a non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco that's provided technical training and career preparation in the Bay area and New York to more than 300 U.S. mothers so far.

Limpert could not have predicted the level of need that now exists for the MotherCoders program in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic challenges it has spawned.

Limpert notes that 86 percent of U.S. women become mothers by age 44, which means that sidelining women who become mothers is a colossal waste of human capital. Yet women drive 85 percent of business and consumer purchasing, putting an average of 90 percent of their income back into their local economies. Given this, it makes good sense to invest in mothers to ensure the continued development of products and services. The training MotherCoders provides is also beneficial in the respect that it puts a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) role model into the home of each individual it trains, resulting in stronger families and communities for generations to come.

Related: Debunking Three Myths About Women in Tech

A bluprint for helping mothers learn to code

For other regions that are intrigued by this kind of program, heres the way the MotherCoders initiative works in the Salt Lake City pilot:

The program provides a nine-week/Saturdays only curriculum from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In Utah, the program will select 10 students each in two locations, beginning Sept. 12 and Sept. 26, 2020, in facilities sponsored by Weber State University and Bottega, in Lehi. Current plans are for the course to run live, with appropriate social distancing, but if necessary, the program will be remote. In either case, the program offers childcare support on-site, or through a stipend for remote students to ensure participants are able to fully focus on their own development.

All participants are individuals of at least 21 years old who identify as a woman in a way thats significant to her, including anyone who is trans, cis, or queer or was assigned female gender at birth but does not identify with the binary definition of gender.

Participants are caring for at least one individual under the age of 17 when admitted to the program and through its duration.

It is suggested but not required that entrants have at least five hours of coding experience  enough to know that it is something theyd like to do much more.

The program welcomes sponsors to participate with in-kind donations and services as well as funds for tuition and stipends for costs such as childcare not covered by tuition in an effort to creating a scenario that provides as many as possible of the seats on scholarship. For Salt Lake, the program is discounted to $1,450 per seat (a 65 percent discount from standard national cost). Limpert notes that organizations including Facebook, eBay, Album VC, and Lockheed Martin have signed up as Utah sponsors so far, in addition to the two universities providing facility space. The program strives to have each participant cover a minimum of $200 of their costs as a personal investment in the programs completion, but in cases of hardship, even this portion could be potentially waived.

Participants learn technical skills by building and launching a website using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to showcase the skills acquired for potential employers. They expand understanding of the technology industry including trends, the issues driving growth and innovation, and the potential career paths for technology workers. The program also provides professional network-building to result in connections to like-minded peers and working professionals.

Advantages for integrating women into the workforce are clear

While Utah has fared better than many states in the process of recovery, the state continues to suffer from a shortage of sufficient technology talent that could not only add revenue to the regions businesses and economy but could create additional high-paying jobs for a segment of the population that is typically disadvantaged. This is true for many U.S. regions.

The results can be astonishing. A 2018 success survey by MotherCoders showed 62 percent of California and new York participants are now fulfilling technology jobs. Nineteen percent have gotten promotions and four percent have launched their own entrepreneurial ventures. Together, theyve increased their salaries by an average of 68 percent, increasing their household incomes by an average of $54,360.

For every technology business, the value of developing a pipeline of female employees should be clear. Other regions can reach out to MotherCoders or to Limpert and RizeNext to suggest affiliations or can launch their own programs to accomplish similar goals.

Limpert also offers suggestions for ways to make Impact Initiatives successful in organizations. Her ideas are available from her website or may also be available here in a future column. In all cases, it is clear that providing training and support for female employees bears dividends on multiple levels. Even better, instead of observing and bemoaning the continuing salary discrepancy between genders, companies that participate in programs like MotherCoders and RizeNext are actively closing the gap.

Related: Supermodel Karlie Kloss's Lesson to Young Women: Never Be ...

Related:

How Hiring Women and Moms Propels Economic Recovery

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Join Entrepreneur Middle East Live's Against All Odds Session With Billionaire Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon, And 2020 EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year



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While New York may have gotten a handle on the situation, the pandemic has been a tsunami across the U.S., surging to more than 40,000 new cases each day and eclipsing the highest one-day total (44,000) so far on June 27. Last week alone, the daily record was shattered three times, and the U.S. now has nearly 2.5 million cases  a number the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is likely 10 times higher.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already outlasted almost all of his peers. He has led Russia, in one way or another, for two decades. And he is not going anywhere.

This week, Russians went to the polls for a week-long vote, marred by reported irregularities, on constitutional changes that will allow him to serve two more six-year presidential terms after his current one expires in 2024.

If Putin remains in the Kremlin through 2036, he will far surpass Joseph Stalin's tenure as leader of the Soviet Union, to become the longest-serving Russian leader since Peter the Great, the czar who led what would become the Russian Empire for 43 years until his death in 1725.

When he first entered high office, as Russia's prime minister in 1999, Putin was just 46. In 2036, he will be 83. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, said the quiet part loud in a video recorded Tuesday, suggesting that the president should remain at the helm for life.

"Who is there to replace him today?" Kadyrov said. "There's no political leader like that on a global scale. "

A significant share of Russians may agree. As The Washington Post's Isabelle Khurshudyan writes, there was little need for Putin to hold a nationwide vote on his term extension - Russia's parliament already approved the move in March. But the Kremlin's push for a high turnout in the plebiscite was an attempt to build a veneer of legitimacy.

The vote came with little regard for the worsening pandemic. The government lifted almost all of its novel coronavirus restrictions on June 24, although confirmed cases now top 650,000, making Russia the third hardest-hit country in the world, after the United States and Brazil. When Putin cast his vote in Moscow on Wednesday, he chose not to wear a face mask, unlike staff members at the polling station.

Hubris has helped bring down previous Russian leaders. Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Moscow Center argues that Putin held this week's vote to "cement the state of affairs that followed Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, which sent his approval ratings soaring."

"In reality, that world has long been eroded," Stanovaya writes. His popularity has fallen to a historic low.

Many foreign leaders will see any extension of Putin's time in office as cause for concern. Just this week, news reports revealed U.S. intelligence officials had concluded that a Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan, including U.S. and British troops.

Moscow has denied the accusation, suggesting that it "illustrates the low intellectual abilities of propagandists from American intelligence," who "miserably failed the twenty-year war in Afghanistan."

Such tactics and denials are typical of Russian foreign policy under Putin. Numerous Kremlin foes have met their demise around the world in recent years. One failed plot in England, involving the Russian nerve agent Novichok, was so brazen it suggested lazy incompetence.

Russian forces have found their way into foreign conflicts, not just in neighboring Ukraine and Georgia but also more distant battlefields such as Syria and Libya. Russian involvement has been costly for all and resulted in the deaths of civilians, such as those targeted deliberately by Russian airstrikes in Syria.

It's not hard to link this belligerence to the Russian president. As journalist Catherine Belton writes in her new book "Putin's People," he has been at this game for decades. As a KGB officer in Dresden in the 1980s, a young Putin likely assisted with funding and guidance for terrorist groups that sought to "sow chaos in the West" with deadly attacks.

But Putin's Russia has been most successful at combating the West by peacefully undermining it rather than through violent confrontation. Efforts to influence the U.S. political system ahead of the 2016 presidential election are a prime example.

It remains unclear whether President Donald Trump was unaware of the alleged Russian bounties in Afghanistan, or whether he knew about but ignored them. Neither possibility looks good. "This is something you ought to know if you're inviting Russia back into the G-8," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told the New York Times.

Putin cannot survive indefinitely on chaos alone. Though his long run in office has allowed him to outmaneuver global rivals, including those in Washington, his long rule may prove a burden at home.

Much of his early support came from his willingness to tackle powerful and often corrupt oligarchs, along with rising standards of living after the upheaval of the 1990. While he won the past week's vote with a comfortable margin, there are signs of cracks in the solid backing he once enjoyed.

Independent polling ahead of the vote has shown that approval for Putin dropped this spring from its once stratospheric highs to around 60 percent, its lowest since 2013. And as with many Russian elections, the plebiscite was tarnished by a wave of fraud allegations.

Experts have marked growing discontent in opposite spheres within Russia's political world. "One comes from forward-thinking and liberal residents of large cities, the other from depressive and impoverished provinces," political analyst Kirill Rogov wrote on Facebook.

Such rumblings have a firm basis in material reality. Amid sanctions and an oil price squeeze, Russia's economy looks set for another shaky year - the IMF expects gross domestic product to drop by 6.6 percent in 2020. The pandemic has exposed some of Putin's weaknesses, and widespread speculation holds that the true number of deaths has been concealed.

Russia also faces challenges on the world stage. Moscow looks like a bit player next to the geopolitical battle between Washington and Beijing, in which Putin may struggle to avoid embroilment. And few world leaders risked attending his high-profile military parade last month to mark the 74th anniversary of the end of World War II.

The greatest question Putin faces is the one Kadyrov articulated: Who is there to replace him? If the answer is no one, that is no sign of strength. It's a sign of a country falling into political stagnation.
As he watched the statue of Christopher Columbus come tumbling down after standing for almost 90 years outside the Minnesota State Capitol, Tucker Carlson wondered aloud why Republican senators wanted to cancel the Italian navigator and his holiday.

Speaking over a chyron reading, "The rage mob comes for Christopher Columbus," the Fox News host focused on the amendment proposed by Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and James Lankford, R-Okla., on Wednesday that would replace Columbus Day as a federal holiday with Juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. The GOP senators are hoping to add it to the bipartisan bill introduced last month to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, which came after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality.

But Carlson, along with other congressional Republican and conservatives Wednesday, decried the senators' push to strip Columbus Day of its status, accusing the pair of succumbing to the current moment in history instead of sticking up for a federal holiday that dates back to the 1930s - even as more places have opted out of honoring the explorer.

"They want to delete it from the national calendar," Carlson said. He added later, "They're hoping to quietly eliminate Columbus Day and then move on to the next item on the rioters' list of demands."

In a joint news release announcing the amendment, Johnson explained that the measure is not due to Columbus's oppression of indigenous people but rather the cost of adding another federal holiday on the calendar. They pointed to an NPR report estimating that the cost of a federal holiday was than $600 million for paid time off for federal employees. The Wisconsin senator described the amendment to cut out Columbus Day as a way to "not put us further in debt."

"We support celebrating emancipation with a federal holiday but believe we should eliminate a current holiday in exchange," Johnson said in a statement. "We chose Columbus Day as a holiday that is lightly celebrated, and least disruptive to Americans' schedules."

Lankford, who touted Juneteenth as "a huge step" in becoming a more perfect union, echoed his co-sponsor, saying that leaders should remain "cognizant of the impact the existing 10 federal holidays have on federal services and local businesses."

"We can reduce these impacts by replacing Columbus Day as a federal holiday with Juneteenth, America's second independence day," said the Oklahoma senator.

The proposal was met with much skepticism from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), co-sponsor of the Senate's Juneteenth bill. In an interview with the Hill, Cornyn said cutting out Columbus Day for Juneteenth "dilutes the message we're trying to send, which is one of being respectful and honoring and remembering our history."

"I think that's problematic," the Texas senator said of the amendment. "We're working through all those things right now we just don't have an answer right this second."

Spokespeople for Johnson, Lankford and Cornyn did not immediately return messages left by The Washington Post late Wednesday.

The push against Columbus Day has been unfolding for years. In 2019, more than 100 cities and the District had renamed the October federal holiday to Indigenous Peoples' Day to honor the rich history and reclaiming Native history. Just 21 states honor Columbus Day as a paid holiday compared to Juneteenth, which is celebrated by 47 states and the District.

Johnson and Lankford noted that the amendment follows a similar decision against Columbus Day in Franklin County, Ohio, last month. The county, which includes Columbus, Ohio, announced it was dropping the holiday in favor of Juneteenth for all of its roughly 1,400 county employees starting in 2021, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Conservatives on social media offered up a mix of criticism and bewilderment over Johnson and Lankford's proposed swap.

"I look forward to donating to any Republican who primaries Ron Johnson or James Lankford," tweeted conservative podcast host Michael Knowles. "Do whatever you want with Juneteenth, but not at the expense of Columbus Day!"

On Fox News, Carlson suggested to his prime-time audience that the "suddenly woke" Republican senators would explore "other acts of revolution and cultural desecration" if the Columbus Day amendment were to pass.

"It all depends that you let them know that you noticed they're trying to cancel Columbus Day," he said. "If you don't say anything about it, there's no telling what Johnson and Lankford might do next."

Johnson took to Twitter late Wednesday to respond to the criticism, emphasizing that his amendment to drop Columbus Day should not be compared to that of the toppled statues.

"It is not deprecating Christopher Columbus' achievements or expressing any value judgment regarding his place in history," Johnson tweeted. "I do not support efforts to erase America's rich history - not the good, the bad, or the ugly."
The African Dream Foundation 2063 and the Voluntary Work Ambassadors Foundation for Sustainable Development, signed a cooperation protocol Sunday to implement an initiative to support marginalised groups, temporary workers and underprivileged families, in addition to spreading the culture of volunteer work and raising awareness on personal hygiene and the necessary preventive measures to address the coronavirus pandemic, and any epidemics or infectious diseases, among African communities in Egypt.

President of the African Dream Foundation 2063 Sally Atef confirmed that the initiative aims to provide food for temporary workers, poor families and Africans residing in Egypt, in addition to cooperation in preparing medical convoys and providing volunteers, doctors and medicines necessary to support these convoys.

Hatem El-Rouby, head of the Voluntary Work Ambassadors Foundation for Sustainable Development, disclosed that through the foundation it was mandated to provide volunteers, identify the most needy villages, prepare lists that include the names of temporary workers and poor families, develop action plans for these villages, and coordinate with associations in those governorates, with the African Dream Foundation 2063.

During signing the protocol at the foundations headquarters, Atef added that coordination will take place to identify the most affected places that include large numbers of temporary workers and poor families, and to organise the delivery of food and preventive health supplies, in cooperation with the Voluntary Work Ambassadors Foundation, and also to participate in preparing and organising forums, conferences and workshops.

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On Tuesday, the Pitch Perfect star further documented her weight loss journey when she toured the Sydney Zoo while wearing form-fitting workout gear. Okay I am going off social media  like starting from now, she announced against a series of photos of her hanging out with some of the zoos animals and her personal trainer, Jono Castano Acero.
The United States has been a leader in the fight against extreme poverty globally. Weve made investments in building clinics, training nurses and health aides, nutrition, innovations in medicine and vaccines, malaria netting, and more, to put an end to the epidemics of AIDS, malaria, and TB, and to put an end to 15,000 children 4 years old and under dying every day from starvation and diseases we have cures for. Tending to the health of these countries has resulted in their being strong trade partners, for every dollar weve invested weve gotten $3 back in trade, simultaneously enabling them to be stronger defense allies. Because of these investments, Ebola was able to be contained in the countries where the epidemic spiked.

I am a citizen lobbyist with the anti-poverty movement RESULTS, with a presence in all 50 states and in countries around the world. This week, 800 of us have gathered for the annual RESULTS International Conference, meeting with members of Congress to sound the alarm about the massive disruptions in all these programs, 85 percent in HIV programs, 78 percent in TB programs. It is urgent to protect the progress we have made, and fundamental to overcoming this pandemic that we create a global strategy.

A global strategy is needed to address a global pandemic. The global economy will shrink by 5.2 percent this year, job loss alone will drive 70 million additional people into extreme poverty. 80 million babies under age 1 are so far missing their basic immunizations, as families are staying at home. This risks epidemics of cholera, yellow fever, meningitis, measles, Ebola, diseases that were under relative control before COVID. Health workers who deliver services to remote areas, the majority of whom are volunteers, need PPE, medical equipment and COVID training if they are to distribute medicines or continue to identify the missing millions of TB-infected.

TB is the largest killer, an epidemic that is out of control. Before COVID, 9 million people got sick with TB every year, that number is projected to increase by 6.8 million. Before COVID, 1.6 million people died of TB yearly, that number could double this year. Compare the 30 days it takes many to get through COVID, with the 21/2 year course of medications that cause chemotherapy-like symptoms, nausea, migraines, weakness, that can result in neurological damage and deafness, that it takes to treat multi-drug resistant TB (MDRTB) in anyone infected. One out of three of us carry the TB bacterium in our bodies, which can activate anytime in our lives that our immunology is compromised; think rampant diabetes, asthma, obesity, and you begin to get the peril of the TB epidemic spiking in the United States.

With COVID, the task has increased in scale from fighting poverty, to saving the world, saving our children, currently living in a catastrophe, from perpetually living in catastrophe.

The goal of getting through this is not to go back to the way things were. The massive number of people supporting protests in the streets is a fraction of the scale of the movement, with supporters staying at home due to COVID. It is undeniable that the systems we have designed are based on a belief of us and them, with the us getting the goods at the expense of the them. If any of the investments and efforts we make to overcome this pandemic are to work, there has to be a calling out of the falseness of that belief: All of our cases are caused by an us and them mind-think. Racism and all of our isms are based on an us and them mind-think, and the deadlock rendering Congress ineffective is sourced in an us and them mind-think.

There is no us and them, there is only an us. Only one human family. God only made one human race, nature only evolved one human race. That we talk about different races is the result of a construct white men made up to hold themselves as righteous in their immoral oppression and cruelty to people of a different skin color. We cant be making COVID relief packages that buy into that delusion, that include us and not them and that is what the original House Heroes Proposal did. It ignored them. Them who make up half of our export trade. Them who are our allies. Them who are hungry. Them who are sick. Them whose COVID is the same as our COVID, one that knows no boundaries.

Please contact your representative, Jim Himes, John Larson, Jahana Hayes, Rosa DeLauro or Joe Courtney, and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, in Connecticut, spread the word to your friends in other states to contact theirs, urging them to ensure the United States includes at least $20 billion, (which represents less than 1 percent of the monies being discussed) in the next relief package for a global COVID-19 response.

In the Senate, to support S.3829 the Global Health Security and Diplomacy Act of 2020, put out by Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) and our own Chris Murphy, a bill to advance the global health security and diplomacy objectives of the United States.

Stamford resident Sandra Eagle, a psychotherapist with a private practice in Greenwich, is a member of Coastal Connecticut chapter of RESULTS, (www.results.org).
Amid the growing number of COVID-19 cases in states like California, Texas and Arizona, large gatherings for Independence Day weekend are largely out; most cities have canceled fireworks displays, and big in-person gatherings continue to be high-risk activities based on Centers for Disease Control recommendations.

In addition to updating its extenuating circumstances policy, Airbnb is taking steps to make sure you won't be reading about out-of-control "party houses" and COVID outbreaks next week.
F ORMER Barclays chief executive John Varley today sought to hurt the credibility of Amanda Staveley in her 1.5 billion court battle with the bank.

The financier, also trying to secure a deal to take over Newcastle United, thinks she was locked out of a 2008 deal with Qatar that secured Barclays finances at a time of great turmoil.

The bank says she was a mere introducer. Staveley says her PCP syndicate was an investor and should have benefited from the deal.

Today in a court statement Varley, chief executive between 2004 and 2010, said Barclays was seeking investors with deep pockets, instant credibility and name recognition who were acceptable to the FSA.

PCP would not have fulfilled the criteria, he said.

Barclays and Varley had meetings with the FSA  the Financial Services Authority, now the Financial Conduct Authority  to discuss its fundraiser.

Varley said: At no time did I approach or could I credibly have the FSA to seek its consent to PCPbecoming a source, by investment, of the continuing independence of a systemically important bank.

Mr Justice Waksman began overseeing the trial two weeks ago. It is likely to last two months.

Barclays lawyers said earlier that Staveley, a sometime girlfriend of Prince Andrew, had tried to insert herself into a deal in a hustle.

Last week, the Press Association reported, Staveley burst into tears at this claim.
U S President Trump today held a press conference to boast about the jobs increase in June.

The US added 4.8 million jobs last month, the biggest increase since records began.

President Trump called the number the 'largest monthly job gain in the history of our country' in a hastily arranged public appearance after the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%.

He called the numbers 'spectacular news for American workers,' adding that "that our economy is roaring back."

Donald Trump: China could have stopped the coronavirus crisis

But the numbers need to be put into context as there were a mammoth 20 million job losses in April.

He also took the victory lap as the coronavirus resurges in states such as California, Texas and Florida, prompting local governments to once again shutter bars and other businesses where the deadly respiratory disease is thought to spread easily.

Today McDonalds paused the reopening of its dine-in service in the US by 21 days as the number of coronavirus cases soars.

Despite the swelling loads of new cases, Trump said he expected to see good employment numbers in the coming months and that the third quarter gross domestic product report, due days before the November presidential election, would also be strong.

Traders in New York were celebrating the number today / Getty Images

Trump said the report suggests that workers are confident about finding a new job.

He added that the White House and Congress continue to negotiate on another round of stimulus, called Phase 4, to help the economy withstand a pandemic now in its fourth month.

Polls show voters give Trump high marks on his economic prowess but give him low grades on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and race issues.

Some States in the US have gone back into lockdown / AFP via Getty Images

The President has banked his re-election campaign on his economic message.

Global markets rose after the jobs number as investor confidence of a V-shaped recovery returned.

In London stocks pushed higher with the FTSE 100 up 71 points at 6228.47, while US stocks on Wall Street also made gains.

Richard Flynn, managing director at Charles Schwab, said: "Today's upbeat US jobs report will build upon the market's positive momentum from last month's data.

"However, even if the number is trending lower, continued jobless claims over the past few weeks suggest that many job losses may become permanent as businesses struggle to reopen and unused resources and skills become outdated.

"It's also possible that a labour market recovery may be further endangered by the latest spike in infection rates in various states. In the US, demographic data from the Center for Disease Control shows that new cases in May and June are skewing towards those that are younger, rather than towards the older portion of population as seen back in April and in months prior.

"While daily stock market volatility in recent weeks may be influenced in part by the rising number of cases, the overall trend in stocks seems more closely aligned with deaths than new cases.
P rimark has brushed off the woes engulfing the High Street  pressing ahead with store openings and ordering 1 billion of new stock, while rivals shut shops and slash jobs.

The fashion retailer saw sales slump by 75% to 582 million in the third quarter as the UK lockdown hurt the stores-only retailer  but it said trading since reopening has been brisk and better than last year.

It has reopened 367 UK stores more rapidly than it had expected to, and demand for kids clothes and leisurewear has been healthy.

Huge queues outside its stores when non-essential retailers were allowed to reopen on June 15 are in stark contrast to news this week of job cuts and store closures at retail stalwarts including John Lewis, Harrods and Topshop owner Arcadia.

John Bason, finance chief at Primark owner ABF, said trading in England had been reassuring and encouraging.

He also pledged that there would be no fire sale of stock which has sat in shut stores for months, and committed to buying 1 billion of future stock, including 800 million of autumn/winter ranges.

Primark has suffered more than rivals during the virus crisis as it has no online presence. Its annual profits are now estimated to be around 300 million to 350 million compared to 913 million last year. ABF shares were the biggest riser on the FTSE 100, up 5% at 2057p.

The retailer has opened a new store in Manchesters Trafford Centre and is pressing ahead with opening five new stores in the US, France and Poland.

Overall ABFs quarterly revenues were down 39% to 2.6 billion, aided by a strong performance in its grocery arm, which includes the Twinings tea brand, as supermarkets saw a surge in demand. So far this year, group revenues are down 13% to 10.2 billion.

Nicholas Hyett, an equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: The fact Primark has been able to return to sales without significant discounting is encouraging in our view, but while we see the recent performance as strongly positive theres still a long way to go.

A low price points might provide some insulation against a major economic downturn, but we still worry about the state of the global economy and what that could mean for all retailers over the medium term. Given those concerns ABFs substantial cash pile is very welcome.

The retailer was this week forced to close two stores in Leicester following the lockdown there.

Bason said: We were prepared for some closures on a local basis. It should be expected that we will have more situations like this on a regional basis.
U S unemployment fell in June as non-farm payrolls added 4.8 million jobs, the Labor Department said.

It was the second month of gains after a loss of more than 20 million in April, when the coronavirus pandemic put a large swath of economic activity on ice.

The unemployment rate was 11.1%. Economists had been expecting a 2.9 million increase and a jobless rate of 12.4%.

The figures were released a day early as it is a public holiday tomorrow for Independence Day.

In London stocks pushed higher with the FTSE 100 up 71 points at 6228.47. US stock futures on Wall Street also moved higher.

Last month in May the economy added 2.5 million jobs. The data surprised everyone as financial analysts had anticipated that 8 million jobs would be lost.

Richard Flynn, managing director at Charles Schwab, said: "Today's upbeat US jobs report will build upon the market's positive momentum from last month's data.

"However, even if the number is trending lower, continued jobless claims over the past few weeks suggest that many job losses may become permanent as businesses struggle to reopen and unused resources and skills become outdated.

Stock markets around the world moved higher / Getty Images

"It's also possible that a labour market recovery may be further endangered by the latest spike in infection rates in various states. In the US, demographic data from the Center for Disease Control shows that new cases in May and June are skewing towards those that are younger, rather than towards the older portion of population as seen back in April and in months prior. While daily stock market volatility in recent weeks may be influenced in part by the rising number of cases, the overall trend in stocks seems more closely aligned with deaths than new cases.

"A second wave of deaths could in turn lead to a second wave of decline for the economy, corporate earnings and the stock market. Watching the number of deaths, rather than new cases, will be critical for investors in the weeks ahead."

Neil Birrell, chief investment officer at Premier Miton, added: The US jobs data came in much better than expected. Although, it is not as good as face value given incorrect classifications.
With temperatures predicted in the mid 30s across the UK this weekend, it is officially summertime.

Perhaps your way of ushering in the most footloose and fancy-free season of the year is with a paddle and/or frolic in the sea? Or perhaps - for us urbanites - just the local Lido.

Whatever your water source, there's is an issue surrounding how unsustainable swimwear is.

Plastic-based synthetic fibres like nylon and polyester are popular in swimming garb because they stretch well, wick moisture and dry quickly. But polyester and nylon - both of which are non-biodegradable - are also derived from petroleum and their creation requires a large amount of water and energy.

While for women, there's a surplus of cozzies and bikinis that are as pleasing to the eye as they are the environment, for men, there is a considerable dearth of sustainably-made swimwear.

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Spurred on by this gaping hole in the ethical trunks market, these brands were all born in response to the lack of sustainable swimwear and ethical no-frills trunks. Before testing the waters, think of the planet and treat yourself to a pair of oh-so-green trunks.

Riz

Riz

Every pair of Riz boardshorts is tailored from 100 per cent 'rizcycled' and 'rizcyclable' fabric, which itself is crafted using plastic bottles. As if that wasn't eco-friendly enough, for every pair sold, Riz donates 1 to the Marine Conservation Society so that the waters you splash through in your Riz shorts are just a little bit cleaner and less plastic-polluted.

Once you've worn out one pair, simply send them back to the brand and it'll offer you 25 per cent off a brand new pair! What could be better?

Prices start from 45, rizboardshorts.com

NAECO

NAECO

NAECO (ocean spelled backwards) offers some seriously dapper no-frills trunks. Each pair of its tailored trunks is made using approximately 15 recycled plastic bottles which is no small feat, and neither is the fact that the trunks are then recyclable at the end of their lives too.

Even better is that all of NAECO's pieces are made in the UK.

Prices from 160, naeco.co.uk

Panareha

Panareha

Lisbon born and bred sustainable trunks company Panareha hand makes all of its trunks in Portugal which it also crafts using recycled plastic bottles. Panareha's pieces are then delivered in entirely recyclable packaging.

Prices from 69, panareha.com

Finisterre

Finisterre

Finisterre trunks are the epitome of beach-to-bar perfection. Having been in the green trunks biz for over 15 years, the brand crafts its trunks using ECONYL - the Prada-approved material that's comprised of recycled nylon waste - and has a kooky collab with the Natural History Museum under its belt. We'll take a pair of the Darwin trunks, thank you very much.

Prices from 60, finisterre.com

Bluebuck

Bluebuck

Shocked into action by the waste peppered along British shores, Bluebuck crafts its trunks using upcycled marine waste. The shorts are certified SEAQUAL, which is an organisation that collaborates with fishermen and small charities to instigate large-scale beach clean ups. The non-biodegradable debris collected on these missions is sorted, cleaned and recycled, before being transformed into yarn. This is spun in Spain and woven into fabric in Portugal, before it provides us in Britain with stellar swimming shorts.
S hangri-La  the weirdest, wackiest and, arguably, most wonderful area Glastonbury has to offer  is going virtual.

Worthy Farm will host only the cows this year, after the festival was forced to postpone because of the coronavirus outbreak. It means many of us will miss out on what is surely the highlight of the musical summer in the UK.

Lost Horizon, a new virtual reality festival from the people behind Shangri-La in collaboration with Sansar and VRJAM, might just be the next best thing.

If youre planning on diving into its mysterious digital world this weekend, here is everything you need to know.

50 pictures to make you nostalgic for Glastonbury 1 /50 50 pictures to make you nostalgic for Glastonbury Getty Images PA Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images PA AFP via Getty Images PA PA PA Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images PA Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Getty Images

What is Lost Horizon?

The festival describes itself as a real festival in a virtual world. What that exactly means in practice still remains to be seen to some extent, but it does look as if Lost Horizon will be an immersive experience.

Fans will be able to create their own fully customisable avatars and, if their devices have a functioning microphone, talk to other virtual festival-goers. It looks as if fans will be able to wander from stage to stage, too  organisers are promising wild dance-floors, secret headliners, a visual feast of art and performance and hidden venues.

When is Lost Horizon?

The festival kicks off at 3pm on Friday July 3, and will run until the close of play on Saturday. Exact timings are yet to be confirmed.

Whos on the line-up?

Lost Horizon will split into four main stages. The Gas Tower, the famous 360-degree space at Glastonbury, will be recreated in the digital realm here, with audiovisual performances from DJs playing house, techno and drumnbass.

The Freedom Stage is a global affair  artists from all around the world will play an eclectic range of music, from hip-hop to heavy metal. Nomad is focused on festival heritage, with reggae, garage, disco and more, while SHITV is the festivals media centre  head there for archive footage, documentaries, comedy, live arts, animations, talks and more.

There are some big names on the line-up. Peggy Gou, Eats Everything, Carl Cox and Jamie Jones are among the highlights on the Gas Tower, while Freedom will welcome the likes of Coldcut, Sama, Frank Turner and more.

On Nomad, there will be various stage takeovers: 24hr Garage Girls, Hospital Records and Critical Sound are among those getting involved. The SHITV line-up is yet to be announced, so stay tuned for that.

Head here for the full stage splits.

How can I watch Lost Horizon?

There are few options, depending on what gear youve got at home. First of all, though, youll need to get a free ticket  sign up for that here.

If you have a VR headset  Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or a tethered Oculus Quest  youll need to download the Sansar app on your Windows computer. Once thats done, open the app and follow signs for Lost Horizon in the Nexus.

Those without a headset can also get the VR experience, moving around with a mouse and keyboard instead. Youll still need to download the Sansar app for this, and its recommended that you use a computer with Windows 7 or higher, as well as a dedicated graphics card. Check here for the full system requirements.
M cFly have signed their first new record deal since 2009  and theres a new album on the way.

The Noughties favourites, who rose to popularity with tracks such as Obviously, Five Colours In Her Hair and All About You, are now part of the BMG roster.

Their last studio album, Above The Noise, arrived in 2010 and now the band  comprising Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd  are working on new music. The lead single off the forthcoming release is set to arrive in the next few weeks.

It comes after an extended break from the band, who had been on hiatus since the end of their 2016 tour.

There was a strong possibility McFly would never happen again, Fletcher told the BBC. We genuinely didnt know how to get back on track.

The best albums of 2020 so far 1 /11 The best albums of 2020 so far Getty Images Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia Future Nostalgia arrived at the end of March, a ray of light to pierce the lockdown gloom. It was a shot at writing something timeless, taking strands of classic disco and Eighties synth-pop and putting them through a slick, modern filter. On standout tracks such as Dont Start Now and Cool, Dua Lipa hit her target. More than anything though, this was something defiantly fun, a heartening reminder that there are brighter times ahead. Getty Images Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher It would be easy to label Punisher as a sad album, because it is, with heartache and despondency always within an arms reach. But to simply call it that would be to grossly undersell it  the album, also out today, is cathartic, nostalgic, surreal, grounded, darkly comic and, more often than not, weepingly beautiful. The disarming vocals are morbidly quotable (The doctor put her hands over my liver /She told me my resentments getting smaller) and confirm the 25-year-old Bridgers as one of her generations deftest writers. Getty Images for Tibet House Tame Impala - The Slow Rush It took some time to fall in love with Kevin Parkers latest album as Tame Impala. Its layers were dense and meticulously produced, a product of the Australians dogged perfectionism, but when they did eventually unravel, the albums brilliance was revealed in vivid colour. There was squelchy hip-hop and tap-dancing piano on Borderline, alluring sophisto-funk on Breathe Deeper, and dizzying disco on One More Year. Parkers lyrics were typically conflicted, stuck between past and future, but musically, hed never sounded so assured. AFP via Getty Images Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters Fiona Apples fifth album was eight years in the making, and sounded as if it had been simmering for all that time. It was inescapably personal, rattling with homemade percussion, grinding against Apples visceral vocals as she retold traumas of sexual abuse and toxic relationships. But it all coalesced to give momentum to a magnificent release of tension, the sound of a furiously convinced artist. Kick me under the table all you want, she asserted, I wont shut up. Getty Images Run The Jewels - RTJ4 When Killer Mike, one half of Run The Jewels, wrote Walking In The Snow (You so numb, you watch the cops choke out a man like me) he was remembering the tragic death of Eric Garner in 2014. It should have been retrospective; instead, it was hideously prophetic, arriving on RTJ4 amid the George Floyd protests. But these were wide-lens raps  joined by partner El-P, they fired lyrical missiles at the racist police and ruling elite, interspersing it with cutting quips and dark humour. Painful, prescient, and hugely powerful. Getty Images for DIRECTV J Hus - Big Conspiracy Big Conspiracy was the sound of an artist taking his time. The eclectic beats, largely provided by chameleonic producer Jae5, avoided the usual bombast for something understated. The lyrical gaze was sharp, ranging from the legacy of slavery to the grind of everyday life, all of it recounted with clever wordplay. It wouldnt be a Hus album without tales of at least one sexual conquest  the song Cucumber provides it  but all in all, never has the east Londoner been so searingly composed. Getty Images for Nike Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways Bob Dylans 39th studio album, released today, might just be one of his greatest. Before this, eight years had passed without any new original music. Had the old master lulled himself into retirement? The surprise release of a 17-minute song about the JFK assassination did away with any doubts. Its a densely lyrical album, a poetic and historical tapestry, proving that, at 79, the Nobel Prize-winner is still at the peak of his songwriting powers. AFP via Getty Images Georgia - Seeking Thrills Georgias exhilarating second album landed back in January (oh, those halcyon days) and was the sound of an artist brimming with new-found conviction. Arriving five years after her debut, she had finally found her voice  quite literally, shunning the over-produced vocals of before  and a winning musical formula: retro-tinted dance pop, pairing the throbbing echoes of Chicago house with sharp modern melodies. Hollie Fernando Orlando Weeks - A Quickening Former Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks took a mature step away from his indie-rock past on his debut solo album, supplanting it with soft, cloudy atmospheres. A Quickening covered his impending fatherhood, and all of the unknowingness that comes with it. It was minutely intimate  Ill be your blood sugar, he pledged to the unborn child  with his vocals at their most tender and innocent. Jackson Bowley Laura Marling - Song For Our Daughter Another album to ease the pandemic blues, Laura Marling had initially planned an August release, but brought it forward to April. It had an effortlessly classic sound to it  the folky tones of Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake chimed throughout  but this album was undoubtedly Marlings own. Her vocals were soaring, sardonic and soothing, singing with all the wisdom of an artist who, still only 30, now has seven albums worth of experience behind her. Getty Images

Last year, the group released The Lost Songs, made up of demos that were initially intended for the bands sixth studio album, before they got shelved in favour of the McBusted collaboration.
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F rom supergroups to long-lost live albums, July is looking like an intriguing month for new music.

Some of the biggest names in jazz, Afrobeat and hip-hop are teaming up for a number of projects, while a live recording from a late musical icon is getting its first ever official release.

Elsewhere, we've got long-awaited returns, hotly anticipated follow-ups, visual albums and more.

Here are the 10 albums you need to hear in July.

David Bowie  Ouvrez Le Chien (July 3)

Theres been a string of posthumous David Bowie releases in recent months, and this is the latest one. Its a previously unheard recording of a live performance, dating back to a show in Dallas, Texas, in 1995 during the Outside tour.

Keleketla!  Keleketla! (July 3)

A transcontinental collaboration between jazz and Afrobeat artists in South Africa, the UK, US and beyond, this promises to be one of the most colourful releases of the month. The late Tony Allen is among those featured, with Dele Sosimi, Shabaka Hutchings and Joe Armon-Jones also involved.

Dinner Party  Dinner Party (July 10)

Another new supergroup  this time comprising Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin and 9th Wonder  have formed as The Dinner Party. Expect a jazzy mix of hip-hop grooves and more.

The Streets  None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive (July 10)

Mike Skinner is back with his first major release of big beats and sly wordplay since Computers and Blues in 2011. Its been dubbed a mixtape, and theres a feature on every track  ranging from Tame Impala and IDLES to Jimothy Lacoste and Greentea Peng.

Lianne La Havas  Lianne La Havas (July 17)

After a half-decade wait, Lianne La Havas is back with a new album. If Im at the centre of it, and all these songs can be played just by me, then I think Im onto something very true to who I am, she told the Standard back in May. This is the album that I feel is most true to my identity.

Zara McFarlane  Songs Of An Unknown Tongue (July 17)

London vocalist Zara McFarlane has been one of the leading voices of the capitals jazz scene in recent years. On this album, shes set to push beyond the genre, delving into the folk and spiritual roots of Jamaica.

Kamaal Williams  Wu Hen (July 24)

Kamaal Williams, aka producer Henry Wu, powers forwards with his modern brand of jazz, funk, grime, broken beat, jungle, house and more on this, his latest album.

Alanis Morissette  Such Pretty Forks In The Road (July 31)

Alanis Morrissettes new album is her first since 2012, and has been three years in the making  even then, it was pushed back from its original release date in May due to the pandemic. Its going to be a piano record, with the latest single Diagnosis an emotionally raw, stripped-back ballad.

Beyonce  Black Is King (July 31)

Queen Bey is back with another visual album, this time inspired by The Gift, an album of music released in conjunction with the Lion King remake last year. While working on this film, she wrote on Instagram, there were moments where Ive felt overwhelmed, like many others on my creative team, but it was important to create a film that instills pride and knowledge.

Fontaines D.C.  A Heros Death (July 31)
O ne of Londons most iconic venues could be forced to shut its doors forever within months if it doesn't receive urgent funds, it is reported.

The Royal Albert Hall will go bust by its 150th anniversary in March if it continues to haemorrhage money during lockdown closures, its chief executive told i news.

The west London concert hall has lost an estimated 12 million in potential income since it was forced to shut mid-March.

Boris Johnson has announced that theatres and concert halls are able to reopen from July 4, but not for live performances, leaving the Albert Hall in the most perilous situation it has ever faced, according to CEO Craig Hassall.

BBC Proms Royal Albert Hall 1 /10 BBC Proms Royal Albert Hall Last Night of the Proms, Prom 75 Chris Christodoulou Last Night of the Proms, Prom 75 Chris Christodoulou Last Night of the Proms, Prom 75 Chris Christodoulou Royal Albert Hall Auditorium Chris Christodoulou Royal Albert Hall Auditorium Royal Albert Hall Royal Albert Hall Auditorium Royal Albert Hall Prom 5, 2016 Mark Allan Audiences and stage at the Royal Albert Hall Chris Christodoulou Royal Albert Hall Auditorium Royal Albert Hall Royal Albert Hall - Exterior South Entrance Royal Albert Hall

Mr Hassall told the i: The Government support has been very oblique and vague. We have lobbied hard and consistently across the sector.

However, he said, Downing Streets road map for recovery offered no firm dates for theatres to resume the staging of performances to live audiences.

There is no guidance from Government on when we can open or how we can open, he said.

Without that its impossible for us to trade  and that means the whole sector.

The venue has taken out a 5 million loan to stay afloat, but needs an additional 5-10 million to avoid going under by early next year, according to the news site.

It could be declared insolvent earlier if the Government's furlough scheme is not maintained for those venues which are unable to reopen.

A reduction in mandatory social distancing from two metres to one leaves the Victorian venue still only able to fill a third of its seats.

However, most theatre and concert spaces require capacity of 80 per cent to turn a profit.

Until venues can open without social distancing, the live music industry is finished, Mr Hassall stressed.

In an interview last week, the Halls CEO said he expected to begin hosting reduced audiences in October or November, but insisted this was only an interim measure to get people into the venue.

He said around 80 per cent of concerts hosted by the venue were from external promoters hiring the space, and that many of them would be unable to break even with the one-metre rule in place.

Describing the effect of the pandemic, Mr Hassall said: It is the most negatively impactful event in the history of the Royal Albert Hall, and for the cultural sector it is devastating and perilous. I cannot exaggerate this.

The chief executive said he had been speaking with the heads of other major London venues, including the Royal Opera House, National Theatre, Barbican and The Old Vic to swap solutions.

He said he had also been in contact with The Lincoln Centre and Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Sydney Opera House.

Mr Hassall also warned of the dangers facing regional theatre groups who may not be able to stage pantomimes this year.

He said: And the killer thing is pantomime. So for a lot of regional theatres, if they dont have their panto season at Christmas, thats their cash cow for the entire year.
A fter winning more than 6,500 signatures in support  among them Bill Nighy, Orlando Bloom and countless restaurants and bars  a campaign to pedestrianise much of Soho has found some success.

From this July 4, the so-called "Super Saturday", 17 streets across the district will now be temporarily car free, including Greek Street, Old Compton Street, Frith Street and Dean Street.

While there remains some back and forth between Westminster City Council and hospitality bosses to finalise details, its thought that most of the street closures will be between 5pm and 11pm every evening. Staff from across Soho have volunteered to martial the gates to ensure the roads stay clear of traffic.

Its hoped that the move will encourage Londoners to head into the centre, as leading industry figures call on Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan to help with a feared lack of custom.

Its also thought the measures will pave the way for Sohos restaurateurs to offer al fresco dining, which should help them counter the loss of custom incurred as consequence of social distancing.

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Though business owners will still need to apply for new licenses to serve in the streets, the council has introduced a fast track system to push through applications more quickly than usual, between five and 10 days.

The news comes as the governments Business and Planning Bill has passed through the House of Commons, and is set to be considered in the Lords. The bill will allow businesses across England to apply to their local authority for a so-called pavement license to serve outdoors, while also deregulating some licensing laws to allow certain businesses to sell alcohol for consumption off premises.
T he world turned upside down the day Hamilton opened on Broadway five years ago. Lin-Manuel Mirandas show, telling the story of the American Founding Father in a way the theatre stage has never seen  with a cast made up mostly of people of colour, and with a searing score that combined the vitality and punch of hip-hop with a deep knowledge and love of musical theatre  has been a game-changer not just for the art form but for how we could understand history.

Were opening up the idea that history isnt a set of objective facts, Miranda told Oprah in 2018. Its a subjective story, curated by the people who lived it, and there are so many other stories that havent been told. After years of hype radiating off Broadway and jealousy radiating off everyone this side of the Atlantic (even those who usually profess to hate musical theatre) Hamilton, the story of an immigrant, written by the child of immigrants, opened in the West End on December 21, 2017. Since then and until the virus shut it down, it has been the hottest ticket in town, with audiences scrambling to be in the room where it happens.

Now as the original Broadway production comes to Disney+, Hamilton will be out there for all to see  for considerably less than the vast sums it usually costs to bag a ticket. We asked members of the original West End cast to tell us about the impact it had on them  and their audience.

Jamael Westman

Alexander Hamilton

(Dave Benett)

Id never walked into a rehearsal room where everyone was so palpably excited. We all knew we were a part of something really special that belonged to us and, as a diverse cast, also offered each of us a place of belonging. It felt like stepping into a space of liberating possibility, one the world is in desperate need of.

What sums up the show for me was, and still is, when we managed to do it for 1,500 young people on free school meals  shout out Marcus Rashford  most of whom may not have otherwise been able to see the show. They responded to it with a youthful ecstasy that lifted the roof off and, frankly, could lift a nation. I hope we contributed to that potential that lives in each of them.

Now with the show being on Disney+, it means even greater accessibility in general, and also a greater opportunity to inspire and encourage young people, our true legacy, to revisit our history, take ownership of their own story and shape our future for the better. This is not a moment, its a movement.

Giles Terera

Aaron Burr

So much about Hamilton is different. But for me, one of the biggest differences was what the experience meant to the audience. Youd look out into the auditorium and see young people of colour who were truly seeing themselves on the stage. Its possible to go to the theatre and see people of colour on the stage but these werent shuffling secondary characters or nondescript African villagers  our audience was seeing people who looked like them portraying powerful, complex, articulate, intelligent characters and we would see it register on the faces of our audience. Wed call it The Look. Maybe their eyes would shine a little brighter. Maybe theyd leave the auditorium walking a little taller.

It felt like we had an opportunity to be a part of shifting the perception of what theatre could be. By telling this story as honestly and committedly as we could. The achievement of the American cast was also very apparent to us. I remember watching the show on Broadway before my audition and having an overwhelming feeling of gratitude to that amazing company that not only had they changed the way we see ourselves but they had changed the way the industry sees us too. I think for all of us in London we took the responsibility very seriously and we knew that here was an opportunity to carry that legacy forward.

Jason Pennycooke

Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson

From day one we were made to feel like we were an extended family. Everyone was always, always approachable and open to both change and artistic interpretation. Dont get me wrong, they worked us so hard, but we had fun and space and support while doing it.

It was an honour to perform in a show about a man born on a small island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea named Nevis, a place that just so happened to be the birthplace of my late mother, born literally a stones throw from one another. Also, to stand on stage with Prince Harry  or Harry as he now prefers!  descendant of King George III, at a gala performance for his charity Sentebale, as he jokily sings the start of Youll Be Back, the song performed by our very own King George, Michael Jibson. The humour and irony was most definitely not lost on me or anyone in the house that night.

Prince Harry bursts into song after watching Hamilton

Rachel John

Angelica Schuyler

During rehearsals, I felt like we were a part of something very special, but when we started to receive messages from people at the stage door and on social media, it became apparent that this was so much more. A show had never been more diverse and reflective of the world and city of London. Each face on stage looked like people you would encounter from all walks of life and the audiences loved it. People would reach out to say that they loved how different we all were and yet we were coming together to create one show. I knew then that we were creating history.

Opening night was such a rush of emotions. It was all a blur and happened so quickly. I remember getting to the end and bowing and the tears just began to flow.

Tarinn Callender

Hercules Mulligan/James Madison

Before every show, we would hold hands and take a moment to tune our energy into what we were about to do. This prayer circle had no religious beliefs or pressure of you have to do this. It was just a moment before the show where we came together, looked at each other, connected with each other  to let everyone in that circle and everyone on that stage know: we got you. Hamilton is hard, straight up. But we all got each other through: on the good days, the bad days, the vocal fatigue days, the injured days, the two-show days. It didnt matter which day it was  we supported each other through every show.

I remember feeling really nervous on opening night. This was my West End debut. I also remember Lin finding out about this and coming to our dressing room, just chilling and chatting with me and Cleve September [who played John Laurens/Philip Hamilton]. It instantly calmed me down. As he was leaving my dressing room he said to me, Enjoy your West End debut  it doesnt get better than this.

Obioma Ugoala

George Washington

Hamilton was the first thing Id ever seen and said, "Oh my gosh, I wish I could do that." So then when the audition came through and I was a part of that history and legacy, it felt like such a privilege. To be in a show where it wasnt focused on diversity, it was just part of the creative choice, felt really quite special and I wondered how many kids might see us on stage and feel emboldened.

Its one of those pieces that always demands all of you. You cant for a moment slip up or not concentrate. Theres no space for it. If you do, youll miss a cue or youll be in the wrong place or the revolve will turn around and youll find yourself tripping up, so youve got to stay with it, youve got to stay focused. Its always like youre rising to the challenge that the show presents you.

New trailer Hamilton trailer released ahead of Disney debut

Christine Allado

Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds

The atmosphere on opening night was so electric that you felt absolutely giddy. Id never heard a roar of cheer and applause as loud as what we heard the moment the first bit of music dropped in the opening song. The show had an inbuilt hype and it felt like we had to meet a certain bar and standard. But I felt we met it and surpassed it in some ways. The original London cast in my eyes was flawless in our rawness. History had its eyes on us and I'd like to think we left a mark.

Every night before the Schuyler sisters song, Rachel [John], Rachelle [Ann Go] and I would go into a huddle and pray and reassure each other that we had each others backs. And that was the show in a nutshell. It was relying on your castmates to help you shine and vice versa. The love and sense of community we built in that show is one Ill cherish always.
I n May 1964, the playwright Lorraine Hansberry gave a speech to the six black teenage winners of a creative writing competition. I wanted to be able to come here and speak with you on this occasion because you are young, gifted, and black, she said. Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be.

Less than a year later, young, gifted and black would come to be Hansberrys epitaph. At just 29, her debut play A Raisin in the Sun made her the first African-American woman to have a play on Broadway, and the youngest ever winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. A playwright, but also an activist and public intellectual, she died of cancer only five years later at the age of 34, at the height of the civil rights movement that formed part of her lifes work. At her funeral, readings included messages written by Martin Luther King and James Baldwin; Nina Simone would later write a song about her.

This week, the National Theatre will livestream its 2016 production of her final play, Les Blancs. Directed by Yael Farber for the Olivier stage, its an epic play about the struggles between the coloniser and the colonised in an un-named African state. Tshembe (played by Danny Sapani) arrives from England for his fathers funeral, finding his homeland now simmering with racial tensions.

A growing and renewed interest in Hansberrys life and work has coincided with a global moment of reflection, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. There is an extraordinary interest in Lorraine, says Joi Gresham, Director and Trustee of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust. And maybe its more honest to say a need for Lorraine."

Gresham worked on the text for Les Blancs  unfinished at the time of Hansberrys death  alongside Farber and dramaturg Drew Lichtenberg, building on a previous version put together by her father Robert Nemiroff, Hansberrys literary executor, collaborator and former husband. She learned from him how to bring Hansberrys intentions to life, piecing together the play from drafts, notebooks and speeches, with one essential rule: Hansberrys words can never be changed.

Lorraine Hansberry (Nat Fein/courtesy of The Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust)

Born in 1930, Hansberrys parents were successful in their fields  her father an estate agent, her mother a teacher  but they were also activists. Prominent black intellectuals and creatives such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes were frequent visitors to their home. Her exposures were really extraordinary and unique, says Gresham, speaking over Zoom from her home in Boston.

Another experience would prove formative: when she was just eight, Hansberrys father moved them to a segregated whites-only area, where they were met with hostility by white locals  including an incident when a brick thrown through the window narrowly missed Hansberrys head. After attempts to force the family out, Hansberrys father fought and won the right to stay in a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

These early experiences laid the foundation for Hansberry to grow into a bold, trailblazing and powerful writer. The team working at the Hansberry Literary Trust have an informal tagline: Its basically that were catching up to Lorraine, says Gresham. She was not afraid to be smart, and not afraid to ask us to be that smart. So I think thats what were challenged with. Because, in many ways, were not that smart! So we have to learn, listen to one another, and catch up to a kind of theatre that she was imagining.

Its perhaps not just those working directly on her legacy that are catching up, but the theatre world at large too. Gresham says that Hansberry wasnt entirely satisfied by how A Raisin in the Sun was interpreted. She felt it was a cultural success in representing African-American life in a new, radical way, and leading people to understand the deferred dreams of a significant part of the population, she tells me. But it was misunderstood as having a happy ending, as a kind of middle class dream, and it wasnt taken seriously as a critique of race and class and the roles that are given to the oppressed.

Decades later, Gresham believes scholars analysing Hansberrys work are also confronting how these misinterpretations affected her legacy more broadly. Despite her brilliance and her voice and her presence, so many of the scholars and biographers I work with are examining: why dont we know this, why has it taken us this time? What has this erasure cost us? she says.

This fresh perspective has led her to become a clarion voice in 2020. She helps understand, with a historical perspective, why these questions that are raised through protest now matter  why black lives matter. She gives some kind of definition to it, because without those questions, we cant go forward.

She believes the intersectional nature of Hansberrys work  she was a political figure as much as an artistic one  is also relevant at a time when theatre needs to rebuild after a crisis. Its a critical time for us to examine what it means to be creative. What is that creativity for? Our own folly? Our own entertainment? Our own capital gain? Lorraine talks about these things.

Although it may seem that Hansberrys artistic trajectory was prematurely cut short just as it was beginning, Gresham isnt sure she would have carried on down that path. I dont know if Lorraine would have had the patience to stay embedded in the art world. I dont know if she would have continued writing plays, she says. I dont think she would have had the stomach to deal with the values and the disappointments of capitalist, commercial theatre.

She didnt take any prisoners. She didnt play.
N o one forgets their first few moments as foreign secretary. You are greeted outside the famous King Charles Street buildings and escorted up the red-carpeted grand staircase. Halfway up is a bust of one of your predecessors  not Palmerston or Grey but Ernest Bevin, Labour foreign secretary between 1945 and 1951, who is rightly considered one of the greatest holders of that office.

A fascinating book by Andrew Adonis goes one step further and calls him Labours Churchill. I started deeply sceptical of such a big claim but finished the book if not totally convinced, at least recognising the case to be made.

Why? Concerns about the stability of the world order: the rise of China and the increasingly apparent reluctance of America to provide global leadership. We worry about the survival of the post-1945 settlement because for all its flaws, it has given humanity more prosperity and freedom than ever before. Ernest Bevin did indeed have a strong claim to setting up that order alongside Churchill, not least because although Churchill won the war it was Bevin who was in office after the latter was ejected in 1945.

As Adonis chronicles, Bevins extraordinary achievement was standing up to Stalin in the aftermath of Hitlers defeat. As the founder of the largest trade union in the free world, Bevin had spent his life fighting communists. He did not join the fashionable consensus on the Left that communism was somehow better than fascism.

Bevins extraordinary achievement was standing up to Stalin in the aftermath of Hitlers defeat.

Having gone against the grain of Labour and Conservative establishments in opposing appeasement in the Thirties, he was ready to stand up to Stalin even when the Americans under Truman were more sympathetic. His tough negotiating style, learned from his union days, kept the Soviets out of western Germany and led directly to the foundation of the Federal State. He then worked closely with the Americans, by then more hawkish, to set up Nato, probably the most successful military alliance in history.

This painstakingly researched book also tells us of Bevins remarkable rise, starting life as an orphan so poor he had to steal for food.

When he rose to run the grandest of government departments it was sometimes said there were only two posts in the Foreign Office that Ernie Bevan could have held: foreign secretary and doorkeeper. As Adonis points out, that was simply not true  his diplomatic achievements were of such an order that he would have made a fine ambassador. But his political achievement was probably as great: the loyal friend who put and kept Attlee in power so he was able to run the government of which todays Labour is more proud than any other.

When I was health secretary it was impossible to go far without hearing legends about Nye Bevan, Ernest Bevins contemporary, who has become more famous because of his founding of the NHS. But Ernest Bevin deserves as much credit for his remarkable shaping of the modern world. He was not perfect  and I apologised as foreign secretary for his shameful immigration caps on Jewish refugees wanting to settle in Israel. But he was  overall  a great foreign secretary who, if not a Churchill, is Labours greatest claim to key parts of Churchills legacy.
G risly murder plots involving acid attacks, shootings, and the removal of limbs by crime bosses were thwarted by the infiltration of the EncroChat criminal network.

NCA director of investigations Nikki Holland said she had seen messages that chilled her to the bone as drugs kingpins discussed ways they wanted to torture and kill their rivals.

This was criminals talking about how they were going to see off their competition, she said. They range from the removal of limbs through to acid attacks and shootings.

It wasnt a case of going and shooting someone, some of them wanted to do really incredible things to them before getting to that point.

Ms Holland said the infiltration of the EncroChat system has been likened by NCA staff to cracking the enigma code, uncovering an Aladdins cave of evidence against organised crime groups.

Cash seized during the operation

Law enforcement agencies and police forces from across Europe were involved in the operation, leading to hundreds of arrests in the UK alone where 10,000 of the EncroChat devices are held.

Asked if she is aiming to round up all 10,000 users, Ms Holland said: Yes, Id like to, adding that massive operations announced today across all UK police forces were just the tip of the iceberg.

The Met Police said it has launched 34 investigations on the back of the EncroChat information, making 171 arrests for crimes including conspiracy to murder, possession of firearms, money laundering and conspiracy to supply drugs, and seizing 5 million in one single bust.

Scotland Yard said it has swooped on a high-harm Organised Crime Group, run by successful, respectable business people living luxury lifestyles in multi-million pound homes.

Glock 19 handgun

It said one investigation has uncovered a supply chain of drugs and guns through UK, Europe and the United Arab Emirates.

In another operation, police seized 14 million of deadly street valium from a drugs factory in Rochester, Kent, thanks to the infiltration of the EncroChat criminal network.

Officers from the National Crime Agency, Scotland Yard, and Police Scotland busted the crime gang on June 12, arresting six people and taking hold of 28 million tablets destined to be sold north of the border.

Street valium has been blamed for hundreds of deaths on the streets of Scotland, earning it the nickname Blue Plague.

1 kilo blocks of cocaine

In other success stories, a county lines drug operation in Derbyshire was broken up with the seizure of 1.4 million in bank notes, gold bullion worth more than 6,000 and 19 vehicles believed to have been bought with criminal profits.

Police seized 7.5kg of cocaine and 620,000 in cash when they busted another county lines drug network between Nottinghamshire and Liverpool.

The NCA says it has disrupted a drugs supply chain into Britain from South America, where a cruise liner was being used to ferry in the drugs.

Ms Holland revealed today that some law enforcement officers have also been arrested, suspected of corruptly helping criminal gangs. She confirmed no senior officers were involved, but refused to be drawn further on details.
B ritish socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has appeared in court accused of facilitating long-time associate Jeffrey Epstein's sexual exploitation of underage girls.

Maxwell is accused of helping the disgraced financier "identify, befriend and groom" multiple girls, including one as young as 14.

At a brief video hearing the same day, a magistrate judge ordered Maxwell to remain in custody while she is transferred to New York for a detention hearing there.

Epstein with Maxwell in 2005 / Getty Images

She did not enter a plea, and bail was not determined.

Maxwell spoke briefly, answering "yes" when asked if she knew her rights. Her lawyer, Larry Vogelman, declined further comment on her behalf.

Audrey Strauss, acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, earlier told a press conference authorities would "welcome" a statement from the duke in relation to the investigation.

Ghislaine Maxwell press conference: Jeffrey Epstein's ex-girlfriend arrested

Maxwell, daughter of late media mogul Robert Maxwell, is accused of facilitating Epstein's abuse by identifying and grooming underage girls.

She has previously denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of sexual misconduct by her former boyfriend Epstein, who took his own life in prison last year while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

Announcing the charges against Maxwell, Ms Strauss claimed she had helped Epstein to exploit underage girls and "in some cases" would participate in the abuse herself.

"Maxwell was among Epstein's closest associates and helped him exploit girls who were as young as 14 years old," she told reporters.

"Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse."

Four of the six charges cover Maxwell's dealings with Epstein from 1994 to 1997, when she was in an "intimate relationship" with him, according to the indictment.

These include conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts and enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.

Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell arrested

She is further charged with conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Authorities claim that Maxwell, who is also charged with two counts of perjury, allegedly lied when being questioned under oath in 2016.

One of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, claims that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Andrew at the socialite's London townhouse in 2001.

Ms Giuffre has claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and alleges the duke had sex with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17, still a minor under US law.

Andrew categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre, while his lawyers have insisted the duke has repeatedly offered to provide a witness statement to the investigation.

At the press conference, Ms Strauss told reporters: "I'm not going to comment on anyone's status in this investigation but I will say that we would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement."

But a source close to the duke's working group said that his lawyers have twice communicated with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in the past month.
A teenager accused of the double murder of two sisters in a Wembley park has been remanded in custody today.

Danyal Hussein, 18, allegedly stabbed to death Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, in Fryent Country Park in the early hours of Saturday June 6.

The sisters bodies were discovered the following morning, sparking a major murder hunt which led to Husseins arrest yesterday.

Police previously released pictures of senior social worker Ms Henry, from Brent in north-west London, and photographer Ms Smallman, from Harrow in north-west London, dancing with fairy lights shortly before they died.

The pair had met with friends during the evening to celebrate Ms Henrys birthday, officers said.

The two women were celebrating Ms Henry's birthday on the night of their deaths

Hussein, from Blackheath, south-east London, wore a grey jumper and jogging bottom as he appeared at Westminster magistrates court this morning to face the charges for the first time.

He spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth, address and British nationality during the four-minute hearing.

PA

District Judge Angus Hamilton remanded Hussein in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on Monday.
N icola Sturgeon has criticised Boris Johnsons absurd and ridiculous political comments claiming there is no Scottish border, and urged him to focus on the coronavirus pandemic.

The First Minister said attempts to escalate a row about people potentially having to quarantine if entering Scotland from other parts of the UK are frankly disgraceful.

Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly stated she will not rule out such quarantine measures if they are supported by public health evidence, a suggestion the PM said he found absolutely astonishing.

At Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, Mr Johnson said: There have been no such discussions with the Scottish administration about that but I would point out to [Conservative MP Andrew Bowie] what he knows very well  there is no such thing as a border between England and Scotland.

Asked at the Scottish Governments coronavirus briefing about the comments, Ms Sturgeon said it was such an absurd statement.

Ms Sturgeon said there was a geographical biundary to her power as First Minister / PA

She added: What there definitely is, is a geographical boundary to my powers as First Minister.

If the Prime Minister is questioning that now, Im not sure what he would say if I pitched up in Newcastle and started to try to implement Scottish Government policies in Newcastle.

And see what Ive just said there? Its absurd too, which is why we shouldnt be having these discussions.

We should all be focusing with an absolute laser-like focus on what we need to do within our own responsibilities and working together when necessary to stop a virus.

Boris Johnson said there was 'no border' / PA

On the possibility of people having to quarantine after entering Scotland, Ms Sturgeon said there are no such proposals at the moment.

But she added: Given the nature of what were dealing with right now  just to remind the Prime Minister: an infectious virus  I would not be doing my job properly if I ruled things out that, as we see from countries around the world, are being used selectively in appropriate circumstances to try to contain a virus.

If Im looking at the data and the evidence and Im seeing that theres a risk to Scotland of infection coming in from other parts of the UK and I think that there needs to be measures taken to contain that, then I will discuss that with other administrations as appropriate.

Ms Sturgeon insisted her one objective during the pandemic is trying to stop this virus getting out of control.

Customers queue outside the Primark store on Princes Street in Edinburgh / AFP via Getty Images

She said: Thats all that drives this decision-making process right now, and I really do say to people  whether its the leader of the Scottish Tories, the Secretary of State [for Scotland], or even the Prime Minister, who I have been at pains not to criticise over this  if you find yourself trying to turn any of this into a political or a constitutional argument, go and take a long hard look at yourself in a mirror.

If youre being honest with yourself, you will admit that youre failing people or risking failing people, so Im not going to do that.

Ive said from day one that however long this crisis lasts, Im going to stick with it because I take my responsibility to the best of my ability to protect Scotland from this virus more seriously than perhaps Ive taken anything in my life before.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack earlier described the idea of quarantining UK travellers as divisive.

He said: Whats deeply regrettable is that the First Minister has encouraged reckless talk.
Launched in 2007, the New York-based hedge fund turned its focus to newspapers during the Great Recession, buying stakes in companies that had declared bankruptcy such as MediaNews, Philadelphia Media Network and Journal Register. It also had a stake in Tribune Co., the bankrupt former parent company of Tribune Publishing.
F ifteen London boroughs have registered an increase in coronavirus cases in the last week, it was revealed this afternoon.

The new figures from Public Health England show the infection rate more than doubling in Hammersmith and Fulham and rising in Hounslow, placing both west London boroughs above the national average.

Cases also increased in neighbouring Ealing, taking it to a rate equal to the national average  6.7 cases per 100,000 population.

However, the rate in Kensington and Chelsea declined below the national average, having previously been above average.

PHE came under pressure to release comprehensive local figures that included the pillar two tests done at drive-through centres, mobile units and with home kits in the wake of the spike in cases in Leicester. Previously only pillar one hospital tests of patients and staff were disclosed on a borough by borough basis.

The latest figures, which relate to the period of June 22-28 and includes some data up to June 30, reveal rising rates per 100,000 people of:

12.4 in Hammersmith and Fulham

9.2 in Hounslow

6.7 in Ealing

5.9 in Hillingdon

5.8 in Merton

5.7 in Barking and Dagenham

The first weeks figures showed Kensington and Chelsea and Hounslow had the highest overall rates of new cases detected in the capital.

Public Health Englands daily online dashboard currently only shows pillar one results, leading to criticism that communities are unable to spot a spike or second wave of infections. About 75 per cent of tests are now being done in the community, for example, at drive-in centres or mobile units.

London during Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures 1 /50 London during Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures A woman jogging near City Hall, London, the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown PA An image of Queen Elizabeth II and quotes from her broadcast on Sunday to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA A pedestrian walks past a billboard reading "Please believe these days will pass" on Broadway Market in east London AFP via Getty Images Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge Getty Images Boris Johnson Jeremy Selwyn Sun-seekers cool off in the water and sunbathe on the riverbank at Hackney Marshes in east London AFP via Getty Images Ed Davey is shown on screens as he speaks via videolink during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, London PA A herd of fallow deer graze on the lawns in front of a housing estate in Harold Hill in east London AFP via Getty Images A woman wearing a mask crosses a bridge over Camden Lock, London PA An empty Millenium Bridge PA A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" is seen on an underground station platform Getty Images People push to enter the Niketown shop in Londo AP Jo Proudlove and daughter Eve, 9, follow the daily online "PE with Joe" Joe Wickes' exercise class on "Fancy dress Friday Reuters Waterloo station looking empty PA Police in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Getty Images A quiet Parliament Square Getty Images PABest A man walks along a passageway at London's Oxford Street Underground station the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown to help curb the spread of the Coronavirus PA Social distancing markers around the camel enclosure at ZSL London Zoo PA A police car patrols Greenwich Park in London PA The Premier League in action in front of empty stands AP Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed. A deserted Piccadilly Circus PA A general view is seen of a deserted Trafalgar Square AFP via Getty Images Getty Images The iconic Abbey Road crossing is seen after a re-paint by a Highways Maintenance team as they take advantage of the COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown and quiet streets to refresh the markings Getty Images A view of 20 Fenchurch Street (the 'Walkie Talkie' building) in the City of London, the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown to help curb the spread of the coronavirus PA A deserted Chinatown PA A person looks at graffiti on a JD Wetherspoon pub in Crystal Palace, south London. Wetherspoons workers have described founder Tim Martin's lack of support for his chain's 40,000 employees as "absolutely outrageous" PA The London ExCel centre that has been turned into a makeshift NHS Hospital and critical care unit to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic PA The Palace Theatre, which usually shows the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play, sits in a deserted Shaftesbury Avenue PA The Sondheim Theatre, which usually shows the Les Miserables musical, sits in a deserted Shaftesbury Avenue PA Two members of a British Army mounted regiment exercise their horses in Parliament Square AP Westminster Bridge is deserted PA A quiet Canary Wharf Underground Station PA An empty street and bus stop at St James's Park AFP via Getty Images Whitehall Jeremy Selwyn A quiet Canary Wharf Underground Station PA A single pedestrian walks past The national Gallery AFP via Getty Images London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn Kings Cross and St Pancras Jeremy Selwyn Buckingham Palace looking empty in London, PA London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn Kings Cross and St Pancras Jeremy Selwyn London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn London's Carnaby Street empty as shops closed after a lockdown was announced in the latest bid to stop the spread of coronavirus through the UK AP A single pedestrian walks past The national Gallery AFP via Getty Images A quiet Jubilee line westbound train carriage PA A quiet Canary Wharf Underground Station PA Empty Embankment Jeremy Selwyn

Yesterday the Standard revealed that Hounslow had seen the biggest increase in hospital-detected infections in London, of 39 new cases in the last three weeks, followed by Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham (both 28), Brent and Ealing (both 26), and Kensington and Chelsea (21).

You can use the interactive map below to see the weekly rate of confirmed cases per 100,000 residents from tests at hospitals and in the community.
P rince Charles has praised Tube workers for keeping London Underground running during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Prince of Wales met with Transport for London (TfL) staff on Thursday at a training centre in west London, where he heard their stories of working through the height of the capital's coronavirus outbreak.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan hosted the visit and said the prince had asked for the meeting to personally thank workers for their efforts for keeping the capital going during the pandemic.

The event was staged in the open air outside Ashfield House, a training centre near West Kensington Tube station, to minimise any possible spread of Covid-19.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, chair of TfL, hosted the visit / PA

After chatting to a group of staff, who were socially distanced, the prince told them: Thanks for doing so much, thanks for all your hard work, I dont know how you do it.

The Tube network has been running throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and maintained 50 per cent of services at the height of the outbreak when a third of staff were ill, shielding or self-isolating.

Many of the drivers, station staff and other workers have since returned to the front line and now more than 90 per cent of the timetable is operating.

The outbreak took its toll though, and 44 London transport workers have died due to coronavirus.

Dozens of London transport workers have died due to coronavirus / PA

Mr Khan said about Charles: He reached out to us and said I want to say thank you, because I know youve kept the city going.

He added: The great thing, hes met everyone from cleaners who are crucial to keeping public transport clean, the deep cleaning, to the commissioner - so you can see the response in their faces.

Theres a ripple effect with him coming down, theyll speak to their colleagues who will speak to their colleagues, but their families will know that His Royal Highness came to say thank you.

But for the public transport running during the lockdown, NHS workers, care workers, those who work in shops wouldnt be able to get to work to serve our city.

In a lighter moment, Mr Khan also revealed the heir to the throne had said he had been gifted some face masks with a tartan design.

He said: Hes been given three. Hes looking forward to wearing them out and about and stuff - its not his own tartan by the way.
B oris Johnson served a very, very blunt warning today that the furlough scheme keeping 9.3 million people in suspended animation at home with the Government paying most of their wages must be wound down.

In an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard, the Prime Minister said it was time to be absolutely frank and say to Britons that staying at home is not, in the long-term, healthy either for the economy or for you.

His words will dismay business groups and unions pleading for a third extension of the scheme that is due to end in October, when it will have cost an estimated 60 billion, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.

With just two days until pubs and restaurants reopen in the biggest unlocking of the national economy yet, Mr Johnson spelled out the vital importance of the next few weeks to Britains hopes of recovery.

In key comments he:

Issued a plea to revellers on Saturday onwards not to risk a return to lockdown by flouting the rules on social distancing, saying: Do not undo the sacrifices you have made with reckless behaviour ... We do not want to see businesses have to close again.

Accused China of plainly an unacceptable breach of Hong Kongs freedoms, making clear that the row could damage Chinese tech firm Huaweis involvement in the 5G network. Mr Johnson said: I dont want to see our critical national infrastructure at risk of being in any way controlled by potentially hostile state vendors. So we have to think very carefully about how to proceed now.

The Prime Minister, an Oxford graduate, revealed that he does not think the statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College at the university should be pulled down, saying it would be like trying to bowdlerise or edit our history ... like some politician sneakily trying to change his Wikipedia entry. He backed calls for more new statues of black heroes, and said: Im pro-heritage, Im pro-history, and Im in favour of people understanding our past with all its imperfections.

He confirmed implicitly that the whole of London could go back into lockdown if coronavirus resurges in the capital, as it has done in Leicester: I have got to be absolutely clear with people: the way to avoid that is to stay alert, control the virus, and save lives.

The PM signalled more big investment announcements are on the way after his build, build, build speech mapping out 5 billion of investment on Tuesday. He vowed: We will step it up, we will do what it takes.

He hit back at his predecessor Theresa Mays condemnation of his choice for the new National Security Adviser, Brexit negotiator David Frost, as inexperienced and too political. Mr Johnson said: I didnt hear what she said but I have the highest admiration for David Frost, and he will do an outstanding job. And by the way, you know he is very distinguished diplomat who has served in many, many different capacities.

Mr Johnson said he aims to promote more women to full Cabinet rank in his next ministerial reshuffle, which some reports have said could be held later this year.

The Prime Ministers candid warning that the furlough cannot be extended comes after business groups and trade unions started lobbying for a third postponement of the cut-off date to the scheme that currently pays 80 per cent of the wages of those who cannot work.

In the Commons yesterday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, citing job losses at Airbus and elsewhere, asked: Will the Prime Minister start now by extending the furlough scheme for those parts of the economy still most at risk?

The Prime Minister told us: Ive got to be very, very blunt with you. Weve spent 120 billion supporting people, its a huge commitment and we have put our arms around people ... But I think people need to recognise that the particular restrictions that furlough places on you are not, in the long-term, healthy either for the economy or for you as an employee.

His words will be a blow to theatres who fear it may be next year before a vaccine allows them to return to normal business. Mr Johnson continued: You are keeping people in suspended animation ... I am being absolutely frank with you, we are pushing it out until October, but in the end you have got to get the economy moving.

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With police leaders voicing fears about crowd behaviour on Saturday when pubs and restaurants reopen, Mr Johnson warned: The public need to stay alert and realise that the threat is not over. Follow the guidance and behave responsibly.
D avid Starkeys future at Cambridge University has been thrown into jeopardy after he claimed slavery was not genocide because of the survival of so many damn blacks.

The British historian made the comments during an interview with pro-Brexit commentator Darren Grimes, during which he described the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as wholly and entirely a product of white colonisation".

Speaking via video link, the 75-year-old argued the only reason that these young black protestors are here is because of slavery.

He later added: Of course slavery was not the equivalent of the Holocaust.

Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there? An awful lot of them survived.

His comments were widely condemned on social media, including by former chancellor Sajid Javid, who tweeted that David Starkeys racist comments (so many damn blacks) are a reminder of the appalling views that still exist.

Fellow historian and Cambridge professor Nicholas Guyatt urged the university to cut all ties with Dr Starkey.

Cant speak for my employer but as someone who teaches history at Cambridge I'm ashamed of our connections with David Starkey and urge both the University and Fitzwilliam College to cut all ties with him, he tweeted.

The 75-year-old is an alumni of the college and was made an Honorary Fellow in 2006.

Fitzwilliam responded by denouncing Dr Starkeys remarks and saying its governing body would consider his fellowship.

The college said in a statement: We support and promote freedom of speech in our academic community, but we have zero tolerance of racism.

Dr David Starkeys recent comments on slavery are indefensible.

Fitzwilliam was founded upon values of fairness and mutual respect and we are proud of the Colleges inclusive and diverse membership.

The matter of Dr Starkeys Honorary Fellowship will be considered by the Governing Body at its meeting next Wednesday.

It is not the first time Dr Starkey has faced accusations of racism.

In 2011, following riots across England, he told BBC Newsnight that a "substantial amount of the chavs have become black."

The whites have become black," he added. "A particular sort of violent destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion.

The comments sparked a backlash from students who campaigned for the revocation of his fellowship.
H ollywood star Johnny Depps libel case against The Sun for calling him a wife beater will go to trial despite his failure to hand over key text messages, a High Court judge has ruled.

The 57-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star is suing The Suns publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its executive editor Dan Wootton, over a 2018 article which accused him of beating up ex-wife Amber Heard.

The case is set for a blockbuster libel trial starting next week, with Mr Depp and Ms Heard set to come face-to-face in court and Hollywood stars Winona Ryder and Vanessa Paradis among the witnesses.

The case was plunged into peril on Monday this week, when Mr Justice Nicol ruled that Depps side had not disclosed important text messages about his drug use from his opponents.

Mr Depp faced accusations of breathtaking arrogance from The Suns legal team when it emerged he had not apologised for the blunder.

The messages were between the actor and his assistant Nathan Holmes, apparently relating to drug-taking, and emerged during parallel legal proceedings in America.

However Mr Depps barrister, David Sherborne, insisted the star has the right to seek vindication over the newspaper article, accusing The Sun of taunting the star in court hearings and airing a succession of damaging allegations.

This morning, the judge ruled that the breach of a court order could be remedied, saying the texts had not been deliberately withheld by Depps team.

The claim is far advanced and the trial is imminent, he said. Despite the breach which I have foundI am not persuaded that the trial of the claim would be unfair.

He added: I cannot find that the breach which I have found was deliberate. Rather it was because of an erroneous view of the nature of the disclosure obligations.

The judge said it was important that Mr Depps legal team has promised not to seek sanctions against Ms Heard in the US lawsuit for providing material to The Sun in the UK, and agreed that the actor should be able to seek vindication in the UK.

The case started with the 2018 publication of an article by Mr Wootton, which accused author JK Rowling of being a Hollywood hypocrite for standing by Mr Depp, a star of her Fantastic Beasts film series, despite allegations of domestic abuse against Ms Heard.

Fourteen alleged incidents between the couple during their volatile marriage are due to be poured over during the three-week libel trial, including an incident in Australia which Ms Heard referred to as a three-day hostage situation.

She claims Mr Depp had subjected her to a litany of violent attacks after taking a cocktail of alcohol and drugs, and suggested he would regularly turn violent when he was intoxicated.

However Mr Depp denies the claims of violence, countering that Ms Heard, 34, had attacked him repeatedly during their marriage.

On the Australia incident, he claimed that Ms Heard had severed part of his finger by throwing a vodka bottle at him, as they rowed over his suggestion of a pre-nuptial agreement.
T he Duchess of Sussex said she felt "unprotected" the monarchy and was "prohibited from defending herself" against media reports while pregnant, court documents have revealed.

Meghan Markles remarks emerged from the latest submissions in her legal action against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, after articles included extracts of a letter she sent to her father in 2018.

The duchess is suing for breach of privacy and copyright infringement. The publisher denies her claims and said it would hotly contest the case.

In legal filings, her lawyers said Meghan had become the subject of a large number of false and damaging articles by the UK tabloid media, specifically by the defendant, which caused tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health.

Her legal team also argued that the security costs of her wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018 - which were paid for by the public purse - would have been far outweighed by the tourism revenue it generated which they put at more than 1bn.

She is seeking damages, which she has said will be donated to an anti-bullying charity, from Associated Newspapers for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act.

Following a preliminary hearing in May, the judge struck out parts of the duchess's claim against the publisher, including an allegation that it acted "dishonestly" by leaving out certain passages of the letter from her father Thomas Markle.

Mr Justice Warby also struck out allegations that the publisher deliberately stirred up issues between Meghan and her father, and that it had an agenda of publishing intrusive or offensive stories about her.
P rince Andrew has been left bewildered by US prosecutors who said they would welcome the chance to speak to him after Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested on sex trafficking charges .

Maxwell - Jeffrey Epsteins ex-girlfriend - was on Thursday charged with sex trafficking underage girls to be sexually assaulted by the disgraced financier between 1994 and 1997.

Unveiling six charges against Maxwell, US prosecutors accused her of playing a critical role in Epsteins abuse of girls.

Maxwell has previously denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of sexual misconduct by her former boyfriend, who took his own life in prison last year while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

Epstein with Maxwell in 2005 / Getty Images

Speaking at the press conference, Acting US Attorney for the district Audrey Strauss also said prosecutors would welcome the chance to speak to the Duke of York over the Epstein scandal after arresting Maxwell.

One of Epsteins alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, claims that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Andrew at the socialites London townhouse.

Maxwell, Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts at Maxwells London townhouse in 2001;

Ms Giuffre has claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and alleges the duke had sex with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17, still a minor under US law.

Andrew categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre.

Speaking on Thursday, Ms Strauss said: Im not going to comment on anyones status in this investigation but I will say that we would welcome Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement."

Acting US Attorney for the district Audrey Strauss / AP

But a source close to the Duke's working group said he was bewildered by the comments and had communicated multiple times with the Department for Justice without receiving a response.

The source said: The Duke's team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the Department of Justice in the last month and to-date, we have had no response.

Andrews legal team has been contacted for comment.

The Duke has been locked in a long-running battle with law enforcement in the US over his availability to answer questions about his former friend and convicted sex offender Epstein.

The duke has previously been accused of attempting to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to co-operate and was said to have completely shut the door on voluntary co-operation by Geoffrey Berman, a US prosecutor leading the investigation into Epstein until last month.

But Andrews lawyers claim the duke has made three offers to give a witness statement to investigators.

Earlier this year a spat was sparked by details emerging of Americas Department of Justices (DOJ) mutual legal assistance (MLA) request to the Home Office, to quiz Andrew as a witness in the criminal investigation into Epsteins offending.

Prince Andrew / Getty Images

The dukes legal team said in its statement: The Duke of York has on at least three occasions this year offered his assistance as a witness to the DOJ.

Unfortunately, the DOJ has reacted to the first two offers by breaching their own confidentiality rules and claiming that the duke has offered zero co-operation. In doing so, they are perhaps seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered.

Andrews public life was left in tatters after his disastrous Newsnight interview about his friendship with Epstein.

In the programmes aftermath the duke stepped back from royal duties but became the focus of US authorities who wanted to question him about the financier.
S chools in England are expected to be told to stagger break times and group children into bubbles when they return to the classroom in September.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is due to announce an overhaul of the curriculum as pupils prepare to go back after the summer following six months at home.

A draft of the official guidance includes plans to bans the mixing of year groups - such as in assemblies - as well as school choirs, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Teachers are also to stagger the start and end of the day and contingency plans must be in place in case of a local lockdown, the paper said.

UK Schools begin to reopen during Coronavirus lockdown ease 1 /21 UK Schools begin to reopen during Coronavirus lockdown ease Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures PA Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Harris Academy Primary School in Croydon Jeremy Selwyn Parents and children arrive at Watlington Primary School as some schools re-open Reuters Lessons with reduced class sizes at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures PA Parents and children arrive at Watlington Primary School as some schools re-open Reuters Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk PA Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures. PA Parents drop off children at Queen's Hill Primary School, Costessey, Norfolk, as pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, begin to return to school as part of a wider easing of lockdown measures. PA

Schools would also be required to liaise with their local health protection team if there are two or more confirmed coronavirus cases within a fortnight.

A general rise in sickness or absence where Covid-19 is a suspected cause could lead to a year group or the whole school being told to stay at home and self-isolate as a precaution.

Details are expected to be set out at a Downing Street press conference on Thursday - the first time one has been held since daily briefings were scrapped last week.

Meanwhile, schools in Leicester will be closed on Thursday and will not reopen until after the summer break.

Figures released in Public Health England's preliminary investigation into the Leicester outbreak - released on Wednesday evening - suggested a slight drop in the infection rate in the city from the week to June 20 to the seven days prior to June 27 - down from 140.2 to 135.7 per 100,000 people.

The data also suggests the overall infection rate in England fell over the same period from 10.7 to 6.7 per 100,000 - despite the easing of some lockdown restrictions.

Rates in Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale declined more sharply over the same period. Officials in regions with high infection rates have said they are working hard not to follow Leicester into lockdown.

The report also suggested the majority of recently confirmed cases are in people aged 18 to 65 years - with the median age of those infected standing at 39 years. And 50.9% of the cases reported in June in the city were in women.

The wards of North Evington, Belgrave and Stoneygate had the highest number of cases reported between June 11 and 25.

But the report concluded evidence for the scale of the outbreak was limited and an increase in reported cases could be partly due to a rise in the availability of testing.

The Office for National Statistics will on Thursday provide new figures from the coronavirus infection survey for England, and the latest data on the NHS Test and Trace programme will also be published.

It comes as the economic challenges of the pandemic were laid bare by a continuing jobs bloodbath.

The John Lewis Partnership warned over store closures and job cuts and Sir Philip Green's Topshop empire revealed redundancy plans on Wednesday.

Upper Crust owner SSP announced up to 5,000 roles could go following plunging passengers numbers at railway stations and airports.
D onald Trump has claimed that China could have stopped the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a White House press briefing on Thursday, the US president boasted that his administration had rescued the US economy from "a horrible event" that started in China.

Mr Trump said the country "could've stopped" the pandemic, adding: "They know it and I know it."

On Thursday, the president said his administration is responsible for reducing the unemployment rate and reviving the stock market after the publication of the government's better-than-expected jobs report.

The report showed the country gained 4.8 million jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 per cent last month when states began allowing businesses to reopen from strict lockdowns.

Mr Trump said the country "could've stopped" the pandemic, adding: "They know it and I know it" / AP

Mr Trump said: "These are not numbers that other presidents would have, and they won't have it.

"The only that would kill it is a bad president or a president that wants to raise taxes."

He went on to say that raising taxes would mean the value of 401k retirement plans and the stock market would "drop down to nothing".

"This is not just luck what's happening. This a lot of talent," he continued.

Donald Trump has claimed that China could have stopped the coronavirus pandemic. / AP

"All this incredible news is the result of historic actions my administration has taken working with our partners in congress to rescue the US economy from a horrible event that was formed, took place in China and came here.

"They could've stopped it. They could've stopped it. Nobody likes to write that, but they could've stopped it.

"They know it and I know it."

The government figures showed the US economy created jobs at a record clip in June as more restaurants and bars resumed operations.

Mr Trump also said: "Today's announcement proves that our economy is roaring back," before rattling off different sectors that saw job gains according to the monthly report.

"These are historic numbers."

But he took the victory lap as the coronavirus resurges in states with large economies such as California, Texas and Florida, prompting local governments to once again shutter bars and other businesses.

And a separate report on Thursday said that 1.43 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the final week of June.

Despite the swelling loads of new cases, Mr Trump said he expected to see good employment numbers in the coming months and that the third quarter gross domestic product report, due days before the November presidential election, would also be strong.

Mr Trump said Thursday's report "suggests that workers are confident about finding a new job."
O fficials in Botswana are investigating the unexplained deaths of hundreds of elephants in the country in recent months in what has been described as a "conservation disaster".

More than 350 elephants carcasses have been spotted in the southern African country's Okavango Delta since the start of May.

A cluster of elephant deaths was first reported in the region in early May, with 169 individuals dead by the end of the month.

By mid June, the number had more than doubled, with the majority of the elephants found dead clustered around waterholes.

Elephants of all ages and both sexes have been dying, according to local reports.

Some 15,000 elephants live in the Okavango Delta

The cause of the deaths is not yet known, with laboratory results on samples taken from the animals still weeks away from being ready, according to the government.

The two main possibilities are thought to be poisoning or an unknown pathogen. Covid-19 has also been mentioned as a possible cause.

Dr Niall McCann, the director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue, described the developments as "mass die-off on a level that hasnt been seen in a very, very long time".

There is no precedent for this being a natural phenomenon but without proper testing, it will never be known, Dr McCann told The Guardian.

The way the animals appear to be dying, with many appearing to have dropped on their faces, and reported sightings of other elephants walking around in circles suggests something could be an indication of neurological impairment, he added.

Elephants of all ages and both sexes have been dying, according to local reports

Some 15,000 elephants live in the Okavango Delta, accounting for roughly 10 per cent of Botswana's total elephant population.

The animals and eco-tourism more widely account for a huge part of Botswana's GDP, which means their deaths could pose an economic crisis as well as a conservation one.

You see elephants as assets of the country. They are the diamonds wandering around the Okavango delta, Dr McCann said.

Its a conservation disaster  it speaks of a country that is failing to protect its most valuable resource.

There have been no reports of a surge in elephant deaths in neighbouring countries in recent weeks.

Dr Cyril Taolo, acting director for Botswana's department of wildlife and national parks, told The Guardian local officials had so far confirmed at least 280 elephants had died, and were in the process of confirming the rest.

"We have sent [samples] off for testing and we are expecting the results over the next couple of weeks or so," he said.

"The Covid-19 restrictions have not helped in the transportation of samples in the region and around the world.
A number of nations have stepped up to offer support to Hong Kong citizens after the introduction of an "outrageous" security law, prompting China to urge countries to "stop interfering" in its internal affairs.

Protesters took to the streets on Wednesday after the controversial law came into force on Tuesday night, which aims to tackle subversion, terrorism, separatism and collusion with foreign forces.

Police said 370 arrests were made for illegal assembly and other offences, with 10 involving violations of the new security law.

A man was also arrested at Hong Kong airport on suspicion of attacking an officer during the protests in the semi-autonomous territory.

The legislation imposed by China sets the stage for the most radical change to the former British colony's way of life since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Hong Kong protests against a new national security law 1 /38 Hong Kong protests against a new national security law AP AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images REUTERS AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images REUTERS AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AP Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images REUTERS AP AP REUTERS AP AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images AP AFP via Getty Images AP AP AFP via Getty Images AP AP AFP via Getty Images AP AP REUTERS Getty Images

The law directly targets some of the actions of pro-democracy protesters last year, which included attacks on Government offices and police stations, damage to subway stations, and the shutdown of the city's international airport.

As the UK pushes forward with its plan to give three million Hong Kong residents the right to settle in the country, China said it reserves "the right to take corresponding measures".

Hundreds were arrested on Wednesday / AFP via Getty Images

Boris Johnson accused Beijing of a "clear and serious breach" of its treaty with Britain by imposing the new security law on the territory, while minister Simon Clarke said the UK will do "whatever is required" to support the people of Hong Kong.

Mr Johnson said he would introduce a route for people with British National (Overseas) (BNO) status to apply for visas to live and work in the UK and apply for citizenship.

In response, the Chinese Embassy in the UK said such a move would be in breach of "international law and basic norms governing international relations".

A statement issued on Thursday, it said: "We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures.

"We urge the British side to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respect Chinas position and concerns, refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any way."

A man was arrested at Hong Kong airport after allegedly attacking a police officer during the protests / AP

The statement came as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison signalled that his Government may follow Britain in offering visas to Hong Kong citizens.

Mr Morrison said the events in Hong Kong were concerning and the Australian government was "prepared to step up and provide support".

Asked if Australia would consider offering safe haven to Hong Kong people, similar to Britain, he replied: "We are considering very actively the proposals that I asked to be brought forward several weeks ago and the final touches would be put on those and they'll soon be considered by Cabinet to provide similar opportunities."

Police fired water cannons and tear gas during the protests / AFP via Getty Images

Responding to the comments, China's foreign ministry urged Australia to "stop interfering" in China's internal affairs.

Meanwhile, Japan is watching events in Hong Kong with "great interest", chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Thursday.

Mr Suga added that Japan's close business ties with Hong Kong were based on Hong Kong's "one country, two systems" governance.

Taiwan has also told its citizens to avoid unnecessary visits to Hong Kong, Macau or mainland China after the passing of the new law.

Chiu Chui-Cheng, deputy head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, described the new law as "the most outrageous in history".
F our officers have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a father and son who were detained for lockdown breaches in southern India died in police custody.

Senior police officer K Shankar from the Criminal Investigation Department told reporters a fifth police officer is due to be arrested today.

Jayaraj and his son Bennicks were held in prison over claims they were selling phones from their shop during the coronavirus lockdown in Toothukudi, a port city in Tamil Nadu state.

The father and his son are only identified in court documents by their first name.

Detectives are investigating accusations that the officers badly beat the shopkeepers and they are now facing murder charges, K Shankar said.

The arrests came on Wednesday and Thursday after a court ruled that post-mortem reports on the father and son suggested the officers had been involved in the two mens deaths by torture.

According to the court documents Bennicks was taken to hospital on June 22 where he died less than two hours later.

A church priest consoles family members of Jayaraj and son Bennicks / AFP via Getty Images

Jayaraj was admitted to the same hospital an hour after his son's death where he died the next morning.

The court ordered authorities to provide protection to a female police officer who gave a witness account of torture in custody of the two in the police station.

A complaint by family members said the 62-year-old shopkeeper was picked up by police from his shop on June 19, then his 32-year-old son who went looking for his father was also detained and the two were tortured and died.

Tamil Nadu is one of India's most affected states by the coronavirus with more than 1,200 deaths and 90,000 infections.

Last week Indian politician Rahul Gandhi offered his condolences to Jayaraj and Bennicks family.

He said on Twitter: "Police brutality is a terrible crime. Its a tragedy when our protectors turn into oppressors."

India executive committee chair Wajahat Habibullah from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said in a statement that the father and son's deaths were an "acute demonstration of a broken criminal justice system".

He said: "At a time when demands for police reforms are sweeping the world in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, the killings of P Jayeraj and Bennix are a chilling reminder of how routine the excessive use of force has become in India, resulting in tragic loss of lives.

"It sends a chilling message about how broken the system is, the failure of police and political leaders to step up accountability measures for illegality.
A man has been arrested at Hong Kong airport on suspicion of attacking an officer during protests over a new national security law.

He was reportedly on board a flight to London that was due to depart shortly before midnight.

Shocking images shared on social media showed a police officer with a bleeding arm, complaining that he had been knifed by rioters holding sharp objects.

Hong Kong protests against a new national security law 1 /38 Hong Kong protests against a new national security law AP AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images REUTERS AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images REUTERS AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AP Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images AFP via Getty Images REUTERS AP AP REUTERS AP AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images AP AFP via Getty Images AP AP AFP via Getty Images AP AP AFP via Getty Images AP AP REUTERS Getty Images

The suspects fled while bystanders offered no help, officials said.

The man arrested at the airport was onboard a Cathay Pacific flight to London due to depart just before midnight, according to local newspaper Apple Daily.

A witness said "around 10 minutes before take-off, three police vehicles drove towards No. 64 gate, outside the Cathay Pacific plane" and around 10 riot police ran up the bridge to the aircraft.

Cathay Pacific did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Police said on Wednesday they had made around 370 arrests for illegal assembly and other offences, with 10 involving violations of the new law.

The legislation punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.

It will also see mainland security agencies in Hong Kong for the first time and allows extradition to the mainland for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party.

China's parliament adopted the law in response to protests last year triggered by fears that Beijing was stifling the city's freedoms, guaranteed by a "one country, two systems" formula agreed when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Beijing denies the accusation.
T he US has seen a record rise in the number of daily coronavirus infections after more than 50,000 new cases were reported in a 24-hour period.

Tennessee, Alaska and Texas were among the states that saw their highest daily figure on record, with Texas reporting 8,076 new cases on Wednesday.

South Carolina also reported the highest number of deaths in a single day, with 24 recorded.

The previous daily high of Covid-19 cases was on Tuesday, when 48,000 infections were recorded, but the figure rose to 50,203 on Wednesday, according to a John Hopkins University tally.

In California, more than 9,740 new infections prompted Governor Gavin Newsom to reintroduce some lockdown measures.

Restaurants, bars, museums and zoos are being told to close their doors in a move that affects 19 counties representing 72 per cent of the state's population.

He said: "The spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning."

A shopper walks past a Pier 1 Imports store as going out of business signs are posted amid the coronavirus pandemic in California / AP

Governor Newsom added that the restrictions will remain in place for at least three weeks.

Lockdown measures were also enforced in New Mexico as Governor Michelle Grisham extended the state's emergency public health order until July 15.

She warned that authorities would "aggressively" enforce mandatory mask rules.

I want to be as clear as I can possibly be: New Mexico, in this moment, still has the power to change the terrible trajectory of this virus, said Governor Grisham.

Restaurants are allowed to serve food to take away under the new restrictions in California / AFP via Getty Images

But our time is limited. And we are staring down the barrel of what Texas, Arizona and many other hard-hit states are grappling with.

The US has the highest coronavirus death toll in the world as more than 128,000 people have died after contracting the disease.

According to the data collected by John Hopkins University, more than 2,685,000 people have been infected with Covid-19 in the US.

Arizona, Texas, Florida and California have halted lockdown easing measures, while some states have ordered residents to wear masks in public.

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He told Fox Business: Im all for masks. I think masks are good. People have seen me wearing one.

If I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely.
G ood Morning Britain has been hit with 283 Ofcom complaints in less than a week.

The ITV morning news programme, hosted by Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid from Mondays to Thursdays, has been on the receiving end of criticism over how it has reported on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Complaints about the programme peaked last week on Tuesday June 23, when Morgan, 54, fell out with co-anchor Reid, 49, about a statement made by health minister Helen Whately.

When Reid tried to read the statement, Morgan stuck his fingers in his ears, fuming: If they're boycotting us, I'm going to boycott their stupid little statements.

Piers Morgan airs his opinion to co-host Susanna Reid / GMB

After particularly combative interviews with MPs earlier in the year, GMB has failed to attract ministers to talk on the show.

Ministers have failed to appear on the programme in over 60 days.

Morgan and Whately argued during an interview / Good Morning Britain

The show then drew further controversy after rapper Dizzee Rascal swore live on air when he refused to be drawn into debate over the Black Lives Matter movement.

A spokesperson for Ofcom told Evening Standard: "We received a total of 283 complaints against Good Morning Britain between 22-24 June, across a range of issues."

Morgan has been at the centre of controversy on Good Morning Britain in more recent months, after receiving over 4000 complaints in regards to his interviewing style.

However, Ofcom decided not to investigate the former newspaper editor and cleared him of any wrong-doing explaining that viewers would expect him to challenge senior politicians and hold them to account.

[Morgans] guests were given adequate opportunity to put their points across and counter the presenter's criticisms," the statement read.

"In Ofcom's view, in line with freedom of expression, it is clearly in the public interest that broadcasters are able to hold those making political decisions to account, particularly during a major national crisis, such as the coronavirus pandemic.
Ogden jazz icon Joe McQueen may be gone, but his memory and legacy live on. One physical reminder of his life, McQueen's lifelong home at 3158 Grant Ave., has now become available for sale. The house received extensive remodeling, but as investor Richard Casperson has said, "Joe's energy is 
I realize people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of traveling the past week, including to Arizona where cases are spiking, Dan Calabrese, who has been editor of HermanCain.com, wrote on the website. I dont think theres any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected. Well never know.
Some localities in Central Virginia are pioneering such school-bus services, which can be helpful in the short term, and later rolled out in communities nationwide.

In an interview with the Culpeper Star-Exponent, Spanberger called the bill landmark legislation because its $80 billion provision is the first time Congress has acted to provide broadband from coast to coast, with competitive bidding.

This is long overdue, she said. I know the challenges Virginia is facing with broadband are no different than those people are facing in New Mexico, parts of California, or rural Idaho. You name a state, and most have some challenges with this.

The COVID-19 crisis has shown that for some companies, employees are able to work well remotely, she said.

In the future, some employers may no longer want to pay the big overhead costs of owning and operating a large office building if their workers can be anywhere, getting the job done via the internet, she said.

Workers could be anywhere. Why not have them in Culpeper or Louisa or Nottaway, paying taxes and having their children go to school there? The company could be based in Richmond or D.C.
Unable to get through the DEOs clogged phone lines, she went to the Polk County career center near her house and only then did she find out the problem: an open unemployment case she filed in 2014 when she was laid off from the same job. Shed only been out of work for a week, so Carlton never followed up on it.
Upon the completion of the analysis, Johnson informed Carlson he had determined between July 2014-December 2018, approximately $58,678.28 in cash was missing from the WYUSER account, and approximately $150,550.28 was missing from the Quick Books account. Bringing to total missing cash of $209,228.86.

Carlson interviewed Rickard at a Scottsbluff hospital on Jan. 24, 2019, as she was a patient there. During that interview, Rickard initially denied knowing how the funds were missing, but eventually admitted to taking some money from the bank deposits. She allegedly said she was sorry and admitted the money was used to pay bills, rent and a cell phone for a relative. She said her family, which also owned Wyoming Theatre, was living from paycheck to paycheck.

She also said she knew she was not authorized to use the money and had every intention to pay it back, and that she had paid some of it back, according to court documents.

Charges against Rickard were filed in July 2019.

Rickard has been ordered to pay $125,400.15 of the funds.

If Rickard pays full restitution before sentencing, she faces a sentence of two years imprisonment for each count. If she doesnt pay the full restitution, she may get up to five years confinement, with terms to run concurrently.
SCOTTSBLUFF  As part of the USDAs Farm to Table Food Program, a special distribution of food boxes will soon be made to area families in need. In partnership with Cash-Wa Food Distributors, First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will distribute three food boxes each to the first 10 families arriving at the church at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 8.

The USDA program requires that each family receives one box of fruits and vegetables, one box of meats, and one box of dairy.

This special distribution of the Pastors Pantry will be held at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ): 2102 Ave. A, Scottsbluff.

Additionally, the Pastors Pantry operates weekly Monday-Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There is no paperwork or requirement before receiving food, other than an in-person request. Regular Pastors Pantry distribution is limited to one food box per family, per month.

For more information about the Pastors Pantry or First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), call 308-635-1023.

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Angels in Adoption, a project of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, provides Members of Congress the opportunity to honor an individual or entity from their districts for extraordinary contributions on behalf of children in need of homes.

In times of hardship, we can be heartened by those doing good works in our communities such as the families in the Third District who open their homes to children in need. The 2020 Angels in Adoption Award will seek to highlight those serving our community and the love they provide to youth in need of adoption and foster care. I look forward to reviewing the nominations.
CURiO has confirmed the closure of its downtown storefront in September. However, its other Starkville facilities will remain operational.
Joe MacGown stands in his art studio in Sessums holding one of his scientific illustrations of an ant species he helped identify. MacGown retired this week after more than 33 years of employment at the Mississippi Entomological Museum.
Frankfort, KY (40601)

Today

Heavy thunderstorms early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 58F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Heavy thunderstorms early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 58F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Niagara Falls city council is to discuss whether the municipality should make wearing a mask mandatory inside stores and other businesses.

Coun. Carolynn Ioannoni, who supports the idea, said she plans to bring a motion forward during councils July 14 session, calling on her colleagues to support the mandatory measure.

Mayor Jim Diodati, who doesnt support the idea, said he looks forward to hearing opinions of all councillors before a decision is made.

First and foremost is the safety of residents, said Ioannoni.

The businesses in this city need to stay open to economically survive. If we are so focused on keeping our economy running and helping these businesses stay open, mandating masks should be one of our first priorities.

Diodati said he believes municipalities should take their lead from public health experts.

I dont think you want the politicians overriding the expert opinion of the medical professionals, he said.

If the chief medical officer of health felt that it was necessary to make (masks) mandatory, they have the authority (to do so). They made a deliberate decision not to because it leads to more questions than answers.

Diodati said he believes making masks mandatory would be unenforceable.

Therefore, it becomes only a suggestion, he said, adding leaders are already suggesting and encouraging the public to wear face coverings.

Ioannoni said she was glad in recent days to see Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates and St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik call for local municipalities to follow the lead of other Ontario cities, including Toronto, which made wearing a mask mandatory in indoor public spaces, including stores and other businesses.

Ioannoni said she has been posting about the importance of wearing a mask to her Facebook page since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit Niagara in March.

Gates posted to his Facebook page Tuesday that the evidence is clear wearing masks dramatically reduces the transmission of COVID-19.

Its not just about protecting yourself, more importantly, it stops those who have it and have no symptoms from spreading it, he said.

Its a shame that (Premier Doug) Ford wont show the leadership we need right now to make masks mandatory, so were calling on our locally elected officials  help protect our communities and make masks mandatory in certain areas.

Sendzik said he is particularly concerned with St. Catharines, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls, which receive more out-of-town visitors than other Niagara municipalities. Having masking orders in those three cities, at the very least, will help blunt the spread of COVID-19, he said.

Sendzik said he understands there will be a minority of people who cannot wear masks for health reasons.

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To date, Niagaras governments and the public health department have been reluctant to impose face coverings.

Niagaras acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji, has said masks are a second line of defence that, while useful, are not as effective as both physical distancing and handwashing.

Diodati said he always carries masks in his pockets and has them stocked in his vehicle, office and home.

I probably have 25 masks, he said.

RELATED STORIES Niagara Region Sendzik pushing for masks to be mandatory in Niagara

I think weve done an incredible job as a region and the results are in the pudding. Weve crushed the curve. And how did we do it? We did it through education and awareness.

There are some places in Niagara where masks have been made mandatory.

David Adames, chief executive officer with Niagara Parks Commission, said the agency is requiring face coverings to be used by guests to all its attractions, as well as its flagship site, Table Rock Centre, and is handing out masks.

In addition, we are encouraging our guests to bring their own face covering (mask, bandana, shield), but disposable options are available and distributed as required, prior to entering these areas, he said.

Niagara Parks staff are required to wear face coverings at all times, when they are not behind plexiglass or cannot maintain six feet from their co-workers and guests. In addition to this, all culinary employees are required to wear facemasks at all times, as well as face shields or safety glasses.

Adames said Niagara Parks will continue to review and update its policies regarding face coverings based on the guidelines and best practices provided by provincial public-health officials.
Niagara is in the midst of a housing crisis  a crisis worsened by the pandemic.

The pandemic has had a devastating impact on many of the industries, including tourism, that our residents rely on for income. Many of our residents have lost jobs, experienced layoffs or face income reduction due to COVID-19. This pattern has left many tenants concerned about their ability to pay rent, and has made them vulnerable to eviction.

The Government of Ontario acknowledged the pandemics harmful impact when it requested a temporary moratorium on evictions in March. Happily, the Superior Court accepted the provinces proposal, implementing a moratorium to the effect that tenants generally cannot be evicted from their homes. Under the moratorium, evictions can only be implemented in extraordinary circumstances.

But we are now seeing a case of giving with one hand while taking with the other. Queens Park is fast-tracking the enactment of Bill 184, the so-called Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act. If enacted, it would modify the Building Code, absorb Ontario Mortgage and Housing Corp. into the Crown, amend social housing policy, and make it easier for landlords to evict tenants under the Residential Tenancies Act.

Niagara Community Legal Clinic delegated to the social policy committee at Queens Park on Bill 184 recently. Our analysis was focused on the proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act. We use this act every day in our defence of low-income tenants. We see the proposed changes to this act as bad news for tenants.

If passed, Bill 184 will allow landlords to file for eviction, without notice to tenants, using rent repayment agreements that were entered into outside of the Landlord and Tenant Board setting.

We are concerned that landlords will pressure tenants to agree to unreasonable repayments terms, in contracts that make it easier for the landlord to evict. There is significant risk that this pressure will be applied without the tenant receiving legal advice, and without the assistance of a trained mediator  two services available at the Landlord and Tenant Board.

Bill 184 further encourages tenants and landlords to engage in other dispute resolution processes in an effort to resolve their tenancy issues. But what is this mysterious other process? The bill does not say.

The Landlord and Tenant Board provides trained mediators. Their services are already an alternative to hearings. Our view is that, in too many cases, non-mediation dispute resolution will mean coercive conversations, outside of the legal context, without a paralegal or lawyer to advise the tenant of her rights.

This problem will be especially acute for tenants for whom English is a second language, and for tenants living with disabilities. The most vulnerable  including racialized citizens, Indigenous persons and seniors  are more likely to be displaced and more likely to face discrimination when seeking alternate housing.

Housing is a human right. Our legislation needs to reflect this.

In fairness, there are some good aspects to Bill 184. Namely, the bill provides rules for improved compensation for some tenants who are evicted through no fault of their own. But this measure hardly creates a reliable disincentive to bad faith evictions. Most landlords will proceed with their plans and take the slap on the wrist (the ordered compensation to the tenant), if indeed that slap comes at all.

For all of its tinkering, Bill 184 fails to address the actual gaps that exist in tenant rights  gaps poised to create more homelessness through eviction, as soon as the eviction moratorium is lifted. The bill does nothing to address the housing rights of Niagaras growing community of migrant workers, whose vulnerability has been painfully illuminated by the pandemic, and the tenant rights of people living in shared accommodations, who have faced evictions even during the pandemic.

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Bill 184 was developed before COVID-19 and it shows. Even before the pandemic, the bill was questionable. In the pandemics wake, the bill is out of touch with reality. It is short-sighted and irresponsible  the wrong bill, at the wrong time. We can do better.

The voices of tenants must be heard.
HALIFAXOne person is dead and two have life-threatening wounds after a late-night shooting in Halifax on Canada Day.

Regional police say they responded to a call on Cork Street in the citys west end at 10:43 p.m. after a report of gunshots.

A news release says officers arrived on the scene and found the body of a deceased man inside a residence.

Police say they didnt initially state publicly that the man was dead because of circumstances and the ongoing investigation.

Investigators say another man was found with gunshot injuries outside the home, and a woman was found inside the home with injuries.

The two injured victims were transported to hospital with what police describe as life-threatening injuries.

Police say the people involved in the incident knew one another.

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OTTAWA  Canadas Foreign Affairs Department says Ukraine will lead negotiations with Iran over compensation for the families of victims of the crash of Flight PS752.

After first denying it, Iran admitted one of its air-defence batteries shot Ukraine International Airlines jet down in January, killing all 176 people on the plane.

Fifty-five Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents were aboard, on the first leg of a trip from Iran to Canada via Kyiv, Ukraine. Many more were nationals of other countries returning to Canada as students and researchers after the December break.

The federal government said Canada, Afghanistan, Sweden and the United Kingdom have agreed that Ukraine will be their spokesperson in talks over compensation.

The members of the International Co-ordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752 settled on a common approach to holding the Iranian regime accountable and signed a memorandum of understanding on co-operation regarding negotiations on reparations by Iran, paving the way for state-to-state negotiations, Global Affairs Canada said.

Iran has said it shot the airliner down unintentionally, after mistaking it for a hostile target hours after Iran fired missiles at U.S. and coalition bases in neighbouring Iraq.

Those missiles were a response to the American killing of Irans Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a major figure in its regional geopolitical manoeuvring.

After months of delays that Iran attributes to the COVID-19 pandemic, it agreed to send the planes recovered data recorder to France for an analysis to be done July 20.

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WBNS spoke with Natalie Dean, an infectious disease expert at the University of Florida who supported the closing of bars. Dean said there are other factors at play that make infection more prevalent in bars, such as alcohol lowering inhibitions.
ALGIERS, Algeria - Two of the most prominent figures in Algerias anti-government protest movement were released from prison Thursday following court decisions in their favour.

Activists Karim Tabbou and Amira Bouraoui were freed from the prison in Kolea, west of Algiers, and placed under judicial supervision.

The court decisions came a day after Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune granted amnesty to six other anti-government activists ahead of the countrys Independence Day, which commemorates Algeria achieving independence from France on July 5, 1962.

Mass demonstrations last year brought down the long-time president of Africas largest country, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and his entourage in April 2019. The pro-democracy movement is looking for more change in a nation whose rulers have been shadowed by the army since its independence.

Tabbous lawyer, Abdelghani Badi, said in a Facebook post that an Algiers court granted a request for the release of Tabbou, who is also asking for the end of judicial proceedings against him.

Tabbou was sentenced on March 24 to a year in prison, including six months suspended, for weakening army morale.

Bouraoui, a gynecologist,also was released after spending 11 days in prison, her lawyer, Mustapha Bouchachi ,said.

She had been sentenced to a year in prison on June 21 by the court of Cheraga, in the western suburb of Algiers, for insulting the president, publishing information likely to harm public order and inciting people to gather, amid other accusations.

Bouraoui is known as the co-funder of the Barakat! (Enough) group that opposed Bouteflikas decision to run for a fourth term in 2014.

Another activist from the anti-government movement, Samir Benlarbi, was also released on Thursday.
LONDON - A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuelas Nicolas Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

Maduro has demanded the gold to help his cash-starved nation fight the coronavirus pandemic. But the central bank for the United Kingdom, whose government recognizes Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaido as his countrys legitimate leader, had refused to hand it over to Maduros administration.

The ruling clarifies the question of who is Venezuelas legitimate leader  at least in the eyes of one world power.

This is very much showing the isolation of the Maduro government, said Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think-tank in London.

Guaido has sought to preserve the gold stash at the Bank of England to keep it out of the hands of the Maduro government, which it contends is illegitimate and corrupt. His lawyers reiterated during a recent four-day hearing their stance that the National Assembly leader became Venezuelas rightful president under provisions of the countrys constitution.

Guaido, who holds no practical power within Venezuela, called the ruling a great victory for his interim governments international recognition and the anti-Maduro coalitions fight to protect the countrys wealth and assets held abroad, which includes an ongoing battle over its Citgo refineries in the United States.

The first thing is that its protected from the clutches of the dictatorship, Guaido said of the gold, adding that for now it will remain in the banks vaults.

Also Thursday, Maduros Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza announced that Venezuela had withdrawn an expulsion order against European Union Ambassador Brilhante Pedrosa.

Maduro on Monday had ordered her delegation out hours after the EU sanctioned several Maduro officials. However, Arreaza and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell released a joint statement, saying they had repaired relations in a phone call.

Venezuela, a nation in economic and political crisis, sits atop the worlds largest crude reserves, but that source of cash has dried up under years of mismanagement and more recently stiff U.S. sanctions aimed at forcing Maduro out.

Venezuela holds a total of about $1.8 billion worth of gold at the Bank of England, and Maduro was asking for $1 billion of it. The Bank of England holds the worlds second largest sum of gold bars in the world, after the New York Federal Reserve, and it boasts of never losing any to thieves in 320 years.

The dispute hinged on the British stance toward Venezuela, a country in economic and political crisis where both Maduro and Guaido have been claiming presidential powers for more than a year.

Venezuelas Central Bank, controlled by Maduro, sought to release the gold, which it says now that it wants to sell for food and medical equipment that is desperately needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. But it had also sought the gold before the pandemic began.

The British government has unequivocally recognized Mr. Guaido as President of Venezuela, Justice Nigel Teares ruling said. It necessarily follows that (the British government) no longer recognizes Mr. Maduro as President of Venezuela.

A lawyer representing Maduros side promised to appeal. Sarosh Zaiwalla said in a statement that the judgment entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground in Venezuela.

Mr. Maduros government is in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions, and only it can ensure the distribution of the humanitarian relief and medical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic, he said. This outcome will now delay matters further, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people whose lives are at risk.

The U.K. recognizes the claim of Guaido, who heads Venezuelas congress, as do the United States and about five dozen other governments. Guaido proclaimed himself the interim president in early 2019, months after Maduro declared victory in an election that his critics say was rigged in his favour.

Maduro, who maintains the support of key allies, including Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and Cuba, has ordered Venezuelan courts to launch a process seeking justice for the theft of the gold, Arreaza said in a statement, calling the British courts ruling absurd.

Despite its support for Guaido, the U.K. continues to have diplomatic ties with Maduros government. The British have not granted diplomatic credentials to Vanessa Neumann, the envoy that Guaido has named ambassador to the U.K., who praised the courts ruling.

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We appreciate the rule of law and independence of the British court in safeguarding these goods for Venezuelas future, Neumann said. Its a great victory for all Venezuelans.

___

Associated Press writer Danica Kirka reported this story in London and AP writer Scott Smith reported from Caracas, Venezuela.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A fire and an explosion struck a centrifuge production plant above Irans underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility early Thursday, analysts said, one of the most-tightly guarded sites in all of the Islamic Republic after earlier acts of sabotage there.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran sought to downplay the fire, calling it an incident that only affected an under-construction industrial shed, spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. However, both Kamalvandi and Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi rushed after the fire to Natanz, a facility earlier targeted by the Stuxnet computer virus and built underground to withstand enemy airstrikes.

The fire threatened to rekindle wider tensions across the Middle East, similar to the escalation in January after a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad and Tehran launched a retaliatory ballistic missile attack targeting American forces in Iraq.

While offering no cause for Thursdays blaze, Irans state-run IRNA news agency published a commentary addressing the possibility of sabotage by enemy nations such as Israel and the U.S. following other recent explosions in the country.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far has tried to prevent intensifying crises and the formation of unpredictable conditions and situations, the commentary said. But the crossing of red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran by hostile countries, especially the Zionist regime and the U.S., means that strategy ... should be revised.

The fire began around 2 a.m. local time in the northwest corner of the Natanz compound in Irans central Isfahan province, according to data collected by a U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite that tracks fires from space.

Images later released by Iranian state media show a two-story brick building with scorch marks and its roof apparently destroyed. Debris on the ground and a door that looked blown off its hinges suggested an explosion accompanied the blaze.

There are physical and financial damages and we are investigating to assess, Kamalvandi told Iranian state television. Furthermore, there has been no interruption in the work of the enrichment site. Thank God, the site is continuing its work as before.

In Washington, the State Department said that U.S. officials were monitoring reports of a fire at an Iranian nuclear facility.

This incident serves as another reminder of how the Iranian regime continues to prioritize its misguided nuclear program to the detriment of the Iranian peoples needs, it said.

The site of the fire corresponds to a newly opened centrifuge production facility, said Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.

Hinz said he relied on satellite images and a state TV program on the facility to locate the building, which sits in Natanzs northwest corner.

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security similarly said the fire struck the production facility. His institute previously wrote a report on the new plant, identifying it from satellite pictures while it was under construction and later built.

Iranian nuclear officials did not respond to a request for comment about the analysts comments. However, any damage to the facility would be a major setback, said Hinz, who called the fire very, very suspicious.

It would delay the advancement of the centrifuge technology quite a bit at Natanz, Hinz said. Once you have done your research and development, you cant undo that research and development. Targeting them would be very useful for Irans adversaries.

Natanz, also known as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, is among the sites now monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency after Irans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. That deal saw Iran agree to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

The IAEA said in a statement it was aware of reports of the fire. We currently anticipate no impact on the IAEAs safeguards verification activities, the Vienna-based agency said.

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Natanz became a flashpoint for Western fears about Irans nuclear program in 2002, when satellite photos showed Iran building an underground facility at the site, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. In 2003, the IAEA visited Natanz, which Iran said would house centrifuges for its nuclear program, buried under some 7.6 metres (25 feet) of concrete.

Natanz today hosts the countrys main uranium enrichment facility. In its long underground halls, centrifuges rapidly spin uranium hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium. Currently, the IAEA says Iran enriches uranium to about 4.5% purity  above the terms of the nuclear deal but far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. Workers there also have conducted tests on advanced centrifuges, according to the IAEA.

The U.S. under President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018, setting up months of tensions between Tehran and Washington. Iran now is breaking all the production limits set by the deal, but still allows IAEA inspectors and cameras to watch its nuclear sites.

Natanz remains of particular concern to Tehran as it has been targeted for sabotage before. The Stuxnet malware, widely believed to be an American and Israeli creation, disrupted and destroyed centrifuges at Natanz amid the height of Western concerns over Irans nuclear program.

Satellite photos show an explosion last Friday that rattled Irans capital came from an area in its eastern mountains that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites. Iran has blamed the blast on a gas leak in what it describes a public area.

Another explosion from a gas leak at a medical clinic in northern Tehran killed 19 people Tuesday.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at Israels Institute for National Security Studies and former Iran analyst for the prime ministers office, said he didnt know if there was an active sabotage campaign targeting Tehran. However, he said the series of explosions in Iran feel like more than a coincidence.

Theoretically speaking, Israel, the U.S. and others have an interest to stop this Iran nuclear clock or at least show Iran theres a price in going that way, he said. If Iran wont stop, we might see more accidents in Iran.

Late Thursday, the BBCs Persian service said it received an email prior to the announcement of the Natanz fire from a group identifying itself as the Cheetahs of the Homeland, claiming responsibility for an attack on the centrifuge production facility at Natanz. This group, which claimed to be dissident members of Irans security forces, had never been heard of before by Iran experts and the claim could not be immediately authenticated by the AP.

___

Associated Press writers Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
(JTA)  Tamara Boronina, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor living in Ukraine, can barely afford her small Odessa apartment on her monthly pension of $65.

She is a widow whose only daughter died in 1999. Unable to visit the local Jewish community center that has been her social lifeline, Boronina now eagerly awaits the weekly visit by her caseworker from the JDC, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

The worst loss this virus and quarantine has brought for me is isolation, Boronina said of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am a very sociable person and communication is even more important for me than material assistance.

The former Soviet Union has about half a million Jews, most of them living in Russia and Ukraine. Many thousands of them are elderly and have decided to pass up the opportunity to immigrate to Israel or the United States because they feel too old to readjust to a new country.

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The JDC, a 106-year-old Jewish international aid agency, was born in 1914 to assist exactly those types of Jews who found themselves mired in difficult circumstances at the start of World War I. It helped Jews flee Nazi Germany beginning in 1933. Some 80,000 German Jews escaped Europe altogether with the help of the JDC, whose work now with victims of Nazi persecution is funded in part by the Claims Conference, a body that represents world Jewry in Holocaust restitution negotiations.

Later, when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, the JDC was only reliable source of aid for many who were plunged into extreme poverty. It also has helped thousands of non-Jews survive in the wake of natural disasters, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

So the agency has plenty of experience with providing food and medicine in war zones, earthquakes and the like. The trickier part, JDC officials said, has been relieving the loneliness and isolation that the crisis has meant for the elderly Jews in that part of the world, who are feeling the loss of cultural and social frameworks.

Before COVID-19, the JDC had offered them things such as yoga, gymnastics, pottery, language and painting classes, and the benefit of socialization, through a network of dozens of Jewish community centers and day centers.

Theyre confined to four walls, some in dilapidated homes. For some, the will to live is slipping away, said Michal Frank, the executive director of JDC in the former Soviet Union.

Before the virus, they could either go to the Jewish community center or, if they were homebound, receive home visits from the JDC caseworker. For some, the virus has either complicated that or made it impossible. Well be dealing with the effect this is having on their mental condition for a long time after this is over.

In response, the organization has set up COVID-19 hotlines manned by trained volunteers, one of the only programs of its kind for the regions elderly Jewish population.

There are six call centers, including ones in the Ukrainians cities of Odessa and Dnipro, as well as in Chisinau, the capital city of Moldova. Working off a list of elderly clients who get regular aid from JDC, volunteers and staff chat for about half an hour with each person they call and make sure they have what they need.

Across the former Soviet Union, additional Jewish communities and groups also have launched emergency services to help vulnerable populations through the coronavirus. Organizations affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, which constitutes a major force for post-Soviet Jewry, have been churning out thousands of meals and providing protective gear to at-risk elderly Jews for weeks in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

One Chabad project for young volunteers, EnerJew, also attempts to address the isolation issue. Its members have been assigned elderly community members to check up on regularly by phone and sometimes on their doorsteps, under social distancing limitations.

EnerJew activists have delivered more than 2,500 packages to needy Jews in the former Soviet Union, along with doorway chats and follow-up telephone calls, according to the projects director, Konstantin Shulman.

Russia and Ukraine have recorded about 8,200 deaths and 1,000 deaths, respectively, from COVID-19, placing them low on the table of world fatalities per million inhabitants. Those two countries have about 500,000 Jews, but fewer than 100 of them have died from the virus.

So far, JDC has recorded 17 coronavirus-related deaths among its elderly subjects in the former Soviet Union. One JDC employee has died from the disease, and several other JDC staff have been infected but survived, a JDC spokesperson said.

JDCs Jewish community centers and day centers are closed to the public, but many of them still feature activities, conducted under social distancing limitations, that are broadcast live on the internet. (Its not clear at this point how many people over 70 and 80 are able to enjoy these broadcasts, Frank said.) In Ukraine, a JDC initiative called the Leadership Alumni Programs is also planning to hand out tablet computers to dozens of elderly clients.

Nadya Gassilina, 80, who also lives in Odessa, is another recipient of JDC aid. Caseworkers leave supplies for her on her doorstep, so she doesnt need to leave her home amid the pandemic.

The quarantine has changed our life dramatically, Gassilina said. Our day center was a window to the outside world for me.

Phone calls and home visits help, Gassilina and Boronina said. But they are counting the days until they can return to socialize.

In some Jewish communities, volunteers in JDC frameworks, supported by the Genesis Philanthropy group, came up with their own projects to help alleviate loneliness. In Gomel, Belarus, for example, the JDC volunteer center began a series of Facebook posts for the elderly with manuals on how to get online services, like home-delivered grocery shopping.

A Zoom instructional video showed elderly viewers how to order online medications to be delivered to a nearby pharmacy in Gomel. From there, JDC volunteers picked up the order and delivered it to the older adults address while maintaining social distancing.

The workarounds generally help, according to Svetlana Ignatyeva, a 74-year-old from Odessa. But theyre no substitute for being a part of the bigger family she found at her local day center.

How can just a taste be enough when you are used to a big meal? she asked.
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Its unlikely that older people wont be affected by all these young people getting COVID-19, said Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, professor and chair of the department of epidemiology at Florida International University. Also, we havent seen the effect on mortality from the cases we have now. Its going to be several weeks before we see if deaths remain low, but I think they will go up, because some of those young people right now are in intensive care.
WASHINGTON  The gap between the U.S. unemployment rates for Blacks and whites widened further in June, to its largest in five years, underscoring the uneven nature of the nascent recovery from the historic job losses triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Jobless rates for both groups fell in June, but the rate for whites came down at a much faster rate. The white unemployment rate fell 2.3 percentage points to 10.1% from 12.4%, while the rate for Blacks dropped 1.4 points to 15.4% from 16.8%.

At 5.3 percentage points, the gap is now the widest since May 2015 and exposes an important economic component of racial inequality at a pivotal moment in U.S. race relations. In recent weeks, the country has witnessed protests over police brutality against African Americans, particularly Black men.

The coronavirus pandemic brought an abrupt end to the record-long U.S. economic expansion just as it was creating better job opportunities for Black workers and other minorities, and the job losses fell hardest on women and workers of color.

The overall drop in the Black unemployment rate in June was driven by a rise in the number of women returning to work as bars, restaurants and retail stores re-opened, reversing some of the job losses they suffered in March and April.
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank president James Bullard has warned that a growing number of bankruptcies due to the coronavirus outbreak could lead to a financial crisis, the Financial Times reported.

Without more granular risk management on the part of the health policy, we could get a wave of substantial bankruptcies and (that) could feed into a financial crisis, Bullard said in an interview with the newspaper on Wednesday.

He warned of twists and turns in the health crisis and said its probably prudent to keep our lending facilities in place for now, even though its true that liquidity has improved dramatically in financial markets.

New U.S. COVID-19 cases rose by nearly 50,000 on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, marking the biggest one-day spike since the start of the pandemic. The surge in cases across the country, including the populous states of California, Florida and Texas, threaten the budding recovery.

Bullard said that it is possible that the country could take a turn for the worse at some point in the future, but added that it was not his base case, according to the report.
Even some of the activists do not give out their data. We have not historically published the EEO-1 forms, but we are reviewing that approach, said Robyn Tice, spokeswoman for Calvert parent Eaton Vance Corp.

Some companies do disclose data, but on their own terms.

Just Capital counted 204 companies that disclosed some information on the gender and ethnicity of their employees as of August 2019, often in non-standard ways.

In a report on its website, for example, Starbucks Inc states that 17.5% of its executives ranked at senior vice president or higher are People of Color.

A Starbucks spokeswoman said it was reviewing whether to release its EEO-1 data publicly.

Others disclose little data currently, like Snapchat parent Snap Inc.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a CNBC interview on June 11 that, while it was working on providing more details, it was worried that disclosures have actually normalized the current composition of the tech workforce, which has few minorities.
The tours are two hours long and are wheelchair accessible. The starting and ending points vary.

Im very excited to be back talking to people about St. Louis and doing what I do, Clark says. Ive been practicing on friends. I make them stand far away. Im figuring out what jokes are funny from far away with a mask on. Theres definitely going to be an interesting challenge to that, that we will figure out as we go along.

Several themes and subjects are available, including a Whole Lotta (STL) History tour, which helps visitors travel through more than 250 years of local history; Made in the STL, a tour of beer, shoes and other things made in St. Louis; and tours of neighborhoods, architecture and Forest Park.

The tours are meant to be conversational and interactive, with visitors sharing their own memories and stories. Clark keeps notes but not a script.

Just beyond the back door of the museum in Forest Park, Clark offers glimpses into history that go beyond landmarks and vistas. It once took a 40-minute carriage ride to get from downtown to Forest Park, she points out.
The system has reported one inmate death thus far.

Offenders who test positive are isolated until they test negative. Staff who test positive are sent home on leave and must test negative twice before returning to work. All staff who have close contact with a positive are sent home for two weeks of quarantine.

The department has slowly begun to allow visitors again at some facilities, but has canceled scheduled visits at others when outbreaks arise.

For example, scheduled visits at Chillicothe Correctional Center were canceled through July 5 in response to reports of three confirmed cases in recent days.

Canceling visiting is necessary to protect public safety, the department said.

Visits will continue as scheduled at Algoa Correctional Center in Jefferson City and South Central Correctional Center in Licking. Visits must be scheduled in advance.

Separately, the St. Louis Medium Security Institution, known as the workhouse, is reporting six of 92 people detained at the facility have tested positive.

The positive cases come amid an ongoing campaign by activists to close the jail at 7600 Hall Street.

Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
My response had nothing to do with the race of the people in the street, he said. What it was was an attempt to protect ourselves from what appeared to be an angry, dangerous and violent crowd that instantly appeared on a Sunday afternoon when we were trying to have dinner. And we were scared.

If he had had time to do a DNA kit on everybody and determine absolutely that every human being coming through that gate was 100% European ancestry, I would have done the exact same thing, he said. To try to form this as a race thing is absolute crap.

McCloskey declined to answer if either weapon was loaded or if the homes surveillance captured the event. He said he is experienced with guns but his wife is not. Ive been around guns my whole life, he said. His wife, he added, was completely terrified and had no idea how to defend herself.

When they saw the crowd approaching why didnt they go inside and lock the door? Our front doors are made out of glass, he said.

Why not hide inside the home? Because we did not wish to lose our home, he said. They started a fire outside the Campbell House on the last riot.

The couple insists they thought the crowd might break into their home.
The mayor said private companies often hire outside consultants to tackle serious issues but that the government very rarely has the chance to do that.

I dont think weve ever had this kind of an opportunity before and weve probably never needed it as much, she said. I think it will be a good opportunity for us all to get better.

She said the review would begin in about two weeks and last a few months. Jacob Long, the mayors spokesman, said the city study would run concurrently with the one in the county but that they are separate.

Edwards said in an interview that the review wasnt spurred by the recent protests about policing here and around the country triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody.

This was something we talked about before George Floyd, Edwards said. Timing is everything, I think, and it works, but certainly it is not directly related to this climate.

Alderman John Collins-Muhammad, D-21st Ward, said while he hopes that some good comes out of the study, at this point we need immediate action.
ST. LOUIS  Six of the 92 people detained at the St. Louis Medium Security Institution have tested positive for COVID-19, a spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewson said Wednesday.

The positive cases come amid an ongoing campaign by activists to close the jail at 7600 Hall Street informally known as the workhouse.

We have completed testing of more than 90 detainees at MSI, said Jacob Long, Krewsons spokesman. Only six have tested positive and are under quarantine with access to accredited health care and medical services. In all, only 14 detainees are quarantined, per (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) protocols.

No jail staff have tested positive, Long said.

Considering the pandemic hit St. Louis nearly four months ago, and jails across the country have spent that entire time combating massive outbreaks, and the fact that we are just now getting a few cases, he said, we believe this demonstrates that the proactive, preventative measures we implemented early on across both jails continue to be effective at protecting the health and safety of all detainees and staff.

Inez Bordeaux, a staffer with Arch City Defenders who has helped lead recent protests to close the workhouse, said shes honestly surprised the number isnt higher than six.
On July 3, the Post-Dispatch ran a harrowing account by Carlos F. Hurd, the reporter who scooped the world with interviews of Titanic survivors five years before. Hurd wrote that he witnessed the massacre of helpless negroes on streets where a black skin was a death warrant.

More than 300 homes and businesses were burned. The local investigation was inept, so its hard to know the full scope of the carnage. The official death count was 39 blacks and nine whites, but the toll probably was closer to 100.

Factories begged black workers to return, but many didnt. When schools reopened, black enrollment was down by more than half. A lengthy congressional investigation, reporting one year later, described the riot as savagery.

Lena Cook sees her family murdered, testifies against killers

Lena Cook and her family were taking a streetcar home to St. Louis from a fishing outing in Illinois. The car reached downtown East St. Louis as angry whites were on the rampage.

Her husband, Edward, and her son, Lurizza Beard, 14, were pulled from the streetcar and shot to death. A white bystander, hardware merchant William Keyser, also was killed, probably by the same shot that passed through Lurizza.
The shows will go on  even if the fireworks are being set off in your own back yard.

The coronavirus has killed many of the major Fourth of July fireworks shows like Fair St. Louis and the Alton Fireworks Spectacular, but that doesnt mean there wont be displays.

Rob Cima, vice president of the Missouri Pyrotechnics Association, said firework sales in Missouri are up around 200% to 300% this year compared with last year.

A lot of people are at home and love fireworks, Cima said. They are either going to go to the shows or do it themselves, and the shows have been canceled.

Gayla Barnett, owner of Presidential Fireworks in St. Charles, said she saw the best first day shes seen since the business opened 17 years ago. Vendors in St. Charles were allowed to start selling on June 25 and continue until July 5. Typically, Barnett said, the early days are slow and most of the sales are made on July 3-4. After the crowds she saw on Day One, she expects to get slammed as Saturday nears.

Our supplier said to order a lot, Barnett said. People have been home for so long and isolated. This is something the family can do together.
Missouri wildlife officials are taking a laid-back approach as they keep tabs on the animal.

Our goal at this point is to just monitor it, and let the bear take its own course, said Zarlenga. The only time wed intervene is if it does start to cause conflict.

While theres no reason the bear would aim to harm people, Zarlenga encouraged people to give the bear space, and not approach it. He also urged people not to provide food for the bear, since that can often spark human-bear conflicts by leading the animals to become food-conditioned  something that ends up putting them in danger.

Brunos voyage can be traced back as far as June 5, when he was first seen in Wisconsin, according to the Jacksonville Journal-Courier. He crossed into Illinois on June 10, and later made his way into Iowa for a week, before returning to Illinois near Andalusia.
Mahmoud Siam, the guitarist of Egypts well-known band Massar Egbari, released a new track on Facebook on 2 July.

Titled After the Sun Goes Down, the over three-minute-long composition is independent from Siams work with Massar Egbari and is in collaboration with videographer Adham El-Amir.

The video to the track is Siams live performance on guitar. As he explains to Ahram Online, the video format has always fascinated him, but he has not yet fully explored it.

Videos of guitarists live performances have this unique charm, and Ive always followed such productions by many international musicians. I always wanted to try it, making sure it is done in a professional way, Siam reveals to Ahram Online.

Siam says that his thoughts began taking better shape once he met videographer Adham El-Amir.

Adham is one of Massar Egbaris loyal fans. He called me around four months ago and suggested that he come to the studio and film me as I play.

A self-described typical introvert, Siam enjoys spending long hours on his own while exploring the many levels of music.

The composition is called After the Sun Goes Down, as it reflects a time when the day is ending and people are going home.

With the curfew that was in place for three months, I would spend time in the studio from dusk till dawn. It was an opportunity for me to focus on work, he reveals, adding that the experience has allowed him to revisit some of the older musical ideas he had put on a shelf.

After a few talks, Adham and I met only three weeks ago. At first, I was thinking about using one of my older compositions. When we met for the first brainstorming session, I realised that the composition did not really fit the mood or the storyboard that Adham had created. I ended up composing something new, completely from scratch, Siam said, adding that the creation of a new composition made the whole project even more interesting to him.

After the Sun Goes Down is the first collaboration between Siam and El-Amir.

We will definitely continue. There are already other ideas we have in mind and have already started moving forward with them. Who knows, maybe we will end up doing the whole album together, or a mini album All options are possible. Let us first see the audiences reactions to this video.

And indeed, with the connections Siam built over the years with Massar Egbari, the doors to many new creative endeavours might open up.

In parallel with Massar Egbari, Siam does some occasional side projects. The last work he did was a guitar track for Bi 100 Wesh (Many-Faced/Of a Hundred Faces, 2020) television series, whose score was composed by Tamer Karawan.

At times, I also cooperate with other musicians and projects, providing guitar lines.

While today Siam is dedicated full time to Massar Egbari, which he joined in 2008 (three years after the band was formed), and has to allocate his time wisely, he remains open to new collaborations.

Two years ago, I stopped teaching at the Music Education Faculty at Helwan University, Cairo, he says, referring to the faculty from which he obtained his Masters degree, having first graduated from the Faculty of Specific Education.

As he goes down memory lane, he recalls years before Massar Egbari. Between 2001 and 2007 Siam worked with Hob w Salam (Love and Peace), one of the well-known Egyptian bands through which many musicians across generations shaped their future careers. There were also other musical exploration as Siam joined numerous bands, probed jazz, or cooperated with Dina El Wedidi and Maryam Saleh in El Ors (The Wedding) and other tracks and performances.

I come from a home that always embraced music. My older sister has a music education as well; she plays piano. Ive played guitar since I was eight years old. I cant imagine doing anything else, he reveals.

Years of education and persistence in a music career have definitely paid off. With his new track released, Siam hopes to expand on this new independent project.

I composed several pieces. Some are posted on SoundCloud, others are still on my computer After the Sun Goes Down, however, is the first piece that took this unique form, with audio and video, he said, adding that he looks forward to the possible beginning of a new creative direction in parallel with Masar Egbari.

I am happy about the release of After the Sun Goes Down, and I hope the listeners will like it. And even though this track is somehow a result of the lockdown we were in, I also miss performing. Being on the stage with the band and performing to the audience, who sings along and cheers, is a feeling that nothing else can beat, he concludes.

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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Now it looked as if the Gap, deep in financial trouble after the pandemic caused the closing of its stores and the furloughing of most of the North American retail staff; already suffering reputational damage after canceling many of its orders from factories in Bangladesh and elsewhere; being attacked on Instagram by disgruntled customers; and being sued for $66 million in nonpayment of rent by its landlord, Simon Property Group, had dropped one Black creative for a more famous one.
Then it turned its face and I saw it and said, What the hell? You dont expect to see a pig, she said. After I saw the first one, I didnt know if it was a wild hog or if somebodys pet got lose.

Madison also saw more hogs, four in all. And they werent little potbellied pigs, but instead the kind of hulking swine that turn up at fairs.

Madison said about 10 people, including several motorists who had pulled over to help as well as Animal Control deputies, were giving aid to the hogs.

Some people were with the hog on the ground, which looked to be covered with a wet towel. Others had put a leash around one of the hogs to keep it from running onto the interstate. Another hog looked seriously injured and couldnt get up, she said, while a fourth had what she described as road rash.

From the back seat, her 2-year-old daughter, Bella, said: Poor piggy, piggy crying.

Madison did not see any damaged vehicles, at least from the northbound side of the interstate where she was.

The incident led to lane and shoulder closures at two spots south of the Thornburg exit.

While police tried to clear the scenes, traffic backups extended at least two miles.
But he played no role relevant to the racial strife that exists in America today; he didnt even know the continent on which we reside existed. As such, he is no more relevant to the vital conversation we should be having about race and power in America than Tariq ibn Ziyad, who in the eighth century led the Muslim conquest of what we now call Spain.

Its worth noting that the oppressive systems of warfare and inequality that Louis IX presided over were also in place in Native American communities that existed in and around the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers at the same time he was enthroned in France. In fact, the century before Louis IX was born, human sacrifices  mainly young women, some of whom were beheaded  were regularly ritualized by the Cahokia tribe, just up the river from here.

History, in so many ways, is complicated. Few historical figures from the distant past could make the cut today. The cultural norms embraced by civilizations that existed nearly 1,000 years ago  or even a few centuries ago  will always look bad in todays light. That we have moved on shows the power of human progress, especially in democracies like ours, to never stop striving for liberty and a more perfect union.
Even as Trump continued to deny hed been told anything, the Times on Monday cited two unnamed officials who said the information about the bounties was in the Presidents Daily Brief as early as late February.

If it seems unlikely that officials would put such explosive information in writing for Trump, yet fail to verbally point it out to him, consider two well-documented foibles of this president: his bizarre, consistent fealty to Putin (even over U.S. intelligence, as Trump so shamefully demonstrated in Helsinki in 2018); and such a stubborn refusal to delve into written documents that it has spawned speculation about Trumps literacy. Some have suggested that the Russian bounty might well have been intentionally buried in Trumps intelligence briefing because, as New York Magazine recently put it, everybody knows he doesnt read, and his staff knew from experience not to broach the topic of Russian misconduct with the boss.
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This longtime Mexican eatery was little more than a popular taco counter until January, when it went from 15 tables to 150 seats. Then came COVID-19 and things had to slow way down. Now back open for business, this Mexican market - now full-on restaurant - may be an ideal first-run option for those with post-corona jitters.
China has revived the border war over Pangong Lake, which is largely in Tibet and patrolled by a small Chinese naval force. This is the longest lake in Asia and part of the 134-kilometer long lake extends 45 kilometers into the Indian Ladakh region. China is using its usual sneak and stay tactics to slowly move the border into territory long occupied by India. The portion of the lakeshore in dispute has no native population. The only people who visit the area are soldiers from India or China.

Give this newly declared foreign threat, China has, since 2019, sent new Type928D Patrol Boats to guard the lake. This fast (70 kilometers an hour) boat is armed with an RWS (Remote Weapons System) using a 12.7mm machine-gun plus two or smaller (7.62mm) machine-guns that can be located elsewhere on the boat and operated by one of the ten sailors on board. There is also seating below deck for up to twenty troops. India has smaller boats patrolling its portion of the 4,200-meter high lake, except for the few months when the entire lake is frozen over.

In the last decade, China has been building roads into remote and formerly inaccessible (via vehicle) portions of the lake coastline. China has built some of these roads into areas claimed by India but not regularly patrolled because special mountain troops must be employed to get into these areas without coming in by boat or on foot over the ice.

India admits that the Chinese aggression along its northern border is active again and the Chinese are now actually taking control of Indian territory and apparently plan to continue doing so. Despite Indian nuclear weapons China believes it can get away with gradually gaining control over more than 100,000 square kilometers of Indian territory it claims. This will be done by grabbing a few square kilometers at a time without triggering a nuclear exchange. Fortune favors the bold, even in slow motion.

China and India have already fought a war, back in 1962. In a month of fighting (starting on 20 October) India lost 7,000 troops (57 percent prisoners, the rest dead or missing) compared to 722 Chinese dead. China declared a ceasefire that India accepted. China actually advanced in two areas, a thousand kilometers apart and ended up taking 43,000 square kilometers of Indian territory.

The source of the 1962 war and current border tension goes back a century and heated up when China resumed control over Tibet in the 1950s. From the end of the Chinese empire in 1912 up until 1949, Tibet had been independent. But when the communists took over China in 1949, they sought to reassert control over their "lost province" of Tibet. This began slowly, but once all of Tibet was under Chinese control in 1959, China had a border with India and there was immediately a disagreement about exactly where the border should be. Thats because, in 1914, the newly independent government of Tibet worked out a border (the McMahon line) with the British (who controlled India). China considers this border agreement illegal and wants 90,000 square kilometers back. India refused, especially since this would mean losing much of the state of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India and some bits elsewhere there and all along the new northern border.

India, as a democracy with a free press, has a public discussion of Chinese tactics and possible Indian responses. China also tries to take advantage of Indian media freedom by buying favorable coverage in the Indian press. This is done via bribes, offers of investments or loans as well as economic concessions within China. Military strategy in China, since ancient times, has placed emphasis on having a powerful military but using it mainly as a threat and giving enemies an incentive to accept bribes and allow China to get what they want. Yet India has rarely been seen as an enemy of China. There is nothing valuable on their mutual border which for thousands of years has been along high mountains and thinly populated lowland jungles. Neither India nor China had any incentive to raise large armies to threaten each other.

Because of this background, the border disputes of the last 60 years are seen by Indians as inexplicable and by Chinese as overdue restitution for centuries of humiliations inflicted by Western invaders. India, ever since it emerged from centuries of British colonial rule in 1947, insisted that India and China shared a background of oppression by the West. China sees India as trying to perpetuate Western crimes against China. To most Chinese Indians look and sound like Westerners therefore India must be an enemy of China. India has come to accept that the Chinese are obsessed with making India pay for real or imagined wrongs inflicted by Western imperialists and see nothing wrong with using ancient Chinese imperialist methods to get their way. Suddenly British imperialism is not the worst thing that could ever happen to India. China is seeking to provide something much worse and much closer.

Pacific Partners Prepare

Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and a growing number of nations in the way of growing Chinese territorial claims are describing the Chinese threat in uncomfortable, for the Chinese, historical terms. The last time an Asian imperialist threat ravaged the region it was Japan playing the bad guy and the Chinese were major victims. This time China is the heavy, and is clearly described as such by independent media. Meanwhile, China, doing a convincing imitation of Imperial Japan, has the same controlled media and even a similar thought police (a real thing in wartime Japan). What bothers Chinese leaders the most is that a growing number of Chinese, despite the increasingly effective thought police and the social credit system, are also unhappy about being the 21st century version of the hated imperialist Japanese. While World War II Japan was able to crush internal dissent. Imperial China has had to struggle to make Chinese and the neighbors appreciate the benefits of Chinese domination. The Japanese were disappointed at how most Asians did not appreciate the Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Chinese version is no easy sell either.

July 1, 2020: As of today, the Chinese military reserves are under the direct control of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and will be reorganized to support maintaining the ability of the CCP to control China. Previously the reserves had been under the control of regional and provincial leaders. This was a remnant of an earlier strategy in which Chinese military power was dispersed to make it easier to fight a guerilla war in the event of an invasion by Russia or the United States. That never happened and from the 1980s on China has sought to build a modern military along Western lines.

In the South China Sea, several Chinese destroyers began several days of well-publicized training exercises near the Paracel Islands.

June 30, 2020: Despite over a year of widespread public protests, China has violated the treaty it signed with Britain in 1997 at the end of the British lease on Hong Kong. In order to reassure the many pro-British Hong Kong residents and keep Hong Kong a major financial asset for China, the Chinese promised to maintain a special status for Hong Kong until 2047. Britain said that if China violated the agreement Britain would provide emigration opportunities to many Hong Kong residents. Britain has offered to accept up to three million Hong Kong residents, either in Britain or in other nations eager to accept well educated, English speaking migrants seeking to escape communist rule. Today China declared a new Hong Kong security law in force and that all Hong Kong residents are subject to the new law which allows the government to prosecute anyone for anything that offends China. That includes demonstrations in memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre and other politically incorrect events in Chinese history.

June 29, 2020: In the southwest (Tibet border with India) Chinese troops have occupied about eight kilometers of Indian territory along the north coast of Pangong Lake. Chinese troops have erected large signs on the shoreline indicating the newly occupied area is now Chinese territory. China has moved another 20,000 troops, including light tanks and other armored vehicles to the Ladakh sector. Another 10,000 troops are kept about a thousand kilometers away, in Chinese lowland territory where altitude sickness is less of a problem. China has most of the high ground and that limits the number of combat capable troops it can bring to its side of the border.

June 25, 2020: Taiwan complains that Chinese aircraft are increasingly entering the Taiwanese ADIZ (air defense identification zone) without warning and forcing Taiwan to send up fighters to doublecheck. For over a decade China has been violating ADIZs of neighboring nations more and more frequently. In 2016 Taiwan announced that it would not recognize any Chinese attempts to enforce an ADIZ on portions of the South China Sea that have long been recognized as Taiwanese according to tradition and international treaties. In late 2013 China began expanding its own ADIZ into disputed areas of the South China Sea. With that China insisted that all military and commercial aircraft in these new ADIZs ask permission from China before entering. The U.S. and several local (and well-armed) nations responded by sending in military aircraft without telling China but warning their commercial aircraft operators to cooperate because it is considered impractical to provide military air cover for all the commercial traffic. China sees this as a victory, despite the obvious coalition intention to continue sending military aircraft through the ADIZ unannounced and despite whatever threats China makes. In response to that China has begun running combat air patrols through the ADIZ and apparently intends to try to intimidate some of the smaller nations who are defying them. The intimidation has failed so far largely because Taiwan refuses to back down and is openly telling China that the defiance will continue. South Korea and Japan both defined the ADIZ demands. Both these countries have powerful military forces and military ties to the U.S., as does Taiwan.

June 23, 2020: In northwest neighboring North Korea is going through the worst economic crises since the famine years of the 1990s. GDP is expected to shrink by at least seven percent in 2020. This is mainly because China is (most of the time) enforcing the economic sanctions and there have been additional problems caused by efforts to keep covid19 out of North Korea. Kim Jong Un continues to anger China by refusing to accept Chinese advice about following the Chinese example of economic reform. In effect that means adopting classic fascism; a relatively free economy ruled by a dictatorship. So far, the Kims and their cronies have been wary of the Chinese Solution even though it appears more and more likely to be the best way out of the economic mess North Korea created for itself.

June 20, 2020: Venezuela continues smuggling its heavy oil to China, if only because there are refineries in China and East Asia that can handle the heavy and dirty Venezuelan crude oil. Chinese companies have backed off on trying to evade the American economic sanctions on Venezuela. The problem is that the American sanction enforcers are good at detecting which foreign firms are violating sanctions. For large Chinese trading firms getting caught violating sanctions means the entire trading firm is subject to punishment. While large tradition firms are an efficient and profitable custom in East Asia they are more vulnerable to punishments inflicted for violating international laws. As a result of this the only oil getting from Venezuela to China is smuggled out on Venezuelan tankers and then transferred at sea off the Asian coast to a local tanker that will get the stuff sold to a suitable refiner. A lot of discounts are involved and Venezuela makes about half what they normally would. Meanwhile China is still owned tens of billions by Venezuela which can no longer repay that debt with oil because of the increased American sanctions (to pressure the Maduro dictatorship to allow the return of elections and democracy). Meanwhile, China has provided some useful help for Maduro. The most valuable service China has done for the socialist Venezuelan government (aside from some help rebuilding the collapsed oil industry) has been showing Venezuelans how to use police-state tech to better control an angry population. China has such tech and has agreed to export it to Venezuela and assist with the installation of its newly developed SCR (Social Credit Rating). This has been developed over the last decade in northwestern China (Xinjiang province) where extensive networks of vidcams and other forms of population monitoring have enabled more control over large populations. China already boasts that nationwide millions of people have been identified and punished because of their low SCR. A bad SCR makes it more difficult to get a good job, a bank loan, or a passport. SCR scores depend on what the government sees, hears, or reads via that growing network of sensors and informants. China was not able to provide a lot of the SCR surveillance and enforcement equipment to Venezuela before the increased sanctions made that impossible. But there is enough SCR gear in Venezuela to convince the local secret police that this is the way to go if you can afford it.

June 15, 2020: In the southwest (Tibet border with India) there was another clash between Indian and Chinese troops on the shores of Pangong Lake. A 1996 agreement has troops from both sides entering disputed areas without firearms or explosives. The Chinese have taken to sending in their troops armed with wooden clubs and iron bars. This led to a battle on a ridge overlooking the Galvan River today that left at least twenty dead on both sides. Total casualties (dead, wounded, prisoners) were at least fifty on each side. China failed to return all Indian prisoners right away and the Chinese commander would not explain why.

The Indian response was to move more of its new (SpyDer) Israeli and elderly S-125 and OSA-AK Russian made air defense systems into the area. SpyDer and OSA-AK are short-range (under 15 kilometers) while the S-125 can hit targets 30 kilometers away. The Chinese response was to drop any pretense about its intentions and claim ownership of the uninhabited (and largely uninhabitable) Galvan Valley adjacent to Pangong Lake. Since the early 1960s, when these border disputes began, China had never claimed Galvan Valley, now they do.

June 12, 2020: Chinese companies employing North Korean workers have a more favorable attitude towards North Korean illegals. China has a labor shortage, because of the three decades of one child only population control. The North Koreans work harder and cause fewer problems. Technically the North Korea workers are employees of the North Korean state, which takes most of their pay as taxes and fees. This relationship continues with most North Korean workers. In some cases, Chinese employers are finding North Korean workers who are willing to abandon North Korea by signing contracts with Chinese firms for higher pay, longer terms and no return to North Korea. The Chinese government doesnt care and without Chinese intervention, North Korea cannot force these workers to return, especially if these workers have no family in North Korea, or dont care what happens to their family. This is another example of China reminding North Korea who the elder brother is in their relationship and that elder brother continues to be displeased with how North Korea is mismanaging its economy and foreign affairs.

June 8, 2020: Filipino leaders continue using the old Cold War tactic of playing two superpowers (U.S. and China) off against each other. Most Filipinos trust the U.S. more than China. That means a fundamental shift in government policy and diplomacy against the Americans is impossible. Despite, or because of that, Filipino president Duterte says nice things about China while ignoring the continued military, economic and diplomatic support received from the United States. China understands this but keeps offering loans and investments to the Philippines to show their gratitude to Duterte. The Chinese hope to eventually win some goodwill inside the Philippines with all this. This has been the Chinese strategy throughout the region. While this approach does little to shift public opinion it does enable China to freely use their cash to buy as much support as they can. The more Chinese money that enters the country the more locals are found who are willing to be bought or at least rented. This includes politicians, academics, journalists and celebrities of all sorts. This works, up to a point.

Duterte got elected and remains popular because of his aggressive efforts to find and prosecute corrupt officials. Now he is finding more and more of the corruption was paid for by China. This strategy has gained some favorable press and more access to foreign countries. Longer term the prospects are not so good. These same tactics were used by Germany worldwide in the 1930s, especially once the Nazis were in power. There were short term gains that evaporated once the German armies began moving into neighboring countries. China hopes to avoid that by invading slowly and with considerable stealth. But, as the situation in the South China Sea and the Indian border demonstrate, subtlety and stealth will only get you so far. Another question Chinese economists are quietly posing to CCP (Chinese Communist Party) leaders is how will the government deal with a lot of foreign countries refusing to pay back the loans or simply seize Chinese assets. What is an ambitious new superpower to do?

June 6, 2020: In the Philippines ( Manila) police raided the third illegal clinic established in the city by Chinese gangsters to provide medical supplies for Chinese seeking testing or treatment for covid19. There are about 150,000 Chinese citizens in the Philippines, many of them illegally. Covid19 cases in the Philippines are concentrated in cities, especially the capital Manila, as are many of the illegal Chinese. So Chinese gangsters set up unregistered (and unregulated) covid19 clinics. Six of these clinics have been found and closed since April. Large quantities of scarce medical supplies were seized.

The illegal Chinese clinics are just another manifestation of the Chinese gangster problem that came with increased Chinese investment. In the last year over two thousand illegal aliens, most of them Chinese, have been arrested in the capital alone. Most of those arrested were participating in the growing Internet based criminal activities. After 2008 t he Philippines slowly became a hotspot for computer hacking groups, and for nearly a decade the computer crime gangs were able to survive by bribing the right officials. Only when the cybercrime involved Islamic terrorism did the bribes not work. In 2016 the government legalized online gambling operations. These were to be regulated and taxed. Filipinos were forbidden to use the new online gaming sites because popular opinion in the country was that the online gambling sites were addictive and sometimes rigged. There was also an effort to eliminate a lot of the bribery that often caused things like online gambling to become more of a problem than economic benefit. All this was complicated by new (since 2016) Chinese investment activity, which were part of the government effort to boost the economy. While the government was also at odds with China over the illegal South China Sea claims, the Chinese were using large investments to reduce the popular hostility to what was going in in the South China Sea. The Chinese investments came with the usual demands that more Chinese be allowed to work in the Philippines. In return more Filipinos would be allowed to work in China. In 2016 the Filipino police were ordered by the new president (Rodrigo Duterte) to aggressively go after corruption and criminal activity. This was soon applied to the online gambling business, which had quickly been dominated by Chinese gangs. In addition to corrupting legal online gaming operations, the new flood of Chinese gangsters led to the establishment of illegal online gaming operations. All this Chinese gangster activity led to more arrests and prosecutions. The Chinese government often cooperated because many of these gangsters moving to the Philippines because police pressure in China was more intense. In foreign countries, it was often possible to exploit the legal system and extradition treaties to avoid being sent back to China to face even more serious criminal charges. A growing number of recent Chinese arrests were the result of information provided by the American FBI, which had been investigating international computer and phone fraud and the hackers behind it. China has also provided information about Internet based criminals preying on individuals and businesses in China. In 2019 nearly two thousand illegal aliens were arrested in the Philippines, most of them Chinese. For all of 2018, only 500 illegal aliens were arrested. In 2019 nearly two million Chinese travelled to the Philippines, most of them tourists. Tourism has always been good for the economy but the growing number of Chinese tourists beings with it more Chinese gangsters looking for a safer place to work and skilled at corrupting local officials.

June 4, 2020: For India, the Chinese border has become an active confrontation zone again after several years of relative quiet. The increased activity is more theater than violence. Quiet is a relative term on this border because it still means over a hundred Chinese border incursions each year. Both countries have made an effort to make the border disputes better organized. As a result, in late 2018 China agreed to establish multiple hotlines along their mutual border and also between the defense ministries of China and India. This revived earlier efforts to establish a hotline. In 2016 China and India worked out and agreed to details of a hotline for commanders on both sides of the LAC (Line of Actual Control). Also known as the MacCartney-MacDonald Line the LAC is the unofficial border between India and China. The LAC is 4,057 kilometers long and is found in the Indian States of Ladakh, Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal, and Arunachal. On the Chinese side, it is mostly Tibet. China claims much territory that is now considered part of India. There have been several thousand armed and unarmed confrontations over the last decade as one side or the other accuses foreign troops of crossing the LAC. The 2016 agreement fell apart when India went ahead, despite Chinese protests, and expanded its military ties with the United States while also undertaking massive improvements to military infrastructure near the border in the areas where Chinese troops were a growing presence and a constant threat. China had taken the lead improving roads and stabling more military bases close to the border. India was now catching up, having built over three dozen new roads to the more remote border area, New bases for ground troops and warplanes were built and training exercises now included tests of how well ground and air reinforcements could reach the contested border areas. China considered all this an act of aggression against them.

Northwest India (Ladakh State) is the current hot spot now because India is building roads to the border and threatening to take back the portion of Kashmir Pakistan illegally, according to the agreement that established the India-Pakistan border after the British left in 1947, seized from India. Pakistan signed that agreement but had second thoughts as it was being implemented. Pakistan urged Pakistani Pushtun tribes in the area to liberate Kashmir from the Hindus and managed to grab about half of the disputed area. This dispute has remained unresolved ever since and led to several wars between India and Pakistan. Pakistan always lost but India never sent troops into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The current Indian leader is openly questioning the wisdom of that policy. India controlling all of Kashmir is a major economic threat to China, which has invested over $10 billion to build a highway and rail line from China to the Pakistani coast and it goes through Pakistani occupied Kashmir. This link is part of the Chinese OBOR/BRI (belt and road project) which aims to revive the ancient Silk Road that for thousands of years was the main economic link between East Asia and the rest of Eurasia. In Pakistani portion is called CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic corridor) and is costing China over $62 billion. The Indian threats to the Kashmir road-rail link are minor compared to the problems China is having with Islamic terrorist and tribal violence against CPEC projects as well as the high levels of corruption in Pakistan which are also damaging CPEC projects. This is driving up costs while lowering quality and slowing progress. But China also claims ownership of much Indian territory so helping Pakistani keep what they have grabbed is considered something of professional courtesy.

China is also annoyed that India is now using Chinese tactics and threaten to take back disputed border areas. Since 1999, when India officially became a nuclear power, Chinese options on the contested borders were reduced. With both nations possessing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, China could no longer rely on overwhelming non-nuclear forces to push India out of contested areas. That was bad enough but now the Indians are threatening to go Chinese on the Chinese.

June 3, 2020: The Indian and Chinese generals commanding forces confronting each other on the China/Ladakh border agreed to meet on June 6th to try and arrange a halt to the Chinese aggression. When the Chinese agree to these meetings it usually means they are willing to ease up on their push and occupy strategy for taking disputed border territory from neighbors. Indian media can describe that as a Chinese retreat but it isnt. China is simply willing to pause their operations for a while. In this case China was actually planning a major push against India.
Nuha, Zeiss Opticians and Fountain Cleaners are all back open in Stratford following lockdown

WHEN non-essential shops were ordered to close under lockdown, many businesses feared they might never reopen. As shoppers turned to online stores for their purchases, sales on the high street plummeted alarmingly.

At one stage, the Office of National Statistics reported devastating drops in numbers, with retail sectors such as clothing recording falls in sales of as much as 55 per cent  a threat to the very existence of many shops.

But despite the doom and gloom, many independent businesses have been surprisingly resilient and withstood the onslaught of coronavirus with a confidence envied by some of their bigger counterparts.

In the second part of a special Herald feature on independent stores across the Stratford district, reporter Gill Sutherland and photographer Mark Williamson visit local retailers who are back in business after weathering the storm and reopening their doors to customers.

Alex Barke welcomes visitors to Zeiss

Zeiss opticians in Chapel Street must be the coolest place in Stratford.

In a hot, summery week, not only is its cool air-conditioning very welcome, it has also had a very chic makeover.

The family business has been run by the Barke family since 1985 and includes dispensing optician Alan, with Margaret and their son Alex looking after customer service.

The team are delighted to be open after lockdown and have the opportunity to show off their new set-up at last. Alex explained they were actually shut longer than lockdown due to the timing of their building works.

He said: This year we are celebrating 25 years in Stratford and so we thought we would have a big refit  we closed for that in early March. No sooner had we reopened then we had to close again due to the shutdown.

The silver lining is that weve got to know how the shop works now and have made a few tweaks.

The new streamlined interior boasts displays of top brand frames, lighting that exudes natural daylight, and a consultation room that boasts a Visufit 1000  a remarkably clever machine. It takes a 3D scan of each customer and produces an avatar-style head, which gives precise measurements for fitting purposes, but also allows you to see what an array of frames would look like on your 3D self.

As an essential service, Zeiss has been able to fix glasses and fit lenses to new frames using a previous prescription but they are now able to resume testing, with the optometrist wearing PPE and customers being given a mask to wear.

Alex said customers were welcome to try on as many frames as they like, all of which are disinfected afterwards  and they have social distancing and other hygiene measures in place.

The business is unique in that it only sells Zeiss lenses. Alex said: Many opticians do Zeiss lenses but there are very few that only do Zeiss. We are fortunate to have that collaboration and they have worked with us on the branding for the refit.

Alex is optimistic the business will continue to thrive. He is especially proud to be part of a row of independent businesses which includes Barry the Butcher, Daisy Chain and Music Matters.

He added: I think with the lockdown, people now want to shop at independents, whether thats coffee shops, hairdressers or opticians. All of a sudden people are realising what the high street would look like without independents, and where would Stratford be then?

Virginia McArdle of Fountain Cleaners in Stratford

When the Royal Shakespeare Company needs something expertly cleaned, for decades it has turned to Fountain Cleaners.

The traditional family business, which has been in Stratford for 35 years, is run by Virginia McArdle alongside a loyal team.

Over the years they can recall serving a raft of RSC greats  including Sir Patrick Stewart and Dame Judi Dench. When the latter handed over a signed cheque for services rendered, the team treasured the mega actresss autograph before financial considerations finally won over and they took it to the bank.

Even without the RSCs business, as the theatre is still closed, Fountain is seeing a slow rise in demand as customers begin to seek out their expert skills after the long lockdown.

After opening last week, Virginia said: Its exciting to be open but also it makes you a little bit anxious, because although weve put procedures in place, its all new and not yet a habit. Its easy to chat to people and forget all the rules.

So it puts you a little bit on edge, and were used to being friendly and relaxed, so you feel a bit like youre not operating normally.

Virginia said lockdown had not been easy: Its been difficult because all my loyal and very wonderful staff are on furlough and are worried about their jobs and when we might get back to normal.

Weve also had three months of a shop full of work that we did that hasnt been collected or paid for, so thats another worry.

Weve been like a wardrobe, looking after peoples things. Hopefully people will now be able to come and visit and collect their items.

Since reopening, Virginia has noticed a particular demand for laundry work and is hoping they will increasingly be kept busy.

She added: Its so tricky at the moment  especially with the road closures in town. Well have to see how that affects business in Stratford. I do hope everything continues to improve, especially for all the amazing independents that the area has. Ive been thinking of them especially at this time.

Nuha Halaby of Nuha in Shrieves Walk, Stratford

It's like walking into a sweet shop  thats the verdict of owner Nuha Halaby about going into her Stratford boutique again after lockdown.

There may not be a pear drop or chocolate button in sight, but the ladieswear and accessories shop in Shrieves Walk, off Sheep Street   named after its owner  is back in business.

Nuha opened in 2007, taking over an existing boutique, and specialises in shoes, handbags and clothes from luxury designer brands such as Armani, Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood, Joseph Ribkoff and Lulu Guinness.

Nuha said: It is exciting, but Im also nervous because you cant tell how it is going to go.

We have all the hygiene measures in place, with hand santiser and clean pop socks available, which we dispose of. If customers try something on, then we spray it with antibac and do not put it back on the shop floor for 24 hours. We are also cleaning surfaces and the card machine after each use.

She said the boutique had been busy so far, but not all customers felt comfortable going out in public just yet. As a result, she has revamped her website, offering her products online.

Financially, she admitted lockdown had taken its toll: We have had to pay our rent and all the suppliers  even though we have had no income, there is no let-up in the bills  so it is great to be open.

We have very loyal customers both locally and from further afield, like London. The new road system in town doesnt help  it is a nightmare and puts people off. But we are hopeful that people are in need of a shopping treat after lockdown, and we have some great summer ranges on offer.

n Latest on the streets: Pages 4-5.
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Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view.
UPDATE: The driver of a truck involved in a serious crash on State Highway 29 is in hospital with serious injuries.

Police were called to the scene of the two-vehicle crash near Hinuera just before 5.30pm.

The TECT Rescue Helicopter dispatched to the scene to transport the driver to hospital.

The driver of the light truck received serious injuries as a result, says a spokesperson for the rescue helicopter.

He had to be cut free by the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Team before being stabilised by paramedics before being flown to Waikato Hospital in a serious condition.

His passenger was taken by road ambulance to Waikato Hospital.

The people in the other car were uninjured.

The serious crash unit is investigating the cause of the crash.

EARLIER:

A person has sustained serious injuries following a crash on State Highway 29.

Police were called to the scene of the crash near Hinuera just before 5.30pm.

A police spokesperson says two vehicles were involved.

The road was closed for some time, as the serious crash unit investigated the scene.

According to the NZTA website, the road is now open.
Principals want foreign teachers exempted from the border ban so they can plug staffing gaps caused by the teacher shortage.

Foreign-trained teachers have been a key part of official efforts to relieve the shortage and last year nearly 1000 overseas teachers gained visas to work in New Zealand.

Secondary Principals Association president Deidre Shea says schools would normally be starting to look overseas now to fill some of next year's vacancies.

"Going forward into 2021 it's likely that we will need to employ folk from overseas in order to be sure that we get enough quality teachers into our schools."

"At the moment that's not possible and that's causing some concern in some areas, where for example jobs have been offered and accepted and of course people can't travel now."

She says principals are only now starting to raise their fears about the staffing situation and they would be asking for an exemption allowing foreign-trained teachers to enter the country to take up jobs.

However, Deidre says the pandemic could have positive effects on teacher supply.

"There's questions around retention of people in teaching, people perhaps returning to teaching, we have seen that before in times of recession, and whether indeed that will happen and if it does if those numbers are enough to mitigate some of the difficulties of getting folk in from overseas. So there's lots of unknowns, many more than there usually are."

Auckland Secondary Principals Association president Steve Hargreaves says the pandemic is also prompting more New Zealand teachers to return from overseas jobs.

"We at our school here advertised for an English teacher to start in term three, and two of the applicants we got were recent folks who'd come back from overseas.

"Trained teachers, had planned to stay overseas for much longer, the COVID situation looked much better in New Zealand so home they came and we have managed to secure a very good English teacher because of that."

However, Steve says nobody was sure how many New Zealand teachers might return and principals are worried about the likely lack of foreign teachers.

"I was at a meeting on Friday and there was some talk about 'gee what are we going to do next year?' because we all have been recruiting quite heavily from overseas in recent years and if that avenue is cut off we are a little bit worried about being able to fully staff our schools at the beginning of 2021."

Minister of Education Chris Hipkins reiterated the possibility of New Zealand teachers returning home, but acknowledged that was based on anecdotes and there was no data available now to support that assumption.

"New Zealand teachers are actually in very high demand around the world and they're very likely to want to come home in the current environment," Hipkins told RNZs Morning Report.

"One of the challenges we've had is data has not been great on teacher supply, it's largely been left to schools to sort that out. We've compiled much better data now about a number of qualified and registered teachers we have in New Zealand, the number we think we're going to need in future years and the numbers coming out of training."

Hipkins says there was "no doubt there is a brewing shortage of secondary school teachers that we need to get on top of", but added that the projections suggested the shortage of primary school teachers peaked a year ago and was still a few years away for secondary school teachers.

"Schools have found ways to make things work even if they have had difficulties filling all of the vacancies they've had, and that's including just rearranging timetables and doing a variety of innovative things, in the worst case scenario they can use Te Kura - the correspondence school ... if they can't find a subject specialist teacher."

The ministry is focusing on recruiting new trainees, he says, but teachers are still going to have to find a way around the problem for another few years yet.

In the meantime, New Zealanders in the country whose registration had lapsed would also be provided with free refresher training if they wished to re-enter the field, he says.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins. File image/SunLive.

Border exemptions for teachers not ruled out - Hipkins

Auckland Primary Principals Association president Stephen Lethbridge says schools are in a staffing crisis and too few teachers are graduating from initial teacher education (ITE) programmes to fill their vacancies.

"There's some pretty low numbers of graduates graduating from ITE programmes and they are being snapped up really quickly in the mid-year intakes so the worry that schools have is how are we going to keep our children with teachers if we can't access overseas-trained teachers."

Stephen says it is possible that more New Zealand teachers would return because of the pandemic, but schools will still need foreign teachers.

"If we're looking for foreign teachers coming in, we would need to think about having something in place for the start of next year."

Hipkins says the government is looking at increasing the capacity of the quarantine system but gave no indication of when foreign teachers might be allowed in.

"At this point, the biggest constraint we've got is quarantine and managed isolation. We only have so many beds available and we know we've got a number of New Zealand citizens and residents wanting to return home, they've got a right to return home so naturally, they get the first priority for those beds that are available.

"There are a number of other groups that sit high on the priority list once we're through that and of course groups like teaching, where there are critical shortages, those are the sorts of groups that will be high on the priority list when we're in a position to be able to bring extra people in."

He told Morning Report he was not ruling out exemptions for teachers at this stage.

"The peak of our potentially incoming teachers wouldn't be until January, teachers are certainly high on priority list of people who are next on the returning list after citizens."

John Gerritsen/RNZ.
The Government has established a new $10 million fund for the domestic events sector to help save jobs and protect incomes as it recovers from the impacts of COVID-19.

This funding from Budget 2020 follows talks with the event sector designed to develop a joint strategy for the event sectors survival and growth.

Minister of Economic Development Phil Twyford says the events sector is important to New Zealanders and the country, raising the profile of our trade, culture, sports and arts.

The events this sector delivers are fundamental to building national pride and showcasing the best that New Zealand has to offer.

The purpose of the Domestic Events Fund is to stave off the loss of critical events which contribute to regional economies, and that without support may never return. By saving these events, jobs and the income of sector employees, contractors and freelancers will be protected.

This fund wont save every event, but it aims to support those events that provide the greatest flow-on benefit to regional economies. It has been set up to provide cash-flow within the sector.

On top of this, sector workers have been able to access the Governments wage subsidy, which has paid out more than $12 billion, and many will benefit directly and indirectly from the $70 million Creative Arts Recovery and Employment Fund to support rebuilding the creative industries, and the $60 million Cultural Innovation Fund to encourage investment and new thinking in the cultural and creative sectors, says Twyford.

The fund opens for applications on July 3.
Roughly two weeks later, two officers were charged in Atlanta after one shot and killed a Black man at a Wendys. Rayshard Brooks had been found sleeping in his car at the drive-through and was suspected of being under the influence. He resisted as police tried to handcuff him and got ahold of one officers Taser, which he fired at Officer Garrett Rolfe as he fled. Brooks missed, and Rolfe shot him in the back.
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Lawton, OK (73501)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 56F. NNE winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 56F. NNE winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
On Wednesday, Virginia transitioned into Phase III of Gov. Northams gradual plan to reopen organizations and businesses following stay-at-home orders issued in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

To the ear of the public, were moving into Phase III seems to sound the same as, Were out of the woods, and thats a dangerous consequence of the failure of our leaders to properly communicate the reality of this next phase and its stakes. While Gov. Northam and others may have led with the attractive, optimistic aspects of Phase III, such as the reduced capacity limits on restaurants and gyms, and the ability to hold large public gatherings, that merely represents an abdication of their responsibility, not an accurate picture of what comes next if we care about our own and others health.

Let me be clear, in a way our public officials have failed to be: Under Phase III, Virginians (including those in Floyd County) continue to be safer at home. Neither testing capacity nor adherence to mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines has progressed to the point where resuming your normal life is safe. To further belabor the point: just because you legally can do something under Phase III guidelines, does not mean that youre obligated to, or that you should.
(This is part of an ongoing series that showcases some of the best food and drinks in Central New York that you probably dont know about. Do you have a hidden gem? Share your favorite by emailing me at cmiller@syracuse.com or texting me at 315-382-1984. I might even buy you lunch. If you want to know my next hidden gem before its published, join my text group for subscribers where Ill announce it a day in advance. Thatll allow you to get there before everyone else.)

****

Syracuse, N.Y.  It was 91 degrees and sunny outside, perfect weather for a nice bowl of hot soup. It sounds nuts, but youll understand once you try the soup at Salt City Soup Co.

This lunch counter sells boutique sandwiches and scratch-made soups from a first-floor corner of the Salina Meadows office park off of Buckley Road. The law offices, insurance companies and other business headquarters inside offer a built-in lunch crowd.

Tim Tschernjawski, 35, originally wanted to open a restaurant downtown. That was his dream when he gave up his corporate job in Boston to move back home. He spent six years at Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub, the last three as the sous chef. He moved onto The Sherwood Inn and then took a management job at Original Grain.

When he decided to go out on his own, realtor Michael Greene found this spot. Salt City Soup Co. opened on Tuesday, March 10, to a full dining room. His crowds expanded each day that week.

And then it just stopped. The state shut everything down, Tim said. I was watching the (governors) press conference and just put my head down. I said, Youve got to be kidding me.' I had this plan and it just went out the window.

The week after he opened, his built-in clientele went home to work. Most of the offices in his building temporarily closed to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Like all restaurants in New York, Tim could only offer takeout meals. He shortened his workday and tightened up the menu, and he stopped serving breakfast.

Salt City Soup Company in Liverpool. Hidden Gems of CNY.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

The lines at the stainless steel counter suddenly disappeared, but Tim remained determined to keep going. He upped his social media presence, posting his specials and the ever-changing menu. Soon, customers raved about their meals online. and that drew more customers and more rave reviews.

Yeah, the food speaks for itself. It has to, Tim said. This is just simple food done right.

The food does speak for itself, but plenty of customers speak about the food, too. Several readers suggested I try it out.

He is always thinking of creative ways to pair flavors together, to make your bellies full and happy, wrote Nancy Olson, of Camillus.

My belly wanted to be full and happy, so I visited the Salt City Soup Co. on a hot and humid afternoon last week, days after the state restored in-house dining. And I had lots of soup.

Tim figured out soup was his specialty while working at Kitty Hoynes. Hed make cream of mushroom soup all year long, even in the summer. Its my elevated comfort food, he said. It could be a day just like today and people would still order soup. Those same customers would also order Kitty Hoynes Chef Damien Brownlows shepherds pie on a hot day, he said.

At his restaurant, Tim rotates the soups weekly. Last week he offered cream of mushroom and a roasted red pepper bisque. This week its cream of mushroom and fire-roasted tomato and corn.

By the time I walked in, Tim had sold out of the mushroom soup. I ordered a 12-ounce bowl ($6). It was almost too big; a cup ($4) wouldve been better to pair with a sandwich. I ended up bringing half of it home, and that made me popular in my house.

Red pepper bisque is usually pretty simple. Its a slightly creamy and mild soup. Tims recipe, however, is much more complex and takes you through different layers of flavor. It starts creamy, but a few seconds later the peppers take over. Its not spicy at all, but youll get hints of onion and garlic if you eat it slowly enough.

Tim experiments when developing his recipes, and he might eventually try a cold soup.

The roasted red pepper bisque at Salt City Soup Company in Liverpool. Hidden Gems of CNY.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

You must try ...

Yes, this is a soup place, but Tim makes a mean sandwich. Theyre all designed to go with his soups. The most popular sandwich on his menu is the No. 5 ($9). This was made to compliment the bisque.

He starts with spreading his own rosemary aioli on Pastabilities stretch bread. He adds a layer of spinach and tomatoes before laying down a -inch mound of oven-roasted turkey. Thats covered with a full layer of bacon and smoked gouda cheese.

The bread alone with a bit of the aioli would be perfect to dip into the bisque, but everything else is a bonus. No one is going to judge you if you dunk the No. 5 into the soup. In fact, theyll probably judge you if you dont stir your soup with this sandwich.

The No. 5 (turkey, bacon, smoked gouda, spinach and tomato) at Salt City Soup Company in Liverpool. Hidden Gems of CNY.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

The No. 4 ($9): This sandwich was designed with the neighboring office workers in mind. Theres nothing more depressing than craving a nap after a hefty lunch. Its not a problem when youre working at home, but when youre at the office, you have no place to hide.

This sandwich has no meat, and its served on a tortilla wrap. Its stuffed with diced avocado, sliced cucumbers, pickled red onions, tomatoes and spinach. The key ingredient, however, is sliced jalapeno peppers. Its just hot enough, and it goes well with soup.

Its tough to find a veggie sandwich that appeals to people who arent vegetarian, he said.

I love meat, and yet I love this sandwich. I will get this on my next visit. Hopefully hell have some cream of mushroom soup left.

The No. 4 (avocado, cucumber, red onion, tomato, jalapeno, spinach sandwich) from Salt City Soup Company in Liverpool. Hidden Gems of CNY.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

Sweet potato fries ($3): Believe it or not, this is more of a dessert than a side dish. The deep-fried sweet potato wedges are sweet by themselves, but Tim serves them with a cup of maple aioli.

Like everything in the Salt City Soup Co., its made here from locally sourced ingredients. This contains real maple syrup from around here.

Sweet potato wedges with maple aioli from Salt City Soup Company in Liverpool. Hidden Gems of CNY.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

Next time: Im going to get my big butt out of bed early and return just to have breakfast here. Tim just started offering a breakfast sandwich with egg, sausage, cheddar cheese, arugula and maple aioli on Pastas bread ($5).

He serves Salt City Coffees Syracuse blend for $2. Now I wish our office were in Salina Meadows so I could start my day with that combo.

The Details

The restaurant: Salt City Soup Company, 301 Plainfield Road, Syracuse, 315-399-4000. You can order online here.

Hours: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday.

Credit cards? Yes

Access to disabled? Yes

Inside seating: Plenty.

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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.
Syracuse, N.Y.  ACR Health is furloughing 70 staff members  almost half its workforce  and closing three of its eight offices because the state is late paying $1.6 million for services to people with a range of chronic diseases, including HIV/AIDS, the nonprofit organization said Wednesday.

The layoffs will take effect Friday (July 3), and the organizations offices at 990 James St. in Syracuse, 120 Washington St. in Watertown and 101 Main St. in Canton will close at the end of the month, Executive Director Wil Murtaugh said. The closings will leave ACR Health with five offices  three in Syracuse, one in Watertown and one in Utica.

This has been a heartbreaking process for our clients and our staff, Murtaugh said in a statement late Wednesday. We are helping people manage HIV, recover from substance use disorders, putting roofs over their heads, and supporting LGBTQ youth and families. The solutions for one pandemic should not come at the expense of the progress we have made on another. We need immediate action by the state and federal government to resume full operations.

He said ACR Healths remaining staff of 72 people will maintain its programs and services with limited operations.

Were doing all we can with limited staff, he said.

ACR Health provides services that include syringe exchanges, medical support programs, insurance enrollment assistance, youth and family services, and testing for HIV, Hepatitis C and sexually transmitted diseases. The Syracuse-based organization serves 16,000 to 20,000 people a year in 14 Upstate New York counties.

Murtaugh said he hopes to bring the laid-off workers back once the state pays what it owes. However, the closing of the three offices will be permanent, he said.

The state told the organization this week it will make a $600,000 payment soon, but that will leave at least $1 million owed, not including Junes bill, according to Murtaugh.

Nearly 90% of ACR Healths $12 million annual budget is funded by contracts with the state Department of Health. However, the department has not made a payment since January because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the states revenues. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has asked the federal government for assistance with its budget shortfall.

READ MORE: Pandemic economic fallout hits NY, creates uncertain future for CNY health org

Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Chobani and the University at Buffalo have joined the growing list of companies pulling advertising from Facebook, accusing the social network of refusing to limit hate speech and misinformation.

Chobani, the Upstate New York-based yogurt maker, vowed action over advertising as it announced it would pause all paid ads on social media.

Weve always stood against hate & bigotry and it is our duty to help change these platforms, the brand said Monday, adding the hashtag #StopHateForProfit.

UBuffalo, part of the State University of New York school system, joined the movement by pulling all ads on Facebook and Instagram in July.

As a public university, we have an obligation to confront racism and hate, on our campus and beyond, and build a more just and equitable society, the official UB Twitter account said Wednesday.

More than 600 other advertisers are boycotting Facebook, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Verizon, Target, Starbucks, Ford, Honda, Pfizer, Adidas, Reebok, Six Flags, The Hershey Company, Kay Jewelers, Dogfish Head Brewery, Clorox, Dennys, Microsoft, Eddie Bauer, Sesame Workshop and Harvard Business School Online.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbeg, who started the social network while attending Harvard University, has reportedly told employees that the company will not change its policies.

Were not gonna change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue, or to any percent of our revenue, Zuckerberg said during a virtual town hall on Friday, according to The Information. My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.

Business Insider reports Facebook generates most of its $70 billion in annual ad revenue from small businesses and not large brands, so its unclear what financial impact the boycott will have. The company lost $60 billion in market value earlier this week, but has since seen shares rebound.

According to CNBC, the boycott began when a number of groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense, accused Facebook of allowing racist, violent and verifiably false content to run rampant on its platform.

Facebook said earlier this year that it would not limit or fact-check political ads, though it later promised to label some election-related posts with their geographic origin in an attempt to curb misinformation. The company also began warning users who liked or shared coronavirus hoaxes, but admitted a bug accidentally blocked some authentic news posts.

Facebook fueled further frustration last month when it declined to remove posts by President Donald Trump suggesting Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis could be shot: When the looting starts the shooting starts. A handful of employees reportedly staged a walkout in protest, prompting Zuckerberg to defend his reasoning.

I know many people are upset that weve left the Presidents posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies, Zuckerberg wrote.

Nick Clegg, Facebooks vice president of global affairs and communications, insisted Wednesday that the company does not benefit from hate and encouraged critics who are angry about the inflammatory rhetoric President Trump has posted on our platform and others to vote in the upcoming election.

The only way to hold the powerful to account is ultimately through the ballot box, Clegg said.

Action over advertising. Today we join our friends at @ADL and a growing list of amazing groups like the @NAACP to pause all our paid social advertising. We've always stood against hate & bigotry and it is our duty to help change these platforms. #StopHateForProfit https://t.co/GaKTheAySG  Chobani (@Chobani) June 29, 2020

In solidarity with #StopHateForProfit, the University at Buffalo will not advertise on Facebook and Instagram in July. #UBuffalo pic.twitter.com/cSIGx8LnMq  UBuffalo (@UBuffalo) July 1, 2020
I let him know it was very appalling and violent, said Bitere, who is a teacher with Orange County Public Schools. In general throwing any type of water is violent and a crime, but especially during a pandemic and in Florida when we are having more and more cases. My health could be drastically altered because this man threw his water on me.
William Dussing, P.E., joins Barton & Loguidice (B&L) as chief electrical engineer in the facilities practice area.

Dussing has thirty-five years of experience in low, medium and high voltage electrical design, project management, product application and maintenance & testing of electrical apparatus.

He earned an associate of applied science in mechanical technology from Onondaga Community College.

Dussing is a licensed professional engineer in the state of New York and Maryland, holds OSHA certifications in construction safety and health and has extensive training in the facilities engineering practice area.

He resides in Syracuse.

Do you have a People in Motion item? Send your press release to business@syracuse.com.
California closed bars, theaters and indoor restaurant dining all over again across most of the state Wednesday, and Arizonas outbreak grew more severe by nearly every measure as the surging coronavirus crisis across the South and West sent a shudder through the country.

The run-up in confirmed cases has been blamed in part on whats been called knucklehead behavior by Americans not wearing masks or obeying social-distancing rules as economies reopened from coast to coast over the past two months.

The bottom line is the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in dramatically expanding the round of closings he announced over the weekend.

The shutdown announcement, which came just ahead of what is expected to be a busy Fourth of July weekend that could fuel the spread of the virus, applies to 19 counties encompassing nearly three-quarters of Californias 40 million people, including Los Angeles County.

Confirmed cases in California have increased nearly 50% over the past two weeks, and Covid-19 hospitalizations have gone up 43%. Newsom reported nearly 5,900 new cases and 110 more deaths in 24 hours.

With one of the biggest weekends of the summer approaching, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised Americans to wear face coverings at the beach, though not in the water.

Despite the resurgence of coronavirus across the U.S., President Donald Trump spoke Wednesday about the virus as if it were a nuisance he hopes will eventually just go away.

I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus, he said in an interview with Fox Business. I think that, at some point, thats going to sort of just disappear, I hope.

Meanwhile, a masked Vice President Mike Pence paid a visit to Arizona, where cases have spiked since stay-at-home orders expired in mid-May. The state reported record single-day highs for new cases (almost 4,900), deaths (88), ER visits (close to 1,300) and the number of people in the hospital (nearly 2,900).

In Florida, the biggest hospital in the hardest-hit county, Miami's Jackson Health System, scaled back elective surgeries and other procedures as it and others around the state braced for an influx of victims.

Florida recorded more than 6,500 new cases  down from around 9,000 on some days last week, but still alarming  and a running total of over 3,500 deaths. Counties in South Florida are closing beaches to fend off large July Fourth crowds that could spread the virus.

Too many people were crowding into restaurants late at night, turning these establishments into breeding grounds for this deadly virus, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in forbidding restaurants with seating for more than eight people from serving customers inside from midnight to 6 a.m.

Louisiana saw its biggest daily spike since April, reporting 2,100 new cases in 24 hours. Georgia set a new daily record with nearly 3,000 new cases. Texas did too, with new infections skyrocketing past 8,000 in a single day for the first time.

Marilyn Rauth, a senior citizen in Punta Gorda, said Floridas reopening was too much too soon and blamed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The sad thing is the Covid spread will probably go on for some time, though we could have flattened the curve with responsible leadership, she said. Experience now has shown most people wont social distance at beaches, bars, etc. The governor evidently has no concern for the health of the states citizens.

The soaring numbers across the Sunbelt have raised fears that many other states could see the same phenomenon if they reopen too, and that people from the South and West could spread the virus to other regions.

Some distant states and cities that seemed to have tamed their outbreaks, including Colorado, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey, hit pause or backtracked on some of their reopening plans for bars and restaurants as they watched the crisis unfold from afar.

Also, New York and New Jersey are asking visitors from 16 states from the Carolinas to California to quarantine themselves for two weeks.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is delaying its resumption of indoor dining at restaurants, and not because of any rise in cases there.

Even a week ago, honestly, I was hopeful we could. But the news we have gotten from around the country gets worse and worse all the time, he said.

The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. per day has roughly doubled over the past month, hitting 44,800 on Tuesday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. That is higher even than what the nation witnessed during the deadliest stretch of the crisis in mid-April through early May.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease expert, warned on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that the rise across the South and West puts the entire country at risk and that new infections could reach 100,000 a day if people dont start listening to public health authorities.

The virus in the U.S. is blamed for more than 2.6 million confirmed cases and over 127,000 deaths, the highest toll in the world, by Johns Hopkins' count. Worldwide, the number of infections is put at more than 10.6 million, with over a half-million deaths.

The real numbers in the U.S. and globally are believed to be significantly higher, in part because of limited testing and mild cases that have gone unrecorded.

The number of deaths per day in the U.S. has continued to drop over the past week and is down to an average of about 550, compared with a peak of around 2,200 a day in mid-April, according to an Associated Press analysis.

But experts note that deaths are a lagging indicator  it takes time for people to get sick and die  and they warn that the trend could reverse itself.

In New Jersey, where cases had been declining since late April, Gov. Phil Murphy announced a pause on Monday, in part because of people not wearing masks and social distancing.

Unfortunately, the national scene, compounded by instances of knucklehead behavior here at home, are requiring us to hit pause on the restart of indoor dining for the foreseeable future, he said.

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New York  Well, this sure seems familiar.

Just hours after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City public schools would reopen their doors to students this fall, Gov. Andrew Cuomos office issued a statement saying that the mayor does not have the authority to reopen city schools.

The state law governing schools and business closings or openings has been in effect since the pandemic first started, and all such decisions are made by state government and not local government. Of course the state consults with local stakeholders, and when it comes to opening schools in New York City we will consult with parents, teachers, health officials and local elected officials  but the governor has said any determination is premature at this point, and we will need to see how the virus develops, said Dani Lever, communications director for the governors office.

Lever said that the governor has asked all school districts to develop reopening plans, but could not yet commit to reopening next school year with the existing information.

The governor has also told all school districts to have plans ready for the new normal in the event schools can open. The governor hopes schools will reopen, but will not endanger the health of students or teachers, and will make the determination once we have more current information, Lever said.

We value the opinion of local politicians and the states 700 local school districts as to what should be done, but the public should not be confused on this important decision that has practical consequences for many, she continued.

The Mayors Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the statement from the Cuomo administration.

The immediate state-level show-down of a city-announced school decision comes as no surprise, as nearly the exact same situation unfolded in April when de Blasio announced that schools would remain closed through the end of the school year and Cuomo immediately responded that he did not have the authority to make that decision.

ABOUT MAYORS ANNOUNCEMENT

On Thursday, de Blasio announced that New York City public schools will reopen their doors to students in September with various health and safety protocols in place and specialized plans to accommodate each schools unique learning community.

Were full steam ahead for September, de Blasio said. The goal, of course, is to the have the maximum number of kids in our schools as we begin school.

Each school will have a number that is the maximum number of kids who can be in that school with social distancing  using every conceivable space in that school. Were going to convert everything that can be converted to a classroom into a classroom to accommodate social distancing, he continued.

The mayor acknowledged that it will be difficult to devise plans that allow for adequate social distancing, but emphasized that the city is working hard with each school to determine the safest way for reopening.

We know that theres going to be a lot of challenges, just sheer logistical challenges, with schools that were overcrowded before the coronavirus and now have to practice social distancing, but were going to make it work to the maximum in each school, de Blasio said.

According to the Department of Education (DOE) Enrollment, Capacity and Utilization Report, which provides an assessment of capacity for each school and school building to assist in space utilization, four Staten Island public high schools, two intermediate schools, and 34 public elementary schools, were overcrowded during the 2017-2018 school year.

NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza is scheduled to meet with public school principals on Thursday to discuss individualized plans based on the capacity limits of each school building.

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Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com
When is a second stimulus check coming? How much will you get?

President Donald Trump told Fox Business on Wednesday that another round of direct payments to Americans will be included in Congress next coronavirus relief package, and it may be even more than $1,200 per American.

I support actually larger numbers than the Democrats, but its got to be done properly, Trump said. I want the money getting to people to be larger so they can spend it. I want the money to get there quickly and in a non-complicated fashion.

Trump didnt specify how much larger the payments could be, but the $3 trillion Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES Act), already passed by the Democrat-led House, would again distribute $1,200 per person, via paper checks, direct deposit or debit cards, to help Americans whove lost income due to the Covid-19 pandemic. People with taxable income under $75,000 (or $150,000 for couples filing jointly) would be eligible, similar to the first round, and dependents would also qualify for $1,200 this time, regardless of age.

The first round of stimulus checks, which gave qualifying American adults a one-time direct payment of $1,200 plus $500 for each child under the age of 17, was part of Congress $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed in March. A family of four could receive $3,400, while the second package would potentially send them $4,800.

Senate Majority Leader and Republican Mitch McConnell said last month that the HEROES legislation will likely be the last round of direct payments. McConnell said Tuesday the bill is expected to be tweaked and approved this month.

According to Fortune, Trump said Wednesday that he doesnt want Congress to extend jobless benefits with an extra $600 per week in unemployment insurance, currently set to expire at the end of July.

We had something where it gave you a disincentive to work last time, he told Fox Business. Youd make more money if you dont go to work. Thats not what this country is all about ... We want to create a tremendous incentive for people to want to go back to work.

When will I get my second stimulus check?

McConnell said in late May that Congress would need about a month to negotiate a deal that includes the new payments; debates still havent started but if approved by the end of July, Americans could start seeing payments in late August or early fall.

We dont want to rush into that because we want to be both careful at this point in seeing how the money is in the economy, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship last month.

A lot of the money is still not in it, he said, referring to unclaimed Paycheck Protection Program funds and stimulus checks that still havent reached millions of people.

The good news is checks would likely be delivered faster this time after millions verified their information on the IRS Get My Payment site. The IRS recently said it has paid all eligible Americans that it had enough information on for checks from the first round, for a total of $267 billion.

The first round of payments took about a month to begin arriving in peoples bank accounts after Trump signed the CARES economic relief package in March.

How much would I get?

Under the current HEROES Act, each American would receive $1,200; married couples would receive $2,400; and parents would receive $1,200 per child, regardless of the dependents age.

You can find out how much you would be eligible for by using the free Omni Calculator tool embedded below. Its also located on their site here.

Second Stimulus Check Calculator - HEROES Act

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Syracuse, N.Y.  A Syracuse man, on parole after being convicted of stabbing a Destiny USA employee in 2017, was arrested last week and charged with raping a 14-year-old girl earlier this year.

Luis Torres, 21, is accused of raping the girl inside a Syracuse residence in February  nine days after he was released from prison.

Syracuse police stated in court documents that Torres had sex with the girl at least two other times between late February and early April.

Luis Torres, then 19, in a 2017 mugshot.Syracuse Police Department

Torres was arrested Friday and charged with second-degree rape, a felony, as well as endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. He is also charged with violating his parole.

The parole stems from a 2018 conviction for second-degree assault. In December 2017, Torres stabbed the hand of an employee at Syracuses Original Caramel Corn Shoppe during a confrontation that police at the time said started with Torres stealing a bag of chips from the store.

Torres was sentenced to two years in prison.

He was released from prison under conditional release in August 2019, but returned to prison on Jan. 2. He was then released again on Feb. 20.

He was arraigned in Syracuse City Court. Due to the parole violation, he is being held in the Onondaga County Justice Center without bail.

Contact Jacob Pucci at jpucci@syracuse.com or find him on Twitter at @JacobPucci.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Three men accused of opening fire during a staged shootout at a community celebration June 20 have been charged in the mayhem that left a teen dead and eight others  many innocent bystanders  wounded.

Hansome Rice, 18, who police say is a member of the 110 street gang, is accused of shooting into the middle of a densely packed party of roughly 500 people. The other rival gang has not been identified by police in court papers.

Authorities believe at least six people opened fire during the shootout, which they say was planned between the two rival gangs without the knowledge of the party planners. Rye Day is an annual celebration on the birthday of Ryedell Davis.

Rice is accused of firing into the crowd, leading to the death of Chariel Osorio, 17, during the party held on a sunny Saturday at a park on the citys Near West Side. Chariel had graduated high school only hours before he was fatally wounded.

It appears that authorities believe Rice is the shooter who fired the fatal bullet, though the court papers leave open the possibility that someone else might have caused Chariels death.

Two others, Devar Williams, 20, and Eric Williams, 36, (no known relation to each other), are also accused of opening fire around 9 p.m. during the party.

Devar Williams is also charged with murder, though no court papers have been filed yet in his case because he hasnt been arraigned. Eric Williams is charged with attempted murder.

Rice and Eric Williams were each arraigned Thursday morning in virtual court, with the defendants, lawyers and judge appearing via Skype.

Rice is facing second-degree murder, accused of acting with depraved indifference to human life. Thats punishable by up to 25 years to life in prison, if proven at trial.

Eric Williams is facing attempted murder, accused of opening fire into the crowd and wounding, but not killing, people. Thats punishable by up to 25 years.

The two gangs initiated a furtherance of their deadly feud by knowingly staging a shootout at a public gathering of approximately (500) people ... thereby causing the death of 17-year-old Chariel Osorio, as well as injuries to other non-participating bystanders, according to a criminal complaint.

Hansome Rice is a member of the 110 gang, and did wantonly fire multiple shots from a loaded handgun ... toward rival gang members and in the midst of a crowd of innocent bystanders, with utter disregard for the lives of others, which created a grave risk of death to another person, and did cause the death of 17-year-old Chariel Osorio, the complaint continues.

Rice, Devar Williams and Eric Williams are accused of firing into the crowd, not specifically targeting any of the struck victims in particular.

Syracuse City Court Judge Kate Rosenthal, during arraignment, expressed concern that there wasnt enough paperwork submitted to back up the charges against Rice and Williams. She delayed the arraignments for more than an hour as prosecutors got more information.

Prosecutors said during arraignment that the proof against Rice and Eric Williams was based on surveillance camera footage of the scene, with officers familiar with each identifying them.

Rosenthal said she needed sworn statements from those officers saying exactly that. After getting those police reports around 11:30 a.m., she arraigned both Rice and Eric Williams.

Both Rice and Eric Williams remained jailed with no bail for the time being. Devar Williams is also jailed, but is still awaiting arraignment.

Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.
Longtime TV host Hugh Downs is dead at age 99, according to multiple reports.

A spokesperson for the family announced that Downs died peacefully Wednesday in his Scottsdale, Arizona, home. No other details were disclosed.

Downs spent more than 60 years in television, hosting NBCs Today show from 1962 to 1971 and co-hosting ABCs 20/20  both alongside Barbara Walters  for 21 years. His career included the memory-match game show Concentration, announcing for Tonight Starring Jack Paar (which later became NBCs The Tonight Show) in the late 1950s and early 60s, and hosting PBS Live From Lincoln Center in the 90s.

USA Today reports Downs once held the record most hours (15,188) in front of network television cameras until Regis Philbin later broke it in 2004.

The Emmy-winning broadcaster is also remembered for his signature signoff: Were in touch, so you be in touch.

Downs officially retired from the ABC evening newsmagazine in 1999, but continued lending his voice to documentary films and specials through the 2000s.

According to azfamily.com, his legacy continued when the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University was named in his honor in 99.

He retired from 20/20 in 1999 and died at age 99 in the year 2020. Sweet symmetry. Rest easy, Hugh Downs. One of the best. https://t.co/g4WvKSssCt  Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) July 2, 2020
Auburn, N.Y.  A Cayuga County legislator from Cato, under fire after criticizing Black Lives Matter protests in a recent letter to the local newspaper, resigned from one county committee today and was removed from another.

Andy Dennison resigned as chairman of oversight for the countys Judicial Public Safety Committee, according to Cayuga County legislature chairwoman Aileen McNabb-Coleman.

McNabb-Coleman removed Dennison from the Judicial Public Safety Committee itself. Dennison is a Republican; McNabb-Coleman is a Democrat.

Legislator Dennisons statements run counter to the message our community is sending with regard to the Black Lives Matter Movement, McNabb-Coleman said in a statement released today. We, the Cayuga County Leadership, are committed to bringing forth education and policies to strengthen our cultural competency in order to promote shared dialogue, mutual understanding and greater respect for all.

The rebuke by the chairwoman comes amid public outcry over Dennisons letter last week to The Auburn Citizen, in which he criticized the ongoing protests over police brutality.

Do black lives really matter when young black children are being killed by other black people who are supposedly peacefully protesting police brutality? his letter stated. Oh thats right they only think black lives matter when a black person is shot by a white cop..

The letter, published in The Citizen on Friday, went on to speak against the tearing down of statues and referred to protesters, at one point, as idiots.

Dennisons words drew immediate condemnation from the Auburn/Cayuga Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the group called for Dennisons immediate resignation from the legislature.

In a Sunday editorial, The Citizen cited Dennisons divisive stance and called his comments an old way of reasoning about racial issues that fueled protests across the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May.

At a special legislature meeting Tuesday night, protesters called for Dennison to step down from his position, and the legislatures Democrats asked that he be removed from the Judicial Public Safety Committee, which oversees county law enforcement.

State Rep. Gary Finch (R-Auburn) said Dennisons views were not embraced by the rest of Cayuga County GOP.

Nolan Weidner is a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. Got a comment or idea for a story? He can be reached via email at nweidner@syracuse.com.
Syracuse, N.Y.  New York State is withholding more than $12 million in subsides to the city of Syracuse, Mayor Ben Walsh said today.

Its not clear whether the state will eventually pay the money, or if the city will have to make up for the lost income. If the latter is the case, the city may need to cut programs, close buildings and lay off employees, Walsh said.

The city was scheduled to receive a payment of $62 million from the state last week as part of the states Aid to Municipalities funding (AIM). Instead, the state paid a little more than $49 million.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has previously said he will have to reduce AIM payments by up to 20% if the state does not receive stimulus money from the federal government.

State aid makes up nearly one-third of Syracuses budget every year.

Walsh said the shortfall was described to him as a withholding and not a cut. But hes gotten no assurances that the money is coming.

Im not holding my breath, Walsh said. Im very concerned about it ... until I see that payment made, Im not going to rest easy.

Walsh said the federal government needs to act to provide stimulus money for state and local governments like Syracuse.

On top of the loss of state funding, the city faces an additional revenue shortfall of up to $10 million resulting from the Covid-19 shutdown. That includes loss of sales tax money and other fees, fines and payments that have decreased.

Altogether, then, the city could face a budget hole of up to $22 million  about 9% of the annual budget.

The budget shortfall has already forced Walsh to furlough 104 employees, mostly in the parks department. The city also canceled permits for festivals and other public events through the rest of the year. Thats due to health concerns and the lack of money to pay for safety and security.

The city is preparing to offer an early retirement incentive and has put a freeze on new hiring and all non-essential spending. Walsh also canceled a planned class of new police officers originally scheduled for this year.

But further cuts are likely if the city doesnt get help from the state and federal governments. Those cuts could include closures of city facilities, expense cuts, service reductions and, if needed, layoffs. Walsh said cuts will be made in phases over the next 90 days, with the most extreme measures saved for last. If federal aid doesnt come soon, though, he said those cuts will be unavoidable.

Unfortunately all of this is still very much on the table, Walsh said. The stakes are extremely high.

Walsh has said his administration is preparing a contingency budget to enact if the city doesnt get outside aid.

Hes reiterated the need for federal funding for Syracuse and Onondaga County. Other, slightly bigger cities like Rochester have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal assistance in Congresss first stimulus package earlier this year.

Syracuse missed out on that package because it didnt meet a population threshold of 500,000 people.

We need the federal government to act, Walsh said. This virus is impacting all of us and we need help.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will visit Syracuse Friday as part of a tour of Upstate cities in need of funding. Shell visit Syracuse Fire Station 1 to call for legislation to provide direct relief to cities like Syracuse.
Syracuse, N.Y.  What should a new flag for the city of Syracuse look like? A group of local leaders wants your help to decide.

Adapt CNY, a community organization, is collecting ideas for what should be represented by a new flag. Those ideas will be used to guide a public design process for a new flag.

Eventually, the group will solicit flag designs and create a jury of citizens to vote on the best ones. Options will then be presented to the public and the Common Council.

Adapt CNY is spearheading an effort to replace Syracuses flag, which currently is the citys seal on a white and teal background. That flag has been described as objectively ugly by at least one lawmaker.

The flag breaks every principle of good design for a flag, as outlined by the North American Vexillological Association, a group of flag scholars and enthusiasts. Those principles are:

Keep it simple

Use meaningful symbolism

Use 2-3 basic colors

No lettering, no seals

Be distinctive or be related.

Mayor Ben Walsh said hes looking forward to seeing a flag that better represents the city.

A flag is so much more than fabric and a symbol, Walsh said. It is the representation of the past, present and future of a place and of the character of the people who live there.

Last fall, Adapt CNY gave a presentation to the Common Council outlining the value of a strong flag on community pride and the citys identity. The group wants to develop a process with public input to adopt a new flag.

The flag has been a back-burner issue for Councilor-At-Large Michael Greene since before he took office nearly two years ago. Greene has said he recognizes there are larger issues facing the city, but that doesnt mean lawmakers should ignore the small, achievable projects.

Greene last year said Syracuses flag is objectively ugly. It breaks almost every rule dictating what a strong flag looks like.

Syracuses flag has the potential to be a great symbol of civic pride Greene said this week. With so many talented people in our community, I am truly excited to see the outcome of this citizen-led process.

Other cities have undertaken similar efforts in recent years, including Tulsa, Oklahoma and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Adapt CNY will hold a virtual meeting on Thursday, July 23 to give an update on the project. Details for that meeting will be available at www.adaptcny.org.

To get involved or share your ideas, email info@syracuseflag.com or visit www.syracuseflag.com.
Florida education Commissioner Richard Corocaran and other leaders want schools to fully reopen in the fall, as officials fear children may fall behind in their curriculum if online education is the only option. they only use distance learning. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who shut down Florida schools in mid-March to slow the spread of the virus, said the states school districts have leeway to create their own solutions to do so.
Syracuse, N.Y.  The fundraising campaign to open two city pools reached its $100,000 goal this morning, fueled by big donations from National Grid, Key Bank and the Central New York Community Foundation.

The money will be used to open the public pools at Thornden Park and Onondaga Park.

Last Friday, Mayor Ben Walsh announced a fundraising campaign by the Syracuse Parks Conservancy to pay for the lifeguards and other staff needed to open two city pools. The pools were set to remain closed as part of budget cuts caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Walsh furloughed 104 employees earlier this year, including those who staff the pools.

In less than a week, the fundraiser reached its goal. More than 450 people and organizations chipped in to raise the money needed to open the pools. Thursday morning, National Grid donated $10,000 and Key Bank and the Community Foundation donated $5,000 each.

As of 11 a.m. the fund had reached $104,000.

A message on the fund-raising page thanked donors large and small for helping reach the goal:

We made it! Thank you to our donors  large and small  for helping put 100+ youth to work this summer and for helping provide valuable leisure time and outside time in two more of the Citys pools.

The Thornden Park and Onondaga Park pools will open on July 23.

Once the pools open, the city will enforce social distancing rules. People will be required to make reservations to swim in 40-minute blocks. No more than 50 people will be allowed at the pool at any time, in accordance with state rules for gatherings.

Masks will be required on the pool decks and in the restrooms.

The city previously announced plans to open two other city pools.

The pools at Kirk Park and Schiller Park will open July 16, with open swimming permitted seven days a week from noon to 6 p.m. The pools also will offer lap swimming from 6:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. The city will charge $3 per visit for lap swimming.
Independence Day in Upstate New York is typically festive with big parades, and fireworks.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, large gathering of crowds is just too risky for cities, towns and villages to handle. Normally, NYup.com publishes about 150 events with fireworks, now its a little more than a dozen.

Communities which are celebrating often resort to a drive-in format - come see the fireworks, but remain in your vehicle. This weekend, here are a few places to check out below.

Amenia, July 4

Where: Silo Ridge Field Club Equestrian Center (Keane Stud), 217 Depot Hill

Time: Gates will open to vehicles at 7:30 p.m. Fireworks to start at 9:30 p.m.

Binghamton, July 3

Where: NYSEG Stadium, 211 Henry St.

Time: Kicks off with movie at 7:30 p.m. and fireworks afterwards. Cost is $15. Movie playing is Dolittle.

Cortland, July 3

Where: Private property on east side of Cortland. Residents can watch the show from most areas in the city.

Time: 10:15 p.m.

Cuba Lake, July 3

Where: the dam off Route 305 opposite Moonwinks Restaurant and the inlet is around the lake between Rawson and Abbots Roads.

Time: Ring of Fire starts 9:30 p.m. and fireworks at 10 p.m.

Hamilton, July 4

Where: Colgate University  Drive-in event at Whithall Field.

Time: 9:30 p.m.

Hornell, July 4

Where: Veterans Memorial Park, James Street

Time: 10 p.m.

Kingston, July 4

Where: TechCity Parking Lot, 300 Enterprise Drive

When: The lot will open to cars at 7:30 p.m. and fireworks will take place at dusk.

Lafayette, July 4

Where: LaFayette Apple Festival Grounds - enter on Tully Farms Road

Time: music by Matt Chase and the Thunder Canyon Band is at 6:30 p.m., food trucks at 7 p.m., and fireworks at 9 p.m.

Lockport, July 4

Where: Transit Drive-In, 6655 S Transit Road Lockport

Time: Gates open 6 p.m., all parking will be on a first come basis only. All tickets will be advance internet sales only, no same day sales or walk-ins. Regular admission fees will apply with no upcharges.

Margaretville, July 4

Where: the drive-in event will be on the village park grounds and along Route 28.

Time: bbq pickup starts at noon and fireworks at 9:15 p.m.

Oswego, July 5

Where: Launching will be from the Railroad Pedestrian Bridge over the Oswego River.

Time: 9:45 p.m.

Piseco Lake, July 3

Where: over Big Sand

Time: 9:30 p.m.

Queensbury, July 3

Where: A fireworks display will be launched from the top of West Mountain so people can enjoy it from their own yards and homes. Note: West Mountain property will be closed and you will not be able to enter.

Time: after dark

Rhinebeck, July 4

Where: Dutchess County Fairgrounds, 6636 Route 9

Time: Gates will open to vehicles at 7:30 p.m. Fireworks to start at 9:30 p.m.

Schaghticoke, July 4

Where: Liberty Ridge Farm, 29 Bevis Road

Time: bbq dinner, live music, and conclusion of fireworks run from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Cost is $17.76 and you must do online tickets, no admissions available at the gate.

Ticonderoga, July 4

Where: Bicentennial Park, Montcalm Street.

Time: 9:45 p.m. The Park will closed (no sitting on the lawns). You may park a car nearby throughout the area to watch the fireworks.

Town of Johnsburg, July 4

Where: Ski Bowl Park in North Creek

Time: 8 p.m. and spectators must stay in their cars

Town of Stillwater, July 4

Where: Browns Beach

Time: 9:15 p.m. Parking fee of $5

Village of Tupper Lake, July 4

Where: Tupper Lake Municipal Park, 17-19 Demars Blvd.

Time: Starts at dusk and attendees require to stay in their cars.

Wappinger, July 4

Where: Dutchess Stadium, 1500 Route 9D

Time: Gates will open to vehicles at 7:30 p.m. Fireworks to start at 9:30 p.m.

MORE NYUP

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Chris Sommerfeldt | New York Daily News

Its all about the Benjamins.

A couple of Republican senators rolled out a proposal Wednesday to cancel Columbus Day and replace it with Juneteenth, saying they dont want to just list both dates as federal holidays because that would put us further in debt.

Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and James Lankford of Oklahoma made the fiscally hawkish suggestion in an amendment to a bipartisan bill that would make Juneteenth a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery without tinkering with Columbus Day.

We have offered a counterproposal that does not put us further in debt, Johnson said in a statement. We support celebrating emancipation with a federal holiday, but believe we should eliminate a current holiday in exchange.

Johnson made clear he does not want to get rid of Columbus Day over concerns that the holiday honors a man who enslaved and brutalized Native Americans.

Rather, Johnson said he and Lankford picked Columbus Day because its lightly celebrated and its cancellation would be least disruptive to Americans schedules.

Lankford added in a statement of his own: Juneteenth is a day in our history that redefined the meaning of freedom and equality in America ... We should celebrate these strides on the federal level while remaining cognizant of the impact the existing 10 federal holidays have on federal services and local businesses.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who introduced the original bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, voiced skepticism about the Johnson-Lankford amendment, telling The Hill that it would dilute the message were trying to send.

I think thats problematic, he told the outlet.

Cornyn, whos facing a potentially difficult reelection campaign in November, has courted support for his bill among plenty of Democrats, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, as Congress continues to grapple with the countrys history of racism in the wake of George Floyds death.
Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who was accused by many women of helping procure underage sex partners for Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday in New Hampshire, the FBI said.

Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent travel companion on trips around the world, was taken into custody around 8:30 a.m., said FBI spokesman Marty Feely.

Epstein killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges. The details of the charges against her weren't immediately revealed.

Messages were sent Thursday to several of Maxwells attorneys seeking comment. She has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some of the claims against her absolute rubbish.

Among the most sensational accusations was a claim by one Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew at her London townhouse. Giuffre bolstered her allegations with a picture of her, Andrew and Giuffre that she said was taken at the time.

I wonder if Prince Andrew has suddenly discovered he does sweat after all? pic.twitter.com/mcgDQLHcJ9  Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 2, 2020

Andrew denied her story.

Maxwell was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the highest-ranking employee of Epsteins alleged sex trafficking enterprise. She oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal the activity from law enforcement, the lawsuit alleged.
Tahlequah, OK (74464)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 51F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 51F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
The McCloskeys  hes 63 and shes 61  are both personal injury lawyers and their home is on a private street called Portland Place in St. Louis well-to-do Central West End. Their attorney, Albert Watkins, said the couple are long-time civil rights advocates and support the message of the Black Lives Matter movement. He said they grabbed their guns when two or three protesters  who were white  violently threatened the couple, and their property and that of their neighbors.
Florida Department of Health reported 10,629 new COVID-19 cases statewide during the week of June 11-17, bringing the cumulative total since March 2020 to 2,310,881. Forty-three more people died, upping the death toll to 37,555.
Shelby Hughes of Kimley-Horn, a planning and engineering consultant, discusses a sanitary sewer project with Doug Izzo, a St. Pete Beach city commissioner and government affairs director with the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce, on Feb. 11 during a forum. City officials said projects such as this one, which will start in July, have started to pay off.
Floridas Department of Business and Professional Regulation amended its order that prevented bars and pubs from selling alcohol to allow sales if they are licensed to serve food, as long as they follow the rules.
But campus life will be much quieter than when students left. Only about 30% of UCF classes will be taught in-person this fall. Courses with more than 70 students will be online. Masks will be required in most indoor settings, including classrooms. Additionally, many double-occupant dorm rooms have been converted to singles, reducing the number of beds on campus by about 450.
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ShortShifter BHPian

Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Land of Nizams Posts: 998 Thanked: 1,615 Times

View My Garage





Re: Hyderabad: Cops foil thieves' attempt to flee with Ferrari Stating some facts which the media is as "USUAL" wrongly attributing to:



1. Car was not stolen from a neighbours house but from the owners house itself and when the owner was away at work.



2. The car was stolen by the same dealer who apparently sold the ferrari to the owner who also happens to be a very close friend of him. The family members who handed over the keys to the dealer did not suspect him as he was a close friend of them. Also the transfer process was handled by the dealer who had illegally transferred it to an accomplice by means of forgery & bribing RTO officials in Delhi and had fled to the USA in the mean time while the owner was waiting for the transfer process to his name to be completed, unaware he was being conned.



3. The car was not gonna be driven till Delhi but modus operandi was it would be shipped via container and be sold to another unsuspecting buyer.



4. Also the folks berating the wing, its a custom Carbon Wing inspired by the track only 458 GT3, also sports a full IPE Exhaust and a Stage II Remap. The car was supposed to be tracked on BIC for CBC Supercar Drive 2020 which got postponed due to Covid-19 so kindly spare some thoughts on "Form over Function".



Kudos to the police who acted on time before the car had vanished away, the clincher being the dealer had shared social media stories of ripping the car on the streets prior to being caught, and car spotters spotting the car in the City. It has been an overall antagonising experience to the owner who had purchased it as his dream car.



Lessons to be learnt:



1. Never ever trust a single entity High End Car dealers, they are at most punters if not con job artists who will make you run around the country once the payment has been made to them. Always choose reputed Multi Brand Used car dealerships which are plenty now a days, make your own research about the dealer before approaching them. Always Insist for two sets of keys and never settle for a single key.



2. Always do the ownership transfer process by yourself or speak to the required RTO official personally and keep track of the process if appointing someone else to do the job.



3. Apprise your family of never handing over the key to someone without the you (the owner) confirming it, even if its a close friend or relative as well.



4. Install GPS trackers in your high end cars to make sure its traceable in an event it gets stolen. Last edited by ShortShifter : 2nd July 2020 at 14:10 .


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There has been a lot of debate in the public sphere around the degree and kind of legal regulation a society should apply to online speech. While the dialogue has become more intense and urgent in the last few years, the effort to impose limits on Internet speech has been contentious from the start. At the present juncture, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is undergoing reconsideration.

It's easy to take knee-jerk stances on Internet speech regulation, but they generally do not achieve as satisfactory or sustainable end results as stances that are grounded in an appreciation of history. In fact, it is precisely hasty judgment and foggy understanding of the Internet's sheer novelty that got us to this fractious juncture in the first place.

That's why I want to present a brief overview of Internet regulatory history: to do my modest part to set the conditions for more enlightened outcomes. I owe much of the research that informs this treatment to a book called Blown to Bits, by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen and Harry Lewis.

If you are interested in getting a fuller, but still digestible, understanding of how radically new and unprecedented the Internet is, it is worth checking out, which you can do for free (it's licensed under Creative Commons).

The Wild Wide Web

Let's start at the beginning, but we won't spend too much time there. The Internet began in the 1960s as a military research project run by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, which since has been renamed "DARPA" (the "D" standing for "Defense"). It was devised as an outage-resistant communications medium, so that the downing of strategically placed telecommunications nodes would not prevent messages from being sent.

To be precise, it was meant to be an alternative to traditional telecommunications, like telephone lines, which would fail if the Soviet Union leveled the right city.

The Internet accomplished its goal brilliantly, and it still does what it was built to do. It effortlessly reroutes data packets on the fly, without a centralized architecture, to get them where they're going as long as any path between the source and destination exists.

To test this, ARPA partnered with the country's most prestigious universities and research firms and linked them all together. For a while, the only people on the Internet were the researchers at those institutions, as this 1970 map of the Internet shows.

By the 1980s, the Internet opened to the public, but it was so arcane and inaccessible that only a small cadre of private and public sector players -- and, as it turned out, their family members -- had any contact with it. Home computers ran in the thousands of dollars, making them impractical to most but obtainable for some. Large corporations had started using the Internet as part of their operations, so some of their employees followed suit at home to get in more practice.

Government-employed computer scientists were among the first to have Internet-connected devices in the home. A lot of the first wave of hackers, as well as progenitors of "cyberspace" culture overall, were the children of those professionals, who used their parents' devices to rove around the bulletin boards of the early Web.

Computers really proliferated among consumers in the 1990s. Email started to be a regular part of the lives of American adults. However, by the time consumers -- and crucially legislators -- first encountered abusive online behaviors that merited regulation, a robust tradition of total freedom already had taken root.

Bulletin board services were accustomed to operating without interference, and Internet service providers (ISPs) were content to deliver the bytes and leave the rest to someone else.

It was the dissonance between the reluctance of longtime users to give up their taste of freedom and the outcry from consumers and politicians appalled by the abuses of a few that begot the whiplash in Internet regulation.

There's a Sheriff in Town

There were really two types of content that shaped speech on the Internet: defamatory content and obscene content, especially any that could harm children. In the analog world, many different parties must work together to facilitate the expression of speech, but they bear different degrees of legal responsibility for objectionable speech.

Authors always bear the greatest responsibility, since the speech is their own. Publishers are also responsible, because they wield editorial control over the author's words, meaning they know what the authors they publish are saying and, by extension, signed off on it.

Distributors generally aren't held culpable, because they usually don't know, and aren't expected to know, the content they are distributing. Think of newspaper delivery kids: It's not their job to read the newspaper and make sure it doesn't contain any falsehoods or obscenities.

These categorizations of parties in the content production chain seem reasonable and intuitive enough, but what lawmakers, judges and Internet users found was that applying them to the Internet was no simple matter.

In trying to bend the Internet content apparatus into a shape resembling the analog one, lawmakers generally can regulate only a few parties.

They can regulate authors who reside within U.S. jurisdiction. Alternatively, they can regulate the author's ISP, but also only if it operates within U.S. jurisdiction. Finally, lawmakers also have the option of regulating the consumer's ISP and consumers themselves, based on the assumption that the consumers are in the U.S. (just as Americans benefit from U.S. anti-defamation and anti-obscenity statutes due to their assumed physical residence within the reach of U.S. law).

A legal scuffle between two online bulletin board services in 1991 marked the first time that U.S. courts affirmatively affixed a classification -- author, publisher or distributor -- to an online player. Back then, the company CompuServe maintained a rumor forum, Rumorville, which posted content provided by third parties. The key detail is that CompuServe did not review any of the material it received -- it merely posted whatever its contracted content producers provided.

Another bulletin board operator, Cubby, propped up Skuttlebut, a competitor to Rumorville. Shortly afterward, a rumor cropped up on Rumorville alleging that Skuttlebut was phony, and because Cubby saw this as CompuServe spreading falsehoods to edge it out, Cubby sued CompuServe for defamation.

In Blown to Bits, the authors characterize the case this way: "Grasping for a better analogy, the court described CompuServe as 'an electronic for-profit library.' Distributor or library, CompuServe was independent of [its content creator] and couldn't be held responsible for libelous statements in what [the creator] provided. The case of Cubby v. CompuServe was settled decisively in CompuServe's favor."

In other words, when the dust settled, online platforms were deemed to be distributors, meaning they were off the hook for any objectionable content their users or providers transmitted via their platform.

That's why the next landmark court case took online platforms completely by surprise. It started out in much the same way as Cubby v. CompuServe, with a bulletin board getting hit with a libel suit. In 1994, an anonymous user on Money Talk, a finance-focused board owned by Prodigy, accused the firm Stratton Oakmont of "major criminal fraud." Stratton Oakmont sued Prodigy for libel, begetting Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy.

That case came with a twist: Eager to engender a family-friendly atmosphere on its boards, Prodigy openly advertised that it moderated its platforms to scrub them of obscene content. The court found that detail compelling, and it ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

"By exercising editorial control in support of its family-friendly image, said the court, Prodigy became a publisher, with the attendant responsibilities and risks," wrote Abelson et al.

To the court, it did not matter that fact-checking went beyond the scope of Prodigy's intentions through its moderating. If a platform moderated at all, it took on an editorial role, which would make it liable for anything and everything it hosted. Thus, the decision discouraged bulletin board services from taking on any editorial duties, lest they find themselves on the hook for objectionable content.

The Perfect Torrent

Would you believe me if I told you that an ethically suspect scientific study, sensational journalism, and overzealous senators led to the most influential Internet speech law ever passed?

Strange as it sounds, that's exactly what happened.

A shocking cover expose, "CYBERPORN," was published in Time magazine on July 3, 1995, and it immediately set off moral panic in Washington. It later emerged that the researchers behind the study at the heart of the story used unethical methodologies.

For example, they compensated participants for providing material that reinforced the author's confirmation bias (that the Internet was rife with pornography), and published their work in what masqueraded as a peer-reviewed journal but was little more than a student paper.

Those in Congress seeking to stem the tide of profane Web content found themselves in a jam, because after Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy, no one wanted to touch content moderation. The result was the near-unanimous passage of the Communications Decency Act, or CDA, in 1996.

The law had two key components -- the "display provisions" and the "Good Samaritan provision."

The display provisions took aggressive aim at "obscene and indecent" content that could end up on a screen in front of a child. Among other things, the display provisions made it illegal for "any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs."

Additionally, the law included a Good Samaritan provision, which makes up the heart of Section 230 (and which "Section 230" generally is invoked to reference). Its language accomplishes two significant feats.

First, it shields any "interactive computer service" from liability for the consequences of making good faith efforts to remove "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" content.

Second, it classifies these services as "distributors" in the meatspace analogue: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

The ACLU challenged the CDA in ACLU v. Reno on the grounds that it unduly limited legitimate First Amendment speech, and got the display provisions struck down as unconstitutional.

As Judge Stewart Dalzell stated in the majority opinion, "It would chill discourse unacceptably to demand age verification over the Internet from every person who might see material that any adult has a legal right to see."

The crux of the defense's case was that the Internet should be regulated the way TV is, but the court rejected the comparison as inapt.

"The Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The Government may not, through the CDA, interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion," Dalzell wrote.

Good Samaritans, Questionably Good Outcomes

Notably, the Good Samaritan language of Section 230 was left intact in the ACLU decision. Although this is the regulation public discourse now swirls around, that case did not mark the first time it sparked controversy. Indeed, problems emerged immediately.

One test of the law played out in 1997 when Matt Drudge posted allegedly defamatory statements about Sidney Blumenthal, an aide to President Bill Clinton at the time, on AOL. Though AOL had editorial influence over the Drudge material it posted, the court ruled that the company was not a publisher, and therefore was not liable for libel. The opinion cites the CDA's Good Samaritan language.

In 1998, Jane and John Doe (in this case, a mother and her son) sued AOL because it allowed a user to sell pornograhic material made of John when he was a minor. In its user agreement, AOL reserved the right to terminate service for any user who engaged in abusive behavior. The Good Samaritan provision also was cited in that case to absolve AOL of responsibility.

Abelson et al. sum up the problem: "Congress had made the muddle possible by saying nothing about the right analogy after saying that publishing was the wrong one."

The Law of the Cyberland

With this historical overview complete, we are more or less caught up to the current technological epoch.

Section 230 remains one of the few forces incentivizing content moderation among online platforms. The fatal flaw here is that so long as they can argue convincingly that their actions were in good faith, they are immune to legal consequences.

Granted, it has been established that online services lose their liability protection if they are notified of the commission of federal crimes or intellectual property theft and take no action, but Section 230 is nearly absolute otherwise.

As a result, online platforms have wide latitude to create and enforce whatever community standards they choose. If the speech standards enforcement is excessive, deficient or lopsided, a platform's operator can hide behind the good faith defense, innocently claiming that nobody's perfect.

True as that may be, free speech advocates contend that should not serve as a blank check to decide arbitrarily who can "speak" on a platform, and on what terms.

The other contributing factor is, as I like to say, "there are no sidewalks on the Web." Nearly the whole of the Web -- specifically the Web, as distinct from the Internet -- is private property. The First Amendment restrains the government from censoring Americans' speech.

Because sidewalks, for example, are public property, the government can't tell you what you can and can't say while you're standing on one (with a few exceptions for public safety). However, the First Amendment does not apply to private entities, which is what most Web platforms are. If you register to a social network, you consent to its rules, including those that prohibit certain kinds of speech.

Just as the Web of the 80s and 90s was settled by pioneers, only for lawmakers to catch up gasping for breath, the trailblazers have kept pushing on to leave civil servants in the dust once again. Measures that seemed robust enough in the late 90s are beginning to groan under the weight of newer and more sophisticated usage patterns on the Internet.

Daunting as it is to keep up, as members of a society we must do our best, which requires an appreciation of how we got here. The alternative is to make decisions on the spur of the moment, which are unlikely to withstand the test of time, and too likely to wreak havoc along the way.

Jonathan Terrasi has been an ECT News Network columnist since 2017. His main interests are computer security (particularly with the Linux desktop), encryption, and analysis of politics and current affairs. He is a full-time freelance writer and musician. His background includes providing technical commentaries and analyses in articles published by the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights.




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This story was originally published on April 27, 2020. As a result of popularity, it is presented today as part of our Best of ECT News series.

Some of the corporate responses to COVID-19 make me incredibly happy I don't work for a large company anymore. Some of the troubling reports from other companies include forced work in unsafe areas, not enough -- or any -- protection gear, massive layoffs and furloughs, and the sense that a critical mass of well-paid CEOs and politicians don't get that many people live paycheck to paycheck.

If I were to focus on that, however, it would just get you and me depressed, and none of us need help getting depressed now.

There are exceptions though. One company I follow stepped up, thanks to HR VP Tracy Keogh and CEO Enrique Lores. Of the responses I've reviewed so far, they stand out for moving aggressively to protect not only its employees' lives but also their quality of life.

I'll explore their approach and close with my product of the week: iProov, a facial recognition product that overcomes the problem of deepfakes without needing a special camera. It is being used to help with social distancing at scale for government and banking, and would be useful for healthcare.

What Sets Apart HP

HP is a vastly different company. It was split off from the old Hewlett Packard, and then-CEO Meg Whitman saddled it with the declining businesses and most all the combined firm's massive debt. Those decisions almost immediately put the firm on deathwatch. I recall talking to one of the competing CEOs who thought then-CEO Dion Weisler got so excited about becoming CEO he didn't realize it was a death sentence.

However, he did know the risk. Starting in crisis forced the firm to rethink its operating policies and procedures, governance, employee measurement systems and corporate rules. In effect, HP came close to tossing out everything and starting over, making the firm into one mammoth startup.

The result was a firm that was more focused on customer and employee care, and less focused on making Wall Street happy than its parent was, and HP was far more agile as well. Internal communications were stronger, the focus on creating and maintaining trust was stronger, and employees had a far higher priority in terms of their care and feeding than previously had been the case.

One other difference was that Tracy Keogh took over as HP's head of HR. Keogh has an MBA from Harvard and has seen 35 of her employees advance to lead other HR departments. This is important, because it is rare to get this level of talent in HR. In many companies, HR is just a compliance organization led by executives who failed in some other part of the business.

The practice of placing underperforming executives in HR never has made sense to me, given that employees, not executives, are the ones responsible for a firm's success. HP is now a showcase of what a firm can do when it has the right talent in HR and at the top of the company.

One of the other exciting things addressed at the split -- something other firms are struggling with -- is board diversity. HP is diverse at the top, not just at the bottom.

HP's Execution

HP is a multinational with a substantial presence in China. Internally it generally knew what was going on when the virus outbreak was just starting, and didn't have to depend on the unreliable messages the rest of us were seeing. HP took the threat seriously early and moved to acquire personal protective equipment (PPE) and protect employees in a timely way. It has been able to shift its PPE reserves from country to country, ensuring that employees who do have to come to work are protected.

Employees working in hot spot areas were housed close to their factories to help protect their families. Anticipating the outbreak, HP brought an epidemiologist on board and set up several HP medical clinics to help ensure that executives were getting accurate information and that COVID-related decisions were well informed.

The company's geographic spread gave it real-time information both on how to manage the shift to working from home and how to prepare to bring some people back to the office. For instance, HP already is working on employee testing plans so it can quarantine aggressively during the next virus wave.

They also recognizes that this COVID event isn't a one-time thing, and it already has prepared for a new world in which many employees, if not most, will continue to work from home. This already has changed its hiring priorities. People who can't relocate now are attractive candidates since they won't be coming into the office anyway.

HP understood that people working from home would have unique problems. The company is elping employees with programs to keep kids engaged and learning. It is working on virtual summer camps focused on STEM education. Recognizing the critical nature of interns as seed corn for future hires, HP didn't cancel the program -- it virtualized it.

It has rolled out new training, toolsets, and frameworks for managers because it recognized that managers are the critical link to ensuring operations, but many are untrained to manage highly remote staff.

It is fascinating and brilliant, because even those of us who had formal training in management weren't trained to deal with a staff working at home and fearing for their lives and the lives of their families. Some of the management meetings even included the manager's kids.

HP went beyond that with its nightly events. For instance, with the help of its partner DreamWorks, it implemented DreamWorks Fridays, so employees and their families could enjoy movies together.

Another session featured David Rock, who has a professional doctorate in the Neuroscience of Leadership, and serves as director of the NeuroLeadership Institute. His focus was on mitigating stress by helping people put words to their feelings.

There have been cooking classes, as well as financial planning classes (for those who still had finances left to manage). I wonder if having a homework club was wise? Kids have long memories.

Tracy and Enrique alternate updates to employees regionally. Employees can ask questions, which helps them feel connected to the leadership. It also informs them about what is going on, enabling employees to contribute to solving problems the executive staff is confronting.

Wrapping Up: Out of a Crucible of Fire a Sparkling Example of Excellence

HP was formed out of conflict. Surviving a near-death experience forged a unique family of employees who were backed by strong management. Together they stepped up to ensure that HP would emerge from this latest crisis successfully.

That level of employee care, engagement and execution is unique in the U.S. market, and it is to Enrique Lores' and Tracy Keogh's credit that I know of no other company that has pivoted so well during this crisis.

It also is a credit to HP employees that they stepped up and together have functioned as a family. I think it is a shame that HP is the exception and not the rule, and my reason for writing about the firm this week is that I hope others will emulate its approach. This kind of incredible employee care will replace layoffs and furloughs as the preferred way of meeting troubled times.

I'll close with this: Like you, I've heard the saying "when given lemons make lemonade," and I too thought it was BS. No longer, because that is precisely what HP did -- nicely done!

One of the big problems with so many employees, managers, and executives working from home is that their corporate security systems are not designed to prevent remote workers from phishing attacks. They can be contacted and fooled into thinking an attacker is a member of their company, even a top executive, and tricked into providing confidential information. We already know passwords and IDs aren't secure. Hell, at IBM we were alerting about passwords and IDs in the 1980s.

Facial recognition is compelling, but systems like Microsoft Hello require unique cameras that most folks don't have, and regular facial recognition can be fooled with video files. More recently, these systems can be fooled with Deep Fakes that allow remote attackers to convince you they are someone they are not.

What makes iProov different is that it is a cloud-based facial recognition service that analyzes the light on the face to ensure the person you are seeing is a real person.

I expect this technology eventually will migrate into some of the widely used video conferencing platforms like Skype, which are being used widely during the COVID pandemic, to make sure these tools aren't exploited to rip off companies and individuals.

One of the implementations is for border control, so that a live person wouldn't be required to validate someone coming into a country. (Border control agents are incredibly susceptible to becoming infected by a spreading virus.)

When it can be relied on, facial recognition is compelling as a second factor, but at this time my main interest is in using it to automate people-facing jobs that place employees at high risk of infection, to create a far safer world.

Because iProov solves a critical problem for healthcare, immigration, banking, people working from home, and security in general, it is 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.

Rob Enderle has been an ECT News Network columnist since 2003. His areas of interest include AI, autonomous driving, drones, personal technology, emerging technology, regulation, litigation, M&E, and technology in politics. He has an MBA in human resources, marketing and computer science. He is also a certified management accountant. Enderle currently is president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, a consultancy that serves the technology industry. He formerly served as a senior research fellow at Giga Information Group and Forrester. Email Rob.


Yes, well protect your constitutional rights as long as you remain under the umbrella of peaceful protest or peaceful march, but the second that you step out from under the protection of the constitutional, we will be waiting on you and we will give you everything you want  all the publicity, all the pain, all the glamour and glory, he said, while standing in front of nearly 20 male deputies.
SpaceX has successfully started its 11th-year mission by loading a next-generation GPS Block III into space for the US Space Force.

On June 30, a shiny white Falcon 9 rocket hit the skies, launching from the Space Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Due to the high winds, the liftoff was 15 minutes behind schedule, but a final check showed the launch was a "go." and the rocket had a spectacular showing the afternoon.

Also Read: SpaceX is Cleared for Falcon 9 Launch; Has the Weather Favorability Improved?

SpaceX launch is part of the continued effort to upgrade

The launch is part of the Defense Department's continued effort to update GPS satellites in space, Space.com reported. It also marks the Pentagon's formal acceptance of Musk's concept of recovering and reusing efficient and cost-effective rocket launches, The Wall Street Journal wrote.

Around 20 years ago, the constellation of aging GPS satellites was launched and technology changed through time. For years, Pentagon space managers skeptical about the vertical landing and reuse of rockets flying outside the atmosphere. There were many concerns that the primary mission has reduced fuel reserves when fuel has to be reserved to slow down the return booster before its landing on a specially equipped recovery vessel.

However, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. decided to marginally reduce the costs for the new release in exchange for Pentagon permission to seek and exchange the most costly and most significant portion of the booster. This was after lengthy negotiations between Musks' crew and military launch officers.

Also Read: NASA's Space Station Program Manager Retires As International Space Station is About to Upgrade

What are its features?

It is the third GPS satellite of its kind designed by Lockheed Martin to be launched and linked to two others, as it already is in space. The second satellite was launched in August 2019, on top of the very new Delta IV Medium rocket in December 2018 and on another Falcon 9 rocket.

Space force estimates that the GPS spacecraft launched on this flight provides expanded capacities, enhanced protection, and effects for up to four billion users worldwide. The GPS will enter a geosynchronous orbit and work onboard with other existing GPS III satellites and with other previously operating US-operated GPS satellites.

Several new features are also included in the revamped spacecraft. For example, in other navigational constellations such as Europe's Galileo constellation, it can communicate with satellites. This allows users to connect to even more space-based satellites, making them even more accurate. The new load of GPS satellites also has a longer lifespan, which will enable them to live longer in space.

Col. Ediward Byrne, a senior executive of the Medium Earth Orbit program, said the new GPS 3 satellites would provide "gold standard of position, navigation and timing." He added that the new GPS satellite has three times better accuracy and up to eight times improved anti-jam capabilities than its predecessor.

Three rockets were launched by SpaceX in June. July is another busy month for the private company due to the delay of its latest Starlink mission. The next Starlink mission is scheduled for launch on July 8 and will carry two BlackSky earth observation satellites.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos saw his wealth grow to $171.6 billion this year. Even after the settlement of his divorce last year, he surpassed his own record.

In September 2018, Bloomberg's Billionaires Index previously set Bezos' net worth to peak at $167.7 billion. Still, by 2020 alone, Bloomberg reported he accrued at least $56.7 billion this year. The Seattle-based retailer's shares stood on Wednesday, July 3, at a total of 4.4%, to a new high of $2,878.70.

Amazon's shares only grew steadily as stay-at-home orders and lockdowns pushed consumers to e-commerce rather than brick-and-mortar shopping, DailyMail reported.

Also Read: Amazon 'Happy to Lose' Customers Who Oppose Black Lives Matter Stance After Jeff Bezos Shares Abusive Email

Amazon's Jeff Bezos just became richer

After surrendering one-fifth of its Amazon's share last year to his former wife, Bezos still saw his fortunes rise.

After having received several concerns regarding the termination due to COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon said it would spend just over $500 million to pay nearly all its front-line employees one-time $500 bonuses. The company has declined to comment on the wealth of its founder.

Bezos holds a solid 11% of its overall stock that threatens the overwhelming share of his own properties. His income for this year was $56.7 billion, which underlines the rising wealth disparity in the US in the present-day worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Initial public offerings (IPOs) and their booming stock markets have now enhanced massive fortunes. All of which happened when tens of millions of people have lost their only jobs.

Also Read: What Pushes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to Pledge $10 Billion to Fight Global Warming?





New members of billionaire's club

The tech industry has brought forth most of those billions with the largest wealth gains, including Tesla. Since January 1, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has added $25.8 billion to his net worth. It has only quadrupled the net worth of Zoom Video Communications Inc.'s founder Eric Yuan to $13.1 billion.

Other individuals who have benefited from these businesses are Mackenzie Bezos. She has earned 4% of the entire Amazon business after a split, shot down their net worth of $56.9 billion, and also risen to the top 12 of the Bloomberg list.

Recently Mackenzie Bezos leapfrogged overJulia Flesher Koch and Alice Walton, which made her into the second richest woman in the world. Only now, she is trailing L'Oreal heiress, known as Francoise Bettencourt Meyers.

Not all billionaires came forward this year. The billionaire behind the fast-fashion chain Zara, Amancio Ortega from Spain, has lost $19.2 billion, half of the index Bloomberg. Hathaway Inc. Berkshire Chairperson Warren Buffett has dropped $19 billion, and French tycoon Bernard Arnault's luxury goods is down by $17.6 billion.

The decline was mainly weathered. The world's wealthiest 500 individuals now have a net worth of $5.93 trillion, compared to $5.91 trillion at the beginning of the year.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
READ ALSO: How to Track My Husband's Phone Without Him Knowing People were surprised when Google released an affordable version of its Pixel 3 model last year. It easily became one of 2019 amazing smartphones. When Google announced on Wednesday, July 1, that it has discontinued producing Pixel 3a, people clamor for its Pixel 4a descendant.

In a statement published by Android Police, Google confirmed that it has stopped producing the Google Pixel 3a.

"Google Store has sold through its inventory and completed sales of Pixel 3a. For people who are still interested in buying Pixel 3a, the product is available from some partners while supplies last," Google said in a statement.

READ ALSO: How to Track My Husband's Phone Without Him Knowing

Released last year, Google Pixel 3a is the company's answer to customers' need for a more affordable smartphone with an excellent camera, a clean Android version, and access to Google's latest features. For less than $400, the phone was more appreciated than the Pixel 3 and 3 XL flagship models because of its strong values.

As of Wednesday afternoon, July 1, the United States Google Store shows Pixel 3a as "Unavailable" from "Out of stock" until late June 30. This generally signifies that a product has reached the extent of its retail life."

However, this means those who shop for a great affordable phone might have to look for another model, although some retailers who still have stock may continue to sell the Pixel 3a until their supplies last. Currently, there are still units available in the United Kingdom Google Store while the U.S. was sold out.

Unless Google Pixel 4a becomes available, shoppers may consider getting other models like the iPhone SE, Xiaomi Mi Note 10, or Samsung Galaxy A smartphones.

Is Pixel 4a really coming soon?

Discontinuing devices happens around the same time when a newer version is released. This was the case when Apple dropped the iPhone XR at the iPhone 11's launch. Similarly, Samsung Galaxy S10 was discontinued on the same day the Galaxy S20 is launched.

Thus, the cessation of Google Pixel 3a could suggest Pixel 4a may be released soon. As rumors claim it will be released this month, others suggest it will be unveiled alongside Pixel 5 and all of Google's 2020 devices at a big launch event by the end of the year.



Since it is already July, it is likely then that Pixel 3a's discontinuation paves the way for the arrival of Pixel 4a. This could be great news for those hunting for a cheap device.



Aside from the rumored launch date, leaked information said Pixel 4a will only be available in a single size of 128GB of storage, which is priced at $349, unlike the Pixel 3a, which also came in bigger 3a XL model.Earlier rumors said the 4a would have 64GB of storage for $399, but it seems Google would offer more storage at a cheaper cost after Apple reboots the iPhone SE.



Without clear announcements of the 4a release, Google still has no replacement product yet for the 3a, so consumers have no choice but to look for other alternatives or wait for some time to get another phone.

Read also: Here are the Best Drones with Cameras From Amazon that Even Beginners Could Use

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A new hacking method is found in the disguise of fake text messages. If you happen to found SMS chats on your phone saying that you have a delivery package, waiting to arrive at your doorstep, don't ever open the websites on the chats. It's a trap to get your personal details such as credit cards, contact lists, and more.

Don't have any missed delivery package? Don't open texts saying you do

On Wednesday, July 1, ZDNet reported the newest scam that mainly targets most online shoppers out there. Here's how they do the scam.

First, phone users will be receiving a series of fake text messages saying that they have missed delivery packages in their local postal office. A phishing link to their local office's post office or a government agency website is linked in the said text messages. Users will be required to open the said link and download an app posing as the fake United States Postal Service app.

Just in case, users will be alarmed with the sudden download of mysterious phishing files. Then, the system will automatically transfer the page of the link to the real website. In this way, victims won't identify that they are being scammed or anything.

After this, the malware will ask you a series of privacy questions in order for the app to allow them access. Since its a government postal office, users are likely to check 'allow' in all privacy inquiries.

Once installed, all the files in your phone, including name, phone number, contacts, bank, and cryptocurrency wallet details, as well as monitoring text messages and app users will be saved by the malware.

Same Old Story

Here's another news about this hacking scheme. The scam is no longer a new thing in the hacking world.



The report said that infamous FakeSpy malware was behind the said security issues, and the targeted victims were users across Asia, Europe, and North America.



This group has been one of the most famous hacking campaigns in the world. It has been active since 2017 but only initially targets Japan and South Korea back then.



If you think that you've already been a victim of this scheme, here's what you should do, according to expert.



"Users should apply critical thinking and be suspicious of SMS messages containing links. If they do click on a link, they need to check the authenticity of the webpage, look for typos or wrong website names, and most of all - avoid downloading apps from unofficial stores," Assaf Dahan, senior director and head of threat research at Cybereason, told ZDNet.



"Deleting the fake application through the application manager is a good way to mitigate this threat. In addition, having a mobile security solution can detect and remediate the threat," he added.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Tehachapi, CA (93561)

Today

Mostly sunny. High near 90F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low 57F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
The fugitives identity was not released, but authorities said he has multiple warrants out for his arrest and is wanted nationally.
Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats were scheduled to be one of three headliners for the 27th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, Sept. 18-20. Festival officials announced Wednesday they were canceling the festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Courtesy photo)
Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email please call (208) 542-6777 for help.
Changes to The Messenger's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition by default is now presented in Text view.
Polling officials use tables to create a social-distance barrier between them and area voters Tuesday at the Pontotoc County Agri-Plex. Some election officials even used the eraser-end of pencils to push ballots across the table rather than handing them directly to voters.
ADA [ndash] Wanda Lee Brewer, 91, of Ada, Oklahoma passed away Sunday, June 13, 2021, in Ada. Services for Wanda will be held Thursday, June 17, 2021, at 10 a.m. at the Estes-Phillips Funeral Home Chapel, with Bro. Roger Arter officiating. Interment will follow at New Bethel Cemetery. For up
In his address to the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Monday Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri called on the international body to encourage negotiations to reach an agreement on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

The UNSC meeting was held upon Egypts request after Ethiopia said it would go ahead with filling the dams reservoir in July with or without the approval of Sudan and Egypt.

It is Egypts belief that any agreement on the GERD must be a legally binding instrument under international law that includes clear definitions that establish the threshold of significant harm that must be prevented, and a binding dispute resolution mechanism to ensure the effective implementation of the agreement, he told the UNSC during his video-conference speech.

He described the dam as a threat of potentially existential proportions that could encroach on the single source of livelihood of over 100 million Egyptians.

UNSC members agreed during the meeting that tripartite talks between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia should continue and warned against any party adopting unilateral actions.

Sudans permanent representative to the United Nations, Omer Siddig, said that close consultation and coordination is required in discussing the impacts of the dam and that reaching an agreement before beginning the filling of the reservoir is essential. He added that any decision on the timing and the rules of the filling must not be taken unilaterally.

Instead of discussing the problems facing the negotiations Taye Atske-Selassie, Ethiopias permanent representative to the UN, chose to argue that the UNSC was the wrong place to discuss the dam.

Ethiopia does not believe the issue being discussed today has a legitimate place in the Security Council This council should not be a forum for exerting diplomatic pressure, he told the session.

In a move widely seen as a last-minute attempt to bridge differences Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan agreed to what Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, described as an AU-led process to resolve outstanding issues.

This is a positive step, says Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamed Hegazi. At this point we need leadership, negotiations in good faith and a legally-binding agreement, he said.

Professor of political science Tarek Fahmi agrees the involvement of the AU represents a positive step and that any resolution of the issue requires a clear and legally binding agreement. Drawing rules for the initial filling and the operating process is not enough. We are not in need of general guidelines, but an agreement that the parties have to legally abide by, he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

William Davison, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, expressed his hope that as time becomes more pressing the parties may be more willing to compromise.

Perhaps as the scheduled start of filling moves closer, and the pressure increases, the parties will start to make concessions in key areas, especially if AU facilitation manages to foster a better atmosphere. But ultimately, there are still significant disagreements on legal issues and drought management so there is a need for the parties to seek compromises in a manner that they have not been willing to do so far, he told the Weekly.

Last weekend the presidents office announced that Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa agreed that Ethiopia will delay the filling of the dam and refrain from taking unilateral measures before an agreement is reached. Sudans Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdouk also issued a statement saying the three countries had agreed to postpone the filling of the reservoir until an agreement is signed.

The announcements came after a video summit between the leaders of the three countries on Friday. They agreed to form a committee of legal and technical experts to draft the deal. Cyril Ramaphosa, South African president and current chairman of the AU, headed the meeting.

A day after the summit Ethiopia issued a statement that differed from those issued by Egypt and Sudan.

Ethiopia is scheduled to begin filling the GERD within the next two weeks, during which time construction work will continue. It is in this period that the three countries have agreed to reach a final agreement on a few pending matters, a press release by the Ethiopian prime ministers office said.

Davison noted that Ethiopias stand with regards the filling remains firm. Despite the confusion, Ethiopia seems to be sticking to its plan to start filling in the middle of July regardless of whether there is a deal or not, he said.

Fahmi argues that Ethiopia is in effect treading water, and if the committee fails to reach an agreement it will take a unilateral decision to fill the dam.

Although Mondays UNSC session is in essence procedural, Fahmi believes it is a clear sign the dam issue has become an international one rather than the concern of the three countries directly involved.

Hegazi says Mondays session offered an opportunity to correct falsehoods that Ethiopia is trying to spread by claiming that all the previous agreements on the dam date from the colonial era.

Shoukri told the UNSC session that every treaty relating to the Nile that was concluded by Ethiopia was signed by its government, free of any compulsion or coercion, and as an independent and sovereign state.

These include a treaty freely signed by the emperor of Abyssinia in 1902 prohibiting the construction of any works across the Blue Nile that affect the natural flow of the river, and a General Framework for Cooperation, freely signed by Ethiopias late prime minister Meles Zenawi and Egypts president in 1993, in addition to the 2015 Agreement on Declaration of Principles. Needless to say, all of these treaties remain binding and in force.

Besides, notes Hegazi, Ethiopia referred to colonial agreements in demarcating its border with Eritrea. Colonial treaties (1900, 1902 and 1908) were the basis for the Algiers agreement signed in Algeria in 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea. That was the agreement that put an end to the border war between the two countries.

Last month, Egypt sent a memo to the UNSC asking it to intervene to restart talks on the dam and warned that filling the dam without a deal threatened international peace and security.

Sudan sent its own letter to the international body last week stating that the dam could cause substantial risks to Khartoum and endanger the lives of millions of people living downstream. The letter also warned that filling the dam without reaching a tripartite agreement would compromise the safety of the Sudanese Roseires Dam.

In November last year, the US and the World Bank joined forces in an attempt to broker a deal. After four months of talks the three countries reached an agreement, but Ethiopia failed to turn up to the signing ceremony in February.

Egypt, which relies on the Nile for more than 90 per cent of its water supplies, fears the impact of the dam if the filling starts without an agreement guaranteeing a minimum annual flow of water. Sudan also opposes initial filling without an agreement.

The sticking points in the talks include finding a legally-binding mechanism for conflict resolution, provisions that reflect the legally binding nature of the agreement, technical issues related to mitigation measures during periods of drought and prolonged drought, the long-term operating process and details of the technical committee that will run the dam.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Marley is just like any other dog now in Orange County, said Chadwicks lawyer Marcy LaHart. Chadwick can take down the bad dog signs that he was required to post on his property. He can take his dog anywhere he wants, including his own shop.
New unemployment claims across Louisiana increased again last week as the state is dealing with an uptick in coronavirus cases and leaders hit the pause button on reopening the economy into Phase 3.

There were 21,976 first-time unemployment claims filed last week, up from 19,524 claims the week before.

By comparison to more typical numbers, there were only 2,206 new unemployment claims for the same week last year.

Existing unemployment claims increased as well to 306,089 last week from 300,389 the week before.

Economists predicted Louisiana would face a slower recovery than the rest of the nation; the state's unemployment has recovered the fifth-slowest in the nation as of last week.

In the Baton Rouge metro, there are 52,291 existing unemployment claims as of last week, about 31,520 of which are in East Baton Rouge Parish. There were another 3,226 new claims in Baton Rouge last week, up from 2,939 new claims for the week ending June 20.

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In the Lafayette metro, there are 30,506 existing unemployment claims as of last week, 13,904 of which are in Lafayette Parish. There were another 2,465 new claims in Lafayette last week, up from 2,121 claims for the week ending June 20.

In the New Orleans metro, there were 105,482 existing unemployment claims as of last week, 41,816 of which are in Orleans Parish and 37,248 were in Jefferson Parish. There were another 1,666 claims in Orleans Parish last week, up from 1,589 first-time claims for the week ending June 20. In Jefferson Parish, there were 1,432 new claims as of last week, compared to 1,461 claims for the week ending June 20.

In Louisiana, new unemployment claims for workers in food services and accommodation continue to lead statewide job losses; 3,383 new claims were filed last week; 2,770 unclassified workers; 2,355 retail trade losses; 2,338 construction losses.

Louisiana spends half of its $1 billion unemployment fund. So what happens in the coming weeks? Louisiana has burned through nearly half of the $1 billion fund it uses to pay benefits to unemployed workers and could deplete the fund withi
Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Thursday that one of his State Capitol staffers tested positive for COVID-19.

The person, who Edwards did not identify, was at a media briefing and attended internal meetings. Twelve other staffers had close contact with the person and were advised to self-quarantine.

Tests came back Wednesday night but the person has shown no symptoms, the governor said in a press release

Coronavirus outbreak: Louisiana traces hundreds of cases to bars, more than 100 from Tigerland The Louisiana Department of Health has traced at least 230 cases of the coronavirus to bars across the state, including the more than 100 case

We are monitoring our team and, should it become necessary, will be offering testing to our staff members and tracing their contacts to determine who needs to self-quarantine and who could be at risk, Edwards said.

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According to a release from the Governor's office, Edwards is not "considered a close contact of the person who tested positive," which is defined as someone "who likely had exposure within six feet of a person who is infected for at least fifteen minutes."

An Edwards staffer, April Dunn, died three months ago from COVID-19 complications.

Coronavirus is back 'with a vengeance' in Louisiana; officials are ramping up testing, enforcement As Louisiana continues to experience worsening coronavirus trends, state and federal officials are ramping up testing sites and will start to 

As I have said over and over again, COVID-19 is alive and well in Louisiana, and all of the people of our state need to take this illness very seriously. Please wear a mask when you are in public, stay home if you feel sick or have been directly exposed to someone who is confirmed to have COVID-19, wash your hands frequently and keep at least six feet of social distance from other people when you are in public, Edwards said.
Wearing a face mask will be required inside East Baton Rouge Parish businesses starting Thursday, but Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome's order won't be enforced in Zachary and Central, those cities' mayors said Wednesday.

"The decision to wear a mask at local businesses in the City of Zachary shall be left up to the business owner," Amrhein said. "The City of Zachary will continue to require masks upon entering city owned properties.

Central Mayor David Barrow posted a video on his city's Facebook page Wednesday afternoon stating masks wouldn't not be mandatory within his city limits also.

"It is your personal choice and the choice of individual businesses," Barrow said. "Please continue social distancing, washing your hands, and other preventive measures."

Zachary and Central are located in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Louisiana saw the largest single-day increase in reported coronavirus cases in nearly three months on Wednesday. The state reported 2,083 additional cases statewide.

East Baton Rouge was the second-highest parish for additional coronavirus cases on Wednesday. There were 227 more cases diagnosed in East Baton Rouge Wednesday.

Face masks will be required in East Baton Rouge businesses starting Friday Face coverings will now be required in East Baton Rouge Parish businesses, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome announced Wednesday.

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Broome said the case spike accounts for the third-highest increase since the pandemic began in March. The first Louisiana case was announced on March 9.

"We cannot afford to return to a stay at home order," Broome said.

As the economy has begun to re-open from stay-at-home orders aimed at halting the spread of the virus, there has been a resurgence of coronavirus cases that has alarmed local, state and national health officials.

In East Baton Rouge Parish, the percentage of coronavirus tests that came back positive rose from 2.5% to 10.3% between the week ending June 21 and the one ending Sunday, an Advocate analysis of state data shows. Experts say high percentages of positive tests suggest increased spread of the virus.

Coronavirus is back 'with a vengeance' in Louisiana; officials are ramping up testing, enforcement As Louisiana continues to experience worsening coronavirus trends, state and federal officials are ramping up testing sites and will start to 

Health officials have said the latest wave of cases is largely driven by increases among young adults, which is different than the first wave.

In Baton Rouge, there has been a particular focus on bars and restaurants, many of which have closed temporarily as staff report coronavirus symptoms. The state Department of Health last month declared an outbreak in bars in the Tigerland area near LSU's campus, urging those who visited those bars to self-quarantine.
Starting Friday, anyone who leaves their house is required to wear masks or face coverings in Baton Rouge and parts of East Baton Rouge Parish, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said Wednesday.

The executive order will be effective from noon Friday through Aug. 3, and will be re-evaluated before that end date, city-parish officials said Wednesday.

The executive order will place Broome among the handful of regional leaders, as well as other mayors in other states, who are requiring masks be worn in public as the newly diagnosed coronavirus cases in their cities and regions spike to alarming levels.

Broome's order primarily requires people wear masks and face coverings inside businesses and places where there are large crowds as the city-parish heads into Fourth of July weekend.

She originally said the order would go into effect Thursday, but pushed it back a day after business leaders asked for additional time to comply.

The mayor says she doesn't intend to lift the order until there's a positive trend in the parish's coronavirus data.

"It's times like this when leadership is not often embraced with popularity; when you have to make tough decisions," Broome told reporters during her announcement on the mask mandate, "(but) these are small sacrifices that will allow us to progress forward without the threat of reverting back to a stay-at-home order or Phase 1 reopening."

It appears the order won't be enforced across the entire parish, with Zachary, Central and Baker opting out.

Three hours after Broome's announcement, Zachary Mayor David Amrhein posted a statement to the city's Facebook page saying the mask requirement will not be enforced within Zachary city limits.

"The decision to wear a mask at local businesses in the city of Zachary shall be left up to the business owner," Amrhein wrote. "The City of Zachary will continue to require masks upon entering city owned properties."

John Bel Edwards on mask mandate: 'There would be issues' with enforcing it Gov. John Bel Edwards may have held a briefing to wrap up the Louisiana Legislature's final day of special session, but the press had just as 

Central Mayor David Barrow posted a video on his city's Facebook page Wednesday afternoon stating masks would not be mandatory within his city limits also.

"It is your personal choice and the choice of individual businesses," Barrow said. "Please continue social distancing, washing your hands, and other preventive measures."

Baker Mayor Darnell Waites is urging residents and business employees to wear masks and face coverings and gloves when in public, even though Broome's order excludes Baker.

Section 15:5 of the city-parish's Code of Ordinances grants the mayor-president the power to issue executive orders in the interest of protecting the public's safety and welfare during declared civil emergencies.

Any violators of those orders face misdemeanor fines not to exceed $200 and/or no more than 60 days in jail, according to section 15:6 of the city-parish's Code of Ordinances state.

Broome said she wouldn't be dispatching local law enforcement officers to seek out violators, rather she wants businesses to implement "no masks, no service" polices.

Her decision was met with praise from Gov. John Bel Edwards as well as most of the Democrats on the Metro Council, while many of the Republican council members scoffed at it, mirroring the political divide that has erupted at the national level over wearing masks during the pandemic.

Council Pro Tem Scott Wilson and Councilwoman Denise Amoroso echoed the sentiments of the mayors in Central and Zachary.

"I think businesses should be making the policy and if a person doesn't like that a business is not requiring masks, then an individual has the choice not to go there," Wilson said.

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Amorso added, "People need to take personal responsibility for themselves. If you're uncomfortable about going out, then don't go."

Broome also didn't rule out shutting down bars in the weeks ahead if the parish's coronavirus cases continue on their troubling trend.

"It will be considered if we don't see people adhering to mandatory mask covering," she said.

The state on Wednesday reported 2,083 additional cases statewide.

East Baton Rouge was the second-highest parish for additional coronavirus cases reported on Wednesday, with 227 more cases.

Broome said that over the past 11 days, the city-parish saw a 33% increase in the number of individuals admitted to hospitals for COVID-19. And over the same time period, the percentage of residents testing positive for the respiratory virus has nearly doubled for 6% to 11%.

Eight more coronavirus deaths over the past week in the parish were reported Wednesday.

Coronavirus is back 'with a vengeance' in Louisiana; officials are ramping up testing, enforcement As Louisiana continues to experience worsening coronavirus trends, state and federal officials are ramping up testing sites and will start to 

The governor, during a separate press conference Broome also attended Wednesday, said the surges being seen at the state and local levels are not because of Phase 2 guidelines that relaxed many of the mitigation measures, but because of "people's behavior."

Broome shared similar sentiments in her press conference, claiming she had seen a troubling number of people out in public and patronizing businesses without masks or face coverings.

"We all know masks dont stop the spread of the virus, but masks and face coverings do reduce the risk of spreading it to those around us," she said. "This face covering policy will ensure businesses can remain open. This policy is rooted in common sense measures of the medical community."

Metro Council members LaMont Cole and Donna Collins-Lewis both characterized the mayor's decision as a step in the right direction. Collins-Lewis said if residents don't want to face being ordered to stay-at-home again, they need to adhere to the new mandate.

And Cole thinks it's "necessary for the safety of all citizens" but also acknowledged that enforcing it could become a challenge.

Councilman Matt Watson, who has already announced a mayoral campaign this fall, expressed his own concerns over enforcement and has reached out to the Parish Attorney's Office for clarity.

"I certainly want the community to be safe and healthy, but when I get (business owners) calling me, wondering how they're going to regulate this for one business where you have people consuming food compared to another that doesn't," Watson said. "How does one enforce this with equality under the law from one business to another?"

Watson also pointed out that local law enforcement has been trying to make fewer arrests since the pandemic began to lessen the prison population and reduce the chances of infection there.

"It seems contrary to have people get a misdemeanor for a new crime that has been created when previously we were trying to not serve as many misdemeanor summons," he said.

Councilwoman Tara Wicker, who also intends to run for mayor-president this fall, said local businesses are already struggling to survive the recession the pandemic lockdown created so she's concerned how Broome's order will affect them.

"It's not our local businesses' job to police this," Wicker said. "Overall, I think we've done a decent job of telling people how to keep themselves safe. I'm really not sure if this is the direction we want to be heading at this juncture."
A divided East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Wednesday approved a three-year contract for new superintendent Leslie Brown that will pay her an annual salary of $255,000 a year, plus benefits.

The vote was 6-3, and there were several testy exchanges during the meeting.

The board members voting no  Tramelle Howard, Dadrius Lanus and Evelyn Ware-Jackson  expressed concern that Browns salary is too high compared with comparable school districts, along with doubts about the car and technology allowances she will be receiving.

Board President Mike Gaudet, who led the negotiations with Brown, defended the deal.

These (issues) were discussed and it was determined that this is the best deal we could get, Gaudet said.

After a lot of questioning, Gaudet threw down the gauntlet: If you dont like it, you can start the year without a superintendent.

That prompted an immediate negative reaction.

We cant move forward as a board if were going to be disrespecting each other, Lanus told Gaudet. Then Lanus demanded that Gaudet "address the disrespect" he'd shown, but Gaudet continued on with the meeting.

+4 What's next for Baton Rouge's new school leader? Reopening schools, equity issues Watching online from her parents home on Lake Sherwood in Baton Rouge, Leslie Brown had to wait more than seven hours, until early Friday mor

Brown, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, educator, won't officially take over as superintendent until Aug. 1. Her contract will continue through June 30, 2023. She is replacing Warren Drake, who has led the school district for the past five years.

After the meeting, Gaudet said Brown is already working remotely to get ready and hes expecting her to be working in Baton Rouge by July 20.

Howard, the boards vice president, participated with Gaudet in the contract negotiations, but was not ready to agree to the terms reached. Howard said he couldn't attend the second of two negotiating sessions with Brown and that both were called at the last minute. He said he was surprised Gaudet had agreed to a salary of $255,000 a year, when between $230,000 and $250,000 would have been more appropriate.

Howard also said Gaudets if you dont like it comment was out of line.

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If we cant ask questions and were just supposed to be rubber stamps on this board, we can get the hell up off of it and go somewhere else, Howard said.

This will be Brown's first superintendency and the overall terms of her new contract are less generous than those in Drakes contract. Drake came to Baton Rouge after having spent a decade running the Zachary school district, the leading school district in the state academically.

Browns proposed annual base salary of $255,000 is slightly less than the $257,000 a year Drake currently makes. Drakes overall compensation package is valued at more than $400,000 a year. Gaudet did not estimate the value of Browns contract, but said its a significant reduction compared with Drake's.

Brown, like Drake, can earn additional performance pay. But hers is capped at $10,000 a year, compared with a cap of $20,000 a year for Drake, and she won't be eligible for that until the second year of her contract. The board and Brown have between now and next June to work out what her performance goals will be.

Brown not earning that $10,000 offsets her higher base salary, Gaudet argued.

Gaudet also said that the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and how that has scrambled public education makes it hard to come up with immediate performance measures.

Its just that we dont know what (those measures) should be right now, Gaudet said.

+23 After midnight, a Ft. Lauderdale educator was narrowly selected to lead Baton Rouge schools Ending a yearlong search and after a meeting that stretched past midnight, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board selected an administrator 

On June 18, Brown edged out by a 5-4 margin the other finalist for the job, Nakia Towns, chief of staff for Hamilton County, Tennessee, schools.

Here are some of the differences in Browns compensation:

No automatic pay raise. Brown will get a raise only if teachers get a raise as they did this past school year. Drake received a 3 percent annual pay raise.

Smaller retirement payments. Starting in July 2021, Brown is to receive a tax-sheltered annuity worth 8% of her salary, or $20,400. Drake has a retirement account which paid him $86,511 this past year; that's the equivalent of what the school system would have paid if Drake were participating in the states teacher retirement system.

Annual car allowance of $10,000 and electronics allowance of $3,000. Drakes annual allowances are $18,000 and $6,000, respectively.

Medical and other insurance benefits that other educators in the school system are eligible for. Drake currently receives a $6,000 annual allowance to purchase his own insurance.

Brown is chief of portfolio services for Broward County public schools, the seventh largest school district in the nation, with more than 270,000 students. Thats more than six times larger than East Baton Rouge Parish schools, which have more than 41,000 students.

Brown, 62, has spent 41 years in education in Florida, including seven in her current position. Its a job where she oversees an array of magnet, charter schools and special programs. She is one of 10 chief-level administrators and one of more than a dozen people in the senior cabinet.
The president of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday called for the resignation of board member Connie Bernard, becoming the fifth member of the nine-person panel to ask her to step down.

"I now respectfully ask Mrs. Bernard to resign her office as a member of the EBR School Board," said Mike Gaudet in a statement released on his Facebook page.

On June 22, Gaudet had issued a statement critical of Bernard for apparently shopping during a June 18 School Board while the board was debating whether to rename Lee High School to a name not associated with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. At the time, Gaudet stopped short of calling for Bernard's resignation.

+4 Connie Bernard's resignation deadline expires; here are the next steps after recall petition filed After resisting widespread calls to resign, embattled East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member Connie Bernard is facing a recall petition t

That same day, the four African American board members  Dawn Collins, Tramelle Howard, Dadrius Lanus and Evelyn Ware-Jackson  called for Bernard's resignation for her behavior at that meeting as well as for a June 10 TV interview where she said people offended by the name of Lee High should "learn a bit more" about the general.

Bernard has vowed to serve out her third term, which ends Dec. 31, 2022. She is a fighting an effort to recall her from her District 8 seat.

The School Board, under Louisiana law, does not have the ability to vote off one of its own members.

Bernard apologized for her June 10 comments, but has insisted she wasn't shopping at the June 18 meeting; she said a pop-up ad on her laptop failed to close. Witnesses who saw her that night immediately questioned her denial. And on Monday, the school system released her internet browsing history from her School Board laptop and that history suggests she was shopping online during much of that board meeting.

Gaudet alluded to the browser history information in in his statement Thursday. He said he's changed his mind because of "new information that has come to light which shows her public statement on the issue was, in my opinion, misleading."

Was Connie Bernard shopping during school board meeting? Records show her web browsing activity Connie Bernard, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member who denied accusations of online shopping during a recent board meeting when t

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"I believe this erodes her ability to retain the confidence of the public that we serve," Gaudet wrote. "We work diligently to improve public education in East Baton Rouge and without public confidence, our job is more difficult. Most critically the children, with whose education we are entrusted, will suffer the greatest in the long run.

"I do not make this request lightly," Gaudet said. "I know that Mrs. Bernard takes her responsibilities to represent all children seriously. She is an elected official and her voters need a voice."

Gaudet, however, said he is staying out of the recall effort directed at Bernard.

"I respect the wisdom and authority of the voters in her district to make that decision. It is their decision to make and theirs alone," he said.

Gaudet's statements leave just three board members who have yet to weigh in on the issue: Mark Bellue, Jill Dyason, David Tatman.

Soon after Gaudet posted his statement, Lanus, who is leading the recall effort, responded on his FB page: "Checkmate #ByeConnie."

Bernard did not respond to a request Thursday by The Advocate for comment.

Meanwhile, the Urban League of Louisiana also called for her to step down, saying on Thursday that Bernards behavior is not in line with these values nor in the best interest of our students or our community and we believe she should immediately resign.

The organization's statement came from Judy Reese Morse, its president and chief executive officer, as well as state Rep. Ted James, who serves as its director of operations in Baton Rouge.

The incidents, that have now been reported worldwide, are not isolated, but represent a pattern of poor judgment, dishonesty, and a brazen lack of respect for all of the children that she purportedly represents, according to the statement.
While we are pleased that the court supports continued litigation to arrive at the truth and, more importantly, disputes Disneys low valuation of their own property, we are concerned about the broad nature of the ruling on the use of the Rushmore method, Singh said in the statement. The DCA may deem it inappropriate for the Disney hotels at issue, but their ruling could impact thousands of properties in Florida.
The promise of low-cost hydrogen storage to power our homes and businesses may be a lot closer to becoming a reality if new technology developed and owned in Australia can make a speedy transition from the lab.

The country has more than 2 million homes with solar panels and new large-scale solar and wind farms are jostling for access to the power grid.

Professor Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou holds some of the metal material that his team has developed that can store hydrogen in a solid state. Credit:Janie Barrett

University of NSW researchers led by Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou say they have developed metal alloys capable of storing surplus electricity in the form of hydrogen much more cheaply than lithium batteries to take advantage of the renewables rush.

"You can call me an alchemist, if you will," Professor Aguey-Zinsou said, laughing. "It is a game changer in how we use electricity - it's like the internet revolution."
Antoinette Braybrook, who is chief executive of Aborginal family violence organisation Djirra, loves Gorman. She wore a Gorman jumpsuit when she gave a speech at the Sydney Peace Prize last year. But she has one she bought just before isolation for $180 on special and its hung in her cupboard ever since. Its all the colours: red, blue, purple, yellow, green. Its beautiful but lonely  ready to be dressed up but theres nowhere to go. But shes got more Gorman plans. The labels running a competition for artists who want their work to be featured in Gormans 2021 capsule collection. Braybrook hopes that an Aboriginal designer wins  thats one way to raise the visibility of Aboriginal creators. Gorman has competitions all the time  lets make the next one for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander designers and models only, she says. Poh Ling Yeow The cook, author, television host and MasterChef super contestant has always been a big fan of Unik Space, an Australian minimalist online clothing retailer that dabbles in homewares and gifts.

Illustration by Jo Gay Credit: I bought a long black linen coat from Unik Space for $420 just before lockdown she says. As Ive gotten older, Im totally into the cost per wear philosophy of buy very few but good quality things.

Poh was planning to wear the 100 per cent linen coat  which can also double as a maxi dress  to a MasterChef media launch event in April. But when lockdown hit at the end of March those hopes were dashed. Though that doesnt mean she wont get wear out of it. Id wear it anywhere  its perfect for day or night, casual or dressing up. Victoria Lee The Australian model and David Jones ambassador is nothing if not loyal to her employer. I was in Melbourne just before lockdown and managed to squeeze in a visit to David Jones right before I flew back to New York City, she says. I bought a beautiful Celine cross-body bag from the store. I had no particular event in mind when I bought it. Its just the perfect size for out and about during the day, so as you can imagine its still in its dust jacket! Lee says she hopes to use it when shes out with friends again, which I hope isnt too far away.

Tim Blackwell

The co-host of Novas afternoon shift bought himself a Limited Edition LA Lakers Bomber jacket. Illustration by Jo Gay Credit: To be clear, Ive been a Lakers fan since I was a kid, and I bought it online after scrolling through Instagram (after a beer or two) and seeing Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers wearing one court-side, Blackwell says. It only took him three clicks and it was his, arriving about a week before lockdown. For the benefit of my wife, who didnt think it was really my look' to begin with, the lockdown has made me see the error of my ways and I think itll work best as a nice bit of memorabilia to sit and collect dust in the wardrobe and maybe one day passed on to the kids.

As for whats next, Blackwell is maybe a little regretful. I did have my eye on a completely impractical Gucci jacket  but with three kids and a house reno about to start, I feel its wise to let that one go. Michele O'Neil

The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions used to be the national head of the textile workers union and spent 28 years fighting for the rights of those workers. Just before lockdown she was just near the South Melbourne markets and saw the perfect skirt. It was this incredibly beautiful night sky blue pleated skirt with a gold lurex waistband, from Frankies Melbourne. I live in a fantasy about what I think I will wear and what I end up wearing, she says. Which means she bought it just because she loved it. Its not suitable for a picket line or for parliament, not the right thing to wear to the market or to a mass meeting. But its one of those beautiful things.
As of July 1, former Australian chief justice Murray Gleeson, QC, had not renewed his practising certificate with the NSW Bar Council, nor had former High Court judge Michael McHugh, SC. The NSW Bar Council did not respond to repeated requests for information regarding the two senior justices on Thursday. McHughs Eleven Wentworth Chambers did not respond to a question regarding his certificate and whether he planned to renew. Of course, the High Court investigation into Heydons alleged misconduct recorded a claim that Gleeson and McHugh were told of their colleagues behaviour. Gleeson headed the court for a decade until 2008, while McHugh served on the court from 1989 until 2005. Details from the report included an account of how McHughs then-associate Sharona Coutts claimed that in 2005, Heydons associate Rachael Patterson-Collins had said "Heydon tried to kiss me and I had to push him off me!" Coutts told the investigator she had informed McHugh, who allegedly replied that he was "truly shocked". A day later, McHugh allegedly told her he had passed the information on to Gleeson. Gleeson has rejected an account of the events as "false", without going into detail. PAST EXPERIENCE Rio Tinto boss Jean-Sebastian Jacques has injected some fresh blood into the miners top ranks, which are still dealing with the fallout from the companys destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site.

Rio announced this week that London-based Hungarian-Australian Peter Toth will now be in charge of what passes for Rios strategy and development as of October 1. Jean-Sebastien Jacques and Peter Toff. Credit:John Shakespeare Rio even mentioned Toths previous role as CEO of manganese miner OM Holdings as part of his vast mining experience, which is very relevant to its current woes. Toth was OMs boss in 2013 when it was fined $150,000 by the Darwin Magistrates Court for desecrating an Aboriginal sacred site in the Northern Territory. According to reports at the time, it was one of the very first convictions of its sort. Cracks started to appear at the sacred site near OMs Bootu Creek mine soon after the company used explosives to break up ground in the area in 2011. OM didnt respond to requests for comment about its old boss on Thursday. In a public statement following the judgement at the time in 2013, OM said it had contested the charges of desecration arguing it had never intended to damage the site. "The company never intended to harm, damage or disrespect the sacred site. We sincerely regret the damage and the hurt caused and unreservedly apologise to the sites custodians and traditional owners," Toth said at the time.

JS could not have put it better himself. In fact, CBD doesnt think he did with his statement last month. "We are very sorry for the distress we have caused the PKKP (Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people) in relation to Juukan Gorge and our first priority remains rebuilding trust with the PKKP," was the JS version of an apology. STOCKING THE SHORTEN BAR Heres one to file under "Politicians, theyre just like us". Locals in former Labor leader Bill Shortens home electorate of Maribyrnong spotted the opposition frontbencher on Tuesday night at a Dan Murphys liquor store buying a bottle of Grey Goose vodka. And probably with good reason too, given a lockdown in Melbournes COVID-19 hotspots includes Shortens home in Travancore.
One of the more remarkable things to have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the fragility of the digital platforms that many of us had come to rely upon.

As we moved into lockdown it appeared inevitable that Big Tech would thrive, providing the points of connection and information that would keep us anchored through these strangest of times. But it soon became apparent how ill-equipped these platforms were to anchor communities when facts matter. In those frenzied weeks when the public needed information about matters of life and death, they turned back to the traditional media outlets, even as the business models of those outlets were being destroyed by the dominance of those inadequate platforms.

In those frenzied weeks when the public needed information about matters of life and death, they turned back to the traditional media outlets. Credit:Wolter Peeters

It was a confronting dynamic: as traffic to news sites and public trust in them soared, a string of closures and job cuts across the industry saw local papers cease to print, major players shed hundreds of jobs and smart new start-ups hit the wall.

Meanwhile, on social media, conspiracy theories spread, actually making it harder to manage an ordered public response. Mental health experts were cautioning limiting social media usage if we didnt want to lose our minds.
Text messages between senior Education Department officials, released by Queensland's crime watchdog in a damning report, reveal their concern that former deputy premier Jackie Trad "didn't like" the principal-elect of a new high school in her electorate.

The report reveals attendees at a meeting between Ms Trad and the woman, who ultimately did not get the job, told investigators Ms Trad appeared "cold" and "unhappy" during the encounter.

The Crime and Corruption Commission's 178-page report cleared Ms Trad of any corrupt conduct in the selection of the new Inner City South State Secondary College principal, but uncovered serious flaws in the recruitment process at a department level.

The report details text messages between an Education Department deputy director-general and the selection panel chair, after they arranged for Ms Trad to meet the principal-elect, Tracey Cook. Ms Cook didn't know she was the successful candidate at the time of the meeting.
My housemate works in the city and despite only working at a call centre, they make her go in every day - with no regard for her living in a hotspot. I'm scared that she'll bring COVID home from her work and it'll make this whole thing worse. I can't make plans to visit my friends, because we don't know when I'll be out of lockdown. One of my best friends in the UK was due to visit in October - we don't think he'll be allowed in the country, let alone allowed to see us. I've got a decent supply of food, so if we do need to stay inside, I can manage it. But it's hard to face the prospect of another month within the same tiny two-bedroom apartment, only going out briefly for food and exercise. Despite all this, I think the government is doing the right thing. We can't risk Australia blowing up to America's levels of infection. Yes, it's awful for my mental health, but I'd prefer to deal with severe depression if the alternative is letting thousands of people potentially die. We're suffering to save lives and that's so incredibly important to remember and focus on - especially since the simple act of wearing a mask serves to help save people! - Heather I live in a locked-down suburb. I gave birth to my second child during the first lockdown and since then we have done everything right in the hope that our baby could meet her vulnerable great grandparents soon. We haven't even been out for a coffee or done any socialising. My husband works from home and I am on maternity leave so we have basically been house bound for almost 4 months now. All of our family and friends live in non-hotspot areas. We are happy to take one for the team here if this lockdown works in stopping the spread. But it will be hugely disappointing to us, after we've followed all the rules, if it doesn't. - Zoe My partner and I have been working from home since March and doing all of our shopping online. Even when the restrictions lifted we remained cautious and have not been going out much. So while the reimposed lockdown will not have a huge impact on our lives, it is a shame that we cant have the occasional visitor or go further afield for walks like we have been. It is slightly frustrating that we have been so cautious ourselves and yet are now in this situation. I would really warn people in other postcodes not to become too complacent as I think a hotspot could occur anywhere, its just bad luck that it happened to us this time. - Iain

I am currently housesitting in a non-lockdown hotspot but will have to go back home into a lockdown suburb next week. The thought of going back into lockdown actually brings me much comfort as it is clear that we should have done this sooner. If we've been through it before, we can get through it again! We've just got to look out for each other and support the vulnerable members of our community. - Anonymous Loading I am in the suburb of 3064, currently in lockdown. I have no complaints at all. I can still provide care to my mother-in-law and my mum when required. I am lucky to have a job and still able to shop for groceries when needed. I recently lost an elderly aunt in the States to coronavirus. Put things into perspective for me. I would do whatever I can to make it safer for all not just for my loved ones. Just because I am OK doesn't mean that I stop caring about those who may not be. We are truly "all in this together", just different people choose to look at the situation differently. - Dee Premier 'playing postcode lottery'

I am in postcode 3032. My mental health has really suffered as a result of the pandemic so far. Were all in this together died the moment the Premier decided to play postcode lottery. For the next month my netball team will train, my friends will go to restaurants and I will be at home trying to live with depression alone. - Anonymous Live in Ascot Vale (3032), other side of the road is Moonee Ponds (3039) and not locked down. My wife lost her tourism job back in March and I've been working from home since then. The newborn baby (6 weeks tomorrow) is the highlight in the house but we feel locked up again. Mentally it is draining and it's only day one again. We are being punished for something we didn't do and it just doesn't feel right. Grandparents who are overseas can't come to visit their granddaughter (until 2021?), it's unclear if the baby gets her 6 weeks immunisations as appointments are not booked in "because of COVID". Victoria is prioritising one virus over all other medical conditions. Right now we are saving lives by ruining others. Would like to invite Dan Andrews and Brett Sutton to join us in the area and go into lockdown with us all ... then we are truly in this together. - Paul Loading I live in the bottom corner of 3055. Feels a bit pointless to lock down the whole suburb when there were between four and seven cases in the area. If they're all spread out, then sure, I understand, but if it's one household it feels like collective punishment.

"We're all in this together" rings a little less true when I'm restricted to my apartment but the folks a few hundred metres down the road who shop at the same supermarket as me aren't. More detail and data on why my tiny suburb is being treated the same as an area with more than 35 active cases would be appreciated from the government. - Charlie We are in Ascot Vale and across the road (Maribyrnong Road) is Moonee Ponds which is not locked down. We have a five-week old baby so we were just starting to get used to people being able to drop by to support us and meet our daughter and now were isolated once again. Its made harder by the fact that my husband is Dutch and his parents have no idea when theyre able to fly over to meet their granddaughter. Meanwhile his family is on holiday in France! You cant help comparing situations. This lockdown already feels harder for us than the first one and we are pretty down about it. - Caitlyn As a single person with no immediate family and already working from home, a month in effective solitary confinement is utterly devastating, particularly when my suburb, Maribyrnong, really wasnt mentioned as a pressure point before its lockdown was announced. Literally all my friends are five minutes away, but all in non-lockdown suburbs. The sense of isolation is total and overwhelming. We are not "all in this together". - Deb If we haven't got COVID but are imprisoned in our own homes and others in the state aren't, we should be financially compensated for our time. Especially since my JobKeeper payments are due to end July 12 and I have no work to go to because of the restrictions again. - JP Its my first year out of university and my graduate year (a law grad) and instead of getting to know everyone at the firm and really bolstering my skills and my network, Im stuck working from home and now, stuck inside my home for the next month, despite the fact that my suburb has not recorded more than two cases - but a suburb within my postcode dropped the ball.

I know I should be more grateful that Im still employed and that I still have a constant income but, to be frank, the original lockdown took a major toll on my mental health but what got me through that was the fact that we were all in this together. This time around will be worse. I dont know how far Ill make it without just collapsing into a heap. I also think a months lockdown is incredibly unreasonable - the duration should have corresponded with the timing of the suburban testing blitz. If the numbers begin to go down and we still remain locked out of society, expect many people to begin to flout the regulations. - Anon Police begin day one of postcode lockdown enforcement in hotspot suburbs around Melbourne. Credit:Chris Hopkins This postcode by postcode hodgepodge lockdown only serves to muddy the waters of what has been a pretty farcical reopening message by both the federal and state governments. Now we are meant to shut down in one area but not another, behave differently if you're from one suburb but not another, or watch your neighbours across the street have access to a different standard of living because of an arbitrary line on a map that says you are in a hotspot. I'm in a locked down suburb (Ascot Vale) but the postcode line is on my street so the other side of the road, not 20 metres away is not in exclusion. To go shopping to my closest shopping centre (Flemington) means going out of the exclusion zone and once there I'm meant to behave as though I'm under lockdown but no one else there will be. I can't sit down for coffee while there but the person I've stood (respectively 1.5m away from) next to in the queue for the last 10 minutes can.

This needs to be a whole state lockdown not just by postcode if the Victorian Government wants to send a clear and concise message to the people of Victoria rather than this muddied, confusing reopening that we have seen over the last four weeks. If we want to keep people socially distancing we need everyone to do it, not just people in 10 postcodes spattered through the north-west of Melbourne. - Andrew I'm in lockdown but I feel for my local coffee shop more, it would be allowed to run as normal if it was just on the other side of Hoffman's road in Niddrie. Can't imagine they are too happy with Dan Andrews and his "sorry, we stuffed up the hotels and let the virus spread, our bad, here is 5k". Dan should have to give them all the money they are predicting they will lose over this month. - Zach We are a family of four in Brooklyn - 400 metres from the border of Altona North. We were due go on a holiday to see my Dad in NSW on Friday but that can't happen now and to give us a break from being at home since March, I just took my 8 -year-old son for a walk with the dog but all the playgrounds have been closed. There were quite a few people out for a walk at lunchtime. Our "treat" will be to go grocery shopping, which means we will walk to Altona Gate to get some exercise and get the kids out of the house. It is going to be a long month. This lockdown has created an "us and them" mentality. Whatever unity there was previously around this shared experience, has been eroded. - Jackie
Steve Henderson is one of two candidates seeking to become a judge in the 18 Judicial Circuit, which covers Seminole and Brevard counties. The Group 18 seat he and attorney Michael Peacock are seeking is to replace Judge Charles Roberts, who is not seeking election.
More than 1000 police including elite units will roam the streets of locked-down suburbs and drones will be deployed as the state battles to control rising COVID-19 cases.

The increased police presence comes as hundreds of residents dial into the state's hotline for reporting breaches of lockdown rules, with 500 calls in the hours before stay-at-home orders came into force in 36 suburbs.

Chief Commissioner Shane Patton. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Newly appointed Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said officers from the specialist critical incident response team, mounted branch and highway patrols would join frontline officers in patrolling locked-down suburbs for 24 hours a day from Thursday as part of operation Sanus.

He said 20 "shielding teams" made up of 160 PSOs and 80 transit officers would also be making sure people were following self-isolation restrictions.
Should those in hotel quarantine in Victoria or in the 10 Melbourne postcodes identified as COVID-19 hotspots be able to refuse a coronavirus test? The question is on the minds of many Victorians as they face a new peak in infections.

The question also raises complex issues about the proper balance between individual rights and community protection in a liberal democracy.

Police begin day one of postcode lockdown enforcement in hotspot suburbs around Melbourne. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Generally, individuals should be free to make their own decisions about any form of medical procedure or invasive form of testing that affects their bodily integrity. This is one of the hallmarks of a free society.

But equally, there is a strong moral case for protecting the community from the risk that those with COVID-19, who are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, might pass on. This is the essence of the harm principle: the idea that individuals should enjoy broad freedoms unless and until the exercise of those freedoms harms others.
Victorias peak building industry group has escaped criminal and civil penalties after a federal investigation found the state's Master Builders Association had been led for four years by people who were not legally entitled to their positions.

The 6000-member organisation, which reported revenue of more than $24 million last year, escaped fines from the federal governments Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) on a technicality and has promised to do better for its members.

Former Master Builders Victoria president Melanie Fasham in 2016. Credit:Paul Jeffers

The Australian Federal Police, called in by the commission to investigate allegations of criminal behaviour at the association, did not pursue a former executive accused of covering up the electoral irregularities, citing a lack of evidence.

In a rare investigation into an employer organisation by the commission, which targets the vast majority of its probes at trade unions, it found serious irregularities with the Master Builders board elections in 2016 and 2018.
Outlaw motorcycle gangs are setting up chapters in south-east Asia in a bid to move hundreds of kilograms of drugs into Australia, with federal police learning criminal groups plan multiple operations once coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal the Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force have this year busted an attempt to import 1053 kilograms of the party drug MDMA into NSW.

Members of the Mongols motorcycle gang in Thailand in October 2019.

A patched member of the Mongols Outlaw Motorcycle Gang was also arrested last month after a joint operation between the specialist federal anti-gang strike team and Border Force found he was allegedly involved in importing 25 litres of psychoactive drug GBL.

The Hells Angels have also been detected co-ordinating drugs from Malaysia to Australia, while the outlaw motorcycle club Satudarah held a regional meeting in Malaysia in September 2019. Satudarah is one of the most violent outlaw motorcycle clubs in the world and is known for its drug distribution in Europe, particularly the Netherlands.
NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro told his state Nationals colleagues he had personally voted for Labor ahead of the Liberals in last year's federal election, as a fresh round of Coalition infighting threatens to overrun the final days of the Eden-Monaro byelection.

Mr Barilaro, who had flirted with quitting state politics to contest the federal seat, on Thursday was forced to dismiss reports he and his Nationals supporters were again actively undermining the Liberals' bid to reclaim the marginal seat by urging them to give Labor their second preference.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro. Credit:Rhett Wyman

"We've got a how-to-vote card  you can't make it any clearer  where it says one (Nationals candidate) Trevor Hicks  two to the Liberal party, and then follow the card, or for all the voters in Eden-Monaro, to decide how they vote," he told reporters in Queanbeyan.

But the NSW Nationals leader further inflamed tensions by refusing to say if he voted for Labor ahead of the Liberals at the last election, when Liberal candidate Fiona Kotvojs contested the seat against Labor incumbent Mike Kelly.
Most Victorian clubs will exit the state after this round with only two games likely in Victoria next round.

The AFL was finalising the next batch of games in the fixture on Thursday night, to be released on Friday. Nearly all teams will exit the state, and there has been some consideration given to all teams immediately heading across the border, but an AFL source indicated it was likely two games would still be in Victoria in round six.

The Victorian clubs are all set for extended stints in interstate hubs. While the AFL is yet to confirm where, club and industry sources indicated the Western Bulldogs are expecting to join Geelong and Collingwood in Western Australia, Hawthorn and Essendon are tipped to head to the Gold Coast, and Melbourne are favoured to head to NSW. St Kilda and North Melbourne have also been linked to stints in NSW.

Manly, Coogee and Wollongong have been slated by industry sources as possible locations for the NSW hubs.
In Reagan, America had a leader who was responsible and forward thinking enough to respond when action was needed to safeguard our atmosphere. He also trusted our free enterprise system enough to recognize that business and industry were up to the task, and would adapt to the necessary change.
The data showing a gain of 4.8 million jobs does not reflect that governors of states hit hardest by the new infections have halted or reversed moves to reopen in recent days, however. The latest batch of high-frequency data assembled by Federal Reserve officials, economists, mobile phone tracking companies, and employee time management firms suggests economic activity stalled in recent days. "More than ever, we're concerned about the worsening health situation and its impact on the burgeoning recovery. Rebounding mobility and poor use of protective equipment will make for a dangerous summer cocktail," Oxford Economics analyst Gregory Daco wrote. Employment remains 14.7 million jobs below pre-pandemic levels.

The surge in cases comes as Americans head into a Fourth of July holiday weekend that health officials warn could add fuel to the virus by drawing big crowds. Many municipalities have cancelled fireworks displays. Beaches up and down California and Florida have been closed. Florida reported more than 10,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases for the first time on Thursday. That is six times higher than the daily count of less than a month ago. The state also reported 67 deaths for the second time in a week. Deaths per day are up about 30 per cent from two weeks ago. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott ordered that face coverings must be worn in public across most of the state, a dramatic ramp-up of the Republican's efforts to control spiking numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases and hospitalisations. Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Credit:AP Abbott, who had pushed Texas' aggressive reopening of the state economy in May, had previously said the government could not order individuals to wear masks. His prior virus-related orders had undercut efforts by local governments to enforce mask requirements.

The order requires all Texans to wear a face covering over the nose and mouth in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases, with few exceptions". Abbott also gave local authorities the power to limit gatherings to no more than 10 people. Meanwhile, the top US infectious diseases expert said on Thursday local time that COVID-19 vaccine candidates would enter late-stage clinical studies by the end of the month, with others beginning in August, September and October. The news comes as Moderna Inc, which is at the forefront of the country's vaccine development efforts, reiterated that a late-stage trial with 30,000 volunteers would begin this month. "We may be able to at least know whether we are dealing with a safe and effective vaccine by the early [US] winter, late winter, (or) beginning of 2021," Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said.

'Act. Lead. Or get out of the way' A strong economy is an important plank of Trump's campaign for re-election in November. Joe Biden, his expected Democratic opponent, slammed Trump's comments on Thursday. "Quit claiming victory with almost 15 million Americans still out of work because of the crisis. Quit ignoring the reality of this pandemic and the horrifying loss of American life," Biden said in a speech. "Act. Lead. Or get out of the way so others can, Mr President." Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said it was appropriate that some states are "pausing certain things" due to the rise in COVID-19 cases. Asked if the White House regretted encouraging states to reopen quickly, and if the move had backfired, Mnuchin said: "Absolutely not... There is a safe way to reopen the economy and we are going to do that carefully."

Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Herman Cain, who attended Trump rally, has COVID-19 Herman Cain, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate, has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to an Atlanta-area hospital, according to a statement on his Twitter feed. Cain attended the Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally for President Donald Trump almost two weeks ago, supporting his fellow Republican at an event where many attendees crowded close together without wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. "Trump Tulsa Rally - I was there! The atmosphere was exciting and inspiring!" Cain wrote on Twitter after the June 20 rally. He also tweeted a maskless photograph of himself at the rally surrounded by fellow Trump supporters also not wearing masks.

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Cain did not meet with Trump in Tulsa. He said contact tracing was conducted after the campaign rally but he could not discuss individual cases. Cain was informed on Monday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. By Wednesday, he had developed symptoms serious enough to require hospitalisation. At 74, he is part of the age group most at risk for severe COVID-19. Experts warn on reopening of Rio's beaches In Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, residents could once again run along the beaches and drink a chilled coconut water at the kiosks that line the sand, as Brazil's second city tried to return to some normality despite a heavy coronavirus death toll.

Cariocas, as Rio's inhabitants are known, went to bars, restaurants and gyms that are now allowed to operate again in the latest stage of reopening that had some experts worried about a new wave of infections. The beaches remained closed for sunbathing, but opened for individual exercise. "It is a relief and provides hope that things can get better," said Flavio Vicente, 38, as he worked out on Copacabana Beach. Beaches such as Copacabana are open for exercise but closed for sunbathing. Credit:AP Brazil has the world's second-largest outbreak behind the US, with the country's death toll passing 60,000 on Wednesday. In Rio alone, 6618 people have died of COVID-19 in the past four months. Only 14 countries in the world have a death toll higher than the city. Public hospitals are at 70 per cent capacity.

Medical experts still fear the move to reopen may have come too soon. "The opening was hasty. We are seeing a drop in deaths, but it doesn't mean that at the first sign of a fall it is safe [to] open," said Americo Cunha, a professor at Rio's state university UERJ who has monitored the outbreak. "I can categorically say that the contagion is already rising because of this opening," he added. Rio, he explained, still has an elevated number of daily deaths showing the virus remained highly active. India passes 600,000 COVID-19 cases

India's number of coronavirus cases passed 600,000 on Thursday with the nation's infection curve rising and its testing capacity being increased. The 19,148 new cases reported in the past 24 hours raised the national total to 604,641, with nearly 100,000 of them in the past four days. A total of 17,834 people have died so far due to the virus, according to India's Health Ministry. More than 60 per cent of the cases are in the worst-hit Maharashtra state, Tamil Nadu state, and the capital territory of New Delhi. However, the western beach of state of Goa, a popular backpacking destination, opened for tourism on Thursday with the state government allowing 250 hotels to reopen after more than three months. Tourists will either have to carry COVID-19 negative certificates or get tested on arrival.

The state has reported 1387 positive cases with four deaths. Outbreak spreads in Tokyo Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike warned on Thursday that the spread of the coronavirus is beginning to accelerate again in Japan's capital as daily confirmed new infections jumped to a two-month high of 107. She urged residents to take more precautions and stay away from nightlife districts. Yuriko Koike, the Governor of Tokyo, where new coronavirus cases have jumped to a two-month high. Credit:AP

Thursday's rise in new cases spiked from 67 the day before and is the highest since 154 on May 2, when Japan was under a state of emergency for the pandemic. The number tripled from 31 in just over a week. Tokyo now has 6399 cases with 325 deaths, accounting for about one-third of Japan's national total. Koike said, however, that she had no plans to ask for business closures across Tokyo. "Nobody wants to go back to that situation," she said. "We are now in the phase of living with the coronavirus. Our policy is to balance the economy and social activity with disease prevention." The majority of recent cases were younger people in their 20s and 30s, and about 40 per cent were linked to nightlife establishments, Koike said. Just three new cases in China

China reported three new cases of coronavirus, including just one case of local transmission in the capital Beijing, appearing to put the country where the virus was first detected late last year on course to eradicating it domestically, at least temporarily. Loading The other two cases were brought from outside the country, according to the National Health Commission. China credits strict quarantine, social distancing and case tracing policies with reducing its cases. Masks are required for entry into many buildings, sometimes along with proof on a mobile phone app that the person is healthy.
Wellington: New Zealand's beleaguered Health Minister David Clark has resigned as a minister on and left cabinet.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Education Minister Chris Hipkins to the Health portfolio, saying he will hold that role until the election.

David Clark has resigned as New Zealand's health minister. Credit:Getty Images

Post-election I intend to reassess who is best placed to take the health portfolio forward, Ardern said.

Clark made the announcement on Thursday. He will stay on as an MP and contest his electorate of Dunedin North at the upcoming election.
Up for debate:

Live legislation tracker

Check out the latest developments on bills pending before state lawmakers in four key topics.
Staff Reporter

Nyamekye Daniel has been a journalist for five years. She was the managing editor for the South Florida Media Network and a staff writer for The Miami Times. Daniel's work has also appeared in the Sun-Sentinel, Miami Herald and The New York Times.
There should not be special treatment, positive nor negative, of anyone just because of the pigment of their skin. Each one of us should simply go out and try our best to do something of positive value for ourselves, our families, and our country. Be All You Can Be.
Louisa, VA (23093)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 69F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 69F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP)  The mother of a man shot to death by a sheriff's deputy has given formal notice she intends to file a $20 million wrongful-death lawsuit against a Wyoming county.

Albany County commissioners acknowledged Tuesday receiving the notice filed by Debbie Hinkel. State law requires people to file such a notice before suing a governmental entity.

Albany County sheriff's deputy Derek Colling fatally shot Robbie Ramirez of Laramie after a traffic stop in 2018. Ramirez, 39, had driven away during the stop and the two scuffled after Colling caught up with Ramirez a short time later.

Ramirez had a variant of schizophrenia and feared police because of previous run-ins with them, relatives said after the shooting.

Colling was involved in two fatal shootings while working as a police officer in Las Vegas. He was fired from the Las Vegas Police Department in 2011.

In the notice, Hinkel alleges Colling's termination in Las Vegas followed an "eight-month investigation surrounding charges of use of excessive force, police brutality, and false arrest."

In hiring Colling, the Albany County Sheriff's Office was negligent in assessing Colling's fitness to serve, evaluating his "past pattern of excessive force," and in training and supervising him, Hinkel alleges.

She claims Sheriff David O'Malley had been warned Colling possessed an "out-of-control temper rendering him unfit to serve in law enforcement," the Laramie Boomerang reports.

A grand jury declined to indict Colling for shooting Ramirez. Colling remains a corporal in the sheriff's office.

County officials will discuss the potential litigation and recommend how to proceed, Albany County Attorney Peggy Trent said.

The notice prompted Hinkel to step down as chairwoman of the county mental health board.
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Joss Whedon. Photo: Matt Baron/Shutterstock

Since the start of his career, Joss Whedon has cultivated a reputation as a progressive writer and director, one whose work  including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and The Avengers  features strong, complicated female leads. In recent years, his self-described woke bae image has shattered. In 2017, Whedons ex-wife accused him of multiple infidelities during their marriage, all while he was posturing as a male feminist; that year also saw the leak of his egregiously sexist 2006 script for Wonder Woman. More recently, Whedon has been accused of gross, abusive behavior on set, first by Justice League actor Ray Fisher. Then Charisma Carpenter  who played a pivotal role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as its spinoff, Angel  confirmed a rumor that has long been swirling in the industry, that Whedon allegedly retaliated against her over her pregnancy.

Whedon has created hostile and toxic work environments since his early career, Carpenter wrote in a lengthy statement released on Twitter, alongside the hashtag #IStandWithRayFisher. For nearly two decades, I have held my tongue.

Below, a guide to all the allegations and controversies surrounding the director.

Actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of gross, abusive, on the set of Justice League.

In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher fired off a tweet accusing producer Joss Whedon of gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable on-set behavior toward the cast and crew of Justice League. When Whedon inherited the superhero consortium movie from its original producer, Zack Snyder, Fisher  who played Cyborg in the film  described Whedon as a great guy, adding that Snyder picked a good person to come in and finish up for him. However, in a follow-up tweet, Fisher said he would like to take a moment to forcefully retract every bit of that statement. He has also accused producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg of enabling Whedon.

Joss Wheadons on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.



He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg.



Accountability>Entertainment  Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) July 1, 2020

Id like to take a moment to forcefully retract every bit of this statement: pic.twitter.com/1ECwwu6TG1  Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) June 29, 2020

Following Fishers accusations  on which he did not publicly elaborate at first  WarnerMedia, the company behind DC Comics, launched an investigation into the claims. Last December, the company announced that remedial action had been taken. In January, Fisher posted a lengthy statement on social media, revealing that the company had dismissed him from the cast of the upcoming superhero film The Flash.

On April 6, the Hollywood Reporter published an interview with Fisher, in which he explained both his reticence to detail his complaints against Whedon and the investigation more broadly. Explaining that he is not looking to have any witnesses lose their jobs, Fisher outlined an internal probe that, to him, seemed intent on protecting Warner executives.

In the beginning, Fisher worked closely with Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio to make Cyborg a complex character whose story would be the heart of the movie, as Terrio put it. Fisher was playing DCs first Black superhero, and Terrio told THR that, with a white writer and white director, we both [meaning himself and Snyder] thought having the perspective of an actor of color was really important. But once Snyder exited the movie and Whedon took over, Fisher said his character changed substantially, and Whedon seemed resistant to his thoughts about Cyborgs portrayal. While working with the director, Fisher said he often had to explain some of the most basic points of what would be offensive to the Black community.

Fisher also suggested that Whedon seemed to want Cyborg to smile more, apparently because he and other top executives feared making an angry Black man one of the films protagonists. (A rep for producer Geoff Johns insisted that there are always conversations about avoiding any stereotype of race, gender or sexuality, and that they wanted to add joy and hopefulness to all six superheroes.) Fisher felt he was being pressured to portray Cyborg as jovial and servile and notes that he was the only character made to accept a catchphrase: booyah. Under Whedons direction, Fisher said executives seemed to assume how Black people would respond rather than taking the advice from the only Black person  as far as I know  with any kind of creative impact on the project. Whedon declined to comment on the article.

Charisma Carpenter says Whedon was abusive on set, and created a toxic work environment.

People have speculated for many years that Whedon retaliated against Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel actress Charisma Carpenter after she informed production that she was pregnant. In the fourth season of Angel, her characters story arc took a strange turn for the outlandishly evil, culminating with a coma, from which she never emerged.

On February 10, in an emotional statement released on Twitter, Carpenter finally came forward, publicly accusing Whedon of retaliating against her when she became pregnant. She says he asked her in a closed-door meeting if she was going to keep it  and proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me the following season once I gave birth. When Carpenter was six months pregnant, she says Whedon called her at 1 a.m., asking her to work, despite her doctors recommendation that she shorten her work hours. I felt powerless and alone, Carpenter wrote. With no other option, I swallowed the mistreatment and carried on.

While Whedons alleged mistreatment of Carpenter while she was pregnant was egregious, she also writes in her statement that Whedon was mean and biting toward others on set and fostered an abusive environment. Whedon has not yet responded to Carpenters claims.

Following Carpenters allegations, other Buffy stars spoke out against Whedon.

After Carpenter spoke out about Whedons alleged abuse on set, a chorus of her Buffy co-stars came forward to stand alongside her. Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top, Amber Benson, who played Tara, wrote in a tweet. There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later. Eliza Dushku, who played Faith, thanked Carpenter for her bravery, writing in a statement posted to Instagram, Your post was powerful, painful and painted a picture well collectively never un-see or un-know  I hadnt known it and I wont forget it.

Sarah Michelle Gellar also responded to Carpenters claims, writing in a statement posted to Instagram, While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I dont want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon. While she declined to speak further on the subject, she added, I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out. After Gellar shared her statement, Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Buffy Summerss sister Dawn, reposted it to her own Instagram as is; then, later on, she amended her caption to include her own experiences. There was a rule that hes not allowed in a room alone with Michelle again, she wrote of Whedon, adding that his behavior with her as a teenager was not appropriate.

Eliza Dushku, who played vampire-slayer Faith in the series, Instagrammed her own statement of support for Carpenter on Friday. CC, my heart aches for you and Im so sorry you have held this for so long, she wrote. Your post was powerful, painful, and painted a picture well collectively never un-see or un-know. Thank you. I hadnt known it and I wont forget it. Dushku, who in 2018 received a $9.5 million settlement from CBS over the sexual harassment she says she experienced on the series Bull, went on to add that neglecting to name the power/gender/sexual/racial abuse in the entertainment industry  enables the abusers and only emboldens and ultimately fortifies abusive systems.

May you [Carpenter] and countless others feel the solidarity and connection you have likely missed for too long. From courage, come change and hope, she said. It starts and will end because of courageous truth-tellers like you.

Whedons ex-wife has accused him of posturing as a feminist to hide his infidelities.

Whedon has been vocal about his identification as a feminist, but according to his now-ex-wife, Kai Cole, its an act. In 2017, Cole wrote an essay for The Wrap, addressing their divorce after 16 years of marriage. In it, she details Whedons eventual admission, in a letter she says he wrote her near the end of their relationship, to more than a decades worth of infidelities. As a guilty man I knew the only way to hide was to act as though I were righteous, the letter read, according to Cole. She also said he told her: Its not just like I killed you, but that Id done it subtly, over years. That Id been poisoning you. Chipping away at you.

He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted, Cole said. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for womens rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.

A rep for Whedon said Coles account include[d] inaccuracies and misrepresentations, but ultimately declined to comment out of respect for his ex-wife.

Whedon has been skewered for his sexist first attempt at a Wonder Woman script.

Whedon has a history of creating strong (often they are literal superheroes) female characters, but typically those characters are white women who fit a very particular beauty standard, viewed through a distinctly cis-het male lens. (There is a whole blog, Joss Whedon Is Not Feminist, devoted to this topic.) Despite having described himself as a woke bae  arguably not the best way to signal ones sincere allyship  Whedons initial script for Wonder Woman, which he wrote in 2006 and which leaked just before Patty Jenkinss movie came out in 2017, did not read as woke at all. Indeed, it read as a sort of male-gaze bodice-ripper.

To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point, as Whedon originally described Diana, played in the Jenkins version by Gal Gadot. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls. Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow  She is barefoot.

Other excerpts, splashed across Twitter, feature lascivious observations such as Then she moves her back leg and turns, fluidly, a curve rippling up her body as she folds into a dance that is sensual, ethereal, and wickedly sexy.

I'm reading Joss Whedon's original script for Wonder Woman pic.twitter.com/r0NOIrfEew  pauline (@Punziella) June 16, 2017

the first pronoun in Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman script is "she" so i got excited that maybe it WOULD be about a woman, but its about a plane pic.twitter.com/eZRx4VlZGL  Rave Sashayed (@_sashayed) June 15, 2017

It was gratuitously horny, and not a little objectifying  just very cringey stuff. But when Whedon went back and read the script, he saw no issue. He told Variety he felt that his characters had integrity.

I dont know which parts people didnt like, but  I think its great, he said. People say that its not woke enough. I think theyre not looking at the big picture.

Ah, yes, well. Perhaps not woke enough was never really the problem.

This post has been updated.

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As shown in the last few years, the space industry has evolved into a commercial-driven initiative, bound to accomplish many firsts in the near future, Wrights office said in a news release. This was illustrated during NASAs SpaceX Demo-2 mission in late-May, launching American astronauts from American soil for the first time since the Space Shuttle Program was slowed to a halt in 2011. This recent growth in the commercial space industry will likely result in bond issuance becoming more prevalent for varying needs in critical-infrastructure, rather than the utilization of bank loans.
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The basics: Maleficent crashes the christening for baby Aurora and, as payback for not being invited, puts a curse on the infant that will cause her death should she prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sunset on her 16th birthday. Maleficent is one specific curse giver. The royal counterattack is two-pronged: The king orders all the spinning wheels burned, and Aurora is sent to live in a cottage in the forest with the three fairies. Its basically 14th-century witness protection program; her name is changed to Briar Rose, and her birthright is kept secret from her. Also, Merryweather is able to tweak the spell so that instead of death, a prick would make her just sleep, beautifully.
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News

Greenback's 2020 Fourth of July parade may be biggest one since COVID-19-induced inactivity

Robert Berlin | The Daily Times The Greenback Fire Department uses a ladder truck to hang a garrison-sized American flag over the parade route in downtown Greenback during its 2019 Fourth of July event. Organizers say the 2020 event could be even bigger than 2019, but are urging the public to practice COVID-19 safety measures. Robert Berlin | The Daily Times Ava (left) and Bella Hawkins sport matching star-spangled sunglasses for Greenbacks 2019 Fourth of July parade. Despite changes brought on by COVID-19 and an upheaval in Independence Day events nationwide, the city is moving forward with its 2020 celebration. Robert Berlin | The Daily Times Classic cars filled the parade route during the 2019 Fourth of July parade in Greenback. The 2020 event is expected to be well attended and will include food trucks and fireworks. Robert Berlin | The Daily Times Liza Silver and her father, Bob, sit patiently in the 2019 Greenback parade staging area waiting for the parade to begin. Scott Keller | The Daily Times Greenback has a parade and fireworks planned for Saturday's Fourth of July celebration,which they say will be something special for residents who have not been able to celebrate outdoors for months because of COVID-19.

Even in the face of major social changes brought about by COVID-19, the city of Greenback is plowing forward with its iconic Fourth of July parade  an event some say will be especially memorable this year.

One of a handful of celebrations in 2020, Greenbacks Independence Day parade set for Saturday is expected to bring people from out of county and out of state to celebrate with family and friends.

It also will be one of the first large outdoor celebrations in the area since March.

Like any event after the outbreak of the coronavirus in the U.S., the parade, which begins at 2 p.m. with the lineup an hour earlier, has faced uncertainty in the weeks leading up to Independence Day.

City Event Coordinator Wendy Tittsworth said things were up in the air as recently as Monday, when Gov. Bill Lee extended Tennessees state of emergency until the end of August.

Yesterday I checked with Lenoir City and Loudon (County) to see if theyre still doing their parades, Tittsworth said Tuesday. When both said they were still moving forward, Greenback decided it would do the same.

Losing the parade would mean missing out on something more than an annual festival, Tittsworth said. A lot of people use the ... parade kind of like a homecoming for our town. When people come home to Greenback once a year, she said, its almost always during the Fourth of July period.

Last years parade was unreal, Greenback Mayor Dewayne Birchfield said, agreeing with Tittwsworth that having a venue to come together after months of social separation is important.

Its going to be like a family reunion, Birchfield said Tuesday. It will be good for them. People have been cooped up. It gives them a little bit of hope.

Hes in his second year as mayor and said he feels the event has grown since he took office.

Both Birchfield and Tittsworth emphasized the importance of being safe, however  the mayor even taking to Facebook early Wednesday to explain how people could keep the virus from potentially spreading at the parade.

Both advised people with COVD-19 symptoms or anyone who has been exposed to stay home, and adding that those with compromised immune systems should wear a mask.

Were asking people to do a lot more flag waving and a lot less hand shaking, Tittsworth said.

The event will have sanitation stations across the town, she added, and though the resources to do detailed crowd control arent immediately available, the Greenback Rescue Squad will handle parking and fireworks.

Leaders also said they hope attendees will step up and do its part to sanitize and social distance since the event is more than just a parade: Its become a small festival.

Food and dessert trucks will make an appearance. A holiday market will be set up at the Greenback Depot, and the fireworks show will be at 9:30 p.m.

Community members are getting involved too  not just by marching in the parade, but by being generous neighbors.

Greenback First Presbyterian Pastor Nick Perkins said people are invited to watch the parade from the churchs pavilion, where members will hand out free hot dogs.

The parade embodies small-town America, Perkins said. Its fun because the requirement for getting into the parade is lining up on time. You get everything from beautiful classic cars to floats to groups of people marching with Cub Scouts or their church to just a guy on an old tractor.

With everything thats gone on since March, Perkins said, people are looking for a chance to get outside and feel a little normal for an afternoon.

The past few months have not been easy for Greenback residents.

Thats been my biggest observation, Perkins explained. Someone who I see one day seems like theyre coping well; maybe three, four days later, theyre feeling overwhelmed. ... As a pastor, you know the people in your congregation who are more fragile. It doesnt seem to matter much: The ones who arent the fragile ones have their bad days, too.

Tittsworth, who has been preparing for the day for nearly a month and a half, explained that the desire to get out and be part of the community could make 2020s parade even bigger than last years.

When people are allowed to be outside, they feel safer as a whole, she said. We expect a pretty big crowd. ... Even with COVID going on, the need to get out and do something will outweigh the fear.
And his theory on why folks are excited to get back to inside the gates: I do think people just want to have a little sense that there is some normalcy, if not now, in the future. And we can get a taste of it just by having the parks open again.
Imperial County speaks to State Committee regarding the COVID impact on the southern border region
UPDATE: College Station police have identified two people killed in a shooting Wednesday evening.

According to authorities, 65-year-old James Ervin Chambers and 35-year-old Michael Rendon were killed after there was an exchange of gunfire between the two in the 4200 block of Cedar Creek Court. Police said Chambers and Rendon are related, and the shooting occurred at another family members home.

No further information was released.

Police said two people were killed in a shooting Wednesday evening in a south College Station neighborhood.

According to College Station police, authorities were called to a home in the 4200 block of Cedar Creek Court in the Creek Meadows subdivision around 6 p.m. When authorities arrived, two people were dead.

Police said late Wednesday there was an exchange of gunfire between the two who died. There is no suspect at-large and no threat to public safety, officials said.

Cedar Creek Court was closed to through traffic late Wednesday.

No further information was released by authorities.
In his memo, Manley reiterated that marijuana enforcement had not been a priority for the department, noting that his force enacted a "cite-and-release" policy for marijuana arrests more than a decade ago and has used it more and more frequently over arrests. Such policies allow officers to issue citations instructing defendants to appear in court instead of arresting them for some suspected offenses. In the first three months of 2020, he said only three arrests were made for suspected misdemeanor marijuana crimes, "all of which were made in the interest of public safety."
Lawrence Dunbar, an environmental and civil engineer who reviewed the report on behalf of ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, said the model was off, in part because it used flawed bollard width measurements that would show less blockage. The IBWC also needed to start the model farther upstream from the fence for it to work properly, he said.

I would have expected that the fence would increase the water level (during a flooding event), the only question was by how much, said Dunbar, who has 30 years of experience in flood and drainage matters and is a former lead hydrologist for the Army Corps of Engineers in the development of various floodplains for FEMA.

You are putting in an obstruction, a barrier, in the middle of the floodplain of a major river that has a levee back away from it, said Dunbar, who has served as an expert witness on a number of state and federal lawsuits, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Its important they get it right, and they clearly did not get it right.

Sally Spener, a spokeswoman for the IBWC, said the commission couldnt comment on specifics of the model because of the pending lawsuit against Fisher, but she said the commissions engineers have top-notch qualifications and experience.
Data for individual hospitals or counties is not made public because hospitals within trauma service areas coordinate to ensure their communities have necessary care, and because people often cross county lines to get hospital care, said Chris Van Deusen, a DSHS spokesperson.

Hospital officials in Houston and other parts of the state recently warned that hospitals could get overwhelmed if the number of infections keeps climbing. Statewide, 6,904 patients in Texas were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Wednesday  a figure that has been going up nearly every day since June 1.

On June 25, Abbott reinstated a ban on elective surgeries in four counties that are seeing rapid increases in coronavirus cases, saying he remains focused on maintaining sufficient hospital capacity; three days earlier, he told Texans that hospital capacity was abundant. The governor expanded the ban to four more counties in South Texas on Tuesday.
Abbott on Thursday also banned certain outdoor gatherings of over 10 people unless local officials approve. He had previously set the threshold at over 100 people. The new prohibition also goes into effect Friday afternoon.

Abbott's latest moves come ahead of Fourth of July weekend, which has raised concerns about larger-than-usual crowds gathering while the state grapples with the virus spike.

Abbott also released a video message Thursday, saying the latest coronavirus numbers in the state "reveal a very stark reality."

"COVID-19 is not going away," he said. "In fact, its getting worse. Now, more than ever, action by everyone is needed until treatments are available for COVID-19."

In the video, Abbott reiterated his resistance to returning the state to the roughly monthlong stay-at-home order he issued in April. He said Texans "must do more to slow the spread without locking Texas back down." He also said his latest announcement is "not a stay-at-home order" but "just recognizes reality: If you don't go out, you are less likely to encounter someone who has COVID-19."

"We are now at a point where the virus is spreading so fast there is little margin for error," Abbott said.
The ongoing local controversy regarding the Sul Ross statute and racism seems to be in a zero-sum environment wherein our cognitive bias perceives if the other side wins, we lose.

The American motto, E pluribus unum  out of many one  seeks to create unity between and among different persons and communities. The song, Spirit of Aggieland  We are the Aggies; the Aggies are we, true to each other as Aggies can be ...  tells us the same. The more united we become, the less we feel the other is winning and we are losing. The look of what is American, Texan and Aggie has evolved and is now browner and more female.

So why is there so much fear, emotional hijacking and positional arguments about justice, fairness, history and Confederate soldiers? The horrific act of violence by Derek Chauvin did not begin the biases, fears and conflicts we currently are experiencing. The videos witnessed by the world opened a wound that never has healed in our great nation.
Michael Schaefer has run an uplifting, positive campaign and never once has mentioned his opponent in any campaign events, publications or posts. Instead, he's focused on his record improving the academic excellence of College Station schools, opening five new campuses in five years, and doing so while paying down debt and reducing the tax burden on College Station families.

Michael also has focused on the needs of Precinct 1 and what he would bring to the job. Four years ago, Steve Aldrich promised us in forum after forum that he would give up his business and outside job to be a "fulltime commissioner," but like many career politicians, he broke those promises to us.

Michael's opponent wants to run a campaign of victimhood because Steve's record as commissioner is so incredibly weak. This election is not about the past four months. It's about the past four years. Arrington Road and I&G Road are still a mess. There are still no public facilities in Precinct 1. He voted to eliminate split tax payments. As a precinct 1 resident, I see no single accomplishment or improvement (however small) in his four years on the commissioners court. It isn't personal. It's just the facts.

We need a commissioner who is not just a political groundhog, appearing once every four years to see the shadow of a campaign sign. We need someone who will keep his promises.
Advocates Want Mine Stopped and National Park Established After Thousands of Koalas Killed in Bushfires

Without urgent intervention an Australian national icon, the koala, may become extinct in New South Wales (NSW) before 2050, a parliamentary report (pdf) has found.

A NSW upper house inquiry, which released the report on June 30, was established due to significant concern at the scale of loss to koala populations across NSW.

The unprecedented 2019-2020 bushfires killed about 6,382 koalas.

The report found the biggest threat to koala populations in the state was habitat loss due to logging, mining, and land clearing.

The committee made 42 recommendations to the NSW government.

The committee chair Cate Faehrmann demanded urgent intervention including the building of a Great Koala National Park on the NSW Mid North Coast.

The time has come to transfer all that koala habitat that is still open to logging in state forests to national parks, Faehrmann wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

The report also recommended ceasing development of the coal mine by Shenhua Group, a state-owned mining and energy company and the largest coal producer in China. The company has also been known for corruption. In February 2015, Shenhua leaders were found misusing their power to fast-track major projects and reap personal profits.

Local koala expert and ecologist David Paull expressed concern for the Shenhua mine proposal, saying that mining had significantly reduced prime areas of habitat for koalas and other threatened wildlife.

He verified in the inquiry that over 1,000 hectares of koala habitat had been lost by mining companies in the Leard Forest, just north of the Shenhua mine area. Further, clearing by mining companies has led to the White-Box-Yellow Box-Red Gum Woodland declining by 93 percent of its former extent.

The construction of a mine can threaten habitats with roads, cars, power lines, and fencing, which creates a hostile landscape for koalas and results in higher numbers of injury and death, the report said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was pleased with the governments work in koala protection.

If we hadnt taken action, we wouldve seen those populations continue to diminish and Im incredibly proud that we put tens of millions of dollars into protecting koalas across the state, Berejiklian said.
Temperatures Thursday are reaching a high of 94 degrees in the Orlando, Titusville and Saint Cloud areas. Its slightly cooler in Leesburg and Daytona Beach, but not by much with 93 degree temperatures. Plus, theres a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms throughout the the day Thursday.
The logo of Airbus is seen at Airbus Helicopters facility in Dugny, near Paris, France, on July 1, 2020. (Charles Platiau/Reuters)

Airbus Hints at Compromise as Governments Fret Over Job Cuts

TOULOUSE/BERLINEuropes Airbus left the door open, on July 1, to scaling back its planned 15,000 job cuts in exchange for government-funded labour schemes and research, as its coronavirus restructuring stoked political and union alarm.

Europes largest aerospace group plans to cut 11 percent of its global workforce, after a 40 percent slump in its 55 billion euro ($61.8 billion) jet business, sparking anxiety about compulsory redundancies in France, Germany, Spain, and Britain.

Employees attend a general meeting with union representatives following Airbuss announcement to cut 15,000 jobs in order to survive the coronavirus crisis within a year, outside the factory of Stelia Aerospace, a subsidiary of Airbus, in Meaulte, France, on July 2, 2020. (Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)

France urged Airbus to make as few forced layoffs as possible, while French and German unions said compulsory cuts at the European planemaker were a red line.

The state urges Airbus to ensure that there are as few forced redundancies as possible, French Junior Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari told BFM TV.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier urged Airbus to spread the burden in a fair way.

We of course assume this restructuring will take place in such a way that neither favours nor disadvantages any country, he said in a clear reference to maintaining balance with France.

Chief Executive Guillaume Faury has warned staff against reverting to national or regional agendas that plagued the Franco-German-led firm in the past as workers battle for jobs.

We are successful because we have a European and global DNA and because of this partnership spirit which is very unique to Airbus, Faury told Reuters late on Tuesday.

More than two thirds of the cuts are in France and Germany where Airbus sites are running 40 percent below pre-crisis levels.

In a finely balanced presentation, Airbus announced plans to cut 5,000 posts in France, 5,100 in Germany, 900 in Spain, 1,700 in the UK, and 1,300 elsewhere by mid-2021.

The total includes another 900 non-COVID cuts that Airbus says it already planned at its Premium AEROTEC unit, meaning a total of 6,000 posts are targeted in Germany by the scheme.

Faury later said in an interview published by Les Echos newspaper on Wednesday no plant closure was in the pipeline.

Concessions

Veteran human resources chief Thierry Baril told reporters on Wednesday that a fifth of the 5,000 job cuts targeted in France could be saved once the French government formalises a new reduced-work scheme, a move expected next week.

Another 500 engineering posts could be saved with the help of promised state investment in next-generation green jets.

Airbus has outlined the possibility of saving another 1,500 jobs in Germany through similar support.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said it is working with Airbus to find ways to keep jobs in the country.

France and Germany own 11 percent each of Airbus and Spain 4 percent, though their power to intervene directly is limited.

Aircraft industry sources said horse-trading over jobs and government aid is common and concessions are expected. But Airbuss stated target for cutting full-time jobs is three times bigger than its previous 2008 shake-up, which included cutting 5,000 full-time posts, plus 5,000 temporary ones.

In its 51 years, Airbus has so far avoided significant forced redundancies as it challenged Boeing for a space in the global aircraft market and then enjoyed years of record demand.

Frances Force Ouvriere union said preventing such cuts was a red line.

Germanys IG Metall union said Airbus must not hide behind the coronavirus crisis to implement earlier aims to downsize.

Djebbari, the French minister, meanwhile confirmed Air France planned to shed nearly 7,600 jobs this week

Djebbari urged Air France to minimise compulsory redundancies, after the government agreed state aid for the carrier worth 7 billion euros ($7.9 billion).

Its not 7 billion euros to pay for redundancy programmes. Its 7 billion for survival, to pay salaries at the end of the month, the minister said.

By Johanna Decorse and Christian Kraemer
Australia Could Offer Safe Haven to Hong Kong Residents

The Australian government is considering providing refuge for Hong Kong residents in response to rising tensions in the city following a new oppressive national security law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

During an interview in Canberra on July 2, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he is very concerned about the endangerment of Hongkongers following protests against the oppressive new law.

The Australian government is thinking of offering similar safe haven arrangements as proposed by the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on July 1.

We are considering very actively the proposals that I asked to be brought forward several weeks ago and the final touches would be put on those and theyll soon be considered by Cabinet to provide similar opportunities, Morrison said.

He did not disclose whether permanent visas will be granted.

When we have made a final decision on those arrangements then Ill make the announcements, Morrison said.

But if you are asking are we prepared to step up and provide support? The answer is yes.

The Australian government has recently been a strong advocate for human rights in China, condemning the CCP for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Chinas remote Xinjiang region.

Related Coverage Australia Says It Will Hold China Accountable on Human Rights

Australia joins the United Kingdom and the United States among the Five Eyes partners in taking action against the CCPs national security law.

This is not a position Australia has commented on in isolation. We have done so with many other like-minded countries about these events, Morrison said.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne expressed deep concern about the troubling laws and warned the world would continue watching Hong Kong closely.

Payne said in a statement on July 1 that the law threatens Hong Kongs judicial independence and the rights and freedoms of its people.

Hundreds Arrested in Protests

There have been 10 arrests in Hong Kong under the new lawsix men and four womenwith a total of around 370 arrests.

A total of seven officers were injured on duty. Among the serious injuries, one was stabbed by a rioter with a dagger and three were hit by a rioter driving a motorcycle. Hong Kong Police Force stated on Twitter.

#BREAKING: Around 370 arrests, including 10 (6M&4F) for breaching #NationalSecurityLaw, have been made today. A total of 7 officers were injured on duty. Among the serious injuries, one was stabbed by a rioter with a dagger and three were hit by a rioter driving a motorcylce.  Hong Kong Police Force (@hkpoliceforce) July 1, 2020

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the date of Scott Morrisons interview. The interview was on July 2. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison discusses the planning maps at an infrastructure announcement in Macquarie Park in Sydney, Australia on June 29, 2020. (Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Australian PM Walks Middle Path on Post-Virus Support

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned against creating a dependency on COVID-19 support measures as economists urge the government to continue welfare schemes.

The Grattan Institute has recommended the government spend between $70 billion and $90 billion on extra economic stimulus measures.

The International Monetary Fund is calling for a gradual exit from support programs, with public investment to accelerate the recovery.

Morrison says economists vary across the spending spectrum.

They want us to spend nothing and they want us to spend everythingthe truth is going to be somewhere in the middle, he said on July 2.

He said the government would not let dependence on support stop businesses, and the federal budget, from bouncing back.

That will cost jobs and livelihoods, Morrison said.

The other thing is, we have been incredibly careful not to lock in government spending into the decades into the future. Thats how you swamp the Australian taxpayer unfairly.

Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said the longer outbreaks like the one in Melbourne last, the more would need to be spent.

He said it was important unemployment benefits were higher than the pre-coronavirus level of $40 a day.

Because its all changing so fast, we will have more people dropping through more cracks.

Morrison is confident Australias economy will become independently strong again, fuelling job growth.

The future of the Australian economy is not to remain in ICU, he said.

In the meantime, the government will continue to do what is necessary to support us to get to that stage.

Matt Coughlan in Canberra
Container trucks arrive at Port Botany's maritime dock near Sydney on November 26, 2008. (GREG WOOD/Getty Images)

Australias Trade Surplus Rose 2Pct in May

Australias trade surplus rose 2.0 percent to $8.03 billion in May, as imports fell faster than exports.

Exports dropped 4.0 percent to $35.7 billion, while imports dropped 6.0 percent to $27.7 billion, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed on July 2.

Imports of consumption goods was steeply lower, down 14 percent to $8.9 billion.

Exports of rural goods fell 10 percent to $3.6 million, driven by a 31 percent drop in cereal grains and cereal preparations.

Coal export earnings dropped by 13.3 percent, or $635 million.

Australias international trade surplus has  on balance  been boosted by the net impacts of the pandemic, Westpac economist Andrew Hanlan said in a note.

Imports are trending lower as domestic demand contracts. Goods exports, while not immune from the global recession, have been more resilient.

Economists had been expecting a $9 billion trade surplus, Hanlan said, but the reason for the surprise was that ABS revised down the April result by $1 billion.

Derek Rose in Sydney
A house is inundated by floodwaters, while a villager stands in front of his mudslide-buried house and truck in Yiliang county, Zhaotong city, in Yunnan, China, on July 1, 2020. (Provided to The Epoch Times by interviewee)

Baishui River Rises 27 Feet Overnight in Chinas Yunnan, Severe Flooding Reported

Heavy rain wreaked havoc in Chinas southwestern province of Yunnan on June 29 and 30, causing the water level of the local Baishui river to rise 27 feet (8.24 meters) overnight. Villagers were devastated by the destruction caused by mudslides and floodwaters.

Locals shot videos of the destruction caused by the rainstorm, such as a house collapsing with half of it falling into a river, and vehicles being swept away by floodwaters.

Mr. Du from Zhongchang village, Yiliang county, in Yunnan, was roused from his sleep at about 5 a.m. on June 30 after he heard a loud noise. When he got out of bed to check on the commotion, he saw a mudslide that was 50 feet away, and moving toward his house.

I called my wife and four grandsons loudly, and we ran out of the house immediately, Du told the Chinese-language Epoch Times by phone on July 1. The mudslide entered my house and buried all the furniture, appliances, and other personal belongings.

Du said he didnt know whether anybody would offer help. I dont think I will have enough money to build another house for the remainder of my life. Now I just have to find a way to survive.

Flood

Chinas state-run Peoples Daily reported on June 30 that it was raining heavily in Zhenxiong, Yiliang, Weixin, and other counties in Zhaotong city. From 11 p.m. on June 29 to the morning of June 30, the rainfall reached more than 7.87 inches (200 mm).

The report warned local residents: In the coming 12 hours, more rain will fall in Zhaoyang, Ludian, Qiaojia, Zhenxiong, Yiliang, Weixin, Daguan, Yanjin, and Yongshan in Zhaotong city. The heavy rain may cause more mudslides.

State-run CCTV reported on July 1 that the heavy rain caused the water level of Baishui River to rise dramatically, and submerged buildings situated beside the river.

Over one night, the rain water increased 8.24 meters (27 feet), CCTV reported.

This is the worst flooding in the past 50 years, Mr. Liu from Niujie township in Yiliang county told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on July 1. The first floor of almost all buildings [in the town] is submerged.

Liu said he and his fellow villagers were helping each other save their personal belongings, such as furniture, appliances, clothes, and tools.

A villager looks at her mudslide-buried house in Yiliang county, Zhaotong city in Yunnan, China, on July 1, 2020. (Provided to The Epoch Times by interviewee)

Mr. Zhou lives in Luowang township. He told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that the floodwaters in his town reached roughly three feet deep (one meter).

The worst place in my town is the neighborhood at Luowang street. The floodwater inundated about two-thirds of the street, Zhou said. The shops suffered huge losses. About 20 cars were washed away.  The excavators and trucks were moved more than 32 feet (10 meters) by the rushing floodwaters and fell into the mud.

Zhou said electricity and telecommunications were cut off due to the flood on June 30. On July 1, cellphone service returned, but the electricity wasnt yet restored.

Mr. Chen from Weixin county in Zhaotong told the Chinese-language Epoch Times: The river water [in Weixin] is turbulent. A bridge collapsed [as a result of the flood].

Chen said he and his fellow villagers lost their crops, pigs, and other farm animals.

Zhaotong is a poor city. Many people do not have good living conditions, Chen said. Now people are affected by the flood. The authorities asked us to save ourselves. But how? I cant understand it.

This is the second flooding disaster in Zhaotong this year. In the middle of June, Yanjin county suffered heavy flooding. According to social media posts, some people from Puer township in the county witnessed their loved ones being swept away by floodwaters and couldnt save them.

However, local authorities and state-run media didnt report any deaths.
Riot police deploy tear gas as they clear protesters from a road during a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. (Dale de la Rey/AFP via Getty Images)

Beijings Assault on Hong Kongs Freedoms Poses Global Threat: Activists

Beijings latest move to suffocate Hong Kong via a national security law should prompt the world to unite in confronting the authoritarian power, Hong Kong activists told U.S. officials during a July 1 congressional hearing. They warned that if not stopped, the Chinese regime would be emboldened to take more aggressive actions further out from its shores.

We are actually facing a global fight, Nathan Law, a prominent Hong Kong activist currently studying at Yale University, said at a House foreign affairs committee hearing on July 1, just hours after Hong Kong police began making arrests of protesters under the new law.

We should hold hands together and to suppress these authoritarian expansionists, he said, adding that fighting for democracy in the foreground of Hong Kong is helping the world preserve its democracy and its values.

Chinese influence has already permeated American society through covert agents, coercion, and open threats, the activists said.

Popular conferencing platform Zoom, which has Chinese servers and employs hundreds of R&D staff in China, recently suspended three activists accounts in the United States and Hong Kong over events commemorating the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Lee Cheuk-yan, a Hong Kong union leader and social activist who testified at the hearing, was among them.

Zoom quickly reinstated the accounts after mounting backlash. The company admitted that it did so under instructions from Chinese authorities because it has to comply with requests from local authorities.

Read More TikTok Censors Student Over Video Mocking Chinese National Anthem

The sweeping national security law, implemented just an hour before the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kongs return to Chinese rule, will allow the Chinese regime to exert more influence over people in Hong Kong and around the world, the activists said.

Experts have worried that the laws broad terms leave ample room for Chinese authorities to go after its critics. Provoking hatred toward Chinese or Hong Kong authorities, according to Article 38, would constitute grounds for prosecutionwhether the individuals reside in Hong Kong or overseas, or hold foreign passports. The maximum penalty for offenders is life imprisonment.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has briefed Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a staunch critic of the regimes human rights record, that he would be one of the officials targeted under the new law, the lawmaker said during the hearing.

Meanwhile, Demosisto, a pro-democracy group that Law helped found, was one of several organizations that dissolved on Tuesday after multiple core activists withdrew their membership over fears of repercussions under the new law.

A police officer raises his pepper spray handgun as he detains a man during a march against the national security law at the anniversary of Hong Kongs handover to China from Britain in Hong Kong, on July 1, 2020. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Commenting on the national security law in a press briefing earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called China one of the worlds most unfree countries.

Free Hong Kong was one of the worlds most stable, prosperous, and dynamic cities. Now it will be just another communist-run city, where its people will be subject to the party elites whims. Its sad, he said at a Wednesday press conference.

The laws stipulation that it would apply to non-residents of Hong Kong is outrageous and an affront to all nations, he said, adding that the State Department will continue working to end the citys differential trade privileges to recognize its loss of autonomy from mainland China.

The United States has planned visa restrictions to punish Chinese Communist Party officials involved in eroding Hong Kongs human rights and freedoms. On Tuesday, 27 countries, including the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, and Australia, released a joint statement before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, rebuking Chinas move.

Brian Leung, a doctoral student at the University of Washington who fled to the United States following his participation in last years protests, urged the global community not to fall into the regimes strategy of political control.

The division between business and politics is only a political expediency in the eyes of China, Leung said, which makes it all the more important for the United States to unite with other nations to counter its threat.

Pompeo, in his remarks on Tuesday, expressed a similar sentiment, saying that the United States will continue to build out a global coalition that understands the challenge that the Chinese Communist Party threat places on freedom-loving peoples all across the world.

This isnt a U.S-China challenge, this is a challenge that is between freedom and authoritarianism, he said. And so long as we keep that foremost in our minds, Im confident that the freedom-loving peoples of the world will prevail.
In this combination of file photos, former Vice President Joe Biden (L) speaks in Wilmington, Del., on March 12, 2020, and President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on April 5, 2020. (AP Photo)

Biden, Trump Campaigns Set Fundraising Records in June

The 2020 presidential campaigns and fundraising committees of Joe Biden and President Donald Trump each raised the most money in a single month since their inceptions.

The Biden campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and their joint fundraising committees raised $141 million in June, according to a press release. The Trump campaign and its committees raised $131 million during the same month.

While the Biden campaign raised more than Trumps for a second straight month, the presidents reelection campaign still holds a significant lead in total fundraising, spending, and cash on hand.

The Trump campaigns monumental June fundraising haul proves that people are voting with their wallets and that enthusiasm behind President Trumps re-election is only growing, Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement.

Biden for President campaign manager Jen OMalley Dillon said in a statement, Its clear that voters are looking for steady leadership, experience, empathy, compassion, and characterand theyll find all of these qualities in Vice President Joe Biden.

The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have raised a total of more than $985 million since early 2017, consistently outpacing the totals for the DNC and President Barack Obama during the 2012 election cycle.

During the same point in time in the 2016 election, the Trump campaign had raised $68 million and the Hillary Clinton campaign had raised $250 million.

Biden led Trump by 9.3 points on July 2 in an average of polls maintained by Real Clear Politics. On the same date during the 2016 presidential election, Clinton led Trump by 4.5 points.

The Trump campaign recorded a single-day fundraising record of $14 million on the presidents birthday, June 14. The Biden campaign raised $7.6 million during a virtual fundraiser with Obama on June 23.

Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee. He is expected to be formally nominated during the Democratic National Convention scheduled for Aug. 17 to 20.

The 2020 campaigns for both Trump and Biden were on a virtual pause for roughly three months due to the outbreak of the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. Trump held the first campaign rally since the beginning of the outbreak, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20. Biden has held a series of virtual events and given speeches to small audiences.

Biden has agreed to three debates with Trump before the presidential election on Nov. 3.

In recent weeks, Biden has focused on criticizing Trumps response to the CCP virus pandemic. Trump has focused his criticism on Bidens record with China and Russia as well as his position on illegal aliens, among other issues.
Kevin Peterson, center, founder and executive director of the New Democracy Coalition, displays a placard showing Breonna Taylor as he addresses a rally in Boston, on June 9, 2020. (Steven Senne/AP Photo)

Breonna Taylor Case Is Top Priority for Agents in Louisville: FBI

Federal officials are working to probe potential civil rights violations by the Louisville police officers involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor, a woman who officers shot dead in her own home.

We have our best agents working on this, Robert Brown, the special agent in charge of Louisvilles FBI field office, said during a Wednesday conference call with activists. according to the Associated Press.

This is definitely our top priority, he added.

Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman, was shot in March by officers who had a search warrant for her apartment. The officers found no drugs in the residence.

Brown declined to go into specifics on the state of the investigation. He said hes aware that the public wants answers but added: In my experience its better to be meticulous and do it right, than to rush.

These are very complex investigations, he said.

The FBIs Louisville field office in a file photograph. (Google Maps)

The FBI is in touch with Attorney General Daniel Camerons office but both are conducting separate probes. Louisvilles City Council announced last month it would review how the administration of Mayor Greg Fischer, a Democrat, handled the shooting of Taylor.

The only official action taken against the three officers involved came on June 23, when one, Brett Hankison, was fired.

Interim Police Chief Robert Schroeder said the officer displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life when you wantonly and blindly fired ten (10) rounds into the apartment of Breonna Taylor.

Activists want the other two officers fired and all three charged.

An undated picture shows Brett Hankinson, a Louisville police officer who was fired in June 2020. (Louisville Police Department via AP)

The call with the FBI was arranged by Christopher 2X Game Changers, a Louisville-based nonprofit that works to advocate for peace and justice.

Christopher 2X, who heads the group, told reporters after the meeting that activists wanted to raise this conversation about the federal investigation.

Little has been talked about, about the federal level investigation, which is really, really, a deep issue. And we cant dismiss how deep an issue this is, as far as her civil rights being violated, he added.

The FBIs Louisville office said in a statement that speaking with the activists and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who was also in the meeting, afforded us the opportunity to start a broader conversation with the public on the FBIs role in investigating Civil Rights complaints, to include our most recent incidents in Kentucky.

While we recognize there is so much more work needed to be done, we are grateful for their willingness to open the lines of communication, the FBI said.
Mounted police officers sit outside the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England in London, UK, on June 17, 2020. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

British Judge Denies Venezuela Access to Gold in Bank Vault

LONDONA British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela control of over $1 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault, ruling that it is unlawful to give it to President Nicolas Maduro since Britain does not recognize him as president of the Latin American nation.

Maduro has demanded the gold to help his cash-starved nation fight the coronavirus pandemic. But the central bank for the United Kingdom, whose government recognizes Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as his countrys legitimate leader, had refused to hand it over to Maduros socialist administration.

The ruling clarifies the question of who is Venezuelas legitimate leaderat least in the eyes of one world power.

Guaido has sought to preserve the gold stash at the Bank of England to keep it out of the hands of the Maduro government, which it contends is illegitimate and corrupt. His lawyers reiterated during a recent four-day hearing their stance that the National Assembly leader became Venezuelas rightful leader under provisions of the countrys constitution.

The dispute hinged on the British stance toward Venezuela, a country in economic and political crisis where both Maduro and Guaido have been claiming presidential powers for more than a year.

Banco Central de Venezuela sought to release the gold, which it says now that it wants to sell for food and medical equipment that is desperately needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. But it had also sought the gold before the pandemic began.

A lawyer representing Maduros side promised to appeal. Sarosh Zaiwalla said in a statement that the judgment entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground in Venezuela.

Mr. Maduros government is in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions, and only it can ensure the distribution of the humanitarian relief and medical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic, he said. This outcome will now delay matters further, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people whose lives are at risk.

The UK recognizes the claim of Guaido, who heads Venezuelas congress, as does the United States and about five dozen other governments. Guaido proclaimed himself the interim president in early 2019, months after Maduro declared victory in an election that his critics say was rigged in his favor.

Despite its support for Guaido, the UK continues to have diplomatic ties with Maduros government. The British have not granted diplomatic credentials to the envoy that Guaido has named ambassador to the UK.

By Danica Kirka
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to paint the eyes on Chinese Lions, as he hosts a Chinese New Year reception at 10 Downing Street in central London on January 24, 2020. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

British Voters Support Tougher Stance on China: Poll

British voters favour a tougher stance on the Chinese regime and would support targeted sanctions in response to Beijings new security law on Hong Kong, a new poll has revealed.

The poll was commissioned by the China Research Group (CRG), launched in April this year by a group of Conservative members of Parliament to generate fresh thinking about Britains strategy towards China.

Populus, a London-based market research company, surveyed 2,104 people online June 17-18.

The results show that the British public no longer support the stance towards China adopted by previous British governments that put economic interests above all else in their dealings with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

By a margin of 10 to 1 (72 versus 7 percent), voters agreed that We should be prepared to pay a little more for things which are critical to a nation, like medical equipment and telecoms equipment, if it means being less reliant on foreign imports in times of crisis.

Huaweis main UK offices in Reading, west of London, on Jan. 28, 2020. (Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images)

On Chinese telecom firm Huawei, 49 percent of voters opposed allowing the company to supply sensitive parts to Britains 5G network, with only 17 percent holding the opposite view.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson initially decided to allow Huawei to play a limited role in the UKs 5G network. But his stance has hardened due to U.S. pressure and opposition from backbench Tory MPs.

Johnson told the Evening Standard on July 2, that he would proceed carefully on making a decision on Huawei because the government did not want any critical infrastructure to be controlled by potentially hostile state vendors.

Public concerns over CCP influence in Britain is not limited to the Huawei issue. The poll revealed that 62 percent of respondents would be unwilling to see a Chinese company building a nuclear power station in Britain, with only 12 percent saying they would be happy with it.

By a margin of 55 to 8 percent, voters agreed that Government should be able to block investments in British universities if it is concerned that they will lead to the loss of key technologies.

Among all respondents, 58 percent agreed that Democratic countries should work more closely together to counter the economic and strategic influence of China, while only 7 percent disagreed.

Riot police detain a man as they raise a warning flag during a demonstration against the new national security law in Hong Kong, on July 1, 2020. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Asked about Beijings new national security law for Hong Kong, 49 percent agreed that: The UK Government should put sanctions, including travel bans and assets freezes, on the Chinese government officials involved in imposing the new law, while only 10 percent disagreed.

The law, which was imposed at 11 p.m. on June 30, stipulates that offenders, if convicted of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, could be imprisoned for life.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on July 1 that it constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

To honour its historical obligation to the people of Hong Kong, the British government announced it will extend immigration rights to an estimated 3 million Hong Kong residents who hold British National (Overseas) status.

By a margin of 61 to 11 percent, respondents to the CRG poll backed the idea of allowing BNO passport holders to come to the UK.

This poll suggests that voters want to see a clear-eyed approach to China that protects both our economic interests and our values, said Tom Tugendhat MP, who chairs the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat takes part in a meeting of a conservative research group in Westminster Hall in London on April 9, 2019. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)
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Chinese Foreign Ministry new spokesman Zhao Lijian gestures as he speaks during a daily briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Beijing on Feb. 24, 2020. (Andy Wong/AP Photo)

China Takes Measures Against 4 US Media Companies

BEIJINGChina has demanded staff and business information from four U.S. media companies including The Associated Press in what it called a necessary response to similar demands by Washington on Chinese state-controlled news outlets.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian announced on July 1 that the AP, United Press International, CBS and National Public Radio had seven days to file declarations regarding their staff, financial operations, real estate ownership and other matters.

The Trump administration last month added four Chinese media outlets to a list of organizations that should be considered foreign missions because of their ties to the regime and the ruling Communist Party. That move could force them to cut staff in the United States and adds to a long list of frictions in economic and political relations between the two countries.

China urges the U.S. to immediately change its course . Zhao said.

State Department officials said at the time that the four organizations, including state-run CCTV, would be required to submit a list of everyone who works for them in the United States and any real estate holdings, the same as is required of foreign embassies or consulates.

None is being ordered to leave the United States and no limits on their activities were announced. But a visa cap was put on five other Chinese media organizations in March, forcing them to reduce their Chinese staff two weeks after they were designated as foreign missions.

Chinese media including the official Xinhua News Agency and the international arm of state broadcaster CCTV are now restricted to a total of 100 visas. Collectively, they employed about 160 Chinese in the United States, meaning about 60 had to leave.

China retaliated by ordering more than a dozen reporters from The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to hand in their press credentials, forcing them to leave the country because their visas were tied to their work status.
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross looks on as he speaks during an event organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Nov. 8, 2019. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP/Getty Images)

Companies Using Hong Kong as Asian Headquarters Should Rethink: Commerce Secretary

Companies who are using Hong Kong as their headquarters in Asia should check if this is still a wise decision, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

I believe that theres a good chance that all companies who have used Hong Kong as their headquarters for Asia will begin to rethink whether the new rules, the new relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China, whether those rules let Hong Kong be as favorable a place to have headquarters as it used to be, Ross said Wednesday during an interview with FOX Business Maria Bartiromo.

He said that the business environment in Hong Kong is fundamentally changed.

It used to be Hong Kong is a very very special place, it had the rule of law, it had very good telecommunication systems, it was very well located, and people were pretty well guaranteed freedom, he said. As you change that, you are changing the fundamental attractiveness as a place for people to do business.

Rosss remarks came after the Hong Kong police made the first two arrests under the controversial national security law imposed by the Chinese regime.

The behaviors of the Hong Kong police violated human rights and grossly, he said.

Its also a gross violation of the original treaty under which they turned Hong Kong over from the British to the Chinese, he added.

However, the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong spokesperson Queenie Tsui said in a statement that the chamber remain committed to Hong Kong as a home base for international business in a response to the new draconian law.

It will take time for the business community to digest details of the law, but we hope it will not impact the dynamism and benefits of this great city, which continues to serve as an important gateway between East and West, she said.

Days before the passing of the new national security law, the U.S. Commerce Department suspended regulations providing preferential treatment to Hong Kong on June 29. Exports subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to Hong Kong can no longer enjoy export license exceptions.

According to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) in the Commerce Department, products regulated by EAR include nuclear materials facilities and equipment, materials chemicals microorganisms and toxins, sensors and lasers, and some other products.

The commerce secretary explained that the June 29 decision is based on the changing relationship between China mainland and Hong Kong.

Thats why were doing away with Hong Kongs special status, in terms of our trade relations, he said. China has made Hong Kong no longer a special haven  If its not special to the Chinese, it shouldnt be special to us.
Construction Workers Hear Dogs Cries for Help, Find Him Embedded in Solid Tar Pool

In a remote wooded area in Suwaki, Poland, a group of construction workers had a chance encounter that ended up saving a lifea furry, four-legged life, that is.

It was a spring day in May 2019 when the workers heard the desperate, relentless cries of an animal in the distance, as The Dodo reported.

Following the noises, the workers came across a mess of fur and solid black tar caked together in a jumble on the ground. It was a small brown dog that was clearly trapped in a tar patch that had cooled and hardened. It was desperately crying for help, unable to move, let alone free itself.

The puppy was too firmly stuck, and the workers realized they lacked the faculties to free himhe was a boyand so, they called Joanna Godlewska, a local animal rescue worker from the Niczyje Animal Foundation, for assistance.

When Godlewska arrived, the sight of the helpless puppy struck a chord in her heart.

When I finally arrived and saw a dog lying in the tar, tears came to my eyes, she told The Dodo.

The group of would-be helpers surmised that the puppy had been abandoned (illegally) in the wooded area and that he had probably sought warmth by lying down in a puddle of still-warm tar, which then cooled and stuck to the entire left side of his body: fur, legs, head, and all, leaving him hopelessly paralyzed.

Luckily, he was still able to yelp.

It was unclear how long the puppy, whom they named Farcik, had been exposed to the elements like this, though it was clear that he wouldnt last much longer, and he seemed to be losing all hope.

However, even with Godlewskas help, it was not enough to free him; and they were soon joined by a local fire department crew, who were able to carefully cut away most of the tar gripping Farciks fur. They used cooking oil to loosen the rest.

He understood that we were saving him, Godlewska recalled later. And as they did so, the pups flagging demeanor turned into a glimmer of hope.

After about an hour, finally, he was free of the tar.

The rescuers then rushed Farcik to a veterinarian clinic for treatment. Despite some raw wounds on his face, the puppy was mostly in good health. However, removing all the tar that had gotten deeply embedded in his fur and skin would take a lot more time and effort.

They scrubbed away as much of the black stuff as possible on the first go, but it took several more sessions to deep cleanse the sticky substance entirely. Yet, each cleaning saw Farciks mood improve bit by bit.

He feels better and better, Godlewska said.

Afterward, Godlewska expressed her thanks for everyone who made Farciks rescue possible. I just wanted to save him, she said. Thank you to everyone who saved this dog.

After his recovery, the next step in Farciks journey was revealed in an update posted on Niczyje Animal Foundations Facebook page. The toddler has an amazing home! they wrote, referring to Farcik, as translated from Polish. They also shared a few lovely photos of Farcik enjoying walks in the park and snuggling up on a nice cozy bed in his new home.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
A Medicare and Centrelink office sign is seen at Bondi Junction on March 21, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Matt King/Getty Images)

Criminals Targeting Virus Support Schemes

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has vowed to crack down on organised crime syndicates targeting coronavirus welfare schemes.

Federal police have reportedly frozen more than 50 bank accounts after criminals targeted JobKeeper wage subsidies, the boosted dole and early access to superannuation.

Were working to ensure that where there is fraud its uncovered and those people face the full force of the law, Frydenberg told Sky News on July 2.

The government has established a serious financial crimes task force bringing together the Australian Federal Police, the tax office and home affairs.

JobKeeper is the biggest single spend of any welfare program.

Organised crime is a problem both for the public and private sectors, thats nothing new, particularly when youve got a program of this scale of size, Frydenberg said.

AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said busting open superannuation fraud had helped detect other crimes.

We have restrained assets in relation to fraud against government COVID-19 programs and we will work with other agencies to continue to do so, he told The Australian.

Matt Coughlan in Canberra
Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, speaks to the media at a press conference to announce the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime girlfriend and accused accomplice of deceased accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, in New York City, on July 2, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Charges Unsealed After Arrest of Longtime Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell

NEW YORKBritish socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested on July 2, according to the FBI.

Maxwell, who has long been accused of helping groom minor girls for Epstein, had kept a low profile following the financiers death. Multiple alleged victims of Epstein have accused Maxwell of luring them into his trafficking circle, where they said they were sexually abused by him and other powerful people.

An FBI spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that Maxwell was arrested at 8:30 a.m. EST in Bradford, New Hampshire.

Maxwell previously lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent travel companion on trips around the world. The accusations against Maxwell had never resulted in any criminal charges, until now.

According to an unsealed indictment, Maxwell was charged on multiple counts including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and two counts of perjury.

From at least in or about 1994, up to and including at least in or about 1997, Maxwell assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epsteins abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18, the indictment reads.

Laura Menninger, Maxwells attorney, didnt immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from The Epoch Times. If convicted, she faces up to 35 years in prison.

Following Epsteins death in 2019, Jeffery Greco, a New York criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor, told The Epoch Times that Maxwell could potentially name others connected to the financier.

Shes going down. Shes going to take everybody with her, Greco said at the time. They are going to ask her, Who else did you provide these girls to? I think that she is going to start talking.

Remember, its just pieces to a puzzle, so she may not know everything. But they are going to use her to place the people at those parties, so if she can say, I was there on this date  and this senator and so-and-so was there, that will be enough for them to get them involved.

Epstein often hosted parties at his Upper East Side mansion in New York City. The property, which he moved into in 1996 and has been valued at $77 million, was transferred in 2011 to a company Epstein owned for $0. The seven-story building is located on East 71st Street, between Fifth and Madison avenues.

Nearly 2,000 pages of documents relating to Epstein were unsealed on Aug. 9, 2019, revealing allegations against a number of rich and powerful men. The court documents, from a lawsuit by one of Epsteins accusers, Virginia Giuffre, listed names allegedly involved in Epsteins trafficking ring and more information on the role Maxwell played.

In a 2016 deposition, Giuffre claimed she was directed by Maxwell to have sex with a number of powerful men.

Maxwell was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the highest-ranking employee of Epsteins alleged sex trafficking enterprise. She oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans, and helped conceal the activity from law enforcement, the lawsuit alleged.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss said in a statement that Maxwell herself also participated in the sexual abuse of young children.

Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, and then delivered them into the trap that she and Jeffrey Epstein had set, she said in a statement. She pretended to be a woman they could trust. All the while, she was setting them up to be abused sexually by Epstein and, in some cases, Maxwell herself.

Epstein was found dead in what was ruled a suicide in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In an Aug. 10, 2019, statement, then U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said the criminal investigation into sex trafficking and conspiracy accusations against Epstein remains ongoing.

Berman was recently fired from his role by President Donald Trump after he refused to step down from his role after being replaced, according to Attorney General William Barr.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Florida Sheriff Says Hell Deputize Lawful Gun Owners if Protests Turn Violent

A Florida sheriff on July 1 vowed to deputize legal gun owners if protesters threaten to bring violence to his county as Black Lives Matter and related protests continue to sweep the nation following the death of George Floyd last month in Minneapolis.

Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels, the countys first black sheriff and a Republican, said that while he would protect any peaceful protests, action will be taken if his deputies cant handle them alone.

In a three-minute video posted on social media, Daniels can be seen speaking on behalf of his team of 18 deputies to condemn violence, warning that if anyone starts tearing up Clay County, that is not going to be acceptable.

Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels addresses a press conference on March 12, 2019. (Clay County Sheriffs Office)

Yes, well protect your constitutional rights as long as you remain under the umbrella of peaceful protest or peaceful march. But the second that you step out from under the protection of the Constitution, we will be waiting on you and we will give you everything you wantall the publicity, all the pain, all the glamour, and glory, he said.

If we cant handle you, Ill exercise the power and authority as the sheriff and Ill make special deputies of every lawful gun owner in the county and Ill deputize them to this one purpose: to stand in the gap between lawlessness and civility, Daniels said, on behalf of his officers.

Daniels didnt give any indication in his video that any demonstrations were planned in the county, a suburb of Jacksonville.

Daniels said in his video that his message is a commitment to keeping the county safe.

Thats what we were sworn to do and thats what were gonna do, he said. Youve been warned.

Atlantic Beach Police Chief Michelle Cook, one of Danielss political opponents, told News4Jax that the sheriffs video message is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded campaign stunt.

Officers Trapped

His video message came a week after a Florida police chief said a situation hes described as an ambush is one of a number of incidents that show that people ostensibly protesting in recent weeks arent always peaceful.

Nine officers responded to a reported shooting in Tampa in the early hours of June 20, but found no evidence that a shooting occurred, including no victim. Instead, hundreds of people in the area penned the officers in and hurled bottles and other objects, injuring two of the officers.

Officials describing the protests as entirely peaceful are not depicting the whole story, Tampa Police Chief Brian Duggan said last week.

Theyre leaving the portions out that fit their narrative. Weve had police cars with smashed windows  looting, defacing property, and its just not getting out there, he said during an appearance on Fox & Friends.

Protests against police brutality and racial injustice have taken place across the United States since Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. The four police officers involved in the arrest have been fired from the force. They were later charged with murder or aiding and abetting murder.

In some cases, violence, including destruction of businesses and assault on individuals, has accompanied the protests or occurred nearby.

Zachary Stieber and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(L): Ghislaine Maxwell attends a symposium in New York City in a 2013 file photograph. (Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images); (R): Jeffrey Epstein in a 2013 mugshot in Florida. (Florida Department of Law Enforcement via Getty Images)

Former Jeffrey Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell Is in Federal Custody: Officials

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite known for her relationship with deceased disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested by the FBI in New Hampshire on Thursday in connection with a sex-trafficking investigation.

U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York confirmed her arrest, charging her with six counts, including conspiracy to entice minors to engage in illegal sex acts and perjury. The office alleged that starting in at least 1994, Maxwell groomed and enticed minor girls to engage in sexual acts with Epstein.

Maxwell faces 35 years in prison if convicted of all counts outlined in an indictment (pdf).

Maxwell largely disappeared from the publics view after Epsteins death in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019. Maxwell has previously denied any wrongdoing in connection to the Epstein case, including grooming young girls.

She is the daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell, but shes more famous for being the one-time girlfriend of Epstein and was an associate of his for decades.

Epstein, who was a convicted sex offender, was known to be close to the rich and powerful, counting even former presidents as friends. He attempted suicide in July after he was arrested on fresh sex trafficking charges but died after another suicide attempt in New York City that has been the subject of much controversy.

Vehicles are parked on a government dock in Red Hook where FBI agents were seen last Monday boarding a boat, in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands on Aug. 14, 2019. (Gabriel Lopez Albarran/AP Photo)

Two guards who were in charge of looking after him have been charged with not properly supervising him.

Epsteins death last year has become the subject of intense scrutiny, spawning endless memes including, Jeffrey Epstein didnt kill himself.

Sarah Ransome, an alleged victim of Epstein and Maxwell, stated in an interview that she was taken to Epsteins island in the Caribbean, accusing Epstein of raping her. She said Maxwell was involved in the ordeal.

I wanted to see him held accountable. I have faith that maybe Ill get another day in court where I can face my co-conspirators, the people that helped Jeffrey rape me every day, Ransome told CBS News in May. She accused Maxwell of bringing girls to the island for Epstein to assault.

Ghislaine knew exactly what she was doing. She knew that every time she called me, I was going to be raped. Every time. Sarah Kellen knew for every girl that she organized to go on that island or to be picked up by a car to go to the New York mansion, she knew that these girls were there to be raped repeatedly. Shes going to rot in hell, definitely, she added.

Ransome and Virginia Giuffre, another victim, settled a lawsuit with Maxwell and Epstein in 2018.
International travelers leave the Customs and Immigration area of Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., on June 29. (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

Fugitive Chinese National Sentenced for Organizing Birth Tourism and Immigration Fraud Ring

A Chinese national was sentenced in absentia on June 30 to more than 3 months in prison for participating in a large-scale birth tourism and visa fraud scheme that organized trips to the United States for foreign nationals to give birth in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children.

Chao Edwin Chen, 35, sentenced by U.S. District Judge James Selna, pleaded guilty in June 2016 to visa fraud, marriage fraud, and filing a false tax return. He fled to China after pleading guilty and became a fugitive, according to a statement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Together with three accomplices, Chen operated a business named You Win USA based in Orange County, California which assisted pregnant women of foreign nationality to come to the United States to give birth so their U.S. born children would obtain U.S. citizenship.

Chens partners in crime, Dongyuan Li, 42, along with her husband, and Qiang Yan, 44, were all involved in visa fraud by instructing the foreign nationals who were to give birth in the United States how to cheat the U.S. authorities at ports of entry by misinforming the true purpose of their visit to the United States.

Chens company advertised, mostly to pregnant women in China, that its 100-person team in China and the United States had served more than 500 Chinese birth tourism customers.

Baby sleeping (Video screenshot/Jukin Media)

The advertisement emphasized the benefits of giving birth in the United States such as 13 years of free education from grade school to high school, less pollution than China, an easier way for the whole family to immigrate to the United States, and priority for jobs in U.S. government, public companies, and large corporations.

Chen and Li used 20 apartments in Irvine, Orange County for their pregnant customers charging each customer from $40,000$80,000 for their services.

They both have received $3 million in international wire transfers from China in two years.

When pleading guilty, Chen admitted that he served at least 60 customers, including Chinese government employees.

One of his customers, Xiao Yan Liu was indicted in November 2018 for visa fraud and lying to federal investigators. Liu stated in her visa application that she was a Chief Physician at a power supply company staff hospital in Shangqiu, Henan province.

In his plea agreement, Chen admitted that he met in 2014 with an undercover agent of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) posing as a birth tourism customer. An agents co-conspirator in China, after uploading a visa application containing false personal information, was put in touch by Chen with his trainer who instructed her how to hide her pregnancy and cheat the U.S. customs.

Chen has also pleaded that he entered a sham marriage with a U.S. citizen to obtain a green card and filed a false tax return to legitimize his fictitious marriage.

At least 10 other defendants charged in these birth tourism indictments have fled to China, according to the statement. Among them are two Chinese nationals who paid only a small portion of hospital charges related to the birth of their baby in Orange County, according to court documents.

US Government Response to Birth Tourism

As these cases clearly demonstrate, HSI will leave no stone unturned in aggressively targeting those who would exploit our nations generosity and legal immigration systemonly to make a mockery of our laws and values in order to enrich themselves, said David Prince, special agent in charge for HSI Los Angeles.

The U.S. Department of State changed the rules for visa issuance to travel to the United States in January to prevent the exploitation of the law to obtain U.S. citizenship.

Birth tourism poses risks to national security. The birth tourism industry is also rife with criminal activity, including international criminal schemes, as reflected in federal prosecutions of individuals and entities involved in that industry, the State Department justified this change to visa rules.

The rule change would help close a potential vulnerability to national security that would be posed by any foreign government or entity that sought to exploit birth tourism to enhance access to the United States, the State Department said.
Women react outside a drug rehabilitation facility where assailants killed at least 24 people, according to Guanajuato state police, in Irapuato, Mexico, on July 1, 2020. (Karla Ramos/Reuters)

Gunmen Kill 24 People in Attack on Mexican Drug Rehab Center

MEXICO CITYAt least 24 people were killed in an armed attack on a drug rehabilitation facility in the central Mexican city of Irapuato, Mexican police said on Wednesday, underlining the challenge the government has in fulfilling a pledge to stop gang violence.

Police in the city in Guanajuato state said the gunmen also wounded seven in what was the second such attack to take place in Irapuato during the past month. The attack was also confirmed by a federal government official.

Photos from the scene shared by police with local reporters showed at least 11 prone and bloodied bodies lying in a room.

A man sits as soldiers keep watch outside a drug rehabilitation facility where assailants killed at least 24 people, according to Guanajuato state police, in Irapuato, Mexico, on July 1, 2020. (Karla Ramos/Reuters)

The attack was one of the worst mass slayings since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office 19 months ago pledging to reduce record levels of violence. But homicides hit a new record last year and are trending higher still in 2020.

On June 6, 10 men were killed when gunmen opened fire in a rehabilitation center for addicts in Irapuato. It was not immediately clear if the same facility was hit both times.

Guanajuato, a major carmaking hub, has become one of the principal flashpoints of criminal violence in Mexico.

Rehab centers are known to have been targeted by criminal gangs waging turf wars for control of the drug business.

At least 26 people were killed in an arson attack by suspected gang members on a bar in the southern Mexican port of Coatzacoalcos last August.
Hong Kong Activists Discuss Parliament-in-Exile After China Crackdown

LONDONHong Kong pro-democracy activists are discussing a plan to create an unofficial parliament-in-exile to keep the flame of democracy alive and send a message to China that freedom cannot be crushed, campaigner Simon Cheng told Reuters.

Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, was rocked by months of pro-democracy, anti-China protests last year against Chinese interference in its promised freedoms, the biggest political crisis for Beijing since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Hong Kong police fired water cannons and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people on July 1 as protesters took to the streets again in defiance of new, sweeping security legislation introduced by China to snuff out dissent.

The law pushes Chinas freest city and one of the worlds most glittering financial hubs on to a more authoritarian path. China, which denies interfering in Hong Kong, has warned foreign powers not to meddle in its affairs.

Cheng, a Hong Kong citizen, worked for the British consulate in the territory for almost two years until he fled after he said he was beaten and tortured by Chinas secret police. Cheng, who has since been granted asylum by Britain, describes himself as a pro-democracy campaigner.

A shadow parliament can send a very clear signal to Beijing and the Hong Kong authorities that democracy need not be at the mercy of Beijing, he told Reuters in London. We want to set up non-official civic groups that surely reflect the views of the Hong Kong people.

He said that while the idea was still at an early stage, such a parliament-in-exile would support the people of Hong Kong and the pro-democracy movement there. He declined to say where the parliament might sit.

We are developing an alternative way to fight for democracy, Cheng said. We need to be clever to deal with the expanding totalitarianism: they are showing more powerful muscle to suppress so we need to be more subtle and agile.

He said more and more people were losing hope that it is effective to go out on to the streets or run for election to Hong Kongs Legislative Council, or mini-parliament.

We should stand with the Hong Kong people and support those staying in Hong Kong, he said.

Very Good Signal

Asked about HSBCs support for the sweeping national security law, Cheng said the British government should speak to senior British capitalists to make them understand the importance of democracy.

After Prime Minister Boris Johnson offered millions of Hong Kong residents the path to British citizenship following Chinas imposition of the law, hundreds of thousands of people will come to the United Kingdom, Cheng said.

The UK has given a very good signal, Cheng said. At least hundreds of thousands of people will come.

Almost 3 million Hong Kong residents are eligible for the so-called British National (Overseas) passport. There were 349,881 holders of the passports as of February, Britain said.

One day we will be back in Hong Kong, Cheng said.

Hong Kong returned to China 23 years ago with the guarantee of freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including its independent legal system and rights to gather and protest, under a one country, two systems formula.

Huge protests calling for democracy, especially on the anniversaries of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen crackdown, were common and brought major streets to a standstill for 79 days in the Umbrella movement of 2014.

The national security law punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison, and will see mainland security agencies in Hong Kong, allowing extradition to the mainland for trial.

By Natalie Thomas and Guy Faulconbridge
On 27 June, more than three months after they were imposed, Egypt began lifting many of the restrictions put in place to curb the spread of coronavirus. Egypt has lost LE125 billion in revenue during the last three months as a result of the closure Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said during an interview with state-owned Channel 1 on Monday.



It is essential we develop ways to coexist with the virus given no economy can bear the continued costs of closure, Maait said.



Countries around the world are reopening their economies after having implemented unprecedented measures to suppress transmission and slow down the spread of the virus.



A coexistence scenario is necessary to enable citizens to earn a living. Without it the state will not have any revenues and an economic depression will occur. It is essential Egypt return to work, production, and growth again, said Maait.



Egypts 2019-2020 GDP growth rate is likely to come in at four per cent, down from a pre-pandemic estimate of 5.6 per cent, Maait said.



Driven by economic concerns, the cabinet began on Saturday to life restrictions in place since March. Cafes, cinemas, restaurants and gyms have all been allowed to reopen provided they adhere to a 25 per cent occupancy limit.



The night-time curfew has been cancelled, though the public has been told to keep wearing facemasks and maintain social distancing.



Mosques have been also allowed to host the daily prayers since Saturday, though Friday prayers continue to be banned to avoid crowding. The reopening of churches in Cairo and Alexandria, however, has been delayed until mid-July by the Coptic Orthodox Church due to high infection rates.



The Justice Ministry announced that all courts, the ministrys general bureau and all affiliated departments, including forensic medicine and registry offices, fully resumed work at the beginning of this week.



On 1 July Egypt opened selected destinations to international air traffic. Foreign tourists are allowed to visit three coastal governorates - South Sinai, the Red Sea and Marsa Matrouh. Arrivals have been exempted from visa fees until the end of October in an attempt to boost the ailing tourism sector.



Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled Al-Anani said on Monday that 400 hotels nationwide have received health safety certificates allowing them to reopen and receive tourists at 50 per cent capacity.



Since the reopening of the country Egypts record of new cases in a single day, 1774 recorded on 19 June, has remained unbroken, with the daily toll swinging between 1,600 and 1,100. On Monday, the total number of infections reached 66,754 since the detection of the first case on 14 February, and the number of fatalities rose to 2,872.



Health Minister Hala Zayed said last week that the occupancy rate in designated coronavirus quarantine hospitals is 59 per cent, and 71 per cent in ICUs.



President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi inaugurated field and isolation hospitals at Cairos International Exhibition Centre with a total capacity of 4,000 beds on Saturday, creating more space should Egypt see a surge in cases.



The facilities include four isolation halls, each with a capacity of 700 beds, and five field hospitals, with surgery theatres and 40 ICU beds.



Earlier this month, the government announced that the number of hospitals designated to deal with coronavirus cases had risen to 376 from 340.



Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has begun directing more attention to patients with underlying health conditions as it implements a presidential initiative launched on 21 June to treat chronic disease. On 25 June the Health Minister said 122 medical centres and 33 mobile medical convoys in eight governorates are taking part in the initiative.



Al-Negelah isolation hospital, Egypts first designated hospital for coronavirus cases, will stop receiving COVID-19 patients and will instead return to normal operation in all medical specialties.



Marking the sixth month of the pandemic, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom said on Monday that most people remain susceptible to infection and the coronavirus has a lot of room to move.



We all want COVID-19 to be over and to get on with our lives. But the hard reality is: this is not even close to being over, Adhanom said during a media briefing. He added that the pandemic is actually speeding up.



The WHO chief estimated a few days earlier that the current infection rate is one million new cases a week worldwide. In his speech Adhanom said the world has 10 million confirmed cases and more than half a million people have lost their lives worldwide.



The critical question that all countries will face in the coming months is how to live with the virus. This is the new normal.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Riot police detain a man as they raise a warning flag during a demonstration against the new national security law in Hong Kong, on July 1, 2020. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Hong Kong Authorities Ban Popular Protest Slogan in Latest Clampdown on Free Speech

Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times, one of the most well-known protest chants since mass Hong Kong demonstrations ignited in 2019, has now been banned, as the local government has deemed it a violation of the newly imposed national security law.

The Hong Kong government said in a July 2 statement that the slogan is now considered illegal, as it connotes the idea of Hong Kong independence, or separating the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) from the Peoples Republic of China, altering the legal status of the HKSAR, or subverting the State power.

The Hong Kong government said it made the decision because protesters displayed or possessed items containing the phrase. The HKSAR Government strongly condemns any acts which challenge the sovereignty, unification, and territorial integrity of the Peoples Republic of China, according to the statement released late Thursday night.

Read More Beijing Imposes Maximum Penalties of Life Imprisonment in Security Law for Hong Kong

The phrase was first coined by Edward Leung, former spokesman of pro-independence political party Hong Kong Indigenous, in 2016 as a campaign slogan when he ran for a lawmaker position. He was soon disqualified on the grounds that advocating for independence was a violation of the citys mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Leung is currently serving a six-year prison term after being convicted for rioting.

The phrase took on new momentum in 2019 as protesters embraced its spirit to oppose Beijings tightening control. Millions of Hongkongers have demonstrated on the streets chanting the slogan, fearful that they would lose their basic rights amid growing Chinese encroachment.

Anti-government protesters wearing protective masks hold Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times banners during a demonstration at a shopping mall in Hong Kong, on May 10, 2020. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Thousands of locals again came out on July 1 despite a police ban to voice their opposition against the new law. July 1 is also the 23rd anniversary of the former British colony reverting back to Chinese rule.

Police said it made around 370 arrests at the site of protests, 10 of which concerned violations of the new law.

In a social media post, police said they stopped and searched two women, and arrested them for possessing pamphlets and printouts bearing the words, Resist Beijing, Liberate Hong Kong, conscience, and One Nation, One Hong Kong. A 15-year-old female was arrested for waving a blue Hong Kong Independence flag, while at least another three were arrested for possessing flags or banners with similar slogans.

The police also repeatedly held up purple flags while patrolling the July 1 protests, warning the crowd in Chinese and English against displaying flags or banners, chanting slogans, or conducting yourselves with an intent such as secession or subversion, which it said may lead to arrest and prosecution.

Riot police detain a man as they raise a warning flag during a demonstration against the new national security law in Hong Kong, on July 1, 2020. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Nathan Law, one of the most prominent protest figures in Hong Kong known for his role during the 2014 Umbrella pro-democracy movement, said on July 2 that he has left Hong Kong due to the risk of being punished for speech crimes.

Demosisto, a pro-democracy political group that Law co-founded, dissolved after the national security laws implementation prompted core members, including Law, to withdraw from the group.

The activist, who is turning 27, said he will keep advocating for Hong Kong against Chinese authoritarian power on an international stage. [O]ne shall never walk alone on the right path, he said in a Twitter post on Thursday.

The July 1 crowds show once again that the fire of Hong Kongers determination will not be easily extinguished. We must sustain our resistance on all fronts, he added.
Protesters chant slogans and gesture during a rally against the new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

Hong Kong Epoch Times Condemns Arrest of Distribution Personnel During Protests

The Hong Kong edition of The Epoch Times has strongly condemned the Hong Kong police for making indiscriminate arrests at the site of protests, amid the Beijing regimes implementation of its new national security law.

On July 1, while thousands of protesters marched onto the streets in defiance of a police ban to oppose the new law, four Epoch Times distribution workers were among a group of people who were surrounded by police and arrested.

The local Epoch Times bureau has called for their unconditional release, and the fourChen Xiaojuan, Zhang Yan, Qiu Xiuzhu, and Wang Jinxianghave since been released on bail after paying HK$500 (about US$64).

They were distributing Epoch Times promotional material near Victoria Park in Causeway Bay district on July 1, as protesters gathered for a protest march, when they were arrested between 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

They were detained overnight at the North Point Police Station before being released on bail July 2 at various times; their phones have been confiscated.

The police conducted a body search and also searched their bags. The four staffers were also told to remove their clothing and change into police-issued clothes; police kept the clothes as evidence for an investigation.

While officers returned the newspapers they carried with them, they kept posters and other promotional materials, saying these would also be held as evidence. Two of the staff, Chen and Jin, had photos taken with the posters placed next to them. All four are due to report to the police station on Aug. 4.

The national security law went into effect late June 30 after ceremonial votes by Chinas rubber-stamp legislature, the National Peoples Congress. The law criminalizes individuals for any acts of subversion, secession, terrorism, or collusion with foreign forces, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Police made mass arrests throughout the day on July 1. About 370 people were arrested at the site of protests, including 10 on suspicion of violating the national security law.

This article has been updated with the latest information.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) speaks about H.R. 40 at a Congressional Black Caucus press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 1, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

House Reparations Bill Backer Says No Better Time Than Now, but Little Interest on Hill

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) thinks the time is right for her proposal, H.R. 40, that would establish a commission to study whether black Americans should receive reparations for slavery.

We now have an opportunity, through H.R. 40, to have the highest level of discussion about systemic racism and race. And we are able to do it in a manner that is bringing people together; that acknowledges that black lives matter; and acknowledges that there has to be a response, Jackson Lee, the chief sponsor of the measure, told The Hill on June 27.

There is no better time for H.R. 40 to be part of the national dialogue, and part of the national legislative response, she said about the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.

Jackson Lee told reporters during a Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) meeting the next day that House Democratic leaders have promised her the bill will be marked up and brought to the House floor for a vote this year.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wouldnt give a firm date, however, for either a markup or floor vote when pressed by reporters, according to the Washington Examiner.

Jackson Lee claims the tragic May 25 death of George Floyd while being arrested by the Minneapolis police and the Black Lives Matter-led protests and violence in cities across the country are prompting increased support for her proposal among congressional Democrats.

Shes hoping to tap that energy to bring her bill to the floor for a historic vote before years end, according to The Hill.

But theres little evidence of a recent upswing of support for the reparations proposal in Congress.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, endorsed the proposal earlier this year, and it received a flurry of interest in April, when Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a companion bill in the upper chamber.

Jackson Lee introduced her proposal in 2019, but the bill has for the most part languished since then. There are 135 House co-sponsors, all of whom are Democrats.

Only eight of the House co-sponsors signed up since Floyds death, according to Congress.gov. On the Senate side, Bookers version has 18 co-sponsors, also all Democrats, and only two of them signed on in 2020.

The proposals only legislative action was a hearing in July 2019 by the House Judiciary Committees Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. That hearing was the only congressional proceeding ever convened during the 18 years that some version of the proposal has been introduced in Congress.

The Jackson Lee bill, as with much else in Congress, was subsequently overshadowed by House Democratic leaders drive to impeach Trump and by efforts to deal with the CCP virus, also known as novel coronavirus.

Another measure of the slight interest in the reparations proposal is seen in the lack of congressional media activity since Floyds death.

Only six of the thousands of congressional news releases issued since June 1 mentioned the word reparations. None of the six were primarily focused on the Jackson Lee bill, according to a search on Legistorm, a widely used database of congressional information.

Only 49 congressional tweets posted during the same period mentioned reparations, according to Legistorm. Of those, 44 were tweets by congressional staff members, only five were by members of Congress.

Jackson Lees proposal doesnt actually mandate reparations, it only establishes a 13-member commission, with members appointed by the president and congressional leaders in both houses of Congress. The commissions charter would be to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, according to the text.

Republican strategist Brian Darling views congressional commissions as a means of evading concrete actions.

Congress should never set up commissions to study issues, Darling told The Epoch Times. It is an easy way to set up a scenario where you load up a commission with people who will come up with a pre-determined outcome, thereby providing momentum for an idea.

Darling added that commissions are an abrogation of the core purpose of Congress, because that is why Congress has committees to study issues themselves.

Democratic campaign strategists interviewed by The Epoch Times, however, dont see a problem with the commission approach.

A commission to study the issue is a good first step. Because there are such serious gaps in our knowledge of our own history, we need to start by filling those gaps, California-based Spencer Critchley said.

Then we might be able to have a more useful debate about how to respond to the terrible legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, beyond the all-too-typical Us vs. Them, he said.

Jimmy Williams, former senior economic adviser to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), told The Epoch Times that first and foremost, Congress should apologize for slavery. Setting up a commission to make recommendations is a perfectly fine idea if its purpose is to make concrete proposals and persuade Americans to support it, who, as of 2019, were 60/40 against the idea.

A June 19 ABC/Ipsos Survey found that 73 percent of respondents oppose reparations.
Hundreds of Elephants Found Dead in Botswana in Mysterious Mass Die-Off

Hundreds of elephants in northern Botswana have mysteriously died over the past two months in what experts are describing as a conservation disaster.

Since early May, the carcasses of more than 350 elephants have been spotted in the Okavango Delta, and the cause of their deaths is unknown. Some 70 percent of the deaths were clustered around waterholes, local sources told The Guardian.

This is a mass die-off on a level that hasnt been seen in a very, very long time, Dr. Niall McCann, director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue, told the news outlet. Outside of drought, I dont know of a die-off that has been this significant.

The first deaths were reported at the start of May, when 169 elephant carcasses were spotted in the northwestern wetland area by local conversationists, who then alerted the government.

They spotted 169 in a three-hour flight, McCann told the BBC. To be able to see and count that many in a three-hour flight was extraordinary. A month later, further investigations identified many more carcasses, bringing the total to over 350.

This is totally unprecedented in terms of numbers of elephants dying in a single event unrelated to drought.

The Botswana government has reportedly ruled out poaching, as the carcasses were found intact, suggested they were not poached.

A combination photo shows dead elephants in Okavango Delta, Botswana May-June, 2020. (Handout via Reuters)

Further investigations have also ruled out poisoning by humans or anthraxa serious infectious diseaseas possible causes of death. Anthrax was initially considered the most likely cause of the elephants deaths. Last year, more than 100 elephants died in the region because of a suspected anthrax outbreak.

Anthrax is a bacteria found naturally in soil and commonly affects domestic and wild animals when they breathe in or ingest spores in contaminated soil, plants, or water, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Local sources told The Guardian that some of the animals were spotted walking around in circles, which in some cases indicates neurological impairment.

If you look at the carcasses, some of them have fallen straight on their face, indicating they died very quickly, McCann said. Others are obviously dying more slowly, like the ones that are wandering around. So its very difficult to say what this toxin is.

Dr. Cyril Taolo, acting director for Botswanas Department of Wildlife and National Parks, told The Guardian that samples have been sent off to laboratories for testing, and results are expected in the coming weeks.

Africas 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, elephants are seen as a growing nuisance by farmers, whose crops have been destroyed by animals roaming the southern African country.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Hundreds Quarantined After PepsiCo Beijing Plant Confirms CCP Virus Cases

After eight confirmed cases were reported in the PepsiCo plant in Beijing, four more cases were confirmed on June 22. Hundreds of PepsiCo workers, close contacts, and neighbors of the workers have been isolated.

PepsiCo in China explained that when an employee in the plant, which mainly produces Lays potato chips, was confirmed to be infected on June 15, PepsiCo immediately suspended production. All employees were quarantined at home that day and received nucleic acid tests the next day. On June 20, a total of 480 people from the company were transferred to centralized quarantine sites. As of June 20, at 6 p.m., 87 close contacts were found and quarantined. Close contacts included delivery personnel, neighbors, and medical staff.

Couriers Quarantined

Zhao Xna (alias), in his 30s, is an employee of PepsiCo and a confirmed case. Mr. Wang is a Jingdong courier who once made a delivery to Zhao. Although Wang didnt see Zhao when he made the delivery, he was also forced to self-quarantine.

Im in isolation at the Hanting Hotel now. I didnt have any contact with Zhao. I left the delivery at a drop box on June 14. The entire village over there was locked down. The delivery could only be made to a drop box. I dont know why I was put in isolation. Wang said that he was notified at noon on June 19, isolated that night, and it was totally unexpected.

He explained that he had never seen Zhao and didnt know if Zhao was a man or a woman, which made him feel particularly bad about being implicated.

I told the CDC [Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention] that I had no contact with the person that day. They said (I) had contact with the drop box, Zhao also had contact with the drop box. It is easy to get infected.

Another courier, Mr. He, had a similar experience. Mr. He was called by the CDC at 8:57 a.m. on June 19, saying that he had made a delivery to a specified address. He didnt have time to check the recipients name, and didnt remember if he left the delivery at a drop box or with a person. Regardless, he was sent to the isolation hotel that night.

Before going to the hotel, his van and delivery items were disinfected. His co-workers kept a distance from him. Whether you are confirmed, suspected, or a close contact, you feel instantly rejected by others, including your coworkers and friends. Thats what I felt at the time, said He.

Mr. He was sent to the isolation hotel directly from the company. On the first night, he stayed in a small company room with a security guard until early morning. Then, the leader made He ride a motorbike for a long distance, while he followed in a vehicle. When they reached a crossroad there was a bus waiting there that contained at least 10 people. All were taken to the isolation site together.

Mr. He told The Epoch Times that he had to stay in his room, It hurts all over the body. I am uncomfortable and I had diarrhea last night. Maybe its because of the air conditioning. The air is terrible in the room if the air conditioner is not running. The window only opens 10 cm (four inches).

Mr. He said he was alone in the hotel, and his wife and almost 18-month-old boy were isolated in the company building.

He asked if he had to pay for the cost of the quarantine hotel, but his leader told him not to think about it right then. He still doesnt know how the fees will be handled.

Neighbors Entire Family Isolated

Mr. Li, 55, is Zhaos neighbor. He was taken to the Vienna Hotel in Daxing District at around midnight on June 19 for centralized isolation.

Li lives in the same compound as Zhao. They see each other almost daily. After Zhaos case was confirmed, all three of his family members were sent to the hotel for isolation. His wife and child were next door but they could only communicate via WeChat.

He said, After we left, our entire compound was sealed and disinfected. The whole village was tested for nucleic acids. Nearby residents were isolated at home.

Mr. Li runs a diner. Since the outbreak started in Wuhan, his business has been closed. It just reopened at the beginning of May. Now he also wonders about the quarantine fees.

Doctors Isolated

Wang Xhong (alias) is another confirmed case from PepsiCo in Beijing.

An insider told The Epoch Times that Wang should have been diagnosed in Daxing Hospital on June 16 or 17. But she had already visited Beijing Renhe Hospital on June 10. On the afternoon of June 17, the Health Bureau notified the doctors in Renhe Hospital they needed to be quarantined.

The insider also said that Wang could have contracted the virus by either visiting Xinfadi food market or through contact with people who went there. Xinfadi is where the authorities attribute the source of the latest outbreak in Beijing.

Although Wang and Lily (alias) dont work on the same production line, and Lily has never heard of Wang, she was also sent to a hotel in Chaoyang District on June 18 for isolation.

Employees are isolated, one person to a room, and restricted from going out. She explained that she underwent so-called preventive medicine for six days, and doesnt know when quarantine ends. No one tells me anything. The company did not say anything about the isolation costs or charges for the test, but they said our salaries will be delayed till next month. I dont know what the situation is now, she said.

The people affected in this new outbreak in Beijing were in various businesses, such as farmers markets, restaurants, canteens, takeaways, express delivery services, logistics, and hospitals. Local authorities arranged for courier personnel to have nucleic acid testing starting on June 19, which included a total of 103,000 first-line employees in 17 postal and express delivery companies in Beijing.

So far, the regime still refuses to impose a lockdown policy on the state capital. Thirty-eight districts in Beijing are listed as medium-risk, and five were raised to high-riskthe most severe level of infection.
An arrangement of hydroxychloroquine pills is seen in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 6, 2020. (John Locher/AP Photo)

Hydroxychloroquine Lowers COVID-19 Death Rate, US Study Finds

The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine lowers the death rate of COVID-19 patients, U.S. researchers have said.

Researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of over 2,500 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2 in the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan. Over 2,000 of the patients were given hydroxychloroquine or the anti-malarial with azithromycin, an antibiotic.

The study found 13 percent of those who received hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4 percent who didnt receive the drug.

Hydroxychloroquine alone decreased the mortality hazard ratio by 66 percent and the anti-malarial with the antibiotic decreased the ratio by 71 percent, researchers said.

The vast majority of patients were given the drug within 48 hours of admission.

Our analysis shows that using hydroxychloroquine helped saves lives, neurosurgeon Dr. Steven Kalkanis, senior vice president and chief academic officer of the health system, said in a statement. As doctors and scientists, we look to the data for insight. And the data here is clear that there was benefit to using the drug as a treatment for sick, hospitalized patients.

Patients who received hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin also had a lower mortality than people who received neither, as did patients who received azithromycin.

A view of the front entrance to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Mich., on April 8, 2020. (Elaine Cromie/Getty Images)

The findings have been highly analyzed and peer-reviewed, added Dr. Marcus Zervos, division head of Infectious Disease for Henry Ford, who co-authored the study with epidemiologist Dr. Samia Arshad.

We attribute our findings that differ from other studies to early treatment, and part of a combination of interventions that were done in supportive care of patients, including careful cardiac monitoring, Zervos said. Our dosing also differed from other studies not showing a benefit of the drug. And other studies are either not peer reviewed, have limited numbers of patients, different patient populations or other differences from our patients.

None of the patients experienced side effects, researchers said, although patients who were monitored for a heart condition were recommended not to take the treatment.

The median age of patients was 64. The group was 51 percent male and 56 percent African-American.

The conclusions came from a peer-reviewed study that was published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Regardless of what treatment they received, mortality was highest in patients older than 65, patients who identified as Caucasian, patients admitted with reduced oxygen levels, and patients who required care in intensive care units, researchers said.

The results should be interpreted with some caution, Zervos said, and require further confirmation in randomized controlled clinical trials. Hydrxychloroquine should be used outside hospitals, he said.

A group of Canadian researchers said in a commentary published in the same journal that the results were fundamentally limited because the study was retrospective and questioned whether proper methods were used by the Henry Ford researchers. The patients who did not receive any treatment, the critics wrote, may have been heading towards death, which would skew the numbers.

Hydroxychloroquine and the closely related chloroquine have been closely scrutinized since President Donald Trump touted them earlier this year as potential treatments for COVID-19, a disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The drugs were prescribed for both hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients across the United States after anecdotal accounts suggested some efficacy against COVID-19.

This April 7, 2020 file photo shows a bottle of hydroxychloroquine tablets in Texas City, Texas. (David J. Phillip/AP Photo)

Some clinical trials later found the anti-malarial was ineffective in certain dosages. Several trials studying the drug were stopped last month.

The most circulated study, a retrospective that researchers claimed involved nearly 100,000 patients, was retracted in early June after three of them said they couldnt verify the figures.

Other studies have suggested hydroxychloroquine is effective. One showed it led to a higher rate of discharge from hospitals when combined with zinc and azithromycin.

Indian researchers said the anti-malarial is an effective prophylactic against the CCP virus.

The Food and Drug Administration ended the emergency use authorization for the the anti-malarials last month.

It is no longer reasonable to believe that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine may be effective in treating COVID-19, the agencys chief scientist, Denise Hinton, said.

Some of the trials pointed to side effects, including irregular heart rhythms, the agency warned.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which supports hydroxychloroquine and compiled a list of studies suggesting it is effective, said the authorization only applied to doses donated to the Strategic National Stockpile. Because hydroxychloroquine was approved decades ago for use against malaria, it can be prescribed off-label by doctors for other ailments.
HONG KONG, CHINA - JULY 01: Riot police secure an area in front of a burning road block during a demonstration against the new national security law on July 1, 2020 in Hong Kong, China. Hong Kong marks the 23rd anniversary of its handover to China on July 1 after Beijing imposed the new national security law. (Photo by Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Increased Risk of Arbitrary Detention: Canada Updates Travel Advisory for Hong Kong

Draconian legislation imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing sparks international outcry

The federal government has updated its travel advisory for Hong Kong to warn Canadians that it may be riskier to travel to the region now that the controversial national security law imposed by Beijing has come into effect.

National security legislation for Hong Kong came into effect on July 1, 2020. You may be at increased risk of arbitrary detention on national security grounds and possible extradition to mainland China, says a statement on Travel Canadas website.

The agency also warns Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution in Hong Kong, since there are ongoing large-scale demonstrations.

Police have often reacted more swiftly and severely to unauthorized protests. They have used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition as crowd control measures, says the advisory.

The national security law went into effect at midnight on June 30 after being passed by Chinas rubber-stamp legislature, the National Peoples Congress. The law criminalizes individuals for any acts of subversion, secession, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, with maximum penalties of life imprisonment. Critics fear the law will be used to crack down on those critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

On July 1, as thousands marched through the streets to oppose the new law in defiance of a police ban, police fired pepper spray, tear gas, and water cannons at the protesters. The Hong Kong Police Force said it had detained 10 peoplesix men and four womenon suspicion of violating the new law.

In total, about 370 were arrested for a number of offences, including unlawful assembly, obstructing police, and possession of weapons, officials said.

Four Epoch Times distribution personnel were among a group of people who were cordoned by police and arrested; they were later released on bail after paying 500 HKD (about C$87.5).

Riot police deploy tear gas as they clear protesters from a road during a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the citys handover from Britain to China.  Hong Kong police made the first arrests under Beijings new national security law on July 1 as the city greeted the anniversary of its handover to China with protesters fleeing water cannon. (Photo by DALE DE LA REY / AFP)

International Outcry

The move to enact the legislation has sparked an international outcry, with Canada and 26 other countries expressing their concerns in a joint statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 30.

We urge the Chinese and Hong Kong Governments to reconsider the imposition of this legislation and to engage Hong Kongs people, institutions and judiciary to prevent further erosion of the rights and freedoms that the people of Hong Kong have enjoyed for many years, the statement reads.

Ottawa, however, has not issued an official response condemning the legislation, leading Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer to urge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Twitter to do the right thing and stand up for the democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers.

Canadas Conservatives condemn Beijings unilateral move to impose a security law on Hong Kong. This directly undermines its heritage of freedom and the rule of law, Scheer tweeted.

On July 1, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill imposing sanctions on banks doing business with Chinese officials involved in the implementation of the national security law.

The law is a brutal, sweeping crackdown against the people of Hong Kong, intended to destroy the freedoms they were promised, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the situation in Hong Kong.

Concerns have been raised that the legislation breaches Hong Kongs Basic Law, which guarantees that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights can remain in force in the territory.

The U.S. Senate last week unanimously approved a companion bill, the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which would impose mandatory sanctions on individuals or companies that back efforts by China to restrict Hong Kongs autonomy, also including secondary sanctions on banks that do business with anyone found to be backing any crackdown on the territorys autonomy.

The United States has already taken measures to eliminate Hong Kongs special status, halt defence exports, and restrict the territorys access to high technology products in response to the new law.

According to Sky News and other British media outlets, Britains Foreign Office chief Sir Simon McDonald summoned Chinas ambassador Liu Xiaoming to express its concerns over the implementation of the law.

McDonald expressed the U.K.s deep concern over the move, pointing out that the law breaches the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which the Chinese regime promised to guarantee Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for 50 years after the territory was handed back to China in 1997.

Offering a Safe Haven to Hong Kongers

Pro-democracy groups like Hong Kong Watch, Alliance Canada Hong Kong, and Vancouver Hong Kong Political Activists are urging Canada to provide a safe haven for democracy activists and others who may wish to flee Hong Kong.

Its imperative that the Canadian government show leadership and so far we havent seen a very strong response compared with the U.K. and Japan, said Jane Li, spokeswoman for Vancouver Hong Kong Political Activists.

The British government announced on July 1 that it will extend immigration rights for an estimated 3 million Hong Kong residents who hold British National (Overseas) status.

Under the proposed bespoke immigration route, according to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, BNO status holders will be able to stay in the U.K. for five years with the right to work or study. After five years, they can apply for settled status, and for citizenship one year later.

The Australian government is also working on a scheme to offer similar safe haven arrangements for Hong Kong residents, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on July 2.

According to the Globe and Mail, some 50 Hong Kongers who fear persecution are seeking asylum in Canada, citing police harassment and brutality. Many of them participated in last years massive demonstrations.

With reporting by Epoch Times Hong Kong Staff.
President Donald Trump participates in a meeting of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board in the East Room of the White House in Washington on June 26, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Judge Lifts Injunction on Publisher of Tell-All Book by Trumps Niece

Injunction applies to Mary Trump, but not publisher Simon & Schuster

A judge ruled on Wednesday that the publisher of Trumps nieces memoir is not bound by a confidentiality agreement that she signed.

As such, publisher Simon & Schuster can print and distribute the 240-page book by Mary Trump, Judge Alan D. Scheinkman of the New York Supreme Courts appellate division said in a ruling on Wednesday (pdf).

The book, titled Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man, was scheduled to be published on June 28. The book reportedly offers an unflattering portrait of her relationship with her uncle and other family members.

The book was promoted to contain an insiders perspective of countless holiday meals, family interactions and family events.

However, its publication was held back on June 30 when a judge issued a temporary restraining order against Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster.

Robert Trump and Donald Trump at an event in New York on Nov. 3, 1999. (Diane Bonadreff, File/AP Photo)

The restraining order was requested by President Donald Trumps brother, Robert Trump, who said that the book would violate a nondisclosure agreement that was part of the estate of President Trumps father, Fred Trump, after his death in 1999. Mary Trump is Fred Trumps granddaughter.

Their settlement nearly two decades ago included a confidentiality clause that explicitly states they would not publish any account concerning the litigation or their relationship, unless all of them agreed, according to court papers.

Both Mary Trump and her publisher appealed the order less than three hours after it was issued.

Scheinkmans ruling leaves in place restraints against Mary Trump and any of her agents, blocking them from publishing, printing, or distributing the book, pending the hearing of lawyers for Robert Trumps motion for a preliminary injunction. A July 10 hearing is scheduled.

This court is of the view that it is appropriate, in view of the confidentiality provision of the settlement agreement and the showing made in the plaintiffs papers, for a temporary restraining order to issue as against Ms. Trump to temporarily enforce its terms pending a hearing on the preliminary injunction. The Supreme Court may revisit the restraining order upon its timely review of the defendants submissions and its conduct of further proceedings, Scheinkman wrote.

Judge Says Publisher is Not Mary Trumps Agent

But while Mary Trump has entered into a settlement, S&S is not a party to the settlement agreement, Scheinkman noted.

The only basis offered by the plaintiff to extend the temporary restraining order to S&S are the allegations that S&S intends to act on Ms. Trumps behalf in causing the publication of the book and that S&S is acting at Ms. Trumps direction and in concert with her, he wrote.

However, these allegations are conclusory and not supported by any specific factual averments, Scheinkman contended. Unlike Ms. Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.

He later added: While the plaintiff has alleged, in effect, that S&S is Ms. Trumps agent, the evidence submitted is insufficient for this court to determine whether the plaintiff is likely to succeed in establishing that claim. So, while the plaintiff is entitled to have the temporary restraining order bind any agent of the plaintiff, this court will not name S&S as being such an agent.

Scheinkman noted that he is ruling after hearing oral arguments from lawyers for Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster, but before lawyers for Robert Trump have submitted opposition papers.

Theodore Boutrous Jr., Mary Trumps lawyer, said in a statement on Wednesday that the latest ruling is very good news.

We look forward to filing our brief tomorrow in the trial court explaining why the same result is required as to Ms. Trump, based on the First Amendment and basic contract law, Boutrous said, according to The Hill.

Simon & Schuster said in a statement it was happy with the ruling, which it said would let Mary Trump tell her story. It also said that the book was of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public.

Robert Trumps lawyer did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Jack Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Three people wear protective masks while sitting on the lawn in Bryant Park in New York City, N.Y., on May 22, 2020. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

Kansas Governor Orders Masks to Be Worn in Public and at Work

The governor of Kansas ordered that masks be worn in public and at work where social distancing is not possible.

The last few months have presented many new challenges for Kansans, and all of us want to return to our normal lives and routines, Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, said in a news release. Unfortunately, we have seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths across our state and our country. We must act. Viruses dont stop at county lines. This order doesnt change where you can go or what you can do. But wearing a mask is a simple and effective way to keep Kansans healthy and keep Kansas open for business.

The order goes into effect starting Friday.

This is a simple, proactive step we can take to keep Kansans at work, get our kids back to school, and keep ourselves and our neighbors healthy, Kelly added. Wearing a mask is not only safebut it is necessary to avoid another shutdown.

The order (pdf) doesnt apply to children under the age of 6, the deaf, or people who have medical conditions that make breathing difficult.

She said the Kansas attorney generals office will work with her office to make sure the order complies with Kansas state law.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly speaks during a press conference at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., on March 25, 2018. (John Hanna/AP Photo)

Kansas has reported nearly 15,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus since the pandemic started in early March and reported 272 COVID-19-related deaths as of Wednesday. Since Kelly lifted statewide restrictions on businesses and public gatherings immediately after Memorial Day, Kansas has had 5,653 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, which amounted to a 61 percent increase, and 84 deathsa 45 percent jump.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the United States recorded more than 50,000 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus cases on Wednesday, although other trackers have noted that the daily death toll has been relatively low in recent weeks.

Vice President Mike Pence told CNBC on Thursday that he doesnt believe there is a need for a national mandate to wear masks.

The truth is that were monitoring right now 12 states that have rising cases and rising positivity, and were fully supporting efforts that the governors are taking and local health officials are taking to encourage people to practice good hygiene, social distancing, wear a mask where social distancing is not possible, he said.

Earlier in the week, Pence said that four states accounted for more than 50 percent of new cases: Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
People walk and gather near dead bodies of jade scavengers who were killed in a landslide covered with plastic and lined up near a jade mining area in Hpakant, Kachine state in northern Burma, on July 2, 2020. (Zaw Moe Htet/AP Photo)

Landslide at Burma Jade Mine Kills at Least 162 People

HPAKANT, BurmaAt least 162 people were killed Thursday in a landslide at a jade mine in northern Burma (also known as Myanmar), the worst in a series of deadly accidents at such sites in recent years.

The Myanmar Fire Service Department, which coordinates rescues and other emergency services, announced about 12 hours after the morning disaster that 162 bodies were recovered from the landslide in Hpakant, the center of the worlds biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry.

The most detailed estimate of Burmas jade industry said it generated about $31 billion in 2014. Hpakant is a rough and remote area in Kachin state, 950 kilometers (600 miles) north of Burmas biggest city, Yangon.

The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud, the Fire Service said. It said 54 injured people were taken to hospitals. The tolls announced by other state agencies and media lagged behind the fire agency, which was most closely involved. An unknown number of people are feared missing.

Those taking part in the recovery operations, which were suspended after dark, included the army and other government units and local volunteers.

The London-based environmental watchdog Global Witness said the accident is a damning indictment of the governments failure to curb reckless and irresponsible mining practices in Kachin states jade mines.

The government should immediately suspend large-scale, illegal and dangerous mining in Hpakant and ensure companies that engage in these practices are no longer able to operate, it said in a statement.

At the site of the tragedy, a crowd gathered in the rain around corpses shrouded in blue and red plastic sheets placed in a row on the ground.

Women look at bodies shrouded in blue and red plastic sheets placed in a row on the ground in Hpakant, Kachin State, Burma, on July 2, 2020. (Zaw Moe Htet/AP Photo)

Emergency workers had to slog through heavy mud to retrieve bodies by wrapping them in the plastic sheets, which were then hung on crossed wooden poles shouldered by the recovery teams.

Social activists have complained that the profitability of jade mining has led businesses and the government to neglect enforcement of already very weak regulations in the jade mining industry.

The multi-billion dollar sector is dominated by powerful military-linked companies, armed groups and cronies that have been allowed to operate without effective social and environmental controls for years, Global Witness said. Although the military is no longer directly in power in Burma, it is still a major force in government and exercises authority in remote regions.

Thursdays death toll surpasses that of a November 2015 accident that left 113 dead and was previously considered the countrys worst. In that case, the victims died when a 60-meter (200-foot) -high mountain of earth and waste discarded by several mines tumbled in the middle of the night, covering more than 70 huts where miners slept.

Those killed in such accidents are usually freelance miners who settle near giant mounds of discarded earth that has been excavated by heavy machinery. The freelancers who scavenge for bits of jade usually work and live in abandoned mining pits at the base of the mounds of earth, which become particularly unstable during the rainy season.

Most scavengers are unregistered migrants from other areas, making it hard to determine exactly how many people are actually missing after such accidents and in many cases leaving the relatives of the dead in their home villages unaware of their fate.

Global Witness, which investigates misuse of revenues from natural resources, documented the $31 billion estimate for Burmas jade industry in a 2015 report that said most of the wealth went to individuals and companies tied to the countrys former military rulers. More recent reliable figures are not readily available.

It said at the time the report was released that the legacy to local people of such business arrangements is a dystopian wasteland in which scores of people at a time are buried alive in landslides.

In its statement Thursday, Global Witness blamed the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy party, which came to power in 2016, for failing to implement desperately needed reforms, allowing deadly mining practices to continue and gambling the lives of vulnerable workers in the countrys jade mines.

Jade mining also plays a role in the decades-old struggle of ethnic minority groups in Burmas borderlands to take more control of their own destiny.

The area where members of the Kachin minority are dominant is poverty stricken despite hosting lucrative deposits of rubies as well as jade.

The Kachin believe they are not getting a fair share of the profits from deals that the central government makes with mining companies.

Kachin guerrillas have engaged in intermittent but occasionally heavy combat with government troops.

By Zaw Moe Htet and Pyae Sone Win
Photo: (Photo : Screenshot from Twitter)

Parents all over the world are struggling. The frequent question seemed to be whether they will attend to the needs of their children, or they are going to focus on their work. Dr. Clare Wenham, a global health expert, had to respond to this question while airing live on the BBC News Channel.

Last Wednesday, while discussing the issue of local lockdowns in England, her daughter started talking to her.

It was a funny yet cute moment on live television.





Dr Clare Wenham, we understand your struggles of working from home and looking after children pic.twitter.com/4f3PODtJWA Mummy what's his name?Dr Clare Wenham, we understand your struggles of working from home and looking after children https://t.co/vXb15EQatL  BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 1, 2020

READ ALSO: 5 Easy Ways on How To Help Kids Who Are Afraid of Video Calls

How did the BBC News expert handle the situation?

Dr. Clare Wenham is an assistant professor at the London School of Economics. She is an expert in global health policy. The BBC News was talking about the issues regarding the coronavirus pandemic. In the clip that has been circulating online, Dr. Wenham was putting down Scarlett. After doing so, she continues discussing. Scarlett, on the other hand, got a little preoccupied with a picture frame showing a unicorn. While Scarlett was asking something to her mother, Dr. Wenham continued explaining the issues in the interview. No matter how much Dr. Wenham would want to keep her focus, Scarlett finds her way to get Mummy's attention.

READ ALSO: Divorce Is Better for Children [Experts Say]

How about the BBC News anchor?

Christian Fraser was hosting the show when Dr. Wenham's daughter crashed on the interview. After a slight pause from the BBC News expert, Fraser tried talking to Scarlett. He commended the sense of interior design by the BBC News expert's daughter. Fraser said, "Scarlett, I think it looks best on the lower shelf... And it's a lovely unicorn." After that, Fraser and Wenham tried to return to discussing the issues at hand. However, Scarlett was still very persistent in asking for her mother's opinion about the painting. Dr. Wenham kept on signaling Scarlett to keep quiet. The BBC News expert's daughter kept on asking the name of the person on the screen.

READ ALSO: Parents Ask: What is Conscious Parenting? What are its Benefits?

How did people who saw the video react?

It was a sweet moment for the viewers. The video that is on Twitter now has more than four million views. Thousands of people are talking about it. Some Twitter users shared how they find the entire clip adorable. Some said, "This is how real life looks like." Another Twitter user suggested that even though we are enjoying this cute moment, Scarlett might not find this funny when she becomes a teenager.

Georgeous..and at the heart of so many peoples struggles to hang all of this together at present. Well done Claire and Francis (and Scarlett who will no doubt be crying when shown this once shes a self conscious teenager).  fen girl one (@budslat) July 1, 2020

In another retweet, a user said, "I heard this great quote 'we're not working from home, we're parenting from work."

READ ALSO: 6 Scientifically-Proven Tips In Raising Happy and Successful Children
Late Firefighters Newborn Pays Tribute to Her Dad in a Moving Photoshoot With 26 Firemen

In a moving homage to her late father, a newborn baby paid tribute to him by posing for an emotional photoshoot alongside her fathers colleagues from the fire department and his fire gear.

Brett Korves, a 10-year veteran of the Swansea Fire Department in Illinois, and a third-generation firefighter, lost his life in a tragic car accident on April 4, 2019, while he was on his way to work. The 30-year-old, who was very active in his community, was hit by a motorist driving at 94 miles per hour. The exemplary father left behind his wife, Alex, a young son, Brock, and grieving firemen.

Baby Brett Grace Korves with her fathers gear. (Courtesy of Sugarfoot Photography)

Two weeks after Bretts death, Alex discovered that she was pregnant.

Despite her joy of being a mom for the second time, Alex was also overwhelmed. I was very excited to have just one more piece of Brett, but I was also very nervous to do this by myself, she told Good Morning America.

Brett Korves with his family. (Courtesy of Alex Korves)

Named after her father, baby Brett Grace Korves was born nine months after her dad passed away on Dec. 12, 2019.

Samantha Kallal, the founder of Sugarfoot Photography, heard of the familys heartbreaking story and wanted to do something for them.

Every year I ask my clients to nominate someone deserving of a free session, Kallal told KMOV. This year, I had read a story about Brett and Alex Korves and my heart broke for Alex. My photography studio is around the corner from the Swansea Fire Station, and every time I drove by it, I thought of her.

Thus she volunteered to do a free shoot for the family. When the time to do the newborns photoshoot arrived, mom Alex and Kallal chose the Swansea firehouse as their location and invited Bretts colleagues to participate.

Baby Brett Grace Korves. (Courtesy of Sugarfoot Photography)

However, what the family and photographer werent aware of was how enthusiastic the fire departments response would be. We expected two or three guys to show up, and then we would just take a couple of quick pictures before going to my studio, Kallal told Good Morning America. But that morning we showed up and 26 of them were there, smiling and ready to go.

Although shooting with a baby is never guaranteed, little Brett Grace stayed perfectly still, sleeping through the whole photoshoot. The heartwarming pictures that were shot on a cold morning include the baby girl with men from her fathers unit, a picture with her older brother, and a special photo with her dads gear and shadow box in his memory.

Brett Grace Korves with her grandfather and the entire fire department crew. (Courtesy of Sugarfoot Photography)

For mom Alex, it was a symbolic representation of how the firefighters take care of their own. I just want Brett Grace to realize that even though her father has passed  she has all this outpouring support from all these men, too, Alex said.

Detailing the photoshoot, Kallal shared on her blog that The sun popped out the moment I started the shoot.

Kallal shared that the image of baby Brett Grace with the firemen was one of her most favorite images she has ever taken. In another special image, the little girl is placed in a helmet, and her grandfather Jack Korves, a lieutenant at the Swansea Fire Department, is seen holding her.

The newborn with the Swansea Fire Department. (Courtesy of Sugarfoot Photography)

Older brother Brock also got into the spirit by donning firefighter boots and bunker pants, snapping a picture with his baby sister. Kallal revealed that Alex was holding the babys head for safety; however, she later edited the image to focus only on the two children.

Brock and his sister, Brett Grace. (Courtesy of Sugarfoot Photography)

Unsurprisingly, the touching tribute got lots of attention after the pictures were shared on social media. Alex was glad to see the outpouring of support from their community.

Additionally, Bretts siblings are working to raise money on a GoFundMe page for scholarships for future firefighters and relief for families of firefighters who were not injured in the line of duty via their organization, Bretts First Responders, which was founded in December 2019.

Bretts loved ones explained, We want to carry on his legacy by helping out others in our community.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
Seattle police arrest a demonstrator who was blocking the intersection of East Pine Street and 11th Avenue, as the city retakes the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) area in Seattle on July 1, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

McEnany: CHOP Area in Seattle Has Been Liberated

The so-called Capital Hill Organized Protest area in Seattle was liberated in a victory for law and order, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said after police officers forced occupiers out of the autonomous zone.

Activists and agitators had taken over an area of multiple city blocks that was alternately known as CHOP and CHAZ, blocking police officers from entering as law enforcement response times soared.

I am pleased to inform everyone that Seattle has been liberated. The Capital Hill Autonomous Zone, CHAZ, was a failed four-week Democrat experiment by the radical left and the results are in. Anarchy is anti-American; law and order is essential. Peace in our streets will be secured, McEnany told reporters on July 1 in Washington.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, a Democrat, declared the occupation an unlawful assembly after two teenagers were shot, one fatally. Police officers arrived early July 1 and forced occupiers out before standing watch as city workers dismantled the area.

McEnany brought up comments made by Durkan shortly after the occupation started, which the mayor made in response to President Donald Trumps vow to step in and take care of the situation if local and state officials didnt.

Durkan had claimed the occupation could lead to a summer of love.

City crews dismantle the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) area outside of the Seattle Police Departments vacated East Precinct in Seattle on July 1, 2020. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

A worker cleans off the word people graffitied over the word police at the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct as they retake the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) area in Seattle on July 1, 2020. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)

Lawfully gathering and expressing First Amendment rights, demanding we do better as a society, and providing true equity for communities of color is not terrorismit is patriotism, she told reporters.

CHAZ wasnt the summer of love, McEnany asserted.

Trump was ready to act in the face of failed leadership, she said, although he appeared to take no action in the three-plus weeks that the occupation took place. McEnany claimed that he compelled action.

He has said take back your city now. If you dont do it, I will. He said this is not a game, she said. President Trump has stood on the side of law and order and were pleased to report that law and order has prevailed in Seattle. In President Trumps America, autonomous zones have no place.

A Durkan spokesperson referred The Epoch Times to Durkans response at a press conference. She told reporters that President Trump and his administrations remarks werent helpful and made the situation more volatile.

Durkan also told reporters that there were incredibly peaceful demonstrations on Capitol Hill.

But the recent public safety threats have been well documented. These acts of gun violence resulted in the tragic deaths of two teenagers, with multiple others seriously wounded. Despite continued efforts to deescalate and bring community together, this violence demanded action, she added.

Trump promised in late June not to allow a similar zone in Washington, as long as hes president.

A worker paints over graffiti after police cleared the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) area in Seattle on July 1, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

Seattle Department of Transportation workers remove a large Black Power fist sign in front of the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct as police retake the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) area in Seattle on July 1, 2020. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)

If they try they will be met with serious force! he said.

Protesters attempted to seal off an area near the White House on June 22, using fencing and other materials to create barriers.

Police officers removed the barriers, tents, and other items.

Seattle police officials, meanwhile, said 44 arrests were made July 1 as the zone was being cleared for failure to disperse, assault, obstruction, pedestrian interference, and malicious mischief.

In one case, officers used pepper spray while arresting a person who was armed with a metal pole. In another incident, an officer used a less lethal 40 mm sponge round on a man who appeared to be brandishing a metal pipe.

Officers, who were remaining in the area to ensure safety, might be making more arrests, the Seattle Police Department said in a statement.
Navy Officer Leaps Into River to Save Wheelchair-Bound Child, Caregiver; Hailed as Hero

A U.S. Navy officer named John Miller was out for an evening jog in Norfolk, Virginia, when he witnessed a desperate scenario playing out: a disabled child and his caregiver were floundering in a nearby river, and so the officer quickly rushed to help.

The lieutenant, a nine-year Navy serviceman, was running along the Elizabeth River trail when he noticed a man and a child in a wheelchair on the edge of the seawall. Shortly afterward, he heard a splash; the man and the child had both fallen into the water with the wheelchair still on the banks of the river.

I was about 10 to 15 yards along the length of the [Spirit of Norfolk] cruise ship when I heard a splash, Miller, of Kinsman, Ohio, explained to WTKR. I sprinted back to the edge and initially saw only the man, who appeared to be floundering.

Lt. Miller, credited with saving two lives while on an evening run near his residence (Ian Delossantos/U.S. Navy)

Miller told a bystander to call for help before leaping 10 feet into the water, a choice he made without considering an alternative, he says.

His instincts took over.

Treading and swimming with another person is difficult, the Naval officer explained, but I was in the water before I knew it.

I knew [the boy] could not survive the water with his disability, so I had no choice, Miller added. I did not know the water skills of his guardian and I could not be sure of any possible injuries or trauma to either of them.

Miller told the man to wrap his legs around him to prevent from becoming fatigued. The disabled, non-verbal child was held between the two adults. Miller pulled the pair toward the seawall but found it covered in barnacles and impossible to grip on to.

(Illustration  Brandon Gray/Shutterstock)

The officer managed to grab hold of a line from a cutaway bumper and assumed that the trio would have to wait for first responders to arrive; however, the bystander who had called 911 wheeled the childs chair down the pier, making it more accessible.

The officer and the man, together with the child, swam toward the piers ladder. [W]e were all out the water by the time the police arrived, Miller said.

Despite his pivotal role in the rescue, Miller hailed the true hero as the childs primary carer, who had jumped into the water before Miller and the bystander had gotten involved. If one person is missing from that chain of action, it may have turned out badly, he told the Navy, citing teamwork as the operative factor.

I would thank the man and the childs mother, and deliver the child a couple balloons. Ive heard they make his day, he added.

Lt. Miller with Navy Warfare Development Command, Naval Station Norfolk (Ian Delossantos/U.S. Navy)

At the beginning of my military career, now-Major Clayton Jarolimek, USMC, said to always place yourself at the point of friction where you can maximize your influence on the outcome, Miller shared. I try to do that every day in everything that I do.

It does not change when I take off my uniform, go home, and enter my local community. People of strength and in positions of power must always look out and fight for those who cannot defend and protect themselves.

Miller lives in downtown Norfolk with his significant other and their dog.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
Activists and protesters occupy an area across from City Hall in Manhattan before a city council decision on police funding in New York on June 30, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

New York, New York, It WAS a Wonderful Town

Commentary

I always thought I would retire in New York City. I grew up there.

In the 1950s, it was a pretty great place. Its hard to believe now that my friends and I, eight years old or so, would shoot up the Jerome-Woodlawn line to the Bronx by ourselves and sit in the bleachers to watch the beloved Yankees, debating who was better, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, until it was too late to be home for dinner.

Nowadays, no middle-class parent, or any parent if they have their head screwed on even faintly right, would even consider such a thing for a kid that age. Its far too dangerous, to put it mildly.

The citys in flamesfiguratively, morally, and literally, emphasis on the literallywith the murder rate more than doubling from last year and shootings up 45 percent. (Not that anybody, as Nicole Gelinas wrote in the New York Post, seems to care.)

The truth is New Yorkers have no one to blame but themselves for the drastic decline of their once fabulous city that was the envy of the world not all that long ago.

They can claim they didnt know Mayor Bill de Blasio would be the worst civic politician since Nero, but they did elect the man, and they had a perfect example from the 1990s for what that would mean.

Those were the days David Dinkins was mayor. Cops were handicapped, and NYC was as riddled with crime as Gotham in the Batman movies. With de Blasio, we have, in the words of that quintessential New Yorker Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again. Only in this case, its worse, much worse, with no signs of improvement.

Nobodys singing New York, New York, its a wonderful town! anymore. Certainly not Frank Sinatra or Gene Kelly. (Watching the joy in this old clip breaks your heart about New York and Hollywood at oncea twofer. Or how about this one, with Jimmy Cagney giving his regards to Broadway? Or Irving Berlins Easter Parade, with Fifth Avenue all boarded up from rioting?)

Most of the New Yorkers I speak with on the phone (Its hard for me to go there. As a resident of Tennessee, Id have to self-isolate for two weeks) want to get out. They wonder aloud if they could sell their apartmentsonce a real estate goldmine.

Others are already out, living in vacation homes in Connecticut or Long Island with no immediate plans to return.

Who can blame them when you watch the crazed Hieronymus Bosch-like goings-on outside City Hall (for how many days now?) with protesters demanding yet more pounds of flesh, never to be satisfied, from the same peoplethe policewho gave their lives for them on 9/11?

The now-viral video of the young white woman, dishabille, prancing around and yelling expletives at a cop she assumes never went to college and calling him a black Judas will perhaps go down as the historic low-ebb marker of our benighted times.

And now their erstwhile mayor wants to emblazon the words Black Lives Matter in front of Trump Tower. Thatll teach im!

Of course, it never occurs to de B that he might be the race-baiter, not Trump. These kinds of thoughts are outside the purview of Democratic politicians and their followers in this era of maximum projection. (The Black Lives Matter mural has apparently been temporarily postponed.)

New York used to be a place of great knowledge (and self-knowledge) where trends were set and ideas nurtured. Now, knee-jerk protest of the most rote and brain-dead sort rules the day, with statues desecrated and innocent people cursed and assaulted in the streets.

Revolution Nothing Less is painted onto the sidewalk as activists and protesters occupy an area across from City Hall in Manhattan before a City Council decision on police funding in New York on June 30, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Its still leading the nation, but its leading it the wrong way.

All those disaffected New Yorkers I talk to  it sounds like rich peoples problems. But its more than that. These were good people who wanted the best for everyone. Now they dont want to be in the city so many of us thought, rightly or wrongly, was the center of the universe.

Truth to tell, I dont much want to go there either these days, at least until things get better. Like Jimmy Cagney in the clip linked above, Give my regards to Broadway! But unlike Jimmy, in the words of the musical comedy genius George M. Cohan, Im not sure Ill be there ere long.

Roger L. Simon is a prize-winning author, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media. His most recent books are I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasnt Already (non-fiction) and The GOAT (fiction).

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks at a temporary hospital site in New York, N.Y., on March 31, 2020. (Frank Franklin II/ AP Photo)

NYC Mayor de Blasio Delays Black Lives Matter Mural Near Trump Tower

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasios office announced the delay of the painting of the Black Lives Matter slogan on Fifth Avenue, coming a day after he faced criticism from President Donald Trump about the move.

It has been postponed due to scheduling change, a City Hall spokeswoman told the New York Post and other news outlets on Thursday. Well be sending out more details in the coming days on a new date, she said.

The painting was slated for 11 a.m., according to local activists.

I do not know about why it was postponed, Black Lives Matter activist Michael Tucker told the newspaper. Im trying to figure that out myself.

The city alerted us late last night it would not be moving forward the mural today. We have no additional details at this time, Jerome Barth, who is in charge of the Fifth Avenue Association, was quoted as saying.

The mayors office hasnt responded to a request for comment.

Earlier in the week, Trump criticized the move after the New York City Council voted to cut $1 billion from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) budget in the wake of sometimes violent demonstrations and a pressure campaign from activists.

NYC is cutting Police $s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury avenue, Trump wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, wont let this symbol of hate be affixed to New Yorks greatest street. Spend this money fighting crime instead! he also wrote, adding that the budget cuts will further antagonize NYPD officers.

A view of Fifth Avenue during the CCP virus pandemic in New York City, on April 14, 2020. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

Earlier in the day, de Blasio told MSNBC that the Black Lives Matter slogan would be painted near the Trump Tower.

Obviously we want the president to hear it because hes never shown respect for those three words, he said. When he hears Black Lives Matter, he presents a horrible negative reality of something that doesnt exist, and he misses the underlying meaning that were saying we have to honor the role of African Americans in our history and our society.

The budget cuts come amid a crime wave in New York City that has included a spike in shootings and shooting deaths. Seemingly random attacks on elderly people in broad daylight have been reported, with videos of some incidents going viral on social media in recent weeks.

Data from the NYPD show that homicides across the city have risen more than 21 percent over the first six months of 2020, and shootings are also up about 46 percent over 2019s figures, according to NBC4.
The NYPD said it is searching for a suspect who slashed a 2-year-old childs face in Manhattan with a sharp object in the latest random attack. (NYPD)

NYPD Searching for Suspect Who Allegedly Slashed 2-Year-Old

The NYPD said it is searching for a suspect who slashed a 2-year-old childs face in Manhattan with a sharp object in the latest random attack.

According to a statement from police, the suspect attacked the child in the area of 110th St. and Morningside Drive in Manhattan on Wednesday at around 9:30 a.m. local time.

The attack appeared to be unprovoked and random.

Authorities told ABC7 in New York that the boy required stitches after the assault.

WANTED for ASSAULT: Do you know this guy? On 7/1/20 at approx 9:30 AM, in the vicinity of W 110 St and Morningside Dr in Manhattan, the suspect slashed a 2-year-old child in the face with a sharp object, then fled westbound on W 110 St. Any info call @NYPDTips at 800-577-TIPS. pic.twitter.com/ZrUC3mjjfk  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) July 2, 2020

In the incident, police said the man approached the boy and his nanny before slashing the child with an unknown sharp object, cutting him above his right eye. He then fled the scene.

The suspect is described as male, about 5-foot-6, and with short black hair. He was last seen wearing dark-colored shorts, black socks, black sneakers, and a white shirt.

Anyone with information about the assault should call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

Data from the NYPD show that homicides across the city have risen more than 21 percent over the first six months of 2020, and shootings are also up about 46 percent over 2019s figures, according to NBC4. Meanwhile, there has been a spate of random attacks on elderly people in recent days across the city.
Customers wait in line to be seated at Nomads Canteen, which opened in defiance of Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home mandate, in San Clemente, Calif., on May 7, 2020. (Jamie Joseph/The Epoch Times)

Orange County Shutters Bars Ahead of Holiday Weekend As COVID-19 Soars

SANTA ANA (CNS)With COVID-19 cases spiking, Orange County officials July 1 ordered the closure of all bars effective at midnight and continuing until further notice.

The order affects all bars, pubs, breweries, and brew pubs that do not offer dine-in meals. Establishments that do serve dine-in food can only sell alcohol in the same transaction as a meal.

The closure order was expected ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, given similar action already taken in the surrounding counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Riverside. Orange County officials expressed concern that if they did not act, the county would become a magnet for holiday revelers from across Southern California.

While we would prefer not to close bars at this time, many of our neighboring counties have closed their bars, and its important to take precautions to ensure the safety of the general public, County Supervisor Michelle Steel said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Newport Beach City Council members called an emergency meeting on the afternoon of July 1 to consider a closure of its beaches for the holiday weekend after two city lifeguards tested positive for COVID-19. Twenty-three other lifeguards who were exposed are quarantining, according to city spokesman John Pope.

The bar closure decision comes on a day when county health officials announced 570 more COVID-19 cases and five more deaths, bringing the countys totals to 14,413 cases and 345 fatalities. On June 30, the county reported a one-day record 779 newly confirmed cases.

The week ending June 27 was the deadliest of the pandemic in Orange County, with 56 deaths reported. Since June 28, the county has reported 22 fatalities.

The number of hospitalized patients in Orange County rose from 510 on June 30 to 542 on July 1, with the number of patients in intensive care increasing from 176 to 192.

The county has performed 241,027 COVID-19 tests, with 7,642 documented recoveries as of June 30.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said earlier this week that Orange County, along with Solano, Merced, and Glenn counties, had been added to the state Department of Public Healths watch list due to increasing percentages of positive tests.

The countys case rate rose from 115.2 per 100,000 residents on June 30 to 126.4 per 100,000 on July 1. The positive test rate increased from 9.9 percent to 10.4 percent on July 1, according to health officials.

The state has set a desired standard average of 25 positive cases per 100,000 over a 14-day period, and a seven-day average positivity rate of 8 percent.

The three-day average increase of hospitalized patients is 9 percent, creeping up on the states threshold of 10 percent. But that is down from 9.7 percent on June 30.

Health officials insisted Orange County is in good shape in terms of hospital beds available. The county has 38.2 percent of its intensive care unit beds available, above the state threshold of 20 percent, and has 64.6 percent of its ventilators available, above the state standard of 25 percent.

Although all bars were ordered to close, the county has not moved to close beaches, despite the coastline being closed in neighboring Los Angeles County and in Ventura County. San Diego County beaches were also set to remain open as of July 1.

The city of Laguna Beach, which had already canceled its planned Fourth of July fireworks display, will close its beach on July 4. The City Council also left open the possibility of extending the closure throughout the weekend if large crowds begin to gather.

County Supervisor Andrew Do urged all residents and business owners to be extra cautious this holiday weekend.

Supervisor Lisa Bartlett warned June 30 that since the county has been managing cases at congregate living facilities, the current spike in cases is the result of community transmission.

The best way to stem the tide of community transmission is to encourage facial coverings and social distancing, she said.

Do on June 30 announced a contract with Latino Health Access for a new program providing more outreach to residents in the countys hot spots of Santa Ana and Anaheim.

There is no question in my mind now for the need for social distancing, good sanitation practices, and face coverings, Do said. With the Fourth of July weekend coming, if we are not careful about protecting each other, we may reach a point where we need to shut down parts of the county and economy.

The escalating numbers of infections and deaths should really silence to a large degree any debate over the necessities for these measures I mentioned earlier, Do said. Its no longer a political question or issueits really a health issue.

Do said he expected a rise in cases when the economy was reopened, but I have to admit  within the last two to four weeks they have been a little bit alarming.

Do emphasized that people living in the nation illegally should not fear participating in the new outreach program for local residents.

Undocumented immigrants should not be fearful about being tested, Do said. No immigration status will be asked or shared with anyone  We want to be culturally sensitive and respond effectively in a way that will penetrate these disadvantaged communities.

The program will also include a mobile response team to help stem any spread in schools when they reopen, Do said.
A protester fires fireworks at the police by the steps the State House during protest against the death of George Floyd, in Boston, Mass., on June 2, 2020. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

Peoples War: Pro-China Communists Claim Credit for Sparking US Riots

Commentary

Leaders of the pro-Chinese Communist Party Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) have claimed credit for the spark that has inflamed the world, referencing the recent wave of rioting that has devastated several U.S. cities.

Theres also evidence that the Beijing-loyal FRSO wasnt just a catalyst for some of the most destructive civil unrest in U.S. history, but also laid the groundwork for and is playing an active role in maintaining momentum for the ongoing insurrection.

One of the most striking things about radical left movements is their ability to cause such great damage with comparatively minuscule numbers of agitators. Many of these individuals and organizations work relentlessly to bring about revolution with little to no scrutiny.

A great example of this is reflected in a June 18 Facebook post by Chicago FRSO leader Joe Iosbaker, who wrote about his comrade Frank Chapmans recent visit to Minneapolis. Readers likely arent aware of Chapman, but everyone is familiar with the riots that he and his comrades take credit for sparking after decades of communist exploitation of race for revolutionary purposes and anti-police agitation.

The communist organizers might pass for a group of friends at a neighborhood barbeque, but their innocent appearance shouldnt lull citizens into complacency.

Their leaders are trained Maoist revolutionaries.

Frank Chapman is in Minneapolis/St. Paul today to meet with the movement that launched the nationwide rebellion in the wake of the police murder of #GeorgeFloyd, Iosbaker proclaimed.

Accompanying photographs in the post highlighted Chapman giving a raised fist salute with several leaders of the Minneapolis-based FRSO front Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar, and also addressing a meeting of the organization.

In a June 20 Facebook post, Chapman wrote:

Part of my Juneteenth was spent in Minneapolis/St. Paul with the rebels that gave us the spark that has inflamed the world. I also visited the George Floyd Memorial and discovered in the park next to it this memorial cemetery created by the rebels for the far too many Black, Latinx, Indigenous, LGBTQ and Trans people murdered by the police.  ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

The Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar was founded in late 2015 after 24-year-old black man Jamar Clark was fatally shot during a physical altercation with police (who were found to have acted in self-defense).

The coalition has played a major anti-police agitation role in Minneapolis since then and was heavily involved in the protests that erupted after the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody.

According to the Communist Party USA website Peoples World:

Community control of the Minneapolis police took a step toward that goal at a forum hosted by the Twin Cities Justice for Jamar Clark Coalition on Thursday, June 18. The Coalition has played a leading role in organizing protests and actions demanding justice for George Floyd.

Key coalition leaders include FRSO comrades Loretta VanPelt and Jess Sundin, the wife of FRSO Political Secretary Steff Yorek.

Frank Chapman

In 1961, Chapman was sentenced to life plus 50 years for armed robbery and murder in Missouri. In prison, he became a Marxist-Leninist and a jailhouse lawyer; his cause was championed by the Communist Party USA.

As Iosbaker writes in a 2019 profile of Chapmans book The Damned Dont Cry: Pages from the Life of a Black Prisoner and Organizer:

Through Freedomways magazine, started by leading Black Communist Party (CP) members Esther Jackson, Jack ODell, and others, Chapman established movement contacts in the outside world. Over the years in prison, Freedomways and the Daily World, the CPUSAs paper, published a number of his writings. Herschel Walker, the Black CP district organizer in Saint Louis, was the living link to the movement in Missouri, and started a defense committee to free Chapman.

After Communist Party leader and leftist icon Angela Davis was charged in connection with the murder of a California judge, the Communist Party formed the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR), also referred to as the National Alliance, to campaign for her freedom. That alliance also fought for Chapman to be released from prison.

Chapman is very clear that it was the massive movement to free Angela Davis which paved the way to freedom for him and other political prisoners, Iosbaker explained. The National Alliance said Chapman was a political prisoner because he had started advocating for civil rights while in prison.

Chapman explained in his book, as relayed by Iosbaker, that the National Alliance helped free him, and a grateful Chapman became the leader of the Saint Louis chapter after his release, building it up through community and labor struggles to becoming one of the largest chapters in the country. Eventually, the NAARPR dissolved, with some branches remaining open in Kentucky and Illinois.

After years as a Communist Party member, Chapman eventually joined the central committee of the Marxist-Leninist group Freedom Road Socialist Organization, where hes helping to guide and train a new generation of Black communists.

Re-Founding of NAARPR

In November 2019, the NAARPR was re-founded as a national organization at a gathering of 1,200 comrades in Chicagoand Chapman was appointed chairman.

According to Chapman, interviewed for FightBack! News:

Our call for the re-founding of the National Alliance was a direct response and a conscious intervention into a mass youth uprising that we can trace back to the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012. Our young people became very agitated by how they were being ruthlessly and recklessly murdered by the system. The police said it was OK for Zimmerman to stalk and murder this teenager. That sparked a very powerful response and agitated into being organizations of young people such as Black Lives Matter, Dream Defenders, and Black Youth Project 100. This was the dawn of a new youth-led stage in the Black liberation movement. Coming into the present, police repression has continued to grow and intensify, bringing tens of thousands of people in the streets.  We had a new stirring in the Black community that had to be reckoned with. 

When the NAARPR called a May 30 National Day of Action to protest George Floyds killing, FRSO front groups and allies nationwide responded to the callincluding the Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar.

We will be protesting to stop the racist murder and violence that this administration has willfully unleashed, the National Day of Action invitation proclaimed in part. Not only is the government standing by as COVID-19 ravages African American, Latinx, and Indigenous communitiesinciting mass Black death with their calls to reopen the economy, but the police and racist vigilantes continue to brazenly hunt and kill Black folks while they sleep in their beds and on open roads in broad daylight.

Taking a step back, Chapman made some very revealing statements in a November 2017 interview on the FightBack! News website about the rioting in Charlottesville, Virginia:

You know, [Russian revolutionary Vladimir] Lenin talked about sparks.  A spark is a moment that agitates into existence a mass response to something thats been done by the system that grossly violates human rights or intensifies human suffering. We have a spark with Charlottesville. Look at whats happened: an anti-racist activist was maliciously murdered, and the response by people throughout the country has been massive.

The death of Floyd was just such a spark.

But a spark has to be fanned into a flame, and that was FRSOs job. If it hadnt happened in Minneapolis, it would have happened the following week in Georgia, or the week after that in New York. Whatever the spark, these riots were long-planned for election year.

Chapman continued:

Im not saying it was more massive than the response to Michael Brown, or Eric Garner, or Philando Castile. All those were massive responses. But this is different, because this involved the White House. This involved the president of the United States refusing to acknowledge the terrorist act that had been perpetrated that day. Thats what makes it qualitatively different.  Trump has told the police throughout the country that they can take off the velvet gloves, nows the time for the iron fist. During his campaign, and his tenure in office, hes been consistently beating the racist war drum. Hes calling down the thunder on our people.

And this movement is clearly targeting the president, and the plan to tear down statues has been simmering since Charlottesville:

For the movement, this is definitely a turning point. What makes this different than the other racist crimes that have been perpetrated, mostly involving the police, is that mostly there hasnt been a clear target. The closest you came is Jail killer cops. Or Stop police crimes, Stop police impunity. This movement has objectives with far deeper political implications. Take down all the Confederate statues. Take down all those vestiges of slavery that have been haunting our country ever since the Civil War. Take those down. And a direct frontal attack on white supremacy. Being led for the most part by white people. I think thats a great beginning. Sometimes events make a breakthrough that the movement has been trying to make for years. There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen, is how Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party, put it.  Theres a new slogan in this movement: We are the majority. That does two things; it recognizes that Trump is a minority-elected president, but also saying that most people in the country dont support his racist agenda. The left has been fighting for unity for decades, because potentially we knew it was there. But this is the first time that slogan has come out of a spontaneous uprising of masses of white people. Our task is now to unite the many in order to defeat the few.

Charlottesville was indeed a breakthrough for the left. Pro-Chinese communists battled in the streets with pro-Putin white supremacistsPresident Donald Trump and genuine conservatives in the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party were awarded the blame.

Bringing Down President Trump

Charlottesville was one chapter in a long-running saga to bring down Trump.

According to FightBack! News:

In the aftermath of the dramatic 5,000-person protest that caused Trump to cancel his March 11 [in 2016] campaign appearance on the campus of the University of Illinois, Steff Yorek, the political secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, urged progressive activists around the United States to follow Chicagos example. We need two, three, many Chicagos, said Yorek. Trump is an open advocate of racism and national chauvinism. Forcing Trump to chicken out of his Chicago campaign appearance was a real victory. Chicago protesters of all nationalities sent a message to the world, that here in the U.S. there is widespread and militant opposition to his reactionary agenda.

On Jan. 20, 2017, the day of Trumps inauguration, Yorek proclaimed at a Columbus Circle protest in Washington, We need to stay in the streets the entire four years opposing Trump and making the country ungovernable.

Naturally, election year would see an uptick in FRSO attacks on the president. Causing enough unrest and economic damage to defeat the president would be a huge victory for the FRSOand would no doubt please their Chinese comrades.

The Peoples War

FRSO is an openly Maoist organization and proudly follows the line of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In May 2019, in response to Trump placing tariffs on Chinese goods, CCP mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency published a strongly worded editorial stating that the United States was fighting for greed and arrogance, while China fought to defend legitimate rights and interests:

The trade war in the United States is the creation of one person and his administration who have swept along the entire population of the country. Whereas the entire country and all the people of China are being threatened. For us, this is a real peoples war.

Most commentators naively thought that the term peoples war referred to trade. However, in Maoist ideology, peoples war carries a much wider and highly significant meaning.

Developed by Chairman Mao, the peoples war was a strategy in which Maoist insurgents could use attrition and unconventional warfare to defeat much more powerful conventional armies.

Autonomous Zones as Peoples War Strategy

In a rural setting such as pre-1949 China, this meant luring government armies into rural areas and harassing them with guerrilla warfarenever in direct battle. Eventually, the Maoists would take over certain rural areas and establish autonomous zones or guerrilla-ruled counter governments. These would be gradually expanded until the countryside was controlled and the cities could be surroundedthen seized.

This strategy was followed successfully in China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Its still being used today by the Maoist New Peoples Army in the Philippines.

Does the peoples war strategy make sense of recent Maoist-inspired attempts to establish autonomous zones in several cities coupled with constant political and physical attacks on police?

The FRSO is well aware of the concept of peoples war, citing it on May 5, in their 45th anniversary of Vietnams victory over U.S. imperialism, which credits communists of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos with creating a wave of activists who wanted to bring down U.S. imperialism and who decided to take up Marxism-Leninism in the United States.

Peoples China, according to the article, had a profound effect on the student, anti-war, Black, Chicano, Asian American and other oppressed nationality movements. The FRSO bragged that theyre carrying forward the best aspects of the new communist movement.

Targeting Trump, the article continued:

[Forty-five] years ago, Vietnam showed the world what was possible, and it is important to remember that today. Trump and his corporate backers are doomed. Capitalism is a failed system. It is like Mao said about the U.S. in the 1960s, However, all reactionary forces on the verge of extinction invariably conduct desperate struggles.  And the revolutionary peoples are bound to meet with all kinds of difficulties before final victory. Nevertheless, all these difficulties can be surmounted, and no difficulty can ever obstruct the advance of the revolutionary people. Perseverance means victory.

In the late 1980s, a Maoist faction of the terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA) tried to develop a new theory of peoples war, suitable for more advanced countries or urban settings.

As explained on the Facebook page Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Ireland, the idea was to destroy police stations in certain areas, which would then become governed by the IRA as occupied areasfrom which to spread further insurrection:

This strategy was devised by IRA commanders along the border as an attempt to implement Chairman Maos theory of Protracted Peoples War to the concrete conditions in Ireland.  From 1985 onwards, the IRA in the border areas began to implement this strategy, attempting to create liberated zones, areas were the occupation forces were powerless and the Republican movement was in control.

This strategy failed when its originators were killed in a British Army ambush while trying to blow up a police station. The more urbanized peoples war apparently lives on with modern Maoists.

The FRSO could be causing mayhem on the direct orders of the CCP or it could be acting autonomously in sympathy for the international revolutionary movement.

Either way, its clear that the FRSO thinks of itself as the instigator of the recent revolutionary wave and that their goal has only a little to do with racial justice and a lot to do with destroying Trump and the global wave of patriotism and state sovereignty.

As Americas institutions have become heavily infiltrated, its not surprising that communist subversives are able to act freely. But Americans surely deserve a government with the political will to enforce existing laws that would thwart bad actors from destabilizing the United States, and the world.

Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. He is best known for his book Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress and his similarly themed documentary film Enemies Within. His recently published book is White House Reds: Communists, Socialists & Security Risks Running for U.S. President, 2020.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Workers remove items left behind after police cleared the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) and retook the department's East Precinct in Seattle, Washington, on July 1, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

Photos: Police, City Workers Dismantle Seattles CHOP, Clear Out Protesters

The City of Seattle on Wednesday cleared the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHOP)set up last month by Black Lives Matter demonstrators, anarchists, and self-described Marxistsas police arrested some remaining protesters on Thursday morning.

The police department wrote that individuals in a crowd of demonstrators were throwing bottles at officers.

Police and city workers fill a street occupied hours earlier by an encampment of protesters on July 1, 2020. (Elaine Thompson/AP Photo)

Officers deployed pepper spray and are making arrests, the police department wrote in a statement on Thursday morning.

Seattle Police said that they will continue to make arrests to ensure safety in the area, according to another statement.

Seattle Police have made 44 arrests for failure to disperse, assault, obstruction, pedestrian interference, and malicious mischief, the department said, adding that pepper spray was deployed during the arrest of an individual who was armed with a metal pole.

In a separate incident, an officer used a single less-lethal 40 mm sponge round on a man who appeared to be brandishing a metal pipe, it said.

The move to disperse CHOP came after several shootings, which left two people dead in the area, as well as a spike in crime.

Seattle police take over and reenter the East Precinct early July 1, 2020 after the area around the police station was occupied by protesters for the last month. (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times via AP)

On Wednesday, city crews were seen with heavy machinery clearing concrete barriers, makeshift encampments, signs with graffiti, and other debris.

I was just stunned by the amount of graffiti, garbage, and property destruction, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best was quoted saying by local news outlets as she toured the area.

Sanitation workers were also seen scrubbing the pavement and cleaning graffiti from buildings.

Workers use a bulldozer to remove remaining items from an encampment outside the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct after police cleared the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) in Seattle, Washington, on July 1, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

Workers use a bulldozer to remove remaining items from an encampment outside the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct after police cleared the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) in Seattle, Washington, on July 1, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

Seattle Police walk across Cal Anderson Park in Seattle on July 1, 2020, as they sweep people away. (Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times via AP)

On Wednesday, Mayor Jenny Durkan authorized police to remove protesters who are unlawfully occupying Cal Anderson Park area near CHOP.

Seattle Police finish their sweep on July 1, 2020, on the north end of Cal Anderson Park, sweeping everyone off the grounds. (Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times via AP)

A worker removes a rendering of a clenched fist from a Seattle Police precinct in Seattle on July 1, 2020. (Elaine Thompson/AP Photo)

Seattle police block a street with their bicycles in the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone early on July 1, 2020. (Aron Ranen/AP Photo)

U.S. Attorney General William Barr commended Best in a statement for distinguishing between the right to protest and violent crime in restoring the rule of law. Barr did not mention Durkan, a Democrat who has been a target of Republican President Donald Trumps ire.

Harry Rick Hearns, a protester who said he volunteered to provide armed security at CHOP for 24 straight days, told Reuters he supported the police crackdown 1,000 percent. He blamed the violence on outsiders who he said had marred an otherwise successful monthlong occupation.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Travelers wear masks as they wait at the American Airlines ticket counter at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Ill., on June 16, 2020. (Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo)

Redfield, Fauci Criticize American Airlines for Ending Middle-Seat Blocking

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Dr. Anthony Fauci, member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, criticized American Airlines decision to end their policy of blocking middle seats on flights.

I can tell you that when they announced that the other day, obviously there was a substantial disappointment with American Airlines, Redfield said during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Tuesday.

The CDC director said many airlines have kept the middle-seat blocking and that American Airlines decision is currently under critical review at the CDC.

We dont think its the right message, as you pointed out, Redfield said in response to a question from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Again, we think its really important in individuals that are in whether its a bus or a train or a plane or social distancing to the degree thats feasible and at least have a reliable face covering, he said.

In April, American Airlines capped the number of customers on each flight to 85 percent, meaning that all middle seats were empty to allow for social distancing, a spokesperson for the airline told The Epoch Times in an email.

As more people continue to travel, customers may notice that flights are booked to capacity starting July 1, said the spokesperson.

Rows of empty seats of an American Airlines flight in Washington on March 18, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Fauci said he doesnt know what was behind American Airlines decision, but that its a matter of concern.

I would hope there would be something to mitigate against that because I know as weve said and I continue to repeat it, that avoiding crowds, staying the distance, and when in a situation like that, wear a mask. I think in the confines of an airplane that becomes even more problematic, Fauci told Sanders.

The spokesperson, however, said the airline is committed to the safety and well-being of all customers and team members.

We have multiple layers of protection in place for those who fly with us, including required face coverings, enhanced cleaning procedures, and a pre-flight COVID-19 symptom checklistand were providing additional flexibility for customers to change their travel plans, as well, said the spokesperson.

Josh Earnest, United Airlines chief communications officer, told reporters that the middle-seat blocking is a PR strategy and that practicing social-distancing is not possible inside an aircraft.

When it comes to blocking middle seats, thats a PR strategy, thats not a safety strategy, said Earnest, who also served as White House press secretary under then-President Barack Obama.

When youre onboard the aircraft, if youre sitting in the aisle, and the middle seat is empty, the person across the aisle is within 6 feet from you, the person at the window is within 6 feet of you, the people in the row in front of you are within 6 feet of you, the people in the row behind you are within 6 feet of you, said Earnest, reported CNBC.

Other airlines will continue to block middle-seats and cap seating in every cabin as a safety precaution. The airlineswhich include Delta, JetBlue, and Southwestannounced that the policy will remain through Sept. 30.

Reducing the overall number of customers on every aircraft across the fleet is one of the most important steps we can take to ensure a safe experience for our customers and people, said Bill Lentsch, Deltas chief customer experience officer, in a statement on June 26.
Photo: (Photo : Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. from Pexels)

There is a lot of ongoing researches about the coronavirus - its cure, causes, and effects.

In France, a new case has shown that the coronavirus may cause priapism. It was seen in a 62-year-old man who suffered from a four-hour erection.

According to doctors, priapism is an erection that lasts for more than four hours.

What caused the erection?

According to an article by the Daily Mail, a man who is 62 years old suffered the painful erection while battling COVID-19. He was receiving care at the hospital when he had this condition.

The man's penis had the erection because of the trapped blood.

According to reports, an ice pack was initially used to the penile area in trying to ease the erection. However, medics had to drain the blood clots that were in the penis of the 62-year-old man. They used a needle to suck out the blood from the man's penis.

The collected blood of the hospital staff had "dark blood clots." These clots, according to the doctors, were because of the thrombosis caused by the coronavirus.

According to reports, the man is out of the Intensive Care Unit and has recovered from COVID-19.

READ ALSO: Experts Say: The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Not Slow Down [But People Still Want Get-Togethers]

What is the connection between the erection and COVID-19?

Some studies revealed that one-third of the patients suffering from the coronavirus had a dangerous complication of blood clotting or thrombosis.

These blood clots in the veins and arteries cause heart attacks and strokes to patients.

Due to the case of the 62-year-old man, priapism is now seen as an effect of COVID-19. This case in France is the first recorded since the beginning of the pandemic.

Doctors who attended to the 62-year-old man wrote about it in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. These doctors are from the Centre Hospitalier de Versailles in Le Chesnay, Paris.

READ ALSO: Baby Bust, Not Baby Boom, After the COVID-19 Crisis [Experts Say]

Coronavirus and Blood clots

Since the coronavirus hit the world, there are a lot of experts who continuously untangle the discoveries uncovered each day. One of these discoveries is the occurrence of blood clots in twenty to thirty percent of the COVID-19 patients.

There are a lot of hypotheses as to why the coronavirus causes blood clots.

One possible reason is that the coronavirus is directly attacking a cell in the blood vessels. These cells are the ones seen to help the virus enter the lung cells.

Another possibility is that the effect of the virus on the immune system could be blood clotting.

However, other experts suggest that pre-existing conditions of COVID-19 patients could be a reason for clotting.

The laboratory results gained by doctors in the case of the man in France suggests that priapism is connected to COVID-19.

However, since the case of the 62-year-old man is the only recorded case, experts say that further claims would be helpful evidence in proving that priapism is related to COVID-19.

READ ALSO: Married Couple for 76 Years Died From Coronavirus Two Weeks Apart
Schools Closed Again in UK City Under First Local Lockdown

Schools are shut again in Leicester on July 2, one month after schools across England partially reopened. Only a selection of schools in the central England city remain open for children of essential workers and vulnerable people.

Schools were closed as part of the governments decision to put Leicester on a local lockdown, as Public Health England (PHE) observed an increase in the number of people testing positive for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus.

PHEs preliminary investigation report (pdf) released on June 29 suggested the rise in positive cases is partly because more tests became available outside of hospital settings. But the trends in the data suggest there may also be a genuine increase of infection.

Young people are more affected this time than they were at the peak of the epidemic in Leicester. Data quoted in the report shows that while the proportion of positive cases fell to around 5 percent across all age groups after the end of the initial epidemic peak, it has climbed to about 15 percent among the under 19-year-old group since mid-May.

No similar trends were observed in other regions in England, suggesting that the reopening of schools may not be the reason for the increase. The government, however, decided to close schools in the city as a precautionary step.

Leicester is the first city in the UK to undergo a local lockdown, which began on Tuesday and will last until at least July 18.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaks to the media while flanked by White House National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow in the briefing room at the White House on July 2, 2020. (Somodevilla/Getty Images)

2nd Stimulus: White House Will Seriously Consider More Payments

White House officials are mulling whether to authorize another round of direct payments to Americans.

More than 160 million Americans received payments authorized by the CARES Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in March.

Lawmakers are debating another virus relief package this month. The package could include another round of direct payments.

Were very focused on, as part of the next CARES Act, were going to seriously consider whether we need to put more payments and direct payments, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters at the White House on July 2.

The first payments, he said, worked very well.

Payments of up to $1,200 were available to most taxpayers. Parents were eligible for an additional $500 for each child.

Trump said July 1 that he supports another round of direct payments.

I want the money getting to people to be larger, so they can spend it. I want the money to get there quickly and in a non-complicated fashion, he said in an interview with Fox Business.

President Donald Trumps name is seen on a stimulus check issued by the IRS to help combat the adverse economic effects of lockdowns imposed to try to curb the spread of the CCP virus, in San Antonio, Texas, on April 23, 2020. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

Illegal Immigrants

The Trump administration doesnt want stimulus payments going to illegal immigrants, Mnuchin emphasized.

Our position is that legal Americans, American citizens, should get the payments. Thats our focus, he told reporters.

If people are here illegally, theyre not going to get economic payments.

Mnuchin was responding to a question about a lawsuit (pdf) that claims that only sending payments to children with parents who have valid Social Security numbers is a form of discrimination.

The lawsuit states that the virus relief package authorizing the stimulus checks, known as CARES, discriminates against and excludes from this expansive aid program one of the countrys most vulnerable groups: U.S. citizen children of undocumented parents.

Undocumented is a term used by some groups to describe people in the country illegally.

Plaintiffs, seven U.S. citizen children and their parents, allege the decision violated the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendments Due Process Clause.

Border Patrol agents apprehend seven illegal immigrants from China, one from Mexico, and one from El Salvador after they tried to evade capture after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States near McAllen, Texas, on April 18, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

The Trump administration sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing, the court lacked jurisdiction, and the plaintiffs failed to state a claim.

U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm, appointed by then-President Barack Obama, ruled in June (pdf) that the case would proceed, asking the administration for a new filing.

Plaintiffs, he said, sufficiently outlined the connection between not receiving the money and harm they allegedly suffered from not getting the payments.

California in May gave each illegal immigrant adult $500, with a cap of $1,000 per household. Applicants had to show proof they were in the country illegally.

In a related matter, the Department of Education restricted federal grants meant to ease financial hardship for college students during the COVID-19 pandemic, not providing them to illegal immigrants and international students.
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)

Senate Democrats Introduce Bill to End Doctrine Shielding Police Officers From Misconduct Suits

Joining a chorus of lawmakers calling for police accountability, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are the latest lawmakers to introduce a bill to end the legal doctrine that insulates police officers from civil lawsuits, known as qualified immunity.

The senators on July 1 introduced the Ending Qualified Immunity bill aimed to eliminate the Supreme Court-made doctrine and provide accountability for when public officials, such as police officers, violate constitutional rights.

The doctrine of qualified immunity 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. The clearly established rule concept, which is seen to be problematic by critics of the doctrine, requires the party suing the official to show that the facts in their case were sufficiently similar to the facts in prior court cases.

The doctrine came under attack after the death of George Floyd, who died while taking a knee to the neck by a Minneapolis police officer. The doctrine 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 public 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.

Amid nationwide protests calling for police accountability in the wake of Floyds death, lawmakers and scholars called on the Supreme Court to revisit the doctrine with the purpose of either limiting or ending its operation.

Legal experts say qualified immunity has routinely shielded those who are either incompetent or who knowingly violate the law, such as when courts granted immunity to officers who stole more than $225,000 (pdf) and to an officer who shot a 10-year-old child while trying to shoot a non-threatening family dog (pdf).

But the nations top court has so far refused to do so. On June 15, the Supreme Court declined to hear eight major cases (pdf) that presented opportunities for the justices to reconsider the doctrine.

The senators Ending Qualified Immunity bill is the companion measure to the Houses version, with the same name, introduced in early June by Reps. Justin Amash (L-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). The bill codifies that the qualified immunity doctrine cant be used as a grounds of defense against a misconduct suit under Section 1983.

At a time when unprecedented numbers of people are demanding an end to police murder, brutality, and impunity, we have got to finally abolish qualified immunity, Sanders said in a statement. This is not a radical idea: Police officers must be held fully accountable for abuses they commitno one is above the law. If we are serious about real police reform, the Senate has got to pass our Ending Qualified Immunity Act.

Similar bills have been introduced by other members of Congress. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) introduced the Reforming Qualified Immunity Act in June that limits some of the protections for public officers from civil lawsuits, making it harder for police officers to claim the immunity. Brauns bill has faced pushback from police groups and unions.

The Indiana State Police Alliance said in a statement on June 30 that they werent contacted for consultation during the development of the bill, adding that they oppose abolishing qualified immunity for law enforcement.

The protection aids officers in carrying out their duties and obligations to serve the public and enforce the law. While there is no doubt that bad actors have brought this issue to the forefront, we believe qualified immunity serves to protect all police officers legitimately performing their duties, and it allows the public to recover damages in cases where a police officer has violated the persons rights, reads the statement, which was signed by the groups president, Scott Krueger, and executive director, Cory Martin.
In this April 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump's name is seen on a stimulus check issued by the IRS to help combat the adverse economic effects of lockdowns imposed to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus, in San Antonio. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

Senate Passes Bill to Stop Virus Relief Payments From Going to Dead People

The Senate passed a package this week meant to stop taxpayer dollars from going to people who are deceased.

Federal authorities sent checks totaling $1.4 billion from the virus relief package to more than 1 million dead people, a government watchdog said.

The new packagecontaining two separate bills, S.4104 and S.1333requires the U.S. Treasury to use Social Security data to reclaim stimulus money sent to dead people.

It also requires federal agencies to use a database of those reported to have died that the Social Security Administration maintains.

Congress owes it to the American people to be fiscally responsible with their resources, and I am pleased my legislation passed without objection to implement an easy fix to let Treasury reclaim $1.4 billion in money that was improperly sent out in the first place, said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who introduced one of the bills, which passed by unanimous consent after no lawmakers blocked it.

As elected officials, one of our most important responsibilities is to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and the passage of the Stopping Improper Payments to Deceased People Act represents a good victory in what has been a long, seven-year fight, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said in a statement.

Internal Revenue Service Headquarters Building in Washington on Sept. 19, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Carper and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) re-introduced the other bill in 2019; it was originally introduced in 2013.

Support for the bills grew after the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an agency that reports to Congress, said last week that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Treasury Department moved quickly to disburse more than 160 million economic impact payments but sent nearly 1.1 million payments totaling some $1.4 billion to dead people.

The IRS and Treasury Department didnt use the database because of a legal interpretation, the watchdog said, urging Congress to consider legislation that would let the Social Security Administration share its full death data with the Treasury Department.

Gene Dodaro, comptroller general of the GAO, told a House panel after the report was released that family members of dead people are supposed to return the money.

Dodaro also recommended that the IRS contact people who received the payments.

What happened was: IRS initially determined that deceased people, or anybody who filed a return in 2018 or 2019 should be paid, so they knew they were paying people who were deceased, he said. Then it became known publicly, Treasury then reevaluated that position and stopped it.

Tom Ozimek and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
Senator Blocks Resolution Condemning Mob Violence

Citing how protesters surrounded a vehicle in Utah this week before one shot the driver, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called for his colleagues to unanimously pass a resolution that condemns mob violence.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) blocked the measure, arguing that elements of the resolution werent straightforward enough.

Lee took to the Senate floor in Washington Thursday to announce his belief that it was important for the Senate to go on record condemning the rising tide of mob violence we see across the country and the increasingly prevalent mob mentality thats fueling it.

Lee cited several recent instances, including the shooting by a protester in Utah, the assault of a Wisconsin state senator by a group that tore down two statues, and the berating of law enforcement officers for standing at their posts.

While some Americans have organized peaceful protests, other events have devolved into rioting, looting, and violence, Lee noted.

Rioters set fire to a Wells Fargo bank across the street from 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)

The resolution (pdf) would be the tiniest first step of a response but would show the nation that both Republicans and Democrats oppose the violence, Lee said, asking for unanimous consent.

After a senator asks for such consent, a single colleague can block the measure.

Menendez said he objected, arguing that the resolution made no mention of Americas original sin, which is slavery.

Many New Jersey residents dont believe the United States is morally committed to justice, he argued, which would clash with the third paragraph of the resolution. That paragraph states: The United States is a diverse nation committed to cultivating respect, friendship, and justice across all such differences, and protecting the God-given equal rights of all Americans under the law.

I would consider not objecting to the senators request if he also recognized and added to his resolution the fact that we have a president of the United States who ultimately provokesprovokes insightful language and violence, Menendez added, noting that President Donald Trump recently shared a video that included a man saying white power.

Lee was willing to accept the proposed revisions except for the part about Trump, saying lawmakers shouldnt point to one specific individual.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) speaks in Washington on June 2, 2020. (Tom Williams/Pool/Getty Images)

Menendez said he couldnt accept the compromise, and objected.

Just so everyone is clear about the inspired insanity we just witnessed, I just proposed a nonbinding resolution condemning mob violence and Senate Democrats objected, Lee rejoined. I dont know whether to be outraged or embarrassed for them.

Lee said, in his view, lawmakers couldnt oppose his resolution without being on the side of the mob violence, prompting Menendez to appeal to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was presiding over the hearing.

Menendez claimed that Lees suggestion was in direct violation of a rule that says senators shall not directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.

Cruz disagreed.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks to media in the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 28, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

The chair concludes that pointing that mob violence is dangerous to our nation is not contrary to rule 19 or any other rule of the Senate, Cruz said.

Menendez responded by saying that the rule was violated. Cruz laughed and said senators are free to express views in the course of debate.

Menendez later said, We have learned that my colleagues are unwilling to call out the president of the United States when the president of the United States uses language that incites violence.

Lee pointed out that the resolution would have said all elected officials shouldnt engage in certain acts and that the president is an elected official.

Its long past time to expose the shiftless idiocy of the anti-american, anti-science, anti-establishment mob and remove their snouts from the federal trough, he said, calling for cutting federal money from colleges that punish free speech, states that force doctors to support transgenderism, and city councils that defund police departments.

This debate is not ending today, he said.
A statue to the famed explorer Christopher Columbus stands in Columbus Circle in New York on June 25, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Senators Want to Trade Columbus Day for Juneteenth

Two Republican senators want to trade the Columbus Day federal holiday for one on Juneteenth.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) recently introduced legislation that would make Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery, a federal holiday. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) said they dont want an additional federal day off, citing concerns about the rising national debt.

We support celebrating emancipation with a federal holiday, but believe we should eliminate a current holiday in exchange. We chose Columbus Day as a holiday that is lightly celebrated, Johnson said in a statement announcing an amendment (pdf) to Cornyns bill.

The senator said his motivation centers around not giving federal workers another paid holiday. He stressed he does not want to deprecate Christopher Columbuss achievements.

Lankford said people should be aware of the impact the 10 existing federal holidays have on federal services and local businesses.

We can reduce these impacts by replacing Columbus Day as a federal holiday with Juneteenth, Americas second independence day. Im hopeful the Senate will support this amendment to celebrate this significant day in our nations history, he said in a statement.

Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) speaks at the start of a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the governments response to the CCP virus outbreak in Washington on March 5, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 25, 2020. (Tom Williams/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

According to the senators offices, only 21 states recognize Columbus Day as a paid holiday.

They pointed to Franklin County, Ohio, announcing last month that the Columbus Day holiday would be replaced with Juneteenth.

On this Juneteenth, we recognize the struggle that so many have endured and are still enduring to help us realize the dream of a more perfect union, and we stand with our residents in the ongoing fight for racial equity, the countys commissioners said at the time.

Juneteenth is on June 19. Columbus Day is on Oct. 12. It celebrates the day Columbus arrived in the Americas.

Tucker Carlson, the most popular cable news host in America and a known ally of President Donald Trump, late Wednesday criticized the proposal, alleging Lankford and Johnson want to delete Columbus Day from the national calendar.

Theyre hoping to quietly eliminate Columbus Day and then move on to the next item on the rioters list of demands, he added.

Cornyn told The Hill that the proposed swap dilutes the message were trying to send, which is one of being respectful and honoring and remembering our history.
Spectacular Moment 50 Elephants Hold Up Traffic to Cross a Highway in Thailand

When you build a major highway that crosses over an elephant-migration route in a wildlife sanctuary, expect some jumbo disruption to traffic.

This is precisely what happened in Thailand as a 50-strong herd of elephants brought traffic to a standstill in April 2020. The herd of adults and babies were making their way from one part of the forest to another. But they found the 3076 highway in Chachoengsao Province blocking their way!

Undeterred by a strip of tarmac, the elephants imposed their right of way while a helpless crowd of motorists could only look on in amazement.

The real-life pachyderm patrol, led by a large matriarch elephant, was utterly unfazed by their jaywalking and crossed safely in less than a minute.

Fortunately, the herd of elephants had been tracked by forest rangers throughout the day on April 9, reported Newsflare. They knew precisely where the elephantsthe national animal of Thailandwere heading, so were able to close the road in advance of their arrival.

The video of the fantastic sight, filmed by Pratya Chutipat Sakul, shows the majestic elephants crossing the road and then plunging back into their forest home on the other side of the highway.

The herd is headed by their mature female leader, who does not appear to be in too much of a hurry. She is closely followed by her herd members, which have bunched up, keeping within touching distance of each other and the baby elephants. Only one elephant briefly stops in the middle of the road, causing a momentary elephant traffic jam.

Several police officers attended the scene, east of the Thai capital, Bangkok. They set up traffic cones to ensure vehicles did not get too close to the elephants. Traffic had been halted well before the elephants appeared to avoid accidents or spooking the herd as it emerged from the forest.

The video was shot by Sakul, whose journey had been interrupted by the elephant crossing. He told Newsflare: More than 50 wild elephants crossed the highway. They were moving together from one part of the jungle to the other.

The wildlife officers had been following the elephants for the last few days. When they saw that their path was moving towards the road, they called the police and urgently closed the road.

The police, he continued, had ensured the elephants were able to cross safely.

Sakul said: Nobody minds waiting for the elephants, as the most important thing is that theyre safe. The elephants were all so calm and barely noticed the humans. I feel very lucky to have seen such an amazing sight.

He estimated that it took all the elephants less than 40 seconds to cross the highway.

While this human interaction with wild elephants was without incident, the Daily Mail reports that there have been two people killed in the Chachoengsao area by elephants.

The week previous to the highway crossing, 53-year-old mango picker Chalermphol Sukthawee was found dead in a rubber plantation beside forest at the foot of Langka mountain. It is believed he died after wild elephants stamped on his head. And in February 2020, a monk was also killed after ignoring warnings about a herd of elephants in the vicinity of another plantation.

Last year, The Nation Thailand news site reported that wild elephants in the Chachoengsao area had learned how to stop trucks carrying sugar cane and other crops to ransack their loads.

The 3076 highway runs for almost 15 kilometres through the wildlife sanctuary, linking Chachoengsao and Sa Kaew.

These incidents with elephants might not be entirely due to wild elephants being aggressive. Rather, it is because we humans have encroached on their habitat. Deaths and road crossings by elephants might become more frequent if humans continually spread out and occupy the homes of wildlife. A little forethought and sensitive planning, however, can help humans and wildlife coexist in harmony.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
Supreme Court to Decide if Trump Administration Must Hand Over Secret Grand Jury Documents to House

The Supreme Court agreed July 2 to consider the Trump administrations appeal of a lower courts decision compelling the U.S. Justice Department to give Congress documents from former special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The case is cited as Department of Justice v. House Committee on the Judiciary. As is its custom, the Supreme Court didnt provide reasons for its decision to review the March 10 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that ordered the Justice Department (DOJ) to produce the documents.

The D.C. Circuit previously ruled 21 that Congress was participating in a special kind of judicial process to which the secrecy rules that normally protect grand jury documents didnt apply.

The committees need for the grand jury materials remains unchanged, wrote Judge Judith Rogers for the appeals court.

The committee has repeatedly stated that if the grand jury materials reveal new evidence of impeachable offenses, the committee may recommend new articles of impeachment. Courts must take care not to second-guess the manner in which the House plans to proceed with its impeachment investigation or interfere with the Houses sole power of impeachment, Rogers wrote.

At least four of the nine sitting justices would have had to vote to hear the case for review to have been granted. The petition for certiorari, or review, was filed June 1 by U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, after the high court put a hold on an appeals court ruling May 8.

Francisco told the Supreme Court it ought to make up its own mind about the significant separation of powers issues that the case raised. Congress doesnt have a legitimate reason for seeking the grand jury documents, he argued in a submission to the high court.

The House already has impeached the president, the Senate already has acquitted him, and neither [the committee] nor the House has provided any indication that a second impeachment is imminent, Francisco wrote.

Earlier this year, the president was impeached by the House of Representatives for allegedly putting pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden; Trump was later acquitted by the Senate.

The 448-page report released in April last year by Mueller stopped short of arriving at conclusions about Trumps conduct, the appeals court previously stated.

Oral arguments in the case arent expected to be heard before the Supreme Courts new term begins this October, probably denying House Democrats the opportunity to access the grand jury materials before Election Day. President Donald Trump is currently campaigning for reelection against presumptive Democratic Party nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Grand jury materials are generally kept secret, but the documents are being sought by the House Judiciary Committee, which has reportedly indicated that its continuing to investigate Trump for possibly impeachable offenses.

In its filings with the Supreme Court, the DOJ argued the high court had to act because the House hadnt indicated it urgently needs these materials for any ongoing impeachment investigation.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the new Supreme Court decision disappointed him, and that Attorney General William Barr overturned existing DOJ practice in refusing to release the grand jury papers.

Unfortunately, President Trump and Attorney General Barr are continuing to try to run out the clock on any and all accountability, Nadler said in a statement. While I am confident their legal arguments will fail, it is now all the more important for the American people to hold the president accountable at the ballot box in November.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott during a press conference at the state capitol in Austin, Texas, on March 29, 2020. (Tom Fox-Pool/Getty Images)

Texas Governor Issues Statewide Mask Requirement

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday issued a statewide face-covering requirement as the CCP virus outbreak continued to worsen in the state.

Governor Greg Abbott today issued an Executive Order requiring all Texans to wear a face-covering over the nose and mouth in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases, with few exceptions, the governors order read. The order goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday.

A written or verbal warning can be issued (pdf) to a first-time violator of the mask requirement. A second violation can result in a $250 fine, according to the order.

Local law enforcement officers can issue fines or warnings over masks, but they cant make arrests.

Abbotts order requires Texans living in counties with 20 or more positive cases of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus to wear a covering over the mouth and nose inside a business or another building open to the public. People also have to wear a mask in outdoor public spaces whenever social distancing isnt possible.

A woman wearing a protective face mask walks in Leicester, UK, on June 30, 2020. (Molly Darlington/Reuters)

Children younger than 10 years old, people with medical conditions that prevent them from wearing a mask, people drinking or eating, or people exercising outside are exempt from the order.

COVID-19 is not going away, Abbott said in a video. In fact, its getting worse. Now, more than ever, action by everyone is needed until treatments are available for COVID-19.

The governor added that wearing a face-covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of the virus, which causes the disease COVID-19, while keeping Texas businesses open.

He said, Texans should wear a face covering for the health of their families, friends, and for all fellow Texans.

Texas has reported more than 170,000 cases of the virus and 2,500 deaths so far, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The order from Abbott, a Republican, came after top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged Americans to wear masks to protect themselves and others from the virus.

President Donald Trump said in an interview this week that he is all for masks, but added that he doesnt think it should be nationally mandated.

If I were in a group of people and I was close, I would. I have. People have seen me wearing one, if Im in a group of people where were not 10 feet away, the president said. Usually Im not in that position and everyones tested because Im the president and they get tested before they see me, [but] if I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely, he added.
Members of City Youth organizations hold posters and light candles to pay tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives following a recent clash between India and China, in Hyderabad on June 17, 2020. (Noah Seelam/AFP via Getty Images)

The Connection Between Chinas Unmourned Soldiers, Its Theft of Intellectual Property

Commentary

China hasnt disclosed how many of its citizens died in the border clash with India on June 15. India staged a memorial service for those of its people who perished in the conflict, while Chinese lamentations were limited to Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

Beijings effort to keep secret the identities of their fallen soldiers is part of a totalitarian impulse to control all informationto deny freedom. That denial helps account for the Chinese regimes need to steal rather than invent technology.

Recently, a Chinese professor who cooperated in smuggling U.S. technology to the Peoples Republic of China was arrested.

The Epoch Times reports: A federal judge in San Jose, California found Zhang Hao, 41, guilty after a four-day trial.  According to the Justice Department, Zhang met his co-conspirator, Pang Wei, while studying for a doctorate in electrical engineering at the University of Southern California, where they both conducted research on radio-filtering technology with funding from the Defense Department. After graduating in 2006, Zhang went to work for Skyworks Solutions Inc., based in Massachusetts, and Pang was employed by Avago in Colorado.

They formed an effective partnership. Shortly after their graduation, the pair created a company in China that vied with the U.S. firms.

Prosecutors said that in October 2006, Zhang and his co-conspirators started a business in China to compete with Avago and Skyworkswhile Zhang and Pang worked at those companies, The Epoch Times reports. They stole formulas, source code, technical specifications, design kits, and other documents marked as classified or proprietary from their American employers, the Justice Department said.

So Zhang and Pang worked at the same time for Avago and Skyworks, and a copycat Chinese company that ripped off American products from the mens U.S. employers. Zhang and Pang were a dynamite pair. They furthered a long-standing Chinese operation, indeed a long-standing totalitarian scheme, to steal American technology.

Zhang will face sentencing on Aug. 31.

The essence of the scheme derived from the totalitarians recognition that they werent the equal of the Americans when it came to the creation of new technology. Hence, the Soviets mounted a substantial program of subversion against U.S. technology; China has followed in those footsteps.

Although there are three times as many Chinese as Americans, and a great deal more young people educated in high-tech, a very high percentage of Chinese advanced technology is stolen from the United States.

Creativity depends on freedom, and the Chinese dont have it, as we see from the way they deal with Hong Kong. The Chinese central government is clamping down on free speech in Hong Kong, making sure that decision-making is centralized in Beijing. In other words, the end of free speech.

It may well be that the central question of this moment is whether or not the democracies have the will to protect their intellectual property. I dont know the answer. Time will tell.

It will be a tough battle.

If we do have the will to engage in this crucial battle, the key to our survival lies in our intelligence communitiestheir ability to identify our active enemiesand the willingness of our judicial systems to prosecute the thousands of thieves who are working to infiltrate our networks of researchers and laboratories.

At the moment, our network of research and development laboratories prides itself on its global outreach, which favors enemy espionage. This applies to laboratories run by corporations or universities, whether inside the United States or abroad.

On the other hand, we have defeated a well-disciplined enemy network in the recent past, discovering in the process that the Soviet people actually cherished freedom. Once they had a chance to be truly free, they unhesitatingly took it, and their talents were spread around the world. Are the Chinese cut from the same cloth?

We shall see.

Michael Ledeen is freedom scholar at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has served as a consultant to the National Security Council and the departments of State and Defense, and as a special adviser to the Secretary of State. He is the author of 35 books, most recently Field of Fight: How to Win the War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, co-authored with retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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The Moldovan Parliaments website design was supported by the Democracy Support Programme in Moldova"  an initiative financed by the European Union and implemented by the Council of Europe
The Senate Gets a Step Closer to Rooting Out Child Sexual Exploitation from Internet

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill Thursday that holds tech companies accountable for not eliminating content that sexually exploits children, by taking away their legal protections from lawsuits.

The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act of 2020 passed by a vote of 22-0. The bipartisan legislation introduced by Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pushes the tech industry to take online child sexual exploitation seriously.

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the EARN IT Act, which is designed to incentivize service providers, including social media companies, to protect their products from sexual exploitation of minors by predators and to deal with the scourge of child sexual abuse material on the internet, said Graham in a statement Thursday.

Child Advocacy groups working against the exploitation of minors received information of close to 70 million photos, videos, and files depicting the sexual exploitation of children that were circulating on the internet in 2019.

There are tens of millions of photos and videos circulating throughout the internet, showing the most heinous acts of sexual abuse and torture of children. The EARN IT Act removes Section 230 blanket liability protection from service providers in the area of child sexual abuse and child sexual abuse material on their sites, said Graham.

Sen. Graham thanked colleagues Blumenthal and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) for offering the amendments that made the bill more effective in stopping child exploitation.

I want to thank Senator Blumenthal for all of his hard work and making this possible. Without his leadership and input, the bill would not have gone forward. Senator Leahys amendment addressed many legitimate concerns, and I appreciate his willingness to work to a solution. Senator Lee was very helpful and we will continue to work with him, said Graham.

I have never been more proud of the Committee, as a body, than I am right now. Everybody took this problem seriously and we came together. And, if Congress accepts the Committees recommendation, the children of America will be better off for it, he added.

The bill encourages the tech industry to help end online child sexual exploitation by amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to remove all-encompassing immunity from Federal civil, State criminal, and State civil child sexual abuse material laws entirely.

The Legislation will treat Tech companies like everyone else and strips them of their legal protection against lawsuits if they do not root out child exploitation materials from their digital space.

Prior to the legislation, and having limited liability, companies did not do much to go after online child sexual exploitation.

The EARN IT Acts goal is to create voluntary best business practices to protect children from exploitation and to better police these sites when it comes to child predators. If the companies in question are employing the best business practices, that would be a defense in any civil suit, continued Graham.

The legislation is also cosponsored by U.S. Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

In order to become law, the legislation must now be considered by the full Senate and the House, before being signed by President Donald Trump.

I will urge the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders to take this legislation up as soon as possible. We have many differences in Congress on a variety of issues, and a level of dysfunction that I regret. However, the Senate Judiciary Committees unanimous vote to pass to EARN IT Act gives me hope, Graham said.

I am hopeful and expect that President Trump will enthusiastically support this measure, added Graham.
Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health, testifies at a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 23, 2020. (Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images)

Trump Admin Re-Establishes Ready Reserve Corps for Emergency Response

The Trump administration has decided to re-establish the Ready Reserve Corps (RRC) to boost the public health response to the CCP virus pandemic.

The U.S. Public Health Service has in service a commissioned Regular Corps and an additional RRC that can be called at short notice to assist the former during a public health crisis or national emergency.

Creating a Ready Reserve for the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps will improve our capability to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and future public health emergencies, said Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar in a statement on Tuesday.

Azar said the Trump administration and Congress have come together to re-establish the RRC, whose main purpose is to protect the country from public health threats.

The men and women of the Commissioned Corps have effectively protected Americans health for more than a century, and having a reserve element will prepare them for another century of lifesaving service, said Azar.

Thank you @VP and @SecAzar for recognizing the historic work of the #USPHS #CommissionedCorps and the future of the Corps Ready Reserve. We are Commissioned Corps strong! @Surgeon_General @usphscc pic.twitter.com/8HdkEOtWCS  ADM Brett P. Giroir (@HHS_ASH) June 30, 2020

The RRC was created ten years ago and Congress had approved 2,500 personnel under it, but the legislation failed to add statutory authority for pay and benefits. The bill, the United States Public Health Service Modernization Act of 2019 (USPHS), was introduced in Congress to resolve this. The USPHS passed the Senate on Jan. 9 and it became law with the passing of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act on March 27, which includes the USPHS.

The Regular Corps consists of 6,100 physicians, nurses, pharmacists, engineers, and more than 4,500 of them were deployed during the CCP virus pandemic in support of the administrations worldwide efforts, including deployment to the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan and elsewhere.

The RRC will provide additional trained and ready personnel at short notice to critical crisis situations.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic we have been reminded having a Reserve Corps is critical to our emergency response capabilities and will augment our capacity to strategically address public health needs across the nation, said Admiral Brett P. Giroir, M.D., assistant secretary for health.

Giroir said the RRC will also deploy public health professionals who want to work in part-time active duty positions.

Trained and ready personnel will fill critical public health needs and will preserve clinical care positions by maintaining a surge capacity of health professionals available for deployment without jeopardizing the service of clinicians in hard to fill roles, said the HHS.

The USPHA Commissioned Corps will start to accept online applications for the RRC in the fall.
Trump Says Masks Are Good, Calls on Americans to Wear Them

President Donald Trump urged Americans to wear masks in public as CCP virus cases continue to rise across the United States.

Im all for masks. I think masks are good, Trump told Fox News Business, adding that he doesnt necessarily support a nationwide mandate for Americans to wear masks. There are many places in the country where people stay very long distance, Trump said.

It comes after senior Republicans have called on Americans to start wearing masks as infections rise and as some health experts warned that the pandemic would persist for months.

If I were in a group of people and I was close, I would. I have. People have seen me wearing one, if Im in a group of people where were not 10 feet away, the president said. Usually Im not in that position and everyones tested because Im the president and they get tested before they see me, [but] if I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely, he added.

Trump said people should wear the masks if they feel good about doing so.

The president was also asked if he would wear a mask in public. Trump said he wouldnt commit to it but wouldnt rule it out.

Id have no problem. Actually I had a mask on and I said I liked the way I looked. I thought it was OK, Trump said. It was a dark black mask and I thought it looked OK. It looked like the Lone Ranger, but I have no problem with that, he continued.

A member of aircrew is seen wearing a protective mask at Heathrow Airport, as Britain launches its 14-day quarantine for international arrivals, in London on June 8, 2020. (Toby Melville/Reuters)

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called on people to wear masks after cases reached record highs.

We must have no stigma, none, about wearing masks when we leave our homes and come near other people, McConnell said on the floor of the Senate. Wearing simple face coverings is not about protecting ourselves, it is about protecting everyone we encounter.

In fact, the more we dislike the pain and suffering caused by the strict stay-home guidelines a few months ago, the happier we should be to take reasonable small steps every day to ensure our country can stay on offense against the virus, McConnell added.

Texas, Arizona, California, and Florida have been singled out by Vice President Mike Pence for the surge in new CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus cases, saying in remarks this week that they account for about 50 percent of new patients.

Roughly 50 percent of all the new cases are taking place in four states, Pence said. He added that the White House pandemic task force is particularly focusing on the four states that are generating the majority of the cases which, of course, are California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida.

The COVID Tracking Project said that states have reported more than 50,000 new cases of the CCP virus, which emerged in China last year, on Wednesday. However, it noted that the seven-day average for deaths was almost unchanged at 520. In early May, there were around 1,500 to 2,500 deaths each day across the United States.
UK Foreign Office Summons Chinese Ambassador Over Hong Kong Security Law

Britains Foreign Office has summoned Chinas ambassador to express its concerns over the imposition of a national security law in Hong Kong.

Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese regimes top diplomat in London, was called to a meeting with the Foreign Offices permanent undersecretary, Sir Simon McDonald, on July 1, according to reports by Sky News and other British media outlets.

McDonald expressed the UKs deep concern over the new law, pointing out that the law breaches the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which the Chinese regime promised to guarantee Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for 50 years after the territory was handed back to China in 1997.

The law, which was imposed at 11 p.m. on June 30, stipulates that offenders, if convicted of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, could be imprisoned for life.

A police officer raises his pepper spray handgun as he detains a man during a march against the national security law on the anniversary of Hong Kongs handover to China from Britain in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

On July 1, as protesters defied a police ban to march against the legislation, Hong Kong police fired pepper spray, tear gas, water cannons, and made about 370 arrests, 10 of which were made under the new security law.

The draconian legislation has sparked international outcry, with criticisms coming from more than 27 countries, as well as Taiwan and the European Union.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on July 1 that the law constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as it violates Hong Kongs high degree of autonomy and is in direct conflict with Hong Kong basic law.

To honor its historical obligation to the people of Hong Kong, the British government announced it will extend immigration rights for an estimated 3 million Hong Kong residents who hold British National (Overseas) status.

Britains Secretary of State for Foreign affairs Dominic Raab arrives in Downing Street, London, on April 8, 2020. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Under the proposed bespoke immigration route, according to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, BNO status holders will be able to stay in the UK for five years with the right to work or study. After five years, they can apply for settled status, and for citizenship one year later.

The measure is supported across the political spectrum. The opposition Labour Party welcomed the government initiative and encouraged it to go further and offer protection to young Hong Kong activists who do not hold BNO status.

It is also popular among the British public. According to a new poll conducted for the Conservative Partys China Research Group, voters backed the idea of allowing BNO status holders to come to the UK by a margin of 61 to 11 percent.

The Australian government is also working on a scheme to offer similar safe haven arrangements for Hong Kong residents, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on July 2.

Isabel van Brugen contributed to this report.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg gives the keynote address during the Facebook F8 Developer Conference in San Francisco, on March 25, 2015. Britain's competition watchdog The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at the U.S. tech giants in a report on July 1, 2020, wanting new rules to foster competition in digital advertising markets and rein in the industry's dominant players, Google and Facebook. (Eric Risberg/AP Photo)

UK Regulator Urges Reforms to Curb Google, Facebook Ad Power

LONDONBritish regulators want new rules to foster competition in digital advertising markets and rein in the industrys dominant players, Google and Facebook.

The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at the U.S. tech giants in a report on July 1 that recommends the British government adopt a new regulatory approach to governing big digital platforms making money from online ads.

The authority said it was concerned that the two companies have developed such unassailable market positions that rivals cant compete on equal terms, resulting in higher prices for hotels, flights, electronics, insurance, and other goods and services that are heavily advertised online.

Google and Facebook accounted for about 80 percent of the 14 billions pounds ($17 billion) earned by the UKs digital ad industry last year, the authority said. Google controls more than 90 percent of the UKs 7.3 billion pound search advertising market while Facebook has more than half of its 5.5 billion pound display ad market.

After a yearlong review, regulators found that existing laws arent up to the job of effectively regulating the countrys digital ad markets.

If the market power of these firms goes unchecked, people and businesses will lose out, said Andrea Coscelli, the CMAs chief executive. People will carry on handing over more of their personal data than necessary, a lack of competition could mean higher prices for goods and services bought online and we could all miss out on the benefits of the next innovative digital platform.

The watchdog proposes a new digital markets unit with powers that would include ordering Google to share its data with rival search engines so they can improve their algorithms and limiting the search giants ability to secure the default search engine position on mobile phones and browsers.

Under the new rules, Facebook could also be ordered to increase its ability to operate with other social media platforms and to let consumers choose whether to receive personalised ads.

Google supports regulation that benefits people, businesses and society, said the companys vice president for UK & Ireland, Ronan Harris. Well continue to work constructively with regulatory authorities and government on these important areas so that everyone can make the most of the web.

Facebook noted it faced significant competition from Google, Apple, Snap, Twitter, Amazon, and newer players like TikTok, and looked forward to engaging with UK government bodies on rules that protect consumers.

Google and Facebook are already facing increased scrutiny of their ad businesses in the United States after two groups of state attorneys general launched separate investigations last year. One probe is examining whether Googles ad business is engaging in monopolistic behaviour while the other is looking into Facebook for alleged antitrust issues, including whether its actions increased the price of advertising.

Some privacy advocates looked askance at the reviews other proposals.

An idea for a secure common digital ID for the ad tracking industry wouldnt be workable under the European Unions world-leading privacy standards, said Johnny Ryan, chief policy officer at Brave, an ad-blocking web browser. Another idea to let people sell their data to digital platforms or ad brokers is dangerous, he said.

For much the same reason why you cannot sell your kidney in this jurisdiction, you also cannot transact away your fundamental right to the protection of your data, he said.

By Kelvin Chan
A man walks past graffiti left by protesters on the old Bank of China building following a pro-democracy rally from Victoria Park to Chater Road in Hong Kong on Dec. 8, 2019. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

US Lawmakers OK Bill to Sanction Chinese Banks Over Hong Kong National Security Law

The U.S. House of Representatives on July 1 unanimously passed a bill imposing sanctions on banks doing business with Chinese officials involved in the implementation of the Chinese communist regimes national security law in Hong Kong.

Passage of the legislation came in response to Beijings draconian new law, which came into effect in Hong Kong this week. The standing committee of Chinas rubber-stamp legislature, the National Peoples Congress (NPC), passed the law on June 30 via ceremonial votes.

The law criminalizes individuals for any acts of subversion, secession, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, with maximum penalties of life imprisonment. Critics fear the law will be used to crack down on those critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Before the legislation to penalize banks doing business with Chinese officials was passed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) described the law as a brutal, sweeping crackdown on Hong Kong.

The law is a brutal, sweeping crackdown against the people of Hong Kong, intended to destroy the freedoms they were promised, Pelosi said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the situation in Hong Kong.

Concerns have been raised that the legislature breaches Hong Kongs Basic Law, which guarantees that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights can remain in force in the territory.

Under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which set the terms of Hong Kongs transfer to Chinese rule in 1997, the regime agreed to grant the city autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in the mainland, under the formula of one country, two systems.

On the first day that the national security law was enforced, the Hong Kong Police Force said it had detained 10 peoplesix men and four womenon suspicion of violating the security law. In total, about 370 were arrested for a number of offenses, some for unlawful assembly  obstructing police, and possession of weapons, officials said.

No one should face life in prison for demonstrating. Now, Hong Kongers are fleeing Hong Kong out of fear for their safety, and we should support their right to do so. We need to impose consequences on the Chinese government for its actions towards #HongKong (2/2)  Rep. Brad Sherman (@BradSherman) July 2, 2020

No one should face life in prison for demonstrating, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), one of the authors of the legislation, said on Twitter. Now, Hong Kongers are fleeing Hong Kong out of fear for their safety, and we should support their right to do so. We need to impose consequences on the Chinese government for its actions towards #HongKong.

Pelosi said in a statement earlier this week that the laws passage signals the death of the one country, two systems principle, as she called on the Trump administration to hold the regime accountable by sanctioning CCP officials responsible for abusing rights in Hong Kong under the Global Magnitsky Act and the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.

The purpose of this brutal, sweeping law is to frighten, intimidate, and suppress Hongkongers who are peacefully demanding the freedoms that were promised, Pelosi said.

The CCP just passed the #HongKong national security law. This is a horrible blow for the freedoms that Hongkongers were promised under the Basic Law. The House must pass @ChrisVanHollens and my Hong Kong Autonomy Act ASAP to hold the CCP accountable.  Senator Pat Toomey (@SenToomey) June 30, 2020

The Senate last week unanimously approved a companion bill, the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which would impose mandatory sanctions on individuals or companies that back efforts by China to restrict Hong Kongs autonomy. The bill, introduced by Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) in the upper chamber, also includes secondary sanctions on banks that do business with anyone found to be backing any crackdown on the territorys autonomy.

The United States has already begun eliminating Hong Kongs special status, halting defense exports and restricting the territorys access to high technology products in response to Beijings national security law.

Cathy He and Reuters contributed to this report.
A crewman from a Vietnamese coastguard ship looks out at sea as Chinese coastguard vessels give chase to Vietnamese ships in the South China Sea, on July 15, 2014. (Martin Petty/Reuters)

Vietnam, Philippines Denounce China Military Drills in Disputed Waters

HANOI/MANILAVietnam and the Philippines on Thursday criticized Chinas holding of military drills in a disputed part of the South China Sea, warning it could create tension in the region and impact Beijings relationship with its neighbors.

Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Chinas exercises in the waters near the Paracel Islands were highly provocative, while Vietnams Foreign Ministry called them a violation of sovereignty that could be detrimental to Beijings relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

China scheduled five days of drills from Wednesday near the Paracels according to a June 27 announcement by the Hainans Maritime Safety Administration. Vietnam has overlapping claims with China over the Paracels.

Vietnam and the Philippines have been the most vocal regional opponents to what they see as Chinese overreach in the South China Sea and its disregard for boundaries outlined in international maritime law.

China claims historical jurisdiction over about 80 percent of the sea.

Hanoi and Manila warned of growing insecurity in Southeast Asia at an ASEAN summit last Friday, amid concern, including from the United States, that China was using the cover of the coronavirus pandemic to step up naval activities and advance its territorial claims.

Even though the Philippines has no claim to the Paracels, Lorenzana said China holding exercises beyond its own waters was not acceptable.

That is very concerning, we view that with alarm, he told a security forum.

Doing it in the contested areas then that will, you know, sound the alarm bells for all the claimants, he said.

Thats highly provocative, he added.

Vietnams Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic note to China to oppose exercises that seriously violate Vietnams sovereignty, spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at a regular briefing.

The drills further complicate the situation, and are detrimental to the relationship between China and ASEAN, she said.

Vietnam said in April that one of its fishing boats was sunk by a Chinese maritime surveillance vessel. China called Vietnams maritime claims illegal and doomed to fail.

By Phuong Nguyen and Neil Jerome Morales
Walmart to Transform 160 of Its Parking Lots Into Drive-In Theaters

Two of the most classic pieces of Americana are coming together this summer: drive-in theaters and Walmart.

Beginning in August, the retailer is converting 160 of its U.S. store parking lots into drive-in movie theaters. As the pandemic continues, drive-in theaters have been making a comeback as a safe alternative to the traditional movie theaters that remain closed in much of the country.

Walmart is partnering with Tribeca Enterprises, the Robert De Niro-backed media company, to program the films. Locations and movie titles havent yet been announced, but they will be revealed later on a special website. The event will run through October and encompass more than 300 showings.

A Walmart store is seen in Miami, Fla., on Feb. 18, 2020. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

This family-friendly night will include hit movies, special appearances from filmmakers and celebrities, and concessions delivered right to customer vehicles, Walmart said in a press release. Walmart will use the nearby physical stores to let people use curbside pickup for treats and food.

Drive-in movie venues have been popping up all over the country, with small business owners forced temporarily to shut down their traditional theater operations opting to reopen old drive-in locations or build makeshift theaters in parking lots in a bid to make up for lost income.

The-CNN-Wire

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With Restrictions Eased, US Added 4.8 Million Jobs in June

Major swaths of the U.S. economy are coming back to life, with 4.8 million jobs added in June as states gradually ease restrictions imposed on businesses in response to the CCP virus pandemic.

More than 2 million of the jobs sprouted back up in the hospitality sector, which had been decimated the most by the shutdowns. Other major areas of recovery were in retail (more than 700,000 jobs), education (more than 500,000 jobs), and manufacturing (more than 300,000), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on July 2.

Eighty percent of small businesses are now open and we think were going to have some very good numbers in the coming months, because others are opening, President Donald Trump commented during a July 2 press briefing at the White House.

Trump also touted the rise in consumer confidence, retail sales, and the number of workers re-entering the labor force.

The crisis is being handled, he said.

He said the situation with COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus, is getting under control, although he acknowledged that there are areas where it has flared up.

We are putting out the fires, he said.

Unemployment dropped to 11.1 percent from 13.3 percent the month before.

The shutdowns sent unemployment on a roller coaster ride as the rate spiked to 14.7 percent in April from 3.5 percent in February. Since then, the economy has been recovering.

The measurement of the unemployment rate continued to be biased lower by people incorrectly misclassifying themselves as being employed but absent from work last month. The unemployment rate would have been 12.1 percent without the misclassification problem, the BLS said.

Hiring in June was boosted by the typically low-paying leisure and hospitality industry, which added 2.1 million jobs, accounting for about two-fifths of the gains in payrolls. The return of these workers pushed down average wages by 1.2 percent in June.

We couldnt be more pleased with the results today. Between this month and last month, thats about 8 million jobs, about 8 million people weve put back to work, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. He said the administrations work wouldnt be done until every person who lost their job amid the shutdowns regains employment.

The unemployment rate dropped the most for Hispanics (to 14.5 percent from 17.6 percent), then whites (to 10.1 percent from 12.4 percent), followed by blacks (to 15.4 percent from 16.8 percent) and Asians (to 13.8 percent from 15 percent).

Theres still a lot of hardship, and a lot of heartbreak in these numbers, said Larry Kudlow, Trumps economic adviser. I understand that. The economy is on its way back, but we have a ways to go.

He emphasized, though, that the economists are predicting a major recovery in the third quarter.

Regarding the rising numbers of virus cases in some areas, Mnuchin said the states are acting appropriately by pausing the reopening of more contagious settings such as bars and gyms.

We think there is the right balance, and were working with the states on the health issues and the economic issues, he said.

The majority of the spike in virus cases in the past week has been concentrated in some 60 counties, largely in Texas, California, Florida, and Arizona.

Average hourly earnings at private companies fell 1.2 percent to $29.39 in June. For rank-and-file workers specifically, hourly earnings declined 0.9 percent to $24.74.

The reason wasnt so much that employers imposed pay cuts. Rather, the workers who were rehired in June at bars, restaurants, and other such establishments disproportionately work in lower-paying occupations. That trend pulled down average wages for the month.

The decline reflects the extent to which Junes job gains were skewed toward lower-wage, lower-hour industry groups, such as retail trade and leisure and hospitality services, said Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial.

U.S. stocks rallied on the employment data. The dollar was steady against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields fell.

In a separate report on July 2, the Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 55,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.427 million for the week ended June 27. Though claims have declined from a record 6.867 million in late March, progress has been slow.

The claims report also showed the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid rose 59,000 to 19.290 million in the week ending June 20. These so-called continued claims, which are reported with a one-week lag, have dropped from a record 24.912 million in early May.

There were 31.5 million people collecting unemployment checks in mid-June. Of those, over 17 million collected the standard state benefits and nearly 13 million the special pandemic-related benefits.

Some big bank analysts stroke a gloomy note on the report, wary of new restrictions that states may impose in response to virus case spikes.

Remember that the (June jobs) data are capturing the data from the middle of May through the middle of June, given the survey period, economists at Bank of America Global Research cautioned. It captures the state of the labor market before the economy was hit by the rise in virus cases in the Sun Belt.

Jay Bryson, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities, voiced similar worries.

With the number of COVID-19 cases accelerating and some states delaying re-opening or imposing new restrictions, we are concerned that a significant number of individuals may become furloughed again, he said in a research report. The outsized gains in payrolls that were registered in May and June likely wont be repeated in the next few months.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Worlds Oldest Living Golden Retriever Celebrates 20th Birthday With Cake and Family

A sweet senior rescue dog has become the oldest golden retriever on record after celebrating her 20th birthday, far outliving the 10- to 12-year life expectancy for her breed.

August, or Augie, celebrated with a birthday banner to mark the occasion, a dog-friendly carrot cake, and snuggles with her adopted golden retriever siblings, Sherman, Belle, and Bruce.

Its official. Let it be known that  August is the oldest known, oldest living Golden Retriever, GoldHeart Golden Retrievers Rescue posted on their Facebook page in honor of the senior pooch. She turned 20 years old on April 24, 2020.

Augie lives in Oakland, Tennessee, with her adoptive owners, Jennifer and Steve Hetterscheidt, who rescued Augie from Golden Retriever Rescue of Southern Nevada when the senior dog was already 14 years old; Jennifer was working as director for the rescue center at the time.

They are wonderful volunteers, GoldHeart said of the couple to The Epoch Times, supporting rescue for many years!

Augie was placed in two homes that didnt work out before ending up in her forever home with the Hetterscheidts. Jennifer and Steve knew that senior dogs have a harder time finding permanent homes than younger pups, but Augie stole their hearts.

The couple were pleasantly surprised by Augies adventurous spirit, despite her advanced age, and the family enjoyed many RVing trips across the United States together. Augie shares her home with her three canine companions, plus some cats, and one of her favorite pastimes is playing fetch in the pool.

Of course being that old she has slowed down a lot, Steve told Insider. We have beds all around the house and we have a sofa and ottoman, and shell get up on the sofa and watch TV with us at night. She just likes to be a part of the group.

Jennifer explained that while the 20-year-old pooch is a little shaky when she stands up, she still moves around with ease and enjoys a daily stroll around the couples backyard. A mixture of wet and dry dog food plus supplements for her kidneys and joints help alleviate her minor health ailments.

Golden retrievers are the third most popular dog breed in the United States, says the American Kennel Club. They are serious workers and make excellent search-and-rescue dogs or guides for the blind.

They also display a huge lust for life when not on duty and are known to be very affectionate. The breed often maintains a puppy-like nature long into adulthood.

Augies owners know how rewarding it can be to live with and care for a senior pet. We care for them as long as we have them and love them forever, said Jennifer, as Metro reported. Although oldest among specific breeds are not officially recorded just yet, Augie appears to be the 19th-oldest dog in the world, according to Guinness.

Steve attributes Augies impressive longevity to good genes, adding that she has been a great addition to the family and she just keeps chugging along.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc.
Iran Safety NGO Says Killer Blazes Are Due To Violations, Lack Of Enforcement

07/02/20

Source: Radio Farda

The chairman of Iran's National Safe Society Association (NSSA) warned about inadequate safety measures in public buildings which led to the death of nineteen people in an explosion in a medical clinic in Tehran on Wednesday.



The scene of a blast at Sina At'har Clinic in northern Tehran. July 1, 2020.

(Source: Iranian daily Javan)

The explosion at the clinic was caused by a gas leak and faulty electrical wiring in the basement of the building where oxygen tanks were stored. The blast killed nineteen people and wounded fourteen others despite the efforts of firefighters to save the people in the building. Authorities say most of the casualties were among the medical staff.

Eshsan and Raha were two surgical technologists who were killed in #TehranExplosion at a medical clinic. The newlyweds had only 17 days to live together! 19 people, mostly medics were suffocated to death in the incident, almost all of them in operation room. #Iranexplosion pic.twitter.com/zQFJ7rQjJy  Habib Abdolhossein (@HAbdolhossein) July 1, 2020

Mentioning the collapse of the 17-story Plasco Shopping Arcade in a blaze in 2017 that killed fifteen firefighters and five others, NSSA's Javad Nofarasti said the authorities did not take a lesson from the disastrous incident and failed to take serious action to check public buildings for safety which led to the recent disaster at Sina At'har Clinic on Wednesday. The clinic is situated in the affluent but densely populated Tajrish district of Tehran and could have killed many more if firefighters had not managed to extinguish the fire and stop it from spreading to adjacent buildings.



(Source: Iranian daily Etemad)

The police on Wednesday announced that several people, including the manager of the building, had been arrested in connection with the incident.



Nofarasti added that the problem is not lack of regulations, but rather ignoring them. According to him the owners of the building had received several warnings about the safety of the building from the municipality but not taken any steps to make the building safe. In the case of the Plasco building warnings had been issued and ignored too.



(Source: Iranian daily Arman Melli)

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Wednesday issued a message of condolence and called on the authorities to fully investigate the accident and prevent similar accidents from happening in the future.



Similar orders have been issues before but enforcement of building code and safety regulations remain weak in Iran.
Franklin County Sheriffs Office deputies are asking for the publics help with finding a suspect related to an armed robbery that was reported just before 11:30 a.m. Monday on Providence Church Road in Ferrum.

The FCSO has released photos of a vehicle captured on nearby surveillance cameras of a dark-colored Honda Pilot. The person suspected of committing the robbery was described as a white man with brown hair who was approximately 6 feet tall. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, shorts and a handkerchief-style mask.

Additional details have not been released yet, but FCSO confirmed the robbery occurred outside a residence and that the victim was restrained by the suspect. FCSO says they believe the suspect was armed.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Franklin County Sheriffs Office at 483-3000.
3 1 of 3 Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Two weeks after movie theaters were allowed to reopen in Connecticut, Bow Tie Cinemas has again temporarily closed its establishments in the state.

The latest shutdown went into effect Wednesday. Ridgefield-based Bow Tie said it plans to reopen its theaters in Greenwich, New Canaan, New Haven, Stamford and Trumbull when new Hollywood films are again ready for theatrical releases, according to its website.
The attorney representing Michelle Troconis says his client has not been allowed to retrieve personal belongings from her former boyfriends home.

Christopher Hug, an attorney who was appointed by the Farmington Probate Court to be the administrator for Fotis Dulos estate, has prevented Troconis from taking her items from the Jefferson Crossing property, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

Hug has gone to extraordinary steps to interfere with the ability of Ms. Troconis to retrieve her property from a separate location where he has no legal interest, said her attorney Jon Schoenhorn, who is arguing that Hug should be removed as administrator.

Troconis lived with Fotis Dulos for nearly two years at his home at 4 Jefferson Crossing in Farmington as he was going through a prolonged divorce and custody battle with his wife, Jennifer Dulos, who vanished on May 24, 2019.

Fotis Dulos died Jan. 30 from an apparent suicide while facing murder and other charges associated with the death and disappearance of his estranged wife. Jennifer Dulos has been presumed dead by police based on blood evidence found in the garage of her New Canaan home where they say she was attacked, according to arrest warrants.

Troconis is on house arrest while facing conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges in the case. Kent Mawhinney, a former attorney for Fotis Dulos, is also charged with conspiracy to commit murder and is scheduled to appear in court next week.

Hug was appointed administrator of Fotis Dulos estate in February. In probate court documents, Hug said the estate had very few assets.

Several creditors have since foreclosed on properties owned by Fore Group, Fotis Dulos high-end real estate development company.

In June, a state Superior Court judge in Hartford ruled the estate owed Jennifer Dulos mother, Gloria Farber, $1.9 million for unpaid loans to the Fore Group. Farber has been caring for the five Dulos children since her daughter disappeared.

A representative for the five children was allowed access to the Jefferson Crossing home last month to retrieve their belongings, while Troconis has not been afforded the same opportunity, Schoenhorn said.

Mr. Hug has interfered with the orderly and lawful transfer of Troconis property, despite production to him of proof of ownership, while demanding an unreasonable degree of exactitude, Schoenhorn said in documents filed with the probate court seeking Hug's dismissal.

The denial only benefits Hugs financial interests by creating unnecessary and almost ludicrous hurdles over Ms. Troconis personal property without justification, while seeking to pad his own fees and insisting on litigating trivial sums, Schoenhorn added.

According to Schoenhorn, Troconis is seeking a weight bench valued at $283, some glasses purchased at Home Goods and items belonging to her daughter, including Legos and video games. Hug refused to release the weight bench even though Troconis provided documentation that it had been bought with her Amazon account, court documents said.

Hug also told Troconis and Schoenhorn during a meeting about her personal belongings that she would have to seek permission from the real estate agent trying to sell 80 Mountain Spring Road, one of the Fore Group properties that is in foreclosure, to get furniture she owns that may be at that location, according to the court documents.

But Schoenhorn contends, when he received permission from the attorney representing the bank in the foreclosure, Hug sent an email to the real estate agent denying Troconis any right to retrieve her furniture.

In an email, Hug told the real estate agent to shut down any effort to remove the items immediately, according to Schoenhorns court documents.

We do not agree to the disposal of the contents of 80 Mountain Spring in whole, or in part at this time, Hug wrote in the email, according to Schoenhorns documents.

Schoenhorn wants Hug removed as administrator due to conflicts of interest and multiple violations of his fiduciary obligations to the estate and its heirs.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump is increasingly isolated over his staunch defense of Confederate symbols on military bases, as uneasy congressional Republicans signal to the White House that now is not the time to hold the Pentagon hostage to this one issue.

Trump threatened late Tuesday to veto a $740 billion defense policy bill if it included bipartisan language mandating the removal of the names of Confederate leaders from military installations. Hours later, Republicans on both sides of the Capitol made it clear the president needs to back down in a fight over honoring secessionists who fought the United States to maintain slavery.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., reaffirmed his support for the Senate's version of the bill that directs the Pentagon to rename such bases within three years. In the House Armed Services Committee - where lawmakers were expected Wednesday night to approve a similar provision accelerating that time frame to one year - the panel adopted a proposal by Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Md., to ban Confederate flags on all Defense Department property - with no Republicans objecting.

The panel is crafting the House version of the annual defense bill that authorizes a pay raise for service members and billions of dollars for new weapons, fighter jets and ships.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus, emboldened by the national reckoning over racial injustice, rolled out an expansive list of legislative priorities to push the conversation even further. The group is seeking a vote on legislation that would require a national commission to study and come up with possible reparations for slavery.

Members of the caucus also are hoping to pass a bill requiring the removal of all Confederate statues from Statuary Hall in the Capitol - possibly by month's end, according to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

"Symbols matter," said Thompson, who is crafting a bill to send Confederate statues in the Capitol to the Smithsonian. "The president of the Confederacy is one of two statues that we have here in the Capitol from my state of Mississippi," referring to Jefferson Davis.

He gestured to his fellow caucus members and added: "If that gentleman had won the war, as president, none of these people would be here in Congress today. I'm not certain we should hold people like that in high esteem."

Rep. Karen Bass. D-Calif., chairman of the caucus, echoed the sentiment, asking her colleagues to see themselves in caucus members' shoes: "If you could just absorb for a minute what it feels like . . . to walk past statutes of people who didn't even feel we were human, who wanted us to be in chains."

The congressional push to remove Confederate symbols from the Capitol and defense installations faces opposition from some Republicans.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., said Wednesday that while he regretted the president's veto threat, he agreed with Trump's view about stripping the names from military bases. He vowed to work to rid the defense bill of the provision before it reaches Trump desk, all but assuring there will be an internal GOP fight.

"It's part of our history, it's part of our heritage," Inhofe said. "They're tearing down statues and doing all these un-American things. The president feels strongly about it and I do too."

Across the Rotunda, several House Republicans agreed.

"I think the local people ought to decide," said Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, of military bases. "This is a big part of history, OK? Right [or] wrong, it's definitely a big part of history."

But those comments belied a growing sentiment among many Capitol Hill Republicans, including some who have long griped privately that Trump's racist comments repel Americans.

"I would hope the president would reconsider vetoing the entire defense bill, which includes pay raises for our troops over a provision in there that could lead to changing the names of these military bases," McConnell, R-Ky., told Dana Perino in a Fox News interview. Changing military base names is "quite different from trying to air brush the statues in the Capitol," he added.

"I would be happy to see, I would support changing the names of bases that were named in the honor of Confederate generals," said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. "Those individuals fought against the United States of America and we should instead be honoring people who fought for the United States of America."

The two chambers will have to reconcile their competing defense bills at some point before sending the document to the White House. The House's defense bill is expected to include more expansive and accelerated provisions to expunge the Confederacy from all corners of the military, setting up a likely confrontation with some Republicans like Inhofe who want to water down the Senate's less ambitious bill.

The Senate bill is silent on the issue of Confederate flags.

"This is not an issue that requires a great deal of study. A vast majority of Americans support this," Brown said. "The history and cause of the Confederacy centered on racism and oppression."

Democrats are unlikely to entirely abandon the anti-Confederacy measures in the defense bill in advance of the election. That the provisions in question have bipartisan support makes it even less likely that Democrats will be willing to negotiate away from the mandate to change the base names.

"Prioritizing the base names of Confederate generals over the welfare of our troops is just plain irresponsible and wrong," said Sen. Jack Reed, R.I., the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

With Congress out of Washington for most of the fall, the ultimate question of whether Congress stands up to the president - and whether he makes good on his veto - will likely come after the election. The annual defense bill is considered a must-pass measure and has been approved by Congress for each of the last 59 years.

In the meantime, more forceful objections to some of the Black Caucus's other legislative priorities are likely, as the group of several dozen black lawmakers seeks to leverage the moment to lock down policy wins. Even some moderate Democrats, for example, have privately expressed concerns about voting on reparations legislation amid the economic meltdown caused by the pandemic, which they note is hurting many Americans of different racial groups.

Some Republicans have a more visceral reaction to the idea of compensating the descendants of slaves. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., appeared perturbed, giving a dismissive "psst" sound and initially saying the question wasn't even worthy of a comment.

"It's ludicrous," he said of reparations. "There's not a single person in this country that was a slave . . . If you want to talk about slavery, there's human slavery in this world right now going on, right now: human trafficking is huge, sex slavery, there's domestic workers in this country that are probably enslaved . . . How about we look forward to figure out how we can move this country forward, provide opportunities for all Americans? How about we just take race out of the equation."

Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, D-Texas, sponsor of the reparations bill, argued Wednesday that her proposal merely would set up a 13-person commission to study the issue. Any payments for slavery would come from the government, not from individuals, because "slavery was government sanctioned," she said.

"We understand that the disparities that are so stark, that are reflective of the brutality, or the cruelty, the fundamental injustice and humanity of slavery, have never been answered," she said, later adding. "it was a government sanction that denied African Americans their equality . . . This is . . . the American government's responsibility to pay her debt."
To increase its numbers, GIPD is looking at hiring people who already have police training as a way to cut down on training time and get them on the street faster.
Gotschall said CCC will look at all health and safety guidelines and seek to implement several of them upon reopening. He said the college is looking at its class capacity, providing social distancing and sanitation, some physical barriers in some areas and masks if students are going to be in close proximity.

Whether masks will be required for students, faculty and staff at CCCs campuses and centers is still an ongoing discussion, he said.

We definitely will have masks available; masks are on order, Gotschall said. We are highly recommending it (wearing a mask), but we are still working through it like other places are on how the enforcement will go. The good thing is we have industry partners, so that is a great way to ask them how they are dealing with that.

Gotschall said CCC will have its challenges like any other educational institution, but that he is optimistic about fall in providing a safe environment to educate future health care workers, advanced manufacturing workers and agricultural professionals.

As we look back at  and are still seeing  what the essential jobs are, they are those community colleges help prepare people for, he said. It is absolutely essential that we continue to educate people to fill those jobs and look at the opportunity for entrepreneurship and small business development for those who have found themselves out of work.

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Smith said Kenya, the United Kingdom and Japan all provide outstanding opportunities to develop first-rate trade agreements.

I look forward to working with the administration to continue finding new customers for Nebraskas world-class production, he said.

Turning up heat on China

While Nebraska ag leaders are applauding the new USMCA agreement, Nebraska Farm Bureau is urging the Trump administration to use the full powers of his office to enforce the Phase One China trade deal. Provisions of the agreement obligate China to make $36.5 billion in U.S. agriculture purchases in 2020.

While some agricultural purchases have been made, China is woefully behind in terms of meeting the agriculture targets outlined in the Phase One deal, said Steve Nelson, Nebraska Farm Bureau president. In order to reach the $36.5 billion in imports China agreed to, purchases must drastically increase, and that must start today.

In a letter to President Trump, Nelson said that as of the end of April, China had imported approximately $4.6 billion worth of agricultural goods. He said that amount falls far short of the pace set back in 2017 of $7.1 billion, the last year of normal trade relations between the two countries.
We had something where they wanted, where it gave you a disincentive to work last time. And it was still money going to people and helping people so I was all for that, Trump said during an interview with Fox Business Network. But we want to create a very great incentive to work. So were working on that and Im sure well all come together.
The Nebraska Legislature will reconvene on July 20 and is scheduled to be in session until Aug. 13. We will have 17 days to work on many priority bills that were on the agenda when we recessed in March. Three of the bills that will require the most attention to detail are property tax relief, business tax incentives and a public-private partnership with UNMC. These will all be debated and voted on while balancing current and future revenue and potential shortfalls. When we recessed our legislative session in early March, I was working on a few of my own bills  some of which include keeping vaping devices out of the hands of children by including them in our Clean Indoor Air Act and helping cities address affordable housing by expanding the ability for communities across the state to join land banks.
It is a sad state of affairs when a county or city office cannot make decisions about operations of their facilities, regarding the governors mandate concerning distribution of COVID-19 funds provided to the states and the wearing of facial masks. Is it too much to ask to look out for each other? If this simple act can save lives, why would we as members of the same family, the human race, object? Take part in this selfless act to save our parents, grandparents, children, and friends. I hope we all just do our part, as our ancestors did for us to have a life better than theirs.
ALTON  Godfrey resident Vicki Conley has always been a strong and fiercely independent person, belying her tiny stature.

But on May 3, nearly two months into the stay-at-home orders surrounding COVID-19, she fell while moving from her wheelchair to her bed, when her transfer board slipped. Conley broke both legs  her right leg, above the knee, and her left, below the knee. Her husband called 911, and thats the last time she has seen him, due to visiting restrictions meant to protect patients, as well as visitors from the coronavirus.

Conley ended up with casts that covered both legs from her hips to her toes for seven weeks. At first, she was bedridden, but caregivers made sure she got up every day so she didnt lose mobility.

The pain was excruciating at first, but it slowly got better, Conley recalled.

She has now been in a rehabilitation facility for two months, and bills have begun to pile up.

Due to insurance determinations that she was ready to return home, which she knew she wasnt ready to do, Conley had to pay for her continued care and stay at a cost of about $8,000, while appealing the insurance companys decision.

Had she gone home at that point, she would have needed 24-hour care, because, she said, there was no way she was ready to go home  yet.

I am strong and independent and want to remain that way, she said, but I needed therapy before I could go home after what happened.

Since then, she has been able to start physical and occupational therapy, and insurance has begun paying again because she is making progress.

The amount of time between healing from the fall and waiting to start therapy is where the problem came in.

 So what about that in-between time?

Conley appealed the insurance companys decision twice, and was denied twice.

Meanwhile, she also needs to replace her 20-year-old motorized wheelchair, which requires a $5,200 co-pay.

My old chair is  very old, and I need something that will tilt to help alleviate the pain in my back, Conley said.

National Seating and Mobility has been great, she said, in helping her get a specific chair ordered that will be form-fitted to give her more comfort and support for her spine.

The new wheelchair will require new lockdowns in her altered van, which she has driven for 30 years.

I have severe scoliosis (rotoscoliosis), and the new chair is supposed to make it better  or at least feel better, she said.

With the help of friends, Conley is launching a GoFundMe account  which will be live next week, watch for updates  in the hopes that she can raise money to get through this terrible time, even though she realizes how tough times have been for everybody. She never thought she would be in this position.

 Early years

When Conley was 6 years old, she became ill with what she described as a muscular dystrophy-type of disease  dermatomyositis  believed to be genetic, though none of her known family members were ever diagnosed with it. She recovered that first time, and attended school until a second flare up of the same disease, while in eighth grade, prompted the need for home schooling.

I was unable to get out of bed for a long time, so I had tutors for ninth through twelfth grade, Conley said.

That was also about the time I decided to start drawing and painting. I was in bed, bored and wanted to have something to do.

And she discovered that she was good at it.

At first, she drew clothes, and considered going into fashion design.

But people told me I would need to move to New York, so I decided against it, Conley said.

She switched to painting outdoor scenes  mostly in watercolors, sometimes in oils  but she has since also created works in clay, and has worked in fibers, knitting purses and scarves of her own design.

After her second bout of illness at age 13, Conley was unable to walk.

The doctors said they didnt think I would live to adulthood, so I wasnt given physical therapy then, she recalled, and my muscles contracted, which makes my arms and legs rigid.

She was fitted for a wheelchair, and after completing high school at home, she was determined to attend Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she earned a bachelors in fine arts and languages, and a masters in education.

This spring, Conley and her husband sold their house (which was a good thing that happened in 2020), and were in the process of getting ready to move to a retirement community, when Conley fell. Her husband has since moved to the new apartment, which she has yet to see.

 Today

Now 70, Conley has lived an independent life for many years, despite her physical challenges.

My parents and my sisters were very supportive in whatever I wanted to do, Conley said. They expected me to be able to do things for myself, and that helped me realize I could do just about anything I wanted.

Compared to accessibility and vehicle conversions in the 1960s, Conley said the world has come a long way. Her first wheelchair was not motorized, and looking back  even though, at the time, her first van was state-of-the-art, it was nothing like vehicles of today. Her second van, which she still currently drives, is 30 years old, but has enabled her to be very independent.

After graduating, Conley spent many years teaching in nontraditional settings, worked to establish various art-related educational programs, and became an advocate for persons with developmental disabilities.

She moved to Chicago where she worked as an education coordinator for Access Inc., then moved to Torrance, California, where she was a case manager for the developmentally disabled. One of her goals was to help people with disabilities live a more independent life.

I believe everybody should have the opportunity to reach his or her potential, Conley said. Independent living is a big deal to me, and I wanted to help as many people as I could to achieve that.

She also presented workshops for the disabled, did program evaluations for the Association of Comprehensive Therapies, and served as a board member with the Long Beach Disabled Resource Center and with the Arts and Services for the Disabled.

While living in Seal Beach, California, she met her husband, Terry Gurnee, originally from Michigan and a former U.S. Navy Seal in Vietnam.

In 1999, the two moved back to the Alton area where Conley grew up. She served on the board of Impact Inc., an organization that promotes pride and respect of people with disabilities, and served a term as president of the organization. She was on the board at the Jacoby Arts Center for several years, served a term as president, and was the coordinator of the education program.

Through it all, she has always kept her spirits high, and always created her art  which has gotten her through many trying times, including when she fell ill as a child. Her first preference has been to paint from photographs in her studios nice Southern light. Some of her favorite subjects are sunrises and sunsets. Though she sometimes paints in oils for the rich colors they produce, she normally prefers the fluidity of watercolor painting.

A photograph will inspire me and then I may think about it for a long time, deciding how to proceed with a painting, Conley said.

Like all of us right now, she just wants to get back to her normal life.

Conleys GoFundMe account will be active next week at www.gofundme.com.
WOOD RIVER  The Madison County Health Department on Wednesday announced one additional coronavirus death and 21 new cases, bringing the total to 960 and 69, respectively.

The deceased Madison County resident was identified as a man in his 70s.

Statewide there were 828 new cases and 30 deaths reported over the last 24 hours.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health website, there are now 144,013 cases statewide, and 6,951 deaths. In the past 24 hours, 33,090 tests have been completed, for a statewide total of 1,636,055. The seven-day statewide positivity rate for June 24-30 is 2.6 percent.

The Madison County figures include 553 people released, meaning they have completed isolation. A total of 18,309 tests have been completed in the county.

As of Wednesday179 cases were reported in 62234 (Collinsville); 163 in 62040 (Granite City/Pontoon Beach); 154 in 62002 (Alton); 124 in 62025 (Edwardsville); 81 in 62034 (Glen Carbon); 46 in 62060 (Madison) and 62035 (Godfrey); 42 in 62010 (Bethalto); 28 in 62095 (Wood River) and 30 in 62294 (Troy).

There were 21 cases in 62249 (Highland); 20 cases in 62052 (Jerseyville); 16 in 62062 (Maryville) and 62056 (Litchfield); 14 in 62024 (East Alton) and 14 in 62090 (Venice); 13 in 62012 (Brighton); 12 in 62018 (Cottage Hills); nine in 62069 (Mt. Olive); eight in 62088 (Staunton); and seven in 62049 (Hillsboro).

The IDPH is releasing case numbers by ZIP code for areas with more than five cases. Numbers are not released in ZIP codes with fewer cases to protect the privacy of patients. The information is online at www.dph.illinois.gov.

For the latest information on COVID-19 or coronavirus resources, visit the Madison County Health Department online at www.madisonchd.org or on Facebook @MadisonCHD. Also visit www.co.madison.il.us for more news and a daily update or on Facebook @MadisonCountyIL.
EDWARDSVILLE  Positive messages are at the base of what Take2Minutes is all about.

Take2Minutes is a free text messaging service designed to provide simple, brief and positive messages, guided meditations and other activities for users. The idea is the brainchild of Edwardsville native Marc Fussell. The service launched on March 4 in the United States and expanded to Canada on June 23. The service offers free sign up and free use.

When a person signs up, the user is automatically set up to receive daily positive texts, daily guided meditations and an emotion check-in that allows a person to track how they feel each day. The frequency of texts can be changed via the Take2Minutes website, as well as the ability to opt into other activities such as My Happy List and Sleep Assist exercises.

While the activities were developed with the help of researchers who are at the forefront of emotional wellbeing and positive psychology, Fussell said he created almost all the hundreds of positive messages.

The idea for the text message service came to Fussell in 2015 while his son attended Edwardsville High School.

My son was having a hard time at school. He wasnt depressed, but just going through a stage of unhappiness that sometimes happens in school, so I wanted to help, Fussell said.

The solution was to send some positive texts to his son every day. The positive thoughts came from Fussells yoga and meditation sessions in the morning.

More Information "Always find time for things that make you happy," reads one of the daily positive messages from Take2Minutes.org, a non-profit service initiated by Edwardsville native Marc Fussell. "Today, be that person who tells someone else how great they are. Lift their spirits; you may even make their day." See More Collapse

5 a.m. is a great time for ideas, but not a great time to send them to a high schooler, Fussell said.

As a computer programmer by nature and an entrepreneur by spirit, Fussell decided to write a program to send his positive ideas to a Google Document and then notify himself to when to communicate the ideas to his son. As the database of positive messages grew, he set up the program to automatically send the messages to his son and a few Edwardsville locals, such as the team at Source Juicery, that asked to receive daily positivity via text.

I love to go to places like Source Juicery and Dierbergs, he said. Eventually, some of the employees would tell me how happy they always were to see me because I came in with a smile. It showed me that little things make a big difference.

In 2019, Fussell expanded his reach by sending his positivity through daily text messages to hundreds of people in the area. He eventually connected with Brian Sexton, a Duke University researcher who studied how activities can improve mental well-being. Sexton and others on the Happiness Advisory Board helped provide research-based activities to pair with Fussells positive messages.

One of the activities is called Three Good Things, which allows users to shift focus from things that go wrong to things that go well.

Dr. Sexton found in his research that doing three good things consecutively for 15 days gives as much positive influence as six months on antidepressants, Fussell said. This kind of data shows how powerful it can be to train your psyche towards positive thought.

After some research, Fuseel learned a text messaging service may be more impactful than an app-based experience. According to the Take2Minutes website, a recent study shows that 95% of people will read a text message within three minutes compared to only 24% that will read a notification from a mobile app.

Text messaging is a much more costly way to reach people, but its worth it, Fussell said. Our goal is to keep it free. We dont want to make money off suffering. As the service keeps progressing, we are hoping for donations to recover the cost of running the service.

For now, Take2Minutes continues to provide positive text messages to thousands of users each day while Fussell continues to spread positivity throughout the community of Edwardsville.

To sign up, text Join to (717) 674-2779 or visit take2minutes.org for more information.
GODFREY  A former Godfrey pastor is charged with distributing child pornography.

On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft announced that Stephen P. Tibbetts, 61, has been charged with one county of knowingly distributing child pornography in December.

A federal criminal complaint filed June 19 states that, at the time of his arrest, Tibbetts was the head pastor at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Godfrey.

Weinhoeft said that, on Wednesday afternoon, Tibbetts attorney Bill Lucco told prosecutors that because of the charge pending against him, Tibbetts had been released of all duties, pastoral or otherwise at the church.

According to the Weinhoeft, the investigation of Tibbetts began in August 2019 when the photo-sharing website Tumblr provided a cyber tip line report about one of its user accounts to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Weinhoeft said the account was searched by law enforcement and allegedly found to contain images and videos of nude minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The complaint alleges that center also received a tip from Twitter in February 2020 that one of its users had uploaded two images of suspected child pornography. Weinhoeft said investigators were allegedly able to trace the Tumblr and Twitter accounts back to Tibbetts home, where a federal search warrant was executed on June 18.

An initial review of Tibbetts computer allegedly revealed the presence of additional child pornography images and videos, Weinhoeft said, and agents subsequently arrested Tibbetts at his home without incident.

Tibbetts made his initial appearance Wednesday afternoon at the federal courthouse in East St. Louis where U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Beatty found probable cause to support the complaint and ordered Tibbetts to be placed on electronic monitoring and released on a $10,000 unsecured bond pending trial. A trial date has not been set.

Distributing child pornography over the internet is a federal crime that, as a first offense, carries a maximum punishment of five to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime term of supervised release.
They said that nurses are at a premium and that in order to keep enough nurses to do what needs to be done they have to have temporary nurses do some jobs. So a lot of them, you know, they may work two days here then two days someplace else, she said. Its hard to staff nurses consistently in one facility.
Editors Note: This is the first story in a six-part series on the 50th anniversary of the 1970 Kent State University shootings, the student protests at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, the riots at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and their connection to the civil unrest and social climate of 2020.

EDWARDSVILLE  The photo is 50 years old now, and variations of it have appeared in newspapers and books.

But every time he thinks about it, Greg Mudge still gets emotional.

On May 5, 1970, Mudge was among a group of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) students protesting the deaths a day earlier of four unarmed Kent State University students who were shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war rally.

The photo, which was taken just outside the Student Center at SIUE, shows four students carrying crosses bearing the names of the slain Kent State students, with other students in the background carrying a coffin.

Mudge, who was 19 years old at the time, was in the foreground of the photo, carrying a cross with the name of William Knox Schroeder, one of the Kent State students. Schroeder was 19 when he died.

We thought we were the patriots, Mudge said. I was living by the values and goals of our constitution, trying to make a more perfect union. We were very committed to peace and not killing one another.

I remember carrying that cross and being very proud to be a part of it, to memorialize four students that were shot on their campus by National Guard who very likely could have been students when they werent on their weekends for guard duty.

Mudge is now 70 and lives in East Alton. He is semi-retired from his own business, Mudge Professional Services, which offers to consult for economic development, governmental relations and public relations.

Fifty years after Kent State, Mudge remains true to the ideals he held as a student at SIUE.

His memories of the Kent State shootings, which triggered protests at SIUE and college campuses across the nation, seem more vivid as he watches protests today, including some in Edwardsville, after the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer who had restrained him by placing a knee on his neck for almost 10 minutes as well as other African Americans at the hands of the police.

The cause may be different, but the anger and frustration are the same.

The parallels between now and then are almost eerie, Mudge said. Our country is very divided and there is a lot of deception as far as the truth is concerned. People are drawing lines and if politics comes up in a conversation, people arent listening to each other.

People are using religious terminologies, like somebody is evil, based on their political beliefs. I dont know anyone who is evil, but those are the same tones that I heard in the seventies. I had people grab my ponytail when I was walking down the street. When we did a candlelight vigil at the courthouse, people would pull over on the side of the road and jeer us and call us names like cowards or commies.

Youre hearing those words coming out of people today. The late sixties and early seventies were very troubling times for me personally and Im feeling the same way now.

The Kent State killings took place during a peace rally against the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into neutral Cambodia by the United States military forces as well as the National Guard presence on campus. The incident marked the first time that a student had been slain in an anti-war gathering in United States history.

The shootings sparked more than two weeks worth of protests at SIUE, with students protesting on several occasions at the Madison County Courthouse and the Selective Service Office in downtown Edwardsville.

Throughout that time, the protests at SIUE remained peaceful, unlike those at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, which eventually closed for the remainder of the quarter after a week of rioting.

One of the key figures in keeping the peace at SIUE was Chancellor John Rendleman.

On May 5, Rendleman hosted a talk-in at the Goshen Lounge of the Student Center, where he manned a microphone and responded to questions from students, including student strikers who were observing the National Association of Students day-long strike.

Rendleman told the group that he was personally against the war in Vietnam.

He also told the group that closing down the university would not be not effective in halting the war, nor would it be a proper use of the university.

After more than an hour of responding to the students, Rendleman left the open forum and students and faculty continued the discussion.

John Rendleman understood (the students) in a way that not many people did back then, said Bob Gill, who was an SIUE student at the time and participated in the protests. He understood the need for them to have a forum and an outlet to let some of the frustration and anger boil off.

He arranged to have a P.A. system set up in the Student Center and for the next three or four days, there were people talking non-stop. I sat in a lot of that and listened to what people felt. It raised my political awareness considerably and got me more involved in anti-war activities and organizations.

After the initial talk-in on May 5, a group of students led by SIUE sociology professor Laud Humphreys marched to downtown Edwardsville, protesting in front of the Madison County Courthouse before heading to the Selective Service Office, which was across the street in the Edwardsville Federal Building.

Laud Humphreys was a sociologist and not long before the shootings, Kent State had fired their whole sociology department for being against the war, said Gill, who is now 69 and lives in Alton. SIUE hired some of those people and they were trying to be on the cutting edge.

My bachelors degree was in sociology and there were several people in that department who were very much against the war and not afraid to publicly say so.

Humphreys was later charged with destroying government property and hindering administration after destroying a picture of President Richard Nixon and tearing up a draft board memorandum at the Selective Service Office.

But Humphreys, an Episcopal priest who spent just one year at SIUE, said he led the march to downtown Edwardsville to prevent damage on the campus. The protest was otherwise peaceful.

I think the trip to the draft board did kind of serve as a safety valve, and for a faculty member to do what (Humphreys) did was pretty tame compared to what was going on in the world then, said Steve Kerber, university archivist and special collections librarian at SIUE. He took the burden on himself to release some of that anger and frustration. In retrospect, I think he deserves credit too.

Rendleman, meanwhile, agreed to a one-day moratorium devoted to the problems of war, racism and violence on May 18 on the Edwardsville campus. It was followed on May 19-21 by a series of convocations dealing with the same issues.

The moratorium and the convocations came after some students, including Mudge, walked out of class the previous week.

Our plan was that students in various classes would stand up and announce that we were going to shut down the university out of respect for the four dead students (at Kent State), Mudge said.

I remember distinctly standing up in the middle of class and giving this speech about what had happened at Kent State and that we wanted to have the moratorium. I told everybody they were welcome to join me if they wanted to. I picked up my books and in slow motion, kind of dramatic fashion, I walked out of the classroom. 

The moratorium and the convocations were one more way to create dialog and understanding between SIUE students and administration.

Like Gill, Mudge felt that Rendleman played a key role in helping bring the two sides together.

John Rendleman was an incredible personality and I give him a lot of credit for holding the lid on SIUE, Mudge said.

The 50th anniversary also brought back memories for Mike Reinhardt, who was an SIUE student at the time.

Reinhardt attended SIUE for two years before the campus officially opened but enlisted in the Army Signal Corps along with his brother. After attending basic training in the Signal Corps at Fort Leonard Wood, he attended Signal Corps school at Fort Gordon. He served in Germany for 22 months before going to Vietnam for five and a half months.

After getting out of the Army, Reinhardt went back to SIUE in the summer of 1969. He was on campus the next spring after the Kent State shootings.

It never got violent (at SIUE), said the 74-year-old Reinhardt, a Granite City native who now lives in Edwardsville. There were marches and protests and one day they were carrying crosses and a coffin to symbolize the four deaths at Kent State.

After I was in Vietnam, I realized it was doing more harm than good for everyone involved, so I became more against the war. It wasnt serving any purpose. I didnt take any active role in the protests here, but I did participate in a few protests and marches after I transferred to Northern Illinois.

As with Mudge and Gill, the events of the late 1960s and early 1970s left a lasting impression on Reinhardt.

He also sees parallels between those days and the racism-fueled protests of 2020.

It was a strange time. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in April and Bobby Kennedy was killed in June, and then you had the Democratic Convention, and the election, with Nixon being elected, Reinhardt said.

There was a lot going on, and this year reminds me a lot of that era. Fifty-two years after MLK and Bobby Kennedy, sometimes it seems like nothing is better when it comes to racism and a lot of the same problems we had then.
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Linkedin Afifan Ghalib Haryawan and Melani Ratih Mahanani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Heidelberg  Thu, July 2, 2020 19:23 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406635eae5 3 Opinion COVID-19,health-care,Tuberculosis,HIV,malaria,impact,drug-policy Free

The COVID-19 pandemic arrived suddenly to strike almost all countries in the world. The urgency to stop the pandemic has engendered unprecedented international effort and collaboration. While the focus is on controlling the pandemic, however, other extant epidemics are at risk of being abandoned.

For decades, the international community has been working together to eradicate tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malaria, but has yet to claim complete victory. TB infects 1,020,000 people each year in Indonesia. The HIV transmission rate in Indonesia is at an all-time high; malaria still hampers peoples lives in rural areas.

TB, HIV and malaria can lead to death and permanent disabilities. Tuberculosis mainly infects the lungs, but may spread to other organs. HIV weakens the immune system, which causes people living with HIV (PLHIV) to contract infections that are harmless in healthy people. Malaria may cause severe brain damage, kidney failure and chronic anemia, which is debilitating and can cause death or disabilities.

The focus on COVID-19 could cause reduced quality of other health services and programs. Severe disruption to regular services may be seen as a result of movement restrictions, diverting the healthcare workforce to COVID-19 response and disruptions to the pharmaceutical supply chain. The efforts to curb TB, HIV and malaria will decline as active case finding (ACF) programs stall and patient retention is hampered.

Minimizing any disruptions to prevention and treatment programs during the COVID-19 response is pivotal in a country like Indonesia that has a high burden of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS cases. Failure to do so could lead to catastrophic loss of life.

Impacts of COVID-19 on tuberculosis

All healthcare facilities have implemented efforts to optimize passive case finding (PCF) for tuberculosis. Meanwhile, ACF is carried out by targeting high-risk groups based on risk network referrals from puskesmas (community health centers). In principle, both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB patients with mild to moderate symptoms can receive outpatient care, while hospitalization is required for those who present severe manifestations of the disease.

Puskesmas and hospitals are high-risk locations for COVID-19 transmission, so it is highly possible that patients are refraining from visits for fear of contracting COVID-19. High-risk clients such as patients' families may find it inconvenient to be assessed by doctors at health facilities. This may also hold true for drug-resistant TB patients who must physically visit a health facility to received their daily injection, resulting in missed doses that will worsen their condition.

Hospitalized TB patients may experience respiratory failure, which usually need a ventilator to help them breathe. They must share the limited supply of ventilators with COVID-19 patients who have developed respiratory failure. The mortality rate is significantly higher in patients whose need for a ventilator cannot be met.

In 2017, more than half of Indonesia were declared malaria-free. However, the risk of malaria still looms in eastern Indonesia. Aggressive vector control, case investigation, surveillance and case management are required to achieve malaria-free status in the region.

To prevent transmission of malaria, insecticide-treated bednets should be made available to all households and medication to infected people. Keeping people healthy by blocking the mosquito vector that spreads the malaria parasites and preventive treatment to eradicate the parasites are the keys to malaria control.

Most cases of malaria occur in Papua, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and West Papua. All four provinces have weak health system resilience because of their low numbers of health facilities and health workers. The COVID-19 crisis will likely render these local health systems vulnerable to disruptions to their malaria program.

In normal conditions, HIV case finding in Indonesia is conducted through mobile HIV testing programs that capture potential HIV-positive clients in hot spots such as red-light districts and gay lounges. These programs have been temporarily suspended because of the pandemic, however, and voluntary HIV testing at health facilities has dwindled. The movement restrictions might help slow infection if implemented correctly, but otherwise, high-risk sexual activities that can transmit the virus may still be going strong in the background.

PLHIV need a constant supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that they must take every day. The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected Indonesias ARV supply chain, as the drugs are all imported. ARV stock is currently low in several provinces.

Furthermore, the movement restrictions may limit access to health services for PLHIV to refill their ARV prescriptions. PLHIV may also be afraid to keep their appointments at hospitals and puskesmas because of their high vulnerability to contracting COVID-19.

The low domestic supply of ARV and restricted health service access will in turn pose a threat to the wellbeing and health of PLHIV. Being unable to take their daily ARV dose can be deadly, as PLHIV may contract other diseases, including TB and COVID-19.

The decline in quality found in several epidemic control programs may mean a relapse in their hard-won progress. Health facilities must adapt and provide differentiated, patient-centered care. Patients should have easier access to healthcare services during the pandemic.

Several ideas have been explored and implemented in private settings: Telemedicine can provide remote medical consultation to patients; drug delivery services are now available in several cities in Indonesia. Beyond these, health authorities should institutionalize and endorse remote drug dispensing systems to provide a sufficient supply of medication so patients can improve and maintain their health.

Patients in Indonesia are heavily concentrated at public hospitals and puskesmas, so these facilities must have the flexibility to adapt to the current conditions. Jakarta has started ARV home deliveries for patients who are unable to visit health facilities in person. The government needs to intensify its effort and expand ARV delivery services to all regions.

The Health Ministry must formulate protocols for maintaining essential health services during a pandemic as a basis for local administration to stay on top of other disease control programs. Central-local consolidation must be enhanced. Above all, Indonesia must ensure the provision of essential drugs and health services to all, as TB, malaria and HIV prevention and control cannot be postponed.

***

Afifan Ghalib Haryawan is a graduate of the University of Indonesia medical school and works as a physician with Linkages, USAID's global HIV/AIDS project; Melani Ratih Mahanani is a graduate of Sebelas Maret University (UNS) and physician who works at the Epidemiology of Transition research group of the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health in Germany.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 09:03 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066324b52 1 Editorial plastic-ban,PlasticWaste,plastic-diet,dki-jakarta,#Editorial Free

Over the past few months, certain supermarkets in Jakarta have stopped indulging their customers with free plastic bags, which have been replaced with cardboard boxes. The protocol will continue and other stores, big or small, as well as traders in traditional markets will have to follow the new norm now that a gubernatorial regulation banning single-use plastic bags has come into force.

Gubernatorial Regulation No. 142/2019 was signed on the eve of the New Year, but the Jakarta government postponed its enforcement of the policy for six months to allow for the public to become familiarized with it. Jakarta Environment Agency head Andono Warih said the city administration had reached out to the management groups of 85 shopping centers, 158 traditional markets and more than 2,000 convenience stores across the city as part of a campaign against single-use plastic bags.

Read also: Jakarta begins new chapter in plastic waste reduction

Jakarta had been cautious in dealing with plastic bags. Then-governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama proposed the use of environmentally friendly plastic bags in 2016, although he ultimately followed the decision of the Environment and Forestry Ministry to charge consumers Rp 200 per plastic bag.

Plastic bags revolutionized the culture of shopping decades ago. However, as a consequence, piles of plastic waste now litter the worlds seas and shores, degrading marine ecosystems.

News of whales being found dead with stacks of plastic waste in their bellies in several parts of the world last year evince the horror plastic waste has generated. In the same year, researchers in Canada found microplastics in the digestive systems of every whale they examined.

Studies have shown that plastics are difficult and costly to recycle. As in the case of Jakarta, most plastic waste ends up in landfills. It would take the waste an estimated 300 years to photodegrade.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, an average of 7,702 tons of Jakarta's trash was disposed of at the Bantar Gebang landfill every day. Over one-third of the waste comprised plastics, according to the Jakarta Environment Agency. During the pandemic, the waste dumped at Bantar Gebang dropped significantly to 189,979 tons in May from 305,339 tons in January.

With the economy gradually resuming, it is very likely that the volume of trash in the city, including plastic waste, will increase, bringing back the same old problems.

Citizens of the capital should be motivated to solve the issue of plastic waste not just because the contract to dump waste in Bantar Gebang ends next year, but because of the serious environmental consequences.

Read also: Skyscraper of waste:Greater Jakarta drowning in mountains of trash

The single-use plastic bag regulation is far from enough, even if it threatens to terminate the operation of shopping centers that violate the rule, because it allows for the use of plastic bags outside markets and shopping centers, including for online shopping and food delivery, two services that are thriving.

The city administration has for years promoted its campaign to reduce, reuse and recycle plastic waste and has to some extent provided an impetus for community initiatives as in the case of Bank Sampah (Waste Bank). In concert with bans or other forms of punishment, which are ineffective by themselves, communities must be incentivized for real change to take place.
A slice of the Australian outback almost the size of greater London will be turned into a national park to help protect threatened species, authorities said Saturday, in a move welcomed by green groups.

Narriearra Station, a 1,534-square kilometer property in northwest New South Wales, is the biggest purchase of private land for national parks ever made by the state government, Environment Minister Matt Kean said.

It stretches across floodplains, wetlands and landscapes "currently not found anywhere in NSW national parks", he added.

Kean did not disclose the price tag for the property.

"Narriearra is an important refuge for threatened wildlife, with more than 25 threatened animal species, including nearly 90 percent of NSW's critical habitat and breeding areas for the nationally endangered Grey Grasswren," said Kean.

Indigenous artefacts, tools and stone arrangements are also found across the property and the local Aboriginal Land Council has been invited to suggest a name for the park, he added.

Read also: Koalas may be extinct in Australia's New South Wales by 2050

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) welcomed the new park.

"This new National Park is an example of the ambitious action required to slow and reverse the biodiversity extinction crisis," WWF Australia's Stuart Blanch said, but added NSW needed to do more.

Blanch also called on the government to employ people from the local indigenous community to help protect important sites and manage the land.

Conservation organisation Pew Charitable Trusts also hailed the move.

"The Outback landscapes in western New South Wales have not been highly protected and the scale of this historic purchase is exciting," the group's Australian director Barry Traill said.
New European research has found a link between fathers who play with their kids from a young age and a childs ability to control their behavior and emotions as they get older.

Carried out by researchers at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, U.K. and the LEGO Foundation, Denmark, the new research looked at 78 studies published over the last 40 years to find out more about how fathers play with their children in the first three years of their life, how it differs from playtime with mothers, and what effect this playtime might have on children later on.

The findings, published in the journal Developmental Review, showed that on average, most fathers play with their child every day.

There were also many similarities between the ways moms and dads play with their young children, but fathers did tend to engage in more boisterous, physical play with their kids, such as tickling and chasing them and giving piggyback rides. Even when playing with babies, dads were more physical, although at this young age that meant just picking them up or helping them to gently raise their limbs.

The researchers also found that in almost all of the studies they looked at, there was a consistent link between father-child play and a childs ability to control their feelings as they grew up. Children who enjoyed playtime with their dad were less likely to show hyperactivity or emotional and behavioral problems, more likely to be able to control feelings of aggression, and less likely to lash out at other children during fall-outs.

The researchers say that this may be because the physical, rough-and-tumble play that fathers prefer helps to develop these particular skills.

Read also: Dads no longer missing out: Shout out to father-friendly companies

Physical play creates fun, exciting situations in which children have to apply self-regulation, explains researcher Paul Ramchandani. You might have to control your strength, learn when things have gone too far  or maybe your father steps on your toe by accident and you feel cross!

Its a safe environment in which children can practice how to respond. If they react the wrong way, they might get told off, but its not the end of the world  and next time they might remember to behave differently.

However, the authors stress that children who grow up only with their mother are not necessarily missing out on developing these skills.

One of the things that our research points to time and again is the need to vary the types of play children have access to, and mothers can, of course, support physical play with young children as well, Ramchandani added.

Different parents may have slightly different inclinations when it comes to playing with children, but part of being a parent is stepping outside your comfort zone. Children are likely to benefit most if they are given different ways to play and interact.
British shirt shop T.M. Lewin will close all its stores and go online only, its restructurer said on Tuesday, resulting in around 600 redundancies as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to hammer the high street.

The deal will see 66 stores close as the online business is sold to Torque Brands, an acquisiton arm of Stonebridge Private Equity, in a pre-pack administration.

"We are pleased to have been able to save the online business of this great British retail brand at a time when the High Street is experiencing such difficulties and many brands may disappear completely," said Cameron Gunn, senior partner at restructuring firm ReSolve.

Founded in 1898, the menswear retailer had been bought by private equity firm Stonebridge Capital Partners from Bain Capital in May, with its future uncertain as Britain's coronavirus lockdown closed all non-essential stores from late March until June.

Read also: Etro to organize a mixed runway show for Milan Digital Fashion Week

Torque Brands said that T.M. Lewin had not been a viable going concern in its old format, with the business unable to sustain rental agreements.

"With all stores still remaining closed due to social distancing guidelines, our customers have been unable to shop in store for the past 3+ months," a spokeswoman for Torque Brands said.

"This has forced our hands to focus on a radical overhaul of the business model."

Britain's economy shrank by a quarter over March and April. Department store chain Debenhams and fashion brands Oasis and Warehouse are among the well-known British high street businesses to have fallen into financial difficulties during the lockdown.
Britain's National Gallery on Tuesday said it would reopen next week after being closed for more than three months due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The central London venue will reopen on Wednesday, July 8, becoming the first major art museum in the country to do so, as restrictions imposed in late March are finally eased.

Swathes of the hospitality, tourism and cultural sectors are due to reopen in England from this weekend, including pubs and restaurants, due to a decline in virus cases and deaths.

"We want to be a part of the nation's recovery story," gallery director Gabriele Finaldi said.

The government, under pressure over its response to the outbreak that has officially claimed more than 43,000 lives, is hoping the move will help kick-start the economy.

The National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, was founded in 1824 and has a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to the 1900s.

Some 5.7 million people visited the gallery in 2018, according to the Association of Leading Visitor Attraction, an industry body.

Read also: After 400 years, London show reunites six masterpieces by Titian

The gallery said changes have been made for the reopening -- visitors will have to keep two metres (yards) apart and follow three one-way "art routes" to see the collection.

Face coverings are also being recommended.

The National Gallery has extended its Titian exhibition, which was forced to close just three days after opening when cultural venues were ordered to shut.

Other cultural venues to reopen in due course include the Tate, which said it plans to open all four of its galleries on July 27.

London's Tate Modern, which in 2018 was Britain's most popular attraction with nearly 5.9 million visitors, will reopen with its Andy Warhol retrospective.

Tate Britain, just along the River Thames in the capital, will have an installation from Steve McQueen.

Online booking and timed slots for visitors are compulsory to avoid crowding.
In less than 24 hours since bidding opened on June 29 for an online auction, the batik shirt worn by former Jakarta governor Basuki BTP Tjahaja Purnama has attracted a bid of Rp 100 million (US$6,961.12)

The "Lelang Kebaikan" auction is hosted on the crowdfunding platform BenihBaik.com, and aims to raise funds for charity programs distributing essential goods and supplies to those affected by the COVID-19 epidemic.

BTP wore the shirt to the first hearing of his blasphemy trial on Dec. 13, 2016, when the governor was known as "Ahok".

The shirt is made from a batik cloth bearing the parang seling nogo pattern, which represents high spirit for achieving a positive outcome. The wave-like motifs in the pattern symbolizes the challenges the wearer faces, while the nogo (dragon) motif symbolizes good luck. As a whole, the pattern represents resilience in facing life's obstacles.

The highest bid for the shirt came from Onggy Hianata, a motivational speaker and founder of the Freedom Faithnet Global community organization. Onggy's life story was adapted into the biopic Terbang Menembus Langit (Flying through the Sky, 2018) by director Fajar Nugros.

BenihBaik.com founder Andy F. Noya expressed his appreciation for Onggys bid on the batik shirt. Following our initial proceedings, the auction is still open for those who want to help people in need, Andy said in a statement.

The opening bid for BTPs batik shirt was set at Rp 54 (less than 1 US cent), with bidding to run until July 6

For my 54th birthday [on June 29], Id like to celebrate it with my friends by putting my memorable batik shirts up for auction, BTP said on Monday.

The batik shirts the then-governor wore to his second blasphemy hearing on Dec. 20, 2016 and third hearing in 2017 are also to be auctioned.

Those interested in bidding on the items can register on the dedicated Lelang Kebaikan page.

Proceeds from the Lelang Kebaikan auction will be donated to 10 campaigns on BenihBaik.com raising funds for COVID-19 charity programs distributing sembako (staple food packages), PPE and other essential goods.

The former Jakarta governor was charged with blasphemy under the Criminal Coded in May 2017 for suggesting that his political opponents had abused a Quranic verse to block his 2017 reelection bid. He was found guilty of blasphemy that same month and sentenced to two years in prison. He started using the moniker "BTP" upon his release in January 2019.

The BenihBaik.com crowdfunding platform is dedicated to hosting campaigns to help those in need, and was founded by Andy F. Noya, Khristiana Anggit Mustikaningrum and Firdaus Juli. (wir/wng)
Fox News said on Wednesday it had fired Ed Henry, co-anchor of "America's Newsroom," over claims of "willful sexual misconduct" involving a co-worker from years ago.

The cable news network owned by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corp said it received a complaint on June 25 from the lawyer of a former employee which prompted the network to retain an outside law firm to investigate.

Henry was suspended on the day of the complaint and was fired based on "investigative findings," according to an internal memo that Fox News provided Reuters.

Henry could not immediately be reached for comment. The former employee has not been identified. Attorney Douglas Wigdor, who said he represented the former employee, said: "We cannot comment at this time."

Attorney Catherine Foti: Ed Henry denies the allegations referenced in the Fox announcement and is confident that he will be vindicated after a full hearing in an appropriate forum.  Ed Henry (@edhenry) July 1, 2020

Former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes resigned in 2016 after being accused by former employees of sexual harassment.

The claims formed the basis of the 2019 feature film "Bombshell" starring Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie.
Torn down despite its 127-year history, Phrae provinces historic Bombay Burmah Trading Co building may be gone for now. But hope is growing that it will be restored to its colonial-era glory and set a badly needed precedent for architectural conservation in Thailand.

Bit by bit, the Fine Arts Department is now rebuilding the old teak trading post, a legacy of Phraes 19th-century status as a major logging center. Reconstruction began late last week after the demolition triggered uproar among locals and became a national issue.

Response to the demolition, both legally and in terms of the restoration, is now heading in a positive direction, said Pattana Saengriang of the Phrae Old Town Conservation Network last week, after the government engaged his network in the process to investigate the scandal and to restore the heritage building.

Even Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha commented on the demolition, vowing that wrongdoers would be punished and the trading post restored.

This is a historical building with cultural roots. You cant just bring it down, the PM said last week.

Though it is against the law to repair or modify, let alone demolish, a historical structure without permission from authorities, destruction of heritage buildings in Thailand is all too common.

By law, a historical site is broadly defined as immovable property deemed to have artistic, historical or archaeological value on the basis of age, construction characteristics, or history.

Although the two-story building at the center of the scandal in Phrae is not on the Fine Arts Departments list of historical sites, it is by law a historical structure that must be conserved.

The wooden building was a testament to the 19th-century teakwood trade that linked northern Thailand with the world.

Britains Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation expanded its business from Burma to Thailand (then known as Siam) in 1889. Three years later it built its trading post in Phrae, transporting timber by boat down the Yom River to Bangkok. The firms arrival turned Phrae into a world-famous center for golden teakwood.

When the firms logging operations stopped in 1921, the trading post was handed over to the Phrae Forestry Office. The Royal Forest Department later on placed the building in the care of Protected Area Regional Office 13 (Phrae). It had since served as Chetawan Arboretums learning center until its recent demolition.

Locals said they were not consulted about plans to dismantle the heritage building, also a popular tourist attraction. They were shocked to find the landmark disappear almost overnight in early June under the so-called project to improve the building under Bt4.56-million budget.

The shock wave spread quickly around the country.

Bangkok resident Nanthana Udomchaiphatthanakit was dismayed to hear the heritage building was gone.

I visited the arboretum and explored this structure last October. It was very sad to see its beautiful gable broken to pieces, she explained, referring to photographs of the delicate wood trim lying smashed on the ground.

Describing herself as fan of colonial-style structures, Nanthana appreciates the value of old architecture for the stories it tells. Each building is unique and charming in its own way. It represents the events and people of a bygone era that once flowed between its walls, she explained.

Nanthana keenly followed the live-video meeting at which Phrae locals gave officials a serious grilling over the controversial project. I respect Phrae people for speaking up and fighting for their heritage, she said.

She hopes Thais can learn a key lesson from the case  that loss of precious heritage is not inevitable if the public stands up to demand it is restored as a legacy for future generations.

I hope people will cherish and protect their heritage. Lets learn from this case. Dont let anyone destroy our historical structures, Nanthana said.

Public outrage at the demolition in Phrae sparked an investigation, leading to the chief of Chetawan Arboretum being slapped with a transfer. The ongoing probe indicates the destruction took place before the Fine Arts Department had approved details of the project to repair and improve the arboretums Forestry Learning Centre.

Hope is growing, therefore, that this case will set a precedent in Thailand. Owners of old buildings may now think twice before defying the law with rushed demolitions, preferring to conserve them instead. Citizens who value their history, meanwhile, may speak up louder and join forces, in the knowledge that their voices can make a difference.

The old Bombay Burmah Trading Co post is, after all, not the only heritage building in Thailand. Its destruction comes not long after the owners of Plai Nern Palace and the former owner of the buildings that now served as the Bangkokian Museum fought hard to preserve the charming architectural heritages in Bangkok. They survive as some of the few places where Thais can still experience life as it was lived by their forebears a century ago.

The BIG Trees Project is another fine example of what people power can do for conservation. Back in 2010, a group of Bangkok residents joined together to stop a company from chopping down rain trees that had stood in the Sukhumvit area for 50 to 100 years. Within days, the group grew via social media to over 3,000 members and their call to conserve Bangkoks greenery attracted national attention. The group focuses on how to preserve the trees and environment without blocking urban development.

Over the years, the BIG Trees Project has won more and more acceptance and allies. As a result, it has managed to save many of the grand old trees that decorate the capital, notably the giants in front of CentralWorld that were threatened by construction of the Skywalk.

The BIG Trees Projects Facebook page has earned over 150,000 likes and its activities receive constant public support. Meanwhile its initiatives have now extended beyond Bangkok to the whole country, proof that public cooperation can turn the tide towards conservation of heritage in Thailand.
Turkey's top court will deliver a critical verdict Thursday on whether Istanbul's emblematic landmark and former church Hagia Sophia can be redesignated as a mosque, a ruling which could inflame tensions with the West.

The sixth-century edifice -- a magnet for tourists worldwide with its stunning architecture -- has been a museum since 1935, open to believers of all faiths.

Despite occasional protests by Islamic groups, often shouting, "Let the chains break and open Hagia Sophia" for Muslim prayers outside the UNESCO world heritage site, authorities have so far kept the building a museum.

The Hagia Sophia was first constructed as a church in the Christian Byzantine Empire in the sixth century but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

Transforming the Hagia Sophia into a museum was a key reform of the post-Ottoman Turkish authorities under the modern republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

But calls for it to serve again as a mosque have raised anger among Christians and tensions between historic foes and uneasy NATO allies Turkey and Greece.

Turkey's Council of State will deliver a ruling on its status either on the same day or within two weeks, the official Anadolu news agency reported.

'High-profile symbol'

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month said the decision was for the court -- known as the Danistay -- adding: "The necessary steps will be taken following the verdict."

But Erdogan previously indicated it was time to rename the Hagia Sophia as a mosque, saying it had been a "very big mistake" to convert it into a museum, in comments before municipal elections last year.

"The Danistay decision will likely be a political one. Whatever the outcome, it will be a result of the government's deliberation," said Asli Aydintasbas, fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

But she added the government will be weighing a number of issues, including relations with Greece, Europe and with the US where "religion is an important matter".

Anthony Skinner of the risk assessment firm Verisk Maplecroft said converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque would "kill at least two birds with one stone" for Erdogan: he could cater to his Islamic and nationalist base, and sustain if not exacerbate tensions with Greece, all while seeking to cast Turkey as a formidable power.

"Erdogan could not find a more high-profile and potent symbol than Hagia Sophia to achieve all these goals at once," he told AFP.

The Turkish leader has in recent years placed ever greater emphasis on the battles which resulted in the defeat of Byzantium by the Ottomans, with lavish celebrations held every year to mark the conquest.

In May, Muslim clerics recited prayers in the museum to celebrate the anniversary after the first Koran recital in 85 years inside the Hagia Sophia in 2015.

In 2016, the state religious channel broadcast a Koran recitation by a different senior Turkish cleric inside the museum on each day of the holy month of Ramadan.

Turks divided

Greece closely follows the future of Byzantine heritage in Turkey and is sensitive to the issue as it sees itself as the modern succession to Orthodox Christian Byzantium.

Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni, who sent a letter of protest to UNESCO last week, said the move "rekindles national and religious fanaticism" and is an attempt to "diminish the monument's global radiance".

She accused the government of using the monument "to serve internal political interests," arguing that only UNESCO had the authority to change Hagia Sophia's status.

The issue is also followed closely in Washington.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday urged Turkey to keep the Hagia Sophia as a museum, and to ensure it remains accessible to all.

"The United States views a change in the status of the Hagia Sophia as diminishing the legacy of this remarkable building and its unsurpassed ability... to serve humanity as a much-needed bridge between those of differing faith traditions and cultures."

But Turks are divided over its future status.

Mahmut Karagoz, an Istanbul shoemaker, 55, dreams he can one day pray under the dome of Hagia Sophia.

"It is a legacy by our Ottoman ancestors. I hope our prayers will be heard, this nostalgia must come to an end," he told AFP.

However Sena Yildiz, an economics student, believes the Hagia Sophia should retain its museum status.

"It is an important place for Muslims, but also for Christians and for all those who love history," she said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live. What were seen as mundane activities before, such as ordering food from online delivery services or eating takeaway, can now be a source of fear about possible virus transmission.

Many have turned to using disinfectant or antiseptic liquids for protection, with some going as far as spraying disinfectant on all non-living items, including plastic food packaging.

Central Jakarta resident Sicillia Angie Anggriani Puspitasari, for instance, is always armed with a spray bottle filled with antiseptic liquid whenever she receives her food orders. She told The Jakarta Post that she has been spraying the liquid on food packaging, work bags and grocery items since March.

Angie said she learned about the product from a list of disinfectants released by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). The mother of a 1-year-old daughter said the new habit had given her some peace of mind.

However, Southeast Asian Food and Agricultural Science and Technology Center (SEAFAST) IPB director Nuri Andarwulan said the practice of spraying disinfectant on plastic food packaging was going a bit overboard.

Nuri said it was unnecessary as long as the packaging was fully intact.

[] Make sure the plate is clean, wash your hands after opening the packaging and take the food and cutlery, thats enough, she said.

Read also: Spraying disinfectants can be 'harmful', says WHO

During an online class for journalists hosted by Nestle, Nuri also shared that international organizations such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Food Safety Authority had released a statement informing the public that COVID-19 could not be transmitted through food.

She also noticed there had been claims made on social media and by media outlets that the virus could remain on plastic surfaces for anywhere between two hours to five days. We need to carefully examine the information. Those are studies for a different type of coronavirus, not COVID-19, she said.

Referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Nuri said the virus was spread from person to person through respiratory droplets, adding that the droplets might fall on a surface or object.

There is a possibility that a person may come into contract with the virus by touching a contaminated surface or object and then touching their own mouth, nose or eyes. For her final note, Nuri emphasized that good hygiene was key to avoid contracting COVID-19. (wng)
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Linkedin Eisya A. Eloksari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 09:50 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066329611 1 Business SOE-Minister,erick-thohir,bureaucracy-reform Free

State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir said he wanted akhlak (morals) to become the ministrys core value amid a rising number of legal cases within some SOEs. The ministry also launched a new logo on Wednesday, citing that the new core value and logo were part of the ministrys bureaucratic reform.

Akhlak is important to have as a core value because there are currently 53 legal cases against some of our state-owned enterprises and we do not want more cases, he said in a broadcast keynote speech. This transformation is not just lip service.

Some of the countrys state-owned enterprises have been in the spotlight for graft cases and lawsuits.

Recently, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) detained PT Dirgantara Indonesia's former president director and former commerce director as suspects in an aircraft manufacturing graft case. Meanwhile, state-owned insurer Jiwasraya has been investigated for allegedly mismanaging Rp 16 trillion in investment.

Read also: Seven companies to relocate facilities to Indonesia, invest $850m

Erick went on to say that the SOE Ministry was also doubling down on efficiency and good corporate governance by slimming down clusters and reshuffling employees.

Previously, the minister slashed the number of SOE business clusters to 14 from 27. He also shuffled the PLN board of directors as well as replacing PT KAI's president director as part of his plan to restructure major state companies.

He said the ministry must ensure it carries out strategic projects such as those in Batang, Central Java. The ministry did not specify the projects in Batang, but there are several ongoing projects such as a hydropower plant and Batang Industrial Park. (eyc)
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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 07:45 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406631fc52 1 Business industry-ministry,SME,supply-chain,pandemic Free

The Industry Ministry is seeking to increase the role of small and medium enterprises (SME) in supplying raw materials for big businesses, as the government wants to reduce reliance on imported goods.

A program that runs from July 1-15 aims to prepare selected SMEs by helping them with brand registration, packaging as well as with National Industrial Standards (SNI) and halal certification to meet big producers product standards, according to Gati Wibawaningsih, the ministrys director general of small and medium enterprises.



The message this program is trying to convey is that local industries can produce what Indonesians need with quality products, Gati said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday.

The program is part of the governments efforts to increase the role of small businesses, which contributed nearly 61 percent to the countrys economy, to help reduce big industries imports of raw materials and intermediate goods.

The ministry has set itself a target of slashing Indonesias raw material imports by up to 35 percent to US$82 billion in 2022.

Imports of raw materials and intermediary goods declined last year and during this years January-to-May period, signaling a cooling of manufacturing activity and household spending. Last year, imports totaled $125.9 billion, down more than 11 percent from 2018, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data show.

The program would also champion SMEs products through e-commerce platforms, including packaged food and beverages, fashion, healthcare products and sport equipment.

Meanwhile, food manufacturing giant PT Indofood Sukses Makmur sourced tempeh, a fermented soybean product, as the main ingredient of its chips brand Qtela from a small enterprise, said Stefanus Indrayana, the firms general manager of corporate communication.

Stefanus said Wednesday that, with the partnership, the small enterprise had gradually scaled up its production from 50 kilograms of tempeh per day to 1 ton.

Our partner has good products, said Stefanus. But we require certain standards, such as SNI. So we do a lot of mentoring, including for halal certificates, waste management, administrative matters and technical tools.



But not all companies have the flexibility to source their raw materials from small businesses at home, like bicycle manufacturer PT Insera Sena, which sells Polygon bicycles.



Although it uses local tires, some components to make Polygon bicycles require a high precision, prompting the company to buy those from foreign suppliers, Insera Sena director William Gozali said.

Some of our components are made in Indonesia, but there are critical components that we have to import, said William.
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Linkedin Gemma Holliani Cahya and Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 10:25 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406632ab8d 1 National RUU-PKS,sexual-abuse,survivors,women-empowerment,sexual-violence-bill Free

Activists and victims supporting the sexual violence eradication bill (RUU PKS) have stepped up their online campaign to push for the bills passage after the House of Representatives announced yet another delay in the deliberation of the draft that has been in limbo for about four years.

The hashtag #SahkanRUUPKS (pass the sexual violence eradication bill) is trending on Twitter and has taken over discussions on social media since Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Marwan Dasopang, the deputy chairman of House Commission VIII, which oversees social affairs, said there was a plan to exclude the bill from the priority list, because its deliberation was too complicated.

The plan became official on Wednesday, as the coordination meeting of the House Legislation Body decided to exclude the bill from the priority list.

Marwan said lawmakers were still divided over the bill, just like in the previous sitting period. Therefore, the commission needed more time to lobby the leaders of party factions at the House.

To meet the Houses target, Marwan said, the commission must pass the bills on its priority list by October 2020. However, it still a long way for the sexual violence bill, as we need to hold many hearings with members of the public. We wouldnt make it by October, he said.

Marwan went on to say that the commission would propose the bill again for the 2021 priority list, citing it was still on the Houses list of unfinished bills.

Read also: House to yet again delay sexual violence bill, citing scheduling difficulty

The decision has angered womens rights activists and sexual abuse victims who have been fighting for years for the bill.

You know whats hard? Healing from trauma of being a victim of sexual assault. #SahkanRUUPKS, the user of Twitter account @NurulDwiAstari tweeted on Wednesday. Nurul used the hashtag #SahkanRUUPKS (pass the sexual violence eradication bill) along with thousands of people on social media to criticize the Houses decision.

Yknow what's hard?

Healing from trauma of being a victim of sexual assault.



0 DPR

RUU PKS#SahkanRUUPKS #SahkanRUUPenghapusanKekerasanSeksual pic.twitter.com/3C27RA8D1x  Nurul Dwi Astari (@NurulDwiAstari) July 1, 2020

Under the current law, victims of sexual abuse in Indonesia are not entitled to any help from the government. They have to use their own money if they want to go through legal proceedings or rehabilitation. Therefore, the bill, is pivotal for the victims protection and well-being.

This data is not a joke. Women lives matter. There is no exception. #SahkanRUUPKS, Twitter user @aisyahirr said on Twitter, attaching gruesome statistics on sexual violence in Indonesia recorded by The National Commission for Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan). The data show that the recorded cases of violence against women has increased from 348,446 in 2017 to 406,178 in 2018 and 431,471 in 2019.

This data isnt just a joke. Women lives matter. No exceptions #SahkanRUUPKS pic.twitter.com/ylMnKRAmAj  Aisyah Indah R (@aisyahirr) June 30, 2020

The Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Womens Association for Justice (LBH APIK) found that fewer than 5 percent of the recorded sexual violence cases have been legally processed.

Organizations with the Coalition for Safe Public Spaces (KRPA), which is part of the RUU PKS campaign team, created memes and videos to protest the Houses decision.

Data on sexual violence are available everywhere, there is an increasing in sexual violence; are the House members not embarrassed to say that its difficult to the victims? reads one of the memes by the KRPA.

PerEMPUan founder Rika Rosvianti, a member of the KRPA coalition said she hoped the campaign could raise awareness on the fact that the fight for the bill has been going on for years.

This decision made by the House is insensitive. [] The sexual violence issue must be a priority right now, because during the COVID-19 pandemic, sexual violence victims become more vulnerable during quarantine, Rika told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives Instagram presence @dpr-ri was showing a livestreamed online press conference of the Houses rejection of Israels move to annex part of Palestine. However, during the livestream, the account was flooded with messages and comments from activists and survivors of sexual violence.

Hundreds of the messages using the hashtag #SahkanRUUPKS spammed the Houses Instagram account, demanding the members focus first on what is happening in the country and seriously fight for the rights of victims of sexual violence.
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Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 16:19 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066351784 2 World Indonesia-Australia,diplomacy,society,survey,Lowy-Institute,IA-CEPA,New-Colombo-Plan Free

Tak kenal maka tak sayang.

This Indonesian adage seems to ring true when it comes to Australians, who still lack trust in Indonesia to do good in the world, largely due to a lack of understanding, a recent survey shows.

Despite efforts on both sides to deepen their relationship, the 2020 edition of the Lowy Institute Poll reveals that Australians trust in Indonesia has fallen to the lowest point since the survey was first conducted, with only 36 percent of respondents saying they trust Indonesia to act responsibly in the world  a 16-point fall from 2017 results.

The survey also found that only 39 percent of Australians agree that "Indonesia is a democracy", up from 24 percent from two years ago, although the majority still disagrees with the statement.

The poll still suggests a widespread lack of knowledge about Indonesias political system, as well as a lack of trust in Indonesia, wrote Ben Bland, the director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, in a statement to The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The lack of understanding and the lack of trust are interrelated. Its hard to trust your neighbor if you dont know them and vice versa.

The findings come amid concerted efforts on both sides in recent years to strengthen their bond, culminating in President Joko Jokowi Widodos visit to Australia last February to finalize a landmark trade deal that aims to spur robust economic cooperation.

The Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) will come into effect on July 5.

Read also: The IA-CEPA will be effective soon: Are we ready?

Bland doubted, however, that Jokowis visit to Canberra had made any impact on the overall perception either way, as it did not generate much media coverage or public attention in Australia, even though things went well at a political level.

Its not unusual for governments and their citizens to diverge in their views of their international partners. But such a disconnect does make it harder to deepen the bilateral relationship, especially for democracies like Indonesia and Australia, where the governments need to be responsive to public opinion, he said.

Australian tourist Rhys Menzel (left) in one of the competitions held to celebrate Indonesia's Indepence Day at the Taman Simalem Resort (TSr) in Karo, North Sumatra, on Aug. 18, 2019. (JP/Apriadi Gunawan)

Australias lack of knowledge and trust in Indonesia is nothing new, said international relations expert Evi Fitriani from the University of Indonesia. She suggested that Indonesians would likely share the same sentiment toward their neighbor down under if they were to be surveyed.

Evi said Australian medias negative portrayal of Indonesia was among the reasons that contributed to the mistrust and lack of knowledge the two countries have about one another, citing a recent report titled The worlds next coronavirus hotspot is emerging next door, which plays up the ineptitude of the nations COVID-19 response.

When it comes to Australia, the scholar said the Indonesian government should continue with business as usual, as it is unnecessary to put in more effort to alter the public image there when there are still other strategic interests worth pursuing, such as engagement in the Pacific and in ASEAN.

Australia cares more about Indonesia because it feels more dependent and insecure toward Indonesia than the other way around, said Evi. However, she still advised the two countries to build stronger ties at a grassroots level to foster mutual respect and trust.

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an international relations research professor at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said surveys of this kind should also observe how Indonesia fares with other countries in order to determine Australia's public image of Indonesia in an objective manner.

The Lowy Institute survey shows that 32 percent of respondents have confidence in President Jokowi, higher than United States President Donald Trump (21 percent) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (19 percent) but lower than Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (42 percent) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (73 percent).

On the other hand, Australias lack of confidence toward Indonesias democracy should also push Indonesia to reflect on the quality of its democracy, Dewi said, considering that the country scored meagerly in the Freedom House and Economist Intelligence Unit democracy indices.

Read also: Indonesia has reasons for optimism despite democratic setbacks

She suggested intensifying efforts in programs such as the New Colombo Plan, which sends young Australians to live and study in Indonesia, so they could learn more about Indonesia. More than 10,000 Australians have chosen to study in Indonesia over the past five years through the program, according to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.

We cant choose our neighbors, Dewi said. This is an important relationship that cannot be taken for granted and left on autopilot. It is nurtured through time.

Australian journalism student Justin Tatel (center) speaks during the opening ceremony of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) Jakarta Professional Practica 2019 at Atma Jaya University in Jakarta, on Jan. 3 2019. Currently there are 144 Australian students taking part in the ACICIS program (Courtesy of/ACICIS)

The Foreign Ministry's director for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Santo Darmosumarto, said it was natural for democratic countries like Australia and Indonesia to be perceived differently by the public and the government, which is essential for checks and balances in foreign policymaking.

He said the ministry had actively engaged with the Australian public, scholars and other stakeholders through its mission overseas as a way to build a positive image of Indonesia, even during the COVID-19 outbreak.

A spokesperson from the Australian Embassy said Australians clearly valued their relationship with Indonesia, referring to a 2019 Lowy survey in which 96 percent of respondents agreed Indonesia was economically important to Australia and 94 percent said Australia was managing the bilateral relationship well. The questions were not asked in the 2020 survey.

However, the spokesman acknowledged that the majority of Australians and Indonesians knew too little about each other and that both countries had a role to play in improving mutual understanding.

The embassy currently runs initiatives such as the Muslim Exchange Program, the New Colombo Plan and the Australia-Indonesia Youth Exchange Program to change perceptions of Australia in Indonesia. The embassy was also open to Indonesia promoting its diversity and dynamism more in Australia beyond just Bali.

Read also: Neighbors or strangers? Live-in experiences aim to improve RI-Aussie ties

Perceptions take time to shift but this cohort of young Indonesians and Australians will help strengthen the relationship in the years ahead, the spokesperson told the Post.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 16:53 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40663533f3 1 National niqab,Central-Lombok,West-Nusa-Tenggara,COVID-19 Free

Central Lombok regency in West Nusa Tenggara is set to require female Muslim civil servants to wear the niqab, as some of them have been seen not wearing masks -- one of the health protocols imposed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regent Moh Suhaili Fadhil Thohir announced the plan during a regular Friday gymnastics event in the regent's office yard on June 19, which was recorded in a video that has since become the subject of public discussion.

I said it spontaneously because during the Friday event, some refused to wear a mask for fear of running out of oxygen. But considering the current situation, we need protection, he said on Wednesday.

Suhaili said the requirement for Muslims to wear the niqab had nothing to do with radicalism as it was simply an effort to prevent virus transmission among civil servants, who he said should set an example to the wider community in Central Lombok.

Its also fashion. They could match their hijab to the color of the veil. It has nothing to do with radicalism, or over-fanaticism, Suhaili said as quoted by kompas.com, adding that the requirement would start as soon as next Friday.

The civil servants, however, are not required to wear a head-to-toe veil that also cloaks the body, but a niqab covering only the nose and mouth.

Suhaili also said the requirement was not forceful and that there would be no regulation needed to enforce it. There are no sanctions, only a pleasant and healthy movement.

Lombok Tengah civil servant Yayuh had mixed feelings about the niqab requirement. Although it can be a learning process to wear proper Muslim clothing, Yayuh feared it might create a contrast with the gymnastic clothes they wore.

We usually wear tight pants for the Friday event. If outsiders see it, it might be a bit inappropriate, Yayuh said, adding that it might be expensive to have that kind of niqab.

As of Thursday, West Nusa Tenggara had recorded 1,260 COVID-19 cases, 63 of which have turned fatal. Lombok Tengah has recorded at least 114 cases, with four deaths. (syk)
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Linkedin  Thu, July 2, 2020 13:45 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40663423a9 2 World Bolivia,Evo-Morales,coup-attempt,election Free

From exile in Buenos Aires, former leftist president Evo Morales continues to influence Bolivian politics and is plotting his party's return to power in September elections, analysts say.

Though banned from running in the poll and facing arrest if he returns, the 60-year-old -- Bolivia's first indigenous president -- is masterminding opposition to right-wing interim leader Jeanine Anez.

Bolivia's interim president, Jeanine Anez applauds after taking oath to the military command during her first day in power, at the Quemado presidential palace in La Paz, on November 13, 2019. Anez, who declared herself interim president before her claim was endorsed by the constitutional court, arguing that her succession was necessitated by the resignations of those above her in the government hierarchy, will try to fill the power vacuum left by Evo Morales's abrupt resignation, as the former leader denounced what he described as a (Agence France Presse/AIZAR RALDES )

"At this time when Evo Morales is in exile, outside of power, he has become a kind of kingmaker," political scientist Carlos Cordero told AFP.

Morales last year hand-picked economist Luis Arce as the man who can win back the presidency for his Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.

To do so he faced down grassroots members who favored former foreign minister David Choquehuanca or young coca-growers' leader Andronico Rodriguez.

Arce, however, has slowly won over the doubters and is riding high in opinion polls, which if confirmed in the September 6 elections, would hand the presidency back to MAS a year after Morales' tumultuous resignation.

The polls give Arce 33 percent and centrist ex-president Carlos Mesa just over 18 percent, while Anez trails with nearly 17 percent.

'Polarizing factor'

Maria Teresa Zegada, a sociologist at the state-run Universidad Mayor de San Simon, says Morales is a key player in the electoral campaign, despite his absence.

"I believe that he will continue to play an important role, as long as he continues to be a polarizing factor in the country's politics. There are important sectors that support MAS and that is where Morales' presence lies."

Ahead of the pandemic, the ex-president frequently convened meetings with MAS leaders in Argentina, but that direct communication has been frustrated by the pandemic lockdowns.

These days he issues instructions via social media.

"We will come back stronger and we will restore freedom and dignity to the Bolivian people," said a message on his Twitter account.

Morales on Wednesday condemned what he said was an attempt by Anez to get the courts to outlaw his party and remove Arce from the electoral race.

"The de facto government initiated a judicial strategy with political ends to disqualify our candidate and MAS and prevent us from participating in the elections," he tweeted.

People arrive at a triage area at the General Hospital to be tested for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in La Paz, Bolivia June 23, 2020. (REUTERS/David Mercado)

Anez has accused Morales of conspiring to damage her electoral chances by sending overpriced Spanish ventilators for COVID-19 patients into the country as part of a relief operation during the pandemic.

Zegada said Morales has benefited from the errors and scandals that have tainted his adversaries in power.

'Messianic leadership'

Morales fled the country after three weeks of protests over his controversial re-election in October 2019 in a poll in which he was constitutionally barred from participating.

He had tried to cling to power but lost the backing of the country's military after an Organization of American States audit found clear evidence of election fraud.

He initially fled to Mexico, which sent a government plane to pick him up, before settling later in Argentina, home to a large Bolivian population.

Most of Morales' cabinet fled with him, leaving behind a power vacuum in the bitterly divided country. Anez -- a hitherto little known conservative senator -- assumed the presidency the following month.

Her government accuses him of sedition and terrorism for allegedly urging his supporters to lay siege to major cities such as La Paz.

However, Morales, a member of the Aymara indigenous community, has built up a "messianic leadership -- which is why his voice continues to carry so much weight, even in exile," said Cordero, a professor at the Catholic University in La Paz.

"These leaders become political professionals... Their life is simply doing politics, that's the psychological profile of these people," he said.

Morales is a colossus of his own party, whose support comes mainly from indigenous people and poor farmers, and there is no one in the party ranks to overshadow him.

According to Zagada, his broader influence has waned, however.

"We have a gravitating figure, but at the same time one that is worn out, and he is no longer the figure he was when he was president of the country," she said.

Under Morales' 14-year rule, Bolivia's 36 indigenous groups -- which account for 62 percent of the country's more than 11 million people -- were constitutionally recognized.

The country also reduced extreme poverty from 38 percent to 17 percent, and achieved an average economic growth rate of 4.8 percent.
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Linkedin Ban Barkawi (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Amman, Jordan  Thu, July 2, 2020 09:43 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066328f98 2 World Facebook,LGBT,LGBTQ,LGBT-rights,hate-speech,sexual-orientation Free

LGBT+ rights groups urged Facebook on Tuesday to act on a rise in online hate speech after the death of an Egyptian activist jailed for waving the rainbow flag.

The letter from activist groups in the Middle East and North Africa added to the pressure on Facebook to do more to block hate speech after an advertising boycott by hundreds of US brands.

Sarah Hegazy was found dead two weeks ago in her apartment in Canada, the country she fled to after being charged with "promoting sexual deviancy" in Egypt, where discrimination against the LGBT+ community is rife.

Since then, posts containing hate speech, death threats and threats of violence have been posted and shared in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, including an image of a rainbow-colored stick figure being kicked.

In one video, a woman justifies the killing of gay people. Another shows Hegazy burning in animated flames.

Facebook said it operated a zero-tolerance approach to all hate speech, which it defines as attacks based on people's "protected characteristics", including sexual orientation and gender identity.

But a letter from 22 LGBT+ rights groups mostly from the Arab world said the company had been "lax" in applying its anti-hate speech policies in the region, making it "unsafe for sexual minorities".

"Although the MENA LGBTQI+ community has been reporting thousands of Arabic hate speech posts ... most of these reports were declined because the content 'did not contradict the Facebook community standards'," the letter stated.

It called on Facebook to do more to ensure posts that incite violence were removed.

"In the US and Europe, there is no room to spread hate speech against any sexual orientation, race, religion, sect or any other social group," said Adam Muhammed, executive director of the Morocco-based ATYAF Collective, an LGBT+ rights group.

"We addressed a letter to Facebook asking its management to implement the same policy here as it uses in other countries," Muhammed told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In response, Facebook said it had teams reviewing reports of hate speech 24/7 in more than 50 languages, including Arabic, and that its AI tools found nearly 90% of the hate speech it removes before users reported it.

"We know we have more work to do here and we'll continue to work closely with members of the LGBTQI+ community in the Middle East and North Africa to develop our tools, technology and policies," Facebook said in emailed comments.

Nicolas Gilles, co-founder of the France-based ANKH Association for minority rights which was among the signatories to the letter, called Hegazy's death a wake-up call and said she had struggled with online harassment.

"The LGBT+ community now in the Arab world are ... witnessing harassment and bullying and everybody is saying they could be the next [Hegazy] and we don't want that," he said.
Shes going over the specs of the bag, opens it up, shes zipping zippers. But we were all looking at her like, This is weird. But she didnt pick up on it, and he kept asking more and more questions. And finally, he got a serious look on his face, and he said, I just need to know about this bag. I have to ask, Im so sorry. Its for her peace of mind.
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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 13:46 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066342a59 1 Business land-acquisition,repayment,Hutama-Karya,Wijaya-Karya,waskita-karya,toll-road,COVID-19 Free

Three state-owned construction companies, PT Waskita Karya, PT Hutama Karya and PT Wijaya Karya, are seeking repayments from the government for Rp 5.6 trillion (US$390.9 million) in accumulated land acquisition expenses for infrastructure projects.

Waskita Karya president director Destiawan Soewardjono said on Wednesday that the government still owed the company Rp 3.71 trillion for land acquired for its ongoing toll road projects, including the Pemalang-Batang toll road in Central Java, the Bekasi-Cawang-Kampung Melayu told road in Greater Jakarta and the Cimanggis-Cibitung toll road in West Java.

A combination of mounting unpaid expenses by the government and the companys dwindling income due to the COVID-19 pandemic has caused cash flow issues for the company, according to Destiawan.

Our cash situation is currently in the red. However, were increasing our efforts to improve the situation by collecting unpaid reimbursements, he said during a presentation at the House of Representatives, adding that the company had suffered from a 50 percent decline in toll road traffic.

He urged the Finance Ministrys State Asset Management Agency (LMAN) to make the repayments, as the companys data showed it was eligible to receive Rp 1.35 trillion from the agency as of Wednesday.

The LMAN previously stated it would continue to reimburse companies to help them endure the impacts of the drop off in toll road traffic. It has reimbursed Rp 53.3 trillion to state-owned companies for land acquired for 77 strategic national projects, of which Rp 11.88 trillion had gone to Waskita Karya, as of June 24.

Destiawan said Waskita Karya planned to asked the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Ministry for additional funds.

The government also owes Hutama Karya Rp1.86 trillion for land acquisition costs that were paid upfront by the company for several projects dating back to 2016.

The debts have been accumulating since 2016, Hutama Karya president director Budi Harto said during the hearing.

Hutama Karya is in charge of several sections of the trans-Sumatra toll road, including Medan-Binjai, Bakauheni-Terbanggi Besar and Pekanbaru-Dumai.

According to Hutama Karya, the company was owed Rp 494 billion from last year and Rp 369 billion from this year, on the top of outstanding repayments from 2016 to 2018.

[The debts] are yet to be paid even though the land has been acquired and the project is underway, Budi added.

Hutama Karyas Budi blamed the delays on the absence of a Finance Ministry decree (PMK) to regulate repayments to companies involved in completing the governments National Strategic Projects (PSN).

The government recently changed the payment verification scheme via Presidential Regulation No. 66/2020, which appointed the Finance Ministry to verify repayments, taking over from the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP).

The Finance Ministry isnt ready to verify our claims, Budi complained.

Meanwhile, Wijaya Karya claims it is entitled to Rp 59.9 billion in outstanding repayments from the government for land acquired for the Serang-Panimban toll road project.

As of June, the government has paid Rp 1.27 trillion for the land acquisition costs for the Serang-Panimban toll road project. However, its still Rp 59 billion short, the companys president director Agung Budi Waskito said.

The construction firms are the latest SOEs seeking debt repayments from the government, despite recent reimbursements from the LMAN.

State-owned oil and gas giant Pertamina also reported on Monday to lawmakers that the government had yet to pay Rp 96.5 trillion in compensation for fuel subsidies between 2017 and 2019.
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Linkedin Scott Murdoch and Yanni Chow (Reuters) Hong Kong  Thu, July 2, 2020 07:55 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066320223 2 World Hong-Kong,China,Hong-Kong-activist,Hong-Kong-protests,Hong-Kong-security-law,Hong-Kong-autonomy Free

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people on Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in defiance of sweeping security legislation introduced by China to snuff out dissent.

Beijing unveiled the details of the much-anticipated law late on Tuesday after weeks of uncertainty, pushing China's freest city and one of the world's most glittering financial hubs on to a more authoritarian path.

As thousands of protesters gathered for an annual rally marking the anniversary of the former British colony's handover to China in 1997, riot police used pepper spray and fired pellets as they made arrests after crowds spilled into the streets chanting "resist till the end" and "Hong Kong independence".

"Im scared of going to jail but for justice I have to come out today, I have to stand up," said one 35-year-old man who gave his name as Seth.

Police said they had made more than 300 arrests for illegal assembly and other offences, with nine involving violations of the new law.

The law punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison, will see mainland security agencies in Hong Kong for the first time and allows extradition to the mainland for trial.

China's parliament adopted the law in response to protests last year triggered by fears that Beijing was stifling the city's freedoms, guaranteed by a "one country, two systems" formula agreed when it returned to Chinese rule. Beijing denies the accusation.

Hong Kong police cited the law in confronting protesters.

"You are displaying flags or banners/chanting slogans/or conducting yourselves with an intent such as secession or subversion, which may constitute offences under the ... national security law," police said in a message displayed on a purple banner.

Authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong have repeatedly said the legislation is aimed at a few "troublemakers" and will not affect rights and freedoms, nor investors' interests.

'Heartbreaking'

But critics fear it will end the pro-democracy opposition and crush freedoms, including an independent legal system and right to protest, that are seen as key to Hong Kong's success as a financial centre.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the new law was an affront to all nations and Washington would continue to implement President Donald Trump's directive to end the territory's special status.

Britain said it would stand by its word and offer all those in Hong Kong with British National Overseas status a "bespoke" immigration route.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described Wednesday's protests as heartbreaking and reprimanded HSBC and other banks for supporting the new law, saying the rights of Hong Kong should not be sacrificed for bankers' bonuses.

Britain and Canada also updated their travel advisories for Hong Kong, saying there was an increased risk of detention.

A former employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong, Simon Cheng, said he had been granted political asylum by the British government after being beaten by Chinese secret police last year in mainland China during 15 days of detention.

In a post on Facebook after the enactment of the national security law, he said he hoped other Hong Kong people would be offered protection by Britain.

Police fired water cannon to try to disperse the protesters. A game of cat and mouse reminiscent of last year's often violent demonstrations followed, with protesters blocking roads before running away from riot police charging with batons, only to re-emerge elsewhere.

Police posted pictures on Twitter of an officer with a bleeding arm saying he was stabbed by "rioters holding sharp objects". The suspects fled while bystanders offered no help, police said.

On July 1 last year, hundreds of protesters stormed and vandalized the city's legislature to protest against a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.

Those protests evolved into anti-China demonstrations and calls for democracy, paralyzing parts of the city and paving the way for Beijing's new law.

'Birthday gift'

In Beijing, Zhang Xiaoming, executive deputy director of Beijing's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, told reporters suspects arrested by a new Beijing-run security office could be tried on the mainland.

He said the new office abided by Chinese law and that Hong Kong's legal system could not be expected to implement the laws of the mainland. Article 55 of the law states that Beijing's security office in Hong Kong could exercise jurisdiction over "complex" or "serious" cases.

"The law is a birthday gift to [Hong Kong] and will show its precious value in the future," Zhang said, adding the law would not be applied retroactively.

Speaking at a flag-raising ceremony to mark the handover, the city's Beijing-backed leader, Carrie Lam, said the law was the most important development since 1997.

"It is also an inevitable and prompt decision to restore stability," Lam said at the harbor-front venue where the last colonial governor, Chris Patten, a staunch critic of the security law, tearfully handed back Hong Kong to China.

Some pro-Beijing officials and political commentators say the law is aimed at sealing Hong Kong's "second return" to the motherland after the first failed to bring residents to heel.

Luo Huining, the head of Beijing's top representative office in Hong Kong, said at the ceremony the law was a "common aspiration" of Hong Kong citizens.

Some pro-democracy activists gave up membership of their groups just before the law came into force on Tuesday, though they called for the campaign to carry on from abroad.

"I saw this morning there are celebrations for Hong Kong's handover, but to me it is a funeral, a funeral for 'one country two systems'," said pro-democracy lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki.
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Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 15:09 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406634964d 1 Politics RUU-PKS,sexual-violence-bill,house-of-representatives,NasDem-Party,PDI-P Free

The House of Representatives Legislation Body (Baleg) has officially dropped the long-awaited sexual violence eradication bill (RUU PKS) from this years National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) priority list, despite calls from women's rights activist to pass the bill

In a hearing on Thursday, the Baleg, the government and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) agreed to remove 16 of the 50 bills on the list, including the RUU PKS, citing scheduling difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We will include the RUU PKS on the next priority list [for 2021] in October, Baleg chairman Supratman Andi Agtas said.

In the hearing, some factions suggested that the Baleg take over the RUU PKS deliberation from House Commission VIII overseeing social affairs due to the latters inability to make progress with the bill.

NasDem Party lawmaker Taufik Basari said the party would lobby other factions in the House to continue the deliberation of the bill.

The RUU PKS was initially proposed by a member of the NasDem faction. However, by Commission VIIIs request, the bill was initiated by the commission, he said. We now see that Commission VIII doesnt want to put forward the bill as its initiative, so NasDem hopes we can again propose and discuss it within the Baleg.

Read also: Public outcry as House plans to delay sexual violence bill  again

Members of other factions in the body, namely the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB) echoed Taufiks sentiments.

PDI-P lawmaker Diah Pitaloka, who has consistently lobbied the House to pass the bill, said the Baleg should take over the bill, citing a letter dated May 5 stating the cancellation of Commission VIII's proposal for the bill.

The bill has faced strong opposition from members of Islamic political parties such as the PKB and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) in Commission VIII, who have argued that the bill supported the legalization of adultery and LGBT behavior.

Marwan Dasopang, the deputy chairman of Commission VIII, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the removal of the RUU PKS from the 2020 priority list was due to the difficulties in arranging the bill's deliberation, citing time constraints.
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Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 19:34 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406635f0c8 1 Politics Prolegnas,house-of-representatives,sexual-violence-bill,KUHP,priority-bills,Criminal-Code,correctional-center-bill,pancasila-ideology-bill,RUU-HIP Free

The House of Representatives has decided to proceed with the deliberation of controversial bills included on this years National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) priority list with a goal of passing them by October this year, while dropping several much-touted bills.

The House held a meeting with the government and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) on Thursday, in which they agreed to revise the priority list, citing the Houses limited capacity to deliberate all the bills included on it.

Some bills excluded from the Prolegnas can still be proposed to be included on next years priority list, which will be deliberated in October, House Legislative Body (Baleg) chairman Supratman Andi Agtas of the Gerindra Party said upon chairing Thursdays meeting.

Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly said the list had to be evaluated because the priority list was unrealistic following the COVID-19 pandemic. "This has always been a debate. Our capacity is far from the target.

There were 50 bills on the 2020 Prolegnas priority list. The legislative bodies and the government decided to drop 16 of them, while adding three more: the national development planning system, judges tenure and prosecutor bills.

Among the bills that were kept on the list were the omnibus bill on job creation, as well as the criminal code, correctional center and Pancasila ideology guidelines (HIP) bills. Deliberations for the last three bills are still awaiting approval from the government.

Lawmakers of House Commission III overseeing legal affairs had previously urged the government to resume deliberation of the controversial revisions to the Criminal Code and the 1995 Correctional Center Law, despite the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and public disapproval.

Deliberation of the criminal code and the correctional center bills was postponed last September following massive student protests in Jakarta and other regions, who demanded the bills be rejected for their threat against democracy and civil rights.

Among problematic provisions in the Criminal Code revision were articles that critics fear would overcriminalize activities in the personal domain, such as cohabitation and consensual sex between unmarried people.

Meanwhile, the current draft of the correctional center bill contains provisions that would remove prevailing regulations that stipulate strict criteria for issuing remissions and parole for prisoners convicted of extraordinary crimes, including terrorism and corruption.

Read also: Govt opts to postpone deliberation of controversial bill on Pancasila amid backlash against House

Deliberation of the HIP bill, which was proposed by the nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), was also recently blocked thanks to a coordinated campaign by Muslim organizations and Islamist political parties at the House.

Parties opposing the Pancasila bill argued that it would lead to the reemergence of communism in the country due to its provisions saying that state ideology Pancasila will have three basic characteristics called trisila (three principles) consisting of socionationalism, sociodemocracy and cultural divinity. All three values would then be crystalized in ekasila (one principle) of gotong royong (mutual cooperation).

Several lawmakers questioned the decision to keep the problematic bills, while others supported the decision to continue prioritizing them.

Mulyanto of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said the HIP bill should not be included on the priority list as the government had opted to postpone its deliberation amid outcry from the public who questioned its urgency and some of its contentious articles.

Supratman responded that the Baleg could not do anything about the HIP bill as they were waiting for the governments official response. We should wait for the House leaderships decision. Weve also sent the bills draft to the President.

On the other hand, lawmakers supporting the deliberation of the problematic bills cited the recent passing of a controversial revision to the Coal and Mineral Mining Law as an inspiration for the commission to pass them.

Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi) researcher Lucius Karus said the decision to withdraw some bills from the Prolegnas was questionable as the House still had until the end of the year. The withdrawal, he said, was just a sign of the House's inability to do its job.

"They're also inconsistent. They drop some bills but add several new bills at the same time," he said. "It is also possible that such revisions carried out amid the COVID-19 pandemic show the Houses eagerness to pass the controversial bills that are in their personal or group interest."

Lucius also questioned the House's awareness of what the public wanted, as it dropped bills that people had been hoping for, particularly the sexual violence bill.

Center for Policy and Legal Studies (PSHK) researcher Fajri Nursyamsi said the revision to the Houses Prolegnas was not so shocking as the legislative body had always been too ambitious and set its target too high since the beginning.

He went on to say that the House should assess its ability to pass bills in line with the governments goals. "A Prolegnas should be based on our development goals, such as the RPJMN [National Medium-Term Development Plan]. However, we've seen the list is often unrealistic."

Read also: Activists, survivors step up campaign for sexual violence bill after another delay

The wiretapping and marine security bills were also replaced by the Bank Indonesia and continental shelf bills.

NasDem Partys Taufik Basari questioned the decision to withdraw the sexual violence bill from the priority list, which had caused public outcry.

National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) commissioner Mariana Amiruddin said the House had shown no concern for the victims of sexual violence by delaying the bills deliberation. Moreover, many Twitter users were enraged at the Houses excuse that the bill was complicated.

Supratman said the withdrawal was due to overlapping criminal provisions with the criminal code bill, the deliberations of which had been delayed since September last year. At that time, students held massive protests in several regions across the country, demanding the bills be rejected for being a threat to democracy.

We hope we can include the sexual violence bill in the Prolegnas after we pass the Criminal Code bill, he said.
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Linkedin Apriza Pinandita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 17:22 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40663560ca 1 World Indonesia-Colombia,Colombian-Embassy-in-Indonesia,Colombia,bilateral-cooperation Free

As Indonesia and Colombia commemorate 40 years of diplomatic relations this year, the two countries are seeking increased connectivity between the far-flung lands, with both sides hoping to become each others regional trade hubs.

One historical milestone for the optimistic vision was the recent repatriation of about 366 Colombian citizens from at least 19 countries on a special flight from Jakarta by Indonesian national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia.

The repatriation was the first direct flight made by an Indonesian airline to Colombia. The effort was conducted from May 15 to May 17 with the help of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry and state-owned company PT Industri Nuklir Indonesia (INUKI).

The company and its Colombian counterparts are exploring business opportunities in the radio-pharmacy industry.

INUKI director for operations and marketing Bunjamin Noor said on Thursday that several agendas were being planned to explore opportunities in the industry, including sending INUKIs first batch of products to the country, saying that Colombia had the potential to become the companys hub for its Latin American regional distribution. However, with this pandemic, we had to postpone our delivery to Colombia, but our relationship is getting stronger, he said.

Radio-pharmacy is one of many sectors that the two countries have explored. According to the Trade Ministrys website, Indonesia and Colombia trade a number of commodities, including manufactured goods and agricultural products. However, the significant potential has been hindered by distance and limited information exchange between business players on both sides.

Trade Ministry data shows that the trade volume between Indonesia and Colombia accounted for only US$153 million last year. Although the volume has increased 4.22 percent since 2015, the number is still low compared to other countries in the region.

With Brazil, for instance, Indonesia recorded $2.9 billion of trade last year. With Peru, Indonesia recorded $271 million of trade in the same period.

Connectivity is still a hindrance for Indonesia and Colombia  and in general for countries in Latin America  to engage in more fruitful economic interactions.

As of now, for instance, there is no direct flight from Jakarta to Bogota, although various sectors are waiting to be explored.

A couple of days ago I received a confirmation from [Colombias] President Ivan Duque that he will send a result of our study regarding the opportunities for further cooperation between our countries to President Joko Widodo, said Colombian Ambassador to Indonesia Juan Camilo Valencia in a press conference on Thursday.

Colombia and Indonesia have a geographical advantage that allows us to become a hub to connect Latin America and Southeast Asia, he said.

Valencia thought that, in Southeast Asia, Indonesia was the easiest country to relate with. In terms of their people, he said, the two nations had similar characteristics.

He mentioned that if Colombia wanted to expand its Southeast Asian market, it had to be through Indonesia. Perhaps Indonesia is thinking the same way [] Thats why its important that Garuda Indonesia is thinking of connecting the two regions using Bogota and Jakarta or Bali.

Separately, Darianto Harsono, the Foreign Ministry's director for South American and Caribbean affairs, said that despite the challenges, the trade relationship between the two countries was getting stronger.

This year, the two countries will celebrate 40 years of diplomatic relations. This comes at a time when governments must work more closely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, more potential has been identified, he said.

Our hope is that one day there will be a direct flight between Jakarta and Bogota to facilitate people-to-people and business-to-business contact.
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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 19:00 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406635ba54 1 City COVID-19,COVID-19-Jakarta,abang-none,pageant,cancellation,events,tourism,jakarta-tourism Free

The Jakarta city administration is canceling its 2020 Abang None pageant, citing the need to divert funds for the capitals COVID-19 response.

Jakarta Tourism and Creative Economy Agency head Cucu Ahmad Kurnia announced the cancellation on Thursday, saying that the pageant was one of a number of things that would be cut because of the pandemic.

All of the Jakarta administrations resources will be diverted into massive and measurable handling of the pandemic, Cucu told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. Aside from budget concerns, we are still uncertain when the COVID-19 pandemic will be over..

Jakarta had started the selection process for Abang None couples in its administrative regions  Central Jakarta, East Jakarta, West Jakarta, South Jakarta, North Jakarta and the Thousand Islands  in February but will not be appointing any winners this year.

However, Cucu said the 180 finalists would still act as tourism ambassadors for their respective areas.

He estimated that the selection process in each administrative area cost about Rp 1 billion (US$70,622).

The annual pageant was started in 1968 by then-governor Ali Sadikin to select a female contestant to be named None Jakarta, with the male Abang selection beginning in 1971. The winners, usually between 18 and 25 years old, are responsible for promoting tourism in their respective areas.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 11:40 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066334650 4 City plastic-bag,plastic-ban,single-use-plastic,jakarta-gubernatorial-decree,traditional-market,supermarket,minimarket,vendors,eco-friendly Free

Several vendors at Jakarta's markets are finding that shoppers are yet to abide by the administration's newly enacted ban on single-use plastic bags, with many shoppers arriving without reusable bags and requesting kresek (plastic bags).

The gubernatorial regulation banning single-use plastic bags at traditional markets, modern supermarkets and minimarkets in the capital city came into force on Wednesday. The ban is part of the administration's strategies to reduce the city's plastic waste.

Read also: Jakarta begins new chapter in plastic waste reduction

Fahri, who sells footwear at Pasar Raya Cibubur in Ciracas, East Jakarta, said that some of his customers blatantly ignored the ban, insisting that he give them plastic bags because they were "practical".

We are finding it difficult [to follow the ban] because most shoppers dont bring [bags] from home. In the end, we give them plastic bags, Fahri said on Wednesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Fahri said that the market's management was relying on customers awareness of the ban, according to information the market operator had recently circulated among its traders.

For example, if the market provided [reusable bags] at a lower price than plastic ones, maybe [customers] will buy them, he added, referring to bags made from spunbond nonwoven fabric.

Hendra, another vendor who sells children's clothing at Pasar Raya Cibubur, echoed Fahri, saying that the regulation fell short of committing fully to reducing plastic waste.

If you want to reduce plastic waste, just stop the producers. We dont want to become victims of this regulation, Hendra suggested.

He said that some vendors could not spend the extra money to provide reusable bags for their customers, especially since spunbond bags were more expensive than plastic bags.

The gubernatorial regulation prohibits vendors from supplying customers with single-use bags, including bags made from polyethylene and thermoplastic materials.

It also promotes the use of eco-friendly bags made of plant-based materials, recycled materials, paper, cloth, polyester and polyester derivatives at stores and markets. Eco-friendly bags should be recyclable and use sufficiently thick materials so they can be reused several times.

Anti, a housewife, admitted it was difficult to adapt to the changes imposed by the new ban.

The thing is, I prefer shopping [in bulk]," said Anti, and that the "special bags" were not large enough for her needs. She suggested that markets provide "special" shopping bags to customers for free.

Read also: Skyscraper of waste: Greater Jakarta drowning in mountains of trash

The regulation still allows shops to provide single-use plastics for unpackaged, nonwrapped foodstuffs. This is not applicable, however, if eco-friendly alternatives are available.

Retail centers and markets that violate the ban are subject to a range of sanctions, from written warnings to fines of Rp 5 million (US$348) and to the suspension or revocation of business permits.

Several major cities in the country have already banned single-use plastics, including Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan and Denpasar in Bali. (syk)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 12:33 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406633b6bf 4 National NTT-governor,National-Police,National-Police-Anniversary,IPW,dual-function,dwifungsi,police-officers Free

East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Governor Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat has encouraged police officials to apply for strategic positions in the provincial administration, despite warnings from watchdogs that such appointments would be a setback for the countrys democracy.

The governor announced the controversial plan during a ceremony to commemorate the National Polices 74th anniversary at the NTT Police headquarters on Wednesday. In his speech, Viktor said several agency head positions were currently open.

The positions for the heads of the Tourism Agency and the Animal Husbandry Agency are vacant. [] I think its all right if someone from the police wants to fill these positions, Viktor said, as quoted by kompas.com.

He quickly added that any police officers interested in applying for the positions would be required to retire from the force, as stipulated by the 2002 National Police Law, which requires active police personnel to retire or resign from the force to serve in an official public position.

Read also: Jokowi calls on National Police to uphold humanity, professionalism amid pandemic

A number of police officials currently hold strategic positions in several ministries, tempo.co has reported.

They include Comr. Gen. Andap Budhi Revianto, who serves as the Law and Human Rights Ministry inspector general, Insp. Gen. Reinhard Silitonga, the ministrys correctional facilities director general, and Comr. Gen. Antam Novambar, the Maritime and Fisheries Ministry's acting secretary-general.

Indonesia Police Watch (IPW) has spoken out against the government allowing police officials to hold positions in the civil service.

This is alarming. Its like we are repeating the New Order regimes depravity, IPW chairman Neta S. Pane said on June 23, as quoted by tempo.co, referring to the Indonesian Militarys dwi fungsi (dual role) under the leadership of president Suharto.

Netta urged President Joko Widodo not to repeat this mistake and to ensure compliance with prevailing regulations. (vny)
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Linkedin Jeffrey Heller and Dan Williams (Reuters) Jerusalem  Thu, July 2, 2020 08:13 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066321512 2 World Israel,Israel-Palestine-conflict,Israel-annexation,West-Bank Free

Israeli annexation in the occupied West Bank might be weeks away, a government minister said as a start date on Wednesday for cabinet discussions of the move slipped by in the absence of a green light from Washington.

Palestinians seek the West Bank for a future state. In a show of Palestinian unity, some 3,000 people in the Gaza Strip, including members of the mainstream Fatah party and the rival Hamas group that runs the enclave, protested against annexation.

Israeli leaders decided in May that cabinet and parliamentary deliberations on extending Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, in coordination with Washington, could begin as of July 1.

But with no agreement with Washington yet on the modalities of the move under a peace proposal announced by US President Donald Trump in January, and talks with the White House still under way, no cabinet session was scheduled for Wednesday.

"I think that it will happen in the coming weeks or months, but I am not versed in the details," Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, said about annexation on Israel Radio.

An aide to Netanyahu said talks with Washington - Israel's main ally - were continuing and that the prime minister had consulted Israeli defense officials on Wednesday, with more discussions to be held "in the coming days".

Palestinian leaders, the United Nations, European powers and Arab countries have denounced any unilateral territorial steps planned by Israel and consider settlements it has built on land captured in a 1967 war as illegal.

Israel disputes this, citing biblical, historical and political roots in the West Bank.

Focal point

Netanyahu has made annexation a focal point of his fifth term in office in what some critics see as an attempt by the right-wing leader to deflect attention from his corruption trial, which began in May, and enhance a political legacy.

He has denied charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

A lengthy delay or scaling down of annexation in the face of vocal opposition from many of Washington's Arab allies would be politically embarrassing for Netanyahu, who has often hailed the "historic opportunity" for Israel provided by the Trump plan.

Trump's blueprint, which he says is intended to help bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians, also calls for creation of a Palestinian state but with Israel sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank. The Palestinians have rejected the plan.

In an editorial in Israel's largest selling newspaper on Wednesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for any annexation plans to be scrapped.

France's foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, told French parliament that "an annexation decision could not be left without consequences".

He said Paris was "examining different options at a national level and also in coordination with our main European partners".
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Ramallah, Palestine  Thu, July 2, 2020 12:00 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406633736e 2 World Palestine,West-Bank,coronavirus,coronavirus-effect,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,pandemic,COVID-19-infection,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday announced a five-day lockdown across the West Bank after a rise in coronavirus infections, as Israel saw its steepest-yet 24-hour uptick in cases.

"Starting from Friday morning, all governorates of the West Bank... will be closed for a period of five days," Palestinian government spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said, adding that pharmacies, bakeries and supermarkets were exempt.

The latest data from the Palestinian ministry of health said that as of Wednesday night, a total of 2,686 people had tested positive for COVID-10 since the illness was first recorded in the West Bank, compared with just 1,256 a week ago.

Last week, after the easing of a previous coronavirus lockdown in late May, Palestinian health minister Mai al-Kaila said the territory had entered a second wave of infections "more dangerous than the first".

Most infections were traceable to Palestinians working in Israel or Arab Israeli visitors to the West Bank, Kaila said.

There have been seven deaths from the virus in the territory.

Israel has also recorded a surge, with a cumulative total of 26,021 confirmed cases on Wednesday night, 980 of them in the past 24 hours -- the highest such count yet.

The Palestinian Authority imposed a full West Bank lockdown after the first coronavirus cases were identified on 5 March, lifting it at the end of May.

A public health state of emergency was reimposed for 30 days from early June.

Bethlehem was closed from Monday morning after a major spike in COVID-19 infections.

The cities of Hebron and Nablus were also already under lockdown.

Tens of thousands of West Bank Palestinians travel to work in Israel as day laborers and Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has urged them to self-isolate for 14 days.

Those who are temporarily staying in Israel have been asked not to return home for the time being.

Arab Israelis -- descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of Israel in 1948 -- have also been asked to avoid visiting.
When the coronavirus pandemic compelled the government to close mosques more than three months ago to curb the spread of infections many worshippers were devastated. The azan, or call to prayer, was modified to include a verse that said pray in your dwellings. Now, to the relief and delight of worshippers, the call to prayer is back to normal. As of last Saturday prayers are once again allowed in mosques, though with new rules.



Worshippers must go with their own prayer mat, wear a mask, and stand at a distance from one another. In normal circumstances worshippers stand immediately next to each other and mosques are open all day. Now their doors open 10 minutes before prayer time, and close 10 minutes after prayers are finished.



The imam of a mosque in New Cairo told Al-Ahram Weekly that prayers begin immediately after the azan and the rules are displayed on a pillar for all to see. In normal circumstances, a short recess of 10 to 15 minutes is allowed after the call for prayers for people to get to the mosque. He said that ablutions should be performed at home as the bathrooms of mosques remain closed because of coronavirus.



Congregational Friday prayers, when mosques are normally packed, are not allowed yet, nor are memorial services and marriages.



Ahmed, a dentist who lives in Maadi, said that he stayed up on Friday night to catch Saturdays dawn prayer. I was overjoyed, he said, adding that while dawn prayers normally attract few worshippers, since the reopening of his mosque things have been different.



That is not the case everywhere. The New Cairo imam says the number of people coming to pray has declined drastically, it seems that people have become used to praying at home, or they are scared.



He estimates that the total number of people coming is three quarters less than before the virus.



While some people feel the reopening of mosques is a good thing, others fear the consequences.



Ahmed Abdallah is delighted. He uses a chair to pray so does not need to take a prayer mat. However, he takes disinfectant and sprays the chair before using it. He also sprays his hands with alcohol as he leaves the mosques. It is safe. We are positioned far from each other, he says, adding that he had missed his mosque and now it is open again nothing will keep him away.



In contrast, Mohamed Mahmoud thinks the reopening of mosques a bad idea. He worries that the rules will not be applied properly, which will definitely lead to more cases of infection and might undo the effects of the past three months quarantine.



Others are more optimistic. It is a good initiative for restoring the norms which existed prior to the spread of Covid-19, says Magdi Abdallah.



Although mosques have reopened, they can only be accessed by men and remain closed to women. I think it is the right thing to do for now, says Soha Salah. Women do not need to go to the mosque to pray like men do. It is better for them to pray at home and avoid any contact with people.



Women interact with children more than men do. They must take care of themselves if they are going to take care of their families.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

Short link:


You always hear speeches from President Obama or other prominent leaders about small businesses being the backbone of the economy and how they drive the economy. They create more new jobs and they are more innovative than some of their larger counterparts. So Congress saw the advantages of helping small businesses be more viable. In my opinion, over the last five years, small businesses have thrived because of the Norfolk district. We just got through the largest construction program in our history because of BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure). The Norfolk district awarded $3 billion to companies across the state and about $1 billion of it went to small businesses. A lot of the work was done in Fort Lee, Fort Eustis and Fort Belvoir. Our best year in terms of small business awards was FY09 where we awarded $306 million to small businesses. A lot of that was with the BRAC program.
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Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti and Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 13:20 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406633f460 1 National RUU-PKS,anti-sexual-violence-bill,sex-violence,sexual-violence,DPR,house-of-representatives,activist,sex-assault Free

A House of Representatives plan to withdraw the highly anticipated sexual violence bill (RUU PKS) from this years National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) priority list has caused a public outcry.

Lawmakers excluded the bill from the list during a meeting of the House Legislation Body (Baleg) on Tuesday. The House claimed deliberation of the bill was complicated, even though lawmakers had never deliberated the legislation and had already deferred the discussion for a year. The House is meeting with government representatives on Thursday to decide this years final legislative priority list.

National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) commissioner Mariana Amiruddin said delaying the bill meant the House had no concern for the victims of sexual violence.

Every minute of delay means more people fall victim to sexual violence and more victims are prevented from getting justice, she said on Wednesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Many Twitter users bristled at the excuse that the deliberation was complicated, calling it lazy and ignorant as data showed sustained rates of sexual violence. Komnas Perempuan recently reported that there were 431,471 cases of violence against women throughout 2019, an increase of 6 percent from the previous year when there were 406,178 cases. Of the figures, 5,509 cases of sexual violence were reported in 2018, and 4,176 were reported in 2019.

You guys call yourselves representatives, but who the hell do you represent anyway? People are literally begging for [the bill], Twitter user @mcflurrycendol said on Tuesday.

you guys call yourselves representatives but who the hell did you represent anyway??? when people literally beg for this??? #SahkanRUUPKS #SahkanRUUPenghapusanKekerasanSeksual pic.twitter.com/5ehIGc36TT   (@mcflurrycendol) June 30, 2020

Institute for Criminal and Justice Reform (ICRJ) director Erasmus Napitupulu said the bill had to remain a top priority.

The House and the government must acknowledge that the bills spirit is to provide protection for victims of sexual violence, Erasmus said in a written statement on Wednesday.

As it stands, many victims of sexual violence in Indonesia fear to report their cases because of social stigma. Getting legal and psychological assistance is even harder.

Some victims have faced legal prosecution for pursuing their cases. A woman named Baiq Nuril, for example, was jailed for reporting sexual harassment and later pardoned.

The sexual violence bill, if passed, would prohibit the criminalization of victimhood and would forbid law enforcement to blame or degrade victims or to saddle victims with the responsibility of searching for evidence in their own cases.

The sexual violence bill would add forms of admissible evidence, such as the victims statement, the visum et psychiatricum (psychological report), electronic information and other documents that provide an opportunity for the victim to meet evidentiary requirements  all of which are absent in the current Criminal Code.

The bill also addresses the lack of access to assistance for victims, the states ignorance of the victims recovery and the absence of a comprehensive mechanism to prevent and handle sexual violence, Erasmus said.

He said the government, through Presidential Regulation No.82/2018 on health insurance, had excluded coverage for treatment related to sexual violence. Therefore, the cost of a visum et repertum (legal medical report) was not covered by the state, nor was the cost of a visum et psychiatricum.

The bill was highly important as it would enforce victims rights, such as the right to recovery and the right not to be revictimized during the legal process, Erasmus said.

He said addressing sexual violence was, indeed, complicated and needed the governments support.

If the government gives up just because its hard, then victims of sexual violence once again become victims, he added.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 student activists, academics, institutions as well as survivors of sexual violence across the country also signed an open statement to push for the endorsement of the bill this year.

The statement was signed in less than 24 hours from Wednesday evening to Thursday afternoon by 1,250 individuals and institutions, who called themselves the Society against Sexual Violence Supporting the RUU PKS Bill (#MAKSAdukungRUUPKS).

The phenomenon of sexual violence still exists in Indonesia and the number of cases continues to increase. There are still no laws or regulations that comprehensively [...] provide protection for the victims, the group said in the statement.

Indonesia has been charging perpetrators of sexual violence under the Criminal Code, which the group considers a product of colonial legislation that has not been sufficient to accommodate the needs of security and freedom from various forms of sexual violence.

The sexual violence bill offers an up-to-date perspective that such a law should be instituted based on the experiences of victims, the group said.

Yacko, an Indonesian rapper, released a song responding to the Houses plan to delay the bill:

Difficult?

So you think what were going through is not difficult? You know whats difficult?

Difficult is being unable to heal from the trauma of being sexually assaulted, even after years.

Difficult is when a rape victim sees a doctor or a police officer but is asked do you pray five times a day?

Difficult is when a pregnant woman is told to marry the rapist.

Difficult is getting justice for victims of sexual violence when the law is nonexistent.

Difficult is knowing a child who is raped by their own family.

Difficult is when clothes are always the ones to blame for sexual harassment.

Difficult is seeing perpetrators walk away and people normalize it.

Difficult is knowing the House is not protecting the victims.

Yacko posted a video of the song on her account @yacko on Wednesday.
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Linkedin Andrew Osborn and Vladimir Soldatkin (Reuters) Moscow, Russia  Thu, July 2, 2020 07:37 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406631eec8 2 World Russia,Vladimir-Putin,administration,Kremlin,politics,governance Free

Russians appeared to have paved the way for Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036 by voting overwhelmingly for a package of constitutional changes which will also boost pensions, initial results of a nationwide vote showed on Wednesday.

Partial results, announced five hours before polls closed, indicate the former KGB officer who has ruled Russia for more than two decades as president or prime minister will win the right to run for two more terms. That means he could remain president for 16 more years.

The Central Election Commission said just over 70% of votes counted across the world's largest country had supported changing the constitution. Almost 29% had voted no of the 2.68% of ballots counted. Fuller results are due at 1900 GMT.

Russians have been encouraged to vote with prize draws offering flats and an ad campaign highlighting other constitutional amendments in the same reform bundle, such as the pensions protection and a de facto ban on same-sex marriages.

One-off payments of 10,000 rubles ($141) were transferred to those with children at Putin's order as people headed to polling stations on Wednesday, the last day of the vote, held over seven days to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

"I voted for the amendments to the constitution," Moscow resident Mikhail Volkov said. "We need radical changes and I'm for them."

Others voted for the changes with less enthusiasm.

"I didn't read about the amendments if I'm honest," another voter, Lyudmila, said. "What's the point of voting if they've already decided for you. It's like that in our country - read something and vote. I voted."

Turnout had reached nearly 60% by midday, election officials said. The required turnout is 50% and the amendments will pass if they are backed by a simple majority of voters.

Putin, 67, made no mention of how the changes could affect his own career in an eve-of-vote speech on Tuesday. They would allow him to run for another two six-year, consecutive stints after his current term expires in 2024.

Putin has said he has yet to decide on his future. Critics say they are sure he will run again, but some analysts say he may want to keep his options open to avoid becoming a lame duck.

At 60%, according to the Levada pollster, his approval rating remains high but well down on its peak of nearly 90%.

With Russia reporting thousands of new COVID-19 cases each day, opponents have been unable to stage protests but have mocked the vote online, sharing photographs of polling stations in apartment stairwells, courtyards and the boot of a car.

Small protests

A small group of activists staged a symbolic protest on Red Square on Wednesday using their prostrate bodies to form the date - 2036 - before being swiftly detained by police, TV Rain reported.

The "No! Campaign," called on supporters to vote against the changes and then discuss the result on Moscow's Pushkinskaya Square while respecting social distancing rules.

"We need to remind the authorities that we exist and that there are tens of millions of us who do not want Putin to rule until 2036," Andrei Pivovarov, an activist, said in an online video.

Mass gatherings are banned in Moscow due to the virus and Pivovarov's suggestion of a public discussion was carefully worded. He avoided calling on people to gather, saying only that he wanted to discuss the vote's outcome "with other free people" and would be in the square on Wednesday evening.

More than a dozen police vehicles were parked in the square beforehand, where a lone masked protester stood with a sign saying "I/We are the constitution".

The opposition Communist Party, which has advised supporters to vote "no", has complained of irregularities.

Gennady Zyuganov, its leader, said that Putin and voters needed to weigh the consequences of sticking to the Russian leader's policies, which he said had failed the economy.

"Putin needs to choose," said Zyuganov. "For him the moment of truth is coming."

Putin has said he wants a clean vote, something election officials have pledged to deliver.

Golos, a non-governmental organization that monitors elections, has said it will not be able to confirm the outcome of the vote as legitimate.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 15:02 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406634956b 4 City Soekarno-Hatta-International-Airport,Airport,Airlines,passengers,COVID-19,coronavirus,virus-korona-indonesia,pandemic Free

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport has recorded an influx of air passengers and airport visitors as airlines have resumed operations under eased restrictions in the transition to the "new normal" policy.

Airport spokesperson Febri Simatupang said tens of thousands of passengers had packed the countrys main aviation hub in Tangerang, Banten, following the gradual lifting of physical restrictions starting in mid-June.

As we know, the number of passengers at Soekarno-Hatta during the mudik travel ban varied between 5,000 and 6,000 [per day], Febri told kompas.com on Wednesday, referring to the tradition of people returning to their hometowns for Idul Fitri.

"During the [transitional period], that figure has shot up to between 17,000 and 20,000 [per day]," he said.

He added that the majority of airlines  including all airlines under the Garuda Indonesia Group and the Lion Air Group  had resumed commercial flights in compliance with the latest health protocols to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission among passengers.

Read also: Soekarno-Hatta airport train to resume in July

Despite the notable increase in passenger numbers, the figures still pale in comparison to pre-pandemic figures at 9.4 percent to 10 percent of regular passenger traffic.

Its still far from normal. The number of passengers at Soekarno-Hatta before the pandemic typically ranged from 150,000 to 180,000 per day, he said.

The airport's management took considerable flak ahead of the May 24-25 Idul Fitri holiday, when photos of thousands of passengers flocking to Terminal 2 despite the physical distancing rules circulated in the press and on social media.

According to the latest government policy on air travel, all passengers must produce a document showing a negative COVID-19 result for a rapid diagnostic test or the more accurate swab test using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method before they are permitted to fly. (rfa)
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Ankara, Turkey  Thu, July 2, 2020 09:35 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406632795f 2 World EU,Turkey,coronavirus,Travel-Safe,travel-ban,COVID-19,coronavirus-restrictions,COVID-19-travel-ban,COVID-19-travel-restriction,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Turkey said on Wednesday it is disappointed by the European Union's decision to exclude it from a list of countries recommended for non-essential travel and called on the bloc to correct the "mistake" as soon as possible.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry statement came after the EU excluded Turkey, along with the United States and other countries, from its initial travel "safe list".

"The measures Turkey has taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic as well as her efforts and success in this respect are evident," ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in the statement.

"We expect the correction of this mistake regarding the travel restrictions for our citizens as soon as possible."

There have been nearly 200,000 cases of coronavirus in Turkey, with a death toll of more than 5,100 and new daily cases currently running at around 1,300.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy will visit Berlin on Thursday for talks with German officials to discuss the pandemic and tourism among other issues. Germany is a key source of tourists for Turkey.

Earlier on Wednesday, President Tayyip Erdogan had told officials from his AK Party that Europe had maintained "restrictive" policies towards Turkey which were based on political rather than health factors.
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Linkedin William James (Reuters) London, United Kingdom  Thu, July 2, 2020 07:17 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406631da34 2 World UK-China,Hong-Kong,Hong-Kong-treaty,Hong-Kong-autonomy,Hong-Kong-protests,Hong-Kong-security-law Free

The United Kingdom said China's imposition of a security law on Hong Kong was a "clear and serious" violation of the 1984 Joint Declaration and that London would offer around 3 million residents of the former colony a path to British citizenship.

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and tear gas and arrested nearly 200 people as protesters took to the streets in defiance of sweeping security legislation introduced by China that they say is aimed at snuffing out dissent.

"The enactment and imposition of this national security law constitute a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration," Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament on Wednesday.

Johnson said Britain would stand by its pledge to give British National Overseas (BNO) passport-holders in Hong Kong a path to British citizenship, allowing them to settle in the United Kingdom.

Almost 3 million Hong Kong residents are eligible for the passport. There were 349,881 holders of the passports as of February.

Hong Kong's autonomy was guaranteed under the "one country, two systems" agreement enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by then Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Hong Kong was handed back to China on July 1, 1997, after more than 150 years of British rule - imposed after Britain defeated China in the First Opium War. China had never recognized the "unequal treaties" allowing Britain's rule of Hong Kong island, the Kowloon peninsula and later its lease of the rural New Territories.

Hong kong row

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain had carefully assessed China's national security legislation since it was published late on Tuesday.

"It constitutes a clear violation of the autonomy of Hong Kong, and a direct threat to the freedoms of its people, and therefore I'm afraid to say it is a clear and serious violation of the Joint Declaration treaty between the United Kingdom and China," Raab told Reuters and the BBC.

Authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong have repeatedly said the legislation is aimed at a few "troublemakers" and will not affect rights and freedoms, nor investor interests.

Raab said he would set out shortly the action Britain would take with its international partners.

"China, through this national security legislation, is not living up to its promises to the people of Hong Kong," Raab said. "We will live up to our promises."

Asked about how the West should deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Raab said:

"Obviously, China is a leading member of the international community. And it is precisely because of that, that we expect it to live up to its international obligations and its international responsibilities. For trust in China's ability to do that, today has been a big step backwards."
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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2, 2020 11:57 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066336a89 1 City National-University,UNAS,student-protest,civil-rights,university,tuition,demonstration Free

A student from the National University (UNAS) in South Jakarta has been reported to the police after protesting against the universitys fee discount policy earlier this month.

Rasya Namadhania was part of a crowd that gathered outside the UNAS campus during a series of demonstrations held by UNAS students on June 10 to 12.

One of the students, Dendy, said the demonstrations were solidarity events for fellow students being questioned inside the campus for campaigning against the same issue online.

During the three-day rally, the universitys disciplinary commission summoned 27 students who had taken part in an online campaign that was considered detrimental to the reputation of UNAS.

We dont know who reported Rasya, but it was either the commission or the MPR [marketing and public relations]. They said she committed violence, Dendy told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Read also: University BEMs urge Nadiem to cut tuition during COVID-19 'study at home' policy

The incident occurred in late March after UNAS issued a rectors decree and an MPR release stipulating that tuition fees would be discounted for 10,000 students, with each to receive Rp 100,000 (US$6.90) in assistance to cope with the impacts of the pandemic.

However, students protested that not all students had received the discount as the university had 13,477 active students, according to data they cited from the Research and Technology Ministry.

UNAS students criticized the university for budgeting only Rp 1 billion for the discounts and assistance, as it received Rp 76 billion from tuition fees per semester, according to data collected independently by the students.

[We calculated] UNAS revenue from 10,209 students, but we have not calculated [the remaining students] as our investigation has been limited by UNAS lack of data transparency, the students said in a recent statement.

They said they had also talked with lecturers and support staff and learned that the university had cut the salaries of permanent lecturers from Rp 5.6 million to Rp 4.5 million, while parking attendants who had been sent home no longer received any payment.

In early May, students initiated the UNAS Gawat Darurat (UNAS Emergency) movement and started an online campaign to urge the university to be transparent with its financial data and ensure fair policies for all students, lecturers and workers.

The university issued another regulation on May 20, providing an additional Rp 150,000 for each student impacted by the pandemic. However, the regulation did not specify the number of recipients.

The students continued the campaign nonetheless, with tensions escalating. Dozens of students reported facing intimidation on social media, with two students receiving phone calls from unknown sources and one student being directly contacted by a dean who told her to delete a post on social media.

Read also: Poster boy of student protests found guilty but walks free from prison

The online protests continued before the disciplinary commission began summoning student campaigners for questioning.

From June 10 to June 12, as the students were questioned at the campus disciplinary commission office, other UNAS students held demonstrations outside.

On June 10, the demonstrators claimed they were verbally intimidated and forcefully dispersed by security officers, which led to a clash. Some students reported being beaten and kicked.

They also said that a Bunda Mulia University (UBM) student and member of the Indonesian student press who came to observe the demonstration was apprehended by UNAS security before reportedly being taken to the Pasar Minggu Police headquarters.

[The UBM student] used his phone to document the use of violence and threats by UNAS security staff to intimidate the protesters, but [the files] were deleted by the security officers, the students said.

The demonstration continued on June 11, with another clash between the students and security officers, before ending on June 12, when demonstrators burned tires and their UNAS alma mater suits.

We, as students who are calling for our full entitlement to educational fee compensation amid the pandemic, demand our democratic rights the students said, while calling on the university to involve students in the formation of campus policies.

The students alleged Rasya had been hit more than once on June 10 and 11.

Read also: Life without internet: Bornean students learn by radio during pandemic

The Jakarta Police did not immediately respond to the Posts request for comment.

According to a letter issued by South Jakarta Police criminal investigation unit head Comr. Telly Alvin, Rasya is scheduled to be questioned on Thursday.

The letter states that Rasyas case was reported on June 11 and had been described as a criminal act of joint violence in public, as outlined under Article 170 of the Criminal Code.
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Linkedin Humeyra Pamuk (Reuters) Washington, United States  Thu, July 2, 2020 08:51 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066323772 2 World US-China,US-China-tension,coronavirus,coronavirus-effect,COVID-19,COVID-19-quarantine,coronavirus-testing,politics-of-covid-19,bilateral-spat,bilateral-tension Free

The United States has postponed flights for dozens of diplomats who had planned to return to China later this month, after failing to reach agreement with Beijing over issues including COVID-19 testing and quarantine.

Five months after the coronavirus epidemic forced the evacuation of some 1,300 US diplomats and family members from China, Washington and Beijing remain locked in negotiations over conditions for their return, according to more than a dozen internal State Department emails seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter.

The impasse comes as the pandemic intensifies in many parts of the world, including the United States, with the global tally this week topping 10 million cases and half a million deaths.

It also comes as relations between the world's two largest economies have sunk to their lowest in decades over issues including China's handling of the pandemic, bilateral trade and a new security law for Hong Kong.

In a previously unreported June 30 email, Terry Branstad, the US ambassador to China, told embassy staff that two charter flights for diplomats returning to Shanghai and Tianjin planned for July 8 and July 10 respectively had been scrapped and would be rescheduled.

"Protecting the health and safety of our community remains our guiding principle and our top priority in this unprecedented situation," Branstad wrote. "This means that flight plans will not be confirmed until we have reached an agreement that meets these goals."

The State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the flight cancellations.

In an emailed response to Reuters questions, the State Department did not specifically discuss negotiations with Beijing, but said: "Mission China and the Department have engaged with Chinese authorities at both the Central Government and the local level to receive assurances of the safe and orderly return of our employees and family."

A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said there had been close communication regarding the return of US diplomats to China.

"The virus is still spreading overseas and China continues to be under a fair amount of pressure to prevent the import of cases from overseas," the spokesperson said in fax response to Reuters' questions.

"The epidemic control measures for the diplomatic corps in China are applied equally across the board. China strives to preserve its hard-won achievement in countering the virus together with the diplomatic corps, and to provide good conditions and a good living environment for everyone to work and live in China."

'Significant logistical hurdles'

People familiar with the matter say Washington and Beijing have not been able to overcome the "significant logistical hurdles", including the lack of an agreement on Chinese testing and quarantine procedures for diplomats and families that were cited in a May 28 State Department email to China staff.

Diplomats say agreeing to be tested contravenes the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. While an internal State Department guideline dated June 17 says it has approved a plan that includes testing under Chinese procedures upon arrival, sources familiar with the matter say the agency does not want to waive the diplomatic inviolability of staff and is still negotiating with Chinese authorities on the issue.

Several diplomats said they were concerned about the potential for Chinese authorities to take DNA samples and the possibility of parents being separated from their children if some family members tested positive.

"This essentially puts us at the mercy of the Chinese government, with whom tensions have run extremely high," a US diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters while preparing to return to work in China.

"We are in a situation where officers are being forced to decide between being separated from their families or bringing them into a potentially dangerous situation," the diplomat said.

The experiences of diplomats taking the first and so far only flight back to China, to Tianjin in late May, had concerned some others planning to return, several diplomatic sources said.

Around 60 passengers of 'Flight One' were met by more than 150 Chinese officials in HAZMAT suits who directed them for COVID-19 testing, according to a newsletter for China Mission staff, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

Swabs were taken by US medical officials, with the tests conducted by Chinese labs.

Diplomats were questioned about their activities prior to the 18-hour journey in a cargo plane from Washington.

"Have you been to any parties? Have you eaten in a restaurant? Do you feel good?" Chinese officials asked before the American diplomats were ushered into a VIP lounge to wait some 10 hours for their test results before they could leave.

Uncertainty about returning has been magnified by regulations that cap the amount of time the State Department can cover the expenses of diplomats evacuated from their posts.

"A lot of people don't feel like going back, but after 180 days, you're out of options," said another foreign service officer familiar with the matter. "Basically your choice is to curtail your job and choose a different assignment."

A State Department spokeswoman acknowledged that 180 days was the limit for evacuees to receive allowances, and said the agency continued to "assess options on how best to protect and support employees and family members in China and across the globe."
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Linkedin Sangmi Cha, Andreas Rinke and Alistair Smout (Reuters) Seoul, South Korea/Berlin, Germany/London, United Kingdom  Thu, July 2, 2020 09:53 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406632a123 2 World coronavirus,coronavirus-effect,COVID-19,COVID-19-drugs,remdesivir,COVID-19-treatment,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Some governments in Europe and Asia said on Wednesday they have enough of Gilead's COVID-19 anti-viral remdesivir for now despite fears of shortages since the US drugmaker pledged most output to its home market for the next three months.

The pharmaceutical company's move stirred the global debate about equitable access to drugs and brought concerns about accessibility, especially in regions where coronavirus rates are still high or there have been new outbreaks.

Remdesivir is in high demand after the intravenously-administered medicine helped shorten hospital recovery times in a clinical trial. It is believed to be most effective in treating COVID-19 patients earlier in the course of disease than other therapies like the steroid dexamethasone.

Still, because remdesivir is given intravenously over at least a five-day period it is generally being used on patients sick enough to require hospitalization.

Britain and Germany said they had sufficient reserves for now, though they were weighing options for when those might be exhausted.

South Korea, for its part, has started distributing stocks, but plans talks to purchase more supplies in August.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week said it had secured all of Gilead's projected production for July and 90% of its production in August and September, in addition to an allocation for clinical trials.

The European Union (EU) said on Wednesday it was in negotiations to obtain doses for its 27 member nations.

"Supply chains under strain"

"The buying-up of remdesivir is disappointing news, not necessarily because of the shortages it implies for other countries, but because it so clearly signals an unwillingness to cooperate with other countries, and the chilling effect this has on international agreements about intellectual property rights," said Ohid Yaqub, senior lecturer at the Science Policy Research Unit of Britain's University of Sussex.

Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer and lead for Britain's Department for Health and Social Care, told a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday that new drugs such as remdesivir were likely to be in "relatively short supply in the first instance" versus existing generic ones like dexamethasone.

The German health ministry said that the conditional market approval Gilead is expected to receive from the EU's executive Commission this week carries an implied obligation to deliver sufficient quantities in the future.

"We trust Gilead will meet this obligation," it said.

Gilead has said it linked up with generic drugmakers based in India and Pakistan to supply remdesivir in 127 developing countries, but it has not discussed in detail its supply strategy for developed nations outside the United States.

"The issue is the high demand for a drug that is still an investigational medicine and probably had not been scaled up to a manufacturing level when the outbreak occurred," said Gino Martini, the UK Royal Pharmaceutical Societys chief scientist.

"The US action means clinical supply chains will be under strain. It will be down to manufacturers Gilead to boost production in order to satisfy demand for the use of remdesivir."
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 2 2020

The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and various human rights organizations have sent an open letter to the Indonesian government, demanding transparency in its contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an open letter to the Communications and Information Ministry, Indonesias representative to the AICHR and 13 organizations urged the government to issue a specific regulation on its contact tracing efforts, including on the data collected and how the data should be treated to protect privacy.

In April 2020, as COVID-19 spread, Indonesia rolled out the PeduliLindungi app. While other countries have released the source code of their exposure notification apps, the only available information about PeduliLindungi is from the government. The source code of the app has never been released and the privacy policy of the app has...
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Linkedin Gemma Holliani Cahya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, July 3 2020

For years, media coverage of Papua has straddled narratives on politics, natural resources management, human rights, development and national security, attracting attention from around the world.

However, there is one issue that is still rarely discussed in public  the casual racism experienced by native Papuans in their day-to-day lives.

I remember I sometimes regretted my decision to study in Java. If only I had known it would be that hurtful, I would have just gone to a university in Sorong, Norce Herlin Mak Momao, 24, told The Jakarta Post recently.

Like many young Papuans, Norce left Sorong, her homeland, in 2013 and flew to Yogyakarta to go to university there, hoping to benefit from better higher education standards.

It was her first time living far away from her family, but she quickly learned how pe...
Marshall: I would answer with a question: Do we want to remain a healthy, viable community? If you look around our region, our major educational institutions like ODU, EVMS, NSU, TCC and others have built their reputations. For them to take the next step and continue to compete for the best faculty and students, they need strong endowments to support teaching, research and public service missions. Despite the recession, capital projects and new buildings have flourished in our area. We have major construction at all our colleges, and both the new YMCA on Granby Street and Heron's Landing in Chesapeake [a Virginia Supportive Housing apartment community for formerly homeless adults] have just been built. All these facilities will need gifts, grants, and investments year after year to sustain them. We have to step it up more than just a notch.
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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, July 3 2020

The Trade Ministry is trying to spur exports by small and medium enterprises (SME) by connecting them with potential buyers abroad through virtual business matching events.

In a virtual meet-up in mid-May, West Nusa Tenggara-based brown sugar producer Gula Merah Lombok secured a purchase agreement worth Rp 529.8 million (US$37,000) with Bakso Rawit Ani Pty. Ltd, which sells meatball and sambal products in Australia.

Read also: Government unveils new rule to guarantee loans for MSMEs as risk aversion rises

Kasan Muhri, the Trade Ministrys director general of export development, revealed on Monday that there would be at least four virtual business matching event...
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang and Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, July 3 2020

The national elections are four years away, but the Indonesian political scene, especially in the digital realm, has seen mudslinging and simmering tension between parties. The most recent target of this anger has been the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) over a bill on Pancasila, the national ideology.

So-called buzzers  semi-anonymous online trolls  played the infamous communism card against the PDI-P after the party proposed a bill that would regulate Pancasila and create an agency to interpret the ideology.

On June 24, protesters at a rally organized by the 212 Alumni Brotherhood (PA 212) burned the PDI-Ps flag on the street in front of the House of Representatives in Jakarta. They had assembled to protest the Pancasila ideological guidelines bill, alleging that it would open the door to communism in the country...
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Yangon, Myanmar  Thu, July 2, 2020 14:49 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066347176 2 SE Asia Myanmar,mining-accident,miners,landslides Free

The bodies of at least 100 jade miners were pulled from the mud after a landslide in northern Myanmar on Thursday, in one of the worst ever accidents to hit the perilous industry.

Scores die each year while working in the country's lucrative but poorly regulated jade industry, which uses low-paid migrant workers to scrape out a gem highly coveted in China.

The disaster struck after an early bout of heavy rainfall close to the Chinese border in Kachin state, the Myanmar Fire Services Department said in a Facebook post.

"The miners were smothered by a wave of mud," the statement said. "A total of 113 bodies have been found so far."

They had apparently defied a warning not to work the treacherous open mines during the rains, local police told AFP.

Rescuers worked all morning to retrieve the bodies from a mud lake, pulling them to the surface and using tires as makeshift rafts.

Police told AFP that 99 bodies were found by noon, with another 20 injured.

They said search and rescue efforts had been suspended because of more heavy rains.

The workers were scavenging for the gemstones on the sharp mountainous terrain in Hpakant township, where furrows from earlier digs had already loosened the earth.

Photos posted on the fire service Facebook page showed a search and rescue team wading through a valley flooded by the mudslide.

Rescuers carried bodies wrapped in tarpaulins out of the mud lake as a deluge poured down from above.

Unverified footage of the scene showed a torrent of sludge crashing through the terrain as workers scrambled up the sharp escarpments.

Chinese demand

Police said the death toll could have been even higher if authorities had not warned people to stay away from the mining pits the day before.

"It could have been hundreds of people dead -- more than this, but the notice might have saved some," superintendent Than Win Aung told AFP.

Open jade mines have pockmarked Hpakant's remote terrain and given it the appearance of a vast moonscape.

Landslides in the area are common, especially when rainfall hammers the muddy terrain during Myanmar's notoriously severe monsoon season.

The workers combing through the earth are often from impoverished ethnic communities who are looking for scraps left behind by big firms.

A major collapse in November 2015 left more than 100 dead.

A mudslide buried more than 50 workers last year, when a days long recovery effort saw police digging through a "mud lake" to retrieve bodies from the sludge.

Myanmar is one of the world's main sources of jadeite and the industry is largely driven by insatiable demand for the green gem from neighboring China.

The mines are mired in secrecy, though Global Witness claims their operators are linked to former junta figures, the military elite and their cronies.

The watchdog estimated that the industry was worth some $31 billion in 2014, although very little reaches state coffers.

Northern Myanmar's abundant natural resources -- including jade, timber, gold and amber -- help finance both sides of a decades-long civil war between ethnic Kachin insurgents and the military.

The fight to control the mines and the revenues they bring frequently traps local civilians in the middle.
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters)  Thu, July 2, 2020 08:41 354 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066322790 2 SE Asia Myanmar,election,democratic-reform Free

Myanmar state media on Wednesday announced Nov. 8 as the date for a parliamentary election set to serve as a test of the countrys first democratic government in half a century.

A statement attributed to union election commission chairman Hla Thein and read out during an evening broadcast by Myanmar Radio and Television said a "multi-party general election for the parliament" would be held on that day.

The polls are seen by analysts as an important test of Myanmar's transition away from direct military rule.

Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won power in a landslide in 2015 that ended decades of junta rule.

But her administration has come under pressure internationally over a military crackdown that drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh in 2017.

At home, while Suu Kyi remains overwhelmingly popular, her government has struggled to match sky-high expectations and has had to rebut criticism over escalating fighting with ethnic armed groups and slower-than-expected economic growth.

The army continues to wield enormous power under the constitution, which guarantees it control over key ministries, and 25 per cent of seats in parliament.

Monywa Aung Shin, a senior member of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party and editor of its journal, told Reuters by phone the party would compete in all constituencies across Myanmar and was developing its list of candidates.

"Just like in 2015, we do believe that we will win a landslide," he said.

A spokesman for the major opposition, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, could not be reached for comment by Reuters.

While the NLD is expected to do better than others in the election, analysts say its large majority could be dented.

"There is greater disaffection with the NLD today, especially among minority ethnic communities," said Richard Horsey, a Myanmar-based political analyst with the International Crisis Group.

"But Aung San Suu Kyi remains extremely popular with her base - the Bamar majority in the center of the country - and it is difficult to see any outcome other than another NLD landslide."
American Airlines resumed trying to fill its planes to full capacity Wednesday, abandoning some coronavirus precautions and drawing criticism from public health officials as the pandemic runs wild in parts of America.

While other carriers such as Delta Air Lines decided in May to keep some seats empty so travelers could practice social distancing, others like United Airlines had not taken such measures because at that point no one was flying anyway.

The decision by American Airlines comes as steps to reopen the US economy coincide with a major surge in COVID-19 cases.

American Airlines, the world's largest carrier, disclosed Friday that "customers may notice that flights are booked to capacity starting July 1."



United has been willing to sell every possible seat throughout the pandemic. https://t.co/m0zsQphgxN  CNN (@CNN) June 29, 2020

Robert Redfield, the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told lawmakers this week the American Airlines decision had caused "substantial disappointment."

"We don't think it's the right message," he told a Senate hearing Tuesday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top expert on infectious diseases, also criticized the decision as he warned that the country could reach 100,000 new virus cases a day if more is not done to suppress the pandemic.

"Obviously, that is something that is of concern. I'm not sure what went into that decision making," he said at the same Senate hearing. "I think in the confines of an airplane that becomes even more problematic."

Air as clean in hospitals

The virus has claimed more than 127,000 lives in the US and as of Tuesday night it had recorded more than 42,000 new cases in the previous 24 hours, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.

Because of the sharp rise in deaths and cases of infection, particularly in the south and west, some states have put the reopening of their economies on pause.

American Airlines appears to be moving in the opposite direction when it comes to coronavirus precautions.

"We are unwavering in our commitment to the safety and well-being of our customers and team members," a company official told AFP.

He said American has "multiple layers of protection" for passengers including required face coverings, enhanced cleaning procedures, and a "pre-flight COVID-19 symptom checklist."

The company is also suggesting that customers change their travel plans, at no cost until September 30, when they are informed that their flight will be full.

Delta said Friday it will continue to block off middle seats until that same date. Southwest Airlines has taken a similar decision.

A United Airlines spokesman slammed the idea as a "PR strategy", however, pointing out that it does not allow for six feet of space between each passenger.

Other carriers such as JetBlue and Frontier also continue to limit their passenger loads.

Airlines have been devastated as people stopped flying due to international travel restrictions, so carriers are eager to fill domestic routes.

American Airlines defends itself saying it hand-cleans its aircraft thoroughly, including "seat buckles, seats, tray tables and other surfaces."

Like other carriers it says it applies an electrostatic spray inside the aircraft every seven days which "kills 99.9999 pc of viruses and bacteria within 10 minutes," according to the company official.

He said American is the only network airline that uses a product on a government-issued environmental safety list that provides continued seven-day protection against bacteria, mold, and viruses including the one that causes COVID-19.

And the air filtration system on American planes changes the air completely every two to four minutes, similar to the standard for hospitals, this official said.

Asked by AFP about the lack of overall rules for flying, the Federal Aviation Administration said it has been "clear that passengers should wear face coverings while traveling by air, for their own protection and the protection of those around them."

It said it expects people to follow precautions recommended by the CDC and the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Qatar Airways resumed services to Bali on Wednesday.

The services are available seven times a week, with its QR962 flight scheduled to depart from Doha's Hamad International Airport (HIA) at 12:45 a.m. and arrive at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar at 3:45 p.m. Meanwhile its QR961 flight will take off from Bali at 10 p.m. and land in Doha at 2:35 a.m. the day after.

According to a statement, the services utilize a Boeing 787-8 that can accommodate 22 and 232 business and economy class passengers, respectively.

The state-owned flag carrier of Qatar has also revealed plans to increase flights to Jakarta from Doha with 11-weekly services starting July 7.

Qatar Airways has shown to be a responsible and reliable airline during this COVID-19 pandemic and we are delighted to resume services to Bali, one of the most visited tourist destinations, along with an increased flight frequency to Jakarta. We would very much like to support the recovery of tourism in Indonesia and look forward to the return of international leisure travel," said Qatar Airways VP for Southeast Asia Jared Lee in the statement, adding that his side believed vacationers would steadily return as entry restrictions around the world began to ease.

Amid the pandemic, the airline has introduced personal protective equipment (PPE) for its cabin crew, which includes gloves, face masks, safety glasses and protective gowns fitted over their uniforms.

It provides complimentary protective kits for all passengers, which include a face mask, gloves and hand sanitizer gel. It also distributes disposable face shields for adults and children at the check-in counters at Hamad International Airport or at the boarding gates in other destinations. (kes)
Take a few minutes and scroll below for a look back at the week's local news and sports stories:
MORNING SUN FILE PHOTO - In this photo from earlier this month, every other booth in The Bird Bar & Grill, 223 S. Main St., in Mt. Pleasant, is taped off in anticipation of the popular spot's reopening.
Renowned blues artist Larry McCray, of Saginaw, will perform in Coleman on July 24 in a concert to benefit victims of the recent Midland County flooding. (Photo courtesy of Coleman Faith United Methodist Church.)
She targeted Iranian nationals by advertising her immigration business in Iranian publications, television and online, according to court documents. All of her ads were placed in Farsi and she used her Iranian maiden name to advertise her business.
Elizabethtown, KY (42701)

Today

Thunderstorms, some with heavy rain this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low 57F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Flooding possible in poor drainage areas..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some with heavy rain this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low 57F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Flooding possible in poor drainage areas.
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A mother and daughter who disputed charges at a nail salon allegedly teamed up to attack a manager.

The incident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. June 18 at Happy Nails, 23023 W. Outer Drive.

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According to the victim, a mother and her daughter came to the salon to dispute charges made on the mothers credit card for services they received on June 16. Both told the manager they believed they were overcharged for the services.

The manager told them that the owner would be in shortly to discuss the charges, so she asked them to wait outside due to their unpleasant behavior.

A few minutes later, the two re-entered the salon. The daughter walked behind the counter and allegedly pulled the managers hair, then punched her in the head several times. The manager told police the mother stood in the doorway and cheered her daughter on.

An unknown customer intervened, prompting the pair to flee. They took off in a red car and a green/gray Nissan Xterra.

The manager said she had video of the incident and was expected to provide it to the detective bureau. She also told police she would look through the list of customers on that day and would provide the names of the suspects.

Written statements were taken from two customers who witnessed the altercation. Both statements mirrored the account given by the manager.

The only description of the pair is that they are both white women, with the mother appearing to be in her early 40s and the daughter in her early 20s.

Young man celebrating birthday dies after crashing into Lincoln Park appliance store A 22-year-old Southgate man is dead after he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a Lincoln Park appliance store.

Allen Park paramedics revive overdose victim passed out behind wheel A drug used to reverse opioid overdose is credited with reviving a driver found passed out behind the wheel of a car at an intersection.

Disorderly woman arrested after refusing to leave Allen Park hotel Police arrested a 21-year-old Ohio woman after she steadfastly refused to leave an Allen Park hotel.

+3 New early childhood center to be named after former Huron school board member, bus driver Construction of the Huron School Districts new early childhood center has begun and when it opens, it will have a very familiar name.
A 27-year-old confessed robber and serial rapist, Adeniyi Ajayi, begged the Nigerian Police to kill him, instead of imprisoning him.

Ajayi was arrested at 7-up area in Ijora, Lagos after an alleged failed robbery attempt in a hotel.

He disclosed that during his raids he raped women and maids in the presence of their husbands and bosses, as punishment for refusing to give him money, during operation.

His modus operandi was to break into victims homes, ordering them to cooperate with him or risk being killed by other members of his gang whom he claimed had surrounded the building.

When news of his arrest filtered round Sabo and its environ, eight victims, some of who were civil servants and lawyers, stormed SARS office to affirm that he raped them during operation.

Among them were also two female staff of a company in Sabo, who disclosed that he raped them right before their male colleagues, in broad daylight on June 16, 2020.

During interrogation, he admitted culpability. He said: Yes, I rape women whose husbands refused to give me money, and those tried to make things difficult for me during operation.

I operated alone, with just torchlight. But I would be giving orders to my imaginary gang members, on where to position themselves, just to give the impression that I was not alone.

The solution to this act is for the Police to waste my life because if they take me to prison, I will come back hardened and I dont want to keep disturbing Nigerians. They should waste my life. They should just kill me to end it all.
The APC's Mai Mala Buni Led Caretaker Committee are currently in a closed door meeting with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in Lagos.

The committee was led by Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni and Chairman of Progressive Governors Forum Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu.

The meeting is ongoing at Tinubus residence in Bourdillon, Ikoyi, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

Others at the closed door meeting include Secretary of Caretaker Committee of APC , Senator Akpan Udo-Edehe and APC Campaign Committee for Edo Election, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

The Caretaker Committee was set up by the APC following the dissolution of the National Working Committee of the party on the recommendation of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Buni was appointed chairman of the committee.

The committee had been on reconciliation move which saw them visiting key leaders of the APC.
Authorities are closing honky tonks, bars and other drinking establishments in some parts of the U.S. to stem the surge of COVID-19 infections  a move backed by sound science about risk factors that go beyond wearing or not wearing masks.

In the words of one study, it comes down to the danger of "heavy breathing in close proximity."

Crowded indoor spaces filled with people yelling, leaning close to hear one another and touching the same sticky surfaces are "the opposite of social distancing," said Dr. David Hamer of the Boston University School of Medicine.

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"Can you do social distancing at a bar? Can you wear a mask while drinking?" Hamer said. "Bars are the perfect place to break all those rules."

The rapid spread of a bar outbreak can swamp public health workers. In East Lansing, Michigan, an outbreak tied to a large brewpub near Michigan State University has spread to nearly 140 people in 12 counties, causing authorities to recruit nursing students and retirees to help with contact tracing.

"In 12 days, we went from two identified cases to 128, and, honestly, I don't have today's numbers yet," Ingham County health officer Linda Vail said Wednesday before cases shot up again. She described her outlook as "shocked and overwhelmed."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer responded by closing indoor seating in bars in parts of the state. Taverns will not have to close completely. They can sell to-go cocktails and keep outdoor patios open.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom took similar action, ordering bars and indoor restaurant dining to close again for the next three weeks in most of the state. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio delayed the city's resumption of indoor dining.

Two other factors at play in bars make them potential virus flashpoints. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, so people forget precautions, said Natalie Dean, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Florida.

Plus, the attractive, healthy person buying you a drink could be a silent carrier, shedding contagious virus with each breath.

"Young people have less severe illness, so they may be infected and able to infect others inadvertently," Dean said, noting outbreaks in Japan and South Korea associated with restaurants, bars and karaoke parties.

In recent weeks, college towns across America have seen clusters of cases that have been traced back to bars. Bars and restaurants near the University of Iowa and Iowa State University closed only weeks after the governor allowed them to reopen.

As of last week, 90% of cases in the county that is home to Kansas State University involved people ages 18 to 24. Health officials said most of them spent time in a bar and restaurant district known as "Aggieville."

Citing a similar spike, the Kansas county that includes the city of Lawrence and the University of Kansas also ordered bars and nightclubs to close beginning Friday for the next two weeks.

"Congregation at a bar, inside, is bad news," Dr. Anthony Fauci told a Senate panel Tuesday. "We really have got to stop that."

Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles and some Pennsylvania counties are closing bars to slow the spread of the virus. Florida and Colorado have told bars they cannot serve alcohol on site.

Most bar owners and employees feel that they have been unfairly singled out, particularly because restaurants are still open and serving alcohol. In Texas, bar owners said that on Friday after they were forced to close their doors, they noticed restaurants were still packed.

"You can go into a restaurant and they have bars, and you can have as many drinks as you want," said Nikki Forsberg, owner of the Old Ironhorse Saloon in Blanco, Texas. "It doesn't seem fair. Restaurants get this pass and the bars don't."

The bar's manager, Tami Cooley, said although she did not wear a mask at work, she felt the tavern was taking every precaution to safely stay open. No one was allowed to drink or order at the bar, and tables were limited to six people. They closed for a few days after finding out one of the bartenders had been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.

"We were cautious at our bar. We social-distanced, sanitized the tables, chairs, bathrooms, doorknobs," she said. "We did everything right."

In the Michigan bar outbreak investigation, "huge concern" now centers on the parents and grandparents exposed to the virus by their offspring who partied at the brewpub, Vail said. She worries about "a climb in secondary cases if the people we asked to self-quarantine didn't do that ... Where is this secondary transmission going to land?"

Saskia Popescu, an infectious diseases expert in Phoenix, said it's difficult to disinfect surfaces at a bar enough to make a difference. Even sitting at a table with friends at a bar involves loud talking and laughing that could spread virus. It's not worth it, she concludes.

"You can make a cocktail at home," Popescu said.

+2 Gretchen Whitmer closes indoor bar service, allows cocktails-to-go, extends SOS renewal rules Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has issued an executive order closing all indoor bar, nightclub, and strip club service in Lower Michigan to he

+2 COVID-19 forces temporary closure of Red Robin in Clinton Township The Red Robin restaurant in Clinton Township has been closed after two employees tested positive for COVID-19, a spokeswoman for the restaurant chain confirmed Tuesday.

+3 Oakland County confirms three COVID-19 cases at Fifth Avenue Royal Oak The Oakland County Health Division is reporting that three confirmed cases of COVID-19 visited Fifth Avenue Royal Oak on June 19.
The Oakland County Prosecutors Office has charged an Independence Township couple with felonious assault, a four-year felony, after a racially-charged gun incident outside the Chipotle Mexican Grill in Orion Township.

Jillian Deanne Wuestenberg, 32, and Eric Peter Wuestenberg, 42, who are white, are charged in a confrontation in which Jillian Wuestenberg pointed a gun at a Black family outside the restaurant Wednesday evening, July 1.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Eric Wuestenberg also exited the couples van with a handgun during the confrontation.

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Magistrate Marie Soma of the 52-3 District Court in Rochester Hills arraigned the Wuestenbergs Thursday afternoon. Both were given a $50,000 personal bond.

As part of their bond conditions, they must turn over all firearms, not engage in any assaultive behavior and may not leave the state.

Their next court appearance will be a July 4 probable cause conference before Judge Julie Nicholson.

A member of the unnamed Black family recorded video, which has gone viral, showing Jillian Wuestenberg pointing a handgun at the Black family. Both the Wuestenbergs and the Black family accuse each other of racism.

In the video, a member of the Black family tells Jillian Wuestenberg she should apologize for bumping the Black teenager as she entered the restaurant.

You cant just walk around calling white people racist, Jillian Wuestenberg says in the video. "White people aren't racist. No one is racist."

Bouchard said the Wuestenbergs told deputies they felt threatened because the mother of the Black teenager stood behind their vehicle as they tried to leave. The Wuestenbergs said the mother slapped the back of their vehicle and that members of the family made threatening statements.

The Black family told police that in addition to having a gun pointed at them, they felt threatened because the Wuestenbergs backed into the mother with their vehicle as the mother walked behind it.

Jillian Wuestenberg exited the vehicle and pointed the gun at the Black family, who are Pontiac residents, after the mother stepped behind the vehicle, Bouchard said.

Bouchard said both Wuestenbergs hold concealed pistol licenses and were carrying the guns legally.

He said the Oakland County Sheriffs Office received several 911 calls at about 6 p.m. Wednesday from bystanders who reported a white woman pointing a gun at a Black family at the restaurant, 4921 S. Baldwin Road near Brown Road in Orion Township.

A member of the Black family also called 911 and reported the incident.

The Wuestenbergs left the restaurant parking lot and waited for deputies to arrive, Bouchard said.

Bouchard said deputies reviewed the video and took statements from the Wuestenbergs, the Black family and witnesses.

After reviewing evidence, deputies confiscated the Wuestenbergs' guns and took them into custody Thursday.

Bouchard said the investigation is continuing. He asked anyone who witnessed the incident, or has video of it, or has any information about the incident, to contact the Sheriffs Office.

He said deputies are also attempting to obtain and review surveillance videos from area businesses.

Unlike the Internet, we have to gather all the facts, Bouchard said at the news conference. We investigate the totality of circumstances.

Bouchard said the office of Prosecutor Jessica Cooper made the decision to charge the couple. He didnt want to speculate about what aspect of the incident resulted in the charges.

In general, he said, a person has to feel immediately threatened to legally brandish a gun.

'THAT VOICE OF CALM'

Bouchard expressed dismay over the "tense" atmosphere across the country, and urged people not to let circumstances escalate when they feel they've been wronged.

Its very sad to see whats going on," he said. "I guess what Im asking is, please, let us all try to be that voice of calm.

It really reduces the stress in your life when you dont sweat bumping into somebody. What I always tell my family and friends is, If you can avoid a confrontation, do so.'"

Bouchard dispelled speculation on social media that Jillian Wuestenberg could be a police officer. The theory circulated because she appeared in the video to be adept at handling a firearm and because she assertively and loudly commanded the Black family to stay away from her.

Bouchard said Jillian Wuestenberg does not have a law enforcement background. Her expertise in handling a gun probably resulted from the training that is mandatory to receive a concealed pistol license, he said.

Those who take the training are also taught to give clear directions if they feel threatened, he said.

PUBLIC OFFICIALS WEIGH IN

At least two public officials have weighed in on the incident.

I am deeply disturbed by an incident last night where a woman pointed a cocked gun at another woman during an argument. This behavior is unacceptable. I wholly expect the prosecutor to bring charges that reflect the severity of the incident, Oakland County Executive David Coulter said in a statement Thursday.

State Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-Beverly Hills, issued a statement Thursday, calling the incident abhorrent and demanding reform of gun laws.

There is nothing acceptable about what happened in Orion Township last night at the Chipotle. It is abhorrent to think that some in this country have such a sense of self-righteousness and entitlement that the idea of pulling a gun out on an unarmed child and her mother is okay. It is not, and I condemn anyone who thinks otherwise, Bayer said in the statement.

Michigan needs common sense gun reform, and we need it now. People should feel safe going about their day and not have to worry about having a gun pulled on them during a conflict. This incident clearly shows we have much work to do because this is not how we should be treating each other.

Bouchard said many people have said the incident points out the need for gun law reform. He disagreed, saying there are already numerous gun laws on the books.

Social media posts initially urged people to contact the Auburn Hills Police Department to express their outrage about the incident, as the people posting apparently thought the dispute occurred in that city.

Auburn Hills police issued a statement that said the incident did not happen in their jurisdiction.

WARNING: Video contains strong language.

This happened today in Auburn Hills,MI Another Karen .. pic.twitter.com/lWksZwXITD  Makay (@makaysmith10) July 2, 2020
Does wearing a mask pose any health risks?

No, not for most people. Babies and toddlers should not wear masks because they could suffocate. The same goes for anyone who has trouble removing a mask without help.

Others can wear masks without risking their health, according to experts, despite false rumors to the contrary.

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In areas where COVID-19 is spreading, health experts agree that wearing masks or other face coverings in public helps reduce the risk of spreading the virus when people can't socially distance by staying 6 feet apart.

The coronavirus mainly spreads through droplets that are emitted when people talk, laugh, sing, cough and sneeze. Masks lower the likelihood of those droplets reaching other people. Even if you don't have symptoms, you could be carrying the virus and could spread it.

+2 Trump says he looks like Lone Ranger in a mask and likes it WASHINGTON (AP)  After long resisting wearing a mask in public, President Donald Trump said Wednesday he thinks it makes him look like the Lo

When it's humid outside, it could feel like it's harder to breathe if you're not used to wearing a mask, said Benjamin Neuman, a professor of biology at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. But he said masks don't meaningfully decrease oxygen in the body.

"The body is quite good at adjusting to keep oxygen levels where they need to be," he said.

There's also no evidence that the use of masks causes fungal or bacterial infections, according to Davidson Hamer, an infectious disease expert at Boston University. Disposable face masks are meant to be used once, then thrown in the garbage. With cloth masks, it's a good idea to wash them regularly.

Wearing a mask may be uncomfortable, but health officials say you should resist any urge to touch your face. That could bring germs from your hands into your nose, mouth or eyes.

___

The AP is answering your questions about the coronavirus in this series. Submit them at: FactCheck@AP.org.

Read previous Viral Questions:

How risky is flying during the coronavirus pandemic?

Who would be the first to get a COVID-19 vaccine?

Is it safe to form a COVID-19 "support bubble" with friends?

+3 Fauci: US could reach 100,000 new cases a day WASHINGTON  Dr. Anthony Fauci said coronavirus cases could grow to 100,000 a day in the U.S. if Americans don't start following public health

Gretchen Whitmer reveals plan for safe reopening of Michigan schools in fall Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has announced a plan to help guide schools towards a safe reopening in the fall during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coronavirus cases jumps again by nearly 400 in Michigan with deaths up by 32 As June ends, Michigan saw another significant jump in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, following a trend seen at the end of last week.
A Waterford veteran and his wife are looking forward to a drier summer in their home this year after being chosen for a roof replacement by the Owens Corning National Roof Deployment Project.

Joseph Mercure, who served in the U.S. Marines during the Vietnam War from 1971 to 1974 as an electrician, said his roof has been leaking for a while now. The home he shares with his wife of 41-years was built in the 1920s and, over time, the leaks have caused water damage in other parts of the house.

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The couple was selected through a partnership with Purple Heart Homes to receive a new roof through the nonprofits national project. Owens Corning works with contractors around the country to repair the roofs of military service members and their families, completing 190 homes since 2016. Last year, a wife of a deceased veteran in Pontiac was a recipient.

+3 Wife of late veteran in Pontiac receives new roof as holiday gift from national nonprofit The wife of a deceased U.S. Army veteran in Pontiac will be a lot warmer this holiday season after several organizations endeavored to help fi

Mercure works part time fixing lawn mowers and tractors while his wife is currently retired. He said there was no way the couple would have been able to come with the approximately $12,000 needed to repair his home.

We had leaks all over, in the upstairs bedroom, in our kitchen, on our porch. Its not a cheap thing to fix, he said. I dont know what I would have done with them. It means the world to me. I didnt get a lot of support when I came home from the war as a veteran, but now, I really appreciate all the support Im seeing here today.

Steve McCusker, co-owner of Roof One, said the project is about giving back to those who gave for their country. Roof One is the contractor for the nonprofits Michigan projects.

Its a great program. I grew up around military bases and seeing what happens to the gentlemen that come back from war, we have to find a way to give back to them, he said. We have to protect those who protect us.

The repairs happen over the course of a day as Roof One fixes not only the roof but also things like siding and drywall to get the home back in shape. Mercure said hes looking forward to being able to sit on the porch again this summer even when it rains.

Michael Bouchard re-elected to national sheriffs board Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard was recently re-elected to the Major County Sheriffs of America executive board.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cumulative cases reported by the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit has reached the 200 mark with four new cases reported Thursday.

There have now been 169 cases in the City of Kawartha Lakes, 21 in Northumberland County and 10 in Haliburton County.

Of the City of Kawartha Lakes cases, 141 have been resolved with 15 people also being monitored by the health unit for having had contact with confirmed cases.

Twenty of the 21 Northumberland cases have been resolved and one Northumberland resident is being monitored by the health unit for having had contact with a confirmed case.

Nine of the 10 Haliburton cases have been resolved and one Haliburton resident is being monitored by the health unit for having had contact with a confirmed case.

An outbreak that had been declared June 11 at the Fenelon Court long-term-care home in Fenelon Falls fter one symptomatic resident tested positive for COVID-19 was declared over Thursday by the health unit.

The health units offices located in Port Hope, Lindsay and Haliburton are reopening to the public starting on Monday and will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays.

Port Hope announced Thursday that the west beach, east beach and the Caldwell Street beach access point on Lake Ontario will be temporarily closed on weekends during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ontario COVID-19 cases

The move comes on the heels of a busy Canada Day holiday which town staff said saw the number of visitors to the municipal beaches increase exponentially.

Those beaches and access points will be closed from Friday at 7 a.m. until Monday at 10 a.m.

Pursuant to By-Law 54/2017, the director and/or chief of police and/or director of fire and emergency services and/or bylaw enforcement officers are authorized to close off for such temporary period as deemed appropriate any park, recreation area or part of parts thereof to relieve or prevent overcrowding or traffic congestion, authorized construction, weather conditions or in the interests of public safety, a statement from the municipality read.

Physical distancing measures were not being maintained during the Canada Day holiday, the notice points out.

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For the safety of the community, and to comply with the government directive to continue to maintain a safe distance of two metres apart, the beaches will remain temporarily closed over the weekends, to mitigate the risk of large group gatherings, the statement read.

There have been 35 inmates tested for COVID-19 at the Warkworth Institution medium-security federal prison 60 kilometres east of Peterborough and all 35 have tested negative, Correctional Service of Canada reported Thursday.

 with files from Northumberland News
Dennis Howlett is one of those accomplished Canadians who has come to live in Peterborough for family reasons, and because he and his wife Elaine like the size of the community, and the access to culture, health and education { plus the ease of canoeing hereabouts).

We stand to benefit from their decision.

Now he is enriching local groups as a member of the board of the Kawartha World Issues Centre, and international ones, as treasurer of the Brussels-based NGO, Global Alliance for Tax Justice.

With modesty and patience, he gave me an education in taxation I had despaired of ever getting.

After 25 years working for social justice in coalitions of civil society organizations, Dennis spent five years as co-ordinator of Make Poverty History and the last seven as executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness, based in Ottawa. These were fruitful years of research and policy formation, and then of advocacy as he got to know decision-makers in government and was closely listened to by House Finance Committees.

I got to know PM Trudeau some years ago as a supporter of Make Poverty History when he was an MP. I am most proud of the reform of the child tax benefit which we worked for and which has lifted thousands of Canadian children out of poverty.

Howlett has a clear philosophy of taxes and he brought me to share the understanding. It was an American judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said in 1927, Taxes are the price we pay for civil society. Taxes fund high-quality public services and programs required to meet our social, economic and environmental needs of the 21 century.

We moan and complain and dread income-tax time. But at our core, we know the remark to be true. We only ask that the tax system be fair and honest and transparent. In Canada, the CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency), delivers many of the social benefits which have done much to close the wide gap between rich and poor. Much remains to be done. Howlett is lobbying for northern and Indigenous peoples to get help in understanding and filing tax returns. In Scandinavia he says, a government agency does your tax return for you with all possible exemptions, and sends it to you to look over and approve.

What makes us enraged is knowing about tax havens which the wealthy use to avoid paying taxes. He agrees more must be done to uncover them and collect what is owed.

As to the $268 billion deficit we currently carry because of the economic supports issued during the pandemic, Howlett says, Tax policy is crucial to the rebuilding of Canada. Austerity is not the way to go. Fair taxes and reinvestment is

He uses the terms progressive and regressive to describe taxes. Value-added taxes (the GST) are regressive, in that they hit the poor hardest, but the GST rebate is a help.

I am grateful that Howlett, a graduate in arts with a Masters in Adult Education, spends a lifetime examining tax systems from the point of view of the marginalized: a man of the common good.

His international work includes a project with Queen University and the country of Ghana. If Ghana had a fair and effective tax system, it would hardly need massive amounts of international assistance.

Activist, writer and media commentator, Dennis Howlett will benefit our city wherever he appears.

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When I lived in Tanzania in the 1980s, a very poor country, but one blessed with a kind of social equality, my spouse, John, was most proud of a local NGO he helped start, the Tanzanian Association of Internal Auditors, It gave young audit students confidence to go after the figures and report them to the public.

Hence, I am impressed with persons of integrity who pursue economic analysis from the bottom up.
For Associate Principal Clarinet and E-flat Clarinet Eric Abramovitz, moving to Montreal during the pandemic had certain advantages  namely, he could ask his mother, Roslyn Abromovitz, to accompany him just as she used to do when he was a kid.

This was especially true when he decided to play the piece he played for his very first competition when he was eight years old, Valse Triste by Rheinhold Gliere.

In this Musical Moment, he also shares a traditional tune called Romanian Hora, which brings back childhood memories of hearing his mother play in a Klezmer band, and falling in love with the clarinet.

For Associate Principal Clarinet and E-flat Clarinet Eric Abramovitz, moving to Montreal during the pandemic had certain advantages, not least because he could ask his mother to accompany him just as she used to do when he was a kid. Especially when he decided to play the piece he played for his very first competition when he was eight years old, Valse Triste by Rheinhold Gliere. In this Musical Moment, he also shares a traditional tune called Romanian Hora which brings back childhood memories of watching his mother play in a Klezmer band, and falling in love with the clarinet.

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NEW DELHI - Indias number of coronavirus cases passed 600,000 on Thursday with the nations infection curve rising and its testing capacity being increased.

The 19,148 new cases reported in the past 24 hours raised the national total to 604,641, with nearly 100,000 of them in the past four days.

A total of 17,834 people have died so far due to the virus, according to Indias Health Ministry.

More than 60% of the cases are in the worst-hit Maharashtra state, Tamil Nadu state, and the capital territory of New Delhi.

However, the western beach of state of Goa, a popular backpacking destination, opened for tourism on Thursday with the state government allowing 250 hotels to reopen after more than three months. Tourists will either have to carry COVID-19 negative certificates or get tested on arrival.

The state has reported 1,387 positive cases with four deaths.

Many industries and businesses have reopened since the country eased its strict lockdown in early June, and Indians have cautiously returned to the streets. Schools, colleges and movie theatres remain shuttered.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a live address Tuesday that the death rate is under control but the country is at a critical juncture. He urged more stringent enforcement of distancing and other health guidelines.

The Health Ministry said testing has been ramped up to more than 200,000 every day, with 8.8 million test conducted so far. The recovery rate is 59.43%.

In other developments around the Asia-Pacific region:

 Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike warned Thursday that the spread of the coronavirus is beginning to accelerate again in Japans capital as daily confirmed new infections jumped to a two-month high of 107. She urged residents to take more precautions and stay away from nightlife districts. Thursdays rise in new cases spiked from 67 the day before and is the highest since 154 on May 2, when Japan was under a state of emergency for the pandemic. The number tripled from 31 in just over a week. Tokyo now has 6,399 cases with 325 deaths, accounting for about one-third of Japans national total. Koike said, however, that she has no plans to ask for business closures across Tokyo. Nobody wants to go back to that situation, she said. We are now in the phase of living with the coronavirus. Our policy is to balance the economy and social activity with disease prevention. The majority of recent cases were younger people in their 20s and 30s, and about 40% were linked to nightlife establishments, Koike said.

 A coronavirus outbreak in Australias second-largest city continued to grow, and the Northern Territory detected its first case in three months. The man from the Northern Territory had travelled overseas and stayed in the virus hot spot of Melbourne recently. The territorys health minister did not say whether the man was likely infected in Melbourne or overseas. Most of Melbournes 77 latest cases were in suburbs that were put under a one-month lockdown Wednesday night.

 The Philippine government is shifting defence spending and putting on hold military modernization projects to help finance the response to COVID-19. Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told a news forum that $260 million from his departments budget was shifted to the pandemic campaign. Defence spokesman Arsenio Andolong told The Associated Press the countrys military modernization program may be set back by up to three years after its annual allocation was also slashed by $348 million, which will be used to fight the virus. Its a tough balancing act for a country with a surfeit of security concerns, including Muslim and communist insurgencies and South China Sea territorial conflicts. Its coronavirus cases exceed 38,500, including 1, 270 deaths.

 South Korea reported 54 new cases as the virus continues to spread beyond the capital area and reach cities like Gwangju, which has shut schools and tightened social restrictions after dozens were found infected this week. Health Minster Park Neung-hoo during a virus meeting expressed alarm over the rise of infections in Gwangju, which had one of the smallest caseloads among major South Korean cities before this week. Park urged the citys residents to refrain from unnecessary gatherings, maintain distance from others and wear masks.

 China reported three new cases of coronavirus, including just one case of local transmission in the capital Beijing, appearing to put the country where the virus was first detected late last year on course to eradicating it domestically, at least temporarily. The other two cases were brought from outside the country, according to the National Health Commission. China credits strict quarantine, social distancing and case tracing policies with reducing its cases. Masks are require for entry into many buildings, sometimes along with proof on a mobile phone app that the person is healthy.

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 New Zealands health minister resigned following a series of personal blunders during the coronavirus pandemic. David Clark had earlier described himself as an idiot for breaking the nations lockdown measures and then last week appeared to blame a beloved health official for border lapses, generating an angry response from the public. Clark said he was becoming a distraction from the countrys virus response.

 Indonesia announced 1,624 newly confirmed coronavirus cases on Thursday, its highest single-day increase, bringing its total to 59,394. The National Task Force for COVID-19 Mitigation said 53 more people died for a total death toll of 2,987. Ali Ghufron Mukti, a Ministry of Research and Technology official, said Indonesia is working to develop a vaccine with companies in China and South Korea to insure it has access once a viable one is developed.
Premier Doug Ford says a development snag at the federal level is delaying the launch of Ontarios COVID-19 smartphone app.

It was scheduled to be available for download Thursday by the public as part of a pilot project to test the system while cases are relatively low and before an anticipated second wave of the novel coronavirus in the fall.

Were ready to go, Ford told his daily news conference. I know the feds want to bring it right across the country. Theyre working on thatthey just need a buy-in from a few more provinces.

Sources told the Star that Apple and Google are making an application program interface or API available that will allow nation-wide notifications under the app. That will reduce confusion between jurisdictions and is being incorporated into the development project that was a collaboration between Ontario, Canadian Digital Services, Shopify and BlackBerry.

To be the most helpful in our efforts to fight COVID-19, the app needs to be accessible and used by as many Canadians as possible. Thats why we continue to work with the provinces and territories on a voluntary national app that will be ready for download very soon, said Cole Davidson, a spokesperson for federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu

The app is designed to notify users if theyve come in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus in the previous two weeks, long enough to have been potentially exposed. The app will not give specific dates or times for privacy reasons.

We continue to work with the federal partners on the launch of COVID Alertwe expect it to launch shortly, said a statement from Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliotts office.

Officials explained at a briefing two weeks ago that the app will allow people who get a positive test result to automatically and anonymously notify anyone who has come within two metres of them for at least 10 or 15 minutes.

Anyone testing positive types a randomly generated eight-digit code that comes with positive test results into the app. That triggers messages to contacts that they should get in touch with their local public health unit on what steps to take next.

It will depend on people downloading the app and having their phones switched on.

Ford also announced another $150 million for a social services relief fund to help municipalities and Indigenous communities protect the vulnerable from COVID-19 by improving homeless shelters and housing opportunities for people who live precariously or on the streets.

The money, which doubles a previous cash infusion to the fund, can be used to renovate shelters to improve physical distancing, for example, or provide food and supplies to those in need.

Municipalities have been pleading for more cash as they struggle with the impact of the virus on their costs and finances, such as public transit and child care, with Toronto warning in May it was losing $65 million a week.

The premier needs to come to the table with a lot more than $150 million to bail out Ontarios cities from the COVID-19 crisis. This pandemic has brought municipalities to their knees, said Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

Doug Ford has yet to announce anything comprehensive, instead trickling out small amounts of money that will only leave municipalities deep in the red.

Meanwhile, the president and chief executive officer of Public Health Ontario, who suddenly went on medical leave for unspecified reasons in early April as COVID-19 was reaching a peak, said Thursday he will not be returning to the agency he led for five years.

Having experienced cardiac symptoms over a number of weeks, it is now clear that it is important for me to return to the United Kingdom where all of my family are based, Dr. Peter Donnelly revealed in a statement, calling it a very difficult decision.

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Public Health Ontario said Donnelly played an important role in the initial stages of the provincial response to COVID-19 with Colleen Geiger continuing as acting president and chief executive until a permanent replacement can be found.

Donnelly became known to the general public as a key figure in a live televised briefing April 2 on an anticipated surge of cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus, earning plaudits for detailing a series of potentially sobering numbers in a calming manner.

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COVID crisis compounds new school-term woes

THAILAND: The first day of school yesterday (June 1) was not a happy time for every child and parent, some of whom had to borrow, beg or even steal so they could send their offspring to class in a uniform like everyone else.

CoronavirusCOVID-19crimecharity

By Bangkok Post

Thursday 2 July 2020, 08:05AM

Students attend class on the first day of term yesterday (July 1) at Mathayom Prachaniwet School in Bangkok. Pattarapong Chatpattarasill. Photo: Bangkok Post

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the opening of the new term by almost two months. But the outbreak also compounded the financial suffering of parents, several of whom lost their jobs from business closures or saw their incomes dwindle.

In Chumphon, a mother of four went to a local shopping mall with her eight-year-old daughter on Tuesday. She grabbed school uniform skirts and shorts from the racks and shoes from the shelves - although she had no intention of paying for them.

She and her daughter were caught by the stores security guards and taken to a backroom office where she was detained. Lang Suan police were called and they arrived shortly later to question the mother, 26.

The mother was remorseful but insisted she had no other way out but to steal the uniforms. She and her husband were down on their luck, struggling to find a job after being laid off at the height of the pandemic.

She told police her family was poor. Buying the uniforms for her children was simply out of the question.

The mother said she would rather shoplift than let her children turn up on the first day of school in plain clothes. That would have embarrassed them.

When the mother and daughter were being escorted to the backroom, shoppers had noticed the incident.

Some of them, who were also shopping for uniforms for their children, reached into their pockets and scraped together B1,200 to pay for the uniforms for the family.

The donors also asked the store staff not to press charges against the mother. They felt that if the mother was arrested and remanded in police custody, her family would be in even deeper trouble.

The store agreed not lay charges although they gave her a warning before releasing her and her daughter.

Sometime later, Suchart Saengklud, director of the Homeless and Destitute Centre in Chumphon, visited the family who live in a run-down house in the middle of a rubber farm owned by a local businessman in tambon Chong Mai Kaew in Thung Tako district of Chumphon.

Their four children attend kindergarten and Prathom Suksa (primary school years) 1, 3, 4. Their schools are more than 10 kilometres from the house.

We were down to our last B300 and we felt we had no choice but to do what we did, she said.

In Chon Buri, one mother also found herself in dire straits after six new school uniforms she bought for her daughter disappeared while they were put out to dry on the clothes line at her rented apartment in Nong Prue, Bang Lamung district.

Darin Arbsuwan, 56, who works as a masseuse, said the pandemic had left her without a job.

She delved into her savings to buy uniforms for her two daughters. The shirts had the girls names sewn into them.

She insisted uniform thefts had not occurred in her community before and the COVID-19 outbreak may have pushed up the crime rate.

She decided to post a message online to warn people about the theft and look after their belongings, saying anything can happen during the economic downturn.

You never know when a thief will strike, Ms Darin said. I want to tell the thief that everyone is also in trouble.

The mother lodged a complaint with the Nong Prue police who have launched an investigation.

The police officers chipped in some of their own money to buy new school uniforms for Ms Darins two daughters.

The mother thanked the officers for taking her daughters to buy new uniforms.

Her daughters were happy to go back to school with the new clothes and stationery the officers also bought for them.

The government postponed the start of school semester this year from May 16 to July 1.
Leatherback turtle nest found at Thai Mueang

PHUKET: A nest of leatherback turtle eggs found on Thai Mueang Beach, north of Phuket, is believed to have been laid by the same turtle that came ashore at Mai Khao Beach last Sunday.

marineanimals

By Khunanya Wanchanwet

Thursday 2 July 2020, 04:07PM

An enclosure was built around the nest to protect it from predators. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2

The nest was found some 18 metres from the waterline. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2An enclosure was built around the nest to protect it from predators. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2

The nest was found some 18 metres from the waterline. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2An enclosure was built around the nest to protect it from predators. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2

The nest was found some 18 metres from the waterline. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2

The nest was found some 18 metres from the waterline. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2

The nest was found some 18 metres from the waterline. Photo: Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2

Prarop Plangngarn, Chief of Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2, explained that officers at the Khao Lampi  Hat Thai Mueang National Park were clearing trash from Thai Mueang Beach on Monday (June 29) when they found turtle tracks on the sand.

Just like the tracks found at Mai Khao on Sunday, the tracks at Thai Mueang Beach measured 170 centimetres across, with the shell drags marks measuring 60cm across.

The nest, some 80cm deep in the sand, was found about 18 metres from the waterline, Mr Prarop said.

Officers finally located the nest at around 10am yesterday (July 1), and excavated only enough sand to confirm there were eggs in the nest, he added.

We have not counted how many eggs there are, as we are not moving the nest. Officers have placed an enclosure around the nest to protect it from predators and installed a barrier to protect it from waves, he explained.

National park officers will arrange staff to monitor the nest until the eggs hatch, he added.

Mr Prarop noted that finding a turtle nest at this time of year was unusual.

This leatherback turtle nest was laid out of season. This is the first time since Ive worked in this field that this has happened, he said.

Mr Prarop added that he believes that the turtle that laid the nest was the same turtle whose tracks were found on Mai Khao Beach last Sunday.

Officers found the turtle tracks in the section of Sirinath National Park that is on Mai Khao Beach in Phuket on June 28, and then this nest was found yesterday. I suspect it may be the same leatherback turtle, he said.

As for laying eggs at this time of year, that may be because the turtle is very healthy. During this period, there are many jellyfish in the Andaman Sea, he added.

Mr Prarop noted that the barrier was needed to be installed to protect the nest from the strong waves that pound the shore during the southwest monsoon, which usually continues through to October.

This nest is at high risk of damage because it was laid during the monsoon. I cant predict the survival rate of the eggs. We must wait for the eggs to hatch, which should be around Aug 25-30, he said.
Phuket police investigated over illegal gambling dens

PHUKET: The top five ranking police officers stationed with the Phuket City Police and the Thalang Police are under investigation for the lack of action taken after receiving reports of two illegal gamblings dens, which were later raided by provincial officials.

policecorruption

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Thursday 2 July 2020, 09:05AM

Ten high-ranking Phuket police officers are under investigation for allowing the gambling dens to operate. Photo: PR Phuket

Royal Thai Police deputy spokesman Col Krissana Phattanacharoen said that the national police headquarters in Bangkok were notified of the raids on the two gambling dens, one in Phuket Town and another in Srisoonthorn, on Tuesday (June 30) that netted 87 people for illegal gambling.

Phuket Provincial Police Chief Maj Gen Rungrote Thakurapunyasiri has already ordered the top five high-ranking officers at both Phuket City Police Station and Thalang Police Station to be immediately transferred to Phuket Provincial Police Station while an investigation into the gambling dens is carried out, Col Krissana said.

Col Krissana identified the positions of those transferred from each police station as the Commander, Deputy Commander of Crime Suppression, Deputy Commander of Investigation, Inspector General and Inquiry Inspector.

Gen Rungrote has also set up a team of officers to investigate the work of those police about the two gambling venues, he said.

If it is found that there is fault by the relevant officers, they will be prosecuted strictly according to the regulations, he added.

Col Krissana also said that national police chief Gen Chakthip Chaijinda always reminded police in all areas to increase crime suppression and protection measures. Do not ignore gambling, narcotics, human trafficking as well as wrongdoing under the Emergency Decree. Do not get involved in personal benefit, he said.

Police commanders must closely take care of their subordinates during both their on-duty and off-duty time, he added.

As written in the Police Order no. 1212/2537, if any police action is found to be unlawful or corrupt, the officers must be prosecuted under the law and regulations strictly, without any exception, Col Krissana assured.

However, we have to wait for the result of the investigation to determine whether the police ignored the gambling venues or not, in order to be fair for everyone, he said.
US sees record 52,000 new virus cases in 24 hours

The US notched more than 52,000 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours yesterday (July 1), a tally by Johns Hopkins University showed, a new one-day record as infections surge around the country.

CoronavirusCOVID-19healthdeathSafety

By AFP

Thursday 2 July 2020, 08:42AM

Turning his back: US President Donald Trump stands firm by his assertion that the contagion will just disappear. Photo: AFP

The Baltimore-based universitys tracker showed 52,898 more cases as of 8:30pm EST (6:30am Thursday July 2 Phuket time), bringing the total number of cases since the pandemic reached the United States to 2,682,270.

The university also recorded a further 706 fatalities, bringing the total death toll to 128,028.

New daily case numbers have hovered around 40,000 in recent days, with Johns Hopkins recording 42,528 new infections one day earlier.

Hospitalizations are also increasing in several cities, including Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.

On Wednesday Texas broke its daily record and reported 8,076 new cases of COVID-19, nearly 1,000 more than the day before.

The surge in cases has seen several states pause their reopenings. California yesterday banned indoor dining in Los Angeles as well as service in bars, cinemas and museums for at least three weeks.

The governor of Michigan also closed bars in the northern state, while Oregon and Pennsylvania have fallen in with other states making it compulsory to wear masks, a highly politicized issue in the country.

During a heavy travel season, the absence of a strong national response, including a nationwide masking mandate, will continue to threaten the viability of our economy and the ability of our schools to reopen in the fall, warned David Rubin, director of PolicyLab, a research center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

President Donald Trump, who has yet to be seen in public wearing a face mask during the coronavirus pandemic, said yesterday he would have no problem doing so, while reiterating his belief that the contagion will just disappear.
Welcome back pirates! As you make your return to campus The East Carolinian has created a forum that centers around topics within the community where readers can express their experiences and concerns. With the new guidelines set in place by East Carolina University do you feel as these precautions will keep you safe?

Survey
Southern Pines, NC (28387)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
Staff Reports

Watertown Public Opinion

Two male drivers in their 20s were arrested Wednesday in Codington County for driving at speeds in excess of 105 mph, according to a spokesman for the South Dakota Department of Public Safety.

A South Dakota Highway Patrol Facebook photo shows a Corvette stopped on a side road and the troopers radar displaying 131 mph.

The drivers were racing on Interstate 29 near Watertown, according to the state. A male, age 25, from Estelline was driving a 2009 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. The other driver, 20, from Watertown, was in a 2015 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR, according to information from the state.

A South Dakota Highway Patrol officer from Watertown arrested both drivers, who were charged with drag racing and driving 26 mph or more over the posted limit, which is 80 mph. Both charges are Class 2 misdemeanors.
WATERLOO REGION  A group of community organizers wants residents to rally behind their call for Waterloo Region to up their greenhouse gas emission reduction goals as the area emerges from the pandemic.

Laura Hamilton, Kai Reimer-Watts and Andres Fuentes have started a local campaign called 50 by 30, which will be calling on the region to shift forward its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals to 50 per cent by 2030, while prioritizing justice for everyone.

The campaign is designed around six main pillars: housing, transport, food security, education, public health and energy. People are invited to help create concrete greenhouse gas reduction plans that intersect with each of these pillars.

We are in an incredibly important time in history, says Hamilton. COVID made us recognize that were all related.

People understand the language of bending the curve. Everyone did the right things to reopen, and we have to keep doing the right thing, she says.

The group says their climate target is in keeping with the regions long-term goal of 80 per cent reduction by 2050, but brings it to a more relevant timeline, as they feel 2050 is too distant to be politically meaningful.

As well, the group says this target is in line with the intergovernmental panel on climate changes projections for what is needed to ensure the global average temperature does not exceed a 1.5-degree increase.

Andres Fuentes, one of the lead organizers, notes how much the climate movement has grown in the region over the past two years and believes there is a lot of local support for the goal of green and just recovery for the region, it just needs a central channel.

Look back to the long evolution of where were, back to climate strikes two years ago. We started with 20 people. Last September there were 4,500 people.

This is our chance to emerge beautifully, says Reimer-Watts.

Ultimately, the group feels that any investments the region makes to restart the economy must address carbon emissions, because the next ten years are critical to bend the curve of climate change.

For more information visit www.50by30WR.ca or email risewaterlooregion@gmail.com

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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

Read more about:
KITCHENER  A drug addict who carried a machete while robbing a Cambridge pharmacy of opioids and other narcotics has been sent to prison for almost four years.

Pharmacies, convenience stores and other small businesses need the protection of the courts from those who might use violence to steal money or products from them, Justice Craig Parry said this week in sentencing Tyler Goguen.

The way in which courts can offer protection is to make sure that offenders who commit those offences receive sentences that adequately condemn the robberies, the inherent violence in them and the potential for human carnage that can result.

Around 5 p.m. on July 27, 2018, Goguen entered Water St. Drug Mart and demanded opioids from the pharmacist, who loaded Goguens backpack with $1,800 worth of drugs, including oxycodone, hydromorphone and Adderall.

The Cambridge man, 31, was holding a machete but no one was physically injured. After a trial he was convicted of robbery and breaching probation.

The 45-month sentence is on top of a four-year sentence Goguen is serving for an aggravated assault near Brantford, where he stole a mans wallet after attacking him with a crowbar. Parry handed him a lifetime weapons ban.

Goguen has 49 convictions, including two prior robberies. He was found guilty of the Cambridge robbery after a trial.

Crown prosecutor Melissa Ernewein sought five years in prison for the robbery, saying pharmacy staff are vulnerable. She also said there was planning involved in the crime.

Goguen, hooked on fentanyl, robbed the pharmacy not out of greed but to feed his addiction, defence lawyer Ryan Heighton told the judge.

Heighton asked for 12 to 18 months on top of the Brantford sentence, saying Goguen had a difficult upbringing. His mother was a crack-cocaine addict, Heighton said. Goguen used drugs with a parent at age 12. He became homeless as a young teenager. He has struggled with mental health issues.

I messed up and I do apologize for what Ive done, Goguen told Parry. I just kind of went off the rails. I was just using a lot of drugs.

The judge took into account Goguens difficult childhood when crafting the sentence.

That unfortunate upbringing cannot serve to wipe away entirely your responsibility for your own behaviours as an adult, Parry said. At a certain point, as adults, we must accept that our mistakes are our own. They belong to us and we have to learn from them.

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But nevertheless that is easier said than done and it takes some people longer than others.

Parry said he accepts that Goguen is remorseful and believes he has the potential for rehabilitation.
WATERLOO REGION  A heat warning is in effect from Thursday afternoon to Sunday in Waterloo Region.

Environment Canada says temperatures Thursday will reach a high of 32 C but with the humidex it will feel like 37 C.

Thursday will be mainly sunny with a low tonight of 20 C.

Hot and humid air can cause poor air quality. Environment Canada warns extreme heat affects everyone, but the risks are greater for young children, pregnant women, older adults, people with chronic illnesses and people working or exercising outdoors.

Never leave people or pets inside a parked vehicle, Environment Canada said.

People are reminded to watch for symptoms of heat illness including dizziness or fainting, nausea and vomiting, rapid breathing and heartbeat, extreme thirst, decreased urination and dark urine.

Daytime temperature highs for the rest of the week are expected to be in the low to mid 30s with overnight lows in the low 20s.

Environment Canada says the heat will likely continue into next week.
KITCHENER  A Kitchener resident is stocking little free libraries with books that amplify the voices of diverse communities and support authors who are Black, Indigenous and people of colour.

I really want children to have access to books with characters that look like them, said Dinah Murdoch, an early literacy teacher with the Waterloo Region District School Board.

Little free libraries are sprinkled throughout the region. The small wooden boxes look like houses and offer those passing by a chance to pick up a book to borrow, or drop one off.

A few weeks ago Murdoch launched a fundraising campaign calling for monetary and book donations to get the K-W Little Free Diverse Libraries project rolling.

So far she has raised more than $1,300 and received about 80 brand new books, as well as numerous used ones. Shes already started dropping the books off at little libraries in midtown Kitchener where she lives.

Murdochs inspiration for the project came from south of the border.

In June, Sarah Kamya, a Black woman and New York City school counsellor, created the Little Free Diverse Libraries project in her hometown of Arlington, Mass.

The Little Free Diverse Library Project was created in the hope of amplifying and empowering Black voices through books, she says on the projects Instagram page.

Kamya has raised thousands of dollars for the project and has been able to stock little libraries across the United States with books by Black authors.

Murdoch reached out to Kamya before doing a spinoff of the project in Waterloo Region.

I just wanted to have a conversation with her so that she didnt feel like I was either riding on her coattails or trying to take credit for her project, she said, noting Kamya encouraged her to continue.

Each book donated and purchased for the local project will include a sticker recognizing Kamya as inspiration for the local initiative.

Murdoch has already ordered titles from stores including Words Worth Books in Waterloo and Good Minds, which is a First Nations family-owned business on the Six Nations of the Grand River.

On the Instagram page for the project, Murdoch showcases some of the titles including the childrens book, Meet Viola Desmond by Elizabeth MacLeod, and novels such as The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq.

When people have finished reading a book they are asked to return it for others to enjoy.

Murdoch hopes readers will either get a window into the experiences of others, or see themselves reflected in the books.

Id really love to get books into little free libraries all over the region and especially into areas that are more diverse, she said.

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Books can be ordered and sent to Murdoch from the KW Little Free Diverse Libraries Indigo registry, but Murdoch is encouraging donors to buy local and from stores owned by Black, Indigenous and people of colour.

Contributions can also be made by emailing Murdoch at MurdochDinah@gmail.com.
Ontario workers who take a one-week vacation outside the country will also require a managers approval of a mandatory 14-day unpaid self-isolation period.

Due to staffing shortages as a result of the time missed, or any other related issue caused by the time off, managers can deny vacation requests due to the extended time away from work.

The first piece of legislation we passed during COVID-19 was to make it illegal to terminate workers who need to self-isolate or quarantine, said Ministry of Labour spokesperson Kalem McSween. However, approval of vacations is at the discretion of the employer. Workers should continue to work together with their employers to find appropriate times for vacations.

Under the Quarantine Act, travellers returning to Canada have to undergo 14 days of mandatory self-isolation. Failure to comply can lead to six months in prison and up to $750,000 in fines.

The Government of Canada advises that you avoid all non-essential travel outside of Canada until further notice. However, with airlines starting to slowly increase flight loads, and regions in Italy and Greece already offering subsidized trips for travellers, the demand for international travel is slowly re-emerging.

While vacation travel is relevant for all industries in Ontario, the health care sector has been among the governments highest priority in terms on maintaining workforce numbers and ensuring staff can handle the burden created by COVID-19.

Cambridge Memorial Hospital, which opened its internal staff memos to media, has been open about the realities of international travel with its workers.

If you choose to travel outside of Canada, you must also add your period of self-isolation in your vacation request, a message sent to staff at Cambridge Memorial reads. Such requests will be managed through CMHs normal processes  either through a request for additional vacation or an unpaid leave. Your manager will consider the request for additional time against departmental and staffing needs.

Pre-approved vacations are not subject to the new rules, the memo said.

Vicki Mckenna, president of the Ontario Nurses Association, said health care professionals desperately need their vacation after months of working in pandemic conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been extraordinarily taxing  physically, mentally and emotionally, she said. A period of respite is vital.

However, when it comes to international travel, McKenna said the government is taking a calculated approach.

It is sensible for anyone travelling out of the country to self-isolate for a 14-day period, she said. It is also vital that precautions be taken in this province as restrictions are loosened.

The province does not currently have interprovincial travel restrictions, or restrictions on travel within the province.

Doug Fords Progressive Conservative government  similar to its federal counterparts  strongly discourages non-essential trips across the country. However, it has yet to lay out any formal rules regarding inter-provincial travel.

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In the health care sector, those choosing to travel to an effected area anywhere in Canada will be expected to self-isolate at work. That includes checking ones temperature twice a day, wearing personal protective equipment at all times, not eating in a shared space, working in one facility if possible and self-isolating at home.

Health care employers continue to be responsible for scheduling and organizing the workforce within their health care facilities, said McSween. Were grateful for the tireless work of all our health care workers and will continue to stand with them as we respond collectively to the COVID-19 outbreak.
WATERLOO REGION  A mandatory mask bylaw will be considered by Waterloo Region council on Monday.

The motion was introduced at last weeks council meeting by Coun. Berry Vrbanovic, following the chief administrative officer saying staff was going to recommend making masks mandatory on public transit because physical distancing would become more difficult as ridership increases.

Vrbanovic wanted a broader rule that would require residents to wear a mask in indoor settings, and for it to come to council for a vote sooner than the timeline staff proposed for masks on transit.

This is a serious issue and not one that should be put off, Vrbanovic said. Were in a declared health emergency.

Details of the draft bylaw will be released on Friday.

Regional Chair Karen Redman has said numerous times that the devil will be in the detail.

Vrbanovics motion, which passed nine to six with one councillor declaring a conflict, drew a lot of debate with strong views on both sides.

While most thought a bylaw would provide clarity, others said the region should stick with education instead to encourage masks as a way to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Coun. Sue Foxton said during the meeting that asking people to wear masks is not enough, and a bylaw would make it clear everyone should.

Were saying its not wishy-washy. We want you to do this, said Foxton, adding that she was shocked by how few people she sees wearing masks out in community. The message isnt getting out there.

Coun. Sean Strickland worried a bylaw would pit neighbour against neighbour and said the focus should be on public education. You cant ticket your way out of a pandemic.

Both chief administrative officer Mike Murray and acting medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang did not advise making mandatory masks for everyone while out in the community.

Thats not recommended by provincial and federal experts, and Murray said a broad rule would be challenging to enforce and could undermine the credibility of other regional bylaws.

Wang said there isnt strong evidence masks are effective in a public setting, but she said health experts including herself recommend wearing them to decrease the chances of spreading COVID-19.

This is something that could help, Wang said.

Wang has hesitated to issue an order under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, as was done in the Guelph area to require face coverings inside any commercial or retail setting, because she said that would put the onus on businesses to enforce the rule.

Several Ontario municipalities require masks on public transit, but at the same time they acknowledge the rule isnt being enforced.

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Views on masks are divided in the community as well. An online petition started by a Waterloo resident calling for masks to be mandatory got nearly 3,800 signatures, but many object.

Some people think masks reduce the oxygen a person can breathe in, but a St. Marys General Hospital respirologist said thats not the case.

Surgical masks and N95 respirators do not reduce oxygen levels, said Dr. Mary Jackson, medical director of the regional thoracic/chest program. Oxygen does a very good job of going through and around the masks.

Masks are a barrier with pores designed to filter smaller particles.

While masks have the capacity to filter particles, they do not have the capacity to reduce oxygen flow. An individual wearing a mask is getting the same level of oxygen. The difference is that air is not flowing as freely, Jackson said.

Health-care workers often wear masks for more than 12 hours a day and do not experience decreased oxygen intake, she said. A tight mask may make breathing slightly more work, and a person with severely reduced lung function might find masks uncomfortable, Jackson said.

The province hasnt stepped in to provide guidance on masks, which has lead to different rules in different municipalities and, as Murray has said, a confusing patchwork for residents to figure out.

This would not be the first controversial health-based bylaw passed by Waterloo Region before the province took action. In 1996, council approved a bylaw banning smoking in most public places that was phased in over a few years with a total ban in effect by 2000.

Former regional councillor Jane Mitchell recalled the outrage over that bylaw and other rules brought in to protect peoples health. Unlike the smoking ban, the mask bylaw will be temporary to help keep the economy open and allow people out of their homes until a vaccine is available.

Its the same as other public health things that weve done, said the long-time councillor representing Waterloo. The masks really help, but it has to be everyone wearing one.
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Comet Resources progresses due diligence for proposed Santa Teresa Gold Project acquisition

Comet Resources Limited (ASX:CRL) is progressing due diligence related to a binding heads of agreement (HoA) with El Alamo Resources Limited (EARL) for the proposed acquisition of Santa Teresa Gold Project in Mexico.

The company is concurrently executing a non-binding term sheet with Raptor Capital International Limited for a gold streaming and royalty financing to fund activities at the project for up to US$20 million with an initial minimum of US$6 million.



"Finalising the transaction"

Comet managing director Matthew O'Kane said: "Over the last four weeks since we announced the signing of the HoA for the Santa Teresa Gold Project and Raptor financing, we have been working hard on advancing the due diligence workstreams with a view to completing them as soon as possible.

"I am focused on completing all required work in quarter three and am looking forward to finalising the transaction in what is shaping up to be a very interesting gold market in the second half of this year.

"Comet is in discussions with professional mining consultancy firms with resources in-country, who will be able to manage the company's planned work programs following completion of the acquisition."

Plans for initial fieldwork in quarter four are being prepared.
Comedian, actor and author Michael Ian Black wasnt the class clown growing up in suburban New Jersey.

I always thought I was funny but I wouldnt say my classmates agreed, said Black, a Redding resident. I did sort of funny and kind of offbeat things and felt I had something to contribute comedically, but I just didnt know what the avenue would be.

Black joined a student improv group while attending New York University and found his calling.

Three decades later hes still at it, having appeared on television shows such as MTVs The State, NBCs Ed and TV Lands The Jim Gaffigan Show. Hes been in movies, written film scripts, published 10 books, does stand-up comedy and been featured in TV advertisements.

Black also won $100,000 for charity in poker while playing on Bravos Celebrity Poker Showdown.

His career has been prolific in many fields. I do have a fair amount of drive, he said. Some of it is creative, artistic drive and some of it is having a mortgage that I need to pay.

Black, 48, is teaming up with the Mark Twain Library (MTL) in Redding to host four podcasts with well-known guests as a way to promote the library and help it raise money. The free podcasts are encore productions of his How To Be Amazing series that ran from 2015 to 2019 and are being made at the library.

The MTL serves as Reddings public library but is owned by a nonprofit association, only receiving about half its operating costs from the town. The pandemic has impacted its regular fundraising activities.

The first guest on June 21 was Jane Lynch, the Emmy Award-winning actress and comedian known for her TV and film roles in Glee, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Best in Show and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticuts interview was aired on June 28 with Grammy Award-winning director, producer and comedy writer Jeannie Gaffigan following on July 5 and author, doctor and alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra on July 12.

The podcasts will be available Sundays at 8 p.m. on YouTube through a link on the Mark Twain Library website. Later they will also be available as How To Be Amazing podcasts. Watchers are welcome to make MTL donations.

Weve got a good lineup of diverse people, Black said.

Jen Wastrom, MTL development co-chair and trustee, said two of the librarys four main fundraisers already have been canceled due to the pandemic. Library officials reached out for assistance from Black, a longtime MTL booster.

Six years ago, he founded the librarys annual Puddnhead Festival as a way to tap into Twains humorist skills. He now emcees the event and helps attract high-profile honorees such as Ben Stiller, Seth Meyers, Paul Rudd and Jon Hamm.

All are huge names and friends of Michaels, Wastrom said.

A fan of all libraries, Black said the MTL is particularly important because of its history  Twain helped start and fund the library in the early 1900s when living in Redding  and its role as a community hub in the small rural suburb.

During his career, Black has often been on the cutting edge in social media and podcasting. He had whats been called the worlds first Twitter war with actor LeVar Burton in 2009, a friendly feud to attract followers, and did his first podcast back in 2010.

He does a lot of research before interviewing a guest on a show. I drill down on things I find the most interesting or maybe havent been covered as well as other aspects of their lives, he said.

In 2012, he co-wrote a book with Meghan McCain from The View. Hed met McCain, daughter of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, when she appeared on an E! Television pilot he hosted.

The two  political opposites in many ways  traveled across the country in a rented RV and chronicled what they observed.

We found that Americans have more in common than youd think, he said. Everyone pretty much wants the same thing  opportunity, security, to be left alone to raise a family. Its just the way we choose to get there is so different.

Black doesnt think a similar book could be written today with the countrys current political divisiveness.

His ability to make a living has been upended by the pandemic. Professionally, its been a disaster, he said. My industry has shut down.

His income comes from doing stand-up, acting and writing; and writing has been the only option but its the least profitable.

While horrific to watch the pandemics impact, Black said, spending more time at home the past few months has actually been nice.

My wife and I havent even contemplated filing for divorce, which wasnt a given, he said. Our kids, for the most part, have been great because they dont want to see us. We do see them at dinner time and the rest of the time they are following the quarantine.

Black and his wife have two children, ages 19 and 17. They moved to Redding 17 years ago after a friend suggested looking at houses in the town. We wanted more space and a better school system, he said.

As for his high school hijinks, he and a buddy once started a club. It was called the Cheese-Its and Apple Jacks Club. They made posters and put them up around the school to attract members.

The club, of course, was fake. To me, that was a good use of my time, Black said. And the rest of my life has basically been like that  doing slightly funny and weird things.

For more information about Blacks fundraiser for the MTL, visit, marktwainlibrary.org.
Contributed photo

The Ridgefield Library is offering the following online programs in July. To register, visit ridgefieldlibrary.org, or call 203-438-2282.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Weekly Online Workshops to Help Your Reach Your Writing Goals, Wednesday, July 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29, 6 p.m.
THE SHORTHORN

Is seeking work study student assistants for our reception desk for summer and fall.Prompt, cheerful, students with professional attitudes are encouraged to apply to answer office phones and greet guests from behind a plexiglass COVID barrier.Preference is given to students available to work some mornings. This in-office job offers flexible hours and plenty of time to study.Apply through Handshake for job #4723423 or call 817-272-3188 for more information.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only created new health risks, but has shed light on existing ones.

FemCare Community Health Initiative, a Hamilton-based organization that is working to rewrite the narrative around menstruation, is doing its part to tackle period poverty in Hamilton in a new way.

We had to come up with new strategy as we work in this new normal, and ensure we are prepared to support menstrual equity and continue our work to eliminate period poverty, as we have seen how the circumstances of the pandemic have affected the most marginalized among us, said Halima Al-Hatimy, founder and president of FemCare.

In mid-March, the organization launched a Virtual Menstrual Drive to respond to community needs in the face of COVID-19.

Al-Hatimy said in the last couple of years her organization had moved away from its grassroots origins  providing products to menstruators  and toward addressing period poverty at the policy level. But when the pandemic forced them to put other projects on hold, FemCare launched an initiative to address immediate needs.

Because this is a unique situation, we went back to distributing products again just to help because they needed the urgent response, she said.

To date, FemCare has raised about $500, which has gone toward the purchase of 200 boxes of menstrual hygiene products donated to the Elizabeth Fry Society Southern Ontario Region (SOR).

The products that we drop off, they put them into care kits, she said. These care kits are given to former prisoners when theyre released from prison or they take them to the prison for us.

FemCare supports programs like HER, a drop-in program run by Elizabeth Fry for women reintegrating into the community after incarceration. Along with counselling services and community referrals, they provide women access to basics, such as food, clothing and toiletries.

The supply of hygiene products is one less worry when deciding between a nutritious meal for themselves and their children and buying tampons, said Julie DeGroot, community group facilitator at SOR.

The organization estimates this drop-in program will support more than 250 women over the next year.

Periods dont end because of a pandemic, DeGroot said. COVID has shone a light on the barriers vulnerable women have been facing for a long time.

Like many organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced FemCare to cancel events, like its fifth annual fundraising gala scheduled for the end of March, and put other projects on hold.

A menstrual pilot program that would put pads and tampons in some public spaces, such as recreation centres approved by council in February was paused due to COVID-19, Al-Hatimy said.

Its not just about ending period poverty, she said. Im trying to show a brand new way of designing health care programs in Canada.

Since 2018, the City of Hamilton has been exploring ways to get menstrual products to those in need, including through a study endorsed by the board of health. FemCare was instrumental in getting this issue in front of council.

Our organization has done a tremendous amount of work with respect to pioneering menstrual policies on all four levels of government here in Canada, she said. And were also working in Kenya right now to implement a menstrual policy thats in the queue when parliament resumes after COVID-19.

FemCares plans for international expansion have also been put on hold. When the pandemic hit in March, she was travelling the world leading menstrual hygiene workshops, creating partnerships and pushing to get FemCare chapters registered in countries like Jordan, Kenya, Malta, Lebanon and the U.K.

Instead, FemCare has found ways to keep the conversation on menstruation going locally over the last few months.

On May 28, Hamilton celebrated its second annual Menstrual Hygiene Day  a global initiative that, thanks to FemCare, was acknowledged by Hamilton city council for the first time in 2019.

To celebrate, FemCare created its own Dont Rush Challenge  one of the latest TikTok viral video trends  replacing the traditional makeup brush with a pad or a tampon. The organization also posted a video of FemCare staff, volunteers and clients giving their take on the importance of Menstrual Hygiene Day.

Meanwhile, Al-Hatimy has been busy developing Vultage, a for-profit arm of FemCare that would sell period-inspired merchandise and donate a percentage of its proceeds to the organization. The founder plans to launch a podcast geared at destigmatizing menstruation by the end of summer.

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Al-Hatimy encourages those looking to support to become a FemCare member  the light flow membership, ideal for the general public, is free. Membership offers access to the latest research, the newsletter and ongoing initiatives within the organization.

Sign up for the membership because that helps us stay connected with our community through different platforms, she said. We want to be an organization that brings all sectors of society together to solve a really, really big problem.

For more info or to support the Virtual Menstrual Drive, visit: femcarechi.com.
She spoke because there are thousands who cannot.

She was nearly a missing and murdered Indigenous woman, but escaped, running free down King Street East in Hamilton nearly four years ago.

The woman  who The Hamilton Spectator cannot name because of court-ordered publication bans on the identities of sexual assault victims  spoke to a hushed crowd at a vigil held at the foot of the Claremont Access on Wednesday.

The crowd wore red shirts to remember missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirits, and call for no more stolen sisters. More than 100 gathered, some bringing red dresses hung on a clothesline at Hunter Street East and Victoria Avenue South, to remember those who never came home. A sacred fire burned as the crowd listened and watched speakers, songs and dances.

In the decade before she was confined, the Hamilton woman, from the Wendake community in Quebec, was an addict. She would see her drug dealer every day, she told the crowd. This is an important part of her story, because too often victims are afraid to come forward because they fear being blamed.

When they dont come forward because theyre a drug addict or a prostitute and theyre told well, youre involved in high-risk activity, she said, adding that people need to get ride of that mentality.

One day, her drug dealer didnt have any supply and she was sent to another residence in the city to meet a woman. At the door she met a man she only ever knew as Bobby. He told her he had been watching her and wanted to get at her, she said.

After escaping this frightening encounter, Bobby wouldnt leave her alone. Days later she was told her boyfriend was at his place and went there to get him, but ended up being locked in a bedroom. She was trapped there for two weeks, being made to wear clothing that wasnt hers, use dirty needles and being sexually assaulted, she said.

One day she was preparing to try to escape while her captor was out, but the man came back. She said he bent her finger back until it popped and he stole her engagement ring. She blacked out.

Next thing I remember I was running down King, she said.

During the two weeks she was missing, her boyfriend was looking for her. When she came home she didnt want to go to the police, but eventually came forward later after learning other victims had reported him. The 53-year-old man was charged with sexual assault and forcible confinement in February 2017. But by the time the court case came up, the woman was pregnant and decided it wasnt healthy for her to attend court.

Now clean and with a healthy two-year-old boy, she hopes her story makes people understand that women need to be protected and the community needs to speak up against violence.

Im one of the very, very, very lucky ones; I got to make it home to my family. I feel that its my job to speak up and tell my story, she said.

Her hope is this is a wake-up call so that when her son  her light in the darkness  is older, things are better.

Were more than just a statistic, were more than that picture you see on your TV screen for 60 seconds when they say were missing or have been murdered, she said.

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More than a year has passed since the final report from Canadas inquiry on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and no plan to address the violence has been implemented.

The vigil also heard from Cody Looking Horse, who is Mohawk and Lakota. He spoke about the murders of two of his cousins and the death of his uncle in 1980s after an encounter with police.

He recited a poem and song for one of his cousins, who was found beaten to death in California after last been seen waiting for a bus to visit family. His other cousin was killed in South Dakota.

These are peoples daughters, these are peoples babies who are going missing, he said.
No Canada Day parade in Norfolk County for the first time since Confederation?

Not on Port Dovers watch.

The local Lions Club cancelled Dovers usual Calithumpian parade down Main Street, as well as the boat parade and soap-box derby, due to the coronavirus. But residents would not be deterred from celebrating Canadas 153rd birthday, pandemic or not.

The local radio station played the national anthem at 1:05 p.m., sung by residents lining Main Street. High up inside the clock tower of Lighthouse Festival Theatre, clock master Richard Dupp rang the bell 153 times.

Then came the bagpipers down the sidewalk, followed by a couple dozen vehicles decked out in red and white, an ad hoc parade interspersed with regular traffic, drivers honking in support. The procession, which included classic cars, motorcycles and an antique fire truck, did a loop around town.

Port Dover, for years, has been having a celebration, and we didnt want to miss out this year. We heard there was a parade going on so we just had to be here, said Dave Kent, who came down from Simcoe with some friends to watch the parade and take in a performance from local musical group the Dover Fishnettes, who were set up on a Main Street porch.

It was fantastic, Kent said of the festivities. There was something versus nothing, and people have been respecting the physical distancing, so it was awesome.

The unofficial parade was just part of Port Dovers Canada Day celebration. A group calling itself Quietly Canadian in Port Dover held colouring and writing contests for local youth, as well as a contest where pet owners could dress up their furry friends in costumes and Canadiana. Just like in a normal year, homeowners and businesses could festoon their properties with Canadian swag and take part in a decorating contest.

A fireworks show organized by a different group was scheduled to illuminate the sky above Lake Erie at dusk.

Kent was glad to see the Canada Day tradition continue in spite of the pandemic.

It just shows the determination and resilience of Norfolk County, and Port Dover especially, he said.

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Certainly, one race or sex is not superior to another. To ignore systemic oppression and its impact on the past and present policies, however, is to put ones head into the sand. I was struck by the fact that even recently, most white Americans were unaware of the Tulsa Race Massacre of June 1, 1921 when mobs of white residents attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses in the Greenwood district in Tulsa. Thirty-five plus square blocks of the neighborhood  at the time the wealthiest black community in the United States, known as Black Wall Street  was decimated, with up to 300 people dead. Ten thousand black people were left homeless and property damage of black businesses and homes was an estimated at $1.5 million in 1921 dollars. It is precisely the omission of this kind of event in local, state, and national histories that establishes the need to examine systemic problems.

Arlene Violet on critical race theory. She is a Republican who served as RI Attorney General
The debate about how much municipalities should spend on policing is front and centre with continued protests in Hamilton and across North America.

For some protesting anti-Black racism, this includes calls to defund the police and shift funding to social service agencies.

In Ontario, municipalities are legally mandated to provide policing and budgets are approved by city council  although, unlike other city departments, councillors cannot debate the budget line by line and cannot direct police operations.

The Hamilton Police Services 2020 budget totals $171.5 million and represents a 3.87 per cent increase over 2019.

It includes 17 new full-time positions  eight constables for a new, dedicated traffic unit, a sexual assault support program co-ordinator, two special constables for provincial offences court and six police cadets.

A new detective constable for the sexual assault unit, which was originally on the budget, was deferred to the 2021 budget.

Policing costs represent about 18 per cent of Hamiltons municipal levy.

For an average Hamilton household assessed at $380,300, a total of $648 is allocated to police out of $3,689 in total municipal taxes.

Overall, the city passed a 2.9 per cent budget hike in March, just as the state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Ontario.

As of mid-June, the city estimated the pandemic could cause a year-end deficit of between $61 million and $86 million.

At the June 2020 Hamilton Police Services board meeting, chief administrative officer Anna Filice said there was an anticipated $724,000 in projected lost revenue and expenses associated with COVID-19 for police.

Police and the city are awaiting news on any federal or provincial bailout cash.

Here is a breakdown of the Hamilton Police Services for 2020 budget:

Operating budget

The operating budget makes up the largest chunk of the police budget, with a net cost of $168,274,267.

Most of that is for employee-related expenses, which total $163,623,390. This includes:

$120,244,741 for salaries;

$6,170,300 for part-time, overtime and other pay outside salaries;

$14,329,375 for pension;

$17,443,519 for benefits, including retired members;

$3,903,385 for sick leave, vacation pay etc.;

$1,530,070 for allowances including meal, clothing, parking and training;

$2,000 for prisoner transport.

The rest of the operating budget includes:

$387,625 in fees (legal, labs and medical);

$5,530,847 for materials and supplies (such as ammunition, CEWs and uniforms);

$2,076,000 for vehicle expenses (including gas and tires);

$2,756,855 for buildings and grounds (hydro, laundry, telephone, repairs);

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$52,600 for consulting;

$917,770 for contractual (equipment rentals, building rentals);

$42,300 for agency and support payments (honour guard, police pipe band, police choir).

Total operating revenues (everything from false alarm fees, to grants and subsidies) was anticipated around $168,274,267.

Budget per unit

Police services board: $402,760

Office of the chief: $1,382,640 (According to the public sector salary disclosure in 2019, the chief of police made $274,732)

Patrol Division 1 (central): $25,140,794

Patrol Division 2 (east end): $23,371,881

Patrol Division 3 (Mountain): $25,568,836

Investigative services: $25,844,980 (including homicide at $3,254,201, major fraud at $1,415,344, victims of crime at $3,820,546, vice and drugs at $3,262,090, intelligence at $5,162,204 and BEAR at $2,922,627)

Community mobilization: $10,702,652 (including $819,995 for the mounted unit, $5,863,548 for ACTION, $1,516,887 for the mobile crisis rapid response unit and $514,929 for victim services)

Other support services include court security at $1,014,246, the marine unit at $639,141, the emergency response unit at $1,912,049, traffic at $3,557,535 and canine at $579,468.

Capital budget

The net capital budget is $3,203,273 and includes new police vehicles for the dedicated traffic enforcement unit and CCTV cameras for police stations.

Construction on a new investigative services building is nearing completion. It has a $25.8-million budget. Moving into the building has been delayed because of COVID-19.

Originally the police service had intended to move in July, but as of the June police board meeting it was anticipated that the building would be turned over to police mid-to-late July, with moving beginning Aug. 13.

Surplus

There a $1,425,221 surplus from the 2019 budget, of which $409,670 remains for tax stabilization reserves. The bulk of the surplus is already earmarked for a number of projects including $445,850 to cover part of the $600,000 cost for the independent 2019 Pride review, $274,432 for vehicles, moving costs for the new investigative services building and $61,040 for 18 new carbine rifles.
As a renewed Black Lives Matter uprising fills the streets following a spate of high-profile police killings, the state-sanctioned killing of Black people continues on other fronts as well, including public health and economic injustice. In addition to protesting the widespread killing, activists have called attention to the systematic abandonment of Black communities as a function of both white supremacy and neo-liberal capitalism. While some mainstream voices have focused on condemning the looting happening in the streets, activists have called attention to the much larger-scale looting perpetrated by casino capitalism against marginalized communities.

At this historic moment, the pandemic of racist violence cannot be separated from the violence imposed by neo-liberal capitalism and the pandemic of racial inequality. The walls and cement barriers now surrounding U.S. President Donald Trumps White House signify both the infectious ruthlessness that produces police violence at home and abroad, and the war waged on those populations viewed as disposable. The paramilitary forces that attacked peaceful demonstrators in the streets are inextricably related to those economic forces driving a hyper-capitalism and the politics of racial sorting, spiralling poverty and soaring inequality. These rapacious economic structures extend from a predatory financial sector to big corporations that produce massive misery, engage in unchecked exploitation, plunder the public sector, and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a ruling elite.

As engaged citizens, it is crucial to examine how we address inequality as an object of critique in an age of precarity, uncertainty and the current pandemic crisis. This is especially true at a time when a growing number of authoritarian regimes around the globe replace thoughtful dialogue and critical engagement with the suppression of dissent and a culture of forgetting. How do we situate our analysis of racism as part of a broader discourse and mode of analysis that interrogates the promises, ideals, and claims of a substantive democracy? How do we fight against iniquitous relations of power and wealth that empty power of its emancipatory possibilities, and as Hannah Arendt has argued, makes most people superfluous as human beings? How might we understand how a society driven by the accumulation of capital at any costs, with its appropriation of market-based values, regressive notions of freedom and agency, uses language to infiltrate daily life? How does a pandemic pedagogy produce identities defined by market values, and normalize a notion of responsibility that convinces people that whatever problems they face they have no one to blame but themselves? Repeated endlessly on right-wing media platforms, the underlying conditions that disproportionately produce chronic illness among poor people of colour disappear among a public distracted, if not persuaded, by a pandemic pedagogy that celebrates unchecked self-interest, disdains social responsibility, and turns away from the reality of a society with deep-seated institutional rot.

How might these global demonstrations against police violence and unchecked racism transition from a pedagogical moment and collective outburst of political and moral outrage to a progressive international movement that is well organized and unified? Such a movement must build solidarity among different groups, imagine new forms of social life, make the impossible possible, and produce a democratic socialist project in defence of equality, social justice, and popular sovereignty. The racial, class, ecological, and public health crisis facing the globe can only be understood as part of a comprehensive crisis of democracy, if not the very meaning of politics itself.

Immediate solutions such as defunding the police and improving community services are important, but they do not deal with the larger issue of eliminating a market driven economic system structured in massive racial and economic inequalities. David Harvey is right in arguing that the immediate task is nothing more nor less than the self-conscious construction of a new political framework for approaching the question of inequality (and racism), through a deep and profound critique of our economic and social system. This is a crisis in which different threads of oppression must be understood as part of the general crisis of capitalism. The various protests now evolving internationally at the popular level offer the promise of new global movements for the struggle for popular sovereignty and economic, racial, and social justice. In the current moment, democracy may be under a severe threat and appear frighteningly vulnerable, but with young people and others rising up across the globe  inspired, energized and marching in the streets  the future of a radical democracy is waiting to breathe again.
We have been hearing about sovereignty for a year and a half without things happening on the ground. Today turned out to be one big farce, said prominent Israeli settler leader Yossi Dagan on Wednesday. For months the first of July had been advertised as the date when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would announce the annexation of much of the occupied West Bank  but he said nothing. Why?

Because sometimes a corpse can be a useful thing, if you dont actually bury it. Drag it out from time to time, apply a little lipstick and rouge, and you can persuade some people that it still poses a threat.

The two-state solution, in which an independent Palestinian mini-state shares historic Palestine with the far larger and more powerful Jewish national state of Israel, has in principle been the goal of Israeli-Arab peace talks for almost three decades now. Even though it is really long dead.

It was Binyamin Netanyahu who killed it, the first time he was prime minister back in 1996-99, but he was careful not to put a stake through its heart. The two-state solution was the threat he used to mobilize the growing right-wing majority in Israel to vote for him, posing as Mr. Security who would never let it happen.

Eventually Netanyahu added another threat to his electoral rhetoric, in the form of an Iran allegedly always on the brink of getting nuclear weapons. He even seems to believe in that one. But the two-state threat always remained an indispensable part of his sales pitch, so he must have watched the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in 2016 with mixed emotions.

Trump, courting evangelical Christian voters in the United States, advocated a bigger Israel that incorporated much of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This was territory destined to be the home of the future Palestinian state under the two-state solution, so it was the opportunity of a lifetime for Israeli expansionists. But Netanyahu, oddly, was dragging his feet.

Last January Trump even published his peace plan, which gave Israel a green light to annex more territory in the West Bank, where 600,000 Jewish settlers already make their homes. But still Netanyahu sat tight  until three lost elections in one year forced his hand.

He began promising  not for the first time, but much more fervently  that if his Likud party won enough seats to form a coalition government, he really would annex a lot of the West Bank. It won him enough settler and ultra-religious votes to let him form a coalition third time round  but he was then stuck with his promise of annexation.

The problem with annexation is both national and personal. Since Israel already controls the entire West Bank militarily, and effectively treats the third of the territory that has been taken by Jewish settlers as part of Israel, theres not much to be gained by annexation, and the costs are high.

First, annexation is illegal, and might trigger sanctions and boycotts against Israel in other countries. Secondly, it might lead to a new uprising by the several million Palestinians who live in the occupied areas, and a rupture in relations with Israels increasingly friendly Arab neighbours, like Jordan, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps more importantly for Netanyahu, a large-scale annexation of the occupied territory would eliminate the mythical two-state threat that has been his greatest political asset  and deprive him of the ability to dangle the prospect of annexation before the settler block again in future elections. He prefers the status quo, and he is now stalling in the hope that he may be able to avoid keeping his promises.

He has waffled on his commitments before, and it could happen again. However, the pro-annexationists in his coalition government and more broadly in the country are panicking as Donald Trumps re-election prospects in November appear to dwindle. The window seems to be closing, and they want action now.

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Netanyahu also desperately needs a success of some sort, as he is currently on trial for corruption. The upshot, therefore, may be a compromise that pleases nobody; a token annexation of a few Jewish settlements near the official Israeli border, and otherwise no change.

Possibly for the first time in history, Netanyahus personal and political interests, Israels real national interest, and the interest of world peace are all in alignment. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Gwynne Dyer s new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).

Read more about:
Comedy legend John Cleese is coming to Toronto to tell the world Why There Is No Hope.

The British comedians show is to take place at Roy Thomson Hall Aug. 2 at 3 p.m. as part of the Unique Lives & Experiences lecture series.

Only Cleese, 80, a founding member of the fabled Monty Python comedy troupe, and his team are scheduled to be present at the King Street West venue, a publicist said. Spectators around the world can buy tickets for the live stream, priced at $19.99 (U.S.).

Cleese, an actor known for TV and films such as Fawlty Towers and A Fish Called Wanda, is also an author. His latest book, Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide, will be published in September.

The August show will be part lecture, part standup routine and part Q&A led by Cleeses daughter, Camilla, Unique Lives & Experiences says.

As I prepare to travel to Canada, I have been gathering my thoughts on the future of our planet, Cleese said in a news release. I have reached the conclusion that the situation is completely hopeless, and that there is nothing that can be done about it, but that it really doesnt matter. I shall also be singing a short selection of Peruvian burial ditties. All this in my first ever live stream.

See johncleese-uniquelives.com for tickets.

Debra Yeo

A double lung transplant the ultimate goal for Nick Cordero

The wife of Broadway star Nick Cordero is hopeful her husband will be able to get a double lung transplant following complications from his battle with the coronavirus.

Hamilton-born Cordero, 41, has been hospitalized for a little more than three months. He had his right leg amputated in April and suffered holes in his lungs.

He has since tested negative for COVID-19 and is no longer in a medically induced coma, but is unable to move his body because his muscles have atrophied, wife Amanda Kloots told CBS This Morning on Thursday.

Kloots said a double lung transplant for Cordero is the ultimate, ultimate goal.

Kloots also said that its difficult to tell whether Cordero understands what happened to him, but he can respond to commands by looking up and down when hes alert.

New York Daily News

Whedon accused of abusive behaviour on Justice League set

Actor Ray Fisher says director Joss Whedons behaviour was abusive on the set of the 2017 film Justice League.

Joss Wheadons (sic) on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable, Fisher, who played the young superhero Cyborg in the DC Comics film, tweeted Wednesday.

Fisher added that Whedon was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg, two producers who were executives running DC Films for Warner Bros. Pictures at the time.

Whedon has not responded to Fisher on social media, and emails seeking comment from him and from Warner Bros. were not immediately returned.

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Berg told Variety that it was categorically untrue that we enabled any unprofessional behaviour.

The Associated Press

Blackface episode of Mad Men will not be pulled

Every episode of AMCs Mad Men will be available to stream later this month, including an episode featuring a character in blackface, Lionsgate says.

The episode, My Old Kentucky Home, sees Roger Sterling (John Slattery) wear blackface while serenading another character at a country club party, to the visible discomfort of Don Draper (Jon Hamm).

On Wednesday, Lionsgate released a statement explaining its decision that says in part, In its reliance on historical authenticity, the series producers are committed to exposing the injustices and inequities within our society that continue to this day so we can examine even the most painful parts of our history in order to reflect on who we are today and who we want to become. We are therefore presenting the original episode in its entirety.

Many other TV series have seen blackface episodes pulled in recent weeks, including 30 Rock, Scrubs, Community, The Office and Golden Girls.

All seven seasons of Mad Men have begun airing in Canada on Super Channel Fuse, with new episodes Monday to Friday at 7 p.m. Seasons 1 and 2 are also available on Super Channel on Demand.

Los Angeles Times and Star staff

Johnny Depp libel suit can proceed, U.K. judge rules

A British judge has rejected an attempt by tabloid newspaper The Sun to quash a libel suit from actor Johnny Depp over an article claiming he abused ex-wife Amber Heard.

The ruling means Depp and Heard and their large legal teams will square off next week at the High Court in London.

Depp, 57, and Heard, 34, married in Los Angeles in February 2015. They divorced in 2017.

Depp is suing The Suns publisher, News Group Newspapers, and executive editor Dan Wootton over a 2018 article claiming the actor was violent and abusive to Heard. He strongly denies the allegations.

The Suns lawyers applied for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that Depp failed to disclose text messages he exchanged with an assistant showing that he tried to buy MDMA and other narcotics while he was in Australia with Heard in 2015.

The judge ruled that Depp had breached the disclosure order but granted him relief from sanctions, meaning the case can proceed.
VANCOUVERDozens of dead sea lions wash up on Canadas shores every year.

Lately, on the West Coast, some have been missing their heads. And while its not quite the story of Ichabod Crane and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, its presenting a bit of a mystery.

Residents on Vancouver Island had spotted several headless sea lions, the Victoria Times Colonist reported back in May. Then, this past week, photos of headless sea lions taken by a Nanaimo resident made headlines again. One resident in nearby Parksville even spotted a man taking hours to decapitate an already dead sea lion, then row away with the skull on a homemade raft, according to CTV.

A spokesperson from Fisheries and Oceans said the department is monitoring the incidents closely.

While the one example seems clear, where are these other headless corpses coming from?

Dr. Martin Haulena, head veterinarian at the Vancouver Aquarium and Ocean Wise, has rescued dozens of stranded marine mammals, including several sea lions suffering from gunshot wounds. Six months ago, he tended to a sea lion that had been shot with a cross bow.

Cutting off the head to hide evidence  such as a gunshot wound, for instance  would be a criminal act.

He said he thinks the most likely scenario is that someone finds a dead sea lion carcass  they often get bloated and then float to shore  and decide to cut off its head as a trophy.

My concern would be more if someone had purposely killed an animal. That does not seem to be the case from what I understand right now.

He said that certain sharks, such as Greenland and sleeper sharks, do attack seals and sea lions head first, but thats probably not what happened here. Its also unlikely that sea lions are being decapitated by accident, for instance by the propeller of a large boat, he said.

Sea lion heads are a sought-after commodity.

Thomas Sewid believes the recent reports of headless sea lions are evidence of people taking advantage of a growing underground market for sea-lion skulls.

Sewid, a member of the Kwakwakawakw Nation on Vancouver Island, said he has received more than 120 emails in recent months from taxidermy enthusiasts interested in buying a sea lion skulls.

Right now, theres a big demand. And theres no legal supply, said Sewid.

A male steller sea lion skull, with all of its teeth intact, goes for about $4,000 in the underground market, he said.

The fisherman-turned seal-hunt advocate said allowing the commercial sale of seal and sea lion items would be good for both struggling fish stocks  as fewer sea lions and seals might mean more fish  as well as for coastal Indigenous communities. Currently, Indigenous communities are allowed to harvest seals for food and cultural purposes only.

If Canadian authorities began allowing the commercial harvest and sale of pinnipeds, the price of a sea lion skull would likely drop by half, but still constitute a big-ticket item, he said.

Other parts of the animal are also worth harvesting, he said.

A sea lion pelt would fetch more than $500. A cluster of whiskers, used to make ceremonial regalia in some Indigenous communities, would be worth as much as $700.

Seal and sea lion meat could be sold either for human consumption, or to the pet food industry.

And the oil from sea-lion blubber, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, is worth $100 per gallon to the pharmaceutical industry, according to Sewid.

The Royal BC Museum in Victoria has 45 sea lion skulls, though none were obtained recently.

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The museum has over 21,000 specimens of mammals, including bones, pelts and tissue samples. Only five research specimens are currently on display for public viewing  the rest are stored away and serve as a source of DNA and isotopes for scientists, according to Gavin Hanke, curator of vertebrate zoology at the museum. Artists also request to see specimens from time to time, so they can get anatomical and colour details correct.

The Royal BC Museum always works with local authorities to collect samples, Hanke said.

When we take a whale skull, a whale skeleton, a sea lion, or sea turtle, it is in partnership with (Fisheries and Oceans Canada) and they dispose of the rest of the carcass, he said. Bodies are not left to litter beaches.

Most animals that museums obtain and prepare as taxidermy mounts come from salvage, said Hanke.

Most museums wouldnt take an animal head and discard the body so casually, said Eric Taylor, director and curator at Beaty Biodiversity Museum and a zoology professor at the University of British Columbia.

I seriously doubt if any reputable museum would ever collect skulls this way, he said.

Sewid, who lives in Campbell River, said he does not sell sea-lion products himself. But he has been conducting market research to try to make the case for opening up a commercial market for pinniped products to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. A spokesperson for the government department told the Star it does not have plans to allow the commercial sale of pinnipeds at this time.

Sewid founded Pacific Balance Marine Management, an organization of fishers who believe seals and sea lions are to blame for B.C.s struggling fisheries. The groups Facebook page has more than 6,000 members.

For Indigenous people, saving the ailing salmon fishery is about more than just economics, he said.

Its a culture thing, he said. I havent even been able to teach my daughter, how to jar salmon because it wasnt worth it for her to come down, because there wasnt any fish.

Sewid said many in B.C.s fishing industry are frustrated that they cannot legally kill seals and sea lions in order to protect their catch.

This is the tip of the iceberg, he said, referring to the recent sea-lion deaths.

Youre going to see more headless and head-on bloaters coming onto the beaches.

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Migrant workers at an Ontario farm struggling with a major COVID-19 outbreak hid to avoid getting tested when health officials visited recently, Premier Doug Ford said Thursday, refusing to name the business.

Ford said fears among temporary foreign workers that they would not be paid or sent back to their home countries if they tested positive for the virus are hindering efforts to address the outbreak at the farm in the Windsor-Essex region that has seen 191 workers infected with COVID-19.

The premier said only three or four workers at the farm co-operated with health officials who showed up to do more testing.

All the workers went and hid, he said. Thats why my emphasis to the workers is nothings going to happen. Were here, Ontario is here, to help you.

Farms in Windsor-Essex have been hard-hit by COVID-19 with four farms currently in outbreak. Hundreds of migrant workers have tested positive for the virus, and three have died.

Ford stressed Thursday that workers will have access to health care, safe places to isolate, and be eligible for some of the provinces sick pay benefits.

On Wednesday, the medical officer of health for Windsor-Essex ordered a work stoppage at the unidentified local farm after the rash of positive tests.

Dr. Wajid Ahmed issued a mandatory order for the farm to ensure employees were isolated and stopped working as a result of the outbreak. No contract workers are permitted to work on the site either under the order.

The health units CEO, Theresa Marentette, said the farm outbreak represents a quarter of the regions total COVID-19 cases among agri-food workers.

Its a substantial amount of people, she said of the number workers with the virus. So this order was put in place to protect the workers and prevent further spread on the farm.

While Ford has repeatedly praised Ahmed in recent weeks, he appeared to contradict him Thursday, saying the work stoppage will not inspire local farmers to participate in efforts to combat the virus.

Do you think that encourages other farmers to co-operate when all of a sudden, they see one of their friends get their farm shut down like that? Ford said.

The health unit and Ford have declined to name the farm where the outbreak has occurred, with the premier saying he doesnt want to blame the grower for the situation.

When I call people out, its because theyre trying to gouge someone, he said. Theyre trying to take advantage of the public. These poor farmers, theyre not trying to take advantage of anyone. Theyre beside themselves. And Im not about to throw a hard-working farmer underneath the bus for nothing that hes done wrong.

Public health units in Haldimand-Norfolk and Chatham-Kent have named farms were outbreaks have occurred.

NDP legislator Taras Natyshak, who represents a riding in Essex County, said migrant workers were participating in on-farm testing for COVID-19, disputing Fords statements.

...those workers have been supportive because they understand how serious it is to their own health and to their colleagues, he said.

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Natyshak said Ford was also wrong when it comes to promises of provincial sick pay eligibility for the workers, noting that current pandemic measures only protect migrant worker jobs. He said workers need assurances they wont lose money if they test positive for the virus.

On Thursday, the Canadian Red Cross confirmed it was working with the province and municipal officials in Windsor-Essex to help the community deal with the outbreaks.

Meanwhile, a new mobile app meant to help with contact tracing of COVID-19 cases was not rolled out across Ontario on Thursday as planned.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health said the province was still working with the federal government and the app was expected to launch soon.

The province will be the first to use the COVID Alert app, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said it should be ready for downloading in the rest of the country later this summer.

Ford has previously said the app could play a key role in helping contain the spread of COVID-19 as more businesses reopen their doors.

Using the app would be voluntary, and the app would notify users based on a number of criteria, including if they were within two metres of a person who tests positive for the virus and if that contact took place over an extended period of time.

Well, its not delayed on our side, Ford said Thursday. Were ready to go. I know the feds want to bring it right across the country. Theyre working on that.

Ontario reported 153 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday and four new deaths related to the novel coronavirus.

The total number of cases now stands at 35,370, which includes 30,730 marked as resolved and 2,680 deaths.

The province reported 204 resolved cases over the previous day, and the numbers of people in intensive care and using ventilators both dropped. More than 24,300 tests were completed over the previous 24 hours.

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EDMONTONFamily members of two Metis hunters who were killed on a rural road in eastern Alberta have written to local mayors, urging them to face the racism in their respective communities.

The two men slain in late March, Jacob Sansom and Morris Cardinal, had bagged a moose before travelling to a nearby village to drop meat off for a family member there, according to their relatives. Police allege that a confrontation at an intersection just north of the village of Glendon, Alta., led another man to shoot Cardinal and Sansom dead. Glendon resident Anthony Michael Bilodeau and his father, Roger Bilodeau, have since been charged with second-degree murder.

Many speculated that there was a racial motivation behind the killings, but police have said they dont believe that. Sansom knew at least one of the men now charged in his death. The Star recently spent a month investigating the killings and the public conversation they have sparked.

The two letters signed by five family members of the victims request sweeping changes: the banning of racist symbols, such as the Confederate flag, intentional relationships with surrounding First Nations and Metis communities, for the mayors to hold conversations about racism and violence in the area, develop anti-racism policies, and start work on more diverse town council representation.

The two letters are addressed to Mayor Laura Papirny of Glendon and Mayor Gene Sobolewski of Bonnyville.

Glendon is a tiny village about 30 minutes to the west of Bonnyville, a town of 6,000.

As previous members of the Bonnyville community, we can speak firsthand of racist experiences that forced us to leave the town out of fear for our safety, says the letter, signed by Sansoms mother, brother, wife, sister and a cousin.

You can be part of the solution.

The family has called on both mayors to address racial violence thats perpetrated to Indigenous Peoples structurally and individually.

Intergenerational racism is a deep-rooted issue in many rural communities that began with the forced removal of Indigenous Peoples from sovereign homelands, reducing hunting and self-determining ways of life to small segments of living space called reservations, the letter states.

In the letter, the family invites both mayors to attend a peaceful demonstration planned for the middle of this month.

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A call to action from the family of Morris Cardinal and Jacob Sansom View document on Scribd

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A 51-year-old Mississauga high school teacher has been charged with sexual assault after Peel Region police alleged that he was in an inappropriate relationship with one of his 17-year-old female students.

Police said it began in June 2016 and happened over several months.

Robert Brandstetter, 51, of Guelph, was arrested Tuesday and charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation.

Police are asking that anyone who has had contact with Brandstetter, and believe they may have been the victim of a criminal offence, to call 905-453-2121.

David Venn is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @davidvenn_

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Less than a month after opening, a popular Parkdale burger joint has shut down over a rent dispute.

Aunty Lucys owner Chieff Bosompra says that his business, which opened June 3 cooking out of Duggans Brewery at Queen Street West and Brock Avenue, will close after serving customers on Canada Day.

It feels slightly disheartening to be strong-armed, Bosompra says. But in business you need to be able to read the room and thats something he didnt do  raising the rent by 10 times a month later is never OK.

A post Wednesday afternoon on the brewerys Instagram disputes Bosompras story.

We invited them in at the heat of the epidemic. RENT FREE, please just cover the utilities they might generate, around, $600 a month we thought, the post read. We agreed to a one month pop up. A good deal, a steal, just ask anyone in the business. Turns out they were so successful they actually used around $2,500 in utilities, garbage, lots of gas etc in costs for the month, thats a lot of burgers.

The post said Bosompras business has only paid $500, although both sides have known about the extra costs for a while now.

We were told by Aunt Lucys that that they wanted to stay but are not willing to pay ANY RENT (and it turns out any of the extra costs we incurred for them being here), the post read. Well, so who is going to help pay the landlord? Seems not Aunt Lucys.

Throughout the last few weeks, Bosompra said that Duggans Brewery owner Michael Duggan had congratulated him on the success of his new venture.

Bosompra said he inquired about extending their agreement  which was never signed in a contract  after his restaurant fulfilled thousands of orders in a month and sold out on multiple occasions.

Last week, Bosompra said, he was approached without warning by Duggan who told him that for the month of July, hed need 10 times the rent he paid for June.

Unable to fulfill the amount, and after consulting with realtors who agreed that the rent for just the kitchen space was way overpriced, Bosompra said he offered to meet Duggan halfway with the rent. Bosompra said he also offered to help him market his brewery and run his Instagram account.

I felt like we tried hard to meet him halfway and offer him cash value to help him with his beer sales. I have no malice toward him, but he was stuck on a number I couldnt meet, Bosompra said.

The Star was unable to reach Duggan for an interview.

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Bosompra is now working with commercial real estate agents to quickly find a short-term spot where they can set up for the summer months.

Despite the hurdles, Bosompra said hes still going to keep his momentum going and is hopeful about the future of his business.
Starting next week, one of the few enclosed public spaces in Toronto where residents wont be required to wear a face mask will be on a GO Transit vehicle.

On Thursday, the TTC made it mandatory for passengers on the city-owned transit system to wear a mask in order to fight the spread of COVID-19, and Torontos new bylaw requiring face coverings in a wide range of indoor spaces will go into effect next Tuesday. When it does, Torontonians will be required to wear masks in settings from retail stores to houses of worship, from grocery stores to community centres.

But while Metrolinx, the provincial agency that oversees GO Transit and the UP Express, is strongly encouraging its riders to wear face coverings, it hasnt enacted a mandatory mask rule for its passengers.

Agency spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said throughout the pandemic Metrolinx has followed the advice of Ontarios Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams, and will continue to do so regarding face coverings.

Despite Metrolinx figures indicating only between 30 and 50 per cent of GO passengers are wearing face coverings, Aikins said the approach of merely encouraging mask use has been effective. Out of a workforce of more than 4,300, 12 Metrolinx employees have either tested positive for COVID-19 or been deemed a probable case, and we have not experienced an outbreak related to GO or UP, she said.

Metrolinx has instituted other measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including frequent vehicle cleaning, and signs and floor markings to help people stay the recommended two metres apart. The agency said Thursday its launching a pilot of installing plastic dividers between seats on five GO trains and 30 buses to prevent riders from being exposed to airborne respiratory droplets that can carry the virus.

GO Transit carries far fewer people than the TTC. Daily ridership on the provincial commuter network is now less than 30,000, but before the crisis hit it exceeded 270,000, compared to about 1.8 million for the TTC.

Despite the mismatch in the size of the two organizations, Councillor Joe Cressy, chair of Torontos board of health, said it was important for the provincial and city transit agencies to be on the same page. Complicating the issue is there are some places, like the city-owned Union Station, where the two systems intersect.

Mask usage only works when nearly everybody does it, and that requires consistent policies and consistent communications, he said.

On Tuesday, on the advice of Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa, council voted to ask the province to enact a bylaw that would complement the citys by mandating masks in enclosed spaces under provincial jurisdiction, including transit.

This is to ensure that all enclosed spaces in Toronto will be protected so we can continue to reduce virus spread in our city, Dr. Vinita Dubey, Toronto Public Healths Associate Medical Officer of Health, said in a statement.

In response to questions about why the provinces top doctor hasnt required transit users to wear masks, Ministry of Health spokesperson Christian Hasse said Dr. Williams has stated repeatedly that it is recommended that everyone wear a face covering when they will not be able to physically distance properly. If people are unsure if they should wear a mask  they should err on the side of caution and wear one.

Dr. Colin Furness, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, said that by encouraging mask use instead of mandating it, Metrolinx is sending the message that were not serious about safety.

I would advise nobody to ride on a GO train at all until they put a (mask) policy in place, Furness said.

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The set fine for not wearing a mask on the TTC is $195, but the agency has said it expects voluntary compliance will be high and strict enforcement wont be necessary. On the first day of the new rule, mask use was far from universal, at least according to anecdotal accounts. On Thursday a Star photographer observed many people not wearing masks on the Dundas streetcar.

Despite fears that public transit could be a particularly high-risk environment for the spread of COVID-19, there is little evidence directly linking outbreaks to transit systems. Some experts believe that has more to do with contact tracing methodology than an absence of transmission, however.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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Four people and their dog were rescued from a home fully engulfed in flames in Thornhill early Thursday morning.

York Region police officers and firefighters rushed into the home at 32 Colborne St., near Yonge and John streets, and carried two people in wheelchairs out of the burning structure. They also ensured the house was evacuated.

Officers rushed inside the burning building and located four people and the family dog still inside the home, York police said in a news release.

Four occupants of the home and an officer were transported to hospital where they were treated for smoke inhalation. Three other officers were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. They are all expected to recover.

Firefighters battled the extremely difficult blaze for three hours, said Deputy Fire Chief Adam Grant.

At around 2:20 a.m., a neighbours dog appeared to be acting funny. When the owner followed him downstairs, he discovered heavy flames pouring out of the front of the home next door and called 911.

The long front porch was fully engulfed, Grant said.

There was black, heavy smoke. The weather was really challenging because of the high pressure and humidity, it pushed the smoke down. It was extremely difficult, Grant said.

The home was an older structure with several additions on the back, creating multiple roof cavities that were hard to access, he said.

Once it got into the attic it was extremely challenging.

For three hours, 30 firefighters worked to get control of the flames, taking apart portions of the ceiling and dousing the roof using aerial equipment, he said.

It was a challenging one. The street was very narrow, he said. An electrical wire to the home had burned and the live wire was dangling from a tree. It was crazy.

Hydro and gas workers were called to quickly eliminate the exposed wire.

Grant praised the teamwork by three agencies  York Region police, Markham fire and EMS.

This is where you really appreciate the work firefighters do in this heat, with all the gear they wear, he said. It was just great work by everyone. Everybody was doing their job, like a well-oiled machine.

Fire crews will remain on the scene for the day in case of flare-ups, he said.

Investigators with York Regional Police #2 District Criminal Investigations Bureau, along with the Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal are investigating.

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The fire is not considered to be suspicious at this time.

Anyone with information is asked to contact York Regional Police #2 District Criminal Investigations Bureau at 1-866-876-5423 ext. 7241 Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or leave an anonymous tip online at 1800222tips.com

Correction  July 2, 2020: An incorrect street address of the home was provided by police. The address has been corrected to 32 Colborne St.
The TTCs pandemic recovery plans will enter a crucial new phase on Thursday, when the transit agency will start requiring its passengers to wear masks, and will lift restrictions instituted earlier in the crisis to allow for social distancing on its buses.

The changes come as ridership, particularly on the bus network, continues to rebound from the dramatic drop caused by the pandemic, a trend that has made eliminating crowding increasingly difficult and compelled the agency to institute other measures to contain the spread of the virus.

TTC CEO Rick Leary said the pivot in strategy indicates local officials have done a good job of containing the pandemic, and riders feel safe taking transit again as the city opens up.

All of a sudden youre seeing those (ridership) numbers creep up. For me, thats a positive sign, he said in an interview.

Leary said throughout the crisis the TTC has adapted its operations based on advice from Toronto Public Health on how to keep riders and employees safe, and the changes coming Thursday are very much in line with that approach.

Not wearing a face covering on the TTC will technically come with a $195 fine, but Leary has said the agency plans to encourage people to comply by using education, not enforcement.

Visual and audio messages on vehicles and in stations will remind riders of the mask requirement, and the TTC is deploying 100 COVID-19 ambassadors to help spread the message.

People with conditions that prevent them from covering their faces wont be required to wear masks, nor will children under the age of two. Leary urged riders not to confront passengers who arent using a face covering.

I think they have to be understanding of others. We want to make sure that people understand, not everybody can (wear a mask), he said.

Leary said the TTC is aiming to get at least 90 per cent of customers wearing masks. Although the agency has said compliance rates will be monitored to determine if further actions are needed, Leary stressed that the TTC wouldnt move quickly to start cracking down if uptake isnt high initially.

Were going to give this some time, he said.

The other significant change coming Thursday is the resumption of all-door boarding and fare box collection on buses.

Thats a reversal of policies the TTC announced in March, when it restricted passengers to using the rear doors only, and stopped collecting cash, tickets and tokens on buses in an effort to keep drivers apart from riders.

Leary said while ridership on streetcars and subways remains at about 18 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, bus routes have reached about 37 per cent. Thats up from late April, when systemwide demand was about 14 per cent of normal.

This past weekend bus ridership hit about 43 per cent of pre-crisis levels, which Leary interpreted as a sign people arent just using transit for essential trips as they were earlier in the pandemic.

People seem to be using a bit more discretionary travel on the TTC, and thats great, he said. The ridership and the revenue is definitely a plus.

About 18 per cent of bus trips now exceed the TTCs COVID-19 guideline that stipulates buses should carry a maximum of 15 people. The CEO has previously conceded even that guideline isnt low enough to ensure riders can always stay the recommended two metres apart.

As riders return the TTC has little choice but to put less emphasis on social distancing. Earlier in the pandemic, the TTC used signs to block off seats and keep passengers apart, but Leary said riders have been removing the signs and the agency will now stop replacing them.

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Carlos Santos, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents more than 11,000 TTC workers, said some of his members are concerned about the resumption of all-door boarding.

He said drivers are particularly worried about reopening the two seats behind driver cabs, which allow passengers to sit close to operators. Santos said the union is working with the TTC to find ways to seal off the cab.

Santos said his wider concern is that the TTC continues to operate only about 85 per cent of regular service, which leads to more crowded vehicles.

In April the agency announced 1,200 temporary layoffs as a result of lower ridership demand, and so far about 450 workers have been furloughed, according to the union.

With the transit agency projecting up to almost $600 million in losses and increased costs related to the pandemic by the end of the year, Santos called on the provincial and federal governments to provide emergency operating funding that would allow the TTC to restore full service.

Our vehicles are starting to fill up. Our members that have been laid off, they should have been called back already, he said.

According to the latest figures, 66 TTC employees have tested positive for COVID-19.

In July the TTC also plans to resume fare enforcement activities, starting with warnings but moving to fines by mid-July or August.

On Tuesday, Coun. Gord Perks moved a motion at council requesting the TTC look into eliminating its special constable unit, citing concerns about use of force and racial bias.

Council defeated his motion, but voted in favour of another, introduced by Mayor John Tory, to ask the TTC to conduct a review of the units mandate.

Leary defended restarting enforcement to the Star, noting that unfortunately fare revenue makes up two-thirds of the TTCs annual operating budget, the highest portion of any transit agency in North America.

We have to make sure that we collect the fares, he said.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation for the Star. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr
A Canadian man detained in Egypt for nearly a year and a half has been reunited with his family in Oakville, his family confirmed Thursday.

Yasser Ahmed Albaz landed at Torontos Pearson Airport Thursday morning, his daughter Amal Albaz wrote on Facebook.

Our familys ordeal is finally coming to an end, she wrote, adding that her fathers health has deteriorated. Our top priority will be his much needed medical treatment. We ask that he be given time to quietly heal from this ordeal and spend quality time with his family.

The federal government acknowledged Yassers return to Canada. Global Affairs Canada is pleased that Yasser Ahmed Albaz has been reunited with his family here in Canada, said a spokesperson for the federal agency, who would not comment on details of the case, citing privacy.

Last month, the Albaz family learned that Yasser had developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and was briefly taken to hospital. The family led days of protests in front of the offices of seven federal MPs urging immediate action to return Yasser to Canada.

Yasser was detained without charge while coming home from a business trip in early 2019. He was held in Egypts infamous Tora prison, notorious for human rights abuses and lack of basic hygiene.

The family has roots in Egypt and has travelled back and forth between Egypt and Canada without incident many times, Amal told the Star in June. My father is not political whatsoever. Hes just a businessman.

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

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Police say a 67-year-old man was injured after a TTC bus, a tractor trailer and a car collided in North York on Thursday morning.

The driver of the transport truck was trapped inside his vehicle for a short time, Toronto police media officer Const. Edward Parks said. He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries

The collision took place just after 10 a.m. at Glengrove Avenue West and Bathurst Street.

The transport trailer turned on its side as a result of the collision, police tweeted, and fluid was leaking out of the vehicle.
The city of Toronto is being asked to provide voluntary housing where people who test positive for COVID-19 can self-isolate, if they live in overcrowded areas and cant distance from others at home.

The request from the citys board of health comes after it heard Thursday about updated Toronto Public Health data on marginalized groups who are more at risk of contracting the virus.

That includes the group that is the most underhoused  where the number of people per household exceeds the typical capacity  which had the highest case rate at 568 per 100,000 residents.

Toronto Public Health told the board Thursday this trend was the most pronounced of all the characteristics it looked at in its study, with the case rate being almost four times higher among people living in areas with high levels of overcrowding.

The recommendation approved by the board Thursday asks council to request city staff work with public health agencies at the provincial and federal level to support Toronto Public Healths work on the establishment of a volunteer isolation/quarantine centre system, as well as other methods to achieve effective isolation for individuals who are unable to safely and effectively isolate at home.

The risk of COVID-19 shouldnt depend on where you live, how much you make, or how many bathrooms you have in your home, board chair Coun. Joe Cressy said in a statement. We need to do everything we can to mitigate vulnerabilities to this virus, and to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity to reduce transmission and protect their loved ones.

In this case, that means working with our government partners to make sure people have somewhere to go if they cant safely self-isolate at home.

The Toronto Public Health data also confirmed earlier reports that case rates are higher in the lowest-income areas with newcomers, and that Black and other people of colour are over-represented in the case data.

While the city overall has met key indicators to allow Toronto to move to Stage 2 of the provinces reopening, which saw patios, hair salons and other services open, the Star previously reported how the citys northwest corner has been hardest hit, looking at the differences in workplaces, housing and access to health care as risk factors.

The city, meanwhile, said it is preparing to return community centres across the city to their regular uses. The roughly 200 homeless residents living in those centres as temporary shelter sites were being moved to hotels.

In a news release, the city said it planned to open new locations to be able to maintain physical distancing between all shelter beds and that, to-date, almost 290 people sleeping in outdoor encampments have been moved to hotels, temporary or permanent housing.

On Thurdsay, Premier Doug Ford announced $150 million in relief for municipalities to help improve homeless shelters and create housing opportunities.

When it was pointed out that amount spread among all municipalities would do little to help cities like Toronto, Ford said the province was committed to giving more money to municipalities, but blamed the federal government for holding up an agreement.

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Tory, noting the urgent nature of the citys need for funds, said he hoped that money would be matched by the federal government and any bureaucratic disagreements sorted soon. He said given the city bears an unequal responsibility for homelessness in the region, it would be pushing to a fair share of the $150 million.

Toronto expects to have at least a $1.5 billion shortfall by the end of this year as a result of the pandemic.

Jennifer Pagliaro is a Toronto-based reporter covering city hall and municipal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @jpags
Editors note: This story is part of a new occasional series and community at the Star called Life with Kids  a place for parents and caregivers with young children to feel heard, informed and connected.

Seamus Browns first sentence was an exciting milestone for his family.

The words he strung together for the first time reminded his mother of just how much harder it has been to make progress since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The smart little guy, who turned three in May, has a developmental delay that affects his motor skills like speech and walking. It means he has to work extra hard to make gains.

He doesnt speak, but his first sentence was, I wanna go on the swings, his mother Krista Prendergast said. I find with Seamus he goes through periods where hes really developing and has periods where he sort of plateaus. This happens to be a period where hes really, really developing and I only can imagine what he would have been learning if he had proper support.

Seamus, who is described as friendly, playful, fun, loving and caring by his mom, started preschool for children with special needs in January after a six month stint on the waiting list. After a challenging first month at school, he was a rockstar in February and made rapid progression. In March, everything shut down, and it has been a difficult time in the Brown household ever since.

He loves other kids. He loves being around other kids. Hes definitely missing that and we can definitely see just in terms of increased tantrums, trouble sleeping, just anything that a typical three-year-old would do, hes doing it even more right now, Prendergast said. She works in the field as a teacher, which helps, but as much as her and her husband try to replace what school and therapy had to offer, its simply not possible.

Its so hard. We try to do playtime, read a lot of books, sing songs and sort of have somewhat of a routine. Its difficult because were not as fun as kids his own age and we also have a new baby. Were busy on that front.

This juggling act has become a new reality for many families whose children have had minimal to no interactions with other kids for months. More than a dozen caregivers expressed concerns and worry about the lack of socialization for their preschoolers during the pandemic in response to a social media callout by the Star. Many of them noted signs of regression, behavioural issues, shyness and sadness in their kids.

Emily VanderGriendt, mom to a two-and-a-half-year-old in Brampton, says her son is struggling to adapt to life without his friends.

My son is very up and down with how hes expressing things. Sometimes we have meltdowns and tantrums because he wants to go to so-and-sos house to play, VanderGreindt said. Not having daycare has been hard for him. There is sadness and anger but he is beginning to shrug and say one day soon.

Want to receive the Life with Kids weekly email bulletin? Send an email to bholmyard@thestar.ca

Dr. Shimi Kang is a mother of three, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and an expert in mental health and relationships. She says relationships are the nutrition for the developing brain, but the lack of social bonding with other kids wont neccessarily have long-term effects.

Children are extremely resilient. Our brain is whats called neuroplastic, so we can always change, its not fixed, said Dr. Kang, whose upcoming book titled The Tech Solution takes a science-based approach to how to raise kids in a digital world. Just like our bodies, when we provide the brain with the appropriate environment, nutrients, social experiences, we can certainly reactivate that. Theres not this sense of permanent damage.

As restrictions loosen and children return to social settings in the short and long-term, Dr. Kang says parents should look very intensely at their childs behaviours with other kids to recognize any skill deficits that need to be addressed.

They may have trouble making friends or knowing when to assert themselves or how to say no, and all those important social skills. If those havent been developed, we cant just assume they will come, and that can stunt future growth, Dr. Kang said. So we want to look very intensely at what might be the skill deficit my child has. Are they shy, are they a bit of a bully, are they a bit pushy, are they a jellyfish and let people walk all over them? Then give them some tools and scenarios where they can develop that skill.

More from the Life with Kids series: All we need is love: How Toronto parents can make this a summer to remember

If theres a silver lining of all the time spent at home and missing activities with peers, Dr. Kang says the pandemic could help kids form more meaningful relationships, rather than several less-intimate ones.

Theres an opportunity to slow everything down and get a deeper quality connection. Yes, were social beings, but we dont need to be running around schedules with a million activities where they actually dont get a chance to talk to a friend, Dr. Kang said. So I think its been an interesting course correction for kids. The data showed prior to COVID kids were too busy, too stressed, sleep deprived, rates of anxiety were going up. We certainly have to be aware of the social isolation piece, but I feel that this reset could provide a good balance moving forward.

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In the meantime, with social distancing measures in place for the foreseeable future and small social bubbles reccommended from health officials, primary caregivers will continue finding creative ways to give kids the social connection they crave.

Tracy Morgan, who works for a province-wide preschool speech and language program in Toronto, says one way she has tried to keep her toddler involved with other kids is by watching videos of activities they are doing. A group of parents have been uploading them regularly to a Google Drive.

Its nice because you can kind of refer back to that if you have a similar experience. Like, isnt it fun that you get to do the same kinds of activities? Morgan said. Youre making them aware of people who are also going through the situation and doing the same things at home, and I guess building a bit of a community in some ways.

While the pandemic has made life hectic and brought unique challenges into every home, its important to keep an emphasis on making sure kids are getting plenty of physical contact.

This is a good time to do more hugs, back rubs, baby massages for toddlers. Again, we know that it releases oxytocin, which is that neurohormone of connection and love. We get it from our social relationships and also from physical touch. I think its important that were being physically affectionate to the young kids in our lives, Dr. Kang said. And of course the kids love it too.

Have a story idea? Want to sign up for the Life with Kids weekly email bulletin and join our growing community with other parents and caregivers? Contact Braydon Holmyard at bholmyard@thestar.ca.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The message was dropped into a WhatsApp group used by suburban moms in South Africa. Amid the grumblings over homeschooling during lockdown, one mom went off topic: Does anyone know where to get illegal cigarettes? I just need a few. Im desperate.

She emphasized her anguish with an emoji, a face with eyes bulging and tongue hanging out.

The desperate mama, as she described herself, is one of 9 million smokers in South Africa affected by the governments decision in late March to ban the sale of all tobacco products, ostensibly to help protect citizens health during the coronavirus pandemic. The ban remains even after South Africa eased most of its strict lockdown restrictions, including another contentious outlawing of alcohol sales.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases are rising rapidly in Africas most developed economy. But that economy is suffering, and now restaurants, cinemas and even casinos are set to reopen. And allowing people to purchase alcohol again has led to an increase in drunken brawls and traffic accidents, putting added strain on hospitals as they deal with the virus. Yet its still illegal to buy a pack of cigarettes.

It makes no sense, said Sinenhlanhla Mnguni, chairman of the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association, which represents smaller manufacturers. The association challenged the ban in court and lost. Another case, with global industry giant British American Tobacco taking the government to court, has begun.

South Africa is the only country in the world to have a ban on tobacco sales in place after India and Botswana lifted theirs.

The government says its putting the health of its people first as the respiratory disease spreads. The World Health Organization advises people to give up smoking during the pandemic and says smoking is linked to a higher risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 in hospitalized patients, although it was unable to specify exactly how much greater those risks might be. But in the scientific brief published this week, the U.N. health agency also said there were currently no studies to show if smokers were more susceptible to actually contracting COVID-19.

The South African government has been hotly criticized for not publishing the science it said it relied on three months ago.

That showed a Just do what we say, we know best attitude from the government, said Joleen Steyn Kotze, an expert on democracy and governance in South Africa. She warned the lack of transparency might foster a general distrust when the government needs citizens more than ever to co-operate.

The ban, which outlaws selling tobacco but not the act of smoking, does have some backing.

There are good reasons for people to quit, and especially at this time of COVID-19, said Catherine Egbe, a scientist at the Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council. She agrees with the ban on the basis that COVID-19 majorly affects the respiratory system.

South African smokers have two options, neither pleasant: Go cold turkey at a time of high stress. Or, like the desperate mom, go criminal. With prohibition comes bootlegging, often with links to organized crime.

Removed from all mainstream outlets, cigarettes have become the most sought after illicit drug in South Africa, more profitable than cocaine and heroin, some analysts say.

Cigarettes hidden in grocery bags are pushed across the counter at corner shops. Young men flash packs on sidewalks. A nod in their direction and even one cigarette to temporarily fend off withdrawal symptoms is available.

It comes at a high price. Sometimes $11 for a box of 20 cigarettes that cost $1.70 pre-lockdown. Some brands are smuggled into the country, others are hardly-known, bottom shelf local labels, but theyll do. Theres even a VIP service if you make phone contact with illicit sellers. For $350 youll get 200 cigarettes delivered to your home, one promises, so you can avoid the risk of running into police. They normally cost about $20.

Supporters of the ban say there has been some success in getting people to quit smoking, or at least cut down. But a survey of more than 12,000 smokers by the University of Cape Town found that 90% of them bought cigarettes illegally during lockdown.

Mnguni said it was nonsense to think smokers would suddenly give up. He fears that smokers now familiar with bootleg sources may stick with them when the ban is lifted and illicit cigarettes are cheaper again.

The repercussions for the economy are already felt. The tobacco industry contributes nearly $100 million a month in excise taxes paid to the South African government, never mind jobs and livelihoods.

The fate of a legendary tobacco shop, a fixture on Cape Towns historic central square since 1793 and which had survived two centuries of challenges, has reinforced the new reality. Unable to trade for months, it packed up and moved out, its future uncertain.

Economist Mike Schussler knew it was always going to be hard for South Africas economy, which was in recession before the pandemic.

But we could have made it a little easier by not banning things like cigarettes and liquor, he said.

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AP journalist Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg contributed.

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Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador celebrated the second anniversary of his July 1, 2018 election victory Wednesday amid an untamed pandemic, continued drug gang violence and a shrinking economy.

Despite facing some of the toughest circumstances in modern Mexican history, Lopez Obrador chose to stress his administrations progress in the fight against waste, corruption and authoritarianism.

He said big companies have been forced to pay back taxes, and salaries of top officials have been reduced.

While he celebrated the implementation Wednesday of the new U.S.-Mexico Canada trade agreement, he could no longer brag about the strong Mexican peso, as he used to do in 2019. The peso has dropped more than 12% in value against the U.S. dollar so far this year.

Regarding the pandemic, which has cost Mexico 27,769 lives and infected 226,000, he acknowledged: The sacrifices that the public has made are not small ... but we are getting over this tough situation.

But he also expressed resentment against his critics.

Never in the last century has a president been insulted so much, and the response has been tolerance and not censorship, said Lopez Obrador.

He stressed his decision to dissolve the national intelligence agency and investigate past cases of corruption and human rights.

Nobody is spied on or persecuted anymore, Lopez Obrador said in a speech marking the anniversary.

Critics have questioned Lopez Obradors infrastructure projects, which focus on the oil refineries and a tourist rail line that many see as a white elephant.

Some of the toughest criticism, however, has focused on his hugs not bullets strategy of avoiding confrontations with drug cartels. Lopez Obrador said his administration had managed to stop the increase in homicides and hold murder rates steady.

This new public safety policy is starting to get results, Lopez Obrador said, though critics note that Mexico is holding steady at very high levels of nearly 3,000 homicides per month.
WARSAW, Poland - Officials in Poland say a bus collided with two trucks near the southern city of Czestochowa and 32 people have been injured, including foreign citizens.

Deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska said six people were taken to a hospital with serious head, chest and limb injuries following Thursdays collision.

The Health Ministry asked the armed forces to dispatch a medical helicopter to help airlift people in the most serious condition to the hospital.

A local police spokesman, Capt. Marcin Pudlo said the two trucks had collided before the bus crashed into them.

Pudlo says one of the trucks had been carrying dangerous materials and caught fire. He says documents related to the cargo burned up in the flames.
PARIS - A collective of French health care workers said Thursday it is seeking a broad legal inquiry into Frances failure to protect its members and their colleagues by providing adequate masks, gloves and other protective equipment as the coronavirus swept across the country.

The professional association, Collectif Inter Urgences, (Inter-Emergencies Collective), said it was filing a four-count civil complaint alleging manslaughter, involuntary harm, voluntary failure to prevent damage and endangering the life of others.

As is common in French law, the complaint does not target a specific perpetrator but asks judicial authorities to determine who, across governments past and present, failed to renew personal protective equipment (PPE) stocks and adequately supply hospitals to prevent such a crisis.

More than 60 other legal complaints have been filed so far over how France, which has reported the fifth-highest number of virus deaths worldwide, managed its virus outbreak. The collective is building a database of accounts from paramedics and hopes its complaint has farther-reaching legal impact than those targeting specific government ministers or nursing homes.

Weve had to run after stocks, run after PPE, which affected our ability to help people, said Yasmina Kettal, a nurse at the Delafontaine Hospital in Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs. But there was also a constant feeling of insecurity and gutting fear because in some services there was no PPE stock, and in many, very little PPE, which led to misuses.

The group notably wants to know the reasoning behind the changing protocols around PPE use in France. As French hospitals faced growing shortages of gear and increasing numbers of virus patients, staff members were told they could reuse their equipment or keep it for longer periods, for example.

The changing protocols made us wonder as to whether they were scientific recommendations or shortage management, Kettal said.

The health care workers in the collective said they were also psychologically impacted by the handling of the crisis.

We found ourselves in situations with colleagues where we didnt know what to wear, which masks, in which situations, Nicolas Kazolias, an emergency medic at Tenon Hospital in Paris, said. We dont ever want to live this again.

French Health Minister Olivier Veran acknowledged Thursday that our country was not sufficiently stocked with masks during the first wave of the virus, and the government is now asking all companies to keep at least 10 weeks worth of masks for their employees in case of a second wave of infections.

Frances national health agency has confirmed more than 300 new virus clusters since the country started reopening May 11, and says about half have been contained. France has so far reported a total of 29,861 deaths linked to the virus, about half of them in nursing homes.

French health care workers are already wondering whether they can make it through a second round.

After going through all of this, the question as to who will be here for a second wave is in the minds of all of us, even mine, Kettal said.
STOCKHOLM - Iran has agreed to compensate the families of the foreign victims of a Ukrainian passenger plane that was shot down by Iranian forces outside Tehran in January, Swedens foreign minister said on Thursday.

We have signed an agreement of mutual understanding that we will now negotiate together with Iran about amends, compensation to the victims next of kin, Foreign Minister Ann Linde told Swedish news agency TT.

Iran had denied for days its involvement in the plane crash but then announced that its military had mistakenly and unintentionally shot down the Ukrainian jetliner, a Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines. All 176 people on board were killed.

Diplomats from nations that had lost citizens in the downing of the plane have for months been pushing Iran for more co-operation on the investigation and compensation issues.

The Iranian admission followed U.S. and Canadian intelligence reports indicating that Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces had downed the aircraft. Tehran blamed human error for the shoot-down. The jetliner went down Jan. 8 on the outskirts of Tehran during takeoff, just hours after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq.

The plane was en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. The victims included 57 Canadian citizens as well as 11 Ukrainians, 17 people from Sweden, four Afghans and four British citizens. Those from Sweden included both Swedish nationals and people with staying permits in the Scandinavian country.

Asked whether Iran will really pay compensation, Linde replied, there is no doubt about that.

The five countries that are acting together against Iran on this issue are those with victims that were on board of the doomed plane: Sweden, Canada, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Afghanistan, the TT news agency said.

We expect that we will be able to have the first concrete negotiation meeting in a very short time, Linde was quoted as saying.

Her press secretary told The Associated Press that the International Coordination and Response Group has now achieved its primary objective of agreeing on a memorandum of understanding to enter, jointly as a united group, into negotiations with Iran on full reparations for the victims.

Days after the shoot-down, the governments of five countries that lost citizens demanded that Tehran accept full responsibility and pay compensation to the victims families  though they had little to offer besides moral pressure to get Iran to comply  in line with Irans responsibilities under international agreements governing passenger rights.

After a meeting in London, the foreign ministers from Canada, the U.K., Afghanistan, Sweden and Ukraine urged Iran to allow a thorough, independent and transparent international investigation, as well as a criminal probe and impartial judicial proceedings against those found responsible for downing the plane.

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Olsen reported from Copenhagen, Denmark.
LONDON - A British judge on Thursday rejected an attempt by tabloid newspaper The Sun to quash a libel suit from actor Johnny Depp over an article claiming he abused ex-wife Amber Heard.

Judge Andrew Nicol said in my view it would not be just to strike out the claim.

The ruling means the two celebrities and their large legal teams will square off next week at the High Court in London.

Depp, 57, and Heard, 34, met on the set of the 2011 comedy The Rum Diary and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. They divorced in 2017.

Depp is suing The Suns publisher, News Group Newspapers, and Executive Editor Dan Wootton over a 2018 article claiming the actor was violent and abusive to Heard. He strongly denies the allegations.

The Suns lawyers applied for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that Depp failed to disclose text messages he exchanged with an assistant showing that he tried to buy MDMA and other narcotics while he was in Australia with Heard in 2015.

The newspapers lawyer, Adam Wolanski, said withholding the texts was a breach of a previous court order requiring Depp to provide all documents from separate libel proceedings against Heard in the United States. He said the lapse endangered the defendants ability to get a fair trial.

The judge ruled that Depp had breached the disclosure order, but granted him relief from sanctions, meaning the case can proceed.

He also rejected an attempt by Depp to force Heard to disclose evidence including communications with actor James Franco and Space-X founder Elon Musk, with whom she allegedly had affairs while involved with Depp.

The central issue for the defence of truth is whether Mr. Depp assaulted Ms. Heard, the judge said. Even if she had been unfaithful to him, that would be irrelevant on that central issue. I am not therefore persuaded that these categories of documents are necessary for the fair disposal of the litigation.

Depp and Heard are both expected to give evidence in person at the London trial, which was postponed from March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The socially distanced trial is scheduled to last for three weeks. Witnesses are likely to include Depps ex-partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder, who have both submitted statements supporting the Pirates of the Caribbean star.
LONDON - The British government said Friday it is scrapping a 14-day quarantine rule for arrivals from a number of countries deemed lower risk for the coronavirus, including France, Spain, Germany and Italy.

The change takes effect July 10, just over a month after the U.K. began requiring international arrivals to self-isolate for two weeks. The full list of exempted countries will be announced later Friday, the government said. It is considered unlikely the United States, which has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, will be among them.

On Saturday, the government will also exempt several countries from its advice against overseas travel, meaning U.K. tourists can once again head abroad on vacation.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the changes are good news for British people and great news for British businesses. But he stressed that the government could re-impose quarantine restrictions in countries we are reconnecting with.

The changes announced apply only to England, a sign of friction between Prime Minister Boris Johnsons central government and semi-autonomous administrations in the rest of the U.K.  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been particularly critical of Johnsons approach to easing coronavirus lockdown measures and has taken a more cautious approach.

The British government also made the announcement without securing reciprocal agreements that British travellers will not face quarantines. The Department for Transport said its expectation is that a number of the exempted countries will also not require arrivals from the U.K. to self-isolate.

Britain has the highest COVID-19 toll in Europe, with almost 44,000 confirmed deaths. The country is gradually emerging from a nationwide lockdown imposed in March, with bars, restaurants and hairdressers allowed to reopen in England on Saturday.

The European Union re-opened its borders this week to people from 14 countries including Canada, Japan, South Korea and Morocco  but not the U.S.

Britain left the EU on Jan. 31 but continues to be bound by its rules during a transition period that lasts until the end of the year.
CAIRO - A former U.N. envoy to Libya has accused the Security Council of hypocrisy and of undermining his efforts to bring peace to the war-torn North African country.

In a podcast interview aired Tuesday, Ghassan Salame said the majority of the U.N. Security Council supported the military offensive launched last year by Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter to capture the capital, Tripoli, from the internationally recognized government.

You are at the same time being stabbed in the back by most of the Security Council, because the day Hiftar attacked Tripoli he had most of them supporting him, while you are being criticized by the Libyans for not stopping him, said Salame, referring to himself in his first interview since resigning from his post in March.

Salame spoke to The Mediators Studio, a newly launched podcast from the Oslo Forum, a series of annual retreats for international peace mediators and top decision makers.

Since 2015, Libya has been divided into two governments: one in the east, allied with Hifter, and another in the west. The Tripoli-based government has the backing of Italy, Turkey and Qatar, while Hifter is supported by Russia, France, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Salame resigned from his U.N. post amid an escalation in fighting in Libya and just days after he announced the near breakdown of a shaky truce between Libyas warring parties. At the time, he said his health could no longer allow this rate of stress.

His resignation also came a few weeks after a Libya peace summit in Berlin, where world leaders agreed to uphold a U.N. arms embargo and to end military backing for Libyas warring factions to pave the way for a long-lasting cease-fire  a commitment that Salame discredited in his interview.

Salame said the day after the Berlin conference he had pictures on his desk of weapons shipments as well as mercenaries and planes sent to Libyan soil by Security Council member states.

Germanys U.N. Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, who also serves as president of the Security Council for July, agreed with Salame on the continuing violation of the arms embargo by member states.

I can only say ... the international community clearly must not give up. We have to continue to try to implement the results of the Berlin conference,  Heusgen said at a news conference on Wednesday.

With regard to the delivery of weapons, it is a shame that openly countries that are  some that are members of the Security Council  participating, participated, also in the Berlin process are openly delivering weapons to the parties, he added.

The Libyan conflict has recently turned into a proxy war.

In early June, Tripoli-based forces with Turkish support gained the upper hand in the war after retaking the capitals airport, all main entrance and exit points to the city and a string of key towns near Tripoli. They threatened to retake the strategic city of Sirte, which could allow them to gain control of oil fields and facilities in the south that Hifter seized earlier this year as part of his offensive on Tripoli. In response, Egypt President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi warned that any attempt to attack Sirte would trigger a direct Egyptian military involvement in the conflict.

The U.S. military has also accused the Russians of interfering with the conflict by sending military jets and mercenary fighters to back Hifters troops.

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Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer in New York contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - The House on Wednesday joined the Senate in approving a bill to rebuke China over its crackdown in Hong Kong by imposing sanctions on groups that undermine the citys autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to its residents.

The bill targets police units that have cracked down on Hong Kong protesters, as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing a strict national security law on Hong Kong, which is considered a special administrative region within China and maintains its own governing and economic systems. The measure also would impose sanctions on banks that do business with entities found to violate the law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the unanimous House vote an urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese governments passage of its so-called national security law, which threatens the end of the one country, two systems promised exactly 23 years ago today.

Pelosi, a fierce critic of Chinese human rights violations, said, All freedom-loving people must condemn this horrific law imposed by China, adding that it is specifically intended to dismantle democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.

The House bill is similar to a measure approved last week in the Senate, but makes some minor changes. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said senators will vote as soon as Thursday to give final legislative approval, sending it to the White House.

Lawmakers from both parties have urged the Trump administration to take strong action in response to the crackdown by China against the former British territory, which was granted partial sovereignty under a treaty that took effect July 1, 1997.

China has said it will impose visa restrictions on Americans it sees as interfering over Hong Kong.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the threat of a visa ban as a sign of how Beijing refuses to take responsibility for its own choices and said adoption of the security law destroys the territorys autonomy and one of Chinas greatest achievements.

Beijings paranoia and fear of its own peoples aspirations have led it to eviscerate the very foundation of the territorys success, Pompeo said in a statement.
In a narrow alley in Omraniya district in the governorate of Giza is a small oriental cafe of four tables. At 1pm, there is only one patron while in the pre-coronavirus days the cafe would have been packed.



The scene is the same in other cafes after they were allowed to re-open after more than three months of closure due to the pandemic. Earlier this week restaurants and coffee shops were given the green light to resume business but at only 25 per cent capacity while applying strict hygiene standards. During the past three months of the lockdown they were only allowed to offer takeaway services.



During the curfew my eight employees stayed home. Now they are taking shifts with only one worker at a time attending, says the owner of the oriental coffee shop who preferred to remain anonymous. I cant fire an employee who has been working in my shop for 10 or 15 years, he says, adding that he would rather give an employee half his salary than lay him off.



According to the new standards for reopening restaurants and cafes, tables must be two metres apart. If customers are lining up for takeaway service, there should be one metre between them. In addition, customers should be using single-use dining utensils like paper cups and plastic spoons. Upon entering, customers are to use a hand sanitiser. And employees are required to wear face masks. Only 50 percent of staff can work during a shift. Cafes and restaurants will now be allowed to open until 10pm but will not serve shishas to reduce the risk of virus transmission.



According to Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli, the decision to gradually reopen after a lockdown that began in March was intended to help some 3.5 million Egyptians working in service industries such as tourism and restaurants.



He said the decisions will be periodically reviewed and strict measures would be imposed if citizens failed to adhere to the rules.



The problem is that I dont have enough room in my shop. Implementing the 25 per cent decision means that I can have only one customer in my shop at a time, said the coffee shop owner.



In the past people would come to smoke shisha, play dominos or meet friends, but now theyre afraid. The income we get is not enough to cover our water and electricity bills or even the salaries of our employees. The little money I get I give to my employees; I do not keep any of it for myself.



The cafe owner adds that now he has new financial burdens such as buying paper cups.



The sole client in the cafe told Al-Ahram Weekly that he works in a clothes factory and was happy to be back in the coffee shop. I come to the coffee shop to help the people working in it make a living. We should all help each other in times of crisis, he said.



I think that since the government has started to open businesses, it should open them completely or not open them at all because we are not benefiting like this, argued the cafe owner.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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HOUSTON - The U.S. government said Wednesday that it should not have to automatically release immigrant parents detained with their children  including some infants  after a federal judge set a deadline for the children to be freed, which advocates warned could lead to the renewed separation of families.

In court papers, the Trump administration argued Judge Dolly Gees findings on Friday were insufficient to prove the allegations made by families that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement isnt doing enough to control the spread of coronavirus, even as there have been confirmed cases of COVID-19 in two of three family detention centres in Texas and Pennsylvania.

Gee set a July 17 deadline for the U.S. to release children held longer than 20 days in family detention, either by freeing them with their parents or placing them with sponsors. Gee described the centres as being on fire.

Lawyers for the detained families said they are worried that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will continue to detain families together or push parents to allow their children to be freed without them.

Together, the three facilities currently detain 138 parents and 139 children.

Gees order did not apply to the parents detained with their children, some in rooms where they arent allowed to see other people and fear that infected staff members have given them the virus. One mother told The Associated Press that her 8-year-old son was denied toys until just before a group of congressmen visited, an allegation that ICE denied. Eighty congressmen signed a letter Tuesday calling on ICE to release families together.

A group of parents and children held in family detention centres separately sued the U.S. earlier this year in federal court in Washington. The families allege the conditions of their detention violate the U.S. Constitution. Judge James Boasberg, who oversees that case, had asked lawyers for both sides to explain how Gees order applied to the case before him.

The government said Wednesday that it was still working on a plan to comply with Gees order. But it argued that the remedy for a constitutional violation of condition of confinement is to remedy the violation, not to release petitioners, referring to the families that sued. Boasberg should not order detained families to be released, the U.S. said.

Lawyers for the families accused the U.S. of presenting parents with a Hobsons choice to relinquish their children or keeping them in detention centres where their risk of coronavirus infection is dramatically heightened.

Everyones got their fingers crossed and hope that ICE is listening to the American public who doesnt want family separation, said Andrea Meza, director of family detention services at the legal group RAICES. It makes no logical sense why theyre hanging on to these people.

At least 11 parents and children have tested positive for COVID-19 at the detention centre in Karnes City, Texas, and several employees have tested positive at both Karnes and the facility in nearby Dilley. The government said Wednesday that there have been no positive cases at the Berks County detention centre in Pennsylvania.

Fewer than 1,000 children are in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services system of facilities for unaccompanied minors.

Those figures have dropped sharply from last year, when reports of fetid conditions at some overcrowded border facilities sparked outrage. Most border crossers are now being expelled under an emergency order citing the need to stop the spread of the coronavirus, even though the U.S. has by far the most confirmed virus cases of any country. At least 2,000 children have been expelled under the order.
LIVINGSTON, Mont. - Federal officials plan to reconsider how they manage Yellowstone National Parks famous wild bison herds following longstanding complaints over thousands of the animals that have been killed by hunters and agencies as they attempted to migrate into Montana.

Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly outlined the plans in court documents filed Wednesday. The move came in a lawsuit challenging a federal-state agreement that has governed management of the animals, also known as buffalo, since 2000.

A new analysis of bison management could result in an expansion of where the animals are permitted to roam freely, The Livingston Enterprise reported. The work would involve the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service, which has jurisdiction over much of the land surrounding Yellowstone.

Jared Pettinato, who represents Neighbours Against Bison Slaughter, applauded the agencies decision to reevaluate bison management.

We think its long overdue, he said.

Yellowstone had more than 4,800 bison as of last summer. More than 800 were killed by hunters or captured and sent to slaughter this past winter.

Officials insist the culling is necessary to prevent cattle in the Yellowstone region from being infected with brucellosis, which is present in many park bison and can cause abortions in pregnant animals.

To address concerns over the killing of bison, state and park officials in recent years have allowed the animals to roam more freely in parts of Montana and to establish a quarantine program so bison that are declared disease-free can be relocated.

But that hasnt resolved the issue and the periodic slaughter of large numbers of bison has continued.

There have been numerous cases of cattle in the Yellowstone region being infected with brucellosis by diseased elk, but no recorded transmissions from bison.

As many as 30 million to 60 million bison once roamed across most of North America, according to federal wildlife officials. Mass slaughters drove them to near extinction by the late 1800s. Today there are roughly 11,000 wild bison on public lands in 12 states.
ATLANTA - Authorities on Thursday arrested two more people on suspicion of arson in the burning of an Atlanta Wendys restaurant where a police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks.

The arrests of John Wade, 33, and Chisom Kingston, 23, were confirmed by Atlanta fire spokesman Sgt. Cortez Stafford, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.

Protesters torched the fast food restaurant June 13, the night after police killed Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man. Video shows that Brooks was shot in the back in the Wendys parking lot after he resisted arrest and fired a Taser while he was running away.

According to the newspaper, Wade was one of several people who organized demonstrations in Atlanta following the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man who died under a white Minneapolis officers knee.

Fulton County jail records did not list attorneys for Wade or Kingston.

Brooks killing in the parking lot of the Wendys on June 12 came amid weeks of turbulent and sometimes violent protests across the U.S. over Floyds death.

Authorities have previously announced the arrest of another suspect in the fire, 29-year-old Natalie White. White is the same woman Brooks described to police on the night he was shot as his girlfriend.

Her lawyer, Drew Findling, has said White was not responsible for the fire.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Officer Garrett Rolfe, who shot Brooks, was fired and another officer, Devin Brosnan, was placed on desk duty.

Rolfe faces 11 charges, including felony murder. Brosnan is charged with aggravated assault and violating his oath.
JACKSON, Miss. - The state of Mississippi is officially ending Prohibition, almost 90 years after alcohol was legalized in the United States.

A new law allowing the possession of alcohol in every county in Mississippi was signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday. It will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

Under current law, Mississippi is still considered a completely dry state. However, local governments can hold elections where residents can decide if they want to allow liquor in their county or city or not. Most have voted in favour of it; there are only 29 out of 82 counties in Mississippi that are still dry.

The new bill does not legalize the sale of alcohol in every county. Residents would have had to vote to allow that.

Mississippi has had a long, complex relationship with alcohol throughout its history. Although there have been many fervent attempts to regulate its consumption and sale by state government, it is also a prominent cultural symbol, featured in many works by Mississippis famous writers and musicians.

William Faulkner, for example, is known for his love of whiskey and his distaste for Prohibition. A bootlegger was an important character in his novel, Sanctuary. Many blues songs written in Mississippi have featured alcohol, including John Lee Hookers version of One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer and Sittin here Drinkin by Muddy Waters.

Temperance efforts in Mississippi, mostly led by members of the Christian church, began in the early 1800s.

Prohibition Convention Committee member Bishop C.B. Galloway referred to alcohol in 1878 in the Daily Clarion, now the Clarion-Ledger, as a public and dreaded evil that caused good men to commit sins and embarrass themselves.

In 1839, a law was passed that made it illegal to purchase less than a gallon of alcohol at once, which had a major impact on local taverns. Perpetrators were imprisoned from anywhere from one week to three months and had to pay a fine of between $200 to $500.

The public reaction to that new law was vehement. Lawmaker Henry Foote was burned in effigy in Jackson for his work on the legislation, according to Prohibition in Mississippi, a book by Rev. Thomas Jefferson Bailey, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of Mississippi in 1917. The law was repealed less than three years later.

Dozens of temperance laws were enacted in the Mississippi Legislature in the 1800s, including one in 1873 that mandated that if any state officeholders were found drunk, or in a state of intoxication from the use of intoxicating liquors, they be charged with a high misdemeanour and removed from office.

Mississippi was the first state to pass some form of prohibition in 1908, about a decade before the 18th Amendment made Prohibition the law of the land in the U.S. Mississippi was the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment.

In 1933, when the 21st Amendment ended Prohibition, it was ratified by 36 states in 288 days. However, in Mississippi, the measure stalled for decades.

The subject of alcohol became a major controversial political issue in Mississippi, according to the late orator and former state Rep. Ed Perry of Oxford.

The worst question you could be asked was how you felt about whiskey, Perry said in a filmed speech.

A speech about the legalization of whiskey in the early 1950s by lawmaker and judge Soggy Sweat is now famous. When asked how he felt about whiskey, Sweat avoided answering the question by presenting two sides of the argument.

If when you say whiskey you mean the devils brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children ... then certainly I am against it, Sweat starts out.

Then, he changes course.

But if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips ... if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars. ... then certainly I am for it, he says.

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In 1966, Mississippi became the last state to repeal its statewide Prohibition law and pass the current law allowing counties to decide for themselves whether they wanted to legalize liquor sales. The distribution of alcohol in Mississippi is now state-controlled. The Mississippi Department of Alcohol Beverage Control imports, stores and sells 2,850,000 cases of spirits and wines annually.

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Leah Willingham is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
AUSTIN, Texas - Federal and military investigators say a soldier missing since April was killed and dismembered by a fellow soldier stationed at the same Texas base. The revelation followed demands for the Army to release details about its investigation of the disappearance.

A criminal complaint released Thursday by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Texas charges a civilian with helping hide the body of 20-year-old solider Vanessa Guillen. The document, prepared in conjunction with the Army Criminal Investigative Command and the FBI, says the civilian helped the other soldier get rid of evidence after he bludgeoned Guillen with a hammer at Fort Hood in Central Texas and later dismembered and dumped the body.

Human remains were found Tuesday near the Leon River in Bell County, about 20 miles (32 kilometres) east of Fort Hood, in the search for Guillen. Her family said through attorney Natalie Khawam that they believe evidence shows the remains are Guillen, but authorities said they are still awaiting positive identification.

The whole thing is devastating, gruesome, barbaric, Khawam said.

The Army said Wednesday that the soldier suspected in Guillens disappearance had killed himself.

At a news conference Thursday, the Army identified the soldier suspected in Guillens disappearance as Aaron David Robinson. Army investigators declined to comment further on the details of Guillens case, saying they did not want to compromise the ongoing investigation.

The criminal complaint released later Thursday said the civilian arrested in the Guillen case is Cecily Aguilar, 22, of Killeen, Texas, near Fort Hood. Aguilar faces one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

Robinson enlisted Aguilar to help him dispose of Guillens body, according to the complaint. Aguilar later recognized Guillen, the complaint says, and helped Robinson mutilate and hide her body.

Aguilar was arrested Wednesday and was being held Thursday in the Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas, according to booking records. It was unclear whether she had an attorney to speak on her behalf.

Khawam said the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Division told her Robinson cleaned up the area where Guillen was killed, placed her body in a container and wheeled her out to his car. After driving to pick up Aguilar, Khawam said, the pair drove to a nearby river and tried to burn Guillens body, but later chopped it up with a machete. Then, they put cement on the body and buried the remains.

Tim Miller, of Texas Equusearch, who was assisting in the search for Guillen, told KHOU that investigators found a lid last week that belonged to a container consistent with one a witness saw loaded into a car at 8:30 the night Guillen disappeared.

Investigators were called back to the scene this week when a man working in the area reported a foul odor. Miller said it appeared the suspect buried her, put lime on her, mixed up concrete, put that over her, put dirt over her, rocks and stuff.

The family had said they believe Guillen was sexually harassed by the military suspect and is calling for a congressional investigation, Khawam said Wednesday.

Guillens older sister, Mayra Guillen, told The Associated Press on Thursday that her family was distraught after learning details about her sisters disappearance. The family had previously said they believe the Army was covering up details of Vanessa Guillens disappearance.

There are a lot of horrifying things that happened that day, said Mayra Guillen, 22. There are just no words.

Mayra Guillen said her sister had spoken with their mother about experiencing sexual harassment, but that her mother has been to devastated to talk about it. From their text conversations, Mayra Guillen said she believed her sister was afraid during her time at Fort Hood.

Army investigators said Thursday that they had no credible evidence that Vanessa Guillen had been sexually harassed or assaulted.

We are still investigating their interactions but at this time there is no credible information for reports that specialist Robinson sexually harassed specialist Guillen, said Fort Hood CID Special Agent Damon Phelps.

Guillen was last seen April 22 in a parking lot at Fort Hood. She was set to be promoted to specialist this month. Her car keys, barracks room key, ID card and wallet were found in the room where she was working the day she disappeared.

Authorities said Wednesday that Robinson, 20, of Calumet City, Illinois, a Chicago suburb on the Indiana border, pulled a gun and shot himself as police were trying to make contact with him.

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The Army CID and the League of United Latin American Citizens offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to Guillens whereabouts.

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Acacia Coronado is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
WASHINGTON - Congress has approved a bill rebuking China over its crackdown in Hong Kong amid protests against a strict national security law that outlaws so-called subversive or terrorist acts, as well as collusion with foreign forces intervening in the citys affairs.

Critics say the new law effectively ends the one country, two systems framework under which Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy when it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

The U.S. legislation would impose sanctions on groups that undermine Hong Kongs autonomy, including police units that have cracked down on Hong Kong protesters, as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing the new security law. The bill also imposes sanctions on banks that do business with entities found to violate the law.

The Senate gave final legislative approval to the measure on Thursday, a day after the House approved it. It now goes to the White House.

Ahead of the Senate vote, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said no amount of pressure from external forces could shake Chinas determination and will to safeguard national sovereignty and Hong Kongs prosperity and stability.

He urged the U.S. to abide by international law and stop interfering in Hong Kongs affairs, and not sign the sanction bill into law. If President Donald Trump signs the bill, China will definitely take strong countermeasures, and all consequences will be borne by the U.S. side, Zhao told reporters Thursday.

The White House declined to comment, but in a television interview Thursday, Vice-President Mike Pence called the new Hong Kong security law a betrayal of the international agreement China signed.

President Trump has made it clear that were going to be modifying our trading relationship and the trading status with regard to Hong Kong and were going to continue to speak out on behalf of the people of Hong Kong and on behalf of human rights of people within China, Pence told CNBC.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said passage of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act makes it clear that the United States will not stand by as China seeks to crush freedom, human rights and democracy in Hong Kong.

The Chinese government is already flagrantly using their new authorities to punish and imprison those who have stood up against the recent implementation of their sweeping national security law, Van Hollen said. Our legislation mandates severe consequences on those who participate in this unconscionable repression.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the bills other lead sponsor, urged Trump to sign it into law. With our bill, the CCP will learn there are ramifications for repressing Hong Kongers freedom, Toomey said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also praised the sanctions bill as an urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese governments passage of its so-called national security law.

Lawmakers from both parties have urged the Trump administration to take strong action in response to the crackdown by China against the former British territory, which was granted partial sovereignty under a treaty that took effect in 1997.

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Associated Press writer Zen Soo in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. - A coalition of Kansas lawmakers, religious leaders and racial justice advocates called Thursday for an investigation into a retired white police detective accused of preying on Black women for sex over decades and framing for murder the son of one of them.

A letter signed by 27 state lawmakers from both parties was sent to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation asking them to immediately investigate former detective Roger Golubski and other members of the police force who were involved in the allegations of sexual abuse of women, malicious actions toward citizens, and framing of individuals for crimes they did not commit.

The letter contends the allegations show a pattern of abuse toward poor, minority residents, and says Golubski has not been held accountable.

Joining the lawmakers in signing the letter are several community partners, including the Kansas Inter Faith Action, Mainstream Coalition, Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, among others.

Complaints against Golubski surfaced in the case of a Black man in Kansas City, Kansas, who spent 23 years in prison for a 1994 double murder he did not commit that occurred when he was a teenager. A civil lawsuit alleges Lamonte McIntyre was targeted because his mother rebuffed the detectives sexual advances.

Golubskis attorneys did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Numerous residents have said Golubski wielded his power of his badge to terrorize the Kansas City, Kansas, Black community for years. The local prosecutor asked for help with a probe more than two years ago, but no criminal charges have been brought.

The KBI said in an emailed statement that Wyandotte County Attorney Mark Dupree requested in October 2017 that the KBI investigate the allegations, and subsequently reviewed more than 6,000 documents.

It initiated a criminal investigation against Golubski in March 2019  focused on the sexual assault allegations and whether the detective committed crimes related to the 1994 homicides for which McIntyre was convicted, said KBI spokeswoman Melissa Underwood.

That investigation continues, but to date we have found no evidence of any violation of Kansas law that is within the statute of limitations, Underwood said, adding that information about possible federal violations has been shared with federal authorities.

The renewed push to get the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to look into the allegations comes amid racial injustice protests that have swept the nation in the wake of following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May after an officer pressed his knee into Floyds neck during an arrest.

McIntyre walked out of a court hearing in 2017 a free man after Dupree asked that the murder charges be dismissed because of manifest injustice. McIntyre was eventually granted more than $1.5 million in compensation and a certificate of innocence under the states mistaken-conviction statute.

No physical evidence linked McIntyre to the crime, and he did not know the victims. The case rested on contradictory and coerced testimony that police and the prosecutor at the time allegedly knew to be false.

McIntyres mother, Rose, said in an affidavit that years before her son was convicted Golubski coerced her into a sexual act in his office and then harassed her for weeks, often calling her two or three times a day, before she moved and changed her phone number. She believes Golubski retaliated against her son because she spurned his later advances.

Golumbski worked for the Kansas City, Kansas, police department for 30 years, then retired with a full pension in 2010. After that, he worked for the Edwardsville Police Department before retiring again in 2016.

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This story has been corrected to show that the name of the bureau is the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
New York prosecutors seeking to revive state mortgage fraud charges against Paul Manafort say their case is distinct from one that sent President Donald Trumps former campaign chairman to federal prison and should not have been thrown out on double jeopardy grounds.

In appeal paperwork made public Thursday, Manhattan prosecutors argued Judge Maxwell Wiley took an exceedingly broad view in reaching the conclusion last December that their case mirrored Manaforts 2018 federal trial in Virginia.

Manhattan prosecutors contend their case was exempt from state double jeopardy protections because the charges involved different aspects of some of the offences covered in the federal case, which ended with Manafort convicted on eight counts of tax and bank fraud and a hung jury on 10 other counts.

Manafort, 71, was released to home confinement in May because of concerns about the coronavirus less than a year into his nearly 7 1/2-year sentence for the Virginia conviction and a subsequent guilty plea in a separate federal case in Washington, D.C.

A message seeking comment on the appeal was left with Manaforts lawyer.

Prosecutors submitted paperwork outlining their appeal in April to the state courts Appellate Division, but it was not posted to the docket until Thursday because of coronavirus-related closures.

In dismissing the mortgage fraud case in its early stages, Judge Wiley dealt a blow to what had widely been seen as an attempt by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat, to hedge against the possibility Trump would pardon Manafort for federal crimes.

Basically, the law of double jeopardy in New York state provides a very narrow window for prosecution, Wiley said, explaining his ruling at the time.

Manafort was convicted in federal court on charges alleging he misled the U.S. government about lucrative foreign lobbying work, hid millions of dollars from tax authorities and encouraged witnesses to lie on his behalf.

Vance announced the state charges just minutes after Manaforts sentencing in March 2019, saying in a statement at the time: No one is beyond the law in New York.

The New York indictment alleged Manafort gave false and misleading information in applying for residential mortgage loans, starting in 2015 and continuing until three days before Trumps inauguration in 2017. Manafort was also charged with falsifying business records and conspiracy.

Manaforts lawyer, Todd Blanche, raised the double jeopardy issue almost immediately after the state charges were filed, arguing that the factual overlap between the federal and state cases is extensive  if not total.

Manhattan prosecutors have argued their case was based in part on allegations that were never resolved in the federal trial and that charges they brought  mortgage fraud and falsifying business records  were state crimes but not federal crimes.

In their appeal, Manhattan prosecutors acknowledged their case involved some of the same issues as in the federal case. They argued its wasnt double jeopardy because state law allows second prosecutions that contain different elements and were designed to prevent very different kinds of harm than the offences in the first prosecution.

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Follow Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak.
ORLAND PARK, Ill. - A suburban Chicago police chief who was wounded in the assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan is retiring after nearly half a century in law enforcement.

Tim McCarthy, who has served as Orland Parks police chief for 26 years, is retiring Aug. 1.

McCarthy, 71, said he wants to spend more time with his wife, children and grandchildren.

This has been absolutely a great run, McCarthy told the Chicago Tribune. Time catches up to you. Sometimes you have to turn to family, and its time.

In 2016, McCarthy became the first recipient of the Chief of Police of the Year award given out by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau said in a news release that McCarthy has provided steadfast and dependable leadership to the men and women of the Orland Park Police Department throughout this entire period.

Prior to becoming Orland Parks police chief, McCarthy served for eight years in the Secret Services Presidential Protective Division and 14 years as a criminal investigator. In 1981, he was shot in the chest while protecting Reagan when John Hinckley Jr. opened fire.

I turned toward where I thought the shots were coming from, attempted to make myself as big as I could and lo and behold, I was hit right in the chest, McCarthy told WSL-TV.

McCarthy retired from the Secret Service in 1993 and was named Orland Parks chief in 1994.

Deputy chief Joseph Mitchell will be appointed interim police chief following McCarthys retirement.

McCarthy is retiring at a time when police officers are being criticized. But he said he hopes it doesnt discourage people pursuing a career in law enforcement.

Most of our departments are extremely professional, but we do make mistakes. But we got to minimize those. What happened in Minneapolis shouldt have happened, he said, referring to the May 25 death of George Floyd. Floyd, who was Black and handcuffed, died after a white officer used his knee to pin Floyds neck for nearly eight minutes.
WASHINGTON - A Zen Buddhist priest, who is a spiritual adviser to one of three federal death row inmates scheduled to be executed this month, filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing the Bureau of Prisons is putting him at risk for the coronavirus by moving forward with executions during a nationwide pandemic.

Dale Hartkemeyer, who goes by the religious name Seigen, argues that he would be putting his life at risk if the federal government proceeds to execute Wesley Ira Purkey, as scheduled on July 15, because of his prior medical conditions including respiratory issues.

The 68-year-old is asking a federal judge to delay Purkeys execution until a coronavirus vaccine is available or theres a widespread effective treatment.

Hartkemeyer said in court papers he has visited Purkey monthly as his priest since January 2009 to provide him with spiritual guidance and counselling.

Im being asked to make an impossible decision  violate my religious beliefs or risk my health and life by attending an execution that could become a super-spreader event for COVID-19, Hartkemeyer wrote in a blog post.

Purkey, a devout Buddhist, is one of four federal inmates scheduled to be put to death in July and August. Attorney General William Barr directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions, ending an informal moratorium on federal capital punishment as the issue receded from the public domain.

Barr had initially scheduled five executions set to begin in December, but some of the inmates challenged the new procedures in court, arguing that the government was circumventing proper methods to wrongly execute inmates quickly. The executions were rescheduled last month after an appeals court threw out a lower court ruling that put the executions on hold. This week, the Supreme Court refused to block the executions.

The executions are scheduled to resume as the country is still battling a major coronavirus pandemic and the number of inmates infected at jails and prisons across the U.S. is approaching 50,000 nationwide, according to data by The Associated Press and the Marshall Project. But federal officials have insisted that precautions will be put in place  including temperature checks and a requirement to wear masks  and that they are obligated to carry forward sentences imposed in the court system.

The federal prison system has struggled to combat the coronavirus pandemic behind bars. As of Wednesday, there were five confirmed coronavirus cases at USP Terre Haute, the prison where the executions are scheduled to take place. One inmate there has died.

Hartkemeyer argues that he must be present at the execution to be a spiritual guide for Purkey and to provide spiritual consolation and compassion to him during this time, helping him attain peace of mind as he leaves this life.

Its vital that I be there, as Wess priest, to ensure this peaceful transition from life to death during his most dire moment of distress  his ultimate crisis  as he sits at the threshold of death, he wrote. I will chant from behind a plexiglass barrier to ensure his peace of mind while passing and, through my physical presence, serve as a spiritual reminder to Wes of all the religious lessons I have taught him as he passes on from this life. This is my sacred duty.

But he argues that means risking his own life. If he couldnt be there, it would constitute a troubling violation of my religious tenets and priestly obligations, the lawsuit says.

Hes in this position where he has to decide between fulfilling his spiritual duty and trying to attend the execution and between protecting his own life and health and safety, said Cassandra Stubbs, the director of the Capital Punishment Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Hartkemeyer.

Theres absolutely no reason to do it now in the pandemic. Its really morally abhorrent, Stubbs said.

Purkeys lawyers are separately asking a federal judge to halt his execution, arguing that he isnt mentally fit to be executed because he suffers from advancing Alzheimers disease and deteriorating cognitive functioning.

Purkey, of Lansing, Kansas, was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long after picking her up in Kansas City, Missouri. Purkey raped Long, stabbed her repeatedly and used a chainsaw to cut her body into pieces. He burned her remains in a fireplace and then dumped her ashes 200 miles (322 kilometres) away in a septic pond in Clearwater, southwest of Wichita. He was also convicted of using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old Kansas woman, Mary Ruth Bales, who suffered from polio.

Purkey had a long history of childhood trauma, was sexually abused by family members and a Catholic priest and was beaten by other family members, said Liz Vartkessian, a mitigation specialist who has worked with Purkeys legal team and has visited him dozens of times in the last five years.

His case is replete with instances where he has expressed a deep remorse, she said

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But recently, Purkeys mental health has seriously deteriorated to the point where he doesnt have the stamina for long visits with his legal team and often forgets key facts and dates, she said. Correction officers have to help him write down a schedule to remember his visits with his lawyers, she said.

He has also had a long history of paranoia and delusions and believes the Justice Department is moving forward with his execution because of many complaints and lawsuits hes brought in prison, even though most have failed, Vartkessian said.

Its hard to find any rational explanation for trying to set those executions so quickly, Stubbs said, especially when we havent had an execution in 17 years.
WASHINGTON - A government watchdog says the Commerce Department is trying to block the findings of an investigation into the agencys role in rebuking forecasters who contradicted President Donald Trumps inaccurate claims about the path of Hurricane Dorian last year.

The accusation comes from Peggy Gustafson, the inspector general for the Commerce Department, who wrote a memo expressing deep concern that release of the report was being blocked.

Its the latest turn in a saga that led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to chastise government forecasters who contradicted the president after he posted inaccurate information about the hurricanes path across the southern United States.

Trump later displayed a Sharpie-altered forecast map in the Oval Office to defend his inaccurate tweet.

Gustafson, in a memo to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross released by her office late Wednesday, said the department was using amorphous and generalized claims to try to exclude publication of certain material in the report.

The final publication of our evaluation has been delayed, thwarted, and effectively (stopped) by the Departments refusal to identify specific areas of privilege, wrote Gustafson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

Commerce Department officials on Thursday wrote in a response obtained by The Associated Press that the department is not preventing the Office of the Inspector General from releasing the report in whatever form the Office Inspector General deems appropriate.

Lawyers for Commerce and NOAA said the report in its current form potentially affects future negotiations between the agencies and the inspector generals office and that it contains privileged information.

Gustafsons memo said communications with Commerce and NOAA officials were collegial throughout the investigation, but changed after her office submitted the final report for privilege review.

This tone shift appears to be directly linked to the content of our report and the findings of responsibility of the high-level individuals involved, Gustafson wrote. I am concerned that the substance of our report and findings has resulted in this retaliatory posturing.

The full investigation was to be made public next Monday. Gustafson said she gave Commerce and NOAA until Thursday to provide precise and unambiguous markings of proposed redactions for specified privileges.

Sens. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, told Ross in joint letter that they expect Commerce employees to fully co-operate and assist the OIG (Office of Inspector General) in all investigative matters and any efforts to subvert or stifle the OIG are in direct defiance of the authorities granted to Inspector Generals by Congress.

A short summary of the investigation published last week included findings that Commerce led a flawed process that caused NOAA to issue the statement that improperly rebuked National Weather Service forecasters in Birmingham, Alabama, for a tweet that said Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian.

The investigation was spurred by a series of events that began when Trump offered comments on Twitter and in the Oval Office that were out of step with official government forecasts.

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As the storm approached the U.S., Trump tweeted that Alabama, along with the Carolinas and Georgia, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated, although the National Hurricane Center had indicated that Dorian would not hit Alabama.

Twenty minutes after Trumps tweet, meteorologists in the National Weather Services Birmingham office sent out the tweet. NOAA later put out a statement chastising the Birmingham weather office tweet.
GEORGETOWN, Del. - An 8-foot (2.4 metres) tall whipping post was removed from a Delaware county courthouse square Wednesday after activists said the post was a reminder of racial discrimination.

The post outside the Sussex County Courthouse in Georgetown was removed after an hour and a half of excavation and put in storage unit with other historical artifacts, news outlets reported.

The Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs said the post was used to bind and whip people publicly for committing crimes up until 1952.

However, Black people were disproportionately punished, according to the historical group. A book published in 1947 by Robert Caldwell, a former sociology professor in the state, said more than 60% of those beaten between 1900 and 1945 were Black, The Delaware News Journal reported. At that time, Black people made up less than 20% of Delawares population.

The state-owned post was put on display outside the courthouse by the Georgetown Historical Society in 1993, nearly two decades after Delaware outlawed state-sanctioned public floggings outside local jails and prisons. It was the last state to abolish the whipping post, news outlets reported.

Historical and Cultural Affairs Director Tim Slavin said the post was a cold deadpan display that didnt adequately account for the traumatic legacy it represents, and that still reverberates among communities of colour in our state.

The posts removal is part of nationwide movement reassessing displays of monuments that represent racism and oppression. Removal of Confederate monuments and symbols of racism were sparked by protests over the death of George Floyd and other Black victims.
Aanii Christine nitiishinikaas. Peguis nitoonci. Mashkedebejiki ni totem. (Hello, my name is Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith. I am from Peguis First Nation and Buffalo is my clan). My Anishnaabe name is Miskonoodinkwe (Red Wind Woman).

When I was approached to write a piece on Canada Day and how it looks from an Indigenous perspective, my mind began to spin with what I could write without offending anyone. But as I began to formulate my thoughts and my fingers hit the keyboard, I began to think why should I be afraid to offend someone? After all, these are my thoughts on how I feel about Canada Day, and for too long, Indigenous people and our voices have been silenced. This silence has hurt Indigenous people all over Turtle Island and beyond.

Canada Day is a contentious holiday. It serves as a stark reminder of the day that our land was not taken away, but stolen. It also reminds Indigenous people of colonization and the assimilationist policies that have been put into place to effectively eradicate us as a people.

When Europeans first arrived on Turtle Island, Indigenous people were seen as beneficial because we helped settlers survive. But over time, we were pushed aside. Not only because of the fur trade decline, but also because military threat subsided. Indigenous people began to be seen as threats on our own land.

Not only were we were pushed off onto tracts of unfarmable land (reserves) so that settlers could move in and essentially take over, but a pass system was put into place to limit our movements, and rations that consisted of flour, water, sugar and salt, left many Indigenous people starving and more susceptible to illness. First Nations are one of the highest minority groups in society to suffer from diabetes. This is in part because of the high cost of foods and lack of food security.

Many laws were put into place that saw us be made Crowns of the Canadian government. We are the only group in Canada who are legislated to carry a status card. People might say oh, but First Nations get so many benefits, but in reality, we do not. We also had our ceremonies banned, traditions taken away and were prohibited to speak our languages.

Not long afterwards, thousands of children were taken from their families and communities and placed into residential schools where many suffered emotional, physical, sexual and mental abuse. The last residential school closed in 1996.

Another forced removal of children that took place was known as the Sixties Scoop. I was a product of the Sixties Scoop; my two biological sisters and two brothers were also.

My biological mother was a survivor of both of these enforced removals. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain that ni mama (my mom) went through, and the thousands of other survivors who like my ni mama (pan) are no longer with us and have gone onto the spiritual realm.

Colonization hasnt gone away, even though many individuals in Canadian society believe it has. Much of Canadian society hasnt even been taught that any of this happened to the Indigenous people of Turtle Island.

As an Indigenous woman, who has survived the Sixties Scoop, a failed interracial adoption, and is a survivor of not only the foster care system, but the mental health system, I cannot personally celebrate a country that since its inception has been based on incomprehensible policies that have attempted to not only eradicate my own identity, but the identity of many Indigenous people all over.

I ask those who read this, to try and read with an open mind. Be open to understanding the pain that many Indigenous people have endured. Despite this pain, we are still here continuing to fight for a better future for the generations coming up after us. If some people can relate to this, that is great. If they do not, I gently suggest taking the time to learn the true history of Canada, and why Canada Day is such a contentious day, and try to understand why it is not a day that many Indigenous people want to celebrate.

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Air Canada celebrated the countrys birthday this week by indefinitely suspending flights on 30 domestic routes. It will also close its operations entirely at eight small airports.

The carrier said it was acting in response to the drop in air travel resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. But the move is part of a pattern that predates the coronavirus  a pattern that has seen public carriers of all types reduce their services to Canadian communities.

In November 2018, for instance, Greyhound Canada cancelled virtually all of its routes in Western Canada, leaving most of the region without bus service.

This May, citing the pandemic, Greyhound suspended all bus service in the rest of Canada.

In some cases, the Air Canada cutbacks announced this week make sense. In Ontario, for instance, the carrier is suspending flights between North Bay and Toronto  a short hop that, for now at least, is adequately served by bus.

Ditto for Air Canadas cancelled Toronto-Kingston route. Buses and trains run regularly between these two communities.

But 22 of the 30 suspended routes lie in the Atlantic Provinces and Quebec. It is not at all clear that the communities affected, such as Bathurst, N.B. or Val dOr Que., will have much to fall back on once Air Canada pulls out.

In that sense, Air Canada is running afoul of the implicit understanding made 31 years ago when the crown corporation was allowed to go private.

While never spelled out, the political understanding then was that Air Canada would not abandon smaller communities entirely in its quest for profits.

Theoretically, the carrier could reinstate the 30 cancelled routes once the pandemic is over. But in its announcement Tuesday, it gave no indication of doing so. Indeed, its decision to shutter operations entirely at some airports suggests the opposite.

That, in turn, leaves Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Liberal government in a bind. The Atlantic Provinces and Quebec are key to its re-election plans. Can the Liberals afford the political cost of allowing these cutbacks to go ahead?

Air Canada was already lobbying the government for a bailout that would allow it to ride out the pandemic. The route cancellations announced this week ramp up the pressure on Ottawa to deliver more help.

But rather than just hand over money to the airlines, the government may want to rethink its entire approach to transportation.

Deregulation and privatization were the building blocks of this approach. They were supposed to provide those travelling by bus, train or plane with plenty of choice. They were supposed to provide high quality at low cost.

But they didnt. Even before the pandemic, air travel was a nightmare, characterized by long waits and impossibly uncomfortable seats.

Even before the pandemic, you couldnt get a bus to, say, Stratford, Ont. There were none. Even before the pandemic, there was no train service in most of Canada.

Now, matters promise to get even worse. Small communities that enjoyed some measure of air service will have it no longer.

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Air Canada and other carriers want public money to tide them through the pandemic. Fine. But make any bailout conditional on re-regulating the industry. Insist that in return for being allowed to operate in high profit markets, air carriers, bus companies and railroads provide reasonably priced services to smaller communities.

None of this is impossible. In fact, before Canada was lured by the siren call of deregulation, it was the norm.

It could be again. For a political leader with nerve, the opportunity is there for the taking.

Thomas Walkom is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Reach him via email: is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Reach him via email: walkomtom@gmail.com

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The same question is asked at nearly every public health conference: Why is public health so poorly funded? Normally a government representative stammers through a prepared answer: We are investing where the money is needed. Ive learned this actually means public health is not a priority. No one knows what it does. And besides, whats the worst that can happen?

Ontarios public health budget in 2019 did not even top $1.3 billion  a sliver of the overall $63 billion health-care budget. Each year, public health units make a strong case for increased funding to improve infectious disease surveillance, complement community-based health promotion programming, and alter health systems to better produce impactful outcomes.

But the requests are waved away. Besides, whats the worst that can happen?

In spring 2019, Premier Doug Ford initiated foundational changes to the structure and operation of public health. The plan was to reduce the number of public health units from 35 to 10 and slash funding by $200 million per year. Public health-related agencies would either be forced to merge or work within reduced budgets.

Public health leaders were livid. Several associations appealed the decision. And many warned bad things would happen.

Nothing worked.

Well, in the end, something worked.

It should be said that in recent weeks, Ford has been admirable. His daily press briefings are transparent and empathetic. And to be fair, COVID-19 was a slow burn coming out of Wuhan. Even our top experts didnt recognize it for what it was until the screams from Italy became deafening. And when they did, our provincial government acted decisively to enact unprecedented health and safety measures. Ford, for his part, has recently reinvested funds back into public health to help mitigate and minimize this crisis.

But there is a niggling feeling that a portion of the panic and chaos could have been avoided if adequate, sustained, public health funding had been invested decades ago and with a long-term view. Months from now, when the worst of COVID-19 is behind us, will this infusion of funding dry up?

Public health typically manoeuvres behind-the-scenes. It advocates for healthy policies, promotes the social determinants of health, and works with partners to reduce social and health inequities. But just because it operates outside the spotlight, doesnt mean public health ought to be first in line for budget cuts.

COVID-19 is horrible. The mortality and morbidity this virus causes is heartbreaking. The stress, upheaval and foundational shifts to our social fabric will reverberate for years, if not decades. But if any good is to come from COVID-19 it is this: no one again will dismiss the value of public health or question whats the worst that can happen?

Sadly, we now know the answer.

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The rule of law, as Gandhi said about Western civilization, would be a good idea.

I thought this as I listened to Justice Joseph Di Luca drone for hours, literally, while ruling on the Therieault brothers case. Ive sat through those rulings (this one was, uniquely, virtual) and its always similar: you cant guess which way theyll go till the end, when they suddenly jump one way or another. Youre up, youre down  especially if youre the defendant. The strongest sense you have is how arbitrary this is. It isnt rule of law, its the ruling of this one guy.

This applies to judge-only trials. Jury trials are different since they dont give their reasons. Yet somehow the judges reasons make his decision seem even more haphazard. If it was as reasonable and logic-driven as the judges tone always suggests, then youd surely know before they announced it, what it inevitably would be. Rule of law, it turns out, is more a phrase you mouth than a condition you inhabit.

Theres been lots of rule-of-law jabber lately. Jody Wilson-Raybould thundered rule of law and nearly brought Prime Minister Justin Trudeau down. He and his minions said, Yah sure, but also: votes, Quebec, the economy, the rest of the world. She and her comrade, Jane Philpott, left so that, during COVID-19, they arent in place to perform the kinds of tasks they prepared for all their lives.

Now theres the two Michaels, jailed on ludicrous pretexts in China. This time its Trudeau who keeps muttering, rule of law, while 19 eminent Canadians petition saying, Yeah, but: ministerial discretion, Extradition Act, compassion.

It makes me think warmly about my favourite academic, retired law prof Harry Glasbeek, who has insisted for decades that all law, despite its rigour and precedents, is embedded in particular circumstances that include the politics and cultural presumptions of its time. Theres no such thing as rule of law in the abstract, its always imbued with particular circumstances.

So Id be more sympathetic to Wilson-Raybould if shed explained that what really irked her was how SNC-Lavalin got speedy curbside service almost before placing their order, while her people waited centuries and are still on hold. Or if Trudeau said, Sure I can cut a deal with China, but if Trump takes a sh-tfit over it, our whole economy could tank.

Who understands this kind of rule of law in all its complexity? Clearly not the judge who, despite his long and winding text, seemed as predetermined as the sunset. The Black kid got his day in court and the cop got off lightly. Its full of I accept, I do not accept and I cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt even when the margin is razor thin.

So what it really comes down to is: who is it who has to be convinced and what are their predilections based on background, politics, the side of the bed they got up on or their digestion. (Much depends on breakfast.) Is that fixable? You can try to recruit a variety of people for the role  but once youve gone through law school, youll still be a lawyer and think like one, and that isnt random. Are there other systems  restorative justice, community stewardship? Sure, but not for Dafonte Miller.

And yet hes the one who put it all in context. He said after the daft ruling: A lot of my brothers and sisters are going through similar situations as me and a lot of my people are dying and a lot of officers are walking. So I dont feel like I took a loss  I feel like we took a step forward.

Noam Chomsky couldnt have said it better. Having that much perspective is saintly. You expect it from a Chomsky or Martin Luther King (I have been to the mountaintop  foreseeing his imminent, violent death).

But Miller, still a teen when the cop who got off lightly beat him so badly that parts of his eye were on the hood of an SUV? We  us humans  dont deserve such wise and long-suffering figures in our midst. By sheer grace we sometimes get them. I hope he had a good Canada Day.

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Rick Salutin is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Reach him on email: is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Reach him on email: ricksalutin@ca.inter.net

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I am not a Will Ferrell fan. I usually find his movies too goofy and dumb, but once in a while he hits his mark  and I think he did in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, which can be viewed on Netflix.

Having Academy Award-nominee Rachel McAdams play his love interest and the very gorgeous Dan Stevens, from Beauty and the Beast, as his foil for her heart, doesnt hurt.

As a boy, when Lars Erikssong (Ferrell) saw ABBA perform on television, he had a dream. He was going to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest. His friend, and maybe sister, Sigrit Eriksdottir (McAdams), bought into Lars dream. Lars and Sigrit are accidently given the opportunity to represent their country, Iceland, at the worlds biggest song competition, the Eurovision Song Contest. Lars finally has a chance to prove that any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for.

The big problem I had is with the casting. Ferrell and McAdams are supposed to be about the same age and its real obvious that Ferrell is significantly older than McAdams. Pierce Brosnan plays Ferrells father, which is strange since in real life he is not old enough to be Ferrells dad. In other words, Ferrell is too old for the part or desperately needs a face lift if he wants to play younger men.

Ferrell did write the script with Saturday Night Live writing alum, Andrew Steel, and it is a funny script with funny pratfalls and gags that you would expect in a Ferrell script.

Also, Eurovision Song Contest: The story of Fire Saga is jam packed with wonderful songs that are performed by a cast of famous performers who you will love listening to. This alone makes this movie worth viewing, and dont forget to buy the soundtrack for hours of enjoyment.

David Dobkin directs this film and keeps his actors on track.

Filmed in Iceland and Scotland, the cinematography is wonderful. As Lars and Sigrit travel from their small town to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, and then to Edinburgh, the shots of the two cities wish you could book a trip with a travel agent.

I enjoyed Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Especially at this time, when culture, health and economic news, just, sucks. It is nice to see a silly, nonsensical rom-com that makes you laugh out loud.

I give Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, rated PG-13, four stars.

Movie critic Mary Cox lives in Wood River and studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has worked in L.A. with various directors and industry professionals. Contact Mary at mary.cox@edwpub.net.
EDWARDSVILLE  Entrepreneurs and new business startups are invited to compete in the 2020 Metro East Start-Up Challenge (MESC), Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles 7th annual regional business plan competition.

Prize winners will also receive an array of in-kind professional services to include legal assistance from Carol Sparks, Attorney at Law; accounting services from Kerber Eck & Braeckel LLP (KEB); web design services by Tech Fusion; and co-working space at The Lodge. The Illinois SBDC for the Metro East at SIUE is looking to also secure other in-kind services to offer the three winners.

The Challenge is made possible through tremendous regional support. Sponsors include the SIUE School of Business, the Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois, Anders CPA & Advisors, Americas Central Port, Edwardsville Bank, Madison County Economic Development, the City of Edwardsville, National Development Council, Town and Country Bank (Edwardsville and Fairview Heights locations), City of Highland, Carrollton Bank, St. Clair County Economic Development, Growth Corp, the City of Alton, Riverbend Growth Association, FCB Banks, Monroe County Economic Development Corporation, Commerce Bank, Barber Murphy Group, and University Park at SIUE.

Scott Credit Union and Ameren Illinois Energy Efficiency Programs are this years Mentor-Semifinalists Networking Event Sponsors to be held at the newly renovated Gateway Center in Collinsville.

SIUEs School of Business, the SBDCs host organization, will assist with facilitating the competition.

The Metro East Start-Up Challenge elevates the discussion of and support for entrepreneurship across our region, said Jo Ann Di Maggio May, SBDC Director. Interest in the annual Challenge continues to grow with each passing year.

The 2020 MESC invites entrepreneurs and startup businesses from four target industries (but not limited to): information technology, manufacturing, healthcare and sustainable food. For a startup business enterprise to be eligible, it must have been established after April 30, 2017, and be headquartered in the SBDCs nine-county service area. For pre-venture entrepreneurs, proposed new business operations will need to be located within the same nine counties.

For more information on the 2020 MESC or to initiate the application process, visit siue.edu/metroeaststartup. The initial entry deadline is Aug. Semi-finalists will be announced Aug. 21. Finalists will be notified on Oct. 23.

The Challenge will announce its cash prize winners on Nov. 6 during the monthly Leadership Council SW IL meeting. The first-place winner will receive a $10,000 cash prize. Second and third place winners will receive $6,000 and $4,000, respectively.
ALTON  Calvary Cares of Calvary Baptist Church in Alton is launching a campaign to raise money to purchase school supplies for Alton School District #11 students for the fall semester.

Many children start the school year with little or no supplies, said Marc Lane, Calvary Cares Community Ministry Leader During the year many run out and cant afford to replenish. The displaced family setting can also add to this great challenge. These same children show up in our teachers classrooms without the resources needed for learning.
President Donald Trump has retained support from many Republicans and conservatives thanks to a Faustian bargain: So long as he stacks the judiciary with friendly judges, they'll look the other way when he pushes trade protectionism, ditches entitlement reform or woos Russian President Vladimir Putin - positions out of step with recent conservative orthodoxy.

Former George W. Bush administration lawyer John Yoo said he had deeply conservative friends "who would normally be utterly turned off by a guy like Trump," yet supported him "only because of [the] appointment to Justice [Antonin] Scalia's vacancy" on the Supreme Court. Conservative fixation with judges goes beyond the Supreme Court, including the lower courts. Noting that the Supreme Court hears a tiny fraction of the cases decided by appellate judges, Washington Post contributing columnist Hugh Hewitt challenged Trump's conservative critics to "reconcile their vehement opposition to him with their love of the Constitution." As David Harsanyi argued for The Federalist, "The question was," for conservatives, " 'What's scarier, a Trump presidency or a progressive Supreme Court?' "

Conservatives may have felt that the bargain paid off late last month, when Trump clinched his 200th judicial confirmation faster than any president since Jimmy Carter. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., tried to spike the ball when he said that the milestone marked "a sea change, a generational change on the federal bench" - and that "Republicans are stemming this liberal judicial tide that we've lived with in the past."

But a closer look at the numbers shows that Trump's judicial record is less a sea change and more the routine ebb and flow from president to president. If Democrats take both the White House and the Senate in November, as current poll numbers suggest they might, then much of Trump's judicial legacy probably will be soaked by a wave of Democratically appointed judges. That may leave conservatives wondering for what, exactly, did they sell their ideological souls.

Of Trump's 200 judges, 198 are on lower courts: 143 district-level judges, two international trade judges and 53 appellate-level judges. An additional 44 lower-court nominees are in the pipeline, though there's no guarantee all will get confirmed. But for the sake of comparisons, let's assume Trump's tally ends up at 242 lower-court judges.

That would not give Trump's judges dominance in the federal judiciary, as there are 851 Article III lower-court seats in all. Topping out at 242 seats would give Trump about 28% of the lower-court judiciary (currently he's at 23%). That may be impressive for a single term, but if a single term is all Trump gets, he will nevertheless be outdone on judicial confirmations by his immediate predecessors: Barack Obama got 327 lower-court judges, George W. Bush 326 and Bill Clinton 376.

Trump got to 200 judges faster than any president since Carter, but that fact should make you pause. The last one-term Democratic president and his 259 lower-court judges did not transform the judiciary for a generation. They were quickly met with 379 lower-court judges picked by Republican Ronald Reagan. As of today, if Trump has only one term, he is more likely to replicate Carter's result, not Reagan's.

Trump has had particular success in confirming appellate, or circuit, court judges, who are especially prized because many cases don't go beyond the appellate level to the Supreme Court. His right-hand man in the quest for the judiciary, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., boasted that the 200th confirmation meant "there will not be a single circuit court vacancy anywhere in the nation for the first time in at least 40 years." It was McConnell's relentless obstruction that prevented Obama from filling some of those vacancies, but Democrats shouldn't indulge their tears: Obama still secured two more appellate-level judges than Trump.

Trump was able to move faster in his first term than most of his predecessors because the rules changed. Democrats in Obama's second term, fed up with GOP obstruction, eliminated the filibuster for lower-court judges. Senate Republicans under Trump followed suit for Supreme Court justices and have repeatedly guffawed at how Democrats made Trump's job so much easier.

But the loss of the judicial filibuster greases the procedural wheels for whichever party simultaneously holds the presidency and the Senate. The Democrats may well get their turn starting in January. Among the appellate court judges, 77 will be 65 years old by the end of this year. Most of these older judges will be eligible to move to "senior" status, in which a judge takes on a reduced workload while creating a full-time vacancy. The routine churn of judicial vacancies will not end with the Trump presidency.

What about the Supreme Court? Trump pitched his plans here openly in 2016, releasing a list of conservative judges from which he promised to draw for high-court vacancies and declaring at a campaign rally: "If you really like Donald Trump, that's great, but if you don't, you have to vote for me anyway. You know why? Supreme Court judges."

Trump's first pick, Neil Gorsuch, eventually succeeded Scalia, whose seat McConnell kept open by blocking Obama's nominee. Then, when Justice Anthony Kennedy stepped down, the president took what had been a swing seat and made it more conservative by filling it with Brett Kavanaugh. Weren't those Supreme Court picks worth the ideological price that conservatives paid by supporting Trump?

Well, this supposedly die-hard conservative Supreme Court has blocked Trump from canceling Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, thwarted Trump's effort to put a citizenship question in the census, sided against the administration's attempt to gut the Clean Water Act, made it easier for consumers to pursue antitrust claims against major corporations and expanded the workplace rights of transgender employees. On Monday, the court refused to let states weaken Roe v. Wade with debilitating restrictions on abortion clinics. In some of these cases, a Trump appointee joined the court's liberals in the majority. Gorsuch himself wrote the transgender rights decision.

This has rattled social conservatives. "You cannot trust in these institutions at all anymore nor can you vote in enough people to stop a cultural shift in directions you might not want to go," lamented pundit Erick Erickson.

Erickson is correct. Conservatives shouldn't bank on the federal judiciary to do what they want all the time. The Supreme Court was designed by America's founders to elude partisan and ideological capture, as Alexander Hamilton outlined in Federalist No. 78. Conservatives have struggled with accepting this constitutional reality after Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, guaranteeing the right to same-sex marriage; after Justice David Souter, a George H.W. Bush appointee, became a reliably liberal justice in a wide range of cases; and after Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, upheld the legality of Obamacare and eventually became a swing vote. Perhaps Gorsuch's opinion Monday will help the lesson finally sink in.

Of course, conservative judges will still rule conservatively most of the time. Liberals will forever scorn the Roberts court for invalidating campaign finance reforms, narrowing the scope of the Voting Rights Act and making it harder for unions to organize.

Nevertheless, recent rulings, along with the record of almost a half-century of lower-court judicial appointments, clearly weaken the logic of sacrificing seemingly bedrock conservative principles in pursuit of a rigidly ideological judiciary. The paradoxical combination of lifetime judicial appointments and perennially shifting political winds makes it difficult for one faction to place a permanent hammerlock on our courts. There are structural limits to those "sea changes."

In the battle for the judiciary, the war is never ultimately won. Consider that in 1987, Democrats blocked Judge Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, which helped put the less-doctrinaire Kennedy on the court - only to see conservative stalwart Clarence Thomas replace liberal icon Justice Thurgood Marshall a few years later. The anger over Thomas's confirmation contributed to Democratic victories in 1992, paving the way for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace a dissenter to Roe, Justice Byron White.

If Democrats win big in 2020, they will again get their turn at shaping the judiciary, and Republicans will have to ask if they paid too steep a price.

- - -

Scher is co-host of "The DMZ" on bloggingheads.tv.
Herman Cain, the former pizza chain executive who ran in the Republican presidential primary in 2012, has been hospitalized with covid-19 less than two weeks after attending President Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla.

Cain, 74, learned that he tested positive for the virus Monday, and by Wednesday required hospitalization for his symptoms but is not on a ventilator, according to a statement on his Twitter account.

"There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus, but we do know he is a fighter who has beaten Stage 4 cancer," the statement says.

While it is unclear where Cain contracted the disease or how long he had it, Cain was among the several thousand attendees at Trump's Tulsa rally, most of whom did not wear masks.

Cain, whom Trump considered as his nominee for Federal Reserve chairman, wrote an opinion article about his experience in Tulsa. He described the rally as "electric" and derided media reports that characterized the rally as a bust. The Trump campaign shut down an outside overflow viewing party because of low attendance. The campaign had boasted of 1 million ticket requests, but a little more than 6,000 people partly filled the arena that can hold 19,000.

"The atmosphere was electric, and the president's words were inspiring," Cain wrote in The Western Journal, a conservative news outlet. "He presented a vision for uniting the country, overcoming the remaining effects of the pandemic and reinvigorating an economy he had going strong before the coronavirus showed up."

The coronavirus that ravaged the nation in the spring and forced almost all business and activity to a halt has flared again recently in many states.

After the rally, dozens of Secret Service agents and officers who were there were ordered to self-quarantine for two weeks. Hours before Trump's rally, it was discovered that six advance staffers, including two Secret Service employees, had tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Two more advance staffers tested positive after returning to Washington.
EDWARDSVILLE  More proactive policing, as well as an inability to transfer prisoners to the Illinois Department of Corrections, is causing Madison County Jail numbers to head up.

At Fridays Judiciary Committee meeting, Chief Madison County Deputy Sheriff Maj. Jeff Connor reported a total of 281 prisoners in the jail.

That is a sharp increase since the June meeting, and an even more dramatic increase from April, when the impact of the coronavirus on jail operations taking effect.

A major issue is the IDOC has refused to accept new prisoners since Gov. JB Pritzker started issuing new executive orders to fight the coronavirus.

Connor said 40 of the jails inmates should have already been transferred to IDOC, but the executive order prohibiting that has been extended until at least July 28.

At last months meeting Connor reported 238 inmates, with 22 awaiting transfer to IDOC.

In early April the count was down to 191, in part because departments were stepping back from proactive policing and not taking as many people into custody. Both the states attorneys and public defenders offices were also attempting to process as many cases as possible.

Part of that stems from the long-standing effort to reduce the jail population because of the ongoing $14 million renovation project now under way.

The other major factor was the need to clear out an entire cell block to serve as an isolation area for any prisoners testing positive for COVID-19.

After Fridays meeting Connor said they have had one prisoner with the virus. He said they were able to isolate them when they were brought in, and there was not spread to other inmates or staff.

The inability to transfer prisoners has created a backlash against the state and governor.

On May 28 the Illinois Sheriffs Association filed a lawsuit against Pritzker and the IDOC for refusing to accept transfers since March 26.

This has left the sheriffs to bear not only the burden of protecting their detainees and county-sentenced inmates from the threat of the virus, but also those who rightfully should be in the custody of IDOC at a time when space and inmate population are critical components to battling the spread of the virus. Jails continue to accept new arrestees and manage the spread of the virus simultaneously, the association said in a released statement.

In his report, Connor also noted that the number of prisoners processed this year is dramatically down from 2019.

So far 2,143 prisoners have been processed, down 1,605 from last years 3,748. The projected total number of prisoners expected to be processed throughout 2020 is 3,192.
WOOD RIVER  With people celebrating both Independence Day and the easing of restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, it would be a terrible irony to have escaped COVID-19 just to fall to food-born illness.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in a typical year one out of six Americans will experience some form of food-born illness and approximately 126,000 will go to the hospital. While most cases are mild, severe consequences and death can result.

Two of the biggest issues, especially in the summer with grilling and picnics, are food temperature and cross-contamination, according to Amy Yeager, health promotion manager for the Madison County Health Department.

The bottom line with safe food handling is to keep hot food hot and cold food cold, she said.

In general, cold food should be kept below 41 degrees and hot foods above 140, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Bacteria grow most rapidly between those temperatures, sometimes referred to as the Danger Zone, and can double in as few as 20 minutes.

Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill is the mantra used by both state and federal agencies when it comes to food safety.

Clean

More Information Food safety rules  Clean  Separate  Cook  Chill See More Collapse

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends washing hands for 20 seconds with soap and water before, during and after preparing food, and before eating. Singing Happy Birthday twice is recommended for those unsure about time.

Utensils, cutting boards and counter tops should be washed with hot, soapy water; and fresh fruits and vegetables should be rinsed under running water.

Separate

It is especially important to separate raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs from other foods, especially ready-to-eat items.

Recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include: using separate cutting boards and plates for raw meat, poultry, and seafood; when grocery shopping, keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and their juices away from other foods; keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from all other foods in the refrigerator or cooler.

Keep the raw meat in a completely different cooler than any other foods, Yeager said. If that raw meat leaks, it could leak into one of the other containers.

She also said when marinating food, dont reuse marinade for basting. Instead, reserve some of the marinade before applying it to the meat.

Cook

Food is safely cooked when the internal temperature gets high enough to kill germs that can make you sick, according to the CDCs website. The only way to tell if food is safely cooked is to use a food thermometer. You cant tell if food is safely cooked by checking its color and texture.

According to the CDC and FDA, minimum cooking temperatures are 145 degrees for whole cuts of beef, pork, veal, and lamb (then allow the meat to rest for 3 minutes before carving or eating); 160 degrees for ground meats, such as beef and pork; 165 degrees for all poultry, including ground chicken and turkey; 165 degrees for leftovers and casseroles; 145 degrees for fresh (raw) ham; and 145 degrees for fish.

Chill

Food should never be left out for more than two hours, one hour if outside in 90-degree heat or above, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Frozen food should always be thawed in a refrigerator or cooler.

When serving, one option is to place food containers on ice.

Symptoms of food poisoning include vomiting and diarrhea, but in some cases, life-threatening complications such as organ failure occur, according to the IDPH.

The IDPH recommends contacting a doctor or health care provider if you have: A fever over 101.5 degrees; frequent vomiting that prevents you from keeping liquids down; signs of dehydration, including a decrease in urination, a dry mouth and throat, and feeling dizzy when standing up; and diarrheal illness that lasts more than three days.

Something people need to remember is that even though the guidelines have loosened up, COVID-19 is still out there.

We want people to follow food safety guidelines, but we also want them to follow COVID guidelines, said Yeager, health promotion manager for the Madison County Health Department.

That includes washing hands, wearing masks, sanitizing high-use areas and items, and proper social distancing and keeping to groups of 50 or less.

For more information about food safety, go to www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/groups/consumers.html.
GODFREY  As the state enter into Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois plan, universities are re-opening campuses, one of them being Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey

On June 29, career training students who were unable to complete hands-on training in the spring returned to campus to finish those requirements. Summer courses will remain online.
WASHINGTON - Five U.S. airlines have reached agreements with the Department of the Treasury to receive loans as part of the coronavirus relief package known as the Cares Act.

Treasury officials announced Thursday that American, Frontier, Hawaiian, SkyWest and Spirit airlines have signed letters of intent setting out the terms on which the loans will be issued.

"We are pleased that major air carriers intend to use this important program and for Treasury to use its authority under the Cares Act to provide much-needed financial assistance, while ensuring appropriate taxpayer compensation," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "Conversations with other airlines continue, and we look forward to finalizing agreements as soon as possible."

As part of the $2 trillion economic relief package approved by Congress, airlines were eligible to receive more than $50 billion in grants and loans. The $25 billion in grants that passenger carriers applied for earlier this year were part of the Payroll Support Program and were focused on keeping front-line workers, including mechanics, flight attendants and pilots, on the job. Cargo carriers also were eligible to receive $4 billion in grants.

In addition to the grants, passenger airlines were also eligible to apply for $25 billion loans. Mnuchin said he expects other carriers, in addition to the five announced Thursday who have signed letters of intent, to also seek government loans.

The airline industry has been hit hard by the pandemic and while some carriers are slowly beginning to increase service, roughly 2,500 aircraft remain parked and the number of people flying is still far below previous years. The grants and loans offered through the Cares Act are seen as critical to avoiding massive layoffs in the industry.

As a condition of receiving the grant money through the Payroll Support Program, airlines had to agree to a number of conditions, including keeping employees on the payroll through the end of September, maintaining a certain levels of air service as far out as 2022, and limiting stock buybacks and executive compensation. Carriers that receive funds must pay back 30 percent of the what they receive and issue warrants to the government. A stock warrant entitles its holder to buy the underlying stock at a guaranteed price until the warrant expires.

The loan program makes roughly $46 billion available, with passenger airlines, certified repair stations and ticket agents eligible to received $25 billion in loans. Companies that receive the money must follow conditions similar to those required under the grant program.

The Treasury Department's announcement Thursday did not specify the amount each carrier would receive, but did note that details of the agreements would be posted on the agency's website within 72 hours after a transaction is completed.

However, American Airlines announced in April that it expected to apply for a loan of approximately $4.75 billion. The carrier received $5.8 billion through the Payroll Support Program, while Frontier Airlines received roughly $205 million, Hawaiian Airlines roughly $292 million, SkyWest approximately $438 million and Spirit an estimated $335 million.
EDWARDSVILLE  The widow of former Alton fire fighter Gary Claxton has filed suit in circuit court challenging the decision of the Alton Firefighters Pension Fund to deny her benefits of his retirement.

Davi and Gary Claxton were in the midst of a divorce when he died in April 2017. The circuit court ruled on the divorce and the disposition of assets, including pension benefits on June 2, 2017.

Gary Claxton had retired when the divorce was filed and was receiving benefits. However, the Fifth District Appellate Court reversed that decision on May 29, 20019.

According to the suit by Davi Claxton, the two were still married when he died so she was entitled to pension benefits. However, the two had signed a pre-nuptial agreement to the effect that neither was entitled to a claim on the others retirement benefits.

Davi Claxton argued in circuit court that the agreement was unconscionable because she had no retirement benefits of her own and that while she would receive part of Garys firefighters pension if he died while they were married, she would get nothing if he died after they were divorced.

The circuit court found the antenuptial agreement to be valid and enforceable. However, the Fifth District Appellate Court reversed the circuit court ruling.

After a Jan. 22 hearing, the pension board ruled David Claxton was not entitled to benefits. The board claimed the denial is based on a state law that provides that the benefits can be awarded only if the judicial proceedings are filed within two years after the date of the divorce and only if the board was a party to the proceedings.

In her suit, Davi Claxton claims the board was given notice of the proceedings but did not choose to take part. She claims the board is denying her rights to due process under the Illinois Constitution.
Regarding statues, monuments, and other public tributes to those once deemed great  which to do away with and which to keep  four familiar words can guide our choices: a more perfect union.

Did Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee fight for a more perfect union? No. They fought for disunion. Outside of museums, gravesites or private collections, there should be no statues of either man, or of their senior confederates.

Likewise, John C. Calhoun believed in slavery as a positive good and nullification as a states right. He utterly fails the more perfect union test, which is why Yale was right when in 2017 it rechristened the residential college previously named for him.

Likewise, Forts Bragg, Hood, Benning and seven other military installations named for Confederate generals should be renamed. The Constitution is specific in defining treason narrowly as levying war against the United States. It is dangerous for the government to name buildings or facilities for those who betrayed it  and incredible that the fact escaped wide notice until now.

Likewise, we should never honor public figures who, by the standards of their own time as well as ours, abused a public trust. Case in point: The more we learn about J. Edgar Hoover, the more outrageous it is that the FBI building in Washington is still named for him.

These are the easy cases. Equally easy are the opposite cases.

Hans Christian Heg, an ardent abolitionist whose statue in Madison, Wisconsin, was pulled down this week, fell at the Battle of Chickamauga trying to make a more perfect union. Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded one of the first Black Union regiments and whose monument in Boston was defaced last month, was killed at Fort Wagner trying to make a more perfect union. Ulysses Grant, who did more than any other general to defeat the Confederacy and more than any other president to defeat the Klan, and whose statue in San Francisco was pulled down last week, devoted his life to trying to make a more perfect union.

What about, say, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington?

The central case against Washington and Jefferson is that they were slaveholders, albeit ones who knew slavery was wrong. If their fault lay in being creatures of their time, their greatness was in their ability to look past it. An unbroken moral thread connects the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to Martin Luther Kings I Have A Dream speech. An unbroken political thread connects the first president to the 16th to the 44th. Its impossible to imagine any union, much less the possibility of a more perfect one, without them.

Jackson and Roosevelt? Both were avowed racists, and the Indian Removal Act of 1830, enacted during Jacksons presidency, stands with the Chinese Exclusion Act as one of the most shameful pieces of American legislation.

But theres historical irony in the fact that some of todays progressives are eager to bring down statues to the two most progressive presidents of their times. Roosevelt busted trusts, championed conservation and caused a scandal by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine with his family in the White House. Were those not acts in the service of a more perfect union?

As for Jackson, his egalitarianism, distrust of big money, and battle with Calhoun over nullification make him much more the political progenitor of Bernie Sanders than of Donald Trump. If its OK to knock Old Hickory off his pedestal now, is any reformist leader of the more recent past  FDR, for instance, or even Barack Obama  safe from the furies of the future? Its hard to build progressive politics on a continually undermined foundation.

That isnt to say that every statue is worth preserving. New Yorks Museum of Natural History just decided to bring down the equestrian bronze of the 26th president, not so much on his account as because of the placement on his flanks of a Native American and an African figure. Fine. But since the museum is largely dedicated to Roosevelts legacy as a statesman, scholar and naturalist, isnt the right way to do it to replace it with another T.R. statue  this time as a man in the arena rather than as a figure in the saddle?

Such a statue might be a useful reminder that the men and women who most deserve to be shaped in metal or carved in stone werent made from them. And that acknowledging the fallibility of our national heroes and the limitations of their time neednt make them less heroic and may often make them more. And that theres a vast difference between thinking critically about the past, for the sake of learning from it, and behaving destructively toward the past, with the aim of erasing it.

A great debate about who should remain on which pedestals can be a healthy one. The rights idea that we must preserve the worst figures to protect the best is idiotic. The lefts idea that we should bring down the best because we know who they were at their worst is no less so.

An intelligent society should be able to make intelligent distinctions, starting with the one between those who made our union more perfect and those who made it less.

Bret Stephens is a columnist for the New York Times.
While Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden remains semi-cloistered in the bunker/basement/television studio of his Wilmington, Delaware, home, the vice presidential selection process plods on.

Bidens campaign is facing increasing pressure from the partys progressive wing to choose a running mate who supports massive reductions in spending on police departments and major revisions in law enforcement powers. By pledging to select a woman as his running mate, Biden availed himself of several highly qualified women capable of fulfilling his principal condition  ready to step in as president should it become necessary.

Protest gatherings, marches and violence erupted across the country after the death of an unarmed Black man at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer gave rise to demands to Defund the Police and propelled support for the selection of an African American woman as Bidens running mate.

Bidens campaign quickly recognized the perils of the Defund the Police movement and distanced the former vice president with a declaration of opposition. But President Trumps campaign, sensing a potentially powerful wedge issue which could be exploited, piled on. It moved quickly to pin the movement to Biden as evidence the Democratic Party had ceded control to its radical elements who supported abolishing police departments.

A recent Harris/HillX poll bore out the Trump view  52% of Democrats supported defunding while 78% of Republicans and 70% of independents opposed it.

Trump ratcheted up the attack with his usual volatile and incendiary rhetoric. He proclaimed himself the president of law and order, threatened to turn dogs loose on protesters, shoot looters and mused aloud about mobilizing the U.S. military to quell demonstrations.

At a time when the country sought leadership to address the protesters legitimate grievances and work with Congress to develop policies to resolve them, Trump chose to lead the country into war.

Meaningful reforms in policing procedures and practices  a position Biden has embraced  enjoys healthy majority support, but withdrawing traditional law enforcement functions does not.

Proponents of the Defund the Police movement struggled to explain their goal is re-allocating funds spent on policing to social service programs to help individuals whose behavior is better served by professionals in the field of mental health, for instance, than by encounters with police officers not trained to deal with such confrontations.

Many progressives are already suspicious of Biden and, as he deals with the increase in support for an African American vice presidential selection, hes treading on tricky terrain.

Two potential running mates under serious consideration  California Sen. Kamala Harris and Florida Congresswoman Val Demings  drew opposition from some outspoken Black leaders because, they contended, their earlier careers in law enforcement (Harris as a prosecutor and Demings as a chief of police) disqualified them. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar took herself out of the running, realizing her service as a county prosecutor worked against her.

If Biden passes on Harris or Demings, hell be accused of caving in to the militant progressives. Should he choose either one, hell encounter significant backlash, continued criticism and possible loss of support from that wing.

Its another straw on the camels back as the party struggles to construct a united front for the four-month run to the election.

Biden has surged to a double-digit lead in several polls but concerns persist it is a lead on paper only, that Trump  buoyed by an enthusiastic rock solid base  is capable of making up ground in significant chunks while Democrats squabble among themselves and worry about whether large disgruntled segments of their party will desert it.

His choice of a running mate may hold the answer.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst for the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey and a columnist for Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. He can be reached at cgolden1937@gmail.
Investigators seek to detain ex-policeman charged with student rape

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

12:51 02/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 2 (RAPSI)  Investigators seek to place ex-road police officer from Tatarstan Radik Badretdinov accused of rape of a student in detention, lawyer Andrey Suchkov told RAPSI Thursday.

According to the investigation, in February, traffic cop Badretdinov e-met with a young woman. Later, during their first meeting he committed a rape in his car. When he was found out, he escaped, the victims attorney said.

The former police officer has been searched for three months until his arrest.




As protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer turn to defunding police departments and then to removing police presence from schools, we would do well to remember a few names:

 Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. The heavily armed seniors killed a dozen students and a teacher at Columbine High in Colorado in 1999. Another 21 were injured by gunfire. The pair committed suicide in the school library.

 Nikolas Cruz. The 19-year-old former student was dropped off at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida., in 2018. Armed with a semiautomatic rifle, he killed 17 and injured 17 others. He fled, was ultimately arrested, and was charged with 17 counts of murder.

 William Atchison. The 21-year-old former student walked into Aztec High in 2017 with a 9mm Glock. He killed two students and took his own life as police closed in.

While there are many positives to having a police presence in our schools  a crucial element of community policing  providing a safe and secure environment tops the list.

Those calling for their removal contend the money spent on police would be better used for teacher training, social workers and programs.

Of course if you continue to re-enforce the message police are bad, that likely affects how they are viewed by kids. But many who actually work in schools have a different take.

Having the officers is a positive  not a threat  and a lot of good comes from it.

The primary responsibility of a school police officer is to maintain order and security while nurturing positive and respectful relationships with students.

School safety isnt a social science project. We need trained officers who can practice de-escalation and restorative justice and stand between students and a dangerous assailant. And its important young people are exposed to police in a non-confrontational setting, where the daily message is they are there to ensure everyones safety.

School leaders and parents should look at the evidence and track record, make needed improvements and reject the dangerous defund mantra in our schools.

 Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico
Peckville

Book sale: Valley Community Library drive-up book sale, July 11, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., 739 River St., in the librarys side parking lot next to Blakely Borough Recreational Complex, pre-packaged bags will be $5 each (cash only) and contain a surprise assortment, bag categories available for purchase include contemporary fiction/romance, historical/Amish, mystery/thriller, fantasy/sci-fi, romance paperback, non-fiction memoir, baby/toddler, childrens beginner reader, middle school chapter and young adult, masks are required and bags available as supplies last.

Regional

Virtual showcase: Mountain View art showcase, Arts Alive, gallery features students singing, playing instruments and numerous art pieces, as well as pieces from community members; showcase can be viewed on the Mountain View website, www.mvsd.net, under the news section, click on Arts Alive 2020.

Information session: Marywood Universitys School of Social Work Master of Social Work information session virtually for its Lehigh Valley program, July 29, 5-6 p.m., interested attendees can contact Lori Kapes, administrative assistant for the School of Social Work at Marywood, at lkapes@maryu.marywood.edu to request the Google Meet link, the information session will provide study options for full- and part-time students, advanced standing for bachelor of social work graduates, present admissions information and give internship program options; information: http://www.marywood.edu/ssw/index.html, or 570-348-6234.

Tripp Park

Neighbors meet: Tripp Park Neighborhood Association regular meeting, Tuesday, 6:30 p.m., Tripp Park Community Center.

Clipboard items may be sent to yesdesk@timessham rock.com, Clipboard, c/o YES!Desk, 149 Penn Ave., Scranton, PA 18503, or 570-348-9121.
Lackawanna County will use $18.9 million in coronavirus relief funding to cover pandemic-related costs incurred by the county and its municipalities.

Meeting virtually Wednesday, commissioners approved an $18.9 million COVID-19 County Relief Block Grant contract between the county and the state Department of Community and Economic Development. The relief funding comes from the federal Treasury by way of DCED under provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act that Congress passed in response to the public health crisis.

The county may use the funding to offset costs incurred as a result of its COVID-19 response and to reimbursing cities, boroughs and townships for expenses their pandemic response and planning efforts generated, among other permitted uses. The funding may not be used to replace lost tax revenue or plug budget shortfalls at the local government level, acting county economic development Director Brenda Sacco said.

County officials have reached out to all 40 municipalities, county row officers/department heads and the countys affiliated boards and authorities to ascertain what of their expenses the relief funding will cover. Many local governments paid for personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies and other materials and services that qualify for reimbursement out of pocket, Sacco said.

The county economic development department is processing reimbursement requests from other departments, authorities and municipalities and will disburse the relief funds after confirming the requests satisfy all requirements.

The grant money may be applied to all eligible costs incurred between March 1 and Dec. 30. That includes money the county, its affiliates and municipalities may spend to prepare for a potential second wave of COVID-19 infections.

It may also be used to expand broadband internet services to unserved or underserved areas  something Sacco said the county will consider later depending on how much relief money remains.

Bridge work

Also Wednesday, commissioners awarded a pair of contracts worth more than $1.28 million to Carbondale-based T. Brennan Heavy Equipment to replace bridges in Moscow and Greenfield Twp.

The Carbondale firm, which submitted the low bids for both projects, will replace the Lee Road Bridge in Greenfield Twp. for about $585,192 and the Van Brunt Bridge in Moscow for about $699,476.

State Act 13 money designated for bridge work, not county taxpayer dollars, will fund both projects, county Chief Financial Officer Tom Durkin said.

When both projects will commence is unclear.

Commissioners next meet July 15. Its possible that meeting will be conducted in person at the countys government center on Wyoming Avenue in Scranton, the first in-person county meeting since March, Chief of Staff Brian Jeffers said.
A recently fired Scranton police officer and trained sniper who was accused this year in a lawsuit of using his position to coerce sex from women was arrested Wednesday for threatening other city police officers.

Just a heads-up. I am planning to take it to your team. It will be out in the open not a house or building like you always train, Thomas J. McDonald texted Sgt. Thomas Carroll on Saturday, according to state police. You wont know when its coming but it will come.

State police took McDonald, 46, into custody without incident at 6 a.m. Wednesday, Lackawanna County District Attorney Mark Powell said.

McDonald, 354 Grove St., Scranton, is charged with terroristic threats and harassment  both misdemeanors. McDonald is jailed at Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $100,000 straight bail.

Attempts to reach an attorney for McDonald were unsuccessful Wednesday.

The city fired McDonald last week, after about an 11-month investigation, for a matter unrelated to Wednesdays charges. McDonald worked 17 years in the city Police Department, most recently as a sniper on the departments Special Operations Group, which is essentially a SWAT team, and was a firearms instructor.

He also worked in the citys Special Investigations Division, a plainclothes unit that uses confidential informants to arrest drug dealers.

The probe started within the Police Department in the back half of 2019. McDonald was placed on administrative duty, effectively barring him from working on the street, in August.

A parallel criminal investigation launched after the department referred the matter to the district attorneys office.

In late December, the district attorneys office withdrew felony narcotics cases against 18 people McDonald had arrested because the allegations against him cast significant doubt on his credibility and compromises the integrity of those drug cases. Not long after, he was placed on administrative leave with pay. He made $71,552.39 a year.

However, the actual allegations against him remained secret.

On March 26, Scranton attorney Matthew Comerford filed a lawsuit in federal court that alleged McDonald used his authority over two female confidential informants to coerce sex acts from them in 2017 and 2018. It also alleged that others knew of McDonalds abuse and did nothing to stop it. The city, in court paperwork, denies the allegations.

McDonald has not responded to the lawsuit.

Powell said he could not comment on the nature of that criminal investigation or if the allegations contained in Comerfords lawsuit are part of it.

Scranton Police Chief Carl Graziano said he could not comment on the investigation.

The internal investigation concluded by the spring and McDonald remained suspended pending a disciplinary hearing. On June 23, Capt. Dennis Lukasewicz delivered McDonalds termination letter, according to state police.

McDonalds charges do not represent the city police department and are not reflective of the dedicated work of all of the men and women of the department, according to a statement released by Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognettis office.

Days after his firing, McDonald sent a few angry text messages to Carroll, McDonalds former commander on the SOG team.

They dont have the heart or fortitude to take me on, part of the message read. Everyone wanted to listen to rumors and throw me away. Thats fine. Just be ready. Your team is weak and you know it.

Carroll was concerned for himself and his team because he was not really sure what McDonald would do, according to state police.

On Monday, Graziano contacted the state police with Carrolls report. They drafted an arrest warrant for McDonald.

His preliminary hearing is scheduled 10:30 a.m. July 14.
A Tobyhanna man drove drunk the wrong way on state Route 309 without headlights in the dark as he tried to elude officers Tuesday night, according to Ashley police.

An officer responded to a reported one-vehicle accident in the area of Bentleys nightclub at 9:09 p.m. Tuesday, Ashley police said in a news release.

The officer observed a man later identified as Derrick R. Adkins slumped over the driver seat of a silver Hyundai.

After being roused, Adkins started the vehicle, ignored commands to turn it off and sped off driving south in the north travel lanes of state Route 309, heading toward Mountain Top, police said.

Driving without headlights, Adkins narrowly avoided striking several vehicles before he stopped in the area of Pine Run Road.

Adkins got out of the vehicle and drank from a wine bottle as he walked toward officers. He refused orders to stop, so officers deployed Tasers to subdue him, police said.

Adkins displayed signs of heavy intoxication and was taken to a local hospital for evaluation, police said.

Police charged Adkins with a felony count of fleeing or eluding a police officer, as well as misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and DUI.

Adkins, who turns 50 on Thursday, was sent to Luzerne County Correctional Facility. He was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning.
The Lackawanna College Board of Trustees approved a tuition freeze for students in an ongoing effort to ease the financial burden of families during the COVID-19 pandemic, the college announced today.

Students will continue to pay $7,650 in tuition per semester for the 2020-2021 academic year. Lackawanna College has the lowest tuition and fees of any private college in Northeast Pennsylvania.

The college also announced the establishment of the Mark Volk Presidential Scholarship in honor of President Volks service to the college and the surrounding community. Volk, a a retired U.S. Army colonel, retired from the college on Tuesday after serving as president since July 2012.

To make your gift to the Mark Volk Presidential Scholarship fund, visit www.Lackawanna.edu/giving and select Mark Volk Scholarship.
As Americans consider news reports that Russia offered Taliban fighters bounties to kill U.S. service members, its worth recalling the tortured history the two nations have in Afghanistan.

Going back to the days of the Afghan mujahideen and Charlie Wilsons War, Washington provided weapons  notably, surface-to-air missiles  and training to Soviet adversaries in the 1980s. When I visited Moscow as the NATO commander of the Afghan mission almost 30 years later, I met with the man who had been the last Soviet general in Afghanistan (he had retired and gone into politics). He said to me that we Americans had Russian blood on your hands.

But that was very different from allegedly providing cash payments to Taliban fighters for killing individual American soldiers, especially as peace talks are unfolding. Providing arms and training to allies and occasionally to surrogates is common international behavior  the U.S. does so for North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and many other entities. But offering bounties for killing individual soldiers is shocking. It is especially dangerous when directed from the intelligence service of a nuclear-armed nation to the armed forces of a strategic opponent.

Whether President Donald Trump was briefed is an open question (he denies it). But the charges are so explosive that the real question is simple: If he wasnt briefed, why not?

If I had caught a whiff of Russian bounties being placed on the 150,000 troops that were under my strategic command in Afghanistan, I instantly would have called my direct senior, the secretary of defense. And Im reasonably sure he immediately would have called the White House and set up a meeting of the National Security Council.

Certainly Congress will dive into this, and it should. If the bulk of the intelligence is accurate  and it certainly sounds plausible given what we know about the GRU, Russias shadowy intelligence service  there needs to be a forceful response. Well know more in a few days and weeks, but already should be considering what the response might be.

First, the U.S. should fully and thoroughly assess all the extant intelligence and  at an appropriate level of classification that protects sources and methods  reveal publicly what Russia has done. Washington already has shared much of this with the U.K., according to press reports. Other allies who are still alongside Americans in Afghanistan, mostly NATO nations, need to see this as well, to ensure they can maintain suitable force protection.

The U.S. also must redouble intelligence collection in Afghanistan to fully understand the double game the Russians are playing, and what other ways they are seeking to undermine the nascent peace process. There needs to be a serious assessment of the degree to which the GRU has penetrated the Taliban. If bounties were offered, was this low-level activity by overactive intelligence officers, or part of a broad strategic effort by Russia to undermine the peace talks?

If the latter, what can our Afghan partners in the government of President Ashraf Ghani tell us about what is happening? What are the Russians objectives beyond killing American soldiers and embarrassing the U.S. in the country they dominated for a decade before ignominiously being driven out?

If the bounty reports prove accurate, the Trump administration strongly should consider expelling the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and his entire intelligence team, along with consuls general. This likely would set off diplomatic retaliation by Russia, but that is a price we should be willing to pay. Similarly, no senior U.S. diplomats or military officers should meet with their Russian counterparts, including Trump meeting or talking with President Vladimir Putin or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov.

In terms of military actions, the U.S. should reverse the recently announced removal of 10,000 troops from Germany. This is not the time to be showing a lack of resolve in our forward presence. It is also a good time to increase U.S. support to front-line allies dealing with Russia such as the Baltic states and Poland.

Finally, the U.S. should look at additional economic sanctions on Moscow, and certainly stop discussions of lifting current sanctions for its illegal invasion and occupation of Ukraine. It may be time to look at sanctions on individuals at the very senior levels of the Russian government, including Putin himself. It seems highly unlikely he would have been unaware of these bounties, particularly given his background as a KGB spymaster.

In a season of outrageous and unpredictable events, this stands out. If true, it shows such a blatant and reckless disregard for the norms of international behavior, even in a combat zone, that it puts the U.S. and Russia squarely on a geopolitical collision course.
When the U.S. Supreme Court this week overturned a Montana law that had outlawed the use of state-subsidized scholarships for religious schools, it also eliminated any constitutional doubts about Pennsylvanias Educational Improvement Tax Credit program.

The 5-4 conservative majority made an important distinction regarding religious liberty and the separation of church and state in public education funding.

Once a state determines that it will allow tax credits to be allocated to support private education, those states may not exclude certain types of private schools, based solely on their religious affiliations, the majority ruled.

Pennsylvanias program allows donors to claim a state tax credit of up to 75% of any contributions of up to $750,000 that they make to private funds, including for religious schools. If they make the same contribution in two consecutive years, they get a 90% tax credit. In the 2018-2019 school year, donors made $137.5 million in contributions to 1,170 private funds, including many for religious schools, for which they received more than $110 million in tax credits.

The issue in the case was not so much church-state as public-private. And the underlying issue remains whether, or the degree to which, states should subsidize private schools regardless of their religious affiliations.

In Pennsylvania, legislative Republicans attempted to enact a virtually open-ended expansion of the program in 2019 but Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed it. Conservatives support it because it diminishes the political power of public schools and teachers unions, while helping businesses diminish their tax burdens. Progressives argue that it subsidizes private education for affluent students at the expense of poorer students.

There is no doubt that the program helps many poorer students by providing them with choices that they otherwise would not have.

Pennsylvania students need the help. A recent analysis by the online financial site WalletHub, for example, found that Pennsylvania ranks 47th among the states in racial equality in education. It was 31st in percentage of adults with a high school diploma, 34th in percentage of adults with a bachelors degree; 44th on standardized test scores; 40th in mean SAT scores; 47th in average ACT score; and 48th in the high school graduation rate.

The issue always is live in Pennsylvania. The court ruling provides guidance as the Legislature ponders not whether, but the degree to which, state tax credits should be used to support all private education.
London, KY (40741)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 59F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Son of ex-Amur Region senator sentenced to 2 years for hitting traffic cop by car

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

16:06 02/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 2 (RAPSI)  Moscows Nikulinsky District Court has sentenced Timur Gallyamov, the son of a former Amur Region senator, to 2 years in penal colony for hitting a traffic cop by a car, the press service of the Moscow Prosecutors Office reports.

The defendant has been found guilty of use of force dangerous to life against an authority representative.

The court found that on May 26, 2019, Gallyamov driving his car was stopped by a road traffic police officer for the document check. During the check it was revealed that the defendant had a void compulsory third party car insurance policy. To avoid negative consequences Gallyamov began driving and attempted to escape but was later caught up. Under the drug influence the violator dropped the hammer and ran down a policeman, the statement reads.
EMILY ST. LAWRENCE, Chariho girls lacrosse, senior: St. Lawrence scored the 100th goal of her career in a 16-1 win against Lincoln. St. Lawrence finished her career with 104 goals, eight short of the school record. The team did not play last season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

JOSH MOONEY, Stonington track & field, sophomore: Mooney scored in three events at the State Open meet. Mooney was second in the 110 hurdles, fourth in the javelin and fifth in the 300 hurdles. He scored all 17 of Stoningtons points.

ALEX STOEHR, Westerly softball, freshman: Stoehr hit three triples and a double in a doubleheader sweep of Barrington. For the week, she was 7 for 13 with four doubles, two triples and three RBIs. Stoehr is hitting .333 for the season.

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The FTSE 100 closed up 1.34 per cent or 82.40 points at 6,240.36 and the pound was at $1.25 against the dollar.

The US gained 4.8 million jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 per cent last month, when states began allowing businesses to reopen from strict shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic.

This easily outstripped expectations and has prompted a rise in stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

Pub operator Mitchells & Butlers posted a first-half loss of 121million as pubs were shut during the lockdown. The firm flagged up uncertainty around the restart of business on July 4 as stricter social distancing measures are put in place.

Associated British Foods said trading in its reopened Primark stores has been 'reassuring and encouraging', with 322million in cumulative sales for the seven-week period to June 20, though they were 12 per cent lower than last year on a like-for-like basis.

Engineering firm Meggitt, which makes parts for planes, forecast a 15 per cent drop in first-half organic revenue as demand dried up due to a virtual halt in air travel from restrictions to contain the novel coronavirus.
Moscow court vacates 10-year graft sentence of ex-Defense Ministry's auditor

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

17:20 02/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 2 (RAPSI)  The Moscow City Court on Thursday overturned a 10-year prison sentence against ex-Director of the Russian Defense Ministrys state contract audit department Maxim Kuksin, who had been convicted of receiving bribes worth over 11 million rubles (over $155,000 at the current exchange rate), the courts press service told RAPSI.

The case was ordered to be sent back to a lower court for reconsideration. Kuksin was released on travel restrictions.

In December 2019, Moscows Kuzminsky District Court sentenced Kuksin to 10 years in a high-security prison and fined him 30 million rubles (over $425,000).

According to investigators, Kuksin has received at least 11 million rubles ($156,000) in bribes. The case was based on witness testimony given by Yury Yefimov, the chief of the second military economic costing department of the Defense Ministry, who gave large sum money to the defendant. Kuksin pleaded not guilty.
Engineering group Meggitt has warned that its first half profits will come in lower than anticipated, while total second quarter revenue is expected to drop by 30 per cent.

In April, the FTSE-250 listed company, which makes components for the aerospace and defence markets, announced plans to cut 1,800 jobs globally in a bid to slash costs.

The group said it had made 'good progress' in executing plans to cut costs and cash expenditure amid the 'significant slowdown' in the aerospace sector triggered by the pandemic.

Impact: Engineering group Meggitt has warned that its first half profits will come in lower than anticipated

But, the group warned that revenue across its civil aerospace arm looked set to be 50 per cent lower in the second quarter compared with a year earlier.

Amid global lockdowns, demand for air travel has slumped, with passenger numbers and air traffic expected to remain sluggish for some time.

The company's share price has performed strongly today and is currently up 6.33 per cent or 19.3p to 324.4p. But, a year ago, the London-listed firm's share price was closer to the 536p mark.

The group's energy division revenue is now expected to come in lower than last year, but defence revenue is expected to rise by between one and five per cent.

In the second quarter, the majority of Meggitt's manufacturing facilities remained open, with around two-thirds of the firm's global workforce working on sites, and the remainder either working from home or on furlough.

The company said today: 'With lockdowns starting to ease across a number of the countries in which we operate, where possible, and in line with local government guidelines, we are putting plans in place for all employees including those that are office-based to progressively return safely to the workplace.'

As of May 31 Meggitt said it had 1.6billion of committed facilities in place, while the group is also eligible to access extra cash via the Bank of England's Covid Corporate Financing Facility.

The group, which supplies everything from aircraft cameras to energy on board energy storage systems, said it remained on track to reduce cash outflows by around 400million to 450million this year.

Meggitt said: 'The reduction in our global workforce is proceeding as planned and, as a result of the early actions taken in the first quarter, we anticipate being able to derive higher savings than originally planned from reducing our discretionary operating costs.

'However, as we realign our global supply chain to reflect reduced customer demand alongside tightening supply parameters, it has taken slightly longer to gain momentum on reducing inventory levels.

'Inventory reduction remains a key objective for the Group and we continue to anticipate delivering good levels of cash saving from this initiative in the second half.'
Pension funds are being urged to invest the nation's savings to help fight the climate emergency.

In an initiative launched by celebrity film director Richard Curtis and ex-Bank of England governor Mark Carney, the Make My Money Matter campaign wants the 3trillion in UK retirement pots used to take on climate change.

Carney has previously warned pensions funds and other businesses risk seeing assets become 'worthless' unless they wake up to the climate crisis.

Investment potential: Supporting an economic transition could be 'the greatest commercial opportunity of our time', says Mark Carney

He said in December before leaving the Bank of England that efforts to halt investment in fossil fuels were 'not moving fast enough, and climate change was a 'tragedy on the horizon' for the planet but would also have enormous costs for businesses which failed to adapt. Read more below.

Now, in a new role as UN special envoy for climate action and finance, Carney says supporting an economic transition could be 'the greatest commercial opportunity of our time'.

Curtis, co-founder of Comic Relief, is calling on the pension industry to commit to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and for the Government to ensure that funds report on their progress on sustainable investing.

New research from Make My Money Matter shows 57 per cent of UK adults with a pension want to see their savings invested in building a better future for people and the planet after the coronavirus pandemic, and 52 per cent want them used to help tackle climate change.

From tobacco to fossil fuels, gambling to deforestation, pension funds have invested trillions on our behalf without asking us the crucial question  do these investments create a world that we actually want to live in? Richard Curtis, Comic Relief

The survey of nearly 4,500 UK adults in early June also detected a change in attitudes, with 32 per cent saying they now care even more about the impact their pension has compared with at the start of the crisis.

However, 72 per cent either do not believe or do not know whether their pension is invested in line with their values, and 24 per cent don't know how to change what their pension is invested in - find out here.

Carney says: 'By helping align finance with society's values, the Make My Money Matter campaign can support the whole economy transition required to achieve net zero.

'This could turn the existential risks from climate change into the greatest commercial opportunity of our time.

'Private finance, including pension funds, will provide the $3.5trillion needed annually for investments in sustainable infrastructure and fund the innovation and re-engineering of business in every sector of the economy.'

Make My Money Matter is also supported by NEST, the state-run auto-enrolment pension scheme, which has seen its ethical fund outperform its default fund - which savers are opted into unless they make an active choice - for five years running.

Pension fund performance: NEST's 2040 fund is representative of its retirement-dated default funds. It has been outperformed by the ethical fund, and the sharia fund which is screened by Islamic scholars and is 100 per cent invested in equities. AMC means annual management charge (Source: NEST's quarterly investment report for the end of March 2020 )

NEST chief executive Helen Dean said: 'At NEST we exist to improve the retirements of our millions of members and we simply cannot do this if we ignore the world they will be retiring into.

'Pension funds are investing more than 3trillion on behalf of UK workers. That gives us enormous power and influence over the companies we're investing in. It gives us the potential to be a real force for good.'

Richard Curtis, co-founder of Make My Money Matter, says: 'Our pensions are powerful, and we must use that power to build a better world.

'The 3trillion in our UK pension pot is more than enough to take on the climate emergency, bring hundreds of new drugs to market, or help solve the housing crisis.

'But from tobacco to fossil fuels, gambling to deforestation, pension funds have invested trillions on our behalf without asking us the crucial question  do these investments create a world that we actually want to live in?

'That is why Make My Money Matter will help people understand their 'financial footprint', and empower us all to have pensions we can be proud of.'
Tifton, GA (31794)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening followed by thunderstorms late. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening followed by thunderstorms late. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
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Cresaptown, MD (21502)

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Isolated thunderstorms early, overcast overnight with occasional rain likely. Low 64F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

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Isolated thunderstorms early, overcast overnight with occasional rain likely. Low 64F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Posted by Dustin on at 10:40 PM CST

As you likely saw on Star Wars Day, the annual Star Wars fan holiday celebrated on May 4th, General Mills teased a cereal that honored the Child, the beloved character from The Mandalorian! Now, the cereal is coming to Sams Club for a limited time only.The Mandalorian-inspired cereal is packed with sweetened corn puffs and a bounty of fun, with marshmallow pieces shaped like the Child to deliver a breakfast that can be enjoyed in your own galaxy.You can pick up the The Mandalorian-inspired cereal first at ALL Sams Club locations beginning in late-July, before it becomes available at Walmart stores in a single pack in mid-August. Sams Club will carry a box with two bags of the cereal for only $5.98.


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Thomasville, GA (31792)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 72F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

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Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 72F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Fox News on Wednesday fired daytime news anchor Ed Henry after an investigation of sexual misconduct in the workplace.

The network said it had received a complaint last Thursday from an attorney about the misconduct. An outside investigator was hired and, based on the results of that probe, Fox fired Henry.

Henry, who co-anchored "America's Newsroom" between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon on weekdays, had slowly rehabilitated his career on Fox following a four-month leave of absence that ended in 2016. That followed published reports of Henry's extramarital affair with a Las Vegas cocktail waitress.

Fox offered no details of the complaint that resulted in Henry's firing, only to say that it happened "years ago." Henry did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Meanwhile, HarperCollins said Wednesday that it would no longer publish a book by Henry that had been scheduled for September. Titled "Saving Colleen: A Memoir of the Unbreakable Bond Between a Brother and Sister," it was about Henry donating part of his liver to his sister.

The alleged victim is represented by noted sexual harassment attorney Douglas Wigdor. He also would not provide any details of the case.

 Associated Press

Jay-Z's music festival canceled due to virus

Jay-Z's annual festival in Philadelphia, Made in America, won't take place Labor Day weekend due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement Wednesday, the rap mogul's Roc Nation company said it plans to produce the popular festival in 2021.

"2020 is a year like no other. We are in a pivotal time in this nation's history. Collectively, we are fighting parallel pandemics, COVID-19, systematic racism and police brutality. Now is the time to protect the health of our artists, fans, partners and community as well as focus on our support for organizations and individuals fighting for social justice and equality in our country. Therefore, the Made In America festival will be rescheduled for Labor Day Weekend 2021," Roc Nation said in a statement.

This year's Made In America festival was set to take place Sept. 5-6 at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Roc Nation said tickets for the 2020 event will be valid in 2021. Ticketholders seeking refunds should look out for an email from Live Nation explaining how to get their money back.

 Associated Press

Prince Harry: End institutional racism

Prince Harry stressed the need to tackle institutional racism during a speech he recorded for Wednesday's ceremony for the Diana Awards, a charity for young people set up to honor his late mother.

In a video message shown in the virtual ceremony, the Duke of Sussex said that "institutional racism has no place in our societies, yet it is still endemic."

"My wife said recently that our generation and the ones before us haven't done enough to right the wrongs of the past," he said. "I, too, am sorry  sorry that we haven't got the world to the place that you deserve it to be."

The speech came on what would have been the 59th birthday of Princess Diana, the prince's mother. She died in a Paris car crash in 1997, when Harry was 12.

Harry paid tribute to young people being recognized at the ceremony for their work on race and injustice, saying he saw the "greatest hope" in them amid the division and anger in the world.

 Associated Press

Actor says director Whedon 'abusive'

Actor Ray Fisher says director Joss Whedon's behavior was "abusive" on the set of the 2017 film "Justice League."

"Joss Wheadon's on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable," Fisher, who played the young superhero Cyborg in the DC Comics film, tweeted Wednesday.

Fisher added that Whedon was "enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg," two producers on the film who were Warner Bros. Pictures executives at the time.

Whedon has not responded to Fisher on social media, and emails from The Associated Press to representatives seeking comment from him and from Warner Bros. were not immediately returned.

Whedon, known for his writing and directing on Marvel's "Avengers" films and television's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," was brought in during post-production to replace director Zack Snyder on "Justice League." He oversaw extensive reshoots, editing and visual effects on the film.

 Associated Press
This is A Cautionary Tale featuring well-intentioned people making poor choices. It is also the tale of a socialite with an Instagram habit who recently held a fabulous backyard soiree during a pandemic. The upside of living on social media is the admiration and envy of your friends. The downside is when your dinner party goes viral. Literally.

Ashley Taylor Bronczek, one of Washington, D.C.'s social stars, decided to throw a party after the Washington Ballet's online fundraiser, which she co-chaired. The June 18 gala was a huge success, raising more than $800,000 - the top sponsors were her generous in-laws, David and Judy Bronczek. To celebrate the occasion, she hosted a catered dinner for a couple dozen friends in the backyard of her home. It was, by all accounts, a picture-perfect night chronicled on (per usual) her Instagram account.

Then Bronczek, 37, was diagnosed with covid-19, along with a few other guests at the event. The news spread quickly through the wealthy young families in her social circle because their small children play together. Friends begged her to take down photos of the party, which she eventually did. But details of the evening - some true, some exaggerated - were already all over town.

This summer everyone is struggling to balance their yearning for normality with the risk of catching this virus. Young is safer than old. Outside is better than inside. Masks are better than no masks. And a handful of people are wiser than a lot of people. And so we make the calculation to attend or skip drinks on the patio, a backyard barbecue, a socially distanced birthday party. Most of the time it's fine. Unless it isn't.

Citing health issues, Bronczek originally offered to answer questions for this article via email, then changed her mind and declined to comment. Some guests who attended the party also declined to comment or claimed they were, in fact, not at the event. Ten others in Bronczek's circle were willing to discuss details of the evening only if they were not named.

People are finally social distancing, in every sense of the word.

- - -

The Washington Ballet's 75th anniversary gala was originally scheduled as a black-tie dinner in May but, like every other arts organization, it was forced to reimagine the evening. The ballet moved the date and created an hour-long virtual gala streamed live with pretaped dance performances, live toasts and remarks, and a three-course catered dinner delivered to the home of every guest. It was innovative, elegant and a financial success.

The ballet followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and D.C. Department of Health guidelines for safety: Married dancers sheltering in place performed together; others performed at a safe distance and all the choreography was crafted with that in mind. Anyone who came into the ballet's building that night for the live remarks had their temperature taken, signed a statement at the door and were asked to stay a safe distance apart.

The ballet's virtual gala gave supporters a way to come together for a shared experience in a safe format. The pandemic has upended all the conventional wisdom about socializing in Washington. When organizations canceled the traditional spring fundraisers, people began looking for other ways to engage with friends.

It started with Zoom cocktail parties and online book parties, then cautious, in-person gatherings: a handful of friends on a patio for drinks sitting six feet apart, one or two couples for dinner outside, each with a separate table. For many, even that is too risky - and the idea of a large party, even outdoors, seems reckless.

But Bronczek, apparently restless for a slice of her old life, invited friends to an in-person viewing party and dinner on the night of the ballet's virtual gala. Some declined, citing health concerns.

"It's just common sense," said an invitee. "We're in the middle of a pandemic."

For the more than two dozen who accepted, the evening began with them watching Bronczek and co-chair Sara Lange, both dressed in black evening gowns, at the ballet's headquarters to thank sponsors during the broadcast. They beamed glamour and energy - the new generation of philanthropists in the nation's capital.

The granddaughter of two beloved fixtures on Washington's social scene - former LBJ adviser Lloyd Hand and jewelry designer Ann Hand - Bronczek was a 20-something striking blonde who made a big splash the second she moved from California to D.C. in 2005. She was engaged to multimillionaire real estate investor Joe Robert, but the 31-year age difference proved to be the dealbreaker. In 2012, she married Matt Bronczek, the co-owner of a design and renovation company whose father was president of FedEx Corp. The high-profile couple quickly settled into life on the A-list: Three small children, a gorgeous house in Northwest Washington's Spring Valley neighborhood, serving on boards of prominent local institutions, fabulous vacations - much of it posted on her Instagram account.

She was, by all accounts, the perfect choice to co-chair the gala - rich, connected and a social power broker. The ballet was aware of her dinner but felt it couldn't really weigh in: The party was private and no one from the ballet attended or performed, according to a Washington Ballet spokesman. And her in-laws donated at least $75,000 for the gala, so that may have tempered any impulse to comment.

While Bronczek was at ballet headquarters for the live-streamed program, guests dressed in "summer chic" (cocktail dresses, jackets but no ties) mingled in her backyard and near the pool with cocktails while a large TV screen broadcast the gala. There were flowers and candles and a slight breeze. The only people wearing masks were photographer Tony Powell and the wait staff, although guests were not standing face to face.

"It was very well intentioned," says Powell, who was shooting the party for Washington Life magazine. "I did notice there was a lot more space between people. They were not as close as they normally are."

Technically, the dinner violated the District's Phase 1 guidelines, which prohibited gatherings of more than 10 people. And the tables were large rounds with eight or 10 place settings - which is lovely for dinner conversation but perhaps unwise during a pandemic. Still, there was no sign anyone was sick and everyone seemed happy to forget about the virus, if only for one night.

Powell ran into Bronczek returning to her party from the ballet headquarters. "She was so excited," he says. "She was radiant."

As it turned out, the coronavirus crashed the party without anyone realizing it.

- - -

It is, of course, unclear how or when Bronczek contracted the virus and who she may have passed it to, and there's no reason to believe she knew she had it. But within hours of the dinner, she began showing symptoms and was diagnosed shortly thereafter. Others who sat at her table are rumored to have also tested positive but did not return calls or declined to comment. Citing federal privacy laws, the ballet said that it cannot disclose any personal health information about any staff or artists.

The news spread among Bronczek's friends, many of whom had attended the dinner or had children in her backyard summer camp. The kids had been part of an informal play group of wealthy families who interacted on a regular basis and spent a lot of time together. But the hostess was slow to share her diagnosis with her circle - fearful of the social fallout, according to some friends, as much as the virus. Eventually, she texted the news and families rushed to get tested.

And that fallout has been unsparing - not just for hosting the party, but for failing to immediately notify anyone who may have been exposed to the virus.

"Everyone's angry," said one neighborhood mother, who declined to give her name while discussing Bronczek. "Everyone's trying to figure out who has it."

RJ Whyte Event Production, which coordinated the virtual gala, was not involved in Bronczek's dinner, according to the company. The wait staff of Occasions, which catered both the gala and the live dinner, reportedly have been quarantined for two weeks and are unable to work.

The lush photos taken at the event looked careless to some attendees after the fact. One guest called Powell and asked him to remove the images on his personal Instagram account because it clearly showed who attended the dinner; he complied. A series of photos remained on Bronczek's Instagram page for a week before she was finally convinced to take them down.

A night to remember. A night to forget. Or, perhaps, a lesson learned: No one is immune.
The meeting that Yemeni President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi held with Yemeni government officials, members of parliament and political party leaders in Riyadh last Friday reflected moves to cap the military escalation in southern Yemen between the internationally recognised government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC).

According to participants in the meeting, Riyadh, which brokered the ceasefire that was concluded on 23 June between government and STC forces, persuaded Hadi to back down after clashes erupted again in Abyan and the outskirts of Aden.

Riyadh underscored the urgency of carrying out the Riyadh Agreement of 5 November 2019, towards which end the parties should prioritise the political over the military track and implement it within two months.

During this period, the government should form a new 24-seat cabinet with the STC after which President Hadi will appoint governors of the southern provinces and local security and administration officials that meet the approval of the STC. In return, the STC will relinquish the self-rule it declared two months ago and withdraw its military forces from Aden and other lines of conflict. Local sources have confirmed Yemeni news reports that the observer force deployed by Saudi Arabia on the Abyan front has halted the spiralling tensions between the two sides.

While the military hostilities may have subsided, the political friction between the STC and the government seems to have shifted to within the latter camp which grew more sharply divided since STC forces drove out Hadi-aligned forces and took control of Socotra two weeks ago. According to sources close to the Yemeni presidency, there is a faction in the government camp  a kind of alliance between the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) and the General Peoples Congress (GPC)  that now has reservations over the measures called for by the Riyadh Agreement.

They believe that this explains the flare up in violence the day after the 23 June ceasefire was concluded. This Islah-led faction wants to create a military council instead of a power-sharing government with the STC. It also insists on a military operation to retake Socotra. Apparently Hadi managed to prevail over that faction during last Fridays meeting in Riyadh. A military council would encroach on Hadis authorities, on the one hand, and its agenda would precipitate a clash with that of Riyadh, which is currently working to contain the crisis in southern Yemen.

Mohamed Abdul-Hadi of the Southern Revolutionary Council believes that some hurdles lay ahead for the political track and that the two sides  the STC and the government  are still in the haggling phase. The STC wants to increase its share of seats in the interim government to eight, whereas, according to the political annex of the November agreement, it was only supposed to get two portfolios.

That means the extra six would come at the expense of other southern forces, he said. The Southern Movement, of which the STC represents a faction, is entitled to 12 of the 24 cabinet seats under the agreement.

Also, according to Abdul-Hadi, the STC wants to retain the governorships of Aden and Socotra. The government countered that the STC could have another ministry, but in exchange President Hadi would name the governor of Aden and the STC would have to surrender Socotra in its entirety to the legitimate government.

This is not the only controversial point. The two sides cant even agree over names of candidates for the posts, Abdul-Hadi said, adding that despite the deployment of a Saudi observer force in Abyan, there are still intermittent breaches of the ceasefire.

On the other hand, Abdul-Hadi indicated that Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two chief members of the Arab Coalition, had reached a number of understandings that will promote a settlement between the two Yemeni sides.

At the same time, Yemeni Parliament Speaker Sultan Al-Burkani appears eager to help restore calm in the south. The STC is a component of the country, even if it committed some follies, he said, adding that the legitimate government represents the whole country.

With regard to the thorny question of Socotra, he vowed there could be no question of compromise on that issue, but made no mention of a dialogue or other mechanism to deal with it. Nor did he allude to pressures from certain quarters of the government camp to retake the island by force.

While some observers believe the problem of Socotra could be settled in the framework of the dialogue between the Yemeni parties, others believe that the question of the island, strategically located on major shipping routes, will have to be settled at the Saudi-UAE level first.

The UAE, which backs the STC, welcomed the dialogue that Riyadh sponsored last week to defuse tensions in the south. Saudi Arabia has our gratitude and esteem for its unflagging efforts to restore stability in brotherly Yemen. We greatly welcome the response of the government and the STC to the comprehensive ceasefire. The implementation of the Riyadh Agreement will dispel the spectre of division and war, and revive hope for the peace we all pray for, wrote UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash on his Twitter account.

Although the UAE has maintained an enigmatic silence on Socotra, Yemeni sources, some unofficial and others affiliated with the Saudi backed Hadi government, suspect the UAE plans to build a military base there. Nevertheless, they believe that the question will ultimately be handled diplomatically rather than militarily. Riyadh, alluding to tensions over Socotra, appealed for calm which, in turn, encouraged the Yemeni president to respond favourably to the Saudi call for a return to political dialogue.

Last year, when the UAE withdrew its forces from Yemen it simultaneously stressed its continued commitment to the Arab coalition that was formed to restore the legitimate government in Yemen.

However, reports and sources from southern Yemen indicate that the UAE still harbours concerns over the Islah faction. The Emiratis suspect that faction is scheming to sabotage the Riyadh Agreement by triggering military confrontations with the STC in Abyan, Aden or Socotra. This is why the UAE wants to return to the island, where it had stationed military forces until May 2019.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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The new exhibition "#4stages" by art gallery MuseumLV of Cultural Centre Grata JJ is devoted to the International Baltic Ballet Festival. The festival, that is organized by the extraordinary Latvian ballerina Lita Beiris, celebrates its 25th anniversary under the title "From Classics to Avant-garde" all around Latvia. This year the festival should have taken place from 12 March, 2020. But unfortunately the global quarantine has made its strict temporary adjustments, but as the summer has come, the countrys cultural life is reviving, and the optimism of the GRATA JJ team and love of art served as reliable shield and support during the period of universal self-isolation.

So, by organizing the exhibition, the creative team of the gallery MuseumLV demonstrates its perception of Latvian national ballet history as aesthetical pleasure.

The exposition explores the existence of two interrelated phenomena: the art of ballet, as a tool for creating magical worlds of fairy tales, myths and legends that give humanity the definitions of good and evil, black and white, love and hatred, and on the other hand, the phenomenon of ballet artists devoting their entire lives to this world by virtue of extraordinarily heavy physical, spiritual and emotional work. By means of designing the scenery of the space and using a series of visual exhibits, the #4Stages show provides all viewers with opportunity to immerse themselves fully into the backstage of the theater world. Visitors will be able to enjoy the solemn splendor of theatrical costumes and the sophistication of ballet tutus from the Swan lake ballet in the grand hall of the gallerys theater, take a glance into impromptu rehearsal hall, watch a video of actual training and appreciate the importance of everyday workouts and discover the first of a kind video instruction movie Classical Ballet Technique", directed by Yakov Mirimov in 1946, which was created as a teaching tool for all the teachers of the Soviet ballet schools.

The second floor of the gallery is fully dedicated to four ballet theatricals featuring prominent ballerina Lita Beiris - Peter Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, Adolf Adan's "Giselle" and Morris Ravel's "Bolero." The performance mood here is defined by the paintings of Dita Luse, Kristina Keire, Agnija Germane, Ilze Laizane, Ilze Preisa, Ieva Caruka and many other gallery artists, as well as young artists such as Eduards Dubrovskis, Aivis Pizelis, Jana Nesterovica, Ivans Mazeins, Anya Vero, Rita Uljanova and Dace Delina-Lipska, Ieva Baumgarte, who have devoted their works to the theme of the exhibition.

The core of the exhibition is made up of the works of famous Latvian artists Ivars Heinrihsons, Irena Luse, Dzemma Skulme, Anita Kreituse, Aleksejs Naumovs, Lidija Auza, Uldis Zemzaris, Juris Dimiters, Ieva Muzikante as well as ballet costumes and objects  both contemporary and valuable historical exhibits. The exhibition features props and ballet costumes from the personal collection of Ieva Immertreija, a ballet dancer, costume designer and the head of the Ballet Class Association. Ieva has acquired a wide-range art education in Latvia and abroad and today she participates in the 4stages exposition as a high-end member offering unique ballet costumes that have been tailor-made according to her sketches.

The MuseumLV art gallery of the cultural center Grata JJ expresses its gratitude to all the artists who contributed to this project: Laine Kainaize, Linda Kozule, Gita Smite, Eduard Zentsik, Elizabete Melbarzde, Aija Balina, Zoja Geraskina, and to Ieva Immertreija personally for the equipment, costumes and active assistance in organizing the exhibition and the opening ceremony. We thank company Ziedu Seta and Latvian National Opera and Ballet for the provided equipment.

The creative group of MuseumLV gallery expresses sincere gratitude and appreciation to the collectors who provided works of art from their own collections, among them: The view on opera by Zenta Logina and Swedish park by Maija Nora Tabaka from Zuzans collection, paintings from Peteris un Ilze Termanis collection and paintings, sketches and costumes from Lita Beiris collection.

The MuseumLV art gallery of the Cultural Center GRATA JJ creative group:

Darya Samarina, culturologist - communication with authors, management

Julia Eresko, artist - concept, scenography, selection of artworks

Guntars Gritans, art historian - communication with authors, selection of artworks

Jevgenija Safraneka, journalist - video, communication

Ieva Immertreija, costume artist - ballet costumes, objects, live installations

Please note that in connection with the current situation, entrance to the exhibition #4stages is paid. The cost of one ticket is 5 euros, a discount ticket  2 euros.

Kulturas centra Grata JJ makslas galerija MuseumLV
ALBANY  Capital Region officials on Thursday renewed warnings about the risks of traveling to and from states with rising coronavirus cases after three Warren County residents took two different flights from Florida to Albany International Airport last week and subsequently tested positive for the virus.

Contact tracers found that one person who took a Thursday, June 25, flight home became ill shortly after landing and self-quarantined. But two people from the same household who took a Friday, June 26, flight home went to a grocery store and picked up food from a drive-through window the same day.

Warren County health officials said the two people wore masks during those public interactions. But if they had followed the state's quarantine order  which took effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, June 25, and requires people traveling from Florida and other states to self-quarantine for 14 days  they would not have potentially exposed others to the virus.

Health officials are also asking people to contact their local health department if they were on Allegiant's Flight 1505 from Punta Gorda, Fla., to Albany on June 25 or the same airline's Flight 754 from St. Petersburg/Clearwater, Fla., to Albany on June 26. Officials said residents from Albany County and Saratoga counties were among the passengers who were on the Allegiant flights at the center of the contact tracing effort.

Warren County spokesman Don Lehman said he did not know if any of the three infected individuals wore masks during their flights.

Total COVID-19 cases also went up slightly statewide Thursday, as 1.25 percent of tests came back positive, compared to .99 percent about a week ago.

But Albany County reported 14 new positive cases overnight Thursday  its highest single-day increase in caseload in almost a month. Hospitalizations, however, remained low at .26 percent of positive cases.

Also Thursday, two Albany County restaurants were forced to close after employees tested positive. The Latham restaurant Philly Bar and Lounge had three workers (two from Albany County, one from Rensselaer County) confirmed positive, while Delmonico's on Central Avenue in Colonie had the same number test positive (two from Schenectady County, the other from Albany County).

The state Department of Health planned to hold onsite testing for employees at both restaurants on Friday. County health officials recommend that any customers of either establishment who have symptoms or concerns related to COVID-19 should be tested by calling for an appointment at county mobile testing sites, or taking any of these steps:

Calling the state number for testing at the state University at Albany at (888) 364-3065;

Calling Priority 1 Urgent Care in Guilderland at (518) 867-8040;

Going online and scheduling an appointment at Rite Aid in Colonie (www.riteaid.com).

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy said the county will perform contact tracing on anyone who flies into the county from states on New York's quarantine list, which now includes 16 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

So far, Albany County officials say no one who arrived by plane has tested positive since the quarantine guidelines went into effect.

"It's alarming because we're starting to see the cases uptick," McCoy said. "We continue to say all the time, (the virus) isn't going anywhere. This is what I was afraid of."

Warren County Administrator Ryan Moore called the news of the three new cases tied to the Florida flights a wake-up call to anybody who isnt taking this virus seriously."

"New York State and the Capital Region have improved but the threat remains, and all the progress weve made can be undermined," Moore said in a statement. "Its no great mystery that Florida and many other states have been struggling with spikes in this virus. If you havent already gotten smart about your vacation decisions, then get smart. Youre putting yourself and your community at risk."

Moore said that all local residents who traveled recently from Florida should closely monitor their health and contact their local health departments for information on practices and protocol during state-mandated quarantine periods.

Warren County is also asking hotel, motel and resort operators to let county health officials know if they have guests from any of the quarantine states. Lehman said the Lake George area, in particular, is a popular summer destination for those traveling from Florida. There is concern that people from other states might not know New York's quarantine rules apply to them.

Warren County Public Health is requesting that hotels, motels, campgrounds and other lodgers send Health Services referral information for these visitors so we can initiate contact, assess, provide education, and actively monitor them, Warren County Health Services and Public Health Director Ginelle Jones said in a statement.

Health officials said they recognize the difficulties presented by the two-week quarantine requirement, and are offering food and medication assistance to those who reach out for help. The Warren County Health Department's phone number is 518-761-6580.

Lehman said more than 20 people have independently called the county's health department to self-report that they have arrived from a quarantine state and asking for advice about what to do next  a positive sign, he said, that some people are taking the pandemic directive seriously.

The state Health Department on Monday began asking passengers flying into Albany International Airport to complete forms revealing if they're required to self-quarantine.

Passengers are asked for their addresses, whether they've traveled to one of the states with spiking COVID-19 infections as well as whether they have such symptoms as fever, chills or difficulty breathing, and whether New York is their final destination. They're also asked whether they are "essential" workers, and if they plan to be in New York for more than 36 hours.

On Thursday afternoon, passengers on a flight inbound from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., filed past the table staffed by two state Health Department workers. They were encouraged to fill out the form unless they were staying in New York for less than 24 hours or on their way to a different destination.

The forms are voluntary; not every passenger stopped at the table.

One who declined to give his name said he had traveled extensively the past several weeks, and never felt apprehension about flying during a pandemic.

To me, its the safest time to fly, he said.

An earlier version of this article included an incorrect location of Delmonico's Italian Steakhouse. Delmonico's is located on Central Avenue in Colonie.
ALBANY  A mid-level appeals court Thursday unanimously rejected the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albanys effort to challenge a state regulation that requires health insurers to cover medically necessary abortions.

In a 5-0 decision, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court's Third Department upheld a January 2019 ruling by state Supreme Court Justice Richard McNally, who determined that insurance policies that provide hospital, surgical or medical expense coverage must cover abortions that are medically necessary.

McNally had highlighted a 2006 Court of Appeals ruling that affirmed the Women's Health and Wellness Act of 2002 -- a law requiring insurers to cover cost of doctor-prescribed contraception. Catholic Charities of the Albany Diocese tried to get a temporary injunction to stop that law but were unsuccessful.

The diocese argued that the more recent regulation was more morally and religiously offensive to them than the 2002 law, according to Thursdays decision.

The diocese sued the state Division of Financial Services, its former acting superintendent, Maria Vullo, and insurance companies that included Capital District Physicians Health Plan (CDPHP) entities, MVP Health Care, Excellus Health Plan and Independent Health Association. They challenged a regulation that included an exemption for religious employers, though church officials did not argue that they qualified for the exemption, according to the ruling.

Diocese officials argued that the regulation went against First Amendment protections for freedom of religion, speech, expression, the equal protection clause of the state and U.S. constitutions and certain separation of powers doctrines.

On Thursday, the appellate ruling said the diocese position amounted to a distinction without a legal difference in addition to the fact that it would require this court to enter the thicket of making a religious value judgment."

The ruling said: In essence, (the diocese) position boils down to the argument that, based upon their religious beliefs, there is a fundamental difference between prescribing contraceptives and performing an abortion procedure. The crux of (the states) argument is that there is no substantive difference between an abortion and any other medically necessary procedure. Neither argument proves particularly satisfying.

The states position ignores the twin realities that the contrary view is held with deep religious fervency and that this particular medically necessary procedure has been among the most divisive issues in our politics for several decades, despite the effort of the Supreme Court of the United States to put it to rest over 47 years ago, Appellate Justice John Colangelo stated, noting the landmark 1973 Roe versus Wade ruling by the Supreme Court that struck down state and federal abortion laws. The ultimate resolution of this issue may well lie in another arena, outside of our judicial purview.

Supporting the decision were Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry and Justices Sharon Aarons, Christine Clark and Stanley Pritzker.
Espanola, NM (87532)

Today

Sunshine to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High near 90F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 62F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph.
WASHINGTON  The U.S. House on Wednesday passed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package that included several federal limousine safety reforms introduced after the deadly Schoharie County crash nearly two years ago.

The Moving Forward Act includes several limo-safety provisions, including the Take Unsafe Limos Off the Road Act, which provides funding for state agencies to impound vehicles that fail safety inspections; the Safe Limousines Act, which includes new federal safety rules and standards; and the End the Limo Loophole Act, which reclassifies vehicles used to carry nine or more passengers as commercial motor vehicles.
Ilion

Remington Arms Co., which employs about 1,000 people in the Herkimer County village of Ilion and is the nations oldest gun maker, is said to be close to filing for bankruptcy.

The imminent filing, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, would be the second time since 2018 the gunmaker would be in bankruptcy court.

The Navajo Indian nation in Arizona is reported to be in talks to buy the company out of bankruptcy.

Remington dates to 1816 when it was founded by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion.

While their corporate headquarters are now in North Carolina, the Ilion plant remains one of their major operations, along with a newer factory in Alabama.

The company is currently owned in part by a Minneapolis hedge fund, Whitebox Advisors, which invests in troubled businesses to which they have loaned money, according to published reports.

It was previously owned by another investment fund, Cerebus Capital, since 2007.

They divested Remington after the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 youngsters and six staffers were killed by a gunman in the Sandy Hook elementary school.

One of the weapons used was a Remington Bushmaster, an assault-style rifle based on the military M16.

A lawsuit against the company is still proceeding over the shooting. The allegations in Connecticut state court center around the marketing of the popular Bushmaster.

Representatives of Remington could not be reached for comment on Thursday and local officials say theyve heard nothing from the firm.

Youll probably hear about it before I do, said Raymond Johnson, the Herkimer County commissioner who represents Ilion.

Were the plant to close or downsize, Johnson said, It would be a major hit to our economy, since they are the countys biggest employer.

It has always been a very quiet company, he added.

While corporate and local company officials have been tight-lipped, they are still operating, since their employees were deemed essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Johnson.

Thats because, in addition to hunting rifles and shotguns, the factory also turns out weapons used by the police and military.

The Bushmaster had been made there, but Johnson said that changed after the states SAFE Act, which banned possession of assault-style weapons, was passed in 2013.

The plant still assembles Bushmasters from parts shipped in from other locations, he said.

The coronavirus has also hurt the company, added Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association.

While the Ilion plant has kept operating, the virus has crimped supply of parts from other locations across the Northeast that are used to assemble or build the firearms there.

Their business hasnt been all that bad except that coronavirus has kept them from getting supplies that they need to build guns, said King.

This would be the second time the company went into Chapter 11 or reorganization bankruptcy since 2018.

They came out of that prior bankruptcy by converting $775 million of debt into equity stakes by the new owners.

The Arizona-based Navajo Nation had looked at buying Remington during that episode but pulled away from the deal.

According to the Navajo Times, a tribal leader on Thursday confirmed that they are looking at a $300 million investment in the firm.

Johnson expressed hopes that the companys historical roots in Ilion, along with the plants reputation for good quality control, would keep the factory open should a new owner purchase it.

Gun makers have seen drops in sales nationally since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, erasing fears that there would be strict national gun controls. When gun owners believe there will be controls or restrictions, they tend to stock up in order to acquire items they want before they cant get them.

The coronavirus, with fears of social and economic strains, however, has led to a sales uptick.

King noted that Remington is one of several large gun makers that have hit financial problems after being hobbled by high debt loads when investment firms purchased them in recent years.

Its what happens when there arent gun people running a gun company, he said of Remingtons financial woes.

rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5558 @RickKarlinTU
MECHANICVILLE -- Mechanicville school district leaders have changed course on the school system's graduation ceremonies to align with the state's rule limiting the size of gatherings amid concerns over the lingering coronavirus pandemic.

Mechanicville High School had made plans to host up to 444 guests on its football field on July 10 to honor its 111 graduating seniors. Each graduate would be able to bring four guests, who would be seated in family pods spaced six feet from others.

The plans were outlined in a Times Union story in Wednesday's newspaper and on timesunion.com on Tuesday: Saratoga County schools flout graduation rules.

But in a video and letter posted Wednesday evening on its Facebook page, school officials said they will limit in-person gatherings to no more than 150, as the state is requiring. The letter to the Red Raider community, cited in the video presentation, said in part:

"A tremendous amount of time and energy was spent planning end of year celebrations for all of our students. We partnered with a variety of Saratoga County agencies to ensure we were thoughtful and considerate of every CDC recommendation to appropriately plan for safety."

Then the letter cites Gov. Andrew M. Coumo's observation about an outbreak following the June 20 Horace Greeley High School graduation in Westchester County after someone with COVID-19, who had been in Florida, attended the ceremony and infected 18 others.

Despite the disappointing news, the school letter from Superintendent Bruce Potter says, several recognitions will go on in a different format later this month. Among them are a high school ceremony with graduates only at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 10.

The next day, a Class of 2020 reception of diplomas for students and their parents/guardians, two guests per student, will take place in three time periods, a third of the class each, starting at 9 a.m.
ALBANY  The state Department of Health on Thursday said government workers had collected more than 6,600 questionnaires from travelers who have landed at New York airports since Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo imposed a 14-day quarantine last week for people coming here from states with high rates of coronavirus infections.

But the effort to monitor the travelers and mandate compliance has not been seamless, with thousands of travelers declining to fill out the forms and at least one airline  JetBlue  declining so far to distribute them to their passengers aboard inbound New York flights, according to state workers who have taken part in the work.

"JetBlue is conducting a safety review and training before they begin distributing," Jill Montag, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department, said Thursday.

The state does not have authority to compel airlines  which are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration  to distribute the forms.

The state had initially been paying overtime to investigators with the Health Department's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement to join other employees stationed at airport deplaning exits to gather the forms  and people who did that work said most travelers would brush past the makeshift informational checkpoints without stopping. The BNE investigators have since been reassigned to other duties.

Montag said Health Department "educational staff members" were stationed this week at passenger exit areas in six New York airports: JFK, LaGuardia, Stewart, Albany, Syracuse and Buffalo. A person who took part in the work said on one flight from Florida more than 130 people disembarked but less than 30 filled out the forms. Health officials have acknowledged passengers are not required to fill out the forms and there is no penalty for declining.

"Airlines are instructed to distribute forms to passengers when boarding flights, and DOH staff are located in destination airports for the purpose of educating passengers and collecting those forms, not asking questions," she said.

The two-page forms carry the header "New York State Traveler Health Form" and ask participants to list their personal information, including name, phone numbers, email and residential addresses and destination. It asks travelers to list states they have visited and the dates, as well as to disclose any information about COVID-19 symptoms. The form ends with a warning above the signature line stating the person submitting the form is providing truthful information "under penalty of law."

"Upon entering New York, if you are a traveler and do not have a suitable dwelling for your 14-day quarantine period, you must find appropriate accommodations at your own cost," the form states. "If you are a NYS resident returning from travel and do not have appropriate accommodations for quarantine, please call your local health department."

The forms are being distributed the same week that Cuomo ordered the state Liquor Authority, with assistance from state troopers and Health Department workers, to begin spot-checking restaurants and bars in the New York City area for compliance with social distancing rules. Cuomo had declined to allow New York City restaurants to open for indoor dining on Wednesday, citing "compliance" issues in the metropolitan area.

Officials with the governor's office and state Liquor Authority did not not respond to questions Thursday about the number of premises that have been inspected or how many state workers  and from which agencies  are participating in that effort. The State Police also did not respond to a request for comment.

At least one restaurant/bar on Long Island had its liquor license suspended this week when authorities found its outdoor patio area overcrowded with patrons despite repeated warnings from state and local code enforcement authorities.

Many other governors have imposed similar mandatory quarantines for people visiting or returning to their states, but New York's order imposes hefty civil penalties  up to $10,000  for anyone who violates the requirement. Other states have made the orders "advisory."

In order for someone to face penalty in New York, Public Health Law requires that they first be notified by a local health department official that they are subject to quarantine and being ordered to isolate themselves or their family.

Cuomo announced the guidelines a week ago during a news conference with Govs. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Ned Lamont of Connecticut, who also enacted similar advisories.

There is no timetable for how long New York's quarantine requirement will remain in effect and Cuomo imposed it at a time when tens of thousands of people are beginning to embark on summer vacations, including to locations that include the Carolinas and Florida, which are the list of states flagged as high-risk.

States are included in the advisory if 10 per 100,000 residents or 10 percent of the total population tests positive on a seven-day rolling average.

The state Health Department provided some guidance on its website last week that laid out rules for someone returning to New York, including mandating that they remain in "separate quarters with a separate bathroom facility for each individual or family group."

If it is a single family member who is quarantined, though, then the person must remain isolated from other members of the household and have food delivered to them.

Someone who passes through a high-risk state, and may visit a few rest areas along the way or have a layover at an airport, they are not required to self-quarantine upon entering New York.
New York state's public pools will open over the upcoming July 4 weekend, the governor's office announced.

The pools will be opened under the conventional scheduled observed in the past by the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, but social distancing rules will limit the number of people allowed in the pools.

Visitors will be asked to follow social distancing guidelines and sign-in with contact information in case health workers needed to trace contacts if any bathers become ill with COVID-19.

Lounge chairs, benches and picnic tables must be kept apart.

Bathers do not have to wear masks in the pool but are asked to wear masks or other face coverings when inside buildings, including partially enclosed or covered areas and social distancing cannot be maintained.

No group gatherings of 10 or more will be allowed and State Park Police will help pool staff with crowd control and to ensure compliance with social distancing rules, the governor said.
ALBANY  After struggling to find footing in a state Legislature wholly controlled by Democrats, billionaire New York City real estate developers spent heavily to sway two tightly contested Democratic state Senate primaries last week.

An interest group that spent millions keeping state Senate Republicans in power is now seeking to elect potential Democratic allies, and the spending may prove crucial in the two close races on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, where a winner has still not been declared.

But for voters in those areas that were blanketed with mailers, phone calls and television ads, it wasn't easily apparent that affluent New York City developers were behind them.

Three outside groups funded by the developers spent $375,000. Two were formed this year  Fight Back Long Island and Hudson Valley Voters for Change  and have disclosed little information about who's behind them in publicly filed documents.

But the records do show ties between those groups and a third organization set up in 2014 by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), a powerful lobbying group that represents the states most affluent landlords.

Michael McKee, treasurer of the group Tenants PAC that fights for renters' rights, cast Fight Back Long Island and Hudson Valley Voters as simply front groups for REBNY with innocuous-sounding names.

With Democrats now holding a commanding 40 of 63 seats in the Senate, the outside real estate spending in Democratic primaries this year came in districts that Republicans might win in November, an apparent strategy shift.

The outside spending through 2018 had solely sought to maintain a bare Senate Republican majority, but after a decade in power, the party was resoundingly defeated in that election by Democrats. Democrats then passed a sweeping rent regulation law in 2019  a stinging and costly defeat for developers.

The 2020 independent expenditures by big real estate for Democrats might be new, but this a classic real estate tactic, McKee said. They know they cant buy off New York City Democrats right now, they cant buy off [state Sen.] Shelly Mayer or [Senate Majority Leader] Andrea Stewart-Cousins. So why not throw money at the ones they might?

McKee noted that real estate industry has previously given direct campaign donations to Senate Democrats, even as it sought to maintain a Senate Republican majority. That has included donations to four Democrats on Long Island, who ended up voting against the pro-tenant bill in 2019.

In 2019, the Democrat-controlled Legislature also closed a loophole which had allowed essentially unlimited campaign contributions from developers directly to New York candidates.

Yet the industry can still engage in unlimited outside spending, separate from candidates campaigns, as enabled by U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Senate District 1 on Long Island has been held by retiring Republican state Sen. Kenneth LaValle since 1977. Yet Stand Up Long Island spent $117,3000 helping Democrat Laura Ahearn, according Board of Elections filings. With results still unofficial, she is narrowly leading the current second-place finisher, Valerie Cartwright, who had the backing of liberal groups including the Working Families Party.

In required paperwork for independent expenditure groups filed with the state Board of Elections, only one person associated with Stand Up Long Island was disclosed: George Fontas, a New York City campaign consultant and lobbyist, including for major real estate developers.

The disclosure for the other new group, Hudson Valley Voters for Change, also lists only the name of Fontas.

And campaign spending by the two groups since has gone solely to one company, Accelerate Public Affairs, which is managed by Fontas.

It's unclear from public records who is behind the two new groups. But there are hints in the disclosures filed by a third group  one explicitly set up by REBNY in 2014  called Jobs for New York.

That shares a number of donors with the two Fontas groups. And within a few days in June, the REBNY-founded group and Stand Up Long Island reported spending the exact same amount  $17,923.57  supporting Ahearn.

In addition, like the two new groups, Jobs for New York's state Senate work this June was performed by Fontas.

Fontas said via email said that the two new groups should not be considered essentially the same entity as Jobs for York, his third 2020 client. But Fontas, who said he was a "consultant" for the two new groups, declined to name the people behind Hudson Valley Voters and Stand Up Long Island.

Fontas said the two new groups were formed to support Democrats, and indicated that support would continue into November's general election.

Hudson Valley Voters and Stand Up Long Island support Democrats who prioritize pragmatic policies that foster job creation, smart economic growth and the development of more affordable housing," Fontas said. "All critical components to reviving New Yorks COVID-decimated economy and expanding New Yorks middle class."

Hudson Valley Voters for Change played a role in the race to succeed Democratic state Sen. David Carlucci, a moderate who ran for Congress. Senate District 38 has been competitive for both parties, and before Carluccis election in 2010, a Republican had long held the district.

Hudson Valley Voters for Change spent $200,500 supporting one Democratic primary candidate, Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, or attacking his opponent Justin Sweet. Sweet was leading the vote count on primary night, but Reichlin-Melnick still hopes to eventually pull ahead.

Despite its name, Hudson Valley Voters in addition reported spending $40,000 for phone-bank support for Ahearn, though her race was on the eastern tip of Long Island.

Its not clear why the New York City real estate interests thought Ahearn and Reichlin-Melnick would be more friendly to their interests than other candidates. One possible reason is that Ahearn accepted $7,500 directly from REBNYs political action committee this year, and Reichlin-Melnick $5,000. Some current members of the Senate Democratic conference, prodded by the party's left-wing, have shunned accepting real estate donations since Democrats took the majority in 2019.

Ahearns work for decades has been fighting for the rights of victims of sexual assault and other crimes. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Reichlin-Melnick is the legislative director for state Sen. James Skoufis, another Democrat, and had previously worked at a non-profit focused on regional planning in the Hudson Valley, including on affordable housing issues. His campaign manager said that REBNY did not interview Reichlin-Melnick before making its $5,000 donation, and that the candidate supported the 2019 rent regulation law.

"Of course with any large reform, there will be a need to monitor the changes to ensure they are working as intended, but the need for a change to the status quo was clear," said the campaign manager, Evan Menist. "As a state senator, Elijah will be open to discussing important housing policy issues with anyone, including tenants' groups, landlords, realtors or anyone else."

A week before the June 23 primary, Sweet, the Clarkstown town clerk who had the Working Families Party endorsement, posted on Facebook about the Hudson Valley Voters for Change spending money attacking him and supporting Reichlin-Melnick.

Deep-pocketed real estate moguls dont spend hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the kindness of their hearts, Sweet wrote. "Regular supporters dont set up a PAC to funnel contributions to. So the question is, why?... Why is a self described 'progressive' benefiting from this type of support?
ALBANY - Reform groups have joined the calls to end Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos emergency executive powers given to him to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

A letter sent Wednesday to Cuomo and state legislative leaders by Common Cause New York, NYPIRG, the League of Women Voters of New York and Reinvent Albany calls for the Legislature to pull back on Cuomos expanded authority and to restore the balance of power.

We urge that the powers of the governor be limited to a specific period of time and only extended as the result of legislative approval by the Legislature. It must not be 'automatic,'" leaders of the organizations wrote. Now that the June primary has concluded, the need for legislation to expand and improve absentee voting for the November general election takes on additional urgency.

The expanded authority was granted to Cuomo by the Legislature in March to allow the governor to take unilateral actions in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. But as New York slowly reemerges from a shutdown economy, state lawmakers and advocates from both sides of the aisle have called for legislators to be engaged in the decision-making.

A spokesman for Cuomo defended the governor's expanded powers, remarking that the public health crisis is not over.

The legislature passed dozens of bills since the emergency powers went into effect and the governor signed many of them into law, but without the executive authority granted by the Legislature, we could not have successfully managed the pandemic and helped New Yorkers crush the curve of this deadly virus," Cuomo spokesman Jason Conwall said. "And while New York's infection rate is now one of the lowest in the country, make no mistake: this pandemic is not over and we must stay vigilant as many other states experience outbreaks."

Its not that the Legislature has not acted amid the limitations imposed, the letter continues, but further actions are needed. In late May and early June, the Legislature - convening virtually - passed sweeping criminal justice reforms as well as provisions intended to help New Yorkers during the public health crisis, including housing assistance.

The fraction of normal legislative activity means that a small number of issues have been addressed during this session. There can be no question that a state of emergency exists which demands considered policies that address how we, as a state, will emerge from this crisis, the letter reads. The Legislature is uniquely situated to look beyond the immediate triage needs and lay the foundations for recovery.

Outlying issues that the groups pointed to include looming budget cuts as the state tries to address a multi-billion-dollar deficit attributable, in part, to the pandemic, and improving voting accommodations ahead of the November general election.

New York GOP chair Nick Langworthy on Monday also called for an end to Cuomos sweeping powers, as have many other Republican legislators.

The Assembly Minority Conference has introduced legislation that would limit the executive authority by making state emergencies be issued on a county-by-county basis, limiting the duration of those declarations, giving local authority the ability to request the emergency be terminated for their respective county, and providing due process review of these measures if it impairs New Yorkers constitutional rights.
Congress leaders have reacted sharply on the eviction notice served to party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra though sources close to her said she will comply with the notice.

The government on Wednesday asked Priyanka, daughter of interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, to vacate her government accommodation at 35, Lodhi Estate here within a month as she is no longer on the list of protectees of the Special Protection Group (SPG).

Jitin Prasada, Congress working committee member said, "I fail to understand the timing of the government's actions however Priyanka Gandhi is on a mission to fight and work for the people of UP and is unfazed and not bothered by these diversionary tactics."

Another Congress leader Rajiv Shukla said it's unfair and quoted former Prime Minister IK Gujral that ruler should be large-hearted.

He said, "the land was to be vacated from the Chinese but government chose to vacate a house in Delhi."

Congress leader Vishwanath Chaturvedi said this is a new low in politics and the Modi government has insulted a "daughter of a martyr". Congress leader Naseeb Pathan demanded that newly elected member in Rajya Sabha KC Venugopal should resign and Priyanka Gandhi should be sent to Rajya Sabha.

Secretary AICC Dheeraj Gurjar said "those who could not evict Chinese are bent on evicting Priyanka Gandhi , remember Indira Gandhi too was evicted but later on those responsible had to lose their seat."

The government in an order said that it has cancelled the accommodation allotted to Priyanka with the direction to vacate the house within one month.
A New York appellate judge ruled Wednesday that publisher Simon & Schuster could go ahead with its plans to release a tell-all book by Mary L. Trump, the niece of President Donald Trump, reversing a lower courts decision from this week that had temporarily halted publication.

The decision by the judge, Alan D. Scheinkman, means that Simon & Schuster can move forward in publishing the book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man, which is scheduled to be released at the end of July. In court papers filed Tuesday, Simon & Schuster claimed that tens of thousands of copies of the book had already been printed, adding that it is a bestseller on Amazon.

Scheinkmans ruling, however, put off addressing a central aspect of the bitter spat about the manuscript that has been roiling all month in the Trump family: whether, by writing the book, Mary Trump violated a confidentiality agreement put in place nearly 20 years ago after a struggle over the will of her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr., Donald Trumps father.

In his decision, Scheinkman ruled that Simon & Schuster was not a party to  and thus could not be bound by  the confidentiality agreement, which was signed by Mary Trump, Donald Trump and the presidents two siblings, Robert S. Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry.

Unlike Ms. Trump, Scheinkman wrote, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.

Simon & Schuster quickly hailed the ruling as a victory.

We support Mary L. Trumps right to tell her story in Too Much and Never Enough, a work of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public, the publisher said in a statement issued Wednesday night. As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions.

On Tuesday, ruling on a petition filed by Robert Trump, Judge Hal Greenwald of the New York state Supreme Court in Dutchess County issued a temporary restraining order barring publication of Mary Trumps book, saying that he would hear more arguments in the case at a hearing July 10. That same day, Simon & Schuster told Greenwald that it was unaware of Mary Trumps confidentiality agreement.

While Scheinkman declined Wednesday to rule on the question of whether Mary Trump had violated the agreement, he did note that it was reasonable for a well-known and prominent family to collectively agree to shield intimate family matters from the public.

But he also pointed out that an agreement reached two decades ago to protect the Trump familys privacy may have been altered by the fact that Donald Trump had in the interim become the president.

The legitimate interest in preserving family secrets may be one thing for the family of a real estate developer, no matter how successful, Scheinkman wrote. It is another matter for the family of the president of the United States.

Scheinkman said he might have to review the book himself to decide if its contents violated the confidentiality agreement.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for Mary Trump, said Wednesday that he planned to file a formal appeal of the lower courts ruling Thursday.

It is very good news that the prior restraint against Simon & Schuster has been vacated, Boutrous said, and we look forward to filing our brief tomorrow in the trial court explaining why the same result is required as to Ms. Trump, based on the First Amendment and basic contract law.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.


Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi After the government sent Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi a notice to vacate her 35 Lodi Estate official bungalow within a month, party sources said that being in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh she is likely to shift to Lucknow. Sources close to Priyanka Gandhi said she will shift after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides. But Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said "she has been going to Lucknow often and what steps she will take she has a right to and will not succumb to pressures and she will stand with the common man as she is raising the issues," After the eviction notice was given the Congress said it's unfair. Party senior spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "The threat perception has not changed but only protection agency has changed " and added that the bills for all amenities were paid by Priyanka Gandhi. The government is rattled by the issues raised by Priyanka Gandhi, added Singhvi and it is resorting to petty politics. Priyanka has reportedly already finalised the house of late Congress leader Sheila Kaul in the Hazrat Ganj area of Lucknow. During her Lucknow visit before the pandemic she had stayed in that house. The government in an order said that it has cancelled the government accommodation given to Priyanka Gandhi with the direction to vacate the house within one month. The government said that the Ministry of Home Affairs has informed vide its communication dated June 30 that Priyanka Gandhi has been assigned Z plus security with CRPF cover on an all-India basis, which does not have any provision for allotment or retention of government accommodation. She is not a SPG protectee now. "I fail to understand the timing of the govt's actions however Priyanka Gandhi is on a mission to fight and work for the people of UP and is unfazed and not bothered by these diversionary tactics." said Congress leader Jitin Prasada.




PITTSTOWN  The husband of a woman who died with rat poison in her system has been charged for allegedly beating another man with a hammer.

No one has ever been charged in connection with the death of Megan Dyer-MacLean, whose body was found June 4, 2018 on an old railroad bed behind her Johnsonville home. But the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Office said that while detectives investigated Dyer-MacLean's death they learned that Duncan McLean, 36, attacked another man with a hammer in the year before her death.

MacLean was charged with second-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, weapons possession and a misdemeanor count of menacing.

He was arraigned Thursday in Schaghticoke Town Court and was released from custody on $15,000 bail. A judge ordered him to not have contact with his alleged victim.

"I question the motivation of anyone who may be involved in bringing a charge three years after the date of this incident," said Joseph Granich, an Albany attorney to represented MacLean at his arraignment Thursday.

He said investigators questioned MacLean after his wife's death and if authorities had evidence to make an arrest in that case "they would have arrested him a long time ago."

Several people familiar with the investigation said the man MacLean is accused of attacking lived near the couple and had a romantic relationship with Dyer-MacLean. He left the area after her death and currently lives in Georgia.

Dyer-MacLean's death mystified investigators for months and authorities have never named potential suspects in her death.

"The investigation is still ongoing," said Deputy Kyle Bourgault, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.

In May, the department revealed toxicology tests determined that Dyer-MacLean, 31, of Route 67, had elevated levels of strychnine, a poison used to kill birds and rats, in her system. Strychnine is not in common use today, authorities said.

While Dyer-MacLean's death was already being investigated as a homicide, the medical examiner did not rule it as such until the toxicology report was complete.

The strychnine apparently first showed up in initial toxicology test results following the autopsy, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the case. There is often a delay in these test results. A second test was done at a cellular level, which was more complex and can take six to 12 months to get results, the official said. This second batch of tests confirmed the strychnine.

In the days after her death, calls for justice were sounded in the community where she and her husband lived.

A message was recently spray painted along the road outside the Route 67 home the couple shared. "Justice For Megan," was scrawled across a car in orange and red paint.

Smaller, printed signs that read "#JUSTICEFORMEGAN" also dotted the lawn and were posted around the Rensselaer County hamlet.

In the months after Dyer-MacLean's death, deputies were called to the home to investigate two car fires, a smashed window and harassing text messages. State Police were also called to the property three times for similar investigations.

A car was engulfed in flames at the house on June 8 and again on Aug. 17, 2018.

Duncan MacLean reported receiving harassing text messages from an unknown number on June 14. Two days later, a mug was thrown through a window of a car on the property.

Staff writer Kenneth C. Crowe II contributed to this article.
ALBANY  A woman was hospitalized Thursday morning after, police said, she was shot in the back on Quail Street.

Police said they found the 22-year-old woman inside a car after answering calls of gunshots near Quail and West streets.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have issued a "travel advisory" requiring out-of-state visitors to isolate themselves for 14 days if they are traveling from states with high rates of coronavirus infections.

A state will land on the quarantine list based upon a seven-day rolling average of positive coronavirus tests in excess of 10 percent, or if its number of positive cases exceeds 10 per 100,000 residents.

Each state will enforce the order differently, but in New York, a person who violates the advisory could be subject to mandatory quarantine through a "judicial order" or fines of up to $10,000, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said.

"Non-essential" travelers from these states will be affected by the order.
Farmington, WV (26555)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong early, overcast overnight with occasional rain. Low around 60F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong early, overcast overnight with occasional rain. Low around 60F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Versature Takes On Canada with Telarus Partnership

By Maurice Nagle - Web Editor

Cloud communications are gaining momentum, with growing adoption rates, future-forward capabilities and the ability to connect teams regardless of location. As such, providers are positioning to support modern businesses with the tools they require.

Versature announced a partnership with Telarus, to add its cloud-based communications solutions to the Telarus portfolio for Canadian businesses.

"We are delighted to add Telarus to our growing network of partners," said Versature COO and President, Jonathon Moody . "Our partners have played a significant role in the acceleration of our growth trajectory and we are thrilled to partner with an organization that is equally committed to helping Canadian organizations overcome common business continuity and remote workforce challenges through cloud-based communications solutions."

Versatures enterprise-class communications provider easily integrates with Salesforce, Microsoft Teams and other widely used business applications. As part of the Versature Channel Partner Program, Telarus joins a quickly expanding reseller network.

"We are thrilled with the growth we have seen in the Canadian market - especially in the UCaaS space," said Shane Speakman , VP of Biz Dev for Telarus Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) division. "With the explosion of work from home, our partners are looking for solutions to take to their customers and Versature is a perfect fit."

Are your communications in the cloud, yet?

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Edited by Maurice Nagle
July 02, 2020

Social media platforms are by far the most powerful and important digital marketing platforms available. As well as offering sophisticated tools for paid marketing, social media platforms are also the perfect repository for content that you think will attract people to your business. Here are three SEO tips to help ensure that your social media content gets noticed.







High Frequency Or High Quality

Any experienced marketer will tell you that the frequency with which you upload new content can have a significant impact on your audience numbers. Maintaining a regular update schedule for adding content to your social media channels means that your audience knows when and where to expect it. If you want to establish and maintain a sizeable audience for your content, then you will need to provide engaging content to your audience on a regular basis.

However, not everyone is able to produce content to a rigid schedule. If you cant stick to a consistent upload schedule, you can still make an impact by ensuring that when you do upload new content, it is of the highest quality you are capable of producing. Some of the most successful content creators out there right now are only uploading new content very sporadically but still maintaining massive audiences. The YouTube (News - Alert) channel Internet Historian is an excellent example of this.

Dont Forget Your Keywords

Targeting important keywords is just as important for your social media content as it is for your regular website content. Social media platforms have their own internal search engines and algorithms. You want users searching for keywords relevant to your content to be taken to your accounts, not your competitors.

Of course, the usual caveats apply when you are dealing with SEO keywords. Most importantly, you dont want to overdo it. If you just stuff keywords into your content aimlessly and without purpose, then it is going to make it less readable and can ultimately harm your SEO instead of helping it.

Keep Up With The Latest Algorithm And Platform Updates

One of the most challenging aspects of keeping up with SEO is staying abreast of all the many algorithm updates that occur throughout the year. Even if you try really hard to keep up with these changes, Google (News - Alert) isnt always great at communicating when it does roll out a major update. Similarly, social media platforms update themselves on a relatively regular basis.

You need to keep an eye out for any changes that will impact the way that users search for content. Of course, if you are struggling to keep up with the constant algorithm updates, you might find it better to work with a digital marketing agency like WSI Digital Ltd. Experienced digital marketers who are veterans of the SEO battlefield will know how to adjust their approaches with each new update and will be used to doing so when required.

No SEO strategy is complete without a social media component. Any business or website looking to reach a large online audience needs to invest in their social media channels. If you use them the right way, they can provide a significant boost to your SEO.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, here on Wednesday, reviewed the facilities at the newly established 500-bed Covid Care Centre at the Commonwealth Games (CWG) Village. The centre will be attached to the LNJP Hospital.

"500 beds have been installed and the Doctors For You, an NGO, is supporting us in setting up this facility. There are separate wards for men and women, and stay-in facilities for doctors and nurses," said Kejriwal.

Many banquet halls were being acquired and new centres, like this, would be set up in the coming days, the Chief Minister added.

He said the Delhi government was preparing for all possible situations, considering the unpredictability of the coronavirus. "Our efforts and preparations will continue," he said, adding the cases in the national capital had gone down considerably.

"On June 23, around 4,000 new cases were reported. It has gone down to 2,200 cases (reported on Tuesday). We may not need these many beds, but we are ready for any situation," the Chief Minister said.

The 51-year-old leader said the plasma bank, set up at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, would be inaugurated on Thursday.

Kejriwal said compared with last month, the number of cases in Delhi were decreasing and the situation seemed to be getting under control. "I hope and pray that the facilities created and beds installed across the city are not required. But if they are, then we should not be caught lacking," he said.

The increase in testing and the low positivity rate were good signs, he said and added, the recovery rate had increased.

"Of the 87,000 coronavirus cases, around 58,000 people have recovered. The death rate has also reduced considerably," Kejriwal said.
[July 02, 2020] Cogeco Receives Recognition for its Philanthropic Leadership from Imagine Canada

MONTREAL, July 2, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - Cogeco Communications Inc. (TSX: CCA) is proud to announce it has received the Caring Company Certification from Imagine Canada. Imagine Canada's Caring Company recognizes outstanding leadership in community investment and social responsibility in Canada. "We are honoured to receive this certification, which recognizes our philanthropic work and social commitment," said Philippe Jette, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cogeco Communications Inc. "We have always strived to support our communities and are proud to join a network of leaders who are setting the standard for corporate philanthropy in Canada. Social engagement is an integral part of our corporate values and we seek to have a positive impact on our communities and the environment" "Caring Companies play a crucial role in helping communities flourish and thrive, and, in time of crisis, recover and build resilience," said Bruce MacDonald, President and CEO of Imagine Canada. "We commend Cogeco for their approach to community investment and congratulate them for being a recognized leader in corporate social responsibility in Canada." First launched in 1988, the Imagine Canada Caring Company trustmark is Canada's premier public expression of excellence in community investment and social responsibility. A company recognized as a Caring Company contributes at least 1% of pre-tax profit in support of the communities where their employees ad customers live and work. The total community investment for each Caring Company is the aggregate domestic cost to the company in three areas: cash and in-kind contributions, volunteerism during work hours, and management costs associated with corporate community programs.



Through its social outreach last year, Cogeco supported over 700 community non-profit organizations with over $13 million in cash, in-kind donations and sponsorships, including air time for fundraising needs CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AT COGECO COMMUNICATIONS

The Company's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy and Code of Ethics are the foundation of its social responsibility framework. Its fifth CSR report was published in January 2020. To learn more about Cogeco Communications Inc.'s objectives, initiatives and performance in the areas of corporate social responsibility, please visit the website at http://corpo.cogeco.com/cca/en/company-overview/corporate-social-responsibility/overview/.

ABOUT COGECO COMMUNICATIONS INC.

Cogeco Communications Inc. is a communications corporation. It is the 8th largest cable operator in North America, operating in Canada under the Cogeco Connexion name in Quebec and Ontario, and along the East Coast of the United States under the Atlantic Broadband brand (in 11 states from Maine to Florida). The Corporation provides residential and business customers with Internet, video and telephony services through its two-way broadband fibre networks. Cogeco Communications Inc.'s subordinate voting shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CCA). ABOUT IMAGINE CANADA

Imagine Canada is a national, bilingual charitable organization whose cause is Canada's charities. Through our advocacy efforts, research and social enterprises, we help strengthen charities, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs so they can better fulfill their missions. Corporate community investments are an integral part of our vision for a vibrant and strong charitable sector. Imagine Canada's Caring Company Certification encourages companies to adopt a leadership role as investors of 1% of pre-tax profit into stronger communities. SOURCE Cogeco Communications Inc.

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[July 02, 2020] F1 Payments Earns Top Honors as Austin, Texas Employer

F1 Payments, a fintech company focused on increasing business velocity for all constituents in the payments ecosystem, has been recognized for its extraordinary workplace culture, earning the No. 1 ranking for small companies with 15 to 99 employees on the prestigious 2020 Best Companies to Work for in Texas list. The company was also recently named to the 2020 Best Places to Work (BPTW) in Austin list, earning the No. 9 spot in the small company category with 25 to 49 employees. "We have an outstanding team of amazing employees that live our H.I.G.H.E.R. core values and that nturally extends into the connection between our family relationship and superior business performance," said Chad Anselmo, President of F1 Payments. "We are incredibly blessed to have such a great group of people and for our company to be honored with these prestigious awards," added Anselmo.



"We are committed to creating a fun and engaging workplace where all team members have a sense of family and opportunity to grow and excel," said Vanessa Tardencilla, head of human resources for F1 Payments. "Both of these awards are great honors and will help us attract top-notch talent to continue fueling rapid growth," added Tardencilla. Texas Monthly, the Texas Association of Business (TAB), Texas SHRM and the Best Companies Group, identifies, recognizes and honors the 100 best places of employment in Texas, benefiting the state's economy, workforce and businesses. Workplace policies, systems, philosophies, practices, and demographics for nominated companies are evaluated by Best Companies Group, along with survey responses measuring the employee experience to determine winners and final rankings. 2020 honorees were celebrated during a virtual awards event on Thursday, June 18. F1 Payments has been profiled in a special Best Companies magazine supplement accompanying Texas Monthly's July issue.

BPTW award recipients were celebrated during a pandemic-friendly virtual event also held Thursday, June 18. Nebraska-based Quantum (News - Alert) Workplace's assessed F1 Payments workplace policies, office conditions, management style and an employee satisfaction survey as part of the award determination. About F1 Payments F1 Payments delivers a dynamic and diverse payments technology ecosystem with frictionless connections. We engage stakeholders using H.I.G.H.E.R. core values to provide transparent payments. Our clients and partners enjoy increased velocity by accessing top-notch payments expertise, seamless integrations and highly personal relationships, giving them the freedom to focus on what matters most in business and life. F1 Payments is a registered ISO of Fifth Third Bank, N.A., Cincinnati, Ohio; Wells Fargo (News - Alert) Bank, N.A. Walnut Creek, California; and Cross River Bank, Fort Lee, New Jersey. The company is a fast-growing, privately held fintech company headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more information, please visit f1payments.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005399/en/

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[July 02, 2020] General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.) to Speak About Impact of COVID-19 and Social Injustice During Ellucian Live Online Keynote Session

Ellucian, the leading provider of software and services built to power higher education, today announced that General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.) will address the Ellucian community in a fireside chat with CEO Laura Ipsen as a part of Ellucian Live Online 2020. Teresa Carlson (News - Alert) , Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector for Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Secretary Tom Ridge will also participate as distinguished guest speakers offering sessions on cloud technology and cybersecurity in higher education, respectively. Ellucian Live Online 2020, a virtual experience offering invaluable opportunities for professional development, learning and networking within the higher education community, is free to registered customers and invited guests. The digital platform will be a host for live and pre-recorded sessions, discussion areas and online peer-to-peer networking opportunities on a regular cadence leading up to Ellucian Live 2021, scheduled for April 11-14, 2021 in Anaheim, California. "We are thrilled to have Colin Powell inspire our community around the power of leadership in times of transformation--reminding us that a focus on racial equality in education has the ability to break down barriers to access and opportunity for many and ultimately improve the world we live in," said Ellucian President and CEO Laura Ipsen (News - Alert) . "Ellucian Live Online presents us with an incredible opportunity to bring influential speakers to our audience that are relevant for this moment in time. We are excited for each of our speakers to provide vital insights on transformation, leadership and the opportunity that exists for technology to advance education around the world." High Profile Speakers to Discuss Technology, Leadership and the Future of Education at Ellucian's Virtual User Conference Teresa Carlson, VP AWS Worldwide Public Sector | July 6, 2020 at 11:30 AM EST Carlson leads the Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector business, including state, local, central and regional governments; educational institutions and Ed Techs, and nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations (NGO), and acts as an advisor to Amazon Public Policy on global policy issues. Her talk entitled "Destination Cloud - Your Journey to Get There" will focus on scaling online learning solutions, addressing connectivity to enable online learning and closing the gap in educational opportunity as students transition to online learning. Attendees will then hear from a panel of Ellucian cloud customers including Texas Southern, Howard Community College, and Pasadena City College who will share practical advice about their journey to the cloud. Tom Ridge, former Secretary of Homeland Security | July 20, 2020 at 11:30 AM EST Ridge, a former soldier, congressman and governor of Pennsylvania, was named as the first Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and later became the first Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Currently, he is Chairman of Ridge Global where he provides solutions to cyber security, international security and risk management issues. Together with Ellucian's Chief Information Security Officer Josh Sosnin, Ridge will discuss the state of cybersecurity and how it impacts both higher education and daily lives, how distance education and remote administration will affect data security, and the future outlook for collges and universities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.



General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.) | August 10, 2020 at 11:30 AM EST As a retired four star general, politician, business leader, author and recipient of numerous prestigious military and civilian awards, Gen. Powell will provide a wealth of insight and expertise on the current events that are shaping the future. In his session, entitled "Leadership and the Role of Higher Education in Uncertain Times," Gen. Powell will join Ellucian CEO Laura Ipsen in a fireside chat and discuss the most important topics affecting students, educators, and learning institutions today. He will share his views on the impact of COVID-19 on underserved communities, and on the impact of social injustice on the Black community and beyond, both in general and with respect to access to learning. During his address Gen. Powell will offer insights on leadership based on his extensive experience in public service and explore how leaders in higher education can help their teams and constituents through the current global crisis.

About Ellucian Live Online Ellucian Live Online 2020 is a digital platform that brings the entire Ellucian community together to connect, learn and engage with each other to discover what's next for higher education. Topics will address today's higher education needs by role, ranging from tips for maximizing current investments to how cloud and data solutions are creating agility and efficiencies on campuses worldwide, to demonstrations of emerging technology. The virtual experience was co-created with customers to deliver a customized experience tailored to attendee priorities and preferences, including: A personalized experience based on your role and interests

Live webinars and sessions

On-demand recorded sessions

Theme-based discussion opportunities within the event platform

Peer-to-peer discussion and networking To register for the virtual event, visit the Ellucian Live Online homepage. COVID-19 Resources from Ellucian As institutions, educators, students, and staff face great change and disruption during the coronavirus outbreak, those who serve higher education are working together to help continue the delivery of vital services and ongoing education to students everywhere. In support of our customers, partners, and the higher education community, Ellucian is continually updating available resources, including webinars, articles and community discussions on business continuity, the CARES Act, online learning, student well-being and more. Connect with Ellucian Learn about Ellucian

Get the latest in the Ellucian newsroom

Learn more from Ellucian Resources

Follow Ellucian on Twitter

Join Ellucian on Facebook

Follow Ellucian on LinkedIn About Ellucian Ellucian is the market leader charting the digital future of higher education with a portfolio of cloud-ready technology solutions and services. From student recruitment to workforce analytics; from fundraising opportunities to alumni engagement; Ellucian's comprehensive suite of data-rich tools gives colleges and universities the information they need to lead with confidence. Working with a community of more than 2,700 customers in over 50 countries, Ellucian keeps innovating as higher education keeps evolving. Drawing on its comprehensive higher education business acumen and suite of services, Ellucian guides its customers through manageable, sustainable digital transformation-so that every type of institution and student can thrive in today's fast-changing landscape. To find out what's next in higher education solutions and services, visit Ellucian at www.ellucian.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005451/en/

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[July 02, 2020] Guaranty Bank & Trust and FHLB Dallas Award $60K in Grants to Two Texas Nonprofits

Guaranty Bank & Trust and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) provided $60,000 in Partnership Grant Program ( PGP (News - Alert) ) grants to Houston, Texas-based Shelters to Shutters and Cypress Assistance Ministries (CAM). Shelters to Shutters, which received $30,000, works to transition individuals and families out of homelessness to economic self-sufficiency by providing full-time employment and affordable housing opportunities through direct partnerships with apartment industry companies. CAM, which also received $30,000, serves individuals in crisis by providing financial assistance, primarily toward rent and utilities, food for families through a thriving food pantry, special delivery of food and toiletries for elderly and disabled people with a lack of mobility and one-on-one job counseling through its Operation Jobs program. "While we are a small organization, we have big goals for our program to grow and impact underserved individuals and families who are in need of a hand up," said Shelters to Shutters CEO Andy Helmer. "The PGP grant provides a huge boost for us to reach our goals financially, as well as a platform to raise awareness about our services for our community." According to Mr. Helmer, the PGP funds will be used for organizational capacity building and toward funding a full-time operational lead in Houston to run the program at the local level with support from their national team. This is the organization's first PGP award. Mr. Helmer said the grant will help provide resources that many can use for the betterment of themselves and their family. CAM, also a first-time PGP grant recipient, will use the money to assist with rental assistance, utility assistance, job training and employment services. "This grant allows us to help the whole person and not just put a band-aid on their situation," said Martha Burnes, CAM's executive director. "A grant like this allows us to financially support individuals through different job training programs, which then helps them move forward and become self-sufficient by makin them more employable."



Shalene Jacobson, executive vice president and chief risk officer of Guaranty Bank & Trust, said the PGP is crucial for the continuation of programs like these that serve the Houston community. "There are a lot of citizens who rely upon community programs and affordable resources from local organizations," said Ms. Jacobson. "At Guaranty Bank & Trust, we appreciate the opportunity to serve and work with organizations like Shelters to Shutters and CAM who address the needs of the community when unexpected events like COVID-19 happen."

Funding under FHLB Dallas' PGP was increased by $2 million in 2020 under FHLB Dallas' COVID-19 Relief Program to support community-based organizations (CBOs) involved in affordable housing activities, stimulating small business development or providing small businesses with technical assistance. The use of funds for these organizations was also expanded to include COVID-19 relief. Through this unique grant program, FHLB Dallas member institutions contribute from $500 to $6,000 to a CBO, which FHLB Dallas matches at a new, higher 5:1 ratio (compared to the previous 3:1 ratio) resulting in a match of up to $30,000. If multiple member institutions contribute to the same CBO in one year, the maximum FHLB Dallas match for those member contributions is $60,000 per year. In both cases, the total grant to the CBO would be the sum of the member contribution(s) plus the FHLB Dallas match. Grants are awarded annually through FHLB Dallas and its member institutions. "The PGP funds enable our members to work with community-based organizations to help make a positive impact on their communities," said Greg Hettrick, first vice president and director of Community Investment at FHLB Dallas. "Through the PGP, resources can be utilized to extend programs far beyond what was originally available." To learn more about the PGP, visit fhlb.com/pgp. About Guaranty Bank & Trust Established in 1913, Guaranty Bank & Trust is one of the oldest and most respected banks in Texas. 31 branches can be found across Texas, serving many diverse communities. Guaranty Bank & Trust serves customers through traditional banking services as well as through online and remote banking services. Texas Monthly Magazine has named Guaranty Bank & Trust as one of the Best 100 Companies to work for in Texas for the 11th year in a row. Guaranty Bank & Trust can be found at gnty.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (News - Alert) . About the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas is one of 11 district banks in the FHLBank system created by Congress in 1932. FHLB Dallas, with total assets of $83.8 billion as of March 31, 2020 is a member-owned cooperative that supports housing and community development by providing competitively priced advances and other credit products to approximately 805 members and associated institutions in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. Visit fhlb.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005510/en/

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[July 02, 2020] HSBC Bank Provides $10 Million for New York Forward Loan Fund

HSBC Bank USA, N.A. ("HSBC USA"), part of HSBC Group, one of the world's largest banking and financial services companies, today announced it will provide $10 million to support the New York Forward Loan Fund (NYFLF), part of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's initiative to reinvigorate New York's smallest businesses, landlords and critical non-profits. The NYFLF will provide affordable and flexible capital to participating Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) so they can make rapid recovery loans in communities hard hit by the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. "HSBC Bank takes its role in supporting communities throughout New York State seriously," said Morris L. Churchill, Jr., HSBC USA's Head of Community Development & Sales Administration. "While small businesses are the engine of our economy, they unfortunately have suffered disproportionately throughout the pandemic. We are proud to participate in Governor Cuomo's initiative to aid the state's small businesses and non-profits that make up the very fabric of our communities. Supporting these groups during this unprecedented crisis was an easy decision to make." The NYFLF will initially provide $100 milion in working capital loans that target the state's smallest businesses and non-profits with 20 or fewer full-time equivalent (FTE) employees (90% of all small businesses), and small landlords with portfolios of 5 - 50 units who have seen a loss of rental income. For landlords, priority will be given to those with buildings in low and moderate income (LMI) communities or who manage affordable units. NYFLF will have a further goal of making 60% of its loans to minority- and/or women-owned businesses or minority- and/or women-led non-profits.



The NYFLF is a partnership led by the State of New York and five CDFIs with support from Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the Community Reinvestment Fund, USA, and Calvert Impact Capital. The participating CDFIs include ACCION East, Community Preservation Corporation, National Development Council, Pursuit and TruFund. The collaboration has an explicit focus on historically under-resourced communities, including organizations in LMI areas and those led by women and people of color. Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is serving as the administrator for the NYFLF. "We're grateful to HSBC for its support for small businesses and neighborhood nonprofits, and for its 25 years of partnership with LISC," said Maurice A. Jones, LISC President and CEO. "These local organizations are the backbone of their communities. Their recovery will stabilize commercial corridors, fuel jobs, develop and preserve quality, affordable housing and catalyze economic opportunity and prosperity that is broadly shared throughout urban and rural areas."

This investment follows HSBC USA's announcement last month of $2 million to help combat food insecurity and ease increased demand on food banks across the country. Additionally, through grants to small businesses, employee-led volunteer programs, Feeding America, the American Red Cross and the Center for an Urban Future, HSBC USA has provided more than $4 million in additional aid to help battle the pandemic in the United States. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. serves customers through retail banking and wealth management, commercial banking, private banking, and global banking and markets segments. It operates bank branches in: California; Connecticut; Washington, D.C.; Florida; Maryland; New Jersey; New York; Pennsylvania; Virginia; and Washington. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. is the principal subsidiary of HSBC USA Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC North America Holdings Inc. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. is a Member of FDIC. Investment and brokerage services are provided through HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., (Member NYSE/FINRA/SIPC) and insurance products are provided through HSBC Insurance Agency (USA) Inc. HSBC Holdings plc, the parent company of the HSBC Group, is headquartered in London. HSBC serves customers worldwide from offices in 64 countries and territories in our geographical regions: Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Middle East and North Africa. With assets of US$2,918bn at 31 March 2020, HSBC is one of the world's largest banking and financial services organizations. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005315/en/

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[July 02, 2020] IIIT Hyderabad's Virtual Labs Hits 4 Million Page Views

Exponential increased usage of science and engineering-related online laboratory material

More than 17% international users

Hosts over 1,000 lab experiments HYDERABAD, India, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Analytics from the Virtual Labs initiative released by the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH) has shown an increasing trend in the usage of Science and Engineering-related online laboratory materials over the last 6 months. Coinciding with the imposition of the lockdown in India, statistics show a steep rise in page views of the materials - from 628,300 in March 25 to nearly 4 million in June 2020. "We've seen a surge in the number of usages due to the recent COVID-19 situation. This reiterates the importance of virtual labs for students across the country and also across the world," says Dr. Venkatesh Choppella, Principal Investigator (PI) for Virtual Labs, IIITH. For users across the world, he is referring to the US, Colombia, the UAE, Philippines and Malaysia who are currently some of the leading non-Indian users contributing to more than 15% of the total usage. From providing remote access to labs to a complete learning management system, the Virtual Labs initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) includes additional web-resources, video-lectures, animated demonstrations and self evaluation for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as research scholars. This digital project which was officially kicked off in 2012 to make accessible high quality and expensive equipment to all those constrained by time, geography, and sufficiently traied teachers, sees the participation of six IITs along with other institutes such as the IIITH, Amrita Vishwa VidyaPeetham, College of Engineering, Pune, Dayalbagh Institute, and NIT Surathkal.



In addition to creating content, the team at IIITH under the Virtual Labs Engineering, Architecture and Design (VLEAD) is also primarily responsible for developing and maintaining the central engineering platform which hosts over 1,000 experiments created by the partner institutes. "All the backend infrastructure that is required for the Virtual Labs - the hosting, the analytics, and the UI - all this is done by IIITH. We're also maintaining the Outreach portal which gives information on the workshops and other outreach activities," says Dr. Choppella. In keeping with IIITH's core focus on Computer Science and Electronics, the labs developed by this institute are mainly related to Problem Solving, Data Structures, VLSI, Language Processing, Pattern Recognition, Artificial Neural Networks, among others. Interestingly, many of these feature in the top 10 labs listed by number of users. The Computer Programming and Data Structures labs, both built by IIITH are in the Top 10 most popular labs with a combined usage of over 225,000.

Director of IIITH, Prof P J Narayanan says, "IIITH is a pioneer in this field. Prof Jayanthi Sivaswamy started computer-based demonstrations to aid teaching science for secondary schools in 2004 funded by Media Labs Asia, now called Digital India, under MeitY. There was also emphasis on enabling the teachers to create their own content to connect with everyday science. Some of those were distributed to schools in the state and were also displayed in the Birla Science Museum more than a decade ago. The MHRD-funded Virtual Labs effort started in 2009 for college-level courses. IIIT Hyderabad's experience played a strong role in making it happen. Over 20 of the institute faculty members developed Virtual Labs in their areas of expertise and are available on the platform for the world to use. In the later part, IIITH took up the role of managing the backend as well as ruggedizing the virtual labs in the system. The Virtual Labs could be an important tool for college students even in normal times; the Covid days have brought that to the fore forcefully. I am glad of this development and the institute's role in this endeavour. However, there is plenty of room for growth as 4 million hits is still a tiny number in the Indian scenario." Details on virtual labs at http://www.vlab.co.in About IIIT Hyderabad The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH) is an autonomous research university founded in 1998 that focuses on the core areas of Information Technology, such as Computer Science, Electronics and Communications, and their applications in other domains through inter-disciplinary research with great social impact. Some of its research domains include Cognitive Science, Visual Information Technologies, Human Language Technologies, Data Engineering, VLSI and Embedded Systems, Computer Architecture, Wireless Communications, Algorithms and Information Security, Robotics, Building Science, Earthquake Engineering, Computational Natural Sciences and Bioinformatics, IT in Agriculture and e-Governance. Website: www.iiit.ac.in For further information, please contact:

Sunory Dutt

Head of Communications

IIIT-Hyderabad

E-mail: sunory.dutt@iiit.ac.in

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[July 02, 2020] Liquiditi Solutions Organizes Global Virtual Forum addressing COVID-19 Response

Liquiditi Solutions and Unit Ventures successfully co-hosted the inaugural Liquiditi Solutions Forum that spotlighted doctors, business leaders, and health experts that are leading the response to COVID-19. The virtual conference brought together 25 speakers from four continents, including Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and attendees from all over the globe. Liquiditi Solutions offers a critical support network to governments and corporate enterprises by streamlining the process of acquiring life-saving medical supplies and equipment while delivering on the company's mission of protecting humanity from the catastrophic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The company partnered with Unit Ventures to co-create a one-of-a-kind virtual conference dedicated to highlighting COVID-19 actions, insights, and predictions from industry leaders in the fields of medicine, research, supply chain, trade finance, technology, sustainability, and mental health. Unit Ventures has developed mission-driven technology solutions and networks dedicated to solving inequity in the world while serving 180 cities globally. The virtual forum included many distinguished speakers, from academic and medical minds from Harvard University and Columbia University Medical Center, to global supply chain operators and cross-border technology developers. In her closing statement on the medical panel, Dr. Dara Kass, ER doctor from New York City, said she's hopeful that antigen testing is going to be available soon and be economically available because she thinks it is "likely our best et for getting out into a routine economy."



On the PPE supply chain and logistics panel, experts weighed their thoughts on the strain, solutions and new processes developed that are attributable to surging demand of personal protective equipment. On the topic, Oz Sultan, Chief Information Officer of PAC Global, said "One thing we're trying to do with blockchain is to start integrating the 'traceable, transparent' technology starting at the factory and going through the supply chain, including into some of the secondary ecosystems because there is going to be utility in some of the larger hospitals selling to smaller hospitals and creating new supply chain systems." With regards to re-opening strategies for businesses that closed its doors during the pandemic, Dr. Karim Bendhaou, the Head of Africa Affairs for Merck Corporation, weighed in and said "The African continent is reflecting a wide range of approaches in terms of re-opening, from a very conservative approach in South Africa compared to a more open approach in northern countries. The problem is that if the lockdown is central power decision, then the re-opening should be local because it should be adapted to the real situation."

Closing the virtual event, social entrepreneurs shared their views on new opportunities for purpose-driven businesses that stem from COVID, followed by health and wellness experts discussing habits and practices for managing stress and staying productive. When asked about the event, Jake Strom, Founding Member of TOMS and Managing Director of Satori Ventures, said, "The Liquiditi Solutions Forum fostered critically important conversations about the opportunities and challenges of today's global economy. It was an honor to host the Social Impact Panel alongside such talented and passionate purpose-driven entrepreneurs." The virtual event was hosted by Simon Bogdanowicz, CBDO of Liquiditi Solutions; Michael Healy, Founder of Unit; and Alice Hlidkova, CEO and Founder of Through the Changing Glass. "We are honored to have been able to bring together such an amazing group of accomplished individuals to share a lot of valuable information for our first virtual event focused on COVID-19 response and relief," said Evan Klassen, Chief Visionary Officer and Co-Founder of Liquiditi. More information on the Liquiditi Solutions Forum, including a recording of the event, is available at https://liquiditisolutions.com/events. About Liquiditi Solutions To help combat COVID-19, Liquiditi Solutions (liquiditisolutions.com) was founded to offer critical support to governments and private enterprises by streamlining the process of acquiring life-saving medical supplies and equipment. We have developed integrated testing, tracking, and health passport solutions so that governments and businesses can re-open their economies in a safe and controlled way. Liquiditi is headquartered in South Korea, and has a global presence with offices in China, Singapore, Germany, United States and Dubai. To show our long-term dedication in building the local ecosystems for the developing world, Liquiditi commits 10% of the income we generate into local development initiatives and charitable causes through our foundation. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005590/en/

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[July 02, 2020] ORYZON to Present at Upcoming Virtual International Conferences

28 th European Congress of Psychiatry, EPA 2020



Alzheimer's Association International Conference, AAIC 2020

Epigenetic Therapeutic Targets Summit 2020 MADRID, Spain and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 02, 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 Executive Directors of the company will present at several reputed international conferences in July, all of them to be held virtually. Dr. Roger Bullock, Oryzons CMO, will attend the 28th European Congress of Psychiatry, EPA 2020, which will be held on July 4-7. Dr. Bullock will present an e-Poster entitled Vafidemstat reduces aggressiveness in three different psychiatric disorders. Final data from the REIMAGINE trial". For more information about this event, please visit: https://epa-congress.org/ Dr. Bullock will also attend the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, AAIC 2020, to be held on July 27-31. Dr. Bullock will deliver an oral presentation entitled "Vafidemstat in mild to moderate Alzheimers disease: The ETHERAL study European cohort interim analysis". For more information about this event, please visit: https://www.alz.org/aaic/overview.asp Dr. Robert Soliva, Drug Discovery Director of Oryzon will attend the Epigenetic Therapeutic Targets Summit 2020, which will be held on July 28, where he will deliver an oral presentation entitled Modulation of the Lysine Specific Demethylase 1 with iadademstat and vafidemstat: Cancer, Cognition and Behavior. In the same conference, Dr. Tamara Maes, Oryzons CSO, will participate as panelist in the discussion panel Toxicity and off-target effects". For more information about this event, please visit: https://epigenetic-targets.com 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 Iadademstat Iadademstat (ORY-1001) is a small oral molecule, which acts as a highly selective inhibitor of the epigenetic enzyme LSD1 and has a powerful differentiating effect in hematologic cancers (See Maes et al., Cancer Cell 2018 Mar 12; 33 (3): 495-511.e12.doi: 10.1016 / j.ccell.2018.02.002.). A first Phase I/IIa clinical trial with iadademstat in refractory and relapsed acute leukemia patients demonstrated the safety and good tolerability of the drug and preliminary signs of antileukemic activity, including a CRi. Beyond hematological cancers, the inhibition of LSD1 has been proposed as a valid therapeutic approach in some solid tumors such as small cell lung cancer (SCLC), medulloblastoma and others. Oryzon is conducting two Phase IIa clinical trials of iadademstat in combination; the first one in combination with azacitidine in elderly AML patients (ALICE study) and the second one in combination with platinum/etoposide in second line SCLC patients (CLEPSIDRA study). In both studies, preliminary clinical results have been reported.

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 hherklots@lifesciadvisors.com pcobo@atrevia.com

cungria@atrevia.com etorrell@oryzon.com



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[July 02, 2020] Versature Partners with Telarus to Deliver Cloud-Based Communications to Canadian Businesses

OTTAWA, ON, July 2, 2020 /CNW/ -- Versature, a Canadian provider of cloud communications solutions for business and organizations, today announced its partnership with Telarus, a leading distributor of business cloud infrastructure and contact center services. The partnership will enable Telarus' substantial network of agents to offer Versature's reliable and ever-evolving business phone solutions to businesses and organizations across Canada. Telarus joins other innovative telecom and IT consultants who are offering Versature's robust and reliable business communications solutions to their clients across Canada through Versature's National Partner Program. "We are delighted to add Telarus to our growing network of partners," said Versature COO and President, Jonathon Moody. "Our partners have played a significant role in the acceleration of our growth trajectory and we are thrilled to partner with an organization that is equally committed to helping Canadian organizations overcome common business continuity and remote workforce challenges through cloud-based communications solutions." "We are thrilled with the growth we have seen in the Canadian market - especially in the UCaaS space," said Shane Speakman, VP of Biz Dev for Telarus Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) division. "With the explosion of work from home, our partners are looking for solutions to take to their customers and Versature is a perfect fit." Versature ofers enterprise-class cloud communications systems that integrate seamlessly with popular business applications such as Microsoft Teams and Salesforce as well as audio and video conferencing. Expanding portfolios through Versature's Channel Partner Program enables MSPs, telecommunications providers, and IT consultants to provide their clients with the most reliable and innovative cloud communication services available.



Versature's business phone solutions are engineered to help organizations drive performance through powerful communications tools, analytics functionality, unlimited international calling, free Poly phone rentals, mobile and browser-based calling, and 24/7 Canadian-based technical support. Versature's services are optimized to support organizations and businesses of all sizes and industries. About Versature

Versature is the leader in Canadian UCaaS business phone and communication solutions. Trusted by clients and partners across the country, Versature is an award-winning company that is raising the bar with the highest quality phone systems, superior Communications as a Service and operational system integrations, multiple geo-redundant Canadian data centres, and Canadian-based technical support. Founded in 2003, Versature has a rapidly growing subscriber base and strong partner network from coast to coast. Versature is part of net2phone , a global provider of unified communications services. For more information, visit versature.com.

About Telarus

Built for You, Telarus is the largest privately-held technology services distributor (master agent) in the United States. Our dynamic agent-partner community sources data, voice, cloud, and managed services through our robust portfolio of 250 leading service providers. We are best known for our home-grown software pricing tools and mobile apps that are unique in the industry. To help our partners grow their businesses even more, we've assembled the best support organization in the business, which includes SD-WAN, Cloud, mobility, contact center, and ILEC specialty practices whose primary goal is to help our partners identify and design the right technology solutions for their customers. To learn more about the Telarus opportunity, please visit www.telarus.com, or follow us on Twitter @Telarus. SOURCE Versature

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[July 02, 2020] WNS Named a 'Leader' by NelsonHall for Life, Annuities and Pensions BPS

WNS (Holdings) Limited (NYSE: WNS), a leading provider of global Business Process Management (BPM) services, today announced that it has been named a 'Leader' in NelsonHall's 2020 NEAT evaluation for Life, Annuities and Pensions Business Process Services (BPS). Leaders are recognized for their ability to deliver immediate benefit and ability to meet future client requirements relative to their peers. Key assessment criteria include breadth and depth of offerings, delivery capabilities, outcomes achieved for clients, and future offerings leveraging technology. NelsonHall's report cited WNS for the following: Long-standing clientele that trusts WNS with high-profile, dynamic, open block business

Experience in serving multi-line carriers across a range of product types

Scale in servicing pensions clients, including specialty niche functions

Flexible, package-agnostic approach to technology leveraging client legacy systems, WNS-proprietary technology and third-party products

Integrated automation, analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions

Well-established, large actuarial practice with demonstrated 10-year track record "WNS' recognition by NelsonHall validates that our domain-led, technology-enabled, innovative solutions are delivering valuable business outcomes for our insurace clients. We will continue to co-create digital-led solutions to help our clients transform their business models and improve their competitive positioning," said Keshav R. Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS.



John Willmott, NelsonHall CEO, said "WNS is regarded as a true partner by its life insurance clients - one that delivers and supports the development of their operations. Clients rate the company highly in terms of its ability to combine quality improvement and improved compliance with administrative cost reduction and value for money. In addition, WNS' clients value the company's high level of flexibility in enhancing their operational outcomes." WNS partners with global Life, Annuities and Pensions insurance clients, providing end-to-end solutions across the entire insurance value chain. WNS co-creates analytics-led innovative solutions to enhance the digital customer journey and enables outcome-focused transformation underpinned by Business Transformation-as-a-Service (BTaaS), RPA-as-a-service (RPaaS), Center of Excellence (CoE) delivery model and technology partnership ecosystem.

About WNS WNS (Holdings) Limited (NYSE: WNS) is a leading Business Process Management (BPM) company. WNS combines deep industry knowledge with technology, analytics and process expertise to co-create innovative, digitally led transformational solutions with over 375 clients across various industries. WNS delivers an entire spectrum of BPM solutions including industry-specific offerings, customer interaction services, finance and accounting, human resources, procurement, and research and analytics to re-imagine the digital future of businesses. As of March 31, 2020, WNS had 44,292 professionals across 61 delivery centers worldwide including facilities in China, Costa Rica, India, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. For more information, visit www.wns.com. About NelsonHall NelsonHall is the leading global analyst firm dedicated to helping organizations understand the "art of the possible" in digital operations transformation. With analysts in the US, UK, and Continental Europe, NelsonHall provides buy-side organizations with detailed, critical information on markets and vendors (including NEAT assessments) that helps them make fast and highly informed sourcing decisions. And for vendors, NelsonHall provides deep knowledge of market dynamics and user requirements to help them hone their go-to-market strategies. NelsonHall's research is based on rigorous, all-original research, and is widely respected for the quality, depth, and insight of its analysis. Safe Harbor Provision This document includes information which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied are discussed in our most recent Form 20-F and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. WNS undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005190/en/

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In a bizzare incident, a vegetable seller sold dried cannabis leaves to a local named Nitesh, claiming that it was methi. Nitesh did not realise what he was given. He returned home and gave the packet to his sister-in-law to cook the meal.

Around 4 pm, Nitesh' sister-in-law Pinky cooked the weed mistaking it for methi and the family of six ate 'ganja sabzi' around 5 pm, a source said.

After consuming the meal, the family's health started deteriorating. They asked their neighbours to call a doctor. While the neighbours contacted the doctor, the entire family complaned of dizziness and eventually fell unconcious,

The neighbours then informed the police after which the family was rushed to a nearby hospital.

On investigation, the police found the cooked 'ganja sabzi' in a kadhai as well as the uncooked ganja left in the packet. The cops seized the cooked and uncooked weed from the kitchen.

The vegetable seller was also detained. When the police interrogated him, he reportedly told that he gave ganja in place of methi as a prank.

The vegetable seller said, Maine mazak mazak mein ganje ke pattiya de di thi. (I gave the weed leaves jokingly).omplaint is filed.

Reportedly, the family is recovering and is under medical observation

The police said that a case will be registered after a complaint is filed.
[July 01, 2020] Micro Focus' IDOL Named a Leader Among AI-Based Text Analytics Platforms

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO; NYSE: MFGP) today announced that it has been recognized as a Leader in the 2020 Forrester AI-Based Text Analytics Platforms Wave Reports* for its unified AI-based platform, IDOL. For Micro Focus, the 2020 recognition demonstrates IDOL's versatility in addressing diverse use cases for extracting maximum data value in delivering holistic insights to accelerate better business decisions. Micro Focus' IDOL provides unified text and rich media data analytics with support for over 1300 data formats. It enables out-of-the-box access to over 150 data repositories behind and beyond firewalls, (for example, Documentum, Dropbox, and such) indexing data wherever it resides without disruption. Today's organizations are faced with fragmented and siloed information that is driving the need to easily connect to data across disparate content repositories, and even cloud-based platforms. "With hundreds of advanced analytics functions, as well as an open and scalable architecture for third-party integration, IDOL lends itself to supporting a broad spectrum of diverse AI use cases," said Rick Carlson, VP of Product Management, Information Management & Governance, Micro Focus. "Customers of IDOL have long recognized its ability to serve as a single platform that comprehensively addresses all of their unstructured data analytics needs, and we believe its proven performance has earned it recognition as a Leader from Forrester." In its people-focused evaluation, Forrester reviewed eight AI-based text analytics platforms and assessed the srengths and weaknesses of each offering based on a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria that were grouped into three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence. The report states, "in most organizations, unstructured analytics is still federated  teams use different tools for people- and document-focused applications...Organizations that are ready for one platform to address all of the unstructured data analytics should shortlist Micro Focus IDOL ."



IDOL unlocks hidden insights by revealing trends, patterns, and relationships and is just one of the ways Micro Focus helps customers bridge existing and the emerging technologies in the race to digital transformation. More Information

Join Micro Focus on LinkedIn and follow @MicroFocusSec Twitter. * The Forrester Wave: AI-Based Text Analytics Platforms (People Focused), Q2 2020; The Forrester Wave: AI-Based Text Analytics Platforms (Document Focused), Q2 2020 About Micro Focus Micro Focus delivers enterprise software to empower our 40,000 customers worldwide to digitally transform. With a broad portfolio, underpinned by a robust analytics ecosystem, the company enables customers to address the four core pillars of digital transformation: Enterprise DevOps, Hybrid IT Management, Predictive Analytics and Security, Risk & Governance. By design, these tools bridge the gap between existing and emerging technologies so customers can run and transform at the same time. Contact: Nicholas Iverson, nicholas.iverson@microfocus.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/micro-focus-idol-named-a-leader-among-ai-based-text-analytics-platforms-301087313.html SOURCE Micro Focus

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[July 01, 2020] SJR Launches CEO Leaderboard: Ranking Impact of COVID-19 on FTSE CEOs' Reputations

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the list of FTSE 100 CEOs ranked by reputation looks very different to the one ranked by their firms' market capitalisation, according to the CEO Leaderboard, launched today by SJR, a WPP digital communications consultancy in London. According to the report, which analysed more than 2.3 million datapoints generated by online conversations about FTSE 100 CEOs from January to May 2020, the CEOs perceived as being most successful in a post-pandemic world are no longer those who focus on just on profit, but those who are seen as being the most supportive of their people, customers and communities. These perception shifts had as much to do with the style of communication from the CEOs as it did with their content. Post-pandemic, have expectations of CEOs changed forever? Above all, the report reveals a clear change in how commentators, employees and the public evaluate corporate leadership post-pandemic, dismissing the "old" ways of corporate communication that are mostly seen as too impersonal and remote for what has been a very human crisis. For example, some of the CEOs at the top of the Leaderboard positively increased their reputation and that of their companies by as much as 20-55 per cent. The common thread amongst the biggest movers was a pivot in their storytelling to a more open, frequent and personal style of communication, often direct to key stakeholder groups via first-person, low-tech methods on social media and owned digital channels. FTSE 100 CEO Reputation Leaderboard: The Top 10 Many hard-earned CEO reputations held up during the height of the pandemic in the UK (1 March - 20 May 2020), while others were dragged down by sector- or company-specific situations. Some reputations were helped by relatively solid business performance during the crisis - while others managed to maintain good reputations despite seeing their businesses hit hard. 3i's Simon Borrows claimed the No. 1 spot, with AstraZeneca's Pascal Soriot and George Weston of AB Foods ranking No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. The top 10 CEOs are as follows: Simon Borrows, 3i Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca George Weston, AB Foods Alan Jope, Unilever Philip Jansen, BT (News - Alert) Group Donal Murphy, DCC Craig Hayman, Aveva Group Peter Cowgill, JD Sports John Pettigrew, National Grid Jes Staley, Barclays FTSE 100 CEO Reputation Leaderboard: The Top 10 Crisis Navigators The research includes a list of the top CEOs whose reputation increased the most during the period of peak COVID. These "navigators" understood the complexity of leading a business through the crisis and improving perceptions at the same time. The research found that Jess Staley, CEO Barclays (+20), Nigel Wilson, CEO Legal & General (+15) and Andy Briggs, Phoenix Group Holdings (+14), Ben van Beurden, Royal Dutch Shell (+ 10) experienced the most marked positive change during the period measured. The top ten navigators include:







Increase in

reputation

score: 1. Jes Staley, Barclays +20 6. Miles Roberts, DS Smith +9 2. Nigel Wilson, Legal & General +15 7. Anthony Smurfit, Smurfit Kappa Group +8 3. Andy Briggs, Phoenix Group Holdings +14 8. Brian Cassin, Experian +7 4. Ben van Beurden, Royal Dutch Shell +10 9. Bernard Looney, BP +7 5. Chris Grigg, British Land Company +9 10. Nick Read, Vodafone (News - Alert) , Group +6 CEOs whose reputation score increased the most during the period of peak COVID-19 crisis period (1 Mar - 20 May, 2020) versus their score from the previous measured period (1 Jan - 29 Feb). Increase in reputation score rank based on rounding to second decimal place. See Methodology for details of measurement and scoring.

The CEO Leaderboard research identified four key areas common to all the top performing CEOs - especially those who saw their reputations improve most through the crisis: STRENGTHENING COMMITMENTS TO THE 'S' IN ESG 10/10 of the navigators dialled up their focus on serving the communities around them who were most in need. This included: Charitable giving across existing and new bespoke programmes

Reprioritising their organisations to help mitigate the impact of the crisis on their stakeholders

Proactively vocalising and taking action support the communities and people who give them a 'licence to operate' EMPATHETIC LEADERSHIP 9/10 of the top navigators brought an empathetic mindset to their leadership approach. These leaders: Took action early on in the crisis to protect the individuals and families who were being most directly impacted

Were quick to communicate bold policies with stakeholders - rapidly and regularly and often ahead of official government guidance

Engaged in the widespread usage of social media channels to take the message directly to people CONTINUED FOCUS ON (News - Alert) THE MISSION EVEN WHILE CHANGING STRATEGIES 9/10 of the top performers took actions that reaffirmed their commitment to a clear company mission. Despite COVID, they did not veer away from their vision, continuing to drive storytelling in support of advocacy

Some set and communicated ambitious new social impact goals, and avoided a one-story profile across their corporate home page and social channels COMMUNICATING DIRECTLY AND OPENLY TO THEIR STAKEHOLDERS 10/10 had existing active "owned" corporate communications channels in place and could quickly get their messages directly to people - unfiltered. These leaders: Regularly posted content on active corporate Twitter and LinkedIn accounts

Brought a deeper dimension to company news through storytelling

Featured current, relevant, editorial-style content on the front page of their corporate websites

Set up genuine dialogue with employees, customers and partners directly. "Empathy not power has become the new language of success for those FTSE CEOs who improved their reputation during the pandemic," said Selena Cameron, President SJR, EMEA. "These leaders communicated across multiple platforms, regularly, with an authentic voice and personal views. The top performers pivoted away from traditional communication strategies, fundamentally changing the way they shared information with employees, customers and other stakeholders. This transparent 'new style' successfully connected these CEOs directly with their audiences." "In today's communication environment, public perception of a company's brand and its leadership is a leading indicator of performance, and value and has a direct impact on a company's stock price," stated James R. Sisco, CEO, ENODO Global. "Our CEO Leaderboard enables companies to accurately measure the performance of their communication plans and engagement strategies in real time, delivering a competitive advantage." ABOUT SJR SJR is a collective of strategists and digital storytellers developing corporate communications and creative content for today's leading brands. Specializing in narrative, insights, content creation and audience development, we create experiences worth your time. SJR was founded with this simple objective in mind: how to connect brands and companies with the right audience and build trust. SJR is a WPP company, with offices around the world. SJR is the parent company of Truffle (News - Alert) Pig. # SJR @GroupSJR ABOUT ENODO ENODO Global is a social risk advisory firm that combines advanced data analytics, social media exploitation and a population-centric methodology to deliver real-time awareness and predictive analysis that enables commercial and government clients to manage their risk exposure, increase profitability and safeguard their brand. NOTES TO THE EDITOR ABOUT THE LEADERBOARD METHODOLOGY ENODO Global's proprietary methodology and customized Python written data analytics platform collect and synthesize all publicly available data anywhere digitally available. Thus, the dataset is more robust and includes online local, national and international news outlets, RSS feeds, 20+ social media sites and additional open-source information. The data set was created to assess the online conversation around the FTSE 100 CEOs between January 1 and 20 May,2020. The data set included a total of 2.3 million data points 702,194 LinkedIn posts

620,912 News sites

518,302 Tweets

269,582 Facebook posts

194,277 RSS Feeds

94,109 Blogs

21,637 Instagram posts

11,574 YouTube (News - Alert) comments The Leaderboard accounts for the positive, neutral and negative sentiment that occurs around the CEOs' communications and what is written and posted about the CEO. The scores or rankings range from 0 to 100, with higher scores representing higher positive and neutral sentiment. Two rankings were created. An initial baseline assessment spanned from January 1 to February 29, 2020, before COVID-19 became a constant presence in the daily news cycle. The second period included data from March 1 to May 20, 2020, assessing the performance of each CEO during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the top-ranking CEOs, the report identifies the leaders whose positions most increased or decreased due to their COVID-19 responses. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005938/en/

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[July 01, 2020] RSA Conference 2020 APJ Unveils Keynote Line-up

RSA Conference, the world's leading information security conferences and expositions, returns to the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) for its 8th year. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005708/en/ RSA (News - Alert) Conference 2020 APJ Keynote Highlights for Virtual Learning Experience (Graphic: Business Wire Running from July 15 to 17, 2020, during Singapore business hours (GMT+8), the annually sought-after Conference will be delivered as a free virtual learning experience with cybersecurity industry's most forward-thinking leaders. This decision stems from Conference's commitment to connect the global cybersecurity community, especially during this time where cybercriminals are exploiting vulnerabilities around longer-term remote working and learning arrangements, as well as the public's fear around the global pandemic. The anticipated keynote line-up was revealed by RSAC 2020 APJ's organizers, who hope that insights from experts will help inform organizations and end users alike as they navigate our new normal. Participants can look forward to a comprehensive agenda and keynote line-up, interactive learning breakouts and networking time with peers and experts, strategically planned to cover regional and global cybersecurity issues. Keynote speakers and sessions include: Reality Check: Cybersecurity's Story





Rohit Ghai, President, RSA, will talk about the importance of the human element in the cybersecurity industry, especially cybersecurity professionals, and the role they have played in the last six months. In moving forward, post COVID, Rohit will share about how we can write a successful and resilient story together.



"It's our stories that make us human, but the cybersecurity industry has an incomplete and oversimplified view of the characters in our stories. I am thrilled to explore the significance behind the human element and share how we can reclaim the narrative on the role of humans in this age of unpredictability," said Rohit Ghai, President, RSA. The Rise of Digital Empathy

The cybersecurity industry has undergone much change and learning in the past few months as organizations continued to scale virtual private networks and collaboration tools to provide for the shift to remote working overnight. In her keynote, Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft (News - Alert) , will be discussing the five long-term security implications of the global pandemic and more importantly, how it gives rise to digital empathy.





"In the early days of the pandemic, we saw Zero Trust shift from a business option, to a business imperative," said Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President, Cybersecurity Solutions Group, Microsoft.



"While the current health crisis we face together has created a number of security implications, it has also influenced five longer term paradigm shifts for the cybersecurity industry, including the rise of digital empathy towards greater inclusive end-user experiences," explained Johnson. The Hugh Thompson Show with Special Guest, George Takei

This inspiring and entertaining keynote session by Hugh Thompson, Program Committee Chair, RSA Conference, and George Takei, Author, Performer and Activist, will explore the power of positivity in the face of adversity, celebrating the power in each individual to impact the world for good, and how new heroes have emerged in the cybersecurity sector to fight new foes, with their diverse skills and approaches, innovation and grit.



"I am incredibly excited to have George Takei join me in what I know will be an inspiring and entertaining keynote session touching on how extraordinary circumstances and seemingly unsurmountable adversity have the power to bring out the best in us," said Hugh Thompson, Program Committee Chair, RSA Conference. "It is important that we celebrate how we can positively impact the world. I believe we, as a global cybersecurity community, will emerge from the current crisis the world faces - better, stronger and able to help the next generation of cybersecurity experts be ready to tackle future challenges. More Details on RSA Conference 2020 APJ: To view the full agenda, please visit this link

To register, please click here

To watch short Quick Look videos from speakers, click here

For Press / Media Registration, please register here About RSA Conference: RSA Conference is the premier series of global events and on-demand programs where the world talks security and leadership gathers, advances and emerges. Whether attending in the US, the EMEA region, the Asia-Pacific region or online, RSA Conference events are where the security industry converges to discuss current and future concerns and get access to the people, content and ideas that help enable individuals and companies to win, grow and do their best. It is about bringing all people in the cybersecurity industry together and empowering the collective "we" of the cybersecurity industry to stand against cyberthreats around the world. RSA Conference is the ultimate marketplace for the latest technologies and hands-on educational opportunities that help industry professionals discover how to make their companies more secure while showcasing the most enterprising, influential and thought-provoking thinkers and leaders in security today. For information on events, online programming and the most up-to-date news pertaining to the cybersecurity industry visit www.rsaconference.com. RSA Conference logo, RSA, Dell (News - Alert) , EMC, Dell EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005708/en/

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[July 01, 2020] TUV Rheinland: Cyber risks for industrial plants underestimated

TUV Rheinland and Ponemon Institute publish worldwide study on the Cybersecurity of industrial plants. All information at https://go.tuv.com/otsurvey-2020 COLOGNE, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cyberattacks can threaten the industrial facilities of companies even more than their IT systems. However, a holistic view of the security of industrial plants is often lacking. This is a key finding of a recent study on security in industrial companies by TUV Rheinland and the Ponemon Institute. Operational Technology in the sights of the hackers Operational Technology (OT) is the main target for cyberattacks on industrial plants. These are devices and systems that control or monitor industrial processes - such as motors, pumps or valves. "OT systems differ in function and technology from classic corporate IT. At the same time, successful cyberattacks on OT systems often cause particularly high levels of damage to the companies affected", explains Petr Lahner, Executive Vice President of the Business Stream Industrial Service & Cybersecurity at TUV Rheinland. "We have therefore placed the Cybersecurity of Operational Technology at the center of our study, following on from the findings of the first study on this subject in 2019". Measures for IT and OT systems not coordinated For the "2020 Study on the State of Industrial Security", the independent market research company Ponemon Istitute surveyed more than 2,200 cybersecurity experts worldwide from the automotive, health and pharmaceutical, logistics and transport, mechanical engineering, oil and gas and utility sectors. The Ponemon Institute, based in Traverse City, Michigan, is dedicated to independent research on information and privacy management in companies.



The following results show how much cyberattacks endanger OT systems: More than half of the respondents (57 percent) say that their companies firmly expect attacks on OT systems.

Almost half (48 percent) are convinced that cyber threats pose a greater risk to OT systems than to the IT environment.

Almost two thirds (63 percent) of those surveyed stated that security measures for IT and OT systems are not coordinated in their companies.

For almost half of the respondents (47 percent), cyber threats to OT systems have increased over the past year. These include attacks such as phishing, social engineering and extortion software ("ransomware"). "From our point of view, it is crucial that companies tailor their cybersecurity measures to the specific requirements in Operational Technology. For example, some control systems may have limited cybersecurity controls in place and could subsequently be vulnerable to cyber threats. To do this, companies have to assess their OT cyber risk and invest time and money for best effect. It is alarming that in the view of the experts surveyed, there are too few financial or professional resources available for OT security. In addition, a holistic view of the security of industrial plants is often still lacking. In an increasingly networked world, industrial plants are only really secure if both their IT and OT cybersecurity is addressed", Lahner says.

The "Study 2020 on the state of industrial safety" is available for free download at https://go.tuv.com/otsurvey-2020. About TUV Rheinland TUV Rheinland stands for safety and quality in almost all areas of business and life. Founded almost 150 years ago, the company is one of the world's leading testing service providers with more than 21,400 employees and annual revenues of 2.1 billion euros. TUV Rheinland's highly qualified experts test technical systems and products around the world, support innovations in technology and business, train people in numerous professions and certify management systems according to international standards. In doing so, the independent experts generate trust in products as well as processes across global value-adding chains and the flow of commodities. Since 2006, TUV Rheinland has been a member of the United Nations Global Compact to promote sustainability and combat corruption. Website: www.tuv.com SOURCE TUV Rheinland

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[July 02, 2020] ESI Group announces the retirement of Dr. Christopher St John, Chief Operating Officer

Regulatory News: ESI (News - Alert) Group (ISIN Code: FR0004110310, Symbol: ESI) (Paris:ESI), a global player in virtual prototyping software and services for industrials, announces the retirement of Christopher St John, Chief Operating Officer of the Group since December 2013, effective on December 31st, 2020. The retirement process, which is part of the evolution of ESI governance strategy, is done in 2 phases: On June 25, 2020, ESI Group's Board of Directors, recorded the resignation of Christopher St John from his mandate of Chief Operating Officer taking effect on June 30, 2020.

From July 1st, 2020, Christopher St John will remain Asia Pacific Regional Director and member of the Group Executive Committee till December 31st, 2020. Since his arrival in the Group in 2008, Christopher St John has been an incontestable leader and a key player in charge of implementing ESI's strategy, especially in Asia. His expertise, experience in ESI's domain and his ability to manage and to drive business in multicultural ecosystems were key to strengthen ESI's presence in key Asian countries including Japan, China, Korea or India. Alain de Rouvray, Chairman of the Board of Directors comments: "I recruited Christopher 12 years ag to accelerate the development of the Group in Asia thanks to his great professional skills and personal qualities. It has been a pleasure to collaborate with him and to learn from his experiences and his unique understanding of the Asian market. He has been a major contributor to build key partnerships with our customers in their digital transformation and specifically in China and Japan."



Christopher St John concludes: "I came to ESI later in my career and am proud to have become part of their near 50-year history and a late contributor to the evolution of their thought leadership in the industry. It is a privilege to be part of their rich community of customers, partners and employees and to assist in the transition to the next generation of the new executive team. Importantly, I would like to recognize the strong support I received from Alain and the Board of ESI throughout my tenure as COO and to express my continuing commitment to the success of my colleagues, the company and our customers." About ESI

Founded in 1973, ESI Group is a leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping solutions and a global enabler of industrial transformation. Thanks to the company's unique know-how in the physics of materials, it has developed and refined, over the last 45 years, advanced simulation capabilities. Having identified gaps in the traditional approach to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), ESI has introduced a holistic methodology centered on industrial productivity and product performance throughout its entire lifecycle, i.e. Product Performance Lifecycle, from engineering to manufacturing and in operation. Present in more than 20 countries, and in major industrial sectors, ESI employs 1200 high level specialists. In 2019, its proforma turnover was 146.2M. ESI is headquartered in France and is listed on compartment B of Euronext Paris. For further information, go to www.esi-group.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005912/en/

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Janus Henderson to Report Second Quarter 2020 Results

Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE/ASX: JHG) will announce its second quarter 2020 results on Wednesday 29 July 2020 at 4am EDT, 9am BST, 6pm AEST. A conference call and webcast to discuss the results will be held at 8am EDT, 1pm BST, 10pm AEST.

Those wishing to participate should call:







From: United Kingdom 0800 358 6377 (toll free) US and Canada 800 239 9838 (toll free) Australia 1 800 573 793 (toll free) All other countries +1 323 794 2551 (this is not a toll free number) Conference ID 3404786

Access to the webcast and accompanying slides will be available via the investor relations section of Janus Henderson's website ( ir (News - Alert) .janushenderson.com). A webcast replay will be available for a period of at least seven days following the call.

About Janus Henderson

Janus Henderson Group (JHG) is a leading global active asset manager dedicated to helping investors achieve long-term financial goals through a broad range of investment solutions, including equities, fixed income, quantitative equities, multi-asset and alternative asset class strategies.

At 31 March 2020, Janus Henderson had approximately US$294 billion in assets under management, more than 2,000 employees, and offices in 27 cities worldwide. Headquartered in London, the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005066/en/
[July 02, 2020] SolidCAD announces its newest partnership with cloud-based virtual workstation platform, SimpleCloud AECM

TORONTO, July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - Today, SolidCAD, Canada's leading technology and professional services company declares another successful partnership with SimpleCloud. SimpleCloud AECM offers a cloud-based platform for digital content management and creation to business professionals. This cloud-based solution provides customers with a fully integrated environment of virtual desks, allowing any user to be connected from anywhere, through any device, ensuring access at any time. SimpleCloud provides dedicated applications for high GPU needs for customers specifically in the Architecture, Construction, Engineering and Manufacturing industry. SimpleCloud offers two types of platforms, a Public Cloud, which creates friendly collaborative environment that allows users to get access to virtual high graphics performance workstations with on-demand specifications, and a Hybrid Cloud option, which meets the needs of companies that already have their own infrastructure but need to extend it by giving access to workers who have geographically dispersed. With its unique ability to work anywhere in the world, this solution will allow larger Canadian firms to connect throughout various offices globally. SimpleCloud has over 60 data centers around the world, and provides services and coverage to the United States, Canada, Mexico, all of Europe, Japan, South Korean and Taiwan. We're excited to introduce the Canadian AEC and Manufacturing market to SimpleCloud," Marcus Tateishi, President of SolidCAD states. "Our customers are being tasked withmore complex projects, on ever shortening timelines and in many cases leveraging talented but distributed teams," he continues. "SimpleCloud offers our customers the potential to scale their process power and storage needs across remote work environments, without compromising the demands of budget and sustainable methods that are increasing in the industry."



"To meet the demands of today's complex project management environments and maintain business continuity, SimpleCloud specifically designed our AECM platform with the capability to deploy new desktops connecting to powerful, secure virtual machines in a matter of minutes, and address all of the high graphical spec, storage and device needs of teams globally," said Olivier Wolff, CEO of SimpleCloud. "We are excited to be partnering with the SolidCAD team to bring SimpleCloud's remote collaboration and unique innovations to the Canadian AECM community." SolidCAD and SimpleCloud will be working together to provide consulting, implementation and support services to Canadian firms for this cloud-based solution. To learn more about SimpleCloud's platform, join SolidCAD for a webinar and demo to view firsthand on Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 2:00 PM ET, to register click here.

For more information, please contact our National Director for the AEC industry, Michael Rotolo at michael.rotolo@solidcad.ca. About SolidCAD For Over 25 years SolidCAD has operated as Canada's largest technology and professional services provider. SolidCAD offers the highest level of service, expert support and a broad range of custom professional services and products from Accruent, Autodesk, Bluebeam, Chaos Group, CTC tools, Lumion, Matterport SimpleCloud and more. We support multiple industries including Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Plant, Civil Infrastructure and Manufacturing and believe in providing our clients the solutions they need to maximize the return on their technology investment. www.solidcad.ca/partner-products/simplecloud-aecm/ ? About SimpleCloud AECM SimpleCloud AECM is a global, cloud-based platform for digital content management and creation, perfect for all companies and all collaborative tasks, from the simplest to the most demanding. SimpleCloud AECM offers dedicated applications for high GPU needs for customers in Architecture, Construction, Engineering and Manufacturing. SimpleCloud provides a fully integrated environment of virtual desks solutions in the cloud, allowing users to be connected to a virtual desk from anywhere through any device keeping access to its own configuration and software. https://www.simpleaecm.com/ SOURCE SolidCAD - A Cansel Company

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[July 02, 2020] Atlantis Charter School Purchases 1,400 New Chromebooks to Boost Digital Learning

FALL RIVER, Mass., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlantis Charter School, a public charter school serving students in Kindergarten through Grade 12, today announced the purchase of 1,400 new Chromebook laptops and tablets. The investment enables the school to achieve a 1-to-1 ratio between students and technology as educators plan for the possibility of both distance learning and in-classroom instruction this fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "Atlantis was committed to providing one device for every student as part of our efforts to develop a more robust digital learning program, but the pandemic sped up the timetable," said Robert Beatty, executive director of Atlantis Charter School. "A lot of things could change over the coming weeks and months, but by preparing now we will be in a better position to respond to new challenges." Prior to the school closure in March, Atlantis surveyed students and found that approximately 90 percent reported having access to a device (computer, laptop, tablets, phone, etc.) at home. However, those devices vary by type and are often shared among family members so Atlantis made it a priority to provide students with a device they would not have to share, and that aligned with the school's curriculum. "Our goal is to be able to provide learning from anywhere. Having upgraded technology to help meet the needs of students is critical to any well-functioning remote learning plan," said Michel Lauro, associate executive director of Atlantis Charter School. "This purchase ensures we can put a laptop in the hands of every one of our students this fall, allowing for a seamless transition between in-person learning and remote learning."



As a result of the statewide closure of public schools beginning in March, Atlantis was able to repurpose funds that would have gone toward regular operations to purchase 1,200 Dell 11 Chromebook laptops for grades 2-12 and 220 Asus Chromebook tablets for K-1 students. Atlantis also purchased upgraded laptops for classroom teachers to better facilitate remote learning. "It's not just about having a device, it's about having the right device," Beatty said. "We know the tablets, for instance, are more developmentally appropriate for younger students so they can demonstrate their learning using a touch screen rather than typing."

Atlantis is currently developing plans for in-person instruction, the continuation of remote learning, and a hybrid of both as required by state guidelines issued in late June. Administrators will be in close contact with families over the summer to gauge their needs for the 2020-21 academic year and come up with a plan that best meets the needs of the Atlantis community. Atlantis is now accepting applications for the 2020-21 school year. Families interested in applying should visit: https://www.atlantiscs.org/families/admissions/ or contact Diane Boutin by email at dbout@atlantiscs.org or phone at (508)646-6410 X1051 for more information. Media Contact:

Lauren Bieke

Account Director

eMedia Junction

lauren@emediajunction.com

508-329-0440 (o)

617-512-0382 (c) ABOUT ATLANTIS CHARTER SCHOOL

Atlantis Charter School, based in Fall River, Massachusetts, is a leading public charter school that serves nearly 1,400 students in kindergarten through 12th grade across the SouthCoast region. Its mission is to provide students with an education second to none, yielding life-long academic excellence and learning skills. Founded in 1995, Atlantis was one of the first charter schools in Massachusetts. It is now one of the largest, consistently ranking among the highest-performing public charter schools in the Commonwealth. The high school is frequently recognized for its ground-breaking career academies which were developed in partnership with industry and higher education to prepare an educated 21st century workforce and drive economic development. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atlantis-charter-school-purchases-1-400-new-chromebooks-to-boost-digital-learning-301087293.html SOURCE Atlantis Charter School

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[July 02, 2020] SATX GPS Trackers Used to Catch Drug Thieves

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With a goal of protecting merchandise at some of the nation's largest drugstore chains, Texas based SATX Technologies has announced new uses for its popular SATX Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers. The company's tracking devices continue to be its leading seller, with sales reaching record levels in 2020 due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. With so many warehouses and retail locations temporarily closed during the health crisis, SATX GPS magnetic trackers have been much more widely used over the last few months. One new use for these popular trackers has been to safeguard powerful and valuable drugs that have become a target of burglars and thieves, even more so during the civil unrest that's currently plaguing many parts of the country. "Aside from actual cash, drugs like oxycodone have always been popular targets for burglars and looters," says Ryan Birdsell, founder and owner of SATX Technologies. "With the use of SATX GPS trackers, drugstore owners have another safeguard against these types of events. It will allow them to not only recover their merchandise, but also to apprehend the thieves in a relatively short period of time." Drugstore owners and managers can place GPS tracking devices in narcotic dispenser cabinets largely without threat of detection. Magnetic GPS trackers are used to embed into the cabinet, thieves typically will steal the entire cabinet or drawers. Law enforcement officials can then easily track the items via SATX Technologies software that's been provided to the client. "It would be very difficult for thieves to recognize these dispensers contain a magnetic gps tracker because they magnetize and conceal themselves well," says Birdsell. "It's likely that not every bottle will have a tracking device in it, but thieves are almost certainly not going to take only one bottle.



"When they grab the dispenser or drawers, they can be tracked easily via software provided by our company." The United States currently makes up around 5 percent of the world's population but consumes approximately 30 percent of the world's prescription opioid drugs, according to data from the International Narcotics Control Board.

This widespread use makes these types of drugs popular for thieves, as well as for addicts and for those seeking to prey on individuals suffering from drug addictions and misuse. Unfortunately, employee theft is also a rampant problem when it comes to opioid drugs, making it even harder to safeguard these types of products. "We recommend that only one or two individuals in any particular store be responsible for inserting the SATX Magnetic GPS tracker," cautions Birdsell. "That way, you can minimize your risk and improve your chances of apprehending the dishonest individual when a theft does occur." SATX Technologies was founded in 2014 and specializes in high-tech gadgetry and GPS trackers for trailer, which are used for many purposes. These include tracking vehicles and other high ticket items, but they can also be used to protect young children and even elderly members of the family who may be vulnerable for various reasons. Source: https://thenewsfront.com/satx-gps-trackers-used-to-catch-drug-thieves/ Contact Person: Ryan

Company: SATX Technologies

Address: 6923 W Loop 1604 N. Suite 123B

San Antonio TX 78254

United States

Contact Number: +1 210-899-1033

Email: sales@satxtechnologies.com

Website: https://satxtechnologies.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/satx-gps-trackers-used-to-catch-drug-thieves-301087428.html SOURCE SATX Technologies

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Red Hat Powers the Future of Supercomputing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat (News - Alert) , Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides the operating system backbone for the top three supercomputers in the world and four out of the top 10, according to the newest TOP500 ranking. Already serving as a catalyst for enterprise innovation across the hybrid cloud, these rankings also show that the world's leading enterprise Linux platform can deliver a foundation to meet even the most demanding computing environments.

In the top ten of the current TOP500 list, Red Hat Enterprise Linux serves as the operating system for:

Fugaku , the top-ranked supercomputer in the world based at RIKEN Center for Computational Sciences in Kobe, Japan.

, the top-ranked supercomputer in the world based at RIKEN Center for Computational Sciences in Kobe, Japan. Summit , the number two-ranked supercomputer based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

, the number two-ranked supercomputer based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Sierra , the third-ranked supercomputer globally based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

, the third-ranked supercomputer globally based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. Marconi-100, the ninth-ranked supercomputer installed at CINECA research center in Italy.

High-performance computing across architectures

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is engineered to deliver a consistent, standardized and high-performance experience across nearly any certified architecture and hardware configuration. These same exacting standards and consistency are also brought to supercomputing environments, providing a predictable and reliable interface regardless of the underlying hardware.

Fugaku is the first Arm-based system to take first place on the TOP500 list, highlighting Red Hat's commitment to the Arm ecosystem from the datacenter to the high-performance computing laboratory. Sierra, Summit and Marconi-100 all boast IBM POWER9-based infrastructure with NVIDIA (News - Alert) GPUs; combined, these four systems produce more than 680 petaflops of processing power to fuel a broad range of scientific research applications.

In addition to enabling this immense computation power, Red Hat Enterprise Linux also underpins six out of the top 10 most power-efficient supercomputers on the planet according to the Green500 list. Systems on the list are measured in terms of both performance results and the power consumed achieving those. When it comes to sustainable supercomputing the premium is put on finding a balanced approach for the most energy-efficient performance.

In the top ten of the Green500 list, Red Hat Enterprise Linux serves as the operating system for:

A64FX prototype , at number four, was created as the prototype system to test and develop the Fugaku supercomputer and is based at Fujitsu's (News - Alert) plant in Numazu, Japan.

, at number four, was created as the prototype system to test and develop the Fugaku supercomputer and is based at Fujitsu's (News - Alert) plant in Numazu, Japan. AIMOS , the number five supercomputer on the Green500 list based at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

, the number five supercomputer on the Green500 list based at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Satori, the seventh-ranked most power-efficient system in the world, installed at MIT (News - Alert) Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It serves as the home for the Mass Open Cloud (MOC) project, where Red Hat supports a number of activities.

the seventh-ranked most power-efficient system in the world, installed at MIT (News - Alert) Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It serves as the home for the Mass Open Cloud (MOC) project, where Red Hat supports a number of activities. Summit at number eight.

at number eight. Fugaku at number nine.

at number nine. Marconi-100 at number ten.

From the laboratory to the datacenter and beyond

Modern supercomputers are no longer purpose-built monoliths constructed from expensive bespoke components. Each supercomputer deployment powered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses hardware that can be purchased and integrated into any datacenter, making it feasible for organizations to use enterprise systems that are similar to those breaking scientific barriers. Regardless of the underlying hardware, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides the common control plane for supercomputers to be run, managed and maintained in the same manner as traditional IT systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux also opens supercomputing applications up to advancements in enterprise IT, including Linux containers. Working closely in open source communities with organizations like the Supercomputing Containers project, Red Hat is helping to drive advancements to make Podman, Skopeo and Buildah, components of Red Hat's distributed container toolkit, more accessible for building and deploying containerized supercomputing applications.

Suporting Quote







Stefanie Chiras, vice president and general manager, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Business Unit, Red Hat

"Supercomputing is no longer the domain of custom-built hardware and software. With the proliferation of Linux across architectures, high-performance computing has now become about delivering scalable computational power to fuel scientific breakthroughs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux already provides the foundation for innovation to the enterprise world and, with the recent results of the TOP500 list, we're pleased to now provide this same accessible, flexible and open platform to the world's fastest and some of the most power-efficient computers."

Steve Conway, senior adviser, HPC Market Dynamics, Hyperion Research

"Every one of the world's TOP500 most powerful supercomputers runs on Linux, and a recent study we did confirmed that Red Hat is the most popular vendor-supported Linux solution in the global high performance computing market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is designed to run seamlessly on a variety of architectures underlying leading supercomputers, playing an important part in driving HPC into new markets and use cases, including AI, enterprise computing, quantum computing and cloud computing."

Satoshi Matsuoka, director, RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS); professor, Department of Mathematical and Computing Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology

"Fugaku represents a new wave of supercomputing, delivering the performance, scale and efficiency to help create new scientific breakthroughs and further drive research innovation. A key consideration of the project was to deliver an open source software stack, starting with the addition of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on Arm-based processors, we have been able to make supercomputing resources accessible and manageable by our distributed community of scientists and simplify development and deployment of a broader range of workloads and applications."

Professor Jack Dongarra, University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Manchester

"Computing innovation and scientific advancement is not done in a vacuum - the supercomputing community, from laboratories to the vendor ecosystem, collaborates to help drive breakthroughs at both the architectural and the research level. Red Hat is a key part of this global community, helping to deliver a standards-based, open control plane that can make all of this processing power accessible and usable to an extensive range of scientists across disciplines."

Additional Resources

Connect with Red Hat

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world's leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company or its parent International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM (News - Alert) ) may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Red Hat logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

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Nikki Haley, the first Indian-American to serve in the US cabinet, has praised India's decision to ban 59 Chinese apps, saying New Delhi "is continuing to show it wont back down from China's aggression".

Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Haley also the former US Ambassador to the UN, said: Good to see India ban 59 popular apps owned by Chinese firms, including TikTok, which counts India as one of its largest markets.

"India is continuing to show it won't back down from China's aggression."

Good to see India ban 59 popular apps owned by Chinese firms, including TikTok, which counts India as one of its largest markets. India is continuing to show it wont back down from Chinas aggression. https://t.co/vf3i3CmS0d  Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) July 1, 2020

Haley's remarks came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed India's move, saying the "clean app" policy will promote New Delhi's national security against the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) spying on the country.

"We welcome India's ban on certain mobile apps that can serve as appendages of the CCP's surveillance state. India's 'clean app' approach will boost India's sovereignty, will also boost India's integrity and national security as the Indian government itself has stated," he said while briefing reporters in Washington on Tuesday.

On Monday, India's Electronics and Information Technology Ministry banned the 59 Chinese apps, saying they opened the way for "elements hostile to national security and defence" to exploit them to "ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India".
[July 02, 2020] Guinness Sales Increase by 26% Following use of Innovative on-trade Technology

TEL AVIV, Israel, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ripples releases results of a pilot study to measure the impact of bev-top media on local draft sales for the global beer brand Guinness. Monitored over a three-month period at five participating on-trade venues in Israel, the pilot results for Guinness show a combined year-over-year sales uplift of 26% and a 31% increase in share of wallet. Employing Ripple Maker PM devices and malt-based pods for printing on beer, the pilot included customized designs for each of the venues, as well as trending images and messages from Ripples' dynamic content feed. Patrons were also invited to submit user-generated content through the new customer-facing Ripples Web App. "We have been using Ripples to engage consumers and increase on-trade sales for over two years," says Sharon Sambira, super premium beers brand manager at Carlsberg IBBL, distributor of Guinness in Israel. "We were the first brand to use this innovative tool globally and have seen great results, so it wasn't surprising for us to see the results of the latest pilot." The previous study measured the use of personalized beverage tech in attracting first-time Guinness drinkers, and resulted in a 20% increase. Yossi Meshulam, CEO of Ripples, explains: "Following global trends in beer consumption, the local Israeli beer market is characterized by a strong shift toward premiumization, with total sales by volume showing stagnation and total sales by revenu showing moderate growth. Since completing this pilot study in March 2020, the local and global market for beer brands and the on-trade venues they supply has turned upside down. These results highlight the crucial role that digital media and new technologies can play in boosting consumer engagement post COVID-19."



The five participating venues also report increased social media exposure. "Ripples is an incredible marketing tool that allows constant communication with our customer base," says Moshe Nahum, owner of Hanasi Pub. "Beyond raising a lot of interest at the pub itself, it also creates significant buzz for our business on social media. Our Instagram posts and stories get especially high rates of engagement and our followers have increased dramatically!" O'Sullivan's, an existing Ripples customer and the venue that saw the highest increase in Guinness sales, adopted the use of point of sale material as well as the Ripples Web App, which proved pivotal in their results. Owner Asaf Shaibi says: "Our Guinness sales increased by a full 52% during our pilot period with Ripples, compared to total beer sales which increased by only 12%." Another participating venue, Mike's Place, saw a 26% increase in Guinness sales, despite a 19% drop in total year-over-year beer sales.

Sambira concludes: "People enjoy interacting with their favorite beer brand and the numbers prove it. We will definitely continue engaging our consumers using Ripples in other campaigns and have increased the amount of Ripple Makers in Israel to support that." Click to view additional details and data from Ripples Bar Pilot Study. About Ripples Ripples is the pioneer of bev-top media, an innovative platform that offers creative solutions for increasing sales and engagement in the Hospitality, Food & Beverage, Event, and Media industries. Businesses serving foam-topped drinks such as draft beer, cocktails, and lattes can create drink designs and messages that are customized in real-time to support promotional activities, as well as location-based social media shares, and long-term brand awareness. Ripples platform features a dynamic content feed and big data analytics tools to measure the impact of bev-top media on bottom-line business results. www.drinkripples.com Trademarks Ripples Ltd is currently either pending registration or already registered in Australia, Canada, China, the EU, India, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, UK, USA and Japan. Unauthorized use of our Ripples trademark by third parties is prohibited, except within limited lawful circumstances, such as using the trademark to refer to us and our products. Please contact us if you have any questions about using the Ripples trademark in any context. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/guinness-sales-increase-by-26-following-use-of-innovative-on-trade-technology-301087580.html SOURCE Ripples

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[July 02, 2020] Joelle Eckstein Turns Her Pain Into Purpose. The Eckstein Fund Remains a Beacon of Hope in Loving Memory of a Husband and Beloved Rabbi, Yechiel Eckstein

PALM BEACH, Fla., July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Joelle Eckstein faithfully worked alongside her late husband, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, for 15 years as he built an organization that raises $100 million a year to help Jewish widows and orphans. He dedicated his life to building bridges between Christians and Jews. In February 2019, she lost everything she held dear. In a tragic moment, her husband and her purpose were both gone. Their life was intertwined not only in a beautiful marriage but in a unified charitable and spiritual mission. She led a vital arm of his organization, a crisis hotline giving Israelis in need a place to call for help. In a moment, she was alone, left behind. The organization that had been their mutual love no longer wanted her help. Depressed, Joelle struggled to get out of bed every day, reliving the horrific moment of finding her husband's lifeless body. Joelle Eckstein turned that unbearable pain into a new purpose to launch her organization, The Eckstein Fund, "Keren Eckstein," in memory of her late husband, with a single focus of relaunching the hotline that was getting an average of 350 calls a day. *9779 was th number people called to get help until the sudden shutdown and termination of 25 employees working at the project. Fortunately, within a year, Joelle was able to reacquire the *9779 number and rebuild the network of over 500 social service partners who assist those calling in need. Today, the phones are answered by two staff members and Joelle, who speaks five languages (Hebrew, French, Spanish, English, and Catalan).



The hotline can help many of the working poor in Israel who live from paycheck to paycheck. One unfortunate event, like the loss of a job, an eviction notice, or a medical emergency, can push them into debt or homelessness. Immigrants and the elderly make up the majority of the callers. They typically have no idea where to turn or how to access the assistance available to them. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein would often say, "Kol Israel Arevim Zeh Bazeh," meaning "All people of Israel are responsible for one another," is the heart of the new organization created in his honor. You can join The Eckstein Fund in making a life-saving difference for Israelis in need.

https://k-eckstein.org.il/ Media Contact: Karyn Turk, American Creative Group, LLC.

Phone: 561-877-1920

Email: 242868@email4pr.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/joelle-eckstein-turns-her-pain-into-purpose-the-eckstein-fund-remains-a-beacon-of-hope-in-loving-memory-of-a-husband-and-beloved-rabbi-yechiel-eckstein-301087180.html SOURCE The Eckstein Fund

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[July 02, 2020] 59 Thought Leaders Present Their Findings on How to 'Bridge the Digital Gap' After COVID

BARCELONA, Spain, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The journey towards the digital world is accelerating in today's challenging environment and the consumer is evolving at a speed never seen before. For companies, the challenge of keeping up with this evolution has increased significantly and a digital gap has opened up. To help companies embrace these changes and deliver value to both consumers and themselves, Digital Transformation Agency The Keenfolks, with Johannes Ceh as advisor, has launched a landmark study entitled "Bridge the Digital Gap", in which 59 world-leading experts have provided insights which can transform the uncertainty of the current crisis into manifold valuable opportunities. The study has the participation of some renowned experts such as Michael Brenner, Doyle Buehler, Isabel de Clercq, Tony Flath, Ryan Foland, Dion Hinchcliffe, Timothy Hughes, Sam Hurley, Sherin Ibrahim, Ian Moyse, Robert Rose, Celine Schillinger or David Vivancos among others. Their insights cover five areas: Digital Transformation, Customer Experience, Social Media, Big Data & AI and MarTech. Bridge The Digital Gap Study is based on the idea that, to fully seize the digital opportunity, companies need a fundamental reset. In today's disjointed and demanding time world, where we find ourselves in the mddle of the Covid-19 crisis, it is necessary, in the words of best-selling author Robert Rose, to "stop posting for a moment, sit back and architect the right strategy for your business. Then lean in heavily and execute it brilliantly." Without this "pause", there is the risk that we will eventually encounter a gap that, in situations like this, could become unbridgeable.



Reinvention, birth, change or, simply, transformation are now more necessary than ever. Without doubt, the process of stopping and building an appropriate strategy must have digital at its core. "As digital is infusing everything in our business, it has become key to focus on purpose, to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it as we engage in digital transformation," says Dion Hinchcliffe, a renowned author on transformation. In the same way, Doyle Buehler, Global Digital Brand Architect and Digital Transformation Specialist, recognizes the importance, not only of the development and adoption of other important technologies such as Big Data or AI, but also of their deep understanding into the business strategy: "Keep in mind that Big Data and AI are 'tools' - we need to be able to understand how to use them within the main strategy that we are developing".

Ian Moyse, EMEA Sales Director at Cloud telephony specialist Natterbox, continues: "Marketing's purpose is to create engagement, relationships and brand reputation and awareness; through these to create leads and opportunities for the business. Does marketing technology alone make this happen? No. But it can be a powerful enabler to make the heavy lifting easier and faster." Placing the client at the centre of the commercial strategy is a key factor, and all decisions must be aimed at ensuring the best possible experience. In this vein, Johannes Ceh concludes "We are in an overall transformation from functional products to human-related products. And this transformation will not disappear; it will go even deeper." You can find a full study "Bridge the Digital Gap" by following this link. About the Keenfolks The Keenfolks is a leading global specialist in Digital Gap Management, founded in 2018 and currently managed by Xavi Cortadellas and Miguel Machado, CO-CEOs and partners of the company. Their mission is to become a world reference in the digital transformation of multinationals and global brands and continue their successful career in which they have led projects for world-leading brands across various sectors. The company's headquarters are located in Barcelona, and since January they have maintained premises in Mexico City. Soon, they will open new offices in New York. The Keenfolks currently operates in more than 50 countries, offering services to several multinationals that have trusted the agency over several years, thanks to the incomparable value it offers. Learn more at www.thekeenfolks.com. Contact person

Alexandra Bugakova

alexa.bugakova@thekeenfolks.com

+34 605 351 325 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/59-thought-leaders-present-their-findings-on-how-to-bridge-the-digital-gap-after-covid-301087189.html SOURCE The Keenfolks

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[July 02, 2020] Octavian Announces Launch of Transaction Platform

Octavian & Company LLC ("Octavian" or the "Company") today announced that it has launched a transaction platform and will invest in a broad range of opportunities in partnership with some of the world's leading private equity funds and institutional investors. Richard Hurowitz, chief executive officer of Octavian, stated, "With the global markets at an inflection point and companies seeking to address pandemic-induced challenges, an attractive market is developing for those who have experience identifying and developing differentiated transactions. We maintain strong relationships globally and are seeing activity increase meaningfully - both in the United States and overseas, where we have exceptional relationships. At this time, there are great opportunities to pursue niche transactions, which are at the core of Octavian's franchise." Octavian currently has several potential transactions pending with large private equity funds and expects one or more to close in third quarter of 2020. Founded in 2006, Octavian has long been a specialist in niche investments in public and private markets internationally. Over the years, its principals have developed particular expertise uncovering proprietary investment opportunities in the media, consumer products, luxury, infrastructure, transportation and other sectors, as well as in small-cap and mid-market opportunities. The principals at Octavian have participated in significant transactions in the United States, Europe, Caada, Australia and New Zealand.



A previous Octavian Advisors fund, which managed $1.4 billion and was named one of the top global hedge funds by Bloomberg (News - Alert) , was sold to the TPG Special Situations Group in 2013. About Octavian

Octavian is a boutique global investor. The firm was founded in 2006 and has successfully invested in over fifty countries on six continents. Octavian partners with some of the world's leading investors, executives and leaders on its transactions. The shareholders of Octavian collectively have in excess of $10 billion in capital. For more information about Octavian, please visit www.octavian.com. About Richard Hurowitz Richard Hurowitz is an investor, writer, and the publisher of The Octavian Report, a quarterly magazine of ideas and host of the annual Octavian Forum. He is the chief executive officer of Octavian & Company. Previously, he was the founder and chief investment officer of Octavian Advisors, an international special situations and distressed investment fund which managed approximately $1.4 billion and which was sold to TPG, the private equity firm. Prior to founding Octavian, Richard was a partner at Halcyon Asset Management, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. He previously served as a member of the board of directors of EI Towers SpA, the Italian broadcast towers company, and of Head NV, the Austrian sporting goods business. Richard serves on the governing board of the Yale University Art Gallery and is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a graduate of Yale and of Columbia Law School. Richard has published articles and opinion pieces about history and current events in numerous publications, including: the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times (News - Alert), New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Daily Beast, USA Today, the Times of London, History Today and Time. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005335/en/

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[July 02, 2020] MetroNet Announces Acquisition of Minnesota's Jaguar Communications

MetroNet, a provider of fiber-optic internet, TV and phone service, today announced the acquisition of Owatonna, MN-based Jaguar Communications, a fiber optic internet company serving Owatonna, Mankato, Rochester, and several other Minnesota communities. The combination of the two companies allows MetroNet to expand its ultra-high-speed fiber optic footprint to residential and business customers across the Midwest. MetroNet is expecting to invest an additional $150 million or more in growing the Minnesota market to expand services to additional communities and neighborhoods. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction was officially completed yesterday. "Jaguar Communications shares our vision of providing customer-focused, fiber optic telecommunication services to homes and businesses," said MetroNet President John Cinelli. "As we grow our fiber optic network in Minnesota, Jaguar Communications is a perfect fit. We look forward to fully integrating as a company, and we welcome them into the MetroNet family." Jaguar Communications currently serves Carver, Scott, Dakota, Nicollett, Le Sueur, Rice, Blue Earth, Waseca, Steele, Dodge, Olmstead, Freeborn and Mower counties in Minnesota with Gigabit speed internet. This acquisition will allow MetroNet to leverage Jaguar's fiber optic infrastructure to provide these markets with MetroNet's products. Jaguar customers will continue to benefit from gigabit internet speeds options with no data caps, full-featured fiber phone service, and iber IPTV (News - Alert) .



"Over the years, Jaguar Communications has proudly served Southern Minnesota and an agreement with MetroNet just made sense. This merger is the right next step to better serve our customers and provide further opportunities for our employees," stated Jim Ward, Owner of Jaguar Communications. "This acquisition means accelerated expansion in Minnesota, reaching more residents and businesses that are eager for ultra-high-speed fiber optic services." The two companies are expected to fully integrate under the MetroNet brand in the months to come, and plan to integrate all MetroNet product line features in early 2021.

About Jaguar Communications Founded in 1999 by a group of seven individuals, Jaguar Communications was created to provide advanced telecommunications to Southeastern Minnesota. Jaguar delivers voice, video, and broadband telecommunication services on a 2,000-mile fiber optic network ring serving customers in 13 counties. For more information, please visit www.jaguarcommunications.com. About MetroNet: MetroNet is a 100% Fiber Optic Company headquartered in Evansville, Indiana. The customer-focused company provides cutting-edge fiber optic communication services, including high-speed Fiber Internet, full-featured Fiber Phone (News - Alert) , and Fiber IPTV with a wide variety of programming. MetroNet started in 2005 with one fiber optic network in Greencastle, Indiana, and has since grown to serving and constructing networks in over 80 communities across Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Florida. MetroNet is committed to bringing state-of-the-art telecommunication services to communities - services that are comparable or superior to those offered in large metropolitan areas. MetroNet has been named in the top 50 small and medium companies on Glassdoor and has been honored with a Glassdoor Employees' Choice Award recognizing MetroNet among the Best Places to Work in 2020. For more information visit www.MetroNetinc.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005073/en/

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[July 02, 2020] Derm-Biome Pharmaceuticals, Inc raises pre-seed funding, spins out new company focused on chronic inflammatory diseases

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Derm-Biome Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a Vancouver based preclinical biopharmaceutical company focused on skin diseases and healthy ageing, is pleased to announce that it has raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding, monies that will allow it to advance its anti-aging (skin rejuvenation) and atopic dermatitis topicals to the clinic by Q1 2021.

As well, a new and independent biotech company named Pan-Biome Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has been spun out and will focus on developing medicines for chronic inflammatory diseases. The new company will start with early stage small molecules that in preclinical studies have demonstrated potent anti-inflammatory activity, inhibiting the production of cytokines over-expressed in many chronic inflammatory diseases. The compounds also have antimicrobial activity to potentially help balance and diversify the gut microbiome. Chronic inflammation plays a central role in some of the most challenging diseases of our time, including rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and Alzheimers Disease. Altered microbiota composition in the gut is associated to inflammatoy diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, liver disease, Parkinsons Disease, and colorectal cancer. Chronic inflammation progresses slowly, but its the cause of most chronic diseases and presents a major threat to the health and longevity of individuals.



Derm-Biome CEO Gordon Eberwein: We are very excited about the prospects for Pan-Biome due to the wide ranging anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties of our compounds. We also look forward to working with our new investors, who bring with them extensive financing and M&A experience in the life sciences sector. Pan-Biome will commence testing later this summer on preclinical models in various indications, including the use of a new delivery system that will allow for larger and more targeted drug loads. Clinical Trial Applications are expected to be submitted within the first half of 2021.

About Derm-Biome Pharmaceuticals, Inc Derm-Biome Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a preclinical biopharmaceutical company with over 40 natural compound derivatives, salts, and co-crystals dedicated to improving skin health and healthy ageing. Our compounds are well tolerated and exhibit novel anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anti-oxidant, and antitumor properties. Contact

Investor and Collaboration Inquiries:

Gordon Eberwein

geberwein@derm-biome.com

https://derm-biomepharmaceuticals.com/

https://pan-biomepharmaceuticals.com/

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[July 02, 2020] STARS Global Accreditation - Universite de Sherbrooke among the world's top 10 in sustainable development

SHERBROOKE, QC, July 2, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - The Universite de Sherbrooke has been given a Platinum Rating from the global STARS certification in sustainable development program administered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). This is the highest possible rating for an educational institution's sustainability efforts. In an unprecedented feat, UdeS obtained this rating on its first attempt. Only 8 other universities in the world have reached this level, and none had received it during the first evaluation exercise, until UdeS. "For us, STARS is a way of formalizing our academic community's outstanding commitment to sustainability. It has allowed us to take stock of our practices so that we can share them and advance our efforts. Platinum Rating confirms once again that the Universite de Sherbrooke is positioned as a leader in sustainable development, which makes our community so proud. This extraordinary performance is very inspiring and will push us to go even further and innovate in every area of sustainable development," explained Denyse Remillard, Vice-Rector, Administration and Sustainable Development. Using the STARS accreditation framework, educational institutions report on their achievements in the environmental, social and economic aspects of four overall areas that include academics and research, campus and public engagement, operations, and planning and administration. Exmples of sustainable practices at UdeS



In 2007, UdeS created the position of Vice-Rector of Administration and Sustainable Development. To meet its sustainable development ambitions, it implemented and coordinated a plan comprising 7 strategies and over 300 actions.

A critical mass of researchers have worked on unifying themes related to sustainable development, such as Climate Change, the Environment, or Togetherness.

Since the Kyoto Protocol, UdeS has reduced its GHG emissions by 30% despite a growth of more than 60% in its student population. The University also adopted a strategy to become carbon neutral by 2030.

Its program to provide universal access to public transit for students was renewed in 2020, and an incentive program to get employees to use public transit was introduced on all three campuses. UdeS is investing in the Centre de mobilite durable de Sherbrooke .

. Many student groups contribute to on-campus sustainable development projects such as the Campus durable, Ruche Campus, and Jardin collectif. Different initiatives also go beyond the University's walls, such as Hoola One, Free Go Frigo refrigerators and La Deraille cooperative.

refrigerators and La Deraille cooperative. The University has the largest array of solar panels for applied research in Canada and has invested in the Creneau d'excellence en technologies propres.

and has invested in the Creneau d'excellence en technologies propres. With its diverse programs and team of recognized specialists, the Centre universitaire de formation en environnement et en developpement durable has created an interdisciplinary space for training, reflection and action for a more responsible society.

STARS also recognizes the quality of the University's campus design, transportation and waste management measures.

UdeS is a leader in green procurement for Quebec's public-sector supply networks.

public-sector supply networks. The University also stands out in terms of the social aspects related to sustainable development. For example, it aspires to be a role model for equity, diversity and inclusion. Sensitive to the issues facing transgender people, UdeS has developed new guidelines about the choice of first name, last name and gender for its staff and student community. About STARS The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) is an organized and comprehensive framework that helps universities and colleges around the world track their sustainability progress. Its collaborative and dynamic approach draws meaningful comparisons between institutions as an incentive for them to push toward innovative and creative improvements. STARS is spearheaded by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), an association of international sustainability specialists. Over 950 higher education institutions from around the world have registered as STARS participants.

Detailed analysis of UdeS based on the STARS criteria

Learn more about STARS

Sustainable development at the Universite de Sherbrooke Note to journalists: Vice-Rector of Administration and Sustainable Development Denyse Remillard is available today's only (July 2) for interviews. SOURCE Universite de Sherbrooke

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[July 02, 2020] Analytics Experts at Quantzig Analyze the Impact of Increasing Churn Rates in Telecom | Submit RFP for Comprehensive Insights

Quantzig, a global data analytics and advisory firm, that delivers actionable analytics solutions to resolve complex business problems brings to you comprehensive insights into the factors impacting customer churn in the telecom sector in its recent article. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005518/en/ What's in it for you? Understand the upcoming trends in the telecom industry

Gain insights into factors driving innovation in telecom sector By leveraging advanced customer churn analytics solutions, telecom companies across the globe can improve accuracy in churn prediction. Speak to our analytics experts to get started! The customer churn rates in the global telecom industry are constantly on the rise, mostly due to increasing competition. To drive profitability, telecom companies must go an extra mile to earn new customers and satisfy the existing customers. However, meeting the customer expectation is evidently a more cost-effective option than acquiring new customers, which is why companies are adopting advanced customer churn analytics solutions to retain profitable customers. Request a FREE proposal to gain comprehensive insights into the role of advanced customer churn analytics.



According to Quantzig's customer analytics experts, "The shift from product-centricity to customer-centricity in the telecom sector is one of the reasons why telcos are engaging with their customers effectively and efficiently right when they sign up or even before they decide to." Factors Affecting Customer Churn Rates in Telecom Sector

1: Customer expectations If a telecom service company consistently loses customers due to unrealistic expectations, it's time to revise their services and marketing strategy or make service improvements. 2: Customer investment The ecosystem in the telecom sector mainly comprises the organization, the technology, the process, and the people associated with the organization. These factors are often interconnected to form a complex structure and highly influence how your customers interact with your brand. 3: Value provided Are your customers getting the most possible value from their existing subscription plan? If they've maxed out their benefits at their current level, telecom service providers must take the time to speak with them about upgrading to a more comprehensive and better package. The telecom service providers in their early stage were indulged in a fierce battle of reduced call rates and promotional offers to win over new customers. A few years down the lane when the telecom industry approached its saturation point, companies realized the importance of reducing the churn rates. It costs hundreds of dollars in marketing and administrative expenses to acquire a single customer in the telecom industry. On the contrary, when a single customer leaves, the company not only loses on the future revenues but also the resources they have spent to acquire the customer in the first place. Hence, retaining the customer base also provides the company with opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell the services. Analyze, interpret, and manage business data obtained from multiple sources across the organization under the guidance of our customer churn analytics experts. Book a FREE solution demo to gain comprehensive insights into our customer churn analytics solutions portfolio. About Quantzig Quantzig is a global analytics and advisory firm with offices in the US, UK, Canada, China, and India. For more than 15 years, we have assisted our clients across the globe with end-to-end data modeling capabilities to leverage analytics for prudent decision making. Today, our firm consists of 120+ clients, including 45 Fortune 500 companies. For more information on our engagement policies and pricing plans, visit: https://www.quantzig.com/request-for-proposal View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005518/en/

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[July 02, 2020]

Nokia to unveil breakthrough innovation in data center networking #TheSwitchisOn

Media Advisory

Nokia to unveil breakthrough innovation in data center networking #TheSwitchisOn

Company to host virtual event: The Switch is on, Thursday, July 9, 2020, 9 a.m.  10 a.m. Pacific Time (PT)



Nokia President of IP and Optical Networks, Basil Alwan, to share company news about a new era of data center networking

2 July 2020

Espoo, Finland  Nokia will host a webcast to announce a new era in data center networking that will offer cloud builders an unprecedented ability to adapt, automate and scale. The Switch is on event runs Thursday, July 9 from 9:00  10:00 a.m. Pacfic Time (PT), and will include presentations by Nokia senior leaders.







To attend this event, please register here .

About Nokia

We create the technology to connect the world. Only Nokia offers a comprehensive portfolio of network equipment, software, services and licensing opportunities across the globe. With our commitment to innovation, driven by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, we are a leader in the development and deployment of 5G networks.

Our communications service provider customers support more than 6.4 billion subscriptions with our radio networks, and our enterprise customers have deployed over 1,300 industrial networks worldwide. Adhering to the highest ethical standards, we transform how people live, work and communicate. For our latest updates, please visit us online www.nokia.com and follow us on Twitter @nokia.

Media Inquiries:

Nokia

Communications

Phone: +358 10 448 4900

Email: press.services@nokia.com


Using data from the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument onboard NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a team of U.S. researchers has characterized the dust found at the bottom of the Moons craters and found evidence that the lunar subsurface might be richer in metals, like iron and titanium, than thought.

Substantial evidence points to the Moon as the product of a collision between a Mars-sized protoplanets, named Theia, and young Earth, forming from the gravitational collapse of the remaining cloud of debris. Consequently, the Moons bulk chemical composition closely resembles that of Earth.

Look in detail at the Moons chemical composition, however, and that story turns murky.

For example, rocks in the lunar highlands contain smaller amounts of metal-bearing minerals relative to Earth.

That finding might be explained if Earth had fully differentiated into a core, mantle and crust before the impact, leaving the Moon largely metal-poor. But turn to the Moons maria and the metal abundance becomes richer than that of many rocks on Earth.

This discrepancy has puzzled planetary scientists, leading to numerous questions and hypotheses regarding how much the impacting protoplanet may have contributed to the differences.

In the new study, University of Southern California researcher Essam Heggy and his colleagues found a curious pattern that could lead to an answer.

Using the Mini-RF instrument, they sought to measure an electrical property called dielectric constant within lunar soil piled on crater floors in the Moons northern hemisphere.

They noticed this property increasing with crater size. For craters 2-5 km (1-3 miles) wide, the dielectric constant steadily increased as the craters grew larger, but for craters 5-20 km (3-12 miles) wide, the property remained constant.

It was a surprising relationship that we had no reason to believe would exist, Dr. Heggy said.

Discovery of this pattern opened a door to a new possibility. Because meteors that form larger craters also dig deeper into the Moons subsurface, the scientists reasoned that the increasing dielectric constant of the dust in larger craters could be the result of meteors excavating iron and titanium oxides that lie below the surface.

If their hypothesis were true, it would mean only the first few hundred meters of the lunar surface is scant in iron and titanium oxides, but below the surface, theres a steady increase to a rich and unexpected bonanza.

Comparing crater floor radar images from Mini-RF with metal oxide maps from LROs Wide-Angle Camera, Japans Kaguya mission and NASAs Lunar Prospector spacecraft, the team found exactly what it had suspected.

The larger craters, with their increased dielectric material, were also richer in metals, suggesting that more iron and titanium oxides had been excavated from the depths of 0.5-2 km (0.3 to 1 mile) than from the upper 0.2-0.5 km (0.1 to 0.3 miles) of the lunar subsurface.

These results follow recent evidence from NASAs Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission that suggests a significant mass of dense material exists just a few tens to hundreds of kilometers beneath the Moons enormous South Pole-Aitken basin, indicating that dense materials arent uniformly distributed in the Moons subsurface.

By improving our understanding of how much metal the Moons subsurface actually has, scientists can constrain the ambiguities about how it has formed, how it is evolving and how it is contributing to maintaining habitability on Earth, Dr. Heggy said.

Our Solar System alone has over 200 moons  understanding the crucial role these moons play in the formation and evolution of the planets they orbit can give us deeper insights into how and where life conditions outside Earth might form and what it might look like.

The study was published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

_____

E. Heggy et al. 2020. Bulk composition of regolith fines on lunar crater floors: Initial investigation by LRO/Mini-RF. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 541: 116274; doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116274
[July 02, 2020] Simplicity Esports and Gaming Company Announces 3 Online Esports Tournaments for the Month of July

Boca Raton, Florida, July 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Simplicity Esports and Gaming Company ( OTCQB:WINR ) (Simplicity Esports), announced today that it will be holding at least three online esports tournaments in the month of July: a 1 vs 1 League of Legends tournament on July 11th, a 1 vs 1 Fortnite tournament on July 25th, and a Super Smash Bros Ultimate tournament on July 26th. Purchase of the July Tournament Pass will secure registration in all three tournaments. Players that register and play inside one of the 24 Simplicity Esports and PLAYlive Nation retail gaming centers, will receive a discount on the July Tournament Pass.

Roman Franklin, President of Simplicity Esports, stated, Hosting esports tournaments is an exciting way for us to engage with our customer base online and in person via our retail gaming centers. As previously announced, our gaming centers continue to reopen with safety protocols for sanitization and disinfecting, and we encourage our customers to return and compete on our high speed gaming PCs and consoles for a discounted registration fee. We are diligently working on organizing a couple more tournaments for the month of July that may also be include in the July Tournament Pass.



Interested players can register online at https://smash.gg/tournament/simplicity-july-tournaments/events or inside their local Simplicity Esports or PLAYlive Nation gaming center. About Simplicity Esports and Gaming Company:

Simplicity Esports and Gaming Company (WINR) is an established brand within the esports industry, competing and streaming in popular games across different genres, including Apex Legends, PUBG Mobile, Overwatch, League of Legends, and various EA Sports titles. Simplicity Esports also organizes and hosts various online play from home tournaments in the U.S. and Brazil. Simplicity Esports also operates as a franchisor of Esports Gaming Centers that provide the public an opportunity to experience and enjoy gaming and esports in a social setting, regardless of skill or experience. Additionally, Simplicity Esports is an organizer and host of paid entry, online, play from home tournaments. Apex Legends, PUBG Mobile, Overwatch, League of Legends, Fortnite, EA Sports and Free Fire are registered trademarks of their respective owners. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond Simplicity Esports control, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of Simplicity Esports Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) on August 29, 2019 and our subsequent SEC filings, as amended or updated from time to time. Copies of Simplicity Esports filings with the SEC are available on the SECs website at www.sec.gov. Simplicity Esports undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law. Simplicity Esports Contact:

Roman Franklin

President

Roman@SimplicityEsports.com

561-819-8586

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[July 02, 2020] Worldwide Passport Reader Market to 2027 - Increasing Passport Forgery Presents Opportunities

DUBLIN, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Passport Reader Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Technology; Type; Application; Sector" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global passport reader market was valued at US$ 211.67 Mn in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 374.56 Mn by 2027; it is expected to is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.7% during 2020-2027. The global passport reader market is projected to witness moderate growth during the forecast period. Some of the key factors bolstering the growth of the passport reader market include surging immigrant population, rising adoption of e-passports, and increasing international air passenger traffic worldwide. Moreover, advancements in technologies, including OCR, is expected to catalyze the passport reader market. The players operating in the passport reader market are highly focused on product developments to efficiently compete in the market by offering innovative technologies integrated with passport readers. For instance, in 2018, Panasonic unveiled an integrated mobile identification and access control solution, the Panasonic TOUGHPAD FZ-M1 Passport. The new solution is integrated with a smart card reader, a 2D bar code reader, an RFID reader, and a Machine Readable Zone (MRZ). The major stakeholders in the passport reader market ecosystem include hardware manufacturers, software developers, industry associations, regulatory bodies, and end users. Hardware providers offer various components/parts to passport reader manufacturers. A few of the key passport reader providers mentioned in this report include Thales Group, Access Limited, Desko GmbH, ARH Inc., and Beijing Winton Science Technology, Inc. There are several peripheral stakeholders in the passport reader market, which play a crucial role in boosting the adoption of these readers. A few of these stakeholders include industry associations, governments, and regulatory bodies. Passport readers find major applications at airport security points, border control points, travel agencies, hotels, and car rental companies, among others. The overall passport reader market size has been derived using both primary and secondary source. To begin the research process, exhaustive secondary research has been conducted using internal and external sources to obtain qualitative and quantitative information related to the market. The process also serves the purpose of obtaining overview and forecast for the passport reader market with respects to all the segments. It also provides the overview and forecast for the global passport reader market based on all the segmentation provided with respect to five major regions - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and South America. Also, primary interviews were conducted with industry participants and commentators to validate data, as well as to gain more analytical insights into the topic. A few of the major players operating in the global passport reader market are Access Ltd, ARH Inc., Beijing Wintone Science & Technology Co., Ltd., DESKO GmbH, Thales Group, IER SAS, Regula, Shenzhen Rakinda Technology Co., Ltd., Lintech Enterprises Limited, and Veridos GmbH. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Passport Reader Market Tourism is one of the industries relying heavily on aviation. By facilitating tourism, air transport helps generate economic growth and alleviate poverty. ~1.4 billion tourists cross borders every year, and over half of them travel to their destinations by ar. According to ICAO, the outbreak of COVID 19 is anticipated to result in an overall reduction of 1,878 million to 3,227 million air passengers worldwide in 2020.



Also, as per the UNWTO, the international tourism is expected to decline from US$ 910 to 1,170 billion in 2020, in comparison to the US$ 1.5 trillion generated in 2019, owing to travel restrictions. Furthermore, ACI has estimated a loss of more than 50% in air passenger traffic at airports worldwide by 2020. The decline in air passenger traffic would have a negative impact on the passport reader market; however, with the relaxation on travel bans, the market will slowly put up. Reasons to Buy:

Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in the global passport reader market

Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies

The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the global passport reader market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long-term strategies

Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets

Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it

Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction

1.1 Study Scope

1.2 Report Guidance

1.3 Market Segmentation



2. Key Takeaways



3. Research Methodology

3.1 Coverage

3.2 Secondary Research

3.3 Primary Research



4. Passport Reader Market Landscape

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 PEST Analysis

4.2.1 North America

4.2.2 Europe

4.2.3 Asia Pacific

4.2.4 Middle East & Africa

4.2.5 South America

4.3 Ecosystem Analysis



5. Passport Reader Market - Key Market Dynamics

5.1 Market Drivers

5.1.1 Increasing Number of Outbound Tourists

5.1.2 Growing Construction and Expansion Activities of New Airports Worldwide

5.1.3 Surging Number of Immigrants

5.2 Market Restraints

5.2.1 Use of Facial Recognition Technology to Eliminate Multiple Security Checks

5.3 Market Opportunities

5.3.1 Increasing Passport Forgery

5.4 Future Trends

5.4.1 Use of Mobile Passport Scanners

5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints



6. Passport Reader - Global Market Analysis

6.1 Passport Reader Market Overview

6.2 Passport Reader Market - Revenue, and Forecast to 2027 (USD Million)

6.3 Market Positioning - Global Market Players Ranking



7. Passport Reader Market Analysis - By Technology

7.1.1 Overview

7.1.2 Passport Reader Market Breakdown, by Technology, 2019 & 2027

7.2 RFID

7.2.1 Overview

7.2.2 RFID: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

7.3 Barcode

7.3.1 Overview

7.3.2 Barcode: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

7.4 Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

7.4.1 Overview

7.4.2 Optical Character Recognition (OCR): Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



8. Passport Reader Market Analysis - By Type

8.1 Overview

8.2 Passport Reader Market Breakdown, by Type, 2019 & 2027

8.3 Swipe Readers

8.3.1 Overview

8.3.2 Swipe Readers: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

8.4 Self-Service Kiosks

8.4.1 Overview

8.4.2 Self-Service Kiosks: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

8.5 Compact Full-Page Readers

8.5.1 Overview

8.5.2 Compact Full-Page Readers: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

8.6 Portable Readers

8.6.1 Overview

8.6.2 Portable Readers: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



9. Passport Reader Market Analysis - By Application

9.1 Overview

9.2 Passport Reader Market Breakdown, by Application, 2019 & 2027

9.3 Airport Security

9.3.1 Overview

9.3.2 Airport Security: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

9.4 Border Control

9.4.1 Overview

9.4.2 Border Control: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million).

9.5 Other Applications

9.5.1 Overview

9.5.2 Other Applications: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



10. Passport Reader Market Analysis - By Sector

10.1 Overview

10.2 Passport Reader Market Breakdown, by Sector, 2019 & 2027

10.3 Public Sector

10.3.1 Overview

10.3.2 Public Sector: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)

10.4 Private Sector

10.4.1 Overview

10.4.2 Private Sector: Passport Reader Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million)



11. Passport Reader Market - Geographic Analysis

11.1 Overview

11.2 North America: Passport Reader Market

11.3 Europe: Passport Reader Market

11.4 APAC: Passport Reader Market

11.5 MEA: Passport Reader Market

11.6 SAM: Passport Reader Market



12. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Passport Reader Market

12.1 Overview

12.1.1 North America: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic

12.1.2 Europe: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic

12.1.3 Asia-Pacific: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic

12.1.4 MEA: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic

12.1.5 SAM: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic



13. Industry Landscape

13.1 Overview

13.2 Market Initiative

13.3 New Product Development

13.4 Merger and Acquisition



14. Company Profiles

14.1 Adaptive Recognition Hungary, Inc.

14.1.1 Key Facts

14.1.2 Business Description

14.1.3 Products and Services

14.1.4 Financial Overview

14.1.5 SWOT Analysis

14.1.6 Key Developments

14.2 Thales Group

14.3 Access Ltd

14.4 Bejing Wintone Science & Technology Co. Ltd.

14.5 DESKO GmbH

14.6 IER SAS

14.7 Shenzhen Rakinda Technologies Co., Ltd.

14.8 Regula

14.9 VERIDOS GMBH

14.10 Lintech Enterprises Limited



15. Appendix

15.1 About the Publisher

15.2 Word Index



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/h89zpg Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/worldwide-passport-reader-market-to-2027---increasing-passport-forgery-presents-opportunities-301087738.html SOURCE Research and Markets

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[July 02, 2020] Wells Fargo Announces Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Information

Wells Fargo (News - Alert) & Company (NYSE: WFC), as previously announced, will report its second quarter 2020 earnings results on Tuesday, July 14, 2020, at approximately 5 a.m. PT (8 a.m. ET). The results will be available online at https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/investor-relations/quarterly-earnings/. The Company will host a live conference call on Tuesday, July 14, at 8 a.m. PT (11 a.m. ET). You may listen to the call by dialing 866-872-5161 (U.S. and Canada) or 440-424-4922 (International). The call will also be available online at https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/investor-relations/quarterly-earnings/ and https://engage.vevent.com/rt/wells_fargo_ao/index.jsp?seid=518.



A replay of the conference call will be available at approximately Noon PT (3 p.m. ET) on July 14 through Tuesday, July 28. Please dial 855-859-2056 (U.S. and Canada) or 404-537-3406 (International) and enter Conference ID #8246476. The replay will also be available online at https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/investor-relations/quarterly-earnings/ and https://engage.vevent.com/rt/wells_fargo_ao/index.jsp?seid=518. About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.98 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo's vision is to satisfy our customers' financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,400 locations, more than 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 31 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 263,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 30 on Fortune's 2020 rankings of America's largest corporations. Additional information may be found at www.wellsfargo.com | Twitter (News - Alert) : @WellsFargo. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005541/en/

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[July 02, 2020] Bank of America Announces Redemption of Senior Notes

Bank of America Corporation announced today that it will redeem on July 21, 2020 all $1,000,000,000 principal amount outstanding of its Floating Rate Senior Notes, due July 2021 (CUSIP No. 06051GGN3) (the "Floating Rate Notes"), and all $2,500,000,000 principal amount outstanding of its 2.369% Fixed/Floating Rate Senior Notes, due July 2021 (CUSIP No. 06051GGP8) (the "Fixed/Floating Rate Notes" and, together with the Floating Rate Notes, the "Senior Notes"). The redemption price for each series of the Senior Notes will be equal to 100% of the principal amount of such series, plus accrued and unpaid interest to, but excluding, the redemption date of July 21, 2020. Interest on each series of the Senior Notes will cease to accrue on the redemption date. Payment of the redemption price for the Senior Notes will be made through the facilities of The Depository Trust Company. The Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company, N.A. is the trustee and paying agent for the Senior Notes. Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world's leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 66 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,30 retail financial centers, including approximately 3,000 lending centers, 2,700 financial centers with a Consumer Investment Financial Solutions Advisor and approximately 2,100 business centers; approximately 16,900 ATMs; and award-winning digital banking with approximately 39 million active users, including approximately 30 million mobile users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.



Forward-looking statements

Certain information contained in this news release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are not guarantees of future results or performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions difficult to predict or beyond our control. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement and should consider the uncertainties and risks discussed under Item 1A. "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, under Part II, Item 1A. "Risk Factors" in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 and in any of our other subsequent Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect the impact of circumstances or events that arise after the date the forward-looking statement was made. For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit the Bank of America newsroom and register for news email alerts.

www.bankofamerica.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005432/en/

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[July 02, 2020] Arvest Bank and FHLB Dallas Award $54K in Grants to Six Arkansas Nonprofits

Arvest Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) awarded Partnership Grant Program ( PGP (News - Alert) ) grants totaling $54,954 to six community-based organizations (CBOs) - Habitat for Humanity Benton County (HFHBC), Habitat for Humanity of Greater Jonesboro, In Affordable Housing, Next Step Homeless Services, Riverview HOPE Campus and University District Development Corporation (UDDC). PGP grants help qualified nonprofit organizations fund a variety of administrative activities that are critical to serving their communities. Habitat for Humanity Benton County, a nonprofit organization with a goal to eliminate poverty housing within Benton County, was awarded a $6,000 grant which will be applied toward administrative costs to help the team work remotely during the pandemic. Since its founding in 2000, HFHBC has built about 81 homes serving approximately 253 individuals in partnership with Habitat for Humanity homeowners and the community. Habitat for Humanity of Greater Jonesboro strives to eliminate substandard housing conditions for low-income families in the Jonesboro community. The organization was awarded a $6,000 PGP grant, which will be used for organizational capacity building to offset operational and administrative expenses. In Affordable Housing, headquartered in Little Rock, creates and preserves affordable housing opportunities in targeted neighborhoods with limited incomes. It also provides training, financial education and advocacy for limited-income families. In Affordable Housing received a $15,000 PGP award that will be used for organizational capacity building as well as construction costs. Next Step Homeless Services provides transitional housing for homeless individuals and families and operates the only emergency day shelter in the Sebastian County area. While many agencies closed their doors amid the pandemic, Next Step Homeless Services continued to help the community and increased its services to individuals in need. The organization received a $12,000 PGP award that will be used to help offset administrative and operational costs incurred in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Riverview HOPE Campus provides comprehensive services to impoverished individuals and families in the city of Fort Smith to help transform their lives and get back on their feet. The organization has successfully transitioned more than 400 individuals into self-sufficiency since the HOPE campus was built in 2017. The organization intends to use its $9,000 PGP grant for operational costs. Unversity District Development Corporation administers a revitalization program benefiting the residential and commercial neighborhoods adjacent to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Its mission is to improve the quality of life for residents who live and work in the community. The organization plans to use its $6,954 PGP grant toward administrative costs and to acquire land in the University District neighborhoods.



Arvest Bank Group Community Reinvestment Act Director, Group Compliance Virgil Miller, Jr. said the PGP helps CBOs continue operating with the expanded use of funds. "Nonprofit organizations such as these are vital to many individuals in the community and can have tight budgets at times," said Mr. Miller. "If they don't have the proper resources or funding, they would not be able to continue operations. Arvest Bank is honored to partner with FHLB Dallas to provide grants to all six organizations through the Partnership Grant Program."

Funding of the PGP was increased by $2 million this year under FHLB Dallas' COVID-19 Relief Program to support community-based organizations (CBOs) involved in affordable housing activities, stimulating small business development or providing small businesses with technical assistance. For 2020, program parameters also were expanded to include COVID-19 relief. Through this unique grant program, FHLB Dallas member institutions contribute from $500 to $6,000 to a CBO, which FHLB Dallas matches at a new, higher 5:1 ratio (compared to the previous 3:1 ratio) resulting in a match of up to $30,000. If multiple member institutions contribute to the same CBO in one year, the maximum FHLB Dallas match for those member contributions is $60,000 per year. In both cases, the total grant to the CBO would be the sum of the member contribution(s) plus the FHLB Dallas match. Grants are awarded annually through FHLB Dallas and its member institutions. "Member institutions such as Arvest Bank used the Partnership Grant Program to not only help community organizations, but also to impact populations served by the organizations," said Greg Hettrick, first vice president and director of Community Investment at FHLB Dallas. "It is an honor to work with Arvest Bank every year to provide these community-based organizations funding to continue their operations, especially during the pandemic." See the complete list of the 2020 PGP grant recipients. For more information about the 2020 PGP grants and other FHLB Dallas community investment products and programs, please visit fhlb.com/pgp. About Arvest Arvest Bank operates more than 270 bank branches in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas through a group of 14 locally managed banks, each with its own board and management team. These banks serve customers in more than 135 communities, with extended weekday banking hours at many locations. Arvest provides a wide range of banking services including loans, deposits, treasury management, credit cards, mortgage loans and mortgage servicing. Arvest also is one of a select few banks in the nation to have its mobile app - Arvest Go - certified by J.D. Power for providing an outstanding mobile banking experience. Arvest is an Equal Housing Lender and Member FDIC. About the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas is one of 11 district banks in the FHLBank system created by Congress in 1932. FHLB Dallas, with total assets of $83.8 billion as of March 31, 2020 is a member-owned cooperative that supports housing and community development by providing competitively priced advances and other credit products to approximately 805 members and associated institutions in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. Visit fhlb.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005568/en/

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[July 02, 2020] RenaissanceRe Schedules Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results Conference Call

RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: RNR) (the "Company" or "RenaissanceRe") will conduct an investment community conference call on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. ET to discuss its financial results for the second quarter of 2020, as well as the Company's outlook. RenaissanceRe will release its results following the close of market on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. A live webcast of the conference call will be available through the Investors section of RenaissanceRe's website at www.renre.com. An archive of the call will be available from approximately 2:00 p.m. ET on July 29, 2020 through midnight ET on August 27, 2020.



About RenaissanceRe RenaissanceRe is a global provider of reinsurance and insurance that specializes in matching well-structured risks with efficient sources of capital. The Company provides property, casualty and specialty reinsurance and certain insurance solutions to customers, principally through intermediaries. Established in 1993, the Company has offices in Bermuda, Australia, Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005544/en/

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[July 02, 2020] The Retina Group of Washington Finalizes Affiliation With PRISM Vision Group

PRISM Vision Group (News - Alert) , the largest vertically-integrated eye care services organization in the Mid-Atlantic region, announced that it has completed its transaction with The Retina Group of Washington (RGW). "We are excited to have The Retina Group of Washington join our growing organization," said Steven A. Madreperla, MD, PhD, President and CEO, PRISM Vision Group. "This affiliation expands our footprint and comprehensive network of eye care providers throughout the Mid-Atlantic region including the District of Columbia and the state of Virginia, while at the same time making us home to the largest network of retinal care providers in the country." PRISM Vision Group is a physician-led organization with a legacy that spans more than 30 years. Its mission is to support practices in providing patients with world-class, comprehensive eye care while at the same time building an unrivaled practice environment for its network of affiliated physician groups and employees. "RGW has a long legacy of providing high-quality, retina services," said Michael M. Lai, MD, PhD, physician partner, RGW. "We are confident that our affiliation with PRISM Vision Group, will support, enhance and expand the services we provide to our patients, and our ability to grow and affiliate with more eye care providers in our market." With te addition of RGW, PRISM Vision Group now has more than 120 providers, at nearly 70 locations across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.



"This is a proud day for PRISM Vision Group - our providers, employees and patients," said Dr. Madreperla. "We look forward to working closely with RGW on strategic growth initiatives and integration, optimizing the network model, enhancing administrative processes and operating efficiencies, investing in clinical technologies and most importantly in supporting the highest level of patient care." About PRISM Vision Group

PRISM Vision Group is the largest vertically-integrated independent ophthalmology administrative services organization (ASO) in the Mid-Atlantic region, with the largest network of retinal care providers in the US. PRISM Vision Group is a physician-led organization with a mission to support ophthalmology practices in providing patients with world-class, comprehensive eye care and an unrivaled practice environment for its network of affiliated physicians and employees. To learn more, visit prismvisiongroup.com. About The Retina Group of Washington The Retina Group of Washington (RGW) is the leading provider of retinal and macular care in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. With 17 locations throughout Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, RGW is one of the largest ophthalmology practices in the U.S., and the largest practice solely dedicated to retinal care. The team is comprised of experienced retinal physicians and surgeons, who are both local and national leaders in treating vitreoretinal diseases. To learn more, visit rgw.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005575/en/

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[July 02, 2020] Support for Canada's Forest Sector Economic Recovery

OTTAWA, ON, July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - Canada's forest sector remains a vital source of jobs for Canadians, providing economic, social and environmental benefits. The sector is leading in innovation through clean technologies, building on a strong foundation that includes a robust, world-class sustainable forest management system. The Honourable Seamus O'Regan, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, today announced that the government is launching calls for proposals for the following programs:

The Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) program to invest almost $83 million to bridge the gap between new product development and commercialization and ensure a more competitive and resilient forest sector, and

to bridge the gap between new product development and commercialization and ensure a more competitive and resilient forest sector, and The Indigenous Forestry Initiative (IFI), to invest almost $13 million to support Indigenous participation in forestry-related opportunities, businesses, careers and governance. These three-year investments will help advance Canada's bioeconomy while creating and maintaining obs in Indigenous and rural communities across the country. The application process is now open and organizations are encouraged to apply on Natural Resources Canada's website.



Canada's forest sector is an economic driver and major employer of Canadians, including Indigenous people and people in rural and remote communities. The Minister made today's announcements on the margins of a virtual meeting with his counterparts from the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. He reiterated the federal government's commitment to invest in our natural resource sectors, positioning Canada to rebound and emerge from the pandemic even stronger. Quotes

"Canada's resource industries are among the economic sectors hit hardest by the pandemic. We are taking action to help Canada's forest sector keep people working and come out of this difficult period stronger than before." The Honourable Seamus O'Regan

Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Associated Links Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) Program

Indigenous Forestry Initiative (IFI) Program

Canadian Council of Forest Ministers Communique Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan) NRCan's news releases and backgrounders are available at www.news.gc.ca. SOURCE Natural Resources Canada

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In the late 1870s, Kansas City was a cowtown. The West Bottoms were home to the second largest stockyard complex in the country. Kansas City sits in the center of the country but also on the edge of one of the largest grasslands of the planet, with cattle drives crossing the open range from Canada to Mexico.
Kansas City Cosplay Canceled

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KCPD Social Work Contd

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Helping Hobos Stay Cool

Heat causing challenges for organizations working to help the homeless KANSAS CITY, Mo. - In an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, for the past four months, Hope Faith Ministries has been working outside of its building, partnering with several area organizations for its Homeless Assistance Campus.

Fashion Nova donating $1 million to Black Lives Matter initiatives It's not only celebrities who are lending their voices to the Black Lives Matter protests that have followed the death of George Floyd in Minnesota. Some businesses are also joining in by offering their support to the movement.

Prez Trump Considers New Mean Tweet Strategy

Trump exploring new attacks as Biden finally takes reporters' questions The "Sleepy Joe" thing isn't working. So the Trump team is struggling to figure out how to rebrand Biden. "'Sleepy' is backfiring and hurting Donald Trump," Ari Fleischer told the Washington Post, adding: "'Sleepy' connotes calm. It connotes quiet."

Putin Seizes Power

Putin granted right to extend rule till 2036 in overwhelming referendum result The weeklong vote went ahead despite Russia's continuing coronavirus epidemic. MOSCOW -- The Kremlin has obtained an overwhelming vote in favor of constitutional changes that will allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to remain in power until 2036, as Russians turned out to back them in a national referendum that concluded today.

China Crackdown In Hong Kong Currently Underway

Sweeping national security law imposed as Hong Kong marks handover anniversary Hong Kong woke up to a new reality on Wednesday, after China's central government imposed a sweeping national security law late the night before that critics say has stripped the city of its autonomy and precious civil and social freedoms, and cements Beijing's authoritarian rule over the territory.

Not Too Late To Fight Corona

Fauci: Mixed Messaging On Masks Set U.S. Public Health Response Back While conceding missteps in the federal response to the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday it is not too late to avoid the dire picture he outlined in congressional testimony of 100,000 coronavirus cases a day.

Fake Kansas City Royals Fans Appear Amid Ongoing Pandemic

Royals putting 'Fanbassador' cutouts in stands to fill seats during games KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Kansas City Royals season ticket holders can be in the stands this year without actually being at Kauffman Stadium. Just send in a photo! The Royals launched their Fanbassador program Wednesday. Season ticket holders can order a hard plastic cutout in their likeness.

Kansas Wont Cancel Fun

Despite health director's opposition, Kansas State Fair will be held HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) - Despite opposition from the state's top health director, the Kansas State Fair will be held this year. The State Fair Board voted Tuesday to have the 10-day fair in September. Dr. Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told the board before its vote that the fair should not be held because of public health concerns.

Show-Me Budding Biz

First cannabis grow facility opens in Missouri About 10,000 pounds of cannabis will be harvested at the facility per year EARTH CITY, Mo. - An Earth City company has opened the first cannabis grow facility in the state. BeLeaf Medical plans to harvest about 8,000-10,000 pounds of cannabis a year with the first harvesting coming in the fall.

Summer Hotness Contd

Rain moves out, heat returns Hide Transcript Show Transcript CHECK BACK IN WITH KATIE HORNER, AND NOW WE'RE JUST KIND OF BRACING FOR THE HEAT, AREN'T WE? YEAH, IT'S GOING TO BECOME A HOT HUMID AFTERNOON, BUT THANKFULLY THE CLOUDS WE HAVE NOW WE'LL KIND OF SLOW THAT IN PROCESS.

Right now we celebrate hottieas we check pop culture, community news and info from across the nation and around the world.And this is thefor right now . . .
15-year-old boy on bicycle dies after being hit by USPS vehicle in Kansas City KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A 15-year-old boy on a bicycle has died after being hit by a U.S. Postal Service vehicle Wednesday morning in Kansas City. Officers were called to the area of 20th and Denver just after 10 a.m. Wednesday on a crash involving a bicyclist.

Aftermath report on a localwherein transit advocates can't blameand must realize that sometimes drivers, pedestrians and cyclists make horrible mistakes. Be careful out there . . . Read more:
KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) - We're getting ready to celebrate our nation's independence this weekend. At the core of those beliefs is the Bill of Rights, giving everyone the right to free speech. Lawyers say if you're on the street or your phone, the same rules should apply.
South KC Sees Surge of Violence in 2020 KCPD Deputy Chief Karl Oakman discusses violent crime statistics in Kansas City during a town hall conversation, led by Center Planning's Stacey Johnson-Cosby. Violent crime is on the rise in South Kansas City with the community seeing 13 murders in 2020.

Community news roundup and one of many neighborhoods that doesn't seem to be interested in "defunding" police.Read more:
Access to AdventHealth's whole-person care during COVID-19 never came to a full stop and neither did the health care system's efforts to expand the care choices for people across western North Carolina. Advent-Health Hendersonville welcomes Robin Allen, APRN-BC, FNP, to its team at AdventHealth Medical Group Cardiology at Medical Office Building. Allen has been providing care as a certified family nurse practitioner since 2004 with a special focus in cardiology, emergency medicine and hospitalist services.

For the past 13 years, Allen has provided care in both outpatient and inpatient set...
Hometown Strong, an effort created to forge partnerships between rural communities and state government, will expand its focus to help all 80 rural North Carolina counties respond to COVID-19 and strengthen local economies.

Gov. Roy Cooper has named Mary Penny Kelley as the new executive director of Hometown Strong. She takes charge of the rural initiative at a time when communities most need a partner in state government to deliver reliable information and resources during the coronavirus pandemic.

Having grown up in rural North Carolina, I know well the great opportunities as well a...
In spite of the necessary cancellation of this years Taste of Transylvania, the Transylvania County Schools Education Foundation (TCSEF) continues its mission to promote, develop and encourage public and private support of Transylvania County Schools and its goals for education.

The reality, however, is that with the cancellation of its premier fundraiser, TCSEF faces the daunting challenge of all nonprofits these days: how to fund their various projects that add value to both the student and teacher education experience.

Past successful projects include the TCSEF Creative C...
Balsam Grove Community Club Meeting

The Balsam Grove Community Club will meet at 7 p.m., Monday, July 6, at the community center. We will be wearing our masks and practicing social distancing. Hope to see you there.

Playground

The Balsam Grove Playground at the community center is still closed. Thanks for your cooperation.

Notice

If you have donations for yard sales, contact a community club officer to meet you at the community center to put it in the building. Items get ruined if they are just dropped off at the door, and then we have to pay to have it hauled off. We apprecia...
Transylvania County Department of Social Services Foster Care and Social Workers Melissa Wells (left) and Angie Gillespie (right) draw the names of two local foster families: Amanda McCall and Emily and Chase Sikorski. Each family wins a $100 gift certificate to Rocky's. Bracken Mountain Design Build (BMDB) and Lawrence King (a BMDB customer) purchased the certificates to help local small businesses and families recover from pandemic-related economic challenges

In the best-case scenarios for charitable giving, the costs are shared and the impact is doubled or tripled. That is exactly what Birmingham-based attorney Lawrence King of Simmons, Ford & Spree, P.C. set in motion when he purchased a $100 gift certificate from Rocky's Grill & Soda Shop.

In mid-March, King learned that gift certificates were the best way to support Brevard businesses after North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper put a stay-at-home order into effect. That order shut down most retail and dining businesses to stem the spread of COVID-19.

King, who has been bringing his...
2020 Census By Candy Gray

Perhaps you have noticed the sign at the Cedar Mountain Community Center reminding all of us to complete the 2020 census form. Perhaps you are like me saying, I already did this, so why am I getting another form/request? All I can ask is please have patience and recognize that the completion of this census (every 10 years) is an enormous task and is required by law. Census workers are working daily to assist in collecting this information.

Beware Of Scams.

As always, we must be vigilant and aware that there are unscrupulous individuals who are trying to...
According to an official statement on Wednesday, Egyptian prosecutor-general Hamada El-Sawy spoke with his Italian counterpart Michele Prestipino in a virtual meeting, the first of its kind since the Italian prosecutor-general took office.

This was also the first meeting with the Italian prosecution since El-Sawy formed a new Egyptian investigative team last February to solve the murder of Regeni, who was tortured and killed in Cairo in 2016.

El-Sawy stressed that the Egyptian prosecution is operating independently in the Regeni case, and that it is not influenced by any reports from media outlets regarding the investigation.

According to the statement, the Egyptian prosecution sent on Wednesday morning a number of requests to the Italian prosecution for information regarding the case, to which Prestipino said his office will examine the request.

El-Sawy also said that the Egyptian investigative team is currently reviewing all previous investigations related to the incident and is examining requests previously filed by the Italian side over the case.

The Italian general prosecutor said he hopes for a direct meeting in the near future so they can exchange information about the case in order to boost understanding and overcome any obstacles in the matter, the statement said.

Egyptian and Italian authorities have been cooperating in the ongoing investigation into the murder of the 28-year-old Italian student, who was conducting research on independent trade unions when he went missing on the fifth anniversary of Egypts 2011 Revolution. He was found dead 10 days later bearing signs of torture.

However, the cooperation faltered last year after Italy accused Egypt of not taking any steps or overtures following Rome's decision to place five members of Egyptian security forces under official investigation for their alleged involvement in the torture and murder of the slain student.

Regeni's killing also led to a brief diplomatic rift in 2016, when Italy's ambassador to Cairo was recalled in protest of Egypt's handling of the case. The ambassador returned in September 2017.

Egyptian officials have repeatedly dismissed allegations that security officials were involved in Regenis killing.

Short link:


Lake Toxaway resident Sheila Johnson took this photo of an armadillo on her property.

Last Saturday, Sheila Johnson found an armadillo at her home in Lake Toxaway Estates.

In the past few years, the county's N.C. Cooperative Extension office has heard of armadillo sightings at least once a year.

"They're apparently coming up from Georgia and South Carolina as the weather gets warmer," said Bart Renner, the Extension office director. "It's part of a northern migration that they've been on since they first arrived in Texas around 1880. I think we can expect them to continue to move into our area, at least seasonally, for the foreseeable future. They are great at eating ants...
Went to Brevard PO to mail package with mask. First two people I encountered were not wearing masks, in spite of Governor Coopers mandate. Sheriff Mahoney in June 22 issue on COVID-19 Safety makes no mention of masks. The experts, however, universally say that masks are essential, not to protect myself, but others, in case I am one of the many who is asymptomatically testing positive and potentially spreading COVID-19.

It should be clear to all of us that the way we are dealing with COVID-19 is not working. We have lost more Americans to COVID-19 since February than all the military de...
I very much approve Bob Twomeys June 25 letter encouraging us not to rewrite history. But I also think history is both more and other than a chronological documentation of all things that have occurred in our countrys past.

There is no history without a historian. For better or worse, that historian is always a person with a bias or point to prove. Historians are human beings whose values always influence what they attend to and what they ignore. For social historians, by way of example, the leavings of a Victorian greengrocers shop are more important than the battle of Wa...
Americas Founders regarded a free press as so vital to the new nation that they took care to include that right in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Founders spoke glowingly about the press as a pillar of democracy and guarantor of liberty. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, famously wrote in 1787 that were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

George Washington framed the issue of free expression in almost apocalyptic terms: If freedom of speec...
@IsaacAvilucea on Twitter

Isaac Avilucea is The Trentonians main municipal scribe. A two-time prior restraint winner and testicular cancer survivor, he relishes his reputation as the "Mean Girls" reporter that followed his 18-day stay at the now-defunct North Adams Transcript.
L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at LAParker@Trentonian.com.
Workers look to place board around the George Washington monument after taggers hit it overnight
Got something you want to get off your chest? To contribute to Back Talk, call Ed at 609-358-0861 or email him at EdNote@Trentonian.com.
Johnstown, PA (15901)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Summer fun will definitely be different this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while families can have a good time outdoors, officials say the public swimming rules apply to keep you and your family safe.

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The Centers for Disease Control [CDC] says there is no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 can be spread through water in public pools, hot tubs or water playgrounds.

Proper operation and sanitation of aquatic venues, and treating the water with disinfectants such as chlorine and bromine, should inactivate the virus, according to Considerations for Public Pools, Hot Tubs, and Water Playgrounds During COVID-19, which is published by the CDC.

Swimming water has not been known to be a source of transmission, said Kristen Kelley, IU Healths director of infection prevention. Theres been no reports of pool water being a source of it. It really is about coming in contact with, typically the air, of another infected person, for an extended time, usually in close quarters.

Kelley, a registered nurse certified in infection control who has a Masters Degree in Public Health and Epidemiology, said the novel coronavirus is a droplet organism that spreads via air.

Risk comes mainly from someone who is unmasked and within 3 to 6 feet for about 10 to 15 minutes of someone who is infected. Additionally, Kelley said most transmissions of the virus happen in enclosed areas.

The positive part about pools is that its usually outside, Kelley said. The fresh air tends to break up any COVID molecules easily and dissipates the source of the virus.

In the Wabash Valley

In Terre Haute, Deming Park Pool opened June 8 with a limit of 85 patrons, less than half of its usual 200 patron capacity.

Recreation director Ashley Tyler said the pool staff is following CDC guidelines and has a new disinfecting protocol with new sprays and cleansers. Lifeguards also do regular wipedowns of tables, chairs and restroom facilities.

The pool is expected to remain open through Labor Day weekend. Admission is $3 per person age 13 and older, and $2.75 for children 12 and younger. Children age 2 and younger are admitted free.

The Vigo County Parks and Recreation Department opened the beach at Fowler Park on Memorial Day weekend and it will remain open through Labor Day weekend.

However, once school is back in session, the beach will only be open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in August.

Vigo County Parks Superintendent Adam Grossman said some operations are different this year.

No beach chairs have been set out. The public is welcome to bring their own chairs and blankets. Patrons are encouraged to social distance and to stay with their own groups. Frequent announcements are made reminding patrons to social distance, Grossman said, and signs have been posted.

Park staff have stepped up sanitation in the restroom and shower facilities at the park. Only one showerhouse is open, and it is cleaned multiple times throughout the day. All restrooms are deep cleaned before opening and after closing. Any pit toilet restroom in the county parks that do not have running water for hand-washing have been closed per CDC guidelines.

The Forest Park Pool in Brazil is operated by the Clay County YMCA.

YMCA aquatics director Shane Chesshir said the pool has been operating with a limit of 195 patrons, but will increase to its full 280 person capacity as of July 4.

Sanitizing is ongoing, Chesshir said, so that tables, door knobs, restrooms and other surfaces are wiped down every 45 minutes while the pool is open. Heavier cleaning occurs before the pool opens and after closing.

Patrons can rent deck chairs at $2 each, or can bring their own chairs. Rented chairs are wiped down before being handed out, and after being returned, he said.

Concessions are also available, but a reduced selection is being offered.

At the Rockville Public Pool, capacity has been limited to 100 patrons, which is half of its 200 person capacity.

General admission swim sessions are noon to 2:45 p.m., and 3:15 to 6 p.m. Staff wipe down all surfaces during the break, as well as before opening and after closing.

No masks are required of patrons, but staff members do wear masks. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for children.

The Marshall Community Pool in Marshall, Illinois, opened Wednesday and is following CDC guidelines that limit customers to 100 people per two-hour, 30 minute pool sessions. On a first-come basis, patrons are admitted at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.

All surfaces are sanitized by pool staff during the half-hour break between sessions.

Pool staff also require temperature checks, a signed liability release, and patrons must wear a mask to enter the pool facility. Admission is $2 per person age 2 and older.

Information about pool rules, times, swim lessons, parties, water aerobics and lap swims are available on the facility's Facebook page. Prepackaged food is sold in the concession stand.

Being proactive

Some things, like social distancing in water, are harder to enforce than a rigorous cleaning schedule. IU's Kelley said she worked with her neighborhood pool, which addressed distance concerns.

As soon as you get in the source of water, especially with children, kids dont always know how to socially distance. Six feet is like 6 inches to them, she said. If you have health issues in your family, anyone who is immuno-compromised, children could potentially pick this up at the water park. They could bring it home. Its likely youre not going to be able to socially distance.

Kelley worked with her local pool to construct safety guidelines. Some of the guidelines they decided on included spacing out chairs, making use of grassy areas for more seating, taping off the snack area to create 6-foot squares to encourage distancing and more.

Kelley mentioned an article published in The Lancet Public Health, an online, open-access medical journal, called The effect of control strategies to reduce social mixing on outcomes of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China: a modelling study.

It said that social distancing is one of our best tools, followed by masking, in order to prevent the spread. And weve seen really great success with social distancing, she said. Continuing with those principals, its really positive.

Duchess Adjei, the regional communication director for the American Red Cross Indiana Region, said in an email to maintain social distancing, both in and out of the water, between you and people who dont live with you. If you dont think your child can do this, come up with another activity..

Adjei urged swimmers to follow the public safety guidelines set by the facility. For general safety, make sure the area is designated for swimming before jumping in, and keep an eye on kiddos.

Some COVID-19 guidelines are a bit more nuanced.

Wear face coverings on land, do not wear them in the water, she said.  Dont share goggles, nose clips, snorkels or other personal items.

Kelley advised calling ahead to check out what times are non-peak hours and use smart strategies to stay away from other people.

Maybe bringing your own towels to sit on so youre away from people or packing your own snacks so you dont have to wait in long, congested lines, she said. Maybe call ahead and ask questions.

Things like wiping down every surface and using hand sanitizer every half hour, while commendable, might be overkill, Kelley said. Washing hands after using the restroom and before eating and after being in public should help to ensure safety.

As Indiana nears Stage 5, Kelley said she understands the need to get out of the house. By taking a few extra steps, she said families can remain safe.

Everyone is eager to get out, but I still think this is a team sport, she said. Getting through this pandemic is absolutely a team sport and were all in this together. So where we succeed, we succeed as a team. We win or lose as a team.

-- Lisa Trigg and Mark Fitton of the Tribune-Star also contributed to this report.
A Zen Buddhist priest, who is a spiritual adviser to one of three federal death row inmates scheduled to be executed this month, filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing the Bureau of Prisons is putting him at risk for the coronavirus by moving forward with executions during a nationwide pandemic.

Dale Hartkemeyer, who goes by the religious name Seigen, argues that he would be putting his life at risk if the federal government proceeds to execute Wesley Ira Purkey, as scheduled on July 15, because of his prior medical conditions including respiratory issues.

The 68-year-old is asking a federal judge to delay Purkeys execution until a coronavirus vaccine is available or theres a widespread effective treatment.

Hartkemeyer said in court papers he has visited Purkey monthly as his priest since January 2009 to provide him with spiritual guidance and counseling.

"Im being asked to make an impossible decision  violate my religious beliefs or risk my health and life by attending an execution that could become a super-spreader event for COVID-19," Hartkemeyer wrote in a blog post.

Purkey, a devout Buddhist, is one of four federal inmates scheduled to be put to death in July and August. Attorney General William Barr directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions, ending an informal moratorium on federal capital punishment as the issue receded from the public domain.

Barr had initially scheduled five executions set to begin in December, but some of the inmates challenged the new procedures in court, arguing that the government was circumventing proper methods to wrongly execute inmates quickly. The executions were rescheduled last month after an appeals court threw out a lower court ruling that put the executions on hold. This week, the Supreme Court refused to block the executions.

The executions are scheduled to resume as the country is still battling a major coronavirus pandemic and the number of inmates infected at jails and prisons across the U.S. is approaching 50,000 nationwide, according to data by The Associated Press and the Marshall Project. But federal officials have insisted that precautions will be put in place  including temperature checks and a requirement to wear masks  and that they are obligated to carry forward sentences imposed in the court system.

The federal prison system has struggled to combat the coronavirus pandemic behind bars. As of Wednesday, there were five confirmed coronavirus cases at USP Terre Haute, the prison where the executions are scheduled to take place. One inmate there has died.

Hartkemeyer argues that he must be present at the execution to be a spiritual guide for Purkey and to provide spiritual consolation and compassion to him during this time, helping him attain peace of mind as he leaves this life.

Its vital that I be there, as Wess priest, to ensure this peaceful transition from life to death during his most dire moment of distress  his ultimate crisis  as he sits at the threshold of death," he wrote. "I will chant from behind a plexiglass barrier to ensure his peace of mind while passing and, through my physical presence, serve as a spiritual reminder to Wes of all the religious lessons I have taught him as he passes on from this life. This is my sacred duty.

But he argues that means risking his own life. If he couldnt be there, it would constitute a troubling violation of my religious tenets and priestly obligations, the lawsuit says.

Hes in this position where he has to decide between fulfilling his spiritual duty and trying to attend the execution and between protecting his own life and health and safety, said Cassandra Stubbs, the director of the Capital Punishment Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Hartkemeyer.

Theres absolutely no reason to do it now in the pandemic. Its really morally abhorrent, Stubbs said.

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Purkeys lawyers are separately asking a federal judge to halt his execution, arguing that he isnt mentally fit to be executed because he suffers from advancing Alzheimers disease and deteriorating cognitive functioning.

Purkey, of Lansing, Kansas, was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long after picking her up in Kansas City, Missouri. Purkey raped Long, stabbed her repeatedly and used a chainsaw to cut her body into pieces. He burned her remains in a fireplace and then dumped her ashes 200 miles (322 kilometers) away in a septic pond in Clearwater, southwest of Wichita. He was also convicted of using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old Kansas woman, Mary Ruth Bales, who suffered from polio.

Purkey had a long history of childhood trauma, was sexually abused by family members and a Catholic priest and was beaten by other family members, said Liz Vartkessian, a mitigation specialist who has worked with Purkeys legal team and has visited him dozens of times in the last five years.

His case is replete with instances where he has expressed a deep remorse, she said

But recently, Purkeys mental health has seriously deteriorated to the point where he doesnt have the stamina for long visits with his legal team and often forgets key facts and dates, she said. Correction officers have to help him write down a schedule to remember his visits with his lawyers, she said.

He has also had a long history of paranoia and delusions and believes the Justice Department is moving forward with his execution because of many complaints and lawsuits hes brought in prison, even though most have failed, Vartkessian said.

Its hard to find any rational explanation for trying to set those executions so quickly," Stubbs said, especially when we havent had an execution in 17 years.
Terre Haute, IN (47803)

Today

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Canton, GA (30114)

Today

Thunderstorms. Low 68F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall may reach one inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. Low 68F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall may reach one inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Racism is everywhere these days, figuratively and literally. Between a racist virus, a racist depression and several public murders of Black people, systemic oppression has been impossible to ignore.

Writing for the LA Times, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar described racism in America as dust in the air. It seems invisible  even if youre choking on it  until you let the sun in. Then you see its everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands. But we have to stay vigilant, because its always still in the air.

Liz Dozier, Founder of Chicago Beyond, likens it to when you pull a loose thread on a sweater and before you know it half the sweater is gone  thats the moment we are in right now, she says.

In Chicago, unmasking the breadth of systemic racism shouldnt come as a shock. When I talked to eight city business and thought leaders in January, it was cited as the top challenge facing the city over the next decade. Though they came from a variety of industries and backgrounds, seven of the eight specifically called out systemic racism and racial inequality as the biggest issues Chicago needs to address in the 2020s.

The good news? The city has a vast network of organizations already doing the work of dismantling our dangerously biased systems. The great news? While racism and systemic oppression is very complex, weve made it quite simple for you to take positive, immediate action.

Below is a long but not comprehensive list of what you can do personally, at your company and in your state at large to be antiracist.

First, a quick precursor on the term antiracism. In his best-selling book How to Be An Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi classifies racist as a descriptor, not a pejorative. Unlike the term bigot, saying someone or something is racist does not imply hatred; it simply means a policy, practice or ponderance supports the discrimination and marginalization of a minority group.

The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next, he writes. Those people who are striving to be antiracist are the people who are admitting their racism. What that means is what people should be looking for, and valuing, is the person who is no longer in denial about their addiction.

As Kendi explained to Dax Shephard on a recent episode of Armchair Expert, when you are truly striving to become antiracist its almost like you are trying to overcome an addiction, youre always taking it a day at a time. You never become an anti-racist. You know that every moment, every day, you have to think about your actions.

Ready to get to work?

What You Can Do as an Individual



Complete the internal work. Before you move into action mode, take time to acknowledge your privilege  your experiences with race and bias  and educate yourself. Thats where the real change will come from. People are trying to dismantle racism from the top down, but readers: you can dismantle it from the bottom up. Start with educating yourselves, your children and your family. It is critical work, Dozier says, adding it looks different for white and non-white people, but believe me, [its] everyones problem. If you havent already heard, do not go to the Black people in your life and ask them to educate you. Do the work and research yourself. Heres a selection of 20 books by Black writers that will help you better understand the structure and history that help perpetuate racism in America.

An example of the work of the Folded Map Project

Meet your neighbor. As Michelle Obama says, Ive learned that its harder to hate up close. Its time to make a personal connection to the Black community in Chicago. Start by supporting a black-owned businesses: heres a list of 100 across the city, running the gamut from restaurants to apparel to home goods. Then, find your map neighbor. Tonika Johnson founded the Folded Map Project to connect residents who live at corresponding addresses on the North and South sides of Chicago. If you fold a map at the center, the mirroring addresses create map twins; for example: someone living at the 6900 block of North Ashland in Rogers Park is a map twin with the someone living at the 6900 block of South Ashland in West Englewood. Its a personal way to open dialogue and examine how segregation impacts our city. I believe that it takes individual one-on-one interaction for us to begin to desegregate our city, because clearly the history of housing policy wont get us there, Johnson writes. By connecting map twins, she is facilitating interaction among communities that have traditionally seemed off limits to people on either side of the map. Reach out on her website if youre interested in participating in a map twin pairing.



Volunteer your professional expertise. You dont need to pick up a new skill to help someone; give them the skills you already have. Instead of signing up for a mission trip or house-building experience, consider offering your specific professional skill set for free  which can make a huge difference for a not-for-profit organization (NFPO). What are you passionate about and how can you lend that passion to others? asks Jahmal Cole, founder of My Block, My Hood, My City. The community activist, whose catchphrase urges all Chicagoans to ask themselves, Whats something simple I can do thatll have a positive impact on my block?, offers some specific ideas for action: If you work in IT, reach out to a social-justice organization and see if you can help them on their website. If you do consulting, deliver a three year strategic plan to a not-for-profit. If youre in construction, offer your services for free to one of the businesses that have been looted. When I say something simple, I dont mean it should be easy. Find an organization you like (maybe one youve already donated money to) and offer your specific services. If they are all set with what you can contribute, ask them for a recommendation of another NFPO that could use the help.

Participate in mentoring programs. Atlanta rapper and activist Killer Mike espoused the benefits of mentoring during a visit on The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert in 2016. He implored, Find a child who is marginal or doing exceptional in school whos a minority, who doesnt look like you, not of the same religion, not of the same background  help that child matriculate into college  Teach them the path you were taught, to help them become a successful human being. What youre going to get out of that experience is another human being thats taking full advantage of an educational system that can help them within their community, but more than that, it grows you as a human being to have empathy  for someone who doesnt look like you and is culturally not from your background. Locally, OneGoal Chicago uses a three-year model to pair high-school students with mentors who support the students from secondary school through their first year of college.

Donate money to fund antiracism work. It is no accident this is last on the list of personal to-dos. Yes, you should absolutely give money to organizations fighting for social justice, but to be antiracist, you cant just give money. It is my opinion that  especially as white people  we cant be lulled into thinking we can buy or donate our way out of systemic racism, says Christina Hachikian, Executive Director, Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Yes, we need to donate to organizations working on ending systemic racism and police brutality. And yes, we need [to take] our business to Black and Latinx accountants, lawyers and other professionals, among other actions. But what it will take to actually move the needle as a society on ending racial discrimination is internal work.

That said, Chicago has many effective NFPO fighting racism and systemic oppression:

Invisible Institute: Provides data transparency about incidents of police misconduct. Their Citizens Police Data Project is a tool that allows citizens to hold police accountable for their actions.

Chicago Community Bond Fund (CCBF): Pays bond for people charged with crimes in Cook County, releasing presumed innocent defendants until their trial.

Lawndale Christian Legal Center: Provides holistic social and legal services to youth through their North Lawndale restorative justice program.

Dovetail Project: Gives young Black fathers (ages 17 to 24) the skills and support they need to be better fathers for their children and better men in their communities through a 12-week parenting program.

Storycatcher Theater: Works with youth in the juvenile justice system to repair trauma via artistic expression, sharing their stories through musical theater.

Residents Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E): Founded by residents in the South side neighborhood often noted for its violence, R.A.G.E. collaborates on action-based solutions to highlight the resiliency and positivity of the community.

Rebuild Chicago: Artist-led organization revitalizing South side neighborhoods and rebuilding their cultural foundations.

And three national organizations that are equally commendable:

Know Your Rights Camp: Colin Kapernicks traveling education camps aim to advance liberation and well-being for Black and Brown communities through self-empowerment and education.

Data 4 Black Lives: A movement of activists, organizers and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people.

National Fund Bail Network: A combination of more than 60 bail and bond funds across the country. Check bail funds by state, or specific category like protest bail funds.

Sheldon Smith of the Dovetail Project was one of CNNs 2016 Heroes of the Year (photo courtesy of Getty Images) Getty Images for Turner

What Your Company Can Do



Use blind hiring practices. Equity statements have been coming from every large organization, but without action, its just lip service. I personally have just started deleting them, I dont even read them anymore, says Dozier. I want to know what they are specifically doing and where their money goes. A clear and easy request you can make of your company is to employ blind hiring practices, especially during the early rounds of resume-culling. Research shows over and over that unconscious bias continually discriminates against minorities and women, with Black women suffering the most. Blind hiring techniques remove demographic information from a candidate  things like name, gender, age, school they attended and even education level  so the focus can be on the required skill set. Blind hiring helps with intersectionality (social categorizations that overlap: e.g., Black, disabled, gay, female) and promotes an actually diverse workplace, says Hachikian. If your HR department brushed you off citing the use of algorithms, Hachikian warns to push back on that. Many companies have moved to algorithmic hiring and algorithms are designed by people who themselves have bias, so the algorithms get that same bias. We have to be careful about those processes, she says.

Require bias training and education for managers. Bias training is crucial, but training alone wont solve systemic racism. As Dozier points out, our whole society is set up to affirm what we already have, it wont change in one training, it has to be ongoing. Dolly Chugh is an award-winning social psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business, and her research-backed book, The Person You Mean To Be: How Good People Fight Bias, is full of tools about how to stand up for others and change your behavior every day.

Review promotion practices and how people move up. Hachikian points to two effective bias busters companies can start immediately. First, studies show if people have to justify their promotion decisions out loud to a colleague, they tend to do better with diversity and are more fair. Second, pinpoint where Black, LatinX and female employees drop off in your organizations corporate ladder. Hachikian says, see what the system is doing and intervene at that specific point  be a little more surgical about it.

Update your background-check process. Theres a lot of bias that can prevent opportunities from people who really need them, says Carlton Mayers, II, Senior Policy Manager for Criminal Justice Reform at Heartland Alliance. His team is working on a bill for Illinois  Employee Background Fairness Act (HB4837 & SB3194)  that would create standards for private employers who consider criminal history information when hiring. Their recommendation for companies is twofold: First, disregard non-convictions (things like arrest records) when the defendant was not found guilty in court and juvenile records. Second, when reviewing an applicant who does have a criminal conviction on their record, apply an individualized assessment. Things like rehabilitative work should be considered. Also, review if their crime should be preventative of the specific work, says Mayers. For instance, if someone had a fraud conviction but will be operating a forklift, that conviction shouldnt preclude them from the labor job. The goal is to increase employment opportunities for people who have been in the criminal legal system, but have paid their debt and can still offer a lot of value to companies and society at large.

READI Chicago volunteers pick up trash (photo courtesy of Getty Images) Christian Science Monitor via Ge

Hire people with criminal records. Chasda Martin, Director of Programs for READI Chicago points out, being born into the wrong zip code can change your life forever. Her program works with five Chicago neighborhoods where residents are most at risk of gun-violence involvement and provides employment and healing opportunities as a way to break the cycle. This is a particularly at-risk group right now, as data shows 27 percent of formerly incarcerated people were unemployed, a rate higher than the national unemployment rate at its peak during the Great Depression. That was also before the COVID-19 pandemic. READI offers paid transitional jobs, cognitive behavioral therapy and support services to their participants. With their partner companies, READI creates viable opportunities for this population through paid work, and reassurance to companies nervous about hiring people with criminal records. You heal through relationships, says Kimeco Roberson, Community Project Manager at READI Chicago. If you want to hire people with barriers, or open your hiring practices to those who may have a barrier or a perceived background, you have to understand how to work with them. Companies that have worked with READI participants include the Greater Chicago Food Depository, City Colleges of Chicago and Revolution Workshop.

What Your Vote Can Do



There were no criminal-justice reforms passed in Illinois this last session, says Mayers. However, its not for a lack of trying. After the session was cut short due to COVID-19, social justice advocates are preparing their dockets for 20201. Heres a round up of some of the antiracist legislation you should be aware of. Pick one or all of them and start contacting your reps via phone and email.

End money bonds. In Americas justice system, defendants are innocent until proven guilty, however, they have to pay bail to get out of jail ahead of their trial. Racial and wealth equity come to a head on this point. Twenty-five percent of people in Cook County are Black, but 75 percent of people in Cook County jail are Black, says Sharlyn Grace, Executive Director of the Chicago Community Bond Fund (CCBF). Her organization pays bond for people charged with crimes in Cook County, and if you think thats a small group, think again. People in pretrial detention (aka unconvicted defendants) now make up more than two-thirds of Americas jail population. (Watch the Netflix documentary 13th for critical context on this.) CCBF says the removal of pretrial money bails is a critical aspect of racial justice and their statewide network is pushing for a bill in 2021 to eliminate money bonds in the state.

Increase public housing access. Bill HB206 creates a standard screening process for public housing authorities that would be used statewide. It provides more housing opportunities by creating a standard system that also allows for discretion. Currently, there are over 100 public housing agencies in Illinois, and each has their own requirements. The lack of a unified system causes problems for people that can only afford public housing and have a criminal record. For example, a person convicted of a misdemeanor (lets say a DUI) can get public housing from the Housing Authority of Cook County, but if they move to Richland County, the same misdemeanor constitutes a permanent ban from their public housing. In general, at least 50 percent of the population [in Illinois] has some kind of criminal history record, says Mayers.

End unnecessary background checks on college applications. Education and wealth inequity bars many Black students from attending elite colleges, and banning students with a criminal background further targets the number of Black collegiates. Illinois bill SB3517 removes the checkbox on college applications asking if applicants have a criminal history. Currently, background checks get triggered by that singular box on the application. This bill argues that background checks should only be completed after a student has been accepted and only if that individual wants to participate in campus activities and live in on-campus housing. Removing the box increases opportunities for people who have been involved in the criminal legal system to attend college.

Michael B. Jordan, Bryan Stevenson and Jamie Foxx at the premiere of Just Mercy (photo courtesy of Getty Images) Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

End permanent punishments. The Equal Justice Initiative  dramatized by Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx in Just Mercy  categorizes incarceration as a permanent punishment for many Americans. Loss of employment and housing, threatened immigration status, and disqualification from welfare benefits, student loans, and certain licenses often condemn formerly incarcerated people and their families to lifelong poverty. Heartland Alliances criminal reform agenda is called Fully Free and aims to replace these laws with laws that encourage stability. Permanent punishments are laws that restrict individuals from having access to opportunities to have a stable life, to get back on their feet, to have a fair chance, says Mayers.

Create antiracist COVID-19 relief. Due to systemic racism, Black institutions and businesses have historically been at a disadvantage to non-Black competitors; following COVIDs impact on the economy, the situation is even more dire, says Mahers. As the state begins to reopen and focuses on recovery, support relief initiatives that serve this population specifically. Thats antiracism in its simplest form.

Vote YES on H.R. 7085. A federal bill was introduced to the United States Congress on May 30 that would repeal the Qualified Immunity Act. Applied to all government officials, qualified immunity has gained attention since police officers fit under its umbrella. Under qualified immunity, government officials cant be sued for violating constitutional rights unless their actions transgress clearly established law. Essentially, its a way illegal police brutality has skirted legal retribution by languishing in the specifics of a case like exact location or day of the week. With qualified immunity gone, itd be easier to prosecute cops who violate civil rights. Not local to Illinois, but still voted on by your congressperson, learn more about qualified immunity here, and call your congressperson or write an email showing support of this bill.

The post How Citizens and Companies Can Support Antiracism in Chicago appeared first on InsideHook.
Just in case you missed anything, here's all the news we covered today. Click the bold links for more information.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Arizona crossed 84,000 as of Wednesday, July 1, after the state reported 4,878 new cases this morning, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

During their July 1 morning update, fire crews announced that the Bighorn Fire, which for weeks has burned across the Santa Catalina Mountains, is more than 50 percent contained. The wildfire has spread rapidly throughout the mountains north and east of Tucson due to strong winds and high temperatures, burning nearly 120,000 acres.

Take a break from the quarantine blues and head up to Oro Valley to enjoy some live music in a fun, safe, and family-friendly environment at the Gaslight Music Hall. Playing next Wednesday and Thursday are Little House of Funk and Backroads Country Band, respectively.

Thanks to a bunch of retirements and the untimely passing of Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias, Pima County will see a changing of the political guard. At the very least, there will be two new county supervisors, a new county attorney, a new county recorder and a new county assessor.

In this week's print edition, we published surveys from the three Marana town council candidates and Mayor Ed Honea, who is running unopposed.

State of the Town.jpeg Marana Mayor Ed Honea speaking at the 2019 Marana State of the Town address.

Read the responses of incumbent council members Dave Bowen and Roxanne Ziegler, as well as challenger Jackie Craig. Mayor Ed Honea's conversation with managing editor Logan Burtch-Buus can be found here.

From the Arizona State University Cronkite School of Journalism:

The number of new COVID-19 cases on the Navajo Nation is on a downward trend, but tribal leaders said Tuesday that does not mean they are ready to ease up on health restrictions.

Dust storms in Arizona can blow up suddenly, and the patch of desert between Eloy and Picacho Peak is especially prone to wind-driven dust. Dust drastically reduces visibility for drivers, which is why the Arizona Department of Transportation, ahead of monsoon season, has implemented a new dust detection system to protect drivers on Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Tucson.
Who is Marini Naturals owner? The gorgeous Michelle Ntalami is an award-winning entrepreneur from Kenya, famous for co-founding Marini Naturals, where she is now the chief executive officer. Michelle has an exciting life story making her one of the most influential women in the continent.

Image: instagram.com, @michelle.ntalami (modified by author)

Source: Instagram

Michelle leads a good life, having made a fortune from business involvements. She is always on spot for her experiences in early years, education, love life, family, and economics. The business girl is now unstoppable in what she does best to accumulate more love and money from her engagements.

Michelle Ntalami profile summary

Real name: Michelle Nkatha Ntalami

Michelle Nkatha Ntalami Date of birth: 23rd June 1984

23rd June 1984 Place of birth: Nairobi, Kenya

Nairobi, Kenya Michelle Ntalami age: 36 years old

36 years old Nationality: Kenyan

Kenyan Michelle Ntalami Instagram: @michelle.ntalami

@michelle.ntalami Michelle Ntalami Twitter: @MichelleNtalami

@MichelleNtalami Michelle Ntalami Facebook: @MichelleNtalami

@MichelleNtalami Relationship status: Single

Single Occupation: Businesswoman

Businesswoman Famous for: Starting Marini Naturals, an organic hair-care line where she works as CEO

READ ALSO: Who is Tanasha Donna Oketch? Meet Diamond's new girlfriend

Michelle Ntalami biography

Image: instagram.com, @marini.naturals

Source: Instagram

The business darling is daughter to Edward Haggai Ntalami and Maria Ntalami from Meru. Michelle Ntalami father, who passed on in 2014, worked as a senior executive in several institutions. For instance, he was the CEO of Kenya's financial regulator, the Capital Markets Authority (2002-2007), and before that, the Executive Director of Sterling Securities Limited. On the other hand, Michelle's mother was an employee of the United Nations.

Michelle Ntalami brother is Vincent Ntalami, the boss and founder at Innova Limited. In total, Michelle has three siblings. Michelle Ntalami family is very supportive of her ventures, with her parents helping her to raise funds to begin her business. Her mother is currently the Director of Marini Naturals.

Michelle Ntalami education

Michelle attended Loreto High School, Limuru, from where she obtained a B+ back in 2002. She proceeded to join the University of Nairobi from where she graduated in 2008 with a first-class honours degree in Corporate Design & Communication. She took a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing Strategy and Brand Management, and later Strategic Marketing Management, at Chartered Institute of Marketing. She later enrolled for masters at Italy's Florence Design Academy to sharpen her skills in Corporate Interior Design & Branding in 2014.

Michelle Ntalami dating

Is Ntalami married? Michelle Ntalami photos leave many drooling, and it is no surprise that everyone wants to know if the pretty, successful lady is taken. The business queen prefers to keep much of her personal life away from the public eye. However, it is clear that she has not yet walked down the aisle, so there is no Michelle Ntalami husband.

Michelle opened up about her worst relationship that took her seven years to heal. It was until she turned age 27 that Michelle rediscovered her lost love life. Several rumours have been dragging her name with the latest indicating she could be involved romantically with actress Christine Makena. These social stints will remain rumours until she opens up to deny or confirm them. Previously, there were stories about her romantic involvements with Dan Sonko, but there was no sufficient proof.

Michelle Ntalami career

Image: instagram.com, @marini.naturals

Source: Instagram

Like most graduates, Michelle sought employment after graduation. From 2009 to 2010, she worked as a Corporate Brand Executive at AccessKenya, and between 2010 and 2011, she worked as the Account Director at Squad Digital. In 2011 Michelle was the accounts manager for Coca Cola Company as an employee of Scanad Africa, a top advertising firm. At the same time, she was involved in other branding projects through her firm, Brandvine Group, which is, at the moment, mostly run by her partner, Niyati Patel.

Her dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2012, which made Michelle resolve to a healthy lifestyle. She even shaved her hair in solidarity and started using homemade natural products to grow it back. She shared the idea of starting Marini with her dad, who supported it. After Edward's death and after completing her studies in Italy, Michelle came back home and partnered with her best friend, Niyati Patel, to actualize her Marini dream.

Officially launching Marini Naturals on 19th November 2015 was the best decision for Michelle considering how the business has changed her career. The company specializes in the manufacturing of hair products, and the Swahili name Marini translates to naturally beautiful.

The young entrepreneur has been rocking the world of business with her powerful Marini Naturals organic brand. Though not disclosed, Michelle Ntalami salary must be good considering that her company supplies more than fifty thousand products to about 12 states every month, 10 of these countries being in Africa and the other two being Turkey and France.

Marini Naturals brand ambassador Fena Gitu works with the young CEO. She came into the business a couple of years ago, and the two enjoy a good personal and business relationship.

Michelle Ntalami nominations, awards, and credits

Besides founding Marine Naturals, Michelle brags about her wealth of knowledge in marketing and brand strategies. Okay Africa chose Michelle and featured her in the list of top 100 women in Africa in 2018. She also bags the credit of Top 40 Under 40. Michelle has earned several credits from leading institutions and brands such as Safaricom Blaze and CNN Africa. The heights of her success story have left people more determined than ever to find out how she does it all at her young age.

Michelle Ntalami net worth

There is no accurate figure about Michelle's net worth, but from her lifestyle, the tune of her wealth could range between $1 million and $5 million.

Where does Michelle live? Marine Naturals owner lives in Nairobi, Kenya, from where she is building her business empire.

Image: instagram.com, @michelle.ntalami

Source: Instagram

READ ALSO: Yasmin Said, Maria from Citizen TV: Quick facts and photos

The life of Kenyan born entrepreneur Michelle Ntalami is never without a story worth retelling. As a result, she is now a role model for several young people for her lifelong achievements. Michelle has won the admiration of many for her energetic spirit and smart dealings in business, and she is now a woman of interest outside Kenya for her unequalled influence and focus in the business world.

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Bridget Shighadi, Sofia from Maria on Citizen TV - quick facts and photos

Anerlisa Muigai bio, business, boyfriend, family, and weight loss

Source: Tuko
- Cooperative Bank of Kenya is now set to appoint a board that will run the new acquisition where it intends to inject at least KSh 1 billion

- The lender will leverage on Jamii Bora Bank's strategic niche in MSME banking and a base of 444,000 customers to broaden its market share

- The acquisition now awaits approval by Central Bank of Kenya, Capital Markets Authority and the Competition Authority of Kenya

- Co-op Bank had a profit of KSh 20.7 billion as at December 31, 2019, and on April 23, 2020 and paid out over KSh 5.9 billion in dividends to shareholders

Shareholders of Jamii Bora Bank have given Cooperative Bank of Kenya the green light to acquire 90% of its stake.

The decision was arrived at following a general meeting convened on Wednesday, July 1, and paved the way for Co-op Bank to acquire 224,153,154 new class of ordinary shares thus enabling the lender to inject KSh 1 billion in it.

READ ALSO: Meru man who was forced to spend cold night next to wife's casket takes gov't to court

Co-op Bank CEO Gideon Muriuki said the offer was set to safeguards the existing shareholders of Jamii Bora and also expand Co-op Bank's market share. Photo: Co-op Bank.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Kenyan newspapers review for July 2: Hope for reopening of country dims as CAS Mwangangi, Aman send mixed signals

Co-op Bank is now expected to appoint a board to run the new acquisition that boasts of 444,000 customers in 17 branches across the country and employs over 190 staff.

"The strategic entry of Co-op Bank coming in as a 90% strategic owner is an 'Inclusive Growth Model' that particularly safeguards the existing shareholders of Jamii Bora; in that they will now share in the expected future transformation gains and profitability growth," said Co-op CEO Gideon Muriuki.

READ ALSO: Betty Bayo admits she once bleached her skin for young lover: "I was sure he'd marry me"

Jamii Bora Bank has up to 444,000 customers and 17 branches across the country. Photo: Jamii Bora Bank.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Woman shares emotional moment her house help broke down in tears to thank her

In the offer, Coop Bank will also acquire Jamii Bora Leasing Limited and Jamii Bora Insurance Agency Limited.

Jamii Bora Bank has a strategic niche in MSME banking, offering working capital and trade finance solutions, avenues that Coop Bank seeks to leverage on in a move to broaden its market share.

"This acquisition will strengthen both institutions leveraging on the Co-operative Banks well-established universal banking model as well as our successful business transformation agenda and turnaround riding on the bedrock of the 15 million-member co-operative movement and a KSh 470 billion balance sheet," added Muriuki.

READ ALSO: Rais Uhuru azawadi Nzoia Sugar FC basi jipya na KSh2M za kujikimu

The acquisition now awaits approval by market regulators; Central Bank of Kenya, Capital Markets Authority and the Competition Authority of Kenya.

Co-op Bank also has shareholding at CIC Insurance Group ( 24.7%) and Co-op Bank Fleet Africa Leasing Limited (25%).

Its subsidiaries include Co-optrust Investment Services Limited (100%), Co-op Consultancy and Insurance Agency Limited (100%), Kingdom Securities Limited (60%) and Co-operative Bank of South Sudan Limited (51%).

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.

Fighting spirit husbands, Spirit wives and breaking soul ties with Pastor T | Tuko Talks | Tuko TV.

Source: Tuko News
- Patrick Rading and Janet Magoma allegedly released a CCTV footage showing Uhuru and Raila walking in Nairobi's CBD at night

- The two were charged with unauthorised interception of computer data contrary to section 17 (1) of the Computer Misuse and Cyber Crime Act

- They denied the charges and their lawyer asked for statements from Raila and Uhuru who are named as the complainants

Two security personnel who were arrested for allegedly leaking CCTV footage of President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga will know their fate on July 9.

This was after it emerged that the investigating officer following up the matter had not recorded any statement from the two leaders listed as complainants in the court documents.

READ ALSO: CS Joe Mucheru says Uhuru drives himself around at night to inspect govt projects

Uhuru and Raila in the past. A CCTV footage captured them walking Nairobi streets at night. Photo: State House Kenya.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: We can't order Babu Owino's arrest, he's out on bail enjoying constitutional right - DPP Noordin Haji

Appearing before a Nairobi court on Thursday, July 2, through lawyer Danstan Omari, the accused identified as Patrick Rading and Janet Magoma requested statements from their accusers.

The defence lawyer also demanded the investigating officer supply them and the court with the original clip that captured Uhuru and Raila stroll in the Nairobi streets at night.

We had requested statements from the complainant who is the president of this country and Raila Odinga who were alleged to have been in the entourage,to date those statements have not come, he told the court.

READ ALSO: Anne Waiguru slams Kirinyaga MCAs for slashing her budget to settle political scores

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The suspects had on June 17, denied charges of unauthorised interception of computer data contrary to section 17 (1) of the Computer Misuse and Cyber Crime Act.

Senior principal magistrate Bernard Ochoi heard that Rading and Magoma were in charge of the CCTV security control room at a city hotel which they apparently leaked.

On June 2, 2020, at around 2020 hours at Nairobi county within the Republic of Kenya jointly intentionally and without authorisation intercepted a security CCTV footage capturing the head of states entourage along Kenyatta avenue, read the charge sheet.

Through their lawyers Omari and Apollo Mboya, they maintained the offence they were charged with does not exist in the Constitution.

"We want the head of state and former prime minister to record their statements. This offense does not exist in law. Our clients were never in State House. We shall be asking for a statement from Raila on the alleged viral clip," they said.

In the video, the two leaders were seen stopping along Kenyatta Avenue before getting out of a small vehicle as they were followed from behind by a Toyota V8.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

I will never give up on my children - Martin Kilavi | Tuko TV.

Source: Tuko
- Senator Moses Wetang'ula urged Kenyans to willingly go for testing as they prepare for a possible reopening of the country next week

- The lawmaker shared his COVID-19 test results which showed he was negative for the virus

- The number of COVID-19 cases in Kenya is less than 100 shy of the 7,000 mark after 268 more people tested positive for the virus

Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula has tested negative for COVID-19.

Wetang'ula who went for his test on June 30 and promised to make the results public urged Kenyans to voluntarily take COVID-19 tests especially due to a possible reopening of the economy on Monday, July 6.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus update: COVID-19 count rises to, 6,941 as 268 more test positive

Senator Wetang'ula urged Kenyans to willingly take a COVID-19 test. Photo: Moses Wetang'ula.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Mombasa bishop dies of COVID-19 barely 3 months after son was killed by same disease

The senator lived up to his promise and shared the test results Thursday, July 2, which showed he was negative.

"Fellow Kenyans, as we approach the possible reopening of the country to near normal socioeconomic conditions, please go for voluntary COVID-19 testing," he wrote on his Twitter.

READ ALSO: Atwoli in heated argument with Khalwale over Uhurus bus donation: "You are not normal"

This came days after reports emerged that six legislators had contracted the novel coronavirus and admitted to various hospitals.

Several other lawmakers who were suspected to have come into contact with the ones admitted were rushed to different hospitals over the weekend to get tested for COVID-19.

READ ALSO: Moving photo of mother sleeping with her child next to her food items stirs emotions

Reports emerged that six MPs had contracted coronavirus. Photo: National Assembly.

Source: UGC

At least 20 legislators had gone for testing after interacting with a senior official of the National Assembly who is currently admitted.

Nominated senator Isaac Mwaura also recently took the test on Tuesday, June 30, at the drive-in test booths located outside the Senate.

READ ALSO: Tuko na wewe hata bunge, Seneta Omanga amwambia DP Ruto

"Just had a COVID-19 test. It takes less than five minutes and is easy. The nose swab is a little uncomfortable. Let many of us test to ensure safety for all,"he confirmed.

This unfolded at a time when the COVID-19 national tally was less than 100 shy of the 7,000 mark.

Though there have been mixed signals from the government on a possible reopening of the economy next week, Kenyans are hopeful the country will reopen to salvage the crippling economy.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

I will never give up on my children - Martin Kilavi | Tuko TV.

Source: Tuko Breaking News
- President Uhuru said the Kazi Mtaani program was aimed at helping youth who had been affected by the COVID-19

- Uhuru warned administrators against nepotism in the recruitment and also mismanagement of funds as was the case in the NYS project

- The head of state also said the project will be free from political interference and warned politicians against using the initiative to get votes

- The Kazi Mtaani program was rolled out across 23 informal settlements countrywide in phases to provide job opportunities to young people

President Uhuru Kenyatta has warned administrators against unfairness in the recruitment of youth in the Kazi Mtaani program.

Uhuru said regional and county commissioners should refrain from nepotism and favouritism in hiring young people for the program which was aimed at helping those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

READ ALSO: Schools to re-open in 2021 if Uhuru considers education stakeholders' recommendations

Uhuru asked regional commissioners to be transparent in the recruitment of the youth in the Kazi Mtaani program. Photo: State House.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Atwoli in heated argument with Khalwale over Uhurus bus donation: "You are not normal"

Speaking at KICC on Thursday, July 2, during the close of a two-day training workshop on Kazi Mtaani for the commissioners, the president also said the initiative would be free from political interference and warned politicians against using it for mileage.

The head of state also warned against mismanagement of funds as was the case in the National Youth Service (NYS) project.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Groom dies 2 days after wedding, infects 100 guests

"Recruit people who are in need and not brothers, sisters or cousins. This money should only help people who are in real need. The first test for you will be the recruitment," Uhuru said.

Many of you will recall that a similar program was unfortunately abused. I have to be very clear with you, we will not entertain abuse this time around," he added

In his remarks, Interior CS Fred Matiangi reiterated Uhuru's message saying the national roll-out of the program must meet the highest levels of integrity and transparency.

READ ALSO: Safaricom yatangaza kukatiza huduma za M-Pesa Alhamisi

CS Matiang'i asked the administrators not to let the president down. Photo: TUKO.co.ke.

Source: Original

"So far, so good. We have had very positive reports from the field. The level of commitment, focus and effectiveness are very high.

"But still, much more is demanded of us to go forward. Its then upon us not to let the president down, the CS told the administrators.

The programme was to be rolled out across 23 informal settlements countrywide in phases to provide job opportunities.

READ ALSO: Rolling like a Queen: TV girl Muli stuns fans with sleek Mazda that takes her around town

In Nairobi, 10,600 youths living in Mathare, Kibera, Mukuru and Korogocho slums were enlisted in the first phase of the employment initiative.

The youth will be expected to undertake daily sanitation and environment preservation duties in their respective settlements during the one-month program

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 untold story of talented Huruma Town Kids sleeping hungry | Tuko TV.

Source: Tuko
Having a great credit score can have a major impact on your quality of life, but building a strong credit score can take years. Experian, one of the three credit reporting bureaus, wants to make it easier. Experian Boost is a free service that allows consumers to add additional data to their credit histories with []
OKLAHOMA CITY  About 2,500 applications were submitted for grant funds through the Oklahoma Business Relief Program (OBRP).

Once more than $50 million in relief had been requested through OBRP, which was developed to help business overcome the challenges of COVID-19, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce closed the applications, ending phase 1.

We are excited that so many Oklahoma companies submitted applications for OBRP, Sean Kouplen, Oklahoma Secretary of Commerce and Workforce Development, said in a statment. The overwhelming interest highlights the extensive need for these funds.

The Commerce team, along with the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, worked to get this program launched quickly because we wanted to act swiftly to help Oklahoma businesses. I know that the application phase for this program was short, but we are working on the next phase of this program and hope to make it available to even more Oklahoma businesses.
The City of Sand Springs has taken more steps as it attempts to stay ahead of the expected surge of COVID-19 impact from the pandemic within the Sand Springs community.

Sand Springs Police placed an order for several COVID-19 personal safety kiosks for use across the city, and those kiosks are expected to arrive in mid-July and will be stationed at the Billie A. Hall Public Safety Complex, the Sand Springs Case Community Center, the City of Sand Springs Municipal Building and the Citys Spring Lake Public Works Complex.

Each station will feature a touch free temperature check, a liquid COVID-19 disinfectant dispenser and a personal safety mask dispenser. There is no cost for the public to utilize the kiosks while visiting any of the four city locations.

Sand Springs Mayor James Spoon commends the action, We simply want to be proactive and visible within the community as we all work together to combat this widespread health pandemic. We feel these kiosks will be of great value for our citizens and we look forward to placing them in service soon.
For the Kialegees, the exclusivity fee is set at 12% for the first two years their casino is open; then the sliding scale will be implemented for the rest of the compacts duration.

Additionally, each tribe would pay an 18% exclusivity fee on revenue from nonhouse-banked table and card games, such as roulette, craps, poker and blackjack.

Located in central Oklahoma, Logan County is about 90 minutes west of the UKBs jurisdictional area. The only casino in the county is a 40-machine property in Coyle operated by the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.

However, the Otoe-Missouria Tribes recently signed compact also includes the states approval for the Red Rock-based tribe to open a facility in the same county pending a successful land trust application.

Section 20 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act includes provisions for tribes to take land into trust outside of their jurisdictional areas if certain conditions are met, including approval from state officials.

For the Kialegees, that state approval is contingent upon signing an agreement with another tribe by June 30, 2021, to jointly manage the casino. Additionally, the tribe must submit its application to the federal government for consideration under the IGRA by June 30, 2023.
Six more people in Oklahoma have died from COVID-19, and 427 new cases reported, as the disease continues to ravage the U.S.

In Oklahoma, 14,539 people have contracted the infection since early March, and 395 people have died from the it, according to Oklahoma State Department of Health data.

Six of those deaths were reported Thursday: a Tulsa County woman who was older than 65; two women from Comanche County, also older than 65; and three people from McCurtain County, one older than 50 and two older than 65.

In the U.S., there have been more than 2.68 million infections, up 50,000 from Wednesday, and more than 128,000 deaths, up 645 from Wednesday.

There are 368 Oklahomans hospitalized for the disease or under investigation for the disease.

In Tulsa County, there were 136 new infections reported Thursday. Public health models indicate that the county could surge to 10,000 to 15,000 cumulative cases within the next six weeks if the current trajectory holds true.
Tulsa Countys positive COVID-19 cases could surge to a cumulative total of 10,000 to 15,000 within the next six weeks if the current trajectory doesnt turn around, according to Tulsa Health Department models.

In the roughly four months since the pandemic began in March, 3,544 cases have been reported in the county through Wednesday. The Tulsa Health Departments models project the possibility of about 6,000 to 11,000 new cases in just six weeks.

Monica Rogers, division chief of data and technology for THD, said this week that Sunday was the first day since May 31 that actual confirmed cases in Tulsa County dipped below model projections. Rogers and her team have pegged the countys R-0 value, which represents how contagious a disease is, at between 1.4 and 1.6. At 1.8, Rogers said, the disease spread becomes critical or out of control at a nearly exponential rate.

An R-0, or R-naught, value of 1.6 means each infected person on average infects 1.6 others. The spread stays flat at an R-0 of 1.0 and begins decreasing below that threshold.
The Chromebooks, she said, are for the opening of a new virtual academy serving prekindergarten through eighth grade. Theyll also make it easier to support distance learning at elementary sites.

Our districts indicated an urgent need for funds dedicated to connectivity and digital learning materials, and for good reason, Hofmeister said in a news release. The pandemic has created a clarion call throughout the state and nation to bridge the digital divide. It is imperative that districts be equipped to take swift and decisive action to ensure all kids are learning amid a global pandemic, including in virtual or blended environments that best meet local context and the needs of families.

Additionally, Stitt said the grants align with one of his priority education initiatives this year.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of digital transformation and the need for our students to have access to quality technology in order to enhance learning opportunities, the governor said in the news release. I appreciate the commitment of Supt. Hofmeister, OSDE and our local school districts as we continue to ensure these dollars are maximized to the benefit of our students and educators across the state.

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Kyle Hinchey 918-581-8451 kyle.hinchey@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @kylehinchey
While national media reports have described Tulsa as a long shot, with some going so far as to say the company has already settled on Austin, Musk isnt the kind of person who would be wasting time if he wasnt seriously considering the city, Kouplen said.

The interest is real, he said, and we still have a very good shot.

Even if this factory goes to Austin after all, it wont be Tulsas last chance with company, Kouplen said.

This wont be the last factory they build or the last investment they make, he said. Were building a relationship with Tesla that will continue regardless of what happens this time.

Meanwhile, just being a finalist for Teslas factory has already given Tulsa and the rest of Oklahoma more credibility with other companies, Kouplen said. His office is currently working on at least 115 economic development opportunities across the state, with many of the companies giving the state a serious look as a direct result of Teslas interest, he said.

One thing we know that has impressed Tesla is the communitys enthusiasm, Kouplen said. And thats why the final push to bring the company to Tulsa will involve a social media campaign, with a plea for as many Oklahomans as possible to spread the new video, he said.
The gathering, with Back the Blue signs and flags, grew to about 150 people as the sun fell behind the arena. Once the escort ended, several officers from the Tulsa Police Department made their way to the event.

One, Officer Darrell Ross of Live PD fame and the Mingo Valley Division, spoke about Johnson, his fallen friend and mentor. Ross said the man who had taught him so much wouldnt want his death to be in vain.

He taught me how to cop, Ross said. He was a good man, a family man and an honest man.  He taught me how to teach other officers to do the right thing, to be a part of the community.

The day my friend and Officer Aurash Zarkeshan were shot, I was angry. My sisters beside me, my brothers beside me, they were angry, too. But that is not what he taught me.  I ask each and every one of you not to move forward with hate in your heart. I want you to move forward with love.

A small group of protesters across Third Street held signs, but apart from one shouting match between two people who were promptly told to keep it down, the rally remained peaceful.
"With all the lawlessness that weve seen across the nation in the recent months and weeks, then the shooting in Tulsa kind of brought it to a head that these people that are out there on the front lines need encouragement, they need support, they need respect, they need to know that we have their backs as they defend us, he said.
Tulsa Police Officer Jeanne Pierce said the procession had made its way from Tulsa to Oklahoma City in relation to Johnsons organ donations.

The Highway Patrol reported that Johnsons body was being taken to LifeShare Transplant Donor Services of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City.

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin confirmed that no Tulsa police officers were injured in the crash. Bynum said the citys thoughts and prayers were with the injured troopers.

Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement: I ask Oklahomans to join the first lady and me in praying for the recovery of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers who were injured, for their families and for all those affected by this terrible accident.

It is always difficult to receive news of first responders being injured in the line of duty, but it is especially heartbreaking to learn this incident happened during the procession for an officer who was senselessly murdered while protecting his community.
Shippensburg, PA (17257)

Today

Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 91F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Isolated thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy after midnight with light rain possible. Low 64F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum says the city will implement a requirement that should have been in place since May 1: requiring hospitality workers to wear masks.

Bynum said in a COVID-19 briefing Thursday afternoon that all restaurant and bar employees will be required to wear masks. Also, any indoor or outdoor event over 500 people held on or after July 16 will be required to have a coronavirus safety plan approved by the Tulsa County Health Department.

In Tulsa County, there were 136 new infections reported Thursday. Public health models indicate that the county could surge to 10,000 to 15,000 cumulative cases within the next six weeks if the current trajectory holds true.

"We've received pushback on our modeling, but data shows the case counts are higher than what we modeled," said Dr. Bruce Dart of the Tulsa Health Department. If people don't normalize masks, 6 feet of separation and hand washing then "we have a great potential to be overwhelmed" regarding hospital health care system, he said.
Tulsa police issued a Silver Alert early Thursday after a woman with memory issues was reported missing.

Imogene Harding, 83, was last seen about 8 a.m. Wednesday in the area of the 400 block of West Latimer Street, according to a news release. Police said in the release that she has problems with memory.

Harding may be driving a blue Chevrolet Spark bearing Oklahoma tag HJG 231, according to the release.

Those who may know of her whereabouts or believe they may have seen her are asked to call 911.
Prior to it, she said 97,000 Oklahomans with mental health diagnoses were uninsured, and many were only able to access state services when they were in crisis.

Mental illness is a progressive disease, White said. When it goes untreated, it gets worse.

Having health coverage for Oklahomans that allows them to access treatment at the first sign and symptom can keep diseases from becoming lifelong struggles, she said.

Other states that opted to expand Medicaid have seen the number of their mental health hospital stays cut nearly in half, which White said is promising for Oklahoma.

Nobody wants to be in the hospital for care for any disease if they can avoid it, White said. And to know we have a shot at that?

Scott Hamilton, MHAOK board member and chair of the search committee said the board could not be happier with White as the new CEO.

She is the ideal person to continue the organizations mission to promote mental health, prevent suicide, end homelessness and transform the criminal justice system, Hamilton said in a news release.

Michael Madsen, MHAOKs board president, echoed Hamiltons thoughts in the same release.
"You don't want things so convenient that you don't even know when fraud might be occurring, but on the other hand you don't want it so secure no one can vote," the state election board secretary says.
Father's Day was spent in under more quiet conditions than usual because of the extended curfew in effect. But the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation has taken the lockdown period to combat the spread of COVID-19 through a sanitisation programme. Here's Alicia Boucher with the details.
The commander of the Joint Forces of Ukraines Armed Forces and the leadership of the U.S. European Command's Office of Defense Cooperation discussed the scope of possible assistance from the United States and issues of improving work efficiency.

This was reported by the press service of the Command of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces.

To implement a bilateral cooperation program, Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant-General Serhiy Nayev held a working meeting with the leadership of the United States European Commands (EUCOM) Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC). The meeting was held as part of the U.S. Government program to implement information technology solutions for the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the report says.

During the meeting, Lieutenant-General Nayev informed those present about the security situation in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) area, as well as about the processes of transformation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the fulfillment of tasks to increase compatibility and implement NATO standards.

During the dialogue, the parties discussed the scope of possible assistance from the United States and issues of improving the efficiency of the management and control system.

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Annexation could set the Mideast on fire. But Netanyahu has kept Israels security and intelligence chiefs completely in the dark  and now hes replacing them with acquiescent loyalists





by Yossi Melman





July 1 has come and gone  the earliest date that the Netanyahu government could announce the annexation of the West Bank, or at least parts of it. It didn't happen, but in the shadow of the Israeli prime minister's still-extant promise to annex, and the forceful resurgence of the coronavirus, this is a dramatic time in Israeli history, and perhaps in all the annals of Zionism.





Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, with Mossad head Yossi Cohen at an event, October 2, 2017.Credit: Haim Zach/GPO

Annexation may bring an end to Israel as a democratic and Jewish state, replacing it with either a binational entity or, even worse, an Israeli apartheid, accompanied by a spiraling COVID-19 illness rate.





And yet despite the urgency of the moment, and the ramifications of annexation  with the potential of triggering a new war with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas (finding rare cooperation in necessity) which could set the Middle East on fire, Israels security and intelligence chiefs are being completely kept in the dark. Netanyahu is excluding them from the decision-making process, in a power-play inversion of the intelligence worlds compartmentalization rule.





In such critical times, Israel needs stable, continuous and experienced leaders for its famed national security infrastructure. But the exact opposite is occurring. In the coming months no less than five senior members of the security establishment face replacement.





They are: Yossi Cohen, head of Mossad (Israels foreign espionage agency); Nadav Argaman, head of the Shin Bet, (domestic security service); Major-General Tamir Hayman, chief of Military Intelligence, and its Research Directorate director, Brigadier-General Dror Shalom; and finally, Meir Ben Shabat, head of the National Security Council.





Those personnel changes are a matter of routine bureaucracy and legal requirement, as their terms end soon. But it means that the only constant in the top tier of Israels intelligence and defense realms will be IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi  staying on for at least another two and half years  and Netanyahu himself, to whom the Mossad and Shin Bet are directly answerable.





In the past, before making decisions on strategic, political or security matters, Israel's prime ministers would consult defense and intelligence leaders, and might well accept their opinions.





In the lead-up to the annexation date, Netanyahu neither convened those experts nor asked for their opinions. The decision whether to annex or not will be made solely between the left and rights lobes of Netanyahus head.





By belittling his security chiefs in such an unprecedented manner, Netanyahu follows in the footsteps of U.S. President Donald Trump who declared war on his intelligence community even before he entered the White House.





The concern now is that Netanyahu will exploit the degradation of national security officials who could have tried to push back against annexation and use the upcoming turnover period to install amenable yes-men. In other words, to further cultivate the seeds hes already planted to politicize the top echelon of Israels security establishment.





In its first 15 years of independence, during which Israel was ruled by founding father and Labor party leader David Ben-Gurion, the civil service in general, and the intelligence community in particular, were heavily politicized. Since then, the intelligence community underwent a kind of cleansing, a professionalization, with a commitment shared with the country's premier to select senior officials for their merit and skills, not their political and ideological tendencies.





Those norms  of disregarding security chiefs' backgrounds and expecting them to be true civil servants, loyal to the state and respecting the law  held firm until Netanyahu came to power in 2010.





Since then, and in an accelerating manner over the last five years, Netanyahu has tried to reverse the process, taking Israel back to the days when politics routinely contaminated intelligence assessments and actions. One key playing field for Netanyahus sustained pressure is the process of nominating candidates to serve as the chiefs of Israels natsec community.





In 2011, Netanyahu nominated Yoram Cohen, a Shin Bet officer who grew up in a religious home and went through the state religious school system, to lead the service. The prime minister believed that Cohen was a right-winger, and hoped he would be soft on militant Jewish settlers. However, Cohen remained loyal to his professional norms.





Despite that disappointment, Netanyahu tried again to appoint what he thought would be an acquiescent gate-keeper. It was Roni Alsheich, also a Shin Bet operative, with a similar upbringing to Yoram Cohen; Alsheich was selected by Netanyahu to command the National Police service.





Once again, Netanyahus hopes were dashed when Alsheich refused to stop the police investigating Netanyahu. Those investigation led to the prime ministers indictment of criminal charges of corruption; his trial opens this month.





Netanyahu remained indefatigable in his quest to domesticate the security establishment. In 2016, he appointed Yossi Cohen, who also grew up in a religious community, as head of the Mossad.





Nobody denies that Cohen is an outstanding intelligence officer. However, one of the main reasons for Netanyahu handpicking him to head the Mossad was the close relationship Cohen had cultivated with him and his influential wife Sara.





Netanyahu has not concealed the fact that a critical precondition for these lofty appointments is loyalty to him. The only time a candidate has pushed back against that conditionality was when he announced he would appoint Tamir Pardo to replace Meir Dagan as Mossad head in 2011. Pardo said that he would be loyal to the job and to the country. Netanyahu appointed him anyway.





The prime minister also asked similar questions of the three candidates to replace Pardo. Eventually, Netanyahu nominated Yossi Cohen, who doesnt hesitate to conflate Israel with the prime minister: he sees his office as owing loyalty to Netanyahu, as to all previous Israeli PMs, because they are the state.





Meir Ben Shabat, currently head of the National Security Council and a leading candidate to replace Argaman as head of the Shin Bet, is another important example of Netanyahus devious efforts to personalize security chiefs to his tastes and interests. Shabat is a Shin Bet veteran and is also a member of the religious community.





For most of his term as Sin Bet head, Argaman has exhibited resilience and grit, not hesitating to offer security assessments that would irritate Netanyahu and his right-wing government.





Argaman is particularly sensitive to annexations potential to fuel a new round of violence, not least due to his key responsibility to prevent terror attacks. Based on his professional expertise, Argaman is also very concerned about the future relations with Jordan.





In recent years, the center of gravity of the special strategic ties with the Hashemite Kingdom has moved from the Mossad to the Shin Bet. Throughout his term, Argaman was forced at least twice to deactivate mines sown by Netanyahu that threatened to blow up relations with the Amman. Once, when Netanyahu, backed by the police and contrary to the opinion of the Shin Bet, ordered metal detectors to be installed at the entrances to the Temple Mount. The second occasion was when a security guard at the Israeli Embassy in Amman shot and killed a Jordanian worker, and Netanyahu applauded his actions.





Argaman and the most other NSC heads are well aware that annexation will fray the already fragile relations with King Abdullah.





They face a determined opposition from Netanyahu loyalists Yossi Cohen and Ben Shabat, who are convinced Jordan needs Israel more than the anger being expressed at annexation; they will therefore swallow any decision by the prime minister.





Ben Shabat actively favors annexation, and believes relations with Jordan are solid enough to overcome even the tensions that annexation will cause. He even said in the past that although annexing the Jordan Valley would cause short-term tension, at the strategic level and over the long term, Jordan would ultimately benefit from severing its onerous relationship with the Palestinian Authority.





But Argaman, IDF Chief of Staff Kochavi, Military Intelligence head Hayman and most of their senior subordinates feel otherwise. They believe the annexation, partial or not, would accrue more damage than any possible advantages.





Difference of opinions, non-conformism, pluralism and original and creative thinking are important signs of health for any countrys intelligence community. Silencing security and intelligence chiefs is clearly a sign of a diseased democracy.





The greatest challenge of any intelligence organization is to prevent its politicization tainting its professional judgment. Such a contamination is extremely hard to reverse: Once national security considerations are not purely professional but geared to appeasing vested interests, or the personal political needs of the boss, as is happening now in Israel, its hard to eliminate the blight.





The security and intelligence leaderships, degraded and under pressure, become accustomed to giving the leader the picture that he wants, and not a real assessment. Its hard to think of a more perilous situation for Israels security.





( The writer is a columnist for Haaretz, where this piece first appeared)




Granting Ukraine NATOs Enhanced Opportunities Partner status will allow sharing intelligence data, enhancing cooperation in maintaining security in the Black Sea, and improving interoperability with the armies of NATO member countries.

This status opens up much greater opportunities for our troops, in particular in sectoral interoperability with NATO, access to almost all Alliance exercises, intelligence sharing, enhanced cooperation in maintaining security in the Black Sea, and so on. The Armed Forces of Ukraine seek to make the most of the opportunities provided by the Program. So, there is an interest in involving crisis consultations in their early stages. We gained some experience by participating in the preparation of the Assessment of the Security Situation in the Black Sea Region last year and are ready to continue this mutually beneficial practice, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Ruslan Khomchak said in an interview with ArmyInform media outlet.

He also noted that Ukraine was interested in more intensive involvement of units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in individual and collective training activities organized and conducted in NATO, in particular, in exercises on the subject of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. Among other things, and according to the scenarios of collective defense and crisis response. In addition, we are considering holding positions at Allied headquarters that will be related to more functional tasks, not just military cooperation, Khomchak added.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is confident that granting Ukraine the status of a member of the Enhanced Opportunity Program will be mutually beneficial for both the Alliance and Ukrainians. [The] independent, democratic, sovereign and strong Ukraine is the key to European security. In addition, NATO officers have already borrowed heavily the combat experience from our soldiers, he noted.

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The Japanese government will provide more than $4 million to meet humanitarian needs and rebuild Ukraine's eastern regions.

Japan's Ambassador to Ukraine Takashi Kurai said this at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday, July 1, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Japan assures you of its readiness to continue to support Ukraine in defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity - as it did at the time of its independence - by assisting in the implementation of reforms for democratization and economic development," the ambassador said.

He said a major priority for Japan was "the safety and well-being of residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions."

"So five additional projects funded by our government for $4.23 million will be implemented this year by four UN agencies - the UN Development Program, the UN Office for Project Services, the International Organization for Migration and UNHCR, as well as with the participation of the ICRC. The total amount of such assistance now reaches 51.4 million U.S. dollars, including current projects," Kurai said.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksiy Reznikov thanked the ambassador, as well as non-governmental international organizations, for assistance and systematic aid to Ukraine.

"What the Japanese government is doing today financially is being done for the people. What the UN and ICRC team members are doing today is being done for the people. They are real ambassadors who carry the warmth and love required by people who suffer from this hybrid war," Reznikov added.

He also stressed that the allocated funds would be used to meet humanitarian needs, support vulnerable groups, restore the eastern regions of Ukraine and provide emergency assistance to the health care system of Ukraine for servicemen.

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Ukraine has increased natural gas imports from the EU countries by 24% in the first half-year of 2020.

In the first half-year of 2020, natural gas imports from the EU reached 7 billion cubic meters. This is 30% (1.3 billion cubic meters) more than in the same period last year. That is also 40% more than the average in 2016-2019, the press service of the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine informs.

According to the operational data by LLC GTS Operator of Ukraine, 1.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas were imported to Ukraine in June 2020. This is 9% more (by 154 million cubic meters) than the import volumes in June 2019. And 36% more (by 482 million cubic meters) exceeding the import volumes in April 2020

During the first half-year of 2020, imports from Slovakia were about 3.9 billion cubic meters (+16% compared to the same period last year), from Hungary  2.2 billion cubic meters (+39%), from Poland  0.9 billion cubic meters (+34%).

It should be noted that import volumes include the virtual reverse, which became available for the first time since this year: from Hungary  1.2 billion cubic meters and from Poland  0.5 billion cubic meters, the statement reads.

Since the beginning of the year, 3.7 billion cubic meters of imported volumes, including 49% or 1.8 billion cubic meters in short-haul mode,  were transferred to underground gas storages to be stored in the customs warehouse mode.

As of today, all imported volumes of natural gas come exclusively from EU countries. Since November 2015, Ukraine has not been importing gas from the Russian Federation, the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine underscores.

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The Ukrainian Finance Ministry believes that the resignation of Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Yakiv Smolii will not affect the national currency.

Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said this at a briefing on Thursday, July 2, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"I believe that there is no reason to worry about the exchange rate due to the resignation of a high-ranking official. We may see turbulence today, but the necessary decisions will be made and everything will calm down soon. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that this will change the situation in the foreign exchange market," Marchenko said.

He added that the resignation of the NBU head should not affect the macroeconomic stability of the state. "We now have more opportunities and resources than ever to ensure macroeconomic stability," Marchenko said.

He said that as of July 1, there was UAH 75 billion and over UAH 2 billion in foreign currency on the single treasury account. This, according to the minister, enables the government to control the situation with public finances and ensure all government obligations to international partners and citizens.

On July 1, Smolii tendered his resignation due to "systematic political pressure." On July 2, President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted a motion to the Verkhovna Rada to dismiss Smolii as NBU governor.

Smolii was appointed to the post in March 2018.

The International Monetary Fund said that after Smolii's resignation, the NBU's independence must be maintained by his successor.

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The UN Security Council has approved a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in all armed conflicts (including in Donbas) and for humanitarian and medical assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN Oleg Nikolenko has said.

"One hundred days after the UN Secretary-General's call for a global ceasefire during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Security Council finally approved the long-awaited resolution today," the diplomat wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday, July 1.

The document, in particular, demands a "general and immediate cessation of hostilities" in all conflict situations and calls on all parties to armed conflicts to "engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days."

According to the resolution, this should enable the safe, unhindered and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance, provisions of related services by impartial humanitarian actors, in accordance with international law, including international humanitarian law and refugee law.

Ukraine has repeatedly expressed its support for the UN Secretary-General's initiative and the international community's efforts for a global ceasefire during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the Russian side tried to manipulate this initiative and stated that this first required the lifting of all international sanctions, including those imposed on Russia over its aggression in Donbas and the occupation of Crimea.
The ambassadors of the G7 countries commented on the decision of Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Yakiv Smolii to resign, saying that undermining the independence of this institution could be a big step back.

An independent National Bank is a foundational achievement for Ukraine that has reduced corruption, driven growth and rescued a failed banking sector, reads a statement on the Twitter account of the U.S. Presidency of the G7 Ambassadors Support Group in Kyiv.

To undermine this crucial institution would be a big step back and jeopardize the credibility of and support for Ukraines reforms, the ambassadors noted.

On July 1, NBU Governor Yakiv Smolii submitted a letter of resignation to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In turn, the Office of the President of Ukraine assured that the Board of the National Bank will continue its work on the principles of independence and professionalism.

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France has invited Ukraine to participate in the download and analysis of the "black boxes" of the UIA plane shot down in Iran earlier this year.

"Today, Ukraine has received an invitation from France to send our experts to participate in the download of black boxes of PS752, which (according to Iran's preliminary promises) should be delivered in Lyon on July 20 this year," Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Yenin posted on Facebook.

Ukraine's task is to ensure the maximum level of international recognition of the facts of illegal interference in the case of PS752 flight, Yenin stressed.

"It will bring us all closer to justice and decent compensation to families of the victims!" the deputy minister summarized.

The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane (flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after it took off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on January 8. There were 176 people on board  nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK). They all died.

On January 11, Iran admitted that its military had accidentally shot down the Ukrainian passenger jet. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accepted full responsibility for the downing of the Ukrainian airliner. It emerged later that the UIA plane had been shot down by two missiles of the Tor-M1 air defense system, which Iran received from Russia.

At the ICAO Council meeting on June 26, the Iranian representatives agreed to send flight recorders to France for download and analysis by July 20.

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Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Kazakh Ambassador to Ukraine Darkhan Kaletayev have discussed trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, the Ukrainian government's press service has reported.

"On Thursday, July 2, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Ukraine Darkhan Kaletayev," the report reads.

The meeting was also attended by Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine Ihor Petrashko.

The parties raised issues of trade and economic cooperation between Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

"Ukraine is interested in the further development of cooperation. Our priority is to find new ways to overcome negative trends in bilateral trade," Shmyhal said.

He expressed hope that the 14th meeting of the Ukrainian-Kazakhstani Interstate Commission on Economic Cooperation would take place in the near future.

"The holding of the second meeting of the working group on increasing trade in online mode may contribute to that," Shmyhal said.

He also added that he supports the development of the Trans-Caspian international transport route.

Kaletayev, in turn, said that Kazakhstan was interested in participating in investment projects in Ukraine.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will pay a visit to the Republic of Turkey on July 3-4 at the invitation of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

"The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Turkey will hold the eighth meeting of the Ukrainian-Turkish Joint Strategic Planning Group, where they will sum up the results of cooperation in the first half of 2020 and determine priorities and tasks by the end of the year," the Foreign Ministrys press service reports.

The ministers will also discuss a wide range of issues of bilateral cooperation and regional security.

Special attention will be paid to the process of militarization of Crimea, human rights violation by the Russian occupation authorities on the peninsula, the dynamics of security situation in the Azov-Black Sea region and the Middle East, opposition to Russian aggression in Donbas, and initiatives for a peaceful settlement in eastern Ukraine.

The foreign ministers will give particular attention to the development of trade and investment between Ukraine and Turkey, deepening cooperation in the energy sector, interaction in security and defense, the prospects for completing the negotiation process on concluding a Free Trade Agreement, and issues of cooperation within the UN, NATO, OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

The parties will also discuss preparations for the ninth meeting of the High-level Strategic Council, chaired by the presidents of Ukraine and Turkey.

Following the meeting, a joint press conference of the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Turkey will be held.

Kuleba will hold a separate meeting with Ukrainian entrepreneurs and representatives of big Turkish business who are ready to implement large-scale investment projects in Ukraine. The minister will also meet with Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar communities of the Republic of Turkey.

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The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, will hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday, July 3, to consider personnel issues.

The head of the Servant of the People faction in parliament, David Arakhamia, told this to journalists on Thursday, July 2, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Tomorrow we will have a regular meeting. As part of the regular meeting, there will be an 'hour of questions' to the government. Then the following one-and-a-half hours will be a show by the opposition with amendments [to the gambling bill]. Then we will have 30 minutes for inquiries. After that, we will announce an extraordinary meeting to consider personnel issues and move on," Arakhamia said.

Earlier on Thursday, at a parliamentary session, Arakhamia announced the initiative of the Servant of the People faction to collect MPs' signatures for holding an extraordinary meeting of the Verkhovna Rada on July 2 to consider bills concerning the consequences of the coronavirus disease COVID-19.

Deputy head of the Holos faction Yaroslav Zhelezniak, in turn, said that the Servant of the People faction initiated the collection of signatures for an extraordinary parliament meeting on July 2 to complete the consideration of amendments to the gambling bill and adopt three documents to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

However, deputy head of the Servant of the People faction Yevheniia Kravchuk said later that during consultations with the heads of factions and groups, the parliament speaker had decided not to hold an extraordinary meeting on July 2.

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Residents of flood-affected Ivano-Frankivsk region have received 56 tonnes of food and drinking water from Zakarpattia region.

Today, when most of our region is in the zone of natural disaster caused by floods, Zakarpattia region did not remain aloof from the disaster. It delivered 56 tonnes of food and drinking water to the victims, the press service of Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration reports.

The aid consists of 44 tonnes of still water and 12 tonnes of food products, including flour, sugar, cereals, and pasta.

As Ukrinform reported, heavy rainfall on June 22-24 caused floods in Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Lviv, and Ternopil regions. Hundreds of kilometers of roads, dozens of bridges were destroyed, and hundreds of people were resettled.

The Cabinet of Ministers allocated almost UAH 700 million for the needs of the regions to eliminate the consequences of the natural disaster.

The United States pledged to allocate $100,000 in new funding to eliminate the effects of severe flooding in western Ukraine.

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VISIT Ukraine information portal has been launched for those who want to travel across Ukraine and abroad.

"VISIT Ukraine information portal for tourists has been launched. The resource contains the most important answers and useful links that will come in handy for traveling across Ukraine. The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine is the media partner of the portal," the press service of the State Border Guard Service informs.

It is noted that the portal was created by the all-Ukrainian organization VISIT Ukraine with the support of the State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. The web resource has been launched for foreign tourists who plan to visit Ukraine and Ukrainians who travel abroad.

The portal contains the most up-to-date information on the rules for crossing the Ukrainian border; rules of entry of Ukrainians to the world countries; list of "green zone" and "red zone" countries; rules of quarantine adaptation, observation / self-isolation; rules for staying at airports, in cities, at hotels, in public places, at restaurants, etc.; instructions to install, log into, and use the DII VDOMA mobile application for self-isolation; instructions to get the health insurance certificate covering COVID-19 treatment and observation.

The visitors may use the hotline via Telegram and WhatsApp.

All the information on the portal is updated daily and is available in Ukrainian, English, and Russian.

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Two foreigners who sent mercenaries to ISIS through Ukraine have been sentenced to more than ten years in prison, according to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

"According to the materials of the Security Service of Ukraine, under the procedural control of the Prosecutor General's Office, a court sentenced two foreigners to ten years and three months in prison for setting up a channel for transporting terrorist militants to Syria and Iraq," the SBU's press service said.

According to the report, it was established during the pretrial investigation that two natives of a Transcaucasian country set up in Kharkiv region a point for the transfer of mercenaries to the ISIS international terrorist organization. In 2013-2015, the culprits "received" ISIS members from the republics of the North Caucasus of the Russian Federation, the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia. They then transited them through Ukraine to the Syrian-Iraqi zone to take part in hostilities on the side of ISIS. The accomplices also provided them with finances, housing, and travel documents.

SBU operatives documented that the culprits had constantly coordinated their actions with the leaders of the Islamic State who stayed in Turkey and Syria. The perpetrators regularly received funds and other assistance from them to support terrorist activities.

The SBU also established that in October 2013, the convicts provided financial and material support to a militant to prepare and commit a terrorist attack in a Central Asian country.

According to the press service, during searches conducted in the convicts' places of residence and in their vehicles, law enforcement officers seized the symbols of the Islamic State terrorist organization, grenades, explosives, electric detonators, short-barreled firearms, and ammunition. They also found a large number of driver's licenses and passports of citizens of Central Asia, Russia, the European Union and Ukraine, equipment for making counterfeit seals and stamps, disks with photos of militants used to make forged documents, and payment cards of banks of different countries.

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The money will be spent on apartments and houses for almost 300 servicemen and their families.

The Cabinet of Ministers, Ukraine's government, has decided to allocate funds for the purchase of housing for the Ukrainian military who were wounded in action in the Donbas war against Russia-led troops.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says the decision regulates the allocation of UAH 305 million (US$11.4 million) to provide apartments and houses for almost 300 servicemen and their families, according to the government portal.

Read alsoUkrainians owe over US$2.2 bln for housing, utility services as of late May

"These people have defended our independence and territorial integrity. Our military are our heroes, and that is why we, as the government and society, must pay due respect to them, which includes decent living and working conditions," he said.

"It is very important that our fellow citizens on the front line could see and understand that the state [] lends a hand and helps them and their families. That is why our decision today is not only about social obligations, but also about our country's national security," Shmyhal said.
Five MEPs were on a three-day visit to Crimea until July 2 to act as "experts" and "assess the voting process."

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called on the international community to impose sanctions against those who have organized the "vote" on amendments to the Russian Federation's Constitution in Russia-occupied Crimea.

In particular, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed its protest against the illegal visit of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the ministry's press service told UNIAN.

Read alsoEU does not recognize Russian "vote" for constitutional amendments held in occupied Crimea, Donbas

Among them were member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and President of the Franco-Russian Dialogue Association Thierry Mariani and individual representatives of Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

The ministry stresses the visit violated Ukrainian legislation regarding access to the temporarily occupied territory and does not have an official status.

"The Foreign Ministry condemns the MEPs' participation in the monitoring of the so-called 'vote' for amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the results of which are legally void in the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea and Sevastopol, will have no legal consequences and will not be recognized by Ukraine or international community," the ministry said in its statement.

Ukrainian diplomats recalled that any so-called elections, referenda, voting held by the Russian Federation in the temporarily occupied territory are a gross violation of the principles of international law.

"All those involved in preparations for and holding of illegal voting in temporarily occupied Crimea, including the mentioned persons, will be held liable in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine," the statement said.

"Ukraine calls on the international community to increase pressure on the aggressor state, including through introducing personal sanctions against the organizers of the illegal vote in the territory of the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol," the ministry said.

As was reported, the Russian constitutional overhaul includes changes that would allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to remain in power until 2036. The changes are being put to a weeklong nationwide vote, which ended on Wednesday, July 1.

Five MEPs were on a three-day visit to Crimea until July 2 to act as "experts" and "assess the voting process on amendments" to Russia's constitution, according to Russian media reports.
Smolii signed a letter of resignation on July 1, 2020.

The Board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has commented on the resignation of NBU Governor Yakiv Smolii.

"The NBU Board respects Governor's decision to resign and shares his concerns as to the systematic political pressure," the NBU Board said in a statement on July 1, 2020.

The Board says it considers its responsibility to continue work to preserve macrofinancial stability and institutional capacity of the central bank.

Read alsoG7 Ambassadors react to chief banker's resignation in Ukraine

"The NBU Board asks the president, government, and politicians to start the effective dialogue with the central bank and allow the NBU to perform its tasks under the Constitution of Ukraine and the Law of Ukraine 'On the National Bank of Ukraine,'" reads the report.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Smolii signed a letter of resignation on Wednesday, July 1, 2020.

The move is a result of what he claims is long-standing political pressure.

UNIAN memo. On March 15, 2018, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, appointed Smolii NBU Governor, having dismissed Valeriya Gontareva from that post. Smolii's candidacy had been nominated by the then president Petro Poroshenko. From May 11, 2017 and until his appointment, Smolii was acting NBU Governor.
Strategies that are being worked out will cover culture and heritage, as well as institutional changes through launching agencies, including on religion and nationalities' affairs.

Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko has elaborated on steps he believes will help fight off the Kremlin's narratives.

In an interview with the Liga.Business, he said: "What do we see on the part of Russia? They constantly pursue information aggression against the country, spreading their ideological narratives and stuffing people with information so that people cease to think, because when they don't think, they stop talking."

"That is why we need dialogue," Tkachenko stresses. "And we can counter this with our strength. It lies in unity, peaceful stance, and dialogue, and this is how we're different from the aggressor."

Read alsoDeputy FM Bodnar: Russia used to seek control over Ukraine by waging hybrid warfare

Among strategies required, the minister says, there are those covering culture and heritage, as well as institutional changes through the launch of agencies, including those dealing with religion and nationalities' affairs. He also stressed the importance of art education and contemporary art.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Tkachenko assured that the Ministry of Culture would not be revising quotas for the Ukrainian-language media content.
All states involved supported Ukraine's initiative.

Canada, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, and Sweden have backed the initiative of Ukraine to sign a memorandum on negotiations with Iran on compensation for the downing of a passenger plane operated by Ukraine International Airlines.

That's according to the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Today, the countries of the PS752 Flight Victim Assistance Coordination Group, which includes Ukraine, Canada, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in cooperation at the compensation negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the report says.

It was Ukraine's idea to sign the Memo.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: "I'm glad that the group members supported our initiative. This is important because now we have formalized a common approach in interstate negotiations to hold Iran accountable for the plane downing."

The minister said that the five states will act as a united front and help each other as a group of countries that have been affected.

Read alsoPS752 downing: Zelensky says Ukraine to seek justice in international courts

"Ukraine will be the voice of this group. The document defines our state as a speaker, which means that it is Ukraine that will negotiate with Iran on behalf of the Group... Iran will bear all responsibility and pay for what they have done. Justice will prevail, no matter how long it takes," Kuleba emphasized.

UNIAN memo. Kyiv-bound Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport in the early hours of January 8. It was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members on board. Two passengers and the crew members were Ukrainians. There were also 82 citizens of Iran, 63 citizens of Canada, 10 citizens of Sweden, four citizens of Afghanistan, three citizens of Germany and the United Kingdom each. There were no survivors.

On January 11, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani officially admitted that the Ukrainian airliner had been shot down by accident as a result of a "human error" and that those responsible would be held accountable. Member countries of the International Coordination and Response Group for Flight PS752 Victims have repeatedly demanded that Iran hand over "black boxes" of the plane to the group.

Read alsoPS752 downing: Ukraine releases intercepted tower communications proving Iran was aware of missile launch all along

On June 7, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhen Enin said that Iran had still not responded to Ukraine's note on settling all issues related to the UIA flight PS752 case.
Wirtz, VA (24184)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 92F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mainly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
His closest rivals are Petro Poroshenko and Yuriy Boyko.

A recent poll says, if presidential elections were set to be held in the near future, 34.6% of respondents would support the incumbent head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky.

That's among voters who intend to cast ballots and have already made up their choice definitely, Rating the Sociological Group reports.

Another 11.4% of those polled would vote for ex-president Petro Poroshenko, and 11.2% - for the leader of the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc Party Yuriy Boyko.

Another 7.2% would cast ballots for the leader of Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party, and 6.7% - for the leader of Syla I Chest' (Strength and Honor) Party Ihor Smeshko.

Read alsoOver 60% of Ukrainians predict rise in new COVID-19 cases in Ukraine soon  poll

Asked whether they would go to polling stations if presidential elections were held in the near future, 67% of respondents answered "yes, definitely", 13% said "yes, rather", 4% opted for "no, rather", 13% - "no, definitely", and 3% remained undecided.

The survey was conducted from June 24 to June 29 among Ukrainians aged 18 years and older in all regions but the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas.
Fines for legal entities will be increased.

Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maliuska has said citizens will be fined for not wearing face masks in public places amid the coronavirus quarantine in the amount of UAH 170 to UAH 255 (US$6.35  US$9.53).

Read alsoOver US$120 mln spent to combat COVID-19 spread in Ukraine  Finance Ministry

"We establish Ukrainian citizens' special responsibility for not wearing [face] masks, and that of legal entities, namely owners of buildings, facilities and public transport who are obliged to control citizens' entry into their places only if they wear masks," the ministry's press service quoted Maliuska as saying on July 1.

Fines for individuals will be significantly reduced: from UAH 17,000 (US$635) to UAH 170-UAH 255, that is 10 to 15 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens.

The level of fines for officials will remain unchanged.

Yet, the size of fines to be paid by legal entities will be increased. They will vary between 200 and 300 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens, i.e. UAH 3,400 to UAH 5,100 (US$127  US$191).

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a draft law to introduce special responsibility for not wearing face masks by citizens.
The criminals created a hub in Ukraine's Kharkiv region for terrorists' transfer to Iraq and Syria.

A Ukraine-based court has sentenced two foreigners to ten years and three months in jail, having convicted them of involvement in the transfer of fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) via Ukraine.

During a pretrial probe, investigators established that the two natives of a country in Transcaucasia had created a point of transfer in Ukraine's Kharkiv region for the international terrorist organization Islamic State, the press service of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on July 2.

Read alsoSBU exposes neo-Nazi group run by Russian man

In 2013-2015, the criminals "received" Islamic State mercenaries from the republics of the North Caucasus (the Russian Federation), Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Then the terrorists were transferred via Ukraine to the Syrian-Iraqi zone for fighting on the side of the Islamic State.

In Ukraine, the fighters were provided with money, housing, and travel documents.

The special services documented that the convicts had constantly coordinated their actions with Islamic State leaders based in Turkey and Syria.

The criminals regularly received financial and other assistance from their sponsors.

Among other things, the convicts in October 2013 provided financial and other aid to fighters who committed a terrorist attack in a Central Asian country.

During raids on the convicts' houses and vehicles, law enforcement officers seized Islamic State insignia, hand grenades, explosives, electric detonators, firearms, and ammunition.

They also found a large number of driver's license forms and passports of citizens of Central Asian countries, the Russian Federation, the European Union, and Ukraine. There was also equipment for the manufacture of fake seals and stamps, media with photographs of terrorists that were used to produce fake documents, as well as bank cards issued in different countries.

The court found the two foreigners guilty under Part 1 of Article 258-3 (creation of a terrorist group) and Part 2 of Article 258-5 (financing of terrorism) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and sentenced them to ten years and three months in prison.
A distinction should be made between the number of infected people and the number of those who got sick, the doctor believes.

The number of those infected with coronavirus (COVID-19) in Ukraine may exceed 1 million; however, many of them may have immunity against the disease, suggests Yuriy Zhihariev, a Ukrainian physician specializing in infectious diseases.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there's a million or even more in Ukraine. I mean those who have been infected and have immunity," he told the Ukrainian online news outlet Obozrevatel on July 2.

In the context of COVID-19 statistics, a distinction should be made between the number of infected patients and those who actually got sick. The expert says the asymptomatic course of the coronavirus could actually also be considered virus contraction.

Read alsoAlmost 890 new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Ukraine in past day

"Let's say, someone got infected and further developed an immune response. But they might have absolutely no symptoms and feel quite alright," he said.

Meanwhile, it's difficult to determine the exact number of such people as they don't seek medical assistance. At the same time, the statistics on COVID-19 spread are generally true, he added.

"Almost all patients get registered. Naturally, if someone experiences relevant symptoms, one way or another, they consult their doctors, thus being included in the stats," Zhihariev summed up.

As UNIAN reported, the Health Ministry earlier said that the number of coronavirus tests run across country had been increasing.
Perpetrators blackmailed their victim with information in an MP death probe that might hurt the businessman's reputation.

The Office of the Prosecutor General says an "organized group" has been exposed, led by an SBU [Security Service] official with the agency's Odesa department, who were engaged in extortion.

Perpetrators are believed to have been blackmailing a local businessman, demanding that he pay them $250,000 for non-disclosing certain information as part of an investigation into the death of a Member of Parliament that they claimed would harm him.

Read alsoRecord attempt to bribe chiefs of Ukraine's anti-graft agencies lands suspects behind bars

Also, they threatened violence against the victim and his family in case he didn't comply with the demand, the report said.

OPG has pressed charges against the group's apparent leader, an SBU lieutenant colonel.

Searches and other investigative actions are underway, including at the SBU department premises in Odesa.

As UNIAN reported earlier, ex-head of the Kirovograd Regional State Administration, who was caught red-handed on a bribe, has been taken into custody.
This primarily concerns Zakarpattia and Volyn regions.

Ukraine's Chief Medical Officer, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Liashko says hospitals of the second wave are being deployed now over the complicated epidemic situation with COVID-19; there are already 542 patients there, including 64 placed in intensive care units.

"In order to improve quality and efficiency of our health care, 1,118 lung ventilators, 1,742 patient monitors, 917 oxygen generators, 172 mobile X-rays , and 106 gas analyzers have been supplied to the 'first wave' hospitals, which have been providing medical treatment to COVID-19 patients since the start of the epidemic" he said during an online-briefing on July 2.

According to Liashko, the upgrade of hospitals is ongoing, including of those of the so-called "second wave."

"Today 23,353 beds designated for COVID-19 patients in the hospitals of the 'first wave' are ready, of which 3,000 (16%) have already been occupied. In total, there are 1,919 beds in intensive care units, 419 beds (22%) are occupied by COVID-19 patients. Amid some 2,400 ventilators available in the 'first wave' hospitals, 94 are now in use (3.7%)," he said.

Read alsoNumber of infected with COVID-19 in Ukraine may exceed 1 mln  medical expert

Given the complication of the epidemic situation, which is being observed after the relaxation of quarantine measures, the "second wave" hospitals are being prepared, which are gradually being engaged in providing medical care to COVID-19 patients.

"To date, 10,449 beds have been prepared in such hospitals, including 946 beds in intensive care units. There are already 542 patients in the 'second wave' hospitals, including 64  in intensive care. This primarily concerns Zakarpattia and Volyn regions, where most hospitals of the second wave have been deployed. In recent weeks, there has been a spike in coronavirus cases," he added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, there were 45,887 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ukraine as of the morning of July 2. They include 1,185 deaths and 20,053 recoveries. Some 889 new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours.

A total of 677,254 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests have been conducted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 30 said Ukraine needed to be prepared for the second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic due to the rapid dynamics of the incidence of coronavirus cases.
Each brigade set to be deployed in the JFO zone will be armed including with Javelins.

Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ruslan Khomchak has said the Ukrainian military serving in the zone of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) in Donbas will get Javelin anti-tank systems previously delivered as part of the U.S. lethal aid to Ukraine.

According to Khomchak, one of the brigades, which is completing its training before being deployed to for a mission as part of JFO, is actively practicing the use of Javelins.

"The military are working out skills in teams operating these anti-tank systems. I personally want to make sure that our troops are able to effectively use these anti-tank systems. Now we have much more U.S.-made anti-tank systems," he said in an interview to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's ArmyInform news agency.

"By the way, we also have more operating teams. How many do we have? It's a secret. I can only say that each brigade set to be deployed in the JFO zone will be armed including by Javelins," Khomchak said.

Read alsoU.S. Javelin anti-tank missiles delivered to Ukraine, defense ministry confirms

"In addition, during the preparation of this brigade for the next rotation, we will also work out the use of [Turkish-made] Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicles to destroy combat targets," he added.

Khomchak said the Armed Forces of Ukraine are paying much more attention to training troops for urban warfare offensive action.

"We have learned over the six years how to defend well. But the Army should be trained, it should be able to advance day and night, under any weather conditions. I set this task a year ago. After all, the Army should be fully prepared for various scenarios...," he added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Ukrainian Armed Forces received the first batch of U.S. Javelin anti-tank missiles.
According to intelligence reports, two members of Russia-led forces were killed and another three were wounded.

Russia's hybrid military forces on July 1 mounted five attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, with one member of the Joint Forces reported as wounded in action.

"The Russian Federation's armed formations violated the ceasefire five times on July 1," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation Headquarters said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on July 2. "As a result, one Ukrainian serviceman was wounded in enemy shelling."

Read alsoUkraine's JFO HQ reports enemy death toll in Donbas in June

Russian-led forces opened fire from proscribed 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms.

Under attack came Ukrainian positions near the town of Avdiyivka, and the villages of Orikhove, Travneve, and Pisky.

The Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy attack. According to intelligence reports, two members of Russia-led forces were killed and another three were wounded on July 1. In addition, the enemy lost four more fighters and one truck in a blast of explosives.

"Since Thursday midnight, Russia-led forces have attacked Ukrainian positions twice near the village of Luhanske, using 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, and heavy machine guns," the update said.

No casualties have been reported among Ukrainian troops since Thursday midnight.
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Enterprise, AL (36331)

Today

Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. High 81F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 71F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
RTHK: Briton Ghislaine Maxwell charged in Epstein sex case

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in the United States on Thursday and charged with sex trafficking minors for her former boyfriend, the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell, whose whereabouts had been unknown following Epstein's suicide while awaiting trial last summer, faces six counts relating to his sex crimes.

FBI agents detained the daughter of late newspaper baron Robert Maxwell "without incident" in Bradford, New Hampshire at 8:30 am (1330 GMT).

She is due to appear in court in New Hampshire later in the day.

A spokesman for the Southern District of New York, which is investigating whether Epstein had any accomplices, said she had been charged "for her role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein."

Charges filed in New York include conspiracy to entice minors to travel in order to engage in illegal sex acts, transportation of minors for criminal sexual activity and perjury.

Prosecutors allege that Maxwell helped Epstein groom girls as young as 14 between 1994 and 1997.

It says she would befriend them by taking them shopping or to the movies. After building a rapport, she would coax them into giving Epstein nude massages during which they were sexually abused.

"In some instances, Maxwell was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims," the indictment says.

She could face life in prison if found guilty.

Epstein, 66, was arrested in July 2019. He hanged himself in Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Centre on August 10 last year while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors for sex. He had pleaded not guilty.

Several of his accusers have said the 58-year-old Maxwell maintained a network of girls to perform sexual favours for Epstein, a registered sex offender who hobnobbed with the rich and famous.

The allegations sparked a tabloid frenzy to try to track her down, amid rumours that she had fled to Israel or France.

William Sweeney, from the FBI's New York office, said the agency had recently learnt that Maxwell had "slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire."

The English socialite is a long-time friend of Prince Andrew and is known to have introduced the British royal to Epstein, with the two becoming friends.

US prosecutors want to speak to the prince about his relationship with Epstein but have accused him of being uncooperative. He denies this.

"We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement," Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss told reporters.

Andrew, 60, vehemently denies claims he had sex with a 17-year-old girl procured by Epstein.

Virginia Giuffre alleges she was trafficked for sex with friends of Epstein. She says she had sex with the prince at the central London home of Maxwell in 2001.

Queen Elizabeth's second son was forced to step back from frontline royal duties after he faced outrage over an interview with the BBC late last year in which he defended his friendship with Epstein.

Epstein was a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager who befriended countless celebrities over the years, including US President Donald Trump.

Epstein was charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and another of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.

He was facing up to 45 years in jail if convicted.

Determined to obtain justice despite his death, dozens of women who say they were abused by Epstein have sued his estate.

In March, Maxwell also launched a suit against his estate seeking compensation for legal fees and security costs incurred by her association with Epstein.

In it she said she had "had no involvement in or knowledge of Epstein's alleged misconduct."

Thursday's indictment alleges abuse occurred at large properties Epstein owned in Manhattan, Palm Beach, New Mexico, and Maxwell's London home.

Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of paying young girls for massages but served just 13 months in jail under a secret plea deal struck with the then state prosecutor.

While his death was ruled a suicide - with two prison guards charged for alleged failure to monitor him - it has also fuelled conspiracy theories, mostly speculating he was murdered to stop him revealing compromising information about wealthy acquaintances. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Egypt was spot on when it left Cairos Tahrir Square void of a statue of a notable figure.

True, there is a statue of Omar Makram standing to one side, but the square could have enjoyed the presence of a statue of, say, late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who was revered by millions of Egyptians and Arabs alike, or maybe of late president Anwar Al-Sadat, who will be forever remembered for having reclaimed Sinai and placed Egypt on the path to peace.

However, Egyptian prudence left Tahrir Square void of any statue. Today, an obelisk and four ancient Egyptian rams adorn the square.

Had a statue of a historical figure stood proud in Tahrir Square, it might have met the fate of the many other statues around the world that have been pulled down during recent protests. What is glorified by one group at a given moment in history may be unappreciated by others at a different one, and Egypt has saved itself from the trauma that the rest of the world is going through today.

Amidst the fury that often comes about in the protests of the beleaguered, acts of defiance can manifest themselves in the destruction of statues and monuments. History saw the toppling of the statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps in Suez during the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt in 1956, the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Husseins statue in Baghdad during the US-led invasion of Iraq, and of statues of Lenin in states emerging from Soviet control in the 1990s, among them Ukraine. It has seen changes to the names of public buildings, schools and stations in Egypt after the ousting of former president Hosni Mubarak.

After the death of African-American man George Floyd in Minneapolis in the US, statues around the world were defaced, beheaded, vandalised or shoved into rivers during the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests. Some were also taken down by officials who believed the statues represented racism or injustice and were offensive to many.

Statues are tributes that glorify a person thought to be worth recognising. But many statues not only offend but also cause outrage. Many institutions are revoking the privileges they have bestowed upon certain figures, including universities that have immortalised them by naming halls, libraries and other buildings after them. Many prestigious institutions are now rethinking the honours they have bestowed on such people. Countries and cities alike have named streets, universities, schools and many other locales after those they have considered to be eminent persons, and today they aim to remove the reputable standing they have given to such figures.

The existence of racism, apartheid, slavery and white supremacy is undeniable, and the brutality of invaders and colonialists, which many of these statues uphold, is also undeniable. However, how far should we go in removing the signs of this history? Would we then still be able to understand what happened in the past? Where do we draw the line? Have we gone from the sublime to the extreme?

Because of their accessibility, statues are usually the first to get hit. A statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill in London was one of many to be targeted, and the police had to board up the statue and form a ring around it to protect it from vandalism. Yet, history tells us that Churchill was indeed a white supremacist, and he is on record as saying things that prove his racism.

I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... A stronger race, a higher-grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place, he said. He also said that he hated Indians and people with slit eyes and pig tails, and he referred to Palestinians as barbaric hordes who ate little but camel dung.

But he was also the leader that rallied the British during World War II and led them to victory. So, how should we remember Churchill? Should we emphasise the good or the bad? According to a recent article on the US news channel CNN, portraying Churchill as the root of all wickedness is as problematic as viewing him as the single-handed saviour of freedom and democracy.

In the US, statues of Christopher Columbus and many others have met the same fate. First Nations people believe that Columbus represents colonisation and slavery, and now cities and provinces named after him may change their names. A call in British Columbia in Canada to change its name has begun, for example. Petitions are also underway to rename Columbus in Ohio in the US.

The US computer company IBM has said it will stop selling facial-recognition equipment to anyone, including the police, as it may be used in mass surveillance and racial profiling. This is a good thing, but when the epic US film Gone with the Wind is removed from video-on-demand streaming services, we are going overboard.

Indeed, the removal of symbols of tyranny and racism may have gone beyond the rational and at times beyond the sane. Quaker Oats, the owner of the Aunt Jemima brand of food products in the US that features a laughing black woman on its packaging, has called the image a racist stereotype and is planning to drop the brand altogether. Other popular US brands such as Uncle Bens rice, Mrs Butterworths syrup and pancakes and Eskimo pies ice cream are all about to follow suit or be given a makeover.

The most extreme case came when anti-racist protesters called for the destruction of the Great Pyramids in Giza because, according to them, they were built by slaves. Even if this were true, which it isnt, should we destroy the Pyramids for such a bizarre reason? I doubt any Egyptian would go along with this simple-minded suggestion.

Consistency will be hard to implement. What about Mount Rushmore, the massive sculpture of four United States presidents in the US? Though the four presidents depicted on the monument were immense contributors to the US that exists today, they all endorsed and accepted if not slavery then at least white domination over blacks. Will the Americans demolish an iconic symbol that is visited regularly by millions of citizens?

To make amends and to fix wrongs, statues of those who symbolise bigotry, racism and tyranny must go, but I hope things dont go too far in removing such historical images. Lets not go overboard on this.

The writer is the author of Cairo Rewind on the First Two Years of Egypts Revolution, 2011-2013.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 2 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Madrid, July 02, 2020 (SPS) - A European university study revealed how France prevented the expansion of the mandate of the UN Mission (MINURSO) to monitor human rights in occupied Western Sahara, in the Council of security of the United Nations.

In this study, the professor of public international law at the Spanish university of Cadiz, Juan Domingo Torrejon Rodriguez, underlined the role of France within the Security Council "to hinder the international efforts aiming at endowing MINURSO with the mission for monitoring human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara ".

In order that MINURSO does not carry out its task of monitoring Moroccan human rights violations in Western Sahara, he said, Morocco, with the support of France," tried to persuade the member states of the Security Council not to vote in favor of the extension of the mandate of MINURSO and its enlargement to monitor human rights ".

The study, prepared by the Journal of International Studies for the Mediterranean, concluded that "the United Nations Mission for the Referendum Organization in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is the only United Nations mission in Africa and worldwide that has no explicit mandate for monitoring human rights. "SPS

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The countries who understand the threat from China should organize their own strategies to combat China and the success of such strategy would be determined by the emergence of Hong Kong and Tibet as independent countries.





by N.S.Venkataraman





Hong Kong was under British rule for as long as 150 years. During this period, on and off , China has been claiming that Hong Kong should be part of China. However, there were equally strong arguments as to why Hong Kong should not be part of China and should be independent region.









In 1997, the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did a historical mistake by handing over Hong Kong to China, even after knowing that China has a dictatorial regime with personal liberty and freedom of speech severely suppressed. It was shocking that British government did not care to remember the atrocities carried out by China in Tibet after occupying the region and could not anticipate that similar condition would happen in Hongkong also.





While handing over Hong Kong to China , the British government did not care to ascertain the views of the Hong Kong citizens but took them for granted. If Britain would have cared to conduct a complete poll in Hong Kong ,the citizens of Hong Kong would have voted to remain as independent nation. Hong Kong is now paying the price for Britains careless and thoughtless decision to hand over Hong Kong to China.





During the long period when Hong Kong was under British rule, the citizens of Hong Kong developed their own behavioural culture , administrative ethos and business capabilities, which is far different from that of China and which made Hong Kong to be the financial hub of the world. The citizens of Hong Kong enjoyed freedom of speech and action and some people think that the administration of Hong Kong could be a model for the world from the point of view of quality governance. Though a small region by territorial size, Hong Kong commanded wide respect around the world and tourist and business men thronged to Hong Kong, considering its unique value system.





Britain handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, which was like feeding a live lamb to a wolf. China greedily accepted the offer of Hong Kong by Britain as it contributed to its territorial expansion strategies.





The act of Britain faced criticism around the world for sacrificing the interest of Hong Kong and assuming that Britain has the right and authority to decide the fate of Hong Kong by virtue of its colonial rule in Hong Kong for 150 years. Britain took the decision on Hong Kong ,as if Hong Kong is its property and people of Hong Kong are soulless automatons.





Facing barrage of criticism and perhaps, pricked by her own conscience , Margaret Thatcher put forth the condition to China that autonomous status of Hong Kong should be preserved by China for fifty years and the governance style should be preserved as an independent region within China.





China, known for not adhering to ethical practices or international regulations and agreements, has now violated the agreement with Britain and has passed national security law for Hong Kong , which is a sweeping national security law, tightening the grip on Hong Kong. Now, after passing of this law, virtually the citizens of Hong Kong would face similar conditions like the citizens of China with personal freedom and liberty being denied and protestors on any issue would be tried as indulging in national security crimes such as subversion, secession etc.





Henceforth , Hong Kong would become an iron curtain region and protestors for any cause in Hong Kong would be slaughtered like what China did a few decades back in the case of protestors in Tiananmen Square and protestors in Tibet. China would not care about any adverse opinion or reaction among the world community about its brutal suppression in Hong Kong, just as it did not care about its brutal acts in Tibet and Tiananmen Square.





In the case of Tibet and Tiananmen Square incidents ,China thinks that it has the last laugh and world opinion and criticism of other countries have been proved to be impotent.





Now, after China imposed the national security law for Hong Kong , European Council, Japan, Britain , USA and Taiwan have voiced strong protests. Several other countries including India are maintaining a stoic silence on the matter . as they did in the case of Tibet earlier.





Is it possible that these criticizing countries would do nothing beyond advancing paper criticism?. Obviously, future of Hong Kong is doomed under Chinas totalitarian regime and Hong Kong would undergo the agony similar to the agony that Tibet is under going, if the world community would remain unconcerned.





At this time, we should remember what happened to Tibet around six decades back , when China entered Tibet aggressively, massacred the protestors and now firmly holding on to Tibet territory. This would be the fate of Hong Kong also, if a strong anti China force would not be organized in the world to make China behave and respect liberty and freedom.





Similarity in Chinas behavior with regard to Hong Kong and Tibet should be seen by the world ,where China thinks that it can have its way by use of force and imposing stringent laws , unmindful of the sufferings of the occupied region and world opinion.





Hong Kong and Tibet are two case studies showing Chinas attitude and greed and unless both Hong Kong and Tibet would be liberated from Chinas control and enabled to become independent countries, China cannot be controlled and it would become the ultimate villain in the world, threatening world harmony and peace.





United Nations Organisation has become a toothless body and is nothing more than a fruitless debating forum now. The issue relating to Hong Kong and Tibet need not be taken to UNO and UNO can do nothing in the matter.





The countries who understand the threat from China should organize their own strategies to combat China and the success of such strategy would be determined by the emergence of Hong Kong and Tibet as independent countries.





As a victim of Chinas aggression, India should unhesitatingly join the anti China force and clear its conscience for wrongly approving Chinas occupation of Tibet earlier.




THE MOST FAMOUS father in history only got third billing in the Holy Family. A few walk-ons in the Bible were the best that Joseph could manage. That is what fathers do. They are there for the family, not in the spotlight. They work hard and back up mothers everywhere as needed.
Milledgeville, GA (31061)

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The National Institute of Health (NIH) on Wednesday issued advisory aimed taking timely preventive measures to control the Congo fever and novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on upcoming Eid-ul-Azha

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Jul, 2020 ) :The National Institute of Health (NIH) on Wednesday issued advisory aimed taking timely preventive measures to control the Congo fever and novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on upcoming Eid-ul-Azha.

According to NIH, the Field Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Division (FEDSD), issued an advisory regarding Prevention and Control of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) and COVID-19, forthcoming event of Eid-ul-Azha.

It said that Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever is caused by a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus) of the Bunyaviridae family with the case fatality rate ranging from 10-40 per cent.

The CCHF virus can be transmitted to people either by tick bites or through contact with infected animal or its blood or tissues.

According to the advisory, the movement of sacrificial animals ahead of Eid-ul-Azha significantly carries the risk of CCHF disease transmission due to increased humans-animal interaction.

Visit at crowded places, direct contact with infectious materials and animals in the markets, the risk of COVID-19 transmission are also expected to rise. This advisory aimed to alert different stakeholders including the human and animal healthcare providers to take timely steps for the prevention and control of CCHF and COVID-19, it added.

The advisory said that there is currently no vaccine available for CCHF so people should focus on instructions to prevent and control of the disease.

It said that during visit to cattle markets, use full sleeves and light colored cloths, gloves, face mask, hand sanitizers and manage social distancing.

It asked to use hand washing and hand sanitization items to disinfect and clean hands and avoid all crowded places including large family gathering during Eid and sacrifice of animals.

It also said to wash hands thoroughly with soap after coming in contact with animal or its blood.

Moreover, the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, has also issued its 48th Seasonal Awareness and Alert Letter (SAAL) for epidemic-prone infectious diseases in Pakistan.

In this letter, NIH exhibited patterns of high priority communicable diseases including Cholera, Coronavirus diseases (COVID-19), CCHF, Dengue, Leishmaniasis, Malaria, Measles, Polio and Typhoid XDR.

` These diseases are predicted to be on high alert during said season. It also contains detailed introduction of diseases, case definitions, infectious agents, modes of transmission, case management and prevention.

The main purpose of SAAL is to alert all concerned health authorities and professionals at all levels and to facilitate them for timely and efficient response to the outbreaks and epidemics.

This letter is developed for summer monsoon season from June to September, 2020. NIH advised the Federal, provincial and district health departments as well as other stakeholders to take keep a continuous watch on the anticipated seasonal public health threats and taking of all preventive or curative measures in this context.

To facilitate the stakeholders, the requisite technical guidelines and awareness material regarding infectious diseases along with Seasonal Awareness Alert Letter (SAAL) and CCHF Advisory are also available at the NIH website: www.nih.org.pk.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

GENOA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd July, 2020) Russia, Turkey and Iran, or the so-called Astana guarantors troika, have demonstrated unity in decrying the US actions in Syria, which is an important political sign and can be the indication of a possible future rapprochement between Turkey and Damascus, Mahmoud Afandi, the secretary of the Syrian opposition movement Popular Diplomacy, told Sputnik.

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held a joint video conference dedicated to Syria. In the final statement they said that they considered Israeli air attacks on Syria and the US decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights as a threat to regional peace.

"This summit has shown a remarkable unity of the three leaders in decrying the US actions in Syria. They openly spoke out also against the seizure of oil revenues. Such unity is an important signal, it's also a reaction to the recently-introduced US sanctions," Afandi said.

In addition, this demonstration of unity on Turkey's part might mean that there could be "a rapprochement between Turkey and Damascus in future," the opposition figure added.

"Moreover, this summit has made it clear that the political process in Syria should go only through the constitutional committee, and everyone, including Turkey, agrees with it," Afandi said.

The three leaders discussed the situation in the Kurdish north-eastern area of Syria and emphasized that territorial integrity must be preserved. They expressed their strong opposition to the unlawful capture and transfer of oil revenues that belong to Syria by right.

In the end of last year, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the United States would deny the Russian and Syrian forces access to the oil fields in northeast Syria and would ensure they are controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Last month, the US Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act came into effect, imposing sanctions against individuals or companies that cooperate financially with the Syrian government. Putin said on Wednesday that Washington's sanctions against Damascus have no legal ground and contribute to existing problems of the war-torn country and undermine its economy.
Washington's sanctions against Damascus have no legal ground, as they contribute to existing problems of the war-torn country and undermine its economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday

TEHRAN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st July, 2020) Washington's sanctions against Damascus have no legal ground, as they contribute to existing problems of the war-torn country and undermine its economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Putin, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are holding a joint video conference dedicated to Syria on Wednesday.



"Sanctions bypassing the UN add to the problems, they are also illegal. Given the pressure that sanctions exert on this country [Syria], we need to concentrate efforts and take measures aimed at helping the country," Putin said.

The summit was supposed to be held in Tehran but its format changed to online amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Putin said that he was ready to travel to the Iranian capital when the health situation would permit.
Tragically, pandering Muslim politicians have not been of much help towards the community as a whole. The religious leadership is weak and unable to do much either.





by Mass L. Usuf





The Muslim people around the world are witnessing the continuing injustice committed against the Palestinian people for the past over 60 years by the atrocities of the successive Israelis governments. They see the bullying of the Islamic Republic of Iran with multiple sanctions for refusing to dance to the tune of Uncle Sam. In the list is also the gradual dismantling and destruction of several Muslim countries by proxy wars.













All of these exploits at the loss of literally millions of lives and the destruction of properties worth billions of dollars. In the Xinjiang Region in Northwest China, they are aware of the persecution of the Uyghur Muslims where one million people have been put in detention camps. The world media broadcasted the genocide against the Rohingya people in Rakhine State, Myanmar and the mass-scale displacement of up to 700,000 victims. Specifically writing in the context of US involvement in various hotspots Dr. Yasir Qadhi observes, From the illegal invasion of Iraq to the foolish military endeavours in Afghanistan, from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo, from the War on Terror to the Patriot Act, it became easier to convince an impressionable mind into accepting the West versus Islam paradigm. (The Lure of Radicalism and Extremism Amongst Muslim Youth).





Arrogance of Power





This hostility is perceived by a majority of Muslims world over as a universal war against Islam and the Muslims. The sad part being the impression that there is no one to help or depend on but themselves. United Nations the watchdog for world governance is helpless at times. Resolutions passed against violating nations are either vetoed by their power wielding defenders or, is blatantly ignored by the violating country. For example, in 2018, the United Nations General Assembly issued 27 condemnations against its member countries and 21 of them were against Israel. Thereby making it the most condemned nation among other things for gross human rights violations. Despite its pariah status, the United States had arrogantly used its veto power 43 times to throw out resolutions in order to protect Israel. A careful analysis, in reality, reveals the truism in the Muslim belief that there is no voice to speak against or no one to stand up to challenge the hegemonistic adventures of the United States, her allies in Europe and the other countries.





Sri Lankan Analogy





To some extent similarities between the global situation and the local context can be established. In Sri Lanka, the Muslims have been systematically targeted by anti-Muslim and anti-Islam hate and violence, since the closure of the LTTE campaign. The racist elements are relentlessly poisoning the minds of the Sinhala masses by tarnishing the image of Muslims. Their propaganda abounds with fabricated lies, misinterpretations, disinformation, and exaggerations. Some of the temples and mushroom organisations under various names have partnered in this endeavour with fervour and vigour. The monks have no qualms in acrimoniously making false allegations, insulting the religion, religious institutions, the devotees, the holy scripture and the learned scholars. The media craftily, deceitfully and tirelessly mounts assaults at the Muslims on an almost daily basis. The politicians have on many occasions expressed themselves hurting the feelings of the Muslims. Bring to mind the number of times the Muslims have suffered under violent extremism. The subsequent loss of lives and properties.





Tragically, pandering Muslim politicians have not been of much help towards the community as a whole. The religious leadership is weak and unable to do much either. Here is a situation where there is no powerful voice to speak against this onslaught or no one to stand up to challenge the chauvinism. Would not the disillusioned youth ask themselves who is going to defend us, our lives and our properties if not, we, ourselves? What benefit is this country going to reap by marginalising communities? Will not a sad, helpless and disheartened young mind be an easy pick to those engaged in the global theatre of indoctrination and violence?





Discrimination And Oppression





The "Black lives matters" movement is a natural reaction to years of discrimination, hate and bigotry against the African-American people. These eruptions when it happens cannot be suppressed or controlled. They come out on the basis of, no one to speak for us, we ought to defend our own selves. It is inherent in man to struggle against injustice, discrimination and oppression. The revulsion within man when his natural rights, freedom and equality are suppressed blows up at some point of time. This is nothing new and history is replete with such incidents.





By the intervention of Providence, the corona virus taught the entire world a lesson. We need to seriously reflect and pay heed to it. It had a clear message that all are human beings and that all belong to one human kind. How much more ignorant can anyone be in not realizing this simple message of truth?





Consider this for a moment. Last year the Muslim women who were wearing the face cover were unreasonably and vindictively harassed. The racio-politically motivated abuse of Emergency Regulation powers by the security apparatus, politicians and religious establishments succeeded in banning the face cover. A part of a womans choice to dress, which had no connection or relevance to the Easter Sunday bombing.





PPE and Face Cover





Regulation was hastily passed banning the covering of face as if it was in the top of the list of national security priorities. Notices were seen overnight at most public places with a picture of a woman with face cover 'Do Not Enter'; Prohibited. Thereby, openly exhibiting arrogance and callous disregard to the beliefs and practices of a person. Also, violation of the fundamental rights of a person. Every person who used to wear the face mask felt isolated and shunned by society. Then the Corona virus forced the very same people to wear face masks. This time the notices were 'Entry Only for those wearing the mask'.





Personal protective equipment (PPE) which consists of face protection, goggles and mask or face shield, gloves, gown or coverall, head cover, rubber boots were worn by the doctors, nurses, police, armed forces etc. As the person is fully covered, it had been reported that the name of the person wearing the PPE was sometimes written on the back in order to identify the person.





Let us look at the spurious claims that were put forward at the time of banning the face cover.





 It was a high security risk.

 Cannot see the full face of the person

 Cannot identify whether male or female

 Social interaction is hindered.

 Cannot see facial expressions

 The person wearing it is purposely avoiding interaction.





With Covid 19, all of the above unsubstantiated claims either vanished or became applicable to them also. It would have been an absolute joke if the emergency regulations were still in force. The reason being the particular regulation will have to be revoked by another regulation. This time making it a mandatory requirement to wear face mask.





We must realise that racism, inequality and injustice are not sustainable. What is enduring is humanity. Therefore, let us not be divided amongst ourselves. Let us be united, help each other and work towards building this country.
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Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. Low 72F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

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Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. Low 72F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Vietnam is committed under various agreements to curb the increase of GHG emissions

This was one of the main factors pored over at a workshop last week in Hanoi on the role of carbon pricing and market instruments in nationally determined contribution (NDC) implementation and the potential for application in Vietnam, hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the World Bank.

The workshop aimed to build a carbon pricing approach including support to develop market-based instruments and raise awareness, knowledge, and capacity of related ministries, businesses, and industry associations on carbon pricing tools.

Around the world, a growing number of businesses are leading the transition toward a low-carbon future. A well-designed carbon is indispensable to reduce GHG emissions in a cost-efficient way, but carbon pricing alone is insufficient to address it, said Rahuh Kitchlu, energy sector co-ordinator at the World Bank in Vietnam.

Carbon pricing is a market-based strategy for lowering GHG emissions. The aim is to put an actual monetary value on carbon emissions so that the costs of climate impacts and the opportunities for low-carbon energy options are better reflected in production and consumption choice.

There are two main types of carbon pricing  carbon taxes and emission trade schemes. Gasoline taxes, taxes for coal mining and natural gas or oil drilling feed-in tariffs, and reduction of fossil fuel subsidies are other examples of indirectly reflecting a price on carbon into consumer or business decisions, according to the World Bank.

Truong Duc Tri, director of the Vietnam Partnership for Market Readiness Project, said that carbon pricing has played an important long-term role in helping jurisdictions and companies achieve zero emissions. He added that 30 countries and territories have been applying carbon taxes and thirty-one countries and territories have been applying emission trading system.

Selecting a national appropriate carbon pricing instrument is an important element, affecting the sustainable development of the country, business, and communities as well as ensuring the complacence with international commitments.

Thus, Tri said that carbon pricing requires a complete database on GHG emissions and other related matters such as transparency and accuracy of activity dates, business dates, GHG inventories, and also a registration system that falls under international criteria.

Besides that, researching carbon pricing requires comprehensive assessment on economic and social impacts as well as consensus among stakeholders including government, the economic sector, enterprises, and communities.

A representative of the Ministry and Planning and Investment said that a growing number of private sector players, particularly investors, are also driving the climate agenda forward by using carbon pricing tools to understand and manage climate risks. Many developing countries are looking to identify effective options to engage the private sector, including working with international partners.

He gave recommendations on carbon pricing tools that need a transparent legal framework to encourage the private sector, increase reliability, and share information as well as take advantage of international support.

Vietnams Green Growth Strategy provides a pathway to achieve its NDC goals. Private investment will play a significant role in meeting Vietnams demand for green finance, with 70 per cent of the $21 billion in total investment expected to come from the private sector.

In addition to supporting the achievement of the countrys mitigation and adaptation goals, the participation of the private sector will help advance the countrys sustainable development objectives, including promoting the more efficient use of natural resources, cutting costs for households and firms, and improving the competitiveness of the economy, according to the Center for Clean Air Policy, a global non-profit climate research and development group.

The NDC strategy highlights the key role that private sector finance will need to play beyond more traditional sectors for green investment, such as renewable energy. For example, $12 billion in international support will be needed in the agricultural sector to meet Vietnams NDC target, more than twice the amount needed in the energy sector.

It is necessary to have a solid database and ensure data quality before the market can officially trade in carbon pricing, said Hoang Van Tam, from the Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade at the workshop.

The participation of stakeholders in the design and pilot stage is an important factor to ensure the success of the programme. Besides that, incentives and penalties should be clearly stated in carbon pricing and market instruments, Tam said.

So far, solid waste and steel are the two piloted fields for Vietnam joining the carbon market. The potential for facilities in two sectors in the coming time can be achieved at a level seen within groups of low-emission countries through improving process performance, managing raw materials, and upgrading technology.

Much more action will be needed going forward to meet the Paris Agreement commitments. In that, Vietnam commits to reducing at least 8 per cent of GHG emissions by 2030, and up to 25 per cent if it receives effective support from the international community.
Mai Thi Thanh Van, deputy country president of Chubb Life Vietnam receiving the award

Held annually to recognise companies with high levels of employee engagement and excellent workplace cultures across Asia, this prestigious award recognises world-class corporations across Asia, and was first handed out in Vietnam in 2018.

The board of judges is made up of senior human resources experts from different industries. The criteria cover a number of important areas, including the scale of business operations, corporate culture, working environment, level of employee satisfaction and engagement, and independent research on corporate reputation as an employer of choice. Chubb Life Vietnam was recognised for excelling in employee satisfaction through its core, individual, and group values, which were all higher than the industry average.

What makes us proud of our people is we have a team of homegrown talent who are always ready to renew themselves and create distinctive values while maintaining the company's code of ethics and business conduct, said Lam Hai Tuan, chairman and country president of Chubb Life Vietnam.

At Chubb Life Vietnam, each member sees the company not only as a place to develop their career but also a common home where everyone shares, engages, and develops themselves, Tuan added.

Having adopted a strategy of developing from internal resources, Chubb Life Vietnam pays special attention to its workforce training and development policy, facilitating each employees ability to realise their fullest potential.

Millennials, also known as Generation Y (those born between 1981 and 2000) are proving their strength in todays "flat world". Having access to digital platforms since birth and growing up in the intersection between tradition and modernity, this generation exhibits distinct characteristics of being open-minded and innovative, able to approach and embrace new values with ease while keeping their personal and social values intact.

Some employers believe that with their nature of always wanting to make a difference, Generation Y is expected to create breakthroughs. At Chubb Life Vietnam, Generation Y accounts for 40 per cent of the company's management, thus starting a future generation of young people who not only have a fresh mind to present new initiatives and help the company tackle the challenges of the digital age, but also make a successor generation who appreciates the foundations built over the past 15 years, particularly the core values of Chubb Life Vietnam's ethical standards.

Having adopted a strategy of developing from internal resources, Chubb Life Vietnam pays special attention to its workforce training and development policy, facilitating each employees ability to realise their fullest potential.

In addition, each employee has the opportunity to learn and develop their career through comprehensive training programmes designed according to international standards, and each employee is well equipped with modern digital tools, and together with the company, they will create distinctive values and strive to best serve customers.

Chubb Life Vietnam possesses many unique advantages over competitors, one of which is being a successful international-standard life insurance company operated and managed by a team of all-Vietnamese personnel.

Today, Chubb Life Vietnam maintains a dream workforce of some 400 well-trained personnel, 46,000 professional and dedicated sales managers and representatives across the country.
Global NGOs rap Google's Fitbit buyout (illustration photo/ TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP)

Google's $2.1 billion acquisition of the maker of smartwatches and fitness trackers was unveiled in November and rang alarms among global regulators over antitrust and privacy worries.

Fitbit is a pioneer in the market for connected watches and other physical activity sensors that measure the number of daily steps taken, calories burned or hours of sleep missed.

A group of 20 NGOs "have significant concerns" that the takeover "would be a game-changer not only for how people interact with the online world but also for digital and related health markets," a statement said.

"Regulators around the world... must therefore give it their utmost attention," they said, calling it a "test case" on facing down big tech firms.

The groups included BEUC, which unites EU consumer advocates, as well as the Consumer Federation of America in the US and digital rights groups in Mexico, Brazil and Australia.

EU regulators, who are to decide on the case by July 20, are especially concerned with Silicon Valley giants buying their way into new areas and then stifling competition.

"Wearable devices could replace smartphones as the main gateway to the internet, just as smartphones replaced personal computers," said a statement by 20 NGOs from around the globe.

"Googles expansion into this market, edging out other competitors would thus be significant," it said.

In February, the European Data Protection Board urged Google to make major assurances on privacy and data before it approved the buyout.
Kido is launching a new snack and confectionery brand in the coming quarter

Confectionary specialists KIDO Group (KDC) recently announced its comeback to the market five years after selling its snack business to Mondelez International. The move is part of KDCs strategy to resurrect its core business and develop local brands for Vietnamese people.

The company will launch its new snack and brand confectionery brand Kingdom in the third quarter of 2020. Tran Le Nguyen, vice chair and CEO of KDC, said that the company will change its development strategy for this comeback. Instead of diversifying its product portfolio, the company will research and develop new products in high demand and large market scale to quickly achieve efficiency.

With 20 years of experience in the snack industry, the company has gained a deep understanding of local consumers. This, coupled with production capability and distribution networks, will facilitate the company to become the second-biggest player in the market trailing behind Mondelez in the next two years.

According to Nguyen, the snack and confectionery market has undergone massive changes in the past five years with a rapid development of the gift segment and an apparent rising demand for snack consumption from the middle-aged to elderly people. Therefore, KDC wants to focus on developing key product lines such as gifts for Mid-Autumn Festival and the Lunar New Year.

Another player, The PAN Group, was also vying for a controlling stake of Bibica to retain the long-standing Vietnamese confectionery brand amid the aggressive expansion of foreign confectionery products. The move was aimed to solve a dispute between Vietnams Bibica Corporation and its major shareholder, South Koreas Lotte Group.

According to Euromonitor International, local producers are striving to keep their market share. Vietnam One One Food JSC maintained its dominance in the popular rice snacks category, which saw the fastest value growth over the year. Meanwhile, Tan Tan Food & Foodstuff Company saw strong value growth in nuts, seeds, and trail mixes for the fourth consecutive year in 2019.

In fact, Vietnam is among the most developed snack markets in the ASEAN, joining Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia in the $3.5-billion club, according to a recent report from Japanese consultant Corporate Directions. This has attracted many foreign brands to capitalise on the market growth. Among them, snacking heavyweight Mondelez Kinh Do is taking the lead in the market. Other foreign snack brands such as Oishi (Liwayway), Poca (PepsiCo), and Choco Pies (Orion) have also stepped up their game to tap into Vietnams snack boom.

Most recently, Japanese confectionary company Morinaga has joined forces with DKSHs Business Unit Consumer Goods, a market expansion services provider to expand their existing partnership in Asia to Vietnam. Specifically, DKSH will be the enabler to further unlock Morinagas potential in Vietnam and ensure regional coverage through the strategic expertise of the local teams.

Damien Morot, vice president of DKSHs Consumer Goods in Indochina told VIR that Vietnam offers a unique combination to snacks and confectionary brands craving to expend outside of their core markets, and the country has the most dynamic convenience stores network across the region.

Though we may see some players like key chains rationalise their number of stores in the next few weeks and months as a consequence of the pandemic situation, the consensus is built around strong, long-term double-digit growth for this channel in Vietnam. This obviously stimulates the appetite of foreign brands not yet present here, he added.

While gum and sugar confectionary have already reached high penetration in Vietnamese households and broad distribution across the market, there is still huge potential for the chocolate category. The improving logistics infrastructure will continue supporting these categories growth in the near future and festive periods like Lunar New Year celebrations allow introduction of a more diverse offering to consumers.

Compared to region peers, Morot stressed that Vietnam has an insatiable appetite for consumers and retailers for high quality innovations, a segment where Japanese brands are particularly doing well. Affordability remains a must in Vietnam but those who manage to combine price points and high-perceived quality will continue grabbing market share. The great successes of Kit Kat and Fishermans Friend are a testament to this winning recipe.

On the same note, Hemant Rupani, managing director of Mondelez Kinh Do Vietnam stated that the country is a vibrant and competitive market as part of the ASEAN. In Vietnam there are a large number of contenders in every industry, ensuring a great deal of competition. In most sectors there are no dominant players, and even those with a large market share are only operating at around the 20-30 per cent level.

In addition, Vietnams snack market will become even more competitive with the upcoming implementation of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement. More foreign producers and imported fast-moving consumer goods will flood the market, he added.
Starbucks Vietnam is a little too nonchalant when it comes to customers property getting stolen

A Facebook user named M.C. on June 30 shared his unhappy experience at a Starbucks store on Han Thuyen street (District 1, Ho Chi Minh City). Specifically, C. and his friends on June 28 visited the cafe. C left his Apple Watch in the boot then let the doorkeeper take care of his motorbike.

At the time, the doorkeeper asked C to give him the motorbike key to move the vehicle to another place for safety. Thinking that the rear boot was locked, he gave the key to the doorkeeper. However, upon returning home, C found the watch missing. He immediately checked the devices location and found that its last signal was sent at 10.45pm from the Starbucks store.

C's disappointment came more from the attitude of the cafe's staff when he returned to the store. When reporting the loss of his watch, C was showed to the manager of the cafe and was asked for his phone number. Since then, however, no one has contacted him to notify him of any progress.

All I was told by the manager was that 'customers' things are often stolen here'," C complained.

Indeed, Cs case was not the first at the Starbucks store, and this is not the first time the staff shows little interest in recovering stolen property. People whose things are stolen are not even allowed to check the stores camera and had to file reports at the police themselves.

Another customer, Thien Kim lost her wallet in the same Starbucks store. She said her temporary residence card in Japan was inside the wallet and only two days remained before her trip to Japan. That is why she asked the manager and staff members to check the security footage camera but was refused.

They told me I can report the theft to the police, but Starbucks cannot handle the case by checking the camera, said Kim.

Regarding the case of C, the representative of Starbucks Vietnam said that as soon as receiving full information, Starbucks will take all the necessary steps to resolve the issue. Specifically, the store on Han Thuyen suggested customers to file a report with the police to get better support from local authorities.

The representative also asserted that the doorkeepers of Starbucks always remind customers to take all of their important posessions from the boots before handing them their parking tags.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Photo: AFP/VNA)

This is an encouraging signal for the countrys investment climate amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

The relocation of factories of the seven companies, including the industrial conglomerate LG of the Republic of Korea and Japanese electronics giant Panasonic, is estimated to bring investment of 850 million USD to the country and potential employment for 30,000 workers, according to the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

Other companies that have reportedly confirmed their relocation include Taiwan-based audio equipment maker Meiloon, Japanese rubber products manufacturer Sagami, US-based light product maker Alpan, Taiwan-based tire-maker Kenda and Japanese automotive component manufacturer Denso.

Speaking during his tour of the newly established Batang Industrial Park, Widodo ordered ministers and BKPM leader provide the best services for the companies during the relocation process.

He also revealed that 17 more companies were looking to open facilities in Indonesia. BKPM data show that the potential relocation and facilities expansion of the 17 companies will bring in total investment of 37 billion USD and provide employment for 112,000 people.

According to Indonesian government data, Panasonic relocated its facilities to Indonesia to turn Southeast Asias biggest economy into its export base for home appliances. Meanwhile, LG Electronics moved its facilities from the Republic of Korea as it planned to turn Indonesia into its regional hub to expand its market in Asia and Australia.

The coronavirus outbreak has strained Indonesias foreign direct investment, as projects have been delayed as a result of social restrictions to contain the spread of the virus. Indonesia has booked a 9.2 percent year-on-year decline in foreign direct investment (FDI) to 98 trillion Rp (6.8 billion USD) in the first quarter of 2020.

To take advantage of the situation, the Indonesian government has established a special task force to attract businesses leaving China and facilitate their relocation to the Southeast Asian country.
The United States has wrongly used the ideas of the humanitarian crisis and the migrant crisis as justifications for regime change against Venezuela.





by Vijay Prashad, Eduardo Viloria Daboin, Ana Maldonado, and Zoe PC





Sixty percent of Venezuelas COVID-19 cases are in its border states of Apure, Bolivar, Tachira, and Zulia. Roughly 70,000 Venezuelans who had moved to nearby countries of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (largely in response to crippling U.S. sanctions) have returned in the last two months via these Venezuelan border states since the COVID-19 crisis exploded in their new countries. Abandoned by their new homes during the pandemic, and many of them infected there, they are now returning in large numbers to Venezuela.





Covid-19 and life in Venezuela

As part of the U.S. government-Lima Group offensive to overthrow the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolas Maduro, the countries that neighbor Venezuela began to welcome migrants in order to prove that the government in Caracas had failed. But as thousands of Venezuelans crossed the border at these four pointsApure, Bolivar, Tachira, and Zuliathey found themselves treated in these countries as second-class citizens. Before the pandemic, many of them were struggling with informal work and homelessness; when COVID-19 struck South America, and as the governments of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru utterly failed to tackle the spread of the disease, the migrants found themselves without social protection and without access to public health. Many were infected as community transmission lifted the curve of infections. Unable to get treatment in their new homes, these Venezuelans began to drift home.





But they were helped along by Colombian paramilitaries and mafia groups (trochas). Freddy Bernal, who is a government representative in Tachira, said that the Venezuelan state has been trying to prevent the illegal smuggling of Venezuelans into Venezuela. The Venezuelan government welcomes its citizens, but only through a proper epidemiological screening. The smugglers, who are experienced in drug-trafficking and paramilitary operations, have used cable cars and trucks to avoid the official border checkpoints, thereby bringing Venezuelans who are infected with the COVID-19 virus into the country without allowing them to be properly screened.





The numbers of those infected with coronavirus in the countries that surround Venezuela are very high: Brazil (1.28 million), Peru (272,000), Colombia (84,442), and Ecuador (53,856), with a total of more than 1.69 million people infected. Venezuela, meanwhile, has only 4,563 infected people. The reason why Venezuelas overall numbers are low is that the government has followed the World Health Organization recommendations and employed proven methods to break the chain of infection that government officials have learned from health care workers and medical experts in China, Cuba, Iran, and Russia. Of the 4,563 cases in Venezuela, almost two-thirds are in the border states; it is likely that the reason for this pattern stems from people who have crossed into the country from the neighboring countries unchecked. Outside the border states, COVID-19 has nearly been contained, with community transmission low and with the health care system working hard to heal the infected.





Mistreatment of Venezuelans





On May 21, President Maduro accused Colombias Ivan Duque of negligence in his governments treatment of Venezuelan migrants. Maduro said Colombia was sending Venezuelan migrants back to Venezuela on buses that had not been disinfected, and on the buses, they were not afforded the necessity of physical distancing. At the Rumichaca bridge that links Ecuador to Colombia, the Colombian police fired tear gas at Colombian and Venezuelan nationals as they tried to return to their home countries and escape the runaway pandemic in Ecuador. Unable to get bus tickets from Ecuador to Venezuela, the Venezuelan migrants were forced to gather in large groups, sleep outside, and walkat each point putting themselves in danger of contagion. None of Venezuelas neighboring governments offered any straightforward policy for the migrants to return home.





Instead, politicians in Colombia who are committed to regime change in Venezuela began to make the argument that it was the government in Caracas that would not take its own citizens back home. Carlos Valero, a congressman for the Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) party (who says in his Twitter bio that he is working for Venezuelan migrants), tweeted that Venezuelans are in these inhumane conditions in public places in Cucuta[, Colombia,] after being unable to enter Venezuela because the Venezuelan border had been closed. This came after the Colombian government prevented its own citizens from returning home from Ecuador at the Rumichaca bridge; and it was during a period when the Venezuelan government welcomed its citizens home in the thousands. But it allowed the Colombian far right to play a political game that went along with the U.S. hybrid war and regime change strategy.





The United States has wrongly used the ideas of the humanitarian crisis and the migrant crisis as justifications for regime change against Venezuela. There is little mention by politicians and the media of the suffering created by the U.S. unilateral sanctions that caused Venezuelans to leave their country in the first place, or of the mistreatment of the Venezuelan migrants in the neighboring countries. Nor is there any attention to the fact that the majority of Venezuelans who left the country have returned homeor tried to.





Venezuelas Policy on the Border





Rather than deny Venezuelans return to their country, the Venezuelan government (the United Socialist Party of Venezuela), a variety of social movements (such as Red Popular de Ayuda Solidaria), community organizers, and various social missions all mobilized at the border to welcome migrants and to test them for the coronavirus. Epidemiological checkpoints were created along the border to protect the country from infection; those who tested positive were sent to health centers to be treated and to live in quarantine for two weeks. In Apure State, 300 Venezuelan and 100 Cuban medical workers created 23 Comprehensive Social Assistance Points (Puntos de Atencion Social Integral, or PASI) to conduct these diagnostic tests and to ensure that infected Venezuelans are prevented from spreading COVID-19 into the general population. In this one state, there are about 3,400 people in these PASIs, where they are offered free lodging and food. These posts have been in operation for more than 100 days and have processed at least 14,000 migrants. The infected patients are treated with chloroquine and interferon.





Venezuelas rate of infection remains low, despite the U.S. unilateral sanctions that have denied the country the right to import drugs and tests for the population. On top of that, Venezuelas neighbors have denied the basic human rights of expatriate Venezuelans and sent themwith little regard for their safety or public health, during a pandemicback to their country of origin.





This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.





Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.





Eduardo Viloria Daboin is a documentary filmmaker, photographer and writer. He is the national communications officer of the Venezuelan peasant movement Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current (Corriente Revolucionaria Bolivar y Zamora, or CRBZ).





Ana Maldonado is in the Frente Francisco de Miranda (Venezuela).





Zoe PC is a journalist with Peoples Dispatch and reports on peoples movements in Latin America.
The event to announce six new public services provided on the National Public Service Portal on July 1 (Photo: VNA)

The six services provided from July 1 are notarising e-copies, granting and renewing driving licenses at Level 4 - the highest level of online public service provision, paying fines for administrative violations in road traffic imposed by traffic inspectors, paying fines for administrative violations in road traffic imposed by traffic police, paying premiums of voluntary social insurance, and extending household-based health insurance.

At the announcement of the new services, Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung said they aim to better meet the needs of millions of people and businesses.

The six services could help save at least 1.686 trillion VND (72.89 million USD) in time and expenses for people and businesses each year, he added.

The 725 services now provided on the National Public Service Portal is a 90-fold increase since it debuted last December 2019 and a 4.5-fold increase from the end of the first quarter.

Savings of about 6.49 trillion VND annually will come from handling public services online, including 3.036 trillion VND contributed by the National Public Service Portal.

Figures show that compared to the first quarter, the number of accounts on the portal had more than doubled to over 179,600 as of June 29, while the number of visits also doubled to over 46.6 million, or about 7.7 million visits each month.

The portal has handled more than 46,000 dossiers every month. Its online payment system, put into operation in March, has been connected with six ministries and sectors along with 31 of Vietnams 63 centrally-run cities and provinces and successfully dealt with more than 2,100 transactions.
Vietnam Airlines and competitors can only mostly focus on domestic services for now, Photo: Le Toan

The aviation market around the world is in a tailspin. Numerous airlines around the world are bankrupt or will be bailed out. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that 2020 losses for airlines alone will be $84 billion. To put this in perspective, that is about a third of the total annual GDP of Vietnam. Airline revenues, according to the IATA, will be down 50 per cent this year.

Few rays of sunshine pierce these gathered clouds, but some may have recently caught sight of a couple of shafts of light. One is that airlines flying domestically in Vietnam appear to have achieved a V-shaped rebound that would be the envy of the aviation world, and as a result the domestic terminals at the airports in the country no longer whistle emptily.

Another positive is the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which was approved by the National Assembly recently and should come into force around August. The EVFTA will doubtless improve the investment and business environment through institutional reforms and upgrades to the laws and regulations in the country, which should become increasingly standardised and transparent. But one has to dig deep into the appendices to the EVFTA, and to brush away the principle of infinite obliquity that seems to permeate these trade agreements, in order to see why the aircraft service companies of Europe should be trying to locate the next available jet to Vietnam. Though whether they will appreciate the two weeks stay in the quarantine camp that will result from such a hop remains to be seen.

The EVFTA confirms several points relating to aircraft services. The first is that airlines are permitted to provide services through their ticketing offices or agents in Vietnam. The second is that there are no restrictions in computer reservation services, except that they must go through public telecommunication networks that are under the management of the Vietnamese telecommunications authority.

Also, in terms of maintenance and repair of aircraft, international companies can provide services through joint ventures with Vietnamese partners or 100 per cent foreign-invested enterprises. Until now, the only competition for VAECO, the Vietnam Airlines subsidiary that leads the maintenance, repair, and overhaul market in Vietnam, were two joint ventures involving Singaporean groups.

The picture is more nuanced with respect to airport services. The exciting news is that five years after Vietnam allows private suppliers access to an airport or terminal, they will be permitted to provide ground services to such airport or terminal.

Then the clouds descend again. There are various qualifications and limitations to this future right. First, aircraft servicing and cleaning, surface transport, airport management, and air service navigation are excluded from walking through this open door.

Secondly, five years begins to run when Vietnamese private companies have access to an airport or terminal. This means that the sector has to allow the participation of at least one Vietnamese 100 per cent privately-owned company or one joint venture in which private capital contribution accounts for at least 51 per cent.

This remains to be interpreted and numerous details remain vague, such as how far up the corporate chain one looks for state capital. It is also unclear whether the five years will begin to run as to all ground services at an airport when the first private Vietnamese company is permitted to perform any such services at such airport, or whether the five years only begins to run in respect of the services being performed by that company. Moreover, the foreign company will need to establish a joint venture with a Vietnamese partner. The foreign equity cannot exceed 49 per cent, though this can rise, three years later, to 51 per cent of the capital. Next, the number of service suppliers in each airport can be limited, if there are space constraints. This leads to the possibility that the five-year window for Vietnamese companies could fill up the available space.

Furthermore, applications for licences to establish joint ventures can be evaluated by the authorities based on the following considerations, including, among others: (i) the net socio-economic benefits that the European Union investors can generate, including but not limited to their long-term commitments, capacity building and technology transfer for Vietnam, and their prior contribution to Vietnams economy; (ii) their financial capability and relevant experience; and (iii) the possible impact on Vietnams national security and defence. This review process alone reduces an apparent right into a discretionary application.

Another issue is that even if an EU investor succeeds in establishing a joint venture, its value is more limited than may appear on the surface. Any transfer of its capital in the joint venture would be subject to prior approval of the relevant authorities, and the relevant Vietnamese partner in the joint venture will have a right of first refusal to buy the interest being transferred.

Vietnam also made one more important commitment in the EVFTA. Foreign companies are permitted to provide in-flight meal services through the establishment of joint ventures with Vietnamese partners, with foreign equity not exceeding 49 per cent. Now, one can hold out modest hope that this will bring improvement upon the seafood and rice, chicken and noodles, and beef with potatoes choice that this author has so much enjoyed over the years.
Last week, two Vietnamese companies, Hanoimilk JSC and Bel Vietnam Co., Ltd. were granted permission for exporting dairy products, including fermented milk and cheese, to China by their General Administration of Customs. The administration is also now appraising a dossier on obtaining an export code for Vietnams NutiFood JSC, with results expected to be announced soon.

According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trades (MoIT) Department for Asian and African Markets, China has so far provided export codes for four Vietnamese companies to export dairy products to its market, including TH Group, Vinamilk, Hanoimilk, and Bel Vietnam.

Currently, average import tax rates for Vietnams dairy products into China are amounting to 10-15 per cent.

However, these rates are expected to be removed with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), meaning that Vietnamese dairy products could have a bigger market in China.

In 2012, leaders of the 10 ASEAN member states and the ASEANs partners, namely Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, launched negotiations for the RCEP.

In 2013, the first negotiation round was kicked off, and then followed by another 27 rounds. However, India dropped out of the RCEP in September 2019, aiming to protect its vulnerable sectors and persuade China to grant reciprocal market access.

Strong commitment

At the 36th ASEAN Summit last week, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated that the bloc committed to economic liberalisation and connectivity with the early inking of the RCEP. Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh reaffirmed that as ASEAN chair in 2020, Vietnam has been working closely with other member countries to maintain the blocs leadership and close co-operation with the five partners, to accelerate finalising RCEP talks and the legal review of the deals wording so that it may be inked in Hanoi in November, when the fourth RCEP Summit will take place.

The inking of the RCEP in 2020 will send a message that the negotiating countries support a multilateral trade system, and increase economic integration among regional nations, therefore contributing to recovering economic activities, and establishing a new normalcy in the whole region, said a statement from the MoITs Department for Multilateral Trade Policy.

The 15 negotiating nations stressed that the RCEP will provide a more stable and predictable economic environment to support the much-needed recovery of trade and investment in the region, which has been adversely affected by COVID-19.

Regarding India, all parties said India has been an important member in the RCEP, and its participation in the deal could contribute to the entire regions progress and prosperity. They stress that the RCEP member states are open for India to rejoin, the statement said.

The RCEP is regarded as the worlds largest regional trade agreement as it covers a market of roughly 30 per cent of the worlds population, or about 2.3 billion people.

Good times ahead

The RCEP signatories have committed to opening their doors to goods, services, and investment, simplify custom procedures, setting up rules of origin and removing trade barriers to enhance trade facilitation.

The RCEP will establish high-quality rules for the supply of services between parties, including obligations to provide access to foreign service suppliers, to treat local and foreign suppliers equally on a national level and to treat foreign suppliers as well as suppliers of any other non-RCEP country. Service suppliers from the RCEP countries will benefit from commitments to enhance the transparency and predictability of domestic regulation affecting trade in services, bettering the business climate in the region.

Currently, no specific levels of tariff reductions under the RCEP have been revealed.

Former Malaysian Ambassador to Vietnam M. Zamruni Khalid told VIR that Vietnam and Malaysias participation in the RCEP has enhanced their position as an attractive location for investment, and Malaysian firms will benefit more from the Vietnamese market via the RCEP.

A sector of big interest for Malaysian financiers is agriculture as the country has developed expertise in logistics and packaging for agriculture and agro-based products. While agriculture is a major contributor to Vietnams economy, the sector is still lacking in terms of technologies and output quality, said Khalid. This provides opportunities for potential Malaysian investors, especially by bringing in advanced, value-added processing technologies.

Ibnu Hadi, Indonesian Ambassador to Vietnam, told VIR that he is optimistic about the impacts of the RCEP on Vietnams economy, and expects it to expand trade and woo more investment inflows.

Such impacts will help Vietnam reap higher growth and deepen its business climate in regional and global value chains, allowing the country to boost exports, Hadi said. Moreover, the benefits from the RCEP will become more visible if Vietnam improves institutional reforms.

According to Hadi, the RCEP will also offer massive opportunities for Vietnams agricultural exports.

Demand for agricultural products from the agreements member states is high, especially tropical agricultural products and assorted processed food. Moreover, China which accounts for 30 per cent of the worlds total trade, is a huge market for Vietnam, the ambassador said.

Vietnam is among the largest exporters of farm produce in the world, such as coffee, rice, pepper, fish, and shrimp. It is expected that agro-forestry-fishery export turnover this year will be around $43 billion, up from $41 billion last year.

Tim Harcourt, professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, told VIR that based on his calculations, the RCEP will give numerous opportunities to Vietnam in many sectors thanks to the its tariff reductions. This is particularly true for sectors like ICT, textile, footwear, and agriculture. Vietnam has strengths in all of these sectors.

Under the RCEP, import tariffs for these products will be slashed remarkably upon the deals entry into force, and will be reduced to zero within 3-10 years.

Preparation is everything

According to experts, to benefit from the RCEP, Vietnam needs to improve its economic institutions, including corporate governance, rule of law, and overall transparency. The countrys main task will be at home, undertaking structural reform so its institutions are transparent and effective, to boost productivity and international competitiveness and to take advantage of all the trade deals on offer, Harcourt said. Vietnam needs to improve its skills and infrastructure and its overall institutions.

Meanwhile, Raymond Mallon, senior economic advisor from the Australia-Vietnam economic reform programme, told VIR that although the RCEP will enable Vietnam to attract more foreign direct investment, much remains to be done for the country to significantly benefit from the deal.

Authorities need to remain aware of the business and investment environment in other countries to further improve the national business climate and protect its natural environment, Mallon said.
At the meeting (Photo: Nhandan.com.vn)

During the meeting, Huu, who is also Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan (People) Newspaper and President of the Vietnam Journalists Association, and his guest expressed their delight at the fruitful and practical development of the Vietnam - US comprehensive partnership.

They discussed the prospects of press cooperation between the two countries, including strengthening exchange of working delegations and information sharing, especially when the two countries are organising various activities to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their diplomatic ties.

The Vietnamese official thanked the US Embassy in Vietnam for its contributions to promoting the bilateral relations, as well as cooperation in journalism and communications, including helping Nhan Dan Newspaper to get access to documents for the production of documentary series titled Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh Era  A Television Chronicle.

He expressed his hope that the embassy will continue to cooperate with the newspaper in further promoting the relationship between the two countries in the time to come.

For his part, Kritenbrink said he is impressed by Vietnam's efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that he is willing to share the countrys success story with US and world press agencies.

The US affirmed his wish to continue cooperating with Nhan Dan Newspaper and other Vietnamese press agencies, thus contributing to enhancing the mutual understanding between the two nations people and further fostering the Vietnam - US relations.
The Supreme Court will deliver a verdict on July 15 in relation to an appeal filed by media translator Ratt Roth Mony, who has been convicted for his involvement in a Russian documentary about sex trafficking in Phnom Penh.



Ratt Roth Mony was convicted by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on June 26, 2019, for incitement and sentenced to two years in prison. Last November, the Appeal Court dismissed an appeal by Ratt Roth Mony upholding the lower courts verdict.



Government officials have denied the claims in the documentary, produced by Russian-state media outlet RT called My Mother Sold Me, with the lower court ordering Ratt Roth Mony to pay around $16,500 to the two subjects featured in the video.



Outside the courtroom, Ratt Roth Monys father, Thouk Ratt, said his son had been unjustly convicted for assisting with the documentary.



It is like injustice [for my son] because RT said a long time ago that he is just an interpreter. This is an injustice for my family, he said. RT was formerly known as Russia Today.



Long Kimheang, a former land rights activist and Ratt Roth Monys wife, said her husbands arrest was a threat to other journalists to refrain from reporting on sensitive subjects.



For the detention of my husband, its a serious violation against him, she said from Thailand, where she now lives. On the other hand, its a pressure [tactic] on other reporters to prevent them from talking and reporting about human rights abuses and sex trafficking.



In 2019, Ekaterina Yakovleva, RTs head of documentary production, wrote a letter to Ker Vichet, Cambodian ambassador to Moscow, reiterating that Ratt Roth Mony was a translator and facilitator for RTs news production team.



Lor Chunthy, one of Ratt Roth Monys lawyers, pointed to RTs letter and explanation that Ratt Roth Mony had stopped working for the Russian publication before the documentary was released.
India and Nepal are close neighboring countries. All over the world, it is a common feature that two neighboring countries always suffer from some border landmark problems.





by Swadesh Roy





Nepal has included three thousand thirty-five square kilometers area in their political map and they claimed it as their own land not Indias. The areas, Nepal has shown in their map are Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhuray. Their judgement is, according to the contract of the British Administration in 1816, these are their lands and India is using them. On the other hand, India dismissed Nepals claim. Their concern is that, it is totally Indian Territory and what Nepal is telling now is totally baseless.













India and Nepal are close neighboring countries. All over the world, it is a common feature that two neighboring countries always suffer from some border landmark problems. And it is always settled down with the help of negotiation not the vaguely or by the cannons. In this South Asia, we are seeing that India and Pakistan have a territorial problem in Jammu and Kashmir. For this problem, these two countries betrothed in at least five wars. But no solution came out yet. On the contrary, after the creation of Bangladesh, India and Bangladesh found out there were many landmark disputes existing between them. And it was not settled in the era of Pakistan. In 1974, two countries came to an agreement at the stage of Prime Minister Level. In that agreement, they sorted out all the disputed areas would be marked and each country would hand over the others territory. To establish this agreement, it was needed for both countries to pass the agreement and hand over the territory rights in the parliament. The Bangladesh government passed it in 1974 but it was not implemented then. Because, Indian government could not pass it and long delay was happened regarding this issue because of the absence of political government in Bangladesh and also the lack of good relations between these two countries. After a huge political turmoil, India and Bangladesh became good friendly neighbors in 2009. But then Indian government parties were not in enough majority by which they would pass the agreement in the parliament. In 2014, Indian power party had that much majority. Besides, the opposition also supported the government party and they ratified the agreement in the parliament. In that way, these two countries settled their border landmark disputed lands peacefully.





We all know that anyone can disagree with his relatives but not disagree with his neighbors. So, when a bad relation arises between two neighbors then some things obviously happen. First, two neighbors always engage in many conflicts; those basically hamper two countries economic, social, cultural even human development. Because, two neighboring countries share some common economic, social, cultural and human development aspects. Secondly, some other countries get entrance issuing that conflict. This is always happening in the case of India and Pakistan. If India and Pakistan maintained a good relation from 1947 to present, it is obvious these two countries could have been achieved at least 30% more economic and social development what they are enjoying now. Besides, many bad elements basically the terrorist groups get shelter in Pakistan in the name of blowing India. Simultaneously, one kind of Hindu jingoism has risen in India capitalized hate Pakistan campaign. Besides, Indias economic rival, China got upper hand in Pakistan. They have not only occupied the Pakistani economy market but also established their control over Pakistan Army and one of the naval port in Pakistan and Shaksgam of Kashmir.





So, there are two examples in front of Nepal now; one Pakistan another Bangladesh which will they choose? If they choose the way of Bangladesh, they have to go for negotiation with India for solving the border dispute. Then, it may take time but nothing will be hampered between these two countries. As a neighbor, they can enjoy all the facilities from each other and continue the negotiation. If they walk on this path, they can maintain their all types of relation with other countries and that will not hamper the negotiation between India and them. Contrary, if they walk in the way of Pakistan, then obviously their another neighbor, the Indian economic rival China will get upper hand. All the concerned people of this area know that an anti-Indian sentiment has risen in Nepal. It was four years ago when I visited a South-East Asian country for joining a conference. In that occasion, many diplomats and strategists from different countries joined. At a stage, I got chance to talk some young Nepali diplomats. In that conversation, they expressed their higher praise to China and anger against India. As a journalist of Indian close neighbor and a small country, this sentiment is very common to me. It is one of the common failure of India that they could not incredulous the anti-Indian sentiment from their small close neighboring countries. The same anti Indian sentiment I have seen in Maldives and Sri Lanka. It is a big question that why India failed to overcome this wound of the heart from its small neighboring country people. Such as, China is demolishing the Muslims of Uighurs but none of the Maulanas (Islamic Clerics) from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives uttered any single word. But they all are concerned about Indian Muslims. So, India should understand that their neighbors are more concerned about them. They should think and behave in that way of which none of its neighboring people hurt by their country and their peoples behave.





However, now the question is that will the Nepali Prime Minister, K.P. Oli, go for negotiation with India or use the anti-Indian sentiment of his country that will create a fight against India? The people who are anti-Indian in Nepal have a soft sentiment to China; what was told earlier about Nepali young diplomats. So, when Mr. K.P. Oli will go to use the anti-Indian sentiment, then a pro Chinese sentiment will get upper hand in his country. Following this way of pro Chinese sentiment, China can get entrance in Nepal. Besides, some political analysts are telling, Nepal is doing this with the help of China.





It is not clear yet if China is helping Nepal or not. And it is far way what will happen between Nepal and India, Nepal and China, in future. But now the time for Nepal to analyze the character of its two neighbor China and India. They can analyze only two or three incidents from the past history. First, they can go for analyzing Indian history. In 1971, India helped Bangladeshi freedom fighters supporting with their conventional army. Bangladeshi freedom fighters along with Indian conventional army defeated Pakistani Army and Bangladesh got free. After defeating Pakistani Army, Indian Army stayed in Bangladesh only six to seven weeks. After the Second World War to still there is the example, India the only country withdrawn their army from others lands as soon as possible. Not only that the Indian army occupied huge area in the western side of Pakistan but also they retreated on their own will. They didnt occupy an inch of Pakistani land in the western front. Besides, India sent their army in Sri Lanka for peace keeping in Tamil crisis in 1987 but they had withdrawn soldiers in 1990. Even then, they sent one thousand sixteen hundred troops in Maldives for saving their President from a military coup detat. But their soldiers did not stay there.





On the other hand, Nepal can remember the history of Tibet. In 1950, People Liberation Army of China entered the Tibet. After this, 1.2 million Tibetans sacrificed their lives and still they are fighting by staying various countries of the world. And Tibet is the territory of China now.

Some analysts are saying that Nepal is fuming now with the help of China. But they have to think about what will be the prejudice in the name of help if Chinese troops enter in Nepal!





Swadesh Roy, Senior Journalist, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a highest state award winning journalist and can be reached at swadeshroy@gmail.com
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Morristown, VT (05661)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong early, mainly cloudy overnight with a few showers. Low 61F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong early, mainly cloudy overnight with a few showers. Low 61F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Stowe, VT (05672)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 61F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

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Thunderstorms, some strong early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 61F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Milton, PA (17847)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

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Pat Winburn is running for governor on a simple platform: say yes to the things Gov. Phil Scott has said no to, along with additional, more progressive initiatives.

A personal-injury lawyer based in Bennington, Winburn announced his run in the Democratic primaries in February. With no previous experience in state government, Winburn has been campaigning with the help of Sunrise, his daughter and campaign manager, and his dog, Alfie. He funded that campaign with $100,000 of his own cash and has since spent more than a third of that on local television ads, with some featuring his dog. Winburn sees the current governor as just a nice guy, with no opinions on the issues.

What has he done? Hes done nothing, Winburn said, going as far as calling Scott a Trumpian Republican.

Pat Winburn  Age 64, lives in Bennington with his wife Kim  Current: lawyer  Jobs: lawyer  Politics: board member of Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union, board member of Manchester School Board, Bennington town moderator  Education: Bachelors in political science from George Washington University, doctorate from University of Miamis School of Law

Im tired of hearing people talk and not seeing things happen, he said.

He decided to run for governor because Sen. Dick Sears (D) wouldnt and said his platform is basically identical.

While his competition in the primary  David Zuckerman and Rebecca Holcombe  have years of experience in either state government or state agencies, Winburn said his outsider status and perspective will help him tackle Vermonts biggest challenges. When people have problems, they go to a lawyer, he said.

Minimum wage, paid leave

Winburn wants both $15 minimum wage and paid family leave laws on the books.

How do you praise essential workers in grocery stores and hospitals during a crisis and not believe they deserve a better, livable wage? Winburn said. If he were governor, he said hed work to get $15 minimum wage back to the floor of the Legislature and signed into law. On multiple occasions hes challenged Scott to work for $15 an hour.

Winburn said the timing of Scotts veto of the paid family leave bill couldnt have been worse. If it made it past the governor earlier this year, the law could have done a lot of good for Vermonters during the pandemic shutdown.

The way they had it set up  and (Scott) vetoed it  it would have been like unemployment insurance, he said.

Health insurance

Winburns wife, Kim, was diagnosed with cancer in 2015.

If we hadnt had health care, she would have died, he said. He has private healthcare insurance through his office, but doesnt think that should be the only route to protection.

I believe health care is a right. Its our moral obligation to take care of people, he said.

Winburn acknowledged that Vermonts attempt at a single-payer system didnt work, but he doesnt think that means Vermont has to give up the fight. He hopes for a federal single-payer system, but pointed to Dr. Dynasaur  a state program that provides insurance to lower income children and pregnant women  as an example of how Vermont can do good work on its own.

It would require a lot of different ideas and a lot of different resources, he said.

Scotts pandemic response

Winburn said he didnt have much criticism for Scott on his handling of the pandemic, but thats the only nice thing he had to say. Winburn compared Scott directly to President Donald Trump.

Hes the same guy that headlines fundraisers with Gov. Scott Walker, whos the most anti-labor politician in America, he said. He ran his first state Senate campaign on a platform of opposing civil unions.

You cant deny that youre a Trump Republican when all the things that you do show that youre a Trump Republican, Winburn said.

Hes the only Democratic candidate saying that. This is not a tactic. Everything I say, I believe, he said.

While the Republican governor has a high approval rating in a state that typically elects Democrats to statewide offices  his handling of the pandemic has been well received by Vermonters of all political perspectives  Winburn said that he doesnt have any ideas for moving forward.

When the coronavirus pandemic is over, were going to be left with all these other problems. What is your stance on these other problems? he said, referring to what he called Scotts lack of campaigning.

Police and racial justice

As a white person, I think its my job to amplify the voices of people affected by systemic racism. And it exists everywhere, Winburn said.

The solution? More training.

He said implicit-bias training should be required for every level of public employee, from clerks to representatives to police.

I would say almost all cops in Vermont are good people. I think theyre trying to do their best and dont realize theyre actually biased, he said.

Winburn would also take the more moderate approach to the popular protest demand of defunding the police. We expect a lot out of the police department, and some of those are things that other professionals should be dealing with, he said.

He would support reallocating a portion of Vermont State Police funds to mental health services and other specialists, (professionals) who can give them preventative care and deal with it from an education standpoint and not just put the whole load on the police departments.

Education and taxes

Winburn doesnt want to compromise local schools to save a couple bucks. Consolidating administrative functions within districts is fine, he said, but closing small-town schools takes that too far.

Smaller towns and smaller areas have a different sort of tradition for their schools. They have a need for local control, and people enjoy having control over their own schools, he said. We cant avoid moving into the 21st century, but there are times when small schools need to be respected and they need to be preserved.

How will the state pay for keeping small schools open and other costly education programs? We need to tax pot, he said.

Winburn thinks its time to make marijuana commercially available, and the revenue could help. Thats not going to solve all of the problems, but if were going to make it legal, then we need to tax it, just like Canada does, and just like Massachusetts does, and Colorado.

The rest of the money would come from the top down, he said, by taxing the top 5 percent of earners in the state at a higher rate. And, Windburn said, the wealthiest people wont mind.

I think that just the privilege of living in Vermont, in such a wonderful and beautiful place with such a high quality of life, would make people who are high earners want to pay their fair share.
Even though events are not forbidden under the current 'Safer at Home' order, a local nonprofit had to make the difficult decision to cancel its two biggest fundraisers of the year.

Mosaic Mentoring of North Alabama first called off the Wet Dog Triathlon originally planned for May and then last month, they decided to cancel the Riverfest BBQ and Music Festival in September.

Leah Brown, the CEO of Mosaic, said they were holding off on even contacting potential sponsors as long as they could.

"I couldn't go to a sponsor and ask them to sponsor and event that I didn't know if it was going to happen or not," Brown said.

Both events are normally mainstays in the Decatur community. Riverfest turned 25 last year and the Wet Dog Triathlon would've celebrated its 20th anniversary this year had the event gone on as planned.

Brown said she couldn't bring herself to try and put the event together given all of the potential risks.

"The judges that come in, they come in from all over the country to judge Riverfest and with travel restrictions and the judges, a lot of them are older people and they just weren't doing it," Brown said.

Mosaic partners around 350 kids with mentors both in communities around north Alabama as well as in four schools, two in Franklin County and two in Lawrence County.

Brown said they've been doing virtual meetup and mentors stay in touch with their mentees through phone calls and texting. However, with the loss of their two biggest fundraisers, Brown said it created a hole in their budget of between 30 and 40 percent.

"You just gotta figure out how to get some of it back, at least a little of it back," Brown said.

On Thursday, match pair Casey Coleman got to see her mentee Abigail Goolsby, a rising 5th grader, for the first time in months. They have been paired for just over a year now.

Colman said it's just not the same trying to create quality time over the phone.

"If you don't have that one-on-one, you can only say so much through a text message or even over the phone. I'd rather be with her and see her to spend that time with her," Coleman said.

Much of the money lost from the two fundraisers is used to give matches the chance to do things like go to the movies and have small shopping trips, like for clothes or school supplies.

Brown said she's hoping that things will improve by the next summer. She said she doesn't like to dwell on the idea that they may have to forgo their big fundraisers yet again.

"I am hoping and praying along with the rest of the world that we can at least start doing some fun things again and some normal things," Brown said. "But if we can't do our event-type fundraising then we'll just have to look at something else again and just try and see what we can do."

Correction: This article was updated to reflect the number of children who receive mentoring through Mosaic.
The Alabama Department of Corrections says a Morgan County murderer who tested positive for coronavirus while in prison has died.

Billie Joe Moore, 73, was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for murder at St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville.

The department said Moore died June 27.

The department said Moore tested positive for coronavirus after he died. The department said he previously tested negative, and had been transferred to a hospital due to complications from advanced lung cancer.

Also Wednesday, the department announced that Daniel Everett, 74, died Tuesday at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore. Charged in Madison County, hewas serving a life sentence for production of obscene matter involving children under the age of 17. He had tested positive for coronavirus on June 14.

The department also released this information Wednesday:

Henry Robinson, a 56-year-old inmate who was serving a 20-year sentence for second-degree burglary out of Mobile County at Staton Correctional Facility (Staton) in Elmore, Alabama, passed away on June 30.

Inmate Robinson suffered from preexisting chronic health conditions and, on June 25, was transferred from Staton to a local hospital for additional medical care unrelated to COVID-19. Prior to this transfer, Robinson was not displaying signs or symptoms of COVID-19. Upon admission to the hospital, he was tested for the disease and subsequently returned a positive test result. Robinson remained under the care of the hospital until his passing.

INMATE POPULATION

The ADOC has confirmed that one inmate at St. Clair has tested positive for COVID-19. The inmate was transferred to a local hospital after exhibiting signs and symptoms of COVID-19, where he subsequently tested positive. He remains under the care of the hospital. After completing our consultation with the State Medical Director of the ADOCs contracted health services provider, the dormitory in which this inmate was housed was placed on level-two quarantine.

Seventy (70) total cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed among our inmate population, forty (40) of which remain active.

ADOC STAFF

The ADOC was informed via self-reporting that:

one (1) staff member at Birmingham Community Based Facility/Community Work Center in Birmingham, Alabama;

one (1) staff member at Fountain Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama;

one (1) staff member at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama; and

one (1) staff member at Ventress Correctional Facility in Clayton, Alabama, have tested positive for COVID-19.

These four (4) individuals promptly self-quarantined under the direction of their healthcare providers.

The ADOCs Office of Health Services (OHS) has initiated investigations to determine which, if any, ADOC inmates or employees may have had direct, prolonged exposure to this staff member. Upon completing the appropriate due diligence, OHS will advise any staff with direct exposure to contact their healthcare providers and self-quarantine for the recommended 14-day period, or as advised by their health care providers.

Eighty-two (82) COVID-19 cases among ADOC staff and contracted staff remain active. Eighty-seven (87) staff members who previously self-reported a positive test have been cleared by medical providers to return to work.
Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers said there are five children with coronavirus hospitalized. He said its the first time theyve seen this during the pandemic.

One of the children hospitalized is a four-year-old patient with cancer. The child was receiving treatment for the cancer and tested positive for coronavirus.

He said another one of the children is a 4-month-old baby.

I challenge people who resist wearing face coverings to think about this, Spillers said.

He made the announcement during a news conference on Wednesday at Huntsville City Hall. We also heard from Madison County Emergency Management Agency Director Jeff Birdwell and Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, who stressed the importance of wearing face masks during this pandemic.

In total, Spillers said there are 121 people hospitalized with coronavirus in the systems North Alabama hospitals. Thirty of these patients are in the ICU, and 14 of them are on ventilators.

In Madison County, there are 50 inpatients with coronavirus, including 36 at Huntsville Hospital, five at Huntsville Hospital Women and Children's, five at Madison Hospital and three at Crestwood Medical Center.

Twelve of the inpatients with coronavirus in Madison County are in the ICU, and eight are on ventilators.

There are 19 inpatients with coronavirus at Decatur Morgan Hospital, 32 in Marshall Medical Centers, 11 at Helen Keller Hospital, eight at Athens Limestone Hospital and one at Highlands Medical Center.

All of our hospitals are busy, Spillers said at Wednesday's news conference.

He said the system will be limiting testing at its Huntsville Fever and Flu Clinic to people with symptoms. This will start on Monday. The site had to close early this week due to reaching capacity early.

It will also reopen its John Hunt drive-thru testing site on Monday, and testing will be available to people without symptoms.

The John Hunt site is expected to open Monday afternoon, and it will be open Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A doctor's order is not required.

Spillers said the John Hunt site will be open as long as there is a demand and adequate amount of testing.

Spillers also said there are workers coming into contact with people in the community with coronavirus, and theyre having to take them out of rotation.

Im beginning to worry about staffing for beds, he said.

Spillers said there are so many cases in the community that its creating a strain.
Wendell Stinnett had been planning to work for at least another four years, maybe even eight. Instead he agreed this summer to walk away from the job he's had for 31 years.

It's a scary time to be unemployed. Even with a better-than-expected June jobs report Monday, the unemployment rate still stands at 11% and 17.8 million people are out of work and looking for a job. Most of the 4.8 million jobs that were added last month were people being called back to jobs they lost from the pandemic lockdown  not people finding new positions. There were only 5 million job openings in April, the most recent figure available, not nearly enough to go around for everyone looking for work.

But Stinnett, 61, is one of thousands who has agreed to take a buyout from his company, Sabre, which handles reservations and software for the nation's travel industry.

"I like to work. I like working for Sabre," said Stinnett, who is a manager in the company's billing department. "Looking at our business, we bill based upon bookings from airlines, hotels, cruise lines. All of our customers were hit. The revenue stream dried up. With that information, I saw the handwriting on the wall."

Stinnett's situation is not unique. So far, 4,500 employees at American Airlines have agreed to leave the company, mostly for early retirement. So have 5,500 employees at Boeing.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in an memo to staff that "thousands" of its 90,000 employees have taken buyouts. The offer remains open for two more weeks, and similar proposals are on the table at many of the nation's airlines and other travel companies.

Many non-travel companies are offering buyouts to cut staff and align with a new market reality, too, including TIAA, Kickstarter and Florida hospital system Lee Health.

Stinnett, who lives and works in suburban Dallas, said he figured there would be involuntary layoffs coming, and that they wouldn't receive the same package that he was able to receive. So his decision to retire wasn't entirely voluntary.

"If the company had financial stability right now, I would have continued working there," he said. "But I think the decision to take the voluntary retirement program is my best choice."

Stinnett is planning to adjust his retirement plans, cut some significant expenses in his home budget, including a health aide who was helping to care for his wife, and taking on those duties himself.

"I would be too nervous if I was in the late 40s or early 50s," he said. "I saw team members in that position, they both opted not to do it and rolled the dice."

Rolling the dice

But some workers that far from retirement are willing to take similar offers from their companies.

One Delta customer service employee, who spoke to CNN on the condition that his name not be used, took a buyout offer from the airline, even though he's only 50. He said he benefits from the fact that he had significant savings before he started working for Delta five years ago, and his wife still has a good job.

He's happy with the offer, which he said will pay him for 15 weeks, a year of medical insurance and 11 years of travel benefits on the airline.

The Delta employee said he had agreed to take a nine-month unpaid leave from the company earlier this year, because he could keep his benefits, such as insurance and free travel.

"I'm fortunate, I've been able to work for Delta almost exclusively for the flight benefits," he said.

But he was actually called back to work early because of an influx of calls from customers, some canceling summer flights, other asking about the status of refunds. He didn't foresee good long-term prospects in staying with the company.

"There's probably 2,000 people below in terms of seniority, but I don't feel that comfortable with that at all," he said. "I love Delta. If I believed I would survive this, I would probably stick around. But I'm going to take the offer I know rather than rolling the dice on something that won't be as generous."

But he said many of his coworkers aren't as fortunate as he is and can't afford to lose their jobs. So they're going to stay put and hope for the best.

"As generous as the offer is, they don't have that choice," he said. "It's a job paying $18 an hour that doesn't require a college education. They know they can't replace that. They say 'I can't make this money working at Chipotle.'"
The United States saw a record number of new coronavirus cases in a single day Thursday, with 51,504 reported, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases.

There are at least 2,739,092 cases of coronavirus nationwide. The previous record set on Wednesday was 51,174.

As the numbers skyrocket, some states are having a change of heart on face coverings to combat the spread of cornavirus. Texas has mandated that residents wear masks in public in hopes that the number of coronavirus cases will start shrinking. The nation's second most-populous state won't allow people who are in counties with 20 or more active Covid-19 cases to go out without a face covering. About 95% of Texans live in those areas.

Nineteen states and Washington, DC, will have such a mask mandate, when orders in Texas and Kansas go into effect Friday.

"We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one another -- and that means wearing a face covering in public spaces," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.

There are exceptions to the order, including Texans younger than 10 and people who have a medical condition that prevents wearing a mask. Repeat violations can result in a fine, the order says.

The directive comes as Texas, like other states, sees a jump in cases. Texas on Thursday reported 7,915 new Covid-19 cases.

The Texas Democratic Party said Abbott, a Republican, had acted too late.

"This is unacceptable. Governor Abbott continues to lead from behind rather than implementing preventive measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus," the party said in a statement.

"Texans are still getting sick. Families are still suffering. Texans still don't know how they are going to put food on the table," the statement reads. "All of this could have been prevented if Governor Abbott had listened to experts and medical professionals in the first place."

'We are not going in the right direction,' Fauci says

This comes as the top medical expert on the pandemic said the country is going in the wrong direction in its efforts to slow the virus.

The trends of the pandemic are not headed in a positive direction, but it's possible to balance the yearning to reopen with precautions that can help slow the spread of the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"I think it's pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction," said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci said it's not a case of either supporting reopening or supporting public health measures.

"There's this feeling of an all-or-none phenomenon, where you're either on lockdown or you're just going to say ... the devil may care and just let it all go," Fauci said.

The best way to reopen is to sensibly use public health measures, he added.

Wednesday saw record numbers

Just days before the July Fourth weekend the United States set another high for new coronavirus cases and at least 23 states were pausing reopening plans to combat mounting infections.

On Thursday, Florida reported 10,109 additional new coronavirus cases, a new daily record.

The current spike in new cases is due to an increase in infections, not because of more testing, said Adm. Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health for the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Health officials are urging Americans to limit their holiday weekend festivities to avoid clusters of outbreaks.

Fourth could be a 'perfect storm'

The Fourth of July weekend could be the "perfect storm" for a spike in coronavirus cases, said Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center.

"The combination of travel, the combination of reopening -- perhaps in some cases, too early -- and the combination of people not necessarily following some of these preventive guidelines," he said.

On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University reported 25,345 new cases in the United States and 323 reported deaths.

The virus has killed more than 128,600 people and infected more than 2.7 million nationwide.

Hydroxychloroquine study yields surprising results

A surprising new study found that the drug hydroxychloroquine helped patients better survive in the hospital.

The study of 2,541 patients found that hospitalized patients given hydroxychloroquine were much less likely to die, according to a team at Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan.

Dr. Marcus Zervos, division head of infectious disease for Henry Ford Health System, said 26% of those not given hydroxychloroquine died, compared with 13% of those who got the drug. The team looked at everyone treated in the hospital system since the first patient in March.

The finding is surprising because several other studies have found no benefit from hydroxychloroquine, a drug originally developed to treat and prevent malaria. President Trump touted the drug, but later studies found not only did patients not do better if they got the drug, they were more likely to suffer cardiac side effects.

The US Food and Drug Administration withdrew its emergency use authorization for the drug earlier this month and trials around the world, including trials sponsored by the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health, were halted.

"Our results do differ from some other studies," Zervos told reporters. "What we think was important in ours ... is that patients were treated early. For hydroxychloroquine to have a benefit, it needs to begin before the patients begin to suffer some of the severe immune reactions that patients can have with Covid."

The team also monitored patients carefully for heart problems, he said.

The findings were published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

The virus shows signs of resurgence

As new cases rise and states rethink reopenings, some areas that had made progress against the virus are showing signs of resurgence.

California was one of the first states to shut down with some of the most stringent measures. On Wednesday, it reported 9,740 new cases -- a number that included over 3,800 previously unreported cases from a five-day period, officials said.

More than 28 million Californians live in counties where restaurant dining rooms, bars and other indoor facilities have been ordered to stay shut as Covid-19 cases increase. The closures affect 72% of the state's population, and include restaurants, breweries, museums, zoos and movie theaters for at least three weeks, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

"Bottom line is, the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning," Newsom said.
As coronavirus continues to spike in Alabama, especially among younger people, comedian Will Johnson said he was caught off-guard when he found out he was positive.

"I freaked out. I freaked out. Like you see how big my eyes are?" Johnson asked on a Wednesday afternoon.

Will Johnson recovered from coronavirus about a week and a half ago after an Instagram follower suggested he get tested when he said he was dealing with a days-long stomach issue. Will Johnson recovered from coronavirus about a week and a half ago after an Instagram follower suggested he get tested when he said he was dealing with a days-long stomach issue.

The standup comedian makes comedic videos on TicTock and Instagram and also works as a standup comedian. After dealing with a stomach ache for about three days more than three weeks ago, he decided to post about it on Instagram. That's when he encountered a stroke of luck.

"I made a post on my Instagram and one of my followers who was a doctor who said, hey man, you might want to check to make sure because there is a gastrointestinal strain. And I was like, oh, I didn't know!" Johnson exclaimed.

Johnson decided to go get tested in Huntsville and was able to get one without much difficulty. He said he didn't mind spending more time at home and tried to focus on getting better and not trying get too worried.

He said the experience made him appreciate the ability to get tested without showing many symptoms and said everyone who wants to get a test should be able to do so.

"If I don't get tested or it's not offered to me, then what do I do? I'm up the creek without a paddle. Do I wait until I'm dying to almost come and get tested, no! I think it should be offered to everybody," Johnson said.

Amid the ongoing discussion around coronavirus is whether Madison County or Huntsville should enact its own face covering ordinance. On Wednesday, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said he would prefer a state-wide or regional approach to the problem because so many counties have people who come into Huntsville each day for work and many leave the city and go elsewhere before coming back home.

"Their communities need to be just as safe as our communities because we need to make sure that safety is provided across the board," Battle said.

With five children currently hospitalized for coronavirus, including one who was already being treated for cancer, Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers said he hopes people start thinking about masking as a benefit to the health of others and not just the mask wearer.

"If the thought of you accidentally giving COVID to someone, a child, particularly a child whose trying to deal with cancer is not reason enough to put on a face covering, I don't know what is," Spillers said.

Meanwhile, Johnson thinks one reason some people don't want to wear a mask is because of their breath. For which, he had a comedic solution.

"If we put in an ordinance in the city, put a mint with that mask and that's how you've got to do it. That's how you get people to wear a mask! Mint and mask, it's going to work. I'm telling you! Mint and mask 2020," Johnson said.
The North Alabama Medical Center (NAMC) in Florence said that despite the spike in cases across the state it's treating fewer than 15 coronavirus patients.

The hospital is located in Lauderdale County, where the Alabama Department of Public Health confirmed 173 new cases over the past 2 weeks.

NAMC CEO Russell Pigg said the coronavirus patients they have are being treated at a specialized unit that's separate from regular ICU patients.

"The nurses that work there and the caregivers that work there are isolated to those patients," said Pigg.

WAAY 31 asked Pigg for specific numbers on the coronavirus in-patients, their ages, and their conditions. He wouldn't go into those details, but said they're working with several agencies during the pandemic.

"We are a private hospital. Just like all other hospitals, we are reporting daily to the state. We are working closely with the CDC, the state, Dr. Landers, and all public health officials," said Pigg.

Alabama requires hospitals to have a state-approved plan ready to go if ICU units or the hospital in general becomes overrun with patients. While some hospitals disclose this information others don't. NAMC chooses not to release its plan.

WAAY 31 asked Pigg what his message is to people who feel the hospital isn't transparent with the public.

"Our message to the community is again our COVID patients are in the hospital with us on a daily basis and they are going to stay with us for the foreseeable future. We have adapted every part of this hospital to take care of COVID patients while we're taking care of heart attacks and strokes and other patients that need us," said Pigg.

Pigg said the nurses and doctors deserve all the praise for fighting this virus on the frontlines.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says kids should go back to school in person this fall, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

They say the way children could be impacted physically and mentally if they don't return to school outweighs the risk of the virus.

"She is an extremely major social butterfly so having her home all the time is just really hard," Felicity Flippen said of one of her daughters.

Flippen has two daughters. One is starting Pre-K in the Fall. She said she still hasn't decided if she's sending her children back in person school.

She's weighing all options and taking in as much information as she can before making a final decision

"It's definitely a bit of a concern, but you know I've also been working out in the public since day one for the most part off and on until recently, and you know so far we've been OK and haven't caught anything," she said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said having children learn in-person is very important, and children are at a lower risk of getting the virus.

They said keeping kids at home can have a negative impact on their social skills and cause them to socially isolate themselves. One parent WAAY 31 spoke to agrees.

"We feel like It's important for our child to socialize especially because I'm a stay-at-home mom so my son's been with me for the last five years, We get out, we have play dates, but I do feel like it's important for him to have that socialization in a classroom setting," Deanna Robeson said.

She said said she and her husband had many conversations and decided to send their children back to school in the Fall.

"It's essential for my son to learn with a teacher in kindergarten, and our daughter has done so well at the school, and they've done a great job as far as not catching the flu or anything else so we feel like this will work out perfectly with them going physically," she said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said schools should find feasible ways to keep children distant - including reducing classroom sizes, masking, and proper ventilation.

Robeson said she had a conversation with her children about what's going on, so she feels like that'll help them know how to keep themselves and others safe.

"I'm not terrified that they'll come home with this virus. I think they know what they need to do," she said.

Both Robeson and Flippen are waiting for their children's respective districts to release re-opening plans, but they said in the meantime they intend to have their children return to school with masks on.
Alabama A&M University, Huntsville Hospital and Toyota are partnering to offer free coronavirus testing to underserved communities in Madison County.

A news release from Toyota says a mobile clinic will launch later this year and has the capacity to test up to 50 people per day.

Huntsville Hospital Huntsville Hospital

Dr. Ernst Cebert, with Alabama A&M, said he's been working with students since 2018 to identify a need in the community. He said they quickly found that there's a need for access to healthcare in north Huntsville, so they presented the idea of a mobile medical unit to Toyota. Ermst said the trailer just arrived two weeks ago, and still has some work to be done before it can be rolled out in the community. In the meantime, they've shifted its focus to coronavirus testing.

"We are in the right position. We are in the right stage right now to be able to go and help mitigate the process and address these issues. As long as it's right here impacting the community," Cebert said.

The clinic is part of a partnership established in 2018 between Toyota and Alabama A&M to identify and solve mobility-related community needs, the news release says.

There will be two mobile units, which will serve walk-in patients. They wont require people to have doctors orders to be tested.

The Huntsville Hospital Foundation explained having the opportunity for more testing in north Huntsville is important.

"That community is one that's been hit hard by COVID. It's one that we are trying to reach with our mobile testing and it's important to have these units to go to where people are to meet people where they are," said John Simms with Huntsville Hospital Foundation.

The Foundation said the mobile units are used a bit differently in the community for coronavirus testing to help ensure social distancing.

"We are using our mobile units for support vehicles for these covid testings to provide supplies, a little area for staff to get off their feet for a few minutes. It's July. It's hot out here. We want to make sure staff are taking care of themselves so they can take care of patients," Simms said.

Cebert said he hopes the unit will also help student return to campus safely in the fall.

"It's the ease and concern of the parents, the kids, and the students when they come back to know they are coming into a safe environment and then of course when that's implemented properly we feel we will have good enviroment for the students to return to," Cebert said.

Toyota says in the future, there will be the capacity to provide preventative care and health screening services. A Toyota spokesperson told us the unit is being built right now, but it wont be unveiled until early Fall.

You can find more information about the clinic here.
Meet-and-greets

Swanns social media campaign posts show her at meet-and-greets in the past couple of weeks in at least three Central Texas counties. McLennan County Commissioner Will Jones played host to a gathering for Swann on June 23 at his Hillcrest Drive home.

At least one person who attended the gathering said Swann was not wearing a face covering and was seated for much of the evening because she said she was suffering from vertigo.

Jones said about 30 people attended the event and that no one wore a mask. He said he is not especially concerned about his health or that of his guests because he thinks Swann was infected after the event at his home.

We are not concerned, Jones said. Everybody who was here knows now that she has it and if they came in contact with her, they just need to have common sense about it.

He said he is feeling fine and likely will not be tested. Jones on Tuesday joined other members of the McLennan County Commissioners Court in voting against a countywide order requiring business patrons to wear masks during the ongoing local spike in COVID-19 cases.
The city of Waco is fully restarting its search for a new police chief in an effort to align the process with input from the community, and officials hope to name a new chief by late this year, Deputy City Manager Bradley Ford said Wednesday.

The city had narrowed a field of 91 applicants down to five candidates by last week and was expected to bring in two finalists for a virtual town hall meeting Wednesday. Instead, officials announced Tuesday night they would take more time to continue the search in the coming months.

It is important to ensure this process is in alignment with the input we have received from Waco residents and our community partners, Ford said. Our search will remain steadfastly committed to recruiting candidates with a documented history of valuing and expanding community trust.

The city will seek a new candidate pool entirely, Ford said.

We are in a different environment than we were when we started the search in March, if you think about it, Ford said. We are walking through a pandemic. We are walking through the retirement of (City Manager) Wiley (Stem III), and were walking through the conversations about policing in general in America. So there are a lot of things we all need to think about.
You either have to believe that were all part of the conspiracy or that weve all been duped, and both of these things really dont match with what we know about physicians and the way that were trained, Webb said.

He said two of the most widespread viral videos he has debunked on his blog, in a timestamp-by-timestamp format, hit in April. The first was a series of videos by two Bakersfield doctors claiming, among other things, that sheltering in place is useless and that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu.

Theyre physicians. They speak with a lot of confidence. They have the background, so this was information that was very convincing to a lot of people, but I think more importantly it appealed to peoples hopes, Webb said. Thats when misinformation is really dangerous, not when it appeals to our fear, although that certainly happens to, but when it says Hey! All the things you hope are true are true. Its not that dangerous. You and your family are fine. You dont have to change your life at all. 

Plandemic video
As our nation remains in the grip of the novel coronavirus, never before in our lives have health-care workers been more important. It is a time of unparalleled urgency as we seek the best solutions to ensure that all Americans  especially the medically underserved  have access to affordable high-quality health care.

One of the best proven solutions is our nations community health centers. For more than 50 years, health centers have served as a lifeline for our communities  and our nation. Across Texas and our country, they are on the forefront serving those with chronic illnesses and people of all financial means. They are a core part of the health-care system addressing the most urgent public health issues: opioid addiction, HIV/AIDS, maternal mortality, veterans care and now a COVID-19 crisis that appears to be entering a new, even more dangerous phase.

Family Health Center in Waco is one of the 73 Federally Qualified Community Health Centers in Texas, comprising 570 sites spread across 132 counties. FQHCs provide preventive and primary medical care, dental care and behavioral health services to more than 1.5 million Texans. FQHCs boost the economy by keeping the workforce healthy, and they lower costs in the health-care system by helping people manage health conditions that would otherwise force them to seek costlier care in emergency rooms.
Emilie Wolf Elizondo: The Waco ordinance allows for customers who for medical or psychological reason cannot wear masks. It is up to customers to voluntarily communicate with the business that they cannot and the business can decide whether such a customer can come in. Any city or county ordinance should provide exceptions such as this. I know this puts that customer in a potentially awkward position and he or she may still get denied service, but theres no solution here ideal for everyone. Businesses need to be able to reasonably provide for the safety of their employees. Have you noticed the uptick in 20-29-year-olds getting infected? Part of that is some people not being cautious and socializing, but part of this also might be due to this age group working jobs where they interact with the public regularly. If most people wear masks, it will greatly reduce the risk to everyone. If this is not followed, businesses will have to close again.
Scenes along New Zealand's Te Araroa Trail. Above, low lying clouds fill the lowlands as far as the eye can see. Photos courtesy of Paul Tillman.

(Editor's note: This completes the story about Paul Tillman's hike last year that took him the length of New Zealand.)

Cathlamet resident Paul Tillman is back at his post at the Cathlamet Market and as a volunteer with the Cathlamet Fire Department but if you are like me and noticed his absence, he's been on a bit of an amble.

Last fall, he headed home to his native Minnesota to spend a week with his family before stepping on a plane to New Zealand to complete his third through hike.

The hike, continued

Some of his favorite hiking included the day he hiked up the side of Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings, really named Mount Ngauruhoe, or the time he spent traveling through the Tararua Range.

One day, he met a woman who brought horses into the Tararua Range to find missing people. She told him that a lot of people had died there, and that every time it happens, a hut is built. Tillman counted 22 huts on the section of trail he chose to travel.

"There were signs, do no walk through this section alone," he said. "It was super beautiful, one of my most favorite sections of the trail. Incredibly hard hiking. I was making maybe seven kilometers a day in some of these sections."

It must have been difficult hiking. For comparison, he said he once did 30 kilometers on a beach, with two bar stops, and thought afterwards that something must be wrong with his GPS. It had not been a taxing day.

"There are a lot of river crossings in New Zealand. A lot more than the other trails," Tillman said "Towards the end of the trail, I slipped on a muddy bank on a rainy day and ended up rolling down the hill and busting my trekking poles. I was fine. Of course, it was the only time I saw people, and I fall down the hill in front of everyone."

"I continued on, kind of salty," he said. "I'm hiking and going across this river, and I start slipping on some rocks. I'm taking my trekking pole and I'm trying to set it into the ground to catch me, but it's broken. I ended up crashing in the river."

It was not his day, but it might not have been the worst thing.

The poor guy had some intestinal trouble while walking back through Auckland as he headed south on the trail. He was in the industrial area, and couldn't find a public restroom anywhere.

"I'm running," Tillman said. "I get to a gas station and ask to use the bathroom. They tell me it's employees only. I offer the guy $40, but he says nope."

Tillman keeps running. What else can he do?

Suddenly, he finds himself in a more suburban area, and spies a running track.

"I know there's a public bathroom there," he said. "I'm running, and stopping, and then running again. There is a park adjacent and all these parents are looking at me like I'm crazy."

"I get to the bathroom there. I barely make it, photo finish," he joked.

"The public bathrooms there are like the future," he said. "They are automated and timed for 10 minutes so you can't spend the night in there. Normally that's enough. But 10 minutes are up, and the doors are opening, and there is that park right to the side. I'm mortified."

The base weight for his pack was 17 pounds. That was without food or water, so how much he carried depended on how many days he was out on the trail at a time.

Parts of the southern island were a really long hitch because it's so rural, Tillman said, but on the north island, the longest stretch might be a day or two out and then you were back in a town.

"There is always wear and tear on your equipment on these long trips," Tillman said. "And this one was so rugged, it felt like my gear was getting torn up faster than on my other ones."

He dealt with a hurricane, and when a volcano erupted, he happened to be sitting on another volcano. An alarm went off, as warning, because the volcanos were part of a chain, and there was concern that something could happen.

"We should be fine," someone told Tillman, "but if you see me running, you should probably follow me."

Between the north and south islands of New Zealand is a ferry ride.

"It looked like a cruise ship," Tillman said. "The trip took several hours. There are famously horrible swells there and I was sick as a dog the whole time, but the worst part was that the ocean was really calm that day."

Usually Tillman makes friends early on these hikes, and finishes alone, but this time, it was the other way around.

"I ended up meeting a good group of people about halfway through the southern island, and we hiked about the same speed," he said." They were from all over the place. There was a girl from Virginia. A girl and two guys that were from London, and another girl from Germany. We still Facechat now and again."

Tillman started to laugh at a memory of two of his new friends. One of the guys from London planned to propose to his girlfriend, but the romantic gesture might have been spoiled by something called hiker hunger.

"He was sweating," Tillman said. "She was sitting there eating her chips, and he is telling her all the reasons he loves her, and she doesn't slow down her chip eating at all. All the sudden he gets down on one knee, and she's got a mouthful of chips, with her hand coming up to her mouth with more chips."

Tillman started hearing about the pandemic while he was on the trail. It was hard to make sense of toilet paper shortages, and the other things he heard about, but he figured he'd deal with it when he was done with the trail.

Then his friends' flights out were getting canceled. Suddenly the gravity of the situation became very clear.

The trail ended in Bluff. It probably would have been a horrible day, walking along the shoulder of a busy highway in the hot sun, he said, but he and his friends were incredibly excited.

"They give you a medal for completing the trail," he said.

He spent his last week with his new friends, enjoying campfires, surfing thanks to a local, then renting a minivan to travel to tourist spots and on to Queenstown, where he flew to Auckland, and then on to Los Angeles, and home.

The trail is 3,000 miles long and took Tillman about five months to complete.

Is he thinking about his next through hike? You bet.
To The Eagle:

Of the 360,222 Union casualties who died in the Civil War, 16,000 lie cradled in the hallowed ground of Arlington National Cemetery. Each gravestone is a monument to a soldier who gave the last full measure of his devotion toward the preservation of the United States of America.

The first veteran interred there was 21 year old Pvt. William Christman. On May 17, 1864, he was laid to rest beneath an arbor of Arlington mansion where Mary Lee, wife of turncoat Gen. Robert E. Lee, had enjoyed reading in warm weather, surrounded by the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine.

The Lees owned 196 slaves and cherished their 1100 acre Virginia plantation, Arlington, from which they fled upon relocating to Richmond where Gen. Lee began to organize the insurgent forces of the South. As the war escalated, the Union government seized Arlington.

Union casualties mounted and overwhelmed Washingtons cemeteries. Army Quartermaster Gen. Montgomery Meigs designated Arlington to become one of 13 new graveyards for those killed during the Civil War.

Loyalist newspapers lauded the creation of Arlington National Cemetery. "This is a righteous use of the estate of the Rebel General Lee," read the Washington Morning Chronicle.

Unlike military defendants of the Nuremberg trials a century later, secessionist president Jefferson Davis, Gen. Robert Lee and his general staff escaped execution for their treasonous bloodletting of this nation, a crime against humanity. Would those who glorified such men with public memorials throughout the South also like to erect statues in fond remembrance of the Nazis who also enslaved and extirpated their minorities in the great cause of preserving Aryan racial purity? It is my opinion that, except for the gravestones of secessionist soldiers, our Federal government should forbid the display of any statue, monument, engraving, flag or place name glorifying the men responsible for the deaths of 618,222 Americans in a civil war devoted to perpetuating the institution of slavery and Southern white supremacist culture.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island
Skamokawa News

MIXED WEATHER--This past weekend started a bit drippy for many of us and the "brief shower" listed on our weather apps lasted much longer for some of us, as often times we find that West Valley is "very special,"as in, "always different" than most, so we don't count on those apps to correctly forecast our weather! I hope the upcoming forecast is nicer though, as it may wind up that the weather will be wetter during the week but mostly sunny for the weekend, which I'm sure would be very well received for those with big BBQ or travel plans. Good-bye June and Hello July!

WELCOME--I am seeing an abundance of new people coming into the community and I certainly want to welcome you to the county! Puget Island seems to be getting a host of newcomers and I hope that the locals that are reading this, will not only make them feel welcome, but will encourage them to subscribe to this paper. Lots of people are heading to social media for the latest news, and that's great, but when moving into a small town, sometimes it's really helpful to read the local paper which may give you a broader perspective of what is going on around here and all the things that the county has to offer, which may otherwise go unknown. So, here's hoping that soon, our county will be able to move forward from Phase 3 to Phase 4 of this Covid-19 pandemic, and we'll all be able to enjoy our usual busy schedule of events in our area. For now, let's try to be mindful of others and work together to keep our businesses open and our county residents safe.

SPECIAL DAYS--Those celebrating birthdays from July 2-8 are Dave Hjaltalin, Matt Helms III, Jaiden Mahitka, Patty Dursteler, Irene Martin, Debbie Kuller, Philomena Thomas, Lee Wages, Justin Hoven, George Exum, Sandie York, Chris Wika, Tony Carriker, Alex Bonds, Tyler Heagy, Danny Poe, Jordon Fritzie Collins, Dale Jacobsen and Nathan Chamberlain. Hope you all have wonderful birthdays!

Those celebrating anniversaries this week are Hap and Dixie Anderson, Steve and Lorie Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Florek Jr., Gary and Pam Emery, Mr. and Mrs. Steve Howarth, Lance and Heidi Souvenir, the Mike Swansons, Paul and MaryAnn Ehrensberger and Greg and Cindy Lloyd. Here's to special celebrations on all your anniversaries!

FOURTH OF JULY--I guess you know, this weekend is the Fourth of July and while most of our big fireworks displays have been cancelled, there are sure to be smaller celebrations held here and there, so here's hoping that sunny forecast shows up for all those hosting some special events this Saturday. Currently, our local Lions Club is selling fireworks in Cathlamet by the BackRoadZ diner. Of course, we are being asked to be very careful with any and all fireworks. So please use extreme care and caution when you use them. There are always rules and regulations regarding fireworks (time of use) and one should adhere to all those. You can contact our local authorities if you haven't been able to find out what the restrictions are or go online or check out our Wahkiakum Co. Sheriff's Facebook page. Whatever you do, here's wishing you a safe and sane holiday weekend!

ANOTHER REMINDER--I hope everyone is enjoying the local Farmer's Markets around here, but if you've missed them, this is just a quick reminder that there is one held in Cathlamet at the Elochoman Slough Marina every Friday afternoon beginning at 3 p.m. Then on Tuesdays, you can come to Skamokawa, where another Farmer's Market is held at the Wahkiakum Co. Fairgrounds, inside the cleaned out cow barn, so rain or shine, you'll be under cover. Their hours are from 4 to 7 p.m.

THINKING OF THEM--We were sorry to learn that former local, Rena Brookshire Havens has had to undergo more cancer treatments, so we want to give a shout out to her and her family as we wish her the very best during her treatments. Hang in there Rena!

We also hope that Rich West is still steadily recovering from his long ordeal and we want him to know we are thinking of him and wishing him all the best and hopefully he'll be able to go home soon.

CONGRATS--I know this was not the graduation that the Seniors at WA-KI-HI had dreamed of, but I am so happy that you were still able to be up at the school and have a "virtual" graduation ceremony for those that could not be there, and a wonderful drive-by celebration as well. Here's wishing all of you "Congratulations" on your achievements during this difficult time and may your future shine brightly for those that work hard to achieve it. I say this every year, but a wise man once said, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression," so when you're out in the world, applying for a job, etc., make sure your "best you" is being portrayed to others. You've got this; onward and upward you go. Good Luck!

GRANDMA BRAG--Okay, as a great grandma, I just have to brag a little bit here. My great grandson, Kaiden Good, just learned how to giggle! I don't know about you but I think that hearing the sound of a baby laugh or giggle is just the most precious thing, so when parents, Austin and Nicole posted this momentous occasion online, it was just truly the sweetest thing to see and hear, especially in today's hectic world! I can hardly wait to see this little guy in person, but between the virus considerations and the fact that he's in Wyoming, it may be awhile yet, so "hooray" for technology; at least I don't completely miss out on all these great firsts!

SURPRISE--Leave it to a Mom (with a host of other family members) to pull off a great surprise baby shower, and the recipient, Dawn Macchione, couldn't have been happier! Dawn is expecting a baby boy next month and he will be joining a sister, Isabella. I have to say, the table, cake, gifts and photo-op set up were all just fantastic with its sparkling blue back drop. This was the second surprise shower for lucky Dawn as her "work family" also held a wonderful party for her a couple of weeks ago, which included a ton of good food and wonderful gifts. I think this baby is going to be decked to the nines!

GREAT CELEBRATION--Pete and Katie Sechler had a great past week as they not only celebrated Katie's birthday but also their 30th anniversary, which they spent in Georgia. They traveled to Atlanta first and visited with their son, Kyle and his wife, Suzy, who recently moved there and who certainly enjoyed the visit from the folks. The four enjoyed a trip to the huge Atlanta Aquarium and as a bonus for the "boys," their late and early birthday gifts came in the form of scuba diving with some massive whale sharks about 30 feet long, as well as with some 20 foot manta rays. While they thought it was thrilling, I had other words for it! The four also traveled to Rock City on Lookout Mountain, which is near Chatanooga and did some exploring of the area, which all looked fantastic, and exploring new places is always fun. After a few days together, it was off to Savannah for the Pete Sechlers, where they celebrated their special anniversary. I would have melted in the heat, which was around 100 degrees with 44 percent humidity but some people seem to love that sort of thing. But guess I won't be going there!

OUT OF THE PAST--This week back in 1950, July 2-8, the first six days were "lovely, beautiful, hot and warm with a nice breeze," while the last day saw rain. During the dry times, it was a time where forest fires were taking place, and of course, that was not good. It didn't happen often but Krist Pedersen came down from Alaska and planned to be here for a very rare 4th of July gathering, but his plane got delayed and he didn't wind up getting home until July 6. Going up to get him from the Seattle airport was wife, Carol, son, David and sister, Marian. They wound up bringing home their cousin Sue (Shane). It was during this time that Ralph Everest was in a lot of pain and having to go back to the doctor, while Jean Shane (Grandma Elsie's sister) was not doing well at all and was headed to the hospital, and then there was the war. Grandma Elsie's comment: "Great Life"a rare sarcasm. On June 8, President Truman named General Douglas MacArthur as commanding general of the United Nations forces to fight against the communist forces in North Korea. He was the first military leader to be in command of the 59 unified forces of the nations world organization.

In 1960, it was nice all week, albeit just a bit too hot when temperatures climbed up to 90 degrees at 11 a.m., on July 5 and reached 101 degrees by afternoon. The drugstore's thermometer, which had a bit more direct sun, was reading 122 degrees! The heat was wide spread with 650 deaths reported over the weekend. For the Everest, Healy and Palmer families, the "beautiful day" that week was just right for the marriage of Donna Healy to Glenn Palmer in Longview. The Everests didn't have a car and so good friend, Mayme Johnson took them to the wedding. Afterwards, they all went to the home of Marian (Everest) Healy for a family party. The Bob Shanes were there as well as the Bob McDonalds. The newlyweds headed east of the mountains and stayed at the Paradise Inn at Mt. Rainier on the way home. Upon coming home they found "quite a mess" as the groom's family had decided to "decorate" it for them.We can only hope the newlweds weren't as upset as Grandma Elsie seemed to be! Later on that week, Grandma Elsie went to Lelia Bunn's house where she met Mrs. Sorenson and her daughter, Nora Lee. In the evening, it was time to head to the Pocohontas meeting where they held their installation of officers. Gene Healy headed to Seattle that week to see about going to work for the telephone company. The last day was nice but there was a cold wind, just right for bread baking so the breeze could cool the house down. Mrs. Worthington and Mayme Johnson and granddaughter stopped by to visit that day as well. Everyone was still talking about the wedding and loved hearing all about it. All this according to my Grandma Elsie Everest's diaries.
As the Syria crisis enters its 10th year, the situation is especially dire for women and girls, with the effects of COVID-19 compounding the risks and hardships for millions of people inside the country and for refugees around the region.

Today nearly 12 million people in Syria require urgent humanitarian assistance and around 4 million depend on cross-border aid. Some 5.7 million Syrians have fled and are now residing in countries throughout the region.

Of those who need humanitarian aid, half are women and girls. Syrian women have higher rates of poverty than men; they face increased risk of gender-based violence; and they shoulder the responsibility of caring for their children and other family members. The rapid spread of COVID-19 is further increasing the risks faced by women.

It is estimated that more than half a million women inside Syria and in host communities throughout the region are pregnant. In some places, pregnant women are refraining from visiting health facilities due to movement restrictions or fears about exposure to the virus. This is putting the lives of women and newborns at risk.

Perhaps most egregiously, the crisis has exposed a shadow pandemic of violence against women, one that has spiked in the face of lockdowns and quarantine measures. UNFPA projects that the pandemic could result in millions more cases of gender-based violence around the world.

COVID-19 is not only a health and protection crisis, it is also a socio-economic crisis threatening the most vulnerable populations and their precarious livelihoods.

The impact of COVID-19 on the Arab States economies is likely to be tremendous, with 1.7 million jobs expected to be lost in 2020, including 700,000 jobs for women.

Even before the pandemic, the economic situation of Syrian refugee women was already extremely precarious, with jobs hard to come by and women making up almost 62% of those working in the informal sector, such as daily and agriculture workers.

A UN Women study found that the majority of Syrian refugee women said that finding income to support their families was their main concern. In Lebanon, only 1% of the women in the study had a work permit. In Iraq, while 78% of surveyed refugee women were entitled to legal employment, only 4% had found employment. In Jordan, women got only 5% of the work permits issued to refugees so far.

Despite significant risks and challenges, Syrian women and womens organizations continue to play a central role in the response to the Syria crisisin humanitarian assistance and peacemaking efforts, healthcare and education, and in other sectors in their own communities.

Humanitarian actors are working together to advocate, scale up and adapt service delivery to address urgent needs.

Since January 2020, UNFPA has provided life-saving sexual and reproductive health services to nearly one million people in need in countries affected by the Syria crisis, and delivered essential gender-based violence services to more than 420,000 people. In light of COVID-19, UNFPA and partners are providing personal protective equipment to protect health workers, distributing dignity kits that contain essential hygiene and sanitary supplies, and systemizing the use of telemedicine to ensure continued access to reproductive health services.

As donors meet at the Brussels IV Conference on Syria, the needs and rights of women and girls should be front and centre. Let us work together to strengthen their resilience by increasing their livelihood and employment opportunities and including them in all measures to mitigate the economic shocks of COVID-19.

Funding for womens leadership, economic empowerment, gender-based violence programmes and essential sexual and reproductive health services must match the increased needs we are seeing in Syria and neighbouring countries, including those brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than ever, global solidarity, urgency, and predictable and sustained international support is needed for the Syria response. The international community must continue to support local communities as we collectively work for a better Syria during and after the coronavirus pandemic.

After years of conflict, women, girls and all the people of Syria need a future that they can believe in  a future of peace, democracy and equality that we can build together.

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ND Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation use phased approach for visitation
Monroe, GA (30655)

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Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. Low 69F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. Low 69F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.
Decatur, IL (62521)

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Partly cloudy skies. Low around 50F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph..

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Partly cloudy skies. Low around 50F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
President Donald Trump arrives on stage to speak at a campaign rally at the BOK Center, Saturday, June 20, 2020, in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Bulgari Hotel will overlook the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome.

Luxury jeweller Bulgari is to open a five-star hotel facing the Mausoleum of Augustus in the centre of Rome in 2022.

News of the hotel was announced by Rome mayor Virginia Raggi who described the location as "one of the most fascinating and historically-rich squares in the world."

The Bulgari Hotel will be located in a rationalist-style building dating from the fascist era, designed by Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo, and built between 1936 and 1938.

The building is characterised by travertine marble and is decorated with a 70-sqm mosaic by Ferruccio Ferrazzi interpreting the legendary founding of Rome.

The new hotel will have views over the Mausoleum of Augustus which is nearing the completion of a 6.5 million restoration funded by Italian telecommunications company TIM.

The luxury hotel will reportedly have 114 rooms (most of which will be suites measuring up to 400 sqm), a restaurant run by star chef Niko Romito, as well as the Bulgari Bar.

There will also be a 1,000-sqm spa, a 20-sqm swimming pool inspired by Roman baths, a gym and a library with antique books, according to local media.

Earlier this year it was reported that the mausoleum would open during the spring of 2020 however the covid-19 pandemic arrived in the meantime and no official completion date has been announced.

In addition to the Mausoleum, the piazza is home to the Ara Pacis museum designed by American architect Richard Meier in 2006 and two Baroque churches.

The new Bulgari hotel will be situated near its flagship store on the luxury shopping street Via Condotti and not far from the Spanish Steps whose 1.5 million restoration Bulgari financed in 2016.

Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin told the press: The hotel will be surrounded by history, with its Baroque churches, palazzi dating back to the 30s, and the modern architecture of the Ara Pacis, it summarizes 2,000 years of Roman architecture. To me, the hotel standing in front of Augusto is a dream and an honor.

Babin believes the Bulgari Hotel will kick-start a new generation of five-star hotels in Rome, while the city's mayor describes it as "important private investment that will bring many jobs."

For more information about the project see the Bulgari website.
Pet-owners in Arezzo told to keep dogs and cats under close observation.

Pet-owners in the Tuscan province of Arezzo have been warned to look out for signs of illness or strange behaviour in their cats or dogs after a domestic cat died from an extremely rare rabies-like disease, first detected in a bat in the Caucasus region of southeastern Europe in 2002.

The two-year-old housecat had become aggressive with its owners, biting three members of the family, and had begun to display symptoms including difficulty in breathing, tremors and a staggering gait.

The cat, which also attacked the family's veterinarian, was transferred to another clinic for tests but died four days after its symptoms began, reports Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano.

On 27 June, following analysis of the animal's brain at the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, researchers found that the cat's illness had a 98.52 per cent match with West Caucasian Bat Lyssavirus (WCBV).

This form of lyssavirus was previously detected in an insectivorous bat, Schreibers Bent-winged bat, in the western Caucasus Mountains in 2002, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

It is unclear how the cat came to be infected with the lyssavirus although there are bat colonies near the house where the cat lived. There are no reported incidents of WCBV in humans.

The affected cat, which came and went from its home freely by day and night, was housed with another cat, three kittens and one dog, all of which are now under observation. It is not known whether any of these animals were vaccinated.

Arezzo mayor Alessandro Ghinelli has issued an order calling for pet-owners to closely observe the behaviour of their dogs and cats, and to report any symptoms that could suggest the animals have been infected by the lyssavirus.

The order, in effect until 27 August, requires that dogs or cats which have started to bite people or are showing symptoms of paralysis, difficulty in swallowing or sudden changes in behaviour, must be placed under quarantine for 10 days.

All dogs, even when muzzled, must be kept on a leash, and dog-owners must notify authorities immediately if their dog escapes.
In an interview with Corriere della Sera, CEO of Ryanair Eddie Wilson, questions Italy's decision to ban the use of overhead lockers for hand luggage.

"The ban on hand luggage is insane and exposes passengers to an increased risk of infection," Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair, said in an interview with Corriere della Sera commenting on the decision of the Italain National Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) to ban the use of aircraft overhead lockers.

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"We respect the decision, but it seems a measure designed by people who don't know how air transport works," Mr. Wilson added. "Apart from the discomfort for passengers, this ban increases the chances of people gathering. First of all, people are forced to queue at check-in counters to deposit their luggage, and this happens in areas of the airport with spaces that do not allow social distancing. It is less risky to board in a sequential order based on the seat number".

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He continued, "their suitcase is touched by other people who are in charge of putting it in the hold, then unloading it and depositing it on the delivery belt.

"We need common rules in Europe. According to EASA - Mr. Wilson says - people can fly again if there are equal rules in all countries, "I don't understand why ENAC went in another direction. Can someone explain to me why Italy is the only country on the continent to have such a restrictive rule?".

Ph: JGA / Shutterstock.com
Tedros praises how Italy and Spain have handled the coronavirus crisis.

Italy and Spain have been singled out by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) as good examples of how to successfully contain the coronavirus.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, made his remarks on 1 July during a virtual conference on the covid-19 crisis.

"In March, Italy and Spain were the epicentre of the pandemic" - Tedros said - "At the peak of its epidemic, Spain had almost 10,000 cases a day, and Italy had more than 6,500 cases."

However both countries, he said, managed to bring their epidemics "under control with a combination of leadership, humility, active participation by every member of society, and implementing a comprehensive approach. Both countries faced a daunting situation, but turned it around."

Pointing out that 60 per cent of the 10.3 million coronavirus cases worldwide have been reported in the past month alone, Tedros said: "One of the lessons of the pandemic is that no matter what situation a country is in, it can be turned around. Its never too late."

Italy recorded 187 new covid-19 cases on 1 July, up from 142 the day before, according to figures released by the Italian health ministry.

There were 21 coronavirus deaths recorded on 1 July, down slightly down from 23 the day before, reports ANSA.

The overall death toll in Italy is now 34,788.
Heather Taylor, president of the Ethical Society of Police, spoke in 2018 about the organizations struggle for recognition by the St. Louis County Police Department. That struggle ended on Monday, June 22, St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page signed a Memo of Understanding with ESOP.
Lieutenant Colonel Troy Doyle will coordinate a Public Safety Review of the St. Louis County Police Department by Chuck Ramsey, who co-chaired President Obamas Task Force on 21st Century Policing, and Daniel Oates, a national expert on community policing who retired last year as chief of the Miami Beach Police Department.
Trusted local news has never been more important, but providing the information you need, information that can change sometimes minute-by-minute, requires a partnership with you, our readers. Please consider making a contribution today to support this vital resource that you and countless others depend on.
Groceries giant Woolworths has been slapped with a record fine after breaching spam laws more than 5 million times and ignoring repeated consumer requests to unsubscribe from its marketing mailing lists.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has found the supermarket giant unlawfully spammed more than 1.2 million customers between October 2018 and July 2019.

An investigation found Woolworths' systems, processes and practices did not comply with spam rules. Credit:Patrick Scala

Woolworths ignored consumers who tried repeatedly to stop the marketing emails hitting their inboxes and did nothing to improve its behaviour even after the watchdog flagged it had received customer complaints.

"The spam rules have been in place for 17 years and Woolworths is a large and sophisticated organisation. The scale and prolonged nature of the non-compliance is inexcusable," ACMA chairman Nerida O'Loughlin said.
The Australian sharemarket rode a wave of vaccine optimism to its highest close in three weeks as tech stocks set new records and COVID-19 fears were wiped from investors minds.

The ASX broke through 6000 in a 1.7 per cent rise on Thursday. Credit:Louie Douvis

The benchmark ASX 200 added $29 billion to its market cap on Thursday when it rose 98.3 points, or 1.7 per cent, to 6032.7. It was the third straight session of gains and puts the index 2.2 per cent ahead for the week so far.

Local tech stocks set the pace with a 3.7 per cent rise as the sector chased the NASDAQs fresh overnight record.

Market darling Afterpay set a new intra-day peak of $68.62 when a positive Citi note helped it build on an already stellar rise to jump by as much as 10 per cent. The firm closed 9.5 per cent higher at $68.16, adding $1.54 billion to its market cap for the session.

Tech stablemates Xero and NEXTDC also nudged record highs of $92.54 and $11.09 respectively, while online furniture retailer Temple and Webster rose nearly 18 per cent to finish at its best-ever price of $7.44.

TPG spin-off Tuas Group added 35 per cent to 69 cents in its first full day on the ASX as a separate entity.

The local bourse had been flirting with the 6000 for three weeks, but until Thursday was unable to gain purchase as concerns mounted about the spread of the coronavirus.

Those jitters were blown away after overnight news from the US that Pfizer and BioNTech were making progress on a COVID vaccine, a development that pushed Wall Street higher and spilled into the Asian session.

Positive US manufacturing data, an oil price rebound, and hopes of a robust US jobs print also helped investors forget about US-China tensions and unrest in Hong Kong.

CMC Markets chief strategist Michael McCarthy said in all it was an extraordinary performance from the Aussie sharemarket - even moreso given the relatively subdued volumes.

Thats possibly because of a lack of commitment, which makes it difficult to say where we will go from here, he said.

But does not take away from what was an incredible session.

Such was the bullish sentiment that Australias broader All Ordinaries managed to rise at a slightly faster pace than the benchmark index.

Usually when the all ordinaries outpace the ASX 200 it illustrates the key driver of the market is there is a lot of money on the table, Mr McCarthy said.

Its a buy everything environment at the moment.

Investors tipped money into beaten-up property stocks to lift the sector by 3 per cent.

Goodman gained 4.3 per cent, Mirvac 3.6 per cent, and Shopping Centres Australasia rose by 6.8 per cent.

The financials rose 1.9 per cent with ANZ the best of the big four banks, up 2 per cent to $19.26.

Plasma giant CSL rose 1.9 per cent to $289.72 and the iron ore giants recovered from early losses to finish in the black.

Rio Tinto and BHP added 0.7 and 0.5 per cent higher while Fortescue Metals rose 2 per cent.

Other blue-chip gainers included Telstra, up 1.6 per cent to $3.23, and Transurban, up 1.7 per cent to $14.54.

Wesfarmers and Woolworths each rose by 0.8 per cent.
On June 26, Huang Rongchun checks the growth of a local chicken at the local chicken breeding base.(Photo/Xinhua)



Huang Rongchun, who lives in Yangwan village, Huagang town, Feixi county of east China's Anhui province, was injured in an accident when he went out to work many years ago. Following that misfortune, his wife then fell ill and lost her ability to work.

In 2014, Huang's family was identified as a poor household. Despite his poor health, Huang works hard. With the help of poverty alleviation cadres, he applied for a discount loan of 50,000 yuan (about $7,065) in order to raise white geese, local chickens and other poultry.

In 2019, Huang earned 40,000 yuan by raising chickens. He has now been lifted out of poverty and has become a well-known local poultry farming expert.

On June 26, Huang Rongchun feeds the chickens at the local chicken breeding base. (Photo/Xinhua)



On June 26, Huang Rongchun reinforces the fence at the local chicken breeding base. (Photo/Xinhua)






Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd said the Commonwealth gave their full support to the widespread testing taking place in Victoria at the moment.

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos revealed on Friday that 10,000 Victorians had refused tests when offered one.

If you are approached and asked to have a test, please comply, he said.

You may be infected with COVID-19 and have no symptoms but still be infectious and putting at risk your own loved ones, your family, and your friends, so again, please if you are asked to have a test, please have the test done.

Put your own mind at risk, sorry, put your own mind at ease, and put the minds of your family members at ease as well.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

He again urged anyone doing it tough during isolation to reach out to mental health providers, or to their local GP for support.

If you find yourself back in isolation and you are feeling fearful or distressed or despondent, please reach out for assistance and support.

If you develop medical symptoms over the next four weeks while you are in lockdown that need attention, please do not neglect your own health.

When asked about the possibility over super-spreaders as was the case during the SARS outbreak, Professor Kidd said there was nobody that fit the description.

We're still learning about the indifferent patterns of transmission  We have not yet identified many people he was so-called super spreaders in Australia, he said.

The number of people in Victoria who have refused tests now exceeds 10,000.

I'm very concerned about anyone who is refusing to have a test, particularly when we have high levels of community transmission, he said.

If they are in an area of community transmission they may be affected and asymptomatic and at risk of infecting others.

With some members of the public refusing tests because of conspiracy, Professor Kidd stressed that people should not be getting any information about the virus from social media.

The single source of information in truth I recommend is the health.gov.au website, he said.

If you hear different theories and you are not sure about it, do a search, look at the Australia government advice, it comes from the best experts we have right across the country, based on evidence around the world.

Do not listen to the theories that you may be coming across on social media.
He said there were 2 million square kilometres of continental shelf that could fill a major gap in Australian history  or about a third of the current land mass. He said across Europe, all development assessments now considered underwater heritage; developer-led archaeological studies had led to significant discoveries in the North and Baltic seas and the Mediterranean. Cape Bruguieres channel, where the bulk of the artefacts were discovered. Credit:Deep History of Sea Country research project By contrast, he said, in Australia maritime artefacts such as plane or shipwrecks were both better researched and better protected than submerged Indigenous artefacts. But he expected this discovery to trigger change.

What we have done is take this from potential to proven, he said. We now have an opportunity to integrate maritime and Indigenous archaeology in Australia. Murujuga is the site of increasing conflict between environmental and heritage groups advocating for a World Heritage Listing for the areas cultural landscape, including its rock art, and oil and gas giant Woodside, which is proposing the major Burrup Hub development. The new finds lay not in, but near where Woodside plans to dredge for a proposed 430-kilometre pipeline linking the Scarborough gas field to its Pluto LNG plant, part of the hub. Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation submitted to the Environmental Protection Authority late last year that Woodside had not properly surveyed for heritage sites or addressed potential impacts on the world heritage bid.

They held significant concerns for the fate of the bid, as well as Murujuga intrinsically. They asked that Woodside fully acknowledge the heritage values, do more to identify any potential sites, and do a risk assessment regarding world heritage criteria. The project's divers. The states environmental watchdog in January recommended the state government approve the dredging. It noted MACs outstanding concerns but said Woodsides surveys indicated heritage impacts were unlikely.

It did say Woodside would have to engage with researchers doing submerged landscape studies, to discuss how it might identify potential submerged sites, before proceeding. WAtoday understands Woodside met with the Flinders University researchers who were carrying out this discovery project. Two appeals have been lodged against the EPA decision  but traditional owners could not lodge one, as they are bound by a legal commitment not to. A Woodside spokeswoman congratulated the research team and traditional custodians on a "ground-breaking" announcement. She said while the research was conducted outside Woodsides area of operation, Woodside was reviewing the report and would further engage with MAC and the research teams to understand it.

She said Woodside was proud of its relationships with traditional custodians and as such supported the World Heritage bid. It would continue to work with key stakeholders to protect heritage and minimise any impacts both on and offshore, and was consulting with MAC to address their feedback. A member of the dive team. Credit:Hiro Yoshida Woodside is also providing financial and in-kind support for further research into rock art dating and submerged heritage to better understand and publicise any potential heritage values, she said. MAC still held concerns about the area, about the potential impacts on the submerged cultural sites and the potential implications for the world heritage bid, said chief executive Peter Jeffries. He considered this new research as validation of these concerns.

He said, however, that Woodside had further engaged with MAC this year and there were satisfactory discussions in progress. He said the study continued efforts to unlock missing links in the regions cultural heritage and would add to the story of Aboriginal people in the Pilbara. Loading "These new discoveries prove our ancestors did live and exist on these coastal areas before the sea levels rose after the last ice age, and that not all ancient coastal archaeology is lost," he said. "It has been exciting to hear what the researchers and specialist scientists have been able to recover ... further exploration could unearth similar cultural relics and help us better understand the life of the people who were so connected to these areas of lands which are now underwater.
NSW's independent water regulator has taken Whitehaven to court, accusing the coal miner of capturing water that it was not entitled to take at its Maules Creek site.

The Natural Resource Access Regulator on Thursday said it commenced action in the NSW Land & Environment Court, charging the Whitehaven unit for two alleged breaches of the Water Management Act 2000.

Whitehaven's Maules Creek coal mine has been accused by the resource access regulator of taking water that it was not entitled to. Credit:Dallas Kilponen

The miner is accused of taking water without an access licence over three years between 2016 and 2019.

Grant Barnes, the chief regulatory officer, said the miner is alleged to have failed to divert clean water from major streams on the Maules Creek site, capturing the water for its own use.
Premier Mark McGowan will come under pressure to lift Western Australias border restrictions to all states but Victoria as other states move to do so.

Earlier this week Mr McGowan shelved plans to reopen WA's interstate borders on August 8 in light of the eruption in coronavirus cases in Victoria, saying he felt vindicated over his strict border stance.

Vindicated: West Australian Premier Mark McGowan has been travelling the state as the local economy opens back up. Credit:Lauren Pilat

Yet South Australia and Queensland announced plans to lift their own border controls to every state except Victoria.

Mr McGowan's argument in June that "picking and choosing between the states" was unconstitutional had effectively been eroded by his interstate counterparts not taking an all-or-nothing approach, according to law expert Lorraine Finlay.
The licence photos, names, addresses and signatures of West Australians will soon be available to Commonwealth and interstate investigators through a national facial recognition system.

The information will include details of minors who have applied for a learner's permit or WA photo card and will enable authorities to identify a person from an image.

Licence photos and other identifying information of West Australians will be part of a national facial recognition database. Credit:Getty Images

New laws to make the identifying data available sailed through WA's lower house before the winter recess with the support of both the Liberal and Labor parties.

The relaxation of identity data-sharing restrictions would help deter crime, prevent identity theft and "provide law enforcement agencies with a powerful investigative tool to identify people who may be associated with criminal activities", according to the state government.
Education Minister Sue Ellery has vetoed a West Australian public schools cash-for-grades offer to students who might have taken their foot off the pedal after receiving early offers for university.

Carine Senior High School principal Damian Shuttleworth had announced a plan to give year 12 students $500 if their final Australian Tertiary Admission Rank improved on the score predicted using their year 11 results.

Carine Senior High School principal Damian Shuttleworth. Credit:Department of Education

The idea was sparked by fears students who had been made early university offers  a strategy universities adopted after losing international students due to the coronavirus pandemic  would mean students may not try as hard this year.

Secondary school educators around the state had noticed that while there were still some very engaged year 12 students determined to get the best ATAR possible, many who had offers for university placements may not be working as hard as they previously would have.
Australia has for the first time publicly voiced its concerns about Israel's potential annexation of land in the West Bank under the provisions of the Trump administration's peace plan.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne on Wednesday night issued a statement amid growing pressure on the federal government to join like-minded countries including Britain, Germany, France and Italy in condemning any move.

The Morrison government had hoped to continue to quietly lobby the Israelis behind the scenes and resisted demands from Labor, the United Nations and international aid groups to speak out.

Palestinian farmers near the West Bank city of Jericho. Credit:AP

Israel appears set to delay any plans to annex up to 30 per cent of the West Bank, covering Israeli settlements, by July 1, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had negotiated in his government coalition deal with rival Benny Gantz.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and those with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and even be fatal.
Defence Minister Linda Reynolds will warn China's actions have "deeply unsettled" the Indo-Pacific region and put at risk the security of Australia and its neighbours, as the Morrison government looks to acquire an anti-ballistic missile defence shield for the first time.

Senator Reynolds will on Thursday declare the growing competition between the United States and China has forced Australia to rethink its strategy to defend the nation, as it looks to roll out a series of long-range anti-ship missiles under a $270 billion build-up of the defence force over the next decade.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds will give a speech on Thursday saying Australia is "deeply unsettled" with China's military push into the Indo-Pacific. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The Morrison government on Wednesday released a major update to its 2016 Defence White Paper, acknowledging it no longer had a decade to defend against potential threats with the possibility of military conflict in the region.

Along with purchasing new long-range missiles for its fleet of Super Hornets to defend its deployed forces abroad, Australia will also investigate the possibility of developing hypersonic missiles that can travel at least five times the speed of sound.
Doctors are calling for telehealth Medicare rebates to be restricted to a patient's regular GP or a referred specialist, saying pop-up services are leading to fragmented patient care.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) president Harry Nespolon said he was "deeply concerned" to see the rise of pop-up telehealth businesses offering "low-value" medical services provided by doctors who had no connection to a patient's usual clinic.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Harry Nespolon said telehealth had helped lower the risk of spreading COVID-19 to patients and practice staff and made care more accessible for vulnerable patients. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

He said pop-up services posed a danger to patients who were taking multiple medications, as hazardous drug interactions could be missed by a GP who did not know their history.

"Telehealth services should only be accessible to patients through their regular GP, who can offer face-to-face consultations when needed," Dr Nespolon said.
Legal experts are split over the constitutionality of extending JobKeeper wage subsidies to priests, imams and rabbis, sparking a call for the government to release the advice underpinning its decision.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg changed the scheme in late April to include religious practitioners as donations fell and demand for religions' charitable services jumped.

Priests are entitled to $1500 a fortnight under JobKeeper if their parish has lost 15 per cent of its usual takings. Credit:James Alcock

Luke Beck, a constitutional law expert at Monash University, said the same section of the constitution that forbade the government from declaring a national religion also meant it could not directly fund religious services.

"It's not about who you're funding, it's about what you're funding," Associate Professor Beck said. "If you're funding religious activities, the High Court says you can't do that."
London: Boris Johnson has given his strongest signal yet that Britain will reverse permission for Huawei to grow its involvement in the country's 5G networks amid a hardening of opposition to Chinese investment on both sides of parliament.

"On Huawei, Im not against investment in this country," the Prime Minister told London's Evening Standard.

"This is an open market economy but I dont want to see our critical national infrastructure at risk of being in any way controlled by potentially hostile state vendors.

"So, we have to think very carefully about how to proceed now."
Audrey Strauss, acting Manhattan US Attorney, discusses the charges against Ghislaine Maxwell. Credit:AP After Maxwell won the girls' trust, the indictment alleges, she would try to "normalise sexual abuse" by discussing sexual topics or by undressing in front of them or being present when they were undressed. Loading The indictment alleges that Maxwell was well aware of Epstein's preference for minor girls and that he intended to sexually abuse them. Epstein's alleged abuse included touching their genitals, placing sex toys on their genitals and having the girls touch Epstein while he masturbated. Maxwell also encouraged the young girls to massage Epstein, and in some cases, the victims were partially or fully nude during the massages, according to the indictment.

Strauss said the abuse took place at Epstein's homes in London, New York and Palm Beach, Florida. Prosecutors seek answers Epstein has been linked socially to numerous powerful figures, from US President Donald Trump to former president Bill Clinton and Britain's Prince Andrew. "We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us," Strauss said. One Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has previously claimed that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Andrew at her London townhouse.

Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, bolstered her allegations with a picture of her, Andrew and Giuffre that she said was taken at the time. Andrew has denied her story. Prince Andrew pictured with Virginia Roberts in 2001 at the townhouse of Ghislaine Maxwell, right, in London. Giuffre said in court documents that she had been directed by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with a number of prominent men, including Andrew, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former US Senator George Mitchell and Hyatt Hotels magnate Tom Pritzker, among others. The men have denied her accusations. The suit was settled in 2017. Dershowitz and Giuffre, meantime, have sued each other for defamation. Giuffre said she was not directed to have sex with either Trump not Clinton and had no knowledge of them having sex with any of the other girls allegedly recruited by Epstein and Maxwell. After Maxwell's arrest, Giuffre tweeted "Orange is the new black", in a reference to American prison garb. She thanked the FBI and "anyone involved in the arrest". "So so so happy - she's finally where she belongs," Giuffre wrote.

In June, then-US Attorney for Manhattan Geoffrey Berman said Andrew was evading their efforts to question him about his contacts with Epstein. Berman stepped down after he was fired by Trump later the same month. Andrew has publicly stated he will cooperate with any appropriate law enforcement agency. Buckingham Palace referred a request for comment to Andrew's lawyers, who could not be reached immediately for comment. US Attorney-General William Barr said in June there were no plans to extradite Andrew. At a hearing in New Hampshire federal court on Thursday afternoon, US time, the judge ordered the criminal case against Maxwell be transferred to the Southern District of New York. The judge ordered Maxwell be transferred to the custody of the US Marshal. Prosecutors had planned to ask a judge to deny bail, calling her "an extreme risk of flight".

A lawyer who represented Maxwell in civil litigation did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video "For years, I feared Epstein and his ring," Jennifer Araoz, who has accused Maxwell of trafficking her for Epstein, said in a statement. "Today, my fellow Epstein survivors and I are able to take a breath of relief, as Maxwell's arrest means some justice for survivors can exist." Maxwell, the daughter of late British media magnate Robert Maxwell, has kept a low profile since the death of Epstein. Maxwell was an ex-girlfriend of Epstein who became a longtime member of his inner circle. In a 2003 Vanity Fair article, Epstein was quoted as saying Maxwell was his "best friend".

Loading Since Epstein's arrest and death last year, questions have arisen about how he built his vast wealth, which included two privately owned Caribbean islands, multiple homes and one of the largest mansions in Manhattan. Maxwell has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called some of the claims against her "absolute rubbish". She largely disappeared from public view in 2016 and was particularly elusive after Epstein was charged with sex trafficking. The filing says Maxwell appears to have been living on a 156-acre property in Bradford, New Hampshire, that she bought last December in a cash purchase, using a limited liability-company to shield her identity.

Prosecutors asked for her to be held in custody because she has "extensive international ties, three passports, citizenships in two other countries and absolutely no reason to stay in the US". Maxwell has a British passport as well as a French one from her mother. She was held without bail. She is also reported to have links to more than 15 bank accounts from 2016 to present, with accounts up to $US20 million ($28 million). She faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted of the charges against her.  Support is available for those who may be distressed by phoning Lifeline 13 11 14; Mensline 1300 789 978; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; beyondblue 1300 224 636.
Wilmington, DE (19810)

Today

Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to mostly cloudy skies after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 71F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to mostly cloudy skies after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 71F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
I have never seen anything like that. That a company chooses to sell their stock to only one country. Its very strange and quite inappropriate, he said. Right now we have enough to make it through the summer if the intake of patients is as it is now. If a second wave comes, we may be challenged.
Trump also told Fox Business that people have seen him wearing a mask. But only one image has surfaced of the president wearing a mask. He donned it for a behind-the-scenes tour of a Ford facility in Michigan in May. Reporters were not allowed to accompany Trump on the tour.
Weatherford, TX (76086)

Today

Showers, with winds diminishing overnight. Low 62F. NNE winds at 20 to 30 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Showers, with winds diminishing overnight. Low 62F. NNE winds at 20 to 30 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
The family of a Canadian engineer arrested in Egypt last year says he has returned home to Canada.

They say Yasser Albaz is in need of medical treatment.

His daughter, Amal Albaz, says her fathers health is deteriorating and is of top priority

She had been vocal in calling for his return home.

Egyptian authorities detained Albaz at the Cairo airport after a business trip in February of 2019.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also spoken out about Albazs case, and talked to the president of Egypt last year.

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One hundred fifty-five years after Robert E. Lee surrendered, the former capital of the Confederacy is re-examining the painful legacy that it publicly memorialized on Monument Avenue.

The former capital, Richmond, Virginia, took down a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson on Wednesday after Mayor Levar Stoney used emergency powers to order its immediate removal, along with other Confederate statues on city property.

Stoney said in a video statement that his order was to expedite the healing process for the city as well as for public safety, after other statues had been torn down by protesters.

We have needed to turn this page for decades, he said.

As part of the nationwide racial upheaval after George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis police, symbols of the Confederacy have been targeted by local governments and demonstrators.

In Richmond alone, people have toppled a Jefferson Davis statue; thrown one of Christopher Columbus into a lake; toppled the Howitzers Monument, which featured a Confederate artilleryman; and torn down a statue of William Carter Wickham, a Confederate general.

Stoney said that removing the remaining Confederate statues would take several days and that they would be kept in storage until the community decided their ultimate fate.

Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue that sits on state property in Richmond, but the process has stalled because of several lawsuits, The Associated Press reported.

Stoney, who is Black, said Richmond had been burdened with the legacy of the Confederacy since the end of its tenure as its capital city.

The great weight of that burden has fallen on our residents of colour, he said, adding that it also placed a weight on all of our brothers and sisters who saw the unmet potential for Richmond to become an international example of a diverse, compassionate and inclusive community.

Although the removal of the Stonewall Jackson statue was announced suddenly, crowds began to form shortly after a crane appeared on the street nearby. After about four hours, the statue was hoisted into the air.

Everybodys like screaming and clapping and yelling, said Paul Finch, 29, a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University, who was on a friends porch overlooking the scene when the process began.

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Virginia had more than 220 public memorials to the Confederacy, according to the governors office. A state law that went into effect Wednesday gives local governments the ability to remove, relocate, or contextualize the monuments in their communities.

These monuments tell a particular version of history that doesnt include everyone, Northam said when he signed the legislation in April. In Virginia, that version of history has been given prominence and authority for far too long.
What weve come to find out is restaurants late into the night are having parties because bars and pubs are not open, said Broward Mayor Dale Holness late Wednesday. We know from the data and science that when you are in an enclosed space and you do not have facial coverings, its likely for coronavirus to spread.
AGAWAM, MA (WGGB/WSHM) -- Middle school students in Agawam were allowed to celebrate their last day of school with ice cream after all. The annual tradition was called into question Wednesday when an email to parents from school administrators said Friendlys would not be able to serve stude
Health care information firm Sema4 said this week that it had ramped up the capacity for its coronavirus testing program to about 15,000 tests daily, an initiative praised by elected officials including U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.

Since its launch in April, Stamford-headquartered Sema4 has steadily built out the program at its laboratory in Branford. The firm also plans to soon expand into antibody testing to identify people who have been exposed and whose immune systems have responded to the coronavirus, with the goal of initially running each day about 5,000 of those exams.

We are proud to support the state of Connecticut in the fight against COVID-19 and to couple that work with our innovative approach to health care across womens health, oncology and biopharma, Sema4 founder and CEO Eric Schadt said in a statement. We look forward to continuing to expand and innovate, applying artificial intelligence and big data analytics to further meet our mission of improving the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.

The testing regimen was recognized this week by Murphy, who selected the company as his Innovator of the Month.

Sema4 is the perfect example of why Connecticut is one of the best places in the world to start a company. In a little over three years, Sema4s innovative, patient-centered approach to health care has helped hundreds of thousands of people, Murphy said in a statement. Sema4 has also stepped up in a major way to help Connecticut tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. As our state continues to safely reopen, Sema4s viral and antibody testing will be key to getting Connecticuts frontline workers back to work.

Last month, Sema4 announced a formal partnership with the state government to operate as a COVID-19 testing provider for Connecticut residents. It is providing viral and antibody testing for state employees, first responders, long-term care centers and primary-care facilities throughout Connecticut.

Sema4s viral tests are manufactured by PerkinElmer, and its antibody tests are run on the Abbott Alinity system, in accordance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations Emergency Use Authorization.

Results are returned within about 24 hours of receiving the sample for the viral test and around 48 hours for the antibody test, according to the company.

Sema4 accepts saliva, nasal swab and oral swab samples, which are collected by health care providers and at authorized collection sites. It plans to soon accept saliva samples taken at home.

The tests are offered with no out-of-pocket cost to Connecticut residents, the company said.

To help employers manage back-to-work programs, Sema4 has said it would provide an even more complete, end-to-end digital solution for those ordering and receiving tests, including portals for registering employees, tracking samples and reporting results.

Testing is vital to efforts to track and reduce coronavirus spread. As of Tuesday, about 464,000 people in Connecticut had undergone testing for the virus, while the state has recorded about 46,500 confirmed cases.

As of Wednesday morning, about 12,500 of every 100,000 people in the state have been tested, a rate that ranks eighth among the states, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys Coronavirus Resource Center.

Rhode Island ranks No. 1, having tested about 22,600 for every 100,000 people, followed by about 19,800 for New York and 15,800 for New Mexico.

pschott@stamfordadvocate.com; twitter: @paulschott
BRIDGEPORT  A city man was charged Thursday after police said he assaulted a 78-year-old woman inside a local pharmacy and stole her purse.

Kadeem Palmer, 30, of Tomlinson Place, was charged with third-degree robbery and third-degree assault on an elderly person.

He was being held in lieu of $10,000 bond.

According to police, on June 7, the woman was standing with her health aide by the prescription counter of the CVS on Boston Avenue, waiting for her medication, when a man later identified as Palmer came up behind her and knocked her to the floor.

Police said the woman desperately held onto her pocketbook as Palmer grabbed it. He ended up dragging her several feet along the floor before she finally had to let go, police said.

They said Palmer began to run off but was confronted by a store employee and a struggle ensued. Police said the employee managed to get the womans purse from Palmer and Palmer then fled.

Police said the woman suffered multiple bruises in the incident.

A short time later, police said, a woman complained to police that her purse had been stolen from her car which was parked at a gas station on Boston Avenue. The man, who matched the description of the assailant in the CVS incident, had fled in a blue Nissan sedan.

Police said they traced the sedan to Palmer. When they later confronted Palmer at his home, police said Palmer admitted attacking the woman at the CVS but claimed he didnt think it was a robbery because she had gotten the pocketbook back.
They dont want them coming up to the windows to get a drink, Ferro said. They said it was considered a stand-up bar and not to use it. We said OK. We put up signs telling people do not come to the window. I have a million signs up. We do what we gotta do.
WASHINGTON - The White House is trying to capitalize on conservative anger at Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. over his latest decisions by telling evangelical leaders and other activists that they need to turn out voters for President Donald Trump so he can use a second term to continue nominating conservative judges to the nation's highest court.

Some recent polls have shown a weakening in support for Trump among evangelicals, who have long been among the president's strongest supporters. But Roberts's role in cases advancing both gay and abortion rights is now seen in the White House as an opening to shore up that part of Trump's political base.

Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said there is frustration and disappointment in evangelical ranks about Roberts's rulings, but he said he and others are not going to walk away from Trump.

"Voters of faith know that that project to shift the court in a more conservative direction is on the 5-yard line and it's a strategic imperative to get President Trump reelected," Reed said. "The Louisiana decision has brought the life issue into fuller relief and reminded us why we have to give the president the chance to nominate more justices."

In a remarkable stretch of decisions over the past two weeks, Roberts has infuriated conservatives and the Trump administration by finding that federal anti-discrimination law protects gay, bisexual and transgender workers and stopping the president from ending the federal program that protects undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children.

In Monday's decision striking down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law, Roberts said the court's allegiance to honoring its past decisions meant striking down a law almost identical to one in Texas that the court said in 2016 was unconstitutional.

Still, even as the White House works to reassure conservatives, it faces challenges in containing the rage over the George W. Bush appointee's alignment with liberal colleagues and ensuring that his rulings do not depress the president's core voters.

"John G. Roberts Jr. has stabbed the American people in the back more than Norman Bates and 'swings' more than Hugh Hefner in his heyday," former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, an evangelical leader, tweeted on Tuesday, adding that Roberts should "Resign Now."

Roberts is not alone in facing conservatives' wrath. Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, and Roberts joined the court's liberals in the 6-to-3 ruling that a landmark federal civil rights law from the 1960s protects gay and transgender workers.

The decision by Gorsuch to chart his own course is particularly painful for some conservatives, given that he was vetted for Trump by a small network of conservative legal scholars, including leaders of the Federalist Society, who offered public assurances of his credentials.

Inside the White House, officials are working to hold conservatives together and to remind them of Trump's track record on the federal judiciary, arguing that the scope of the president's efforts should outweigh any anger with Roberts and others on the court.

Vice President Mike Pence, a conservative who has spent his career building bonds with evangelicals, is at the center of that outreach, according to two conservative activists in frequent contact with the White House.

On Monday, Pence did not swipe Roberts directly, but he did tweet that "after today's disappointing decision by SCOTUS, one thing is clear: We need more Conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court." Pence also spoke Monday with the Susan B. Anthony List, an antiabortion group whose leader has criticized Roberts as caving to "social pressures" that cause "intellectual and moral collapse."

One of Pence's aides, veteran conservative organizer Paul Teller, is communicating daily with right-wing groups and "bucking them up, staying positive, and sending us talking points," one of the conservative activists said.

There are also ongoing discussions between Trump advisers and conservative leaders about the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy in the coming months - a tantalizing prospect for Republicans who value the court above all other issues and are eager to have Trump have one more opportunity to nominate a justice before the election.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative appointed by George H.W. Bush, is privately seen by Trump's aides as the most likely to retire this year. While Thomas has not given any indication of doing so, the White House and Senate Republicans are quietly preparing for a possible opening, according to a White House official and two outside Trump political advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.

"If Thomas goes, you've got a lot of people around this process ready to support Thapar - and McConnell ready to move his favorite through," said one of the outside Trump political advisers, referring to Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

Thapar, 51, is the son of Indian immigrants and has been touted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as a prime candidate. He previously served as a U.S. attorney and federal district court judge in Kentucky - and was on Trump's shortlist in 2018 when Justice Anthony Kennedy retired from the bench.

Other conservatives remain hopeful that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 48, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, will be nominated by Trump if there is a vacancy. But Barrett's past membership in groups that have promoted antiabortion views could make her harder to confirm in campaign season, the outside advisers said.

Several Trump advisers and the White House official said Coney Barrett is more likely to be nominated in the event that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Bill Clinton appointee, steps down. One of the Trump advisers said, encouragingly, that Coney Barrett would cause a "culture war."

McConnell has publicly stated that he would push to confirm another Trump nominee.

"Oh, we'd fill it," McConnell said in May when asked at a Kentucky event about whether he would fill a vacancy this year. That remark sparked outrage and cries of hypocrisy among Democrats since McConnell blocked Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court in 2016, insisting that the nomination should wait until after that year's presidential election.

The White House official said Trump is likely to update and extend his public shortlist for the Supreme Court before the election as a way of reminding conservatives of his commitment to their cause.

For Trump, keeping conservatives who focus on the court engaged and upbeat about him is of paramount importance as he faces off against former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Biden has pledged to nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court, should he win the White House.

Top Democrats are urging their own activists to remain vigilant and keep pace with conservatives.

"The ruling on the Louisiana law is no cause for complacency," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. "There will be more efforts by state legislatures to chip away at reproductive rights, and this week's majority could be lost if Trump is reelected."

Whether Roberts's rulings end up driving up GOP turnout or not, it is clear that anger over the chief justice is unlikely to abate soon.

"If it were up to me, I'd start impeachment proceedings against John G. Roberts Jr.," American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, a Trump ally, told Fox News on Tuesday. "What he's done on Obamacare twice and what he has done here on abortion is act like a left-wing politician. If he's not going to be impeached, he ought to resign and run for Congress."

On the campaign trail in Tulsa on June 20, Trump told his rally crowd, "Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, they're great. They're great. We have two and we could get a few more. Yeah. We could get a few."

When asked last week, in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, whether Roberts is "worse" than past GOP-nominated justices that have distressed conservatives, such as Kennedy, Trump said, 'So far, we're not doing so well. It says, look, you've had a lot of losses with a court that was supposed to be in our favor."

But, Trump added, the rulings show that it is necessary for Republicans to win this year to avoid having a "radical left group of judges" on the court.

Trump's campaign advisers said the campaign will continue to make that point to Trump's supporters this summer.

"President Trump has an unsurpassed record of appointing 200 solid, conservative judges and he will continue to do so," Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. "Joe Biden cannot stand up to the radical left and would appoint liberal judges who would legislate from the bench. It would be a disaster for conservatives."

The Senate last week confirmed Trump's 200th judicial nominee, a milestone that Trump and McConnell have made a keystone of their political legacies.

Working to contain conservative anger over the court is hardly unusual for a Republican president. Harriet Miers, who was put forward by George W. Bush, withdrew from consideration in 2005 when Republicans objected to her nomination, saying she was insufficiently conservative. Retired justice David Souter was appointed by George H.W. Bush but became a target of conservative ire after he reliably voted with the liberal bloc on the court in the 1990s and early 2000s.

"Conservative activists and Trump supporters don't blame Trump for it. It just seems to be a pattern of bad luck for conservatives. We had it with Souter, and I guess we're getting it with Roberts, if these last few decisions are an indication," said former senator Bob Smith, R-N.H.

---

The Washington Post's Robert Barnes and Michael Scherer contributed to this report.
Jarret Liotta / For Hearst Connecticut Media / Jarret Liotta

WESTPORT  The Westport Library has announced it will begin the phased process of reopening its building on July 13.

Before we had to close the building in mid-March, the library had become a bustling hub for Westport and surrounding communities, Westport Library Executive Director Bill Harmer said in a news release on Wednesday.
Traditionally, Westport does not celebrate July Fourth with fireworks.

We cant wait that long. For decades weve done our Happy Birthday, America! thing on July 1, 2 or 3. Once or twice, its even been a full month earlier  well, June 30, to be technical.

Ive never been sure of the reason. Some people say its to avoid paying holiday overtime to the dozens of police, firefighters, EMTs, Parks and Rec employees and others needed to make the event run smoothly. Some say its because the barge from which the fireworks are fired costs more on the Fourth. Ive also heard its to get a head start on the holiday, or simply because weve always done it that way.

No matter. For many Westporters, the fireworks is our towns red (and white and blue) letter day. Its a party to end all parties  the one time the entire town gets together, and literally has a blast.

From mid-afternoon on, crowds gather at Compo Beach. Kids romp in the water, and on the sand. They get lost (and eventually found). Soundview Drive is closed to traffic; house parties spill from decks to the street. Middle and high school students roam all around in packs, performing timeless teenage rituals. A marching band marches, drummers drum, dancers dance. Vendors sell sparklers, ice cream, American flag-themed stuff. Its Norman Rockwell at his best, Fairfield County-style.

Entertaining 15,000 hard-to-please Westporters is no easy feat. For a few years now, the day has begun with an early morning arms race. Families and friends send someone down, at dawn, to stake out a prime viewing spot. He or she will plunk dozens of chairs in a large circle, surrounding blankets and tables. In the past couple of years, theyve erected giant tents too. The scout then disappears. For much of the day, the beach is populated by ghosts. It aggravates the hell out of everyone who doesnt do it, but no one seems able to stop it.

A few folks also grumble about the $35 per car ticket needed for beach parking. Never mind that the price hasnt gone up in years, that the money funds Westport PAL programs and scholarships for thousands of youngsters, or that the Melissa & Doug toy company underwrites the actual cost of the fireworks as a gift to the town. Never mind either that anyone can park elsewhere  a friends house, Longshore, the office complex on Greens Farms Road  and hoof it to Compo.

There are complaints too about traffic, despite the wonderful work by a corps of cops and others. Every party has a pooper, and people always poop on this fantastic day of fun and fireworks.

Fortunately, most people appreciate the day, and thank the many folks who make it possible. Unfortunately, this July Fourth  or whenever the event would have been held  has been canceled. It would not look good for the town that was one of the first in the country to have a super-spreader party to then pack 15,000 people together on a beach, even if its to celebrate the birth of our nation.

For many reasons, this may not feel like a time of celebration. Besides case numbers  which seem to be rising everywhere except here, like a firework shot from a barge  we feel assaulted by bad news. The number of unemployed Americans is staggering; the percentages have not been seen for nearly a century. Each day we hear stories of social inequities and injustices. All of us, wherever we live, are having serious discussions about who the United States is as a nation, and who we are as a people.

So perhaps, instead of our traditional July Fourth behaviors  staking out large swaths of the beach for ourselves, enjoying a community-wide celebration, wearing American flag t-shirts while sitting on flag towels and wiping our faces with flag napkins  we can take this day to think about where we are today, and where we are headed tomorrow.

Perhaps we can talk with our children about our Founding Fathers  not as idealized heroes, but as real human beings with many genius ideas, and some that were flawed. Perhaps we can look back at our lives over the past three months  the sacrifices weve made, the changes weve adapted to, the ideas weve discarded or adopted  and consider how they fit in with the America weve always talked about, but seldom truly thought of. Perhaps instead of shooting off fireworks, we can light a couple of candles: one for everyone weve lost, and one for everyone who will follow us in this strange new world.

We have no idea whats ahead. Of course, neither did anyone else at the creation of America, 244 years ago this week.

Dan Woog is a Westport writer, and his Woog's World appears each Friday. He can be reached at dwoog@optonline.net. His personal blog is danwoog06880.com.
GREENWICH  After months of banning visitors due to the dangers of spreading COVID-19, Greenwich Hospital is once again opening its doors to allow people to visit patients.

From a preoperative perspective, allowing visitors is a game-changer. It was very difficult telling patients that their loved ones could not be with them. You could hear the disappointment, said Helene Kimmons, nurse manager in the Ambulatory Surgery and Post Acute Care Unit.

Hospital leaders announced the change in policy Wednesday, with limitations and strict guidelines in place.

We look forward to sharing the good news that we can offer a set time for visitation, Kimmons said.

Greenwich Hospital has banned visitors since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some people had complained that they could not be with family members who were hospitalized during that time. At the height of the pandemic in mid-April, Greenwich Hospital was treating over 100 patients. Those numbers have since declined into single digits.

Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

We continue to see our numbers decline of coronavirus patients, said Diane Kelly, Greenwich Hospitals president. However, we do expect the number of COVID patients to fluctuate over time. Therefore, we have taken the time to put in processes that will allow us to expand our visitation policy while we keep our staff and patients safe. We will continue to monitor the number of patients and adjust accordingly.

Under the newly announced policy, all visitors must be 18 or older and wearing a mask when they arrive. All visitors will be screened for symptoms at the hospitals main entrance before theyre allowed into the building.

Visitors are required to keep a face mask on for the duration of their stay, and must receive a visitors pass at the information desk when entering.

Theres one exception: No individuals are allowed to visit a COVID-19-positive patient due to continued concerns regarding the spread of the coronavirus.

Here are the guidelines that were issued Wednesday by Greenwich Hospital:

Inpatient visitation: Hospitalized patients may have one visitor from 2 to 6 p.m. daily. Visitors must go directly to the patients room and return the visitor pass upon leaving.

Ambulatory surgery and perioperative procedure visitation: One visitor may accompany a patient coming for same-day surgery or a perioperative procedure. The visitor must remain with the patient or in the waiting area. If a patient requires an overnight stay, the visitor must leave the hospital when the patient goes in for surgery and may return during visiting hours from 2 to 6 p.m.

Labor and delivery/maternity visitation: One visitor may stay for the duration of the mothers hospital stay.

Pediatric visitation: One visitor may stay for the duration of the pediatric patients hospital stay.

Visitor policy exceptions: Exceptions will be made for patients at imminent end of life and for patients with special needs who may need a support person with them to facilitate care.

Greenwich Hospital said it continues to encourage families, friends and loved ones to use electronic devices and applications to keep in contact with patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fore more information, call Greenwich Hospital, at 203-863-3000.
Predictions are notoriously slippery, especially where U.S. elections are concerned. But there's at least a strong possibility that after four years of a beautiful partnership Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could soon be facing life without Donald Trump.

While many of the U.S.'s other allies might find that a cause for relief, for Bibi the reaction is likely to be more complicated. Trump has lavished priceless gifts on Bibi -- the Golan Heights, a U.S. embassy relocation to Jerusalem and a permission to wage covert war against Iran. Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal at Netanyahu's urging and adopted Netanyahu's design for a Palestinian mini-state in the West Bank. He even named the plan after himself.

In the last three Israeli electoral campaigns, Trump worked hard to keep Bibi in office. Now it is Trump who is running for re-election. The president fully expects Bibi to reciprocate.

But loyalty and gratitude are not among Bibi's virtues. Recent polls show Trump losing by a large margin. The often more reliable Vegas odds make him a three-to-two underdog. Israeli diplomats in Washington report talking with increasingly demoralized Republicans and excited Democrats.

Yes, the odds were against Trump in 2016, too. But this time they are based less on his personality than on his failed performance in office. Trump has botched the corona crisis. His economic boom has melted down into the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression and a dramatic drop in GDP. He has responded to mass protests with bellicose law-and-order threats that have alienated even normally apolitical senior military officers. There is a hysterical tone his recent political ads; he no longer looks like a winner.

A Biden victory would end the Bibi-Trump honeymoon, but it would not necessarily be a disaster for Netanyahu. Biden is a lifetime Zionist with a long senatorial record of support for Israel. During the nasty spat between Bibi and Obama over the Iran nuclear pact, the vice president managed to avoid a breach with Netanyahu, whom he has called a "great, great friend." In that tense period, Bibi placed an emotional condolence call to Biden after the death of his son, Beau. Together they recalled their many moments during a "20-year friendship."

Biden is not only a friend, he is a centrist in a party whose progressive wing is not supportive of Israel. As president, he would not threaten military aid, as Democrat Bernie Sanders recently has. It is unlikely that he would reverse Trump's recognition of Israel's Golan annexation or return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv. There would be disagreement over how to deal with Iran and with the Palestinian issue, but it probably wouldn't be disagreeable.

No matter how weak Trump looks going into November, Bibi will not publicly break up with him before the election. Trump would see it as a betrayal and certainly seek to take revenge. Even in defeat, he would still have large number of supporters and Twitter follows. Most of them like Bibi. The last thing he wants is to be labelled a traitor or an ingrate by his offended ex-partner. If there is to be a separation, Netanyahu wants to keep it amicable.

This will require some finesse. In the past, Trump has made televised campaign ads for Netanyahu, hosted him at high-profile Oval office meetings on the eve of elections and timed announcements of U.S. support to coincide with Bibi's political needs.

Bibi will not happily reciprocate. He will likely invoke the principle of strict neutrality in foreign elections, a principle every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir has violated. He will use the Covid-19 crisis as an excuse for not paying a visit to the White House, and for discouraging a presidential trip to Jerusalem. In his communications with Republican evangelical Zionist leaders and American Jews, Bibi will decline to echo Trump's charge, when it comes to Israel, Biden is the second coming of Obama.

If Biden wins, Bibi will have three main goals: 1) to win substantial new economic support from Washington during what looks to be a serious Israeli recession; 2) the adoption by the new administration of his view that Iran is the implacable enemy of both Israel and the US; and 3) preservation of the Trump Peace Plan.

He could get the first; there is still a lot of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. He likely won't get the second; appeasing Iran is a pillar of even moderate Democratic foreign policy. As for the third, it will require some rebranding. Trump's Deal of the Century would likely be renamed a "realistic two-state solution" or something close. This is not far-fetched. Even the Palestinian leadership, which on Monday announced its willingness to reopen talks with Israel after six years, seems to be coming to that conclusion. Add a few new wrinkles and a new administration could call it "The Biden Plan." It might even work.

Netanyahu still wants Trump to win. That is like having himself in the White House. Breaking up is hard to do. But, in the words of a song Trump has often played at his rallies, "You can't always get what you want." But, if you play your cards right, you can get what you need.

- - -

Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.
FAIRFIELD  Town police are reminding residents not to let themselves be easy targets for thieves in honor of National Vehicle Theft Prevention Month.

As the temperature rises, so does the number of vehicle break-ins and thefts across the country, Fairfield Police Chief Christopher Lyddy said.

July is recognized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as National Vehicle Theft Prevention Month each year since the summer is when most vehicle thefts and break-ins take place, police said.

Every year, more than 770,000 vehicles are stolen, according to the NHTSA. About 41 percent are never recovered.

The NHTSA warns that vehicle parts are also targets, and valuable items left in vehicles, including radios, wheel covers, engines, air bags, GPS units, cellphones, laptops and purses.

Residents are urged to remove all valuables from their vehicles, and to lock their vehicles.

Fairfield police also encouraged residents to get into the habiat of the 9 p.m. routine, meaning checking outside to make sure all vehicles are locked and no valuables left in sight.

We encourage residents to follow these tips in order to protect their vehicle and other valuable possessions this summer, Lyddy said.

If a resident has their vehicle broken into or stolen, police urge those residents to call the police department to report the crime. From there, residents will have to contact their insurance company to file a claim within 24 hours of when the vehicle was found stolen or broken into.
At stop lights or freeway on and off ramps, youve probably seen people holding signs and asking for money. It can be tempting to hand over your spare change, but next time you may want to think twice.
Pence also touted DeSantis leadership as the state saw the record-breaking increases. He praised the governor for the creation of new jobs and his efforts to repair the economy. I want to thank you for your efforts to open up Florida again, Pence said. We had good news this morning as a nation. Nearly 5 million jobs created in the month of June, including many here in the state of Florida.
Today

Hot and steamy with sunshine and some clouds; a slight chance of a t-storm towards evening to the west.

Tonight

A drenching t-storm in the evening; otherwise, mostly cloudy and humid.

Tomorrow

Mostly cloudy, much cooler, and turning less humid with a couple of showers and a t-storm.
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But if the problem worsens, then the county would add those nighttime restrictions to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. In fact, the emergency order already has been readied in case the county needs to impose it, Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner said Thursday.
During the last 14 days, the period during which an exposure to coronavirus causes symptoms in people who are going to get sick, Jones said hes shopped for groceries. He also was in a hospital emergency room the evening of June 22 and kept overnight for observation after he fainted while exercising.
Talawa Theatre company is creating six brand new short pieces using verbatim interviews from Black key and frontline workers.

Entitled "Tales from the Front Line", the series will document the contribution of Black workers at the front line during the pandemic, made all the more significant in the wake of the Windrush scandal and Black Lives Matter movement.

The six pieces will be available on Talawa's website this autumn.

Michael Buffong, Talawa's artistic director, has said: "If not for Covid-19, we would find our lives dominated by Brexit and the Windrush scandal.

"Covid-19 has exposed the fact those people most affected by these hostilities are the ones who are keeping the country alive, sustained and functioning. We want to gather and share these powerful stories from the front line to ensure that these contributions by Black British people cannot be erased from the historical record."
Nuffield Southampton Theatres Trust (NST), which runs two venues in the city, will close permanently it has been announced.

Administrators Greg Palfrey and Steve Adshead, who have been handling the company since it went into administration earlier this year, said that despite 30-plus expressions of interest with 19 non-disclosure agreements signed, potential buyers were unable to meet conditions set by stakeholders. 86 staff members will be made redudant.

Palfrey said: "This is a sad day for the theatre industry in the UK, bringing the final curtain down on nearly 60 years of history of NST as a venerable performing arts institution in Southampton.

"Regrettably, we have no choice but to make all 86 staff redundant, bar a handful retained in the short term to help with us with the administration, as NST can no longer be sold as a going concern. Our thoughts are very much with employees and their families, as well as freelance artists and theatre makers. As administrators we worked with NST's key stakeholders - Southampton City Council, Arts Council England and University of Southampton - to find the best possible outcome.

"The four shortlisted applications were serious about buying NST but were unable to satisfy the stakeholders' criteria for a future operator of Studio 144, which was home to NST City at Southampton's Cultural Quarter."

Southampton City Council, Arts Council England and University of Southampton said: "We have unfortunately not been able to progress discussions with any of the parties. We continue to work together as stakeholders on an alternative, sustainable resolution that builds on the city's cultural ambitions and benefits its communities."

The trust was placed into administration earlier in the year while the lockdown was in full force. The NST City site houses a 450-seat main house theatre, a 133-seat studio, screening facilities, rehearsal and workshop spaces and a bar and restaurant. The NSt Campus space is temporarily closing as part of an extensive university refurbishment programme.

Palfrey added: "We brought serious buyers to the table in a challenging market; the final decision rested with stakeholders. We did everything we could to keep NST alive."

Artistic director Sam Hodges added a glimmer of hope in a comment online, saying that while the Trust may close, the venues themselves may be able to still one day hold performances: "The hard work that was just starting to grow shoots in our new theatre has been brutally cut short.

"However it's worth noting this. Whilst no buyer has been approved through the formal administration process, this doesn't necessarily spell the end of the Nuffield Theatre as a cultural entity in the heart of the city. Conversations are ongoing between stakeholders and interested parties and there is hope yet".

The Government has still not announced any form of sector-specific support for the arts industry, despite it being unlikely that venues will be able to reopen for many months.
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BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- China will focus on improving financial services to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in an effort to ensure their sound development, according to a State Council executive meeting on Wednesday.

The meeting, presided over by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, said that special local government bonds will be allowed to appropriately support small and medium-sized banks in replenishing capital.

Local governments were urged to give priority to supporting small and medium-sized banks that are capable of sustainable market-based operations, thus enhancing their ability to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises financially, according to the meeting.

In addition, local governments should supervise improvements to the banks' internal control mechanisms and strengthen oversight when utilizing special local government bonds.

A draft regulation on ensuring that outstanding payments are made reliably to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was adopted at the meeting, as the country steps up efforts to help the SMEs tide over the current crisis to ensure stable economic fundamentals.

The regulation introduced new guarantees for SMEs to ensure they are paid in full by government agencies, public institutions and large enterprises, including limits on payment times, information disclosure on overdue payments, and punishment for defaults.

The meeting also unveiled new measures to boost the development of national high-tech industrial development zones. Pilot policies implemented in pilot free trade zones will be adopted and promoted in the high-tech zones.

Restrictions on visa and residence permits will be eased for overseas talent, and greater opening-up and cooperation are pledged to help the high-tech zones better integrate into international industrial and supply chains. Enditem




Black mothers workforce participation and earnings are crucial to the economic health of Black children, said Kristen E. Broady, Ph.D., dean of the college of business and professor of economics at Dillard University. The vast majority of Black mothers are the primary breadwinners for their households. They are more than twice as likely as white mothers, and more than 50% more likely than Hispanic mothers, to be either the sole providers in a single-parent household or married and bringing in the same amount or more than their partner, according to analysis from the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy institute.
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Willmar, MN (56201)

Today

Partly cloudy skies. Low 46F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph, becoming SSW and decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low 46F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph, becoming SSW and decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Low near 60F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Low near 60F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.

Tomorrow

Sun and a few passing clouds. High 78F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Today

Overcast. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.

Tonight

Periods of rain. Low near 60F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.

Tomorrow

A few clouds early, otherwise mostly sunny. High 78F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
In this summer like no other, some stores are already spotlighting Back to School displays.

Who knew a sign could seem simultaneously hopeful and sardonic?

If anything stands poised to symbolize life returning to normal, it would be the first day of school in Connecticut. Most people would surely like to see that happen, but the COVID-19 pandemic stubbornly refuses to follow any script.

We are not going back to normal by any stretch of the imagination, Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona has warned.

Gov. Ned Lamont and his team are wisely trying to give parents and educators time to prepare by announcing last week they hope to reopen public schools for in-person learning in September. (See our story on page A3.)

It will not  cannot  look like anything weve seen before. The shuttering of schools three months ago did not happen gradually. There were no masks or social distancing protocols before students were dismissed.

Well see those things, and much more, for the first time in our lifetimes if things go as Lamont plans. Some of the details sound like standard operating procedure, such as maintaining a five-day week and 180-day school year. But try to conjure the image of all those students of all ages in masks.

Last weeks announcement was followed Monday by a more detailed plan, which can be read about on page A1. It offers some musts but also gives districts some discretion.

Getting children back to school is important. Although Wilton school officials and teachers undertook a Herculean task to institute remote learning  something none of them had to think about at the beginning of the calendar year  everyone agrees this is not a preferred way of teaching children. Its true, as Superintendent Kevin Smith said at the last Board of Education meeting, remote learning will still be part of the back-to-school package, particularly for students and teachers who cannot or do not feel comfortable returning in person. But the kind of education Wilton is known for  and strives for  is best delivered in a real, not a virtual, classroom.

Figuring out how to accommodate everyone under the cloud of COVID-19 may be even more challenging than figuring out how to deal with the sudden closure of schools in March. On the positive side, Connecticut is among only a handful of states leading the nation in suppressing the spread of the coronavirus. If  and its a big if  residents continue to take the spread of the illness seriously and practice social distancing and wear their masks, it could give the district a leg up in protecting children when they return at the end of August.

These remaining weeks will test everyone, from the state to the community level. Caution needs to be the watchword because this singular event does not offer the benefit of historys lessons.

Easy on the faucet

Ironically, shortly after both Aquarion Water Company and South Norwalk Electric and Water urged water conservation, it started to rain. But it pays to remember, a few days of rain does not solve the problem of drier-than-normal weather patterns.

Aquarion said it is experiencing near-record water demands and has hit its first drought trigger in this part of Fairfield County. No doubt some beautiful hot and sunny weather caused more water to be used, but in general, its the lawn sprinklers that are a big culprit. That prompted the company to issue water usage restrictions in six towns. Wilton was not included, but its a good idea to remember in a town where so many homes are on large, lush lots that a little brown grass is not a sin.

Water is a precious resource and whether we are on a public supply or a private well, we should not waste it. Consider hand watering those vegetables and prized specimens you cant afford to lose and let everything else fend for itself.

Detailed tips on water conservation may be found at snew.org and aquarionwater.com.
The Jewish population is less than one-fourth of one percent of the worlds population. We dont have many friends, unfortunately, in todays political environment. The ones that we do have, we stand by and we cherish them, and we try to support them as much as we can, but we face a large opposition because unfortunately anti-Zionism is really a lot of anti-Semitism thats focused in there and people hide behind the Israeli policies, but they dont really care about the Jewish plight.
TORRINGTON  The plea hearing of the Bethel man accused of threatening two New Milford men with a gun after allegedly killing his own brother last year has been postponed to Aug. 17.

Matthew ODell, 40, was charged with first-degree threatening, first-degree reckless endangerment, carrying a pistol without a permit, disorderly conduct, illegally carrying a firearm while under the influence and attempt to commit second-degree larceny following a Nov. 11 incident in New Milford.
Winchester, VA (22601)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low near 65F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low near 65F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
OTTAWA - Several B.C. First Nations vowed Thursday to keep their fight against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion going, despite losing what appears to be the last known legal option to overturn federal approval of the project.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Supreme Court of Canada is shown in Ottawa on Tuesday, July 10, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA - Several B.C. First Nations vowed Thursday to keep their fight against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion going, despite losing what appears to be the last known legal option to overturn federal approval of the project.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed an appeal from Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh Nation and Coldwater Indian Band. The dismissal, which as usual came with no explanation for the decision, effectively upholds a decision by the Federal Court of Appeal in February that Ottawa's June 2019 approval of the project was sound.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan said the government had worked hard to hear and accommodate concerns the communities have with the project and welcomed the court's decision.

"The government approved TMX because it is an important project for Canada," he said in a statement.

"Construction of TMX is underway and has already created more than 4,900 good, well-paying jobs, will help us gain access to new markets for our resources and generate revenue to help fund clean energy and climate change solutions."

The pipeline is currently expected to be in service in about two years.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney called the dismissal another "legal vindication" for the pipeline, which was first proposed eight years ago but has been delayed by numerous legal challenges.

It clears the way for construction to continue on the project, which will nearly triple the amount of diluted bitumen that can be carried from Alberta's oilsands to a marine terminal in Burnaby, B.C.

"This is yet another critical victory for pipelines, for our prosperity," Kenney said at an event in Taber, Alta., Thursday morning. He said 120 of 129 First Nations affected by the pipeline either approve or do not object to it.

The First Nations behind the appeal, however, said they were disappointed but not surprised by the outcome, and vowed to fight on.

"What I can tell you today is that this is not the end of our story," said Tsleil-Waututh Nation Chief Leah George-Wilson, at an online news conference.

George-Wilson said she will now consult with her community before deciding what to do next. She and other community leaders said there remain some legal options open to them but declined to say what they are.

Chris Lewis, a Squamish Nation councillor, said the next steps for his community will be "focused on protecting our territory to the full extent possible." He said an ongoing study underway about diluted bitumen will be a key part of that.

Coldwater Chief Lee Spahan said his community will continue to push back about the planned route for the pipeline, which it says puts its aquifer at risk, the sole source of drinking water for the First Nation.

But Thursday's decision is the end of the road to have the courts overturn the federal government's approval of the project, and is the fourth court victory this year for pipeline proponents, including the February Appeal court decision at the centre of Thursday's case.

In January, the Supreme Court ruled against the B.C. government's attempt to regulate what can flow through the pipeline in January because as an interprovincial project it is entirely within federal jurisdiction. In March it also declined to hear an appeal over the federal approval from environment groups.

Ottawa has now approved the project twice, forced to do more Indigenous consultation and environmental review after the Federal Court of Appeal agreed with First Nations and environment groups that the first attempts were flawed. In February, however, that court said Ottawa had now lived up to its duty to consult.

The First Nations leaders speaking Thursday vowed the pipeline will never be finished, and questioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's repeated assertion that there is no relationship more important to him than Canada's relationship with Indigenous Peoples.

"This case is about more than a risky pipeline and a tanker project," George-Wilson said. "It is a major setback for reconciliation. It reduces consultation to a purely procedural requirement that will be a serious barrier to reconciliation."

She said the Federal Court of Appeal relied on Ottawa's own assessment of its consultation process, which she argued was flawed since Ottawa now owns the pipeline and so had a conflict of interest.

Trudeau has repeatedly sold the project as a compromise between Canada's need to develop and take advantage of its natural resources in order to fund a transition to a cleaner, greener future.

Most oil produced in Alberta is sold at a discount because Canada is so heavily reliant on the United States as its customer. The hope is that this pipeline will carry more Canadian oil to the Pacific, where it can make its way to Asia and raise the price companies can get for oil.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2020.

 with files from Colette Derworiz in Edmonton.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version incorrectly included the Ts'elxweyeqw Tribes among the appellants. They withdrew from the case in April.
The outbreak of the coronavirus has dealt a shock to the global economy with unprecedented speed. Following are developments Thursday related to the national and global response, the work place and the spread of the virus.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Visitors wait to enter at the Pompei exhibition in the Grand Palais Museum, in Paris, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. The Grand Palais re-opens after the longest pause to its activity as it was closed for more than three months from March over amid the nationwide virus lockdown. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

The outbreak of the coronavirus has dealt a shock to the global economy with unprecedented speed. Following are developments Thursday related to the national and global response, the work place and the spread of the virus.

________________________

TRANSPORTATION: Alaska Airlines has secured nearly $1.2 billion in private loans to further secure its financial stability. The debt financing will be funded on or around Thursday.

The company will use 61 of its owned aircraft as collateral to back the debt. This includes 26 Boeing 737-800s, 16 Boeing 737-900ERs and 19 Embraer 175s. The aircraft will remain encumbered until the debt is repaid.

McGee Air Services, a wholly owned ground services subsidiary of Alaska Airlines that operates independently, has also received nearly $30 million in funding. This is in addition to the $992 million in the form of a $725 million grant and a $267 million loan that Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air jointly received to be exclusively used to pay employee salaries, wages and benefits through Sept. 30.

The airline sector is trying to regain its footing by securing loans, expanding routes and increasing capacity.

 Factory and dealership shutdowns to stop the spread of the coronavirus sent U.S. new vehicle sales into a tailspin during the second quarter.

Sales fell about 34% from April through June a year ago to around 2.9 million, and they were down about 16% from the first quarter of this year, according to the Edmunds.com auto pricing site.

Car, truck and SUV sales showed a little strength in June as factories came back on line and dealerships reopened to sell cars in person rather than just online. But they were still down an estimated 27% from June of last year.

Automakers used incentives such as 0% financing to help boost sales. Incentives rose 7% in June compared with a year ago, to $4,090 per vehicle, Morgan Stanley said Thursday.

Ford sales were down 33% for the quarter, while General Motors sales dropped 34% and Fiat Chryslers were off 39%. Toyotas sales dipped 27% and Nissan sales were almost cut in half.

Automakers said the biggest drop came in sales to fleet buyers such as rental car companies.

 Qatar Airways said Thursday it will require passengers and crew members to wear disposable plastic face shields over their face masks. When it comes to face coverings, the Persian Gulf carrier is upping the ante: All leading U.S. airlines and many others around the world require masks but not shields, which are more often associated with health care workers during the virus pandemic. Qatar Airways, which flies to six U.S. cities, says it will provide the shields for free along with a mask, gloves and sanitizer gel.

ROLL OF THE DICE: For the first time in 108 days, slot machines beeped, dice tumbled and cards were be dealt at Atlantic Citys casinos Thursday as they reopened amid a coronavirus pandemic that has drastically changed things both inside and outside the casino walls.

Gamblers are not allowed to smoke, drink or eat anything inside the casinos. They must wear masks while in public areas of the casino, and have their temperatures checked upon entering.

TOURISM:

 New statistics in Spain show the coronavirus outbreak cost the countrys key tourism sector more than 15 billion euros ($17 billion) in two months.

Figures published Thursday by Spains official statistics agency showed that in May the number of tourist arrivals was zero. It was the same number in April, as Spain closed its borders from mid-March until June 21 to fight the spread of COVID-19.

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT & BANKS:

 The French government is asking all companies to keep at least 10 weeks worth of masks for their employees in case of a second wave of virus infections.

Shortages of all kinds of masks were a major problem in France when the virus raced across the country in March and April, and are central to several lawsuits launched against authorities.

The government is encouraging companies to buy from French textile manufacturers who have a glut of masks after they switched to making them at a government request earlier in the pandemic.

MARKETS: Wall Street rose Thursday after a report showed the U.S. job market continues to climb from the crater created by the coronavirus pandemic in the spring.

SPAM TIME: Hormel Foods is reopening its Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. The museum will host in-person visits but will conduct live virtual tours via Zoom.

The museum has robust cleaning and sanitation protocols in place and will be following social distancing guidelines provided by the Minnesota Department of Health.
CANBERRA, Australia - An Australian court on Thursday rejected a newspaper publishers appeal against Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rushs $2.9 million Australian dollars ($2 million) payout for defamation.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 1/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CANBERRA, Australia - An Australian court on Thursday rejected a newspaper publishers appeal against Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rushs $2.9 million Australian dollars ($2 million) payout for defamation.

Three Federal Court judges ruled that articles published by Sydneys The Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2017 conveyed the imputation that Rush was a pervert and that the trial judge had correctly included the actor's loss of earnings in calculating damages.

FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2012, file photo, Australian actor Geoffrey Rush arrives for the opening of the Melbourne International Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia. An Australian court on Thursday, July 2, 2020, rejected a newspaper publisher's appeal against Oscar-winning actor Rush's $2.9 billion Australian dollars ($2 million) payout for defamation. (AP Photo/Paul Jeffers, File)

The Australian actor, who turns 69 on July 6, did not attend the Sydney court to hear the verdict.

News Corp.-owned Nationwide News appealed trial judge Michael Wigneys ruling last year that Rush was defamed by newspaper reports saying he had been accused of inappropriate behaviour by actor Eryn Jean Norvill. She played the daughter of Rushs starring character in a Sydney theatre production of King Lear in 2015 and 2016.

The publisher also appealed against the amount of Rushs payout, including almost AU$2 million for past and future economic loss, for two articles published in the newspaper and a billboard poster that Wigney found portrayed him untruly as a pervert and a sexual predator.

David English, the newspaper's editor, said he was disappointed by the appeals court ruling that highlighted the need for Australia to change its defamation laws.

The Rush case exposes the inadequacies of Australias defamation laws and heightens the need for urgent legislative reform to enable public debate and to encourage women to come forward with their concerns, English said in a statement.

We will continue to report on the issues such as these which are of great concern to the Australian public, he added.

Rush's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The publishers lawyer Tom Blackburn told the two-day appeal hearing that the trial judge cobbled together speculation and inference to find Rush was unable to work because of his state of mind following the publications and had fewer job offers since then.

The actors lawyer Bret Walker replied that Rush testified about the devastating effects the publications had on his mental state while other evidence heard during the trial supported conclusions that he was unable to work and had fewer job offers.

Rush received the best actor Oscar in 1996 for his portrayal of pianist David Helfgott in Shine and was nominated for roles in Shakespeare In Love, ?Quills and The Kings Speech. He is also famed for his portrayal of Captain Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

He received Australias highest civilian honour in 2014, the Companion of the Order of Australia, for service to the arts.

This story has been revised to correct the payout amount to millions, not billions.
LONDON - A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

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This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2020 file photo, opposition leader Juan Guaido meets with union workers and supporters in Caracas, Venezuela. The political battle over control of Venezuela has turned to a $1 .8 billion stack of gold bars sitting in the Bank of England's vault in London, where a judge is expected to decide soon on who has the rightful claim to the bullion. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he needs the gold to help his cash-starved nation fight the coronavirus pandemic. But the central bank for the United Kingdom, whose government recognizes Guaido as his country's legitimate leader, has refused to hand it over to Maduro's socialist administration. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

LONDON - A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

Maduro has demanded the gold to help his cash-starved nation fight the coronavirus pandemic. But the central bank for the United Kingdom, whose government recognizes Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaido as his countrys legitimate leader, had refused to hand it over to Maduros administration.

The ruling clarifies the question of who is Venezuelas legitimate leader  at least in the eyes of one world power.

This is very much showing the isolation of the Maduro government, said Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think-tank in London.

Guaido has sought to preserve the gold stash at the Bank of England to keep it out of the hands of the Maduro government, which it contends is illegitimate and corrupt. His lawyers reiterated during a recent four-day hearing their stance that the National Assembly leader became Venezuelas rightful president under provisions of the countrys constitution.

Guaido, who holds no practical power within Venezuela, called the ruling a great victory for his interim government's international recognition and the anti-Maduro coalition's fight to protect the country's wealth and assets held abroad, which includes an ongoing battle over its Citgo refineries in the United States.

FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2020 file photo, opposition leader Juan Guaido meets with union workers and supporters in Caracas, Venezuela. A British judge on Thursday July 2, 2020, refused to give Venezuela control of over $1 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault, ruling that it is unlawful to give it to the President Nicolas Maduro since Britain does not recognize him as the president. Maduro has demanded the gold to help his cash-starved nation fight the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

The first thing is that it's protected from the clutches of the dictatorship, Guaido said of the gold, adding that for now it will remain in the bank's vaults.

Also Thursday, Maduro's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza announced that Venezuela had withdrawn an expulsion order against European Union Ambassador Brilhante Pedrosa.

Maduro on Monday had ordered her delegation out hours after the EU sanctioned several Maduro officials. However, Arreaza and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell released a joint statement, saying they had repaired relations in a phone call.

Venezuela, a nation in economic and political crisis, sits atop the world's largest crude reserves, but that source of cash has dried up under years of mismanagement and more recently stiff U.S. sanctions aimed at forcing Maduro out.

Venezuela holds a total of about $1.8 billion worth of gold at the Bank of England, and Maduro was asking for $1 billion of it. The Bank of England holds the worlds second largest sum of gold bars in the world, after the New York Federal Reserve, and it boasts of never losing any to thieves in 320 years.

The dispute hinged on the British stance toward Venezuela, a country in economic and political crisis where both Maduro and Guaido have been claiming presidential powers for more than a year.

Venezuela's Central Bank, controlled by Maduro, sought to release the gold, which it says now that it wants to sell for food and medical equipment that is desperately needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. But it had also sought the gold before the pandemic began.

The British government has unequivocally recognized Mr. Guaido as President of Venezuela, Justice Nigel Teare's ruling said. It necessarily follows that (the British government) no longer recognizes Mr. Maduro as President of Venezuela.

A lawyer representing Maduro's side promised to appeal. Sarosh Zaiwalla said in a statement that the judgment entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground in Venezuela.

Mr. Maduros government is in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions, and only it can ensure the distribution of the humanitarian relief and medical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic, he said. This outcome will now delay matters further, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people whose lives are at risk.

The U.K. recognizes the claim of Guaido, who heads Venezuelas congress, as do the United States and about five dozen other governments. Guaido proclaimed himself the interim president in early 2019, months after Maduro declared victory in an election that his critics say was rigged in his favour.

Maduro, who maintains the support of key allies, including Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and Cuba, has ordered Venezuelan courts to launch a process seeking justice for the theft of the gold, Arreaza said in a statement, calling the British court's ruling absurd.

Despite its support for Guaido, the U.K. continues to have diplomatic ties with Maduros government. The British have not granted diplomatic credentials to Vanessa Neumann, the envoy that Guaido has named ambassador to the U.K., who praised the court's ruling.

We appreciate the rule of law and independence of the British court in safeguarding these goods for Venezuelas future, Neumann said. Its a great victory for all Venezuelans.

Associated Press writer Danica Kirka reported this story in London and AP writer Scott Smith reported from Caracas, Venezuela.
TORONTO - When COVID-19 struck Canada, many of William Blake's tenants lost their jobs and sources of income, so he offered them a lifeline.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The CN Tower can be seen behind condos in Toronto's Liberty Village community in Toronto on Tuesday, April 25, 2017. When COVID-19 struck Canada, many of William Blake's tenants lost their jobs and sources of income, so he offered them a lifeline. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

TORONTO - When COVID-19 struck Canada, many of William Blake's tenants lost their jobs and sources of income, so he offered them a lifeline.

The landlord, who personally oversees 22 properties in the General Toronto Area but also rents out homes in Alberta and B.C. and student housing in the Maritimes, shaved 25 per cent off April, May and June rent for his hardest-hit tenants. They have until Sept. 1 to pay the deferred amounts he laid out in an addendum to their leases.

"Why I did that is because they're great tenants and I have a good relationship with them," Blake said.

"I don't want to lose them, so if I have to take one little step back, it'll be two steps forward a few months from now."

The solution is one he is hoping more landlords will consider as they grapple with how to help out tenants, but still pay their bills. Experts say it can serve as a model for what to do if you have a renter you like who can't cover rent in the short-term.

Blake's arrangement was welcome news for a handful of his tenants including a Toronto couple  a bartender and waitress in their twenties  renting a home for about $2,000 a month.

They applied for and received the federal government's Canada Emergency Response Benefit, when their employer closed, but felt even the money they earned from that was cutting it close.

Blake was just happy to help and has already spotted the couple back at work, but he knows not every renter has been so fortunate. Some landlord-tenant relations have gone sour during the pandemic and turned into battles involving eviction threats and tears.

"Honestly, we just haven't seen very much evidence of tenants being able to come to a creative arrangement with their landlords," said Will Gladman of the Vancouver Tenants Union.

His renters advocacy group asked its more than 2,000 members what they're experiencing. It heard that 42 per cent of members surveyed tried to negotiate a COVID-19 deal with their landlord, but had no luck.

Only 6 per cent were able to get a rent reduction or deferral, "which obviously risks landing them in rent debt when all of these restrictions are lifted," said Gladman.

Some provincial governments are offering rent supplements Gladman recommends applying for, but he cautioned that they are "a drop in the ocean." B.C., for example, is giving $300 per month to eligible households with no dependents and $500 per month for those with dependents.

In Toronto, the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations conducted a similar survey of 630 tenants over two one-week periods in June. It found 21 per cent of landlords have threatened evictions for those not paying rent, 54 per cent are not working with tenants who can't cover rent and 65 per cent are upping rent fees during the pandemic.

The lack of leeway has pushed some Ontarians to refuse to pay rent altogether. They are taking part in a Keep Your Rent campaign that has urged people not to fork over any money to landlords on April, May and June 1.

"If it's a choice between buying groceries and paying your rent and you know that the eviction process is slow and deferred and you know that starvation process proceeds pretty quickly, buying groceries is a rational choice," said Kenn Hale, the director of advocacy and legal at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.

Hale heard from the Fair Rental Policy Organization of Ontario that 93 per cent of people paid their rent in full, with the remainder either covering some or no rent.

While he's pressing for government action, he said landlords and tenants striking agreements amongst themselves is an option, but people must be realistic about what they promise.

"Look at your finances, look at the best case scenario and the worst case scenario, and don't commit to making payment plans that you can't really make," he said.

"Even if there aren't immediate consequences to your failure (to meet the agreement terms), if you can't fulfill it and then you try to go back and make another deal, it's going to be harder."

While some people say an addenum to your agreement is the best way to work out a deferral, Hale said letters, texts and emails can also be acceptable evidence, in the event something goes wrong.

Aside from an agreement, Gladman suggests people in a tight spot reach out to grassroots organizations or tenant advocacy centres, which have experienced staff who can walk people through their rights and what abatement options governments and banks may offer.

Blake, meanwhile, recommends tenants have an honest talk with landlords, who says should realize they are in a "people business."

"If you treat it like a cold, hard business, you're going to be losing tenants and you're going to be having conflict when it's unnecessary because most landlords are working class landlords and most tenants are working class," he said.

"If we just agree with each other that we're in this together and say let's work it out, it's so easy to create a win win relationship."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2020.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday that she was closing indoor seating in bars in parts of the state, including a college town where one brewpub has been linked to about 140 infections.

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This article was published 1/7/2020 (355 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In this May 19, 2020, photo, Kyle Froelich, right, hands a customer a carryout six-pack of beer at Good Time Charley's in Ann Arbor, Mich. Michigan restaurants and bars could sell cocktails and liquor for pickup or delivery and would see a temporary cut in state liquor prices under fast-tracked legislation that supporters hope will help the industry survive the coronavirus pandemic. The state already lets bars and restaurants sell unopened beer and wine to go. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday that she was closing indoor seating in bars in parts of the state, including a college town where one brewpub has been linked to about 140 infections.

Whitmer also signed a bill allowing bars and restaurants to sell to-go cocktails in an effort to help those businesses.

Bars won't have to close down completely under Whitmer's new executive order, and taverns in the Upper Peninsula and much of northern Michigan are not subject to the mandate due to low numbers of reported COVID-19 virus cases in those areas. All bars may still keep open their outdoor patios. The order takes effect at 11 p.m. Wednesday.

Following recent outbreaks tied to bars, I am taking this action today to slow the spread of the virus and keep people safe," Whitmer, a Democrat, said in a news release. "If we want to be in a strong position to reopen schools for in-person classroom instruction this fall, then we need to take aggressive action right now to ensure we dont wipe out all the progress we have made.

FILE - In this June 17, 2020, pool file photo provided by the Michigan Office of the Governor, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks in Lansing, Mich. A federal appeals court late Wednesday, June 24, 2020, halted a lower judge's ruling and kept closed gyms and fitness centers that Whitmer ordered shut months ago to curb the coronavirus. (Michigan Office of the Governor via AP, Pool, File)

An outbreak tied to a large brewpub in East Lansing near Michigan State University has spread to about 140 people from a dozen counties, according to Ingham County health officer Linda Vail. She said most of the cases have involved younger adults, but some who have caught the virus from bar patrons are older and therefore at higher risk for severe illness.

Whitmer said in a news release that the outbreak tied to Harper's Brewpub is not an isolated incident, and her order covers the state's largest cities, including Detroit, Lansing and Grand Rapids. Upticks in COVID-19 cases have been seen in other bars in Michigan and other states such as Florida and Texas.

Other states have seen harsher restrictions on bars to fight the coronavirus. Florida banned alcohol consumption in bars on June 26, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom has closed bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles.

Michigan's new cocktails-to-go law allows bars and restaurants to provide takeout and delivery of cocktails. It also allows local governments to determine social districts for people to consume alcoholic drinks from bars and restaurants in designated outdoor areas.

The Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, which represents some 8,500 businesses, welcomed the cocktails-to-go legislation but expressed dismay at Whitmer's new order.

The governor has effectively hurt every local small-town bar in the state  establishments that arent the bad actors, Executive Director Scott Ellis said in a news release. Instead of focusing on problem bars or problem areas, shes going to kill businesses that are abiding by all of the rules and still struggling to survive."

Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association President and Chief Executive Justin Winslow responded somberly to Whitmers action regarding licensed establishments that earn more than 70% of their gross receipts from alcohol sales.

We recognize that Gov. Whitmers latest executive order was largely a stay of execution for the restaurant industry, given the more expansive measures taken in several other states, Winslow said Wednesday evening in a statement.

This order is just the latest reminder that if we want to retain the things we love  like a great meal with friends and family  we all must bear greater responsibility for our collective safety or grieve its absence, he added.

Restaurants and bars in the state closed dine-in services shortly before St. Patricks Day at Whitmers order and started reopening in northern Michigan on May 22. The rest of the state reopened indoor services on June 8.

Anna Liz Nichols is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Records show police have been called to the childs home 82 times since Jan. 4, 2019, mostly for noise complaints. Other calls were for reports of possible child and elderly abuse; drugs; an overdose; injuries; domestic disputes and fights; a stolen car; stalking and harassment and three reports of a gun going off: March 26, May 7, and Thursday.
OTTAWA - A member of the Canadian Armed Forces has been arrested after someone rammed a truck through the gates of Rideau Hall and drove up the path toward the official residences that house Gov. Gen. Julie Payette and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before being stopped by police.

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A police barricade is set up near Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Thursday, July 2, 2020. The RCMP say they have safely resolved an "incident" at Rideau Hall, where Gov. Gen. Julie Payette and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau live.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA - A member of the Canadian Armed Forces has been arrested after someone rammed a truck through the gates of Rideau Hall and drove up the path toward the official residences that house Gov. Gen. Julie Payette and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before being stopped by police.

The RCMP has not identified the man, who was arrested shortly after a vehicle broke through the gates around 6:40 a.m. local time Thursday. The Mounties said in a statement that the truck was disabled on impact with the gate, which is known as Thomas Gate.

"While an RCMP member began dialogue with the suspect, the RCMP National Division Emergency Response Team was also dispatched and arrived shortly after 7 a.m.," the RCMP said in a statement.

"The armed suspect was apprehended shortly before 8:30 a.m. without any incident and he was brought into police custody for questioning. As a precaution, the (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives response) team was also deployed to search and secure the suspect's vehicle."

A police officer stands by a fence outside Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Thursday, July 2, 2020. The RCMP say they have safely resolved an "incident" at Rideau Hall, where Gov. Gen. Julie Payette and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau live.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

The RCMP did not identify the individual arrested near Rideau Hall, but both the police force and the Department of National Defence confirmed he is a member of the military. The Mounties say charges are pending.

"The Canadian Armed Forces is collaborating closely with the RCMP," the Defence Department said in its statement Thursday. "As the RCMP is the lead investigative body for this matter, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time."

The RCMP have not provided a motive for Thursday's incident, but have said that neither Payette nor Trudeau were present at the time.

The iconic Rideau Hall has long served as the home to Canada's governors general.

Trudeau and his family have also lived in Rideau Cottage, which is located on the grounds of Rideau Hall, since he became prime minister. The government is still working on whether to renovate 24 Sussex Dr., where past prime ministers have lived.

''Thanks to the swift and diligent actions of our employees, the incident that unfolded earlier this morning on the grounds of Rideau Hall was quickly and safely resolved," said RCMP Assistant Commissioner Bernadine Chapman, commanding officer of National Division.

The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General issued a statement Thursday to thank the RCMP and police for resolving the situation quickly.

"All of our staff are safe," said the statement.

The statement also noted that Payette has only occasionally been at Rideau Hall during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Given the number of staff required to support Her Excellency when she is on the grounds of Rideau Hall, during the pandemic she has chosen to prioritize the health and safety of the employees of the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General by only being there when Constitutional duties require, such as Royal Assent," the statement said.

"Prior to the pandemic, the Governor General was living on the grounds of Rideau Hall."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2020.
OTTAWA - The federal Conservatives have asked Canada's procurement watchdog to review the circumstances around several sole-sourced contracts between the Liberal government and WE Charity, including its administration of a $900-million federal program for students.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau looks up as he harvests broccoli at the Ottawa Food Bank Farm in Ottawa with his family, on Canada Day, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. The federal Conservatives are asking Canada's procurement watchdog to investigate the circumstances around several sole-sourced contracts between the Liberal government and WE Charity.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

OTTAWA - The federal Conservatives have asked Canada's procurement watchdog to review the circumstances around several sole-sourced contracts between the Liberal government and WE Charity, including its administration of a $900-million federal program for students.

They sent a letter to federal procurement ombudsman Alexander Jeglic on Thursday as questions continue to surface around Ottawa's decision to have the Toronto-based WE organization manage the Canada Student Service Grant.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been on the defensive since Ottawa revealed last week that WE had been chosen to administer the program, which will provide students with up to $5,000 toward their education costs for volunteering for causes related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The prime minister has faced allegations of cronyism and questions about a conflict of interest as Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, both have long-standing connections with the organization.

Trudeau has said WE will be paid only to cover its costs. He has also said the non-partisan public service concluded the organization was the only group in Canada with the capacity to run the program and reach the many thousands of young people who might sign up for it.

The Conservatives nonetheless referenced the prime minister's ties to WE in asking Jeglic to investigate both the Canada Student Service Grant arrangement and five other sole-sourced contracts between the charity and Ottawa since March 2017.

The amounts for those other contracts range from $13,000 to $40,000, which means they were not required to be advertised for competitive bids, according to federal procurement rules.

The Tories write in their letter to Jeglic that "the Liberal government's pattern of providing untendered and sole-sourced contracts to an organization with close personal ties to the prime minister, who is head of the government, is deeply concerning to many Canadians.

"We felt it prudent to raise and give a full argument to the procurement ombudsperson that this is not a one-time variance," Conservative employment critic Dan Albas said Thursday.

The Conservatives earlier this week asked auditor general Karen Hogan to include an investigation into the circumstances around the decision to have WE manage the student grant program as part of a broader look at Ottawa's COVID-19 relief spending.

"Our government is committed to providing the best services to Canadians and doing so in an open, transparent, and accountable manner," responded Danielle Keenan, a spokeswoman for Youth Minister Bardish Chagger. "With respect to the Canada Student Services Grant, WE Charity was recommended by the public service and the contribution agreement followed federal government best practices."

The letter to Jeglic follows emergence of a video earlier this week, obtained by The Canadian Press, that showed WE co-founder Marc Kielburger telling youth leaders last month the Prime Minister's Office reached out to the organization about the student grant program one day after it was first announced on April 22.

Kielburger, who founded WE with his brother Craig Kielburger more than 20 years ago, backtracked this week, saying he "misspoke" and "contact came to WE Charity" from a senior public servant the week of April 26. That was the week after Trudeau announced the program.

But WE has not answered follow-up questions about whether there was any contact between the organization and the PMO the week of April 20, when the actual announcement was made. Trudeau's spokesman has said there was no contact "to our knowledge."

The government has refused to provide details about the contract with WE. It says it has allocated $19.5 million to cover administrative costs for the grant program. Of that, $5 million is for non-profits to provide volunteer jobs for students, including $300,000 for accessibility support.

NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus described the arrangement between the government and WE as a "political boondoggle" waiting to happen.

"We don't know if $20 million is the max they're going to receive. We don't know if them hiring a whole bunch of people at WE is going to be an extension of the WE operation. ... How is this not going to end badly?"

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2020.
When Freedom International Schools summer camp started in early June, its initial focus was to help students relearn what they were taught at a distance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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This article was published 1/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Freedom International Schools summer camp started in early June, its initial focus was to help students relearn what they were taught at a distance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, the Winnipeg-based K-12 school has adopted a new goal centred on the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Rachel Smith, camp director, said almost all of Freedom Internationals students are people of colour, and they have conversations about what that means every day.

"Part of Black life is Black education, Black stories, Black access to stuff, and thats a huge part, if not almost everything the school seeks to address as far as social justice," said Smith.

The independent Christian school is geared towards students who may be newcomers or refugees, have English as a second language or are struggling with mainstream public school programs.

Its summer camp is usually four weeks long, but this year, it is running for nine weeks, due to the extra time students missed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Organizers have also extended the age range for camp (eight to 18).

Smith said almost all the camp volunteers and instructors are people of colour, and it allows the students to relate with them. She added its important the students know how important they are as individuals.

"Theres a lot of celebration, like were constantly seeking ways to call people out for their amazingness and celebrating as a camp."

Aside from running the camp, Smith teaches an English class to some of the older students. Currently, she is reading former U.S. first lady Michelle Obamas book, Becoming, to the campers.

"We discuss whats happening now and how it mirrors what was happening then in the book, in Chicago," said Smith. "We have a lot of conversations about injustice, so we can feel as though were doing something because often times its so far away, but this is a very Winnipeg issue and a very current issue."

Prior to the major local Justice 4 Black Lives rally June 5, Smith said the event was all the buzz around camp.

"We had plans to meet together at a certain place, but as you know, it was an unprecedented gathering," Smith said with a laugh.

An estimated 15,000 people marched that day from the Manitoba legislature to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in response to the police killing of a handcuffed Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis.

Smith said all students under the age of 18 were asked to attend the rally with an adult.

When it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement, Smith said more can be done, and thats what theyre trying to accomplish with the FIS students.

"If were having these conversations, they have to be more than hashtags and online data, it has to be more than that," said Smith. "If we care about Black lives not being killed by police because we care about Black lives, we care about Black lives in every aspect."

kellen.taniguchi@freepress.mb.ca
A trial project deploying electric scooters throughout Winnipeg will require a green light from the province before any of the e-powered two-wheelers hit city streets.

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A trial project deploying electric scooters throughout Winnipeg will require a green light from the province before any of the e-powered two-wheelers hit city streets.

An administrative report on the standing policy committee on infrastructure renewal and public works meeting agenda Tuesday recommends the city ask the provincial government to approve a trial for e-scooters to operate on the citys transportation network.

The request is the first step toward opening the door to dockless scooter and "micromobility" operators, such as Bird Rides Inc. and Lime, in Winnipeg. Currently, provincial legislation prohibits electric scooters from using public right-of-ways in Manitoba.

Dockless e-scooters and e-bikes have gained some popularity with urbanites throughout Canada for ease of access and ubiquitous availability. Electric scooters can be deployed  on boulevards, in parks and plazas  and rented through a smartphone application.

Users can find a nearby scooter on the app, unlock and rent the vehicle with their phone, and then zoom to their destination, where they leave the scooter for the next user.

"Im pleased to see the public service has an open mind about asking the province of Manitoba to change the law concerning scooters," said Coun. Matt Allard, chairman of the infrastructure renewal and public works committee.

"I believe this technology could play a key role in our active transportation environment here in Winnipeg, giving people more options to get around outside of their cars."

A spokesman for the provincial government said Tuesday in an email statement e-scooters do not meet the definition of a motor vehicle or a bicycle under the Highway Traffic Act.

"There is no means under the existing legislation to pilot test e-scooters and other new vehicle technologies," the spokesman said.

In March, the province introduced the Vehicle Technology Testing Act, which established a framework for testing autonomous vehicles and new vehicle technologies, he added. "Once the bill is passed and a regulatory framework is in place, consideration can be given to safely testing e-scooters and other vehicle technologies that do not currently conform with the (Highway Traffic Act)."

City officials hoped to work with third-party micromobility operators to establish a short-term rental network for bikes and e-bikes, in addition to scooters, throughout Winnipeg, but following an expression of interest learned most major players only offer e-scooters.

"It appears that, if the city is interested in the provision of micromobility options, the public service may have to take an active role as a stakeholder in the operation of this program," the administrative report states. "The cost of such a program could be quite significant, but there appear to be merits to offering such a program as a city service."

The public service has asked for permission from council to develop a business case for a city-led program.

"With the dramatic drop in Transit ridership due to COVID-19 and its uncertain future, we need to continue to develop other alternative transportation options for Winnipeggers who get around without a vehicle," Allard said. "This could fit into this picture."

If passed by the standing policy committee, the report would move on to executive policy committee and council for consideration.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca
THREE women from St. Laurent who have preserved and promoted an endangered language for years  even penning a dictionary for it  have been recognized for their efforts by the University of Winnipeg.

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THREE women from St. Laurent who have preserved and promoted an endangered language for years  even penning a dictionary for it  have been recognized for their efforts by the University of Winnipeg.

Lorraine Coutu-Lavallee, June Bruce and Agathe Chartrand each received an honorary doctor of letters from the Winnipeg school for protecting and promoting Michif-French, as its spoken in St. Laurent on the southeast shore of Lake Manitoba.

The women were honoured during a virtual graduation acknowledgement ceremony the Manitoba Metis Federation hosted in June.

Bruce, Coutu-Lavallee and Chartrand are Metis elders, and have become known to some as the "Dictionary Ladies."

Coutu-Lavallee said she found out about her honorary doctorate just days before receiving it.

"It was a big surprise  it was great," she said this week.

Coutu-Lavallee grew up speaking Michif-French. When she went to public school, she was forced to learn and speak English and Quebec-style French. She switched back to Michif when she went home to her parents.

"That was our language," she said. "The kids out there, they dont speak Michif anymore. They all speak English."

In 2016, 1,170 Canadians reported they could speak Michif well enough to hold a conversation, according to a Statistics Canada census. Most Michif speakers came from Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Coutu-Lavallee joined forces with Bruce and Chartrand to continue the languages existence.

The trio created the first St. Laurent-style Michif-French dictionary, along with Doris Mikolayenko-Leclerc and Patricia Millar-Chartrand, both of whom have since died.

It took them five years  the language had never been written before. The women wrote every word first by sounding them out. They self-published the dictionary through McNally Robinson in 2016.

The Dictionary Ladies have taught Michif-French to pre-schoolers and school-aged children in St. Laurent, and adults in Winnipeg and Selkirk. Theyve created games to help children in learning the language: one uses a kitchen-themed vocabulary; another fashions words using a doll dressed up in traditional attire.

Coutu-Lavallee said she and her peers plan on teaching Michif-French classes to K-12 students at St. Laurent School this fall.

The group has met weekly since it began writing the dictionary in 2011, and has added new two women to the roster.

The latest project is translating a musical to Michif-French  Riel: Heart of the North, which focuses on a chapter of Louis Riels life, Coutu-Lavallee said. The play is to premiere in 2021.

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca
Two Winnipeg Regional Health Authority top executives made over a half-million dollars each in 2019  despite being fired part-way through the year.

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Two Winnipeg Regional Health Authority top executives made over a half-million dollars each in 2019  despite being fired part-way through the year.

Lori Lamont, former WRHA former chief operating officer and vice-president of nursing and allied health, was paid $536,000. She was fired in September 2019; her salary more than doubled the $200,000 she made in 2018.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dr Bruce Roe, the former WRHA vice-president and chief medical officer, took home a salary of $516,678 in 2019.

Bruce Roe, the authority's former vice-president and chief medical officer, took home a salary of $516,678 in 2019. He was fired in June; he made $353,000 in 2018.

The increased earnings  listed in the WRHA's annual compensation disclosure notice  were due to severance packages, a WRHA spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.

Lamont had spent two decades working different positions within the Winnipeg health authority.

Roe joined the WRHA as its top doctor in September 2017, leaving his position of president and chief executive officer at St. Boniface Hospital.

Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont (no relation to Lori Lamont) said the executives' pay packages need to be explained.

"It is certainly at a time where the (government) PCs are boasting about what a great job they're doing, protecting the front lines," he said Wednesday. "It's pretty clear that the people at the very top are the ones getting big payouts, while everyone else is struggling."

The Liberal leader said some severance is reasonable, but there should be more details forthcoming regarding such large compensation packages: "The WRHA and other (regional health authorities) across the province aren't accountable enough."

Opposition NDP Leader Wab Kinew took a similar stance in placing the blame.

"It is disappointing the Pallister government approved these huge administrative salaries while closing emergency rooms, cutting health care and freezing the wages of nurses, aides and other front-line staff. This money could have better spent in our struggling health-care system," Kinew said in a statement Wednesday evening.

"We need an immediate return to the legislature so the PC government is accountable to all Manitobans, especially in this critical time of a pandemic."

Under the Provincial Public Sector Compensation Act, the WRHA is required to publish a list of its employees who've earned more than $75,000 annually.

The Winnipeg health authority's top three salaries in 2019 went to emergency room physicians.

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca
The Winnipeg Police Service is hiring a point of contact between the police and supportive resources for the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

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The Winnipeg Police Service is hiring a "point of contact" between the police and supportive resources for the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

According to the job posting put up Tuesday, the MMIWG family liaison contact will "gather information from a variety of agencies to assist families... in answering a myriad of questions, co-ordinating access to appropriate agencies, justice partners and services, as well as, offer culturally safe resources and healing programs."

The position requires a degree in social work and for the applicant to be registered with the Manitoba College of Social Workers.

According to an emailed statement from WPS spokesman Const. Rob Carver, the position is modelled after Project Devote  a task force in partnership with the provincial RCMP meant to investigate missing and murdered that WPS chose to leave earlier this year.

The project is still active through the RCMP. The project was established in 2011; one case has been closed so far.

In March, WPS Chief Danny Smyth said the split was meant to focus on a more community-based model where investigators from the homicide, counter-exploitation, missing-persons and internet child-exploitation units would work with local organizations to focus on cases involving exploited Indigenous women and girls.

Carver said the new liaison will work under the sergeant of the WPS homicide unit, and will be involved in the court process if charges are laid.

Former Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak grand chief Sheila North has advocated for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls for decades, and thinks the move to a dedicated WPS employee for community outreach is a good one.

"I think theyre going about it in the right way, because they have called on trusted community organizations and community people to give them advice on how to do that," she said.

A survivor or a family member of a survivor who also fits the educational requirements would be the ideal candidate. North said she felt it would not be difficult to find such a person in Winnipeg.

"There are people like that. We know that there are high numbers of victims, there are also very high numbers of survivors, and there are very many people who could fit that bill," she said.

Norths hope is the position is given some kind of independent power, because of "systemic racism thats been embedded in society but ultimately also in policing systems and cultures," where the family liaison contact could still work on outreach while also "not on the terms of Winnipeg police all the time."

"Theres still problems, theres still incidences where communities and family members would say that police officers are... part of the problem," she said. "But I think the trust has to be rebuilt.

"And (police) cant do it by themselves, they need the help of the community  and thats why they need a position like that."

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

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THE very existence of an opportunity for the current president (to be re-elected in 2024), given his major gravitas, would be a stabilizing factor for our society, said Valentina Tereshkova, former Soviet cosmonaut, first woman in space, and now, at 83, a member of the Russian Duma (parliament).

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This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP In 20 years in power, Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval rating has never dipped below 65 per cent.

"THE very existence of an opportunity for the current president (to be re-elected in 2024), given his major gravitas, would be a stabilizing factor for our society," said Valentina Tereshkova, former Soviet cosmonaut, first woman in space, and now, at 83, a member of the Russian Duma (parliament).

She was talking about President Vladimir Putin, of course, and she was proposing a constitutional amendment to let him bypass the existing term limit and be re-elected in 2024 (and again in 2030, if he likes). The Duma obediently passed the measure, and Russians are now voting on the new constitution, but she paid a certain price on social media for sucking up to Putin.

"Tereshkova  the first woman who bravely travelled into cosmic cold and darkness, and then brought the entire country there," read one post, retweeted by opposition leader Alexei Navalny. But Putin will win the referendum on the new constitution without even having to cheat.

The vote was delayed for two months because of the coronavirus: Russia has the worlds third-highest number of infections, although it only admits to 9,000 deaths. Voting is being spread out over a week to minimize the risks, and the results wont be known until early this month.

Government ads urging people to get out and vote (or stay home and vote  for this time only, they can do it online) barely mention that the new constitution will "reset the clock" for Putin. That means he will be entitled to run for two more terms as president, which might let him stay in office until 2036, but his advisers reckoned that was more information than people actually needed.

This referendum is rather like a lottery, and all you have to do to win is vote. Text messages told Moscow voters this week that there will be "millions of prizes," from hair dryers to washing machines and on up. Provincial governments and even private employers are also offering prizes, and the central government is raising pensions and the minimum wage.

Yet Putin was bound to win this referendum even without all these incentives: in 20 years in power, his approval rating has never gone below 65 per cent. The result might drop below that figure this time, because the countrys oil income has halved in recent months and lots of people were already having a tough time economically, but its hard to believe that it could fall below 50 per cent.

So why this circus to achieve a big turnout and a large majority? Could Putin be feeling insecure? His abrupt dismissal of the entire government, including the prime minister, in January might be a clue, and his various public changes of mind on what the new constitution should contain might be another.

But trying to read Putins mind like latter-day Kremlinologists is a futile pursuit, and in any case its obvious that he has to keep his options open. It must be legal for him to run for re-election when his present term expires in 2024, because if he becomes a lame duck, the struggle to succeed him starts now. No mind-reading is necessary to know that.

I would hazard a guess, however, that Putin doesnt actually know what he will want to do in 2024, when he will be 71. He might have to stay in power because he has made too many enemies to be safe in retirement, but he has never had a grand plan beyond restoring Russias status as a great power. If it feels safe, he might just pick a promising successor and quit.

The main point of this discussion, for those of us who arent Russians, is to remind ourselves that it isnt always about us. Russia has its own internal politics and priorities, and most of them are not about foreign policy.

Like any great power of long standing, Russia has a large "intelligence" branch of the government that gets up to various bits of skulduggery overseas. The latest allegations are that the GRU offered bounties to Taliban fighters for killing U.S. and British troops. (But why pay them when theyll do it for free?)

More plausible claims allege that Moscows spies tried to kill Russian exiles in Britain with nerve poison, and that in 2016 they tried to influence the British referendum in favour of Brexit and the U.S. election in favour of Trump. So what? Washingtons spies have overthrown governments from Vietnam to Iran to Chile, and spent a lot of money (along with their British colleagues) trying to influence Russian elections in the 1990s.

Its what great powers do, and it doesnt mean they are plotting global conquest. In particular, it doesnt mean that the Russians are trying to take over the U.S. or British governments or planning a new Cold War. For the most part, they are just busy with their own affairs.

Gwynne Dyers latest book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).
You could tell the moment the news release came out  confirming a fiscal update was going to be released  it was not the kind of news Premier Brian Pallister was looking forward to discussing.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 1/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

You could tell the moment the news release came out  confirming a fiscal update was going to be released  it was not the kind of news Premier Brian Pallister was looking forward to discussing.

News media were given only a few hours notice the Manitoba premier and his finance minister would be available on the afternoon of the eve of Canada Day. In political jargon, making a major announcement on a day when there is little opportunity for full media coverage is called "taking out the trash."

And take out the trash, the premier did.

After months of talking about a $5-billion deficit  a figure widely disputed by bank economists and lay-journalists with an unhealthy interest in government finances  the update pegs the new forecasted shortfall at about $2.9 billion, with a "downside" potential to reach $5 billion.

The new forecasted deficit is a combination of a $1.5-billion reduction in revenues and $1.2 billion in unbudgeted spending on COVID-19 pandemic responses.

If this forecast were to be realized, it would be nearly three times the previous record-high deficit: a $1-billion shortfall in 2011-12, in which the province suffered its most expensive spring and summer flooding in history

This is not a situation unique to Manitoba, and certainly not caused by any policies of the Pallister government; all provinces in Canada are facing the same pandemic fiscal crunch, to a lesser or greater extent.

However, what is unusual is Pallister's bid to make the deficit seem worse than it really is.

From the outset of the pandemic, the premier has clung to the worst-possible scenario for his government's finances, even when it was clear Manitoba was doing quite well, in relative terms.

The glass-half-full view is largely based on the fact Manitoba has had far fewer COVID-19 infections and fatalities than the gross majority of provinces. That has certainly saved it some money on health-care costs.

However, the province is still struggling under an array of economic restrictions that are going to keep eating into government revenues. Many businesses are still closed; thousands of Manitobans are out of work.

Still, even with all that taken into consideration, this week's fiscal update is an act of blatant fibbery  particularly in the area of government spending.

Pallister has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars for programs to help businesses and individuals impacted by the pandemic, but paid out only tens of millions of dollars. Despite urgent pleas from the business community for changes to eligibility requirements, or the repurposing of the pledged funds, Pallister has left the programs largely untouched. That has created a high probability only a fraction of the money promised will actually be paid out.

And then there are the missing details.

Remarkably, there is only one, cursory mention in the Pallister government's 28-page fiscal and economic update of the Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which was designed to cushion governments from fiscal crises such as this. At the news conference Tuesday, all Fielding and Pallister would say is: "It will be used this year."

Missing was any explanation of where or how it was recorded in the update's deficit calculations.

Missing as well was any recognition of the money the province has saved through the pandemic. Such as the potentially tens of millions not spent on physicians fees (who saw patient visits drop precipitously during the early days of the pandemic) or the millions more not spent on hip, knee and cataract surgeries (suspended to focus health resources on COVID-19 cases).

Finally, there was no reference in the fiscal update of the $860 million in spending reductions Fielding unleashed in May, a portion of which was going to come from layoffs, furloughs or job sharing. In fact, the government is still trying to get civil servants to sign on for up to five days off without pay  a strategy that could well add to Fielding's original cost-cutting target.

Pallister and Fielding may be trying to imply their deficit estimate is net of all these mitigating factors. But if that were the case, then surely they could have shown everyone the math.

The absence of meaningful accounting of the fiscal reserves and cost-saving measures make this less of a genuine fiscal update and more of a piece of political theatre designed to fool Manitobans.

This is not an exceptional event for the Pallister government. Since coming to power in 2016, it has offered Manitobans statements on its finances, and the finances of the previous NDP government, that were fundamentally and deliberately flawed and mathematically untenable.

Even when confronted with the evidence of his propensity to exaggerate, misrepresent and confound, Pallister remains incorrigible.

If he had truly believed this fiscal update was an accurate accounting of the province's finances, he would have released it on a day when there could be full and complete media reporting and analysis.

Instead, it was put out with the trash  an appropriate fate for something so meaningless.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Its no surprise the European Union has left the United States off the list of countries its willing to partner with for cross-border travel. Not only has there been a spike in new COVID-19 cases in many U.S. states in recent weeks, theres less political and individual will in the U.S., compared with most countries, to take the necessary steps to limit the spread of the disease.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Editorial

Its no surprise the European Union has left the United States off the list of countries its willing to partner with for cross-border travel. Not only has there been a spike in new COVID-19 cases in many U.S. states in recent weeks, theres less political and individual will in the U.S., compared with most countries, to take the necessary steps to limit the spread of the disease.

Its all the more reason the Canada-U.S. border should remain closed to non-essential travel beyond July 21, when the current ban expires.

The EU this week identified 14 countries to which its willing to open its borders. The list includes Canada and countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, all of which are reporting fewer new COVID-19 cases and lower infection rates among those tested.

The U.S. was not expected to make the list, as it continues to see record levels of COVID-19 cases and soaring infection rates. Over a dozen states are now reversing some of their plans to reopen their economies as they scramble to control the spread of the disease.

The worst-hit areas are in the south. In Arizona, nearly 25 per cent of those tested are infected with the disease, based on a seven-day rolling average. Thats about double what it was two weeks ago. The test positivity rate in Texas has doubled to 14 per cent over the past two weeks. In Florida, it has nearly tripled to 15 per cent during the same period.

Northern states are not immune. Although not as badly affected as their southern neighbours, Minnesota has seen its daily case numbers climb in recent weeks. Its infection rate has increased to 3.3 per cent from 1.7 per cent since mid-June. North Dakota, with a population much smaller than Manitobas, is still seeing 30 to 40 new cases a day.

By contrast, Canada has essentially flattened its curve; it has an infection rate of slightly more than one per cent over the past week (Manitobas is only 0.2 per cent during the same period).

Its clear, for public-health reasons, that Canada cannot open its borders to the U.S. anytime soon, not only because of the rising case numbers south of the border, but also owing to the persistent unwillingness of residents in many states to accept evidence-based measures  such as social distancing and mask wearing  to control the spread of the disease.

Part of that is a lack of political leadership, including from President Donald Trump, who regularly understates the seriousness of the pandemic and continues to treat it as a plot by his political opponents to sabotage his re-election bid in November.

While some state governors, such as New Yorks Andrew Cuomo, have taken the COVID-19 outbreak seriously, others  including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem  continue to view measures such as social distancing as an affront to individual rights.

Ms. Noem said this week there will be no social distancing in place when thousands of people gather at Mr. Trumps planned Independence Day rally at Mount Rushmore. Masks will be made available for free, she said, but wearing them will be optional.

Like many political leaders south of the border, Ms. Noem believes the individual rights of Americans to reject those measures trumps the public-health interests of her state. Its a dangerous ideology thats contributing to a catastrophic spread of a deadly disease throughout the U.S.

Canada cannot afford to expose itself to such reckless policy-making.
Jackson was arrested on May 28 for violating probation on unrelated charges. His cellphone was left in his car. Detectives later checked his T-Mobile records and learned the cellphone had been used at the time and at the location of the shooting in mid-March.
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested Thursday on charges she helped lure at least three girls  one as young as 14  to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of victimizing dozens of girls and women over many years.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 2/7/2020 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this Nov. 7, 1991, file photo Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of late British publisher Robert Maxwell, reads a statement in Spanish in which she expressed her family's gratitude to the Spanish authorities, aboard the "Lady Ghislaine" in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Maxwell, a British socialite who was accused by many women of helping procure underage sex partners for Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested in New Hampshire, the FBI said Thursday, July 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Dominique Mollard, File)

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested Thursday on charges she helped lure at least three girls  one as young as 14  to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of victimizing dozens of girls and women over many years.

According to the indictment, Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent companion on trips around the world, facilitated his crimes and on some occasions joined him in sexually abusing the girls.

Epstein, 66, killed himself in a federal detention centre in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell has, for years, been accused by many women of acting as a madam for Epstein, helping him scout young girls for abuse, then hiring them to give him massages, during which the girls were pressured into sex acts. In one lawsuit, a woman alleged Maxwell was the highest-ranking employee of Epsteins alleged sex trafficking enterprise. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.

FILE - In this July 10, 2019 file photo, palm trees shade the Florida residence of Jeffrey Epstein in Palm Beach, Fla. The FBI said Thursday July 2, 2020, Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who was accused by many women of helping procure underage sex partners for Epstein, has been arrested in New Hampshire. The court papers said Epstein's abuse of girls occurred at his Manhattan mansion and other residences in Palm Beach, Florida; Sante Fe, New Mexico and London. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

The 58-year-old was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, where she was living on a wooded estate she purchased for $1 million last December. The FBI had been keeping tabs on her after she disappeared from public view following Epstein's arrest a year ago.

More recently we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago, William Sweeney, head of the FBIs New York office, told a news conference Thursday.

Jennifer Araoz, who says Epstein raped her when she was 15, said she feared the financiers ring of conspirators for years.

Now that the ring has been taken down, I know that I cant be hurt anymore, Araoz, now 33, said in a statement. Day after day, I have waited for the news that Maxwell would be arrested and held accountable for her actions. Her arrest is a step in that direction, and it truly means that the justice system didnt forget about us.

The indictment, which was unsealed Thursday, included counts of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

FILE - In this Sept. 2, 2000 file photo, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, driven by Britain's Prince Andrew leaves the wedding of a former girlfriend of the prince, Aurelia Cecil, at the Parish Church of St Michael in Compton Chamberlayne near Salisbury, England. The FBI said Thursday July 2, 2020, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was accused by many women of helping procure underage sex partners for Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested in New Hampshire. (Chris Ison/PA via AP, File)

She was also accused of perjuring herself during a deposition in a civil lawsuit over alleged abuse.

Maxwell lied because the truth, as alleged, was almost unspeakable, Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said.

Messages were sent Thursday to several of Maxwells attorneys seeking comment. She has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some claims against her absolute rubbish."

At a brief hearing Thursday, a magistrate judge ordered Maxwell to remain in custody while she is transferred to New York for a detention hearing there.

Among the most sensational accusations was a claim by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew at her London townhouse. Giuffre bolstered her allegations with a picture of her, Andrew and Maxwell that she said was taken at the time.

FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2019 file photo, a pedestrian stops to take a photo of Jeffrey Epstein's townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in New York. On Thursday July 2, 2020, the FBI arrested Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who was accused by many women of helping procure underage sex partners for Epstein. The court papers said Epstein's abuse of girls occurred at his Manhattan mansion and other residences in Palm Beach, Florida; Sante Fe, New Mexico and London. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

Andrew denied her story and Maxwell said in a deposition that Giuffre was totally lying."

The prince was not mentioned in the indictment, and the charges covered Maxwell's dealings with Epstein only from 1994 through 1997, a period well before his alleged encounters with Giuffre in 2001.

Strauss said she would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, but did not answer further questions pertaining to these charges and Andrew.

The indictment focused on Epstein's alleged abuse of three specific girls at his Manhattan mansion and other residences in Palm Beach, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico, and London. Their names were not revealed in court filings.

Prosecutors' allegations mirrored many claims from civil lawsuits against Maxwell, saying she would entice and groom minor girls by asking them about their lives, their schools and their families.

A boulder inscribed with "Tucked Away" sits beside a road going to an estate where Ghislaine Maxwell was taken into custody, Thursday, July 2, 2020, in Bradford, N.H. The British socialite faces charges she helped recruit three girls  one as young as 14  to have sex with financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sexually assaulting dozens of girls and women over many years. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Through this process, Maxwell and Epstein enticed victims to engage in sexual activity with Epstein. In some instances, Maxwell was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims, according to the indictment.

Maxwell is the daughter of a British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 after falling off his yacht near the Canary Islands. At the time, he was facing allegations that he had illegally looted pension funds from his businesses.

Maxwell was in an intimate relationship with Epstein for years and also was paid by him to manage his various properties, according to the indictment, which included a photograph of Epstein with his arm around Maxwell and his head nuzzling hers. Strauss, at the news conference, stood silent, pointing at the picture as news crews captured the moment.

Strauss promised the investigation was continuing and urged other victims to come forward.

In a memo seeking Maxwells detention, prosecutors wrote that she poses an extreme risk of flight. Maxwell has three passports, is wealthy with lots of international connections, and has absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence, they wrote.

Epstein was initially investigated in Florida and pleaded guilty to state charges in 2008 that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. He was free a little after a year in prison.

At the time, a federal prosecutor in Florida signed off on an agreement, initially filed in secret, that barred the federal government from charging any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.

But Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan until he was fired last month, argued that federal prosecutors in New York were not bound by that agreement and brought a sweeping indictment against Epstein.

Maxwell's indictment was celebrated by lawyers for some Epstein accusers.

Today is a very good day, said Brad Edwards, an attorney representing Giuffre and several other accusers.

Spencer T. Kuvin, who represents some of the women, said Maxwell was hopefully ... the first of many co-conspirators to face the consequences of this horrific crimes.

Associated Press writer Curt Anderson contributed to this report from Miami and Danica Kirka contributed from London.
The heat rising from the fire pit makes the view of the setting sun wave as the flags are surrendered. Were camping at The Rock, a Juneau County hideaway along the Wisconsin River and home to Castle Rock Veterans Park. Each year, a local veterans group organizes a flag retirement ceremony to properly put to rest tattered flags that have long flown high in celebration of America but now must be replaced.

It is a ceremony filled with patriotism and honor for those who have served and celebrates America at her finest. A loop of patriotic music plays in the background. Few words are spoken. A number of veterans and active military personnel participate, along with members of the audience, as each flag had a moment. It was stirring to see the veterans stop and muster a salute each time they retired a flag. A wide range of ages participated, with older veterans still finding those moments of remembered youth when snapping their hand to their brow.

It is impossible for those of us who have not served their country to understand the depth of commitment these men and women made for our nation. Each salute stirs memories deep within their souls of honor, duty and teamwork, likely along with angst, fear and moments they cannot describe to the rest of us, and we must forever be thankful for the sacrifices they made on our behalf.
Out of my fathers company of 200 soldiers, about 10% were Black. Among fellow soldiers he befriended, three happened to be Black.

One of those Black friends, who would become a mathematics professor, was being harassed by a group of fellows. The ringleader, a white fellow from Georgia, named Hodges, called him racial epithets.

My dad, who stood just under 6-foot-2, angrily confronted the harassers. Every one of them backed downand never bothered his friend again.

But the story gets better.

See, Hodges father was a connected politician in Georgia, who arranged for Hodges to become squad leader. In that position, Hodges tormented a Black member of his squad, also my fathers friend, by assigning him the worst duties.

Until Hodges got busted for theft.

Stolen items were found in his locker. The captain told Hodges squad they could vote for their new squad leader. They elected the Black fellow Hodges had been tormenting. As the new squad leader, he assigned Hodges the dirtiest, most awful job there wascleaning the kitchens grease pit.

That sweet little piece of justice happened in 195311 years before the Civil Rights Act would become law.
Drive-in theaters like the Big Sky Twin Drive-In Theater outside Wisconsin Dells have an easier time operating their facilities due to the confidence patrons likely have in keeping their distance from others while being outside or in their cars, Rouman said. Big Sky owner Mary Bork did not return interview requests for this story, but Rouman says a big challenge for theaters like hers is a likely decrease in tourism during the summer months compared to past years.

I would say were all going through an incredibly challenging time right now, said Rouman, who owns the temporarily closed six-screen Rouman Cinema in Rhinelander and estimated fewer than half of Wisconsin theaters have yet reopened.

His board represents the interests of 50 companies (including local establishments of major chains like AMC) and many of them are pursuing state and federal relief funds.

Weve never had to deal with anything like this in our history and I would guess that at this point, most movie theaters have lost anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of their projected revenue (for 2020), Rouman said. And without new releases in July, that will hurt us even more.

Its a very scary time right now and there are no two ways about it.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday ordered residents of counties with 20 or more Covid-19 cases to wear a mask in public, according to his office.

"We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one another -- and that means wearing a face covering in public spaces," Abbott said in a statement.

The order takes effect Friday at 12:01 p.m. CT.

The directive comes as Texas, like other states, sees a jump in cases. There have been more than 175,000 cases reported in the state -- the second most populous in the US -- since the pandemic began.

Just days before the July Fourth weekend the United States set another high for new coronavirus cases and at least 23 states were pausing reopening plans to combat mounting infections.

There were 50,655 new coronavirus cases reported nationwide Wednesday, a single-day record. It took a little over two months to record numbers close to that nationwide when the pandemic started. Last week, new cases had also soared to a record high.

On Thursday, Florida reported 10,109 additional new coronavirus cases, a new daily record.

The current spike in new cases is due to an increase in infections, not because of more testing, said Adm. Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health for the US Department of Health and Human Services.

"There is no question that the more testing you get, the more you will uncover -- but we do believe this is a real increase in cases," Giroir told the House Select Committee on Coronavirus. The increase is believed real because the percentage of patients testing positive is going up, Giroir said.

Health officials are urging Americans to limit their holiday weekend festivities to avoid clusters of outbreaks.

"We know people are tired of being cooped up at home ... but cases surged after Memorial Day," said Dean Sidelinger, the Oregon state health officer. "We don't want the same thing to happen over the Independence Day holiday."

In Nebraska, officials warned residents to maintain a contact list for future tracing if they have to invite guests over for the holiday. They urged people to hold such events outdoors if possible, avoid sharing items such as sun screen and maintain social distancing.

The Fourth of July weekend could be the "perfect storm" for a spike in coronavirus cases, said Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center.

"The combination of travel, the combination of reopening -- perhaps in some cases, too early -- and the combination of people not necessarily following some of these preventive guidelines," he said.

On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University reported 25,345 new cases in the United States and 323 reported deaths. The virus has killed more than 128,000 people and infected more than 2.7 million nationwide.

FDA commissioner on vaccine target

One thing that could slow the march of the coronavirus is the development of a vaccine. US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said that the US remains on target to have a vaccine available by the end of December or early next year.

"FDA has given authorization to proceed with clinical trials for four separate vaccines and we've seen a number of vaccine developers come forward -- double digit numbers -- so we have a lot of different, if you will, shots on goal with respect to vaccines. That's good news," Hahn told ABC's Whit Johnson during an appearance on "Good Morning America."

"We expect two of these vaccines to go in the late stage of clinical trials, which are large clinical trials, in this month," Hahn said.

"We are on target to reach a vaccine by year's end or early next year, so I'm cautiously optimistic. Of course it depends upon the data that are generated from the trial."

The US could have more than one Covid-19 vaccine by early next year as part of its Operation Warp Speed initiative, Gary Disbrow, acting director of the Biomedical Advanced Research And Development Authority, said during a Senate committee hearing on Thursday.

"We are fully engaged with multiple companies in the manufacturing phase," Disbrow said.

Operation Warp Speed aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 by January.

Georgia governor: 'We're not out of the woods yet'

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has been flying around the state encouraging people to wear face masks ahead of the holiday weekend, though he hasn't issued a statewide mask order.

"We're not out of the woods yet," Kemp said Thursday during a news conference in Dalton. "We cannot get complacent."

Kemp encouraged Georgians to continue social distancing, washing their hands and wearing a mask or face covering.

When asked to elaborate, Kemp said "We got a speed limit all over the state, here in town, on the interstate. Not everybody obeys by that."

US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who accompanied Kemp, said a mask is "an instrument of freedom if we all use it to slow the spread of Covid-19."

"The fact is most people actually agree with wearing a mask, and if you look at surveys most people are doing it when they go out in public, but if you turned on the news you'd think nobody was wearing a face covering," said Adams while speaking in Augusta.

Georgia has reported more than 81,000 confirmed cases and 2,800 deaths, with daily case counts hitting record highs recently.

The virus shows signs of resurgence

As new cases rise and states rethink reopenings, some areas that had made progress against the virus are showing signs of resurgence.

California was one of the first states to shut down with some of the most stringent measures. On Wednesday, it reported 9,740 new cases -- a number that included over 3,800 previously unreported cases from a five-day period, officials said.

More than 28 million Californians live in counties where restaurant dining rooms, bars and other indoor facilities have been ordered to stay shut as Covid-19 cases increase. The closures affect 72% of the state's population, and include restaurants, breweries, museums, zoos and movie theaters for at least three weeks, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

"Bottom line is, the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning," Newsom said.

Partly in reaction to Newsom's order, the University of Southern California changed its plans to resume in-person classes in the fall semester and urged students to take online courses instead.

Michigan is closing indoor service at bars throughout most of the lower part of the state.

Other states including Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine and Nevada -- which have all seen more than a 50% increase in cases -- have paused or rolled back their reopening plans.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced the city would "revert" to "Phase Two with modifications" because "Phase Three has not been effective. We are going to go back to what we know is effective in slowing the spread of the disease."
ROME, N.Y.  Rome police have been working with city officials to address the flood of complaints theyve received about the use of illegal fireworks across the city.

Police are struggling to handle firework investigations, because they say it is difficult to pinpoint where the detonations are coming from.

While we understand and agree with the publics frustration, fireworks investigations are very difficult by their nature. Our officers almost have to be in the area while theyre happening and must be able to identify the individual possessing or deploying them, said Deputy Chief of Police Kevin Simons. This can only be accomplished by a witnessing officer or a witnessing complainant who is willing to file a complaint and provide a supporting deposition. The department has made several arrests in the past couple weeks of individuals choosing to violate this law.

As a reminder, below are lists that differentiate legal and illegal fireworks.

What kind of fireworks are legal?

Sparkling fountains (cylindrical and cone)

Sparklers on wooden sticks, but not metal

Smoking devices

Snakes

Confetti-filled party poppers

Paper-wrapped snappers

What kind of fireworks are not legal?

Bottle rockets and other fireworks that fly, such as:

Firecrackers

Bottle rockets

Roman candles

Spinners

Other aerial devices

Rome police will increase patrols during Fourth of July weekend, in an attempt find people letting off illegal fireworks, especially in hotspots where there have been several complaints.
ILION, N.Y. --- The State Bowling Center in Ilion is for sale. The building has been a staple in the community since the late 1940s. Owner Rodney Brown said his decision to sell has nothing to do with the current pandemic.

"51 years is long time to be working with the public. My wife and I have been here for a long time. I just turned 73 yesterday. We need to retire and enjoy some life," said Brown.

Brown said he has every intention of reopening the alley once the state allows him to do so. Brown would need to follow all of the state guidelines that are in place including social distancing and heavy cleaning.

In terms of the property's next owner, Brown said he would make sure there's a smooth transition.

"If I do have a buyer and it's going to be a bowling center I'll try and help them figure out what they need to do and how to take care of things I'm not just going to walk away from it," said Brown.

Village of Ilion Mayor Brian Lamica hopes the property's next owner respects the building's strong history in the community.

"I think that whoever buys it understands that its an important part of the community. I just don't want an irresponsible owner buying it. I just don't want someone buying it then next thing you know we have code complaints. I want whoever buys to be a positive impact on the community," said Lamica.

Brown and his wife will continue to run and maintain the property until a new owner is found.
Mayor Carlos Gimenez faced criticism for not ordering a countywide mask decree sooner. Miami and other cities announced their mask requirements last week as COVID cases surged, but Gimenez maintained existing county rules were adequate. They require masks inside businesses, in transit vehicles and in other confined spaces, and in locations where social-distancing measures arent possible. Does it really make sense for somebody who is walking their dog outdoors by themselves to wear a mask? he asked in a press conference last week.
UTICA, N.Y. -- A water main break in the area of Genesee and Bleecker Streets in Utica is impacting area traffic. It happened around 2:30 a.m. Thursday.

NEWSChannel 2 camera crews say it broke in the area of the Resource Center for Independent Living (RCIL) offices.

Several Utica Police cars were blocking off traffic.

NEWSChannel 2 has reached out to reps with the Mohawk Valley Water Authority to learn more about any water service disruptions or restoration times. We are awaiting word back.
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) - Local health leaders are concerned about a recent up-tick in coronavirus cases in Tippecanoe County.

Cases in Tippecanoe County had been going down in the weeks after the county's biggest spike in May. However, according to numbers shared by the Tippecanoe County Health Department at its weekly press conference, there have been 219 new cases in the past 28 days. Ninety-six of those where reported in the last seven days.

Health Officer Dr. Jeremy Adler said about 22% of the county's cases are in the Latinx community. He said the health department is reaching out to local Hispanic businesses and churches to spread educating messages about protecting yourself from the virus.

There is no state or federal definition of a person who is recovered from COVID-19. So Dr. Adler said the health department has come up with its own way of classifying who is recovered from the virus. It must be 28 days since the person was diagnosed with the disease, the person cannot be hospitalized and their symptoms must be resolved.

Based on the criteria, the health department said 296 of the county's 640 people diagnosed with the disease are considered recovered.

Dr. Adler said Tippecanoe County's rate for testing positive is 5.1%. He said that is lower than the state and federal average. And the World Health Organization says 5% or less is the target goal.

Also, Tippecanoe County's state-run testing site will move to Durgan Elementary School on July 6th.

Indiana was set to move onto the fifth and final stage of the Reopen Indiana Plan on Saturday. Governor Eric Holcomb announced on Wednesday that the state will be moving to a modified "4.5 stage."

Representatives from both Franciscan Health and IU Health Arnett say they are concerned about the rise in numbers.

"I think when that plan was established there was perhaps optimism that we wouldn't have this background level of disease persisting and so here we are and we do," said Dr. Jim Bien from IU Health Arnett. "Absolutely the recommendations that Dr. Adler has made about mask wearing and hand sanitizing need to be double downed on."

Dr. Daniel Wickert from Franciscan said the number of patients they are seeing all around has gone up.

"If you look around us, it's gone way up," he said, referring to other state's numbers. "For us to say that we will be the bastion, that would be great. We hope it's the case, but it does concern us."

Dr. Adler said it is unclear at this at this point how many cases have been brought back to Tippecanoe County by people going out of state for vacations.

Several Indiana counties are resorting to required face masks in all public settings. The question was posed to local leaders if this is something Tippecanoe County is considering. Dr. Adler said they will monitor data to see if mandatory mask wearing needs to be implemented in the county.

Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarksi said it's something to be heavily considered. He said with people just now starting to get back on their feet in paying rent, bills and medical needs, we can't go backwards in getting local businesses and factories back up and running.

"If that means that we have to go to a mandatory mask policy to ensure that that doesn't happen, then that's something that is definitely on the table because that is a small price to pay for having economic shutdown re-occur in the community," he said.

West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis said it will take collaboration from everyone to keep the state on track.

"Local governments, state governments, our local medical personnel, our media, we're all on the same page here," he said. "We're all basically communicating the same message and it's that kind of collaboration that will help us keep our numbers down."

That message becomes even more important as the community prepares for Purdue students to return in August.

The bulk of Tippecanoe County's cases remain in the 20 to 29 age range. Both mayors and the health department have had meetings with Purdue's task force working to make a safe return for students. Dr. Adler said Purdue's plans for on-campus are strong, but it's controlling what happens off-campus that is concerning.

"What will happen when people go away from campus is the big question," he said. "That's where we have to trust that people are going to do the right things and they are going to listen to what experts are telling them, they are going to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously."

The university released its Protect Purdue plan in June. Anyone entering a Purdue building must wear a face mask when social distancing isn't possible. Also Purdue will have extensive testing and contact tracing programs in place, as well as optional online course options.

The health department said from now on its weekly press briefings will move to bi-weekly meetings. The next update will happen on July 15th.

Graphs below provided by the Tippecanoe County Health Department.
If you havent yet been out shopping for BBQs, ties and cigars, youd better hop to it! Fathers Day is on Sunday. If youre among the lucky ones who have a wonderful father still alive and kicking, spend some time listening to his stories and being together because time flies.
The State of Michigan will re-open to full capacity on June 22 as more than 9 million vaccines have been administered, and COVID-19 cases fall to a one-year low.
Sadly, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are currently hordes of people on Earth who do not have enough to eat. Over 820 million people went hungry in 2018. This adds up to 1 in 9 people in the world being consistently short of food, and often wondering where thier next meal will come from. Global health officials are said to be working towards zero hunger by 2030, but will we get there? That remains to be seen.

Strangely enough, coupled with hunger is another extreme on our planet: rising rates of obesity. The WHO states that in 2016, over 650 million people in the world were counted as being obese. A person who is obese is defined as someone who is grossly fat or overweight, and who has a body mass index (BMI) of 30.0 or higher. (A BMI of this level does not apply to everyone, such as those who are pregnant or body builders, but for the average person it is a benchmark).

Shockingly, the number of people in the world who are obese has tripled since 1975, and the majority of them live in countries where more people die from weighing too much than from not weighing enough. Australia is one of these. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics National Health Survey, two thirds (67%) of adults in Australia in 2017-18 were overweight or obese. About one third of people in the country (31.3%) were obese which adds up to 7,750,000 individuals.

What is causing people to consume too much food, and not get enough exercise? Some of it has to do with advertising, and the easy accessibility of unhealthy food.

Why People Are Obese

Image credit: Jackson Stock Photography/Shutterstock.com

As The Conversation.com points out, many people are becoming more responsible as time goes by. In general, people are driving more safely, wearing more seat belts, drinking less alcohol, and smoking less. So why are we acquiring such bad eating habits? Many think the commercialization of food is to blame. In many countries, including Australia, fast food is marketed relentlessly to consumers. According to Statista.com, McDonalds alone spent 447.3 million US dollars on advertising worldwide in 2019. Apparently, when humans are consistently shown fatty, sugary, attractive-looking, delicious unhealthy food, and this food is available to us for a relatively cheap price per calorie, we jump at the chance to buy and eat it.

Statistics also show that we are moving around much less than we ever have. This is also making people fat. According to Australians government, 55% of the countrys adults do not get enough physical activity daily, and scarily, 70% or 2 in every 3 children aged 2 to 17 did not meet the physical activity guidelines either. Only 1 in 10 kids adhered to the screen based guidelines, meaning that all children the others were on devices and watching TV too much of the time. All of this sedentary behavior along with bad eating habits appears to be driving Australians weight too high.

People queue at Hungry Jacks fast food shop in Melbourne, Australia. Image credit: TK Kurikawa/Shutterstock.com

The Dangers Of Weighing Too Much

Being obese comes with a price tag, of course. According to health authorities, compared with people who are of healthy weight, those who are obese face an increased risk of all causes of death, and in particular have a greater chance of suffering from high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, sleep apnea, and mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. People who are obese also have a greater risk of suffering from high LDL cholesterol, coronary heart diseae, gallbladder disease, and many types of cancer. Being obese has such a strong impact on your body that it can increase some of these risks by up to seven times. Being excessively overweight can also influence how well your memory works. All of these factors obviously add up to bad news for the future of humanity if we do not lose some collective weight soon.

Runners participating in the "Bridge to Brisbane" charity fun run on September 07, 2014 in Brisbane, Australia. Image credit: Paintings/Shutterstock.com

What Is Being Done About It

Governments are actively seeking to tackle the obesity problem in many places. In Australia, ministers agreed at the 2018 Council of Australia Governments Health Council Meeting that a National Obesity Strategy was going to be developed. The first phase included a National Obesity Summit funded by the Commonwealth. This summit was held in February of 2019. About 120 people from government organizations, academia, medical and public health organizations, as well as consumer groups and the food industry attend the event. Factors leading to obesity were examined and priority areas for action were discussed. Change takes time, and we will see in coming years if tactics decided upon were effective or not.

The Australian government has stated that tackling the countrys weight problem will require a multi-faceted approach. In order to change the habits of families and individuals, the ways people are currently eating will have to change across entire communities. If the approach is successful, perhaps other countries will be able to learn from Australias lead.
The world is full of mysteries and unexplained phenomena that have puzzled scientists over the years. As much as science and technology have advanced to help solve a lot of these mysteries, scientists have not been able to explain many natural phenomena.

Scientists and researchers have offered theories, but they have not been able to agree on any one explanation. Many have either refuted or put forth their own hypotheses.

Here are some natural phenomena that still baffle scientists.

Placebo Effect

Image credit: AllaBond/Shutterstock.com

The placebo effect is a phenomenon where a patient, or subject, is given a fake treatment or pill and reports an improvement in their condition.

Research on the effect has focused on the connection between the mind and body. Researchers believe the effect occurs because of peoples expectations. When they take a pill, they expect it to do something, so their body produces chemicals that have similar effects to real medication.

Studies have shown that even if subjects know they are taking a placebo pill, they still report improvements in their condition. While there have been extensive studies done on the placebo effect, scientists still do not understand how it works.

Fairy Circles

A horizontal photograph of a fairy circle taken during sunset with orange clouds in the Namib Naukluft Park. Image credit: Mark Dumbleton/Shutterstock.com

Barren, circular patterns called fairy circles cover the Namib desert in Namibia. These circles have mystified scientists for decades. The patterns can measure between 3.5 meters to 35 meters across. In 2014, researchers found similar fairy circles in Australia.

One theory claimed that fairy circles were a result of plants competing for water. Another explanation is termites eating away at vegetation around their nests.

However, researcher Stephan Getzin claimed that fairy circles found in some areas of Australia and Namibia did not have termites. He also argued that the hexagonal patterns were too precise to be caused by termites.

Earthquake Lights

People have reported lights appearing before or during earthquakes for years. The lights are described as bluish flames, light orbs, or quick flashes of light that resemble lightning strikes. The first known reports of these lights date back to 89 BC.

Physics professor Friedemann Freund says the lights can rise to 200 meters in the air, but how they work is still uncertain. Freund believes the lights are caused by a specific type of rock that may release electrical charges during a seismic wave. On the other hand, physicist Troy Shinbrot speculates that shifting grains around the Earths faults may create an electric charge. However, the mechanism of how this happens is not yet known.

Singing Sands

Singing sand dune in Altyn-Emel National Park, Almaty Province, Kazakhstan.

There are sand dunes in deserts that emit a singing sound. Explorer Marco Polo encountered one of these sand dunes while in China, and suspected evil spirits were behind the noises. But scientists have other theories.

Scientists originally believed the sound was from avalanching sand creating vibrations in the layers under the dunes. But they soon discovered that the avalanching sand itself produces the deep hum.

Parisian biophysicists theorize that the size of the sand grains determines the pitch, but they do not know why size matters. They also believe that the vibrations of the sand grains synchronize, but they also do not know why.

Wow! Signal

On August 15, 1977, the Big Ear Radio Observatory in Ohio was searching space when it detected a mysterious radio signal. It was loud and lasted 72 seconds. The signal never repeated, and multiple attempts to relocate it was unsuccessful.

In 2017, astronomy professor Antonio Paris published a paper claiming that he may have solved the Wow! Signal mystery. Paris said a comet's hydrogen cloud most likely caused the signal.

However, astronomers refuted the explanation, arguing that comets do not emit the right radio waves. Astronomer Jerry R. Ehman, who discovered the Wow! Signal, was also skeptical. He said that a comet would not have been able to produce a short signal that did not repeat.

Star Jelly

Star jelly. Image credit: James Lindsey at Ecology of Commanster/Wikimedia.org

A mysterious, jelly-like substance has been appearing all over the world, from Scotland to Texas, for centuries. The substance, called star jelly, was reported as early as the 14th century when a physician claimed it could treat abscesses.

Scientists have tried to track down the jellys origins. Some theories say it is related to slime molds, types of slime bacteria, and some types of fungi. Another theory is that star jelly is the remains of frogs, toads, or other creatures. More specifically, the ovum jelly of frogs or toads. However, when the jelly was tested, it contained no plant or animal DNA.

Taos Hum

In the small town of Taos, New Mexico, only 2% of the population (called hearers) can hear a strange and mysterious hum. Known as the Taos Hum, it has no known origin and was first reported in the early 1990s.

In 1994, Joe Mullins of the University of New Mexico set up sensitive equipment in the hearers homes but found nothing unusual. He was not able to find the source of the hum nor figure out why only 2% of the population heard it.

Places all over the world have also heard strange hums. The city of Bristol in England reported a hum in the 1970s. The town of Largs in Scotland heard a hum in the late 1980s.

Ball Lightning

Ball lightning is a phenomenon described as glowing, electric orbs that appear during thunderstorms. Sightings are rare, but scientists have offered possible theories on its cause.

Some believe microwave radiation could become encased in a plasma bubble, creating ball lightning. Another explanation is the orbs are light trapped inside a sphere of thin air. Despite several theories, scientists are still not certain as to what causes it.

Skyquake

A skyquake is described as a loud, powerful boom. This phenomenon has been reported worldwide for centuries. In 2017, there were more than 64 different incidents involving a skyquake worldwide.

No one has yet been able to find the cause of skyquakes. Many theories include large meteors entering the atmosphere, meteorological phenomenon involving clashing air masses, and coronal mass ejections that can cause shock waves that break the sound barrier.

An explanation that many agree with is supersonic aircraft that produce sonic booms. However, this theory cannot explain the incidents that preceded supersonic jets.

Fast Radio Bursts

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are high-speed bursts of radio waves coming from deep space. Scientists first discovered FRBs in 2007, but they have been around for billions of years.

No one knows what causes FRBs, but physicists assume they come from cataclysmic events. Scientists have also detected FRBs that have a repeating pattern.

In April 2020, astronomers discovered a radio burst in the Milky Way galaxy that came from a magnetar. Astronomer Emily Petroff believes this discovery is by far the most promising piece of evidence. However, scientists claim the burst in the Milky Way was about 1,000 less energetic than FRBs coming from distant galaxies and does not explain why some FRBs repeat.
We are in favor of keeping the statue, because Christopher Columbus is and was a very decent strong pro-Native American person, and he is indeed a hero. We have to be proud of that, Columbus resident John Waltz said. If we go ahead and in panic mode strike down everything like whats happening throughout country, we may be sorry for that later.
"I'm hoping and praying she's not in pain or misery" Search for 5-year-old Summer Wells continues
A report by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), drafted in consultation with aviation unions and the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has revealed the Unite unions acceptance of mass redundancies this summer.

Published last month, the 25-page report, Crisis Support to Aviation and the Right to Retrain, is an appeal to the Johnson government. It sets out the unions corporatist proposals to protect the profitability of the major airlines as they restructure and slash thousands of jobs.

The report includes the admission that Unite has accepted a redundancy cap of 10 percent. This is a warning to workers about the content of Unites current negotiations with EasyJet and other airline companies.

A British Airways plane taking off

On Tuesday, the scale of the ongoing jobs massacre was underscored by EasyJets announcement that 1,900 pilots, cabin crew and ground staff will be made redundant. Hours later, Airbus announced 12,300 job cuts worldwide by Summer 2021, including 1,700 in the UK, as orders for new planes stall.

The authors of the NEF report, Alex Chapman and Hanna Wheatley, provide a blunt assessment of the scale of upheaval triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

[A]viation sector employers are planning to cut an estimated 27% of jobs in the immediate short-term, i.e., within the next two to three months, they write. This equates to 39,000 aviation jobs and 70,000 jobs throughout the supply chain.

Without further government bailouts, they warn that 50 percent of aviation jobs will be wiped out during the next financial yearequating to 69,000 aviation jobs and a massive 124,000 in the supply chain.

The short-term job losses projected are larger than the number of job losses seen at the peak of the UK coal industrys socially damaging decline. Approximately 65,000 coal jobs were lost between 1980-81, they write.

The report appeals for a new round of government bailouts to the airline companies, on top of the 1.2 billion handed to British Airways (BA), EasyJet and Jet2 by Boris Johnsons government in April, and 7.1 billion in annual subsidies in the form of VAT and fuel tax write-offs. In BAs case, shareholders in parent company IAG have received 3.4 billion in dividends and share buy-backs in the last three years alone.

Notwithstanding this grotesque financial parasitism, the TUC is offering the airline companies a new bespoke, sector-wide, crisis support plan and package for aviation, with oversight from a new sector panel with representation from unions, businesses and government.

The German governments 9 billion Lufthansa bailout is the model they have in mind, with unions there having agreed massive cuts to pay and conditions and the axing of at least 22,000 jobs while further cementing their corporatist social partnership.

The TUCs new recovery panel would discuss and agree detailed plans for the sector and oversee their implementation, including commitment to a union-negotiated limit on redundancy rates across the sector.

Under the subtitle Protecting jobs, the document spells out the unions agreement with job destruction: In response to the immediate crisis the government must work with unions to agree a deal which locks in a fair and manageable decline in employment. This decline will vary, as appropriate, across the different sub-sectors of aviation.

The section continues, The maximum rate of decline proposed by Unite the Union, of 10% of their workforce in this financial year, represents an illustrative example. This cap on redundancy rates must be applied to any and all forms of government support extended during the crisis, including any loans extended at commercial rates.

If Unites stated redundancy cap is enforced, this will mean the destruction of 4,500 jobs at BA, 1,500 at EasyJet, 1,750 at Ryanair and 1,350 at Airbus.

On Tuesday, Unite began talks with EasyJet and the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) on cutting 1,900 jobs, including more than 700 pilots. The airline plans to close three of its UK basesLondon Stansted, London Southend and Newcastle.

Over the weekend, the Sun newspaper reported that BALPA had reached a separate deal with BA to sack 350 pilots, with a further 300 to be placed on half pay in a rehire pool. The deal was reportedly awaiting sign-off by BALPA and company executives.

Under the deal, other crew members would face a 15 percent pay cut, with just 7.5 percent of this returned once normal flights resume. Industry analysts warn it could be seven years before flights return to anywhere near their pre-pandemic levels.

An insider with knowledge of the BA talks told the Sun, The deal is done. Balpa union negotiators are happy, but it has not yet been put to members for ratification.

BALPA denied the report, but on Monday the Daily Mirror cited an unnamed BALPA official who merely stated they had,  not yet reached an agreement with the airline on any proposed job changes. (emphasis added)

The Sun reported on Sunday, Last night Unite agreed to begin negotiations with BA bosses over the airlines controversial staff proposals. To date, neither BA nor Unite have publicly denied this claim, with Unites press officer telling our reporter yesterday, As far as I know, there are no negotiations scheduled.

Regardless of whether formal talks have begun, Unites pro-company agenda was underscored by two events in recent days.

On Saturday, financial website This Is Money reported on a highly unusual call held by union Unite with 37 City analysts. Unite officials reportedly pitched their own proposals for BA, based on a report they commissioned from Sheffield University accounting professor Adam Leaver.

According to summary notes from the meeting provided by Unite, Leavers paper argued there was no need to fire and rehire the workforce as BA is not facing a long-term profitability crisis but a short to medium term liquidity crunch which can be resolved by loans from parent company IAG. Unite suggested that BA could raise funds through IAGs Qatari shareholders, by issuing bonds, by accessing debt or by taking up loans offered by government. And if all that fails it could apply for the Governments new Project Birch bailout scheme for large firms. Lufthansa have already taken a 9bn rescue deal with the German government, why cant BA?

The response of City analysts to Unites meeting was indicated by This Is Moneys headline, City analysts say union leaders delusional if they believe British Airways does not need to make deep cuts to survive, with the article concluding, One analyst on the Unite call warned that investors would not be willing to stump up money without major restructuring at BA.

Earlier, Unite officials met with investors from BAs parent company IAG. A Reuters report of the meeting was headlined, In battle against British Airways, trade union goes to investors, but contained few details. It cited Unite executive officer Sharon Graham who claimed BA may be stripped of valuable landing rights at Heathrow due to cross-party opposition among lawmakers to the airlines slash-and-burn restructuring. Unite has won support for its nationalist #BABetrayal campaign among Labour, Liberal-Democrat, and Conservative MPs who will quickly denounce any industrial action by workers in defence of their jobs if it threatens the national interest.

Mass opposition exists among pilots, cabin crew and ground staff, who are bitterly opposed to plans to slash jobs and reduce them to a low-wage, on-call workforce. Moreover, unlike the 1980s, when trade union and Labour bureaucracies could isolate workers on a national basis, todays opposition among airline workers is unfolding globally among an interconnected workforce of millions.

The Socialist Equality Party advocates a unified political struggle by airline workers across the world, including strikes and mass protests, to oppose all cuts to jobs, pay and conditions. The aviation industry must be run for social need not corporate profit! The airline companies wealth must be seized to provide decent pay and working conditions for all pilots, cabin crew and ground staff, and safe and affordable travel for the worlds population.
At least 10 Delta Air Lines workers have died and 500 have become infected with COVID-19, according to an investor conference call last month. Despite the spread of the deadly disease among airline workers, the company, which has more than 90,000 employees worldwide, announced it would be increasing its domestic and international flights this month.

Even as the pandemic continues to surge, airlines continue to push for increased flights. American Airlines has resumed booking its flights to capacity on July 1. United Airlines, which never blocked out seats or limited capacity, will be adding 25,000 flights in August.

According to new data from the Transport Security Administration (TSA), the number of airline travelers reached 600,000 on June 29, exceeding 25 percent of pre-pandemic numbers for the first time since March 19. Although airlines revenue was down by 90 percent in the second quarter, the stocks of the major airlines rose sharply Tuesday on the news. The airlines have also benefited from a $25 billion corporate bailout under the bipartisan CARES Act, which includes the direct purchase of corporate debt.

At the same time, airline management is seeking to do everything to cover up the spread of infections and suppress opposition from workers. In April, Delta sent 25,000 flight attendants an e-mail directing those that tested positive for COVID-19 to refrain from notifying co-workers about their condition or posting reports on social media.

Whistleblowers were also fired. In April, on the largest US regional carriers, Envoy Airlines, formerly American Eagle, fired Kelly Kolberg, a ramp worker who exposed unsafe conditions at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). Envoy is a low-cost subsidiary of American Airlines with 18,000 employees. Starting wages for ramp and baggage workers was $11.99 at Envoy compared to $15.23 at American.

The unsafe conditions led to the death of workers at DFW airport, including 37-year-old Glenmar Gabriel, a 15-year veteran ramp worker who died on April 5. Dozens of other workers also became infected at American Airlines largest hub. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan area has now become a hotspot for the deadly disease with nearly 7,000 cases reported June 30, up from 638 on June 8.

On his Facebook page in April, Kelly Kolberg explained, I was FIRED for blowing the whistle on my company Envoy Air for the filthy dangerous conditions in which we were being forced to work in. Me and about 80 plus others run bags each shift between American Eagle and American Airlines connecting flights. We each pick up 20 bags without gloves then deliver to wherever and then end up back in our break room touching whatever.

Kolberg recently told the World Socialist Web Site, Apparently everything is back to the way things were before I made things public.

Back in March, Kolberg first reported the unsafe conditions to Envoy, the Transport Workers Union (TWU), and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). I was disgusted with the filthy conditions, the lack of PPE, the empty hand sanitizer, empty soap, and empty paper towels, he wrote at the time.

At first, management and the union feigned concern. In that same break room, three weeks ago our VP at Envoy came in to address concerns regarding the 40 people in a break room and six people at a picnic table. He tells us its okay that we have this many people in a room because we are essential workers, Kelly explained on his Facebook page.

Fast forward two-and-a-half weeks and I hear of numerous infections at Envoy, all through word of mouth, not from Envoy or any official outlet. Turns out, the majority of cases were from the break room where I tried to shed light on unacceptable conditions. The following day I heard a work friend, Glenmar Gabriel, had passed away. He was COVID-19 positive in addition to two of his four men crew working gate B39.

There have been positive cases for two weeks, Kelly continued, yet the company hasnt even informed a single employee officially of the cases. Everything is by word of mouth and Facebook pages.

Glenmar, Kelly explained on his Facebook page, was a really great guy and one of the hardest workers Ive seen. Kelly said his co-worker left a lifelong impact on him and others. G trained me two-and-a-half years ago, and Ill never forget every single time Id walk by him with his big beautiful smile hed go in his Filipino accent, Hey Kelly, whats up? Ill never forget him. He added, Now theres a family who has lost a massive part of their family, and most importantly there is a little girl who doesnt have a daddy.

To add insult to injury, in late May, American Airlines announced the layoff of 5,000 workers, mostly at its Dallas-Ft. Worth hub. Over the previous two months, the company forced nearly 4,500 workersmany of them the pilots and flight attendantsto take early retirements. The cuts came just a few months after the company opened up its new $300 million headquarters in Ft. Worth. The site at the American Airlines Center used for COVID-19 drive-thru testing was closed on June 30.

In addition to job cuts, the airlines are pushing for a new round of wage and benefit concessions from workers. Meanwhile, Delta CEO Ed Bastion got $17.3 million in total compensation last year, American CEO Doug Parker pocketed $11.5 million, and Uniteds Oscar Munoz got $12.4 million.

The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party have advanced a program that calls for no return to work until conditions can be made safe. This can only be achieved through the independent actions of workers, not the pro-company unions. It means that workers must form independent rank-and-file workplace safety committees that will place safety over private profit. We urge workers interested in learning more to contact the World Socialist Web Site .

The author recommends: Aviation industry workers face deep cuts to pay and hours worldwide
The state of Arizona, and the American Southwest more generally, have become a new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. This region was among the first where state governments ended lockdowns and other restrictions, and record infections and rising deaths are the consequence.

On Wednesday, Arizona, with over 84,000 cases (24,118 cases in one week), surpassed its previous one-day high set on Tuesday with 4,877 new cases and 88 fatalities. The death toll for Arizona stands at 1,720 (257 deaths since last week). With a per capita infection rate of 43 new daily cases per 100,000 residents on a seven-day rolling average, Arizona leads nationally, with Florida second with 34 new cases per 100,000 residents.

By way of comparison, New York state with 2,009 total cases per 100,000 residents experienced a one percent rise since June 24. Arizona, with 1,290 total cases per 100,000, experienced a 40 percent increase. With testing capacity strained, 28 percent of diagnostic tests are returning positive, which indicates both dwindling resources as well as a significantly entrenched community transmission.

COVID-19 testing site in Phoenix, Arizona on June 27, 2020 (AP Photo/Matt York)

Last Friday, Arizona hospitals asked their states health department to formally activate the Crisis Standards of Care guidelines that would provide hospitals the legal right to determine who and how patients should be treated for the coronavirus. This essentially means hospitals will have to decide who receives life-saving measures and who will not.

Throughout June, the local media, via updates from the health department, had been highlighting Arizona hospitals dwindling ICU capacity. The plan ushered in with the words a compassionate and ethically-based healthcare response for catastrophic disasters within the State of Arizona went into effect Monday afternoon.

The Arizona Department of Health promulgated a COVID-19 addendum for the allocation of scarce resources in acute care facilities back in April during the initial surge of the pandemic in the United States. Health systems throughout the country were facing severe shortages of PPEs and testing capacity. Based on estimates provided by various health officials, concerns were raised that there would be insufficient capacity to ventilate patients. Equally distressing was the shortage of critical care capacity at health systems overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases. Experiences in Italy had raised the issue of how to allocate limited resources to patients in critical condition infected with COVID-19.

The proposal, written in careful medical-legal jargon, was drafted by the chief medical officers of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Abrazo Healthcare, Carondelet Healthcare, Common Spirit Arizona Division Dignity Health, Banner Health, and Phoenix Childrens Hospital. They wrote that it is the intention of Arizona health systems to collaborate such that no system reaches a contingency or crisis level unless all do  if time does not permit and/or other facilities are short on critical resources (hospital beds, ICU beds, ventilators, dialysis machines, etc.), triage protocols as outlined here will go into effect.

When a Crisis Standards of Care is implemented, a facility system Incident Commander will coordinate priorities within the Emergency Operations Center. At the same time, the triage officers review cases according to protocols and guidelines approved by the Department of Health. Infected patients who have arrived for life-saving treatments and critical care at the hospital will have to first undergo an assessment on the best available relevant and objective medical evidence.

Patients are given a scorecard that assigns them a triage priority score based initially on their Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) Score [from 1 to 4], a mortality prediction score that is based on the degree of dysfunction of six organ systemsrespiratory, cardiovascular, liver, coagulation, kidney and neurological systems. The higher the score, the higher the predicted mortality rate.

Though the guidance states that age will not be a factor in triaging, the second step involves determining the individuals 1-year or 5-year mortality. The SOFA score is added to the mortality scoreranging from 1 to 8after which a triage color grouping is assignedRed for those expected to survive, while Yellow then Blue are afforded the lowest priority for critical care resources. Treating physicians are recused from decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources.

However, if resources remain exceptionally diretwo patients needing one resourceadditional factors may need to be addressed in a manner that seems like a coin toss but includes such considerations as whether those being treated are pediatric patients, frontline workers, single caretakers of minors, pregnant patients, and those deserving the opportunity to experience life stages, which brings age back into the equation.

As the final throwing up of the hands, to quote, if patients requiring the same scarce resource cannot be effectively prioritized with any of the above, the allocation should proceed randomly. Though the process allows for appeals, triaging of patients is continuously assessed throughout the admission. Motions could be denied in matters that are time-critical and insufficient to conduct the appeal.

Will Humble, former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, speaking on MSNBCs Rachel Maddow Show on June 27, said, Standard of care changes when you get into surge status  when they [governors and elected officials] start talking about hospital capacity as a control measure, as an endpoint for how they are going to manage this epidemic, start worrying. What you really should be doing is putting together policies in place to change peoples behavior, to slow the spread of the virus, so you dont end up like us in crisis standards of care.

However, Governor Doug Ducey's response to this catastrophe has been insensitive and irresponsible, even while knowing that the peak in the surge is yet to arrive. Insultingly, he has announced band-aid measures with the closure of bars, nightclubs, and outdoor waterparks for 30 days while pushing back school openings two weeks to August 17. He continues to refuse to mandate face masks in public. During his press brief on Monday, he said, This is not another executive order to enforce, and its not about closing businesses. This is about public education and personal responsibility  do it for your family, for your friends, for your neighbors, for our frontline healthcare workers. You can help reduce the risk for the most vulnerable in our society.

As part of a damage control effort, Vice President Pence and the Coronavirus Task Force flew in to meet with Ducey on Wednesday to attempt to shore up confidence in the governors failed leadership and ensure Arizona holds a steady course as a retreat would reflect poorly on the Trump campaigns efforts.

After congratulating Ducey for his handling of the pandemic, Pence admitted that the governor had requested 500 medical personnel to assist with the devolving health disaster. He also acknowledged that something changed in the middle of May that led to the rapid surge of COVID-19 cases. He added that the United States had to keep our economy moving forward and get our kids back to school.

All the warnings by hospitals, health officials, and epidemiologists appear to have had little influence or weight on Ducey and other state and local officials, who were only more than eager to throw the doors wide open in early May for business, commerce, social events, and political rallies all the while remaining utterly indifferent to the developing calamity which amounts to criminal negligence.

There are currently 2,793 patients hospitalized with 683 in the ICUs (89 percent full) and 465 on mechanical ventilators. Some Arizona nurses have commented on social media that high flow oxygen was exceedingly difficult to find for two local hospitals in Maricopa County. They also listed a shortage of Propofol and Precedex, two essential medications for sedating patients before intubating them. Many nurses and physicians have sounded the alarm that Arizona needs to lock down. A petition drafted on June 28 with over 1,000 signatures is being sent to the Governor.
Directed by Spike Lee; written by Lee, Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo and Kevin Willmott

In Spike Lees latest film Da 5 Bloods, currently available on Netflix, four African-American veterans of the Vietnam War return to present-day Vietnam to recover the remains of a fallen comrade. Buried with him is a cache of gold bars worth millions, which the vets plan to divide equally. Paranoia and violence disrupt their plans, as does the intervention of other interested parties.

Taken as a whole, Da 5 Bloods is one of Spike Lees more interesting and serious efforts. It is also something of a departure. Lee (Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, He Got Game, Summer of Sam) long ago established his commitment to a racialist worldview, which has led him to vulgarize the human relations depicted in his films, lending a crude and dishonest character to far too much of his work.

Delroy Lindo, Norm Lewis, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr and Chadwick Boseman in Da 5 Bloods

Da 5 Bloods has been marketed in racial-patriotic terms as a film that, finally, tells the story of black troops in Vietnam. Netflix offers the work as part of its new Black Lives Matter Collection. But Da 5 Bloods is more than that. Without ignoring its weaker moments, one is pleasantly surprised to find Lee expanding his conception of things. He offers a critical look at a group of men whose own racialist understanding of the world has left them horribly disoriented in the decades since the war ended.

The film is also anti-war in that it acknowledges not only the damage done to American soldiers, but also the damage inflicted on the Vietnamese people. In one disturbing scene set during the war, the American troops open fire on a group of North Vietnamese fighters who are distracted by reciting poetry and talking about their girlfriends back home.

Lees characters feel historically rooted this timealso a change of pace for the director. The viewer feels the burden of the past and present churning away within the veteran soldiers and others they encounter. This is expressed in various ways.

Da 5 Bloods opens with a montage of archival footage from tumultuous events spanning the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. Viewers will find included scenes of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements; film and photographs from the National Guard and police shootings of students at Kent State and Jackson State University in 1970; the brutal police riot outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; the execution of Nguyen Van Lem by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan; the resignation of Richard Nixon; the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the first wave of the Vietnamese refugees who came to be known as boat people.

With all of this history in the minds of the characters and the viewers, Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis) and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr) arrive at their hotel in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City. They are later joined by Pauls son David (Jonathan Majors).

As the old friends, who call themselves Da 5 Bloods, catch up, the others are shocked to learn that Paul has become an avid Donald Trump supporter. He wears a red MAGA (Make America Great Again) cap for much of the film and complains bitterly about immigrants entering the US. Of all the bloods, he is the most haunted and disturbed by his memories of the war. I see ghosts, he tells the others at one point. Paul was closest to Norm (Chadwick Boseman), the bloods squad leader who was killed in action and whose remains they now must find in the jungle where he died.

Da 5 Bloods

Otis soon contacts an old flame who puts him in touch with a French smuggler, Desroche (Jean Reno), who, in turn, agrees to move the gold buried with Norm out of the country for them. Then the veterans journey to their former battleground begins. They travel along rivers, through jungles and over hillsides in search of Norm and the loot. They will encounter literal and figurative minefields along the way. They will double-cross each other and be double-crossed by others.

Complicating things is the presence of a team of landmine removal activists led by a young Frenchwoman named Hedy (Melanie Thierry), who hopes to atone for sins committed by her family. They made several fortunes from rubber plantations where they exploited the shit out of the Vietnamese people, she explains to David.

An unidentified group of Vietnamese mercenaries, police or soldiers also intervenes, confronting the black US veterans about the atrocities committed during the 1968 My Lai Massacre. This becomes their justification for seizing the gold.

Spike Lees Da 5 Bloods

The past continues to intrude. Present-day scenes are interrupted by memories and flashbacks of the war. Lee made the wise decision to have the older actors from the contemporary sequences play the younger versions of themselves as well, without using any effects to make them appear younger. With Bosemans Norm the only truly young soldier among them, the sense of his loss is reinforced. It also communicates the extent to which the older men still live with and suffer from these experiences.

A few moments from the past stand out.

In April 1968, the soldiers learn of Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination during a radio broadcast by Hanoi Hannah (Van Veronica Ngo). She directs her remarks to black GIs, and tells them of the attempt to repress the riots then taking place in more than 120 US cities. They kill them [protesters] while you fight against us, so far away from where you are needed, she says. She notes that African Americans are 11 percent of the US population but make up 32 percent of the troops serving in Vietnam. The bloods consider turning their weapons on white soldiers, but Norm talks them out of it.

A born leader, Norm was our Malcolm and our Martin, Otis later explains. He taught black history to his fellow soldiers and warned them against the anticommunism of the official war propaganda. A racialized sense of solidarity develops among the soldiers. It is the same solidarity that we watch unravel in present day, as competition for the gold escalates inside and outside the group.

The gold was originally recovered by the men from a downed CIA plane. It had been intended as payment to members of the Lahu ethnic group for their support against North Vietnam. The bloods decide to keep and bury the gold and tell their superiors it was captured by the Vietcong. They will come back for it when the time is right. We give this gold to our people, Norm says. It will be reparations. Norm is killed not long after, and it will be decades before the others return.

When these reparations are divided up years later, it is accompanied by the worst forms of selfishness and tribalism.

None of this is expressed better than in the character of Paul, the paranoid and resentful Trump supporter. Lindos performance is the films greatest strength. As Da 5 Bloods unfolds and the conflict over the gold intensifies, Paul descends into madness. His life has been one long act of dying, and now he has embraced this death, running toward it with open arms and sharing it with as many as he can. As he becomes more and more desperate, he delivers his disturbing lines as soliloquies to the camera in close-up shots, reflecting his deep isolation.

How is it that Paul, once committed to black liberation, now solidarizes himself with the fascists in the White House? His character suggests something about the right-wing character of all forms of racial politics.

While there is much to recommend in Da 5 Bloods, some of Lees weaknesses come forward as well. The writer-director is still a little too slick for his own good. Some of the plot points are too convenient and contrived.

References to other films abound. Some are explicit to the point of becoming a distraction, including tributes to Apocalypse Now, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Bridge on the River Kwai, while othersKelleys Heroes, Three Kings and perhaps Three Steps Northlurk in the background.

Lees most famous, and often brash, filmmaking techniques are shoehorned into Da 5 Bloods, including the directors signature dolly shot, which makes characters appear to float toward the camera as the background recedes. Here such an effect appears near the end of the movie and has an obligatory character. The end result is a bit of a mess, as the film wavers between the remarkable and the merely clever.

Viewers are also left with a suggestion near the end of the film that the middle-class Black Lives Matter organization is the modern-day equivalent of the black liberation movements that Norm and the others spoke of in the 1960s.

Without endorsing uncritically the political orientation of figures such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers, it must be said that these earlier figures associated with the struggle for racial equalitynone of whom (like Norm) survived the 1960shave nothing in common with the selfish middle-class layers directing Black Lives Matter.

For Spike Lee, old habits die hard. However, none of the confusion and wrongheadedness undoes the film completely. Above all, the wonderful performance by Delroy Lindo remains.

Theres something to Da 5 Bloods. More than usual.
On Tuesday, the Socialist Equality Partys candidates for United States president and vice-president filed a federal lawsuit in California challenging the states continued enforcement of a requirement to gather nearly 200,000 signatures in order gain access to the November statewide ballot during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit was filed as the number of infections continues to surge in California and the southwestern United States. Last week, California recorded its highest daily count for new COVID-19 cases, over 7,000, while its total death count surpassed 6,000.

SEP presidential candidate Joseph Kishore and vice presidential candidate Norissa Santa Cruz are the plaintiffs, and Californias Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Alex Padilla are the defendants.

The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, argues that the states requirement that independent candidates collect close to 200,000 physical signatures between April 24, 2020 and August 7, 2020 is effectively impossible to meet in light of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and the states countermeasures to it.

At the time of the filing, the number of confirmed cases of the virus in California had climbed above 230,000. Under conditions of a rising rate of infections and deaths, the candidates argued, enforcing the existing ballot access requirements. .. would be tantamount to voter suppression, thereby violating the fundamental democratic rights of the candidates as well as those of California voters.

The lawsuit argues that the candidates launched their campaign in late January, but in early March they determined that the outbreak of the coronavirus left them no choice but to cancel all subsequent public events and campaign activity, including ballot gathering initiatives, so as to protect volunteers, staff and the public at large from spreading the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, statewide, county and municipal orders restricted travel and public interaction ordering an end to all non-essential public travel or work or other social interactions. Some orders outright prohibited all public and private gatherings. Violations of these orders were in many cases made subject to criminal prosecution.

Had the candidates and their supporters attempted to publicly petition to obtain signatures for ballot access, they would have severely jeopardized not only their own health and lives, but those of the public as well. Gathering signatures under these conditions requires close physical proximity to hundreds of thousands of prospective petition signers, as well as physically exchanging petition documents with them, the very hallmarks of high infection risk, the lawsuit states. Had Plaintiffs pursued such petition activity, campaigners would not only have risked death and illness to themselves and the public at large, they would have faced arrest, loss of their liberty and fines and punishment.

The candidates submitted the declaration of a veteran SEP campaigner in Los Angeles, who pointed out that exposing myself to significant numbers of people, even with masks, would involve placing my life in danger. In addition, I would risk not only my own life, I would risk spreading the deadly infection to others.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit explains: Throughout the long progression of the deadly pandemic, officials of the State of California deliberately chose to leave the existing ballot access laws for independent candidates in place, which are disproportionately onerous and restrictive even under ordinary circumstances. No action was taken to develop alternative means of ballot access, despite months of stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders.

The SEPs court filing also includes the testimony of ballot access specialist Richard Winger, the editor of Ballot Access News, who has compiled extensive historical statistics and data on US elections. He pointed out that some states do not have signature requirements at all, while other states that have requirements of 5,000 signatures almost never have more than eight total candidates on the ballot, including the Democratic and Republican candidates.

In his expert opinion, he wrote, Californias figure of 200,000 looms as disproportionate, excessive, and unreasonable.

In their lawsuit, the SEP candidates point to the broad public dissatisfaction with the official political parties. Nationwide, nearly half of eligible voters (46.9 percent, according to the United States Election Project) did not vote in the 2016 presidential election, and turnout was poor for both major party candidates. This fact suggests that a substantial section of the electorate is not satisfied with the narrow range of choices that are commonly available on the ballot.

The SEP candidates point out in their filing that while no effort has been made to make the ballot accessible for socialist, independent, or third-party candidates, the state did modify the procedures for the primary elections.

Specifically, an order by Governor Newsom in March pointed out that in-person voting presents risks to public health and safety in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and could risk undermining social distancing measures imposed by the State Public Health Officer. The order declared that our elections must be accessible, secure, and safe and concluded that voting may take place by mail-in ballot, suspending several sections of the Elections Code.

The court papers filed Tuesday conclude that the operation of Californias ballot access laws, in conjunction with the dangers of petitioning during the pandemic and the governmental restrictions on such activity, impose a severe burden on Plaintiffs ability to seek elected office, in violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of association, equal protection, and due process of the law.

The lawsuit also establishes that the intense political work carried out by the Socialist Equality Party in California over a period of decades has built up a solid political base in the state. In 2018, David Moore was the SEPs candidate for US Senate, winning 24,614 votes, more than any other candidate who was not a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian. That same year, SEP candidate Kevin Mitchell, running for the states 51st Congressional District, won nearly two percent of the vote.

The lawsuit also points to the numerous campaigns the SEP has carried out in the state over important social and economic issues, including organizing resistance to wage cuts and deteriorating working conditions for K-12 teachers, nurses, grocery workers, university workers, and other sections of the working class.

The candidates point out that the political organ of the SEP and its sister parties worldwide, the World Socialist Web Site, is the most widely read socialist publication on the Internet. A growing readership of around 1.5 million people read the website each month, including many thousands of daily readers in California.

The lawsuit is supported a number of affidavits submitted by California voters and SEP supporters. Sebastian Ayala, a student at the University of California, Berkeley who worked for 12 years as a butcher at a Sprouts Farmers Market, stated: If Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz are on the ballot, I plan on voting for them. If they do not, I do not intend to vote.

I believe in the correctness of Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruzs positionsthey are rooted in Marxism and Trotskyism, he added. They are fighting for an egalitarian and democratic society. I want a society that can provide medical care for all, that can end war and poverty and corruption from businesses.

I believe that Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz are the only ones with a realistic program directed towards those objectives, he continued. While many candidates claim to represent the interests of the working class, Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz are the only candidates who genuinely do.

Amy Castillo, a registered nurse, filed a declaration stating, In the 2020 general election, I feel like we are being presented with only two choices, and they are both horrible. I would definitely never vote for Trump, and I am disgusted that we only have Biden as the Democratic choice.

I believe that I should be able to vote for the candidates I want to support, she said. What interests me about Kishore and Santa Cruz is that they are for the working class. They have been fighting for a long time to try to educate the working class on its history and rights. They are also an international party, fighting in places like Mexico and all over the world. That is very important to me because we are all connected internationally, and we are all fighting against capitalism.

As a nurse, she added, I think that requiring people to gather signatures under these circumstances is irresponsible and dangerous. It put peoples lives at risk. I do not agree with forcing Kishore and Santa Cruz and their supporters to risk their lives to gather signatures.

Amy Ellevold, a middle school science teacher who was laid off in June 2020 due to budget cuts, also filed a declaration in support of the campaign.

I want to vote for Joe Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz in this election, she wrote. Over the past 10-15 years I have felt that there has not been a candidate that represented my political values. The Democrats that usually end up getting elected always betray my values, and they have gotten my past vote only by lying to me about who they are and what they will do if elected.

When a number of Sweetwater teachers were fighting against the layoffs in our district, she stated, the Socialist Equality Party was the only organization that stood up for us and opposed the teachers union, which refused to defend us against the district. The union stopped us from protesting and the SEP was calling for the whole working class to mobilize to defend the right to public education.

The case has been assigned to federal district judge Dolly M. Gee, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010. Late in the day Wednesday, the California Attorney Generals office, representing Governor Newsom and Secretary Padilla in their official capacities, filed a request asking to be allowed until July 13 to file a response.

The Socialist Equality Party calls for readers and supporters to support the Kishore/Santa Cruz campaign by signing up for our newsletter, joining the Socialist Equality Party, pledging to be a campaigner, and for US citizens to donate to support the campaign.

Support our campaign and our legal fight to put the SEP on the ballot!
On Monday, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown announced a plan to arrest teenagers police find suspicious and keep them in jail at least until after the July 4th weekend. The move is a massive attack on Chicagos poor and working class youth and flies in the face of the Constitution and democratic rights.

In a press conference Brown told reporters that the Chicago Police Department would seek to round up teenagers who are hanging around what he called Drug Corners. To carry out the arrests, an additional 1,200 officers will be deployed to the poorest sections of the city on Chicagos south and west sides. As is now well-known, every police encounter is also potentially fatal.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot responded to critics of the plan Tuesday, including American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and the Chicago Community Bond Fund, saying, You need to have your attitude adjusted.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot [Credit: AP Photo Jim Young, File]

Lightfoot said teens are paid to carry guns while standing in open-air drug markets and due to their age they do not spend a significant amount of time in jail. The status quo is obviously not working, she said.

Brown claims that the measure is an attempt to prevent a predicted upsurge of gun violence over the July 4th weekend. He stated, We have to have a different outcome when we make a [gun] arrest or an open-air drug market arrest, because these two types of arrests are the precursors to violence in Chicago, and right now theres zero consequence to those arrests.

Brown cynically asserted these arrests are made on behalf of the safety of youth, saying, If we make an arrest Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, were pleading [for them to be held] through the weekend, at least, he continued, Lets protect these young people, who are a victim of their circumstances in many cases. They have no other opportunity. The opportunity Brown proposes to give these teens is a jail sentence.

Working class and poor youth who are arrested will be sent to Chicagos Cook County Jail, which has become a major COVID-19 hotspot. At least seven inmates at the jail have died from coronavirus. It is nearly guaranteed that large numbers of arrested youth will be infected with the virus and potentially die or spread the disease through their communities after being released. In recent weeks, researchers were able to identify 15.9 percent of all COVID-19 cases in Chicago and 15.7 percent of those in Illinois in the month of April were associated with the jail.

The announcement comes as the Lightfoot administration has ramped up its law-and-order strategy following a sharp rise in shootings over the past two weekends and the large demonstrations against police violence. In her statement on the George Floyd protests at the end of May, Lightfoot expressed that there would be no tolerance for demonstrations against police, saying, I will not let criminals take over our city.

The extrajudicial jailing of teenagers is also an appeal to the Trump administration, which recently sent a letter to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot urging them to take decisive action against gun violence. The letter called for unrelenting support for the police and the establishment of law and order in Chicago. In other words, martial law. Despite her empty statements of opposition to the president, Lightfoot is more than willing to oblige.

Trumps letter and the statements from Lightfoot and Brown offer nothing but crocodile tears for the victims of shooting deaths. Brown went as far as to say violence is simply the result of evil murdering bastards. They offer no answers to the social cause of violence, which is above all inequality produced by capitalism.

The crackdown on the youth is political retribution against the poorest sections of the working class for their opposition to police violence. It is not a coincidence that this massively anti-democratic measure is being enforced on youth following their large and continuing demonstrations against the police and social inequality.

Lightfoot, who has been portrayed by the trade unions and pseudo-left around the Democratic Party as a progressive mayor, has pursued law-and-order policies from the start of the pandemic, threatening to arrest and jail those who violated the early lockdown orders.

According to a report by the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago, in Chicago over 8 percent of youth aged 1619 are unemployed and over 20 percent aged 2024 are out of work. Among Chicagos black residents, who are overwhelmingly working class, the number jumps to an unemployment rate of 38 percent for the 2024 age group.

In addition to unemployment, these young people struggle with homelessness, food insecurity and drug addiction. They now face indiscriminate arrest, imprisonment and infection from COVID-19.

A statement from the Chicago Community Bond Fund condemned the decision, stating, There is no correlation between gun violence and the significantly lower number of people in jail and that If criminalization and incarceration made communities safer, the United States would be the safest country in the world.

Since the recent wave of coronavirus and its economic effects, including mass unemployment, has swept through working class and poor areas of the city battered by decades of neglect and abuse, new police tools are being brought online funded directly by the ruling class.

The Sun Times has recently reported a new mass surveillance tool in the wake of the anti-police violence protests, the Strategic Decision Support Center, focused on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) system and working 24 hours a day. The center is funded directly through a donation from hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, CEO of Citadel Capital.

The new system connects more than 32,000 surveillance cameras on CTA to 30,000 cameras elsewhere, some of which include the ability to read license plates, with 4,000 additional cameras added to the network. Historically, Chicago has been and remains the most heavily surveilled US city.

The social conditions in Chicago are a direct consequence of decades of Democratic Party rule in the service of the financial aristocracy, who have shuttered industrial jobs, created widespread poverty, slashed education funding and closed schools. The youth are not to blame for the social devastation they face. Instead the working class must name its true enemy, the capitalist class organized in both ruling parties.

The solution to violence, unemployment and mass inequality can only come about through a struggle for socialism. Billions must be appropriated from the banks, corporations and the police. Resources need to be diverted to providing jobs, health care and education to unemployed working class youth.

Young workers and students must develop their fight against police violence and inequality into an explicit struggle for socialism. We urge all young people interested in building this movement to take up the fight themselves and to join the International Youth and Students for Social Equality today.
Due to restrictions implemented by the Chinese government since late March to limit the number of international flights, tens if not hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, scholars, and tourists are stranded overseas.

Since the beginning of March, the spread of the coronavirus has been largely been contained in China with the number of new daily cases dropped below 100 by March 6. At the same time, a sharp increase in the number of infected cases was seen in the United States and among West European countries like Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Within this context, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced on March 26 a Notice on Further Reducing International Passenger Flights during the Epidemic Prevention and Control Period. This so-called Five-One policy is aimed at capping the number of international flights coming into China. According to this notice, each Chinese airline is only allowed to maintain one route to any specific country with no more than one flight per week and each foreign airline is only allowed to maintain one route to China with no more than one weekly flight. The notice also required each flights passenger load to be no more than 75 percent. This policy led to mass cancellations of flights back to China.

Women in London wear face masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

According to statistics from Chinas Ministry of Education, about 1.6 million Chinese students and scholars are currently studying or working overseas. Among them are a large number of students who are about to graduate and many short-term visiting scholars whose exchange programs are ending. All of them will face visa expirations and the risk of unlawful overstay. The Five-One policy went into effect during the same period when many universities announced their plans to transition to online classes and evacuate school dormitories. Students who had already packed all their belongings and moved out from their dorms and apartments, but could not board flights back to China, were suddenly forced to find lodging for another indefinite period of time.

Right after the policy was implemented, several students posted that they were stranded at an airport in Ethiopia where their layover was. Only after arriving in Ethiopia on March 28, they were told their next flight to Guangzhou, China was cancelled due to the Five-One policy. Ethiopian Airlines helped them rebook another flight to Shanghai a day later, but that flight was soon cancelled as well. They were forced to stay at the airport for days, uncertain of whether they could get home and fearful of contracting the virus in the airport. The students also lacked personal essentials since they had no access to their checked luggage. Eventually, the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia arranged a special flight to return them to China. Their experience was not unique. Reports and posts on social media revealed similar experiences of students, scholars, and tourists who were stranded in places like Switzerland and Vancouver due to the cancellation of their return trip.

The number of available flights dropped sharply from the end of March. Including flights from all over the world to all cities in China, there are only about 100 flights a week still operating according to the Peoples Daily. As a result, the price of plane tickets has soared. It is not uncommon to have to pay $10,000 or more for a single ticket, many times higher than previous prices.

The situation has been made even worse as major airlines have sought to profiteer from the desperation of students and scholars by deliberately overbooking flights. Passengers waiting to board a flight were told hours before its take-off that no seats were available. The only option is to pay far more for a first-class seat.

Tourists with medical emergencies stranded overseas face a dire situation. It was reported that an elderly man with Parkinsons disease and terminal cancer visited his niece in Hawaii in early February, before the pandemic broke out in the United States. While he originally planned to return to China on March 28, this flight, along with other flights booked in April and May, were all cancelled due to the Five-One policy. At the beginning of May, he experienced a cancer metastasis and was in a very critical condition. Having no health insurance in the US, the expenses for his emergency treatments in Hawaii quickly went beyond what his family could afford. In desperation, his children turned to social media for help, hoping to find a way to return him to China where his family could take care of him. By mid-June, he was still stranded in Hawaii.

Compounding the difficulties facing Chinese citizens overseas, the CAAC announced on May 19 that the Five-One policy would be extended to October. Then, on June 4, after the Trump administration announced plans to bar Chinese airlines from flying to the US due to Chinas restrictions on American airlines, the CAAC published an updated guideline that slightly eased the flight restrictions.

Under the new CAAC guideline, an airline whose passengers all tested negative for the virus for three weeks in a row will be allowed to have one more additional flight every week. If more than five passengers on the flights of a certain airline test positive, all flights will be shut down for a week. If 10 tested positive, flights will be shut down for four weeks. The new measure only added to the confusion and chaos as it is unpredictable if flights will be cancelled after people had already prepared to move out of their housing and leave the country.

On June 23, the Chinese embassy in the United Kingdom announced anyone who boards a temporarily-scheduled commercial flight back to China needs to have a negative COVID-19 test result that was completed no more than 120 hours before the departure of the flight. This is virtually impossible since the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK does not provide coronavirus tests to those who exhibit no symptoms or have no close contact with a confirmed case. Moreover, even if tested, it usually takes 2-5 days to obtain a test result, making it difficult to meet the 120-hour limit.

These bureaucratic measures have caused widespread anger, particularly among young people both inside China and overseas. There are still tens of thousands of Chinese students and scholars who are refreshing airline websites many times every day to get a ticket. Some have four, five, or even more tickets at handin case of cancellationsdespite the huge financial burden. They move from one temporary lodging to another because no one knows when the next available flight will be.

These stranded individuals have been left to fend for themselves. The Chinese government has bureaucratically imposed restrictions and offered little or nothing in the way of aid to its citizens. At the same time, the governments of the countries in which they are residing or travelling through have denied any responsibility and also provided no assistance. Most countries have stopped their shore pass program, nullified most types of visas they handed out before the pandemic, or even completely shut their borders for international transiting flights.

The plight that Chinese students, scholars, and tourists face is not unique. Hundreds and thousands of travellers from all parts of the world are also stranded in foreign countries due to the lockdown measures imposed by many governments. Each of them preoccupied with the national interests of their own capitalist class not the needs of workers and youth.
A longtime Republican Party insider familiar with East Broward said he didnt know the location of the fundraiser, but said Hillsboro Beach is home to several people who could be hosts for such an exclusive event. And, he said, its quite possibly not a name many people would be familiar with.
The WSWS recently spoke with a respiratory therapist at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York City, about her experiences in the coronavirus pandemic. For two months, from March through April, Elmhurst Hospital, which serves a large and predominantly immigrant working class community, was the epicenter of the epicenter of the COVID pandemic in the US.

Respiratory therapists are trained to treat patients with severe respiratory diseases and operate ventilators and other respiratory equipment. They are, therefore, indispensable for the treatment of critically ill COVID-19 patients. We changed the first name of the worker to Patricia to protect her identity.

Patricia has worked with intubated patients for 22 years. At several points during the interview, she was overcome with emotion, recalling the deeply traumatic experiences of the past months.

Elmhurst Hospital in New York City

We started getting patients in late February, but we didnt realize they were COVID positive until March. It came on so fast, we were not prepared at all, we tried, but the amount of patients coming with COVID was more than we anticipated.

Both the Trump administration and the Democratic Cuomo administration criminally delayed any social distancing measures and mass testing for the virus, even though the first COVID-19 case was registered in the US in January.

New York, the state hardest hit by the pandemic in the spring, only went into lockdown on March 22. Later scientific models found that already in early March about 10,000 people must have been infected with the virus in New York. In fact, March, Patricia told the WSWS, was the hardest month at Elmhurst.

We had practically no staff and we were not able to get to everybody. We had multiple codes, rapid response teams, and intubations at once. Although there were MDs [doctors] and nurses at these events, we could barely keep up with bringing vents and BiPAPs [Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure machines for non-invasive ventilation] to the floors for intubation. We had to choose who we could help. So many floors were paging us at once. It was so overwhelming physically and emotionally.

She said that they had to beg their administrator for more staff. When she proposed that the hospital hire respiratory therapists from agencies for $4,500 to $7,000 a week, he responded, Im not paying that.

In late March, an ER doctor from Elmhurst Hospital, Colleen Smith, published a desperate video plea for help in the New York Times, calling conditions at the hospital apocalyptic. By then, refrigerated trucks and makeshift morgues were beginning to appear outside major hospitals in New York City.

In early April, workers at Elmhurst were finally told that they would get help. By April 9, Patricia recounted, respiratory therapists from out of state began coming in. The Air Force and Army also sent personnel. In total, around 25 respiratory therapists came, she said. The last of them were set to leave on June 30.

Prior to getting help, it was pure hell. Ten to 20 patients would die daily. Most of the time you would have two to three floors to yourself and/or multiple ICU units. Thats about 20 to 30 vents to yourself, in addition to responding to cardiac arrests, rapid response teams, transporting vent dependent patients to units or procedures, and trying to give meds. And we were trying to help out our colleagues as well.

Initially, we would have five respiratory therapists for the day shift and four at nights, but this went down as March went on, due to people getting sick and quitting on us. Two elderly co-workers put in their papers early because they were overwhelmed. Another quit because he got sick and was stressed out. Another coworker got really sick and was intubated. Hes not intubated anymore, but it will take a long time for him to recover. He is not the same. She estimated that five or more hospital workers had died from COVID-19 at Elmhurst.

The shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), above all masks, was particularly acute at her department. While limited PPE was supplied to other departments, her department, Patricia said, did not get any deliveries at all. It was very degrading to have to beg the nurses in the units and floors for PPE, even though we assist with intubations, extubations, cardiac arrest teams, transports of vented patients, and more. We were literally in the patients face and mouths. Sending us to the floors without proper PPE and adequate staff is like sending a soldier into war without a helmet, bullet proof vest, and firearm. I felt like we were going to die. We were so exhausted and terrified.

On top of the criminally negligent response of the government to the pandemic, decades of austerity in health care have played a major role in driving up the death toll of the pandemic. As part of the public hospital system Health + Hospitals, and set in one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City, Elmhurst Hospital has suffered particularly severely from these cuts. In an analysis published on July 1, the New York Times found that, due to understaffing and lack of equipment, patients were up to three times more likely to die at poor community hospitals like Elmhurst than they were in facilities in the richest parts of Manhattan.

Even as the pandemic was at its peak, New York state was pushing for $400 million in Medicaid cuts that will, above all, affect public hospitals like Elmhurst Hospital which treat uninsured patients.

Patricia emphasized that staffing shortages among respiratory therapists had been severe even before the pandemic hit, and that she and her co-workers had warned of it time and again.

When I began at Elmhurst over 15 years ago, there were 30 to 35 respiratory therapists. Now, we are down to 19. There were no layoffs but every time someone retired, they barely replaced them. It would be better to hire more staff, but apparently its cheaper just to give out over time here and there. People have come and left because of poor treatment and favoritism. We all love our jobs and try our best, but its very hard when you dont have enough staff and support from your director and administrator.

In most of the country, the safety average of respiratory is four to eight ventilator patients in a unit. At Elmhurst for the last 10 years, you could have anywhere from 10 to 20 patients. This is very unsafe; it makes it very hard to provide good respiratory care. Beckers Hospital Review noted in late April that New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, were the three states with the most severe shortages of respiratory therapists in the country. For an adequate response to COVID-19, New York needed an additional 7,400 respiratory therapists, more than twice as much as the 4,490 respiratory therapists that the state was employing at the time.

Patricia stressed that deaths could have been prevented through proper staffing and PPE. The patients in March didnt have to die like this, if we would have had more staff and better equipment to work with. We also would not have been as stressed out.

Patricia warned that Elmhurst Hospital was in no position to adequately meet a new influx of patients in a second wave. Coronavirus cases have been skyrocketing across the country, rapidly approaching the 3 million mark. While New York is in the advanced stage of reopening, New York City is still recording hundreds of new infections every day. At Elmhurst Hospital, Patricia said, cases are picking up again. Its very scary because its not even flu season yet.

Even though the hospital is still treating COVID-19 patients, the already low standards for PPE have been lowered yet again. Before, we were able to wear protective gear, but now youre not allowed to wear PPE outside the designated COVID units. There are goggles, gloves and scrubs, but its very hard to get masks. Patients with and without COVID-19 are still mistakenly put together, something that has been occurring throughout the pandemic, further driving up infection.

Patricia stressed the failure of management at her hospital and concluded, If they dont get more [respiratory] therapists were going to be ill prepared again if a second wave hits. We really need proper staffing in order to have better safety outcomes.
The strikes at two Detroit Fiat Chrysler plants, Jefferson North and Sterling Heights, against intolerable health and safety conditions for production workers have met a powerful response from workers in Germany. Many workers from different industries expressed their solidarity on social media with the protests aimed at securing adequate protections against coronavirus infection, which have been fiercely opposed by the company management and the union.

When Zafer, a Ford worker in Cologne, heard about the attacks on FCA colleagues in the US, he immediately responded: The union and works council always let you down. Its the same everywhere.

He reported that certain minimum standards were being observed at his workplace. Masks have been distributed and the body temperature of workers measured at the entrance gate. If we had a case of corona, things would get hectic here too, he said. Weve had a few cases so far at Ford, but none in my section.

Colleagues in the United States should have the right to organise and take responsibility for their health. He stressed, If there are corona cases, something has to be done, health comes first. Its not a laughing matter. I would do the same. If I lose my life, nobody can give it back to me.

Zafer was not surprised by the threats from management against auto workers taking action. This is a big problem, the leaders of protests are always threatened, so that others get scared and do not fight for their rights. Its blackmail. You have to take action. He emphasized that behind unsafe conditions and job cuts was the drive to profit. Profits have to be right, production must be maintained, thats how it is. We have heard rumours that Ford wants to cut an additional 5,000 jobs because of the corona crisis, he reported.

There has also been great solidarity on the part of Amazon workers. Many employees are themselves on strike to demand adequate protection against infection. Gunther Schachtmann has been working at the mail order giant for 21 years and sees clear parallels with the situation confronting Fiat Chrysler workers. Its outrageous that 86 of the Amazon workers in Hamburg tested positive and the factory was not closed for a second, nor were all employees tested," he said. "The same thing in Hersfeld. Workers have not even been informed about which departments were affected. If two people test positive in a cruise ship, all 3,000 on board are put into quarantine. Why is it different in workplaces? It is a mockery.

Schachtmann expressly supported the fact that workers at Fiat Chrysler have organised themselves independently of the unions to defend their interests. Unions are not unlike the corporations. So, of course, these workers committees could be a step forward.

Support has also come from many other workers. Peter, who is employed as a ramp worker for Star Alliance airlines, wrote: I have heard about the spontaneous strikes at Fiat Chryslerand of course I support the people who want to work there in safety.

The nurse Heidi Biebrach said: It has always been the case with exploitation and health: as long as employers earn money and are not themselves affected, it doesnt matter. As soon as they are in danger themselves and cant spend their money, they do something.

Mathias Fuchs from Rostock wrote to the WSWS when he learned about the strikes at Fiat Chrysler: It must be a basic requirement for workers to work in safety at the company. The action committees are therefore very good and important. They can set safety standards that are beneficial for all workers. They ensure that, in the face of the pandemic, workers do not fall ill or injure themselves. Its not acceptable when bosses think workers are all replaceable and then run the risk of workers being injured or getting sick. Keep it up. Its the right way to a better future.

The WSWS is continuing to collect solidarity addresses and supports the establishment of rank-and-file safety committees. Contact the WSWS Auto Workers Newsletter by email at auto@gleichheit.de.
Chinas National Peoples Congress Standing Committee on Tuesday passed a controversial national security law for Hong Kong that will allow the central government to crackdown on political dissent in the city and further curtail democratic rights. The new law took effect Tuesday night, shortly before the 23rd anniversary of the United Kingdoms handover of Hong Kong to China.

Beijing stated the law is necessary to counter foreign forces, which it has blamed for the protests that erupted in Hong Kong last summer. An Office for Safeguarding National Security will be set up in the city that will allow Beijings judicial system to take over criminal cases where there is supposed foreign interference, it is deemed a particularly serious case, or if authorities believe there is a threat to national security.

The four types of criminal designations under the new law include subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces. The law states, for example, that anyone who damages government facilities, which became the targets of public anger in protests last year, could be charged with subversion. Workers who attempt to shut down public transportation in a citywide strike could face terrorism charges. Penalties for a conviction range from a minimum of 10 years in prison to life behind bars.

Police in Hong Kong detain a protester after pepper spraying him, July. 1, 2020 (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

The law has already been used to attack the democratic rights of Hong Kong people. On Wednesday, thousands gathered to mark the anniversary of Hong Kongs return to China as well as to speak out against the legislation. Police used water cannon, tear gas, and pepper spray to break up the demonstrations and arrested nearly 200 people, at least seven specifically under the new law.

The legislation will undoubtedly be used to suppress mass protests like those that erupted last year against planned extradition legislation. While millions of people in Hong Kong concerned about Chinas encroachment on democratic rights joined the demonstrations, the movement was hijacked by protest leaders who appealed to US and British imperialism to intervene to defend democratic rights. This has created the pretext for Beijing to ram through the latest national security legislation.

The US and its allies, including Britain and Australia, are now cynically posturing as defenders of human rights in Hong Kong and denouncing the new legislation. Their concern, however, is not the erosion of democratic rights, but to exploit the issue to further ratchet up their confrontation with Beijing. The Trump administration has already announced that it intends to end the special status of Hong Kong that continued after its return to China in 1997.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted on Wednesday, The CCPs draconian national security law ends free Hong Kong and exposes the Partys greatest fear: the free will and free thinking of its own people. The previous day, he tweeted that the US was ending its limited weapon exports to Hong Kong as well as the sale of sensitive technologies, declaring, If Beijing now treats Hong Kong as One Country, One System, so must we.

US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross warned of more economic penalties: Further actions to eliminate differential treatment are also being evaluated. We urge Beijing to immediately reverse course and fulfil the promises it has made to the people of Hong Kong and the world.

The rank hypocrisy of such comments is underscored by the Trump administrations response to sustained mass protests in the US against police violence. Last month Trump attempted to mount a coup announcing that he would deploy the military to suppress the demonstrations in a naked breach of the US constitution.

Trumps denunciations of China are in part to deflect attention from his administrations criminal negligence towards the COVID-19 pandemic that is responsible for the deaths of more than 130,000 Americans. Without a shred of evidence he has blamed China for the pandemic even accusing it of releasing the virus from a Wuhan virology laboratory.

Trumps virulent anti-China campaign, however, is a continuation of the Obama administrations pivot to Asia to undermine and ultimately subordinate what Washington regards as the chief threat to its global dominance. Hong Kong is just one of the flash points in the Indo-Pacific that the US is deliberately inflaming, including Taiwan, the South China Sea and Indias border conflict with China.

In an editorial on Tuesday, the state-owned Global Times criticized the US for declaring the new security legislation marked the end of one country, two systems under which Hong Kong was guaranteed limited autonomy after returned to China. It declared that there was a malicious scheme to pull Hong Kong from China into the US power circle and turn the city into a fulcrum for the US to contain China.

While Beijing has concerns about imperialist intrigues in Hong Kong, its chief fear is that social and political unrest in the city over democratic and social rights will spill over the border into the rest of China. Hong Kong is one of the most socially unequal cities in the world and the eruption of strikes and protests has the potential to trigger anti-government opposition in China where the economy has slowed dramatically and social tensions have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officially 5.9 percent of the Chinese workforce is unemployed, down slightly from a record high of 6.2 percent in February, a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, according to Wei Yao and Michelle Lam, economists at Societe Generale, some 10 percent of those considered employed are in fact out of workmeaning as many as 80 million workers are without employment. The Covid-19 shock to the job market is unprecedented in its scale, length and nature, Yao and Lam wrote in May.

Another 600 million workers are highly exploited, earning just 1,000 yuan a month, or $US140 which is not even enough to rent a room in a medium-sized city. Students and workers whether on the mainland or in Hong Kong face the same conditions: unemployment or low-paying jobs, unsafe housing, and brutal social inequality.

It is to the working class throughout China that those fighting for democratic rights in Hong have to turn, not to US and British imperialism. Only a unified movement of workers in China and internationally can defend democratic and social rights on the basis of a struggle for genuine socialism.
Despite receiving billions of dollars in low interest loans through the grossly misnamed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), thousands of US businesses plan on letting go over 700,000 workers across the country once the program runs out of funds.

In the survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, roughly 70,000 businesses that received thousands, or in some cases, millions of dollars in low-interest, forgivable loans, plan to lay off at least 10 workers each.

Sold as a lifesaver for small businesses and a free market solution to keeping workers employed and paid, the Paycheck Protection Program was never anything more than a handout to business and a new taxpayer-funded revenue stream for Wall Street banks. Under the auspices of former Goldman Sachs executive and current Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, applications for the loans were submitted through the Small Business Administration with no oversight, just as intended.

Published last week, the survey concluded that 14 percent of the 4.6 million companies that have received 1 percent interest loans through the corporate-government slush fund are planning on laying off workers when the money is depleted. Exploding the narrative that the program would save jobs, businesses are firing workers and slashing hours even though the program allows a business owner to use up to 60 percent of his or her PPP funds on payroll through December 31.

Reports of PPP funds being abused since the programs inception havent stopped Congress from replenishing the program with haste. Loan applications were extended through May and into June, even as it was reported that thousands of the approved loans were being siphoned off by hotel and restaurant chains, cruise ship lines, medical device companies and well-connected hedge funds.

The PPP was launched in March when the $2.2 trillion CARES Act was passed 96-0 in the Senate and an overwhelming voice vote in the House. It was signed into law by President Trump on March 27. The first round of funding for the program, $349 billion, ran out by April 16, before millions of small businesses could even get the necessary paperwork to apply. Of the mom and pop small businesses that were granted funds, many didnt receive the loans until the end of May.

Even as it was reported that only eight percent of small firms that applied for loans received any money, Congress swiftly moved to enact a second round of funding after the initial $310 billion disappeared in two weeks. In that time, large businesses gobbled up loans worth up to $20 billion while Wall Street banks made over $10 billion in processing fees.

As social anger grew over the blatant corruption baked into the PPP, Mnuchin announced that new guidelines would be implemented that would supposedly exclude larger firms. Mnuchin also called for firms and businesses that didnt need the loans to return them, which, according to Forbes, added an estimated $12 billion to the program at the start of June and has left the program with approximately $130 billion remaining.

The deadline to apply for any new loans was set for June 30, 2020.

However, in a late-night Senate hearing Tuesday, and a textbook example of unanimity within the ruling class, all 100 US senators--Republicans, Democrats and nominal independents such as Bernie Sanders--voted on a five-week extension for the program through August 8. The extension is expected to pass the House and be signed by Trump as early as this week.

Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Mnuchin expressed his desire for the five week extension and that the $130 billion left in the fund be made available not to laid off health care workers or cash strapped school districts, but to businesses that are most hard hit... [including] restaurants and hotels and others, where it is critical to get people back to work.

In announcing the extension through a joint press release, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York commended the program as a lifeline to... small businesses struggling to stay afloat during these turbulent times... Senate Democrats have ensured that small businesses can continue to have the opportunity to apply for these loans that can mean the difference between staying open and closing for good.

Schumers statements attest to the detached reality he and the rest of the political establishment inhabit. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois, Harvard Business School, Harvard University and the University of Chicago in May projected that more than 100,000 small businesses had shut down permanently since the pandemic escalated in March.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just announced this week that nearly half, 47.2 percent, of working-age Americans did not have work the month of May. In many cities, the line for the food bank stretches as long as the unemployment line. In addition to layoffs, workers will have to contend with militarized police departments preparing to evict hundreds of thousands of workers and families from their homes as the eviction moratorium in the CARES Act is set to expire at the end of July. There has been no signal from either party that the moratorium will be extended.

In addition to continuing layoffs and the threat of eviction, workers are also being squeezed by the continued refusal of the Trump administration to agree to any extension of the federal $600 addition to state unemployment benefits. For those workers who have been able to get through busy phone lines and navigate the labyrinthian unemployment insurance, the $600 weekly benefit has been the only lifeline. This lifeline is scheduled to run out on July 25 and the stage is now set for an economic and social catastrophe not seen in the US since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Only the wilfully naive could possibly believe that Boris Johnson is about to deliver a New Deal to Build! Build! Build! Britain in what he falsely claims is the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that is the snake oil the prime minister of a government of arch-Thatcherites tried to sell to an incredulous public this week.

His speech was a political lesson in the utter indifference of Britains ruling elite to the suffering they have inflicted on millions of people during the pandemic, and proof of their preparations to do far worse in the weeks and months ahead.

Johnson at times appeared enraptured by what he assumed was his own soaring rhetoric, but which came over as rambling nonsense papering over transparent lies. He began his keynote speech in Dudley by acknowledging, It may seem a bit premature to make a speech now about Britain after COVID, when that deceptively nasty disease is still rampant in other countries, when global case numbers are growing fast and when many in this country are nervousrightlyabout more outbreaks

But this was not about to stop him from doing so, as he insisted, we cannot continue simply to be prisoners of this crisis.

Johnson admitted in passing that there are plenty of things that people say and will say that we got wrong, and we owe that discussion and that honesty to the tens of thousands who have died before their time, to the families who have lost loved ones. But, he stressed, I also know that some things went rightand emphatically right.

He listed as proof the Nightingale field hospitals, built out of fear that the National Health Service (NHS) would collapse due to the impact of Tory cuts, trials of the drug dexamethasoneBritains sole medical success storyand the jobs furlough scheme. This latter example was made all the more cynical by the fact that he said later that furloughing cannot go on forever and that jobs that many people had in January are not coming backor at least not in that form.

Now it was no longer the coronavirus that was the priority, but the vertiginous drop in GDP. Rescuing the economy through his murderous back to work drive was the task at hand, with the world facing a greater economic crisis than the 2008 crash.

In answer, Johnson proclaimed his New Deal as a mission to unite and to level up, that would serve notice that we will not be responding to this crisis with what people called austerity. This all amounted to infrastructure spending pledges of just 5 billion, most of which was money already pledged. The most significant pledges included:

 1.5 billion this year for hospital maintenance, when thanks to years of underfunding there is a 6.5 billion maintenance backlog in the NHS. An investment Project Speed will deliver 40 new hospitals already promised, but this includes the refurbishment of existing hospitals. Johnson refused to promise a pay rise for health care workers.

 1 billion to fund 50 projects in a 10-year school rebuilding programme. But any work will only begin in September 2021. This, too, had already been allocated.

 Other infrastructure pledges included 100 million for 29 road network projects, including such world-shaking endeavours as boosting the quality of the A15, making the key route network in Liverpool more resilient, maintenance work on a viaduct in Coventry and a road in York, and replacing poor-quality footways in Sheffield.

 Johnson also promised 96 million for the Towns Fund spending projects, which was already pledged from an existing 3.6 billion urban infrastructure project, and 12 billion for affordable homes over eight years, also already pledged. He said he would scythe through red tape and get things done by doing away with planning laws, including allowing all commercial premises to be reclassified as residential property. The last bonfire of red tape pledged by the Tories ended in the horrific loss of 72 lives in Grenfell Tower.

Union bureaucrats, Labourites, and liberal commentators lined up to denounce Johnsons attempt to claim the mantle of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the US President who responded to the Great Depression precipitated by the 1929 Wall Street Crash with his New Deal to stimulate the US economy through infrastructure projects. Their task was not difficult.

Trades Union Congress General Secretary Frances OGrady could point out, The 5 billion of spending he announced today was reheated, and his spending commitments are worth just 0.2% of GDP. Roosevelts New Deal involved annual spending increases of between 5 and 7 percent of US GDP, which cumulatively raised federal government debt from 16 to 44 percent of GDP in a decade.

Equally unfavourable comparisons can be made to Roosevelts construction projects such as completing the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, and the Lincoln Tunnel. Johnsons total spending bill would not even cover the cost of filling Britains potholes.

But neither OGrady nor anyone else is proposing much more than Johnson. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was reduced to making a call for the partial retention of the jobs furlough scheme for workers in hospitality and retail.

Roosevelt was intent on defending the capitalist system at a time of an acute crisis that was not only economic, but political. The Wall Street crash and the Great Depression aroused widespread anti-capitalist sentiment in the working class towards financial speculators and industrial magnates alike. Fear of social unrest, the political growth of socialist sentiment, and the threat of revolution prompted him to speak in 1936 of the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. And to boast, Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for meand I welcome their hatred.

These fears of social and political conflict meant the US ruling class, in the worlds most powerful capitalist nation and with enormous economic reserves and industrial capacity, was prepared to tolerate Roosevelts concerted effort to placate social tensions. In contrast, Johnson is prime minister of a declining imperialist power, dominated politically, economically, and socially by a global financial oligarchy whose sole concern is that the flood of wealth into its coffers continues.

Even setting aside Johnsons lies, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has promised a total increase in capital spending of just 100 billion over five years. Britains GDP is approximately 2.2 trillion. The real response of the Johnson government to the pandemic has, rather, been to hand over hundreds of billions to the major corporations, banks, and hedge funds, and to make available 750 billion in quantitative easing.

There are those within the Tory Party, MPs recently elected in former Labour strongholds in 2019, who are urging Johnson to express sympathy for the millions impacted by the pandemic. But even as he spoke of a government that puts its arms around people, Johnson insisted, And yes of course we clap for our NHS, but under this government we also applaud those who make our NHS possible. Our innovators, our wealth creators, our capitalists and financiers.

Johnson translated the essential social relations on which his government is based into the reassurance, When I say level up, I dont mean attacking our great companies. He even felt obliged to make the most superfluous denial: My friends, I am not a communist.

The economic catastrophe now unfolding will see no change of heart by Johnson, any more than it will prompt the Labour Party or the unions to end their collusion with the Tories and the employers. It will see unrelenting class warfare waged by the ruling class and its parties. The working class must prepare its answer by building action committees in every workplace and neighbourhood, to maintain safety during the escalating pandemic and to oppose every attack levelled against jobs, wages, and essential services in a struggle for socialism.
Last Friday, the Verdi trade union organised rallies against closures and mass dismissals in front of Galeria Kaufhof Karstadt chain department stores throughout Germany. Several dozen employees, local people showing solidarity, and representatives of the union and works councils took part in each of the rallies.

Department store workers were understandably angry and desperate about the closures. On the part of the union, however, the whole thing was a cynical attempt to cover up the traces of their betrayal. Verdi brazenly claimed it would fight for every job and every store. In reality, the union and the general works council were involved in drawing up the closure plans.

A week earlier, Verdi had announced the conclusion of a collective agreement with the company, which is in so-called voluntary insolvency proceedings. Sixty-two branches throughout Germanymore than a third!are to be closed, with over 6,000 staff losing their jobs.

Verdi and the general works council are trying to present this jobs massacre as a success. They claim to have prevented even more branches from being closed and the staff in the remaining branches from being reduced by (another) 10 percent.

One day after the rallies, which took place in the form of human chains and similarly powerless symbolic actions, Verdi announced a collective agreement with Galleria Kaufhof Karstadt concerning the closure of 50 delicatessen stores with 637 of 2,100 workers losing their jobs.

For the owner of the department store chain, Rene Benko, the loss of sales due to the coronavirus pandemic provides a welcome excuse to quickly implement his long-standing plans using the insolvency proceedings. Under this particular form of voluntary insolvency, the company management is obliged to submit its own restructuring plan to the insolvency court within three monthsi.e., a plan to close down the locations that are not generating enough profit and to make massive job and wage cuts.

In this way, Benko can use the court as a lever to enforce his strategy. For years, his strategy has been to gather as many department stores as possible in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other countries, but only maintain and expand the most profitable ones. For the rest, at most the properties are sold off, while the sale of goods is largely discontinued. Galeria Kaufhof Karstadt belongs to this rest.

Long before the coronavirus crisis and the insolvency proceedings, Benko concluded a deal in March with financial investor Apollo to this end. The deal provides for the takeover of 17 of its department store properties by Apollo, leaving him with only 10 stores, all of which are in prime locations, as well as the KaDeWe luxury outlets in Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg.

A similar department store for the super-rich is also to be built in Vienna next year. The few profitable properties belonging to Galeria Kaufhof, such as the one on Berlins Alexanderplatz or Frankfurts Zeil, could then take shelter in this KaDeWe group, Benko generously announced.

The selection of the locations condemned to death and those chosen for survival shows the anti-working-class character of the corporate and social plans approved by Verdi. The branches in poorer parts of Berlin, such as Wedding, Neukolln or Tempelhof, which provide the population with all-round service daily, will be closed. In the KaDeWe Group, on the other hand, over 1 billion are to be invested in the coming months. With its luxurious ambience and range of goods, this is aimed at wealthy tourists, such as the relatives of Chinese entrepreneurs and state bureaucrats, Russian oligarchs and Arab sheikhs.

The Wiener Zeitung is enthusiastic about this department store concept: The senses should be stimulated, and emotions aroused. Customers should be able to discover goods on-site and have them delivered to their homes afterwards. According to a KaDeWe spokeswoman, this has already brought about a 30 to 40 percent increase in sales in Berlin in the first two years of its realisation.

To accelerate the implementation of this concept, Benko, as owner of the properties, is refusing to grant rent reductions to his own stores. Only those locations of the KaDeWe Group that can also pay the high rents are to survive and, at the same time, as the owner, put even more money in his pockets. The others should die more quickly.

Verdi and the representatives of the general works council collaborate very closely with Benko and his management in all these shady dealings. They always follow the same pattern: Behind closed doors, wage cuts and job losses are negotiated, only to pass off the devastating result as a victory in the fight to prevent worse.

In December 2019, the so-called integration agreement for employees of the merged Galeria Kaufhof and Karstadt chains established significantly lower salaries than the regional collective agreement. Christmas bonuses and annual special payments were also abolished. In return, the department store saviour Benko then promised a location guarantee until the end of 2024.

As could have been foreseen, barely six months later, there is nothing left of it. Instead, the new contract announced on June 19 once again enforces wage cuts. The minimum wage increases of 0.3 percent for 2020, agreed in December 2019 and possible (!) wage increases for 2021, have been retrospectively converted into work time credits by Verdi, with corresponding consequences for annual income, and short-time working and unemployment benefits.

The establishment of transfer companies, agreed upon by the works councils, into which employees who have lost their jobs are to be transferred, ostensibly for retraining measures, is downright morbid. In reality, these transfer companies are nothing more than marshalling yards into unemployment.

An invention of the trade unions, they were already notorious as such during the mass redundancies during the restoration of capitalism in East Germany in the 1990s. They are intended to demoralise workers and prevent them from taking up an active fight against the closures agreed by the union and management.

One thing is obvious to all employees who are thinking about how to conduct this fight effectively: the union and the works council big-wigs are on the other side, on the side of multibillionaire Rene Benko and his equally wealthy investors, such as management consultant Roland Berger, some insurance companies and the Thai Central Group, the main shareholder of the premium real estate of the KaDeWe Group.

With the closures, mass layoffs and wage cuts at Galeria Kaufhof Karstadt, at Lufthansa and the auto companies and suppliers, the destruction of jobs and wages is taking on a similarly gigantic scale as during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when it was enforced with the help of emergency decrees issued by the Bruning, Papen and Schleicher regimes.

The German bourgeoisie then brought Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933 to consolidate these conditions of exploitation by smashing all the rights and organisations of the working class and to use them as cannon fodder in a new world war. Today, the ruling elite is taking the same path again. Billions are handed over to the corporations, banks and speculators, billions and billions for war armaments, while the population is plunged into unemployment and poverty!

It is therefore high time that department store workers, as in all other companies affected by closures and wage cuts, take up an uncompromising fight against the attacks of the capitalists!

To do so, they must break away from the unions that defend the capitalist profit system and build their own organisations of struggle, workplace action committees. In this way, they can take the defence of jobs and wages into their own hands, coordinate it across all sites and unite internationally with the struggle of workers in the other industrial and commercial sectors.

This struggle must be conducted based on a socialist programme. Billionaires like Benko, real estate companies, banks and industrial groups must be expropriated without compensation, their companies placed under the democratic control of the working class. Only by freeing the whole of society from the dictates of the profit interests of a tiny rich minority and by reorganising it according to the basic needs and democratic rights of the working population can the right to work and a decent income be enforced.

The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) invites the employees of Galeria Kaufhof Karstadt to contact it. It is the only party representing this programme and, as the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, is fighting for its realisation.
With COVID-19 infections and deaths surging across the United States, workers in auto, meatpacking and other industries are demanding protection from the deadly disease and the release of information about its spread in factories and workplaces.

Last week, thousands of workers at two Detroit-area Fiat Chrysler (FCA) assembly plants downed their tools and halted production after several workers became ill and were forced to leave work. Anger erupted after FCA management and the United Auto Workers union refused to release any information about the potential COVID-19 cases.

Afterwards, workers at the two assembly plantsJefferson North and Sterling Heightsset up rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the UAW, whose demands included: Workers must be immediately notified of any cases of COVID-19 and what areas were affected. This information cannot be kept secret from workers.

GM Arlington plant (Source: GM Authority)

With infections and deaths spiking this week in the Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas area, workers at the General Motors Arlington Assembly Plant called for the shutting down of the sprawling plant, which employs nearly 5,000 workers on three shifts. The demands are so widespread that local union officials felt compelled to call on GM to close the plant until the curve is flattened.

Tarrant County, where the GM plant is located, has confirmed a total of 12,344 COVID-19 cases and 228 deaths. On Tuesday, county officials reported a single-day high of 605 new cases and three more deaths, including two Arlington residents. The number of hospitalizations has reached all-time highs and the countys intensive care unitscurrently at 75 percent of capacitycould reach their limit in less than three weeks, public health experts warn.

Acknowledging that No one wants to be here, local union officials nevertheless bowed to GM, saying lamely that the decisions are made above us, so we must all try to stay safe for our families inside and outside of GM.

GM rejected the appeal, making it clear there would be no slowdown in the production of its highly profitable Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade large sport-utility vehicles. Theres no need to interrupt production, GM spokesman Jim Cain said, claiming that there were multiple layers of protection in the plant to prevent a spread of the virus.

A spokesman for the national union leadership in Detroit said it was up to corporate management to decide whether or not to close the plant.

The virus is spreading throughout Texas and there have been cases at our plant, Jennifer, a veteran worker at the plant, told the World Socialist Web Site. Every day we are taking risks with the lives of 5,000 workers and their families. We need to shut this plant down, but GM and the union say a lot of these trucks have already been ordered so we have to keep up production, no matter how many lives are lost. Were already working six days a week and they want to push it to seven.

The corporation and the UAW are sharing the same bread together, and were the ones who are getting hurt. Id like to get my remaining years in and retire, if I live that long.

Workers in Arlington plant (Source: GM Media)

James, a worker with five years at the plant, added, We know there are cases, but were not getting any information about who, where and when. Management and the union claim there are privacy laws that prevent them from giving us details. This act like this is above Top Secret and God will strike us down if we know anything.

There are some precautions in the plant, like masks and temperature checks, but nobody knows whether we are really safe. You can be asymptomatic and still spread it. Everybody from the government on down is lying to us.

Right now, were only at half production. What is going to happen when we ramp up to full production after the July 4 weekend? After the holiday, you are going to have more cases of the virus with seven-day production, and we are going to see a spike of cases and other people falling out from lack of oxygen because they are wearing masks in the heat.

Should we shut this plant down? Absolutely. All the big corporations care about is how can they squeeze more out of us to pay their shareholders and executives. As for the politicians, they come from big business, go into government and look after big business, and then when they leave office, they go back to big business. All the arguing between Trump and the Democrats is nothing more than a family feud.

We never hear about it, but it doesnt surprise me that the Chrysler workers in Detroit and the Mexican workers are striking to protect themselves from the pandemic. Were not slaves and were not going to put up with this.

These sentiments are shared by autoworkers and other workers across the country and around the world. A Fiat Chrysler worker at the companys Tipton Transmission plant just outside of Kokomo, Indiana told the WSWS, Greed means more than human life. Positive cases are blowing up everywhere. Somebody needs to get this information out there because nobody should be going back now. They think they can treat workers like farm animals.

It is the official policy of many corporations and local officials to conceal information about cases of infection in order to prevent disruptions to the reckless back-to-work campaign spearheaded by President Trump and supported by state and local Democrats and Republicans.

The giant online retailer and logistics company Amazon is one of those companies, with its top officials claiming that the collection of such information, let alone its release, is not particularly helpful. Based on her review of reported cases, former Amazon worker Jana Jumpp estimates that at least 1,600 workers have been infected and 10 have died.

Bloomberg News recently wrote that Amazon has a sophisticated tracking regime that occurs out of public view, contradicting the companys public claims that it does not collect data on infections and deaths. The tracking system, according to Bloomberg, includes where sick employees live, whether theyre apartment-dwellers or live in a freestanding house, what shifts they typically work and what tasks they perform inside the warehouses.

According to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg, a recent outbreak of COVID-19 cases at Amazons warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota, near Minneapolis, exceeded by at least four times the infection rate of surrounding communities. This directly contradicted statements on CBS News 60 Minutes program by Dave Clark, Amazons senior vice president for worldwide operations, that cases were popping up at roughly a rate generally just under what the actual community infection rates are.

As of mid-May, Amazon was aware of 45 cases at its MSP1 facility in Shakopee, enough for an infection rate of 1.7 percent, according to the memo. That was higher than the rate for the rural county that surrounds the warehouse, and roughly four times higher than any county in the nearby Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.

According to Bloomberg, the internal memo acknowledges workers appetite for more transparency, saying that two-thirds of safety-related comments on white boards set up inside the facility called for more information about infections. Amazon addressed the comments with notices posted to the same boards and verbal communications with workers, the authors wrote. At other warehouses, such communications have primarily consisted of reassurances about the adequacy of Amazons cleaning protocols.

Concealing the spread of infections is also the modus operandi of the meatpacking industry and many state and local governments in areas where the giant corporations dominate. More than 36,000 meat processing and farm workers have tested positive and at least 116 have died, according to the Food and Environment Reporting Network, which acknowledges that the real figure is likely higher.

Citing the outbreak of cases at a Case Farms poultry processing plant in North Carolina, the Guardian newspaper reported that on June 8, Burke County health officials reported 136 new COVID-19 cases, a 25 percent increase in its total caseload, yet neither the company, county officials nor the North Carolina department of health and human services would confirm whether those cases were connected to Case Farms.

As of last week, there were 2,772 confirmed cases of infections in 28 meat processing plant clusters around the state, the North Carolina Department of Health acknowledged, without specifying further. As for Burke County, local spokeswoman Lisa Moore told the newspaper, We know where [the cases] are, but we are not a county that can divulge every place where they are.

In Iowa, Dickson Industries, a company that has long made garments for meatpacking workers, has donated 500 body bags to the state government as the state prepares for a spike that will likely overwhelm local hospitals. The Iowa Department of Public Health has not released data on the number of meatpacking workers who have died from COVID-19.
The Jefferson Parish District Attorneys office intends to move forward with resisting arrest charges against a 14-year-old African American teen who was shot in the back by a sheriffs deputy in Westwego, Louisiana while laying prone on the ground during his arrest on March 20.

District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. filed charges against Tremall McGee this week even as his family continues to demand answers as to why he was shot more than three months after the fact.

According to his family, McGee was riding with his friends in a car, which he did not know was stolen. Jefferson Parish Sherriffs deputies began trailing the vehicle and pulled it over at the intersection of Westbank Expressway and Central Avenue. The driver pulled over and ran off along with the other riders in the vehicle.

McGee was stopped and complied with orders to lay down and place his hands behind his back. It was then he felt a shot, and his body went numb. The police officers bullet had entered his back and exited his arm.

The young teen was treated at a local hospital and released to a juvenile detention center, but there was no explanation for why he was shot. The fact that the unarmed McGee was shot in the back while lying on his stomach was only recently made public. Yet as of this week the DA is still determined to move forward with resisting arrest charges against the teenager.

McGees mother has been demanding answers from the sheriff's office for three months to no avail, while the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office has spent months concealing that there was a shooting at all.

Grateful her son is still alive, Tiffany McGee is demanding the sheriffs office hold officers accountable for shooting her son as he was complying with orders. Youre trying to figure out a way of justifying the fact that you shot a minor, in the back, she spoke of the sheriffs office to WWL.

Joe Lopinto, the head sheriff of Jefferson Parish, claimed in a recent press conference that the details of the incident were initially concealed due to Tremall McGees age. He said, I know people are looking for answers. Theyre always looking for answers, but we have a process that is in place.

Attorney Ron Haley is representing the McGee family in the civil case against the sheriffs office, as well as defending Tremall pro bono against the resisting arrest charges. Hes a kid, a kid that posed no threat to law enforcement, Haley told WWL. We want the officers that were participating in this, the officer that shot him to be held accountable.

Sheriff Lopinto for his part defended his deputies while refusing to give details as to what happened during the arrest that might have justified shooting a boy lying face down on the ground. Lopinto has also called the shooting nonlife threatening, as if that justified the action and his offices refusal to discuss it publicly.

The sheriffs flippant responseand I hope its not the case, trulybut his flippant response is giving the impression that if a deputy shoots a child in Jefferson Parish that it can go unreported and undetected and more importantly not investigated just because the victim is a child, Haley responded. That is utterly ridiculous. How many children need to get shot before someone steps up and says we need to look into whats going on with the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office?

Tremalls mother says she is exhausted after months of what she called amateur sleuthing in order to get a response from the sheriffs office even admitting that an officer had shot her son, I want them to take responsibility on what they did, look me in my eyes and just give me a good reason on why. You were that scared, you were that much of a coward, of someone laying on the ground unarmed? McGee told WWL .

In Louisiana most sheriffs offices are required to involve Louisiana State Police in investigating any officer-involved shooting. However, the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office, a police force notorious for its brutality and overtly racist officers, investigates shootings internally.

Since the state police needs to be requested in order to investigate a shooting, there is no open case on the matter, and the JPSO has declined to comment on whether it is being investigated at all. The idea that his own motherafter months of calls and getting the runaround from professional law enforcementfinally got the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office to admit that it was someone from their department that shot her son is absurd and pathetic, Haley explained to WWL. At this point we dont have a damn clue if anyone is investigating Tremall McGees shooting. And that should put the fear of God into anyone who cares about justice and fairness in policing.
In a major act of social media censorship, the news aggregation site Reddit banned more than 2,000 communities, known as subreddits, on Monday, claiming they were in violation of the platforms new content policy against hate speech.

The most prominent of the terminated subreddits was a right-wing forum called r/The_Donald, a pro-Trump group that was a notorious online gathering place for sharing racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic memes, videos and other content. The subreddit had approximately 790,000 active members.

Reddit executives, including CEO Steve Huffman, also a founder of the platform, argued that the group had regularly broken platform rules by allowing its members to target and harass others with hate speech. Huffman told reporters on Monday, Reddit is a place for community and belonging, not for attacking people. The_Donald has been in violation of that.

In an official statement on its content policy, Reddit wrote: All communities on Reddit must abide by our content policy in good faith. We banned r/The_Donald because it has not done so, despite every opportunity. The community has consistently hosted and upvoted more rule-breaking content than average (Rule 1), antagonized us and other communities (Rules 2 and 8), and its mods have refused to meet our most basic expectations. The full eight point content policy can found here: Reddit Content Policy.

However, according to a report in the Washington Post, by the time Reddit shut down r/The_Donald, there was little sign of recent activity. The most popular posts were several months old.

Meanwhile, hiding behind the banning of the widely despised subreddit r/The_Donald, Reddit executives also took action to shut down some 2,000 other groups, including a popular left-radical forum called r/ChapoTrapHouse, named after a popular podcast, which had approximately 160,000 users in its community.

Screen capture of Reddit announcement that the subreddit r/ChapoTrapHouse has been banned

Although the subreddit is not officially sponsored by the Chapo Trap House podcast, it is associated with something called the dirtbag left, a political tendency that eschews civility and uses vulgarity to advance its ideas, which can be characterized as hostile to neo-liberalism and political correctness. The group emerged during the 2016 presidential primaries and campaigned aggressively for the nomination of Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton, and Joseph Biden in 2020.

The Reddit banning of r/ChapoTrapHouse was based, according to the platform statement, on the fact that it consistently host rule-breaking content and their mods have demonstrated no intention of reining in their community. Mods are volunteer moderators responsible for managing and monitoring the activity in subreddit communities.

Among the hundreds of other subreddits banned by the platform, Reddit claimed that 90 percent of them had less than 10 users. The company published a list of all 200 banned subreddits with 10 or more users, but provided no explanation as to why those had been deleted.

The censorship moves by Reddit represent a departure from the companys previous posture, which has been hands-off since its founding in 2005, allowing moderators to determine what content is permitted within subreddit communities.

With the conversion of the sitewhich has called itself The Front Page of the Internetinto a property of the Newhouse publishing empire Conde Nast/Advance Publications, and the adoption of an advertising revenue model, the demands of sponsors and the American political establishment have forced policy changes.

The censorship at Reddit is part of a broader campaign on all social media platforms against hate speech, driven by the demands of advertisers in the wake of the mass protests against police violence following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.

As reported by the Washington Post on Monday, Facebook is facing a growing advertiser boycott over its refusal to remove a Trump post that many saw as encouraging violence during the George Floyd protests. The article added, Twitter hid the post with a warning label, noting that the post broke the companys policies against encouraging violence.

It has been reported that Ford, Unilever, Starbucks and Verizon are boycotting putting ads on Facebook for the month of July in an effort to force the platform to submit to an audit of how it controls hate speech. On June 18, Facebook deactivated dozens of President Trumps campaign ads for their inclusion of a symbol associated with a Nazi designation for political prisoners in World War II.

The Amazon-owned live-streaming site Twitch also temporarily suspended the Trump campaign account for violating its rules of conduct against hate speech, and Google-affiliated YouTube shut down the video channels of white supremacists such as David Duke.

It is becoming increasingly clear that financial and corporate interests, along with the entire political establishment and intelligence apparatus of US imperialism, are moving rapidly to gain control over the information and political discussions taking place on social media platforms accessed daily by billions of people around the world.

While the coronavirus pandemic continues to expand throughout the world, the same corporations that are withholding advertising from the social media platforms on the pretext of concern over hate speech are demanding that workers everywhere in the world return to their jobs and risk becoming sick and dying or infecting their family members.

The latest censorship moves by Reddit confirm the analysis made here on the World Socialist Web Site last April, when moderators for the subreddit r/coronavirus banned the domain wsws.org from sharing articles in that community of over 2 million users. The moderators banned our articles on the grounds that they constituted off-topic political discussion and that the wsws.org was not a reliable source.

In response, we wrote: Given that references to reliable and recognized sources are well-known euphemisms for the corporate media and our article had already received a widespread response on r/coronavirus, the banning of the WSWS by subreddit moderators is unmistakably an act of political censorship designed to block our analysis of the unfolding crisis from reaching the public.
Acting at the behest of the state Labor government in Queensland, police arrested 37 refugee rights demonstrators in Brisbane last weekend, in the latest use of the COVID-19 pandemic to attack the right to free speech and protest.

Most of the arrests were for allegedly contravening a police direction and failing to move from a roadway after a two-hour protest permit expired. Despite earlier adhering to the permit, the demonstrators were confronted by a heavy police presence.

The police mobilisation was a show of force by the Labor government, following a massive similar operation on June 12 in Sydney, staged by the state Liberal-National government in New South Wales.

For the third weekend in a row, refugee rights groups had rallied outside the Kangaroo Point Hotel, where about 120 asylum seekers have been detained in dangerously unhealthy cramped conditions for up to 12 months.

The protest demanded the release of the refugees. Some have been in detention on remote Pacific islands for seven years, before finally being brought to Australia for specialist treatment of serious medical conditions through the now-repealed Medevac legislation.

Many of the asylum seekers have been taking part in a months-long protest on the hotel balcony against their treatment, often joined on the street by supporters. Their health concerns over their prolonged incarceration intensified after a guard employed by contractor Serco tested positive for the coronavirus in March.

With 120 people locked in the hotel, there is no room for social distancing. The resulting danger of infection is worsened by the serious medical conditions of some of the detainees, making them more susceptible to the coronavirus.

The size of protests grew after some detainees were reportedly moved to the high-security Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation facility at Pinkenba, an isolated location near the Brisbane airport.

The protests also supported the global demonstrations against police violence, triggered by the police killing of George Floyd in the US, as well as a national day of action called against the Australian governments continued detention of asylum seekers on Nauru and Papua New Guineas Manus Island.

The Queensland state government orchestrated last weekends attack on the protest. The previous week, the police successfully applied to Brisbane Magistrates Court to have the gatherings limited to two hours on two side streets, effectively forcing protestors away from the front of the hotel on a main street.

Police claimed to be concerned about disruptions to traffic and how people would adhere to COVID-19 health restrictions that restricted gatherings to a maximum of 20 people.

The police application invoked one of the many state and federal laws that can be exploited to shut down or severely limit political protests. It was made under section 12 of the Queensland Peaceful Assembly Act, on the anti-democratic grounds that to allow the closure of the main street would be unreasonable and unnecessary and cause undue hardship and inconvenience to local residents, businesses and traffic.

Around Australia, governments continue to condemn protests and invoke the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to silence dissent despite racing recklessly at breakneck speed to lift all restrictions in order to reopen businesses and restore profit-making.

All the federal, state and territory governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, have adopted far-reaching state powers to enforce COVID-19 measures imposed by a bipartisan national cabinet.

While such measures have become necessary because of the global pandemic, these powers are being utilised to silence discontent and will be used more broadly against the working class as the pandemic crisis worsens, producing mass unemployment and impoverishment.

Such attacks on the right to protest are not new. They have been mounting in recent years, partly in response to climate change demonstrations and street marches, which have been joined by tens of thousands of young people in Australia and internationally.

Last year, the Queensland Labor government introduced laws that imposed harsh fines and prison terms for people using locking devices in protests, falsely accusing environmental demonstrators of using deadly booby traps. At the same time, Australian Labor Party leaders immediately backed Liberal-National Prime Minister Scott Morrison when he denounced political protests and boycotts and vowed that his government would draft new laws to ban them.

All these policies are a reflection of the efforts by Australian governments to stifle the opposition among young people and throughout the working class. The protests against police violence, which occurred in cities and towns all over the country, despite government bans and threats, showed the social unrest building up because of widening social inequality.

Hostility to the brutal treatment of asylum seekers by Australian governments is part of this disaffection. For decades, successive governments, both Labor and Liberal-National, have militarily turned back or indefinitely detained refugees, setting terrible global precedents.

Prolonged detention has caused severe depression and other mental health problems leading some victims to suicide or self-harm.

Capitalist governments everywhere, from the Trump administration to the European Union, are dealing with desperate migrants, fleeing persecution, poverty and war, with similar barbaric methods.

As the WSWS has highlighted, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to tear through the global population, with the disease having an especially devastating impact on the almost 80 million displaced people, the highest number on record.

Against the nationalist fumes being stoked by the capitalist governments, in order to divide the working class, working people must come to the defence of refugees and migrant workers on a global scale. They need to defend the rights of workers of all nationalities to work, live and access social and health care services in the country of their choice without fear of persecution or deportation.

As part of that fight, all the refugees held in the Kangaroo Point Hotel and other detention centres around the world must be released and receive the highest quality medical care, and their basic democratic right to asylum.
Nurses at the Riverside Community Hospital in California continued their strike this week over inadequate staffing and lack of protective equipment. The strike comes at a time when Coronavirus cases are surging throughout the state and especially Riverside County, where health officials declared this week that Intensive Care Units (ICUs) were at near capacity.

At the picket lines, nurses told reporters that they have been unable to give patients the best care because the hospital has not provided them with the necessary help and equipment. Registered nurse Mary Martin said, When I say I work 13 hours and I dont get a drink of water, Im not exaggerating. And, you know, Im almost 52 years old and Im a strong lady but Im not that strong anymore, adding, It breaks my heart. The things sometimes that I see I can leave in tears. I have left in tears.

Chronic under staffing will only get worse for nurses as this week California reported a record number of new cases in one day with more than 8,000. Statewide, there have been 6,000 reported coronavirus-related deaths. Infections are increasing not just in the urban areas, but also in the northern and inland counties. Public health experts warn that the state is not experiencing a second wave but has failed to curb the first wave.

Pickets in front of hospital (Source: SEIU L. 121 RN)

In Los Angeles, county officials stated they may run out of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients in two to three weeks. The upcoming Fourth of July weekend may spread the disease even more as L.A. County has shut down its beaches and banned fireworks displays. Governor Gavin Newsom announced new restrictions and blamed the population for not following social distancing and wearing masks.

Rather than prepare for the flood of patients, HCA Healthcare has threatened to layoff ten percent of its nurses unless they agree to wage freezes, the elimination of company contributions to pensions and other cuts. The SEIUs decision to only call a strike at one hospital instead of a system-wide HCA strike has helped the health care giant bring in outside staff and traveling nurses to fill the schedule, while blaming striking nurses for worsening conditions at the hospitals.

On Monday, Riverside County health officials announced that ICU beds were almost at 99 percent capacity. Riverside Community Hospitals CMO, Dr. Saba Habis, told the media that of the hospitals 69 ICU beds, 62 were occupied, and a third of those were coronavirus patients.

Dr. Habis then blamed the nurses saying, Its just unfortunate that were having a strike and folks are out versus caring for the patients. He went on to say that the hospital had been following all CDC guidelines concerning PPE and patient safety.

Joyce Cardenas, a nurse at HCA hospital, told local media, I am responsible for 11 different nurses on two different floors on two different units. How am I supposed to relieve breaks and help them without the proper staffing? If theres a code blue in one unit and Im covering a thirty-minute lunch, Im not available, I cant help. Thats not right.

Weve asked again and again and again to give us the staffing, to give us the resources that we deserve and we have been shut down. So, we are asking the community, the public, to come out here to strike with us to show HCA that we deserve better. Nurses are heroes and we need to save lives. We are tired of working for 12 hours with the same mask, if we get them. Enough is enough.

Across the state, the pandemic is rapidly unfolding into an unmitigated crisis. The time bought from social distancing measures were squandered as privately run hospitals cut expenses and the state failed to acquire anywhere near the necessary personal protective equipment and contact tracing necessary to contain an outbreak.

Prisons are emerging as a hotbed of the disease as more than a thousand prisoners were infected at San Quentin after a group of infected prisoners were transferred from a jail in Chino. Gov. Newsom announced plans to grant early release to a mere 3,500 prisoners who are close to finishing their sentences form Californias unconstitutionally overcrowded prison system. As of June 10, the states prisons were at 125.7 percent of capacity creating conditions for a rapid spread of disease. Newsom said that almost 2,600 of the states 113,000 prisoners tested positive for COVID-19.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) election campaign of Joseph Kishore for US president and Norissa Santa Cruz for vice president is drawing increasing support from within the working class and progressive layers of the middle class.

The SEP campaign is taking measures to get on the ballot in a number of key states so that workers can cast a vote for socialist candidates that oppose inequality, war and dictatorship.

The SEP is challenging undemocratic ballot access restrictions in other states as well. On June 18, the SEP presidential election campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan challenging the states ballot access requirements, which still require collecting physical signatures.

In response, the state has argued that the SEP should have been collecting signatures throughout the pandemic, which would have both violated the law and endangered public health and safety. Attorneys for the SEP candidates filed a reply to the state on Monday, June 29.

Supporters of the SEP in Illinois are working to gather 5,000 signatures through an online petition to place our candidates on the ballot.

Steven Brust is a prominent fantasy and science fiction writer who has authored 31 books. He is perhaps best known for his series of novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos, one of a group of humans living on a world called Dragaera. Steve lives in Minneapolis, where the police murder of George Floyd was carried out on May 25.

He said, I support the Socialist Equality Party and its candidates Kishore and Santa Cruz because doing so provides an opportunity to make clear to people that there simply is no way forward without a break from the Democrats and the Republicans, without an independent movement of the working class and the oppressed, relying on no one but themselves, and with a revolutionary socialist perspective.

Steven Brust

Commenting on the wave of mass, multiracial protests following the police murder of Floyd, Steve said, While the killing of Mr. Floyd was tragic, the response has been inspirationalthe protests have pulled together the outrage across racial lines, reaching broader and broader sections of people all over the world. As Democratic Party politicians and their lackeys try to confine the problem to a purely racial one, it only highlights their fear of the forces opposed to this brutal murder. They have no solution. After all, they have nominated for president a man notorious for supporting racist policies and working with white supremacists. It is obvious no solution can come from this morally and politically bankrupt organization.

Underlying the racism of the Minneapolis police is what always underlies racismthe fear of class unity, the fear of all of the oppressed and exploited working together against our common enemies. More and more people are now realizing that those common enemies include both of the capitalist parties. The time is ripe, over-ripe, for breaking the political yoke theyve tried to tie us to.

Daniel Howard, an SEP supporter from Flint, Michiganwhose population of 100,000 people, including 9,000 children, suffered lead poisoning for 18 months before the lies of the state were exposedvoiced support for the SEP campaign.

It is essential that members of the working class, who make up the vast majority of Michigans residents, have the opportunity to vote for candidates and a party that represents most fully their interests.

Daniel added, As a resident of Flint living with the consequences of the Flint water crisis, I know that the two major parties act as one to bolster and benefit the ruling class, and that the limits on democracy they impose permit the ruling class to run roughshod over the rest of us.

Their attempt now to limit democracy by forcing the SEP to collect tens of thousands of petition signatures to place the party on the 2020 ballotsignatures impossible to gather due to the Covid-19 pandemicis another clear signal that the ruling class does not hold the interests of the working class in any regard. It suggests that the ruling class is terrified of real electoral competition, and beyond that it suggests that the ruling class is terrified of giving any voice to the SEP, the only political party that seeks to unify workers internationally under a socialist platform.

Anthony, a construction worker from Jackson, Michigan, stated, The SEP should be on the ballot. I think its ridiculous that they make it so hard to get on the ballot.

Regarding the state of Michigans argument that SEP campaigners should be collecting signatures in person, Anthony said, We just had the highest single-day record for cases in the US today [June 27] since the pandemic began. They want people to go out there and ask people to sign things in person, with all that risk? What kind of logic is that? Its asinine.

Anthony spoke on the need for the working class to have its own party and its own voice in the elections, commenting, Every election we hear the same thing, pick the lesser of two evils. And the working class, they get nothing out of it, every time, they always get kicked to the curb. Theres no real working class representation, in the government, let alone the elections. The working class should have its own party.

Anthony noted the hypocrisy and duplicity of both big business parties on the issue of police violence, saying, The Democrats go and take a knee for racial injustice, and the Republicans say there is none. Both of them are doing nothing about it. They put up a toothless police reform bill, or tell police not to put people in chokeholds, or whatever. It means nothing. Both parties are still arming the police, heavily. If you get Biden or if you get Trump, theyre just going to keep giving the police more moneyits not going to change anything.

He also denounced the criminal actions of both parties in enforcing the back-to-work campaign amid the pandemic: Its just insanity. Just keep the profit line goingthats what the rich are saying. They dont care about human life and how many people are going to die from this.

Anthony supported the unique, international character of the SEP campaign, stating, The working class is an international entity itself, not a national sect. It makes up men and women all over the world. Socialism is a movement based on the opinions and perspectives and interests of working class people, all over the world, and not just in the US.

Alex, a history doctoral student from Wayne State University, denounced the thoroughly undemocratic mandate that supporters of the SEP must petition during a major health crisis.

He said, The quarantine measures that were necessary for delaying the spread of this virus have disrupted many of the networks and physical spaces that political organizations use to connect with individuals. These physical connections are particularly important for smaller political organizations that have less reach than the Democratic or Republican parties. As such, this extraordinary situation wreaks disproportionate harm on smaller political parties. Given this context, it would be most appropriate to amend existing ballot requirements so as to allow alternate political parties to express an alternative vision to the political duopoly of the Republican and Democratic parties.

For the sake of upholding democratic values, it is of utmost importance that a plurality of voices can express themselves in the public sphere. By denying the Socialist Equality Party representation on the basis of previous ballot requirements would be grievously inconsiderate of the social crisis that COVID-19 has placed on the state of Michigan and would do serious harm to the rights of self-expression and representation of the people.

Sign up for the SEP election campaign at socialism2020.org.
On Wednesday, Governor Eric Holcomb announced Indiana would move to stage 4.5 of reopening the state on July 4.

Originally, Indiana was set for stage 5, or a full reopening on the 4th.

The governor says this is due to an uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

So what's open...and where will restrictions stay in place? See the breakdown fro the state below.
Most Presidents would try to stop the United States from barreling toward disaster. But Donald Trump has nothing to say and no answers to mitigate a calamity unfolding on his watch that he seems resolved to ignore.

On the day when the government's top infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci said he would not be surprised to see the US record 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day, Trump refused to break his deafening silence.

And the day after his White House described record-breaking new infections that are sweeping the nation as "embers that need to be put out," Trump's campaign claimed credit for the "phenomenal" success of his botched pandemic leadership.

Trump is now pretty much the sole figure in authority in either party -- including his major Republican allies -- who refuse to wear or endorse face masks that are proven to slow the spread of coronavirus but that he has stigmatized as a liberal plot to harm him politically.

"We must have no stigma, none, about wearing masks when we leave our homes and come near other people. Wearing simple face coverings is not about protecting ourselves, it is about protecting everyone we encounter," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday.

But Trump on Tuesday tweeted cryptically "THE LONE WARRIOR!" -- apparently embracing his isolation from even political allies and the scientific approaches that have proven elsewhere to at least slow the spread of the coronavirus in the short term.

Trump's morning Twitter spree showed that his current preoccupations involve anything but the virus, despite Fauci saying on Tuesday that "we're going in the wrong direction." The President tweeted or retweeted claims that a story that Russia put a bounty on US soldiers in Afghanistan was a "hoax." He also fixated on protecting monuments from protestors, Joe Biden, economic growth, the stock market, cable news ratings and police reform. But he did not offer any plans for tackling the virus crisis or offer condolences to the victims.

Undeterred by the deepening national crisis, Trump is pressing ahead with plans for an early July Fourth celebration at Mount Rushmore that will bracket him symbolically and without irony alongside four of America's most revered Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. The social distancing advised by Trump's government will not be enforced.

The White House did hold a briefing on Wednesday, but it appeared to be a premeditated attempt by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to fog the water around another drama rocking Trump -- claims that he did nothing about a Russian military intelligence scheme to put a bounty on the heads of US troops in Afghanistan. McEnany left the briefing room before she could be questioned about the pandemic.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, whose current wide lead in most general election polls can be explained partly by Trump's performance during the pandemic, pounced on the latest grave developments to lambast the President.

Seizing on Trump's remark in April that he was now a "wartime President," Biden adopted a tone of scathing mockery.

"What happened? Now it's almost July, and it seems like our wartime president has surrendered -- waved the white flag and left the battlefield," the Democrat said in a speech in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

In the vacuum left by resolute guidance that only the person in the Oval Office can provide, the coronavirus is quickening its deadly march across the country, with 37 states now seeing rising cases, and at least 19 slowing the reopening plans championed by the President while hospital emergency rooms see increasing admissions that suggest a fast rising death toll could be only days away.

Far from the four Presidents whose images he will survey in South Dakota, Trump's perverse failure to crank up a federal government effort to fight a worsening pandemic over which he has said the US has "prevailed" is beginning to resemble Herbert Hoover's indifference during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Refusing to lead

As the rest of the Western world presses ahead with careful reopening plans after governments suppressed their curves -- and bans American tourists because of the skyrocketing US infection rates -- Trump appears to have made a political calculation that the best approach is to refuse to lead.

Mounting a successful federal government response at this stage would require the capacity to unite the country and to brainstorm innovative solutions, as well as a President who is a master of detail and can unleash the promise of science and empathize with his compatriots at a tragic time.

But Trump's alternative method of presidential leadership has come unstuck. Dividing the country -- between Republican governors itching to open economies and Democrats who worried about a viral resurgence -- has proved disastrous to states that support him. The Trumpian tactic of demonizing opponents, lying about the facts and building an alternative reality in which everything is fine has been exposed by the pandemic.

And for all his claims to be a builder, Trump has failed to construct solutions in his near four years in power.

Many Trump supporters voted for the President in 2016 because they felt betrayed by the status quo and the political establishment. His still healthy ratings from his base suggest that not all voters share the horror of many in Washington at his negligence or even think Trump should be leading a role in fighting the pandemic that almost all of his predecessors would surely have demanded for themselves.

And the President is not directly to blame for the young Americans who continue to flock to bars or beaches or those who refuse to obey social distancing rules or to wear the masks in behaviors that could make the business or reopening economies safer and more sustainable.

But Trump's refusal even to set an example and to explain the gravity of the situation, coupled with his habit of prioritizing his own political prospects and interests over the national interest, has left much of the rest of the country in the lurch.

A former senior administration official who spoke to CNN's Jim Acosta Tuesday was referring to the President's frustration with intelligence briefings in connection with the latest Russia drama, their comment held lessons for his role in the pandemic as well.

"He's typically frustrated with intelligence because it shows a problem but doesn't provide an answer," the former official said.

As several past presidents have noted, the only problems that reach the Oval Office desk are those that others have failed to solve.

Scary statistics but it could get worse

Days of scary statistics are telling a devastating story that cannot be disguised by Team Trump's spin. The US represents just 4% of the world's population but has a quarter of all coronavirus cases. On average, more than 1,000 Americans die every day from the disease. Some 127,400 have already succumbed. Black Americans are more than twice as likely to die from it, in figures that reflect the racial disparities currently driving another national crisis.

It is a measure of the odd limbo caused by lockdowns that the human toll that these figures represent -- as well as the severe economic blight caused by a pandemic that Trump denied for months, mismanaged, politicized and then ignored again -- is hidden from many Americans.

As bad as the latest statistics may be, Fauci raised the horrific prospect that things are going to get worse, a dispiriting prospect in a country already seared by months of social distancing and lockdowns.

"We are now having 40-plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around and so I am very concerned," Fauci told a Senate committee on Tuesday.

Fauci expressed dismay over people congregating in crowds and not wearing masks and inadequate attention being paid to federal guidelines on reopening that the President has declined to enforce.

"We're going to continue to be in a lot of trouble, and there's going to be a lot of hurt if that does not stop," he said.

As Trump shows no willingness to shift course and set a national example or lead a federal response to the virus, other medical experts are expressing fears that the coming July Fourth holiday could spark a similar spike in infections as appears to have been triggered by Memorial Day at the end of May.

"The virus is spreading rapidly. The time to act is now," said Houston Methodist Hospital President and CEO Marc Boom. Texas as a whole, which is seeing a rapidly rising curve, reported a record 6,975 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday.

Another state that is an epicenter of the coronavirus' prolonged surge is Florida, which put up more than 6,000 new cases on Tuesday. But Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, continued to minimize the situation, making the case that it was good news that younger people -- who have traditionally been less severely affected by Covid-19, were a higher proportional slice of those who tested positive than was the case in the past.

"We're not going back, closing things," DeSantis said.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the location of Mount Rushmore.
A White hotel employee called the police on a guest, a Black woman and her children, who were using the hotel's swimming pool over the weekend.

Missy Williams-Wright, her son, 11, and daughter, 7, were staying at the Hampton Inn in Williamston, North Carolina, when a hotel employee called the police to report a trespassing, Williamston Police said in a statement on Monday.

Williams-Wright tells CNN she was in town from Raleigh on business, and that she believes she was racially discriminated against because of the color of her skin.

"Hilton has zero tolerance for racism or discrimination of any kind," a company spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday. "Through our extensive Diversity & Inclusion training program, we have made diversity and unconscious bias training mandatory for Team Members at all properties and corporate offices globally."

The Hampton Inn employee in question is no longer with the hotel, but CNN has been unable to confirm whether she was terminated or resigned.

"Up until today, our normal process has been to involve law enforcement when we were unable to confirm if an individual is a guest of the hotel, Vimal Kolappa, CEO, Washington Hospitality, LLC and Owner, Hampton Inn by Hilton Williamston said in a statement to CNN Wednesday.

"We now understand this process may have unnecessarily escalated this situation. We are truly sorry for the impact that this experience had on our guest and her family. We are making every effort to contact the guest directly, so that we can continue to listen to her experience, offer our apologies, and make this situation right."

Kolappa said the hotel will revisit their practices and only call law enforcement in the event of illegal activity or a threat to employees or guests.

"We will ensure that our employees are trained to be able to clearly identify and de-escalate these situations," he said in a statement.

The incident between Williams-Wright, the Hampton Inn and Williamston police is one of the latest examples of calling the police on Black people, amplified by an atmosphere of racial tension following George Floyd's killing -- an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis in May.

'What did I do wrong?'

Hampton Inn staff told two responding officers that during hourly inspections of the hotel they had spotted two unattended children swimming in the pool, and that Williams-Wright was seen in her car in the hotel parking lot, according to the police statement.

Williams-Wright said she was charging her phone and speaking with her mother but had sight of her children in the pool.

Hotel staff told police they asked Williams-Wright to leave the premises while they called the authorities, the police statement read.

When officers arrived and approached Williams-Wright, they asked whether she was a hotel guest and could provide her name and room number. According to the police report, she refused, and instead showed them a key card providing access to the hotel and her room.

Officers continued to insist on seeing some form of identification, but Williams-Wright refused.

Fearing the unfolding situation, she told CNN she started recording live on Facebook. "With everything going on right now, it (the video) was for my protection," she said.

Right at the beginning of an almost 10-minute long video, the police officers and the White hotel employee, who has not been identified, can be heard asking Williams-Wright for "proof" that she had a room at the Hampton Inn.

"OK this is my proof," she said showing her room key. "Why do I have to tell you what room I'm in? What did I do wrong?"

Williams-Wright said that the hotel employee had not asked anyone else previously at the pool for proof that they were guests.

"So, because I am the only Black person here in this pool, they (want to) question me," Williams-Wright says. "But there were two Caucasian people sitting right over there and she said nothing to them."

In the video, no one else can be seen in the pool area besides Williams-Wright, her children, the hotel employee and two officers.

Officers attempted to verify her identity through the registration linked to her car's license plates.

"Once I proved I had a room, that was for you to walk away," Williams-Wright says. "You are degrading me like this in front of my kids. They trying to enjoy themselves in the pool."

Ultimately, officers were able to match the car's registration with Williams-Wright and verify that she was a guest at the hotel and no further action was taken.

The Williamston Police Department said in a statement, "there has been an outcry of public concern over this call for service and how it was handled."

The department said they "take the complaint process very seriously" and is conducting an internal investigation around their response to the call.

'We can move forward'

Williams-Wright said she spoke with the general manager of the Hampton Inn but said she was disappointed and felt that her concerns regarding discrimination were not properly addressed.

The Williamston Hampton Inn is a franchised property, independently owned and operated, according to a Hilton spokesperson. Hilton Worldwide is the parent company to the Hampton Inn brand.

"This is not the Hilton hospitality that our guests expect when they visit one of our properties, and we will be addressing this with ownership immediately," the spokesperson said.

On Monday, Hilton issued the following statement on Twitter:

Williams-Wright and her children stayed at the Hampton Inn through the weekend as she originally planned because she said she didn't want her kids to leave the hotel with the memory of police officers and hotel staff insinuating that they had done anything wrong.

"I was uncomfortable," Williams-Wright said. "But I wanted to show my kids that even though we experienced this, we can move forward."

As an activist who works closely with police in her community, Williams-Wright said she was disappointed in the behavior of the officers who answered the former hotel employee's call. She said she'd like for police officers to undergo more diversity and sensitivity training.
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong early, overcast overnight with occasional rain. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 62F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong early, overcast overnight with occasional rain. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 62F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 61F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 61F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong early, overcast overnight with occasional rain. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 61F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong early, overcast overnight with occasional rain. Damaging winds and large hail with some storms. Low 61F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
While I believe short-term vacation rentals should be permitted in Florida, I feel that local governments should have the ability to tailor the details of how they operate and should provide enforcement. Every city is unique and they should determine how these rentals best fit in their communities. Even within cities, there are different considerations to be made. For example, highly residential areas may want regulations so that short-term vacation rentals are not a disruption in their community while more touristic areas will want different regulations to meet their needs.
Morgantown, WV (26505)

Today

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Low 61F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some strong this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Low 61F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Clarksburg, WV (26301)

Today

Heavy thunderstorms this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 61F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall may reach one inch..

Tonight

Heavy thunderstorms this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 61F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall may reach one inch.
At a glance

The Wyoming Department of Education's initial guidance to reopen K-12 schools was released Wednesday afternoon, and it requires districts to submit plans by Aug. 3 that account for three possible scenarios for the start of school this fall.
Director Chen Maolin planned to stay in Beijing for around three weeks to supervise post-production of his latest feature-length film, Great Things.

However, Chenfrom Shandong provincewas forced to leave merely five days after he arrived in the Chinese capital on June 7.

After reading the news that Xinfadithe city's largest wholesale market for agricultural and seafood productswas linked to a new cluster of COVID-19 cases, Chen quickly decided to purchase a train ticket to return to Qingdao.

Chen had lived in a neighborhood near the Xinfadi market for a period after he graduated as a literature major from Beijing Film Academy in 2012. "It is a sprawling market that is very densely populated, so I could imagine how serious the situation might become," he says.

Now relying on the internet to remotely guide the Beijing film editors, Chen says he has kept a close eye on the COVID-19 news, and feels inspired by Beijing's swift response and its all-out effort to combat the pandemic.

Unlike some of his fellow filmmakers, Chenwho was born in the 1990ssays he has long been interested in adapting real life events for screen productions which reflect the country's development or look back at the history of the Communist Party of China.

Great Things is a perfect example.

A highlighted project backed by Anhui provincial government to mark China' s commitment to building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the film turns the lens to the grassroots efforts of cadres to help locals escape poverty.

Starring veteran actor Zhang Guangbei, known for hits such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Drawing Sword, Great Things recounts a simple yet heartwarming story.
Example: He spoke to West Boca residents who expressed concern about poor lighting on Boca Rio Road. It parallels a canal between Glades and Palmetto Park roads. Though streetlights are not the purview of the Legislature, we like that Moura seems willing to hear from constituents of this sprawling district.
Weinstein is a first-time candidate, having waited to establish his practice before making a run. But in his questionnaire and during the interview, Weinstein showed that he is much better prepared than most rookies. He also knows the issues like an incumbent.
Microsoft Has No Plans to Increase Price of Xbox Game Pass
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Louisiana native Lynn Whitfield has been portraying strong female characters, many of them Southern, throughout much of her career  from HBOs 1991 biopic The Josephine Baker Story, which she won an Emmy for, to Eves Bayou six years later, as well as numerous memorable TV roles in Mistresses, How to Get Away with Murder, and The Women of Brewster Place.

In her current role, she plays the fierce and fiery Lady Mae Greenleaf (Mae McCready), one of the lead protagonists and anti-heroine of the OWN drama series Greenleaf. She plays Bishop James Greenleafs ex-wife, family matriarch, and the former First Lady of Calvary Fellowship megachurch.

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Viewers were first introduced to Lady Mae in 2016, when the series premiered, as the queen who reigned over her family and business. Since then, fans of the series have been entertained by all kinds of lies, deceit and struggle within the Greenleaf family and their Calvary Fellowship World Ministries.

She is one of those really tough Southern women who has built a dynasty with her husband Bishop, and wants to keep it all together, including her family, Whitfield told IndieWire. She wants to control everything, including her children who live under her roof in their compound. Shes the first lady of the church, and the gatekeeper to all things  at least thats what she believes.

Currently in its fifth and final season, Greenleaf fans can rest easy knowing that there will be a spinoff of the megachurch drama, according to OWN, although exact details are sparse. As its current incarnation wraps up, IndieWire spoke to Whitfield about the series and her 30+ year career.

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The following interview has been edited for length and clarity:

INDIEWIRE: The Josephine Baker film, which you won an Emmy for, is probably what the average person knows you for, even though it was almost 30 years ago. Was that a game changer for your career? Were studio executives pounding down your door after that?

LYNN WHITFIELD: Well, I think it showed them that I could deliver a performance and carry a film. But I dont think that the natural progression was as aggressive as it shouldve been. Yes, it was something that at least people understood legitimized me as artist.

So clearly you had some expectations.

I think if you go back and look at the reviews that said A Star Is Born and all of that, I think the entire industry just expected that theyd be hearing from me again. But this has been a journey.

Thirty years later, is it any easier, or is it still a hustle? Do you still have to chase after roles or are they coming to you?

Well, Lady Mae was offered to me, which is great, and there are roles that are offered to me. But right now I would love to do something that Ive never done before. Id love to do a romantic comedy. I love the film Somethings Got to Give. I would love to play some kind of extraterrestrial, intergalactic, hero, sci-fi role. I would love to do that, I think I would have so much fun. When I was a little girl I watched a million movies with my grandmother. I loved Rosalind Cash, a name that you dont hear as often as you should. I loved what Audrey Hepburn did. I loved what Betty Davis achieved. I loved Marilyn Monroe. I loved Josephine Baker because she was so glamorous and just had me just in awe. I think Susan Sarandon has had a very interesting career and continues to do interesting projects. Helen Mirren is somebody right now that I say, Wow. At every turn, shes still doing interesting stuff. I would love to be doing the same.

Interesting you mention Helen Mirren because I always imagined that both of you are contemporaries and you should be in the same spot that she is, having a similar kind of career.

Come on, I think Im just going to put you in my hip pocket and carry you around.

Do you like watching yourself on screen? There are some actors that just dont watch their own the work.

No, I dont. Ive had to get used to it because Im on television every week now. Actually, sometimes I just forget its me on the screen, and Im just looking at the character. Thats the only way I can watch Ive got to remember that.

Thats fascinating that you have to essentially disconnect from yourself to watch yourself.

Yeah. Thats when Im really proud, when I can disconnect myself. When Im looking at, Oh my god, that lipstick color is really bad, or, I dont like the way the script is hitting, or, That was a false moment and Im embarrassed. When I can really get into it and its not me, because the way I get into my characters, the way I speak about them, I dont think about them as: Yeah, this is what I would do and I am comfortable with this. I think once I build them out and know how they think and why they are the way they are, then its just not about me anymore. Its much more about whats true to the character.

How do you feel about being called a legend or an icon?

I dont quite know what makes people say that, but I feel like its something that I have to be sure I deserve in my work. Because work is a continuum. Theres no one thing I could have done that would make me an icon. I think people just dont know what else to say. I think its just another [thing] saying: Consistently over the years I love her work, shes done things that Ill remember, that are memorable, that made an impression on me. Another thing is the work has been consistent, what I will strive for is not to rest on my laurels, but to continue to bring believable women to the screen; women that excite; women that are entertaining, memorable, and hopefully a variety.

By the way, how are you holding up during these very uncertain times?

Well, when we think about ourselves its all contingent upon how everybody else is doing as well. Because with the pandemic its all about us thinking about each other, wearing a mask for each other. My health is well but we all have to be thinking about this together. So I am extremely troubled that I dont think the Senate is going to pass this bill that [House of Representatives] just passed which would eliminate choke holds and no knock warrants and actually having policemens records follow them so they just cant go and get another job. That is very troubling to me  that it seems that a part of our society really cares about this and the other part is making everything a political standoff. And so Im horrified by seeing the state of our country and how racism is so prevalent, and Im hopeful in seeing that people of all stripes, all races, all sexual identities are understanding that Black lives matter.

Yeah, thats actually one of the things thats encouraging about whats happening. Its not just Black people in the streets, its every race and ethnicity. Something must have struck a nerve this time. So its a bit strange to be talking about Greenleaf right now. What do you think that the series might have to say about whats happening today?

Well, what Greenleaf has to say about whats happening today is that man is only human, full of complexity, and is guaranteed at some point or another to be disappointing. I wouldnt even want to imagine whats going on in the White House behind closed doors in the family quarters right now. And so we are not encumbered to follow a man, a personality, it is incumbent upon us for the highest good of our souls, for the highest good of our country, to follow the principles that are fair for everyone. So in Greenleaf its not the Bishop that youre following; its not the first family of the church that youre following. Their job is to bring souls to salvation, bring souls to a personal relationship with God. So I think it sort of demystifies this idea of leadership.

This is the final season. Do you think that Lady Mae gets the short shrift in that shes serious about taking care of the house, the home, and family, and legacy but shes considered this mean, evil, person? If she was a man she probably wouldnt be looked at in the same way.

I agree with that, absolutely. Really what shes doing is admirable and aspirational. What her Achilles Heel is that she thinks that she knows whats best for everyone. She has dedicated her life to building that church, to supporting and protecting Bishop, to building a beautiful home for the family and not really paying attention to the fact that she was called to preach herself and then ripped away. She was on her way to theological school when she decided to marry Bishop and canceled all that. So I absolutely agree with you, and I cant tell you but Im quite impressed at your observation.

What, if any, reactions have you received from real life first ladies of megachurches in response to the character?

Oh, in most megachurches, Lady Mae is very well loved. I didnt quite know how she would be taken but you can look on Twitter feeds and see things like, Oh, another Lady Mae one liner, Oh, Lady Mae is fierce. Shes intelligent and funny, and also a very sympathetic character. I mean, she wasnt written quite that way. But I said, You all, this woman is the gatekeeper. Theres no way shes going to leave the elves to play at the church and shes not there. Absolutely no way. I think one of the reasons that it resonates so much in different countries in Africa, in the Caribbean, and even in the European countries where its caught on, is that we please women. Women of power just kind of get pushed to the side and deal with the comings and goings of whats going on of the kingdom. But shes a queen after all, and wouldnt let that happen to her.

Do you think its saying anything about megachurches specifically in terms of money, power, influence? There are so many of them now, led by people like T.D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen

Yes, it does, I think without being judgmental. Because you can see how far of course one can go when all of these people who started with a storefront now have this big church, now have this big piece of real estate, now have to be responsible for this big piece of real estate. Its difficult to continue to think about a congregation when you have all these things to actually protect. Now Bishop and Lady Mae, theyre not like some of these pastors who have private jets, or get driven in Rolls Royces. Thats not who they are.

I have to ask you about A Thin Line Between Love and Hate with Martin Lawrence. What drew you to the film? I think you elevated the material in a way, because I think if it was not for you, I dont know if the film would have been what it is.

Because love hath no fury like a woman scorned. Anybody who has ever had their feelings hurt, who has ever been disappointed, who has ever been deceived. Its just such interesting subject matter and will forever be. So I once I was cast in the role, we all elevated the material. And Martin encouraged me to put my stamp on it, to put my fingerprint on it. And so when we did the monologue with the barrel of his gun in his mouth  which, he directed me there  Im not doing this for myself, Im doing it for all women. I knew that monologue would be some kind of anthem for women who have been hurt. So I had a ball doing that film and it has such resonance and for such a long time. The same thing with The Josephine Baker Story, and Eves Bayou. Im very blessed to have done material thats not disposable. The material, the projects continue to entertain people and be provocative enough for people and not feel dated. So thats a good thing. But thats always the kind of work that I wanted to do when I was coming up.

I would say after The Josephine Baker Story, Eves Bayou is probably your next most well-known film.

With Eves Bayou it was really interesting because I am a Southern woman, I come from a family of physicians. Tennessee Williams has nothing on Southern people, I tell you. Because theres no way we can escape slavery, theres no way we can escape our history as Black people. It has something to do with everything. But this family in Eves Bayou was dealing with these internal problems that had nothing to do with race; it had to do with just who they were, and so that was really interesting to me. The other thing that was troubling for me was that my character Roz Batiste, as she was written, was kind of like that 50s woman, like she didnt speak about things too much, turning a blind eye and keeping the family going and all of that. And I just said, Kasi [Lemmons], please can Roz blow a gasket here? because thats how I would respond. And she said, No, no, no. What you do, this is much more powerful. So I played it that way.

Other than Greenleaf what are you watching? What has your attention these days?

I binge watched all of Twenties, which is Lena Waithes new series on BET and I really enjoyed that. I watch Were Here, which is about this drag show that goes all over the country to very, very conservative communities, small towns, little hobo towns. Its just so good and so entertaining, it has so much heart. And now Im watching I May Destroy You on HBO, Michaela Coels new series. Oh my God, she is so talented. And she survived all of this and then she wrote it, and she just continues to grow. Its so authentic and obscure in a way with universal themes. I think on the sly Im just trying to get encouraged to take a pen and paper myself and write some more obscure stories, so Ive been inspired by all of these younger artists. Because I dont want to get stale.

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An appellate court judge has lifted a temporary restraining order on Simon & Schuster that previously blocked the publisher from releasing an upcoming tell-all book from the presidents niece, Mary Trump  but the author still remains barred from publishing contents of her book until a court hearing scheduled for next Friday.

On Tuesday, a New York Supreme Court judge granted a request for a temporary restraining order against Simon & Schuster and Mary Trump requested by Robert Trump, who said that Mary Trump would be breaching a nondisclosure agreement she signed as part of a settlement with the Trump estate if she published her book. The agreement, according to an excerpt from Wednesdays court filing, said that Mary Trump could not directly or indirectly publish or cause to be published any material whatsoever that concerned her relationship with the Trump family or the estate without obtaining the consent of Donald Trump, Robert Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry.

But in Wednesdays ruling, the appellate court judge said that Simon & Schuster did not enter into this agreement with the estate and, thus, isnt bound to any agreement made therein.

Also Read: John Bolton's 'The Room Where It Happened' Sells Over 780,000 Copies in First Week

S&S is not a party to the settlement agreement. The only basis offered by the plaintiff to extend the temporary restraining order to S&S are the allegations that S&S intends to act on Ms. Trumps behalf in causing the publication of the book and that S&S is acting at Ms. Trumps direction and in concert with her. However, these allegations are conclusory and not supported by

any specific factual averments, the presiding judge ruled. Unlike Ms. Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.

The temporary restraining order still applies to Mary Trump, who will appear before the New York Supreme Court next Friday for a hearing, and is personally barred publishing or distributing any content from her book.

Story continues

A spokesperson for Simon & Schuster said the publisher was gratified by the decision. We support Mary L. Trumps right to tell her story in TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH, a work of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public. As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions, and we remain confident that the preliminary injunction will be denied, the spokesperson told TheWrap.

Also Read: Judge Temporarily Blocks Mary Trump's Tell-All Book About President and Family

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for Mary Trump, said the courts decision was also good news. We look forward to filing our brief tomorrow in the trial court explaining why the same result is required as to Ms. Trump, based on the First Amendment and basic contract law, he told TheWrap.

Charles Harder, an attorney for Robert Trump, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to a promotional summary of the book, which is scheduled for a July 28 release, Mary Trump will share in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donalds place in the family spotlight and Ivanas penchant for regifting to her grandmothers frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trumps favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimers.

Read original story Judge Lifts Temporary Restraining Order on Simon & Schuster Over Mary Trumps Tell-All Book At TheWrap
The 75-year-old protester who was pushed to the ground by police officers in Buffalo, New York, has been released from the hospital almost four weeks after being injured.

Martin Gugino was attending a protest outside City Hall on June 4 when he was pushed to the ground by a line of police officers clearing out the relatively empty area. He fell and hit the back of his head, fracturing his skull and putting him in the hospital for 26 days.

He was released Tuesday from the Erie County Medical Center, his attorney said. His lawyer, Kelly Zarcone, said he will be recovering at an "undisclosed location" to preserve his privacy.

"I was able to see Martin today and he looks great. He can walk with a little help and his condition will continue to improve with rest and time," Zarcone said in a statement. "I brought him the cards and letters sent to my office and he said he still felt overjoyed at the continued support and well wishes, 'like it was Christmas Day.'"

MORE: Trump tweets conspiracy theory about Buffalo protester police officers knocked to ground

Gugino is an activist and regular at protests in New York state, his friends said, but has never been anything but peaceful and is a regular volunteer for Catholic charities.

"Martin said that he is pleased at the progress made so far to protect the safety of peaceful protesters, a topic near and dear to his heart," Zarcone said Tuesday. "He respects the burden of authority placed upon law enforcement but looks forward to the continued implementation of systemic changes to eliminate police brutality."

PHOTO: Martin Gugino attends a demonstration. (Courtesy Bill Jacobson)

Officers Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe were charged earlier this month with second-degree assault in the incident and released on their own recognizance. They both pleaded not guilty and are expected back in court July 20.

In a statement prior to the arrests, Buffalo police had said Gugino tripped and fell despite the video evidence.

Story continues

MORE: Buffalo police officers arrested after shoving 75-year-old protester

The incident rose as high as the White House. President Donald Trump tweeted a conspiracy theory on June 9, writing Gugino may be an "ANTIFA provocateur" and that the whole incident could be part of a "set up."

At the time, Zarcone called the president's accusations "dark, dangerous, and untrue."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo mocked Trump's theory, asking, "What do you think, it was staged? You think that the blood coming out of his head was staged? Is that what you are saying?"

ABC News' Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.

Protester Martin Gugino, who was injured by police, released from hospital originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Other large countries exempted include Russia, India, and Brazil

The European Union will be reopening their borders to 15 countries outside of the 27 member states on July 1  The United States will not be one of them.

On the list of 15 nations that will now be able to travel to the EU is Australia, Japan, South Korea, and China  where the original virus began  as well as 11 others. The EU will be reevaluating the list every two weeks but the conditions they have set are that coronavirus infection rates must be equal to or better than the EU, leaving the U.S. with a tragically long way to go.

The EU has roughly 116 million more people than the U.S. and is currently reporting roughly 1.5 million coronavirus cases according to the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is sitting at 2.4 million cases reported and the highest number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in the world.

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According to NPR, the EU diplomats said it was highly unlikely that the framework would be changed any time soon. Its up to each EU member state to decide how they will manage the list of countries allowed to cross their borders but the European Council said they will unilaterally lift travel restrictions on a non-listed country. Travelers from other big countries like Russia, Brazil, and India also did not make the list.

The EU will also require reciprocal easing of travel bans to allow a country to be added to the list and, to date, the U.S. currently bars most travelers from 26 European countries (exempting the UK). In late May, Trump said Europe was making progress and many believed travel restrictions would be lifted, but nothing has transpired since that time.

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Our best estimate right now is that for every case that was reported, there actually were 10 other infections, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said last week of the actual likely cases in the U.S.

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More than 15 million Americans are estimated to travel to Europe annually, and around ten million Europeans travel to the U.S. every year for business and vacations. This ban will deliver further economic impacts on both sides, most specifically the already hard-hit tourism industry.

Denmark and Ireland have opted out of the common border policy, and will not be impacted by this decision, according to Bloomberg. Additionally, U.S. citizens with residence permits in EU countries, European citizens living in the U.S., as well as students, medical professionals, and diplomats will still be allowed to travel to the EU.

See the original article on ScaryMommy.com
Home is where the heart is shelter-at-home order is. As a result, its sparked a significant re-evaluation of how we look at our spacewhat we need from it, what we dream for it and what makes it comfortable (or not) day after quarantined day. For some, the pandemic has led to significant re-organization efforts. For others, its been the catalyst to finally (or spontaneously) purchase a new house. But whats that process really like during COVID-19? And how has this changed the market for the foreseeable future? We talked to a couple of home buyers, a realtor and a mortgage expert to find out.

1. Fixer Uppers Are Out, Turn-Key Is In

According to New York real estate broker Jocelyn Cloder, very few people want a fixer-upper right now. They want to pack up their suitcases, buy some furniture or bring what they already have and move right in. Shes also seen an interest in fully furnished homes, which require as little work (and strangers coming in and out) as possible.

On the flip side, if you are willing to do some work, you may have negotiating power. Says Cloder: Think a very dated kitchen or bathrooms, damaged floors, old carpetsa great deal can be found on a home that requires renovation or updates.

2. Outdoor and Home Office Space Is a Must

People want a yard for the kids to run around, a place for the dog to play and a quiet place to enjoy a cup of coffee, Cloder says. They also want to know what the home office set up looks like. Home has taken on a new level of importance. Its where you sleep, where you cook and eat every meal, but its also where you sit in front of your computer.

3. Virtual Tours Are the Norm

One couple who bought in Brooklyn reported that virtual tours were their lifeline during the pandemic. In fact, they watched the videos on repeat before deciding to book an appointment to go inside. In normal times, wed have visited the property more than once before going all in, they said. But we still keep going back to the virtual tour even now that weve bought it just to admire the space.

Story continues

Cloder adds: Virtual tours were a great substitute when they were the only alternative, and I still think they can be helpful in narrowing down a buyers list of favorite houses. Still, once a buyer thinks they have found the right house, they should try to see it in person.

4. As Are Virtual Inspections

Your broker should be able to recommend a diligent inspector who will walk through the house, take the necessary photos and put together a complete report for you, Cloder says. Then, before they leave, they will FaceTime or Zoom with the buyers to walk through the most important safety and health concerns and go over anything of note.

The Brooklyn couple explains: The key is to find a trustworthy inspector. Our realtor referred us to one and we were on Zoom during the entire inspection. After that, our home inspector put together a comprehensive PDF report and sent it to us. Everything checked out as normal, so we went ahead with the contract signing. All the payments were handled through Venmo.

5. Sales Are Speedier

One family who relocated to Shelter Island said that the urgency of the pandemic gave them clarity when it came time to buy. Our [pre-COVID] Goldilocks-style hunt for imperfections was replaced with a punch list of things we needed a house to have right now. Things like outdoor space, a bedroom for every kid, etc. In other words, they just needed to get it done.

Cloder confirms this shift. Priorities have definitely changed, she says. And as a result, sales are speedier. I am finding that many banks are waiving interior appraisals and instead doing a drive-by and using comparable homes they see online to appraise a property. In some cases, banks are even waiving the appraisal altogether. The one piece of advice I have for new buyers is to have their finances in order and organized in the early stages of a search, so they can move quickly on a home when they find the right one.

In fact, most sellers are only allowing showings to buyers who are qualified and ready to go. When I show houses and schedule appointments, I must send the listing agent my buyers pre-approval letter so the seller knows the buyer is ready, willing and able to submit an offer and move quickly. For a seller, this also helps prevent excess traffic into their home during such a fragile time, Cloder adds.

6. Deals Are Still Available, But Beware the Bidding War

There was a pandemic sweet spot when the market stalled, but right now, many houses are going to the best and highest offers, according to Cloder. The New York Times confirms this, saying that houses offering wide open spaces in upstate New York are going for $50,000 or more above the asking priceand are typically bought in cash.

One parting thought from Caroline McCarthy, customer success manager at Own Up, a company that helps consumers get fair deals on home financing: Proceed with caution if you find yourself in the midst of a bidding war. The supply of homes for sale in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest level since 2012, she says. These conditions are associated with a sellers market and tend to drive higher prices. But overpaying for a house now will make it nearly impossible for you to turn a profit when you move out some day in the future.

RELATED: 6 Questions to Ask When Buying a House with Your Partner
TOKYO (Reuters) - Apple supplier Japan Display Inc reported on Tuesday its first quarterly net profit in more than three years, boosted by the sale of its stake in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel affiliate JOLED.

Net profit for the three months ended March was 9.4 billion yen ($87.26 million), versus a 96.7 billion yen loss a year earlier. It last reported a net profit in the October-December quarter of 2016.

The display maker also said it would delay sales of production equipment at its main smartphone screen factory in central Japan to "an overseas customer", which sources have said is Apple.

The transaction, originally scheduled for end-March, will be completed in July-September due to the coronavirus outbreak slowing administrative procedures, it said. Japan Display will receive $200 million, which would be used for repayment to the customer.

Japan Display has been losing money for the past six years on an annual basis due to its late shift to OLED screens, competition from cut-price Chinese players and slowing growth in smartphone demand.

The company has agreed a deal to receive up to 110.8 billion yen ($1 billion) from Japanese investment manager Ichigo Asset Management, a critical bailout for the company that has long been dependant on publicly funded rescues.

($1 = 107.7300 yen)

(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Kim Coghill and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
More than 450 million cloth face coverings and more than 20 million medical gowns for the U.S. government delivered on schedule

Washable, reusable and breathable Hanes and Champion brand face masks introduced to consumers and business-to-business customers

HanesBrands (NYSE:HBI) has completed production and distribution of more than 450 million all-cotton cloth face coverings and more than 20 million medical gowns supplied to the U.S. government for use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005501/en/

Hanes has introduced 3-ply all-cotton nonmedical face masks for consumers that are reusable, washable and comfortable. (Photo: Business Wire)

The company also has introduced various all-cotton, nylon, and polyester blend face masks for consumers under its Hanes and Champion brands that are available online, in leading retail stores, and in company outlet stores. The companys business-to-business operations are also supplying large quantity orders to organizations.

"We are proud of the commitment of our employees and our ability to quickly pivot to large-scale production of face coverings and face masks to meet important needs during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Michael E. Faircloth, group president, global operations, American casualwear and e-commerce. "In just three months, we were able to go from never having produced face masks to making more than 450 million government face coverings, designing and developing branded programs of high-quality comfortable nonmedical face masks for consumers, and safely and responsibly reopening operations to support our core innerwear and activewear businesses. We have been able to keep tens of thousands of employees in the United States and across our global supply chain gainfully employed, productive and safe during a crippling pandemic."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the wearing of cloth face coverings to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially when social distancing cannot be practiced. Emerging evidence indicates face coverings act as barriers to the dispersion of respiratory droplets when worn over the mouth and nose.

Story continues

Hanes Face Masks

Hanes has introduced 3-ply all-cotton face masks for consumers in 5-count and 10-count packages available at leading mass merchandise, dollar store, grocery, drug, and home improvement retailers. The comfort features of the reusable and washable face masks include breathable wicking soft cotton fabric and adjustable nosepieces. The nonmedical masks, which come in black and white colors, are also available in 10-count and 50-count packs on Hanes.com.

Also available on the Hanes.com website and in the companys outlet retail stores are Hanes lightweight 2-ply seamless face masks. The washable and reusable face masks feature seamless stretch-to-fit construction with comfort ear loops and breathable and wicking nylon-spandex-polyester blend fabric. The face masks manufactured in the companys Arkansas hosiery production plant are available in several colors, including aluminum, royal blue, and blossom, come in 6-count and 60-count pack sizes.

Champion Face Masks

Champion has introduced a lightweight 1-ply polyester-spandex blend face mask in three vibrant graphic-design patterns and colors. The lie-flat masks are sold individually on the Champion.com website and are available in camouflage, cloud-dye blue, and Champion script logo designs.

Champion plans to introduce two additional face mask styles this summer.

In mid-July, Champion will introduce a 2-ply all-cotton face mask featuring X-Temp cooling and wicking fabric. The mask will be available in black, navy and khaki colors on the Champion.com website and in the companys retail outlet stores.

In August, Champion will introduce a 2-ply cotton-polyester blend face mask featuring adjustable nose piece and X-Temp cooling and wicking fabric. The masks will be come in multiple colors and two adult sizes and one youth size. They will be available at leading midtier department stores, sporting goods stores, and specialty retailers, as well as on the Champion.com web site.

Government Masks and Gowns

HanesBrands produced reusable face coverings and gowns in accordance with efforts by the U.S. government to supplement supplies of nonsurgical personal protection for use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to the more than 450 million cloth face coverings, the company designed, developed and produced more than 20 million washable and reusable long-sleeve medical gowns distributed to hospitals and healthcare facilities in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for face masks, including cloth face coverings, in response to concerns about insufficient supply and availability for use by members of the general public and healthcare personnel for source control. Face masks, including cloth face coverings, when used as source control, may help in preventing or slowing the spread of COVID-19. These face masks are not authorized to be personal protective equipment. They are not a substitute for filtering face piece respirators or for surgical face masks.

In accordance with the emergency use authorization, HanesBrands government cloth face coverings and consumer face masks:

Have not been FDA cleared or approved.

Have been authorized by the FDA under an EUA for use by healthcare professionals as personal protective equipment to help prevent the spread of infection or illness in healthcare settings and by the general public to help slow the spread of the virus during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Are authorized only for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of the emergency use of medical devices, including alternative products used as medical devices, during the COVID-19 outbreak, under section 564(b)(1) of the Act, 21 U.S.C. Section 360bbb-3(b)(1) unless the authorization is terminated or revoked sooner.

HanesBrands is a socially responsible leading marketer of everyday basic innerwear and activewear apparel in the Americas, Europe, Australia and Asia-Pacific. The company sells its products under some of the worlds strongest apparel brands, including Hanes, Champion, Bonds, DIM, Maidenform, Bali, Playtex, Lovable, Bras N Things, Nur Die/Nur Der, Alternative, Leggs, JMS/Just My Size, Wonderbra, Berlei and Gear for Sports. For more information on the companys commitment to help during the COVID-19 pandemic, visit www.HanesForGood.com. For news about HanesBrands, visit the companys newsroom at https://newsroom.hanesbrands.com/.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200702005501/en/

Contacts

News Media: Matt Hall, (336) 519-3386, matt.hall@hanes.com

Analysts and Investors: T.C. Robillard, (336) 519-2115
Sienna Osta is an attorney who works in the Deerfield Beach office of Chartwell Law. In her questionnaire, Osta correctly notes the impact that a Republican-led Legislature has had on District 88. It has effectively abandoned those in need of a safety net by allowing whatever safety net did exist to be frayed almost beyond repair. The pandemic has revealed that damage.
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Yankton, SD (57078)

Today

A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 51F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 51F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Greensboro, NC (27407)

Today

Thunderstorms, some locally heavy early will become more isolated after midnight. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some locally heavy early will become more isolated after midnight. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
As we are inundated by the graphic headlines of how bad it is in Florida and South Florida in particular, we are rarely told how actually this is good news on one front. That is, that most of the people testing positive are the younger people who have rarely any ill effects and most dont even know that have the virus. Dont get me wrong. Somewhere inconspicuously towards the end of articles it is sometimes mentioned that the lower-aged folks are the ones testing positive. In that same area it will sometimes tell us that around 95% are negative. From what I have been hearing from fair-minded doctors is this is actually a good thing because 98% of these people need no hospitalization, ICU or ventilators and will not die. They also tell us that the more people that test positive, and then mostly become immune, will create herd immunity that helps us all to get thru this pandemic as various vaccines come on the market.
All employees days begin similarly. Every day upon arrival to work I get screened in by having my temperature checked and answering [screening] questions, Steinman said. Then the prayers and pep talks go into practice.

I check my emails and shift reports to see if there are any symptomatic residents and address appropriately as needed, Steinman said. I spend the rest of my day ensuring isolation rooms are set up appropriately and stocked; checking the staff schedule to see whos on for the day that may need tested out on hand washing, putting on and taking off personal protective equipment, or Isolation Precaution training; updating policies and creating new ones.

Normally Im scheduled eight hour shifts during the week, but I have had to pull some longer hours and be flexible with my schedule, she said. Steinman sometimes comes to the Hearthstone at night, to train her fellow employees on technicalities like proper hand washing techniques, putting on and taking off personal protective equipment in a safe manner, then asking staff to repeat her demonstrations. Steinman keeps up on developments as well. New information and guidance would come in as fast as we were making necessary changes to our practice, she said. We have been doing a great job keeping up with the new regulations related to COVID-19.
YORK  Tayjuan McMullen, 27, of Lincoln, has been formally charged in York County of criminal impersonation, a Class 4 felony; possession of marijuana (more than one pound), a Class 4 felony; and delivery of a controlled substance, a Class 2A felony.

He has pleaded not guilty to all three charges and a jury trial has been set for late October, in York County District Court.

According to court documents, a trooper with the Nebraska State Patrol was on regular duty on Interstate 80, in York County, when he said he saw a speeding vehicle that was also moving back and forth between driving lanes.

A traffic stop was initiated.

McMullen was a back seat passenger in the vehicle, the trooper says in his affidavit  yet, the person presented a Nebraska identification card that said his name was Donshay Reed and he was 36 years old.

Throughout the conversation, several factors of criminal activity were observed, the trooper wrote in his affidavit for the court.

He said he requested consent to search and was denied.

When a drug dog was brought to the scene, it alerted to the odor of narcotics. The trooper alleges that McMullen told him he had more than a pound of marijuana in the vehicle.
YORK  Two people have been identified as suspects in the weekend burglary that occurred at the Janssen Ford dealership in York, which resulted in the theft of a vehicle and substantial damage to the building.

Sgt. Russ Coffey with the York Police Department said they were dispatched to the dealership, located at 2605 South Lincoln Avenue, on Sunday, June 28, at 8:30 a.m.

When they arrived, they found the glass doors on the south side of the building had been broken out and a 2020 blue Ford Explorer was missing from the dealership as well.

On the east side of the dealership, they found a 2016 orange Chevy Colorado  owned by the Iowa Department of Transportation  that was covered in glass and had been spray-painted inside and outside. That vehicle was determined to have been stolen out of Desoto, Iowa, at least 24 hours earlier.

As far as the spray painting in the Iowa vehicle, most of it was on the steering wheel and the dash. There was also spray paint over the DOT emblem on the outside doors.

It was determined that the Iowa vehicle had been driven into the Janssen building, causing all the damage.
Editor's Note: This story is a first-person account of what it is like to be tested for COVID-19  showing the reality of what might go through a persons mind when asking for the testing to be performed, how the test is administered and what to expect when going through the process.

YORK -- The line to the York COVID-19 test site was almost nonexistent.

I expected a long line of masked individuals shifting forward, one by one, towards a small fleet of medical professionals and government types. A total of 75 people were tested that day.

Still, no one waited behind me.

Like a well-oiled machine, the two women conducting testing had a shiny black 14-county vehicle in front of me in and out of the York County Fairgrounds Mercantile Building within a few minutes, counting the time it took them to deftly put on additional protective gear.

They looked ready to battle Ebola in the middle of a riot. Seeing those health care workers in protective suits, face masks, face shields and doubled gloves reaching past their elbows made the situations weight descend on me: Where I should or should not have traveled. The times I forgot to put on my mask, or, honestly, just didnt bother. How life would change if I tested positive.
YORK  A woman was stabbed Wednesday night in York and a man has been arrested for attempted murder.

According to York Police Chief Ed Tjaden, the police department was dispatched to 413 North Beaver Avenue at 7:23 p.m., to investigate a disturbance.

Upon arrival, officers witnessed assaultive behavior and had contact with a local woman and Mario Reyes, 60, of York, Chief Tjaden said.

A state patrol spokesperson said the first responding officer heard screaming from inside the residence. The officer entered the residence and discovered a man appearing to strangle a woman. The officer immediately pulled the man off the woman and saw she had been stabbed multiple times. York rescue units arrived on the scene and quickly began rendering medical aid to the woman.

The victim was transported to medical facilities and received treatment for multiple stab wounds and other wounds, the chief continued.

Scanner traffic Wednesday night indicated that a helicopter was dispatched to York in order to fly the victim to another location for medical care.
YORK  Alyssa Gilliland of York was among 44 high school graduates to be honored by Governor Pete Ricketts at the state capitol rotunda this week, for achieving a top score on their ACT or SAT college entrance exams.

The ceremony included remarks by both the governor and Nebraska Department of Education Commissioner Matt Blomstedt.

Achieving a top score on the ACT or SAT is extremely hard to do, said Gov. Ricketts. In Nebraska, 44 graduates in the class of 2020 have accomplished this remarkable feat. Their top scores reflect years of hard work and academic discipline, as well as the contributions of their teachers and parents.

Perhaps no class has faced more challenges than the class of 2020. These students have risen to the occasion and exceeded all expectations, said Education Commissioner Matt Blomstedt. Congratulations to the outstanding Nebraska students who achieved a top score on the ACT. These students are a great example of perseverance, hard work, and dedication. We are all proud of their accomplishments and wish them the best in their bright futures.

This years number of students with top scores (44) equaled the number of graduating seniors who achieved a top score in 2019. The class of 2018 in Nebraska had 22 students who scored either a 36 on the ACT or 1600 on the SAT.

Gilliland was given the opportunity to address the crowd, introducing herself in Arabic. She will be attending Oklahoma State, majoring in global studies. Her future plans are to work in the area of foreign affairs, utilizing her skills in speaking Arabic, English, Russian and Spanish.
Dennard, who is a Republican National Committee adviser for black media affairs, said he himself has not been tested for coronavirus since the Tulsa rally because he has "exhibited zero symptoms" and is regularly wearing a face covering.

As a cancer survivor, Cain, age 74, is considered at an increased risk for coronavirus, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.

In 2006, he was given a 30% chance of survival from stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his liver. He underwent chemotherapy and surgery to remove the cancer from his liver and was declared cancer-free in 2007.

The former Godfather's Pizza CEO announced his candidacy for president in 2011, and his 9-9-9 tax reform plan gained traction. After about seven months, he dropped his bid for the GOP nomination amid sexual harassment allegations, which he denied.

Cain was named in April 2019 as one of Trump's picks for two open seats on the influential Federal Reserve Board. He withdrew from consideration within the same month after four Republican senators said publicly they would not vote to confirm him and amid concerns that his nomination hearing would resurface the harassment allegations.

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- William Kwamkwamba, a Malawian teenager, built a windmill in 2002 and gave electricity and water to his village

- The knowledge he deployed was gathered from a tattered science book he borrowed from his school's library

- Kwamkwamba focused fully on the windmill project when he quit school because his parent could not afford his fees

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

Sometimes, all it takes is a person to set a new phase in history. A Malawian teenager, William Kwamkwamba, made the almost-impossible thing happen when he built a windmill from junks and restored electricity to his village in 2002.

What is most inspiring about his story is that his knowledge of the machine was self-taught as he had to gather knowledge from borrowed books in the library, BBC News reports.

It is also very much inspiring to know that the boy quit school at a very tender age because his family could not fund his $80-a-year fees.

READ ALSO: My late grandpa surprised me with my dream car on graduation day - Lady reveals

As he dropped out, he returned to his familys farmland in Masitala, a central Malawian village, with a very grim look at the future.

Kwamkwamba could not wait for politicians to do the work of bringing electricity and water to his village as Malawi faced its worst drought season in 2002 which left thousands of people dead.

The idea of building a windmill first struck him when he encountered one in a science textbook. In talking with the BBC, he said seeing the windmill made him very interested in how it could be used to pump electricity and water.

His passion for the invention was inspired by his keen love for science. Photo source: BBC News

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Family excited after son who went missing at age 2 finally gets found at age 20

"I was very interested when I saw the windmill could make electricity and pump water. I thought: 'That could be a defence against hunger. Maybe I should build one for myself', he said.

He said people could not believe what he was building, so he just told them he was making a musical instrument.

According to the BBC, he built his first 5m windmill in 2002. In 2007, he brought solar power to his village and installed a solar pump.

Sometimes in 2008, the same media also reported that he built a green machine windmill to pump water. In 2009, he made another copy of the earlier 5m windmill.

Meanwhile, YEN.com.gh earlier reported that renowned female Ghanaian media personality, Ayisha Yakubu, who works as a TV presenter and news anchor at Media General Limited has listed her top male Ghanaian musicians.

Ayisha made the profound revelation among many others to YEN.com.gh during a recent one-on-one question-and-answer session on Twitter.

Without indicating if it was in any particular order, the TV3 news presenter indicated that Kojo Antwi, Samini, King Promise, Stonebwoy, Shatta Wale, and Sarkodie were her favourite male artistes in Ghana.

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"We want a Ghanaian election, not a West African Election"  Akufo-Addo | #Yencomgh

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Source: Yen
- The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has received $600 million to boost cocoa production in Ghana

- The support was from a number of developmental partners

- They include African Development Bank (AfDB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Spa (CDP)

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

The Ghana Cocoa Board has received $600 million from a number of international agencies.

The financial support is expected to be used for the boosting of cocoa productivity in the country.

The package was jointly announced by COCOBOD, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and other Development Finance Institutions (DFIs).

Source: GH Headlines

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Agric ministry to support women farmers with GHc2.5 million package

Per a report by thebftonline.com, the fund would be used to support COCOBODs Productivity Enhancement Programmes (PEPs).

YEN.com.gh understands that in November 2019, the DFIs signed the agreement with COCOBOD.

Those present included African Development Bank (AfDB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Spa (CDP), and commercial finance agencies such as Credit Suisse AG (London Branch) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (London branch).

COCOBODs Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Joseph Boahen Aidoo, noted that the support will help COCOBOD contribute to achieving SDG Goals 1 (no poverty), 8 (decent work and economic growth) and 12 (responsible consumption and production).

In other news, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yoofi Grant, has called for a common African currency.

According to him, the use of different currencies in the continent is a huge barrier as it complicates trading activities.

In his opinion, it should be possible to easily trade in Nigeria without switching currencies.

READ ALSO: GRA recorded over GHc1 million taxpayers in 2019 - Finance Ministry

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Faces of Ghana: 21-year-old female boxer's dream of becoming a world champion | #Yencomgh

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Source: Yen.com.gh
- Ghanaian actress, Sandra Ankobiah, is the CEO of Emerald Energy Ghana

- She has been handling this position on the blind side of most Ghanaians

- Ankobiah is also a trained lawyer and actress

- Her position is going to surprise many who think she is up to nothing

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Ghanaian actress and trained lawyer, Sandra Ankobiah, has been occupying the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of an oil company on the blindside of most Ghanaians.

She is the CEO of Emerald Energy Ghana, an oil company with operations in other countries.

A check by YEN.com.gh on the companys Instagram shows a post of them praising Ankobiah as their CEO as she represented the company at a conference/exhibition somewhere last year.

Sandra Ankobiah. Photo credit: YEN.com.gh

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Efia Odo flaunts young dad to the world; the resemblance is amazing

Facts gathered by YEN.com.gh on the companys website also detailed the very job they do.

We, Emerald Energy, are an indigenous Ghanaian oilfields support service company that provides the highest level of quality ancillary services that allow our clients to have seamless operations both onshore and offshore, a part of their who we are read.

Sandra is also said to own the company.

READ ALSO: Elikems fashionable 63-year-old mother flaunts blinking anklets as she exercises in video

This is going to surprise many people who have often called Sandra Ankobiah names because they thought she has not been working.

Ankobiah, for instance, has been called TikTok lawyer because they say she is always active on that app since the movie industry collapsed.

No wonder many people have congratulated her on her CEO role.

Kultured, for instance, described it as impressive:

kultured_woman: Wow. Impressive. Congratulations.

Bridal also congratulated her:

glittersbridal_: Congratulations.

To CC, this is simply awesome:

ccpean: This is awesome! Congratulations, Boss Chick!!!

Rose pleaded to be hired:

roseofakosuasharon: Hire me.

READ ALSO: Another resignation from Multimedia: Komla leaves over fashion rings

Meanwhile, Ankobiah has trended in the news for what some people call her newly-acquired body shape.

She now carried a huge backside and larger hips than she was known to have.

YEN.com.gh earlier published before and after photos of Sandra Ankobiah that caused her fans to jump to that conclusion.

Just recently, another photo popped up with someone saying her thighs were too small and do not match her large backside.

Faces of Ghana: 21-year-old female boxer's dream of becoming a world champion | #Yencomgh

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New Delhi: Popular actress Monalisa, who was once a Bhojpuri top star has now moved to television successfully with her show 'Nazar'. She has a huge fanbase on social media. She recently touched 3.4 million followers on Instagram and expressed gratitude to fans.

She posted a video wearing bright red saree while grooving to a song 'Yeh Mera Dil' from 'Don'. She captioned her post as: Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Deewana .. ... #goodmorning #being #retro #happiness 3.4 #million #strong #instagram #family #blessed #gratitude #thankyou #friends #godbless #us

The actress has had the opportunity of working with almost all the Bhojpuri big shots in her movie career. In 'Nazar', she played an evil force named Mohana. And received immense adulation for her work on TV.

Monalisa was seen this year in 'Nazar 2' as Madhulika Chaudhary. She sure knows how to keep her social media fam happy and smiling.

The sensational star was seen as a popular contestant in the reality show 'Bigg Boss 10' and in fact, got married to her then-boyfriend Vikrant Singh inside the BB 10 house.
At least 29 people were killed on Thursday as lightning struck different across different parts of Bihar. The highest death toll was recorded in Samastipur with eight people killed, followed by Patna where six people died, east Champaran with four deaths, Katihar with three deaths, two deaths each in Madhepura, Shivhar, and West Champaran and one person died each in Purnea and Aurangabad.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has announced an ex-gratia of Rs four lakh each to the kin of the people who lost their lives, informed the Bihar Chief Minister's Office.

Earlier on June 30, 11 people were killed in Bihar--Saran (5), Patna (2), Nawada (2), Lakhisarai (1) and Jamui (1).

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar paid the condolences and asked the people to follow the guidelines that have been issued by the State Disaster Management Authority. The CM had announced Rs 4 lakh each to the kin of those who lost their lives.

In the past few days, over 100 people have died in Bihar while several others have been injured and widespread damage has occurred to properties across the state due to lightning strikes.
After receiving notice from the Centre to vacate the bungalow at Lodhi Estate in Delhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi is now planning for a new political move. Sources close to Priyanka said that she will now shift to Uttar Pradesh and will stay in a bungalow in Lucknow.

According to reports, Priyanka is now preparing to build her base in Lucknow, keeping in mind the 2022 Assembly election in the state. She is expected to shift to 'Kaul House' in Lucknow. This bungalow belongs to Indira Gandhi's aunt Sheela Kaul. Sheila Kaul was also a minister in the Union Cabinet and was a very popular leader of the Congress. The repair work of 'Kaul House' in Lucknow has been completed.

Priyanka's decision to shift from Delhi to Lucknow is also considered important for electoral preparation. She wants to spend more and more time in different districts of Uttar Preadesh by staying in Lucknow before the election. Sources said that this will gove her more time to prepare for Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll. It may be recalled that Indira Gandhi also came to Lucknow with her husband Feroze Gandhi after her marriage and lived in a bungalow on AP Sen Road near Charbagh railway station.

The Centre on Wednesday cancelled the government accommodation allotted to Priyanka Gandhi with the direction to vacate the house within one month i.e. August 1.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had informed vide its communication dated June 30 that Priyanka has been assigned Z+ security with CRPF cover on the all-India basis, which does not have any provision for allotment or retention of government accommodation on that ground. She is not an SPG protectee now. Priyanka was allotted Bangalow No 35, Lodhi Estate on February 21, 1997, on security ground as an SPG protectee.

As per records, Priyanka has accumulated dues of Rs 3,46,677 as on June 30 and she has been issued noticed to clear these dues and rent for the period she vacates the accommodation. According to Urban Development Ministry sources, she has made online payment of balance amount due to her. Hence, now dues as on June 30 is nil against her.
NEW DELHI: In the midst of the current political crisis in Nepal, China and Pakistan are engaged in a big conspiracy to end India's influence in the Himalayan country. According to Indian security agencies, China is engaged in meddling in Nepal. Chinese spies are being deployed in Nepal under the cover of medical staff for help in the name of COVID-19.

According to the intelligence report accessed by Zee News, China's intelligence agency Military of State Security (MSS) is increasing its presence in Nepal. MSS is the intelligence and secret police agency of the Peoples Republic of China responsible for foreign intelligence.

MSS is also considered as the most secretive intelligence unit of China in the world. As per an independent analyst, Pakistan is also taking advantage of the border dispute between Nepal and India.

Pakistan's agencies are trying to get in touch with Prime Minister Oli and other important leaders of Nepal who can be drawn against India. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has extended its support to Oli. Pakistan PM has also sent a formal notice to the foreign ministry of Nepal and proposed a call with Oli.

Not only this, but Pakistan's ISI is also increasing the number of its agents in the Pakistan Embassy in Kathmandu to keep an eye on Nepal's internal developments. Reportedly, Phanindra Nepal, leader of Unified Nepal National Front, has been meeting with officials of the Pakistan and Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu for the last few months.

China is looking to create trouble for India by provoking its neighbors. Both China and Pakistan are planning to open another front by provoking Nepal against India. The Chinese Ambassador in Nepal Hou Yanqi played a big role in inciting Nepal against India. Incidentally, Hou Yanqi was stationed in Pakistan before she was made the ambassador to Nepal.

Recently, Nepal released a controversial new map in which it shows Lipulekh, Kalapani, Limpiyadhura  parts of Uttarakhand - as part of its territory thus irking India.

It is believed that Nepal has done so at the behest of China. Nepali FM stations located in the neighboring Nepal region of India have been continuously engaged in propaganda against India. The Oli government of Nepal is airing anti-India activities as part of a larger conspiracy.

The 68-year old Nepal has been ratcheting irredentism against India. He even blamed India for spreading the Wuhan virus in Nepal and also got his police personnel to fire upon unarmed Indian citizens.

Meanwhile, the Oli government has decided to prorogue the ongoing budget session of the Parliament.

The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting held at Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli`s official residence in Baluwatar. It comes amid reports of an inter-party dispute between Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda. The Prachanda-led faction in the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) has demanded the resignation of Oli from the post of the prime minister and party-co chair.

Earlier in the day, Oli visited Sheetal Niwas to meet President Bidhya Devi Bhandari. On Wednesday, the Standing Committee meeting of the NCP was called, during which 17 out of 18 Standing Committee members demanded Oli`s resignation.

The senior leaders, including co-chair Prachanda, Madhav Nepal, Jhalanath Khanal and Bamdev Gautam asked the Prime Minister to step down from the post citing his `failure` over various issues.
Amid rising border tensions between India and China and New Delhi's decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile applications over security issues, the US on Wednesday (July 1) said that Washington was closely monitoring the situation between two Asian nation neighbours.

Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, said during a press briefing that both India and China are willing to de-escalate and reduce tensions along Line of Actual Control (LAC) and US support a peaceful resolution of current situation.

"With regard to India and China, we are closely monitoring the situation. Both India and China have expressed a desire to de-escalate. We support a peaceful resolution of current situation," said McEnany.

McEnany added that US President Donald Trump has said that the aggressive stand adopted by China along the LAC fits with a larger pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world

"Donald Trump has said that China's aggressive stance along India-China border fits with a larger pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world. These actions only confirm true nature of the Chinese Communist Party," said the White House press secretary.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised India's decision to ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat, and stressed that the move would "boost India's integrity and national security".

"We welcome India's ban on certain mobile apps. India's clean app approach will boost India's sovereignty and boost integrity and national security," Pompeo said.

The border tension between India and China escalated on June 15 when 20 Indian Army personnel were martyred after violent clashes with Chinese troops along the LAC in Galwan Valley of eastern Ladakh.

After the ban on 59 Chinese apps, India on Wednesday (July 1) took two more decisions that are likely to cause economic injury to China. The first decision is that India will no longer give entry to Chinese companies in its highway projects. The second decision taken by the Ministry of Communications cancelled the 4G Upgradation tender of BSNL, the state-run telecom company.
New Delhi: In order to retain bonding between students and teachers amid COVID-19 induced lockdown, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government has chalked out a plan under 'Learning with human feel' scheme so that this relation remains unaffected due to digital divide.

Under the 'Learning with human feel' scheme, the Delhi government has taken the following steps to further cement the relationship between students and teachers.

1. KG to 8th grade: Teacher will guide students through WhatsApp

2. 9th to class 10: Teachers will prepare study material and share it on WhatsApp

3. Class 11 to 12th: Teachers will take an online period of 45 minutes

Meanwhile, teaching-learning in Delhi government schools will continue despite schools being closed until July 31st, according to Delhi's Education Minister Manish Sisodia.

A plan of action for each grade level will ensure the minimum possible academic loss, the government stated.

Earlier, Sisodia had said that all schools in Delhi will remain closed till July 31 in the view of the current coronavirus situation.

Last month, Sisodia had written a letter to Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank suggesting the steps to be taken to see schools in the new role.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday chalked out a unified strategy for the Delhi-NCR region stating that focus should be on early hospitalisation of coronavirus COVID-19 patients to reduce the infection rate. Shah held a meeting with chief ministers of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh emphasising on the importance of the humanitarian perspective to save lives of the poor and the needy.

He said that the adoption of more testing via Rapid Antigen Test Kits will help in reducing infection transmission rate below 10 per cent as suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The Home Minister added that nearly 90 per cent of screening is possible through these kits and these kits can be provided by the Centre to Uttar Pradesh and Haryana governments in numbers desired by them.

Shah also emphasised on the wide use of Arogya Setu and Itihas Apps to help COVID19 mapping in the NCR. The Union Minister added that the AIIMS Delhi Telemedicine consultation model being used in Delhi for COVID-19 patients should be replicated in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana also.

He suggested that UP and Haryana can join AIIMS-Telemedicine COVID consultation through which patients can get advice by expert doctors. The training for doctors in small hospitals in UP and Haryana can be provided by AIIMS with the help of Tele-videography.

Dr VK Paul, Member NITI Ayog also gave a presentation on the strategy of tackling COVID-19 in NCR. He provided details of best practices adopted in Delhi-NCR and the way ahead.

The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Harshvardhan, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and senior officials of the Centre along with Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi governments were also present at the meeting.
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India on Thursday reiterated its stand urging China to sincerely ensure expeditious restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The border tension between India and China escalated on June 15 when 20 Indian Army personnel were martyred after violent clashes with Chinese troops along the LAC in Galwan Valley of eastern Ladakh.

Addressing a press conference, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, "India and China are having dialogues and discussions through established military channel. Along with it, diplomatic engagements are going on parallelly. Both sides have emphasised on the need for stepwise and expeditious disengagement."

He added that the meeting in Chushul village in the Leh district of Ladakh was the third military commander meeting on de-escalation and disengagement.

On blocking of Chinese apps, the MEA said, "India is one of the most open regimes to attract FDI. India is the world's largest market for digital technology. World's largest software companies are present but they have to follow our rules on privacy."

After the June 15 clashes, while China has acknowledged casualties on their side, it has not specified the numbers. Beijing has not made any official statement on the casualties suffered by the People's Liberation Army during the face-off with the Indian Army.

India, on its part, categorically rejected Beijings untenable claims regarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and said that it contradicts its earlier stand on the issue. The Minister of External Affairs claimed that since early May 2020, the Chinese side has been hindering India's normal, traditional patrolling pattern in the area.

Speaking on Pakistan blaming India for the recent attack in Karachi, the MEA said, "Pakistan can't blame India for their domestic problems."

Reacting to Pakistan's announcement on holding an election in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, India said it rejected the material changes and asked Pakistan to vacate all the illegal occupation.
New Delhi: Sino-India faceoff in the Galwan Valley in the eastern Ladakh has exposed China internationally, but Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to be adamant in his expansionist misadventures. Amid talks with India to defuse border tensions following the recent violent clash between the two nations' troops, China has deployed 6 times more troops on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The deployment of Chinese troops along the LAC shows that the Communist nation is sticking to the 2500-year-old military strategy of Sun Tzu, who wrote a famous book The Art of War. The ancient military strategist had propounded that when you are weak, give the enemy an impression that you are very powerful and when you are really powerful, the enemy should have the feeling that you are too weak.

This strategy, however, is not helping China as its expansionist agenda is being exposed internationally and Chinese President Xi Jinping is also learned to be losing popular support. This is likely to make a dent in the steel frame around his persona and the impression so far given about the invincibility of the People's Liberation Army(PLA), which has to bite the dust in the Galwan Valley faceoff with Indian troops.

Zee News has come to know that China has not only increased the number of its troops but has also deployed ground-to-air HQ 16 and HQ 9 missiles on 856 km long LAC in Ladakh. The HQ 16 missile has a range of 40 km while the HQ 9 can cover a range of 200 kms.

Apart from this, China has also deployed its heavy artillery, anti-Aircraft guns and Rocket Force, which was formed in 2016, in this area. It is also believed that the Chinese army has the largest number of rockets in the world. This deployment has been made in the Depsang area near the LAC and the place is not far from Pangong Lake.

On the one hand, China is pretending to have talks with India and on the other hand, it is increasing its military power on the border. In the high-level talks between the top military officials of both the nations, India has, however, made it clear that until China goes back pre-May situation, it would be difficult to resolve this dispute, which is likely to prolong by the end of the year or even longer.

Amid this Sino-India border row, reports are coming in that murmuring against all-powerful President Xi Jinping has also increased. Former Chinese soldiers and Chinese people are irked over Xi's misadventure against India. Jianli Yang, founder of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, an organization opposing Chinese government policies, has written an article in the American newspaper Washington Times citing this feeling. He claimed that some former and current Chinese soldiers are so angry with Jinping that they can even revolt.

Jianli Yang, who is the son of a former leader of the Communist Party of China, further claimed that China has made a huge mistake by hiding the number of soldiers killed in the Galwan faceoff. The Chinese government is also fearing that this may increase the anger of Chinese people who may take to the streets against Jinping.

By increasing the deployment on the Ladakh border, Xi Jinping perhaps wants to give the message that the PLA is still completely under his control. The global protest against China is also increasing after the disputed national security law has been implemented in Hong Kong.

Amid this Sino-India border row, several countries are uniting against China. So far, 27 countries have lodged their protest with the United Nations Human Rights Commission against China. The US House of Representatives has also passed a resolution against China's move in Hong Kong. The UK has also offered 3 million Hong Kong people to settle in Britain.

Australia, which is troubled by the economic siege from China, has also decided to increase its military budget by 40 per cent to 270 billion Australian dollars over the next 10 years in view of the increasing Chinese threat in the Asia Pacific region.
New Delhi: India is in talks with the US and Canada and the countries in European and Gulf regions on establishing individual bilateral bubbles which will allow airlines of each country in the pact to operate international flights, said Arvind Singh, Chairman, Airports Authority of India (AAI), on Thursday.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) had on June 23 said India is considering establishing "individual bilateral bubbles" with the US, the UK, Germany, and France.

Singh said, "This morning, I took a brief from the key point person (from the MOCA) who is negotiating with the countries, and he said that we are in constant touch. We are working on a consensus to restart international flights. This is going to be through air bubbles."

"Talks are mainly going on between India and the US, India, and Canada, India and Europe and India and the Gulf countries to start flights in these bubbles," he said at a webinar called "Reposing the faith in flying" organised by the GMR group.

Scheduled international passenger flights remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Singh said the MOCA official has informed him that the discussion with the countries is at a "very advanced" level and the effort is to restart international flights at the earliest.

"I am sure there would be a positive outcome of the talks with the US, Canada and with the Gulf countries and the negotiations are going on," he noted.

The EU has presently banned the flights from India as the number of coronavirus cases are rising in the country, Singh said.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on June 20 said the government will start thinking on the resumption of scheduled international passenger flights in mid-July when it expects the domestic air traffic to reach 50-55 per cent of the levels before the coronavirus.

After nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak, the government resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25. However, it had then allowed the airlines to operate the maximum of 33 per cent of their pre-COVID flights. The MOCA increased the limits on June 26 from 33 per cent to 45 per cent.

The MOCA on June 23 had said, "As we contemplate further opening up in response to demands, we are looking at the prospect of establishing individual bilateral bubbles, India-US, India-France, India-Germany, India-UK. These are all destinations where demand for travel has not diminished. Final decisions pursuant to negotiations are expected to be taken soon."

"We have received requests from authorities in several countries including the US, France, Germany among others requesting that their air carriers be allowed to participate in the transportation of passengers along the line being conducted by Air India under Vande Bharat Mission. These requests are being examined," it added.

Air India started international chartered flights under the Vande Bharat Mission from May 6 to help people stranded due to the pandemic reach their destinations.

The MOCA's June 23 statement had come after the US Department of Transport (DOT) said on June 22 that it appears that Air India may be using its passenger repatriation charter flights as a way of circumventing the government of India-imposed prohibition of all scheduled international services.



"We are taking this action (of allowing only those Air India flights from July 22 that have DOT's approval) because the Government of India has impaired the operating rights of the US carriers and has engaged in discriminatory and restrictive practices with respect to the US carrier services to and from India," the DOT had said.
Amid the rising tensions between India and China at Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, India is taking steps to strengthen maritime alliance in the Indian Ocean region.

The details of the plan are still in the works but could include countries impacted by Chinese aggression in the South China sea.

The alliance will not only help maintain balance in the Indo-Pacific region but will also provide strength to the QUAD grouping made up of Japan, US, India and Australia.

In contrast to Atlantic or the Pacific ocean, the Indian ocean which is the third largest ocean is not an open one and entry into it is via straits like Strait of Malacca. India could use its maritime capability by deploying warships near the Malacca Strait, which is regarded as Chinas jugular vein to send a strong message to the Chinese communist party that it means business.

India has been an active player of the 22-member strong Indian Ocean Rim Association which consists of countries that share a boundary with the Indian Ocean and expected to be more vocal on illegal fishing by Chinese vessels in the region.

India is not in a mood to believe in China after the June 15 violent face-off that resulted in the martyrdom of 20 Indian soldiers. It is believed that any retreat at this juncture would be taken as a sign of weakness, further emboldening China to broaden its strategy of salami-slicing.

"The martyrdom of 20 Indian soldiers - a first on the LAC after 1975 - has the potential to permanently alter the prism through which India steers its China strategy and also transform Indo-Chinese dynamics," said a source.

China's new claim on Galwan Valley has only added to the suspicion as the region is strategically important for India since the mountain peaks on either side overlook the crucial Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DSDBO) road that connects Sub-Sector North (SSN) with the rest of Ladakh.
At least two Pakistani soldiers were killed in a retaliatory fire on Thursday after Pakistan resorted to ceasefire violation along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan initiated unproved firing with small arms in Qasba, Kerni and Shahpur sectors at about 9.30 am. Following this, the Indian Army retaliated against the Pakistan Army posts in the Rakh Chakri area. This resulted in the death of two Pakistani soldiers of 10 BALUCH.

Rattled by the effective Indian firing that led to the destruction of few bunkers and casualties, Pakistan Foreign Ministry is working on lodging protest with Indias High Commission in Pakistan.
NEW DELHI: The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) on Thursday approved the proposal for procurement of 21 MIG-29 along with upgradation of existing 59 Mig-29 aircraft and procurement of 12 Su-30 MKI aircraft from Russia.

While the MIG 29 procurement and upgradation from Russia is estimated to cost Rs 7418 crore, the Su-30 MKI will be procured from HAL at an estimated cost of Rs 10730 crore, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

In the current situation and the need to strengthen the Armed Forces for the Defence of our borders and in line with Prime Ministers clarion call for Atma Nirbhar Bharat, the Defence Acquisition Council in its meeting of July 2, 2020, held under the Chairmanship of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh accorded approval for capital acquisitions of various platforms and equipment required by the Indian Armed Forces, the statement said.

''The proposals for an approximate cost of Rs 38900 Cr were approved. With a focus on indigenous design and development, these approvals include acquisitions from Indian Industry of Rs 31130 Cr. All equipment are to be manufactured in India involving the Defence Industry with the participation of several MSMEs as prime-tier vendors. The Indigenous content in some of these projects is up to 80% of the project cost. A large number of these projects have been made possible due to Transfer of Technology by DRDO to the Indigenous Industry. These include Pinaka ammunitions, BMP armament upgrades and Software Defined Radios for the Army, Long Range Land Attack Cruise Missile Systems and Astra Missiles for Navy and Air Force. The cost of these Design and Development proposals is in the range of Rs 20400 cr. the DAC said in a release.

Acquisition of new and additional missile systems will add to the firepower of three armed services, it added. While the acquisition of Pinaka missile systems will enable raising additional regiments over and above the ones already inducted, the addition of Long-Range Land Attack Missile Systems having a firing range of 1000 Km to the existing arsenal will bolster the attack capabilities of the Navy and the Air Force, the DAC release said.

Similarly, induction of Astra Missiles having Beyond Visual Range capability will serve as a force multiplier and immensely add to the strike capability of Navy and Air Force. Further, addressing the long-felt need of the Indian Air Force to increase its fighter squadrons, the DAC also approved the proposal for procurement of 21 MIG-29 along with upgradation of existing 59 Mig-29 aircraft and procurement of 12 Su-30 MKI aircraft.

While the MIG 29 procurement and upgradation from Russia is estimated to cost Rs 7418 Cr, the Su-30 MKI will be procured from HAL at an estimated cost of Rs 10730 Crore.

It was earlier reported that Russia is ready to deliver Sukhoi Su-30 MKI and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 fighter jets to India in the shortest possible timeframe. In a government to government deal which comes amidst the India-China border tension, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has plans to order and induct 33 fighters - 12 Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs and 21 MiG-29s - from Russia.

Russia is ready to assess the issue of early delivery even as the country is already helping the IAF in the MiG-29 modernisation programme. IAF got its first MiG-29 in 1985 and the modernisation will help increase combat capabilities of the MiG-29 fighters to a level comparable to the 4th Generation jets.

Post-modernisation MiG-29s will allow integration of Russian and foreign origin weapons including tracking of aerial targets in a wide range of flight speeds and altitudes, tracking of heat-contrasting air objects & perform hidden (without the use of radar) attacks on them. Modern materials and technologies for corrosion protection will increase the service life of MiG-29 fighters by up to 40 years.

The first contract to deliver Su-30MKI jets to the IAF was signed on November 30, 1996, in Irkutsk, Russia, between Rosvooruzhenie state intermediary company and the Indian Defence Ministry. It envisaged the delivery of 32 Su-30s, all of which were produced in 2002-2004.

Satisfied with the performance of the aircraft, the Indian Defence Ministry placed additional orders. In December 2000, both countries signed a contract for organising the licensed production of Su-30MKIs in India at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited facilities. Then in 2012, another contract for technological kits of Su-30MKIs was signed as the Sukhois have proved to be a reliable and effective multirole heavy aerial combat platform for the IAF.

The Su-30MKI project has become one of the largest in the history of military cooperation of India with a foreign country and also has contributed to the sales of Su-30MK family aircraft to other countries.

Moreover, the programme has directly influenced the development of Su-30SM fighter jet, which is currently being delivered to the Russian Air Force and is also being offered at the international arms market as Su-30SME.
New Delhi: In a major milestone for Indian Navy, its naval ship INS Kesari traversed over 7500 nautical miles in over 55 days and delivered COVID-19 aid to 5 countries -Maldives, Mauritius, Madagascar, Comoros and Seychelles.

Under the "Mission Sagar", the ship sailed on 10th May and returned to India on June 28th. A Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) release said the aim of the mission was to, "deliver assistance to our maritime neighbours in dealing with the COVID crisis. Indias humanitarian assistance included supplies of essential food items, medicines, Ayurvedic medicines and deployment of Medical Assistance Teams (MAT) to Mauritius and Comoros.".

The Indian naval ship received a warm welcome in the five Indian Ocean countries to which it travelled.

Its first destination was the Maldives where the consignment was formally handed over by the Indian High Commissioner Sunjay Sudhir in an online ceremony, attended by Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid and Defence Minister Mariya Ahmed Didi.

Maldives President Ibrahim Solih in a tweet said, "during the COVID crisis, India has been a true friend to the Maldives. India's recent gift of essential food supplies is particularly helpful during these challenging times".

The 2nd destination was Mauritius where it was received by the Minister for Health of Mauritius, Dr Kailesh Jagutpal with the consignments handed over to him by Indian High Commissioner Tanmaya Lal. Pravind Jugnauth, Mauritius PM conveyed his country's gratitude to India over the phone to Prime Minister Modi and in a tweet said, "Our relationship with India will always be special as it is based on mutual trust and common values."

By end of May, the ship reached Madagascar were it was welcomed by Foreign Minister of the country Tehindrazanarivelo Liva Djacoba in the presence of Indian envoy Abhay Kumar. From Madagascar, it went to Comoros and was received by the Minister of Health, Solidarity, Social Protection and Gender Promotion of Comoros Loub Yacout Zaidu.

The President of Comoros, Azali Assoumani, said in a tweet, "In the name of the Comorian people, I am very thankful to #India for the arrival of a Medical Assistance Team and medicines today in Moroni to help us fight COVID19 and Dengue." Adding, the "assistance marks the strengthening of the cooperation and the relationship"

Its last stop was Seychelles. On 07 June 2020, in a handing over ceremony organised the same day, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs & Blue Economy, Amb. Barry Faure & Secretary of State for Health, Amb. Marie Lloyd jointly received the consignment on behalf of Government of Seychelles from the High Commissioner of India Dalbir Singh Suhag.
The CB-CID, tasked with probing the death of a father-son duo who were allegedly brutally beaten up in police custody in Tamil Nadu's Tuticorin, on Wednesday (July 1) arrested three more cops, including Sub Inspector Balakrishnan and constables Muthuraj and Murugan. A total of four police officials have been arrested in connection with this case so far. P Jayaraj (father) and J Fennix (son) were brutally thrashed in police custody in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi district. Jayaraj and Femm, aka Fennix, were booked for not closing their mobile shop in time on June 19 by the Sathankulam police.

Sub Inspector Ragu Ganesh, who was in suspension, was the first police officials to be arrested in connection with this case. The FIR filed in this case names six cops of the Sathankulam Police Station as the accused in this case and all have been charged under IPC section 302.

They father-son duo were remanded in judicial custody and lodged in Kovilpatti jail on June 21. Jayaraj died on June 22 night and his son Fennix (Benicks) on June 23 morning in judicial custody.

On June 30, the Madras High Court had directed the investigating agency's Tirunelveli DSP Anil Kumar to probe the death of the father-son duo. CB-CID officials led by Kumar conducted enquiries with the family members of the deceased, besides in the locality where the duo ran their cellphone shop.

CB-CID sleuths also visited the Sathankulam police station, since brought under the Revenue department as directed by the High Court. The incident had triggered a nationwide furore, leading to the suspension of five policemen, including an inspector and two Sub-Inspectors. The Madras High Court had directed a CB-CID probe into the matter although the state government had transferred the case to the CBI.
The president of Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, on Wednesday said that he had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to visit Ayodha and inaugurate the construction activities at the Ram Mandir site.

"We have written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to visit Ayodhya and inaugurate the construction activities of Ram temple. Pooja and other rituals have been ongoing for three months at the site," said Mahant Das.

"We just want him to come, and we'll ensure that there is no crowding," he added.

Mahant Nritya Gopal Das said that the saints do not want the 'bhoomi poojan' to be done via video conferencing or any other virtual way. The saint wants PM Modi to come to Ayodhya himself to join the inuaguration program. It is expected that the construction of the Ram temple will begin on July 6.

Manhat Nritya Gopal Das expressed confidence that PM Modi will accept the invitation and will come to Ayodhya to attend the function.

It may be recalled that 'Ram Lalla' idol was shifted to a temporary structure near Manas Bhawan in Ram Janmabhoomi premises in March 2020. The idol will remain there till the completion of the construction of Ram Temple.

On November 9, 2019, the Supreme Court had directed the Central government to hand over the site at Ayodhya for the construction of a temple. The apex court had also ordered to set up a trust to look after the construction of the temple. The SC had also ordered the Centre to give a suitable land measuring five acres to the Sunni Waqf Board.
The Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) is expected to release the MP Board class 10 and class 12 results 2020 in the first week of July.

The results will be release online on the websites- mpbse.nic.in, mpresults.nic.in.

Here's how to check Board class 10 and class 12 results 2020 online:

Step 1: Visit the official website at mpbse.nic.in or mpresults.nic.in

Step 2: Enter all the details asked such as roll number, log in

Step 3: You will be directed to a new page where you will find the subject-wise results

Step 4: Download your result, take a print-out for a future reference

Over 11.5 lakh students appeared in the class 10 exam in 2020 while around 8.5 lakh students took the class 12 exams.

Notably, Madhya Pradesh government has decided to announce the result without conducting the pending board exams. The pending exams got cancelled due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to curb the spread of coronavirus in India.

In 2019, a total of 61.32 per cent students cleared the secondary exam, while 72.37 per cent passed in higher secondary.
New Delhi: With increased Chinese combativeness, the Indian Navy has increased the monitoring of vessels in the Indian Ocean. The Navy, along with other services, Indian Army and Indian Air Force is in the heightened state of alert in the aftermath of the Galwan incident in eastern Ladakh.

In the past, the Indian Navy has steadily developed the capability of being able to monitor movements through the Indian Ocean region, and interdict them as and when required. As far as the People's Liberation Army Navy units are concerned, there are only a few straits through which they can enter the Indian Ocean, which can be kept under continuous surveillance.

Meanwhile, India in 2015 had articulated its strategic vision under the acronym SAGAR--Security And Growth for All in the Region. It seeks to deepen economic and security cooperation with maritime neighbours and assist them in building maritime security capabilities. It is part of strengthening cooperation with littoral states.

While it is unlikely that any Galwan Valley-type misadventure by the Chinese forces could happen at sea, chances of strong response will be in the offing. China has developed ports in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Djibouti etc. which could also be put to dual-use by the PLA Navy, Coast Guard and Maritime Militia. While they are part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure project, it can impact countries hosting them.

China claims that participating countries stand to gain 2-3 per cent increase in their GDP and reduction in transportation tariffs, by participating in BRI but it is known to be a debt trap with countries unable to repay loans leading to losses, some time territorial.

A big worry for Bejing is that India is not a member of BRI, but is strategically placed as well as militarily capable, of threatening both the 'Belt' in Occupied-Ladakh and the 'Road' in the Indian Ocean, should the need arise. China's prospects of succeeding in their BRI endeavour, therefore, revolve around breaching this 'Great Wall of India'.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has also been pushing towards the West using its BRI, which was announced in 2013. BRI aims to undertake infrastructure development and investment to strengthen China's connectivity with over 70 countries across the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe.
New Delhi: The government has invited online nominations/recommendations for the Padma Awards--Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri, to be announced on the occasion of Republic Day 2021, from 1st May 2020. The last date for the nominations of the highest civilian awards of the country is 15th September 2020, according to a government statement.

The nominations/recommendations for the Padma awards will be received online only on the Padma Awards portal- https://padmaawards.gov.in.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has requested all Central Ministries/Departments, States/UT Governments, Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan awardees, Institutes of Excellence that concerted efforts may be made to identify talented persons whose excellence and achievements really deserve to be recognized from amongst women, weaker sections of society, SCs and STs, divyang persons and who are doing selfless service to the society.

Announced on the occasion of the Republic Day every year, these awards seek to recognize work of distinction and is given for distinguished and exceptional achievements/service in all fields/disciplines, such as Art, Literature and Education, Sports, Medicine, Social Work, Science and Engineering, Public Affairs, Civil Service, Trade and Industry etc.

All persons without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex are eligible for these awards, which were instituted in 1954. Government servants including those working with PSUs, except doctors and scientists, are not eligible for Padma awards.

The government is committed to transforming Padma Awards into Peoples Padma. All citizens are therefore requested to make nominations/recommendations including self-nomination.

The nominations/recommendations should contain all relevant details specified in the format available on the above said Padma Portal, including a citation in narrative form (maximum 800 words), clearly bringing out the distinguished and exceptional achievements/service of the person recommended in her/his respective field/discipline.

Further details are available under the heading 'Awards and Medals' on the MHA's official website: www.mha.gov.in. The statutes and rules relating to these awards are available on link- https://padmaawards.gov.in/AboutAwards.aspx
New Delhi: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday (July 2, 2020) urged the coronavirus recovered patients to donate plasma as the national capital begins Plasma bank. Kejriwal addressing a press briefing said that those who are eligible and willing to donate plasma can get in touch with the team and further get the confirmation of their eligibility to donate.

Kejriwal also issued two numbers - 1031 for calling and one Whatsapp number 8800007722 to get information on the plasma donation process.

The Delhi CM said, ''If you are eligible and willing to donate plasma, then you may call us at 1031 or you can Whatsapp us at 8800007722. Our doctors will then get in touch with you to further confirm your eligibility.''

Speaking on the eligibility criteria Kejriwal said, ''If you have recovered from COVID19 and your age is between 18 and 60 and your weight is above 50 kg, then you may donate plasma for COVID19 patients.''

He urther added that women who have given birth or the persons with comorbidities are not eligible to donate plasma.

Delhi CM on Monday (June 29) had said that the Delhi government will create a plasma bank to fight the deadly viral disease. In the June 29 press briefing, Kejriwal informed that clinical trails of plasma therapy were conducted on 29 coronavirus patients in Delhi and the result was encouraging.

He said the plasma bank will be set up at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in Vasant Kunj and the bank will act as the point of coordination between plasma donors and recipients.

Meanwhile, Delhi currently has the second highest number of coronavirus cases in India with a total tally of 89,802 cases.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone and congratulated him on the success of the 75th-anniversary celebrations of the victory in the Second World War, and also for successful completion of the constitutional amendment referendum vote.

During the telephonic call, the Prime Minister recalled the participation of an Indian contingent in the military parade held in Moscow on 24 June 2020, as a symbol of abiding friendship between the peoples of India and Russia.

The leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the Covid-19 global pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-COVID world.

They agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral Summit to be held in India later this year. Prime Minister conveyed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India for the bilateral Summit.

On his turn, Russian President Putin thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the phone call and reiterated his commitment to further strengthen the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two countries in all spheres.

Russians opened the door to Vladimir Putin staying in power until 2036 by voting overwhelmingly for constitutional changes that will allow him to run again for president twice, but critics said the outcome was falsified on an industrial scale.

Official results published on Thursday, after 100% of ballots had been counted, showed that the former KGB officer who has ruled Russia for more than two decades as president or prime minister had easily won the right to run for two more six-year terms after the current one ends in 2024.

That means Putin, 67, could rule until the age of 83.

The Central Election Commission said 77.9% of votes counted across the world`s largest country had supported changing the constitution. Just over 21.2% had voted against, it said.

Ella Pamfilova, head of the commission, said the vote had been transparent and that officials had done everything to ensure its integrity.

Opposition politician Alexei Navalny had a different view and called the vote an illegitimate and illegal show designed to legalise Putin`s presidency for life.

"We`ll never recognise this result," Navalny told supporters in a video.

Navalny said the opposition would not protest for now because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, but would do so in big numbers in the autumn if its candidates were blocked from taking part in regional elections or their results were falsified.

"What Putin fears most is the street," said Navalny. "He... will not leave until we start to take to the streets in the hundreds of thousands and in the millions."

Russians had been encouraged to back Putin`s power move, described by critics as a constitutional coup, with prize draws offering flats and an ad campaign highlighting other constitutional amendments in the same reform bundle, such as pensions protection and a de facto ban on same-sex marriages.
New Delhi: Enforcement Directorate (ED) team on Thursday (July 2) questioned senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel for the third round in connection with the Sandesara brothers' bank fraud and money laundering case. The ED team reached Patel's residence around 11 am and continued to quiz him for about 10 hours and left his house after 10 pm.

Patel lives at 23, Mother Teresa Crescent home in the Lutyens' zone of central Delhi. The agency sleuths have earlier questioned the Congress Rajya Sabha MP in two separate sessions clocking about 17 hours on June 27 and June 30.

According to sources, Patel's statement is being recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) during the latest session. He is being questioned about his purported links with Vadodara-based Sterling Biotech pharmaceutical company promoters, the Sandesara brothers, and the alleged dealings of his family members with them.

Last year, the ED had questioned Patel's son Faisal Patel and son-in-law Irfan Ahmed Siddiqui in this case and recorded their statements. The two were questioned in the context of the statement of one Sunil Yadav, an employee of the Sandesara group, which was earlier recorded before the agency.

Sources further said that Yadav had told ED that he bore "expenses of Rs 10 lakh" for a party which was attended by Faisal, "arranged" entry in a night club for him and once delivered "Rs 5 lakh" to his driver in Khan Market on the instructions of Chetan Sandesara, one of the promoters of the pharma firm.

This money laundering case pertains to the alleged Rs 14,500 crore bank loan fraud that is said to have been perpetrated by Sterling Biotech and its main promoters and directors -- Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, Chetankumar Jayantilal Sandesara, and Deepti Sandesara -- all of whom are absconding. Nitin and Chetankumar are brothers.

The Sandesaras are also facing separate probes by the CBI and the Income Tax Department for their alleged nexus with some high-profile politicians and charges of corruption and tax evasion, respectively. The Sandesara brothers are currently stated to be based in Albania, from where India is trying to extradite them.
New Delhi: Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death by suicide has left his family, fans and film fraternity in a state of shock. The 34-year-old actor was found hanging at his Bandra residence on June 14, 2020. It is learnt that he was battling depression for the past few months, reportedly.

While Mumbai Police is currently investigating the case, social media has been abuzz with all kinds of conspiracy theories behind his death. There have been reports claiming that someone updated the actor's Wikipedia page two hours before he actually died.



According to Mumbai Police cyber cell sources, Wikipedia follows UTC time format (Coordinated Universal Time) and not IST (India Standard Time) which is why there is a difference of about 5 hours. Therefore, the update at 8:59 UTC on Wiki means 2:29 PM IST.

This can be seen in 'view history' section of Sushants Wikipedia page.

After verifying these claims by fans, it has come to light that there has been no tampering on his Wikipedia page and that difference is only due to timeline formats.



Meanwhile, the Mumbai Police has recorded the statements of around 28 persons in connection with the actor. But his fans are demanding a CBI enquiry into the case to ensure a fair probe.



Sushant's death by suicide has once again brought back the ghost of nepotism and favouritism in Bollywood with people opening up on having dealt with it at least once in their careers.
New Delhi: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput's sudden demise has sent shockwaves across the country and with his death, the 'insider vs outsider' (nepotism) debate in Bollywood has reignited. A section of the internet believes that Sushant may have been a victim of nepotism, because of which he allegedly lost seven films despite having worked in some highly-acclaimed projects. Thus, to track nepotism in Bollywood, Sushant's brother-in-law has launched an app called Nepometer.

"The goal of this app is to provide you a percentage meter of how nepotistic or independent upcoming movies are and send you a notification to watch more independent movies. If the Nepometer is high, then it's time to #boycottbollywoodnepotism #boycottbollywood," is how the team has explained Nepometer.

The first film to have been measured in the app is Alia Bhatt's 'Sadak 2' and Nepometer found it to be 98% nepotistic.

The film was rated on the basis of five categories - producer, lead artists, supporting artists, director & writer. "Four out of five categories have Bollywood family members," the team said in an Instagram post.

'Sadak 2' is headlined by Alia, her sister Pooja Bhatt, Sanjay Dutt and Aditya Roy Kapur. It has been directed by Mahesh Bhatt, father of Alia and Pooja and produced by his brother Mukesh Bhatt.

The film will stream on Disney+ Hotstar.

Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide on June 14 in Mumbai. He was said to be under stress and depression for some months.
New Delhi: Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's fans and followers are heart-broken over his sudden and untimely demise. The talented star was found hanging at his Bandra residence on June 14, 2020. It is learnt that he was battling depression for the past few months, reportedly. His shocking death has left behind his grieving family, fans and friends.

ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput googled his name, read a few articles about self before suicide

The Mumbai Police is currently investigating the case and has recorded the statements of around 28 persons in connection with the actor. However, Sushant's fans are demanding a CBI enquiry into the suicide case to ensure a fair probe.

So much so that #CBIMustForSushant has become one of the top trends on Twitter. Take a look at some of the fan tweets:

I request to our government please do CBI Enquiry for sushant Singh rajput.#CBIMustForSushant pic.twitter.com/e54CHG9Ca9  Voice 2 (Justice for SSR) (@gobinda_msd_kr) July 2, 2020

#CBIMustForSushant

Justice delayed is justice denied.

I don't understand why the case hasn't transferred to CBI yet?? #ArrestMurdererOfSushant#BeFairInSSRMurderCase  Subhash chuodhary (@SubhashBurdak13) July 2, 2020

Some people who have no talent only hatred , no compassion only jealousy murdered our Sushant Singh Rajput because they were afraid of him. We will not stop here we will fight for justice to be served. Prime minister @narendramodi should order CBI investigation #CBIMustForSushant  Anurag Anand (@anuraganandras1) July 2, 2020

Fans have pointed out how Sushant's Instagram and Twitter handles have been mysteriously being operated by someone as there is a difference in the number of people he was earlier 'following'. Also, comments are being deleted regularly. Instagram memorialised the actor's account sometime back and added 'Remembering' to it.

ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput's family alleges Shekhar Suman, friend Sandip Ssingh using actor's suicide for political gains

Sushant Singh Rajput's co-star from 'Dil Bechara' Sanjana Sanghi was questioned by the Mumbai police for about 9 hours recently. She took to her social media and in a cryptic post revealed that she is leaving Mumbai and heading to her home in Delhi.

Sushant's death by suicide has once again brought back the ghost of nepotism and favouritism in Bollywood with people opening up on having dealt with it at least once in their careers.
Tsukuba: Researchers at the University of Tsukuba, Japan have created a new form of carbon that is harder than a diamond. They have named this structure pentadiamond, which they believe may be useful for replacing current synthetic diamonds in difficult cutting manufacturing tasks.

The researchers used complex computer calculations to design this new carbon-based material, according to the sciencedaily.com report. The researchers - Yasumaru Fujii, Mina Maruyama, Nguyen Thanh Cuong, Susumu Okada - published their findings under the title - Pentadiamond: A Hard Carbon Allotrope of a Pentagonal Network of sp2 and sp3 C Atoms.

Diamond, which is the hardest natural substance on Earth, is made entirely of carbon atoms arranged in a dense lattice. They are famous for their unmatched hardness among known materials.

But carbon, which is a solid non-metal element, can form many other stable configurations, called allotropes. These include the familiar graphite in pencil lead, as well as nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes.

The mechanical properties, including hardness, of an allotrope, depend mostly on the way its atoms are arranged with each other. In conventional diamonds, each carbon atom forms a covalent bond with four neighbors. Chemists call carbon atoms like this as having sp3 hybridization. In nanotubes and some other materials, each carbon forms three bonds, called sp2 hybridization.

Keeping this mind, the researchers at the University of Tsukuba explored what would happen if carbon atoms were arranged in a more complex structure with a mixture of sp3 and sp2 hybridization.

Yasumaru Fujii, one of the researchers, said, "Carbon allotropes with both sp2 and sp3 hybridized atoms have greater morphological diversity due to the huge number of combinations and arrangements in networks.

In order to calculate the most stable atomic configuration and its hardness, the researchers relied on a computational method called density functional theory (DFT), which is used for predicting the structure and properties of materials.

According to scientists, the DFT theory uses an approximation that focuses on the final density of electrons in space orbiting the atoms.

This makes it easier for computers to do calculations, giving precise results. Using this theory, the team found that the Young's Modulus, a measure of hardness, of pentadiamond was predicted to be almost 1700 GPa, compared with about 1200 GPa for conventional diamond.

"Not only is pentadiamond harder than conventional diamond, its density is much lower, equal to that of graphite," Professor Mina Maruyama was quoted as saying by sciencedaily.com.
CHENNAI: Chennai Air Customs Department on Thursday seized Red Buli Ecstasy Pills from Netherlands worth Rs 3 lakh concealed in foreign postal parcel.

Based on intelligence, Chennai Air Customs detained one postal parcel suspected to contain narcotics substance, which had arrived from the Netherlands at Foreign Post Office, Chennai.

On examination, the parcel was found to contain pink colour pills suspected to be MDMA, a narcotics substance. Total 100 pills of MDMA valued at Rs. 3 Lakhs were recovered and seized under the NDPS Act, 1985.

These hexagonal pills are commonly known as Red Buli have a bull stamp on one side and contain around 250 mg of MDMA, which is a very high dose.

In February 2020, a man died, and a woman got seriously ill after taking this Red Buli MDMA pill in Warwickshire, England.

The parcel was destined for a residential locality in Ambattur, Chennai city. On reaching the locality it was found that the address was incomplete and inquiries were made, and it was found out that no person with the Consignee name was living there. Efforts are being made to apprehend the accused.

Sharing more information, Rajan Chaudhary, Commissioner of Customs, Chennai International Airport, said, Further investigation is in progress in this regard.
CHENNAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court has appreciated the CB-CID for their quick investigation and searches that led to the arrest of five cops of the Sathankulam Police station in connection with the custodial death of father-son duo Jayaraj and Bennix.

The High Court, which has taken suo-motu cognizance of the crime, has been at the forefront of ensuring that the probe is expedited and justice is delivered. Be it with regards to filing of murder charges or the arrest of guilty policemen, the high court has been keeping an eye on all developments in the case.

The Court had asked the CB-CID to probe the case till such time the CBI takes it over so as to ensure that the crucial evidence is not destroyed. It was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister who had made a public announcement about the case being handed over two the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

So far, Sub Inspectors Raguganesh, Balakrishnan, Constables Murugan, Muthuraj and Inspector Sridhar of the Sathankulam Police station have been arrested. There were photos and videos doing the rounds of people from Sathankulam bursting crackers and celebrating the arrest of the cops.

During a hearing on Thursday, the court ordered that the witness in the case, policewoman Revathy, be provided adequate protection and also paid leave.

A Division bench of Justice PN Prakash and B Pugalendhi called up Revathy and spoke to her over the phone for a few minutes.

The Bench had sought details on the number of persons arrested, numbers of persons charged and the details of those who have been charged in connection with the case. Questions were also raised pertaining to which the court asked the arrested persons to be produced before it.

In its response, the government stated that the investigation has been conducted at Sathankulam Police station, government hospital and also the sub-jail.

Based on the information provided by Head Constable Revathy, a case has been registered against 5 cops from the Sathankulam station for IPC Section 302(murder).

The Bench also added that considering the challenges involved in taking the accused to the Kovilpatti Magistrate, over 100-km away, powers would be granted for Tuticorin Chief Judicial Magistrate to handle the case.
Indian governments decision to ban TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps will cause huge financial losses to all these companies with ByteDance  TikToks parent company  expected to suffer a loss of Rs 45,000 crore (USD 6 billion).

China's state-run media The Global Times reported that ByteDance could lose up to USD 6 billion as a result of the Indian governments decision to ban TikTok, Helo and several other Chinese apps due to security issues.

Interestingly, India wasnt the major source of revenue for TikTok but it was among the top nations to have most downloads for the app. Global Times reported that ByteDance had invested over USD 1 billion in the Indian market in the last few years and the ban could prove disastrous for the company's business in India. Global Times claimed that ByteDance's loss would exceed the potential losses of all the other apps combined.

Sensor Twoer, a mobile app analysis company, has said in a recent report that TikTok was downloaded 112 million times in May, with 20 percent of that total in the Indian market.

The Indian government on Monday banned 59 apps with China links including TikTok, SHAREit, UC Browser, Baidu map, Helo, Mi Community, Club Factory, WeChat and UC News in view of the information available that they were engaged in activity "which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order".

Union Law, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad justified the decision saying the government has banned apps for safety, security, defence, sovereignty and integrity of India.

"For safety, security, defence, sovereignty & integrity of India and to protect data & privacy of people of India the Government has banned 59 mobile apps. Jai Hind!," he said in a tweet.

The Indian government took the decision few days after a violent face-off in Ladakh's Galwan valley between the Indian and Chinese soldiers which resulted in the martyrdom of 20 Indian soldiers while the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including dead and seriously injured.
New Delhi: TV star Parth Samthaan, who headlines 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay' along with Erica Fernandes, recently opened up about battling depression during lockdown. In an Instagram post, Parth said he had "moments of depression and sadness", but he "ready to face the world again". He also posted a thank you note for his loved one, friends and fans for making him a positive person.

"Yes, there were moments of depression and sadness during this lockdown, but thats what gives us strength to be stronger and push ourselves so that one day when this pandemic is over .. We are Ready !!! To face this world again," read Parth's caption for the post.

Meanwhile, the note which he wrote, reads, "I am grateful and thankful to all my loved ones, my friends, fans and all those people who have helped and influenced me to become a better and positive person. Thank you so much."

Take a look at Parth's post here:

Team 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay' has already resumed shooting for the show after three months in line with government directives.

Sharing a few photos from the sets as Anurag Basu from 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay', Parth wrote, "Back to Shoot after 3 months. Back to normalcy."

New episodes of 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay' will air from July 13.
The Afghan Security Forces (ASF) has destroyed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) camp at the Afghanistan Pakistan border and killed two LeT cadres. The operation, that took on June 29, lasted for two hours from 11 pm-1 am and in which Abu Bakar, LeT commander from Khyber Agency in Pakistan, was killed and his body was left on the Afghan side.

During the action, two members of the ASF also were killed and five others were injured. The incident happened close to Durand Line at Spinzara near Durbaba area of Naizan district of Nangarhar. Durand Line is the name of Afghanistan and Pakistan border and the area of operation is in the eastern province of Nangarhar that borders Pakistan.

The action came after LeT reportedly established camps in Wargah and Tordarah on the border and were launching attacks on Afghan forces from there. Members of Taliban were also present during the operation and it is believed by sources, the causalities on LeT and Taliban side is much higher as the dead and injured were taken by those who were fleeing back to Pakistan in vehicles.

The development comes even as Pentagon in its report on Afghanistan said, "Afghanistan-Pakistan border region remains a sanctuary for various groups", including the LeT.

In June, a United Nations report said that about 6,500 Pakistanis foreign terrorist fighters are present in Afghanistan including 1,000 belonging to Pakistan-based terror groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and LeT. The report said that most of the JeM and LeT fighters are co-located with Taliban fighters and are hand in glove with them.

Meanwhile, concerns have been expressed by European Union heads of mission on the escalation of violence. The statement possed by the EU mission in Afghanistan said, "The attacks by the Taliban against Afghan National Defence and security forces are undermining the prospect for intra-Afghan negotiation. This must end and a full-fledged ceasefire enters into force"

Strongly condemning the "targeted killings" which have "risen sharply in recent weeks" directed against the clergy, journalist, media workers, human rights defenders, EU mission said, "the violence must stop now and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire put in place" and "a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire is a subsequent step that needs to accompany the infra afghan negotiations".
As Russia on Wednesday voted for constitutional changes that will boost pensions, they also voted to keep Vladimir Putin in power for 16 more years till 2036.

A bunch of constitutional reforms would allow Putin to run for another two six-year consecutive terms after his current term expires in 2024.

Here's a look at Vladimir Putin's political career

Vladimir Putin, whose full name is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on October 7, 1952 in Leningrad, Russia erstwhile USSR.

He served as a foreign intelligence officer for the KGB (Committee for State Security) for 15 years. In 1990 he retired from active KGB service with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

In 1996 Putin moved to Moscow, where he joined the presidential staff as deputy to Pavel Borodin who was Kremlins chief administrator. Putin slowly climbed up administrative ranks.

In July 1998, the then President Boris Yeltsin made Putin director of the Federal Security Service (KGBs domestic successor).

Yeltsin, who was searching for an heir to assume his mantle, appointed Putin as prime minister in 1999. Putin assumed office of the prime minister till December 31, 1999, when the ruling president Yeltsin announced his resignation and named Putin as acting president.

Putin was in office for two consecutive terms till 2008 when a constitutional provision forced him to step down from his post. He chose Dmitry Medvedev as his successor who went on to win the March 2008 presidential election by a landslide. Medvedev nominated Putin as the countrys prime minister within hours of taking office on May 7, 2008.

While it looked like Medvedev might run for a second term, in September 2011 he announced that if his party, United Russia won the elections, he and Putin would trade positions.

As the country to polls in December 2011 therew as a wave of protest against Putin and widespread irregularities in parliamentary elections were also reported.

However, on March 4 2012 Putin was elected to a third term as Russias president. Putin resigned as his political party's chairman, handing control of the party to Medvedev.

He assumed office on May 7, 2012, and one of his first acts upon assuming office was to nominate Medvedev to serve as prime minister.
Signal marks the second anniversary of platform launch by unveiling its future plans

Two years since the official launch of The Signal Ocean Platform at Posidonia 2018, Signal reflects on its recent milestones and unveils its plans for the future.

Since its launch, Signals platform has continued evolving and now tracks more than 30,000 unique ships across all bulk-shipping segments and all global trades. Market coverage has been recently extended to smaller crude tanker segments - down to Handies - while coverage for clean tankers and gas carriers is being fine-tuned. In addition, a Dry Bulk module is now in BETA testing. Finally, the platform now offers a new and exciting suite of analytical reports and new ways to export and interact with the underlying data. We are very proud of how quickly our solution for the larger crude oil tankers caught on. More than 70 of the worlds most significant players, including oil majors, traders, brokers and shipowners are using us to track global freight markets daily. We want to offer a comprehensive solution for the shipping industry, so we have been hard at work to increase our coverage. Our technology actually helps us do this efficiently, but our clients and partners have been indispensable, too, said Signals COO, Dimitris Tsapoulis. The Signal Maritime Aframax Pool The Signal Maritime Aframax Pool launched in July 2018 as an independent part of the Signal Group. Licensing the software like any other client, Signal Maritime has showcased the kind of impact this type of technology can have on performance. The Pool has consistently produced top daily earnings (TCE) performance globally and has grown to include 27 vessels from 13 pool partners. The pools expansion occurred both organically and through a partnership with Heidmar in January 2020. The Signal Pool is now one of the largest Aframax pools in the world and offers flexibility for entry and exit, a novel approach, in addition to leading performance. Strategic Partnership and Dry Bulk segment In addition to its presence in the tanker market, Signal has keenly pursued its expansion into the Dry Bulk segment. Signal accelerated its efforts significantly in October 2019 with the completion of a strategic partnership with Simpson Spence Young, the largest private brokerage company in the world. The Signal Ocean Platform Dry Bulk module is now being BETA tested by select market participants and will become widely available later in the year. Entrepreneur-in-Residence To further support Signals push into the Dry Commodities space, the company has also appointed a new Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Alexandre Claude. Alexandre Claude is the former managing director of SaaS energy platform CSN Energy. He also previously worked for Vattenfall and Freepoint Commodities. Were delighted to welcome an expert of Alexs caliber to the Signal family. We are always keen to find individuals or teams who will join us on our mission to discover high-impact technology that will help shape the future of commercial shipping, said Signals CEO, Ioannis Martinos. This is a proven model for innovation: in 2017, Signal Ocean partnered with crude oil expert analyst, Florian Thaler, another Entrepreneur-in-Residence, who leveraged Signals environment and solution to incubate oil data analytics company OilX. OilX has recently raised a funding round from investors such as Citigroup and GS Caltex. In addition, it is backed by the European Space Agency and continues to steadily gain user adoption in the oil trading space. Post COVID-19 landscape During the time of disruption and tremendous economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, Signal achieved one of its most productive and creative periods, quickly adapting to the realities of remote work. In fact, The Signal Ocean Platform itself has played a significant role in this, for us and for many of our clients, through its collaboration and communication enhancing features. Signal has also continued to grow and enrich its highly diversified team. More than thirty new hires have joined since the beginning of the year, bringing our total group headcount to 121. A large part of the new hires were added after March 2020 in a range of roles from commercial ship management to data science and engineering.




Arts & Culture Editor

My name is Austin Dunlow and I am the Arts & Entertainment Editor at Technician. I'm in the Graduating Class of 2021 with a major in Political Science. I have been at Technician since February of 2019.
-- July 1 marks the Communist Party of China's 99th anniversary of founding. -- A year shy of the centenary, the Party is poised to achieve yet another milestone: eradicating absolute poverty. -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, leads the anti-poverty fight. -- From edges of deserts to deep inside the mountains, China has lifted more than 93 million people out of poverty in less than eight years. BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Six years ago, Hu Zhengnan decided to temporarily leave his office job at a geological survey institute. He signed up to join a poverty relief team headed to the countryside. The 25-year-old cadre of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was sent to Liuquan, a village situated in a large resettled zone for people who moved out of uninhabitable mountains in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Most of the people there had lived hand to mouth for generations. Hu was expected to use his vision and knowledge to help them change their fate. After two years of research, Hu pinned his hope on an edible plant -- daylily. The plant is increasingly popular at the dinner table of city folks and should have a huge market, Hu told fellow villagers. To their advantage, Liuquan's dry climate and wide diurnal temperature range are ideal for daylily farming. But persuading farmers accustomed to growing wheat and corn to switch to this unassuming yellow flower was no easy task. And there was a lot of tutoring, infrastructure building, and marketing to do. "Initially, farmers were afraid to make the change. The hardest part was to change their perception," Hu said. Undeterred by the challenges, Hu devoted himself to the cause and stayed for four more years. Today, as the first secretary of Liuquan village committee of the CPC, Hu is happy to see the daylily farm expand to 267 hectares. All but nine households in the village bid farewell to poverty. "The villagers no longer waited for government handouts. They have something to hope for and are very much inspired to work for a better future," he said. PARTY LEADERSHIP Hu is among 2.9 million cadres the CPC mobilized and sent to poor villages in recent years. They form a crucial force battling China's poverty at the frontline. The Party, founded in 1921, has led the Chinese in fighting and winning the revolution, establishing the people's republic and developing it into the world's second largest economy. July 1 marks the CPC's 99th anniversary of founding. A year shy of the centenary, the Party is poised to achieve yet another milestone -- eradicating absolute poverty. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, leads the fight.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to advance poverty alleviation in Hongde Village of Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) As the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 brought extra challenges this year, Xi convened a large teleconference on poverty reduction in March and later inspected efforts on the ground when he visited Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Ningxia. Xi said bringing all rural residents above the current poverty line by 2020 is a solemn promise made by the CPC Central Committee, and it must be fulfilled on time. With less than 200 days left, the remaining pockets of deep poverty are the nation's most deprived and hardest to support, including some ethnic minority and border areas. In Ningxia, Xi reiterated that no ethnic minority group should be left behind. "The CPC started out as a party for the poor. The revolution was fought to liberate the poor. After the revolution was won, the Party should lead the people in living a better life," Xi said. "We managed to overcome all difficulties and challenges in the more than 70 years after the founding of New China because we remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind." TARGETED POVERTY ALLEVIATION From edges of deserts to deep inside the mountains, China has lifted more than 93 million people out of poverty in less than eight years. Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said the intensity, scale, and impact of this round of poverty eradication are all unprecedented. Behind the success is the well-implemented "targeted poverty alleviation" Xi put forward in November 2013, according to Liu. The key is to identify the right population, tailor poverty-relief programs to local conditions, and send appropriate resources and personnel to implement the programs, he said. The village of Shibadong in central China's Hunan Province may shed light on how targeted strategies work. It was there that the concept was first put forward. While daylily is the cash crop in Liuquan, poverty relief cadres sent to Shibadong found luck in kiwi fruit. Rich in natural beauty and scenic landscapes, Shibadong is hobbled by a rugged terrain and scarce arable land. With the help of the government and private sector, villagers rented a plantation in a nearby township to grow high-quality kiwis. Having tasted the sweet success of kiwi farming, the village ventured into other businesses: it partnered a company to sell bottled mountain spring water and began to develop rural tourism. Unique landscapes and ethnic Miao culture are a big draw. Tourists brought business to hotels, restaurants, embroidery and honey farming. Villagers make pieces of embroidery in a rural cooperative in Shibadong Village of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hunan Province, April 24, 2020. (Xinhua/Xue Yuge) Shibadong is no longer poor. Last year, the average annual income of villagers reached 14,668 yuan (abut 2,100 U.S. dollars), more than eight times the figure in 2013. Across the country, rural industries like the ones in Shibadong have helped many shake off poverty. Others have escaped poverty through relocation, ecological compensation, or education. Social security allowances were given to the sick, the disabled and others who could not work their way out of extreme poverty. After the poverty reduction tasks are completed this year, the number of people lifted out of poverty since the 18th CPC National Congress is expected to top 100 million. Villager Yang Zhengbang (R) introduces local tea products to tourists in Shibadong Village of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hunan Province, April 25, 2020. (Xinhua/Xue Yuge) "There is no other country in the world that can help so many people get rid of poverty in such a short time. This means a lot to both China and the world," Xi said at the poverty reduction teleconference in March, adding that the unprecedented achievement demonstrates the political advantages of the CPC leadership and socialist system. China's poverty reduction has drawn applause from home and abroad. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres once commended it as the greatest poverty reduction accomplishment in history. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a U.S. expert on China, said China's poverty alleviation served as a good example for the world's other developing countries to draw experience from. "When historians of the future write the chronicles of our times, a feature story may well be China's targeted poverty alleviation," he said. BETTER LIFE Bai Gaoshan's family used to live in a Yaodong, a house built into the hardened earth common across the Loess Plateau in northern China. The farmland they worked was dry and barren, and their lives harder still. Along with 400 other people, they were relocated to a specially built village in the township of Xiping, Shanxi Province. Thanks to the government's support, Bai's son received professional training and got a new job as a welder, earning about 40,000 yuan a year. Like Bai's family, more than 9.6 million poor people in China have been relocated away from uninhabitable areas over the past couple of years to places where they can get access to more job opportunities and better public services. When living in Yaodong, Bai worried that his son would be too poor to marry. After moving out, his son got married and now has a son of his own. They are happy, he said. "The Party is good. It does things that bring tangible benefits to the people," Bai said. Farmers weed in the vegetable field in Xiping Township of Datong City, north China's Shanxi Province, May 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Chai Ting) Whether it is a new skill or relocation or a host of other projects scattered across all four corners of China, the CPC's poverty reduction campaign is all about improving people's life. Ending rural poverty is considered a defining benchmark of attaining the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. But that is not the end. The country will focus on rural vitalization to strive for an even better life for rural residents. "Being lifted out of poverty is not an end in itself but the starting point of a new life and a new pursuit," Xi said in Ningxia. "As people's aspirations to live a better life grow, we must continue to improve our work and expand the areas of support."


Most of us have been writing for a living or have that passion for being heard. We try to jumble words and create collective thoughts out of it. But often, we see ourselves not having a bright disposition of what we will write or the course we are about to express.



There are also times when ideas pop up out of thin air, and you would love to jot it down as fast as you can. However, during this momentum, you don't have any paper and pen or even an app that can store those ideas. Fortunately, there are apps out there to help us out, and here are our top six picks of writing apps for journalists, writers, bloggers, and alike:

1. Evernote: The Backbone

We've mentioned how important it is to write down ideas while they're still fresh. This idea may be a message, a photo, an article, or even an audio clip that could ignite your inspiration or give you some good background.

Fortunately, the Evernote app is the easiest way to store that idea. This app is best suited to search for concepts and content organization of any writer. This app can offer you a tool that can let you work effortlessly, such as notes, to-do lists, scan, and the easy-to-format word processor. Aside from its record-taking feature, Evernote has a feature that can let any user sync anywhere, making it smoother for the user to share ideas everywhere.

2. Pocket: The Social Notetaker

Pocket app is similar to Evernote, but enticing for those who always find inspiration on social media. This app allows information from any social media platforms like Zite, Flipboard, Twitter, or Pulse. Within this app, you have the option to store articles for later reading. Once saved, the material is sent to the user's Pocket list, which can be accessed offline. Aside from keeping the articles from any websites or social media platforms, this app can assist you in decluttering articles and categorize it by hashtags. You also have the option to adjust the text settings for more precise reading.

This app is also available in Kindle.

3. HabitStreak: The Daily Tracker

We can't deny that most writers are procrastinators thanks to writer's block or any distraction along the way. This app solves this issue for you as it helps you track your daily tasks and have it registered in the system, making it possible for you to follow in a consistent and succeeding day. Apart from able to take notes of the user's daily tasks, HabitStreak can also send your every day a report of what you have accomplished or what you have missed that needs to be completed.

This app may be a regular tracker app but will eventually lead you then to a healthier habit and prevent you from procrastinating.

4. CatchNotes: The Little Notebook

Gone are the days when you bring a little notebook with you, for almost everything now is digital. CatchNotes is actually known for its feature as a note-taking app that allows you to label them and distinguish between text, images, voice, and other task lists. This app is designed to help users make notes quickly and capture sound, images, and location. The users can also set reminders and secure their records with a password.

You can also share your notes in the app with other users as long as you send permission. The good catch with this app among its competitors is that it's completely free.

5. Pomodoro: The Best Time Manager

It's not just the writers who have some issues in managing their time effectively but any users who are occupied with their goals. And with the Pomodoro app, we can take control of our time while securing our mental headspace. This app comes from the Pomodoro technique. It will let you work without pause in 25 minutes, rest for 5 minutes, and so on until you carry four Pomodoros successfully (25-minute sessions).

Pomodoro App can help you manage your time wisely by capturing and organizing tasks into your to-do lists, focus timer, reminders, and summary reports. This a perfect app for daily tasks such as Calendar events and Groceries checklist. Also, the best thing about Pomodoro is that it can sync your computer and phone, which you can access anytime and anywhere.

6. PaperHelper: The Multitasker Master

With all the tabs and windows lining up on your browser, it might be tiresome working on a project, particularly when you're multitasking. This also gets harder when you are trying to write on a mobile device, switching from one page to another can be cumbersome.

But with the PaperHelper app, this perspective in writing on the mobile device will change. This app lets you split your screen into two at a time where you can arrange it by your needs. You can have the writing app and web browser rolled into one, which is a handy feature in keeping track of your sources while writing your essay. The best thing you could also have with this app is that the writing offers good RTF formatting options such as fonts, bold, underline, italics, and alignment options. This then makes multitasking a whole lot easier.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Brain imaging has revealed the impact of the coronavirus on pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS) patients. Researchers have identified the same neurologic findings in adult COVID-19 cases.

University College London Doctor Yael Hacohen and colleagues in JAMA Neurology have seen new-onset neurological symptoms in 4 among 27 PIMS cases, MedPage Today reported.

While all four children had encephalopathy and global muscle weakness, other symptoms like headache, brainstem signs with dysarthria or dysphagia, reduced reflexes, meningism, and cerebellar ataxia arose, but not in all of them.

"We have heard and seen of the lethargy, headache and confusion as part of the presenting symptom complex in many patients," said Dr. Kevin Friedman who works at the Boston Children's Hospital, adding that those findings affirm their theories.

As published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday, June 30, the COVID-19 study reported that neurologic involvement in cases was seen in 5% in children 12 years old and younger, and 11% in those aged 13 to 20 who are among the 186 cases in 26 states examined. This was based on the CDC's narrower criteria for multiorgan inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

On May 10, neurologic symptoms (predominantly headaches) emerged among 13% of 5-year-old and younger patients and 38% of those aged between 13 and 20. These are among the 99 MIS-C cases reported to the New York State Department of Health active mandatory survey.

Kid's meeting MISC-C criteria could just be the "tip of the iceberg"

"Overall, a consistent clinical picture is emerging," Dr. Michael Levin of the Imperial College London wrote in a supplementary editorial. He also said that children showing MIS-C diagnostic symptoms may just be the "tip of the iceberg."

A Chinese study on adult patients recorded neurologic findings in 36.4% of patients, which include dizziness, headache, ataxia, impaired consciousness, seizures, and acute cerebrovascular disease.

Meanwhile, the London study may be first to describe brain imaging in such children.

Images of the brain showed signal changes in the splenium of the corpus callosum (SCC) region of the brain among four PIMS patients. Also, T2-hyperintense lesions associated with restricted diffusion were seen in three patients while the fourth one had a splenial lesion on CT, but not with restricted diffusion as subsequent MRI confirmed.

The researchers also wrote in their report that SCC reversible lesions "are rare but have been previously reported in patients with encephalopathies." These are also believed to signify "focal intramyelin edema secondary to inflammation."

Children with Kawasaki Disease

They added that children with Kawasaki disease, which overlaps with PIMS or MIS-C, were also seen to have a transient lesion in the SCC, "either in isolation or with more extensive brain involvement."

The neuroimaging has also shown other viral infections. This prompts Hacohen-led researchers to suggest that "clinicians should be adding SARS-CoV-2 to their differential diagnosis for children presenting with new neurologic symptoms" while they explore other possible causes.

Researchers also said SARS-CoV-2 should also be studied among children who present primary neurologic symptoms without systemic involvement. This is due to a growing number of children who carry COVID-19 infection without any symptoms.

"Most patients are returning to normal mental status and having resolution of headache fairly quickly after treatment, but long-term follow-up will be needed to see if there are ongoing implications," said Kevin Friedman, a member of the American Heart Association's Young Hearts Council as well as the Rheumatic Fever, Endocarditis, and Kawasaki Disease Committee.

While children with self-healing inflammation were unseen in MIS-C, they may still be at risk for aneurysms, this requires further surveillance of PIMS cases that meet MIS-C criteria, but also those with unexplained fever and inflammation.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Facebook "mistakenly" gave its users' data again to third parties, even though the social media platform assured users they wouldn't.

The social media platform also set new rules after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. It banned developers from collecting data from people who have not used the social network for more than 90 days.

Minimal privacy mishap?

In a blog post, Facebook has said that thousands of developers already get updates on non-public information from users well beyond their expectations. Specifically, Facebook said it did not cut the data spigot--as agreed in 2018--90 days after anyone had previously used an app for an undisclosed number of users.

Facebook's blog post offers an insight into the privacy mishap--although minimal. The company notes that it could have e-mails, birthdays, language and gender in the consumer details in question and sent it to about 5,000 inactive users beyond the 90 days.

The issue refers to applications from around 5,000 developers, but the company did not say the number of users. A Facebook developer pointed out the flaw two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported. Facebook said it had no reason to suspect that any of the data had been misused.

"[Recently], we discovered that in some instances apps continued to receive the data that people had previously authorized, even if it appeared they hadn't used the app in the last 90 days," Facebook wrote.

"For example, this could happen if someone used a fitness app to invite their friends from their hometown to a workout, but we didn't [know] that some of their friends had been inactive for months," it added.

The problem was fixed as soon as it was found, reported Facebook. Besides what the user had approved when the Facebook account was still active, there was no more information exchanged.

Also, 9to5Mac wrote the Facebook updates its privacy policy to ensure users recognize their user data liability.

Also Read: Zuckerberg: 'Black Lives Matter,' Facebook to Review Policies

Not the first time

It is not the first time that third-party developers have had inappropriate access to user data on Facebook. At the end of 2019, Facebook's vice president of platform partnerships again wrote a blog post describing the painstakingly familiar scenario.

"[We] recently found that some apps retained access to group member information, like names and profile pictures in connection with group activity, from the Groups API, for longer than we intended," wrote Facebook at the time. "We know at least 11 partners accessed group members' information in the last 60 days."

Facebook was obliged in 2018 to uncompromisingly clarify why certain third-party firms had alarming access amounts to the data of the users on Facebook. They then assured everyone that the company was working on it as they assured everybody today.

"We've taken [several] steps this year to limit developers' access to people's Facebook information. As part of that ongoing effort, we're reviewing all our APIs and the partners who can access them," Facebook wrote.

Also Read: Facebook Ad Boycott: Brands Pulling Ads From Facebook Over Hate Speech

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Elon Musk recently sent a letter to the workers of Tesla, thanking them for the company's "good results." Despite the current COVID-19 pandemic, reports of future unprecedented record performance and limited profits are still unfounded, however.

Electrek claimed last week that following its own plant shutdown, the company will probably be shocked by strong deliveries in the second quarter. Due to the international pandemic that led to certain restrictions, Electrek also observed a slow pace for the first half of the second quarter.

Tesla's earnings

Musk told his staff earlier this week that Tesla could achieve its break in the second quarter, given the continuing challenge. As announced at the time, Tesla was able to supply about 10,000 vehicles in-transit during the last few days of the quarter.

According to a consensus by analysts polled by FactSet, Tesla is expected to supply 72,000 vehicles as of July 1. Foreseen units range from 39,000 to 86,000.

Now that the recent quarter is over and a new one has begun, Musk instantly sent several emails to employees. He thanked each of his employees for their hard work "in such challenging times."

He also noted in the email "how well" everyone worked, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The millionaire finished his email, saying he's proud to work with everyone.

Tesla production

Tesla will report its production and manufacturing results for the current quarter later this week already to the public. Still, it is unclear if Tesla was able to make a profit given the results of its sales which will most possibly be released later this month.

Automotive revenues decreased in the second quarter after the COVID-19 outbreak resulted in households and companies imposing safety restrictions, mass redundancies, and wage cuts, CNBC reported.

To rekindle the market in North America, Tesla reduced the price of its electric cars by up to 6% in Q2. Pricing improvements have also occurred in China, where its plant in Shanghai returned reasonably fast after a health-related shutdown.

The company also shared their most recent record: making the firm the most expensive car firm ahead of Toyota with a $208 billion valuation.

Also Read: Elon Musk Updates: New Planet-Spying Space-Based Telescopes, Automated Traffic Lights, and More!

Electrek's perspective

Meanwhile, Electrek said they believed they could deliver over 90,000 cars a quarter, which would definitely be surprising given the ongoing global circumstances.

If they can hit an incredible 95,000 deliveries, which may be a challenge, that would be equal to Tesla's own prior second-quarter delivery record.

In comparison, Tesla tends to be in favor of a dip in overall sales in the second quarter as opposed to other automakers that are already expected to decline by over 20% due to the ongoing pandemic.

Also Read: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Earns $171.6B While Other Billionaires Are Losing Big Time

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The United States has completely swiped off all the three-month supplies of Remdesivir drug before they even hit the shelves. This means the rest of the world has to wait until October to get hold of the drug.

According to Slashdot, Remdesivir is the first drug approved to treat Covid-19 by the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. Made by the pharmaceutical company Gilead, the drug was seen to help coronavirus patients recover faster. The first 140,000 doses have been consumed already as they were supplied to drug trials worldwide.

On Tuesday, June 30, The Guardian reported that the U.S. government had bought more than 500,000 doses, which will cover Gilead's July production and 90% of its August and September supply.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that President Trump got "an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorized" COVID-19 drug. "[We] want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it," said Azar. He added that the "Trump administration is doing everything" to learn about all possible coronavirus treatments and to "secure access to these options for the American people."

Remdesivir was previously tested during the Ebola epidemic but did not work as expected. It is under patent to Gilead so that no other company can make it.

Based on the U.S. statement, the drug cost around $3,200 per six-dose treatment. The deal was confirmed as the country's leading infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci told the Senate the country was failing to control the virus.

"We are going in the wrong direction," said Fauci as the U.S. set a new record of 40,000 new COVID-19 cases in one day last week. "I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around," he added.

Countries despise U.S. "hoarding" of Remdesivir

Health experts and campaigners warn about the hoarding of remdesivir and its implications when a vaccine becomes available. The Trump administration has shown that it is keen to outbid other countries to secure the medical supplies for the U.S.

"They've got access to most of the drug supply [of remdesivir], so there's nothing for Europe," said Dr. Andrew Hill, a Liverpool University, senior visiting research fellow.

As the U.S. recorded over 2.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, buying the "world's supply of remdesivir" is not just a reaction to this skyrocketing data. Instead, it has shown the "America First" stance, which the country has been displaying throughout the pandemic.

Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said in May that the U.S. would get first access to its coronavirus vaccine and "has the right to the largest pre-order because it's invested in taking the risk." The French manufacturer stepped back due to pressures from the French government.

Similarly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that the U.S. actions may lead to negative consequences. "We know it is in both of our interests to work collaboratively and cooperatively to keep our citizens safe," Trudeau said.However, it seems nothing can halt the U.S. remdesivir deal. For five months, governments have been waiting for the development of this drug, yet Hill said there was no way to access it outside the U.S.

"Imagine this was a vaccine," Hill warned as he added, "this is a taste of things to come."

Read also: Coronavirus Outbreaks in North Carolina's Meat Processing Plants Were Kept Quite: Here's Why

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
After attending a party, a man infected by a coronavirus posted his regret on Facebook the day before he died. According to NBC News' latest report, Thomas Macias, posted a message on Facebook on June 20, in which he lamented ignoring social distancing guidance.

"Some of you may know, but most don't, I ... went out a couple of weeks ago" and contracted the coronavirus," the 51-year-old man wrote on Facebook, as reported by NBC News.

Macias expressed his guilt for having possibly exposed his family to the coronavirus infection; the man worked as a truck driver.

"Because of my stupidity I put my mom and sisters and my family's health in jeopardy, this has been a very painful experience. Hopefully, with God's help, he added, I'll be able to survive this," he said. NBC News reported that the man died the next day.

NBC was told on Wednesday, July 1, by the Riverside County Office of Vital Records that Macias dies from COVID-19. According to the report, Macias was going out only when needed from late March until early June, told Gustavo Lopez, his brother-in-law, via phone interview on July 1. Gustavo said that Macias was also quarantining because he had diabetes and was overweight.

According to 7News' latest report, Lopez said that Macias attended a party in Elsinore, southeast of Los Angeles. Governor Gavin Newsom said that he would loosen social distancing restrictions in early June.

The report confirmed that a friend of Macias, who also attended the party, contacted Lopez, saying that he had tested positive for COVID-19 disease.

Man got infected after attending a party

According to NBC News, Macias's friend already knew that he was infected by the virus before attending the party, but still went to the gathering, saying that he did not believe that he can infect other people since he was not showing any symptoms. He also advised everyone who attended the party to get tested.

However, Lopez said that Macias didn't blame his friend, taking accountability for his actions, which were evident on his Facebook post. According to Lopez, Macias was among more than a dozen people who contracted the coronavirus, and he is still unsure how many individuals went to the party.



The report said that before Macias was tested, he went to his sister Veronica, who is married to Lopez, at the couple's house on June 11. Lopez said that he remembered being concerned for his brother-in-law after the visit.



"He did not look right," Lopez said, he was really sweaty," said Lopez.



Macias was tested for COVID-19 after he started feeling sick, but believed that it was related to his diabetes; he receives a positive result on June 18. Two days after the diagnosis, he posted his message on Facebook, telling people to take coronavirus seriously.



"This is no joke. If you have to go out, wear a mask and practice social distancing," he wrote.



Also Read: COVID-19 NEW Symptom: Patients Found With Mysterious 'COVID Toes;' Is it Real?

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
BEIJING, June 5 -- Approved by Chinas Central Military Commission (CMC) and at the request of armed forces of relevant countries, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) dispatched air force planes from June 2 to June 5 to deliver COVID-19 prevention and control supplies including protective clothing and surgical face masks to the armed forces of 20 counties.

These countries are Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tunisia, Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Tanzania, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Cameroon, Rwanda, Argentina, Laos, Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh.

Mankind is a community with a shared future, solidarity and cooperation remain the most powerful weapons of all in fighting against the Pandemic. The Chinese military will actively implement the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind advocated by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and continue to strengthen international cooperation in epidemic prevention and control, so as to make contributions to the maintenance of international public health security as well as building the community of common health for mankind.



The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) provides COVID-19 prevention and control supplies to Ethiopian military.
Craig Hall is the home to many COAL departments. These include the department of communications, department of media, journalism and film and the department of theatre and dance.
Joining hands to fight COVID-19 pandemic is vivid interpretation of building community with shared future for mankind (Part IV)

By Jun Sheng

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

The sudden outbreak of the novel coronavirus has spread to more than 200 countries and regions with over 10 million confirmed cases worldwide, plunging the human world into the most severe public health crisis since WWII. But there is always a silver lining around the dark cloud. The pandemic recognizes no borders. The countries of the world are a community with a shared future. When Chinese President Xi Jinping held dialogues and phone talks with his foreign counterparts, a community with a shared future is a frequently used phrase which expresses the international communitys resolve to jointly fight the COVID-19 pandemic and their expectations to ride out the health crisis together.

Shared future  this simple conviction inherent in the genes of the Chinese nation is demonstrating its vision and value in the new era. The international community is realizing ever more keenly that the humankind is indeed a community of shared future, and it is indeed imperative for us to share weal and woe. Every time this kind of disaster affects the world, people once again realize that Xi's vision of a community with a shared future for mankind comes at the opportune time, said Jose Luis Centella, President of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE).

The recognition of this vision stems from the profound understanding of reality and future and from the experience of all countries joining hands to fight the pandemic. When China was at its height of preventing and controlling the novel coronavirus, the international community offered us invaluable support and help; when the pandemic has accelerated its spread across the world, China has in return offered humanitarian aid and assistance all over the world.

We still remember the Japanese girl dressed in a traditional Chinese cheongsam raising money for Wuhan on the street of Tokyo, where sometime later a Chinese girl was handing out masks to passers-by from a cardboard box with the Japanese words Gratitude from Wuhan on it.

We still remember how Pakistan sent all its inventory masks to China at the first opportunity without reservation. In return, when the pandemic broke out in Pakistan, China dispatched a medical expert team immediately to support its anti-pandemic efforts and donated vast amounts of medical and protective equipment.

We also remember the hug a Chinese campaign launched by the Italians to give the Chinese people warmth and strength. In return, lyrics from the opera Turandot were posted on the package of anti-virus supplies provided by China to Italy: Vanish, o night! At dawn, I will win!

The joint anti-pandemic efforts are not only embodied in cooperation among governments but also in the mutual help among enterprises, social groups, and individuals, which further consolidate the people-to-people ties around the world.

Building a community with a shared future for mankind is a concrete action taken by China. According to the white paper titled Fighting COVID-19: China in Action released on June 7, as of May 31, China had sent 29 medical expert teams to 27 countries, and offered assistance to 150 countries and 4 international organizations. It has instructed its medical teams stationed in 56 countries to support the local fight, and provide counseling and health information to local people and overseas Chinese. They have organized over 400 online and offline training sessions in this regard. Local governments, enterprises, non-governmental organizations and individuals in China have donated materials to more than 150 countries and regions, and international organizations through various channels.

Small drops of water converge to make rivers and oceans; individual experiences aggregate to make history. The transcontinental air routes, the batches of supplies speak volumes about the willingness and sincerity of the Chinese government and the Chinese people to jointly battle the coronavirus with the international community. The human kindness and sympathy unite people of all countries in a shared community, overcoming the barriers of mountains and rivers, languages and cultures.

The novel coronavirus is a common enemy of humankind, so is the political virus. At the moment, certain American politicians are trying all they can to stigmatize and politicize the pandemic, but their despicable tricks barely find any support. Fighting the pandemic through concerted efforts is an international consensus, and Chinas vision and actions to promote solidarity and cooperation have been extensively endorsed and recognized. In the face of rampant slanders, rumors, and scapegoating, people of all countries should stay united and put up a strong mental defensive line.

The key to sound relations between states lies in the affinity between their peoples, which largely stems from mutual understanding. People-to-people exchanges make the most in-depth, enduring and fundamental communication between nations, and every individual can be an envoy of this meaningful cause. As the COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging the whole world, the international community must continue to fight it together in the same spirit, foster the virtuous cycle of cooperation in solidarity - effective prevention and control - people-to-people friendship, and contribute to creating a bright future for this generation and many generations to come.
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By Wang Peng

"With the US increasingly focused on Asia, and amid tension within the alliance (NATO), Europe is coming to grips with the need to grow its forces and regain high-end capabilities it once had", said the website of US Defense News on June 22. Based on their own security needs, European countries are considering building a European navy that is independent of the US and NATO systems.

For a long time, the European navy has always been tied to the NATO navy. That is, NATO has always relied on the US Navy as the core of its maritime power, and the navies of NATOs European member states have just served as the reinforcement and support forces. In the post-Cold War era, with changes in the international landscape and the influence of the anti-terror war led by the US, European navies have always focused on low-end tasks such as anti-terrorism and anti-piracy. As a result, European maritime forces have shown an overall decline in "quality" and "quantity".

As early as 2017, a study conducted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) found that Europe's maritime combat power is about half of the peak of the Cold War. In 1995, there were about 100 frigates in Europe, and 12 years later, only 51 left. The National Interest magazine of the US also believes that, in stark contrast to the continuous growth of maritime power in Asian countries, the strength of European navies is gradually declining, and the navies of the entire European countries cannot even compare to that of the US.

To reverse this unfavorable situation, some major European countries began to consider "revitalizing the navy" to cope with the shift from the low-end warfare to the high-end.

In the process of reviving the navy, European countries attach great importance to the Europe's overall resource advantages. On June 18, the website of French Navy News reported that the European Commission unveiled a number of new European Defence Industrial Development Programmes (EDIDP), among which two new projects in the naval field.

One is the DECISMAR project, whose objective is to develop a decision support toolbox (DSTx) for the upgrade of maritime surveillance. The EU is contributing a total of 7.8 million Euros to the project, with twelve companies from seven countries participating.

Another is the SEA Defence project, which will conduct a feasibility study in order to prepare a roadmap of technologies to be included in next generation of naval platforms. The EU is contributing a total of 15.8 million Euros to the project, with twelve companies from eight countries participating.

The formulation and implementation of these projects and programs indicate that European countries will adopt coordination in the technological R&D and equipment development of maritime power, and seek joint development plan based on common interests to build the naval power.

But even so, the European Navy's "rejuvenation" will not be smooth, and it will take time to complete this process. Dr. Sebastian Bruns, Head of the Center for Maritime Strategy & Security (CMSS) at the Institute for Security Policy, Kiel University (ISPK), Germany, said that the side effect of the long development cycle required for military design is that ships designed before 2014 and now being gradually put into service are no longer suitable for high-end combat.

It can be seen that the transformation and rejuvenation of the European navy cannot be completed overnight. It needs to take a long time to adjust and then implement into the weapons and equipment that are suitable for high-end warfare. At the same time, since navy usually acts as a highly dynamic strategic force, it will be more complex and challenging for European countries to transform and adjust its strategic tasks and combat operations.

Disclaimer: This article is originally published on zqb.cyol.com and translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 5:20 am

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Clark County grew by 40 today, with the county health department urging preventative measures including staying home on the Fourth of July.

Clark County Public Healths latest update July 1 puts the total number of cases of confirmed COVID-19 at 883. Preliminary data from the department showed that June 30 had the highest number of cases verified since the outbreak began, with three of the five-highest days of verification happening in the past week.

Public Healths update stated that 162 people had tested positive in the past eight days, compared to 164 in the first three weeks of June. Positive test rates had also increased, as data from Kaiser Permanente and the Vancouver Clinic show the rate had increased to nearly 3 percent of tests administered, the department said.

Due to the surge of new COVID-19 cases, Public Health urged county residents to stay home this Fourth of July.

Clark Countys case numbers are going up. This is a dangerous time for gatherings, Clark County health officer and Public Health director Alan Melnick said in a release from the department. We cannot disregard physical distancing simply because its a holiday weekend.

The release stated that 15 percent of cases from 72 completed interviews of those who have tested positive for COVID-19 were most likely exposed at private social gatherings of one to 10 people, according to preliminary data.

Public Health urged for weekend celebrations to be no more than five people from outside the household, the maximum number allowed for gatherings in Phase 2 of Safe Start Washington, which Clark County is currently in.

The release acknowledged that the recent increase in cases came after Clark County had submitted an application to move into Phase 3, the approval of which could be affected with the resurgent outbreak. As of the release Public Health had notified the state Department of Health of the new cases, adding it would provide an update on the application status when more information was available.
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 5:29 am

OLYMPIA  A ballot measure that reduced most vehicle taxes and fees should be thrown out as misleading because the $30 tabs it promotes won't exist and it's guilty of "logrolling" by including more than one topic, attorneys for local governments opposing the proposal told the state Supreme Court Tuesday.

But an attorney for the state said Initiative 976 should go into effect, as a majority in the 2019 election agreed, because the ballot title correctly told voters it was about reducing vehicle taxes and fees.

In Tuesday's one-hour hearing, the justices seemed to zero in on whether wording in the ballot title gave voters a clear idea of what I-976 would do.

Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud grilled Deputy State Attorney General Alan Copsey on whether it truly delivers $30 fees to renew a car tab mentioned in the ballot title. Attorney Matt Segal, attorney for groups challenging the initiative, had noted that with the taxes and fees the measure doesn't abolish, nowhere in the state would tabs be less than $43.25.

Copsey had argued voters have seen the phrase $30 car tabs so often that they realized it was a political slogan -- something akin to "a chicken in every pot" -- for lower car tabs.

But it literally leaves out the fees in one part of state law not being repealed, Gordon McCloud pressed.

"It does, literally," Copsey replied.

"I think that's a problem for you," she said.

David Hackett, an attorney for King County, said I-976 was unconstitutional because it mixed in changes to bonds issued for the Sound Transit system, paid for by voters in three counties, with provisions to lower statewide taxes and fees. The ballot title doesn't mention bonds, and the initiative allows voters across the state to negate something approved by voters in those three counties, he said.

The state constitution bans "logrolling," or putting different subjects into legislation as a way of getting them passed, he said.

But the initiative doesn't require Sound Transit to buy back the bonds, Copsey said. It only gives the agency the ability to do that as a contingency if it decides to go that route after changes to its taxes.

The initiative has a general ballot title, which means it need only deal with the overall subject of motor vehicle taxes and fees, he said. A general title doesn't need to detail all changes and consequences related to the subject.

"You can't possibly put all of those within the word limit," Copsey said.

One section of I-976 deals with a change in the way the motor vehicle excise tax in the three Sound Transit counties would be calculated, calling for a switch to the values in Kelley Blue Book which are lower than what the agency uses in most cases.

That amounts to the state granting a special privilege to Kelley Blue Book, which would be another constitutional problem, Hackett said.

The initiative doesn't require the state to sign a contract with Kelley Blue Book, Stephen Pidgeon, an attorney for a group of officials supporting the measure said. It could "reverse engineer" the company's valuation scheme to reduce the value of vehicles by a greater amount than the formula Sound Transit uses, he said.

"Isn't that proprietary?" Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis asked.

Not if you could look at it in the "public sphere" and determine the percentages for reducing value, which he described as "quite well known," Pidgeon said.

Hackett disagreed: "Of course you cannot steal Kelley Blue Book's proprietary information through something called reverse engineering."

Although the state and supporters of I-976 prevailed in the trial court on most counts, the reduction in fees was put on hold until the Supreme Court rules, a process that typically takes several months.
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2020 5:23 am

OLYMPIA  In a report to the legislature released Tuesday, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson recommends law enforcement across the state begin reporting all uses of deadly force.

The 13-page report lists policy recommendations that the state Legislature should look to adopt, including the creation of a public website that would have information on incidents of deadly force.

"These reforms strike me as an immediate first step that will have tangible benefits to the public," Ferguson said in an interview.

The FBI created a national use-of-force reporting program in 2019, but because the program is voluntary, according to the report, only 10% of Washington agencies currently use it. The information in the program is also not publicly available.

Ferguson's report recommends the state require agencies to use the FBI program, as it is the quickest way to implement this system. From there, the state should create a searchable website that contains the reported information, such as date and location, agencies involved, type of force and weapon, injuries, and demographic of officers and members of the public.

Ferguson was tasked in the state's 2019 operating budget with developing a plan to collect use of force data. Currently, there is no centralized system for reporting and viewing information on use of deadly force, which is defined in the report as firearm discharges and other incidents that result in death or serious physical injury.

"It's surprising to find out that there is no requirement that we report these incidents," Ferguson said. "The public rightly expects transparency."

Additional recommendations include a state-level audit of the use-of-force data and a requirement of other armed professionals, such as security guards, to report the use of deadly force to the Department of Licensing, which will post the information online.

More conversations will come about police reform, Ferguson said. Some issues will be straightforward while others will be controversial. This set of recommendations can easily be adopted, Ferguson said.

"If there's any legislation that's on a fast track, it's the deadly force data-collection bill," Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, chair of the House Public Safety Committee, said.

The report comes as conversations about police reform and the use of deadly force are happening across the country. Ferguson announced last week he would conduct a statewide inquiry into all investigations regarding the use of deadly force in 2020. The announcement was prompted by the failure of Pierce County Sheriff's Office to inform the state that multiple sheriff's deputies were on the scene of death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who died in Tacoma while being restrained by police in March.

Police reform will be a heavily discussed topic in the next legislative session, Senate Law and Justice Committee Chairman Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, said, adding he was confident lawmakers will pass police reform bills.

"I think it would be disappointing to everyone if the only reform that we came out of 2021 with is requiring more information using deadly force," Pedersen said.

While Pedersen is not confident there will be a special session in the coming months, he said he has already had discussions with other legislators that include potential policy changes regarding police reform that could be done quickly.

Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, said he believed the issue will come up in special session but isn't sure which, if any, reforms will be passed. Padden supports the reporting of the use of deadly force but said a lot of reforms have already been passed, referencing Initiative 940, which went into effect this year and helped regulate law enforcement's use of deadly force.

"I think the intent of everybody would be to deal with it if there is a special session," Padden said. "We will miss some opportunities to implement policy changes sooner if we wait until January."

Goodman said police reform is at the top of his committee's agenda and that he has already begun meeting with other legislators as well as members of the community to come up with legislative proposals.

He said Washington state has made progress, but it isn't enough.

"There's a lot of unfinished business and a lot more work to do," he said.

Alison Holcomb, political director at American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, agreed. Having an independent analysis of the data surrounding the use of deadly force would be the next step, she said. Establishing patterns could allow for more recommendations involving training and accountability.

The ACLU will also push lawmakers to pass a law requiring independent investigations into all uses of deadly force.

The country is experiencing a political moment that is making it possible to allow old systems and structures to be changed, Holcomb said.

"And I think legislators are hungry for that," she said.
Posted Thursday, July 2, 2020 2:50 am

It is with great sadness the family of JoAnn (Majors) Aberle announce her passing June 26, 2020.

JoAnn, daughter of John and Winnifred Majors, of Kelso, Wash., was born on July 11, 1934. She attended Willamina High School, graduating in 1952. JoAnn joined the Untied States Air Force in 1953, where she met her husband of 45 years, John J. Aberle. They had four children and an adventurous life in the military. JoAnn and John retired to Yacolt, Wash., in 1978. She shortly secured an executive position at the Battleground Inn. As she would say, Chief cook and bottle washer. In 1997, Woodland, Wash., became their new home.

After Johns passing in 2000, JoAnn was blessed to find love a second time with John W. Schurman from 2003 until his passing in 2016.

JoAnn was preceded, in death, by her son, David Aberle.

She is survived by her daughter, Theresa; sons, John and Michael; twin brother, Joe Allen; sister-in-law, Mary Sue; three grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; many nieces, nephews and cousins; and more friends than you can shake a stick at. She will be forever missed.
MBABANE  Total Swaziland (PTY) Limited has been taken to court by the executors in the estate of the late astute businessman Mafika Ndzimandze.



This is after Total Swaziland reportedly issued a notice of termination of a lease agreement for the operation of KaFolishi Filling Station. The filling station, which is situated at Lot No. 367, Nkhoseluhlaza Street, opposite Manzini Municipal Council was operated by the businessman during his lifetime. The respondent, Total Swaziland, is said to be having its principal place of business along the Police Academy (formerly Police College) in Matsapha.



agreement



In his founding affidavits, one of the applicants Velebandla Hezron Dlamini alleged that on March 13, 2001, Total represented by its duly authorised representative and the late businessman Mafika Ndzimandze entered into an operating lease agreement in terms of which Total let to the late Ndzimandze who hired the public motor garage, filling and service station. It was reportedly to be operated as a Total Filling Station at Lot No. 367, Nkhoseluhlaza Street, and Manzini.



According to court papers, in terms of the operating lease, the late Ndzimandze was appointed as Total dealer to operate the filling and service filling station. He is said to have operated as a Total dealer under the name and style KaFolishi Service Station.

The material terms of the aforesaid agreement were inter alia that the lease agreement would commence on February 1, 2001 and endure for a period of one year (the initial period);



Should the lease not be terminated by either party at the end of the initial period, the lease shall continue thereafter for an indefinite period, terminable by either party giving to the other at least three calendar months written notice of termination, alleged Dlamini.



provided



Part of the agreement, according to the court papers, was that the dealer shall operate and conduct the business of the filling station as provided in the lease which includes the purchase from TOTAL a minimum average monthly quantity of petroleum fuel.



Pursuant to the aforesaid agreement, the dealer operated the business of the Total Filling Station from 2001 to the time of his demise in 2016.

From 2005 when Mr Ndzimandze engaged me as a manager for his businesses, I was responsible for the management of the filling station. I received training from TOTAL on the operation and management of a TOTAL Service Station, alleged Dlamini.



Dlamini asserted that he had been responsible for the management and operation of the filling station from 2005 to present. Through its attorney from L.R Mamba, Total Swaziland (PTY) Limited is opposing the application. The matter is pending before Judge John Magagula.



On a going concern basis, I estimate the goodwill of the business to be more than E3 500 000 net of cash reserves. This was its cash value in 2017.

The Estate continued operating the business from 2016 after the demise of Ndzimandze and I oversaw the day-to-day operations and reported to the Executors, alleged Dlamini.



concurrence



Dlamini alleged that this year (2020) and with the concurrence of Total, the trading licence for the filling station was transferred from the late Ndzimandzes name into the second applicant who has been identified as Nelile Ndzimandze. The Estates main shareholders, according to Dlamini, are the deceaseds surviving spouse and children, who are also his beneficiaries. The Executors of his Estate reportedly exercise control of 47 per cent of second applicant (Nelile) on behalf of two minor children of the late Ndzimandze.



On March 26, 2020, the applicants received a Notice of termination of the operating lease. The notice is dated March 23, 2020. It was received the day before the country went on a lockdown.

The attached notice suggested the agreement was coming to an end on June 30 this year following a three-month notice and the dealer was supposed to have vacated the designated premises by the last day of the past month.



Dlamini claimed that due to the lockdown, he was unable to consult with owners as well as lawyers of the business. I only managed to engage in consultations in May 2020 after the easing of the lockdown.



cancellation



On May 12, 2020, some few days after the easing of the lockdown on May 8, 2020, I addressed the letter to TOTAL in which I requested them to indicate the reasons behind the cancellation of the operating lease, claimed Dlamini. Dlamini, in the court papers, alleged that attempt had been made to engage TOTAL to reverse the decision, but on June 23 the latter reportedly addressed a letter to the applicants attorneys advising that the request to continue the business was not acceptable. The enforcement of cancellation without compensation is so unfair and the Court should refuse to enforce it, Dlamini appealed. Also attached to the papers is a supporting affidavit by Daniel Dumisani Ntshalintshali, who is the third applicant. Other applicants cited in the matter are Edmund Mazibuko and Carlos Maphandzeni.



These are allegations contained in an affidavit whose veracity will be tested in court. The matter was filed under a certificate of urgency and senior attorney Mangaliso Magagula of Magagula and Hlophe Attorneys is representing the applicants.
MBABANE  Eswatini has joined a long list of countries that have been banned from entering Japan.

The Japan Times reported recently that in response to the growing number of COVID-19 infections worldwide, the East Asian country was expanding its entry ban to visitors from 18 nations as part of steps aimed at curtailing the spread of the coronavirus, as announced by immigration authorities this past Monday. African countries that were included on the list are Eswatini, Algeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Central African Republic and Mauritania. Other countries that were included in the entry ban are Guyana, Cuba, Guatemala, Grenada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Haiti, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Cameroon, Iraq, Lebanon and Georgia.

With the addition, the travel ban would cover 129 countries, including those that were banned previously. The publication reported that foreign nationals who had stayed in these countries within 14 days prior to their application for landing, would be denied entry to Japan. The expansion took effect yesterday. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Thuli Dladla said they hadnt received any correspondence communicating the travel ban to Japan, but stated that they would not be surprised by the move as countries were actually doing everything in their powers to protect their citizens.

Sceptical

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit our shores, we were also sceptical and there are countries that we also banned from entering the country and the primary reason was to protect Eswatini citizens, she submitted. When quizzed if the ban would not affect local students studying in Japan, Dladla said as far as she knew, there was only one student from Eswatini who was studying in Japan, but that student was back home as he had completed his studies this year. I may not know about other students studying there, mainly because the kingdom does not have an embassy in Japan, she added. The Japan Foreign Ministry also announced that the suspension of visas issued outside Japan will be extended until the end of July.

The ministry stated that under the regulation, exemptions would be given to residents of Japan who left the country by June 30 and were either permanent residents, long-term visa holders, or spouses or children of a permanent resident or a Japanese national with such a status.

People with other visa statuses and those who are planning to leave Japan after July 1 will be required to meet strict conditions for re-entry. Special permission may be granted on humanitarian grounds, for instance, in the case of a death of a relative or for medical emergencies. However, Japans strict entry rules have been met with strong criticism from the expatriate community and foreign business lobby groups, as the restrictions have not only affected tourists but also legal residents and businesses operating in the country.
MANZINI  No vendors will be allowed to sell their wares at school gates.

This was said by the Minister of Education and Training, Lady Mabuza. She said this was one of the means that would be employed to protect pupils from contracting the coronavirus upon the reopening of schools as of Monday. Mabuza said this drastic step was taken because items sold by vendors were touched by many people and it would be hard to sanitise them.

No one will be allowed to sell at the school gates. If we can allow that, wed be playing a risky game, the minister said. She said there was a need to be more conscious and practical when dealing with the virus as it had brought a new normal. This was also previously said by the Manzini Regional Education Officcer (REO), Nhlanhla Dlamini.

While touring St Michaels High School, Dlamini noted the need to suspend the selling of wares by vendors at school gates. He said it was a request that had been forwarded to the minister given the challenges posed by COVID-19.The concerns that were raised were that it was not known where the vendors prepared their food items and also the probability of the goods being exposed to the virus was quite high. The concern came to the fore when the Manzini Regional Administrator, Chief Gija, had questioned the head teacher if there were vendors at the school. The Head teacher, Nokuthula Simelane, responded to the affirmative and said they (vendors) sold their goods outside the school yard.

Sensitive

She said the school had not made a pronouncement on what would happen given that it was a sensitive issue and the vendors were earning a living as well. It was then that Dlamini said his office had sought the intervention of the minister in dealing with the challenge. Meanwhile, this is happening when the country has faced a number of challenges in offering relief to the citizenry. A number of chiefdom councilors (bucopho) have been attacked by their constituents as the statistics of those affected by the pandemic and are in need of food assistance, escalate on a daily basis. Currently, the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) offers E700 cash-based transfers to people hard hit by COVID-19 effects.
MATSAPHA - Government is set to receive an additional E80 million from the Kirsh Foundation.



This was revealed by George Lys, who was representing the Kirsh Foundation, during the donation of medical equipment and supplies by the Republic of China (Taiwan) yesterday to the Kingdom of Eswatini.



The Kirsh Foundation was founded by Nathan Natie Kirsh, who is a liSwati-South African billionaire businessman.

Lys said Kirsh would leave the African continent and go back to the United States of America (USA). He said through his foundation, Kirsh decided to give government E80 million.



He said the money was yet to be handed over to government.

He noted that through the foundation, Kirsh had already donated E110 million to the country to help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that between March and July 2020, Kirsh pumped in a sum of E190 million to Eswatini.



Priority



However, regarding the E80 million, Lys said government was free to direct the money to any of its areas of priority. He added that Kirsh mentioned that it was a privilege for him to help the Kingdom of Eswatini.

On the other hand, it was mentioned during the presentation that the Kirsh Foundation played a major role in ensuring that the consignment of essential medical equipment and supplies arrived in the country, in terms of logistics.



In that regard, Prime Minister (PM) Ambrose Dlamini, who received the donation from the Republic of China (Taiwan), passed governments sincere gratitude to the Kirsh Foundation for the logistical support in ensuring that the supplies got to Eswatini without delay. The PM also highlighted that the Kirsh Foundation had been a beacon of hope for emaSwati in these times (of COVID-19) by offering wide ranging assistance that had not only saved lives, but ensured that many in Eswatini, who were affected by COVID-19, did not go to bed hungry.



It is worth noting that currently, the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) is still distributing cash-based transfer benefits of E700 to each affected household. It was reported that this money would be received by a total of 64 000 homesteads and would benefit around 320 000 people.



Meanwhile, Acting Government Press Secretary Sabelo Dlamini, who was also present when Lys made the announcement the Central Medical Stores in Matsapha, said the administration would issue a statement when formalities of the donation had been finalised. The acting government press secretary said this when responding to a question which was posed by this publication later on yesterday. This publication sought to establish if government had plans on what it would use the E80 million for, since the foundation said the administration was free to direct the money to any projects of its choice.
MATSAPHA - While government has banned the sale of alcohol in the country, the Minister of Health, Lizzie Nkosi, has hinted at the possibility of reopening churches.



The minister gave the hint during a press conference which was held at the Central Medical Stores in Matsapha, shortly after the Prime Minister (PM), Ambrose Dlamini, received medical equipment and supplies donated by the Republic of China (Taiwan).



The minister thanked the Taiwanese Government for giving the country medical equipment and supplies as it was in need of it, especially in the upcoming weeks.



She said since the country had already recorded 840 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 (as of yesterday), projections reflected that by the end of next week, they would be over 1 000. She added that at the end of the month, the estimates suggested that over 0.1 per cent of the Eswatini population would have tested positive.



Important



In that regard, the minister said it was important to look with what the Republic of China (Taiwan) had done to successfully fight and contain COVID-19. She said that country never closed businesses after the outbreak of COVID-19, but only its ports.



She said what Taiwan did was that everyone had to wear a face mask everywhere they went, washed their hands regularly and observed social distancing. She said these practices became a custom to the people and that was why it was successful in the fight and control of the virus.

It is worth mentioning that as of June 29, 2020, Taiwan, which has a population of 23.8 million people, had recorded seven deaths linked to the virus, out of 447 confirmed cases, while 435 had fully recovered.



Therefore, the minister said the country was at a critical stage in terms of COVID-19 response as it was expected that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases would surge, at least until the end of July 2020.

She said this would be caused by the fact that government had already opened businesses and next week it would open schools. She said this meant that a lot of people would be travelling, talking to each other and gathering.



Kungenteka kuvulwe emasonntfo njengoba solo emasontfo bekacela (Maybe the next sector to be opened will be churches since they had been pleading to be allowed to open), the minister said.



She said everyone knew that in churches, many people gathered and sang.

She said if the place was closed and people were singing and talking, they would breathe it (virus) out in the air and inhale it.



The minister said that would result in more people testing positive for the coronavirus. She added that as everyone could see how the situation was difficult in the Manzini Region, the ministry was busy adding personnel to the response team in the region, including communities.

She said as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased week after another, the ministry was also adding the number of personnel in the coronavirus response team.



Warned



In that regard, the minister warned the nation that the country was heading towards a critical situation in as far as COVID-19 was concerned. She said they might see more people dying of the virus if they were not taking extra precautions in preventing the spread of COVID-19.



So, we should all wear face masks, wash our hands regularly and observe social distancing. By so doing, we will be protecting ourselves, families and friends from being infected with the virus, the minister said.



She emphasised that from this week, more people would be recruited to the Manzini COVID-19 response team. She said others would work at community level.

Nkosi emphasised that by making it a custom to wear face masks, washing hands regularly and observing social distancing, people would live longer and be safe from being infected with the virus. It is worth noting that initially, when the country went on a partial lockdown on March 27, 2020, government allowed 50 people in churches and in any gatherings, including funerals and weddings.

However, considering the seriousness of the pandemic, government reduced the number to 20. However, later on, government once tried to increase the number of congregants from 20 to 70 per cent capacity of any church, but this decision was also changed to a proposal of 70 people per service.

The matter was debated in Parliament and Members of Parliament (MPs) rejected the proposal of having 70 people per service.

As such, churches are only allowed to have 20 people per service.
By Chen Hanghui and SuoZe

On June 24, US President Donald Trump and visiting Polish President Andrzej Duda held talks at the White House. At the joint press conference after the talks, President Trump disclosed that at the request of the Polish government, the United States is considering deploying some of the US troops withdrawn from Germany to Poland, with particular emphasis on Polands willingness to bear the corresponding costs. At present, the number of US troops stationed in Poland is about 4,500 in rotation. Not long ago, President Trump ordered a withdrawal of about 10,000 US troops from Germany.

Although previous US governments have declared that the purpose of maintaining a large overseas garrison is to maintain the existing international order and balance of power, numerous facts have shown that the US overseas garrison cannot maintain balance; instead, it harms the balance. An underlying rule is that wherever there are the US troops, there is chaos or war.

The US overseas garrison was born with colonial genes. In 1898, the United States seized some colonies from Spain, includingPuerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam, by launching the Spanish-American War. To protect the self-interest in new colonies, the US military began to build permanent military bases in the colonies ever since and sent troops therein.

In 1943, when World War II was in full swing, then US President Roosevelt instructed the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to formulate a post-war plan for US overseas garrisons. USmilitary strategyplanners believed that the United States woulddisallow any country to dominate the Eurasian continent. Therefore, it is necessary to build an overseas base network along the margin of the Eurasian continent as a strategic tentacle. During the Cold War, the United States had large-scale garrisons on the eastern and western wings of the Soviet Union, and the scale was so great that any empire in history, such as the Byzantium, Rome, and British Empires, paled in comparison. In public, the US overseas garrisons are said to be a way to deter aggression and supportallies; however, they are the forces to seek and maintainthe US hegemony and interests in nature. The naked ambitions of the US to seekhegemony has also been resisted by some of its allies. For example, before the Iraq War was launched in 2003, France and Germany refused to send troops to join the war; Austria and other countries refused to open their airspace to the US military; and Turkey refused to let the 4thInfantry Division of the United States Armygo through to invade Iraqfrom the north.

The US overseas troops are by no means a stabilizer for regional security; instead, they are often a shit-stirrer for regional peace. Peace and stability in a region are based on factors such as strategic mutual trust and balance of power among countries in the region. However, the pursuit of its own absolute security by the United States and the use of overseas troops as a frontier deterrent will inevitably lead to insecurity for other countries. A research report titled "US Overseas Military Presence: What are the Strategic Options" from the RAND Corporation, a well-known US think tank, pointed out that the fact that the US military tends to demonstrate its advantages in conventional forces through forward deployment, cannot deter military competition; conversely, it will force weak countries to develop asymmetric or unconventionalability, and promote the arms race of conventional power between the US and powerful countries. In the past two years or more, the US military has increased its troops in the Middle East many times, and even threatened to wage war against Iran. As a result, the US-Iran relations have continued to sour, casting clouds of war over the Middle East.

When the United States deploys troops overseas, sometimes it does not aim to maintain peace at all. In that case, the United States acting as the worlds police would have to be laid off. In the Korean peninsula, the US troops stationed in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the ROK military have frequently held large-scale exercises at sensitive moments and in sensitive areas and even practiced beheading operations. This is a really remarkable provocation.

The US overseas troops have increased the financial burden of the host governments. Meanwhile, the cost of overseas troops is very high for the US, including the overseas deployment allowances, the construction, and maintenance of overseas bases. The RAND report showed that for every US military personnel deployed to Europe or the Asia-Pacific region, there would be an additional US$10,000 to US$40,000 per year for the US military expenses; and the annual maintenance fee for an overseas base would be as high as US$50 million to US$200 million. According to the agreement, part of the expenses incurred by the US garrison will be paid by the host countries. To reduce its own burden, the United States has repeatedly requested the host countries to increase the proportion of military expenses sharedsince the beginning of the 21st century. According to US media reports in March 2019, the United States not only expects that the host countries will bear all the garrison costs, but even proposes that these countries should pay 50% of the total US garrison costs as the "protection fees", which has almost come to the point of public extortion. In 2019, in the face of high pressure from the United States, the ROK was forced to bear agarrison cost of US$920 million for the US troops stationed in the ROK, and negotiations on the costs caused tensions between the US and the ROK.

In addition, American soldiers are also prone to trigger various disputes in overseas bases. With a poor sense of discipline, they often cause frictions with local people, and even triggered diplomatic incidents on many occasions. In fact, to station troops overseas also increases the security risks faced by US military officers and soldiers. On January 8, 2020, in retaliation for the US' targeted killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Iran launched 16 missiles against the US Al-Asad air base in Iraq, injuring more than one hundred US military officers and soldiers. As such, more than half of the US population opposes theoverseas deployment ofUS troops. It is hoped that the US government will listen more to the wishes of the people and make more contributions to world peace.
Coronavirus infections hit their highest level worldwide in the past week, WHO data showed Wednesday, as the worsening pandemic in the United States held out the prospect of a grim Independence Day.

In the worst seven days since the start of the crisis, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of new cases had topped 160,000 on every single day.

The milestone came as the European Union left Russia, Brazil and the US off its final list of nations safe enough to allow residents to enter its borders. The USs daily death toll passed 1,000 on Tuesday for the first time since June 10.

US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci said the United States was heading in the wrong direction and warned it could soon see 100,000 cases a day.

Several US states imposed 14-day quarantines on travellers from other states ahead of the annual July 4 festivities on Saturday while California suspended indoor dining at restaurants in Los Angeles.

 EU travel ban eased 

The EU hopes relaxing restrictions on countries from Algeria to Uruguay will breathe life into its tourism sector, choked by a ban on non-essential travel since mid-March.

Travellers from China, where the virus first emerged late last year, will be allowed to enter the bloc only if Beijing reciprocates.

However, with over 10 million known infections worldwide and more than 500,000 deaths, the pandemic is not even close to being over, the World Health Organization has warned.

Data provided by the UN health agency for the seven days from June 25-July 1 showed the highest number of new daily cases ever recorded came on June 28, when over 189,500 new cases were registered worldwide.

 The first tourist 

According to the United Nations, the coronavirus crisis could cost global tourism and related sectors from $1.2 to $3.3 trillion in lost revenue.

Greece, which has suffered fewer than 200 virus deaths, has seen its economy hit hard by lockdowns and travel restrictions  all but ending its lucrative tourism season before it began.

Romanian Cojan Dragos was the first tourist in one Corfu hotel after driving with his wife and daughter.

We have the whole hotel just for us, he told AFP.

Separately, Spain and Portugal held a ceremony as they reopened their land border.

The Netherlands also confirmed the reopening Wednesday of another tourist draw  its brothels and red-light districts.

Im totally booked, said sex worker Foxxy, adding that she had held a little party when she heard restrictions would be lifted.

 Clusters spur new lockdowns 

Russia did not make the EUs list of approved countries so its citizens will be absent from the blocs tourist hot-spots.

The country was, however, enjoying a public holiday Wednesday as it voted in a referendum to approve constitutional changes allowing President Vladimir Putin to stay in power for another 16 years.

Putin was forced to postpone the vote in April as his government tackled an outbreak that has infected almost 650,000 people  the third-highest in the world.

In other countries, clusters are still causing problems.

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has extended a lockdown on a district hit by an outbreak at a slaughterhouse.

Parts of the Australian city of Melbourne suffered sharp rises in infections, spurring new stay-at-home measures.

The Palestinian Authority also announced a five-day lockdown across the West Bank after a surge in confirmed cases.

And textile factories in the central British city of Leicester were suggested as the reason for a spike in infections that has prompted the reimposition of local restrictions.

 Spiking in Americas 

In the US, Fauci, a member of President Donald Trumps coronavirus task force, warned Congress Tuesday that officials were not in total control right now.

Spikes in Texas and Florida are driving the national increase, Fauci said.

The Pan American Health Organization warned, meanwhile, that the death toll in Latin America and the Caribbean could quadruple to more than 400,000 by October without stricter public health measures.

The US government announced this week it had bought 92 percent of all remdesivir production  the first drug to be shown to be relatively effective in treating COVID-19.

Britain and Germany, however, said Wednesday they had sufficient stocks of the drug.

 Infrastructure revolution 

The financial world continues to reel from the diseases impact, with travel restrictions tearing through the aviation industry in particular.

European aircraft maker Airbus said it was planning to cut around 15,000 jobs worldwide.

Around the world, sporting events also continued to fall off the calendar, including the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations and the remainder of this years World Rugby Sevens Series.

And while lockdown measures have been a disaster for many, some have welcomed the chance to spend more quality time with hard-working partners.

Maybe it was because we were healthier and not exhausted anymore, and we had lots of quality time together at home, said Indonesian Novarina, pregnant with her first child after two years of trying.

My husband and I joke that this is a corona baby.

SOURCE> AFP
Gazas Hamas rulers fired a volley of rockets into the sea Wednesday in a warning to Israel not to annex part of the West Bank, sources in the Islamist organisation told AFP.

The showcase launch of about 20 test rockets from the coastal Palestinian territory came as thousands of people in Gaza City answered Hamas calls for street protests.

Last week the group said that should Israel go ahead with annexation, as provided for in a US peace plan, it would amount to a declaration of war against Palestinians.

Benjamin Netanyahus centre-right coalition government had set July 1 as the date from which it could begin implementing US President Donald Trumps Middle East peace proposal.

But there was no announcement by Wednesday afternoon and none scheduled.

The Gaza protesters brandished Palestinian flags and placards condemning Trump, while calling for Hamas to take up arms against Israel.

The resistance must be revived, demonstrator Rafeeq Inaiah told AFP. Israel is afraid of force.

Others held signs reading No to annexation and Palestinian lives matter, referencing the US-born antiracist movement Black lives matter, AFP journalists at the scene said.

Demonstrations were also building in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In the ancient Jordan Valley city of Jericho, a small number of Palestinian protesters were joined by retired left-wing Israeli politicians, among them Ophir Pines-Paz, a former Labour party interior minister.

We want to affirm our support for peace, he said. Netanyahu and his annexation project must be stopped.

The Trump plan, unveiled in January, offered a path for Israel to annex territory and Jewish West Bank settlements, communities considered illegal under international law.

Hamas, which in 2007 took control of the narrow strip on the shores of the Mediterranean, has since 2008 fought three wars with neighbouring Israel.

It has been under blockade by the Jewish state for more than a decade, with the stated Israeli aim to prevent flows of arms and materials for building fortifications.

SOURCE> AFP
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Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), a graduate-level, research-based artificial intelligence (AI) university in the UAE, said it has signed a MoU with Virgin Hyperloop, the California-based category leader in hyperloop development, to initiate a collaborative approach to research and innovation in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerate transport innovation.

In a virtual ceremony, the MoU was signed by Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at MBZUAI, and Sultan Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World and Chairman of Virgin Hyperloop, in the presence of Virgin Hyperloop Managing Director (Middle East and India) Harj Dhaliwal and other senior faculty members at the university.

As per the deal, MBZUAI and Hyperloop will engage the best AI minds of both teams to pursue three core objectives: joint fundamental research in several key AI domains, such as computer vision; massively parallel cloud computing initiatives, and a range of solution-oriented commercial projects in the smart transportation industry.

Transporting passengers and goods at speeds exceeding 1,000km/h, hyperloop is a completely new form of transport with the ambition to become the most sustainable means of mass transportation of the 21st century.

The potential of AI, which is fundamental to Virgin Hyperloops future operations in the Middle East, will form the core basis to explore knowledge exchange opportunities between MBZUAI and Virgin Hyperloop.

On the strategic deal, Dr Al Jaber said: "This partnership exemplifies the immense capacity of AI to reshape the world around us by breaking boundaries. Virgin Hyperloop will change the way we move around the world. MBZUAI will help enable this by providing access to some of the worlds most talented AI professionals, as well as superior research facilities, which can contribute to realizing Virgin Hyperloops vision.

Bin Sulayem said: Our region has great potential to emerge as a global powerhouse from the current economic situation. The transportation and technology sector  and that includes advancements in AI in particular  will define our regional capabilities in the long-term. Supported by AI, we are ultimately offering time with this disruptive, completely new, and sustainable technology that will help us to create an on-demand economy. Wzseek to revolutionize regional transport and trade sectors through a passenger and cargo hyperloop-enabled system, powered by AI."

"We can transport people and high-priority goods at the speed of an airliner, moving them between economic zones, cities and emirates. The UAEs education sector, through partnerships such as our new collaboration with MBZUAI, will have a meaningful role in enabling and driving this very exciting and growing industry, he added.
IOC Middle East FZE, Dubai, a wholly-owned subsidiary of IndianOil Corporation, Indias largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products, and RR Holdings Ltd, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, the holding company of Beximco LPG of Bangladesh, have signed an agreement for the formation of a 50:50 Joint Venture Company (JVC) for LPG business in Bangladesh.

Dharmedra Pradhan, Indias Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel, who presided over the function, said that the agreement is a major milestone in the annals of India-Bangladesh cooperation when a group company of IndianOil based in Dubai is joining hands with one of the most promising LPG companies in Bangladesh through its holding company in UAE for LPG business in Bangladesh. The Minister expressed confidence that similar to the success of LPG penetration in rural India, the new joint venture would be the catalyst of socio-economic change in Bangladesh through greater penetration of affordable LPG in the country.

Salman Fazlur Rahman MP, Private Industry and Investment Adviser to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, said: The JVC should serve as a testament to the remarkable investment potential of Bangladesh under the leadership of Honble Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. At a time when the entire world is grappling with the severe economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, this investment also reflects the resilient and enduring friendship between Bangladesh and India.

Nasrul Hamid, MP, Minister of State for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources of Bangladesh, also spoke at the event. The Bangladesh government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has placed extreme importance on meeting energy demands for Bangladesh to become a developed country by 2041 as per the Vision 2041. The JV between Beximco LPG and IndianOil Corporation align with our goals and priorities, he said. As Bangladeshs middle class is rising with higher purchasing power, the LPG sector has seen an exponential boom over the years and is set to grow further in the coming years. As such, a partnership and investment at this scale between two experienced and major players has every potential to be a true game changer in the industry.

Speaking on the occasion Sanjiv Singh, Chairman, IndianOil, said that IndianOil started with lubricants marketing in Bangladesh in 1999 and is today joining hands with a formidable partner in Bangladesh. LPG market in Bangladesh has seen a five-fold growth in the past five years and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12-13%.

The JVC will draw strength from the core competencies of IndianOil and the local expertise of Beximco. As per the business plan, the JVC would begin functioning by acquiring Beximcos existing LPG assets. We intend to set up a large LPG terminal at a deep-water port in Bangladesh, which would facilitate receipt of LPG in Very Large Gas Carriers, leading to reduction in cost of imports. Reduction in cost of import would help make LPG available at an affordable price to the people of Bangladesh.

We are proud to join forces with IndianOil  combining our downstream value chain and customer insights with their unparalleled strength and expertise across the entire hydrocarbon sector. Together, we believe our combined strengths will allow us to be on the leading edge of the innovation curve that will enable us to become the largest downstream oil and gas company in Bangladesh, said Shayan F Rahman, Chairman, RR Holdings Ltd.

The JVC aspires to become the most trusted, admired and premiere LPG company in Bangladesh offering the safest, smartest and most convenient LPG solutions with best-in-class customer service. JVC also intends to diversify into other downstream Oil & Gas businesses e.g. lube blending Plant, LNG, Petrochemicals, LPG export to North East India through pipeline between two nations, renewable energy etc. -- Tradearabia News Service
Several countries around the world are starting to ease travel restrictions, with Europe leading the way. The restart of tourism means the return of hope and opportunity for millions of people globally, Zurab Pololikashvili, UNWTO Secretary-General, said in a statement.

This week, Europe leads the way in restarting tourism. Destinations throughout the Schengen Zone are once again open. The lifting of borders will have an immediate and significant impact on economies and livelihoods.

For Spain, host country of UNWTO, and neighbours Portugal, the occasion will be marked by a special ceremony. The presence of His Majesty King Felipe VI and President Pedro Sanchez of Spain alongside President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister Antonio Costa of Portugal is testament to the significance of tourisms restart for both countries.

So too is the practical support that tourism has received, including from the very highest political level. The European Commission has provided an unprecedented degree of economic support for the sector. And at the national level, France has echoed our call to back tourism with actions and not just words, giving the sector and the businesses that make it the economic help they need to survive and lead recovery.

To reflect this, UNWTO is changing gears in how it supports Member States and tourism at large.

"This week, I resume person-to-person official meetings as I lead a delegation on an official visit to Italy and to the Vatican City," said Pololikashvili.

"This is an opportunity to show our support for tourism and for a country that is not only a true global tourism leader, but which was one of the worst-affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in all of Europe," he said.

"Our visit to Italy will allow us to learn more about important steps being taken to make tourism more sustainable, more resilient and more innovative. It also offers an opportunity to celebrate what makes tourism: people."

"This will be the first of a series of visits as the world steadily opens up again, allowing us to lead by example in supporting tourism and making our sector a vital tool for recovery."

"At the same time, it is only right that we remain cautious. This crisis is far from over. In other regions of the world, borders remain closed to tourism and the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread. The human toll, economic cost and social impact are still growing. This is no time for complacency," he stressed.

"And even where the worst appears to have passed, the threat of the pandemic returning means we must act responsibly and make public health our priority."

"During these difficult months, tourism has stepped up to meet this unprecedented challenge with determination and an unparalleled spirit of solidarity. We carry this into the next stage," Pololikashvili noted.

Tourisms restart is a step towards ending many weeks of uncertainty and replacing it with a renewed sense of confidence. "As we meet in person again, we can build trust, the essential foundation as we work together to grow back stronger and better. But this will only work out, if we act with responsibility  its better to be right, than to be first," he said. - TradeArabia News Service
Prospective teachers misperceive Black children as angry

Prospective teachers appear more likely to misperceive Black children as angry than white children, which may undermine the education of Black youth, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

While previous research has documented this effect in adults, this is the first study to show how anger bias based on race may extend to teachers and Black elementary and middle-school children, said lead researcher Amy G. Halberstadt, PhD, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. The study was published online in the APA journal Emotion.

"This anger bias can have huge consequences by increasing Black children's experience of not being 'seen' or understood by their teachers and then feeling like school is not for them," she said. "It might also lead to Black children being disciplined unfairly and suspended more often from school, which can have long-term ramifications."

In the study, 178 prospective teachers from education programs at three Southeastern universities viewed short video clips of 72 children ages 9 to 13 years old. The children's faces expressed one of six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise or disgust. The clips were evenly divided among boys or girls and Black children or white children. The sample was not large enough to determine whether the race or ethnicity of the teachers made a difference in how they perceived the children.

The prospective teachers were somewhat accurate at detecting the children's emotions, but they also made some mistakes that revealed patterns. Boys of both races were misperceived as angry more often than Black or white girls. Black boys and girls also were misperceived as angry at higher rates than white children, with Black boys eliciting the most anger bias.

Anger bias against Black children can have many negative consequences. While controlling for other factors, previous research has found that Black children are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than white children. Black children's negative experiences at school also could contribute to the disparate achievement gap between Black and white youth that has been documented across the United States, Halberstadt said.

Those in the study also completed questionnaires relating to their implicit and explicit racial bias, but their scores on those tests didn't affect the findings relating to Black children. However, those who displayed greater racial bias were less likely to misperceive white children as angry.

"Even when people are motivated to be anti-racist, we need to know the specific pathways by which racism travels, and that can include false assumptions that Black people are angry or threatening," Halberstadt said. "Those common racist misperceptions can extend from school into adulthood and potentially have fatal consequences, such as when police officers kill unarmed Black people on the street or in their own homes."

Previous research with adults in the United States has found that anger is perceived more quickly than happiness in Black faces, while the opposite effect was found for white faces. Anger also is perceived more quickly and for a longer time in young Black men's faces than young white men's faces.

"Over the last few weeks, many people are waking up to the pervasive extent of systemic racism in American culture, not just in police practices but in our health, banking and education systems," Halberstadt said. "Learning more about how these problems become embedded in our thought processes is an important first step."

Participants in the study were predominantly female (89%) and white (70%), mirroring the gender and race of most public-school teachers across the country. The study didn't include enough people of color from any single race or ethnicity (Hispanic 9%, Asian 8%, Black 6%, Biracial 5%, Native American 1%, and Middle Eastern 1%) to analyze separate findings based on the race or ethnicity of the participants.

###

Article: "Racialized Emotion Recognition Accuracy and Anger Bias of Children's Faces," by Amy G. Halberstadt, PhD, Alison N. Cooke, PhD, Dejah Oertwig, MA, and Shevaun D. Neupert, PhD, North Carolina State University; Sherick Hughes, PhD, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and Pamela W. Garner, PhD, George Mason University, Emotion, published online July 2, 2020.

Full text of the article can be found online at https:/ / www. apa. org/ pubs/ journals/ releases/ emo-emo0000756. pdf .

Contact: Amy G. Halberstadt, PhD, may be contacted at Amy_Halberstadt@ncsu.edu.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 121,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Initially planned for April 22, the referendum was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic but rescheduled after Putin said the epidemic had peaked and officials began reporting lower numbers of new cases.

Turnout as of 2000 GMT was about 65 percent, the election commission said. The Kremlin pulled out all the stops to encourage voting, with polls extended over nearly a week, the last day of voting declared a national holiday and prizes -- including apartments, cars and cash -- on offer to voters.

The reforms include conservative and populist measures -- like guaranteed minimum pensions and an effective ban on gay marriage -- but crucially for Putin also reset presidential limits allowing him to run twice again after his current six-year term expires in 2024.

The amendments had been passed weeks ago by Russia's parliament and copies of the new constitution were already on sale in bookshops, but Putin had said voter approval was essential to give them legitimacy.

With 60 percent of ballots counted after the end of six days of voting, 76.9 percent of voters had supported the reforms, the central election commission said. There had been little doubt of voters backing the changes, which Putin announced earlier this year and critics denounced as a maneuver to allow him to stay in the Kremlin for life. But top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny slammed the results as a "huge lie" which don't reflect real public opinion.

 'Stability, Security, Prosperity'

In a final appeal to voters on Tuesday, Putin said the changes were needed to ensure Russia's future "stability, security, prosperity." State television showed Putin voting Wednesday at his usual polling station at the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he was handed a ballot by an electoral worker wearing a surgical mask and gloves.

Dressed in a dark suit and tie, Putin was not wearing any protective gear. At a polling station in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East, 79-year-old Valentina Kungurtseva told AFP she supported the reforms. "For us as pensioners, it's very important that they will increase our pension every year," she said. "As long as we have a good president, life will be good," she said.

In the second city, Saint Petersburg, 20-year-old Sergei Goritsvetov said he opposed the reforms but doubted it would make any difference. "I voted against and I hope there will be many of us, but I don't know what it will change," he said. "At least I expressed my opinion."

Navalny had said Putin, 67 and in power as president or prime minister since 2000, wants to make himself "president for life" and called for a boycott, calling the vote illegitimate. "We have just watched a show with a planned finale," he wrote on his blog after polls closed. "Putin will not leave himself," Navalny wrote, "not until we begin to come out to the streets by the hundreds of thousands, by millions."

The opposition divided and failed to mount a serious campaign, with some voting "no" and others staying home. There were only small protests Wednesday in central Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.

 Falling Approval Ratings

Golos, an independent election monitor, said it had received hundreds of complaints of violations, including people voting more than once and claims employers were putting pressure on staff to cast ballots.

Election commission chief Ella Pamfilova denied any problems on Wednesday, saying only a couple of violations were confirmed and they would have no effect on the result.

Putin's approval rating has fallen in recent months. It stood at 60 percent in June according to pollster Levada, down 20 points from the months after his reelection in 2018. Analysts say Putin wanted to get the vote over with before Russians -- already suffering from several years of falling incomes -- are hit by the full economic impact of the pandemic.

Putin said in a recent interview that he had not decided whether to run again but suggested that part of the reason for the presidential reset was to allow Russia's political elite to focus on governing instead of "hunting for possible successors."


Mexico City July 2 (UNI) At least 24 people were killed when some armed assailants attacked a rehabilitation center in the central Mexican town of Irapuato, Guanajuato state.

According to the reports of local media the state police said the gunmen also wounded seven.

State police states that nobody was abducted as the aim was to bring more casualties in the centre.

The attack was also confirmed by a federal government official.

Guanajuato state governor says drug gangs appear to have been involved in deadly attack.

This was the second such attack to take place in Irapuato during the past month.

UNI XC PR JTS 0938
8 Bangladeshi fishermen not released from Pak jail despite serving their prison term

Dhaka, July 2 (UNI) Eight Bangladeshi fishermen remained imprisoned in Pakistan jail for over a year. Pakistan declined to release them despite serving the term of their legal punishment at Landhi jail in Karachi.

Diplomatic sources said, the eight Bangladeshis used to catch fish in Oman with work visa. One year ago, they were catching fishes near Pakistani sea border when their boat turned inoperative and entered into Pakistani water territory.


Dhaka, Jul 2 (UNI) European Union (EU) has announced around Taka 304 crore (32 million euro) funding for livelihood improvement along with COVID-19 pandemic response of both Rohingya and Bangladeshi host communities in Coxs Bazar.

The allocation came in support to the generous efforts deployed by Bangladesh by hosting around one million Rohingyas, an EU press release said here on Thursday.

Of the funding, Taka 114 crore will be dedicated to COVID-19 responses and Taka 190 crore to address need of both host communities and Rohingya through an integrated approach on improved access to basic services in education, food security and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and enhance their resilience and protection.
New Delhi, Jul 2 (UNI) Amid rising tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh between two Himalayan giants, India and Russia on Thursday agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations.

The troops of India and China have been engaged in standoff at multiple locations in the LAC areas since early May.

India and Russia will hold the annual bilateral summit in India later this year to take forward their cooperation in the fields of defence, space, energy among others.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and discussed the COVID-19 pandemic in their respective countries.

Prime Minister conveyed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India for the bilateral Summit, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

President Putin thanked him for the phone call and reiterated his commitment to further strengthen the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two countries in all spheres, it added.

Mr Modi warmly congratulated him on the success of celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War, and also for successful completion of the vote on constitutional amendments in Russia.

He recalled the participation of an Indian contingent in the military parade held in Moscow on June 24, as a symbol of abiding friendship between the peoples of India and Russia.

The leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the Covid-19 global pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-COVID world, it said.

UNI ASH SHK1628
Centre issues memo to WB ex-Chief Secy, initiating major disciplinary proceedings 21 Jun 2021 | 9:08 PM New Delhi, Jun 21 (UNI) Initiating major disciplinary penalty proceedings against former West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandhopadhyay, the Department of Personnel and Training has issued a memorandum for his alleged misconduct and misbehavior and asking him to reply within 30 days time period, the officials said here on Monday. see more..

Fire in Delhi's shoe factory, at least six people reportedly missing 21 Jun 2021 | 8:49 PM New Delhi, Jun 21 (UNI) A fire broke out at a shoe factory in Delhi's Udyog Vihar on Monday morning, with no reports of any injury or casualty so far. see more..

Sharad Pawar calls meeting of non-BJP leaders, eminent people on Tuesday 21 Jun 2021 | 8:20 PM New Delhi/Mumbai, Jun 21 (UNI) Maharashtra Minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik on Monday said his party's chief Sharad Pawar has called a meeting of several political leaders from different parties and eminent persons at his official residence in the National Capital on Tuesday to discuss the current scenario in the country. see more..

ED arrests absconding accused of healthcare ponzi scheme from Howrah 21 Jun 2021 | 7:41 PM New Delhi, Jun 21 (UNI) Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday said that it has arrested an absconding accused Hemant Kumar Sinha on June 19 from his residence in Hawrah in West Bengal in a money laundering case related to the health care ponzi scheme case in Ranchi. see more..
Dhaka, Jul 2 (UNI) Eight Bangladeshi fishermen remained imprisoned in Pakistan jail for over a year despite serving the term of their legal punishment at Landhi jail in Karachi.





Diplomatic sources on Thursday said, the eight Bangladeshis used to catch fish in Oman with work visa. One year ago, they were catching fishes near Pakistani sea border when their boat turned inoperative and entered into Pakistani water territory.





The fishermen failed to manage the boat. But Pakistan Navy personnel arrested them on June last year.



The Bangladeshis have already faced the punishment as per Pakistani law. But Pakistan declined to release them despite urging by Bangladesh Foreign Ministry for their release.



While talking to UNI, State Minister for Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh Shahriar Alam condemned the move by Pakistan.

'The Bangladeshi fishermen are not being released despite serving their prison term there. I do not know what kind of conspiracy it is,' he said.

UNI MAZ PR JTS 0936
New Delhi, Jul 2 (UNI) Close on the heels of the NDA government's decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has quit his personal account on the Chinese Twitter-like website Weibo, the website said late on Wednesday night. .

According to a report in a Taiwanese National daily, Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, said it has deleted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's account at the request of the Indian embassy.

According to a report in Liberty Times,Weibo said it had received an official request from the Indian representative office in China.

Weibo announced late on Wednesday that it had received a request from the Indian embassy in China to close Mr Modis account.

Weibo received an application from the Indian embassy in China, which said: (I) hope to have the official Weibo account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed from the platform, it said.

Weibo has closed what was certified as the account of the Prime Minister of India,'a statement from the website said.

The government had on Monday announced that 59 Chinese apps would be banned in the country . The apps include TikTok, WeChat, UC Browser, and Cam Scanner.

PM Modi first set up his Weibo account in 2015 with an eye on Sino-Indian relations and accumulated more than 244,000 followers  many of them Chinese.

His first message on the popular blogging website was a greeting to the Chinese people in which he expressed his excitement about interacting with them.

UNI AR ADG 1302
Union Springs, AL (36089)

Today

Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy this evening with thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 72F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Britain announced Wednesday that it was extending residency rights to up to 3 million Hong Kongers eligible for the British National Overseas passport, stressing that it would uphold its historic duty to a former British colony after Beijing imposed a sweeping new national security law in Hong Kong.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told lawmakers that Britain was changing its immigration rules to allow BNO passport holders a special route to citizenship. Eligible individuals from Hong Kong will have the right to live and work in the U.K. for five years without the current six-month limit. After five years, those who wish to will be allowed to apply for settled status and then again for citizenship 12 months after that.

Britain's government estimates there are around 2.9 million British National Overseas passport-holders currently in Hong Kong. It says its extended residency rules would apply to them and their immediate dependents.

No exact date was given for the new rule's implementation, and Raab said further details will be announced later.
UW College of Law Postpones Visit by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch

The University of Wyoming College of Law has postponed the campus visit of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch amid the public health situation concerning the novel coronavirus COVID-19.

Originally scheduled to appear on campus Sept. 16-17 in honor of the College of Laws 100th anniversary, Gorsuchs appearance will now be pushed back to fall 2021.

We want to be mindful of the health concerns in our community, as well as the health of the justice, says Klint Alexander, the dean of the UW College of Law. In order to be compliant with the current restrictions the state and the university have in place, we would need to drastically limit the attendees to each event. We hope that, by postponing, we will be able to accommodate a larger audience in the coming year and keep our community safe.

The structure of the events will remain the same for Gorsuchs visit in 2021 with a public event in the afternoon and a gala celebration in the evening. More details on those events and tickets will be made available later.

We are grateful to Justice Gorsuch for graciously agreeing to postpone his visit to campus, Alexander says. We are disappointed that these unforeseen circumstances prevented us from celebrating our 100-year anniversary of the College of Law in the year 2020, but we are excited that we will still be able to host the justice next year as we begin a new century of legal education in Wyoming.

For more information, call Christine Reed, UW College of Law communications director, at (307) 766-6562 or email christine.reed@uwyo.edu.
Wyoming Business Tips for July 6-12

A weekly look at issues facing Wyoming business owners and entrepreneurs from the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network, a collection of business assistance programs at the University of Wyoming.

By Kelly Haigler Cornish, Wyoming SBIR/STTR Initiative program manager, Wyoming SBDC Network

Did you know the Soviet Unions launch of Sputnik, the worlds first human-made satellite in 1957, led to modifications in the U.S. governments purchase policy with the creation of what is now called Other Transaction Authority (OTA)?

In 1958, the United States passed the Space Act to create the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Additionally, the act gave NASA a new, highly flexible purchasing tool called space act agreements, which sped up the innovation cycle of much-needed products and services.

Congress followed this same model and passed a law to create OTA, allowing federal agencies to encourage the rapid implementation of emerging technologies by making purchasing decisions outside the routine procurement procedures outlined in the Federal Acquisition Regulations and other government contracting rules and laws. These purchases are called Other Transactions (OT).

While 11 federal agencies can use OTAs, the Department of Defense (DOD) is the biggest user of the OTA, spending $10 billion annually to ensure it has the most advanced technological innovations. DOD makes OT agreements to fund cutting-edge research to develop prototypes and production of products.

The goal is to emulate Silicon Valley to be more agile, innovative, fail fast and pivot when necessary to find solutions to DOD needs. Some examples of technologies in development with OTs are high-tech targeting/night vision goggles, anti-aircraft and counter-drone weapons mounted on armored vehicles, and networks to coordinate combat operations.

Additionally, OTAs encourage nontraditional organizations such as small businesses and universities to partner with prime contractors to form consortia specializing in a unique field to bid on federal opportunities. Examples of consortia include the Vertical Lift Consortium, Supply Chain Consortium Initiative, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Consortium and the Sensors, Communications and Electronics Consortium.

If you want to learn more about other transactions and OTAs, the Wyoming SBDC Network is hosting Iain Skeete and Ben McMartin, two nationally recognized experts, Thursday, July 9, for a no-cost webinar, titled Other Transactional Authorities: Funding for Research and Prototypes.

With more than two decades of federal contracting and OTA policy development experience, Skeete and McMartin will provide a behind-the-scenes look at how OTAs are used to capture technology solutions for the DOD, and how companies must position themselves to operate in this acquisition space. To register for this event or to learn more about OTAs, visit www.wyomingsbdc.org.

The Wyoming SBDC Network offers no-cost advising and technical assistance to help Wyoming entrepreneurs think about, launch, grow, reinvent or exit their business. In 2019 alone, the Wyoming SBDC Network helped Wyoming entrepreneurs start 108 new businesses; create or save 3,402 jobs; and bring a capital impact of more than $24 million to the state. The Wyoming SBDC Network is hosted by UW with state funds from the Wyoming Business Council and funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

To ask a question, call 1-800-348-5194, email wsbdc@uwyo.edu, or write 1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3922, Laramie, WY 82071-3922.
European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has announced it will cut 15,000 jobs, mostly in Europe, following the economic downturn prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

In an announcement Tuesday, the company said beginning in the last quarter of this year and by no later than next year, they are looking to cut the labor force, including 5,000 workers in France, 5,100 in Germany, 1,700 in Britain, 900 in Spain and 1,300 others at facilities elsewhere.

In France and Spain, government officials sought to minimize the effect on its workers. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told reporters the government was working with Airbus in an attempt find ways to keep jobs in the country.
On 30 June 2020 the Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil (Receita Federal do Brasil), launched its first ever nation-wide Time Release Study (TRS) during an online live broadcasted event attended by over 4000 participants  including border agencies and the private sector, as well as Customs administrations from across the globe. The TRS, which follows the World Customs Organizations (WCO) TRS Methodology, constitutes a milestone for the Brazilian Customs Administration as it enhances transparency while providing an opportunity for an evidence based dialogue between all key stakeholders to tackle the identified bottlenecks and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of border procedures.

The TRS report was validated by the WCO in collaboration with the World Bank Group and with support of the UKs Prosperity Fund. Speaking at the Opening Session of the launch event, WCO Deputy Secretary-General, Ricardo Trevino Chapa said: This is a big step forward towards increased trade facilitation and provides a baseline to measure the impact of actions and reforms. He also underlined that the Brazilian experience would be valuable to share with the wider Customs community and added that the current health emergency shows that it is key to keep the flow of goods going. Throughout the event the importance of the WCOs TRS methodology was highlighted by various speakers as a vital tool for strategic planning and the implementation of the WTOs Trade Facilitation Agreement.

The study shows an average time measured of 7.5 days considering air, sea and road modes of transport. The Customs clearance stage accounts for less than 10% of the total time measured, while those actions under the responsibility of private agents represent more than half of the total time spent in all flows analysed.

To further increase transparency for importers and exporters, the Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil also intends to publish the raw data of the TRS.

The recording of the full launch event with Portuguese/English translation can be watched here (YouTube).

The TRS report and its Executive Summary are available here.

For more information please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.
Fort Polk, LA (71446)

Today

Cloudy skies early then heavy thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 89F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 72F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Halls Sophie Garner-MacKinnon has been named the 2020-21 Gatorade Connecticut Softball Player of the Year, according to a release from Gatorade. Garner-MacKinnon is the first Gatorade Connecticut Softball Player of the Year to be chosen from Hall High School.
Lotte Department Store has joined the red-hot competition for fast delivery of products. The chain launched a trial service in Seoul on Monday delivering products within three hours of purchase on its website.

Customers who order before 4:30 p.m. can get them within three hours by motorcycle courier. Around 90,000 products on Lotte's website can be delivered that way.

Purchases over W100,000 are delivered free of charge, while cheaper ones cost W10,000 extra (US$1=W1,203).
Baptist Health Shares Summer Swimming Precautions

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - As some public pools open for the summer, Baptist Health Paducah encourages people to continue to take precautions.In May, Governor Andy Beshear announced some public pools could open by this week, with protocols in place for the safety of swimmers and employees.Before taking a dive into a pool this summer, Baptist Health Paducah recommends taking precautions to make swimming as safe as possible.The Centers for Disease Control advises people wash their hands often, cover coughs and sneezes, wear a mask when possible and practice social distancing by staying at least 6 feet away from people you do not live with. Other tips from the CDC include: bring your own supplies - such as hand sanitizer - for proper hygiene, do not share personal objects such as goggles, nose clips and toys such as floats and if you are showing signs of the virus or any illness be sure to stay at home. These are necessary steps to lower the risk of spreading COVID-19 during the summer swim season.
Fireworks Complaints Spark Reminder from Officials

By West Kentucky Star

PADUCAH - After getting complaints about use of fireworks within the city of Paducah, officials are reminding everyone about laws restricting them.Assistant Police Chief Anthony Copeland told West Kentucky Star that by Wednesday afternoon they had received 115 calls complaining about fireworks, which is the same number as last year, but it's not yet July 4.Copeland said, "Shooting off fireworks in the city limits is a violation of a city ordinance, which would be something you would receive a warning or a citation for."He said anything that goes into the air or anything with a loud bang is illegal.Copeland said, "Beyond that, and of great concern, is when people use some of these items to throw at each other or to shoot from vehicles or shoot houses. That's where it goes beyond a city ordinance, obviously, you could actually assault somebody. These are dangerous things, especially when you think of their explosive nature."Last weekend, a vehicle caught fire in Paducah after someone reportedly threw a lit firework into a passing vehicle, causing fireworks inside the car to ignite.While it is legal to purchase fireworks in Paducah, the city's Deputy Chief of Fire Prevention Greg Cherry said, We want to remind the public that fireworks are not allowed to be discharged within the city limits for safety reasons due to the density of homes and structures in Paducah. Furthermore, it is illegal for minors to be in possession of fireworks.Regarding age limits, state law restricts use of aerial fireworks like bottle rockets, or audible ground devices such as firecrackers to those 18 or older. Also, fireworks are not to be used within 200 feet of any structure, motor vehicle, or other person.Even though ground and handheld sparkling devices are permitted in Paducah, please use caution and have adult supervision, Cherry said.According to the National Fire Protection Association, sparklers burn at approximately 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission 2018 Fireworks Annual Report states that more than 19,500 fires are started each year by fireworks.Paducah Police released this list on Wednesday to remind everyone about classifications of fireworks:According to Kentucky Revised Statutes, aerial devices include: Sky rockets and bottle rockets Missile-type rockets Helicopters or aerial spinners Roman candles Mines or shells Aerial shell kits with reloadable tubesAudible ground devices include: Firecrackers and salutes ChasersAllowed fireworks include: Dipped stick-sparklers or wire sparklers Cylindrical fountains Cone fountains Illuminating torches Wheels Ground spinners Flitter sparklers Toy smoke devices
One Arrested, One Sought in Fireworks Attack

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - Police have arrested a Paducah teen, and are seeking another in connection with an incident Saturday during which detectives say the teens threw lit fireworks into a moving vehicle, causing it to burn up.The Paducah Police Department says officers arrested 19-year-old Tirel Beavers Thursday afternoon, and are searching for 18-year-old Javon Wiley. Both men are charged with first-degree arson and first-degree wanton endangerment.Officers and firefighters responded just before midnight to a fully engulfed car in the 1100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Four people were inside the car when it caught fire. One of the victims told officers they were driving east on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive when another vehicle drove past and someone inside threw a lit firework into their vehicle, causing fireworks inside to catch fire.Detectives said they determined Beavers and Wiley were the ones responsible for throwing the lit fireworks into the car.Beavers was booked into McCracken County Regional Jail. Police are still seeking Wiley, and ask anyone who knows his whereabouts to call them at 270-444-8550.
Teenagers Arrested for Paducah Robbery

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - Two teenagers have been charged in connection with a robbery last month.According to the Paducah Police Department, a man told police that he received a message via social media from a juvenile, asking for a ride home. He said he met the teenager in the area of South 22nd Street, who allegedly got into the man's vehicle, pointed a gun at his head, and demanded money. The victim said that another person, identified as 18-year-old Cincere Demond Bailey, stood at the back of the vehicle, "keeping watch."The victim said he gave the juvenile his wallet and a small amount of marijuana.Bailey was arrested Thursday on a warrant charging him with first degree robbery (complicity). He was reportedly in possession of marijuana and a marijuana grinder at the time of his arrest and was also charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Bailey was booked into the McCracken County Jail.The juvenile turned himself in to the police department on Thursday. He was lodged in the McCracken County Juvenile Detention Center on a complaint charging him with first degree robbery.
Area Health Departments Share COVID-19 Concerns

By West Kentucky Star Staff





Purchase District Health Department Public Health Director Kent Koster says the rise in cases is connected to the relaxed restrictions.







"With everything getting close to being reopened and with people becoming more relaxed in practicing social distancing, hand washing, congregating, and traveling, we're seeing a lot more cases as a result of that," Koster said.







According to Koster, we are seeing a few more cases due to increased testing, however he believes the primary cause of the increase is due to people traveling.







Jennifer Brown with the Marshall County Health Department reported something similar. After several weeks of no new cases, Marshall County saw an uptick in cases, particularly in young adults.







"We had gone a significant number of days without any new cases, and I think here in Marshall County, perhaps we got to a point where we thought that maybe this was over for us. This recent spike in cases has just really highlighted that this is not over," said Brown, "We maybe let our guard down a little too early."







Brown then encouraged everyone to re-evaluate what they are doing both at home and in the workplace to remain safe, such as wearing masks and continuing to maintain social distancing.







"That way maybe we can keep the most recent cases to a minimum as we move forward," Brown continued.

WESTERN KENTUCKY - Although many states, including Kentucky, are loosening restrictions, COVID-19 cases are still rising across the country.
Mayfield Schools Announce Reopening Guidelines

By West Kentucky Star Staff





In a Wednesday press release, school officials say their highest priority is the well-being of their students, staff, and community. They will be following the guidance and safety expectations provided by Kentucky Public Health and the Kentucky Department of Education, however they say there will be frequent adjustments based on individual school needs and the changing state health guidelines.







"I also want to be perfectly clear, in no way do we expect students to wear a mask all day, every day," the announcement says.







Mayfield Independent Schools is planning to begin the school year on August 5th based on the Board approved calendar, and parents that have concerns about returning to in-person learning will have an option of continuing NTI learning.







In their effort to create a "Healthy at School" environment, they will be implementing the following guidelines:







Social Distancing



 We will utilize school space to create social distancing when possible;



 We will have alternatives to eliminate large group gatherings such as the cafeteria.







Face Coverings



 Masks will be worn by staff and students when social distancing is not possible. This will include when riding a bus, changing classes, and some instructional settings;



 Per state guidelines, Preschool and Kindergarten students will not be required to wear masks.







Daily Temperature Checks and Screenings



 No touch thermometers will be used to check temperatures of students and staff each day. A temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher and they will not be able to participate in face to face instruction;



 Parents are asked to check their children for COVID symptoms before leaving for school each day.







Sanitizing and Hand Hygiene



 All facilities will be cleaned and disinfected daily, and high traffic areas will be cleaned throughout the day;



 Hand sanitizer will be available throughout the buildings;



 Students will be encouraged and scheduled to wash hands frequently.







Contact Tracing



 Schools will identify anyone that has had prolonged exposure to any possible cases;



 Where practical, students will remain in self-contained setting, limiting the number of contacts an individual may experience during the day;



 The school campus will be limited to essential persons. Non-essential visitors will not be able to enter schools until further notice.







According to Mayfield school officials, they recognize the challenges ahead and ask that everyone work together to create the best opportunity for the students to succeed during the pandemic. They will be releasing additional information later in July.

MAYFIELD - Mayfield Independent Schools has released its guidelines for returning to school.
US 51 Cairo Bridge Work Zone to Stay Up for July 4

By West Kentucky Star Staff

WESTERN KENTUCKY; SOUTHERN ILLINOIS - A work zone on the US 51 Ohio River Cairo Bridge that connects Kentucky and Illinois will remain up during the July 4th holiday weekend.Due to anticipated heavy holiday traffic and work transitioning to a more extended section of the bridge, delays are likely at the river crossing during the holiday travel period. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet engineers are suggesting that cross-country holiday travelers consider an alternate route through Southern Illinois or via the Dorena-Hickman Ferry.The Cairo Bridge is restricted to one lane traffic with a maximum load width of 8 foot and 6 inches to allow deck maintenance and joint work.Drivers should be prepared to encounter a 2900 foot section of one-lane traffic on the main span of the bridge with alternating flow controlled by an automated signal. Traffic delays are likely, particularly during peak travel periods.There is a strict work zone speed limit with an enhanced enforcement presence.Additional lane restrictions along the US 51 Ohio River Bridge Kentucky approach levee are suspended to allow engineers to consider traffic flow options before that phase of the work proceeds. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet will provide timely notice when the levee portion of the work is ready to resume.Intech Contracting, LLC, is the prime contractor on this $8,060,092 project. The target completion date is October 1.
Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell Arrested

By The Associated Press

NEW HAMPSHIRE - British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested Thursday on charges she helped recruit three girls  one as young as 14  to have sex with financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sexually assaulting dozens of girls and women over many years.An indictment unsealed Thursday said Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent travel companion on trips around the world, facilitated Epsteins crimes by "helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse" girls.Epstein, 66, killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.Maxwell has, for years, been accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.Maxwell, 58, was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, where the FBI said it had been keeping tabs on her.More recently we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago, William Sweeney, head of the FBIs New York office, told a news conference Thursday.The indictment included counts of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and perjury.Maxwell lied because the truth, as alleged, was almost unspeakable, Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said.She called the charges against Maxwell a prequel to charges prosecutors brought against Epstein a year ago.Messages were sent Thursday to several of Maxwells attorneys seeking comment. She has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some claims against her absolute rubbish."Among the most sensational accusations was a claim by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew at her London townhouse. Giuffre bolstered her allegations with a picture of her, Andrew and Maxwell that she said was taken at the time.Andrew denied her story and Maxwell said in a deposition that Giuffre was totally lying."He was not mentioned by name in the indictment, and the charges covered Maxwell's dealings with Epstein only from 1994 through 1997, a period well before his alleged encounters with Giuffre in 2001.Strauss said she would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, but did not answer further questions pertaining to these charges and Andrew.Brad Edwards, an attorney representing Giuffre and several other Epstein victims said his clients were relieved by the charges. Today is a very good day," he said.The indictment focused on Epstein's alleged abuse of three specific girls at his Manhattan mansion and other residences in Palm Beach, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico, and London. Their names were not revealed in court filings.The allegations in the indictment mirrored many claims from civil lawsuits against Maxwell, saying she would entice and groom minor girls by asking them about their lives, their schools and their families.Through this process, Maxwell and Epstein enticed victims to engage in sexual activity with Epstein. In some instances, Maxwell was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims, according to the indictment.Maxwell repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct, it went on. She was accused of committing perjury in 2016 in a deposition in a civil lawsuit, in part by denying knowledge of Epstein's scheme to recruit underage girls.At the time the alleged crimes, Maxwell was in an intimate relationship with Epstein and also was paid by him to manage his various properties, according to the indictment, which included a photograph of Epstein with his arm around Maxwell and his head nuzzling hers. Strauss, at the news conference, stood silent, pointing at the picture as film crews and photographers captured the moment.Strauss promised the investigation was continuing and urged other victims to come forward. She said prosecutors would seek the detention of Maxwell.Epstein was initially investigated in Florida and pleaded guilty to state charges in 2008 that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. He was free a little after a year in prison.At the time, a federal prosecutor in Florida signed off on an agreement, initially filed in secret, that barred the federal government from charging any potential co-conspirators of Epstein. Alexander Acosta, President Donald Trump's former labor secretary, resigned last year after coming under fire for overseeing that deal when he was U.S. attorney in Miami.Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan until he was fired last month, argued that federal prosecutors in New York were not bound by that agreement and brought a sweeping indictment against Epstein. Berman vowed to continue seeking justice for Epstein's victims even after the financier's death.Maxwell's indictment was celebrated by lawyers for some Epstein accusers.Jennifer Araoz, a woman who says Epstein raped her in his New York mansion in 2002 when she was 15, said she feared the financiers ring of conspirators for years.Now that the ring has been taken down, I know that I cant be hurt anymore, Araoz, now 33, said in a statement. Day after day, I have waited for the news that Maxwell would be arrested and held accountable for her actions. Her arrest is a step in that direction, and it truly means that the justice system didnt forget about us.Spencer T. Kuvin, who represents some of the women, said Maxwell was hopefully ... the first of many co-conspirators to face the consequences of this horrific crimes.Maxwell was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the highest-ranking employee of Epsteins alleged sex trafficking enterprise. She oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal the activity from law enforcement, the lawsuit alleged.
Abernathy Issues Statement, Harley Still Cuts Ties

By The Associated Press

UNION CITY - Harley-Davidson has repeated that it is severing ties with Union City dealership owner Russell Abernathy and is pulling its Facebook ads for the month of July because of racist social media posts attributed to him.The posts were allegedly made last month on Abernathy's personal Facebook page, with one of them reading, Im sick of this black lives matter, and telling black people to go back to Africa and stay.Abernathy told Jackson, Tennessee TV station WBBJ that he did not make the posts and that his account was hacked.The derogatory nature of the comment in no way aligns with my personal beliefs or that of Harley-Davidson Motor Co. It personally saddens me that this post has caused such wide-reaching pain to those that have already been subject to so many social injustices, he wrote in a statement posted on the company's website.The Associated Press reached out to Abernathy for comment on Thursday. He did not answer any phone calls.Harley Davidson Inc., headquartered in Milwaukee, said again on Wednesday that the Tennessee company would no longer be part of its dealer network.Racism, hate or intolerance have no place in the Harley-Davidson community or anywhere  in person or online. We are pausing our Facebook ads in July to stand in support of efforts to stop the spread of hateful comment, Harley said on its website.More than 500 companies that officially kicked off an advertising boycott Wednesday intended to pressure Facebook into taking a stronger stand against hate speech.The full statement on Abernathy's dealership website says, "Regarding the social media post attributed to me on 6/12/2020. I, Russell Abernathy, did not post this comment and reject the content of it. I, and by extension Abernathy's Harley-Davidson, have been and will be welcoming to all riders regardless of race. The derogatory nature of the comment in no way aligns with my personal beliefs or that of Harley-Davidson Motor Company. It personally saddens me that this post has caused such wide-reaching pain to those that have already been subject to so many social injustices. I vow to make certain that Abernathy Harley-Davidson provides a positive environment of diversity, equality and inclusion for all."On the Net:
Discovery Park Launches Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit

By Katie Jarvis, DPA Marketing Assistant

UNION CITY - On Thursday Discovery Park of America unveiled The Outdoor Art of John Toras: Man of Stainless Steel, an outdoor exhibit featuring 20 giant sculptures, each with a different look and feel that are placed throughout the 50-acre heritage park. Curated by Discovery Parks exhibits director, Jennifer Wildes, and grounds director, John Watkins, this is the first time this exhibit has been on display to the public.Toras was born in Evergreen, Ill., and learned to weld in the Air Force. After working at Proctor & Gamble as a welder and sheet metal worker for 25 years, he retired to Marshall County, Ky., in 2006 where he still lives and works today.Torass primary medium is stainless steel, and much of the material he uses comes from scrapyards in the area.Many of the large-scale pieces in the exhibit feature sculptures that shimmer in the light and move with the wind."Blown Away" depicts a figure being transformed by the wind of the butterflies held in its hand. The concept was inspired by the line, "With the power of ten billion butterfly sneezes," from the song "Higher and Higher" by The Moody Blues. Another piece, entitled "Heaven," is a representation of Toras's ever-changing perception of Heaven. He hopes this thought-provoking art will encourage viewers to examine their own individual beliefs. A third example of the art that can be seen in this exhibit is "Silver Star," Toras's attempt at replicating a brass horse figurine that once caught his eye. It is his most time consuming and heaviest sculpture to date, taking him six months to complete and weighing 1,065 pounds.Originally, John donated the piece called Master of the Universe to Discovery Park, said Wildes. After seeing that piece and then visiting his studio and seeing his incredible work, I felt strongly we needed to share this work with our visitors this summer.The Outdoor Art of John Toras: Man of Stainless Steel, will be on display through Oct. 5, 2020.For more information, visit this link dedicated to the new outdoor temporary exhibit.
North Korea imported nearly five years' worth of wheat flour from Russia in April alone.

It seems that the regime is diversifying sources of imports due to a disruption of trade with China, its largest source of grain, amid the coronavirus lockdown.

The unusual amount could also have something to do with the most important holiday in the North, regime founder Kim Il-sung's birthday on April 15.

Data from the International Trade Centre show that North Korea imported US$7.4 million worth of wheat flour from Russia in April, according to Voice of America. That is nearly 90 percent of the regime's total grain imports from Russia over the past five years of $8.25 million.

But that amount is still small compared to its grain imports from China, which were worth $83.95 million last year or $7 million a month on average.

In April last year, Pyongyang imported $2.54 million worth of wheat flour from Russia, 67 percent of the total wheat flour imports of $3.79 million for that entire year.


Franklin, TN (37064)

Today

Partly to mostly cloudy with scattered showers and thunderstorms developing this afternoon. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 84F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Showers and thundershowers this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
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Lockdowns and freedoms

SA had to have a hard lockdown because we dont trust our government. Little since has made us change our minds.

Whether countries implement lockdowns which significantly limit freedoms; or ones that try to retain as many freedoms as possible during their lockdowns depend on whether they have pre-existing open democratic cultures, higher levels of trust in government and whether citizens have greater self-responsibility.

The severity of Covid-19, justify restrictions on certain rights resulting from the imposition of quarantine, limiting freedom of movement, increased surveillance and the use of technology to track the movements of people. However, the challenge for many countries has been to balance these limitations of freedoms with maintaining basic human rights, freedom of expression and not impinging on individual dignity.

Countries can generally be divided in three groups in the way in which they responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some countries have opted for hard lockdowns with strict rules, limits to freedoms and movements. Such countries include South Africa, Panama and Thailand. In Panama men and women were designated different days to go on essential shopping. Like South Africa, Thailand banned sales of alcohol and imposed curfews.

Some governments, such as Hungary, Thailand and Ghana that implemented hard lockdowns have been accused of using Covid-19 to give themselves unlimited powers.

A second group of countries have had softer lockdowns, leaving it up to their citizens to take individual responsibility to practice social distancing, clean health hygiene practices and stay at home. These countries did not have the harsh lockdown restrictions, but placed the responsibility largely on their individual citizens to behave responsibly. These countries include Singapore, South Korea, Germany and many Northern European countries.

A third group of countries, such as Brazil, Belarus and Tanzania initially appeared not to have taken Covid-19 seriously. In response to why the country was not taking precautions against Covid-19, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said: it (Covid-19) happens. Tanzanian President John Magufuli said workers must continue working and citizens must pray in churches and mosques, claiming the virus could not harm the faithful. The World Health Organisation lashed out at Tanzania for its refusal to introduce stringent measures to slow the spread of the virus.

With exceptions, the hard lockdowns have been mostly in countries that are either autocratic, non-democracies or poor quality democracies. In many of these societies, governments and leaders only know to tackle crises in hard-fisted ways. Alternatively, governments and leaders are not trusted by citizens, either because they are not accountable, corrupt or have not delivered public services before the lockdowns. Not trusting their governments, citizens do not follow government issued rules. Governments therefore use force to compel citizens to comply.

The South African government does not have the trust of many citizens, because of years of corruption, inefficiencies and lack of accountability. This means that many citizens would not have taken the governments injunctions to self-regulate seriously. This is why in a sense the government had no option but to go for the hard lockdown.

Countries that have implemented soft lockdowns, such as Singapore, South Korea and Germany are higher trust societies. Citizens there have more confidence in their governments, because of their greater accountability, less corruption and better record of delivering effective public services. In these countries governments put the onus on citizens to adhere to lockdowns rules.

New Zealand is a democratic country that implemented a hard lockdown. However, New Zealand emphasised individual freedoms, common sense and still heavily relied on citizens taking self-responsibility. This was possible because citizens in New Zealand had a high trust in their government  and therefore high levels of public cooperation, because of government accountability, lack of corruption and effective public service delivery.

Having implemented hard lockdowns under the circumstances of distrust in government, it is important that the South African government ensure greater inclusivity in decision-making structures, such as the National Command Council, overseeing the Covid-19 response. Evidence-based decisions are crucial. Decisions must be explained, communicated transparently and must make rational sense. As a case in point, there has been very little rational explanation from government why tobacco and alcohol could not be sold during level 5 and 4 lockdowns and why e-commerce was not allowed.

There has to be greater oversight of governments emergency powers under lockdowns by democratic institutions. So far, there has been little parliamentary oversight or even debate of the Disaster Management Act or the declared state of emergency, which gives the government extensive powers. Opposition parties should hold government accountable in Parliament. They have not done so.

Freedom of expression is crucial in hard lockdowns. Yet, it appeared that some ANC leaders believed that criticism of government actions are not permissible under Covid-19. This is off course not the case. A typical example has been the over the top criticism by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize of South African Medical Research Council president Glenda Gray she said that there were no cases of child malnutrition at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital until the lockdown.

Similarly, despite of public criticisms of the heavy-handedness of the South African National Defence Forces enforcement of the lockdown, some ANC members of Parliaments Joint Standing Committee on Defence, which is supposed to oversee the defence force praised the SANDFs actions as simple measures to discipline community members.

The courts have an important role to play to curb government excess. It is important that citizens use the courts to hold government accountable if other official oversight institutions do not so. The family of an Alexandra township man, Collins Khosa, who died after allegedly been assaulted by soldiers during the lockdown enforcement in the township, went directly to the Constitutional Court to hold government accountable, have the soldiers involved fired and to seek compensation for his death.

But ombudsman offices, such as the Military Ombudsman, the police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), and Chapter Nine institutions, such as the Gender and Equality Commission, should play a more pro-active role in holding security forces accountable during the lockdowns.

Citizens, civil society and the media should monitor and hold government accountable. Citizens must expose official wrongdoing whether on social media, protesting or seeking redress in the courts. With exceptions, countries which have allowed more freedoms during Covid-19 lockdowns, such as Singapore, South Korea and New Zealand, have in general had better health and economic outcomes.

William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand; and author of South Africa in BRICS (Tafelberg). The article first appeared in Times Select.
Chinese Tales, or Qie Zhong Wen Zi in Chinese, a Spanish-Chinese book comprising 10 award-winning works from China's First National College Student Spanish Short Story Competition, is launched through a virtual conference on July 1, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Chinese Tales, or Qie Zhong Wen Zi in Chinese, a Spanish-Chinese book comprising 10 award-winning works from China's First National College Student Spanish Short Story Contest, was launched Wednesday through a virtual conference.

The contest was co-organized in 2019 by the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), China's most prestigious university in foreign language teaching and foreign studies, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the best arts and humanities university in the Spanish-speaking world.

It's a platform created for Spanish majors in China "where they can express their creative talents in writing and translating their own short stories that can be read by the Spanish and Chinese-speaking public," according to its organizer UNAM, explaining the idea behind the contest.

Short stories in Spanish by 162 students from the country's 42 universities were submitted to the contest committee and the 10 winning pieces were translated into Chinese by their authors.

So far, China has more than 100 higher education institutions offering a degree in Hispanic literary or classical scholarship, with many featuring postgraduate programs.

BFSU Spanish professors Liu Jian and Xu Lei, and Mexican writers Rosa Beltran, Hernan Lara and Adrian Curiel, comprised the contest jury.

Edited and published by National Autonomous University of Mexico Literature, one of the most important publishing houses in Spanish-speaking academia, Chinese Tales is also the first-ever Spanish-Chinese book published by the renowned publisher, introduced Guillermo Pulido, director of the UNAM office in China.

Jose Luis Bernal, Mexican ambassador to China, chairs the online launch ceremony for the Spanish-Chinese book Chinese Tales, or Qie Zhong Wen Zi in Chinese, in Beijing on July 1, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Pulido and Jose Luis Bernal, Mexican ambassador to China co-chaired the book's online launch event, which was also attended by the jury members of the contest.

Bernal commended the contestants on their mastery of the Spanish language and highlighted that this is thanks to the excellent work of professors of Spanish language at different universities across China.

"The publication of the book constitutes one more bridge to bring closer our two great civilizations and cultures," remarked the ambassador, adding that the book is sure to "allow readers in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries to get to know more about the idiosyncrasies, aspirations and dreams of China's youth."

A screenshot shows the online launch ceremony for the Spanish-Chinese book Chinese Tales, or Qie Zhong Wen Zi in Chinese, held on July 1, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A poster publicizes China's First National College Student Spanish Short Story Contest, held in 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)




China News on Women





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 July 1 marks the Communist Party of China's 99th anniversary of founding.

 A year shy of the centenary, the Party is poised to achieve yet another milestone: eradicating absolute poverty.

 Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, leads the anti-poverty fight.

 From edges of deserts to deep inside the mountains, China has lifted more than 93 million people out of poverty in less than eight years.

BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua)  Six years ago, Hu Zhengnan decided to temporarily leave his office job at a geological survey institute. He signed up to join a poverty relief team headed to the countryside.

The 25-year-old cadre of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was sent to Liuquan, a village situated in a large resettled zone for people who moved out of uninhabitable mountains in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Most of the people there had lived hand to mouth for generations.

Hu was expected to use his vision and knowledge to help them change their fate.

After two years of research, Hu pinned his hope on an edible plant  daylily. The plant is increasingly popular at the dinner table of city folks and should have a huge market, Hu told fellow villagers.

To their advantage, Liuquan's dry climate and wide diurnal temperature range are ideal for daylily farming.

But persuading farmers accustomed to growing wheat and corn to switch to this unassuming yellow flower was no easy task. And there was a lot of tutoring, infrastructure building, and marketing to do.

"Initially, farmers were afraid to make the change. The hardest part was to change their perception," Hu said.

Undeterred by the challenges, Hu devoted himself to the cause and stayed for four more years. Today, as the first secretary of Liuquan village committee of the CPC, Hu is happy to see the daylily farm expand to 267 hectares. All but nine households in the village bid farewell to poverty.

"The villagers no longer waited for government handouts. They have something to hope for and are very much inspired to work for a better future," he said.

Party Leadership

Hu is among 2.9 million cadres the CPC mobilized and sent to poor villages in recent years. They form a crucial force battling China's poverty at the frontline.

The Party, founded in 1921, has led the Chinese in fighting and winning the revolution, establishing the people's republic and developing it into the world's second largest economy.

July 1 marks the CPC's 99th anniversary of founding. A year shy of the centenary, the Party is poised to achieve yet another milestone  eradicating absolute poverty.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, leads the fight.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to advance poverty alleviation in Hongde Village of Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. [Xinhua/Xie Huanchi]

As the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 brought extra challenges this year, Xi convened a large teleconference on poverty reduction in March and later inspected efforts on the ground when he visited Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Ningxia.

Xi said bringing all rural residents above the current poverty line by 2020 is a solemn promise made by the CPC Central Committee, and it must be fulfilled on time.

With less than 200 days left, the remaining pockets of deep poverty are the nation's most deprived and hardest to support, including some ethnic minority and border areas.

In Ningxia, Xi reiterated that no ethnic minority group should be left behind.

"The CPC started out as a party for the poor. The revolution was fought to liberate the poor. After the revolution was won, the Party should lead the people in living a better life," Xi said. "We managed to overcome all difficulties and challenges in the more than 70 years after the founding of New China because we remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind."

Targeted Poverty Alleviation

From edges of deserts to deep inside the mountains, China has lifted more than 93 million people out of poverty in less than eight years.

Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said the intensity, scale, and impact of this round of poverty eradication are all unprecedented.

Behind the success is the well-implemented "targeted poverty alleviation" Xi put forward in November 2013, according to Liu.

The key is to identify the right population, tailor poverty-relief programs to local conditions, and send appropriate resources and personnel to implement the programs, he said.

The village of Shibadong in central China's Hunan Province may shed light on how targeted strategies work. It was there that the concept was first put forward.

While daylily is the cash crop in Liuquan, poverty relief cadres sent to Shibadong found luck in kiwi fruit.

Rich in natural beauty and scenic landscapes, Shibadong is hobbled by a rugged terrain and scarce arable land. With the help of the government and private sector, villagers rented a plantation in a nearby township to grow high-quality kiwis.

Having tasted the sweet success of kiwi farming, the village ventured into other businesses: it partnered a company to sell bottled mountain spring water and began to develop rural tourism. Unique landscapes and ethnic Miao culture are a big draw. Tourists brought business to hotels, restaurants, embroidery and honey farming.

Villagers make pieces of embroidery in a rural cooperative in Shibadong Village of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hunan Province, April 24, 2020. [Xinhua/Xue Yuge]

Shibadong is no longer poor. Last year, the average annual income of villagers reached 14,668 yuan (abut 2,100 U.S. dollars), more than eight times the figure in 2013.

Across the country, rural industries like the ones in Shibadong have helped many shake off poverty. Others have escaped poverty through relocation, ecological compensation, or education. Social security allowances were given to the sick, the disabled and others who could not work their way out of extreme poverty.

After the poverty reduction tasks are completed this year, the number of people lifted out of poverty since the 18th CPC National Congress is expected to top 100 million.

Villager Yang Zhengbang (R) introduces local tea products to tourists in Shibadong Village of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hunan Province, April 25, 2020. [Xinhua/Xue Yuge]

"There is no other country in the world that can help so many people get rid of poverty in such a short time. This means a lot to both China and the world," Xi said at the poverty reduction teleconference in March, adding that the unprecedented achievement demonstrates the political advantages of the CPC leadership and socialist system.

China's poverty reduction has drawn applause from home and abroad.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres once commended it as the greatest poverty reduction accomplishment in history.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a U.S. expert on China, said China's poverty alleviation served as a good example for the world's other developing countries to draw experience from.

"When historians of the future write the chronicles of our times, a feature story may well be China's targeted poverty alleviation," he said.

Better Life

Bai Gaoshan's family used to live in a Yaodong, a house built into the hardened earth common across the Loess Plateau in northern China. The farmland they worked was dry and barren, and their lives harder still.

Along with 400 other people, they were relocated to a specially built village in the township of Xiping, Shanxi Province.

Thanks to the government's support, Bai's son received professional training and got a new job as a welder, earning about 40,000 yuan a year.

Like Bai's family, more than 9.6 million poor people in China have been relocated away from uninhabitable areas over the past couple of years to places where they can get access to more job opportunities and better public services.

When living in Yaodong, Bai worried that his son would be too poor to marry. After moving out, his son got married and now has a son of his own. They are happy, he said.

"The Party is good. It does things that bring tangible benefits to the people," Bai said.

Farmers weed in the vegetable field in Xiping Township of Datong City, north China's Shanxi Province, May 11, 2020. [Xinhua/Chai Ting]

Whether it is a new skill or relocation or a host of other projects scattered across all four corners of China, the CPC's poverty reduction campaign is all about improving people's life.

Ending rural poverty is considered a defining benchmark of attaining the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

But that is not the end. The country will focus on rural vitalization to strive for an even better life for rural residents.

"Being lifted out of poverty is not an end in itself but the starting point of a new life and a new pursuit," Xi said in Ningxia. "As people's aspirations to live a better life grow, we must continue to improve our work and expand the areas of support."

Video Editor: Wei Yin

(Source: Xinhua)
Senior students walk into the Wugang No. 3 High School in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, May 6, 2020. [Xinhua/Wang Yongsheng]

WUHAN, June 30 (Xinhua)  Authorities have announced class-resuming arrangements for non-senior students in high schools in Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei Province and a city previously hard hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Schools will reopen on July 10 for senior high school freshmen and sophomores, including those in secondary vocational and technical schools, and their summer holiday will begin on July 31, according to a press conference on Tuesday.

Non-senior students in junior high schools will end their online courses on July 5. Teachers and students will return to schools on August 10, and classes will last until August 30. Students in primary schools and kindergartens will start their summer holiday on July 5.

Non-senior students in colleges are not required to go back to campus unless needed. They need to apply and obtain approval from their colleges if they want to return.

Off-campus training institutions can apply for class resumption after meeting relevant requirements for epidemic prevention and control, Xia Chunyin, deputy head of the Wuhan Education Bureau, said at the conference. Their offline classes will be allowed to resume no earlier than July 10.

Hubei lowered its novel coronavirus emergency response from level II to level III from June 13. As of Monday, the province had one asymptomatic case under medical observation.

(Source: Xinhua)
BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua)  More than 100 foreign political parties have congratulated General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping and the CPC Central Committee on the party's 99th anniversary that falls on Wednesday, lauding its glorious history and the great achievements China has scored.

In their messages sent recently to the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, the parties expressed the belief that China, under the leadership of the CPC, will definitely move toward a brighter future and make greater contribution to the development of human society.

The Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) said that the CPC Central Committee with Xi at its core has united and led the Chinese people to constantly improve the socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and promote the reform and opening-up, the state development and construction to gain new achievements, with the party's and the country's influence growing regionally and globally, the LPRP said.

These achievements have provided the LPRP, the Lao government and people with valuable experience and great encouragement to attain their socialist goals of national development in the new era, the Lao party said.

Indonesia's Nasdem Party said that under the leadership of the CPC, China has managed to tackle the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is making steady progress in economic development. The party is ready to stick together through thick and thin with the CPC and believes that China will attain greater development and create a better life for its people.

The Egyptian Communist Party (ECP) said that during the past 99 glorious years, the CPC has led the Chinese people to score remarkable achievements in the development of politics, economy, society and other fields, and make positive contributions to the worldwide fight against imperialism and colonialism, as well as to global justice causes.

The ECP said it firmly supports the CPC in adopting a series of strong measures to safeguard the national security and unity, as well as people's interests.

South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party said that the founding of the CPC has historical significance for the Chinese people and the whole world.

Noting that it shares with the CPC the experience of leading their own people in heroic fights against imperialism and colonialism, as well as the good vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, the ANC expressed its willingness to work with the CPC to strive for an earth free from poverty, backwardness and diseases.

The Mexican Workers' Party said that during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the CPC and its leadership have played a significant role, and extended humanitarian assistance to other countries by timely sharing anti-pandemic experience and providing technology and materials.

The party wished the CPC could continue to lead the Chinese people to fight bravely and overcome difficulties in order to make greater achievements, and play a greater leading role in the world.

In its message to the CPC, the Argentine Justicialist Party (AJP) said the two parties enjoy brotherly fraternity and uphold the same vision of serving the interests of the people. The AJP would like to take the opportunity of re-reign to further tighten the relations between the two parties and countries, and push forward the Argentina-China comprehensive strategic partnership to new high.

The party of United Russia said, as history proves, the CPC has a great capability to handle complicated situations and tackle risks and challenges. It would like to deepen mutual understanding and trust with the CPC, consolidate the traditional friendship between the two peoples and broaden practical cooperation between the two sides.

The Communist Party of France said China is now, under the leadership of the CPC, striving to achieve a high-quality growth, build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and realise the aspiration of the people to live a better life. It expressed support to President Xi's vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, and said the world should abandon Cold War mentality, enhance solidarity and cooperation and promote common development.

The European Left party said the CPC has long secured peace and development and upheld the people-centered principle. Through reforms, innovation and long-term plans, the CPC has overcome various difficulties and achieved great accomplishments. Against the backdrop of the 45th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between the European Union and China, and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Left expects the international community to engage in active cooperation and abandon all acts of stigmatization.

Many other political parties also expressed warm congratulations on the CPC's 99th anniversary through telephone calls, letters and other means, hoping to continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation with the CPC in various fields and contribute to the peace, stability, prosperity and development of their respective countries and the world.

Those parties include the Cambodian People's Party, Iran's Islamic Coalition Party, the Workers' Party of Korea, the Mongolian People's Party, the Philippine Democratic Party-People's Power, the Patriotic Party of Turkey, the Communist Party of Vietnam, Ethiopia's Prosperity Party, the SWAPO Party of Namibia, Tanzania's ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi, Tunisia's People's Movement, the Communist Party of Chile, the Communist Party of Cuba, the Broad Front party of Uruguay, the Hungarian Workers' Party, the Romanian Social Democratic Party, the Serbian Progressive Party, the Vanua'aku Party, the Communist Party of Germany, the Spanish Communist Party, and the Communist Party of Britain.

(Source: Xinhua)
The chief of the U.S. Forces Korea has lamented weaknesses in the readiness of South Korea and the U.S. to deal with a North Korean attack.

In a speech at the Korea-U.S. Alliance Forum in Seoul on Wednesday, Gen. Robert Abrams stressed the need to continue to stage large-scale joint exercises, saying, "Unfortunately, we had to postpone our theater-level combined post command training this year due to the ongoing global pandemic. While we have been able to conduct important leader development training, that in no way replicates the rigor and realism of our semi-annual theatre-level training events."

He voiced worries that live-fire drills have been disrupted by the recent closing of shooting ranges. "We must continue to conduct combined live trainings... with rigorous scenarios," he said.
Yu Cheng speaks at a panel discussion on May 24, during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress. [Xinhua/Huang Jingwen]

On February 15, Yu Cheng, a National People's Congress deputy from Hubei Province, joined a team of volunteers at Aijia International community in Wuhan to help contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Early in the battle against COVID-19, community transmission of the virus was a major cause of confirmed cases soaring in Wuhan, Hubei's capital, which was hit hard by the pandemic.

"By the end of January, COVID-19 patients had to travel back and forth from their communities to the hospitals for treatment due to the severe shortage of medical resources, which caused the virus to spread within communities," said Yu, who is a teacher at a vocational high school in Wuhan. "We were deeply worried and even scared."

To contain the spread of the virus within communities, Wuhan imposed strict epidemic control measures in residential areas, including minimizing people's movements.

That resulted in community workers and volunteers having to take on the dual responsibilities of epidemic control and taking care of residents.

"My role was constantly changing from verifying people's health conditions and meeting their medical needs, to placing shopping orders for the residents and being a delivery woman," Yu said.

Taking care of elderly residents whose children were kept away because of the control measures was the focus of the volunteers, she said. "We took groceries to their doorsteps and let them know they could count on us," Yu said.

She said that during his visit to Hubei on March 10, President Xi Jinping said Wuhan people liked to eat fresh fish so authorities should provide them to residents who had helped control the outbreak by staying at home.

"Within a week, fresh fish were sent to the community, which cheered up all the residents," Yu said.

During her service, Yu also witnessed changes to the epidemic control measures in the city.

A workmate and three of their family members were all infected. At first, they couldn't be hospitalized because there were not enough hospital beds.

The four were eventually treated at one of the makeshift hospitals set up in Wuhan to address the shortage of hospital beds.

When the condition of her colleague's son-in-law deteriorated at the makeshift hospital, he was immediately transferred to the intensive care unit of a hospital designated to treat COVID-19 patients.

With the help of medical teams sent from all over China to Wuhan, all of the family members fully recovered, Yu said.

Before she visited Beijing for the annual NPC session in May, residents and community volunteers asked Yu to express the appreciation of Wuhan people for the help from the central government and the Chinese people.

During a panel discussion joined by Xi, she bowed and said, "Wuhan and Hubei people will always be grateful for the assistance and love sent from all Chinese people during the tough time."

(Source: China Daily)
Editor : Ling Xiao

Source : xinhuanet.com

In the past, people in Abuluoha village had to spend at least three hours climbing up and down steep mountainous roads to get to other places. With the completion of the building of a 3.8 km-long road connecting Abuluoha Village to the outside, villagers of Abuluoha Village have also moved into 33 light steel structure houses successively since June 29.

(Source: Xinhua)
Series of online masterclasses hosted by Glyndwr University to delve into how modern culture portrays notorious criminals

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 2nd, 2020

True crime enthusiasts can explore how some of the worlds most infamous killers are portrayed on the big screen  and why so many people are fascinated with such heinous crimes  at a series of interactive online events from Wrexham Glyndwr University.

Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Aileen Wournos are among the notorious murderers featured in the Lights, Crime, Action! masterclasses.

The masterclasses  which use movies to explore issues surrounding the cases  will be released every Friday for four weeks, with a live Q&A session from 7-8pm on the following Monday evening.

Tegan Brierley-Solis, Graduate Teaching Assistant in Criminology at WGU, said: Each masterclass is going to be based on serial consumerism of serial killers in contemporary society  how theres this fascination with serial killers and its a big business in the culture industry.





The first masterclass will be available on Friday, July 17 and discusses Ted Bundy, who killed at least 30 women and girls across the USA in the 1970s.

It will focus on the recent Netflix movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, starring Zac Efron  and how movies glamourise such killers.

With his good looks and charm, Bundy was able to fool victims into a false sense of security before he struck. Tegan explained how Bundys charm and good looks contributed to what criminologists call the Halo Effect on the courtroom and the public.

She said: How Bundy presented himself in court is fascinating to watch actually, because a lot of people swooned after him and said they thought he was innocent. His trial was public and, when prompted, some onlookers dubbed his crimes scary but still commented on his looks.

Once Bundy was found guilty the judge even said he would have made a terrific lawyer and that he wouldve loved to have had him practice before his court.

The next masterclass (available from July 24) will offer an insight into how cinema portrays cults and control. It will focus on 2018 movie Charlie Says, which follows a prison psychiatrists efforts to help three young women brainwashed into committing mass murder by cult leader Charles Manson (played by Dr Who star Matt Smith) in California in 1969.

Aileen Wournos  who killed five men in the late 80s and early 90s  is the subject of the masterclass released on July 31.

Monster, starring Charlize Theron, will be used to help explore the depiction of female serial killers and those falling outside of an Ideal Victim status.

Were going to look at her representation in the film and the way that the film reveals a vulnerable side, as a victim herself.

Aileen Wournos victims arent what youd call ideal victims in criminology, because they were middle-aged men and not viewed as weak.

The final masterclass, released on August 7, will delve into the world of Alfredo Balli Trevino, an Italian surgeon who inspired author Thomas Harris to create Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the anti-hero of numerous books and movies.

In the film the Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter had killed a lot of people, but in reality Trevino killed one person  his wife, Tegan said.

The masterclass is going to focus on how the media might exaggerate cases, and were going to look at the predatory portrayal of serial killers because theres a lot of references to animals and animalistic nature in the movie.

The university has previously held face-to-face short courses on notorious crimes and killers, but the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the criminology team to try an online alternative and potentially reach a wider audience through masterclasses.

If the sessions are successful, the Criminology team hopes to hold masterclasses on how serial killers are portrayed in TV series and books.

The masterclasses cover several themes that feature in the BA (Hons) Criminology & Criminal Justice programme at WGU.

To book a place on a masterclass, search for Lights, Crime, Action! at www.eventbrite.co.uk. For more information on studying criminology and criminal justice at Wrexham Glyndwr University, visit: https://www.glyndwr.ac.uk/en/Undergraduatecourses/CriminologyandCriminalJustice/
Public Health Wales issue Wrexham outbreak update  283 positive cases of infection since 8th June

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 2nd, 2020

UPDATE: Cllr Hugh Jones, Lead Member for Communities, Partnerships, Public Protection and Community Safety, at Wrexham Council has said this afternoon: Public Health Wales has made clear in their statement that the increase is mainly due to the re-checking of previous data and not an increase in the infection rate. The Test, Trace and Protect Programme is in place to clearly identify positive cases and protect those they have been in contact with.

By continuing to do this we will have a very clear picture of what is going in our communities and will be able to respond quickly and efficiently. We are confident the system is working and is working well and can reassure our communities that we are all working together to keep them and their families safe. We must, however, all remain vigilant, Covid-19 is still amongst us and will be for some considerable time which is why we should all continue to social distance and pay particular attention to hand washing or using hand sanitiser.

Original information below

Public Health Wales have said the increase in figures announced today are entirely what we would expect, and have moved to reassure the local community over the pandemic response.





The day-on-day Public Health Wales dashboard states Wrexham has 15 new confirmed cases, the highest in Wales and only local authority in double figures. Todays new figure of 283 positive cases is +46 on the figures released on Tuesday.

Dr Christopher Johnson, Consultant in Health Protection at Public Health Wales and Chair of the Outbreak Control Team (OCT) said this afternoon, The multi-agency team managing the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus associated with Rowan Foods Ltd in Wrexham has recorded a total of 283 positive cases of infection in the workforce since 8 June 2020.

We have previously asked people who work at the site and couldnt attend for on-site sampling to come forward for testing, and they have. We are reporting a total increase of 46 cases recorded since Monday, but this does not mean that we have seen a jump in the level of infection in the last 48 hours. The majority of the increase is as a result of checking on-site sampling with results collected through community, home and drive-through testing centres, not new spread of infection.

I want to reassure the workforce and wider community that the results we have identified are entirely what we would expect to see when a focused and robust testing regime is put in place.

The OCT has received assurance from the employer and the Health & Safety Executive that the factory is taking all necessary precautions to protect its workforce. There continues to be no evidence that the infection is factory-based.

The OCT will also continue to urge any remaining workers at the site who have not yet taken up the offer of testing to do so. We would also urge everyone to maintain two metres social distancing when outside of the home, to practice good hand hygiene and continue to self-isolate if they are unwell with symptoms of COVID-19.

International Relations Minister, Eluned Morgan MS took todays Welsh Government lunchtime briefing that was focussed on the announcement of a timetable for first stages of re-opening Wales hospitality and tourism sector.

We asked our usual two questions, one around the legalities around licensing versus guidance with regards to bars and pubs (the answer was I cant give you that assurance that the current rules will will take precedent over any new guidelines or regulations that we may put in place) and the second regarding figures around Wrexhams coronavirus outbreak.

Earlier this week saw the announcement of a 237 headline figure of cases connected to the Wrexham outbreak, however an hour and a half later further context was giving that explained that included 72 historic cases that could be weeks old. Since Tuesday afternoon there had been no further update before the briefing today.

We noted the Minister had pointed to the daily Public Health Wales update for new information, and the previous issue on Tuesday with the context of the figures only being released later. We asked if she thought there was a need for more clarity when there are outbreaks, with more regular information for the local population, rather than just a few lines on a public health wales statement every few days.

The Minister replied, What I can tell you is that both the Health Minister and the Environment Minister have been keeping a very close eye on situation, that the testing that has taken place in Wrexham has been very thorough, that the army has been involved with mobile units. We are trying to give regular updates in terms of the numbers, and as I say at two oclock today, youll be getting the most up to date figures.

The Minister was also asked by BBC Five Live about a story they ran earlier this morning that again highlighted issues locally where workers said they do not feel safe, with other references to the choices being made between work and public health for financial reasons. Wrexham.com has raised the issue at previous briefings, and last Friday the First Minister told us he was writing to Prime Minister Johnson about the situation he called perverse.

Today the International Relations Minister said, Weve issued new guidelines specifically for food processing plants following the outbreaks that weve seen in food processing plants in Wales. It is very concerning to hear that people dont feel safe in their place of work, and that is something that we are taking a very close interest in.

Therell be a further update today at two oclock in terms of the numbers of people who are suffering at that Rowan factory in Wrexham, but just to make it clear that we are in a situation where also we are putting pressure on the UK Government to think again in terms of how they can support people who perhaps should be keeping off work, rather than just relying on the situation where they depend on that statutory sick pay, which is considerably less often than what theyre paid usually.

You can view the briefing today on the below video, along with the Q&A session:

Yn fyw gydar Gweinidog Cysylltiadau Rhyngwladol, Eluned Morgan | Live with International Relations Minister, Eluned Morgan https://t.co/0QXeKjvIPp  Welsh Government (@WelshGovernment) July 2, 2020

Top pic: As the Minister noted today, the army has been at Rowan Foods assisting.
Scale of Airbus cuts revealed with 1,435 jobs proposed to be lost at Broughton

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 2nd, 2020

85% of UK job cuts at Airbus are set to be at the Broughton facility in North Wales.

In a statement Airbus said it has opened a national dialogue with social partners in the UK in the frame of its COVID-19 adaptation plan saying As part of these discussions, Airbus has confirmed the need to adjust its workforce in the UK by approximately 1,700 positions, with the following split: Broughton: 1,435, Filton: 295

This afternoon Minister for Economy and North Wales Ken Skates reacted to the news saying: The announcement that 1,435 jobs are to be lost at Broughton confirms our fears following Airbus announcement earlier this week. It is a huge blow for the region and the industry.

My thoughts are with all those affected  the workers, their families and wider community. I have set out the action we will take to support Airbus, the aerospace sector and supply chain. We are working with all our partners, across government and cross-border. I will leave no stone unturned to support this industry which is the lifeblood of North East Wales.





All governments must work together and we are ready to work with the UK Government. I repeat my call to them that immediate and radical action now needs to be taken to secure the future of the aerospace sector.

Plaid Cymru North Wales Llyr Gruffydd MS said, Ive just been notified that Airbus is proposing 1,435 job losses at Broughton. More than I had expected. This is utterly gut-wrenching news.

My thoughts are with the workers, their families and the community at Broughton. I stand with them and will do everything I can to support them in the wake of this devastating blow.

Both Welsh and UK Governments must now step up to the plate and do everything possible to retain these jobs and others throughout the supply chain.

Welsh Conservative Russell George MS  the Shadow Minister for Business, Economy, and Infrastructure said, The Covid-19 crisis has seen a massive reduction in the number of aircraft in operation over past months and, we might expect, for the foreseeable future. This has had an impact on new orders for aircraft, not just for Airbus, but its main competitor, Boeing, and others.

Broughton has been shown to be more susceptible to this unprecedented downturn in the aviation industry because it supplies wings for the civil market, whereas Filton supplies the military sector. This is a devastating blow for not just Broughton, but also North Wales and across the border in England where some of these employees will live. There will also be significant impact upon those in the supply chain for the Broughton operation of Airbus.

I echo what my colleague Paul Davies MS  the Leader of the Opposition in the Welsh Parliament  yesterday pledged, that he and the Welsh Conservatives will do all we can to deal with the impact of this and a number of recent major job losses in Wales, including working cross-party with the Labour-led Welsh Government.

Peter Hughes, Unite Wales Regional Secretary said this afternoon: The level of job losses planned for Broughton are far larger than we originally anticipated and can only bring into crystal clear focus how urgent the need for UK Government intervention now is. Welsh Government have committed to doing everything they can, but the financial intervention that is now required to support jobs at Broughton can only come from Westminster.

Our calls for Boris Johnsons Government to intervene in the crisis that is engulfing the aerospace sector have so far fallen on deaf ears. They cant hide anymore, the voices of thousands of workers and their families from across North Wales and North West England are screaming for help. Be in no doubt the governments of France and Germany are already acting to support their aerospace workers. If the UK Government does not do the same then our countries position as a world leader in the aerospace sector will be consigned to history.

Daz Reynolds, Unite convenor at Airbus Broughton commented: Our members at Broughton are devastated to hear of the scale of the job losses for our site. We are a world class workforce who have built up Broughton to be one of the best manufacturing sites in Europe. The workforce recognises the enormous challenges facing Airbus and are prepared to look at every avenue available to mitigate the proposed job losses.

Unite will do everything it can to support our members following this desperate news. Our position remains that we will not accept one single compulsory redundancy at this site.
We must do everything we can to ensure Wrexham doesnt have to return to stricter lockdown measures in any way says lead councillor

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 2nd, 2020

Members of the public are being urged to remain cautious and to do everything we can to ensure Wrexham doesnt have to return to stricter lockdown measures in any way.

The plea from Wrexham Council comes as lockdown measures have meant that some measures, including the re-opening of non essential retail, the return to schools and the likely removal of the five mile travel guidance in Wales, have started being eased.

However with a coronavirus outbreak recently declared at Rowan Foods on the Wrexham Industrial Estate and at 2 Sisters in Anglesey, the local authority yesterday issued a briefing calling on the public to be aware that Covid-19 is still here in our community and will be for some time.

Council Leader Mark Pritchard and Chief Executive of Wrexham Council, said: The situation at Rowan Foods is being carefully managed with our lead partners Public Health Wales, and whether youre shopping in our town centre or sending your children back to school, you can feel confident and safe in Wrexham if you keep following official guidance.





But as we start to enjoy more freedom, its obvious that  if were not careful  the risk of spreading the virus will increase. So now is the time to be even more vigilant, and follow all the safety advice, including regular hand-washing or sanitising, and sticking to social distancing.

Because if were not responsible, we could lose the freedoms weve all worked so hard to earn over the past few months.

Well keep you informed about what were doing and how were doing it safely, and keep reminding you about the measures we should all be taking.

This includes reaching out to communities who are not Welsh or English first language, as its important that everyone can access the same advice and information.

We all have a part to play, and we want to work with everyone in our communities to bring Wrexham through this.

Councillor Hugh Jones, Lead Member for Communities, Partnerships, Public Protection and Community Safety, added: These are very cautious times and we need to remain vigilant. Covid-19 is still with us and we must do everything we can to ensure Wrexham doesnt have to return to stricter lockdown measures in any way.

Weve come a long way since March and overall we should be proud of the way our communities have behaved in order to reach the stage where we can return to a new-normal. Thanks to the effort of our traders and town centre staff we can begin to safely enjoy Wrexham Town Centre once again

Schools have re-opened, shops have re-opened and council services are gradually and cautiously beginning to reopen.

To continue to enjoy our new freedoms we must continue to observe all the guidance, so we can move forward together safely.

Yesterday the Financial Times published a league table style ranking, with two places in Wales in the top three along with locked down Leicester. Both Wrexham and Merthyr have seen increases in testing.
Welsh Ambulance Services work with dementia community celebrated in TV documentary

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 2nd, 2020

The Welsh Ambulance Services work with the dementia community is being celebrated in a new documentary series which explores the ground-breaking advances being made to help people with the disease.

Hope in the Age of Dementia examines how the Trust has enlisted the support of people with dementia to help shape and deliver training across the workforce.

The programme, a joint venture by the ITN Productions and Alzheimers Disease International, also hears from leaders in the field of neuroscience, research and drug discovery.

Alison Johnstone, the Welsh Ambulance Services Programme Manager for Dementia, said: For people living with dementia, using an ambulance  whether its for an emergency or a planned trip  can often be a stressful experience.





Were really trying to understand the needs of people living with dementia so that we can strengthen and improve our services in future.

Whats been wonderful is that people living with dementia are involved in that work and are front and centre delivering that training with us, and for us.

People with dementia have also been invited into the Trusts Clinical Contact Centres to see how 999 calls are triaged, as well as to ambulance stations to offer a view on how dementia-friendly they find the vehicles, equipment and uniforms.

Linda Willis, of Newport, who was diagnosed with dementia aged 61, has been among those involved in the work.

Its given me such a confidence boost, I cant praise the ambulance service enough, she said.

They actually listen to what people with dementia want and need from the service, and have delivered it, and that means so much.

Dementia affects more than 50 million people worldwide and this number is expected to more than triple by 2050.

Funding from Welsh Government has helped make much of the Trusts work a reality.

Vaughan Gething, Minister for Health and Social Services, said: The Welsh Ambulance Services innovative work to improve the experiences of people living with dementia exemplifies the aims set out in our Dementia Action Plan for Wales, recognising the different ways in which people living with dementia require support.

This co-productive approach to developing and delivering training shows the value of listening to people living with dementia and rightly ensures services are person-centred.

Claire Roche, the Trusts Executive Director of Quality and Nursing, added: Knowing how to recognise dementia and respond appropriately can make all the difference to a patients support, care and treatment.

Thats why were so committed to hearing first-hand about their experience, so that we can make our services even better for them.

This programme is an incredible opportunity for the Welsh Ambulance Service to showcase our dementia work and promote the exciting dementia programme we have in Wales.

Hope in the Age of Dementia can be viewed here.


Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 03:15:12|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The trilateral summit of Iran, Russia and Turkey on Wednesday called on conflicting parties in Syria to adhere to political process to settle their problems.

"The Syrian war has no military solution and must be settled only through a political process," read a joint statement issued at the end of video conference attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

They also agreed to hold the next trilateral summit on Syria in Iran but provided no date, according to the Iranian state TV.

During the meeting, Rouhani denounced as "inhumane" the U.S. new sanctions against Syria which is battling the coronavirus pandemic.

"In line with the previous sanctions and its desperate efforts to put pressure on the Syrian people, the United States has imposed new unilateral and inhumane sanctions, known as the Caesar Act with the aim of achieving its illegitimate political aspirations," Rouhani said.

"The U.S. move amounts to economic terrorism that violates international law, human rights, international humanitarian law and the sovereignty of nations," he added.

The Caesar Act, which took effect in mid-June, punishes any country, individual or entity that does business with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"The United States must be assured that what it has not achieved through military pressure and resorting to terrorist groups cannot be attained through the tools of economic pressure and punishment of the Syrian people," Rouhani noted.

The Iranian president also highlighted the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Syria and the entire region.

He described the Astana process that underlines inter-Syrian dialogue as the only viable means to help resolve the Syrian crisis peacefully.

Putin also denounced the new U.S. "illegitimate" sanctions on Syria, saying they are aimed at "suffocating" Syria.

Highlighting "an inclusive inter-Syrian dialogue," the Russian president said the Astana peace framework should deal with the issue of terrorism which remains in Syria's Idlib and other regions.

For his part, Erdogan called for restoration of peace and security along the southern borders of Turkey as well as in Syria.

Turkey's priority for Syria is a lasting solution to the conflict, said Erdogan.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday that the virtual meeting of the presidents of Iran, Russia, and Turkey on Syria was "constructive."

"Parties agreed to continue coordination among the three guarantors, focusing on tension reduction, political process and humanitarian relief," said Zarif.

The three-way talks were held in line with the Astana peace process which was launched in January 2017, in an effort to bring all warring parties in Syria to the negotiating table as a complement to the UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 04:07:29|Editor: huaxia

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A new bus imported from China is seen in Nicosia, Cyprus, July 1, 2020. A fleet of brand new Chinese buses will be used starting on July 5 for bus routes in two Cypriot cities, the capital Nicosia and its sister city Larnaca, a bus company announced on Wednesday. Cyprus Public Transport (CPT), which was awarded the contracts for public transport in the two cities, said that 155 buses were imported from China. All the buses are friendly to people with mobility problems and their engines are low emission and environment-friendly in line with the Euro 6 standard. (Photo by George Christophorou/Xinhua)

NICOSIA, July 1 (Xinhua) -- A fleet of brand new Chinese buses will be used starting on July 5 for bus routes in two Cypriot cities, the capital Nicosia and its sister city Larnaca, a bus company announced on Wednesday.

Cyprus Public Transport (CPT), which was awarded the contracts for public transport in the two cities, said that 155 buses were imported from China.

CPT CEO Julio Tironi said the buses are bigger than the ones used up to now in the bus service in the two cities, are air-conditioned and equipped with state of the art technology.

"Specifically, the buses have WiFi, USB charging ports, electronic signaling that provides information on the next stop during the journey and the latest technology location system that allows passengers to know the exact location of the bus at any time," Tironi said.

He added that all the buses are friendly to people with mobility problems and their engines are low emission and environment-friendly in line with the Euro 6 standard.

CPT, a consortium made up of Malta Lines and a local transport company, Kapnos Airport Shuttle, was licensed to run bus services in Nicosia and Larnaca for the next 10 years.

In announcing the start of the bus routes in the two cities, the consortium promised an upgraded and safe bus experience, with all vehicles being disinfected every night.

"We have introduced a new process for the first time in Europe for cleaning and disinfecting which takes the effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 a further step forward," CPT Chairman Felipe Cosmen told journalists during an exhibition run, with Minister of Transport, Communications and Works Yiannis Karousos, on board.

He said that all new buses are limited to 60 kilometers per hour within the city routes.

CPT was awarded the tenders for public bussing in two other cities, and also the intercity routes as well, but the process has been challenged in a court recourse which is still pending.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 04:22:40|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias expressed on Wednesday his country's support for political solution to the Libyan crisis.

Dendias made his remarks during a meeting with Agila Saleh, speaker of the east-based Libyan House of Representatives, in the eastern Libyan town of Al-Qubah, according to a statement issued by the parliament.

"The meeting discussed developments in Libya and the region, ways to end the Libyan crisis, and the Cairo Declaration ... to end the Libyan crisis," the statement said.

"The Greek foreign minister ... expressed his country's support for ... any political solution to end the crisis in Libya, refusing external interference in Libya," the statement added.

Last month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi presented an initiative, known as the Cairo Declaration, which seeks a cease-fire between warring Libyan parties, a UN-supervised election of a Libyan presidential council and the a constitutional declaration to regulate the elections.

Under the initiative, foreign mercenaries would pull out from Libya and militias disband and disarm, while the east-based army can take over their security and military responsibilities in the country, according to the Egyptian president.

However, the Tripoli-based UN-backed government rejected the Egyptian initiative, calling it "unacceptable and biased."

Libya has been suffering escalating violence and political instability ever since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 when a civil war erupted in the capital Tripoli between rival armed faction.

The war ended up with the ongoing political division between the parliament and its east-based government, and the UN-backed government in the west. Enditem
Roadshows for third CIIE commence in Chengdu

From:ChinaDaily | 2020-07-01 08:05

Roadshows for the forthcoming China International Import Expo in Shanghai commenced in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Monday and Tuesday, with the organizers hopeful of increased domestic participation at this year's prestigious trade event.

Sun Chenghai, deputy director-general of the CIIE Bureau, said that preparations for the third edition of the event are progressing steadily and the focus for this year is more on attracting buyers than exhibitors.

According to Sun, despite the impact of the coronavirus, more than 90 percent of the exhibition area has been signed up, which consists of six sections, including trade in services, consumer goods and medical equipment.

The opening ceremony of the roadshow, which was held by the CIIE Bureau, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce and the government of Chengdu, featured a CIIE-themed light show in which 22 landmarks of Chengdu were illuminated.

"Chengdu is a metropolis with great potential for imports," Sun said. "The decision to start the nationwide roadshows in Chengdu, Sichuan, demonstrates the joint efforts to alleviate poverty as Sichuan is the 'in-touch' area of the Ministry of Commerce that is part of China's targeted poverty alleviation program."

The roadshows will also help serve the high-level opening-up and high-quality development of Sichuan, Sun said.

Exhibitors in the expo's agriculture and automobile sections gave a thorough introduction of their products to the offline and online audiences. The roadshow was also aired to trade missions in Deyang, Mianyang, Nanchong and Yibin.

Liu Xin, director of the Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce, said the expo is a great opportunity for the province to expand its consumption and to open up its market to the world.

According to the Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce, more than 6,000 companies and 14,000 people from the province have participated in the previous expos.

Liu Xiaoliu, vice-mayor of Chengdu, said the city is boosting its purchase of global products and imports.

Ge Chunyao, president of Bank of China's Sichuan branch, said the bank will provide financing for buyers, including comprehensive cross-border financing plans.

The next stop for the roadshow will be Changsha, Hunan province, after which it will move on to Shangrao, Jiangxi province.

During the second edition of the CIIE, 21 roadshows aimed at recruiting buyers were held in 20 provinces and municipalities. The third CIIE will be held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) from Nov 5 to Nov 10.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 04:51:21|Editor: huaxia

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Dr. Michael Ryan(L), executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program, addresses a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 18, 2020. (Photo by Chen Junxia/Xinhua)

A team of Chinese researchers had examined influenza viruses found in pigs from 2011 to 2018 and found the variant genotype 4 Eurasian avian-like H1N1 virus.

"It's important, I think, to reassure people that this is not a new virus -- this is a virus that is under surveillance," said Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, adding "this is a finding from surveillance that's been carried out over many years."



GENEVA, July 1 (Xinhua) -- A World Health Organization (WHO) expert said Wednesday that the recently publicized swine flu in China was not new and that it's under close surveillance.

"It's important, I think, to reassure people that this is not a new virus -- this is a virus that is under surveillance," said Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, at a press conference here Wednesday, adding "this is a finding from surveillance that's been carried out over many years."

The Eurasian avian-like H1N1 swine influenza virus has "been under surveillance by Chinese authorities and by the global influenza surveillance network around the world, and the WHO collaborating centers," Ryan said.

"It's been under surveillance since 2011 and in fact, the most recent publication is a publication of all of that surveillance data over that time and obviously reporting both on the evolution of this virus within the swine population but also in terms of occupational exposures to workers over that time," he explained.

A team of Chinese researchers had examined influenza viruses found in pigs from 2011 to 2018 and found the variant genotype 4 Eurasian avian-like H1N1 virus (G4 EA H1N1), according to a study recently published by the U.S. journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"We constantly need to stay on the alert. We need to continue to carry out very very good surveillance on this G4 genotype and we expect that will continue in the coming months and years," Ryan emphasized.

"It's very important work ... carried out in collaboration with the WHO collaborating center at China CDC, the other collaborating centers around the world, including the WHO collaborating center for influenza at (U.S.) CDC in Atlanta, and again shows the vital importance of the global influenza surveillance and response system," he added. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 04:51:52|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority on Wednesday announced the extension of the ban on regular flights in the country until July 15.

The ban includes both domestic and international flights with the exception of those of emergency, medical evacuation and air cargo as well as planes that cross Iraqi airspace, according to a statement by the authority.

The authority also confirmed continued approvals for the flights to evacuate the Iraqis stranded abroad.

However, Iraqi Minister of Transport Nasser al-Shibli announced another exception in a statement that Iraqi Airways will resume commercial flights between Baghdad and Beirut airports starting July 2.

The decision was taken after discussions with the Lebanese side and the administrations of the two airports, as they agreed to carry out two flights a week, the statement said.

The passengers should abide by the health preventive measures followed in both countries, it added.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Iraq has been taking measures to contain the pandemic, including the suspension of domestic and international flights. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 08:50:44|Editor: huaxia

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ASUNCION, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Reigning Paraguayan first division champions Olimpia have parted ways with former Arsenal and Real Madrid striker Emmanuel Adebayor because of logistical and economic hurdles related to COVID-19.

The 36-year-old Togo international returned to his homeland in March after the Paraguayan season was suspended amid the health crisis.

In a statement, Olimpia said Adebayor remained stranded in the West African nation with no feasible way of returning to South America in the near term.

"The pandemic puts the player at a health risk to return to our country, with multiple flights, stopovers and quarantine measures, in addition to the high travel cost and the economic situation the country is going through - which Olimpia has not escaped," read a club statement.

"That forces us to make the best decision to protect the heritage of our institution and to guarantee relative economic stability to face the rest of the year and thus continue our victorious path," it added.

Adebayor, who joined Olimpia in February, failed to score in four matches for the Asuncion-based club. The 36-year-old was sent off for kicking out at an opponent in his last appearance - a 2-1 home victory over Argentina's Defensa y Justicia in the Copa Libertadores on March 11. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 09:23:12|Editor: huaxia

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HARARE, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Zimbabwe has reached 605 after 14 new cases were recorded on Wednesday.

The 14 cases include one citizen who returned from South Africa and 13 local infections, the Ministry of Health and Child Care said in an update.

Two of the local infections are contacts to known confirmed cases, while the source of infection for the other 11 is unknown, according to the ministry.

The number of recoveries has risen to 166 after three more recoveries were reported, while the death toll remains at seven.

The country has so far done a total of 68,400 COVID-19 tests. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 09:37:14|Editor: huaxia

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MEXICO CITY, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Armed assailants attacked a rehabilitation center in the central Mexican town of Irapuato on Wednesday, killing 24 people and injuring another seven, local media reported.

The afternoon attack targeted a rehabilitation center for young drug addicts in the community of Arandas, near Irapuato in Guanajuato state, local daily Correo quoted Irapuato Police Chief Pedro Cortes as saying.

Emergency teams took seven people to hospital following the attack with assault rifles, Cortes said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 10:44:59|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people have every right to be proud of their great achievements in all aspects during the country's development, Raed Fahmi, secretary of the Central Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party, has said.

Ninety-nine years after the founding of the party and nearly 71 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, "China has become the second-largest world economy and managed to achieve incredible growth in the income of Chinese citizens," Fahmi said in an interview with Xinhua.

Since 1921, the CPC has played a pivotal and pioneering role in the Chinese people's struggle for independence and liberation, which gained a great victory in 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded, he said.

"The emergence of the new state came as a result of the dedicated struggle of the communists, their sacrifices and unlimited loyalty to the cause of independence and unity of the country," Fahmi said.

He added that the CPC has combatted corruption on a variety of fronts, and emphasized severe punishment for corrupted officials regardless of "their positions."

As for China's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fahmi said that China was very decisive in coping with the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic has infected over 10 million people and killed more than 500,000 worldwide.

"China has taken exceptional and rapid measures by mobilizing a great deal of human, financial, technical and scientific resources and managed to achieve an impressive success in curbing the spread of the pandemic," he said.

He attributed the success to "the effectiveness and efficiency of China's health system, developed infrastructure and high-level technologies, in addition to the Chinese people's high commitment to directives and preventive measures."

China's rich experience in battling COVID-19 will help the world fight the pandemic and "the Chinese leaders have frequently announced their willingness to offer their experience and knowledge to the whole world, and expressed their readiness to cooperate and coordinate efforts with other countries and international institutions," Fahmi said.

He added that China has always adhered to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and promoted building a community with a shared future for mankind.

"The pillars of China's foreign policy are consistent with the Charter of the United Nations, and provide a sound, solid and stable basis for building a new pattern of relations between countries that guarantee international peace and security," Fahmi said, adding that these pillars have been clearly demonstrated "in its initiatives and calls for international cooperation and peaceful coexistence between countries with different political, economic and social systems."

Though countries are different, they have such common interests as maintaining world peace, preserving the environment and dealing with challenges including combating the COVID-19 pandemic, Fahmi said.

The Belt and Road Initiative and China's assistance to other countries in fighting COVID-19 are examples of its foreign policy, which guarantees the interests and mutual benefits of all countries, and respects their national sovereignty, he added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 10:53:16|Editor: huaxia

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TIANJIN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Agreements for 13 projects with a total investment of 50 billion yuan (about 7.1 billion U.S. dollars) in health and other industries have been recently signed at the demonstration zone for China-Japan health industry cooperation in north China's Tianjin Municipality.

The China-Japan (Tianjin) Health Industry Development Cooperation Demonstration Zone, which opened on Tuesday, is a good example of innovation in China-Japan cooperation, according to Yang Xu, deputy director of the demonstration zone's commission.

It is one of the six demonstration zones for China-Japan local cooperation approved by the National Development and Reform Commission this April, with the other five in Shanghai, Suzhou, Dalian, Chengdu, and Qingdao.

With the focus on internet plus traditional Chinese medicine, the demonstration zone aims to apply big data, artificial intelligence and other new technologies to industries including high-end medical treatment and rehabilitation, health research, education and training. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 11:28:09|Editor: huaxia

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WARSAW, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Bayern Munich forward Robert Lewandowski says the German champions are able to win the UEFA Champions League this season and that he hasn't shown his top form so far.

The Pole has had a perfect season, taking the Bundesliga top scorer title with 34 goals, six more than second-placed Timo Werner from RB Leipzig. On Saturday, Bayern will play the German Cup final against Bayer Leverkusen, but Lewandowski is aiming mainly at Champions League glory. Hansi Flick's men are close to advancing into the quarterfinals after smashing Chelsea 3-0 in their round of 16 first-leg tie.

"We can do that and I think we have a big chance. As a team we are in good form and I see the positive feelings in the dressing room," Lewandowski was quoted as saying by Sport Bild.

For the Pole, it's the best season of his career, as he has found the net 49 times so far in all competitions. "I haven't already shown 100 per cent of my quality. I would say it's still loading. I would like to exceed my own limits. I'm 31 but I feel like 27 or 28, sometimes even younger. I can be even better," claimed Lewandowski.

There were some rumors that Real Madrid tried to buy Lewandowski as the Spanish club made an enquiry to Bayern Munich about the Pole. "I thought about going to Madrid in 2018. Real is a great club but I always belonged to Bayern. We are a family," concluded Poland's captain.

In August 2019 Lewandowski extended his contract with Bayern until 2023. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 14:15:20|Editor: huaxia

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YANGON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of monsoon landslides in Myanmar's Kachin state has risen to 96 as more bodies were recovered on Thursday, said a release from the Information Ministry.

"A over 304-meter high cliff collapsed, burying local jade scavengers," a rescue worker at the scene was quoted by the ministry.

Caused by the monsoon rains, the landslide occurred at a jade mining site in Sate Mu village tract of Hpakant township at 08:00 a.m. local time, according to a release from the Fire Services Department.

Hundreds of jade scavengers are feared buried as the landslide took place during their working hours, but the exact number of casualties are yet to be known and rescue works are being carried out, a township police told Xinhua.

Deadly landslides are frequent in Kachin state, known as land of jade, especially in Hpakant mining region.

Many local people make their living by jade scavenging in the region and most of the landslides are caused by the partial collapse of tailings heaps and dams.

A major fatal landslide occurred in the region in November 2015, leaving at least 116 jade scavengers dead. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 14:22:17|Editor: huaxia

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CHICAGO, July 2 (Xinhua) -- COVID-19 took its toll on U.S. auto industry, as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) on Wednesday reported a 39 percent year-over-year drop in U.S. new-vehicle sales in the second quarter, and General Motors Co. (GM), a 34 percent drop.

The FCA delivered 367,086 vehicles in the second quarter, down from 597,685 a year ago while the GM delivered 492,489, down from 746,659. For the first half of the year, FCA's sales dropped 26 percent year on year and GM's sales went down 21 percent.

"(No one) thought this was going to be a really great quarter. We expected double-digit declines," the Detroit News quoted Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights for auto-information website Edmunds.com, Inc., as saying. "Thinking back to where we were in mid-March, this result wasn't as bad as we thought it would be, fearing the worst."

What is worth notice is that though the retail sales of the automakers plummeted in April, they started to rebound in May and June.

"This quarter demonstrated the resilience of the U.S. consumer," said Jeff Kommor, FCA's head of U.S. sales, in a statement. "Retail sales have been rebounding since April as the reopening of the economy, steady gas prices, and access to low-interest loans spur people to buy."

GM's retail sales dropped 35 percent year on year in April, then recovered significantly in May and June with a year-on-year decline being about 20 percent or less. The U.S. automaker's retail sales went down by about 24 percent in the second quarter.

Nevertheless, sales to fleet operators were low in the second quarter. Vehicle rental companies are experiencing deep financial problems as business and leisure travel dries up amid the pandemic.

As car-rental companies make up the majority of fleet sales, market analysts predicted it may take longer for fleet sales to rebound, the local newspaper reported.

Due to comparatively brisk retail sales, low inventory has become a problem.

The latest Cox Automotive data shows Chevrolet's supply is below 70 days and the GMC is slightly above 50 days; Jeep is above 70 days and Ram is above 80 days. The national average is 70 days. Ford has the highest with levels closer to 90 days.

"We do think that low inventories will hamper sales and again we will have to see what happens," the Detroit News quoted Michelle Krebs, senior director of automotive relations for Cox Automotive, as saying. "It's all about the virus. What's the virus going to do? How do we react to it, and how does the consumer react to it?"

The biggest concern of the U.S. automakers and retailers at present is the spike of COVID-19 cases, and how increases in cases could affect auto production and sales and all-important consumer confidence.

The FCA and Ford are now back to full pre-shutdown production levels at their North American plants.

After restarting plants on May 18, nearly all of GM's car and crossover plants have returned to the same number of shifts as pre-pandemic levels. The majority of GM's U.S. plants, including all truck and SUV plants, will continue to operate during the traditional two-week summer shutdown. Enditem
City to build 50 urban parks and 50 street center parks this year

By:Zheng Qian | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-07-01 13:58

Shanghais afforestation industry is considering opening up more freeparks and gradually lowering the price of paid parkstickets. 50 more street center parks and 50 urban parks will be built this year, announced Deng Jianping, director of the Shanghai Landscaping & City Appearance Administrative Bureau.

Since available land is quite scare in Shanghai, over recent years, the afforestation department has been developing corners for parks and had constructed 151 street center parks at the end of 2019. Street parks like Shinan Street Center Park in Jingan district and Taidi Park in the Huangpu Riverside have provided pleasant scenery in front of residentshouses.

Moreover, to meet citizensdemand to visit parks, the Shanghai City Tour Card Company, with the support of the afforestation industry, recently launched the citys first one year parks pass, involving 12 parks. Customers buying before the end of July only need to pay 219 yuan, 40% off the original price.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 14:40:54|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese experts exchange planting experience with local farmers at Humoyun farm in Bayavut district of Syrdarya region, Uzbekistan, June 25, 2020. (Photo by Zafar Khalilov/Xinhua)

TASHKENT, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Abdullah Begmatov, 54, who has more than a decade of experience of growing cotton in Uzbekistan, is very confident in his traditional irrigation practice. But in the face of new technology, he started to waver.

Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree in December 2018 on urgent measures to create favorable conditions to use drip irrigation technology in cotton production across the country.

Since then modern water-saving technology has been applied to cotton fields on many farms in the country, the Central Asian region's largest cotton producer.

Among the farms was Humoyun farm in Bayavut district of Syrdarya region, more than 150 km from the capital city Tashkent, where Chinese-Uzbek workers work in a cotton field that differs sharply from neighboring traditional ones.

According to Qi Kai, head of the Chinese-Uzbek demonstration center for modern water-saving agro-technologies, the Chinese company Xinjiang Tianye, China's largest water-saving facility development and production company specializing in water-saving irrigation, supplied drip irrigation technology under plastic film mulch to Uzbekistan.

"This technology is used in cotton plantations of Humoyun farm with a total area of 58 hectares for the first time. All necessary equipment and agricultural machines were delivered from China at the end of February this year, and it took a month and a half to install the drip irrigation system and sow cotton seeds," he said.

The head of the farm, Abdullah Begmatov, said the Chinese irrigation method was developed based on modern advanced technology and deserves the highest praise.

"Thanks to the Chinese technology, cotton sprouts began to grow in 5-6 days, it is about five days earlier than using traditional irrigation methods. I am very glad that I work in partnership with Chinese specialists and colleagues," said the farmer.

Begmatov said this technology has several advantages. It saves water by reducing evaporation and peripheral water flow losses. It also significantly saves energy, labor, fuel and lubricants, among other materials.

Water is pumped to these cotton plantations. With drip irrigation, less water is required, and less energy is wasted as it needs less pump operation, he said.

It also saves 30-40 percent of mineral fertilizers and increases crop yields by 30-70 percent than traditional irrigation. Other advantages include convenience of inter-row cultivation and fewer weeds.

According to farm employee Sherzod Kodirov, using drip irrigation saves farmers from exhausting labor and help them acquire more skills.

"I work as an operator to control the irrigation process. If traditional method is used in this plantation, at least six irrigators are needed. Now one worker with special skills is managing this process. Thus, it is very important to train professional personnel for the technical operation of this system," he said.

Drip irrigation is a new farming system that opens up broad prospects for the further development of Chinese-Uzbek agricultural cooperation and the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative globally, said Yang Kaiwen, Chinese expert and director of the project management center from the Xinjiang Tianye company.

"We are convinced that in natural and climatic conditions of the Central Asian region, including Uzbekistan, as well as in new market conditions, when water is gaining a real price, there is no alternative to water-saving technology," Yang added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 14:55:08|Editor: huaxia

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"Face masks are mandatory for visitors over 11 years old" is seen on a TV screen at the Pompidou Center on its reopening day in Paris, France, July 1, 2020. After over three-month closure due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Pompidou Center reopened to the public on Wednesday. Visitors must book a timeslot and reserve tickets on the website. Face masks are mandatory for visitors over 11 years old. Hygiene measures and social distancing rules must be respected during the visit. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 15:15:51|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is "all for masks" in efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, but added that he hasn't had to wear one.

"I'm all for masks. I think masks are good," Trump told Fox Business, adding that he would wear a face covering if he were in a "tight situation" with other people.

The president said that he hasn't had to wear a mask because people around him have been tested for the coronavirus.

Asked whether he would wear a mask publicly, Trump said: "I mean, I'd have no problem. Actually, I had a mask on. I sort of liked the way I looked."

Trump has been under growing pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to set an example for the country by wearing a face mask amid the currently surging U.S. coronavirus caseload.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that wearing a mask cannot be stigmatized, caling for wearing one in public amid the pandemic.

Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday on CBS News that the White House was trying to defer to governors and other local officials on wearing a mask.

Also on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a federal mandate to wear masks in public was "long overdue" and faulted the president for not setting an example by wearing one in public himself. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 15:21:56|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Digitalization increased financial inclusion between 2014 and 2017, with Africa and Asia leading the way, a new study released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) showed.

Technology is changing the landscape of the financial sector, increasing access to financial services in profound ways, according to the study, authored by Ratna Sahay, Ulric Eriksson von Allmen and others.

According to the study, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda are front-runners in Africa. In comparison, the Middle East and Latin America tend to use digital financial services more moderately.

In most countries, digital payments services are evolving into digital lending, as companies accumulate user data and develop new ways to use it for credit worthiness analysis, according to a related IMF blog, which noted that marketplace lending, which uses digital platforms to directly connect lenders to borrowers, doubled in value from 2015 to 2017.

While so far concentrated in China, Britain, and the United States, it appears to be growing in other parts of the world, such as Kenya and India, according to the blog.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has created new opportunities for digital financial services to accelerate and enhance financial inclusion amid social distancing and containment measures, the authors said, noting that low-income households and small firms can benefit greatly from advances in mobile money, fintech services and online banking.

While the pandemic is set to increase use of these services, it has also posed challenges for the growth of the industry's smaller players and highlighted unequal access to digital infrastructure, they argued.

To tap the high potential of digital financial services in the post-COVID era, many factors need to fall into place, including equal access to digital infrastructure, greater financial and digital literacy, and the avoidance of data biases, they said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 15:33:07|Editor: huaxia

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HAVANA, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Cuba on Wednesday partially reopened its borders to international tourists in keeping with measures adopted by the government as part of the country's post-pandemic recovery plan.

On March 31, the Caribbean nation announced the suspension of international flights and asked international boats to withdraw from its territorial waters as a precautionary measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus nationwide.

Although foreign visitors are only allowed to enter resorts in the northern and southern keys of the country for the moment, excursions inside the area allocated for touristic activities will be at the disposal of foreign visitors, according to the Cuban Ministry of Tourism.

The decision came after the country's daily increase in COVID-19 cases dropped from a peak of nearly 70 in early May to an average of fewer than 10 over the past few weeks.

Passengers are subjected to temperature checks and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests when arriving at Cuban airports. Medical teams will also conduct epidemiological monitoring at touristic centers and hotels.

Luis Armando Gonzalez, deputy president at Gran Caribe hotel chain, said that rigorous disinfecting and cleaning procedures have been carried out at hotel facilities across the country amid the pandemic.

"New health protocols are being implemented to guarantee the safety of tourists," he said, adding "Cuba will continue to be a safe destination."

Cuban authorities also said a special offer will be available for international tourists who want to recover from COVID-19 through medical services provided by the country's health experts.

Jose Luis Perello, a university professor and expert on tourism, said that unlike other Caribbean destinations, Cuba has the capacity to provide tourists with services offered by a strong public health system in the context of COVID-19 emergency.

"Most five-star hotels in Cuba are on the coastline, and particularly in the northern and southern keys of the country. This is the best hotel infrastructure we have," he said.

Perello added that top markets of the Cuban tourism industry such as Canada and the European countries keep their borders closed due to the pandemic, which makes the arrival of international tourists on the island nation more complex.

Cuba has 241 beach destinations, and ranks the second in the Caribbean behind the Dominican Republic in terms of the number of international tourist arrivals.

In 2019, Cuba's tourism industry declined significantly after the U.S. administration issued new restrictions on travels of U.S. nationals to Cuba and barred U.S. airlines from flying to all destinations in the Caribbean nation.

The tourism industry in Cuba accounts for nearly 20 percent of the country's hard currency earnings. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 15:49:53|Editor: huaxia

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SANAA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A woman and a girl were killed in an overnight airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's northern province of Saada, the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported Thursday.

Another six children were wounded in the airstrike that bombed a family's house in Makash village of al-Safra district, east of Saada, the television added.

The coalition has made no comment yet on the Yemeni militia's claim.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized control of much of the country's north and forced the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in early 2015 to support Hadi's government.

The Yemeni five-year war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 3 million and pushed more than 20 million to the brink of starvation. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 16:33:58|Editor: huaxia

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DHAKA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Political veterans in Bangladesh have extended congratulations on the 99th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that fell on Wednesday, lauding China's remarkable development over the past decades.

The CPC has achieved unprecedented social and economic development in the path of socialism, said Hasanul Haq Inu, president of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, an ally of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Grand Alliance, in his congratulatory message.

General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping and his political thought in the new era have been the most powerful drive in the current world political context, ensuring peace and development, said Inu.

He expressed the hope that under the leadership of Xi and the CPC, China will overcome the negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, and stand with Bangladesh as well as the world in combatting the pandemic.

He also expressed his gratitude to the CPC for sending doctors and urgently-needed medical equipment and medicines to his country.

Dilip Barua, general secretary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, also hailed China's achievements and its role in the international arena.

China has emerged as a global economic power, appreciated by the international community for its good governance and upholding of socialism, said Barua in his congratulatory message.

"We are grateful to China for developing Marxism and adapting it to a Chinese context, which has created great momentum for the development of socialism in the world," he said.

Under the leadership of Xi, China has brought the infectious disease of COVID-19 under control and become one of the first countries to curb the spread of the disease, he said.

"We firmly believe that your pragmatic, cautious, serious, hardworking, down-to-earth and low-key leadership skill would be able to create new development in the world political context, and will lead the party as well as the country ahead along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era," he said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 16:55:19|Editor: huaxia

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NEW DELHI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The local government in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh Thursday launched a special campaign to carry out door-to-door screening of people for COVID-19 patients, officials said.

The campaign began in Meerut division, which comprises six districts -- Meerut, Bagpat, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Hapur. Meerut division has a large number of infections in the state.

Survey teams, apart from carrying out tests, also aimed to raise awareness about the disease and to urge people to follow precautions.

Of the total COVID-19 cases in the country, Uttar Pradesh ranks at the fifth position with 24,056 cases, including 718 deaths.

Officials said the special surveillance program for COVID-19 infection tracing aims at covering every single household in the state by mid-July. A senior health official said in other divisions of the state, the campaign will start from July 5 and end by July 15.

"This kind of campaign will soon be launched in other parts of the state also," a senior official at Uttar Pradesh health department said. "The state government is also going to establish a big testing laboratory in Ghaziabad district for augmentation of COVID-19 testing."

The door-to-door surveillance is expected to increase cases in the region.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Thursday chaired a meeting with his team of ministers to review the COVID-19 preparedness in the state.

Adityanath said medical screening teams should screen people from house to house.

"After screening those who need to be treated, proper treatment should be made for them," a spokesman quoted the chief minister as saying. "The Chief Minister has also directed to promote rapid antigen test."

Health officials said during the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, communicable diseases were also likely to spread tentacles with the onset of monsoon.

A month-long parallel campaign was also launched on communicable diseases like malaria and dengue, during which patients would be identified for treatment. Besides this awareness will be thoroughly spread among the masses about these diseases.

"During the campaign against communicable diseases, volunteers would carry out door-to-door survey of people and the ailing ones would be provided medicines and children would be vaccinated," a health official in charge of the campaign said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 16:56:41|Editor: huaxia

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by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- China has the right to safeguard its national security, said Muhammad Faruk Khan, chairman of Bangladesh's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, referring to China's adoption of the national security legislation for Hong Kong.

In an interview with Xinhua Wednesday, retired Lieutenant Colonel Khan, also a presidium member of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League, expressed the hope that the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) adopted by China's top legislature on Tuesday will help the HKSAR return to stability and prosperity.

With 66 articles in six chapters, the law clearly defines the duties and government bodies of the HKSAR for safeguarding national security and four categories of offences -- secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security -- and their corresponding penalties.

Khan said the law will help develop a permanent legal framework and enforcement mechanism for the HKSAR to safeguard national security, and demonstrates China's adherence to the "one country, two systems" guideline.

"Preserving the security and stability is the prime task and responsibility of a government," he said, adding that "the law passed by China's legislature is timely and will help bring peace and stability in Hong Kong and beyond."

"The security of Hong Kong is an internal matter of China" as Hong Kong is an internal part of China, said Khan, who previously served as government minister several times. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:18:37|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on June 6, 2020 shows the electric buses manufactured by Chinese company BYD heading for Santiago from the Port San Antonio in Chile. A fleet of 150 electric buses manufactured by Chinese company BYD have joined the Chilean capital's public transport system, the company said in a statement released on Monday. The buses were incorporated last Saturday into the line serving Santiago's central Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue, the capital city's main east-west axis. (BYD Company Limited/Handout via Xinhua)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:06:31|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, July 2 (Xinhua) -- World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Thursday called for rigorous law enforcement to save Cambodia's endangered freshwater fish from extinction.

The result of a rapid assessment showed that Giant Barb, Isok Barb, Giant Goonch, Mekong Tiger Perch, Elephant-ear Gourami and Mekong Freshwater Stingray are among other 35 fish species that were traded and sold at wet markets in Cambodia, as well as being trafficked into neighboring countries, said a WWF-Cambodia's press statement.

Giant Barb and Isok Barb are classified as critically endangered both globally and in Cambodia, while Giant Goonch, Mekong Tiger Perch, Elephant-ear Gourami are classified as endangered in the kingdom, the statement said.

It said Cambodia's Fisheries Administration and WWF pleaded to all relevant authorities to take urgent law enforcement actions on all illegal fishing and trade in endangered fish along the Mekong River.

It added that the trade in endangered fish species is posing a serious threat to Cambodia's fisheries resources, especially the mega fish species and the Mekong Irrawaddy Dolphins, which are considered as the kingdom's living treasure.

The statement said that following the completion of the rapid assessment, the Fisheries Administration and WWF put forward recommendations necessary to strengthen the implementation of the fisheries law against illegal fishing and fish trade.

"Fishermen, fish buyers and middlemen do not understand much about the fisheries law and relevant legislations on the protection and management of fisheries resources, especially endangered fish species that need our protection from extinction," Eng Cheasan, director general of the Fisheries Administration, said.

"I would like to urge all relevant authorities to increase the awareness raising about the fisheries law and associated legislations in force among the fishing communities and local people living along the Mekong River, as well as engaging their participation in the protection of fisheries resources and encouraging them to diversify their livelihoods activities," he said.

A report on law enforcement by Kratie and Stung Treng Provincial Fisheries Administration Cantonments, river guards and WWF showed an increase of fishing activities using cast nets, gillnets, floating or fixed nets, long-line hooks, electrofishing and fishing with poison in and around conservation zones prohibited by the law.

The report indicated a rise of 38 percent of gillnet use with 39,162 meters confiscated between December 2019 and May 2020, while only 28,435 meters confiscated between December 2018 and May 2019.

In parallel, the use of long-line hooks also saw an increase of 46 percent with 37,040 meters of long-line hooks seized between December 2019 and May 2020, while only 25,437 meters confiscated between December 2018 and May 2019.

"I would like to appeal to authorities at all levels to tighten up their law enforcement efforts and enhance regular monitoring mechanism of activities at the fish markets and trading points, while imposing severe penalties on those who illegally fish in the river sections prohibited by the law as well as those involved in trading endangered and mega fish species in Cambodia," Seng Teak, WWF country director, said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:25:22|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A fire "incident," occurred at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility on Thursday morning, caused no damage to the establishment, Ramazan Ali Ferdowsi, governor of Natanz County, told semi-official Fars news agency.

The fire has affected one of the structures for storing stock items and has been contained by the firefighters, Ferdowsi was quoted as saying.

"Nobody has been hurt and the regular activities of the facility have not been affected," Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency.

Kamalvandi also confirmed that only one of the structures under construction was damaged.

There are no concerns about pollution as the fire took place in an inactive area of the establishment, he said, adding that experts are investigating the cause of the incident.

Natanz is a Fuel Enrichment Plant covering 100,000 square meters. It is located in Natanz, the capital city of Natanz County in Iran's central Isfahan Province. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:26:44|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- After working for two decades in the Xinfadi market in southern Beijing, Ma Yong (pseudonym), a wholesaler, saw the market suspended for the first time.

"Over the years, the market has never encountered such a big trouble," said Ma, 40, who was in quarantine after the large farm produce wholesale market emerged as the source of new cluster infections of COVID-19 in Beijing since mid-June.

From June 11 to July 1, Beijing reported 329 confirmed locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases, with most of them related to Xinfadi.

The market, which was suspended on June 13, provided about 70 percent of Beijing's vegetables, 10 percent of pork, and 3 percent of beef and mutton. Over 100 veteran wholesalers like Ma work in the market to supply goods across the city.

Businesses of these veteran wholesalers were affected by the new infections to different degrees, but many remain upbeat about the future of the market.

"Xinfadi wholesale market has given us a chance to change our fate," said Ma, who came from a village in central China's Henan Province, and over the years, started building a successful business from scratch in the market.

The new infections came unexpected for Ma, one of the major vegetable wholesalers in the market. The business was interrupted, products were backlogged while his customers made countless calls urging for deliveries.

"Our employees were also under quarantine, so no one was around to send deliveries. It was really difficult then," Ma said.

In a bid to ensure the market supply, local authorities set up a temporary trading area for vegetables right after the market was suspended, as well as three cargo turnover stations later in the suburbs, offering Ma and other wholesalers an opportunity to tide over the difficulty.

Ma used to handle 70 to 80 tonnes of vegetables every day before the new infections were reported. Recently, the daily quantity has recovered to 30 tonnes.

"What we should do now is to hang on. Nothing can destroy us," Ma said. "We cannot afford to lose customers and suppliers."

Due to the restrictions in Xinfadi, Wang Dong (pseudonym), a veteran wholesaler of fruits, rerouted many of his products to other distribution centers in Beijing's neighboring province Hebei.

During the epidemic earlier this year, Wang donated hundreds of boxes of vegetables to the worst-hit Hubei Province and witnessed the local situation improve over the past few months.

"We have accumulated nearly half a year of experience in fighting the epidemic, and I am confident that we will overcome this new infection," Wang said.

The epidemic control measures have dealt a blow to his business too, but Wang supports these efforts. "They are enforced to avoid greater impact and more severe losses, and for a better future of the market," he said.

Li Guoqing (pseudonym), a staple food wholesaler who has worked in the market for 19 years, said the interruption of his business due to the new infections provided him a rare opportunity to reflect on his businesses.

"As a wholesaler, we had to keep running; otherwise, we would be phased out," said Li, 47. "Many wholesalers in the market feel uncomfortable due to the sudden interruption of their businesses, but we are finally able to have a rare break."

Li had nearly 200 tonnes of goods stranded in the market. Over 20 of his employees and his families were in quarantine.

He was sleepless during the first few days worrying whether the supermarkets he supplied would terminate their cooperation or whether the farmers' products would become unsalable, and if logistics to Beijing would be affected.

However, Li later received more positive news. "I gradually learned that the decades of trust that we have built with customers would not perish because of the epidemic," Li said, adding product quality and good services are the essential attributes to gain a foothold in the market.

Li said he is thinking about the mode of business operation in the future: how to increase supplies and turnover in case of force majeure.

"I hope that the market will be reborn after the epidemic, and continue to progress with lessons learned," Li said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:32:39|Editor: huaxia

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KUWAIT CITY, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait's General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development and the World Bank launched on Thursday a virtual symposium to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on labor market.

During the symposium, Khaled Mahdi, secretary-general of the Kuwait's Supreme Council for Planning and Development, said that Kuwait has been working on protecting citizens who work in the private sector during the crisis.

Kuwait has doubled the reward for employment support in order to reduce the damage of the crisis and to support the human capital so that the 2008 crisis does not repeat, he noted.

Kuwait focuses on increasing training and workshops for its citizens in cooperation with the Arab Planning Institute to enhance the skills required by the current situation, he added.

Issam Abu Suleiman, the World Bank regional director for GCC, said that in addition to a health crisis, the coronavirus pandemic has evolved to be two global crises including an economic one and the other in the labor market. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:42:41|Editor: huaxia

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Aerial photo taken on June 29, 2020 shows a view of the bridge linking Nantong and Zhangjiagang in east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping and his political thought in the new era have been the most powerful drive in the current world political context, ensuring peace and development, said Hasanul Haq Inu, president of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal.

DHAKA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Political veterans in Bangladesh have extended congratulations on the 99th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that fell on Wednesday, lauding China's remarkable development over the past decades.

The CPC has achieved unprecedented social and economic development in the path of socialism, said Hasanul Haq Inu, president of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, an ally of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Grand Alliance, in his congratulatory message.

General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping and his political thought in the new era have been the most powerful drive in the current world political context, ensuring peace and development, said Inu.

He expressed the hope that under the leadership of Xi and the CPC, China will overcome the negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, and stand with Bangladesh as well as the world in combatting the pandemic.

He also expressed his gratitude to the CPC for sending doctors and urgently-needed medical equipment and medicines to his country.

Aerial photo taken on Sept. 6, 2019 shows a cargo ship of COSCO SHIPPING Lines transporting Italian products to participate in the 2019 China International Import Expo (CIIE) berths at the Port of Piraeus in Greece. (Photo by Lefteris Partsalis/Xinhua)

Dilip Barua, general secretary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, also hailed China's achievements and its role in the international arena.

China has emerged as a global economic power, appreciated by the international community for its good governance and upholding of socialism, said Barua in his congratulatory message.

"We are grateful to China for developing Marxism and adapting it to a Chinese context, which has created great momentum for the development of socialism in the world," he said.

Under the leadership of Xi, China has brought the infectious disease of COVID-19 under control and become one of the first countries to curb the spread of the disease, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:49:48|Editor: huaxia

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MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed and eight others injured as two blasts rocked Mazar-i-Sharif city in the capital of the northern Balkh province on Wednesday, provincial police spokesman Adil Shah Adil said Thursday.

"Two blasts in a span of few minutes rocked PD 3 of Mazar-e-Sharif city at 9:30 p.m. local time Wednesday, killing one civilian on the spot," Adil told Xinhua, and one police officer succumbed to his injury in the hospital.

The first blast injured a taxi driver, while the second one killed a civilian and injured eight others including five policemen, according to the official, adding that the deputy to the police station of PD 3 is among the injured.

The second blast occurred after police and locals rushed to the site of the first blast to rescue the victims, and the investigation is underway, according to the official.

Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province 305 km north of Kabul, had been regarded as the safest city in the conflict-battered Afghanistan. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 17:53:22|Editor: huaxia

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MANILA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines soared to 38,805 after the Department of Health (DOH) reported 294 more infections on Thursday.

The DOH said in its bulletin that the number of recoveries further rose to 10,673 after 235 more patients have survived the disease.

The death tally also increased to 1,274 after four more patients have succumbed to the viral disease, the DOH said.

According to the DOH, 60 of the daily reported cases were in Metro Manila and 189 cases were reported in other parts of the country. The DOH said that 45 overseas Filipino workers repatriated by the government have also tested positive for the virus. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 18:00:19|Editor: huaxia

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MOSCOW, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A total of 77.92 percent of Russians have backed a total of 206 amendments to the country's constitution in a referendum, while 21.27 percent have voted against them, official data released Thursday showed.

The results were displayed on a billboard outside the Russian Central Election Commission, after all of the ballots were counted.

Under the updated constitution, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be allowed to participate in the 2024 presidential race, while more power will be given to the parliament.

The State Duma, the lower parliament house, will be able to veto the president's appointment of prime minister, while the Federation Council, the upper parliament house, will be able to refuse approval of the president's appointments of prosecutor general, as well as their deputies and regional prosecutors.

One of the amendments establishes the priority of the Russian constitution over international law, while another declares the inalienability of the Russian territory.

The new constitution guarantees that the minimum wage will be no lower than the subsistence minimum of the able-bodied population, and that pensions will increase regularly. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 18:24:43|Editor: huaxia

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COLOMBO, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's active COVID-19 cases reduced to 227 on Thursday as 79 more patients recovered and were discharged from hospital, health ministry statistics showed here Thursday.

The country has to date detected 2,054 cases of the COVID-19 since the first local patient was detected in March but as of Thursday morning, 1,827 patients had been successfully treated and released.

Eleven deaths have been reported from the virus.

Sri Lanka's Army Commander, Lt. General Shavendra Silva, who is heading the national operation center for the prevention of COVID-19, told the local Daily Mirror earlier this week that the country had successfully been able to halt a public transmission of the virus as no new cases were reported from the society since April 30.

New cases were now reported among those who were being repatriated from overseas but they had no contact with society as they were directly transported to quarantine centers.

Silva said Sri Lanka's containment of the COVID-19 was a success story to share with the world and post-COVID-19 Sri Lanka would have a new place on the global map.

Local authorities, since last week, have begun opening up archaeological sites, museums, parks, and cinemas after nearly three months due to the easing of the virus spread, but said strict health guidelines would remain in place to ensure the health of the public.

Sri Lanka is all set to open its international airports next month as soon as local repatriations end. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 18:46:14|Editor: huaxia

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DHAKA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh Thursday surpassed 150,000 as 4,019 new cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours, the biggest daily jump since March 8.

Senior Health Ministry official Nasima Sultana said in a briefing Thursday afternoon that "4,019 new COVID-19 positive cases and 38 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh."

"The number of confirmed infections in the country totaled 153,277 while fatalities stood at 1,926," she said.

According to the official, 18,362 samples were tested in the last 24 hours in labs across the country.

She said the total number of recovered patients in the country now stands at 66,442 including 4,334 on Thursday.

Bangladesh recorded previous highest 4,014 cases in a 24-hour period on June 29. The country reported the highest 64 deaths of COVID-19 patients in a day on June 30. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 18:54:33|Editor: huaxia

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-- For the CPC, everything starts and ends with the people.

-- China tops the 2019 global rankings in terms of levels of satisfaction with government performance, with over 86 percent of the Chinese surveyed expressing satisfaction.

-- The CPC is "the architect of the country's social and economic achievements."

-- China has shown a spirit of solidarity and commitment in countering world challenges in keeping with the values the CPC has promoted.





by Xinhua writer Guo Yage

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC), founded with an aspiration and the mission to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, celebrated its 99th founding anniversary on Wednesday.

From 57 party members represented by 13 deputies back in 1921 at the CPC's first national congress on a rented tourist boat on South Lake in the city of Jiaxing, east China's Zhejiang Province, the party now has more than 91 million members across the country.

All through the decades, the CPC has not only remained committed to its people-centered philosophy and led the Chinese people to achieve development miracles, but also made great contributions to the peace and development of mankind, winning worldwide recognition.

Ma Huihuang (L), leader of the poverty relief team of Shibadong Village, together with villager Shi Linjiao, promotes local products via live streaming at Shibadong Village of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hunan Province, May 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan)

PEOPLE-CENTERED PHILOSOPHY

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, China tops the 2019 global rankings in terms of levels of satisfaction with government performance, with over 86 percent of the Chinese surveyed expressing satisfaction, far above the global average of 47 percent.

"For the CPC, everything starts and ends with the people. This has put their people in the center of all that they do. The people are paramount above all," Richard Todwong, deputy secretary general of Uganda's ruling National Resistance Movement party, told Xinhua.

Indeed, just as Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called the people "the foundation and lifeblood of the CPC," the party has always been putting the well-being of the Chinese front and center, and the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a telling example.

In face of a ballooning caseload at home, the CPC decided that it would protect the lives and health of the people even at the cost of a short-term economic downturn and a temporary shutdown.

More than 39 million CPC members fought the disease at the front line, and over 13 million volunteered their services. Nearly 400 CPC members have defended others' lives and safety at the cost of their own.

The leaderships of Wuhan City and Hubei Province were reshuffled, with some officials sanctioned for irresponsibility and dereliction of duty and others honored and promoted for their dedication and sense of responsibility.

Medical staff of Wuhan No. 1 Hospital gesture to bid farewell to medics from Guangdong Province before their departure from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 23, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Yehua)

"China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history," said a report released in late February by the World Health Organization (WHO)-China Joint Mission on COVID-19.

D.E.W. Gunasekera, general secretary of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, said all structures within the highly institutionalized CPC, from local to national levels, "were geared up for the immediate task of containing the COVID-19 pandemic."

"The Chinese leadership took strict and effective actions and the people responded," he told Xinhua.

Lauding the CPC's "unique leadership" in fighting the pandemic, Ahmad Jawad, central secretary on information of Pakistan's ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said facing every challenge and every threat, it is always the leaders who become an important factor because they will not only secure their people but also guide and lead the people to overcome the challenge and threat.

Li Wei (R), a kindergarten teacher and a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), works as a community volunteer in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Feb. 27, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Zeguo)

DEVELOPMENT MIRACLES

Taking the happiness of the people to heart, the CPC has been devoted to leading China's homestretch toward building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and has helped the country achieve development miracles especially in poverty eradication.

"This has happened thanks to the wisdom and good leadership of the party, which has drawn up plans that suit the conditions of China and its people," Salah Adly, general secretary of the Egyptian Communist Party, told Xinhua, adding the history of the CPC is great and glorious.

According to official data, China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty over the past several decades, representing over 70 percent of global poverty reduction.

Over the past four years, China has relocated 9.3 million low-income rural residents to more inhabitable areas, 9.2 million of whom were lifted from poverty as a result, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning body, said in March.

So far, 22 provincial regions have built over 2.6 million apartments and houses for the relocated people. And up to 99 percent of poor villages should have access to internet by the end of 2020, the government body said.

Mou'se Dati looks back at the Atulieer Village atop a cliff as he heads to his new home at a newly-built relocation community in Zhaojue County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Jiang Hongjing)

With the CPC, millions of people in quite a short time "made the leap from poverty to a much more comfortable life, with the power to keep making progress towards greater fulfillment," said secretary general of the Communist Party of Chile Lautaro Carmona.

At a symposium in early March on securing a decisive victory in poverty reduction, Xi stressed that lifting all rural residents living below the current poverty line out of poverty by 2020 is a solemn promise made by the CPC Central Committee, and it must be fulfilled on time.

"China will emerge as the first nation in the world free of absolute poverty," Gunasekera expressed his confidence in the promise, adding, "China will create history."

The CPC is "the architect of the country's social and economic achievements," said Jose Luis Robaina, a senior researcher at Havana's Center for the Study of International Politics.

A China-Europe freight train carrying medical supplies bound for Madrid of Spain departs from the city of Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, June 5, 2020. (Photo by Lyu Bin/Xinhua)

COMMON PROSPERITY

Throughout the years, the CPC has been not only true to the Chinese people, but also devoted to the peace and development of the whole world by actively building a community with a shared future for mankind.

The CPC's foreign policies based on cooperation, multipolarity and a community with a shared future for mankind are quite favorable, said Gunasekera.

With the CPC, China has become an indispensable force in resolving global and regional issues, from wealth inequality, trade and investment to climate change, terrorism and peace-keeping.

As a country contributing more than 30 percent to world economic growth for years, China has been dedicated to sharing its resources with the world for mutual development through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which, in the eyes of Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russia Dmitry Novikov, offers an example of mutual respect and cooperation.

In spite of the COVID-19 crisis, Chinese investment in Belt and Road countries and regions increased by 11.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, along with a 3.2-percent growth in trade, official data showed.

Photo taken on April 9, 2020 shows the undergoing berth expansion project by Chinese company at Dar es Salaam Port, Tanzania. (Xinhua)

Todwong said China's infrastructure development, especially in developing countries in Africa, has portrayed the country as a caring world leader.

"China does not intend to use its disproportionate size, economy of scale and development in different areas to sap the autonomy and sovereignty that each country has, but (aims to use it) for mutual benefit" through regional integration as promoted by its BRI, Carmona said.

The CPC's commitment to common prosperity has excelled itself in the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the leadership of the party, the Chinese people have been actively contributing to the global anti-epidemic fight, donating much-needed medical supplies, dispatching teams of medical experts and sharing epidemic information via video conferences.

From March 21 to the end of April, anti-pandemic supplies totaling 660,000 items and weighing 3,142 tons were sent from China by freight trains to European countries such as Italy, Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic.

The country has also been racing against the time to find an effective COVID-19 vaccine, which it announced will be made a public good for all when available.

China has shown a spirit of solidarity and commitment in countering world challenges in keeping with the values the CPC has promoted, Robaina said.

"By its own example, the country proves the possibility of a fairer, more developed and safer world," Novikov said.

(Xinhua reporters Zhang Gaiping, John Tugume and Ronald Ssekandi in Kampala, Shiran lllanperuma in Colombo, Li Hao in Islamabad, Wu Danni in Cairo, Valentina Bastias Atias in Santiago, Lin Zhaohui, Yosley Carrero in Havana, and Shi Hao in Moscow also contributed to the story.)



(Video reporters: Mao Pengfei, Nguon Sovan, Van Pov, Liu Ruijuan; Video editor: Chen Sihong)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 19:01:10|Editor: huaxia

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SOFIA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian authorities have arrested a Bulgarian citizen suspected of participation in terrorist acts abroad, the country's Interior Ministry and Specialized Prosecutor's Office said in a joint statement Thursday.

The suspect was arrested on Wednesday, the statement said.

"The evidence gathered shows that since 2015, he has traveled several times from Bulgaria to Syria, where he has participated directly in armed actions in the ranks of various jihadist terrorist groups," the statement said.

It has been established that the person's father is the leader of one of these groups, it said.

So far, there is no evidence that the suspect was involved in the preparation of terrorist attacks in Bulgaria, the statement added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 19:18:39|Editor: huaxia

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ULAN BATOR, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Mongolian Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Mongolian People's Party (MPP) Ukhnaa Khurelsukh on Thursday promised to make greater efforts to promote national development and improve people's living standards.

Khurelsukh made the remarks after he was re-elected for a second four-year term as prime minister of Mongolia. His MPP won a landslide victory in last week's parliamentary elections, taking 62 of 76 seats in parliament.

The prime minister emphasized four goals to be achieved in the coming four years.

Firstly, Mongolia should increase and diversify its exports, said Khurelsukh.

"The way for the Mongolian economy to become debt-free, competitive and an active participant in regional trade is to increase exports," he said.

"To achieve the goal to become an exporter, Mongolia will provide policy support to domestic producers, develop mining, food and agriculture, organic food production, energy, tourism, creative industries, information technology, transportation and logistics as priority sectors, and strengthen the partnership between the public and private sectors," the prime minister said. "In particular, we will work hard to support agriculture, meet domestic food demand, and become a food exporter."

The landlocked East Asian country is largely dependent on export earnings from the mining sector, with official data showing the mining industry accounts for around 90 percent of Mongolia's total exports.

The country's second goal is to eliminate bureaucracy and establish justice in society.

To achieve this goal, public services will be transferred to electronic forms by accelerating the development of the information technology and communication sectors, Khurelsukh said.

The third goal is to improve people's lives and expand the middle class.

"The core of our government's policy will be the development of Mongolians and the Mongolian family," the prime minister said.

To do this, the Mongolian government will pay special attention to providing jobs and establishing more affordable housing, implement social protection and welfare policies more effectively, and make health and education reforms, he noted.

In addition, an independent ministry of culture will be established to protect and promote national values such as national heritage, as well as historical and cultural traditions and customs, he said.

The fourth goal is to balance rural and urban development.

"The Mongolian capital Ulan Bator's population has tripled since 1990 due to rural-to-urban migration. As a result, today we are facing many challenges such as air pollution, soil pollution, and traffic congestion," Khurelsukh said.

To achieve the fourth goal, the Mongolian government will step up its efforts to improve rural infrastructure and implement fiscal and tax policies that support rural development, he added.

Khurelsukh, 52, had previously been elected as a member of parliament three times -- in 2000, 2004 and 2012. He was re-elected as legislator in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

He was deputy prime minister twice between 2014 and 2017, before becoming prime minister in October 2017. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 19:46:39|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. forces brought in reinforcement from the neighboring Iraq into areas in northeastern Syria, state news agency SANA reported on Thursday.

The U.S. forces brought in the reinforcement through an "illegal crossing" between Iraq and Syria, said SANA, adding that 30 military vehicles entered the Syrian territories.

The military convoy headed to the city of Hasakah in order to reinforce the U.S. forces in that part of the country, according to the report.

SANA reported that the U.S. forces sent 30 tankers of fuel to Iraq escorted by U.S. military vehicles.

Syria accused the U.S. of stealing the fuel from Syrian fields, said SANA, adding that the U.S. moves run against the international laws and norms.

The U.S. and its allies of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces control areas in northeastern Syria.

A day earlier, SANA said the U.S. forces set up a new air base in the Yarobiyeh area in the countryside of Hasakah and the U.S. forces were bringing in reinforcement to the base.

The Syrian government has for long demanded the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Syria, saying that their presence on Syrian soil is illegal. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 19:48:31|Editor: huaxia

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Truck drivers queue for COVID-19 screening and testing exercise at Busia One Stop Border Post, Eastern Region of Uganda, June 6, 2020. (Xinhua/Nicholas Kajoba)

Uganda has temporarily opened its borders to receive thousands of people fleeing deadly ethnic clashes in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

KAMPALA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Uganda on Wednesday temporarily opened its borders to receive thousands of people fleeing deadly ethnic clashes in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency said.

Hilary Onek, Uganda's minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, launched a three-day exercise to receive and provide asylum to an estimated 10,000 refugees in the northwest border district of Zombo.

Duniya Aslam Khan, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Uganda, told Xinhua by telephone that the asylum-seekers who have been stuck between Uganda and eastern DRC since May will be put under quarantine for 14 days against COVID-19.

"Yes, the exercise has started," Khan said. "The border will be open for three days to allow all those people (asylum-seekers) who are willing to cross."

"It's voluntary. People who chose to come will come and those who may decide to stay there will remain," she said.

A cargo truck from Tanzania awaits clearance at the Mutukula border point in Mutukula, Uganda, April 30, 2020. (Xinhua/Nicholas Kajoba)

"They will be brought to the quarantine center where they will stay for 14 days during which they will be tested for COVID-19. After 14 days' quarantine they will be shifted to any of the refugee settlements," Khan said.

Authorities on Monday delayed reception of the DRC refugees over security concerns.

The suspension followed an incident in March when some from DR Congo and Uganda attacked an army unit in Zombo. Three soldiers and 17 attackers were killed in the incident.

Onek told Xinhua on Tuesday that the authorities will carry out proper security checks before allowing in refugees into country.

Uganda in March closed all its border entry points to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

According to the UN refugee agency, Uganda hosts some 1.4 million refugees, mostly from neighboring South Sudan, the DRC and Burundi. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 19:52:35|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- At a time of global uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic and an economic recession, China is taking firm and steady steps to promote reform and opening-up.

A high-level meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on deepening overall reform Tuesday reviewed and approved a series of reform plans and guidelines on state-owned enterprises, the integrated development of new generation information technology and the manufacturing industry, the rural homestead system, the integrated development of media, the evaluation system for education, and the state-owned art troupes.

It further demonstrates China's resolve to comprehensively push forward reforms to tackle the changing situation and open up new prospects.

On Wednesday, a State Council executive meeting stressed improving financial services to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. It also encouraged greater opening-up and cooperation to help high-tech national industrial development zones better integrate with international industrial and supply chains.

All the measures adopted at these meetings are essential and imperative to both address the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus epidemic and drive long-term development.

While some major economies have introduced huge stimulus and others even resorted to protectionism as a way out of the economic problems caused by the pandemic, China has focused more on optimizing the governance system, solving deep-seated institutional problems and expanding opening-up to stimulate social creativity and market vitality.

Its reform emphasizes improving the market, policies, rule of law and business environment for both Chinese companies and enterprises with foreign-investment.

China's commitment to reform and opening-up is based on a clear understanding of the current situation and the confidence to overcome difficulties.

The policies have created market certainty, which is especially vital in these uncertain times around the world, and helped accelerate the restoration of production. This has been proved by a series of signs of increased economic momentum.

China's official manufacturing purchasing managers index climbed to 50.9 in June from 50.6 in May. The separate nonmanufacturing PMI, a measure of services and construction activity, jumped to 54.4, from 53.6 in May, a rise for the fourth straight month.

Most overseas enterprises are optimistic about China's development and the Chinese market.

China remains one of the three top investment destinations for 63 percent of respondents in the European Business in China Business Confidence Survey 2020, which was released by the European Union (EU) Chamber of Commerce in China and global consultancy firm Roland Berger.

"The Chinese market remains attractive to a majority of European companies, which remain firmly committed to China's development," said Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

China's experience shows that the greater the difficulty, the more important the need to stick to reform and opening-up.

The world has reasons to believe that China will continue with its reform and opening-up to carry on a more sustainable and broad-based economic improvement and inject vitality into world economic recovery. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 19:55:29|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian Health Ministry said on Thursday that 19 new COVID-19 cases have been reported in Syria, bringing the total number of infections to 312.

The recoveries from the virus in Syria have reached 113 and the death toll hit nine.

The Syrian government has eased the measures taken against COVID-19, urging people to undertake protective measures in their daily interactions.

China has offered help to Syria to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 15, China delivered the first batch of medical aid, including 2,016 COVID-19 test kits, to Syria. On June 4 and June 24, Syria received another two batches of medical supplies donated by China, including test kits, protective suits, masks, goggles, and infrared thermometers.

On April 23, a video-conference was held between Chinese and Syrian medical experts for sharing the experience in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 19:56:30|Editor: huaxia

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ACCRA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations (UN) has urged Ghanaians to pay particular attention to COVID-19 prevention protocols as they queue to register for this year's general election.

A statement by the UN Secretary General's special representative to West Africa and the Sahel, Mohammed Ibn Chambas encouraged the people of Ghana to support the peaceful conduct of the registration.

"As the registration takes place amid the current COVID-19 pandemic, I entreat all Ghanaians to continue taking appropriate measures towards ensuring that the process is carried out with the utmost respect for health and safety protocols to protect those willing to register from any possible contagion," he said.

Chambas urged all stakeholders to work in a concerted manner in creating an enabling environment for a peaceful, credible, and inclusive process that has respect for human rights and the rule of law.

He reiterated the support of the UN, in close collaboration with other international organizations for Ghana's electoral process, urging the country to continue on its exemplary path of democratic consolidation and development.

Ghana's electoral commission started registering qualified voters here on Monday ahead of this year's general election slated for December 7.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stood at 18,134 on Thursday, with 117 deaths. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 20:27:22|Editor: huaxia

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Tourists admire the skyline view of Lujiazui area at the Bund in Shanghai, east China, Jan. 6, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Xiang)

All the measures adopted at these meetings are essential and imperative to both address the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus epidemic and drive long-term development.



BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- At a time of global uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic and an economic recession, China is taking firm and steady steps to promote reform and opening-up.

A high-level meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on deepening overall reform Tuesday reviewed and approved a series of reform plans and guidelines on state-owned enterprises, the integrated development of new generation information technology and the manufacturing industry, the rural homestead system, the integrated development of media, the evaluation system for education, and the state-owned art troupes.

It further demonstrates China's resolve to comprehensively push forward reforms to tackle the changing situation and open up new prospects.

On Wednesday, a State Council executive meeting stressed improving financial services to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. It also encouraged greater opening-up and cooperation to help high-tech national industrial development zones better integrate with international industrial and supply chains.

All the measures adopted at these meetings are essential and imperative to both address the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus epidemic and drive long-term development.

While some major economies have introduced huge stimulus and others even resorted to protectionism as a way out of the economic problems caused by the pandemic, China has focused more on optimizing the governance system, solving deep-seated institutional problems and expanding opening-up to stimulate social creativity and market vitality.

Photo taken on April 9, 2020 shows the Lujiazui area in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)

Its reform emphasizes improving the market, policies, rule of law and business environment for both Chinese companies and enterprises with foreign-investment.

China's commitment to reform and opening-up is based on a clear understanding of the current situation and the confidence to overcome difficulties.

The policies have created market certainty, which is especially vital in these uncertain times around the world, and helped accelerate the restoration of production. This has been proved by a series of signs of increased economic momentum.

China's official manufacturing purchasing managers index climbed to 50.9 in June from 50.6 in May. The separate nonmanufacturing PMI, a measure of services and construction activity, jumped to 54.4, from 53.6 in May, a rise for the fourth straight month.

Most overseas enterprises are optimistic about China's development and the Chinese market.

China remains one of the three top investment destinations for 63 percent of respondents in the European Business in China Business Confidence Survey 2020, which was released by the European Union (EU) Chamber of Commerce in China and global consultancy firm Roland Berger.

"The Chinese market remains attractive to a majority of European companies, which remain firmly committed to China's development," said Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

China's experience shows that the greater the difficulty, the more important the need to stick to reform and opening-up.

The world has reasons to believe that China will continue with its reform and opening-up to carry on a more sustainable and broad-based economic improvement and inject vitality into world economic recovery. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-02 20:33:08|Editor: huaxia

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HANOI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam reported no new cases of COVID-19 infection on Thursday, with its total confirmed cases remaining at 355 with zero deaths so far, according to its Ministry of Health.

Four more COVID-19 patients were given all-clear Thursday, bringing the total cured case in the country to 340, Vietnam News Agency cited the ministry as reporting, noting that they will be quarantined for another 14 days.

Vietnam has recorded no local transmission for 77 straight days while there are nearly 13,100 people being quarantined and monitored in the country, according to the report. Enditem